On the evening of the same day an old lady was walking to and fro in a
large, tastefully-furnished apartment looking out upon a little front
garden in Bellevue Street, Berlin. Both furniture and hangings in the
room, in contrast with the prevailing fashion, were light and cheerful.
The old lady's forehead wore a slight frown, and her air was somewhat
impatient, as of one awaiting a verdict.
At the first glance it was plain that she was very old, very tall,
broad-shouldered, and straight as a fir. In her bearing there was the
personal dignity of one whose pride has never had to bow, who has never
paid society the tribute of the slightest hypocrisy, who has never had
to lower a glance before mankind or before a memory; but it was at the
same time characterized by the unconscious selfishness, disguised as
love of independence, of one who has never allowed aught to interfere
with personal ease. Upon the broad shoulders, so well fitted to support
with dignity and power the convictions of a lifetime, was set a head of
remarkable beauty,--the head, noble in every line, of an old woman who
has never made the slightest attempt to appear one day younger than her
age. Oddly enough, there looked forth from the face--the face of an
antique statue--a pair of large, modern eyes, philosophic eyes, whose
glance could penetrate to the secret core of a human soul,--eyes which
nothing escaped, in the sight of which there were few things sacred,
and nothing inexcusable, because they perceived human nature as it is,
without requiring from it the impossible.
Such was Erika's grandmother, Countess Anna Lenzdorff.
After she had paced the room to and fro for a long time, she seated
herself, with a short impatient sigh, in an arm-chair that stood
invitingly beside a table covered with books and provided with a
student-lamp. She took up a volume of Maupassant, but a degree of
mental restlessness to which she was entirely unaccustomed tormented
her, and she laid the book aside. Her bright eyes wandered from one
object to another in the room, and were finally arrested by a large
picture hanging on the opposite wall.
It represented an opening in a leafy forest, dewy fresh, and saturated
with depth of sunshine. In the midst of the golden glow was a strange
group,--two nymphs sporting with a shaggy brown faun. The picture was
by Boecklin, and the forest, the faun, and the white limbs of the nymphs
were painted with incomparable skill: nevertheless the picture could
not be pronounced free from the reproach of a certain meretriciousness.
It had never occurred to Countess Lenzdorff to ponder upon the picture;
she had bought it because she thought it beautiful, and certainly an
old woman has a right to hang anything that she chooses upon her walls,
so long as it is a work of art. To-night she suddenly began to attach
all sorts of considerations to the picture.
Meanwhile, an old footman, with a duly-shaven upper lip, and very bushy
whiskers, entered and announced, "Herr von Sydow."
"I am very glad," the old lady rejoined, evidently quite rejoiced,
whereupon there entered a very tall, almost gigantic officer of
dragoons, with short fair hair and a grave handsome face.
"You come just at the right time, Goswyn," she said, cordially,
extending her delicate old hand. He touched it with his lips, and then,
in obedience to her gesture, took a seat near her, within the circle of
light of the lamp.
"How can I serve you, Countess?" he asked.
"You are acquainted with my small gallery," she began, looking around
the large airy room with some pride.
"I have frequently enjoyed your works of art," the young officer
replied. The phrase was rather formal; in fact, he himself was rather
formal, but there was something so genial behind his stiff North-German
formality that one easily forgave him his purely superficial
priggishness,--nay, upon further acquaintance came to like it.
"Rather antiquated in expression, your reply," the old lady rejoined.
"My small collection thanks you for your kindly appreciation; but that
is not the question at present. You know my Boecklin?"
"Yes, Countess."
"What do you think of it?"
He fixed his eyes upon it. "What could I think of it? It is a
masterpiece."
"H'm! that all the world admits," the old lady murmured, impatiently,
as if vexed at the want of originality in his remark; "but is it a
picture that one would leave hanging on the wall of one's boudoir when
one was about to receive into one's house as an inmate a grand-daughter
of sixteen? Give me your opinion as to that, Goswyn."
Again Goswyn von Sydow fixed his eyes upon the picture. "That would
depend very much upon the kind of grand-daughter," he said, frowning
slightly. "If she were a young girl brought up in the world and
accustomed from childhood to works of art, I should say yes. If she
were a young girl educated in a convent or bred in the country, I
should say no."
The old lady sighed. "I knew it!" she said. "My Boecklin is doomed. Ah!"
she exclaimed, wringing her hands in mock despair. "Pray, Goswyn,"--she
treated the young officer with the affectionate familiarity an old lady
would use towards a young fellow whom she has known intimately from
early childhood,--"press that button beside you."
The dragoon, evidently perfectly at home in the house, stretched out a
very long arm and pressed the button.
The footman immediately appeared. "Luedecke, call Friedrich to help you
take down that picture."
"Friedrich has gone to the station, your Excellency," Luedecke permitted
himself to remark.
"Yes, of course everything is topsy-turvy; nothing is as it has been
used to be. 'Coming events cast their shadows before.' It will always
be so now," sighed the Countess.
"I will help you take down the picture, Luedecke," Herr von Sydow said,
quietly, and before the Countess could look around there was nothing
save a broad expanse of light cretonne and two hooks upon the wall
where the Boecklin had hung.
Luedecke's strength sufficed to carry the picture from the room.
"Bring in tea," the Countess called after him. "You will take a cup of
tea with me, Goswyn?"
"Are you not going to wait for the young Countess?" Sydow asked, rather
timidly.
"Oh, she will not be here before midnight. I don't know why Friedrich
has gone at this hour to the station; probably he is in love with the
young person at the railway restaurant; else I cannot understand his
hurry. However, I thank you for your admonition."
"But, my dear Countess----" exclaimed the young man.
"No need to excuse yourself," she cut short what he was about to say.
"I am not displeased: you have never displeased me, except by not
having arranged matters so as to come into the world as my son.
Moreover, I should seriously regret the loss of your good opinion. Pray
forgive me for not driving myself to the railway station to meet my
grand-daughter and to edify the officials with a touching and effective
scene. Consider, this is my last comfortable evening."
"Your last comfortable evening," Goswyn von Sydow repeated,
thoughtfully.
"Now you disapprove of me again," the old Countess complained,
ironically.
"Disapprove!" he repeated, with an ineffective attempt to laugh at the
word. "Really, Countess, if I did not know how kind-hearted you are, I
should be sorry for your grand-daughter."
Ho cleared his throat several times as he spoke; he always became a
little hoarse when speaking directly from his heart.
"Kind-hearted,--kind-hearted," the old lady murmured, provoked; "pray
don't put me off with compliments. What sort of word is 'kind-hearted'?
One has weak nerves just as one has an aching tooth, and one does all
that one can to spare them; all the little woes one perceives one
relieves, if possible,--of course it is very disagreeable not to
relieve them,--but the intense misery with which the world is filled
one simply forgets, and is none the worse for so doing. You know it is
not my fashion to deceive myself as to the beauty of my own character.
You are sorry for my grand-daughter."
He would have assured her that he spoke conditionally, but she would
not allow him to do so. "Yes, you are sorry for my grand-daughter," she
said, decidedly, "but are you not at all sorry for me?"
"Upon that point you must allow me to express myself when I have made
acquaintance with the young Countess."
"That has very little to do with it," rejoined the old lady. "Let us
take it for granted that she is charming. Doctor Herbegg says she is a
jewel of the purest water, lacking nothing but a little polish;
between ourselves, I do not altogether believe him. He exaggerated my
grand-daughter's attractions a little to make it easy for me to receive
her. He is a good man, but, like two-thirds of the men who are worth
anything,"--with a significant side-glance at Sydow,--"a little of a
prig. But let us take for granted that my grand-daughter is the
ph[oe]nix he describes, it is none the less true that on her account I
must, in my old age, alter my comfortable mode of life, and subject
myself to the thousand petty annoyances which the presence of a young
girl in my house is sure to bring with it. Do you know how I felt when
my indispensable old donkey"--the Countess Lenzdorff was wont
frequently to designate thus her old footman Luedecke--"carried out my
Boecklin?" She fixed her eyes sadly upon the bare place on the wall. "I
felt as if he were dragging out with it all the comforts of my daily
life! Ah, here is the tea."
"It has been here for some time," Sydow said, smiling. "I was just
about to call your attention to the kettle, which is boiling over."
She made the tea with extreme precision. It was delightful to see the
beautiful old lady presiding over the old-fashioned silver tray with
its contents. She wore on this evening a white tulle cap tied beneath
the chin, and over it an exquisite little black lace scarf. A refined
Epicurean nature revealed itself in her every movement,--in the
delicate grace with which she handled the transparent teacups and
measured the tea from its dainty caddy,--in the gusto with which she
inhaled the aroma of this very choice brand of tea.
"There!" she said, handing the young officer a cup, "you may not agree
with my views of life, but you must praise my tea, which is in fact
much too good for you, who follow the vile German custom of spoiling it
with sugar."
She herself had put in the sugar for him, taking care to give him just
as much as he liked; she handed him a plate, and offered him the
delicate wafers which she knew he preferred. She was excessively kind
to him, and he valued her; he was cordially attached to her; she had
been his mother's oldest friend; she had spoiled him from boyhood, and
had, as she said, "thought the world of him." This could not but please
any man. He appreciated so highly her kindness and thoughtfulness that
until to-night the selfishness of which she boasted, and by which she
had laid down the rules of her life, had seemed to him little more than
amusing eccentricity. But to-night her attitude towards her grandchild
grieved him. Not that he regarded this grandchild from a romantic point
of view. He was no unpractical dreamer, nor even what is usually called
an idealist, which means in German nothing except a muddled brain that
deems it quite improper to hold clear views upon any subject or to look
any reality boldly in the face. On the contrary, he had a very calm and
sensible way of regarding matters. Consequently he thought it probable
that the poor, neglected young girl, left for three years to the care
of a boorish step-father, awkward and tactless as she must be under the
circumstances, would be anything but a suitable addition to the
household of the Countess Lenzdorff; but, good heavens! the girl was
the old lady's flesh and blood, a poor thing who had lost her mother
three years previously and had had no one to speak a kind word to her
since. If the poor creature were ill-bred and neglected, whose fault
was it, in fact? It passed his power of comprehension that the old lady
should feel nothing save the inconvenience and annoyance of the
situation, that she should be stirred by no emotion of pity.
Perhaps she guessed his thoughts,--she was skilled in divining the
thoughts of others,--but she cared nothing about shocking people; on
the contrary, she rather liked to do so.
When he picked up one of the books on her table she said, "None of your
namby-pamby literature, Goswyn, but a bright, witty book. Tell me, do
you think that in my grand-daughter's honour I ought to lock up all my
entertaining books and subscribe to the 'Children's Friend'?"
"Let us take for granted that your grand-daughter has not contracted
the habit of dipping into every book she sees lying about," Goswyn
observed.
"Let us hope so," she said, with a laugh; "but who knows? For three
years she has been without any one to look after her, and probably she
has already devoured her precious step-father's entire library."
"Oh, Countess!"
"What would you have? Such cases do occur. Look at your sister-in-law
Dorothea: she told me, with an air of great satisfaction, that before
her marriage she had read all Belot."
"She avowed the same thing to me just after she came home from her
wedding journey, and she seemed to think it very clever," replied
Goswyn, slowly.
"H'm! the wicked fairy always asserts that you were in love with your
sister-in-law," the old lady said, archly menacing him with her
forefinger.
"Indeed? I should like to know upon what my aunt Brock founds her
assertion," the young man rejoined, coldly.
"Why, upon the intense dislike you always parade for your pretty
sister-in-law," the Countess said, with a laugh.
"I do not parade it at all."
"But you feel it."
Goswyn von Sydow had risen from his chair. "It is very late," he said,
picking up his cap.
"I have not driven you away with my poor jests?" the old lady inquired,
as she also rose.
"No," he replied,--"at least not for long: if you will permit me, my
dear Countess, I will call upon you in the autumn."
"And until then----?"
"I shall not have that pleasure, unfortunately; I leave with the
General to-morrow for Kiel, and came to-night only to bid you good-bye.
When I return I shall hardly find you still in Berlin."
"Indeed? I am sorry," she replied, "first because I really like to see
you from time to time, although you entertain antiquated views of life
and always disapprove of me, and secondly because I had hoped you would
help me a little in my grand-daughter's education. Of course if she has
already perused all Belot----"
"It would suit you precisely, Countess," he said, rallying her, "for
then you could--h'm--hang up your Boecklin in its old place."
"What an idea!" cried the Countess. "But you are quite mistaken: I
should be furious if my grand-daughter should be found to have read all
Belot's works."
"Indeed?"
"Of course; because then there would be absolutely no hope of your
taking the child off my hands."
He frowned.
"Do you understand me?" the old lady asked, gaily.
"Partly."
"Unfortunately, you seem to have very little desire for matrimony."
"I confess that for the present it is but faint."
"Let us hope that this mysterious Erika will be charming enough to----"
Suddenly she turned her head: a carriage was rolling along Bellevue
Street, already deserted at this hour because of the lateness of the
season. It stopped before the house. The old lady started, grew visibly
paler, and compressed her lips.
The hall door opened; the servants ran down the staircase.
"Good night, Countess!" Goswyn touched the delicate old hand with his
lips and hurried away.
On the staircase he encountered a tall slender girl in the most
unbecoming mourning attire that he had ever seen a human being wear,
and with gloves so much too short that they revealed a pair of
slightly-reddened wrists. He touched his cap, and bowed profoundly.
He carried into the street with him an impression in his heart of
something pale, slender, immature, pathetic, concealing the germ of
great beauty.
He could not forget the distress in the eyes that had looked out from
the pale oval face. He recalled the coldly-sneering old woman in the
room he had left, with her disdain of all emotion. He knew how she
would be repelled by the red wrists and the disfiguring gown. "Poor
thing!" he said to himself.
In thoughtful mood he walked along a path in the Thiergarten. All
around reigned silence. The sweet vigour of the spring-time was wafted
from the soil, from the trees, from every tender soft unfolding leaf.
In the gentle light of countless sparkling stars the feathery young
foliage gleamed with a ghostly pallor; here and there a lantern shone,
a spot of yellow light in the dimness, colouring the grass and leaves
about it arsenic-green.
No people were here who had anything to do; only here and there a pair
of lovers were strolling in the warm shade of the spring night.
The insistent rhythm of some popular dance interrupted the yearning
music of spring which was sighing through the half-open leaves and
blossoms. The noise annoyed him, reminding him unpleasantly of the
cynicism with which unsuccessful men are wont to vaunt the bitterness
of their existence.
He had walked far out of his way, into the midst of the Thiergarten.
More lovers; another pair,--and still another.
Except for them the place was deserted, silent: above were the
glimmering stars, and on the earth below them the tall trees full of
life, striving upward to the light; everywhere breathed the fragrance
of fresh young growth, mingled with the aroma of last year's decaying
leaves; the thrill of life around, with the echo in the distance of the
vulgar dance-music.
He could not have told how or why it was, but Sydow was more than ever
conscious to-night of the discord sounding through creation, vainly
seeking, as it has done for centuries, for its solution.
And in the midst of his discontent there arose within him the memory of
the haunting distress in the young girl's large eyes, and he was filled
with warm, eager compassion for the poor, forlorn creature for whom
there was no one to care. He would have liked to take the child in his
arms and soothe her distress as one would have petted a bird fallen
from the nest, or a truant, beaten dog.