Following the advice of the little Italian conductor of the orchestra, Stella refers to him in order to procure more reasonable terms from Signor della Seggiola for her singing-lessons.
These 'more reasonable terms' are twenty-five francs for an hour abbreviated at both ends, and sixty francs a month for a share in the singing-class,--that is, in the musical dissertations which Signor della Seggiola holds three times a week for six or seven pupils in a small room in the Gérard piano-building.
For the sake of those who consider twenty-five francs an hour a tolerably high price for lessons, and who are inclined to regard the leader's recommendation as a humbug, it may be well to state that twenty-five francs is really a lowered price, and that dilettanti usually pay from thirty to thirty-five francs for a private lesson from della Seggiola.
It is with the maestro's wife that Stella makes the business arrangement, since della Seggiola himself--an artist, an idealist, a child--understands nothing about money. He evidently labours under the delusion that he gives the lessons for nothing, since he does not take the slightest pains to give his scholars an honest equivalent in valuable instruction for their twenty-five, thirty, or thirty-five francs.
As we already know, Stella is tolerably familiar with the singing-teachers of many lands: she knows that, as is the case also with dentists, they all abuse one another and testify the same horror at the misdeeds of their predecessors, declaring with the same tragic shake of the head that it will be necessary to begin with the A, B, C,--that is, with Concone's solfeggi, and that it is indispensable for the scholar that she should procure the work upon the art of singing with which the new teacher, as well as his predecessor, has enriched musical literature. Stella already possesses five exhaustive works upon the 'Bel Canto,' 'L'Art lyrique,' 'L'Art du Chant,' and so forth; each cost twenty francs and contains a more or less valuable collection of solfeggi. Some of these volumes are adorned with the portrait of the author, others have prefaces in which some famous man, such as Rossini, for example, recommends the work to the public as something extraordinary, something destined by its intrinsic merit to outlast the Pyramids.
Delia Seggiola's work differs from all these clumsy compositions. Adorned neither with the portrait of the author nor with a preface by a celebrity, it displays upon its first page the profile of a human being cut in half,--an imposing proof of the maestro's anatomical knowledge, as well as of his close study of the physical conditions of a true training of the voice.
The large and magnificently-bound volume contains no series of solfeggi, but simply some scanty, musically impossible fiorituri, or musical examples borrowed from other works, which swim like little islands in an ocean of text. As Signora della Seggiola expresses herself, her husband's volume is no compilation of senseless solfeggi, but a Bible for the lovers of song.
A Bible for those who believe in della Seggiola's infallibility.
At the private lessons--the maestro gives these, of course, only at his own home--the accompaniments are played by an ambitious young musician who has once been with Strakosch on a tour; in the class, Fräulein Fuhrwesen accompanies, her impresario having postponed for the present the concert tour in South America.
Della Seggiola never touches the piano himself. He is a broad-shouldered, jolly Italian, with a big, kindly, smiling face, and a black velvet cap.
Without ever having possessed even a tolerably good voice, he ranked for a time among the distinguished singers of the world. His fine singing is, however, of little use to his pupils.
He passes the time of the lessons chiefly in reading aloud chapters from his 'Bible,' while the accompanist, with unflagging enthusiasm, praises the wisdom of the work; then the pupil sings some trifle, della Seggiola meanwhile gazing at her with a solemn air, sometimes grimacing to show the position of the lips, or tapping alternately her throat and her chest, exclaiming, "Ne serrez pas!" or "Soutenez! soutenez!" Then he directs the pupil to rest, tells something funny, clicks with his tongue, throws his velvet cap into the air, and--kling-a-ling-ling Signora della Seggiola gives the signal that the lesson is over.
The class is a rather more serious and artistic affair than the private lessons, from the fact that there are no different prices to be paid here, but that every one--with the exception of aprotégéof Signora della Seggiola's, a barytone from Florence, who pays nothing--pays as in an omnibus the same sixty francs a month, whether the class consist of thirty or only three persons.
And the company reminds one somewhat of an omnibus. Against the background of usual shabbiness one or two brilliant social stars stand forth, making one wonder how they came there. It can hardly be asserted that even here among the disciples of della Seggiola, the only true prophet of his art, any great progress in singing is made. During the six weeks for which Stella has now belonged to the class it has been singing the same thing, only with less and less voice; that is all the difference.
Condemned by the formation of his throat, which is extraordinarily ill adapted to song, to spare the organ, della Seggiola never allows one of his faithful disciples to sing one natural, healthy note, but condemns them also to a constant mezzo-voce which cannot but contract the throat.
Thus artificially restrained, Stella's warm rich voice diminishes with extraordinary rapidity. When she complains to the maestro that this is so, he remarks that it is a very good sign, her great fault being that she has too much voice, and only when she has lost it entirely can the cultivation of a reallybel cantobegin.
This astounding assertion gives Stella food for reflection, and it occurs to her to-day as she sits at the piano preparing for the class-lesson and finds that two of her notes break as she sings the scale.
"Della Seggiola ought to be pleased with my progress," she says to herself, with some bitterness, and her heart beats hard as the constantly-recurring question arises in her mind, "If I should really lose my voice----? But where is the use of thinking of it?" she answers herself, with a shrug. The clock on the chimney-piece, the one with the manchineel-tree, strikes a quarter of ten. "It is high time to go," the girl says aloud. Slipping on the still handsome sealskin jacket which her father had given her five years before for a Christmas-present, she hurries along the various thronged streets, broad and narrow, through the pale-yellow January sunshine, to her destination.
The 'hall' in the Gérard piano-warehouse, Rue du Mail, where della Seggiola holds his classes, is hardly more spacious than an ordinary room in Berlin or Vienna, and, being partly filled with pianos sewed up in linen, leaves something to be desired from an acoustic point of view. The lesson has already begun when Stella enters. Fräulein Fuhrwesen, in her tassel-bedecked water-proof, is seated at the piano, upon the lid of which the 'Bible' lies open. Della Seggiola, resting his right hand upon its pages, and gesticulating with his left, is delivering an inspiring discourse upon the art of song, while a tall, sallow young man, with very little hair upon his head, but all the more upon his face, is awaiting with ill-disguised impatience the moment when he can burst into song.
This young man's name is Meyer (pronounced Meyare): he is clerk in a banking-house, and is studying for the stage.
A second barytone, a young Italian, is also waiting with longing for his turn. He is the star of the class, a Florentine, who has wandered to Paris with his two sisters, who regularly come to the class with him. They are sallow and elderly, wear very large Rembrandt hats, which, as they privately inform Stella, they purchased in the Temple, sit on each side of their brother, and keep up a constant nod of encouragement.
In strict seclusion from the young men, and guarded by a gray-haired duenna, across whose threadbare brown sacque she gaily ogles the barytone from Florence, sits a dishevelled little soprano, the daughter of a diva and a journalist.
Of course she has no idea of going on the stage; she speaks with horror of the theatre, and thinks a dramatic career not at allcomme il faut.
An elderly Englishwoman, quite copper-coloured, with very long teeth and the figure of a tallow dip, seems to be of a different opinion. She is just confessing in very problematical French to the barytone from Florence how much she repents not having voice enough 'pour remplir un opera,' and her eyes fill with tears.
Natalie Lipinski has not yet arrived.
With a pleasant greeting to the two sisters of the barytone, and to the crazy Miss Frazer, Stella passes as quietly as possible to her place.
After della Seggiola has ended his discourse, and Monsieur Meyare has finished his 'Dolcessi perduti,' Miss Frazer sings the waltz from 'Traviata' transposed a fifth lower than the original key, breathing very loud, and singing very low. In the middle of it she stops short, lays her red hand, covered to the knuckles with a knitted wristlet, upon her heart, and sighs.
"What is it?" asks della Seggiola, not without a certain impatience. "What is the matter?"
"This aria is so deeply affecting," sighs the Englishwoman; "it always gives me palpitation of the heart."
"That is very unfortunate," says della Seggiola, taking a pinch of snuff. "Pray consult a physician; he will prescribe digitalis."
"Oh, the doctor could not help me," Miss Frazer asserts, wagging her head to and fro with enthusiasm. "My nervous system is too highly strung. If my voice were only stronger I should certainly have asuccèsupon the stage,--parce que je suis très-passionnée."
Della Seggiola bites his lip. At this moment the door opens, Natalie Lipinski enters, and behind her--Stella can hardly believe her eyes--Zino Capito!
"Permit me to present to you my cousin, Prince Capito, Signor della Seggiola," says Natalie, in her fluent but hard-sounding Russian-French. "He hopes to be allowed to profit by your instructions."
Of course the lesson is interrupted. Miss Frazer's eyes, which always remind one more or less of a melancholy-minded rabbit, and which now wear a very sympathetic air, rest with benevolence upon the Prince, who offers della Seggiola his hand with theaplombfor which he is justly celebrated throughout Europe, hurriedly thanks him for the great pleasure he has given him by his art, and prays beforehand for indulgence and patience, since he is, as he maintains, a beginner,--only a beginner.
Natalie conscientiously presents him to the class, blundering, of course, with all the names.
He bows stiffly, looks directly over the gentlemen's heads, scans the ladies with a curious glance, and then goes directly to Stella, beside whom he takes his place, after bowing to her with the most attractive mixture of courtesy and deference. Without being deterred by Miss Frazer's starting off with her transposed song and getting through as much of it as asthma and palpitation of the heart will permit, he begins:
"I made an attempt to see you the day after meeting you at my sister's, but, unfortunately, in vain. Did you get my card?"
"Yes."
"I was so very sorry not to find the ladies at home. Might I be admitted some evening?"
"I will ask mamma; but----"
"And how have you amused yourself meanwhile?"
"Oh, I have been very gay this week; Madame de Rohritz took me with her once to the theatre and once to the Bois de Boulogne."
"And when Thérèse does not take you out a little do you devote your entire time to historical studies and to your singing?"
"Sometimes I sit about in the Tuileries,--I have made the acquaintance of an old governess, who chaperons me,--and sometimes I go to the Louvre, which I know as perfectly as ever a guide in Paris."
Is it by mere chance that just at this point of the conversation, which is carried on in an undertone, Fräulein Fuhrwesen turns and stares at the Prince and Stella?
Meanwhile, it is Natalie's turn to sing. Her song is the grand cavatina from 'I Puritani,' 'Qui la voce sua soave!'
Natalie is an odd little person, short, slender, undeveloped as to figure, with a face rather too sallow, but with regular delicate features and dazzling teeth. With a fanatical enthusiasm for art and a determination to go upon the stage she combines a fortune of some millions of roubles, and, what is in still more comical contrast with her proposed career, a strict unbending sense of propriety, far transcending the prudery of the most English of Englishwomen,--not that shy sense of propriety which is always on the defensive, but that which is quick to look down with aggressive contempt upon any infringement of the rules of decorum.
Too well bred to speak when a lady whom he knows, were she a hundred times his cousin, is singing, Zino listens with exemplary attention to the Bellini cavatina, not indeed without a merry twinkle of the eye now and then.
Natalie's voice is rather shrill, her Italian accent harsh; her rendering of the impassioned aria is strictly confined to following the musical directions,p.p.,cresc.,ritard., and so forth; even at the point where the inspiration of the love-stricken Elvira culminates in the words 'Vien' ti posa--vien' ti posa sul mio cor!' she never ceases to beat the time with her right hand.
After this brilliant outburst della Seggiola interrupts her. The Fuhrwesen lifts her hands from the keys, and Natalie looks inquiringly at the maestro, who takes a pinch of snuff and shakes his head.
"Très-bien, mon enfant," it is needless to say that this familiar address is very little to the taste of the haughty Russian,--"très-bien, mon enfant; you sing in excellent time, but you must try to infuse animation into your style. Fancy the situation,--half crazy with love and longing, you are calling out into the night, 'Ah, come--come to my heart!' You must sing that with--how shall I express it?--with more conviction, thus:"
The Fuhrwesen drums the accompaniment, and della Seggiola, stretching out his arms like angels' wings, throws back his head a little, and warbles, 'Qui la voce!'
Estimate as you please his method of instruction, all who still find delight in the old Italian traditions must admit his art in singing.
And Prince Zino--a musical Epicurean to his finger-tips, rejecting everything clumsy and indigestible in music,--Prince Zino, for whom Mozart is the only god of music and Rossini is his prophet--strokes his moustache, delighted, and calls "Bravo!" and della Seggiola bows.
The lesson continues to be quite interesting.
Signor Trevisiani, the barytone from Florence, sings something very depressing, with the refrain,--
'Maladetto sulla terra,Condannato nel ceil sard.'
'Maladetto sulla terra,Condannato nel ceil sard.'
The little soprano sings, 'Plaisir d'amour,' and Zino perfectly, gravely, goes through a scale, swelling the notes, during which two sad facts are brought to light,--first, that he is the third barytone in the class,--della Seggiola had hoped for a tenor,--and, secondly, that he cannot read by note. Della Seggiola, however, praises the charming timbre of his voice, and asks if he may not send him a teacher to correct his defective reading; whereupon Fräulein Fuhrwesen declares herself ready to give the Prince lessons. He pretends not to hear this heroic proposition, seeming not even to perceive her; whereby he makes a mortal enemy of that extremely sensitive and irritable person.
The glory of the class is the closing performance,--the famous duet between Don Giovanni and Zerlina, rendered by Signor Trevisiani and Natalie Lipinski.
It would be difficult to imagine a more lugubrious Don Giovanni than the young man from Florence. He is freshly shaven, perhaps in honour of his part; his cheeks are covered with red scratches, like those of a German youth who bears about in his face the record of his bravery; his hair, artistically dishevelled about his forehead and ears, falls over his coat-collar at the back of his neck. Except for a grass-green cravat, he is dressed entirely in black, like the page in 'Marlbrook;' his costume, evidently provincial, comes from the same quarter of Paris that has produced his sisters' hats,--the Temple.
Much intimidated by his haughty Zerlina, his throat contracts so that his voice, naturally fine and resonant, comes from his dry lips hoarse and miserably thready. Although Natalie sings, as ever, in faultless time, the notes that should be in unison are far from sounding so, whereupon della Seggiola advises the singers to take each other's hands. Mademoiselle Lipinski edges away still farther from her Don Giovanni, and extends to him her finger-tips.
Della Seggiola makes them repeat the duo three times, does his best to make it go smoothly, gently entreats Zerlina to be more coquettish, orders Don Giovanni to be more seductive. In vain. Zerlina draws down the corners of her mouth and looks at the wall; Don Giovanni scratches his ear. The duo sounds worse and worse. Much irritated at this melancholy result, which she ascribes entirely to Signor Trevisiani's awkwardness, Natalie at last says crossly to the young Florentine, "I beg you not to torment me any more: it will never do!" Then across her shoulder to her cousin she explains, impatiently, "Zino, Signor Trevisiani is hoarse; you and I used to sing the duo together. Come, try it."
"If there is time," Zino says, with amiable readiness, taking his place beside his cousin.
There is really no time for it, as della Seggiola would have informed any one save the Prince. Twelve o'clock has struck, but he does not mention that fact to Zino. Hungry and resigned, he sits down beside the piano, his hands clasped upon his stomach, his eyes fixed upon the tips of his boots stretched out before him, prepared to endure the blessed duo for the fourth time. But what is this? He listens eagerly, all present listen, all eyes are riveted upon the Prince, from whose lips there flows such melody as we expect only from the greatest Italian singers.
Without paying any further attention to Zerlina, della Seggiola inquires at the close of the duo,--
"Do you sing the serenade also?"
"À peu près," says Zino, whereupon the Fuhrwesen strikes the first notes of the accompaniment, and he sings it.
The singers of the new high-art school, the interpreters of Wagner, curse out the notes at their auditors; Prince Zino smiles them at his hearers, and the strong infusion of irony in his smile only heightens the effect of his style.
Erect but unstudied in attitude, his hands in the pockets of his jacket, his head slightly thrown back, he is the veritable personification of the gay, thoughtlessbon-vivant, Mozart's Don Giovanni as the master created him.
As he ends, Miss Frazer, bathed in tears, rushes up to him with both hands held out, exclaiming, "Merci! merci!"
Stella, laughing, claps applause, and Signor Trevisiani gazes at him as if he longed to learn his art. But della Seggiola asks,--
"Where did you learn to sing, mon Prince?"
"Everywhere."
"From whom?"
"From no one."
"That's right!" exclaims Seggiola, forgetting all humbug in genuine artistic enthusiasm. "For, between ourselves be it said, singing is never taught."
And when the Prince laughs, and hopes on the contrary to profit much from the art of the maestro, the latter replies, with the inborn courtesy of his nation,--
"If you will kindly help me to reveal to my class here the beauty of song, you shall always be welcome, mon Prince. I can teach you nothing."
The lesson is over. Zino helps Stella and his cousin to put on their wraps, takes leave of della Seggiola with his brilliant smile and cordial pressure of the hand, of the rest with a very brief nod, and leaves the room with his two special ladies.
"A charming man, that Principe Capito," says della Seggiola, rubbing his hands delightedly. "And he can sing like Mario in his best days. I used to give his sister lessons."
"I have met him before in Vienna," Fräulein Fuhrwesen mutters. "He is an Italian, to be sure, but his arrogance he learned in Austria."
The lesson at an end, the members of della Seggiola's class have no more acquaintance with one another than have people who have travelled together by railway after they have left the train. The soprano with her slovenly duenna in a long French cachemire shawl, the Italian with his two sisters, one on each arm, all fly apart like bits of lead from an exploding shell.
A saucy smile about his mouth, Capito walks beside the two girls; he softly hums to himself 'La ci darem la mano!'
"You sang well, Zino," Natalie remarks, after a while. "Della Seggiola was absolutely enthusiastic."
"What good did it do me?" says Zino, shrugging his shoulders. "It gave him a reason for politely turning me away."
"He was afraid you might agitate Miss Frazer: she suffers already from her heart," Stella says, with her usual audacity in alluding to uncomfortable topics.
"On the whole, della Seggiola was right," Natalie declares: "it would not have been becoming for you to join the class."
"'Tis odd how often the pleasantest things in this world are unbecoming," Zino murmurs.
"Do you really think it would have been so very pleasant to hear us practising away at the same things twice a week?" Stella asks, gaily.
"Without giving him time to reply, Natalie begins to cross-examine him upon his impressions of della Seggiola's method of instruction.
"What do you think of him as a teacher?" she asks.
"He sings delightfully," Zino replies, somewhat vaguely.
"Yes, but he is too lax as a teacher; he is not strict enough,--does not suit to their capacity the tasks he imposes upon his pupils."
"Do you think so?" says Zino. "On the contrary, I thought he exacted far too much of his scholars' capacity."
"How so?" Natalie asks, rather offended.
"He required you to be coquettish, and that fellow--what was his name?--Trappenti--to be seductive. Rather too difficult a task for both of you, I should think," says the Prince.
Natalie frowns:
"I thought della Seggiola's remarks to-day highly unbecoming."
"Of course, when you were singing a love-song, to require you to imagine yourself in the place of the singer,--c'est de la dernière inconvenance. Moreover, it was exacting more than you were capable of performing,--that is, so far as I know." And, with a quick turn of the conversation which would be quite inexcusable in any one else, he looks her in the face, and asks with a light laugh, as if the question concerned something infinitely comical, "Do tell us,--it will interest Baroness Stella too, I am sure,--you are twenty-five years old----"
"Twenty-six," Natalie corrects him.
"Twenty-six, then. Were you ever in love?"
To the Prince's no small surprise, Natalie turns away her head at this question, and, blushing to the very roots of her hair, mutters angrily between her set teeth, "You are intolerable to-day!"
"Ah, indeed!" says Prince Zino, with a merry twinkle of his eyes. "It must be with one of the lithographic portraits hanging in the corridor in your home at Jekaterinovskoe,--Orlow, or Potemkin. By the way, 'tis a great pity you blush so seldom, Natalie: it becomes you charmingly."
At the next street-corner Stella's and Natalie's ways separate, to the great vexation of the Prince, seeing that he too must of course take his leave of the beautiful Austrian. But, if he can no longer enjoy the pleasure of talking with Stella, he resolves to please himself by still keeping her in sight. Instead of remaining with his cousin and quietly going his own way, he decides to walk along the same street with Stella, on the other side of the way.
Natalie, who understands his little manœuvre perfectly, looks after him before turning her corner, and shakes her head. "I wonder how many times he has been in love before?" she thinks. "Poor little star! she is very pretty. I trust she may be more sensible than I."
Meanwhile, Zino and Stella walk leisurely along on opposite sides of the Rue des Petits-Champs.
"How well she walks! what a fine carriage she has!" he murmurs, never losing sight of her. "Her movements have such an easy grace, and now and then a dreamy, gliding rhythm about them; 'tis music for the eyes. And then such colour,--the fair face with its black eyes and red lips, the gold of the hair setting off the exquisite glow of the complexion,--she is enchanting!"
Zino is one of those men whose sensuality is refined and idealized by the admixture of a purely artistic and æsthetic appreciation of the beautiful. The worship of the beautiful is, as he is fond of declaring, his own special, private religion; the paroxysms of enthusiasm which this worship was apt to cause in him in former years have long since grown rarer and rarer. But to-day he is distinctly conscious of the slow approach of an attack.
"Bah! it will pass away," he says to himself, "as all such attacks do; it can lead to nothing. But all the same she is bewitching!"
Thus both go their ways,--he with his eyes, quite intoxicated with beauty, riveted upon her face and figure,--she, as he is rather annoyed to perceive, so absorbed in her own thoughts as to be utterly oblivious of his vicinity. Between them, around them, swarms Parisian life, with its bustle and noise; on the pavements pass neat grisettes by twos and threes, their smooth hair uncovered, either coming from or going to breakfast, men with dirty grayish-white blouses, servant-girls in white caps, Englishwomen with long teeth, and Parisians of all kinds, recklessly pressing on towards some aim known to themselves only; in the middle of the street there is a hurly-burly of every kind of vehicle, from little hand-carts, laden with fish, flowers, oranges, or vegetables, and pushed by women with bent backs, to omnibuses as big as small houses, their tops reaching above the shop-windows, and dragged with difficulty by the strongest horses. Here and there some one is running after one or other of these conveyances, a breathless day-governess, helped up by both hands to the back platform by the conductor, or a notary with a leather wallet under his arm, who climbs to the top with the agility of a monkey.
These tops are crowded. Beside respectable business-men with clean-shaved cheeks and thick sausage-like moustaches are seated all sorts of Bohemians, half-students, half-artists, pale and thin, with melancholy eyes in faces weary with cheap pleasures, a strange and genuinely Parisian species of human being, always eager for any variety, be it a ball at Bulliers or the overthrow of a government, a restless, excitable, shallow, sparkling crowd, which might be called the oxygen of Paris in contrast with its hydrogen. And beside the huge city omnibus there toil, slowly, heavily-laden carts to which are harnessed long trains of huge white Norman steeds, with blue sheepskins upon their backs and bells around their necks, bells which have a rustic simple sound amid all the demoniac clatter of Paris, like the clear voices of children heard in some Bacchanalian revel. Tall, sturdy Normans in white, flapping broad-brimmed hats walk beside them, shaking their heads as they look down upon the wealthy degradation and the sordid misery of the filigree population of Paris.
The January sun shines above it all. There in the fresh cold air is an odour of oranges, fish, and flowers. Stella stops beside a flower-cart to buy a bunch of violets. Zino pauses to watch her. Amid the noise of the street he cannot understand what she says, but through the roar of the mid-day crowd, the loud pulsation of the great city stronger at this hour than at any other, he distinguishes brief detached notes of her gentle bird-like voice. How cordial the smile she has just bestowed upon the flower-girl!
"If she smiled at me like that I should give her the entire cart-full of flowers. I wonder if I might send her a bouquet to the 'Negroes?'"
Stella, with a charming shake of the head, has just taken out her purse, when a lumbering omnibus interposes between her and Zino's admiring gaze. The omnibus is followed by a cart, then by another, and another. At last the view is once more uninterrupted; but where is Stella? There she stands, pale, agitated, her eyes cast down, beside a tall, thin, consumptive-looking woman in shabby black, leading by the hand a little girl,--a woman with golden hair, and features in which, pinched and worn though they be by many a bitter experience, a striking likeness may be traced to Stella's beautiful profile.
"Where did she pick up that acquaintance?" the Prince asks himself; but before he can decide where and when he has seen that woman before, Stella and the stranger have vanished in a little confectioner's shop.
However recklessly a woman may have trifled with her reputation in her youth, tossing it about as a thing of naught, there is sure to come a time in the progress of years when the first wrinkle appears, and instantly a careful search is made for the lost article. Then she needs a friend who shall smooth it out and polish it up and return it to her,--a friend who believes in its inherent spotlessness and will do her best to convince others of the same.
This office Stasy has undertaken to perform for the Princess Oblonsky. And what is to be her reward for her efforts? Delicious food, exquisite lodgings and service in apartments fairy-like in their appointments, numerous presents, and altogether very considerate treatment, with the exception of a few outbreaks of temper, unavoidable with such women as the Princess.
From all which it may be clearly perceived that the position of the Oblonsky is far from being as good as it was upon her husband's death, three years ago, or she would scarcely covet at so high a price the support of such a person as Anastasia.
She certainly has been most unfortunate,--poor Princess Sophie. When, three years ago, she returned from Petersburg a widow and possessed of a colossal fortune, she hoped to obliterate all memories of former irregularities by a marriage with Prince Zino Capito. But Zino did not second her views. Two months after the death of the Prince he scarcely spoke to her.
It was during the following winter that Sophie Oblonsky committed the serious 'imprudence' by which she lost forever her social position. At the roulette-table in San Carlo she made the acquaintance of a young Hungarian who was presented to her as a Comte de Bethenyi. He was young, ardent, wore picturesque fur collars and jackets which well became his handsome gypsy face, flung his money about everywhere, and played the piano. Sophie Oblonsky was always sensitive to music. The picturesque Hungarian inspired her with an interest such as none but a disappointed woman of forty can experience. In dread of compromising herself, she consented to marry him, and they were betrothed, whereupon suddenly various Esterhazys and Zichys of her acquaintance appeared at San Carlo, and in the casino of the place met the Princess upon her lover's arm, bowed to her, and honoured her companion with a very odd stare. After they had passed, Sophie heard them laugh.
In an hour all Monaco knew that the Princess Oblonsky had betrothed herself to a fencing-master from Klausenburg, who shortly before had won a prize of ten thousand marks in the Saxon lottery. That same evening Caspar Bethenyi risked his last thousand francs on number twenty-nine,--perhaps because the twenty-ninth of January was his birthday,--and lost. The following night he put a bullet through his brains.
The correspondent of 'Figaro' wrote an amusing article upon the episode, and the Princess Oblonsky was henceforth impossible: she had made herself ridiculous.
The world found the affair extremely comical,--so comical that there was a strong admixture of contempt even in the compassion accorded to the poor fencing-master, who had signed his name simply Caspar Bethenyi in the strangers' book, and who, it was afterwards discovered, had accepted rather unwillingly the rank bestowed upon him by waiters and journalists.
Since this had occurred, two years before, the Oblonsky had tried in vain to regain a footing in society. Considerable surprise was expressed that when thus exiled from the 'world' of western Europe she did not retire to Petersburg; but she probably had her own reasons for not doing so.
Another woman in her place, with her immense means, might have let go all she had lost and lived gaily from day to day. But she was naturally slow, and with the luxurious tendencies of her temperament were mingled sentimentality and a certain liability to sporadic attacks of a sense of propriety. She grasped at everything that could make her at one with the world.
She had set her heart upon a respectable marriage, becoming her rank. In the far distance Edgar von Rohritz hovered before her as the St. George who was destined to slay for her the dragon of prejudice.
Certain people, especially women, understand how to touch up their reminiscences with the same artistic skill that a photographer expends upon his pictures, so that very little remains of the fact as it was originally projected upon the memory.
Sophie Oblonsky erased, in this touching up of her reminiscences, everything that she disliked. She talked so much of her virtue that she finally came to believe in it.
Meanwhile, she behaved with perfect propriety and was fearfully bored.
It is five o'clock, and the heavy curtains before the windows of her drawing-room are already drawn close. The lamps shed a mild, agreeable light. A lackey has just brought in the tea. Upon a pretty Japanese stand, beside the silver samovar, sparkle the glass decanters of cordial and all the modern accompaniments of afternoon tea.
It is the Princess's reception-day.
That she entirely ignores in her intercourse with Stasy her own loss of position, that she ascribes her seclusion solely to a voluntary retirement from a hollow world which disgusts her, there is as little need of saying as that Stasy, without a word from the Princess to induce her to do so, feels herself under obligations to introduce Sophie to a new social circle.
This 'circle' consists as yet but of a few wealthy Americans, just arrived in Paris, and of--artists.
The Princess has a special liking for artists; they are, she maintains, so much fresher, so much quicker and pleasanter as companions, than her equals in rank, of whose wearisome shallowness she has many a story to tell. And her special favourite among these is the pianist Fuhrwesen. Why, good heavens, the only occupation which really interests the Princess at this time is the search for some private irregularity in the lives of women of extreme apparent respectability; and in these investigations the pianist is always ready to assist her.
Dressed with great taste but with severe simplicity, holding a small Japanese hand-screen between her face and the glow from the fire, the Princess is leaning back in a low chair near the hearth, complaining of headache, and hoping that there will not be as many people here to-day as on her last reception-day.
A quarter of an hour--yes, half an hour--passes, and no one appears. Stasy is hungry; thefoie grassandwiches are very tempting, but to partake of one would be a tacit admission that there is no hope of a visitor, and she must not be the first to confess the fact.
"Poor Boissy!"--this is a painter whom the Oblonsky has taken under her protection,--"poor Boissy! probably he cannot summon up the courage to come; he is ashamed of his wife. Ah, he really cannot dream how considerate I am for artists' wives. It is a theory of mine that it is our duty, as ladies, to educate artists' wives for their husbands. I know it is not usual to receive them; but that seems to me very petty, and I hate all pettiness."
Another quarter of an hour passes. Stasy is faint with hunger.
"One of the Fanes must be ill," she observes, "or they would certainly be here. I must find out what----" But Sophie interrupts her impatiently.
"Pour me out a cup of tea," she orders her.
The tea is cold and bitter from waiting so long for guests who do not arrive. Sophie finds it detestable, and reproaches Stasy therefor.
Stasy consoles herself for her friend's capricious injustice by taking two glasses of cordial, three sandwiches, and half a dozen little cakes.
Meanwhile, Sophie observes, with a yawn, "I cannot tell you how glad I am that no one came. People bore me so. I revel in my solitude. And to think that I must shortly resign it! I must call upon our ambassadress shortly."
In spite of her wonderful degree ofaplomb, Anastasia at this point of the conversation is silent and looks rather confused.
"You saw her in the Bois lately," the Oblonsky continues, in a somewhat irritated tone.
"Yes; you pointed her out to me."
"Well, you must have noticed how stiffly she bowed. No wonder. She must have known how long I have been in Paris without calling upon her."
"I have always told you that you carry to excess your passion for solitude," Stasy chirps. "It is easy to go too far in such a preference."
"Ah, the world is odious to me," Sophie declares.
The bell outside is heard to ring at this moment.
"Insufferable!" Sonja exclaims. "I trust no one is coming to disturb us now!" And, glancing at the mirror over the chimney-piece, she adjusts herjabotand a curl above her forehead.
The lackey flings wide the folding doors and announces, "Mademoiselle Urwèse,"--the French abbreviation, apparently, for Fuhrwesen; for, even more copper-coloured than usual, in consequence of the biting north wind outside, with her hair blowing about her eyes, a kind of reddish-yellow turban upon her head, and wearing her tassel-bedecked water-proof, the pianist enters.
"How nice of you! This is really charming, my dear Fuhrwesen!" exclaims Sophie, hastily concealing her disappointment. "This is my day, but I closed my doors for all strangers,--absolutely for all," the imaginative Princess asseverates; then, pausing suddenly, she glances uneasily at Stasy. But Stasy has long since learned to let such rhapsodies pass her by without so much as the quiver of an eyelash: her face is motionless, and the Oblonsky goes on fluently: "You were the only one whom Baptiste had orders to admit. Take off your wraps: you will stay and dine, of course, dear, will you not?"
"With your kind permission," Fräulein Fuhrwesen says, submissively, kissing the Oblonsky's hand.
"And now sit here by the fire and warm yourself. Anastasia,"--this is drawled over her shoulder,--"pour out a glass of cordial for her.--You can have nothing more, my dear; I cannot permit you to spoil your appetite. We are going to have an extremely fine dinner."
"Your Highness is really too kind," says the pianist. "Ah, how intensely becoming that green gown is to you! Did you hear Prince Olary's description of you?--'The Venus of Milo, dressed by Worth.' Was it not capital?" And the pianist gazes at the Oblonsky with enthusiastic admiration.
"Yes, yes, you are in love with me, my dear: 'tis an old story," the Princess says, with a laugh. "But now tell us something new: you always have a budget of news. Any fresh scandal in the Faubourg?"
"Let me think," Fräulein Fuhrwesen says, reflectively. "What news have I heard?À propos--yes, I remember; but it will shock your Highness terribly. I really had no idea of such depravity in girls of what is called the best standing."
"Oh, tell us, tell us!" the Princess urges her.
"I must first be sure that I shall not wound Fräulein Anastasia," the pianist remarks, discreetly. "Are you not in some way related, or a very near friend, to the little Meineck, Fräulein von Gurlichingen?"
"Not at all," Anastasia assures her. "I spent a couple of weeks in the same house with her last summer, but I had very little to say to her. I never liked her."
"Meineck? Meineck?" says the Oblonsky, with lifted eyebrows. "Is not she the young person who you told me fell so desperately in love with Rohritz?"
Anastasia nods.
"The young lady apparently possesses an inflammable heart," Fräulein Fuhrwesen remarks, contemptuously: "it already throbs for another,--for Prince Lorenzino Capito."
The Princess becomes absorbed in contemplation of her nails; Anastasia observes, "That would seem to be rather an aimless enthusiasm. Pray how did you learn anything about this affair?"
Fräulein Fuhrwesen draws a deep breath: "You know I play the accompaniments at della Seggiola's class. Stella Meineck has attended it for two months. The company is rather mixed, especially so far as the men are concerned. Who do you suppose made his appearance to join the class the day before yesterday? It really is too ridiculous,--pretending to want to learn to sing! Prince Lorenzo Capito."
"You don't say so!" Stasy ejaculates.
"Yes, Prince Capito," the narrator repeats. "He stares past all the others, takes a seat beside little Meineck, and talks with her during the entire lesson. What do you think of that, ladies?"
Stasy sighs, and the Oblonsky says,--
"C'est bien extraordinaire!I certainly should not have thought that so insignificant a person could have inspired Capito with the slightest interest."
"I know Prince Capito," the visitor goes on: "I met him in Vienna at the Countess Thierstein's. His reputation, so far as women are concerned, is disgraceful. Any girl is good enough to help him while away an hour or two."
"Yes, he is a terrible creature," the Princess sighs. "I really had no idea of it. He used to be a good deal at our house while my husband was alive. Of course he never presumed with me."
"Cela va sans dire," exclaims Stasy.
"Of course, you know me: to friendly intercourse--yes, I do not pretend to more reserve than I possess--even to a slight flirtation with an interesting man--I have no objection; but anything beyond that absolutely passes my comprehension."
"The little Meineck, however," Fräulein Fuhrwesen continues, with a malicious smile, "does not appear to be so strict in her ideas. I distinctly heard her during the singing-lesson arranging a rendezvous in the Louvre with the Prince."
"A rendezvous?" Sophie repeats, with horror. "That is indeed---- And do you know whether Capito kept the appointment?"
"Certainly. I made sure of it," continues her informant. "The morning after the singing-class I had a lesson to give near the Louvre, and after it was over I had a little time to spare. I am perfectly familiar with the museum, as I often go there to visit an acquaintance of mine. I never look at the pictures any more, they tire me to death, but the Louvre is always a nice place to get warm. So I mounted the staircase, and lingered for a while beside the register in the Salle La Caze, exchanging a word or two with an Englishman who is copying a Ribera. Suddenly the man turned, as every man turns to look after a pretty girl. I turned also, and whom should I see but Mademoiselle Stella, with her yellow hair and her sealskin jacket! Please tell me, ladies, how a person so miserably poor as she is--I know all about the Meinecks' pecuniary circumstances, coming as I do from Zalow--can buy a sealskin jacket, and a beautiful one? Why, one has to save for three years to get a respectable water-proof."
"Probably it was given to her," the Princess says, with a shrug. "But go on."
"She went directly through the room, without looking at the pictures, precisely like some one who had come simply to meet some one else. I went up to her, and, though I cannot endure the haughty creature, I spoke to her: 'Ah, Baronne, how are you?' She replied curtly, looking past me to the right and left, and finally, observing that she could not stay, for she had promised to meet some one,--oh, a lady, of course!--walked quickly away. My time was up. I looked after her, and was leaving, when whom should I encounter in the Galerie d'Apollon but Prince Capito! I suppose any one who knows of his devotion to art can readily imagine why he should be in the Louvre! What do you say to such conduct?"
"Absolutely depraved!" exclaims the Princess.
"We all know whither these 'innocent meetings' in the picture-galleries lead," the Fuhrwesen continues. "The next thing she will pay him a visit in his lodgings."
"Oh, my dear!" the Oblonsky laughs affectedly.
"Bah! I live opposite the Prince in the Rue d'Anjou; I should not be at all surprised if I were to see that young lady walk into No. ---- some fine day."
"If you do you must come and tell us instantly!" exclaims the Princess, taking her visitor's hand. "Oh, how cold you are! Is it possible you are not warm yet? Indeed, you are not sufficiently clothed----"
"My cloak is a little thin, but I cannot help that. Your Highness will readily understand that I am not able to buy a sealskin jacket."
"You---- Anastasia, be kind enough to tell Justine to bring down my two winter cloaks."
Anastasia obligingly brings the cloaks herself, and the Princess requests Fräulein Fuhrwesen to try them on. Although the little pianist is shorter by almost a head and shoulders than the majestic Princess, and consequently the garments trail behind her like coronation-robes, the Oblonsky assures her that they fit her as though they had been made for her, and immediately bestows upon her one of the two, a magnificent wrap of dark-green velvet, trimmed with fur.
The pianist kisses both hands of the donor, and kneels before her; the Princess says, laughing, "Don't be absurd, my dear. You see that giving--making others happy--is a passion with me. Stasy has one of my cloaks, you have another, I keep the simplest for myself. I have always lived for others only."