Marienbad at six o'clock in the morning.
The air is still fresh and fragrant, the long, slanting sunbeams fall between the damp coolness of the woody shadows. The guests crowd along the narrow spring walk, their glasses in their hands. They form a line before the spring after they have emptied their goblets, considerately turn and conscientiously take exercise.
The sand beneath their feet, moist with the night dew, is of a dark reddish color. On the leaves of the graceful trees sparkle little drops of dew like finest enamel. In the turf which borders the sand walk great drops shine like diamonds. A white mist, too transparent to be called a fog, fills the distance. Thicker and thicker the guests crowd around the spring.
Marienbad is overfull this year. Pleased landlords rub their fat hands, and push up prices to a most unheard-of amount. Guests who have omitted to engage rooms by telegraph can find no decent accommodations, seek shelter in the most miserable private houses, offer gold mines to shoemakers, tailors and glove-makers for one room. A whole excursion trainful pass the night in the waiting-room.
The daughter of some reigning family, travelling incognito under the name "Comtesse Stip," has engaged the greatest part of the largest hotel for herself and her little prince in Scottish costume. A swarm of distinguished moths from every country has followed the princely light, and a crowd ofparvenus, like a swarm of insects of the night, has followed the moths, who pass their time in Marienbad bandying strangely unselfish compliments.
The famous Vienna artists play every evening in the stuffy theatre; princesses and dramaticcoryphéesmeet each other on the spring promenade.
To-day a new animation is displayed by the spring pilgrims. All gaze at a couple who have this morning appeared for the first time upon the promenade. The aristocratic curiosity seems even more awakened than the plebeian, and all the thirty or forty pairs of eyes of Marienbad "society" are fixed upon the same spot--upon the knight of Harfink and his young wife.
"That is the Juanita, the Carini; how badly she is dressed, how fat she has grown, how homely!" goes from mouth to mouth. "And not even an artistic temperament--a woman who could be sensible enough to marry a 'checked' iron founder. When she sees Lanzberg--how he must feel!" Thus says society. Meanwhile, not noticing the voices hissing around her, Juanita, the widowed Marchesa Carini, upright and stiff, with the consequential manner of a retired dancer, walks between the knightly Harfink and his son, beaming with pride and satisfaction.
How she looked fifteen years ago, at the time when she so fatally crossed the path of life of Felix Lanzberg, it would be difficult to determine. Today she looks like all elderly Spaniards, who to our unpractised northern eyes resemble each other almost as much as elderly negresses.
An immoderately fleshy form, not very tall, with high bust, and unnaturally compressed waist, the hands tiny, like accidental appendages to her fat arms, the feet still incomparably beautiful, but too short to support the huge figure, the gait waddling, the face yellow and fat, mouth, eyes, and nose almost hidden by a pair of enormous cheeks--that is Juanita.
She who, in her day, had worn the bandeaux of her nation coming down over her ears, now, probably because this manner of wearing the hair seems to her peasant-like, wears the hair drawn back from her withered temples, falling in black ringlets on her forehead, a hat on the back of her head, a green silk gown and diamonds. Her tiny shoes and stockings are the only parts of her costume which are faultless. The former, charming little black satin affairs, the latter of open-work black silk. In consequence of this, she wears her gown short beyond all bound in front, which increases the width of the whole appearance.
She continually exchanges the most tender, loving glances with her husband, and a happy honeymoon smile illumines her yellow face when he addresses her.
As she uses the cure with the same conscientiousness as he, she stands beside him at the spring. Little Comtesse L----, a lively lady whom nothing escapes, asserts that every time before emptying her goblet, Juanita coquettishly hits it against that of the "retired iron founder."
The "checked iron founder" is a name given Mr. von Harfink on account of his immoderate preference for striking green and blue checked clothes. For two weeks Juanita has borne his name--for two weeks he has known how badly he really fared under Susanna's rule.
The aforesaid Susanna had died a year after Linda's marriage. Linda, who at that time had not fully recovered from Gery's birth, expressed no wish to go to Vienna for her mother's burial or her father's consolation. Mr. von Harfink had been left to bear the heavy loss alone.
At the funeral Baron von Harfink shed many tears into a black-bordered handkerchief, and displayed all the symptoms of honest emotion; after the funeral he fell into a condition of silent apathy. The flame which had given light to his mind was extinguished, all was dark within him. He felt like an actor of poor memory whose excellent prompter has died.
About a week after the catastrophe, his nearest relatives assembled at a dinner in his house, with the good-natured view of diverting him. He sat in their midst, silently bent over his plate. They had adjourned to the drawing-room for coffee, and still he had not spoken a word.
"The poor fellow! it has gone harder with him than we thought," the relatives whispered to each other. Then stretching himself comfortably in an arm-chair, and rubbing his stomach, he began, "Ah! things have not tasted so good to me as they did to-day for a long time."
The feeling of an immense relief had awakened in him. No longer to be afraid of making stupid remarks, no longer, when he had put on his favorite checked vest, to be reproved with, "Anton, your vest insults my æsthetic feeling," or, when he had given himself up to the comfortable enjoyment of a favorite dish, to be frightened with, "Anton, a day-laborer is nothing in comparison with you;" to be forced to listen to no more articles from theRundschauand theRevue des Deux Mondes,--it was very pleasant.
Scarcely had Susanna been three weeks in her grave, when Mr. von Harfink stopped the subscriptions to theRevueand its German cousin, theRundschau, retired to his estate, played nine-pins with his brewer and cook, and in his shirt sleeves, ordered those new checked plush vests, and ruined his stomach three times a week.
Soon he displayed the most peculiar matrimonial intentions. He made love to the former companion of his deceased wife, an elderly spinster with thin hair and a very deep feeling for a blond theology student who, at that time in Magdeberg, sued for her hand.
The improbable occurred; the companion refused the knight and his three millions, although after his death a settlement of seven hundred thousand guldens was assured her.
The family was astonished at this unexpected unselfishness, and from thankfulness, and to prevent the romantic maiden from changing her mind later, married her to her student, with a splendid dowry.
After they had met this model of prudence, the relations wrung their hands. If the charms of a forty-year-old, half bald companion had almost brought him to the altar, how should they protect him from amésalliance?
Only by the sharpest oversight was Mr. von Harfink prevented from marrying his housekeeper. Fearful conflicts burst forth on his estate--the castle became an inn.
"Susie must have been cleverer than I accredited her with being," once remarked Eugene von Rhoeden, who indifferently looked on upon his relative's movements. "It certainly takes skill to govern the rhinoceros. None of you equal her!"
At length the relatives were weary, and left Baron von Harfink to the guidance of his son, that is, to his fate. Raimund was far too much engaged in cultivating his high C to watch his father. The poor young man, who had been destined by his mother to be a genius, at this time suffered from deep depression. He had failed everywhere--at the university, on the stage, finally in literature.
After long efforts, he had obtained an engagement in a Bohemian watering-place, and under the stage name of Remondo Monte-chiaro, had sung Raoul in a beautiful pale violet costume of real silk velvet.
The audience hissed and laughed; he sprained his ankle by the leap from the window, and appeared no more.
Then he prepared a comedy which fell through in P----, an accident which he attributed to the lack of cultivation of the audience there; then he wrote essays upon the love affair of George Sand and Alfred de Musset, the murder of the ambassador at Rastadt, and the Iron Mask.
These effusions were published in a Vienna paper. The superficial public found the themes old, and did not read the articles. The intimate friends of the author read the first five sentences, had the satisfaction of discovering a grammatical error therein, and as, with the malice with which friendship meets every young striver, they sought nothing else in the articles, they laid them aside, satisfied. Raimund felt deeply wounded. The world seemed to him nothing more than an immense porcupine, which, with all its quills of prejudice, repelled his genius.
He passed his days in gloomy brooding--then a message from his humorous cousin, Eugene von Rhoeden, in Venice, waked him.
"Help what can be helped," he wrote. "He is going courting again; this time it is in earnest."
Yes, it was in earnest.
In Marienbad, the year before, he had first made her acquaintance; he had followed her to Venice. She had there, under the name Juanita, tried to obliterate the reputation of Pepita. Later she had borne the name of a Marchese Carini. She had been obliged to dance even as a Marchesa, for the Marchese did not disdain to make use of his wife's talent, and had dragged her from theatre to theatre. At one of her brilliant performances in St. Petersburg she broke her leg, and since then could dance no more. Now she became fat, sleepy, devout and irritable; the Marchese gambled away the greater part of her fortune, and died of galloping consumption. Ignorant of all business, continually deceived by her lovers, the Marchese Carini would have come to a sad end if the Knight of Harfink had not appeared as rescuer in her need.
He married her in the beginning of June.
Raimund, very depressed and deeply in debt, did not refuse to offer to kiss his new mamma's hand dutifully. She knew how so to fascinate him at the first meeting, that he was almost as slavishly submissive to her as his father. Juanita desired social position. She insisted upon being introduced to Linda. Harfink did not know that she had formerly had strange relations with Felix--she did not touch upon it; on the contrary, she reserved her power over Felix, which she had so boundlessly misused, for a favorable moment.
Mr. von Harfink told his nephew, Eugene, when he met him in Marienbad, his wife's desire. "I really do not know what to do; Linda is so curious," he said.
And Rhoeden answered with his sly smile, "Write Linda and ask her when you may bring her new mamma to see her--or, really I see no reason why you should not quietly drive over one of these days without announcing yourself."
"I do not understand what any one could have against Chuchu!" said the young husband, enthusiastically. "What a woman she is! She has diamonds from the Emperor of ---- and a gold coat of mail from the Duke of ----, and with all that, she is nevertheless all domesticity and love! She calls me Tony, and darns my socks from pure love."
At this time life was for poor Felix only a heavy, oppressing burden.
He knew that Juanita was staying in Marienbad; knew that she had married his father-in-law. He felt neither horror nor astonishment at this step; nothing which she did would have astonished him, but he felt oppressed by the sense of her nearness; a true superstitious fear of the magic charm which her beauty had for him weighed upon him. His recollections, his imagination, had been busy with the picture of her which he still possessed--had invested it with the most refined charms. For Felix, the only excuse for his inexcusable conduct, by which he had ruined his life, lay in the demoniac fascination of the dancer.
Linda had written her father, before his marriage, an annihilating letter, to which she had received no answer. She believed her father angry, and therefore expected nothing less than a visit from him. Felix, who thought her opinion sensible, nevertheless showed from time to time a certain fear, and thereby excited the spirit of contradiction in Linda.
"One can be glad that papa has done nothing worse," she remarked once, indifferently. "It is not to be supposed that they will have children--et pour le reste, such a marriage with a dancer has a certaincachet. I shall make no advances to her, but if she comes I must receive her!"
Felix shuddered and was silent.
Bitterly ashamed of himself, for a time he had tried to restrain his thirst for liquor. But he could control himself no longer. When the old remembrance began to burn in his heart like eating poison, he at first tried hard to occupy himself. He read, but, unaccustomed to all mental activity, a book scarcely chained his attention. He took long walks, he was too uneasy to become tired; he rode, he was too good a horseman to have any trouble with his horse.
His heart grew more and more heavy, and he drank--drank privately in his room so as not to be surprised in an unreliable condition. He was always temperate at table. No one saw him now with flabby lips and tottering knees, and his friends did not notice that he was really never quite sober now. His hands shook perpetually, there was a watery look in his staring, hollow eyes. A slight bluish flush colored his nostrils, and his voice was quavering.
Meanwhile Linda, careless and indifferent, fluttered around him, bitterness in her heart, on her lips a charming smile and malicious jests. A butterfly with a wasp's sting, Scirocco had called her, and Pistasch repeated it to her. It had greatly pleased her.
At this time Pistasch came to Traunberg almost daily. Linda coquetted with him, but her coquetry was vague and cold, and was neither challenging nor encouraging. He made no progress, as he expressed himself to Scirocco. "She has no temperament and no heart," he grumbled, and once he added, "Perhaps I am not the right one----"
"What do you mean?" replied Scirocco, impatiently, remembering the suspicion which had been cast upon him. But Pistasch only answered crossly, "Garzin!"
"Impossible!" replied Scirocco, unwillingly. Pistasch only shrugged his shoulders, and when Sempaly began to consider the matter, he must admit that Garzin went oftener than was necessary to Traunberg, that Linda had quite a different glance and voice when she was with him from what she had for others, that she made concessions to him which she granted no one else, never wore again the most becoming toilets if he had once condemned them, and did not sing the most piquant couplets if he shrugged his shoulders over them, and, once on the slippery path of distrust, Scirocco told himself also that the charming sisterly confidence which Linda permitted herself with her brother-in-law was scarcely in place in such a beautiful woman with such a young man.
He was angry with Garzin.
"He really does not think of wrong, but he should be careful--for----"
Like all people of his stamp, Scirocco, in affairs of passion, did not believe in free will, but so much the more in the compelling influence of opportunity.
"You have a new bracelet, Linda," said Felix one day, after dinner, to his wife as she smoked a cigarette with him in the drawing-room.
"Do you like it?" said she, and held out her white arm to him. The bracelet consisted of a thick gold chain to which a little coin was fastened.
"Charming!" answered Felix, apparently indifferently. "Did you buy it in Marienbad?"
"No; Kamenz gave it to me to-day--he owed me a philopena," replied Linda.
"Hm!" Felix looked gloomy, but did not know exactly how to put his vexation into words. He asked himself, "Have I the right to reprove my wife?"
"Ah, the bracelet seems to please you less since you know where it comes from," said Linda, smiling maliciously. "Poor Felix! Are you, perhaps, jealous of this handsome, silly Pistasch? He is about as dangerous to me as that dandy there," and she pointed to a dainty Meissner figure in knee breeches and flowered vest, who with cocked hat under his arm, smiled down from a bracket.
"Well, I certainly do not wish to disturb your little amusement," stammered Felix, "but you do not know how much gossip arises from intercourse between a woman like you and a man like Pistasch, and if he is really so indifferent to you--why--then--perhaps you might receive him somewhat less frequently."
"Hm!" said Linda, thoughtfully. "However indifferent that porcelain dandy yonder is to me, I have not the slightest inclination to throw him out of the window." She blew a few whiffs of smoke up to the ceiling.
"But there is no question of that," replied Felix, "only see him less often----"
Linda would not let him finish.
"But do you not see, my dear Felix," said she, knocking the ashes from her cigarette, "to the house of a woman like me, who--let us speak plainly--really does not belong to his set, a man like Pistasch either comes not at all or every day. I am of a sociable nature--I must associate with some one, or else I should die ofennui. If no ladies will come, then I will receive men."
"I cannot understand why you do not get on better with Elsa," remarked Felix, uneasily.
"I was there recently; she has not returned my visit," said Linda. "I cannot force her to come. I believe she is vexed with me because Erwin amuses himself with me. Heaven knows our intercourse is of wholly an innocent nature!"
The young woman rocked softly back and forth in her chair and laughed to herself, striking the finger-tips of her loosely clasped hands together.
"I do not doubt that for a moment, but you should have some consideration for Elsa--she is nervous and sensitive."
"Ah! and I am to suit my behavior to her interesting nervous condition," laughed Linda. "That is to say, I am to be intolerable to Erwin.Eh bien, non merci!He is the only man of my present acquaintance of whom I think anything."
Felix was silent. Then without was heard a rustling and puffing as of a heavy silk gown and an asthmatic person. A foreboding distressed Felix. Linda half rose. "That is surely not----?" she murmured, but already the servant had opened the door. "Baron and Baroness Harfink!" he announced.
Very red-faced, even fatter than formerly, with confident bearing, shining with happiness and perspiration, and with the air of a youthful dandy, Linda's father approached his daughter.
Although she had thought that she remembered him very well, she is still somewhat abashed at his astonishing appearance. Nevertheless she makes the best of a bad game, and condescendingly offers him her cheek to kiss. He kisses her loudly on the mouth.
"Ah, you look splendidly--no matter, you wrote me a foolish letter, but the past shall be forgotten. Here I bring your new mamma to you. She was good-hearted enough to pay you the first visit. You have certainly heard of the Marchesa Carini."
"Also of Juanita," says Linda, giving the tips of her fingers to her step-mother. "I am indescribably pleased to make the acquaintance of such a greatcoryphée. I have never yet had the pleasure of seeing a dancer except on the stage." The colossal insolence of her words is lost upon Juanita, owing to her stupidity and deficient knowledge of German, but the depreciation in tone and glance is perceptible to the dancer. She feels helpless and irritated.
"Does Marienbad please you?" continues Linda, with the insolent condescension which she has studied from the best examples.
"Very pretty," murmurs the Spaniard, twisting her handkerchief between her hands. She speaks poor German. Linda is delighted with her pronunciation, and does not take the trouble to speak French, for which cosmopolitan language the dancer had forgotten her mother-tongue.
"If I remember rightly, I once had the pleasure of seeing you dance--it was in '67, in Vienna--my first theatre evening."
"In Vienna?" said the dancer. "Oh! that was a small performance--that was at first--later, when I travelled with my husband, the Marchese Carini,je n'ai jamais travailléexcept in St. Petersburg, Paris, London and Baden-Baden."
"Ah!" says Linda; the conversation pauses.
Papa Harfink, leaning somewhat forward, his heels under his chair, rests in a low arm-chair, and monotonously strokes his leg from the knee upwards and back again.
And Felix? Pressed tightly into a dark corner, where the hope of being forgotten and overlooked chains him, he stands motionless. As light perspiration which does not cool, but rather burns, moistens his whole body, the blood sings in his ears, his tongue cleaves to his teeth. He has not self-possession enough to hear her, he has not the courage to look at her; she floats before his mind, the most seductive siren, the most bewitching woman that ever, trifling and playing with a man, ruined his honor. He still dreads the disturbing might of her beauty. Curiosity compels him to gaze at her; he looks and does not trust his eyes. Where is the Juanita? Near his wife he sees a yellow, bloated woman, prematurely old, tastelessly dressed, squeezed into a blackmoiré antiquegown, with folds under her round eyes, little fan-shaped wrinkles on her temples, and black down about the corners of her mouth. Common, fat, awkward, she sits there, a double chin resting on her fat bosom, her hands clasped over a lace-edged handkerchief in her lap! Felix cannot believe his eyes. That must be a mistake--that cannot be Juanita! Then, beneath the hem of her gown, he sees a tiny foot in a black satin shoe, and now he knows that this is Juanita!
He notices a light brown mole on her neck--it disgusts him, but then he remembers how this mole had once pleased him, how often he had jokingly kissed it! His cheeks burn--he has lost his last illusion--the whole vulgarity of the temptress to whom he had yielded is pitilessly exposed to him. Involuntarily he makes a movement. Papa Harfink discovers him. "Ah, Felix," he cries, already somewhat out of temper, "are you hiding from me? I should think," he adds, relying upon the power of his millions, "that such a father-in-law as I is not to be despised."
Slowly Felix advances.
"My husband," says Linda to the dancer. But the latter's face has taken on a prepossessing smile, and with the confidential expression which appeals to old times, she says, "I know him already,tout à fait un amifrom mydébutanteperiod; is it not so?"
She gives him her hand.
The hand, only covered by a lace mitt, is flabby, and as Juanita, half rising, presses this hand against the lips of Felix, who is bowing to her, his face changes, plainly expresses disgust, and he lets the hand fall unkissed.
Juanita trembles with rage. "Let us go," screams she--"let us go! Oh, Sir Baron, you think that I am only a dancer--and--and----"
Speech fails her, she gasps for breath. "Let us go, let us go!" she pants.
"My Chuchu! My beloved wife!" cries Mr. von Harfink, and not honoring Felix and Linda with a word, he leads the Spaniard out of the room.
The carriage rolls away with the wedded pair. Scarcely has the door closed behind the Harfinks when Linda bursts into loud, happy laughter. Her husband's stiff manner, his way of ignoring her father, which, under other circumstances, would another time have irritated her from pure capriciousness, have this time chanced to delight her. "You are unique, Felix, wholly unique!" she cries to him. "You were so deliciously arrogant! But what is the matter with you? Are you ill?Tiens!Juanita is your great secret! Poor boy!" She taps him on the shoulder, she laughs yet. "What a disappointment, eh! But what is the matter? No, listen; it is humiliating for me that the meeting with this comedian has so robbed you of your self-control, Felix!"
His secret still has a charm for her, surrounds his poor bent form with a romantic light. Something startling, shockingly horrible, she seeks behind this, but not something dishonorable! With a teasing tenderness, which she has never shown him since their honeymoon, she strokes his cheeks, and begs, "Tell me what distresses you."
Then Felix's conscience torments him; he feels as if he would rather die than keep his secret longer. For a moment he almost counts upon mercy from this soft childish creature who has seated herself beside him on the arm of his old-fashioned chair.
"Linda," he begins, "when I married you I did not know--that you--suspected nothing of--of this matter. Your mother assured me that she had told you of my past----" he hesitates.
"Oh, my mother spared my youth, and only made the vaguest allusions!"
He draws a deep breath. "A terrible story is connected with this Spaniard,"--he hesitates--she looks closely and curiously at him; a sudden idea occurs to her: "You shot a friend in a duel on her account?" she cries, and then, as she sees him start but shake his head, she says softly, with indistinct articulation and hollow voice, "Or--or not in a duel--from jealousy?"
He lowers his head--he cannot speak--then slowly rising he totters out of the room. She remains alone--staring before her--her heart beats loudly--then she was right! All his enigmatical behavior is explained; she now even understands her fellow men, and strangely enough, she almost pardons him.
Felix, beside himself with jealousy, thirsting for revenge, plunging a knife into the breast of his friend--the scene has something dazzling, something which compels her sympathy. She pictures the scene to herself; the luxurious apartment of the dancer--the two men, both deathly pale--she has seen something similar in the Porte St. Martin theatre. A peculiar excitement overpowers her corrupted nature, thirsting for strong stimulants. She loves Felix!
Two minutes later she knocks at his locked door. "Let me in, me, your wife, who wishes to console you!"
Felix does not open the door.
It is already twilight. Eugene von Rhoeden sits with his cousin Raimund in the Harfinks' drawing-room. As Pistasch had ridden to Traunberg, where Rhoeden seldom accompanied him, the Countess Dey was in bed with a headache, and Scirocco had one of those fits of desperate melancholy which so often tormented him, and was wandering about the woods, Eugene had nothing to do in Iwanow. For a change he had ridden over to Marienbad. At the forest spring, where the guests were assembled around the music-stand, he had met Raimund, and had heard from him that "the old man" had driven over with his wife to see the arrogant Linda; he, Raimund, had spared them his society.
Eugene resolved to await the return of the pair; it interested him to learn something about the result of the visit.
The two cousins soon came to the conclusion that the music and the crowd around the pavilion were intolerable as well as the heat, and betook themselves to theMühl strasse, where Papa Harfink, more conservative than superstitious, and besides wholly secure in his new happiness from indiscreet visits of Susanna's ghost, occupied the same apartments in which for long years he had "suffered" every summer with the deceased.
With a tinge of bitterness Eugene looked about him as he entered the bright room in which he had passed so many sweet hours with Linda. There stood the old-fashioned arm-chair yet, with the same covering, now, to be sure, worn at all the corners, the chair in which she used to lean back in the sultry summer afternoons, teasingly pulling to pieces his last gift of flowers with her delicate fingers, while Papa Harfink snored in the adjoining room; Mamma Harfink, in her maid's room, discussed the cut of her new toilet with the latter, but he, Eugene, crouching at the feet of the young girl, told her gay, trifling little stories, many times half-jokingly interspersing a tender word. Then she threw a flower in his face; her hand remained imprisoned in his, and he kissed it for punishment. Thus it went on for hours, until Papa Harfink entered the room with scarcely opened eyes and hair tumbled by sleep, and asked, "Are we going to have coffee at home to-day?"
Eugene had never seen the room since he had rushed into it, now more than five years ago, the bunch of white gardenias in his hand, and had found his cousin Lanzberg'sfiancée. At that time he had not changed his expression, had not by one word betrayed his passion, knowing well that a man like him who wishes to rise in the world is condemned to perpetual agreeableness.
How he had felt at that time!
His was no sentimental nature, but he had a faithful memory, and remembered distinctly how he had murmured the most polite phrases of congratulation; had drawn a comparison between himself and the man of old family, and beside, Felix had seemed to himself like a handsome dry-goods clerk.
His love for Linda--it had been genuine of its kind--had long fled, but the wound which her vanity had inflicted in his still burned. The wish to repay Linda for her arrogance still animated him.
The hour was near.
Outside a carriage was heard, then loud, creaking steps on the wooden stairs; a hoarse, croaking woman's voice gasped out from time to time furious and incomprehensible words; the door opened and Juanita entered. Crimson, with swollen veins and sparkling eyes, she threw her fan, broken in the middle, upon the table.
In vain did Papa Harfink again and again stretch his short arms out to her and cry, "Lovely angel, calm yourself!" She had no time for love.
"To insult me!--me--me!" she beat her breast; "me, Juanita, the Marchesa Carini--bah!" she clenched her fist, "he, a criminal--a----"
"Who has insulted you, who is a criminal?" asks Raimund.
"He--he--this Lanzberg!" she gasps. "Oh, I will revenge myself--they shall see--I will revenge myself--Caro, Caro!" screams the Spaniard.
Caroline is the maid, who enters at her mistress's loud cry.
"Bring me the little black casket with the golden bird!" commands Juanita.
The maid disappears; soon she returns with the casket, which she places upon the table before her mistress, whereupon she withdraws.
The blood throbs in Eugene's finger-tips, but, apparently perfectly indifferent, he stoops for the lace scarf which, with a quick gesture, Juanita has thrown from her upon the floor. Papa Harfink, who took the matter very phlegmatically, rang to order a flask of spring water and a lemon.
Juanita rummaged for a long time among old newspapers in which her triumphs were recorded. She turned them over more and more uneasily. Papa Harfink had long since ordered his spring water, when at last Juanita "found it."
"There it is!" cried she. "Will you read it?"
Eugene von Rhoeden refused. Raimund read it aloud.
It was an article in a scandalous journal which appeared in Vienna early in the sixties, but since then had failed or been suppressed. In that impertinent tone of cheap wit which seeks intellect in mockery, knowledge of human nature in cynicism, the story was told of a very arrogant young blue blood who in a weak hour had forged his father's name and who "now could further cultivate his talent for drawing in the prison of T----."
The name of the young man was given as Baron L----. Some one had written "Lanzberg" above it.
"That is not possible!" cried Raimund.
"Oh, if you please--if you please--possible!" screamed Juanita. "It is all true--perfectly true!"
"I once heard something of that," declared Harfink, senior, whom the whole story troubled very little, and who had not enlightened Susanna.
Rhoeden was silent.
"And this despicable rascal has dared to marry into our honest family!" cried Raimund, beside himself.
"Susie knew of it! He-he-he!" burst out Mr. Harfink, who now only too gladly accused the deceased.
"My mother knew it!" Raimund struck his forehead. "Linda surely does not know it!"
"Leave her in her delusion," said Eugene, sweetly. "One cannot change matters in the slightest, and all these years Felix has behaved so blamelessly, so nobly, so----"
He knew that his praise of Lanzberg would bring forth a new burst of rage from Juanita.
"Indeed!" now repeated the Spaniard, with malevolent emphasis, "nobly, blamelessly!" and seized the paper.
"No; Linda must know it; I shall write to her this very day!" cried Raimund.
"That you will not do," said Eugene, firmly.
"Why?"
"Because it would be vulgar." With that Eugene rose and took his hat.
Juanita had meanwhile added to the time-obliterated pencil-mark a new, heavier one, had wrapped up the paper with remarkable deftness, and addressed it.
"Will you put that in the post-box?" she asked.
"No, my dear madam," he replied, gravely, bowed and left. Behind him he heard the voice of the Spaniard: "Caro, Caro--to the post--but immediately!"
Through the damp evening shadows he trotted to Iwanow. He enjoyed the pleasant conviction of having behaved throughout as an eminently upright man, and also the pleasant conviction that he had attained his aim.
At a turn of the road, castle Traunberg shone gray and ghost-like between the dark old lindens. Eugene took off his hat, smiling ironically, and murmured, "Good evening, Linda!"
Linda knocked in vain at her husband's door. In spite of her coaxing requests she had not been admitted. More and more horrible thoughts occurred to her. In ever more interesting colors her imagination painted her husband's secret. She expected that he would appear at tea; he excused himself, and did not leave his room again that day. She grew more and more excited--she did not sleep that night, only towards morning did she close her eyes.
Felix was no longer in the house when she had risen; he had ordered a horse saddled at six o'clock that morning, and had ridden over to Lanzberg.
Linda grew impatient. "Can I find old letters anywhere?" thought she. "In any case I must look through the attic rooms some day." She ordered the keys of the upper story. Mrs. Stifler, the housekeeper, looked upon it as understood that the young wife would require a guide for her wanderings, and prepared to accompany her. But, pleasantly as she treated all the servants, and especially those who had been in the family from one generation to another, Linda declined the old woman's company.
At first she had difficulty in finding the right key for the different keyholes. As the rooms for the most part opened into each other, and only the doors into the corridor were locked, that was soon overcome.
None of the rooms were quite empty and none were fully furnished. An odor of mould and dry flowers and close, oppressive air filled them. On all objects dust lay like a gray seal of time. Some of the rooms had such thick curtains that only here and there a bluish white streak of light lay on the floor, amid the dark shadows; others, and the most, had neither curtains nor blinds, and the light in them was dazzlingly bright. There stood a gilded carved arm-chair with brocade covering of the style brought from France in those days when Maria Theresa called the Pompadour "ma chère cousine," and near by a whole row of spindle-legged chairs with lyre-shaped backs in the stiff style of the Empire. And the arm-chair looked handsome and arrogant, the chairs hideous and pretentiously solid--and both alike were long ago unavailable and did not know it! Alabaster and porcelain clocks with pillars for ornaments, and thin Arabian figures on large white dials, slept away the time on yellow commodes with inlaid wood arabesques. Many family portraits of long-ago generations hung on the walls, mostly oil paintings, the men all standing in very narrow coats with very large revers, their hands on their hips, their eyes contracted to that narrow exclusive gaze which overlooks all unpleasant circumstances of life and worldly affairs, characteristic of the manlyancien régime; the women all seated, with broad sleeves and curls arranged in the English fashion; in the eyes that charming, unabashed gaze which on their side characterizes the women of theancien régime, a gaze which sees in poverty only picturesque objects at the side of their path; a gaze which, mild and loving as it is, yet pains because it is accustomed to nothing but the beautiful, expects nothing but the beautiful, and therefore humiliates misery and hideousness.
Linda felt embarrassed at so much of the past; a certain hesitation, which did not accord with her indiscreet, egotistical, pushing nature, paralyzed her hands, while she, prying into Felix's secret, opened old chests and pulled out drawers.
She found trophies of the hunt, an old brocade gown, in a wardrobe a bridal wreath and a half dozen old riding boots; she found old notes, books, albums full of copied poems, books of Latin and Greek exercises, and an ambitious plan for dramatizing Le Cid, in round, childish writing, old bills, receipts, but she found no old letters.
In one of the last rooms she discovered a newer secretary, which was ornamented with painted porcelain tablets, on which pink and sky-blue ladies walked in brilliant green landscapes. Linda opened every drawer, knew how to fathom the most secret compartments, and finally discovered a bundle of old letters tied with a black ribbon. Her heart beat rapidly; she was about to hurry away when a picture with face turned to the wall attracted her attention. The dust upon it was more recent than upon the other objects. Not without difficulty she turned it around, and uttered a little "Ah!" of admiration.
The picture was no better painted than most modern family portraits, but it represented the handsomest young man who ever wore the green uniform of the Austrian Uhlans, of '66. The carriage of the young officer, who sat there carelessly, with head slightly bent forward and sabre between his knees, was well portrayed. Linda thought that she had never seen a more fascinating man; the pleasant mouth, the shy and yet confident glance, the naïve arrogance of the whole expression--all pleased her. Who could that be? She went down stairs and commanded two servants to bring the picture to the drawing-room at once. One of the servants--it was Felix's old valet--permitted himself to remark, "The Baron did not like the picture, and in consequence had banished it to the second story."
Linda insisted that her command should be executed. "Do you know whom the picture represents?" she asked, as she passed.
The old man seemed surprised and hesitated. "The Baron, himself."
"Ah!" Linda bit her lips, and made a gesture of dismissal.
When the man had gone away with the servant to fetch the picture, Linda laughed to herself, gayly--the joke seemed to her delicious.
Scarcely was she alone when she bent over the letters. They were written in a flippant, haughty tone which harmonized well with the portrait. The first dated from a Polish garrison; in all was evident the naïve selfishness of a good-hearted but uncommonly indulged man. The letters pleased Linda very well. From time to time she glanced at the portrait, which, in accordance with her wishes, had been brought in.
"What a pity that I did not know him at that time," said she, and then added, shrugging her shoulders, "at that time he would scarcely have wished to have anything to do with me."
When Felix returned from his ride he found in the vestibule, among other letters arrived in the morning, an old newspaper in a wrapper addressed in very poor writing to his wife.
He looked at it, read the post-mark, Marienbad--he recognized Juanita's writing. His heart throbbed violently. The idea of suppressing the paper flashed through his mind; he seized it, then a kind of fury with himself overcame him. He was weary of striving to prevent his last great humiliation, and like one in deep water who, when the waves reach up to his throat, weary of exertion, defiantly flings himself into the horrible element in order to make an end of it, so he sent the paper to his wife himself, by a servant. Then he went to his room. He seated himself at his writing-desk, and resting his head on one hand, with the other mechanically smoothing a newspaper which lay before him, he waited, half with dread, half with longing, like a criminal condemned to death, for the message which should summon him to the gallows.
Then he heard a fearful, piercing scream. "Ah!" said he, "she knows it!" Will she come to him? There is a rustle in the corridor, the door of the room is flung open, and Linda enters, or rather bursts in. Her face is distorted; a lock of loosened hair hangs over her ashy pale cheeks.
"It is a calumny, it cannot be true!" she cried, and threw the paper which Juanita had sent her before him upon the table.
He is silent. Her vanity believes in him until the last moment; has expected an explanation from him, but he is silent.
She grasps his shoulder. "For God's sake is it true that you were sentenced to two years' imprisonment for forgery?"
Then he murmurs so softly that his voice seems only an echo, "Yes!"
She staggers back, remains speechless for a moment, and then bursts into not convulsive, not hysterical, no, only indescribably mocking laughter. "And I was proud to bear the name of Lanzberg," she murmurs. "Now at last I know how I came by that honor." She feels not one iota of pity for the mortally wounded man who has quivered at each of her words as beneath the blow of a whip; she feels nothing at all but her immense humiliation. The wish to pain him as much as possible burns within her, and for a moment she pauses in her speech because she can think of nothing that is cutting and venomous enough. "And if you had even informed me of the situation, had given me the choice whether I would bear a branded name or not," she at length begins again.
Then he who had until this moment sat there perfectly silent, with anxiously raised shoulders, his hand over his eyes, raises his head wearily. "Linda, I begged your mother to tell you of my disgrace--she assured me that she had done so. On my word of----" he pauses, a horrible smile parts Linda's lips.
"Go on," cries she, "your word of honor. I will believe you--it is possible that you speak the truth. My mother suppressed your confession, good; but every glance and word of mine during our engagement must have convinced you that she had suppressed it. You cannot answer that to your conscience," she hissed.
To that he replies nothing, but sits there motionless and silent. She wishes to force him to proclaim his shame by an outcry, a gesture of supplication. "I have borne a branded name for five years--I have brought into the world a branded child," says she quickly and distinctly, her eyes resting intently upon him.
At length he shudders; he looks at her with a glance which pleases her, it shows such fearful misery--her eyes sparkle. "And all for the sake of a Juanita!" she cries again scornfully, and leaves the room.
She rushes down stairs breathlessly; there in the large drawing-room stands the picture, the package of letters lies on a table. Tears of rage rush to Linda's eyes. She pulls the bell sharply. "Take that picture away!" she commands the servant who appears.
She would like to declare to the servant that she knew nothing of the Lanzberg disgrace when she married a Lanzberg.