Two thousand dollars! Too much for a coolie's conscience!

Six weeks later found Son-A-Si, in lordly style, on board a beautiful junk moving along the Blue River, where a couple of years before he had sought flight through swimming. He brought, as a present to his grandfather, a beautiful coffin in teak-wood; a large sum of money to be divided among the members of his family, and to the one whom he had wronged, a sufficient sum to obtain his complete forgiveness. And for Son-A-Si, there was left a fortune possessed by few mandarins in the country.

As soon as he arrived he hastened to the home of TamLy-but, alas! Tam-Ly was dead-to him-for she had married A-Koué.

Then he regretted his ill-gotten wealth.

I

FIRST LOVE*

BY RUDOLPH LINDAU

HAVE for years led a roving life, and am most at home in railway carriages, waiting rooms, hotels and restaurants. On this account my reading has been of all kinds, and I have given up wishing to be dainty in my literary diet. Only German and French romances, and novels by authors unknown to me, or writers whose style I do not enjoy, inspire me with an unconquerable respect. Books by these authors I never venture to open, even in the greatest dearth of reading matter; besides, I eagerly welcome everything published by the latest journals, and look through each weekly and monthly periodical that I come across in dining or waiting room. That is why I have a succession of fragments of a considerable number of stories in my head, and as their classification does not especially interest me, it thus happens that I occasionally join the end of one to the beginning of the other. Some of these dovetailed stories please me quite as well as the noted novels of famous authors. This is a matter of taste, and I allow myself no criticism. Sometimes I finish for myself a story, the beginning of which I have read, or invent the first chapter for the conclusion of a 'romance which has fallen into my hands. Then, after a time, it is difficult to distinguish between what is mine and what is not mine. In most cases, indeed, I have of a morning when I leave a city, forgotten what I have read there on the preceding evening. But when a story has pleased me, I enjoy repeating it to myself in the railway carriage, and then it becomes fixed in my memory and recurs later, at irregular intervals, as something personally experienced, or again invented by myself. The following narrative is one of these tales. I have forgotten where I read it for the first time. Whether the tale was exactly as I now have it in my mind, I do not any longer know. But the idea is not mine. I believe I found it in a Paris Review. Then it must have been many years since, for several omniverous readers among my French acquaintances, of whom I made inquiry regarding

*Translated by Jennie A. Stringham, from the German, for Short Stories. Copyrighted.

that easily recognized sketch, could not remember to have read it. It is also possible that I found it in Berlin or London. Should the owner at any time reclaim it, I will return his property with thanks. Here is the story as it has shaped itself little by little in my head.

The numerous guests of the Countess had been slowly retiring since eleven o'clock, and about twelve there were only some half-dozen people assembled in the salon, the very intimate friends of the house. The handsome Palamede had pronounced his verdict upon the notable toilettes of the evening, René had recounted the last duel, Edmond the last steeple-chase; the scandal of the day had been commented upon in the usual philanthropic fashion, and for the first time for half an hour the conversation had languished.

The Countess turned to her neighbor, the quiet Gaston. "You are making more noise than usual this evening," said she; "you have been sleeping this half-hour with open eyes." The gentleman addressed, who had been sitting upon a low chair, earnestly engaged in keeping up a fire in the chimney, in which he had displayed the ability that, according to a French proverb, is a privilege of lovers and philosophers, turned slowly and made answer: "I am thinking of my first love."

"Gratitude does honor to the receiver and to the giver alike," said the Countess. "Tell us the story of the first love, that still makes you dream to-day."

Gaston slowly rubbed his thin hands, as was his habit, and without waiting for further urging, began as follows:

"When I say my first love, I do not mean the very first. This, indeed, caused me in its time much pain and anxious joy; but that is long since forgotten. Many a time when I now recall it, it seems as though I thought of another's love tale and not my own. I was at the time perhaps twelve or thirteen years old, and she was the sister of my schoolfellow Jacques. I saw her for the first time upon our playground, where she appeared with her mother, during an intermission, to see her brother. It was winter; the yard was full of snow, and a fierce battle waged between the opposing factions into which the school was divided. At the moment when I saw her at the entrance to the playground, a harder snowball hit me on the head, so that I fell down unconscious. A few minutes after, when I again came to myself, I was

sitting upon a chair in the porter's room, and both ladies, the mother and sister of my friend, stood near and regarded me anxiously.

The next morning she caused inquiry to be made after my health through Jacques, and on the following Sunday I called upon her. I spoke no word. I ventured scarcely to raise my eyes, but I would willingly have thrown myself a thousand times into fire or water to again draw upon me the solicitous glance of the beautiful maiden. In the evening

I invented for myself the most marvellous heroic deeds wherewith I would fain have aroused her astonishment and compelled her admiration. Anything else I neither desired nor expected. The unconscious dawn of love in the heart of youth, belongs, with its peculiarities, only to pure child⚫hood. The young heart is foolishly happy in sacrifice, quietly content, and blindly conceited and vain. It can not yet love, it needs but to be loved and admired; to bestow happiness is not its object, and the only joy it knows is a blissful unrest; its only need, to receive love without bestowing it. In after years one gives without receiving, and is very well off with that. So everything in the world is arranged in the best manner, where there are people who find their joy in giving, and others who are happiest in receiving.

But how short and sweet is the one time when one gives and receives, when one loves and is beloved! I have known it, but she who then made me so inexpressibly happy has now left me. How beautiful was the world when I saw it with her; how blue the heaven, how soft the air. We hastened, hand in hand, from place to place, and wherever we went, laughing Joy stepped forth to greet us, begging us to linger. We went laughing, singing, rejoicing along, assured of our good fortune everywhere. Sometimes our riotous delight, overstepping all bounds, startled sober people. But the stern glance softened when it rested upon us: "They are young; let them enjoy themselves," said the old, and went along, sorrowfully smiling. She clung so tightly to my arm, she nestled so closely to my side, that I thought I could never lose her. The idea of a possible change never came to me, never troubled me. Thus I lived a long time. Weeks, months, years flew by, and I heeded them not.

One evening, after we had spent the day yet more madly and merrily than usual, she suddenly appeared to me discontented and cold. A terrible fear which I am not able to de

scribe fell upon me. An icy coldness crept over me. "She will leave you," said I, to myself, "certainly, surely, she will leave you." It occurred to me how little I had really concerned myself about her, how I perhaps had expected too much of her truth and constancy. For the first time I felt my trust in myself and in her waver, and anxiously I gazed into her eyes. But her glance turned wearily from me, and gave me no answer. My rest was gone, my life no more the same. It is true she still pressed me impetuously to her bosom again and again, but the sweetness of her kiss had vanished. Often she pushed me coldly away, and I saw to my unutterable sorrow that my love wearied her. And when I once, at a later hour, returned home, tired and dejected, I found the room dark, cold and empty; she, my joy, my light, my all, had vanished.

Now began a miserable existence for me. The loss that I had suffered gnawed at my heart; but my care was to conceal this loss from the world. I endeavored to show a cheerful, happy countenance; I sought the society of gay young people. I bestowed great and hitherto unknown and ridiculed care upon my person and toilette. My enemies said of me that I had for a long time rouged in order to hide the paleness of my cheeks. That is not true, but I may as well confess that I bought a little flask of newly invented tincture that was to restore the color of youth to my whitening hair. This hypocritical farce did not long continue. I was soon tired of the strife, and to-day the opinion of the world troubles me no more. I know that my darling has left me, that nothing will bring her back, and every one who knows me may perceive and recognize in my appearance the loss which I suffered. But I ever lament the lost one; she is wanting everywhere; nothing, nothing can take her place to me, and I would willingly give everything I possess, and every joy and happiness that is prepared for me, to once again call her mine, to once more live through that beautiful, fleeting time, during which alone I was happy.

Gaston ceased, and stared fixedly into the dying fire, and fell to the characteristic, slow rubbing of his emaciated hands.

"What is the name of this wonderful being?" asked the Countess.

"My youth," answered Gaston, without turning his eyes from the fire.