square, rose a hubbub of hissing and laughter.

Every face, turned to him, glowed with indignation, every eye sparkled with anger, every arm was raised and shook a menacing fist!

‘He thought to dazzle us with that!’ growled angry voices. ‘Down with the imbecile rhymester from the forum! Away with the idiot! Rotten apples, stinking eggs for the motley fool! Give us stones—stones here!’

Junius rushed head over heels from the forum … but, before he had got home, he was overtaken by the sound of peals of enthusiastic applause, cries and shouts of admiration.

Filled with amazement, Junius returned to the square, trying however to avoid being noticed (for it is dangerous to irritate an infuriated beast).

And what did he behold?

High above the people, upon their shoulders, on a flat golden shield, wrapped in a purple chlamys, with a laurel wreath on his flowing locks, stood his rival, the young poet Julius…. And the populace all round him shouted: ‘Glory! Glory! Glory to the immortal Julius! He has comforted us in our sorrow, in our great woe! He has bestowed on us verses sweeter than honey, more musical than the cymbal’s note, more fragrant than the rose, purer than the azure of heaven! Carry him in triumph, encircle his inspired head with the soft breath of incense, cool his brow with the rhythmic movement of palm-leaves, scatter at his feet all the fragrance of the myrrh of Arabia! Glory!’

Junius went up to one of the applauding enthusiasts. ‘Enlighten me, O my fellow-citizen! what were the verses with which Julius has made you happy? I, alas! was not in the square when he uttered them! Repeat them, if you remember them, pray!’

‘Verses like those I could hardly forget!’ the man addressed responded with spirit. ‘What do you take me for? Listen—and rejoice, rejoice with us!’

‘Lovers of the Muse!’ so the deified Julius had begun….

  ‘Lovers of the Muse! Comrades! Friends

  Of beauty, grace, and music, worshippers!

  Let not your hearts by gloom affrighted be!

  The wished-for moment comes! and day shall scatter night!’

‘What do you think of them?’

‘Heavens!’ cried Junius; ‘but that’s my poem! Julius must have been in the crowd when I was reciting them; he heard them and repeated them, slightly varying, and certainly not improving, a few expressions.’

‘Aha! Now I recognise you…. You are Junius,’ the citizen he had stopped retorted with a scowl on his face. ‘Envious man or fool!… note only, luckless wretch, how sublimely Julius has phrased it: «And day shall scatter night!» While you had some such rubbish: «And light shall banish darkness!» What light? What darkness?’

‘But isn’t that just the same?’ Junius was beginning….

‘Say another word,’ the citizen cut him short, ‘I will call upon the people … they will tear you to pieces!’

Junius judiciously held his peace, but a grey-headed old man who had heard the conversation went up to the unlucky poet, and laying a hand upon his shoulder, said:

‘Junius! You uttered your own thought, but not at the right moment; and he uttered not his own thought, but at the right moment. Consequently, he is all right; while for you is left the consolations of a good conscience.’

But while his conscience, to the best of its powers—not over successfully, to tell the truth—was consoling Junius as he was shoved on one side—in the distance, amid shouts of applause and rejoicing, in the golden radiance of the all-conquering sun, resplendent in purple, with his brow shaded with laurel, among undulating clouds of lavish incense, with majestic deliberation, like a tsar making a triumphal entry into his kingdom, moved the proudly erect figure of Julius … and the long branches of palm rose and fell before him, as though expressing in their soft vibration, in their submissive obeisance, the ever-renewed adoration which filled the hearts of his enchanted fellow-citizens!

April 1878.

THE SPARROW

I was returning from hunting, and walking along an avenue of the garden, my dog running in front of me.

Suddenly he took shorter steps, and began to steal along as though tracking game.

I looked along the avenue, and saw a young sparrow, with yellow about its beak and down on its head. It had fallen out of the nest (the wind was violently shaking the birch-trees in the avenue) and sat unable to move, helplessly flapping its half-grown wings.

My dog was slowly approaching it, when, suddenly darting down from a tree close by, an old dark-throated sparrow fell like a stone right before his nose, and all ruffled up, terrified, with despairing and pitiful cheeps, it flung itself twice towards the open jaws of shining teeth.

It sprang to save; it cast itself before its nestling … but all its tiny body was shaking with terror; its note was harsh and strange. Swooning with fear, it offered itself up!

What a huge monster must the dog have seemed to it! And yet it could not stay on its high branch out of danger…. A force stronger than its will flung it down.

My Trésor stood still, drew back…. Clearly he too recognised this force.

I hastened to call off the disconcerted dog, and went away, full of reverence.

Yes; do not laugh. I felt reverence for that tiny heroic bird, for its impulse of love.

Love, I thought, is stronger than death or the fear of death. Only by it, by love, life holds together and advances.

April 1878.

THE SKULLS

A sumptuous, brilliantly lighted hall; a number of ladies and gentlemen.

All the faces are animated, the talk is lively…. A noisy conversation is being carried on about a famous singer. They call her divine, immortal…. O, how finely yesterday she rendered her last trill!

And suddenly—as by the wave of an enchanter’s wand—from every head and from every face, slipped off the delicate covering of skin, and instantaneously exposed the deadly whiteness of skulls, with here and there the leaden shimmer of bare jaws and gums.

With horror I beheld the movements of those jaws and gums; the turning, the glistening in the light of the lamps and candles, of those lumpy bony balls, and the rolling in them of other smaller balls, the balls of the meaningless eyes.

I dared not touch my own face, dared not glance at myself in the glass.

And the skulls turned from side to side as before…. And with their former noise, peeping like little red rags out of the grinning teeth, rapid tongues lisped how marvellously, how inimitably the immortal … yes, immortal … singer had rendered that last trill!

April 1878.

THE WORKMAN AND THE MAN WITH WHITE HANDS

A DIALOGUE

WORKMAN. Why do you come crawling up to us? What do ye want? You’re none of us…. Get along!

MAN WITH WHITE HANDS. I am one of you, comrades!

THE WORKMAN. One of us, indeed! That’s a notion! Look at my hands. D’ye see how dirty they are? And they smell of muck, and of pitch—but yours, see, are white. And what do they smell of?

THE MAN WITH WHITE HANDS (offering his hands). Smell them.

THE WORKMAN (sniffing his hands). That’s a queer start. Seems like a smell of iron.

THE MAN WITH WHITE HANDS. Yes; iron it is. For six long years I wore chains on them.

THE WORKMAN. And what was that for, pray?

THE MAN WITH WHITE HANDS. Why, because I worked for your good; tried to set free the oppressed and the ignorant; stirred folks up against your oppressors; resisted the authorities…. So they locked me up.

THE WORKMAN. Locked you up, did they? Serve you right for resisting!

Two Years Later.

THE SAME WORKMAN TO ANOTHER. I say, Pete…. Do you remember, the year before last, a chap with white hands talking to you?

THE OTHER WORKMAN. Yes;… what of it?

THE FIRST WORKMAN. They’re going to hang him to-day, I heard say; that’s the order.

THE SECOND WORKMAN. Did he keep on resisting the authorities?

THE FIRST WORKMAN. He kept on.

THE SECOND WORKMAN. Ah!… Now, I say, mate, couldn’t we get hold of a bit of the rope they’re going to hang him with? They do say, it brings good luck to a house!

THE FIRST WORKMAN. You’re right there. We’ll have a try for it, mate.

April 1878.

THE ROSE

The last days of August…. Autumn was already at hand.

The sun was setting. A sudden downpour of rain, without thunder or lightning, had just passed rapidly over our wide plain.

The garden in front of the house glowed and steamed, all filled with the fire of the sunset and the deluge of rain.

She was sitting at a table in the drawing-room, and, with persistent dreaminess, gazing through the half-open door into the garden.

I knew what was passing at that moment in her soul; I knew that, after a brief but agonising struggle, she was at that instant giving herself up to a feeling she could no longer master.

All at once she got up, went quickly out into the garden, and disappeared.

An hour passed … a second; she had not returned.

Then I got up, and, getting out of the house, I turned along the walk by which—of that I had no doubt—she had gone.

All was darkness about me; the night had already fallen. But on the damp sand of the path a roundish object could be discerned—bright red even through the mist.

I stooped down. It was a fresh, new-blown rose. Two hours before I had seen this very rose on her bosom.

I carefully picked up the flower that had fallen in the mud, and, going back to the drawing-room, laid it on the table before her chair.

And now at last she came back, and with light footsteps, crossing the whole room, sat down at the table.

Her face was both paler and more vivid; her downcast eyes, that looked somehow smaller, strayed rapidly in happy confusion from side