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Percival Lowell - "Project Gutenberg surfs with a modem donated by Supra."

Wilkie Collins - "The Legacy of Cain"

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - "Die Leiden des jungen Werther Buch 1"

William Dean Howells - "The Man of Letters as a Man of Business"

Chita A Memory of Last Island

L >> Lafcadio Hearn >> Chita A Memory of Last Island




He saw Laroussel again,--reaching out a hand to him through a
whirl of red smoke. He tried to grasp it, and could not ...
"N'importe, mon ami," said Laroussel,---"tu vas la voir bientot."
Who was he to see soon?---"qui done, Laroussel?" But Laroussel
did not answer. Through the red mist he seemed to smile;---then
passed.

For some hours Carmen had trusted she could save her
patient,---desperate as the case appeared to be. His was one of
those rapid and violent attacks, such as often despatch their
victims in a single day. In the Cuban hospitals she had seen
many and many terrible examples: strong young men,---soldiers
fresh from Spain,---carried panting to the fever wards at
sunrise; carried to the cemeteries at sunset. Even troopers
riddled with revolutionary bullets had lingered longer ... Still,
she had believed she might save Julien's life: the burning
forehead once began to bead, the burning hands grew moist.

But now the wind was moaning;--the air had become lighter,
thinner, cooler. A stone was gathering in the east; and to the
fever-stricken man the change meant death ... Impossible to bring
the priest of the Caminada now; and there was no other within a
day's sail. She could only pray; she had lost all hope in her
own power to save.

Still the sick man raved; but he talked to himself at longer
intervals, and with longer pauses between his words;---his voice
was growing more feeble, his speech more incoherent. His thought
vacillated and distorted, like flame in a wind.

Weirdly the past became confounded with the present; impressions
of sight and of sound interlinked in fastastic affinity,---the
face of Chita Viosca, the murmur of the rising storm. Then
flickers of spectral lightning passed through his eyes, through
his brain, with every throb of the burning arteries; then utter
darkness came,---a darkness that surged and moaned, as the
circumfluence of a shadowed sea. And through and over the
moaning pealed one multitudinous human cry, one hideous
interblending of shoutings and shriekings ... A woman's hand was
locked in his own ... "Tighter," he muttered, "tighter still,
darling! hold as long as you can!" It was the tenth night of
August, eighteen hundred and fifty-six ...

---"Cheri!"

Again the mysterious whisper startled him to consciousness,---the
dim knowledge of a room filled with ruby colored light,---and the
sharp odor of vinegar. The house swung round slowly;---the
crimson flame of the lamp lengthened and broadened by
turns;---then everything turned dizzily fast,---whirled as if
spinning in a vortex ... Nausea unutterable; and a frightful
anguish as of teeth devouring him within,---tearing more and more
furiously at his breast. Then one atrocious wrenching, rending,
burning,---and the gush of blood burst from lips and nostrils in
a smothering deluge. Again the vision of lightnings, the
swaying, and the darkness of long ago. "Quick!---quick!---hold
fast to the table, Adele!---never let go!" ...

... Up,---up,---up!---what! higher yet? Up to the red sky!
Red---black-red ... heated iron when its vermilion dies. So,
too, the frightful flood! And noiseless. Noiseless because
heavy, clammy,---thick, warm, sickening---blood? Well might the
land quake for the weight of such a tide!---Why did Adele speak
Spanish? Who prayed for him? ...

---"Alma de Cristo santisima santificame!

"Sangre de Cristo, embriagame!

"O buen Jesus, oye me!" ...

Out of the darkness into--such a light! An azure haze!
Ah!---the delicious frost! ... All the streets were filled with
the sweet blue mist ... Voiceless the City and white;---crooked
and weed grown its narrow ways! ... Old streets of tombs, these
... Eh! How odd a custom!---a Night-bell at every door. Yes, of
course!---a night-bell!---the Dead are Physicians of Souls: they
may be summoned only by night,---called up from the darkness and
silence ... Yet she?---might he not dare to ring for her even by
day? ........ Strange he had deemed it day!---why, it was black,
starless ... And it was growing queerly cold ...... How should he
ever find her now? It was so black ... so cold! ...

---"Cheri!"

All the dwelling quivered with the mighty whisper.

Outside, the great oaks were trembling to their roots;---all the
shore shook and blanched before the calling of the sea.

And Carmen, kneeling at the feet of the dead, cried out, alone in
the night:---

---"O Jesus misericordioso!---tened compasion de el!"

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