Canton Register

A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE.
BY T. BAILEY ALDRICH.

One morning, as I was passing through Boston common, which lies between my home and my office, I met a gentleman lounging along the mall. I am generally preoccupied when walking, and often thread my way through crowded streets without distinctly observing any one. But this man's face forced itself upon me, and a singular face it was. His eyes were faded, and his hair, which he wore long, was flecked with gray. His hair and eyes, if I may say so, were sixty years old, the rest of him not thirty. The youthfulness of his figure, the elasticity of his gait, and the venerable appearance of his head were congruities that threw more than one pair of curious eyes towards him. He excited in me the painful suspicion that he had either got somebody else's head or somebody else's body. He was evidently an American, at least so far as the upper part of him was concerned; the New England cut of countenance is unmistakable—evidently a man who has seen something of the world, but strangely young and old.

Before reaching the Park street gate, I had taken up the thread of thought which he had unconsciously broken; yet throughout the day this old young man, with his wrinkled brow and silvered locks, glided in like a phantom between me and my duties.

The next morning I again encountered him on the mall. He was resting lazily on the green rails, watching two little sloops in distress, which two ragged ship-owners had consigned to the mimic-perils of the pond. The vessel lay becalmed in the middle of the ocean, displaying a tantalizing lack of sympathy with the frantic helplessness of the owners on shore. As the gentleman observed their dilemma out, leaving them drearier than before. I wondered if he, too, in his time, had sent out ships, that drifted and drifted and never came to port; and as if these poor toys were to him types of his own losses.

"That man has a story, and I should like to hear it," I said aloud, halting in one of those winding paths which branch off from the pastoral quietness of the pond. and end in the rush and tumult of Tremont street.

"Would you?" exclaimed a voice at my side. I turned and faced Mr. H—, a neighbor of mine, who laughed heartily at finding me talking to myself. "Well," he added, reflectively, "I can tell you this man's story, and if you will match the narrative with anything as curious, I shall be glad to hear it."

"You know him then?"

"Yes and no. That is to say, I do not know him personally; but I know a singular passage in his life. I happened to be in Paris when he was buried."

"Buried."

"Well, strictly speaking, not buried, but something quite like it," continued my friend, H— "well sit on this bench, and I'll tell you of an affair that made some noise in Paris a couple of years ago. The gentleman himself, standing yonder, will serve as a sort of frontispiece to the romance—a full page illustration as it were.

The following pages contain the story which Mr. H— I related to me. While he was telling it, a gentle wind arose; the miniature sloops drifted feebly about the ocean; the wretched owners ran from point to point, as the deceptive breeze promised to waft the barks to each shore. The early robins trilled now and then from the newly-fringed elms; and the old young man leaned on the rail in the sunshine, little dreaming that two gossips were discussing his affairs within twenty yards of him.

Three people were sitting in a chamber whose one large window overlooked the Place Vendome. M. Dorine, with his back half turned on the other two occupants of the apartment, was reading the Journal des Debats, in an alcove, pausing from time to time to wipe his glasses, and taking scrupulous pains not to glance towards the lounge at his right, on which were seated Mlle. Dorine and a young American gentleman, whose handsome face frankly told his position in the family. There was not a happier man in Paris that afternoon than Philip Wentworth. Life had become so delicious to him that he shrunk from looking beyond to-day. What could the future add to his full heart? What might it not take away? The deepest joy has something of melancholy in it—a presentment, a fleeting sadness, a feeling without a name. Wentworth was conscious of this subtle shadow that night. when he rose from the lounge and thoughtfully held Julia's hand to his lip for a moment before parting. A careless observer would not have thought him, as he was, the happiest man in Paris.

M. Dorine laid down his paper, and came forward. "If the house," he said, "is such as M. Cherbonneau describes it, I advise you to close with him at once. I would accompany you, Philip, but the truth is I am too sad at losing this little bird to assist you in selecting a cage for her.—Remember, the last train for town leaves at five. Be sure not to miss it; for we have seats for Sardon's new comedy to-morrow night. By to-morrow," he added, laughingly, "little Julia here will be an old lady—it is such an age from now until then."

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

As Paris stretched out before him with lights twinkling in the early dusk, and its spires and domes melting into the evening air, it seemed to him as if years had elapsed since he left the city. On reaching Paris he drove to the hotel, where he found several letters lying on the table. He did not trouble himself even to glance at their superscriptions as he threw aside his traveling surtout for a more appropriate wardrobe.

If, in his impatience to return to Mlle. Dorine, the cars had appeared to walk, the fiacre which he had secured at the station seemed to creep. At last it turned into the Place Vendome, and drew up before M. Dorine's hotel. The door opened as Philip's foot touched the first step. The servants silently took his hat and cloak, with a special deference, Philip thought; but was he not now one of the family?

"M. Dorine," said the servant, slowly. "is unable to see Monsieur at present. He wishes Monsieur to be shown up to the saloon."

"Is Mademoiselle"

"Yes, Monsieur."

"Alone?"

"Alone, Monsieur," repeated the man, looking curiously at Philip, who could scarcely repress an exclamation of pleasure.

It was the first time such a privilege had been accorded him. His interviews had always taken place in the presence of M. Dorine, or some member of the household. A well bred Parisian girl has but a formal acquaintance with her lover.

Philip did not linger on the stair-case; with a light heart he went up the steps two at a time, hastened through the softly lighted hall, in which he detected the faint scent of his favorite flowers and stealthily opened the door of the saloon.

The room was darkened. Underneath the chandelier stood a slim casket on trestles. A lighted candle, a crucifix, and some white flowers were on the table near by. Julia Dorine was dead.

When M. Dorine heard the sudden cry that rang through the silent house, he hurried from the library, and found Philip standing like a ghost in the middle of the chamber.

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

Two messages were at once dispatched to Philip, one to the station at G— the other to his hotel. The first missed him on the road, the other he had neglected to open. On his arrival at M. Dorine's house, the valet, under the supposition that Wentworth had been advised of Mlle. Dorine's death, broke the intelligence directly to the 'saloon' where she lay.

Mlle. Dorine's wealth, her beauty, the suddenness of her death, and the romance that had in some way attached itself to her love for the young American, drew crowds to witness the funeral ceremonies which took place in the church in the rue D'Angeau. The body was to be laid in M. Dorine's tomb, in the cemetery of Montparnasse.

This tomb requires a few words of description. First, there was a grating of filigree iron; through this you looked into a small vestibule or hall, at the end of which was a massive door of oak opening upon a short flight of stone steps descending into the tomb. The vault, fifteen or twenty feet square, ingeniously ventilated from the ceiling, but unlighted. It contained two sarcophagi: the first held the remains of Madame Dorine, long since dead, the other was new, and bore on one side the letters J. D., in monogram interwoven with fleurs de-lis.

The funeral train stopped at the gate of the small garden that encloses the place of Laurel, only the immediate relatives following the bearers into the tomb. A tender wax candle such as is used in Catholic churches, burned at the foot of the uncovered sarcophagus, casting a dim glow over the centre of the apartment and deepening the shadows which seemed to huddle together in the corners. By its flickering light the coffin was placed in its granite shell, the heavy slab laid over it reverently, and the open door revolved on its dusty hinges, shutting out the uncertain ray that had ventured to peep in on the darkness.

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

The rattle of wheels had died out on the air when Philip opened his eyes, bewildered like a man abruptly aroused from slumber. He raised himself on one arm and stared into the surrounding darkness. Where was he? In a second the truth flashed upon him, while kneeling on the further side of the stone box, perhaps, he had fainted, and during the last solemn rites his absence had been unnoticed.

His first emotion was one of natural terror. But this passed as quickly as it came. Life had ceased to be so very precious to him; and if it were his fate to die at Julia's side, was not that the fulfillment of the desire which he had expressed to himself a hundred times that morning? What did it matter a few years sooner or later? He must lay down the burden at last. Why not then? A pang of self-reproach followed the thought. Could he so lightly throw aside the love that had bent over his cradle? The sacred name of mother rose involuntarily to his lips. Was it not cowardly to the life which he should guard for her sake? Was it not his duty to the living and the dead to face the difficulties of his position, and to overcome them if it were within human power?

With an organization as delicate as a woman's he had that spirit which, however sluggish in repose, leaps with a kind of exultation to measure itself with disaster. The vague fear of the supernatural that would well up at most men's minds in a similar situation found no room in his heart. He was simply shut in a chamber from which it was necessary that he should obtain release within a given period. That this chamber contained the body of the woman he loved, so far from adding to the terror of the case, was a circumstance from which he drew no consolation. His soul was far hence; and if that pure spirit could return, would it not be to shield him with her love? It was impossible that the place should not engender some thought of the kind. It did not ruth the thought entirely from him as he rose to his feet and stretched out his hands in the darkness; but his mind was too healthy and practical to indulge long in such speculations.

Philip being a smoker, chanced to have in his pocket a box of allumettes. After several ineffectual essays, he succeeded in igniting one against the dark wall, and by its momentary glare perceived that the candle had been left in the tomb. This would serve him in examining the fastenings of the vault. If he could force the inner door by any means and reach the grating, of which he had an indistinct recollection, he might hope to make himself heard. But the oaken door was immovable, as solid as the vault itself, into which it fitted air tight. Even if he had the requisite tools, there were no fastenings that could be removed, the hinges were set on the outside.

Having ascertained this, Philip replaced the candle on the floor and leaned against the wall, thoughtfully watching the blue fan of flame that wavered to and fro. threatening to detach itself from the wick. …At all events," he thought, "the place is ventilated." Suddenly he sprang forward and extinguished the light.

His existence depended upon the candle. He had read somewhere, in some account of a shipwreck, how the survivor had lived for days upon a few candles which one of the passengers had insanely thrown into the long boat. And here he had been burning away his very life.

By the transient illumination of one of the tapers, he looked at his watch. It had stopped at eleven—but eleven that day or the previous night. The funeral, he knew, left the church at ten. How many hours had passed since then? Of what duration had been his swoon? Alas! it was no longer possible for him to measure those hours which are but avails by the wretched, and fly like the swallow over the happy.

He picked up the candle, and seated himself on the stone steps. He was a singular man, but as he weighed the chances of escape, the prospect appalled him. Of course he would be missed. His disappearance under the circumstances would surely alarm his friends; the police would institute a search for him; but where was the probability of seizing him in the cemetery of Montmartre? The neglect of police ctl st n jinnirjutili goncrn at work to find him; the police might not search. The miserable turned over at the morgues; a minute scrutiny of him would place him in every detective's hand; and he in M. Dorine's family tool,

Yet, on the other hand, it was here he was last seen; from this point a keen detective would naturally work up the case. When might not the undertaker return for the candlestick, probably not left by design? Or, again, might not M. Dorine send fresh wreaths of flowers, to take the place of those which now diffused the pungent, aromatic odor throughout the chamber; Ah! what unlikely chances.

But if none of these things did happen how long could he keep life in himself? With his pocket knife Wentworth cut the half burned candle into four equal parts,

"To night," he meditated, "I will eat the first of these pieces; to-morrow, the second; to-morrow evening the third; the next day.

He had taken no breakfast that morning, unless a cup of coffee can be called a breakfast. He was ravenously hungry now. But he postponed the meal as long as practicable. It must have been near midnight according to his calculation. when he determined to try the first of his four singular repasts. The bit of white wax was tasteless, but it served its purpose.

His appetite for the first time appeased, he found a new discomfort. The humidity of the walls, and the wind that crept through the unseen ventilator, chilled him to the bone. To keep walking was his only resource. A kind of drowsiness, too, occasionally came over him. It took all his will to fight it off. To sleep, he felt, was to die; and he had made up his mind to live.

The strangest fancies flitted through his head as he groped up and down the stone floor of the dungeon feeling his way along the wall to avoid the sepulchers. Voices that had long been silent spoke words that had long been forgotten, faces he had known in childhood grew palpable against the dark. His whole life in detail was unrolled before him like a panorama; the changes of a year with its burdens of love and death, its sweets and bitterness, were epitomized in a single second. The desire to sleep had left him, but the keen hunger came again.

It must be near morning now, he mused; perhaps the sun is just gilding the pinnacles and domes of the city; may-be a dull, drizzling rain is beating on Paris, sobbing on this mound above me. Paris! it seems like a dream. Did I ever walk in its gay boulevards in the sunlight? Oh, the delights and pains and passion of that sweet human life

Philip became conscious that the gloom, the silence and the cold were gradually conquering him. The feverish activity of his brain brought on a reaction.

He grew lethargic, he sank down on the steps and thought of nothing. His hand fell by chance on one of the pieces of candles. he grasped it and devoured it mechanically. This revived him.

"How strange," he thought, "that I am not thirsty. Is it possible that the dampness of the walls which I must inhale with every breath has supplied the need of water?" Not a drop has passed my lips for two days, and still I experience no thirst. The drowsiness, thank heaven, has gone. I think I never was wide awake until this hour. It would be an anodyne like poison that could weigh down my eyelids. No doubt that the dread of sleep has something to do with this."

The minutes were like hours. Now he walked as briskly as he dared up and down the tomb; now he rested against the door. More than once he was tempted to throw himself upon the stone coffin that held Julia, and make no further struggle for his life.

Only one piece of candle remained. He had eaten the third portion, not to satisfy hunger, but from a precautionary motive. He had taken it as a man takes some disagreeable drug, upon the result of which hangs safety. The time was rapidly approaching when even this poor substitute for nourishment would be exhausted. He delayed that moment. He gave himself a long fast this time. The half inch of candle which he held in his hand was a sacred thing to him. It was his last defence against death.

At length, with such a sinking at heart as he had not known before, he raised it to his lips. Then he paused—then—he hurled the fragments across the tomb, then the oaken door was flung open, and Philip, with dazzled eyes, saw M. Dorine's form sharply defined against the dark blue sky.

When they lifted him out, Philip smiled. Into the bright daylight, M. Dorine noticed that Philip's hair, which a short time since was black as a crow's wing, had actually turned gray in places. The man's eyes, too, had failed; the darkness dimmed their lustre.

"And how long was he really confined in the tomb?" I asked as Mr. H— con-cluded his story.

"Just one hour and twenty-five min-utes!" replied Mr. H—, smiling blandly.

As he spoke the Lilliputian sloops, with their sails all blown out like white roses, came floating bravely into port. Philip Wentworth lounged by us, wearily in the pleasant April sunshine.

Mr. H—'s narrative haunted me. Here was a man who had undergone a strange ordeal. Here was a man whose sufferings were unique. His was no thread-bare experience. Eighty-five minutes had seemed like two days to him. If he had really been immured two days in the tomb, the story would have lost its tragic element.

After this it was but natural I should regard Mr. Wentworth with deep curiosity. As I met him from day to day passing through the common with that same introspective air, there was something in his loneliness which touched me. I wondered that I had not read before in his pale, meditative face some such sad his-tory as Mr. H— had confided to me.

I formed the resolution of speaking to him, though with no very lucid purpose. One morning we came face to face at the intersection of two paths. He halted courteously to allow me the pre-cedence.

"Mr. Wentworth," I began, "I wish to have

He interrupted me.

"My name, sir," he said, in an off-hand way, "is Jones."

"Jn—Joseph Jones?" I gasped.

"No, not Joseph Jones," he returned with a glacial air, "but Frederick."

A dim light, in which the perfidy of my friend H— was becoming discern-ible, began to break upon my mind.

It will probably be a standing wonder to Mr. Frederick Jones why a strange man accosted him one morning on the common as "Mr. Wentworth," and then dashed madly down the nearest footpath and disappeared in the crowd.

The fact is, I had been duped by Mr. H—, who is a gentleman of literary proclivities, and has, it is whispered, be-come somewhat demented in brooding over the Great American Novel not yet hatched. He had actually tried the effect of one of his chapters on me!

My hero, as I subsequently learned, is a commonplace young man who has some connection, I do not know what, with the building of that graceful granite bridge which spans the crooked silver lake in the public garden.

When I think of the readiness with which Mr. H— built up his airy fabric on my credulity, I feel mortified at having been the unresisting victim of his black art.