AN OLD FRIEND.
They are sitting in the farthest corner of the smoky dining-hall of the
Casino, Harry and his friend, by a window that looks out upon a little
yard. Harry is smoking a cigar, and sits astride of a chair; Lato
contrives to sprawl over three chairs, and smokes cigarettes, using
about five matches to each cigarette. Two glasses, a siphon, and a
bottle of cognac stand upon a rickety table close by.
The room is low, the ceiling is almost black, and the atmosphere
suggests old cheese and stale cigar-smoke. Between the frames of their
Imperial Majesties a fat spider squats in a large gray web. At a table
not far from the two friends a cadet, too thin for his uniform, is
writing a letter, while a lieutenant opposite him is occupied in
cutting the initials of his latest flame, with his English penknife, on
the green-painted table. Before a Bohemian glass mirror in a glass
frame stands another lieutenant, with a thick beard and a bald pate,
which last he is endeavouring artistically to conceal by brushing over
it the long thick hair at the back of his neck. His name is Spreil; he
has lately been transferred to the hussars from the infantry, and he is
the butt for every poor jest in the regiment.
"I cannot tell you how glad I am to see you," Treurenberg repeats to
his friend. As he speaks, his cigarette goes out; he scrapes his
twenty-fourth match in the last quarter of an hour, and breaks off its
head.
"The same old lack of fire!" Harry says, by way of a jest, handing him
his lighted cigar.
"Yes, the same old lack of fire!" Treurenberg repeats.
Lack of fire! How often he has been reproached with it as a boy! Lack
of fire; that means everything for which fire stands,--energy,
steadfastness, manly force of will. There is no lack of passion, on the
other hand; of dangerous inflammable material there is too much in his
nature; but with him passion paralyzes effort instead of spurring to
action. One need only look at him as he half reclines there, smiling
dreamily to himself, scarcely moving his lips, to know him for what he
is, indolent, impressionable, yet proud and morbidly refined withal; a
thoroughly passive and very sensitive man. He is half a head taller
than Harry, but carries himself so badly that he looks shorter; his
face, framed in light brown hair and a soft pointed beard, is sallow;
his large gray eyes are veiled beneath thick lids which he rarely opens
wide. His hands are especially peculiar, long, slender, soft, incapable
of a quick movement; hands formed to caress, but not to fight,--hardly
even to clasp firmly.
It is said that the colonel of the regiment of Uhlans, in which Lato
served before his marriage to Selina Harfink, once declared of him,
"Treurenberg ought to have been a woman, and then, married to a good
husband, something might perhaps have been made of him."
This criticism, which ought to have been uttered by a woman rather than
by a logical, conventional man, went the round of Treurenberg's
comrades. "The same old lack of fire," Lato repeats, smiling to
himself. He has the mouth and the smile of a woman.
Harry knows the smile well, but it has changed since the last time he
saw it. It used to be indolent, now it is sad.
"Have you any children?" Harry asks, after a while.
Treurenberg shivers. "I had a boy, I lost him when he was fifteen
months old," he says, in a low, strained tone.
"My poor fellow! What did he die of?" Harry asks, sympathetically.
"Of croup. It was over in one night,--and he was so fresh and healthy a
child! My God! when I think of the plump little arms he used to stretch
out to me from his little bed every morning," Lato goes on, hoarsely,
"and then, as I said, in a few hours--gone! The physician did all that
he could for the poor little fellow,--in vain; nothing did any good. I
knew from the first that there was no hope. How the poor little chap
threw himself about in his bed! I sometimes dream that I hear him
gasping for breath, and he clung to me as if I could help him!"
Treurenberg's voice breaks; he passes his hand over his eyes. "He was
very little; he could hardly say 'papa' distinctly, but it goes
terribly near one's heart when one has nothing else in the world,--I--I
mean, no other children," he corrects the involuntary confession.
"Well, all days have not yet ended in evening," Harry says, kindly, and
then pauses suddenly, feeling--he cannot tell why--that he has made a
mistake.
Meanwhile, the lieutenant at the table has finished his initials, and
has, moreover, embellished them with the rather crude device of a
heart. He rises and saunters aimlessly about the large, low room,
apparently seeking some subject for chaff, for boyish play. He kills a
couple of flies, performs gymnastic exercises upon two chairs, and
finally approaches the cadet, who, ensconced in a corner, behind a
table, is scribbling away diligently.
"Whom are you writing to?" he asks, sitting astride of a chair just
opposite the lad.
The cadet is silent.
"To your sweetheart?"
The cadet is still silent.
"I seem to have guessed rightly," says the lieutenant, adding, "But
tell me, does your present flame--here the sun called Wodin--tolerate a
rival sun?"
"I am writing to my mother," the cadet says, angrily. At the mention of
the name of Wodin he flushes to the roots of his hair.
"Indeed!--how touching!" the lieutenant goes on. "What are you writing
to her? Are you asking her for money? or are you soothing her anxiety
with an account of the solid character of your principles? Do show me
your letter."
The cadet spreads his arms over the sheet before him, thereby blotting
the well-formed characters that cover it. "I tell you what, Stein----!"
he bursts forth at his tormentor, his voice quivering with anger.
Meanwhile, Lato turns towards him. "Toni!" he exclaims, recognizing a
relative in the irate young fellow,--"Toni Flammingen!--can it be? The
last time I saw you, you were in your public-school uniform. You've
grown since then, my boy."
Stein turns away from this touching family scene, and, taking his place
behind Lieutenant Spreil, who is still occupied in dressing his hair,
observes, in a tone of great gravity,--
"Don't you think, Spreil, that you could make part of your thick beard
useful in decorating that bald head of yours? Comb it up each side and
confine it in place with a little sticking-plaster. It might do."
Spreil turns upon him in a fury. "It might do for me to send you a
challenge!" he thunders.
"By all means: a little extra amusement would be welcome just now,"
Stein retorts, carelessly.
Spreil bows, and leaves the room with majesty.
"For heaven's sake, Stein, what are you about?" Harry, who has been
observing the scene, asks the idle lieutenant.
"I have made a vow to rid our regiment of the fellow,--to chaff him out
of it," Stein replies, with the sublime composure which results from
the certainty of being in the right. "We do not want the infantry cad.
If he is determined to mount on horseback, let him try a velocipede, or
sit astride of Pegasus, for all I care; but in our regiment he shall
not stay. You'll be my second, Les?"
"Of course, if you insist upon it," Harry replies; "but it goes against
the grain. I detest this perpetual duelling for nothing at all. It is
bad form."
"You need not talk; you used to be the readiest in the regiment to
fight. I remember you when I was in the dragoons. But a betrothed man
must, of course, change his views upon such subjects."
At the word "betrothed" Harry shrinks involuntarily. Treurenberg looks
up.
"Betrothed!" he exclaims. "And to whom?"
"Guess," says the lieutenant, who is an old acquaintance of
Treurenberg's.
"It is not hard to guess. To your charming little cousin Zdena."
The lieutenant puckers his lips as if about to whistle, and says, "Not
exactly. Guess again."
Meanwhile, Harry stands like a man in the pillory who is waiting for a
shower of stones, and says not a word.
"Then--then--" Treurenberg looks from the lieutenant to his friend, "I
have no idea," he murmurs.
"To the Baroness Paula Harfink," says the lieutenant, his face devoid
of all expression.
There is a pause. Treurenberg's eyes try in vain to meet those of his
friend.
From without come the clatter of spurs and the drone of a hand-organ
grinding out some popular air.
"Is it true?" asks Treurenberg, who cannot rid himself of the idea that
the mischievous lieutenant is jesting. And Harry replies, as calmly as
possible,--
"It is not yet announced. I am still awaiting my father's consent. He
is abroad."
"Ah!"
The lieutenant pours out a thimbleful of brandy from the flask
on the table, mixes it with seltzer-water and sugar, and, raising
it to his lips, says, gravely, "To the health of your betrothed,
Leskjewitsch,--of your sister-in-law, Treurenberg."
"This, then, was the news of which my mother-in-law made such
mysterious mention in her last letters," Lato murmurs. "This is the
surprise of which she spoke. I--I hope it will turn out well," he adds,
with a sigh.
Harry tries to smile. From the adjoining billiard-room come the voices
of two players in an eager dispute. The malicious lieutenant pricks up
his ears, and departs for the scene of action with the evident
intention of egging on the combatants.
"Lato," Harry asks, clearing his throat, "how do you mean to get home?
I have my drag here, and I can drop you at Dobrotschau. Or will you
drive to Komaritz with me?"
"With the greatest pleasure," Treurenberg assents. "How glad I shall be
to see the old place again!"
He is just making ready for departure, when several officers drop in at
the Casino, almost all of them old friends of his. They surround him,
shake hands with him, and will not let him go.
"Can you wait a quarter of an hour for me?" he asks his friend.
Harry nods. He takes no part in the general conversation. He scarcely
moves his eyes from the spider-web between the Imperial portraits. A
fly is caught in it and is making desperate efforts to escape. The
bloated spider goes on spinning its web, and pretends not to see it.
"Have a game of bezique? You used to be so passionately fond of
bezique," Harry hears some one say. He looks around. It is Count Wodin,
the husband of the pretty, coquettish horsewoman, who is speaking. Lato
turns to Harry.
"Can you wait for me long enough?" he asks, and his voice sounds
uncertain and confused. "One short game."
Harry shrugs his shoulders, as if to say, "As you please." Then,
standing with one knee on a chair in the attitude of a man who is about
to take leave and does not think it worth while to sit down again, he
looks on at the game.
The first game ends, then another, and another, and Treurenberg makes
no move to lay the cards aside. His face has changed: the languid smile
has gone, his eyes are eager, watchful, and his face is a perfectly
expressionless mask. His is the typical look of the well-bred gambler
who knows how to conceal his agitation.
"_Cent d'as_--double bezique!" Thus it goes on to the accompaniment of
the rustle of the cards, the rattle of the counters, and from the
adjoining room the crack of the ivory balls against one another as they
roll over the green cloth.
"Well, Lato, are you coming?" asks Harry, growing impatient.
"Only two games more. Can you not wait half an hour longer?" asks
Treurenberg.
"To speak frankly, I am not much interested in listening to your 'Two
hundred and fifty,'--'five hundred,'--and so on."
"Naturally," says Lato, with his embarrassed smile. He moves as if to
rise. Wodin hands him the cards to cut. "Go without me. I will not
keep you any longer. Some one here will lend me a horse by and by.
Shall we see you to-morrow at Dobrotschau?" With which Treurenberg
arranges his twelve cards, and Harry nods and departs.
"Tell me, did you ever see a more blissful lover?" asks the teasing
lieutenant, who has just returned from the billiard-room. As the
disputants, in spite of all his efforts to the contrary, have made up
their quarrel, there is nothing more for him to do there. "He seems
inspired indeed at the thought of his beloved." And he takes a seat on
the table nearest the players.
"Every point in trumps," says Treurenberg, intent upon his game.
"It is my impression that he would like to drink her health in
aconite," the lieutenant continues.
"That betrothal seems to me a most mysterious affair," mutters Wodin.
"I do not understand Leskjewitsch: he was not even in debt."
The lieutenant bites his lip, makes a private sign to Wodin, and takes
pains not to look at Treurenberg.
Lato flushes, and is absorbed in polishing his eyeglass, which has
slipped out of his eye.
"I lose three thousand," he says, slowly, consulting his tablets.
"Shall we have another game, Wodin?"