There are few prettier things than Carlsbad by night from one of the many
bridges which span the Tepl in its course through the town. If it is a
starry night, the torrent glides swiftly away with an inverted firmament
in its bosom, to which the lamps along its shores and in the houses on
either side contribute a planetary splendor of their own. By nine o'clock
everything is hushed; not a wheel is heard at that dead hour; the few
feet shuffling stealthily through the Alte Wiese whisper a caution of
silence to those issuing with a less guarded tread from the opera; the
little bowers that overhang the stream are as dark and mute as the
restaurants across the way which serve meals in them by day; the whole
place is as forsaken as other cities at midnight. People get quickly home
to bed, or if they have a mind to snatch a belated joy, they slip into
the Theater-Cafe, where the sleepy Frauleins serve them, in an exemplary
drowse, with plates of cold ham and bottles of the gently gaseous waters
of Giesshubl. Few are of the bold badness which delights in a supper at
Schwarzkopf's, and even these are glad of the drawn curtains which hide
their orgy from the chance passer.
The invalids of Burnamy's party kept together, strengthening themselves
in a mutual purpose not to be tempted to eat anything which was not
strictly 'kurgemass'. Mrs. March played upon the interest which each of
them felt in his own case so artfully that she kept them talking of their
cure, and left Burnamy and Miss Triscoe to a moment on the bridge, by
which they profited, while the others strolled on, to lean against the
parapet and watch the lights in the skies and the water, and be alone
together. The stream shone above and below, and found its way out of and
into the darkness under the successive bridges; the town climbed into the
night with lamp-lit windows here and there, till the woods of the
hill-sides darkened down to meet it, and fold it in an embrace from which
some white edifice showed palely in the farthest gloom.
He tried to make her think they could see that great iron crucifix which
watches over it day and night from its piny cliff. He had a fancy for a
poem, very impressionistic, which should convey the notion of the
crucifix's vigil. He submitted it to her; and they remained talking till
the others had got out of sight and hearing; and she was letting him keep
the hand on her arm which he had put there to hold her from falling over
the parapet, when they were both startled by approaching steps, and a
voice calling, "Look here! Who's running this supper party, anyway?"
His wife had detached March from her group for the mission, as soon as
she felt that the young people were abusing her kindness. They answered
him with hysterical laughter, and Burnamy said, "Why, it's Mr. Stoller's
treat, you know."
At the restaurant, where the proprietor obsequiously met the party on the
threshold and bowed them into a pretty inner room, with a table set for
their supper, Stoller had gained courage to play the host openly. He
appointed General Triscoe to the chief seat; he would have put his
daughter next to him, if the girl had not insisted upon Mrs. March's
having the place, and going herself to sit next to March, whom she said
she had not been able to speak a word to the whole evening. But she did
not talk a great deal to him; he smiled to find how soon he dropped out
of the conversation, and Burnamy, from his greater remoteness across the
table, dropped into it. He really preferred the study of Stoller, whose
instinct of a greater worldly quality in the Triscoes interested him; he
could see him listening now to what General Triscoe was saying to Mrs.
March, and now to what Burnamy was saying to Miss Triscoe; his strong,
selfish face, as he turned it on the young people, expressed a mingled
grudge and greed that was very curious.
Stoller's courage, which had come and gone at moments throughout, rose at
the end, and while they lingered at the table well on to the hour of ten,
he said, in the sort of helpless offence he had with Burnamy, "What's the
reason we can't all go out tomorrow to that old castle you was talking
about?"
"To Engelhaus? I don't know any reason, as far as I'm concerned,"
answered Burnamy; but he refused the initiative offered him, and Stoller
was obliged to ask March:
"You heard about it?"
"Yes." General Triscoe was listening, and March added for him, "It was
the hold of an old robber baron; Gustavus Adolphus knocked it down, and
it's very picturesque, I believe."
"It sounds promising," said the general. "Where is it?"
"Isn't to-morrow our mineral bath?" Mrs. March interposed between her
husband and temptation.
"No; the day after. Why, it's about ten or twelve miles out on the old
postroad that Napoleon took for Prague."
"Napoleon knew a good road when he saw it," said the general, and he
alone of the company lighted a cigar. He was decidedly in favor of the
excursion, and he arranged for it with Stoller, whom he had the effect of
using for his pleasure as if he were doing him a favor. They were six,
and two carriages would take them: a two-spanner for four, and a
one-spanner for two; they could start directly after dinners and get home
in time for supper.
Stoller asserted himself to say: "That's all right, then. I want you to
be my guests, and I'll see about the carriages." He turned to Burnamy:
"Will you order them?"
"Oh," said the young fellow, with a sort of dryness, "the portier will
get them."
"I don't understand why General Triscoe was so willing to accept. Surely,
he can't like that man!" said Mrs. March to her husband in their own
room.
"Oh, I fancy that wouldn't be essential. The general seems to me, capable
of letting even an enemy serve his turn. Why didn't you speak, if you
didn't want to go?"
"Why didn't you?"
"I wanted to go."
"And I knew it wouldn't do to let Miss Triscoe go alone; I could see that
she wished to go."
"Do you think Burnamy did?"
"He seemed rather indifferent. And yet he must have realized that he
would be with Miss Triscoe the whole afternoon."