In William street, the real Faubourg St. Germain of the great city,
Prince Waldenberg's head steward had bought shortly before New Year one
of the largest and finest town mansions, the owner of which had
recently died. The prince himself, who came soon afterwards from
Grunwald, had superintended the inner arrangements, and pushed them so
rapidly, in spite of the magnificent style in which they were carried
on, that he could move in with his numerous household before the end of
January. He took one wing for himself; the other wing remained
unoccupied, as he did not wish to anticipate the desires and the good
taste of his betrothed, who was to leave Grunwald with her mother in
the beginning of the month and to come to Berlin. The upper story,
however, was full of workmen and upholsterers. Here his mother, the
princess, was to stay and to receive company.
He was gratified to see this part of the house also fully furnished and
ready for her reception when he left the town on the first of March for
the harbor of Stettin, where the steamer from St. Petersburg was
expected in a day or two. At the same time his steward had engaged a
suite of rooms at the Hotel de Russie, Unter den Linden, for his
father, Count Malikowsky, who was expected from Munich.
It was the same evening on which the above mentioned events had taken
place in the furnished lodgings in Broad street.
In one of the magnificent rooms of the Hotel Waldenberg, in a
well-padded easy-chair, which had been moved quite close up to the
bright fire burning in the fire-place, the Princess Letbus was
reclining. The prince stood by her, bending his tall form down to her,
as if to spare his mother even the trouble of speaking loud. As the
fire was blazing up brighter, so that brilliant flashes of light fell
upon the two figures, the group with its background of tall mirrors and
costly pictures would have formed a superb subject for the hand of a
modern Rembrandt. It would not have been easy to find two more striking
representatives of frail womanly beauty and overpowering male strength
than the forms of mother and son. While the latter, with his broad
shoulders and long muscular arms, looked as if he were made to perform
the labors of Hercules, the lady, sitting bent and drooping, and
wrapped up in costly furs in spite of the blazing fire, might have
suggested that even the weight of a fly could have been troublesome to
her. Nor was there any resemblance to be traced in the features.
Although the lips were languid and the cheeks faded; and although the
brow of the lady, who could hardly be over forty, looked narrow between
the sunken temples and beneath the dark hair with its numerous silver
threads, the connoisseur could still see that these lips and these
cheeks must have once been of surpassing beauty, and that the hair once
upon a time furnished a frame of glorious curls around a blooming face
of marvellous perfection. The large black eyes were very beautiful
still, when she raised her long silken eye-lashes, which she ordinarily
held drooping, and a deeper emotion brought back for a moment the fire
which had shone in them in days gone by, with too great lavishness,
perhaps, and fatal danger. There could have been no stronger contrast
with this soft melting beauty than the low forehead of the prince, half
hid under thick, crisp curly hair, which stood in perfect harmony with
the coarse though energetic lines of his face. And yet in spite of this
thorough difference in their physical natures, mother and son felt for
each other a tender affection, which in the former almost rose to
enthusiasm, and in the latter formed almost the only sentiment which
acted as a counterpoise to his boundless pride, and the prevailing
passion of his energetic but unintelligent mind.
"Good-by, dear mamma," said the prince, bending still lower, and
carrying his mother's feeble hand to his lips. "It is time for me to
go, if I do not mean to be too late at the station; the train will be
in."
"Adieu, my dear son," replied the princess. "Welcome your betrothed in
my name. Tell her she will find a second mother here. Has the count
consented to be present when the ladies come?"
"Yes, dear mamma."
"Well, then, my dear son, go with God; and may He bless your going out
and coming in!"
She breathed a kiss on the brow of the prince, who then arose and
noiselessly stepped on the thick carpet to the door.
The princess remained deeply imbedded in her easy-chair after her son
had left her. There were evidently no pleasant thoughts passing through
her mind at that moment, for her features became darker and darker, and
the black eyes stared more fixedly than ever at the blaze in the
fire-place, so that they shone like weird fires in the flickering
light, and contrasted almost painfully with the pale face. At last a
shudder seemed to pass over her and to rouse her; she rang the tiny
silver bell that stood close by her on the little buhl table.
Immediately her first waiting-woman, Nadeska, entered the room.
Nadeska was a serf, who had grown up with the princess, and gradually
made herself indispensable to her mistress by her pliant submission,
and especially by her perfect skill in carrying on all kinds of
intrigue. The princess had, in her somewhat stormy youth, required the
assistance of such a person; and when she became afterwards a devotee,
being sick in body and soul, she was not disposed to dismiss a servant
who had always been near her person, and knew, therefore, all her
secrets in their minutest detail. And, besides, Nadeska had always been
faithful to her, and even made many a sacrifice for her. Only once, in
one of the most serious difficulties to which the princess had been
exposed by her evil inclinations, had she suspected her of having
played false. But Nadeska had sworn by all the saints of the almanac;
and as there was no evidence against her, her mistress had at last
received her back again in her favor.
"What does your grace desire?" asked Nadeska, in a tone of voice which
betrayed, through all its deep respectfulness, a certain familiarity.
"Have the candles lit in the rooms, Nadeska; and, you hear, let all the
servants be called together to receive the ladies in the great hall.
Whom will you give them for their personal attendants?"
"I thought Katinka, Mademoiselle Virginie; and, among the German girls,
Mary and Louisa."
"Very well. You will receive the ladies yourself at the door, and show
them to their rooms."
"Has your grace any other orders?"
"No, Nadeska."
The woman courtesied and went to the door. When she was quite near it,
the princess called her back. She came again to her chair.
"Did you notice the count this morning, Nadeska?"
"Yes, your grace."
"Did you observe anything particular?"
"He looked more dandyish, and was rouged more than formerly."
"Nothing else?"
"No!"
"Nadeska, I am terribly afraid he is plotting against us."
"You have always feared so, your grace, every time the count has come
to see you; and you are especially afraid now, because you were
positive he would not accept the invitation of the prince."
"Well, does it not look like mockery that he is coming? What does he
want here? But that is not all. He asked me yesterday again for an
enormous sum of money."
"Which I hope you gave him."
"No, Nadeska; my patience is exhausted, as well as my exchequer.
Michail tells me he cannot procure the money."
"He must get it. Consider how much is at stake!"
"But this tyranny is intolerable!" cried the princess, and her large
black eyes shone in the reflex of the fire like burning coals.
Nadeska shrugged her shoulders.
"What can you do? You know the count hates you as much as the prince.
If he does not indulge his hate, and if he does not utter the single
word which would part mother and son forever, it is not from fear of
the disgrace--when has the count ever minded disgrace?--but from fear
of poverty, which he hates still more. Let him find out to-day that his
silence is to be no longer profitable to him, and to-morrow he will
speak!"
The princess knew that her confidante was perfectly right, and she
groaned like a tortured prisoner, pressing her thin hands upon each
other.
"Oh, Nadeska! Nadeska!" she whined; "why did the count come home at
that unlucky moment! Why did you leave your post at that very hour,
which was the decisive hour? If I had only had five minutes' warning
the count would have found me alone, and with all the suspicions he
might have, there would have been no more evidence then than at any
previous time."
Nadeska was standing by the side of her mistress and a little back of
her. This enabled her to make a scornful face before she replied,
"Your grace will pardon me, but _this_ time there was evidence, even
without the sudden coming of the count. It was certainly an ugly
accident that the birth of the prince took place just nine months after
a strange man had thrown his father out of the window of his own
bedroom!"
The remembrance of this tragi-comic accident dispelled for a moment the
melancholy of the princess. The half-ludicrous, half-horrible scenes of
that mad night passed very clearly before her mind's eye, and the image
of the hero of the night--the man of the people, whom she, the
high-born princess, had honored so highly--reappeared to her as he had
appeared then, the beau ideal of exuberant vigor and manhood.
"I wonder if he is still alive?" she asked, quite lost in her
recollection.
"Who, your grace?" asked Nadeska, who knew perfectly well of whom her
mistress was thinking.
The princess made no reply, and Nadeska began noiselessly to light the
candles in all the rooms. Gradually a voluptuous twilight spread over
the salon in which the princess was, which grew brighter and brighter
without losing its soft characters, for all the lights were burning in
rosy shades. This was the only light which the irritable nerves of the
princess could endure; and even during the day, which generally only
began for her in the afternoon, the windows were invariably darkened
with rosy curtains. Scoffers maintained that the princess avoided a
bright light merely because her faded features and injured complexion
could not well be exposed to bright day-light.
Nadeska had just lighted the last candle when the maid on duty slipped
into the room and whispered something into her ear, for no message was
brought directly to the princess.
"What is it, Nadeska?" asked the latter.
"The count wishes to see you," replied her confidante.
The princess trembled.
"What can he want?" she said. "He ought to be at the railway station."
"He probably mistook the hour."
"Maybe! Let him come; but stay in the room."
Upon a nod from Nadeska the maid went out, after waiting humbly at the
door. Immediately a gentleman entered rapidly.
He was a tall, slender man, dressed with exquisite taste, who looked at
the first glance as if he might be twenty-five, and grew older and
older the longer one looked at him, until at last one was disposed to
think him sixty years old. This required, however, a very careful
examination, as his mask was finished down to the minutest details. His
black hair and brows, his curly beard, his snow-white teeth, his broad
shoulders and full hips, were triumphs of art; and if his valet had
been able to give a little lustre to his eyes, to calm the paralytic
trembling of his hands, and to remove the bad, tiny wrinkles which lay
like diminutive snakes around his eyes. Count Ladislaus Malikowsky
might still have been a dangerous man for women, at least for a certain
class. He had been irresistible when a young man; but now nothing was
left him of his youth but an insatiate desire for enjoyment, and a
reckless profligacy, which went hand in hand with the cool, calculating
prudence of old age.
This disgusting caricature of youth approached the princess, kissed her
hand courteously, and said, while sinking carefully into one of the
arm-chairs before the fire:
"You wonder, Alexandrina, that I do not appear with the others----"
"Indeed I do."
"Do not think it a want of consideration for the betrothed of my
son"--the count uttered the last word with a peculiar accent, and never
without showing his false, white teeth--"on the contrary, it is the
very interest I take in the welfare of the young couple which brings me
here, I may say, out of breath. A discovery which I have made--but,
Alexandrina, may I beg that that person may leave the room; my
communication is strictly confidential," whispered the count, bending
over towards the princess.
"Leave us alone, Nadeska; but stay in the ante-room," said the
princess.
"Alexandrina," said the count, when Nadeska had gone into the adjoining
room to place her ear to the key-hole, "you were not disposed yesterday
to help me in my embarrassment. I have lost heavily at cards, and my
exchequer is exhausted. Well I might have been offended by your
refusal, especially considering the peculiar relations existing between
us. But for my part I know how to do with little, and I should not
like, for anything in the world, to be troublesome to you, or to my son
[here the white teeth actually shone]. I am all the more sorry,
therefore, to have to appeal once more to you, not for myself in this
case, but for one who has stronger claims than I have."
"I am not so fortunate as to guess even the meaning of your words,"
replied the princess, sinking back into her chair with half-closed
eyes.
"Perhaps," said the count, drawing from his coat-pocket a letter, which
he opened slowly, as his hands were tightly encased in close-fitting
kid-gloves--"perhaps this letter, which was handed me half an hour ago
by a young man, may give you the desired explanation. Permit me to read
it to you."
The count did not wait for an answer, but adjusted his gold eye-glasses
on his nose, and read, glancing every now and then over the paper at
the princess:
"Most noble count:--At a moment when his highness, Prince Waldenberg,
is bringing home his fair betrothed, the Baroness Helen Grenwitz, to
present her to his mother, the princess, it cannot be but desirable
that all the members of the family should be united by that harmony
without which even less important festivities are often very sadly
interrupted. You yourself, most noble count, set an example, when you
kindly dropped a veil over certain events which took place in the
night, from the 21st to the 22d November, 1820, in the Letbus mansion
in St. Petersburg. I should like to follow your example, if
circumstances permitted. But I have no alternative, and see myself
compelled to present my business personally to you, or to trouble
certain persons with it, who have special reasons for keeping certain
matters a secret from his highness the prince. I beg leave, therefore,
to address myself to his excellency, Count Malikowsky, as the most
suitable person for an arrangement, with the request that immediately
fifty thousand roubles in silver be paid me by his bankers in town; if
not, I shall see myself compelled to present my request in person to
his highness the prince.
"In the meanwhile (which I beg to limit to eight days from to-day) I
remain, etc., etc., etc.,
"Director Caspar Schmenckel, from Vienna.
"P.S.--If you should prefer to negotiate directly with me, I may be
found every evening after 7 o'clock in the 'Dismal Hole,' Gertrude
street. No. 15. The same."
"Well, what do you say, Alexandrina?" snarled the count, letting his
eye-glass drop, and putting the letter back in his pocket.
"That the whole thing is a poor invention of yours."
"_Comment?_" exclaimed the count, with an astonishment which was not
affected in this case.
"Do you really think, sir," said the princess, trembling with rage and
secret fear, "there is a particle of truth in the whole thing, and that
I would be caught in such an ill-made snare? That I do not see what it
all means? That you have only thought of this impudent invention
because I am unwilling to waste the rest of my fortune upon your mad
dissipation?"
"Really, Alexandrina. Hearing you speak so, one might actually believe
your conscience was as clean as my gloves. Why, you are blinded by
anger, my dearest! Please observe, this letter contains things of which
I have no idea, nor can have an idea, _e. g._, the name of the good man
in question. You know I have never been so happy as to hear yet whose
blood flows in the veins of my son" (the count's teeth were glittering
in a perfectly frightful manner); "and besides, you have an infallible
means to ascertain the genuineness of this letter. Send for the writer!
Twenty-one years will hardly have changed him so much that you should
not recognize him."
"You think I am not going to do that? You are mistaken. I insist upon
your bringing me this man of straw, with whom you wish to frighten me.
Give me the letter."
"_Avec le plus grand plaisir!_" replied the count "There! But,
Alexandrina, I hope the interview will take place in my presence, or I
shall not be able to contain myself for jealousy."
"Devil!"
"Oh, my angel! Do you call the man so to whom you owe so much?"
"Owe so much? to you? I, who picked you up from the gutter?"
"But I have given you my good name."
"Good name! A name dragged through every mean vice, and every blackest
sin----"
"And yet good enough for the friend and----"
"Have a care!"
"Why? The heavens are high, and the czar is afar off. But you are quite
right in demanding that too much importance should not be attached to
this connection. The whole world knows pretty well that, in some
respects, no rank or position came amiss to you."
"That goes too far. I----"
"Keep quiet, _ma chere_! I hear a carriage coming. No doubt, our dear
ones. We must give them an example of conjugal love."
* * * * *
It was perhaps two hours later. Helen was wandering restlessly up and
down in her superb room. Nadeska had left her, and the baroness,
fatigued by the journey, had retired to her chamber. Helen could not
sleep. Her soul was oppressed by an indescribable anxiety, which was
all the more painful because so vague. She felt in the midst of all the
splendor by which she was surrounded like a child in an enchanted
castle, where in every corner into which the light does not penetrate
fully, and behind every silk curtain gently waving in a current of air,
some unspeakable horror might be lurking. Was this the realization of
her proudest hopes? She could not get rid of the impression made upon
her by her reception in the salon of the princess. She still felt her
icy-cold lips on her forehead; she still saw the repulsive, impudent
smile of the count and the dark frown of the prince. It was an
uncomfortable spirit that dwelt in this house. And she had surrendered
herself to this spirit; she had sacrificed to it her freedom, her young
girl's dreams, her future! And what was she to gain in return! High
rank, great wealth--how little all that seemed to her at this moment!
How willingly she would have given it all up for the mere shadow of the
unspeakable happiness she had enjoyed last summer, when she stepped
from her cool apartments into the golden morning light of the park, and
slowly sauntered about between the bright flowers, expecting at every
turn around a shrub or a bosquet to meet Oswald! How far, how
irrecoverably far, this was lying behind her! As far as the paradise of
her childish years, which no longing of ours, no return of spring, can
bring back to us! She was quite surprised, herself, that all her
thoughts were wandering back to-day to Grenwitz; that a thousand little
scenes, which she thought she had long forgotten, came back to her now:
a walk with Bruno and Oswald through the fields when the evening sun
was hanging low, like a huge ball of fire, near the horizon, and bright
lights were playing fitfully over the golden grain, while the larks
were jubilant high above them in the deep blue of the heavens. And
again, one hot afternoon, when she had fallen asleep on a bench in a
shady avenue in the garden, tired by the monotonous humming and
whizzing of insects, she awoke at the moment when somebody--it was
Bruno--was placing a wreath of dark-red roses on her head, while a few
steps from them, somebody else--it was Oswald--was peeping from behind
a tree. And ever it was Bruno and Oswald who gave life to the idyllic
picture--Elysian forms in Elysian fields. Oh, were not both dead? Helen
had suffered indescribably when Oswald's elopement with Emily had
become the common gossip of Grunwald; for only now, when a whole world
parted him from her, she felt how dear this man had been to her. She
tried, it is true, to master her passion and to be reconciled to her
fate, which she had after all brought upon herself. But she caught
herself only too frequently comparing her betrothed with Oswald, a
comparison which invariably resulted in the conviction that the former
lacked everything which had made Oswald so attractive: the graceful,
elegant carriage, the bright and yet so tender eyes, the deep voice
with its gentle music, the ever-changing and ever-interesting
expression of his face. She had never felt as deeply as this evening
how little her heart had to say to her betrothed. She recollected with
a shudder that when the drums had beat in the streets, when the war of
the excited multitude had been heard from afar, and the prince had
started up to hasten to his post, she had felt only that this gave her
a good opportunity to retire to her rooms.
And the poor girl's heart grew heavier and her eyes dimmer. She thought
she was thoroughly wretched; she pitied herself that she was so alone
and had no one to share her sorrow. But had she not prepared her
isolation herself? Had she not repelled good people, who had come to
her with open hearts, by her cool politeness? How she now wished for
good old Miss Bear; for clever, cordial Sophie Roban! But was not
Sophie in town? Might she not look up the friend whom she had
so sadly neglected during the last days in Grunwald? Helen clung
to this thought, while she hid her beautiful face in the silken
cushions;--proud Helen! who looked as if she could go on her path,
lonely, like a bright star, unconcerned about the doings of poor men
far down in their humble huts!