Three times I have been led to the hope,if not the belief,that Ihad found the object of my superstitious belief.--Singularly enough it was always on the water that the phantom of my hope appeared before my bewildered vision.Once it was an English girl who was a fellow passenger with me in one of my ocean voyages.I need not say that she was beautiful,for she was my dream realized.I heard her singing,I saw her walking the deck on some of the fair days when sea-sickness was forgotten.The passengers were a social company enough,but I had kept myself apart,as was my wont.At last the attraction became too strong to resist any longer."I will venture into the charmed circle if it kills me,"I said to my father.I did venture,and it did not kill me,or I should not be telling this story.But there was a repetition of the old experiences.I need not relate the series of alarming consequences of my venture.The English girl was very lovely,and I have no doubt has made some one supremely happy before this,but she was not the "elect lady"of the prophecy and of my dreams.
A second time I thought myself for a moment in the presence of the destined deliverer who was to restore me to my natural place among my fellow men and women.It was on the Tiber that I met the young maiden who drew me once more into that inner circle which surrounded young womanhood with deadly peril for me,if I dared to pass its limits.I was floating with the stream in the little boat in which Ipassed many long hours of reverie when I saw another small boat with a boy and a young girl in it.The boy had been rowing,and one of his oars had slipped from his grasp.He did not know how to paddle with a single oar,and was hopelessly rowing round and round,his oar all the time floating farther away from him.I could not refuse my assistance.I picked up the oar and brought my skiff alongside of the boat.When I handed the oar to the boy the young girl lifted her veil and thanked me in the exquisite music of the language which 'Sounds as if it should be writ on satin."She was a type of Italian beauty,--a nocturne in flesh and blood,if I may borrow a term certain artists are fond of;but it was her voice which captivated me and for a moment made me believe that I was no longer shut off from all relations with the social life of my race.
An hour later I was found lying insensible on the floor of my boat,white,cold,almost pulseless.It cost much patient labor to bring me back to consciousness.Had not such extreme efforts been made,it seems probable that I should never have waked from a slumber which was hardly distinguishable from that of death.
Why should I provoke a catastrophe which appears inevitable if Iinvite it by exposing myself to its too well ascertained cause?The habit of these deadly seizures has become a second nature.The strongest and the ablest men have found it impossible to resist the impression produced by the most insignificant object,by the most harmless sight or sound to which they had a congenital or acquired antipathy.What prospect have I of ever being rid of this long and deep-seated infirmity?I may well ask myself these questions,but my answer is that I will never give up the hope that time will yet bring its remedy.It may be that the wild prediction which so haunts me shall find itself fulfilled.I have had of late strange premonitions,to which if I were superstitious I could not help giving heed.But I have seen too much of the faith that deals in miracles to accept the supernatural in any shape,--assuredly when it comes from an old witch-like creature who takes pay for her revelations of the future.Be it so:though I am not superstitious,I have a right to be imaginative,and my imagination will hold to those words of the old zingara with an irresistible feeling that,sooner or later,they will prove true.
Can it be possible that her prediction is not far from its realization?I have had both waking and sleeping visions within these last months and weeks which have taken possession of me and filled my life with new thoughts,new hopes,new resolves.
Sometimes on the bosom of the lake by which I am dreaming away this season of bloom and fragrance,sometimes in the fields or woods in a distant glimpse,once in a nearer glance,which left me pale and tremulous,yet was followed by a swift reaction,so that my cheeks flushed and my pulse bounded,I have seen her who--how do I dare to tell it so that my own eyes can read it?---I cannot help believing is to be my deliverer,my saviour.
I have been warned in the most solemn and impressive language by the experts most deeply read in the laws of life and the history of its disturbing and destroying influences,that it would be at the imminent risk of my existence if I should expose myself to the repetition of my former experiences.I was reminded that unexplained sudden deaths were of constant,of daily occurrence;that any emotion is liable to arrest the movements of life:terror,joy,good news or bad news,--anything that reaches the deeper nervous centres.I had already died once,as Sir Charles Napier said of himself;yes,more than once,died and been resuscitated.The next time,I might very probably fail to get my return ticket after my visit to Hades.It was a rather grim stroke of humor,but I understood its meaning full well,and felt the force of its menace.
