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Fast and rebukingly rang the matins from the towers of St.
Etienne, and, though unused to wake, much less to pray, at that
sunrise hour, I felt a compunctious visiting as my postillion
cracked his whip and flew past the sacred threshold, over which
tripped, as if every stroke would be the last, the tardy yet light-footed
mass-goers of Vienna. It was my first entrance into this
Paris of Germany, and I stretched my head from the window to
look back with delight upon the fretted gothic pile, so cumbered
with ornament, yet so light and airy—so vast in the area it covered,
yet so crusted in every part with delicate device and sculpture.
On sped the merciless postillion, and the next moment we
rattled into the court-yard of the hotel.

I gave my keys to the most faithful and intelligent of valets—
an English boy of sixteen, promoted from white top-boots and a
cabriolet in London, to a plain coat and almost his master's
friendship upon the continent—and leaving him to find rooms to

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my taste, make them habitable and get breakfast, I retraced my
way to ramble a half hour through the aisles of St. Etienne.

The lingering bell was still beating its quick and monotonous
call, and just before me, followed closely by a female domestic, a
veiled and slightly-formed lady stepped over the threshold of the
cathedral, and took her way by the least-frequented aisle to the
altar. I gave a passing glance of admiration at the small ankle
and dainty chaussure betrayed by her hurried step; but remembering
with a slight effort that I had sought the church with at
least some feeble intentions of religious worship, I crossed the
broad nave to the opposite side, and was soon leaning against a
pillar, and listening to the heavenly-breathed music of the voluntary,
with a confused, but I trust, not altogether unprofitable feeling
of devotion.

The peasants, with their baskets standing beside them on the
tesselated floor, counted their beads upon their knees; the murmur,
low-toned and universal, rose through the vibrations of the
anthem with an accompaniment upon which I have always
thought the great composers calculated, no less than upon the
echoing arches, and atmosphere thickened with incense; and the
deep-throated priest muttered his Latin prayer, more edifying to
me that it left my thoughts to their own impulses of worship, undemeaned
by the irresistible littleness of criticism, and unchecked
by the narrow bounds of another's comprehension of the Divinity.

Without being in any leaning of opinion a son of the church of
Rome, I confess my soul gets nearer to heaven; and my religious
tendencies, dulled and diverted from improvement by a life of
travel and excitement, are more gratefully ministered to, in the
indistinct worship of the catholics. It seems to me that no man
can pray well through the hesitating lips of another. The inflated

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style or rhetorical efforts of many, addressing Heaven with difficult
grammar and embarrassed logic—and the weary monotony
of others, repeating without interest and apparently without
thought, the most solemn appeals to the mercy of the Almighty—
are imperfect vehicles, at least to me, for a fresh and apprehensive
spirit of worship. The religious architecture of the catholics
favors the solitary prayer of the heart. The vast floor of the
cathedral, the far receding aisles with their solemn light, to which
penetrate only the indistinct murmur of priest and penitent. and
the affecting wail or triumphant hallelujah of the choir; the
touching attitudes and utter abandonment of all around to their
unarticulated devotions; the freedom to enter and depart, unquestioned
and unnoticed, and the wonderful impressiveness of
the lofty architecture, clustered with mementoes of death, and
presenting through every sense, some unobtrusive persuasion to
the duties of the spot—all these, I cannot but think, are aids,
not unimportant to devout feeling, nor to the most careless keeper
of his creed and conscience, entirely without salutary use.

My eye had been resting unconsciously on the drapery of a
statue, upon which the light of a painted oriel window threw the
mingled dyes of a peacock. It was the figure of an apostle; and
curious at last to see whence the colors came which turned the
saintly garb into a mantle of shot silk, I strayed toward the eastern
window, and was studying the gorgeous dyes and grotesque
drawing of an art lost to the world, when I discovered that I was in
the neighborhood of the pretty figure that had tripped into church
so lightly before me. She knelt near the altar, a little forward
from one of the heavy gothic pillars, with her maid beside her,
and, close behind knelt a gentleman, who I observed at a second
glance, was paying his devotions exclusively to the small foot

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that peeped from the edge of a snowy peignoir, the dishabille of
which was covered and betrayed by a lace-veil and mantle. As
I stood thinking what a graceful study her figure would make
for a sculptor, and what an irreligious impertinence was visible in
the air of the gentleman behind, he leaned forward as if to prostrate
his face upon the pavement, and pressed his lips upon the
slender sole of (I have no doubt) the prettiest shoe in Vienna.
The natural aversion which all men have for each other as strangers,
was quickened in my bosom by a feeling much more vivid,
and said to be quite as natural—resentment at any demonstration
by another of preference for the woman one has admired. If I
have not mistaken human nature, there is a sort of imaginary
property which every man feels in a woman he has looked upon
with even the most transient regard, which is violated malgré lui,
by a similar feeling on the part of any other individual.

Not sure that the gentleman, who had so suddenly become my
enemy, had any warrant in the lady's connivance for his attentions,
I retreated to the shelter of the pillar, and was presently
satisfied that he was as much a stranger to her as myself, and
was decidedly annoying her. A slight advance in her position to
escape his contact gave me the opportunity I wished, and stepping
upon the small space between the skirt of her dress and the
outpost of his ebony cane, I began to study the architecture of
the roof with great seriousness. The gothic order, it is said,
sprang from the first attempts at constructing roofs from the
branches of trees, and is more perfect as it imitates more closely
the natural wilderness with its tall tree-shafts and interlacing
limbs. With my eyes half shut I endeavored to transport myself
to an American forest, and convert the beams and angles
of this vast gothic structure into a primitive temple of pines, with

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the sunshine coming brokingly through; but the delusion, otherwise
easy enough, was destroyed by the cherubs roosting on the
cornices, and the apostles and saints perched as it were in the
branches; and, spite of myself, I thought it represented best
Shylock's “wilderness of monkeys.”

“S'il vous plait, monsieur!” said the gentleman, pulling me
by the pantaloons as I was losing myself in these ill-timed speculations.

I looked down.

“Vous me genez monsieur!”

“J'èn suis bien sure, monsieur!”—and I resumed my study
of the roof, turning gradually round till my heels were against
his knees, and backing peu-à peu.

It has often occurred to me as a defect in the system of civil
justice, that the time of the day at which a crime is committed is
never taken into account by judge or jury. The humors of an
empty stomach act so energetically on the judgment and temper
of a man, and the same act appears so differently to him, fasting
and full, that I presume an inquiry into the subject would prove
that few offences against law and human pity were ever perpetrated
by villains who had dined. In the adventure before us, the
best-disposed reader will condemn my interference in a stranger's
gallantries as impertinent and quixotic. Later in the day, I
should as soon have thought of ordering water-cresses for the
gentleman's dindon aux truffes.

I was calling myself to account something after the above
fashion, the gentleman in question standing near me, drumming
on his boot with his ebony cane, when the lady rose, threw her
rosary over her neck, and turning to me with a graceful smile,
courtesied slightly and disappeared. I was struck so exceedingly

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with the intense melancholy in the expression of the face—an
expression so totally at variance with the elasticity of the step,
and the promise of the slight and riante figure and air—that I
quite forgot I had drawn a quarrel on myself, and was loitering
slowly toward the door of the church, when the gentleman I had
offended touched me on the arm, and in the politest manner possible
requested my address. We exchanged cards, and I hastened
home to breakfast, musing on the facility with which the current
of our daily life may be thickened. I fancied I had a new love
on my hands, and I was tolerably sure of a quarrel—yet I had
been in Vienna but fifty-four minutes by Bréguet.

My breakfast was waiting, and Percie had found time to turn
a comb through his brown curls, and get the dust off his gaiters.
He was tall for his age, and (unaware to himself, poor boy!)
every word and action reflected upon the handsome seamstress
in Cranbourne Alley, whom he called his mother—for he showed
blood. His father was a gentleman, or there is no truth in thorough-breeding.
As I looked at him, a difficulty vanished from
my mind.

“Percie!”

“Sir!”

“Get into your best suit of plain clothes, and if a foreigner
calls on me this morning, come in and forget that you are valet.
I have occasion to use you for a gentleman.”

“Yes, sir!”

“My pistols are clean, I presume?”

“Yes, sir!”

I wrote a letter or two, read a volume of “Ni jamais, ni toujours,”
and about noon a captain of dragoons was announced,
bringing me the expected cartel. Percie came in, treading

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gingerly in a pair of tight French boots, but behaving exceedingly
like a gentleman, and after a little conversation, managed on his
part strictly according to my instructions, he took his cane and
walked off with his friend of the steel scabbard to become acquainted
with the ground.

The gray of a heavenly summer morning was brightening
above the chimneys of the fair city of Vienna as I stepped into a
caléche, followed by Percie. With a special passport (procured
by the politeness of my antagonist) we made our sortie at that
early hour from the gates, and crossing the glacis, took the road
to the banks of the Danube. It was but a mile from the city,
and the mist lay low on the face of the troubled current of the
river, while the towers and pinnacles of the silent capital cut the
sky in clear and sharp lines—as if tranquillity and purity, those
immaculate hand-maidens of nature, had tired of innocence and
their mistress—and slept in town!

I had taken some coffee and broiled chicken before starting,
and (removed thus from the category of the savage unbreakfasted)
I was in one of those moods of universal benevolence, said
(erroneously) to be produced only by a clean breast of milk diet.
I could have wept, with Wordsworth, over a violet.

My opponent was there with his dragoon, and Percie, cool and
gentleman like, like a man who “had served,” looked on at the
loading of the pistols, and gave me mine with a very firm hand,
but with a moisture and anxiety in his eye which I have remembered
since. We were to fire any time after the counting of
three, and having no malice against my friend, whose impertinence
to a lady was (really!) no business of mine, I intended, of
course, to throw away my fire.

The first word was given and I looked at my antagonist, who,

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I saw at a glance, had no such gentle intentions. He was taking
deliberate aim, and in the four seconds that elapsed between the
remaining two words, I changed my mind (one thinks so fast when
his leisure is limited!) at least twenty times whether I should fire
at him or no.

“Trois!” pronounced the dragoon, from a throat like a trombone,
and with the last thought, up flew my hand, and as my pistol
discharged in the air, my friend's shot struck upon a large
turquoise which I wore on my third finger, and drew a slight
pencil-line across my left organ of causality. It was well aimed
for my temple, but the ring had saved me.

Friend of those days, regretted and unforgotten! days of the
deepest sadness and heart-heaviness, yet somehow dearer in
remembrance than all the joys I can recall—there was a talisman
in thy parting gift thou didst not think would be, one day, my
angel!

“You will be able to wear your hair over the scar, sir!” said
Percie, coming up and putting his finger on the wound.

“Monsieur!” said the dragoon, advancing to Percie after a
short conference with his principal, and looking twice as fierce
as before.

“Monsieur!” said Percie, wheeling short upon him.

“My friend is not satisfied. He presumes that monsieur
l'Anglais wishes to trifle with him.”

“Then let your friend take care of himself,” said I, roused by
the unprovoked murderousness of the feeling. “Load the pistols,
Percie! In my country,” I continued, turning to the dragoon,
“a man is disgraced who fires twice upon an antagonist who has
spared him! Your friend is a ruffian, and the consequences be
on his own haed!”

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We took our places and the first word was given, when a man
dashed between us on horseback at top-speed. The violence with
which he drew rein brought his horse upon his haunches, and he
was on his feet in half a breath.

The idea that he was an officer of the police was immediately
dissipated by his step and air. Of the finest athletic form I had
ever seen, agile, graceful, and dressed pointedly well, there was
still an indefinable something about him, either above or below a
gentleman—which, it was difficult to say. His features were
slight, fair, and, except a brow too heavy for them and a lip of
singular and (I thought) habitual defiance, almost feminine. His
hair grew long and had been soigné, probably by more caressing
fingers than his own, and his rather silken mustache was glossy
with some odorent oil. As he approached me and took my hand,
with a clasp like a smith's vice, I observed these circumstances,
and could have drawn his portrait without ever seeing him again—
so marked a man was he, in every point and feature.

His business was soon explained. He was the husband of the
lady my opponent had insulted, and that pleasant gentleman
could, of course, make no objection to his taking my place. I
officiated as tèmoin, and, as they took their position, I anticipated
for the dragoon and myself the trouble of carrying them both off
the field. I had a practical assurance of my friend's pistol, and
the stranger was not the looking man to miss a hair's breadth of
his aim.

The word was not fairly off my lips when both pistols cracked
like one discharge, and high into the air sprang my revengeful
opponent, and dropped like a clod upon the grass. The stranger
opened his waistcoat, thrust his fore-finger into a wound in his
left breast, and slightly closing his teeth, pushed a bullet through,

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which had been checked by the bone and lodged in the flesh near
the skin. The surgeon who had accompanied my unfortunate
antagonist, left the body, which he had found beyond his art, and
readily gave his assistance to stanch the blood of my preserver;
and jumping with the latter into my caléche I put Percie upon
the stranger's horse, and we drove back to Vienna.

The market people were crowding in at the gate, the merry
peasant girls glanced at us with their blue, German eyes, the
shopmen laid out their gay wares to the street, and the tide of
life ran on as busily and as gayly, though a drop had been extracted,
within scarce ten minutes, from its quickest vein. I felt
a revulsion at my heart, and grew faint and sick. Is a human
life—is my life worth anything, even a thought, to my fellow-creatures?
was the bitter question forced upon my soul. How
icily and keenly the unconscious indifference of the world penetrates
to the nerve and marrow of him who suddenly realizes it.

We dashed through the kohl-market, and driving into the portecoch
ére of a dark-looking house in one of the cross streets of that
quarter, were ushered into apartments of extraordinary magnificence.

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