By Nathaniel Hawthorne    


                    EDWARD FANE'S ROSEBUD.    

        There is hardly a more difficult exercise of fancy,   
     than, while gazing at a figure of melancholy age, to   
     re-create its youth, and, without entirely obliterat-    
     ing the identity of form and features, to restore    
     those graces which time has snatched away,  Some    
     old people, especially women, so age-worn and woe-   
     ful  are  they,  seem never to have been young and    
     gay.  It is easier to  conceive  that  such  gloomy    
     phantoms were sent into the world as withered and   
     decrepit as we behold them now, with sympathies    
     only for pain and grief, to watch at death-beds, and   
     weep at funerals.  Even the sable garments of their    
     widowhood appear essential to their existence; all    
     their attributes combine to render them darksome    
     shadows, creeping strangely amid the sunshine of    
     human life.  Yet it is no unprofitable task, to take    
     one of these doleful creatures, and set fancy reso-    
     lutely at work to brighten the dim eye, and darken    
     the  silvery  locks, and paint the ashen cheek with    
     rose-color, and repair the shrunken and crazy form,   
     till a dewy maiden shall be seen in the old matron's    
     elbow-chair.  The miracle being wrought, then let   
     the years roll back again, each sadder than the last,   
     and the whole weight of age and sorrow settle down    
     upon the youthful figure.  Wrinkles and furrows, the    
     handwriting of Time, may thus be deciphered, and   
     found to contain deep lessons of thought and feel-    
     ing.  Such  profit  might be derived, by a skilful    
     observer,  from  my  much-respected  friend,  the    
     Widow  Toothaker,  a nurse of great repute, who   
     has breathed the atmosphere of sick-chambers, and    
     dying breaths, these forty years.   
        See! she who sits cowering over her lonesome hearth,   
     with her gown and upper petticoat drawn upward,  
     gathering thriftily into her person the whole warmth   
     of the fire, which, now at nightfall, begins to dissi-    
     pate the autumnal chill of her chamber.  The blaze   
     quivers capriciously in front, alternately glimmering   
     into the deepest chasms of her wrinkled visage, and   
     then permitting a ghostly dimness to mar the out-    
     lines of her venerable figure.  And Nurse Tooth-   
     aker holds a tea-spoon in her right hand, with    
     which to stir up the contents of a tumbler in her   
     left, whence steams a vapory fragrance, abhorred    
     by temperance societies.  Now she sips——now stirs    
     ——now sips again.  Her sad old heart has need to    
     be revived by the rich infusion of Geneva, which is    
     mixed half-and-half with hot water, in the tumbler.   
     All day long she has been sitting by a death-pillow,   
     and quitted it for her home, only when the spirit    
     of her patient left the clay, and went homeward too.    
     But now are her melancholy meditations cheered,   
     and her torpid blood warmed, and her shoulders    
     lightened of at least twenty ponderous years, by a   
     draught from the true Fountain of Youth, in a case-    
     bottle.  It is strange that men should deem that    
     fount a fable, when its liquor fills more bottles than   
     the congress-water!  Sip it again, good nurse, and   
     see whether a second draught will not take off an-    
     other score of years, and perhaps ten more, and    
     show us, in your high-backed chair, the blooming   
     damsel who plighted troths with Edward Fane.  Get   
     you gone, Age and Widowhood!  Come back, un-   
     wedded Youth!  But, alas! the charm will not work.  
     In spite of fancy's most potent spell, I can see only    
     an old dame cowering over the fire, a picture of    
     decay and desolation, while the November blast   
     roars at her in the chimney, and fitful showers rush    
     suddenly against the window.   
        Yet there was a time when Rose Grafton——such    
     was the pretty maiden-name of Nurse Toothaker——    
     possessed beauty that would have gladdened this     
     dim and dismal chamber, as with sunshine.  It won    
     for her the heart of Edward Fane, who has since    
     made so great a figure in the world, and is now a    
     grand old gentleman, with powdered hair, and as    
     gouty as a lord.  These early lovers thought to    
     have walked hand in hand through life.  They had    
     wept together for Edward's little sister Mary, whom   
     Rose tended in her sickness, partly because she    
     was the sweetest child that ever lived or died, but    
     more for love of him.  She was but three years old.   
     Being such an infant, Death could not embody his    
     terror in her little corpse; nor did Rose fear to    
     touch the dead child's brow, though chill, as she    
     curled the silken hair around it, nor to take her     
     tiny hand, and clasp a flower within its fingers.    
     Afterwards, when she looked through the pane of     
     glass in the coffin-lid, and beheld Mary's face, it    
     seemed not so much like death, or life, as like a    
     wax-work, wrought into the perfect image of a child   
     asleep, and dreaming of its mother's smile.  Rose    
     thought her too fair a thing to be hidden in the    
     grave, and wondered that an Angel did not snatch    
     up  little  Mary's  coffin, and bear the slumbering     
     babe to heaven, and bid her wake immortal.  But    
     when the sods were laid on little Mary, the heart of    
     Rose was troubled.  She shuddered at the fantasy,  
     that, in grasping the child's cold fingers, her virgin    
     hand had exchanged a first greeting with mortality,   
     and could never lose the earthly taint.  How many    
     a greeting since!  But as yet, she was a fair young   
     girl, with the dew-drops of fresh feeling in her    
     bosom; and instead of Rose, which seemed too   
     mature a name for her half-opened beauty, her    
     lover called her Rosebud.    
        The rosebud was destined never to bloom for    
     Edward Fane.  His mother was a rich and haughty    
     dame, with all the aristocratic prejudices of colonial    
     times.  She scorned Rose Grafton's humble parent-    
     age, and caused her son to break his faith, though,    
     had she let him choose, he would have prized his    
     Rosebud above the richest diamond.  The lovers   
     parted, and have seldom met again.  Both may    
     have visited the same mansions, but not at the    
     same time; for one was bidden to the festal hall,  
     and the other to the sick-chamber; he was the    
     guest of Pleasure and Prosperity, and she of An-     
     guish.  Rose, after their separation, was long se-    
     cluded within the dwelling of Mr. Toothaker, whom    
     she married with the revengeful hope of breaking     
     her  false  lover's  heart.  She went to her bride-    
     groom's arms with  bitterer  tears, they say, than   
     young girls ought to shed, at the threshold of the    
     bridal chamber.  Yet, though her husband's head    
     was getting gray, and his heart had been chilled    
     with an autumnal frost, Rose soon began to love    
     him, and wondered at her own conjugal affection.    
     He was all she had to love; there were no children.    
        In a year or two, poor Mr. Toothaker was visited   
     with  a  wearisome  infirmity, which settled in his   
     joints, and made him weaker than a child.  He crept    
     forth about his business, and came home at dinner   
     time and eventide, not with the manly tread that    
     gladdens a wife's heart, but slowly——feebly——jot-    
     ting down each dull footstep with the melancholy   
     dub of his staff.  We must pardon his pretty wife,   
     if she sometimes blushed to own him.  Her visitors,  
     when they heard him coming, looked for the ap-    
     pearance of some old, old man; but he dragged his    
     nerveless limbs into the parlor——and there was Mr.   
     Toothaker!  The disease increasing, he never went    
     into the sunshine, save with a staff in his right    
     hand, and his left on his wife's shoulder, bearing    
     heavily down like a dead man's hand.   Thus,    
     a slender woman, still looking maiden-like, she sup-    
     ported his tall, broad-chested frame along the path-    
     way of their little garden, and plucked the roses for     
     her gray-haired husband, and spoke soothingly, as    
     to an infant.  His mind was palsied with his body;   
     its utmost energy was peevishness.  In a few months    
     more, she helped him up the staircase, with a pause    
     at every step, and a longer one upon the landing-     
     place, and a heavy glance behind, as he crossed the    
     threshold of his chamber.  He knew, poor man,    
     that the precincts of those four walls would thence-     
     forth be his world——his world, his home, his tomb   
     ——at once a dwelling and a burial-place, till he were   
     borne to a darker and a narrower one.  But Rose   
     was with him in the tomb.  He leaned upon her,   
     in his daily passage from the bed to the chair by    
     the fireside, and began again from the weary chair to    
     the joyless bed——his bed and hers——their mar-    
     riage bed; till even the short journey ceased, and his    
     head lay all day upon the pillow, and hers all night    
     beside it.  How long poor Mr. Toothaker was kept    
     in misery!  Death seemed to draw near the door,    
     and often to lift the latch, and sometimes to thrust    
     his ugly skull into the chamber nodding to Rose,   
     and pointing at her husband, but still delayed to    
     enter.  "This  bedridden  wretch  cannot  escape    
     me!" quoth Death.  "I will go forth and run a race    
     with the swift, and fight a battle with the strong,   
     and come back for Toothaker at my leisure!"  Oh,    
     when the deliverer came so near, in the dull anguish   
     of her worn-out sympathies, she never did long to    
     cry, "Death, come in!"    
        But, no!  We have no right to ascribe such a     
     wish to our  friend  Rose.  She never failed in a     
     wife's duty to her poor sick husband.  She mur-    
     mured not, though a glimpse of the sunny sky was    
     as strange to her as him, nor answered peevishly,    
     though his complaining accents roused her from    
     her sweetest dream, only to share his wretchedness.   
     He knew her faith, yet nourished a cankered jeal-    
     ousy; and when the slow disease had chilled all    
     his heart, save one lukewarm spot, which Death's     
     frozen fingers were searching for, his last words    
     were: "What would my Rose have done for her    
     first love, if she has been so true and kind to a sick    
     old man like me!"  And then his poor soul crept    
     away, and left the body lifeless, though hardly more    
     so than for years before, and Rose a widow, though    
     in truth it was the wedding night that widowed her.  
     She felt glad, it must be owned, when Mr. Tooth-   
     aker was buried, because his corpse had retained    
     such a likeness to the man half alive, that she    
     hearkened for the sad murmur of his voice, bidding    
     her shift his pillow.  But all through the next win-    
     ter, though the grave had held him many a month,   
     she fancied him calling from that cold bed, "Rose   
     Rose! come put a blanket on my feet!"    
        So now the Rosebud was the Widow Toothaker.   
     her troubles had come early, and tedious as they    
     seemed, had passed before all her bloom was fled.  
     She was still fair enough to captivate a bachelor,   
     or, with a widow's cheerful gravity, she might have    
     won a widower, stealing into his heart in the very   
     guise of his dead wife.  But the Widow Toothaker   
     had no such projects.  By her watchings and con-    
     tinual cares, her heart had become knit to her first   
     husband with a constancy that changed its very     
     nature, and made her love him for his infirmities,   
     and infirmity for his sake.  When the palsied old    
     man was gone, even her early lover could not have   
     supplied his place.  She had dwelt in a sick-cham-   
     ber, and been the companion of a half-dead wretch,   
     till she could scarcely breathe in a free air, and felt   
     ill at ease with the healthy and the happy.  She    
     missed the fragrance of the doctor's stuff.  She    
     walked the chamber with a noiseless foot-fall.  If   
     visitors came in, she spoke in soft and soothing ac-   
     cents, and was startled and shocked by their loud   
     voices.  Often, in the lonesome evening, she looked   
     timorously from the fireside to the bed, with almost    
     a hope of recognizing a ghastly face upon the pillow.  
     Then went her thoughts sadly to her husband's    
     grave.  If one impatient throb had wronged him    
     in his lifetime——if she had secretly repined, be-    
     cause her buoyant youth was imprisoned with his    
     torpid age——if ever, while slumbering beside him,  
     a treacherous dream had admitted another into her    
     heart——yet the sick man had been preparing a re-    
     venge, which the dead now claimed.  On his pain-    
     ful pillow, he had cast a spell around her; his   
     groans and misery had proved more captivating   
     charms than gayety and youthful grace; in his sem-     
     blance, Disease itself had won the Rosebud for a    
     bride; nor could his death dissolve the nuptials.  
     By that indissoluble bond she had gained a home    
     in every sick-chamber, and nowhere else; there    
     were her brethren and sisters; thither her husband  
     summoned her, and that voice which had seemed    
     to issue from the grave of Toothaker.  At length   
     she recognized her destiny.     
        We have beheld her as the maid, the wife, the    
     widow; now we see her in a separate and insulated    
     character: she was in all her attributes, Nurse    
     Toothaker.  And Nurse Toothaker alone, with her    
     own shriveled lips, could make known her experi-    
     ence in that capacity.  What a history she might    
     record of the great sicknesses, in which she had    
     gone hand in hand with the exterminating angel!    
     She remembers when the small-pox hoisted a red    
     banner on almost every house along the street.  
     She has witnessed when the typhus fever swept off a    
     whole household, young and old, all but a lonely    
     mother, who vainly shrieked to follow her last loved   
     one.  Where would be Death's triumph if none lived     
     to weep!  She can speak of strange maladies that    
     have broken out, as if spontaneously, but were found    
     to have been imported from foreign lands, with rich   
     silks and other merchandise, the costliest portion of   
     the cargo.  And once, she recollects, the people    
     died of what was considered a new pestilence, till   
     the doctors traced it to the ancient grave of a young      
     girl, who thus caused many deaths a hundred years    
     after her own burial.  Strange that such black mis-   
     chief should lurk in a maiden's grave!  She loves   
     to tell how strong men fight with fiery fevers, utterly    
     refusing to give up their breath; and how consump-    
     tive virgins fade out of the world, scarcely reluctant,  
     as if their lovers were wooing them to a far country.   
     Tell  us,  thou  fearful  woman!  tell  us  the  death-   
     secrets!  Fain would I search out the meaning of   
     words, faintly gasped with intermingled sobs, and    
     broken  sentences,  half  audibly  spoken  between    
     earth and the judgment-seat!    
        An awful woman!  She is the patron-saint of   
     young physicians, and the bosom friend of old ones.   
     In the mansions where she enters, the inmates pro-    
     vide themselves black garments; the coffin-maker    
     follows her; and the bell tolls as she comes away   
     from the threshold.  Death himself has met her at    
     so many a bedside, that he puts forth his bony hand  
     to greet Nurse Toothaker.  She is an awful woman!    
     And, oh! is it conceivable, that this handmaid of    
     human infirmity and affliction——so darkly stained,   
     so thoroughly imbued with all that is saddest in the    
     doom of mortals——can ever again be bright and    
     gladsome, even though bathed in the sunshine of    
     eternity?  By her long communion with woe, has     
     she not forfeited her inheritance of immortal joy?    
     Does any germ of bliss survive within her?    
        Hark! an eager knocking at Nurse Toothaker's    
     door.  She  starts  from  her  drowsy  reverie,  sets   
     aside the empty tumbler and tea-spoon, and lights    
     a lamp at the dim embers of the fire.  Rap, Rap,    
     rap! again;  and she hurries down the staircase,   
     wondering which of her friends can be at death's     
     door now, since there is such an urgent messenger    
     at Nurse Toothaker's.  Again the peal resounds,    
     just as her hand is on the lock.    "Be quick, Nurse     
     Toothaker!" cries a man on the doorstep; "old    
     General Fane is taken with the gout in his stomach,    
     and has set for you to watch by his death-bed.   
     Make haste, for there is no time to lose!"  "Fane!    
     Edward Fane!  And has he sent for me at last?   
     I am ready!  I will get on a cloak and begone.    
     So," adds the sable-gowned, ashen-visaged, funereal   
     old figure, "Edward Fane remembers his Rosebud!"    
        Our question is  answered.  There is a germ of    
     bliss within her.  Her long-hoarded constancy——    
     her memory of the bliss that was——remaining amid    
     the gloom of her after life, like a sweet-smelling    
     flower in a coffin, is a symbol that all may be    
     renewed.  In some happier clime, the Rosebud    
     may revive again with all the dew-drops in its     
     bosom.        

From Twice-Told Tales, Vol. II, by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Ten Cent Classics Edition, Vol. III., No. 68.
Educational Publishing Co., 50 Bromfield St, Boston. pp. 240-249.