You, my sister Irma, must remember how I found you there, gazing with starting eyeballs on the same mysteriously terrifying scene--and how I drew you away with a laugh and a trifling explanation, so that I might return and resume my ghastly vigil alone.
One of the strangers wore a frock coat and had a sunburned, brown face. He was not old yet, not more than forty-five or forty-eight.
He seemed to be a tradesman in his Sunday clothes. That did not interest me much.
I looked at the other old man, and then a shiver of cold went through me. He was a famous physician, a professor, Mr. H----. Idesire to lay stress upon it that he it was, for I had read two weeks before in the papers that he had died and was buried!
And now he was sitting, in evening dress, in the chamber of a poor plaster sculptor, in the chamber of my father behind a bolted door!
I was aware of the fact that the physician knew father. Why, you can recall that when father had asthma he consulted Mr. H----.
Moreover, the professor visited us very frequently. The papers said he was dead, yet here he was!
With beating heart and in terror, I looked and listened.
The professor put some shining little thing on the table.
"Here is my diamond shirt stud," he said to my father. "It is yours."Father pushed the jewel aside, refusing the gift.
"Why, you are spending money on me," said the professor.
"It makes no difference," replied father; "I shan't take the diamond."Then they were silent for a long while. At length the professor smiled and said:
"The pair of cuff buttons which I had from Prince Eugene Ipresented to the watchman in the cemetery. They are worth a thousand guldens."And he showed his cuffs, from which the buttons were missing. Then he turned to the sunburned man:
"What did you give him, General Gardener?"The tall, strong man unbuttoned his frock coat.
"Everything I had--my gold chain, my scarf pin, and my ring."I did not understand all that. What was it? Where did they come from? A horrible presentiment arose in me. They came from the cemetery! They wore the very clothes in which they were buried!
What had happened to them? Were they only apparently dead? Did they awake? Did they rise from the dead? What are they seeking here?
They had a very low-voiced conversation with father. I listened in vain. Only later on, when they got warmed with their subject and spoke more audibly, did I understand them.
"There is no other way," said the professor. "Put it in your will that the coroner shall pierce your heart through with a knife."Do you remember, my sisters, the last will of our father, which was thus executed?
Father did not say a word. Then the professor went on, saying:
"That would be a splendid invention. Had I been living till now Iwould have published a book about it. Nobody takes the Indian fakir seriously here in Europe. But despite this, the buried fakirs, who are two months under ground and then come back into life, are very serious men. Perhaps they are more serious than ourselves, with all our scientific knowledge. There are strange, new, dreadful things for which we are not yet matured enough.
"I died upon their methods; I can state that now. The mental state which they reach systematically I reached accidentally. The solitude, the absorbedness, the lying in a bed month by month, the gazing upon a fixed point hour by hour--these are all self-evident facts with me, a deserted misanthrope.
"I died as the Indian fakirs do, and were I not a descendant of an old noble family, who have a tomb in this country, I would have died really.
"God knows how it happened. I don't think there is any use of worrying ourselves about it. I have still four days. Then we go for good and all. But not back, no, no, not back to life!"He pointed with his hand toward the city. His face was burning from fever, and he knitted his brows. His countenance was horrible at this moment. Then he looked at the man with the sunburned face.
"The case of Mr. Gardener is quite different. This is an ordinary physician's error. But he has less than four days. He will be gone to-morrow or positively day after to-morrow."He grasped the pulse of the sunburned man.
"At this minute his pulse beats a hundred and twelve. You have a day left, Mr. Gardener. But not back. We don't go back. Never!"Father said nothing. He looked at the professor with seriousness, and fondly. The professor drank a glass of wine, and then turned toward father.
"Go to bed. You have to get up early; you still live; you have children. We shall sleep if we can do so. It is very likely that General Gardener won't see another morning. You must not witness that."Now father began to speak, slowly, reverently.
"If you, professor, have to send word--or perhaps Mr. Gardener--somebody we must take care of--a command, if you have--"The professor looked at him sternly, saying but one word:
"Nothing."
Father was still waiting.
"Absolutely nothing," repeated the professor. "I have died, but Ihave four days yet. I live those here, my dear old friend, with you. But I don't go back any more. I don't even turn my face backward. I don't want to know where the others live. I don't want life, old man. It is not honorable to go back. Go, my friend--go to bed."Father shook hands with them and disappeared. General Gardener sat stiffly on his chair. The professor gazed into the air.
