SPRING DAYS.
It was the 13th of March, 1848, the day of the popular uprising in
Vienna.
The Plankenhorst parlours were even on that day filled with their
usual frequenters; but instead of piano-playing and gossip,
entertainment was furnished by the distant report of musketry and the
hoarse cries of the mob. Every face was pale and anxious, and all
present were eager to learn the latest news from any newcomer.
At length, toward evening, the secretary of the police department
entered. His mere outward appearance indicated but too well that
things were going badly for the government. Instead of his official
uniform, he wore a common workman's blouse, and his face was pale and
careworn. As soon as he was recognised in his disguise, all pressed
around him for the latest tidings.
"Well, are you sweeping the streets?" asked the high official of the
commissary department, in anxious haste.
"There is no making head against the rascals," answered the secretary
in a trembling voice. "I have just left the office and only escaped by
means of this disguise. The mob has broken into the building, thrown
down the statue of Justice, and wrecked the censor's office."
"But, for heaven's sake, can't more soldiery be sent out against
them?"
"We have soldiers enough, but the emperor will not permit any more
bloodshed. He is displeased that any lives at all should have been
sacrificed."
"But why ask his permission? He is too tender-hearted by far. Let the
war department manage that."
"Well, you go and tell them how to do it," returned the secretary
petulantly. "What is to be done when the soldiers fire in such a way
that a whole platoon volley fails to hit a single man? In St. Michael
Square I saw with my own eyes the cannoneers stick their slow-matches
into the mud, and heard them declare they wouldn't fire on the
people."
"Heavens! what will become of us?"
"I came to give you warning. For my part, I believe the people have
fixed upon certain houses as objects of their fury, and I would not
pass the night in one of them for all the Rothschild millions."
"Do you think my house is one of the number?" asked Baroness
Plankenhorst. The only reply she got was a significant shrug of the
shoulders.
"And now I must hasten away," concluded the secretary. "I have to
order post-horses and relays for the chancellor."
"What! has it come to that already?"
"So it seems."
"And do you go with him?"
"I shall take good care not to remain long behind. And you too, madam,
I should advise at the earliest opportunity--"
"I will consider the matter," returned Antoinette composedly, and she
let him hurry away.
* * * * *
JenA' Baradlay never left his room all that day. The brave who laugh at
danger little know the agony of fear that the timid and nervous must
overcome before resolving to face peril and rush, if need be, into the
jaws of death. Finally, at nine o'clock in the evening, his anxiety
for Alfonsine's safety impelled him to seek her. With no means of
self-defence, he went out on the street and exposed himself to its
unknown perils. What he there encountered was by no means what he had,
in the solitude of his own room, nerved himself to face. Instead of
meeting with a violent and raging mob, he found himself surrounded by
an exultant throng, drunk with joy and shouting itself hoarse in the
cause of "liberty." JenA''s progress toward his destination was slow,
but at last he managed to push his way into the street where the
Plankenhorst house was situated. His heart beat with fear lest he
should find the building a mass of ruins. Many a fine residence had
that day fallen a sacrifice to the fury of the mob.
Greatly to the young man's surprise, however, upon turning a corner he
beheld the house brilliantly illuminated from basement to attic, two
white silk banners displayed from the balcony, and a popular orator
standing between them and delivering a spirited address to the crowd
below.
JenA' quite lost his head at this spectacle, and became thenceforth the
mere creature of impulse. Reaching the steps of the house, he
encountered nothing but white cockades and faces flushed with triumph,
while cheers were being given for the patronesses of the cause of
liberty by the throng before the house. Pushing his way into the
drawing-room, he saw two ladies standing at a table and beaming with
happy smiles upon their visitors. With difficulty he assured himself
that they were the baroness and her daughter. The former was making
cockades out of white silk ribbon, with which the latter decorated the
heroes of the people, fastening bands of the same material around
their arms. And meanwhile the faces of the two ladies were wreathed in
smiles.
The young man suffered himself to be swept along by the crowd until
Alfonsine, catching sight of him, gave a cry of joy, rushed forward,
threw her arms about his neck, kissed him, and sank on his breast,
exclaiming:
"Oh, my friend, what a joyful occasion!" and she kissed him again,
before all the people and before her mother. The latter smiled her
approval, while the people applauded and cheered. They found it all
entirely natural. Their shouts jarred on JenA''s nerves, but the kisses
thrilled him with new life.
In the days that followed, JenA' Baradlay found it quite a matter of
course that he should be at the Plankenhorsts' at all hours, uninvited
and unannounced, amid a throng of students, democrats, popular
orators, all wearing muddy boots, long swords, and pendent feathers in
their caps. He also found nothing strange in the fact that Alfonsine
frequently received him in her morning wrapper and with her hair
uncurled, that she embraced him warmly on each occasion, and that she
took no pains to conceal her endearments either from strangers or from
friends. It was a time when everything was permitted.
As the two turned aside one evening in their walk, to join a throng of
eager listeners who were being addressed by one impassioned speaker
after another, JenA' was startled at seeing his brother A-dAśn mount the
platform as one of the orators of the occasion. He, too, it appeared,
was on the side of the people; he was one of the parliamentary
speakers who were making their voices heard in favour of popular
rights and legislative reform. His speech swept all before it; no one
could listen to his words without feeling his heart stirred and his
pulse quickened. Alfonsine waved her handkerchief in her enthusiasm,
but her companion was suddenly seized with a mysterious fear and
dread. What premonition was it that seemed to whisper in his ear the
true significance of that elevated platform on which his brother
stood?
When the two had returned from their stroll, weary with walking the
streets, and JenA' had been dismissed with a good-night kiss,
Alfonsine, at last alone with her mother, threw her hat with its
tricoloured ribbons into a corner and sank exhausted upon a sofa.
"Oh," she cried, "how tired I am of this horrid world!"