What I had dreaded, gentlemen, did not come about.
Evidently, I had underestimated my popularity in the district. My
engagement met with general favour, both among the gentry and the rest
of the people. Nothing but beaming faces when they shook hands and
congratulated me.
To be sure, at such a time the whole world is in a conspiracy to lure a
man on still farther along the road to his fate. People are nice and
amiable to you and then, just when something threatens to go wrong,
they turn on you snapping and snarling.
However that may be, I gradually got rid of my feeling of shame, and
behaved as if I had a right to so much youth and beauty.
My old sister's attitude was touching, even though she was the only one
whom my marriage would directly injure. On my wedding day she was to
retire from Ilgenstein to be shelved at Gorowen, a family home of ours
for maiden ladies and dowagers.
She shed streams of tears, tears of joy, and declared her prayers had
been heard, and she was in love with Iolanthe before she had seen her.
But what would Puetz have said, Puetz who had always wanted me to marry
and had never got me to?
"I'll make up to his son for it," I thought.
I wrote Lothar a long letter. I half begged his pardon for having gone
a-wooing in his enemy's house and expressed the hope that in this way
the old breach would be healed.
I waited a long time for his answer. When it came, just a few dry words
of congratulation and a line to say he would delay his return until
after the wedding day, since it would pain him to be at home on that
joyous occasion and yet not be able to be with me.
That, gentlemen, piqued me. I really liked the boy, you know.
Oh, yes--and Iolanthe troubled me. Troubled me greatly, gentlemen.
She showed no real delight, you know. When I came, I found a pale, cold
face. Her eyes seemed positively blurred by the dismal look in them. It
was not until I had her to myself in a corner and got into a lively
talk that she gradually brightened and even showed a certain childlike
tenderness toward me.
But, gentlemen, I was so nice. Awfully nice, I tell you! I treated her
as if she were the famous princess who could not sleep with a pea under
her mattress. Every day I discovered in myself a new delicacy of
feeling. I became quite proud of my delicate constitution. Only
sometimes I yearned for a naughty joke or a good round curse word.
And that constantly having to be on the watch-out was a great exertion,
you know. I'm a warm-hearted fellow, I'm glad to say, and I can
anticipate another person's wants. Without any fuss or to-do. But I was
like a blindfolded tight-rope dancer. One misstep on the right--one
misstep on the left--plop!--down he falls.
And when I came home to my great empty house, where I could shout,
curse, whistle, and do, heaven knows what else, to my heart's content
without insulting some one or setting some one a-shudder, a sense of
comfort tickled me up and down my backbone, and I sometimes said to
myself:
"Thank the Lord, you're still a free man."
But not for long. Nothing stood in the way of the wedding. It was to
take place in six weeks.
My dear old Ilgenstein fell into the hands of a tyrannical horde of
workmen, who turned everything topsy-turvy. If I expressed a wish,
"Baron," they'd say, "that is not in good taste." Well, I let them have
their way. At that time I still had slavish respect for so-called "good
taste." It was not until much later that I realised that in most cases
back of "good taste" there is nothing but lack of real taste.
Well, to cut it short, the bunch of them carried on so fearfully in the
name of that cursed "good taste" that finally nothing was left in my
dear old castle but my hunting-room and study. Here I emphatically put
my foot down on good taste.
And my narrow old cot! Nobody, of course, was allowed to touch that.
Gentlemen, that cot!
And now listen.
One day my sister, who stood in with the vile crew, came to my
room--with a certain bitter-sweet, bashful smile--the kind old maids
always smile when the question of how children come into the world is
touched upon.
"I have something to say to you, George," she said, cleared her throat,
and peered into the corners.
"Fire away."
"Has it occurred to you," she stammered, "I mean, of course--I
mean--you see--you won't be able to sleep any more in that horrible
straw bag of a bed of yours."
"Now, then, do let me have my comfort," I said.
"You don't understand," she lisped, getting more confused. "I mean
after--when--I mean after the wedding."
The devil! I had never thought of that! And I, old sinner though I was,
I looked just as shamefaced as she.
"I'll have to speak to the cabinet-maker," I said.
"George," she observed with a very important air, "forgive me, but I
understand more about such matters than you."
"Eh, eh," I said, and shook my finger at her. It had always been such
fun for me to shock her old-maidishness.
She blushed scarlet, and said:
"I saw wonderful, perfectly wonderful bedroom furniture at my friends,
Frau von Housselle and Countess Finkenstein. You _must_ have your
bedroom furnished the same way."
"Go ahead," I said.
I'll have to tell you, gentlemen, why I gave in so easily. I knew my
father-in-law-to-be, the old miser, would not want to spend a single
cent on a trousseau. So I had said I had everything. Then I had to
hustle and order whatever was needed from Berlin and Koenigsberg. Of
course, I had forgotten about the bed.
"What would you rather have," my sister went on, "pink silk covered
with plain net, or blue with Valenciennes lace? Perhaps it would be a
good idea to tell the decorator who is doing the dining-room to paint a
few Cupids on the ceiling."
Oh, oh, oh, gentlemen, fancy! I and Cupids!
"The bed," she continued mercilessly, "can't be made to order any
more."
"What," I said, "not in six weeks?"
"Why, George! The drawings, the plans alone require a month."
I glanced sadly at my dear old bed--it hadn't needed any plans. Just
six boards and four posts knocked together in one morning.
"The best thing would be," she went on, "if we wrote to Lothar and
asked him to pick out the best piece he can find in the Berlin shops."
"Do whatever you want, but let me alone," I said angrily. As she was
leaving the room looking hurt, I called after her: "Be sure to impress
upon the decorator to make the Cupids look like me."
That, gentlemen, will give you an idea of my bridal mood.
And the nearer the wedding day came, the uncannier I felt.
Not that I was afraid--or, rather, I was frightfully afraid--but apart
from that, I felt as if I were to blame, as if some wrong were being
done, as if--how shall I say?
If I had only known who was being wronged. Not Iolanthe, because it was
her wish. Not myself--I was what they call the happiest mortal in the
world. Lothar? Perhaps. The poor fellow had looked on me as his second
father, and I was removing the ground from beneath his feet by going
over bag and baggage to the enemy's camp.
So that was the way I kept the promise I had made my old friend Puetz on
his deathbed.
Gentlemen, any of you who, under the pressure of circumstances, have
found yourselves in the council of the wicked--that thing happens once
in his life to every good man--will understand me.
I thought and thought day and night and chewed my nails bloody. As I
saw no other way out of the situation, I decided to heal the breach at
my own expense.
It wasn't so easy for me, because you know, gentlemen, we country
squires cling to our few dollars. But what doesn't one do when one is
officially a "good fellow"?
So one afternoon I went to see my father-in-law-elect, and found him in
his so-called study lolling on the lounge. I put the proposition of a
reconciliation to him somewhat hesitatingly--to sound him, of course.
As I expected, he instantly flew into a rage, stormed, choked, turned
blue, and declared he'd show me the door.
"How if Lothar sees he's wrong and gives up the case as lost?" I asked.
Gentlemen, have you ever tickled a badger? I mean a tame or a half-tame
one? When he blinks at you with his sleepy little eyes, half
suspicious, half pleased, and keeps on snarling softly? That's just the
way the old fellow behaved.
"He won't," he said after a while.
"But if he does?" I asked.
"Then you'll be the one to fork up for the whole business," he
answered--the fox--quick as a flash.
"Should I lie?" I thought. "Ah--bah, the devil!" And I confessed.
"Nope," he said point-blank. "Won't do, my boy. I won't accept it."
"Why not?"
"On account of the children, of course. I must think of my
grandchildren, in case you are magnanimous enough to present me with
some. I can't bequeath anything to them, so should I rob them besides?
I'll win the suit in all events, even if it lasts a few years longer. I
can wait."
I set to work to try to persuade him.
"The money remains in the family," I said. "I pay it and you get it.
After your death it will revert to me, of course."
"Aha! You're already counting on my death?" he shouted, and began to
rage and storm again. "Do you want me to lay myself in my grave alive,
so that you can round off your estate with Krakowitz? I suppose it has
been a thorn in your eyes a long time, my beautiful Krakowitz has."
There was no use struggling against such a bundle of unreason, so I
determined upon force.
"This is my ultimatum, father," I said, "settlement and reconciliation
with Lothar Puetz are the sole conditions upon which I enter your
family. If you don't agree I shall have to ask Iolanthe to set me
free."
That brought him round.
"A man can't express the least little bit of feeling to you," he said.
"I think of your children, the poor unborn little mites, and you
immediately think of breaking your engagement and all that sort of
thing. If you insist, I won't interfere with your pleasure. I have no
personal feelings against Lothar Puetz. On the contrary, I'm told he is
a magnificent fellow, a smart rider, a dashing young sport. But my dear
man, I'll give you a good piece of advice. You're going to have a young
girl for your wife. If she were not my own daughter and so raised above
suspicion, I should suggest, 'Pick a quarrel with him, make him your
enemy, insist upon payment of old loans instead of making a new one.'
Nothing so sure as a sure thing, you know."
Gentlemen, until then I had taken him humorously, but from that moment
on I hated him. Just let the wedding be over, then I'd shake him off.
There was still one difficult thing to do, convince Lothar that the old
fellow admitted he had been wrong and had decided to give up the suit.
The coup succeeded. It surprised Lothar so little that he even forgot
to thank me.
Very well, all the same to me!
I've already told you enough about Iolanthe.
The tissue of such a relation, with its attempts at intimacy and its
chills, with its ebb and flow of confidence and timidity, hope and
despair, is too finely woven for my coarse hands to try to spread it
out before you.
To her credit be it said, she honestly attempted to accommodate herself
to me.
She tried to discover my likes and dislikes. She even tried to adapt
her thoughts to mine. Unfortunately she could not find very much there.
Where she in the freshness of her mind took it for granted that there
were live interests, there was often nothing but land long before
turned waste. That is what is so horrible about growing old. It slowly
deadens one nerve after the other. As we approach the fifties, both
work and rest conspire to make an end of us.
Just then red neckties were in fashion. I wore a red necktie, and also
pointed boots, and silk lapels on my coat.
I presented Iolanthe with rich gifts, a pearl necklace, which cost
three thousand dollars, and a famous solitaire that had come up for
auction in Paris. Every day roses and orchids were shipped to her from
my hothouses--but by express, because my flowers were less valuable
than my colts.
By the way, my colts, you know--but no, I didn't set out to tell about
my colts.