Samuel Brohl and Company | Page 4

le Comte. The name you bear is excellent; the head you carry on
your shoulders is superb, and it is the general opinion that you resemble
Faust; but neither name nor head does you any good. Leave the guns as
they are, and bestow your attention upon women; they, and they alone,
can draw you out of the deep waters where you are now floundering.
There is no time to lose. I beg your pardon, but you must be thirty years
old, and perhaps a little more. This diable of a gun has made you lose
three valuable years.
"It pains me, M. le Comte, to be compelled to remind you that the little
note falls due shortly. I have had the value of the bracelet you left with
me as a pledge estimated; it is not worth a thousand florins, as you
believed; it is a piece of antiquity that has a value to only those who
can indulge in a caprice for fancy articles, and such caprices are rare
nowadays, the time for such is past.
"I am, M. le Comte, with much respect, your humble and obedient
servant,

"MOSES GULDENTHAL."
Abel Larinski turned once more in his chair. He crumpled up between
his fingers the letter of M. Moses Guldenthal, saying to himself as he
did so, that the Guldenthals are often very clear-sighted folks. "Ay, to
be sure," thought he, "this Hebrew is right, I have lost three valuable
years. I have had fever, and my eyes have been clouded; but, Heaven
be praised! The charm is broken, the illusion fled, I am cured--saved!
Farewell, my chimera, I am no longer thy dupe! Many thanks, my dear
friend: I return to you your gun; do with it as it seemeth best to you."
His eyes suddenly fell on his own reflection in the mirror above the
chimney-piece, and he regarded it fixedly for a few moments.
"The semblance truly of an inventor," he resumed, mournfully smiling.
"This pale, emaciated face; these deep-set eyes, with dark circles about
them; these hollow, cadaverous cheeks! The three years have indeed
left their traces. Bah! a little rest in the Alpine pastures, and Faust will
become rejuvenated."
He seized a pen, and wrote the following reply:
"You are truly kind, my dear Guldenthal: you refuse me the miserable
florins, but you give me in their stead a little piece of advice that is
worth a fortune. Unluckily, I am not capable of following it. Noble
souls like ours comprehend each other with half a word, and you are a
poet whenever it suits you. When in the course of the day you have
transacted a neat little piece of business, after having rubbed your
hands until you have almost deprived them of skin, you tune your
violin, which you play like an angel, and you draw from it such
delightful strains that your ledger and your cash-box fall to weeping
with emotion. I, too, am a musician, and my music is the fair sex. But,
alas! women never can be for me other than an adorable inutility, a part
of the dream of my life. Your dreams yield you a handsome percentage,
as I have sorrowfully experienced; my dreams yield me nothing, and
therefore it is that they are dear to me.
"I must prohibit--understand me clearly--your disposing of the trinket I

left with you; we have the weakness, we Poles, of clinging to our
family relics. Set your mind at rest; before the end of the month I shall
have returned to Vienna, and will honour the dear little note. One day
you will go down on your knees to beg of me to loan you a thousand
florins, and I will astonish you with my ingratitude. May the God of
Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, have you in his holy keeping, my dear
Guldenthal!"
As he finished his letter, he heard the sound of harps and violins. Some
itinerant musicians were giving a concert in the hotel-garden, which
was lit up as bright as day. Abel opened his window, and leaned on his
elbows, looking out. The first object that presented itself to his eyes
was Mlle. Moriaz, promenading one of the long garden-walks, leaning
on her father's arm. Many eyes were fixed on her--we have already said
it was difficult not to gaze upon her--but no one contemplated her with
such close attention as Count Larinski. He never once lost sight of her.
"Is she beautiful? Is she even pretty?" he queried within himself. "I
cannot quite make up my mind, but I am very sure that she is charming.
Like my bracelet, this is a fancy article. She is a little thin, and her
shoulders are too vigorously fashioned for her waist, which is slender
and supple