The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 33, July, 1860

"No, Ned,–you must not interrupt me to-night, neither you nor the rest,–for I am very weak and nervous and ill, and just now need all my strength for my picture, which, as it has cost me labor and pain,–much pain,–I wish to show in its best light. Macbeth's terror–it means more than it did the other night, Ned–but"–

Here he murmured an inarticulate word or two, recovering himself almost instantly, however, and resuming in a stronger voice,–

"Macbeth's doom is my picture. You will wonder I preferred the solid wall to canvas, perhaps,–but so did the genuine old artists. Lippo Lippi, and Giotto, and–why, Orcagna painted on graveyard walls; and I can almost fancy, sometimes, that this room is a vault, a tomb, a dungeon, where they torture people. Turn to the place, good Mac, Shakespeare's tragedy of 'Macbeth,' Act Third, Scene Fourth, and read the scene to us, as you know how to read; I will manage the accompaniments."

As he spoke, he touched the salver with a lighted match, so that a blue alcoholic flame flickered up before the curtain, making the poor lad's face seem more ghastly than ever.

"You must sit down, Clarian," cried Dr. Thorne, resolutely.

Clarian smiled again, that dim, uncertain smile, and answered,–

"Nay, Doctor, let me have my own way for an hour, and after that you shall govern me as your learned skill suggests. And do not be uneasy about my 'creamfaced' aspect, as I see Ned is: there is plentiful cause for it, beyond the feebleness of this very present, and to-night is not the first time I have worn these 'linen cheeks.' Read on, Mac."

We sat there in the dim light, breathless, awed,–for all of us saw the boy's agony, and were the more shocked that we were unable to understand it,–until, at last, in a voice made more impressive by its tremor, Mac began to read the terrible text,–to read as I had never heard him read before, until a fair chill entered our veins and ran back to our shuddering hearts from sympathy. Then, as he read on and painted the king and murderer together, while his voice waxed stronger and fuller, we saw Clarian step forward to the salver and busy with its lambent flame, till it blazed up with a broad, red light, that, shedding a weird splendor upon all around, and lending a supernatural effect to the room's deep shadows, the picture's funereal aspect, and the unearthly pallor of the boy's countenance, startled our eyes like the painful glare of midnight lightning.

"Thou canst not say, I did it! Never shakeThy gory locks at me!"

As the reader thrust the terror of these words upon us, all started back, for the curtain was plucked suddenly away, and there before us, not in Clarian's picture, it seemed, but in very truth, stood Macbeth, conscious of the murdered presence. Even the reader, absorbed as he was in his text, paused short, amazed; and I forgot that I had seen this picture, only knew that it was a living scene of terror. Doubtless much of this startling effect was the result of association, the agitation of anxiety, the influence of the impressive text, the suddenness of the apparition, the unusual light; but in the figure of Macbeth, at which alone we gazed, there was a life, a terrible significance, that outran all these causes. It was not in the posture, grand as that was,–not in the sin- stamped brow, rough with wrinkles like a storm-chafed sea,–not in the wiry hair, gray and half rising in haggard locks, like adders that in vain try to escape the foot that treads them down,–nor in the mouth, for that was hid behind the impotent guard of the upraised arm and clenched fist,–but in those painted eyes, into which, all-fascinated, we ever gazed, reading in them all that crouching terror, all the punishment of that spectral presence, all the poignant consciousness of his fate to whom such things could happen, to whom already his victims rise again,

"With twenty mortal murders on their crownsAnd push us from our stools!"

While I yet gazed, a sickening terror pervading me in the presence of these ghastly eyes, there came a voice, as if from afar,–"Read on!"–so consonant with the tone of my emotions, that I looked to see the figure itself take speech, until Mac, with a gasp, resumed. Still, as he read, the nightmare-spell possessed me, till a convulsive clutch upon my arm roused me, and instinctively, with the returning sense, I turned to Clarian.

Not too soon,–for then, in his own person, and in that strange glare, he was interpreting the picture to us. He stood, not thrown back like Macbeth, but drawn forward, on tiptoe, with neck reached out, form erect, but lax, one arm extended, and one long diaphanous finger pointing over our heads at something he saw behind us, but towards which, in the extremity of our terror, we dared not turn our eyes. He saw it,–more than saw it,–we knew, as we noted the scream swelling in his throat, yet dying away into an inarticulate breath ere it passed the blue and shaken lips,–he saw it, and those eyes of his, large enough in their wont, waxed larger still, wilder, madder with desperate affright, till every one of us, save the absorbed reader, recognized in them the nightmare horror of the picture,–knew that in Macbeth Clarian had drawn his own portrait! There he stood, drawn on, staring, pointing–

"Stop!" shouted Dr. Thorne, his voice hoarse and strident with emotion; but Mac, absorbed in his text, still read, flinging a fine and subtile emotion of scorn into the words,–

"O proper stuff!This is the very painting of your fear:This"–

"Triple fool! be silent!" cried Dr. Thorne again, springing to his feet,– while we, spell-bound, sat still and waited for the end. "Cease! do you not see?" cried he, seizing Mac.

But there stood Clarian yet, that red light upon his cheek and brow, that fixed stare of a real, unpainted horror in his speechless face, that long finger still pointing and trembling not,–there he stood, fixed, while one might count ten. Then over his blue lips, like a ghost from its tomb, stole a low and hissing whisper, that curdled our blood, and peopled all the room with dreadful things,–a low whisper that said,–

"Prithee, see there! behold! it comes! it comes!" Now he beckoned in the air, and called with a shuddering, smothered shriek,–"Come! I did it! come! Ha!" yelled he, plucking the spell from his limbs like a garment, and springing madly forward towards the door,–"Ha! touch me not! Off, I say, off!" He paused, gazed wildly round, flung his hand to his brow, and, while his eyes rolled till nothing but their whites were seen, while the purple veins swelled like mole- tracks in his forehead, and a bubbling froth began to gather about his lips, he tossed his arms in the air, gave shrieking utterance to the cry,–"O Christ! it is gone! it is gone!" and fell to the floor with a bound.

We sprang to him,–Thorne first of any.

"This is my place, gentlemen," said he, in quick, nervous tones. Then, taking the prostrate child into his arms, he carried him to his bed, laid him down, felt his pulse, and placed his head in Mac's arms. Returning then, he veiled the picture, flung the salver out of the window, and dismissed the huddled throng of frightened students, warning them to be silent as to the night's events. "Very likely Clarian will never see to-morrow; so be careful, lest you soil his memory."

"What does it mean, Thorne?" asked Mac, as the Doctor and I came again to the bedside. "It is nothing more than an overdose of cannabis or opium upon an excited nervous system, is it?"

Thorne looked at the delicate-limbed child who lay there in Mac's strong arms, wiped away the gathering froth from the lips, replaced the feebly quivering limbs, and, as he lingered over the pulse, replied,–

"He has been taking hashish?"

"He has taken it,–I do not say he is under its influence now."

"No,–he has not touched any stimulant. This is much worse than that,–this means epilepsy, Mac, and we may have to choose between death and idiocy."

He was still examining the boy, and showing Mac how to hold him most comfortably.

"If I could only get at the causes of this attack,–those, I mean, which lie deeper than the mere physical disorder,–if I could only find out what it is he has been doing,–and I could, easily, were I not afraid of directing suspicion towards him, or bringing about some unfortunate embarrassment"–

"What is it you suspect?" thundered Mac.

"Either some cruel trick has been played upon the boy, or he has been guilty of some act of madness"–

"Impossible!" cried we in a breath; "Clarian is as pure as Heaven."

"Look at him, Thorne!" said my good chum,–"look at the child's baby-face, so frank and earnest!–look at him! You dare not say an impure thought ever awoke in that brain, an impure word ever crossed those lips."

Dr. Thorne smiled sadly.

"There is no standard of reason to the enthusiast, my dear Mac; and here is one, of a surety. However, time will reveal; I wish I knew. Come, Ned, help me to mix some medicines here. Be careful to keep his head right, Mac, so as to have the circulation as free as possible."

While we were occupied in the front room, there came a stout double knock at the door, and when I opened it, Hullfish, the weather-beaten old constable of the borough, made his hesitating appearance. The Doctor gave me a quick glance, as if to say, "I told you so," and then returned the old man's bluff salutation. As soon as Hullfish saw him, he came forward with something like a sigh of relief, and said,–

"Ah, Doc, you here? 'Tar'n't a hoax, then, though I was mightily 'feared it was. Them students is the Devil for chivying of a feller,–beggin' your pardon, Mr. Blount. Have you got him yonder, Doctor?" said he, his keen eye noticing Mac and Clarian in the back room.

"What do you mean, Hullfish? Got whom?" asked Thorne, making me a sign to be quiet.

"The party, Sir, that was to be copped. I've got a blank warrant here, all right, and a pair of bracelets, in case of trouble."

"What fool's errand is this, old man?" asked the Doctor, sternly.

"What! you don't know about it? Lord! p'raps it's a sell, after all," said he, quite chopfallen. "But I've got my pay, anyhow, and there's no mistake in a V on the Princeton Bank. And here's the papers," said he, handing a note to the Doctor. "If that's slum, I'm done, that's all."

The Doctor glanced at the scrap of paper, then handed it to me, asking, "Is that his handwriting?"

It was a note, requiring Mr. Hullfish. to privately arrest a person guilty of a capital offence, until now concealed. If he was not brought to Hullfish's house between nine and ten that night, then Hullfish was to proceed to No.– North College, where he would be certain to find the party. The arrest must be made quietly. The handwriting was undoubtedly Clarian's, and I told Thorne as much.

"You see, gentlemen," said Hullfish, "I wouldn't 'a' taken no notice of it, ef it hadn't been for the money; but, thinks I, them students a'n't in the habit of sech costly jokes, and maybe there'll be some pinching to do, after all. So you mean to say it's a gam, do you, Doctor? May I be so bold as to inquire what yonder chap's holding on to 'tother about?"

"'Tother' is dangerously ill,–has a fit, Hullfish. He is the author of that note,–very probably was out of his mind when he wrote it."

"So? Pity! Very sick? Mayn't I see him?"

But, as he stepped forward, Thorne stood in the way and effectually intercepted his view. The constable smiled cunningly, as he drew back, and said,–

"You're sure 'ta'n't nothing else, then? Nobody's been getting rapped on the' head? Didn't see no blood, though,–that's true. Well, I don't like to be sold, that's a fact,–but there's no help for it. Here's the young man's change, Doctor,–warrant sixty-six, my fees one dollar."

Thorne carelessly asked if there had been any rows lately,–if he had heard of any one being hurt,–if they had been quiet recently along the canal; and being assured that there had been no disturbance of moment,–"only a little brush between Arch and Long Tobe, down to Gibe's,"–he handed the money back to Hullfish.

"Keep that yourself,–it is yours by rights. And, look you, mum's the word in this case, for two reasons: there's danger that the poor little fellow there is going to croak before long, and you'd be sorry to think you'd given trouble to a dead man; and what's more, if the boys get hold of this, there'll be no end of their chaffing. There's not a few of them would like to cook your goose for you,–I needn't tell you why; so, if you don't want them to get the flashest kind of a pull over you, why, you'll take my advice and keep dark."

"Nothing like slang, Ned, with the police or the prigging gentry. It gives them a wonderful respect for your opinion," said the Doctor, when Hullfish was gone. But his serious, almost stern look returned immediately, as he continued, –"Now to solve this mystery, and find out what this wretched boy has been doing. Come, you and Mac, help me to understand him."

When we had told the Doctor all we knew of the lad, he pondered long over our recital.

"One thing is certain," said he: "the boy is innocent in intention, whatever he has done, and we must stand by him,–you two particularly; for you are to blame, if he has got himself into any predicament."

"The boy has done nothing wrong, Thorne," said Mac, sturdily; "he may have been trapped, or got himself involved somehow, but he never could have committed any crime capable of superinducing such an attack as this."

The Doctor shook his head.

"You may be right, my friend,–and I hope you are, for the child's sake, for it will certainly kill him, if he has. But I never trust an intense imagination when morbidly excited, and I have read of some strange freaks done by persons under the influence of that infernal hashish. However, trust me, I shall find out what is the matter before long, and bring the boy round nicely. He is improving fast now, and all we have to do is to avert another attack."

Thank Heaven, in a day or two Clarian was pronounced to be out of danger, and promising rapid recovery. We had removed him to our rooms, as soon as the violence of the convulsion left him, in order to spare him the associations connected with his own abode. Still, the lad continued very weak, and Thorne said he had never seen so slight an attack followed by such extreme prostration. Then it did my heart good to see how my chum transformed himself into the tenderest, the most efficient of nurses. He laid aside entirely his brusque manner, talked in the softest tones, stole noiselessly about our rooms, and showed all the tender solicitude, all the quiet "handiness" of a gentle woman. I could see that Clarian loved to have him at his bedside, and to feel his caressing hand.

"You see, Ned," Mac would say, in a deprecatory tone that amused me vastly, "I really pity the poor little devil, and can't help doing all in my power for him. He's such a soft little ass,–confound Thorne! he makes me mad with his cursed suspicions!–and then the boy is out of place here in this rough-and- tumble tiltyard. Reminds me of a delicate wineglass crowded in among a ruck of aleflagons and battered quart-cups."

But, though we rejoiced to see that Clarian's health promised to be better than it had been for months, we did not fail to notice with regret and apprehension, that, as he grew physically better and mentally clearer, a darkening cloud settled over his whole being, until he seemed on the point of drowning in the depths of an irremediable dejection and despair. Besides this, he was ever on the point of telling us something, which he yet failed of courage to put into words; and Thorne, noticing this, when, one day, we were all seated round the bed, while the lad fixed his shaded, large, mournful eyes upon us with a painfully imploring look, said suddenly, his fingers upon Clarian's pulse,–

"You have something to say to us,–a confession to make, Clarian."

The boy flushed and shuddered, but did not falter, as he replied, "Yes."

"You must withhold it until you are well again. I know what it is."

Clarian quickly withdrew his hand from the Doctor's grasp.

"You know it, and yet here, touching me? Impossible! entirely impossible!"

"Oh, as to that," said Thorne, with a cool shrug of the shoulders, "you must remember that our relations are simply those of physician and patient. Other things have nought to do with it. And, as your physician, I require you to withhold the matter until you are well enough to face the world."

"No,–I must reap where I have sown. I have no right to impose upon my friends any longer."

"Bad news travel fast enough, Clarian, and there is no wisdom in losing a friend so long as you can retain him."

"I do not see the force of your reasoning, Dr. Thorne. I have enough to answer for, without the additional contumely of being called an impostor."

"For your mother's sake, Clarian, I command you to wait. Spare her what pain you can, at least."

"My mother! Oh, my God, do not name her! do not name her!"

And he burst into the only tears I ever saw him shed, hiding his face in the bed-clothes, and sobbing piteously.

"What does this mean?" said Mac, as soon as we were where Clarian could not hear us. "What have you found out?"

"Positively nothing more than you know already," answered Thorne.

"Nothing?" echoed Mac, very indignantly; "you speak very confidently for one having such poor grounds."

"My dear Mac," said Thorne, kindly, "do you think I am not as much concerned about Clarian as you are? Positively, I would give half I own to arrive at a satisfactory solution of this mystery. But what can we do? The boy believes himself a great criminal. Do you not see at once, that, if we permit him to confess his crime, he will insist upon taking himself out of our keeping,– commit suicide, get himself sent to the madhouse, or anyhow lose our care and our soothing influence? We cannot relieve him until we restore his strength and composure. All we can do now is to watch him, soothe him, and by all means stave off this confession until he is stronger. It would kill him to face a charge now. I am inquiring quietly, and, if anything serious has happened, shall be sure to find out his connection with it."

Though we rebelled against the Doctor's conclusions, we could not but see the prudence of the course he advised, and so we sat down to watch our poor little friend, gnawed with bitter anxiety, and feeling a sad consciousness that the disease itself under which he suffered was beyond our skilfullest surgery, and one that inevitably threatened the saddest consequences. A man has grand powers of recovery, so long as his spirit is free; but let him once be persuaded that his soul is chained down forever in adamantine fetters, and, though, like Prometheus, he may endure with silence, patience, even divinely, he is nevertheless utterly incapable of any positive effort towards recuperation. His faith becomes, by a subtile law of our being, his fact; the mountain is gifted with actual motion, and rewards the temerity of his zeal by falling upon him and crushing him forever. Such a person moves on, perchance, like a deep, noble river, in calm and silence, but still moves on, inevitably destined to lose himself in the common ocean. And this was the promise of Clarian's case. Whatever was his hidden woe, however trivial its rational results, or baseless its causes, it had beyond remedy seized upon his soul, and we knew, that, unless it could be done away with at the source, the end was certain: first the fury, then the apathy of madness. He was no longer tortured with a visible haunting presence, such as had borne him down on that fatal night, but we saw plainly that he had taken the spectre into his own breast, and nursed it, as a bosom serpent, upon his rapidly exhausting energies.

Happily for us,–ere Clarian was quite beyond recovery, while Mac still tore his hair in rage at his own impotence, while the Doctor still pursued his researches with the sedateness of a philosopher, and I was using what power I had to alleviate my little friend's misery,–that subtile and mysterious agency, which, in our blindness and need, we term Chance, interposed its offices, rolled away the cloud from the mystery, and, like a good angel, rescued Clarian, even as he was tottering upon the very brink of the dismal precipice to whose borders he had innocently strayed.

I shall never forget that pleasant June day. It was the first time that Clarian had been out since his illness; and I was his single companion, as he strayed slowly along through the college grounds, leaning tremulously upon my arm, dragging his feet languidly over the pebbled walks, and drinking in the warm, fresh, quivering air with a manner that, although apathetic, still spoke of some power of enjoyment. It was during the hour for the forenoon recitation, and the elm-shaded campus was entirely free of students. As Clarian walked along, his eyes bent down, I heard him murmuring that delicious verse of George Herbert's,–

"Sweet day! so cool, so calm, so bright,The bridal of the earth and sky!The dew shall weep thy fall to-night,For thou must die!"

"'For thou must die,'–so sad! And yet the thought itself of death is not that which saddens us so, do you think, Ned?" he went on, I hearing his words without heeding them,–for I was looking just then towards the outer gate next the President's house, through which I saw Dr. Thorne coming rapidly, accompanied by a stout, middle-aged man, having the dress and appearance of a well-to-do farmer,–"Not the thought, simply, 'Thou must die,'" repeated Clarian, in his plaintive murmur, "but the feeling that all this decay and death is of ourselves, and could be averted by ourselves, had we only self-control, could we only keep ourselves pure, and so be ever near God and of Him. There's cause for a deeper melancholy, poignanter tears than ever Jacques shed."

Dr. Thorne and his companion were now quite near, coming towards us on the same path, when I saw the stranger slap his thigh energetically and catch Thorne by the arm, while he exclaimed in tones of boisterous surprise,–

"Why, there's the very little chap, as I'm alive!"

I had half a glimpse of the Doctor's seizing his companion and clapping one hand over his mouth, as if to prevent him from saying more,–but it was too late. At the sound of the man's voice I felt Clarian bound electrically. He looked up,–over his face began to come again that terrible anguish of the night of the picture, but the muscles seemed too weak to bring it all back,–he grew limp against me,–his arms hung inert at his side,–a word that sounded like "Spare me!" gurgled in his throat,–a feeble shudder shook him, and, ere I could interpose my arm, he sank in a heap at my feet, white, and cold, and lifeless. Before I had raised him, Thorne and the man sprang to my aid, and the latter, bending over with eager haste, took the thin white hands in his own, half caressing them, half fearing to grasp them, speaking to him the while in tones of frightened entreaty, that, on any other occasion, would have been ludicrous enough.

"Come, now, my little man," said he,–"come, don't be afeard, don't be afeard of me! Dan Buckhurst won't harm ye, not for the world, poor child! Come, stand up! 'Twas all a joke. Come, come!–My God! Doctor, he a'n't dead, is he?" cried he to Thorne, in horror.

"If he is, you have killed him, you damned old fool, you!" responded Thorne, impetuously, thrusting the man aside with an angry gesture, and bending down to examine the lad's inert form. "Thank God, Ned," said he at last, "it is only a swoon this time, and we'll soon have him all right. We must get him to bed, though. Here, Buckhurst, you are the strongest; stop whimpering there, you old jackanapes, and bring him along."

Buckhurst quickly obeyed, lifting Clarian up in his arms as gently and tenderly as if he had been an infant, and following Thorne, who led the way to our rooms. There the lad was placed upon the bed with which he had become only too familiar, and the Doctor, by means of his restoratives, soon had the satisfaction of recalling breath and motion. As soon as the boy's sighs gave evidence of returning vitality, Thorne thrust us all from the room, including Mac, who had now come in from class, saying to Buckhurst,–

"Now, Sir, tell them all about it,–and wait here; I shall want you presently." With which words he closed the door upon us, and returned to his patient.