STORIES -BY AN OLD BOHEMIAN.*
• Stories by en 014 Bohemian. By the Author of " Reminiscences of an Old "Bohemian." In 2 vols. London Tinsley Brothers.
'THE " Old Bohemian" has read a good deal, especially of the German literature of the early part of this century, and has picked up a good many stories full of character, and not seldom of psychological interest. These stories he has not taken any very great pains to present in any specially artistic form, but rather prefers to relate them with the straightfor- wardness of one who tells them chiefly for the sake of the story, and not for the sake of presenting a powerful picture of human life and action. However, he has so keen a mind, and has been so much attracted by stories which throw new light on the secrets of the heart and the understanding, that there are few, indeed, of these stories without a freshness and novelty of their own which separate them from the common run of narra- tives of this kind. The finest of all—like all the best of them, a - German one in origin—" The Old Candidate," is full of genuine _pathos, as well as vivacity. The picture of the venerable theological student who could never get any congregation to appreciate his merits, in spite of his having the largest heart and the fullest head in the whole neighbourhood,—a consequence partly of the ugliness of his face, and partly of the grotesqueness of his delivery,—is very striking. But the interest of this story depends too much on the whole narrative, to render it suitable for selection here as illustrative of the "Old Bohemian's" story-telling talents. A better illustration by far is the story -called "A Psychological Problem," or that termed "A
Strange Witness." Both these are curious in themselves, -as well as very skilfully worked out by the author, the interest of the one turning on the secretiveness of in- sanity and the way in which insane impulses may ally
themselves with benevolent and even noble ends, while that of the second turns on the power (now well established by the -experience of the newer deaf-and-dumb schools) of catching what is said by others through the eye, instead of the ear, by vir- tue of the insight gradually obtained into the movements of the lips and muscles of the face. Both stories are told with the utmost vivacity, and a very clear grasp of the central interest which the narrator wishes to develope. The picture of the _benevolent old botanist and book-hunter, Professor Tauber, with his hobby for introducing humane slaughter-houses, and his tender friendships for his brother-professors of Leipzig and his various distinguished pupils, is very skilfully drawn ; and from the very beginning of the story the reader is well prepared for its striking close. The .alene opens with the unaccountable murder of the Baron von Hoheneck, of Rosenau Park, near Leipzig, on a bright July morning, in his own summer-house, without leaving the smallest trace of any struggle, the Baroness being also killed by the excess of her hysterical grief and horror at the event :-
" A careful investigation was at once entered upon. The merest cursory examination of the dead man's head showed unmistakably that the temporal bone on the right had been literally smashed in by a tremendous blow with the broad end of a heavy hammer. The murderer was presumably a strong man, then, and most likely a man .of tall stature. Considering the powerful frame and the notorious herculean strength of the late Baron, coupled with the fact that his dagger was found lying bare on the table before him, whilst his double-barrelled fowling-piece was resting quite handy against the right arm of the chair, with both barrels loaded, it was evident that the unhappy man must have been taken altogether unawares, and assailed suddenly by the cowardly assassin The Professor [Professor Tauber] had been botanising in the wood, when the baron had accidentally met him. They had had a chat together. The professor, it would appear, had just heard that Count Seebach, an old war comrade of the baron's, who was living on his estates near the Saxon capital, had in his possession a fine collec- tion of rare Elzevirs, which he, not much given to books, would not feel disinclined to part with on reasonable terms. So the professor had asked the baron for a few words of introduc- tion to hie friend, which Hobeneck had cheerfully promised to bring personally to the professor in Leipzig in the course of the afternoon. This explained the letter which the unhappy man had just begun writing when the assassin struck his foul blow. The professor, unconscious of his friend's sad fate, had returned to his modest bachelor's dwelling in the Katharinen Stresses at about nine. At one in the afternoon be had gone, as was his daily wont, to drink his chopin of wine in the famous old Rathswage. Cellar at the corner of Catherine Street. Hera he had heard the first of the fearful news, and had at once hastened to Rosenau Park. Professor Tauber had known the baron from childhood. At a later period young Hoheneck had been one of the most eager and attentive audi- tors at the professor's far-famed lectures on natural philosophy. To the Baroness Maria von Hoheneck, Tauber had been godfather. He had loved both of them with the warm affection of a childless old man ; and now they were both dead—carried off suddenly by a startling, overwhelming calamity ! No wonder the old man was well-nigh crushed with grief. It was affecting to see him literally throw himself upon the murdered body of his dear friend, which he held in a close embrace, sobbing convulsively all the while, and almost bitterly charging God that he had permitted the perpetration of this foul deed. When the first fieroe spasm of his grief had calmed down a little, he fondly patted the cold cheeks and kissed the pale lips of the man who in life bad been so near his heart. Oh, my beloved George,' he murmured at last, in a semi-conscious state and half dreamingly, as one slowly awakening from a frightful night- mare, to find himself face to face with a still more frightful reality, 'dearest and most cherished of all my pupils ! this is bitter, most bitter to bear ; but it must have been the will of the Almighty, and we can only humbly submit. He knoweth that if all the blood in my old veins could bring back thy dear life, I would joyfully shed the last drop of it. But alas—alas ! the past is irretrievably gone from us, and there thou, only jest now so full of vigour, liest stark before me, never to rise again on this earth, whilst I, decrepit old man, am left standing sad and desolate to mourn thee. Bitter, ay bitter indeed ! Oh, how gladly would I change places with thee ! And my darling little Maria also swept away mercilessly !—No, no ! God forgive me!—not mercilessly, but mercifully—most mercifully ! For what agony would have been hers to suffer and mine to see her suffer it ! ' This in a fierce burst of passionate grief. Nay, nay, thank God this has been spared me !' Then, by a most sudden transition, the man of science, the calm student of Nature, the impassive wielder of the searching scalpel, took the place of the tender, acutely suffer- ing, bitterly bereaved friend. He curiously examined the place where the smashing blow bad fallen ; then, turning to the professors and physicians around, be exclaimed, almost exultingly This is a great consolation indeed ! He could not have suffered even one brief instant's pain. Before the startled nerves could possibly have carried the feeling of the fatal blow to the great centre of consciousness, that centre itself must have been dead to all impression from with- out. You see, gentlemen, this is a blow such as I have long been endeavouring to recommend for all purposes of slaying, when slaying is absolutely needed. You may see here how much more merciful such a life-annihilating lightning blow as this must be than even decapitation by the guillotine, where there is always the horrid re. flection that the brain may continue to feel and to suffer until the last drops of the fluid of life have ran out of the severed veins. Our own method cf execution by axe or sword is simply horrible, and hanging is positively beastly. No, no; the hammer for me, my own broad-faced hammer, which I decidedly must again petition the town council to adopt in the city slaughter-house.' It was ghastly to listen to the man now set off riding at full speed on his hobby ; but every one present felt that it was a merciful thing for him, as it obliterated, for the time being at least, all thoughts of grief and sorrow, and changed the dearly beloved—and, just a brief moment before, so bitterly bewailed—friend into a mere ' subject ' to hang a lecture on upon the easiest and most painless mode of death !"
The similar and equally mysterious murders which soon suc- ceed, and the demeanour of Professor Tauber when the supposed murderer is at last caught, are very powerfully delineated, while the close of the story is full of grim vividness. We suppose that the " Old Bohemian " must have had a solid basis of fact for this story ; at all events, he produces that impression on the mind of his readers, though he makes no assertion to that effect. It reads like a faithful and very curious study from the many strange records of insanity.
Almost as striking in its way,—indeed, more striking in the minutiae of its effects,—is the story called " A Strange Wit- ness," where the curious consequences of learning what people say by the faculty of sight alone are brought out with great felicity. The reader,—not, of course, knowing the explanation, and misled by the facility of the " Strange Witness's " dialogue, —is greatly puzzled by his singularlesire to get a clear view of the faces of the people with whom he talks, which, of course, the reader, like the persons with whom the " Strange Wit- ness " comes into contact, imagines to be due to some curionstwist of mind, or possibly to some species of imaginary clairvoyance. It never occurs to the reader that a man who talks so freely and replies so precisely to every question asked of him, should have been quite unable to hear the shot of a revolver, or any remark made by an interlocutor with averted face. As the complete deaf- ness of the " Strange Witness " does not come out till the very end of the story, and as it is on his evidence that the fate of a man accused of murder turns, the contents of his evidence and the lacunae in it present a curious study, the context of which is both unexpected and effective. This piece might, we should think, be made the subject of a very effective play, if an actor could be found to play with subtlety and skill the part of the deaf witness who .reads off the remarks which he sees, but hears absolutely nothing.
The " Old Bohemian " has a certain humour, as well as an eye for the secrets of character. The story of "Hands and Hearts" is marked by this humour, as well as some portions of the story of " The Old Candidate." Indeed, except, perhaps, " The First Tear " and " Expiation,"—the former a rather vulgar one, the latter a crude story of mistaken identity,—there is hardly a story in either volume which has not some characteristic stamp on it that makes it worth reading as a record of something re- markable, sincerely taken from human character and fate. But the German stories are, on the whole, much the best. The writer is more at home in the characters and domestic life of Germany, than either in the English or the French.
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