The Pictures/IV
At a late hour in the night, Edward was sitting in his lonely chamber, occupied with a multiplicity of thoughts. Around him lay unpaid bills; and he was heaping by their side the sums which were to discharge them the next morning. He had succeeded in borrowing a fund upon fair terms, on the security of his house; and, poor as he seemed to himself, he was still satisfied in the feeling imparted to him by his firm resolution of adopting a different course of life for the future. He saw himself, in imagination, already active; he formed plans, how he would rise from a small post to a more important one, and in this prepare himself for one still more considerable.
— Habit, said he, becomes a second nature, in good as in evil; and as indolence has hitherto been necessary to my enjoyment, occupation will in future be no less so. But when, when will this golden age of my nobler consciousness really and truly arrive, when I shall be able to view the objects before me and myself with complacency and satisfaction? At present it is only resolutions and sweet hopes that bloom and beckon me on; and, alas! shall I not flag at half way, perhaps even at the outset of my career?
He looked tenderly at the rose in the waterglass; it seemed to return his gaze with a blushing smile. He took it, and with a delicate touch pressed a soft kiss on its leaves, and breathed a sigh into its cup; he then carefully replaced it in the nourishing element. He had recently found it again already withered in his bosom; from the hour when it touched his face in its fall, he had become a different man, without being willing to own the change to himself. Man is never so superstitious, and so inclined to pay attention to omens, as when the heart is deeply agitated, and a new life is on the point of rising out of the tempest of the feelings. Edward himself did not observe to what a degree the little flower made Sophia present to his mind; and as he had lost all, and almost himself, he resolved the withered plant should be his oracle, to see whether it would recover its strength, and announce to him too the revival of his fortune. But when, after some hours, it did not open itself in the water, he assisted it and its oracular power by the common operation of lopping the stalk, then holding it a few moments in the flame of the candle, and afterwards setting the flower again in the cold element. It recovered its strength almost visibly after this violent assistance, and blossomed so rapidly and strongly, that Edward feared it would in a short time drop all its leaves. Still after this he felt cheered, and once more trusted his stars.
He rummaged among old papers of his father, and found numberless reminiscences of his childhood, as well as the youth of his parent. He had spread out before him the contents of a cabinet which contained bills, memorandums, pleadings of a suit, and many things of the same sort. A paper now rolled open, containing the catalogue of the late gallery, the history of the pictures, their prices, and whatever had struck the owner as remarkable in each piece. Edward, who on his return from a journey had found his father on his deathbed, had after the funeral searched in a variety of quarters for those lost pictures, and made many unavailing inquiries. He had reason to expect that a word might here be found respecting the missing ones, and in fact he discovered in another packet, hidden between papers, a memorandum which exactly described those pieces, and contained the names of the masters, as well as of the former proprietors. The writing evidently belonged to the last days of his father, and beneath were the words, These pieces are now—— The hand had written no farther, and even these lines had been erased again.
Edward now searched more actively, but not a trace appeared. The light was burnt down to the socket; his blood was heated; he tossed the papers hastily about the room, but nothing was to be discovered. On opening a paper which age had turned yellow, he saw to his astonishment a note drawn many years back, in which his father acknowledged himself Walther's debtor for a sum therein named. There was no receipt upon it, and yet it was not in the creditor's hands. How was this circumstance to be explained?
He put it into his pocket, and calculated that, if the paper was binding, he should scarcely have any thing left from the mortgage of his house. He looked at a purse which he had put in a corner, and which was designed to give, once for all, a considerable assistance to the families which he had hitherto secretly maintained. For as he was thoughtless in his prodigality, so was he in his charities; they too might, in strictness, have been termed prodigalities.
— If I can only avoid touching this sum, that the poor people may once more be made happy, I may after that just as well begin entirely anew, and rely only on my own powers.
This was his last thought before he fell asleep.
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