"All for the sake of a Juanita!" That was the most biting remark Linda
had made, was what made Felix feel most keenly his degradation.
He had heard of people who sinned for a good object, who had forged
their fathers' names from generous precipitancy to save the honor of a
friend, with the ideal conviction that the father himself must declare
that he was satisfied with the wrong action on account of the
unfortunate complications. But he? No false idea of sacrifice, no
desire for martyrdom had confused him; as the cause of his action he
found nothing but egoism and search for enjoyment, a brutal passion for
an unworthy woman.
The explanation of his act lay in the hot-blooded temperament of a
thoroughly spoiled and indulged man, whose first ungratified wish robs
him of his senses--the excuse of his act lay nowhere. He also had never
sought it, and had never for one instant forgiven himself, but all
these years, wherever he went, had dragged about with him the
consciousness of his degradation.
It had weighed so heavily upon him that this in itself had prevented
every moral elevation in him.
Had his sense of honor not been by nature and education so fanatic, so
morbidly sensitive, he would perhaps have learned in time to accustom
himself to his situation, and become a commonplace, anxiously
respectable man who contented himself with playing first fiddle in
circles which were a step lower than his own.
But however he was situated, he never learned to reckon with his
detracted honor. It could not satisfy him to represent an ordinary,
respectable man.
"How was it possible; oh, God, how was it possible that I, Felix
Lanzberg, could so forget myself?" he groaned.
He let his head fall upon his folded arms on his writing-desk.
Then through his weary mind, like a triumphal fanfare of temptation,
rang the melody of a Spanish national dance, with its exciting, sharply
accented rhythm and perfidious modulations. The portion of his past in
which his present grief had root rose vividly and with the most minute
particulars to his memory.
It dated back--oh, that beautiful unrecallable time--twenty-three
years. Very wealthy, handsome, of good family, fond of gay life and
without any serious aims, he liked to amuse himself, rendered homage to
his colonel's wife, as is obligatory in every young officer, supported
here a factory-girl, there a glove-maker, but at that time his great
passion was really four-in-hand driving. On the whole, he was of too
ideal temperament to find enjoyment in light-minded passions, and had
no talent for such. In association with all other beings--his
superiors, comrades, subordinates, tradespeople and proletaries--full
of a certain good-nature, self-satisfied. In intercourse with women he
was almost shy, stiff, grave, and well-bred to the finger-tips. He was
everywhere considered sentimental and solid.
The last Easter he had raved over Countess Adelina L----, the sister of
the same Count L---- whom he had encountered so unpleasantly at Mimi
Dey's--had danced three cotillons with her, lost two philopenas to her,
and passed much time at receptions, seated in a low arm-chair beside
her, gazing at her with enraptured eyes, and accompanying his glances
with a few anxious, very involved and equally unmeaning phrases. It
only required some sharp elderly friend of the Countess to make matters
plain to him--that is, to call his attention to the fact that he was
really betrothed.
He seemed made to marry early, to adore his wife, and to bore his
intimate friends with accounts of the wonderful peculiarities of his
children. Then, on a mild, damp spring evening, after a good dinner,
and not quite sober, he chanced to go with several comrades to the
Orpheum, which later, owing to an American who walked a telegraph wire
with much ease and grace, became a great attraction, but which then
tried its fortune with Spanish dancers and a lion-tamer.
The dance production began with four Spaniards, two women, two men, all
four old, homely, and so thin that they did not need castanets to
rattle, danced with convulsive charm, smiled like painted death's
heads, and on the whole reminded one strongly of certain repulsive
pictures of Goya, which are usually voted exaggerated, so as to allay
the horror which they cause.
The officers cried "Brava!" with biting irony, the audience hissed,
several indignant voices grumbled at the director. Then the first bars
of the madrilena resounded through the atmosphere impregnated with
tobacco smoke and the odor of eatables. A new apparition stepped upon
the stage. A smile--a glance--the deepest indignation changed to the
most breathless astonishment. With the voluptuous bowing and swaying of
a Spanish dance, the most beautiful woman that was ever called Senorita
floated over the stage. That was Juanita! The horrible background of
the quartette heightened the luxuriant charm of her figure.
She was no practised dancer, none of our conventional ballerinas, whose
perfect flexibility destroys all individual charm; her limbs had not
been disfigured by year-long torture; they possessed neither the
pitiful thinness nor the dazzling rapidity of a race-horse. She did not
know how to execute with the lower extremities the most ambitious
figures, while--as is considered essential--the upper body remained
stiff; she did no gymnastics--she danced! And not only with her
limbs--she danced with her whole body.
Oh, what an intoxicating bending and swaying! A proud drawing up of the
body, and caressing sinking backward! Her dancing had nothing animated,
challenging about it, but something subtly alluring, almost magically
seductive. Her whole appearance suggested longing weariness, as when in
a storm the flowers shudderingly bend their heads earthward. And she
was beautiful! The short oval of her face, the low brow, the short,
straight nose, the delicate, quivering nostrils, the high cheek-bones,
the slightly sunken cheeks, the long, deep-set eyes, full of loving
dreaminess and passion, the full, curved lips, turning upward with an
expression of languishing weariness--all this reminded one not in the
least of the ideal, gentle brunette Madonnas of Murillo. It reminded
one of nothing holy, nothing classical--but it was the most seductive
earthly beauty which one could imagine!
The audience raved; the officers screamed themselves hoarse with
"Brava! Brava!" Some of them made poor jokes about the dancer, others
hummed or whistled reminiscences of the Spanish music. Only Felix was
silent. "You act like one to whom a ghost has announced death," jested
Prince Hugo B----, and thereupon proposed that the officers should go
upon the stage in a body and give Juanita an ovation.
How he remembers all that to-day! The large half-lighted room near
the stage, the dusty old rafters, the ropes, the torn scenes, the dim
gas-lights, the crowd of actors and actresses huddled together, the
trapeze artist who wore a brown waterproof over his pink doublet and
green tights, and in the midst of this unsavory crowd--Juanita. In a
shabby gray dress, and green and blue checked shawl, she stood near an
elderly very shabby woman, and smiled with her languishing lips most
indifferently, while the men vied with each other in paying her the
most effusive compliments in imaginary Spanish or bad French. When they
withdrew Felix stumbled over something. It was the yellow flower which
Juanita had worn in her hair, dusty, withered, trodden upon. Carefully
he wiped the dust from it, and tried to revive the faded, crumpled
petals.
"Deuce take it! We should invite her to supper," cried Prince B----,
suddenly standing still.
"Why, Hugo?" stammered Felix.
The former laughed, turned on his heel, gave his invitation, and
Juanita nodded perfectly contentedly. She had no objection to sup with
the gentlemen. To be sure, she took her theatre mother with her.
How Felix recalled all this!
The glaring gas-light in the long narrow room of the restaurant; the
sleepy, blinking waiter; Manuela--that was the name of the dancer's
protecting angel--who, without removing hat or wrap, and also without
saying a word, with the usual appetite of all theatre mothers, bent
over her plate; the officers who, with faces flushed with wine,
proposed clumsy toasts, and Juanita who, seated beside the Prince upon
a red divan, again and again rubbed her large weary eyes with her
little hands, like a sleepy child.
She ate without affectation and without greediness--only sipped the
champagne, smiled good-naturedly at the boldest jokes, whether she
understood them not, with the resignation of a being who was accustomed
to earn her bread in this manner.
The old Manuela had long been snoring. Some the officers had grown
melancholy, the others were noisy only by fits and starts--Juanita's
eyes closed.
"Let her go, she is tired," remarked an elderly captain.
"Before we part, I beg one especial favor," cried Prince B----. "That
the Senorita give us each a kiss."
The dancer made a few gestures of dissent, because that was a part of
her trade, and then yielded.
Patiently she let one after the other of the young men press his
mustache, smelling of wine and smoke, upon her beautiful mouth. At
length Felix's turn came, but he avoided her lips, profaned by the
kisses of his comrades, and only kissed her hand very softly.
Misunderstanding the tenderness of his action, she believed that he
despised her kiss.
A few minutes later the two sleepy Spaniards rolled away to their home
in a carriage which Prince B---- had paid for.
"A beautiful creature, but a perfect goose," remarked B---- to Felix,
as he strolled back to the barracks with him. The other officers drove.
"Besides, she is at least twenty-five or six years old; that is old for
a Spaniard," chatted the Prince.
Felix walked silently beside him, a hot, unsatisfied feeling in his
heart, a withered flower in his hand.
He cherished it like a lover the rose-bud which his dear one had given
him; yes, thus would Felix cherish the faded yellow flower which the
dust in the wings of the stage had soiled--upon which an acrobat might
have trodden. He placed it in a glass of water, and finally pressed it
in a book of poems.
Explain it who will! In the moment when Felix had avoided her lips, the
narrow-minded Spaniard had taken a decided dislike for him, a dislike
which more intimate acquaintance with him did not overcome, but which
increased to aversion. Neither his unusual, truly somewhat effeminate,
beauty, nor his reserved, chivalrous manners, pleased her. B----, with
his bold, condescending ways, had more success with her, but her
deepest, tenderest feelings were for the trapeze artist of the Orpheum,
a young man with strongly developed muscles and bushy hair, who
apparently seldom washed his face and never his hands; but, on the
other hand, used the strongest-smelling pomade, and always wore the
most brilliant cravats. One met him often when one visited Juanita.
At that time Juanita lived in the Rossau, in a very plain locality,
which continually smelt of mutton tallow and onions, because Manuela,
in spite of the warm time of year, loved to cook unappetizing national
dishes upon the drawing-room stove.
Manuela was never seen without her crumpled black satin hat and her
green shawl adorned with red palms. Around the old woman's waist, on a
worn-out cord hung a pocket from which protruded a gay paper fan, and
which beside this lodged a pack of cards, a rosary and cigarettes.
Juanita lay from morning to night upon a divan, clad in a loose white
wrapper, without corsets, without stockings, a rose behind her ear, and
tiny black satin slippers upon her small bare feet. But how beautiful
she was thus!
The soft white clinging garment outlined her form distinctly. One could
think of nothing more charming than her little feet, scarcely as long
as one's palm, so narrow, beautifully arched, with pink soles and
dainty dimples, and with blue veins around her ankles as they peeped
out of the satin slippers.
Except for a few fairly brutal bursts of rage, Juanita was uncommonly
phlegmatic. She really loved nothing but cigarettes, sweet drinks mixed
with ice, and a horrible Spanish national salad of garlic and cucumbers
which she called a _gaspacho_. The time which she did not devote to her
dancing exercises and her lovers, she passed smoking, laying cards, and
telling the beads of her rosary.
She tolerated Felix around her, like a poor actress who wishes to
quarrel with no one and tolerates every one; she did not encourage him.
Her coldness excited his feeling to madness; his boundless submission
increased her repugnance for him. In association with her, he had no
self-respect, no pride, no will, but the low-spirited air of a shy
student. He grovelled at her feet, and spent half the day pasting gold
spangles on one of her old costumes which Manuela was freshening up. He
had known her for weeks without daring to send her anything but
bouquets and candy.
Then one evening he saw her in a box of a theatre. She wore her hair
arranged in the Spanish manner, with a veil and high comb, and a black
satin gown which fitted like a glove, adorned with a silver girdle. The
whole audience was interested in the beautiful Spaniard. In the second
act, Prince B---- appeared in her box. The people whispered, laughed.
Felix was half dead with jealousy.
The next day there was a violent altercation between the Prince and
him, at which the former good-naturedly declared that he would a
hundred times rather break with Juanita than with Felix; he did not
care anything about her, she bored him; he had only sent her to the
theatre, dressed beautifully, to mystify the Viennese, etc.
Then Felix hired a charming entresol in K---- Street, and had it
furnished in three days by the first upholsterer in Vienna. Juanita
made no trouble about occupying it. She laughed and clapped her hands
with joy over the magnificent furniture, gave up her loose wrappers,
wore the clothes which Felix had made for her, and in honor of the
beautiful apartment, played the great lady.
Surprise and thankfulness, or perhaps a suddenly awakened covetousness
for a time killed in her every other feeling. Felix revelled in a few
weeks of mad happiness.
To-day, however, his hair stood on end when he thought of this
happiness.
Juanita gave herself up to mad extravagance. Her ideal of elegance and
style was Mlle. X----, the _premiere danseuse_ of the opera house.
Juanita must have duplicates of everything: the toilets, the
Newfoundland and the equipages. Finally she insisted upon dancing at
the same theatre as the X----, and Felix succeeded in securing a
performance for her.
And yet how badly she treated him in spite of everything. Often he
rattled his frail chains, but lacked the strength to break them. He
made scenes for Juanita almost every day--it was owing to his jealousy;
he left her and swore he would never come again. For an entire week he
remained away from her, but in what a condition of excitement, fever,
and longing! He ate nothing, he slept no longer, he ran into passers-by
in the street because he saw no one; the whole world was a dark chaos
to him--the only spot of light was Juanita.
With bowed head, a bitter smile on his lips, the full consciousness of
his degradation expressed by bearing and glance, he then dragged
himself back to Juanita.
She did with him what she wished. All Vienna spoke about him and her;
from the lips of young matrons mysterious phrases floated about the
ears of innocent young girls--the pretty Countess L---- cried her blue
eyes out.
And the summer passed. September arrived. The Spaniard had become more
submissive--sometimes she was almost tender. The great moment of her
debut in the opera house approached, and made her timid. One more wish
she expressed, a last one. Never before had she taken trouble to inform
Felix of one of her expensive wishes with so many caressing
digressions. With both arms round his neck, her lips close to his ear,
she informed him that she would not appear at the opera house without a
pair of diamond screws such as Mlle. X---- always wore in her ears when
she danced.
When he begged her only to wait a very little while, she fell back into
her old phlegmatic, yes, apathetic manner, pouting angrily.
He went to a jeweller whom he knew, of whom he had already purchased
different ornaments for Juanita, but the man did not seem inclined to
extend Felix's credit further. Too prudent to bluntly refuse such a
distinguished customer he pretended that he had no stones of the size
which the Baron required.