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Title: Great short stories, Volume 2 (of 3)
Ghost stories
Editor: William Patten
Release date: October 10, 2024 [eBook #74549]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: P. F. Collier, 1906
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/74549
Credits: Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT SHORT STORIES, VOLUME 2 (OF 3) ***
[Frontispiece: Theophile Gautier]
GREAT
SHORT STORIES
Edited by William Patten
A NEW COLLECTION
OF FAMOUS EXAMPLES
FROM THE
LITERATURES OF FRANCE,
ENGLAND AND AMERICA
VOLUME II
GHOST
STORIES
P. F. COLLIER & SON
NEW YORK
[Illustration: Title page]
COPYRIGHT, 1906
BY P. F. COLLIER & SON
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LA MORTE AMOREUSE _By Theophile Gautier_
THE RED ROOM _By H. G. Wells_
THE PHANTOM 'RICKSHAW _By Rudyard Kipling_
THE ROLL-CALL OF THE REEF _By A. T. Quiller-Couch_
THE HOUSE AND THE BRAIN _By Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton_
THE DREAM-WOMAN _By Wilkie Collins_
GREEN BRANCHES _By Fiona Macleod_
A BEWITCHED SHIP _By W. Clark Russell_
THE SIGNAL-MAN _By Charles Dickens_
THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS _By Amelia B. Edwards_
OUR LAST WALK _By Hugh Conway_
THRAWN JANET _By Robert Louis Stevenson_
A CHRISTMAS CAROL _By Charles Dickens_
THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM _By Washington Irving_
THE MYSTERIOUS SKETCH _By Erckmann-Chatrian_
MR. HIGGINBOTHAM'S CATASTROPHE _By Nathaniel Hawthorne_
THE WHITE OLD MAID _By Nathaniel Hawthorne_
WANDERING WILLIE'S TALE _By Sir Walter Scott_
LA MORTE AMOREUSE
BY THEOPHILE GAUTIER
_Theophile Gautier (born 1811, died 1872) began life as a painter,
turned to poetry and finally adopted prose forms for the expression
of his ideas. Always an enthusiastic apostle of romanticism, he
lived in an atmosphere of Oriental splendor. His style is unusually
rich and sensuous, and has exerted a considerable influence on the
present generation of writers._
LA MORTE AMOREUSE
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER
Have I ever loved, you ask me, my brother? Yes, I have loved! The
story is dread and marvelous, and, for all my threescore years, I
scarce dare stir the ashes of that memory. To you I can refuse
nothing; to a heart less steeled than yours this tale could never be
told by me. For these things were so strange that I can scarce
believe they came into my own existence. Three long years was I the
puppet of a delusion of the devil. Three long years was I a parish
priest by day, while by night, in dreams (God grant they were but
dreams!), I led the life of a child of this world, of a lost soul!
For one kind glance at a woman's face was my spirit to be doomed; but
at length, with God to aid and my patron saint, it was given to me to
drive away the evil spirit that possessed me.
I lived a double life, by night and by day. All day long was I a
pure priest of the Lord, concerned only with prayer and holy things;
but no sooner did I close my eyes in sleep than I was a young knight,
a lover of women, of horses, of hounds, a drinker, a dicer, a
blasphemer, and, when I woke at dawn, meseemed that I was fallen on
sleep, and did but dream that I was a priest. For those years of
dreaming certain memories yet remain with me; memories of words and
things that will not down. Ay, though I have never left the walls of
my vicarage, he who heard me would rather take me for one that had
lived in the world and left it, to die in religion, and end in the
breast of God his tumultuous days, than for a priest grown old in a
forgotten curé, deep in a wood, and far from the things of this earth.
Yes, I have loved as never man loved, with a wild love and a
terrible, so that I marvel my heart did not burst in twain. Oh, the
nights of long ago!
From my earliest childhood had I felt the call to be a priest. This
was the end of all my studies, and, till I was twenty-four, my days
were one long training. My theological course achieved, I took the
lesser orders, and at length, at the end of Holy Week, was to be the
hour of my ordination.
I had never entered the world; my world was the college close.
Vaguely I knew that woman existed, but of woman I never thought. My
heart was wholly pure. Even my old and infirm mother I saw but twice
a year; of other worldly relations I had none.
I had no regrets and no hesitation in taking the irrevocable vow;
nay, I was full of an impatient joy. Never did a young bridegroom so
eagerly count the hours of his wedding. In my broken sleep I dreamed
of saying the Mass. To be a priest seemed to me the noblest thing in
the world, and I would have disdained the estate of poet or of king.
To be a priest! My ambition saw nothing higher.
All this I tell you that you may know how little I deserve that which
befell me; that you may know how inexplicable was the fascination by
which I was overcome.
The great day came, and I walked to church as if I were winged or
trod on air. I felt an angelic beatitude, and marveled at the gloomy
and thoughtful faces of my companions, for we were many. The night I
had passed in prayer. I was all but entranced in ecstasy. The
bishop, a venerable old man, was in my eyes like God the Father bowed
above His own eternity, and I seemed to see heaven open beyond the
arches of the minster.
You know the ceremony: the Benediction, the Communion in both kinds,
the anointing of the palms of the hands with consecrated oil, and
finally the celebration of the Holy Rite, offered up in company with
the bishop. On these things I will not linger, but oh, how true is
the word of Job, that he is foolish who maketh not a covenant with
his eyes! I chanced to raise my head and saw before me, so near that
it seemed I could touch her, though in reality she was at some
distance, and on the farther side of the railing, a young dame
royally clad, and of incomparable beauty.
It was as if scales had fallen from my eyes; and I felt like a blind
man who suddenly recovers his sight. The bishop, so splendid a
moment ago, seemed to fade; through all the church was darkness, and
the candles paled in their sconces of gold, like stars at dawn.
Against the gloom that lovely thing shone out like a heavenly
revelation, seeming herself to be the fountain of light, and to give
it rather than receive it. I cast down my eyes, vowing that I would
not raise them again; my attention was failing, and I scarce knew
what I did. The moment afterward, I opened my eyes, for through my
eyelids I saw her glittering in a bright penumbra, as when one has
stared at the sun. Ah! how beautiful she was! The gre Next |