Among the different returns of attention which the Jeliagins' musicale
have brought them, come several invitations to a large charity ball
in the Hotel Continental. Anna is not disinclined to attend it,
but has already been invited for the same evening to a dance. But
Mascha is going with Madame d'Olbreuse, who, at the last moment, has
good-naturedly offered to take her with her.
It is against custom to take such a young girl to this ball; but what
is not against custom in Mascha's loveless, unprotected existence?
Mascha, who has passed the last days in feverish expectation of
Baerenburg's proposal, looks forward with a kind of feeling between hope
and fear to this ball. Perhaps he will be there. "But will he trouble
himself about me?" she asks herself.
Ah! what does it concern her? He is quite indifferent to her, she
persuades herself--quite, however little she can understand him. Who
could? How can one say such feeling words to a girl, look at her with
such tender enthusiasm, kiss her hand as he had kissed Mascha's, and
then suddenly disappear, and for eight long days let nothing be heard
of him? It is incomprehensible. "Perhaps he thinks that with a child
like me he can permit himself anything," says she to herself, "but I
will show him that he has deceived himself in me. I wish he would be at
this ball, only that I might show him how little I think of him, how
arrogant I can be!"
Meanwhile she prepares for the ball, and takes the greatest pains about
her toilet. As, since Nikolai is gone, no one has time to accompany
her, she drives about the boulevards alone, and makes the wildest
purchases. In the midst of her preparations she takes a trip to the
Avenue Frochot, where she is always a welcome guest in Nita's studio.
With no one is she on such a good footing as with Nita, whom she clings
to with a kind of idolatry, and--Nita returns her affection. Sonia is
consumed with jealousy when she sees her friend, formerly not at all
inclined to exaggeration, caressing the dear little witch.
On the evening of the great event, Mascha puts on the same white dress
which she had worn in honor of her social _debut_, and places a wreath
of loosely fastened pink anemones on her head. That this adornment,
which she herself thought of and which became her excellently, was a
trifle too picturesque for a young girl of good family she does not
suspect, and who should direct her attention thereto? The Jeliagins
have already gone their own way, before she had begun to dress, and
Madame d'Olbreuse, when she comes to get Mascha, does not leave her
carriage, but merely sends her servant to announce that she is waiting.
They have reached the Hotel Continental. In the vestibule a gentleman
comes up to the Countess d'Olbreuse, some vicomte, who is introduced to
Mascha, bows to her, and troubles himself no further about her. He
offers the Countess his arm; she looks around for a cavalier for
Mascha, but finds none.
"Keep by me, dear child," says she, taking the Vicomte's arm. And so,
somewhat ashamed and vexed, as an accidental dependant of the Countess,
Maschenka enters.
People like the Countess visit such entertainments from curiosity, from
a wish to admire the arrangements and criticise the people.
She walks through all the rooms on the arm of her cavalier, and from
time to time turns round to Maschenka with a "Are you here, my child?"
Whereupon her companion shows her something droll, and she immediately
forgets Mascha again.
The heat is stifling, the crowd fearful. At first Maschenka takes
pleasure in shyly looking at herself in the mirrors along the walls,
then no longer--her eyes meet such a weary, disappointed little face,
with such a vexed, gloomy look.
"Now you have shown me enough foolishness. I should like at length to
see something beautiful," says the Countess, petulantly, to her
companion.
"Do you really wish to see something beautiful--the most beautiful
thing ever created?" replies the Vicomte. "A beautiful woman. Then you
must come with me into the patronesses' room."
"Oh, clear, no; I know all the ladies; they would immediately take
possession of me, and there would be an end of my independence for the
rest of the evening."
"At least take a peep through the door," the Vicomte proposes. "There,
the lady under the palm near the statue--an Englishwoman, one sees at
the first glance--blonde, and in a white gown."
Mascha puts up her _lorgnon_, looks into the room.
There, near the statue, in a white toilet slipping far down from her
shoulders, sits Sylvia Anthropos with her imperial diadem of reddish
curls, her short, antique upper lip, her large dark eyes, her golden
eyelashes, and finely pencilled eyebrows.
The regular faultlessness of her features is to-day warmed by an
expression unusual to her. She holds her head somewhat bent back, and
looks up--to whom? Mascha feels something like a cold, hard blow on her
heart.
There, leaning against the pedestal of the statue, speaking to the
beautiful Englishwoman, stands Karl Baerenburg. Now he raises his eyes,
discovers Mascha, starts perceptibly, and turns his eyes away from her.
* * * * *
An hour has passed since then.
Maschenka is one humiliation richer. The only man who has asked her to
dance was her Italian teacher, Signor Supino. Besides, a wealthy
leather dealer has offered her his arm for a promenade. Poor Supino she
dismissed with a harshness which later pains her, but her strength and
resolution did not suffice to shake off the leather merchant. He had
met Mascha a single time in Nita's studio, and treats her as if she
were his niece.
At length she is rid of him. With convulsive resolution she clings to
an old, white-haired American, whom she knows as the father of one of
the scholars in the Sylvain studio. His daughter is waltzing in the
ball-room, the Countess d'Olbreuse is waltzing. Maschenka sits with Mr.
Cornelius Merryfield in the prettiest room, a winter garden with
artificial moonlight and rocks; sits there weary, sad, and lets the old
man explain to her the narrow influence of the North American Quakers.
Suddenly she hears a voice near her say: "At last! I have sought you
already for half an hour!" It is Baerenburg.
All the blood in her body rushes to her heart. She has but the one
thought, not to let him notice how much she cares for him, to be as
indifferent to him as possible.
"Ah, really! Then Miss Anthropos has already left the ball half an hour
ago?" says she, slowly, raising her brows, whereupon, turning to Mr.
Merryfield, she asks: "Did you know President Lincoln?"
"Have the kindness to introduce me," interrupts Baerenburg, irritably.
"Count Baerenburg--Mr. Merryfield," says she, shortly; and still turned
toward Mr. Merryfield, she continues: "I heard once that when an
Englishman, in conversation with Lincoln, let fall a French phrase, the
latter remarked that he did not understand Greek. Do you think that
possible?"
"It may be," says Mr. Merryfield, with an uneasy glance at the door. "I
do not understand what keeps my daughter so long; she promised to only
dance one waltz. Permit me to go and look after her a little."
"But, Mr. Merryfield, I promised Countess d'Olbreuse to wait here for
her," says Maschenka, very excited, and catching him by the sleeve.
The American looks helplessly at Baerenburg. "You see that you must put
up with my protection, Fraeulein," says the latter, whereupon the two
men bow formally, and Mr. Merryfield withdraws.
Then she is alone with him in the green twilight of the winter
garden,--as good as alone. Truly, from time to time people pass by the
young couple, men with ladies and alone, but they are people who know
neither him nor her.
Here, in the pale pseudo-moonshine of the electric lights, her beauty
has a quite magical effect. The mixture of pride and sadness in her
manner, the poetic unusualness of the arrangement of her hair, the pink
wreath, on whose bloom lies already a touch of sad weariness, the dark
green background, against which her white child's face stands out--all
unite in heightening the charm of her fantastic, peculiar loveliness.
For a while both are silent, he and she. At length he begins: "In my
whole life, a week has never passed so slowly as the last."
"Indeed! I find it, on the contrary, very short. In my monotonous life
one day follows the other before one perceives it."
"Do you not go out at all?" asks he.
"No; my aunt says I am too young to go out in society; my cousin says I
have too bad manners; in consequence of which I stay at home," says
she, to a certain extent dropping the superior _role_ which she
childishly and defiantly has planned for herself.
"Your cousin speaks nonsense, and if your aunt really thinks you too
young to go out, she should not send you to such a ball as this one."
"Is it an unsuitable ball?" asks Mascha, quickly.
"No; but it is a ball which such a young girl as you does not visit
with a superficial chaperon like Countess d'Olbreuse. If one of the
patronesses had taken you with her, it would be quite different."
"The patronesses?" Mascha shrugs her shoulders. "The patronesses are
great ladies, with whom I have nothing to do; I am no one, only papa's
daughter." Her voice trembles a little. "That does not count here in
foreign parts; Anna tells me so every day. I did not know it; it was
certainly very necessary, but it pained me." She fans herself with her
large fan, and smiles as one smiles to keep from weeping.
Baerenburg pulls his mustache.
"And except your cousin, have you no one in Paris who is near to you?"
he begins anew.
"Yes, one--one person whom I love with my whole heart," says Mascha,
with the exaggeration to which hurt and vexed people are always
inclined. "She is sweet to me. It is your cousin, Fraeulein von
Sankjewitch."
"Do you ever go to the studio?"
"Yes," says Mascha, shortly.
"H-m! Will you be there to-morrow morning?"
She throws back her little head, looks at him from her dark eyes with
unspeakable, reproving pride, and says: "No!"
A longer silence follows. He knows that she was justified in repelling
him; knows that he acts unresponsibly to her. This consciousness only
assists in robbing him of his self-control. He loves her passionately,
unspeakably. He must have her, only her. More and more the recollection
of his betrothal shrinks to a purely theoretical hinderance which can
and shall be removed.
Then a large, bearded man comes up to Mascha, a man with round
shoulders and the insolently careless manner of men of good family who
have long moved in dubious circles of society. His eyes are watery, his
lips twitch, while bowing to Mascha, he says in French: "Do you
remember me, Miss Marie?"
"Prince Orbanoff," replies Mascha, affirmatively, nodding cordially,
"from Nice."
Behind the Russians stand two young men who have admired Mascha with
unconcealed boldness, and watch the scene.
"May I ask for this waltz?" stammers the Russian.
With the greatest readiness Mascha rises.
"You forget that you are already engaged to me," Baerenburg interposes.
"You are entirely mistaken, Count," replies Mascha arrogantly, and
takes a step toward the Russian.
"For Nikolai's sake, listen to me, do not dance," Baerenburg whispers in
her ear.
Softly, hastily, and in a strange language as the words were whispered,
the prince still has heard them.
"May I ask who the young man is who so insolently wishes to influence
your resolve?" he asks Mascha, with still more difficult utterance, and
his red face becomes yet redder.
Baerenburg draws out his card and hands it to him; at the same moment
the Countess d'Olbreuse comes up to her.
The Russian has disappeared. "Have you entertained yourself well, my
child?" says she. "I have danced _comme une perdue_; it is not suitable
for a woman of my age. Now we can go, the ball begins to be too
amusing."
Silently, laying the extreme tips of her fingers in Baerenburg's offered
arm, Mascha follows the Countess and her cavalier into the ante-room.
Suddenly she raises her head. "Why did you prevent me from dancing with
the Prince?" she asks in an angry tone.
"First, he was intoxicated; secondly--but that you do not understand--
secondly, he has such a horrible reputation that I would rather see my
sister dance with a clown from the circus ring, for example, than with
him. To dance with Orbanoff at a public ball when you had not moved
your foot before, and at two o'clock in the morning, would be something
so fearful, so ambiguous, so--well, I would rather have my right arm
cut off than let you do it."
They now stand in the ante-room. Baerenburg takes Mascha's wrap from the
servant and lays it about her shoulders. But Mascha's rage flames
stronger than ever. More than before she feels the need to pain him, to
injure him, to insult him.
"So you would let your right arm be cut off for me! How easily that is
said," mocks she. Then looking him full in the face:
"I am very much obliged to you for your good intentions, but I should
have preferred that you had not further troubled yourself with my
affairs. I have known the Prince longer than you."
Scarcely has she said these impolite words when she would give
everything in the world to recall them. It is too late.
"I was wrong; pardon me," says he, shortly. And taking leave with a
deep bow, first of her and then of Countess d'Olbreuse, he retires
without another word.
"Now, _ma petite_, come!" says the Countess, looking for her
_protegee_. Mascha stands there, pale, petrified, and looks at the
crowd in which he has disappeared. He did not once notice that,
repenting her rudeness, she had stretched her hand out shyly to him; he
did not even look at it.
Yes, she has shown him how little she thinks of him, how arrogant she
can be. But now that it is over, she has little pleasure in her heroic
achievement; on the contrary, torments herself over it, and would take
it back at any price. She suddenly knows that she loves him with all
her heart; loves him so that she would die to spare him one pang. And
this poor, physically mature, mentally still childish little being
suddenly longs for one thing only; namely, to see him very, very soon
again in order to expiate her harshness and intolerance.
But how should she see him again? she thought, as in the early morning
hours she sleeplessly tossed her curly head here and there on the
pillow. After her repellant manner, he would scarcely wish to come to
the Avenue Wagram. Ah! why had she not simply rejoiced in him, and let
herself be so happy and confidential with him!