The Countess Lenzdorff had gone to meet her granddaughter as far as the vestibule, which was hung with Japanese crape and lighted by red Venetian lanterns in wrought-iron frames.
She had been convinced from the first that the brilliant description which Doctor Herbegg had given of her grand-daughter was not to be trusted, and she had consequently moderated her expectations, but yet she was startled at what she encountered in the vestibule, the door of which the ever-ready Lüdecke had left open. At first she thought that the tall spare girl in that gown was her grand-daughter's attendant; but since behind the awkward creature whose clothes were all awry stalked a broad-shouldered female grenadier with a woollen kerchief on her head and a pasteboard bandbox in her hand, she doubted no longer which was her grand-daughter: it was not necessary for Doctor Herbegg to present the girl to her with, "Here is the young Countess, your Excellency."
She advanced a step and touched the girl's forehead with her lips.
"Welcome to Berlin, dear child," she said, coldly. This, then, was her grand-daughter,--this angular creature with red wrists and a servant who wore a woollen kerchief on her head and carried in her hand an archaic pasteboard bandbox. The Countess shuddered. "Will you have a cup of tea, my dear Doctor?" she said, turning to her lawyer with the hope of putting a little life into the situation. Then, seeing him look at her with something of the dismay in his expression which Goswyn von Sydow's features had shown when she had complained that this was to be her last comfortable evening, she added, hastily, "You will not? Well, you are right; it is late; another time, my dear Herbegg, you will do me the pleasure; and I--I could hardly remain with you; I am too--too desirous of making acquaintance with my grand-daughter."
The last words came with something of a stumble, as if the Countess had been obliged to give them a push before they would leave her lips.
The Doctor took a ceremonious leave. Minna, with her bandbox, which she refused to allow any one to take from her, was conducted by a footman to the servants' hall, the Countess Lenzdorff having informed her that her own maid would attend for this evening to her young mistress's wants. Erika followed her grandmother through several brilliantly-lighted apartments, the arrangement of which produced upon her the impression of a fairy-tale, to an airy little room adjoining the old Countess's sleeping-apartment.
"This is your room," said Countess Lenzdorff. "I had your bed put for the present in my dressing-room; it is the best arrangement, and--and I--I think I would rather have you close at hand. Of course it is all provisionary: I do not even know yet what is to be done with you, whether--whether you will stay with me, or go for a while to some school. At any rate, for the present you must try to feel comfortable with me."
Comfortable! It was asking much of the girl that she should feel comfortable under the circumstances! She wanted to say something: it annoyed her to have to play the part of a dunce,--her poor, youthful pride rebelled against it,--but she said not a word; she had to summon up all her resolution to keep back the tears that would well up to her eyes. With the slow stony gaze of one who is determined not to cry, she looked about her upon her new surroundings.
How airy and fragrant, how bright and fresh and inviting, it all was! But in the midst of this Paradise she stood, trembling with fatigue, sore in soul and body, timid and sad, with but one wish,--that she might creep away somewhere into the dark.
â?¢ Her grandmother perceived something of the girl's suffering, but still could not overcome her own distaste. "Will you dress first, or have some supper immediately?" she asked, with an evident effort to be kind. As she spoke, her bright eyes scanned the girl from head to foot. Poor Erika! She understood only too clearly that her grandmother was disappointed in her, that personally she was in no respect what the old lady had hoped for.
"I should like to brush off some of this dust," she stammered, meekly. Her voice was remarkably soft and sweet, and her accent brought a reminiscence of the Austrian intonation, so much admired in Berlin.
For the first time the Countess's heart was moved in favour of the young creature; some chord within her vibrated agreeably. "Well, my child, do just as you like," she said, rather more warmly, as she made an attempt to unfasten the top button of the ugly black garment that so disfigured her grand-daughter. With a shy gesture Erika raised her hands and held her poor gown together over her breast. There was something in the gesture that touched the old lady. "You may go," she said to the maid, who had meanwhile been unpacking Erika's travelling-bag. "I will ring for you when we want you." Then, turning to Erika, she added, "I will help you myself to undress."
Erika's sensations can hardly be described. Apart from the fact that in consequence of her intense shyness, the shyness of a very strong, pure nature bred in solitude, it was terrible to her even to take off her gown in the presence of a stranger, it suddenly seemed very hard to her (she had not thought of it at first) to expose to her grandmother's penetrating gaze the poverty of her wardrobe. She trembled from head to foot as her grandmother drew down her gown from her shoulders. But, strange to say, it almost seemed as if with the ugly dress some sort of barrier of separation between herself and her grandmother were removed. The old lady's bright eyes were dimmed by a certain emotion as she noticed the coarse, ill-made, but daintily white linen shift that left bare a small portion of the young, half-developed shoulders. "Poor thing!" she murmured, the words coming for the first time warm from her heart. Then, stroking the girl's long, slender, nobly-modelled arm, she said, "How fair you are! I only begin now to see what you look like." She lifted the heavy knot of shining hair from the back of Erika's neck, and, in an access of that absence of mind for which she was noted in the Berlin world of society, exclaimed, "Mais elle est magnifique!--In three years she will be a beauty!--Turn your head a little to the left."
Her grand-daughter's stare of dismay recalled her. "What would Goswyn say if he heard me?" she thought, and smiled.
Erika had only bathed her face and hands, and slipped on a long white dressing-gown of her grandmother's, when the maid brought in a waiter with her supper. In spite of her continued sense of discomfort, youth demanded its rights. She was decidedly hungry, and it was long since she had seen anything so inviting as this dainty repast. She sat down and began to eat.
The old Countess observed her narrowly, but saw nothing to displease her. Her grandchild's manner of eating and drinking, of holding her fork, her glass of water,--all was just as it should be.
The whole thing seemed odd to the Countess Lenzdorff: she delighted in everything odd.
Not to disturb the girl at her repast, she looked away from her, glancing at the contents of the shabby old travelling-bag which the maid had unpacked. How poverty-stricken it all looked, in almost ridiculous--no, in positively pathetic--contrast with the young creature who in spite of her awkwardness had a regal air. "Mais elle est superbe!Where were my eyes?" the Countess thought, as she casually picked up a book from among Erika's belongings. It was a volume of Plutarch. "'Tis comical enough," she thought, "if I am to have a little blue-stocking in the house."
As she turned over the leaves rather absently, she noticed that passages here and there were encircled by thick pencil-marks: sometimes an entire page would be thus marked, sometimes only a few lines.
"What does that mean?" she asked.
"My mother always used to mark so in my books the parts that I must not read," Erika said, simply.
The Countess's eyes flashed. How sure a way to lead a child to taste the forbidden fruit!--or was it possible that girls growing up in the country under the exclusive influence of a mother might be differently constituted from girls in cities and boarding-schools?
"And you really did not read those portions?" she asked, half smiling.
The girl's face grew dark. "How could I?" she exclaimed, almost angrily.
"Brava!" cried her grandmother, patting her grandchild's shoulder. "You are an honourable little lady,--a very great rarity. We shall get along very well together."
But, far from the girl's expressing any pleasure at this frank recognition of her excellence, her face did not relax one whit.
Erika had gone to bed. Countess Lenzdorff was still up and pacing her chamber to and fro. She thoroughly understood the full significance of her granddaughter's being with her; she was neither heartless nor complaining, but, where emotion was concerned, a sensitive old woman who studiously avoided everything that could agitate her nerves. But at present she could not control her emotion; feeling awoke within her as from a long sleep. At first she was conscious only of a vague discomfort,--a strange sensation which she ascribed to nervousness that must be controlled; but, far from being controlled, it increased, growing stronger until it became a positive hunger of the heart.
The self-dissatisfaction which had begun to torment her when she learned that Erika after her mother's death had been entirely uncared for, left alone with her step-father, now increased tenfold. It was the fault of the Pole, who had not notified her of his wife's death. But this excuse did not content her. How could she blame him? What had he done save follow her example in caring only for his own personal ease?
The unkindness with which she had treated her daughter-in-law now troubled her more than her loveless neglect of her grandchild. Had she any right to despise and cast her off because of her weakness? Good heavens! she was a rare creature in spite of everything; she had shown herself so in her child's education. What an influence she must have exercised over the girl to preserve her from deterioration through those terrible three years. Poor Emma! The old Countess's heart grew heavy as she recalled her. Her injustice to the poor woman dated from years back. She could not deny it.
She had never been fond of her daughter-in-law: each differed too fundamentally from the other. On the one hand was Anna Lenzdorff, with her keenly observant mind, self-interested even in her strict morality which in her arrogance she regarded as the necessity of her nature for moral purity and independence, something for which she claimed no merit, since she practised it solely for her private satisfaction; good-natured, but without enthusiasm, endlessly but lovelessly indulgent to humanity, and rather of opinion that life is nothing but a farce with a tragic conclusion, something out of which the most advantage may be gained by observing it from a safe, comfortable corner, without ever making an attempt to mingle in its activities, firmly convinced that the best conduct of life consists in acknowledging its glaring contradictions, its lack of harmony, in making use of palliatives where they are of use, and in postponing for as long as possible the facing of the huge deficit sure to appear at the close of every human existence. And on the other hand was Emma,--Emma, who had a positive horror of the philosophy of life, which her mother-in-law with easy indifference denominated "my laughing despair,"--Emma, who believed in everything, in God and in humanity,--yes, even, as her mother-in-law maintained, in the cure of leprosy and the disinterestedness of English politics,--Emma, for whom an existence in which she could take no active part was devoid of interest, and who looked upon a loveless life as worse than death,--Emma, whose unselfishness bordered upon fanaticism, blinding her conscience for a moment now and then, when she would have given to one person what she had no right to take from others,--Emma, utterly unable to appreciate proportion and moderation, and who, scorning all the palliatives and make shifts with which one eases existence, demanded from life absolute happiness, and consequently, dazzled by an illusion, plunged blindly into an abyss.
Ah, if it had been only an abyss! but no, it was a slough, and Anna Lenzdorff could not traverse it.
It certainly was strange that she, who found an excuse for every criminal of whom she read in the papers, had never been able to forgive her daughter-in-law when, thanks to her inborn thirst for the romantic, she forgot herself so far as to adore that Polish nonentity. What in the world could a woman of sense find in romance?
When Anna von Rhödern, at twenty-two, had married Count Ernst Lenzdorff, her views of life were in great measure the same that she had since elaborated so perfectly. She was of Courland descent, and the daughter of a prominent diplomat in the Russian service. Unlike her daughter-in-law, she had been a courted beauty, but at two-and-twenty she had turned her back upon all the sentimental possibilities to which in virtue of her great charm she had a right, and had married Count Lenzdorff, whose entire part in her existence she afterwards summed up in declaring that he really had bored her very little. And that, she maintained, was a great deal in a husband.
She had become acquainted with him in Paris, where he was secretary to the Prussian legation, and she married him there; afterwards he took up his abode in Berlin, where he held a distinguished position in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In moments of insolent frankness she was wont to describe him as an automaton whose key was in the possession of whoever might be Minister of Foreign Affairs. Once wound up, he could perform all the duties of his office during the few hours in which they were required of him; when they were over he was a lifeless wooden figure-head--nothing more. A wooden figure-head whom one is obliged to drag after one in life conduces but little to one's comfort, especially when the wooden figure-head is of the dimensions of Count Ernst Lenzdorff, and of this his wife shortly became aware. With great courtesy and skill she removed him from her life as soon as possible, placing him somewhere in the background upon a suitable pedestal,--the best place for wooden figureheads, and one where they can be made to look very effective.
The Countess's only son was the very image of his father, and quite as imposingly wooden.
If Emma, following her mother-in-law's example, could have courteously and respectfully put him upon a pedestal in some corner where he would not have been in her way, she might have led a very tolerable life with him. The mistake was that she attempted to make him happy.
Poor Emma! As if one possibly could make a wooden figure-head happy! Young Count Lenzdorff was extremely uncomfortable in view of his wife's exertions to make him happy. What ensued was of a very unedifying character: from being simply a state of contented indifference, the marriage became a decidedly irksome bond. Nevertheless it was most unfortunate for Emma when Edmund Lenzdorff, two years after their marriage, lost his life in a railway accident. Had he lived, her existence might at least have been a quiet one; in time she would have relinquished her ill-judged attempts to make him happy, and have found an object in life in the education of her child; while, as it was, he was no sooner dead than her existence began to totter uncertainly, like a ship from which the ballast has been removed.
At first she sickened, as her mother-in-law expressed it, with an attack of acute philanthropy. She haunted the most disreputable corners of Berlin in search of cases of misery to be relieved, never allowing a servant to accompany her, because, as she explained, it might humiliate the poor. Upon one of her excursions her watch was snatched from her, and another time she caught spotted fever. This was very annoying to the Countess Anna, but she forgave her, with--as she was wont to declare--praiseworthy courage, in view of the terrible disease.
Six months afterwards Emma married Strachinsky; and this her mother-in-law did not forgive her.
Since then fourteen years had passed, fourteen years during which she had had nothing whatever to do with poor Emma. And now she was sorry.
Again and again did the Countess Anna revert to the education given to the young girl asleep in the next room.
A woman who could so educate her child, and who could continue so to influence her after her death, was no ordinary character.
Of course she had had fine material to work upon. And the old Countess was conscious of an emotion never awakened within her by her son, yet now aroused by her grand-daughter,--pride in her own flesh and blood. "A splendid creature!" she murmured to herself once or twice, then adding, with a sneer at her own lack of perception, "and I was fool enough to think her ugly at first. Whom does she resemble? she is not in the least like her mother,--nor like my son!" Still pondering, she paused in her monotonous pacing to and fro, strangely thrilled. Going to an antique buhl cabinet with a multitude of drawers, she opened one of them,--a secret drawer, which had long been undisturbed,--and began to look through its contents. At last she found what she sought, a lithograph representing a young girl,décolletée, and with the huge sleeves in fashion in 1830. A very charming young girl the picture portrayed,--Countess Lenzdorff when she was still Anna von Rhödern.
The little faded picture trembled in the old lady's hand: it worked upon her like a spell, carrying her back to a time long forgotten,--a time when life had been to her something different from a farce with a tragic ending, by which one might be vastly entertained, but in which one should scorn to play a part. She was suddenly deeply pained at sight of the beautiful, grave, proud young face: it suggested to her something that had begun very finely and ended in unutterable bitterness, something through which the best and most genial part of her had been destroyed, or at least paralyzed. Hark! What was that? A low, suppressed sob! another! They came from the adjoining room. The old Countess dropped the little picture, and, with a candle in her hand, went to her grand-daughter's bedside. When she heard her grandmother coming, Erika closed her eyes, feigning sleep, but she had not time to wipe away the tears from her cheeks.
Her grandmother set the candle upon the table, and then, bending over the girl, whispered, softly, "Erika!" Erika did not stir. How pathetic she looked!--pale and thin, and yet so noble and charming in spite of the traces of tears.
The Countess sat down upon the edge of the bed and stroked the girl's wet cheeks. "Erika, my darling, what is the matter? Are you homesick?"
Then Erika opened her large eyes and looked gloomily at her grandmother. She answered not a word, but compressed her lips. How could her grandmother ask her if she was homesick, when all that she had of home was a grave?
For one moment the old Countess hesitated; then, lifting the reluctant girl from the pillows, she clasped her to her breast, pressing her lips upon the golden head, and murmuring softly, "Forgive me, my child, forgive me!" For one moment Erika's obstinate resistance was maintained; then she began to sob convulsively; and then--then her grandmother felt the slender form nestle close within her arms, while the weary young head fell upon her shoulder and a sensation of sweet, young warmth penetrated to the Countess's very heart, which suddenly grew quite heavy with tenderness.
Erika was soon sound asleep, but her grandmother still felt no desire to retire to rest. "I will write to Goswyn," she said to herself. "I must tell him she is charming, and that I will make her happy."
Nine months had passed since Erika's arrival in Berlin. She had travelled much with her grandmother, passing the time in Schlangenbad, Gastein, and the Riviera. As soon as she had become further acquainted with her, Countess Anna had relinquished all thoughts of sending her grand-daughter to a boarding-school. "What could you gain from a boarding-school?" she said. "H'm! Have your corners rubbed off? In my opinion that would be matter of regret. And as for your education, there's too much already in that head of yours for a girl of your age; but that we can't alter, and must make allowance for." And she tapped Erika on the cheek, and looked at her with eyes beaming with pride.
Erika had come to be the centre of her existence, her idol, the most entertaining toy she had ever possessed, the most precious jewel she had ever worn. Moreover, she was the late-awakened poetry of her life, the transfigured resurrection of her own youth. That was all very natural: she was not the first grand-mother in the world who had thought her grand-daughter a phenomenon; and it would have mattered little in any wise if she had not thought it necessary to impress her grand-daughter with the high opinion she entertained of her. Everything that she could do to turn the young girl's head she did, all out of pure inconsequence and love of talking, because never in her life had she been able to keep anything to herself. For in fact she was as unwise as she was clever: her cleverness was an article of luxury, something with which she entertained herself and others, with which she theoretically arranged the most complex combination of circumstances, but which never helped her over the simplest disturbance of her daily life. She was thoroughly unpractical, and was aware of it, without understanding why it was so. Since she could not alter it,--indeed, she never tried to,--she evaded every difficult problem of existence, with the Epicurean love of ease which was her only enduring rule of conduct. Her affection for Erika was now part of her egotism. She was never weary of exulting in the girl's beauty and brilliant qualities; she felt every annoyance experienced by her grand-daughter as a personal pang, every triumph as homage paid to herself; but she never thought of the responsibility she had assumed towards this lovely blossom unfolding in such luxuriance. She was convinced that Erika's life would develop of itself just as her own had done, and in this conviction she felt not the slightest compunction in spoiling the girl from morning until night, and in absolutely forcing her to consider herself the centre of the universe.
With almost equal impatience grandmother and grand-daughter awaited the moment when Erika should enchant the world of Berlin society.
And now it was the beginning of February, and the first Wednesday-afternoon reception of Countess Anna Lenzdorff after her return from Italy. She, whose social indolence had long been proverbial, had sent out numerous cards, many of them to people who had long since supposed themselves forgotten by her. All this, too, without any idea of as yet introducing her grand-daughter to society, but simply that people "might have a glimpse of her."
As a result of the Countess Anna's suddenly developed amiability towards Berlin society, this reception was largely attended. Erika presided at the tea-table in a toilette of studied simplicity and with a regal self-consciousness due to the enthusiasm which her grandmother displayed for her various charms, but which the girl had the good taste to conceal beneath an attractive air of modesty. She did not rattle her teacups awkwardly, she upset no cream, she never pressed a guest to take what had once been declined; in short, she committed none of the blunders so frequently the consequence of shyness in young novices; and she was, as her grandmother expressed it, simply "wonderful." Full forty times the old lady had presented "my grand-daughter," with the same proud intonation, observing narrowly the impression produced upon each guest,--an impression almost sure to be one of pleased surprise; whereupon Countess Lenzdorff--the same Countess Lenzdorff who had been always ready to ridicule, and to ridicule nothing more unsparingly than the mutual admiration characteristic of German families--would begin, in a loud whisper of which not one word escaped Erika's ears, to enumerate her grandchild's unusual attractions: "What do you think of this child who has dropped from the skies into my house to brighten my old age? 'Tis my usual luck, is it not? A charming creature; and what a carriage! Just observe her profile,--now, when she turns her head,--and the line of the cheek and throat. And to think that I was actually reluctant to receive the child! Oh, I treated her shamefully; but I am atoning to her for the past. I spoil her a little; but how can I help it? I thought it would be such a bore to have a young girl in the house, but, on the contrary, she makes me young again. No need to stoop to her intellectually: she is interested in everything. At first I was going to send her to school. H'm! there is more in that golden head of hers than behind the blue spectacles of all the school-mistresses in Germany. And that is not what interests me most: she has a certain frank honesty of nature that enchants me. Oh, she certainly is remarkable."
There the Countess Lenzdorff was right,--Erika was remarkable,--but she was wrong in parading the child before her acquaintances: first because it bored her acquaintances,--when are we ever entertained by listening to the praises of somebody whom we hardly know?--and again because her exaggerated laudation of her grandchild excited the antagonism of her listeners. On this first reception-day she laid the foundation of the unpopularity from which Erika was to suffer long afterwards.
The afternoon was nearing its close; the lamps were lit; three or four ladies only, all in black,--the court was in mourning at the time,--were still sitting in the cosiest corner of the drawing-room. Close by the hearth sat a tiny old lady, Frau von Norbin,néePrincess Nimbsch, with a delicately chiselled face framed in silver-gray curls, a face the colour of a faded rose-leaf, and with a thin clear voice that sounded like an antique musical clock and seemed to come from far away. She was about ten years older than Countess Anna, but had been one of her most intimate friends from childhood, belonging also to an old Courland family, which had given the Vienna Congress a good deal of trouble. She had known Talleyrand in her youth, and had corresponded with Chateaubriand. Countess Lenzdorff had a water-colour sketch of her as a young girl with a wreath of vine-leaves on her head, her hair hanging about her shoulders in Bacchante fashion, and with very bare arms holding aloft a tambourine. The rococo sentiment of the faded sketch contrasted strangely with the old lady's dignified decrepitude and poetically softened charm.
Opposite her, and evidently very desirous to stand well with her, sat a certain Frau von Geroldstein, wife of a wealthy merchant who had purchased a patent of nobility in one of the petty German states, without, as he learned too late, acquiring any court privileges for his wife. Indignant at the pettiness of the German sovereign in duodecimo, he had established himself in Berlin, where his wife hoped to find a suitable stage for her social efforts. She had been there three years without finding any aristocratic coigne of vantage for her pretensions; in despair she had fallen back upon celebrities, artists, professors, politicians (even democrats), to lend a certain splendour to hersalon. After at last finding her aristocratic vantage-ground at a watering-place in the shape of a General's widow, with debts, and a daughter of forty whom she alleged to be twenty-four, she annoyed her old acquaintances extremely. It was the business of her life to extort forgiveness from society for having once invited Eugene Richter to her house. Society never forgives, but it sometimes forgets if it be convenient to do so. It began to find it convenient to forget all sorts of things about Frau von Geroldstein, not only her political acquaintances, but also that her husband had made his fortune by furnishing army-supplies of doubtful quality.
Frau von Geroldstein was so available, and was besides so ready to make any concessions required of her. She threw Eugene Richter overboard, and developed a touching enthusiasm for the court chaplain Dryander. She bombarded society with invitations to dinners which were excellent, and at which one was sure to meet no undesirable individuals. She paid endless visits, and possessed in fullest measure the article most indispensable to the career of social aspirants,--a very thick skin.
She was about twenty-five years old, and was gifted by nature with a very small waist, which she pinched in to the stifling-point, and with a face which would have been pretty had it not given the impression, as did everything else about her, of artificiality. Of course her court mourning was trimmed with three times as much crape as that of any other lady present; and today she had made it her special business to win the favour of little Frau von Norbin. She had offered her three things already,--her riding-horse for Frau von Norbin's daughter, her lawn-tennis ground (she had a wonderful garden behind her house, which no one used), and her opera-box; but Frau von Norbin's manner was still coldly reserved. At last Frau von Geroldstein discovered from a remark of Countess Lenzdorff's that the old lady's principal interest lay in a children's hospital of which she was the chief patroness. Frau von Geroldstein instantly declared that the improvement of the health of the children of the poor was positively all that she cared for in life: when might she visit the hospital? Countess Lenzdorff smiled somewhat maliciously when Frau von Norbin, caught at last by this benevolent birdlime, plunged into a conversation with Frau von Geroldstein upon the most practical mode of nursing children.
Meanwhile, Countess Lenzdorff turned for amusement to a young maid of honour, a charming person, whose delicate sense of humour had been uninjured by the debilitating atmosphere of the court, and who was now detailing the latest misfortunes of a certain Countess Ida von Brock.
This Countess Brock was a notorious figure in Berlin society. She was usually called the twelfth fairy, since she was frequently omitted in the invitations to some social 'high mass' (the word was of Countess Lenzdorff's invention) and was then sure to appear uninvited and to do all kinds of mischief by her malicious gossip. Every winter she looked out for fresh lions for her menagerie, as hersalonwas called in familiar conversation,--for artists sufficiently well bred to consort with men of fashion, and for men of fashion sufficiently intelligent to appreciate artists. Since, thanks to her numberless eccentricities and indiscretions, she had quarrelled with all sorts of people, she was always obliged to entreat a few influential friends to procure for her her anthropological curiosities. Some time ago she had applied to Countess Lenzdorff to provide her with 'twelve witty Counts,'--an order which Countess Lenzdorff had declined to fill, upon the plea that the supply was just then exhausted.
During the previous winter the glory of hersalonhad been a hypnotizer, a young American for whom the Countess Ida had been wildly enthusiastic.
Mr. Van Tromp was his name; he had a dome-like forehead, and he cost nothing; he was quite ready to sacrifice his time without pay for the pleasure of mingling in good society,--a pleasure more highly prized by an American, as is well known, than by any European aspirant. At the close of the season the Countess's footman had unfortunately put aqua-fortis in the chambermaid's tea, and, as the Countess ascribed the crime to the influence of Van Tromp, she straightway relinquished her hypnotic pastime, the more willingly as most of her other guests considered it a rather dangerous game.
Van Tromp was informed of this when he next visited the Countess. He acquiesced in her decision, and amiably and unselfishly hoped that without any further exercise of his peculiar talent she would allow him to visit her 'as a friend.' Countess Brock, however, wrote him a note thanking him for his great kindness, but at the same time insisting that she could not possibly allow him to waste his time at her house; the people frequenting it were in fact quite too insignificant to associate with so great a man as himself.
This mode of turning out of doors people whom she could no longer make use of she called treating them with delicacy and tact. What Mr. Van Tromp thought of it is not known: he revenged himself, however, by writing a book upon Berlin society, which, as it was full of scandalous stories and appeared anonymously, lived through twenty-five editions.
With a view of making her Thursday evenings attractive this year, Countess Brock had determined to have some one of her favourite modern dramas read aloud at each of them, and had engaged the services of a handsome young actor with a broad chest and a strong voice as reader. The readings had begun the previous week with a German translation of Dumas' "Femme de Claude."
The young maid of honour had been present, and she declared it "comical beyond description."
There were several young girls among the audience, and scarcely had the handsome young actor with the powerful voice reached the middle of the second act when there was a rustling in the assembly, caused by a mother's conducting her daughter from the room. This went on all through the evening. Whilst the reader pursued his way with enthusiasm, each scene frightened away some two or three delicate-minded individuals, until the hostess found herself left almost entirely alone with the handsome young actor and a few gentlemen. "I persisted in remaining," the maid of honour continued, amid the laughter of her audience, "but I assure you----"
At this moment the servant announced "Frau Countess Brock," and there entered a woman of medium height, in a large high-shouldered seal-skin coat, for which departure from the prescribed court mourning a long crape veil atoned, a wonder of a veil, draped picturesquely over a Mary Stuart bonnet and hanging down over a slightly-bent back. Her grizzled hair was arranged above her forehead in curls, and her face, which must once have been handsome, was disfigured by affected contortions, sometimes grotesque, sometimes malicious, often both together.
Countess Lenzdorff immediately presented her niece to the new-comer, but the 'wicked fairy' paid no heed, and Erika made her a graceful courtesy which she did not see. She gave additional proof of near-sightedness by almost sitting down upon Frau von Norbin, and by mistaking Frau von Geroldstein for a distinguished authoress aged seventy.
Frau von Norbin smiled good-naturedly, and Frau von Geroldstein declared the blunder delicious. Privately she was furious, not at being mistaken for an aged woman, but at being supposed to be an authoress. However, she could endure it, since she had arranged a visit with Frau von Norbin to the children's hospital for the next afternoon. That was a triumph, at all events.
"H'm! h'm! what were you all laughing at when I came in?" asked the 'wicked fairy,' taking a seat beside Countess Lenzdorff.
Upon which a rather embarrassed silence ensued, and she went on with a sigh: "At my disaster, of course. Yes, yes, I know, Clara,"--this to the maid of honour,--"you will tell thedésastreto all Berlin. It was terrible!--Oh, thanks, no,"--this with a polite grin to Erika, who offered her a cup of tea. "That frightful actor!" she wailed, raising her black-gloved hands, palms outward,--a gesture peculiarly her own and used to express the climax of despair. "I have already denounced him to our principal managers: he never will get any position in a Berlin theatre. Think of his insolence in reading my guests out of my drawing-room and showing me up as a lover of questionable literature."
"Was the drama one of his selection?" asked Countess Lenzdorff.
"No; I chose it myself. But, good heavens! the piece was of no importance. The mode of delivery was everything. All he had to do was to skip lightly over the questionable parts; instead of which he fairly roared them in the faces of my guests."
"Evidently he liked them best," the maid of honour said, with a laugh.
"Of course," the 'wicked fairy' went on, indignantly; "these people have neither tact nor sense of decency. Well, I have forbidden the man my house for the future."
"Like Mr. Van Tromp," Countess Lenzdorff interposed.
"Oh, I am too easily imposed upon," Countess Brock sighed. "The worst of it is that I have nothing now in prospect for my Thursdays."
"I saw in the newspaper that a couple of almehs on their way from Paris to Petersburg are to appear at Kroll's," Countess Lenzdorff observed, maliciously: "you might hire them for an evening."
"That would be against the law," remarked Frau von Geroldstein, who knew about everything and had no sense of humour. Countess Brock, who had declared that nothing should ever induce her to receive 'the Archduchess,' as she called Frau von Geroldstein, pretended not to hear; Frau von Norbin begged to be told what analmehwas. Countess Lenzdorff laughed, and was just enlightening her in a low tone, out of regard for her grand-daughter, as to this Oriental specialty, when Herr von Sydow was announced.
"Goswyn!" exclaimed Countess Anna, evidently delighted. "It is good of you to come at last, but not good to have let us wait so long for you."
"I came as soon as I heard of your return," Sydow replied.
"And, as usual, you come as late as possible," his old friend remarked, in an access of absence of mind, "in hopes of finding me alone."
"I call that a skilful method of turning people out of doors," exclaimed Frau von Norbin, laughing, and in spite of her hostess's protestations she arose and took her leave, accompanied by the young maid of honour.
Whilst Erika, with the modest grace which she had learned so quickly, conducted the two ladies to the vestibule, where only two or three remained of the crowd of footmen that had occupied it early in the afternoon, Goswyn's eyes rested on the wall, where, to his great surprise, hung the same Böcklin that had been removed upon his former visit in view of the expected arrival of the Countess's grand-daughter.
"So you sent the young Countess to boarding-school?" he remarked.
"What?" exclaimed the Countess, indignant at such an idea. "You must see that I am far too old to forego the pleasure of having the child with me." Then, observing that the young man's eyes were directed towards her favourite picture, she suddenly remembered the conversation she had had with him in the spring. "Oh, yes; you are thinking of how hard it seemed to me to receive the child. It makes me laugh to recall it. As for the picture, there was no need to hide it from her: she knew the entire Vatican by heart when she came to me, from photographs. She looks at everything, and sees beyond it! I am longing to have you know her: did you not notice her? though this February twilight, to be sure, is very dim. She has just escorted Hedwig Norton from the room."
"Was that your grand-daughter?" Sydow asked, in surprise. "I thought it was your niece Odette."
"Where were your eyes?" Countess Lenzdorff asked, in an aggrieved tone. "Odette is pretty enough, but a grisette,--a mere grisette,--in comparison with Erika. Erika is a head taller; and then, my dear,un port de reine,--absolument, un port de reine. Ah, here she comes.--Erika, Herr von Sydow wishes to be presented to you: you know who he is,--a great favourite of mine, and the nicest young fellow in all Berlin."
Erika inclined her head graciously, and, whilst the young man blushed at the old lady's exaggerated praise, said, with perfect self-possession, "Of course my grandmother has enlightened you as to my perfections. I think we may both be quite content, Herr von Sydow."
He bowed low and took the offered chair beside his hostess. He knew that Countess Lenzdorff expected him to say something to her grand-daughter, but he could not; he was mute with astonishment. It was true that the Countess had written him shortly after the young girl's arrival that she was charming, but he had regarded this asseveration as a piece of remorse on her part, knowing that remorse will incline people to exaggerate, especially kind-hearted, selfish people, for whom the memory of injustice done by them is among the greatest annoyances of life.
He could not reconcile his memory of the distressed, pale, shy girl whom he had seen for an instant with this extremely beautiful and self-possessed young lady who seemed expressly devised to act as a cordial for her grandmother's Epicurean selfishness. He did not know why, but he was half vexed that Erika was so beautiful: the previous tender compassion with which she had inspired him seemed ridiculous.
The words for which he sought in vain with which to begin a conversation she soon found. "It is strange that you should not have recognized me here in my grandmother's drawing-room, where you might have expected me to be," she said, gaily. "I should have known you in Africa."
"Where have you seen each other before?" the Countess asked, curiously.
"On the stairs, on the evening of my arrival," Erika explained. "Evidently you do not recall it, Herr von Sydow: I ought not to have confessed how perfectly I remember."
"Oh, I remember it very well," said Sydow, and then he paused suddenly with a faint smile, a smile peculiarly his own, and behind which some sensitive souls suspected a degree of malice, but which actually concealed only a certain agitation and embarrassment, a momentary non-comprehension of the situation. He was not very clever, except in moments of great danger, when he developed unusual presence of mind.
"After all, 'tis no wonder that you made more impression upon me than I did upon you," Erika went on, easily and simply. "In the first place, you were the first Prussian officer I had ever met; I had never seen anything in Austria so tall and broad: your epaulettes inspired me with a degree of awe. And then you bowed so respectfully. You can't imagine how much good it did me. I was half dead with terror: you looked as if you pitied me."
"I did pity you, Countess," he confessed, frankly. The tone of her voice, which had first won over her grandmother, was sweet in his ears. Moreover, she seemed very much of a child, now that she was talking. The impression of self-possession which she had at first given him was quite obliterated.
"You knew that my grandmother was not glad to have me?" she asked.
"Yes, I told him so, and he scolded me for it," Countess Lenzdorff declared, with a nod.
"But, my dear Countess!" Sydow remonstrated.
"Oh, I always speak the truth," the Countess exclaimed,--"always, that is, if possible, and sometimes even oftener: it is the only virtue upon which I pride myself. And you were right, Goswyn. But do you know how you look now? As if you were ashamed of your pity. Aha! I have hit the nail upon the head, and a very sensitive nail, too. It is human nature. There is one extravagance which even the most magnanimous never forgive themselves,--wasted compassion. In fact, you must perceive that the child has no need of the article."
Goswyn was silent. If at first the Countess had hit the nail upon the head, he was by no means convinced of the truth of her last remark. Something in the old Countess's manner to her grand-daughter went against the grain with him: once while she was talking to him, and Erika, sitting beside her, nestled close to her with the innocent grace of a young creature to whom a little tenderness is as necessary as is sunshine to the opening flower, the grandmother suddenly, with a significant glance at Sydow, put her finger beneath the girl's chin and turned her face so that he might observe the particularly lovely outline of her cheek.
Meanwhile, Countess Brock was defending herself with much ill humour and many grimaces from the exaggerated amiability of the 'Archduchess,' which found vent especially in the offer of a specific for the cure of neuralgia, from which the 'wicked fairy' suffered constantly, and which partly explained the peculiar twitching of her features. Extricating herself at last with much bluntness from the snare thus spread to entrap her favour, Countess Brock turned to the young officer, who, strange to relate, was her nephew. Strange to relate; for there certainly could be no greater contrast than that of his characteristic grave simplicity with her restless affectation.
"My dear Goswyn!" she said, in a honeyed tone, taking a chair beside him.
"Well, aunt?"
"You scarcely spoke to me when you came in," she continued, reproachfully, in the same sweet tone.
"You seemed very much occupied."
"Occupied? yes, occupied indeed. For the last quarter of an hour I have been struggling like a fly in a trap. You come just at the right moment, dear boy." And she tapped his epaulette with a caressing forefinger.
"Ah? Do you wish me to audit your accounts?" he asked, dryly: he had but slight sympathy with her.
"God forbid!" exclaimed the 'wicked fairy,' raising her black-gloved hands with her characteristic gesture. "Nothing so prosaic as that this time. It was about----"
"About your Thursdays," her nephew interrupted her.
"Rightly guessed, dear boy. I want a new star; and you can help me a little. Do you know G----?"
"The pianist?"
"Yes."
"I have practised with him once or twice." Goswyn played the violin in moments of leisure, a weakness to which he did not like to hear allusions made.
"There! I thought so. You must bring him to me."
"Pray excuse me," the young man said, decidedly. "I will have nothing to do with introducing any artist to you. I know too well what will ensue. You will squeeze him like a lemon, and then show him the door on the pretence that he outrages your æsthetic sense,--that his manners are not to your taste. You should inform yourself on that point before making use of him. We all know that artists are not always well bred."
"Too true!" sighed Frau von Geroldstein, edging her chair nearer to the speaker.
"All artists are ill-mannered," Countess Lenzdorff maintained, with her good-humoured insolence.
"Even the greatest?" asked Erika, shyly. She was thinking of the young painter whom she had met by the monster of a bridge, and she could not decide whether to resent her grandmother's arrogance or to be ashamed of the childish admiration in which she had indulged all these years for the handsome vagabond of whom she had never heard since.
As Frau von Geroldstein was gently sighing, "Ah, yes, even the greatest," Countess Anna interposed with a laugh, "They are the worst of all. Artistic mediocrities acquire a certain drawing-room polish far sooner than do the great geniuses who live in a world of their own. And, after all, average good manners are only the dress-suit for average men: they rarely sit well upon a genius. I care very little for them: a littlenaïveawkwardness does not displease me at all; on the contrary, to be quite to my mind an artist must always have something of the bear about him: I take no interest whatever in those trim dandies, 'gentlemen artists,' who think more of the polish of their boots than of their art."
"Nor do I," sighed Frau von Geroldstein.
"H'm! your discourse is always very instructive," the 'wicked fairy' declared, "but it does not help me in my trouble." She sighed tragically and arose. As she did so, her fur boa slipped from her shoulders to the ground. Erika picked it up and handed it to her. The 'wicked fairy' stared at the young girl through her eye-glass, surprise slowly dawning in her distorted features. "You are the grand-daughter from Bohemia?" she asked, still with her eye-glass at her eyes.
"Yes, Frau Countess."
"Ah, excuse me: I have been taking you all this time for my dear Anna's companion. Now I remember she died last year: I sent some flowers to her funeral. Poor thing! she was desperately tiresome, but an excellent girl; you must remember her, my dear Goswyn. You used to call her the Duke of Wellington, because she was a little deaf and used to go on talking without hearing what was said to her. How could I make such a mistake! But I am very near-sighted, and very absent-minded." She put her finger beneath Erika's chin and smiled an indescribable smile. "And you are very pretty, my dear. What is your name?"
"Erika."
"Erika!--Heather Blossom! And you come from Bohemia. How poetic!--how poetic! She is positively charming, this grand-daughter of yours, Anna! Do you not think so, Goswyn?"
Sydow flushed crimson, frowned, and was silent.
"I must go: I seem to be saying the wrong thing," Countess Brock ran on; then, looking towards the window, "Good heavens!" she exclaimed, "it is pouring! Pray let them call a droschky."
"Erika, ring the bell," said Countess Lenzdorff.
Before Erika could obey, Frau von Geroldstein extended a detaining arm.
"But, my dear Countess Erika, why send for a droschky, when my carriage is waiting below, and it will give me the greatest pleasure to drive Countess Brock home?--Surely you will permit me?"--this last addressed to the 'wicked fairy.'
"I really cannot. I know you far too slightly to impose such a burden upon you," Countess Brock replied, crossly.
"Why call it a burden? it is a pleasure," the other insisted.
"There is no pleasure in driving with me: I am forced to have all the windows closed," said the Countess.
Meanwhile, Erika stood uncertain whether or not to ring the bell, when suddenly affairs took a turn most favourable for Frau von Geroldstein.
Herr Reichert was announced, and without another word Countess Brock vanished with Frau von Geroldstein, in whose coupé she was driven home.
She had private reasons for this hurried retreat. Reichert, a special favourite of Anna Lenzdorff's, an animal painter with a lion face and an inexhaustible fund of anecdote, was among the 'remords' of the 'wicked fairy.' She called her 'remords' the assemblage of men of talent of whom she had made use only to throw them aside remorselessly afterwards.
The animal painter's visit was a brief one, and none of the Countess Lenzdorff's guests remained save Sydow, who stayed in obedience to the Countess's whispered invitation.
"There! now I have had enough," she exclaimed, as the door closed behind her beloved animal painter. "Stay and dine, Goswyn: we dine early--at six--tonight, and then you can go with us to the Academy. Joachim is to play, and I have a spare ticket for you."