A MEMORY.

The setting sun cast its last rays over the mountains, like a Vestal Virgin bowing her head to rest—a shimmering, unbound braid; like a cheerful and carefree peasant girl, it gazed into the smooth mirror of the pond, smiled with the full brilliance of its disk, vanishing from the eyes of its long-faithful squire—the pale, pensive moon…

In the village, the hour of clamor then struck…

Less commotion before the manor, silence within… Curtains and blinds were drawn, a lamp brought in; the doctor approached a pale person, weakened by long moral suffering, seated in a comfortable chair, who silently offered him her hands; after a moment, the physician placed the offered hands on the patient’s lap and, looking into her eyes, veiled by closing eyelids, he shook his hands over her forehead, tracing increasingly slow movements in the air above her; until she let her head, which had been tilting, fall onto her chest.

Those present at the hypnotizing of the weakened woman, who had a propensity for magnetic sleep and was to prescribe medicines in an unknown language, held our breath, seized by a shiver of mysterious dread that one feels at the sight of unexplored mysteries… It seemed to us that in this silence, only an inspired voice had the right to resound, to proclaim the omnipotence of the Divine, who could create an immortal spirit—and we fell silent, gravely pensive… — I’m sleeping! — said the patient in a gentle voice… At the same time, a silk dress rustled, a pretty hand, adorned with rings and bracelets, appeared, drawing aside the portière from the adjoining salon,—and our company was enlarged by the presence of a cousin. An expression of strange suffering, almost disgust, marked the face of the hypnotized woman. — Do you feel weak? — asked the doctor, who in such cases, like a priest in a confessional, has the right to discard all titles. — No; don’t wake me! — said the patient. — I only experienced a painful sensation at the sight of the trinkets I noticed on my cousin… Please ask her to take them off!

When astonishment was visible on the face of the newly arrived lady, the sleeping woman spoke again: — She is surprised and hesitates, she doesn’t know why I demand this sacrifice. Listen to me, and you will be convinced that it is not a whim. In the gold that shines so brightly, there are many dark, bloody, and hidden stains… They have now appeared before my spirit’s eyes, like specters with exposed wounds… In the bracelet that my cousin is now removing, there is a piece of gold from the wedding ring of a widow, whose husband was an officer in a valiant but unfortunate army, who sacrificed his blood and life for the nation’s cause; and dying, he only sent a farewell sigh to his family in thought and prayed to God that his only son, when he grew up, might also find death on the field of glory! The widow went through terrible trials; but everything in the world has an end: she concluded her thorny pilgrimage, having cried her eyes out, dying like Ugolino, in the bloody embrace of destitution. Good people took care of her funeral. They took the golden, consecrated ring from her finger, bought a simple coffin for it, like for a beggar, which no one followed to the cemetery—only a weeping child—an orphan; on which the gravedigger only threw a handful of earth, clanging plaintively against the lid. Twenty years later, a young prisoner, separated by hundreds of miles from his homeland, cut off from his brethren by thousands of indifferent hearts, from the dark depths of the earth, as if from the breast of a mysterious giant, tore out lumps of shining ore with a pickaxe; whenever he became pensive—he sighed… The prisoner was the widow’s son, and two links in my cousin’s bracelet were sprinkled with his blood. The father of an unfortunate family, the husband of an abandoned wife, knelt at the feet of a lioness, and forgetting his closest kin: according to the laws of men, nature, and God—what he squeezed from their tears, a costly diamond ring, he gives for the smile of a frivolous woman. Time extinguishes her charms, years pass, valuables pass into the hands of usurers, and finally the degenerate father and the bacchante, a beggar and a beggar woman, meet in the church porch, covered in rags; the diamond from the ring already adorns another woman’s necklace, and the old setting has been melted down into one of the links of the bracelet. Two adventurers of different nationalities, equally fueled by the lust for wealth, met in California, having abandoned their homelands. They worked like the lowest laborers, lived like paupers, fought for every foot of gold-bearing land; when they had gathered enough, intoxicated by drink, agitated by desire, they mutually coveted the fruit of their labors,

they weighed their wealth on scales, staked it on a card, and one remained to experience new mockery and smiles of fate, while a bullet tore through the chest of the other, a suicide!… And a part of that gold you carried in your bracelet, cousin!… And how many similar parts are there still, which created Cains, covered entire generations with shame, brought God’s curse upon the heads of apostates?!… Thank you for taking off these apparent ornaments. To wear trinkets bought with the labor of fathers is a lesser merit than to be born a peacock. Only a child thoughtlessly grasps at a polished piece of metal, and a savage devours it with his gaze; an inhabitant of the civilized world should yearn for other splendors. However, keep with you what your mother gave you with her blessing. Mementos should be respected. H. Przybyslawski.