BARON FRANZ.
Every year, towards the end of August, Baron Franz Leskjewitsch, the
family scarecrow and Cr[oe]sus, was wont to appear at his estate,
Vorhabshen, near Zirkow, to learn the condition of the harvest, to
spend a few days in hunting, and to abuse everything and everybody
before, at the end of a couple of weeks, vanishing as suddenly as he
had appeared.
On these occasions he avoided his brother Paul with evident
determination. If any of the family were at Komaritz, he invited them
to dinner once or twice, at such times taking pains to make himself
particularly offensive to Heda, whom he could not endure.
He had never spent any length of time at Vorhabshen since the family
quarrel, and in consequence the dwelling-house, or castle, upon which,
miser that he was, he never would spend a penny for repairs, had come
to be tumble-down and sordid in appearance, both inside and out. It was
a huge structure, with numerous windows, in which many of the sashes
were sprung and some destitute of panes, never having been reglazed
since the last hail-storm had worked ruin among them.
Among the family portraits, which hung in a dark, oak-wainscoted
gallery, the pigeons built their nests.
Like many another Bohemian castle, the mansion at Vorhabshen was built
close to the farm-yard, and its front faced an immense, light-brown
manure-heap.
The inmates of this unpicturesque ruin--whose duty it was to keep it
ready for its master's brief visits--were, first, the housekeeper,
Lotta Papoushek; then the Baron's court-fool, the former brewer
Studnecka, who at times imagined himself the prophet Elisha, and at
other times a great musical genius; then the superintendent, with his
underlings; and finally, any young man who might be tempted to come
hither to study modern agriculture, and whose studies were generally
confined to allowing himself to be pampered by the housekeeper Lotta,
who had all the admiration of her class for courteous young people.
Frau Lotta had been in the Baron's service for more than forty years.
Her large face was red, dotted with brown warts, and her features were
hard and masculine. Although she certainly was far from attractive in
appearance, there was a report that she had once been handsome, and
that Baron Franz, when he received the news of his son's marriage with
Marie Duval, had exclaimed, "I'll marry my housekeeper! I'll marry
Lotta!" How this would have aided to re-establish the family prestige
it is difficult to say, and it is doubtful whether the speech was made;
but twenty years afterwards Lotta used to tell of it, and of how she
had replied, "That would be too nonsensical, Herr Baron!"
Notwithstanding her peculiarities and her overweening self-conceit, she
was a thoroughly good creature, and devoted heart and soul to the
Leskjewitsch family. Her absolute honesty induced the Baron to make her
authority at Vorhabshen paramount, to the annoyance of the
superintendent and his men.
It was a clear afternoon,--the 1st of September; the steam thresher was
at work in the farm-yard, and its dreary puffing and groaning were
audible in Lotta's small sitting-room, on the ground-floor of the
mansion, where she was refreshing herself with a cup of coffee, having
invited the student of agriculture--a young Herr von Kraschinsky--to
share her nectar.
She had been regaling him with choice bits of family history, as he lay
back comfortably in an arm-chair, looking very drowsy, when, after a
pause, she remarked, as if in soliloquy, "I should like to know where
the master is; I have had no answer to the long letter I sent to him at
Franzburg."
"Oh, you correspond with the Baron, do you?" murmured the student, too
lazy to articulate distinctly.
"Of course I do. You must not forget that my position in the
Leskjewitsch family is higher than that of a servant. I was once
governess to our poor, dear Baron Fritz; and I have always been devoted
to them."
In fact, Lotta had been Fritz's nurse; and it was true that she had
always been much valued, having been treated with great consideration
on account of her absolute fidelity and her tolerably correct German.
"Yes," she went on, careless as to her companion's attention, "I wrote
to the Baron about the wheat and the young calves, and I told him of
Baron Harry's betrothal. I am curious to know what he will say to it.
For my part, it is not at all to my taste."
"But then you are so frightfully aristocratic," said her guest.
Lotta smiled; nothing pleased her more than to be rallied upon her
aristocratic tendencies, although she made haste to disclaim them. "Oh,
no; I am by no means so feudal"--a favourite word of hers, learned from
a circulating library to which she subscribed--"as you think. I never
shall forget how I tried to bring about a reconciliation between Baron
Fritz and his father; but the master was furious, called the widow and
her little child, after poor Fritz's death, 'French baggage,' and
threatened me with dismissal if I ever spoke of them. What could I do?
I could not go near the little girl when Baron Paul brought her to
Zirkow; but I have watched her from a distance, and have rejoiced to
see her grow lovelier every year, and the very image of her father. And
when all the country around declared that Baron Harry was in love with
her, I was glad; but our master was furious, although the young things
were then mere children, and declared that not one penny of his money
should his nephew have if he married the child of that shop-girl. I
suppose Baron Harry has taken all this into consideration." The old
woman's face grew stern as she folded her arms on her flat chest and
declared again, "I am curious to know what the master will think of
this betrothal."
Outside in the farm-yard the steam thresher continued its monotonous
task; the superintendent, a young man, something of a coxcomb, stood
apart from the puffing monster, a volume of Lenau in his hand, learning
by heart a poem which he intended to recite at the next meeting of the
"Concordia Association," in X----. The court-fool, Studnecka, was
seated at his harmonium, composing.
Suddenly a clumsy post-chaise rattled into the courtyard. The
superintendent started, and thrust his Lenau into his pocket. Lotta
smoothed her gray hair, and went to meet the arrival. She knew that
"the master" had come. It was his habit to appear thus unexpectedly,
when it was impossible to be prepared for him. His masculine employees
disliked this fashion extremely. Lotta was not at all disturbed by it.
Studnecka was the last to notice that something unusual was going on.
When he did so, he left the harmonium and went to the window.
In the midst of a group of servants and farm-hands stood an old man in
a long green coat and a shiny, tall hat. The court-fool observed
something strange in his master's appearance. Suddenly he fairly
gasped.
"The world is coming to an end!" he exclaimed. "Wonders will never
cease,--the Herr Baron has a new hat!"