第68章 MAURICE KIRKWOOD'S STORY OF HIS LIFE(4)

I have said that accident exposed me at times to the influence which I had such reasons for dreading.Here is one example of such an occurrence,which I relate as simply as possible,vividly as it is impressed upon my memory.A young friend whose acquaintance I had made in Rome asked me one day to come to his rooms and look at a cabinet of gems and medals which he had collected.I had been but a short time in his library when a vague sense of uneasiness came over me.My heart became restless,--I could feel it stirring irregularly,as if it were some frightened creature caged in my breast.There was nothing that I could see to account for it.A door was partly open,but not so that I could see into the next room.The feeling grew upon me of some influence which was paralyzing my circulation.Ibegged my friend to open a window.As be did so,the door swung in the draught,and I saw a blooming young woman,--it was my friend's sister,who had been sitting with a book in her hand,and who rose at the opening of the door.Something had warned me of the presence of a woman,that occult and potent aura of individuality,call it personal magnetism,spiritual effluence,or reduce it to a simpler expression if you will;whatever it was,it had warned me of the nearness of the dread attraction which allured at a distance and revealed itself with all the terrors of the Lorelei if approached too recklessly.A sign from her brother caused her to withdraw at once,but not before I had felt the impression which betrayed itself in my change of color,anxiety about the region of the heart,and sudden failure as if about to fall in a deadly fainting-fit.

Does all this seem strange and incredible to the reader of my manuscript?Nothing in the history of life is so strange or exceptional as it seems to those who have not made a long study of its mysteries.I have never known just such a case as my own,and yet there must have been such,and if the whole history of mankind were unfolded I cannot doubt that there have been many like it.Let my reader suspend his judgment until he has read the paper I have referred to,which was drawn up by a Committee of the Royal Academy of the Biological Sciences.In this paper the mechanism of the series of nervous derangements to which I have been subject since the fatal shock experienced in my infancy is explained in language not hard to understand.It will be seen that such a change of polarity in the nervous centres is only a permanent form and an extreme degree of an emotional disturbance,which as a temporary and comparatively unimportant personal accident is far from being uncommon,--is so frequent,in fact,that every one must have known instances of it,and not a few must have had more or less serious experiences of it in their own private history.

It must not be supposed that my imagination dealt with me as I am now dealing with the reader.I was full of strange fancies and wild superstitions.One of my Catholic friends gave me a silver medal which had been blessed by the Pope,and which I was to wear next my body.I was told that this would turn black after a time,in virtue of a power which it possessed of drawing out original sin,or certain portions of it,together with the evil and morbid tendencies which had been engrafted on the corrupt nature.I wore the medal faithfully,as directed,and watched it carefully.It became tarnished and after a time darkened,but it wrought no change in my unnatural condition.

There was an old gypsy who had the reputation of knowing more of futurity than she had any right to know.The story was that she had foretold the assassination of Count Rossi and the death of Cavour.

However that may have been,I was persuaded to let her try her black art upon my future.I shall never forget the strange,wild look of the wrinkled hag as she took my hand and studied its lines and fixed her wicked old eyes on my young countenance.After this examination she shook her head and muttered some words,which as nearly as Icould get them would be in English like these:

Fair lady cast a spell on thee,Fair lady's hand shall set thee free.

Strange as it may seem,these words of a withered old creature,whose palm had to be crossed with silver to bring forth her oracular response,have always clung to my memory as if they were destined to fulfilment.The extraordinary nature of the affliction to which Iwas subject disposed me to believe the incredible with reference to all that relates to it.I have never ceased to have the feeling that,sooner or later,I should find myself freed from the blight laid upon me in my infancy.It seems as if it would naturally come through the influence of some young and fair woman,to whom that merciful errand should be assigned by the Providence that governs our destiny.With strange hopes,with trembling fears,with mingled belief and doubt,wherever I have found myself I have sought with longing yet half-averted eyes for the "elect lady,"as I have learned to call her,who was to lift the curse from my ruined life.