Mr. Schmenckel walked slowly down the Linden to William street. He had
crossed his arms behind and pressed his hat low down on his brow.
People made way for him, for he stared fixedly at the pavement, and
continually murmured unintelligible words through his teeth. But Mr.
Schmenckel was neither drunk nor mad; he was only a little excited, and
repeated the lesson which Berger had taught him. It was a hard task;
but Mr. Schmenckel felt that he was only doing his duty if he broke up
the plot into which he had been entrapped by the cunning of Mr. Timm.
How fortunate that he had revealed it all to the professor in his great
anxiety! How that man talked! Why, he had frightened him out of his
wits! Schmenckel had always said that the professor was a man of very
special gifts. And that the Czika turned out to be a baron's daughter,
that was no wonder to Director Schmenckel, of Vienna. She had such
wonderful eyes, that girl, and he had always treated her well; it was
not so strange, therefore, that the baron should have offered old
Caspar Schmenckel a place as steward on one of his estates. No; Caspar
Schmenckel, from Vienna, need not try to obtain money by foul means.
Caspar Schmenckel could hold his head high again and----
"Why on earth, old man, are you coming only now?" said suddenly a very
sharp voice near him. "You ought to have done with your visit by this
time!"
It was Mr. Timm who had uttered these angry words. He had been
patrolling up and down William street, in the neighborhood of the
Waldenberg mansion, in order to hear the result of Oswald's interview
with the Baroness Grenwitz. He thought Director Schmenckel was by this
time on his way to the Dismal Hole, where they had appointed to meet in
case they should miss each other in the street. Timm had had his
reasons for sending Schmenckel an hour sooner than Oswald to the house.
If Oswald's interview with the baroness was to be successful, the
baroness must first have read a certain letter; and in order to make
the letter effective, Schmenckel must first have had a conference with
the princess. In Mr. Timm's exquisite plans each measure fitted into
the other as in the works of a watch. Mr. Timm had, therefore, good
reasons for being very indignant at Mr. Schmenckel's dereliction.
"It is enough to drive one mad," he continued, in his irritation. "I
cannot leave you alone for a moment but you commit a stupid blunder."
"Oh! not so rude, my friend!" replied Mr. Schmenckel, feeling in his
virtuous purposes quite able to cope with the serpent-wisdom of his
accomplice, "or I'll become personal too!"
Mr. Timm saw that he had gone too far.
"Well, well!" he said, gently; "between friends no offence ought to be
taken. Only make haste now to go in. All may come out right yet. You
have seen the count this morning?"
"No!" growled Mr. Schmenckel.
"But why on earth haven't you seen him?" exclaimed Timm, whose
indignation was roused once more.
"Because I did not choose!" said Schmenckel, defiantly. "Because I do
not want to have anything more to do with you anyway!"
"Ah!" said Timm; "you would like to raise the treasure by yourself? I
have burnt my fingers to draw the chestnuts out of the fire for you,
eh? No, my dear sir, we are not quite such fools. He who wants to be
paid must work."
"I do not want a farthing of that wretched money!" cried Schmenckel. "I
am going to tell the princess that I am an honest fellow, and that she
need not trouble herself any further."
"Are you piping in that way?" asked Timm. "You mean to betray me a
little, do you? Have a care, man; you might have to pay dear for the
fun!"
"I shall do what I like," said Schmenckel, assuming a very determined
air, and walking off with long strides.
"You shall not enter that house!" cried Timm, and seized Schmenckel by
the arm.
Schmenckel's reply to this challenge was a blow, which hurled Mr. Timm
very unpleasantly across the sidewalk against the wall. The next moment
the great portal had closed behind Mr. Schmenckel.
The little altercation with Mr. Timm had put him in a kind of heroic
ecstasy well suited for the interview he was about to have. Thus it
happened that he was not abashed by the gorgeous livery of the
servants, nor by the splendor of the rooms through which he was led.
But his courage failed him and his heart sank when the servant stopped
at a door and whispered: "Her grace is in there; go in without
knocking; she expects you." Mr. Schmenckel passed his hand through his
thick hair, cleared his voice, held his hat firmly under his left arm,
and entered cautiously.
A rosy twilight received him, and in the rosy twilight he noticed two
women, one of whom was seated in an arm-chair near the bright fire that
was burning there in spite of the warm weather, while the other stood a
little sideways behind the chair. Both of them examined him as he
approached with eager curiosity. His reception caused him to shorten
his steps more and more till he suddenly came to a stop half way
between the door and the fire-place.
"Come nearer, my friend," said the lady who was standing behind the
chair.
Mr. Schmenckel advanced a few inches and came again to a stop, quite
determined this time not to approach nearer to those formidable eyes.
"You are the man who wrote to Count Malikowsky day before yesterday?"
asked the lady behind the chair.
"Yes, your grace." Mr. Schmenckel felt as if these words, which he no
doubt had uttered himself, had been spoken by some one else at the
other end of the large apartment. This was by no means calculated to
bring back the heroic frame of mind which the rosy twilight and the
bright eyes had so seriously damaged. He blushed all over, and cleared
his voice in order to convince himself that it was really he himself
who was speaking to the ladies.
"Your name is Schmenckel?" asked the lady behind the chair.
"Yes, your grace."
"And you were in St. Petersburg twenty-four years ago?"
"Yes, your grace."
"And you visited at Letbus House?"
"Yes, your grace."
"Do you recognize me?"
Mr. Schmenckel fixed his eyes, which had been resting upon everything
in the room except the two ladies on the speaker, and said, after a
short reflection,
"I should think so; although I should not like to swear to it. If it
was not such a very long time since, I should say you were the Nadeska,
the chambermaid of the princess, who was all the time bringing me notes
and rose bouquets into the Black Bear."
Nadeska bent over her mistress and whispered a few words into her ear,
to which the latter replied in the same tone. Then Nadeska left the
room.
"Wont you sit down, Mr. Schmenckel?" said the princess, as soon as they
were alone.
Mr. Schmenckel seated himself on the outer edge of an arm-chair.
"Do you recognize me also?" asked the lady.
Mr. Schmenckel bowed, placing his hand on his heart.
"Why did you not come to me directly?" the princess continued in a tone
of gentle reproach. "Why did you take the count into your confidence?
Have I ever been ungenerous towards you. Was it my fault if our last
meeting ended as it did?"
Mr. Schmenckel was about to reply, but the princess continued.
"If I had known that you were still living, and where you were living,
I would have provided for you liberally; and I am still willing to do
so. But one condition I must make: you must have nothing to do with the
count; and, above all things, you must never dare come near the prince.
If you will comply with these conditions you may ask what you choose,
and if Alexandrina Letbus is able to do it it shall be done!"
The princess extended imploringly her thin, transparent hand; her black
eyes filled with tears; the rosy twilight gave a spiritual beauty to
her pale but still beautiful features. Mr. Schmenckel had a susceptible
heart in his bosom, and the humility of the great lady moved him
deeply.
"Let me say a word now, too, your grace," he said "I am not the
scoundrel you make me out. I should never have dreamt, your grace, of
writing a letter to the count, if I had not been persuaded to do so by
an awfully bad man. Timm is his name. I never knew at all that Caspar
Schmenckel, of Vienna, had such a great lord for his son. But that man
Timm said to me: No harm in beating about the bush; no harm in that!
Then he wrote the letter, and carried it himself to the count. The
count came the same evening to the Dismal Hole to see me, and told me
he was very glad if I could make life a little hard to you, Mrs.
Princess. But he said I must not say a word to the prince, or there
would be an end to the fun. And then, says he, you ask too much; a
fourth of it is enough. And he told me to talk it over with your grace
and then he would pay me the money this forenoon at his hotel. Now,
your grace, you may believe it or not, as you choose, but Caspar
Schmenckel, from Vienna, is an honest fellow, and don't like to do any
harm to anybody, least of all to a beautiful lady who was once upon a
time very kind to poor Caspar. And when your grace sent for me, and let
me know that you wanted to see me yourself, I said: Caspar, says I, go
to the princess and tell her so and so, and she must not trouble
herself about it any more; Caspar Schmenckel will never come near her
in all his life. And as for the money, I tell your grace, not a penny
do I want to touch of it, not if it were to turn into pure gold on the
spot. And so, your grace--princess, good-by to you! And if we don't see
each other again you must remain well, and don't you trouble yourself
any more about Caspar Schmenckel; he'll never do you any harm. I kiss
your hand, your grace!"
With these words he rose and made his best bow.
The princess was very much touched.
"Good fellow," she said, with trembling voice.
Her eyes dwelt with pleasure upon the herculean proportions of the man
who was the father of her son. The extraordinary resemblance between
them, in figure as well as in face, filled her with mournful
satisfaction. She thought of the days when this man, a lion in strength
and agility, had conquered not her heart but her imagination. But at
the same moment a sudden fear overcame her lest her son should find his
father here--lest her son with his pride and his passionate temper
should ever discover that this juggler, this rope-dancer, was the
father of Prince Waldenberg.
"You must go!" she said, hurriedly. "Here,"--she took a superb ring
from her finger, in which the diamonds shone in all the colors of the
rainbow as they caught the light of the fire--"here; no words, take it!
I wore it long, long ago, even when Nadeska first brought you to me;
take it as a keepsake from Alexandrina Letbus! But now go, go!"
She touched the silver bell. Nadeska entered.
"Show him out! Mind that no one sees you!"
Nadeska took Mr. Schmenckel, who would have liked to say something, but
was too confused and embarrassed to find words, and led him through a
secret door which led near the fire-place into a narrow passage, and
then through a private staircase into the courtyard.
The princess sank exhausted back into the cushions of her easy-chair,
and hid her eyes behind her hand. She did not notice that a heavy
curtain on the right hand from the fire-place, which had been moving
several times during her conversation with Mr. Schmenckel, now opened
and admitted the prince. She only heard him when he was close by her.
She opened her eyes, and at the same moment she uttered a piercing
shriek--his unexpected appearance and a single glance at his pale,
disturbed face told her that he had heard all.
"Mercy, Raimund! Mercy!" she cried, raising her folded hands in agony
towards him.
Raimund's broad chest was heaving as if it were struggling with an
overwhelming burden, and his voice sounded like a hoarse death-rattle,
as he now said, pointing with the finger at the door through which
Schmenckel had left,
"Was that man who has just left you my father?"
"Mercy, Raimund! Mercy! Are you going to kill your mother?"
"Better you had never borne me than this!"
The powerful man trembled as if violent fever were shaking him; a groan
broke from his breast which resounded fearfully through the gorgeous
apartment.
"By all the saints, Raimund, hear me, I beseech you! I will tell you
all!"
"I need not hear any more. I know too much already. The count called me
a bastard! I thought he was mad! He called me by my right name."
He put his hand to his side--he had laid aside his sword in the
ante-room. His eyes looked searchingly around as if looking for a
weapon. His mother understood him.
"Raimund, Raimund, what are you going to do?"
"Make an end of it as soon as possible!"
"No man will ever know----"
"_Will_ know? Who does not know it? Nadeska! the count! this man! Are
my rank, my honor, my fortune to depend on the whim of a chambermaid,
the discretion of a heartless roue, and the silence of a rope-dancer?
"Am I to wait till the people in the street----"
"I will kill every man who knows it! They shall die--they shall all
die, if you but remain my own."
"And if they were to die, and if no one knew but you and I--yes,
mother, if you were dead and the secret were buried in my bosom, I
should not think it safe even there; I should hide myself and my
disgrace in the lowest depths of the earth."
The princess covered her pale face with her thin hands. But this was
not the moment to abandon herself to idle grief. She knew her son's
character too well not to be aware that it was a question of life and
death.
"Raimund," she said, starting up again, "you do not kill yourself only;
you kill me too! You are my all, my sun, and my light! I never had
another child but you. You do not know what it is to have a child and
to love it, especially when one is as unhappy as I have been! I never
loved the count. I could not have loved a roue who has wasted his
fortune and his health in abominable profligacy. I became his wife
because--because the czar would have it so. And I was so young at that
time, and so frivolous and thoughtless, grown up in all the splendor
and luxury of the most splendid and most luxurious court on earth! I
was not a faithful wife--nor was the count a faithful husband. It
mattered little to him; but he wished to get a hold on me in order to
force me to provide for his mad expenditures. He had long watched
me--till at last, I do not know yet by what unlucky accident or by
whose treachery, he discovered my secret. From that moment my life has
been a perpetual torture; I have grown old before my time. I never had
anything but you and your love to warm my heart in this icy-cold world.
If you rob me of that also, I must succumb. Raimund, is this your
gratitude for all my love?"
The son had listened to his mother's cunning words, which interwove
truth and fiction so skilfully, with an air as black as a wall of
thunder-laden clouds.
"Show me the possibility of living," he replied, "and I will live. As
it is, I cannot live. I cannot endure the consciousness that my blood
is no better than that which flows in the veins of my groom."
"Am I not your mother?"
"Is that low person not my father?"
"Yes, Raimund, he is, and to him you owe your proud strength; to him
you owe it, that all men appear weaklings by your side. Would you
rather be the count's son and inherit his wretched feebleness, his
poisoned blood? And do you fancy that in our veins no other blood flows
but noble blood?--that your case is the only one in which a degenerate
race has been renewed by an admixture of sound but humble blood? Shall
I tell you a few anecdotes of our own circles? And do you think it is
different in higher and the very highest families?"
The princess rose lightly from her chair and whispered something in her
son's ear. But he grimly shook his head.
"Is it thus with us?" he said. "Then we had better break our swords to
pieces, and drag our coats-of-arms through the mire. I have kept my
honor unsullied; I have no sin on my conscience, but I must atone for
the sins of others, before the tide rises higher and higher, and I get
deeper and deeper into the mire. Do you know that the man with whom I
had a personal encounter Under the Lindens a few days ago was this very
man!" The prince pointed at the door through which Mr. Schmenckel had
made his way out. "Do you know that I escaped but by a hair's breadth
staining my sword with the blood of him who is my father? No! no! The
measure is full to overflowing!"
"And Helen?" The prince shuddered.
The princess saw how deep that arrow had entered. A gleam of hope
appeared to her; she thought she might after all be victorious in this
conflict.
"Are you going to destroy your greatest happiness? will you make this
angel also wretched? will you humiliate yourself before her, the proud
beauty? Impossible! You cannot mean it. You are bound to life with
chains of steel and with chains of roses. You can break the former, you
dare not break these."
"It is in vain," said the prince; "all your words cannot remove this
terrible burden!" He placed his hand on his breast. "Henceforth
Farewell!"
He turned to go.
"Raimund!" screamed the princess, rising suddenly from her chair and
clinging to her son, "what do you mean to do?"
"Nothing mean, be sure," he said, trying to disengage himself gently
from her arms. "Farewell!"
"Go then, barbarian, and murder--" She could not finish; the terrible
excitement of these last two scenes was too much for her suffering
nerves; she sank fainting upon her chair.
At that moment Nadeska came back. A glance at the scene in the room
told her what had happened.
"You will kill the poor lady," she said, hastening to assist her
fainting mistress. "And why all this? It will never be known."
The prince laughed. It was a fearful laugh.
"Do you think so, Nadeska?" he said. "But suppose you talked in your
dreams? Or have you sold your dreams also to the princess?"
He beat his forehead with his closed fist and rushed out.