Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 103.djvu/91



sat alone. It was not twilight, it was night, deep, dark night. He had extinguished the lamp, for he wished that all around him should be gloomy as his own sad thoughts. Even the fitful glimmering light, which was cast by the fire in the stove on the objects near it, was disagreeable to him, for it showed him a portion, at least, of the scene of his bygone happiness. His bitter sorrow seemed to have petrified all his faculties, and entirely blasted his life; he did not appear to reflect, he only felt. The deep sighs that every now and then burst from his compressed lips were all that gave sign of existence about him. That agitated tremor, those wild lamentations, those burning tears—the glowing lava which grief's volcano casts forth, lay hidden amidst the ashes of mute and agonised suffering.

But a few years before he had been the most hopeful of lovers; and somewhat later, the happiest of husbands and of fathers. Now, all—all was lost! Death had stretched forth his mighty hand and taken his treasures from him; blow after blow had fate thus inflicted on his bleeding heart. He—the strong man—the high-minded—the richly endowed—sat there like a lifeless statue, without purpose, without motion, without energy: all had been swept away in the earthquake which had engulphed the happiness of his home, and he had not power to raise a new structure upon the ruins of the past.

While he was sitting thus, a momentary blaze in the fire showed him the portrait of his departed wife, which hung against the wall. How many recollections the sight of it awakened! Oh, how distinctly he remembered the day when that painting had been finished for him! It was a short time before his marriage; he was gazing on it in an ecstasy of delight, when the lovely original cast her beaming eyes on him and whispered, "Do you really think it beautiful? Is it so beautiful, that when I become old and grey-headed, you may look at my picture and remember your love, your feelings for me, when we were both young?" And when he assured her, that for him she would always be young, she replied so sweetly, "Oh, I am not afraid of becoming old by your side; it will be so delightful to have lived a long life of love with you!"

Alas! he was still young, but he had to wander through perhaps a long, long life alone. How had he beheld her last? She was lying in her coffin—young and lovely, but pale and motionless. And he—who still breathed and felt—he it was who had clung in despair to that coffin—he who, with a breaking heart, had laid her dark hair smoothly on her marble-white cheek, had pressed his lips for the last time on her cold forehead, had folded her transparent hands, and bedewed them with his tears, and had laid his throbbing head on that so lately beating heart, which never, never more would thrill with sorrow or with joy. But who could describe that depth of grief, that rending of the soul, that agonising convulsion of the heart, when the last farewell look on earth—the long,