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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of At the Ghost Hour, by Paul Heyse
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: At the Ghost Hour
+       The House of the Unbelieving Thomas
+
+Author: Paul Heyse
+
+Illustrator: Alice C. Morse
+
+Translator: Frances A. Van Santford
+
+Release Date: October 22, 2010 [EBook #33878]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT THE GHOST HOUR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, page scans provided by Google Books
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+   1. Page scan source:
+      http://books.google.com/books?id=m1UpAAAAYAAJ&pg
+   2. The are approximately 96 decorative images in this book which
+      are not indicated in this text version.
+
+
+
+
+
+                           At the Ghost Hour
+
+                            The House of the
+                              UNBELIEVING
+                                 THOMAS
+
+
+                     TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF
+                               PAUL HEYSE
+                                   BY
+                        FRANCIS A. VAN SANTFORD
+
+
+                          WITH DECORATIONS BY
+                             ALICE C. MORSE
+
+
+
+                                NEW YORK
+                          DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
+                               MDCCCXCIV
+
+
+
+
+
+                          Copyright, 1894, by
+                         DODD, MEAD & COMPANY.
+
+
+
+
+
+                  THE HOUSE OF THE UNBELIEVING THOMAS
+
+
+In a provincial town of northern Germany there is a street in which the
+ancient, high-gabled houses bear, inscribed in Gothic letters, upon the
+lintels of their doors or upon little sandstone tablets, such honorable
+or fanciful names as "The Good Shepherd," "Noah's Dove," "The Palms of
+Peace," "The Rose of Sharon," and underneath, the date of their
+erection.
+
+In former days this street had been one of the main arteries of the
+city, whose staid, orthodox inhabitants coveted inward spiritual
+illumination rather than the light and air which penetrate from
+without. Since then new generations had arisen, fired with the spirit
+of aggressive enlightenment, and the importance of these old families,
+content with the stray sunbeams that made their way over the tall
+roofs, had declined perceptibly. One by one, they had died off behind
+their "Palms of Peace" and their "Roses of Sharon," and had made way
+for the bustling children of the new era, whose light and cheerful
+dwellings sprang up around the dingy old street.
+
+From one of the houses, which had grown almost black under the storms
+of three centuries, the street had received its name. Upon a block
+of stone above the wide entrance there were cut, in letters so
+weather-worn as to be scarcely legible, these words: "The Unbelieving
+Thomas, 1534." From this, the street had been christened Thomas Lane--a
+title which it still bears, though, only in official documents and on
+the map of the city. In common parlance it had been known for more than
+fifty years as "Ghosts' Lane"--again because of that same ancient
+building which was responsible for its correct name. For every one knew
+that the house of "The Unbelieving Thomas" was haunted; and even the
+most cold-blooded free-thinkers of the town could not escape a slight
+shiver when business forced them to tread the neglected pavement of
+this street.
+
+Why this old three-storied structure, so firm despite its great age,
+had been inhabited all these years only by poor unabsolved souls, no
+one could tell. With one man who had had the hardihood to purchase the
+house, things had turned out badly enough. A Jew, to whom the great,
+empty rooms seemed suitable for a warehouse, had been established there
+less than two years, when one morning he was found with a bit of silk
+stuff twisted about his neck, hanging from the crosspiece of a window
+in the largest room. And it subsequently became evident that Fortune
+had turned her back upon this man, once prosperous and well-to-do, and
+there was nothing for him but to steal out of the world and leave his
+accumulation of debts behind him.
+
+Nothing save the house itself and its dusty furnishings remained to the
+creditors; and as no purchaser appeared, they were forced to vent their
+chagrin in fierce glances at the gray, weather-beaten sign over the
+door, upon which, in huge black lettering, was the name of the firm:
+"Commission and Dispatch House of Moritz Feigenbaum."
+
+Now, although the whole house was so securely bolted and barred that it
+would have been impossible for a thief to carry anything out of it, the
+court deemed it necessary to provide for some oversight of the place,
+so that no lovers of darkness, counterfeiters or bands of dynamiters
+should take refuge there. Fortunately, there happened to be a poor
+cobbler, whose little house had been destroyed by a flood, and who
+declared himself willing to undertake the duties of janitor. This
+valiant person--Wenzel Kospoth by name, an emigrant from Bohemia--took
+possession of the porter's room by the entrance without further delay,
+regarding this free shelter as a sufficient recompense for his
+services, which were simple enough. He had to open the great, black,
+outer door each morning, and to close it again at night; and now and
+then he took a survey of the three stories to see that no bulging wall
+threatened the downfall of the whole. The entire day he was free to
+devote to his small custom, which remained true to him, even in the
+haunted house; although certain anxious good wives had scruples about
+venturing across the threshold to get a pair of defective boots mended
+in this unwholesome atmosphere.
+
+For, in fact, honest Wenzel Kospoth, with his bony, grizzled face and
+small, black eyes, deep-set under their bushy brows, did not seem quite
+canny to his new neighbors, hardened though they were to the traditions
+of the street.
+
+As he took but little sleep, they could often see him, through the
+window of the ground floor, squatted on his low stool, his lank arms,
+in their shirt-sleeves, braced upon his knees, and lying open on his
+leather apron a large, old-time book, in which he would read
+industriously until long after midnight, by the light of his little
+lamp. It was only an old Bohemian Bible, which he could now understand
+with difficulty, for he had crossed the German border when only a lad.
+Those who spied upon him, however, regarded the copper-bound volume as
+a book of magic, and believed nothing less than that this singular
+stranger with the foreign name had taken the post of janitor in the
+haunted house that he might conduct there, undisturbed, his magical
+intercourse with evil spirits.
+
+Wenzel Kospoth, when told of this report, laughed in his gray beard,
+and muttered something in Bohemian, which might have meant either yes
+or no. In his inmost soul he had a contempt for the stupid Germans, and
+fancied that this very Bible reading made him greatly their superior;
+so that, far from dispelling their superstitions, he seized upon an
+accidental opportunity to strengthen them.
+
+An old acquaintance of his whom he had met in his Sunday walks to a
+neighboring village had come to want through no fault of her own. She
+was a little woman of about forty, who, though brought up in town, had,
+when quite young, married a peasant's son--a drunkard, as it proved. He
+had squandered all her small savings, and dying suddenly, had left her
+with a six-year-old child. As she was clever at sewing, the young widow
+earned many a pretty groschen as village tailoress. But, unfortunately,
+her good heart led her to apply her skill not only to the needs of the
+outer, but to those of the inner man as well, and to dispose of her
+little store of recipes for all possible ailments in return for a
+trifling compensation. In this way she soon gained considerable
+patronage and, at the same time, with several of the more narrow-minded
+villagers, the reputation of being mistress of the black art. And when
+her little daughter had blossomed into a trim young maiden, with
+sparkling black eyes and waving yellow braids, who turned the heads of
+the village lads as she walked with her mother to church, on Sundays
+and feast days, the two came to be looked upon as a pair of
+unmistakable witches by the spiteful old women of the village, and by
+the younger ones whose sweethearts had become a trifle less devoted.
+
+The two innocent souls endured all this patiently until one day an
+influential peasant in whose stalls several cows had suddenly died, at
+the instigation of his wicked wife, burst into Frau Cordula's house,
+and hurling a volley of reproaches upon her as the author of his
+misfortune, delivered her such a heavy blow with his fist that from
+that day she was a cripple and could only move about with difficulty
+upon tottering feet.
+
+The base miscreant departed triumphant; but his deed was the beginning
+of a series of tribulations--the fruit of woman's hate and envy--until
+the poor woman realized that she must seek safety behind the walls of a
+town if she would not endanger her own life and that of her child among
+these superstitious people.
+
+She had only one acquaintance in the town, Wenzel Kospoth; and to him
+she sent letter asking whether he knew of some small lodging where she
+and her daughter could find a refuge and earn their bite of bread
+hidden from curious eyes.
+
+Now, behind the haunted house was a gloomy little court in which stood
+a low stable, unused since the horses of Moritz Feigenbaum were sold.
+Above the stable the coachman and errand boy had lived in two large,
+low rooms, with a windowless loft adjoining, where hay and oats had
+been stored. A coach-house shut in the remainder of the court, in the
+centre of which a chestnut-tree, long dead, lifted its dark, leafless
+branches, where a flock of tumultuous sparrows bustled noisily all the
+day long.
+
+These quarters were not calculated to allure tenants who were partial
+to light and air; and even the poor and unhoused would not risk an
+encounter with the ghost of the last inmate. So the mice held their
+revels undisturbed and feasted royally upon the oats in the granary.
+
+But the cobbler when he had received Frau Cordula's message thought at
+once how excellently these lodgings were adapted for his friend. His
+request to the authorities that two shelterless women, for whose
+character he could vouch, be allowed to occupy the lodgings in the
+court at a trifling rental was granted; and one morning he set out for
+the village to assist the mother and daughter in their removal.
+
+The two poor persecuted souls were glad to avail themselves of the
+refuge under Wenzel Kospoth's roof, despite its unsavory reputation. A
+wagon was loaded with their bedding and furniture. Upon a chest sat
+Frau Cordula, Gundula hovered near her, while the dark-looking
+Bohemian, who drove the horses himself, cracked his whip so vigorously
+that the assembled village population, which would have accompanied the
+exodus of the witch by caterwaulings, dared give rent to no more
+disrespectful noises than a few whistles.
+
+Their entry into Thomas Lane was made quietly, though the report had
+spread in the neighborhood that a witch from the country was about to
+move into the haunted house. A crowd had assembled before the closed
+entrance; but a look somewhat like disappointment passed over their
+gaping faces when the young girl sprang down from the wagon and the
+older woman, with Kospoth's help, descended carefully from her high
+seat. They fancied the witch would have been older and more gruesome;
+and Gundelchen, with her laughing eyes and yellow braids, under the
+peasant's head-dress, excited almost a feeling of regret that the
+peaceful sleep of these two women was to be disturbed by nocturnal
+apparitions.
+
+The girl's smile faded when she mounted the narrow stairs and cast her
+first look around. Their cottage had been no fairy bower, it is true;
+but the sunlight had shone into it, and green gardens and fields lay
+all about it. When, however, she saw her little mother sink down with a
+heavy sigh upon the dusty floor, she quickly recovered herself,
+threw her arms about the poor woman and carried her to a bench near
+the window where she could watch the sparrows in the top of the
+chestnut-tree. Then she began to talk so cheerfully that the mother
+took heart at last and only sighed softly now and then, as with tender
+eyes she watched the child busied in arranging the furniture in their
+new home.
+
+By the next day the two rooms looked quite habitable. The young girl
+had gone early to the market and bought two cheap pots of flowers; she
+had brushed away the dust, had scrubbed the floors, and hung fresh
+curtains at the square windows before it was time to make the soup upon
+the little stove in the corner. When Wenzel Kospoth came in at noon to
+ask how it fared with his fellow-tenants, his eyes opened wide with
+astonishment to find everything so neat and comfortable. He must needs
+stop for dinner, and found the frugal meal far more toothsome than the
+food which a neighbor had been wont to serve him in his shop. So it
+came about that the cobbler dined with them regularly, and the small
+sum which he paid helped them with the rent.
+
+That she could not hope for much custom in her new home, the sensible
+woman knew well enough. She understood only peasant fashions; and for
+her medicinal skill there was no demand. In her despondency, she almost
+regretted that she had availed herself of Master Kospoth's offer. But
+here Gundula came to her mother's rescue. She had inherited her
+cleverness in womanly handiwork; and she soon apprenticed herself to a
+dressmaker, under whom she took great pains to learn the city fashions.
+She showed herself so quick and skillful that after a few months she
+was employed in the houses of well-to-do families.
+
+In time, many a piece of work was entrusted to her to finish. These she
+took home to her mother, who became once more cheerful, now that her
+hands were no longer idle; and when, at the end of the year, she could
+count a pretty little sum laid by in her stocking, she forgave the
+stupid peasants whose persecutions had made her life so wretched.
+
+Yet even here, in the city, the reputation of holding converse with
+evil spirits clung to her; and inquisitive school-boys, who had once,
+goaded by insatiable curiosity, ventured through the doorway as far as
+the entrance to the court, pointed to the four small windows above the
+stable, with childish awe, and whispered in each other's ears all
+manner of goblin-tales of the Blockenberg and the Devil's dances. The
+most impudent among them finally took courage, called with a loud, but
+trembling voice: "Old witch! Old witch!" in the quiet court, and threw
+a stone against the stable-door; whereupon the whole troop scattered in
+a hasty flight, while even the sparrows, terrified by the unwonted
+clamor, flew out from the dry branches of the chestnut with shrill
+cries.
+
+That the witch remained invisible, added not a little to the
+superstitious dread in which she was held. Her child, however, was
+regarded by the neighbors with mingled sympathy and admiration. They
+could not understand how she kept her red cheeks and laughing eyes amid
+such depressing surroundings; they must say, that any one who had at
+his baptism renounced the devil and all his works, could hardly bring
+himself to marry a girl out of this haunted house. Yet they watched the
+graceful little figure as long as they could see her hat-ribbon wave in
+the wind, and her short skirt blow about her trim ankles.
+
+So far, all seemed orderly and natural in the house of "The Unbelieving
+Thomas," and the report of ghostly rendezvous there seemed ill-founded.
+But the narrator of this true story is now, at last, forced to the
+confession that, in the closest proximity to these two innocent beings,
+there was installed a ghost, pure and simple, of whose presence neither
+the occupants of the house nor the dwellers in that street had the
+slightest intimation.
+
+It is averred that the souls of the dead, when they leave their bodies,
+do not pass directly to heaven or hell; but, according to the Romish
+belief, into purgatory, there to await the day of judgment and the
+resurrection of the body; or, according to the Protestant confession,
+into an intermediate state, where they bide in a condition of uncertain
+expectancy, like that of earthly travelers in a way station. In this
+supernal region there prevails a certain monotony of existence
+unrelieved even by the arrival of newly-released souls who, for the
+most part, bear upon their pallid features the sorrowful trace of a
+reluctant parting.
+
+It is true that spirits of the higher order, those who while yet upon
+earth were raised above the sordid misery of life, and who viewed all
+occurrences in the light of eternity, soon find their way about in the
+gray twilight of this aerial realm, and enjoy meeting a kindred soul
+now and then among the noiseless throng of disembodied spirits, and
+holding converse with those whom they had come to revere for their
+virtuous deeds during their earthly life. So that here, where perfect
+equality and universal brotherhood are generally supposed to hold sway,
+there is a line of distinction between the great and small, to which no
+one offers the least objection. For, as no outward advantage is
+attached to the greater prestige which the nobler souls enjoy, no one
+finds cause for envy in the exalted intercourse with which, their hours
+are filled; while the great majority long ardently for the coarser
+pleasures of their past life.
+
+In this painless intermediate state, the more worthy or distinguished
+souls are pursued by only one annoyance, namely, the ever-increasing
+curiosity of those yet living upon earth, who delight to summon the
+spirits of great kings, sages and artists to compulsory interviews.
+This disgraceful amusement has been the fashion at intervals from time
+immemorial, as when, for example, the Witch of Endor summoned the
+spirit of the high priest Samuel to appear before Saul. But, in our own
+day, the inquisitive practice of drawing the veil from the mysteries of
+the other world has spread through a very wide circle, and no name,
+sounded down from past centuries, is too venerable for its owner to be
+assailed with questions through the medium of some tipping-table or
+hysterical young woman; or even to be constrained to appear personally
+in the transparent guise of his so-called astral body.
+
+The aristocracy of the intermediate kingdom, after they had borne with
+this presumption for some time, at last bethought themselves of an
+innocent expedient which would secure them from further intrusion. They
+made inquiry among the ghostly masses whether there were any who would
+be willing to serve as their representatives in case of such demands,
+and to answer impertinent questions as seemed to them proper.
+
+Now, as many of those who in life had known only selfish pleasures were
+already so wearied of this spiritual existence that they were ready to
+jump out of their skin (if they had had a skin), nothing could be more
+welcome than this proposition to mingle once more in mundane affairs,
+and to amuse themselves for a few hours with the fashionable play of
+question and answer.
+
+That they had scant knowledge of the affairs of their famous associates
+disturbed them as little as it did those whom they were to represent.
+For it soon became evident that the questioners at tapping-tables and
+dark seances were in nowise offended by foolish answers, and received
+the most palpable nonsense which was whispered to them in the
+communications of spirits as profound, superhuman wisdom, which they
+interpreted according to their wishes. It is easy to pipe for him who
+loves to dance; and he who is determined to hold converse with Julius
+Cæsar, Plato or Beethoven, will hear, in the stammering utterances of
+some cartman with whom he has in some mysterious way put himself _en
+rapport_, words of the sublimest import.
+
+Several years ago, the town in which the scene of this story is laid
+was attacked with the fever of spiritualism. At first, people were
+content to move tables and produce rappings, but by degrees they grew
+ambitious for a more exalted mode of spiritual intercourse; and two
+mediums, with their hypnotic subjects, made their entry into town, so
+that hardly a night passed without some ghostly doings--and that, too,
+in the homes of the best and most cultured families.
+
+To satisfy the increasing demand, it was decided to establish two of
+the more robust spirits permanently in town, that they might be ready
+at the lightest summons. Two candidates offered themselves at once for
+the post--one, the spirit of a traveling wine-seller, the other, the
+soul of a house-servant, who, it chanced, had been employed by the
+burgomaster of the town, and thus was especially conversant with the
+affairs of the inhabitants.
+
+This somewhat dissimilar pair seemed qualified to meet all
+requirements, and one fine evening they sallied forth. Johann Gruber,
+the servant, proposed that they take up their quarters in the house of
+"The Unbelieving Thomas;" for even spirits of coarser mould, becoming
+accustomed to the stillness of the other world, avoid noisy districts
+in this.
+
+No more quiet sleeping-place for two sensitive shadows could be found
+than the lofty, dark coach-house adjoining the stable. The door opening
+on the court was always ajar, but the dusty floor was never trodden by
+human foot. An ancient calash stood in the farthest corner, its
+leathern portions so gnawed away by the rats that it had wasted into
+the mere skeleton of a carriage.
+
+As soon as Heinrich Müller, the quondam mercantile traveler, beheld
+this ruin, he declared his wish to become its exclusive possessor. With
+a soft sigh, evoked by the recollection of his former merry
+journeyings, he stretched his ethereal form comfortably upon the
+cushions, from which the leather covering and horsehair had been eaten
+away, leaving the quills of the feathers sticking through--a
+circumstance which, unpleasant as it might have proved to an occupant
+with flesh and bones, in nowise impaired the comfort of this spiritual
+essence.
+
+Johann Gruber, who in his lifetime had traveled much with his master,
+found a large chest in another corner, the like of those he had so
+often packed, and made himself comfortable therein; for upon this first
+night no seance was in progress.
+
+They soon found that their post was far from easy. Each had his
+hands full of work. Here, he had to slip into some table and answer
+the oddest questions; there, he must respond to some crafty or
+self-deceived medium, or if it were desired, materialize--as the
+technical term is--and personate this or that well-known individual to
+gratify the pious curiosity of his surviving friends.
+
+These nightly labors were so fatiguing to both that when they returned
+to their quarters, and without waiting even to exchange "good-night,"
+slipped into their corners to sleep, they wished themselves back in the
+state they had left. Indeed, they would probably have renounced the
+service after a few weeks, had not the arrival of Frau Cordula and her
+daughter altered the condition of affairs.
+
+From the first, the wine-seller conceived so violent an attachment for
+the fair, slender girl, that the thought of leaving her for the
+loveless world of spirit was not to be tolerated. In his lifetime he
+had been known as a ladies' man; and although he had exchanged his
+carnal nature for a spiritual existence, he, like all poor souls who
+hover over the spot where in life they have buried their treasure,
+could not leave this child of earth, unresponsive though she must ever
+be to his affection.
+
+It happened, too, that Johann Gruber, passing one day by accident
+through a retired street, met an old flame, in the person of the cook
+who had served in the house of his master. As comely as ever, she
+formed a new bond to connect him with this earthly sphere. From that
+day he ceased to chaff his infatuated colleague. Instead of ridicule, a
+fine ear could now have heard for many a night a duet of tender sighs
+resounding from the walls of the dark coach-house, and accompanied by
+the rustling and scrambling of the little mice.
+
+This state of affairs had continued for nearly a year when, one
+moonlight night, the spirit of Johann Gruber turned homeward from a
+tiresome day's work. Sleepy though he was, he took a roundabout way,
+past a certain house, on the ground floor of which his early love had
+opened a tap-room. Possibly he was further attracted by the winey
+fragrance which had, in his lifetime exerted a powerful influence over
+him. He raised himself to a level with the window, the upper sash of
+which was open, and perching himself upon the crosspiece, took a survey
+of the room. A stout woman sat behind the bar, and nodded over her
+knitting, from which she occasionally drew a needle and scratched her
+frowsy head, yawning the while and rubbing her small, watery eyes.
+
+A little girl was sleeping upon a stool by the stove. Several workmen
+in their shirt-sleeves sat at a table playing cards. When any of them
+trumped an ace, they rapped with their knuckles and the little one
+sighed in her sleep.
+
+The gallant ghost could not suppress a sigh as he reflected how fine it
+would be if he were still living, and as landlord and husband could
+scold the stout woman, and send the little Lisa early to bed. But fate
+had decreed otherwise, and he descended from his lofty seat and flitted
+homeward through the deserted streets to the haunted house.
+
+Arrived at the gateway he peeped in a moment through the window of the
+porter's room. There sat Wenzel Kospoth, still bending over his folio.
+The glow from the lamp silvered his gray head; but his small eyes were
+closed, so that it was uncertain whether he were napping, or sunk in
+deep thought. Johann Gruber shrugged his shoulders. He could not endure
+the valiant old man, because other people regarded him as a magician,
+and he calmly acquiesced; whereas Johann knew that this attributed
+power over the spirits of hell was clearly a swindle. His colleague,
+too, disliked the cobbler, and sometimes threatened to do him harm,
+indebted though they were to him for their unlighted quarters.
+
+The night wanderer now sought the crevice in the old house-door through
+which he was accustomed to slip in. But to-night, finding an obstacle,
+he noticed, for the first, that he was still in the materialized
+condition in which he had been forced to show himself at the medium's
+command. Instantly he stripped the garment from his shoulders, like a
+paletot, saw it dissolve in thin air, and glided unimpeded through the
+door and across the court.
+
+"Good evening, Herr Müller!" said he, in a whisper. "Have you turned in
+already? Much work to-day?"
+
+Out of the calash in the corner came back a faint echo, which trembled
+as from inward vexation.
+
+"How often must I tell you, stupid, to go to bed quietly and not
+disturb well-bred people in their first sleep? You smell of bad liquor
+again. Have the goodness to keep away from me and creep into your
+chest!"
+
+"Oho!" snarled the other, approaching his irate companion and settling
+himself upon a shaft of the carriage. "The deuce take your fine
+manners! You are no better than I--Spirit is Spirit, and you are on the
+wrong track when you accuse me of drinking. You know very well we can
+no longer pour down a draught behind our cravats, for we have no
+cravats. No, Herr Müller, what you smell is the pure, soul fragrance.
+Your own is not exactly like violets, either. Why should it be, if it
+savors of the deeds done in your lifetime? You understand? Take care
+you don't go too far; for if it should come to blows--I have been a
+match for more than one when I was at service at the inn of The Three
+Lilies, and with such a fellow as you--"
+
+"Be still, will you!" commanded the voice from the calash, rather
+faintly. "You know I meant no harm; it is only because I am so wretched
+in this dog's life of a professional ghost, and besides that, this
+confounded love affair, and no rest at night--"
+
+"Yes, indeed, I can well believe it!" sighed the other, easily
+pacified. "You are even worse off than I, and not so much as a kiss
+will all this bring you. It would be a good thing if you would put the
+girl out of your mind. It's all nonsense, anyway."
+
+A heavy sigh came from the black depths of the wagon frame.
+
+"That you don't understand, I observe. When this maiden, decked with
+all heavenly charms, crosses my path, I am like a poor moth that cannot
+keep away from the lamp, although it does not go near it with the exact
+intention of burning its wings. I often think the priests' invention is
+not the real hell--as indeed we know; the true one is the suffering
+which we incur by our earthly sins. More than one little goose of a
+girl has cried her eyes out over me; a confoundedly handsome fellow I
+was, with a pocketful of money. Then, out of sight was out of mind with
+me; but now I am in for it. What I endure is heart-breaking. There is
+no drinking to the oblivion of this soul-suffering."
+
+He was silent, exhausted by this passionate outburst; and only a slight
+whimper was audible from the corner. His sympathetic comrade had in the
+meantime withdrawn to his chest. After a little, he said: "How
+beautifully you express it all, Herr Müller! Just so it goes with my
+Rieka. In my lifetime I laughed when I heard them talk of everlasting
+love. But there is something in it, after all. Now, if your Gundelchen
+and my Rieka should come to us up yonder, perhaps we might continue our
+courting. Perhaps, upon the last day--well, we must wait. In the
+meantime, good-night! pleasant dreams!"
+
+From the carriage in the corner came no answer--only a soft, ghost-like
+snore. Grief seemed at last to have left the poor sinners to their
+rest.
+
+But the sleep of the two much-enduring ghosts was to be broken in upon
+in a strange way that night.
+
+In a little cafe by the market place two good friends and
+school-fellows were celebrating their _Wiedersehen_ with several
+bottles of Rhine wine. The one, a dignified young man of
+four-and-twenty, had just returned from a neighboring university, with
+the degree of Doctor of Medicine. Before accepting the proffered
+position of assistant in the office of a distinguished physician, he
+contemplated a year of travel. Following the promptings of his heart,
+he visited first his native town; though all ties of kindred there had
+been broken by the death of his parents.
+
+A youthful attachment, formed in his gymnasium days and continued
+through his student years, despite many breaks and reconciliations, was
+rumored to be on the point of becoming an engagement. But as yet no
+word had been spoken; and, indeed, even an exchange of letters had been
+interdicted by the stern father. The young man had thought of her less
+than usual this past year, but had excused himself on the ground of
+absorbing study. Of his old companions, only one, a civil engineer, had
+settled in the town. This good comrade insisted upon sharing his
+bachelor quarters with his friend during his stay. They met at the
+station, the newly-fledged doctor arriving by an evening train; and
+midnight found them still exchanging experiences at the café whither
+they had gone for supper.
+
+"You are awaited with impatience, Philip," said the engineer. "Papa
+Stadtrath asked me yesterday whether you did not intend to display
+yourself in the full splendor of your new honors to your native town. I
+answered evasively. You ought not to accept engagements at once, but
+devote the first two or three days to rest. For, listen! You are
+looking pale and nervous; the fatigues of your examination show plainly
+upon your face."
+
+That he had judged correctly of his friend's condition became evident
+as soon as they left the café. They had drank but lightly; yet,
+directly the young doctor found himself in the open air, his head swam,
+he grew unsteady on his feet and began to talk so boisterously,
+swinging his walking-stick against the windows as they went along, that
+his friend, fearing that Philip might meet some acquaintance and
+introduce himself anew in this disgraceful fashion, took a roundabout
+way home, through Ghost Lane, where they were sure of being unobserved.
+Locking his arm in that of his friend, he piloted him along, keeping in
+the shadow of the aristocratic houses, past the "Good Shepherd,"
+"Noah's Dove," and the "Rose of Sharon," in which no sound was heard
+and from whose grated windows no light shone forth.
+
+They had just reached the house of "The Unbelieving Thomas," when the
+riotous young man stood suddenly still, shook himself loose from his
+friend by a violent gesture, and declared that he was ready to
+challenge all the spooky spirits of the lane--which he now, for the
+first time, recognized. He proposed to thrust them through with the
+weapons of science till they were frightened back into the nebulous
+nothingness whence only the baldest superstition had suffered them to
+creep forth. This should be his first service to his native town,
+which, to its own shame, had tolerated this relic of Egyptian darkness,
+or worse, of Medievalism, here in its midst, at the end of the
+nineteenth century.
+
+He struck a defiant attitude on the sidewalk, while with one arm he
+brandished his stick against possible ghostly opponents and with the
+other he warded off his friend. In this way he lost his balance and
+fell against the house, striking his head so forcibly upon the sharp
+edge of the door-post that a large jet of blood spurted instantly from
+the wounded temple.
+
+In great consternation his friend attempted to raise him and staunch
+the wound with his handkerchief, while he called loudly for help. In
+this last effort he was finally successful, for the narrow window of
+the porter's room, directly over their heads, was flung open. In a few
+words the engineer explained to Wenzel Kospoth what had happened. When
+the trusty Bohemian opened the door and saw the wound by the light of
+his candle, he shook his head. It would be impossible to convey the
+young man, bleeding thus profusely, to his home, without giving
+occasion for much talk. There was no comfortable place for him in his
+stuffy shop; but it happened that in the rear court lived a friend of
+his who was skilled in such matters, and they would carry the gentleman
+to her without arousing the neighborhood.
+
+No sooner said than done. As they crossed the court with their heavy
+burden, they saw a light shining out of Frau Cordula's windows, one of
+which was opened in answer to the cobbler's call. But the voice which
+inquired what was the matter was that of Gundula, who was still awake
+and busied in finishing off some work for the morrow. Learning what
+Samaritan service was required of them, she quickly appeared at the
+door below, clasping her hands in terror as she saw the blood streaming
+from the young man's forehead. The older woman, too, was not a little
+disturbed when they laid her patient down before her; but retaining her
+presence of mind, she directed her daughter to fetch her box of
+remedies. Out of this she took the necessary articles; then, with fresh
+water she cleansed the wound, which, fortunately, had not penetrated
+the bone, pressed the jagged edges firmly together, and closed them
+with a needle and thread, finishing by binding a soft bandage over the
+forehead.
+
+During these proceedings the patient had not once regained
+consciousness, but lay bolstered up with two pillows on an old sofa in
+the living-room. The woman hobbled about on her two crutches, and from
+time to time applied cooling bandages to the heated brow.
+
+She assured the two men there was no danger,--the wound would heal in a
+few days. The friend saw that he was in fact superfluous; and
+recognizing the skill of the good woman, he renounced his intention of
+watching during the night, and with heartfelt thanks, withdrew with
+Wenzel Kospoth.
+
+Noiselessly as all this had taken place, yet the whispers and hurried
+movements in the coachman's lodgings had not failed to reach the fine
+ear of Herr Heinrich Müller, and to awaken him. In his dreams his
+thoughts had been continually with Gundula, and he could not rest in
+his calash, but must needs peep through the window and witness the
+assiduity with which she attended the wounded man.
+
+Johann Gruber, in his chest in the corner, would have had no inkling
+of the adventure had not his ghostly companion returned to the
+coach-house, when all was again still, and vented his jealous rage in
+imprecations upon all the living. The hated Bohemian swindler he
+accused of basely conniving to provide a settlement for the daughter of
+his friend; and of tripping up the young man in front of his door that
+the old witch might cure him, and her patient in turn, out of
+gratitude, pay his court to the girl.
+
+Johann Gruber listened to all this with the utmost tranquility, and
+yawned so loudly that his colleague turned upon him, and after they had
+quarreled and hurled bitter words at each other for a time, they fell
+asleep again from sheer exhaustion.
+
+Late in the morning the doctor awoke. When he unclosed his heavy
+eyelids and found himself lying upon a strange, poor sort of couch, in
+an unfamiliar room, he at first believed himself to be still dreaming.
+How came he in this large, low room, so poorly furnished? On the wall
+were two oil-chromos--a portrait of the Emperor and a spinach-green
+landscape,--upon the corner closet stood a wig-block with flaming red
+cheeks, and not far off was a peasant's chest, painted blue, with white
+tulips! This surely could not be the bachelor lodgings of his friend!
+And where was his friend? While he was puzzling himself about the
+matter, he felt a dull heaviness in his head, and pain in his temples.
+Mechanically he raised his hand to touch the aching spot, and to his
+astonishment felt a bandage--at the same instant he heard a halting
+step and the tapping of two crutches upon the bare, scoured floor, and
+saw before him the little woman who, while he had slept, had been
+sitting noiselessly at her work by the window. Now his eyes opened in
+wonder and his full consciousness returned, while she told him how it
+was he had claimed their hospitality on the preceding night.
+
+He listened attentively to the good woman, but made no reply, passively
+allowing her to remove the bandage and inspect the wound, which she
+found satisfactory; whereupon he declared that he felt quite well, save
+a slight dizziness and a great emptiness of the stomach, which would be
+relieved by a proper breakfast. Mother Cordula brought him a glass of
+water and hastened to her little stove to make him as good a cup of
+coffee as she was able.
+
+Meanwhile Philip sat upright among his pillows and asked all manner of
+questions. A great sense of comfort stole over him in this poor room
+behind the well-mended but snowy curtains, in the company of this
+simple, sensible woman, whose features were shadowed by a gentle
+seriousness.
+
+And now the door opened and a young creature came in, stepping lightly
+on her tiptoes, nodding to the older woman and throwing a passing
+glance at the stranger.
+
+"My daughter," said the mother, "the gentleman has just waked and would
+like his breakfast. He is doing well, thank God! Have you brought
+everything with you?"
+
+The girl, still quite out of breath, assented, and put down her basket
+upon a chair. Philip saw that it contained various market purchases
+much more abundant than they would have provided for their own dinner
+table. His attention, however, was soon diverted by the young girl, who
+pleased him uncommonly well. She wore a plain brown dress that must
+have seen long service; and, as its wearer had not yet done growing, it
+had been pieced down, quite regardless of the fashion, though even now
+the slender ankles showed beneath it. She had taken off her hat, a
+black straw, trimmed with a knot of red, and her pretty face was framed
+by an abundance of thick, brown braids, out of which a little forest of
+curling locks had escaped over her neck. As she moved noiselessly to
+and fro, assisting her mother, she avoided meeting the young man's
+glance, and spoke softly, as though in the presence of a very sick
+person, when she answered her mother's questions about her work.
+
+But the most charming thing of all was the way the black eyes, always a
+trifle downcast, would open suddenly, dart a swift glance around, which
+seemed to break into lightning-like sparks and then suddenly drop their
+long lashes again.
+
+Twice only, when Philip directed some playful remark to her, did her
+red lips break into a smile and a dimple appear in her cheek, showing
+that behind that modest, almost childlike brow, was a roguish spirit
+which was only repressed by the consciousness of her lowly position and
+by considerations of good breeding.
+
+When the mother and daughter sat down to their midday meal other
+company appeared--first, Master Kospoth, their daily guest, then the
+young engineer. Both were rejoiced to see such an improvement in the
+patient; and the friend wished to procure a carriage and convey Philip
+at once to his own lodgings.
+
+Frau Cordula, however, insisted upon keeping him until the following
+day. The wound, it is true, had begun to heal; but she herself must
+renew the bandage several times, and she could not leave her room to
+visit the patient.
+
+No one was better pleased with this plan than the invalid himself. He
+maintained that he had never slept better, nor drank better coffee.
+When the men had gone, and Gundula also, he seated himself upon a
+little stool by the window where her sewing machine stood, took up her
+scissors, stuck her little thimble upon his finger, and plunged into a
+cosy chat with the mother as she sat at the other window with her
+sewing. He drew from her the story of her life; and the calm way in
+which she spoke of her sad lot, the cruelty of her neighbors, and
+recompense for those trials which she had found in her child, touched
+the heart of her young listener, and awoke in him a feeling akin to
+veneration. When at length Gundula came home in the evening, she
+appeared less constrained, and ventured to ask if his wound hurt him,
+or should she get some ice to cool the wrappings. To this he would not
+consent, and his gallant protest evoked a slight flush upon her cheek.
+When she wished to move her machine into the adjoining room lest its
+noise disturb him, he would not allow this either, but moved a chair
+near her, and watched her taper fingers and the delicate contour of her
+face as she bent over her work. The mother, however, remarked that her
+patient needed to go to sleep early, sent out the child, dressed the
+wound freshly with salve, and withdrew to the back room.
+
+Outside, in the court, a light shadow had been spying in at the window
+for an hour past--the poor soul of Heinrich Müller, which was racked by
+the torments of jealousy, and would not retreat until the young pair,
+who evidently enjoyed themselves together, were parted once more.
+That upon this evening, one of the best mediums pursued his vocation
+without result and failed to call up a single spirit, had its
+natural explanation in the infatuation which kept this self-declared
+lady-killer of old a watcher at the window of our simple peasant maid.
+
+The melancholy ghost felt no slight relief when upon the following
+afternoon his lively rival took leave of his excellent nurse and her
+daughter and departed for the home of his friend. But the joy was of
+short duration; for the next evening, as soon as the darkness would
+allow him to take his way unobserved to Ghost Lane, the young doctor
+appeared at Frau Cordula's house to have his wound dressed. This time
+the stitches were removed, and a plaster was applied over the cloth
+with the healing balsam. He had brought a large cornucopia containing a
+variety of fruits and confections, at which Gundelchen consented to
+nibble, after much persuasion. She had now thawed completely, and
+Philip thought he had never heard a prettier laugh from girlish lips
+than that which greeted the recital of his student pranks. When, at
+times, the conversation took a more serious turn, Gundelchen took part
+shyly, asking any number of sensible questions.
+
+And so it went on the following evenings. Sometimes the engineer came,
+too, and in the lowly apartment there was such good cheer that they all
+forgot the hour and had to be reminded by Master Kospoth that they must
+not overstep the time for closing the great door.
+
+It was not the young people alone who found these evening chats
+enjoyable; it was good for Frau Cordula as well, to see a bit of life
+around her once more, and to be able to converse with intelligent
+people. Still, she could not disguise the fact that a strange
+alteration had come upon her child; she went about abstractedly all
+day, and only regained her old-time merriment in the evening to fall
+again into a reverie when she was alone with her mother.
+
+The wise woman was accordingly glad when one evening she could inform
+her patient that the wound was almost healed, and that even the scar
+would soon disappear if he continued to apply the ointment which she
+gave him in a little jar. She would now take leave of him, as his
+visits could hardly be concealed if continued much longer, and she
+herself wished to avoid all gossip among her uncharitable neighbors.
+
+The young man started, and Gundelchen grew as pale as death; but her
+mother had such a decided way, that there was nothing for them but to
+part sadly, after Philip had consumed a good five minutes in thanking
+anew his deliverer, pressing her hand the while. The daughter lighted
+him out to the head of the steep stairs. As he stood there a minute or
+two in evident perplexity, wishing to say something, yet still silent,
+he cast one quick glance at her standing beside him in all her charming
+confusion, seized her hand and kissed it; then, as she drew back,
+blushing deeply, and murmured, "But, Herr Doctor!" he threw his arm
+hastily around her and printed a swift kiss upon her hot cheek,
+whereupon he rushed down the narrow stairs, and, with a fast-beating
+heart, strode homeward through the sultry night. Heinrich Müller had
+fortunately been engaged at a _séance_ and had not witnessed this
+scene. When, a couple of hours later, he looked in at Gundelchen's
+window, he saw her with wide-open eyes, and a smile on her face,
+dreaming--but of what he had no suspicion.
+
+On the following day, a servant brought a large, firmly-locked box up
+the stairs to the little house in the rear court. Gundula had just come
+in to dinner, and Wenzel Kospoth, too, happened to be present when the
+box was opened. Within it lay all manner of pretty finery for a young
+girl, and a warm dress-pattern for an older woman. With it came a note
+containing the request that they would kindly accept these trifles and
+thus relieve the sender, in some slight degree, of the weight of
+obligation which lay upon his heart.
+
+In the lid lay a very modest little brooch. The girl had once
+complained that she lost all her pins; now the hope was expressed that
+this little clasp would hold more firmly, and that, at the same time,
+it would secure the recollection of a true friend.
+
+Wenzel Kospoth shook his gray head and muttered something about a
+gallant young man who would do the generous thing. But Frau Cordula
+directed the child to get pen and paper at once, and write down what
+she should dictate, which was as follows:
+
+She thanked the Herr Doctor many times for his kind intention to give
+them pleasure; but she could on no account accept these costly
+presents, as she must of necessity perform her medical services without
+compensation, if she would not render herself liable to punishment on
+the charge of unlawful practice. She would therefore return everything
+at once, and remain the Herr Doctor's
+
+            Respectful and devoted servant,
+
+                       Cordula Ehrenberg.
+
+When Philip received this message, which was brought him together with
+the box by a boy from Ghost Lane, he was greatly crestfallen. He knew
+the simple woman so well that he suffered himself to be deluded by no
+doubts of her entire sincerity in thus declining all further
+intercourse. And as he had to confess to himself that he could not
+seriously think of making her child his wife, and was still less
+inclined to play with her feelings, he finally concluded, with a deep
+sigh, to lock fast the chamber of his heart, which was haunted by the
+image of the witch's child, and to draw a cross over the whole
+adventure.
+
+At the same time he recalled to himself, for the first time, that he
+was already half-engaged to another; and he took pains to fan anew the
+flame of his youthful love, which, in this last week, had died down to
+an almost imperceptible little spark.
+
+The surest means to this end would be a visit to the house of the
+Stadtraths. Yet, although he could now, with his scar concealed by a
+narrow strip of plaster, appear once more as a smart young suitor, he
+put off the once longed-for interview from day to day, stayed quietly
+in the house and whiled away the lonely hours when his host was away at
+business, in a depressing idleness, in desultory reading, smoking and
+lying on the sofa, in a sort of dream, wherein he could not prevent a
+certain slender, girlish figure from hovering before his mental eye.
+Sometimes the long lashes would be raised, and swift little flashes
+would shoot out from a pair of black, star-like eyes.
+
+But one evening this kind of fireworks grew so uncanny that he sprang
+up, dressed himself carefully and started for the house of his youthful
+sweetheart.
+
+On the way, his heart throbbed violently and he with difficulty
+restrained himself from turning down a side street in the direction of
+Ghost Lane. But the nearer he drew to his destination the calmer he
+grew. His fate lay still in his own hands; nothing compelled him to say
+the decisive word that night--especially as he had his long-intended
+journey before him. So he mounted the steps of the house with
+indifference, and with a firm hand pulled the well-known bell.
+
+The daughter of the house opened the door herself, but greeted him with
+a cool, well-feigned surprise, as one might a visitor whom he had
+believed to be a hundred miles away, and ushered him at once into the
+parlor, where a little circle of family friends was assembled. The
+father was still at his office, but the mother, who had always petted
+the young man as if he were the legacy of her deceased friend,
+exhibited this evening a stiff, reserved manner, congratulated him upon
+successfully passing his last examination, inquired how long he
+expected to remain in the city, and addressed him once and again as
+Herr Doctor. He noticed at once that the conversation which he had
+interrupted had been concerned with himself, but he maintained his
+composure and excused his deferred visit on the ground of an accident
+which had befallen him--he had made a false step and had fallen,
+striking his head against a stone; on which account he had been for
+several days under a physician's care.
+
+No one expressed, save for mere politeness' sake, any regret at this,
+and the conversation dragged itself wearily along.
+
+Philip had leisure to observe the daughter of the house, as she sat
+near him, her little nose tilted high in the air, and her lips pursed
+up ironically. She had been so frequently told that she was the
+prettiest girl in town, she had been so unquestionably the queen of the
+ballroom for three winters, that it seemed a mere matter of course that
+everyone should pay homage to her youthful highness; and especially did
+she expect it of her old playmate who had been used to bring her the
+most bouquets at every cotillon. Moreover, in spite of his disfigured
+forehead, he pleased her better than all her other society slaves, and
+she had in secret decided that if he should prove himself worthy of the
+honor, she would make him overwhelmingly happy by the bestowal of her
+favor upon him. And now to have him sit there by her side, as impassive
+as a block of wood, was unpardonable; and she resolved within her cold
+little heart that he should feel her righteous anger.
+
+The changed deportment of her prospective son-in-law was still more
+annoying to the high-spirited Frau Stadtrath, who had fancied that the
+long-awaited betrothal, for which she already had in readiness a
+touching and impressive speech, would take place at the earliest
+opportunity. The presence of the other ladies at this time seemed to
+her most undesirable; and as she continued to hope that Philip's
+evidently adverse humor proceeded from the fact that he could not meet
+Rosa alone, she made several awkward attempts to get rid of the
+company. As these were thwarted by the general curiosity to see more of
+the young doctor, she broke in at last with the words: "You never would
+have guessed, my dear Doctor, that during this last year, while you
+have been away, we could make such progress in all kinds of occult
+science and maintain such a lively intercourse with the world of
+spirit. Instead of the regular evening card-playing, we now question
+this round table about many things we wish to know; and even I, who at
+the beginning was quite incredulous, have been gradually converted. I
+see you shrug your shoulders; of course, modern natural science regards
+all spiritualistic experiments as so many humbugs, and as it is quite
+true that much deception does creep in, I will not allow any medium or
+hypnotist to cross my threshold. But a wooden table--what interest
+could that have in leading us astray, especially as we are able to
+control its oracles?"
+
+"And have these ghostly revelations always been found reliable and
+correct by you?" inquired Philip--careful lest his words betray the
+scorn he felt.
+
+"Not always; of course, sometimes the answers sound ambiguous,
+sometimes they are wide of the mark, and then again they hit it so
+exactly that no one could doubt their supernatural origin. Heaven
+knows, one cannot expect a departed spirit to be omniscient; and you
+know well that a fool--I beg the company's pardon--a fool can ask more
+questions than ten of the wisest tables can answer. But you shall judge
+for yourself, my dear Doctor. Rosa has already enjoyed anticipating the
+kind of face you would make if you were once to attend such a sitting."
+
+"I beg you will leave me out of the game, Frau Stadtrath," said Philip,
+evasively. "I fear the tips of my fingers lack the necessary fluid, and
+I should only frustrate your design if I were to form one of the
+chain."
+
+"No, no!" put in the daughter, hastily. "You must take part; otherwise
+you will think the thing is not done honestly and that each of us finds
+his sport in deceiving the rest. Come, now, and try for yourself to
+thwart the thing. You will see that the table will always have the last
+word."
+
+The tea service and cloth were accordingly removed forthwith, and the
+seven or eight persons who sat around the circular table closed the
+magic chain with their outstretched hands, and waited with suppressed
+impatience the things which should come to pass.
+
+Philip's little finger rested with a light pressure upon that of his
+fair young neighbor; but though, formerly, such a tender proximity
+would have sent a glow of warmth through his veins, to-day he remained
+quite cool as though he were merely waiting until the reputed magic
+fluid should stream from the slender hand near his own and animate the
+lifeless wood.
+
+Now, it happened that on this evening our old acquaintance, Heinrich
+Müller, had undertaken the spiritualistic duties in this house,
+although he usually reserved himself for commissions of a higher order.
+But upon the preceding evening his more ignorant colleague had been put
+to rout so ignominiously that he would not expose himself soon again to
+a like experience. At the request of the assembled company, the medium
+had called up the spirit of Napoleon, and had propounded to it all
+kinds of historical questions. Now, as Johann Gruber, in his former
+capacity of house-servant, had known nothing of the great Corsican,
+and, indeed, had only heard his name when the talk had turned upon
+Napoleon-players--of whom he had had occasion to eject several from the
+inn when in the service of its landlord--he gave such startling and
+distorted answers that the leading spiritualist was overcome with
+embarrassment, and finally bade him go to the devil, while he explained
+to the questioners that the spirit had played one of his scornful jokes
+upon them because he was very angry at being dragged down to earth
+again from his heavenly exaltation.
+
+Heinrich Müller, on the contrary, who had more culture and was never at
+a loss to furnish some ambiguous solution for difficult questions,
+responded to the summons from the Stadtrath's house the more willingly
+in that he had seen his rival enter it, and burned to play him a trick.
+
+For this an opportunity was soon afforded. For, when he had slipped
+into the table and had announced his presence by raising one foot and
+stamping softly, the Fräulein Rosa, after some inconsequential
+skirmishing, asked directly whether he knew that a strange guest had
+inserted himself into the chain.
+
+"Yes," answered the table, to the great satisfaction of the believing.
+
+Did he know his name?
+
+"Philip," rapped the table foot.
+
+Did he know where this Philip had been staying since he came to town?
+
+"Ghost Lane," spelled the table, without reflecting that this would be
+a surprise to the company; for what should a young physician just
+returned home have to call him to that ill-omened street?
+
+And so the Fräulein, for she alone had noticed the strange flush mount
+to her neighbor's face, inquired promptly what had taken him thither;
+and forthwith the table-spirit stamping the foot by a violent motion,
+rapped out:
+
+"A love affair!"
+
+The impression which this word made was so strong that the chain at
+once parted, and all eyes were turned toward the young man, who
+concealed his embarrassment by a scornful laugh and remarked that such
+scandalous jokes proved to him plainly that they were bent upon teasing
+him, and the innocent table had been forced into the plot.
+
+However, Fräulein Rosa, who had kept a sharp eye upon him, grew
+crimson, not from shame, but from righteous indignation, that her
+heretofore obedient and submissive subject had allowed himself to be
+led into such a course of treachery. Accordingly she commanded the
+circle to form again instantly, and while her trembling little finger
+betrayed all her emotion to her neighbor at the table, she put the
+decided question: "For whom in Ghost Lane has Dr. Philip conceived a
+tender feeling?" The table answered immediately: "G-u-n-d-e-l-chen!"
+
+"Gundelchen!" said the questioner, spelling the word after it, and she
+drew back her hand as though she had touched a wet frog. "Well, Herr
+Doctor, do you require any further evidence? And so it is really
+that frivolous little person, the daughter of that disreputable old
+woman!--you remember, mamma, don't you? our seamstress brought the
+little country girl to our house with her once to help with the
+sewing--a creature entirely without culture. And to her you have
+actually paid court, Herr Doctor, and have found her society so
+interesting that you have neglected your oldest friends for it?"
+
+With flaming eyes she hurled these reproaches at him, in her rash
+excitement never stopping to consider that she thus disclosed the deep,
+hidden wound in her own heart. But the others divined it, and her
+mother made her a sign with her eyes that she should control herself.
+To Philip it was a matter of indifference whether his young friend,
+whose face at this moment appeared to him distorted by passion and
+almost hateful, thus laid bare her feelings in her jealous anger. His
+only concern was to refute the unfounded and malignant suspicions which
+had attached to the good woman in Ghost Lane.
+
+He therefore exclaimed with quiet firmness that he would hear nothing
+against the mother and daughter. It was with gross injustice they had
+been termed "disreputable;" and whoever called the young girl
+"frivolous," clearly could not know her. Here he related with frank
+ingenuousness how he had made their acquaintance and come to be under
+obligations of gratitude to these good Samaritans.
+
+When he had finished his recital, Fräulein Rosa stood up and said with
+a trembling voice: "There is no disputing about tastes. I understand
+now that for this whole fortnight you had no wish to look up your
+nearest friends, because you were lost in admiration of these two
+pearls. As people of our own station can bear no comparison with them,
+I would prefer to withdraw, that you need not be too long detained from
+your evening visit to Ghost Lane."
+
+Whereat, she curtesied with a very grand air to the young man, bowed to
+the others, and withdrew to the adjoining room.
+
+The rest of the company sat, as if turned to stone, in the stillness
+which ensued. Finally, the Frau Stadtrath, in her dire dismay, said:
+"You must excuse this little burst of temper, my dear Doctor. She at
+one time conceived an antipathy for the little sewing-girl, and cannot
+understand how one of the dearest friends of her youth can feel
+otherwise. And besides, you, with your chivalric notions, put too much
+warmth into your defense. If you will go after our Rosa and say that
+you did not really mean--"
+
+"I regret, gracious lady," interrupted Philip, rising, "that it is
+impossible for me to take back a word of what I have said in favor of
+the two so misunderstood. If your daughter cannot tolerate the society
+of a man who interests himself in two people, unjustly accused, I must
+renounce all further intercourse with this friendly household, from
+whom I was formerly the recipient of so much kindness. I have the honor
+to wish the ladies and gentlemen Good-evening."
+
+With that he took his hat, bowed, and left the room.
+
+When he found himself in the open air, such a feeling of relief came
+over him at his escape from the stifling atmosphere of this respectable
+Philistine house, that, forgetting his new professional dignity, he
+waved his hat, made a leap into the air, and hummed a student song to
+himself. A couple of the neighbors who knew him, and his status with
+the fair daughter of the Stadtraths, smiled, as he passed by them
+unheeding, and whispered to each other that it had probably just been
+settled between the young pair, and the gentleman was a trifle
+exhilarated by the betrothal wine. But Philip was eager to get out of
+the dark streets into open space, and drew a deep breath when he
+reached the shaded park which lay along the river, and was peopled in
+the daytime by the children of the town and their nurses. At this late
+hour, however, only solitary pairs of lovers walked here, and their
+shadows, as they glided past, moved the lonely wanderer to melancholy
+reflections. He seated himself on a bench and for a long time gazed
+upward through the gently swaying branches at the stars, from which a
+soft coolness flowed down upon him. With a hushed sound, the river
+rolled along at his feet. Philip could not but think how delightful it
+would be to let himself be carried away by the current, in a boat, with
+a certain being at his side, all through the night, only to land at the
+first flush of morning near some secluded little house, and there to
+set up his own hearthstone. The image of little Gundula came before him
+so lifelike, she appeared with all her gifts and graces in so bright a
+light, that he could not conquer his longing to take the fair form in
+his arms; and springing up, he set out in a straight line for the town
+again, resolved to make his way that very evening into the haunted
+house, cost what it might, and have a serious talk with Frau Cordula
+concerning the present and the future.
+
+But when he had passed the outlying districts of the town, and was
+nearing his goal, he noticed an unwonted commotion in the streets--a
+running and shouting of men who at the hour of ten are usually sitting
+at home, or over their beer. He made inquiry and heard with alarm that
+a fire had broken out in Ghost Lane. And now he rushed on ahead of all
+the others, and as he reached the street and saw the glow of the fire
+lighting up the black houses, he made a way for himself by elbowing and
+pushing through the dense crowd that blocked the entrance. But the
+people stood idly by gaping at the spot whence the red blaze shot
+upwards, so that Philip had no difficulty in fighting his way through
+them to the seat of the mischief. His fearful surmise had not led him
+astray--the house of "The Unbelieving Thomas" was really on fire, and
+the flames, which until now had issued only from the porter's room,
+were just beginning to encircle the old entrance gate. The men who
+stood in front of it, in a half circle, pointed to the fiery spectacle
+with stupid indifference, or even with malicious grins. A few even gave
+vent to jeers: it was time that Satan at last laid hold of the old
+witchmonger by the collar; perhaps he had been trying to make gold, and
+a flame from hell had shot up out of the crucible and singed his head.
+It could not be expected that any good Christian would put out such a
+fire, and thus arrest the judgment of Heaven.
+
+As soon as Philip reached the house, and took in the situation, he
+shouted to the bystanders to get axes and break in the door and rescue
+those who lived back in the court. Not a foot stirred; only a pair of
+saucy tongues gave it as their opinion that it would be no harm if the
+whole pack of witches were burned, too,--they had deserved a funeral
+pile this long time;--a sentiment which was greeted with general
+laughter. The young man heard this with a throb of rage; and casting
+about him for some implement with which he could burst open the door,
+he seized a beam which the pavers had left lying at the edge of the
+sidewalk, and with superhuman exertion dragged the burden to the
+entrance that with it he might batter in the woodwork of the door,
+which was already ignited; when the rotten lock, as of a miracle,
+yielded of itself in the sockets, and the door swung slowly inward on
+its hinges. In the dark opening appeared a strange pair of human
+figures. Gundelchen was carrying her mother pick-a-pack through the
+smoke and showering sparks out into the open air.
+
+The child had gone to bed earlier than usual that night, weary with her
+day's work, and was awakened by a cry of terror from her mother, who
+had not yet fallen asleep. When she perceived the light from the fire,
+she put on a skirt, threw a shawl around her shoulders, and without
+stopping for shoes or stockings, with swift decision she lifted her
+mother, who could move but slowly, to her back and bore her down the
+little stairs and across the court, there to stand a few agonizing
+moments in the dark hallway until her guardian angel opened the house
+door.
+
+As she stood now outside, bent under her living burden and looking
+around at the crowd as it fell back, she espied their young friend and
+guest, who, with a cry of joy, dropped the beam and sprang toward her.
+A happy smile crossed her flushed face and the fresh lips faltered:
+"Good evening; Herr Doctor"--simple words enough, but they sounded to
+him like sweetest music. He could only say: "Thank God! O Gundelchen!
+To think that you are alive!" and would have caught them both in his
+arms but for the eyes which were turned upon them.
+
+She had not yet put down her burden, and seemed uncertain whither to
+turn with it. In vain did Philip conjure the people to fetch a
+wheelbarrow, or even a push-cart. They turned away, shrugged their
+shoulders and murmured imprecations.
+
+"Well, we must get one ourselves, Gundelchen, since these pious
+Christians cannot summon this much of neighborly kindness," said the
+young man, as he set the woman gently down upon the pavement, and,
+crossing his hands with those of the girl, raised the mother again on
+this swinging litter, bidding her put her arms around their necks. So
+they carried her submissively obedient, through the parting throng,
+which fell back at their approach, down the street as far as the
+marketplace. There, as by accident, an empty cab came rattling sleepily
+along. Philip hailed it, put the two women into it, and swung himself
+up on the seat behind, telling the coachman to drive to a little inn by
+the river, a half mile distant, which served as the terminus for the
+summer evening walks of the better class families.
+
+From Ghost Lane, which grew even ruddier with the glare of the fire,
+sounded a duller hum and tumult; and now they heard the roll of the
+hose-cart, which was at last on its way to the scene of the fire. From
+all sides, great and small were flocking to the ill-omened street; but
+soon they had left the last houses behind them and were driving along
+at a slow trot, through the star-lit night.
+
+
+And now, for the first, the young doctor had time to regard the rescued
+pair more closely. The older woman, with closed eyes, lay back in one
+corner of the carriage as though she would collect her thoughts, and
+thank Heaven for the miracle of her deliverance. Her child sat beside
+her, a little ashamed of her own scanty attire, holding the shawl
+tightly about her shoulders and saying no word to the young man
+opposite. But the black eyes met his steadily, and only once, when the
+bare feet came into view beneath the short skirt, did the long lashes
+droop hastily. Philip asked if she were cold. She shook her head, but
+he drew his handkerchief from his pocket and wound it about her slender
+ankles. Then he stretched out his hand and she laid her own in it, with
+a charming look of confidence, and so they held each other's hands in a
+mute pledge until the carriage drew up before the little hostelry.
+
+Here first the mother opened her eyes, but spoke no word and suffered
+Philip to lift her out and carry her into the house. Host and hostess
+were not a little astonished when they saw their singular guests, for
+whom the young man engaged a room in the upper story. He gave the
+landlord a gold piece and told him it would be to his advantage to
+attend carefully to the ladies, whom he had rescued from great peril by
+fire in the city.
+
+The Frau Wirthin would help the Fräulein out with her wardrobe. Then he
+himself mounted to the room where Frau Cordula sat in an arm-chair,
+looking dreamily before her. He went up to her and said gravely: "Dear
+mother, I must leave you now and go back to the city. But first I want
+to clear up an important matter. Your daughter and I have silently
+plighted our troth during the journey hither. I beg now that you will
+give us your blessing. I promise to be a faithful husband to your child
+and a loving son to you."
+
+The mother had listened to him with no change of manner, quite as if
+she had been prepared for something similar. Now she shook her head
+gently and said: "Dear Herr Doctor, you are very good, and I believe
+that you are sincere in your request. Still, I am an old woman, and
+must keep a cool head when the fire of enthusiasm has so heated your
+young one that you regard as proper and practical what is, and must
+remain, an impossibility. You are a young man of education and wealth,
+and we are poor people. How could you answer your friends if they
+should ask you why you had played the fool over the daughter of a poor
+tailoress who is denounced as a witch?"
+
+"That is _my_ affair," returned Philip with emphasis; "and I shall take
+care to express myself quite clearly and plainly on the subject.
+Moreover, I take delight in setting all my acquaintances to wondering
+and shaking their heads in a knowing way; indeed, I shall enjoy all the
+talk and sensation which will be created in the church when the
+announcement of our betrothal is made from the chancel. In three weeks,
+therefore, so it please you, the wedding will take place. I propose
+then to take the young Frau Doctor upon a tour, and we shall spend a
+whole year in travel. She will thus have time to become somewhat
+accustomed to society, and to receive that polish which even the
+costliest jewels must have in order that they may be estimated at their
+true value. In the meantime, our dear mother will remain quietly in the
+apartments which will be provided for her in my new home; and her
+daughter, let us hope, will keep her informed, by frequent letters,
+that she was not deceived when she thought proper to try her arts of
+witchery upon a certain Doctor Philip."
+
+He bent down and kissed the mother upon both cheeks, down which two
+tears trickled silently. Then, drawing the radiant girl to his breast,
+he kissed her upon lips and eyes; and before either of them could
+breathe a word, he rushed downstairs, flung himself into the carriage
+and drove back to town.
+
+The house of "The Unbelieving Thomas" was burned out so completely
+during the night that when morning dawned only the four black walls,
+like the sides of some deep shaft or well, remained standing; while the
+chestnut-tree lay, a heap of ashes, in the court, and only a few
+smoking ruins covered the site of the coach-house. In the porter's room
+were found a pile of blackened human bones, and among them four bits of
+copper which had bound the corners of the large Bohemian Bible, and had
+not been melted, despite the intense heat.
+
+High above, on the pointed ridge of one of the neighboring houses, sat,
+in the early gray of the morning, the two former occupants of the
+coach-house, both in the worst possible humor.
+
+Heinrich Müller cast a savage glance at the wet debris of the charred
+timbers, from which rose an ill-smelling vapor.
+
+"Well, the comedy is ended!" he said, shaking himself. "I am glad that
+no one suspected who was the author."
+
+"Not you, after all, Herr Heinrich?" inquired his comrade, who was
+looking away over the roofs into one of the side streets.
+
+"To be sure; I myself, and no other," returned the illustrious
+wine-seller. "You must know, Johann, that after I had played that base
+fellow, the Doctor, a trick, and had separated him and the well-bred
+daughter of, the Stadtrath, I flew towards home. There I saw the other
+one, who is like poison to me, the Bohemian, bending as usual over his
+book of magic; I slipped in, and then it occurred to me that I would
+spoil his broth for him. I overturned his lamp, the oil ran out over
+the table, there was an explosion, and as the old fool did not know how
+to save himself at once, the whole affair went up in smoke. So I have
+wreaked my vengeance on the wretched cobbler, and now I shall sail back
+to our upper world straightway. Of hell upon earth, I've had my fill.
+It may be confoundedly tedious, up there; but what of that? Doomsday
+cannot be far distant, if one may judge by the mad goings-on down
+here."
+
+He raised himself a little, as though about to take flight.
+
+"Do take me with you, Herr Heinrich!" said the poor soul of Johann
+Gruber. "I, too, am out of conceit with everything down here. I'm ready
+to give up the seance. For yesterday, when I went to look after my
+Rieka, I found her in--well, I will not say what company. It's
+accursedly mean business--playing this sort of a spirit--and I thought
+it would be such capital fun! Some one else can take his turn at it
+now, when stupid people are bent upon having communications. Look, Herr
+Heinrich, the sun is just flashing up from behind the mountain yonder.
+We must make haste and begone before it grows hot. When I was in the
+service of my former master I was always in the harness before
+daybreak. Hoop-la!" and he was off without waiting for his companion,
+who rose slowly after him, casting one more look of malicious
+satisfaction upon the smoking ruins, beneath which lay buried the poor
+victim of his revenge.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of At the Ghost Hour, by Paul Heyse
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+<title>At the Ghost Hour: The House of the Unbelieving Thomas</title>
+<meta name="Author" content="Paul Heyse">
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of At the Ghost Hour, by Paul Heyse
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: At the Ghost Hour
+       The House of the Unbelieving Thomas
+
+Author: Paul Heyse
+
+Illustrator: Alice C. Morse
+
+Translator: Frances A. Van Santford
+
+Release Date: October 22, 2010 [EBook #33878]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT THE GHOST HOUR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, page scans provided by Google Books
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<p class="hang1">Transcriber's Notes:<br>
+1. Page scan source:
+http://books.google.com/books?id=m1UpAAAAYAAJ&amp;pg</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h1>At the Ghost Hour</h1>
+
+<h1>The House of the</h1>
+<h1>UNBELIEVING</h1>
+<h1>THOMAS</h1>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF</h3>
+<h2>PAUL HEYSE</h2>
+<h4>BY</h4>
+<h2>FRANCIS A. VAN SANTFORD</h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>WITH DECORATIONS BY<br>
+ALICE C. MORSE</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>NEW YORK</h3>
+<h2>DODD, MEAD &amp; COMPANY</h2>
+<h3>MDCCCXCIV</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>Copyright, 1894, by<br>
+DODD, MEAD &amp; COMPANY.</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h1>THE HOUSE OF THE UNBELIEVING THOMAS</h1>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p class="continue">In a provincial town of northern Germany there is a street in which the
+ancient, high-gabled houses bear, inscribed in Gothic letters, upon the
+lintels of their doors or upon little sandstone tablets, such honorable
+or fanciful names as &quot;The Good Shepherd,&quot; &quot;Noah's Dove,&quot; &quot;The Palms of
+Peace,&quot; &quot;The Rose of Sharon,&quot; and underneath, the date of their
+erection.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In former days this street had been one of the main arteries of the
+city, whose staid, orthodox inhabitants coveted inward spiritual
+illumination rather <img hspace="10" align="left" border="0" src="images/p02.png" alt="cross">than the light and air which penetrate from
+without. Since then new generations had arisen, fired with the spirit
+of aggressive enlightenment, and the importance of these old families,
+content with the stray sunbeams that made their way over the tall
+roofs, had declined perceptibly. One by one, they had died off behind
+their &quot;Palms of Peace&quot; and their &quot;Roses of Sharon,&quot; and had made way
+for the bustling children of the new era, whose light and cheerful
+dwellings sprang up around the dingy old street.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">From one of the houses, which had grown almost black under the storms
+of three centuries, the street had received its name. <img border="0" align="right" src="images/p03.png" alt="skull">Upon a block
+of stone above the wide entrance there were cut, in letters so
+weather-worn as to be scarcely legible, these words: &quot;The Unbelieving
+Thomas, 1534.&quot; From this, the street had been christened Thomas Lane--a
+title which it still bears, though, only in official documents and on
+the map of the city. In common parlance it had been known for more than
+fifty years as &quot;Ghosts' Lane&quot;--again because of that same ancient
+building which was responsible for its correct name.
+For every one knew
+that the house of &quot;The Unbelieving Thomas&quot; was haunted; and even the
+most cold-blooded free-thinkers of the town could not escape a slight
+shiver when business forced them to tread the neglected pavement of
+this street.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Why this old three-storied structure, so firm despite its great age,
+had been inhabited all these years only by poor unabsolved souls, no
+one could tell. With one man who had had the hardihood to purchase the
+house, things had turned out badly enough. A Jew, to whom the great,
+empty rooms seemed suitable for a warehouse, had been established there
+less than two years, when one morning he was found with a bit of silk
+stuff twisted about his neck, hanging from the crosspiece of a window
+in the largest room. And it subsequently became evident that Fortune
+had turned her back upon this man, once prosperous and well-to-do, and
+there was nothing for him but to steal out of the world and leave his
+accumulation of debts behind him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal"><img border="0" align="right" src="images/p05.png" alt="money-bags">Nothing save the house itself and its dusty furnishings remained to the
+creditors; and as no purchaser appeared, they were forced to vent their
+chagrin in fierce glances at the gray, weather-beaten sign over the
+door, upon which, in huge black lettering, was the name of the firm:
+&quot;Commission and Dispatch House of Moritz Feigenbaum.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now, although the whole house was so securely bolted and barred that it
+would have been impossible for a thief to carry anything out of it, the
+court deemed it necessary to provide for some oversight of the place,
+so that no lovers of darkness, counterfeiters or bands of dynamiters
+should take refuge there. Fortunately, there happened to be a poor
+cobbler, whose little house had been destroyed by a flood, and who
+declared himself willing to undertake the duties of janitor. This
+valiant person--Wenzel Kospoth by name, an emigrant from Bohemia--took
+possession of the porter's room by the entrance without further delay,
+regarding this free shelter as a sufficient recompense for his
+services, which were simple enough.
+<img border="0" align="left" src="images/p06.png" alt="latch and keys">He had to open the great, black,
+outer door each morning, and to close it again at night; and now and
+then he took a survey of the three stories to see that no bulging wall
+threatened the downfall of the whole. The entire day he was free to
+devote to his small custom, which remained true to him, even in the
+haunted house; although certain anxious good wives had scruples about
+venturing across the threshold to get a pair of defective boots mended
+in this unwholesome atmosphere.</p>
+
+<p class="normal"><img border="0" align="right" src="images/p07.png" alt="image">For, in fact, honest Wenzel Kospoth, with his bony, grizzled face and
+small, black eyes, deep-set under their bushy brows, did not seem quite
+canny to his new neighbors, hardened though they were to the traditions
+of the street.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he took but little sleep, they could often see him, through the
+window of the ground floor, squatted on his low stool, his lank arms,
+in their shirt-sleeves, braced upon his knees, and lying open on his
+leather apron a large, <img border="0" align="left" src="images/p08.png" alt="bible">old-time book, in which he would read
+industriously until long after midnight, by the light of his little
+lamp. It was only an old Bohemian Bible, which he could now understand
+with difficulty, for he had crossed the German border when only a lad.
+Those who spied upon him, however, regarded the copper-bound volume as
+a book of magic, and believed nothing less than that this singular
+stranger with the foreign name had taken the post of janitor in the
+haunted house that he might conduct there, undisturbed, his magical
+intercourse with evil spirits.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wenzel Kospoth, when told of this report, laughed in his gray beard,
+and muttered something in Bohemian, which might have meant either yes
+or no. In his inmost soul he had a contempt for the stupid Germans, and
+fancied that this very Bible reading made him greatly their superior;
+so that, far from dispelling their superstitions, he seized upon an
+accidental opportunity to strengthen them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">An old acquaintance of his whom he had met in his Sunday walks to a
+neighboring village had come to want through no fault of her own. She
+was a little woman of about forty, who, though brought up in town, had,
+when quite young, married a peasant's son--a drunkard, as it proved. He
+had squandered all her small savings, and dying suddenly, had left her
+with a six-year-old child. As she was clever at sewing, the young widow
+earned many a pretty groschen as village tailoress.
+<img border="0" align="left" src="images/p10.png" alt="dove">But, unfortunately,
+her good heart led her to apply her skill not only to the needs of the
+outer, but to those of the inner man as well, and to dispose of her
+little store of recipes for all possible ailments in return for a
+trifling compensation. In this way she soon gained considerable
+patronage and, at the same time, with several of the more narrow-minded
+villagers, the reputation of being mistress of the black art. And when
+her little daughter had blossomed into a trim young maiden, with
+sparkling black eyes and waving yellow braids, who turned the heads of
+the village lads as she walked with her mother to church, on Sundays
+and feast days, the two came to be looked upon as a pair of
+unmistakable witches by the spiteful old women of the village, and by
+the younger ones whose sweethearts had become a trifle less devoted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The two innocent souls endured all this patiently until one day an
+influential peasant in whose stalls several cows had suddenly died, at
+the instigation of his wicked wife, burst into Frau Cordula's house,
+and hurling a volley of reproaches upon her as the author of his
+misfortune, delivered her such a heavy blow with his fist that from
+that day she was a cripple and could only move about with difficulty
+upon tottering feet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The base miscreant departed triumphant; but his deed was the beginning
+of a series of tribulations--the fruit of woman's hate and envy--until
+the poor woman realized that she must seek safety behind the walls of a
+town if she would not endanger her own life and that of her child among
+these superstitious people.<img border="0" align="right" src="images/p11.png" alt="profile"></p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had only one acquaintance in the town, Wenzel Kospoth; and to him
+she sent letter asking whether he knew of some small lodging where she
+and her daughter could find a refuge and earn their bite of bread
+hidden from curious eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now, behind the haunted house was a gloomy little court in which stood
+a low stable, unused since the horses of Moritz Feigenbaum were sold.
+Above the stable the coachman and errand boy had lived in two large,
+low rooms, with a windowless loft adjoining, where hay and oats had
+been stored. <img border="0" align="left" src="images/p12.png" alt="sparrows">A coach-house shut in the remainder of the court, in the
+centre of which a chestnut-tree, long dead, lifted its dark, leafless
+branches, where a flock of tumultuous sparrows bustled noisily all the
+day long.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">These quarters were not calculated to allure tenants who were partial
+to light and air; and even the poor and unhoused would not risk an
+encounter with the ghost of the last inmate. So the mice held their
+revels undisturbed and feasted royally upon the oats in the granary.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the cobbler when he had received Frau Cordula's message thought at
+once how excellently these lodgings were adapted for his friend. His
+request to the authorities that two shelterless women, for whose
+character he could vouch, be allowed to occupy the lodgings in the
+court at a trifling rental was granted; and one morning he set out for
+the village to assist the mother and daughter in their removal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The two poor persecuted souls were glad to avail themselves of the
+refuge under Wenzel Kospoth's roof, despite its unsavory reputation. A
+wagon was loaded with their bedding and furniture. Upon a chest sat
+Frau Cordula, <img border="0" align="right" src="images/p13.png" alt="image">Gundula hovered near her, while the dark-looking
+Bohemian, who drove the horses himself, cracked his whip so vigorously
+that the assembled village population, which would have accompanied the
+exodus of the witch by caterwaulings, dared give rent to no more
+disrespectful noises than a few whistles.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Their entry into Thomas Lane was made quietly, though the report had
+spread in the neighborhood that a witch from the country was about to
+move into the haunted house. A crowd had assembled before the closed
+entrance; but a look somewhat like disappointment passed over their
+gaping faces when the young girl sprang down from the wagon and the
+older woman, with Kospoth's help, descended carefully from her high
+seat. They fancied the witch would have been older and more gruesome;
+and Gundelchen, with her laughing eyes and yellow braids, under the
+peasant's head-dress, excited almost a feeling of regret that the
+peaceful sleep of these two women was to be disturbed by nocturnal
+apparitions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal"><img border="0" align="left" src="images/p14.png" alt="image">The girl's smile faded when she mounted the narrow stairs and cast her
+first look around. Their cottage had been no fairy bower,
+<img border="0" align="right" src="images/p15.png" alt="flowers">it is true;
+but the sunlight had shone into it, and green gardens and fields lay
+all about it. When, however, she saw her little mother sink down with a
+heavy sigh upon the dusty floor, she quickly recovered herself,
+threw her arms about the poor woman and carried her to a bench near
+the window where she could watch the sparrows in the top of the
+chestnut-tree. Then she began to talk so cheerfully that the mother
+took heart at last and only sighed softly now and then, as with tender
+eyes she watched the child busied in arranging the furniture in their
+new home.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">By the next day the two rooms looked quite habitable. The young girl
+had gone early to the market and bought two cheap pots of flowers; she
+had brushed away the dust, had scrubbed the floors, and hung fresh
+curtains at the square windows before it was time to make the soup upon
+the little stove in the corner.
+<img border="0" align="left" src="images/p16.png" alt="dish and silverware">When Wenzel Kospoth came in at noon to
+ask how it fared with his fellow-tenants, his eyes opened wide with
+astonishment to find everything so neat and comfortable. He must needs
+stop for dinner, and found the frugal meal far more toothsome than the
+food which a neighbor had been wont to serve him in his shop. So it
+came about that the cobbler dined with them regularly, and the small
+sum which he paid helped them with the rent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That she could not hope for much custom in her new home, the sensible
+woman knew well enough. She understood only peasant fashions; and for
+her medicinal skill there was no demand. In her despondency, she almost
+regretted that she had availed herself of Master Kospoth's offer. But
+here Gundula came to her mother's rescue. She had inherited her
+cleverness in womanly handiwork; and she soon apprenticed herself to a
+dressmaker, under whom she took great pains to learn the city fashions.
+She showed herself so quick and skillful that after a few months she
+was employed in the houses of well-to-do families.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In time, many a piece of work was entrusted to her to finish. These she
+took home to her mother, who became once more cheerful, now that her
+hands were no longer idle; and when, at the end of the year,
+<img border="0" align="left" src="images/p18.png" alt="face">she could
+count a pretty little sum laid by in her stocking, she forgave the
+stupid peasants whose persecutions had made her life so wretched.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet even here, in the city, the reputation of holding converse with
+evil spirits clung to her; and inquisitive school-boys, who had once,
+goaded by insatiable curiosity, ventured through the doorway as far as
+the entrance to the court, pointed to the four small windows above the
+stable, with childish awe, and whispered in each other's ears all
+manner of goblin-tales of the Blockenberg and the Devil's dances. The
+most impudent among them finally took courage, called with a loud, but
+trembling voice: &quot;Old witch! Old witch!&quot; in the quiet court, and threw
+a stone against the stable-door; whereupon the whole troop scattered in
+a hasty flight, while even the sparrows, terrified by the unwonted
+clamor, flew out from the dry branches of the chestnut with shrill
+cries.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That the witch remained invisible, added not a little to the
+superstitious dread in which she was held. Her child, however, was
+regarded by the neighbors with mingled sympathy and admiration. They
+could not understand how she kept her red cheeks and laughing eyes amid
+such depressing surroundings; they must say, that any one who had at
+his baptism renounced the devil and all his works, could hardly bring
+himself to marry a girl out of this haunted house. Yet they watched the
+graceful little figure as long as they could see her hat-ribbon wave in
+the wind, and her short skirt blow about her trim ankles.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So far, all seemed orderly and natural in the house of &quot;The Unbelieving
+Thomas,&quot; and the report of ghostly rendezvous there seemed ill-founded.
+But the narrator of this true story is now, at last, forced to the
+confession that, in the closest proximity to these two innocent beings,
+there was installed a ghost, pure and simple, of whose presence neither
+the occupants of the house nor the dwellers in that street had the
+slightest intimation.</p>
+<p class="center"><img src="images/p20.png" alt="sleepers"></p>
+<p class="normal">It is averred that the souls of the dead, when they leave their bodies,
+do not pass directly to heaven or hell; but, according to the Romish
+belief, into purgatory, there to await the day of judgment and the
+resurrection of the body; or, according to the Protestant confession,
+into an intermediate state, where they bide in a condition of uncertain
+expectancy, like that of earthly travelers in a way station. In this
+supernal region there prevails a certain monotony of existence
+unrelieved even by the arrival of newly-released souls who, for the
+most part, bear upon their pallid features the sorrowful trace of a
+reluctant parting.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It is true that spirits of the higher order, those who while yet upon
+earth were raised above the sordid misery of life, and who viewed all
+occurrences in the light of eternity, soon find their way about in the
+gray twilight of this aerial realm,
+<img border="0" align="left" src="images/p21.png" alt="angel">and enjoy meeting a kindred soul
+now and then among the noiseless throng of disembodied spirits, and
+holding converse with those whom they had come to revere for their
+virtuous deeds during their earthly life. So that here, where perfect
+equality and universal brotherhood are generally supposed to hold sway,
+there is a line of distinction between the great and small, to which no
+one offers the least objection. For, as no outward advantage is
+attached to the greater prestige which the nobler souls enjoy, no one
+finds cause for envy in the exalted intercourse with which, their hours
+are filled; while the great majority long ardently for the coarser
+pleasures of their past life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In this painless intermediate state, the more worthy or distinguished
+souls are pursued by only one annoyance, namely, the ever-increasing
+curiosity of those yet living upon earth, who delight to summon the
+spirits of great kings, sages and artists to compulsory interviews.
+This disgraceful amusement has been the fashion at intervals from time
+immemorial, as when, for example, the Witch of Endor summoned the
+spirit of the high priest Samuel to appear before Saul.
+<img border="0" align="left" src="images/p23.png" alt="hour-glasses">But, in our own
+day, the inquisitive practice of drawing the veil from the mysteries of
+the other world has spread through a very wide circle, and no name,
+sounded down from past centuries, is too venerable for its owner to be
+assailed with questions through the medium of some tipping-table or
+hysterical young woman; or even to be constrained to appear personally
+in the transparent guise of his so-called astral body.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The aristocracy of the intermediate kingdom, after they had borne with
+this presumption for some time, at last bethought themselves of an
+innocent expedient which would secure them from further intrusion. They
+made inquiry among the ghostly
+<img border="0" align="right"src="images/p24.png" alt="creatures">masses whether there were any who would
+be willing to serve as their representatives in case of such demands,
+and to answer impertinent questions as seemed to them proper.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now, as many of those who in life had known only selfish pleasures were
+already so wearied of this spiritual existence that they were ready to
+jump out of their skin (if they had had a skin), nothing could be more
+welcome than this proposition to mingle once more in mundane affairs,
+and to amuse themselves for a few hours with the fashionable play of
+question and answer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That they had scant knowledge of the affairs of their famous associates
+disturbed them as little as it did those whom they were to represent.<img border="0" align="right" src="images/p25.png" alt="images">
+For it soon became evident that the questioners at tapping-tables and
+dark seances were in nowise offended by foolish answers, and received
+the most palpable nonsense which was whispered to them in the
+communications of spirits as profound, superhuman wisdom, which they
+interpreted according to their wishes. It is easy to pipe for him who
+loves to dance; and he who is determined to hold converse with Julius
+Cæsar, Plato or Beethoven, will hear, in the stammering utterances of
+some cartman with whom he has in some mysterious way put himself <i>en
+rapport</i>, words of the sublimest import.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Several years ago, the town in which the scene of this story is laid
+was attacked with the fever of spiritualism. At first, people were
+content to move tables and produce rappings, but by degrees they grew
+ambitious for a more exalted mode of spiritual intercourse; and two
+mediums, with their hypnotic subjects, made their entry into town, so
+that hardly a night passed without some ghostly doings--and that, too,
+in the homes of the best and most cultured families.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To satisfy the increasing demand, it was decided to establish two of
+the more robust spirits permanently in town, that they might be ready
+at the lightest summons.
+<img border="0" align="left" src="images/p26.png" alt="3 wine jugs">Two candidates offered themselves at once for
+the post--one, the spirit of a traveling wine-seller, the other, the
+soul of a house-servant, who, it chanced, had been employed by the
+burgomaster of the town, and thus was especially conversant with the
+affairs of the inhabitants.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This somewhat dissimilar pair seemed qualified to meet all
+requirements, and one fine evening they sallied forth. Johann Gruber,
+the servant, proposed that they take up their quarters in the house of
+&quot;The Unbelieving Thomas;&quot; for even spirits of coarser mould, becoming
+accustomed to the stillness of the other world, avoid noisy districts
+in this.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No more quiet sleeping-place for two sensitive shadows could be found
+than the lofty, dark coach-house adjoining the stable. The door opening
+on the court was always ajar, but the dusty floor was never trodden by
+human foot. An ancient calash stood in the farthest corner, its
+leathern portions so gnawed away by the rats that it had wasted into
+the mere skeleton of a carriage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As soon as Heinrich Müller, the quondam mercantile traveler, beheld
+this ruin, he declared his wish to become its exclusive possessor. <img border="0" align="right" src="images/p28.png" alt="image">With
+a soft sigh, evoked by the recollection of his former merry
+journeyings, he stretched his ethereal form comfortably upon the
+cushions, from which the leather covering and horsehair had been eaten
+away, leaving the quills of the feathers sticking through--a
+circumstance which, unpleasant as it might have proved to an occupant
+with flesh and bones, in nowise impaired the comfort of this spiritual
+essence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Johann Gruber, who in his lifetime had traveled much with his master,
+found a large chest in another corner, the like of those he had so
+often packed, and made himself comfortable therein; for upon this first
+night no seance was in progress.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They soon found that their post was far from easy. Each had his
+hands full of work. Here, he had to slip into some table and answer
+the oddest questions; there, he must respond to some crafty or
+self-deceived medium, or if it were desired, materialize--as the
+technical term is--and personate this or that well-known individual to
+gratify the pious curiosity of his surviving friends.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">These nightly labors were so fatiguing to both that when they returned
+to their quarters, and without waiting even to exchange &quot;good-night,&quot;
+slipped into their corners to sleep, they wished themselves back in the
+state they had left. Indeed, they would probably have renounced the
+service after a few weeks, had not the arrival of Frau Cordula and her
+daughter altered the condition of affairs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">From the first, the wine-seller conceived so violent an attachment for
+the fair, slender girl, that the thought of leaving her for the
+loveless world of spirit was not to be tolerated.
+<img border="0" align="right" src="images/p29.png" alt="heart">In his lifetime he
+had been known as a ladies' man; and although he had exchanged his
+carnal nature for a spiritual existence, he, like all poor souls who
+hover over the spot where in life they have buried their treasure,
+could not leave this child of earth, unresponsive though she must ever
+be to his affection.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It happened,
+<img border="0" align="left" src="images/p30.png" alt="hearts and arrow">too, that Johann Gruber, passing one day by accident
+through a retired street, met an old flame, in the person of the cook
+who had served in the house of his master. As comely as ever, she
+formed a new bond to connect him with this earthly sphere. From that
+day he ceased to chaff his infatuated colleague. Instead of ridicule, a
+fine ear could now have heard for many a night a duet of tender sighs
+resounding from the walls of the dark coach-house, and accompanied by
+the rustling and scrambling of the little mice.</p>
+<p class="center"><img src="images/p31.png" alt="image"></p>
+<p class="normal">This state of affairs had continued for nearly a year when, one
+moonlight night, the spirit of Johann Gruber turned homeward from a
+tiresome day's work. Sleepy though he was, he took a roundabout way,
+past a certain house, on the ground floor of which his early love had
+opened a tap-room. Possibly he was further attracted by the winey
+fragrance which had, in his lifetime exerted a powerful influence over
+him. He raised himself to a level with the window, the upper sash of
+which was open, and perching himself upon the crosspiece, took a survey
+of the room. A stout woman sat behind the bar,
+<img border="0" align="left" src="images/p32.png" alt="pipes?">and nodded over her
+knitting, from which she occasionally drew a needle and scratched her
+frowsy head, yawning the while and rubbing her small, watery eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A little girl was sleeping upon a stool by the stove. Several workmen
+in their shirt-sleeves sat at a table playing cards. When any of them
+trumped an ace, they rapped with their knuckles and the little one
+sighed in her sleep.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The gallant ghost could not suppress a sigh as he reflected how fine it
+would be if he were still living, and as landlord and husband could
+scold the stout woman, and send the little Lisa early to bed. But fate
+had decreed otherwise, and he descended from his lofty seat and flitted
+homeward through the deserted streets to the haunted house.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Arrived at the gateway he peeped in a moment through the window of the
+porter's room. There sat Wenzel Kospoth, still bending over his folio.
+The glow from the lamp silvered his gray head; but his small eyes were
+closed, so that it was uncertain whether he were napping, or sunk in
+deep thought. Johann Gruber shrugged his shoulders. He could not endure
+the valiant old man, because other people regarded him as a magician,
+and he calmly acquiesced; whereas Johann knew that this attributed
+power over the spirits of hell was clearly a swindle. His colleague,
+too, disliked the cobbler, and sometimes threatened to do him harm,
+indebted though they were to him for their unlighted quarters.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The night wanderer now sought the crevice in the old house-door through
+which he was accustomed to slip in. But to-night, finding an obstacle,
+he noticed, for the first, that he was still in the materialized
+condition in which he had been forced to show himself at the medium's
+command. Instantly he stripped the garment from his shoulders, like a
+paletot, saw it dissolve in thin air, and glided unimpeded through the
+door and across the court.</p>
+<p class="center"><img src="images/p34.png" alt="image"></p>
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good evening, Herr Müller!&quot; said he, in a whisper. &quot;Have you turned in
+already? Much work to-day?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Out of the calash in the corner came back a faint echo, which trembled
+as from inward vexation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How often must I tell you, stupid, to go to bed quietly and not
+disturb well-bred people in their first sleep? You smell of bad liquor
+again. Have the goodness to keep away from me and creep into your
+chest!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oho!&quot; snarled the other, approaching his irate companion and settling
+himself upon a shaft of the carriage. &quot;The deuce take your fine
+manners! You are no better than I--Spirit is Spirit, and you are on the
+wrong track when you accuse me of drinking. You know very well we can
+no longer pour down a draught behind our cravats, for we have no
+cravats. No, Herr Müller, what you smell is the pure, soul fragrance.
+Your own is not exactly like violets, either. Why should it be, if it
+savors of the deeds done in your lifetime? You understand? Take care
+you don't go too far; for if it should come to blows--I have
+<img border="0" align="right" src="images/p35.png" alt="flowers">been a
+match for more than one when I was at service at the inn of The Three
+Lilies, and with such a fellow as you--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Be still, will you!&quot; commanded the voice from the calash, rather
+faintly. &quot;You know I meant no harm; it is only because I am so wretched
+in this dog's life of a professional ghost, and besides that, this
+confounded love affair, and no rest at night--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, indeed, I can well believe it!&quot; sighed the other, easily
+pacified. &quot;You are even worse off than I, and not so much as a kiss
+will all this bring you.</p>
+<p class="center"><img src="images/p36.png" alt="image"></p>
+<p class="continue">It would be a good thing if you would put the
+girl out of your mind. It's all nonsense, anyway.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A heavy sigh came from the black depths of the wagon frame.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That you don't understand, I observe. When this maiden, decked with
+all heavenly charms, crosses my path,
+<img border="0" align="right" src="images/p37.png" alt="butterfly">I am like a poor moth that cannot
+keep away from the lamp, although it does not go near it with the exact
+intention of burning its wings. I often think the priests' invention is
+not the real hell--as indeed we know; the true one is the suffering
+which we incur by our earthly sins. More than one little goose of a
+girl has cried her eyes out over me; a confoundedly handsome fellow I
+was, with a pocketful of money. Then, out of sight was out of mind with
+me; but now I am in for it. What I endure is heart-breaking. There is
+no drinking to the oblivion of this soul-suffering.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was silent, exhausted by this passionate outburst; and only a slight
+whimper was audible from the corner. His sympathetic comrade had in the
+meantime withdrawn to his chest. After a little, he said: &quot;How
+beautifully you express it all, Herr Müller! Just so it goes with my
+Rieka. In my lifetime I laughed when I heard them talk of everlasting
+love. But there is something in it, after all. Now, if your Gundelchen
+and my Rieka should come to us up yonder, perhaps we might continue our
+courting. Perhaps, upon the last day--well, we must wait. In the
+meantime, good-night! pleasant dreams!&quot;</p>
+<p class="center"><img src="images/p38.png" alt="dragons?"></p>
+<p class="normal">From the carriage in the corner came no answer--only a soft, ghost-like
+snore. Grief seemed at last to have left the poor sinners to their
+rest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the sleep of the two much-enduring ghosts was to be broken in upon
+in a strange way that night.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In a little cafe by the market place two good friends and
+school-fellows were celebrating their <i>
+Wiedersehen</i>
+with several
+bottles of Rhine wine. The one, a dignified young man of
+four-and-twenty, had just returned from a neighboring university, with
+the degree of Doctor of Medicine. Before accepting the proffered
+position of assistant in the office of a distinguished physician, he
+contemplated a year of travel. Following the promptings of his heart,
+he visited first his native town; though all ties of kindred there had
+been broken by the death of his parents.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A youthful attachment, formed in his gymnasium days and continued
+through his student years, despite many breaks and reconciliations, was
+rumored to be on the point of becoming an engagement. But as yet no
+word had been spoken; and, indeed,
+<img border="0" align="left" src="images/p40.png" alt="letters and quill">even an exchange of letters had been
+interdicted by the stern father. The young man had thought of her less
+than usual this past year, but had excused himself on the ground of
+absorbing study. Of his old companions, only one, a civil engineer, had
+settled in the town. This good comrade insisted upon sharing his
+bachelor quarters with his friend during his stay. They met at the
+station, the newly-fledged doctor arriving by an evening train; and
+midnight found them still exchanging experiences at the café whither
+they had gone for supper.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are awaited with impatience, Philip,&quot; said the engineer. &quot;Papa
+Stadtrath asked me yesterday whether you did not intend to display
+yourself in the full splendor of your new honors to your native town. I
+answered evasively. You ought not to accept engagements at once, but
+devote the first two or three days to rest. For, listen! You are
+looking pale and nervous; the fatigues of your examination show plainly
+upon your face.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That he had judged correctly of his friend's condition became evident
+as soon as they left the café. They had drank but lightly; yet,
+directly the young doctor found himself in the open air, his head swam,
+he grew unsteady on his feet and began to talk so boisterously,
+swinging his walking-stick against the windows as they went along, that
+his friend, fearing that Philip might meet some acquaintance and
+introduce himself anew in this disgraceful fashion, took a roundabout
+way home, through Ghost Lane, where they were sure of being unobserved.
+Locking his arm in that of his friend, he piloted him along, keeping in
+the shadow of the aristocratic houses, past the &quot;Good Shepherd,&quot;
+&quot;Noah's Dove,&quot; and the &quot;Rose of Sharon,&quot; in which no sound was heard
+and from whose grated windows no light shone forth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They had just reached the house of &quot;The Unbelieving Thomas,&quot; when the
+riotous young man stood suddenly still, shook himself loose from his
+friend by a violent gesture,
+<img border="0" align="left" src="images/p42.png" alt="image">and declared that he was ready to
+challenge all the spooky spirits of the lane--which he now, for the
+first time, recognized. He proposed to thrust them through with the
+weapons of science till they were frightened back into the nebulous
+nothingness whence only the baldest superstition had suffered them to
+creep forth. This should be his first service to his native town,
+which, to its own shame, had tolerated this relic of Egyptian darkness,
+or worse, of Medievalism, here in its midst, at the end of the
+nineteenth century.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He struck a defiant attitude on the sidewalk,
+<img border="0" align="right" src="images/p43.png" alt="face">while with one arm he
+brandished his stick against possible ghostly opponents and with the
+other he warded off his friend. In this way he lost his balance and
+fell against the house, striking his head so forcibly upon the sharp
+edge of the door-post that a large jet of blood spurted instantly from
+the wounded temple.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In great consternation his friend attempted to raise him and staunch
+the wound with his handkerchief, while he called loudly for help. In
+this last effort he was finally successful, for the narrow window of
+the porter's room, directly over their heads, was flung open. In a few
+words the engineer explained to Wenzel Kospoth what had happened. When
+the trusty Bohemian opened the door and saw the wound by the light of
+his candle, he shook his head. It would be impossible to convey the
+young man, bleeding thus profusely, to his home, without giving
+occasion for much talk. There was no comfortable place for him in his
+stuffy shop; but it happened that in the rear court lived a friend of
+his who was skilled in such matters, and they would carry the gentleman
+to her without arousing the neighborhood.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No sooner said than done. As they crossed the court with their heavy
+burden, they saw a light shining out of Frau Cordula's windows, one of
+which was opened in answer to the cobbler's call. But the voice which
+inquired what was the matter was that of Gundula, who was still awake
+and busied in finishing off some work for the morrow. Learning what
+Samaritan service was required of them, she quickly appeared at the
+door below, clasping her hands in terror as she saw the blood streaming
+from the young man's forehead. The older woman, too, was not a little
+disturbed when they laid her patient down before her; but retaining her
+presence of mind, she directed her daughter to fetch her box of
+remedies. Out of this she took the necessary articles; then, with fresh
+water she cleansed the wound, which, fortunately, had not penetrated
+the bone, pressed the jagged edges firmly together, and closed them
+with a needle and thread, finishing by binding a soft bandage over the
+forehead.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">During these proceedings the patient had not once regained
+consciousness, but lay bolstered up with two pillows on an old sofa in
+the living-room. The woman hobbled about on her two crutches, and from
+time to time applied cooling bandages to the heated brow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She assured the two men there was no danger,--the wound would heal in a
+few days. The friend saw that he was in fact superfluous; and
+recognizing the skill of the good woman, he renounced his intention of
+watching during the night, and with heartfelt thanks, withdrew with
+Wenzel Kospoth.</p>
+<p class="center"><img src="images/p46a.png" alt="crutches"></p>
+<p class="normal">Noiselessly as all this had taken place, yet the whispers and hurried
+movements in the coachman's lodgings had not failed to reach the fine
+ear of Herr Heinrich Müller, and to awaken him. In his dreams his
+thoughts had been continually with Gundula,
+<img border="0" align="left" src="images/p46b.png" alt="three hearts pierced with arrow">and he could not rest in
+his calash, but must needs peep through the window and witness the
+assiduity with which she attended the wounded man.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Johann Gruber, in his chest
+<img border="0" align="left" src="images/p47a.png" alt="chest">in the corner, would have had no inkling
+of the adventure had not his ghostly companion returned to the
+coach-house, when all was again still, and vented his jealous rage in
+imprecations upon all the living. The hated Bohemian swindler he
+accused of basely conniving to provide a settlement for the daughter of
+his friend; <img border="0" align="right" src="images/p47b.png" alt="image">and of tripping up the young man in front of his door that
+the old witch might cure him, and her patient in turn, out of
+gratitude, pay his court to the girl.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Johann Gruber listened to all this with the utmost tranquility, and
+yawned so loudly that his colleague turned upon him, and after they had
+quarreled and hurled bitter words at each other for a time, they fell
+asleep again from sheer exhaustion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Late in the morning the doctor awoke. When he unclosed his heavy
+eyelids and found himself lying upon a strange, poor sort of couch, in
+an unfamiliar room, he at first believed himself to be still dreaming.
+How came he in this large, low room, so poorly furnished? On the wall
+were two oil-chromos--a portrait of the Emperor and a spinach-green
+landscape,--upon the corner closet stood a wig-block with flaming red
+cheeks, and not far off was a peasant's chest, painted blue, with white
+tulips! This surely could not be the bachelor lodgings of his friend!
+And where was his friend? While he was puzzling himself about the
+matter, he felt a dull heaviness in his head, and pain in his temples.
+<img border="0" align="right" src="images/p49.png" alt="crutches">Mechanically he raised his hand to touch the aching spot, and to his
+astonishment felt a bandage--at the same instant he heard a halting
+step and the tapping of two crutches upon the bare, scoured floor, and
+saw before him the little woman who, while he had slept, had been
+sitting noiselessly at her work by the window. Now his eyes opened in
+wonder and his full consciousness returned, while she told him how it
+was he had claimed their hospitality on the preceding night.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He listened attentively to the good woman, but made no reply, passively
+allowing her to remove the bandage and inspect the wound, which she
+found satisfactory; whereupon he declared that he felt quite well, save
+a slight dizziness and a great emptiness of the stomach, which would be
+relieved by a proper breakfast. Mother Cordula brought him a glass of
+water and hastened to her little stove to make him as good a cup of
+coffee as she was able.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile Philip sat upright among his pillows and asked all manner of
+questions. A great sense of comfort stole over him in this poor room
+behind the well-mended but snowy curtains, in the company of this
+simple, sensible woman, whose features were shadowed by a gentle
+seriousness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And now the door opened and a young creature came in, stepping lightly
+on her tiptoes, nodding to the older woman and throwing a passing
+glance at the stranger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My daughter,&quot; said the mother, &quot;the gentleman has just waked and would
+like his breakfast. He is doing well, thank God! Have you brought
+everything with you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The girl, still quite out of breath, assented, and put down her basket
+upon a chair. Philip saw that it contained various market purchases
+much more abundant than they would have provided for their own dinner
+table. <img border="0" align="right" src="images/p51.png" alt="two hares">His attention, however, was soon diverted by the young girl, who
+pleased him uncommonly well. She wore a plain brown dress that must
+have seen long service; and, as its wearer had not yet done growing, it
+had been pieced down, quite regardless of the fashion, though even now
+the slender ankles showed beneath it. She had taken off her hat, a
+black straw, trimmed with a knot of red, and her pretty face was framed
+by an abundance of thick, brown braids, out of which a little forest of
+curling locks had escaped over her neck. As she moved noiselessly to
+and fro, assisting her mother, she avoided meeting the young man's
+glance, and spoke softly, as though in the presence of a very sick
+person, when she answered her mother's questions about her work.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the most charming thing of all was the way the black eyes, always a
+trifle downcast, would open suddenly, dart a swift glance around, which
+seemed to break into lightning-like sparks and then suddenly drop their
+long lashes again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Twice only, when Philip directed some playful remark to her, did her
+red lips break into a smile and a dimple appear in her cheek, showing
+that behind that modest, almost childlike brow, was a roguish spirit
+which was only repressed by the consciousness of her lowly position and
+by considerations of good breeding.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When the mother and daughter sat down to their midday meal other
+company appeared--first, Master Kospoth, their daily guest, then the
+young engineer. Both were rejoiced to see such an improvement in the
+patient; and the friend wished to procure a carriage and convey Philip
+at once to his own lodgings.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Cordula, however, insisted upon keeping him until the following
+day. The wound, it is true, had begun to heal; but she herself must
+renew the bandage several times, and she could not leave her room to
+visit the patient.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No one was better pleased with this plan than the invalid himself. He
+maintained that he had never slept better, nor drank better coffee.
+When the men had gone, and Gundula also, he seated himself upon a
+little stool by the window where her sewing machine stood, took up her
+scissors, stuck her little thimble upon his finger, and plunged into a
+cosy chat with the mother as she sat at the other window with her
+sewing. He drew from her the story of her life; and the calm way in
+which she spoke of her sad lot, the cruelty of her neighbors, and
+recompense for those trials which she had found in her child, touched
+the heart of her young listener, and awoke in him a feeling akin to
+veneration. When at length Gundula came home in the evening, she
+appeared less constrained, and ventured to ask if his wound hurt him,
+or should she get some ice to cool the wrappings. To this he would not
+consent, and his gallant protest evoked a slight flush upon her cheek.
+When she wished to move her machine into the adjoining room lest its
+noise disturb him, he would not allow this either, but moved a chair
+near her, and watched her taper fingers and the delicate contour of her
+face as she bent over her work. The mother, however, remarked that her
+patient needed to go to sleep early, sent out the child, dressed the
+wound freshly with salve, and withdrew to the back room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Outside, in the court, a light shadow had been spying in at the window
+for an hour past--the poor soul of Heinrich Müller,
+<img border="0" align="right" src="images/p55.png" alt="image">which was racked by
+the torments of jealousy, and would not retreat until the young pair,
+who evidently enjoyed themselves together, were parted once more.
+That upon this evening, one of the best mediums pursued his vocation
+without result and failed to call up a single spirit, had its
+natural explanation in the infatuation which kept this self-declared
+lady-killer of old a watcher at the window of our simple peasant maid.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The melancholy ghost felt no slight
+<img border="0" align="left" src="images/p56.png" alt="globe">relief when upon the following
+afternoon his lively rival took leave of his excellent nurse and her
+daughter and departed for the home of his friend. But the joy was of
+short duration; for the next evening, as soon as the darkness would
+allow him to take his way unobserved to Ghost Lane, the young doctor
+appeared at Frau Cordula's house to have his wound dressed. This time
+the stitches were removed, and a plaster was applied over the cloth
+with the healing balsam. He had brought a large cornucopia containing a
+variety of fruits and confections, at which Gundelchen consented to
+nibble, after much persuasion. She had now thawed completely, and
+Philip thought he had never heard a prettier laugh from girlish lips
+than that which greeted the recital of his student pranks. When, at
+times, the conversation took a more serious turn, Gundelchen took part
+shyly, asking any number of sensible questions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And so it went on the following evenings. Sometimes the engineer came,
+too, and in the lowly apartment there was such good cheer that they all
+forgot <img border="0" align="right" src="images/p57.png" alt="nine wine cups">the hour and had to be reminded by Master Kospoth that they must
+not overstep the time for closing the great door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was not the young people alone who found these evening chats
+enjoyable; it was good for Frau Cordula as well, to see a bit of life
+around her once more, and to be able to converse with intelligent
+people. Still, she could not disguise the fact that a strange
+alteration had come upon her child; she went about abstractedly all
+day, and only regained her old-time merriment in the evening to fall
+again into a reverie when she was alone with her mother.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The wise woman was accordingly glad when one evening she could inform
+her patient that the wound was almost healed, and that even the scar
+would soon disappear if he continued to apply the ointment which she
+gave him in a little jar. She would now take leave of him, as his
+visits could hardly be concealed if continued much longer, and she
+herself wished to avoid all gossip among her uncharitable neighbors.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The young man started, and Gundelchen grew as pale as death; but her
+mother had such a decided way, that there was nothing for them but to
+part sadly, after Philip had consumed a good five minutes in thanking
+anew his deliverer, pressing her hand the while. The daughter lighted
+him out to the head of the steep stairs. As he stood there a minute or
+two in evident perplexity, wishing to say something, yet still silent,
+he cast one quick glance at her standing beside him in all her charming
+confusion, seized her hand and kissed it; then, as she drew back,
+blushing deeply, and murmured, &quot;But, Herr Doctor!&quot; he threw his arm
+hastily around her and printed a swift kiss upon her hot cheek,
+whereupon he rushed down the narrow stairs, and, with a fast-beating
+heart, strode homeward through the sultry night.
+<img border="0" align="left" src="images/p59.png" alt="anchor and heart">Heinrich Müller had
+fortunately been engaged at a <i>
+séance</i>
+and had not witnessed this
+scene. When, a couple of hours later, he looked in at Gundelchen's
+window, he saw her with wide-open eyes, and a smile on her
+<img border="0" align="right" src="images/p60.png" alt="image">face,
+dreaming--but of what he had no suspicion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On the following day, a servant brought a large, firmly-locked box up
+the stairs to the little house in the rear court. Gundula had just come
+in to dinner, and Wenzel Kospoth, too, happened to be present when the
+box was opened. Within it lay all manner of pretty finery for a young
+girl, and a warm dress-pattern for an older woman. With it came a note
+containing the request that they would kindly accept these trifles and
+thus relieve the sender, in some slight degree, of the weight of
+obligation which lay upon his heart.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the lid lay a very modest little brooch. The girl had once
+complained that she lost all her pins; now the hope was expressed that
+this little clasp would hold more firmly, and that, at the same time,
+it would secure the recollection of a true friend.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wenzel Kospoth shook his gray head and muttered something about a
+gallant young man who would do the generous thing. But Frau Cordula
+directed the child to get pen and paper at once, and write down what
+she should dictate, which was as follows:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She thanked the Herr Doctor many times for his kind intention to give
+them pleasure; but she could on no account accept these costly
+presents, as she must of necessity perform her medical services without
+compensation, if she would not render herself liable to punishment on
+the charge of unlawful practice. She would therefore return everything
+at once, and remain the Herr Doctor's</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:10%">Respectful and devoted servant,</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:20%"><span class="sc">Cordula Ehrenberg</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When Philip received this message, which was brought him together with
+the box <img border="0" align="right" src="images/p61.png" alt="box">by a boy from Ghost Lane, he was greatly crestfallen. He knew
+the simple woman so well that he suffered himself to be deluded by no
+doubts of her entire sincerity in thus declining all further
+intercourse. And as he had to confess to himself that he could not
+seriously think of making her child his wife, and was still less
+inclined to play with her feelings, he finally concluded, with a deep
+sigh, to lock fast the chamber of his heart, which was haunted by the
+image of the witch's child, and to draw a cross over the whole
+adventure.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the same time he recalled to himself, for the first time, that he
+was already half-engaged to another;
+<img border="0" align="left" src="images/p62.png" alt="image">and he took pains to fan anew the
+flame of his youthful love, which, in this last week, had died down to
+an almost imperceptible little spark.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The surest means to this end would be a visit to the house of the
+Stadtraths. Yet, although he could now, with his scar concealed by a
+narrow strip of plaster, appear once more as a smart young suitor, he
+put off the once longed-for interview from day to day, stayed quietly
+in the house and whiled away the lonely hours when his host was away at
+business, in a depressing idleness, in desultory reading, smoking and
+lying on the sofa, in a sort of dream, wherein he could not prevent a
+certain slender, girlish figure from hovering before his mental eye.
+Sometimes the long lashes would be raised, and swift little flashes
+would shoot out from a pair of black, star-like eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But one evening this kind of fireworks grew so uncanny that he sprang
+up, dressed himself carefully and started for the house of his youthful
+sweetheart.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On the way, his heart throbbed violently and he with difficulty
+restrained himself from turning down a side street in the direction of
+Ghost Lane. But the nearer he drew to his destination the calmer he
+grew. His fate lay still in his own hands; nothing compelled him to say
+the decisive word that night--especially as he had his long-intended
+journey before him. So he mounted the steps of the house with
+indifference, and with a firm hand pulled the well-known bell.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The daughter of the house opened the door herself, but greeted him with
+a cool, well-feigned surprise, as one might a visitor whom he had
+believed to be a hundred miles away, and ushered him at once into the
+parlor, where a little circle of family friends was assembled. The
+father was still at his office, but the mother, who had always petted
+the young man as if he were the legacy of her deceased friend,
+exhibited this evening a stiff, reserved manner, congratulated him upon
+successfully passing his last examination, inquired how long he
+expected to remain in the city, and addressed him once and again as
+Herr Doctor. He noticed at once that the conversation which he had
+interrupted had been concerned with himself, but he maintained his
+composure and excused his deferred visit on the ground of an accident
+which had befallen him--he had made a false step and had fallen,
+striking his head against a stone; on which account he had been for
+several days under a physician's care.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No one expressed, save for mere politeness' sake, any regret at this,
+and the conversation dragged itself wearily along.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Philip had leisure to observe the daughter of the house, as she sat
+near him, her little nose tilted high in the air, and her lips pursed
+up ironically. She had been so frequently told that she was the
+prettiest girl in town, she had been so unquestionably the queen of the
+ballroom for three winters, that it seemed a mere matter of course that
+everyone should pay homage to her youthful highness; and especially did
+she expect it of her old playmate who had been used to bring her the
+most bouquets <img border="0" align="left" src="images/p66.png" alt="bouquet">at every cotillon. Moreover, in spite of his disfigured
+forehead, he pleased her better than all her other society slaves, and
+she had in secret decided that if he should prove himself worthy of the
+honor, she would make him overwhelmingly happy by the bestowal of her
+favor upon him. And now to have him sit there by her side, as impassive
+as a block of wood, was unpardonable; and she resolved within her cold
+little heart that he should feel her righteous anger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The changed deportment of her prospective son-in-law was still more
+annoying to the high-spirited Frau Stadtrath, who had fancied that the
+long-awaited betrothal, for which she already had in readiness a
+touching and impressive speech, would take place at the earliest
+opportunity. The presence of the other ladies at this time seemed to
+her most undesirable; and as she continued to hope that Philip's
+evidently adverse humor proceeded from the fact that he could not meet
+Rosa alone, she made several awkward attempts to get rid of the
+company. As these were thwarted by the general curiosity to see more of
+the young doctor, she broke in at last with the words: &quot;You never would
+have guessed, my dear Doctor, that during this last year, while you
+have been away, we could make such progress in all kinds of occult
+science and maintain such a lively intercourse with the world of
+spirit. Instead of the regular evening card-playing, we now question
+this round table about many things we wish to know; and even I, who at
+the beginning was quite incredulous, have been gradually converted.
+<img border="0" align="right" src="images/p68.png" alt="image">I
+see you shrug your shoulders; of course, modern natural science regards
+all spiritualistic experiments as so many humbugs, and as it is quite
+true that much deception does creep in, I will not allow any medium or
+hypnotist to cross my threshold. But a wooden table--what interest
+could that have in leading us astray, especially as we are able to
+control its oracles?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And have these ghostly revelations always been found reliable and
+correct by you?&quot; inquired Philip--careful lest his words betray the
+scorn he felt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not always; of course, sometimes the answers sound ambiguous,
+sometimes they are wide of the mark, and then again they hit it so
+exactly that no one could doubt their supernatural origin. Heaven
+knows, one cannot expect a departed spirit to be omniscient; and you
+know well that a fool--I beg the company's pardon--a fool can ask more
+questions than ten of the wisest tables can answer. But you shall judge
+for yourself, my dear Doctor. Rosa has already enjoyed anticipating the
+kind of face you would make if you were once to attend such a sitting.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I beg you will leave me out of the game, Frau Stadtrath,&quot; said Philip,
+evasively. &quot;I fear the tips of my fingers lack the necessary fluid, and
+I should only frustrate your design if I were to form one of the
+chain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, no!&quot; put in the daughter, hastily. &quot;You must take part; otherwise
+you will think the thing is not done honestly and that each of us finds
+his sport in deceiving the rest. Come, now, and try for yourself to
+thwart the thing. You will see that the table will always have the last
+word.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The tea service and cloth were accordingly removed forthwith, and the
+seven or eight persons who sat around the circular table closed the
+magic chain with their outstretched hands, and waited with suppressed
+impatience the things which should come to pass.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Philip's little finger rested with a light pressure upon that of his
+fair young neighbor; but though, formerly,
+<img border="0" align="left" src="images/p70.png" alt="design">such a tender proximity
+would have sent a glow of warmth through his veins, to-day he remained
+quite cool as though he were merely waiting until the reputed magic
+fluid should stream from the slender hand near his own and animate the
+lifeless wood.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now, it happened that on this evening our old acquaintance, Heinrich
+Müller, had undertaken the spiritualistic duties in this house,
+although he usually reserved himself for commissions of a higher order.
+But upon the preceding evening his more ignorant colleague had been put
+to rout so ignominiously that he would not expose himself soon again to
+a like experience. At the request of the assembled company, the medium
+had called up the spirit of Napoleon, and had propounded to it all
+kinds of historical questions. Now, as Johann Gruber, in his former
+capacity of house-servant, had known nothing of the great Corsican,
+and, indeed, had only heard his name when the talk had turned upon
+Napoleon-players--of whom he had had occasion to eject several from the
+inn when in the service of its landlord--he gave such startling and
+distorted answers that the leading spiritualist was overcome with
+embarrassment, and finally bade him go to the devil, while he explained
+to the questioners that the spirit had played one of his scornful jokes
+upon them because he was very angry at being dragged down to earth
+again from his heavenly exaltation.</p>
+<p class="center"><img src="images/p72.png" alt="design"></p>
+<p class="normal">Heinrich Müller, on the contrary, who had more culture and was never at
+a loss to furnish some ambiguous solution for difficult questions,
+responded to the summons from the Stadtrath's house the more willingly
+in that he had seen his rival enter it, and burned to play him a trick.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For this an opportunity was soon afforded. For, when he had slipped
+into the table and had announced his presence by raising one foot and
+stamping softly, the Fräulein Rosa, after some inconsequential
+skirmishing, asked directly whether he knew that a strange guest had
+inserted himself into the chain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; answered the table, to the great satisfaction of the believing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Did he know his name?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Philip,&quot; rapped the table foot.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Did he know where this Philip had been staying since he came to town?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ghost Lane,&quot; spelled the table, without reflecting that this would be
+a surprise to the company; for what should a young physician just
+returned home have to call him to that ill-omened street?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And so the Fräulein, for she alone had noticed the strange flush mount
+to her neighbor's face, inquired promptly what had taken him thither;
+<img border="0" align="right" src="images/p73.png" alt="design">and forthwith the table-spirit stamping the foot by a violent motion,
+rapped out:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A love affair!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The impression which this word made was so strong that the chain at
+once parted, and all eyes were turned toward the young man, who
+concealed his embarrassment by a scornful laugh and remarked that such
+scandalous jokes proved to him plainly that they were bent upon teasing
+him, and the innocent table had been forced into the plot.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">However, Fräulein Rosa, who had kept a sharp eye upon him, grew
+crimson, not from shame, but from righteous indignation, that her
+heretofore obedient and submissive subject had allowed himself to be
+led into such a course of treachery. Accordingly she commanded the
+circle to form again instantly, and while her trembling little finger
+betrayed all her emotion to her neighbor at the table, <img border="0" align="left" src="images/p74.png" alt="bow and hearts">she put the
+decided question: &quot;For whom in Ghost Lane has Dr. Philip conceived a
+tender feeling?&quot; The table answered immediately: &quot;G-u-n-d-e-l-chen!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Gundelchen!&quot; said the questioner, spelling the word after it, and she
+drew back her hand as though she had touched a wet frog. &quot;Well, Herr
+Doctor, do you require any further evidence? And so it is really
+that frivolous little person, the daughter of that disreputable old
+woman!--you remember, mamma, don't you? our seamstress brought the
+little country girl to our house with her once to help with the
+sewing--a creature entirely without culture. And to her you have
+actually paid court, Herr Doctor, and have found her society so
+interesting that you have neglected your oldest friends for it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With flaming eyes she hurled these reproaches at him, in her rash
+excitement never stopping to consider that she thus disclosed the deep,
+hidden wound in her own heart. But the others divined it, and her
+mother made her a sign with her eyes that she should control herself.<img border="0" align="left" src="images/p76.png" alt="face">
+To Philip it was a matter of indifference whether his young friend,
+whose face at this moment appeared to him distorted by passion and
+almost hateful, thus laid bare her feelings in her jealous anger. His
+only concern was to refute the unfounded and malignant suspicions which
+had attached to the good woman in Ghost Lane.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He therefore exclaimed with quiet firmness that he would hear nothing
+against the mother and daughter. It was with gross injustice they had
+been termed &quot;disreputable;&quot; and whoever called the young girl
+&quot;frivolous,&quot; clearly could not know her. Here he related with frank
+ingenuousness how he had made their acquaintance and come to be under
+obligations of gratitude to these good Samaritans.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When he had finished his recital, Fräulein Rosa stood up and said with
+a trembling voice: &quot;There is no disputing about tastes. I understand
+now that for this whole fortnight you had no wish to look up your
+nearest friends, because you were lost in admiration of these two
+pearls. As people of our own station can bear no comparison with them,
+I would prefer to withdraw, that you need not be too long detained from
+your evening visit to Ghost Lane.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Whereat, she curtesied with a very grand air to the young man, bowed to
+the others, and withdrew to the adjoining room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The rest of the company sat, as if turned to stone, in the stillness
+which ensued. Finally, the Frau Stadtrath, in her dire dismay, said:
+&quot;You must excuse this little burst of temper, my dear Doctor. She at
+one time conceived an antipathy for the little sewing-girl, and cannot
+understand how one of the dearest friends of her youth can feel
+otherwise. And besides, you, with your chivalric notions, put too much
+warmth into your defense. If you will go after our Rosa and say that
+you did not really mean--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I regret, gracious lady,&quot; interrupted Philip, rising, &quot;that it is
+impossible for me to take back a word of what I have said in favor of
+the two so misunderstood. If your daughter cannot tolerate the society
+of a man who interests himself in two people, unjustly accused, I must
+renounce all further intercourse with this friendly household, from
+whom I was formerly the recipient of so much kindness. I have the honor
+to wish the ladies and gentlemen Good-evening.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With that he took his hat, bowed, and left the room.</p>
+<p class="center"><img src="images/p78.png" alt="design"></p>
+<p class="normal">When he found himself in the open air, such a feeling of relief came
+over him at his escape from the stifling atmosphere of this respectable
+Philistine house, that, forgetting his new professional dignity, he
+waved his hat, made a leap into the air, and hummed a student song to
+himself. A couple of the neighbors who knew him, and his status with
+the fair daughter of the Stadtraths, smiled, as he passed by them
+unheeding, and whispered to each other that it had probably just been
+settled between the young pair,
+<img border="0" align="left" src="images/p79.png" alt="design">and the gentleman was a trifle
+exhilarated by the betrothal wine. But Philip was eager to get out of
+the dark streets into open space, and drew a deep breath when he
+reached the shaded park which lay along the river, and was peopled in
+the daytime by the children of the town and their nurses. At this late
+hour, however, only solitary pairs of lovers walked here, and their
+shadows, as they glided past, moved the lonely wanderer to melancholy
+reflections. He seated himself on a bench and for a long time gazed
+upward through the gently swaying branches at the stars, from which a
+soft coolness flowed down upon him. With a hushed sound, the river
+rolled along at his feet. Philip could not but think how delightful it
+would be to let himself be carried away by the current, in a boat, with
+a certain being at his side, all through the night, only to land at the
+first flush of morning near some secluded little house, and there to
+set up his own hearthstone. The image of little Gundula came before him
+so lifelike, <img border="0" align="left" src="images/p80.png" alt="bird">she appeared with all her gifts and graces in so bright a
+light, that he could not conquer his longing to take the fair form in
+his arms; and springing up, he set out in a straight line for the town
+again, resolved to make his way that very evening into the haunted
+house, cost what it might, and have a serious talk with Frau Cordula
+concerning the present and the future.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But when he had passed the outlying districts of the town, and was
+nearing his goal, he noticed an unwonted commotion in the streets--a
+running and shouting of men who at the hour of ten are usually sitting
+at home, or over their beer. He made inquiry and heard with alarm that
+a fire had broken out in Ghost Lane. And now he rushed on ahead of all
+the others, and as he reached the street and saw the glow of the fire
+lighting up the black houses, he made a way for himself by elbowing and
+pushing through the dense crowd that blocked the entrance. But the
+people stood idly by gaping at the spot whence the red blaze shot
+upwards, so that Philip had no difficulty in fighting his way through
+them to the seat of the mischief. His fearful surmise had not led him
+astray--the house of &quot;The Unbelieving Thomas&quot; was really on fire, and
+the flames, which until now had issued only from the porter's room,
+were just beginning to encircle the old entrance gate. The men who
+stood in front of it, in a half circle, pointed to the fiery spectacle
+with stupid indifference, or even with malicious grins. A few even gave
+vent to jeers: <img border="0" align="left" src="images/p82.png" alt="image">it was time that Satan at last laid hold of the old witchmonger by the collar; perhaps he had been trying to make gold, and
+a flame from hell had shot up out of the crucible and singed his head.
+It could not be expected that any good Christian would put out such a
+fire, and thus arrest the judgment of Heaven.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As soon as Philip reached the house, and took in the situation, he
+shouted to the bystanders to get axes and break in the door and rescue
+those who lived back in the court. Not a foot stirred; only a pair of
+saucy tongues gave it as their opinion that it would be no harm if the
+whole pack of witches were burned, too,--they had deserved a funeral
+pile this long time;--a sentiment which was greeted with general
+laughter. The young man heard this with a throb of rage; and casting
+about him for some implement with which he could burst open the door,
+he seized a beam which the pavers had left lying at the edge of the
+sidewalk, and with superhuman exertion dragged the burden to the
+entrance that with it he might batter in the woodwork of the door,
+which was already ignited; when the rotten lock, as of a miracle,
+yielded of itself in the sockets, and the door swung slowly inward on
+its hinges. In the dark opening appeared a strange pair of human
+figures. Gundelchen was carrying her mother pick-a-pack through the
+smoke and showering sparks out into the open air.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The child had gone to bed earlier than usual that night, weary with her
+day's work, and was awakened by a cry of terror from her mother, who
+had not yet fallen asleep. When she perceived the light from the fire,
+she put on a skirt, threw a shawl around her shoulders, and without
+stopping for shoes or stockings, with swift decision she lifted her
+mother, who could move but slowly, to her back and bore her down the
+little stairs and across the court, there to stand a few agonizing
+moments in the dark hallway until her guardian angel opened the house
+door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As she stood now outside, bent under her living burden and looking
+around at the crowd as it fell back, she espied their young friend and
+guest, who, with a cry of joy, dropped the beam and sprang toward her.
+A happy smile crossed her flushed face and the fresh lips faltered:
+&quot;Good evening; Herr Doctor&quot;--simple words enough, but they sounded to
+him like sweetest music. He could only say: &quot;Thank God! O Gundelchen!
+To think that you are alive!&quot; and would have caught them both in his
+arms but for the eyes which were turned upon them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had not yet put down her burden, and seemed uncertain whither to
+turn with it. In vain did Philip conjure the people to fetch a
+wheelbarrow, or even a push-cart. They turned away, shrugged their
+shoulders and murmured imprecations.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, we must get one ourselves, Gundelchen, since these pious
+Christians cannot summon this much of neighborly kindness,&quot; said the
+young man, as he set the woman gently down upon the pavement, and,
+crossing his hands with those of the girl, raised the mother again on
+this swinging litter, bidding her put her arms around their necks. So
+they carried her submissively obedient, through the parting throng,
+which fell back at their approach, down the street as far as the
+marketplace. <img border="0" align="right" src="images/p86.png" alt="bowl?">There, as by accident, an empty cab came rattling sleepily
+along. Philip hailed it, put the two women into it, and swung himself
+up on the seat behind, telling the coachman to drive to a little inn by
+the river, a half mile distant, which served as the terminus for the
+summer evening walks of the better class families.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">From Ghost Lane, which grew even ruddier with the glare of the fire,
+sounded a duller hum and tumult; and now they heard the roll of the
+hose-cart, which was at last on its way to the scene of the fire. From
+all sides, great and small were flocking to the ill-omened street; but
+soon they had left the last houses behind them and were driving along
+at a slow trot, through the star-lit night.</p>
+<p class="center"><img src="images/p87.png" alt="design with flames"></p>
+<p class="normal">And now, for the first, the young doctor had time to regard the rescued
+pair more closely. The older woman, with closed eyes, lay back in one
+corner of the carriage as though she would collect her thoughts, and
+thank Heaven for the miracle of her deliverance. Her child sat beside
+her, a little ashamed of her own scanty attire, holding the shawl
+tightly about her shoulders and saying no word to the young man
+opposite. But the black eyes met his steadily, and only once, when the
+bare feet came into view beneath the short skirt, did the long lashes
+droop hastily. Philip asked if she were cold. She shook her head, but
+he drew his handkerchief from his pocket and wound it about her slender
+ankles. Then he stretched out his hand and she laid her own in it, with
+a charming look of confidence, and so they held each other's hands in a
+mute pledge until the carriage drew up before the little hostelry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here first the mother opened her eyes, but spoke no word and suffered
+Philip to lift her out and carry her into the house. Host and hostess
+were not a little astonished when they saw their singular guests, for
+whom the young man engaged a room in the upper story. He gave the
+landlord a gold piece and told him it would be to his advantage to
+attend carefully to the ladies, whom he had rescued from great peril by
+fire in the city.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Frau Wirthin would help the Fräulein out with her wardrobe. Then he
+himself mounted to the room where Frau Cordula sat in an arm-chair,
+looking dreamily before her. He went up to her and said gravely: &quot;Dear
+mother, I must leave you now and go back to the city. But first I want
+to clear up an important matter. Your daughter and I have silently
+plighted our troth during the journey hither. I beg now that you will
+give us your blessing. I promise to be a faithful husband to your child
+and a loving son to you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The mother had listened to him with no change of manner, quite as if
+she had been prepared for something similar. Now she shook her head
+gently and said: &quot;Dear Herr Doctor, you are very good, and I believe
+that you are sincere in your request. Still, I am an old woman, and
+must keep a cool head when the fire of enthusiasm has so heated your
+young one that you regard as proper and practical what is, and must
+remain, an impossibility. You are a young man of education and wealth,
+and we are poor people. How could you answer your friends if they
+should ask you why you had played the fool over the daughter of a poor
+tailoress who is denounced as a witch?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is <i>my</i> affair,&quot; returned Philip with emphasis;
+<img border="0" align="left" src="images/p90.png" alt="design with leafs">&quot;and I shall take
+care to express myself quite clearly and plainly on the subject.
+Moreover, I take delight in setting all my acquaintances to wondering
+and shaking their heads in a knowing way; indeed, I shall enjoy all the
+talk and sensation which will be created in the church when the
+announcement of our betrothal is made from the chancel. In three weeks,
+therefore, so it please you, the wedding will take place.
+<img border="0" align="right" src="images/p91.png" alt="design">I propose
+then to take the young Frau Doctor upon a tour, and we shall spend a
+whole year in travel. She will thus have time to become somewhat
+accustomed to society, and to receive that polish which even the
+costliest jewels must have in order that they may be estimated at their
+true value. In the meantime, our dear mother will remain quietly in the
+apartments which will be provided for her in my new home; and her
+daughter, let us hope, will keep her informed, by frequent letters,
+that she was not deceived when she thought proper to try her arts of
+witchery upon a certain Doctor Philip.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He bent down and kissed the mother upon both cheeks, down which two
+tears trickled silently. Then, drawing the radiant girl to his breast,
+he kissed her upon lips and eyes; and before either of them could
+breathe a word, he rushed downstairs, flung himself into the carriage
+and drove back to town.</p>
+<p class="center"><img src="images/p92.png" alt="hearts and locks"></p>
+<p class="normal">The house of &quot;The Unbelieving Thomas&quot; was burned out so completely
+during the night that when morning dawned only the four black walls,
+like the sides of some deep shaft or well, remained standing; while the
+chestnut-tree lay, a heap of ashes, in the court, and only a few
+smoking ruins covered the site of the coach-house. In the porter's room
+were found a pile of blackened human bones, and among them four bits of
+copper which had bound the corners of the large Bohemian Bible, and had
+not been melted, despite the intense heat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">High above, on the pointed ridge of one of the neighboring houses, sat,
+in the early gray of the morning, the two former occupants of the
+coach-house, both in the worst possible humor.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Heinrich Müller cast a savage glance at the wet debris of the charred
+timbers, from which rose an ill-smelling vapor.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, the comedy is ended!&quot; he said, shaking himself. &quot;I am glad that
+no one suspected who was the author.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not you, after all, Herr Heinrich?&quot; inquired his comrade, who was
+looking away over the roofs into one of the side streets.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To be sure; I myself, and no other,&quot; returned the illustrious
+wine-seller. &quot;You must know, Johann, that after I had played that base
+fellow, the Doctor, a trick, and had separated him and the well-bred
+daughter of, the Stadtrath,
+<img border="0" align="right" src="images/p93.png" alt="dark moon and clouds">I flew towards home. There I saw the other
+one, who is like poison to me, the Bohemian, bending as usual over his
+book of magic; I slipped in, and then it occurred to me that I would
+spoil his broth for him. I overturned his lamp, the oil ran out over
+the table, there was an explosion, and as the old fool did not know how
+to save himself at once, the whole affair went up in smoke. So I have
+wreaked my vengeance on the wretched cobbler, and now I shall sail back
+to our upper world straightway. Of hell upon earth, I've had my fill.
+It may be confoundedly tedious, up there; but what of that? Doomsday
+cannot be far distant, if one may judge by the mad goings-on down
+here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He raised himself a little, as though about to take flight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do take me with you, Herr Heinrich!&quot; said the poor soul of Johann
+Gruber. &quot;I, too, am out of conceit with everything down here. I'm ready
+to give up the seance. For yesterday, when I went to look after my
+Rieka, I found her in--well, I will not say what company. It's
+accursedly mean business--playing this sort of a spirit--and I thought
+it would be such capital fun! Some one else can take his turn at it
+now, when stupid people are bent upon having communications. Look, Herr
+Heinrich, the sun is just flashing up from behind the mountain yonder.
+<img border="0" align="left" src="images/p95.png" alt="sunrise">We must make haste and begone before it grows hot. When I was in the
+service of my former master I was always in the harness before
+daybreak. Hoop-la!&quot; and he was off without waiting for his companion,
+who rose slowly after him, casting one more look of malicious
+satisfaction upon the smoking ruins, beneath which lay buried the poor
+victim of his revenge.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p class="center"><img src="images/p96.png" alt="design"></p>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of At the Ghost Hour, by Paul Heyse
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@@ -0,0 +1,1740 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of At the Ghost Hour, by Paul Heyse
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: At the Ghost Hour
+       The House of the Unbelieving Thomas
+
+Author: Paul Heyse
+
+Illustrator: Alice C. Morse
+
+Translator: Frances A. Van Santford
+
+Release Date: October 22, 2010 [EBook #33878]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT THE GHOST HOUR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, page scans provided by Google Books
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+   1. Page scan source:
+      http://books.google.com/books?id=m1UpAAAAYAAJ&pg
+   2. The are approximately 96 decorative images in this book which
+      are not indicated in this text version.
+
+
+
+
+
+                           At the Ghost Hour
+
+                            The House of the
+                              UNBELIEVING
+                                 THOMAS
+
+
+                     TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF
+                               PAUL HEYSE
+                                   BY
+                        FRANCIS A. VAN SANTFORD
+
+
+                          WITH DECORATIONS BY
+                             ALICE C. MORSE
+
+
+
+                                NEW YORK
+                          DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
+                               MDCCCXCIV
+
+
+
+
+
+                          Copyright, 1894, by
+                         DODD, MEAD & COMPANY.
+
+
+
+
+
+                  THE HOUSE OF THE UNBELIEVING THOMAS
+
+
+In a provincial town of northern Germany there is a street in which the
+ancient, high-gabled houses bear, inscribed in Gothic letters, upon the
+lintels of their doors or upon little sandstone tablets, such honorable
+or fanciful names as "The Good Shepherd," "Noah's Dove," "The Palms of
+Peace," "The Rose of Sharon," and underneath, the date of their
+erection.
+
+In former days this street had been one of the main arteries of the
+city, whose staid, orthodox inhabitants coveted inward spiritual
+illumination rather than the light and air which penetrate from
+without. Since then new generations had arisen, fired with the spirit
+of aggressive enlightenment, and the importance of these old families,
+content with the stray sunbeams that made their way over the tall
+roofs, had declined perceptibly. One by one, they had died off behind
+their "Palms of Peace" and their "Roses of Sharon," and had made way
+for the bustling children of the new era, whose light and cheerful
+dwellings sprang up around the dingy old street.
+
+From one of the houses, which had grown almost black under the storms
+of three centuries, the street had received its name. Upon a block
+of stone above the wide entrance there were cut, in letters so
+weather-worn as to be scarcely legible, these words: "The Unbelieving
+Thomas, 1534." From this, the street had been christened Thomas Lane--a
+title which it still bears, though, only in official documents and on
+the map of the city. In common parlance it had been known for more than
+fifty years as "Ghosts' Lane"--again because of that same ancient
+building which was responsible for its correct name. For every one knew
+that the house of "The Unbelieving Thomas" was haunted; and even the
+most cold-blooded free-thinkers of the town could not escape a slight
+shiver when business forced them to tread the neglected pavement of
+this street.
+
+Why this old three-storied structure, so firm despite its great age,
+had been inhabited all these years only by poor unabsolved souls, no
+one could tell. With one man who had had the hardihood to purchase the
+house, things had turned out badly enough. A Jew, to whom the great,
+empty rooms seemed suitable for a warehouse, had been established there
+less than two years, when one morning he was found with a bit of silk
+stuff twisted about his neck, hanging from the crosspiece of a window
+in the largest room. And it subsequently became evident that Fortune
+had turned her back upon this man, once prosperous and well-to-do, and
+there was nothing for him but to steal out of the world and leave his
+accumulation of debts behind him.
+
+Nothing save the house itself and its dusty furnishings remained to the
+creditors; and as no purchaser appeared, they were forced to vent their
+chagrin in fierce glances at the gray, weather-beaten sign over the
+door, upon which, in huge black lettering, was the name of the firm:
+"Commission and Dispatch House of Moritz Feigenbaum."
+
+Now, although the whole house was so securely bolted and barred that it
+would have been impossible for a thief to carry anything out of it, the
+court deemed it necessary to provide for some oversight of the place,
+so that no lovers of darkness, counterfeiters or bands of dynamiters
+should take refuge there. Fortunately, there happened to be a poor
+cobbler, whose little house had been destroyed by a flood, and who
+declared himself willing to undertake the duties of janitor. This
+valiant person--Wenzel Kospoth by name, an emigrant from Bohemia--took
+possession of the porter's room by the entrance without further delay,
+regarding this free shelter as a sufficient recompense for his
+services, which were simple enough. He had to open the great, black,
+outer door each morning, and to close it again at night; and now and
+then he took a survey of the three stories to see that no bulging wall
+threatened the downfall of the whole. The entire day he was free to
+devote to his small custom, which remained true to him, even in the
+haunted house; although certain anxious good wives had scruples about
+venturing across the threshold to get a pair of defective boots mended
+in this unwholesome atmosphere.
+
+For, in fact, honest Wenzel Kospoth, with his bony, grizzled face and
+small, black eyes, deep-set under their bushy brows, did not seem quite
+canny to his new neighbors, hardened though they were to the traditions
+of the street.
+
+As he took but little sleep, they could often see him, through the
+window of the ground floor, squatted on his low stool, his lank arms,
+in their shirt-sleeves, braced upon his knees, and lying open on his
+leather apron a large, old-time book, in which he would read
+industriously until long after midnight, by the light of his little
+lamp. It was only an old Bohemian Bible, which he could now understand
+with difficulty, for he had crossed the German border when only a lad.
+Those who spied upon him, however, regarded the copper-bound volume as
+a book of magic, and believed nothing less than that this singular
+stranger with the foreign name had taken the post of janitor in the
+haunted house that he might conduct there, undisturbed, his magical
+intercourse with evil spirits.
+
+Wenzel Kospoth, when told of this report, laughed in his gray beard,
+and muttered something in Bohemian, which might have meant either yes
+or no. In his inmost soul he had a contempt for the stupid Germans, and
+fancied that this very Bible reading made him greatly their superior;
+so that, far from dispelling their superstitions, he seized upon an
+accidental opportunity to strengthen them.
+
+An old acquaintance of his whom he had met in his Sunday walks to a
+neighboring village had come to want through no fault of her own. She
+was a little woman of about forty, who, though brought up in town, had,
+when quite young, married a peasant's son--a drunkard, as it proved. He
+had squandered all her small savings, and dying suddenly, had left her
+with a six-year-old child. As she was clever at sewing, the young widow
+earned many a pretty groschen as village tailoress. But, unfortunately,
+her good heart led her to apply her skill not only to the needs of the
+outer, but to those of the inner man as well, and to dispose of her
+little store of recipes for all possible ailments in return for a
+trifling compensation. In this way she soon gained considerable
+patronage and, at the same time, with several of the more narrow-minded
+villagers, the reputation of being mistress of the black art. And when
+her little daughter had blossomed into a trim young maiden, with
+sparkling black eyes and waving yellow braids, who turned the heads of
+the village lads as she walked with her mother to church, on Sundays
+and feast days, the two came to be looked upon as a pair of
+unmistakable witches by the spiteful old women of the village, and by
+the younger ones whose sweethearts had become a trifle less devoted.
+
+The two innocent souls endured all this patiently until one day an
+influential peasant in whose stalls several cows had suddenly died, at
+the instigation of his wicked wife, burst into Frau Cordula's house,
+and hurling a volley of reproaches upon her as the author of his
+misfortune, delivered her such a heavy blow with his fist that from
+that day she was a cripple and could only move about with difficulty
+upon tottering feet.
+
+The base miscreant departed triumphant; but his deed was the beginning
+of a series of tribulations--the fruit of woman's hate and envy--until
+the poor woman realized that she must seek safety behind the walls of a
+town if she would not endanger her own life and that of her child among
+these superstitious people.
+
+She had only one acquaintance in the town, Wenzel Kospoth; and to him
+she sent letter asking whether he knew of some small lodging where she
+and her daughter could find a refuge and earn their bite of bread
+hidden from curious eyes.
+
+Now, behind the haunted house was a gloomy little court in which stood
+a low stable, unused since the horses of Moritz Feigenbaum were sold.
+Above the stable the coachman and errand boy had lived in two large,
+low rooms, with a windowless loft adjoining, where hay and oats had
+been stored. A coach-house shut in the remainder of the court, in the
+centre of which a chestnut-tree, long dead, lifted its dark, leafless
+branches, where a flock of tumultuous sparrows bustled noisily all the
+day long.
+
+These quarters were not calculated to allure tenants who were partial
+to light and air; and even the poor and unhoused would not risk an
+encounter with the ghost of the last inmate. So the mice held their
+revels undisturbed and feasted royally upon the oats in the granary.
+
+But the cobbler when he had received Frau Cordula's message thought at
+once how excellently these lodgings were adapted for his friend. His
+request to the authorities that two shelterless women, for whose
+character he could vouch, be allowed to occupy the lodgings in the
+court at a trifling rental was granted; and one morning he set out for
+the village to assist the mother and daughter in their removal.
+
+The two poor persecuted souls were glad to avail themselves of the
+refuge under Wenzel Kospoth's roof, despite its unsavory reputation. A
+wagon was loaded with their bedding and furniture. Upon a chest sat
+Frau Cordula, Gundula hovered near her, while the dark-looking
+Bohemian, who drove the horses himself, cracked his whip so vigorously
+that the assembled village population, which would have accompanied the
+exodus of the witch by caterwaulings, dared give rent to no more
+disrespectful noises than a few whistles.
+
+Their entry into Thomas Lane was made quietly, though the report had
+spread in the neighborhood that a witch from the country was about to
+move into the haunted house. A crowd had assembled before the closed
+entrance; but a look somewhat like disappointment passed over their
+gaping faces when the young girl sprang down from the wagon and the
+older woman, with Kospoth's help, descended carefully from her high
+seat. They fancied the witch would have been older and more gruesome;
+and Gundelchen, with her laughing eyes and yellow braids, under the
+peasant's head-dress, excited almost a feeling of regret that the
+peaceful sleep of these two women was to be disturbed by nocturnal
+apparitions.
+
+The girl's smile faded when she mounted the narrow stairs and cast her
+first look around. Their cottage had been no fairy bower, it is true;
+but the sunlight had shone into it, and green gardens and fields lay
+all about it. When, however, she saw her little mother sink down with a
+heavy sigh upon the dusty floor, she quickly recovered herself,
+threw her arms about the poor woman and carried her to a bench near
+the window where she could watch the sparrows in the top of the
+chestnut-tree. Then she began to talk so cheerfully that the mother
+took heart at last and only sighed softly now and then, as with tender
+eyes she watched the child busied in arranging the furniture in their
+new home.
+
+By the next day the two rooms looked quite habitable. The young girl
+had gone early to the market and bought two cheap pots of flowers; she
+had brushed away the dust, had scrubbed the floors, and hung fresh
+curtains at the square windows before it was time to make the soup upon
+the little stove in the corner. When Wenzel Kospoth came in at noon to
+ask how it fared with his fellow-tenants, his eyes opened wide with
+astonishment to find everything so neat and comfortable. He must needs
+stop for dinner, and found the frugal meal far more toothsome than the
+food which a neighbor had been wont to serve him in his shop. So it
+came about that the cobbler dined with them regularly, and the small
+sum which he paid helped them with the rent.
+
+That she could not hope for much custom in her new home, the sensible
+woman knew well enough. She understood only peasant fashions; and for
+her medicinal skill there was no demand. In her despondency, she almost
+regretted that she had availed herself of Master Kospoth's offer. But
+here Gundula came to her mother's rescue. She had inherited her
+cleverness in womanly handiwork; and she soon apprenticed herself to a
+dressmaker, under whom she took great pains to learn the city fashions.
+She showed herself so quick and skillful that after a few months she
+was employed in the houses of well-to-do families.
+
+In time, many a piece of work was entrusted to her to finish. These she
+took home to her mother, who became once more cheerful, now that her
+hands were no longer idle; and when, at the end of the year, she could
+count a pretty little sum laid by in her stocking, she forgave the
+stupid peasants whose persecutions had made her life so wretched.
+
+Yet even here, in the city, the reputation of holding converse with
+evil spirits clung to her; and inquisitive school-boys, who had once,
+goaded by insatiable curiosity, ventured through the doorway as far as
+the entrance to the court, pointed to the four small windows above the
+stable, with childish awe, and whispered in each other's ears all
+manner of goblin-tales of the Blockenberg and the Devil's dances. The
+most impudent among them finally took courage, called with a loud, but
+trembling voice: "Old witch! Old witch!" in the quiet court, and threw
+a stone against the stable-door; whereupon the whole troop scattered in
+a hasty flight, while even the sparrows, terrified by the unwonted
+clamor, flew out from the dry branches of the chestnut with shrill
+cries.
+
+That the witch remained invisible, added not a little to the
+superstitious dread in which she was held. Her child, however, was
+regarded by the neighbors with mingled sympathy and admiration. They
+could not understand how she kept her red cheeks and laughing eyes amid
+such depressing surroundings; they must say, that any one who had at
+his baptism renounced the devil and all his works, could hardly bring
+himself to marry a girl out of this haunted house. Yet they watched the
+graceful little figure as long as they could see her hat-ribbon wave in
+the wind, and her short skirt blow about her trim ankles.
+
+So far, all seemed orderly and natural in the house of "The Unbelieving
+Thomas," and the report of ghostly rendezvous there seemed ill-founded.
+But the narrator of this true story is now, at last, forced to the
+confession that, in the closest proximity to these two innocent beings,
+there was installed a ghost, pure and simple, of whose presence neither
+the occupants of the house nor the dwellers in that street had the
+slightest intimation.
+
+It is averred that the souls of the dead, when they leave their bodies,
+do not pass directly to heaven or hell; but, according to the Romish
+belief, into purgatory, there to await the day of judgment and the
+resurrection of the body; or, according to the Protestant confession,
+into an intermediate state, where they bide in a condition of uncertain
+expectancy, like that of earthly travelers in a way station. In this
+supernal region there prevails a certain monotony of existence
+unrelieved even by the arrival of newly-released souls who, for the
+most part, bear upon their pallid features the sorrowful trace of a
+reluctant parting.
+
+It is true that spirits of the higher order, those who while yet upon
+earth were raised above the sordid misery of life, and who viewed all
+occurrences in the light of eternity, soon find their way about in the
+gray twilight of this aerial realm, and enjoy meeting a kindred soul
+now and then among the noiseless throng of disembodied spirits, and
+holding converse with those whom they had come to revere for their
+virtuous deeds during their earthly life. So that here, where perfect
+equality and universal brotherhood are generally supposed to hold sway,
+there is a line of distinction between the great and small, to which no
+one offers the least objection. For, as no outward advantage is
+attached to the greater prestige which the nobler souls enjoy, no one
+finds cause for envy in the exalted intercourse with which, their hours
+are filled; while the great majority long ardently for the coarser
+pleasures of their past life.
+
+In this painless intermediate state, the more worthy or distinguished
+souls are pursued by only one annoyance, namely, the ever-increasing
+curiosity of those yet living upon earth, who delight to summon the
+spirits of great kings, sages and artists to compulsory interviews.
+This disgraceful amusement has been the fashion at intervals from time
+immemorial, as when, for example, the Witch of Endor summoned the
+spirit of the high priest Samuel to appear before Saul. But, in our own
+day, the inquisitive practice of drawing the veil from the mysteries of
+the other world has spread through a very wide circle, and no name,
+sounded down from past centuries, is too venerable for its owner to be
+assailed with questions through the medium of some tipping-table or
+hysterical young woman; or even to be constrained to appear personally
+in the transparent guise of his so-called astral body.
+
+The aristocracy of the intermediate kingdom, after they had borne with
+this presumption for some time, at last bethought themselves of an
+innocent expedient which would secure them from further intrusion. They
+made inquiry among the ghostly masses whether there were any who would
+be willing to serve as their representatives in case of such demands,
+and to answer impertinent questions as seemed to them proper.
+
+Now, as many of those who in life had known only selfish pleasures were
+already so wearied of this spiritual existence that they were ready to
+jump out of their skin (if they had had a skin), nothing could be more
+welcome than this proposition to mingle once more in mundane affairs,
+and to amuse themselves for a few hours with the fashionable play of
+question and answer.
+
+That they had scant knowledge of the affairs of their famous associates
+disturbed them as little as it did those whom they were to represent.
+For it soon became evident that the questioners at tapping-tables and
+dark seances were in nowise offended by foolish answers, and received
+the most palpable nonsense which was whispered to them in the
+communications of spirits as profound, superhuman wisdom, which they
+interpreted according to their wishes. It is easy to pipe for him who
+loves to dance; and he who is determined to hold converse with Julius
+Caesar, Plato or Beethoven, will hear, in the stammering utterances of
+some cartman with whom he has in some mysterious way put himself _en
+rapport_, words of the sublimest import.
+
+Several years ago, the town in which the scene of this story is laid
+was attacked with the fever of spiritualism. At first, people were
+content to move tables and produce rappings, but by degrees they grew
+ambitious for a more exalted mode of spiritual intercourse; and two
+mediums, with their hypnotic subjects, made their entry into town, so
+that hardly a night passed without some ghostly doings--and that, too,
+in the homes of the best and most cultured families.
+
+To satisfy the increasing demand, it was decided to establish two of
+the more robust spirits permanently in town, that they might be ready
+at the lightest summons. Two candidates offered themselves at once for
+the post--one, the spirit of a traveling wine-seller, the other, the
+soul of a house-servant, who, it chanced, had been employed by the
+burgomaster of the town, and thus was especially conversant with the
+affairs of the inhabitants.
+
+This somewhat dissimilar pair seemed qualified to meet all
+requirements, and one fine evening they sallied forth. Johann Gruber,
+the servant, proposed that they take up their quarters in the house of
+"The Unbelieving Thomas;" for even spirits of coarser mould, becoming
+accustomed to the stillness of the other world, avoid noisy districts
+in this.
+
+No more quiet sleeping-place for two sensitive shadows could be found
+than the lofty, dark coach-house adjoining the stable. The door opening
+on the court was always ajar, but the dusty floor was never trodden by
+human foot. An ancient calash stood in the farthest corner, its
+leathern portions so gnawed away by the rats that it had wasted into
+the mere skeleton of a carriage.
+
+As soon as Heinrich Mueller, the quondam mercantile traveler, beheld
+this ruin, he declared his wish to become its exclusive possessor. With
+a soft sigh, evoked by the recollection of his former merry
+journeyings, he stretched his ethereal form comfortably upon the
+cushions, from which the leather covering and horsehair had been eaten
+away, leaving the quills of the feathers sticking through--a
+circumstance which, unpleasant as it might have proved to an occupant
+with flesh and bones, in nowise impaired the comfort of this spiritual
+essence.
+
+Johann Gruber, who in his lifetime had traveled much with his master,
+found a large chest in another corner, the like of those he had so
+often packed, and made himself comfortable therein; for upon this first
+night no seance was in progress.
+
+They soon found that their post was far from easy. Each had his
+hands full of work. Here, he had to slip into some table and answer
+the oddest questions; there, he must respond to some crafty or
+self-deceived medium, or if it were desired, materialize--as the
+technical term is--and personate this or that well-known individual to
+gratify the pious curiosity of his surviving friends.
+
+These nightly labors were so fatiguing to both that when they returned
+to their quarters, and without waiting even to exchange "good-night,"
+slipped into their corners to sleep, they wished themselves back in the
+state they had left. Indeed, they would probably have renounced the
+service after a few weeks, had not the arrival of Frau Cordula and her
+daughter altered the condition of affairs.
+
+From the first, the wine-seller conceived so violent an attachment for
+the fair, slender girl, that the thought of leaving her for the
+loveless world of spirit was not to be tolerated. In his lifetime he
+had been known as a ladies' man; and although he had exchanged his
+carnal nature for a spiritual existence, he, like all poor souls who
+hover over the spot where in life they have buried their treasure,
+could not leave this child of earth, unresponsive though she must ever
+be to his affection.
+
+It happened, too, that Johann Gruber, passing one day by accident
+through a retired street, met an old flame, in the person of the cook
+who had served in the house of his master. As comely as ever, she
+formed a new bond to connect him with this earthly sphere. From that
+day he ceased to chaff his infatuated colleague. Instead of ridicule, a
+fine ear could now have heard for many a night a duet of tender sighs
+resounding from the walls of the dark coach-house, and accompanied by
+the rustling and scrambling of the little mice.
+
+This state of affairs had continued for nearly a year when, one
+moonlight night, the spirit of Johann Gruber turned homeward from a
+tiresome day's work. Sleepy though he was, he took a roundabout way,
+past a certain house, on the ground floor of which his early love had
+opened a tap-room. Possibly he was further attracted by the winey
+fragrance which had, in his lifetime exerted a powerful influence over
+him. He raised himself to a level with the window, the upper sash of
+which was open, and perching himself upon the crosspiece, took a survey
+of the room. A stout woman sat behind the bar, and nodded over her
+knitting, from which she occasionally drew a needle and scratched her
+frowsy head, yawning the while and rubbing her small, watery eyes.
+
+A little girl was sleeping upon a stool by the stove. Several workmen
+in their shirt-sleeves sat at a table playing cards. When any of them
+trumped an ace, they rapped with their knuckles and the little one
+sighed in her sleep.
+
+The gallant ghost could not suppress a sigh as he reflected how fine it
+would be if he were still living, and as landlord and husband could
+scold the stout woman, and send the little Lisa early to bed. But fate
+had decreed otherwise, and he descended from his lofty seat and flitted
+homeward through the deserted streets to the haunted house.
+
+Arrived at the gateway he peeped in a moment through the window of the
+porter's room. There sat Wenzel Kospoth, still bending over his folio.
+The glow from the lamp silvered his gray head; but his small eyes were
+closed, so that it was uncertain whether he were napping, or sunk in
+deep thought. Johann Gruber shrugged his shoulders. He could not endure
+the valiant old man, because other people regarded him as a magician,
+and he calmly acquiesced; whereas Johann knew that this attributed
+power over the spirits of hell was clearly a swindle. His colleague,
+too, disliked the cobbler, and sometimes threatened to do him harm,
+indebted though they were to him for their unlighted quarters.
+
+The night wanderer now sought the crevice in the old house-door through
+which he was accustomed to slip in. But to-night, finding an obstacle,
+he noticed, for the first, that he was still in the materialized
+condition in which he had been forced to show himself at the medium's
+command. Instantly he stripped the garment from his shoulders, like a
+paletot, saw it dissolve in thin air, and glided unimpeded through the
+door and across the court.
+
+"Good evening, Herr Mueller!" said he, in a whisper. "Have you turned in
+already? Much work to-day?"
+
+Out of the calash in the corner came back a faint echo, which trembled
+as from inward vexation.
+
+"How often must I tell you, stupid, to go to bed quietly and not
+disturb well-bred people in their first sleep? You smell of bad liquor
+again. Have the goodness to keep away from me and creep into your
+chest!"
+
+"Oho!" snarled the other, approaching his irate companion and settling
+himself upon a shaft of the carriage. "The deuce take your fine
+manners! You are no better than I--Spirit is Spirit, and you are on the
+wrong track when you accuse me of drinking. You know very well we can
+no longer pour down a draught behind our cravats, for we have no
+cravats. No, Herr Mueller, what you smell is the pure, soul fragrance.
+Your own is not exactly like violets, either. Why should it be, if it
+savors of the deeds done in your lifetime? You understand? Take care
+you don't go too far; for if it should come to blows--I have been a
+match for more than one when I was at service at the inn of The Three
+Lilies, and with such a fellow as you--"
+
+"Be still, will you!" commanded the voice from the calash, rather
+faintly. "You know I meant no harm; it is only because I am so wretched
+in this dog's life of a professional ghost, and besides that, this
+confounded love affair, and no rest at night--"
+
+"Yes, indeed, I can well believe it!" sighed the other, easily
+pacified. "You are even worse off than I, and not so much as a kiss
+will all this bring you. It would be a good thing if you would put the
+girl out of your mind. It's all nonsense, anyway."
+
+A heavy sigh came from the black depths of the wagon frame.
+
+"That you don't understand, I observe. When this maiden, decked with
+all heavenly charms, crosses my path, I am like a poor moth that cannot
+keep away from the lamp, although it does not go near it with the exact
+intention of burning its wings. I often think the priests' invention is
+not the real hell--as indeed we know; the true one is the suffering
+which we incur by our earthly sins. More than one little goose of a
+girl has cried her eyes out over me; a confoundedly handsome fellow I
+was, with a pocketful of money. Then, out of sight was out of mind with
+me; but now I am in for it. What I endure is heart-breaking. There is
+no drinking to the oblivion of this soul-suffering."
+
+He was silent, exhausted by this passionate outburst; and only a slight
+whimper was audible from the corner. His sympathetic comrade had in the
+meantime withdrawn to his chest. After a little, he said: "How
+beautifully you express it all, Herr Mueller! Just so it goes with my
+Rieka. In my lifetime I laughed when I heard them talk of everlasting
+love. But there is something in it, after all. Now, if your Gundelchen
+and my Rieka should come to us up yonder, perhaps we might continue our
+courting. Perhaps, upon the last day--well, we must wait. In the
+meantime, good-night! pleasant dreams!"
+
+From the carriage in the corner came no answer--only a soft, ghost-like
+snore. Grief seemed at last to have left the poor sinners to their
+rest.
+
+But the sleep of the two much-enduring ghosts was to be broken in upon
+in a strange way that night.
+
+In a little cafe by the market place two good friends and
+school-fellows were celebrating their _Wiedersehen_ with several
+bottles of Rhine wine. The one, a dignified young man of
+four-and-twenty, had just returned from a neighboring university, with
+the degree of Doctor of Medicine. Before accepting the proffered
+position of assistant in the office of a distinguished physician, he
+contemplated a year of travel. Following the promptings of his heart,
+he visited first his native town; though all ties of kindred there had
+been broken by the death of his parents.
+
+A youthful attachment, formed in his gymnasium days and continued
+through his student years, despite many breaks and reconciliations, was
+rumored to be on the point of becoming an engagement. But as yet no
+word had been spoken; and, indeed, even an exchange of letters had been
+interdicted by the stern father. The young man had thought of her less
+than usual this past year, but had excused himself on the ground of
+absorbing study. Of his old companions, only one, a civil engineer, had
+settled in the town. This good comrade insisted upon sharing his
+bachelor quarters with his friend during his stay. They met at the
+station, the newly-fledged doctor arriving by an evening train; and
+midnight found them still exchanging experiences at the cafe whither
+they had gone for supper.
+
+"You are awaited with impatience, Philip," said the engineer. "Papa
+Stadtrath asked me yesterday whether you did not intend to display
+yourself in the full splendor of your new honors to your native town. I
+answered evasively. You ought not to accept engagements at once, but
+devote the first two or three days to rest. For, listen! You are
+looking pale and nervous; the fatigues of your examination show plainly
+upon your face."
+
+That he had judged correctly of his friend's condition became evident
+as soon as they left the cafe. They had drank but lightly; yet,
+directly the young doctor found himself in the open air, his head swam,
+he grew unsteady on his feet and began to talk so boisterously,
+swinging his walking-stick against the windows as they went along, that
+his friend, fearing that Philip might meet some acquaintance and
+introduce himself anew in this disgraceful fashion, took a roundabout
+way home, through Ghost Lane, where they were sure of being unobserved.
+Locking his arm in that of his friend, he piloted him along, keeping in
+the shadow of the aristocratic houses, past the "Good Shepherd,"
+"Noah's Dove," and the "Rose of Sharon," in which no sound was heard
+and from whose grated windows no light shone forth.
+
+They had just reached the house of "The Unbelieving Thomas," when the
+riotous young man stood suddenly still, shook himself loose from his
+friend by a violent gesture, and declared that he was ready to
+challenge all the spooky spirits of the lane--which he now, for the
+first time, recognized. He proposed to thrust them through with the
+weapons of science till they were frightened back into the nebulous
+nothingness whence only the baldest superstition had suffered them to
+creep forth. This should be his first service to his native town,
+which, to its own shame, had tolerated this relic of Egyptian darkness,
+or worse, of Medievalism, here in its midst, at the end of the
+nineteenth century.
+
+He struck a defiant attitude on the sidewalk, while with one arm he
+brandished his stick against possible ghostly opponents and with the
+other he warded off his friend. In this way he lost his balance and
+fell against the house, striking his head so forcibly upon the sharp
+edge of the door-post that a large jet of blood spurted instantly from
+the wounded temple.
+
+In great consternation his friend attempted to raise him and staunch
+the wound with his handkerchief, while he called loudly for help. In
+this last effort he was finally successful, for the narrow window of
+the porter's room, directly over their heads, was flung open. In a few
+words the engineer explained to Wenzel Kospoth what had happened. When
+the trusty Bohemian opened the door and saw the wound by the light of
+his candle, he shook his head. It would be impossible to convey the
+young man, bleeding thus profusely, to his home, without giving
+occasion for much talk. There was no comfortable place for him in his
+stuffy shop; but it happened that in the rear court lived a friend of
+his who was skilled in such matters, and they would carry the gentleman
+to her without arousing the neighborhood.
+
+No sooner said than done. As they crossed the court with their heavy
+burden, they saw a light shining out of Frau Cordula's windows, one of
+which was opened in answer to the cobbler's call. But the voice which
+inquired what was the matter was that of Gundula, who was still awake
+and busied in finishing off some work for the morrow. Learning what
+Samaritan service was required of them, she quickly appeared at the
+door below, clasping her hands in terror as she saw the blood streaming
+from the young man's forehead. The older woman, too, was not a little
+disturbed when they laid her patient down before her; but retaining her
+presence of mind, she directed her daughter to fetch her box of
+remedies. Out of this she took the necessary articles; then, with fresh
+water she cleansed the wound, which, fortunately, had not penetrated
+the bone, pressed the jagged edges firmly together, and closed them
+with a needle and thread, finishing by binding a soft bandage over the
+forehead.
+
+During these proceedings the patient had not once regained
+consciousness, but lay bolstered up with two pillows on an old sofa in
+the living-room. The woman hobbled about on her two crutches, and from
+time to time applied cooling bandages to the heated brow.
+
+She assured the two men there was no danger,--the wound would heal in a
+few days. The friend saw that he was in fact superfluous; and
+recognizing the skill of the good woman, he renounced his intention of
+watching during the night, and with heartfelt thanks, withdrew with
+Wenzel Kospoth.
+
+Noiselessly as all this had taken place, yet the whispers and hurried
+movements in the coachman's lodgings had not failed to reach the fine
+ear of Herr Heinrich Mueller, and to awaken him. In his dreams his
+thoughts had been continually with Gundula, and he could not rest in
+his calash, but must needs peep through the window and witness the
+assiduity with which she attended the wounded man.
+
+Johann Gruber, in his chest in the corner, would have had no inkling
+of the adventure had not his ghostly companion returned to the
+coach-house, when all was again still, and vented his jealous rage in
+imprecations upon all the living. The hated Bohemian swindler he
+accused of basely conniving to provide a settlement for the daughter of
+his friend; and of tripping up the young man in front of his door that
+the old witch might cure him, and her patient in turn, out of
+gratitude, pay his court to the girl.
+
+Johann Gruber listened to all this with the utmost tranquility, and
+yawned so loudly that his colleague turned upon him, and after they had
+quarreled and hurled bitter words at each other for a time, they fell
+asleep again from sheer exhaustion.
+
+Late in the morning the doctor awoke. When he unclosed his heavy
+eyelids and found himself lying upon a strange, poor sort of couch, in
+an unfamiliar room, he at first believed himself to be still dreaming.
+How came he in this large, low room, so poorly furnished? On the wall
+were two oil-chromos--a portrait of the Emperor and a spinach-green
+landscape,--upon the corner closet stood a wig-block with flaming red
+cheeks, and not far off was a peasant's chest, painted blue, with white
+tulips! This surely could not be the bachelor lodgings of his friend!
+And where was his friend? While he was puzzling himself about the
+matter, he felt a dull heaviness in his head, and pain in his temples.
+Mechanically he raised his hand to touch the aching spot, and to his
+astonishment felt a bandage--at the same instant he heard a halting
+step and the tapping of two crutches upon the bare, scoured floor, and
+saw before him the little woman who, while he had slept, had been
+sitting noiselessly at her work by the window. Now his eyes opened in
+wonder and his full consciousness returned, while she told him how it
+was he had claimed their hospitality on the preceding night.
+
+He listened attentively to the good woman, but made no reply, passively
+allowing her to remove the bandage and inspect the wound, which she
+found satisfactory; whereupon he declared that he felt quite well, save
+a slight dizziness and a great emptiness of the stomach, which would be
+relieved by a proper breakfast. Mother Cordula brought him a glass of
+water and hastened to her little stove to make him as good a cup of
+coffee as she was able.
+
+Meanwhile Philip sat upright among his pillows and asked all manner of
+questions. A great sense of comfort stole over him in this poor room
+behind the well-mended but snowy curtains, in the company of this
+simple, sensible woman, whose features were shadowed by a gentle
+seriousness.
+
+And now the door opened and a young creature came in, stepping lightly
+on her tiptoes, nodding to the older woman and throwing a passing
+glance at the stranger.
+
+"My daughter," said the mother, "the gentleman has just waked and would
+like his breakfast. He is doing well, thank God! Have you brought
+everything with you?"
+
+The girl, still quite out of breath, assented, and put down her basket
+upon a chair. Philip saw that it contained various market purchases
+much more abundant than they would have provided for their own dinner
+table. His attention, however, was soon diverted by the young girl, who
+pleased him uncommonly well. She wore a plain brown dress that must
+have seen long service; and, as its wearer had not yet done growing, it
+had been pieced down, quite regardless of the fashion, though even now
+the slender ankles showed beneath it. She had taken off her hat, a
+black straw, trimmed with a knot of red, and her pretty face was framed
+by an abundance of thick, brown braids, out of which a little forest of
+curling locks had escaped over her neck. As she moved noiselessly to
+and fro, assisting her mother, she avoided meeting the young man's
+glance, and spoke softly, as though in the presence of a very sick
+person, when she answered her mother's questions about her work.
+
+But the most charming thing of all was the way the black eyes, always a
+trifle downcast, would open suddenly, dart a swift glance around, which
+seemed to break into lightning-like sparks and then suddenly drop their
+long lashes again.
+
+Twice only, when Philip directed some playful remark to her, did her
+red lips break into a smile and a dimple appear in her cheek, showing
+that behind that modest, almost childlike brow, was a roguish spirit
+which was only repressed by the consciousness of her lowly position and
+by considerations of good breeding.
+
+When the mother and daughter sat down to their midday meal other
+company appeared--first, Master Kospoth, their daily guest, then the
+young engineer. Both were rejoiced to see such an improvement in the
+patient; and the friend wished to procure a carriage and convey Philip
+at once to his own lodgings.
+
+Frau Cordula, however, insisted upon keeping him until the following
+day. The wound, it is true, had begun to heal; but she herself must
+renew the bandage several times, and she could not leave her room to
+visit the patient.
+
+No one was better pleased with this plan than the invalid himself. He
+maintained that he had never slept better, nor drank better coffee.
+When the men had gone, and Gundula also, he seated himself upon a
+little stool by the window where her sewing machine stood, took up her
+scissors, stuck her little thimble upon his finger, and plunged into a
+cosy chat with the mother as she sat at the other window with her
+sewing. He drew from her the story of her life; and the calm way in
+which she spoke of her sad lot, the cruelty of her neighbors, and
+recompense for those trials which she had found in her child, touched
+the heart of her young listener, and awoke in him a feeling akin to
+veneration. When at length Gundula came home in the evening, she
+appeared less constrained, and ventured to ask if his wound hurt him,
+or should she get some ice to cool the wrappings. To this he would not
+consent, and his gallant protest evoked a slight flush upon her cheek.
+When she wished to move her machine into the adjoining room lest its
+noise disturb him, he would not allow this either, but moved a chair
+near her, and watched her taper fingers and the delicate contour of her
+face as she bent over her work. The mother, however, remarked that her
+patient needed to go to sleep early, sent out the child, dressed the
+wound freshly with salve, and withdrew to the back room.
+
+Outside, in the court, a light shadow had been spying in at the window
+for an hour past--the poor soul of Heinrich Mueller, which was racked by
+the torments of jealousy, and would not retreat until the young pair,
+who evidently enjoyed themselves together, were parted once more.
+That upon this evening, one of the best mediums pursued his vocation
+without result and failed to call up a single spirit, had its
+natural explanation in the infatuation which kept this self-declared
+lady-killer of old a watcher at the window of our simple peasant maid.
+
+The melancholy ghost felt no slight relief when upon the following
+afternoon his lively rival took leave of his excellent nurse and her
+daughter and departed for the home of his friend. But the joy was of
+short duration; for the next evening, as soon as the darkness would
+allow him to take his way unobserved to Ghost Lane, the young doctor
+appeared at Frau Cordula's house to have his wound dressed. This time
+the stitches were removed, and a plaster was applied over the cloth
+with the healing balsam. He had brought a large cornucopia containing a
+variety of fruits and confections, at which Gundelchen consented to
+nibble, after much persuasion. She had now thawed completely, and
+Philip thought he had never heard a prettier laugh from girlish lips
+than that which greeted the recital of his student pranks. When, at
+times, the conversation took a more serious turn, Gundelchen took part
+shyly, asking any number of sensible questions.
+
+And so it went on the following evenings. Sometimes the engineer came,
+too, and in the lowly apartment there was such good cheer that they all
+forgot the hour and had to be reminded by Master Kospoth that they must
+not overstep the time for closing the great door.
+
+It was not the young people alone who found these evening chats
+enjoyable; it was good for Frau Cordula as well, to see a bit of life
+around her once more, and to be able to converse with intelligent
+people. Still, she could not disguise the fact that a strange
+alteration had come upon her child; she went about abstractedly all
+day, and only regained her old-time merriment in the evening to fall
+again into a reverie when she was alone with her mother.
+
+The wise woman was accordingly glad when one evening she could inform
+her patient that the wound was almost healed, and that even the scar
+would soon disappear if he continued to apply the ointment which she
+gave him in a little jar. She would now take leave of him, as his
+visits could hardly be concealed if continued much longer, and she
+herself wished to avoid all gossip among her uncharitable neighbors.
+
+The young man started, and Gundelchen grew as pale as death; but her
+mother had such a decided way, that there was nothing for them but to
+part sadly, after Philip had consumed a good five minutes in thanking
+anew his deliverer, pressing her hand the while. The daughter lighted
+him out to the head of the steep stairs. As he stood there a minute or
+two in evident perplexity, wishing to say something, yet still silent,
+he cast one quick glance at her standing beside him in all her charming
+confusion, seized her hand and kissed it; then, as she drew back,
+blushing deeply, and murmured, "But, Herr Doctor!" he threw his arm
+hastily around her and printed a swift kiss upon her hot cheek,
+whereupon he rushed down the narrow stairs, and, with a fast-beating
+heart, strode homeward through the sultry night. Heinrich Mueller had
+fortunately been engaged at a _seance_ and had not witnessed this
+scene. When, a couple of hours later, he looked in at Gundelchen's
+window, he saw her with wide-open eyes, and a smile on her face,
+dreaming--but of what he had no suspicion.
+
+On the following day, a servant brought a large, firmly-locked box up
+the stairs to the little house in the rear court. Gundula had just come
+in to dinner, and Wenzel Kospoth, too, happened to be present when the
+box was opened. Within it lay all manner of pretty finery for a young
+girl, and a warm dress-pattern for an older woman. With it came a note
+containing the request that they would kindly accept these trifles and
+thus relieve the sender, in some slight degree, of the weight of
+obligation which lay upon his heart.
+
+In the lid lay a very modest little brooch. The girl had once
+complained that she lost all her pins; now the hope was expressed that
+this little clasp would hold more firmly, and that, at the same time,
+it would secure the recollection of a true friend.
+
+Wenzel Kospoth shook his gray head and muttered something about a
+gallant young man who would do the generous thing. But Frau Cordula
+directed the child to get pen and paper at once, and write down what
+she should dictate, which was as follows:
+
+She thanked the Herr Doctor many times for his kind intention to give
+them pleasure; but she could on no account accept these costly
+presents, as she must of necessity perform her medical services without
+compensation, if she would not render herself liable to punishment on
+the charge of unlawful practice. She would therefore return everything
+at once, and remain the Herr Doctor's
+
+            Respectful and devoted servant,
+
+                       Cordula Ehrenberg.
+
+When Philip received this message, which was brought him together with
+the box by a boy from Ghost Lane, he was greatly crestfallen. He knew
+the simple woman so well that he suffered himself to be deluded by no
+doubts of her entire sincerity in thus declining all further
+intercourse. And as he had to confess to himself that he could not
+seriously think of making her child his wife, and was still less
+inclined to play with her feelings, he finally concluded, with a deep
+sigh, to lock fast the chamber of his heart, which was haunted by the
+image of the witch's child, and to draw a cross over the whole
+adventure.
+
+At the same time he recalled to himself, for the first time, that he
+was already half-engaged to another; and he took pains to fan anew the
+flame of his youthful love, which, in this last week, had died down to
+an almost imperceptible little spark.
+
+The surest means to this end would be a visit to the house of the
+Stadtraths. Yet, although he could now, with his scar concealed by a
+narrow strip of plaster, appear once more as a smart young suitor, he
+put off the once longed-for interview from day to day, stayed quietly
+in the house and whiled away the lonely hours when his host was away at
+business, in a depressing idleness, in desultory reading, smoking and
+lying on the sofa, in a sort of dream, wherein he could not prevent a
+certain slender, girlish figure from hovering before his mental eye.
+Sometimes the long lashes would be raised, and swift little flashes
+would shoot out from a pair of black, star-like eyes.
+
+But one evening this kind of fireworks grew so uncanny that he sprang
+up, dressed himself carefully and started for the house of his youthful
+sweetheart.
+
+On the way, his heart throbbed violently and he with difficulty
+restrained himself from turning down a side street in the direction of
+Ghost Lane. But the nearer he drew to his destination the calmer he
+grew. His fate lay still in his own hands; nothing compelled him to say
+the decisive word that night--especially as he had his long-intended
+journey before him. So he mounted the steps of the house with
+indifference, and with a firm hand pulled the well-known bell.
+
+The daughter of the house opened the door herself, but greeted him with
+a cool, well-feigned surprise, as one might a visitor whom he had
+believed to be a hundred miles away, and ushered him at once into the
+parlor, where a little circle of family friends was assembled. The
+father was still at his office, but the mother, who had always petted
+the young man as if he were the legacy of her deceased friend,
+exhibited this evening a stiff, reserved manner, congratulated him upon
+successfully passing his last examination, inquired how long he
+expected to remain in the city, and addressed him once and again as
+Herr Doctor. He noticed at once that the conversation which he had
+interrupted had been concerned with himself, but he maintained his
+composure and excused his deferred visit on the ground of an accident
+which had befallen him--he had made a false step and had fallen,
+striking his head against a stone; on which account he had been for
+several days under a physician's care.
+
+No one expressed, save for mere politeness' sake, any regret at this,
+and the conversation dragged itself wearily along.
+
+Philip had leisure to observe the daughter of the house, as she sat
+near him, her little nose tilted high in the air, and her lips pursed
+up ironically. She had been so frequently told that she was the
+prettiest girl in town, she had been so unquestionably the queen of the
+ballroom for three winters, that it seemed a mere matter of course that
+everyone should pay homage to her youthful highness; and especially did
+she expect it of her old playmate who had been used to bring her the
+most bouquets at every cotillon. Moreover, in spite of his disfigured
+forehead, he pleased her better than all her other society slaves, and
+she had in secret decided that if he should prove himself worthy of the
+honor, she would make him overwhelmingly happy by the bestowal of her
+favor upon him. And now to have him sit there by her side, as impassive
+as a block of wood, was unpardonable; and she resolved within her cold
+little heart that he should feel her righteous anger.
+
+The changed deportment of her prospective son-in-law was still more
+annoying to the high-spirited Frau Stadtrath, who had fancied that the
+long-awaited betrothal, for which she already had in readiness a
+touching and impressive speech, would take place at the earliest
+opportunity. The presence of the other ladies at this time seemed to
+her most undesirable; and as she continued to hope that Philip's
+evidently adverse humor proceeded from the fact that he could not meet
+Rosa alone, she made several awkward attempts to get rid of the
+company. As these were thwarted by the general curiosity to see more of
+the young doctor, she broke in at last with the words: "You never would
+have guessed, my dear Doctor, that during this last year, while you
+have been away, we could make such progress in all kinds of occult
+science and maintain such a lively intercourse with the world of
+spirit. Instead of the regular evening card-playing, we now question
+this round table about many things we wish to know; and even I, who at
+the beginning was quite incredulous, have been gradually converted. I
+see you shrug your shoulders; of course, modern natural science regards
+all spiritualistic experiments as so many humbugs, and as it is quite
+true that much deception does creep in, I will not allow any medium or
+hypnotist to cross my threshold. But a wooden table--what interest
+could that have in leading us astray, especially as we are able to
+control its oracles?"
+
+"And have these ghostly revelations always been found reliable and
+correct by you?" inquired Philip--careful lest his words betray the
+scorn he felt.
+
+"Not always; of course, sometimes the answers sound ambiguous,
+sometimes they are wide of the mark, and then again they hit it so
+exactly that no one could doubt their supernatural origin. Heaven
+knows, one cannot expect a departed spirit to be omniscient; and you
+know well that a fool--I beg the company's pardon--a fool can ask more
+questions than ten of the wisest tables can answer. But you shall judge
+for yourself, my dear Doctor. Rosa has already enjoyed anticipating the
+kind of face you would make if you were once to attend such a sitting."
+
+"I beg you will leave me out of the game, Frau Stadtrath," said Philip,
+evasively. "I fear the tips of my fingers lack the necessary fluid, and
+I should only frustrate your design if I were to form one of the
+chain."
+
+"No, no!" put in the daughter, hastily. "You must take part; otherwise
+you will think the thing is not done honestly and that each of us finds
+his sport in deceiving the rest. Come, now, and try for yourself to
+thwart the thing. You will see that the table will always have the last
+word."
+
+The tea service and cloth were accordingly removed forthwith, and the
+seven or eight persons who sat around the circular table closed the
+magic chain with their outstretched hands, and waited with suppressed
+impatience the things which should come to pass.
+
+Philip's little finger rested with a light pressure upon that of his
+fair young neighbor; but though, formerly, such a tender proximity
+would have sent a glow of warmth through his veins, to-day he remained
+quite cool as though he were merely waiting until the reputed magic
+fluid should stream from the slender hand near his own and animate the
+lifeless wood.
+
+Now, it happened that on this evening our old acquaintance, Heinrich
+Mueller, had undertaken the spiritualistic duties in this house,
+although he usually reserved himself for commissions of a higher order.
+But upon the preceding evening his more ignorant colleague had been put
+to rout so ignominiously that he would not expose himself soon again to
+a like experience. At the request of the assembled company, the medium
+had called up the spirit of Napoleon, and had propounded to it all
+kinds of historical questions. Now, as Johann Gruber, in his former
+capacity of house-servant, had known nothing of the great Corsican,
+and, indeed, had only heard his name when the talk had turned upon
+Napoleon-players--of whom he had had occasion to eject several from the
+inn when in the service of its landlord--he gave such startling and
+distorted answers that the leading spiritualist was overcome with
+embarrassment, and finally bade him go to the devil, while he explained
+to the questioners that the spirit had played one of his scornful jokes
+upon them because he was very angry at being dragged down to earth
+again from his heavenly exaltation.
+
+Heinrich Mueller, on the contrary, who had more culture and was never at
+a loss to furnish some ambiguous solution for difficult questions,
+responded to the summons from the Stadtrath's house the more willingly
+in that he had seen his rival enter it, and burned to play him a trick.
+
+For this an opportunity was soon afforded. For, when he had slipped
+into the table and had announced his presence by raising one foot and
+stamping softly, the Fraeulein Rosa, after some inconsequential
+skirmishing, asked directly whether he knew that a strange guest had
+inserted himself into the chain.
+
+"Yes," answered the table, to the great satisfaction of the believing.
+
+Did he know his name?
+
+"Philip," rapped the table foot.
+
+Did he know where this Philip had been staying since he came to town?
+
+"Ghost Lane," spelled the table, without reflecting that this would be
+a surprise to the company; for what should a young physician just
+returned home have to call him to that ill-omened street?
+
+And so the Fraeulein, for she alone had noticed the strange flush mount
+to her neighbor's face, inquired promptly what had taken him thither;
+and forthwith the table-spirit stamping the foot by a violent motion,
+rapped out:
+
+"A love affair!"
+
+The impression which this word made was so strong that the chain at
+once parted, and all eyes were turned toward the young man, who
+concealed his embarrassment by a scornful laugh and remarked that such
+scandalous jokes proved to him plainly that they were bent upon teasing
+him, and the innocent table had been forced into the plot.
+
+However, Fraeulein Rosa, who had kept a sharp eye upon him, grew
+crimson, not from shame, but from righteous indignation, that her
+heretofore obedient and submissive subject had allowed himself to be
+led into such a course of treachery. Accordingly she commanded the
+circle to form again instantly, and while her trembling little finger
+betrayed all her emotion to her neighbor at the table, she put the
+decided question: "For whom in Ghost Lane has Dr. Philip conceived a
+tender feeling?" The table answered immediately: "G-u-n-d-e-l-chen!"
+
+"Gundelchen!" said the questioner, spelling the word after it, and she
+drew back her hand as though she had touched a wet frog. "Well, Herr
+Doctor, do you require any further evidence? And so it is really
+that frivolous little person, the daughter of that disreputable old
+woman!--you remember, mamma, don't you? our seamstress brought the
+little country girl to our house with her once to help with the
+sewing--a creature entirely without culture. And to her you have
+actually paid court, Herr Doctor, and have found her society so
+interesting that you have neglected your oldest friends for it?"
+
+With flaming eyes she hurled these reproaches at him, in her rash
+excitement never stopping to consider that she thus disclosed the deep,
+hidden wound in her own heart. But the others divined it, and her
+mother made her a sign with her eyes that she should control herself.
+To Philip it was a matter of indifference whether his young friend,
+whose face at this moment appeared to him distorted by passion and
+almost hateful, thus laid bare her feelings in her jealous anger. His
+only concern was to refute the unfounded and malignant suspicions which
+had attached to the good woman in Ghost Lane.
+
+He therefore exclaimed with quiet firmness that he would hear nothing
+against the mother and daughter. It was with gross injustice they had
+been termed "disreputable;" and whoever called the young girl
+"frivolous," clearly could not know her. Here he related with frank
+ingenuousness how he had made their acquaintance and come to be under
+obligations of gratitude to these good Samaritans.
+
+When he had finished his recital, Fraeulein Rosa stood up and said with
+a trembling voice: "There is no disputing about tastes. I understand
+now that for this whole fortnight you had no wish to look up your
+nearest friends, because you were lost in admiration of these two
+pearls. As people of our own station can bear no comparison with them,
+I would prefer to withdraw, that you need not be too long detained from
+your evening visit to Ghost Lane."
+
+Whereat, she curtesied with a very grand air to the young man, bowed to
+the others, and withdrew to the adjoining room.
+
+The rest of the company sat, as if turned to stone, in the stillness
+which ensued. Finally, the Frau Stadtrath, in her dire dismay, said:
+"You must excuse this little burst of temper, my dear Doctor. She at
+one time conceived an antipathy for the little sewing-girl, and cannot
+understand how one of the dearest friends of her youth can feel
+otherwise. And besides, you, with your chivalric notions, put too much
+warmth into your defense. If you will go after our Rosa and say that
+you did not really mean--"
+
+"I regret, gracious lady," interrupted Philip, rising, "that it is
+impossible for me to take back a word of what I have said in favor of
+the two so misunderstood. If your daughter cannot tolerate the society
+of a man who interests himself in two people, unjustly accused, I must
+renounce all further intercourse with this friendly household, from
+whom I was formerly the recipient of so much kindness. I have the honor
+to wish the ladies and gentlemen Good-evening."
+
+With that he took his hat, bowed, and left the room.
+
+When he found himself in the open air, such a feeling of relief came
+over him at his escape from the stifling atmosphere of this respectable
+Philistine house, that, forgetting his new professional dignity, he
+waved his hat, made a leap into the air, and hummed a student song to
+himself. A couple of the neighbors who knew him, and his status with
+the fair daughter of the Stadtraths, smiled, as he passed by them
+unheeding, and whispered to each other that it had probably just been
+settled between the young pair, and the gentleman was a trifle
+exhilarated by the betrothal wine. But Philip was eager to get out of
+the dark streets into open space, and drew a deep breath when he
+reached the shaded park which lay along the river, and was peopled in
+the daytime by the children of the town and their nurses. At this late
+hour, however, only solitary pairs of lovers walked here, and their
+shadows, as they glided past, moved the lonely wanderer to melancholy
+reflections. He seated himself on a bench and for a long time gazed
+upward through the gently swaying branches at the stars, from which a
+soft coolness flowed down upon him. With a hushed sound, the river
+rolled along at his feet. Philip could not but think how delightful it
+would be to let himself be carried away by the current, in a boat, with
+a certain being at his side, all through the night, only to land at the
+first flush of morning near some secluded little house, and there to
+set up his own hearthstone. The image of little Gundula came before him
+so lifelike, she appeared with all her gifts and graces in so bright a
+light, that he could not conquer his longing to take the fair form in
+his arms; and springing up, he set out in a straight line for the town
+again, resolved to make his way that very evening into the haunted
+house, cost what it might, and have a serious talk with Frau Cordula
+concerning the present and the future.
+
+But when he had passed the outlying districts of the town, and was
+nearing his goal, he noticed an unwonted commotion in the streets--a
+running and shouting of men who at the hour of ten are usually sitting
+at home, or over their beer. He made inquiry and heard with alarm that
+a fire had broken out in Ghost Lane. And now he rushed on ahead of all
+the others, and as he reached the street and saw the glow of the fire
+lighting up the black houses, he made a way for himself by elbowing and
+pushing through the dense crowd that blocked the entrance. But the
+people stood idly by gaping at the spot whence the red blaze shot
+upwards, so that Philip had no difficulty in fighting his way through
+them to the seat of the mischief. His fearful surmise had not led him
+astray--the house of "The Unbelieving Thomas" was really on fire, and
+the flames, which until now had issued only from the porter's room,
+were just beginning to encircle the old entrance gate. The men who
+stood in front of it, in a half circle, pointed to the fiery spectacle
+with stupid indifference, or even with malicious grins. A few even gave
+vent to jeers: it was time that Satan at last laid hold of the old
+witchmonger by the collar; perhaps he had been trying to make gold, and
+a flame from hell had shot up out of the crucible and singed his head.
+It could not be expected that any good Christian would put out such a
+fire, and thus arrest the judgment of Heaven.
+
+As soon as Philip reached the house, and took in the situation, he
+shouted to the bystanders to get axes and break in the door and rescue
+those who lived back in the court. Not a foot stirred; only a pair of
+saucy tongues gave it as their opinion that it would be no harm if the
+whole pack of witches were burned, too,--they had deserved a funeral
+pile this long time;--a sentiment which was greeted with general
+laughter. The young man heard this with a throb of rage; and casting
+about him for some implement with which he could burst open the door,
+he seized a beam which the pavers had left lying at the edge of the
+sidewalk, and with superhuman exertion dragged the burden to the
+entrance that with it he might batter in the woodwork of the door,
+which was already ignited; when the rotten lock, as of a miracle,
+yielded of itself in the sockets, and the door swung slowly inward on
+its hinges. In the dark opening appeared a strange pair of human
+figures. Gundelchen was carrying her mother pick-a-pack through the
+smoke and showering sparks out into the open air.
+
+The child had gone to bed earlier than usual that night, weary with her
+day's work, and was awakened by a cry of terror from her mother, who
+had not yet fallen asleep. When she perceived the light from the fire,
+she put on a skirt, threw a shawl around her shoulders, and without
+stopping for shoes or stockings, with swift decision she lifted her
+mother, who could move but slowly, to her back and bore her down the
+little stairs and across the court, there to stand a few agonizing
+moments in the dark hallway until her guardian angel opened the house
+door.
+
+As she stood now outside, bent under her living burden and looking
+around at the crowd as it fell back, she espied their young friend and
+guest, who, with a cry of joy, dropped the beam and sprang toward her.
+A happy smile crossed her flushed face and the fresh lips faltered:
+"Good evening; Herr Doctor"--simple words enough, but they sounded to
+him like sweetest music. He could only say: "Thank God! O Gundelchen!
+To think that you are alive!" and would have caught them both in his
+arms but for the eyes which were turned upon them.
+
+She had not yet put down her burden, and seemed uncertain whither to
+turn with it. In vain did Philip conjure the people to fetch a
+wheelbarrow, or even a push-cart. They turned away, shrugged their
+shoulders and murmured imprecations.
+
+"Well, we must get one ourselves, Gundelchen, since these pious
+Christians cannot summon this much of neighborly kindness," said the
+young man, as he set the woman gently down upon the pavement, and,
+crossing his hands with those of the girl, raised the mother again on
+this swinging litter, bidding her put her arms around their necks. So
+they carried her submissively obedient, through the parting throng,
+which fell back at their approach, down the street as far as the
+marketplace. There, as by accident, an empty cab came rattling sleepily
+along. Philip hailed it, put the two women into it, and swung himself
+up on the seat behind, telling the coachman to drive to a little inn by
+the river, a half mile distant, which served as the terminus for the
+summer evening walks of the better class families.
+
+From Ghost Lane, which grew even ruddier with the glare of the fire,
+sounded a duller hum and tumult; and now they heard the roll of the
+hose-cart, which was at last on its way to the scene of the fire. From
+all sides, great and small were flocking to the ill-omened street; but
+soon they had left the last houses behind them and were driving along
+at a slow trot, through the star-lit night.
+
+
+And now, for the first, the young doctor had time to regard the rescued
+pair more closely. The older woman, with closed eyes, lay back in one
+corner of the carriage as though she would collect her thoughts, and
+thank Heaven for the miracle of her deliverance. Her child sat beside
+her, a little ashamed of her own scanty attire, holding the shawl
+tightly about her shoulders and saying no word to the young man
+opposite. But the black eyes met his steadily, and only once, when the
+bare feet came into view beneath the short skirt, did the long lashes
+droop hastily. Philip asked if she were cold. She shook her head, but
+he drew his handkerchief from his pocket and wound it about her slender
+ankles. Then he stretched out his hand and she laid her own in it, with
+a charming look of confidence, and so they held each other's hands in a
+mute pledge until the carriage drew up before the little hostelry.
+
+Here first the mother opened her eyes, but spoke no word and suffered
+Philip to lift her out and carry her into the house. Host and hostess
+were not a little astonished when they saw their singular guests, for
+whom the young man engaged a room in the upper story. He gave the
+landlord a gold piece and told him it would be to his advantage to
+attend carefully to the ladies, whom he had rescued from great peril by
+fire in the city.
+
+The Frau Wirthin would help the Fraeulein out with her wardrobe. Then he
+himself mounted to the room where Frau Cordula sat in an arm-chair,
+looking dreamily before her. He went up to her and said gravely: "Dear
+mother, I must leave you now and go back to the city. But first I want
+to clear up an important matter. Your daughter and I have silently
+plighted our troth during the journey hither. I beg now that you will
+give us your blessing. I promise to be a faithful husband to your child
+and a loving son to you."
+
+The mother had listened to him with no change of manner, quite as if
+she had been prepared for something similar. Now she shook her head
+gently and said: "Dear Herr Doctor, you are very good, and I believe
+that you are sincere in your request. Still, I am an old woman, and
+must keep a cool head when the fire of enthusiasm has so heated your
+young one that you regard as proper and practical what is, and must
+remain, an impossibility. You are a young man of education and wealth,
+and we are poor people. How could you answer your friends if they
+should ask you why you had played the fool over the daughter of a poor
+tailoress who is denounced as a witch?"
+
+"That is _my_ affair," returned Philip with emphasis; "and I shall take
+care to express myself quite clearly and plainly on the subject.
+Moreover, I take delight in setting all my acquaintances to wondering
+and shaking their heads in a knowing way; indeed, I shall enjoy all the
+talk and sensation which will be created in the church when the
+announcement of our betrothal is made from the chancel. In three weeks,
+therefore, so it please you, the wedding will take place. I propose
+then to take the young Frau Doctor upon a tour, and we shall spend a
+whole year in travel. She will thus have time to become somewhat
+accustomed to society, and to receive that polish which even the
+costliest jewels must have in order that they may be estimated at their
+true value. In the meantime, our dear mother will remain quietly in the
+apartments which will be provided for her in my new home; and her
+daughter, let us hope, will keep her informed, by frequent letters,
+that she was not deceived when she thought proper to try her arts of
+witchery upon a certain Doctor Philip."
+
+He bent down and kissed the mother upon both cheeks, down which two
+tears trickled silently. Then, drawing the radiant girl to his breast,
+he kissed her upon lips and eyes; and before either of them could
+breathe a word, he rushed downstairs, flung himself into the carriage
+and drove back to town.
+
+The house of "The Unbelieving Thomas" was burned out so completely
+during the night that when morning dawned only the four black walls,
+like the sides of some deep shaft or well, remained standing; while the
+chestnut-tree lay, a heap of ashes, in the court, and only a few
+smoking ruins covered the site of the coach-house. In the porter's room
+were found a pile of blackened human bones, and among them four bits of
+copper which had bound the corners of the large Bohemian Bible, and had
+not been melted, despite the intense heat.
+
+High above, on the pointed ridge of one of the neighboring houses, sat,
+in the early gray of the morning, the two former occupants of the
+coach-house, both in the worst possible humor.
+
+Heinrich Mueller cast a savage glance at the wet debris of the charred
+timbers, from which rose an ill-smelling vapor.
+
+"Well, the comedy is ended!" he said, shaking himself. "I am glad that
+no one suspected who was the author."
+
+"Not you, after all, Herr Heinrich?" inquired his comrade, who was
+looking away over the roofs into one of the side streets.
+
+"To be sure; I myself, and no other," returned the illustrious
+wine-seller. "You must know, Johann, that after I had played that base
+fellow, the Doctor, a trick, and had separated him and the well-bred
+daughter of, the Stadtrath, I flew towards home. There I saw the other
+one, who is like poison to me, the Bohemian, bending as usual over his
+book of magic; I slipped in, and then it occurred to me that I would
+spoil his broth for him. I overturned his lamp, the oil ran out over
+the table, there was an explosion, and as the old fool did not know how
+to save himself at once, the whole affair went up in smoke. So I have
+wreaked my vengeance on the wretched cobbler, and now I shall sail back
+to our upper world straightway. Of hell upon earth, I've had my fill.
+It may be confoundedly tedious, up there; but what of that? Doomsday
+cannot be far distant, if one may judge by the mad goings-on down
+here."
+
+He raised himself a little, as though about to take flight.
+
+"Do take me with you, Herr Heinrich!" said the poor soul of Johann
+Gruber. "I, too, am out of conceit with everything down here. I'm ready
+to give up the seance. For yesterday, when I went to look after my
+Rieka, I found her in--well, I will not say what company. It's
+accursedly mean business--playing this sort of a spirit--and I thought
+it would be such capital fun! Some one else can take his turn at it
+now, when stupid people are bent upon having communications. Look, Herr
+Heinrich, the sun is just flashing up from behind the mountain yonder.
+We must make haste and begone before it grows hot. When I was in the
+service of my former master I was always in the harness before
+daybreak. Hoop-la!" and he was off without waiting for his companion,
+who rose slowly after him, casting one more look of malicious
+satisfaction upon the smoking ruins, beneath which lay buried the poor
+victim of his revenge.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of At the Ghost Hour, by Paul Heyse
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