Felix rode home.
It was a moonlight night, but none of those which remind one of theatre scenery and silver-flecked green paint, such, as painted in oil, endanger all German art societies; the objects did not float in that universal green-black indistinctness; on the contrary, they stood out in sharp relief.
The tall poplars and the short bushy grass at the edge of the road, the yellow fields of grain with their dark piles of sheaves, the pale flowers in the ditches, the red and black roofs of a distant village sleeping between green lindens, a round church cupola and a cemetery with its low, white wall, and the dark rows of crosses and monuments--all could be seen plainly, only with somewhat faded colors, and over all was a misty veil like thin smoke, and a white light shone on the poplar leaves, rustling and turning in the night wind. The reapers were still working. Through the mild air sounded their song, hollow and monotonous, with the quiet sadness which characterizes Slavonian folk-songs. Their scythes sparkle in the moonlight; occasionally the pleasant face of a young woman, nodding to a youth, rises before Felix's eyes from the crowd of workers, irradiated by the mystic half light.
Felix watched them as he slowly rode on. He would gladly have been one of them, and would have taken upon himself all their burdens in exchange for the one he bore. He could have wished that the night had been less beautiful, that a dead, winter stillness had prevailed around him instead of this strange charm of the mild July moonlight.
The night wind, warm and gentle, caressed his face and his hands, and awakened the strangest longing in his heart. His head grew heated; the allurements with which his imagination tormented his despondent heart grew more and more intense.
The monotonous pace of his horse, the melancholy reaper's song lulled him not to sleep, but to that half slumber which produces dreams. He did not wholly lose the consciousness of motion; the open road, the trees, the wheat-fields, with everything, was mingled a light form; two large eyes sparkled half in sadness, half defiantly, and two full red lips smiled at him. An indescribable breath of youth and fresh life met him.
The yellow fields and the reapers have sunken into the earth--folk-song and the swing of the scythes have long sounded only like a vague murmur of waters to his distracted ear. His horse stumbles, a twig strikes him in the face, he starts.
The white dream-form has vanished, all is dark around him, a solemn, far-distant murmur breaks the stillness, and gigantic trees meet over the head of the solitary rider.
The horse trembles under him, then rears suddenly, and as he checks it he sees in the distance something low and black hurrying away in great leaps, sees there--there, close before him, a light figure which slowly rises from the ground.
He breathes heavily--for Heaven's sake is he still dreaming? That is surely she--Linda!
"Ah! Baron Lanzberg, you here? Thank God," cries she.
"You seem to have met with an unpleasant adventure," says Felix confusedly, coughs and springs from his horse without thinking what he is doing.
"A very unpleasant one," says she in her high, fresh, girlish voice. "That is what comes of insisting upon riding a donkey. We set out on foot, my brother and I, to the burned mill, to have the great enjoyment of seeing charred beams and skeletons of hens, and devouring black bread and sour milk, we---- Have you a weakness for sour milk, Baron?" looking up at him with a childish glance and smile.
"No, not exactly."
"I was not at all satisfied with my expedition," she continued, with the self-satisfied fluency of all young girls who are accustomed to have their chatter listened to for the sake of their pretty faces. "Not at all. Then I discovered two donkeys, one of them had a saddle like an arm-chair. Raimund must hire them. I left him no peace! His donkey goes splendidly, but mine! I cannot move him from the spot. I call to my brother, but he does not hear, he is singing college songs, thunders like a whole chorus and has ears for his own voice only. I do not love Raimund's singing, but as it gradually sounded further and further away, and finally ceased entirely, I had quite a curious sensation. Then my donkey threw back his ears, opened his mouth, and--here I lay. I am so glad that I met you."
The moonlight breaks through the green net-work of the woods, shines between the rushes, flowers and brambles of the ditch along the road, lights up Linda's face, the beautiful white face with the large dark eyes. Her hair is tumbled, she has lost her hat, her gown is torn, the affectation which usually conceals her inborn grace completely vanished.
"I do not know the way," says she, "and what will mamma think when Raimund comes home without me?"
After he has overcome his first fright, Felix tells himself that his dread of her charm must not prevent him from helping her. "If you will trust yourself to my guidance and will take this path across the fields, you can reach Marienbad in a half hour," he remarks, and tries to fasten his horse by the bridle to the low branch of an oak.
"Ah, it will inconvenience you so; if you will only point out the way----"
"You surely do not imagine that I could let you go alone, in the pitch-dark night? No." He smiles at her encouragingly. "What a child you still are, Miss Linda. Come."
He goes ahead, carefully pushing aside all branches for her. The air becomes more and more sultry, an enervating damp odor rises from the ground, in the tree-tops rustle wonderful melodies.
An intoxicating shudder runs over him at the thought of being alone with her in the great, silent, lonely woods. Then he becomes alarmed, quickens his steps, in order to run away from his thoughts and shorten the way.
Then a voice behind him calls laughingly and complainingly: "How you hurry--do not make fun of me, I am tired--one moment, only one moment!"
Linda stands there out of breath, heated, with half-closed eyes and half-opened mouth, her hair loosened by the rough caresses of the thicket, hanging over her shoulders.
How beautiful she is. Shall he offer her his arm? No, no, no!
He is one of those warm and weak natures in whom passion in one moment drowns everything, annihilates, crushes everything, intellect, honor and duty.
He has more conscience than others, but not that prudent, warning conscience, which withholds one from a wrong deed, but only that malicious, accusing one which points the finger, grins and hurls sly insults in the face after the deed is done.
"If you wish to spare your mother a fright, we must hurry," says Felix, with the last remnant of prudence which is left in him.
They go on. Before their feet opens an abyss, barely ten feet broad; in its depths filters a small thread of water which the moonlight colors a bluish silver. At the edge of the abyss, curiously looking down into it, bending deeply down to it, grows a bush of wild roses, covered thickly with white blossoms, trembling slightly, like a living being; with outstretched wings it vibrates over the depths, as if it hesitated between the longing to fly up to the sacred mystery of heaven, and the desire to plunge down into the alluring enigma of the abyss.
A small plank leads over it, slippery and tottering. Felix strides across it quickly and then looks around for Linda.
There, in the middle of the board, trembling, her teeth set in her lip, stands Linda, and cannot advance. "I am giddy!" she gasps.
There are few more attractive things in the world than a pretty, frightened woman.
Felix rushes up to her, takes her in his arms and carries her over. All is forgotten, he holds her closely to him, his lips lose themselves in her loosened hair, burn on her forehead, seek her mouth, but then he suddenly pauses. The enormity of his deed occurs to him.
"For Heaven's sake pardon me!" cries he. Whereupon she replies with a naïve smile and tender glance:
"Pardon? Ah, I knew that you loved me."
"That indeed a blind man could have seen," murmurs he bitterly. "But, Linda, could you resolve to be my wife?"
"Could I resolve?" she murmurs with tender roguishness. "And why not?"
"In spite of my past?"
Past! The word has a romantic charm for her. It wakes in her an idea of baccaret and mabille, of a brilliantly squandered fortune, of ballet-dancers and duels. A "past" in her mind belongs to every true nobleman of a certain age.
"If your heart is now wholly mine, what does your past matter to me?" says she softly.
Then he kisses her hand. "Linda you are an angel," whispers he, and silent and happy, they finish their walk.
Ten minutes later, before the ambitious singer, Raimund, reaches home, Linda was in the house.
She stood on the balcony of the "Emperor of China," between dead-looking oleander trees which exhale a tiresome odor of bitter almonds: she stands there, her arms resting on the balustrade when Raimund and his donkey emerge from the shadows of the street. His red cap pushed back, his face shining as if freshly shaven, with glance directed upward in terror he comes along, the picture of bankrupt responsibility on a donkey.
A gay laugh greets him.
"Linda, where are you?"
"Here."
"Here! I have been looking for you for an hour," says he, scarcely believing his eyes.
"Where? In the sky apparently--I have not been there, and have no wish to go. Do not stare at me so, please, as if I were my own ghost. Come up here, I have such a lovely secret."
With that she withdraws from the balcony, but the secret with which she has enticed him she does not tell him when he comes up.
"To-morrow, to-morrow," says she, clapping her hands, leaning far back in an old-fashioned arm-chair.
Raimund cannot get a word from his pretty, capricious sister.
"Who brought you home then?" he asks finally.
"Ah! That is just it, ha-ha-ha!" answered she.
"Linda! You have met Lanzberg--he has declared himself!" cries Raimund, excitedly.
"Will you be silent?" replies she, laughing--triumphant.
Meanwhile her parents, who have been to the farewell performance of a famous Vienna artiste at the theatre, enter.
"Hush!" cries she with a decided gesture to her brother. "Good evening, papa and mamma!" without leaving her arm-chair. "I am frightfully fond of you, for, if you only knew of it, I am to-day, for the first time, glad to be in the world."
Papa Harfink smiles delightedly, Mamma Harfink asks, "What is it?" and all her cameos and mosaic bracelets rattle with excitement.
"She----" begins Raimund.
"Hush, I tell you!" cries Linda, then laying her arms on the old-fashioned arms of the easy-chair, her head thrown teasingly back, she asks: "Is Baron Lanzberg a goodpartie?"
"His affairs are very well arranged. I saw in the country register. He has scarcely any debts," says Papa Harfink.
"And he is of the good old nobility, is he not?" asks Linda.
"Did not his father receive a tip in the form of an iron crown from some tottering ministry?"
"The Lanzbergs descend from the twelfth century," says mamma. "They are the younger line of the Counts Lanzberg, who are now known as the Counts Dey."
"Oh! and what was his mother's maiden name?" Linda continues her examination.
"She was a Countess Böhl."
"Why does he associate so little with people, and is so sad?--because of his past?"
Linda's eyes sparkle and shine, and capricious little dimples play about the corners of her mouth.
"What do you know of his past?" bursts out mamma.
"Oh, nothing; but I should so like to know something about it--it is not proper, eh?"
"He had at one time aliaison, hm--hm--was deceived"--murmurs Mrs. Harfink--"never got over it."
"Ah!--but it seems so--for--in a word, if all does not deceive me, he will come to-morrow to ask for my hand."
Without leaving her arm-chair, her little feet dance a merry polka of triumph on the floor.
"And do you love him?"
"I?"--Linda opens her eyes wide--"naturally; he is the first man with a faultless profile and good manners whom I have met--since Laure de Lonsigny's father!"
Old Harfink, wholly absorbed in gazing at his tongue in a hand-glass, has not heard the bold malice of his daughter. Raimund, on the contrary, says emphatically, "I find your delight at marrying a nobleman highly repulsive," and leaves the room.
And Felix? He does not undress that night. Motionless his face buried in the pillows, he lies on his bed and still fights a long-lost battle.
The air is heavy with the fragrance of linden blossoms and the approaching thunder-storm. A massive wall of clouds towers above the horizon like a barrier between heaven and earth.
Susanna Blecheisen, now Mrs. Harfink, usually called Madame von Harfink, was a famous blue-stocking. As a young girl she was interested in natural sciences, studied medicine, complained of the oppression of the female sex, and wrote articles on the emancipation of woman, in which with great boldness she described marriage as an antiquated and immoral institution.
In spite of the energetic independence of her character, in her twenty-eighth year she succumbed to the magnetic attraction of a red-cheeked clerk in her father's office, and generously sacrificed for him her scorn of manly prejudice and ecclesiastical sacraments--she married him.
Hereupon she moved with her husband to Vienna, and soon enjoyed a certain fame there on account of her fine German, and because she subscribed to theRevue des Deux Mondes, and had once sat beside Humboldt at a dinner, perhaps also because her husband was a very wealthy manufacturer.
Soon convinced of the inferior intellect of this man, she did not give herself up to cowardly despair at this discovery, but did her best to educate him. She patiently read to him works on capital, during which he incessantly rattled the money in his pockets, as if he would say, How does the theoretical analysis of capital concern a practical man, as long as he relies solely upon the actual substance? This rubbish furnished occupation for poor wretches, he thought to himself, which opinion he finally announced to his wife. But when she told him that Carl Marx and Lassalle were both very wealthy men, he listened to her dissertations with considerably heightened respect. From political economy, which she treated as a light recreation, fitted to his case, she led him into the gloomy regions of German metaphysics, and plunged him confusedly into the most dangerous abysses of misused logic.
He listened calmly, without astonishment, without complaining, with the lofty conviction that to cultivate one's self, as every kind of tasty idleness, was a very noble occupation, and, like many more clever people, he made a rule of despising everything which he did not understand. Instead of any other comment, during his wife's readings he merely rubbed his hands pleasantly, and murmured as long as he was not asleep, titteringly, "This confusion, this confusion."
Yet, however Mrs. Susanna strove, his mental wings did not strengthen, and his digestion remained the most absorbing interest of his life. He always fell back again into his insignificant commonness, like a dog whom one wishes to train to walk upon two legs, but who always falls back upon four again. At an æsthetic tea, for which his wife had most conscientiously prepared him, most generously lent him her intelligence, she heard him, in the midst of a conversation upon Schopenhauer and Leopardi, say to his neighbor: "Have you a weakness for pickles, ma'am? I have a great weakness for pickles, but--he-he-he!--I--it is really very unusual--I always feel such a disagreeable prickling in my nose when I eat anything sour."
With years, Susanna somewhat neglected the difficult education of this hopeless specimen, and transferred her pedagogic capabilities to the bringing up of her son, of whom she tried to make a genius.
She designed him for jurisprudence. He, however, devoted himself to song. Instead of poring over law books in consideration of his examination, he passed two-thirds of his time at the piano, diligently trying to attain the summit of his ambition, high C, while he did not fail to twist himself into the original contortions which on such occasions all particularly ambitious but faulty voices find so effectual.
With Linda, mamma Harfink from the first could do nothing, and in consequence she sent her to a Swiss pension. There she learned, besides a little French and piano thumping, to carry her head very high, learned to go into nervous spasms over creaking boots--in a word, she acquired the refined delicacy of feeling of the "princess with the pea."
What torture when upon her return home she lay upon not a single pea, alleviated by comfortable mattresses, but upon a whole sack of undisguised peas! Her home was frightful to her. The unrestrained, coarse admiration which the young men of her circle offered her seemed unbearable to her. Discontented, weary of life, without an aim that was not bound up in vanity, she vegetated from one day to another; in desperate moments thought of going on the stage, or perpetrating some outrageous act to make herself notorious.
The only consolation of this desolate time was the intercourse with her cousin, Eugene von Rhoeden, who had been educated in the Theresanium, had learned to turn up his nose more frequently and with more fine distinction than she herself, but to her misery, had his brand new title of Freiherr, and a couple of intimate friends of very old family beside. A passionate enemy of his relatives, he had greeted her enthusiastically with the words, "Sapperment, you are wholly different from your family, Linda!"
"Do not call me Linda, that sounds so operatic," she had answered him. "My friends always called me Linn!"
Eugene Rhoeden immediately perceived that Linda had a knowledge ofbon ton--evidently knew that all Austrian countesses are called Piffi, Pantschi, Nina, likegrisettesor little dogs. Her romantic name was odious to her, but in a circle where the women called each other Theresa and Rosalie, she must rejoice at being named Linda and not Rosalinda.
A superficial confidence arose between her and her noble cousin.
So stood matters when Felix "accidentally" made the acquaintance of the Harfinks while walking. This was the family into which fate and his weakness had thrown him.
Is Marienbad cheaper than Franzensbad because it is not so select, or is it less select because it is cheaper? I do not know. But certain it is that Marienbad does not possess the same stamp of distinction as Franzensbad, which latter, together with all the guests, seems about to slowly perish of its excessive distinction. The guests at Marienbad also lack that transparent thinness of the Franzensbad invalids, which so claims sympathy: they all look "not ill but only too healthy."
As the Marienbad invalids do not look like invalids, so Marienbad does not look like a water cure. It wholly lacks that fairylike appearance of a cure where invalidism is an elegant pastime. It is so severely commonplace, so ordinary that one is forced to believe in its reality. Fortunately there is some compensation in the country round about, and when the guests look from the windows of the miserable hotel rooms, beyond the plainness of the dusty streets to the green beautiful woods, the most pretentious are satisfied. The Marienbad woods are so charming, not those barbaric gloomy woods like the Bohemian forests for example, which with their black branches grumblingly bar the way to the sunbeams, and groan so continually that the song birds from pure terror have all died or gone away.
In the woods near Marienbad, the trees sing the whole day in competition with the birds, and the sunbeams fall between gay, dancing, quivering shadows, and the blue sky laughs through a thousand breaks in the lofty, floating leafy roof.
The Harfink family live in the Mühle strasse, and have a view directly into the woods.
It is half past eight in the morning. Papa Harfink, who is taking the cure, and every morning at six o'clock stands beside the spring, has drunk his seven glasses, taken the prescribed walk, and afterwards breakfasted; now he has gone to be weighed. The student, his son, is amusing himself by following a young lady who travels with many diamonds but without a chaperon, and who is entered in the register as a "singer." Linda is still at her toilet. Mamma Harfink is busy in the drawing-room with a medical pamphlet. Then the maid brings her a note. "A messenger from Traunberg brought it; he is waiting for an answer," declared the maid.
Before Mrs. Harfink had opened the letter Linda enters and asks: "We need expect no visitor before twelve o'clock, mamma? If the Baron chances to come, you know where I am--in the Kursaal. At twelve o'clock I take my Turkish bath. Adieu! I shall be back at one o'clock." With that she vanished.
Mrs. Harfink had concealed the letter from her daughter. She secretly suspects that it contains matters of which Linda need know nothing. Scarcely has her daughter vanished when she hastily opens it. In an uncharacteristic handwriting, occupying a great deal of paper:
"My Dear Madam: You have surely already learned from your daughter what has occurred between us. That I ventured, under the circumstances which you, madam, certainly know, to offer her my hand, seems to me now, upon calm consideration, incomprehensible and unpardonable."
Mamma Harfink starts. Will the Baron take back his word? What can he mean by "under the circumstances"? Linda's unprotectedness in the great lonely woods? Or does he, perhaps, refer to his fatal past? She resolves to read further.
"Your daughter's manner proves to me plainly that she has no suspicion of the stain upon my honor. I have not the courage to make my confession to her myself; do it for me, my dear madam, and kindly write me whether Miss Linda, after she has learned all, will yet hear anything of me, or will turn away from me. In the latter case I will go away for some time.
"With the deepest respect, your submissive
"Lanzberg."
"Absurd, eccentric man! He will yet spoil everything with his foolish scruples!" cries she, then, looking at the letter once more: "Horribly blunt, awkward style; no practised pen, but undeniably the sentiments of a refined gentleman."
Mrs. Harfink folded her hands and thought. Should she read this letter to Linda? She had been so pleased at the prospect of Linda's advantageous match. But the strange girl was capable of giving up this brilliantpartifor the sake of a trifle like this spot in Lanzberg's past.
Mrs. Harfink, in intercourse with the world very sensitive and wholly implacable, possessed theoretically that far-reaching consideration for any individuals attacked by scandal which has become so fashionable among the philanthropists of the present time. She always treated all city officials as calumniators and all accused as martyrs.
"Oh, if I were only in Linda's place, I would be angry that I had so little to pardon in him," cried she dramatically; "but Linda is so narrow, so petty. Her intellect does not reach to the comprehension of the eternal divine morality; she understands merely the narrow prejudiced morality of good society, which divides sins as well as men into 'admissible and not admissible;' to-day calmly overlooks a crime, to-morrow screams itself hoarse over a fault which offends against its customs."
While the Harfink satisfied her philanthropic heart with this subtle, humane eloquence, the girl stood waiting at the door. "The messenger begs an answer," she remarked shyly. Mrs. Harfink bit her lips impatiently. She was not capable of a decided deception, she must twist and turn it before her conscience until it took on a quite different aspect from the original one. Must, in a word, carry it out in such a highly virtuous manner that she could later deny it to her conscience.
"The messenger begs an answer!"
Mrs. Harfink seated herself at her writing-table and wrote:
"My Dear Lanzberg: Come, if possible, at once--in any case before twelve. Linda expects you."With cordial greeting, yours sincerely,"S. Harfink."
"My Dear Lanzberg: Come, if possible, at once--in any case before twelve. Linda expects you.
"With cordial greeting, yours sincerely,
"S. Harfink."
Two, almost three hours passed. Susanna's excitement became painful. What should she tell Felix? The best would be to tell him that Linda knew all. And did she not indeed know all? She had conscientiously told her daughter of aliaisonwhich had formerly been the unhappiness of the Baron. Theliaisonwas, on the whole, the principal thing, everything else only a detail. Only chance, which did not in the slightest accord with the whole life of the Baron before and since, and of which respectable people hesitate to speak, and which one should not exhume from the past in which it lay buried.
She was in duty bound to conceal the affair from Linda, as one must conceal certain things in themselves wholly innocent from children, because their intellect, not yet matured by experience, is not capable of rightly comprehending them.
In all her circle of acquaintances, Mrs. Harfink was the only one who knew anything definite of Lanzberg's disgrace. By chance, and through the acquaintance of a high official of the law, she had learned the sad facts. She thought of the envious glances with which all her friends had followed Lanzberg's attentions to Linda. Linda had somewhat forced the acquaintance with him. The good friends were horrified at her boldness--at her triumph. Mrs. Harfink remembered her sister, Rhoeden; what had she not done to marry her daughter to a coughing, bald-headed, Wurtemburg count, a gambler, whose debts they had been forced to pay before the marriage.
Quarter of twelve struck--was Lanzberg not coming, then? In a short time Linda would be back.
Then a carriage stopped before the "Emperor of China."
A minute later there was a knock at the door, and Felix Lanzberg entered the room, pale, worn, with great uneasy, shy eyes.
Mamma Harfink reached him both hands, and merely said, "My dear Lanzberg!" then she let him sit down.
He was silent. Many times he tried to speak, but the words would not come, and he lowered his eyes helplessly to his hat, which he held on his knees.
At last Mamma Harfink took his hat from his hand and put it away.
"You will stay to dinner with us?"
"If you will permit me, madam," said he, scarcely audibly.
"Oh, you over-sensitive man!" cried she, with her loud, indelicate sympathy. How she pained him!
"Does Linda think that I am an over-sensitive man?" said he, almost bitterly, and without looking at his future mother-in-law.
Mamma Harfink pondered for a last time. "I do not understand how you could doubt Linda for a moment," replied she.
He scarcely heard her, and only cried hastily "Was she surprised?"
"My dear Lanzberg!" Mrs. Harfink called the Baron as often as possible "her dear Lanzberg," in order to show him that she already included him in her family--"a man who can oppose to his fault a counter-balance such as your whole subsequent life is, has not only expiated his fault but he has obliterated it." Madame Harfink very often spoke of her husband's views, and liked to allow him to participate before the world in her wealth of thought. If she herself could no longer cherish any illusions about him, she nevertheless carefully concealed his nullity from friends as well as she could in a sacred obscurity.
"That may all be true," cried Felix, almost violently, "but nevertheless I cannot expect this philosophical consideration from a young girl. Oh, my dear madam, do you not deceive yourself?"
From without sounded the gay click of high heels. Linda had returned sooner than her mamma had expected. The blood rushed to her face, she trembled so with excitement that, thanks to her cameos, she rattled like a rickety weather-vane in a storm. "Linda pardons you everything," cried she, hastily. "Linda loves you, she only begs you one thing, that you will never speak to her of your past. That would be too painful for her!"
The door opened. Linda entered, her hair in charming disorder, and her large straw hat carelessly pushed back from her forehead. When she perceived Felix she started slightly and joyously, then she rested her large eyes, radiant with happiness, upon him.
"A tantôt, you dear people," cried Mrs. Harfink, and, gracefully waving her hand, this courageous and philanthropic liar left the room.
For a few seconds there was utter silence. Linda gazed in astonishment at Felix, who stood there deathly pale and motionless, his hand resting on the corner of the table. That the charm of her person so confused him flattered her, it seemed to her interesting and romantic to cause such deep heart wounds, still his manner remained enigmatical to her. She tapped her foot in pretty impatience and coughed slightly.
Then he looked up, his eyes full of pleading tenderness and dread. "Linda, will you really consecrate your young, blooming life to me?--me--a broken man who----" He paused.
The situation became more dramatic, and pleased her better and better. She came close up to him.
"If you ever permit yourself, in the presence of your betrothed, to remember your past, and look so sad, I will run away, do you hear, and will never know anything more of you." Her voice sounded so gentle, so sweet, her warm little hand lay so coaxingly and confidingly on his arm.
"Poor Felix!" murmured she, looking up at him tenderly. He closed his eyes, blinded with tears and happiness, then he took her violently in his arms, and kissed her. Her hat slipped from her head and fell to the floor. She laughed at it very charmingly. He released her in order to look at her better. He was happy--he had forgotten. He drew a ring from his finger. "It was my mother's engagement ring," he whispered, and placed it on her finger. Then it proved that the ring was almost too small for her. "What slender fingers you must have!" cried she, and gazed with pride at his slender, aristocratic hand.
Then there was a knock at the door. "Ah!" cried Linda, with a displeasure which herfiancéfound bewitching.
Eugene von Rhoeden entered, a bouquet of white flowers in his hand. "Gardenias, Lin! Gardenias!" he cried, triumphantly. "What do you say to this progress of Marienbad civilization? Ah, Baron--excuse me--I really had not----" He glances from one to the other, sees the diamond ring sparkling on Linda's hand. "What a magnificent ring you have, Lin!"
"A present," replies Linda, with a pretty gesture toward Felix. "May one accept gardenias from a relative?" she asks him, coaxingly--and takes one from the bouquet to place in his buttonhole.
"Ah!" cries Eugene, suddenly changing an acid expression into a polite smile. "May I congratulate you, or will my congratulations not be received?"
Felix gives him his hand with emotion. "Congratulate me, congratulate me," he murmurs.
"I do not know which of you is more to be congratulated," says Eugene, with tact and feeling.
In the adjoining room is heard a selection from the Huguenots, which breaks off in the middle, then a great, terrible howl, whereupon the improvised Rarol, red as his cravat, bursts in and cries, "Did you hear, Linda? That was C."
"Unfortunately," says she, laughing.
Raimund starts back. As he notices guests, he cries, "I will not disturb----" and vanishes.
"And I also will not disturb you," says Rhoeden, with indescribably loving accent. "Adieu!" and kissing Linda's hand, whereupon he says to Felix, "Your betrothed, my cousin," he disappears.
The music-stand in Franzensbad is torn down, the whining potpourries have ceased, the park is deserted, legions of dry leaves whirl on the sand, and exchange cutting remarks with the autumn wind upon the perpetual change of every earthly thing, which short-sighted humanity calls transitoriness.
It is the 18th of October, the "certain Baron Lanzberg's" wedding-day. The week of torture in which he could not resolve to tell the severe Elsa of his betrothal is past, and when he at length resolved upon it, he received only a sad glance and a silent shrug of the shoulders as answer from her--past are the happy hours of the betrothal time--almost past.
If the intoxication, the confusion which never becomes consciousness is happiness, then Felix was very happy in this time. Passion had numbed everything in him which did not refer to the present or to the 18th of October. He existed only in a feeling of longing and expectation. He had no time to tell himself that Linda's happy coquetries proved a very flippant conception of the serious situation--he himself had forgotten the gravity of the situation. He did not think, he only felt and saw a white, ever-changing face, a face which can smile in at least two hundred ways--felt a perpetual warm excitement, felt something like an electric shock when two soft lips touched his temples and left them quickly like butterflies which will not be caught, when two soft hands played round his neck.
Yes, ft is the 18th of October, Felix Lanzberg's wedding-day.
The wedding was to be solemnized at Castle Rineck, the Harfinks' new possession, and in a white circular chapel, with small windows shaded by ivy, and an altar-piece which was dark as the Catholic religion.
The castle is crowded with guests, mostly honest manufacturers, who are proud of their fortunes acquired by their own ability, and others also less honest, who, after they have retired from business, wish to know nothing more of their money-making past.
Needless to say, the wedding preparations were unpleasant to the infatuated Felix. The bride had joined in his request for a quiet wedding, for the contact with so much industry of which a considerable part had not yet become "finance," little pleased her; but the parents could not let the opportunity pass without displaying their wealth to the astonished throng.
The afternoon is gray and moist. Mrs. von Harfink--for the past week, no longer through the obligingness of her acquaintances, but through the obligingness of a democratic ministry thus titled--Mrs. von Harfink, then, composes a toast for her husband to deliver at the wedding dinner. Raimund stands beside the piano--to sing while sitting might injure his voice--and strives to render the cry of the Valkyrs in Wagner's worthy accents; a sympathetic poodle seconds him in this melodious occupation.
Outside in the park Linda wanders alone through the damp October air. The dead foliage lies thick on the lawn, and between the leaves shines the grass, bright and fresh as hope which lies under all the load of shattered joys of broken life, undisturbed.
The bushes, glowing in autumnal splendor, look like huge moulting birds who shiveringly lose their feathers. Many flower-beds are already empty, only a couple of stiff georginias and chrysanthemums still raise their heads proudly and solitary in the universal desolation.
Linda is quite alone; her friends, none of whom are very dear to her, are too zealously busied with cares of the toilet to disturb her solitude; they are also afraid to expose their complexions to the morning air. Linda feels no anxiety about her complexion, it is too beautiful for that. With her loosened hair which, brown as the dead leaves, falls over her back, and with the red cloak, in which she has wrapped herself, she is a bright spot in the park.
She is a shy bride and not at all melancholy.She is a shy bride and not at all melancholy.
She is not a shy bride, and not at all melancholy. Her eyes shine, her lips quiver with excitement--distinguished acquaintances, foreign entertainments of which she will be queen. In mind, she already sees herself on the arm of one and another prince of the blood royal. She could clap her hands with joy that to-day at six o'clock she will no longer be called Harfink.
She remains standing beside a pond where near the bank four swans, shivering and melancholy, swim round a yellow bath-house. Then a hand is laid lightly on her shoulder. "Felix!" whispers she with the charming smile which she always has in readiness for her betrothed.
"No, not Felix--only Eugene," replies a gay voice, and blond, handsome, with clothes a trifle too modern, and a too pronounced perfume of Ylang-ylang, her cousin and former admirer stands near her.
"Ah, have you really come?" says she, joyously.
"Why naturally," replies he. "You do not think that for the sake of a few forlorn chamois I would stay away from your wedding?" Rhoeden has come from Steinmark, to be the cavalier of his cousin's second bridesmaid.
"We had already begun to fear--that is, Emma was afraid," said Linda, coquettishly. "Naturally it was indifferent to me."
"Wholly indifferent? I do not believe it," said he. His arm has slipped down from her shoulder, he has seated himself upon a low iron garden chair, from which, with elbows on his knees, his face between his hands, with the boldness which she likes so well in him, he can look at her as much as he pleases.
"Wholly indifferent!" she repeats, and throws a pebble between the swans, who dip their black bills greedily in the green water.
"O Lin! You naughty Lin! And nothing that concerns you is indifferent to me!" he groans. "The Trauns did not wish to let me go from them--but rather than not see you to-day I would have fought a duel with all the Trauns in the world!"
Linda has slowly approached him; flattered vanity speaks from her shining eyes and glowing lips. He seizes her hand and draws her to him. "Do you know, Lin, that I was once absurdly in love with you?"
She nods. "Yes, I know it."
"And you?"
"And I? Do not ask indiscreet questions, Eugene!"
"But this question interests me so much," he excuses himself.
"Tell me, Lin, if Lanzberg had not come between us--yes, if I only, most unfortunately, had not been born a Grau," he continues sighing, "could I have cherished a little, very little hope?"
"It is quite possible," says she, shrugging her shoulders, and coquetting with him over her shoulder. "But it is better so for us both."
"For you, certainly," says he, "but I shall feel quite peculiarly to-day when I see you with your bridal wreath, Lin! You will drive people mad with your beauty. You are the most beautiful person whom I have ever met in my life. Where the devil did you get your look of high breeding?"
Eugene Rhoeden, with his gay boldness and graceful impudence, his unconscionable aplomb, and his denial from principle of all personal dignity, is what is called in the Vienna slang agamin.
Gamin as he is, no one knows how to bewitch Linda's small nature, how to feed her excessive vanity with such delicate bits as Eugene von Rhoeden. He understands her, she understands him; they are fairly made for each other, and for one moment, one very brief moment, Linda thinks almost with repugnance of the black raven in the red field which greets her from the Lanzberg coat-of-arms. "Eugene!" murmurs she. "Ah!" With that she suddenly turns to an elderly maid, who comes out from among the bushes.
"Are you looking for me, Fanny?"
"Yes, miss."
"I am probably to try my train for the twenty-ninth time. Ah, Eugene! There is something tiresome about a wedding-day!" then she breaks a red chrysanthemum as she passes, throws it to him, and vanishes.
About seven hours later the wedding takes place in the castle chapel, adorned with greenhouse flowers. The blossoms tremble as if they were cold or afraid. Their sweet, exhilarating fragrance mingles with the odor of wax candles, and that of perfumery and cosmetics, which is always noticeable in select assemblies. The wind creeps curiously through the window cracks, creeps up to the altar, makes the flames of the candles flicker, and blows cold upon the bare shoulders of the bride and bridesmaids.
The bride, loaded with the richest jewels, resembles a proud narcissus in the morning dew. Elsa is deathly pale, even her lips are colorless. Erwin displays the inexpressive gravity which the occasion demands of a well-bred man. Mrs. von Harfink looks continually at the decorations, and starts when a white rose falls from the wall. Mr. von Harfink looks as if his collar were too tight for him. Eugene von Rhoeden, his bridesmaid's wrap on his arm, a sceptical smile on his lips, his hand at his mustache, his glance resting now on his uncle, now on the priest, now on the bride, stands there, the image of a little society philosopher of the nineteenth century, who laughs at all vanity and cannot himself give up his own. Raimund looks like a radical who is paying an immense tribute to prejudice, and tries to look more distinguished than his brother-in-law.
And Felix? Felix is as if paralyzed. The moment is here; his feverish longing nears its aim--happiness.
Then the ivy taps on the window, the wind seizes him with ice-cold hands. Felix shudders and glances at his bride. How beautiful she is, and--how proud. Proud? Felix Lanzberg's bride proud? It is impossible--it cannot be. A suspicion which, however he may deny it to his conscience, has occurred to him again and again during their whole engagement, strikes him for the last time and becomes certain that Linda's mother has deceived him; Linda knows nothing!
Then the priest demands his "Yes!" He hesitates; hesitates so long that Linda looks at him in surprise; two large, greenish eyes shine at him through the filmy, white bridal veil. "Yes!" says he firmly and shortly.
A long dinner follows, a long, complicated dinner, which no one enjoys except Papa Harfink, who studies the menu with the tenderest pleasure, and with a small pencil marks the numbers for love of which he thinks to extend considerably his elastic appetite.
He sits between Elsa and the wife of his nephew, the Freiherr, the elder Rhoeden, and, as he gulps down hispotage à la reine, tells both ladies of his new Achenbach, which cost him 4,000 gulden, which does not seem at all dear to him; as, besides a great deal of sunset, there are thirty-four figures in the picture--he has counted them--and in the background something else, he does not know whether it is a buffalo or ruins. "They almost persuaded me to buy a Daubigny, a Frenchman, I think--a green sauce--what a sauce! I said no, thank you. I like spinach and eggs, I said; but spinach and cows--but--and such cows! without tails or horns--regular daubs of colors. These Frenchmen are tricky. Really, people are cheated by them." Thus concludes Papa Harfink, the art critic.
Elsa only half listens to him. Her eyes wander wearily over the table with its stiff floral decorations and its heavy silverware, "real silver, and not plate," assures Papa Harfink.
Of the men, the last generation are broad-shouldered, red-faced; a sparse beard curls around their full cheeks, a sharp glance, on the lookout for profit, shoots from their small eyes. The past generation breathe loudly, pick their teeth continually, wear too tight rings on too fat fingers, and without exception, a thick gold chain with a diamond medallion over their stomachs.
The present generation are sickly, dissipated, and have something of the jockey and something of the valet who copies his master.
The pride of the whole family is centred in Eugene von Rhoeden, the blond good-for-nothing, who has as many debts as a cavalier, who was educated in the Theresanium, and once had a quarrel with a watchman.
Of the women, some are pretty, none are pleasing; they have all good dressmakers; none are well dressed.
The usually pale face of a "certain Baron Lanzberg" begins to flush feverishly; without eating a mouthful he hastily swallows one glass of wine after another.
"Try this delicious salmon; permit me to help you," the charming host turns to Elsa. She makes a desperate attempt to do justice to the salmon. "Strange," remarks Von Harfink, "my mother used to say that when she was young salmon was cheaper than beef, now it is very dear."
Elsa has laid down her fork in despair. "I am behind the times," says she. "I still am frightened by a telegram, and always feel nervous at a wedding." She smiles sadly, and two charming dimples appear in her cheeks.
Papa Harfink continues to urge her to eat. "You must taste this salmi, Baroness," he entreats. "Monsieur Galatin, my cook, would be unhappy if he learned that every one had not eaten some of his salmi.Pâte à la Kotschubey, he calls it. Only to-day, this Galatin said to me: 'Ah, Monsieur le Chevalier, when I think how often Prince Kotschubey got his stomach out of order with my salmi. The physicians said he died of gastrosis, ah! he died of my salmi.'"
"You have a dangerous cook," says Elsa.
"But I understand this Kotschubey, do you know," continues Papa Harfink. "Since I have had this cook, I really have to go to Marienbad twice every year. And besides, he is a splendid fellow, talks politics like a deputy. He formerly served only with the highest nobility. I took him with the castle from Count Sylvani. A peculiar fellow--this Galatin; will not stay away from the swans and the park. A poetic creature; do you know, Baroness, he reads Victor Hugo and the Medisations of Lamartine."
"Ah really, the Medisations of Lamartine," says Elsa, smiling. Susanna Harfink rushes to the assistance of her distressed husband. "Ha! ha! ha!" says she, with her shrill laugh. "My husband always calls meditations medisations--very malicious, do you not think so, but a good joke."
Papa Harfink, sadly conscious that it always means a curtain lecture when his wife before people laughs so energetically at one of his "jokes," of which he feels innocent, with much grace and melancholia licks his knife on both sides.
His wife looks as if she were weary of pulling the lion-skin again and again over the long ears.
The moment has arrived when he is to speak his toast. He rises hesitatingly, the glass trembles in his hand. Fear and champagne have made him lose the last recollection of the few words prepared by his wife.
"This is a great day for me--a day of pride and pain--no, that is not it!" thoughtfully raising his hand to his upper lip. "I hope that my brother-in-law, no, my son-in-law--Su--su--sanna!" he murmurs, helplessly. His cheeks seem to inflate, his eyes grow smaller and more shining, he has set down his glass, and twists his napkin like a conscientious washerwoman. Susanna rises, she is fairly Roman. "As my husband, overcome with emotion, cannot speak," she begins. "I will say, this is for----" for a moment she hesitates, then for the first time in her life, she resolutely denies her husband, emancipates herself from the "us" with which for long years she has protected him, and says: "This is for me a day of pain and of joy. I lose a daughter, gain a son; may my children always find the highest happiness in each other, and a safe retreat in their parental home."
"He is getting a dreadful mother-in-law, this Lanzberg," whispers Eugene Rhoeden to his neighbor, a gay, more than audacious brunette. "Something between a Roman matron and a quarrelsome landlady from a bachelor boarding-house."
The tasteful Raimund contributes a toast to the fusion of nobleman and citizen. The older Rhoeden hopes that his beautiful cousin will lend a new charm to the noble name of Lanzberg.
Much similar follows.
Eugene, for whom this rosary ofparvenuplatitudes becomes too long, murmurs: "Shall we not soon have paid sufficient thanks for the honor of being allied with Baron Lanzberg?"
This mocking remark was only meant for his neighbor, its bitterness was only meant for the fawning of the Harfinks.
But Felix heard it; ashy pale, with glowing eyes, half rising from his chair, he stares at the impertinent young man. The latter says good-naturedly and thoughtlessly: "Yes, Lanzberg, I will jeer at myself.Parole d'honneur, I am a little ashamed to be quite so delighted at receiving an honest man into the family!"
Thereupon the "certain Baron Lanzberg" lowers his eyes to the table-cloth, and remains silent.