Sempaly's nervous system was very sensitive and his ear remarkably delicate; he had in consequence a horror--a perfect mania of aversion--for any scene which might involve excitement and loud talking. Besides this he had the peculiarity--common enough with the spoilt children of fortune--of always ignoring as far as possible the inevitable difficulties of life in the hope that somedeus ex machinawould interfere to set matters straight for him.
His passion for Zinka was perfectly genuine, at once vehement and tender; far from diminishing, it had, if possible, increased during these last three days. Though that hour of sentimental and guileless talk with Zinka under the midnight moon had for the time satisfied her, it had only fevered him; and while his cowardly double-dealing had lowered him in her esteem, her straightforward pride had raised her infinitely in his. He was utterly miserable, but this did not prevent him from allowing his good-natured senior to pay his enormous debts, nor--in order to propitiate him--from paying specious attentions to his cousins. It must, however, be said in extenuation, that this flirtation was not so much deliberate as instinctive, for he was a man whose untutored and unbounded impulse to make himself agreeable led him irresistibly to do his utmost to produce a pleasant impression, even at the sacrifice of his honor. If, only once, during these three days, he had had an opportunity of speaking to Zinka all might perhaps have turned out differently. He would probably have found it easy, with his wonderful fascination of person, to recover the ground he had lost; and her proud rectitude might possibly have influenced him to take a bolder course of action. But, in the first instance, he could not intrude on Zinka while she was sitting by her little friend Gabrielle, and the idea of rushing into an explanation with Sterzl did not smile on his fancy.
Thus he let the hours slip by, till, on the Friday morning, the luckless copy of 'High Life' was brought into him addressed in a feigned hand. This made him furious, and he was on the point of rushing off to the palazetto when he remembered that he had promised to be ready to join the party to Frascati at one o'clock. He had dipped his pen and prepared the paper to send an excuse to the Hotel de Londres when there was a knock, and Prince Sempaly, with his two cousins, walked in, half an hour before the appointed time.
"What a surprise!... An unexpected honor!" he exclaimed somewhat disconcerted.
"That is what we intended," said Polyxena laughing. "Hum! there is a rather pronounced perfume of latakia in your room--but the whole effect is pretty, very pretty," while Nini looked timidly about her with her fawn-like eyes. A bachelor's quarters are, as is well known, one of the most interesting mysteries that ever exercise the curious imagination of a young lady.
"The girls insisted on seeing your den," the prince explained, "so I had to bring them, whether or no, while Siegburg amuses their mamma."
"Why, you yourself proposed it, Oscar!" cried Nini.
Sempaly bowed. "From this time henceforth this room is consecrated ground," he said gallantly--and "High Life" was lying on his desk all the time and an iron fist seemed clenched upon his heart. If his brother had but come alone ... but with these two girls ... it was crucial.
Xena began to touch and examine all his odds and ends, to open his books, and at last to hover round his writing-table where, with graceful impertinence, she was about to take up the fatal sheet.
"Stop, stop!" cried Nicki, "that is not for your eyes, Xena."
"Look, but touch not," said the prince, with a good-natured laugh; "young maidens like you are not permitted to inspect the secrets of a bachelor's rooms too closely. You might seize a scorpion before we could interfere. Besides, we must not keep your mother waiting any longer, children; make haste and get ready, Nicki."
For a moment Sempaly tried to think of an excuse; then he reflected that it really was not worth while to spoil the pleasure of Oscar's last day--all might be set right afterwards. So he only asked for time to write a note, and scribbled a few lines to Sterzl in which he formally proposed for Zinka. This note he confided to a porter desiring him to carry it at once to the secretary's office.
After this he was for a time very much pleased with himself; but, as the afternoon wore on, the more uneasy he became, and it was to this unrest that most of the tender glances were due that the prince cast alternately on him and on Nini. He felt more and more as if he were being driven into a trap; in the Villa Aldobrandini he found an issue from some of his difficulties. Suddenly, as they were standing by the great fountain, Nini and he found themselvestête-à-tête, a circumstance arising from the consentaneous willingness of the rest of the party to give them such an opportunity. He seized the propitious moment to disburden his soul. He addressed her as his sister, confessed his secret betrothal, and implored her kind interest for Zinka. Nini, who felt as though she had been stabbed to the heart, was brave as became her and for sheer dread of betraying her own feelings, she tried to take a pleasure she was far from feeling in the success of his love affair. He kissed her hand and kept near her for the rest of the day. His brother, who perceived that the young couple had come to an understanding, communicated his observations to Countess Jatinska with extreme satisfaction. He was himself a man of strong and lofty feeling, free from all duplicity, and he could not conceive that a young man could have anything to say to a very handsome girl in private but to make love to her.
The day was at an end. With that want of precaution of which only foreigners in Rome can be guilty, they set out homewards much too late and did not reach the hotel before ten. Here Nemesis overtook Sempaly. At the end of supper, which the little party had served to them in the countess' private sitting-room, and at which the confidential footing on which Sempaly stood with regard to his cousin was thrown into greater relief, the prince, with a frank smile of self-satisfaction at his powers of divination, raised his glass and said: "To the health of the happy couple."
Nini turned crimson; Nicki turned pale. He was in the trap now. Brought to bay he could do nothing but turn upon the foe whom he could not evade. He was possessed by a wild impulse to snatch the odious mask from his own face.
"And who are the happy couple?" he asked.
"You need not be so mysterious about it, Nicki," cried his brother warmly. "Of you and...." but a glance at Nini reduced him to silence.
"Of me and Fräulein Zinka Sterzl," said Sempaly with vehement emphasis.
The blood flew to the prince's head; rage and horror fairly deprived him of speech. Countess Jatinska laughed awkwardly, Polyxena pursed her lips disdainfully while Nini gave her cousin her hand and said loyally:
"Your bride shall always find a friend in me."
But now the prince's wrath broke loose--he was furious; he swore that this insane marriage should never take place, and could not conceive how his brother--a man old enough to know better--could have allowed such a piece of madcap folly to enter his head.
The ladies rose and withdrew; Sempaly, who till within a few minutes had been so weak and vacillating, had suddenly become rigid in obstinacy and he desired the waiter to bring him the fateful number of 'High Life'. The prince read it, but his first observation was: "Well! and a pretty state the world would soon come to if every man who lets a charming adventuress entrap him into an indiscretion were to pay for it by marrying her!"
At this insulting epithet applied to Zinka, Sempaly fired up. He did not attempt to screen himself, he defended Zinka as against himself, with the most unsparing self-accusation. Egotistical, sensitive, and morally effete as he was, he was still a gentleman, and he now set no limits to his self-indictment; it seemed as though he thought that by heaping invective on his own head he could expiate the baseness into which he had been betrayed during the last few days. He told the whole story: that he had loved Zinka from the first time of seeing her: that he had been on the point of making her an offer when an accidental interruption had suddenly snatched him from the heaven of hope and bliss: that he had neglected and forsaken her: that his constant intimacy with his handsome cousins had raised a barrier between him and Zinka; then, how he had met her that night at the Brancaleones', and how, as he helped her to rise after her tumble, his passion had taken entire possession of him--all this he told, down to the moment when she had laid her head on his shoulder. "And before such guileless trust what man is there that would not bow in reverence!" he ended, "all Rome can bear witness to her sweetness and goodness; ask whom you will--Marie Vulpini, Truyn, even the Ilsenberghs--or Siegburg here."
The prince turned to Siegburg.
"I can make neither head nor tail of the matter," he said. "Is all he says of this girl true, or mere raving?"
Siegburg's answer was simple, eager, and plain; it is, at all times, a difficult thing for a young man to praise a girl without reflecting on her in any way, but Siegburg's testimony in Zinka's favor was a little masterpiece of genuine and respectful enthusiasm. Prince Sempaly's face grew darker as he spoke.
"And the young lady in question is the girl we met the other day in the Piazzi?" he said.
"Yes."
"The sister of the secretary of legation whom the ambassador introduced to me yesterday, and the niece of my old colonel?"
"Yes."
"And from what you tell me not only an absolutely blameless creature, but universally beloved?"
"Yes."
For a minute the prince was silent. Every fibre of his being had its root in the traditions of the caste into which he had been born, and a connection between Zinka Sterzl and a Sempaly was to him simply monstrous. He had in the highest degree a respect for his past--"le respect des ruines"--but they must be grand ruins, of a noble past, or they did not touch him at all. With his head resting on his hand he sat silent by the supper-table, which was not yet cleared and where the lights sparkled in the half-empty champagne-glasses, and the flowers placed for the ladies still lay by their plates. Suddenly he looked up, and pointing to the newspaper, he asked:
"Had you seen that article when we came to fetch you from your rooms this morning?"
"Yes."
The prince sat bolt upright.
"And you did not stay in Rome to defend the girl?" His black eyes looked straight into his brother's blue ones. "You came with us? You left this young lady to be, for the whole day, the victim of the slander of all the evil tongues of Rome, for fear of an unpleasant explanation--for fear of a few high words with me?--You have behaved in a base and unmanly way throughout this affair, both to this young lady and to the poor sweet creature in there...." and he pointed to the door behind which the two young countesses disappeared with their mother. "Of course I shall not let you starve; your allowance shall be paid to you regularly as heretofore--but beyond that we have no further connection; we have nothing in common, you and I. Go!"
Thedeus ex machinahad failed to appear. The dreaded scene with his brother had been postponed for a few hours, but it had come at last and Sempaly had gained nothing by his procrastination and duplicity. He had provoked not merely his brother's anger but his scorn as well, while his marriage with Zinka, when he had at last found himself compelled to announce it to his brother, had altogether lost its startling and interesting aspect as a chivalrous romance, and had come down to a mere act of reparation to satisfy his conscience.
Sempaly rose rather earlier than usual next morning, his nerves still conscious of the remembrance of this unsatisfactory scene and of the sleepless night that had been the consequence. Vexed with himself; at once surprised and touched by his brother's lofty indignation; ashamed to think of the calumny to which his irresolution and his absence must have exposed Zinka--he was in that state of sensitive irritability in which a man holds all the world in some degree responsible for his own shortcomings, and is ready to revenge himself on the first man he meets for the misery he is enduring.
While he was waiting for his breakfast, walking up and down the sitting-room--half drawing-room, half smoking-room--the general came in. For the first time in his life Sempaly greeted the old man as an intruder.
"Good-morning," he cried, "what procures me the honor of such an early visit?"
"Well," said Von Klinger hotly, "it can scarcely surprise you that I, as Zinka's god-father and oldest friend, should come to ask you what you mean by your extraordinary conduct."
"That, it seems to me, is her brother's business," said Sempaly roughly.
"It is on purpose to prevent a collision between you and Sterzl that I have come so early," replied the general, who was cut out for an officer of dragoons rather than for a diplomatist. "Sterzl is beside himself with fury, and I know that your intentions with regard to Zinka are perfectly honorable, and so...."
But at this moment the general's eye fell on a travelling-bag that the luxurious young attaché was wont to carry with him on short journeys, and which lay packed on the divan. "You are going away?" asked the old man surprised.
"I had intended to accompany my brother as far as Ostia to-day and return early to-morrow; but that is at an end--the prince and I have quarrelled--yes, I have quarrelled past all possibility of a reconciliation with my noble and generous brother. Are you satisfied?" and he stamped with rage.
"And is the want of judgment that has led to your parting any fault of mine pray?" exclaimed the general angrily.
There was a hasty rap at the door; on Sempaly's answering: "come in," Sterzl walked in. He did not take Sempaly's offered hand but drew a newspaper out of his pocket, held it out in front of Sempaly, and asked abruptly:
"Have you read this article?"
"Yes," said Sempaly from between his teeth.
"Yesterday--before you went out?" Sterzl went on.
This word-for-word repetition of the prince's question touched all Sempaly's most painful and shameful recollections of the scene to the quick. His eyes flashed, but he said nothing.
Sterzl could contain himself no longer. All the bitter feelings of the last six weeks seethed in his blood, and the luckless travelling-bag caught his eye. This was too much...
What happened next?...
The general saw it all in a flash of time--unexpected, and inevitable.
Sterzl took one stride forward and struck Sempaly in the face with the newspaper. At the same moment Sempaly's servant came in with the breakfast tray.
A few minutes later Sterzl and the general went down the stairs of the embassy in silence, not even looking at each other. When they were outside the younger man stopped and drew a deep breath:
"Sempaly will send you his seconds in the course of the morning," he said; "I must ask you to act for me."
The general nodded but did not speak.
"I will send word to Crespigny too, and then you can do whatever you think proper."
Still the general said nothing, and his silence irritated Sterzl.
"I could bear it no longer," he muttered as if in delirium; "what ... do you suppose ... too much...."
By this time they were in the Corso. Towards them came Siegburg, as bright and gay as ever, his hat pushed back on his head.
"I am happy to be the first to congratulate you, Sterzl," he cried.
"On what pray?" said Sterzl fiercely.
"On your sister's engagement to Sempaly--what! then you really did know nothing about it?"
Sterzl was bewildered: "What is it--what are you talking about?--I do not understand," he stammered.
"What, have you not heard?" Siegburg began; "the bomb fell last evening; Nicki declared his engagement. Oscar, to whom the whole business was news ... come into this café and I will tell you exactly all about it; it does not do to discuss such things in the street."
"I--I have not time," muttered Sterzl with a fixed vacant stare; and, as he spoke, he shot past Siegburg; but his gait was unsteady and he ran up against a passer-by.
"What on earth ails him?" said Siegburg looking after him. "I thought he would be pleased and--well! the ways of man are past finding out. This marriage will create a sensation in Vienna, eh, general? But I approve--I entirely approve. We are on the threshold of a new era, as Schiller--or some one has said, Bismarck very likely--and we shall live to tell our children how we stood by and looked on. But what is the matter with you both--you and Sterzl? To be sure--you were coming from the Palazzo di Venezia--have Nicki and Sterzl quarrelled--a challenge!" The general nodded. "But it can be amicably arranged now," said Siegburg consolingly.
On his return home Sterzl found Sempaly's note of the day before. The porter had taken it, as he was ordered, to the secretary's office, but as Sterzl had not gone there all day it had lain unopened; till, this morning, one of the messengers had thought it well to bring it to the palazetto. Sterzl read it and hid his face in his hands.
Within a short time Sempaly's seconds were announced--Siegburg and a military attaché from the Russian embassy.
No, it could not be amicably arranged--under the circumstances there was but one way of satisfying the point of honor. This point of honor--what is it? A social dogma of the man of the world, and the whole creed of the southern aristocrat.
Sterzl was to start that night by the eleven o'clock train for Vienna, on matters of business, before setting out for Constantinople. The affair must therefore be settled at once. Beyond fixing the hour Sterzl left everything to his seconds. Swords, at seven that evening, among the ruins opposite the tomb of the Metellas was finally agreed on.
Soon after six, Sterzl and his seconds set out. The carriage bore them swiftly along, through the gloomy, stuffy streets which lead to the Forum, along the foot of the Palatine, and past the Colosseum, through the arch of Constantine into the Via Appia, on and on, between grey moss-grown walls, over which they caught glimpses of ruins and tall dark cypresses. Then the walls disappeared and bushy green hedge-rows, covered with creepers, bordered the road, and presently the Campagna lay before them, an endless, rolling, green carpet, with its attractive melancholy, and the poisonous beauty of orchids and asphodels with which each returning spring decks its waste monotony, like a wilderness in a fevered dream.
Sterzl sat in silence on the back seat, facing his two friends. He did not even pretend to be cheerful. A brave man may sometimes face death with indifference, but hardly with a light heart. Death is a great king to whom we must need do homage. His soul was heavy; but his two companions, who knew not only his staunch nature but all the circumstances of the duel, knew that it was not from anxiety as to his own fate. He could not forget that this catastrophe was, at last, due solely and entirely to his own violence and loss of self-command. He never once reflected that this engagement--brought about by a series of makeshifts and accidents--could hardly have resulted in a happy marriage; he had forgotten Sempaly's sins and remembered one thing only: that his sister might have had the moon she had longed for, and that he alone had snatched it from her grasp.
A powerful fragrance filled the air, coming up from the orchids, from the blossoming hedges, from the fresh greenery of the gardens, like the very soul of the spring, bringing a thousand memories to his brooding brain and aching heart. It reminded him of the great untended orchard at home, and of one morning in the last May he had spent there before going to school. The apple-trees were clothed with rosy blossom; butterflies were flitting through the air, and the first forget-me-nots peeped bluely among the trailing brambles on the brink of the brook that danced across the garden, murmuring sleepily to the shadowy, whispering alders. There was a fragrance of the soil, of the trees, of the flowers--just as there was now--and Zinka, then a mere baby, had come tripping to meet him and had said with her little confidential and important air:
"I do believe that God must have set the gates of heaven open for once, there is such a good smell." He could see her now, in her white pinafore and long golden hair, clinging to her big brother with her soft, weak little hands. And he had lifted her up and said: "Yes, God left the door open and you slipped out my-little cherub." With what large, wondering eyes she had looked into his face.
She had always been his particular pet; his father had given her into his special charge and now ... "poor, sweet butterfly!" he said to himself, half audibly.
"Do not be too strict in your fence," said a deep voice close to him. It was Crespigny who thus startled him from his dream of the past:--"Do not be too scientific. You have everything in your favor--practice, skill, and strength; but Sempaly--I know his sword-play well--has one dangerous peculiarity: you never know what he will be at." Sterzl looked over his shoulder. The tomb of Cecilia Metella was standing before them.
Opposite the tomb of Cecilia Metella is a deserted and half-ruined early Gothic structure, a singular mixed character of heathen grandeur and of mediæval strength, lonely and roofless under the blue sky. A weather-beaten cross, let into the crumbling stone-work above the door-way, betokens it a sanctuary of the primitive Christian times; on entering we see a still uninjured apse where the altar table once stood. No ornament of any kind, not even a scrap of bas-relief, is to be seen; nothing but frail ferns--light plumes of maiden hair that deck the old walls with their emerald fronds. The floor is smooth and covered with fine turf, from which, in spring-time, white and red daisies smile up at the sky, and dead nettles grow from every chink and along the foot of the walls.
The other party were already on the spot; Sempaly was talking unconcernedly, but with no affectation of levity, to the Russian, and bowed politely to the three men as they came in. His manner and conduct were admirable; in spite of his irritable nervousness, there were moments when he had--and in the highest degree--that unshaken steadfastness which is part of the discipline of a man of the world, to whom it is a matter of course that under certain circumstances he must fight, just as under certain others he must take off his hat.
Siegburg changed color a good deal; the others were quite cool. They made a careful survey lest some intruding listener should be within hearing, but all was still as death. The vineyard behind the little chapel was deserted.
The formalities were soon got through; Sempaly and Sterzl took off their coats and waistcoats, and took the places assigned to them by their seconds.
The signal was given.--The word of command was heard in the silence and, immediately after, the first click of the swords as they engaged.
Any one who has lived through the prolonged anticipation of a known peril or ordeal, knows that, when the decisive moment has arrived, the tension of the nerves suddenly relaxes; anxiety seems lifted from the soul, fear vanishes and all that remains is a sort of breathless curiosity. This was the case with the general and Siegburg; they watched the sword-play attentively, but almost calmly. Sempaly was the first to attack, and was extraordinarily nimble. Sterzl stood strictly on the defensive. He fenced in the German fashion, giving force to his lunge with the whole weight of his body; and this, with his skill and care, gave him a marked advantage over his lighter adversary. The sense of superior strength seemed at first to hinder his freedom; in fact, the contest, from a mere technical point of view, was remarkably interesting. Sempaly displayed a marvellous and--as Crespigny had said--quite irresponsible suppleness, which had no effect against Sterzl's imperturbable coolness. It was evident that he hoped to weary out his antagonist and then to end the duel by wounding him slightly. He had pricked Sempaly just under the arm, but Sempaly would not be satisfied; it was nothing he said, and after a short pause they began again.
Sempaly was beginning to look pale and exhausted, his feints were short, straight, and violent; Sterzl, on the contrary, looked fresher. Like every accomplished swordsman, in the course of a long fight he had warmed to his work and was fighting as he would have done with the foils, without duly calculating the strength of his play; things looked ill for Sempaly.
Suddenly, through the silence, a song was heard in the distance, in a boy's thin piping soprano:
"Bright May--the sweetest month of Spring;The trees and fields with flowers are strown--"
"Bright May--the sweetest month of Spring;The trees and fields with flowers are strown--"
It sent a thrill through Sterzl's veins, reminding him of the evening when Zinka had sung those words to Sempaly. The romantic element that was so strong in him surged to his brain; he lost his head; fearing to wound Sempaly mortally, he forgot to cover himself and for a second he suddenly stood as awkward and exposed as though he had never had a sword in his hand.
The seconds rushed forward--too late.
With the scarcely audible sound that the sharp steel makes as it pierces the flesh, Sempaly's sword ran into his adversary's side. Sterzl's flannel shirt was dyed with blood--his eyes glazed--he staggered forward a step or two--then he fell senseless. The duel was over.
A quarter of an hour later and the wound had been bound up as best it might, and in the closed landau, which they had made as comfortable as they could by arranging the cushions so as to form a couch--the general supporting the groaning man's head on his arm, and opposite to him the surgeon--they were driving homewards' slowly--slowly.
Dusk had fallen on the Campagna, from time to time the general looked out anxiously to see how far they were still from Rome. The road was emptier and more deserted every minute; a cart rattled past them full of peasants, shouting and singing at the top of their voices; then they met a few white-robed monks, wending their way with flaring torches to some church; and then the road was perfectly empty. The cypresses stood up tall and black against the dull-hued sky and the wide plain was one stretch of grey.
At last the arch of Constantine bends over them for a minute and the horses hoofs clatter on the stones--slowly--slowly.... The lamps of Rome twinkle in the distance--they have reached the Corso, at this hour almost empty of vehicles but crowded with idlers, and the cafés are brilliantly lighted up. The slowly-moving landau excites attention, the gapers crowd into knots, and stare and whisper. At last they reach the palazetto, turn into the court-yard and get out. The porter comes out of his den, his dog at his heels barking loudly.
"Hush, silence!" says the general--the servants come rushing down, the women begin to sob and cry, and again the general says:
"Hush, hush!" as if it were worth while to keep Zinka in ignorance for a minute more or less.
With some difficulty the heavy man is lifted out and carried up-stairs--the heavy shuffling steps sound loud in the silence. Suddenly they hear Zinka's voice loud in terror, then the baroness's in harsh reproof--a door is flung open and Zinka rushes out to meet them--a half-smothered cry of anguish breaks from her very heart--the cry with which we wake from a hideous dream.
They carried him into his room, and while they carefully settled him in bed the servant announced Dr. E----, the famous German physician of whom mention has already been made. Sempaly, who had driven back at full speed and had reached Rome more than an hour sooner than the general with the wounded man, had sent him at once. Dr. E---- examined the patient with the greatest care, adjusted the bandage with admirable skill, wrote a prescription, and ordered the application of ice. He gave a sympathetic hand to each of the ladies, who were standing anxiously at the door as he left the room, and reassured them with an encouraging smile; promising them, with that kindly hopefulness to which he owed half his fashionable practice, that the wounded man would pass a quiet night.
But when he was face to face with the general, who escorted him down stairs, the smile vanished.
"The wound is dangerous?" asked the old man with a trembling heart. The surgeon shook his head.
"Are you a relation?" he asked.
"No, but a very old friend."
"It is mortal," said Dr. E---- "I maybe mistaken--of course, I may be wrong ... nature sometimes works miracles and the patient has a splendid physique. What fine limbs! I have rarely seen so powerful a man--but so far as human science can foresee ..." and he left the death-warrant unspoken. "It is always a comfort to the survivors to know that all that can be done has been done; I will come early to-morrow morning to enquire. Send the prescription to the French chemist's--it is the best. Good-night." And he got into the carriage that was waiting for him.
The general gave the prescription to the porter, who, with the readiness and simplicity that are so characteristic of the Italians, rushed off at once without his hat. As if there were really any hurry!...
The old soldier, composing himself by an effort, returned to the bedroom. Zinka was standing very humbly at the foot of the bed, pale and tearless, but trembling from head to foot. The baroness was pacing the room and sobbing violently, wringing her hands and pushing her hair back from her temples. Of course she flew at the general with questions as to the surgeon's prognosis. His evasive answers were enough to fill her with unreasonable hope and to revive the worldly instincts which her terrors had for a moment cast into the background.
"Yes, yes, he will pass a quiet night," she whimpered; "he will get well again--it would have been too bad with such a brilliant career before him;--but this is an end to Constantinople ..."
Zinka, on the contrary, had turned still paler at the general's report but she said nothing.
That there had been a duel she and her mother had of course understood. What did she infer from that? What did she think--what did she feel? She herself never rightly knew; in her soul all was dark--in her heart all was cold. Her whole being was concentrated in horror.
After much and urgent persuasion the general succeeded in inducing the baroness to leave the room and to lie down for a time, "to spare herself for her son's sake."
She had hardly closed the door when the servant came quietly in and said that Count Truyn had come. Zinka looked up.
"Shall I let him come in?" asked the general. Zinka nodded.
Siegburg had told him, and though it was now eleven Truyn had hurried off to the palazetto. He came into the room without speaking and straight up to Zinka. The simple feeling with which he took her hands in both his, the deep and tender sorrow at being unable to help or to reassure her that spoke in his eyes comforted and warmed her heart; the frozen horror that had held her in its clasp seemed to thaw; tears started to her eyes, a tremulous sob died on her lips; then, controlling herself with great difficulty, she murmured intelligibly: "There is no hope--no hope!"
His mother's loud lamentations had not roused the wounded man but the first sound from Zinka recalled him to consciousness; he began to move uneasily and opened his sunken eyes. The whites shone dimly, like polished silver, as he fixed them on his sister's face; from thence they wandered to a blood-stained handkerchief that had been forgotten, and then to the general. Slowly and painfully he seemed to comprehend the situation. He struggled for breath, with an impatient movement of his hands and shoulders, and then shivered as with a spasm. He was conscious now, and sighed deeply.
The first thing that occurred to him was his official duty:
"Have you sent word to the ambassador?" he asked the general almost angrily.
"No, not yet."
"Then make haste, pray; they must telegraph to Vienna."
"Yes, yes," said Von Klinger soothingly, "I will see to it at once. Would you be good enough to stay till I return?" he added to Truyn and he hurried away.
For a few minutes not a word was spoken, then Sterzl began:
"Do you know how it all happened, Count?" Truyn bowed. "And you, Zini?" asked Cecil, looking sadly at the girl's white face. "I know that you are suffering--that is all I want to know," she replied.
"Oh! Zini...." Sterzl struggled for breath and held out his hand to Zinka, then he went on in a hoarse and hardly audible voice: "Zini ... Butterfly ... it was all my doing ... I have spoilt your life ... I did it...."
She tried to stop him: "You must not excite yourself," she said, leaning over him tenderly; "forget all that till you are better--I know that you have always loved me and that you would have fetched the stars from heaven for me if you could have reached them."
He shuddered convulsively: "No, Zini, no ... you might have had the stars," he said in a panting staccato; "the finest stars. Sempaly was not to blame ... only I ... the prince had agreed ... but I ... I forgot myself ... and I spoilt it all ... oh, a drink of water, Zini, please!..."
She gave him the water and he drank it greedily; but when she gently tried to stop his mouth with her hand he pushed it away, and went on eagerly, though with a fast failing voice: "No ... I must tell you ... it is a weight upon my soul. There, in my desk ... Count ... in the little pocket on the left ... there is a letter for Zinka.--Give it her...."
Truyn did his bidding. The letter was sealed and addressed to Zinka in Cecil's fine firm hand. She opened it; it contained the note that Sempaly had written before starting for Frascati and Sterzl had added a few words of explanation in case it should not fall into Zinka's hands till after his death.
She read it all while the dying man anxiously watched her face, but her expression did not alter by a shade. Sempaly's words glided over her heart without touching it; even when she had read both notes she did not speak. Two red flames burnt in her pale cheeks.
"I got ... the note ... too late," said Sterzl sadly, "the general ... can tell you how ... how it all happened ... I lost my head ... but he ... he is safe, so you must forgive me ... and do ... act ... as if I had never existed ... then ... I shall rest ... in peace ... and be happy in ... my grave ... if I know ... that you are ... happy."
Still she did not speak; her eyes were strangely overcast; but it was not with grief for her lost happiness. Suddenly she tore the note across and dropped the pieces on the floor.
"If he had written ten letters," she cried, "it would have made no difference now; do not let that worry you, Cecil--it is all at an end. Even if there were no gulf between us I could never be his wife! I have ceased to love him.--How mean he is in my eyes--compared with you!"
And so the brother and sister were at one again; the discord was resolved.
For more than four and twenty hours Cecil wrestled with death and Zinka never left his side. The certainty of their mutual and complete devotion was a melancholy consolation in the midst of this cruel parting. The pain he suffered was agonizing; particularly during the night and the early morning; but he bore it with superb fortitude and it was only by the nervous clenching of his hands and the involuntary distortion of his features that he betrayed his suffering. He hardly for a moment slept; he refused the opiate sent by the surgeon; he wished to "keep his head" as long as possible.
When Zinka--with a thousand tender circumlocutions--suggested to him that he should receive the last sacraments of the Church he agreed. "If it will be any comfort to you, Butterfly," he sighed; and he received the priest with reverent composure.
In the afternoon he was easier--Zinka began to hope.
"You are better," she whispered imploringly, "you are better, are you not?"
"I am in less pain," he said, and then she began making plans for the future--he smiled sadly.
No man could die with a better grace, and yet it was hard to die.
The catastrophe had roused universal sympathy. The terrible news had spread like wildfire through the city and a sort of panic fell on the rank and fashion of Rome. No one, that day, who had ever spoken a spiteful or a flippant word against Sterzl or his sister, failed to feel a prick of remorse. Every one came or sent to the palazetto to enquire for them. Now and again the baroness would come in triumphantly, in her hand a particularly distinguished visiting-card with its corner turned down, and rustle up to the bedside: "Ilsenbergh came himself to the door to ask after you!"
Late in the day he fell into an uneasy sleep; Zinka and the general did not quit the room. The window was open but the air that blew in through the Venetian blinds was damp and sultry. The street was strewn with straw; the roll of the carriages in the Corso came, dulled by distance, up to the chamber of death. Then twilight fell and the rumbling echoes were still. Presently, the slow irregular tramp of a crowd broke the silence, with the accompaniment of a solemn but dismal chant Zinka sprang up to close the window; but she was not quick enough. The sleeper had opened his weary eyes and was listening--: "A funeral!" he muttered.
After this he could not rest, and his sufferings began once more. He tossed on his pillow, talked of his will, begging the general to make a note of certain trifling alterations; and when Zinka entreated him not to torment himself but to think of that by-and-bye, he shook his head, and murmured in a voice that was hoarse and tremulous with pain: "No, I am in a hurry ... time presses ... railway fever ... railway fever ..."
When Zinka, unable to control herself, was leaving the room to hide her tears, he desired her to remain:
"Only stop by me ... do not leave me, Zini," he said. "Cry if it is a relief to you ... but stay here ... poor little Butterfly!... yes, you will miss me...."
Once only did he lose his self-command. It was late in the evening. He had begged them to send to the embassy for an English newspaper which would give some information as to a certain political matter in which he was particularly interested; the ambassador himself brought it to his bedside.
"How are you?... how are you now?" he asked with sincere emotion ... "You were quite right, Sterzl. Ignatiev has done exactly as you said; you have a wonderful power of divination ... I shall miss you desperately when you go to Constantinople...." and his excellency fairly broke down.
There was a painful pause. "I am going further than Constantinople...." Sterzl murmured at length. "I should like to know who will get my place...." His voice failed him and he groaned as he hid his face in the pillow.
The end came at midnight. Dr. E---- had warned the general that it would be terrible; but it was in vain that they tried to persuade Zinka to leave the room. The whole night through she knelt by the dying man's bed in her tumbled white dressing-gown--praying.
At about five in the morning his moaning ceased. Was all over? No, he spoke again; a strange, far-away look, peculiar to the dying, came into his eyes. "Do not cry, little one--it will all come right...." and then he felt about with his hands as if he were seeking for something--for some idea that had escaped him. He gazed at his sister. "Go to bed, Zini--I am better ... sleepy ... Constanti...." He turned his head to the wall and breathed deeply. He had started on his journey.
The general closed his eyes and drew Zinka away. Outside in the corridor stood a crushed and miserable man--it was Sempaly. Pale, wretched, and restless, he had stolen into the palazetto, and as he stood aside his hands trembled, his eyes were haggard. She did not shrink from him as she went by--she did not see him!
A glorious morning shone on the little garden-court. In a darkly-shady corner a swarm of blue butterflies were fluttering over the grass like atoms fallen from the sky. It was the corner in which the Amazon stood.
Thanks to Siegburg's always judicious indiscretion all Rome knew ere long that Prince Sempaly had consented to Zinka's marriage with his brother the evening before the duel, and at the same time it heard of Sterzl's burst of anger and its fearful expiation. Princess Vulpini's unwavering friendship, which during these few days she took every opportunity of displaying, silenced evil tongues and saved Zinka's good name. Now, indeed, there was a general and powerful revulsion of feeling in Sterzl's favor. It suddenly became absurd, petty, in the very worst taste, to doubt Zinka--Zinka and Cecil had always been exceptional natures....
Sterzl had expressed a wish to be buried at home; the body was embalmed and laid in a large empty room, where, once upon a time, the baroness had wanted to give a ball. There were flowers against the wall, and on the floor. The bier was covered with them; it was a complete RomanInfiorata, The windows were darkened with hangings and the dim ruddy light of dozens of wax-tapers filled the room. Countess Ilsenbergh and the Jatinskys came to this lying in state; distinguished company, in ceremonial black, crowded round the coffin. Never had the baroness had so full a 'day' and her sentimental graces showed that, even under these grim circumstances, she felt this as a satisfaction. She stood by the bier in flowing robes loaded with crape, a black-bordered handkerchief in her hand, and a tear on each cheek, and--received her visitors. They pressed her hand and made sympathetic speeches and she murmured feebly: "You are so good--it is so comforting."
Having spoken to the mother, they turned to look for the sister; every one longed to express, or at least to show, their sincere sympathy for her dreadful sorrow. But she was not in the crowd--not to be seen, till a lady whispered: "There she is," and in a dark recess. Princess Vulpini was discovered with a quivering, sobbing creature, as pale as death and drowned in tears; but no one ventured to intrude on her grief No one but Nini, who looked almost as miserable as Zinka herself, and who went up to her, and put her arms round her, and kissed her.
Next day mass was performed in the chapel of San-Marco, adjoining the embassy, and a quartette of voices sang the same pathetic allegretto from the seventh symphony that had been played, hardly three months since, for the 'Lady Jane Grey' tableau.
A week later the Sterzls quitted Rome. Up to the very last the baroness was receiving visits of condolence, and to the very last she repeated her monotonous formula of lament:
"And on the threshold of such a splendid career!"
Zinka was never in the drawing-room, and very few ventured to go to her little boudoir. Wasted to a shadow, with sunken, cried-out eyes and pinched features, it was heart-rending to see her; and after the first violence of her grief was spent she seemed even more inconsolable. It is so with deep natures. Our first sorrow over the dead is always mixed with a certain rebellion against fate--it is a paroxysm in which we forget everything--even the cause of our passionate tears. It is not till we have dried our eyes and our heart has raged itself into weariness--not till we have at last said to ourselves: "submit," that we can measure the awful gap that death has torn in our life, or know how empty and cold and silent the world has become.
Every day made Zinka feel more deeply what it was that she had lost. She was always feeling for the strong arm which had so tenderly supported her. The general and Princess Vulpini did everything in their power to help her through this trying phase, but the person with whom she felt most at her ease was Truyn; and very often, after seven in the evening, when she was sure of meeting no one, she stole off to visit Gabrielle; it was touching to see how the little girl understood the trouble of her older friend, and how sweetly she would caress and pet her.
On the morning of their departure Truyn and the general saw them off from the station. After the ladies were in the carriage Truyn got in too, to open or close the windows and blinds; when he had done this Zinka put out her hand:
"God bless you, for all your kindness," she said, and as she spoke she put up her face to give him a kiss.
For an instant he hesitated then he signed her forehead with a cross, and bending down touched her hair with his lips.
"Au revoir," he murmured in a half-choked voice, he bowed to the baroness and jumped out. As he watched the train leave the station his face was crimson and his eyes sparkled strangely; and he stood bareheaded to catch the last glimpse of a pale little face at the window.
"If only I had the right to care for her and protect her," he muttered.