AT DOBROTSCHAU.
It is the day after Treurenberg's meeting with Harry in the dusty
little garrison town.
Lato is sitting at his writing-table, counting a package of
bank-notes,--his yesterday's winnings. He divides them into two packets
and encloses them in two letters, which he addresses and seals and
sends by a servant to the post. He has thus wiped out two old debts. No
sooner have the letters left his hand than he brushes his fingers with
his handkerchief, as if he had touched something unclean.
Poor Treurenberg! He has never been a spendthrift, but he has been in
debt ever since his boyhood. His pecuniary circumstances, however, have
never been so oppressive, never have there been such disagreeable
complications in his affairs, as since he has had a millionaire for a
wife.
He leans his elbows on his writing-table and rests his chin on his
hands. Angry discontent with himself is tugging at his nerves. Is it
not disgusting to liquidate an old debt to his tailor, and to pay
interest to a usurer, with his winnings at play? What detestable things
cards are! If he loses he hates it, and if he wins--why, it gives him a
momentary satisfaction, but his annoyance at having impoverished a
friend or an acquaintance is all the greater afterwards. Every sensible
disposition of the money thus won seems to him most inappropriate.
Money won at cards should be scattered about, squandered; and yet how
can he squander it,--he who has so little and needs so much? How often
he has resolved never to touch cards again! If he only had some strong,
sacred interest in life he might become absorbed in it, and so forget
the cursed habit. He has not the force of character that will enable
him to sacrifice his passion for play to an abstract moral idea. His is
one of those delicate but dependent natures that need a prop in life,
and he has never had one, even in childhood.
"What is the use of cudgelling one's brains till they ache, about
what cannot be helped?" he says at last, with a sigh, "or which
I at least cannot help," he adds, with a certain bitterness of
self-accusation. He rises, takes his hat, and strolls out into the
park. A huge, brown-streaked stag-hound, which had belonged to the old
proprietor of the castle and which has dogged Lato's heels since the
previous evening, follows him. From time to time he turns and strokes
the animal's head. Then he forgets----
At the same time, Paula is sitting in her study, on the ground-floor.
It looks out on the court-yard, and is hung with sad-coloured leather,
and decorated with a couple of good old pictures. She is sitting there
clad in a very modern buff muslin gown, with a fiery red sash,
listening for sounds without and with head bent meanwhile over
Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet.'
The noise of distant hoofs falls upon her ear, and a burning blush
suffuses her plump cheek. Upon the white shade, which is pulled down,
falls the shadow of a horse's head, and then the upper portion of his
rider's figure. The hoofs no longer sound. Through the sultry summer
stillness--breaking the monotonous plashing of the fountain and the
murmur of the old linden--is heard the light, firm pat of a masculine
hand upon a horse's neck, the caress with which your true horseman
thanks his steed for service rendered; then an elastic, manly tread,
the clatter of spurs and sabre, a light knock at the door of Paula's
room, and Harry Leskjewitsch enters.
Paula, with a smile, holds out to him both her hands; without smiling
he dutifully kisses one of them.
A pair of lovers in Meissen porcelain stands upon a bracket above
Paula's writing-table,--lovers who have been upon the point of
embracing each other for something more than a century. Above their
heads hovers a tiny ray of sunshine, which attracts Harry's attention
to the group. He and Paula fall into the very same attitudes as those
taken by the powdered dandy in the flowered jacket and the little
peasant-girl in dancing-slippers,--they are on the point of embracing;
and for the first time in his life Harry wishes he were made of
porcelain, that he might remain upon the point.
His betrothal is now eight days old. The first day he thought it would
be mere child's play to loosen the knot tied by so wild a chance, but
now he feels himself fast bound, and is conscious that each day casts
about him fresh fetters. In vain, with every hour passed with his
betrothed, does he struggle not to plunge deeper into this labyrinth,
from which he can find no means of extricating himself. In vain does he
try to enlighten Paula as to his sentiments towards her by a stiff,
repellent demeanour, never lying to her by look, word, or gesture.
But what does it avail him to stand before her like a saint on a
pedestal? Before he is aware, she has drawn his head towards her and
kissed him on both eyes, whereupon both lovers sigh,--each for a
different reason,--and then sit down opposite each other. Paula,
however, does not long endure such formality. She moves her chair
closer to his, and at last lays her hand on the young officer's
shoulder.
Harry is positively wretched. No use to attempt to deceive himself any
longer: Paula Harfink is in love with him.
Although she brought about the betrothal by means of cool cunning and
determination, daily intercourse with the handsome, chivalric young
fellow has kindled a flame in her mature heart, and her passion for him
grows with every hour passed in his society.
It is useless to say how little this circumstance disposes him in her
favour. Love is uncommonly unbecoming to Paula. It is impossible to
credit her with the impulse that forgets self and the world, or with
the amount of ideal stupidity which invests all the nonsense of lovers
with grace and naturalness. Involuntarily, every one feels inclined to
smile when so robust and enlightened a woman--enlightened in all
directions--suddenly languishes, and puts on the semblance of
ultra-feminine weakness. Harry alone does not smile; he takes the
matter very tragically.
Sometimes, in deep privacy he clinches his fist and mentally calls his
betrothed "a love-sick dromedary!"
Naturally he does not utter such words aloud, not even when he is alone
in his room, not even in the dark; but--thought is free!
"What have you been doing all this time?" Paula asks at last, archly,
thus breaking the oppressive silence.
"This time? Do you mean since yesterday?" he asks, frowning.
"It seemed long to me," she sighs. "I--I wrote you a letter, which I
had not the courage to send you. There, take it with you!" And she
hands him a bulky manuscript in a large envelope. It is not the first
sizable billet-doux which she has thus forced upon him. In a drawer of
his writing-table at Komaritz there reposes a pile of such envelopes,
unopened.
"Have you read the English novel I sent you yesterday?--wonderful, is
it not?--hero and heroine so like ourselves."
"I began it. I thought it rather shallow."
"Oh, well, I do not consider it a learned work. I never care for depth
in a novel,--only love and high life. Shall we go on with our
Shakespeare?" she asks.
"If you choose. What shall we read?"
"The moonlight scene from Romeo and Juliet."
Harry submits.
Meanwhile, Lato, with his brown attendant, wanders along the shady
paths of the Dobrotschau park. Now and then he pays some attention to
his shaggy companion, strokes his head, sends him after a stick, and
finally has him take a bath in the little reed-encircled lake on the
shores of which stand weather-stained old statues, while stately swans
are gliding above its green depths. These last indignantly chase the
clumsy intruder from their realm.
"Poor fellow! they will have none of you!" Treurenberg murmurs,
consoling the dog as he creeps out upon the bank with drooping tail and
ears.
Suddenly he hears the notes of a piano from the direction of the
castle. He turns and walks towards it, almost as if he were obeying a
call.
Pausing before an open glass door leading into the garden, he looks in
upon a spacious, airy apartment, the furniture of which consists of a
large Gobelin hanging, a grand piano, and some bamboo chairs scattered
about.
At the piano a young girl is seated playing a dreamy improvisation upon
'The Miller and the Brook,' that loveliest and saddest of all
Schubert's miller-songs. It is Olga. Involuntarily Lato's eyes are
riveted upon the charming picture. The girl is tall and slim, with
long, slender hands and feet. If one might venture to criticise
anything so beautiful as her face, its pure oval might be pronounced a
thought too long.
Her features are faultless, despite their irregularity; the forehead is
low, the eyebrows straight and delicately pencilled, the eyes large and
dark, and, when she opens them wide, of almost supernatural brilliancy.
The mouth is small, the under lip a trifle too full, and the chin a
little too long.
Those irregularities lend a peculiar charm to the face, reminding one
of certain old Spanish family portraits,--dark-eyed beauties with high
collars, and with huge pearls in their ears. The facts that Olga
neither wears a bang nor curls her hair upon her forehead, but has it
parted simply in the middle to lie in thick waves on either side of her
head, and that her complexion is of a transparent pallor, contribute
still further to her resemblance to those distinguished individuals.
She wears a simple white gown, with a Malmaison rose stuck in her belt.
Lato's eyes rest upon her with artistic satisfaction. The tender melody
of the Miller's Song soothes his sore heart as if by a caress. He
softly enters the room, sits down, and listens. Olga, suddenly aware by
intuition of his presence, turns her head.
"Ah!--you here?" she exclaims, blushing slightly, and taking her hands
from the keys.
"I have made so bold," he replies, smiling. "Have you any objection?"
"No; but you should have announced yourself," she says, with a little
frown.
"Ah, indeed!" he rejoins, in the tone in which one teases a child.
"Well, the listening to a musical soliloquy is generally considered
only a harmless indiscretion."
"Yes; when I am playing something worth listening to I have no
objection, but I prefer to keep my halting improvisations to myself."
"Well, then, play something worth listening to," he says,
good-humouredly.
She turns again to the instrument, and begins, with great brilliancy of
touch, to play a bravura-scherzo, by some Viennese composer at present
in fashion.
"For heaven's sake," Treurenberg, whose feeling for music is as
delicate as his appreciation of all beauty, interrupts her, "do not go
on with that ghastly Witches' Sabbath!"
"The 'ghastly Witches' Sabbath' is dedicated to your cousin, Countess
Wodin," Olga replies, taking up a piece of music from the piano. "There
it is!" she points to the title-page "'Dedicated to the Frau Countess
Irma Wodin, _nee_ Countess Trauenstein, by her devoted servant, etc.' I
thought the thing might interest you."
"Not in the least. Be a good girl, and play the Miller's Song over
again."
She nods amiably. Again the dreamy melody sighs among the strings of
the piano. Lato, buried in thought, hums the words,--
"Where'er a true heart dies of love,
The lilies fade that grave above."
"Do you know the words too?" Olga exclaims, turning towards him.
"If you but knew how often I have heard that song sung!" he replies,
with the absent air of a man whose thoughts are straying in a far past.
"At concerts?"
"No, in private."
"By a lady?" she asks, half persistently, half hesitatingly.
"Yes, grand inquisitor, by a lady; by a lady for whom I had a little
_tendresse_--h'm!--a very sincere _tendresse_. She sang it to me every
day. The very evening before her betrothal she sang it to me; and how
deliciously sweet it was! Would you like to know who it was?"
"Yes."
"The Countess Wodin."
"The Countess Wodin!" Olga exclaims, amazed.
Lato laughs. "You cannot understand how any one could take any interest
in such a flirt?"
"Oh, no," she says, thoughtfully, "it is not that. She is very pretty
even yet, and gay and amusing, but--he is horrible, and I cannot
understand her marrying him, when----"
"When she might have had me?" he concludes her sentence, laughing.
"Frankly, yes." As she speaks she looks full in his face with
undisguised kindliness.
He smiles, flattered, and still more amused. "What would you have?
Wodin was rich, and I--I was a poor devil."
"Oh, how odious!" she murmurs, frowning, her dark eyes glowing with
indignation. "I cannot understand how any one can marry for money----"
She stops short. As she spoke her eyes met his, and his were instantly
averted. An embarrassing pause ensues.
Olga feels that she is upon dangerous ground. They both change
colour,--he turns pale, she blushes,--but her embarrassment is far
greater than his. When he looks at her again he sees that there are
tears in her eyes, and he pities her.
"Do not vex yourself, Olga," he says, with a low, bitter laugh. And
taking one of her slender hands in his, he strokes it gently, and then
carries it to his lips.
"Ah, still _aux petits soins_?--how touching!" a harsh nasal voice
observes behind the pair. They look round and perceive a young man,
who, in spite of his instant apology for intruding, shows not the
slightest disposition to depart. He is dressed in a light summer suit
after the latest watering-place fashion. He is neither tall nor short,
neither stout nor slender, neither handsome nor ugly, but thoroughly
unsympathetic in appearance. His very pale complexion is spotted with a
few pock-marks; his light green eyes are set obliquely in his head,
like those of a Japanese; the long, twisted points of his moustache
reach upward to his temples, and his hair is brushed so smoothly upon
his head that it looks like a highly-polished barber's block. But all
these details are simply by the way; what especially disfigures him is
his smile, which shows his big white teeth, and seems to pull the end
of his long, thin nose down over his moustache.
"Fainacky!" exclaims Treurenberg, unpleasantly surprised.
"Yes, the same! I am charmed to see you again, Treurenberg," exclaims
the Pole. "Have the kindness to present me to your wife," he adds,
bowing to Olga.
"I think my wife is dressing," Treurenberg says, coldly. "This is a
young relative,--a cousin of my wife's.--Olga, allow me to introduce to
you Count Fainacky."
In the mean time Paula is occupied with her betrothed's education. In
tones that grow drowsier and drowsier, while his articulation becomes
more and more indistinct, Harry stumbles through Shakespeare's immortal
verse.
Paula's part is given with infinite sentiment. The thing is growing too
tiresome, Harry thinks.
"I really have had enough of this stuff for once!" he exclaims, laying
aside his volume.
"Ah, Harry, how can you speak so of the most exquisite poetry of love
that ever has been written?"
He twirls his moustache ill-humouredly, and murmurs, "You are very much
changed within the last few days."
"But not for the worse?" she asks, piqued.
"At last she is going to take offence," he says to himself, exultantly,
and he is beginning to finger his betrothal-ring, when the door opens
and a servant announces, "Herr Count Fainacky."
"How well you look, my dear Baroness Paula! Ah, the correct air,
beaming with bliss,--_on connait cela!_ Taking advantage of your Frau
mother's kind invitation, I present myself, as you see, without
notification," the Pole chatters on. "How are you, Harry? In the
seventh heaven, of course,--of course." And he drops into an arm-chair
and fans himself with a pink-bordered pocket-handkerchief upon which
are depicted various jockeys upon race-horses, and which exhales a
strong odour of musk.
"I am extremely glad to see you," Paula assures the visitor. "I hope
you have come to stay some days with us. Have you seen mamma yet?"
"No." And Fainacky fans himself yet more affectedly. "I wandered around
the castle at first without finding any one to announce me. Then I had
an adventure,--ha, ha! _C'est par trop bete!_"
"What was it?"
"In my wanderings I reached an open door into a room looking upon the
garden. There I found Treurenberg and a young lady,--only fancy,--I
thought it was his wife. I took that--what is her name?--Olga--your
_protegee_--for your sister,--for the Countess Selina, and begged
Treurenberg to present me to his wife,--ha, ha! _Vraiment c'est par
trop bete!_"
At this moment a tall, portly figure, with reddish hair, dazzling
complexion, and rather sharp features, sails into the room.
"Here is my sister," says Paula, and a formal introduction follows.
"Before seeing the Countess Selina I thought my mistake only comical. I
now think it unpardonable!" Fainacky exclaims, with his hand on his
heart. "Harry, did the resemblance never strike you?" He gazes in a
rapture of admiration at the Countess.
"What resemblance?" asks Harry.
"Why, the resemblance to the Princess of Wales."