Stella has scarcely closed her eyes, when the train reaches Paris, about six o'clock. The morning is cold and damp, the usual darkness of the time of day disagreeably enhanced by the white gloom of an autumn fog,--a gloom which the street-lamps are powerless to counteract, and in which they show like lustreless red specks.
Through this depressing white gloom, Stella and her mother are driven in a rattling little omnibus, with a couple of other travellers, through a Paris as silent as the grave, to the Hôtel Bedford, Rue Pasquier. An Englishwoman at Nice once recommended it to the Baroness as that wonder of wonders, a first-class hotel with second-class prices, and it is under English patronage. English lords and ladies now and then occupy the first story, and consequently the garret-rooms are continually inhabited by impoverished but highly distinguished scions of English "county families." In the reading-room, between 'Burke's Peerage' and Lodge's 'Vicissitudes of Families' is placed an album containing the photographs of two peeresses. Theclientèleis as aristocratic as it is economical: each despises all the rest, and one and all dispute the weekly bills. Stella and her mother are by no means enchanted with this hotel, and they sally forth as soon as they are somewhat rested, in search of furnished lodgings.
But the funds are scanty: their expenses ought to be paid out of a hundred and fifty francs a month!
The first day passes, and our Austrians have as yet found nothing suitable. The cheapest lodgings are confined and dark, and smell, as the ladies express it, of English people; that is, of a mixture of camphor, patchouli, and old nut-shells. The bedrooms in these cheap lodgings consist of a sort of windowless closets, entirely dependent for ventilation upon a door into the drawing-room which can be left open at night.
Meanwhile, the living at the Bedford is dear. The Baroness arrives at the conclusion that private quarters at three hundred francs a month would be more economical, and finally decides to spend this sum upon her winter residence.
For three hundred francs very much better lodgings are to be had; the bedrooms have windows, but there are still all kinds of discomforts to be endured, the worst of which consists perhaps in the fact that none of the proprietors of these rooms, which are mostly intended for bachelors, is willing to undertake to provide food for the two ladies.
At last in the Rue de Lêze anappartementis found which answers their really moderate requirements; but just at the last moment the Baroness discovers that the concierge is a very suspicious-looking individual, and remembers that the previous year a horrible murder was committed in the Rue de Lêze; wherefore negotiations are at once broken off.
A prettyappartementin the Rue de l'Arcade pleases Stella particularly, perhaps because the drawing-room is furnished with buhl cabinets. The Baroness is just about to close with the concierge, who does the honours of the place,--there is merely a question of five francs to be settled,--when with a suspicious sniff she remarks, "'Tis strange how strongly the atmosphere of this room is impregnated with musk!"
Whereupon the concierge explains that the rooms have lately been occupied by Mexican gentlemen, who shared the reprehensible Southern habit of indulging too freely in perfumes; and when the Baroness glances doubtfully at a dressing-table which scarcely presents a masculine appearance, and which boasts a sky-blue pincushion stuck full of different kinds of pins, he hastens to add, without waiting to be questioned, that the Mexican gentlemen had chiefly occupied themselves in collecting and arranging butterflies.
"Mexican men would seem to have long fair hair, mamma," Stella here interposes, having just pulled a golden hair at least a yard long out of the crochetted antimacassar of a low chair.
The face of the Baroness, who always suspects French immorality everywhere, turns to marble; tossing her head, she grasps Stella by the hand and hurries out with her, passing the astounded concierge without so much as deigning to bid him good-bye.
She refuses to take a lodging in the Rue Pasquier, because it seems to her 'too reasonable;' she is convinced that some one must have died of cholera in a certain big bed with red curtains, else the rent never would have been so low.
At last, after a four days' pilgrimage, the ladies find what answers their requirements in a little hotel called 'At the Three Negroes,' kept by a kindly, light-hearted Irishwoman.
At the Baroness's first words, "We are looking for lodgings for two quiet, respectable ladies," she instantly rejoins, "My house will suit you exactly; the quietest house in all Paris. I never receive any--hm!--a certain kind of ladies, and never more than one Deputy; two always quarrel." Whereupon the Irishwoman and the Austrian lady come to terms immediately, and the Meinecks move into the second story of 'The Three Negroes' that very day, the Irishwoman being quite ready also to provide them with food. The price for a salon and two bedrooms--with very large windows, 'tis true, as Stella observes is three hundred and twenty francs a month.
After the lodgings are thus fortunately secured the Baroness sets about finding a singing-teacher for Stella. Always decided and to the point, she goes directly to the man in authority at the Grand Opera to inquire for a 'first-class Professor.' Oddly enough, it appears that this authority has no time to attend to matters so important. Dismissed with but slight encouragement, the Baroness tries her fortune at the office of one of the smaller operas; but since she presents herself here with her daughter without introduction of any kind, the official seated behind a dusty writing-table has no time to devote to her, all that he has being absorbed in a quarrel with two ladies who have just applied to him for the ninth time,--"yes," he exclaims, with a despairing flourish of his hands, "for the ninth time this month, for free tickets!"
Whilst the Baroness and Stella linger hesitatingly on the threshold, a slender, sallow young man with sharply-cut features, and with a picturesque Astrachan collar and a very long surtout, enters the place by an opposite door. He scans Stella's face and figure keenly, and, approaching her, asks what she desires. The Baroness informs him of their business, whereupon ensues an exchange of civilities and mutual introductions.
The gentleman in the fur collar is none other than the famous impresario Morinski, now on the lookout for a new Patti.
With a pleasant glance towards Stella, he asks who has been the young lady's teacher hitherto.
Of whom has she not taken lessons! The list of her teachers embraces Carelli at Naples, Lamperti at Milan, Garcia in London, and Tosti in Rome.
Here Morinski shakes his black curly head, says, "Too many cooks spoil the broth," and asks, "Why did you not stay longer with one teacher?"
The Baroness takes it upon herself to reply, and explains at considerable length how her historical schemes and researches have hitherto rendered a wandering life for herself and her daughter imperatively necessary.
Morinski, who seems to take more interest in Stella's fine eyes than in her mother's historical studies, interrupts the elder lady with some rudeness, and, turning to Stella, asks, "Do you intend to go upon the stage?"
"Yes," Stella meekly replies.
"Only upon condition of her capacity to become a star of the first magnitude should I consent to my daughter's going upon the stage," the Baroness declares, in her magnificent manner.
"It is a little difficult to prognosticate with certainty in such a case," Herr Morinski observes, with an odd smile. "Hm! hm! You may sometimes see a brilliant meteor flash across the skies, larger apparently than any of the stars; you fix your eyes upon it, but hardly have you begun to admire so exquisite a natural phenomenon when it has vanished. Another time you scarcely perceive a small red spark lying on the pavement, but before you are aware of it, it has set fire to half the town. Just so it is with our artisticdébuts."
At the close of this tirade, which Herr Morinski has enunciated in very harsh French with a strong Jewish accent, he turns again to Stella and asks, "Will you sing me something? It would interest me very much to hear you."
Stella's heart beats fast. How many other singers have had to engage in an interminable correspondence and to entreat for infinite patronage before gaining admission to the famous Morinski and inducing him to listen to them, while he has asked her to sing, unsolicited, after scarcely ten minutes' conversation!
She gratefully accedes to his proposal.
"I should greatly prefer your making the trial on the stage itself, rather than in the foyer," says Morinski. "I could decide far better as to the strength of your voice. Have the kindness to follow me."
And, leading the way, he precedes them through an endless labyrinth of ill-lighted corridors to the stage, which, illuminated at this hour by only a couple of foot-lights, shows gray and colourless against the pitch-dark auditorium.
The boards of the stage are marked with various lines in chalk, cabalistic signs of mysterious significance to Stella; in front of the prompter's box stands a prima donna with her bonnet-strings untied and her fur cloak hanging loosely about her shoulders, singing in an undertone a duet with a tenor in a tall silk hat who is kneeling at her feet; at the piano, just below, sits the leader of the orchestra, a little Italian, with long, straight, white hair, and dark eyebrows that protrude for at least an inch over his fierce black eyes, pounding away at the accompaniment, evidently more to accentuate the rhythm than with any desire to accompany harmoniously the duet of the pair.
"The rehearsal will be over immediately," Morinski assures the two ladies.
In fact, the duo between the prima donna and the tenor shortly comes to an end. A short discussion ensues, during which the prima donna alternately scolds the leader, whom she accuses of paying no attention to theritardandos, and the tenor for his "lamentable want of all passion."
Morinski throws himself metaphorically between the disputants and kisses the prima donna's hand. Without paying him much attention, she scans Stella from head to foot, says, with an ironical depression of the corners of her mouth, "Ah! a new star, Morinski!" and withdraws, with an intensely theatrical stride, her loose fur dolman trailing behind her.
"Hm! a new star, Morinski!" the leader repeats also ironically, stuffing an immense pinch of snuff the while into his nose.
"Let us hope so," Morinski replies, with reproving courtesy.
"Is the signorina to sing us something? It is twelve o'clock, Morinski; I am hungry. If it must be, let us be quick. What shall I accompany for you, mademoiselle?"
"Ah fors' è lui che l'anima!" Stella says, in a shy whisper, "from----"
"I know, I know,--from Traviata," the leader replies. "You sing it in the original key?"
"Yes."
Almost before Stella has time to take breath, the little man has struck the chords of the prelude. In the midst of the aria he takes his hands from the keys, and shakes his head disapprovingly, so that his long hair flutters about his ears.
"Eh bien?" Morinski calls, with some irritation.
"I have heard enough," the other declares, decidedly. "Haven't you, Morinski? It is a perfectly impossible way to sing,--a perfectly impossible way!"
"Do not be discouraged, Fräulein," says Morinski, reassuringly. "Your voice is superb, full, soft,--one of the finest that I have heard for a long time."
"I do not say no, Morinski," the leader interposes, with the croak of a raven, "but she is absolutely lacking in rhythm, routine, and aplomb."
"She needs a good teacher," says Morinski.
"The teacher has nothing to do with it!" shouts the leader, and with an annihilating stare at Stella he sums up his judgment of her in the words, "C'est une femme du monde. You will never make a singer of her!" Then, with the energy that characterizes his every movement, he sets about trying to repair the injury he has just done to his silk hat by brushing it the wrong way.
Poor Stella's eyes fill with tears. Morinski takes both her hands:
"Do not be discouraged, I beg of you, my dear mademoiselle, I entreat;" and with an ardent glance at her delicate face he assures her, "Believe me, you have great qualifications for success on the stage."
"Trust to my experience,--the experience of forty years; you never will succeed on the stage!" shouts the Italian.
"Never mind what he says," Morinski whispers. "I will do all I can for you. I shall take great pleasure in superintending your lessons personally."
But the leader has sharp ears: "Pas de bêtises, Morinski!" He has put on his hat, and is searching with characteristic eagerness in all his pockets. "There is my card," he says, at last, drawing it forth and handing it to the Baroness. "If you want your daughter taught to sing, take her to della Seggiola, Rue Lamartine, No ----, the singing-teacher of the Faubourg Saint-Germain and the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, precisely what you want. Refer to me if you like; he will make his charges reasonable for you.Dio mio, how hungry I am!Allons, Morinski!"
This is the exact history of Stella Meineck's trial of her voice at the lyric opera in Paris.
The Baroness has just enough sense and prudence left not to allow Stella to take lessons of Morinski.
Following the advice of the energetic Italian, she takes her daughter to Signor della Seggiola.
Winter--such winter as Paris is familiar with--has set in, to make itself at home. The gardeners have stripped the squares and public gardens of their last flowers; the trees and the grass and the bare sod are powdered with snow. When one says 'as white' or 'as pure' as snow, one must never think of Paris snow, for it is brown, black, gray,--everything except white; and, as if ashamed of its characterless existence, it creeps as soon as possible into the earth.
Full six weeks have passed since the Meinecks took up their abode in 'The Three Negroes.' In order to increase their means, the Baroness has generously determined to write newspaper articles, although she has a supreme contempt for all journalistic effort, and she has also completed two shorter essays, for which the Berlin 'Tribune' paid her twenty-five marks.
With a view to making her descriptions of the world's capital vividly real, she pursues her study of Paris with all the thoroughness that characterizes her study of history. She has visited the Morgue, as well as Valentino's, note-book in hand, but escorted by an old carpenter, who once mended a trunk for her and won her heart by his sensible way of talking politics. She paid him five francs for his companionship, and maintains that he was far less tiresome at Valentino's than a fine gentleman. She has devised a most interesting visit shortly to be paid to the Parisian sewers. Meanwhile, in order to make herself perfectly familiar with the life of the streets, she spends three hours daily, two in the forenoon and one in the afternoon, upon the top of various omnibuses.
And Stella,--how does she pass her time? Four times a week she takes a singing-lesson,--two private lessons, and two in della Seggiola's 'class,' besides which she practises daily for about two hours at home. She is at liberty to spend the rest of her time in any mode of self-culture that pleases her. She can go, if she is so inclined, to the Rue Richelieu with her mother, or visit the Louvre alone, can attend to little matters at home, or read learned works and write extracts from them in the book bound in antique leather which her mother gave her upon her birthday.
What wealth of various and interesting occupations and pleasures for a girl of twenty-one! It is quite inconceivable, but nevertheless it is true, that in spite of them she feels lonely and unhappy,--grows daily more nervous and restless, and, without being able to define exactly the cause of her sadness, more melancholy. Her energetic mother, to whom such a vague discontent is absolutely inconceivable, reproaches her with a want of earnestness in her studies and induces a physician to prescribe iron for her.
What is there that iron is not expected to cure?
To-day Stella is again alone at home; her mother has gone out after lunch to take her bird's-eye view of Paris from the top of an omnibus. She has graciously offered to take Stella with her, but Stella thanks her and declines; she detests riding in omnibuses, on the top she grows dizzy, and inside she becomes ill.
"Well, I suppose the only thing that would really please you would be to drive in a barouche-and-pair in the Bois," her mother remarks. "Unfortunately, that I cannot afford." With which she hurries away.
Stella's throat aches; she often has a throat-ache,--the specific throat-ache of a poor child of mortality who has learned to sing with seven different professors, and whose voice has been treated at different times as a soprano, a mezzo-soprano, and a deep contralto. She has been obliged to stop practising in consequence, to-day, and has taken up a volume of Gibbon, but is toodistraiteto comprehend what she reads. It really is strange how slight an interest she takes in the decline of the Roman Empire.
"And if I should not succeed upon the stage, if my voice should not turn out well," she constantly asks herself, "what then? what then?"
Why, for a moment--oh, how her cheeks hum as she recalls her delusion!--she absolutely allowed herself to imagine that---- How bitterly she has learned to sneer at her fantastic dreams!
"Has Edmund Rohritz's wife not yet been to see you?" Leskjewitsch had asked her mother in a letter shortly before. "You do not know her, but I begged Edgar awhile ago to send her to you,--she would be so advantageous an acquaintance for Stella."
"She would indeed," the poor child thinks; "but not even his old friend's request has induced him to do me a kindness."
Her sad, weary glance wanders absently over the various lithographs that adorn the walls, portraits of famous singers, Tamberlik, Rubini, Mario, all with the signature of those celebrities. Apparently the hotel must formerly have enjoyed an extensive artistic patronage.
She takes up Gibbon once more, and does her best to become absorbed in the destinies of the tribunes of the people. In vain.
"Good heavens!" she exclaims, irritably, "who could read a serious book in all this noise? And 'The Negroes' was recommended to us as a quiet hotel!"
The Deputy from the south of France is pacing the room above her to and fro, now repeating in a murmur and anon declaiming with grotesque pathos to the empty air the speech which he is learning by heart.
In the room next to him an amateur performer is piping 'The Last Rose of Summer' on a very hoarse flute,--an English bagman, who is suffering from an inflammation of the eyes, wherefore we must not grudge him his musical distractions. He is piping 'The Last Rose' for the eighteenth time; Stella has counted.
"'Tis beyond endurance!" the girl exclaims, closing her Gibbon. "Ah, heavens, how dreary life is!" she groans. "I wish I were dead!"
Just then there comes a ring at the door. Stella opens it. A tall, smooth-shaven lackey stands in the corridor and hands her a card:
"La Baronne Edmond de Rohritz, née Princesse Capito."
"Madame la Baronne wishes to know if the Frau Baroness is receiving?" the man asks, vanishing when Stella assents.
"He probably takes me for a waiting-maid," Stella thinks, childishly, not without some petty annoyance that she was forced to open the door herself for the servant, and she hurries into the salon, to put away a piece of mending which is by no means ornamental. Scarcely has she done so when a light foot-fall comes tripping up the stairs. There is another ring, and again Stella opens the door. A lady enters, slender, very pale, with delicately-cut features, and large, black, rather restless eyes, which she slightly closes as she looks at Stella, and then pleasantly holds out her hand:
"Mademoiselle Meineck,n'est-ce pas?"
Not for one moment is she in doubt whether this tall girl in a plain stuff dress be a soubrette or not.
"My brother-in-law Rohritz wrote me some time ago telling me to call upon your mother and yourself and to ask if I could be of any service to you. I have promised myself the pleasure of doing so every day since; my very critical brother's letter inspired me with eager curiosity; but one never has time for anything in Paris,--nothing pleasant, that is. Well, here I am at last. Is your mother at home?"
"My mother has gone out, but will shortly return; she would greatly regret missing you, madame. If you could be content with my society for a while----" Stella rejoins.
"I should be delighted to have a little talk with you," the lady assures her; "but do you suppose I have time to stay? What an idea in Paris! I had to fairly steal a quarter of an hour of time already appropriated to come to see you. We must postpone our talk. I trust I shall see a great deal of you; I am always at leisure in the evening,--that is, when I do not have to go to bed from sheer fatigue! And how have you passed the time since you came to Paris?"
Madame de Rohritz has installed herself in an arm-chair by the fireplace, has put up her veil and thrown back her furs from her shoulders.
A delicate fragrance exhales from her robes; all Parisian women use perfumes, but how refined, how exquisite, is this fragrance compared with the overpowering odour ofPeau, d'Espagnewhich surrounds the Princess Oblonsky!
Thérèse Rohritz does not possess her brother's beauty, but everything about her is graceful and attractive,--her veiled glance,--a glance which can be half impertinent sometimes, but which rests upon Stella with evident liking,--her beaming and yet slightly weary smile,--yes, even her hurried articulation and her high-pitched but soft and melodious voice.
"How have you passed the time since you came to Paris?" she asks again.
"We live very quietly," Stella stammers. "Mamma is studying that she may finish her book, and of course has no time to go out with me."
"Yes, yes, I know; my brother-in-law told me," Madame de Rohritz replies. "And you----"
"I? I take singing-lessons four times a week."
"My brother-in-law wrote me that you intend to go upon the stage." Madame de Rohritz laughs. "If I were a Frenchwoman I should be horrified at the idea, but I am half an Austrian. I know those whims: a cousin of mine, a Russian, Natalie Lipinski----"
"Natalie Lipinski! Ah!" Stella exclaims; "my fellow-student. We take lessons together twice a week in Signor della Seggiola's class."
"Indeed! Well, she is thinking of going upon the stage,--and with a fortune of ten million roubles. In Austria and Russia such ideas will take possession of the brains of the best-born and best-bred girls;cela ne tire pas à consequence!I never oppose Natalie, but I mean to have her married before she knows what she is about. And what shall I do with you, my fair one with the golden locks? Do you know I like you exceedingly?Le coup de foudre en plein,--love at first sight."
The clock on the chimney-piece--a clock apparently dating from the days when 'L'Africaine' was the rage, for the face is adorned with a manchineel-tree in miniature and a barbaric maiden in a head-dress of feathers dying beneath it--strikes three.
The lady starts up, takes out her watch, and compares it with the clock.
"Positively three o'clock, and my poor little boy is waiting for me in the carriage! I was to take him to his solfeggio class at three. Adieu, adieu; my compliments to your mother, andau revoir, n'est-ce pas?" She turns once again in the door-way, and, taking both Stella's hands, says, "You will come to dine with us once this week with your mother quiteen famillethe first time, that we may learn to know one another. I will excuse a formal call: you can pay that later: it is silly to lose time with formalities when one issimpatica. Adieu, adieu. What beautiful eyes you have!Je me sauve!"
The lively young madame kisses Stella's forehead, and then goes--or rather flies--away.
Stella's heart beats fast and loud.
"After all, he sent her: he has not quite forgotten me."
"Hm! indeed! Now I can no longer be shabby at my ease." These were the words with which the Baroness on her return home greeted Stella's joyous announcement of Madame de Rohritz's visit. "I took such pleasure in living in a place where nobody knew me."
However problematical in some respects the creative power of the Baroness may be, she is certainly thoroughly saturated with what the English call 'the sublime egotism of genius.'
When on the morning after her visit a note redolent of violets arrives from Madame de Rohritz, inviting in the kindest manner the two ladies to dinner at half-past seven the next evening but one, the Baroness makes a wry face, and remarks that really Madame de Rohritz might have waited until her call had been returned,--that such a degree of eagerness on the part of a woman of the world betokens a degree of exaggeration,--but, despite her grumbling, permits herself to accede to the entreaty in her daughter's eyes, and to accept the invitation.
"Upon condition that you attend to my dress," she says; to which Stella of course makes no objection.
The evening wardrobe of the Baroness consists of a black velvet gown which is now precisely seventeen years old, and which underwent renovation at the time of her eldest daughter's marriage. The number of Stella's evening dresses is limited to two very charming gowns which the colonel had made for her in Venice, regardless of expense, by the best dress-maker there, but which are at present slightly old-fashioned.
But, neglectful as the Baroness is about her personal appearance, she has an air of great distinction when she makes up her mind to be presentable, and covers her short gray hair, usually flying loose about her ears, with a black lace cap; while Stella is always charming. She would be lovely in the brown robe of a monk; in her pale-blue cachemire, with a bunch of yellow roses on her left shoulder, directly below her ear, she is bewitching. Her heart throbs not a little as she drives with her mother in a draughty, rattling fiacre across Paris to the Avenue Villiers.
She is not at all tired of life to-day, but, entirely forgetting how quickly her air-built castles fall to ruin, she is eagerly engaged again in similar architecture.
Madame de Rohritz occupies a rather small hôtel with a court-yard and garden. The entire household conveys the impression of distinguished comfort without ostentation. In the vestibule--a gem of a vestibule, with two ancient Japanese monsters on either side of the door of entrance, with Flanders tapestries embroidered in gold on the walls, and Oriental rugs under-foot--a servant relieves the ladies of their wraps.
Stella immediately perceives by the way in which her mother arranges her hair before the mirror that, whether it be the monsters at the door, or the Arazzi on the wall, something has had a beneficial effect upon her mood,--that to-night, as is sometimes the case, her ambition is roused to prove that a learned woman under certain circumstances can be more amiable and amusing than any woman with nothing in her head save 'dress and the men.'
In the salon, whither they are conducted by the maître-d'hôtel, a familiar spirit who is half a head shorter but half a head more dignified than the footman, they find only the master of the house. Not introduced, and quite unacquainted, he nevertheless advances with both hands extended, saying,--
"It rejoices me exceedingly to welcome two of my compatriots!"
"It rejoices us also," the Baroness amiably assures him.
Baron Rohritz scans her with discreetly-veiled curiosity. "Why did my brother write that I should find the Baroness rather extraordinary at first? She is a charming, distinguished old lady." Aloud he says, "My wife made promises loud and earnest to be here in time to present me to the ladies; but it seems she was mistaken."
"Perhaps we were too punctual," the Baroness replies, smiling.
"Not at all," the Baron declares; "but my poor wife is proverbially unpunctual. No one has ever been able to convince her that there are but sixty minutes in an hour, and consequently she always tries to do in an afternoon that for which an entire week would hardly suffice. Pray warm yourselves meanwhile, ladies: here, these are the most comfortable places,--not too near the blaze. I have had an Austrian fire made for you, and have actually nearly succeeded in warming the entire salon. We Austrians require a higher degree of heat than these crazy Frenchmen; they always maintain they are never cold; they are quite satisfied if they can see a little picturesque blaze in the chimney, and they sit down close to it and thrust their hands and feet and heads into it, thereby giving themselves chilblains, neuralgia, rheumatism, and heaven knows what else; but they are never cold."
Although the fire is large enough, Baron Rohritz throws on another log, so eager is he to bear his testimony to the affectation and self-conceit of the Parisians.
"How wonderfully cosey and comfortable you have contrived to make your home here! As I entered I seemed to be breathing the air of Austria. Since we came to Paris I have not felt so comfortable as at present," says the Baroness. If Baron Rohritz knew that since her arrival in Paris her time has been spent either on the top of an omnibus or in rather comfortless furnished lodgings, the worth of this compliment might be less: in happy ignorance, however, he feels extremely flattered, and, with a bow, rejoins,--
"I am very glad our nest pleases you. The chief credit for its arrangement belongs to my wife. You cannot imagine how she runs herself out of breath to pick up pretty things. But it is like Austria here, is it not?"
"Entirely," the Baroness assures him.
"My wife is incomprehensible to me," the master of the house remarks, after the above interchange of civilities, glancing uneasily at the clock on the chimney-piece. "It is now just half an hour since I helped her half dead out of a fiacre, with I cannot tell how many packages. I trust she is not----"
The portière rustles apart. Extremely slender, bringing with her the odour of violets, and shrouded in a mass of black crêpe de Chine and black lace, dying with fatigue and sparkling with vivacity, the Baroness Rohritz enters, fastening the clasp of a bracelet as she does so.
"Good-evening. I beg a thousand pardons! I am excessively glad to make your acquaintance, Baroness Meineck. Can you forgive my ill-breeding in keeping you waiting on this the first evening that you have given me the pleasure of seeing you here? It is terrible!"
"Ah, don't mention it," the Baroness replies, and, although the younger lady speaks German in her honour, answering in French: she is very proud of her French.
"Mais si, mais si, I am most unfortunate, but innocent,--quite innocent. It is positively impossible to be in time in Paris. Well, and how do you do?" turning to Stella and lightly passing her hand over the girl's cheek. "You are always twitting me with my enthusiasm, Edmund: did I exaggerate this time?"
"No, not in the least," her husband affirms: it would have been difficult, however, for him to make any other reply without infringing upon the rules of politeness.
"Who made your dress for you? It is charming. And how beautifully you have put in your roses!--but violet suits light blue better than yellow. Shall we change?" And, unfastening the roses from Stella's shoulder, Thérèse Rohritz takes a bunch of dark Russian violets from her girdle and arranges them on Stella's gown, all with the same graceful, laughing, breathless amiability.
To conquer all hearts, to make everybody happy, to give every one advice, to attend to every one's commissions, to oblige all the world,--this is the mania of Edgar's sister-in-law. He once declared that she went whirling through existence, a perfect hurricane of over-excellent qualities.
"What are we waiting for, Thérèse?" the master of the house interrupts the flow of his wife's eloquence, in a rather impatient tone.
"For Zino."
"He excused himself. I put his note on your dressing-table. When he received your invitation he was unfortunately--very unfortunately, underscored--engaged; but he hopes to be here soon after ten," Rohritz explains, having rung the bell meanwhile, whereupon the maître-d'hôtel, throwing open the folding-doors, announces,--
"Madame la Baronne est Servie."
One observation Stella makes during the dinner,--namely, that married people apparently living happily together in Paris suffer quite as much from a chronic difference of opinion as those in Austria. Baron Rohritz and Thérèse do not quarrel one iota less than Jack Leskjewitsch and his wife.
Although Rohritz, as a former diplomatist,--a career which he abandoned five years ago on account of a difference with his chief and an absolute lack of ambition,--and from long residence in Paris, speaks perfect French, the conversation at his special request is carried on in German.
During dinner he incessantly makes all kinds of comparisons between Austria and France, of course to the disadvantage of the latter country. Nothing suits him in Paris; he abuses everything, from the perfect cooking, as it appears at his own table, to the exquisite troop of actors at the Français.
"I have no objection to make to the fish," he says, condescendingly. "I am entirely without prejudice; and when there is anything to be praised in France I always do it justice. But look at the game: French game is deplorable,--marshy, tasteless, without flavour. Even the Strasburg pie can be had better in Vienna. Do you not think so?"
"You will be thought an actual ogre, Edmund," Thérèse remonstrates, half laughing, half vexed. "You talk of nothing to-day but food."
"Perhaps so; but, as you will have observed, only from a lofty, strictly patriotic point of view," her husband remarks, composedly.
"Of course," Thérèse replies. "I can, however, assure you," she says, turning to her guests, "that although I cannot defend the Parisians in all respects, in one thing they are far beyond the Viennese: although they do not fall behind them in cookery, they think much less of things to eat."
"True," Edmund agrees, "and very naturally; they think less of their eating because they can't eat; they have no digestion. They certainly are a weak, degenerate race. Did you ever watch a regiment of French soldiers march past, ladies, either cavalry or infantry? It is quite pitiable, their military. Do you not think so?"
The Baroness cannot help admitting that he is measurably right this time, and as the widow of a soldier she indulges in a hymn of praise of the Austrian army, thus enchanting the Baron, who before entering the diplomatic corps served, to complete his education, in a cavalry regiment.
"I should really like to know why these people are in such a hurry," he begins again, after a while, calling attention to the speed with which dinner is being served. "I suppose the rascals intend to go to Valentino's after dinner."
"Their hurry will do them no good then," Thérèse remarks, shrugging her shoulders; "they will have to serve tea later in the evening. I simply suppose that they take it as a personal affront that we should converse in a language which they do not understand."
"Possibly," sighs Rohritz. "These Parisian lackeys are intolerable; their pretensions far outstrip our modest Austrian means. You may read plainly in their faces, 'I serve, 'tis true, but I adhere to the immortal principles of '89.' Every fellow is convinced that his period of servitude is only an intermezzo in his life, and that some fine day he shall be Duke of Persigny or Malakoff,--in short, a far grander gentleman than I. Am I not right, Thérèse?"
"Perfectly," his wife asserts. "But let me ask you one question, my dear: if you find Paris so inferior in everything, from Strasburg pie to the domestics, why did you not stay in Vienna?"
"Oh, that is another question,--quite a different question," Rohritz replies.
"Ah, yes," Thérèse says, triumphantly. "You must know, ladies, that my husband's patriotism is not so ardent as would seem, but rather of a platonic character; he loves his country at a distance. When, five years ago, after we had been here some time, he gave up his career and wanted to go back to Vienna, I made no objections whatever, and we established ourselves in his beloved native city, at first only provisionally. At the end of six months he was so frightfully bored that he actually longed for Paris."
Edmund dips his fingers in his finger-glass with a slightly embarrassed air.
"That is true," he admits. "Paris is the Manon Lescaut of European capitals: worthless thing that she is, we can never be rid of her if she has once bewitched us."
And as Thérèse prepares to rise from table he asks, "Do you object to a cigarette, ladies, and are you fond of children? Then, Thérèse, let us take coffee in the smoking-room, where I am sure the children are waiting for me."
The smoking-room is a somewhat narrow apartment, with a large Oriental rug before the broad double windows, with very beautiful old weapons in a couple of stands against the wall, and with heavy antique carved oaken chests. The broad low arm-chairs and divans are covered with Oriental rugs and carpets which Rohritz, as he informs Stella, brought from Cairo himself.
The two children, a little boy twelve years old, with tight red stockings and very short breeches, and a little girl hardly three, in a white gown, with bare legs and arms, help their mamma to serve the coffee. Momond takes the ladies their cups, and Baby is steady enough on her legs to trip after him with a face of great solemnity, carrying the silver sugar-bowl tightly hugged up in her arms. After she has happily completed her round she puts the sugar-bowl down before her mother, with a sigh of relief as over a difficult duty fulfilled, and smooths down her short, stiff skirts with a very decorous air. But when her father, from the other side of the room, where he is talking with Stella, smiles at her, she runs to him with a glad cry, forgetting all decorum springs into his lap, and is petted and caressed by him to his heart's content.
"Do you know whom that picture represents, Baroness Stella?" the host now asks, pointing to a life-size photograph hanging beneath the portrait in oil of a beautiful, fair woman. Although Stella had noticed the photograph as soon as she entered the smoking-room, she pretends to have her attention attracted by it for the first time.
"Yes, the likeness can still be recognized," she replies, bestowing a critical glance upon the picture, "although if it ever looked really like Baron Edgar Rohritz he must have altered very much."
"Of course," says Rohritz: "the picture was taken twelve years ago. Edgar had it taken for our mother, just before he went to Mexico. When he returned to Europe, three years later, our mother was dead, and he was gray,--gray at twenty-seven! As he was always our mother's favourite, I have hung his picture below hers."
"I maintain that photograph to be the handsomest head of a man which I know," Thérèse interrupts her conversation with the Baroness to declare. "We often dispute about it with my brother Zino, who always cites the Apollo Belvedere as the highest type of manly beauty----"
"Because he himself resembles that arrogant fellow in the Vatican," her husband interposes, dryly.
It is strange how constantly the elder brother recalls Baron Edgar, although considerably older, and by no means so distinguished in looks.
Meanwhile, Thérèse runs on with her usual fluency:
"It is an immense pity that my brother-in-law cannot make up his mind to marry. You really cannot imagine, ladies, the pains I have taken to throw the lasso over his head. Quite in vain! And such superb matches as I have made for him,--Marguerite de Lusignan, who has just married the Duke Cesarini, and the charming Marie de Gallière,--in short, the loveliest, wealthiest girls,--tout ce qu'il y a de mieux. Oddly enough, the mothers liked him as well as the daughters. In vain! I never have seen a man with so decided a distaste for matrimony as Edgar's. Did you chance to hear of the scheme by which he contrived in Grätz to rid himself of manœuvring mammas?"
"Yes," says Stella, very coldly: "he spread abroad a report that he had suddenly lost his property."
"A delicious idea," Thérèse laughs. "Do you not think so?"
Stella is silent.
"It never occurred to him to originate the report," Edmund interposes now, rather irritably; "he was merely too lazy to contradict it. To hear you talk, Thérèse, one would suppose Edgar to be the most self-conceited coxcomb under the sun,--a man who spent his life in defending himself from the attacks of matrimonially-inclined ladies. But I assure you, Baroness Stella, that Edgar has not a trace of such nonsensical coxcombry. Perhaps you know him well enough to make your own estimate of his character."
"I know him very superficially," Stella replies, with a shrug.
"Why, I thought you spent several weeks last summer with him at Leskjewitsch's," says Rohritz, looking at her in surprise.
Without making any reply to this remark, Stella opens and shuts her fan, and says, with a slight curl of her lip, "His heroic opposition seems overcome at last; for, as I learned lately from a letter from Grätz, he has just been betrothed to a certain little Countess Strahlheim."
"Who wrote you so?" Thérèse cries. "That interests me immensely! Oh, the Machiavelli!"
"I had the intelligence from a Fräulein von Gurlichingen," says Stella.
"Gurlichingen? Anastasia Gurlichingen?" asks the Baron.
"You know the Gurlichingen?" Stella asks, in her turn.
"Know her! Who does not know the Gurlichingen?" says Rohritz. "She is the most restless phantom I have ever encountered, continually fluttering to and fro through the world, always in the train of some wealthy friend who pays her expenses. It has been her specialty hitherto to sacrifice herself for consumptive ladies: she has haunted Meran, Cairo, Corfu. There was no taint of legacy-hunting in her conduct,--heaven forbid such a suspicion! Hm! my brother-in-law Zino christened her the turkey-buzzard. If you owe your piece of news to no more trustworthy source of information, Baroness Stella, I must take the liberty of doubting its correctness."
"You know she is in Paris? She called upon me a little while ago, but I was not at home," said Thérèse, turning to Stella. "Have you any idea whom she is with now?"
"With the Princess Oblonsky," Stella replies.
"With the Oblonsky? Not with the former von Föhren?" husband and wife exclaim simultaneously.
"Certainly!"
"What a joke!--with the Oblonsky!"
Thérèse almost chokes with laughter.
It is ten o'clock. The children have long since disappeared with theirbonne; the servant has brought in the tea-equipage. There is a pause in the conversation, such as is apt to ensue when people have laughed until they are tired. The Baron puts a fresh log on the fire and rakes the embers together. The blaze flames and crackles; little hovering lights and shadows dance over the old golden-brown leather tapestries. Suddenly the door opens, and unannounced, with thesans gêneof close relationship, a young man enters the room, tall, slender, with a certain attractive audacity expressed in the lines about his mouth and in his eyes which puts beyond question his resemblance to the Olympian dandy. It is the Apollo of modern drawing-room dimensions, the Apollo forty-four years old, already a little gray about the temples, with a wrinkle or two at the corners of his eyes, in a coat of Poole's, a gardenia in his button-hole, his crush hat under his arm,--Prince Zino Capito!
"Pray present me," he says, after he has greeted his sister, and Stella also, turning towards the Baroness.
"And you already know my new star?" Thérèse exclaims, in surprise, after she has fulfilled his request.
The Prince looks full at Stella, with a look peculiar to himself, a look in which admiration reaches the boundary of impertinence without crossing it,--then says, smiling,--
"Çà, Sasa!" when he is in a good humour he calls his sister thus, by the name which he gave her when he was a lisping baby in the nursery,--"ça, Sasa, do you really suppose that I would have rushed back from Lyons simply on the strength of the enthusiastic description of your latesttrouvaillethat you sent me in your note of invitation? No, my little sister, I am too well aware of your liability to acute attacks of enthusiasm not to receive your brilliant perorations with a justifiable mistrust. I once had the pleasure of seeing Mademoiselle very often, for a while," he continues, speaking French.
"Where?--when?" asks Thérèse.
"Three years ago, in Venice. Baron Meineck lived at the Britannia, where I also lodged, and Fräulein Stella came to Venice to take care of him.--They were sad days for you," he says, turning to Stella, very gravely, and with a degree of cordiality which he can impart to his voice when he chooses.
"And yet they were delightful days for me in spite of all," Stella replies, her eyes full of tears, and turning away her head.
"Most certainly you can look back to that time with a contented heart," he continues, in the same sympathetic tone. "I never have seen a daughter----" Suddenly he notices how the Baroness's glance rests upon him, and, becoming aware of the delicate nature of the situation, he finishes his sentence as best he can and tries to change the subject. But the Baroness has lost her equanimity: it is always intensely painful to her to know that she recalls to strangers the fact that her husband in his last illness was obliged to forego her care; Capito's words are like a reproof to her.
"Will you have the kindness to have a fiacre called for us?" she says, turning to the host.
Resisting all entreaties to prolong her stay, and to take another cup of tea, she pleads fatigue, the necessity of rising early, and so forth. When Capito takes leave of her he asks permission to pay his respects to the ladies.
But the Baroness begs him to give himself no further trouble with regard to them, as she is scarcely ever at home,--whereupon she vanishes on the arm of the host, and the Prince twirls his moustache with a comical grimace.
"What annoys you, Zino?" Edmund asks on his return to the smoking-room; and when the Prince enlightens him as to the extent of his lack of tact, and the unfortunate family history of the Meinecks, he says,--
"I really do not see why Edgar considered it necessary to prepare us so carefully for the absurdities of the old Baroness. It is quite possible that she drove her husband distracted with her learning: nevertheless in ordinary intercourse she is very agreeable, and a very handsome old lady: she must have been handsomer in her time than her daughter."
"Do you think so?" asks Thérèse. "To me Stella seems charming."
"Elle est tout bêtement adorable," says Zino Capito, drinking his tea out of the Japanese cup his sister has just handed him. "How good your tea is, Sasa! in all Paris no one has such good tea as yours."
"You are very suspiciously complimentary," Thérèse rejoins. "What do you want me to do for you?"
"Ask me to dine soon, and ask the Meinecks," Zino replies, with his attractively audacious smile.
"No, I will not," Thérèse says, resolutely.
"And why not?"
"Because, as I now see, you would do all that you could to turn Stella's brain. I thought you had outgrown such foolish tricks."
"Hm!" says Capito.
"I am going to do all that I can to marry her well," Thérèse declares.
"Hm!" Capito says again, but in a different tone.
"If you like, I will invite you to meet the Gurlichingen; she is in Paris at present."
"Indeed! With whom is she travelling?
"With----" Thérèse looks full at him, with mirth in her eyes,--"with the Oblonsky!"
"Ah! Have her lungs become affected lately?" Zino asks, indifferently.
"Not that I know of; but she probably covets respectability," says Thérèse.
"Ah, tiens! cela doit être drôle. An entire change of system on Stasy's part, then," says Zino, putting down his teacup, and rising.
"She seems to have abandoned the lucrative calling of a turkey-buzzard," Rohritz remarks.
"Yes, and instead to have opened a laundry for the purification of--caps which have fallen among--among nettles, in the vicinity of mills.[1]Not a bad trade,--hm!"
"Going already, Zino?"
"Of course," says Zino, stretching himself and yawning as spoiled brothers allow themselves to do in presence of their sisters. "If you suppose I tore myself away from Lyons to drink tea with you, you are mistaken. Be good, Sasa: when will you invite the Meinecks and myself to dine?"
Thérèse, moving her forefinger to and fro before her face, makes the Roman gesture of refusal.
"Oh, very well; as you please," Zino mutters in an ill-humour. "Good-evening." "I wonder where I could meet her," he says, musingly, before lighting his cigar in the coupé that awaits him.
"Strange!" Rohritz remarks to his wife; "Edgar described the young Meineck to me as particularly gay and amusing."
"Indeed?"
"Now, for so young a creature, she seems to me particularly quiet."
"What would you have? Punchinello himself would grow melancholy with such a life as hers."
Her husband reflects for a few moments. After a while he says, "I wonder whether, after all, she was not a little smitten with Edgar?"
"Upon what do you base your conjecture?" Thérèse asks, in astonishment.
"She put on so extraordinarily indifferent an expression whenever he was mentioned."
Thérèse laughs aloud.
"What is there to laugh at?" her husband asks, rather crossly.
"Forgive me, but you remind me of the Frenchman who proposed to a young lady through her mother, and when he was asked by her what reason he had to suppose that her daughter liked him, replied, 'I am quite sure of it, for she always leaves the room as soon as I enter it.'"
"Laugh away; we shall soon see who is right. Moreover, Edgar must take some interest in her, or he would not have recommended her to us so warmly," replies Rohritz.
"Bah! he recommended her to us at the express request of our common friend Leskjewitsch," his wife rejoins.
"True; but----"
"She is a child in comparison with him. He might be her father."
Edmund is silent for a while, and then says, "That is true; she is a child,--and he is very sensible."