Nita von Sankjewitch is a young Austrian who lives perfectly
independent on her income in Paris. Miss Wilmot, her former governess,
now serves as chaperon in her little home.
If Miss Wilmot can be described in brief as an English old maid who
reminds one of David's Marie Antoinette on the poor sinner's car, it
would, on the contrary, have been quite difficult to give in as few
words a half-way significant and life-like description of Nita.
Her figure, tall and slender, with very delicate limbs and long,
slender hands and feet, has in carriage and movements something of the
harsh, so to say, repellant charm with which the Greeks loved to
characterize their Diana statues. Her abundant hair, which is cut
straight across her forehead and gathered up in a heavy knot on her
neck, is of a light-brown color with reddish lights; her face, long but
prettily rounded, is pale, with regular features, finely arched little
nose, and full, somewhat arrogantly curved little mouth.
But the most remarkable in her face, the most remarkable in her whole
appearance, are the eyes--large, brilliant gray eyes with greenish and
bluish lights in them, eyes which suddenly darken, and then become
strangely and unfathomably deep, as if she had tasted all the
bitterness of creation, and in the next moment look out upon the world
again as challengingly bright and cold as if they did not believe there
could be a heart-ache that could not be overcome by a gay jest.
In her family Nita was called the "melancholy scamp." Her age was
difficult to decide. Just as her nature completely lacked that
unrestrained, youthful exuberance, so her face, in spite of the ivory
smoothness of the skin, was without all freshness. From her manner she
might be forty.
She is the daughter of a born Countess Baerenburg and a Baron
Sankjewitch, who obtained the Theresien cross and the title of Freiherr
on the battlefield. Both parents are dead. On her father's side she has
no relatives; with her mother's numerous relatives she stands on the
best footing, without letting herself be much influenced by them. "It
would be very uncomfortable to me to be obliged to be as distinguished
as the clan Baerenburg," she used frequently to say, and preferred to
say it to the face of the clan Baerenburg. The clan Baerenburg shook its
head sadly at that, and regretted her peculiarities, without losing its
respect, or even its sympathy, for her. The sharpest judgment which the
family had ever pronounced upon her was: "Nita is an original."
Even the sun has spots, the most charming being has her unlovely
peculiarities--Nita von Sankjewitch is an artist! She has her
independent studio in the rear of a building in a little court adorned
with a pleasure ground, in the Avenue Frochot. Since some months she
has shared it with a friend, a young Russian, of whom she is very fond.
Nita's studio has two doors: one which leads directly out on the little
court, and one which connects Nita's own sanctum with the great
painting school of which Monsieur Sylvain is at the head. She has the
key of her art nest in her pocket. Before she has yet had time to put
it in the key-hole, the door is opened from within. A pretty, blonde
young girl comes to meet her, and embraces her as if they had been
separated for two years. It is Sonia--_i.e_., Sophia Dimitrievna Kasin.
"Do I come too late?" asks Nita. "Has Monsieur Sylvain already been?"
"No," replied Sophie, "we are about to give him up. Will you have tea?"
Nita laughs. "Tea, and yet again tea! At home Miss Wilmot has already
pursued me with offers of tea; that comes of it if one lives between an
Englishwoman and a Russian. Well, give me a cup of your nectar, Sonia.
I am a little out of tune to-day; perhaps it will do me good."
"You must wait a moment; if is not yet ready," replies Sonia, and bends
listening over the copper tea-kettle, which stands on a little table
delicately set with all kinds of tea things.
It is four o'clock in the afternoon. The last whitish light of an
already quickly dying November day falls through a large window
occupying almost one entire side of the studio, a roomy, square
apartment, whose gray walls are adorned with a couple of studies,
abundant bold sketches by Nita, anxiously neat attempts by Sophie;
beside those, a plaster cast of St. John, _bas reliefs_ of Donatello,
with many bits of picturesque old stuffs, and two or three Japanese
crapes. Furniture is scarce: a divan, over which an old Persian rug is
spread; a couple of comfortable chairs, mostly of cane, but with a
supplement of silken cushions; tables which bend under a weight of
books, portfolios, plaster casts, and paint-boxes; many easels; a vase
of withered chrysanthemums; in one corner a manikin with gracefully
bent arms, in the other a skeleton, many old paint tubes--form the
furnishings.
The door into the adjoining painting school stands half open. Idly
waiting for the completion of Sophie's brewing, Nita glances in there.
Between a forest of easels she sees eight or ten women, who look weary,
yawn; one of them smokes a cigarette, another nibbles at a biscuit; a
third, her hat already on her head and veil over her eyes, makes a
correction on her picture; while still another sits at a little piano,
and with desperate energy drums the Saint Saens _danse macabre_.
The lady who is making yet another correction in her picture is the
Countess d'Olbreuse, a butterfly of fashion, who not only raves over
painting, but also has a great love for music.
"It is useless to wait longer for Sylvain," she remarks, laying aside
her brushes and addressing the lady at the piano. "Apropos, have you
procured tickets for Lensky's concert in Eden?"
"Not yet, and yet I have telephoned for twenty-four hours like a
detective or a broker."
Nita turns away, and closes the half-opened door between the two
studios, not without force.
"Tea is ready," says Sonia; "but what is the matter, dear, you look so
gloomy?"
"Nothing," says Nita, "only that"--with a glance at the door--"vexes me
so. Such a ladies' studio is only a kind of hospital for ruined
feminine existences. There! what an absent-minded being I am! Where is
it?--a letter for you; perhaps it contains something interesting." And
after some search, Nita finds the letter in the pocket of her jacket.
Scarcely has Sophie opened the letter when she cries out for joy.
"Well, what is it, little goose?" asks Nita, quite pleased at Sophie's
beaming face.
"The letter is from my cousin, Nikolai Lensky, the son of the famous
violinist, you know----"
"I know nothing. I had no suspicion that you were related to Lensky,"
replies Nita, quickly and harshly.
"My mother was a cousin of his wife," stammers Sophie, somewhat vexed
at Nita's unpleasant tone. "Yesterday I met Nikolai at the Jeliagins.
He has recently come from St. Petersburg. He will soon come to see me;
meanwhile he sends me two tickets to his father's concert day after
to-morrow--the concert for which there is not a seat to be had in all
Paris, either for good words or for money. So you can rejoice with me."
"Over what?"
"You will go with me to the concert?"
"I?--no."
"But, Nita, what are you thinking of?"
"I really cannot; I have no time. Go with the Countess d'Olbreuse, who
hurried here from Madrid and missed a bull-fight in order to be present
at Lensky's concert, and who appeals by turns to the Russian ambassador
and her music-teacher to coax a ticket."
But Sophie shook her head. "I would rather burn the ticket than give it
to any one but you. I do not understand you, Nita--you who are so
musical that you attend every concert that is worth the while. You do
not wish to hear Boris Lensky? What is the reason?"
Nita tapped her little foot vexedly on the floor, and said: "When not
long ago a sceptical old Frenchman, who had nothing to do with death,
learned from his physician that his last hour had come, he said: 'Well,
it is not agreeable to me, but still I have one consolation: I shall,
at least, when I am dead, hear nothing more of Sarah Bernhardt and the
great French nation'--he could have added, and of Boris Lensky!"