gitated by anything; how pure and tender are the
lines of the young face! I do not dare to address her, but how dear she
is to me, how violently my heart beats!

"How fair, how fresh were the roses...."

And in the room everything grows darker and darker.... The candle which
has burned low begins to flicker; white shadows waver across the low
ceiling; the frost creaks and snarls beyond the wall--and I seem to hear
a tedious, senile whisper:

"How fair, how fresh were the roses...."

Other images rise up before me.... I hear the merry murmur of family, of
country life. Two red-gold little heads, leaning against each other,
gaze bravely at me with their bright eyes; the red cheeks quiver with
suppressed laughter; their hands are affectionately intertwined; their
young, kind voices ring out, vying with each other; and a little further
away, in the depths of a snug room, other hands, also young, are flying
about, with fingers entangled, over the keys of a poor little old piano,
and the Lanner waltz cannot drown the grumbling of the patriarchal
samovar....

"How fair, how fresh were the roses...."

The candle flares up and dies out.... Who is that coughing yonder so
hoarsely and dully? Curled up in a ring, my aged dog, my sole companion,
is nestling and quivering at my feet.... I feel cold.... I am shivering
... and they are all dead ... all dead....

"How fair, how fresh were the roses."

Septembers 1879.

A SEA VOYAGE

I sailed from Hamburg to London on a small steamer. There were two of us
passengers: I and a tiny monkey, a female of the ouistiti breed, which a
Hamburg merchant was sending as a gift to his English partner.

She was attached by a slender chain to one of the benches on the deck,
and threw herself about and squeaked plaintively, like a bird.

Every time I walked past she stretched out to me her black, cold little
hand, and gazed at me with her mournful, almost human little eyes.--I
took her hand, and she ceased to squeak and fling herself about.

There was a dead calm. The sea spread out around us in a motionless
mirror of leaden hue. It seemed small; a dense fog lay over it,
shrouding even the tips of the masts, and blinding and wearying the eyes
with its soft gloom. The sun hung like a dim red spot in this gloom; but
just before evening it became all aflame and glowed mysteriously and
strangely scarlet.

Long, straight folds, like the folds of heavy silken fabrics, flowed
away fro