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Beauty and The Beast-Part17_Bayard Taylor(1825-1878)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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the bottom of which was written, in pencil, in a trembling hand:



"May God protect thee! But do not stay away so very long."

In the second collection, relating to Poland, I found the



following: Six orders in Russian and three in French, requesting

somebody to send by "Jean" sums of money, varying from two to eight



hundred rubles. These orders were in the same hand, and all signed

"Y." A charming letter in French, addressed "cher ami," and



declining, in the most delicate and tender way, an offer of

marriage made to the sister of the writer, of whose signature only



"Amelie de" remained, the family name having been torn off. A few

memoranda of expenses, one of which was curious: "Dinner with



Jean, 58 rubles;" and immediately after it: "Doctor, 10 rubles."

There were, moreover, a leaf torn out of a journal, and half of a



note which had been torn down the middle, both implicating "Jean"

in some way with the fortunes of the dead man.



The papers belonging to the American phase, so far as they were to

be identified by dates, or by some internal evidence, were fewer,



but even more enigmatical in character. The principal one was a

list of addresses in New York, divided into sections, the street



boundaries of which were given. There were no names, but some

of the addresses were marked +, and others ?, and a few had been



crossed out with a pencil. Then there were some leaves of a

journal of diet and bodily symptoms, of a very singularcharacter;



three fragments of drafts of letters, in pencil, one of them

commencing, "Dog and villain!" and a single note of "Began work,



September 10th, 1865." This was about a year before his death.

The date of the diploma given by the gymnasium at Breslau was June



27, 1855, and the first date in Poland was May 3, 1861. Belonging

to the time between these two periods there were only the order for



the ring (1858), and a little memorandum in pencil, dated "Posen,

Dec., 1859." The last date in Poland was March 18, 1863, and the



permit to embark at Bremen was dated in October of that year.

Here, at least, was a slight chronological framework. The



physician who attended the county almshouse had estimated the man's

age at thirty, which, supposing him to have been nineteen at the



time of receiving the diploma, confirmed the dates to that extent.

I assumed, at the start, that the name which had been so carefully



cut out of all the documents was the man's own. The "Elise" of the

letters was therefore his sister. The first two letters related



merely to "mother's health," and similar details, from which it was

impossible to extract any thing, except that the sister was in some



kind of service. The second letter closed with: "I have enough

work to do, but I keep well. Forget thy disappointment so far



as _I_ am concerned, for I never expected any thing; I don't know

why, but I never did."



Here was a disappointment, at least, to begin with. I made a note

of it opposite the date, on my blank programme, and took up the



next letter. It was written in November, 1861, and contained a

passage which keenly excited my curiosity. It ran thus: "Do,



pray, be more careful of thy money. It may be all as thou sayest,

and inevitable, but I dare not mention the thing to mother, and



five thalers is all I can spare out of my own wages. As for thy

other request, I have granted it, as thou seest, but it makes me a



little anxious. What is the joke? And how can it serve thee?

That is what I do not understand, and I have plagued myself not a



little to guess."

Among the Polish memoranda was this: "Sept. 1 to Dec. 1, 200



rubles," which I assumed to represent a salary. This would give

him eight hundred a year, at least twelve times the amount which



his sister--who must either have been cook or housekeeper, since

she spoke of going to market for the family--could have received.



His application to her for money, and the manner of her reference

to it, indicated some imprudence or irregularity on his part. What



the "other request" was, I could not guess; but as I was turning

and twisting the worn leaf in some perplexity, I made a sudden



discovery. One side of the bottom edge had been very slightly

doubled over in folding, and as I smoothed it out, I noticed some






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