AT THE CULTURVEREIN.
On calm reflection, Calabressa gave himself the benefit of his own
approval; and, on the whole, was rather proud of his diplomacy. He had
revealed enough, and not too much; he had given the headstrong
Englishman prudent warnings and judicious counsel; he had done what he
could for the future of the little Natalushka, who was the daughter of
Natalie Berezolyi. But there was something more.
He went up-stairs.
"My dear little one," he said, in his queer French, "behold me--I come
alone. Your English friend sends a thousand apologies--he has to return
to his guests: is it an English custom to leave guests in such a manner?
Ah, Madame Potecki, there is a time in one's life when one does strange
things, is there not? When a farewell before strangers is
hateful--impossible; when you rather go away silently than come before
strangers and shake hands, and all the rest. What, wicked little one,
you look alarmed! Is it a secret, then? Does not madame guess anything?"
"I entreat you, Signor Calabressa, not to speak in riddles," said
Natalie, hastily. "See, here is a telegram from papa. He will be back in
London on Monday next week. You can stay to see him, can you not?"'
"Mademoiselle, do you not understand that I am not my own master for two
moments in succession? For this present moment I am; the next I may be
under orders. But if my freedom, my holiday, lasts--yes, I shall be glad
to see your father, and I will wait. In the mean time, I must use up my
present moment. Can you give me the address of Vincent Beratinsky?"
She wrote it down for him; it was a number in Oxford Street.
"Now I will add my excuses to those of the tall Englishman," said he,
rising. "Good-night, madame. Good-night, mademoiselle--truly, it is a
folly to call you the little Natalushka, who are taller than your
beautiful mother. But it was the little Natalushka I was thinking about
for many a year. Good-night, wicked little one, with your secrets!"
He kissed her hand, bowed once more to the little Polish lady, and left.
When, after considerable difficulty--for he was exceedingly
near-sighted--he made out the number in Oxford Street, he found another
caller just leaving. This stranger glanced at him, and instantly said,
in a low voice,
"The night is dark, brother."
Calabressa started; but the other gave one or two signs that reassured
him.
"I knew you were in London, signore, and I recognized you; we have your
photograph in Lisle Street. My name is Reitzei--"
"Ah!" Calabressa exclaimed, with a new interest, as he looked at the
pallid-faced young man.
"And if you wish to see Beratinsky, I will take you to him. I find he
is at the Culturverein: I was going there myself." So Calabressa
suffered himself to be led away.
At this time the Culturverein used to meet in a large hall in a narrow
lane off Oxford Street. It was an association of persons, mostly
Germans, connected in some way or other with art, music, or letters--a
merry-hearted, free-and-easy little band of people, who met every
evening to laugh and talk and joke and generally forget the world and
all its cares. The evening usually began with Bavarian beer, sonatas,
and comic lectures; then Rhine wines began to appear, and of course
these brought with them songs of love, and friendship, and patriotism;
occasionally, when the older and wiser folk had gone, sweet champagne
and a wild frolic prevailed until daylight came to drive the revellers
out. Beratinsky belonged to the Verein by reason of his having at one
time betaken himself to water-color drawing, in order to keep himself
alive.
When Calabressa entered the large, long hall, the walls of which were
plentifully hung with sketches in color and cartoons in black and white,
the _fertig_!--_los_! period had not arrived. On the contrary, the
meeting was exceedingly demure, almost dull; for a German music
professor, seated at the piano on the platform, was playing one of his
own compositions, which, however beautiful, was of considerable length;
and his audience had relapsed into half-hushed conversation over their
light cigars and tall glasses of Bairisch.
Beratinsky had to come along to the entrance-hall to enter the names of
his visitors in a book. He was a little man, somewhat corpulent, with
bushy black eyebrows, intensely black eyes, and black closely-cropped
beard. The head was rather handsome; the figure not.
"Ah, Calabressa, you have come alive again!" he said, speaking in pretty
fair Italian. "We heard you were in London. What is it?"
The last phrase was uttered in a low voice, though there was no
by-stander. But Calabressa, with a lofty gesture, replied,
"My friend, we are not always on commissions. Sometimes we have a little
liberty--a little money--a notion in our head. And if one cannot exactly
travel _en prince_, _n'importe!_ we have our little excursion. And if
one has one's sweetheart to see? Do you know, friend Beratinsky, that I
have been dining with Natalie--the little Natalushka, as, she used to be
called?"
Beratinsky glanced quickly at him with the black, piercing eyes.
"Ah, the beautiful child! the beautiful child!" Calabressa exclaimed,
as if he was addressing some one not present. "The mouth sweet,
pathetic, like that in Titian's Assumption: you have seen the picture in
the Venice Academy? But she is darker than Titian's Virgin; she is of
the black, handsome Magyar breed, like her mother. You never saw her
mother, Beratinsky?"
"No," said the other, rather surlily. "Come, sit down and have a cigar."
"A cigarette--a cigarette and a little cognac, if you please," said
Calabressa, when the three companions had gone along to the middle of
the hall and taken their seats. "Ah, it was such a surprise to me: the
sight of her grown to be a woman, and the perfect, beautiful image of
her mother--the very voice too--I could have thought it was a dream."
"Did you come here to talk of nothing but Lind's daughter?" said
Beratinsky, with scant courtesy.
"Precisely," remarked Calabressa, in absolute good-humor. "But before
that a word."
He glanced round this assemblage of foreign-looking persons, no doubt
guessing at the various nationalities indicated by physique and
complexion--Prussian, Pole, Rhinelander, Swiss, and what not. If the
company, in English eyes, might have looked Bohemian--that is to say,
unconventional in manner and costume--the Bohemianism, at all events,
was of a well-to-do, cheerful, good-humored character. There was a good
deal of talking besides the music.
"These gentlemen," said Calabressa, in a low voice, "are they
friends--are they with us?"
"Only one or two," said Beratinsky.
"You do not come here to proselytize, then?"
"One must amuse one's self sometimes," said the little, fat,
black-haired Pole, somewhat gruffly.
"Then one must take care what one says!"
"I presume that is generally the case, friend Calabressa."
But Calabressa was not offended. He was interested in what was going on.
"Par exemple," he said, in his airy way, "que vient faire la le drole?"
The music had come to an end, and the spectacled professor had retired
amidst a thunder of applause. His successor, who had attracted
Calabressa's attention, was a gentleman who had mounted on a high easel
an immense portfolio of cartoons roughly executed in crayon; and as he
exhibited them one by one, he pointed out their characteristics with a
long stick, after the manner of a showman. His demeanor was serious; his
face was grave; his tone was simple and business-like. But as he
unfolded these rude drawings, Calabressa, who understood but little
German, was more and more astonished to find the guttural laughter
around him increase and increase until the whole place resounded with
roars, while some of the old Herren held their sides in pain, as the
tears of the gigantic mirth streamed down their cheeks. Those who were
able hammered loud applause on the table before them; others rolled in
their chairs; many could only lie back and send their merriment up to
the reverberating roof in shrill shrieks and yells.
"In the name of Heaven, what is it all about?" said Calabressa. "Have
the people gone mad?"
"Illustrations of German proverbs," said Beratinsky, who, despite his
surly manner, was himself forced to smile.
Well, Calabressa had indeed come here to talk about Lind's daughter; but
it was impossible, amidst this wild surging to and fro of Olympian
laughter. At last, however, the showman came to an end of his cartoons,
and solemnly made his bow, and amidst tumultuous cheering resumed his
place among his companions.
There was a pause, given over to chatter and joking, and Calabressa
quickly embraced this opportunity.
"You are a friend of the little Natalushka--of the beautiful Natalie, I
should say, perhaps?"
"Lind's daughter does not choose to have many friends," said Beratinsky,
curtly.
This was not promising; and, indeed, the corpulent little Pole showed
great disinclination to talk about the young lady who had so laid hold
of Calabressa's heart. But Calabressa was not to be denied, when it was
the welfare of the daughter of Natalie Berezolyi that was concerned.
"Yes, yes, friend Beratinsky, of course she is very much alone. It is
rather a sad thing for a young girl to be so much alone."
"And if she chooses to be alone?" said Beratinsky, with a sharpness that
resembled the snarl of a terrier.
Perhaps it was to get rid of the topic that Beratinsky here joined in a
clamorous call for "Nageli! Nageli!" Presently a fresh-colored young
Switzer, laughing and blushing tremendously, went up to the platform and
took his seat at the piano, and struck a few noisy chords. It was a
Tyrolese song he sung, with a jodel refrain of his own invention:
"Hat einer ein Schatzerl,
So bleibt er dabei,
Er nimmt sie zum Weiberl,
Und liebt sie recht treu.
Dann fangt man die Wirthschaft
Gemeinschaftlich an,
Und liebt sich, und herzt sich
So sehr als man kann!"
Great cheering followed the skilfully executed jodel. In the midst of
it, one of the members rose and said, in German,
"Meine Herren! You know our good friend Nageli is going to leave us;
perhaps we shall not see him again for many years. I challenge you to
drink this toast: 'Nageli, and his quick return!' I say to him what some
of the shopkeepers in our Father-land say to their customers, 'Kommen
Sie bald wieder!'"
Here there was a great shouting of "Nageli! Nageli!" until one started
the chorus, which was immediately and sonorously sung by the whole
assemblage,
"Hoch soll er leben!
Hoch soll er leben!
Dreimal hoch!"
Another pause, chiefly devoted to the ordering of Hochheimer and the
lighting of fresh cigars. The souls of the sons of the Father-land were
beginning to warm.
"Friend Beratinsky," said the anxious-hearted albino, "perhaps you know
that many years ago I knew the mother of Natalie Lind; she was a
neighbor--a companion--of mine: and I am interested in the little one. A
young girl sometimes has need of friends. Now, you are in a position--"
"Friend Calabressa, you may save your breath," said the other, coldly.
"The young lady might have had my friendship if she had chosen. She did
not choose. I suppose she is old enough--and proud enough--to choose her
own friends. Yes, yes, friend Calabressa, I have heard. But we will say
nothing more: now listen to this comical fellow."
Calabressa was not thinking of the young Englishman who now sat down at
the piano; a strange suspicion was beginning to fill his mind. Was it
possible, he began inwardly to ask, that Vincent Beratinsky had himself
aspired to marry the beautiful Hungarian girl?
This good-looking young English fellow, with a gravity equal to that of
the sham showman, explained to his audience that he was composing an
operetta, of which he would give them a few passages. He was a skilful
pianist. He explained, as his fingers ran up and down the keys, that the
scene was in Ratcliffe Highway. A tavern: a hornpipe. Jack ashore.
Unseemly squabbles: here there were harsh discords and shrill screams.
Drunkenness: the music getting very helpless. Then the daylight
comes--the chirping of sparrows--Jack wanders out--the breath of the
morning stirs his memories--he thinks of other days. Then comes in
Jack's song, which neither Calabressa nor any one else present could say
was meant to be comic, or pathetic, or a demoniac mixture of both. The
accompaniment which the handsome young English fellow played was at once
rhythmical, and low and sad, like the wash of waves:
"Oh, the days were long,
And the summers were long,
When Jane and I went courtin';
The hills were blue beyond the sky;
The heather was soft where we did lie;
We kissed our fill, did Jane and I,
When Jane and I went courtin'.
"When Jane and I went courtin',
Oh, the days were long,
And the summers were long!
We walked by night beyond the quay;
Above, the stars; below, the sea;
And I kissed Jane, and Jane kissed me,
When Jane and I went courtin'.
"But Jane she married the sodger-chap;
An end to me and my courtin'.
And I took ship, and here I am;
And where I go, I care not a damn--
Rio, Jamaica, Seringapatam--
Good-bye to Jane and the courtin'."
This second professor of gravity was abundantly cheered too when he rose
from the piano; for the music was quaint and original with a sort of
unholy, grotesque pathos running through it. Calabressa resumed:
"My good Beratinsky, what is it that you have heard?"
"No matter. Natalie Lind has no need of your good offices, Calabressa.
She can make friends for herself, and quickly enough, too."
Calabressa's eyes were not keen, but his ears were; he detected easily
the personal rancor in the man's tone.
"You are speaking of some one: the Englishman?"
Beratinsky burst out laughing.
"Listen, Reitzei! Even my good friend Calabressa perceives. He, too,
has encountered the Englishman. Oh yes, we must all give way to him,
else he will stamp on our toes with his thick English boots. You,
Reitzei: how long is he to allow you to retain your office?"
"Better for him if he does not interfere with me," said the younger man.
"I was always against the English being allowed to become officers. They
are too arrogant; they want everything under their direction. Take their
money, but keep them outside: that would have been my rule."
"And this Englishman," said Beratinsky, with a smile, though there was
the light of malice in his eye, "this Englishman is not content with
wanting to have the mastery of poor devils like you and me; he also
wishes to marry the beautiful Natalie--the beautiful Natalie, who has
hitherto been as proud as the Princess Brunhilda. Now, now, friend
Calabressa, do not protest. Every one has ears, has eyes. And when papa
Lind comes home--when he finds that this Englishman has been making a
fool of him, and professing great zeal when he was only trying to steal
away the daughter--what then, friend Calabressa?"
"A girl must marry," said Calabressa.
"I thought she was too proud to think of such things," said the other,
scornfully. "However, I entreat you to say no more. What concern have I
with Natalie Lind? I tell you, let her make more new friends."
Calabressa sat silent, his heart as heavy as lead. He had come with some
notion that he would secure one other--powerful, and in all of Lind's
secrets--on whom Natalie could rely, should any emergency occur in which
she needed help. But these jealous and envious taunts, these malignant
prophecies, only too clearly showed him in what relation Vincent
Beratinsky stood with regard to the daughter of Natalie Berezolyi and
the Englishman, her lover.
Calabressa sat silent. When some one began to play the zither, he was
thinking not of the Culturverein in London, but of the dark pine woods
above the Erlau, and of the house there, and of Natalie Berezolyi as she
played in the evening. He would ask Natalushka if she, too, played the
zither.