To be Read at Dusk, by Charles Dickens

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Transcribed from the 1905 Chapman & Hall edition (TheWorks of Charles Dickens,animal puppets for road trips volume 28) by David Price, [email protected]

To be Read at Dusk

By CHARLES DICKENS

LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, LD.
NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1905

One, two, three, four, five. There were five of them.

Five couriers, sitting on a bench outside the convent on thesummit of the Great St. Bernard in Switzerland, looking at theremote heights, stained by the setting sun as if a mightyquantity of red wine had been broached upon the mountain top, andhad not yet had time to sink into the snow.

This is not my simile.  It was made for the occasion bythe stoutest courier, who was a German.  None of the otherstook any more notice of it than they took of me, sitting onanother bench on the other side of the convent door, smoking mycigar, like them, and—also like them—looking at thereddened snow, and at the lonely shed hard by, where the bodiesof belated travellers, dug out of it, slowly wither away, knowingno corruption in that cold region.

The wine upon the mountain top soaked in as we looked; themountain became white; the sky, a very dark blue; the wind rose;and the air turned piercing cold.  The five couriersbuttoned their rough coats.  There being no safer man toimitate in all such proceedings than a courier, I buttonedmine.

The mountain in the sunset had stopped the five couriers in aconversation.  It is a sublime sight, likely to stopconversation.  The mountain being now out of the sunset,they resumed.  Not that I had heard any part of theirprevious discourse; for indeed, I had not then broken away fromthe American gentleman, in the travellers’ parlour of theconvent, who, sitting with his face to the fire, had undertakento realise to me the whole progress of events which had led tothe accumulation by the Honourable Ananias Dodger of one of thelargest acquisitions of dollars ever made in our country.

‘My God!’ said the Swiss courier, speaking inFrench, which I do not hold (as some authors appear to do) to besuch an all-sufficient excuse for a naughty word, that I haveonly to write it in that language to make it innocent; ‘ifyou talk of ghosts—’

‘But I don’ttalk of ghosts,’ saidthe German.

‘Of what then?’ asked the Swiss.

‘If I knew of what then,’ said the German,‘I should probably know a great deal more.’

It was a good answer, I thought, and it made me curious. So, I moved my position to that corner of my bench which wasnearest to them, and leaning my back against the convent wall,heard perfectly, without appearing to attend.

‘Thunder and lightning!’ said the German, warming,‘when a certain man is coming to see you, unexpectedly;and, without his own knowledge, sends some invisible messenger,to put the idea of him into your head all day, what do you callthat?  When you walk along a crowded street—atFrankfort, Milan, London, Paris—and think that a passingstranger is like your friend Heinrich, and then that anotherpassing stranger is like your friend Heinrich, and so begin tohave a strange foreknowledge that presently you’ll meetyour friend Heinrich—which you do, though you believed himat Trieste—what do you call that?’

‘It’s not uncommon, either,’ murmured theSwiss and the other three.

‘Uncommon!’ said the German. ‘It’s as common as cherries in the BlackForest.  It’s as common as maccaroni at Naples. And Naples reminds me!  When the old Marchesa Senzanimashrieks at a card-party on the Chiaja—as I heard and sawher, for it happened in a Bavarian family of mine, and I wasoverlooking the service that evening—I say, when the oldMarchesa starts up at the card-table, white through her rouge,and cries, “My sister in Spain is dead!  I felt hercold touch on my back!”—and when that sisterisdead at the moment—what do you callthat?’

‘Or when the blood of San Gennaro liquefies at therequest of the clergy—as all the world knows that it doesregularly once a-year, in my native city,’ said theNeapolitan courier after a pause, with a comical look,‘what do you call that?’

‘That!’ cried the German. ‘Well, I think I know a name for that.’

‘Miracle?’ said the Neapolitan, with the same slyface.

The German merely smoked and laughed; and they all smoked andlaughed.

‘Bah!’ said the German, presently.  ‘Ispeak of things that really do happen.  When I want to seethe conjurer, I pay to see a professed one, and have mymoney’s worth.  Very strange things do happen withoutghosts.  Ghosts!  Giovanni Baptista, tell your story ofthe English bride.  There’s no ghost in that, butsomething full as strange.  Will any man tell mewhat?’

As there was a silence among them, I glanced around.  Hewhom I took to be Baptista was lighting a fresh cigar.  Hepresently went on to speak.  He was a Genoese, as Ijudged.

‘The story of the English bride?’ said he. ‘Basta! one ought not to call so slight a thing astory.  Well, it’s all one.  But it’strue.  Observe me well, gentlemen, it’s true. That which glitters is not always gold; but what I am going totell, is true.’

He repeated this more than once.

Ten years ago, I took my credentials to an English gentlemanat Long’s Hotel, in Bond Street, London, who was about totravel—it might be for one year, it might be for two. He approved of them; likewise of me.  He was pleased to makeinquiry.  The testimony that he received wasfavourable.  He engaged me by the six months, and myentertainment was generous.

He was young, handsome, very happy.  He was enamoured ofa fair young English lady, with a sufficient fortune, and theywere going to be married.  It was the wedding-trip, inshort, that we were going to take.  For three months’rest in the hot weather (it was early summer then) he had hiredan old place on the Riviera, at an easy distance from my city,Genoa, on the road to Nice.  Did I know that place? Yes; I told him I knew it well.  It was an old palace withgreat gardens.  It was a little bare, and it was a littledark and gloomy, being close surrounded by trees; but it wasspacious, ancient, grand, and on the seashore.  He said ithad been so described to him exactly, and he was well pleasedthat I knew it.  For its being a little bare of furniture,all such places were.  For its being a little gloomy, he hadhired it principally for the gardens, and he and my mistresswould pass the summer weather in their shade.

‘So all goes well, Baptista?’ said he.

‘Indubitably, signore; very well.’

We had a travelling chariot for our journey, newly built forus, and in all respects complete.  All we had was complete;we wanted for nothing.  The marriage took place.  Theywere happy.  I was happy, seeing all so bright, being sowell situated, going to my own city, teaching my language in therumble to the maid, la bella Carolina, whose heart was gay withlaughter: who was young and rosy.

The time flew.  But I observed—listen to this, Ipray! (and here the courier dropped his voice)—I observedmy mistress sometimes brooding in a manner very strange; in afrightened manner; in an unhappy manner; with a cloudy, uncertainalarm upon her.  I think that I began to notice this when Iwas walking up hills by the carriage side, and master had gone onin front.  At any rate, I remember that it impressed itselfupon my mind one evening in the South of France, when she calledto me to call master back; and when he came back, and walked fora long way, talking encouragingly and affectionately to her, withhis hand upon the open window, and hers in it.  Now andthen, he laughed in a merry way, as if he were bantering her outof something.  By-and-by, she laughed, and then all wentwell again.

It was curious.  I asked la bella Carolina, the prettylittle one, Was mistress unwell?—No.—Out ofspirits?—No.—Fearful of bad roads, orbrigands?—No.  And what made it more mysterious was,the pretty little one would not look at me in giving answer, butwouldlook at the view.

But, one day she told me the secret.

‘If you must know,’ said Carolina, ‘I find,from what I have overheard, that mistress is haunted.’

‘How haunted?’

‘By a dream.’

‘What dream?’

‘By a dream of a face.  For three nights before hermarriage, she saw a face in a dream—always the same face,and only One.’

‘A terrible face?’

‘No.  The face of a dark, remarkable-looking man,in black, with black hair and a grey moustache—a handsomeman except for a reserved and secret air.  Not a face sheever saw, or at all like a face she ever saw.  Doing nothingin the dream but looking at her fixedly, out ofdarkness.’

‘Does the dream come back?’

‘Never.  The recollection of it is all hertrouble.’

‘And why does it trouble her?’

Carolina shook her head.

‘That’s master’s question,’ said labella.  ‘She don’t know.  She wonders why,herself.  But I heard her tell him, only last night, that ifshe was to find a picture of that face in our Italian house(which she is afraid she will) she did not know how she couldever bear it.’

Upon my word I was fearful after this (said the Genoesecourier) of our coming to the old palazzo, lest some suchill-starred picture should happen to be there.  I knew therewere many there; and, as we got nearer and nearer to the place, Iwished the whole gallery in the crater of Vesuvius.  To mendthe matter, it was a stormy dismal evening when we, at last,approached that part of the Riviera.  It thundered; and thethunder of my city and its environs, rolling among the highhills, is very loud.  The lizards ran in and out of thechinks in the broken stone wall of the garden, as if they werefrightened; the frogs bubbled and croaked their loudest; thesea-wind moaned, and the wet trees dripped; and thelightning—body of San Lorenzo, how it lightened!

We all know what an old palace in or near Genoa is—howtime and the sea air have blotted it—how the draperypainted on the outer walls has peeled off in great flakes ofplaster—how the lower windows are darkened with rusty barsof iron—how the courtyard is overgrown with grass—howthe outer buildings are dilapidated—how the whole pileseems devoted to ruin.  Our palazzo was one of the truekind.  It had been shut up close for months. Months?—years!—it had an earthy smell, like atomb.  The scent of the orange trees on the broad backterrace, and of the lemons ripening on the wall, and of someshrubs that grew around a broken fountain, had got into the housesomehow, and had never been able to get out again.  Therewas, in every room, an aged smell, grown faint withconfinement.  It pined in all the cupboards anddrawers.  In the little rooms of communication between greatrooms, it was stifling.  If you turned a picture—tocome back to the pictures—there it still was, clinging tothe wall behind the frame, like a sort of bat.

The lattice-blinds were close shut, all over the house. There were two ugly, grey old women in the house, to take care ofit; one of them with a spindle, who stood winding and mumbling inthe doorway, and who would as soon have let in the devil as theair.  Master, mistress, la bella Carolina, and I, went allthrough the palazzo.  I went first, though I have namedmyself last, opening the windows and the lattice-blinds, andshaking down on myself splashes of rain, and scraps of mortar,and now and then a dozing mosquito, or a monstrous, fat, blotchy,Genoese spider.

When I had let the evening light into a room, master,mistress, and la bella Carolina, entered.  Then, we lookedround at all the pictures, and I went forward again into anotherroom.  Mistress secretly had great fear of meeting with thelikeness of that face—we all had; but there was no suchthing.  The Madonna and Bambino, San Francisco, SanSebastiano, Venus, Santa Caterina, Angels, Brigands, Friars,Temples at Sunset, Battles, White Horses, Forests, Apostles,Doges, all my old acquaintances many timesrepeated?—yes.  Dark, handsome man in black, reservedand secret, with black hair and grey moustache, looking fixedlyat mistress out of darkness?—no.

At last we got through all the rooms and all the pictures, andcame out into the gardens.  They were pretty well kept,being rented by a gardener, and were large and shady.  Inone place there was a rustic theatre, open to the sky; the stagea green slope; the coulisses, three entrances upon a side,sweet-smelling leafy screens.  Mistress moved her brighteyes, even there, as if she looked to see the face come in uponthe scene; but all was well.

‘Now, Clara,’ master said, in a low voice,‘you see that it is nothing?  You arehappy.’

Mistress was much encouraged.  She soon accustomedherself to that grim palazzo, and would sing, and play the harp,and copy the old pictures, and stroll with master under the greentrees and vines all day.  She was beautiful.  He washappy.  He would laugh and say to me, mounting his horse forhis morning ride before the heat:

‘All goes well, Baptista!’

‘Yes, signore, thank God, very well.’

We kept no company.  I took la bella to the Duomo andAnnunciata, to the Café, to the Opera, to the villageFesta, to the Public Garden, to the Day Theatre, to theMarionetti.  The pretty little one was charmed with all shesaw.  She learnt Italian—heavens! miraculously! Was mistress quite forgetful of that dream? I asked Carolinasometimes.  Nearly, said la bella—almost.  It waswearing out.

One day master received a letter, and called me.

‘Baptista!’

‘Signore!’

‘A gentleman who is presented to me will dine hereto-day.  He is called the Signor Dellombra.  Let medine like a prince.’

It was an odd name.  I did not know that name.  But,there had been many noblemen and gentlemen pursued by Austria onpolitical suspicions, lately, and some names had changed. Perhaps this was one.  Altro!  Dellombra was as good aname to me as another.

When the Signor Dellombra came to dinner (said the Genoesecourier in the low voice, into which he had subsided oncebefore), I showed him into the reception-room, the great sala ofthe old palazzo.  Master received him with cordiality, andpresented him to mistress.  As she rose, her face changed,she gave a cry, and fell upon the marble floor.

Then, I turned my head to the Signor Dellombra, and saw thathe was dressed in black, and had a reserved and secret air, andwas a dark, remarkable-looking man, with black hair and a greymoustache.

Master raised mistress in his arms, and carried her to her ownroom, where I sent la bella Carolina straight.  La bellatold me afterwards that mistress was nearly terrified to death,and that she wandered in her mind about her dream, all night.

Master was vexed and anxious—almost angry, and yet fullof solicitude.  The Signor Dellombra was a courtlygentleman, and spoke with great respect and sympathy ofmistress’s being so ill.  The African wind had beenblowing for some days (they had told him at his hotel of theMaltese Cross), and he knew that it was often hurtful.  Hehoped the beautiful lady would recover soon.  He beggedpermission to retire, and to renew his visit when he should havethe happiness of hearing that she was better.  Master wouldnot allow of this, and they dined alone.

He withdrew early.  Next day he called at the gate, onhorseback, to inquire for mistress.  He did so two or threetimes in that week.

What I observed myself, and what la bella Carolina told me,united to explain to me that master had now set his mind oncuring mistress of her fanciful terror.  He was allkindness, but he was sensible and firm.  He reasoned withher, that to encourage such fancies was to invite melancholy, ifnot madness.  That it rested with herself to beherself.  That if she once resisted her strange weakness, sosuccessfully as to receive the Signor Dellombra as an Englishlady would receive any other guest, it was for everconquered.  To make an end, the signore came again, andmistress received him without marked distress (though withconstraint and apprehension still), and the evening passedserenely.  Master was so delighted with this change, and soanxious to confirm it, that the Signor Dellombra became aconstant guest.  He was accomplished in pictures, books, andmusic; and his society, in any grim palazzo, would have beenwelcome.

I used to notice, many times, that mistress was not quiterecovered.  She would cast down her eyes and droop her head,before the Signor Dellombra, or would look at him with aterrified and fascinated glance, as if his presence had some evilinfluence or power upon her.  Turning from her to him, Iused to see him in the shaded gardens, or the large half-lightedsala, looking, as I might say, ‘fixedly upon her out ofdarkness.’  But, truly, I had not forgotten la bellaCarolina’s words describing the face in the dream.

After his second visit I heard master say:

‘Now, see, my dear Clara, it’s over! Dellombra has come and gone, and your apprehension is broken likeglass.’

‘Will he—will he ever come again?’ askedmistress.

‘Again?  Why, surely, over and over again! Are you cold?’ (she shivered).

‘No, dear—but—he terrifies me: are you surethat he need come again?’

‘The surer for the question, Clara!’ repliedmaster, cheerfully.

But, he was very hopeful of her complete recovery now, andgrew more and more so every day.  She was beautiful. He was happy.

‘All goes well, Baptista?’ he would say to meagain.

‘Yes, signore, thank God; very well.’

We were all (said the Genoese courier, constraining himself tospeak a little louder), we were all at Rome for theCarnival.  I had been out, all day, with a Sicilian, afriend of mine, and a courier, who was there with an Englishfamily.  As I returned at night to our hotel, I met thelittle Carolina, who never stirred from home alone, runningdistractedly along the Corso.

‘Carolina!  What’s the matter?’

‘O Baptista!  O, for the Lord’s sake! whereis my mistress?’

‘Mistress, Carolina?’

‘Gone since morning—told me, when master went outon his day’s journey, not to call her, for she was tiredwith not resting in the night (having been in pain), and wouldlie in bed until the evening; then get up refreshed.  She isgone!—she is gone!  Master has come back, broken downthe door, and she is gone!  My beautiful, my good, myinnocent mistress!’

The pretty little one so cried, and raved, and tore herselfthat I could not have held her, but for her swooning on my arm asif she had been shot.  Master came up—in manner, face,or voice, no more the master that I knew, than I was he.  Hetook me (I laid the little one upon her bed in the hotel, andleft her with the chamber-women), in a carriage, furiouslythrough the darkness, across the desolate Campagna.  When itwas day, and we stopped at a miserable post-house, all the horseshad been hired twelve hours ago, and sent away in differentdirections.  Mark me! by the Signor Dellombra, who hadpassed there in a carriage, with a frightened English ladycrouching in one corner.

I never heard (said the Genoese courier, drawing a longbreath) that she was ever traced beyond that spot.  All Iknow is, that she vanished into infamous oblivion, with thedreaded face beside her that she had seen in her dream.

‘What do you call that?’ said the Germancourier, triumphantly.  ‘Ghosts!  There are noghosts there!  What do you call this, that I am goingto tell you?  Ghosts!  There are no ghostshere!’

Itook an engagement once (pursued the German courier)with an English gentleman, elderly and a bachelor, to travelthrough my country, my Fatherland.  He was a merchant whotraded with my country and knew the language, but who had neverbeen there since he was a boy—as I judge, some sixty yearsbefore.

His name was James, and he had a twin-brother John, also abachelor.  Between these brothers there was a greataffection.  They were in business together, atGoodman’s Fields, but they did not live together.  Mr.James dwelt in Poland Street, turning out of Oxford Street,London; Mr. John resided by Epping Forest.

Mr. James and I were to start for Germany in about aweek.  The exact day depended on business.  Mr. Johncame to Poland Street (where I was staying in the house), to passthat week with Mr. James.  But, he said to his brother onthe second day, ‘I don’t feel very well, James. There’s not much the matter with me; but I think I am alittle gouty.  I’ll go home and put myself under thecare of my old housekeeper, who understands my ways.  If Iget quite better, I’ll come back and see you before yougo.  If I don’t feel well enough to resume my visitwhere I leave it off, why youwill come and see me beforeyou go.’  Mr. James, of course, said he would, andthey shook hands—both hands, as they always did—andMr. John ordered out his old-fashioned chariot and rumbledhome.

It was on the second night after that—that is to say,the fourth in the week—when I was awoke out of my soundsleep by Mr. James coming into my bedroom in his flannel-gown,with a lighted candle.  He sat upon the side of my bed, andlooking at me, said:

‘Wilhelm, I have reason to think I have got some strangeillness upon me.’

I then perceived that there was a very unusual expression inhis face.

‘Wilhelm,’ said he, ‘I am not afraid orashamed to tell you what I might be afraid or ashamed to tellanother man.  You come from a sensible country, wheremysterious things are inquired into and are not settled to havebeen weighed and measured—or to have been unweighable andunmeasurable—or in either case to have been completelydisposed of, for all time—ever so many years ago.  Ihave just now seen the phantom of my brother.’

I confess (said the German courier) that it gave me a littletingling of the blood to hear it.

‘I have just now seen,’ Mr. James repeated,looking full at me, that I might see how collected he was,‘the phantom of my brother John.  I was sitting up inbed, unable to sleep, when it came into my room, in a whitedress, and regarding me earnestly, passed up to the end of theroom, glanced at some papers on my writing-desk, turned, and,still looking earnestly at me as it passed the bed, went out atthe door.  Now, I am not in the least mad, and am not in theleast disposed to invest that phantom with any external existenceout of myself.  I think it is a warning to me that I am ill;and I think I had better be bled.’

I got out of bed directly (said the German courier) and beganto get on my clothes, begging him not to be alarmed, and tellinghim that I would go myself to the doctor.  I was just ready,when we heard a loud knocking and ringing at the streetdoor.  My room being an attic at the back, and Mr.James’s being the second-floor room in the front, we wentdown to his room, and put up the window, to see what was thematter.

‘Is that Mr. James?’ said a man below, fallingback to the opposite side of the way to look up.

‘It is,’ said Mr. James, ‘and you are mybrother’s man, Robert.’

‘Yes, Sir.  I am sorry to say, Sir, that Mr. Johnis ill.  He is very bad, Sir.  It is even feared thathe may be lying at the point of death.  He wants to see you,Sir.  I have a chaise here.  Pray come to him. Pray lose no time.’

Mr. James and I looked at one another. ‘Wilhelm,’ said he, ‘this is strange.  Iwish you to come with me!’  I helped him to dress,partly there and partly in the chaise; and no grass grew underthe horses’ iron shoes between Poland Street and theForest.

Now, mind! (said the German courier) I went with Mr. Jamesinto his brother’s room, and I saw and heard myself whatfollows.

His brother lay upon his bed, at the upper end of a longbed-chamber.  His old housekeeper was there, and others werethere: I think three others were there, if not four, and they hadbeen with him since early in the afternoon.  He was inwhite, like the figure—necessarily so, because he had hisnight-dress on.  He looked like the figure—necessarilyso, because he looked earnestly at his brother when he saw himcome into the room.

But, when his brother reached the bed-side, he slowly raisedhimself in bed, and looking full upon him, said these words:

‘James, you have seen me before, to-night—and youknow it!’

And so died!

I waited, when the German courier ceased, to hear somethingsaid of this strange story.  The silence was unbroken. I looked round, and the five couriers were gone: so noiselesslythat the ghostly mountain might have absorbed them into itseternal snows.  By this time, I was by no means in a mood tosit alone in that awful scene, with the chill air coming solemnlyupon me—or, if I may tell the truth, to sit aloneanywhere.  So I went back into the convent-parlour, and,finding the American gentleman still disposed to relate thebiography of the Honourable Ananias Dodger, heard it all out.

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