The approach of the young girl and the dread that she was about to lay her hand upon me had called up the same train of effects which the moment of terror and pain had already occasioned.The old nurse saw this in a moment."Go!go!"she cried to Laura,"go,or the child will die!"Her command did not have to be repeated.After Laura had gone I lay senseless,white and cold as marble,for some time.The doctor soon came,and by the use of smart rubbing and stimulants the color came back slowly to my cheeks and the arrested circulation was again set in motion.
It was hard to believe that this was anything more than a temporary effect of the accident.There could be little doubt,it was thought by the doctor and by my father,that after a few days I should recover from this morbid sensibility and receive my cousin as other infants receive pleasant-looking young persons.The old nurse shook her head."The girl will be the death of the child,"she said,"if she touches him or comes near him.His heart stopped beating just as when the girl snatched him out of my arms,and he fell over the balcony railing."Once more the experiment was tried,cautiously,almost insidiously.The same alarming consequences followed.It was too evident that a chain of nervous disturbances had been set up in my system which repeated itself whenever the original impression gave the first impulse.I never saw my cousin Laura after this last trial.Its result had so distressed her that she never ventured again to show herself to me.
If the effect of the nervous shock had stopped there,it would have been a misfortune for my cousin and myself,but hardly a calamity.
The world is wide,and a cousin or two more or less can hardly be considered an essential of existence.I often heard Laura's name mentioned,but never by any one who was acquainted with all the circumstances,for it was noticed that I changed color and caught at my breast as if I wanted to grasp my heart in my hand whenever that fatal name was mentioned.
Alas!this was not all.While I was suffering from the effects of my fall among the thorns I was attended by my old nurse,assisted by another old woman,by a physician,and my father,who would take his share in caring for me.It was thought best to keep--me perfectly quiet,and strangers and friends were alike excluded from my nursery,with one exception,that my old grandmother came in now and then.
With her it seems that I was somewhat timid and shy,following her with rather anxious eyes,as if not quite certain whether or not she was dangerous.But one day,when I was far advanced towards recovery,my father brought in a young lady,a relative of his,who had expressed a great desire to see me.She was,as I have been told,a very handsome girl,of about the same age as my cousin Laura,but bearing no personal resemblance to her in form,features,or complexion.She had no sooner entered the room than the same sudden changes which had followed my cousin's visit began to show themselves,and before she had reached my bedside I was in a state of deadly collapse,as on the occasions already mentioned.
Some time passed before any recurrence of these terrifying seizures.
A little girl of five or six years old was allowed to come into the nursery one day and bring me some flowers.I took them from her hand,but turned away and shut my eyes.There was no seizure,but there was a certain dread and aversion,nothing more than a feeling which it might be hoped that time would overcome.Those around me were gradually finding out the circumstances which brought on the deadly attack to which I was subject.
The daughter of one of our near neighbors was considered the prettiest girl of the village where we were passing the summer.She was very anxious to see me,and as I was now nearly well it was determined that she should be permitted to pay me a short visit.Ihad always delighted in seeing her and being caressed by her.I was sleeping when she entered the nursery and came and took a seat at my side in perfect silence.Presently I became restless,and a moment later I opened my eyes and saw her stooping over me.My hand went to my left breast,--the color faded from my cheeks,--I was again the cold marble image so like death that it had well-nigh been mistaken for it.
Could it be possible that the fright which had chilled my blood had left me with an unconquerable fear of woman at the period when she is most attractive not only to adolescents,but to children of tender age,who feel the fascination of her flowing locks,her bright eyes,her blooming cheeks,and that mysterious magnetism of sex which draws all life into its warm and potently vitalized atmosphere?So it did indeed seem.The dangerous experiment could not be repeated indefinitely.It was not intentionally tried again,but accident brought about more than one renewal of it during the following years,until it became fully recognized that I was the unhappy subject of a mortal dread of woman,--not absolutely of the human female,for I had no fear of my old nurse or of my grandmother,or of any old wrinkled face,and I had become accustomed to the occasional meeting of a little girl or two,whom I nevertheless regarded with a certain ill-defined feeling that there was danger in their presence.I was sent to a boys'school very early,and during the first ten or twelve years of my life I had rarely any occasion to be reminded of my strange idiosyncrasy.
As I grew out of boyhood into youth,a change came over the feelings which had so long held complete possession of me.This was what my father and his advisers had always anticipated,and was the ground of their confident hope in my return to natural conditions before Ishould have grown to mature manhood.
