First Love

I have for years led a roving life and sim most at home iu raihvay carriages, waiting rooms, hotels and restaurants. ! On this account rny reading has been of all kinds, and I have given up wishing to be daiuty in my literary diet. Only Germán and French romances and novéis i by authors nnknown to me, or writers whose style I do not enjoy, inspire me ! with an unconquerable respect. Books by these authors I never venture to open, even in the greatest dearth of reading matter. Besides I eagerly welcome everything published by the latest jonrnals and look through each . ■weekly and monthly periodical that 1 1 come across in dining or waiting room. That is why I have a succession of ! fragments of a considerable number of stories in my head, and as their classification does not especially interest me it thus happens that I occasionally join the ; end of one to the beginning of the other. j Some of these dovetailed stories please I me quite as well as the Doted novéis of , fanious authors. This is a matter of taste, and I allow myself no criticism. Sometimes I finish for myself a story, the beginning of , which I have read, or invent the first j chapter for the conclusión of a romance which has fallen into my hands. Then, i af ter a time, it is difficult to distiuguish between what is mine and what is not mine. In most cases indeed I have of a morning when I leave a city forgotten ■what I have read there on the preceding evening. But when a story has pleased mo I enjoy repeating it to myself in the railway carriage, and then it becomes fixed in my memory and recurs later, at irregular intervals, as something per8onally experienced or again invented by myself. The f ollowing narrativo is one of these tales. I have forgotten where I read it for the first time. Whether the tale was exactly as I now have it in my mind I do not any longer know. But the idea is not mine. I believe I found it in a Paria review. Then it must have been niany years since, for several omnivorous readers among my French acquaintances, of whom I made inquiry regarding that easily recognized sketch, could not remember to have read it. It is also possible that I found it in Berlin or Londou. Should the owner at any timereclaim it, I will return his property with thanka. Here is the story as it has shaped itself little by little in my head : The numerous guests of the countess had been slowly retiring since 1 1 o'clock, and about 12 there were only some half dozen people assembled in the salon, the very intimate friends of the house. The handsome Palamede had pronounced his verdict upon the notable toilets of the evening, Rene had recounted the last duel, Edmond the last steeplechase. The scandal of the day had been commented upon in the usual philanthropic fashion, and for the first time for half an hour the conversation had languished. The countess turned to her neighbor, the quiet Gaston. "You are making more noise than usual this eveniug, " said she. "You have been sleeping this half hour with I open eyes. " The gentleman addressed, j who had been sitting upon a low chair, earnestly engaged in keeping up a fire in the chimney, in which he had displayed the ability that, according to a French proverb, is a privilege of lovers and philosophers, turned slowly and made answer, "I am thinking of my first lovë. " "Gratitude does honor to the receiver and to the giver alike, ' ' said the countess. "Teil us the story of the first love that still niakes yon dream today. " Gaston slowly rubbed his thin hands, as was his habit, and without waitiug for further urging began as follows : ' ' Wheu I say niy first love, I do not mean the very first. This indeed caused me in its time much pain and anxioua joy, but. that is loug since forgotten. Many a time, when I now recall it, it seems as though I thought of another's love tale and not rny owu. I was at the time perhaps 12 or 13 years old, andshe was the sister of niy schoolfellow Jacques. "I sawher for the first time upon our playground, where she appeared with her mother, during an intermission, to see her brother. It was winter. The yard was full of snow, and a fierce battle waged between the opposing f actions into which the school was divided. At the moment when I saw her at the entrance to the playgrouud, a harder snowbali liit me on the head, so that I feil down nuconscious. A few minutes after, when I again came to myself , I was sitting upon a chair in the porter's room, aud botl) ladies, the morher aud sister of my friend, stood near and regarded me anxiously. "The next morning she caused inquiry to be made after my health through Jacques, md on the following Suuday I called upon her. I spoke no word. I ventured scarcely to raise my eyes, but I would willingly have thrown myself a thousand times into fire or water to again draw upon me the solicitous glance of the beautifnl maiden. "In the evening I invented for myself the most marvelous heroic deeds wherewith I would fain have aroused her astonishment and compelled her adniiration. Anything else I neither desired nor expected. The nnconscious dawu of love in the heart of youth belongs with its pecultttvities only to pure childhood. "The young heart is foolishly happy in eacrifice, quietly content and blindly conceited and vain. It cannot yet love, it needs but to be loved and admired ; to bestow happiness is not its object, and the only joy it knows is a blissful unrest ; its only need, to receive love without bestowing it. In after years one gives without receiving and is very well off with that. So everything in the world is arranged in the best manner, whore there are people who find their joy in giving, and others who are happiest in receiving. "But how short and sweet is the one time when one gives and receives, when one loves and is beloved ! I have known it, but sho who theu mude me so Hiexpessibly happy bas now ieft ine. H rw beautiful was the world when I saw it with her ; how blue the heaven ; how soft the -.ir ! Wehastened, hand iu hand, from place to place, and wherever we went, laughingly joy stepped forth to greet us, begging ns to linger. We weut laughicg, siaging, rejoicing alonj;, assurcd of our good fortune everywhere. "Sometí mes oiir riotous delight, ■ eteppiiig all bounds, startled sober peopie. But the stern glance sof tened when it rested upon us: 'They are young. Let them enjoy thernselves, ' said the old, and we:;t along sorrowfully smiling. She clnng so tightly to my arm, she nestled so closely to my side, that I thought I could never lose hei. The idea of a possible change never carne tb me, never troubled me. Thus I lived a long time. Weeks, months, years flew by, and I heeded them not. "Oueeveuing, af ter we had spent the day yet more madly and merrily than nsual, she suddenly appeared to me I contented and cold. A terrible fear which I am not able to describe feil npon me. An icycoldness creptover me. 'She will leave you, ' said I to myself, 'certainly, surely, she will leave you. ' It occurred to me how little I hadreally concerned myself about her, how I perhaps had expected too inuch of her truth and constancy. For the firet time I feit my trust in myself and in her waver, and anxiously I gazed into her eyes. But her glance turned wearily from me and gave me no answer. "My rest was gone, my life no more the same. It is trae she still pressed me impetuously to her bosom agaiu and again, but the sweetness of her kiss had vanished. Often she pushed me coldly away, and I saw to my nnutterable sorrow that my love wearied her. And ■when I once at a later hour returned home, tired and dejected, I found the room dark, cold and empty. She, my joy, my light, my all, had vanished. "Nowbegan a miserable existence for me. The loss that I had suffered gnawed at my heart, but my care was to couceal this loss from the world. I endeavored to show a cheerful, happy countenance. I sought the society of gay young people. I bestowed great and hitherto unknown and ridiculed care upon my person and toilet. My enemies said of me that I had for a long time rouged in order to Inde the paleness of my cheeks. That is not true, but I may as well confess that I bought a little flask of newly invented tineture that was to restore the color of youth to my whitening huir. "This hypocritical farce did not long continue. I was soon tired of the strife, and today the opinión of the world troubles me no more. I know that my darling has left me; that nothing will bring her back, and every one who knows me may perceive and recognize in my appearance the loss which I suffered. But I ever lament the lost one. She is wanting everywhere. Nothing, nothing can taie her place to me, and I would willingly give every th ing I possess and every joy and happiness that is prepared for me to once again cali her mine, to once more live through that beautiful, fleetiug time, during which alone I waa happy." Gaston ceased, and stared fixedly inta the dying fire, and feil to the characteristic.slowrubbingof his emaciated hands. "What is the name of this wonderfui being?" asked the conntess. "My youth," answered Gaston, without turning his eyes from the fire. -