I
The mid-day sun beat fiercely on the much-trodden square in front of a
provincial railway station. The old white mare nodded drowsily between
the shafts of the yellow mailcart which rattled down from the little
town to meet every train. Two or three hotel omnibuses, painted
brownish-grey, with mud-splashed wheels, also came clattering down the
dusty boulevard, at the other end of which rose two stucco towers with
their vanes piercing the deep blue of the July sky.
A clanging bell had already signalled the train's departure from the
neighbouring station. The station-master put on his red cap, the
barmaid began to wipe with a duster the glass case protecting the
cheese and other viands, and a couple of postmen crunched over the
gravel, wheeling trucks containing letter-bags and parcels.
"Not a single soul inside again," grumbled the restaurant-manager
through the waiting-room window, as he watched the hotel omnibus drive
up. "What is the use of keeping beer cool if nobody comes to drink it?"
The barmaid nodded meditatively as she flicked the flies from a pile of
stale rusks.
Then there came in sight, dashing along the boulevard, an open landau
drawn by a pair of spirited bays.
The restaurant-host's face brightened. "The party from Stolten Court!"
exclaimed he, seizing his cap. "The young gentlemen's leave is over,
then."
The carriage steered clear of waiting passengers with a sweeping curve
as it bowled up to the station stairs.
One of the young cuirassier officers who occupied the back seat of the
carriage pulled himself slowly erect, and, in all his fair-haired
splendour, climbed out, pushing aside with a brusque movement the
restaurant-manager, who had officiously thought it necessary to tender
his services. The other youth, equally gigantic and fair-haired, and
perhaps a trifle more phlegmatic, followed. They threw open on either
side the carriage doors, and, with an action of the arm that seemed
borrowed from a Court quadrille, assisted the stupendous female form
sitting on the front seat of the carriage to alight.
With swelling bosom and wide-spreading hips, her fat hands imprisoned
in new light kid gloves, her grey gauze veil thrown back, displaying a
snub nose, the lady calmly descended, with a glance over her shoulder
of somewhat sharp disapproval at the old gentleman who followed her.
"Leave me alone, boys," he snapped, when his sons would have helped him
too. "Your broken-down old father is still able to help himself."
He threw off his dust-coat on the seat behind him, and with an elastic
bound sprang down without touching the carriage steps. He stood there,
a dapper figure in his short, elegantly cut coat, his little eyes
twinkling with self-satisfaction out of a face lined from fast living,
the cheeks of which hung down on either side of an aggressively
curled-up grey moustache. He had to look up to his wife and sons, who
were all more than a head taller than himself.
The party entered the small waiting-room reserved for first-class
passengers, which, besides two bare polished tables, and portraits in
lithograph, veiled in green gauze, of the county nobility and gentry,
boasted nothing but apparatuses for the annihilation of flies; which
consisted of a glass bottle full of soapy water, two plates containing
poisoned paper, and a few glasses covered with brandy-soaked bread
bored with holes. Within and around these traps revolved hundreds of
half-drowned and poisoned flies in their last death-struggle.
The host of the restaurant offered his refreshments to the "Herr
Baron"--Koenigsberg beer or tea, also an incomparably fine brew of
lemonade, were to be had. Herr von Stolt ordered beer, and sent his
sons out to look after their luggage.
They closed the door behind them as they took their leave, and
disappeared in the direction of the buffet, where they were soon heard
chaffing the barmaid.
"Thank God that they are going away," said the lady, with a sigh,
loosening her violet hat-strings, from which a broad double chin
billowed forth awe-inspiringly. "It is high time."