If, seated on my rustic bench under a spreading ilex, I was not joining
in the pleasures and amusements of those around me, I was tasting an
amount of enjoyment to the full as great It was my first holiday after
many months of monotonous labor. It was the first moment in which I felt
myself free to look about me without the irksome thought of a teasing
duty,--that everlasting song of score and tally, which Hans and I sang
duet fashion, and which at last seemed to enter into my very veins and
circulate with my blood.
The scene itself was of rare beauty. Seated as I was, the bay appeared a
vast lake, for the outlet that led seaward was backed by an island, and
thus the coast-line seemed unbroken throughout. Over this wide expanse
now hundreds of fishing-boats were moving in every direction, for the
wind was blowing fresh from the land, and permitted them to tack and
beat as they pleased. If thus in the crisply curling waves, the flitting
boats, and the fast-flying clouds above, there was motion and life,
there was, in the high peaked-mountain that frowned above me, and in the
dark rocks that lined the shore, a stern, impassive grandeur that became
all the more striking from contrast. The plashing water, the fishermen's
cries, the merry laughter of the revellers as they strayed through brake
and copse, seemed all but whispering sounds in that vast amphitheatre of
mountain, so solemn was the influence of those towering crags that rose
towards heaven.
“Have you been sitting there ever since?” asked the cashier, as he
passed me with a string of friends.
“Ever since.”
“Not had any breakfast?”
“None.”
“Nor paid your compliments to Herr Ignaz and the Fraulein?”
I shook my bead in dissent.
“Worst of all,” said he, half rebukingly, and passed on. I now bethought
me how remiss I had been. It is true it was through a sense of my own
insignificant station that I had not presented myself to my host; but
I ought to have remembered that this excuse could have no force outside
the limits of my own heart; and so, as I despaired of finding Hanserl,
whose advice might have aided me, I set out at once to make my respects.
A long, straight avenue, flanked by tall lime-trees, led from the sea to
the house; and as I passed up this, crowded now like the chief promenade
of a city, I heard many comments as I went on my dress and appearance.
“What have we here?” said one. “Is this a prince or a mountebank?” “What
boy, with a much-braid-bedizened velvet coat is this?” muttered an old
German, as he pointed at me with his pipe-stick..
One pronounced me a fencing-master; but public reprobation found its
limit at last by calling me a Frenchman. Shall I own that I heard all
these with something much more akin to pride than to shame? The mere
fact that they recognized me as unlike one of themselves--that they saw
in me what was not “Fiumano “--was in itself a flattery; and as to the
depreciation, it was pure ignorance! I am afraid that I even showed how
defiantly I took this criticism,--showed it in my look, and showed it
in my gait; for as I ascended the steps to the terrace of the villa,
I heard more than one comment on my pretentious demeanor. Perhaps some
rumor of the approach of a distinguished guest had reached Herr Oppovich
where he sat, at a table with some of the magnates of Fiume, for be
hastily arose and came forward to meet me. Just as I gained the last
terrace, the old man stood bareheaded and bowing before me, a semicircle
of wondering guests at either side of him.
“Whom have I the distinguished honor to receive?” said Herr Ignaz, with
a profound show of deference.
“Don't you know me, sir? Owen,--Digby Owen.”
“What!--how?--Eh--in heaven's name--sure it can't be! Why, I protest it
is,” cried he, laying his hand on my shoulder, as if to test my reality.
“This passes all belief. Who ever saw the like! Come here, Knabe, come
here.” And slipping his hand within my arm, he led me towards the table
he had just quitted. “Sara,” cried he, “here is a guest you have not
noticed; a high and wellborn stranger, who claims all your attention.
Let him have the place of honor at your side. This, ladies and
gentlemen, is Herr Digby Owen, the stave-counter of my timber-yard!” And
he burst, with this, into a roar of laughter, that, long pent up by an
effort, now seemed to threaten him with a fit Nor was the company slow
in chorusing him; round after round shook the table, and it seemed as if
the joke could never be exhausted.
All this time I stood with my eyes fixed on the Fraulein, whose glance
was directed as steadfastly on me. It was a haughty look she bent on me,
but it became her well, and I forgave all the scorn it conveyed in the
pleasure her beauty gave me. My face, which at first was in a flame,
became suddenly cold, and a faintish sickness was creeping over me, so
that, to steady myself, I had to lay my hand on a chair. “Won't you sit
down?” said she, in a voice fully as much command as invitation. She
pointed to a chair a little distance from her own, and I obeyed.
The company appeared now somewhat ashamed of its rude display
of merriment, and seeing how quietly and calmly I bore
myself,--unresentingly too,--there seemed something like a reaction in
my favor. Foreigners, it must be said, are generally sorry when betrayed
into any exhibition of ill-breeding, and hastily seek to make amends for
it Perhaps Herr Oppovich himself was the least ready in this movement,
for he continued to look on me with a strange blending of displeasure
and amusement.
The business of breakfast was now resumed, and the servants passed round
with the dishes, helping me amongst the rest. While I was eating, I
heard--what, of course, was not meant for my ears--an explanation
given by one of the company of my singular appearance. He had lived in
England, and said that the English of every condition had a passion for
appearing to belong to some rank above their own; that to accomplish
this there was no sacrifice they would not make, for these assumptions
imposed upon those who made them fully as much as on the public they
were made for. “You 'll see,” added he, “that the youth there, so long
as he figures in that fine dress, will act up to it, so far as he
knows how. He talked with a degree of assurance and fluency that gained
conviction, and I saw that his hearers went along with him, and there
soon began--very cautiously and very guardedly, indeed--a sort of
examination of me and my pretensions, for which, fortunately for me, I
was so far prepared.
“And do all English boys of your rank in life speak and read four
languages?” asked Herr Ignaz, after listening some time to my answers.
“You are assuming to know his rank, papa,” whispered Sara, who watched
me closely during the whole interrogatory.
“Let him answer my question,” rejoined the old man, roughly.
“Perhaps not all,” said I, half amused at the puzzle I was becoming to
them.
“Then how came it your fortune to know them,--that is, if you _do_ know
them?”
Slipping out of his question, I replied, “Nothing can be easier than
to test that point. There are gentlemen here whose acquirements go far
beyond mine.”
“Your German is very good,” said Sara. “Let me hear you speak French.”
“It is too much honor for me,” said I, bowing, “to address you at all.”
“Is your Italian as neat in accent as that?” asked a lady near.
“I believe I am best in Italian,--of course, after English,--for I
always talked it with my music-master, as well as with my teacher.”
“Music-master!” cried Herr Ignaz; “what phoenix have we here?”
“I don't think we are quite fair to this boy,” said a stern-featured,
middle-aged man. “He has shown us that there is no imposition in his
pretensions, and we have no right to question him further. If Herr Ignaz
thinks you too highly gifted for his service, young man, come over to
Carl Bettmeyer's counting-house to-morrow at noon.”
“I thank you, sir,” said I, “and am very grateful; but if Herr Oppovich
will bear with me, I will not leave him.”
Sara's eyes met mine as I spoke, and I cannot tell what a flood of
rapture her look sent into my heart.
“The boy will do well enough,” muttered Herr Ignaz. “Let us have a
ramble through the grounds, and see how the skittle-players go on.”
And thus passed off the little incident of my appearance: an incident
of no moment to any but myself, as I was soon to feel; for the company,
descending the steps, strayed away in broken twos or threes through the
grounds, as caprice or will inclined them.
If I were going to chronicle the fête itself, I might, perhaps, say
there was a striking contrast between the picturesque beauty of the
spot, and the pastime of those who occupied it The scene recalled
nothing so much as a village fair. All the simple out-of-door amusements
of popular taste were there. There were conjurors and saltimbanques and
fortune-tellers, lottery-booths and ninepin alleys and restaurants, only
differing from their prototypes in that there was nothing to pay. If a
considerable number of the guests were well pleased with the pleasures
provided for them, there were others no less amused as spectators of
these enjoyments, and the result was an amount of mirth and good humor
almost unbounded. There were representatives of almost every class
and condition, from the prosperous merchant or rich banker down to the
humblest clerk, or even the porter of the warehouse; and yet a certain
tone of equality pervaded all, and I observed that they mixed with each
other on terms of friendliness and familiarity that never recalled
any difference of condition; and this feature alone was an ample
counterpoise to any vulgarity observable in their manners. If there was
any “snobbery,” it was of a species quite unlike what we have at home,
and I could not detect it.
While I strolled about, amusing myself with the strange sights and
scenes around me, I suddenly came upon a sort of merry-go-round, where
the performers, seated on small hobby-horses, tilted with a lance at a
ring as they spun round, their successes or failures being hailed with
cheers or with laughter from the spectators. To my intense astonishment,
I might almost say shame, Hanserl was there! Mounted on a fiery little
gray, with bloodshot eyes and a flowing tail, the old fellow seemed to
have caught the spirit of his steed, for he stood up in his stirrups,
and leaned forward with an eagerness that showed how he enjoyed the
sport. Why was it that the spectacle so shocked me? Why was it that I
shrunk back into the crowd, fearful that he might recognize me? Was it
not well if the poor fellow could throw off, even for a passing moment,
the weary drudgery of his daily life, and play the fool just for
distraction' sake? All this I could have believed and accepted a short
time before, and yet now a strange revulsion of feeling had come over
me and I went away, well pleased that Hans had not seen nor claimed me.
“These vulgar games don't amuse you,” said a voice at my side; and I
turned and saw the merchant who, at the breakfast-table, invited me to
his counting-house.
“Not that,” said I; “but they seem strange and odd at a private
entertainment I was scarce prepared to see them here.”
“I suspect that is not exactly the reason,” said he, laughing. “I know
something of your English tone of exclusiveness, and how each class of
your people has its appropriate pleasures. You scorn to be amused in low
company.”
“You seem to forget my own condition, sir.”
“Come, come,” said he, with a knowing look, “I am not so easily imposed
upon, as I told you awhile back. I know England. Your ways and notions
are all known to me. It is not in the place you occupy here young lads
are found who speak three or four languages, and have hands that show as
few signs of labor as yours. Mind,” said he, quickly, “I don't want to
know your secret.”
“If I had a secret, it is scarcely likely I 'd tell it to a stranger,”
said I, haughtily.
“Just so; you 'd know your man before you trusted him. Well, I 'm more
generous, and I 'm going to trust you, whom I never saw till half an
hour ago.”
“Trust _me!_”
“Trust you,” repeated he, slowly. “And first of all, what age would you
give that young lady whose birthday we are celebrating?”
“Seventeen--eighteen--perhaps nineteen.”
“I thought you'd say so; she looks nineteen. Well, I can tell you her
age to an hour. She is fifteen to-day.”
“Fifteen!”
“Not a day older, and yet she is the most finished coquette in Europe.
Having given Fiume to understand that there is not a man here whose
pretensions she would listen to, her whole aim and object is to surround
herself with admirers,--I might say worshippers. Young fellows are fools
enough to believe they have a chance of winning her favor, while each
sees how contemptuously she treats the other. They do not perceive it is
the number of adorers she cares for.”
“But what is all this to me?”
“Simply that you 'll be enlisted in that corps to-morrow,” said he, with
a malicious laugh; “and I thought I 'd do you a good turn to warn you as
to what is in store for you.”
“Me? _I_ enlisted! Why, just bethink you, sir, who and what I am: the
very lowest creature in her father's employment.”
“What does that signify? There's a mystery about you. You are not--at
least you were not--what you seem now. You have as good looks and better
manners than the people usually about her. She can amuse herself with
you, and so far harmlessly that she can dismiss you when she's tired of
you, and if she can only persuade you to believe yourself in love
with her, and can store up a reasonable share of misery for you in
consequence, you 'll make her nearer being happy than she has felt this
many a day.”
“I don't understand all this,” said I, doubtingly.
“Well, you will one of these days; that is, unless you have the good
sense to take my warning in good part, and avoid her altogether.”
“It will be quite enough for me to bear in mind who she is, and what _I_
am!” said I, calmly.
“You think so? Well, I don't agree with you. At all events, keep what I
have said to yourself, even if you don't mean to profit by it” And with
this he left me.
That strange education of mine, in which M. de Balzac figured as a chief
instructor, made me reflect on what I had heard in a spirit little
like that of an ordinary lad of sixteen years of age. Those wonderful
stories, in which passion and emotion represent action, and where the
great game of life is played out at a fireside or in a window recess,
and where feeling and sentiment war and fight and win or lose,--these
same tales supplied me with wherewithal to understand this man's
warnings, and at the same time to suspect his motives; and from that
moment my life became invested with new interests and new anxieties, and
to my own heart I felt myself a hero of romance.
As I sauntered on, revolving very pleasant thoughts to myself, I came
upon a party who were picnicking under a tree. Some of them graciously
made a place for me, and I sat down and ate my dinner with them. They
were very humble people, all of them, but courteous and civil to my
quality of stranger in a remarkable degree. Nor was I less struck by
the delicate forbearance they showed towards the host; for, while the
servant pressed them to drink Bordeaux and champagne, they merely took
the little wines of the country, perfectly content with simple fare and
the courtesy that offered them better.
When one of them asked me if I had ever seen a fête of such magnificence
in my own country, my mind went back to that costly entertainment of our
villa, and Pauline came up before me, with her long dark eyelashes, and
those lustrous eyes beaming with expression, and flashing with a light
that dazzled while it charmed. Coquetry has no such votaries as the
young. Its artifices, its studied graces, its thousand rogueries, to
them seem all that is most natural and most “naïve;” and thus every toss
of her dark curls, every little mock resentment of her beautiful mouth,
every bend and motion of her supple figure, rose to my mind, till I
pictured her image before me, and thought I saw her.
“What a hunt I have had after you, Herr Englander!” said a servant, who
came up to me all flushed and heated. “I have been over the whole park
in search of you.”
“In search of _me?_ Surely you mistake.”
“No; it is no mistake. I see no one here in a velvet jacket but
yourself; and Herr Ignaz told me to find you and tell you that there
is a place kept for you at his table, and they are at dinner now in the
large tent before the terrace.”
I took leave of my friends, who rose respectfully to make their adieux
to the honored guest of the host, and I followed the servant to the
house. I was not without my misgivings that the scene of the morning,
with its unpleasant cross-examination of me, might be repeated, and I
even canvassed myself how far I ought to submit to such liberties; but
the event was not to put my dignity to the test I was received on terms
of perfect equality with those about me; and though the dinner had made
some progress before I arrived, it was with much difficulty I could
avoid being served with soup and all the earlier delicacies of the
entertainment.
I will not dwell on the day that to recall seems more to me like a page
out of a fairy tale than a little incident of daily life. I was, indeed,
to all intents, the enchanted prince of a story, who went about with the
lovely princess on his arm, for I danced the mazurka with the Fraulein
Sara, and was her partner several times during the evening, and finished
the fête with her in the cotillon; she declaring, in that calm quiet
voice that did not seek to be unheard around, that I alone could dance
the waltz à deux temps, and that I slid gently, and did not spring like
a Fiumano, or bound like a French bagman,--a praise that brought on
me some very menacing looks from certain commis-voyageurs near me, and
which I, confident in my “skill of fence,” as insolently returned.
“You are not to return to the Hof, Herr von Owen, tomorrow,” said she,
as we parted. “You are to wait on papa at his office at eleven o'clock.”
And there was a staid dignity in her words that spoke command; but in
styling me “von” there was a whole world of recognition, and I kissed
her hand as I said good-night with all the deference of her slave, and
all the devotion of one who already felt her power and delighted in it.