'Are you actually left alone?' said Madame Olga gaily to him that
evening, when they met at an embassy. 'I thought Wanda was an Una, who
never let her lion loose?'
'The remembrance of her would recall him if she did,' he answered
quickly and coldly. 'She does not believe in chains because she does
not need them.'
'Most knightly of men!' she said, with a little laugh. 'It must be very
fatiguing to have to play the part you so affect, even in absence. Our
metaphors are involved, but your loyalty seems one and indivisible. I
suppose you are left on parole?'
The departure of his wife had disconcerted and disappointed her; as
he, to realise his position, had required to have the world about him
as spectator of it, so she felt all her triumph over him powerless and
pointless if Wanda von Szalras were not there to suffer by the sight
of it. He had remained; that was much; but she felt that the absence
of his wife had made him colder to herself, that the blank left made a
void between them, that remembrance might be more potent with him than
vicinity; and his consciousness that he was trusted might have more
power than any interference or opposition would have had. She became
sensible that she had less charm for him; that he was less easily
moved by her mockery and attracted by her wit. His earlier animosity
to her still flashed fire now and then, and with this sense of revived
resistance in him her own feeling, which had been born of caprice, took
giant growth as a passion. She grew cruel in it. If she could only know
his secret she thought she would crush him with it, grind him under her
foot, torture him. There was a touch of the tigress under her feverish
and artificial life.
'_Il faut brusquer la chose_,' she said savagely to herself, when he
had been alone in Paris about a fortnight, and each day had convinced
her that he grew more wary of her, more unwilling to surrender himself
to the fascination which she exercised upon his baser nature. When
she attempted jests at his wife he stopped her sternly, and she felt
that she lost ground with him. Yet she had still a power upon him; an
unhealthy and fatal power. When he looked at her he thought often of
two lines:--
'O Venus! shöne Frau meine,
Ihr seyd eine Teufelinne.'
'Wanda writes to you every day?' she asked once.
'She writes often,' he answered.
'And what does she say of me?'
'Nothing!'
'Nothing? What does she write about? Of the priest's sermons and the
horses' coughs, of how much wood has been cut, and how many shoes the
children wear, of how she sorrows for you, and says Latin prayers for
you twice a day?'
His face darkened.
'Madame my cousin,' he said irritably, 'will you understand that men do
not like their religion spoken lightly of? My wife is my religion.'
Then Madame Olga laughed with silvery, hysterical laughter, and clapped
her hands as if she were applauding a good comedy, and cried shrilly:
'_Oh! la bonne blague!_'
But she knew very well that it was not '_blague._' She knew very well,
too, that though he was subjugated by a certain sorcery when in her
presence, when absent, his good taste condemned, and his good sense
escaped, her. She was one of those women who have a thousand means of
usurping a man's time, and are not scrupulous if some of those measures
are bold ones. All her admirers tacitly left the field open to one
for whom she made no scruple of her preference; and, under pretext of
her relationship to him, she contrived many ways to bring him beside
her. Every day he said to himself that he would go home on the morrow;
but each day bore its diversions, its claims, its interests, and each
day found him in Paris, sometimes driving her to the Cascade, to St.
Germain, to Versailles, sometimes escorting her to the tribune of a
race-course, or a _première_ at a theatre, sometimes dining with her
in her pretty room, the table strewn with rose-leaves, and the windows
open upon flowering orange trees.
When he wrote home he wrote eloquent, witty, clever letters; but he did
not speak in them of the woman with whom he spent so much of his time,
and his wife as she read them wished that they had been less clever,
and had said more. She began to fear lest she had done unwisely. She
did not repent, for it seemed to her that she could have done nothing
else with any self-esteem; but she dreaded lest she had over-estimated
the power of her own memory upon him. Yet even so, she thought, it
was better that he should degrade himself and her in her absence than
her presence; and she still felt a certainty--baseless, perhaps--that
he would yet pause in time before he actually gave her a rival in her
cousin's wife.
'If it were any other,' she thought, 'he might fall; but with Olga,
never! never!'
And she prayed for him half the night, till her prayer seemed to beat
against the very gates of heaven. But in the day, to her children, to
the Princess, to the household, she seemed always tranquil, cheerful,
and at ease. She applied herself arduously to all those duties which
her great estates had always brought with them, and in occupation
and exertion strove to keep her anxiety at bay, and attain that
self-control which enabled her to write in return to him letters which
had no shade of reproach in them, no hint of distrust.
It was now June.
The Paris of the world of fashion was soon about to take wing, to
disperse itself to country-houses, sea-shores, and foreign baths; to
change its place, but to take with it wheresoever it should go all its
agitation, its weariness, its fever, its delirium, and its intrigues.
Olga Brancka saw the close of the season approach with regret yet
expectation. She knew that Sabran must escape her or succumb to her;
and she had a bitter, enraged sense that the power of his wife was
stronger over him than her own. '_Il faut brusquer la chose_,' she
said again and again to herself. She grew reckless, imprudent, and
was tempted to discard even that external decency which her station
in the world had made her assume. She would have compromised herself
for him with any publicity he might have chosen to exact. But she had
never been able to beguile him into any sort of declaration. When he
most felt the danger of her attraction, when he was nearest forgetting
honour and decency, nearest submitting, the memory of his wife saved
him. He recovered his coolness; he drew back from the abyss. Once or
twice she was tempted to throw the name of Vassia Kazán between them
and watch its effect; but she refrained--she knew so little!
'You will not take me to Romaris?' she said, for the hundredth time,
one evening, as they rode towards St. Germain's.
He laughed.
'_Cousinette_! if you and I went off to Finisterre you will confess
that we should make a pretty paragraph for the papers, and Count
Stefan would have a very good right to run me through the lungs.'
'Stefan!' she echoed, with contempt. 'It would be the first time he
ever----Besides, you have had duels; you are not afraid of them; and,
yet again, besides I do not see what harm we should do if we looked at
your _chouans_ and _chasse-marées_ for a few days. No one need even
know it.'
She spoke quite innocently, but her black eyes watched him with the
'Teufelinne' cunning and passion. He caught the look. He put his hand
in the breast-pocket of his coat, where a letter of his wife's was
lying.
'It is out of the question,' he said, almost rudely. 'I have no wish to
furnish _Figaro_ with so good a jest. Romaris,' he added, with a smile,
'is of course at your service, like all I possess, if you are so bent
upon seeing its desolation. But you must pardon my receiving you by
deputy, in the person of the curé, who is seventy years old and is the
son of a fisherman.'
She cut her mare across the ears with a fierce gesture and galloped
away from him. Sabran as he galloped after her thought with a vague
apprehension, 'Why does she dwell on Romaris? Does she suspect that I
abhor the place? Can she have seen anything in my looks or in my words
that has raised any doubts in her?' But he told himself that this was
impossible. As she rode her heart swelled with rage and mortification.
There were many men in the world who would have been happy to go at
her call to Breton wilds, or any other solitude; and he refused her,
bluntly, coldly, because away there in the heart of Austria a woman,
who was the mother of his children, span, and read, and said her
prayers, and led her stupid, blameless, stately life! He escaped her
just because that woman lived! All that hot, cruel caprice which she
called love fastened upon him, and swore that it would not be denied.
She had a sense of a grand white figure which stood for ever betwixt
him and her. She brought herself almost to believe that it was Wanda
von Szalras who wronged her.
Two nights later she was present at the last night of a gay comic
opera which had made all Paris laugh ever since the first fogs of
winter; a dazzling little opera, with a stage crowded by Louis Treize
costumes, and music that went as trippingly as a shepherdess's feet
in a pastoral. Sabran went to her box after a dinner-party which
he had given to a score of men. She looked well, in a gown of many
shades of yellow, which few women could have braved, but which suited
her night-like eyes and her pearly skin; she had deep yellow roses,
natural ones, in her bosom and hair.
'I am flattered that you wear my yellow roses,' he murmured.
'If you had sent me white ones you would have outraged the spirit of
Wanda.'
He made an impatient movement.
'When are you going home?' she said, suddenly.
'Soon!' he answered, with the same impatience.
'Soon means anything, from an hour to a year. Besides, you have said it
for the last six weeks.'
'Do you go to Noisettiers?'
'Of course I go to Noisettiers; you can come there if you please. I am
more hospitable than you.'
He was silent. Noisettiers was a little place on the Norman
coast, which Stefan Brancka had given to her on his marriage; a
pleasure-house, with Swiss roofs, Cairene windows, Italian balconies
and a Persian court, which was bowered amongst lime-trees and filbert
trees, near Villeville, and had been the scene of much riotous
midsummer gaiety when she had filled it with Parisians and Russians.
'You are always too good to me,' murmured Sabran, in the meaningless
compliment of usage, as other men entered her box. But she knew by the
coldness of his eyes, by the slightness of his smile, that he would no
more go to Noisettiers than to Romaris.
'If Wanda had only remained here,' she thought angrily, opening and
shutting her tortoiseshell fan, 'he would have done whatever I had
chosen. Men are mere children; thwart them and they pine.
'I suppose,' she said aloud to him, 'you will have your own
house-parties at Hohenszalras, as stiff as a minuet, crammed with
grand dukes and grand duchesses, all decorum and dignity, all ennui
and etiquette? By-the-by, are you restored again to the Emperor's good
graces?'
'It is not likely that I shall be so,' replied Sabran, who always
dreaded the subject. 'If ever I be so fortunate I shall owe it to the
influence Wanda possesses.'
'Why did you offend him?' she said, bending her inquisitive glance upon
him.
'All sovereigns are offended when not obeyed. We have discussed this so
often. Need we discuss it again in a theatre?'
'You are very impenetrable,' she said. 'Your rule of conduct
must follow the lines of M. de. Nothomb's '_il ne faut jamais se
brouiller, ni se familiariser, avec qui que ce soit: c'est le secret
de durer._'
'M. de Nothomb only meant his rule to apply to his own sex,' replied
Sabran. 'With yours, unless a man be either _familiarisé_ or
_brouillé_, his life must be dull and his experience small.'
'Which will you be with me?' she said, with significance. 'The choice
is open.'
He understood that the words contained a menace.
'I am your cousin and your humble servitor,' he said with gallantry,
giving his place up to a young Spanish noble.
'Take me home,' she said to him an hour later, before the last scene of
the opera. 'Come to supper. I told them to have ortolans and bisque.
One is always hungry after a theatre, and we must have a last long
talk, since you go to your duties and I to my sea-bathing.'
He desired to refuse; he dreaded her inquisitiveness and her
solicitation; but she had a magic about her, she subdued him to her
side even while he mentally resisted it. The fleshly charm of the
'Teufelinne' was potent as he wrapped her cloak about her and touched
the yellow roses as he fastened it. Almost in silence he entered her
carriage, and drove beside her to her house. She was silent also,
affecting to yawn and be tired, but by the gleam of the lamp he saw
her great black eyes glowing in the darkness, as he had seen those
of a jaguar in the forests of America glow, as it watched to seize a
sleeping lizard or unweary capybara.
The few streets were soon traversed by her rapid Russian horses, and
together they entered the little hotel, with its strong perfume of
orange flowers and jessamine from the garden about it. The midsummer
stars were brilliant overhead; he looked up at them, pausing on the
threshold.
'You are thinking how they shine on Wanda?' she said, with the laugh he
hated. 'Probably they do nothing of the kind. I dare say she is wrapped
in fog and cloud: those are the joys of the heights.'
The little supper was perfectly prepared, and served with a fine claret
and some tokayer; the lights burned mellowly in the transparent gourds;
the windows were open, the moonlight touched the great gold birds, the
silver lilies on the walls. She had studied how to live and how to
please. She held that love was born as much out of scenic effects as of
the senses. In her own way she was a true artist. She had left him a
few moments to change her attire to a tea-gown, which was one cloud and
cascade of lace from head to foot; the yellow roses still nestled at
her breast.
Stretched on a divan of oriental stuff, she put out her hand for a
cigar he lighted for her, and said with a little smile:
'You cannot say I do not know how to live.'
A brutal response rose to his lips; she did not know how to bridle her
life: but he could not say it. He murmured a compliment, and added:
'What a supreme artist the theatre has lost by your being born with a
Countess's _couronne!_'
'Yes,' she said, with her eyes on the rings of smoke that her crimson
lips parted to send upward. 'Sometimes when Stefan does not give me
liberty, or Egon does not pay my accounts, I make them both tremble by
a threat that I will go on the stage. I should certainly draw all Paris
and all Vienna too. But perhaps it is too late; in a few more years I
shall have to marry my daughters. Can you realise that? I am sure I
cannot. Now it will suit Wanda perfectly to do that, and _her_ daughter
is not three years old; she is always so fortunate.'
He listened impatiently.
'If we left Wanda's name alone it might be better. Did you bring me to
supper to talk of her?'
'No; she is your Madonna, I know. One must not be sacrilegious, but one
cannot always worship. You do not touch the tokayer; it came from the
Kaiser; you are always so abstemious--you irritate me.'
She poured out some of the wine, into a jewel-like goblet of Venice,
and gave it him and made him drink it. She sat up on her divan and
leaned towards him; the breeze from the garden stirred the laces of her
gown and made the golden roses nod.
Wine openeth the heart of man,' she cried gaily. 'Open yours and tell
me frankly why you refused to go to Russia? We are not in a theatre
now.'
'Are we not?' he said, with the smile which she feared as her greatest
foe. 'Whether or not, I fear I must refuse to please you; the matter
lies between me and--the Emperor.'
She remarked the hesitation which made him pause before the last word.
'Between him and Egon,' she thought; but after all, what was the secret
to her except as a means of influence over him. She believed that she
had here present subtler and surer methods of influence which could
attain their end without coercion.
She ceased to pursue the theme, and grew gentle and winning; she felt
that he was on the defensive. He had come weakly enough into the very
heart of temptation, but he was on his guard against her sorceries.
Lying back amongst her cushions she amused him with that gay and
discursive chatter of which she had the secret, and which imperceptibly
induced him to relax his vigilance and to feel her charm. There was
that about, her which made all scruples seem ridiculous; there was
a contagion of levity and mockery in her which awakened in him the
cynicism of earlier years, and made him only heed the marvellous force
of seduction of which she was mistress.
'You ought to be ambitious,' she continued softly. 'I think you might
achieve any eminence if you chose to seek it.'
'Surely I have enough blessings from fortune not to tempt it by that
last infirmity?'
'You mean you have married a very rich aristocrat,' she said drily.
'Oh, yes; you have made one of the finest marriages in Europe; but
that is not quite the same thing as "winning off your own hand." It is
a lucky _coup_, like breaking the bank at _roulette_, but it cannot
give you the same feeling that a successful soldier or a successful
politician has, nor the same eminence. Indeed, I am not sure that your
wife's possession of every possible good and great thing has not
prevented you gathering laurels for yourself. You have dropped into a
nest lined with rose-leaves; to have fallen on the rocks might have
been better. Do you know,' she added, with a little smile, 'if I had
been your wife I should have given you no rest until you had become the
foremost man of the empire. I should not have cared about horses and
peasants and children; but I should have loved _you._'
He moved uneasily, conscious of the implied satire upon his wife,
conscious also of a vibration of intense passion in the last words. He
remained silent.
He knew well that had she been his wife, she would have been as false
to him as she was false to Stefan Brancka. But the words sent a thrill
through him half of emotion, half of repugnance. There was little light
on the divan where she reclined, the dewy darkness of the garden was
behind her; he could see the outlines of her form, the glister of rings
on her hands, and jewels at her throat, the shine of her eyes watching
him ardently.
His heart beat with a certain excitation; he vaguely felt that some
hour of fate had come.
They were as utterly alone as though they had been in a desert; no one
of her household would have ventured to approach that room without a
summons from her. A little drummer in silver beat twelve strokes upon
his drum, which was a clock. A nightingale was singing in the Cape
jessamine beneath one of the casements. The light was low and soft,
so faint that the moonbeams could be seen where they strayed over the
cranes and lilies on the wall. She said to herself once more: '_Il faut
brusquer la chose._' If she let him go now he would escape her for ever.
Ever and again there came to him the memory of his wife, but he shrank
from it as he would have shrunk from seeing her in a gambling den. It
seemed almost a profanity to remember her here. He longed to rise and
get away, yet he desired to remain. He knew that every moment increased
his danger, and yet he prolonged those moments with irresistible
pleasure. Every gesture, glance, and breath of this woman was
provocative and alluring, yet he thought as he felt her power always
the same thing--'_ihr seyd eine Teufelinne._' Willingly he would have
embraced her and then killed her, that she might no more haunt him and
do no more harm on earth.
As he sat with his face half averted from her she gazed at him with her
burning, covetous eyes; the droop of his eyelids, the curves of his
lips, the fairness of his features all seemed to her more beautiful
than they had ever done; the very disquiet and coldness that were in
them only allured her the more. She leaned nearer still and took his
wrist in her fingers.
'Come to Noisettiers,' she murmured.
'No,' he said, sharply and sternly, but he did not withdraw his hand.
'Why not?' she said, with her whole person swayed towards him as by
an irresistible impulse. 'Why do you affect to be of ice? You are not
indifferent to me. You only obey what you think a law of honour. Why do
you try to do that? There is only one law--love.'
He strove to draw away from him, but feebly, the clinging of her warm
fingers. The caress of her breath on his cheek, the scent of the roses
in her breast intoxicated him for the instant. She bent nearer and
nearer, and still held him closely in her slender hands, which were as
strong as steel.
'You love me?' she murmured, so low that it scarce stirred the air,
and yet had all the potency of hell in it. A shudder went over him;.
the baseness of voluptuous impulse and the revulsion of conscious
shamefulness shook his strength as though it were a reed in the wind.
For a moment his arms enclosed her, his heart beat against hers; then
he thrust her away from him and rose to his feet.
'Love, you? No, a thousand times, no!' he said with unutterable scorn.
'You are a shameless temptress; you can rouse the beast that lies hid
in all men. I despise you, I detest you--I could kiss you and kill you
in a breath; but love!--how dare you speak the word? Mine is hers; I am
hers: if I sinned to her with you I would strangle you when I awoke!'
All the fierceness and the barbaric strength of the blood of desert
and of steppe broke up in him from underneath the courtesy and calm
of many long years of culture. He was born of men who had slain their
mistresses for a glance, and ravished; their captives in war, and
yielded them to no release but death, and his hereditary instincts
broke the bonds of custom and of habit, and spoke in him now as a wild
animal breaks its bars and leaps up in frank brutality of wrath. He
thrust her backward and backward from him, rose to his feet, wrenched
aside with rude hand the eastern stuffs that hung before the door, and
left her presence and her house before any power of voice or movement
had come back to her.
As he pushed past the waiting servants in the vestibule, and went
through the courtyard and the gateway, he looked up once again at the
stars shining overhead.
'Wanda! Wanda!' he said with a deep breath, as men may call in their
extremity on God.