It is later by four-and-twenty hours. Countess Lenzdorff, with her
grand-daughter, has just returned from a drive in a close carriage,--a
drive interrupted by a couple of calls, and by a little shopping in the
interest of the young girl's wardrobe.
She is now sitting near the fire, a teacup in her hand, and saying,
"You cannot go out very much this season, especially since you are not
to be presented until next winter, but you can divert yourself with a
few small entertainments. It was well to order your gown from Petrus in
time: people must open their eyes when they see you first."
Meanwhile, Erika has taken off her seal-skin jacket, and is sitting
beside her grandmother, thinking of the gown that has been ordered for
her to-day,--a white cachemire, so simple,--oh, so simple! "Nobody must
think of your dress when they see you," her grandmother had said:
nevertheless it was a triumph of art, this gown.
"Everything about you must be perfect in style upon your first
appearance in the world," her grandmother now says. "People must find
nothing to criticise about you at first: afterwards we may, perhaps,
allow ourselves a little eccentricity. I have a couple of gowns in my
head for you which Marianne can arrange admirably, but just at first we
must show that you can dress like everybody else,--with a slight
difference. You must produce a certain effect. Give me another cup of
tea, my child."
Erika hands her the cup. The old lady, pats her arm caressingly.
"Petrus is quite proud to assist at your debut: at first I thought of
sending to Paris for a dress for you," she adds, and then there is a
silence.
The old lady has lain back in her arm-chair and fallen asleep. She
never lies down to take a nap in the daytime, but she often dozes in
her chair at this hour.
Twilight sets in,--sets in unusually soon and quickly to-night, for the
winter which had seemed to have bidden farewell to Berlin has returned
with cruel intensity. The rain which on the previous day had forced
Countess Brock into Frau von Geroldstein's arms and coupe has to-day
turned to snow: it is lying a foot deep in the gardens in front of the
grand houses in Bellevue Street, and is falling so fast that it has no
chance to grow black: it lies on the trees in the Thiergarten, each
twig bearing its own special weight, and down one side of each trunk is
a broad bluish-white stripe; it lies on the roofs, on the palings of
the little city gardens, yes, even on the telegraph-wires which stretch
in countless lines against the purplish-gray sky above the white city.
For a while Erika gazes out at the noiselessly-falling flakes: the snow
still gleams white through the twilight.
The girl has ceased to think of her gown: her thoughts have carried her
far back,--back to Luzano. That last winter there,--how cold and long
it had been!--snow, snow everywhere; nothing to be seen but a vast
field of snow beneath a gloomy sky, the poor little village, the frozen
brook, the river, the trees, all buried beneath it. The roads were
obliterated; there was some difficulty in procuring the necessaries of
existence. The cold was so great that fuel cost "a fortune," as her
step-father expressed it. Erika was allowed none for the school-room,
where she was wont to sit, nor for the former drawing-room, where was
her piano. The greater part of the day she was forced to spend in the
room, blackened with tobacco-smoke, where Strachinsky had his meals,
played patience, and dozed on the sofa over his novels. What an
atmosphere! The room was never aired, and reeked of stale cigar-smoke,
coal gas, and the odour of ill-cooked food. Once Erika had privately
broken a windowpane to admit some fresh air. But what good had it done?
Since there was no glazier to be had immediately, the hole in the
window had been stuffed up with rags and straw.
Yet the worst of that last winter had been the constant association
with Strachinsky.
One day, in desperation, she had hurried out of doors as if driven by
fiends, and had gone deep into the forest. Around her reigned dead
silence. There was nothing but snow everywhere: she could not have
got through it but that she wore high boots. Here and there the black
bough of a dead fir would protrude against the sky. No life was to be
seen,--not even a bird. The only sounds that at intervals broke the
silence were the creak of some bough bending beneath its weight of
snow, and the dull thud of its burden falling on the snow beneath.
As she was returning to her home she was overcome by a sudden weakness
and a sense of utter discouragement.
Why endure this torture any longer? Who could tell when it would end,
this intense disgust, this gnawing degrading misery, suffering without
dignity,--a martyrdom without faith, without hope?
And there, just at the edge of the forest, close to the meadow that
spread before her like a huge winding-sheet, she lay down in the snow,
to put an end to it: the cold would soon bring her release, she
thought. How long she lay there she could not have told,--the
drowsiness which she had heard was the precursor of the end had begun
to steal over her,--when on the low horizon bounding the plain she saw
the full moon rise, huge, misty, blood-red. The outlying firs of the
forest cast broad dark shadows upon the snow, and upon her rigid form.
The snow began to sparkle; the world suddenly grew beautiful. She
seemed to feel a grasp upon her shoulder, and a voice called to her,
"Stand up: life is not yet finished for you: who knows what the future
may have in store?"
Hope, curiosity, perhaps only the inextinguishable love of life that
belongs to youth and health, appealed to her. She rose to her feet and
forced her stiffened limbs to carry her home.
Good heavens! it was hardly a year since! and now! She looks away from
the large windows, behind the panes of which there is now only a
bluish-white shimmer to be discerned, and gazes around the room. How
cosey and comfortable it is! In the darkening daylight the outlines of
objects show like a half-obliterated drawing. The subjects of the
pictures on the walls cannot be discerned, but their gilt frames gleam
through the all-embracing veil of twilight. There is a ruddy light on
the hearth, partially hidden from the girl's eyes by the figure of the
old Countess in her arm-chair; the air is pure and cool, and there is a
faint agreeable odour of burning wood. From beneath the windows comes
the noise of rolling wheels, deadened by the snow, and there is now and
then a faint crackle from the logs in the chimney, now falling into
embers.
Erika revels in a sense of comfort, as only those can who have known
the reverse in early life. Suddenly she is possessed by a vague
distress, an oppressive melancholy,--the memory of her mother who had
voluntarily left all this pleasant easy-going life--for what? Her
nerves quiver.
Meanwhile, Luedecke brings in two lamps, which in consequence of their
large coloured shades fail to illumine the corners of the room, and
hardly do more than "teach light to counterfeit a gloom." That grave
dignitary was still occupied in their arrangement, when he turned his
head and paused, listening to an animated colloquy in two voices just
outside the portiere which separated the Countess's boudoir from the
reception-rooms. Evidently Friedrich, Luedecke's young adjutant, who was
not yet thoroughly drilled, was endeavouring to protect his mistress
from a determined intruder.
"If you please, Frau Countess, her Excellency is not at home," he said
for the third time, whereupon an irritated feminine voice made reply,--
"I know that the Countess is at home; and if she is not, I will wait
for her."
"The fairy," said Countess Lenzdorff, awaking. "Poor Friedrich! he is
doing what he can, but there is nothing for it but to put the best face
upon the matter." And, rising, she advanced to meet Countess Brock, who
came through the portiere with a very angry face.
"That wretch!" she exclaimed. "I believe he was about to use personal
violence to detain me!" And she sank exhausted into an arm-chair.
"Since I ordered him to deny me to every one, he only did his duty,
although he may have failed in the manner of its performance," Countess
Lenzdorff replied.
"But he ought to have known that I was an exception," the fairy
rejoined, still angrily.
"Yes, he ought to have known. And now tell me what you have on your
mind, for I see by your bonnet's being all awry that you have not
engaged in a duel with that simpleton Friedrich without some special
cause."
"Ah, yes!" Countess Brock groaned. "I have a request--an audacious
request--to make, and you must not refuse me."
"We shall see. Is it fifty yards of red flannel for your association
for the relief of rheumatic old women?"
"Oh, if it were only that I should have no doubt of your assent,--every
one knows how generous you are; but you have certain whims." The wicked
fairy's smile was sourly sweet: "I begged Goswyn to prefer my request,
for I know how much you like him, and that you would not willingly
refuse him anything; but he would not do it. He behaves so queerly to
me."
"Tell me what you mean, without any further preliminaries. I am curious
to know what the matter is with which Goswyn will have nothing to do."
"It is about my next Thursday,--no, not the next, I shall simply skip
that, but the one after the next,--which, under the circumstances,
ought to be particularly brilliant. I want to have tableaux, and two of
the greatest beauties in Berlin have promised to help me,--Dorothea
Sydow and Constance Muehlberg," Countess Brock explained, breathlessly.
"H'm! that is magnificent," her friend interposed.
"Well, yes; but every one knows them by heart, and I want to show the
Berlin folk something new. In short, I have come to the conclusion that
the great attraction for my next evening reception must be your
enchanting grand-daughter," the 'fairy' declared, wriggling herself out
of her seal-skin coat.
Erika, who had hitherto kept modestly in the background, occupying
herself with some embroidery, here paused, her needle suspended in the
air, and looked up curiously.
"My grand-daughter?" her grandmother exclaimed, in surprise.
"Yes, yes; I have fallen in love with your granddaughter,--actually
fallen in love with her. She has a natural air of distinction, with a
certain barbaric charm which is immensely aristocratic: it reminds me
of some noble wild animal: the aristocracy always reminds me of a noble
wild animal, and the bourgeoisie of a well-fed barn-yard fowl,--except
that the former is never hunted and the latter never slaughtered. But,
then, who can tell, _par le temps qui court? Mais je me perds_. The
matter in hand is not socialism nor any other threatening horror, but
my tableaux. There are to be only three,--Senta lost in dreams of the
Flying Dutchman, by Constance Muehlberg, Werther's Charlotte, by Thea
Sydow, and last your grand-daughter as a heather blossom. She will bear
away the palm, of course: the others are not to be compared with her."
Countess Lenzdorff looked at Erika and smiled good-naturedly, as she
saw how the young girl had gone on sewing diligently as if hearing
nothing of this conversation. It never occurred to the old lady that it
might not be advisable thus calmly to extol that young person's beauty
in her presence.
"You will let the child do me this favour, will you not?" the 'fairy'
persisted. "It is all admirably arranged. Riedel is to pose them,--you
know him,--the little painter with such good manners who has his shirts
laundered in Paris."
"Oh, that colour-grinder!" Countess Lenzdorff said, contemptuously.
The 'fairy' shrugged her shoulders impatiently. "Colour-grinder or not,
he is one of the few artists whom one can meet socially."
"Yes, yes; and he will find it much easier to arrange a couple of
pictures than to paint them," Countess Lenzdorff declared.
"Then you consent? I may count upon your grand-daughter?"
"I must first consider the matter," Countess Lenzdorff replied, but in
a tone which plainly showed that she was not averse to granting her
eccentric old friend's request.
"I see that affairs look favourable for me," Countess Brock murmured.
"Thank heaven! I think I should have killed myself if I had met with a
refusal. What o'clock is it?"
"Six o'clock,--a few minutes past. Where are you going?"
"To dine with the Geroldsteins. We are going to the Lessing Theatre
afterwards. There have been no tickets to be had for ten days past."
"You--are going to dine with the Geroldsteins?" The old Countess
clasped her hands in frank, if discourteous, astonishment.
"I am going to dine with the Geroldsteins," the 'wicked fairy'
repeated, with irritated emphasis; "and what of it? You have received
her for more than a year."
"I have no social prejudices. Moreover, I do not receive her: I simply
do not turn her out of doors."
"Well, at present she suits me," Countess Brock declared, her features
working violently. "I have been longing for two months to be present at
this first representation, without being able to get a seat: she offers
me the best seat in a box,--no, she does not offer it to me, she
entreats me to take it as a favour to her. And then think how I begged
Goswyn yesterday to introduce G---- to me. No, he would not do it. She
will see to all that. She is the most obliging woman in all Germany.
And then--this very morning I saw her driving with Hedwig Norbin in the
Thiergarten. Surely any one may know a woman with whom Hedwig Norbin
drives through the Thiergarten."
She ran off, repeating her request as she vanished. "You will let me
know your decision to-morrow, Anna?"
Countess Lenzdorff shook her head as she looked after her,--shook her
head and smiled. She is still smiling as she thoughtfully paces the
room to and fro.
What is she considering? Whether it is fitting thus, in this barefaced
manner, to call the attention of society to a young girl's beauty.
Evidently Goswyn does not think it right; but Goswyn is a prig. The
Countess's delicacy gives way and troubles her no further. Another
consideration occupies her: will her grand-daughter hold her own in
comparison with the acknowledged beauties who are to share with her the
honours of the evening? Her gaze rests upon Erika. "That crackbrained
Elise is right. Erika hold her own beside them! the others cannot
compare with her."
"What do you say, child?" she asked, approaching the girl. "Would you
like to do it?"
"Yes," Erika confesses, frankly.
"It would not be quite undesirable," says her grandmother, whose mind
is entirely made up. "You cannot go out much this year, and it would be
something to appear once to excite attention and then to retire to the
background for the rest of the season. Curiosity would be aroused, and
would prepare a fine triumph for you next year."
The following morning Countess Brock received a note from Anna
Lenzdorff containing a consent to her request.
About ten days afterwards Countess Erika Lenzdorff presented herself
before a select public, chosen from the most exclusive society in
Berlin, as "Heather Blossom," in a ragged petticoat, with her hair
falling about her to her knees.
It was a strange _soiree_, that in which the youthful beauty made her
first appearance in the world.
Countess Brock, the childless widow of a very wealthy man who had
derived much of his social prestige from his wife, had inherited from
the deceased the use during her lifetime of a magnificent mansion,
together with an income the narrowness of which was in striking
contrast with her residence.
The consequence whereof was much shabbiness amid brilliant
surroundings.
The tableaux were given in a spacious ball-room, decorated with white
and gold, at one end of which a small stage had been erected. The
stage-decorations had been painted for nothing, by aspiring young
artists. The curtain consisted of several worn old yellow damask
portieres sewed together, upon which the 'wicked fairy' herself had
painted various fantastic flowers to conceal the threadbare spots.
Whatever ridicule might attach to her Thursday evenings generally, on
this one her preparations were crowned with success. The effect of the
whole was greatly heightened by the musical accompaniment, furnished by
G---- at the instigation of the indefatigable Frau von Geroldstein.
For once this talented but shy young virtuoso forgot himself, and
presented his audience with something more than a pattern-card of
conquered technical difficulties.
Whether it were the result of caprice, or of a vivid impression made
upon him by Erika, or of a presumptuous desire to do all that he could
to add to her triumph, thus irritating the acknowledged beauties of the
day, certain it is that he played all his musical trumps in his
accompaniment to the representation of "Heather Blossom."
Old Countess Lenzdorff, who had been wont to compare his clear sharp
performance to a richly-furnished cockney drawing-room far too
brilliantly lighted, and with gas into the bargain, could scarcely
believe her ears when as an introduction to the third picture the low
wailing notes of the familiar but lovely melody "Ah, had I never left
my moor!" rang through the crowded assemblage of fashionable people.
How sweet, how melancholy, were the tones breathed from the instrument!
they seemed to rouse an echo in the soul of Boris Lensky's magic
violin.
The curtain drew up, and revealed a waste, dreary heath, treated with
tolerable conventionality by the amiable Riedel, and in the midst of it
a single figure, tall, slender, in a worn petticoat and coarse white
linen shift that left exposed the nobly-formed neck and the long and as
yet rather thin arms, a pale face framed in heavy gleaming masses of
hair, the features delicate yet strong, and with unfathomable,
indescribable eyes.
The painter Riedel had tried to force the Heather Blossom into the
attitude of Ary Scheffer's Mignon. She had apparently yielded to his
efforts, but at the last moment had posed according to her own wish,
with her head bent slightly forward and her arms hanging straight by
her side.
The audacious simplicity of her pose puzzled the spectators, and those
elegant votaries of fashion, weary of counterfeit presentments of art
and poetry, were in a manner shaken out of the monotonous indifference
of their lives at sight of the blank dumb despair embodied in this
young creature. They seemed suddenly to feel among them the working of
some mysterious force of nature.
The curtain remained lifted for a longer time than usual; the young
girl maintained her motionless attitude with a strength born of vanity;
the wailing, sighing music sounded on.
The curtain fell. The public was wild with enthusiasm. Three times the
curtain rose; but when there was a demand for a fourth glimpse of the
strange, pathetic picture, it remained obstinately down: Erika had
retired.
"Oh, the witch!" murmured old Countess Lenzdorff to Hedwig Norbin, who
sat beside her.
The stupidest and most innocent of country grandmothers could not have
exulted more frankly in her grand-daughter's triumph than did the
clever Countess Lenzdorff. She was never weary of hearing the child
praised: her appetite for compliments was inappeasable.
When Erika, transformed and modestly shy in her new gown from Petrus,
appeared among the guests, she aroused enthusiasm afresh, and was
immediately surrounded. She won the admiration not only of all the men
present, but also of all the old ladies. Of course the younger women
were somewhat envious, as were likewise the mothers with marriageable
daughters. In a word, nothing was lacking to make her appearance a
brilliant success.
Her grandmother presented her right and left, and was unwearied in
describing in whispered confidences to her friends the girl's
extraordinary talents and capacity. Any other grandmother so conducting
herself would have been called ridiculous, but it was not easy so to
stigmatize Anna Lenzdorff; instead there was some irritation excited
against the innocent object of such exaggerated praise, the girl
herself, to whom various disagreeable traits were ascribed. The younger
women pronounced her entirely self-occupied and thoroughly calculating.
She was both in a certain degree, but after a precocious, childish
fashion, that was diverting, rather than reprehensible.
Countess Muehlenberg, the wife of an officer in the guards who did not
appreciate her and with whom she was very unhappy, had appeared as
Senta out of pure good nature, and held herself quite aloof from
Erika's detractors,--in fact, she showed the young _debutante_ much
kindness,--but Dorothea Sydow's dislike was almost ill-bred in its
manifestation.
She was a strangely fascinating and yet repulsive person,--very well
born, even of royal blood, a princess, in fact, but so wretchedly poor
that she had rejoiced when a simple squire laid his heart and his
wealth at her feet. Her family at first cried out against the
misalliance, but finally consented to admit that the young lady had
done very well for herself. Some of her equals in rank came even to
envy her after a while, for all agreed that there was not in the world
another husband who so idolized and spoiled his wife, indulging her in
every whim, as did Otto von Sydow his Princess Dorothea.
He was Goswyn's elder brother, and the heir of the Sydow estates, which
was why there was such a difference in the incomes of the brothers. In
all else the advantage was decidedly on Goswyn's side.
Otto looked like him, but his face lacked the force of Goswyn's; his
features were rounder, his shoulders broader, his hands and feet
larger, and he had a great deal of colour. The 'wicked fairy'
maintained that he showed the blood of his bourgeoise mother.
Countess Lenzdorff, who had been an intimate friend of the late Frau
von Sydow, denied this, insisting that the Sydow mother had enriched
the family not only by her money but also by her pure, strong, red
blood. In fact, Otto was a genuine Sydow: such types are not rare among
the Prussian country gentry.
He was one of the men who always show to most advantage in the country
and out of doors, for whom a drawing-room, even the most spacious, is
too confined. In a brilliant crowd he looked as if he could hardly
catch his breath. With the shyness not unusual in men with much-admired
wives, he was wont to efface himself in a corner, emerging to make
himself useful at supper-time, and never speaking except when he
encountered some one still less at home in society than himself. He was
never weary of watching his wife, devouring her with his eyes, drinking
in her grace and beauty.
Many people declared that she was not beautiful, only distinguished in
appearance. In fact, she was both to an astonishing degree, and
aristocratic to her finger-tips. Tall, slender almost to emaciation,
with long, narrow hands and feet, a head proudly erect, and sharply-cut
features, her carriage was inimitable, her walk grace itself. Wherever
she went she attracted universal attention. She wore her fair hair
short in close curls about her small head, a piece of audacity indeed,
and she talked quickly in a rather high voice, and with a slight defect
in her utterance, characteristic of the royal family to which she was
related, and which made some people nervous, while her countless
adorers declared it enchanting.
However, beautiful or not, she had been a leader in Berlin society for
two years, and would brook no rival near her throne.
The evening ran its course; the servants opened the doors into the
dining-hall; the ladies took their places at small tables, while the
gentlemen served them--the entertainment being but meagre--before
satisfying their own appetites. Some of them performed this duty with
skill and dexterity, while others rattled plates and glasses and
invariably dropped something.
Erika, paler than usual, with sparkling eyes and very red lips, sat at
a table with a charmingly fresh young girl about her own age, but ten
years younger intellectually. Nevertheless the child's development
might almost be said to be finished, while Erika's had scarcely passed
its first stage. She had honestly tried to talk with this companion,
but without success; nor had she much to say to the young men who,
attracted by her beauty, thronged around her. Reaction had set in: her
enjoyment of her triumph had been succeeded by a strange restlessness.
Dorothea von Sydow was sitting near by at a table with one of the most
fashionable women in Berlin, an Austrian diplomat, an officer of
cuirassiers, and one of her cousins, Prince Helmy Nimbsch. All five had
remarkably good appetites and talked incessantly. In their midst sat
Frau von Geroldstein, a vacant place on each side of her,--solemn and
mute. No one knew her, no one spoke to her, but she was sitting among
people of rank and was content. Her only regret was that she had
mistaken the continuance of the court mourning by a day, and had
consequently appeared in a plain black gown in an assemblage of women
in full dress with feathers and diamonds in their hair. To justify her
error she had hastily trumped up a story of the death of a near
relative.
Goswyn's place was with the elder women, a distinction that frequently
fell to his share. He looked grave and anxious, and Countess Lenzdorff,
who had commanded his presence at her table, with her usual
imperiousness, reproached him for being tiresome and bad-tempered. From
time to time he glanced towards Erika, of whom he could see nothing
save a slender neck with a knot of gold-gleaming hair, a little pink
ear, and now and then the outline of a softly-rounded cheek.
Yes, she was bewitching, there was no denying it, but she must be
insufferable, there was no doubt of that either. The idea of thus
making a show of a girl scarcely eighteen! It was in such bad taste: it
was absolutely unprincipled: the old Countess, in her senseless vanity,
was doing the child a positive injury. At times a kind of rage half
choked him: he could have shaken his old friend, to whom he had been as
a son, and who had from his boyhood petted him far more than her own
child. Again he glanced towards Erika. Then his thoughtful gaze
wandered across to the round table where his sister-in-law was sitting.
She looked particularly well in a dress of white velvet with an antique
Spanish necklace of emeralds around her slender neck. It was all very
lovely, but her short hair was not in harmony with it.
Beside her sat her cousin, Prince Helmy Nimbsch, a good-tempered dandy,
scarcely twenty-five years old, with large light-blue eyes and a face
smoothly shaven, except for a moustache. As Goswyn looked at Thea, she
was laughing at her cousin over the champagne-glass which she held to
her lips. Her eyes were her greatest beauty,--large hazel eyes, but
with no soul in them, no expression, not even a bad one. Her charm was
entirely physical, but it was very great. It was a pity that her
manners were so loud. That perpetual giggle of hers rasped Goswyn's
nerves. But he was alone in his dislike: her adorers were legion.
He looked away from her. Where was his brother? Over in a corner, at a
table without ladies, he was sitting with another gentleman.
Fortunately he had found a man who was even more uncomfortable than
himself in this brilliant assemblage.
This was Herr Geroldstein, husband of the ambitious dame, a pale little
man with a bald head and mutton-chop whiskers, who looked for all the
world like a man who had wielded a yard-stick behind a counter all his
life long,--a decent enough little man, with an air of being
perpetually ashamed of himself, who never made use for his own part of
the title which he had purchased as a birthday-present for his wife. He
spoke very softly and ate and drank but little, while Otto von Sydow
did both with great gusto, now and then uttering some oracular remark
as to the best wine-merchant in Rheims. His face was redder than usual,
and produced the impression of rude health beside the pale tradesman
who had passed his life in his office. There was in Goswyn's opinion no
denying that no man in the room was as ill fitted to be the husband of
the slender Princess Dorothea as was his brother Otto.
After supper there was a little music. When Goswyn was relieved from
duty with Countess Lenzdorff, he was about to leave the house
unnoticed, but longed for one more glimpse of Erika, whom he wished to
remember as she looked to-night. "The dew will be brushed off so soon,"
he said to himself, adding, "Oh, the pity of it!" He could not find her
anywhere. "Ah, of course she is surrounded somewhere by a crowd of
detestable admirers!" he said to himself, and turned to go. Why he had
thus decided that all her admirers were detestable we shall not attempt
to explain.
The fourth and last in the suite of the 'wicked fairy's'
reception-rooms was empty and dimly lighted. He suddenly seemed to hear
low suppressed sobs, as he looked in. A red gleam of light played about
the folds of a white gown behind a huge effective artificial palm.
Involuntarily he advanced a step. There sat Erika, the youthful queen
of beauty, whom he had supposed entirely absorbed in receiving the
homage of her vassals, curled up in an arm-chair, her handkerchief to
her eyes, crying like a tired child. Usually deliberate in thought and
action, when once his nerves were irritated he became quick and
impetuous. He did not hesitate a moment, but, bending over the girl,
exclaimed, "Countess Erika! in heaven's name what is the matter? Can
any one have offended you?" His voice grew angry at the bare suspicion.
"Ah, no, no!" she sobbed.
"Shall I go for your grandmother?"
"No--no!"
He paused an instant. Then, in a very low and kindly voice, he asked,
"Do I annoy you? Would you rather be alone? Shall I go?"
She took the handkerchief from her eyes and assured him frankly and
cordially, "Oh, no, certainly not: I am glad to have you stay with me,"
adding, rather shyly, "Pray sit down."
Nothing was left of the self-possessed young lady: here was only a
little girl dissolved in tears and dreading lest she should seem
impolite to a friend of her grandmother's.
"She treats me exactly like an old man," the young captain said to
himself, at once touched and annoyed; nevertheless he accepted her
invitation, and took a seat near her.
"It will soon be over," she said, trying to dry her tears. But they
would not be dried; they welled forth afresh: she was evidently quite
unnerved by the excitement of her _debut_, poor thing!
"Oh, heavens," she cried, making a supreme effort to control herself,
"I must stop crying! What a disgrace it would be if any of those people
should see me!"
Apparently there was a great gulf in her mind between Goswyn and "those
people." He was glad of it. For a while he was sympathetically silent,
and then he said, kindly, "Countess Erika, would you rather keep your
sorrow to yourself, or will you confide it to me?"
His mere presence had had a soothing effect; her tears ceased to flow;
she only shivered slightly from time to time.
"Ah, it was not a sorrow," she explained,--"only a distress,--something
like what I felt on the night when I first came to Berlin. It was not
homesickness,--what have I to be homesick for?--but suddenly I felt so
lonely among all those strangers who stared at me curiously but cared
nothing for me. I seemed to feel a great chill around me: it all hurt
me; their way of speaking, their way of looking down upon everything
that was not as fine and proud as themselves, went to my heart.
You--you cannot understand it, for you have grown up in the midst of
it; you have breathed this air from your childhood."
"I think you do me injustice, Countess Erika," he interposed. "I can
understand you perfectly, although I have grown up in the midst of it
all."
"I felt as if I hated the people," she went on, her large melancholy
eyes flashing angrily, "and then--then, amidst all this elegance and
arrogance,"--she named these characteristics in a perfectly frank way,
as if they were elements but lately introduced into her life,--"the
thought came to me of the misery in which I grew up, and of all the
little pleasures and surprises which my mother prepared for me in spite
of our poverty,--ah, such poor little pleasures!--those people would
laugh at the idea of any one's enjoying them,--but they were very much
to me. Oh, if you knew how my mother used to look at me when she had
contrived a new gown for me out of some old rag!--No one will ever look
at me so again. And then"--she clinched the hand that held the poor wet
handkerchief--"to think that my mother belonged of right to all this
bright gay world, and to remember how she died, in what sordid
distress, and that it is past,--that I can give her nothing of all that
I have---- My heart seemed breaking." She paused, breathless.
"Poor Countess Erika!" he murmured, very gently. "It is one of the
miseries of this life to remember our dead and to be powerless to be
kind to them. All that we can do is to bestow as much love as we can
upon the living."
"But whom have I to bestow my love upon?" Erika cried, with such an
innocent insistence that, in spite of his pity, Goswyn could hardly
suppress a smile. "I cannot offer it to my grandmother: she would not
know what I meant, and would simply think me ill."
"But in fact," he said, now openly amused, "it is not to be supposed
that you will all your life have only your grandmother to love."
"You mean that----" She looked at him in sudden dismay.
"I mean that--that----"
The sound of a ritornella drummed upon the piano suddenly fell on their
ears, and then came the notes of a thin, clear, expressionless soprano.
His sister-in-law was singing. He listened breathless.
Just then Countess Lenzdorff with Frau von Norbin appeared. "Ah, here
you are, Erika!" she exclaimed. "This I call pretty conduct. I have
been looking for you everywhere. H'm! to run away from one's admirers,
to be made love to by a young gentleman---- What do you say to it,
Hedwig?" This last to Frau von Norbin.
"It was only Goswyn," the old lady replied, in her musical-box voice.
"Yes, that is an extenuating circumstance," Countess Anna admitted.
"And he did not make love to me," Erika assured them.
"Indeed? That I take ill of him," Countess Lenzdorff said, with a
laugh, while Erika went on with sincere cordiality. "I suddenly felt so
lonely and sad, and he was very, very kind to me!" She raised her eyes
gratefully to his.
"Ah, well----but come now, child; we are going home. I have had quite
enough of this.--Adieu, Goswyn."
"Perhaps you will permit me to take you home," said Goswyn.
"You had much better go in there and put a stop to the mischief which,
if I am not mistaken, is being largely added to to-night." This with a
significant glance towards the music-room.
"I am powerless," Goswyn observed, dryly. He conducted the ladies to
the anteroom, where a regiment of lackeys were in waiting. After
attending to the old ladies, he had the pleasure of helping Erika to
put on her cloak. He had a strange sensation as he wrapped it about the
girl's slender figure. The white fur with which it was trimmed was
wonderfully becoming to her.
"A heather blossom in the snow," the vain grandmother remarked, with a
glance in his direction, whereby she discovered that there was no
necessity for calling his attention to her grand-daughter's charms.
This discovery rejoiced her. She bade him good-night with unusual
cordiality, smiling to herself as she descended the brilliantly-lighted
staircase.
Meanwhile, Goswyn had returned to the music-room. His sister-in-law was
still standing by the piano, singing. G---- was accompanying her,
good-humouredly ready to burden his soul with any musical misdeed that
could give pleasure to his audience, a readiness arising partly from
the prosaic view which he took of his "trade," as he was wont to call
his music. Quite a little throng of ladies had already rustled out of
the room.
Countess Brock was beginning to be uneasy. The effect of the Princess's
performance vividly reminded her of the effect which the young actor's
reading had had upon her guests.
Goswyn glanced at his brother. Otto von Sydow was a picture of
distress: he looked as if threatened with an apoplectic stroke; he
alternately clinched and opened his gloved hands, looked uneasily at
the men whom he saw laughing, and at the women whom he saw leaving the
room; he stood first on one foot and then on the other; but he allowed
his wife to go on singing.
The first verses of the music-hall song she had now selected were
simply coarse. Goswyn comforted himself with thinking that perhaps she
would not sing the last. He had underrated his sister-in-law's
temerity. She went on. Sight and hearing seemed to fail him.
Suddenly there came a loud burst of applause. A few of the men present,
in pity for the unhappy husband, had thus drowned the improprieties of
the last verse.
Princess Dorothea looked round,--saw men laughing significantly and
women hurriedly leaving the room. She grew pale, and there came into
her Spanish face a look of indescribable hardness. She was about to
continue, when her hostess approached her.
"Charming!" exclaimed the 'fairy,'--"charming, my dear Thea, but you
must not exert yourself further: you are a little hoarse."
It was too unequivocal. Princess Dorothea understood. Her assumed
gaiety took another turn. "I have a sudden longing for a dance!" she
exclaimed. "G----, play us a waltz: we will extemporize a ball."
G---- began to play with immense spirit one of Strauss's waltzes, when
a gray-haired old General raised his voice,--a clear, sharp voice,--and
said, "It would be a little difficult to extemporize a ball, for, with
the exception of the hostess, your Excellency is the only lady
present."
Dorothea grew paler still, held herself rather more erect than usual,
threw back her head, and smiled. Just thus, deadly pale, hard, erect
and smiling, Goswyn was to see her once again in his life, a couple of
years later, when all her world was pointing at her the finger of
scorn.
"You will let me drive Helmy home, will you not, Otto?" Dorothea asked
in the hall, where she was holding a kind of little court amid her
admirers, a yellow lace scarf wound around her head, and a black velvet
wrap about her shoulders. "Helmy has such a cold, and there is no
finding a droschky at this hour."
Involuntarily Goswyn, who was just buckling on his sabre, paused to
listen to this little speech of his fascinating sister-in-law's,
uttered in the tenderest tone.
He had no idea that his brother had anything to fear from Prince Helmy:
this was only Dorothea's way of escaping any admonition from her
husband. If Otto did not scold on the spot he never scolded at all.
There really was nothing objectionable in her driving home alone with
her cousin, but then---- She laid her little hand on her husband's
breast as she spoke: the gentlemen around her looked on. Without
waiting to hear his brother's reply, Goswyn left the house. He had gone
but two or three steps in the street when some one joined him: it was
Otto.
"Have you a light?" he asked, in a rather uncertain voice. Goswyn
struck a match for him, and paused in silence while his brother lighted
his cigar with unnecessary effort.
"I am really very glad to walk," said Otto, keeping pace with his
brother. "Thea cannot bear to have me smoke in the coupe."
Goswyn was silent.
"I know Thea through and through," Otto continued: "she is as innocent
as a child, but a little imprudent; and then all those starched,
stiff-necked Berlin women cannot forgive her for being more fascinating
and original than the whole of them together. And, after all, what harm
was there in her singing those songs? It was easy enough to see that
she did not understand what she was singing, or at least did not think.
The purest women are always the most imprudent. These people do not
understand her. They admire her,--no one can help that,--but they do
not appreciate her. When she saw that she was shocking those
Philistines she sang on out of sheer bravado. It was perhaps not wise
to brave public opinion."
Each time that Otto von Sydow had broken the thread of his discourse in
hopes that Goswyn would assent to his view of the situation, he had
been disappointed. His brother was persistently mute.
Otto's footsteps sounded louder, his breath came more heavily; Goswyn,
who knew him thoroughly, saw that he was struggling against an access
of rage. For a while he maintained a silence like his brother's; then,
pausing, he addressed Goswyn directly: "Do you find anything to blame
in my allowing my wife to drive home alone with a cousin who is not
well, and who may thereby be saved a fit of illness,--a cousin, too,
with whom her relations have always been those of a sister?"
Goswyn shrugged his shoulders. "Since you ask me, I must speak the
truth," he replied. "On this particular evening I think it would have
been wiser for you to drive home _tete-a-tete_ with your wife than to
let her go with young Nimbsch."
Otto's breathing became still more audible; he stamped his foot, and,
before Goswyn could look round, had turned off into a side-street with
a sullen "good-night."
He was greatly to be pitied: he had hoped that Goswyn would comfort
him, but Goswyn had not comforted him.
"He never understood her, and therefore never liked her," he muttered
between his teeth. "He is the worst Philistine of all."
And then he recalled Goswyn's persistent opposition to his marriage
with the Princess Dorothea, how passionately--for Goswyn, calm as he
seemed, could be passionate--he had entreated his brother not to
propose to her. "A blind man could see how unfitted you are for each
other: you will be each other's ruin!" he had said. The words rang in
his ears now with vivid distinctness.
It was about two o'clock in the morning: the streets were dim,
deserted. At intervals of a hundred steps the reddish lights of the
street-lamps were reflected from the brown muddy surface of the
asphalt. From time to time a carriage casting two bluish rays of light
before it shot past Otto with an unnaturally loud rattle in the dull
silence. The windows of the houses were all dark and quiet, except
where from one open building came the muffled notes of some light
popular airs: it was a cheap kind of music-hall. Involuntarily Sydow
listened: something in the faint melody commanded his attention. They
were playing the music of the very song his wife had sung but now.
His wretchedness was intolerable; his limbs seemed weighed down with
fatigue. "Pshaw! it is this confounded thaw," he said to himself. In
his ears rang the words, "You are utterly unfitted for each other."
What if Goswyn had been right, after all?
Good God! No one could have resisted her.
They had met first in Florence. The two brothers had made a tour
through Italy just after Otto's attaining his majority. They travelled
together so far as that means having the same starting-point and the
same goal, but each followed his own devices, stopping where he liked,
so that sometimes they did not meet for a long while. While Goswyn
underwent all kinds of inconveniences for the sake of visiting many
interesting little towns in Northern Italy, Otto, whose first
requirement was a good hotel, went directly from Venice to Florence. He
had been there for five days, and was terribly bored; he missed Goswyn.
Although Otto was the elder of the two, he had always been in the habit
of letting Goswyn think for him. Old Countess Lenzdorff maintained that
when they were children she had often heard him ask, "Goswyn, am I
cold?" "Goswyn, am I hungry?"
He had carried with him through life a certain sense of dependence upon
his younger brother, looking to him for help in every difficulty, for
support in every sorrow.
He had no acquaintances in Florence, the food was not to his taste, the
wine was poor, the beds, in which so many had slept before him,
disgusted him, the theatres did not edify him. He took no pleasure in
the opera; he was thoroughly--and for a German remarkably--devoid of a
taste for music; and the Italian drama he did not understand.
Consequently he found his evenings intolerably long: he spoke no
Italian, and very little French. Since there were no Germans in the
hotel save those with whom, in spite of his homesickness, he did not
choose to consort, he led a very lonely life. And, as he took not the
slightest interest in art, it was no wonder that on the fifth day of
his sojourn in Florence he declared such an "Italian course of culture"
the "veriest mockery of pleasure in which a Prussian country nobleman
could indulge."
The queerest thing was that Goswyn seemed to be enjoying himself so
much. He received delighted post-cards from him from all kinds of
little out-of-the-way places of which Otto had never before even heard
the names, not even when he studied geography at school, and he seemed
entirely independent of discomfort as to his lodgings in his enjoyment
of all that "art-stuff," as Otto expressed it to himself.
One afternoon in the cathedral, in an access of most depressing ennui,
he was sauntering from one shrine to another, when he suddenly heard a
sigh. He looked round. A young girl in a large Vandyke hat and a dark
cloth dress trimmed with silver braid had just seated herself in one of
the chairs, and was opening a yellow-covered novel. Everything about
her, her hat, her dress, as well as her own striking figure, gave an
impression of distinction, although of distinction somewhat down in the
world.
She was very young, and yet did not seem at all affected by her
loneliness. Before long she noticed that Otto was observing her, and
she bestowed a scornful glance upon him over the pages of her book.
He instantly flushed crimson, and turned away, feeling very
uncomfortable. Then in the twilight silence of the spacious church,
always deserted at this hour of the day, he heard a delicate
insinuating voice call, "Feistmantel, dear!"
Involuntarily he looked round: it was the slender girl in the chair who
had called.
He then observed hurrying towards her a short, stout individual in a
striped gray-and-black water-proof with an opera-glass in a strap,--a
wonderful creature, whom he had noticed before strolling about the
church, but without an idea that she had anything to do with the
attractive occupant of the chair.
"Feistmantel, dear."
"Princess!"
"I am so hungry. Have you not seen enough of those stupid old relics?"
And the girl yawned, sighed, and rubbed her eyes.
"Oh, pray, Princess!"
Both ladies then walked to the door of exit, where they paused
dismayed.
It was raining in torrents, that steady downpour that gives no hope of
any speedy cessation.
"This is intolerable!" exclaimed the young girl, in her insinuating and
now melancholy voice, and with a slight imperfection of speech which
struck kindly, awkward Sydow as something too charming ever to be
forgotten. "Insufferable! We cannot put our skirts over our heads, like
female pilgrims."
"Pray permit me to call a droschky for you." With these words the young
Prussian approached the pair; then when the girl measured him from head
to foot with a half-merry, half-haughty stare, he added, with a bow, by
way of explanation, "Von Sydow."
The ladies bowed without finding it necessary to mention their names,
and the younger said, with her bewitching voice and imperfection of
speech, "You will greatly oblige us if you will be so kind as to take
the trouble."
And in fact it was a trouble. It is difficult to withstand the
insistence of Italian droschky-drivers in fine weather, when one wishes
to walk, but to find a droschky in bad weather, when one wishes to
drive, is more difficult still.
When he at last succeeded he feared to find that the ladies had left in
despair at the delay; but no, there they were still, the companion in
the striped waterproof with her face shining with the rain which had
drenched it as she stretched her neck to see if he were coming, and her
curls dangling limp in damp disorder; the girl more bewitching than
ever, her cheeks slightly flushed by the fresh damp breeze, and
evidently exhilarated in mind, flattered by her conquest. She had grown
gracious, and she smiled her thanks, as she hurried into the carriage,
lifting her skirts to avoid wetting them, and thereby displaying a pair
of the prettiest little feet imaginable.
"What address shall I give to the coachman?" he asked, after helping
the ladies to ensconce themselves in the vehicle.
"Hotel Washington."
He had no umbrella; he was wet to the skin, and the day was cold. But
that was of no consequence. Otto von Sydow had never felt so warm since
he had been in Italy.
That very evening he moved to the Hotel Washington from the Hotel de la
Paix. Since the entire first floor was occupied by a banker from
Vienna, and the hotel was overcrowded, the room assigned him was far
from comfortable; but he did not mind that.
And that very evening, before the _table-d'hote_ dinner, he found his
fair one. She was in the reading-room, reading a Paris paper. He also
learned who she was,--Princess Dorothea von Ilm.
She was an orphan, and very poor. The family, originally distinguished,
had degenerated sadly, principally through the dissipated habits of the
Princess's two brothers, notably through the marriage of the elder to a
French circus-rider. Since her installation in Castle Egerstein the
Princess Dorothea had been homeless, and had been wandering about the
world with very little means and a companion who was half instructress,
half maid.
This individual, whom Prince Ilm had hurriedly engaged for his sister
through a newspaper advertisement, was named Alma Feistmantel, and came
from Vienna, where she belonged to those aesthetic circles, the members
of which interest themselves chiefly for artists and the drama. For ten
years she had cherished a hopeless passion for Sonnenthal: her chief
enthusiasms were for broad-shouldered men, Wagner's music, and novels
which exalted "the sacred voice of nature."
Under the protection of this lady the Princess Dorothea had for three
years been completing her education in Vienna, Rome, and Paris
successively.
The Princess enlightened her admirer as to her affairs with the
greatest candour, informing him that her brother had treated her
shamefully, but that it was all the fault of the circus-rider, who
could make him do just as she chose; and in spite of it all Willy was
the most fascinating creature imaginable: he looked like a Spaniard.
Sydow remembered him: he had served a year in the same regiment with
him during his term of compulsory service.
With equal frankness Princess Dorothea explained that she was often
embarrassed pecuniarily; once she had been so pinched that she had sold
her dog to an Englishman for three hundred francs; she had hated to
part with him, for she never had loved any creature as she did that
dog, but she needed a ball-dress to wear at an entertainment in Rome at
the German embassy. Her aunt, Princess Nimbsch, had chaperoned her when
she went into society: sometimes she went, and sometimes she did not;
it depended upon her circumstances. In fact, she did not care much
about going into society, it prevented you from doing so many amusing
things; you could not go to the little theatres, where the funniest
farces were played. Therefore she preferred to be in Paris, where not a
soul knew her, and she and Feistmantel could go everywhere together.
Feistmantel had frequently during these confessions admonished the
Princess to greater discretion by a touch of her foot beneath the
table: of one of these hints Sydow's boot had been the recipient. But
when she found that she could thus make no impression upon her charge
the Viennese interposed with some temper: "Pray, Baron Sydow, discount
all this talk some fifty per cent. You must not believe that I would
take any young girl intrusted to my care where it was not proper that
she should go."
"I know nothing about proper or improper: I only know what is amusing
and what is tiresome," the Princess said, with a laugh, "and we went
everywhere. Feistmantel is putting on airs because of my exalted
family, but do not you believe her, Herr von Sydow. We saw 'Ma
Camarade,' and 'Niniche,' and we even went one evening to the Cafe des
Ambassadeurs. Eh?" And she pinched her companion's ear.
"But, Baron Sydow, do not allow yourself to be imposed upon,"
Feistmantel exclaimed, almost beside herself. "The Cafe des
Ambassadeurs,--why, that is a _cafe chantant_. There is not a word of
truth in all her nonsense."
"Not true? oh, but it is," the Princess retorted, quite at her ease.
"Of course it was a _cafe chantant_, and the singer sang '_Estelle, ou
est ta flanelle?_'--it was too funny; but I can sing it just like her.
I practised it that very evening. I must sing it to you some day, Herr
von Sydow,--that is, when we are better acquainted. Oh, is there no
_cafe chantant_ in Florence to which you could take us?"
"But, Princess----!" exclaimed Feistmantel.
"Why, a gentleman took us to the Cafe des Ambassadeurs, a man whose
acquaintance we made in the hotel," Dorothea ran on. "He was an
American,--a Mr. Higgs: he came from Connecticut, and dealt in cheeses.
He was very rich, and he sent us tickets for the theatre. Afterwards he
wanted to marry me: I liked him very well, and would have accepted him,
but my brother said he was no match for me. Well, I did not break my
heart, but I should have liked to marry him for all that. We Princesses
Ilm have the right, it is true, to marry crowned heads, but I never
mean to avail myself of it. If I were an Empress I should always travel
incognito. As soon as I am of age I shall marry a chimney-sweeper--if
he is a millionaire, or if I fall in love with him."
"Both contingencies seem highly probable," Sydow observed, laughing. It
was the only remark he allowed himself during the conversation,--a
conversation which took place in the reading-room of the Washington
Hotel on the first evening of his stay there.
After the Princess had finished her confessions, she went to the
window, and looked out upon the Arno. For a while she was perfectly
silent; but when Alma Feistmantel, recovering from her dismay, began to
invent all sorts of falsehoods with which to impress Sydow, Dorothea
quietly turned to him and said, "Herr von Sydow, will you not take a
walk with us? Florence is so lovely at night!"
The next day he drove with the ladies to Fiesole. He sat on the front
seat of a very uncomfortable droschky and felt as happy as a king.
It was the middle of April, and an upright crest of white and purple
iris crowned the white wall bordering the crooked road leading to the
famous old town. Here and there the rose-bushes trailed their
blossoming branches in the dust. Barefooted Italian children, with
dishevelled hair and glowing eyes tossed nosegays into the carriage and
offered their straw wares to the ladies with persistent entreaties to
buy. How many liri and fifty-centesimi pieces Sydow threw away on that
wonderful day! The more he gave the rein to his liberality the longer
grew the train of children, laughing, gesticulating, all pretty, with
light in their eyes and flowers in their hands. Suddenly the driver
shouted to some one who would not get out of the way. Sydow sprang out
of the droschky and saw creeping along the dusty road a pair of
wretched beggars, old and bent, their weary feet wrapped in rags. The
sight of anything so miserable on the lovely spring day cut him to the
heart. He could do no less than toss them some money.
Alma Feistmantel, as a member of the society for the suppression of
mendicancy, lectured him for his lavish alms, and the Princess laughed
at the beggars, whose misery struck her as comical. She flung a
sneering "Baucis and Philemon!" after them. This shocked Sydow for an
instant; the next he gave her a kindly glance, saying to himself, "Ah,
she is but a child!" He was already incapable of finding any harm in
her.
The next morning the German clerk of the hotel came to him, and, after
some circumlocution, asked him if he were intimately acquainted with
the Princess. Quite confused, and without a suspicion of the clerk's
motive in asking, he explained that his acquaintance with her was of
the most superficial kind. The clerk suppressed a smile beneath his
bearded lip. Sydow was sorely tempted to knock him down, and was
restrained only by regard for the Princess's reputation. It appeared,
however, that the clerk's question was not the result of impertinent
curiosity; he had no interest in the young Prussian's relations to the
fair Princess, he only wished to discover whether Sydow knew anything
of her family,--if she were a genuine Princess, and if they were people
of wealth. She was travelling without a maid, and had not paid her
hotel bill for a month.
Whereupon Sydow snubbed the clerk sharply, informing him that he need
be under no anxiety, the Ilms were among the first families of Germany.
The Princess had simply forgotten to pay, supposing it to be a matter
of small importance. The clerk was profuse in apologies.
Sydow spent three hours considering how he should offer his aid to the
Princess. At last--it was raining, and the ladies were at home--he
knocked at their door.
"Who is it?" Feistmantel's harsh voice inquired.
"Sydow."
"Oh, pray come in," called the high voice of the Princess. He entered.
It was a small room in the third story. Feistmantel was sitting by the
window, mending some article of dress; the Princess was sitting on her
bed, reading "Autour du Mariage," by Gyp.
The Princess moved no farther than to offer him her hand with a
charming smile; Feistmantel cleared off the articles from an arm-chair,
that he might sit down.
"Oh, what a dreary day! I am so glad you are come! We are nearly bored
to death," said Dorothea, rubbing her eyes, and gathering her feet
under her so that she sat cross-legged on the bed. "Can you give me a
cigarette? mine are all gone."
Feistmantel said something in disapproval of a lady's smoking, when
Dorothea remarked, composedly, "Don't listen to her; she is putting on
airs again because of my exalted family, when the fact is that it was
from her that I learned to smoke. Oh, what a wretched world! 'Who but
ducks and pumps can keep out of the dumps, in a world that is never
dry?' Oh, I am so bored,--so bored!" She stretched herself slightly. "I
should like at least to go to Doney's and get an ice, but we cannot; we
have no money."
Then Sydow blurted out the little speech he had composed with infinite
pains, coming to a stand-still three times during the recital.
He had heard that the ladies had been expecting remittances from
Germany. Of course there was some mistake: would they permit him to
relieve them--from--their temporary embarrassment?
He paused in great confusion. Would they turn him out of the room? No!
The Princess simply held out her hands and exclaimed, "You are an
angel! I could really embrace you!" which of course she did not do, but
which she could have done without thinking much of it.
That same evening the Princess's bill was paid.
Two days later Goswyn arrived in Florence. He surprised his brother at
dinner with Dorothea and Feistmantel at a small table at the extreme
end of a long close dining-room, beside a window looking out upon the
Arno.
The Princess was giggling and chatting in her clear high voice, which
could be heard outside of the dining-hall; she wore a white dress, and
a diamond ring sparkled upon her hand. At first Goswyn smiled at his
brother's charming travelling acquaintances, but in a very little while
the state of affairs made him grave. Of course he took his place at the
table with the three. The Princess instantly began to flirt with him.
First she congratulated herself that they were now a _partie carree_;
it was very jolly; until then Herr von Sydow had cut but a sorry figure
between two ladies, now they could be taken for two couples on a
wedding-tour. Then, planting both elbows upon the table, she leaned
across to Goswyn and asked, "Which of the gentlemen will appropriate
Feistmantel?"
"That is for the ladies to decide," Goswyn replied, laughing.
"Then my guardian spirit shall fall to your lot," said Dorothea, "for I
prefer your brother. I perceived the instant that you appeared that you
are a very disagreeable fellow, Herr Goswyn von Sydow," pronouncing the
name with mock pathos,--"yes, a thoroughly disagreeable fellow. I
could not live with you three days; while I could endure a lifetime
with your brother. He is such an honest, clumsy bear: I have always had
a liking for bears. Look, he gave me this ring as a keepsake: is it not
pretty?"
Otto von Sydow long remembered the look which his brother gave the
ring.
That evening the brothers had a violent dispute.
Goswyn admitted that the Princess was charming in spite of her wretched
training and impossible behaviour; that there could not be a more
amusing transient travelling acquaintance; that, finally, she certainly
did come of very good stock, and was, in spite of her free and easy
style of conversation, a pure-minded woman,--which should make it still
more a matter of conscience with Otto not to compromise her as he was
doing; for a marriage with her, even although her poor but haughty
family could be brought to consent to the misalliance, was out of the
question.
The result of this conversation was that Otto at last hung his head and
admitted that his wiser, stronger brother was right; he promised to
leave Florence with Goswyn the next morning; but when the trunks were
all piled on the coach for their departure he met the Princess Dorothea
on the stairs, and did not leave, but stayed and was betrothed to her.
It would be doing her injustice to say that she married him solely for
his money. No, she really had a decided liking for "bears," and, as far
as she could love any one, she loved her big, clumsy husband, just as
she preferred brown bread and sour milk to all the delicacies of the
table. During the honey-moon, which she spent with Otto upon his estate
in Silesia, she developed an astonishing degree of tenderness, but she
could not love anything for any length of time. Then, too, she was
entirely unused to any regular life, and the dull routine at Kosnitz
soon bored her to death. At first it delighted her to revel in her
husband's wealth, to have dress after dress made, to adorn herself with
all sorts of trinkets; but she soon found it tiresome and monotonous.
Oh for a small room on the third floor of some hotel in Paris with
Feistmantel, and poverty, and liberty, and a fresh conquest every day!
how she longed for it all!
At first in Berlin, in honour of her husband, she had assumed the
conventional air of a great lady; but of that she soon became
desperately tired: it was the most wearisome of all the weariness in
her new life.
In spite of all that evil tongues might say of her, she was as yet
perfectly innocent: of that her husband was convinced.
"She is utterly unsusceptible,--utterly," he said to himself, as he
tramped home through the mud and wet. And with this poor consolation he
was obliged to be content.
But, slow-witted as he was, he was aware that women unsusceptible to
temptation are apt to be equally unsusceptible to the disgrace of a
fall. The matter is simply of no importance to them. Princess Dorothea
would never be led astray through passion; but at the thought of the
devouring, degrading ennui which was continually dragging her downward,
Otto von Sydow shuddered.
Suddenly his cheeks burned; he could have boxed his own ears for such
thoughts with regard to his wife.