There was once a hard-working student who lived in an attic, and he had
nothing in the world of his own. There was also a hard-working grocer
who lived on the first floor, and he had the whole house for his own.

The Goblin belonged to him, for every Christmas Eve there was waiting
for him at the grocer's a dish of jam with a large lump of butter in the
middle.

The grocer could afford this, so the Goblin stayed in the grocer's shop;
and this teaches us a good deal. One evening the student came in by the
back door to buy a candle and some cheese; he had no one to send, so he
came himself.


He got what he wanted, paid for it, and nodded a good evening to the
grocer and his wife (she was a woman who could do more than nod; she
could talk).

When the student had said good night he suddenly stood still, reading
the sheet of paper in which the cheese had been wrapped.

It was a leaf torn out of an old book--a book of poetry

'There's more of that over there!' said the grocer 'I gave an old woman
some coffee for the book. If you like to give me twopence you can have
the rest.'

'Yes,' said the student, 'give me the book instead of the cheese. I can
eat my bread without cheese. It would be a shame to leave the book to
be torn up. You are a clever and practical man, but about poetry you
understand as much as that old tub over there!'

And that sounded rude as far as the tub was concerned, but the grocer
laughed, and so did the student. It was only said in fun.

But the Goblin was angry that anyone should dare to say such a thing to
a grocer who owned the house and sold the best butter.

When it was night and the shop was shut, and everyone was in bed except
the student, the Goblin went upstairs and took the grocer's wife's
tongue. She did not use it when she was asleep, and on whatever object
in the room he put it that thing began to speak, and spoke out its
thoughts and feelings just as well as the lady to whom it belonged. But
only one thing at a time could use it, and that was a good thing, or
they would have all spoken together.

The Goblin laid the tongue on the tub in which were the old newspapers.

'Is it true,' he asked, ' that you know nothing about poetry?'

'Certainly not!' answered the tub. 'Poetry is something that is in the
papers, and that is frequently cut out. I have a great deal more in
me than the student has, and yet I am only a small tub in the grocer's
shop.'

And the Goblin put the tongue on the coffee-mill, and how it began to
grind! He put it on the butter-cask, and on the till, and all were
of the same opinion as the waste-paper tub. and one must believe the
majority.

'Now I will tell the student!' and with these words he crept softly up
the stairs to the attic where the student lived.

There was a light burning, and the Goblin peeped through the key-hole
and saw that he was reading the torn book that he had bought in the
shop.


But how bright it was! Out of the book shot a streak of light which grew
into a large tree and spread its branches far above the student. Every
leaf was alive, and every flower was a beautiful girl's head, some with
dark and shining eyes, others with wonderful blue ones. Every fruit was
a glittering star, and there was a marvellous music in the student's
room. The little Goblin had never even dreamt of such a splendid sight,
much less seen it.

He stood on tiptoe gazing and gazing, till the candle in the attic
was put out; the student had blown it out and had gone to bed, but the
Goblin remained standing outside listening to the music, which very
softly and sweetly was now singing the student a lullaby.

'I have never seen anything like this!' said the Goblin. 'I never
expected this! I must stay with the student.'

The little fellow thought it over, for he was a sensible Goblin. Then he
sighed, 'The student has no jam!'

And on that he went down to the grocer again. And it was a good thing
that he did go back, for the tub had nearly worn out the tongue. It had
read everything that was inside it, on the one side, and was just going
to turn itself round and read from the other side when the Goblin came
in and returned the tongue to its owner.

But the whole shop, from the till down to the shavings, from that night
changed their opinion of the tub, and they looked up to it, and had such
faith in it that they were under the impression that when the grocer
read the art and drama critiques out of the paper in the evenings, it
all came from the tub.

But the Goblin could no longer sit quietly listening to the wisdom and
intellect downstairs. No, as soon as the light shone in the evening
from the attic it seemed to him as though its beams were strong ropes
dragging him up, and he had to go and peep through the key-hole. There
he felt the sort of feeling we have looking at the great rolling sea in
a storm, and he burst into tears. He could not himself say why he wept,
but in spite of his tears he felt quite happy. How beautiful it must be
to sit under that tree with the student, but that he could not do; he
had to content himself with the key-hole and be happy there!

There he stood out on the cold landing, the autumn wind blowing through
the cracks of the floor. It was cold--very cold, but he first found it
out when the light in the attic was put out and the music in the wood
died away. Ah! then it froze him, and he crept down again into his warm
corner; there it was comfortable and cosy.

When Christmas came, and with it the jam with the large lump of butter,
ah! then the grocer was first with him.

But in the middle of the night the Goblin awoke, hearing a great noise
and knocking against the shutters--people hammering from outside. The
watchman was blowing his horn: a great fire had broken out; the whole
town was in flames.

Was it in the house? or was it at a neighbour's? Where was it?

The alarm increased. The grocer's wife was so terrified that she took
her gold earrings out of her ears and put them in her pocket in order
to save something. The grocer seized his account books. and the maid her
black silk dress.

Everyone wanted to save his most valuable possession; so did the Goblin,
and in a few leaps he was up the stairs and in the student's room. He
was standing quietly by the open window looking at the fire that was
burning in the neighbour's house just opposite. The Goblin seized the
book lying on the table, put it in his red cap, and clasped it with both
hands. The best treasure in the house was saved, and he climbed out on
to the roof with it--on to the chimney. There he sat, lighted up by the
flames from the burning house opposite, both hands holding tightly on
his red cap, in which lay the treasure; and now he knew what his heart
really valued most--to whom he really belonged. But when the fire was
put out, and the Goblin thought it over--then--

'I will divide myself between the two,' he said. 'I cannot quite give up
the grocer, because of the jam!'

And it is just the same with us. We also cannot quite give up the
grocer--because of the jam.

"Great heavens! What a woman!" cried the captain, and stamped with
fury. "Not without reason have I been trembling and in fear of her
from the first time I saw her! It must have been a warning of fate
that I stopped playing _écarté_ with her. It was also a bad omen that
I passed so many sleepless nights. Was there ever mortal in a worse
perplexity than I am? How can I leave her alone without a protector,
loving her, as I do, more than my own life? And, on the other hand,
how can I marry her, after all my declaimings against marriage?"

Then turning to Augustias--"What would they say of me in the club?
What would people say of me, if they met me in the street with a woman
on my arm, or if they found me at home, just about to feed a child in
swaddling clothes? I--to have children? To worry about them? To live
in eternal fear that they might fall sick or die? Augustias, believe
me, as true as there is a God above us, I am absolutely unfit for it!
I should behave in such a way that after a short while you would call
upon heaven either to be divorced or to become a widow. Listen to my
advice: do not marry me, even if I ask you."

"What a strange creature you are," said the young woman, without
allowing herself to be at all discomposed, and sitting very erect in
her chair. "All that you are only telling to yourself! From what do
you conclude that I wish to be married to you; that I would accept
your offer, and that I should not prefer living by myself, even if I
had to work day and night, as so many girls do who are orphans?"

"How do I come to that conclusion?" answered the captain with the
greatest candor. "Because it cannot be otherwise. Because we love each
other. Because we are drawn to each other. Because a man such as I,
and a woman such as you, cannot live in any other way! Do you suppose
I do not understand that? Don't you suppose I have reflected on it
before now? Do you think I am indifferent in your good name and
reputation? I have spoken plainly in order to speak, in order to fly
from my own conviction, in order to examine whether I can escape from
this terrible dilemma which is robbing me of my sleep, and whether I
can possibly find an expedient so that I need not marry you--to do
which I shall finally be compelled, if you stand by your resolve to
make your way alone!"

"Alone! Alone!" repeated Augustias, roguishly. "And why not with a
worthier companion? Who tells you that I shall not some day meet a man
whom I like, and who is not afraid to marry me?"

"Augustias! let us skip that!" growled the captain, his face turning
scarlet.

"And why should we not talk about it?"

"Let us pass over that, and let me say, at the same time, that I will
murder the man who dares to ask for your hand. But it is madness on
my part to be angry without any reason. I am not so dull as not to see
how we two stand. Shall I tell you? We love each other. Do not tell me
I am mistaken! That would be lying. And here is the proof: if you did
not love me, I, too, should not love you! Let us try to meet one
another halfway. I ask for a delay of ten years. When I shall have
completed my half century, and when, a feeble old man, I shall have
become familiar with the idea of slavery, then we will marry without
anyone knowing about it. We will leave Madrid, and go to the country,
where we shall have no spectators, where there will be nobody to make
fun of me. But until this happens, please take half of my income
secretly, and without any human soul ever knowing anything about it.
You continue to live here, and I remain in my house. We will see each
other, but only in the presence of witnesses--for instance, in
society. We will write to each other every day. So as not to endanger
your good name, I will never pass through this street, and on Memorial
Day only we will go to the cemetery together with Rosa."

Augustias could not but smile at the last proposal of the good
captain, and her smile was not mocking, but contented and happy, as if
some cherished hope had dawned in her heart, as if it were the first
ray of the sun of happiness which was about to rise in her heaven! But
being a woman--though as brave and free from artifices as few of
them--she yet managed to subdue the signs of joy rising within her.
She acted as if she cherished not the slightest hope, and said with a
distant coolness which is usually the special and genuine sign of
chaste reserve:

"You make yourself ridiculous with your peculiar conditions. You
stipulate for the gift of an engagement-ring, for which nobody has yet
asked you."

"I know still another way out--for a compromise, but that is really
the last one. Do you fully understand, my young lady from Aragon? It
is the last way out, which a man, also from Aragon, begs leave to
explain to you."

She turned her head and looked straight into his eyes, with an
expression indescribably earnest, captivating, quiet, and full of
expectation.

The captain had never seen her features so beautiful and expressive;
at that moment she looked to him like a queen.

"Augustias," said, or rather stammered, this brave soldier, who had
been under fire a hundred times, and who had made such a deep
impression on the young girl through his charging under a rain of
bullets like a lion, "I have the honor to ask for your hand on one
certain, essential, unchangeable condition. Tomorrow morning--today--a
soon as the papers are in order--as quickly as possible. I can live
without you no longer!"

The glances of the young girl became milder, and she rewarded him for
his decided heroism with a tender and bewitching smile.

"But I repeat that it is on one condition," the bold warrior hastened
to repeat, feeling that Augustias's glances made him confused and
weak.

"On what condition?" asked the young girl, turning fully round, and
now holding him under the witchery of her sparkling black eyes.

"On the condition," he stammered, "that, in case we have children, we
send them to the orphanage. I mean--on this point I will never yield.
Well, do you consent? For heaven's sake, say yes!"

"Why should I not consent to it, Captain Veneno?" answered Augustias,
with a peal of laughter. "You shall take them there yourself, or,
better still, we both of us will take them there. And we will give
them up without kissing them, or anything else! Don't you think we
shall take them there?"

Thus spoke Augustias, and looked at the captain with exquisite joy in
her eyes. The good captain thought he would die of happiness; a flood
of tears burst from his eyes; he folded the blushing girl in his arms,
and said:

"So I am lost?"

"Irretrievably lost, Captain Veneno," answered Augustias.

       *       *       *       *       *

One morning in May, 1852--that is, four years after the scene just
described--a friend of mine, who told me this story, stopped his horse
in front of a mansion on San Francisco Avenue, in Madrid; he threw the
reins to his groom, and asked the long-coated footman who met him at
the door:

"Is your master at home?"

"If your honor will be good enough to walk upstairs, you will find
him in the library. His excellency does not like to have visitors
announced. Everybody can go up to him directly."

"Fortunately I know the house thoroughly," said the stranger to
himself, while he mounted the stairs. "In the library! Well, well, who
would have thought of Captain Veneno ever taking to the sciences?"

Wandering through the rooms, the visitor met another servant, who
repeated, "The master is in the library." And at last he came to the
door of the room in question, opened it quickly, and stood, almost
turned to stone for astonishment, before the remarkable group which it
offered to his view.

In the middle of the room, on the carpet which covered the floor, a
man was crawling on all-fours. On his back rode a little fellow about
three years old, who was kicking the man's sides with his heels.
Another small boy, who might have been a year and a half old, stood in
front of the man's head, and had evidently been tumbling his hair. One
hand held the father's neckerchief, and the little fellow was tugging
at it as if it had been a halter, shouting with delight in his merry
child's voice:

"Gee up, donkey! Gee up!

The first effect of what used to be called natural philosophy is to fill its devotee with wonder at the marvels of God. This explains why the pursuit of science, so long as it remains superficial, is not incompatible with the most naif sort of religious faith. But the moment the student of the sciences passes this stage of childlike amazement and begins to investigate the inner workings of natural phenomena, he begins to see how ineptly many of them are managed, and so he tends to pass from awe of the Creator to criticism of the Creator, and once he has crossed that bridge he has ceased to be a believer. One finds plenty of neighborhood physicians, amateur botanists, high-school physics teachers and other such quasi-scientists in the pews on Sunday, but one never sees a Huxley there, or a Darwin, or an Ehrlich.