OLGA.
"And pray who is Fraeulein Olga?"
It is Fainacky who puts this question to the Countess Treurenberg, just
after luncheon, during which meal he has contrived to ingratiate
himself thoroughly with Lato's wife.
He and the Countess are seated beneath a red-and-gray-striped tent on
the western side of the castle; beside them stands a table from which
the coffee has not yet been removed. The rest of the company have
vanished.
The Baroness Harfink is writing a letter to her brother, one of the
leaders of the Austrian democracy, who was once minister for three
months; Paula and Harry are enjoying a _tete-a-tete_ in the park, and
Treurenberg is taking advantage of the strong sunlight to photograph
alternately and from every point of view a half-ruinous fountain and
two hollyhocks.
"Pray who is this Fraeulein Olga?" Fainacky asks, removing the ashes
from the end of his cigarette with the long finger-nail of his little
finger.
"Ah, it is quite a sad story," is the Countess Selina's reply.
"Excuse me if I am indiscreet; I had no idea----" the Pole begins.
"Oh, you are one of the family, quite one of the family," Selina
assures him, with an amiable smile. "I might have thought the
question embarrassing from any one else, but I can speak to you without
reserve of these matters. You are perhaps aware that a sister of my
father's,--is only sister,--when quite an old maid,--I believe she was
thirty-seven,--ran off with an actor, a very obscure comedian; I think
he played the elderly knights at the Rudolfsheim Theatre, and as the
bandit Jaromir he turned her head. She displayed the _courage de ses
opinions_, and married him. He treated her brutally, and she died,
after fifteen years of wretched married life. On her death-bed she sent
for my father, and bequeathed her daughter to his care. This was Olga.
My father--I cannot tell how it happened--took the most immense fancy
to the girl. He tried to persuade mamma to take her home immediately.
Fancy! a creature brought up amid such surroundings, behind the
foot-lights. True, my aunt was separated from her bandit Jaromir for
several years before her death; but under such strange circumstances
mamma really could not take the little gypsy into the house with her
own half-grown daughters. So she was sent to a convent, and we all
hoped she would become a nun. But no; and when her education was
finished, shortly before papa's death, mamma took her home. I was
married at the time, and I remember her arrival vividly. You can
imagine how terrible it was for us to admit so strange an element among
us. But, although he seldom interfered in domestic affairs, it was
impossible to dispute papa's commands."
"H'm, h'm!" And the Pole's slender white fingers drum upon the top of
the table. "_Je comprends_. It is a great charge for your mother, and
_c'est bien dur_." Although he speaks French stumblingly, he
continually expresses himself in that tongue, as if it is the only one
in which he can give utterance to the inmost feelings of his soul.
"Ah, mamma has always sacrificed everything to duty!" sighs Selina;
"and somebody had to take pity upon the poor creature."
"Nobly said, and nobly thought, Countess Selina; but then, after
all,--an actor's daughter,--you really do not know all that it means.
Does she show no signs of her unfortunate parentage?"
"No," says Selina, thoughtfully; "her manners are very good, the spell
of the Sacre C[oe]ur Convent is still upon her. She is not particularly
well developed intellectually, but, since you call my attention to it,
she does show some signs of the overstrained enthusiasm which
characterized her mother."
"And in combination with her father's gypsy blood. Such signs are
greatly to be deplored," the Pole observes. "You must long to have her
married?"
"A difficult matter to bring about. Remember her origin." The Countess
inclines her head on one side, and takes a long stitch in her
embroidery. "She must be the image of her father. The bandit Jaromir
was a handsome man of Italian extraction."
"Is the fellow still alive?" asks the Pole.
"No, he is dead, thank heaven! it would be terrible if he were not,"
says Selina, with a laugh. "_A propos_," she adds, selecting and
comparing two shades of yellow, "do you think Olga pretty?"
"H'm! _pas mal_,--not particularly. Had I seen her anywhere else, I
might perhaps have thought her pretty, but here--forgive my frankness,
Countess Selina--no other woman has a chance when you are present. You
must be conscious of that yourself."
"_Vil flatteur!_" the young wife exclaims, playfully lashing the Pole's
hand with a skein of wool. The pair have known each other for scarcely
three hours, and they are already upon as familiar a footing as if they
had been friends from childhood. Moreover, they are connections. At
Carlsbad, where Fainacky lately made the acquaintance of the Baroness
Harfink and her daughter Paula, he informed the ladies that one of his
grandmothers, a Loewenzahn by birth, was cousin to an uncle of the
Baroness's.
The persistence with which he dwelt upon this fact, the importance he
attached to being treated as a cousin by the Harfinks, touched Paula as
well as her mother. Besides, as they had already told Selina, they
liked him from the first.
"One is never ashamed to be seen with him," was the immediate decision
of the fastidious ladies; and as time passed on they discovered in him
such brilliant and unusual qualities that they considered him a great
acquisition,--an entertaining, cultivated man of some talent.
He is neither cultivated nor entertaining, and as for his talent, that
is a matter of opinion. If his singing is commonplace, his performance
on the piano commonplace, and the _vers de societe_ which he scribbles
in young ladies' extract-books more commonplace than all, in one art he
certainly holds the first rank,--the art of discovering and humouring
the weaknesses of his fellow-mortals, the art of the flatterer.
To pursue this art with distinguished ability two qualifications are
especially needful,--impudence and lack of refinement. With the help
of these allies the strongest incense may be wafted before one's
fellow-creatures, and they will all--with the exception of a few
suspicious originals--inhale it eagerly. Experience has taught Fainacky
that boldness is of far more avail in this art than delicacy, and he
conducts himself accordingly.
Flattery is his special profession, his means for supporting his idle,
coxcomb existence,--flattery and its sister art, slander. A successful
epigram at another's expense gives many of us more pleasure than a
compliment paid to ourselves.
He flutters, flattering and gossiping, from one house to another. The
last few weeks he has spent with a bachelor prince in the
neighbourhood, who, a sufferer from neuralgia in the face, has been
known, when irritated, to throw the sofa-cushions at his guests. At
first Fainacky professed to consider this a very good joke; but one day
when the prince showed signs of selecting more solid projectiles for
the display of his merry humour, Fainacky discovered that the time had
come for him to bestow the pleasure of his society elsewhere.
Dobrotschau seemed to offer just what he sought, and he has won his
hostess's heart a second time by his abuse during luncheon of his late
host's cook.
While he is now paying court to the Countess Selina, a touching scene
is enacting in another part of the garden. Paula, who during her walk
with her betrothed has perceived Treurenberg with his photographic
apparatus in the distance, proposes to Harry that they be photographed
as lovers. The poor young fellow's resistance avails nothing against
Paula's strong will. She triumphantly drags him up before the
apparatus, and, after much trying, discovers a pose which seems to her
sufficiently tender. With her clasped hands upon Harry's shoulder, she
gazes up at him with enthusiastic devotion.
"Do not look so stern," she murmurs; "if I did not know how you love
me, I should almost fancy you hated me."
Lato, half shutting his eyes in artistic observation of the pair, takes
off the shield of the instrument, saying, "Now, if you please!"
The impression is a failure, because Harry moved his head just at the
critical moment. When, however, Paula requires him to give pantomimic
expression to his tender sentiments for the second time, he declares
that he cannot stay three minutes longer, the 'vet' is waiting for him
at Komaritz.
"Oh, that odious 'vet'!" sighs Paula. "This is the third time this week
that you have had to leave me because of him."
Harry bites his lip. Evidently it is high time to invent another
pretext for the unnatural abbreviation of his visits. But--if she would
only take offence at something!
"Can you not come with me to Komaritz?" he asks Lato, in order to give
the conversation a turn, whereupon Lato, who instantly accedes to his
request, hurries into the castle to make ready for his ride. Shortly
afterwards, riding-whip in hand, he approaches Selina, who is still
beneath the red-and-gray tent with Fainacky.
"Ah, you are going to leave me alone again, faithless spouse that you
are!" she calls out, threatening him with a raised forefinger. Then,
turning to the Pole, she adds, "Our marriage is a fashionable one, such
as you read of in books: the husband goes one way, the wife another.
'Tis the only way to make life tolerable in the long run, is it not,
Lato?"
Lato makes no reply, flushes slightly, kisses his wife's hand, nods
carelessly to Fainacky, and turns to go.
"Shall you come back to dinner?" Selina calls after him.
"Of course," he replies, as he vanishes behind the shrubbery.
Fainacky strokes his moustache thoughtfully, stares first at the
Countess, then at the top of the table, and finally gives utterance to
an expressive "Ah!"
Lato hurries on to overtake his friend, whom he espies striding towards
the park gate.
Suddenly Olga approaches him, a huge straw hat shading her eyes, and in
her hands a large, dish-shaped cabbage-leaf full of inviting, fresh
strawberries.
"Whither are you hurrying?" she asks.
"I am going to ride to Komaritz with Harry," he replies. "Ah, what
magnificent strawberries!"
"I know they are your favourite fruit, and I plucked them for you," she
says.
"In this heat?--oh, Olga!" he exclaims.
"The sun would have burned them up by evening," she says, simply.
He understands that she has meant to atone for her inadvertence of the
morning, and he is touched.
"Will you not take some?" she asks, persisting in offering him the
leaf.
He takes one. Meanwhile, his glance encounters Harry's. Olga is
entirely at her ease, while Lato--from what cause he could not possibly
tell--is slightly embarrassed.
"I have no time now," he says, gently rejecting the hand that holds the
leaf.
"Shall I keep them for your dessert?--you are coming back to dinner?"
she asks.
"Certainly. I shall be back by six o'clock," he calls to her. "Adieu,
my child."
As the two friends a few minutes later ride down the long poplar
avenue, Harry asks,--
"Has this Olga always lived here?"
"No. She came home from the convent a year after my marriage. Selina
befriends her because Paula cannot get along with her. She often
travels with us."
"She seems pleasant and sympathetic," says Harry, adding, after a short
pause, "I have seldom seen so perfect a beauty."
"She is as good as gold," Lato says, quickly, adding, in a rather lower
tone, "and most forlorn, poor thing!"