FullReads

The papers belonging to the American phase, so far as they were to be identified by dates, or by some internal evidence, were fewer, but even more enigmatical in character. The principal one was a list of addresses in New York, divided into sections, the street boundaries of which were given. There were no names, but some of the addresses were marked +, and others ?, and a few had been crossed out with a pencil. Then there were some leaves of a journal of diet and bodily symptoms, of a very singular character; three fragments of drafts of letters, in pencil, one of them commencing, “Dog and villain!” and a single note of “Began work, September 10th, 1865.” This was about a year before his death.

The date of the diploma given by the gymnasium at Breslau was June 27, 1855, and the first date in Poland was May 3, 1861. Belonging to the time between these two periods there were only the order for the ring (1858), and a little memorandum in pencil, dated “Posen, Dec., 1859.” The last date in Poland was March 18, 1863, and the permit to embark at Bremen was dated in October of that year. Here, at least, was a slight chronological framework. The physician who attended the county almshouse had estimated the man’s age at thirty, which, supposing him to have been nineteen at the time of receiving the diploma, confirmed the dates to that extent.

I assumed, at the start, that the name which had been so carefully cut out of all the documents was the man’s own. The “Elise” of the letters was therefore his sister. The first two letters related merely to “mother’s health,” and similar details, from which it was impossible to extract any thing, except that the sister was in some kind of service. The second letter closed with: “I have enough work to do, but I keep well. Forget thy disappointment so far as I am concerned, for I never expected any thing; I don’t know why, but I never did.”

Here was a disappointment, at least, to begin with. I made a note of it opposite the date, on my blank programme, and took up the next letter. It was written in November, 1861, and contained a passage which keenly excited my curiosity. It ran thus: “Do, pray, be more careful of thy money. It may be all as thou sayest, and inevitable, but I dare not mention the thing to mother, and five thalers is all I can spare out of my own wages. As for thy other request, I have granted it, as thou seest, but it makes me a little anxious. What is the joke? And how can it serve thee? That is what I do not understand, and I have plagued myself not a little to guess.”

Among the Polish memoranda was this: “Sept. 1 to Dec. 1, 200 rubles,” which I assumed to represent a salary. This would give him eight hundred a year, at least twelve times the amount which his sister–who must either have been cook or housekeeper, since she spoke of going to market for the family–could have received. His application to her for money, and the manner of her reference to it, indicated some imprudence or irregularity on his part. What the “other request” was, I could not guess; but as I was turning and twisting the worn leaf in some perplexity, I made a sudden discovery. One side of the bottom edge had been very slightly doubled over in folding, and as I smoothed it out, I noticed some diminutive letters in the crease. The paper had been worn nearly through, but I made out the words: “Write very soon, dear Otto!”

This was the name in the order for the gold ring, signed “B. V. H.”–a link, indeed, but a fresh puzzle. Knowing the stubborn prejudices of caste in Germany, and above all in Eastern Prussia and Silesia, I should have been compelled to accept “Otto,” whose sister was in service, as himself the servant of “B. V. H.,” but for the tenderly respectful letter of “Amelie de—-,” declining the marriage offer for her sister. I re-read this letter very carefully, to determine whether it was really intended for “Otto.” It ran thus: