The fragrance of the elder blossoms floated sweet and strong upon the air in the dim warm stillness of the Avenue Labédoyère. The poetry that breathes in the odour of flowers no words can reproduce, music alone can sometimes translate it; it ascended from the full white panicles in the little garden before the Hôtel Truyn and breathed through the open window into Gabrielle's chamber like an exultant yearning, like a song filled with love's delicious pain.
Zinka sat on the edge of the little white bed where the young girl was lying, her golden hair rippling about her brow and temples, while upon her pale face lay the melancholy of illimitable joy; her eyes were moist.
"And you are not surprised, Zini ... not at all?" she whispered.
"No, my child," replied Zinka tenderly, "not in the least; I knew you were destined for each other from the first moment that I saw you together."
"Ah," Gabrielle sighed, "I cannot comprehend it yet. It all seems to me like a delicious dream from which I must waken, but even if I must, even if the dear God takes from me all that He has given me, I shall thank Him on my knees as long as I live for this one lovely dream."
"Calm yourself, my darling," Zinka whispered, lovingly stroking the young girl's cheeks, "how your cheeks burn!" And she poured a few drops of essence of orange flowers into a glass of water, "drink this, you little enthusiast."
"It will do no good, dear little mother," said Gabrielle, obediently lifting the composing draught to her burning lips. "Ah, you cannot imagine how I feel, it seems as if--as if my heart would break with happiness!"
Zinka kissed her, made the sign of the cross upon her forehead, drew the coverlet over her shoulders, once more admonished her to be calm, and left her.
Thunder rumbled without; Zinka started and as a second clap resounded she turned back. "Are you afraid of the storm, Ella, shall I stay with you?" she asked gently.
"Ah no, dear little mother," Gabrielle replied in the intoxication of her happiness, "I hardly hear the thunder."
And Zinka departed. "I do not know why I cannot rejoice in this as I ought," she said to herself, "it seems to me as if we had forgotten to invite some one of the twelve fairies to this betrothal."
And whilst the thunder crashed above the Champs Elysées she suddenly recalled an old fairy story that a fever-stricken peasant from the Trastevere had once told her in Rome.
It was a gloomy story, one of those legends in which the popular imagination, boldly overleaping all chronological and historical obstacles, bestows upon Pagan gods the wings of Christian angels, and arms God the Father with the lightnings of angry Jove. It ran somewhat thus:
"There was once a beautiful maiden who was good as an angel, so good that it gave her unutterable pain to see any one sad and not to be able to help; and once when she had cried herself to sleep over the woes of mankind she had a wonderful vision. A dark form with a veiled face approached her and said, 'If you have the courage to cut your heart out of your breast and plant it deep in the earth, there will spring from it a flower so glorious, so wonderful, that whoever inhales its fragrance will feel a bliss so intense that he would gladly purchase it with all the torture of our mortal existence.'
"And the maiden cut her heart out of her breast and planted it deep in the brown earth, and watered it with her tears, and there sprang from it a magically-beautiful flower, with luxuriant green leaves, and large white blossoms with blood-red calyxes, and whoever inhaled the breath of these blossoms felt an intoxicating delight course through his veins, so that in his wild ecstasy he forgot all earthly care and trouble. The flowers unfolded to more and more enchanting loveliness, and through the thick foliage sighed the sweetest music.
"Now when the angels in Heaven heard of this strange plant they entreated the Almighty Father to allow them to go get it and to plant it in Paradise.
"The Lord granted their request. Then they fluttered down from Heaven, but when they approached the wondrous plant a voice spoke from it, saying, 'Let me alone, I blossom for the consolation of the earth, I could not live in Paradise; the soil in which I flourish must be watered with heart's blood and tears!'
"But the angels did not heed these words, and, beguiled by the delicious fragrance, they tried to tear away the roots from the lap of earth; their efforts were vain, they had to return with their purpose unfulfilled.
"When mankind saw this it exulted in its blissful possession. Happy mortals laughed at the angels' futile envy. Then the angels prostrated themselves anew at the feet of the Almighty, and implored Him to revenge them upon the blasphemers. And the Almighty gave ear to their prayer; He hurled a thunderbolt at the plant, and it was swept from off the face of the earth.
"But its roots still slumber underground, and sometimes when in mild spring nights a mysterious fragrance steals upon the air, a fragrance wafted from no visible blossom, these roots are stirring to life, and green leaves shoot upward into the spring. But the sweet perfume still moves the angels to anger, and it scarcely rises aloft before the thunder rolls over the earth and the lightning blasts the green leaves. The flower will never blossom again."
Oswald and his cousin Georges were sitting at breakfast in their pleasant room in the Hotel Bristol by a window that looked out upon the Place Vendôme, and down the brilliant Rue de la Paix, the perspective of which was lost in a hurly-burly of omnibuses, orange carts, flower wagons, advertising vehicles painted fiery red, fiacres, sun-illumined dust, and human beings rushing madly hither and thither. Whilst Georges was drinking his tea in sober comfort with a brief remark as to the incomparable excellence of the Paris butter, Oswald, who although endowed by nature with an excellent appetite had paid but scant attention to his meals of late, recounted for the tenth time to his cousin the extraordinary combination of circumstances which had brought together Gabrielle and himself. He was a victim of the lovers' delusion that sees in the most ordinary occurrences the finger of the Deity, and that regards their happiness as a special marvel wrought by Providence for their benefit.
It was, so Oswald narrated, in April, on the second day of the Auteuil races, the first faint tinge of green was perceptible on the landscape. He was on horseback, riding a magnificent Arabian steed which one of his friends had lent him, and which he was handling with the excessive care which an Austrian always bestows upon a horse that is not his own. Suddenly he saw walking across the race-course a young lady in a dark green dress; a ray of sunlight that turned her hair to gold attracted his attention to her. She walked quickly past with an elderly gentleman and Oswald turned to look after her. His horse was a little restless, his rider's spurs were rather too sharp; with the sudden movement he scratched the animal's silken skin, and instantly exclaimed, "Ah, pardon!" a piece of courtesy for which his companions ridiculed him loudly. In the meantime the young lady with the gray-haired gentleman had vanished.
"Who is that exquisitely beautiful girl?" he asked, and Wips Siegburg, secretary of the Austrian Legation, replied laughing, "Do you not know her, she is your cousin!"
"Gabrielle Truyn!" exclaimed Oswald; and Siegburg said sagely, "this comes of enjoying one's self too busily in Paris, and consequently finding no time to visit one's nearest relatives."
Oswald peered in every direction but he could not discover her again. After the race, under the leafless trees of the Champs Elysées rolled crowds of carriages, victorias, all sorts of coaches, four-in-hands, lumbering roomy omnibuses,--all veiled in the whirling, sunlit dust as in golden gauze, while everywhere, alike in the omnibuses and in the more elegant vehicles, reigned a uniform air of dull fatigue.
Paris had lost another battle with ennui.
In the motley throng Oswald was almost forced to walk his horse, pondering as he went upon the best way of excusing his discourtesy to his uncle. He had now been four entire weeks in Paris, and had not yet presented himself in the Avenue Labédoyère. Fortunately he had gone so little into society that he had not yet met the Truyns; Paris is so huge, perhaps they had not yet heard that he was there. Yes, Paris is huge, but 'society' everywhere is small. No, he could hardly venture to appear at his uncle's yet.
He was growing quite melancholy over these reflections, when he suddenly observed that his horse had coolly poked his nose over the hood, which had been thrown back, of a low carriage in front, and was nibbling at a bouquet of white roses that he found there. Oswald shortened his bridle, and just then a lady sitting in the carriage turned round; it was Gabrielle Truyn. With no attempt to conceal her displeasure she observed what had been done, and when Oswald, hat in hand, humbly stammered his excuses, she bestowed upon him the haughty stare which an insolent intruder would have merited, and turned away. She knew perfectly well who he was, as he afterwards learned, and that he had been four weeks in Paris. The gentleman beside her now turned round, his eyes met Oswald's; he smiled, and said with good-humoured sarcasm ... "Ossi!--what an unexpected pleasure!"
"Uncle--I--I have long been intending to pay you my respects...." Oswald stammered.
"Apparently your resolutions require time to ripen," said Truyn drily.
"Ah uncle!--I--may I come to see you now?"
"You do us too much honour," said Truyn provokingly, "we will kill the fatted calf and celebrate the Prodigal's return." Then taking pity upon his nephew's embarrassment he added. "Don't be afraid, we shall not turn you out of doors, we have some consideration for young gentlemen who are in Paris for the first time; we know that they have other things to do besides looking up tiresome relatives, what say you, Ella?"
"My cousin has forgotten me," the young man murmured, "have the kindness to present me to her."
"It is your cousin, Oswald Lodrin, an old playmate of yours."
At her father's words Gabrielle merely turned her exquisite profile towards her cousin and acknowledged his low bow by a slight inclination of her head. Then she stretched out her hand for her bouquet, murmuring, "My poor roses! they are entirely ruined." And she suddenly tossed them away into the road. There was an opening in the blockade of carriages before them; Gabrielle's golden hair gleamed before Oswald's eyes for a flash, then all around grew gray; the twilight had absorbed the last glimmer of sunshine.
That same evening Oswald ordered at a large flower shop, on the Madeleine Boulevard, the most exquisite bouquet of gardenias, orchids and white roses that Paris could produce and sent it to his cousin to replace her ruined roses.
All this he retailed. His first visit, too, in the Avenue Labédoyère, the visit when he did not find Truyn at home, and when Gabrielle did not make her appearance, but Zinka, whom he had not known before, received him. There had been much discussion in Austria over this second marriage of his uncle, and Oswald had brought to Paris a violent antipathy to Zinka. But it soon vanished, or rather was transformed into a very affectionate esteem.
And then the first little dinner, a very little dinner (just to make them acquainted, Truyn said) strictlyen famille--no strangers, only Oswald and Siegburg. The brightly-lit table with its flowers, glass, and sparkling silver, in the middle of the dim brown dining-room, the delicate fair heads of the two ladies in their light dresses standing out so charmingly against the background of the old leather hangings, Truyn's paternal cordiality, and Zinka's kindly raillery,--he thought he had never had so delightful a dinner.
Gabrielle, to be sure, held herself rather aloof. She evidently resented his tardy appearance in the Avenue Labédoyère; she hardly noticed his beautiful flowers. She talked exclusively to Siegburg who was odiously entertaining, and who glanced across the table now and then, his eyes sparkling with merry malice, at Oswald. Then as they were serving the asparagus, he took it into his head to ask Gabrielle, "Do you know who is the most courteous man in Paris, Countess Gabrielle?"
"No, how should I?"
"Your charming cousin there," rejoined the young diplomat.
"Indeed!" Gabrielle said with incredulous emphasis, bending her head a little on one side as is the fashion with pretty women when they undertake the inconvenient task of eating asparagus.
"Yes, verily, he says 'pardon' even to his horse, when he scratches it with his spurs."
"Ah! Apparently he lavishes all his courtesy upon horses," Gabrielle said pointedly.
"In the case to which I allude, he really did owe some consideration to his horse, for the poor animal could not possibly know why he was made to feel the spur. The fact was that at the races the other day Lodrin saw a lady the sight of whom so electrified him that he turned positively all round on his horse, and in doing so scratched the poor beast with his spur."
"Ah, and who, if one may ask, was this remarkable lady?" asked Gabrielle.
"Ella, since when have you become conscience keeper for young gentlemen?" asked Truyn.
She blushed to the roots of her hair, but Oswald said with perfect composure, looking her directly in the face: "Certainly--it was Countess Gabrielle Truyn."
She bit her lip angrily.
"It serves you right," said Truyn smiling, "why do you ask about matters that do not concern you? The jest, however, is a little stale, Ossi."'
"I should not venture to jest; I simply told the truth," rejoined Oswald. In view of the young girl's evident agitation he had regained entire calm.
"One is not always justified in telling the truth," Gabrielle observed with the pettish frankness in which even the best-bred young ladies will indulge, when irritated by the accelerated beating of their hearts.
"Indeed? Not even in reply to a question?" Oswald said very quietly, and Truyn frowned after the fashion of affectionate papas, whose daughters' behaviour does not exactly gratify their paternal ambition. Zinka interrupted the fencing of the young people by an inquiry as to the new vaudeville which Gabrielle wished to see, but of which Zinka was not quite sure she should approve.
Oswald took no further notice of Gabrielle that evening, but devoted himself to Zinka. He sat beside her for nearly an hour, and enjoyed it extremely; she had a charming way of listening, assenting to his observations by a silent smile, and inciting him to all kinds of small confidences, without asking any direct questions.
When he afterwards reflected upon what had been the interesting subject of their conversation, he discovered that she had led him to speak only of himself, that he had told her everything about his life that a young man can tell to a young woman whom he has seen but twice.
She listened attentively, and when he took his leave she had grown almost cordial.
"Now that you have broken the ice, I hope we shall see you frequently.A propos, to-morrrow is our night at the opera; if you have nothing more agreeable in prospect and have not heard 'La Juive' too often...."
And then the charming, uncertain, hoping, exulting, despairing time that ensued! Gabrielle's pique slowly vanished; then without any reasonable cause returned; her behaviour towards her cousin vacillated strangely between naive cordiality and proud reserve; some days she seemed to misconstrue everything that was said, and then all at once a single cordial word would mollify her.
And the dances, the cotillon at the Countess Crecy's ball in the pretty little Hôtel, Rue St. Dominique,--the cotillon in which all had paid homage to Gabrielle as to a young queen, and in which when, of all the favours that she had to bestow only one remained, she suddenly became confused, looking from the favour to her cousin, and seeming more and more undecided until at last he advanced a step towards her and whispered, "Well, Gabrielle, am I to have the Golden Fleece or not?"
That was two days before the betrothal. To the day of his death he should wear that favour and no other on his heart. It should be buried with him!
Although not given to writing much he had kept a diary in Paris. Long since he had torn out the first pages; its contents now extended exactly from the first meeting to the first kiss. After his marriage the book was to be sealed up, to be given to his eldest son upon his twenty-first birthday.
Whilst Oswald, borne upon a lover's wings that knew no boundary line between heaven and earth, between the future and the past, at one time eulogized his betrothed, and at another made arrangements for his own burial, and his eldest son's twenty-first birthday, Georges, who had gradually finished his breakfast, leaned back in his chair watching the fantastic wreaths of smoke ascending from the bowl of his tschibouk. When at last Oswald paused and fell into a reverie he took occasion to utter the following profundity. "Living is very dear in Paris!" Twice was he obliged to repeat this brilliant aphorism, before Oswald seemed to hear it. Then glancing at his cousin reproachfully, the young fellow put his hand in his pocket, "would you like the key, Georges?" he said offering it to him.
"No," replied Georges, taking Oswald's hand, key and all in his own, and pressing it down upon the table. "No, my dear fellow, many thanks. Do you remember what Montaigne says aboutle désir qui s'accroist par la malaysance."
"Montaigne?--I am not very intimate with the old gentleman," Oswald replied with a laugh, "how came you pray to make his acquaintance?"
"Why you see, Oswald, there have been times when my means were not sufficient to provide me with amusements befitting my station in life, and I was obliged to have recourse,faute de mieux, to reading. But to recur toplaisirs de la malaysance, Montaigne proves as clearly as that two and two make four that if there were no locks there would be no thieves! Now,--hm--one thing is certain; since your strong box has been open to me I no longer have the smallest desire to possess myself of its contents. Do you know, Ossi, that I have grown very fond of you in these few weeks? Do not overturn the pepper cruet," he admonished his cousin, who suddenly extended his hand to him with somewhat awkward shyness. "Yes, very fond, you have effected a radical change in me; I should really like to go back with you to Bohemia, perhaps you could find me something to do there. Will you take me with you to Bohemia?"
"With the greatest pleasure, Georges."
"Reflect a little. What would your mother say to your introducing an unbidden guest into her household?"
"My dear Georges, my mother, if I were to take home Karl Marx--or--" he did not conclude for at that moment his servant brought in a small salver upon which lay his newspapers and letters.
A couple of cards of invitation were after a fleeting examination stuck into the frame of the mirror, then came two Austrian newspapers, then three letters from Austria; one addressed in a firm, bold hand he opened instantly with a smile of pleasure and the exclamation "from my mother! at last! I am very curious to know what she says to my betrothal--I began to be anxious--she has taken so long to write."
But the light in his eyes faded, he frowned, angrily crushed the letter together, and propping his elbows on the table leaned his head upon his hands. "I could not have thought this possible," he murmured.
"Is not your mother satisfied?" Georges asked.
"Satisfied--?" growled Oswald, "satisfied--? she couldn't be dissatisfied if she tried ever so hard, but she does not rejoice with me. There, read that. 'Dear child, I agree to everything that will make you happy, and pray for every blessing upon yourself and your betrothed, whom, moreover, I remember as a charming little girl ....'"
"Well, what more can you ask?" said Georges, elevating his eyebrows.
"What more can I ask?" Oswald very nearly shouted, "what more can I ask? why, I am not used to having such conventional phrases served up to me by my mother!"
"Do you and your mother live upon perfectly good terms with each other?" asked Georges, mechanically brushing away a few crumbs on the table-cloth, and without looking at his cousin.
Oswald opened his eyes wide. "My mother and I? Why, yes, what can you be thinking of?"
Georges made no reply, he remembered perfectly well that years previously, before he had left home the Countess Lodrin had been anything but tender to her charming little son, nay, that she had been the downright fine-lady mother who figures in romances, but who fortunately is found but seldom in real life.
He thought it unnecessary, however, to remind his cousin of this.
In the meanwhile Oswald had somewhat cooled down. "My poor unreasonable mother!" he said half-aloud to himself, "it is so hard for her to give me up, in all her life she has had me only. Well, I shall soon bring her round. Ah, Georges, Georges, it seems but a poor arrangement in this life that we must so often take from one person to give to another! I only hope that my mother's letter to my betrothed is more cordial. Ah, here are two more epistles," and in no cheerful mood he opened one after the other of the two very business-like envelopes, read their contents, compared them with each other, threw both upon the table and, quite pale, with very red lips and flashing eyes, began to pace to and fro, from time to time passing his hand angrily across his forehead. "Everything disagreeable is sure to happen all at once!" he exclaimed.
Georges knowing his cousin's impetuousity watched his excitement with smiling composure. "Is Vesuvius again in a state of eruption," he said kindly, "or what is the matter, man alive?"
"Siegl is an ass!"
"Ah?--and your man of business besides?"
"Yes."
"Then this present affair is a matter of business?"
"No!" Oswald said gloomily, "an affair of honour. The matter is that I am forced to break my word--voilà tont!But I cannot understand Siegl, he ought to know ...." Suddenly he went to his secretary, opened it, rummaged nervously among a chaos of letters, at last finding a closely-written sheet, which he read through carefully, then grew very quiet, and seating himself opposite Georges at the uncleared breakfast-table, said "I am wrong, it is my fault."
"Pray explain yourself," said Georges, "my counsel, and my experience are at your service."
"The matter is simple enough. Before I came away from home I gave Siegl a power of attorney to conclude an unfinished sale, the sale of a couple of insignificant building lots in W----. In practical business matters I can thoroughly rely upon him. Well, the other day I had this letter from him asking whether I would agree to the winding up of the affair under certain conditions, and at the end of the letter he asked me in this case to telegraph him. His handwriting is execrable and his style most tedious,--and--and I hurried off to the Avenue Labédoyère. I was going to ride in the Bois with Gabrielle,--in short I skimmed over the letter, never noticing that he asked about another far more important sale, and telegraphed, 'I agree to everything; do as you think best.'"
"Eh bien!"
Oswald cleared his throat. "You remember Dr. Schmitt? He was our family physician, a true man if ever there was one, my father valued him highly. Well, he leased an estate from us, Kanitz, it lies in one corner of the Schneeburg grounds; after the old man's death his son held the lease, he is a very good fellow, we served together in the same regiment in our volunteer year. He married, and set great store by the lease, which would run out in three years. Before his marriage he came to me to know whether he might depend upon an extension of the lease; of course I promised it to him, thereby relieving him of immense anxiety. And now Siegl has sold the property at a high price to Capriani, and is very proud of the transaction, and it is all because of my thoughtlessness, because I thought it too tedious to read through his roundabout epistle and .... and young Schmitt, poor devil, is quite beside himself, and writes me this letter! I cannot understand Siegl, he might have asked me again, he knows me perfectly well, he ought to have known that I could never have contemplated anything of the kind ....! But it's just the way with all my people! If they can make a few gulden for me, no matter how, they pride themselves upon it hugely; no one seems to understand that I care precious little for the augmentation of my income; what I want is, to alleviate as far as lies in my power the existence of as many men as possible!"
"How old are you, Ossi?" Georges asked with an oddly-scrutinizing glance at his cousin.
"Twenty-six. What makes you ask?"
"Your transcendental views of life, my child. Men and ants are born with wings, but both rub them off in the struggle for existence,--men usually do so before they are twenty-four."
"That goal is passed," rejoined Oswald, "and the winged ants do not lose their wings, they only die young," and he became again absorbed in study of the two letters. "I cannot blame Siegl this time, try as hard as I can, it ismyfault; 'tis enough to drive one mad!"
"I can understand how it goes against the grain, but--well, you must indemnify Schmitt with another property."
"That of course, but it does not help the matter," Oswald grumbled, "he has a special love for Kanitz--he was born there, his parents are buried there in a pretty little churchyard on the edge of the woods by the Holtitzer brook. He takes care of their graves himself--they are perfect beds of flowers. And his wife!--I paid her a visit last Autumn,--she is a dear little shy thing, and she looked at me out of her large eyes as if I were Omnipotence itself. There is such an old-fashioned loyalty, so poetic a content about those people; upon whom shall we depend if we heedlessly destroy the devotion of such as they? Schmitt must keep Kanitz, even although I buy it back at double the price paid for it!"
"My dear fellow you can do nothing with money where Capriani is concerned," Georges observed calmly, "but I am convinced that he is very desirous of standing well with all of you. If you make a personal request of him he certainly will not object to annul his purchase. If the matter is really important to you go and call upon Capriani, and...."
Oswald tossed his head angrily. "What? ask me to have any personal intercourse with that man--no--in an extreme case indeed----but there must be some legal way out of the difficulty, it is a matter for our agents--Ça!A quarter of twelve and I breakfast at Truyn's."
"You must make haste. Can I do anything for you?"
Oswald went to the writing-table and in large bold characters wrote a couple of lines on a sheet of paper. "Pray see that this telegraph to Schmitt goes off immediately, and then one thing more--if it does not bore you too much--please leave a card for me at the places on this list. Do not take any trouble, but if you should be passing.... Good-bye old fellow--remember we are to go home together."
"Hotspur!" murmured Georges as the door closed after his cousin. "Well, after all, I do not grudge him his position; he becomes it well."
If Oswald Lodrin might be regarded as the chivalric embodiment of the old-time 'noblesse oblige,' his cousin Georges was on the contrary the personification of the modern axiom 'noblesse permet.'
He had made use of the credit of the Lodrins, the accumulation of centuries, to screen his maddest pranks. True, he had never overdrawn this credit, he had never by any of his numberless eccentricities raised any barrier between himself and his equals in rank. He had grown to manhood discontentedly convinced that Count Hugo Lodrin, his father's elder brother, had done him great wrong, and this wrong was his marriage late in life with the beautiful Princess Wjera Zinsenburg.
Georges was barely eight years old at the time, but he remembered as long as he lived how angrily his father, after a life of careless extravagance led in the certainty of inheriting the Lodrin estates, had received the announcement of the betrothal, and how hardly he had spoken of Wjera Zinsenburg.
The boy grew up, his heart filled with a hatred none the less vehement because it was childish, first for his aunt, and afterward for his cousin.
His hatred for his aunt grew with his growth, but as for his hatred for his cousin?... It was difficult to cherish resentment against his loving, helpless little cousin with his big black eyes and pretty rosy mouth. And in the summer holidays, which he spent every year in Tornow with his father, he struck up a friendship with the little fellow.
It was a lasting friendship. One day after his father's death when he had for several years been an officer of hussars, and always in pecuniary difficulties, Georges received a letter, which upon very slanting lines evidently ruled in pencil by Ossi, himself, and in very sprawling clumsy characters, ran thus:
"Dear Georges,
"Papa says you need money, I don't need any, so I send you my pocket money, and when I'm big you shall have more. The donkeys are given away. Papa got angry with Jack because he bit me. Now, for a punishment, he has to carry sand for the gardeners. I have a pair of ponies now; they are very pretty and I ride every day. I can ride quite well and I am not afraid, but I stroke Jack whenever I see him, and I think he is ashamed of himself.
"Your Ossi."
Yes, he needed money--a great deal of money; his father had left him next to nothing, and the small allowance which his uncle made him, always seasoning it with good advice, did not nearly suffice him.
His uncle paid his debts upon condition that he should exchange from the hussars into the dragoons, then held in rather high estimation as heavy cavalry. Georges needed money quite as much as a dragoon, however, as when a hussar. Then came feminine influences--a quarrel with his colonel--a duel. He resigned his commission with honour and to the regret of the entire staff. Once more, and, as he was solemnly informed, for the last time, his uncle paid his debts, and wishing to have no further concern in his nephew's money matters he also paid out a handsome sum as a release from all further demands.
Georges manifested his repentance after this settlement by an immediate excursion to Paris with a pert little French concert-saloon singer. This was the finishing stroke in the eyes of his strictly moral, nay, even bigotted uncle. From that time onward the young man's letters to the old count were returned to him unopened. Georges vanished from the scene. The rumour ran that after he had tried his luck and failed in the California gold diggings, he had been a rider in a circus; there was also a report that he had served mahogany-coloured Spaniards and jet-black negroes as waiter at Rio Janeiro, that he had been an omnibus driver in New York--this last fact was vouched for. Still, he contrived to impress the stamp of spontaneous eccentricity upon every one of the expedients to which he resorted in his pecuniary embarrassments.
One day after Oswald had attained his majority he received a letter in which his cousin, after appealing to the old boyish friendship, described his present condition. Oswald, who was kindheartedness itself, and, moreover, enthusiastically eager to discharge his duties as head of the family, did not delay an hour in arranging his cousin's affairs and in settling upon him an income suitable to his rank.
Thus Georges returned to his old sphere of life and to his former habits, smiling calmly, but testifying no special delight, and not the slightest surprise at the change in his circumstances. The honest friendship which he felt for the cousin whom as a child he had petted, quite destroyed his old grudge against his fate.
Picture a sleepy little market-town lying, at a respectful distance, near a very large castle, where the clock in the tower has not gone for twenty years; a ruggedly uneven market-place, thickly paved with sharp stones and no sidewalk, queer old-fashioned houses with high-gabled roofs and small windows, and here and there a faded-out image of the Virgin above an arched gateway, a tradesman's shop serving as post-office as well as for the sale of tobacco, and adorned over the doorway with a wreath of wooden lemons and pomegranates, and the imperial double-eagle, a corner where stands a piled-up carrier's van covered with black oilskin, a smithy sending forth from its dark interior a shower of crimson sparks, while from the low passage-way of the opposite inn, 'The Golden Lion,' a waiter with a dirty apron, and bare feet thrust into old red slippers, is gazing over at the smithy where a crowd of dripping street boys are collected about two thoroughbreds and a groom liveried in the English fashion--picture all this and you see Rautschin,--Rautschin on a dark afternoon in May in a pouring rain with an accompaniment of thunder and lightning.
Somewhat apart from the gaping urchins a young man is walking to and fro in front of the row of houses; his quick impatient step testifies to his having been detained by some untoward mishap and also to his being quite unused to such delay.
The rain descends from heaven in fine, regular, grey sheets. The young man's cigar has gone out, he is cold, and thoroughly annoyed he passes the unattractive waiter and enters the inn.
The room in which he takes refuge is low and spacious with bright blue walls, and a well-smoked ceiling. Limp, soiled muslin curtains reminding one of the train of an old ball-dress, hang before the windows where are glass hanging-lamps, and flower-pots of painted porcelain filled with mignonette, cactuses, and catnip. The furniture consists of two chromos representing the Emperor and his consort, of a number of yellow chairs, of several green tables, and of an array of spittoons.
At one of the tables sit three guests evidently much at home; one of them is tuning a zither, while the other two are smoking very malodorous cigars, and drinking beer out of tankards of greenish glass. Engaged in eager conversation none of them observed the entrance of the stranger who, to avoid attracting attention, seated himself in a dark corner with his back to the group.
"A couple more truck-loads of all sorts of fine furniture have arrived at Schneeburg," remarked one of the trio, a young man with red hair, and unusual length of limb. He is a surveyor's clerk, his name is Wenzl Wostraschil, but he is familiarly known as 'the Daily News' from the amount of sensational intelligence which he disperses. "Count Capriani ...."
"I know of no Count Capriani," interrupted an old gentleman with white hair and a red face; he is Doctor Swoboda, by profession district physician, in politics just as strictly conservative as Count Truyn became as soon as he had proclaimed his socialism by taking to himself a bourgeoise bride--"I know of no Count Capriani, you probably mean Conte!"
"It is the same thing," observed the zither player, Herr Cibulka.
"In the dictionary, perhaps," the old doctor rejoined sarcastically.
"The two titles are synonymous in my opinion," said Herr Cibulka as he laid aside his tuning-key and began to play 'The Tyrolean and his child,' while with closed lips he half-hummed, half-murmured the air to himself, his big fat hands groping to and fro on the instrument as if trying to aid his memory.
Herr Cibulka--this sonorous Slavonic name signifiesonionin Bohemian--Eugène Alexander Cibulka--he is wont to sign his name with a very tiny Cibulka at the end of a very big Eugene Alexander--assistant district-attorney, transcendentalist, and Lovelace, is the pioneer of culture in the sleepy droning little town. He is a tall young fellow inclining to corpulence, with an uncommonly luxuriant growth of hair on both his head and face, and with the flabby oily skin of a man who has all his life long been fed upon dainties.
Evidently much occupied with his outer man he dresses himself as he says, 'simply but tastefully;' he pulls his cuffs well over his knuckles, and delights in a snuff-coloured velvet coat with metal buttons. He fancies that he looks like the Flying Dutchman, or at least like the brigand, Jaromir. In reality he looks like an advertisement for 'the only genuine onion ointment for the beard.' He is considered by the Rautschin ladies as quite irresistible and fabulously cultured. He criticises everything--music, literature and politics, being especially great in the domain of politics, and he discourses at length whenever an opportunity presents itself, combating with admirable energy perils that have long ceased to terrify any one. It is not clear as to what party he belongs, but since he berates the clergy, hates the nobility, and despises the lower-classes, consequently pursuing the straight and narrow path of his subjective vanities and social aspirations, he probably considers himself a Liberal. His uncle is in the ministerial department andhedreams of a portfolio.
Meanwhile the red-haired man with an air of indifference has taken up his tankard. "Count or Conte, as you please," he said, giving the disputed point the go-by, and continuing as he put his beer glass down on an uninviting little brown table, "at all events he must be accustomed to live in fine style, for he declared that it was impossible for a man used to modern conveniences to live in Schneeburg in the condition in which Count Malzin had occupied it. So the house has been entirely newly furnished. Immense! the doings of these money-giants--the world belongs to them!"
"Unfortunately, and our poor nobles must go to the wall," sighed the old doctor, whose platonic love for the nobility keeps pace with the red-haired man's equally platonic affection for money. "Except a couple of owners of entailed estates here and there none of them will be able to compete with these great financiers."
"The law of entail cannot be allowed to exist much longer, it is a stumbling block in the path of national progress .... My uncle in the ministerial department ...." Eugene Alexander began in a deep bass voice, which suggested a sentimentally guttural rendering of 'The Evening Star' at æsthetic tea-parties.
"Spare me the remarks of your uncle in the ministerial department," interrupted Dr. Swoboda angrily.
"The law of entail must be abolished," Herr Cibulka said, as another man might say, "that new street must be opened."
"Have you got your liberal seven-league boots on again?" Swoboda rejoined. "How you stride off into the future! You evidently suppose that if the law of entail were abolished to-day or to-morrow, this 'stumbling-block in the path of national progress' being removed, various districts of Tornow and Rautschin would find their way into the pockets of yourself and of your hypothetical children? You are mistaken, my dear fellow, hugely mistaken. Heaven forbid! Trade would monopolize the real estate, and that is all you would get by it, nothing more. The supremacy of money would be confirmed."
"I should prefer, it is true, the supremacy of mind!" Eugène Alexander said didactically.
"Ah! you think you would come in for a share there," growled the old doctor under his breath.
Without noticing the irony, Eugene Alexander went on, "The supremacy of money, of individual merit, is certainly more to be desired than the supremacy of fossilized prejudice."
"Indeed?... now tell us honestly," said the doctor, "do you really believe that the masses, whose sufferings are real and not imaginary, would gain anything thereby?"
"There certainly would be a fresh impetus given to culture,--a freer circulation of capital," began Cibulka.
"Listen to me a moment," broke in the doctor. "Circulation of capital? A financier's capital circulates inside his pockets, not outside of them except on certain occasions on 'Change. The art of spending money does not go hand-in-hand with the art of making it,--few things in this world delight me more than the spectacle of a millionaire who, having ostentatiously retired from business, contemplates his money-bags in positive despair, not knowing what to do with them and bored to death because the only occupation in which he takes any delight, money-getting, is debarred him by his position."
"No one can say of Conte Capriani that he does not know how to spend his money," the red-headed 'Daily News' affirmed, "everything is being arranged in the most expensive style, the rooms hung with silk shot with silver, the carpets as thick as your fist, and the paintings and artistic objects,--why they are coming by car-loads. I am intimate with the castellan, and he shows me everything; the outlay is princely."
The doctor shrugged his shoulders. "The extravagance of a financier is always for show, it is never a natural expenditure. There's no free swing to it, and I am not at all impressed by your Conte; one day he may take it into his head to paper his room with thousand-gulden bank-notes, and the next he will haggle like the veriest skinflint; just ask the Malzin servants; he discharged them at a moment's notice without a penny."
"They were a worthless old lot," Eugène Alexander rejoined, "and besides it was Count Malzin's duty to provide for his people."
"Poor Count Malzin!" exclaimed the doctor, "he pleaded for his servants, as I know positively; but provide for them--how could he provide for them when he could not provide for his own son! When I think of our poor Count Fritz! A handsomer, sweeter-tempered, kindlier gentleman never lived in the world! And when I reflect that Schneeburg is now in the hands of strangers, that Count Fritz cannot live there....!"
"Oh, I beg your pardon," the red-head insisted, wriggling on his chair like an eel, "he is going to live there, in the little Swiss cottage in the park where the young people used to be with their tutor and drawing-master in the hunting season, away from the bustle in the castle."
"Frightful!" murmured the doctor. "This whole Schneeburg business is too--too sad. The old bailiff is ill of typhus fever brought on by sheer grief and anxiety, and his whole family would go to destruction were it not for the generous support of the Countess Lodrin."
"Don't tell us of the generosity of the Countess Lodrin," sneered Cibulka, or of the generosity of any of the Lodrins. "You need only look at their estates; the peasants are huddled there in pens like swine."
The stranger, who had until now remained motionless in his dim corner, apparently paying no heed to the talk, here turned his head to listen.
"That seems very improbable," Dr. Swoboda replied to the last assertion, "The young count treats all his dependants with a kindly consideration that it would be difficult to match. If his people suffer from any injustice it certainly is without his knowledge; Count Oswald is one of the old school. Hats off to so true a gentleman!"
"You are, and always will be a truckler to princes," said Eugène Alexander, offended. "I must say that a man like Capriani who has won for himself a position in society among the greatest by his personal merit, by the work of his hands, seems to me more worthy of consideration than a petty Count, who has had everything showered upon him from his cradle."
"What trash you are talking about personal merit," thundered the doctor. "Capriani has grown rich on swindling--swindling, on 'Change--swindling in women's boudoirs. He was formerly a physician, and as such insinuated himself into distinguished houses, and wormed out political secrets which he made use of in his speculations. Finally he married a rich banker's daughter; they say his wife is a good woman. I never saw him but once, but I cannot understand how a woman with a modicum of taste could ever consent...."
"Oh they say that in his time he has enjoyed the favour of all kinds of ladies, very great ladies...." the red-head interposed with an air of importance. "I know from the widow of the late Count Lodrin's valet--there was a game carried on down there in Italy between the Countess Wjera...."
He had no time to conclude. The stranger sprang up and like a flash of lightning struck the speaker twice across the face with his riding-whip; then without a word he left the room.
"Who was that?" asked Cibulka pale with terror, while the red-headed man, bewildered, rubbed his cheek.
"Count Oswald Lodrin," said the doctor. "It serves you right for your insolence!"
"I shall not submit to such brutality--I will appeal to the courts," snarled red-head.
"And what can you say?" said the old doctor. "'I have wantonly repeated low, scandalous gossip--I have slandered a lady who is blessed and worshipped by all the country round, I have spit in the face of a saint'--this is what you can say. Let me advise you not to stir, my worthy Wostraschil."
This 'my worthy Wostraschil' was uttered by the simple old doctor in a tone which he must have caught unconsciously and involuntarily from some aristocratic patient.
He arose and stood at the window, looking with a smile of satisfaction after Oswald, who with head held haughtily erect, face pale, and eyes flashing angrily, was striding directly across the square to the smithy.
"A splendid fellow--a true gentleman," the old man murmured. He was proud of this Austrian, product, and would gladly have paid a tax for the maintenance of this national article of luxury.