Gliding beneath the coverings of our couches They share our rest, And with their dead lips sign their loving visit On arm and breast. Darksome and cold the bed where now she slumbers, I loved in vain, With sweet soft eyelids closed, to be reopened Never again. Dead sweetheart, can it be that thou hast lifted With thy frail hand Thy coffin-lid, to come to me again From Shadowland? Thou who, one joyous night, didst, pale and speechless, Pass from us all, Dropping thy silken mask and gift of flowers Amidst the ball? Oh, fondest of my loves, from that far heaven Where thou must be, Hast thou returned to pay the debt of kisses Thou owest me? "ARRIA MARCELLA" Gautier doubtless obtained inspiration for this exquisite romance from an old Greek ghost story, first related by Phlegon, the freedman of Hadrian. Versions of it were current in the twelfth and sixteenth centuries; and Goethe reproduced it in his "Bride of Corinth." We offer a translation from the brief version of Michelet, who accuses Goethe of bad taste for having introduced the Slavic idea of vampirism into a purely Greek story. * * * * * A young Athenian goes to Corinth to visit the house of the man who has promised him his daughter in marriage. He has always remained a pagan, and does not know that the family into which he hopes to enter has been converted to Christianity. He arrives at a very late hour. All are in bed except the mother, who prepares a hospitable repast for him, and then leaves him to repose. He throws himself upon a couch, overwhelmed with fatigue. Scarcely has he closed his eyes, when a figure enters the room; it is a girl, all clad in white, with a white veil; there is a black-and-gold fillet about her brows. She beholds him. Astonishment! Lifting her white hand, she exclaims: "Am I then such a stranger in the house? Alas! poor recluse that I am! But I am ashamed to be here. I shall now depart. Repose in peace!" "Nay, remain, beautiful young girl! Behold! here are Ceres, Bacchus, and, with thee, Love! Fear not! be not so pale!" "Ah! touch me not, young man! I belong no more to joy. Through a vow made by my sick mother, my youth and life are fettered forever. The gods have fled away. And now the only sacrifices are sacrifices of human victims." "What! is it thou! thou, my beloved affianced, betrothed to me from childhood! The oath of our fathers bound us together forever under the benediction of heaven! Oh, virgin, be mine!" "Nay, friend, nay!--not I. Thou shalt have my young sister. If I sigh in my chill prison, thou mayst, at least, while in her arms, think of me, of me who pines and thinks only of thee, and whom the earth must soon cover again."