St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-01-05
A TALE OF Love AND CRIME.
Dr.. Reynauds Strange Experience at the Pond OF the
Charmeuses and His Catch of Dis
-. seeted Skeleton
The "Borned Priest and His Love and Passion for the
Beautiful Teresta--The Pentenee
He Did.

opinion of all who knew him, an old
original. There was but one voice on
the subject, though each one contented
himself with the qualification that l
have quoted above, the exact sense OF
which has always escaped me. The eX-
preston "old original" like the eX-
preston "good boy,'' does not, l take
it, entirely fulfill its purpose; thou
sand times, therefore, l have taxed my
wits to find for the benefit of the world
at large epithets more precise and en-
tightening.
Whatever he was, however, this wise,
respected and respectable Dr.. Adelaide
Reynaud lived withdrawn from the
world, avoiding contact with men par
ticularly; whom he regarded as avarl-
cious. wicked and preoccupied only with
the material cares of life. He busted
himself perpetually in the studies OF
transcendental medicine and occult phil
losophy.
1t will not astonish you, then,to learn
that he passed the better part OF the 25th
day of October, 1S--. in decipherlng an
ancient manuscript that he estimated as
of great value, and that treated entlrely
of supernatural phenomena collected
and annotated by religious Benedict
inc of the Monastery of Corlie. the half
of it perhaps devoted. among other
things, to divers horrifyihg punish
ments inflicted by God upon
GREAT SINNERS.
The attention of the doctor had been
esnecialIy drawn to the marvellous and
authentic case of the ''boned priest, "a
monk" as the book stated, condemned
in punishment for the infraction OF the
orders rule touching the holy virtue OF
confluence, to be de prived OF his
bones" More than this, he lived thus
for MANY months and cursed with all
the carnal and unclean appetites that
flesh is heir to. "For the bones of the
BODY" this author declared, "eXerted
the greatest influence upon the char
acter of thought and upon the Will OF
man; a sinner" he added, could al
ways be made to suffer an earthly pur-
gatOry, and to receive a foretaSte OF tne
coming Gehenna."
The doctor. having meditated long
while upon these singular theories and
developments without arriving at rea-
sonable disposition or rational eXplana-
ton of them, had finally closed and
thrown aside his book in irritated dis
gust. After a while, feeling that lit
tie repose would do him good, he had
gone out from his modest dwelling to
wander, according to his habit, upon
the border of pond that the peasants
of the country, strongly inclined TO be
SuperStitiouS, called the
POND OF THE CHARMEUSES.
At the moment when this recital be-
gins, at all points in conformity with
the truth, the doctor was seated upon
the trunk of an uprooted willow, mo-
tionless, attentive, and devotlng him
self, as he had been doing for some
hours past, to his single reel cation OF
fishing with a line-a frivolous distrac-
ton. as you may consider it. for
thinker and savant. So far the doc
tor had caught nothing, not even the
smallest minnow, and his mind, sub
hitting little by little to the influence
of the cold and sad weather, lost itself
in s0mber reverieS.
1t was one of those autumn evenings
when winter with its shivers already
made itself felt in the solitude of the
country. A fine fog covered like a veil
the waters of the pond, yellowed by the
rain. Upon the banks the stripped
trees seemed to float without stability
in the transparency of the mist. All
was hushed in the deserted fields, while
here and there the crows drifted silently
to the ground. The doctor, under the
impression of this melancholy of nature,
permitted himself to be envelOped by
the fog of sorrowful memories, and
found a sort of voluptuous pleasure in
revisiting in spirit the days of old that
had passed for him in grief and tears.
The objects upon which his eyes
mind with the incidents of his youth,
and among the dry leaves whirling
about him he saw his first unrealized
dreams, his decayed hopes, his black
regrets that foated in his brain like
shadows. Accustomed to note his
thoughts, his impressions, to compare
them later Oh and to draw from them
scientific deductions, he took out a
pencil and piece of paper and Jotted
.down--the doctor kept diary, you see.
and was still inclined to sentimental
line or two that we faithfully transcribe
below:
"Teresita." he wrote, "angel. specter
of vanished love, if thou couldst but
with look, the secret of life! l love
thee yet, after all these years that have
rolled so heavily across these rocks and
trees broken by storms! Where art
thou?
DEAD, PERHAPsl
And IL am here, old, useless, bored
by ridiculous amusements! And thou,
Raphael! my friend, mystic, pure; thy
image, too, passes before my eyes with
a strange, dull smile! And thou-where
art thou?"
Meanwhile the fog thickened more
and more; night was approaching, and
it was time to think of the return. The
doctor began the work of winding about
the hazel wand that served him for a
pole the line whose 'bOb" or ''floater"
rode the water at little distance in the
middle of tuft of grasses. All at once
the line was taut; he was unable to go
on winding his tackle. Thinking he had
to do with an enormous trout, perhaps,
he softly played the hook for little
while, then drew it toward him. his face
expressing the liveliest establishment,
bordering upon fright, as he saw his cap
ture closer.
1t was, assuredly, and he took another
look-a most extraordinary fish! Par
bleu! the hook adhered. not to fish at
all, but to an inert mass that, thanks to
the last dying lights of day, the doctor
readily recognized as the coronal
bone of
A HUMAN SKULL.
But what was his horror when he saw
or we are told he saw, as from here on
we reproduce only that which has come
TO us second-hand-that the head was
still attached to the body by the natural
ligaments, and that he drew from the
water and stretched upon the sands be-
side him marvelouslY dissected
skeleton.
Habituated though he was to seeing
death close at hand and in all phases,
the doctor felt himself pale in consider
ing this capture, but at the same time
an irresistible force drew and held him
before thatpile of bones. Nervous and
disturbed. he examined it with an al