In the vicinity of Königstein in the Taunus mountains the Wahnschaffes
owned a little château which Frau Wahnschaffe called Christian’s Rest
and which was really the property of her son. At first--he was still a
boy--Christian had protested against the name. “I don’t need any rest,”
he had said. And the mother had answered: “Some day the need of it will
come to you.”
Frau Wahnschaffe invited the countess to pass the month of May at
Christian’s Rest. It was a charming bit of country, and the delight of
the countess was uttered noisily.
Crammon, of course, came too. He observed the countess with Argus
eyes, and it annoyed him to watch the frequent conversations between
Christian and Letitia.
He sat by the fishpond holding his short, English pipe between his
lips. “We must get to Paris. That was our agreement. You know that I
promised you Eva Sorel. If you don’t hurry more than fame is doing,
you’ll be left out in the cold.”
“Time enough,” Christian answered laughing and pulling a reed from the
water.
“Only sluggards say that,” Crammon grunted, “and it’s the act of a
sluggard to turn the head of a little goose of eighteen and finally
to be taken in by her. These young girls of good family are fit for
nothing in the world except for some poor devil whose debts they can
pay after the obligatory walk to church. Their manipulations aren’t
nearly as harmless as they seem, especially when the girls have
chaperones who are so damnably like procuresses that the difference is
less than between my waistcoat buttons and my breeches buttons.”
“Don’t worry,” Christian soothed his angry friend. “There’s nothing to
fear.”
He threw himself in the grass and thought of Adda Castillo, the
beautiful lion-tamer whom he had met in Frankfort. She had told him she
would be in Paris in June, and he meant to stay here until then. He
liked her. She was so wild and so cold.
But he liked Letitia too. She was so dewy and so tender. Dewy is what
he called the liquidness of her eyes, the evasiveness of her being.
Daily in the morning he heard her in her tower-room trilling like a
lark.
He said: “To-morrow, Bernard, we’ll take the car and drive over to see
Adda Castillo and her lions.”
“Splendid!” Crammon answered. “Lions, that’s something for me!” And he
gave Christian a comradely thwack on the shoulder.