Marienbad at six o'clock in the morning.
The air is still fresh and fragrant, the long, slanting sunbeams fall
between the damp coolness of the woody shadows. The guests crowd along
the narrow spring walk, their glasses in their hands. They form a line
before the spring after they have emptied their goblets, considerately
turn and conscientiously take exercise.
The sand beneath their feet, moist with the night dew, is of a dark
reddish color. On the leaves of the graceful trees sparkle little drops
of dew like finest enamel. In the turf which borders the sand walk
great drops shine like diamonds. A white mist, too transparent to be
called a fog, fills the distance. Thicker and thicker the guests crowd
around the spring.
Marienbad is overfull this year. Pleased landlords rub their fat hands,
and push up prices to a most unheard-of amount. Guests who have omitted
to engage rooms by telegraph can find no decent accommodations, seek
shelter in the most miserable private houses, offer gold mines to
shoemakers, tailors and glove-makers for one room. A whole excursion
trainful pass the night in the waiting-room.
The daughter of some reigning family, travelling incognito under the
name "Comtesse Stip," has engaged the greatest part of the largest
hotel for herself and her little prince in Scottish costume. A swarm of
distinguished moths from every country has followed the princely light,
and a crowd of _parvenus_, like a swarm of insects of the night, has
followed the moths, who pass their time in Marienbad bandying strangely
unselfish compliments.
The famous Vienna artists play every evening in the stuffy theatre;
princesses and dramatic _coryphees_ meet each other on the spring
promenade.
To-day a new animation is displayed by the spring pilgrims. All gaze at
a couple who have this morning appeared for the first time upon the
promenade. The aristocratic curiosity seems even more awakened than the
plebeian, and all the thirty or forty pairs of eyes of Marienbad
"society" are fixed upon the same spot--upon the knight of Harfink and
his young wife.
"That is the Juanita, the Carini; how badly she is dressed, how fat she
has grown, how homely!" goes from mouth to mouth. "And not even an
artistic temperament--a woman who could be sensible enough to marry a
'checked' iron founder. When she sees Lanzberg--how he must feel!" Thus
says society. Meanwhile, not noticing the voices hissing around her,
Juanita, the widowed Marchesa Carini, upright and stiff, with the
consequential manner of a retired dancer, walks between the knightly
Harfink and his son, beaming with pride and satisfaction.
How she looked fifteen years ago, at the time when she so fatally
crossed the path of life of Felix Lanzberg, it would be difficult to
determine. Today she looks like all elderly Spaniards, who to our
unpractised northern eyes resemble each other almost as much as elderly
negresses.
An immoderately fleshy form, not very tall, with high bust, and
unnaturally compressed waist, the hands tiny, like accidental
appendages to her fat arms, the feet still incomparably beautiful, but
too short to support the huge figure, the gait waddling, the face
yellow and fat, mouth, eyes, and nose almost hidden by a pair of
enormous cheeks--that is Juanita.
She who, in her day, had worn the bandeaux of her nation coming down
over her ears, now, probably because this manner of wearing the hair
seems to her peasant-like, wears the hair drawn back from her withered
temples, falling in black ringlets on her forehead, a hat on the back
of her head, a green silk gown and diamonds. Her tiny shoes and
stockings are the only parts of her costume which are faultless. The
former, charming little black satin affairs, the latter of open-work
black silk. In consequence of this, she wears her gown short beyond all
bound in front, which increases the width of the whole appearance.
She continually exchanges the most tender, loving glances with her
husband, and a happy honeymoon smile illumines her yellow face when he
addresses her.
As she uses the cure with the same conscientiousness as he, she stands
beside him at the spring. Little Comtesse L----, a lively lady whom
nothing escapes, asserts that every time before emptying her goblet,
Juanita coquettishly hits it against that of the "retired iron
founder."
The "checked iron founder" is a name given Mr. von Harfink on account
of his immoderate preference for striking green and blue checked
clothes. For two weeks Juanita has borne his name--for two weeks he has
known how badly he really fared under Susanna's rule.
The aforesaid Susanna had died a year after Linda's marriage. Linda,
who at that time had not fully recovered from Gery's birth, expressed
no wish to go to Vienna for her mother's burial or her father's
consolation. Mr. von Harfink had been left to bear the heavy loss
alone.
At the funeral Baron von Harfink shed many tears into a black-bordered
handkerchief, and displayed all the symptoms of honest emotion; after
the funeral he fell into a condition of silent apathy. The flame which
had given light to his mind was extinguished, all was dark within him.
He felt like an actor of poor memory whose excellent prompter has died.
About a week after the catastrophe, his nearest relatives assembled at
a dinner in his house, with the good-natured view of diverting him. He
sat in their midst, silently bent over his plate. They had adjourned to
the drawing-room for coffee, and still he had not spoken a word.
"The poor fellow! it has gone harder with him than we thought," the
relatives whispered to each other. Then stretching himself comfortably
in an arm-chair, and rubbing his stomach, he began, "Ah! things have
not tasted so good to me as they did to-day for a long time."
The feeling of an immense relief had awakened in him. No longer to be
afraid of making stupid remarks, no longer, when he had put on his
favorite checked vest, to be reproved with, "Anton, your vest insults
my aesthetic feeling," or, when he had given himself up to the
comfortable enjoyment of a favorite dish, to be frightened with,
"Anton, a day-laborer is nothing in comparison with you;" to be forced
to listen to no more articles from the _Rundschau_ and the _Revue des
Deux Mondes_,--it was very pleasant.
Scarcely had Susanna been three weeks in her grave, when Mr. von
Harfink stopped the subscriptions to the _Revue_ and its German cousin,
the _Rundschau_, retired to his estate, played nine-pins with his
brewer and cook, and in his shirt sleeves, ordered those new checked
plush vests, and ruined his stomach three times a week.
Soon he displayed the most peculiar matrimonial intentions. He made
love to the former companion of his deceased wife, an elderly spinster
with thin hair and a very deep feeling for a blond theology student
who, at that time in Magdeberg, sued for her hand.
The improbable occurred; the companion refused the knight and his three
millions, although after his death a settlement of seven hundred
thousand guldens was assured her.
The family was astonished at this unexpected unselfishness, and from
thankfulness, and to prevent the romantic maiden from changing her mind
later, married her to her student, with a splendid dowry.
After they had met this model of prudence, the relations wrung their
hands. If the charms of a forty-year-old, half bald companion had
almost brought him to the altar, how should they protect him from a
_mesalliance_?
Only by the sharpest oversight was Mr. von Harfink prevented from
marrying his housekeeper. Fearful conflicts burst forth on his
estate--the castle became an inn.
"Susie must have been cleverer than I accredited her with being," once
remarked Eugene von Rhoeden, who indifferently looked on upon his
relative's movements. "It certainly takes skill to govern the
rhinoceros. None of you equal her!"
At length the relatives were weary, and left Baron von Harfink to the
guidance of his son, that is, to his fate. Raimund was far too much
engaged in cultivating his high C to watch his father. The poor young
man, who had been destined by his mother to be a genius, at this time
suffered from deep depression. He had failed everywhere--at the
university, on the stage, finally in literature.
After long efforts, he had obtained an engagement in a Bohemian
watering-place, and under the stage name of Remondo Monte-chiaro, had
sung Raoul in a beautiful pale violet costume of real silk velvet.
The audience hissed and laughed; he sprained his ankle by the leap from
the window, and appeared no more.
Then he prepared a comedy which fell through in P----, an accident
which he attributed to the lack of cultivation of the audience there;
then he wrote essays upon the love affair of George Sand and Alfred de
Musset, the murder of the ambassador at Rastadt, and the Iron Mask.
These effusions were published in a Vienna paper. The superficial
public found the themes old, and did not read the articles. The
intimate friends of the author read the first five sentences, had the
satisfaction of discovering a grammatical error therein, and as, with
the malice with which friendship meets every young striver, they sought
nothing else in the articles, they laid them aside, satisfied. Raimund
felt deeply wounded. The world seemed to him nothing more than an
immense porcupine, which, with all its quills of prejudice, repelled
his genius.
He passed his days in gloomy brooding--then a message from his humorous
cousin, Eugene von Rhoeden, in Venice, waked him.
"Help what can be helped," he wrote. "He is going courting again; this
time it is in earnest."
Yes, it was in earnest.
In Marienbad, the year before, he had first made her acquaintance; he
had followed her to Venice. She had there, under the name Juanita,
tried to obliterate the reputation of Pepita. Later she had borne the
name of a Marchese Carini. She had been obliged to dance even as a
Marchesa, for the Marchese did not disdain to make use of his wife's
talent, and had dragged her from theatre to theatre. At one of her
brilliant performances in St. Petersburg she broke her leg, and since
then could dance no more. Now she became fat, sleepy, devout and
irritable; the Marchese gambled away the greater part of her fortune,
and died of galloping consumption. Ignorant of all business,
continually deceived by her lovers, the Marchese Carini would have come
to a sad end if the Knight of Harfink had not appeared as rescuer in
her need.
He married her in the beginning of June.
Raimund, very depressed and deeply in debt, did not refuse to offer to
kiss his new mamma's hand dutifully. She knew how so to fascinate him
at the first meeting, that he was almost as slavishly submissive to her
as his father. Juanita desired social position. She insisted upon being
introduced to Linda. Harfink did not know that she had formerly had
strange relations with Felix--she did not touch upon it; on the
contrary, she reserved her power over Felix, which she had so
boundlessly misused, for a favorable moment.
Mr. von Harfink told his nephew, Eugene, when he met him in Marienbad,
his wife's desire. "I really do not know what to do; Linda is so
curious," he said.
And Rhoeden answered with his sly smile, "Write Linda and ask her when
you may bring her new mamma to see her--or, really I see no reason why
you should not quietly drive over one of these days without announcing
yourself."
"I do not understand what any one could have against Chuchu!" said the
young husband, enthusiastically. "What a woman she is! She has diamonds
from the Emperor of ---- and a gold coat of mail from the Duke of ----,
and with all that, she is nevertheless all domesticity and love! She
calls me Tony, and darns my socks from pure love."