The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1877-12-22

! women pressed forward TO gaze at the mani
mate form, children stared with an impish
curiosity. An officer in uniform Of silver and
blue, with iingling sword, came down the
bank, paused, and then resumed his way,
humming an opera aria
A little man, dwarf aud humpback, had
inserted himself into the throng to search the
cold dead face with eager and intense inter.
est. To him alone that face was beautiful,
with glory nconceiyable. In its marble re.
pose soft obterating touch seemed to have
passed over ii, smoothing away the pain; the
pnion of Death had brushed these lineaments.
The sight dazzled the dwarf, and made him
giddy. He crept away to seat himself on n
doorstep in dark narrow street What
had the Dottore often said2 "Many leaves
and few grapes That was the proyerb.
The river was gathering its harvest of leaves.
H-FRIENDLEss.
The dwarf still sat on the stone steps, his
hands on his knees, and gazing into space
with dullexpression. Nobody noticed him.
The spot was dark, and he was very small.
The face Of the dead fascinated him with a
terrible power. The Arno lured him with its
swirling eddies to also seek oblivion. Per
haps the most fearful influence exercised by
one mortal on the whole human family is
suicide. 1t is craze, madness, but it is
also the key which solves cruel enigmas. 1t
spreads like a taiut Of contagou, an epidemic,
through the ranks of n town or n nation from
a single example. II a man springs from
Giotto's Campanle, officials are obliged TO
force back those who would Immediately fol-
low. The lightning flash of intelligence from
mind to mind and soul to soul is, Let us all
jump from Giotto's Campanle But the
river All, as surely as it fills to the brim
with Opaque, turbid waters, victims hasten to
its embrace. Pinching want, sorrow, care,
illness, are enough, and, with one leader, the
temptation to cast aside the burden called life
becomes irresistible.
The dwarf or gobbo, sat on the stone step.
His name was Alessandro Lungini; he did not
possess soldo in the world, was without
had tasted no breakfast. He was old, and
even decrepit, and had never worked. What
labor IS there in a strong and noisy world for
gobbo? Since the death of his mother,
years ago, he had subsisted on charity, only
with the disadvantage that he had outlived
his beneiactors. First certain converts had
fed him at noon on cabbage soup, the dole to
the poor of monks and nuns, until these in
nututions had been suppressed by the Sar.
dnian governments; then an eccentric Ger
man, known as II Dottore, who lived alone,
collecting books and manuscripts, had giver
the gobbo daily portion. A month since the
Dottore had died. How had his peusioner
existed afterward? BY selling matches on the
bridge, and begging. Poverty was nothing.
The Florontine poor suffer the sharpest need
with resignation. Alessandro Lungiui, hum.
BILE and alone, had been sinner besides.
The strangest thing had befallen him.
On the previous Thursday night he had
INT, Itn h,ta .phnrn b.. uinrf ,,uuol
and been suddenly transported to dreamland.
He seemed to be still lying on his bed when
hand appeared, holding chalk, and wrote
numbers on the opposite wall These num-
bcrs glowed with a pale fire, and just as he,
with starting eycballs, stroye dread the magic
figures, an angelic shape, with long fair hair,
swept between, obliterating the work. Was
the angel Conscience, and the stealthy hand
behind that of the Evil One2 The dwarf cried
aloud in disappointment and wrath, when the
mysterious hand touched with phosphoric
fire, again appeared and wrote. This time he
read the three numbers; they were burned
into his brain. In awful, startling vividness
these cAbalistic figures stood out on the black
wall-69, 40, ~. What was their meaning
Per Bace0 chance in the lottery, and
nothing else. They were dream numbers
sent to lucky mortal.
The gobbo sat up, rubbed his eyes, and re,
peated the numbers. 1t was still midnight;
but he went out, searched for a bit of paper,
wrote the figures on it, standing under gas.
light, and wandered about the streets until
morning in fever Of excitement. His pain
fully cramped little body knsw no fatigue.
His mind was clear, elated, wild. lie clutch.
ed the paper aud waited. For whatP He
had no money. Still, such u chance could
not have been given him without hope. He
was not habitual gambler, but he was an
Italian. In Italy the wounds on the body Of
a murdered man are eagerly counted, to make
lucky combinations for the next drawing.
Alessandro Lungini, straw of destiny thus
blown about by gust Of madness, entered
the Church of Ognissanti in the afternoon.
He thought vaguely of praying before an altar,
where his mother used to take him as child,
for the good fortune to be able to try his dream
numbers in the weekly drawing of the govern.
ment lottery. While he knelt, somebody
passed him slowly, aud small object fell on
the floor, striking his knee. Alessaudro
glanced down like one dazed, The small OBJ
ject was a purse. He cutched it, and looked
thrtively over his shoulder. female form
was disappearing through the door, restoring
the handkerchief to pocket from which the
portemonuae had been withdrawn. Alessan-
dro rose to his feet and slowly followed. A
blind beggar alone occupied the damp vesti
bule when he reached it. He paused and
peeped into the purse. 1t contained fifteen
francs. The dwarf gasped for breath, and
leaned against the wall, muttering, mechani-
eally, "Sixty.nine, seventy. nine, forty two."
Fasting and fatigue had placed him in the
mental condition necessary to see visions or
fall into frances.
He went out into the street. The owner Of
the purse was walking toward the Arno,
across the Piazza Manin. She was young,
and her face was ayerted, yet it troubled the
gobbo strangely that her long flowing hair
was like the angels Of his dream. She van.
ished around corner, and he ran in an op.
posite direction. For the first time in his lite
Alessandro Lungini was thief.
The Baneo del Lotto was narrow, dingy
shop, with several clerks at the counter cut
ting strips of course blue paper from ledger,
which became tickets when filled out with
requisite numbers
IL was Friday, and on Saturday the lottery
WAS to be drawn in Turin, Rome, and Flor
enee. A crowd had gathered about the place,
chiefly OF the very poor, aud no time was to be
lost How much OF the Florentine insanity is
due to this source2 The dwarf pushed his
way III, and staked the fifteen francs on the
miraculous numbers Of his dream. He
bought "terno" comprising these three
numbers
On Saturday the placards announcing the
prizes drawn were hungrily watched. A lii.
tie man, haggard, restless, and consumed BY
a fire Of nervous anticipation and anxiety,
erept up to one of these placards, scarcely
daring to look at the record. Lo the aruiso
was blank-not one prize had turned up in
the wheels Of Turin, Rome, or Florence.
Marvellous coincidence, by which government
is enriched
The gobbo returned to his hole, aud lay on
his bed for twenty-lour hours without speech
or motion. In the crushing reaction for hope
and fear, he no longer knew If he were still
alive. He was a thief-had stolen in the
church where his mother first taught him TO
pray. The rest of darkness and stiffness
brought only swift rush of despair, after
dull apathy. He had no heart, no courage,
to again yend matches on the thoroughfares.
He was troubled and afraid. Perhaps the
dream was snare Of the devil, and the good
angel had flown away. He feared death and
to lose his own soul. Still, life had become
insupportable. The week had dragged OIL.
and hunger had finally driven him out to
wearlly vend his wares. Then second elec.
iric flash had burst on his bewildered facul.
ties, schooled again to endurance. The pre-.
vions day he had sold nothing out Of his poor
little basket Even those persons who make
nice distinction between pernicious aims.
ptvin0 and hnvinn trtua k.l