The Man Who Sees Ghosts by Friedrich von Schiller Page B

story.”
    “I had them ask the spirit,” the Sicilian continued, “whether there was anything still in this world that he would call his own, anything he had left behind that wasdear to him. The spirit shook his head three times and stretched one hand towards heaven. Before he withdrew he slipped a ring from his finger, and this was found lying on the floor after he had disappeared. When the Countess looked at it more closely—it was her wedding ring.”
    “Her wedding ring!” exclaimed the Prince in astonishment. “Her wedding ring! How did you obtain it?”
    “I—it was not the real one, my lord, I had—it was only a copy—”
    “A copy!” echoed the Prince. “To make a copy you would have needed the real one, so how did you come by it, since the dead man can certainly have never removed it from his finger?”
    “That is certainly true,” said the Sicilian, not without some signs of embarrassment, -“but from a description I was given of the real wedding ring—”
    “Given to you by whom?”
    “A long time before,”—said the Sicilian—“It was a very simple ring, with the name of the young Countess, I think—But you have completely broken the thread of my—”
    “So what happened next?” asked the Prince, with a very dissatisfied and equivocal look.
    “They now felt convinced that Jeronymo was no longer alive. From that day the family let it be known publicly that he was dead, and went into formal mourning for him. The matter of the ring left Antonie, too, no longer in doubt and gave a greater force to Lorenzo’s suit. But the violent impact which this apparition had on her resulted in her succumbing to a dangerous illness, which might soon have shattered the hopes of her lover for ever. Uponher recovery she insisted on taking the veil and was only dissuaded from doing so by the forceful remonstrances of her father confessor, in whom she placed an absolute trust. At length the united efforts of this man and of the family succeeded in extorting her consent. The last day of mourning was to be the happy day, which the old Marchese resolved to make even more festive by the transfer of all his property to the rightful heir.
    “The day came and Lorenzo received his trembling bride at the altar. The sun set and a magnificent banquet was waiting for the happy guests in the brightly-lit wedding hall, while noisy music went hand in hand with joyful abandon. The happy old man had wanted all the world to share in his joy; all approach roads to the palace were opened, and everyone who took pleasure in his happiness was made welcome. Now among this throng of people—”
    The Sicilian paused and a shudder of expectation made us hold our breaths.
    “Among this throng of people,” he continued, “my neighbour pointed out to me a Franciscan monk standing as motionless as a stone pillar, a tall, gaunt figure with a face the colour of ashes, who was staring fixedly at the married couple with a grim and sorrowful expression. The joy which all about him was reflected in laughing faces seemed to pass this man by alone: his demeanour remained the same, unchangeable like that of a stone bust among living figures. The extraordinary nature of this spectacle, which, since it caught me by surprise in the middle of the merry-making and jarred so starkly with everything else around me at that moment, affecting metherefore all the more deeply, left behind such an indelible imprint on my soul that it was through this alone that I was able to recognise the features of this monk in the physiognomy of the Russian (for you realise now that all three, the Russian, this monk and your Armenian are one and the same person), something which would otherwise have been quite impossible. Again and again I tried to tear my eyes from this terrifying figure, but each time they involuntarily returned and found him still unchanged. I nudged my neighbour, and he his; the same fascination, the same consternation, spread to all who were