BARONESS PAULA.
The unexpected entrance of the famous beauty produces two important
results,--the final cessation of the reading of 'Parzifal,' and a
temporary reconciliation between Wenkendorf and Countess Zriny.
Whilst Frau Rosamunda receives her guest, not without a degree of
formal reserve, the two aforesaid worthy and inquisitive individuals
retire to a corner to consult together as to where these Harfinks come
from, to whom they are related, the age of their patent of nobility,
and where they got their money.
Since neither knows much about the Harfinks, their curiosity is
ungratified. Meanwhile, Baroness Paula, lounging in a garden-chair
beside the majestic hostess, chatters in a lively fashion upon every
conceivable topic, as much at her ease as if she had been a daily guest
at Zirkow for years. Her full voice is rather loud, her fluent
vocabulary astounding. She wears a green Russia linen gown with Turkish
embroidery on the skirt and a Venetian necklace around her throat,
with an artistically-wrought clasp in front of her closely-fitting
waist. The effect of her cosmopolitan toilet is considerably enhanced
by a very peaked Paris bonnet--all feathers--and a pair of English
driving-gloves. She has come in her pony-carriage, which she drives
herself. Not taking into account her dazzling toilet, Paula is
certainly a pretty person,--very fully developed and well grown,
with perhaps too short a waist and arms a trifle too stout. Her
features are regular, but her face is too large, and its tints of red
and white are not sufficiently mingled; her lips are too full, the
dimples in her cheeks are too deep when she smiles. Her hair is
uncommonly beautiful,--golden, with a shimmer of Titian red.
Her manner corresponds with her exterior. There is not a trace of
maidenly reserve about her. Her self-satisfaction is impregnable. She
talks freely of things of which young girls do not usually talk, and
knows things which young girls do not usually know.
She is clever and well educated,--left school with honours and
listened to all possible university lectures afterwards. She scatters
about Latin quotations like an old professor, and talks about
everything,--the new battle panorama in Vienna, the latest greenroom
scandal in Pesth, the most recent scientific hypothesis, and the last
interesting English divorce case. One cannot help feeling that she has
brought a certain life into the dead-and-alive little company which had
failed to be enlivened by the reading of 'Parzifal.'
"_Quelle type!_" Wenkendorf remarks to Countess Zriny.
"_Epouvantable!_" she whispers.
"_Epouvantable!_" he responds, staring meanwhile at the brilliant
apparition. "Her figure is not bad, though," he adds.
"Not bad?" the Countess repeats, indignantly. "Why, she has the figure
of a country bar-maid; involuntarily one fancies her in short
petticoats, with her arms full of beer-mugs."
The Baron shakes his head, as if reflecting that there is nothing so
very unattractive in the image of the young lady in the costume of a
bar-maid; at the same time, however, he declares with emphasis that
these Harfinks seem to be odious _canaille_, which, although it is
perhaps his conviction, does not hinder him from admiring Paula.
All the gentlemen present admire her, and all three, the major, the
Baron, and Harry, are soon grouped about her, while the ladies at the
other end of the room converse,--that is, make disparaging remarks with
regard to the Baroness Paula.
Harry, of the three men, is most pressing in his attentions, which
amount almost to devotion. Whatever he may whisper to her she listens
to with the unblushing ease which makes life so smooth for her.
Sometimes she represses him slightly, and anon provokes his homage.
The ladies hope for a while, but in vain, that she will go soon. She is
pleased to take a cup of afternoon tea, after which all return to the
house, where at Harry's request she makes a display of her musical
acquirements.
First she plays, with extreme force and much use of the pedals, upon
the venerable old piano, unused to such treatment, even from the major,
the ride of the Valkyrias, after which she sings a couple of soprano
airs from 'Tannhaeuser.'
Harry admires her splendid method; Countess Zriny privately stops her
ears with a little cotton-wool. Hour after hour passes, and Krupitschka
finally announces supper. Baroness Paula begins hurriedly to put on her
driving-gloves, but when Frau Leskjewitsch, with rather forced
courtesy, invites her to stay to supper, she replies, "With the
greatest pleasure."
And now the supper is over. Harry's seat, meanwhile, has been next to
Paula's, and he has continued to pay her extravagant compliments, which
he ought not to have done; and, moreover, without eating a morsel, he
has drunk glass after glass of the good old Bordeaux of which the major
is so proud. All this has produced a change in him. The gnawing pain at
his heart is lulled to rest; his love for Zdena and his quarrel with
her seem relegated to the far past. For the present, here is this
luxuriant beauty, with her flow of talk and her Titian hair. Without
being intoxicated, the wine has mounted to his brain; his limbs are a
little heavy; he feels a pleasant languor steal over him; everything
looks rather more vague and delightful than usual; instead of a severe,
exacting beauty beside him, here is this wonderful creature, with her
dazzling complexion and her green, naiad-like eyes.
Countess Zriny and Hedwig have already ordered their old-fashioned
coach and have started for home. Harry's horses--his own and his
groom's--are waiting before the entrance.
It is ten o'clock,--time for bed at Zirkow. Frau Rosamunda rubs her
eyes; Zdena stands, unheeded and weary, in one of the window embrasures
in the hall, looking out through the antique, twisted grating upon the
brilliant August moonlight. Paula is still conversing with the
gentlemen; she proposes a method for exterminating the phylloxera, and
has just formulated a scheme for the improvement of the Austrian
foundling asylums.
They are waiting for her pony-carriage to appear, but it does not come.
At last, the gardener's boy, who is occasionally promoted to a
footman's place, comes, quite out of breath, to inform his mistress
that Baroness Paula's groom is in the village inn, so drunk that he
cannot walk across the floor, and threatening to fight any one who
interferes with him.
"Very unpleasant intelligence," says Paula, without losing an atom of
her equanimity. "There is nothing left to do, then, but to drive home
without him. I do not need him; he sits behind me, and is really only a
conventional encumbrance, nothing more. Good-night, Baroness! Thanks,
for the charming afternoon. Goodnight! good-night! Now that the ice is
broken, I trust we shall be good neighbours." So saying, she goes out
of the open hall door.
Frau Rosamunda seems to have no objections to her driving without an
escort to Dobrotschau, which is scarcely three-quarters of an hour's
drive from Zirkow, and even the major apparently considers this
broad-shouldered and vigorous young woman to be eminently fitted to
make her way in the world alone. But Harry interposes.
"You don't mean to drive home alone?" he exclaims. "Well, I admire your
courage,--as I admire every thing else about you," he adds, _sotto
voce_, and with a Blight inclination of his head towards her,--"but I
cannot permit it. You might meet some drunken labourer and be exposed
to annoyance. Do me the honour to accept me as your escort,--that is,
allow me to take the place of your useless groom."
"By no means!" she exclaims. "I never could forgive myself for giving
you so much trouble. I assure you, I am perfectly able to take care of
myself."
"On certain occasions even the most capable and clever of women lose
their capacity to judge," Harry declares. "Be advised this time!" he
implores her, as earnestly as though he were praying his soul out of
purgatory. "My groom will accompany us. He must, of course, take my
horse to Dobrotschau. Have no scruples."
As if it would ever have occurred to Baroness Paula to have "scruples"!
Oh, Harry!
"If you really would be so kind then, Baron Harry," she murmurs,
tenderly.
"Thank God, she has gone at last!" sighs Frau Rosamunda, as she hears
the light wagon rolling away into the night. "At last!"