BARON ROHRITZ.
Stasy had vented so much malice upon Stella that Rohritz had
involuntarily begun to think well of her. After he had retired, in the
watches of the night, and was trying in vain to be interested in a
volume of Tauchnitz, his thoughts were still busied with her. "Poor
thing," he reflected, "there must be something attractive about her, or
Les and his wife would not be so devoted to her. And, after all, what
did that venomous old maid's accusations amount to?--that she has an
antipathy for artillery-officers,"--Rohritz as a former cavalry-man
shrugged his shoulders indulgently at this weakness,--"and that she
wants to go upon the stage. That, to be sure, is bad. I know nothing in
the world more repulsive than girls of what are called the better
classes who are studying for the stage."
And Rohritz recalled a certain officer's daughter whom he had once met
at an evening entertainment, and who in proof of her distinguished
talent had declaimed various 'selections.' He had been quite unable to
detect her talent, and had spoken of her contemptuously as an
hysterical tree-frog. The appellation had met with acceptance and had
been frequently repeated.
The remembrance of the officer's bony daughter lay heavy on his soul.
"Yes, if Stella should remind me in the least of that hysterical
tree-frog, I really could not stay here much longer," he thought, with
a shudder. "And in any case I cannot but regret these last pleasant
days. That old dandy and the faded beauty were bad enough, but they
could be ignored; while a young girl--and a relative, too, of the
family---- Pshaw! at all events I can take my leave."
With which he put out his candle and went to bed.
What it was that was dear to him in the sleepy and very uninteresting
life at Erlach Court it would be difficult to say. Perhaps he prized it
as chiming in so admirably with the precious ennui which he had brought
home from America ten years previously, and which had since been his
inseparable companion. It was such a finished, elegant ennui; it never
yawned and looked about for amusement, never in fact felt the least
desire for it, but looked down in self-satisfied superiority upon those
childish mortals who were actually capable of being irritated or
entertained upon this old exhausted globe.
He was proud of this kind of moral ossification, which was gradually
paralyzing all his really noble qualities.
"'Tis a pity!" said Leskjewitsch, whose youth was still warm in his
veins, and who declared that he had never been bored for half an hour
in his life, except upon a pitch-dark night in winter at some lonely
outpost when he had been delayed on the march; and although the honest
captain was a demi-savage and "still in roundabouts," we cannot help
repeating his words with reference to Rohritz, "'Tis a pity!"
Yes, a pity! Who that saw Edgar von Rohritz--his mother had bestowed
upon him his melodramatic name in a fit of enthusiasm for Walter Scott
and Donizetti,--who that saw him to-day could believe that in his
youth, under a thin disguise of aristocratic nonchalance, he was far
more sentimentally inclined than his former comrade Leskjewitsch? But
sentiment had fared ill with him. After having overcome, not without a
hard struggle, the pain of a very bitter disappointment, his demands
upon existence were of the most moderate description, and this partly
to spare himself useless pain and partly from caution lest he should
make himself ridiculous. He kept his heart closely shut; and if at
times sentiment, now fallen into disgrace with him, softly appealed to
it, entreating admission, he refused to listen. He was no longer at
home for sentiment.
About twenty years since he had begun his military career in the
same regiment of dragoons with Jack Leskjewitsch, and when hardly
five-and-twenty he had left the service and travelled round the world,
perhaps because change of air is as beneficial for diseases of the
heart as for other maladies.
For years now he had made his home in Graetz, whence he took frequent
flights to Vienna. He was but moderately addicted to society, so
called. He never danced; at balls he played whist, and dryly criticised
the figures and the toilettes of the dancers. He had the reputation of
being a woman-hater, and accordingly all the young married women
thought him excessively interesting. He was held to be one of the best
matches in Graetz, wherefore he was exposed to persecution by all
mothers blest with marriageable daughters.
Wearied of this varied homage, he had gradually withdrawn from society,
and had even relinquished his game of Boston, when one day a report was
circulated that he had suddenly lost almost all his property through
the negligence of an agent. All that was left him--so it was said--was
a mere pittance. Since he never contradicted this report, it was
thought to be confirmed. The mothers of marriageable daughters
discovered that he had a disagreeable disposition, and that it would be
very difficult to live with him. One week after this sad report had
been in circulation, he observed with a peculiar smile that during this
space of time he had received at least half a dozen fewer invitations
to dinners and balls than usual. Shortly afterwards meeting a friend in
the street who offered him his sincere condolence, he replied, with a
twirl of his moustache,--
"Do not, trouble yourself about me: I assure you that it is sometimes
very comfortable to be poor!"
The news of his sadly-altered circumstances penetrated even to the
secluded Erlach Court, and Captain Leskjewitsch, who learned it from a
casual mention of it in a postscript to a letter from a comrade, was
exceedingly agitated by it. He ran to his wife with the open letter in
his hand, exclaiming, "Ah ca, Katrine, read that. Rohritz has lost
every penny! Under such circumstances he must need entire change of
scene for a time. We must invite him here immediately,--immediately,
that is, if you have no objection."
For a wonder, the quarrelsome couple were perfectly at one on this
point.
"I shall be delighted to see him," replied Katrine. "Invite him at
once; that is, if you are not afraid of his making love to me."
The captain's face took on an odd expression. "There is no danger of
your allowing a stranger to make love to you," he muttered. "Your
disagreeable characteristic is that you will not allow even me to make
love to you."
Katrine raised her eyebrows: "I have an aversion for _rechauffees_."
The captain took instant advantage of his opportunity: "You certainly
cannot expect to be the first woman who I--hm!--thought had fine eyes?"
But Katrine was very busy with her household accounts, and consequently
she had no time at present to indulge in her favourite amusement, a
lively discussion.
"Don't agitate yourself, my dear," she rejoined, "but go and write a
beautiful letter to Rohritz; and do it quickly, that it may go by
to-day's post. Shall I compose it for you?"
"Thanks, I think I am equal to that myself," the captain replied, with
a laugh. "Upon my word, a poor dragoon has to put up with a deal from
so cultivated a woman."
As he turned to go, Katrine called after him: "I warn you beforehand
that I have a weakness for Rohritz. All the rest is your affair. I wash
my hands of it."
Nothing so aroused Katrine Leskjewitsch's sarcasm as the problematical
conscientiousness of those young wives who combine a decided love for
flirtation with a determination to cast all the blame for it upon their
husbands, posing in the eyes of the world as suffering angels at the
side of black-hearted monsters. Her ridicule of such women was sharp
and plentiful.
"A deuce of a woman!" the captain murmured as he betook himself to his
library and--rare effort for a dragoon--indited a letter four pages
long to his old comrade.
His friend's epistle, strange to say, touched Rohritz. It was so
cordial, so frank, and so warmly sympathetic, such a contrast to the
formal assurances of sympathy which he met with elsewhere, that he
accepted the invitation extended to him, and made his appearance at
Erlach Court a week afterwards.
He had been here now for three weeks, and had been really content,
especially during the early period of his visit, when he had been alone
with his host and hostess. The arrival of the general and Stasy had
somewhat annoyed him, and the news of the approach of another
detachment of guests consisting, moreover, of a mother and daughter
positively irritated him. Good heavens! another mother, another
daughter! Was there then no spot upon the face of the globe where one
could be safe from mothers and daughters?