COUNT PAUL AT HOME
“Here, then, excellency, is the little Christine whom the Count saw
as he stood at the edge of the bower and gazed upon the scene with
surprised eyes. Not until the capering Hans had sunk down exhausted
upon the turf, and Mother Theresa had clapped her hands again and
again, and the priest had raised his finger in warning, did the group
become aware of the master’s presence, and hasten to put on some show
of respect and greeting. As for Christine, Father Mark had not failed
to impress upon her the nature of her obligation to the owner of the
château, and no sooner had she seen him than she ran forward, and
holding out her hand very prettily, she took his and pressed it to her
lips.
“‘Herr Count,’ she said--for thus had they taught her to address
him--‘I thank you, oh, I thank you from my heart--the Blessed Mother
give me words--I will be your servant always--I am so happy here, Herr
Count, and it is to you that I must speak--you will not send me back to
Zlarin?’
“The Count listened to her earnest prattle, not knowing whether to be
amused or troubled. The touch of her lips upon his hand had been very
sweet, and, stern recluse that he was, he had no heart to resist such
attractive pleading.
“‘Child,’ said he--and he spoke Italian very readily--‘we will talk of
all these things presently. Come up now to the house, that I may learn
your story.’
“He offered her a stirrup leather, and holding to this she ran by his
side, awed by his presence, yet drawn to him by an instinctive feeling
that here she had found a friend. And he encouraged her to talk,
desiring to form some opinion which would help him to deal with her
future.
“‘Well, my little girl,’ he said cheerily, ‘and who taught you to play
the fiddle?’
“‘Pietro,’ said she, ‘Pietro who sings for the priest at Zlarin. Oh,
Pietro is a wise-head; he has great eyes and great ears and great hands
like yours, Herr Count. When he opens his mouth it is just like looking
into a pumpkin. He talks to his fiddle and his fiddle talks to him.
It is good to see Pietro at the feast, Herr Count--such notes out of
his mouth--oh, they are like cannon on the sea; such anger--oh, it is
something to watch Pietro beat his fiddle when he is angry. And he
laughs and nods his head all the time, and says: “What music I make!
What injustice that I do not play at Vienna!” He taught me the scales,
and when I could not do it he would beat his breast and break my bow
and smack my face; but when I pleased him he would cry: “Brava! the
whole city shall dance to music such as that.”’
“The Count had smiled when she spoke of his great hands, excellency,
for in truth he was a big man, uncouth of limb, large of frame, and a
very giant in strength. But forty years of life had robbed him of all
the vanities, and he was pleased to find one who spoke truth and had
no shame of her words. He could not help but remember, as he looked
down upon the picturesque little figure running at his side, that
life in the house of the Zaloskis had been a poor round of official
dulness these twenty years and more. Christine brought him to a sudden
recollection of a past day when a woman had enchained him and drank
of the heart’s blood of his affections, leaving him at last a soured
and broken man. He recalled the hour when a glance from eyes, that
were very like the eyes of his little Italian girl, had warmed him to
ecstasies of hope and love; his mind went back to those fleeting years
of passion when a woman’s hand had led him, and a woman’s whim had
betrayed him and had cast him out with affections withered and soul
embittered. They had given him the name of woman-hater since those
days. Strange, then, to hear the babble of a pretty girl’s voice in his
own park, to feel his hand warm at her kiss. More strange that such
things should have been pleasing to him, that he should have decided in
his mind not to send Christine from the house if circumstances would
permit him to retain her there.
“He had come to this conclusion as he rode up to the gate of the
château, and giving his horse to a groom, led the way to his study.
This was a great vaulted apartment in the east wing--a room with many
pillars buttressing the arches of the roof, and windows opening
towards the green mountains of Jajce. The walls of it spoke eloquently
of the Count’s common employments--hunting implements, swords, suits of
mail, old guns which dying Turks had dropped, spears, lances, pikes,
adorned them. The tiled floor was covered with the soft skins of wolf
and bear; other skins were piled upon the couches and the chairs.
The heavy sideboard of oak shone resplendent with silver cups and
jugs--mighty jugs for mighty drinkers. A small case for books, many
implements of science, a table littered with papers, seemed out of
place in that museum of a hundred wars--a soldier’s room, excellency,
the room of a man whose ancestors had fought unnumbered battles.
“To such a room Count Paul led Christine. Here he pulled off his big
riding-boots, and having lighted a cigar, he sat down at his table and
bade her squat upon the cushion of skins at his side. And then he fell
to questioning her.
“‘Child,’ said he, ‘they tell me that your father, Andrea, is now
living at Sebenico, and that you ran away from him when he wished you
to finish your education in a convent?’
“‘My father Andrea!’ she answered with surprise. ‘Oh, he is not my
father, Herr Count, he is only my friend.’
“‘How came it, then, that he wished to send you to a convent?’
“‘It was because of Ugo--of Ugo Klun, who was to take me to Vienna. He
is my husband, you know.’
“She said it, excellency, with no more concern than if Ugo had been her
dog.
“‘Your husband, girl!’ cried the Count, angry at her indifference; ‘you
have a husband, then?’
“‘I stood with Ugo before the altar upon the island Incoronata,’ she
answered, playing with the bracelets upon her wrist; ‘he called me
wife, and the priest blessed me. We rode that day to the mountains, for
I feared to go to Sebenico to the Sisters, and Ugo feared that they
would make a hussar of him. It was to the hut of Orio the shepherd that
he carried me, and there I was ill with the fever. When I awoke Ugo had
gone, and no one was with me in the hut. Then I tried to find him in
the hills, and I ate all the bread, and the road was hot, and the sun
burnt my face, and--oh! it would have been good to die! You will not
send me back to Zlarin, Herr Count?’
“She asked him pitifully, her black eyes raised to his, and yet he
could not promise her.
“‘That is for your husband to say. First we must find him, child. You
would wish that, of course?’
“Her answer astonished him.
“‘Herr Count,’ she cried, clinging to his knees, ‘how shall I tell
you--the Blessed Mother give me words! Ugo is my friend, he has been
good to me. I thought that we should be friends always, that he would
take me to the great city; but when I was with him in the hut and he
put his arm upon my neck and burnt my lips with kisses, I knew that it
could never be, that God had meant it otherwise. Oh, his kisses hurt
me; I shuddered at his touch--I, who wished to thank him and to be
his friend. Herr Count, blame me not; we cannot give these things; we
cannot love because we wish it. Do not send for him; let me be your
servant always. I will work for you, I will serve you. Oh, I have known
no love in all my life, God help me! I have been alone always; there
has been none to care; even my brother beat me. When I was a little
child they let me beg for bread. Herr Count, what happiness if you
should speak a word of love to me--if you should hear me now! I cannot
go back to Zlarin--I cannot! The holy angels are my witnesses, Herr
Count.’
“She had sunk slowly to the floor, and she lay now with her head
pillowed upon her arm and her right hand holding still the right hand
of the master. So deeply did she feel the words she spoke that her
whole body shook with her sobs and the floor was wet with her tears.
She had tasted so sweet a draught of happiness that the thought of
putting down the cup was bitter to her beyond words. And in her
exceeding grief, excellency, she brought the Count to a memory of a day
in his own life when he too had asked for the bread of love and had
hungered. Such tears as she then shed openly he had shed in his heart,
and they had frozen there, shutting out for twenty years all the warmth
of human affections.
“‘Come,’ he said, when he had waited awhile, and she had raised her
burning face to his, begging for an answer, ‘tell me more of your
husband, and then perhaps I shall answer you. You say that they would
have made a hussar of him--where, then, was he drawn?’
“‘He was drawn at Jajce--your own city. His father is the woodlander,
but Ugo left him a year ago, for he would not serve, since that would
have taken him from me. They must have heard that he was at Sebenico,
and that is why he left me in the mountains. Herr Count, I cannot go
back to him--I cannot go!’
“The Count heard her out, and then, rising from his seat, he unlocked
the cabinet which held the books, and took from it a volume wherein
the reports of the Prefect of Jajce were filed. Two of these, the most
recent, he scanned without comment, but at the third he stopped, and an
exclamation broke from his lips.
“‘Christine,’ said he--and that was the first time he had called her
so--‘you are telling me the truth?’
“‘I swear it,’ she cried.
“‘You do not wish to go back to this man?’
“‘God knows that I cannot go.’
“‘Then think no more of him, my child, for he fired upon his officer
and was shot by a trooper in the woods of the Verbas ten days ago.’
“The Count closed the book with a snap; but Christine, trembling and
very pale, and awed by the words she had heard, rose to her feet.
“‘He was my friend,’ she said, and that was all, for as she spoke she
ran from the room and listened no more. Grief and joy had conquered;
the desire of years seemed gratified in that hour, the veil lifted off
her life.
“Yet this was the cruelty of it--that even while the Count was telling
her of the man’s death Ugo Klun, hidden in a cave above the Verbas,
was saying to himself that the pursuit would soon be over, and that he
would return to hold little Christine in his arms again.
“Excellency, the report had lied that a corporal might profit.”