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The Cold Embrace by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. He was an artist. Such things

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as happened to him happened sometimes to
artists. He was a German. Such

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things as happened to him happened sometimes
to Germans. He was young, handsome,

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studious, enthusiastic, metaphysical, reckless, unbelieving, heartless, And being

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young, handsome and eloquent, he
was beloved. He was an orphan under

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the guardianship of his dead father's brother, his uncle Wilhelm, in whose house

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he had been brought up from a
little child. And she who loved him

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was his cousin, his cousin Gertrude, whom he swore he loved in return,

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did he love her? Yes,
When he first swore it, it

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soon wore out. This passionate love. How threadbare and wretched a sentiment.

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It became at last in this selfish
heart of the student, but in its

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first golden dawn, when he was
only nineteen and had just returned from his

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apprenticeship to a great painter at Antwerp, and they wandered together in the most

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romantic outskirts of the city, at
rosy sunset by holy moonlight, or bright

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and joyous morning how beautiful a dream. They keep it a secret from Wilhelm,

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as he has the father's ambition of
a wealthy suitor for his only child,

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a cold and dreary vision beside the
lover's dream. So they are betrothed

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and standing side by side. When
the dying sun in the pale rising moon

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divide the heavens, he puts the
betrothal ring upon her finger, the white

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and taper finger, whose slender shape
he knows so well. This ring is

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a peculiar one, a massive golden
serpent, its tail in its mouth.

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The symbol of eternity had been his
mother's, and he would know it amongst

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a thousand. If he were to
become blind tomorrow, he could select it

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from amongst a thousand by the touch
alone. He places it on her finger,

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and they swear to be true to
each other forever and ever, through

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trouble and danger, sorrow and change
in wealth or poverty. Her father must

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needs be one to consent to their
union by and by, for they were

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now betrothed, and death alone could
part them. But the young student the

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scoffer at revelation. Yet the enthusiastic
adorer of the metaphysical asks can death,

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pat Us, I would return to
you from the grave girthroot. My soul

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would come back to be near my
love. And you you, if you

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died before me, the cold earth
would not hold you from me. If

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you loved me, you would return, and again the fair arms would be

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clasped round my neck, as they
all now. But she told him,

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with a holier light in her deep
blue eyes than had ever shown in his.

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She told him that the dead who
die at peace with God are happy

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in heaven and cannot return to the
troubled earth, and that it is only

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the suicide the lost wretch on whom
sorrowful angels shut the door of paradise,

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whose unholy spirit haunts the footsteps of
the living. The first year of their

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betrothal is passed, and she is
alone, for he has gone to Italy

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on a commission for some rich man
to copy Raphael's Titians Guidos in a gallery

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at Florence. He has gone to
win fame, perhaps, but it is

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not the less bitter he is gone. Of course, Her father misses his

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young nephew, who has been as
a son to him, And he thinks

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his daughter said no more than a
cousin should feel for a cousin's absence.

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In the meantime, the weeks and
months pass. The lover writes, often

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at first, then seldom at last, not at all. How many excuses

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she invents for him. How many
times she goes to the distant little post

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office to which he is to address
his letters. How many times she hopes

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only to be disappointed. How many
times she despairs, only to hope again.

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But real despair comes at last,
and will not be put off anymore.

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The rich suitor appears on the scene, and her father is determined she

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is to marry at once. The
wedding day is fixed, the fifteenth of

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June. The date seems burned into
her brain. The date written in fire

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dances forever before her eyes. The
date shrieked by the furies, sounds continually

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in her ears. But there is
time yet. It is the middle of

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May. There is time for a
letter to reach him at Florence. There

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is time for him to come back
to Brunswick, to take her away and

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marry her, in spite of her
father, in spite of the whole world.

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But the days and weeks fly by, and he does not write.

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He does not come This is indeed
despair which usurps her heart and will not

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be put away. It is the
fourteenth of June. For the last time,

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she goes to the little post office
for the last time. She asks

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the old question, and they give
her, for the last time the dreary

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answer, no letter, for the
last time. For tomorrow is the day

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appointed for her bridle. Her father
will hear no enterities, her rich suitor

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will not listen to her prayers.
They will not be put off a day,

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an hour tonight alone is hers,
this night, which she may employ

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as she will. She takes another
path than that which leads home. She

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hurries through some by streets of the
city, out onto a lonely bridge,

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where he and she had stood so
often in the sunset, watching the rose

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colored light glow, fade and die
upon the river. He returns from Florence.

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He had received her letter, that
letter, blotted with tears, entreating

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despairing. He had received it,
but he loved her no longer. A

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young Florentine who has sat to him
for a model, had bewitched his fancy,

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that fancy which with him stood in
place of a heart. And Gertrude

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had been half forgotten if she had
a rich suitor, good, let her

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marry him, for her better far
for himself. He had no wish to

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fetter himself with a wife, had
he not his art, always, his

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eternal bride, his unchanging mistress.
Thus he thought it wiser to delay his

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journey to Brunswick, so that he
should arrive when the wedding was over,

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arrive in time to salute the bride
and the vows. The mystical fancies,

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the belief in his return, even
after death, to the embrace of his

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beloved Oh, gone out of his
life, melted away forever, those foolish

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dreams of his boyhood. So on
the fifteenth of June he enters Brunswick by

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that very bridge on which she stood, the stars looking down on her the

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night before. He strolls across the
bridge and down by the water's edge,

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a great rough dog at his heels, and the smoke from his short Meerschaum

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pipe curling in blue wreaths fantastically in
the pure morning air. He has his

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sketchbook under his arm, and attracted
now and then by some object that catches

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his artist's eye, stops to draw
a few weeds and pebbles, on the

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river's bank, a crag on the
opposite shore, a group of pollard willows

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in the distance. When he has
done, he admires his drawing, shuts

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his sketchbook, empties the ashes from
his pipe, refills from his tobacco pouch,

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sings the refrain of a gay drinking
song, calls to his dog,

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smokes again, and walks on.
Suddenly he opens his sketchbook again, this

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time that which attracts him as a
group of figures. But what is it?

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It is not a funeral, for
there are no mourners. It is

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not a funeral, but a corpse
lying on a rough buyer, covered with

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an old sail, carried between two
bearers. It is not a funeral,

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for the bearers are fishermen, fishermen
in their everyday garb. About a hundred

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yards from him, they rest their
burden on a bank. One stands at

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the head of the buyer, the
other throws himself down at the foot of

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it, and thus they form a
perfect group. He walks back two or

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three paces, selects his point of
sight, and begins to sketch a hurried

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outline. He has finished it before
they move. He hears their voices,

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though he cannot hear their words,
and wonders what they can be talking of.

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Presently, he walks on and joins
them. You have a corpse,

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them my friends, he says,
Yes, a corpse washed ashore an hour

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ago, drowned, Yes, drowned, a young girl. Very handsome.

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Suicide's allwit's handsome, says the painter. And then he stands for a little

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while, idly smoking and meditating,
looking at the sharp outline of the corpse

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and the stiff folds of the rough
canvas covering life. Is such a golden

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holiday for him, young, ambitious, clever, that it seems as though

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sorrow and death could have no part
in his destiny. At last, he

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says that, as this poor suicide
is so handsome, he should like to

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make a sketch of her. He
gives the fisherman some money, and they

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offer to remove the sailcloth that covers
her features. No, he will do

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it himself. He lifts the rough, coarse, wet canvas from her face.

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What face, the face that shone
on the dreams of his foolish boyhood,

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the face which once was the light
of his uncle's home, his cousin

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Gertrude, his betrothed. He sees
as in one glance while he draws one

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breath, the rigid features, the
marble arms, the hands crossed on the

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cold bosom, and on the third
finger of the left hand, the ring

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which had been his mother's, the
golden serpent, the ring which, if

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he were to become blind, he
could select from a thousand others by the

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touch alone. But he is a
genius and a metaphysician. Grief, true

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grief, is not for such as
he. His first thought is flight,

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flight, anywhere out of that accursed
city, anywhere, far from the brink

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of that hideous river, anywhere away
from remorse, anywhere to forget. He

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is miles on the road that leads
away from Brunswick before he knows that he

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has walked the step. It is
only when his dog lies down, panting

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at his feet that he feels how
exhausted he is himself, and sits down

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upon a bank to rest. How
the landscape spins round and round before his

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dazzled eyes, while his morning sketch
of the two fishermen and the canvas covered

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buyer glares redly at him out of
the twilight. At last, after sitting

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a long time by the roadside,
idly playing with his dog, idly smoking,

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idly lounging, looking as any idle, light hearted traveling student might look,

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yet all the while acting over that
morning scene in his burning brain a

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hundred times a minute. At last, he grows a little more composed and

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tries presently to think of himself as
he is. Apart from his cousin's suicide.

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Apart from that, he was no
worse off than he was yesterday.

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His genius was not gone. The
money he had earned at Florence still lined

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his pocketbook. He was his own
master, free to go whither he would.

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And while he sits on the roadside, trying to separate himself from the

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scene of that morning, trying to
put away the image of the corpse covered

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with the damp canvas sail, trying
to think of what he should do next,

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where he should go, to be
farthest away from Brunswick and remorse.

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The old diligence comes, rumbling and
jingling along. He remembers it. It

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goes from Brunswick to Aila Chapelle.
He whistles to his dog, shouts to

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the postilion to stop, and springs
into the coupee. During the whole evening

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through the long night, he does
not once close his eyes. He never

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speaks a word. But when morning
dawns and the other passengers away can begin

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to talk to each other, he
joins in the conversation. He tells them

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that he is an artist, that
he is going to Cologne and to Antwerp

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to copy Rubenses and the great picture
by Quentin Natzie's in the museum. He

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remembered afterwards that he talked and laughed
boisterously, and that when he was talking

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and laughing loudest, a passenger older
and graver than the rest, opened the

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window near him and told him to
put his head out. He remembered the

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fresh air blowing in his face,
the singing of the birds in his ears,

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and the flat fields and roadside reeling
before his eyes. He remembered this,

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and then falling in a lifeless heap
on the floor of the Diligence.

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It is a fever that keeps him
for six long weeks on a bed at

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a hotel in ailas Chabad. He
gets well and accompanied by his dog,

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starts on foot for Cologne. By
this time he is his former self once

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more again. The blue smoke from
his short Meerschaum curls upwards in the morning

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air. Again, he sings some
old university drinking song again, stops here

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and there, meditating and sketching.
He is happy, and he has forgotten

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his cousin, and so on to
Cologne. It is by the great cathedral

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he is standing, with his dog
at his side. It is night.

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The bells have just chimed the hour, and the clocks are striking eleven.

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The moonlight shines full upon the magnificent
pile over which the artist's eye wanders,

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absorbed in the beauty of form.
He is not thinking of his drowned cousin,

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for he has forgotten her and is
happy. Suddenly, some one,

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something from behind him, puts two
cold arms round his neck and clasps its

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hands on his breast. And yet
there is no one behind him, for

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on the flags bathed in the broad
moonlight, there are only two shadows,

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his own and his dogs. He
turns quickly round. There is no one,

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nothing to be seen in the broad
square but himself and his dog.

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And though he feels he cannot see
the cold arms clasped round his neck,

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it is not ghostly. This embrace
for it is palpable to the touch.

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It cannot be real, for it
is invisible. He tries to throw off

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the cold caress. He clasps the
hands in his own, to tear them

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asunder, and to cast them off
his neck. He can feel the long,

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delicate fingers, cold and wet beneath
his touch. And on the third

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finger of the left hand he can
feel the ring which was his mother's,

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the golden serpent, the ring which
he has always said he would know among

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a thousand by the touch alone.
He knows it now. His dead cousin's

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cold arms are round his neck.
His dead cousin's wet hands are clasp upon

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his breast. He asks himself if
he is mad. Up Leo. He

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shouts up, up, boy,
and the Newfoundland leaps up onto his shoulders.

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The dog's paws are on the dead
hands, and the animal utters a

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terrific howl and springs away from his
master. The student stands in the moonlight,

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the dead arms round his neck,
and the dog at a little distance,

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moaning piteously. Presently, a watchman, alarmed by the howling of the

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dog, comes into the square to
see what is wrong. In a breath,

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the cold arms are gone. He
takes the watchman home to the hotel

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with him and gives him money.
In his gratitude. He could have given

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that man half his little fortune.
Will it ever come to him again?

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This embrace of the dead. He
tries never to be alone. He makes

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a hundred acquaintances and shares the chamber
of another student. He starts up if

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he is left by himself in the
public room at the inn where he is

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staying, and runs into the street. People notice his strange actions and begin

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to think that he is mad.
But in spite of all, he is

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alone once more for one night,
the public room being empty for a moment,

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when on some idle pretense, he
strolls into the street. The street

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is empty too, and for the
second time he feels the cold arms round

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his neck, and for the second
time when he calls his dog, the

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animal SLINKs away from him with a
piteous howl. After this, he leaves

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Colonne, still traveling on foot of
necessity. Now, for his money is

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getting low, he joins traveling hawkers. He walks side by side with laborers.

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He talks to every foot passenger he
falls in with, and tries from

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morning till night to get company on
the road. At night he sleeps by

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the fire in the kitchen of the
inn at which he stops, but do

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what he will. He is often
alone, and it is now a common

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thing for him to feel the cold
arms round his neck. Many months have

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passed since his cousin's death, autumn, winter, early spring. His money

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is nearly gone, his health is
utterly broken. He is the shadow of

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his former self, and he is
getting near to Paris. He will reach

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that city at the time of the
carnival. To this he looks forward in

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Paris in carnival time, he need
never surely be alone, never feel that

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deadly caress. He may even recover
his lost gaiety, his lost health,

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once more, resume his profession,
once more earned aim and money by his

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art. How hard he tries to
get over the distance that divides him from

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Paris, while day by day he
grows weaker and his steps slower and more

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heavy. But there is an end. At last, the long, dreary

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roads are past. This is Paris, which he enters for the first time,

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Paris of which he has dreamed so
much, Paris whose million voices are

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to exercise his phantom to him tonight, Paris seems one vast chaos of lights,

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music and confusion, Lights which dance
before his eyes and will not be

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still, Music that rings in his
ears and deafens him, Confusion which makes

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his head whirl round and round.
But in spite of all he finds the

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opera house, where there is a
masked ball. He has enough money left

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00:19:55,240 --> 00:19:59,079
by a ticket of admission, and
to hire a domino to throw over his

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shabby dress. It seems only a
moment after his entering the gates of Paris

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that he is in the very midst
of all the wild gaiety of the opera

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house ball. No more darkness,
no more loneliness, but a mad crowd

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shouting and dancing, and a lovely
de balduce hanging on his arm. The

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boisterous gaiety, he feels, surely
is his old lightheartedness come back. He

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hears the people round him talking of
the outrageous conduct of some drunken student.

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And it is to him they point
when they say this, to him who

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has not moistened his lips since yesterday
at noon. For even now he will

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not drink. Though his lips are
parched and his throat burning, he cannot

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drink. His voice is thick and
hoarse, and his utterance indistinct. But

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still this must be his old lightheartedness
come back, that makes him so wildly

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gay. The little de Balduce is
wearied out. Her arm rests on his

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should, older, heavier than lead. The other dancers one by one drop

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off. The lights, and the
chandeliers one by one, die out.

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The decorations look pale and shadowy in
that dim light, which is neither night

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nor day, A faint glimmer from
the dying lamps, a pale streak of

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cold gray light from the newborn day, creeping in through half open shutters.

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And by this light, the bright
eyed Debriadus fades sadly. He looks her

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in the face. How the brightness
of her eyes dies out again. He

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looks her in the face, How
white that face has grown again. And

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now it is the shadow of a
face alone that looks in his again,

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And they are gone, the bright
eyes, the face, the shadow of

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00:21:56,119 --> 00:22:03,400
the face. He is alone in
that vast saloon, alone, and in

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the terrible silence he hears the echoes
of his own footsteps, in that dismal

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00:22:08,920 --> 00:22:15,400
dance which has no music, no
music, but the beating of his breast

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for the cold arms are round his
neck. They whirl with him. They

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will not be flung off or cast
away. He can no more escape from

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their icy grip than he can escape
from death. He looks behind him.

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There is nothing but himself in the
great empty sadle. But he can feel

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cold deathlike. But oh how palpable, the long, slender fingers, and

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the ring which was his mother's.
He tries to shout, but he has

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no power in his burning throat.
The silence of the place is only broken

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by the echoes of his own footsteps, in the dance from which he cannot

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extricate himself, who says he has
no part nor the cold hands are clasped

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on his breast, and now he
does not shun their caress. No one

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more polka if he drops down dead. The lights are all out, and

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half an hour after the gendarmes come
in with a lantern to see that the

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house is empty. They are followed
by a great dog that they have found

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seated howling on the steps of the
theater. Near the principal entrance. They

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stumble over the body of a student
who has died from want of food,

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exhaustion, and the breaking of a
blood Vessel End of the Cold Embrace by

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Mary Elizabeth Bradden