Sempaly's intimacy with the Sterzls grew daily; he did the honors of
Rome to Zinka, and dined with them as a fourth two or three times a
week. After the tableaux at the Ilsenberghs' Zinka was asked
everywhere; all the men were at her feet, and all the ladies wanted to
learn her songs. The men she treated with the utmost indifference and
to the ladies she was always obliging, particularly to those whom no
one else would take the pains to be civil to, all of which greatly
added to her popularity. Truyn's little girl--a spoilt, shy thing, who
quarrelled with her maid three times a week regularly and insisted on
learning everything from Latin to water-color drawing, though she would
submit to no teacher but her father, perfectly worshipped Zinka and to
her was as docile as a lamb. Princess Vulpini was delighted at her
influence on her little niece and declared that Zinka was a real
treasure; and Lady Julia Ellis, who had made the young girl's
acquaintance two years since at Meran, was proud to take her out.
Whenever the baroness could not go the English lady was always ready to
chaperon Zinka, and when Lady Julia was 'at home' Zinka had to help her
to receive her guests and to make tea.
Countess Schalingen, a Canoness devoted to painting, full of
sentimentality and romance, whose ideas had not yet got beyond
Winterhalter, called Zinka 'quite delicious,' took her on excursions,
dragged her to all the curiosity-dealers, and finally painted her
portrait on a handscreen for Princess Vulpini--her head and shoulders
in gauzy drapery coming out of a lily. Before the end of a fortnight a
rich American had enquired about her rank and extraction, and the
handsome Crespigny had learnt all about her fortune. Norina paid his
court to her when his tyrant's back was turned and Mrs. Ferguson did
her the honor of being madly jealous.
But all this did not turn her head, it did not seem even to astonish
her; she had always been spoilt and wherever she had gone she had found
friends and admirers. When people were kind to her she was delighted,
but she would have been much more astonished if they had not been kind.
Sempaly had called her "_a Botticelli_," but the word was only
applicable to her mind; in appearance she had none of the ascetic grace
of the pre-Raphaelites. She was more like the crayon figures of Latour,
or that typical beauty of the eighteenth century, la Lamballe. She had
not the bloom of pink and white, but was pale, even in her youthful
freshness with soft shadows under her eyes; and her hair, which was
thick and waved naturally had reddish lights in the brown. A tender
down softened its outline on her temples without shading her forehead,
and gave her face a look of peculiar innocence. She was slight but not
angular, her arms were long and thin, her hands small and sometimes
red. Her moods varied between dreamy thoughtfulness and saucy high
spirits, her gait was usually free and light but occasionally a little
awkward, "like an angel with its wings clipped," Sempaly said. She had
a low veiled voice in speaking that reminded one of the vibrating tones
of an Amati violin. She was as wild as a boy, as graceful as a water
nixie, and as innocent as a child--with the crude innocence of a girl
who has been brought up chiefly by men--and all her ideas had the stamp
of dreamy seclusion and fervid sentiment.
She had had French and English governesses and had even been to school
in a convent for a year; still, the ruling influence in her life had
been that of her guardian. General Sterzl--an eccentric being with an
intense horror of sentimental school-friendships and of the
conventional propriety that comes of too early familiarity with the
world. It was to him that Zinka owed the one good word which Countess
Ilsenbergh spoke in her favor:
"One thing must be admitted; she is not affected, she is as natural as
one of our own girls."
* * *
"Poor Coralie!" the baroness would frequently exclaim, "what a pity
that she is not here; what a treat it would be for her!"
"Yes," Sterzl would answer in his dry way, "she was in too great a
hurry." And the baroness would cast her eyes up to heaven.
Coralie was her eldest and favorite daughter. Disappointed in her
love of some hard-hearted gentleman she had renounced the vanities of
the world some three years since, but--like her mother's worthy
daughter--even in the depth of her disappointment and despair she had
taken care to choose a convent where the recluses were divided into
ladies and sisters, where the children who came to school there played
hide and seek under a French name, and where being a boarder was called
being _en pension_.
"Poor Coralie!" the baroness would sigh; and then seating herself at
her writing-table she would scribble endless letters about the delights
of a residence at Rome to all her friends in Austria, and especially to
her sister, the Baroness Wolnitzka.
Baroness Sterzl was a typical specimen of a class of nobility peculiar
to Austria, and called there, Heaven knows why, "the onion nobility"
(zwiebelnoblesse). It is a circle that may be described as a branch
concern of the best society; a half-blood relation; a mixture of the
elements that have been sifted out of the upper aristocracy and of the
parvenus from below, who find that they can be reciprocally useful; a
circle in which almost every man is a baron, and every woman, without
exception, is a baroness. Its members are for the most part poor, but
refined beyond expression. The mothers scold their children in bad
French and talk to their friends in fashionable slang; they give
parties, at which there is nothing to eat--but the family plate is
displayed, and where the company always consists of the same old
bachelors who dye their hair and know the _Almanack de Gotha_ by heart.
Everyone is well informed about the doings of the world--how many
shifts Minnie N. had in her trousseau, why the engagement between Fritz
O. and Lori P. was broken off, and much more to the same effect. Of
late years the 'onion-nobility,' with various other offshoots of the
higher culture, has been swamped by the advance of the liberals, that
is to say, by the progress of the financial classes.
Only a year since the baroness herself had stood on the stairs of the
opera-house to watch the occupants of the grand tier--at that time
appropriated to the cream of the aristocracy--to take note of
aristocratic dresses, and to hear aristocratic nothings from
aristocratic lips. Now, in Rome, she was living in the whirl of
society. Her satisfaction knew no bounds, and she made daily progress
in exclusiveness; the Countess Ilsenbergh, as compared to her, was a
mere bungler. But she was never so amusing to watch as when she met
some fellow-countrymen of untitled rank. It happened that this winter
there was in Rome a certain Herr Brauer, an old simpleton with a very
handsome wife who laid herself open for the admiration of all the young
men of any pretensions. Being furnished with a few letters of
introduction he and his fascinating partner disported themselves very
contentedly in the outer circle--the suburbs, so to speak--of good
society without having a suspicion how far they were from the centre.
Baroness Sterzl could never cease wondering "how those people could be
tolerated."
She was always well dressed, she gave capital little dinners, she had
the neatest coupe and the most comfortable landau, and her coachman had
the cleanest shaved imperial face and the smartest livery in Rome. Her
manners were somewhat changeable, since she was constantly endeavoring
to appropriate the airs and graces of the most fashionable women she
met. She was extremely unpopular and consequently bored to death
wherever she went; she was never quite easy as to her footing in
society and lived in the discomfort of a person who is always trying to
walk on tiptoe.
Her sole unqualified pleasure during this period--which, however, she
always spoke of as the happiest of her life--was the writing of the
above-mentioned letters home, and especially as has been said, to her
sister the Baroness Wolnitzka in Bohemia.
She craved a public to witness her success and, like all mean natures,
she knew no greater joy than that of exciting envy; she would often
read these epistles to Zinka, for she was very proud of her wordy
style. Zinka was somewhat disturbed by these flowery compositions which
always ended with these words: "What a pity it is that you should not
be here. It would give us the greatest pleasure to have you with us."
"Take care, mamma," said the girl, "they will take you at your word and
descend upon us."
"What are you dreaming of?" said the baroness folding her letter with
the utmost philosophy; "they have no money."