HARRY'S MUSINGS.
"What are you doing there, you young donkey,--your lessons not yet
learned, and wasting time in this fashion?"
These were Harry's words addressed to his young brother. The boy was
standing on an old wooden bench, gazing over the garden wall.
"I am looking after the girl who was here to-day with the people from
Dobrotschau."
"Whom do you mean?"
"Why, the beauty; Olga--Olga Dangeri is her name. Come here and see for
yourself if it is wasting time to look after her."
With an involuntary smile at the lad's precocity, Harry mounted upon
the bench beside his brother, and, through the gathering twilight,
gazed after a couple--a man and a girl--slowly sauntering along the
road outside the garden. The man walked with bent head and downcast
look; the young girl, on the contrary, held her head proudly erect, and
there was something regal in her firm gait. The man walked in silence
beside his beautiful companion, who, on the other band, never stopped
talking, chattering away with easy grace, and turning towards him the
while. The silhouette of her noble profile was clearly defined against
the evening sky. The last golden shimmer of the setting sun touched her
brown hair with a reddish gleam. She had taken off her hat and hung it
on her arm; her white gown fell in long, simple folds about her.
"There! is she not lovely?" Vips exclaimed, with boyish enthusiasm. "I
cannot understand Lato: he hardly looks at her."
Harry hung his head.
"They have vanished in the walnut avenue; you can't see them now," said
Vips, leaving his post of observation. "I like her; she is not only
beautiful, she is clever and amiable," the boy went on. "I talked with
her for quite a while, although she is not so entertaining as our
Zdena,--she is not half so witty. Let me tell you, there is no one in
all the world like our Zdena." As he spoke, Vladimir, the keen-sighted,
plucked his brother by the sleeve of his blue military blouse, and eyed
him askance. "What is the matter with you, Harry?" For Harry shook the
boy off rather rudely.
"Oh, hold your tongue for a while!" Harry exclaimed, angrily; "I have a
headache."
Thus repulsed, Vladimir withdrew, not, however, without turning several
times to look at his brother, and sighing each time thoughtfully.
Meanwhile, Harry had seated himself on the old bench whence Vips had
made his observations. His hands in his pockets, his legs stretched out
before him, he sat wrapt in gloom, digging his spurs into the ground.
He had passed a hard day,--a day spent in deceit; there was no help for
it. How mean he was in his own eyes! and yet--how could he help it?
Paula had carried out her threat, and had driven over with Selina,
bringing Olga and Lato, "to pay the ladies a visit." After the first
greetings she had paid the ladies little further attention, but had
devoted herself to her betrothed, drawing him with her into some
window-recess or shady garden nook, where she could whisper loving
words or lavish tender caresses, which he could not repulse without
positive rudeness. Oh, how long the visit had seemed to him! Although
Paula had withdrawn him from the rest of the company as far as
possible, he had found opportunity to observe them. Olga, who could not
drive backwards in a carriage comfortably, but with whom neither of the
other ladies had offered to exchange seats, had arrived rather pale and
dizzy. Zdena had immediately applied herself to restoring her, with the
ready, tender sympathy that made her so charming. Vips was right: there
was no one like Zdena in the world, although Olga was more beautiful,
and also glowing with the charm to which no man is insensible,--the
charm of a strong, passionate nature. Not even Harry, whose whole soul
was filled at present with, another, and to him an infinitely more
attractive, woman, could quite withstand this charm in Olga's society;
it made the girl seem to him almost uncanny.
It had rather displeased Harry at first--he could not himself say
why--to see how quickly a kind of intimacy established itself between
Olga and Zdena. As the two girls walked arm in arm down the garden path
he would fain have snatched Zdena away from her new friend, the pale
beautiful Olga, whom nevertheless he so pitied.
Meanwhile, Heda had done the honours of the mansion for Selina, in
which duty she was assisted by the Countess Zriny, who displayed the
greatest condescension on the occasion. Then the ladies asked to see
the house, and had been conducted from room to room, evidently amazed
at the plainness of the furniture, but loud in their praises of
everything as "so effective." Paula had begged to see Harry's room, and
had rummaged among his whips, had put one of his cigars between her
lips, and had even contrived, when she thought no one was looking, to
kiss the tip of his ear. The Countess Zriny, however, accidentally
looked round at that moment, to Harry's great confusion. Towards six
o'clock the party had taken leave, with many expressions of delight and
attachment.
Before they drove off, however, there had been a rather unpleasant
scene. Lato had requested his wife to exchange seats with Olga, since
the girl could not, without extreme discomfort, ride with her back to
the horses. Selina had refused to comply with his request, asserting
that to ride backwards was quite as unpleasant for her as for Olga.
Then Olga had joined in the conversation, saying she had heard that the
path through the forest to Dobrotschau was very picturesque, and
declaring that if Lato would accompany her she should much prefer to
walk. To this Lato had made various objections, finally yielding,
however, and setting out with his head hanging and his shoulders
drooping, like a lamb led to the sacrifice.
Harry's thoughts dwelt upon the pale girl with the large, dark eyes.
Was it possible that none of the others could read those eyes? He
recalled the tall, slim figure, the long, thin, but nobly-modelled
arms, the slender, rather long hands, in which a feverish longing to
have and to hold somewhat seemed to thrill; he recalled the gliding
melancholy of her gait, he was spellbound by the impression of her
youthful personality. Where had he seen a figure expressing the same
yearning enthusiasm? Why, in a picture by Botticelli,--a picture
representing Spring,--a pale, sultry Spring, in whose hands the flowers
faded. Something in the girl's carriage and figure reminded him of that
allegorical Spring, except that Olga's face was infinitely more
beautiful than the languishing, ecstatic countenance in the old
picture.
Long did Harry sit on the garden bench reflecting, and his reflections
became every moment more distressing. He forgot all his own troubles in
this fresh anxiety.
He thought of Treurenberg's altered mien. Olga had not yet awakened to
a consciousness of herself, and that was a comfort. She was not only
absolutely pure,--Harry was sure of that,--but she was entirely unaware
of her own state of feeling. How long would this last, however? Passion
walks, like a somnambulist, in entire security on the edge of profound
abysses, so long as "sense is shut" in its eyes. But what if some rude
hand, some unforeseen chance, awake it? Then--God have mercy!
Harry dug his spurs deeper into the gravel. "What will happen if her
eyes should ever be opened?" he asked himself, with a shudder. "She is
in no wise inclined to wanton frivolity, but she is a passionate
creature without firm principles, without family ties to restrain her.
And Lato? Lato will do his best to conquer himself. But can he summon
up the strength of character, the tact, requisite to avoid a
catastrophe and to preserve the old order of things? And if not, what
then?"
Harry leaned his head on his hands and his elbows on his knees. To what
it would all lead he could not tell, but he dreaded something terrible.
He knew Lato well, the paralyzing weakness, as well as the subtile
refinement, of his nature. Stern principle, a strict sense of duty, he
lacked: how could it be otherwise, with such early training as had been
his? Instead, however, he possessed an innate sense of moral beauty
which must save him from moral degradation.
"A young girl, one of his home circle!" Harry murmured to himself. "No,
it is inconceivable! And, yet, what can come of it?" And a sobbing
breeze, carrying with it the scent of languid roses from whose cups it
had drunk up the dew, rustled among the thirsty branches overhead with
a sound that seemed to the young fellow like the chuckle of an exultant
fiend.