LITERATURE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6970, 26 September 1890, Page 1

LITERATURE.

THE STRANGEST LOVE STORY EVER TOLD. One spring twilight, in the year 3793, a ■man, young and handsome, oat writing in -the chamber of a secluded house, not far from the old Electoral Palace of Mayence. •Suddenly he dropped his pen with a startled cry. The face of a woman, dim and yet perfectly distinct, had appeared betwixt him and his work. He looked up. It hung, flower-like, in the air above him. He rushed towards the open window — it was there, smiling sadly in the fading light. Adam Lux stretched out his arms passionately to the vißion. "Ah, you come to aie again !" he said, "who are you? Why do you pursue me ? Beautiful shadow, whither shall I goto find your substance P Do you exist in the flesh, or are you only a spirit— delusive as maddening ?" "Adam— Cousin Adam/ a girl's voice called from the court below j "leave your stupid writing and come down to me. It is I — Margarethe !" Adam Lux passed his hands across his eyes. The voice of Margarethe dissolved «the spell which held him. His dream-maiden vanished. He descended a cork-screw stair to a court full of shadows, where a girl dressed as for a ■ fete, Btood dabbling her plump hands in .the fountain. "You have forgotten my birthday, cousin," she pouted. . "Of late, you think of nothing but liberty, fraternity, equality, like those mad folks in Paris who have cut off the head of their king." " Pardon me, I did forget ! lam but a sorry lover, Margarethe." She sighed deeply. " You are no lover of mine, Adam— ours is a betrothal of hands, not of hearts. You care nothing for love." He took a turn across the court. He had a fine face, with dark brows arching over violet eyea and flaxen hair, slightly powdered. A strange smile appeared on his lips. " I love — not fleshand blood, Margarethe, but a phantom, a shadow," he answered, with his eyes full of dreams. " Listen ! It <>ame to me one night as I was walking in the gardens of the Electoral Palace ; a woman's face, white as marble— white as one of the garden lilies just blown; in the chin a deep dimple; about the perfect mouth an expression of padness and gravity ; a face with great eyes of unfathomable darkness, fringed with lashes as black as night, and hair dark also and lustrous, the full rich curls, tipped with auburn, falling against a neck like a column of pearl." "Oh!" cried Margarethe, in dismay, " how very beautiful she must be ! Surely there is no woman like that in all Mayence ! " " True," he answered, " nor in the ■world, I fear. It is the ghost of some ■Greek goddess that has entered my brain, and will not be dislodged. To-night .she came to me "again in the chamber above-stairs. It was your voice that frightened her away." Tears stood in Margarethe's eyes. She was jealouß and perplexed. "It was wrong of me to tell you these things," he continued. " You are a mere child, Margarethe, with the heart of a child. Come, let us talk of other matters. A great honour has been conferred upon me by the people of Mayence. I have been choßena Deputy to go to Paris and request the annexation of this city to France." "Pariß!" sobbed Margarethe. "That is a long way off! When will you go?" " To-morrow — by diligence." "You will never, never come back, Adam!" "Heaven only knows," 'he answered quietly. Lux was an ardent Republican, The mission to Pariß suited him well. His handsome head was full of other and more dangerous phantoms than dream-maidens. On the following day he kissed poor, weeping Margarethe good-bye in the old court, and started for the 'French capital, where Jean Paul Marat was then at the height of his terrible power. Lux took lodgings in the Rue St Honore, and hurried to the Convention to -solicit, in the name of German Republicans, the annexation of his native city to Trance. The Chamber on that day was full of tumult. Marrat— hideous, loud-mouthed —preaching massacre and anarchy, waa the leader of La Montague; As he ranted in the Tribune, Adam Lux looked at him in ■disgust. His head was too large for his body; his lean, sickly face was unspeakably repulsive. He wore a patched and dirty waistcoat, cotton-velvet trousers, stained with ink, shoes full of nails and tied with pack-thread, a ragged shirt, and greasy hair confined with a leathern thong. On his deeply cleft mouth a Bardonic grin appeared continually. His look was full of insolence and power. " A monster in body and in soul!" thought Adam Lux, who found the external aspects of liberty in Paris far from pleasant. July came. One hot and breathless night Lux left the Convention ma dejected frame of mind. He felt mocked, deluded, discouraged. A score of high and haughty heads had fallen since morning in the Back of sawdust at the foot of the guillotine. He stopped on the Pont Neuf to look at the sunset behind the trees of the Champa Elysees. That, too, seemed a vast streak of blood. With a shudder he turned and walked away to the gardens of the Palais Royal. There the young Deputy began pacingaimlessly about, absorbed in unhappy thought. Presently he heard a light step. A woman was advancing towards him under the galleries. Adam Lux saw a face, young and of amazing beauty, the skin like alabaster, the splendid eyes unfathomably dark, amass of chestnut -curls, with auburn tips, clustering against a dazzling neck. It was his dream-maiden in the flesh, the substance of that mysterious shadow which had twice appeared to him in his own city of: Mayence. With an absorbed air she glided by. Her white dress brushed him gently. His heart gave a furious bound. . He turned and followed her. She entered the Bhop of a cutler; the young Deputy entered also. She advanced to the counter, and said something to the man behind it. Lux failed to, catch, the words, but the rich, cultivated voice waa that of a born gentlewoman. The cutler produced a tray of knives. In the Rhadow of the shop-door Adam Lux ■ saw her select one— a poniard knife, with . an ebony haft. " The price ? " she asked. " Three francs, citoyennc," answered the cutler. ' She put the money on the counter, concealed the knife under her silk kerchief, and returned to the garden. As she seated herself on one of the stone benches abutting on the arcades, Adam Lux paired at her side. " For pity's sake," he entreated, " tell me who you are ? I have known you for a long time, -but your name — what is your name ? " She started, and looked up. " You have known me for a Ion? time, - citoyen ? " Bhe echoed, gravely. "I do not nnderstand you." "I am the deputy from Mayence," he said, trying to speak calmly. "It was at Mayence that you twice appeared to me. .For days and -weeks my sleeping and

waking dreams have been full of yon. I recognised you the instant that I saw you in this garden ; it was just before you entered the cutler's shop," A slight alarm dawned in her eyes. Her hand went up to her silk fichu, under which shs had hidden the knife. Did she think him a madman ?" " One should not dream in these perilous days, citoyen," she said sternly, " there is little profit in dreams. He who loves liberty must act." " I perceive that you are an aristocrat ; you belong to the nobles, bub your name — your name ? " he insisted. She smiled sadly. " Pardon, I cannot tell it now, citoyen, but before many hours it will be in every mouth." She arose from the bench. He put out a hand to detain her. "Stay! Stay !" he entreated. "Do not leave me— l love you ardently. Strange, incomprehensible as this passion may seem to you, it will either save or destroy me. I claim you ! Whoever you are, know that you belong to me; or why were you revealed to me in the spirit before my eyes could look on your living, breathing beauty ? If you go like this, leaving me no clue to your whereabouts, I may never ace you again." Gravely, coldly she answered, "Do not talk to me of love, citoyen ; I cannot comprehend you — I belong only to France! Before the Revolution I was a Bepublican. You will surely see me again, and then," with a strange and solemn expression, "you will understand everything. Now, citoyen, adieu." " Promise," he urged, wildly, " that it shall be so — that I shall see you again." " I promise," ahe answered, and moved rapidly away. (To be continued.)