The late summer passed on into full autumn, and he never returned to
the little isle under the birches and willows. The monks spoke of him
often with the wondering admiration of rustic recluses for one who had
seemed to them the very incarnation of that world which to them was
only a vague name. His talents were remembered, his return was longed
for; a silver reliquary and an antique book of plain song which he
had sent them were all that remained to them of his sojourn there. As
they angled for trout under the drooping boughs, or sat and dosed in
the cloister as the rain fell, they talked together of that marvellous
visitant with regret. Sometimes they said to one another that they had
fancied once upon a time he would have become lord there, where the
spires and pinnacles and shining sloping roofs of the great Schloss
rose amidst the woods across the Szalrassee. When their grand prior
heard them say so he rebuked them.
'Our lady is a true daughter of the Holy Church,' he said; 'all the
lands and all the wealth she has will come to the Church. You will see,
should we outlive her--which the saints send we may not do--that the
burg will be bequeathed by her to form a convent of Ursulines. It is
the order she most loves.'
She overheard him say so once when she sat in her boat beneath the
willows drifting by under the island, and she sighed impatiently.
'No, I shall not do that,' she thought. 'The religious foundations did
a great work in their time, but that time is over. They can no more
resist the pressure of the change of thought and habit than I can set
sail like S. Ursula with eleven thousand virgins. Hohenszalras shall
go to the Crown; they will do what seems best with it. But I may live
fifty years and more.'
A certain sadness came over her as she thought so; a long life, a
lonely life, appalled her, even though it was cradled in all luxury and
strengthened with all power.
'If only my Bela were living!' she said, half aloud; and the water grew
dim to her sight as it flowed away green and sparkling into the deep
long shadows of its pine-clothed shores, shadows, stretching darkly
across its western side, whilst the eastern extremity was still warm in
the afternoon light.
The great pile of Hohenszalras seemed to tower up into the very clouds;
the evening sun, not yet sunk behind the Venediger range, shone ruddily
on all its towers and its gothic spires, and the grim sculptures and
the glistening metal, with which it was so lavishly ornamented, were
illumined till it looked like some colossal and enchanted citadel,
where soon the magic ivory horn of Childe Boland might sound and wake
the spell-bound warders.
If only Bela, lord of all, had lived!
But her regret was not only for her brother.
In the October of that year her solitude was broken; her Sovereign
signified her desire to see Hohenszalras again. They were about to
visit Salzburg, and expressed their desire to pass three days in the
Iselthal. There was nothing to be done but to express gratitude for the
honour and make the necessary preparations. The von Szalras had been
always loyal allies rather than subjects, and their devotion to the
Habsburg house had been proved in many ways and with constancy. She
felt that she would rather have to collect and equip a regiment of
horse, as her fathers had done, than fill her home with the _tapage_
inevitable to an Imperial reception, but she was not insensible to the
friendship that dictated this mark of honour.
'Fate conspires to make me break my resolutions,' she said to the
Princess; who answered with scant sympathy:
'There are some resolutions much more wisely broken than persevered in;
your vows of solitude are amongst them.'
'Three days will not long affect my solitude.'
'Who knows? At all events, Hohenszalras for those three days will be
worthy of its traditions--if only it will not rain.'
'We will hope that it may not. Let us prepare the list of invitations.'
When she had addressed all the invitations to some fifty of the
greatest families of the empire for the house party, she took one of
the cards engraved 'To meet their Imperial Majesties,' and hesitated
some moments, then wrote across it the name of Sabran.
'You will like to see your friend,' she said as she passed it to her
aunt.
'Certainly, I should like to do so, but I am quite sure he will not
come.'
'Not come?'
'I think he will not. You will never understand, my dear Wanda, that
men may love you.'
'I certainly saw nothing of love in the conversation of M. de Sabran,'
she answered, with some irritation.
'In his conversation? Very likely not; he is a proud man and poor.'
'Since he has ceased to visit Monte Carlo.'
'You are ungenerous, Wanda.'
'I?'
The accusation fell on her with a shock of surprise, under which some
sense of error stirred. Was it possible she could be ungenerous? She,
whose character had always, even in its faults, been cast on lines so
broad? She let his invitation go away with the rest in the post-bag to
Matrey.
In a week his answer came with others. He was very sensible, very
grateful, but the political aspect of the time forbade him to leave
France. His election had entailed on him many obligations; the Chamber
would meet next month, etc., etc. He laid his homage and regrets at the
feet of the ladies of Hohenszalras.
'I was sure he would say so,' the Princess observed. It did not lie
within her Christian obligations to spare the '_je vous l'avais bien
dit._'
'It is very natural that he should not jeopardise his public
prospects,' answered Wanda herself, angrily conscious of a
disappointment, with which there was mingled also a sense of greater
respect for him than she had ever felt.
'He cares nothing at all about those,' said the Princess, sharply. 'If
he had the position of Egon he would come. His political prospects! Do
you pretend to be ignorant that he only went to the Chamber as he went
to Romaris, because you recommended ambition and activity?'
'If that be the case he is most wise not to come,' answered, with some
coldness, the châtelaine of Hohenszalras; and she went to visit the
stables, which would be more important in the eyes of her Imperial
mistress than any other part of the castle.
'She will like Cadiga,' she thought, as she stroked the graceful throat
of an Arab mare which she had had over from Africa three months before,
a pure bred daughter of the desert 'shod with lightning.'
She conversed long with her _stallmeister_ Ulrich, and gave him various
directions.
'We are all grown very rustic and old-fashioned here,' she said with a
smile. 'But the horses at least will not disgrace us.'
Ulrich asked his most high countess if the Margraf von Sabran would be
of the house party, and when she answered 'No,' said, with regret,
that no one had ever looked so well on Siegfried as he had done.
'He did ride very well,' she said, and turned to the stall where the
sorrel Siegfried stood. She sighed unconsciously as she drew the
tufted hair hanging over-the horse's forehead through her fingers with
tenderness. What if she were to make Siegfried and all else his, if it
were true that he loved her? She thrust the thought away almost before
it took any real shape.
'I do not even believe it,' she said half aloud, and yet in her
innermost heart she did believe it.
The Imperial visit was made and became a thing of the past.
The state apartments were opened, the servants wore their state
liveries, the lake had its banners and flags, its decorated
landing-stairs and velvet-cushioned boats; the stately and silent place
was full for three days and nights of animated and brilliant life,
and great hunting parties rejoiced the soul of old Otto, and made the
forests ring with sound of horn and rifle. The culverins on the keep
fired their salutes, the chimes of the island monastery echoed the
bells of the clock tower of the Schloss, the schools sang with clear
fresh voices the Kaiser's Hymn, the sun shone, the jäger were in full
glory, the castle was filled with guests and their servants,' the
long-unused theatre had a troop of Viennese to play comedies on its
bijou stage, the ball-room, lined with its Venetian mirrors and its
Reseiner gilding, was lit up once more after many years of gloom; the
nobles of the provinces came from far and wide at the summons of the
lady of Hohenszalras, and the greater nobles who formed the house-party
were well amused and well content, whilst the Imperial guests were
frankly charmed with all things, and honestly reluctant to depart.
When she accompanied them to the foot of the terrace stairs, and there
took leave of them, she could feel that their visit had been one of
unfeigned enjoyment, and her farewell gift to her Kaiserin was Cadiga.
They had left early on the morning of the fourth day, and the remainder
of the day was filled till sunset by the departure of the other guests;
it was fatiguing and crowded. When the last visitor had gone she
dropped down on a great chair in the Rittersäal, and gave a long-drawn
sigh of relief.
'What a long strain on one's powers of courtesy!' she murmured. 'It is
more exhausting than to climb Gross Glöckner!'
'It has been perfectly successful!' said the Princess, whose cheeks
were warm and whose eyes were bright with triumph.
'It has been only a matter of money,' said the Countess von Szalras,
with some contempt. 'Nothing makes one feel so _bourgeoise_ as a thing
like this. Any merchant or banker could do the same. It is impossible
to put any originality into it. It is like diamonds. Any one only heard
of yesterday could do as much if they had only the money to do it with;
you do not seem to see what I mean?'
'I see that, as usual, you are discontented when any other woman would
be in paradise,' answered the Princess, a little tartly. 'Pray, could
the _bourgeoise_ have a residence ten centuries old?'
'I am afraid she could buy one easily,'
'Would that be the same thing?'
'Certainly not, but it would enable her to do all I have done for the
last three days, if she had only money enough; she could even give away
Cadiga.'
'She could not get Cadiga accepted!' said Mme. Ottilie, drily. 'You are
tired, my love, and so do not appreciate your own triumphs. It has been
a very great success.'
'They were very kind; they are always so kind. But all the time I could
not help thinking, were they not horribly fatigued. It wearied me so
myself, I could not believe that they were otherwise than weary too.'
'It has been a great success,' repeated the Princess. 'But you are
always discontented.'
Wanda did not reply; she leaned back against the Cordovan leather
back of the chair, crushing her chestnut hair against the emblazoned
scutcheon of her house; she was very fatigued, and her face was pale.
For three whole days and evenings to preserve an incessant vigilance of
courtesy, a continual assumption of interest, an unremitting appearance
of enjoyment, a perpetual smile of welcome, is very tedious work: those
in love with social successes are sustained by the consciousness of
them, but she was not. An Imperial visit more or less could add not one
hair's breadth to the greatness of the house of Szalras.
And there was a dull, half conscious pain at the bottom of her heart.
She was thinking of Egon Vàsàrhely, who had said he could not leave
his regiment; of Réné de Sabran, who had said he could not leave his
country. Even to those who care nothing for society, and dislike the
stir and noise of the world about them, there is still always a vague
sense of depression in the dispersion of a great party; the house
seems so strangely silent, the rooms seem so strangely empty, servants
flitting noiselessly here and there, a dropped flower, a fallen jewel,
an oppressive scent from multitudes of fading blossoms, a broken vase
perhaps, or perhaps a snapped fan--these are all that are left of
the teeming life crowded here one little moment ago. Though one may
be glad they are all gone, yet there is a certain sadness in it. '_Le
lendemain de la fête_' keeps its pathos, even though the fête itself
has possessed no poetry and no power to amuse.
The Princess, who was very fatigued too, though she would not confess
that social duties could ever exhaust anyone, went softly away to
her own room, and Wanda sat alone in the great Rittersäal, with the
afternoon light pouring through the painted casements on to the
damascened armour, and the Flemish tapestries, and the great dais at
the end of the hall, with its two-headed eagle that Dante cursed,
its draperies of gold-coloured velvet, its escutcheons in beaten and
enamelled metal.
Discontented! The Princess had left that truthful word behind her like
a little asp creeping upon a marble floor. It stung her conscience with
a certain reproach, her pride with a certain impatience. Discontented!
She who had always been so equable of temper, so enamoured of solitude,
so honestly loyal to her people and her duties, so entirely grateful to
the placid days that came and went as calmly as the breathing of her
breast!
Was it possible she was discontented?
How all the great world that had just left her would have laughed at
her, and asked what doubled rose-leaf made her misery?
No one hardly on earth could be more entirely free than she was, more
covered with all good gifts of fortune and of circumstances; and she
had always been so grateful to her life until now. Would she never
cease to miss the coming of the little boat across from the Holy Isle?
She was angry that this memory should have so much power to pursue her
thought and spoil the present hours. Had he but been there, she knew
very well that the pageantry of the past three days would not have
been the mere empty formalities, the mere gilded tedium that they had
appeared to be to her.
On natures thoughtful and profound, silence has sometimes a much
greater power than speech. Now and then she surprised herself in the
act of thinking how artificial human life had become, when the mere
accident of a greater or lesser fortune determined whether a man who
respected himself could declare his feeling for a woman he loved. It
seemed lamentably conventional and unreal, and yet had he not been
fettered by silence he would have been no gentleman.
Life resumed its placid even tenor at Hohenszalras after this
momentary disturbance. Autumn comes early in the Glöckner and
Venediger groups. Madame Ottilie with a shiver heard the north winds
sweep through the yellowing forests, and watched the white mantle
descend lower and lower down the mountain sides. Another winter was
approaching, a winter in which she would see no one, hear nothing, sit
all day by her wood fire, half asleep for sheer want of interest to
keep her awake; the very postboy was sometimes detained by the snowfall
for whole days together in his passage to and from Matrey.
'It is all very well for you,' she said pettishly to her niece. 'You
have youth, you have strength, you like to have four mad horses put in
your sleigh and drive them like demoniacs through howling deserts of
frozen pine forests, and come home when the great stars are all out,
with your eyes shining like the planets, and the beasts all white with
foam and icicles. You like that; you can do it; you prefer it before
anything, but I--what have I to do? One cannot eat nougats for ever,
nor yet read one's missal. Even you will allow that the evenings are
horribly long. Your horses cannot help you there. You embroider very
artistically, but they would do that all for you at any convent; and to
be sure you write your letters and audit your accounts, but you might
just as well leave it all to your lawyers. Olga Brancka is quite right,
though I do not approve of her mode of expression, but she is quite
right--you should be in the world.'
But she failed to move Wanda by a hair's breadth, and soon the hush
of winter settled down on Hohenszalras, and when the first frost had
hardened the ground the four black horses were brought out in the
sleigh, and their mistress, wrapped in furs to the eyes, began those
headlong gallops through the silent forests which stirred her to a
greater exhilaration than any pleasures of the world could have raised
in her. To guide those high-mettled, half-broken, high-bred creatures,
fresh from freedom on the plains of the Danube, was like holding the
reins of the winds.
One day at dusk as she returned from one of these drives, and went
to see the Princess Ottilie before changing her dress, the Princess
received her with a little smile and a demure air of triumph, of
smiling triumph. In her hand was an open letter which she held out to
her niece.
'Read!' she said with much self-satisfaction. 'See what miracles you
and the Holy Isle can work.'
Wanda took the letter, which she saw at a glance was in the writing
of Sabran. After some graceful phrases of homage to the Princess,
he proceeded in it to say that he had taken his seat in the French
Chamber, as deputy for his department.
'I do not deceive myself,' he continued. 'The trust is placed in me for
the sake of the memories of the dead Sabran, not because I am anything
in the sight of these people; but I will endeavour to be worthy of it.
I am a sorry idler and of little purpose and strength in life, but I
will endeavour to make my future more serious and more deserving of
the goodness which was showered on me at Hohenszalras. It grieved me
to be unable to profit by the permission so graciously extended to
me at the time of their Imperial Majesties' sojourn with you, but it
was impossible for me to come. My thoughts were with you, as they are
indeed every hour. Offer my homage to the Countess von Szalras, with
the renewal of my thanks.'
Then, with some more phrases of reverence and compliment blent in one
to the venerable lady whom he addressed, he ended an epistle which
brought as much pleasure to the recipient as though she had been
seventeen instead of seventy.
She watched the face of Wanda during the perusal of these lines, but
she did not learn anything from its expression.
'He writes admirably,' she said, when she had read it through; 'and I
think he is well fitted for a political career. They say that it is
always best in politics not to be burdened with convictions, and he
will be singularly free from such impediments, for he has none!'
'You are very harsh and unjust,' said the Princess, angrily. 'No
person can pay you a more delicate compliment than lies in following
your counsels, and yet you have nothing better to say about it than to
insinuate an unscrupulous immorality.'
'Politics are always immoral.'
'Why did you recommend them to him, then?' said the Princess, sharply.
'They are better than some other things--than _rouge et noir_, for
instance; but I did not perhaps do right in advising a mere man of
pleasure to use the nation as his larger gaming-table.'
'You are beyond my comprehension! Your wire drawing is too fine for my
dull eyesight. One thing is certainly quite clear to me, dull as I am;
you live alone until you grow dissatisfied with everything. There is
no possibility of pleasing a woman who disapproves of the whole living
world!'
'The world sees few unmixed motives,' said Wanda, to which the Princess
replied by an impatient movement.
'The post has brought fifty letters for you. I have been looking over
the journals,' she answered. 'There is something you may also perhaps
deign to read.'
She held out a French newspaper and pointed to a column in it.
Wanda took it and read it, standing. It was a report of a debate in the
French Chamber.
She read in silence and attentively, leaning against the great carved
chimney-piece. 'I was not aware he was so good an orator,' she said
simply, when she had finished reading.
'You grant that it is a very fine speech, a very noble speech?'
said Madame Otillie, eagerly and with impatience. 'You perceive the
sensation it caused; it is evidently the first time he has spoken. You
will see in another portion of the print how they praise him.'
'He has acquired his convictions with rapidity. He was a Socialist when
here.'
'The idea! A man of his descent has always the instincts of his order:
he may pretend to resist them, but they are always stronger than he.
You might at least commend him, Wanda, since your words turned him
towards public life.'
'He is no doubt eloquent,' she answered, with 'some reluctance. 'That
we could see here. If he be equally sincere he will be a great gain to
the nobility of France.'
'Why should you doubt his sincerity?'
'Is mere ambition ever sincere?'
'I really cannot understand you. You censured his waste of ability and
accession; you seem equally disposed to cavil at his exertions and use
of his talent. Your prejudices are most cruelly tenacious.'
'How can I applaud your friend's action until I am sure of his motive?'
'His motive is to please you,' thought the Princess, but she was too
wary to say so.
She merely replied:
'No motive is ever altogether unmixed, as you cruelly observed; but I
should say that his must be on the whole sufficiently pure. He wishes
to relieve the inaction and triviality of a useless life.'
'To embrace a hopeless cause is always in a manner noble,' assented her
niece. 'And I grant you that he has spoken very well.'
Then she went to her own room to dress for dinner.
In the evening she read the reported speech again, with closer
attention. It was eloquent, ironical, stately, closely reasoned, and
rose in its peroration to a caustic and withering eloquence of retort
and invective. It was the speech of a born orator, but it was also the
speech of a strongly conservative partisan.
'How much of what he says does he believe?' she thought, with a doubt
that saddened her and made her wonder why it came to her. And whether
he believed or not, whether he were true or false in his political
warfare, whether he were selfish or unselfish in his ambitions, what
did it matter to her?
He had stayed there a few weeks, and he had played so well that the
echoes of his music still seemed to linger after him, and that was all.
It was not likely they would ever meet again.