But some at least of the other contents of the same volume are worthy of
greater praise. One, _Le Coup de Pistolet_, is a translation from
Poushkin; another, _Federigo_, an agreeable version of an Italian
folk-tale--one of the numerous legends in which a 'cute' and not
unkindly sinner escapes not only perdition, but Purgatory, and takes
Paradise by storm of wit.[228] A third piece, _Les Sorcieres
Espagnoles_, is folklorish in a way likewise, but inferior.

Yet another trio remains, and its constituents, _Lokis_, _La Chambre
Bleue_, and _Djoumane_, are among Merimee's greatest triumphs.
_Djoumane_ is not dated; the other two date from the very last years of
his life and of the Second Empire; and, unless I mistake, were written
directly to amuse that Imperial Majesty who lives yet, and who, as all
good men must hope, may live to see the _revanche_, if not of the
dynasty, at any rate of the country, which she did so much to adorn.

[Sidenote: _Djoumane._]

Of the three, _Djoumane_--the account of a riding dream during a
campaign in Algeria--is the slightest, no doubt, and to a certain extent
a "trick" story. But it has the usual Merimean consummateness in its own
way; and I can give it one testimonial which, like all testimonials, no
doubt depends on the importance of the giver, but which, to that
extent, is solid. I have read dozens, scores, almost hundreds of
dream-stories. I cannot remember a single one, except this, which "took
me in" almost to the very awaking.

There is no trick in either of the others, though in one of them there
is the supernatural--_not_ explained. But they are examples--closely and
no doubt intentionally juxtaposed--in two different kinds, both of them
exceptionally difficult and dangerous: the story of more or less
ordinary life, with only a few suggestions of anything else, which
resolves itself into horrible tragedy; and the story, again of ordinary
life, with a tragic suggestion in the middle, which unknits itself into
pure comedy at the end.

[Sidenote: _Lokis._]

_Lokis_ is a story of lycanthropy, or rather _arct_anthropy. A
Lithuanian Count's mother has been carried off, soon after her marriage,
by a bear, and just rescued with a lucky shot at the monster. She goes,
as is not very wonderful, quite mad, does not recover when her child is
born, and is under restraint in her own house, as wife and widow, for
the term of her life. Her son, however, shows no overt symptoms of
anythin