So I let three days pass, gentlemen, to sleep on the matter--then my
two coach-horses into the harness--my yellow trap--and heigho for
Krakowitz. Beautiful bit of property, no denying that. Somewhat run
down, but full of possibilities. Lots of black fallow--might do for
winter kale or something of the sort. The wheat so-so. The cattle
splendid.
The courtyard! Well, you know, a courtyard is like the human heart.
Once you have learned to see into it, you cannot be bamboozled so
easily. There are neglected hearts, but you can see gold nuggets
peeping out through the dirt. Then there are hearts all done up and
polished and smartened, hearts fed up, you might say, on arsenic. They
glitter and glisten, and all you can say when you look at them is "By
Jingo!" Yet they are rotten and mouldy. There are hearts in the
ascending and descending scale, hearts of which the better is more
hopeless than the much, much worse, because the worse improves while
the other gradually declines. Well, and so on.
The Krakowitz yard was a little of all this. Bright, clean barns,
miserable wagons, fine drains for the stables, but the stalls badly
placed. An air of whimsicality about the whole place, with a touch of
stinginess or lack of means. From appearances it is difficult to
distinguish between the two. The manor-house--two stories, red brick
faced with yellow stones and overgrown with ivy. In a word, not bad,
something unstudied about it--well, you know what I mean.
"Is the Baron at home?"
"Yes. What name shall I give?"
"Hanckel, Baron Hanckel--Ilgenstein."
"Step in, sir."
So I walked in--everything old--old furniture, old
pictures--worm-eaten, but cosy.
I heard some one begin to curse and swear in the adjoining room.
"The dirty blackguard--the impudence of him--always _was_ a friend of
that Puetz, the cur!"
"Pleasant reception," I thought.
Women's voices joined in.
"Papa, papa!"
"Good Lord! All right! All right!"
Then he came in--gentlemen, if I hadn't just heard it with my own
ears!--holding out his hands, his old sinner's face beaming, his dachs
eyes blinking slily, but with a beam of pleasure in them.
"My dear sir, delighted."
"See here, Krakow," I said, "look out. I heard every word just now."
"What did you hear, what did you hear?"
"The epithets you bestowed on me--dirty blackguard and heaven knows
what else."
"Oh that," he said, without a twitch of his lids. "I tell my wife every
day that the doors are no good. But, my dear sir, you mustn't mind what
I said. I always _have_ been angry that you stood by Puetz. And I tell
you, sir, my womenfolk mix just as good punches as he. If you had come
to us--Iolanthe!--Iolanthe's my daughter. Iolanthe!! The comfort of my
soul! Doesn't hear, doesn't hear. Didn't I just say the doors are no
good? But both those women are at the keyhole now! Will you get away
from there, you hussies? Do you hear their skirts rustling? They're
running away. Ha--ha! Those women!"
Gentlemen, who could take offence? I couldn't. Perhaps I'm too
thick--skinned? But I couldn't.
What did he look like?
The creature didn't reach much above my waist-line. Round, fat,
bow-legged. But that absurd body of his was topped by a regular
apostle's head, either St. Peter's or perhaps St. Andrew's, or
somebody's of the sort. A fine, round, broad beard, with a band of
white running down from each corner of his mouth, yellow parchment
skin, thick crows' feet at the corners of his eyes, the top of his head
bald, but two huge grey bushes over his ears.
The fellow danced about me like wild.
Don't for a moment suppose, gentlemen, that I was taken in by his
goings-on. I had known him long enough. I saw through and through him.
But--call me a simpleton if you will--I couldn't help it--I liked him.
And I liked his surroundings.
There was a little corner at the window with carved oak cabinets all
around--the window overgrown with ivy--very cosy. The sun shone in
bright and clear as in an arbour, and on the table in an ivory bowl was
a ball of worsted, and a copy of _Daheim_, and a piece of nibbled cake.
As I said, altogether comfortable and cosy.
We sat down in the corner, and a maid brought cigars.
The cigars were no good, but the smoke curled so merrily in the
sunshine that I did not pay much attention to their burning away like
matches.
I wanted to begin to talk about my business, but Krakow laid his hand
on my shoulder and said:
"After the coffee!"
"If you please, Krakow," I said.
"After the coffee!"
I courteously enquired about his farming and pretended great interest
in his innovations, about which he boasted extravagantly, though they
were as old as the hills to me.
Then the Baroness came in.
A fine old piece. A slender dame. Long narrow blue eyes, silver hair
under a black lace cap, a melancholy smile, fine yellow hands. A bit
too dainty for a country gentlewoman, and especially for such a boor of
a husband.
She welcomed me with great propriety--while the old man kept screaming
as if possessed.
"Iolanthe--girl--where are you hiding? A bachelor's here--a
suitor--a----"
"Krakow!" I said, completely taken aback. "Don't joke that way about an
old blade like me."
And the Baroness saved me by saying very neatly:
"Don't worry, Baron. We mothers gave you up as hopeless years ago."
"But the girl can come in at any rate," screamed the old fellow.
And finally she came.
Gentlemen, take off your hats! I stood there as if somebody had knocked
me on the head. A thoroughbred, gentlemen, a thoroughbred! A figure
like a young queen's, her hair loose, in a thousand wavelets and
ringlets, golden brown, like the mane of a Barbary steed. Her throat
full, white and voluptuous. Her bosom not too high, and broad and
curving at the sides. In a horse, we call it a lion's chest. And when
she breathed, her whole body seemed to breathe along with her lungs, so
strongly did the air pulsate through that glorious young body.
Gentlemen, you don't have to go in for breeding animals as a passionate
pursuit to know how much toil and effort it costs to produce a perfect
specimen, no matter of what species. And I'm not a woman connoisseur,
and one doesn't have to be, to fold one's hands at the sight of so
perfect a creature and pray, "O Lord, I thank Thee for allowing such a
thing to walk the earth. For as long as such bodies are created we need
have no fear for our souls."
The one thing I did not quite like at first was her eyes. Too pale a
blue, too languishing for such an abundance of life. They seemed to be
soaring towards heaven, and yet, when they narrowed, a searching,
lowering look came into them, the sort of look surly dogs get from
being beaten too often.
Old Krakow caught her by both shoulders and began to brag outrageously.
"This is _my_ work--this is what I brought into being--I'm the father
of this," and so on.
She tried to shake him off and turned scarlet.
Aha, ashamed of him.
Then the ladies got the table ready for coffee. Fresh brown waffles,
preserves after the Russian fashion, gleaming damask, knives and spoons
with buckhorn handles, the fine blue smoke of charcoal puffing up from
the chimney of the brass coffee machine, making everything still
cosier.
We sat there drinking our coffee. Old Krakow blustered, the Baroness
smiled a fine melancholy smile, and Iolanthe made eyes at me.
Yes, gentlemen, made eyes at me. You may be at the time of life when
that sort of thing happens to you none too rarely. But just you get to
be well on in your forties, conscious to the very depths of your soul
of your fatness and baldness, and you'll see how grateful you'll be
even to a housemaid or a barmaid for taking the trouble to ogle you.
And a thousand times more so if she happens to be one of the elite like
this one, a creature allowed to walk this earth by God's grace.
At first I thought I hadn't seen straight, then I stuck my red hands in
my pockets, then I got a fit of coughing, then I swore at myself--"You
blooming idiot! you donkey!"--then I wanted to bolt, and finally I took
to staring into my empty coffee cup. Like an old maid.
But when I looked up--I had to look up now and then--I always met those
great, light-blue languishing eyes. They seemed to say:
"Don't you know I am an enchanted princess whom you are to set free?"
"Do you know why I gave her that crazy name?" the old man asked,
grinning at her slily.
She tossed her head scornfully and stood up. She seemed to know his
jokes.
"This is how it was. She was a week old. She was lying in her cradle
kicking her legs--legs like little sausages. And her little buttocks,
you know----"
Ye gods! I scarcely risked looking up, I was so embarrassed. The
Baroness behaved as if she heard nothing, and Iolanthe left the room.
But the old man shook with laughter.
"Ha--ha--such a rosy mite--such softness, and a shape like a rose leaf.
Well, when I looked at her, I said, in my young father's joy, 'That
girl's going to be beautiful and bad and will kick her legs the
whole of her life. She must have a very poetic name. Then she'll
rise in value with the suitors.' So I looked up names in the
dictionary--Thekla, Hero, Elsa, Angelica. No, they were all too
soft, like squashed plums. With a name like that she'll languish
away for some briefless lawyer. Then Rosaura, Carmen, Beatrice,
Wanda--nixy--too passionate--would elope with the manager of the
estate. Because a person's name is his fate. Finally I found Iolanthe.
Iolanthe melts so sweetly on your tongue--just the name for lovers--and
yet it doesn't lead on to silly freaks. It is both tempting and
dignified. It lures a man on, but inspires him with serious intentions,
too. That's the way I calculated, and my calculations have turned out
to be quite right so far, if in the end she doesn't remain on my hands
on account of her affectation and squeamishness."
At this point Iolanthe came into the room again. Her eyes were half
closed and she was smiling like a child in disgrace. I was sorry for
the poor pretty creature, and to turn the conversation quickly, I began
to speak about the business I had come on.
The ladies cleared the table without speaking, and the old man filled
the half-charred bowl of his pipe. He seemed inclined to listen
patiently.
But scarcely did the name Puetz cross my lips when he jumped up and
dashed his pipe against the stove so that the burning tobacco leaves
flew about in all directions. The mere sight of his face was enough to
frighten you. It turned red and blue and swelled up as if he had been
seized with a stroke of apoplexy.
"Sir-r-r!" he shouted. "Is that the reason you visited me--to poison my
home? Don't you know that that d---- name is not to be breathed in this
house? Don't you know I curse the fellow in his grave, and curse his
brood, and curse all----"
At this point he choked and was seized with a fit of coughing and had
to sink down into his upholstered chair. The Baroness gave him
sweetened water to drink.
I took up my hat without saying anything. Then I happened to notice
Iolanthe standing there white as chalk, with her hands folded, and
looking at me as if in her shame and misery she wished to beg my
pardon, or expected something like help from me.
I wanted to say good-bye at least. So I waited quietly until I felt I
might assume that the old man, who was lying there groaning and
panting, was in a condition to understand me. Then I said:
"Baron von Krakow, you must realise, of course, that after such an
attack upon my friend and his son, whom I love as if he were my own,
our relations----"
He pounded with his hands and feet as a sign to me not to go on
speaking, and after trying several times to catch his breath, he
finally succeeded in saying:
"That asthma--the devil take it--like a halter around your
neck--snap--your throat goes shut. But what's that you're cackling
about _our_ relations? _Our_ relations, that is, your and my relations,
there never has been anything wrong with them, my dear sir. They are
the best relations in the world. If I insulted that litigious fellow,
the--the--noble man, I take it all back and call myself a vile cur.
Only nobody must speak to me about him. I don't want to be reminded
that he has a son and heir. To me he's dead, you see--he's dead, dead,
dead."
He cut the air three times with his fist, and looked at me
triumphantly, as if he had dealt my friend Puetz his death-blow.
"Nevertheless, Baron----" I started to say.
"No neverthelessing here. You are my friend! You are the friend of my
family--look at my womenfolk--completely smitten. Don't be ashamed,
Iolanthe! Just make eyes at him, child. Do you think I don't see
anything, goosie?"
She did not blush nor did she seem to be abashed, but raised her folded
hands slightly. It was such a touching, helpless gesture that it
completely disarmed me. So I sat down again for a few moments and spoke
about indifferent matters. Then I took leave as soon as I could without
provoking him again.
"Go to the door with him, Iolanthe," said the old man, "and be charming
to him. He's the richest man in the district."
At that we all laughed. But walking beside me in the twilight of the
hall, Iolanthe said very softly, with a sort of timid grief:
"I know you don't want to come again."
"No, I don't," I said frankly, and was about to give my reasons, when
she suddenly snatched up my hand, pressed it between her slim white
palms, and said, half crying:
"Oh, come again! Please, please come again."
That's the way you're taken in. Old nincompoop that I was, I went daft
on the instant.
In my excitement I chewed up the whole of my cigar on the ride home,
forgetting to light it.
I made right for a mirror--lit all the lights, locked the door--back to
the mirror. Examined myself front and back, and, with the help of my
shaving mirror, my noble profile, too.
Result--crushing. A heavy bald pate, bull's neck, puffs under my eyes,
double chin, my skin a fiery russet, like a glowing copper kettle.
And what was worse than all that--when I looked at myself in all my six
feet of bulk, a chandelier went up. I knew why everybody immediately
called me a "good fellow." Even in the regiment they used to call me a
good fellow.
Once you are branded with a Cain's mark like that, the rest of your
life turns into nothing but a series of events to prove the truth of
it. People come to you with hard-luck stories, you're a butt for their
jokes, they blarney you and borrow from you. If once you make a timid
attempt to defend yourself, then they say, "Why I thought you were a
good fellow!" So you can't get out of it. You are and you remain a good
fellow. You've been stamped and sealed.
And then you, a good fellow, want to take up with women? With women,
who languish for the Mephistophelean, who, to love properly, want to be
deserted, duped, and generally maltreated.
"Hanckel, don't be an ass," I said to myself. "Go away from the mirror,
put out the lights, knock those silly dreams out of your head, and get
into bed."
Gentlemen, I had a bed--and still have it--a perfectly ordinary bed, as
narrow as a coffin, of pine, stained red--no springs, no mattress--a
deerskin instead. Twice a year it is filled with fresh straw. That was
the extent of my luxury. Gentlemen, there are many stories about the
poor camp cots of persons in high life. You see them on exhibition in
castles and historical museums, and when the visitors are herded past
them, they invariably clasp their hands and dutifully exclaim:
"What power of renunciation! What Spartan simplicity!"
Buncombe, gentlemen! You can't sleep more comfortably anywhere than on
a bed like that--provided, of course, that you have a good day's work
_behind_ you, a good conscience _within_ you, and no woman _beside_
you--which all amount to about the same thing.
You stretch yourself deliciously until your feet just touch the bottom
of the bed, you bite the comfortable a few times, burrow in the
pillows, reach out for a good book lying on the table next to the bed,
and groan from sheer bliss.
That's what I did that night after the tempter had left me, and as I
slowly dozed off I thought:
"Well, well, no woman will make you traitor to your dear, hard, narrow
bachelor's sack of straw, even if her name is Iolanthe, and even if she
is the finest thoroughbred that ever galloped about on God's lovely
pastures.
"Perhaps all the less so.
"Because--who knows?"