FullReads

CHAPTER I.

A Philosophical Conversation between a Physician and His Patient.

DR. DE SCHULEMBOURG was the most eminent physician in Dresden. He was not only a physician; he was a philosopher. He studied the idiosyncrasy of his patients, and was aware of the fine and secret connection between medicine and morals. One morning Dr. de Schulembourg was summoned to Walstein. The physician looked forward to the interview with his patient with some degree of interest. He had often heard of Walstein, but had never yet met that gentleman, who had only recently returned from his travels, and who had been absent from his country for several years.

When Dr. de Schulembourg arrived at the house of Walstein, he was admitted into a circular hall containing the busts of the Caesars, and ascending a double staircase of noble proportion, was ushered into a magnificent gallery. Copies in marble of the most celebrated ancient statues were ranged on each side of this gallery. Above them were suspended many beautiful Italian and Spanish pictures, and between them were dwarf bookcases full of tall volumes in sumptuous bindings, and crowned with Etruscan vases and rare bronzes. Schulembourg, who was a man of taste, looked around him with great satisfaction. And while he was gazing on a group of diaphanous cherubim, by Murillo, an artist of whom he had heard much and knew little, his arm was gently touched, and turning round, Schulembourg beheld his patient, a man past the prime of youth, but of very distinguished appearance, and with a very frank and graceful manner. ‘I hope you will pardon me, my dear sir, for permitting you to be a moment alone,’ said Walstein, with an ingratiating smile.

‘Solitude, in such a scene, is not very wearisome,’ replied the physician. ‘There are great changes in-this mansion since the time of your father, Mr. Walstein.’

”Tis an attempt to achieve that which we are all sighing for,’ replied Walstein, ‘the Ideal. But for myself, although I assure you not a pococurante, I cannot help thinking there is no slight dash of the commonplace.’

‘Which is a necessary ingredient of all that is excellent,’ replied Schulembourg.

Walstein shrugged his shoulders, and then invited the physician to be seated. ‘I wish to consult you, Dr. Schulembourg,’ he observed, somewhat abruptly. ‘My metaphysical opinions induce me to believe that a physician is the only philosopher. I am perplexed by my own case. I am in excellent health, my appetite is good, my digestion perfect. My temperament I have ever considered to be of a very sanguine character. I have nothing upon my mind. I am in very easy circumstances. Hitherto I have only committed blunders in life and never crimes. Nevertheless, I have, of late, become the victim of a deep and inscrutable melancholy, which I can ascribe to no cause, and can divert by no resource. Can you throw any light upon my dark feelings? Can you remove them?’

‘How long have you experienced them?’ inquired the physician.

‘More or less ever since my return,’ replied Walstein; ‘but most grievously during the last three months.’

‘Are you in love?’ inquired Schulembourg.

‘Certainly not,’ replied Walstein, ‘and I fear I never shall be.’

‘You have been?’ inquired the physician.

‘I have had some fancies, perhaps too many,’ answered the patient; ‘but youth deludes itself. My idea of a heroine has never been realised, and, in all probability, never will be.’

‘Besides an idea of a heroine,’ said Schulembourg, ‘you have also, if I mistake not, an idea of a hero?’

‘Without doubt,’ replied Walstein. ‘I have preconceived for myself a character which I have never achieved.’

‘Yet, if you have never met a heroine nearer your ideal than your hero, why should you complain?’ rejoined Schulembourg.

‘There are moments when my vanity completes my own portrait,’ said Walstein.

‘And there are moments when our imagination completes the portrait of our mistress,’ rejoined Schulembourg.