A Park Experience [pp. 425-428]

A Park Experience.
He had a short but severe illness. I
called a physician and installed a nurse.
On one of my daily visits he said: "God
knows why you come, friend, to a poor
old man who has lost his grip."
He turned as if a sudden thought had
struck him, and clutching my hand
cried: "Is this all your own doing, or
are you an emissary of hers?"
Upon my assurance that I was acting
solely upon my own responsibility, he
sank back upon the pillows.
"In New York," he continued with
feverish intensity, "I had friends who
would have helped me, but she came
here and I had to follow. I must be
near her when the time comes for her
to do her duty. 0, she will come, she
will come, but it is so long!"
I thought him partly delirious, yet felt
that his words had something to do with
the mystery that surrounded him.
After his recovery I procured some
translating for him to do, for I had discovered that he was a good linguist.
Once I saw "Leonie." It was after an
afternoon concert, and our eyes met for
an instant as she crossed the pavement
to her carriage. She passed me with a
haughty nod that considerably astonished me, for I had speculated upon our
meeting, and the probability that she
would be anxious to hear of my patient.
I strode down the street in an angry
mood. A wrong existed, and I felt her
to be the cause. My old gentleman
might be a fanatic,'- I had learned his
high notions of right and wrong, but he
would not have scorned her assistance
without good cause for so doing. Indeed, I sometimes thought (and realized
that I was all wrong in so thinking) that
his sense of right and wrong was too
acute for this world. He drew such nice
distinctions, and his views were so entirely unworldly, that he seemed to be
continually standing in his own light.
His work afforded him much pleasure;
and almost always when I called he
would have a bouquet of happy expressions or fine thoughts for me, which he
had culled from foreign authors. One
in particular, I remember, was from the
German, "Despair is the only genuine
atheism."
"How true, how true!" he exclaimed
with his melancholy smile. "And 1 have
never known despair for one instant.
What would I have done in my wandering life, had despair once come to me!
In St. Petersburg, Berlin, Paris, London, just when I had made a few friends
and found a niche in which I could stand
upright and breathe freely, to be obliged
to relinquish all and begin anew in a
strange city! Strange faces, strange
ways: - a strange lot is mine."
"But are you not misled?" I could
not help saying.
"I am driven by the lash of duty," he
said with mournful severity and burning
eyes. "I know I am right, and that i
will not have lived and suffered in vain.
Do not question me." His impressive
manner lent solemnity to his tragic
words.
After this conversation I thought him
an ascetic,who believed that in scourging
the flesh he was benefiting the spirit.
One afternoon I went to call on my
protg&. I had not seen him for anumber of days, and so it was a surprise not
to hear his even, gentle voice in response
to my knock. I opened the door. He
was sitting at his writing table, and as I
laid my hand upon his shoulder and
stooped to look in his face, I saw that
he was dead.
Before him was spread a letter, and
almost involuntarily I took possession of
it before I summoned help.
We found that death had come very
peacefully,- heart disease, the doctor
said, as he had long expected.
Under the circumstances I did not
feel called upon to show the letter I had
found. From the heading, "My dear
Father," I knew it to be something of a
private nature that his sensitive spirit
would have shrunk from revealing to
curious eyes.
I glanced at the signature'" Leonie."
427
1890.]