During the next eight days the last crows had come to town from the woods, and moved into their winter quarters in the steeples; likewise, it was reported in well-informed circles, that of the noble families who used to spend their winter in Grunwald not one of importance had remained in the country. The increased animation which filled the otherwise quiet streets, proved this sufficiently. At the theatre, the front boxes, which were exclusively reserved for the nobility, now overflowed every night. The good citizens of Grunwald were often frightened out of their first sleep by the noise of furiously-driven carriages, and twelve hours afterwards the same carriages came thundering back again through the streets, when the disturbers of their nightly rest had slept long enough, and felt an irrepressible desire to see each other again after so long an interval, and to exchange their views about the interesting events of the last ball--how often young Count Grieben had danced with the youngest Miss Nadelitz, and what a strange head-dress the Baroness Renrien had worn.
Last night there had been a great ball at Count Grieben's; and to-morrow was to be a great party at the Grenwitz mansion, the first they had given this season. As the local etiquette required that the invited guests should call on their host before the party, as well as after it, visits had to be paid to-day at both houses. The rolling of carriages had, therefore, no end to-day.
When visitors were expected in larger numbers, the large reception-rooms of the Grenwitz mansion, which fronted upon the street, laid aside their reserve and opened their doors to all comers. So it was to-day. A dozen visitors had been there; another dozen were expected. Just now there was a pause. It so happened that only the baron and the baroness were sitting in the parlor.
Any one who should have observed them just now, as they were escorting Mrs. Nadelitz and her three daughters with smiles and compliments to the parlor door, and who should have seen them after the door had been closed, would have been greatly astonished at their altered appearance. The old gentleman sank with an air of thorough weariness into his easy-chair, and Anna Maria sat down opposite to him on a sofa, with a face from which all smiles had vanished to give way to clouds of deepest indignation. There had evidently been a scene between the two before the last visitors came, such as is not unusual in regular family dramas, and the question was now, simply, which of the two was to resume first the interrupted dialogue.
In former days this would have evidently been the privilege of Anna Maria, who enjoyed strife, and felt sure of victory. But strangely enough, husband and wife seemed recently to have exchanged parts. The baron was almost transformed since Bruno's death and Helen's departure from home. Formerly good-natured, yielding, and peaceful, he had become sensitive, grumbling, and obstinate. This change might have been in part the effect of his bad state of health and his decline, which had become very perceptible in the last weeks; but sometimes it looked as if the cause was a deeper one--as if the recent events had roused the old gentleman from his lethargy, and shown him many things and many persons in a very different light from that in which he had seen them before. He who had formerly hardly taken a glass of water without first consulting his Anna Maria, suddenly began to act for himself, even to think for himself, and to have positive views of his own, which he maintained with that obstinacy and pertinacity which is often observed in weak minds. He had had attacks of this obstinacy in former years also, but now the sporadic occurrences seemed to have changed into a chronic disease. People are apt to say of somebody who acts in an extraordinary manner, "he won't live long;" and if there is any reason for this assertion, the days of the baron must have been numbered. Perhaps this was really so, and the baron suspected it secretly, so that he made unheard-of efforts of his mind and his will, exactly as old, very sedate canary-birds are apt to hop about and to flutter with nervous violence a few minutes before composing themselves to sleep.
Such a nervous violence characterized the manner in which the old gentleman, taking a pinch from his gold snuff-box, closed the top, and then said, as if Anna Maria had given him the cue just then, and not half an hour ago:
"Stay! Everything must have an end; we cannot leave Helen forever at Miss Bear's."
"I am not accustomed," replied Anna Maria, taking up her embroidery--she liked to be found busy at work when visitors came--"I am not accustomed to say one thing to-day and another thing to-morrow. Others may think differently about it. We would make ourselves ridiculous before the whole world if we were to take Helen back after four weeks."
"It is nearly six weeks," growled the baron.
"Four or six, that makes no difference."
"It does for me. I am an old man; I may die to-morrow."
"You have said so these ten years."
"If I have said so for ten years," replied the baron, deeply offended by the indifference which lay in the words of his wife, "it is because I have not had a well day for ten years; and one of these days the morning will break when I am no more, and that is why I should like to have my daughter near me again as soon as possible."
"And of your son you say nothing; you do not mind whether Malte is well or unwell. And yet it is Malte in whom all our hopes are centring. You ought to thank God that you have a son who can inherit the estate; instead of that it is Helen, and all the time Helen, whom you consider as all-important."
"I thank God that I have a son, and I thank you that you have given me a son; not because he is my heir, but because he is my flesh and blood, whom I can love, as I love my daughter also. As to the estate, you know my views about that. I abhor entails, which only serve to create discord in the family."
The baron took a pinch, evidently in order to becalm; but the remedy seemed this time to have the opposite effect, for he continued, after this interruption, with increasing violence:
"Why did you absolutely want to marry your daughter to Felix? Because Felix may possibly one of these days inherit the entail! Why is Felix your special protégé? Because he may possibly inherit the entail! Why must O have Felix in my house, whom I cannot bear, and do without Helen, whom I love? Because Felix may inherit the entail?"
"Don't repeat yourself so often, dear Grenwitz," said Anna Maria in a quiet tone, which did not harmonize at all with the deep-red spots on her cheeks and the piercing sharpness of her large gray eyes, "and do not excite yourself unnecessarily so much, your cough will return directly. It matters very little how you think about entailed estates. You cannot change them, God be thanked. But as for me, you must permit me to think differently about it, and to do in that direction what I think is my duty. If, you have no duties to fulfil to your children, I have. If you are willing to give your daughter to the first adventurer who wants her, or whom she wants--you need not stamp impatiently with your sick foot; and you will spill the snuff on the carpet if you knock your box so violently on the arm of the chair. I say, if it is indifferent to you whom Helen marries, it is not so to me. I have advocated the marriage with Felix, not from obstinacy, which I leave to others, but because I thought it was a good match, the best which a girl without fortune could make. You can see how little obstinate I am when you consider that I am no longer in favor of the match since Felix's accident, since the doctor thinks he is consumptive. On the contrary, as soon as it is well ascertained that Felix wont live long, I shall be one of the first to drop him, especially as he will leave nothing but debts."
The old gentleman seemed to be by no means pleased with this exhibition of cold-blooded egotism. He had a kind of dim perception--not the first of its kind--that his highly moral wife might possibly have a very bad heart, and he sighed. It is bitter to have to give up in the evening of life an illusion which we have indulged in for a quarter of a century.
He fell into silent meditation. What it was that had occupied his thoughts, he showed in the first words that fell from him. After a pause, during which Anna Maria had been busy at her work, in nervous silence;
"At least, be kind to her to-morrow when she comes to see us."
"I have always known what my duty is," replied the baroness, looking up from her work and raising her eyebrows. "I shall know it in this case also."
The baron apparently did not feel quite reassured by her words; but before he could find words to express his apprehension, the servant opened the door and announced, "Baron and Baroness Barnewitz."
The two entered the room.
Baron Barnewitz and his wife had only come to town the day before. Baron Barnewitz was a great hunter before the Lord, and did not like to leave his dogs and his horses. He had not come much into the parlor since the hunting season had opened, and he still bore the traces of his last fox-hunt. His shoulders and his red beard looked still broader, and his voice was louder and hoarser than usual. Hortense Barnewitz, on the contrary, was a shade paler and lighter than in the summer, and looked a great deal more wearied and fatigued. Her lips were thinner, and her blue eyes had become sharper. She evidently began to find life, all in all, unprofitable, especially since last night. She had been sadly neglected at the ball for the sake of younger and more attractive ladies.
"Oh, at last we have the pleasure!" said Anna Maria, rising to meet her guests, with the stereotyped gracious smile which she always held ready for such occasions.
"Entirely our own pleasure, madame," cried the fox-hunter, kissing the thin hand of the baroness; "entirely our own. By God, could not come sooner. Arrived yesterday at noon; last night at Grieben's. Pity you were not there; famous, I tell you; had almost as much fun as at the last hunt. My wife was tired; had no encouragement. People are always tired when no encouragement. Ha, ha, ha!"
"You must pardon Karl's way of talking," said Hortense, taking a seat by the baroness on the sofa; "he has lived the last six weeks almost exclusively with grooms and huntsmen."
"And with you, my darling! ha, ha, ha!" laughed the gallant husband. "Well, Hortense needn't take it amiss. Husbands, wife, can afford a joke, eh?"
"How do things look at home?" asked Anna Maria, trying to give a more interesting turn to the conversation.
"Oh, so so!" said Baron Barnewitz. "The winter wheat is generally doing very well; here and there the mice have done some harm. The summer was too hot. I think the rain will do us some good now.Aproposof rain, Grenwitz! we must settle that question about the ditches, else we shall all of us be drowned one of these days. I talked about it to Oldenburg, a few days ago. He belongs to our district, with his estate at Cona. He thought, too, the thing would have to be done this fall."
"Why, does the baron nowadays take an interest in farming? That is something entirely new," said Anna Maria.
"Entirely new, madame," affirmed Baron Barnewitz; "the very last news, ha, ha, ha! since his return from his travels; that is to say, about a fortnight. I think he will be crazy next."
"Or marry your cousin Melitta," said the baroness, smiling.
"Perhaps that would be the same thing," suggested Hortense.
"But, dear Hortense, you ought not to be so satirical," said the baroness, threatening the satirical blonde with her uplifted finger jestingly.
"Are jealous; you are jealous!" cried Baron Barnewitz. "You have always envied her her beaux, because she has one for every finger."
"It is a great art to be attended by gentlemen, if one leaves no means of coquetry unused," said Hortense, dropping her cloak far enough to show her white shoulders.
"Well, it is not quite as bad as that," replied her husband.
Hortense shrugged her white shoulders.
"Bad is a relative idea. Melitta has given so much ground for gossip in her life that people are not so very strict with her."
"But that might be the case with Baron Oldenburg too," said Anna Maria.
"Possibly," said Hortense. "I do not know Baron Oldenburg well enough----"
The fox-hunter saw himself compelled to pull out his handkerchief, and to blow his nose furiously.
"Not well enough," repeated Hortense, who probably discovered some connection between her words and the violent blowing of her husband's nose; "but, if he can get over Melitta's last affair, he must, indeed, be very tolerant."
"Last affair!" said moral Anna Maria, raising her eyebrows; "why, I had not heard of anything!"
"Gossip, madame, gossip!" said Barnewitz, who remembered that Melitta was his first cousin, and that he had, as a boy of seventeen, worshipped the beautiful girl of twelve. "Nothing but the gossip of a set of old women."
"Old women often have very useful, sharp eyes," remarked Hortense, examining attentively the stucco ornaments of the ceiling.
"You make me very curious," said Anna Maria, sitting down comfortably in the sofa-corner.
"It is nonsense, madame, I assure you," said Barnewitz, angrily. "A couple of old women from our village, who were stealing wood at night in the Berkow forest--at least I cannot see how else they could have been there--say that Melitta has had secret interviews in her little forest cottage with--Heaven knows whom!"
"Why, that is quite a piquant story," said Anna Maria.
"Yes; and what makes it still more piquant," said Hortense, her eyes still busy at the ceiling, "is this: that the Heaven knows who always came by the road from Grenwitz, and always went back again the same way!"
Anna Maria's eyes opened as wide as they possibly could when she heard this statement.
"When is that reported to have taken place?" she asked, with severity, "I will not hope----"
"Oh, do not trouble yourself about it," interrupted Hortense; "Felix came much later. It was about the time when we gave our first ball, and Oldenburg, who was assigning the guests their seats at table with Karl, made my cousin go to table with Doctor Stein, and carried him afterwards home in his own carriage. It was a touching attention, though not without its comical side in this case; as well as the warmth with which Oldenburg afterwards took Mr. Stein's part when your nephew, Felix, had that unpleasant affair with him. Oh, it is too amusing! But nobody can accuse my cousin that she does not know how to make friends of her friends."
The old baron had listened to this interesting conversation in perfect silence, and apparently with utter indifference. All the more surprising was the vehemence with which he now said, shaking his gray head indignantly,
"Frau von Berkow is a dear lady, whom I esteem; Baron Oldenburg is a man of honor; I have always known him as such, and have had quite recently occasion to see it again in some very important business I had with him. I am sorry, my friends, to hear you speak of them in this hard and unfeeling manner--very sorry! very sorry!"
And the old man trembled so violently with deep emotion that he could hardly carry the pinch he held between his fingers to his nose.
Baron Barnewitz nodded his head, as if he wished to say: The old gentleman is not so far out. But Hortense was not in the humor to accept the correction patiently.
"Don't trouble yourself about that, my dear baron," she replied scornfully; "you know that the name of this Mr. Stein has elsewhere also obtained quite a celebrity in the annals of the past summer. The more frequently it is, therefore, coupled with my cousin, why, all the more rarely can it be put in connection with the names of other ladies."
It was fortunate for the old gentleman that he did not understand this allusion to Helen, since it had never occurred to him in the most remote way that his daughter could have been the cause of the duel between Felix and Oswald.
In the meantime Hortense seemed to feel that she had probably gone too far. She hastened, therefore, to say that it was quite late already, and she was just about to rise in order to take leave when more visitors were announced, which compelled her to stay. No one was to say of Hortense Barnewitz that she had fled before a rival. But such a rival was, in more than one respect, Emily Cloten, who now rushed in ahead of her husband.
Emily had been married a fortnight. She had preferred not to make any other wedding tour than from the estate of her parents, where the wedding had taken place, to Grunwald. She did not wish to miss the beginning of the season. She longed to appear at once on the stage of her future triumphs, in order to prevent any possible competition. Emily Breesen did not wish to become Frau von Cloten for nothing--the wife of a man to whom she had engaged herself in a fit of jealousy--whom she had married from pure caprice.
The success which she had obtained at the first balls of the season fulfilled her boldest expectations. She saw all the men at her feet, and the consciousness of the power of her charms furnished an excellent relief for her coquettish beauties. The certainty of victory beamed from her large, almond-shaped gray eyes; the certainty of victory played around her rather large but well-shaped mouth, with its dazzling white teeth; the certainty of victory peeped stealthily from the dimples in her rosy cheeks; the certainty of victory even proclaimed itself in the rustling of her long silk dresses and the nodding of the white ostrich-feather on her black-velvet hat, from under which the luxuriant brown hair overflowed in all directions.
Baron Cloten, on his side, seemed to have found out that the sublime good fortune of being the husband of so brilliant a lady was somewhat equivocal. There was around his eyes a faint expression like that of a turkey-hen who has for weeks been dreaming and boasting of the hoped-for happiness to promenade in the poultry-yard at the head of a number of young, respectable turkeys, and who suddenly sees her brood swim on the pond in the shape of wild, disrespectful ducklings. Those who had known him before could not help noticing that he twisted his blond moustache less frequently, and that his voice sounded by no means as self-complacent as formerly. Perhaps he was all the more disconcerted as he had unexpectedly and without any desire of his own met his lady-love, whom he had faithlessly and somewhat cowardly abandoned; while on the other hand, this very circumstance seemed visibly to increase the good humor of his young wife. She had the pleasing consciousness of having totally eclipsed Hortense last night, and she now enjoyed the sight of her rival most heartily. Of course she greeted her with all the signs of most cordial friendship, and asked her with deep sympathy whether the night's rest had relieved her of her headache of last night.
"What a pity, dear Barnewitz, that your migraine compelled you to leave before the cotillon. I assure you, it was the most lovely cotillon I have ever danced. Prince Waldenberg--you know I led the cotillon with Prince Waldenberg; Max Grieben had begged us to do so--knew a number of the newest figures, as they dance them at the court balls in Berlin. I tell you such a cotillon was never danced yet in Grunwald. Was it not charming, Arthur?"
"Oh certainly, certainly?" rattled the obedient husband, who had been condemned to dance with a poor, hunchbacked countess; "I assure you, it was divine; upon my word, divine!"
"I thought the company, to tell the truth, was rather mixed," said Hortense, who looked a few degrees moreblaséesince Emily had come; "I counted not less than four--say four--artillery officers who were not noble."
"Why, that is very likely," said Emily, "although I had no time to count them. I have even danced with one of them--Jones, or Smith, or whatever his name was--and, by the way, he waltzed as magnificently as I could wish."
"But, dear Emily, might you not have escaped that?" said Hortense, drawing up her cloak.
"Precisely the same question which Prince Waldenberg asked. 'Your Highness,' I replied, 'I am no enthusiast about the artillery; but, after all, I would rather dance with a man who is not noble than not to dance at all."
This allusion to a misfortune which had twice occurred to Hortense last night, put the poor lady in such an excited state that the rouge on her cheeks became quite useless. She was just about to commit the folly of betraying by a violent answer how deep the venomous arrow shot by Emily had wounded her, when the servant announced "Professor and Mrs. Jager."
The man was so well trained that he did not, as usually, admit the persons he announced at once into the parlor, but closed the door behind him and remained standing there bolt upright, waiting for further orders.
"You will excuse me, my friends," said Anna Maria, apologizing, and turning to the company present, "if I receive the professor and his wife. The good people have always shown themselves loyal, and quite aware of their social position. I think it is our duty to encourage such people."
Upon a sign of his mistress the servant went out, and there appeared the man of the Fragment and the poetess making deep bows and courtesies, which were returned with a gentle nod by the noble company. Only the old baron rose, shook hands with them, and bade them welcome in his cordial, unvarnished manner.
If Primula, who looked somewhat shyly from under the cornflowers on her bonnet, seemed to stand rather in need of some such encouragement, the editor of Chrysophilos evidently could very well do without it. Humility, it is true, spoke from his small eyes, which squinted suspiciously above the golden rim of his spectacles as he approached with bent back; modesty, it is true, smiled from the unpleasant lines which, marked the large mouth with its low-drawn comers; but they were the humility and the modesty of a cat rubbing her back against the foot of the ladder which leads to the garret where the fat pigeons are cooing. He went up to the baroness, kissed repeatedly her graciously-extended hand, bowed low to the other two ladies, not quite so low to the gentlemen, seated himself after some hesitation on the edge of a chair which stood rather outside of the circle, and waited, his head slightly on one side, till somebody should feel disposed to honor him with a question.
The conversation of the company turned on a most interesting subject, the person of his Highness, First Lieutenant Prince Waldenberg, who had been ordered a few weeks ago from his regiment of the Guards at the Capital to the line regiment which was in garrison at Grunwald, and who had of course, from his first appearance, become, the lion of the whole country nobility now residing in town.
"Only I should like to know why he has been ordered here," said Cloten. "Felix, with whom I talked it over yesterday--apropos, it is very well, madame, you make him keep his room; he looks really very badly--Felix thinks the prince has probably had another duel; they say he is the most passionate man in the world."
"Why, Arthur!" said Emily. "You talk as if passion were a crime. I wish some people I know had a little more of it."
"Are not the Waldenbergs of Slavonic descent?" asked Hortense. "It seems to me the prince looks like a Mongolian."
"Oh! you have not seen him near, my dearest Barnewitz," said Emily; "he is one of the handsomest men I have ever seen, and he dances divinely."
"I believe the Waldenbergs are originally a Polish family," said Anna Maria.
"Not at all, madame," cried Cloten; "pure Germanic, upon honor, pure Germanic."
"I am sure Professor Jager can tell us something more about that," said the baroness, turning with a gracious smile towards the man of science.
"Indeed, my gracious lady," said the latter, glad to have found an opportunity for the display of his knowledge; "indeed, I have always taken special pleasure, while pursuing my historical studies, to trace out the genealogies of noble families, and thus it happens that have given special attention to the history of the Waldenberg family, which is in many respects a most interesting one. The Waldenbergs were, if you will excuse me for correcting your remarks, of purely German descent. They came originally from Franconia, and only went to Prussia with the German knights. Afterwards, it is true, they have largely intermarried with noble Polish families, and hence they own still large estates in the Lausitz, where the family estate lies, and in Russian Poland. The present prince, also, has both Slavonic and Germanic blood in his veins. His mother, the Princess Stephanie Letbus, of the house of Wartenberg, married in eighteen hundred and twenty-two, in St. Petersburg, where she has lived from her early youth--I mentioned before that part of their possessions are in Russia--a Count Constantin Malikowsky, the last scion of a once very rich and powerful Polish family, who is now, however, quite reduced. The Emperor Alexander, who, as they say, was under obligations to both families" (here the professor ventured upon a stealthy smile to the young princess, who was lady in waiting to the empress and exceedingly beautiful, and to the count whose family had been mainly ruined by Russian confiscations,) "has the credit of having made the match. Such influence was perhaps necessary, because the reputation of the count was--I trust you will pardon the veracity of a conscientious historian--was, how shall I call it, somewhat doubtful. Young noblemen must sow their wild oats, we all know that; but Count Malikowsky had probably carried the matter a little too far. However that may be, the offspring of this marriage of Count Constantin Malikowsky with the Princess Stephanie Letbus is the prince, who at first was in the Russian service; but when with the last Prince Waldenberg the male succession in the family came to an end, and the estates lapsed back to the crown, the King of Prussia as a special favor declared him qualified to succeed, and he entered our service as Prince Count Malikowsky Waldenberg. His full name is, as you may possibly not know yet, Raimund Gregorius Stephan, Prince Count Malikowsky Waldenberg, hereditary lord of Letbus."
The company had followed the genealogical lecture of the learned professor with the same attention with which a company of ordinary crows might listen to the report of an owl about the descent of a rare raven who measures four yards from tip to tip. The devout silence was suddenly interrupted by the voice of the servant, who opened the door with nervous haste and called out, "His Highness, Prince Waldenberg!"
The nervous servant seemed to have electrified the whole company in the room. A moment later and they all stood straight up before their chairs, anxiously looking at the door, through whose wide-open frame the prince was entering so quickly that Anna Maria was not able to make the three steps to meet him which etiquette required, but had only time for one and a half.
"You have had the kindness, madame," said the prince in excellent French, slightly bending over the hand of the baroness, "to anticipate my wishes by your invitation, before I had an opportunity to make myself worthy of such an attention. Permit me to try to make amends for my neglect."
"An effort,mon prince," answered Anna Maria, with her sweetest smile, also in French, "which in a gentleman like yourself is sure of success. I regret exceedingly that, rarely as we are from home, an unfortunate accident should have caused us the other day to be absent just when you thought of honoring us with a visit. Permit me to present to you my friends: the baron, my husband; Baron and Baroness Barnewitz; Baron and Baroness Cloten."
"I have already the honor," said the prince, smiling.
"Professor Jager, an excellent scholar, and a friend of our house; Mrs. Jager, a lady whose poetical talent deserves encouragement."
The prince bowed to each one of the persons presented--even to the last-mentioned, which made quite a sensation--with the same dignity and courtesy, and gave the signal to sit down by choosing himself a seat by Anna Maria on an easy-chair.
During this long salutation those who had not known the prince before had an opportunity to study his outward appearance. His was a Herculean form, calculated to impress a professional boxer forcibly, and to create a sensation in a circus, dressed up as an athlete; but for ordinary life was, perhaps, a little too large. Upon the large, powerful body, whose height was in full harmony with the breadth of the shoulders and the magnificent chest, there was set a head more angular than round, covered all over with short, curling black hair, and firmly resting upon a neck which looked too short for the size of the head. The features of the face corresponded with the whole. The brow was low and straight, the eyes of bright darkness but small, and apparently still further reduced in size by the heavy eyelids with their dark lashes. The nose as well as the thick lips were somewhat protruding. A beard, thicker and blacker than the hair on the head, covered the cheeks and the upper lip. The chin alone, shaved smooth, in military style, was the energetic base of this energetic face. Taken all in all, the assertion made by Hortense that the prince looked like a Mongolian agreed as little with the reality as Emily's judgment that he was strikingly handsome. Nevertheless, the whole was a far too striking individuality and too full of character to be called plain, even if the strict rules of ideal beauty were not all observed. A physiognomist would in vain have looked for ideal qualities of any kind in the face of the prince, but he would have discovered, in return, a most energetic, powerful will; and, perhaps, if he had examined carefully, a boundless pride, which slept with open eyes behind the mask, like a lion behind the bars of his cage, and could be roused by a mere nothing.
The prince wore the simple uniform of the regiment in garrison in Grunwald, but the two decorations on his breast--a small cross set in diamonds, probably Russian; and the order of the Blue Falcon of the second class, with crossed swords--proved abundantly that he was a man whose importance was great, aside from epaulet and sword-knot.
Anna Maria treated her great guest with a distinction corresponding fully with this higher mystical importance, which was only revealed to the profane eye by the awe-inspiring sparkling of the diamonds. It was this that caused the modest silence into which Barnewitz and Cloten had fallen since his arrival; the coquetry with which Hortense and Clotilde tried to attract his attention, and the embarrassment of the author of the fragments and the poetess, who had a vague impression that they were more than superfluous in this most noble company, and yet did not dare to rise from their seats and to go away. The prince and the baroness at first kept up the conversation alone, until Hortense succeeded in wedging in a casual remark, expressed in excellent French, and thus to obtain the word to the great annoyance of Emily, who had to leave her adversary in the undisturbed enjoyment of this triumph, as she spoke French but imperfectly, and was hardly able to follow the rapid utterance of her rival. Hortense, who knew Emily's weak point, carried her malice so far as to turn round to her continually with a "qu'en dites--vous, chère amie? N'est ce pas, Emilie?" and to force her in this way to reply in a manner which might be clever in spirit but was very imperfect in form. Any one who could have noticed the intense delight with which Hortense enjoyed her triumph over her adversary would have been compelled to acknowledge that even malice has its moments of happiness. The delight, however, became almost too great to be borne, when at last the prince hardly noticed Emily any longer, and gave himself up entirely to the charm of Hortense's amusing conversation.
Emily, however, was far too frivolous and too bold to lose her good humor at once, because of such a momentary defeat. The prince was not to her taste, although she had before praised him in order to annoy her rival; and if he did not choose to speak German to her, as he had done the night before, he might leave it alone. Emily played with her beaux as a trifling child plays with its dolls; it was utterly indifferent to her whether she broke the head of one, or the other fell into the water; she felt it only when one of her favorite dolls and she had occasionally, for the sake of variety, one that she overwhelmed with caresses and kisses--was not willing to be tender to her and to return her affection. Oswald had been such a favorite, but cold, desperately cold doll for her. She might have married him and become his faithful wife if he had belonged to the same circles in which she lived--at least her fancy represented it to her as possible in dreamy hours--but now she was Baroness Cloten, and then--what did it matter to her? Was she not handsome and young, and ten times cleverer than her foolish husband with his everlasting "upon honor!" and "divine!" Why will foolish men marry clever and handsome young wives, especially when these wives have a fondness for fancies brighter than the dull gray of actual life? Are the wives to be blamed in such cases if they go their own way, which is sometimes so narrow and dark that virtue and honor, the faithful companions of good wives, are lost by the way?
Emily Cloten had been watching the whole time for an opportunity to enter into conversation with Mrs. Jager, who, she suspected, might be able to give her some news about Oswald, whom she had not seen again since the night before. She availed herself, therefore, of the favorable moment when the prince was speaking to the baroness and Hortense, and the baron to the reverend gentleman, in order to inquire of Primula about "that young man who was tutor at Grenwitz last summer--Fels, I think, or Rock, or Stein, or whatever his name was--since a friend of hers was in need of a teacher." Emily was not mistaken; Primula could give her all information about Mr. Stein--"not Fels, although he has a heart like the poet's hero, Felsenfest; not Rock, although he towers like a rock above all men"--as the enthusiastic poetess added warmly. He called nearly every day, she said (Oswald had been there once); he was like a member of the family, and as truly united with her in warm friendship as in their common aspirations. "Excelsior!" She did not think, however, Oswald would just now accept such a position, as he was "suffering in the dull bonds of a school," but she would mention to him the offer.
"Perhaps you had better not say anything," said Emily, after a short meditation. "You know Mr. Stein--how could I forget the name--did not leave our circle in perfect harmony. He might reject the offer at once, if it came to him in that way. Could you not--how shall we manage it?--yes! that's the way! Could you not arrange it so, my dear Mrs. Jager, that I should meet him at your house as if by mere chance? I have long since desired to see the table on which the author of the 'Cornflowers' composes her beautiful poems."
"You overwhelm me with your kindness," cried Primula. "I can only say with Zeus at the distribution of the gifts of the earth: if you really wish to enter my lowly hut, as often as you come it shall be open to you. Shall we say day after to-morrow, at seven?"
"That will suit me exactly," said Emily.
Emily had given herself so completely to this interesting conversation that her husband had to remind her of the intended breaking up of the company. The prince had risen; the others had followed his example.
"Madame," said the prince, "jai l'honneur"--the word died on his lips, for he saw in the large mirror before him the form of a marvellously beautiful girl who had suddenly entered the room without being announced by the servant. He turned round almost frightened, and stepped aside, with a low bow, to make room for the young lady, who went up to the baroness. The young lady was Helen Grenwitz.
Her appearance here was unexpected by all except the baron and the baroness, and surprised and interested each one in his own way. The prince, who saw her now for the first time, was the only one who knew nothing of the difficulties in the family; the others had discussed the Grenwitz catastrophe for weeks with great zeal and vast ingenuity in all directions, and as Helen had thus been the common topic of conversation, this first meeting of mother and daughter was therefore to them all a most attractive scene. But if they had expected anything extraordinary they were doomed to disappointment. The baron, to be sure, showed some emotion as he rose to meet Helen and to kiss her brow, but mother and daughter met with courteous coldness, which furnished little food for the curiosity and thirst for scandal of the assembly, ready as they were to notice every gesture, and to treasure up every word.
"Ah, good-day, my dear child," said the baroness, in French, kissing Helen likewise on her forehead, but very lightly. "You come just in time. Permit me,mon prince, to present my daughter, Helen--His Highness, Prince Waldenberg, my child, the most recent as well as the most brilliant acquisition for our society."
Helen returned the low bow of the prince, apparently not dazzled by his high rank and his imposing appearance, and then turned to Emily Cloten, who welcomed her most heartily. Emily's sharp eyes had not failed to observe the impression which Helen's startling beauty had produced on the prince. Let the prince admire whom he pleased, so Hortense lost her triumph!
"Oh, how nice!" she cried, embracing Helen, "that you show yourself at last. I was coming to see you soon; we have a whole world to tell each other." And she seized her friend by both hands and drew her aside a few steps, so as to be able to say to her: "Look, the prince is done for,totalementdone for! He does not take is black eyes off you for an instant! If you want him, I'll let you have him. He dances beautifully, but he is not mygenre. Encourage him a little; it annoys the Barnewitz fearfully. Just think, the old coquette still wants to play her part, although she has now to paint even her veins blue, and last night remained twice without a partner! How do you like the She Bear?Apropos, have you heard anything of Oswald Stein? I shall never forget that evening at your house! We came too late with our warning, but he pulled through beautifully. Even Arthur says he acted like a perfect gentleman. Don't turn round, the prince is coming this way. He no doubt wants to secure the first waltz for tomorrow."
Emily's cunning had guessed right. The prince had really, while keeping up a conversation with the baroness, looked incessantly at Helen, and had been so absent in his answers that one could easily see his thoughts were elsewhere. Suddenly he interrupted a brilliant sentence of Anna Maria's by asking whether there would be dancing to-morrow, and whether he might be allowed to ask Fräulein von Grenwitz to keep him a dance? When both questions had been answered with a gracious "Mais oui, monseigneur!" he approached the two ladies with a bow.
"I beg pardon," he said in German, "if I interrupt the ladies in an interesting conversation; but I cannot leave without having made an effort to secure a dance for to-morrow. May I hope, madame? May I have the honor, Miss Helen?"
The madame and the miss had the goodness to grant the prince's request, and his highness left with a haste which clearly showed that nothing had kept him so long but the accomplishment of this important task.
The departure of his highness was a signal for the other company, who had been waiting for it to go likewise, to the great satisfaction of coachmen and servants in the street below, who began to be as impatient as the horses.
The carriages had rolled away. The reception-rooms were once more empty; only the baron and the baroness remained, for the two Clotens had taken Helen in their carriage; the interrupted dialogue might have been resumed. But it was not done. The old gentleman felt too tired, and Anna Maria began to look in an entirely new light upon the question whether Helen should remain at the boarding-school or not? For about ten minutes ago the thought had suddenly entered her mind that it might, after all, be wiser to be reconciled to her daughter, who had at least as much prospect as any other young lady, and probably more, to become Princess of Waldenberg Malikowsky, Countess of Letbus.
A man who is to be married in a few weeks finds it usually very hard, even in ordinary cases, to do equal justice to his professional duties and to his duties as a betrothed. But in the case of Franz this dilemma, insuperable to many persons, was perhaps the easiest part of his task, although he had an abundance of business as one of the representatives of the privy councillor in his medical practice (another part had been assumed by one of his colleagues). But more difficult by far than these duties were the troubles arising from his effort to arrange the extremely complicated money matters of his future father-in-law. It appeared gradually that the debts of the privy councillor would not be so overwhelming, if it should be feasible to collect the sums which were due him on all sides. But this was in most cases highly improbable. The debtors of the privy councillor generally lived in garrets and cellars; they were the lame and the crippled, the infirm and the invalid, often widows and orphans, as often also unworthy people, who had wretchedly abused the well-known liberality of the privy councillor. What enormous and, alas! what useless efforts this man had made to fill the Danaids' tub of the poor! with what zeal he had made himself poor in order to overcome the poverty around him, like the fabled pelican, who feeds his young with his own blood. What embarrassments he had wilfully assumed, in order to relieve others from the same troubles! How often he had given up his own sleep that his neighbor might sleep! How he had borrowed money at usurious interest in order to pay the debts of others. How he had entered into the most hazardous speculations, of which he knew nothing, but which must succeed and return a hundred per cent, if you believed the originators, but which of course never did succeed, and overwhelmed the good-natured and credulous privy councillor with new indebtedness--only to help others on in their own business!
It would have been a difficult task for the most experienced lawyer to find his way through this vast mass of more or less complicated questions, and to decide in each case what was to be done for the moment, and what for the future; how much more for Franz, who had no experience in such matters of business. But love lent him miraculous power, and sharpened his natural delicacy in his peculiar relations to his father-in-law, which called upon him continually to encourage, to appease, and to persuade. "I should not hesitate a moment," he would say, "to jump after you into the water, if I saw you were in danger of drowning, and you and everybody who should see it would think it perfectly natural. Now you are in a danger which to many people appears more formidable even than drowning--for many escape it only by rushing into eternity--and I risk for your sake not my life, which you could not give me back, but a few thousand dollars, which you can pay me back at any time, when, as it seems highly probable, your health is completely restored, and which, even if the worst should happen, it would not make me unhappy to lose."
In this way Franz tried to help his father-in-law through many a sad hour, in which the sense of his disease and the consciousness of his position weighed too heavily on his soul. Franz hoped that the excellent constitution of the man would do the rest. The privy councillor had indeed hardly gained the conviction that--thanks to the able and energetic help of his son-in-law--no dishonor could be attached to his name, even if he were to die now, than he laid aside all thoughts of death and determined to get well as soon as he could. "Not quite well," he said, "for that I can never be again; but half well, or two-thirds well--just well enough to be able to bring the hay, which is now lying fresh on the meadow, dry into the barn. I feel it, there are a few evening hours left me yet; I mean to make good use of them. You shall not spend your money upon me, and into the bargain sacrifice your future prospects for my sake."
Unfortunately this sacrifice had already been made.
Just at this time it happened that a famous professor of the university in the capital had seen a monograph on typhus, published by Franz during the summer, and had then been reminded that Franz had formerly been one of his most talented pupils, for Franz had pursued his studies for three years in the capital. He wrote to Franz congratulating him on his work, "which gave excellent evidence of his sharp acumen, and of his astounding erudition, rare in so young a man. But," continued the letter, "while thanking you in the name of science for your book, I beg leave at the same time to make you a proposition, which I hope you will consider promptly and seriously. Next Easter the place of first assistant in the great hospital here will be vacant. I know among our younger men of eminence none to whom I would entrust this place as readily as to you." The great man then spoke at length of the advantages which Franz would secure by accepting this position, and concluded with the words: "You see this is a prospect as favorable as you will ever have. I am, as you know, a very cool judge of men and things; and as matters stand now in our university, you cannot fail, if you wish, to obtain in a few years the appointment as full professor. I am convinced that my friend Roban, to whom I beg you will give my kindest regards, will look at the matter in the same light. Consult him, and let me hear from you as soon as you can."
Franz had answered, but without having consulted his father-in-law. He had declined the offer, though he was fully alive to the advantages it held out. The career which was opened to him was one of great attractions to a man of science, and promised in the end to satisfy even the most insatiable ambition; yet it did not appear to be lucrative for some years to come, but, on the contrary, to require at least a small independent fortune, which Franz did no longer possess. He had placed himself by his generosity in the disagreeable position to have to move into a new house before it is finished or dry--an embarrassment in which many honest men find themselves; or, to speak more clearly, to have to look to money-earning at a time when he needed money to spend on his full preparation for his profession. And for such a purpose Grunwald and his position as son-in-law of the most prominent physician of the place were peculiarly well adapted. Therefore--farewell thou golden toy of a life overflowing with mental enjoyment and high aspirations!