Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive
Transcriber's Note:
1. Page scan source:
http://www.archive.org/details/erlachcourt00schuiala
2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
POPULAR WORKS FROM THE GERMAN,
Translated by MRS. A. L. WISTER.
* * * * *
The Alpine Fay. By E. Werner. 12mo. Extra cloth. $1.25.
The Owl's Nest. By E. Marlitt. 12mo. Extra cloth. $1.25.
Picked Up in the Streets. By H. Schobert. 12mo. Extra cloth, $1.25.
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Margarethe. By E. Juncker. 12mo. Extra cloth. $1.50.
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In the Schillingscourt. By E. Marlitt. 12mo. Extra cloth. $1.50.
At the Councillor's; or, A Nameless History. By E. Marlitt. 12mo.
Extra cloth. $1.50.
The Second Wife. By E. Marlitt. 12mo. Extra cloth. $1.50.
The Old Mam'selle's Secret. By E. Marlitt. 12mo. Extra cloth. $1.50.
Gold Elsie. By E. Marlitt. 12mo. Extra cloth. $1.50.
Countess Gisela. By E. Marlitt. 12mo. Extra cloth. $1.50.
The Little Moorland Princess. By E. Marlitt. 12mo. Extra cloth.
$1.50.
* * * * *
*** For sale by all Booksellers, or will be sent by mail, postage paid,
upon receipt of price by
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, Publishers, Philadelphia
ERLACH COURT
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN
OF
OSSIP SCHUBIN
BY
MRS. A. L. WISTER
PHILADELPHIA
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1889
* * * * *
Copyright, 1889, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
* * * * *
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
I.--Expected Guests.
II.--Baron Rohritz.
III.--The Arrival.
IV.--Stella.
V.--An Experiment.
VI.--A Ruined Life.
VII.--A Rainy Evening.
VIII.--A Love-Affair.
IX.--Found.
X.--Freddy's Birthday.
XI.--Crabbing.
XII.--Disaster.
XIII.--Idyllic.
XIV.--A Departure.
XV.--Scattered.
XVI.--Zalow.
XVII.--Winter.
XVIII.--Sophie Oblonsky.
XIX.--Paris.
XX.--Therese de Rohritz.
XXI.--An Austrian Host.
XXII.--French Inferiority.
XXIII.--Prince Zino Capito.
XXIV.--A Music-Lesson.
XXV.--A New Acquaintance?
XXVI.--Five-O'clock Tea.
XXVII.--A Change at Erlach Court.
XXVIII.--A Paris Letter.
XXIX.--A Storm and its Consequences.
XXX.--A Sleepless Night.
XXXI.--Glowing Embers.
XXXII.--Therese the Wise.
XXXIII.--Stella's Failure.
XXXIV.--Rohritz Dreams.
XXXV.--A Sprained Ankle.
XXXVI.--Lost Again.
XXXVII.--The Fanes' Ball.
XXXVIII.--Found at Last.
ERLACH COURT.
CHAPTER I.
EXPECTED GUESTS.
Erlach Court,--a vine-wreathed castle, not very imposing, on the
Save,--a pleasant dining-room, with wide-open windows through which
thousands of golden stars are seen twinkling in the dark blue of a July
sky, while the air is laden with the fragrance of acacia- and
linden-blossoms. Beneath a hanging lamp, around a table whereon are
finger-bowls and the remains of a luxurious dessert, are grouped six
persons,--the master of the house, Captain von Leskjewitsch, his wife,
and his seven-year-old son and heir, Freddy, a Fraeulein von
Gurlichingen, whose acquaintance Frau von Leskjewitsch had made twenty
years before and whom she had never since been able to shake off, and
two gentlemen, Baron Rohritz and General von Falk.
The general is the same youthful veteran whom we have all met
before in some Viennese drawing-room or in some watering-place in
Bohemia,--accredited throughout Austria from time immemorial as
excellent company, dreaded as an incorrigible gossip, and notorious as
a thorough idler. He often boasts that in thirty years he has never
once dined at home; he might add, nor at his own expense. He is never
positively invited anywhere, but since he has never been turned out of
doors he is met everywhere. Absolutely free from prejudice in his
social proclivities, he is equally at home in aristocratic society and
in the world of finance; in fact, he rather prefers the latter; the
dinners there are better, he maintains.
In spite of his seventy years, he is still as erect as a
fir-tree,--dressed in the most youthful style,--occasionally, although
with a half-ironical smile, alludes in conversation to 'us young men,'
and dances at balls with the agility of a boy.
Baron Rohritz, who is scarcely six-and-thirty, already ranks himself,
on the contrary, for the sake of his personal ease, with the old men.
Tall and slender, with delicate, clearly-cut features, he is a
remarkably distinguished figure, even in the circle to which he
belongs. Although his moustache is brown, his hair is already very
gray, which women find extremely interesting, especially since there is
said to be some connection between this premature change of colour and
an unfortunate love-affair. The finest thing about his face is his
deep-set blue eyes; but since he uses an eye-glass, is near-sighted,
and often nearly closes his eyes, there is something haughty in his
look, which produces a chilling effect. When he smiles his expression
is very attractive, but he smiles only rarely, and shows to the best
advantage in his treatment of dogs, horses, and children.
Fraeulein von Gurlichingen, commonly called Stasy,--the diminutive of
her baptismal name, Anastasia, and a play upon her perpetual state of
ecstatic excitement,--is an old maid, who was once accounted a great
beauty, and in consequence is fond of wearing golden bands around her
romantically frizzed curls. Her languishing, light-blue eyes were once
compared to forget-me-nots sprinkled with sugar, and her complexion is
suggestive of Swedish kid dusted with violet powder. She was young
twenty years since, and has forgotten to stop being so. She once nearly
married a prince of the blood, and has lately been jilted by an
infantry-officer. She has come to Erlach Court to recover from this
last blow, perhaps in hopes of eventually obtaining a recompense for
the loss of the captain.
Little Freddy is a very pretty, spoiled child, in a sailor suit, with
bare legs very much scratched; and the master and mistress of the house
are two genial people, who eight years previously, both having outlived
the bloom of their early illusions, although she was only six-and-twenty
and the captain thirty, had "patched together their tattered lives,"
which means that they had married each other, not so much in the hope of
being happy themselves, as in that of making two other fellow-beings
miserable.
Although, however, they had thus married for pique, and though each had
brought to the union nothing save a remnant of unfortunate love for
somebody else, although they quarrelled with each other continually,
they got along together not much worse than two-thirds of the married
people whose union has been the result of passionate attachment.
All were waiting for the after-dinner coffee, which the mistress of the
mansion, in dread of spots, never allowed to be served in the
drawing-room, except on state occasions. Its appearance was
unpardonably delayed to-day, and the famous Erlach Court sociability
was beginning to degenerate into yawning ennui.
With the exception of Baron Rohritz, who had been occupied the entire
time in gazing with half-closed eyes into the clouds of blue smoke from
his cigar, all present had done their best to enliven the prevailing
mood: the general had told anecdotes from the 'Fliegende Blaetter,'
Freddy had succeeded in producing a particularly charming noise by
running a wet forefinger around the rims of various wineglasses,
Fraeulein Stasy had suggested a poetic comparison between dry storms and
the tearless anguish of a stricken heart, and the married pair had
squabbled with special earnestness about the most diverse matters,
first about the potato-rot, then about a problematical constitution for
Poland; and yet the conversation had failed to become fluent.
For a few minutes an oppressive silence had prevailed; the husband and
wife, usually equal to any emergency in this direction, had ceased even
to quarrel. The ticking of the watches was almost audible, when the
servant brought in on a salver the contents of the post-bag which had
just arrived.
"While the captain hastily opened a newspaper, that he might read aloud
to the nervous Stasy, with a harrowing attention to details, the latest
cholera bulletins, Frau von Leskjewitsch leisurely opened two letters:
the first came from a Trieste tradesman and announced the arrival of a
late invoice of the best disinfectants, the second apparently contained
intelligence of some importance. After she had read it, Frau von
Leskjewitsch laid it, with a pleased expression, upon the table.
"Children," she exclaimed,--it was a habit of hers thus to apostrophize
people well on in years, for, except Freddy, who was not yet eight,
and the general, who dyed his hair, all present were more or less
gray-headed,--"children, our circle is about to receive an addition; my
sister-in-law has just written me that she accepts our invitation and
will arrive here to-morrow or the day after."
"Bravo!" exclaimed the captain, who on hearing this news quite forgot
to go on teasing Stasy, and suppressed three entire cholera-telegrams.
"I shall be delighted to see my little niece."
Freddy said, meditatively, "I should like to know what my aunt will
bring me."
The rest of the party received the joyful tidings without emotion,
partly because the long-looked-for coffee at that moment made its
appearance, and partly because of the other three Stasy alone had any
personal acquaintance with the Baroness Meineck--as the captain's
sister was called--or her daughter. After the coffee had been cleared
away, and whilst the master and mistress of the house were arguing
outside in the corridor, most uselessly and most energetically, as to
the train by which the expected guests would arrive, the general,
who was playing his usual evening game of tric-trac with Rohritz,
sighed,--
"Our comfort is all over."
Rohritz raised his eyebrows inquiringly: "Do you mean that in honour of
these fresh guests we shall be obliged to put on a dress-coat at dinner
every day?"
"Not exactly that," said the general; "the ladies themselves are not
too much given to elegance; but"--the general's face lengthened--"we
shall be obliged to be cautious in our conversation."
Rohritz smiled significantly. "Double sixes!" he exclaimed, throwing
the dice on the green cloth and moving his men with cunning calculation
on the backgammon-board.
Meanwhile, the garrulous general continued, without waiting to be
questioned: "Leskjewitsch is patient with his sister, and is
excessively fond of his niece, but, between ourselves,"--he chuckled to
himself,--"Leskjewitsch is a fool!"
If anything gave him more satisfaction than to live at the expense of
others, it was to be witty, or rather malicious, at their expense.
Rohritz thought this bad form, and was silent.
"I do not know the ladies personally," the general went on, rubbing his
hands, "but for originality"--here he tapped his forehead with his
forefinger--"neither mother nor daughter is far behind the captain. The
mother is an old blue-stocking, and has been travelling all over the
world for the last ten years, collecting materials for an historical
work upon the Medicines, or whatever you choose to call them----"
"The Medici, perhaps?" Rohritz interpolated.
"Very likely; I only know that there was an apothecary in the family,
and that there were pills in their scutcheon, and that the worthy
Baroness's work is to be eight volumes long," said the general.
Stasy, who had been leaning back in a luxurious arm-chair, moved to
tears for the hundredth time over the last chapter of 'Paul and
Virginia,' her favourite book,--the death of the heroine, she said,
touched her especially because she could so easily fancy herself in
Virginia's place,--now laid her book aside, since her tears seemed to
arouse no sympathy, and joined in the conversation:
"You are talking of the Meinecks?"
"Yes. Are you personally acquainted with the ladies?" asked the
general.
"Yes,--not very intimately, though. I always held myself a little aloof
from them, but last summer we were at the same country resort,--I was
with a sick friend at Zalow,--and I saw something and heard a great
deal of the Meinecks."
"And are all the strange things that are said of them true?" asked the
general.
"I really do not know what is said of them," replied Stasy, "but it
certainly would be difficult to exaggerate their peculiarities. The
Baroness, unfortunately too late in life, has arrived at the conclusion
that the continuance of the human species is a crime. One of her
manias consists in giving _a tort et a travers_, wherever she may
chance to be, short lectures, gratis, upon the American Shakers and
their system. But, with all her zeal, she has hitherto succeeded in
making but few proselytes. Even her elder daughter, who was for some
years a fanatical adherent of her mother's doctrines, lately married an
artillery-officer. Stella, the younger sister, whose acquaintance you
are to make, dislikes having a brother-in-law in the artillery. The
Baroness's distaste was not for the quality of her son-in-law, but for
marriage itself. She appeared at the wedding in deep mourning, and but
for the remonstrances of her relatives the invitations to the ceremony
would have been engraved upon black-edged paper, like notices of a
funeral."
"Ah! And the second daughter,--hm--I mean the one expected here?"
"She will not hear of marriage, and is studying for the stage."
"Indeed?" said Baron Rohritz.
The general moved a little nearer him, and, with a mischievous twinkle
of his green eyes, whispered, "Between ourselves, I would not trust any
girl under sixty--he-he-he!--in the matter of marriage. This Stella is
hardly an exception; she probably imagines she can make a very good
match from the stage--he-he!"
Rohritz shrugged his shoulders.
Stasy continued: "I really am sorry for Stella: under other
circumstances she might have been very nice, but as it is she is
dreadful. Two years ago she had a craze for horsemanship: she used to
tear about for hours every day upon an English blood-horse which she
had bought for a mere song because it was blind of one eye. Since
the Meineck finances did not, of course, warrant a groom, and the
Meineck arrogance could not accept the attendance of any one of the
young men of the place,--and I know from the best authority that
several kindly offered themselves as her escort,--she rode alone, and
in a habit--good heavens!--patched up by herself out of an old blue
cloth sofa-covering,--just fancy! One day the Baroness was more than
commonly in need of money, perhaps to publish a new volume of history
or to repair a tumble-down chimney,--who knows?--at all events the
horse was sold to a farmer in the neighbourhood. Stella cried for a
week over her loss. Now the horse is quite blind, and draws an
ash-cart; and when the little goose sees him she kisses his forehead."
"Ah! _besoin d'aimer!_" chuckled the general. "Hm--hm!"
"Three times a week she goes to Prague, of course without any
chaperon,--and takes singing-lessons from a long-haired music-master
who predicts for her a career like Alboni's. Heaven knows what will be
the end of it. The Meineck temperament is sure sooner or later to show
itself in the child. Her father's mode of life scandalized even his
comrades, and her aunt----surely you know about Eugenie von Meineck,
the captain's old flame----"
She stopped short, for at this moment the captain himself entered the
room, and, turning to Rohritz, said, "I'm glad, old fellow, that your
stay in Erlach Court is to be brightened up a little."
"I assure you that no change is needed to make my visit to you most
agreeable," Rohritz rejoined, courteously.
The captain bowed: "Nevertheless you cannot deny that your pleasure may
be increased, and you are still young enough to enjoy the society of a
pretty and clever girl."
Rohritz bit his lip; he had a very decided, although quite excusable,
dislike for what are called clever young women. Stasy turned up her
nose.
"Do you think the little Meineck clever--_mais vraiment_ clever,
_spirituelle_?" she asked.
"She is full of bright, merry ideas, and what a pretty girl says is apt
to sound well," the captain replied, dryly.
"Do you think her pretty?" Stasy drawled; she never could make up her
mind to call any girl pretty.
"Pretty? She is charming, bewitching!" the captain declared, in an
angry crescendo.
Just then his wife appeared, much provoked at some particularly
shocking misdeed on the part of the maid to whom had been intrusted the
arrangement of the guest-chambers, and she asked, "What is the matter?"
"A difference of opinion with regard to your niece Stella, Katrine
dear," Anastasia said, sweetly, leaning back with a languishing air
among the cushions of her arm-chair and touching her fingertips
together. "Your husband thinks her so very beautiful."
"Oh, my husband always exaggerates," Frau von Leskjewitsch remarks.
"I never said very beautiful; I did not even say beautiful: I simply
said charming," the captain shouts.
"She is pretty. There is something very attractive about her," his wife
assents, "and my husband finds her especially charming because she
looks like his old flame, Eugenie Meineck. For my part, this
resemblance is the only thing about Stella that I do not like. I am
sorry that even in her features alone she should remind one of her
aunt."
"A rather indelicate allusion on your part," growls the captain, whose
brown cheeks had flushed at his wife's words.
As his wife always declared, he had never got out of roundabouts, which
suited him but ill, for he was an unusually tall, broad-shouldered man,
with very handsome, clear-cut features, and a face tanned and worn by
war, wind and weather, but recognizable as far as it could be seen as
that of a southern Slav.
"Extremely indelicate," he repeats, with emphasis.
"I think it ridiculous never to outlive disappointments," says Frau von
Leskjewitsch, who ever since she was a girl of eighteen had assumed the
air of a matron of vast worldly experience,--"extremely ridiculous,"
she adds, with comic mimicry of her husband's reproachful intonation.
As she spoke she slightly threw back her head crowned with luxuriant
hair gathered into a simple knot behind, half closed her eyes, and
stuck one thumb in the buff leather belt that confined her dark-blue
linen blouse at the waist. Baron Rohritz, an experienced connoisseur of
the female sex, had stuck his eye-glass in his eye, and was gazing at
her without a shadow of impertinent obtrusiveness, but with very
evident interest. Without being handsome, or taking the slightest pains
to appear so, she nevertheless produced a most agreeable impression.
According to the Baron's computation, she was about thirty-four years
old, and yet her tall slender figure had all the pliancy of early
youth. Her every motion was characterized by a certain energy and
determination that possessed an attraction in spite of being foreign to
the generally received opinion as to what constitutes feminine grace.
The eyes, shadowed by long black lashes, that looked forth from her
pale, oval face were full of intelligence and constantly varying
expression, her features were fine but not regular, and her laugh was
charming.
"Yes," she repeated, "I insist upon it, there is nothing more
ridiculous than the inability to have done with one's disappointments.
Good heavens! I freely confess to myself, and to the world at large,
that the worthy man with whom I was wretchedly in love for four years
was one of the vainest, most insignificant, most egotistical and
uninteresting geese that ever lived."
"You were not in love with him," declared the captain, who did not seem
to be quite free from a certain retrospective jealousy. "You were
simply under the domination of an _idee fixe_."
"As if the passion of love were ever anything save an _idee fixe_ of
the heart!" retorted Frau von Leskjewitsch; "and an _idee fixe_ is a
disease; while it lasts it is well to be patient with it, but when it
is over one ought to thank God and get rid of the traces of it as
quickly as possible. That you never did, Jack: you were always like the
belles of society, who cannot make up their minds to burn up their old
ball-dresses and other trophies or simply to throw them away. They
stuff their trunks full of such rubbish, until there is no room left
for their honest every-day clothes. Throw it away, and the sooner the
better!"
"What has once been dear to me is forever sacred in my eyes," said the
captain, solemnly.
"Yes, and consequently you drag about with you through life such a heap
of old, dusty, battered illusions that I really cannot see where you
find the strength to hold fast to one healthy vital sensation. Bah!
painful as it is, one must bury one's dead in time!"
"I prefer to embalm mine," the captain rejoined, with dignity.
"Let me congratulate you upon your collection of mummies," said his
wife.
"You have no capacity for veneration," the captain declared.
"Because I disapprove of whining _ad infinitum_ as homage to a vanished
enthusiasm,--ridiculous!" said Katrine.
"Don't quarrel, my doves!" Stasy entreated, clasping her hands after a
child-like fashion.
"We have no idea of doing so," the mistress of the house replied,
good-humouredly. "We never quarrel. Our complaint is a chronic
difference of opinion. What were we really talking about?"
"About illusions," remarked Baron Rohritz.
"Oh, that was merely a side-issue,--only an after-piece," said Frau von
Leskjewitsch, bethinking herself. "What was the starting-point of our
discussion?--Oh, yes: we were speaking of my little niece."
"Perhaps you can show us a photograph of her," said Anastasia.
"Yes, yes." And Frau von Leskjewitsch began an eager search in a small
gilt cottage which had once been a bonbonniere and now served as a
receptacle for photographs. In vain. Upon a closer examination several
of the photographs were found to be missing. Little Freddy confessed
with a repentant face that he had cut them up to make winders for
twine. His mother laughed, kissed his sleepy, troubled eyes, and sent
him to bed. Thus Baron Rohritz was left to draw from fancy a possible
likeness of Stella Meineck.