He had no umbrella; he was wet to the skin, and the day was cold. But that was of no consequence. Otto von Sydow had never felt so warm since he had been in Italy.
That very evening he moved to the Hôtel Washington from the Hôtel de la Paix. Since the entire first floor was occupied by a banker from Vienna, and the hotel was overcrowded, the room assigned him was far from comfortable; but he did not mind that.
And that very evening, before thetable-d'hôtedinner, he found his fair one. She was in the reading-room, reading a Paris paper. He also learned who she was,--Princess Dorothea von Ilm.
She was an orphan, and very poor. The family, originally distinguished, had degenerated sadly, principally through the dissipated habits of the Princess's two brothers, notably through the marriage of the elder to a French circus-rider. Since her installation in Castle Egerstein the Princess Dorothea had been homeless, and had been wandering about the world with very little means and a companion who was half instructress, half maid.
This individual, whom Prince Ilm had hurriedly engaged for his sister through a newspaper advertisement, was named Alma Feistmantel, and came from Vienna, where she belonged to those æsthetic circles, the members of which interest themselves chiefly for artists and the drama. For ten years she had cherished a hopeless passion for Sonnenthal: her chief enthusiasms were for broad-shouldered men, Wagner's music, and novels which exalted "the sacred voice of nature."
Under the protection of this lady the Princess Dorothea had for three years been completing her education in Vienna, Rome, and Paris successively.
The Princess enlightened her admirer as to her affairs with the greatest candour, informing him that her brother had treated her shamefully, but that it was all the fault of the circus-rider, who could make him do just as she chose; and in spite of it all Willy was the most fascinating creature imaginable: he looked like a Spaniard. Sydow remembered him: he had served a year in the same regiment with him during his term of compulsory service.
With equal frankness Princess Dorothea explained that she was often embarrassed pecuniarily; once she had been so pinched that she had sold her dog to an Englishman for three hundred francs; she had hated to part with him, for she never had loved any creature as she did that dog, but she needed a ball-dress to wear at an entertainment in Rome at the German embassy. Her aunt, Princess Nimbsch, had chaperoned her when she went into society: sometimes she went, and sometimes she did not; it depended upon her circumstances. In fact, she did not care much about going into society, it prevented you from doing so many amusing things; you could not go to the little theatres, where the funniest farces were played. Therefore she preferred to be in Paris, where not a soul knew her, and she and Feistmantel could go everywhere together.
Feistmantel had frequently during these confessions admonished the Princess to greater discretion by a touch of her foot beneath the table: of one of these hints Sydow's boot had been the recipient. But when she found that she could thus make no impression upon her charge the Viennese interposed with some temper: "Pray, Baron Sydow, discount all this talk some fifty per cent. You must not believe that I would take any young girl intrusted to my care where it was not proper that she should go."
"I know nothing about proper or improper: I only know what is amusing and what is tiresome," the Princess said, with a laugh, "and we went everywhere. Feistmantel is putting on airs because of my exalted family, but do not you believe her, Herr von Sydow. We saw 'Ma Camarade,' and 'Niniche,' and we even went one evening to the Café des Ambassadeurs. Eh?" And she pinched her companion's ear.
"But, Baron Sydow, do not allow yourself to be imposed upon," Feistmantel exclaimed, almost beside herself. "The Café des Ambassadeurs,--why, that is acafé chantant. There is not a word of truth in all her nonsense."
"Not true? oh, but it is," the Princess retorted, quite at her ease. "Of course it was acafé chantant, and the singer sang 'Estelle, où est ta flanelle?'--it was too funny; but I can sing it just like her. I practised it that very evening. I must sing it to you some day, Herr von Sydow,--that is, when we are better acquainted. Oh, is there nocafé chantantin Florence to which you could take us?"
"But, Princess----!" exclaimed Feistmantel.
"Why, a gentleman took us to the Café des Ambassadeurs, a man whose acquaintance we made in the hotel," Dorothea ran on. "He was an American,--a Mr. Higgs: he came from Connecticut, and dealt in cheeses. He was very rich, and he sent us tickets for the theatre. Afterwards he wanted to marry me: I liked him very well, and would have accepted him, but my brother said he was no match for me. Well, I did not break my heart, but I should have liked to marry him for all that. We Princesses Ilm have the right, it is true, to marry crowned heads, but I never mean to avail myself of it. If I were an Empress I should always travel incognito. As soon as I am of age I shall marry a chimney-sweeper--if he is a millionaire, or if I fall in love with him."
"Both contingencies seem highly probable," Sydow observed, laughing. It was the only remark he allowed himself during the conversation,--a conversation which took place in the reading-room of the Washington Hotel on the first evening of his stay there.
After the Princess had finished her confessions, she went to the window, and looked out upon the Arno. For a while she was perfectly silent; but when Alma Feistmantel, recovering from her dismay, began to invent all sorts of falsehoods with which to impress Sydow, Dorothea quietly turned to him and said, "Herr von Sydow, will you not take a walk with us? Florence is so lovely at night!"
The next day he drove with the ladies to Fiesole. He sat on the front seat of a very uncomfortable droschky and felt as happy as a king.
It was the middle of April, and an upright crest of white and purple iris crowned the white wall bordering the crooked road leading to the famous old town. Here and there the rose-bushes trailed their blossoming branches in the dust. Barefooted Italian children, with dishevelled hair and glowing eyes tossed nosegays into the carriage and offered their straw wares to the ladies with persistent entreaties to buy. How many liri and fifty-centesimi pieces Sydow threw away on that wonderful day! The more he gave the rein to his liberality the longer grew the train of children, laughing, gesticulating, all pretty, with light in their eyes and flowers in their hands. Suddenly the driver shouted to some one who would not get out of the way. Sydow sprang out of the droschky and saw creeping along the dusty road a pair of wretched beggars, old and bent, their weary feet wrapped in rags. The sight of anything so miserable on the lovely spring day cut him to the heart. He could do no less than toss them some money.
Alma Feistmantel, as a member of the society for the suppression of mendicancy, lectured him for his lavish alms, and the Princess laughed at the beggars, whose misery struck her as comical. She flung a sneering "Baucis and Philemon!" after them. This shocked Sydow for an instant; the next he gave her a kindly glance, saying to himself, "Ah, she is but a child!" He was already incapable of finding any harm in her.
The next morning the German clerk of the hotel came to him, and, after some circumlocution, asked him if he were intimately acquainted with the Princess. Quite confused, and without a suspicion of the clerk's motive in asking, he explained that his acquaintance with her was of the most superficial kind. The clerk suppressed a smile beneath his bearded lip. Sydow was sorely tempted to knock him down, and was restrained only by regard for the Princess's reputation. It appeared, however, that the clerk's question was not the result of impertinent curiosity; he had no interest in the young Prussian's relations to the fair Princess, he only wished to discover whether Sydow knew anything of her family,--if she were a genuine Princess, and if they were people of wealth. She was travelling without a maid, and had not paid her hotel bill for a month.
Whereupon Sydow snubbed the clerk sharply, informing him that he need be under no anxiety, the Ilms were among the first families of Germany. The Princess had simply forgotten to pay, supposing it to be a matter of small importance. The clerk was profuse in apologies.
Sydow spent three hours considering how he should offer his aid to the Princess. At last--it was raining, and the ladies were at home--he knocked at their door.
"Who is it?" Feistmantel's harsh voice inquired.
"Sydow."
"Oh, pray come in," called the high voice of the Princess. He entered.
It was a small room in the third story. Feistmantel was sitting by the window, mending some article of dress; the Princess was sitting on her bed, reading "Autour du Mariage," by Gyp.
The Princess moved no farther than to offer him her hand with a charming smile; Feistmantel cleared off the articles from an arm-chair, that he might sit down.
"Oh, what a dreary day! I am so glad you are come! We are nearly bored to death," said Dorothea, rubbing her eyes, and gathering her feet under her so that she sat cross-legged on the bed. "Can you give me a cigarette? mine are all gone."
Feistmantel said something in disapproval of a lady's smoking, when Dorothea remarked, composedly, "Don't listen to her; she is putting on airs again because of my exalted family, when the fact is that it was from her that I learned to smoke. Oh, what a wretched world! 'Who but ducks and pumps can keep out of the dumps, in a world that is never dry?' Oh, I am so bored,--so bored!" She stretched herself slightly. "I should like at least to go to Doney's and get an ice, but we cannot; we have no money."
Then Sydow blurted out the little speech he had composed with infinite pains, coming to a stand-still three times during the recital.
He had heard that the ladies had been expecting remittances from Germany. Of course there was some mistake: would they permit him to relieve them--from--their temporary embarrassment?
He paused in great confusion. Would they turn him out of the room? No! The Princess simply held out her hands and exclaimed, "You are an angel! I could really embrace you!" which of course she did not do, but which she could have done without thinking much of it.
That same evening the Princess's bill was paid.
Two days later Goswyn arrived in Florence. He surprised his brother at dinner with Dorothea and Feistmantel at a small table at the extreme end of a long close dining-room, beside a window looking out upon the Arno.
The Princess was giggling and chatting in her clear high voice, which could be heard outside of the dining-hall; she wore a white dress, and a diamond ring sparkled upon her hand. At first Goswyn smiled at his brother's charming travelling acquaintances, but in a very little while the state of affairs made him grave. Of course he took his place at the table with the three. The Princess instantly began to flirt with him. First she congratulated herself that they were now apartie carrée; it was very jolly; until then Herr von Sydow had cut but a sorry figure between two ladies, now they could be taken for two couples on a wedding-tour. Then, planting both elbows upon the table, she leaned across to Goswyn and asked, "Which of the gentlemen will appropriate Feistmantel?"
"That is for the ladies to decide," Goswyn replied, laughing.
"Then my guardian spirit shall fall to your lot," said Dorothea, "for I prefer your brother. I perceived the instant that you appeared that you are a very disagreeable fellow, Herr Goswyn von Sydow," pronouncing the name with mock pathos,--"yes, a thoroughly disagreeable fellow. I could not live with you three days; while I could endure a lifetime with your brother. He is such an honest, clumsy bear: I have always had a liking for bears. Look, he gave me this ring as a keepsake: is it not pretty?"
Otto von Sydow long remembered the look which his brother gave the ring.
That evening the brothers had a violent dispute.
Goswyn admitted that the Princess was charming in spite of her wretched training and impossible behaviour; that there could not be a more amusing transient travelling acquaintance; that, finally, she certainly did come of very good stock, and was, in spite of her free and easy style of conversation, a pure-minded woman,--which should make it still more a matter of conscience with Otto not to compromise her as he was doing; for a marriage with her, even although her poor but haughty family could be brought to consent to the misalliance, was out of the question.
The result of this conversation was that Otto at last hung his head and admitted that his wiser, stronger brother was right; he promised to leave Florence with Goswyn the next morning; but when the trunks were all piled on the coach for their departure he met the Princess Dorothea on the stairs, and did not leave, but stayed and was betrothed to her.
It would be doing her injustice to say that she married him solely for his money. No, she really had a decided liking for "bears," and, as far as she could love any one, she loved her big, clumsy husband, just as she preferred brown bread and sour milk to all the delicacies of the table. During the honey-moon, which she spent with Otto upon his estate in Silesia, she developed an astonishing degree of tenderness, but she could not love anything for any length of time. Then, too, she was entirely unused to any regular life, and the dull routine at Kosnitz soon bored her to death. At first it delighted her to revel in her husband's wealth, to have dress after dress made, to adorn herself with all sorts of trinkets; but she soon found it tiresome and monotonous. Oh for a small room on the third floor of some hotel in Paris with Feistmantel, and poverty, and liberty, and a fresh conquest every day! how she longed for it all!
At first in Berlin, in honour of her husband, she had assumed the conventional air of a great lady; but of that she soon became desperately tired: it was the most wearisome of all the weariness in her new life.
In spite of all that evil tongues might say of her, she was as yet perfectly innocent: of that her husband was convinced.
"She is utterly unsusceptible,--utterly," he said to himself, as he tramped home through the mud and wet. And with this poor consolation he was obliged to be content.
But, slow-witted as he was, he was aware that women unsusceptible to temptation are apt to be equally unsusceptible to the disgrace of a fall. The matter is simply of no importance to them. Princess Dorothea would never be led astray through passion; but at the thought of the devouring, degrading ennui which was continually dragging her downward, Otto von Sydow shuddered.
Suddenly his cheeks burned; he could have boxed his own ears for such thoughts with regard to his wife.
A few days after the wicked fairy's successful Thursday two fresh pieces of news were circulated in Berlin: one was that Goswyn von Sydow had fought another duel in his sister-in-law's behalf, and the other stated that Countess Lenzdorff had given the fashionable artist Riedel permission to paint her grand-daughter as "Heather Blossom." The truth as to the duel was never fully discovered. Goswyn von Sydow certainly appeared for a while with his arm in a sling, but, as he stoutly maintained that he had sprained his wrist in a fall from his horse, people were forced to be satisfied with this explanation. If some very sharp-sighted men added that in certain cases it was a man's duty to lie, no matter how strict might be his ideas of truth,--why, that was their affair.
As for the portrait, it was true that the old Countess had acceded to Riedel's request to be allowed to paint Erika as "Heather Blossom," of course not in the artist's studio, but in the Countess Lenzdorff's drawing-room, where Riedel worked away for a week, three hours daily, seated before a large easel, with colour-boxes beside him.
The result of his well-meant efforts was a commonplace affair, something between Ary Scheffer's Mignon and Gabriel Max's "Gretchen at her Wheel."
Naturally the Countess Lenzdorff was in no wise charmed by this picture, although in view of the ability of the artist in question she had not expected anything better.
"A 'Book of Beauty' painter, that Riedel," she said of him: "he flatters every one alike, and is blind to wrinkles, scars, and what he calls defects of all kinds. Such fellows as he are sure to be a success in the present day, when truth is at a discount. They never dissipate a single illusion, and the world--the world of society--delights in them."
She certainly took no pains not to dissipate illusions for the world to which she belonged: on the contrary, she delighted to destroy them, jeeringcoram publicoat the beautifying salve which the model members of society as well as her favourite artists and literary men plastered over every peculiarity of humanity, and which in life passes for 'kindly criticism' and in art for 'idealistic conception.' She spent her time in tearing down the rose-coloured curtains from the windows of her acquaintances, and naturally her acquaintances did not like it; they loved their rose-coloured curtains, which excluded the pitiless garish daylight, admitting only a becoming twilight in which all the sharp edges and dark stains of life faded into indistinctness.
The Countess's rage for broad daylight seemed cruel to her acquaintances, while she in her turn called their love of twilight cowardly and when she alluded to the fashionable world usually designated it briefly as "Kapilavastu."
Erika asked her grandmother the meaning of this word. Upon which the old lady shrugged her shoulders and replied, "Kapilavastu is the name of the town in which Buddha grew up, the town where his parents hoped to shield him forever from the sight of old age, death, and disease!" Then, with a quiet laugh, she added, as if to herself, "Oh, what a world it is!"
All her life long she had sneered at the 'world of fashion,' which did not at all interfere with the fact that she would have greatly disliked being aught but 'a great lady.'
When Riedel had completed his picture of "Heather Blossom" to his own satisfaction, and enriched it with his valuable signature, he laid it as a tribute at the feet of the Countess Lenzdorff, begging permission to exhibit his masterpiece at Schulte's, 'unter den Linden.'
Permission was accorded him,--of course with the proviso that the name of the model should be strictly concealed.
Whether the picture were the 'sentimental daub' which the old Countess dubbed it, or the exquisite work of art which Riedel's numerous admirers pronounced it, certain it is that it attracted a great deal of attention,--so much, indeed, that the Countess Anna was one day seized with a desire to witness for herself the effect produced by it upon a gaping public.
It was a fair, sunshiny day in March when she walked to the end of the Thiergarten with Erika, slowly followed by her carriage. It was a pleasure to her to observe the undisguised admiration excited by her grand-daughter. And the girl was worthy of it. Tall, distinguished in air and bearing, faultlessly dressed in dark-gray cloth with a long boa of blue-fox fur and a black hat and feathers, she walked with an air and a bearing that a young queen might have envied.
"Every one looks after you, as if you were the Empress herself," said her grandmother, with a laugh, as she espied a young officer of dragoons, who with his hand at his cap saluted the grandmother but looked at the grand-daughter.
"Goswyn! this is lucky," she exclaimed, beckoning to him. "We are on our way to Schulte's to look at Erika's portrait. Will you come with us?"
"If you will let me," he replied. "But you will probably not see the portrait," he went on, smiling,--"only a great crowd of people. At least that was almost all I could see the last time I was there."
"Oh, you have been there?" said the old Countess, with a merry twinkle of her eye. "Then, of course, you do not care to go again."
"No, certainly not to see the picture; but you cannot get rid of me now, Countess."
Beneath the lindens on one side of the way stood a crippled boy with a huge hump, playing the accordion. The squeaking tones of the miserable instrument were but little in harmony with the splendour of the Thiergarten at this hour. A lady, as she passed the child, turned away with a shudder, and tears started in the boy's eyes and rolled down his pale, precocious face, as he retreated into still deeper shade.
Without interrupting what he was saying to the old Countess, Goswyn gave the boy some money. On a sudden Countess Lenzdorff noticed that Erika was not beside her. "Where is the child?" she exclaimed, looking round. Erika had fallen behind to stroke the little cripple's thin cheeks.
When she perceived that she was observed, she hastily left the child. Her own cheeks were flushed, and there were tears in her eyes.
"Why, Erika!" her grandmother cried out, in dismay, "what are you about?"
"I could not help it," the girl replied: "it was so hateful of that woman to show the boy her disgust at the sight of him." She could scarcely restrain her tears.
"But, Erika,"--her grandmother put her hand on the girl's arm, and spoke very gently,--"you might catch some disease."
"And if I did," Erika murmured, still under the influence of strong emotion, "I should not be half so wretched as that child. Why should I have everything and he nothing?"
To this no reply could be made; even the Countess's talent for repartee failed her, and the three walked on together silently. The Countess Anna glanced towards Goswyn. Never before had she seen him so gravely impressed; and on a sudden the despair that had possessed her in view of the unjust arrangement of human affairs was converted into pride and joy.
When they reached the picture-dealer's they found the portrait in an inner room, surrounded, in fact, by quite a crowd of people, although it was not great enough to satisfy the old Countess's pride: it could hardly have been that, indeed. Still, she did not express her disappointment in words, but ridiculed the assemblage.
The words 'Heather Blossom' were carved in the very effective frame of the portrait, and on one side could be traced a coronet.
"A beggar-girl and a coronet! nothing could appeal more strongly to these plebeians," the old lady exclaimed; and then she whispered to Erika, "Thank God, no one could recognize you from that daub, or we should have the whole rabble around us. What do you think of the picture, Goswyn?"
"Miserable," Goswyn replied, with a frown. "Between ourselves, I cannot understand your allowing the fellow to exhibit it."
"What could I do?" said the Countess, shrugging her shoulders: "he talked of the effect it would produce upon people generally, and in fact he seems to have been right. The Archduchess Geroldstein has already ordered her portrait of him. I cannot understand it. To me Riedel is absolutely uninteresting. If he has a really fine model he seems to lose even the power to flatter, upon which his reputation is chiefly based. Erika is ten times more beautiful than that picture."
This was Goswyn's opinion also, but he remained silent, asking himself whether it could be that the absent old Countess had actually forgotten her granddaughter's presence. Such, however, was not the case. It simply had never occurred to her to regard Erika's beauty as a secret to be confided to all the world except to the girl herself: she would as soon have thought of concealing from her the amount of her yearly income.
"I want you to look at a picture which has charmed me," Goswyn said, after a pause, desirous to change the subject, and as he spoke he pointed to a picture at sight of which the old lady uttered an exclamation of admiration, while Erika gazed at it pale and mute.
The picture was called 'The Seeress,' and represented a peasant-girl standing wan and rapt, her eyes gazing into the unseen, her hand stretched out as if groping. On the right of the girl were a couple of willows in the midst of the level landscape, their trunks rugged and scarred and here and there tufted with wild flowers, while in the background a little trickling stream was spanned by a huge stone bridge, through the arches of which could be seen glimpses of a miserable village half obscured by rising mists.
The Berlin public were too much spoiled by the mediocre artistic euphemism of the day to have the taste to appreciate this masterpiece. A couple of art critics passed it by with a shake of the head, muttering, "Unripe fruit."
Countess Lenzdorff repeated the phrase as the wise-acres disappeared. "Unripe fruit!--Quite right, but a most noble specimen. I only trust it may ripen under favourable conditions. The thing is full of talent. 'A Seeress.' Apparently a Jeanne d'Arc."
"Probably," said Goswyn. "It certainly is original in conception: there is nothing conventional in it. What inspiration there is in the pale face! what maidenly grace in the noble and yet almost emaciated figure! It is a most attractive picture."
"The strange thing about it is that this Seeress in reality looks far more like Erika than does Riedel's 'Heather Blossom,'" exclaimed the old lady. "I must have this picture!"
"You are too late, Countess," rejoined Goswyn.
"Is it sold already? What was the price?"
"It was very reasonable,--a beginner's price," Goswyn replied, with a slight blush.
The old Countess laughed: she had no objection that Goswyn, with his limited means, should buy a picture just because it resembled her grand-daughter.
Meanwhile, Erika was trembling in every limb. Who buthecould have painted the picture?--who else had seen Luzano,--Luzano, and herself? She felt proud of herprotégé. In the corner of the picture she read 'Lozoncyi.' It pleased her that he had so fine-sounding a foreign name.
"You shall find out for me where the young man lives," Countess Lenzdorff cried, eagerly: "he must paint Erika for me while his prices are still reasonable."
Goswyn cleared his throat. "Much as I admire this young artist," he observed, "if I were you I would not have him paint Countess Erika."
"Why not?"
"Because he has another picture on exhibition here, to see which an extra price of admission is asked."
"Indeed!" cried the old lady. "Is it so very bad?"
"The worst of it is the curtain that hides it from the public, and the extra price paid to look at it," Goswyn replied, half laughing. "It certainly is a powerful thing,--painted later than 'The Seeress,' and under a different inspiration. If you would like to see it, let me play the part of Countess Erika's chaperon for a few minutes: you go behind that curtain."
The Countess Anna could not let such an opportunity slip. She was an old woman; no one--not even the over-scrupulous Goswyn--could object to her looking at the picture. So she blithely went her way.
Meanwhile, Erika had grown very pale. She felt as if some dear old plaything, to which she had attached all sorts of pathetic memories, had fallen into the mire! It was gone; let it lie there: she would not stoop to pick it up and wipe it off.
Goswyn, who was observing her narrowly, could not understand the sudden change in her face. He had often had occasion to notice the sensitiveness of her moral nature, but to-day the key to the riddle was lacking. What could it possibly matter to her whether or not an obscure artist painted an improper picture?
He tried to begin a conversation with her, but had hardly done so when Countess Lenzdorff returned, walking slowly, with her head held haughtily erect, a sign with her of extreme indignation.
"You seem more shocked, Countess, than I expected you to be," Goswyn remarked, as she appeared. "Do you think the picture so very bad?"
"Nonsense!" the old lady replied, impatiently. "It was not painted for school-girls and boys: it did not shock me. It is not the picture that has made me angry, but--whom do you think I found in the room with her cousin Nimbsch and two or three other young men? Your sister-in-law Dorothea! So young a woman had better not look at a picture before which it is thought necessary to hang a curtain, but it is beyond a jest when she takes a train of young men with her to see it. If one is without principles,--good heavens! it is hard enough to hold on to principles in this philosophic age, when one is puzzled to know upon what to base them,--one ought at least to have some feeling of decency, some æsthetic sentiment."
For some time of late the loungers in Bellevue Street had enjoyed an interesting morning spectacle. Before the hotel the first story of which was occupied by Countess Anna Lenzdorff, three beautiful thoroughbred horses pawed the ground impatiently between the hours of eight and nine. A stable-boy in velveteens held two of the horses, while a groom in a tall hat and buckskin breeches reverently held the bridle of the third steed, which was provided with a lady's saddle. The groom was bow-legged and red-faced, very English in appearance,--in fact, an ideal groom.
Before long a young lady would appear at the tall door of the house, a young lady in a close-fitting dark-blue riding-habit and a tall silk hat beneath which the knot of her gleaming hair showed in almost too great luxuriance, and close behind her would come a fair-haired officer of dragoons. After stroking her steed and feeding it with sugar, the young lady would place her foot in the willing hand of her tall escort and lightly leap into the saddle. Then there would be a slight arrangement of skirt and stirrup, and "Is it all right, Countess Erika?"
"Yes, Herr von Sydow."
And in an instant the officer and his groom would mount and the little cavalcade would wend its way with clattering hoofs to the adjacent Thiergarten.
At the close of the season Countess Lenzdorff had declared that her grand-daughter looked ill and needed exercise.
At first she prescribed a course of riding-lessons in the Imperial School; but Erika found this very irksome, and Goswyn was intrusted with the task of procuring her a riding horse and of teaching her to ride. Under his guidance she made astonishing progress, and then--she looked so lovely on horseback. When she began, the Thiergarten was cold and bare,--it was towards the end of March: now it was the end of April, and there was spring everywhere.
On the tall old trees the foliage, young and tender, drenched with sunlight, showed golden green, gleaming brown, and rosy red, shading off into transparency in the gradations of colour native to early spring, and in the midst of this harmonious variety here and there a grave dark fir would show its dark boughs not yet decorated with the slender green fingers in the gift of May. Among the trees the smooth surface of a pond would reflect the myriad tones of colour of the spring; the long shadows of morning stretched dark across the level sunlit sward of the openings in the woodland. The air was fresh and filled with the fragrance of cool moist earth and young vegetation, but mingling with its invigorating breath there was suddenly wafted a languid odour, intoxicatingly sweet, but with something sickening in its essence, and as the riders looked for its source they perceived among the spring greenery, covered to the tip of every bough with gleaming white blossoms, the luxuriant wild cherry.
Erika inhaled its heavy breath with eager delight, while Goswyn's dislike of it amounted almost to disgust.
Every day they rode thus together along the avenues of the Thiergarten, until they became familiar with every pond, every statue,--yes, even with the appearance of every rider. At times they would meet a couple of cavalry officers and exchange greetings; or a few infantry officers, much-enduring warriors, who seemed to find riding the most difficult duty required of them; or some gentleman in trade testing upon a hired steed his skill in horsemanship and pale with terror if he happened to lose a stirrup. Squadrons of young girls under the guardianship of a riding-master would come cantering along the smooth drive, some overflowing with youthful vitality, others evidently taking the exercise by order of a physician.
Of course Countess Lenzdorff had requested Goswyn's supervision for only the few first efforts in horsemanship made by her grand-daughter, never dreaming that he would sacrifice two hours of each day in trotting about the Thiergarten with the young girl. But week followed week and he was still riding daily with Erika. In themselves there could have been but little pleasure in these excursions always along the same familiar avenues,--longer flights into the surrounding country with only a groom as escort would have been thought indecorous,--and yet the two morning hours thus passed were more to the young dragoon than the whole day beside.
The girl was in such harmony with the early, fresh nature about them. She was still but a child; but just as she was, with her unblunted sensibilities, her eager warm-heartedness, he would fain have clasped her in his arms, and have claimed the right to cherish and nurture to their glorious development all the fine qualities now dormant within her, before she should be wounded and sore from the thorns that beset her pathway.
That her sentiments towards him bore no comparison with those he cherished for her he was perfectly aware; but what of that? Passion too easily aroused on her part would not have pleased him, and she frankly showed her preference for him among all the men of her acquaintance.
The old Countess did all that she could to further his wooing: if he had not been in love he would have thought that she did too much. It was foolish to delay.
The leaves had lost their first tender beauty and were full-grown, strong, and shining, as they rode one day along one of the narrowest bridle-paths in the Thiergarten,--a path where here and there a huge tree, which those who had laid out the park had not had the heart to sacrifice, almost obstructed the way. They trotted along briskly, like all beginners. Erika preferred a very swift pace, at which Goswyn sometimes demurred. On a sudden the girl's horse shied, violently startled by a wayfarer who had fallen asleep in the shade by the side of the path.
Very calmly, with no thought of danger, Erika not only kept her seat in the saddle, but quickly succeeded in soothing her horse.
All the more was Goswyn terrified, and no sooner was he convinced that Erika did not need his assistance than he turned angrily and soundly berated the unfortunate man, who was apparently intoxicated. Then, somewhat ashamed of his outburst, he rejoined Erika, who awaited him with a smile of surprise. He frowned; his cheeks were flushed. "Pardon me, Countess; I am very sorry," he said. "I could think of nothing but that you might have been thrown,---that tree--if you had lost your presence of mind----" He shuddered.
She shrugged her shoulders. "And what if I had? You were by."
At these words his face cleared. "Do you really feel such confidence in me?" he asked.
"I?" She looked at him in utter surprise. Why should he ask a question to which the reply was so self-evident?
His grave, manly face took on an expression of almost boyish embarrassment, and suddenly she became aware of his sentiments,--for the first time. She made a nervous effort to devise something that should hinder his confession, something that should spare him humiliation and herself pain: she could invent nothing. In vain did she search her mind for some, even the smallest, sensible evasive phrase, and at last she murmured, "The trees are very green for the time of year. Do you not think so?"
He smiled in spite of his agitation and confusion, and then said, in the slightly hoarse tone which always with him betokened intense earnestness, "Countess Erika, beyond a certain point twilight, lovely as it is, becomes intolerable; one longs for light." He paused, looked full in her face, and cleared his throat. "You must long have been aware of how I regard you?"
But she interrupted him hurriedly: "No, no; I have been aware of nothing,--nothing at all."
She trembled violently, and turned into a broad road, where a gay cavalcade came cantering towards her,--the Princess Dorothea and her train of several gentlemen.
"Turn to the right," called Goswyn, and the cavalcade passed, the dust raised by their horses enveloping everything like a misty cloud.
Erika coughed slightly. "Good heavens! perhaps he understood, and will save me from replying," she thought.
But no, he did not save her from replying.
"Well, Countess Erika?" he began, after a short pause, gently, but very firmly.
"Wha--what?" she stammered.
"Will you be my wife?"
She gasped for breath: never could she have believed that she should find it so hard to refuse an offer. But accept it--no; something within her rebelled against the thought--she could not.
"N--no. I am very sorry," she stammered, every pulse throbbing wildly. She was terribly agitated as she glanced timidly up at him. Not a muscle in his face moved.
"I was prepared for this," he murmured.
"Thank God, he does not care very much!" she thought, taking a long breath; and the next moment--nay, even that very moment--she was vexed that he did 'not care very much.'
They had reached the railway bridge, beneath which they were wont to turn into the grand avenue for a final gallop. For a moment she contemplated sacrificing to her rejected suitor this gallop, the crown and glory of their daily ride. She reined in her horse.
"No gallop?" he asked, as if nothing had passed between them, except that his voice was still a little hoarse.
"Oh, if you will. I only thought----" she stammered.
He replied with the chivalric courtesy with which he always treated her, "I am entirely at your service."
For a moment she hesitated; then, with a touch of the whip on her steed's right shoulder, she started.
"Oh, how glorious!" she exclaimed, as they turned just before reaching the pavement. "Shall we not have one more?"
And so they rode twice up and down the grand avenue. The air was clear and cool, and there was in it the fragrance of freshly-planed wood, coming from a large shed that was being erected on one side of the avenue for an exhibition of horses.
Years afterwards Erika could never recall that ride and her miserable cruelty without again perceiving that peculiar fragrance.
The young man was in direful plight. Whatever he might say, he had not been prepared for this. The last few days had been passed by him in a state of blissful agitation in which, try as he might, he could not torment himself with doubts. He had fallen from an immense height, and he was terribly bruised. In spite of all his self-control, he began to show it. Erika grew more and more depressed, glancing sympathizingly aside at him from time to time. Now she would far rather that he had not cared so much. Evidently she did not herself know what she really wished.
They trotted along side by side; then just as they turned into Bellevue Street he heard a low distressed voice say,--
"Herr von Sydow--I would not have you think that--that--I--intended to say that to you. I so value your friendship--I should be so very sorry to lose it--and--and----" She threw back her head slightly, and, looking him in the face from beneath the stiff brim of her riding-hat, she said, with a charming little smile, "Tell me that all shall be just as it has been between us."
"As you please, Countess Erika," he replied, unable to restrain a smile at this novel way of treating a rejected suitor.
When he lifted her from her horse shortly afterwards, he just touched her gray riding-glove with his lips; she looked kindly at him, and as he gazed after her from the hall as she ascended the staircase she turned her head to give him a friendly little nod.
His heart grew lighter; he would not take too seriously her rejection of his suit; it was not final. "After all," he thought, "in spite of her precocious intelligence she is but a charming, innocent child; and that is what makes her so bewitching."
The sunlight gleamed on the gilded tops of the iron railings of the front gardens in Bellevue Street, upon the leaves of the trees, and upon the long line of red-painted watering-carts stretching away in perspective like the beads of a huge rosary. The heat was already rather oppressive in Berlin. But Goswyn was robust, and sensitive neither to heat nor to cold. His ride with Erika was but the beginning of his daily exercise, and he trotted off to finish it.
In the Charlottenburg Avenue he encountered the same cavalcade he had seen before in the Thiergarten in the midst of his declaration to Erika. Thanks to her agitation, the girl had recognized none of the party, but he had bowed to his sister-in-law and her esquires. Now she beckoned to him from a distance, and called, "Goswyn!"
She was considerably taller and more slender than Erika, but she looked well in the saddle. Her gray-green eyes sparkled with malicious mockery from beneath the brim of her tall hat. "Goswyn," she cried, speaking with her accustomed rapidity in her high piercing voice and with her strange lisp, "you were just now made the subject of a wager."
"But, Thea," Prince Nimbsch interrupted his cousin, "we none of us agreed to wager with you."
"What was it about?" asked Goswyn, with a most uncomfortable presentiment that some annoyance threatened him.
The three men with Dorothea looked at one another; Dorothea giggled. At last Prince Nimbsch said, "My cousin wished to wager that the Countess Erika would be wooed and won this spring."
"Oh, no," Dorothea interrupted him; "that was not it at all. I wagered that you had been refused by Erika this morning in the Thiergarten, Gos. Helmy would not believe me; but I have sharp eyes."
She said it still giggling, with the wayward insolence of a spoiled child, not consciously cruel, who for very wantonness pulls a beetle to pieces. "Am I not right?" she persisted.
The men turned away as men of feeling would turn away from beholding an execution.
There was a red cloud before Goswyn's eyes, but he maintained his outward composure perfectly. "Yes, Dorothea, I have been rejected," he said, and the words sounded oddly distinct in the midst of the absolute silence of the little group, surrounded as it was by the bustle and noise of the capital. "May I ask what possible interest this can have for you?"
"Oh," she laughed still more insolently, ready as she always was to exaggerate her ill-breeding when she was tempted to be ashamed of it,--"oh, I only wanted to make sure I was right. Helmy contradicted me so positively, declaring that a man like you never could be rejected. Aha, Helmy! Well, the other Berlin men will be glad!"
"And why?" Goswyn asked, with the unfortunate persistence in pursuing a disagreeable subject often shown by strong men who would fain establish their lack of sensitiveness.
"Why? Because you are a dangerous rival, Goswyn," cried Dorothea. "Do you suppose that you are the only one to covet the hand of the heiress?"
For a moment Goswyn felt as if a naming torch had been hurled in his face. He grew giddy, but, still maintaining his self-control, he simply rejoined, "Dorothea, there are circumstances in which your sex is an immense protection," and then, turning with a bow to the three men, he galloped off in an opposite direction.
Dorothea still giggled, but she turned very pale; her companions, on the other hand, were scarlet.
"Ride home with whomsoever you please: I am ashamed to be seen with you!" Prince Nimbsch said, angrily; and he hurried after Sydow. But when he overtook him the two men looked at each other and were silent. At last Nimbsch began, "I only wanted to say----"
Goswyn interrupted him: "There is nothing to be said;" and there was a hoarse tone in his voice that pained the young Austrian. "I know you to be a gentleman, Prince, and that you consider me one. There is nothing to be said."
Before the Prince could say another word, Goswyn was well-nigh out of sight.
Two hours afterwards Goswyn von Sydow might have been seen on a horse covered with foam galloping over the sandy hilly tracts of land by which Berlin is surrounded. He had never bestowed a thought upon Erika's wealth: now he felt that he never could forget it. He had been robbed of all ease in her society. It was all over.