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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of 'O Thou, My Austria!', by Ossip Schubin
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: 'O Thou, My Austria!'
+
+Author: Ossip Schubin
+
+Translator: A. L. Wister
+
+Release Date: March 2, 2011 [EBook #35454]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 'O THOU, MY AUSTRIA!' ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+   1. Page scan source:
+      http://www.archive.org/details/othoumyaustria00schuiala
+
+   2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         "O THOU, MY AUSTRIA!"
+
+
+
+                       TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN
+
+                                   OF
+
+                             OSSIP SCHUBIN
+
+
+
+                                   BY
+
+                           MRS. A. L. WISTER
+
+
+
+
+
+                              PHILADELPHIA
+                        J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
+                                 1897.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+             Copyright, 1890, by J. B. Lippincott Company.
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CONTENTS.
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I.
+
+A Manuscript Misappropriated.
+
+                              CHAPTER II.
+
+The Contents of the Manuscript.
+
+                              CHAPTER III.
+
+An Arrival.
+
+                              CHAPTER IV.
+
+A Quarrel.
+
+                               CHAPTER V.
+
+Baroness Paula.
+
+                              CHAPTER VI.
+
+Entrapped.
+
+                              CHAPTER VII.
+
+An Invitation.
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII.
+
+The Secret.
+
+                              CHAPTER IX.
+
+An Encounter.
+
+                               CHAPTER X.
+
+A Garrison Town.
+
+                              CHAPTER XI.
+
+An Old Friend.
+
+                              CHAPTER XII.
+
+A Graveyard in Paris.
+
+                             CHAPTER XIII.
+
+At Dobrotschau.
+
+                              CHAPTER XIV.
+
+Olga.
+
+                              CHAPTER XV.
+
+Comrades and Friends.
+
+                              CHAPTER XVI.
+
+Lato Treurenberg.
+
+                             CHAPTER XVII.
+
+Mismated.
+
+                             CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+A Friend's Advice.
+
+                              CHAPTER XIX.
+
+Frau Rosa's Birthday.
+
+                              CHAPTER XX.
+
+Komaritz Again.
+
+                              CHAPTER XXI.
+
+"Poor Lato!"
+
+                             CHAPTER XXII.
+
+Harry's Musings.
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+Zdena to the Rescue.
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+A Sleepless Night.
+
+                              CHAPTER XXV.
+
+The Confession.
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+The Baron's Aid.
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+Baron Franz.
+
+                            CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+A Short Visit.
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+Submission.
+
+                              CHAPTER XXX.
+
+Persecution.
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+Consolation.
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+Interrupted Harmony.
+
+                            CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+Early Sunrisee.
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+Struggles.
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+A Slanderer.
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+Failure.
+
+                            CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+A Visit.
+
+                            CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+At Last.
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+The Dinner.
+
+                              CHAPTER XL.
+
+A Farewell.
+
+                              CHAPTER XLI.
+
+Resolve.
+
+                             CHAPTER XLII.
+
+Found.
+
+                             CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+Count Hans.
+
+                             CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+Spring.
+
+                              CHAPTER XLV.
+
+Old Baron Franz.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         "O THOU, MY AUSTRIA!"
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I.
+
+                     A MANUSCRIPT MISAPPROPRIATED.
+
+
+"Krupitschka, is it going to rain?" Major von Leskjewitsch asked his
+servant, who had formerly been his corporal. The major was leaning out
+of a window of his pretty vine-wreathed country-seat, smoking a
+chibouque; Krupitschka, in the garden below, protected by a white
+apron, and provided with a dark-green champagne-bottle, was picking the
+Spanish flies from off the hawthorn-bushes. At his master's question,
+he looked up, gazed at a few clouds on the horizon, replied, "Don't
+know--maybe, and then again maybe not," and deftly entrapped three
+victims at once in the long neck of his bottle. A few days previous he
+had made a very satisfactory bargain with the apothecary of the
+neighbouring little town for Spanish flies.
+
+"Ass! Have you just got back from the Delphic oracle?" the major
+exclaimed, angrily, turning away from the window.
+
+At the words "Delphic oracle," Krupitschka pricked up his ears. It
+annoyed him to have his master and the other gentlemen make use of
+words that he did not understand, and he determined to buy a foreign
+dictionary with the proceeds of the sale of his cantharides. Meanwhile,
+he noted down, in a dilapidated memorandum-book, "delphin wrackle,"
+muttering the while, "What sort of team is that, I wonder?"
+
+Unable to extort any prognosis of the weather from Krupitschka, the
+major turned to the barometer; but that stood, as it had done
+uninterruptedly for the past fortnight, at 'Changeable.'
+
+"Blockhead!" growled the major, shaking the barometer a little to rouse
+it from its lethargy; and then, seating himself at the grand piano, he
+thundered away at a piece of music familiar to all the country round as
+"The Major's Triumphal March." All the country round was likewise
+familiar with the date of the origin of this effective work,--the
+spring of 1866.
+
+At that time the major had composed this march with the patriotic
+intention of dedicating it to the victorious General Benedek, but the
+melancholy events of the brief summer campaign left him no desire to do
+so, and the march was never published; nevertheless, the major played
+it himself now and then, to his own immense satisfaction and to the
+horror of his really musical wife.
+
+This wife, a Northern German by birth, fair and dignified in
+appearance, sat rocking comfortably in an American chair, reading the
+latest number of the _German Illustrated News_, while her husband
+amused himself at the piano.
+
+The major banged away at the keys in a fury of enthusiasm, until a
+black poodle, which had crept under the piano in despair, howled
+piteously.
+
+"Ah, Paul," sighed Frau von Leskjewitsch, letting her paper drop in her
+lap, "are you determined to make my piano atone for the loss of the
+battle of Königgratz?"
+
+"Why do you have a foreign piano, then?" was the patriotic reply; and
+the major went on strumming.
+
+"You make Mori wretched," his wife remarked; "that dog is really
+musical."
+
+"A nervous mongrel--a genuine lapdog," the major muttered,
+contemptuously, without ceasing his performance.
+
+"Your march is absolutely intolerable," Frau von Leskjewitsch said at
+last.
+
+"But if it were only by Richard Wagner--" the major remarked,
+significantly: "of course you Wagnerites do not admit even the
+existence of any composer except your idol."
+
+With this he left the piano, and, with his thumbs stuck into the
+armholes of his vest, began to pace the apartment to and fro.
+
+There was quite space enough for him to do so, for the room was large
+and its furniture scanty. Nowhere was he in any danger of stumbling
+over a plush table loaded with bric-à-brac, or a dwarf arm-chair, or
+any other of the ornaments of a modern drawing-room.
+
+The stock of curios in the house--and it was by no means
+inconsiderable, consisting of exquisite figures and groups of
+Louisburg, Meissen, and old Viennese porcelain, of seventeenth-century
+fans, and of thoroughly useless articles of ivory and silver--was all
+arranged in two antique glass cabinets, standing in such extremely dark
+corners that their contents could not be seen even at mid-day without a
+candle.
+
+Baroness Leskjewitsch hated everything, as she was wont to express
+herself, that was useless, that gathered dust, and that was in the way.
+
+In accordance with the severe style of the furniture, perfect order
+reigned everywhere, except that in an arm-chair lay an object in
+striking contrast to the rest of the apartment,--a brown work-basket
+about as large as a common-sized portmanteau. It lay quite forlornly
+upon one side, like a sailing-vessel capsized by the wind.
+
+The major paused, looked at the basket with an odd smile, and then
+could not resist the temptation to rummage in it a little.
+
+His wife always maintained that he was something of a Paul Pry; and
+perhaps she was right.
+
+"Ah!" he exclaimed, dragging to light a piece of embroidery upon
+Japanese canvas. "The first design for a cushion--the 17th is
+my birthday. What little red book is this?--'Maximes de La
+Rochefoucauld'--don't know him. And here--why, only look!" He pulled
+out a package tied with blue ribbon. "A manuscript! It seems that Zdena
+has leanings to authorship! H'm--h'm! When a girl like our Zdena takes
+to such ways, it is usually a sign that she feels impelled to confide
+in a roundabout way, to paper, something which nothing could induce her
+to confess frankly to any living being. H'm! I really am curious to
+know what goes on in that whimsical, childish brain.
+
+"'My Memoirs!'" The major pulled aside the blue ribbon that held the
+package together. "A motto! Two mottoes!--a perfect _luxe_ of mottoes!"
+he murmured, and then read out aloud,--
+
+
+         'Whether you marry or not, you will always repent it.'
+
+                                                           Plato.
+
+
+Then comes,--
+
+           'Should you marry, then be sure
+            Life's sorest ills you must endure.'
+
+                                                Lermontow.
+
+     'L'amour, c'est le grand moteur de toutes les bêtises humaines.'
+
+                                                          G. Sand.
+
+
+I really should not have supposed that our Zdena had already pondered
+the marriage problem so deeply," he said, gleefully; then,
+contemplating with a smile the mass of wisdom scribbled in a bold,
+dashing handwriting, he added, "there seems to be more going on in that
+small brain than we had suspected. "What do you think, Rosel? may not
+Zdena possibly have a weakness for Harry?"
+
+"Nonsense!" replied the Baroness. She was evidently somewhat
+annoyed,--first, because her husband had roused her from a pleasant
+nap, or, rather, disturbed her in the perusal of an article upon
+Grecian excavations, and secondly, because he had called her Rosel. Her
+real name was Rosamunda, a name of which she was very proud; she really
+could not, even after almost twenty years of married life, reconcile
+herself to her husband's thus robbing it of all its poetry. "Nonsense!"
+she exclaimed, with some temper. "I have a very different match in view
+for her."
+
+"I did not ask you what you had in view for Zdena," the major observed,
+contemptuously. "I know that without asking. I only wish to know
+whether during your stay in Vienna you did not notice that Zdena had
+taken a liking to----"
+
+"Oh, Zdena is far too sensible, and, if I am not greatly mistaken, also
+too ambitious, to dream of marrying Harry. She knows that Harry would
+ruin his prospects by a marriage with her," Frau von Leskjewitsch
+continued. "There's no living upon love and air alone."
+
+"Nevertheless there are always some people who insist upon trying it,
+although the impossibility has long been demonstrated, both
+theoretically and practically," growled the major.
+
+"And, aside from all that, Harry is not at all the husband for your
+niece," Frau Rosamunda went on, didactically. "She is wonderfully well
+developed intellectually, for her age. And he--well, he is a very good
+fellow, I have nothing to say against him, but----"
+
+"'A very good fellow'! I should like to know where you could find me a
+better," cried the major. "In the first place, he is as handsome as a
+man can be----"
+
+"As if beauty in a man were of any importance!" Frau von Leskjewitsch
+remarked, loftily.
+
+Paying no attention to this interruption, the major went on reckoning
+up his favourite's advantages, in an angry crescendo. "He rides like a
+centaur!" he declared, loudly, and the comparison pleased him so much
+that he repeated it twice,--"yes, like a centaur; he passed his
+military examinations as if they had been mere play, and he is
+considered one of the most brilliant and talented officers in the
+army. He is a little quick-tempered, but he has the best heart in the
+world, and he has been in love with Zdena since he was a small boy;
+while she----"
+
+"Let me advise you to lower your voice a little," said Frau Rosamunda,
+going to the window, which she partly closed.
+
+"Stuff!" muttered her husband.
+
+"As you please. If you like to make Zdena a subject for gossip, you are
+quite free to do so, only I would counsel you in that case to consult
+your crony Krupitschka. He has apparently not lost a single word of
+your harangue. I saw him from the window just now, staring up here, his
+mouth wide open, and the Spanish flies crawling out of his bottle and
+up his sleeves."
+
+With which words and a glance of dignified displeasure, Frau Rosamunda
+left the room.
+
+"H'm! perhaps I was wrong," thought the major: "women are keener in
+such matters than we men. 'Tis desirable I should be mistaken, but--I'd
+wager my gelding's forefoot,--no--" He shook his head, and contemplated
+the manuscript tied up with blue ribbon. "Let's see," he murmured, as
+he picked it up and carried it off to his smoking-room.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II.
+
+                    THE CONTENTS OF THE MANUSCRIPT.
+
+
+Major Paul Von Leskjewitsch, proprietor of the estates of Lauschitz and
+Zirkow in southwestern Bohemia, had been for twenty years on the
+retired list, and was a prosperous agriculturist. He had formerly been
+a very well-to-do officer, the most steady and trustworthy in the whole
+regiment, always in funds, and very seldom in scrapes.
+
+In his youth he had often been a target for Cupid's arrows, a fact of
+which he himself was hardly aware.
+
+"What an ass I was!" he was wont to exclaim to his cousin, Captain Jack
+Leskjewitsch, when on occasion the pair became confidential at midnight
+over a glass of good Bordeaux. The thought of his lost opportunities as
+a lover rather weighed upon the worthy dragoon.
+
+In his regiment he had been very popular and had made many friends, but
+with none of them had he been so intimate as with his corporal
+Krupitschka. There was a rumour that before the major's wooing of his
+present wife, a Fräulein von Bösedow, from Pomerania, he had asked this
+famulus of his, "Eh, Krupitschka, what do you think? Shall we marry or
+not?"
+
+Fortunately, this rumour had never reached the ears of the young lady,
+else she might have felt it her duty to reject the major, which would
+have been a pity.
+
+In blissful ignorance, therefore, she accepted his proposal, after
+eight days of prudent reflection, and three months later Baron
+Leskjewitsch led her to the altar.
+
+Of course he was utterly wretched during the prolonged wedding
+festivities, and at least very uncomfortable during the honey-moon,
+which, in accordance with the fashion of the day, he spent with his
+bride in railway-carriages, inns, churches, picture-galleries,
+and so forth. In truth, he was terribly bored, tided himself over the
+pauses which frequently occurred in his conversations with his bride
+by reading aloud from the guide-book, took cold in the Colosseum,
+and--breathed a sigh of relief when, after all the instructive
+experiences of their wedding-tour, he found himself comfortably
+established in his charming country-seat at Zirkow.
+
+At present the Paul Leskjewitsches had long been known for a model
+couple in all the country round. Countess Zelenitz stoutly maintained
+that they were the least unhappy couple of her acquaintance,--that they
+were past-masters of their art; she meant the most difficult of all
+arts,--that of getting along with each other.
+
+As every piece of music runs on in its own peculiar measure, one to a
+joyous three crotchets to the bar, another to a lyrically languishing
+and anon archly provocative six-quaver time, and so on, the married
+life of the Leskjewitsches was certainly set to a slow four crotchets
+to the bar,--or "common time," as it is called.
+
+The husband, besides agriculture, and his deplorable piano performances,
+cultivated a certain hypochondriac habit of mind, scrutinized the
+colour of his tongue very frequently, and, although in spite of his
+utmost efforts he was quite unable to discover a flaw in his health,
+tried a new patent tonic every year.
+
+The wife cultivated belles-lettres, devoted some time and attention to
+music, and regulated her domestic affairs with punctilious order and
+neatness.
+
+The only fault Leskjewitsch had to find with her was that she was an
+ardent admirer of Wagner, and hence quite unable to appreciate his own
+talent as a composer; while she, for her part, objected to his intimacy
+with Krupitschka and with the stag-hounds. These, however, were mere
+bagatelles. The only real sore spot in this marriage was the luck of
+children.
+
+The manner in which fate indemnified these two people by bestowing upon
+them a delightful companion in the person of a niece of the major's can
+best be learned from the young lady herself, in whose memoirs, with an
+utter disregard of the baseness of such conduct, the major has
+meanwhile become absorbed.
+
+
+
+                              MY MEMOIRS.
+
+                                   I.
+
+It rains--ah, how it rains! great drops following one another, and
+drenching the garden paths, plash--plash in all the puddles! Never a
+sunbeam to call forth a rainbow against the dark sky, never a gleam of
+light in the dull slaty gray. It seems as if the skies could never have
+done weeping over the monotony of existence--still the same--still the
+same!
+
+I have tried everything by way of amusement. I curled Morl's hair with
+the curling-tongs. I played Chopin's mazurkas until my brain reeled. I
+even went up to the garret, where I knew no one could hear me, and, in
+the presence of an old wardrobe, where uncle's last uniform as a
+lieutenant was hanging, and of two rusty stove-pipes, I declaimed the
+famous monologue from the "Maid of Orleans."
+
+"Oh, I could tear my hair with vexation!" as Valentine says. I read
+Faust a while ago,--since last spring I have been allowed to read all
+our classics,--and Faust interested me extremely, especially the
+prologue in heaven, and the first monologue, and then the walk. Ah,
+what a wonderful thing that walk is! But the love-scenes did not please
+me. Gretchen is far too meek and humble to Faust. "Dear God! How ever
+is it such a man can think and know so much?"
+
+My voice is very strong and full, and I think I have a remarkable
+talent for the stage. I have often thought of becoming an actress, for
+a change; to--yes, it must out--to have an opportunity at last to show
+myself to the world,--to be admired. Miss O'Donnel is always telling me
+I was made to be admired, and I believe she is right. But what good
+does that do me? I think out all kinds of things, but no one will
+listen to them, especially now that Miss O'Donnel has gone. She seemed
+to listen, at all events, and every now and then would declare, "Child,
+you are a wonder!" That pleased me. But she departed last Saturday, to
+pay a visit to her relatives in Italy. Her niece is being educated
+there for an opera-singer. Since she went there is no one in whom I can
+confide. To be sure, I love Uncle Paul and Aunt Rosamunda dearly,--much
+more dearly than Miss O'Donnel; but I cannot tell them whatever happens
+to come into my head. They would not understand, any more than they
+understand how a girl of my age can demand more of life than if she
+were fifty--but indeed----
+
+Rain--rain still! Since I've nothing else to do, I'll begin to-day to
+write my memoirs!
+
+That sounds presumptuous--the memoirs of a girl whose existence flows
+on between Zirkow and Komaritz. But, after all,--
+
+
+           "Where'er you grasp this human life of ours
+            In its full force, be sure 'twill interest;"
+
+
+which means, so far as I can understand, that, if one has the courage
+to write down one's personal observations and recollections simply and
+truthfully, it is sure to be worth the trouble.
+
+I will be perfectly frank; and why not?--since I write for myself
+alone.
+
+But that's false reasoning; for how many men there are who feign to
+themselves for their own satisfaction, bribing their consciences with
+sophistry! My conscience, however, sleeps soundly without morphine; I
+really believe there is nothing for it to do at present. I can be frank
+because I have nothing to confess.
+
+Every Easter, before confession, I rack my brains to scrape together a
+few sins of some consequence, and I can find nothing but unpunctuality
+at prayers, pertness, and too much desire for worldly frivolities.
+
+Well! Now, to begin without further circumlocution. Most people begin
+their memoirs with the history of their grandparents, some with that of
+their great-grandparents, seeming to suppose that the higher they can
+climb in their genealogical tree the more it adds to their importance.
+I begin simply with the history of my parents.
+
+My father and mother married for love; they never repented their
+marriage, and yet it was the ruin of both of them.
+
+My father was well born; not so my mother. Born in Paris, the daughter
+of a needy petty official, she was glad to accept a position as
+saleswoman in one of the fashionable Paris shops. Poor, dear mamma! It
+makes me wretched to think of her, condemned to make up parcels and tie
+up bundles, to mount on stepladders, exposed to the impertinence of
+capricious customers, who always want just what is not to be had,--all
+in the stifling atmosphere of a shop, and for a mere daily pittance.
+
+Nothing in the world vexes me so much as to have people begin to
+whisper before me, glancing at me compassionately as they nod their
+heads. My ears are very acute, and I know perfectly well that they are
+talking of my poor mother and pitying me because my father married a
+shop-girl. I feel actually boiling with rage. Young as I was when I
+lost her, she still lives in my memory as the loveliest creature I have
+ever met in my life.
+
+Tall and very slender, but always graceful, perfectly natural in
+manner, with tiny hands and feet, and large, melancholy, startled eyes,
+in a delicate, old-world face, she looked like an elf who could not
+quite comprehend why she was condemned to carry in her breast so large
+a human heart, well-nigh breaking with tenderness and melancholy. I
+know I look like her, and I am proud of it. Whenever I am presented to
+one of my couple of hundred aunts whose acquaintance I am condemned to
+make, she is sure to exclaim, "How very like Fritz she is!--all Fritz!"
+And I never fail to rejoin, "Oh, no, I am like my mother; every one who
+knew her says I am like mamma."
+
+And then my aunts' faces grow long, and they think me pert.
+
+
+Although I was scarcely six years old when Uncle Paul took us away from
+Paris, I can remember distinctly my home there. It was in a steep
+street in Montmartre, very high up on the fourth or fifth floor of a
+huge lodging-house. The sunlight shone in long broad streaks into our
+rooms through the high windows, outside of which extended an iron
+balcony. Our rooms were very pretty, very neat,--but very plain. Papa
+did not seem to belong to them; I don't know how I discovered this, but
+I found it out, little as I was. The ceilings looked low, when he rose
+from the rocking-chair, where he loved to sit, and stood at his full
+height. He always held his head gaily, high in the air, never bowing it
+humbly to suit his modest lodgings.
+
+His circumstances, cramped for the time, as I learned later, by his
+imprudent marriage, contracted in spite of his father's disapproval,
+apparently struck him as a good joke, or, at the worst, as a passing
+annoyance. He always maintained the gay humour of a man of rank who,
+finding himself overtaken by a storm upon some party of pleasure, is
+obliged to take refuge in a wretched village inn.
+
+Now and then he would stretch out his arms as if to measure the
+smallness of his house, and laugh. But mamma would cast down her large
+eyes sadly; then he would clasp her to his breast, kiss her, and call
+her the delight of his life; and I would creep out of the corner where
+I had been playing with my dolls, and pluck him by the sleeve,
+jealously desirous of my share of caresses.
+
+In my recollection of my earliest childhood--a recollection without
+distinct outlines, and like some sweet, vague dream lingering in the
+most secret, cherished corner of my heart--everything is warm and
+bright; it is all light and love!
+
+Papa is almost always with us in our sunny little nest. I see him
+still,--ah, how plainly!--leaning back in his rocking-chair, fair,
+with a rather haughty but yet kindly smile, his eyes sparkling with
+good-humoured raillery. He is smoking a cigarette, and reading the
+paper, apparently with nothing in the world to do but to enjoy life;
+all the light in the little room seems to come from him.
+
+The first four years of my life blend together in my memory like one
+long summer day, without the smallest cloud in the blue skies above it.
+
+I perfectly remember the moment in which my childish happiness was
+interrupted by the first disagreeable sensation. It was an emotion of
+dread. Until then I must have slept through all the hours of darkness,
+for, when once I suddenly wakened and found the light all gone, I was
+terrified at the blackness above and around me, and I screamed aloud.
+Then I noticed that mamma was kneeling, sobbing, beside my bed. Her
+sobs must have wakened me. She lighted a candle to soothe me, and told
+me a story. In the midst of my eager listening, I asked her, "Where is
+papa?"
+
+She turned her head away, and said, "Out in the world!"
+
+"Out in the world----" Whether or not it was the tone in which she
+pronounced the word "world," I cannot tell, but it has ever since had a
+strange sound for me,--a sound betokening something grand yet terrible.
+
+Thus I made the discovery that there were nights, and that grown-up
+people could cry.
+
+Soon afterwards it was winter; the nights grew longer, the days
+shorter, and it was never really bright in our home again,--the
+sunshine had vanished.
+
+It was cold, and the trees in the gardens high up in Montmartre, where
+they took me to walk, grew bare and ugly.
+
+Once, I remember, I asked my mother, "Mamma, will the trees never be
+green again?"
+
+"Oh, yes, when the spring comes," she made answer.
+
+"And then will it be bright here again?" I asked, anxiously.
+
+To this she made no reply, but her eyes suddenly grew so sad that I
+climbed into her lap and kissed her upon both eyelids.
+
+Papa was rarely with us now, and I was convinced that he had taken the
+sunshine away from our home.
+
+When at long intervals he came to dine with us, there was as much
+preparation as if a stranger had been expected. Mamma busied herself in
+the kitchen, helping the cook, who was also my nurse-maid, to prepare
+the dinner. She laid the cloth herself, and decorated the table with
+flowers. To me everything looked magnificent: I was quite awe-stricken
+by the unwonted splendour.
+
+One day a very beautiful lady paid us a visit, dressed in a velvet
+cloak trimmed with ermine--I did not know until some time afterwards
+the name of the fur--and a gray hat. I remember the hat distinctly, I
+was so delighted with the bird sitting on it. She expressed herself as
+charmed with everything in our home, stared about her through her
+eye-glass, overturned a small table and two footstools with her train,
+kissed me repeatedly, and begged mamma to come soon to see her. She was
+a cousin of papa's, a Countess Gatinsky,--the very one for whom, when
+she was a young girl and papa an elegant young attaché, he had been
+doing the honours of Paris on that eventful afternoon when, while she
+and her mother were busy and absorbed, shopping in the _Bon Marché_, he
+had fallen desperately in love with my pale, beautiful mother.
+
+When the Countess left us, mamma cried bitterly. I do not know whether
+she ever returned the visit, but it was never repeated, and I never saw
+the Countess again, save once in the Bois de Boulogne, where I was
+walking with my mother. She was sitting in an open barouche, and my
+father was beside her. Opposite them an old man sat crouched up,
+looking very discontented, and very cold, although the day was quite
+mild and he was wrapped up in furs.
+
+They saw us in the distance; the Countess smiled and waved her hand;
+papa grew very red, and lifted his hat in a stiff, embarrassed way.
+
+I remember wondering at his manner: what made him bow to us as if we
+were two strangers?
+
+Mamma hurried me on, and we got into the first omnibus she could find.
+I stroked her hand or smoothed the folds of her gown all the way home,
+for I felt that she had been hurt, although I could not tell how.
+
+
+The days grow sadder and darker, and yet the spring has come. Was there
+really no sunshine in that April and May, or is it so only in my
+memory?
+
+Meanwhile, the trees have burst into leaf, and the first early cherries
+have decked our modest table. We have not seen papa for a long time. He
+is staying at a castle in the neighbourhood of Paris, but only for a
+few days.
+
+It is a sultry afternoon in the beginning of June,--I learned the date
+of that wretched day later. The flowers in the balcony before our
+windows, scarlet carnations and fragrant mignonette, are drooping,
+because mamma has forgotten to water them, and mamma herself looks as
+weary as the flowers. Pale and miserable, she moves about the room with
+the air of one whom the first approach of some severe illness half
+paralyzes. Her pretty gown, a dark-blue silk with white spots, seems to
+hang upon her slender figure. She arranges the articles in the room
+here and there restlessly, and, noticing a soft silken scarf which papa
+sometimes wore knotted carelessly about his throat in the mornings, and
+which has been left hanging on the knob of a curtain, she picks it up,
+passes it slowly between her hands, and holds it against her cheek.
+
+There!--is not that a carriage stopping before our door? I run out
+upon the balcony, but can see nothing of what is going on in the
+street below; our rooms are too high up. I can see, however, that the
+people who live opposite are hurrying to their windows, and that the
+passers-by stop in the street, and stand and talk together, gathering
+in a little knot. A strange bustling noise ascends the staircase; it
+comes up to our landing,--the heavy tread of men supporting some
+weighty burden.
+
+Mamma stands spellbound for a moment, and then flings the door open and
+cries out. It is papa whom they are bringing up, deadly pale, covered
+with blankets, helpless as a child.
+
+There had been an accident in an avenue not far from Bellefontaine, the
+castle which the Countess Gatinsky had hired for the summer. Papa had
+been riding with her,--riding a skittish, vicious horse, against which
+he had been warned. He had only laughed, however, declaring that he
+knew how to manage the brute. But he could not manage him. As I learned
+afterwards, the horse, after vainly trying to throw his rider, had
+reared, and rolled over backwards upon him. He was taken up senseless.
+When he recovered consciousness in Bellefontaine, whither they carried
+him, and the physician told him frankly that he was mortally hurt, he
+desired to be taken home,--to those whom he loved best in the world.
+
+At first they would not accede to his wishes; Countess Gatinsky wanted
+to send for mamma and me,--to bring us to Bellefontaine. But he would
+not hear of it. He was told that to take him to Paris would be an
+injury to him in his present condition. Injury!--he laughed at the
+word. He wanted to die in the dear little nest in Paris, and it was a
+dying man's right to have his way.
+
+I have never talked of this to any one, but I have thought very often
+of our sorrow, of the shadow that suddenly fell upon my childhood and
+extinguished all its sunshine.
+
+And I have often heard people whispering together about it when they
+thought I was not listening. But I listened, listened involuntarily, as
+one does to words which one would afterwards give one's life not to
+have heard. And when the evil words stabbed me like a knife, it was a
+comfort to be able to say to myself, "It was merely the caprice of a
+moment,--his heart had no share in it;" it was a comfort to be able to
+say that mamma sat at his bedside and that he died with his hand in
+hers.
+
+I do not remember how long the struggle lasted before death came, but I
+never can forget the moment when I was taken in to see him.
+
+I can see the room now perfectly,--the bucket of ice upon which the
+afternoon sun glittered, the bloody bandages on the floor, the
+furniture in disorder, and, lying here and there, articles of dress
+which had not yet been put away. There, in the large bed, where the gay
+flowered curtains had been drawn back as far as possible to let in the
+air, lay papa. His cheeks were flushed and his blue eyes sparkled, and
+when I went up to him he laughed. I could not believe that he was ill.
+Mamma sat at the head of the bed, dressed in her very prettiest gown,
+her wonderful hair loosened and hanging in all its silken softness
+about her shoulders. She, too, smiled; but her smile made me shiver.
+
+Papa looked long and lovingly at me, and, taking my small hand in his,
+put it to his lips. Then he made the sign of the cross upon my
+forehead. I stood on tiptoe to kiss him, and I embraced him with all
+the fervour of my five years. Mamma drew me back. "You hurt him," she
+said. He laughed,--laughed as a brave man laughs at pain. He always
+laughed: I never saw him grave but once,--only once. Mamma burst into
+tears.
+
+"Minette, Minette, do not be a coward. I want you to be beautiful
+always," said he. Those words I perfectly remember.
+
+Yes, he wanted her to be beautiful to the last!
+
+They sent me out of the room. As I turned at the door, I saw how papa
+stroked mamma's wonderful hair--slowly--lingeringly--with his slender
+white hand.
+
+I sat in the kitchen all the long summer afternoon. At first our
+servant told me stories. Then she had to go out upon an errand; I
+stayed in the kitchen alone, sitting upon a wooden bench, staring
+before me, my doll, with which I did not care to play, lying upon the
+brick floor beside me. The copper saucepans on the wall gleam and
+glitter in the rays of the declining sun, and the bluebottle flies
+crawl and buzz about their shining surfaces.
+
+A moaning monotonous sound, now low, then loud, comes from my father's
+room. I feel afraid, but I cannot stir: I am, as it were, rooted to my
+wooden bench. The hoarse noise grows more and more terrible.
+
+Gradually twilight seems to fall from the ceiling and to rise from the
+floor; the copper vessels on the wall grow vague and indistinct; here
+and there a gleam of brilliancy pierces the gray gloom, then all is
+dissolved in darkness. In the distance a street-organ drones out
+Malbrough; I have hated the tune ever since. The moans grow louder. I
+lean my head forward upon my knees and stop my ears. What is that? One
+brief, piercing cry,--and all is still!
+
+I creep on tiptoe to papa's room. The door is open. I can see mamma
+bending over him, kissing him, and lavishing caresses upon him: she is
+no longer afraid of hurting him.
+
+That night a neighbour took me home with her, and when I came back, the
+next day, papa lay in his black coffin in a darkened room, and candles
+were burning all around him.
+
+He seemed to me to have grown. And what dignity there was in his face!
+That was the only time I ever saw him look grave.
+
+Mamma lifted me up that I might kiss him. Something cold seemed
+to touch my cheek, and suddenly I felt I--cannot describe the
+sensation--an intense dread,--the same terror, only ten times as great,
+as that which overcame me when I first wakened in the night and was
+aware of the darkness. Screaming, I extricated myself from mamma's
+arms, and ran out of the room.----
+
+(Here the major stopped to brush away the tears before reading on.)
+
+----For a while mamma tried to remain in Paris and earn our living by
+the embroidery in which she was so skilful; but, despite all her
+trying, she could not do it. The servant-girl was sent away, our rooms
+grew barer and barer, and more than once I went to bed crying with
+hunger.
+
+In November, Uncle Paul came to see us, and took us back with him to
+Bohemia. I cannot recall the journey, but our arrival I remember
+distinctly,--the long drive from the station, along the muddy road,
+between low hedges, or tall, slim poplars; then through the forest,
+where the wind tossed about the dry fallen leaves, and a few
+crimson-tipped daisies still bloomed gaily by the roadside, braving the
+brown desolation about them; past curious far-stretching villages,
+their low huts but slightly elevated above the mud about them, their
+black thatched roofs green in spots with moss, their narrow windows gay
+with flowers behind the thick, dim panes; past huge manure-heaps, upon
+which large numbers of gay-coloured fowls were clucking and crowing,
+and past stagnant ditches where amber-coloured swine were wallowing
+contentedly.
+
+The dogs rush excitedly out of the huts, to run barking after our
+carriage, while a mob of barefooted, snub-nosed children, their breath
+showing like smoke in the frosty air, come bustling out of school, and
+shout after us "Praised be Jesus Christ!"
+
+A turn--we have driven into the castle court-yard; Krupitschka hastens
+to open the carriage door. At the top of the steps stands a tall lady
+in mourning, very majestic in appearance, with a kind face. I see mamma
+turn pale, shrink--then all is a blank.
+
+
+
+                                  II.
+
+At the period when I again take up my reminiscences I am entirely at
+home at Zirkow, and almost as familiar with Uncle Paul and Aunt Rosa as
+if I had known them both all my life.
+
+Winter has set in, and, ah, such a wonderful, beautiful winter,--so
+bright, and glittering with such quantities of pure white snow! I go
+sleighing with Uncle Paul; I make a snow man with Krupitschka,--a monk
+in a long robe, because the legs of the soldier we tried to make would
+not stand straight; and I help Krupitschka's wife to make bread in a
+large wooden bowl with iron hoops. How delicious is the odour of
+the fermenting dough, and how delightful it is to run about the long
+brick-paved corridors and passages, to have so much space and light and
+air! When one day Uncle Paul asks me, "Which is best, Paris or Zirkow?"
+I answer, without hesitation, "Zirkow!"
+
+Uncle Paul laughs contentedly, but mamma looks at me sadly. I feel that
+I have grieved her.
+
+Now and then I think of papa, especially before I go to sleep at night.
+Then I sometimes wonder if the snow is deep on his grave in the
+churchyard at Montmartre, and if he is not cold in the ground. Poor
+papa!--he loved the sun so dearly! And I look over at mamma, who sits
+and sews at a table near my bed, and it worries me to see the tears
+rolling down her cheeks again.
+
+Poor mamma! She grows paler, thinner, and sadder every day, although my
+uncle and aunt do everything that they can for her.
+
+If I remember rightly, she was seldom with her hosts except at
+meal-times. She lived in strict retirement, in the two pretty rooms
+which had been assigned us, and was always trying to make herself
+useful with her needle to Aunt Rosa, who never tired of admiring her
+beautiful, delicate work.
+
+Towards spring her hands were more than ever wont to drop idly
+in her lap, and when the snow had gone and everything outside was
+beginning to stir, she would sit for hours in the bow-window where
+her work-table stood, doing nothing, only gazing out towards the
+west,--gazing--gazing.
+
+The soiled snow had vanished; the water was dripping from roofs and
+trees; everything was brown and bare. A warm breath came sweeping over
+the world. For a couple of days all nature sobbed and thrilled, and
+then spring threw over the earth her fragrant robe of blossoms.
+
+It was my first spring in the country, and I never shall forget my
+joyful surprise each morning at all that had been wrought overnight. I
+could not tell which to admire most, buds, flowers, or butterflies.
+From morning till night I roamed about in the balmy air, amid the
+tender green of grass and shrubs. And at night I was so tired that I
+was asleep almost before the last words of my childish prayer had died
+upon my lips. Ah, how soundly I slept!
+
+But one night I suddenly waked, with what seemed to me the touch of a
+soft hand upon my cheek,--papa's hand. I started up and looked about
+me; there was no one to be seen. The breeze of spring had caressed
+me,--that was all. How had it found its way in?
+
+The moon was at the full, and in its white light everything in the room
+stood revealed and yet veiled. I sat up uneasily, and then noticed that
+mamma's bed was empty. I was frightened. "Mamma! mamma!" I called, half
+crying.
+
+There was no reply. I sprang from my little bed, and ran into the next
+room, the door of which was open.
+
+Mamma was standing there at the window, gazing out towards the west.
+The window was wide open; our rooms were at the back of the castle, and
+looked out upon the orchard, where nature was celebrating its
+resurrection with festal splendour. The huge old apple-trees were all
+robed in delicate pink-white blossoms, the tender grass beneath them
+glittered with dew, and above it and among the waving blossoms sighed
+the warm breeze of spring as if from human lips. Mamma stood with
+extended arms whispering the tenderest words out into the night,--words
+that sounded as if stifled among sighs and kisses. She wore the same
+dress in which she had sat by papa's bedside when he wished her to be
+beautiful at their parting. Her hair hung loose about her shoulders. I
+gasped for breath, and threw my arms about her, crying, "Mamma! mamma!"
+She turned, and seemed about to thrust me from her almost angrily, then
+suddenly began to weep bitterly like a child just wakened from sleep,
+and crept back gently and ashamed to our bedroom. Without undressing
+she lay down on her bed, and I covered her up as well as I could.
+
+I could not sleep that night, and I heard her moan and move restlessly.
+
+The next morning she could not come down to breakfast; a violent
+nervous fever had attacked her, and ten days afterwards she died.
+
+They broke the sad truth to me slowly, first saying that she had gone
+on a journey, and then that she was with God in heaven. I knew she was
+dead,--and what that meant.
+
+I can but dimly remember the days that followed her death. I dragged
+myself about beneath the burden of a grief far too great for my poor,
+childish little heart, and grew more and more weary, until at last I
+was attacked by the same illness of which my mother had died.
+
+When I recovered, the memory of all that had happened before my illness
+no longer gave me any pain. I looked back upon the past with what was
+almost indifference. Not until long, long afterwards did I comprehend
+the wealth of love of which my mother's death had deprived me.
+
+
+
+
+                                  III.
+
+It really is very entertaining to write one's memoirs. I will go
+on, although it is not raining to-day. On the contrary, it is very
+warm,--so warm that I cannot stay out of doors.
+
+Aunt Rosamunda is in the drawing-room, entertaining the colonel of the
+infantry regiment in garrison at X----. She sent for me, but I excused
+myself, through Krupitschka. When lieutenants of hussars come, she
+never sends for me. It really is ridiculous: does she suppose my head
+could be turned by any officer of hussars? The idea! Upon my word!
+Still, I should like for once just to try whether Miss O'Donnel is
+right, whether I only need wish to have--oh, how delightful it would be
+to be adored to my heart's content! Since, however, there is no
+prospect of anything of the kind, I will continue to write my memoirs.
+
+I have taken off my gown and slipped on a thin white morning wrapper,
+and the cook, with whom I am a great favourite, has sent me up a
+pitcher of iced lemonade to strengthen me for my literary labours. My
+windows are open, and look out upon a wilderness of old trees with wild
+roses blooming among them. Ah, how sweet the roses are! The bees buzz
+over them monotonously, the leaves scarcely rustle, not a bird is
+singing. The world certainly is very beautiful, even if one has nothing
+entertaining to do except to write memoirs. Now that I have finished
+telling of my parents, I will pass on to my nearest relatives.----
+
+("Oho!" said the major. "I am curious to see what she has to say of
+us.")
+
+----Uncle Paul is the middle one of three brothers, the eldest of whom
+is my grandfather.
+
+The Barons von Leskjewitsch are of Croatian descent, and are convinced
+of the antiquity of their family, without being able to prove it. There
+has never been any obstacle to their being received at court, and for
+many generations they have maintained a blameless propriety of
+demeanour and have contracted very suitable marriages.
+
+Although all the members of this illustrious family are forever
+quarrelling among themselves, and no one Leskjewitsch has ever been
+known to get along well with another Leskjewitsch, they nevertheless
+have a deal of family feeling, which manifests itself especially in a
+touching pride in all the peculiarities of the Leskjewitsch
+temperament. These peculiarities are notorious throughout the
+kingdom,--such, at least, is the firm conviction of the Leskjewitsch
+family. Whatever extraordinary feats the Leskjewitsches may have
+performed hitherto, they have never been guilty of any important
+departure from an ordinary mode of life, but each member of the family
+has nevertheless succeeded in being endowed from the cradle with a
+patent of eccentricity, in virtue of which mankind are more or less
+constrained to accept his or her eccentricities as a matter of course.
+
+I am shocked now by what I have here written down. Of course I am a
+Leskjewitsch, or I never should allow myself to pass so harsh a
+judgment upon my nearest of kin. I suppose I ought to erase those
+lines, but, after all, no one will ever see them, and there is
+something pleasing in my bold delineation of the family
+characteristics. The style seems to me quite striking. So I will let my
+words stand as they are,--especially since the only one of the family
+who has ever been kind to me--Uncle Paul--is, according to the
+universal family verdict, no genuine Leskjewitsch, but a degenerate
+scion. In the first place, his hair and complexion are fair, and, in
+the second place, he is sensible. Among men in general, I believe he
+passes for mildly eccentric; his own family find him distressingly like
+other people.
+
+To which of the two other brothers the prize for special originality is
+due, to the oldest or to the youngest,--to my grandfather or to the
+father of my playmate Harry,--the world finds it impossible to decide.
+Both are widowers, both are given over to a craze for travel. My
+grandfather's love of travel, however, reminds one of the restlessness
+of a white mouse turning the wheel in its cage; while my uncle Karl's
+is like that of the Wandering Jew, for whose restless soul this globe
+is too narrow.
+
+My grandfather is continually travelling from one to another of his
+estates, seldom varying the round; Uncle Karl by turns hunts lions in
+the Soudan and walruses at the North Pole; and in their other
+eccentricities the brothers are very different. My grandfather is a
+cynic; Uncle Karl is a sentimentalist. My grandfather starts from the
+principle that all effort which has any end in view, save the
+satisfying of his excellent appetite and the promotion of his sound
+sleep, is nonsense; Uncle Karl intends to write a work which, if
+rightly appreciated, will entirely reform the spirit of the age. My
+grandfather is a miser; Uncle Karl is a spendthrift. Uncle Karl is
+beginning to see the bottom of his purse; my grandfather is enormously
+rich.
+
+When I add that my grandfather is a conservative with a manner which is
+intentionally rude, and that Uncle Karl is a radical with the bearing
+of a courtier, I consider the picture of the two men tolerably
+complete. All that is left to say is that I know my uncle Karl only
+slightly, and my grandfather not at all, wherefore my descriptions
+must, unfortunately, lack the element of personal observation, being
+drawn almost entirely from hearsay.
+
+My grandfather's cynicism could not always have been so pronounced as
+at present; they say he was not naturally avaricious, but that he
+became so in behalf of my father, his only son. He saved and pinched
+for him, laying by thousands upon thousands, buying estate after estate
+only to assure his favourite a position for which a prince might envy
+him.
+
+Finally he procured him an appointment as attaché in the Austrian
+Legation in Paris, and when papa spent double his allowance the old man
+only laughed and said, "Youth must have its swing." But when my father
+married a poor girl of the middle class, my grandfather simply banished
+him from his heart, and would have nothing more to do with him.
+
+After this papa slowly consumed the small property he had inherited
+from his mother, and at his death nothing of it was left.
+
+Uncle Paul was the only one of the family who still clung to my father
+after his _mésalliance_,--the one eccentricity which had never been set
+down in the Leskjewitsch programme. When mamma in utter destitution
+applied to him for help, he went to my grandfather, told him of the
+desperate extremity to which she was reduced, and entreated him to do
+something for her and for me. My grandfather merely replied that he did
+not support vagabonds.
+
+My cousin Heda, whose custom it is to tell every one of everything
+disagreeable she hears said about them,--for conscience' sake, that
+they may know whom to mistrust,--furnished me with these details.
+
+The upshot of the interview was, first, that my uncle Paul quarrelled
+seriously with my grandfather, and, second, that he resolved to go to
+Paris forthwith and see that matters were set right.
+
+Aunt Rosa maintains that at the last moment he asked Krupitschka to
+sanction his decision. This is a malicious invention; but when Heda
+declares that he brought us to Bohemia chiefly with the view of
+disgracing and vexing my grandfather, there may be some grain of truth
+in her assertion.
+
+Many years have passed since our modest entrance here in Zirkow, but my
+amiable grandfather still maintains his determined hostility towards
+Uncle Paul and myself.
+
+His favourite occupation seems to consist in perfecting each year, with
+the help of a clever lawyer, his will, by which I am deprived, so far
+as is possible, of the small share of his wealth which falls to me
+legally as my father's heir. He has chosen for his sole heir his
+youngest brother's eldest son, my playmate Harry, upon condition that
+Harry marries suitably, which means a girl with sixteen quarterings. I
+have no quarterings, so if Harry marries me he will not have a penny.
+
+How could such an idea occur to him? It is too ridiculous to be thought
+of. But--what if he did take it into his head? Oh, I have sound sense
+enough for two, and I know exactly what I want,--a grand position, an
+opportunity to play in the world the part for which I feel myself
+capable,--everything, in short, that he could not offer me. Moreover, I
+am quite indifferent to him. I have a certain regard for him for the
+sake of old times, and therefore he shall have a chapter of these
+memoirs all to himself.
+
+
+----At the end of this chapter the major shook his head disapprovingly.
+
+
+
+                                 IV.
+
+                          MY DEAREST PLAYMATE.
+
+The first time that I saw him he was riding upon a pig,--a wonder of a
+pig; it looked like a huge monster to me,--which he guided by its ears.
+One is not a Leskjewitsch for nothing. It was at Komaritz---- But I
+will describe the entire day, which I remember with extraordinary
+distinctness.
+
+Uncle Paul himself took me to Komaritz in his pretty little dog-cart,
+drawn by a pair of spirited ponies in gay harness and trappings. Of
+course I sat on the box beside my uncle, being quite aware that this
+was the seat of honour. I wore an embroidered white gown, long black
+stockings, and a black sash, and carried a parasol which I had borrowed
+of Aunt Rosa, not because I needed it,--my straw hat perfectly shielded
+my face from the sun,--but because it seemed to me required for the
+perfection of my toilet.
+
+I was very well pleased with myself, and nodded with great
+condescension to the labourers and schoolchildren whom we met.
+
+I have never attempted to conceal from myself or to deny the fact that
+I am vain.
+
+Ah, how merrily we bowled along over the white, dusty road! The ponies'
+hoofs hardly touched the ground. After a while the road grew bad, and
+we drove more slowly. Then we turned into a rough path between high
+banks. What a road! Deep as a chasm; the wheels of the vehicle jolted
+right and left through ruts overgrown with thistles, brambles, and wild
+roses.
+
+"Suppose we should meet another carriage?" I asked my uncle, anxiously.
+
+"Just what I was asking myself," he replied, composedly; "there is
+really no room for passing. But why not trust in Providence?"
+
+The road grows worse, but now, instead of passing through a chasm, it
+runs along the edge of a precipice. The dog-cart leans so far to one
+side that the groom gets out to steady it. The wheels grate against the
+stones, and the ponies shake their shaggy heads discontentedly, as much
+as to say, "We were not made for such work as this."
+
+In after-years, when so bad a road in the midst of one of the most
+civilized provinces of Austria seemed to me inexplicable, Uncle Paul
+explained it to me. At one time in his remembrance the authorities
+decided to lay out a fine road there, but Uncle Karl contrived to
+frustrate their purpose; he did not wish to have Komaritz too
+accessible--for fear of guests.
+
+A delicious pungent fragrance is wafted from the vine-leaves in the
+vineyards on the sides of the hills, flocks of white and yellow
+butterflies hover above them, the grasshoppers chirp shrilly, and from
+the distance comes the monotonous sound of the sweep of the mower's
+scythe. The sun is burning hot, and the shadows are short and
+coal-black.
+
+Click-clack--click-clack--precipice and ravine lie behind us, and we
+are careering along a delightful road shaded by huge walnut-trees.
+
+A brown, shapeless ruin crowning a vine-clad eminence rises before us.
+Click-clack--click-clack--the ponies fly past a marble St. John, around
+which are grouped three giant lindens, whose branches scatter fading
+blossoms upon us; past a smithy, from which issues a strong odour of
+wagon-grease and burnt hoofs; past a slaughter-house, in front of which
+a butchered ox is hanging from a chestnut-tree; past pretty whitewashed
+cottages, some of them two stories high and with flower-gardens in
+front,--Komaritz is a far more important and prosperous village than
+Zirkow; then through a lofty but perilously ruinous archway into
+a spacious, steeply-ascending court-yard, through the entire length
+of which runs a broad gutter. Yes, yes, it was there--in that
+court-yard--that I saw him for the first time, and he was riding upon a
+pig, holding fast by its ears, and the animal, galloping furiously, was
+doing its best to throw him off. But this was no easy matter, for he
+sat as if he were part of his steed, and withal maintained a loftiness
+of bearing that would have done honour to a Spanish grandee at a
+coronation. He was very handsome, very slender, very brown, and wore a
+white suit, the right sleeve of which was spotted with ink.
+
+In front of the castle, at a wooden table fastened to the ground
+beneath an old pear-tree, sat a yellow-haired young man, with a bloated
+face and fat hands, watching the spectacle calmly and drinking beer
+from a stone mug with a leaden cover.
+
+When the pig found that it could not throw its rider, it essayed
+another means to be rid of him. It lay down in the gutter and rolled
+over in the mud. When Harry arose, he looked like the bad boys in
+"Slovenly Peter" after they had been dipped in the inkstand.
+
+"I told you how it would be," the fat young man observed,
+phlegmatically, and went on drinking beer. As I afterwards learned, he
+was Harry's tutor, Herr Pontius.
+
+"What does it matter?" said Harry, composedly, looking down at the mud
+dripping from him, as if such a bath were an event of every-day
+occurrence; "I did what I chose to do."
+
+"And now I shall do what I choose to do. You will go to your room and
+translate fifty lines of Horace."
+
+Harry shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. I now think that he was
+posing a little for our sakes, for we had just driven up to the castle,
+but then his composure made a great impression upon me. After he had
+bowed respectfully to Uncle Paul from where he stood, he vanished
+behind a side-door of the castle, at the chief entrance of which we had
+drawn up. A dignified footman received us in the hall, and a crowd of
+little black dachshunds, with yellow feet and eyebrows, barked a loud
+welcome.
+
+We were conducted into a large room on the ground-floor,--apparently
+reception-room, dining-room, and living-room all in one,--whence a low
+flight of wooden steps led out into the garden. A very sallow but
+otherwise quite pretty Frenchwoman, who reminded me--I cannot tell
+why--of the black dachshunds, and who proved to be my little cousin's
+governess, received us here and did the honours for us.
+
+My cousin Heda, a yellow-haired little girl with portentously good
+manners, relieved me of my parasol, and asked me if I had not found the
+drive very warm. Whilst I made some monosyllabic and confused reply, I
+was wondering whether her brother would get through his punishment and
+make his appearance again before we left. When my uncle withdrew on the
+pretext of looking after some agricultural matter, Heda asked me if I
+would not play graces with her. She called it _jeu de gráce_, and, in
+fact, spoke French whenever it was possible.
+
+I agreed, she brought the graces, and we went out into the garden.
+
+Oh, that Komaritz garden! How clumsy and ugly, and yet what a dear,
+old-fashioned garden it was! Lying at the foot of the hill crowned by
+the ancient ruin and the small frame house built for the tutors,--who
+were changed about every two months,--it was divided into huge
+rectangular flower-beds, bordered with sage, lavender, or box, from
+which mighty old apricot-trees looked down upon a luxuriant wilderness
+of lilies, roses, blue monk's-hood, scarlet verbenas, and whatever else
+was in season. Back of this waste of flowers there were all sorts of
+shrubs,--hawthorns, laburnums, jessamines, with here and there an
+ancient hundred-leaved rose-bush, whose heavy blossoms, borne down by
+their own weight, drooped and lay upon the mossy paths that intersected
+this thicket. Then came a green lawn, where was a swing hung between
+two old chestnuts, and near by stood a queer old summerhouse, circular,
+with a lofty tiled roof, upon the peak of which gleamed a battered
+brass crescent. Everywhere in the shade were fastened in the ground
+comfortable garden-seats, smelling deliciously of moss and mouldering
+wood, and where you least expected it the ground sloped to a little
+bubbling spring, its banks clothed with velvet verdure and gay with
+marsh daisies and spiderwort, sprung from seed which the wind had
+wafted hither. I cannot begin to tell of the kitchen-garden and
+orchard; I should never be done.
+
+And just as I have here described it as it was fourteen years ago the
+dear old garden stands to-day, with the exception of some trifling
+changes; but--they are talking of improvements--poor garden! What
+memories are evoked when I think of it!
+
+Again I am six years old and playing with Heda,--I intent and awkward,
+Heda elegantly indifferent. If one of her hoops soars away over my
+head, or falls among the flowers in one of the beds, she shrugs her
+shoulders with an affected smile, and exclaims, "_Monstre!_" At first I
+offer to creep in among the flowers after the lost hoop, but she
+rejects my offer with a superior "_Quelle idée!_" and assures me that
+it is the gardener's business.
+
+Consequently, we soon come to the end of our supply of hoops, and are
+obliged to have recourse to some other mode of amusing ourselves.
+
+"I am quite out of breath," says Heda, fanning herself with her
+pocket-handkerchief. "'Tis a stupid don't you think so?"
+
+"But if I only could do it!" I sigh.
+
+"It is quite out of fashion; nothing is played now but croquet," she
+informs me. "Do you like to play croquet?"
+
+"I do not know what croquet is," I confess, much mortified.
+
+"Ha, ha!" she laughs. "Mademoiselle," turning to the governess, who is
+now seated on the garden-steps, "only think, _ma petite cousine_ does
+not know what croquet is!--delicious! Excuse me," taking my hand, "it
+is very ill bred to laugh, _mais c'est plus fort que moi_. It is a
+delightful game, that is played with balls and iron hoops. Sometimes
+you strike your foot, and that hurts; but more often you only pretend
+that it does, and then the gentlemen all come round you an pity you: it
+is too delightful. But sit down," pointing with self-satisfied
+condescension to the steps. We both sit down, and she goes on: "Where
+did you pass the winter?"
+
+"At Zirkow."
+
+"Oh, in the country! I pity you."
+
+Heda--I mention this in a parenthesis--was at this time scarcely ten
+years old. "No winter in the country for me," this pleasure-loving
+young person continues. "Oh, what a delightful winter I had! I was at
+twelve balls. It is charming if you have partners enough--oh, when
+three gentlemen beg for a waltz! But society in Prague is nothing to
+that of Vienna--I always say there is only one Vienna. Were you ever in
+Vienna?"
+
+"No," I murmur. Suddenly, however, my humiliated self-consciousness
+rebels, and, setting my arms akimbo, I ask, "And were you ever in
+Paris?" The Frenchwoman behind us laughs.
+
+Down from above us falls a hard projectile upon Heda's fair head,--a
+large purple bean,--and then another. She looks up angrily. Harry is
+leaning out of a window above us, his elbows resting on the sill, and
+his head between his hands. "What an ill-bred boor you are!" she calls
+out.
+
+"And do you know what you are?" he shouts; "an affected
+braggart--that's what you are."
+
+With which he jumps from the window into the branches of a tree just
+before it, and comes scrambling down to the ground. "What is your
+name?" he asks me.
+
+"Zdena."
+
+"I am happy to make your acquaintance, Zdena. Heda bores you, doesn't
+she?"
+
+I shake my head and laugh; feeling a protector near me, I am quite
+merry once more. "Would you like to take a little ride, Zdena?" he
+asks.
+
+"Upon a pig?" I inquire, in some trepidation.
+
+He laughs, somewhat embarrassed, and shrugs his shoulders. "You do not
+really suppose that I am in the habit of riding pigs!" he exclaims; "I
+only do it when my tutor forbids it--it is too ridiculous to suppose
+such a thing!" and he hurries away.
+
+I look after him remorsefully. I am vexed to have been so foolish, and
+I am sorry to have frightened him away.
+
+In a few minutes, however, he appears again, and this time on
+horseback. He is riding a beautiful pony, chestnut, with a rather
+dandified long tail and a bushy mane. Harry has a splendid seat, and is
+quite aware of it. Apparently he is desirous of producing an impression
+upon me, for he performs various astounding feats,--jumps through the
+swing, over a garden-seat and a wheelbarrow,--and then, patting his
+horse encouragingly on the neck, approaches me, his bridle over his
+arm.
+
+"Will you try now?" he asks.
+
+Of course I will. He lifts me into the saddle, where I sit sideways,
+buckles the stirrup shorter, quite like a grown-up admirer; and then I
+ride slowly and solemnly through the garden, he carefully holding me on
+the while. I become conscious of a wish to distinguish myself in his
+eyes. "I should like to try it alone," I stammer, in some confusion.
+
+"I see you are brave; I like that," he says, resigning the bridle to
+me. Trot, trot goes the pony. "Faster, faster!" I cry, giving the
+animal a dig with my heel. The pony rears, and--I am lying on the
+ground, with scraped hands and a scratched chin.
+
+"It is nothing," I cry, bravely ignoring my pain, when Harry hurries up
+to me with a dismayed face. "We must expect such things," I add, with
+dignity. "Riding is always dangerous; my father was killed by being
+thrown from his horse."
+
+"Indeed? Really?" Harry says, sympathetically, as he wipes the gravel
+off my hands. "How long has he been dead?"
+
+"Oh, a long time,--a year."
+
+"My mother has been dead much longer," he says, importantly, almost
+boastfully. "She has been dead three years. And is yours still living?"
+
+"N--no." And the tears, hitherto so bravely restrained, come in a
+torrent.
+
+He is frightened, kneels down beside me, even then he was much taller
+than I,--and wipes away the tears with his pocket-handkerchief. "Poor
+little thing!" he murmurs, "I am so sorry for you; I did not know----"
+And he puts his arm round me and strokes my hair. Suddenly a delightful
+and strange sensation possesses me,--a feeling I have not had since my
+poor dear mother gave me her last kiss: my whole childish being is
+penetrated by it.
+
+We have been fond of each other ever since that moment; we are so
+to-day.
+
+"Come with me to the kitchen-garden now," he says, "and see my
+puppies." And he calls to the gardener and commits to his charge the
+pony, that, quite content with the success of his man[oe]uvre, is
+quietly cropping the verbena-blossoms.
+
+My tears are dried. I am crouching beside the kennel in the
+kitchen-garden, with four charming little puppies in my lap. There is a
+fragrance of cucumber-leaves, sorrel, and thyme all about. The bright
+sunshine gleams on the dusty glass of the hot-bed, on the pumpkins and
+cucumbers, on the water in the tub under the pump, beside which a
+weeping willow parades its proverbial melancholy. Harry's fair, fat
+tutor is walking past a trellis where the early peaches are hanging,
+smoking a long porcelain pipe. He pauses and pinches the fruit here and
+there, as if to discover when it will be ripe. I hold one after another
+of the silken, warm dog-babies to my cheek, and am happy, while Harry
+laughs good-humouredly at my enthusiasm and prevents the jealous mother
+of the puppies from snapping at me.
+
+
+----"We have been fond of each other ever since." The major smiles
+contentedly as he reads this.
+
+
+
+                                   V.
+
+                               KOMARITZ.
+
+I was soon at home at Komaritz, often passed weeks there, feeling
+extremely comfortable amid those strange surroundings,--for the life
+led in the clumsy, unadorned old house upon which the mediæval castle
+looked down was certainly a strange one.
+
+In fact, the modern structure was no whit superior to the castle except
+in the matter of ugliness and in the fact that it possessed a roof.
+Otherwise it was almost as ruinous as the ruin, and had to be propped
+up in a fresh place every year. The long passages were paved with worn
+tiles; the ground-floor was connected with the upper stories by a steep
+winding staircase. The locks on the doors were either broken or the
+keys were lost, and the clocks, if they went at all, all pointed to
+different hours.
+
+In a large room called the drawing-room, where the plaster was
+crumbling down from the ceiling bit by bit, there stood, among
+three-legged tables and threadbare arm-chairs, many an exquisite
+antique. In the rooms in use, on the other hand, there was no article
+of mere luxury: all was plain and useful, as in some parsonage. And yet
+there was something strangely attractive in this curious home. The
+rooms were of spacious dimensions; those on the ground-floor were all
+vaulted. The sunbeams forced their way through leafy vines and creepers
+into the deep embrasures of the windows. The atmosphere was impregnated
+with a delicious, mysterious fragrance,--an odour of mould, old wood,
+and dried rose-leaves. Harry maintained that it smelled of ghosts, and
+that there was a white lady who "walked" in the corner room next to the
+private chapel.
+
+I must confess, in spite of my love for the old barrack, that it was
+not a fit baronial mansion. No one had ever lived there, save a
+steward, before Uncle Karl, who, as the youngest Leskjewitsch,
+inherited it, took up his abode there. He had, when he was first
+married, planned a new castle, but soon relinquished his intention,
+first for financial reasons, and then from dread of guests, a dread
+that seems to have become a chronic disease with him. When his wife
+died, all thought of any new structure had been given up. From that
+time he scarcely ever stayed there himself, and the old nest was good
+enough for a summer residence for the children. With the exception of
+Heda,--besides Harry there was a good-for-nothing small boy,--the
+children thought so too. They had a pathetic affection for the old
+place where they appeared each year with the flowers, the birds, and
+the sunshine. They seemed to me to belong to the spring. Everything was
+bright and warm about me when they came.
+
+Harry was my faithful knight from first to last; our friendship grew
+with our growth. He tyrannized over me a little, and liked to impress
+me, I think, with a sense of his superiority; but he faithfully and
+decidedly stood by me whenever I needed him. He drove me everywhere
+about the country; his two ponies could either be driven or ridden; he
+taught me to ride, climbed mountains with me, explored with me every
+corner of the old ruin on the hill, and then when we came home at
+night, each somewhat weary with our long tramp, he would tell me
+stories.
+
+How vividly I remember it all! I can fancy myself now sitting beside
+him on the lowest of the steps leading from the living-room into the
+garden. At our feet the flowers exhale sweet, sad odours, the pale
+roses drenched in dew show white amid the dim foliage; above our heads
+there is a dreamy whisper in the boughs of an old apricot-tree, whose
+leaves stand out sharp and black against the deep-blue sky, sown with
+myriads of sparkling stars. And Harry is telling me stories. Ah, such
+stories! the most terrible tales of robbers and ghosts, each more
+shudderingly horrible than its predecessor.
+
+Oh, how delightful it is to feel one shudder after another creeping
+down your back in the warm summer evening! and if it grows too fearful,
+and I begin to be really afraid of the pale, bloodless phantoms which
+he conjures up before me, I move a little closer to him, and, as if
+seeking protection, clasp his hand, taking refuge from my ghostly fears
+in the consciousness of his warm young life.
+
+
+
+                                  VI.
+
+                            HARRY'S TUTORS.
+
+Every Sunday the Komaritzers come to us at Zirkow, driving over in a
+tumble-down old coach covered with faded blue cloth, hung on spiral
+springs, and called Noah's ark.
+
+The coachman wears no livery, except such as can be found in an
+imposing broad gold band upon a very shabby high hat.
+
+Of course the children are always accompanied by the governess and the
+tutor.
+
+The first governess whom I knew at Komaritz--Mademoiselle Duval--was
+bright, well-bred, and very lovable; the tutor was the opposite of all
+this.
+
+He may have been a proficient in ancient languages, but he spoke very
+poor German. His nails were always in mourning, and he neglected his
+dress. Intercourse with good society made him melancholy. At our table
+he always took the worst place. Uncle Paul every Sunday addressed the
+same two questions to him, never remembering his name, but regularly
+calling him Herr Paulus, whereas his name was Pontius. After the tutor
+had answered these questions humbly, he never again, so long as dinner
+lasted, opened his mouth, except to put into it large mouthfuls, or his
+knife. Between the courses he twirled his thumbs and sniffed. He always
+had a cold in his head. When dinner was over he pushed his chair back
+against the wall, bowed awkwardly, and retired, never appearing among
+us during the rest of the afternoon, which he spent playing "Pinch"
+with Krupitschka, with a pack of dirty cards which from long usage had
+lost their corners and had become oval. We often surprised him at this
+amusement,--Harry and I.
+
+As soon as he disappeared Aunt Rosamunda always expressed loudly and
+distinctly her disapproval of his bad manners. But when we children
+undertook to sneer at them, we were sternly repressed,--were told that
+such things were of no consequence, and that bad manners did not in the
+least detract from a human being's genuine worth.
+
+On one occasion Harry rejoined, "I'm glad to hear it," and at the next
+meal sat with both elbows upon the table.
+
+Moreover, I soon observed that Herr Pontius was by no means the meek
+lamb he seemed to be, and this I discovered at the harvest-home. There
+was a dance beneath the lindens at the farm, where Herr Pontius whirled
+the peasant-girls around, and capered about like a very demon. His face
+grew fierce, and his hair floated wildly about his head. We children
+nearly died of laughing at him.
+
+Soon afterwards he was dismissed, and in a great hurry. When I asked
+Harry to tell me the cause of his sudden disappearance, he replied that
+it was love that had broken Herr Pontius's neck. But when I insisted
+upon a more lucid explanation, Harry touched the tip of my nose with
+his forefinger and said, sententiously, "Too much knowledge makes
+little girls ugly."
+
+He was not the only one among Harry's tutors whose neck was broken
+through love: the next--a very model of a tutor--followed the example
+in this respect of the dance-loving Herr Pontius.
+
+His name was Ephraim Schmied; he came from Hildesheim, and was very
+learned and well conducted,--in short, by long odds the best of all
+Harry's tutors. If he did not retain his position, it may well be
+imagined that it was the fault of the position.
+
+As with every other fresh tutor, Harry set himself in opposition to him
+at first, and did his best to discover ridiculous traits in him. His
+efforts in this direction were for a time productive of no results, and
+Herr Schmied, thanks to his untiring patience combined with absolute
+firmness, was in a fair way to master his wayward pupil, when matters
+took an unexpected and unfortunate turn.
+
+Harry, in fact, had finally discovered the weak place in Herr Schmied's
+armour, and it was in the region of the heart. Herr Schmied had fallen
+in love with Mademoiselle Duval. To fall in love was in Harry's eyes at
+that time the extreme of human stupidity (he ought to have rested in
+that conviction). Uncle Paul shared it. He chuckled when Harry one fine
+day told him of his discovery, and asked the keen-sighted young
+good-for-naught upon what he founded his supposition.
+
+"He sings Schubert's 'Wanderer' to her every evening, and yesterday he
+brought her a vase from X----," Harry replied: "there the fright
+stands."
+
+Uncle Paul took the vase in his hands, an odd smile playing about his
+mouth the while. It was decorated with little naked Cupids hopping
+about in an oval wreath of forget-me-nots.
+
+"How sentimental!" said Uncle Paul, adding, after a while, "If the
+little wretches only had wings, they might pass for angels, but as they
+are they leave something to be desired." Then, putting down the vase,
+he told me to be a good girl (he had just brought me over to stay a
+little while at Komaritz), got into his dog-cart, and drove off.
+
+Scarcely had the door closed behind him when Harry brought from the
+next room a long quill pen and a large inkstand, and went to work
+eagerly and mysteriously at the vase.
+
+At about five in the afternoon all assembled for afternoon coffee.
+Finally Herr Schmied appeared, a book in his hand.
+
+"What are you doing there?" he asked his pupil, unsuspectingly.
+
+"I am giving these naughty boys swimming-breeches, Herr Schmied. Uncle
+Paul thought it hardly the thing for you to have presented this vase to
+a lady, and so----"
+
+The sentence was never finished. There was a low laugh from the other
+end of the room, where Mademoiselle Duval, ensconced behind the
+coffee-equipage, had been an unobserved spectator of the scene. Herr
+Schmied flushed crimson, and, quite losing his usual self-control, he
+gave Harry a sounding box on the ear, and Harry--well, Harry returned
+it.
+
+Herr Schmied seized him by the shoulders as if to shake and strike him,
+then bit his lip, drew a long breath, released the boy, and left the
+room. But Harry's head drooped upon his breast, and he ate no supper
+that night. He knew that what had occurred could not be condoned, and
+he was sorry.
+
+At supper Herr Schmied informed Mademoiselle Duval that he had written
+to Baron Leskjewitsch that unforeseen circumstances made imperative his
+return to Germany. "I did not think it necessary to be more explicit as
+to the true cause of my sudden departure," he added.
+
+Harry grew very pale.
+
+After supper, as I was sitting with Heda upon the garden-steps, looking
+for falling stars that would not fall, we observed Herr Schmied enter
+the room behind us; it was quite empty, but the lamp was lighted on the
+table. Soon afterwards, Harry appeared. Neither of them noticed us.
+
+Slowly, lingeringly, Harry approached his tutor, and plucked him by the
+sleeve.
+
+Herr Schmied looked around.
+
+"Must you really go away, Herr Schmied?" the boy asked, in distress.
+
+"Yes," the tutor replied, very gravely.
+
+Harry bit his lip, seemed undecided what to do or say, and finally,
+leaning his head a little on one side, asked, caressingly, "Even if I
+beg your pardon?"
+
+Herr Schmied smiled, surprised and touched. He took the boy's hand in
+his, and said, sadly, "Even then, Harry. Yet I am sorry, for I was
+beginning to be very fond of you."
+
+The tears were in Harry's eyes, but he evidently felt that no entreaty
+would be of any avail.
+
+In fact, the next morning Herr Schmied took his departure. A few days
+afterwards, however, Harry received a letter from him with a foreign
+post-mark. He had written four long pages to his former pupil. Harry
+flushed with pride and joy as he read it, and answered it that very
+evening.
+
+Herr Schmied is now Professor of Modern History in a foreign
+university, his name is well known, and he is held in high honour. He
+still corresponds with Harry, whose next tutor was a French abbé. The
+cause of the abbé's dismissal I have forgotten; indeed, I remember only
+one more among the numerous preceptors, and he was the last,--a German
+from Bohemia, called Ewald Finke.
+
+His name was not really Ewald, but Michael, but he called himself Ewald
+because he liked it better. He had studied abroad, which always
+impressed us favourably, and, as Uncle Karl was told, he had already
+won some reputation in Leipsic by his literary efforts. He was looking
+for a situation as tutor merely that he might have some rest from
+intellectual labours that had been excessive. "Moreover," his letter of
+recommendation from a well-known professor went on to say, "the Herr
+Baron will not be slow to discover that he is here brought into contact
+with a rarely-gifted nature, one of those in intercourse with whom
+allowance must be made for certain peculiarities which at first may
+prove rather annoying." Uncle Karl instantly wrote, in reply, that
+"annoying peculiarities" were of no consequence,--that he would accord
+unlimited credit in the matter of allowance to the new tutor. In fact,
+he took such an interest in the genius thus offered him that he
+prolonged his stay in Komaritz to two weeks, instead of departing at
+the end of three days, as he had at first intended, solely in
+expectation of the new tutor.
+
+By the way, those who are familiar with my uncle's morbid restlessness
+may imagine the joy of his household at his prolonged stay in Komaritz.
+
+Not knowing how otherwise to kill his time, he hit upon the expedient
+of shooting it, and, as the hunting season had not begun, he shot
+countless butterflies. We found them lying in heaps among the flowers,
+little, shapeless, shrivelled things, mere specks of brilliant dust.
+When weary of this amusement, he would seat himself at the piano and
+play over and over again the same dreary air, grasping uncertainly at
+the chords, and holding them long and firmly when once he had got them.
+
+Harry assured me that he was playing a funeral march for the dead
+butterflies, and I supposed it to be his own composition. This,
+however, was not the case, and the piece was not a funeral march, but a
+polonaise,--"The Last Thought of Count Oginski," who is said to have
+killed himself after jotting down this music.
+
+At last Herr Finke made his appearance. He was a tall, beardless young
+man, with hair cut close to his head, and a sallow face adorned with
+the scars of several sabre-cuts, a large mouth, a pointed nose, the
+nostrils quivering with critical scorn, and staring black eyes with
+large round spectacles, through which they saw only what they chose to
+see.
+
+Uncle Karl's reception of him was grandiloquent. "Enter," he exclaimed,
+going to meet him with extended hands. "My house is open to you. I
+delight in grand natures which refuse to be cramped within the limits
+of conventionality."
+
+Herr Finke replied to this high-sounding address only by a rather
+condescending nod, shaking the proffered hand as if bestowing a favour.
+
+After he had been refreshed with food and drink, Uncle Karl challenged
+him to a fencing-match, which lasted upward of an hour, at the end of
+which time my uncle confessed that the new tutor was a master of fence,
+immediately wrote to thank the illustrious professor to whom he owed
+this treasure of learning, and left Komaritz that same evening.
+
+Herr Finke remained precisely three weeks in his new situation. So far
+as lessons went he seemed successful enough, but his "annoying
+peculiarities" ended in an outbreak of positive insanity, during which
+he set fire to the frame house on the hill where he was lodged, and was
+carried off to a mad-house in a strait-waistcoat, raving wildly.
+
+Uncle Karl was sadly disappointed, and suddenly resolved to send Harry
+to a public school, being convinced that no good could come of tutors.
+
+From this time forward the young Leskjewitsches came to Komaritz only
+for the vacations.
+
+
+
+                                  VII.
+
+We were very good friends, Harry and I,--there's no denying that. We
+told each other all our secrets,--at least I told him mine,--and we
+divided all our bon-bons with each other. Sometimes on Sunday
+afternoons we played at marriage, the ceremony giving occasion for a
+deal of delightful "dressing up." Moreover, we had long been agreed
+that, sooner or later, this play should become earnest, and that we
+would marry each other. But when the first down became perceptible on
+Harry's upper lip, our mutual friendship began to flag. It was just
+about the time that Harry went to a public school.
+
+His indifference grieved me at first, then I became consoled, and at
+last I was faithless to him. A cousin of Harry's, who came to Komaritz
+to spend the holidays, gave occasion for this breach of faith. His name
+was Lato, Count Treurenberg. The name alone kindled my enthusiasm. He
+had scarcely been two days in Komaritz, where I too was staying at the
+time, when Hedwig confided to me that she was in love with him.
+
+"So am I," I replied. I was firmly convinced that this was so.
+
+My confession was the signal for a highly dramatic scene. Hedwig, who
+had frequently been to the theatre in Prague, ran about the room
+wringing her hands and crying, "Both with the same man! both!--it is
+terrible! One of us must resign him, or the consequences will be
+fearful."
+
+I diffidently offered to sacrifice my passion.
+
+She shrieked, "No, I never can accept such a sacrifice from you! Fate
+shall decide between us."
+
+Whereupon we put one white and one black bean in a little, broken,
+handle-less coffee-pot which we found in the garret, and which Hedwig
+called an urn.
+
+The decisive moment made my heart beat. We cast lots for precedence in
+drawing from the urn. It fell to me, and I drew out a black bean! The
+moment was thrilling. Heda sank upon a sofa, and fanned her joyful face
+with her pocket-handkerchief. She declared that if she had drawn the
+black bean she would have attempted her life. This declaration
+dispelled my despair; I shuddered at the idea of being the cause of
+anything so horrible.
+
+From that day Heda never spoke to Lato von Treurenberg without drooping
+her head on one side and rolling her eyes languishingly,--conduct which
+seemed to cause the young fellow some surprise, but which he treated
+with great courtesy, while Harry used to exclaim, "What is the matter
+with you, Heda? You look like a goose in a thunder-storm!"
+
+My behaviour towards Lato underwent no change: I had drawn the "black
+ball," and, in consequence, the most cordial friendship soon subsisted
+between us.
+
+It would have been difficult not to like Lato, for I have never met a
+more amiable, agreeable young fellow.
+
+He was about seventeen years old, very tall, and stooped slightly. His
+features were delicately chiselled; his smile was quite bewitching in
+its dreamy, all-embracing benevolence. There was decided melancholy in
+his large, half-veiled eyes, which caused Hedwig to liken him to Lord
+Byron.
+
+His complexion was rather dark,--which was odd, as his hair was light
+brown touched with gold at the temples. His neck was too long, and his
+arms were uncommonly long. All his appointments, from his coats to his
+cigar-case, were extremely elegant, testifying to a degree of
+fastidiousness thitherto quite unknown in Komaritz. Nevertheless, he
+seemed very content in this primitive nest, ignoring all discomfort,
+and making no pretension. Heda, who was quick to seize upon every
+opportunity to admire him, called my attention to his amiable
+forbearance, or, I confess, I should not have noticed it.
+
+From Hedwig I learned much concerning the young man; among other
+things, she gave me a detailed account of his family circumstances. His
+mother was, she informed me, a "mediatisirte."[1] She uttered the word
+reverently, and, when I confessed that I did not know what it meant,
+she nearly fainted. His father was one of the most fascinating men in
+Austria. He is still living, and is by no means, it seems, at the end
+of his fascinations, but, being a widower, hovers about from one
+amusing capital to another, breaking hearts for pastime. It seems to be
+a wonderfully entertaining occupation, and, when one once indulges in
+it, the habit cannot be got rid of,--like opium-eating.
+
+While he thus paraded his brilliant fascinations in the gay world, he
+did not, of course, find much time to interest himself in his boy, who
+was left to the care of distant relatives, and who, when found to be
+backward in his studies, was placed, I believe by Uncle Karl's advice,
+under the care of a Prague professor by the name of Suwa, who kept, as
+Harry once told me, a kind of orthopædic institution for minds that
+lacked training.
+
+Beside Lato, during that vacation there were two other guests at
+Komaritz, one a very distant cousin of Harry's, and the other a kind of
+sub-tutor whose duty it was to coach Harry in his studies.
+
+We could not endure the sub-tutor. His name was Franz Tuschalek; he was
+about nineteen, with hands and feet like shovels, and a flat, unmeaning
+face. His manner was intensely servile, and his coat-sleeves and
+trousers were too short, which gave him a terribly indigent air. One
+could not help regarding him with a mixture of impatience and sympathy.
+By my radical uncle's express desire, he and Harry called each other by
+their Christian names. Still, obnoxious as poor Tuschalek was to us, he
+was more to our minds than the distant cousin.
+
+This last was a Pole, about twenty years old, with a sallow face and
+long oblique eyes, which he rolled in an extraordinary way. His hair
+was black, and he curled it with the curling-tongs. He was redolent of
+musk, and affected large plaid suits of clothes. His German was not
+good, and his French was no better, but he assured us that he was a
+proficient in Chinese and Arabic. He was always playing long and
+difficult concertos on the table, but he never touched the piano at
+Komaritz, declaring that the instrument was worn out. He was always
+short of funds, and was perpetually boasting of the splendour of his
+family.
+
+He frequently sketched, upon some stray piece of paper, a magnificent
+and romantic structure, which he would display to us as his Polish
+home,--"our ancestral castle."
+
+Sometimes this castle appeared with two turrets, sometimes with only
+one, a fact to which Harry did not fail to call his attention.
+
+His distinguished ancestry was a topic of never-failing interest
+to him; he was never weary of explaining his connection with
+various European reigning dynasties, and his visiting-cards bore
+the high-sounding names "Le Comte Ladislas Othon Fainacky de
+Chrast-Bambosch," although, as Harry confided to us, he had no right to
+the title of comte, being the son of a needy Polish baron.
+
+Although Franz Tuschalek was almost as obnoxious to Harry as the
+"braggart Sarmatian," as Lato called the Pole, he never allowed his
+antipathy to be seen, but treated him with great consideration, as he
+did all inferiors, scarcely allowing himself to give vent to his
+distaste for him even in his absence. But he paraded his dislike of
+Fainacky, never speaking of him as a guest, but as an "invasion," and
+always trying to annoy him by some boyish trick.
+
+At length, one Sunday, the crisis in Harry's first vacation occurred.
+We had all been to early mass, and the celebrant had accompanied us
+back to Komaritz, as was his custom, to breakfast. After a hasty cup of
+coffee he took his leave of us children, and betook himself to the
+bailiff's quarters, where we more than suspected him of a quiet game of
+cards with that official and his underlings.
+
+The door of the dining-room leading out into the garden was wide open,
+and delicious odours from the moist flower-beds floated in and mingled
+with the fragrance of the coffee. It had rained in the night, but the
+sun had emerged from the clouds and had thrown a golden veil over trees
+and shrubs. We were just rising from table when the "braggart
+Sarmatian" entered, booted and spurred, smelling of all the perfumes of
+Arabia, and with his hair beautifully curled. He had not been to mass,
+and had breakfasted in his room in the frame house on the hill, which
+had been rebuilt since the fire. After he had bidden us all an affected
+good-morning, he said, turning to Harry,--
+
+"Has the man come with the mail?"
+
+"Yes," Harry replied, curtly.
+
+"Did no registered letter come for me?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Strange!"
+
+"Very strange," Harry sneered. "You have been expecting that letter a
+long time. If I were you, I'd investigate the matter."
+
+"There's something wrong with the post," the Pole declared, with an air
+of importance. "I must see about it. I think I had best apply to my
+uncle the cabinet-minister."
+
+Harry made a curious grimace. "There is no need to exercise your powers
+of invention for me," he observed. "I know your phrase-book and the
+meaning of each individual sentence. 'Has no registered letter come for
+me?' means 'Lend me some money.' My father instructed me to supply you
+with money if you needed it, but never with more than ten guilders at a
+time. Here they are, and, if you wish to drive to X----, tell the
+bailiff to have the drag harnessed for you. We--in fact, we will not
+look for you before evening. Good-bye."
+
+"I shall have to call you to account some day, Harry," Fainacky said,
+with a frown; then, relapsing into his usual languid affectation of
+manner, he remarked, over his shoulder, to Mademoiselle Duval, "_C'est
+un enfant_," put away the ten-guilder piece in a gorgeous leather
+pocket-book, and left the room.
+
+Scarcely had the door closed behind him when Harry began to express in
+no measured terms his views with regard to the "Polish invasion." Then
+he set his wits to work to devise some plan of getting rid of Fainacky,
+but it was not until the afternoon, when we were assembled in the
+dining-room again, that a brilliant idea occurred to him while reading
+Heine's "Romancero," a book which he loved to read when Heda and I were
+by because it was a forbidden volume to us.
+
+Suddenly, starting up from his half-reclining position in a large
+arm-chair, he snapped his fingers, waved his book in the air, and
+exclaimed, "Eureka!"
+
+"What is it?" Lato asked, good-naturedly.
+
+"I have found something to drive the Pole wild!" cried Harry, rubbing
+his hands with delight. Whereupon he began to spout, with immense
+enthusiasm and shouts of laughter, Heine's "Two Knights," a poem in
+which he pours out his bitterest satire upon the Poles, their cause,
+and their country. This precious poem Harry commanded Tuschalek to
+write out in his finest round hand upon a large sheet of paper, which
+was then to be nailed upon the door of Fainacky's sleeping-apartment. I
+did not like the poem. I confess my Polish sympathies were strong, and
+I did not approve of ridiculing the "braggart Sarmatian's" nation by
+way of disgusting him with Komaritz; but nothing that I could say had
+any effect. The poem was written out upon the largest sheet of paper
+that the house afforded, and was the first thing to greet the eyes of
+Fainacky when he retired to his room for the night. In consequence, the
+Sarmatian declared, the next morning, at breakfast, that the insult
+thus offered to his nation and himself was not to be endured by a man
+of honour, and that he should leave Komaritz that very day.
+
+Nevertheless, he stayed four weeks longer, during which time, however,
+he never spoke to Harry except upon three occasions when he borrowed
+money of him.
+
+Tuschalek departed at an earlier date. Harry's method for getting rid
+of him was much simpler, and consisted of a letter to his father. As
+well as I can recollect, it ran thus:
+
+
+"My Dear Father,--
+
+"I pray you send Tuschalek away. I assure you I will study diligently
+without him. To have about you a fellow hired at ten guilders a month,
+who calls you by your Christian name, is very deleterious to the
+character.
+
+                             "Your affectionate son,
+
+                                                     "Harry.
+
+"P.S.--Pray, if you can, help him to another situation, for I can't
+help pitying the poor devil."
+
+
+About this time Lato sprained his ankle in leaping a ditch, and was
+confined for some days to a lounge in the dining-room. Heda scarcely
+left his side. She brought him flowers, offered to write his letters
+for him, and finally read aloud to him from the "_Journal des
+Demoiselles_." Whether he was much edified I cannot say. He left
+Komaritz as soon as his ankle was strong again. I was really sorry to
+have him go; for years we heard nothing more of him.----
+
+
+"The gypsy!" exclaimed the major. "How fluently she writes! Who would
+have thought it of her! I remember that Fainacky perfectly well,--a
+genuine Polish coxcomb! Lato was a charming fellow,--pity he should
+have married in trade!"
+
+At this moment a loud bell reminded the old cavalryman that the
+afternoon coffee was ready. He hurriedly slipped his niece's manuscript
+into a drawer of his writing-table, and locked it up before joining his
+family circle, where he appeared with the most guileless smile he could
+assume.
+
+Zdena seemed restless and troubled, and confessed at last that she had
+lost her diary, which she was quite sure she had put into her
+work-basket. She had been writing in the garden, and had thrust it into
+the basket in a hurry. The major seemed uninterested in the loss, but,
+when the girl's annoyance reached its climax in a conjecture that the
+cook had, by mistake, used the manuscript for kindling, he comforted
+her, saying, "Nonsense! the thing will surely be found." He could not
+bring himself to resign the precious document,--he was too much
+interested in reading it.
+
+The next day, after luncheon, while Frau Rosamunda was refreshing
+herself with an afternoon nap and Zdena was in the garden posing for
+the Baron von Wenkendorf as the goddess of Spring, the major retired to
+his room and locked himself in, that he might not be disturbed.
+
+"Could she possibly have fallen in love with that Lato? Some girls'
+heads are full of sentimental nonsense. But I hardly think it--and
+so--" he went on muttering to himself whilst finding the place where he
+had left off on the previous day.
+
+The next chapter of this literary _chef-d'[oe]uvre_ began as follows:
+
+
+
+                                 VIII.
+
+I had a long letter to-day from Miss O'Donnel in Italy, full of most
+interesting things. One of the two nieces whom she is visiting is
+being trained as an opera-singer. She seems to have a brilliant career
+before her. In Italy they call her "_la Patti blonde_," and her
+singing-teacher, to whom she pays thirty-five francs a lesson, declares
+that she will certainly make at least a hundred thousand francs a year
+as a prima donna. What an enviable creature! I, too, have an admirable
+voice. Ah, if Uncle Paul would only let me be trained! But his opinions
+are so old-fashioned!
+
+And everything that Miss O'Donnel tells me about the mode of life of
+the Misses Lyall interests me. They live with their mother in Italy,
+and receive every evening, principally gentlemen, which, it seems, is
+the Italian custom. The elder Miss Lyall is as good as engaged to a
+distinguished Milanese who lost his hair in the war of '59; while the
+younger, the blonde Patti, will not hear of marriage, but contents
+herself with turning the head of every man who comes near her.
+
+Ah! I have arrived at the conviction that there can be no finer
+existence than that of a young girl in training for a prima donna, who
+amuses herself in the mean time by turning the head of every man who
+comes near her.----
+
+("Goose!" exclaimed the major at this point.)
+
+----To-day I proposed to Uncle Paul that he should take me to Italy for
+the winter, to have me educated as a singer. There was a great row.
+Never before, since I have known him, has he spoken so angrily to
+me.----
+
+("I should think not!" growled the major at this point.)
+
+----The worst was that he blamed Miss O'Donnel for putting such "stuff"
+(thus he designated my love for art) into my head, and threatened to
+forbid her to correspond with me. Ah, I wept for the entire afternoon
+amid the ruins of my shattered hopes. I am very unhappy. After a long
+interruption, the idea has occurred to me to-day of continuing my
+memoirs.
+
+
+
+                                  IX.
+
+                        HARRY BECOMES A SOLDIER.
+
+Uncle Karl finally yielded to Harry's entreaties, and allowed him to
+enter the army. That very autumn after the summer which Lato and
+Fainacky passed at Komaritz he was to enter a regiment of hussars.
+
+It had been a problem for Uncle Karl, the taming of this eager young
+nature, and I think he was rather relieved by the military solution
+thus afforded.
+
+As Harry of course had nothing to do in town before joining his
+regiment, he stayed longer than usual this year in Komaritz,--stayed
+all through September and until late in October. Komaritz was quite
+deserted: Lato had gone, the Pole had gone; but Harry still stayed on.
+
+And, strange to say, now, when we confronted our first long parting,
+our old friendship gradually revived, stirred, and felt that it had
+been living all this time, although it had had one or two naps. How
+well I remember the day when he came to Zirkow to take leave of us--of
+me!
+
+It was late in October, and the skies were blue but cold. The sun shone
+down upon the earth kindly, but without warmth. A thin silvery mist
+floated along the ground. The bright-coloured leaves shivered in the
+frosty air.
+
+On the wet lawn, where the gossamers gleamed like steel, lay myriads of
+brown, red, and yellow leaves. The song-birds were gone, the sparrows
+twittered shrilly, and in the midst of the brown autumnal desolation
+there bloomed in languishing loveliness a white rose upon a leafless
+stalk.
+
+With a scarlet shawl about my shoulders and my head bare I was
+sauntering about the garden, wandering, dreaming through the frosty
+afternoon. I heard steps behind me, and when I looked round I saw Harry
+approaching, his brows knitted gloomily.
+
+"I only want to bid you 'good-bye,'" he called out to me. "We are off
+to-morrow."
+
+"When are you coming back?" I asked, hastily.
+
+"Perhaps never," he said, with an important air. "You know--a
+soldier----"
+
+"Yes, there is a threatening of war," I whispered, and my childish
+heart felt an intolerable pang as I spoke.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders and tried to laugh.
+
+"And, at all events, you, when I come back, will be a young lady
+with--lovers--and you will hardly remember me."
+
+"Oh, Harry, how can you talk so!"
+
+Rather awkwardly he holds out to me his long slender hand, in which I
+place my own.
+
+Ah, how secure my cold, weak fingers feel in that warm strong hand! Why
+do I suddenly recall the long-past moonlit evenings in Komaritz when we
+sat together on the garden-steps and Harry told me ghost-stories, in
+dread of which, when they grew too ghastly, I used to cling close to
+him as if to find shelter in his strong young life from the bloodless
+throng of spirits he was evoking?
+
+Thus we stand, hand in hand, before the white rose, the last which
+autumn had left. It droops above us, and its cheering fragrance mingles
+with the autumnal odours around us. I pluck it, stick it in Harry's
+button-hole, and then suddenly begin to sob convulsively. He clasps me
+close, close in his arms, kisses me, and murmurs, "Do not forget me!"
+and I kiss him too, and say, "Never--never!" while around us the faded
+leaves fall silently upon the grass.
+
+
+
+                                   X.
+
+                             MY EDUCATION.
+
+Now follow a couple of very colourless years. There was nothing more to
+anticipate from the summers. For, although Heda regularly appeared at
+Komaritz as soon as the city was too hot or too deserted, she did not
+add much to my enjoyment. Komaritz itself seemed changed when Harry was
+no longer there to turn everything upside-down with his good-humoured,
+madcap ways.
+
+And there was a change for the worse in our circumstances; affairs at
+Zirkow were not so prosperous as they had been.
+
+To vary the monotony of his country life, my uncle had built a brewery,
+from which he promised himself a large increase of income. It was to be
+a model brewery, but after it was built the startling discovery was
+made that there was not water enough to work it. For a while, water was
+brought from the river in wagons drawn by four horses, but, when this
+was found to be too expensive, the brewery was left to itself.
+
+For years now it has remained thus passive, digesting in triumphant
+repose the sums of money which it swallowed up. The monster!
+
+Whenever there is any little dispute between my uncle and my aunt, she
+is certain to throw his brew-house in his face. But, instead of being
+crushed by the mischief he has wrought, he declares, "The project was
+admirable: my idea was a brilliant one if it had only succeeded!"
+
+But it did not succeed.
+
+The consequence was--retrenchment and economy. My aunt dismissed two
+servants, my uncle kept only a pair of driving horses, and my new gowns
+were made out of my aunt Thérèse's old ones.
+
+The entire winter we spent at Zirkow, and my only congenial friend was
+my old English governess, the Miss O'Donnel already mentioned, who came
+shortly before Harry's entrance into the army, not so much to teach me
+English as to learn German herself.
+
+Born in Ireland, and a Catholic, she had always had excellent
+situations in the most aristocratic English families. This had given
+her, besides her other acquirements, a great familiarity with the
+curious peculiarities of the British peerage, and with social
+distinctions of rank in England, as to which she enlightened me, along
+with much other valuable information.
+
+At first I thought her quite ridiculous in many respects,--her general
+appearance,--she had once been a beauty, and still wore corkscrew
+curls,--her way of humming to herself old Irish ballads, "Nora Creina,"
+"The harp that once through Tara's halls," etc., with a cracked voice
+and unconscious gestures, her formality and sensitiveness. After a
+while I grew fond of her. What quantities of books she read aloud to me
+in the long evenings in January and December, while my wooden needles
+clicked monotonously as I knitted woollen comforters for the poor!--all
+Walter Scott's novels, Dickens and Thackeray, many of the works of
+English historians, from the academic, fluent Gibbon to that strange
+prophet of history, Carlyle, and every day I had to study with her one
+act of Shakespeare, which bored me at first. She was so determined to
+form my literary taste that while my maid was brushing my hair she
+would read aloud some lighter work, such as "The Vicar of Wakefield" or
+Doctor Johnson's "Rasselas."
+
+As Uncle Paul was very desirous to perfect my education as far as
+possible, he was not content with these far-reaching efforts, but, with
+a view to further accomplishments on my part, sent me thrice a week to
+X----, where an old pianiste, who was said to have refused a Russian
+prince, and was now humpbacked, gave me lessons on the piano; and a
+former _ballerina_, at present married to the best caterer in X----,
+taught me to dance.
+
+This last was a short, fat, good-humoured person with an enormous
+double chin and a complexion spoiled by bad rouge. When a
+ballet-dancer she had been known as Angiolina Chiaramonte; her name now
+is Frau Anna Schwanzara. She always lost her breath, and sometimes the
+buttons off her waist, when she danced for her pupils, and she prided
+herself upon being able to teach every known dance, even to the cancan.
+I did not learn the cancan, but I did learn the fandango, the czardas,
+and the Highland fling, with many another national dance. Waltzes and
+polkas I did not learn, because we had no one for a partner to practise
+with me; Frau Schwanzara was too short-breathed, although she was very
+good-humoured and did her best.
+
+Sometimes I thought it very hard to have to get up so early and drive
+between high walls of snow in a rattling inspector's wagon (Uncle Paul
+would not allow his last good carriage to be used on these journeys)
+two long leagues to X----, but it was, at all events, a break in the
+monotony of my life.
+
+If I was not too sleepy, we argued the whole way, Miss O'Donnel and I,
+usually over some historic event, such as the execution of Louis XVI.
+or Cromwell's rebellion. Sometimes we continued our debate as we walked
+about the town, where we must have been strange and yet familiar
+figures. Miss O'Donnel certainly was odd in appearance. She always wore
+a long gray cloth cloak, under which, to guard against dirt, she kilted
+up her petticoats so high that her red stockings gleamed from afar. On
+her head was perched a black velvet bonnet with a scarlet pompon, and
+in summer and winter she carried the same bulgy green umbrella, which
+she called her "Gamp." Once we lost each other in the midst of a
+particularly lively discussion. Nothing daunted, she planted herself at
+a street-corner, and, pounding the pavement with her umbrella, called,
+lustily, "Zdena! Zdena! Zdena!" until a policeman, to whom I described
+her, conducted me to her.
+
+In addition to Miss O'Donnel's peculiarities, the extraordinary
+structure of our vehicle must have attracted some attention in X----.
+It was a long, old-fashioned coach hung on very high springs, and it
+looked very like the shabby carriages seen following the hearse at
+third-class funerals. Twin sister of the Komaritz "Noah's Ark," it
+served a double purpose, and could be taken apart in summer and used as
+an open carriage. Sometimes it fell apart of itself. Once when we were
+driving quickly through the market-square and past the officers' casino
+in X----, the entire carriage window fell out upon the pavement. The
+coachman stopped the horses, and a very tall hussar picked up the
+window and handed it in to me, saying, with a smile, "You have dropped
+something, mademoiselle!" I was deeply mortified, but I would not for
+the world have shown that I was so. I said, simply, "Thank you; put it
+down there, if you please," pointing to the opposite seat,--as if
+dropping a window out of the carriage were the most ordinary every-day
+occurrence. Upon my reply to him he made a profound bow, which I
+thought all right. He was a late arrival in the garrison; the other
+officers knew us or our carriage by sight. Every one of them, when he
+came to X----, paid his respects to my uncle, who in due course of time
+returned the visit, and there was an end of it. The officers were never
+invited to Zirkow.
+
+Sometimes the roads were so blocked with snow that we could not drive
+to town, nor could we walk far. For the sake of exercise, or what Miss
+O'Donnel called our "daily constitutional," we used then to walk
+numberless times around the house, where the gardener had cleared a
+path for us. As we walked, Miss O'Donnel told me stories from the
+Arabian Nights or Ovid's Metamorphoses, varied sometimes by
+descriptions of life among the British aristocracy. When once she was
+launched upon this last topic, I would not let her finish,--I besieged
+her with questions. She showed me the picture of one of her pupils, the
+Lady Alice B----, who married the Duke of G---- and was the queen of
+London society for two years.
+
+"'Tis odd how much you look like her," she often said to me. "You are
+sure to make a sensation in the world; only have patience. You are born
+to play a great part."
+
+If Uncle Paul had heard her, I believe he would have killed her.
+
+Every evening we played a rubber of whist. Miss O'Donnel never could
+remember what cards were out, and, whenever we wished to recall a card
+or to transgress some rule of the game, Aunt Rosamunda always said,
+"That is not allowed at the Jockey Club."
+
+Once my uncle and aunt took me upon a six weeks' pleasure-tour,--or,
+rather, an educational excursion. We thoroughly explored the greater
+part of Germany and Italy on this occasion, travelling very simply,
+with very little luggage, never speaking to strangers, having
+intercourse exclusively with pictures, sculptures, and valets-de-place.
+After thus becoming acquainted, in Baedeker's society, with a new piece
+of the world, as Aunt Rosamunda observed with satisfaction, we returned
+to Zirkow, and life went on as before.
+
+And really my lonely existence would not have struck me as anything
+extraordinary, if Hedwig had not been at hand to enlighten me as to my
+deprivations.
+
+She had been introduced into society, and wrote me of her conquests.
+Last summer she brought a whole trunkful of faded bouquets with her to
+Komaritz,--ball-trophies. Besides this stuff, she brought two other
+acquisitions with her to the country, a sallow complexion and an
+adjective which she used upon every occasion--"impossible!" She tossed
+it about to the right and left, applying it to everything in the dear
+old nest which I so dearly loved, and which she now never called
+anything save "Mon exil." The house at Komaritz, the garden, my
+dress,--all fell victims to this adjective.
+
+Two of her friends shortly followed her to Komaritz, with a suitable
+train of governesses and maids,--countesses from Prague society, Mimi
+and Franziska Zett.
+
+They were not nearly so affected as Heda,--in fact, they were not
+affected at all, but were sweet and natural, very pretty, and
+particularly pleasant towards me. But we were not congenial; we had
+nothing to say to one another; we had no interests in common. They were
+quite indifferent to my favourite heroes, from the Gracchi to the First
+Consul; in fact, they knew hardly anything about them, and I knew still
+less of the Rudis, Nikis, Taffis, and whatever else the young gentlemen
+were called, with whom they danced and flirted at balls and parties,
+and about whom they now gossiped with Heda.
+
+They, too, brought each a trunkful of faded bouquets, and one day they
+piled them all up on the grass in the garden and set fire to them. They
+declared that it was the custom in society in Vienna thus to burn on
+Ash Wednesday every relic of the Carnival. To be sure, it was not Ash
+Wednesday in Komaritz, and the Carnival was long past, but that was of
+no consequence.
+
+The favourite occupation of the three young ladies was to sit in the
+summer-house, with a generous supply of iced raspberry vinegar, and
+make confession of the various _passions funestes_ which they had
+inspired. I sat by and listened mutely.
+
+Once Mimi amiably asked me to give my experience. I turned my head
+away, and murmured, ashamed, "No one ever made love to me." Mimi,
+noticing my distress, put her finger beneath my chin, just as if she
+had been my grand-aunt, and said, "Only wait until you come out, and
+you will bear the palm away from all of us, for you are by long odds
+the prettiest of us all."
+
+When afterwards I looked in the glass, I thought she was right.
+
+"Until you go into society," Mimi had said. Good heavens!  into
+society!--I! For some time a suspicion had dawned upon me that Uncle
+Paul did not mean that I should ever "go into society." When, the day
+after Mimi's portentous speech, I returned to Zirkow, I determined to
+put an end to all uncertainty upon the subject.
+
+After dinner--it had been an uncommonly good one--I put my hand
+caressingly within my uncle's arm, and whispered, softly, "Uncle, do
+you never mean to take me to balls, eh?"
+
+He had been very gay, but he at once grew grave, as he replied,--
+
+"What good would balls do you? Make your eyes droop, and your feet
+ache! I can't endure the thought of having you whirled about by all the
+young coxcombs of Prague and then criticised afterwards. Marriages are
+made in heaven, Zdena, and your fate will find you here, you may be
+sure."
+
+"But I am not thinking of marriage," I exclaimed, indignantly. "I want
+to see the world, uncle dear; can you not understand that?" and I
+tenderly stroked his coat-sleeve.
+
+He shook his curly head energetically.
+
+"Be thankful that you know nothing of the world," he said, with
+emphasis.
+
+And I suddenly recalled the intense bitterness in my mother's tone as
+she uttered the word "world," when I waked in the dark night and found
+her kneeling, crying, at my bedside in our old Paris home.
+
+"Is it really so very terrible--the world?" I asked, meekly, and yet
+incredulously.
+
+"Terrible!" he repeated my word with even more energy than was usual
+with him. "It is a hot-bed of envy and vanity, a place where one learns
+to be ashamed of his best friend if he chance to wear an ill-made coat;
+that is the world you are talking of. I do not wish you to know
+anything about it."
+
+This was all he would say.
+
+It might be supposed that the unattractive picture of the world drawn
+by Uncle Paul would have put a stop at once and forever to any desire
+of mine for a further acquaintance with it, but--there is ever a charm
+about what is forbidden. At present I have not the faintest desire to
+visit Pekin, but if I were forbidden to go near that capital I should
+undoubtedly be annoyed.
+
+
+And day follows day. Nearly a year has passed since that unedifying
+conversation with my uncle.
+
+The only amusement that varied the monotony of our existence was a
+letter at long intervals from Harry. For a time he was stationed in
+Salzburg; for a year he has been in garrison in Vienna, where, of
+course, he is absorbed in the whirl of Viennese society. I must confess
+that it did not greatly please me when I first learned that he had
+entered upon that brilliant worldly scene: will he not come to be like
+Hedwig? My uncle declares that the world is the hot-bed of envy and
+vanity; and yet there must be natures upon which poisonous atmospheres
+produce no effect, just as there are men who can breathe with impunity
+the air of the Pontine marshes; and Harry's nature is one of these. At
+least so it would seem from his letters, they are so cordial and
+simple, such warm affection speaks in every line. A little while ago he
+sent me his photograph. I liked it extremely, but I did not say so; all
+the more loudly, however, did my uncle express his admiration. He
+offered to wager that Harry is the handsomest officer in the entire
+army, and he shouted loudly for Krupitschka, to show him the picture.
+
+Harry told us one interesting piece of news,--I forget whether it was
+this winter or the last; perhaps it was still longer ago, for Harry was
+stationed in Enns at the time, and the news related to our old friend
+Treurenberg.
+
+He had married a girl in the world of trade,--a Fräulein Selina von
+Harfink. Harry, whom Lato had bidden to his marriage, and who had gone
+for old friendship's sake from Enns to Vienna to be the escort in the
+church of the first of the eight bridesmaids, made very merry in his
+letter over the festivity.
+
+We were all intensely surprised; we had not heard a word of Lato's
+betrothal, and the day after Harry's letter came the announcement of
+the marriage.
+
+Uncle Paul, who takes most of the events of life very philosophically,
+grew quite angry on learning of this marriage.
+
+Since Lato has married for money, he cares nothing more for him.
+
+"I should not care if he had made a fool of himself and married
+an actress," he exclaimed, over and over again, "but to sell
+himself--ugh!"
+
+When I suggested, "Perhaps he fell in love with Selina," my uncle
+shrugged his shoulders, and seemed to consider any such possibility
+entirely out of the question.
+
+We talked for two weeks at Zirkow about Lato Treurenberg's marriage.
+
+Now we have almost forgotten it. Since Lato has been married he has
+been quite estranged from his former associations.
+
+
+To-day is my birthday. I am nineteen years old. How kind my uncle and
+aunt are to me! How they try to give me pleasure! My heap of presents
+was really grand. Arrayed about my cake, with its lighted candles,
+I found two new gowns, a hat which Heda had purchased for me in
+Prague,--and which, by the way, would be highly appreciated upon the
+head of a monkey in a circus,--several volumes of English literature
+sent me by Miss O'Donnel from Italy, and, in a white silk sachet upon
+which Mimi Zett had embroidered a bird of paradise in the midst of a
+snow-scene (a symbol of my melancholy condition), a card, upon which
+was written, "A visit to some watering-place, by the way of Vienna and
+Paris." I uttered a shriek of delight and threw my arms around my
+uncle's neck.
+
+The three young girls from Komaritz came over to Zirkow to dine, in
+honour of the occasion; we drank one another's health in champagne, and
+in the afternoon we had coffee in the woods, which was very
+inconvenient but very delightful. Then we consulted the cards as to our
+future, and Heda lost her temper because the oracle declared that she
+would marry an apothecary.
+
+What nonsense it was! The cards prophesied to me that I should marry
+for love;--I! As if I should think of such a thing! But I was not in
+the least vexed, although I knew how false it was.
+
+Towards eight o'clock the girls drove home, and I concluded the evening
+by taking my new bonnet to pieces and then scribbling here at my
+writing-table. I cannot make up my mind to go to bed. I am fairly
+tingling to my finger-tips with delightful anticipations. To think of
+seeing Paris once more,--Paris, where I was born, the very centre of
+the civilized world! Oh, it is too charming!
+
+Something extraordinary will happen during this trip,--I am sure of it.
+I shall meet some one who will liberate me from my solitude and set me
+upon the pedestal for which I long; an English peer, perhaps, or a
+Russian prince, oh, it will of course be a Russian prince--who spends
+most of his time in Paris. I shall not mind his not being very young.
+Elderly men are more easily managed.----
+
+(At this point the major frowns. "I should not have thought it of her,
+I really should not have thought it of her. Well, we shall see whether
+she is in earnest." And he goes on with his reading.)
+
+
+                                                    June 10, ----.
+
+I have a piece of news to put down. The Frau von Harfink who bought
+Dobrotschau a while ago--the estate that adjoins Zirkow, a fine
+property with a grand castle but poor soil--is no other than Lato
+Treurenberg's mother-in-law. She called upon us to-day. When
+Krupitschka brought the cards of the Baroness Melanie von Harfink and
+her daughter Paula, Aunt Rosa denounced the visit as a presumption upon
+the part of the ladies. She had been engaged all day long in setting
+the house "to rights," preparatory to our departure, and had on a very
+old gown in which she does not often appear; wherefore she would fain
+have denied herself. But I was burning with curiosity to see Lato's
+mother-in-law: so I remarked, "Uncle Paul and I will go and receive the
+ladies, while you dress."
+
+This made my aunt very angry. "It never would occur to me to dress for
+these wealthy _parvenues_. This gown is quite good enough for them."
+And she smoothed the faded folds of her skirt so that a neatly-darned
+spot was distinctly conspicuous. The ladies were immediately shown in;
+they were extremely courteous and amiable, but they found no favour in
+my aunt's eyes.
+
+There really was no objection to make to Mamma von Harfink, who is
+still a very handsome woman, except that her manner was rather
+affected. The daughter, however, was open to criticism of various
+kinds, and subsequently became the subject of a serious dispute between
+my aunt and uncle. My aunt called Fräulein Paula disagreeable,
+absolutely hideous, and vulgar; whereupon my uncle, slowly shaking his
+head, rejoined,----
+
+"Say what you please, she may not be agreeable, but she is very
+pretty."
+
+Upon this my aunt grew angry, and called Fräulein Paula a "red-haired
+kitchen-maid." My uncle shrugged his shoulders, and observed,
+"Nevertheless, there have been kitchen-maids who were not ugly."
+
+Then my aunt declared, "I can see nothing pretty about such fat
+creatures; but, according to her mother's account, you are not alone in
+your admiration. Madame Harfink had hardly been here five minutes when
+she informed me that Professor X----, of Vienna, had declared that her
+daughter reminded him of Titian's penitent Magdalen in the Borghese
+Gallery in Rome, and she asked me whether I was not struck with the
+resemblance."
+
+My uncle grinned--I could not see at what and said, "H'm! the Magdalen,
+perhaps; but whether penitent or not----" and he pinched my cheek.
+
+The dispute continued for a while longer, and ended with my aunt's
+emphatic declaration that men always had the worst possible taste with
+regard to young girls. My uncle burst into a laugh at this, and
+replied, "True. I gave proof of it on the 21st of May, 1858." It was
+his marriage-day.
+
+Of course my aunt laughed, and the quarrel ended. The subject was
+changed, and we discussed Lato Treurenberg's marriage, which had
+puzzled us all. My aunt declared that since she had seen the family
+Treurenberg's choice appeared to her more incomprehensible than ever.
+
+My uncle shook his head sagely, and observed, "If Selina Treurenberg at
+all resembles her sister, it explains much to me, especially when I
+recall the poor fellow's peculiarities. It makes me more lenient
+towards him, and--I pity him from my heart." They evidently did not
+wish to say anything more upon the subject before me.
+
+
+                                                     June 20.
+
+This afternoon we start. I am in a fever of anticipation. How
+delightful! I seem to have come to the turning-point of my existence.
+Something wonderful is surely going to happen.
+
+Meanwhile, I take my leave of my little book,--I shall have no time to
+write in it while we are away.
+
+
+                                                     July 30.
+
+Here we are back again in the old nest! Nothing either wonderful or
+even extraordinary happened upon the journey; on the contrary,
+everything was quite commonplace. I did not meet the Russian prince,
+but I have brought home with me a conviction of the beauty and delights
+of the world, and the certainty that, if fate would only grant me the
+opportunity, I could play a most brilliant part in it. But my destiny
+has nothing of the kind to offer.
+
+I am restless and discontented, and I have great trouble in concealing
+my mood from my uncle and aunt. I am likewise disgusted with my
+ingratitude. I know that the expenses of our trip weighed heavily upon
+my uncle. He has bought himself no new horses, although the old ones
+are lame in all four legs; and my aunt has given up her pilgrimage to
+Bayreuth, that I might go to the baths. She expected so much for me
+from this trip, and now----
+
+Still, prosaic and commonplace as it all was, I will put it down here
+conscientiously in detail. Various pleasant little circumstances may
+recur to me as I write which have escaped me in my general discontent
+that has tinged everything.
+
+Our few days in Vienna were the pleasantest part of the entire trip,
+little as I liked the city at first.
+
+We arrived at ten in the evening, rather exhausted by the heat, and of
+course we expected to see Harry at the railroad-station, my uncle
+having advised him of our arrival. But in vain did we peer in every
+direction, or rather in vain did Aunt Rosamunda thus peer (for I did
+nothing of the kind); there was no Harry to be seen.
+
+While my aunt loudly expressed her wonder at his non-appearance, I
+never uttered a word, but was secretly all the more vexed at what
+seemed to me Harry's laziness and want of consideration. Of course, I
+attributed his absence to the fact that a young man who passed his time
+in flying from one fête to another in the world (which I was not to
+know) could hardly be very anxious to meet a couple of relatives from
+the country. Perhaps he had come to be just like Heda, and I shrugged
+my shoulders indifferently at the thought. What could it possibly
+matter to me? Meanwhile, my aunt had given our luggage-tickets to
+a porter and got with me into an open carriage, where we quietly and
+wearily awaited our trunks.
+
+Around us the lights flickered in the warm, dim, night air, which was
+almost as close as an in-door atmosphere, and smelled most unpleasantly
+of dust, dried leaves, and all sorts of exhalations. On every hand
+crowded houses of indescribable clumsiness and ugliness; I was
+depressed by the mere eight of them, and suddenly experienced the most
+painful sensation of shrivelling up. The deafening noise and bustle
+were in harmony with the houses: I never had heard anything like it.
+Everybody jostled everybody else, all were in a hurry, and no one paid
+the slightest regard to anybody. It seemed as if they were one and all
+bound for some great entertainment and feared to be too late.
+
+At the hotel the reason for Harry's absence was explained. We found two
+beautiful bunches of roses in our rooms, and a note, as follows:
+
+
+"I am more sorry than I can tell, not to be able to welcome you at the
+station. I am, unfortunately, on duty at a garden-party at the Archduke
+S----'s.... I shall report myself to you, however, at the earliest
+opportunity.
+
+                                                     "Harry."
+
+
+I supped with a relish, and slept soundly.
+
+My aunt had breakfasted in our sitting-room and was reading the paper,
+when I had scarcely begun to dress. I was just about to brush my
+hair,--I have very long hair, and it is quite pretty, light brown with
+a dash of gold,--in fact, I was standing before the mirror in my white
+peignoir, with my hair hanging soft and curling all around me, very
+well pleased with my reflection in the glass, when suddenly I heard the
+jingling of spurs and sabre, and a voice which was familiar and yet
+unfamiliar. I trembled from head to foot.
+
+"Zdena, hurry, and come!" called my aunt. "Here is a visitor!"
+
+I knew well enough who it was, but, as if I did not know, I opened the
+door, showed myself for a moment in my white wrapper and long, loose
+hair,--only for a moment,--and then hastily retreated.
+
+"Come just as you are. 'Tis only Harry; it is not as if it were a
+stranger. Come!" called my aunt.
+
+But I was not to be persuaded. Not for worlds would I have had Harry
+suspect that--that--well, that I was in any great hurry to see him.
+
+I dressed my hair with the most scrupulous care. Not before twenty
+minutes had passed did I go into the next room.
+
+How plainly I see it all before me now,--the room, half drawing-room,
+half dressing-room; a trunk in one corner, in another an old
+piano, the key of which we were obliged to procure from the kellner; in
+an arm-chair a bundle of shawls, over the back of a sofa our
+travelling-wraps, our well-polished boots in front of the porcelain
+stove, great patches of misty sunshine lying everywhere, the
+breakfast-table temptingly spread near the window, and there, opposite
+my aunt, his sabre between his knees, tall, slender, very brown, very
+handsome, an officer of hussars,--Harry.
+
+I like him, and am a little afraid of him. He suddenly springs up and
+advances a step or two towards me. His eyes--the same eyes that had
+glanced at me as I appeared in my wrapper--open wide in amazement; his
+gaze is riveted upon my face. All my fear has gone; yes, I confess it
+to this paper,--I am possessed by an exultant consciousness of power.
+He is only my cousin, 'tis true, but he is the first man upon whom I
+have been able to prove my powers of conquest.
+
+I put my hands in his, so cordially extended, but when he stooped as if
+to kiss me, I shook my head, laughing, and said, "I am too old for
+that."
+
+He yielded without a word, only touching my hand respectfully with
+his lips and then releasing me; whereupon I went directly to the
+breakfast-table. But, as he still continued to gaze at me, I asked,
+easily,----
+
+"What is it, Harry? Is my hair coming down?"
+
+He shook his head, and said, in some confusion, "Not at all. I was only
+wondering what you had done with all your magnificent hair!"
+
+I made no reply, but applied myself to my breakfast.
+
+It was really delightful, our short stay in Vienna. Harry was with us
+all the while. He went about with us from morning till night; patiently
+dragged with us to shops, picture-galleries, and cathedrals, and to the
+dusty, sunny Prater, where the vegetation along the drive seemed to
+have grown shabby. We drove together to Schönbrunn, the huge, dreamy,
+imperial summer residence, and wandered about the leafy avenues there.
+We fed the swans; we fed the monkeys and the bears, while my aunt
+rested near by, Baedeker in hand, upon any bench she could find. She
+rested a great deal, and grew more tired with every day of our stay in
+Vienna, and with very good reason; she can hardly endure the pavement
+in walking, and she refuses, from fastidiousness, to take advantage of
+the tramway, and, from economy, to hire a carriage.
+
+The sunset has kindled flames in all the windows of the castle, and we
+are still wandering in the green avenues, talking of all sorts of
+things, music, and literature. Harry's taste is classic; mine is
+somewhat revolutionary. I talk more than he; he listens. Sometimes he
+throws in a word in the midst of my nonsense; at other times he laughs
+heartily at my paradoxes, and then again he suddenly looks askance at
+me and says nothing. Then I become aware that he understands far more
+than I of the matter in hand, and I fall silent.
+
+The sun has set; the rosy reflection on the grass and at the foot of
+the old trees has faded; there is only a pale, gray gleam on the castle
+windows. All nature seems to sigh relieved. A cool mist rises from the
+basins of the fountains, like the caress of a water-nymph; the roses,
+petunias, and mignonette exhale delicious fragrance, which rises as
+incense to heaven; the lisp of the leaves and the plash of the fountain
+interpose a dreamy veil of sound, as it were, between us and some
+aggressive military music in the distance.
+
+The twilight falls; the nurses are all taking their charges home. Here
+and there on the benches a soldier and a nursemaid are sitting
+together. It is too dark to see to read Baedeker any longer. My aunt
+calls to us: "Do come, children; the carriage has been waiting ever so
+long, and I am very hungry."
+
+And the time had seemed so short to me. My aunt is so easily fatigued,
+and her aversion to tramways is so insurmountable, that she stays at
+home half the time in the hotel, and I make many a little expedition
+with Harry alone. Then I take his arm. We stroll through the old part
+of the city, with its sculptured monuments, its beautiful gray palaces
+standing side by side with the commonest lodging-houses; about us
+people are thronging and pushing; we are in no hurry; we should like to
+have time stand still,--Harry and I; we walk very slowly. I am so
+content, so filled with a sense of protection, when I am with him thus.
+It is delightful to cling to him in the crowd.
+
+It seems to me that I should like to spend my life in slowly wandering
+thus in the cool of the evening through the streets, where the lights
+are just beginning to be lighted, where a pair of large, kindly eyes
+rest upon my face, and the sound of distant military music is in my
+ears.
+
+The last evening before our departure arrived. We were sitting in our
+small drawing-room, and Harry and I were drinking iced coffee. My aunt
+had left hers untouched; the fever of travelling was upon her; she
+wandered from one room to another, opening trunks, drawers, and
+wardrobes, and casting suspicious glances under the piano and the
+sofas, sure that something would be left behind.
+
+The kellner brought in two cards,--Countess Zriny and Fräulein
+Tschaky,--a cousin of Uncle Paul's, with her companion.
+
+We had called upon the Countess the day before, and had rejoiced to
+find her not at home. My aunt now elevated her eyebrows, and murmured,
+plaintively, "It can't be helped!"
+
+Then she hurriedly carried two bundles of shawls and a hand-bag into
+the next room, and the ladies were shown in.
+
+Countess Zriny is a very stout, awkward old maid, with the figure of a
+meal-sack and the face of a portly abbot. Harry maintains that she has
+holy water instead of blood in her veins, and that she has for ten
+years lived exclusively upon Eau de Lourdes and Count Mattei's
+miraculous pills. It is odd that she should have grown so stout upon
+such a diet.
+
+There is nothing to say of Fräulein Tschaky.
+
+Aunt Rosamunda received the ladies with a majestic affability
+peculiarly her own, and presented me as "Our child,--Fritz's daughter!"
+
+The Countess gave me her hand, a round, fat little hand that felt as if
+her Swedish glove were stuffed with wadding, then put up her eyeglass
+and gazed at me, lifting her eyebrows the while.
+
+"All her father!" she murmured,--"especially her profile." Then she
+dropped her eyeglass, sighed, "Poor Fritz! poor Fritz!" seated herself
+on the sofa with my aunt, and began to whisper to her, looking steadily
+at me all the while.
+
+The sensitive irritability of my nature was at once aflame. If she had
+pitied my father only for being snatched away so early in his fair
+young life, for being torn so suddenly from those whom he loved! But
+this was not the case. She pitied him solely because he had married my
+mother. Oh, I knew it perfectly well; and she was whispering about it
+to my aunt before me,--she could not even wait until I should be away.
+I could hear almost every word.
+
+My heart suddenly grew heavy,--so heavy with the old grief that I would
+fain forget, that I could hardly bear it. But even in the midst of my
+pain I observed that Harry was aware of my suffering and shared it.
+
+Of course my cousin Zriny--for she is my cousin, after all--was
+otherwise extremely amiable to me. She turned from her mysterious
+conversation with Aunt Rosamunda, and addressed a couple of questions
+to me. She asked whether I liked country life, and when I replied,
+curtly, "I know no other," she laughed good-humouredly, just as some
+contented old monk might laugh,--a laugh that seemed to shake her fat
+sides and double chin, as she said, "_Elle a de l'esprit, la petite;
+elle n'est pas du tout banale_."
+
+How she arrived at that conclusion from my brief reply, I am unable to
+say.
+
+After a quarter of an hour she rose, took both my hands in hers by way
+of farewell, put her head on one side, sighed, "Poor Fritz!" and then
+kissed me.
+
+When the door had closed behind her, my aunt betook herself to the next
+room to make ready for a projected evening walk.
+
+I was left alone with Harry. As I could not restrain my tears, and did
+not know how else to conceal them, I turned my back to him and
+pretended to arrange my hair at the pier-glass, before which stood a
+vase filled with the La France roses that he had brought me the day
+before.
+
+It was a silly thing to do. He looked over my shoulder and saw in the
+mirror the tears on my cheeks, and then--he put his arm around my waist
+and whispered, "You poor little goose! You sensitive little thing! Why
+should you grieve because a kindhearted, weak-minded old woman was
+silly?"
+
+Then I could not help sobbing outright, crying, "Ah, it is always the
+same,--I know it! I am not like the other girls in your world. People
+despise me, and my poor mother too."
+
+"But this is childish," he said, gravely,--"childish and foolish. No
+one despises you. And--don't scratch my eyes out, Zdena--it is not your
+heart, merely, that is wounded at present, but your vanity, the vanity
+of an inexperienced little girl who knows nothing of the world or of
+the people in it. If you had knocked about in it somewhat, you would
+know how little it signifies if people in general wink and nod, and
+that the only thing really to care for is, to be understood and loved
+by those to whom we cling with affection."
+
+He said this more gently and kindly than I can write it. He suddenly
+seemed very far above me in his earnest kindness of heart and his sweet
+reasonableness. I was instantly possessed with a feeling akin to
+remorse and shame, to think how I had teased him and tyrannized over
+him all through those last few days. And I cannot tell how it happened,
+but he clasped me close in his arms and bent down and kissed me on the
+lips,--and I let him do it! Ah, such a thrill passed through me! And I
+felt sheltered and cared for as I had not done since my mother's
+clasping arms had been about me. I was for the moment above all petty
+annoyances,--borne aloft by a power I could not withstand.
+
+It lasted but a moment, for we were startled by the silken rustle of my
+aunt's gown, and did he release me? did I leave him? I do not know; but
+when Aunt Rosamunda appeared I was adjusting a rose in my breast, and
+Harry was--looking for his sabre!----. (When the major reached this
+point, he stamped on the floor with delight.)
+
+"Aha, Rosel, which of us was right?" he exclaimed aloud. He would have
+liked to summon his wife from where he could see her walking in the
+garden, to impart to her his glorious discovery. On reflection,
+however, he decided not to do so, chiefly because there was a good deal
+of manuscript still unread, and he was in a hurry to continue the
+perusal of what interested him so intensely.)
+
+----I avoided being alone with Harry all the rest of the evening, but
+the next morning at the railway-station, while my aunt was nervously
+counting over the pieces of luggage for the ninety-ninth time, I could not
+prevent his leaning towards me and saying, "Zdena, we were so unfortunately
+interrupted last evening. You have not yet told me--that----"
+
+I felt myself grow scarlet. "Wait for a while!" I murmured, turning my
+head away from him, but I think that perhaps--I pressed his hand----
+
+I must have done so, for happier eyes than those which looked after our
+train as it sped away I have never seen. Ah, how silly I had been! I
+carried with me for the rest of the journey a decided regret.----
+
+(The major frowned darkly. "Why, this looks as if she would like to
+withdraw her promise! But let me see, there really has no promise
+passed between them."
+
+He glanced hurriedly over the following leaves. "Descriptions of
+travel--compositions," he muttered to himself. "Paris--variations upon
+Baedeker--the little goose begins to be tiresome----Ah, here is
+something about her parents' grave--poor thing!  And here----" He began
+to read again.)
+
+
+----A few hours after our arrival we drove to the graveyard at
+Montmartre, an ugly, gloomy graveyard, bordering directly upon a
+business-street, so that the noise and bustle of the city sound
+deafeningly where the dead are reposing. The paths are as straight
+as if drawn by a ruler, and upon the graves lie wreaths of straw
+flowers or stiff immortelles. These durable decorations seem to me
+heartless,--as if the poor dead were to be provided for once for all,
+since it might be tiresome to visit them often.
+
+My parents' grave lies a little apart from the broad centre path, under
+a knotty old juniper-tree.
+
+I heaped it with flowers, and amid the fresh blossoms I laid the roses,
+now faded, which Harry gave me yesterday when we parted.
+
+
+I was enchanted with Paris. My aunt was delighted with the shops. She
+spent all her time in them, and thought everything very reasonable. At
+the end of four days she had bought so many reasonable articles that
+she had to purchase a huge trunk in which to take them home, and she
+had scarcely any money left.
+
+She was convinced that she must have made some mistake in her accounts,
+and she worked over them half through an entire night, but with no
+consoling result.
+
+The upshot of it was that she wanted to go home immediately; but since
+the trip had been undertaken chiefly for my health and was to end in a
+visit to some sea-side resort, she wrote to my uncle, explaining the
+state of affairs--that is, of her finances--and asking for a subsidy.
+
+My uncle sent the subsidy, but requested us to leave Paris as soon as
+possible, and to choose a modest seaside resort.
+
+The next day we departed from Babylon.
+
+After inquiring everywhere, and studying the guidebook attentively, my
+aunt finally resolved to go to St. Valery.
+
+The evening was cold and windy when we reached the little town and drew
+up in the omnibus before the Hôtel de la Plage.
+
+The season had not begun, and the hotel was not actually open, but it
+received us.
+
+As no rooms were taken, all were placed at our disposal, and we chose
+three in the first story, one for my aunt, one for me, and one for our
+trunks.
+
+The furniture, of crazy old mahogany, had evidently been bought of some
+dealer in second-band furniture in Rouen, but the beds were extremely
+good, and the bed-linen, although "coarse as sacking," as Uncle Paul
+would have expressed it, was perfectly clean and white.
+
+From our windows we looked out upon the sea and upon the little wooden
+hut where the safety-boat was kept, and also upon the little town park,
+about a hundred square yards in extent; upon the Casino, quite an
+imposing structure on the shore; upon the red pennons which,
+designating the bathing-place, made a brilliant show in the midst of
+the prevailing gray, and upon a host of whitewashed bath-houses waiting
+for the guests who had not yet arrived.
+
+How indeed could they arrive? One had need to have come from Bohemia,
+not to go directly home, in such cold, damp weather as we had; but we
+wanted to get value from our expensive trip.
+
+The Casino was no more open than the hotel, it was even in a decided
+_négligé_, but it was busily dressing. A swarm of painters and
+upholsterers were decorating it. The upholsterers hung the inside with
+crimson, the painters coloured the outside red and white.
+
+The proprietor, a broad-shouldered young man answering to the
+high-sounding name of Raoul Donval, daily superintended the work of
+the--artists. He always wore a white cap with a broad black visor, and
+a stick in the pocket of his short jacket, and plum-coloured
+knickerbockers; and I think he considered himself very elegant.
+
+They were draping and beautifying and painting our hotel too.
+Everything was being painted instead of scrubbed,--the stairs, the
+doors, the floors; everywhere the dirt was hidden beneath the same
+dull-red colour. Aunt Rosa declared that they seemed to her to be
+daubing the entire house with blood. Just at this time she was wont to
+make most ghastly comparisons, because, for lack of other literature,
+she was reading an historical romance in the _Petit Journal_.
+
+She was in a far more melancholy mood than I at St. Valery. Since it
+had to be, I made up my mind to it, consoling myself with the
+reflection that I was just nineteen, and that there was plenty of time
+for fate, if so minded, to shape my destiny brilliantly. Unfortunately,
+my aunt had not this consolation, but, instead, the depressing
+consciousness of having given up Bayreuth. It was hard. I was very
+sorry for her, and did all that I could to amuse her.
+
+I could always find something to laugh at in our visits to the empty
+Casino and in our walks through the town, but instead of cheering
+her my merriment distressed her. She had seen in the French journal
+which she studied faithfully every day an account of a sensitive
+trombone-player at the famous yearly festival at Neuilly who had broken
+his instrument over the head of an arrogant Englishman who had allowed
+himself to make merry over some detail of the festival. Therefore I
+could scarcely smile in the street without having my aunt twitch my
+sleeve and say,--
+
+"For heaven's sake don't laugh at these Frenchmen!--remember that
+trombone at Neuilly."
+
+During the first fortnight I had the whole shore, with the bath-houses
+and bathing-men, entirely to myself. It was ghastly! The icy
+temperature of the water seemed to bite into my flesh, my teeth
+chattered, and the bather who held me by both my hands was as blue as
+his dress. Our mutual isolation had the effect of establishing a
+friendship between the bather and myself. He had formerly been a
+sailor, and had but lately returned from Tonquin; he told me much that
+was interesting about the war and the cholera. He was a good-looking
+fellow, with a fair complexion and a tanned face.
+
+After my bath I ran about on the shore until I got warm, and then we
+breakfasted. My aunt did not bathe. She counted the days like a
+prisoner.
+
+When the weather permitted, we made excursions into the surrounding
+country in a little wagon painted yellow, drawn by a shaggy donkey,
+which I drove myself. The donkey's name was Jeanne d'Arc,--which
+horrified my aunt,--and she had a young one six months old that ran
+after us as we drove along.
+
+For more than two weeks we were the sole inmates of the Hôtel de la
+Plage. The manager of the establishment--who was likewise the head of
+the kitchen--drove to the station every day to capture strangers, but
+never brought any back.
+
+I see him now,--short and enormously broad, with a triple or quadruple
+chin, sitting on the box beside the coachman, his hands on his thighs.
+He always wore sky-blue trousers, and a short coat buckled about him
+with a broad patent-leather belt. The chambermaid, who revered him,
+informed me that it was the dress of an English courier.
+
+One day he brought back to the host, who daily awaited the guests, two
+live passengers,--an old woman and a young man.
+
+The old woman was very poor, and took a garret room. She must have been
+beautiful formerly, and she looked very distinguished. She positively
+refused to write her name in the strangers' book. By chance we learned
+afterwards that she was a Comtesse d'Ivry, from Versailles, who had had
+great misfortunes. She had a passion for sunsets; every afternoon she
+had an arm-chair carried out on the shore, and sat there, wrapped in a
+thick black cloak, with her feet on a hot-water bottle, to admire the
+majestic spectacle. When it rained, she still persisted in going, and
+sat beneath a large ragged umbrella. Upon her return she usually sighed
+and told the host that the sunsets here were not nearly so fine as at
+Trouville,--appearing to think that this was his fault.
+
+At last the weather brightened and it grew warm; the sun chased away
+the clouds, and allured a crowd of people to the lonely shore. And such
+people! I shudder to think of them.
+
+We could endure the solitude, but such society was unendurable.
+
+The next day I took my last bath.
+
+On our return journey, at Cologne, an odd thing happened.
+
+It was early, and I was sleepy. I was waiting for breakfast in
+melancholy mood, and was contemplating a huge pile of elegant
+hand-luggage which a servant in a very correct dark suit was
+superintending, when two ladies, followed by a maid, made their
+appearance, one fair, the other dark, from the dressing-room, which
+had been locked in our faces. In honour of these two princesses we had
+been obliged to remain unwashed. Ah, how fresh and neat and pretty they
+both looked! The dark one was by far the handsomer of the two, but she
+looked gloomy and discontented, spoke never a word, and after a hurried
+breakfast became absorbed in a newspaper. The fair one, on the contrary,
+a striking creature, with a very large hat and a profusion of passementerie
+on her travelling-cloak, talked a great deal and very loudly to a short,
+fat woman who was going with her little son to Frankfort, and who addressed
+the blonde as "Frau Countess."
+
+The name of the short woman was Frau Kampe, and the name of the
+Countess, which I shortly learned, shall be told in due time. The
+Countess complained of the fatigue of travelling; Frau Kampe, in a
+sympathetic tone, declared that it was almost impossible to sleep in
+the railway-carriages at this time of year, they were so overcrowded.
+But the Countess rejoined with a laugh,--
+
+"We had as much room as we wanted all the way; my husband secures that
+by his fees. He is much too lavish, as I often tell him. Since I have
+been travelling with him we have always had two railway-carriages, one
+for me and my maid, and the other for him and his cigars. It has been
+delightful."
+
+"Even upon your wedding tour?" asked her handsome, dark companion,
+looking up from her reading.
+
+"Ha, ha, ha! Yes, even upon our wedding tour," said the other. "We were
+a very prosaic couple, entirely independent of each other,--quite an
+aristocratic match!" And she laughed again with much self-satisfaction.
+
+"Where is the Herr Count?" asked Frau Kampe. "I should like to make his
+acquaintance."
+
+"Oh, he is not often to be seen; he is smoking on the platform
+somewhere. I scarcely ever meet him; he never appears before the third
+bell has rung. A very aristocratic marriage, you see, Frau Kampe,--such
+a one as you read of."
+
+The Countess's beautiful companion frowned, and the little Kampe boy
+grinned from ear to ear,--I could not tell whether it was at the
+aristocratic marriage or at the successful solution of an arithmetical
+problem which he had just worked out on the paper cover of one of
+Walter Scott's novels.
+
+I must confess that I was curious to see the young husband who even
+upon his marriage journey had preferred the society of his cigars to
+that of his bride.
+
+My aunt had missed the interesting conversation between Frau Kampe and
+her young patroness; she had rushed out to see the cathedral in the
+morning mist. I had manifested so little desire to join her in this
+artistic but uncomfortable enterprise that she had dispensed with my
+society. She now came back glowing with enthusiasm, and filled to
+overflowing with all sorts of information as to Gothic architecture.
+
+Scarcely had she seated herself to drink the coffee which I poured out
+for her, when a tall young man, slightly stooping in his gait, and with
+a very attractive, delicately-chiselled face, entered. Was he not----?
+Well, whoever he was, he was the husband of the aristocratic marriage.
+
+He exchanged a few words with the blonde Countess, and was about to
+leave the room, when his glance fell upon my aunt.
+
+"Baroness, you here!--what a delight!" he exclaimed, approaching her
+hastily.
+
+"Lato!" she almost screamed. She always talks a little loud away from
+home, which annoys me.
+
+It was, in fact, our old friend Lato Treurenberg. Before she had been
+with him two minutes my aunt had forgotten all her prejudice against
+him since his marriage,--and, what was more, had evidently forgotten
+the marriage itself, for she whispered, leaning towards him with a sly
+twinkle of her eye and a nod in the direction of the ladies,--
+
+"What noble acquaintances you have made!--from Frankfort, or Hamburg?"
+
+My heart was in my mouth. No one except Aunt Rosamunda could have made
+such a blunder.
+
+The words had hardly escaped her lips when she became aware of her
+mistake, and she was covered with confusion. Lato flushed scarlet. At
+that moment the departure of our train was announced, and Lato took a
+hurried leave of us. I saw him outside putting the ladies into a
+carriage, after which he himself got into another.
+
+We travelled second-class, and therefore had the pleasure of sharing a
+compartment with the man-servant and maid of the Countess Lato
+Treurenberg.
+
+My aunt took it all philosophically, while I, I confess, had much ado
+to conceal my ungrateful and mean irritation.
+
+I succeeded, however; I do not think my aunt even guessed at my state
+of mind. She went to sleep; perhaps she dreamed of Cologne Cathedral.
+I--ah, I no longer dreamed; I had long since awakened from my dreams,
+and had rubbed my eyes and destroyed all my fine castles in the air.
+
+The trip from which I had promised myself so much was over, and what
+had been effected? Nothing, save a more distinct appreciation of our
+straitened circumstances and an increase of my old gnawing discontent.
+
+I recalled the delightful beginning of our trip, the long, dreamy
+summer days in Vienna, the evening at Schönbrunn. Again I saw about me
+the fragrant twilight, and heard, through the plash of fountains and
+the whispering of the linden leaves, the sound of distant military
+music. I saw Harry--good heavens! how plainly I saw him, with his
+handsome mouth, his large, serious eyes! How he used to look at me! And
+I recalled how beautiful the world had seemed to me then, so beautiful
+that I thought I could desire nothing better than to wander thus
+through life, leaning upon his arm in the odorous evening air, with the
+echo of distant military music in my ear.
+
+Then ambition rose up before me and swept away all these lovely
+visions, showing me another picture,--Harry, borne down by cares, in
+narrow circumstances, his features sharpened by anxiety, with a pale,
+patient face, jesting bitterly, his uniform shabby, though carefully
+brushed. Ah, and should I not love him ten times more then than now! he
+would always be the same noble, chivalric----
+
+But I could not accept such a sacrifice from him. I could not; it would
+be unprincipled. Specious phrases! What has principle to do with it? I
+do not choose to be poor--no, I will not be poor, and therefore I am
+glad that we were interrupted at the right moment in Vienna. He cannot
+possibly imagine--ah, if he had imagined anything he would have written
+to me, and we have not had a line from him since we left him. He would
+have regretted it quite as much as I, if----
+
+It never would occur to him to resign all his grandfather's wealth for
+the sake of my golden hair. Young gentlemen are not given to such
+romantic folly nowadays; though, to be sure, he is not like the rest of
+them.
+
+The result of all my reflections was an intense hatred for my
+grandfather, who tyrannized over me thus instead of allowing affairs to
+take their natural, delightful course; and another hatred, somewhat
+less intense, for the brewery, which had absorbed half of Uncle Paul's
+property,--that is, much more than would have been necessary to assure
+me a happy future. When I saw from the railway the brew-house chimney
+above the tops of the old lindens, I shook my fist at it.
+
+My uncle was waiting for us at the station. He was so frankly rejoiced
+to have us back again that it cheered my heart. His eyes sparkled as he
+came to me after greeting my aunt. He gazed at me very earnestly, as if
+he expected to perceive some great and pleasant change in me, and then,
+putting his finger under my chin, turned my face from side to side.
+Suddenly he released me.
+
+"You are even paler than you were before!" he exclaimed, turning away.
+He had expected the sea-bathing to work miracles.
+
+"Do I not please you as I am, uncle dear?" I asked, putting my hand
+upon his arm. Then he kissed me; but I could see plainly that his
+pleasure was dashed.
+
+
+Now we have been at home four days, and I am writing my memoirs,
+because I am tired of having nothing to do. It does not rain to-day;
+the sun is burning hot,--ah, how it parches the August grass! The
+harvest was poor, the rye-straw is short, and the grains of wheat are
+small. And everything was so promising in May! My uncle spends a great
+deal of time over his accounts.
+
+
+                                                         August 8.
+
+Something quite extraordinary has happened. We have a visitor, a cousin
+of Aunt Rosamunda's,--Baron Roderich Wenkendorf. He is a very amiable
+old gentleman, about forty-five years old. He interests himself in
+everything that interests me,--even in Carlyle's 'French Revolution,'
+only he cannot bear it. Moreover, he is a Wagnerite; that is his only
+disagreeable characteristic. Every day he plays duets with Aunt
+Rosamunda from the 'Götterdämmerung,' which makes Uncle Paul and
+Morl nervous. Besides, he paints, of course only for pleasure, but
+very ambitiously. Last year he exhibited one of his pictures in
+Vienna--Napoleon at St. Helena--no, Charles the Fifth in the cloister.
+I remember, he cannot endure the Corsican upstart. He declares that
+Napoleon had frightful manners. We had a dispute about it. We often
+quarrel; but he entertains me, he pleases me, and so, perhaps----
+
+
+                                                        August 10.
+
+It might be worth while to take it into consideration. For my sake he
+would take up his abode in Bohemia. I do not dislike him, and my aunt
+says that marry whom you will you can never get used to him until after
+marriage. Harry and I should always be just the same to each other; he
+would always be welcome as a brother in our home, of course. I cannot
+really see why people must marry because they love each other.
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III.
+
+                              AN ARRIVAL.
+
+When the major reached this point in his niece's memoirs, he rubbed his
+forehead thoughtfully. "H'm!" he murmured; "why must people marry
+because they love each other? By Jove! On the whole, it is well that I
+now have some idea of what is going on in that insane little head."
+After this wise the major quieted his scruples as to the unpardonable
+indiscretion he had committed.
+
+The reading of Zdena's extraordinary production had so absorbed his
+attention that he had failed to hear the approach of some heavy vehicle
+which had drawn up before the castle, or the rhythmic beat of the hoofs
+of two riding-horses. Now he was suddenly startled by a firm step to
+the accompaniment of a low jingling sound in the corridor outside his
+room-door, at which there came a knock.
+
+"Come in!" he called out.
+
+A young officer of hussars in a blue undress uniform entered.
+
+"Harry! is it you?" the major exclaimed, cordially. "Let me have a look
+at you! What has put it into your head to drop down upon us so
+unexpectedly, like the _deus ex machinâ_ in the fifth act of a
+melodrama?"
+
+The young fellow blushed slightly. "I wanted to surprise you," he said,
+laughing, in some confusion.
+
+"And you will stay a while with us? How long is your leave?"
+
+"Six weeks."
+
+"That's right. And you're glad to be at home once more?" said the
+major, smiling broadly, and rubbing his hands.
+
+He seemed to his nephew to be rather _distrait_, which he certainly
+was, for all the while he was thinking of matters of which no mention
+was made.
+
+"My uncle has either been taking a glass too much or he has drawn the
+first prize in a lottery," Harry thought to himself as he said, aloud,
+"Hedwig has just come over, and Aunt Melanie."
+
+"Ah, the Zriny: has she quartered herself upon you?" the major asked,
+with something of a drawl.
+
+"I escorted her here from Vienna. Aunt Rosamunda deputed me to inform
+you of our relative's arrival, and to beg you to come immediately to
+the drawing-room."
+
+"H'm, h'm!--I'll go, I'll go," murmured the major, and he left the room
+apparently not very well pleased. In the corridor he suddenly turned to
+his nephew, who was following at his heels. "Have you seen Zdena yet?"
+he asked, with a merry twinkle of his eye.
+
+"N--o."
+
+"Well, go find her."
+
+"Where shall I look for her?"
+
+"In the garden, in the honeysuckle arbour. She is posing for her
+elderly adorer that he may paint her as Zephyr, or Flora, or something
+of the kind."
+
+"Her elderly adorer? Who is he?" Harry asked, with a frown, his voice
+sounding hard and sharp.
+
+"A cousin of my wife's, Baron Wenkendorf is his name, an enormously
+rich old bachelor, and head over ears in love with our girl. He calls
+himself a painter, in spite of his wealth, and he has induced the child
+to stand for some picture for him. He makes love to her, I suppose,
+while she poses."
+
+"And she--what has she to say to his homage?" asked Harry, feeling as
+if some one were choking him.
+
+"Oh, she's tolerably condescending. She does not object to being made
+love to a little. He is an agreeable man in spite of his forty-six
+years, and it certainly would be an excellent match."
+
+As the major finished his sentence with an expression of countenance
+which Harry could not understand, the paths of the two men separated.
+Harry hurried down into the garden; the major walked along the corridor
+to the drawing-room door.
+
+"H'm! I have warmed him up," the major said to himself; "'twill do no
+harm if they quarrel a little, those two children: it will bring the
+little goose to her senses all the sooner. There is only _one_ healthy
+solution for the entire problem. You----!" he shook his forefinger at
+the empty air. "Why must people marry because they love each other?
+Only wait, you ultrasensible little goose; I will remind you of that
+one of these days."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV.
+
+                               A QUARREL.
+
+
+Meanwhile, Harry has rushed out into the garden. He is very restless,
+very warm, very much agitated. It never occurs to him that his uncle
+has been chaffing him a little; he cannot suspect that the major has
+any knowledge of his sentiments.
+
+"She cannot be so worthless!" he consoles himself by reflecting, while
+his eyes search for her in the distance.
+
+With this thought filling his mind, the young officer hurries on. He
+does not find her at first; she is not in the honeysuckle arbour.
+
+The sultriness of the August afternoon weighs upon the dusty vegetation
+of the late summer. The leaves of the trees and shrubs droop wearily;
+the varied luxuriance of bloom is past; the first crop of roses has
+faded, the next has not yet arrived at maturity. Only a few red
+verbenas and zinnias gleam forth from the dull green monotony.
+
+At a turn of the path Harry suddenly starts, and pauses,--he has found
+what he is looking for.
+
+Directly in the centre of the hawthorn-bordered garden-path there is an
+easel weighted with an enormous canvas, at which, working away
+diligently, stands a gentleman, of whom Harry can see nothing but a
+slightly round-shouldered back, the fluttering ribbons of a Scotch cap
+set on the back of a head covered with short gray hair, and a gigantic
+palette projecting beyond the left elbow; while at some distance from
+the easel, clearly defined against the green background, stands a tall,
+graceful, maidenly figure draped in a loose, fantastic robe, her arms
+full of wild poppies, a large hat wreathed with vine-leaves on her
+small head, her golden-brown hair loose upon her shoulders,--Zdena! Her
+eyes meet Harry's: she flushes crimson,--the poppies slip from her arms
+and fall to the ground.
+
+"You here!" she murmurs, confusedly, staring at him. She can find no
+more kindly words of welcome, and her face expresses terror rather than
+joyful surprise, as a far less sharp-sighted lover than Harry
+Leskjewitsch could not fail to observe.
+
+He makes no reply to her words, but says, bluntly, pointing to the
+artist at the easel, "Be kind enough to introduce me."
+
+With a choking sensation in her throat, and trembling lips, Zdena
+stammers the names of her two adorers, the old one and the young one.
+The gentlemen bow,--Harry with angry formality, Baron Wenkendorf with
+formal amiability.
+
+"Aunt Rosa tells me to ask you to come to the drawing-room," Harry
+says, dryly.
+
+"Have any guests arrived?" asks Zdena.
+
+"Only my sister and Aunt Zriny."
+
+"Oh, then I must dress myself immediately!" she exclaims, and before
+Harry is aware of it she has slipped past him and into the house.
+
+Baron Wenkendorf pushes his Scotch cap a little farther back from his
+forehead, which gives his face a particularly amazed expression, and
+gazes with the same condescending benevolence, first at the vanishing
+maidenly figure, and then at the picture on the easel; after which he
+begins to put up his painting-materials. Harry assists him to do so,
+but leaves the making of polite remarks entirely to the "elderly
+gentleman." He is not in the mood for anything of the kind. He sees
+everything at present as through dark, crimson glass.
+
+Although Zdena's distress arises from a very different cause from her
+cousin's, it is none the less serious.
+
+"Oh, heavens!" she thinks to herself, as she hurries to her room to
+arrange her dishevelled hair, "why must he come before I have an answer
+ready? He surely will not insist upon an immediate decision! It would
+be terrible! Anything but a forced decision; that is the worst thing in
+the world."
+
+Such, however, does not seem to be the opinion of her hot-blooded
+cousin. When, a quarter of an hour afterwards, she goes out into the
+corridor and towards the drawing-room door, she observes a dark figure
+standing in the embrasure of a window. The figure turns towards her,
+then approaches her.
+
+"Harry! ah!" she exclaims, with a start; "what are you doing here? Are
+you waiting for anybody?"
+
+"Yes," he replies, with some harshness, "for you!"
+
+"Ah!" And, without looking at him, she hurries on to the door of the
+drawing-room.
+
+"There is no one there," he informs her; "they have all gone to the
+summer-house in the garden. Wenkendorf proposes to read aloud the
+libretto of 'Parzifal.'" He pauses.
+
+"And did you stay here to tell me this?" she stammers, trying to pass
+him, on her way to the steps leading into the garden. "It was very kind
+of you; you seem destined to play the part of sheep-dog to-day, to
+drive the company together."
+
+They go into the garden, and the buzz of voices reaches their ears from
+the summer-house. They have turned into a shady path, above which
+arches the foliage of the shrubs on either side. Suddenly Harry pauses,
+and seizing his cousin's slender hands in both his own, he gazes
+steadily and angrily into her eyes, saying, in a suppressed voice,--
+
+"Zdena, how can you hurt me so?"
+
+Her youthful blood pulsates almost as fiercely as does his own; now,
+when the moment for an explanation has come, and can no longer be
+avoided, now, one kind word from him, and all the barriers which with
+the help of pure reason she has erected to shield her from the
+insidious sweetness of her dreams will crumble to dust. But Harry does
+not speak this word: he is far too agitated to speak it. Instead of
+touching her heart, his harshness irritates her pride. Throwing back
+her head, she darts an angry glance at him from her large eyes.
+
+"I do not know what you mean."
+
+"I mean that you are letting that old coxcomb make love to you," he
+murmurs, angrily.
+
+She lifts her eyebrows, and replies, calmly, "Yes!"
+
+The young officer continues to gaze searchingly into her face.
+
+"You are thoughtless," he says, slowly, with emphasis. "In your eyes
+Wenkendorf is an old man; but he does not think himself so old as you
+think him, and--and----" Suddenly, his forced composure giving way, he
+bursts forth: "At the least it is ridiculous! it is silly to behave as
+you are doing!"
+
+In the entire dictionary Harry could have found no word with which to
+describe Zdena's conduct that would have irritated her more than
+"silly." If he had called her unprincipled, devilish, odious, cruel,
+she could have forgiven him; but "silly!"--that word she never can
+forgive; it makes her heart burn and smart as salt irritates an open
+wound.
+
+"I should like to know by what right you call me thus to account!" she
+exclaims, indignantly.
+
+"By what right?" he repeats, beside himself. "Can you ask that?"
+
+She taps the gravel of the pathway defiantly with her foot and is
+obstinately silent.
+
+"What did you mean by your treatment of me in Vienna? what did you mean
+by all your loving looks and kind words? what did you mean when you--on
+the evening before you left----"
+
+Zdena's face is crimson, her cheeks and ears burn with mortification.
+
+"We grew up together like brother and sister," she murmurs. "I have
+always considered you as a brother----"
+
+"Ah, indeed! a brother!" His pulses throb wildly; his anger well-nigh
+makes him forget himself. Suddenly an ugly idea occurs to him,--an
+odious suspicion. "Perhaps you were not aware there in Vienna that by a
+marriage with you I should resign my brilliant prospects?"
+
+They confront each other, stiff, unbending, both angry, each more ready
+to offend than to conciliate.
+
+Around them the August heat broods over the garden; the bushes, the
+flowers, the shrubbery, all cast black shadows upon the smooth-shaven,
+yellowing grass, where here and there cracks in the soil are visible.
+Everything is quiet, but in the distance can be heard the gardener
+filling his large watering-can at the pump, and the jolting along the
+road outside the garden of the heavy harvest-wagons laden with grain.
+
+"Did you know it then?" he asks again, more harshly, more
+contemptuously.
+
+Of course she knew it, quite as well as she knows it now; but what use
+is there in her telling him so, when he asks her about it in such a
+tone?
+
+Instead of replying, she frowns haughtily and shrugs her shoulders.
+
+For one moment more he stands gazing into her face; then, with a bitter
+laugh, he turns from her and strides towards the summer-house.
+
+"Harry!" she calls after him, in a trembling undertone, but his blood
+is coursing too hotly in his veins--he does not hear her. Although he
+is one of the softest-hearted of men, he is none the less one of the
+most quick-tempered and obstinate.
+
+We leave it to the reader to judge whether the major would have been
+very well satisfied with this result of his cunning diplomacy.
+
+Whilst the two young people have been thus occupied in playing at
+hide-and-seek with their emotions and sentiments, the little
+summer-house, where the reading was to be held, has been the scene of
+a lively dispute. Countess Zriny and Baron Wenkendorf have made mutual
+confession of their sentiment with regard to Wagner.
+
+The Countess is a vehement opponent of the prophet of Bayreuth, in the
+first place because in her youth she was a pupil of Cicimara's and
+consequently cannot endure the 'screaming called singing' introduced by
+Wagner; secondly, because Wagner's operas always give her headache; and
+thirdly, because she has noticed that his operas are sure to exercise
+an immoral influence upon those who hear them.
+
+Wenkendorf, on the contrary, considers Wagner a great moral reformer,
+the first genius of the century in Germany,--Bismarck, of course,
+excepted. As he talks he holds in his hand the thick volume of Wagner's
+collected librettos, with his forefinger on the title-page of
+'Parzifal,' impatiently awaiting the moment when he can begin to read
+aloud.
+
+Hitherto, since the Countess and Wenkendorf are both well-bred people,
+their lively dispute has been conducted in rather a humorous fashion,
+but finally Wenkendorf suggests a most reprehensible and, in the eyes
+of the Countess, unpardonable idea.
+
+"Whatever may be thought of Wagner's work, it cannot be denied," he
+says, with an oratorical flourish of his hand, "that he is at the head
+of the greatest musical revolution ever known; that he has, so to
+speak, delivered music from conventional Catholicism, overladen as it
+is with all sorts of silly old-world superstition. He is, if I may so
+express myself, the Luther of music."
+
+At the word 'Luther,' uttered in raised tones, the bigoted Countess
+nearly faints away. In her eyes, Luther is an apostate monk who married
+a nun, a monster whom she detests.
+
+"Oh, if you so compare him, Wagner is indeed condemned!" she exclaims,
+flushing with indignation, and trembling through all her mass of flesh.
+
+At this moment Zdena and her cousin enter. Countess Zriny feels it her
+duty to embrace the girl patronizingly. Hedwig says something to her
+about her new gown.
+
+"Did you get it in Paris?" she asks. "I saw one like it in Vienna last
+summer,--but it is very pretty. You carry yourself much better than you
+used to, Zdena,--really a great improvement!--a great improvement!"
+
+At last all are seated. Baron Wenkendorf clears his throat, and opens
+the portly volume.
+
+"Now we can begin," Frau Rosamunda observes.
+
+The Baron begins. He reads himself into a great degree of enthusiasm,
+and is just pronouncing the words,--
+
+
+           "Then after pain's drear night
+            Comes morning's glorious light;
+            Before me gleams
+              Brightly the sacred wave,
+            The blessed daylight beams,
+              From night of pain to save
+            Gawain----"
+
+
+when Frau Rosamunda, who has been rummaging in her work-basket, rises.
+
+"What is the matter, Rosamunda?" the Baron asks, impatiently. He is the
+only one who addresses her by her beautiful baptismal name unmutilated.
+
+"Excuse me, my dear Roderich, but I cannot find my thimble. Zdena, be
+so kind as to go and get me my thimble."
+
+While Zdena has gone to look for it, Frau von Leskjewitsch turns to her
+cousin, who is rather irritated by this interruption, and exclaims,
+"Very interesting!--oh, extremely interesting! Do you not think so?"
+turning for confirmation of her opinion to the other listeners. But the
+other listeners do not respond. Countess Zriny, who, with her hands as
+usual encased in Swedish gloves, is knitting with thick, wooden needles
+something brown for the poor, only drops her double chin majestically
+upon her breast, and Harry--usually quite unsurpassable in the
+well-bred art of being bored with elegance and decorum--is tugging
+angrily at his moustache.
+
+Zdena shortly returns with the missing thimble. The reading begins
+afresh, and goes quite smoothly for a time; Wenkendorf is satisfied
+with his audience.
+
+"Oh, wonderful and sacred one!" he is reading, with profound emotion.
+
+Everyone is listening eagerly. Hark! A scratching noise, growing louder
+each minute, and finally ending in a pounding at the summer-house door,
+arouses the little company from its rapt attention. A smile lights up
+Frau Rosamunda's serene features:
+
+"It is Morl. Let him in, Harry." Morl, the hostess's black poodle, is
+admitted, goes round the circle, laying his paw confidingly upon the
+knee of each member of it in turn, is petted and caressed by his
+mistress, and finally, after he has vainly tried to oust the Countess
+Zriny from the corner of the sofa which he considers his own special
+property, establishes himself, with a low growl, in the other corner of
+that piece of furniture.
+
+Wenkendorf, meanwhile, drums the march from 'Tannhäuser' softly on the
+cover of his thick book and frowns disapprovingly. Harry observes his
+annoyance with satisfaction, watching him the while attentively, and
+reflecting on the excellent match in view of which Zdena has forgotten
+her fleeting attachment for the playmate of her childhood.
+
+"A contemptible creature!" he says to himself: "any man is good enough
+to afford her amusement. Who would have thought it? Fool that I was!
+I'm well out of it,--yes, really well out of it."
+
+And whilst he thus seriously attempts to persuade himself that, under
+the circumstances, nothing could be more advantageous for him than this
+severance of all ties with his beautiful, fickle cousin, his heart
+burns like fire in his breast. He has never before felt anything like
+this torture. His glance wanders across to where Zdena sits sewing,
+with bent head and feverish intentness, upon a piece of English
+embroidery.
+
+The reading is interrupted again,--this time by Krupitschka, who wants
+more napkins for afternoon tea. Wenkendorf has to be assured with great
+emphasis that they all think the text of 'Parzifal' extremely
+interesting before he can be induced to open the book again. Suddenly
+the gravel outside crunches beneath approaching footsteps. The major's
+voice is heard, speaking in courteous tones, and then another, strange
+voice, deep and guttural. The summer-house door is opened.
+
+"A surprise, Rosel," the major explains. "Baroness Paula!"
+
+The first to go forward and welcome the young lady cordially is Harry.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V.
+
+                            BARONESS PAULA.
+
+
+The unexpected entrance of the famous beauty produces two important
+results,--the final cessation of the reading of 'Parzifal,' and a
+temporary reconciliation between Wenkendorf and Countess Zriny.
+
+Whilst Frau Rosamunda receives her guest, not without a degree of
+formal reserve, the two aforesaid worthy and inquisitive individuals
+retire to a corner to consult together as to where these Harfinks come
+from, to whom they are related, the age of their patent of nobility,
+and where they got their money.
+
+Since neither knows much about the Harfinks, their curiosity is
+ungratified. Meanwhile, Baroness Paula, lounging in a garden-chair
+beside the majestic hostess, chatters in a lively fashion upon every
+conceivable topic, as much at her ease as if she had been a daily guest
+at Zirkow for years. Her full voice is rather loud, her fluent
+vocabulary astounding. She wears a green Russia linen gown with Turkish
+embroidery on the skirt and a Venetian necklace around her throat,
+with an artistically-wrought clasp in front of her closely-fitting
+waist. The effect of her cosmopolitan toilet is considerably enhanced
+by a very peaked Paris bonnet--all feathers--and a pair of English
+driving-gloves. She has come in her pony-carriage, which she drives
+herself. Not taking into account her dazzling toilet, Paula is
+certainly a pretty person,--very fully developed and well grown,
+with perhaps too short a waist and arms a trifle too stout. Her
+features are regular, but her face is too large, and its tints of red
+and white are not sufficiently mingled; her lips are too full, the
+dimples in her cheeks are too deep when she smiles. Her hair is
+uncommonly beautiful,--golden, with a shimmer of Titian red.
+
+Her manner corresponds with her exterior. There is not a trace of
+maidenly reserve about her. Her self-satisfaction is impregnable. She
+talks freely of things of which young girls do not usually talk, and
+knows things which young girls do not usually know.
+
+She is clever and well educated,--left school with honours and
+listened to all possible university lectures afterwards. She scatters
+about Latin quotations like an old professor, and talks about
+everything,--the new battle panorama in Vienna, the latest greenroom
+scandal in Pesth, the most recent scientific hypothesis, and the last
+interesting English divorce case. One cannot help feeling that she has
+brought a certain life into the dead-and-alive little company which had
+failed to be enlivened by the reading of 'Parzifal.'
+
+"_Quelle type!_" Wenkendorf remarks to Countess Zriny.
+
+"_Épouvantable!_" she whispers.
+
+"_Épouvantable!_" he responds, staring meanwhile at the brilliant
+apparition. "Her figure is not bad, though," he adds.
+
+"Not bad?" the Countess repeats, indignantly. "Why, she has the figure
+of a country bar-maid; involuntarily one fancies her in short
+petticoats, with her arms full of beer-mugs."
+
+The Baron shakes his head, as if reflecting that there is nothing so
+very unattractive in the image of the young lady in the costume of a
+bar-maid; at the same time, however, he declares with emphasis that
+these Harfinks seem to be odious _canaille_, which, although it is
+perhaps his conviction, does not hinder him from admiring Paula.
+
+All the gentlemen present admire her, and all three, the major, the
+Baron, and Harry, are soon grouped about her, while the ladies at the
+other end of the room converse,--that is, make disparaging remarks with
+regard to the Baroness Paula.
+
+Harry, of the three men, is most pressing in his attentions, which
+amount almost to devotion. Whatever he may whisper to her she listens
+to with the unblushing ease which makes life so smooth for her.
+Sometimes she represses him slightly, and anon provokes his homage.
+
+The ladies hope for a while, but in vain, that she will go soon. She is
+pleased to take a cup of afternoon tea, after which all return to the
+house, where at Harry's request she makes a display of her musical
+acquirements.
+
+First she plays, with extreme force and much use of the pedals, upon
+the venerable old piano, unused to such treatment, even from the major,
+the ride of the Valkyrias, after which she sings a couple of soprano
+airs from 'Tannhäuser.'
+
+Harry admires her splendid method; Countess Zriny privately stops her
+ears with a little cotton-wool. Hour after hour passes, and Krupitschka
+finally announces supper. Baroness Paula begins hurriedly to put on her
+driving-gloves, but when Frau Leskjewitsch, with rather forced
+courtesy, invites her to stay to supper, she replies, "With the
+greatest pleasure."
+
+And now the supper is over. Harry's seat, meanwhile, has been next to
+Paula's, and he has continued to pay her extravagant compliments, which
+he ought not to have done; and, moreover, without eating a morsel, he
+has drunk glass after glass of the good old Bordeaux of which the major
+is so proud. All this has produced a change in him. The gnawing pain at
+his heart is lulled to rest; his love for Zdena and his quarrel with
+her seem relegated to the far past. For the present, here is this
+luxuriant beauty, with her flow of talk and her Titian hair. Without
+being intoxicated, the wine has mounted to his brain; his limbs are a
+little heavy; he feels a pleasant languor steal over him; everything
+looks rather more vague and delightful than usual; instead of a severe,
+exacting beauty beside him, here is this wonderful creature, with her
+dazzling complexion and her green, naiad-like eyes.
+
+Countess Zriny and Hedwig have already ordered their old-fashioned
+coach and have started for home. Harry's horses--his own and his
+groom's--are waiting before the entrance.
+
+It is ten o'clock,--time for bed at Zirkow. Frau Rosamunda rubs her
+eyes; Zdena stands, unheeded and weary, in one of the window embrasures
+in the hall, looking out through the antique, twisted grating upon the
+brilliant August moonlight. Paula is still conversing with the
+gentlemen; she proposes a method for exterminating the phylloxera, and
+has just formulated a scheme for the improvement of the Austrian
+foundling asylums.
+
+They are waiting for her pony-carriage to appear, but it does not come.
+At last, the gardener's boy, who is occasionally promoted to a
+footman's place, comes, quite out of breath, to inform his mistress
+that Baroness Paula's groom is in the village inn, so drunk that he
+cannot walk across the floor, and threatening to fight any one who
+interferes with him.
+
+"Very unpleasant intelligence," says Paula, without losing an atom of
+her equanimity. "There is nothing left to do, then, but to drive home
+without him. I do not need him; he sits behind me, and is really only a
+conventional encumbrance, nothing more. Good-night, Baroness! Thanks,
+for the charming afternoon. Goodnight! good-night! Now that the ice is
+broken, I trust we shall be good neighbours." So saying, she goes out
+of the open hall door.
+
+Frau Rosamunda seems to have no objections to her driving without an
+escort to Dobrotschau, which is scarcely three-quarters of an hour's
+drive from Zirkow, and even the major apparently considers this
+broad-shouldered and vigorous young woman to be eminently fitted to
+make her way in the world alone. But Harry interposes.
+
+"You don't mean to drive home alone?" he exclaims. "Well, I admire your
+courage,--as I admire every thing else about you," he adds, _sotto
+voce_, and with a Blight inclination of his head towards her,--"but I
+cannot permit it. You might meet some drunken labourer and be exposed
+to annoyance. Do me the honour to accept me as your escort,--that is,
+allow me to take the place of your useless groom."
+
+"By no means!" she exclaims. "I never could forgive myself for giving
+you so much trouble. I assure you, I am perfectly able to take care of
+myself."
+
+"On certain occasions even the most capable and clever of women lose
+their capacity to judge," Harry declares. "Be advised this time!" he
+implores her, as earnestly as though he were praying his soul out of
+purgatory. "My groom will accompany us. He must, of course, take my
+horse to Dobrotschau. Have no scruples."
+
+As if it would ever have occurred to Baroness Paula to have "scruples"!
+Oh, Harry!
+
+"If you really would be so kind then, Baron Harry," she murmurs,
+tenderly.
+
+"Thank God, she has gone at last!" sighs Frau Rosamunda, as she hears
+the light wagon rolling away into the night. "At last!"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI.
+
+                               ENTRAPPED.
+
+
+Before Harry seated himself beside the robust Paula in the
+pony-carriage, a slender little hand was held out to him, and a pale
+little face, half sad, half pouting, looked longingly up at him.
+
+He saw neither the hand nor the face. Oh, the pity of it!
+
+The night is sultry and silent. The full moon shines in a cloudless,
+dark-blue sky. Not a breath of air is stirring; the leaves of the tall
+poplars, casting coal-black shadows on the white, dusty highway, are
+motionless.
+
+The harvest has been partly gathered in; sometimes the moonlight
+illumines the bare fields with a yellowish lustre; in other fields the
+sheaves are stacked in pointed heaps, and now and then a field of rye
+is passed, a plain of glimmering, silvery green, still uncut. The
+bearded stalks stand motionless with bowed heads, as if overtaken by
+sleep. From the distance comes the monotonous rustle of the mower's
+scythe; there is work going on even thus far into the night.
+
+The heavy slumberous air has an effect upon Harry; his breath comes
+slowly, his veins tingle.
+
+Ten minutes have passed, and he has not opened his lips. Paula Harfink
+looks at him now and then with a keen glance.
+
+She is twenty-seven years old, and, although her life has been that of
+a perfectly virtuous woman of her class, existence no longer holds any
+secrets for her. Endowed by nature with intense curiosity, which has
+been gradually exalted into a thirst for knowledge, she has read
+everything that is worth reading in native and foreign modern
+literature, scientific and otherwise, and she is consequently
+thoroughly conversant with the world in which she lives.
+
+Harry's exaggerated homage during the afternoon has suggested the idea
+that he contemplates a marriage with her. That other than purely
+sentimental reasons have weight with him in this respect she thinks
+highly probable, but there is nothing offensive to her in the thought.
+She knows that, in spite of her beauty, she must buy a husband; why
+then should she not buy a husband whom she likes?
+
+Nothing could happen more opportunely than this drive in the moonlight.
+She is quite sure of bringing the affair to a satisfactory conclusion.
+
+Click-clack--the ponies' hoofs beat the dusty road in monotonous
+rhythm, tossing light silvery clouds of dust into the moonlight. Harry
+is still silent, when--a plump hand is laid upon his arm.
+
+"Please," Paula murmurs, half laughing, and handing him the reins,
+"drive for me. The ponies are so fresh to-night, they almost pull my
+hands off."
+
+Harry bows, the ponies shake their manes, snort proudly, and increase
+their speed, seeming to feel a sympathetic hand upon the reins.
+
+"And I fancied I could drive!" Paula says, with a laugh; "it is a
+positive pleasure to see you handle the reins."
+
+"But such toys as these ponies!" he remarks, with a rather impatient
+protest.
+
+"Can you drive four-in-hand?" she asks, bluntly.
+
+"Yes, and five-in-hand, or six-in-hand, for that matter," he replies.
+
+"Of course! How stupid of me to ask! Did you not drive five-in-hand on
+the Prater, three years ago on the first of May? Three chestnuts and
+two bays, if I remember rightly."
+
+"Yes; you certainly have an admirable memory!" Harry murmurs,
+flattered.
+
+"Not for everything," she declares, eagerly; "I never can remember
+certain things. For instance, I never can remember the unmarried name
+of Peter the Great's mother."
+
+"She was a Narischkin, I believe," says Harry, who learned the fact on
+one occasion when some foolish Narischkin was boasting of his imperial
+connections.
+
+Heaven knows what induces him to make a display to Paula of his
+historical knowledge. He usually suppresses everything in that
+direction which he owes to his good memory, as a learned marriageable
+girl will hold her tongue for fear of scaring away admirers. Harry
+thinks it beneath his dignity to play the cultured officer. He leaves
+that to the infantry.
+
+"You distance me in every direction," Paula says; "but as a whip you
+inspire me with the most respect. I could not take my eyes off your
+turn-out that day in the Prater. How docile and yet how spirited those
+five creatures were under your guidance! And you sat there holding the
+reins with as much indifference apparently as if they had been your
+shake at a state ceremony. I cannot understand how you contrive to keep
+the reins of a five-in-hand disentangled."
+
+"I find it much more difficult to understand how a man can play the
+guitar," Harry says, dryly.
+
+Paula laughs, though with a sense of vexation at being still so far
+from the attainment of her purpose. She takes off her tall hat, tosses
+it carelessly into the seat behind them, and slowly pulls the gloves
+off her white hands.
+
+"That is refreshing!" she says, and then is silent. For the nonce it is
+her wisest course.
+
+Harry's eyes seek her face, then take in her entire figure, and then
+again rest upon her face. The moon is shining with a hard, bluish
+brilliancy, almost like that of an electric light, and it brings into
+wondrous relief the girl's mature beauty. Its intense brightness
+shimmers about her golden hair; the red and white of her complexion
+blend in a dim, warm pallor. Her white hands rest in her lap as she
+leans back among the cushions of the phaeton.
+
+Click-clack--click-clack--the hoofs of the horses fly over the smooth,
+hard road; duller and less regular grows the beat of the horses' hoofs
+behind the wagon,--of Harry's steed and that of his groom.
+
+The fields of grain have vanished. They are driving now through a
+village,--a silent village, where every one is asleep. The dark
+window-panes glisten in the moonlight; the shadows of the pointed roofs
+form a black zigzag on the road, dividing it into two parts,--one dark,
+one light. Only behind one window shines a candle; perhaps a mother is
+watching there beside a sick or dying child. The candle-light, with its
+yellow gleam, contrasts strangely with the bluish moonlight. A dog bays
+behind a gate; otherwise, all is quiet.
+
+And now the village lies behind them,--a chaos of black roofs,
+whitewashed walls, and dark lindens. To the right and left are
+pasture-lands, where countless wild chamomile-flowers glitter white and
+ghostly among the grass, in the midst of which rises a rude wooden
+crucifix. The pungent fragrance of the chamomile-flowers mingles with
+the odour of the dust of the road.
+
+Then the pastures vanish, with the chamomile-flowers and the oppressive
+silence. A forest extends on either side of the road,--a forest which
+is never silent, where even in so quiet a night as this the topmost
+boughs murmur dreamily. It sounds almost like the dull plaint of
+human souls, imprisoned in these ancient pines,--the souls of men
+who aspired too high in life, seeking the way to the stars which
+gleamed so kindly when admired from afar, but which fled like
+glittering will-o'-the-wisps from those who would fain approach them.
+
+The moonlight seems to drip down the boles of the monarchs of the wood
+like molten silver, to lie here and there upon the underbrush around
+their feet. A strong odour rises from the warm woodland earth,--the
+odour of dead leaves, mingling deliciously with all other forest
+fragrance.
+
+"How wonderful!" Paula whispers.
+
+"Yes, it is beautiful," says Harry; and again his eyes seek the face of
+his companion.
+
+"And do you know what is still more beautiful?" she murmurs. "To feel
+protected, safe,--to know that some one else will think for you."
+
+The road grows rough; the wheels jolt over the stones; the little
+carriage sways from side to side. Paula clutches Harry's arm. Her
+waving hair brushes his cheek; it thrills him. She starts back from
+him.
+
+"Pardon me," she murmurs, as if mortified.
+
+"Pardon me, Baroness," he says. "I had no idea that the forest-road was
+so rough; it is the shortest. Did you not come by it to Zirkow?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You ought to have warned me."
+
+"I had forgotten it."
+
+Again the wheels creak; tire ponies snort their dissatisfaction, the
+little vehicle sways, and Paula trembles.
+
+"I am afraid it will be rougher yet," says Harry. "How stupid of me not
+to have thought of it! There!--the mud is really deep. Who could have
+supposed it in this drought? We are near the Poacher's ditch: I can
+perceive the swampy odour in the air."
+
+"The Poacher's ditch?" Paula repeats, in a low tone. "Is that the
+uncanny place where the will-o'-the-wisps dance?"
+
+"Are you afraid?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"So brave an Amazon--afraid?"
+
+"Yes, for the first time in my life. I do not know what has come over
+me," she whispers.
+
+"A poor compliment for me!" he says, then pauses and looks at her.
+
+She turns away her head as if she were blushing.
+
+The tall pines crowd closer and closer on either side of the road; the
+strip of moon-lit sky grows narrower overhead; the damp odour of
+decaying vegetation poisons the air. The gloom is intense, the
+moonbeams cannot find their way hither. In particular the road and the
+lower portion of the tree-trunks are veiled in deep shade. A tiny blue
+flame flickers up from the ground, dances among the trees,--then
+another--and another----
+
+"Ah!" Paula screams and clings like a maniac to Harry. He puts his arm
+round her, and soothes her, half laughing the while. Did his lips
+actually seek hers? A sudden, lingering kiss bewilders him, like the
+intoxicating perfume of a flower.
+
+It lasts but a second, and he has released her.
+
+"Forgive me!" he cries, distressed, confused.
+
+Does she really not understand him? At all events she only shakes her
+head at his words, and murmurs, "Forgive?--what is there to forgive? It
+came so unexpectedly. I had no idea that you loved me, Harry."
+
+His cheeks burn. The forest has vanished, the road is smooth;
+click-clack--the ponies' hoofs fly through the dust, and behind comes
+the irregular thud of eight other hoofs along the road. Harry looks
+round, and sees the groom, whom he had forgotten.
+
+The dim woodland twilight has been left far behind; the moon floods the
+landscape with silvery splendour. All is silent around; not a leaf
+stirs; only the faint, dying murmur of the forest is audible for a few
+moments.
+
+Ten minutes later Harry draws up before the Dobrotschau castle. "You
+will come to see mamma to-morrow?" Paula whispers, pressing her lover's
+hand. But Harry feels as if he could annihilate her, himself, and the
+whole world.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII.
+
+                             AN INVITATION.
+
+
+"My dear Baroness,--
+
+"Will you and all your family give us the pleasure of your company at
+dinner on Sunday next, at six o'clock? We wish to surprise you with the
+revelation of a secret that will, we think, interest you.
+
+"I hear you have a friend with you. It would, of course, be an added
+pleasure if Baron Wenkendorf would join us on Sunday.
+
+"Hoping for a favourable reply, I am
+
+                                   "Sincerely yours,
+
+                                         "Emilie Harfink."
+
+
+This note the Baroness Leskjewitsch takes from an envelope smelling of
+violets and adorned with an Edelweiss, and reads aloud in a depressed
+tone to her husband, her niece, and her cousin, all of whom listen with
+a more or less contemptuous expression of countenance.
+
+Not that the note is in itself any more awkward and pretentious than
+other notes of invitation,--no; but the fact that it comes from
+Baroness Harfink is quite sufficient to make the Zirkow circle
+suspicious and ironical.
+
+Three days have passed since the afternoon when Harry and Zdena
+quarrelled, and Zdena has had time thoroughly to repent her experiment.
+
+The little company is assembled at the breakfast-table in a small
+summer-house whence there is a view of a tiny fountain leaping about a
+yard into the air from an oval basin.
+
+Frau Rosamunda thinks the view of this fountain refreshing; the major
+despises the plaything, calls this breakfast-arbour the "wash-house,"
+or, when he means to be particularly disagreeable, "Wash-Basin Hall,"
+assuming the attitude, as he so designates it, of a kangaroo,--his
+elbows pressed to his sides, the palms of his hands turned
+outwards,--and availing himself of his most elegant German accent,
+which is unfortunately rather unnatural.
+
+"Surprise us? What surprise can the Baroness Harfink prepare for us in
+which we shall take any interest?" Frau Rosamunda says, musingly,
+laying the note down beside her plate.
+
+"Oh, leave me out! She knows that you are prone to curiosity, and
+she is doing what she can to attract you to her house," the major
+declares. "The 'surprise' is the bit of cheese in the Dobrotschau
+mouse-trap,--that is all. It may be a new service of old china, or some
+Japanese rug with golden monsters and chimeras sprawling about on it."
+
+"No; there is a tone of exultation about the note which indicates
+something far grander," says Frau Rosamunda, thoughtfully, buttering a
+piece of bread. "I rather think there is a new son-in-law to the fore."
+
+"H'm! Fräulein Paula's betrothal would certainly be a matter of special
+importance to us," the major says, contemptuously. "Perhaps it might
+make Harry ill. He made violent love to her the other day!" and the old
+cuirassier glances at Zdena. She is sipping a cup of tea, however, and
+her face cannot be seen.
+
+"I thought perhaps," Frau Rosamunda observes, "that Harry might----"
+
+"No, Rosa. Your genius is really too great," the major interrupts her,
+"if you can fancy for a moment that Harry meant anything serious by his
+attentions to that village bar-maid."
+
+Zdena has put down her teacup; her delicate nostrils quiver
+disdainfully, her charming mouth expresses decided scorn. How could
+Harry suppose----? Nonsense!
+
+"Well, stranger things have come to pass," observes Frau Rosamunda,
+sagely. "Do not forget that Lato Treurenberg has married into the
+Harfink family."
+
+"Oh, he--he was in debt--h'm!--at least his father was in debt," the
+major explains. "That is entirely different. But a man like Harry would
+never risk his colossal inheritance from his uncle for the sake of
+Paula Harfink. If it were for some one else, he might do so; but that
+red-cheeked dromedary--ridiculous!"
+
+"I really do not understand you. You seemed perfectly devoted to her
+the other day," rejoins Frau Rosamunda. "You all languished at her
+feet,--even you too, Roderich."
+
+Baron Wenkendorf looks up from a pile of letters and papers which he
+has been sorting.
+
+"What is the subject under discussion?" he asks. Dressed in the extreme
+of fashion, in a light, summer suit, a coloured shirt with a very high
+collar, a thin, dark-blue cravat with polka-dots, and the inevitable
+Scotch cap, with fluttering ribbons at the back of the neck, he would
+seem much more at home, so far as his exterior is concerned, on the
+shore at Trouville, or in a magnificent park of ancient oaks with a
+feudal castle in the background, than amidst the modest Zirkow
+surroundings. He suspects this himself, and, in order not to produce a
+crushing effect where he is, he is always trying to display the
+liveliest interest in all the petty details of life at Zirkow. "What is
+the subject under discussion?" he asks, with an amiable smile.
+
+"Oh, the Harfink."
+
+"Still?" says Wenkendorf, lifting his eyebrows ironically. "The young
+lady's ears must burn. She seems to me to have been tolerably well
+discussed during the last three days."
+
+"I merely observed that you were all fire and flame for her while she
+was here," Frau Rosamunda persists, "and that consequently I do not
+understand why you now criticise her so severely."
+
+"The impression produced upon men by that kind of woman is always more
+dazzling than when it is lasting," says the major.
+
+"H'm!--she certainly is a very beautiful person, but--h'm!--not a
+lady," remarks Wenkendorf; and his clear, full voice expresses the
+annoyance which it is sure to do whenever conversation touches upon the
+mushroom growth of modern _parvenues_. "Who are these Harfinks, after
+all?"
+
+"People who have made their own way to the front," growls the major.
+
+"How?"
+
+"By good luck, industry, and assurance," replies the major. "Old
+Harfink used to go regularly to his work every morning, with his
+pickaxe on his shoulder; he slowly made his way upward, working in the
+iron-mines about here; then he married a wealthy baker's daughter, and
+gradually absorbed all the business of the district. He was very
+popular. I can remember the time when every one called him 'Peter.'
+Next he was addressed as 'Sir,' and it came to be the fashion to offer
+him your hand, but before giving you his he used to wipe it on his
+coat-tail. He was comical, but a very honest fellow, a plain man who
+never tried to move out of his proper sphere. I think we never grudged
+him his wealth, because it suited him so ill, and because he did not
+know what to do with it." And the major reflectively pours a little rum
+into his third cup of tea.
+
+"I do not object to that kind of _parvenu_," says Wenkendorf. "The type
+is an original one. But there is nothing to my mind more ridiculous
+than the goldfish spawned in a muddy pond suddenly fancying themselves
+unable to swim in anything save eau de cologne. H'm, h'm! And that
+plain, honest fellow was, you tell me, the father of the lovely Paula?"
+
+"God forbid!" exclaims the major, bursting into a laugh at the mere
+thought.
+
+"You have a tiresome way of beginning far back in every story you tell,
+Paul," Frau Rosamunda complains. "You begin all your pedigrees with
+Adam and Eve."
+
+"And you have a detestable habit of interrupting me," her husband
+rejoins, angrily. "If you had not interrupted me I should have finished
+long ago."
+
+"Oh, yes, we all know that. But first you would have given us a
+description of old Harfink's boots!" Frau Rosamunda persists.
+
+"They really were very remarkable boots," the major declares, solemnly.
+"They always looked as if, instead of feet, they had a peck of onions
+inside them."
+
+"I told you so. Now comes the description of his cap," sighs Frau
+Rosamunda.
+
+"And the lovely Paula's origin retreats still further into obscurity,"
+Wenkendorf says, with well-bred resignation.
+
+"She is old Harfink's great-grand-daughter," says Zdena, joining for
+the first time in the conversation.
+
+"Old Harfink had two sons," continues the major, who hates to have the
+end of his stories told prematurely; "two sons who developed social
+ambition, and both married cultivated wives,--wives who looked down
+upon them, and with whom they could not agree. If I do not mistake,
+there was a sister, too. Tell me, Rosel, was there not a sister who
+married an Italian?"
+
+"I do not know," replies Frau Rosamunda. "The intricacies of the
+Harfink genealogy never inspired me with the faintest interest."
+
+The major bites his lip.
+
+"One thing more," says Wenkendorf. "How have you managed to avoid an
+acquaintance with the Harfinks for so long, if the family has belonged
+to the country here for several generations?"
+
+"Harfink number two never lived here," the major explains. "And they
+owned the iron-mines, but no estate. Only last year the widow Harfink
+bought Dobrotschau,--gallery of ancestral portraits, old suits of
+armour, and all. The mines have been sold to a stock company."
+
+"Not a very pleasing neighbourhood, I should say," observes Wenkendorf.
+
+"'Surprise you with the revelation of a secret,'" Frau Rosamunda reads,
+thoughtfully, in a low tone from the note beside her plate.
+
+And then all rise from table. Zdena, who has been silent during
+breakfast, twitches her uncle's sleeve, and, without looking at him,
+says,--
+
+"Uncle dear, can I have the carriage?"
+
+The major eyes her askance: "What do you want of the carriage?"
+
+"I should like to drive over to Komaritz; Hedwig will think it strange
+that I have not been there for so long."
+
+"H'm! don't you think Hedwig might do without you for a little while
+longer?" says the major, who is in a teasing humour.
+
+"Oh, let her drive over," Frau Rosamunda interposes. "I promised to
+send the housekeeper there a basket of Reine-Claudes for preserving,
+and Zdena can take them with her. And, Zdena, you might stop at
+Dobrotschau; I will leave it to your diplomatic skill to worm out the
+grand secret for us. I protest against assisting on Sunday at its
+solemn revelation."
+
+"Then shall I refuse the invitation for you?"
+
+"Yes; tell them that we expect guests ourselves on Sunday. And invite
+the Komaritz people to come and dine, that it may be true," the major
+calls after the girl.
+
+She nods with a smile, and trips into the castle. It is easy to see
+that her heart is light.
+
+"Queer little coquette!" thinks the major, adding to himself, "But
+she's a charming creature, for all that."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII.
+
+                              THE SECRET.
+
+
+An hour later Zdena, a huge red silk sunshade held over her handsome
+head, is driving rapidly towards Dobrotschau. She intends to make peace
+with her cousin.
+
+The exaggerated attentions which he paid to Paula vexed her for the
+moment, but now she remembers them with only a smile of contempt. "Poor
+Harry!" she murmurs, in a superior, patronizing way. "Poor Harry! he is
+a thoroughly good fellow, and so devoted to me!"
+
+The carriage rolls swiftly along the smooth road, upon which the last
+traces of a recent shower are fast fading beneath the August heat. The
+sky is blue and cloudless. The sun is rising higher; the stubble-fields
+to the right and left lie basking in its light; the shadows of the
+trees grow shorter and blacker, and the dark masses of the distant
+forests stand out in strong contrast with the sunny fields.
+
+Avoiding the rough forest road, the coachman takes the longer course
+along the highway. An hour and a quarter passes before Zdena drives
+through an arched gate-way, surmounted by a crest carved in the stone,
+into a picturesque court-yard, where between two very ancient lindens
+stands a Saint John of Nepomuk, whose cross has fallen out of his
+marble arms, and at whose feet an antique fountain, plashing dreamily,
+tells of long-gone times,--times that possess no interest for the
+present inmates of the castle.
+
+Zdena does not waste a glance upon the picturesque beauty of her
+surroundings. Two riding-horses, very much heated, and led up and down
+the old-fashioned court-yard, at once engage her attention. Are those
+not Harry's horses? What is Harry doing here? A slight sensation of
+anxiety assails her. Then she smiles at her nonsensical suspicions, and
+is glad that she shall thus meet Harry sooner than she had hoped.
+
+A footman in a plain and tasteful livery hurries forward to open her
+carriage door; the ladies are at home.
+
+Zdena trips up the steps to the spacious, airy hall, where, among
+antique, heavy-carved furniture, a couple of full suits of armour are
+set up, sword in gauntlet, like a spellbound bit of the Middle Ages, on
+either side of a tall clock, upon whose brass face the effigy of a
+grinning Death--his scythe over his shoulder--celebrates his eternal,
+monotonous triumph. On the walls hang various portraits, dim with age,
+of the ancestors of the late possessor, some clad in armour, some with
+full-bottomed wigs, and others again wearing powdered queues; with
+ladies in patch and powder, narrow-breasted gowns, and huge stiff
+ruffs.
+
+"If these worthies could suddenly come to life, how amazed they would
+be!" thinks Zdena. She has no more time, however, for profound
+reflections; for from one of the high oaken doors, opening out of the
+hall, comes Harry.
+
+They both start at this unexpected encounter; he grows deadly pale, she
+flushes crimson. But she regains her self-possession sooner than he can
+collect himself, and while he, unable to utter a word, turns his head
+aside, she approaches him, and, laying her hand gently upon his arm,
+murmurs, in a voice sweet as honey, "Harry!"
+
+He turns and looks at her. How charming she is! With the arch
+condescension of a princess certain of victory, she laughs in his face
+and whispers,--
+
+"Are you not beginning to be sorry that you said such hateful things to
+me the other day?"
+
+He has grown paler still; his eyes alone seem blazing in his head. For
+a while he leaves her question unanswered, devouring her lovely,
+laughing face with his gaze; then, suddenly seizing her almost roughly
+by both wrists, he exclaims,--
+
+"And are you not beginning to be sorry that you gave me cause to do
+so?"
+
+At this question, imprudent as it is, considering the circumstances,
+Zdena hangs her golden head, and whispers, very softly, "Yes."
+
+It is cold and gloomy in the hall; the two suits of armour cast long
+dark-gray shadows upon the black-and-white-tiled floor; two huge
+bluebottle flies are buzzing on the frame of an old portrait, and a
+large moth with transparent wings and a velvet body is bumping its head
+against the ceiling, whether for amusement or in despair it is
+impossible to say.
+
+Zdena trembles all over; she knows that she has said something
+conclusive, something that she cannot recall. She is conscious of
+having performed a difficult task, and she expects her reward.
+Something very sweet, something most delicious, is at hand. He must
+clasp her in his arms, as on that evening in Vienna. Ah, it is useless
+to try to deceive herself,--she cannot live without him. But he stands
+as if turned to stone, ashy pale, with a look of horror.
+
+A door opens. Paula Harfink enters the hall, tall, portly, handsome
+after her fashion, in a flowered Pompadour gown, evidently equipped for
+a walk, wearing a pair of buckskin gloves and a garden-hat trimmed with
+red poppies and yellow gauze.
+
+"Ah! have you been waiting for me up-stairs, Harry?" she asks; then,
+perceiving Zdena, she adds, "A visitor!--a welcome visitor!"
+
+To Zdena's amazement and terror, she finds herself tenderly embraced by
+Paula, who, looking archly from one to the other of the cousins, asks,
+"Shall we wait until Sunday for the grand surprise, Harry? Let your
+cousin guess. Come, Baroness Zdena, what is the news at Dobrotschau?"
+
+For one moment Zdena feels as if a dagger were plunged into her heart
+and turned around in the wound; then she recovers her composure and
+smiles, a little contemptuously, perhaps even haughtily, but naturally
+and with grace.
+
+"Oh, it is not very difficult to guess," she says. "What is the news?
+Why, a betrothal. You have my best wishes, Baroness; and you too,
+Harry,--I wish you every happiness!"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IX.
+
+                             AN ENCOUNTER.
+
+
+No one can bear pain with such heroic equanimity as can a woman when
+her pride or her sense of dignity is aroused. Full twenty minutes have
+elapsed since the light has been darkened in Zdena's sky, her thought
+of the future embittered, and every joy blotted out of her existence.
+During these twenty minutes she has talked and laughed; has walked in
+the park with Paula and Harry; has pointed out to the betrothed couple
+the comically human physiognomy of a large pansy in a flower-bed; has
+looked on while Paula, plucking a marguerite, proceeds, with an arch
+look at Harry, to consult that old-fashioned oracle, picking off the
+petals one by one, with, "He loves me, he loves me not." Yes, when
+urged to partake of some refreshment, she has even delicately pared and
+cut up with a silver knife a large peach, although she could not
+swallow a mouthful of it. How could she, when she felt as if an iron
+hand were throttling her!
+
+And now she is in the carriage again, driving towards home. As she
+drove off she had a last glimpse of Paula and Harry standing side by
+side in the picturesque court-yard before the castle, beside the
+fountain, that vies with the lindens in murmuring its old tales,--tales
+that no longer interest any one. They stood there together,--Paula
+waving her hand and calling parting words after the visitor; Harry
+stiff and mute, lifting his cap. Then Paula put her hand upon his arm
+to go back into the castle with him,--him, her lover, her property!
+
+And Zdena is alone at last. The pain in her heart is becoming torture.
+Her breath comes short and quick. At the same time she has the
+restless, impatient sensation which is experienced by all who are
+unaccustomed to painful emotion, before they can bring themselves
+to believe in the new and terrible trouble in which they find
+themselves,--a sensation of being called upon to shake off some burden
+unjustly imposed. But the burden can neither be shifted nor shaken off.
+
+Her consciousness is the burden, the burden of which she cannot be rid
+except with life itself. Life,--it has often seemed to her too short;
+and, in spite of all her transitory girlish discontent, she has
+sometimes railed at fate for according to mankind so few years in which
+to enjoy this lovely, sunny, laughing world. But now her brief earthly
+future stretches out endlessly before her,--an eternity in which joy is
+dead and everything black and gloomy.
+
+"Good God! will this torture last forever?" she asks herself. No, it is
+not possible that such pain can last long: she will forget it, she
+must! It seems to her that she can at least be rid of some of it if she
+can only weep her fill in solitude. Yes, she must cry it out before she
+goes back to Zirkow, before she meets again the keen, kindly eyes that
+would fain pry into her very soul.
+
+Meanwhile, she has told the coachman to drive to Komaritz. The carriage
+rolls through the long village. The air tastes of straw and hay; the
+rhythmic beat of the thrashers' flails resounds from the peasants'
+small barns. Zdena stops her ears; she cannot bear the noise,--the
+noise and the garish, cruel light. At last the village lies behind her.
+The sound of flails is still heard in the distance; to Zdena they seem
+to be beating the summer to death with clubs.
+
+The carriage drives on, drives towards the forest. On the edge of the
+wood stands a red-and-white signpost, the two indexes of which point in
+opposite directions through the depths of the leafy thicket: one
+pathway is tolerably smooth, and leads to Komaritz; the other, starting
+from the same point, is rough, and leads to Zirkow.
+
+She calls to the coachman. He stops the horses.
+
+"Drive on to Komaritz and leave the plums there," she orders him, "and
+I will meanwhile take the short path and walk home." So saying, she
+descends from the vehicle.
+
+He sees her walk off quickly and with energy; sees her tall, graceful
+figure gradually diminish in the perspective of the Zirkow woodland
+path. For a while he gazes after her, surprised, and then he obeys her
+directions.
+
+If Krupitschka had been upon the box he would have opposed his young
+mistress's order as surely as he would have disobeyed it obstinately.
+He would have said, "The Baroness does not understand that so young a
+lady ought not to go alone through the forest--the Herr Baron would be
+very angry with me if I allowed it, and I will not allow it."
+
+But Schmidt is a new coachman. He does as he is bidden, making no
+objection.
+
+Zdena plunges into the wood, penetrates deeper and deeper into the
+thicket, aimlessly, heedlessly, except that she longs to find a spot
+where she can hide her despair from human eyes. She does not wish to
+see the heavens, nor the sun, nor the buzzing insects and wanton
+butterflies on the edge of the forest.
+
+At last the shade is deep enough for her. The dark foliage shuts out
+the light; scarcely a hand's-breadth of blue sky can be seen among the
+branches overhead. She throws herself on the ground and sobs. After a
+while she raises her head, sits up, and stares into space.
+
+"How is it possible? How could it have happened?" she thinks. "I cannot
+understand. From waywardness? from anger because I was a little silly?
+Oh, God! oh, God! Yes, I take pleasure in luxury, in fine clothes, in
+the world, in attention. I really thought for the moment that these
+were what I liked best,--but I was wrong. How little should I care for
+those things, without him! Oh, God! oh, God! How could he find it in
+his heart to do it!" she finally exclaims, while her tears flow afresh
+down her flushed cheeks.
+
+Suddenly she hears a low crackling in the underbrush. She starts and
+looks up. Before her stands an elderly man of medium height, with a
+carefully-shaven, sharp-cut face, and a reddish-gray peruke. His tall
+stove-pipe hat is worn far back on his head, and his odd-looking
+costume is made up of a long green coat, the tails of which he carries
+under his left arm, a pair of wide, baggy, nankeen trousers, a long
+vest, with buttons much too large, and a pair of clumsy peasant shoes.
+The most remarkable thing about him is the sharp, suspicious expression
+of his round, projecting eyes.
+
+"What do you want of me?" stammers Zdena, rising, not without secret
+terror.
+
+"I should like to know what you are crying for. Perhaps because you
+have quarrelled with your cousin Henry," he says, with a sneer.
+
+He addresses her familiarly: who can he be? Evidently some one of
+unsound mind; probably old Studnecka from X----, a former brewer, who
+writes poems, and who sometimes thinks himself the prophet Elisha,
+under which illusion he will stop people in the road and preach to
+them. This must be he. She has heard that so long as his fancies are
+humoured he is perfectly gentle and harmless, but that if irritated by
+contradiction he has attacks of maniacal fury, and has been known to
+lay violent hands upon those who thus provoke him.
+
+Before she finds the courage to answer him, he comes a step nearer to
+her, and repeats his question with a scornful smile which discloses a
+double row of faultless teeth.
+
+"How do you know that I have a cousin?" asks Zdena, still more alarmed,
+and recoiling a step or two.
+
+"Oh, I know everything, just as the gypsies do."
+
+"Of course this is the prophet," the girl thinks, trembling. She longs
+to run away, but tells herself that the prudent course will be to try
+to keep him in good humour until she has regained the path out of this
+thicket, where she has cut herself off from all human aid. "Do you
+know, then, who I am?" she asks, trying to smile.
+
+"Oh, yes," replies this strange prophet, nodding his head. "I have long
+known you, although you do not know me. You are the foolish daughter of
+a foolish father."
+
+"How should he have any knowledge of me or of my family?" she reflects.
+The explanation is at hand. She remembers distinctly that the prophet
+Studnecka was one of the eccentric crowd that Baron Franz Leskjewitsch
+was wont to assemble about him for his amusement during the three or
+four weeks each year when the old man made the country around unsafe by
+his stay here.
+
+"You know my grandfather too, then?" she continues.
+
+"Yes, a little," the old man muttered. "Have you any message to send
+him? I will take it to him for you."
+
+"I have nothing to say to him!--I do not know him!" she replies. Her
+eyes flash angrily, and she holds her head erect.
+
+"H'm I he does not choose to know you," the old man remarks, looking at
+her still more keenly.
+
+"The unwillingness is mutual. I have not the least desire to know
+anything of him," she says, with emphasis.
+
+"Ah!--indeed!" he says, with a lowering glance from beneath his shaggy
+eyebrows. "Shall I tell him so, from you?"
+
+"If you choose!" she replies. Suddenly an idea strikes her; she
+observes him in her turn more keenly than hitherto, his face, his
+figure, his hands, tanned and neglected, but slender and shapely, with
+almond-shaped nails. There is something familiar in his features.
+
+Is he really the brewer Studnecka, the fool? And if no fool, who can it
+be that ventures thus to address her? Something thrills her entire
+frame. A portrait recurs to her memory,--a portrait of the elder
+Leskjewitsch, which, since the family embroilment, has hung in the
+lumber-room at Zirkow. There is not a doubt that this crazy old
+creature is her grandfather.
+
+He sees that she has recognized him.
+
+Her bearing has suddenly become haughty and repellent. She adjusts her
+large straw hat, which has been hanging at the back of her neck.
+
+"Then I am to tell him from you that you do not wish to have anything
+to do with him?" the old man asks again.
+
+"Yes." Her voice is hard and dull.
+
+"And besides," he asks, "have you nothing else to say to him?" He looks
+at her as if to read her soul.
+
+She returns his look with eyes in whose brown depths the tears so
+lately shed are still glistening. She knows that she is putting the
+knife to her own throat, but what matters it? The gathered bitterness
+of years overflows her heart and rises to her lips.
+
+"And besides,"--she speaks slowly and provokingly,--"besides, I should
+like to tell him that I consider his conduct cold-hearted, petty, and
+childish; that after he has tormented to death two people, my father
+and my mother, he might, in his old age, attempt by love and kindness
+to make some amends for his wickedness, instead of going on weaving
+fresh misery out of his wretched hatred and obstinacy, and--that never
+whilst I live will I make one advance towards him!" She bows slightly,
+turns, and leaves him. He looks after her graceful figure as it slowly
+makes its way among the underbrush and is finally lost to sight.
+
+"A splendid creature! What a carriage! what a figure! and what a
+bewitching face! No wonder she has turned the brain of that silly lad
+at Komaritz. He knows what's what. The child shows race," he mutters;
+"she's a genuine Leskjewitsch. All Fritz.--Poor Fritz!"
+
+The old man passes his hand across his forehead, and then gazes after
+her once more. Is that her blue dress glimmering among the trees? No,
+it is a bit of sky. She has vanished.
+
+Zdena manages to slip up to her own room unobserved when she reaches
+Zirkow. She makes her first appearance at table, her hair charmingly
+arranged, dressed as carefully as usual, talkative, gay. The most acute
+observer would hardly suspect that a few hours previously she had all
+but cried her eyes out.
+
+"And did you bring us the piece of news from Dobrotschau?" asks Frau
+Rosamunda during the soup, which Zdena leaves untasted.
+
+"Oh, yes. And most extraordinary it is," she replies. "Paula Harfink is
+betrothed."
+
+"To whom?"
+
+"To Harry," says Zdena, without the quiver of an eyelash, calmly
+breaking her bread in two as she speaks.
+
+"To Harry? Impossible!" shouts the major.
+
+"Not at all," Zdena declares, with a smile. "I saw him with her. She
+already calls him by his first name."
+
+"I do not understand the world nowadays," growls the old soldier,
+adding, under his breath, "That d--d driving about in the moonlight!"
+
+Frau von Leskjewitsch and her cousin Wenkendorf content themselves
+during the remainder of the meal with discussing the annoying
+consequences for the family from such a connection, partaking,
+meanwhile, very comfortably of the excellent dinner. The major glances
+continually at his niece. It troubles him to see her smile so
+perpetually. Is it possible that she is not taking the matter more
+seriously to heart?
+
+After dinner, when Frau von Leskjewitsch has carried her cousin off to
+the greenhouse to show him her now gloxinias, the major chances to go
+into the drawing-room, which he supposes empty. It is not so. In the
+embrasure of a window stands a figure, motionless as a statue,--quite
+unaware of the approach of any one. The major's heart suffers a sharp
+pang at sight of that lovely, tender profile, the features drawn
+and pinched with suppressed anguish. He would like to go up to his
+darling,--to take her in his arms. But he does not dare to do so. How
+can one bestow caresses upon a creature sore and crushed in every limb?
+He leaves the room on tiptoe, as one leaves the room of an invalid who
+must not be disturbed.
+
+"God have mercy on the poor child!" he murmurs.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X.
+
+                            A GARRISON TOWN.
+
+
+As was formerly remarked at the sale of the effects of Mademoiselle
+Pauline C----, "Very little body-linen and very many diamonds," so it
+may be said of the population of X----: very few inhabitants, but very
+many hussars.
+
+The town consists of a barracks and a Casino; the post-office, church,
+and school-house, as well as all the big and little houses, new and
+tasteless, or old and ruinous, are merely a secondary affair.
+
+The ugly square barracks, painted red, is situated upon what is called
+"The Ring," a spacious, uneven square, unpaved but trodden hard, and,
+besides, covered with dust, straw, remains of bundles of hay, and all
+kinds of dirt pertaining to a stable.
+
+Opposite the barracks is the Casino, also called "_Hostinee u bylé
+ruze_," or "The White Rose Inn." The barracks stands alone, haughtily
+exclusive. Adjoining the Casino and the post-office, however, are
+various ugly or half-ruinous structures, and opposite the post-office
+there is a line of unedifying building, describing a spacious
+circle,--low huts, two-storied houses, houses with mansard roofs,
+houses painted yellow, light green, or light pink, with a saint in a
+blue niche over the front door, and houses with creaking weathercocks
+on the roof, all half ruinous, but clinging affectionately to one
+another, like drunken recruits bent upon mutual support.
+
+It is noon. From the open windows of the most pretentious of these
+houses come the notes of a waltz, with a loud sound of shuffling and
+scraping, alternating with screaming and laughter. The story goes that
+the wife of the steward of the Casino, Frau Albina Schwanzara, former
+_prima ballerina_ at Troppau, is teaching the cancan behind those same
+windows to one of the celebrities of the little town, the wife of a
+wealthy tallow-chandler, and that the lady in question, for the
+entertainment of the corps of officers now stationed at X----, is to
+dance the aforesaid beautiful dance at the next "sociable," dressed as
+a chimney-sweeper. "Fast at any price!" is the device of the celebrity.
+The lively music is the only animate circumstance in "The Ring;" the
+sultry August heat has stricken dead everything else. The kellner at
+the door of the Casino, the sentinel at the gate of the barracks, are
+nodding where they stand. In a corner of the square is the wagon of a
+troupe of strolling players,--a green-painted house on wheels,--to
+which is harnessed a one-eyed steed with very long legs and a tail like
+a rat's. The prima donna of the troupe, a slovenly woman in shabby
+dancing-slippers, is squatting on a bundle of hay, flirting with a
+cavalry sergeant. A lank youth with long, straight, fair hair is
+thrashing with his suspenders a pig tied at the back of the wagon,
+while he holds up his trousers over his stomach with his left hand.
+Several other children of Thespis lie stretched out snoring, among
+various drums and ropes, in the dust.
+
+All the people who happen to be in the square stare at them.
+
+The universal interest is shortly diverted, however, by the arrival of
+two equipages and a luggage-wagon, all three driving down a side street
+to rein up before the post-office. In the first of the two vehicles, a
+large convenient landau, two ladies are seated with a young man
+opposite them. The second carriage is occupied by a valet and two
+maids.
+
+They have come from the nearest railway-station, and have merely
+stopped at the post-office for any letters and papers that may be
+awaiting them. While the servant is procuring these within the
+building, the young man alights from the landau and enters into
+conversation with the postmaster, eagerly inquiring what regiment is at
+present in garrison at X----.
+
+The curiosity of an increasing public becomes almost morbid. All crowd
+around the post-office. The young actress has lost her admirer,--the
+sergeant has rushed up to the young man.
+
+"Oh, Herr Lieutenant!" he calls out, eagerly; then, ashamed of his
+want of due respect, he straightens himself to the correct attitude
+and salutes with his hand at his cap. Two officers, each with a
+billiard-cue in his hand, come hastily out of the Casino, followed by a
+third,--Harry Leskjewitsch. The stranger receives the first two with
+due courtesy; Harry he scans eagerly.
+
+"You here, Harry!" he exclaims, going up to him with outstretched
+hands.
+
+The lady on the right in the landau lowers the red Bilk parasol with
+which she has hitherto shielded her face from public curiosity, and
+takes out her eye-glass; the other leans forward a little. Both ladies
+are in faultless travelling-dress. The one on the right is a beauty in
+her way, fair, with a good colour, a full figure, and regular features,
+although they may be a trifle sharp. Her companion is beautiful, too,
+but after an entirely different style,--a decided brunette, with a pale
+face and large eyes which, once gazed into, hold the gazer fast, as by
+the attraction one feels to solve a riddle.
+
+"Treurenberg!" Harry exclaims, grasping the stranger's hands in both
+his own.
+
+"I thought you were in Vienna," Treurenberg replies. "I cannot tell you
+how glad I am to see you! When did we meet last?"
+
+"At your marriage," says Harry.
+
+"True! It seems an eternity since then." Treurenberg sighs. "Only
+fancy, I had to shoot my 'Old Tom' last winter!"
+
+At this moment a little cavalcade passes across the square to reach the
+barracks,--an Amazon in a tight, very short riding-dress, followed and
+accompanied by several gentlemen.
+
+Treurenberg's attention is attracted by the horse-woman, who, although
+much powdered, rather faded, and with a feverish glow in her large,
+dark eyes, shows traces of very great beauty.
+
+"Is not that Lori Trauenstein?" Lato asks his new-found friend.
+
+"Yes,--now Countess Wodin, wife of the colonel of the regiment of
+hussars in garrison here."
+
+"An old flame of mine," Lato murmurs. "Strange! I scarcely recognized
+her. This is the first time I have seen her since----" he laughs
+lightly--"since she gave me my walking-ticket! Is Wodin the same as
+ever?"
+
+"How could he be anything else!"
+
+"And is she very fast?"
+
+"Very," Harry assents.
+
+The ladies in the landau have both stretched their necks to look after
+the Amazon. But while the face of the blonde expresses merely critical
+curiosity, in her companion's dark eyes there is sad, even horrified,
+surprise.
+
+The Amazon and her train disappear beneath the arched gate-way of the
+barracks.
+
+"Lato!" the portly blonde calls to Treurenberg from the landau.
+
+He does not hear her.
+
+"Do you remember my 'Old Tom'?" he asks his friend, returning to his
+favourite theme.
+
+"I should think so. A chestnut,--a magnificent creature!"
+
+"Magnificent! A friend,--an actual friend. That fat Rhoden--a cousin of
+my wife's--broke his leg in riding him at a hunt. But, to speak of
+something pleasanter, how are they all at Komaritz? Your cousin must be
+very pretty by this time?" And Treurenberg looks askance at his friend.
+
+"Very," Harry replies, and his manner suddenly grows cold and
+constrained. "But allow me to speak to your wife," he adds. "By the
+way, who is the young lady beside her?"
+
+"H'm! a relative,--a cousin of my wife's."
+
+"Present me, I pray," says Harry.
+
+He then pays his respects to the Countess Treurenberg and to her
+companion, whose name he now learns is Olga Dangeri.
+
+The Countess offers him her finger-tips with a gracious smile. Olga
+Dangeri, nodding slightly, raises her dark, mysterious eyes, looks him
+full in the face for a moment, and then turns away indifferent. The
+servant comes out of the post-office with a great bundle of letters,
+which the Countess receives from him, and with two or three packages,
+which he hands over to the maids.
+
+"What are you waiting for, Lato? Get in," the Countess says.
+
+"Drive on. I shall stay here with Leskjewitsch for a while,"
+Treurenberg replies.
+
+"Mamma is waiting breakfast for us."
+
+"I shall breakfast in the Casino. My respects to your mother."
+
+"As you please." The young Countess bows to Harry stiffly, with a
+discontented air, the horses start, a cloud of dust rises, and the
+landau rolls away. With his eyes half closed, Harry looks after the
+heavy brown carriage-horses.
+
+"Lato, that off horse is spavined."
+
+"For heaven's sake don't notice it! My mother-in-law bought the pair
+privately to surprise me. She paid five thousand guilders for them."
+
+"H'm! Who persuaded her to buy them?"
+
+"Pistasch Kamenz. I do not grudge him his bargain," murmurs Lato,
+adding, with a shake of the head, "'Tis odd, dogs and horses are the
+only things in which we have the advantage over the financiers."
+
+With which he takes his friend's arm and crosses the square to the
+Casino.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XI.
+
+                             AN OLD FRIEND.
+
+
+They are sitting in the farthest corner of the smoky dining-hall of the
+Casino, Harry and his friend, by a window that looks out upon a little
+yard. Harry is smoking a cigar, and sits astride of a chair; Lato
+contrives to sprawl over three chairs, and smokes cigarettes, using
+about five matches to each cigarette. Two glasses, a siphon, and a
+bottle of cognac stand upon a rickety table close by.
+
+The room is low, the ceiling is almost black, and the atmosphere
+suggests old cheese and stale cigar-smoke. Between the frames of their
+Imperial Majesties a fat spider squats in a large gray web. At a table
+not far from the two friends a cadet, too thin for his uniform, is
+writing a letter, while a lieutenant opposite him is occupied in
+cutting the initials of his latest flame, with his English penknife, on
+the green-painted table. Before a Bohemian glass mirror in a glass
+frame stands another lieutenant, with a thick beard and a bald pate,
+which last he is endeavouring artistically to conceal by brushing over
+it the long thick hair at the back of his neck. His name is Spreil; he
+has lately been transferred to the hussars from the infantry, and he is
+the butt for every poor jest in the regiment.
+
+"I cannot tell you how glad I am to see you," Treurenberg repeats to
+his friend. As he speaks, his cigarette goes out; he scrapes his
+twenty-fourth match in the last quarter of an hour, and breaks off its
+head.
+
+"The same old lack of fire!" Harry says, by way of a jest, handing him
+his lighted cigar.
+
+"Yes, the same old lack of fire!" Treurenberg repeats.
+
+Lack of fire! How often he has been reproached with it as a boy! Lack
+of fire; that means everything for which fire stands,--energy,
+steadfastness, manly force of will. There is no lack of passion, on the
+other hand; of dangerous inflammable material there is too much in his
+nature; but with him passion paralyzes effort instead of spurring to
+action. One need only look at him as he half reclines there, smiling
+dreamily to himself, scarcely moving his lips, to know him for what he
+is, indolent, impressionable, yet proud and morbidly refined withal; a
+thoroughly passive and very sensitive man. He is half a head taller
+than Harry, but carries himself so badly that he looks shorter; his
+face, framed in light brown hair and a soft pointed beard, is sallow;
+his large gray eyes are veiled beneath thick lids which he rarely opens
+wide. His hands are especially peculiar, long, slender, soft, incapable
+of a quick movement; hands formed to caress, but not to fight,--hardly
+even to clasp firmly.
+
+It is said that the colonel of the regiment of Uhlans, in which Lato
+served before his marriage to Selina Harfink, once declared of him,
+"Treurenberg ought to have been a woman, and then, married to a good
+husband, something might perhaps have been made of him."
+
+This criticism, which ought to have been uttered by a woman rather than
+by a logical, conventional man, went the round of Treurenberg's
+comrades. "The same old lack of fire," Lato repeats, smiling to
+himself. He has the mouth and the smile of a woman.
+
+Harry knows the smile well, but it has changed since the last time he
+saw it. It used to be indolent, now it is sad.
+
+"Have you any children?" Harry asks, after a while.
+
+Treurenberg shivers. "I had a boy, I lost him when he was fifteen
+months old," he says, in a low, strained tone.
+
+"My poor fellow! What did he die of?" Harry asks, sympathetically.
+
+"Of croup. It was over in one night,--and he was so fresh and healthy a
+child! My God! when I think of the plump little arms he used to stretch
+out to me from his little bed every morning," Lato goes on, hoarsely,
+"and then, as I said, in a few hours--gone! The physician did all that
+he could for the poor little fellow,--in vain; nothing did any good. I
+knew from the first that there was no hope. How the poor little chap
+threw himself about in his bed! I sometimes dream that I hear him
+gasping for breath, and he clung to me as if I could help him!"
+Treurenberg's voice breaks; he passes his hand over his eyes. "He was
+very little; he could hardly say 'papa' distinctly, but it goes
+terribly near one's heart when one has nothing else in the world,--I--I
+mean, no other children," he corrects the involuntary confession.
+
+"Well, all days have not yet ended in evening," Harry says, kindly, and
+then pauses suddenly, feeling--he cannot tell why--that he has made a
+mistake.
+
+Meanwhile, the lieutenant at the table has finished his initials, and
+has, moreover, embellished them with the rather crude device of a
+heart. He rises and saunters aimlessly about the large, low room,
+apparently seeking some subject for chaff, for boyish play. He kills a
+couple of flies, performs gymnastic exercises upon two chairs, and
+finally approaches the cadet, who, ensconced in a corner, behind a
+table, is scribbling away diligently.
+
+"Whom are you writing to?" he asks, sitting astride of a chair just
+opposite the lad.
+
+The cadet is silent.
+
+"To your sweetheart?"
+
+The cadet is still silent.
+
+"I seem to have guessed rightly," says the lieutenant, adding, "But
+tell me, does your present flame--here the sun called Wodin--tolerate a
+rival sun?"
+
+"I am writing to my mother," the cadet says, angrily. At the mention of
+the name of Wodin he flushes to the roots of his hair.
+
+"Indeed!--how touching!" the lieutenant goes on. "What are you writing
+to her? Are you asking her for money? or are you soothing her anxiety
+with an account of the solid character of your principles? Do show me
+your letter."
+
+The cadet spreads his arms over the sheet before him, thereby blotting
+the well-formed characters that cover it. "I tell you what, Stein----!"
+he bursts forth at his tormentor, his voice quivering with anger.
+
+Meanwhile, Lato turns towards him. "Toni!" he exclaims, recognizing a
+relative in the irate young fellow,--"Toni Flammingen!--can it be? The
+last time I saw you, you were in your public-school uniform. You've
+grown since then, my boy."
+
+Stein turns away from this touching family scene, and, taking his place
+behind Lieutenant Spreil, who is still occupied in dressing his hair,
+observes, in a tone of great gravity,--
+
+"Don't you think, Spreil, that you could make part of your thick beard
+useful in decorating that bald head of yours? Comb it up each side and
+confine it in place with a little sticking-plaster. It might do."
+
+Spreil turns upon him in a fury. "It might do for me to send you a
+challenge!" he thunders.
+
+"By all means: a little extra amusement would be welcome just now,"
+Stein retorts, carelessly.
+
+Spreil bows, and leaves the room with majesty.
+
+"For heaven's sake, Stein, what are you about?" Harry, who has been
+observing the scene, asks the idle lieutenant.
+
+"I have made a vow to rid our regiment of the fellow,--to chaff him out
+of it," Stein replies, with the sublime composure which results from
+the certainty of being in the right. "We do not want the infantry cad.
+If he is determined to mount on horseback, let him try a velocipede, or
+sit astride of Pegasus, for all I care; but in our regiment he shall
+not stay. You'll be my second, Les?"
+
+"Of course, if you insist upon it," Harry replies; "but it goes against
+the grain. I detest this perpetual duelling for nothing at all. It is
+bad form."
+
+"You need not talk; you used to be the readiest in the regiment to
+fight. I remember you when I was in the dragoons. But a betrothed man
+must, of course, change his views upon such subjects."
+
+At the word "betrothed" Harry shrinks involuntarily. Treurenberg looks
+up.
+
+"Betrothed!" he exclaims. "And to whom?"
+
+"Guess," says the lieutenant, who is an old acquaintance of
+Treurenberg's.
+
+"It is not hard to guess. To your charming little cousin Zdena."
+
+The lieutenant puckers his lips as if about to whistle, and says, "Not
+exactly. Guess again."
+
+Meanwhile, Harry stands like a man in the pillory who is waiting for a
+shower of stones, and says not a word.
+
+"Then--then--" Treurenberg looks from the lieutenant to his friend, "I
+have no idea," he murmurs.
+
+"To the Baroness Paula Harfink," says the lieutenant, his face devoid
+of all expression.
+
+There is a pause. Treurenberg's eyes try in vain to meet those of his
+friend.
+
+From without come the clatter of spurs and the drone of a hand-organ
+grinding out some popular air.
+
+"Is it true?" asks Treurenberg, who cannot rid himself of the idea that
+the mischievous lieutenant is jesting. And Harry replies, as calmly as
+possible,--
+
+"It is not yet announced. I am still awaiting my father's consent. He
+is abroad."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+The lieutenant pours out a thimbleful of brandy from the flask
+on the table, mixes it with seltzer-water and sugar, and, raising
+it to his lips, says, gravely, "To the health of your betrothed,
+Leskjewitsch,--of your sister-in-law, Treurenberg."
+
+"This, then, was the news of which my mother-in-law made such
+mysterious mention in her last letters," Lato murmurs. "This is the
+surprise of which she spoke. I--I hope it will turn out well," he adds,
+with a sigh.
+
+Harry tries to smile. From the adjoining billiard-room come the voices
+of two players in an eager dispute. The malicious lieutenant pricks up
+his ears, and departs for the scene of action with the evident
+intention of egging on the combatants.
+
+"Lato," Harry asks, clearing his throat, "how do you mean to get home?
+I have my drag here, and I can drop you at Dobrotschau. Or will you
+drive to Komaritz with me?"
+
+"With the greatest pleasure," Treurenberg assents. "How glad I shall be
+to see the old place again!"
+
+He is just making ready for departure, when several officers drop in at
+the Casino, almost all of them old friends of his. They surround him,
+shake hands with him, and will not let him go.
+
+"Can you wait a quarter of an hour for me?" he asks his friend.
+
+Harry nods. He takes no part in the general conversation. He scarcely
+moves his eyes from the spider-web between the Imperial portraits. A
+fly is caught in it and is making desperate efforts to escape. The
+bloated spider goes on spinning its web, and pretends not to see it.
+
+"Have a game of bézique? You used to be so passionately fond of
+bézique," Harry hears some one say. He looks around. It is Count Wodin,
+the husband of the pretty, coquettish horsewoman, who is speaking. Lato
+turns to Harry.
+
+"Can you wait for me long enough?" he asks, and his voice sounds
+uncertain and confused. "One short game."
+
+Harry shrugs his shoulders, as if to say, "As you please." Then,
+standing with one knee on a chair in the attitude of a man who is about
+to take leave and does not think it worth while to sit down again, he
+looks on at the game.
+
+The first game ends, then another, and another, and Treurenberg makes
+no move to lay the cards aside. His face has changed: the languid smile
+has gone, his eyes are eager, watchful, and his face is a perfectly
+expressionless mask. His is the typical look of the well-bred gambler
+who knows how to conceal his agitation.
+
+"_Cent d'as_--double bézique!" Thus it goes on to the accompaniment of
+the rustle of the cards, the rattle of the counters, and from the
+adjoining room the crack of the ivory balls against one another as they
+roll over the green cloth.
+
+"Well, Lato, are you coming?" asks Harry, growing impatient.
+
+"Only two games more. Can you not wait half an hour longer?" asks
+Treurenberg.
+
+"To speak frankly, I am not much interested in listening to your 'Two
+hundred and fifty,'--'five hundred,'--and so on."
+
+"Naturally," says Lato, with his embarrassed smile. He moves as if to
+rise. Wodin hands him the cards to cut. "Go without me. I will not
+keep you any longer. Some one here will lend me a horse by and by.
+Shall we see you to-morrow at Dobrotschau?" With which Treurenberg
+arranges his twelve cards, and Harry nods and departs.
+
+"Tell me, did you ever see a more blissful lover?" asks the teasing
+lieutenant, who has just returned from the billiard-room. As the
+disputants, in spite of all his efforts to the contrary, have made up
+their quarrel, there is nothing more for him to do there. "He seems
+inspired indeed at the thought of his beloved." And he takes a seat on
+the table nearest the players.
+
+"Every point in trumps," says Treurenberg, intent upon his game.
+
+"It is my impression that he would like to drink her health in
+aconite," the lieutenant continues.
+
+"That betrothal seems to me a most mysterious affair," mutters Wodin.
+"I do not understand Leskjewitsch: he was not even in debt."
+
+The lieutenant bites his lip, makes a private sign to Wodin, and takes
+pains not to look at Treurenberg.
+
+Lato flushes, and is absorbed in polishing his eyeglass, which has
+slipped out of his eye.
+
+"I lose three thousand," he says, slowly, consulting his tablets.
+"Shall we have another game, Wodin?"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII.
+
+                         A GRAVEYARD IN PARIS.
+
+
+Paris, in the middle of August.
+
+At about five in the afternoon, an old gentleman in a greenish-black
+overcoat that flutters about his thickset figure almost like a soutane,
+trousers that are too short, low shoes with steel buckles, and an
+old-fashioned high hat beneath which can be seen a rusty brown wig,
+issues from a quiet hotel much frequented by strangers of rank.
+
+His features are marked and strong. His brown skin reminds one of
+walnut-shells or crumpled parchment. Beneath his bushy eyebrows his
+prominent eyes glance suspiciously about him. It would be difficult to
+guess at this man's social position from his exterior. To the
+superficial observer he might suggest the peasant class. The ease,
+however, with which he bears himself among the fashionably-dressed men
+in the street, the despotic abruptness of his manner, the irritability
+with which he disputes some petty item in his hotel bill, while he is
+not at all dismayed by the large sum total, give the kellner, who
+stands in the door-way looking after him, occasion for reflection.
+
+"He's another of those miserly old aristocrats who suppress their title
+for fear of being plundered," he decides, with a shrug, as he turns
+back into the hotel, stopping on his way to inform the _concierge_
+that, in his opinion, the old man is some half-barbaric Russian prince
+who has come to Europe to have a look at civilization.
+
+The name in the strangers' book is simply Franz Leskjewitsch.
+
+Meanwhile, the stranger has walked on through the Rue de Rivoli to the
+corner of the Rue Castiglione, where he pauses, beckons to a fiacre,
+and, as he puts his foot heavily and awkwardly upon its step, calls to
+the driver, "_Cimetière Montmartre!_"
+
+The vehicle starts. The old man's eyes peer about sharply from the
+window. How changed it all is since he was last in this Babylon,
+twenty-two years ago, while the Imperial court was in its splendour,
+and Fritz was still alive!
+
+"Yes, yes, it is all different,--radically different," he murmurs,
+angrily. "The noise is the same, but the splendour has vanished. Paris
+without the Empire is like Baden-Baden without the gaming-tables. Ah,
+how fine it was twenty-two years ago, when Fritz was living!"
+
+Yes, he was not only living, but until then he had never been anything
+but a source of pleasure to his father; the same Fritz who had
+afterwards so embittered life for him that the same father had stricken
+him from his heart and had refused him even a place in his memory. But
+it is dangerous to try to rid ourselves of the remembrance of one whom
+we have once loved idolatrously. We may, for fear of succumbing to the
+old affection, close our hearts and lock them fast against all feeling
+of any kind. But if they do not actually die in our breasts, there
+will, sooner or later, come a day when memory will reach them in spite
+of our locks, and will demand for the dead that tribute of tears which
+we have refused to grant.
+
+There are few things more ghastly in life than tears shed for the dead
+twenty years too late.
+
+"Yes, a frivolous fellow, Fritz was,--frivolous and obstinate," the old
+man says to himself, staring at the brilliant shop-windows in the Rue
+de la Paix and at the gilded youths sauntering past them; "but when was
+there ever a man his equal? What a handsome, elegant, charming fellow,
+bubbling over with merriment and good humour and chivalric generosity!
+And the fellow insisted on marrying a shop-girl!" he mutters, between
+his teeth. The thought even now throws him into a fury. He had been so
+proud of the lad, and then--in one moment it was all over; no future to
+look to, the young diplomat's career cut short, the family pride
+levelled in the dust.
+
+The old rage had well-nigh filled his soul, when a lovely, pallid face
+rises upon his memory. Could Manette Duval have really been as charming
+as that golden-haired girl he had met awhile ago in the woods? The
+little witch looked as like Fritz as a delicate girl can look like a
+bearded man, and she had, withal, a foreign grace, the like of which
+had never hitherto characterized any Leskjewitsch child, and which
+might perhaps be an inheritance from her Parisian mother.
+
+And suddenly the father's conscience, silenced through all these long
+years, asserts itself. Yes, the marriage had been a folly, and Fritz
+had ruined his career by it. But suppose Fritz had, through his own
+fault, broken both his arms, or put out his eyes, or done anything else
+that would have destroyed his future, would it have been for his father
+to turn from him, reproaching him angrily for his folly, saying, "You
+have annihilated your happiness by your own fault; you have blasted the
+hopes I had for you; henceforth be as wretched as you deserve to be; I
+will have none of you, since I can no longer be proud of you!"
+
+The old man bites his lip and hangs his head.
+
+The carriage rolls on. The weather is excessively warm. In front of the
+shabby cafés on the Boulevard Clichy some people are sitting, brown and
+languid. Behind the dusty windows of the shops the shop-girls stand
+gazing drearily out upon their weary world, as if longing for somewhat
+of which they have read or dreamed,--something fresh and green; long
+shadows upon moist, fragrant lawns; gurgling brooks mirroring the sun.
+
+An emotion of compassion stirs in the old man's breast at sight of
+these "prisoners," and if one by chance seems to him prettier, paler,
+sadder than the rest, he asks himself, "Did she perhaps look so? No
+wonder Fritz pitied the poor creature! he had such a warm, tender
+heart!"
+
+The fiacre stops; the old man rubs his eyes. "How much?" he asks the
+driver.
+
+The man scans his fare from head to foot with a knowing glance:
+
+"Five francs."
+
+Baron Leskjewitsch takes four francs from the left pocket of his
+waistcoat, and from the right pocket of his trousers, where he keeps
+his small change, one sou, as a gratuity. These he gives to the driver,
+and sternly dismisses him. The man drives off with a grin.
+
+"The old miser thinks he has made a good bargain," he mutters.
+
+The 'miser' meanwhile paces slowly along the broad, straight path of
+the cemetery, between the tall chestnuts planted on either side.
+
+How dreary, how desolate a church-yard this is, upon which the
+noise and bustle of the swarming city outside its gates clamorously
+intrude!--a church-yard where the dead are thrust away as troublesome
+rubbish, only to put them where they can be forgotten. It is all so
+bare and prosaic; the flat stones lie upon the graves as if there was a
+fear lest, if not held down in such brutal fashion, the wretched dead
+would rise and return to a world where there is no longer any place for
+them, and where interests hold sway in which they have no part. Urns
+and other pagan decorations are abundant; there are but few crosses.
+The tops of the chestnut-trees are growing yellow, and here and there a
+pale leaf falls upon the baked earth.
+
+A gardener with a harshly-creaking rake is rooting out the sprouting
+grass from the paths; some gossiping women are seated upon the stone
+seats, brown, ugly, in starched and crimped white muslin caps, the gaps
+made by missing teeth in their jaws repulsively apparent as they
+chatter. A labouring man passes with a nosegay half concealed in the
+breast of his coat, and in his whole bearing that dull shamefacedness
+which would fain bar all sympathy, and which is characteristic of
+masculine grief. The old Baron looks about him restlessly, and finally
+goes up to the raking gardener and addresses him, asking for the
+superintendent of the place. After much circumlocution, gesticulation,
+and shouting on both sides, the two at last understand each other.
+
+"_Monsieur cherche une tombe, la tombe d'un étranger décédé à Paris?_
+When? Fifteen years ago. That is a very long time. And no one has ever
+asked after the grave before? Had the dead man no relatives, then? Ah,
+such a forgotten grave is very sad; it will be difficult to identify
+it. Maybe--who knows?--some other bodies have been buried there. Here
+is the guard."
+
+"For what is Monsieur looking?"
+
+"A grave."
+
+"The name?"
+
+"Baron Frédéric Leskjewitsch." The old man's voice trembles: perhaps it
+is too late; perhaps he has again delayed too long.
+
+But no: the guard's face immediately takes on an intelligent
+expression.
+
+"_Tres bien, monsieur; par id, monsieur_. I know the grave well. Some
+one from the Austrian embassy comes every year to look after it on the
+part of the relatives, and this year, not long ago,--oh, only a short
+time ago,--two ladies came and brought flowers; an elderly lady, and
+one quite young--oh, but very lovely, monsieur. _Par ici, par ici_."
+
+Following the attendant, the old man turns aside from the broad,
+principal path into a labyrinth of narrow foot-ways winding irregularly
+in and out among the graves. Here the church-yard loses its formal
+aspect and becomes pathetic. All kinds of shrubbery overgrow the
+graves. Some flowers--crimson carnations, pale purple gillyflowers, and
+yellow asters--are blooming at the feet of strangely-gnarled old
+juniper-trees. The old man's breath comes short, a sort of greed
+possesses him, a wild burning longing for the bit of earth where lies
+buried the joy of his life.
+
+The labouring man with hanging head has reached his goal the first. He
+is already kneeling beside a grave,--tiny little grave, hardly three
+feet long, and as yet unprovided with a stone. The man passes his hard
+hand over the rough earth tenderly, gently, as if he were touching
+something living. Then he cowers down as if he would fain creep into it
+himself, and lays his head beside the poor little nosegay on the fresh
+soil.
+
+"_Par ici_, monsieur,--here is the grave," calls the attendant.
+
+The old Baron shivers from head to foot.
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Here."
+
+A narrow headstone at the end of another stone lying flat upon the
+ground and enclosed by an iron palisade fence,--this is all--all! A
+terrible despair takes possession of the father. He envies the
+labourer, who can at least stroke the earth that covers his treasure,
+while he cannot even throw himself upon the grave from which a rusty
+iron grating separates him.
+
+Nothing which he can press to his heart,--nothing in which he can take
+a melancholy delight. All gone,--all! A cold tombstone enclosed in a
+rusty iron grating,--nothing more--nothing!
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIII.
+
+                            AT DOBROTSCHAU.
+
+
+It is the day after Treurenberg's meeting with Harry in the dusty
+little garrison town.
+
+Lato is sitting at his writing-table, counting a package of
+bank-notes,--his yesterday's winnings. He divides them into two packets
+and encloses them in two letters, which he addresses and seals and
+sends by a servant to the post. He has thus wiped out two old debts. No
+sooner have the letters left his hand than he brushes his fingers with
+his handkerchief, as if he had touched something unclean.
+
+Poor Treurenberg! He has never been a spendthrift, but he has been in
+debt ever since his boyhood. His pecuniary circumstances, however, have
+never been so oppressive, never have there been such disagreeable
+complications in his affairs, as since he has had a millionaire for a
+wife.
+
+He leans his elbows on his writing-table and rests his chin on his
+hands. Angry discontent with himself is tugging at his nerves. Is it
+not disgusting to liquidate an old debt to his tailor, and to pay
+interest to a usurer, with his winnings at play? What detestable things
+cards are! If he loses he hates it, and if he wins--why, it gives him a
+momentary satisfaction, but his annoyance at having impoverished a
+friend or an acquaintance is all the greater afterwards. Every sensible
+disposition of the money thus won seems to him most inappropriate.
+Money won at cards should be scattered about, squandered; and yet how
+can he squander it,--he who has so little and needs so much? How often
+he has resolved never to touch cards again! If he only had some strong,
+sacred interest in life he might become absorbed in it, and so forget
+the cursed habit. He has not the force of character that will enable
+him to sacrifice his passion for play to an abstract moral idea. His is
+one of those delicate but dependent natures that need a prop in life,
+and he has never had one, even in childhood.
+
+"What is the use of cudgelling one's brains till they ache, about
+what cannot be helped?" he says at last, with a sigh, "or which
+I at least cannot help," he adds, with a certain bitterness of
+self-accusation. He rises, takes his hat, and strolls out into the
+park. A huge, brown-streaked stag-hound, which had belonged to the old
+proprietor of the castle and which has dogged Lato's heels since the
+previous evening, follows him. From time to time he turns and strokes
+the animal's head. Then he forgets----
+
+At the same time, Paula is sitting in her study, on the ground-floor.
+It looks out on the court-yard, and is hung with sad-coloured leather,
+and decorated with a couple of good old pictures. She is sitting there
+clad in a very modern buff muslin gown, with a fiery red sash,
+listening for sounds without and with head bent meanwhile over
+Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet.'
+
+The noise of distant hoofs falls upon her ear, and a burning blush
+suffuses her plump cheek. Upon the white shade, which is pulled down,
+falls the shadow of a horse's head, and then the upper portion of his
+rider's figure. The hoofs no longer sound. Through the sultry summer
+stillness--breaking the monotonous plashing of the fountain and the
+murmur of the old linden--is heard the light, firm pat of a masculine
+hand upon a horse's neck, the caress with which your true horseman
+thanks his steed for service rendered; then an elastic, manly tread,
+the clatter of spurs and sabre, a light knock at the door of Paula's
+room, and Harry Leskjewitsch enters.
+
+Paula, with a smile, holds out to him both her hands; without smiling
+he dutifully kisses one of them.
+
+A pair of lovers in Meissen porcelain stands upon a bracket above
+Paula's writing-table,--lovers who have been upon the point of
+embracing each other for something more than a century. Above their
+heads hovers a tiny ray of sunshine, which attracts Harry's attention
+to the group. He and Paula fall into the very same attitudes as those
+taken by the powdered dandy in the flowered jacket and the little
+peasant-girl in dancing-slippers,--they are on the point of embracing;
+and for the first time in his life Harry wishes he were made of
+porcelain, that he might remain upon the point.
+
+His betrothal is now eight days old. The first day he thought it would
+be mere child's play to loosen the knot tied by so wild a chance, but
+now he feels himself fast bound, and is conscious that each day casts
+about him fresh fetters. In vain, with every hour passed with his
+betrothed, does he struggle not to plunge deeper into this labyrinth,
+from which he can find no means of extricating himself. In vain does he
+try to enlighten Paula as to his sentiments towards her by a stiff,
+repellent demeanour, never lying to her by look, word, or gesture.
+
+But what does it avail him to stand before her like a saint on a
+pedestal? Before he is aware, she has drawn his head towards her and
+kissed him on both eyes, whereupon both lovers sigh,--each for a
+different reason,--and then sit down opposite each other. Paula,
+however, does not long endure such formality. She moves her chair
+closer to his, and at last lays her hand on the young officer's
+shoulder.
+
+Harry is positively wretched. No use to attempt to deceive himself any
+longer: Paula Harfink is in love with him.
+
+Although she brought about the betrothal by means of cool cunning and
+determination, daily intercourse with the handsome, chivalric young
+fellow has kindled a flame in her mature heart, and her passion for him
+grows with every hour passed in his society.
+
+It is useless to say how little this circumstance disposes him in her
+favour. Love is uncommonly unbecoming to Paula. It is impossible to
+credit her with the impulse that forgets self and the world, or with
+the amount of ideal stupidity which invests all the nonsense of lovers
+with grace and naturalness. Involuntarily, every one feels inclined to
+smile when so robust and enlightened a woman--enlightened in all
+directions--suddenly languishes, and puts on the semblance of
+ultra-feminine weakness. Harry alone does not smile; he takes the
+matter very tragically.
+
+Sometimes, in deep privacy he clinches his fist and mentally calls his
+betrothed "a love-sick dromedary!"
+
+Naturally he does not utter such words aloud, not even when he is alone
+in his room, not even in the dark; but--thought is free!
+
+"What have you been doing all this time?" Paula asks at last, archly,
+thus breaking the oppressive silence.
+
+"This time? Do you mean since yesterday?" he asks, frowning.
+
+"It seemed long to me," she sighs. "I--I wrote you a letter, which I
+had not the courage to send you. There, take it with you!" And she
+hands him a bulky manuscript in a large envelope. It is not the first
+sizable billet-doux which she has thus forced upon him. In a drawer of
+his writing-table at Komaritz there reposes a pile of such envelopes,
+unopened.
+
+"Have you read the English novel I sent you yesterday?--wonderful, is
+it not?--hero and heroine so like ourselves."
+
+"I began it. I thought it rather shallow."
+
+"Oh, well, I do not consider it a learned work. I never care for depth
+in a novel,--only love and high life. Shall we go on with our
+Shakespeare?" she asks.
+
+"If you choose. What shall we read?"
+
+"The moonlight scene from Romeo and Juliet."
+
+Harry submits.
+
+
+Meanwhile, Lato, with his brown attendant, wanders along the shady
+paths of the Dobrotschau park. Now and then he pays some attention to
+his shaggy companion, strokes his head, sends him after a stick, and
+finally has him take a bath in the little reed-encircled lake on the
+shores of which stand weather-stained old statues, while stately swans
+are gliding above its green depths. These last indignantly chase the
+clumsy intruder from their realm.
+
+"Poor fellow! they will have none of you!" Treurenberg murmurs,
+consoling the dog as he creeps out upon the bank with drooping tail and
+ears.
+
+Suddenly he hears the notes of a piano from the direction of the
+castle. He turns and walks towards it, almost as if he were obeying a
+call.
+
+Pausing before an open glass door leading into the garden, he looks in
+upon a spacious, airy apartment, the furniture of which consists of a
+large Gobelin hanging, a grand piano, and some bamboo chairs scattered
+about.
+
+At the piano a young girl is seated playing a dreamy improvisation upon
+'The Miller and the Brook,' that loveliest and saddest of all
+Schubert's miller-songs. It is Olga. Involuntarily Lato's eyes are
+riveted upon the charming picture. The girl is tall and slim, with
+long, slender hands and feet. If one might venture to criticise
+anything so beautiful as her face, its pure oval might be pronounced a
+thought too long.
+
+Her features are faultless, despite their irregularity; the forehead is
+low, the eyebrows straight and delicately pencilled, the eyes large and
+dark, and, when she opens them wide, of almost supernatural brilliancy.
+The mouth is small, the under lip a trifle too full, and the chin a
+little too long.
+
+Those irregularities lend a peculiar charm to the face, reminding one
+of certain old Spanish family portraits,--dark-eyed beauties with high
+collars, and with huge pearls in their ears. The facts that Olga
+neither wears a bang nor curls her hair upon her forehead, but has it
+parted simply in the middle to lie in thick waves on either side of her
+head, and that her complexion is of a transparent pallor, contribute
+still further to her resemblance to those distinguished individuals.
+She wears a simple white gown, with a Malmaison rose stuck in her belt.
+Lato's eyes rest upon her with artistic satisfaction. The tender melody
+of the Miller's Song soothes his sore heart as if by a caress. He
+softly enters the room, sits down, and listens. Olga, suddenly aware by
+intuition of his presence, turns her head.
+
+"Ah!--you here?" she exclaims, blushing slightly, and taking her hands
+from the keys.
+
+"I have made so bold," he replies, smiling. "Have you any objection?"
+
+"No; but you should have announced yourself," she says, with a little
+frown.
+
+"Ah, indeed!" he rejoins, in the tone in which one teases a child.
+"Well, the listening to a musical soliloquy is generally considered
+only a harmless indiscretion."
+
+"Yes; when I am playing something worth listening to I have no
+objection, but I prefer to keep my halting improvisations to myself."
+
+"Well, then, play something worth listening to," he says,
+good-humouredly.
+
+She turns again to the instrument, and begins, with great brilliancy of
+touch, to play a bravura-scherzo, by some Viennese composer at present
+in fashion.
+
+"For heaven's sake," Treurenberg, whose feeling for music is as
+delicate as his appreciation of all beauty, interrupts her, "do not go
+on with that ghastly Witches' Sabbath!"
+
+"The 'ghastly Witches' Sabbath' is dedicated to your cousin, Countess
+Wodin," Olga replies, taking up a piece of music from the piano. "There
+it is!" she points to the title-page "'Dedicated to the Frau Countess
+Irma Wodin, _née_ Countess Trauenstein, by her devoted servant, etc.' I
+thought the thing might interest you."
+
+"Not in the least. Be a good girl, and play the Miller's Song over
+again."
+
+She nods amiably. Again the dreamy melody sighs among the strings of
+the piano. Lato, buried in thought, hums the words,--
+
+
+           "Where'er a true heart dies of love,
+            The lilies fade that grave above."
+
+
+"Do you know the words too?" Olga exclaims, turning towards him.
+
+"If you but knew how often I have heard that song sung!" he replies,
+with the absent air of a man whose thoughts are straying in a far past.
+
+"At concerts?"
+
+"No, in private."
+
+"By a lady?" she asks, half persistently, half hesitatingly.
+
+"Yes, grand inquisitor, by a lady; by a lady for whom I had a little
+_tendresse_--h'm!--a very sincere _tendresse_. She sang it to me every
+day. The very evening before her betrothal she sang it to me; and how
+deliciously sweet it was! Would you like to know who it was?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"The Countess Wodin."
+
+"The Countess Wodin!" Olga exclaims, amazed.
+
+Lato laughs. "You cannot understand how any one could take any interest
+in such a flirt?"
+
+"Oh, no," she says, thoughtfully, "it is not that. She is very pretty
+even yet, and gay and amusing, but--he is horrible, and I cannot
+understand her marrying him, when----"
+
+"When she might have had me?" he concludes her sentence, laughing.
+
+"Frankly, yes." As she speaks she looks full in his face with
+undisguised kindliness.
+
+He smiles, flattered, and still more amused. "What would you have?
+Wodin was rich, and I--I was a poor devil."
+
+"Oh, how odious!" she murmurs, frowning, her dark eyes glowing with
+indignation. "I cannot understand how any one can marry for money----"
+She stops short. As she spoke her eyes met his, and his were instantly
+averted. An embarrassing pause ensues.
+
+Olga feels that she is upon dangerous ground. They both change
+colour,--he turns pale, she blushes,--but her embarrassment is far
+greater than his. When he looks at her again he sees that there are
+tears in her eyes, and he pities her.
+
+"Do not vex yourself, Olga," he says, with a low, bitter laugh. And
+taking one of her slender hands in his, he strokes it gently, and then
+carries it to his lips.
+
+"Ah, still _aux petits soins_?--how touching!" a harsh nasal voice
+observes behind the pair. They look round and perceive a young man,
+who, in spite of his instant apology for intruding, shows not the
+slightest disposition to depart. He is dressed in a light summer suit
+after the latest watering-place fashion. He is neither tall nor short,
+neither stout nor slender, neither handsome nor ugly, but thoroughly
+unsympathetic in appearance. His very pale complexion is spotted with a
+few pock-marks; his light green eyes are set obliquely in his head,
+like those of a Japanese; the long, twisted points of his moustache
+reach upward to his temples, and his hair is brushed so smoothly upon
+his head that it looks like a highly-polished barber's block. But all
+these details are simply by the way; what especially disfigures him is
+his smile, which shows his big white teeth, and seems to pull the end
+of his long, thin nose down over his moustache.
+
+"Fainacky!" exclaims Treurenberg, unpleasantly surprised.
+
+"Yes, the same! I am charmed to see you again, Treurenberg," exclaims
+the Pole. "Have the kindness to present me to your wife," he adds,
+bowing to Olga.
+
+"I think my wife is dressing," Treurenberg says, coldly. "This is a
+young relative,--a cousin of my wife's.--Olga, allow me to introduce to
+you Count Fainacky."
+
+
+In the mean time Paula is occupied with her betrothed's education. In
+tones that grow drowsier and drowsier, while his articulation becomes
+more and more indistinct, Harry stumbles through Shakespeare's immortal
+verse.
+
+Paula's part is given with infinite sentiment. The thing is growing too
+tiresome, Harry thinks.
+
+"I really have had enough of this stuff for once!" he exclaims, laying
+aside his volume.
+
+"Ah, Harry, how can you speak so of the most exquisite poetry of love
+that ever has been written?"
+
+He twirls his moustache ill-humouredly, and murmurs, "You are very much
+changed within the last few days."
+
+"But not for the worse?" she asks, piqued.
+
+"At last she is going to take offence," he says to himself, exultantly,
+and he is beginning to finger his betrothal-ring, when the door opens
+and a servant announces, "Herr Count Fainacky."
+
+"How well you look, my dear Baroness Paula! Ah, the correct air,
+beaming with bliss,--_on connaît cela!_ Taking advantage of your Frau
+mother's kind invitation, I present myself, as you see, without
+notification," the Pole chatters on. "How are you, Harry? In the
+seventh heaven, of course,--of course." And he drops into an arm-chair
+and fans himself with a pink-bordered pocket-handkerchief upon which
+are depicted various jockeys upon race-horses, and which exhales a
+strong odour of musk.
+
+"I am extremely glad to see you," Paula assures the visitor. "I hope
+you have come to stay some days with us. Have you seen mamma yet?"
+
+"No." And Fainacky fans himself yet more affectedly. "I wandered around
+the castle at first without finding any one to announce me. Then I had
+an adventure,--ha, ha! _C'est par trop bête!_"
+
+"What was it?"
+
+"In my wanderings I reached an open door into a room looking upon the
+garden. There I found Treurenberg and a young lady,--only fancy,--I
+thought it was his wife. I took that--what is her name?--Olga--your
+_protégée_--for your sister,--for the Countess Selina, and begged
+Treurenberg to present me to his wife,--ha, ha! _Vraiment c'est par
+trop bête!_"
+
+At this moment a tall, portly figure, with reddish hair, dazzling
+complexion, and rather sharp features, sails into the room.
+
+"Here is my sister," says Paula, and a formal introduction follows.
+
+"Before seeing the Countess Selina I thought my mistake only comical. I
+now think it unpardonable!" Fainacky exclaims, with his hand on his
+heart. "Harry, did the resemblance never strike you?" He gazes in a
+rapture of admiration at the Countess.
+
+"What resemblance?" asks Harry.
+
+"Why, the resemblance to the Princess of Wales."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIV.
+
+                                 OLGA.
+
+
+"And pray who is Fräulein Olga?"
+
+It is Fainacky who puts this question to the Countess Treurenberg, just
+after luncheon, during which meal he has contrived to ingratiate
+himself thoroughly with Lato's wife.
+
+He and the Countess are seated beneath a red-and-gray-striped tent on
+the western side of the castle; beside them stands a table from which
+the coffee has not yet been removed. The rest of the company have
+vanished.
+
+The Baroness Harfink is writing a letter to her brother, one of the
+leaders of the Austrian democracy, who was once minister for three
+months; Paula and Harry are enjoying a _tête-à-tête_ in the park, and
+Treurenberg is taking advantage of the strong sunlight to photograph
+alternately and from every point of view a half-ruinous fountain and
+two hollyhocks.
+
+"Pray who is this Fräulein Olga?" Fainacky asks, removing the ashes
+from the end of his cigarette with the long finger-nail of his little
+finger.
+
+"Ah, it is quite a sad story," is the Countess Selina's reply.
+
+"Excuse me if I am indiscreet; I had no idea----" the Pole begins.
+
+"Oh, you are one of the family, quite one of the family," Selina
+assures him, with an amiable smile. "I might have thought the
+question embarrassing from any one else, but I can speak to you without
+reserve of these matters. You are perhaps aware that a sister of my
+father's,--is only sister,--when quite an old maid,--I believe she was
+thirty-seven,--ran off with an actor, a very obscure comedian; I think
+he played the elderly knights at the Rudolfsheim Theatre, and as the
+bandit Jaromir he turned her head. She displayed the _courage de ses
+opinions_, and married him. He treated her brutally, and she died,
+after fifteen years of wretched married life. On her death-bed she sent
+for my father, and bequeathed her daughter to his care. This was Olga.
+My father--I cannot tell how it happened--took the most immense fancy
+to the girl. He tried to persuade mamma to take her home immediately.
+Fancy! a creature brought up amid such surroundings, behind the
+foot-lights. True, my aunt was separated from her bandit Jaromir for
+several years before her death; but under such strange circumstances
+mamma really could not take the little gypsy into the house with her
+own half-grown daughters. So she was sent to a convent, and we all
+hoped she would become a nun. But no; and when her education was
+finished, shortly before papa's death, mamma took her home. I was
+married at the time, and I remember her arrival vividly. You can
+imagine how terrible it was for us to admit so strange an element among
+us. But, although he seldom interfered in domestic affairs, it was
+impossible to dispute papa's commands."
+
+"H'm, h'm!" And the Pole's slender white fingers drum upon the top of
+the table. "_Je comprends_. It is a great charge for your mother, and
+_c'est bien dur_." Although he speaks French stumblingly, he
+continually expresses himself in that tongue, as if it is the only one
+in which he can give utterance to the inmost feelings of his soul.
+
+"Ah, mamma has always sacrificed everything to duty!" sighs Selina;
+"and somebody had to take pity upon the poor creature."
+
+"Nobly said, and nobly thought, Countess Selina; but then, after
+all,--an actor's daughter,--you really do not know all that it means.
+Does she show no signs of her unfortunate parentage?"
+
+"No," says Selina, thoughtfully; "her manners are very good, the spell
+of the Sacré C[oe]ur Convent is still upon her. She is not particularly
+well developed intellectually, but, since you call my attention to it,
+she does show some signs of the overstrained enthusiasm which
+characterized her mother."
+
+"And in combination with her father's gypsy blood. Such signs are
+greatly to be deplored," the Pole observes. "You must long to have her
+married?"
+
+"A difficult matter to bring about. Remember her origin." The Countess
+inclines her head on one side, and takes a long stitch in her
+embroidery. "She must be the image of her father. The bandit Jaromir
+was a handsome man of Italian extraction."
+
+"Is the fellow still alive?" asks the Pole.
+
+"No, he is dead, thank heaven! it would be terrible if he were not,"
+says Selina, with a laugh. "_À propos_," she adds, selecting and
+comparing two shades of yellow, "do you think Olga pretty?"
+
+"H'm! _pas mal_,--not particularly. Had I seen her anywhere else, I
+might perhaps have thought her pretty, but here--forgive my frankness,
+Countess Selina--no other woman has a chance when you are present. You
+must be conscious of that yourself."
+
+"_Vil flatteur!_" the young wife exclaims, playfully lashing the Pole's
+hand with a skein of wool. The pair have known each other for scarcely
+three hours, and they are already upon as familiar a footing as if they
+had been friends from childhood. Moreover, they are connections. At
+Carlsbad, where Fainacky lately made the acquaintance of the Baroness
+Harfink and her daughter Paula, he informed the ladies that one of his
+grandmothers, a Löwenzahn by birth, was cousin to an uncle of the
+Baroness's.
+
+The persistence with which he dwelt upon this fact, the importance he
+attached to being treated as a cousin by the Harfinks, touched Paula as
+well as her mother. Besides, as they had already told Selina, they
+liked him from the first.
+
+"One is never ashamed to be seen with him," was the immediate decision
+of the fastidious ladies; and as time passed on they discovered in him
+such brilliant and unusual qualities that they considered him a great
+acquisition,--an entertaining, cultivated man of some talent.
+
+He is neither cultivated nor entertaining, and as for his talent, that
+is a matter of opinion. If his singing is commonplace, his performance
+on the piano commonplace, and the _vers de société_ which he scribbles
+in young ladies' extract-books more commonplace than all, in one art he
+certainly holds the first rank,--the art of discovering and humouring
+the weaknesses of his fellow-mortals, the art of the flatterer.
+
+To pursue this art with distinguished ability two qualifications are
+especially needful,--impudence and lack of refinement. With the help
+of these allies the strongest incense may be wafted before one's
+fellow-creatures, and they will all--with the exception of a few
+suspicious originals--inhale it eagerly. Experience has taught Fainacky
+that boldness is of far more avail in this art than delicacy, and he
+conducts himself accordingly.
+
+Flattery is his special profession, his means for supporting his idle,
+coxcomb existence,--flattery and its sister art, slander. A successful
+epigram at another's expense gives many of us more pleasure than a
+compliment paid to ourselves.
+
+He flutters, flattering and gossiping, from one house to another. The
+last few weeks he has spent with a bachelor prince in the
+neighbourhood, who, a sufferer from neuralgia in the face, has been
+known, when irritated, to throw the sofa-cushions at his guests. At
+first Fainacky professed to consider this a very good joke; but one day
+when the prince showed signs of selecting more solid projectiles for
+the display of his merry humour, Fainacky discovered that the time had
+come for him to bestow the pleasure of his society elsewhere.
+
+Dobrotschau seemed to offer just what he sought, and he has won his
+hostess's heart a second time by his abuse during luncheon of his late
+host's cook.
+
+While he is now paying court to the Countess Selina, a touching scene
+is enacting in another part of the garden. Paula, who during her walk
+with her betrothed has perceived Treurenberg with his photographic
+apparatus in the distance, proposes to Harry that they be photographed
+as lovers. The poor young fellow's resistance avails nothing against
+Paula's strong will. She triumphantly drags him up before the
+apparatus, and, after much trying, discovers a pose which seems to her
+sufficiently tender. With her clasped hands upon Harry's shoulder, she
+gazes up at him with enthusiastic devotion.
+
+"Do not look so stern," she murmurs; "if I did not know how you love
+me, I should almost fancy you hated me."
+
+Lato, half shutting his eyes in artistic observation of the pair, takes
+off the shield of the instrument, saying, "Now, if you please!"
+
+The impression is a failure, because Harry moved his head just at the
+critical moment. When, however, Paula requires him to give pantomimic
+expression to his tender sentiments for the second time, he declares
+that he cannot stay three minutes longer, the 'vet' is waiting for him
+at Komaritz.
+
+"Oh, that odious 'vet'!" sighs Paula. "This is the third time this week
+that you have had to leave me because of him."
+
+Harry bites his lip. Evidently it is high time to invent another
+pretext for the unnatural abbreviation of his visits. But--if she would
+only take offence at something!
+
+"Can you not come with me to Komaritz?" he asks Lato, in order to give
+the conversation a turn, whereupon Lato, who instantly accedes to his
+request, hurries into the castle to make ready for his ride. Shortly
+afterwards, riding-whip in hand, he approaches Selina, who is still
+beneath the red-and-gray tent with Fainacky.
+
+"Ah, you are going to leave me alone again, faithless spouse that you
+are!" she calls out, threatening him with a raised forefinger. Then,
+turning to the Pole, she adds, "Our marriage is a fashionable one, such
+as you read of in books: the husband goes one way, the wife another.
+'Tis the only way to make life tolerable in the long run, is it not,
+Lato?"
+
+Lato makes no reply, flushes slightly, kisses his wife's hand, nods
+carelessly to Fainacky, and turns to go.
+
+"Shall you come back to dinner?" Selina calls after him.
+
+"Of course," he replies, as he vanishes behind the shrubbery.
+
+Fainacky strokes his moustache thoughtfully, stares first at the
+Countess, then at the top of the table, and finally gives utterance to
+an expressive "Ah!"
+
+Lato hurries on to overtake his friend, whom he espies striding towards
+the park gate.
+
+Suddenly Olga approaches him, a huge straw hat shading her eyes, and in
+her hands a large, dish-shaped cabbage-leaf full of inviting, fresh
+strawberries.
+
+"Whither are you hurrying?" she asks.
+
+"I am going to ride to Komaritz with Harry," he replies. "Ah, what
+magnificent strawberries!"
+
+"I know they are your favourite fruit, and I plucked them for you," she
+says.
+
+"In this heat?--oh, Olga!" he exclaims.
+
+"The sun would have burned them up by evening," she says, simply.
+
+He understands that she has meant to atone for her inadvertence of the
+morning, and he is touched.
+
+"Will you not take some?" she asks, persisting in offering him the
+leaf.
+
+He takes one. Meanwhile, his glance encounters Harry's. Olga is
+entirely at her ease, while Lato--from what cause he could not possibly
+tell--is slightly embarrassed.
+
+"I have no time now," he says, gently rejecting the hand that holds the
+leaf.
+
+"Shall I keep them for your dessert?--you are coming back to dinner?"
+she asks.
+
+"Certainly. I shall be back by six o'clock," he calls to her. "Adieu,
+my child."
+
+As the two friends a few minutes later ride down the long poplar
+avenue, Harry asks,--
+
+"Has this Olga always lived here?"
+
+"No. She came home from the convent a year after my marriage. Selina
+befriends her because Paula cannot get along with her. She often
+travels with us."
+
+"She seems pleasant and sympathetic," says Harry, adding, after a short
+pause, "I have seldom seen so perfect a beauty."
+
+"She is as good as gold," Lato says, quickly, adding, in a rather lower
+tone, "and most forlorn, poor thing!"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XV.
+
+                         COMRADES AND FRIENDS.
+
+
+The clumsy Komaritz mansion casts its huge shadow upon the
+old-fashioned garden, upon the large rectangular flower-beds
+bordered with sage and parsley, wherein bloom in gay companionship
+sweet-smelling centifolia roses, dark-blue monk's-hood, scarlet
+verbenas, and lilac phlox; upon the tangle of raspberry- and
+blackberry-bushes that grow along the garden wall; and upon the
+badly-mown lawn. Ancient pear-trees and apple-trees mingle their shade
+with that of the old house.
+
+An afternoon languor broods over it all. The buzz of bees above the
+flower-beds sounds languid; languid sounds the rustle of the leaves
+when, after a prolonged slumber, they awake for an instant, shiver, and
+then fall silent again; languid is the tone of the old piano, upon
+which the youngest Leskjewitsch is practising the 'Cloches du
+Monastere,' under the supervision of a teacher engaged for the summer
+holidays,--a Fräulein Laut.
+
+Nothing is for the present to be seen or heard of the other inmates of
+the castle. Hedwig is consulting with her maid, and the Countess Zriny
+is endeavouring to repair a great misfortune. On her journey from
+Vienna to Komaritz she relieved her maid, who was overladen with
+hand-bags, of two objects particularly dear to her soul,--a carved,
+partly-painted and partly-gilded St. John, and a large bottle of eau de
+Lourdes. In changing trains at Pernik, she slipped and fell at full
+length upon the platform; the bottle of eau de Lourdes flew one way and
+the St. John another; the bottle was broken, and St. John not only lost
+his head and one hand, but when the poor Countess gathered up his
+remains he proved to be injured in every part. His resuscitation is at
+present the important task of the old lady's life. At this moment she
+is working away at the folds of his garment with much devotion--and
+black oil paint.
+
+Harry and Lato have told no one of their arrival. They are lying upon a
+grassy slope beneath a huge apple-tree, smoking, and exchanging
+reminiscences.
+
+"How homelike all this is!" says Treurenberg, in his soft voice, and
+with a slightly drawling intonation. "I grow ten years younger here.
+The same flowers, the same trees, the same fragrance, the same
+world-forgotten solitude, and, if I am not mistaken,"--he smiles a
+little,--"the same music. You used to play the 'Convent Bells' then."
+
+"Yes," Harry replies, "'Les Cloches du Monastere' was the acme and
+the point of departure of my musical studies. I got rid of my last
+music-teacher and my last 'coach' at the same time."
+
+"Do you mean Tuschalek?" asks Treurenberg.
+
+"That was his name."
+
+"H'm! I can see him now. Heavens! those hands!" Treurenberg gazes
+reflectively into space. "They were always as red as radishes."
+
+"They reminded me rather of carrots that had just been pulled out of
+the ground," Harry mutters.
+
+"How the old times rise up before me!" Lato muses, letting his glance
+wander anew over the garden, where there is buzzing of innumerable
+bees; over the clumsy façade of the mansion; over the little eminence
+where still stand the quarters of Tuschalek and the Pole; then up to
+the old ruined castle, which stands out against the dark-blue August
+skies an almost formless shape, brown and grim, with its old scars from
+fire, and hung about with wreaths of wild climbing vines.
+
+"'Tis odd,--something has seemed to me lacking about the dear old
+nest," Lato begins again, after a pause. "Now I know what it is."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"The little figure of your cousin Zdena. I am always looking for her to
+come skipping from among the flowers like a wayward little fairy."
+
+Harry frowns, plucks a buttercup growing in the grass, and is mute.
+
+Without heeding his friend's mood, Treurenberg goes on: "As a child,
+she was most charming and unusually intelligent and gifted. Has the
+promise of her childhood not been fulfilled?"
+
+Harry pulls another buttercup out of the grass, and carefully deposits
+it beside the first.
+
+"That is a matter of opinion," he remarks, carelessly, without looking
+at his friend.
+
+"'Tis strange! Many a girl's beauty vanishes suddenly at about fourteen
+without leaving a trace; but I would have wagered my head that your
+cousin would have been beautiful," remarks Lato.
+
+"I have not said that she is ugly," Harry growls.
+
+"But you do not like her!" Lato now rivets his eyes full upon the
+gloomy face of his former playmate.
+
+Harry turns away his head.
+
+"I did not say I did not like her," he bursts out, "but I can't talk of
+her, because--because it is all her fault!"
+
+"What is 'all'?" asks Lato, still looking fixedly at his friend.
+
+Harry frowns and says nothing.
+
+Lato does not speak again for a few moments. Then, having lighted a
+fresh cigar, he begins: "I always fancied,--one so often arranges in
+imagination a friend's future for him, particularly when one's own fate
+is fixed past recall,--I always said to myself that you and your cousin
+would surely come together. I liked to think that it would be so. To
+speak frankly, your betrothal to Paula was a great surprise to me."
+
+"Indeed? Well, so it was to me!" Harry blurts out, then turns very red,
+is ashamed of his unbecoming confession; and then--then he is glad that
+it has been extorted from him; glad that he can speak frankly about the
+affair to any one with whom he can take counsel.
+
+Treurenberg draws a long breath, and then whistles softly to himself.
+
+"Sets the wind in that quarter?" he says at last. "I thought so. I
+determined that you should show your colours. And may I ask how you
+ever got into such a confounded scrape?"
+
+Harry groans. "What would you have?--moonlight, nervous
+excitement,--all of a sudden there we were! I had quarrelled with my
+cousin Zdena--God bless her! In spite of her whims and fancies,--one
+never knows what she would be at,--she is the dearest, loveliest
+creature----! But that is only by the way----"
+
+"Not at all, not at all; it interests me extremely," Treurenberg
+interrupts him, laughing.
+
+"That may be, but it has very little to do with my explanation," Harry
+rejoins, dryly. "The fact is, that it was a warm night in August, and I
+was driving alone with Paula,--that is, with no coachman, and only my
+groom, who followed with my horse, and whom I entirely forgot,--from
+Zirkow to Dobrotschau, along that rough forest road,--you
+remember,--where one is jolted against one's companion at every step,
+and there is opportunity for a girl to be becomingly timid--h'm! She
+suddenly became frightened at a will-o'-the-wisp, she never struck me
+before as having such weak nerves,--and--well, I was distraught over my
+quarrel with Zdena, and I had taken perhaps a glass too much of Uncle
+Paul's old Bordeaux; in short, I kissed her. In an instant I
+recollected myself, and, if I am not mistaken, I said, 'Excuse me!' or,
+'I beg pardon!' She cannot have heard this extremely sensible remark,
+however, for in the twinkling of an eye I was betrothed. The next day I
+was determined to put an end to such nonsense, and I sat down at my
+writing-table--confound it all! I never was great with the pen, and the
+model of such a letter as I wanted to write was not to be found in any
+'Complete Letter-Writer.' Everything I tried to put on paper seemed to
+me so terribly indelicate and rough, and so I determined to tell the
+mother. I meant to bring forward a previous and binding attachment; to
+plead in my excuse the superlative charms of the Baroness Paula--oh, I
+had it all splendidly planned; but the old Baroness never let me open
+my lips, and so matters came to be arranged as you find them."
+
+Through the open glass doors of the dining-room, across the
+flower-beds, comes the faint voice of the old piano. But it is no
+longer echoing the 'Cloches du Monastere,' but a wailing canzonetta by
+some popular local composer upon which the youngest Leskjewitsch is
+expending a most unnecessary amount of banging upon keys and pressing
+of pedals. With a grimace Harry stops his ears. Treurenberg looks very
+grave.
+
+"You do not, then, intend to marry Paula?"
+
+"God forbid!" Harry exclaims.
+
+"Then,"--Lato bites his lip, but goes on calmly,--"forgive an
+old friend who is aware of the difficulty of your position, for
+the disagreeable remark,--but if you do not intend to marry my
+sister-in-law, your conduct with regard to her is not only very
+unbecoming but also positively wrong."
+
+"Why?" Harry asks, crossly.
+
+"Why?" Lato lifts his eyebrows. "Why, because you compromise her more
+deeply with every visit you pay her. You cannot surely deceive yourself
+as to the fact that upon the superficial observer you produce the
+impression of an unusually devoted pair of lovers."
+
+"I do not understand how you can say such a thing!" Harry exclaims,
+angrily, "when you must have seen----"
+
+"That you are on the defensive with Paula," Treurenberg interrupts him,
+with a wan smile. "Yes, I have seen it."
+
+"Well, she ought to see it too," Harry mutters.
+
+Lato shrugs his shoulders.
+
+"She must lose patience sooner or later," says Harry.
+
+"It is difficult to exhaust the patience of a young woman whose
+sensibilities are not very delicate and who is very much in love,"
+his friend replies. "You must devise some other, and--forgive my
+frankness--some more honest and straightforward means for attaining
+your end."
+
+Harry puffs furiously at his cigarette, sending a cloud of smoke over
+the flower-bed. "Lato, you are rough upon me, but not rougher than I am
+upon myself. If you knew how degraded I feel by my false position, if
+you knew how the whole matter weighs upon me, you would do something
+more for me than only hold up a candle by the light of which I perceive
+more clearly the misery of my position. You would----"
+
+"What?" Lato asks, disturbed.
+
+"Help me!"
+
+Lato looks at him in dismay for a moment, and then stammers, "No,
+Harry, do not ask it of me,--not of me. I could do you no good. They
+never would let me speak, any more than my mother-in-law would allow
+you to speak. And even if I finally prevailed upon them to listen, they
+would blame me for the whole affair, would believe that I had excited
+your mind against the family."
+
+"How could they possibly imagine that you could conduct yourself so
+towards a friend?" Harry asks, with a grim smile.
+
+Lato turns his head aside.
+
+"Then you will not do me this service?"
+
+"I cannot!" Treurenberg murmurs, faintly.
+
+"I might have known it!" Harry breaks forth, his eyes flashing with
+indignant scorn. "You are the same old fellow, the very same,--a good
+fellow enough, yes, sympathetic, compassionate, and, as long as you are
+allowed to remain perfectly passive, the noblest of men. But as soon as
+anything is required of you,--if any active interference is called for
+at your hands, there's an end of it. You simply cannot, you would
+rather die than rouse yourself to any energetic action!"
+
+"Perhaps so," Lato murmurs, with a far-away look in his eyes, and a
+smile that makes Harry's blood run cold.
+
+A pause ensues, the longest of the many pauses that have occurred in
+this _tête-à-tête_.
+
+The bees seem to buzz louder than ever. A dry, thirsty wind sighs in
+the boughs of the apple-tree; two or three hard green apples drop to
+the ground. At last Treurenberg gathers himself up.
+
+"You must take me as I am," he says, wearily; "there is no cutting with
+a dull knife. I cannot possibly enlighten my mother-in-law as to the
+true state of your feelings. It would do no good, and it would make an
+infernal row. But I will give you one piece of good advice----"
+
+Before he is able to finish his sentence his attention is arrested by a
+perfect babel of sounds from the dining-room. The piano music is
+hushed, its discord merged into the angry wail of a shrieking feminine
+voice and the rough, broken, changing tones of a lad,--the rebellious
+pupil, Vladimir Leskjewitsch. The hurly-burly is so outrageous that
+every one is roused to investigate it. Countess Zriny rushes in, with
+short, waddling steps, the paint-brush with which she has been mending
+St. John's robe still in her hand; Hedwig rushes in; Harry and Lato
+rush in.
+
+"What is the matter? What is the matter?"
+
+"You poured that water on the keys intentionally, to prevent your
+playing," the teacher angrily declares to her pupil.
+
+"I do not deny it," Vladimir rejoins, loftily.
+
+The spectators suppress a smile, and are all, as is, alas! so
+frequently the case, on the side of the culprit, a tall, overgrown lad
+of about fourteen, with a handsome dark face, large black eyes, a
+short, impertinent nose, and full, well-formed lips. With hands thrust
+deep into the pockets of his blue jacket, he gravely surveys the
+circle, and tosses his head defiantly.
+
+"You hear him! you hear him!" Fräulein Laut screams, turning to the
+by-standers. Then, approaching Vladimir, she asks, angrily, "And how
+can you justify such conduct?"
+
+Vladimir scans her with majestic disdain. "How can you justify your
+having ruined all my pleasure in music?" he asks, in a tragic tone, and
+with a bombastic flourish of his hand. "That piano has been my dear
+friend from childhood!"--he points feelingly to the instrument, which
+is yellow with age, has thin, square legs, and six pedals, the use of
+which no one has ever yet fathomed,--"yes, my friend! And today I hate
+it so that I have well-nigh destroyed it! Fräulein Laut, justify that."
+
+"Must I be subjected to this insolence?" groans the teacher.
+
+"Vladimir, go to your room!" Harry orders, with hardly maintained
+gravity.
+
+Vladimir departs with lofty self-possession. The teacher turns
+contemptuously from those present, especially from Harry, who tries to
+appease her with a few courteous phrases. With a skilful hand she takes
+the piano apart, dismembers the key-board, and spreads the hammers upon
+sheets of tin brought for her from the kitchen by Blasius, the old
+servant, that the wet, swollen wood may be dried before the fire.
+
+"Take care lest there be an _auto-da-fé_," Harry calls after her.
+Without deigning to reply, she vanishes with the bowels of the piano.
+
+Blasius, meanwhile, with imperturbable composure, has spread the table
+for the evening meal at one end of the spacious room, in which there is
+now diffused an agreeable odour of fresh biscuits. A mountain of
+reddish-yellow almond cakes is flanked on one side by a plate of
+appetizing rye bread, on the other by butter garnished with ice and
+cresses. There is a fruit-basket at either end of the table, filled
+with peaches, early grapes, and all kinds of ripe green and purple
+plums, while a bowl of cut glass holds whipped cream cooled in ice.
+Finally, old Blasius brings in a tray fairly bending beneath the burden
+of various pitchers and flagons, the bewildering number of which is due
+to the fact that at Komaritz the whims of all are consulted, and
+consequently each one orders something different, be it only a
+different kind of cream.
+
+"As of old, no one is in danger at Komaritz of death from starvation,"
+Lato remarks, smiling.
+
+"Help us to be rid of the provision," Harry says.
+
+Hedwig repeats the invitation rather affectedly, but Lato, looking at
+his watch, discovers that he has already overstayed his time by an
+hour.
+
+All express regret, and bid him farewell.
+
+"And the good advice you were about to give me?" Harry says,
+interrogatively, as he takes leave of his friend, having accompanied
+him to the gate of the court-yard.
+
+"Cut short your leave of absence; go away," Lato replies. "You will at
+least be relieved for the time from any necessity for dissimulation,
+and such affairs are better adjusted by letter."
+
+Harry gazes gloomily into space; Lato springs into the saddle. "Adieu!"
+he calls out, and is gone.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVI.
+
+                           LATO TREURENBERG.
+
+
+Ding-dong--ding-dong! the Angelus bells are ringing through the evening
+air with their message of rest for weary mortals.
+
+The long shadows of the trees grow paler, and vanish, taking with them
+all the glory of the world and leaving only a dull, borrowed twilight
+to hover above the earth.
+
+The sun has set. Ding-dong! rings the bell of Komaritz, near at hand,
+as Lato rides past; the bells of the other villages echo the sound
+dreamily, to have their notes tossed back by the bells of the lonely
+chapels on the mountain-sides across the steel-gray stream, whose
+waters glide silently on ward. Ding-dong! each answers to all, and the
+tired labourer rejoices in unison.
+
+The hour of rest has come, the hour when families reassemble after
+the pursuits and labours of the day have ceased to claim and separate
+them,--when mortals feel more warmly and sensibly the reality of family
+ties. Thin blue smoke is curling from the chimneys; here and there a
+woman can be seen standing at the door of a cottage, shading her eyes
+with her hand as she looks expectantly down the road. Upon the doorstep
+of a poor hut sits a brown, worn labourer, dirty and ragged, about to
+eat his evening meal with a leaden spoon from an earthen bowl; a young
+woman crouches beside him, with her back against the door-post, content
+and silent, while a chubby child, with bare legs somewhat bowed, and a
+curly head, leans against his knee and, with its mouth open in
+expectation, peeps into the earthen bowl. The father smiles, and from
+time to time thrusts a morsel between the fresh, rosy lips. Then he
+puts aside the bowl and takes the little fellow upon his knee. It
+is a pretty child,--and perhaps in honour of the father's return
+home--wonderfully clean, but even were this not the case---- Most of
+the children tumbling about before the huts on this sultry August
+evening are neither pretty nor clean; they are dirty, ragged,
+dishevelled; many are sickly, and some are crippled; but there is
+hardly one among them to whom this hour does not bring a caress.
+
+An atmosphere of mutual human sympathy seems to brood in silence above
+the resting earth, while the bells ring on,--ding-dong, ding-dong.
+
+Lato has left the village behind him, and is trotting along the
+road beneath the tall walnuts. The noise of wagons, heavily laden
+with the harvest, and the tramp of men upon the road fall upon his
+ear,--everything is going home.
+
+There is a languor in the aromatic summer air, somewhat that begets in
+every human being a desire for companionship, a longing to share the
+burden of existence with another. Even the flowers seem to bend their
+heads nearer to one another.
+
+Now the bells are hushed, the road is deserted; Lato alone is still
+pursuing his way home. Home? Is it possible that he has accustomed
+himself to call his mother-in-law's castle home? In many a hotel--at
+"The Lamb," for example, in Vienna he has felt much more at home.
+Where, then, is his home? He vainly asks himself this question. Has he
+ever had a home?
+
+The question is still unanswered. His thoughts wander far back into the
+past, and find nothing, not even a few tender memories. Poor Lato! He
+recalls his earliest years, his childhood. His parents were considered
+the handsomest couple in Austria. The Count was fair, tall, slender,
+with an apparent delicacy of frame that concealed an amount of physical
+strength for which he was famous, and with nobly-chiselled features.
+His duels and his love-affairs were numerous. He was rashly brave, and
+irresistible; so poor an accountant that he always allowed his
+opponents to reckon up his gains at play, but when his turn came to pay
+a debt of honour he was never known to make an error in a figure. It is
+scarcely necessary to mention that his gambling debts were the only
+ones the payment of which he considered at all important. He was
+immensely beloved by his subordinates,--his servants, his horses, and
+his dogs; he addressed them all with the German "thou," and treated
+them all with the same good-humoured familiarity. He was thought most
+urbane, and was never guilty of any definite intentional annoyance;
+but he suffered from a certain near-sightedness. He recognized as
+fellow-mortals only those fellow-mortals who occupied the same social
+plane with himself; all others were in his eyes simply population,--the
+masses.
+
+There is little to tell of his wife, save that she was a brilliant
+brunette beauty, with very loud manners and a boundless greed of
+enjoyment. She petted little Lato like a lapdog; but one evening, just
+as she was dressed for a ball, she was informed that the child had been
+taken violently ill with croup, whereupon she flew into a rage with
+those who had been so thoughtless and unfeeling as to tell her such a
+thing at so inopportune a moment. Her carriage was announced; she let
+it wait while she ran up-stairs to the nursery, kissed the gasping
+little patient, exclaimed, with a lifted forefinger, "Be a good boy, my
+darling; don't die while mamma is at the ball!" and vanished.
+
+The little fellow was good and did not die. As a reward, his mother
+gave him the largest and handsomest rocking-horse that was to be found
+in Vienna. Such was the Countess Treurenberg as a mother; and as
+a wife--well, Hans Treurenberg was satisfied with her, and her
+behaviour was no one else's affair. The couple certainly got along
+together admirably. They never were seen together except when they
+received guests.
+
+Peace to her ashes! The Countess paid a heavy price for her short-lived
+joys. When scarcely twenty-six years old, she was attacked by a mortal
+disease. Her condition was all the more painful because she persisted
+in concealing her malady from the world, even denying its existence. Up
+to the last she went into society, and she died in full dress, diamonds
+and all, in a glare of light, on a lounge in her dressing-room.
+
+The widower at first took her death so terribly to heart that his
+associates remarked upon it.
+
+"Treurenberg is really a very good fellow!" they said, and so he was.
+
+For a time he kept little Lato with him constantly. Even on the
+evenings when gambling was going on, and they played long and high at
+Hans Treurenberg's, the boy was present. When hardly twelve years old
+he was fully initiated into the mysteries of all games of chance. He
+would sit silent and quiet until far into the night, watching the
+course of the game, trembling with excitement at any sudden turn of
+luck. And how proud he was when he was allowed to take a hand! He
+played extremely well for his age, and his luck was constant. His
+father's friends made merry over his gambling ability. His father would
+pat his cheeks, stroke his hair off his forehead, take his face between
+his hands, and kiss him. Then, with his fingers beneath the lad's chin,
+he would turn his face this way and that, calling his guests' attention
+to the boy's beauty, to his eyes sparkling with eagerness, to his
+flushed cheeks. Then he would kiss the boy again, make him drink a
+glass of champagne, and send him to bed.
+
+Then was sown the seed of the evil passion which was in after-years to
+cause Lato so many an hour of bitter suffering. Calm, almost
+phlegmatic, with regard to all else, as soon as he touched a card his
+excitement was intense, however he might manage to conceal it.
+
+When Count Hans grew tired of the constant companionship of his son, he
+freed himself from it after a perfectly respectable fashion. He sent
+him to Prague, a city renowned for the stolidity of its institutions,
+committing him to the care of relatives, and of a professor who
+undertook to supply the defects of the boy's neglected education. When
+Lato was eighteen he entered a regiment of hussars.
+
+Hereafter, if the father took but little pains about his son, he
+certainly showed him every kindness,--paid his debts, and laughed while
+he admired the young man's mad pranks. Moreover, he really loved him,
+which did not, however, hinder him from contriving to have Lato
+declared of age at twenty, that the young fellow might have possession
+of his maternal inheritance, since he himself needed money.
+
+It was at this time that the elder Treurenberg's view of life and the
+world underwent a remarkable change. He became a Liberal, and this not
+only in a political sense, but socially, a much rarer transformation.
+He appeared frequently at the tables of wealthy men of business, where
+he was valued not merely as an effective aristocratic decoration, but
+as a really charming companion. His liberal views took on more
+magnificent dimensions: he announced himself a heretic with regard to
+the exclusiveness of the Austrian aristocracy, smiled at the folly of
+Austrian court etiquette, and then, one fine day he made friends with
+the wealthy _parvenu_, Conte Capriani, and, throwing overboard as
+useless ballast impeding free action the '_noblesse oblige_' principle,
+he devoted himself blindly and with enthusiasm to stock-gambling. The
+result was hardly encouraging. When Lato applied to his father one day
+for a considerable sum of money, it was not to be had. Melancholy times
+for the Treurenbergs ensued; thanks, however, to the friendship of
+Conte Capriani, who sometimes helped him to a really profitable
+transaction, Count Hans was able to keep his head above water. And he
+continued to hold it as high as ever, to preserve the same air of
+distinction, to smile with the same amiable cordiality in which there
+was a spice of _hauteur_; in a word, he preserved the indefinable
+prestige of his personality, which made it impossible that Conte
+Capriani's demeanour towards him should ever partake of the nature of
+condescension. The only thing required of Count Hans by Capriani was
+that he should spend a couple of weeks with him every year in the
+hunting-season. This the Count seemed quite willing to do, and he
+therefore appeared every year, in August or October, at Heinrichsdorf,
+an estate in West Hungary, where Capriani had preferred to live since
+his affair with young Count Lodrin had made his castle of Schneeburg
+impossible for him as a place of residence.
+
+One year the Count asked his son to accompany him to Heinrichsdorf.
+
+Will Lato ever forget the weeks he spent there, the turning-point as
+they were of his existence? How foreign and tiresome, how hard and
+bald, it all was! how uncomfortable, how uncongenial!--the furniture,
+among which here and there, as was the fashion, some costly antique was
+displayed; the guests, among whom were various representatives of
+historic Austrian nobility; the Conte's secretary, a choleric
+Hungarian, who concealed the remnant of a pride of rank which ill
+became his present position beneath an aggressive cynicism, and who was
+wont to carry in his pocket, when he went to walk, a little revolver,
+with which he shot at sparrows or at the flies creeping upon some wall,
+by way perhaps of working off the bitterness of his soul. There, too,
+was the master of the house, showing the same frowning brow to all whom
+he met, contradicting all with the same rudeness, hunting to earth any
+stray poetic sentiment, and then, after a violent explosion of pure
+reason, withdrawing gloomily to his cabinet, where he could give
+himself over to his two passions,--that for money-making, and that for
+setting the world at naught.
+
+The only person in the assemblage whom Lato found attractive was the
+mistress of the mansion, with whom he often talked for hours, never
+ceasing to wonder at the melancholy grace and quiet dignity of her
+bearing, as well as at the well-nigh morbid delicacy and high moral
+tone of her sentiments.
+
+Above all did Lato dislike those among the guests of a like rank with
+his own, men who were like himself in money difficulties, and who
+hovered about this deity of the stock market in hopes of obtaining his
+blessing upon their speculations.
+
+Count Hans moved among all these aristocratic and un-aristocratic
+luminaries with the same unchanging grace that carried him victoriously
+over all annoyances,--always genial and courtly; but the son could not
+emulate his father's ease of mind and manner; he felt depressed and
+humiliated.
+
+Then the Baroness Harfink and her daughters made their appearance. The
+two striking, pleasure-loving girls had an enlivening effect upon the
+wearied assemblage.
+
+Paula was the cleverer of the two, but she talked too much, which was
+tiresome, and then she had a reputation for learning, which frightened
+men away. Selina, on the other hand, knew how to veil her lack of
+cleverness beneath an interesting taciturnity; she had a fashion of
+slowly lifting her eyelids which appealed to a man's fancy. With a
+degree of prudence frequently displayed by rather dull girls, she
+forbore to appeal to the crowd, and concentrated her efforts to charm
+upon Lato. She accompanied him in the pheasant-shooting parties, took
+lessons from him in lawn-tennis,--in a white dress, her loosened
+hair gleaming in the sunlight,--or simply lay quietly back in a
+rocking-chair in the shade in front of the castle, gazing at him with
+her large, half-closed eyes, while he, half in jest, half in earnest,
+said all sorts of pretty things.
+
+There was always play in the evenings at the castle, and usually very
+high play. The atmosphere about the gaming-tables was hardly agreeable,
+and the Conte moved about among them, taking no share in such "silly
+waste of time," while every one else was eager to win. Lato took part
+in the unedifying pastime, and at first fortune befriended him; then he
+lost. His losses embarrassed him, and he withdrew from playing. He was
+not the only one to avoid the gambling-tables after a short trial of
+luck; several gentlemen followed his example. The Conte took triumphant
+note of this, and arranged a party for five-kreutzer whist, in which he
+joined.
+
+Lato bit his lip. Never before had his unfortunate pecuniary
+circumstances so weighed upon him. The thirst for gold--the prevailing
+epidemic at Heinrichsdorf--demanded a fresh victim.
+
+There had been a hunting-dinner; Conte Capriani's wine had been
+unusually fiery; every one was gay; Heinrichsdorf could remember no
+such brilliant festivity. The windows of the drawing-room where the
+company were assembled were open and looked out upon the park. The
+intoxicating fragrance of the sultry August night was wafted into the
+room; the stars sparkled above the black tree-tops, twinkling
+restlessly, like deceitful will-o'-the-wisps, in the blue vault of
+heaven; the sweet, wild music of a band of Hungarian gypsies came
+floating into the apartment with the fragrance of the night. Selina
+looked wonderfully beautiful on that evening, a sultana-like beauty,
+nothing more, but she harmonized with the spell of the August night.
+She wore a red crape gown, red as flickering fire, red as benumbing
+poppy-blossoms, very _décolletée_, and its decided colour heightened
+the white, pearly lustre of the girl's neck and arms. The lines about
+her mouth had not then settled into a stereotyped smile; her nose was
+not sharp; the sheen of her hair had not been dimmed by perpetual
+powdering. Essentially commonplace as she was, for the moment there was
+about her a mingling of languor and excitement, which betrays an
+accelerated movement of the heart. Selina Harfink was in love. Lato was
+perfectly aware of it, and that she was in love with him. He bestowed
+but little thought upon this fact, however. What could come of it? And
+yet, whenever he was with her, a cold shiver ran through him.
+
+The mysterious shades of night were invaded by music and the summer
+breeze; wherever Lato was he saw that red gown. A hand was laid upon
+his arm, and when he turned he gazed into a pair of eyes veiled yet
+glowing.
+
+"Why do you avoid me?" Selina whispered.
+
+"Southern Roses!" one of the gentlemen standing near a window called to
+the musicians, and immediately there floated out into the night, to
+mingle with the low whisper of the linden leaves, the notes of the
+first bars of that most beguiling of all Strauss's beguiling waltzes.
+
+He danced with her, and then--almost rudely--he left her. It was the
+only time he had danced with her that evening, and now he left the
+room, hurrying away to be somewhere where that red dress was not before
+his eyes. And yet he had the sensation of overcoming himself, of
+denying himself at least a pleasant excitement.
+
+Why? What could ever come of it?
+
+For the first time in several days he joined the gamesters. He played
+high, with varying luck, but when he left the gaming-table he carried
+with him the consciousness of having lost more than he was at present
+in a condition to pay.
+
+He went to his room and began mechanically to undress. A fever
+seemed burning in his veins; how sultry it was! through the open
+windows he could see black thunder-clouds gathering in the skies. The
+air was damp and laden with a fragrance so sweet as to be almost
+sickening. A low murmur sighed among the leaves of the shrubbery in the
+park,--melancholy, mysterious, alluring, yet mingled with a soft
+plaint, breathing above the late summer roses. "Enjoy! enjoy! life is
+brief!" He turned away, lay down, and closed his eyes; but still he
+seemed to see the red dress. He could not think of marrying her. A girl
+from such a family and with such a crowd of insufferable connections!
+Had she only been a poor little thing whom he could snatch away from
+her surroundings; but no, if he married her, he was sufficiently clear
+in his mind for the moment to understand, he must adjust himself to her
+social position. The power was hers,--money!
+
+Oh, this wretched money! At every turn the lack of it tormented him; he
+had tried to retrench, to economize, but how paltry such efforts seemed
+to him! What a good use he could make of it if he had it! She was very
+beautiful----
+
+A light footfall made itself heard in the passage outside his door. Was
+not that his father's step? Lato asked himself. The door opened; Count
+Hans entered, straight, tall, and slender, with haughty, refined
+features and sparkling blue eyes, very bald, very gray; but what
+vitality and energy he showed in his every movement! At this moment
+Lato felt a great admiration for his father, beside whom he himself
+seemed pitiably weak. He took shame to himself; what would his father
+say could he know of the ideas which he, Lato Treurenberg, had just
+been entertaining?
+
+"Still awake, Lato?" the knightly old man asked, kindly, sitting down
+on the edge of his son's bed. "I saw from below your light still
+burning, and I wanted to ask if anything were troubling you. You are
+not wont to suffer from sleeplessness."
+
+Lato was touched, and doubly ashamed of the low, mean way of
+extricating himself from his difficulties which had but now seemed to
+him almost possible.
+
+"One's thoughts run such riot, sometimes," he murmured.
+
+"H'm!" The father put his cigar between his lips and puffed forth a
+cloud of smoke to float upward to the ceiling. "I think you lost at
+baccarat to-night," he remarked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Much?"
+
+"More than I can pay at present," Lato replied, with a weary smile.
+
+"As if that were of any moment!" Count Hans consoled him. "I am at your
+service, and am, besides, your debtor."
+
+"But, father----"
+
+"Yes, yes, I tell you it is so. I am your debtor. Do you think I forget
+it? Indeed I do not. I am sorry that I cannot help it; but 'tis the
+fault of circumstances. The estates yield absolutely nothing; they
+require money enough, but when it comes to looking for any return I
+look in vain. No one who has not tried it knows what a sinking-fund
+land is. It cannot go on thus; we must make a fundamental effort, or we
+shall be ruined!"
+
+"Yes, father," Lato murmured, "we must be in earnest, instead of
+enjoying ourselves thoughtlessly and with a dread of work. We have lost
+our force; we have been faithless to our principles; we must begin a
+new existence, you and I." As he uttered these high-sounding words,
+Lato had the unpleasant sensation of repeating something learned by
+rote; the big phrases confused him; he was embarrassed by the
+consciousness of his father's too ready satire. He looked up at him,
+but the old Count did not seem to have heard him. This was a relief; he
+sighed, and was silent. Suddenly the red dress fluttered before his
+eyes again.
+
+Count Hans raised his head, and murmured, "She looked very lovely this
+evening."
+
+"Who?" asked Lato, slowly. He did not need to ask; he knew that his
+father had shared his thoughts. He was terribly startled. Something
+seemed to be crumbling away which he had believed would always stand
+firm.
+
+"Selina, of course,--the only really pretty woman in the house," said
+Count Hans. "Her beauty has expanded wonderfully in the last few days.
+It is always becoming to pretty women to be in love."
+
+"In love?" Lato repeated, his throat contracted, his tongue dry.
+
+The old Count laughed. "Ah, you're a sly fellow, Lato."
+
+Lato was mute.
+
+His father continued: "They are all jealous of you, Lato. Did you not
+see what happened this evening in the conservatory, just after dinner?
+Pistasch Kamenz proposed to her, and she refused him. He told me of it
+himself, and made light of it; but he was hard hit. I can quite
+understand it. She is an exceedingly beautiful woman; she does not
+carry herself well, 'tis true,--with women of her class the physical
+training is sure to be neglected,--but all that can be changed."
+
+Lato was still mute. So, then, Pistasch Kamenz had tried that of which
+he, Lato, had been ashamed, and had failed. He should not fail.
+
+The old Count waited a moment, and then went on: "I am sorry for
+Kamenz; the match would have been an excellent one for him; he would
+have settled down."
+
+"Settled down--upon his wife's money!" Lato muttered, without looking
+at his father.
+
+"Is there anything new in that?" exclaimed the Count, with unruffled
+composure. "A man of honour can take nothing from a woman whom he
+loves, but everything from his wife. 'Tis an old rule, and it is
+comical,"--Count Hans laughed softly,--"how here in Austria we require
+that a rich wife should always belong to the same sphere with her
+husband; he is forgiven for a _mésalliance_ only if he marries a
+beggar. It is pure folly! We shall never amount to anything unless we
+toss aside the entire burden of prejudice which we drag about with us.
+It weighs us down; we cannot keep step with the rest; how can a man run
+sheathed in mail? With the exception of a few magnates among us who are
+able to enjoy their prestige, we are wretchedly off. We spend our lives
+sacrificing ourselves for a position which we cannot maintain
+respectably; we pamper a chimera to be devoured by it in the end. Most
+of all do I admire the _bourgeoisie_, whom we impress, and whose
+servility keeps bright the nimbus about our heads. Bah! we can do
+nothing more with the old folly! We must mingle in the fresh life of
+the present."
+
+"Yes," Lato muttered again, but more indistinctly than at first, "we
+ought to work, to achieve somewhat."
+
+Count Hans did not, perhaps, hear this remark; at all events he did not
+heed it.
+
+"All the huge new fortunes in England marry into the aristocracy," he
+said.
+
+Outside, the same strange alluring murmur breathed above the thirsty
+flowers; the breeze of the coming storm streamed into the room.
+
+"To marry a woman for the sake of her money is detestable," Count Hans
+began afresh, and his voice was almost as soft and wooing as that of
+the summer night outside; "but, good heavens! why should one refuse to
+marry a girl whom he loves just because she is rich?"
+
+He paused. Lato had closed his eyes.
+
+"Are you asleep?" his father murmured.
+
+Lato shook his head, without speaking. The old Count arose,
+extinguished the candle on the table, and softly withdrew.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVII.
+
+                               MISMATED.
+
+
+About four months afterwards Lato stood with Selina Harfink before the
+altar, in a large splendidly-decorated church filled with a crowd of
+people, among whom Lato, as he walked towards the altar, mechanically
+sought some familiar face,--at first in vain. At last he found some
+one,--his old English teacher; then a horse-dealer with whom he had had
+transactions; and then there in the background--how could they have
+escaped him?--about a dozen ladies of his own circle. Some of them held
+their eye-glasses to their eyes, then crowded together and whispered
+among themselves. He turned away his head.
+
+How dared they whisper about him! He had not sold himself; he was
+marrying a girl whom he loved, who was accidentally rich!
+
+The long train moved slowly up to the altar. Lato felt as if he were
+dragging after him a burden that grew heavier with every step. He was
+glad to be able to kneel down before the priest. He looked at his
+bride. She knelt beside him, brilliantly beautiful, glowing with
+passion, supremely content. In vain did he look for the shimmer of
+tears in her eyes, for a trace of virginal shyness in her features, for
+aught that could arouse sympathy and tenderness. No; about her full red
+lips there was the tremor of gratified vanity and of triumphant--love!
+Love?
+
+From her face Lato's gaze wandered among the wedding-guests.
+Strangers,--all strangers. His family was represented by his father and
+the Countess Zriny, a distant cousin of Count Hans, who had once been
+in love with him. Lato shivered. Solemn music resounded through the
+church. Tears rose to his eyes. Suddenly a strange wailing sound
+mingled with the strains of the chant. He looked up. Behind the tall
+church windows fluttered something black, formless, like a mourning
+banner. It was the broken top of a young tree, not quite torn from the
+parent stem, waving to and fro in the wind.
+
+And then the priest uttered the words that decided his future fate.
+
+
+Before the departure of the young couple, and whilst Selina was making
+ready for their journey, Count Hans had an opportunity for emotion. He
+paced restlessly to and fro in the room where with Lato he was awaiting
+the bride, trying vainly to say something cheering to the bridegroom,
+something to arouse in him a consciousness of the great good fortune in
+which he himself was a sharer. At last the voices of the bride and her
+friends were heard approaching. The old nobleman went up to his son,
+laid his hands tenderly upon his shoulders, and exclaimed, "Hold up
+your head, old fellow: your life is before you, your life is before
+you!"
+
+And Lato repeated, "My life is before me----" The next instant the door
+opened.
+
+"The carriage is waiting!"
+
+The last words that Selina said to her friends out of the window of the
+carriage just before driving off were, "Do not forget to send me the
+newspapers, if there is anything in them about our marriage."
+
+The horses started, the carriage rolled on. How swiftly the wheels flew
+over the stones! In the twilight, illumined only by the glare of the
+carriage lamps, Lato could see the outline of Selina's figure as she
+sat beside him, and the pure red and white of her face, only partially
+concealed by her veil. He put his arm around her, and she nestled close
+to him and raised her lips to his. His ardour was chilled by an
+annoying sensation which he could not at first trace to its source. It
+was produced by the strong perfume which Selina used. It was the same
+perfume that had been a favourite with the actress who had been Lato's
+first love, a handsome, fair woman, with an incomparable complexion. He
+was suddenly reminded that Selina looked like her, and it vexed him.
+
+
+Selina had long since forgotten it,--women almost always forget such
+things,--but in the early times of her marriage it would not have
+pleased her to think it a "distinguished one." She was desperately in
+love with Lato, served him like a slave, racked what brain she had to
+prepare surprises for him in the way of costly gifts, and left entirely
+to him the disposal of her property. Not a penny would she call her
+own. It all belonged to him,--all. It was quite touching to see her
+penitent air when she applied to him, whispering, "I am a terrible
+spendthrift, Lato. Do not be angry; but I want some more money. Will
+you not pay my milliner's bill for me? And then, if I am very good,
+you'll give me something to put in my portomonnaie,--a hundred
+guilders,--only a hundred guilders, Lato darling?"
+
+At first such scenes annoyed him terribly, and he tried hard to prevent
+them. Then--well, he got used to them, even felt flattered, touched;
+almost forgot whence came the money that was now so abundant with
+him,--believed, at all events, that others had forgotten it,--and
+played the lavish husband with his wife, bestowed costly gifts upon
+her, and was pleased with her admiration of them.
+
+All this time he lived in a kind of whirl. He had accustomed himself to
+his young wife's endearments, as he had accustomed himself to travel
+with a train of servants, to occupy the best rooms in the best hotels,
+to drink the best wines, to smoke the best cigars, to have enormous
+bills at the tailor's, to gratify all his expensive tastes, to spend
+time in devising costly plans for the future, and, half involuntarily,
+to do it all as if he no longer remembered a time when he had been
+obliged to consider well every outlay.
+
+In after-years his cheeks burned when he recalled this part of his
+life,--but there was no denying the fact--he had for a time been
+ostentatiously extravagant, and with his wife's money. Poor Lato!
+
+Two years the whirl lasted; no longer.
+
+At first he had tried to continue in the service, but the hardships of
+a military life became burdensome to him as he yielded to the new sense
+of luxury, and Selina, for her part, had no taste for the annoyances
+that fell to her share in the nomadic life of a soldier's wife. He
+resigned. They planned to purchase an estate, but could not agree upon
+where to purchase; and they zigzagged about, travelling from Nice to
+Rome, and from Rome to Paris, everywhere courteously received and
+fêted.
+
+Then came their child. Selina, of course, passed the time of her
+confinement in Vienna, to be under her mother's protection, and nearly
+paid for her child's life with her own. When she recovered, her entire
+nature seemed changed; she was always tired. Her charm had fled. Her
+nose grew sharp, there were hard lines about her mouth, her face became
+thin, while her figure broadened.
+
+And her feeling for Lato underwent a fundamental alteration. Hers was
+one of those sensual, cold-hearted natures which, when the first
+tempest of passion has subsided, are incapable of any deeper sentiment,
+and her tenderness towards her husband decreased with astonishing
+celerity. Henceforth, vanity became her sole passion, and in Vienna she
+was best able to satisfy it. The greatest enjoyment she derived from
+her foreign travel and from her intercourse with distinguished people
+lay in being able to discourse of them to her Vienna circle. She went
+into the world more than ever,--the world which she had known from
+childhood,--and dragged Lato with her. She was never weary of
+displaying in financial society her new title, her distinguished
+husband, her eccentric Parisian toilets.
+
+Her world sufficed her. She never dreamed of asking admission to his
+world. He made several melancholy attempts to introduce his wife among
+his relatives; they failed lamentably. No one had any particular
+objection to Selina. Had she been a poor girl all would have vied with
+one another in doing something for her "for dear Lato's sake." But to
+receive all that loud, vulgar, ostentatious Harfink tribe, no one could
+require of them, not even the spirit of the age. Why did not Lato take
+his wife to the country, and separate her from her family and their
+influence? Then after some years, perhaps---- It was such an
+unfortunate idea to settle in Vienna with his wife!
+
+Yes, an unfortunate idea!
+
+Wherever he showed himself with his wife, at the theatre, on the
+Prater, everywhere, his acquaintances greeted him cordially from a
+distance, and avoided him as if he had been stricken with a contagious
+disease. On the occasion of the death of one of his aunts, he received
+kind letters of condolence from relatives who lived in the next street!
+
+Selina was not in the slightest degree annoyed by all this. It always
+had been so in Austria, and probably always would be so. She had
+expected nothing else. And Lato,--what had he expected? he who
+understood such matters better than she did? A miracle, perhaps; at
+least an exception in his favour.
+
+His life in Vienna was torture to him. He made front against his former
+world, defied it, even vilified it, and was possessed by a hungry
+desire for what he had lost, for what he had prized so little when it
+was naturally his own. If he could but have found something to replace
+what he had resigned! Sincerity, earnestness, a deeper grasp of life,
+elevation of thought,--all of which he might have found among the best
+of the _bourgeoisie_,--he had sufficient intellect and refinement to
+have enjoyed. Perhaps under such influences there was stuff in him of a
+kind to be remodelled, and he might have become a useful, capable man.
+But the circle in which he was forced to live was not that of the true
+_bourgeoisie_. It was an inorganic mass of rich people and idlers
+tossed together, all with titles of yesterday, who cared for nothing in
+the world save money-getting and display,--a world in which the men
+played at languid dulness and the women at frivolity, because they
+thought it '_chic_,' in which all wanted to be 'fast,' to make a
+sensation, to be talked of in the newspapers,--a world which, with
+ridiculous exclusiveness, boasted of its anti-Semitic prejudices, and
+in which the money acquired with such unnatural celerity had no room
+for free play, so that the golden calf, confined within so limited an
+arena, cut the most extraordinary capers. These people spent their time
+in perfecting themselves in aristocratic demeanour and in talking
+alternately of good manners, elegant toilets, and refined _menus_. The
+genuine patrician world of trade held itself aloof from this tinsel
+society, or only accidentally came into contact with it.
+
+Lato's was a very unpleasant experience. The few people of solid worth
+whom he met at his mother-in-law's avoided him. His sole pleasure in
+life was his little son, who daily grew plumper, prettier, merrier. He
+would stretch out his arms to his father when the merest baby, and crow
+with delight. What a joy it was for Lato to clasp the little creature
+in his arms!
+
+The boy was just fifteen months old when the first real quarrel took
+place between Lato and his wife, and estranged them for life.
+
+Hitherto Lato had had the management and right of disposal of his
+wife's property, and although more than one disagreeable remark anent
+his extravagance had fallen from her lips he had taken pains not to
+heed them. But one day he bought a pair of horses for which he had been
+longing, paying an amateur price for them.
+
+He was so delighted with his purchase that he immediately drove the
+horses in the Prater to try them. On his return home he was received by
+Selina with a very cross face. She had heard of his purchase, and asked
+about the horses.
+
+He praised them with enthusiasm. Forgetting for the moment all the
+annoyances of his position, he cried, "Come and look at them!"
+
+"No need," she made answer. "You did not ask my opinion before buying
+them; it is of no consequence now whether I like them or not."
+
+He bit his lip.
+
+"What did you pay for them?" she asked. He told her the price; she
+shrugged her shoulders and laughed contemptuously. "So they told me,"
+she said. "I would not believe it!"
+
+"When you have seen the horses you will not think the price too high,"
+Lato said, controlling himself with difficulty.
+
+"Oh, the price may be all right," she rejoined, sharply, "but the
+extravagance seems great to me. Of course, if you have it----"
+
+Everything swam before his eyes. He turned and left the room. That
+very day he sold the horses, fortunately without loss. He brought the
+bank-notes to his wife, who was seated at her writing-table, and put
+them down before her. She was startled, and tried to compromise
+matters. He was inflexible. For half a day the apple of discord in the
+shape of a bundle of bank-notes lay on the writing-table, a bait for
+dishonest servants; then it vanished within Selina's desk.
+
+From that moment Lato was not to be induced to use a single penny of
+his wife's money. He retrenched in all directions, living as well as he
+could upon his own small income, derived from his maternal inheritance,
+and paid him punctually by his father.
+
+He was not in the least annoyed by the shabby part he was consequently
+obliged to play among his wealthy associates, but when he recalled how
+he had previously appropriated his wife's money his cheeks and ears
+burned furiously.
+
+There was no longer any talk of buying an estate. Instead, Selina's
+mother bought one. The Treurenbergs could pass their summers there. Why
+squander money on an estate? One magnificent castle in the family was
+enough.
+
+Shortly after Lato's estrangement from his wife his little son died of
+the croup. This was the annihilation of his existence; the last sunbeam
+upon his path faded; all around and within him was dark and cold.
+
+
+He ponders all this as he rides from Komaritz to Dobrotschau. His
+horse's pace grows slower and slower, his bridle hangs loose. Evening
+has set in. Suddenly a sharp whirr rouses the lonely man. He looks up,
+to see a belated bird hurrying home to its nest. His dreamy gaze
+follows the black fluttering thing, and he wonders vaguely whether the
+little wanderer will find his home and be received with affection by
+his feathered family. The idle fancy makes him smile; but, "What is
+there to laugh at?" he suddenly reflects. "Good heavens! a life
+that warms itself beside another life, in which it finds peace and
+comfort,--is not this the central idea of all existence, great or
+small? Everything else in the world is but of secondary interest."
+
+For him there is no human being in whom he can confide, to whom he can
+turn for sympathy; for him there is only cheerless solitude.
+
+The moon is setting; above the low mountain-spur its silver crescent
+hovers in the liquid light green of the summer evening sky. The castle
+of Dobrotschau looms up in the twilight.
+
+"What is that? Along the road, towards the belated horseman, comes a
+white figure. Can it be Selina? His heart beats fast; he is ready to be
+grateful for the smallest proof of affection, so strong is the yearning
+within him for a little human sympathy. No, it is not Selina; it is a
+tall, slender girl. She has seen him, and hastens her steps.
+
+"Lato!" calls an anxious, familiar voice.
+
+"Olga!" he exclaims, and, springing from his horse, he approaches her.
+Yes, it is Olga,--Olga in a white dress, without hat or gloves, and
+with a look of anxiety in her eyes.
+
+"Thank heaven!" she exclaims.
+
+"My child, what is the matter?" he asks, half laughing.
+
+"I have been so anxious," she confesses. "You are an hour and a half
+late for dinner, and you know how foolish I am. All sorts of fancies
+beset me. My imagination works swiftly."
+
+"You are a dear child, Olga," he whispers, softly, taking her hand and
+kissing it twice. Then they walk together towards the castle. He leads
+his horse by the bridle, and listens to all the trifling matters of
+which she tells him.
+
+The world is no longer dreary and empty for him. Here is at least one
+person who is not indifferent to his going and coming.
+
+At Dobrotschau he finds the entire party in the garden-room. Selina and
+the Pole are playing a duett. Dinner is over. They could not wait for
+him, Selina explains, because the cook was trying to-day for the first
+time a soufflé of Parmesan cheese and truffles, which would have been
+ruined by delay. But his hospitable mother-in-law adds,--
+
+"Your dinner is all ready in the dining-room. I gave orders that it
+should be served as soon as you came."
+
+And Lato goes to the dining-hall, a magnificent oak-wainscoted room, in
+which the chandelier, lighted in his honour, represents a round island
+of light in a sea of black darkness. The soup-tureen is on the
+sideboard: a servant lifts the cover, and the butler ladles out a
+plateful of the soup and places it before Lato.
+
+He takes a spoonful discontentedly, then motions to the butler to take
+the plate away. Olga suddenly appears.
+
+"Have you left any for me?" she asks. "I am fearfully hungry, for I
+could not eat any dinner."
+
+"From anxiety?" asks Lato.
+
+"Yes," she says, laughing, "from anxiety." And she takes a seat
+opposite him.
+
+"Oh, you silly girl!" says Treurenberg, watching her with satisfaction
+as she sips her soup. Lato himself suddenly has an access of appetite.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+                           A FRIEND'S ADVICE.
+
+
+Few things in this world are more unpleasant than to be obliged to
+admit the excellence of a friend's advice when it runs counter to all
+our most secret and decided inclinations.
+
+Harry Leskjewitsch finds himself thus disagreeably situated the evening
+after Lato's visit to Komaritz.
+
+While Lato, "gens-d'armed" by two lackeys, is eating his late dinner
+with Olga, Harry is striding discontentedly to and fro in the steep,
+uneven court-yard at Komaritz, muttering between his teeth,--
+
+"Lato is right, quite right. I am behaving unpardonably: no respectable
+man would play this double part. I must go away."
+
+Yes, away; but how can he go away while he knows that Baron Wenkendorf
+is at Zirkow? It appears to him that he can still do something to
+prevent Zdena from giving ear to her elderly suitor, for such he
+certainly seems to be. Harry has been often at Zirkow of late,--no
+fewer than three times since his entanglement,--and he has consequently
+had opportunity to watch Zdena's behaviour. Her feeling for the man has
+certainly reached another stage; she conducts herself with more gravity
+towards him, and with more cordiality; she often turns to him with
+trifling questions, and seems to take a kind of pleasure in his
+society.
+
+"Who knows?" Harry says to himself, clinching his hand and almost mad
+with jealousy, as he paces the court-yard to and fro.
+
+The crescent moon in the August sky creeps over the dark roof of the
+brew-house. The air is freshened by the fragrance of the group of
+walnuts; but another and more penetrating odour mingles with it,--the
+odour of old wood impregnated with some kind of fermenting stuff.
+There, against the uneven wall of the old brew-house, stands a row of
+huge casks.
+
+The casks recall to Harry memories that fill him with sweet and bitter
+sensations. Into one of them he had crept with Zdena, during a storm,
+in the early years of their acquaintance. Ah, what a bewitching little
+creature she was then! He can see her distinctly now, with her long,
+golden hair; her large, brown eyes, that had so truthful a gaze; the
+short upper lip of the childish mouth, that seemed always on the point
+of asking a question; yes, even the slender, childish hands he can see,
+with the wide, white apron-sleeves; the short skirt and the bare little
+legs, usually, it must be confessed, much scratched. He recalls the
+short, impatient movement with which she used to pull her skirts over
+her knees when she sat down. In one of those casks they had taken
+refuge from a shower,--he and she,--and they had sat there, close
+together, looking out upon the world through the gray curtain of the
+rain. How comically she had peered out, now and then holding out her
+hand to make sure that it was still pouring! It would not stop. Harry
+can hear at this moment the rustle of the rain through the foliage of
+the walnuts, its drip upon the cask, and the cackling of the agitated
+geese in the court-yard. He had told the child stories to amuse her,
+and she had gone to sleep with her head on his shoulder, and finally he
+had taken off his jacket to wrap it about her as he carried her through
+the rain into the house.
+
+Oh, what a lecture they had had from Mademoiselle, who, meanwhile, had
+been sending everywhere to find the children, and was half crazy with
+anxiety!
+
+"I cannot conceive why you should have been anxious, mademoiselle," he
+had said, with all the dignity of his twelve years. "You ought to know
+that Zdena is well taken care of when she is with me."
+
+Twelve years have passed since then, but it seems to him suddenly that
+it all happened only yesterday.
+
+"Well taken care of," he mutters to himself,--"well taken care of. I
+believe that she would be well taken care of with me to-day, but--good
+heavens!"
+
+His lips are dry, his throat feels contracted. Up to the present moment
+he has regarded his betrothal to Paula as a disagreeable temporary
+entanglement; never has he viewed it as a serious, enduring misfortune.
+Lato's words have thrown a vivid light upon his position; he sees
+clearly that he is no longer a free agent, and that every hour passed
+with Paula rivets his fetters more securely. Yes, Lato is right; he
+must go away. But he must see her once more before he goes,--only once.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIX.
+
+                         FRAU ROSA'S BIRTHDAY.
+
+
+High festival is being held at Zirkow in honour of Frau Rosamunda's
+birthday, which is observed this year with even more ceremony than
+usual. Thanks to a fortunate combination of circumstances, the major
+has it in his power to bestow a costly gift upon his wife this year. He
+has lately concluded a very profitable bargain: he has sold the entire
+interior arrangements of the brew-house as old iron and copper to a Jew
+for the magnificent sum of fifteen hundred guilders. With such wealth
+much can be done. Nothing now prevents the devoted husband from
+fulfilling Frau Rosamunda's two ardent desires,--a trip to Bayreuth and
+the thorough repair of the much-defaced decorations on the Zirkow walls
+and ceilings. On her birthday-table Frau Rosamunda finds, in the midst
+of a tasteful arrangement of flowers, first, a kind of sign in
+miniature,--_i.e_., a square black card, upon which is written, in red
+letters, "Good for house-decorators,"--and a large earthenware prize
+pig with stiff, straddling legs and a beautifully-rounded body, upon
+which is written, also in red letters, "A steed to carry you to
+Bayreuth." A bouquet of four-leaved clover (Zdena gathered it at dawn)
+is stuck like a green plume between the animal's projecting ears. A
+pin-cushion covered with a delicate imitation in needle-work of
+Irish guipure, the piano arrangement of 'Tristan and Isolde' and a
+potpourri from 'Parzifal,' both for four hands, complete the number of
+birthday-gifts. The Irish guipure is Zdena's work; the music comes from
+Wenkendorf. All these things even the house-decorator are of secondary
+importance to Frau Rosamunda. Her whole attention is absorbed by the
+pig, at which enigmatic monster she gazes in wonder.
+
+"A steed to carry you to Bayreuth." It sounds like a poor jest, a very
+poor jest.
+
+The major looks at his wife with a broad smile.
+
+"Take up the pig and shake it a little," he says at last. Frau
+Rosamunda obeys. There is a clink of coin. She understands, and runs to
+her husband with a cry of delight.
+
+She celebrates the remainder of her birthday by playing duets with her
+cousin from 'Tristan and Isolde' and 'Parzifal' alternately. The major
+walks about with his hands clasped behind him, deep in thought and well
+content, like a man who is about to carry out a carefully-devised plan.
+
+The afternoon sun is casting long shadows, and Krupitschka, who has
+just finished furbishing up the silver,--in honour of the birthday six
+more silver dishes than usual have been brought out to-day,--is sitting
+on a bench at the back of the castle, refreshing himself with an
+examination of the foreign dictionary which he has purchased with the
+money for his cantharides,--and which, by the way, he finds highly
+unsatisfactory,--when a young officer of hussars upon an English
+chestnut mare with a hide like satin comes galloping into the
+court-yard.
+
+At sight of the horse and its rider all clouds vanish from
+Krupitschka's horizon; in his opinion there is no finer sight in the
+world than a "handsome officer upon a handsome horse."
+
+He is not the only one to admire Harry Leskjewitsch on his mare
+Frou-Frou. At one of the windows of the castle a pale, girlish face
+appears, and a pair of bright brown eyes look down into the court-yard,
+for a moment only. But Harry has seen the face, quickly as it
+disappears, and his heart beats fast.
+
+"Are the ladies at home?" he asks Krupitschka, as he gives his steed in
+charge to a groom who hurries up, clad in a striped stable-jacket very
+much darned at the elbows, and a cap with a tarnished silver band.
+
+"They are, Herr Baron." And Krupitschka shows Harry up the steps and to
+the door of the drawing-room, which he opens with dignity, not because
+such ceremony is at all necessary, but because the young man has been
+his favourite from childhood, and he loves to perform any service for
+him.
+
+When Harry enters, Frau Rosamunda and Wenkendorf are still at the
+piano, working away at 'Parzifal,' and do not seem over-pleased by the
+interruption. The major is lying back in a rocking-chair, smoking a
+cigarette and upon his nephew's entrance springs up with undisguised
+delight and goes towards him with extended hands.
+
+"Tell the Baroness Zdena that a visitor has arrived!" he calls out to
+Krupitschka; then, turning to Harry, he says, smiling, "And so you have
+come to congratulate?"
+
+"Congratulate?" Harry repeats, surprised and preoccupied.
+
+"Oh, you have forgotten, then?" the major rejoins.
+
+Harry slaps his forehead. "Dearest aunt, forgive me! how thoughtless I
+am!" And he kisses Frau Rosamunda's hand.
+
+"I do not take it at all ill of you," she assures him. "At my age
+people would rather have their birthday forgotten than remembered."
+
+"Oh--ah! I have not observed that," the major declares.
+
+"Oh, it is different for you. You may be allowed to take notice of my
+being each year one year older, always provided that you give me upon
+all my birthdays as great a pleasure as to-day."
+
+"You cannot reckon upon that, my dear; all years are not alike," the
+major replies. "This was a lucky chance."
+
+"Have you had a stroke of good fortune, uncle?" Harry asks, trying to
+take an interest in the matter.
+
+"Yes," the major informs him; "I have just concluded a brilliant
+transaction. I have sold the iron from the interior of the brew-house."
+
+"For how much, may I ask?"
+
+"Fifteen hundred guilders," the major declares, triumphantly. "I would
+not abate one penny. The superintendent was surprised at the sum, I can
+tell you."
+
+"I do not understand such matters," Harry rejoins, thinking of the
+enormous expense of fitting up the brew-house some years ago. His
+uncle's 'brilliant transaction' reminds him of the story of 'Hans in
+Luck.' "And in consequence your birthday-gifts have been very superior,
+aunt?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Frau Rosamunda displays with delight the prize pig. The green plume
+between its ears is slightly faded, but the coins in its body clink as
+triumphantly as ever.
+
+"'A steed to carry you to Bayreuth,'" Harry reads. "I am so glad, my
+dear aunt, that your wish is to be fulfilled."
+
+"Tickets for two performances besides the journey," the major proudly
+declares.
+
+"And my cousin has surprised me with some delightful music which I have
+long wanted."
+
+"Not worth mentioning, Rosamunda," Wenkendorf says, deprecatingly.
+
+"My wife's birthday has really turned out a Wagner festival," the
+major declares. "Since ten o'clock this morning these two artists have
+been playing nothing but Wagner, for their own pleasure and the
+conversion of their hearers. Zdena ran away, but I stood my ground, and
+I have become quite accustomed to the noise."
+
+"That is a good sign," Wenkendorf assures him.
+
+"You ought to hear Wagner's compositions very often. What do you say,
+Roderich, to our playing for Harry some of the loveliest bits of
+'Parzifal'? We are just in the mood."
+
+"Do not let me interrupt you; pray go on; it will give me the greatest
+pleasure," Harry murmurs, glancing towards the door. Why does she not
+come?
+
+Meanwhile, the two amateurs have begun with untiring energy.
+
+"Kundry's Ride!" Frau Rosamunda calls out to her nephew, while her
+hands dash over the keys. Harry does not hear her. He has seated
+himself beside the major, and absently takes a cigarette from the case
+which his uncle offers him.
+
+"I came to bid you good-bye," he says, in an uncertain voice.
+
+"Indeed!" says the major, looking at him scrutinizingly. "Is your leave
+at an end?"
+
+"No, but----" Harry hesitates and pulls at his moustache.
+
+"H'm!" A sly smile quivers upon the major's broad face. "Have you
+quarrelled with your betrothed?"
+
+"No, but----"
+
+The door opens, and Zdena enters, slender and pale, dressed in a
+simply-fashioned linen gown. She has lost her fresh colour, and her
+face is much thinner, but her beauty, far from being injured thereby,
+is heightened by an added charm,--a sad, touching charm, that threatens
+to rob Harry of the remnant of reason he can still call his.
+
+"How are you, Zdena?" he says, going to meet her, while the warmest
+sympathy trembles in his voice. "You look pale. Are you well?"
+
+"The heat oppresses me," she says, with a slight forced smile,
+withdrawing the hand which he would fain have retained longer in his
+clasp than was fitting under the circumstances.
+
+"The Balsam motif," Frau Rosamunda calls from the piano.
+
+After a while Zdena begins:
+
+"How are they all at Komaritz? Heda sent her congratulations to-day
+with some lovely flowers, but said nothing with regard to the welfare
+of the family."
+
+"I wonder that Heda did not remind you of the birthday, Harry!" remarks
+the major.
+
+"Oh, she rejoices over every forgetfulness in those around her," Harry
+observes, with some malice: "she likes to stand alone in her extreme
+virtue."
+
+"Motif of the Redeemer's Sufferings," Frau Rosamunda calls out. Zdena
+leans forward, and seems absorbed in Wagner. Harry cannot take his eyes
+off her.
+
+"What a change!" he muses. "Can she--could she be suffering on my
+account?"
+
+There is an agreeable flutter of his entire nervous system: it mingles
+with the sense of unhappiness which he drags about with him.
+
+"Oh, what a double-dyed fool I was!" a voice within him cries out. "How
+could I be so vexed with her scrap of childish worldly wisdom, instead
+of simply laughing at her for it, teasing her a little about it, and
+then, after I had set her straight, forgiving her, oh, how tenderly!"
+
+"Zdena is not quite herself. I do not know what ails her," said the
+major, stroking the girl's thin cheek.
+
+"You have long been a hypochondriac on your own account; now you are
+trying it for other people," says Zdena, rising and going to the
+window, where she busies herself with some embroidery. "I have a little
+headache," she adds.
+
+"Earthly Enjoyment motif," Frau Rosamunda calls out, enthusiastically,
+in a raised voice.
+
+The major bursts into Homeric laughter, in which Zdena, whose
+overstrained nerves dispose her for tears as well as laughter, joins.
+Harry alone does not laugh: his head is too full of other matters.
+
+"Is Zdena also going to Bayreuth?" he asks.
+
+"No," the major replies; "the finances are not equal to that."
+
+"'Tis a pity," Harry remarks: "a little change of air might do her
+good."
+
+"So it seems to me," the major assents, "and I was about to propose a
+plan. By the way, when do you take your departure?"
+
+"Are you going away?" asks Frau Rosamunda, rising from the piano, aglow
+with enthusiasm and artistic zeal, to join the trio. Wenkendorf also
+rises and takes a seat near the rest.
+
+"He is going away," the major replies.
+
+"Yes," assents Harry.
+
+"But what does your betrothed say?"
+
+"I have already put that question to him," said the major.
+
+"One of my comrades has suddenly been taken ill," Harry stammers,
+frowning; "and so--of course it is very unpleasant just now----"
+
+"Very, very," murmurs the major, with a hypocritical show of sympathy.
+"When do you start?"
+
+"Oh, the day after to-morrow."
+
+"That suits me remarkably well," the major remarks. "There will be a
+vacant room at Komaritz, and Zdena might go over for a couple of days."
+
+Wenkendorf frowns disapprovingly. "It is a great pity that you are not
+going with us to Bayreuth," he says, turning to the young girl.
+
+"That would be a fine way to cure the headache," the major observes.
+
+"I would rather stay at home with you, uncle dear," Zdena assures him.
+
+"That will not do. Friday evening my wife starts for Bayreuth; Saturday
+I expect the painters; the entire house will be turned upside-down, and
+I have no use for you. Therefore, since there is room for you at
+Komaritz----"
+
+"There is always room at Komaritz for Zdena," Harry eagerly declares.
+
+"Yes,--particularly after you have gone. It is decided; she is going. I
+shall take her over on Saturday afternoon," the major announces. "You
+can tell Heda."
+
+"And who will go to Bayreuth with my aunt?" asks Harry.
+
+"Her musical cousin Roderich. By the way, Wenkendorf, you will come
+back to Zirkow from Bayreuth?"
+
+"Of course I shall escort Rosamunda upon her return."
+
+"We shall be glad to welcome you for the hunting. I take it for granted
+you will give us a long visit then?"
+
+"That will depend upon circumstances," says Wenkendorf, with a
+significant glance towards Zdena, which does not escape Harry.
+
+Meanwhile, the August twilight has set in. Krupitschka brings the
+lamps. Harry rises.
+
+"Will you not stay for supper?" asks Frau Rosa.
+
+"No, thank you; I have a deal to do."
+
+"No wonder, before leaving," says the wily major, not making the
+slightest effort to detain the young fellow. "You are looking for your
+sabre?--there it is. Ah, what a heavy thing! When I reflect upon how
+many years I dragged such a rattling tool about with me!"
+
+Harry has gone. The major has accompanied him to the court-yard, and he
+now returns to the room, chuckling, and rubbing his hands, as if at
+some successful trick.
+
+"What an idea! So sudden a journey!--and a betrothed man!" Frau Rosa
+remarks, thoughtfully.
+
+"If I were his betrothed I would hurry and have the monogram
+embroidered on my outfit," drawls the major. "Let me come there, if you
+please." These last words are addressed to Wenkendorf, who is about to
+close the piano. The major takes his place at it, bangs away at his
+triumphal march with immense energy and a tolerably harmonious bass,
+then claps down the cover of the much-tortured instrument, locks it,
+and puts the key in his pocket. "There, that's enough for to-day!" he
+declares.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XX.
+
+                            KOMARITZ AGAIN.
+
+
+The major carried out his plan. On Saturday the painter made solemn
+entry into Zirkow with his train of workmen, their ladders, paint-pots,
+and brushes, to turn the orderly household upside-down,--whereupon
+Baron Paul drove Zdena to Komaritz, in the same drag in which the child
+of six had first been driven thither by him.
+
+More than a dozen years had passed since that afternoon, and yet every
+detail of the drive was vividly present in the young girl's mind. Much
+had changed since then; the drag had grown far shabbier, and the fiery
+chestnuts had been tamed and lamed by time, but the road was just as
+bad, and the country around as lovely and home-like. From time to time
+Zdena raised her head to gaze where the stream ran cool and gray on the
+other side of the walnut-trees that bordered the road, or at the brown
+ruin of the castle, the jagged tower of which was steadily rising in
+the blue atmosphere against the distant horizon. And then she would
+pull her straw hat lower over her eyes and look only at the backs of
+the horses. Why did her uncle keep glancing at her with such a sly
+smile? He could not divine the strange mixture of joy and unrest that
+was filling her soul. No one must know it. Poor Zdena! All night long
+she had been tormented by the thought that she had yielded too readily,
+had acceded too willingly to her uncle's proposal to take her to
+Komaritz during the bustle made by the painters, and she had soothed
+her scruples by saying to herself, "He will not be there." And, yet,
+the nearer they came to Komaritz the more persistent was the joyous
+suggestion within her, "What if he were not yet gone!"
+
+Click-clack! The ancient St. John, whose bead is lying at his feet
+precisely as it was lying so many years ago, stands gray and tall among
+the lindens in the pasture near the village; they have reached
+Komaritz. Click-clack!--the horses make an ambitious effort to
+end their journey with credit. The same ox, recently butchered,
+hangs before the butcher-shop on an old walnut; the same odour of
+wagon-grease and singed hoofs comes from the smithy, and before it the
+smith is examining the foot of the same horse, while a dozen village
+children stand around gazing. The same dear old Komaritz!
+
+"If only he might be there!"
+
+With a sudden jolt the drag rolls through the picturesque, ruinous
+archway of the court-yard. The chestnuts are reined in, the major's sly
+smile broadens expressively, and Zdena's young pulses throb with
+breathless delight.
+
+Yes, he is there! standing in the door-way of the old house, an
+embarrassed smile on his thin, tanned face as he offers his hand to
+Zdena to help her down from her high seat.
+
+"What a surprise! You here?" exclaims the old dragoon, with
+poorly-feigned astonishment, in which there is a slight tinge of
+ridicule. "I thought you would be miles away by this time. It is a good
+thing that you were able to postpone your departure for a few days. No,
+I can't stop; I must drive home again immediately. Adieu, children!"
+
+Baron Paul turns his tired steeds, and, gaily waving his hand in token
+of farewell, vanishes beneath the archway.
+
+There they stand, she and he, alone in front of the house. The old
+walnuts, lifting their stately crests into the blue skies along one
+side of the court-yard, whisper all sorts of pleasant things to them,
+but they have no words for each other.
+
+At last Harry asks, taking the black leather travelling-bag from his
+cousin's hand, "Is this all your luggage?"
+
+"The milkman is to bring a small trunk," she replies, without looking
+at him.
+
+"We have had your old room made ready for you."
+
+"Ah, my old room,--how delightful!"
+
+They cross the threshold, when Harry suddenly stands still.
+
+"Are you not going to give me your hand?" he asks, in a tone of
+entreaty, whereupon she extends her hand, and then instantly withdraws
+it. She seems to herself to be doing wrong. As matters stand, she must
+not make the smallest advance to him,--no, not the smallest: she has
+resolved upon that. In fact, she did not expect to see him here, and
+she must show him that she is quite annoyed by his postponing his
+departure.
+
+Yap, yap, yap! the rabble of dachshunds, multiplied considerably in the
+last twelve years, comes tumbling down the steps to leap about Zdena;
+Harry's faithful hound Hector comes and puts his paws on her shoulder;
+and, lastly, the ladies come down into the hall,--Heda, the Countess
+Zriny, Fräulein Laut,--and, surrounding Zdena, carry her off to her
+room. Here they stay talking with her for a while; then they withdraw,
+each to follow her own devices.
+
+How glad the girl is to be alone! She is strangely moved, perplexed,
+and yet unaccountably happy.
+
+It is clear that Harry intends to dissolve the engagement into which so
+mysterious a chain of circumstances has forced him. The difficulty of
+doing this Zdena does not take into consideration. Paula must see that
+he does not care for her; and then--then there will be nothing left for
+her save to release him. Thus Zdena concludes, and the world looks very
+bright to her.
+
+Oh, the dear old room! she would not exchange it for a kingdom.
+How home-like and comfortable!--so shady and cool, with its deep
+window-recesses, where the sunshine filters in through the green,
+rustling net-work of vines; with its stiff antiquated furniture forming
+so odd a contrast to the wild luxuriance of extraordinary flowers with
+which a travelling fresco-painter ages ago decorated walls and ceiling;
+with its old-fashioned embroidered _prie-dieu_ beneath an ancient
+bronze crucifix, and its little bed, so snowy white and cool, fragrant
+with lavender and orris!
+
+The floor, of plain deal planks, scrubbed to a milky whiteness, is
+bare, except that beside the bed lies a rug upon which a very yellow
+tiger is rolling, and gnashing his teeth, in a very green meadow, and
+on the wall hangs one single picture,--a faded chromo, at which Zdena,
+when a child, had almost stared her eyes out.
+
+The picture represents a young lady gazing at her reflection in a
+mirror. Her hair is worn in tasteless, high puffs and much powdered,
+her waist is unnaturally long and slim, and her skirts are bunched up
+about her hips. To the modern observer she is not attractive, but Zdena
+hails her as an old acquaintance. Beneath the picture are the words
+"_Lui plairai-je?_" The thing hangs in one of the window-embrasures,
+above a marquetrie work-table, upon which has been placed a nosegay of
+fresh, fragrant roses.
+
+"Who has plucked and placed them there?" Zdena asks herself. Suddenly a
+shrill bell rings, calling to table the inmates of Komaritz in house
+and garden. Zdena hurriedly picks out of the nosegay the loveliest bud,
+and puts it in her breast, then looks at herself in the glass,--a tall,
+narrow glass in a smooth black frame with brass rosettes at the
+corners,--and murmurs, smiling, "_Lui plairai-je?_" then blushes
+violently and takes out the rose from her bosom. It is a sin even to
+have such a thought,--under existing circumstances.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXI.
+
+                              "POOR LATO!"
+
+
+Five hours have passed since Zdena's arrival in Komaritz. Harry has
+been very good; that is, he has scarcely made an appearance; perhaps
+because he is conscious that when he is with Zdena he can hardly take
+his eyes off her, which, "under existing circumstances," might strike
+others as, to Bay the least, extraordinary.
+
+After dinner he goes off partridge shooting, inviting his younger
+brother, who is devoted to him and whom he spoils like a mother, to
+accompany him. But Vips, as the family prefer to call him instead of
+Vladimir, although usually proud and happy to be thus distinguished by
+his elder brother, declines his invitation today. In fact, he has
+fallen desperately in love with Zdena. He is lying at her feet on the
+steps leading from the dwelling-room into the garden. His hair is
+beautifully brushed, and he has on his best coat.
+
+The Countess Zriny is in her room, writing to her father confessor;
+Fräulein Laut is at the piano, practising something by Brahms, to which
+musical hero she is almost as much devoted as is Rosamunda to her
+idolized Wagner; and Heda is sitting beside her cousin on the
+garden-steps, manufacturing with praiseworthy diligence crochetted
+stars of silk.
+
+"What do you really think of Harry's betrothal, Zdena?" she begins at
+last, after a long silence.
+
+At this question the blood rushes to Zdena's cheeks; nevertheless her
+answer sounds quite self-possessed.
+
+"What shall I say? I was very much surprised."
+
+"So was I," Heda confesses. "At first I was raging, for, after all,
+_elle n'est pas de notre monde_. But lately so many young men of our
+set have married nobodies that one begins to be accustomed to it,
+although I must say I am by no means enchanted with it yet. One's own
+brother,--it comes very near; but it is best to shut one's eyes in such
+cases. Setting aside the _mésalliance_, there is no objection to make
+to Paula. She is pretty, clover, frightfully cultivated,--too
+cultivated: it is rather bad form,--and for the rest, if she would only
+dress a little better, she would be quite presentable. And then she
+makes such advances; it is touching. The last time I dined at
+Dobrotschau I found in my napkin a butterfly pendant, with little
+sapphires and rubies in its diamond wings. I must show it to you; 'tis
+delicious," she rattles on.
+
+"And what did you find in your napkin, Vips?" asks Zdena, who seems to
+herself to be talking of people with whom she has not the slightest
+connection, so strange is the whole affair.
+
+"I? I was not at the dinner," says the boy.
+
+"Not invited?" Zdena rallies him.
+
+"Not invited!" Vips draws down the corners of his mouth scornfully.
+"Oh, indeed! not invited! Why, they invited the entire household,--even
+her!" He motions disdainfully towards the open door, through which
+Fräulein Laut can be seen sitting at the piano. "Yes, we were even
+asked to bring Hector. But I stayed at home, because I cannot endure
+those Harfinks."
+
+"Ah! your sentiments are also opposed to the _mésalliance_?" Zdena goes
+on, ironically.
+
+"_Mésalliance!_" shouts Vips. "You know very well that I am a Liberal!"
+
+Vips finished reading "Don Carlos" about a fortnight ago, and even
+before then showed signs of Liberal tendencies.
+
+The previous winter, when he attended the representation, at a theatre
+in Bohemia, of a new play of strong democratic colouring, he applauded
+all the freethinking tirades with such vehemence that his tutor was at
+last obliged, to the great amusement of the public, to hold back his
+hands.
+
+"Ah, indeed, you are Liberal?" says Zdena. "I am delighted to hear it."
+
+"Of course I am; but every respectable man must be a bit of an
+aristocrat," Vips declares, grandly, "and I cannot endure that Harry
+should marry that Paula. I told him so to his face; and I am not going
+to his wedding. I cannot understand why he takes her, for he's in
+love----" He suddenly pauses. Two gentlemen are coming through the
+garden towards the steps,--Harry and Lato.
+
+Lato greets Zdena cordially. Heda expresses her surprise at Harry's
+speedy return from his shooting, and he, who always now suspects some
+hidden meaning in her remarks, flushes and frowns as he replies, "I saw
+Treurenberg in the distance, and so I turned back. Besides, the
+shooting all went wrong to-day," he adds, with a compassionate glance
+at the large hound now stretched out at his master's feet at the bottom
+of the steps. "He would scarcely stir: I cannot understand it, he is
+usually so fresh and gay, and loves to go shooting more than all the
+others; to-day he was almost sullen, and lagged behind,--hey, old
+boy?" He stoops and strokes the creature's neck, but the dog seems
+ill-tempered, and snaps at him.
+
+"What! snap--snap at me! that's something new," Harry exclaims,
+frowning; then, seizing the animal by the collar, he shakes it
+violently and hurls it from him. "Be off!" he orders, sternly. The dog,
+as if suddenly ashamed, looks back sadly, and then walks slowly away,
+with drooping ears and tail. "I don't know what is the matter with the
+poor fellow!" Harry says, really troubled.
+
+"He walks strangely; he seems stiff," Vladimir remarks, looking after
+the dog. "It seems to hurt him."
+
+"Some good-for-nothing boy must have thrown a stone at him and bruised
+his back," Harry decides.
+
+"You had better be careful with that dog," Heda now puts in her word.
+"Several dogs hereabouts have gone mad, and one roamed about the
+country for some time before he could be caught and killed."
+
+"Pray, hush!" Harry exclaims, almost angrily, to his sister, with whom
+he is apt to disagree: "you always forebode the worst. If a fly stings
+one you are always sure that it has just come from an infected horse or
+cow."
+
+"You have lately been so irritable, I cannot imagine what is the matter
+with you," lisps Hedwig.
+
+Harry frowns.
+
+Lato, meanwhile, has paid no heed to these remarks: he is apparently
+absorbed in his own thoughts, as, sitting on a lower step, he has been
+drawing with the handle of his riding-whip cabalistic signs in the
+gravel of the path. Now he looks up.
+
+"I have a letter for you from Paula,--here it is," he observes, handing
+Harry a thick packet wrapped in light-blue tissue paper. While Harry,
+with a dubious expression of countenance, drops the packet into his
+coat-pocket, Lato continues: "Paula has all sorts of fancies about your
+absence. You have not been to Dobrotschau for two days. She is afraid
+you are ill, and that you are keeping it from her lest she should be
+anxious. She is coming over here with my wife tomorrow afternoon to
+look after you--I mean, to pay the ladies a visit." After Lato has
+given utterance to these words in a smooth monotone, his expression
+suddenly changes: his features betoken embarrassment, as, leaning
+towards Harry, he whispers, "I should like to speak with you alone. Can
+you give me a few minutes?"
+
+Shortly afterwards, Harry rises and takes his friend with him to his
+own room, a spacious vaulted chamber next to the dining-room, which he
+shares with his young brother.
+
+"Well, old fellow?" he begins, encouragingly, clapping Lato on the
+shoulder. Lato clears his throat, then slowly takes his seat in an
+arm-chair beside a table covered with a disorderly array of Greek and
+Latin books and scribbled sheets of paper. Harry sits opposite him, and
+for a while neither speaks.
+
+The silence is disturbed only by the humming of the bees, and by the
+scratching at the window of an ancient apricot-tree, which seems
+desirous to call attention to what it has to say, but desists with a
+low rustle that sounds like a sigh. The tall clock strikes five; it is
+not late, and yet the room is dim with a gray-green light; the sunbeams
+have hard work to penetrate the leafy screen before the windows.
+
+"Well?" Harry again says, at last, gently twitching his friend's
+sleeve.
+
+"It is strange," Treurenberg begins; his voice has a hard, forced
+sound, he affects an indifference foreign to his nature, "but since my
+marriage I have had excellent luck at play. To speak frankly, it has
+been very convenient. Do not look so startled; wait until you are in my
+position. In the last few days, however, fortune has failed me. In my
+circumstances this is extremely annoying." He laughs, and flicks a
+grain of dust from his coat-sleeve.
+
+Harry looks at him, surprised. "Ah! I understand. You want money. How
+much? If I can help you out I shall be glad to do so."
+
+"Six hundred guilders," says Lato, curtly.
+
+Harry can scarcely believe his ears. How can Lato come to him for such
+a trifle?
+
+"I can certainly scrape together that much for you," he says,
+carelessly, and going to his writing-table he takes a couple of
+bank-notes out of a drawer. "Here!" and he offers the notes to his
+friend.
+
+Lato hesitates for a moment, as if in dread of the money, then takes
+it, and puts it in his pocket.
+
+"Thanks," he murmurs, hoarsely, and again there is a silence, which
+Lato is the first to break. "Why do you look at me so inquiringly?" he
+exclaims, almost angrily.
+
+"Forgive me, Lato, we are such old friends."
+
+"What do you want to know?"
+
+"I was only wondering how a man in your brilliant circumstances could
+be embarrassed for so trifling a sum as six hundred guilders!"
+
+"A man in my brilliant circumstances!" Lato repeats, bitterly. "Yes,
+you think, as does everybody else, that I am still living upon my
+wife's money. But you are mistaken. I tried it, indeed, for a while,
+but I was not made to play that part, no! It was different at first; my
+wife wished that I should have the disposal of her means, and I half
+cheated myself into the belief that her millions belonged to me. She
+came to me for every farthing. I used to rally her upon her
+extravagance; I played at magnanimity, and forgave her, and made her
+costly presents--yes--good heavens, how disgusting! But that is long
+since past; we have separate purses at present, thank God! I am often
+too shabby nowadays for the grand folk at Dobrotschau, but that does
+not trouble me." He drums nervously upon the table.
+
+Harry looks more and more amazed. "But then I cannot see why--" he
+murmurs, but lacks the courage to finish the sentence.
+
+"I know what you wish to say," Lato continues, bitterly. "You wonder
+why, under these circumstances, I cannot shake off the old habit. What
+would you have? Hitherto I have won almost constantly; now my luck has
+turned, and yet I cannot control myself. Those who have not this cursed
+love of play in their blood cannot understand it, but play is the only
+thing in the world in which I can become absorbed,--the only thing that
+can rid me of all sorts of thoughts which I never ought to entertain.
+There! now you know!"
+
+He draws a deep, hoarse breath, then laughs a hard, wooden laugh. Harry
+is very uncomfortable: he has never before seen Lato like this. It
+distresses him to notice how his friend has changed in looks of late.
+His eyes are hollow and unnaturally bright, his lips are dry and
+cracked as from fever, and he is more restless than is his wont.
+
+"Poor Lato! what fresh trouble have you had lately?" asks Harry,
+longing to express his sympathy.
+
+Lato flushes crimson, then nervously curls into dog's-ears the leaves
+of a Greek grammar on the table, and shrugs his shoulders.
+
+"Oh, nothing,--disagreeable domestic complications," he mutters,
+evasively.
+
+"Nothing new has happened, then?" asks Harry, looking at him keenly.
+
+Lato cannot endure his gaze. "What could have happened?" he breaks
+forth.
+
+"How do you get along with your wife?"
+
+"Not at all,--worse every day," Treurenberg says, dryly. "And now comes
+this cursed, meddling Polish jackanapes----"
+
+"If the gentlemen please, the Baroness sends me to say that coffee is
+served." With these words Blasius makes his appearance at the door.
+Lato springs hastily to his feet. The conversation is at an end.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXII.
+
+                            HARRY'S MUSINGS.
+
+
+"What are you doing there, you young donkey,--your lessons not yet
+learned, and wasting time in this fashion?"
+
+These were Harry's words addressed to his young brother. The boy was
+standing on an old wooden bench, gazing over the garden wall.
+
+"I am looking after the girl who was here to-day with the people from
+Dobrotschau."
+
+"Whom do you mean?"
+
+"Why, the beauty; Olga--Olga Dangeri is her name. Come here and see for
+yourself if it is wasting time to look after her."
+
+With an involuntary smile at the lad's precocity, Harry mounted upon
+the bench beside his brother, and, through the gathering twilight,
+gazed after a couple--a man and a girl--slowly sauntering along the
+road outside the garden. The man walked with bent head and downcast
+look; the young girl, on the contrary, held her head proudly erect, and
+there was something regal in her firm gait. The man walked in silence
+beside his beautiful companion, who, on the other band, never stopped
+talking, chattering away with easy grace, and turning towards him the
+while. The silhouette of her noble profile was clearly defined against
+the evening sky. The last golden shimmer of the setting sun touched her
+brown hair with a reddish gleam. She had taken off her hat and hung it
+on her arm; her white gown fell in long, simple folds about her.
+
+"There! is she not lovely?" Vips exclaimed, with boyish enthusiasm. "I
+cannot understand Lato: he hardly looks at her."
+
+Harry hung his head.
+
+"They have vanished in the walnut avenue; you can't see them now," said
+Vips, leaving his post of observation. "I like her; she is not only
+beautiful, she is clever and amiable," the boy went on. "I talked with
+her for quite a while, although she is not so entertaining as our
+Zdena,--she is not half so witty. Let me tell you, there is no one in
+all the world like our Zdena." As he spoke, Vladimir, the keen-sighted,
+plucked his brother by the sleeve of his blue military blouse, and eyed
+him askance. "What is the matter with you, Harry?" For Harry shook the
+boy off rather rudely.
+
+"Oh, hold your tongue for a while!" Harry exclaimed, angrily; "I have a
+headache."
+
+Thus repulsed, Vladimir withdrew, not, however, without turning several
+times to look at his brother, and sighing each time thoughtfully.
+Meanwhile, Harry had seated himself on the old bench whence Vips had
+made his observations. His hands in his pockets, his legs stretched out
+before him, he sat wrapt in gloom, digging his spurs into the ground.
+
+He had passed a hard day,--a day spent in deceit; there was no help for
+it. How mean he was in his own eyes! and yet--how could he help it?
+Paula had carried out her threat, and had driven over with Selina,
+bringing Olga and Lato, "to pay the ladies a visit." After the first
+greetings she had paid the ladies little further attention, but had
+devoted herself to her betrothed, drawing him with her into some
+window-recess or shady garden nook, where she could whisper loving
+words or lavish tender caresses, which he could not repulse without
+positive rudeness. Oh, how long the visit had seemed to him! Although
+Paula had withdrawn him from the rest of the company as far as
+possible, he had found opportunity to observe them. Olga, who could not
+drive backwards in a carriage comfortably, but with whom neither of the
+other ladies had offered to exchange seats, had arrived rather pale and
+dizzy. Zdena had immediately applied herself to restoring her, with the
+ready, tender sympathy that made her so charming. Vips was right: there
+was no one like Zdena in the world, although Olga was more beautiful,
+and also glowing with the charm to which no man is insensible,--the
+charm of a strong, passionate nature. Not even Harry, whose whole soul
+was filled at present with, another, and to him an infinitely more
+attractive, woman, could quite withstand this charm in Olga's society;
+it made the girl seem to him almost uncanny.
+
+It had rather displeased Harry at first--he could not himself say
+why--to see how quickly a kind of intimacy established itself between
+Olga and Zdena. As the two girls walked arm in arm down the garden path
+he would fain have snatched Zdena away from her new friend, the pale
+beautiful Olga, whom nevertheless he so pitied.
+
+Meanwhile, Heda had done the honours of the mansion for Selina, in
+which duty she was assisted by the Countess Zriny, who displayed the
+greatest condescension on the occasion. Then the ladies asked to see
+the house, and had been conducted from room to room, evidently amazed
+at the plainness of the furniture, but loud in their praises of
+everything as "so effective." Paula had begged to see Harry's room, and
+had rummaged among his whips, had put one of his cigars between her
+lips, and had even contrived, when she thought no one was looking, to
+kiss the tip of his ear. The Countess Zriny, however, accidentally
+looked round at that moment, to Harry's great confusion. Towards six
+o'clock the party had taken leave, with many expressions of delight and
+attachment.
+
+Before they drove off, however, there had been a rather unpleasant
+scene. Lato had requested his wife to exchange seats with Olga, since
+the girl could not, without extreme discomfort, ride with her back to
+the horses. Selina had refused to comply with his request, asserting
+that to ride backwards was quite as unpleasant for her as for Olga.
+
+Then Olga had joined in the conversation, saying she had heard that the
+path through the forest to Dobrotschau was very picturesque, and
+declaring that if Lato would accompany her she should much prefer to
+walk. To this Lato had made various objections, finally yielding,
+however, and setting out with his head hanging and his shoulders
+drooping, like a lamb led to the sacrifice.
+
+Harry's thoughts dwelt upon the pale girl with the large, dark eyes.
+Was it possible that none of the others could read those eyes? He
+recalled the tall, slim figure, the long, thin, but nobly-modelled
+arms, the slender, rather long hands, in which a feverish longing to
+have and to hold somewhat seemed to thrill; he recalled the gliding
+melancholy of her gait, he was spellbound by the impression of her
+youthful personality. Where had he seen a figure expressing the same
+yearning enthusiasm? Why, in a picture by Botticelli,--a picture
+representing Spring,--a pale, sultry Spring, in whose hands the flowers
+faded. Something in the girl's carriage and figure reminded him of that
+allegorical Spring, except that Olga's face was infinitely more
+beautiful than the languishing, ecstatic countenance in the old
+picture.
+
+Long did Harry sit on the garden bench reflecting, and his reflections
+became every moment more distressing. He forgot all his own troubles in
+this fresh anxiety.
+
+He thought of Treurenberg's altered mien. Olga had not yet awakened to
+a consciousness of herself, and that was a comfort. She was not only
+absolutely pure,--Harry was sure of that,--but she was entirely unaware
+of her own state of feeling. How long would this last, however? Passion
+walks, like a somnambulist, in entire security on the edge of profound
+abysses, so long as "sense is shut" in its eyes. But what if some rude
+hand, some unforeseen chance, awake it? Then--God have mercy!
+
+Harry dug his spurs deeper into the gravel. "What will happen if her
+eyes should ever be opened?" he asked himself, with a shudder. "She is
+in no wise inclined to wanton frivolity, but she is a passionate
+creature without firm principles, without family ties to restrain her.
+And Lato? Lato will do his best to conquer himself. But can he summon
+up the strength of character, the tact, requisite to avoid a
+catastrophe and to preserve the old order of things? And if not, what
+then?"
+
+Harry leaned his head on his hands and his elbows on his knees. To what
+it would all lead he could not tell, but he dreaded something terrible.
+He knew Lato well, the paralyzing weakness, as well as the subtile
+refinement, of his nature. Stern principle, a strict sense of duty, he
+lacked: how could it be otherwise, with such early training as had been
+his? Instead, however, he possessed an innate sense of moral beauty
+which must save him from moral degradation.
+
+"A young girl, one of his home circle!" Harry murmured to himself. "No,
+it is inconceivable! And, yet, what can come of it?" And a sobbing
+breeze, carrying with it the scent of languid roses from whose cups it
+had drunk up the dew, rustled among the thirsty branches overhead with
+a sound that seemed to the young fellow like the chuckle of an exultant
+fiend.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+                          ZDENA TO THE RESCUE.
+
+
+But Harry ceases to muse, for the shrill clang of the bell summons him
+to supper. He finds the entire family assembled in the dining-room when
+he enters. All are laughing and talking, even Zdena, who is allowing
+handsome, precocious Vladimir to make love to her after more and more
+startling fashion. She informs Harry that Vips has just made her a
+proposal of marriage, which disparity of age alone prevents her from
+accepting, for in fact she is devoted to the lad.
+
+"I renounce you from a sense of duty, Vips," she assures the young
+gentleman, gently passing her delicate forefinger over his smooth brown
+cheek, whereupon Vips flushes up and exclaims,--
+
+"If you won't have me, at least promise me that I shall be best man at
+your wedding!"
+
+Harry laughs heartily. "What an alternative! Either bridegroom or best
+man!"
+
+"But you will promise me, Zdena, won't you?" the boy persists.
+
+"It depends upon whom I marry," Zdena replies, with dignity. "The
+bridegroom will have a word to say upon the subject." As she speaks,
+her eyes encounter Harry's; she drops them instantly, her cheeks flush,
+and she pauses in confusion.
+
+As she takes her place at table, she finds a letter beside her plate,
+post-marked Bayreuth, and sealed with a huge coat-of-arms. Evidently
+startled, she slips it into her pocket unopened.
+
+"From whom?" asks Heda, whose curiosity is always on the alert.
+
+"From--from Bayreuth."
+
+"From Aunt Rosa?"
+
+Zdena makes no reply.
+
+"From Wenkendorf?" Harry asks, crossly.
+
+The blood rushes to her cheeks. "Yes," she murmurs.
+
+"How interesting!" Heda exclaims. "I really should like to hear his
+views as to the musical mysteries in Bayreuth. Read the letter aloud to
+us."
+
+"Oh, it is sure to be tiresome," Zdena replies, heaping her plate with
+potatoes in her confusion.
+
+"I wish you a good appetite!" Vladimir exclaims.
+
+Zdena looks in dismay at the potatoes piled upon her plate.
+
+"At least open the letter," says Heda.
+
+"Open it, pray!" Harry repeats.
+
+Mechanically Zdena obeys, breaks the seal, and hastily looks through
+the letter. Her cheeks grow redder and redder, her hands tremble.
+
+"Come, read it to us."
+
+Instead of complying, Zdena puts the document in her pocket again, and
+murmurs, much embarrassed, "There--there is nothing in it about
+Bayreuth."
+
+"Ah, secrets!" Heda says, maliciously.
+
+Zdena makes no reply, but gazes in desperation at the mound of potatoes
+on her plate. It never decreases in the least during the entire meal.
+
+Jealousy, which has slept for a while in Harry's breast, springs to
+life again. One is not a Leskjewitsch for nothing. So she keeps up a
+correspondence with Wenkendorf! Ah! he may be deceived in her. Why was
+she so confused at the first sight of the letter? and why did she hide
+it away so hastily? Who knows?--she may be trifling with her old
+adorer, holding him in reserve as it were, because she has not quite
+decided as to her future. Who--who can be trusted, if that fair,
+angelic face can mask such guile?
+
+Countess Zriny, as amiable and benevolent as ever,--Vips calls her
+"syrup diluted with holy water,"--notices that something has occurred
+to annoy the others, and attempts to change their train of thought.
+
+"How is your dog, my dear Harry?" she asks her nephew across the table.
+
+"Very ill," the young officer replies, curtly.
+
+"Indeed? Oh, how sad! What is the matter with him?"
+
+"I wish I knew. He drags his legs, his tail droops, and he has fever. I
+cannot help thinking that some one has thrown a stone at him, and I
+cannot imagine who could have been guilty of such cruelty."
+
+"Poor Hector! 'Tis all up with him; he has no appetite," Vips murmurs.
+
+"How do you know that?" Harry turns sharply upon the lad.
+
+"I took him a piece of bread this afternoon," stammers Vips.
+
+"Indeed?" Harry bursts forth. "Do that again and you shall suffer for
+it. I strictly forbade you to go near the dog!" Then, turning to the
+others, he explains: "I had to have the dog chained up, out of regard
+for the servants' nonsensical fears!"
+
+"But, Harry," Vips begins, coaxingly, after a while, "if I must not go
+near the dog you ought not to have so much to do with him. You went to
+him several times to-day."
+
+"That's very different; he is used to me," Harry sternly replies to his
+brother, who is looking at him with eyes full of anxious affection. "I
+have to see to him, since all the asses of servants, beginning with
+that old fool Blasius, are afraid of the poor brute. Moreover, he has
+everything now that he needs."
+
+Vips knits his brows thoughtfully and shakes his head.
+
+Suddenly the door of the dining-room opens, and old Blasius appears,
+pale as ashes, and trembling in every limb.
+
+"What is the matter?" Harry asks, springing up.
+
+"Herr Baron, I----" the old man stammers.
+
+"What is the matter?"
+
+"I told the Herr Baron how it would be," the old man declares, with the
+whimsical self-assertion which so often mingles with distress in the
+announcement of some misfortune: "Hector has gone mad."
+
+"Nonsense! what do you know about hydrophobia? Let the dog alone!"
+Harry shouts, stamping his foot.
+
+"He has broken his chain."
+
+"Then chain him up again! Send Johann here." (Johann is Harry's special
+servant.)
+
+"Johann is not at home. The Herr Baron does not know what he orders.
+The dog rushes at everything in its path, and tears and bites it. No
+one dares to go near him, not even the butcher. He must be killed."
+
+"What, you coward!" Harry shouts; "my dog killed because of a little
+epilepsy, or whatever it is that ails him!" Meanwhile, Harry notices
+that his brother, who had vanished into the next room for a moment, is
+now attempting with a very resolute air to go out through the door
+leading into the hall. Harry seizes him by the shoulder and stops him:
+"Where are you going?"
+
+Vips is mute.
+
+"What have you in your hand?"
+
+It is Harry's revolver.
+
+"Is it loaded?" he asks, sternly.
+
+"Yes," Vips replies, scarce audibly.
+
+"Put it down there on the piano!" Harry orders, harshly. The poor boy
+obeys sadly, and then throws his arms around his brother.
+
+"But you will stay here, Harry? dear Harry, you will not go near the
+dog?"
+
+"You silly boy, do you suppose I am to do whatever you bid me?" Harry
+rejoins. And, pinning the lad's arms to his sides from behind, he lifts
+him up, carries him into the next room, locks him in, puts the key in
+his pocket, and, without another word, leaves the room. Blasius stays
+in the dining-room, wringing his hands, and finally engages in a
+wailing conversation with Vips, who is kicking violently at the door
+behind which he is confined. Heda, the Countess Zriny, and Fräulein
+Laut, their backs towards the piano, upon which lies the revolver, form
+an interesting group, expressing in every feature terror and
+helplessness.
+
+"Perhaps he may not be mad," Countess Zriny observes, after a long
+silence, resolved as ever to ignore unpleasant facts. "However, I have
+my eau de Lourdes, at all events."
+
+At this moment the rustle of a light garment is heard. The Countess
+looks round for Zdena, but she has vanished. Whither has she gone?
+
+The dining-room has four doors,--one into the garden, another opposite
+leading into the hall, a third opening into Harry's room, and a fourth
+into the pantry. Through this last Zdena has slipped. From the pantry a
+narrow, dark passage leads down a couple of steps into a lumber-room,
+which opens on the courtyard.
+
+Zdena, when she steps into the court-yard, closes the door behind her
+and looks around. Her heart beats tumultuously. She hopes to reach
+Harry before he meets the dog; but, look where she may, she cannot see
+him.
+
+Wandering clouds veil the low moon; its light is fitful, now bright,
+then dim. The shadows dance and fade, and outlines blend in fantastic
+indistinctness. The wind has risen; it shrieks and howls, and whirls
+the dust into the poor girl's eyes. A frightful growling sound mingles
+with the noise of the blast.
+
+Zdena's heart beats faster; she is terribly afraid. "Harry!" she calls,
+in an agonized tone; "Harry!" In vain. She hears his shrill whistle at
+the other end of the court-yard, hears him call, commandingly, "Hector,
+come here, sir!" He is far away. She hurries towards him. Hark! Her
+heart seems to stand still. Near her sounds the rattle of a chain; a
+pair of fierce bloodshot eyes glare at her: the dog is close at hand.
+He sees her, and makes ready for a spring.
+
+It is true that the girl has a revolver in her hand, but she has no
+idea what to do with it; she has never fired a pistol in her life. In
+desperate fear she clambers swiftly upon a wood-pile against the
+brewery wall. The dog, in blind fury, leaps at the wood, falls back,
+and then runs howling in another direction. The moon emerges from the
+clouds, and pours its slanting beams into the court-yard. At last Zdena
+perceives her headstrong cousin; he is going directly towards the dog.
+
+"Hector!" he shouts; "Hector!"
+
+A few steps onward he comes, when Zdena slips down from her secure
+height. Panting, almost beside herself, the very personification of
+heroic self-sacrifice and desperate terror, she hurries up to Harry.
+
+"What is it--Zdena--you?" Harry calls out. For, just at the moment when
+he stretches out his hand to clutch at the dog's collar, a slender
+figure rushes between him and the furious brute.
+
+"Here, Harry,--the revolver!" the girl gasps, holding out the weapon.
+There is a sharp report: Hector turns, staggers, and falls dead!
+
+The revolver drops from Harry's hand; he closes his eyes. For a few
+seconds he stands as if turned to stone, and deadly pale. Then he feels
+a soft touch upon his arm, and a tremulous voice whispers,--
+
+"Forgive me, Harry! I know how you must grieve for your poor old
+friend, but--but I was so frightened for you!"
+
+He opens his eyes, and, throwing his arm around the girl, exclaims,--
+
+"You angel! Can you for an instant imagine that at this moment I have a
+thought to bestow upon the dog, dearly as I loved him?"
+
+His arm clasps her closer.
+
+"Harry!" she gasps, distressed.
+
+With a sigh he releases her.
+
+In the summits of the old walnuts there soughs a wail of discontent,
+and the moon, which shone forth but a moment ago so brilliantly, and
+which takes delight in the kisses of happy lovers, veils its face in
+clouds before its setting, being defrauded of any such satisfaction.
+
+"Come into the house," whispers Zdena. But walking is not so easy as
+she thinks. She is so dizzy that she can hardly put one foot before the
+other, and, whether she will or not, she must depend upon Harry to
+support her.
+
+"Fool that I am!" he mutters. "Lean upon me, you poor angel! You are
+trembling like an aspen-leaf."
+
+"I can hardly walk,--I was so terribly afraid," she confesses.
+
+"On my account?" he asks.
+
+"No, not on your account alone, but on my own, too," she replies,
+laughing, "for, entirely between ourselves, I am a wretched coward."
+
+"Really? Oh, Zdena--" He presses the hand that rests on his arm.
+
+"But, Harry," she says, very gravely this time, "I am not giddy now. I
+can walk very well." And she takes her hand from his arm.
+
+He only laughs, and says, "As you please, my queen, but you need not
+fear me. If a man ever deserved Paradise, I did just then." He points
+to the spot beneath the old walnuts, where the moon had been
+disappointed.
+
+A few seconds later they enter the dining-room, where are the three
+ladies, and the Countess Zriny advances to meet Harry with a large
+bottle of eau de Lourdes, a tablespoonful of which Heda is trying to
+heat over the flame of the lamp, while Fräulein Laut pauses in her
+account of a wonderful remedy for hydrophobia.
+
+Harry impatiently cuts short all the inquiries with which he is
+besieged, with "The dog is dead; I shot him!" He does not relate how
+the deed was done. At first he had been disposed to extol Zdena's
+heroism, but he has thought better of it. He resolves to keep for
+himself alone the memory of the last few moments, to guard it in his
+heart like a sacred secret. As Vips is still proclaiming his presence
+in the next room by pounding upon the door, Harry takes the key from
+his pocket and smilingly releases the prisoner. The lad rushes at his
+brother. "Did he not bite you? Really not?" And when Harry answers,
+"No," he entreats, "Show me your hands, Harry,--both of them!" and then
+he throws his arms about the young man and clasps him close.
+
+"Oh, you foolish fellow!" Harry exclaims, stroking the boy's brown
+head. "But now be sensible; don't behave like a girl. Do you hear?"
+
+"My nerves are in such a state," sighs Heda.
+
+Harry stamps his foot. "So are mine! I would advise you all to retire,
+and recover from this turmoil."
+
+Soon afterwards the house is silent. Even Vips has been persuaded to go
+to bed and sleep off his fright. Harry, however, is awake. After
+ordering Blasius to bury the dog, and to bring him his revolver, which
+he now remembers to have left lying beside the animal's body, he seats
+himself on the flight of steps leading from the dining-room into the
+garden, leans his elbows on his knees and his head on his hands,
+and dreams. The wind has subsided, and the night seems to him lovely
+in spite of the misty clouds that veil the sky. The flowers are
+fragrant,--oh, how fair life is! Suddenly he hears a light step; he
+rises, goes into the corridor, and finds Zdena putting a letter into
+the postbag. He approaches her, and their eyes meet. In vain does she
+attempt to look grave. She smiles, and her smile is mirrored in his
+eyes.
+
+"To whom was the letter?" he asks, going towards her. Not that there is
+a spark of jealousy left in his heart for the moment, but he delights
+to coax her secrets from her, to share in all that concerns her.
+
+"Is it any affair of yours?" she asks, with dignity.
+
+"No, but I should like to know."
+
+"I will not tell you."
+
+"Suppose I guess?"
+
+She shrugs her shoulders.
+
+"To Wenkendorf," he whispers, advancing a step nearer her, as she makes
+no reply.
+
+"What did he write to you?" Harry persists.
+
+"That is no concern of yours."
+
+"What if I guess that, too?"
+
+"Then I hope you will keep your knowledge to yourself, and not mention
+your guess to any one," Zdena exclaims, eagerly.
+
+"He proposed to you," Harry says, softly.
+
+Zdena sighs impatiently.
+
+"Well, yes!" she admits at last, turning to Harry a blushing face as
+she goes on. "But I really could not help it. I did what I could to
+prevent it, but men are so conceited and headstrong. If one of them
+takes an idea into his head there is no disabusing him of it."
+
+"Indeed! is that the way with all men?" Harry asks, ready to burst into
+a laugh.
+
+"Yes, except when they have other and worse faults,--are suspicious and
+bad-tempered."
+
+"But then these last repent so bitterly, and are so ashamed of
+themselves."
+
+"Oh, as for that, he will be ashamed of himself too." Then, suddenly
+growing grave, she adds, "I should be very sorry to have----"
+
+"To have any one hear of his disappointed hopes," Harry interposes,
+with a degree of malicious triumph in his tone. "Do not fear; we will
+keep his secret."
+
+"Good-night!" She takes up her candlestick, which she had put down on
+the table beside which they are standing, and turns towards the winding
+staircase.
+
+"Zdena!" Harry whispers, softly.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Nothing: only--is there really not a regret in your heart for the
+wealth you have rejected?"
+
+She shakes her head slowly, as if reflecting. "No," she replies: "what
+good would it have done me? I could not have enjoyed it." Then she
+suddenly blushes crimson, and, turning away from him, goes to the
+staircase.
+
+"Zdena!" he calls again; "Zdena!" But the white figure has vanished at
+the turn of the steps, and he is alone. For a while he stands gazing
+into the darkness that has swallowed her up. "God keep you!" he
+murmurs, tenderly, and finally betakes himself to his room, with no
+thought, however, of going to bed.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+                           A SLEEPLESS NIGHT.
+
+
+No, he could not sleep; he had something important to do. At last he
+must pluck up courage and establish his position. This wretched
+prevarication, this double dealing, could not go on any longer. It was
+ten times more disgraceful than the most brutal frankness. He seated
+himself at the very table where, scarcely more than a day before, he
+had listened to Lato's confessions, and began a rough sketch of his
+letter to Paula. But at the very first word he stopped. He was going to
+write, "Dear Paula," but that would never do. Could he address her thus
+familiarly when he wanted to sever all relations with her? Impossible!
+"Honoured Baroness" he could not write, either; it sounded ridiculous,
+applied to a girl with whom he had sat for hours in the last fortnight.
+He decided to begin, "Dear Baroness Paula." He dipped his pen in the
+ink, and wrote the words in a distinct hand: "Dear Baroness Paula, I
+cannot express to you the difficulty I find in telling you what must,
+however, be told. I had hoped until now that you would discover it
+yourself----"
+
+Thus far he wrote hurriedly, and as if in scorn of mortal danger. He
+paused now, and read over the few words. His cheeks burned. No, he
+could not write that to a lady: as well might he strike her in the
+face. It was impossible. But what should he do? At last an idea
+occurred to him, how strange not to have thought of it before! He must
+appeal to her mother. It was as clear as daylight. He took a fresh
+sheet of paper, having torn the other up and tossed it under the table,
+then dipped his pen anew in the ink. But no; it would not do. Every
+hour that he had spent with Paula, every caress he had allowed her to
+bestow upon him, was brought up before him by his conscience, which
+did not spare him the smallest particular. Lato's words recurred to
+him: "You cannot disguise from yourself the fact that you--you and
+Paula--produce the impression of a devoted pair of lovers."
+
+He set his teeth. He could not deny that his conduct had been shameful.
+He could not sever his engagement to her without a lack of honour.
+
+"Oh, good God! how had it ever come to pass?" What had induced him to
+ride over to Dobrotschau day after day? He had always been sure that an
+opportunity for an explanation would occur. When with Paula he had
+endured her advances in sullen submission, without facing the
+consequences; he had simply been annoyed; and now---- He shuddered.
+
+Once more he took up the pen, but in vain; never before had he felt so
+utterly hopeless. Every limb ached as if laden with fetters. He tossed
+the pen aside: under the circumstances he could not write the letter;
+Paula herself must sever the tie, if it could be severed.
+
+If it could be severed! What did that mean? He seemed to hear the words
+spoken aloud. Nonsense! If it could be severed! As if there were a
+doubt that it could be severed! But how? how?
+
+His distress was terrible. He could see no way to extricate himself.
+Paula must be compelled to release him of her own accord; but how was
+it to be done? He devised the wildest schemes. Could he be caught
+flirting with a gypsy girl? or could he feign to be deeply in debt? No,
+no more feigning; and, besides, what would it avail? She would forgive
+everything.
+
+Suddenly Vips cried out in his sleep.
+
+"Vips!" Harry called, to waken him, going to his brother's bedside.
+
+The lad opened his eyes, heavy with sleep, and said, "I am so glad you
+waked me! I was having a horrible dream that you were being torn to
+pieces by a furious leopard."
+
+"You foolish boy!"
+
+"Oh, it was no joke, I can tell you!" Then, pulling his brother down to
+him, he went on, "Zdena took the revolver to you, I saw her through the
+keyhole; not one of the others would have raised a finger for you. No,
+there is no one in the world like our Zdena." Vips stroked his
+brother's blue sleeve with his long, slender hand. "Do you know," he
+whispered very softly, "I have no doubt that----"
+
+Harry frowned, and Vips blushed, shut his eyes, and turned his face to
+the wall.
+
+The first gleam of morning was breaking its way through the twilight;
+a rosy glow illumined the eastern horizon; the stream began to
+glimmer, and then shone like molten gold; long shadows detached
+themselves from the universal gray and stretched across the garden
+among the dewy flower-beds. The dew lay everywhere, glistening like
+silvery dust on the blades of grass, and dripping in the foliage of the
+old apricot-tree by the open window at which Harry stood gazing sadly
+out into the wondrous beauty of the world. The cool morning breeze
+fanned his check; the birds began to twitter.
+
+The young fellow was conscious of the discomfort of a night spent
+without sleep; but far worse than that was the hopeless misery that
+weighed him down.
+
+Hark! what was that? The sound of bells, the trot of horses on the
+quiet road. Harry leaned forward. Who was that?
+
+Leaning back in an open barouche, a gray travelling-cap on his head, a
+handsome old man was driving along the road.
+
+"Father!" exclaimed Harry.
+
+The old gentleman saw him from the carriage and waved his hand gaily.
+In a twinkling Harry was opening the house-door.
+
+"I have surprised you, have I not?" Karl Leskjewitsch exclaimed,
+embracing his son. "But what's the matter with you? What ails you? I
+never saw you look so sallow,--you rogue!" And he shook his forefinger
+at the young fellow.
+
+"Oh, nothing,--nothing, sir: we will talk of it by and by. Now come and
+take some rest."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXV.
+
+                            THE CONFESSION.
+
+
+Baron Leskjewitsch was in an admirable humour. He brightened up the
+entire household. The Countess Zriny, to be sure, lamented to Fräulein
+Laut his tireless loquacity, but perhaps that was because his loquacity
+displayed itself principally in the utterance of anti-Catholic views.
+
+At breakfast, on the first morning after his arrival, he cut the old
+canoness to the heart. When he rallied her upon the indigestible nature
+of her favourite delicacy, raspberry jam with whipped cream, she
+replied that she could eat it with perfect impunity, since she always
+mixed a teaspoonful of eau de Lourdes with the jam before adding the
+cream.
+
+Whereupon the Baron called this preservative "Catholic quackery," and
+was annoyed that she made no reply to his attack. Like a former emperor
+of Russia, he longed for opposition. He did what he could to rouse
+Countess Zriny's. After a while he asserted that she was a heathen.
+Catholicism in its modern form, with its picturesque ritual and its
+superstitious worship of the saints, was nothing more than cowled
+Paganism.
+
+The Countess, to whom this rather antiquated wisdom was new, shuddered
+with horror, and regarded the Baron as antichrist, but nevertheless
+held her peace.
+
+Then he played his last trump. He informed her that he regarded the
+Darwinian theory as much less irreligious than her, Countess Zriny's,
+paltry conception of the Deity. Then the Countess arose and left the
+room, to write immediately to her father confessor, expressing her
+anxieties with regard to her cousin's soul, and asking the priest to
+say a mass for his conversion.
+
+"Poor Kathi! have I frightened her away? I didn't mean to do that,"
+said the Baron, looking after her.
+
+No, he had not meant to do it; he had merely desired to arouse
+opposition.
+
+"A splendid subject for an essay," he exclaimed, after a pause,--"'the
+Darwinian theory and the Catholic ritual set forth by a man of true
+piety.' I really must publish a pamphlet with that title. It may bring
+me into collision with the government, but that would not be very
+distressing."
+
+Privately the Baron wished for nothing more earnestly than to be
+brought into collision with the government, to be concerned in some
+combination threatening the existence of the monarchy. But just as some
+women, in spite of every endeavour, never succeed in compromising
+themselves, so Karl Leskjewitsch had never yet succeeded in seriously
+embroiling himself with the government. No one took him in earnest;
+even when he made the most incendiary speeches, they were regarded as
+but the amusing babble of a political dilettante.
+
+He eagerly availed himself of any occasion to utter his paradoxes, and
+at this first breakfast he was so eloquent that gradually all at the
+table followed the example of Countess Zriny, in leaving it, except his
+eldest son.
+
+He lighted a cigar, and invited Harry to go into the garden with him.
+Harry, who had been longing for a word with his father in private,
+acceded readily to his proposal.
+
+The sun shone brightly, the flowers in the beds sparkled like diamonds.
+The old ruin stood brown and clear against the sky, the bees hummed,
+and Fräulein Laut was practising something of Brahms's. Of course she
+had seated herself at the piano as soon as the dining-room was
+deserted.
+
+Harry walked beside his father, with bent head, vainly seeking for
+words in which to explain his unfortunate case. His father held his
+head very erect, kicked the pebbles from his path with dignity, talked
+very fast, and asked his son twenty questions, without waiting for an
+answer to one of them.
+
+"Have you been spending all your leave here? Does it not bore you? Why
+did you not take an interesting trip? Life here must be rather
+tiresome; Heda never added much to the general hilarity, and as for
+poor Kathi, do you think her entertaining? She's little more than a
+_mouton à l'eau bénite_. And then that sausage-chopper," with a glance
+in the direction whence proceeded a host of interesting dissonances.
+"Surely you must have found your stay here a very heavy affair. Kathi
+Zriny is harmless, but that Laut--ugh!--a terrible creature! Look at
+her hair; it looks like hay. I should like to understand the aim of
+creation in producing such an article; we have no use for it." He
+paused,--perhaps for breath.
+
+"Father," Harry began, meekly.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I should like to tell you something."
+
+"Tell me, then, but without any preface. I detest prefaces; I never
+read them; in fact, a book is usually spoiled for me if I find it has a
+preface. What is a preface written for? Either to explain the book that
+follows it, or to excuse it. And why read a book that needs explanation
+or excuses? I told Franz Weyser, the famous orator, in the Reichsrath
+the other day, that----"
+
+"Father," Harry began again, in a tone of entreaty, aware that he
+should have some difficulty in obtaining a hearing for his confession.
+
+"What an infernally sentimental air you have! Aha! I begin to see. You
+have evidently fallen in love with Zdena. It is not to be wondered at;
+she's a charming creature--pretty as a picture--looks amazingly like
+Charlotte Buff, of Goethe memory; all that is needed is to have her
+hair dressed high and powdered. What can I say? In your place I should
+have been no wiser. Moreover, if you choose to marry poverty for love,
+'tis your own affair. You must remember that Franz will undoubtedly
+stop your allowance. You cannot expect much from Paul; and as for
+myself, I can do nothing for you except give you my blessing. You know
+how matters stand with me; and I must think of your sister, who never
+can marry without a dowry. I cannot entirely deprive myself of means: a
+politician must preserve his independence, for, as I lately said to
+Fritz Böhm, in the Reichsrath----"
+
+In vain had Harry tried to edge in a word. With a bitter smile he
+recalled a passage in a Vienna humorous paper which, under the heading
+of "A disaster prevented," set forth the peril from drowning from which
+the entire government had been saved by the presence of mind of the
+president of the Reichsrath, Herr Doctor Smolka, who had contrived just
+in the nick of time to put a stop to a torrent of words from Baron Karl
+Leskjewitsch.
+
+Suddenly the Baron stumbled over a stone, which fortunately caused him
+to pause.
+
+"It has nothing to do with Zdena!" Harry exclaimed, seizing his
+opportunity.
+
+"Not? Then----"
+
+"I have become betrothed," Harry almost shouted, for fear of not making
+his father hear.
+
+"And what do you want of me?"
+
+"You must help me to break the engagement," his son cried, in despair.
+
+At these words Karl Leskjewitsch, who with all his confusion of ideas
+had managed to retain a strong sense of humour, made a grimace, and
+pushed back the straw hat which he wore, and which had made the ascent
+of Mount Vesuvius with him and had a hole in the crown, so that it
+nearly fell off his head.
+
+"Ah, indeed! First of all I should like to know to whom you are
+betrothed,--the result, of course, of garrison life in some small town?
+I always maintain that for a cavalry officer----"
+
+Harry felt the liveliest desire to summon the aid of Doctor Smolka to
+stem the tide of his father's eloquence, but, since this could not be,
+he loudly interrupted him: "I am betrothed to Paula Harfink!"
+
+"Harfink!" exclaimed the Baron. "The Harfinks of K----?"
+
+"Yes; they are at Dobrotschau this summer," Harry explained.
+
+"So she is your betrothed,--the Baroness Paula? She is handsome; a
+little too stout, but that is a matter of taste. And you want to marry
+her?"
+
+"No, no, I do not want to marry her!" Harry exclaimed, in dismay.
+
+"Oh, indeed! you do not want to marry her?" murmured the Baron. "And
+why not?"
+
+"Because--because I do not love her."
+
+"Why did you betroth yourself to her?"
+
+Harry briefly explained the affair to his father.
+
+The Baron looked grave. "And what do you want me to do?" he asked,
+after a long, oppressive silence.
+
+"Help me out, father. Put your veto upon this connection."
+
+"What will my veto avail? You are of age, and can do as you choose,"
+said the Baron, shaking his head.
+
+"Yes, legally," Harry rejoined, impatiently, "but I never should dream
+of marrying against your will."
+
+Karl Leskjewitsch found this assurance of filial submission on his
+son's part very amusing. He looked askance at the young fellow, and,
+suppressing a smile, extended his hand after a pompous theatric fashion
+and exclaimed, "I thank you for those words. They rejoice my paternal
+heart." Then, after swinging his son's hand up and down like a
+pump-handle, he dropped it and said, dryly, "Unfortunately, I have not
+the slightest objection to your betrothal to the Harfink girl. What
+pretext shall I make use of?"
+
+"Well,"--Harry blushed,--"you might say you cannot consent to the
+_mésalliance_."
+
+"Indeed! Thanks for the suggestion. I belong to the Liberal party, and
+do not feel called upon to play the part of an aristocratic Cerberus
+defending his prejudices." Here the Baron took out his note-book.
+"Aristocratic Cerberus," he murmured; "that may be useful some day in
+the Reichsrath. Besides," he continued, "it would just now be
+particularly unpleasant to quarrel with the Harfinks. If you had asked
+me before your betrothal whether I should like it, I should have
+frankly said no. The connection is a vulgar one; but, since matters
+have gone so far, I do not like to make a disturbance. The brother of
+the girl's mother, Doctor Grünbart, is one of the leaders of our
+party. He formerly conducted himself towards me with great reserve,
+suspecting that my liberal tendencies were due merely to a whim,
+to a fleeting caprice. I met him, however, a short time ago, on
+my tour through Sweden and Norway. He was travelling with his
+wife and daughter. We travelled together. He is a very clever man,
+but--between ourselves--intolerable, and with dirty nails. As for his
+women-folk,--good heavens!" The Baron clasped his hands. "The wife
+always eat the heads of the trout which I left in the dish, and the
+daughter travelled in a light-blue gown, with a green botany-box
+hanging at her back, and such teeth,--horrible! The wife is a
+schoolmaster's daughter, who married the old man to rid herself of a
+student lover. Very worthy, but intolerable. I travelled with them for
+six weeks, and won the Doctor's heart by my courtesy to his wife and
+daughter. I should have been more cautious if I had been at
+housekeeping in Vienna, although the most violent Austrian democrats
+are very reasonable in social respects, especially with regard to their
+women. They are flattered by attention to them on a journey, but they
+are not aggressive at home. This, however, is not to the point."
+
+It did indeed seem not to the point to Harry, who bit his lip and
+privately clinched his fist. He was on the rack during his father's
+rambling discourse.
+
+"What I wanted to say"--the Baron resumed the thread of his
+discourse--"is, that this democrat's pride is his elegant sister,
+Baroness Harfink, and the fact that she was once invited, after great
+exertions in some charitable undertaking, to a ball at the Princess
+Colloredo's--I think it was at the Colloredo's. I should like to have
+seen her there!" He rubbed his hands and smiled. "My democrat maintains
+that she looked more distinguished than the hostess. You understand
+that if I should wound his family pride I could not hope for his
+support in the Reichsrath, where I depend upon it to procure me a
+hearing."
+
+Harry privately thought that it would be meritorious to avert such a
+calamity, but he said, "Ah, father, that democrat's support is not so
+necessary as you think. Depend upon it, you will be heard without it.
+And then a quarrel with a politician would cause you only a temporary
+annoyance, while the continuance of my betrothal to Paula will simply
+kill me. I have done my best to show her the state of my feelings
+towards her. She does not understand me. There is nothing for it but
+for you to undertake the affair." Harry clasped his hands in entreaty,
+like a boy. "Do it for my sake. You are the only one who can help me."
+
+Baron Karl was touched. He promised everything that his son asked of
+him.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+                            THE BARON'S AID.
+
+
+The Baron never liked to postpone what he had to do; it was against his
+principles and his nature. The matter must be attended to at once. As
+soon as the mid-day meal was over, he had the carriage brought, put on
+a black coat, and set out for Dobrotschau.
+
+The fountain plashed dreamily as he drove into the castle court-yard.
+The afternoon sun glittered on the water, and a great dog came towards
+him as he alighted, and thrust his nose into his hand. He knew the old
+dog.
+
+"How are you, old friend? how does the new _régime_ suit you?" he said,
+patting the animal's head. Two footmen hurried forward in drab breeches
+and striped vests. To one of them Baron Karl gave his card, and then
+awaited the mistress of the mansion in the spacious and rather dark
+drawing-room into which he had been shown.
+
+He looked about him, and was very well pleased. The tall windows of the
+room were draped with pale-green silk; the furniture, various in shape
+and style, was all convenient and handsome; vases filled with flowers
+stood here and there on stands and tables; and in a black ebony
+cabinet, behind glass doors, there was a fine collection of old
+porcelain. The Baron was a connoisseur in old porcelain, and had just
+risen to examine these specimens, when the servant returned to conduct
+him to the Baroness's presence.
+
+Baron Karl's heart throbbed a little fast at the thought of his
+mission, and he privately anathematized "the stupid boy" who had been
+the cause of it.
+
+"Since he got himself into the scrape, he might have got himself out of
+it," he thought, as he followed the lackey, who showed him into a small
+but charming boudoir, fitted up after a rural fashion with light
+cretonne.
+
+"I'm in for it," the Baron thought, in English. He liked to sprinkle
+his soliloquies with English phrases, having a great preference for
+England, whence he imported his clothes, his soap, and his political
+ideas of reform _en gros_. In the Reichsrath they called him "Old
+England."
+
+As he entered the pretty room, a lady rose from a low lounge and came
+towards him with outstretched hands. Those hands were small, soft, and
+shapely, and the rings adorning the third finger of one of them--a ruby
+and a large diamond, both very simply set--became them well. Baron Karl
+could not help carrying one of them to his lips; thus much, he thought,
+he owed the poor woman in view of the pain he was about to inflict upon
+her. Frau von Harfink said a few pleasant words of welcome, to which he
+replied courteously, and then, having taken his seat in a comfortable
+arm-chair near her favourite lounge, the conversation came to a
+stand-still. The Baron looked in some confusion at his hostess. There
+was no denying that, in spite of her fifty years, she was a pretty
+woman. Her features were regular, her teeth dazzling, and if there was
+a touch of rouge on her cheeks, that was her affair; it did not affect
+her general appearance. The fair hair that was parted to lie in smooth
+waves above her brow was still thick, and the little lace cap was very
+becoming. Her short, full figure was not without charm, and her gown of
+black _crêpe de Chine_ fitted faultlessly. The Baron could not help
+thinking that it would be easier to give her pain if she were ugly.
+There was really no objection to make to her. He had hoped she would
+resemble his friend Doctor Grünbart, but she did not resemble him.
+While he pondered thus, Frau von Harfink stretched out her hand to the
+bell-rope.
+
+"My daughters are both out in the park; they will be extremely glad to
+see you, especially Paula, who has been most impatient to know you. I
+will send for them immediately."
+
+Karl Leskjewitsch prevented her from ringing. "One moment, first," he
+begged; "I--I am here upon very serious business."
+
+Her eyes scanned his face keenly. Did she guess? did she choose not to
+understand him? Who can tell? Certain it is that no woman could have
+made what he had come to say more difficult to utter.
+
+"Oh, let 'serious business' go for the present!" she exclaimed; "there
+is time enough for that. A mother's heart of course is full----"
+
+In his confusion the Baron had picked up a pamphlet lying on the table
+between Frau von Harfink and himself. Imagine his sensations when, upon
+looking at it closely, he recognized his own work,--a pamphlet upon
+"Servility among Liberals,"--a piece of political bravado upon which
+the author had prided himself not a little at the time of its
+publication, but which, like many another masterpiece, had vanished
+without a trace in the yearly torrent of such literature. Not only were
+the leaves of this pamphlet cut, but as the Baron glanced through it he
+saw that various passages were underscored with pencil-marks.
+
+"You see how well known you are here, my dear Baron," said Frau von
+Harfink, and then, taking his hat from him, she went on, "I cannot have
+you pay us a formal visit: you will stay and have a cup of tea, will
+you not? Do you know that I am a little embarrassed in the presence of
+the author of that masterpiece?"
+
+"Ah, pray, madame!"--the democrat _par excellence_ could not exactly
+bring himself to an acknowledgment of Frau von Harfink's brand-new
+patent of nobility,--"ah, madame, the merest trifle, a political
+_capriccio_ with which I beguiled an idle hour; not worth mentioning."
+
+"Great in small things, my dear Baron, great in small things," she
+rejoined. "No one since Schopenhauer has understood how to use the
+German language as you do. So admirable a style!--precise, transparent,
+and elegant as finely-cut glass. And what a wealth of original
+aphorisms! You are a little sharp here and there, almost cruel,"--she
+shook her forefinger at him archly,--"but the truth is always cruel."
+
+"A remarkably clever woman!" thought Baron Karl. Of course he could not
+refrain from returning such courtesy. "This summer, in a little trip to
+the North Cape"--Leskjewitsch was wont always to refer to his travels
+as little trips; a journey to California he would have liked to call a
+picnic--"in a little trip to the North Cape, I had the pleasure of
+meeting your brother, Baroness," he cleared his throat before uttering
+the word, but he accomplished it. "We had known each other politically
+in the Reichsrath, but in those northern regions our acquaintance
+quickly ripened into friendship."
+
+"I have heard all about it already," said the Baroness: "it was my
+brother who called my attention to this pearl." She pointed to the
+pamphlet. "Of course he had no idea of the closer relations which we
+are to hold with each other; he simply described to me the impression
+you made upon him. Ah, I must read you one of his letters."
+
+She opened a drawer in her writing-table, and unfolded a long letter,
+from which she began to read, then interrupted herself, turned the
+sheet, and finally found the place for which she was looking:
+
+"Baron Karl Leskjewitsch is an extremely clever individual, brilliantly
+gifted by nature. His misfortune has been that in forsaking the
+Conservatives he has failed to win the entire confidence of the
+Liberals. Now that I know him well, I am ready to use all my influence
+to support him in his career, and I do not doubt that I shall succeed
+in securing for him the distinguished position for which he is fitted.
+I see in him the future Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs."
+
+A few minutes previously Baron Karl had been conscious of some
+discomfort; every trace of it had now vanished. He was fairly
+intoxicated. He saw himself a great statesman, and was already
+pondering upon what to say in his first important conference with the
+Chancellor of the realm.
+
+"Pray, give my warm regards to Doctor Grünbart when you next write to
+him," he began, not without condescension, when suddenly a young lady
+hurried into the room,--tall, stout, with Titian hair and a dazzling
+complexion, her chest heaving, her eyes sparkling. In the Baron's
+present mood she seemed to him beautiful as a young goddess. "By Jove!
+the boy has made a hit," he thought to himself. The vague sense of
+discomfort returned for a moment, but vanished when Paula advanced
+towards him with outstretched hands. He drew her to him, and imprinted
+a paternal kiss upon her forehead. Selina and Fainacky now made their
+appearance. It was quite a domestic scene.
+
+The Baroness rang, and the tea-equipage was brought in for afternoon
+tea. Olga made her appearance, but Treurenberg was absent; Selina
+remarked, crossly, that he was again spending the afternoon with the
+officers at X----. Baron Karl was throned upon roses and inhaling sweet
+incense, when finally the Baroness, lightly touching his arm, asked
+before all present,--
+
+"And the 'serious business' you came to consult me about?" He started,
+and was mute, while the lady went on, archly, "What if I guess its
+import? You came in Harry's behalf, did you not?"
+
+Baron Karl bowed his head in assent.
+
+"To arrange the day, was it not?"
+
+What could the poor man do? Before he had time to reflect, the
+Baroness said, "We have considered the matter already; we must be in no
+hurry,--no hurry. It always is a sore subject for a mother, the
+appointing a definite time for her separation from her daughter, and
+every girl, however much in love she may be,"--here the Baroness
+glanced at her stout Paula, who did her best to assume an air of
+maidenly reserve, "would like to postpone the marriage-day. But men do
+not like to wait; therefore, all things considered, I have thought of
+the 19th of October as the day. Tell Harry so from me, and scold him
+well for not doing his errand himself. His delicacy of sentiment is
+really exaggerated! An old woman may be pardoned for a little
+enthusiasm for a future son-in-law, may she not?"
+
+Shortly afterwards Baron Leskjewitsch was driving home along the road
+by which he had come. The shadows had lengthened; a cold air ascended
+from the earth. Gradually the Baron's consciousness, drugged by the
+flattery he had received, awoke, and he felt extremely uncomfortable.
+What had he effected? He was going home after a fruitless visit,--no,
+not fruitless. Harry's affairs were in a worse condition than before.
+He had absolutely placed the official seal upon his son's betrothal.
+
+What else could he have done? He could not have made a quarrel. He
+could not alienate Doctor Grünbart's sister. The welfare of the
+government might depend upon his friendly alliance with the leader of
+the democratic party. His fancy spread its wings and took its flight to
+higher spheres,--he really had no time to trouble himself about his
+son's petty destiny. His ambition soared high: he saw himself about to
+reform the monarchy with the aid of Doctor Grünbart, whose importance,
+however, decreased as his own waxed great.
+
+He drove through the ruinous archway into the courtyard. A light wagon
+was standing before the house. When he asked whose it was, he was told
+that it had come from Zirkow to take home the Baroness Zdena. He went
+to the dining-room, whence came the sound of gay voices and laughter.
+They were all at supper, and seemed very merry, so merry that they had
+not heard him arrive.
+
+Twilight was already darkening the room when the Baron entered by one
+door at the same moment that Blasius with the lamp made his appearance
+at the other. The lamplight fell full upon the group about the table,
+and Baron Karl's eyes encountered those of his son, beaming with
+delight. Poor fellow! He had not entertained a doubt that everything
+would turn out well. Zdena, too, looked up; her lips were redder than
+usual, and there was a particularly tender, touching expression about
+her mouth, while in her eyes there was a shy delight. There was no
+denying it, the girl was exquisitely beautiful.
+
+She had guessed Baron Karl's errand to Dobrotschau. She divined----
+
+Pshaw! The Baron felt dizzy for a moment,--but, after all, such things
+must be borne. Such trifles must not influence the future 'Canning' of
+Austria.
+
+Blasius set down the lamp. How comfortable and home-like the
+well-spread table looked, at the head the little army of cream-pitchers
+and jugs, over which the Countess Zriny was presiding.
+
+"A cup of coffee?" the old canoness asked the newcomer.
+
+"No, no, thanks," he said. Something in his voice told Harry
+everything.
+
+The Baron tried to take his place at table, that the moment for
+explanation might be postponed, but Harry could not wait.
+
+"Something has occurred to-day upon the farm about which I want to
+consult you, sir," he said. "Will you not come with me for a moment?"
+And he made a miserably unsuccessful attempt to look as if it were a
+matter of small importance. The two men went into the next room, where
+it was already so dark that they could not see each other's faces
+distinctly. Harry lit a candle, and placed it on the table between his
+father and himself.
+
+"Well, father?"
+
+"My dear boy, there was nothing to be done," the Baron replied,
+hesitating. For a moment the young man's misery made an impression upon
+him, but then his invincible loquacity burst forth. "There was nothing
+to be done, Harry," he repeated. And, with a wave of his hand implying
+true nobility of sentiment, he went on: "A betrothal is a contract
+sealed by a promise. From a promise one may be released; it cannot be
+broken. When the Harfinks refused to see the drift of my hints, and
+release you from your promise, there was nothing left for me save to
+acquiesce. As a man of honour, a gentleman, I could do no less; I could
+not possibly demand your release."
+
+Baron Karl looked apprehensively at his son, with whose quick temper he
+was familiar, expecting to be overwhelmed by a torrent of reproaches,
+of bitter, provoking words, sure that the young man would be led into
+some display of violence; but nothing of the kind ensued. Harry stood
+perfectly quiet opposite his father, one hand leaning upon the table
+where burned the candle. His head drooped a little, and he was very
+pale, but not a finger moved when his father added, "You understand
+that I could do nothing further?"
+
+He murmured, merely, "Yes, I understand." His voice sounded thin and
+hoarse, like the voice of a sick child; and then he fell silent again.
+After a pause, he said, in a still lower tone, "Uncle Paul has sent the
+wagon for Zdena, with a note asking me to drive her back to Zirkow. It
+has been waiting for an hour and a half, because Zdena did not want to
+leave before your return. Pray, do me the favour to drive her home in
+my place: I cannot."
+
+Then the young fellow turned away and went to a window, outside of
+which the old apricot-trees rustled and sighed.
+
+Baron Karl was very sorry for his son, but what else could he have
+done? Surely his case was a hard one. He seemed to himself a very
+Junius Brutus, sacrificing his son to his country. And having succeeded
+finally in regarding in this magnanimous light the part he had played,
+he felt perfectly at peace with himself again.
+
+He left the room, promising to attend to Zdena's return to Zirkow. But
+Harry remained standing by the window, gazing out into the gathering
+gloom. The very heart within his breast seemed turning to stone. He
+knew now that what he had at first held to be merely a ridiculous
+annoyance had come to be bitter earnest,--yes, terrible earnest! No
+escape was possible; he could see no hope of rescue; a miracle would
+have to occur to release him, and he did not believe in miracles.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+                              BARON FRANZ.
+
+
+Every year, towards the end of August, Baron Franz Leskjewitsch, the
+family scarecrow and Cr[oe]sus, was wont to appear at his estate,
+Vorhabshen, near Zirkow, to learn the condition of the harvest, to
+spend a few days in hunting, and to abuse everything and everybody
+before, at the end of a couple of weeks, vanishing as suddenly as he
+had appeared.
+
+On these occasions he avoided his brother Paul with evident
+determination. If any of the family were at Komaritz, he invited them
+to dinner once or twice, at such times taking pains to make himself
+particularly offensive to Heda, whom he could not endure.
+
+He had never spent any length of time at Vorhabshen since the family
+quarrel, and in consequence the dwelling-house, or castle, upon which,
+miser that he was, he never would spend a penny for repairs, had come
+to be tumble-down and sordid in appearance, both inside and out. It was
+a huge structure, with numerous windows, in which many of the sashes
+were sprung and some destitute of panes, never having been reglazed
+since the last hail-storm had worked ruin among them.
+
+Among the family portraits, which hung in a dark, oak-wainscoted
+gallery, the pigeons built their nests.
+
+Like many another Bohemian castle, the mansion at Vorhabshen was built
+close to the farm-yard, and its front faced an immense, light-brown
+manure-heap.
+
+The inmates of this unpicturesque ruin--whose duty it was to keep it
+ready for its master's brief visits--were, first, the housekeeper,
+Lotta Papoushek; then the Baron's court-fool, the former brewer
+Studnecka, who at times imagined himself the prophet Elisha, and at
+other times a great musical genius; then the superintendent, with his
+underlings; and finally, any young man who might be tempted to come
+hither to study modern agriculture, and whose studies were generally
+confined to allowing himself to be pampered by the housekeeper Lotta,
+who had all the admiration of her class for courteous young people.
+
+Frau Lotta had been in the Baron's service for more than forty years.
+Her large face was red, dotted with brown warts, and her features were
+hard and masculine. Although she certainly was far from attractive in
+appearance, there was a report that she had once been handsome, and
+that Baron Franz, when he received the news of his son's marriage with
+Marie Duval, had exclaimed, "I'll marry my housekeeper! I'll marry
+Lotta!" How this would have aided to re-establish the family prestige
+it is difficult to say, and it is doubtful whether the speech was made;
+but twenty years afterwards Lotta used to tell of it, and of how she
+had replied, "That would be too nonsensical, Herr Baron!"
+Notwithstanding her peculiarities and her overweening self-conceit, she
+was a thoroughly good creature, and devoted heart and soul to the
+Leskjewitsch family. Her absolute honesty induced the Baron to make her
+authority at Vorhabshen paramount, to the annoyance of the
+superintendent and his men.
+
+It was a clear afternoon,--the 1st of September; the steam thresher was
+at work in the farm-yard, and its dreary puffing and groaning were
+audible in Lotta's small sitting-room, on the ground-floor of the
+mansion, where she was refreshing herself with a cup of coffee, having
+invited the student of agriculture--a young Herr von Kraschinsky--to
+share her nectar.
+
+She had been regaling him with choice bits of family history, as he lay
+back comfortably in an arm-chair, looking very drowsy, when, after a
+pause, she remarked, as if in soliloquy, "I should like to know where
+the master is; I have had no answer to the long letter I sent to him at
+Franzburg."
+
+"Oh, you correspond with the Baron, do you?" murmured the student, too
+lazy to articulate distinctly.
+
+"Of course I do. You must not forget that my position in the
+Leskjewitsch family is higher than that of a servant. I was once
+governess to our poor, dear Baron Fritz; and I have always been devoted
+to them."
+
+In fact, Lotta had been Fritz's nurse; and it was true that she had
+always been much valued, having been treated with great consideration
+on account of her absolute fidelity and her tolerably correct German.
+
+"Yes," she went on, careless as to her companion's attention, "I wrote
+to the Baron about the wheat and the young calves, and I told him of
+Baron Harry's betrothal. I am curious to know what he will say to it.
+For my part, it is not at all to my taste."
+
+"But then you are so frightfully aristocratic," said her guest.
+
+Lotta smiled; nothing pleased her more than to be rallied upon her
+aristocratic tendencies, although she made haste to disclaim them. "Oh,
+no; I am by no means so feudal"--a favourite word of hers, learned from
+a circulating library to which she subscribed--"as you think. I never
+shall forget how I tried to bring about a reconciliation between Baron
+Fritz and his father; but the master was furious, called the widow and
+her little child, after poor Fritz's death, 'French baggage,' and
+threatened me with dismissal if I ever spoke of them. What could I do?
+I could not go near the little girl when Baron Paul brought her to
+Zirkow; but I have watched her from a distance, and have rejoiced to
+see her grow lovelier every year, and the very image of her father. And
+when all the country around declared that Baron Harry was in love with
+her, I was glad; but our master was furious, although the young things
+were then mere children, and declared that not one penny of his money
+should his nephew have if he married the child of that shop-girl. I
+suppose Baron Harry has taken all this into consideration." The old
+woman's face grew stern as she folded her arms on her flat chest and
+declared again, "I am curious to know what the master will think of
+this betrothal."
+
+Outside in the farm-yard the steam thresher continued its monotonous
+task; the superintendent, a young man, something of a coxcomb, stood
+apart from the puffing monster, a volume of Lenau in his hand, learning
+by heart a poem which he intended to recite at the next meeting of the
+"Concordia Association," in X----. The court-fool, Studnecka, was
+seated at his harmonium, composing.
+
+Suddenly a clumsy post-chaise rattled into the courtyard. The
+superintendent started, and thrust his Lenau into his pocket. Lotta
+smoothed her gray hair, and went to meet the arrival. She knew that
+"the master" had come. It was his habit to appear thus unexpectedly,
+when it was impossible to be prepared for him. His masculine employees
+disliked this fashion extremely. Lotta was not at all disturbed by it.
+
+Studnecka was the last to notice that something unusual was going on.
+When he did so, he left the harmonium and went to the window.
+
+In the midst of a group of servants and farm-hands stood an old man in
+a long green coat and a shiny, tall hat. The court-fool observed
+something strange in his master's appearance. Suddenly he fairly
+gasped.
+
+"The world is coming to an end!" he exclaimed. "Wonders will never
+cease,--the Herr Baron has a new hat!"
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+                             A SHORT VISIT.
+
+
+Lotta, too, noticed the master's new hat, but that was not the only
+change she observed in him. The expression of his face was not so stern
+as usual. Instead of sneering at the coxcombical superintendent, he
+smiled at his approach; his complexion was far less sallow than it had
+been; and, above all, he allowed the superintendent to pay the driver
+of the post-chaise without an inquiry as to the fare.
+
+After nodding right and left, he asked Lotta if his room were ready.
+
+"Of course," the housekeeper replied, and at once conducted him to a
+spacious and exquisitely clean and neat apartment, rather scantily
+furnished with spindle-legged chairs and brass-mounted cabinets dating
+from the time of the First Empire. Not a speck of dust was to be seen
+anywhere. The Baron ordered coffee, and dismissed Lotta.
+
+When she had gone he looked about him keenly, as if in search of
+somewhat, from the arm-chair into which he had thrown himself. Not
+finding what he sought, he arose and went into the adjoining room. Yes,
+there it was!
+
+On the wall hung two portraits, in broad, tasteless gilt frames. One
+represented a fair, handsome woman, with bare shoulders and long, soft
+curls; the other a dark-browed man, in the red, gold-embroidered
+uniform of a court chamberlain. He smiled bitterly as he looked at this
+picture. "Done with!" he muttered, and turned his back upon the
+portraits; with those words he banished the memory of his past. A
+strange sensation possessed him: an anticipation of his future,--the
+future of a man of seventy-three! He walked about the room uncertainly,
+searching for something. A dark flush mounted to his cheek; he loosened
+his collar. At last he turned the key in the door, as if fearful of
+being surprised in some misdeed, and then went to his writing-table, a
+large and rather complicated piece of furniture, its numerous drawers
+decorated with brass ornaments. From one of the most secret of these he
+took a small portfolio containing about a dozen photographs. All
+represented the same person, but at various stages of existence, from
+earliest infancy to boyhood and manhood.
+
+"Fritz!" murmured the old man, hoarsely; "Fritz!"
+
+Yes, always Fritz. The father looked them through, lingering over each
+one with the same longing, hungry look with which we would fain call to
+life the images of our dead. There was Fritz with his first gun, Fritz
+in his school-uniform, and, at last, Fritz as a young diplomat,
+photographed in Paris, with a mountain view in the background.
+
+This picture trembled in the old hands. How he had admired it! how
+proud he had been of his handsome son! and then----
+
+There was a knock at the door. Buried in the past, he had not heard the
+bustle of preparation in the next room, and now he thrust away the
+pictures to take his seat at his well-furnished table, where Lotta was
+waiting to serve him.
+
+"Sit down, sit down," the Baron said, with unwonted geniality, "and
+tell me of what is going on here."
+
+Lotta seated herself bolt upright at a respectful distance from her
+master.
+
+"Well?" began the Baron, pouring out the coffee for himself.
+
+"I wrote all the news to the Herr Baron; nothing else has happened,
+except that the English sow which the Herr Baron bought at the fair
+littered last night,--twelve as nice fat little pigs as ever were
+seen."
+
+"Indeed! very interesting. But what was in the letter? Since I never
+received it, it must be lying at Franzburg."
+
+"Oh, all sorts of things,--about the short-horn calves, and the weight
+of the hay, and Baron Harry's betrothal; but of course the Herr Baron
+knew of that."
+
+The Baron set down his cup so hastily that it came near being broken.
+"Not a word!" he exclaimed, doing his best to conceal the delight which
+would mirror itself in his face. Harry betrothed? To whom but to the
+golden-haired enchantress he had met in the forest, Fritz's daughter
+Zdena? To be sure, he had threatened to disinherit the boy if he
+married her, but the fellow had been quite right to set the threat at
+naught. The old man chuckled at the fright he would give them, and
+then---- Meanwhile, he tried to look indifferent.
+
+"Indeed? And so the boy is betrothed?" he drawled. "All very
+fine--without asking any one's advice, hey? Of course your old heart is
+dancing at the thought of it, Lotta. Oh, I know you through and
+through."
+
+"I don't see any reason for rejoicing at the young master's betrothal,"
+Lotta replied, crossly, thrusting out her chin defiantly.
+
+The old man scanned her keenly. Something in the expression of her face
+troubled him.
+
+"Who is the girl?" he asked, bluntly.
+
+"The younger of the two Harfink fräuleins; the other married Count
+Treurenberg."
+
+"Harfink, do you say? Impossible!" The Baron could not believe his
+ears.
+
+"So I thought too, but I was mistaken. It is officially announced.
+Baron Karl has been to see the mother, and there is shortly to be a
+betrothal festival, to which all the great people in the country round
+are to be invited."
+
+"But what is the stupid boy thinking about? What do people say of him?"
+thundered the Baron.
+
+"Why, what should they say? They say our young Baron had interested
+motives, that he is in debt----"
+
+The Baron started up in a fury. "In debt? A fine reason!" he shouted.
+"Am I not here?"
+
+Whereupon Lotta looked at him very significantly. "As if every one did
+not know what those get who come to the Herr Baron for money," she
+murmured.
+
+The old man's face flushed purple. "Leave the room!" he cried, pointing
+to the door.
+
+Lotta arose, pushed back her chair to the wall, and walked out of the
+room with much dignity. She was accustomed to such conduct on her
+master's part: it had to be borne with. And she knew, besides, that her
+words had produced an impression, that he would not be angry with her
+long.
+
+When the door had closed after her, the old man seated himself at his
+writing-table, determined to write to Harry, putting his veto upon the
+marriage of his nephew with the "Harfink girl;" but after the first few
+lines he dropped the pen.
+
+"What affair is it of mine?" he murmured. "If he had yielded to
+a foolish impulse like my Fritz,"--he passed his hand over his
+eyes,--"why, then I might have seen things differently, and not as I
+did twenty years ago. But if, with love for another girl in his heart,
+he chooses to sell himself for money, he simply does not exist for me.
+Let him take the consequences. My money was not enough for him, or
+perhaps he was afraid he should have to wait too long for it. Well, now
+he can learn what it is to be married without a penny to a rich girl
+whom he does not love."
+
+He pulled the bell furiously. The young gamekeeper who always filled
+the position of valet to the Baron upon these spasmodic visits to
+Vorhabshen entered.
+
+"Harness the drag, Martin, so that I can catch the train."
+
+That very evening he returned to Franzburg, where he sent for his
+lawyer to help him make a new will.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+                               SUBMISSION.
+
+
+Yes, affairs had reached a terribly grave point, an Harry now fully
+appreciated. He felt like a man under sentence of death whose appeal
+for mercy has been rejected. The day for his execution was appointed;
+he had given his promise, and must keep it.
+
+The day after his father's visit to Dobrotschau the young man presented
+himself there, and informed the ladies that pressing business obliged
+him to return to Vienna; but Paula, who was perfectly aware of the
+duration of his leave, routed from the field every reason which he gave
+for the necessity for his presence in Vienna. A betrothal festival had
+been arranged for a day early in September; he could not possibly be
+absent. And Paula, the robust, whose nerves were of iron, wept and made
+a scene; and Harry stayed, and conscientiously paid at least three
+visits a week at Dobrotschau. He was changed almost past recognition:
+he had grown very thin, his voice had a hard, metallic sound, and his
+eyes had the restless brilliancy of some wild creature in a trap. He
+ate scarcely anything, and his hands burned with fever. His betrothed,
+whose passion was still on the increase, overwhelmed him with tender
+attentions, which he no longer strove to discourage, but which he
+accepted with the resignation of despair.
+
+His bridges were burned behind him; he saw no escape; he must accept
+what life had in store for him. Now and then he made a pathetic attempt
+to blot out of his soul the pale image of the charming girl which never
+left him. He even made every effort to love his betrothed, to penetrate
+her inward consciousness, to learn to know and value her; but he
+brought home from every such psychological exploring trip a positive
+aversion, so rude and coarse, so bereft of all delicacy, were her modes
+of thought and feeling. He pleased her; his quixotic courtesy, his
+unpractical view of life, she took delight in; but her vanity alone was
+interested, not her heart,--that is, she valued it all as "gentlemanly
+accomplishment," as something aristocratic, like his seat on horseback,
+or the chiselling of his profile. She was an utter stranger to the best
+and truest part of him. And as her passion increased, what had been
+with him at first an impatient aversion changed to absolute loathing,
+something so terrible that at times he took up his revolver to put an
+end to it all. Such cowardice, however, was foreign to his principles;
+and then he was only twenty-four years old, and life might have been so
+fair if---- Even now at rare intervals a faint hope would arise within
+him, but what gave birth to it he could not tell.
+
+Meanwhile, the days passed, and the betrothal _fête_ was near at hand.
+Fainacky, who had installed himself as _maître de plaisir_, an office
+which no one seemed inclined to dispute with him, was indefatigable in
+his labours, and displayed great inventive faculty. Every hour he
+developed some fresh idea: now it was a new garden path to be
+illuminated by coloured lamps, now a clump of shrubbery behind which
+the band of an infantry regiment in garrison in the neighbourhood was
+to be concealed.
+
+"Music is the most poetic of all the arts, so long as one is spared the
+sight of the musician," he explained to Frau von Harfink, in view of
+this last arrangement. "The first condition of success for a _fête_ is
+a concealed orchestra."
+
+He himself composed two stirring pieces of music--a Paula galop and a
+Selina quadrille--to enrich the entertainment. The decoration of the
+garden-room was carried out by a Viennese upholsterer under his special
+supervision. He filled up the cards of invitation, ordered the wine for
+the supper, and sketched the shapes for the plaques of flowers on the
+table. The menus, however, constituted his masterpiece. Civilized
+humanity had never seen anything like them. Beside each plate there was
+to lie a parchment roll tied with a golden cord, from, which depended a
+seal stamped with the Harfink coat of arms. These gorgeous things were
+Fainacky's _chef-d'[oe]uvre_. All his other devices--such as the torch
+dance at midnight, with congratulatory addresses from the Harfink
+retainers, the fireworks which were to reveal the intertwined
+initials of the betrothed pair shooting to the skies in characters of
+flame--were mere by-play. Yet, in spite of all his exertions in this
+line, the Pole found time to spy upon everybody, to draw his own
+conclusions, and to attend to his own interests.
+
+By chance it occurred to him to devote some observation to Olga
+Dangeri, whom hitherto he had scarcely noticed. He found her a subject
+well worth further attention, and it soon became a habit of his to
+pursue her with his bold glance, of course when unobserved by the fair
+Countess Selina, with whom he continued to carry on his flirtation.
+Whenever, unseen and unheard, he could persecute Olga with his insolent
+admiration and exaggerated compliments, he did so. Consequently she did
+her best to avoid him. He was quite satisfied with this result,
+ascribing it to the agitation caused by his homage. "Poor girl!" he
+thought; "she does not comprehend the awakening within her of the
+tender passion!"
+
+In fact, a change was perceptible in Olga. She was languid, not easily
+roused to exertion; her lips and cheeks burned frequently, and she was
+more taciturn than ever. Her beauty was invested with an even greater
+charm. Upon his first arrival in Dobrotschau, the Pole had suspected a
+mutual inclination between Treurenberg and the beautiful "player's
+daughter," but, since he had seen nothing to confirm his ugly
+suspicion, he had ceased to entertain it. Every symptom of an awakening
+attachment which he could observe in Olga, Ladislas Fainacky
+interpreted in his own favour.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXX.
+
+                              PERSECUTION.
+
+
+September has fairly begun. The harvest is gathered in, and the wind is
+blowing over the stubble,--a dry, oppressive wind, calling up clouds
+which float across the sky in fantastic masses every morning and vanish
+at noon without a trace. All nature manifests languor and thirst; the
+dry ground shows large cracks here and there, and vegetation is losing
+its last tinge of green.
+
+Nowhere in all the country around are the effects of the drought more
+apparent than at Dobrotschau, where the soil is very poor. Not even in
+the park is there any freshness of verdure. The fountains refuse to
+play; the sward looks like a shabby, worn carpet; the leaves are
+withering on the trees.
+
+Everything is longing for a storm, and yet all feel that relief, when
+it comes, will bring uproar with it; something must go to ruin and be
+shattered in the change. The great life of nature, spellbound and
+withheld in this sultry languor, will awake with some convulsion,
+angrily demanding a victim. It is inevitable; and one must take comfort
+in the thought that all else will flourish, refreshed and strengthened.
+Anything would be preferable to this wasting and withering, this
+perpetual hissing wind.
+
+To-day it seems finally lulled to rest, for the barometer is falling,
+and livid blue clouds are piling up on the horizon, as distinct in
+outline as a range of mountains, and so darkly menacing that in old
+times men would have regarded them with terror. Now every one says, "At
+last! at last!"
+
+But they mount no higher; the air is more sultry, and not a cooling
+drop falls.
+
+In the shadiest part of the park there is a pond, bordered with rushes
+and surrounded by a scanty growth of underbrush, in the midst of which
+stand the black, skeleton trunks of several dead trees. During the
+winters preceding the coming to Dobrotschau of the Baroness Harfink,
+and shortly after the purchase of the estate, some of the most ancient
+of the trees--trees as old as the family whose downfall necessitated
+the sale of Dobrotschau--had died. Their lifeless trunks still pointed
+to the skies, tall and grim, as if in mute protest against the new
+ownership of the soil.
+
+The pond, once a shining expanse of clear water, is almost dried up,
+and a net-work of water-plants covers its surface. Now, when the
+rosebuds are falling from their stems without opening, this marshy spot
+is gay with many-coloured blossoms.
+
+At the edge of the pond lies an old boat, and in it Olga is sitting,
+dressed in white, with a red rose in her belt, one of the few roses
+which the drought has spared. She is gazing dreamily, with half-shut
+eyes, upon the shallow water which here and there mirrors the skies. An
+open book lies in her lap, Turgenieff's "A First Love," but she has
+read only a few pages of it. Her attitude expresses languor, and from
+time to time she shivers slightly.
+
+"Why is Lato so changed to me? why does he avoid me? what have I done
+to displease him?" These are the thoughts that occupy her mind as she
+sits there, with her hands clasped in her lap, gazing down into the
+brown swamp, not observing that Fainacky, attracted by the light colour
+of her dress among the trees, has followed her to the pond and has been
+watching her for some time from a short distance.
+
+"She loves," he says to himself, as he notices the dreamy expression of
+the girl's face; and his vanity adds, "She loves me!"
+
+He tries, by gazing fixedly at her, to force her to look up at him, but
+he is unsuccessful, and then has recourse to another expedient. In his
+thin, reedy tenor voice he begins to warble "Salve dimora casta e pura"
+from Gounod's "Faust."
+
+Then she looks round at him, but her face certainly does not express
+pleasure. She arises, leaves the skiff, and, passing her obtrusive
+admirer without a word, tries to turn into the shortest path leading to
+the castle. He walks beside her, however, and begins in a low voice:
+"Fräulein Olga, I have something to say to you."
+
+"Tome?"
+
+"Yes, I want to explain myself, to correct some false impressions of
+yours, to lay bare my heart before you."
+
+He pauses after uttering this sentence, and she also stands still, her
+annoyance causing a choking sensation in her throat. She would fain let
+him know that she is not in the least interested in having his heart
+laid bare before her, but how can she do this without seeming cross or
+angry?
+
+"You have hitherto entirely misunderstood me," he assures her. "Oh,
+Olga, why can you not lay aside your distrust of me?"
+
+"Distrust?" she repeats, almost mechanically; "I am not aware of any
+distrust."
+
+"Do not deny it," he persists, clasping his hands affectedly; "do not
+deny it. Your distrust of me is profound. It wounds me, it pains me,
+and--it pains you also!"
+
+Olga can hardly believe her ears. She stares at him without speaking,
+in utter dismay, almost fearing that he has suddenly lost his wits.
+
+"You must hear me," he continues, with theatric effect. "Your distrust
+must cease, the distrust which has hitherto prevented you from
+perceiving how genuine is the admiration I feel for you. Oh, you must
+see how I admire you!"
+
+Here Olga loses patience, and, with extreme _hauteur_, replies, "I have
+perceived your very disagreeable habit of staring at me, and of
+persecuting me with what I suppose you mean for compliments when you
+think no one is observing you."
+
+"It was out of regard for you."
+
+"Excuse my inability to understand you," she rejoins, still more
+haughtily. "I cannot appreciate regard of that description." And with
+head proudly erect she passes him and walks towards the castle.
+
+For a moment he gazes after her, as if spellbound. How beautiful she
+is, framed in by the dark trees that arch above the pathway! "She
+loves! she suffers!" he murmurs. His fancy suddenly takes fire; this is
+no fleeting inclination, no!--he adores her!
+
+With a bound he overtakes her. "Olga! you must not leave me thus,
+adorable girl that you are! I love you, Olga, love you devotedly!"
+He falls at her feet. "Take all that I have, my name, my life, my
+station,--a crown should be yours, were it mine!"
+
+She is now thoroughly startled and dismayed. "Impossible! I cannot!"
+she murmurs, and tries to leave him.
+
+But with all the obstinacy of a vain fool he detains her. "Oh, do not
+force those beauteous lips to utter cruel words that belie your true
+self. I have watched you,--you love! Olga, my star, my queen, tell me
+you love me!"
+
+He seizes the girl's hands, and covers them with kisses; but with
+disgust in every feature she snatches them from him, just as Lato
+appears in the pathway.
+
+Fainacky rises; the eyes of the two men meet. Treurenberg's express
+angry contempt; in those of the Pole there is intense hatred, as,
+biting his lip in his disappointment, he turns and walks away.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+                              CONSOLATION.
+
+
+"What is the matter? What is it?" Treurenberg asks, solicitously.
+
+"Nothing, nothing," Olga replies; "nothing at which I ought to take
+offence." Then, after a short pause, she adds, "On the contrary, he did
+me the honour to offer to make me Countess Fainacky. The idea, it is
+true, seemed to occur to him rather tardily, after conducting himself
+impertinently."
+
+Lato twirls his moustache nervously, and murmurs, in a dull,
+constrained voice, "Well, and could you not bring yourself to consent?"
+
+"Lato!" the girl exclaims, indignantly.
+
+The bitter expression on Lato's face makes him look quite unlike
+himself as he says, "A girl who sets out to marry must not be too nice,
+you see!"
+
+His head is turned away from her; silence reigns around; the sultry
+quiet lies like a spell upon everything.
+
+He hears a half-suppressed ejaculation, the rustle of a robe, short,
+quick steps, and, looking round, sees her tall figure walking rapidly
+away from him, offended pride and wounded feeling expressed in its
+every motion. He ought to let her go, but he cannot, and he hurries
+after her; almost before she is aware of his presence, he lightly
+touches her on the arm.
+
+"Olga, my poor Olga, I did not mean this!" he exclaims, gently. "Be
+reasonable, my child; I did not mean to wound you, but to give you a
+common-sense view of the affair."
+
+She looks away from him, and suddenly bursts into irrepressible sobs.
+
+"You poor child! Hush, I pray you! I cannot bear this! Have I really
+grieved you--I--why, 'tis ridiculous--I, who would have my hand cut off
+to serve you? Come, be calm." And he draws her down upon a rustic bench
+and takes a seat beside her.
+
+Her chest heaves as does that of a child who, although the cause of its
+grief has been removed, cannot stop crying at once. He takes her hand
+in his and strokes it gently.
+
+A delightful sensation of content, even of happiness, steals upon him,
+but mingling with it comes a tormenting unrest, the dawning
+consciousness that he is entering upon a crooked path, that he is in
+danger of doing a wrong, and yet he goes on holding the girl's hand in
+his and gazing into her eyes.
+
+"Why are you not always kind to me?" she asks him simply.
+
+He is confused, and drops her hand.
+
+"For a whole week past you have seemed scarcely to see me," she says,
+reproachfully. "Have you been vexed with me? Did I do anything to
+displease you?"
+
+"I have had so much to worry me," he murmurs.
+
+"Poor Lato! I thought so. If you only knew how my heart aches for
+you! Can you not tell me some of your troubles? They are so much easier
+to bear when shared with another."
+
+And before he can reply she takes his hand in both of hers, and presses
+it against her cheek.
+
+Just at that moment he sees the Pole, who has paused in departing and
+turned towards the pair; the man's sallow face, seen in the distance
+above Olga's dark head, seems to wear a singularly malevolent
+expression.
+
+As soon, however, as he becomes aware that Treurenberg has perceived
+him, he vanishes again.
+
+Lato's confusion increases; he rises, saying, "And now be good, Olga;
+go home and bathe your eyes, that no one may see that you have been
+crying."
+
+"Oh, no one will take any notice, and there is plenty of time before
+dinner. Take a walk with me in the park; it is not so warm as it was."
+
+"I cannot, my child; I have a letter to write."
+
+"As you please;" and she adds, in an undertone, "You are changed
+towards me."
+
+Before he can reply, she is gone.
+
+The path along which she has disappeared is flecked with crimson,--the
+petals of the rose that she had worn in her girdle.
+
+
+Lato feels as if rudely awakened from unconsciousness. He walks
+unsteadily, and covers his eyes with his hand as if dazzled by even the
+tempered light of the afternoon. The terrible bliss for which he longs,
+of which he is afraid, seems so near that he has but to reach out his
+hand and grasp it. He stamps his foot in horror of himself. What! a
+pure young girl! his wife's relative! The very thought is impossible!
+He is tormented by the feverish fancies of overwrought nerves. He
+shakes himself as if to be rid of a burden, then turns and walks
+rapidly along a path leading in an opposite direction from where the
+scattered rose-leaves are lying on the ground.
+
+As he passes on with eyes downcast, he almost runs against the Pole.
+The glances of the two men meet; involuntarily Lato averts his from
+Fainacky's face, and as he does so he is conscious of a slight
+embarrassment, which the other takes a malicious delight in noticing.
+
+"Aha!" he begins; "your long interview with the fair Olga seems to have
+had a less agreeable effect upon your mood than I had anticipated."
+
+Such a remark would usually have called forth from Lato a sharp
+rejoinder; to-day he would fain choose his words, to excuse himself, as
+it were.
+
+"She was much agitated," he murmurs. "I had some trouble in
+soothing her. She--she is nervous and sensitive; her position in my
+mother-in-law's household is not a very pleasant one."
+
+"Well, you certainly do your best to improve it," Fainacky says,
+hypocritically.
+
+"And you to make it impossible!" Lato exclaims, angrily.
+
+"Did the fair Olga complain of me, then?" drawls the other.
+
+"There was no need that she should," Treurenberg goes on to say. "Do
+you suppose that I need anything more than eyes in my head to see how
+you follow her about and stare at her?"
+
+Fainacky gives him a lowering look, and then laughs softly.
+
+"Well, yes, I confess, I have paid her some attention; she pleases me.
+Yes, yes, I do not deny my sensibility to female charms. I never played
+the saint!"
+
+"Indeed! At least you seem to have made an effort to-day to justify
+your importunity," Treurenberg rejoins, filled with contempt for the
+simpering specimen of humanity before him. "You have offered her your
+hand."
+
+Scarcely have the words left his lips when Treurenberg is conscious
+that he has committed a folly in thus irritating the man.
+
+Fainacky turns pale to the lips, and his expression is one of intense
+malice.
+
+"It is true," he says, "that I so far forgot myself for a moment as to
+offer your youthful _protégeé_ my hand. Good heavens! I am not the
+first man of rank who, in a moment of enthusiasm and to soothe the
+irritated nerves of a shy beauty, has offered to marry a girl of low
+extraction. The obstacle, however, which bars my way to her heart
+appears to be of so serious a nature that I shall make no attempt to
+remove it."
+
+He utters the words with a provoking smile and most malicious emphasis.
+
+"To what obstacle do you refer?" Lato exclaims, in increasing anger.
+
+"Can you seriously ask me that question?" the Pole murmurs, in a low
+voice like the hiss of a serpent.
+
+Transported with anger, Treurenberg lifts his hand; the Pole scans him
+quietly.
+
+"If you wish for a duel, there is no need to resort to so drastic a
+measure to provoke it. But do you seriously think it would be well for
+the fair fame of your--your lovely _protégeé_ that you should fight for
+her?" And, turning on his heel, Fainacky walks towards the castle.
+
+Lato stands as if rooted to the spot, his gaze riveted on the ground.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+                          INTERRUPTED HARMONY.
+
+
+Dinner is over, and the gilt chandelier in the garden-room, where
+coffee is usually served, is lighted. Selina is sitting at the piano
+accompanying Fainacky, who is singing. Paula is in her own rooms with
+her mother, inspecting the latest additions to her trousseau, just
+arrived from Vienna. Lato has remained in the garden-room, where he
+endures with heroic courage the sound of Fainacky's voice as he whines
+forth his sentimental French songs, accentuating them in the most
+touching places with dramatic gestures and much maltreatment of his
+pocket-handkerchief. After each song he compliments Selina upon her
+playing. Her touch reminds him of Madame Essipoff. Selina, whose
+digestion is perfect so far as flattery is concerned, swallows all his
+compliments and looks at him as if she wished for more.
+
+On the wide gravel path, before the glass doors of the room, Olga is
+pacing to and fro. The broad light from door and window reveals clearly
+the upper portion of her figure. Her head is slightly bent, her hands
+are clasped easily before her. There is a peculiar gliding grace in all
+her movements. With all Treurenberg's efforts to become interested in
+the newspaper which he holds, he cannot grasp the meaning of a single
+sentence. The letters flicker before his eyes like a crowd of crawling
+insects. Weary of such fruitless exertion, he lifts his eyes, to
+encounter Olga's gazing at him with a look of tenderest sympathy. He
+starts, and makes a fresh effort to absorb himself in the paper, but
+before he is aware of it she has come in from the garden and has taken
+her seat on a low chair beside him.
+
+"Is anything the matter with you?" she asks.
+
+"What could be the matter with me?" he rejoins, evasively.
+
+"I thought you might have a headache, you look so pale," she says, with
+a matronly air.
+
+"Olga, I would seriously advise you to devote yourself to the study of
+medicine, you are so quick to observe symptoms of illness in those
+about you."
+
+She returns his sarcasm with a playful little tap upon his arm.
+
+Fainacky turns and looks at them, a fiendish light in his green eyes,
+in the midst of his most effective rendering of Massenet's "_Nuits
+d'Espagne_."
+
+"If you want to talk, I think you might go out in the garden, instead
+of disturbing us here," Selina calls out, sharply.
+
+Lato instantly turns to his newspaper, and when he looks up from it
+again, Olga has vanished. He rises and goes to the open door. The
+sultry magic of the September night broods over the garden outside. The
+moon is not yet visible,--it rises late,--but countless stars twinkle
+in the blue-black heavens, shedding a pale silvery lustre upon the dark
+earth. Olga is nowhere to be seen; but there---- He takes a step or two
+forward; she is walking quickly. He pauses, looks after her until she
+disappears entirely among the shrubbery, and then he goes back to the
+garden-room.
+
+It is Selina's turn to sing now, and she has chosen a grand aria from
+"Lucrezia Borgia." She is a pupil of Frau Marchesi's, and she has a
+fine voice,--that is to say, a voice of unusual compass and power,
+which might perhaps have made a reputation on the stage, but which is
+far from agreeable in a drawing room. It is like the blowing of
+trumpets in the same space.
+
+His wife's singing is the one thing in the world which Lato absolutely
+cannot tolerate, and never has tolerated. Passing directly through the
+room, he disappears through a door opposite the one leading into the
+garden.
+
+Even in the earliest years of their married life Selina always took
+amiss her husband's insensibility to her musical performances, and now,
+when she avers his indifference to her in every other respect to be a
+great convenience, her sensitiveness as an artist is unchanged.
+
+Breaking off in the midst of her song, she calls after him, "Is that a
+protest?"
+
+He does not hear her.
+
+"_Continuez done, ma cousine_, I implore you," the Pole murmurs.
+
+With redoubled energy, accompanying herself, Countess Selina sings
+on, only dropping her hands from the keys when she has executed a
+break-neck cadenza by way of final flourish. Fainacky, meanwhile,
+gracefully leaning against the instrument, listens ecstatically, with
+closed eyes.
+
+"Selina, you are an angel!" he exclaims, when she has finished. "Were I
+in Treurenberg's place you should sing to me from morning until night."
+
+"My husband takes no pleasure in my singing; at the first sound of my
+voice he leaves the room, as you have just seen. He has no more taste
+for music than my poodle."
+
+"Extraordinary!" the Pole says, indignantly. And then, after a little
+pause, he adds, musingly, "I never should have thought it. The day I
+arrived here, you remember, I came quite unexpectedly; and, looking for
+some one to announce me, I strayed into this very room----" He
+hesitates.
+
+"Well?--go on."
+
+"Well, Nina, or Olga--what is your _protégeé's_ name?" He snaps his
+fingers impatiently.
+
+"Olga! Well, what of her?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing, only she was sitting at the piano strumming away at
+something, and Lato was listening as devoutly as if she----"
+
+But Selina has risen hastily and is walking towards the door into the
+garden with short impatient steps, as if in need of the fresh air. Her
+face is flushed, and she plucks nervously at the lace about her throat.
+
+"What have I done? Have I vexed you?" the Pole whines, clasping his
+hands.
+
+"Oh, no, you have nothing to do with it!" the Countess sharply rejoins.
+"I cannot understand Lato's want of taste in making so much fuss about
+that slip of a girl."
+
+"You ought to try to marry her off," sighs the Pole.
+
+"Try I try!" the Countess replies, mockingly. "There is nothing to be
+done with that obstinate thing."
+
+"Of course it must be difficult; her low extraction, her lack of
+fortune,----"
+
+"Lack of fortune?" Selina exclaims.
+
+"I thought Olga was entirely dependent upon your mother's generosity,"
+Fainacky says, eagerly.
+
+"Not at all. My father saved a very fair sum for Olga from the remains
+of her mother's property. She has the entire control of a fortune of
+three or four hundred thousand guilders,--quite enough to make her a
+desirable match; but the girl seems to have taken it into her head that
+no one save a prince of the blood is good enough for her!" And the
+Countess actually stamps her foot.
+
+"Do you really imagine that it is Olga's ambition alone that prevents
+her from contracting a sensible marriage?" Fainacky drawls, with
+evident significance.
+
+"What else should it be?" Selina says, imperiously. "What do you mean?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing; she seems to me rather exaggerated,--overstrained.
+Let us try this duet of Boito's."
+
+"I do not wish to sing any more," she replies, and leaves the room.
+
+He gazes after her, lost in thought for a moment, then snaps his
+fingers.
+
+"Four hundred thousand guilders--by Jove!"
+
+Whereupon he takes his seat at the piano, and improvises until far into
+the night upon the familiar air, "In Ostrolenka's meads."
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+                             EARLY SUNRISE.
+
+
+It is early in the morning of the day before the famous betrothal
+festivity. The town-clock of X---- strikes three as Treurenberg, his
+bridle hanging loose, is riding along the lonely road towards
+Dobrotschau. He has passed the night with a few officers at the rooms
+of the Countess Wodin, his cousin and former flame, who "threw him
+over" because her views of life were more practical than his,--that is
+to say, than his were at that period; for he soon followed her example,
+and was very practical too. But it does not suit every man to be so.
+
+The assemblage at the Countess Wodin's was unusually lively. She was
+the only lady present, with the exception of the major's wife, an
+insignificant, awkward woman, who was usually endowed with the
+Countess's cast-off gowns. A large number of men made up the
+gathering,--almost the entire corps of officers, and a couple of
+gentlemen from the neighbourhood. The time was whiled away with cards.
+At first Lato did not join the players, simply looking on at one and
+another of the tables; but by and by he took the cards for his cousin,
+who, suddenly possessed by an intense desire to dance, rose from her
+place, "just to take a couple of turns around the room." She waltzed
+until she was breathless with Ensign Flammingen, Treurenberg's
+relative, who was apparently head over ears in love with her. An
+officer of dragoons meanwhile droned out the music for them upon a
+little drawing-room hand-organ. When the Countess again took her place
+at the card-table Lato had won a small fortune for her. She
+congratulated him upon his luck, and advised him to try it in his own
+behalf. He did so.
+
+Between the games a good deal of wine had been drunk, and various
+questionable witticisms had been perpetrated. Treurenberg laughed
+louder than the rest, although all such jesting was distasteful to him,
+especially when women were present. But the Countess had expressly
+requested to be treated as a man; and the major's wife, after an
+unfortunate attempt to smoke a cigarette, had retired to a sofa in the
+adjoining room to recover from the effects of the experiment.
+
+In the absence of this victim of an evil custom for which she was
+evidently unfitted, the merriment grew more and more boisterous, until
+suddenly young Flammingen, who had but a moment before been waltzing
+gaily with the hostess, fell into a most lachrymose condition. The rest
+tried, it is true, to regard it as only an additional amusement, but it
+was useless: the mirth had received a death-blow. Some one began to
+turn the hand-organ again, but without cheering results. All were
+tired. They found the air of the room suffocating; the smoke was too
+thick to see through. Then the unfortunate idea occurred to one of the
+party to open a window. The fresh air from without wafted in among the
+fumes of wine and cigar-smoke had a strange effect upon the guests:
+they suddenly fell silent, and in a very short time vanished, like
+ghosts at cock-crow.
+
+Lato took his leave with the rest, disappearing from his cousin's
+drawing-room with the consciousness of being a winner,--that was
+something. He rode through the quiet town, and on between the desolate
+fields of rye, where not an ear was left standing, between dark
+stretches of freshly-ploughed land, whence came the odour of the earth
+with its promise of renewed fertility. The moon was high in the
+colourless sky; along the eastern horizon there was a faint gleam
+of yellow light. The dawn enveloped all nature as in a white
+semi-transparent veil; every outline showed indistinct; the air was
+cool, and mingled with it there was a sharp breath of autumn. Here and
+there a dead leaf fell from the trees. The temperature had grown much
+cooler in the last few days; there had been violent storms in the
+vicinity, although the drought still reigned at Dobrotschau.
+Treurenberg felt weary in every limb; the hand holding the bridle
+dropped on his horse's neck. On either side stood a row of tall
+poplars; he had reached the avenue where Olga's white figure had once
+come to meet him. The castle was at hand. He shivered; a mysterious
+dread bade him turn away from it.
+
+The half-light seemed to roll away like curling smoke. Lato could
+clearly distinguish the landscape. The grass along the roadside was
+yellow and dry; blue succory bloomed everywhere among it; here and
+there a bunch of wild poppies hung drooping on their slender stalks.
+The blue flowers showed pale and sickly in the early light; the poppies
+looked almost black.
+
+On a sudden everything underwent a change; broad shadows stretched
+across the road, and all between them glowed in magic crimson light.
+From a thousand twittering throats came greetings of the new-born day.
+
+Treurenberg looked up. Solemn and grand, in a semicircle of
+reddish-golden mist, the sun rose on the eastern horizon.
+
+Yes, in a moment all was transformed,--the pale empty skies were filled
+with light and resonant inspiration, the earth was revivified.
+
+Why languish in weary discouragement when a single moment can so
+transfigure the world? For him, too, the sun might rise, all might be
+bright within him. Then, at a sharp turn of the road, the castle of
+Dobrotschau appeared, interposing its mass between him and the sun. The
+crimson light, like a corona, played about the outlines of the castle,
+which stood out hard and dark against the flaming background.
+Treurenberg's momentary hopefulness faded at the sight,--it was folly
+to indulge in it: for him there was no sunrise; there was nothing
+before him but a dark, blank wall, shutting out light and hope, and
+against which he could but bruise and wound himself should he try to
+break through it.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+                               STRUGGLES.
+
+
+As Lato trotted into the court-yard of the castle a window was suddenly
+closed, the window above his room,--Olga's. She had been awaiting his
+return, then. He began to shiver as in a fever-fit.
+
+"There must be an end to this," he said to himself, as he consigned his
+horse to a sleepy groom and entered the castle.
+
+His room was on the ground-floor; when he reached it he threw himself,
+still dressed, on the bed, in a state of intolerable agitation; by
+degrees he became calmer, his thoughts grew vague; without sleeping
+soundly he dreamed. He seemed to be swimming with Olga in his arms
+through a warm, fragrant lake, upon the surface of which pale
+water-lilies were floating. Suddenly these pale lilies turned to greedy
+flames, the lake glowed as with fire, and a stifling smoke filled the
+air. Lato started up, his heart beating, his brow damp with moisture.
+His fatigue tempted him to try again to rest, but he tossed about
+restlessly; thinking himself still awake, he listened to the ticking of
+his watch, and looked at Lion, who lay crouched beside his bed, when
+suddenly Olga stood there gazing at him, her eyes transfigured with
+heavenly compassion, as she murmured, "Will you not share your woe with
+me?" She stretched out her arms to him, he drew her towards him, his
+lips touched hers--he awoke with a cry. He rose, determined to dream no
+more, and, drawing up one of his window-shades, looked down into the
+courtyard. It was barely six o'clock. All was quiet, but for one of the
+grooms at work washing a carriage. The fountain before the St. John
+rippled and murmured; a few brown leaves floated in its basin. The
+silvery reflection from the water dazzled Lato's eyes; he turned away,
+and began slowly to pace the room. The motion seemed to increase his
+restlessness; he threw himself into an arm-chair, and took up a book.
+But he was not in a condition to read a line; before he knew it the
+volume fell from his hand, and the noise it made in falling startled
+him again. He shook his head in impatience with his nervousness; this
+state of affairs could not be longer endured, he must bring about some
+change; matters could not go on thus. He thought and thought. What
+could be patched up from the ruins of his life? He must try to stand on
+a better footing with his wife, to leave Dobrotschau as soon as
+possible. What would be his future? could he ever become reconciled to
+his existence? Oh! time was such a consoler, could adjust so much,
+perhaps it would help him to live down this misery.
+
+Then, like an honourable merchant who sees bankruptcy imminent, he
+reckoned up his few possessions. His wife had certainly loved him once
+passionately. It was long since he had recalled her former tenderness;
+he now did so distinctly. "It is not possible," he thought to himself,
+"that so strong a feeling can have utterly died out;" the fault of
+their estrangement must be his, but it should all be different. If he
+could succeed in withdrawing her from the baleful influences that
+surrounded her, and in awakening all that was honest and true in her,
+they might help each other to support life like good friends. It was
+impossible to make their home in Vienna, where his sensitive nature was
+continually outraged and at war with her satisfied vanity. Under such
+circumstances irritation was unavoidable. But she had been wont to talk
+of buying a country-seat, and had been eloquent about, the delights of
+a country life. Yes, somewhere in the country, in a pretty, quiet home,
+forgotten by the world, they might begin life anew; here was the
+solution of the problem; this was the right thing to do! He thought of
+his dead child; perhaps God would bestow upon him another.
+
+What would, meanwhile, become of Olga? Like a stab, the thought came
+to him that with her fate he had nothing to do. Olga would miss him,
+but in time, yes, in time she would marry some good man. He never for
+an instant admitted the idea that she could share his sinful affection.
+
+"I must let the poor girl go," he murmured to himself. "I cannot help
+her; all must look out for themselves." He said this over several
+times, nervously clasping and unclasping his hands,--hands which, long,
+narrow, and white, suggested a certain graceful helplessness which is
+apt to distinguish the particularly beautiful hands of a woman. "Yes,
+one must learn to control circumstances, to conquer one's self."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+                              A SLANDERER.
+
+
+The others are seated at the breakfast-table when Treurenberg enters
+the dining-room, all except Fainacky, who, true to his self-imposed
+task, is still busy with the decorations of the garden-room. That
+enterprising _maître de plaisir_ has a deal to do, since there is to be
+a rehearsal, as it were, in the evening of the morrow's festivities.
+Various guests from far and near are expected to admire and to enhance
+this prelude of coming glories.
+
+A seat beside Selina is empty. Lato goes directly towards it. Nothing
+about him betrays his inward agitation or the sleeplessness of the past
+night. Rather pale, but refreshed by a long walk, and dressed with
+exquisite care, he looks so distinguished and handsome in his light
+summer array, that Selina is struck by his appearance. He has a rose in
+his hand, and as, bending over his wife, he places it among her curls,
+and then kisses her hand by way of morning greeting, she receives him
+quite graciously. She is inclined to be proud to-day of her
+aristocratic possession, which she is shortly to have an opportunity of
+displaying before so many less-favoured friends. Half returning the
+pressure of his hand, she says, "To what do I owe these conjugal
+attentions?"
+
+"The anniversary of our betrothal, Selina," he says, in the
+half-jesting tone in which married people of a certain social standing
+are wont to allude before witnesses to matters of sentiment, and then
+he takes his seat beside her.
+
+"True, our anniversary!" she rejoins, in the same tone, evidently
+flattered. "And you remembered it? As a reward, Lato, I will butter
+your toast for you."
+
+Here the Pole comes tripping into the room. "_Changement de
+décoration_. You have taken my place to-day, Treurenberg," he says, not
+without irritation. "Since when have modern couples been in the habit
+of sitting beside each other?"
+
+"It is permitted now and then _en famille_," Selina informs him,
+placing before Lato the toast she has just prepared for him. She
+glances at Fainacky, and instantly averts her eyes. For the first time
+it occurs to her to compare this affected trifler with her husband, and
+the comparison is sadly to Fainacky's disadvantage. The petty
+elegancies of his dress and air strike her as ridiculous. He divines
+something of this, and it enrages him. He cares not the slightest for
+Selina, but, since their late encounter in the park, he has most
+cordially hated Lato, whom he did not like before. The friendly
+demeanour of the pair towards each other this morning vexes him
+intensely; he sees that his attempt to cast suspicion upon Lato has
+failed with Selina; nay, it has apparently only fanned the flame of a
+desire to attract her husband. It irritates him; he would be devoured
+by envy should a complete reconciliation between the two be
+established, and he be obliged to look on while Lato again entered into
+the full enjoyment of his wife's millions. He takes the only vacant
+place, and looks about him for somewhat wherewith to interrupt this
+mood upon the part of the pair. Finally his glance rests upon Olga, who
+sits opposite him, crumbling a piece of biscuit on her plate.
+
+"No appetite yet, Fräulein Olga?" he asks.
+
+Olga starts slightly, and lifts her teacup to her lips.
+
+"Do you not think that Fräulein Olga has been looking ill lately?" The
+Pole directs this question to all present.
+
+Every one looks at Olga, and Fainacky gloats over the girl's confusion.
+
+Treurenberg looks also, and is startled by her pallor. "Yes, my poor
+child, you certainly are below par," he says, with difficulty
+controlling his voice. "Something must be done for your health."
+
+"Change of air is best in such cases," observes the Pole.
+
+"So I think," says Treurenberg; and, finding that he has himself better
+in hand than he had thought possible awhile ago, he adds, turning to
+his mother-in-law, "I think, when everything here is settled after the
+old fashion----"
+
+"After the new fashion, you mean," Paula interposes, with a languishing
+air.
+
+"Yes, when all the bustle is over," Treurenberg begins afresh, in some
+embarrassment this time, for his conscience pricks him sorely whenever
+Paula alludes to her betrothal.
+
+"I understand, after my marriage," she again interposes.
+
+"About the beginning of November," Treurenberg meekly rejoins, again
+addressing his mother-in-law, "you might take Olga to the south. A
+winter in Nice would benefit both of you."
+
+"_Tiens! c'est une idée_," Selina remarks. "Such quantities of people
+whom we know are going to winter in Nice this year. Not a bad plan,
+Lato. Yes, we might spend a couple of months very pleasantly in Nice."
+
+"Oh, I have other plans for ourselves, Lina," Treurenberg says,
+hastily.
+
+"Ah, I begin to understand," Frau von Harfink observes: "we are
+to be got out of the way, Olga, you and I." And she smiles after a
+bitter-sweet fashion.
+
+"But, Baroness!" Lato exclaims.
+
+"You entirely misunderstand him, Baroness," Fainacky interposes: "he
+was only anxious for Fräulein Olga's health; and with reason: her want
+of appetite is alarming." Again he succeeds in attracting every one's
+attention to the girl, who is vainly endeavouring to swallow her
+breakfast.
+
+"I cannot imagine what ails you," Paula exclaims, in all the pride of
+her position as a betrothed maiden. "If I knew of any object for your
+preference, I should say you were in love."
+
+"Such suppositions are not permitted to the masculine intelligence,"
+the Pole observes, twirling his moustache and smiling significantly,
+his long, pointed nose drooping most disagreeably over his upper lip.
+
+Olga trembles from head to foot; for his life Lato cannot help trying
+to relieve the poor child's embarrassment.
+
+"Nonsense!" he exclaims; "she is only a little exhausted by the heat,
+and rather nervous, that is all! But you must really try to eat
+something;" and he hands her a plate. Her hand trembles so as she takes
+it that she nearly lets it fall.
+
+Frau von Harfink frowns, but says nothing, for at the moment a servant
+enters with a letter for Treurenberg. The man who brought it is waiting
+for an answer. Lato hastily opens the missive, which is addressed in a
+sprawling, boyish hand, and, upon reading it, changes colour and
+hastily leaves the room.
+
+"From whom can it be?" Selina soliloquizes, aloud.
+
+"H'm!" the Pole drums lightly with his fingers on the table, with the
+air of a man who knows more than he chooses to tell. A little while
+afterwards he is left alone with Selina in the dining-room.
+
+"Have you any idea of whom the letter was from?" the Countess asks him.
+
+"Not the least," he replies, buttoning his morning coat to the throat,
+an action which always in his case betokens the possession of some
+important secret.
+
+"Will you be kind enough to inform me of what you are thinking?" Selina
+says, imperiously, and not without a certain sharpness of tone.
+
+"You are aware, Countess, that ordinarily your wish is law for me," the
+Pole replies, with dignity, "but in this case it is unfortunately
+impossible for me to comply with your request."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because you might be offended by my communication, and it would be
+terrible for me were I to displease you."
+
+"Tell me!" the Countess commands.
+
+"If it must be, then----" He shrugs his shoulders as if to disclaim any
+responsibility in the matter, and, stroking his moustache affectedly,
+continues: "I am convinced that the letter in question has to do with
+Treurenberg's pecuniary embarrassments,--_voilà_!"
+
+"Pecuniary embarrassments!" exclaims the Countess, with irritation.
+"How should my husband have any such?"
+
+She is vexed with the Pole, whose affectations begin to weary her, and
+she is strangely inclined to defend her husband. Her old tenderness for
+him seems to stir afresh within her. Fainacky perceives that his game
+to-day will not be easily won; nevertheless he persists.
+
+"Then you are ignorant of the debts he contracts?"
+
+"If you have nothing more probable to tell me, you need trouble
+yourself no further," the Countess angrily declares.
+
+"Pardon me, Countess," the Pole rejoins, "I should not have told you
+anything of the kind were I not sure of my facts. Treurenberg has
+accidentally had resort to the same usurer that transacts my little
+affairs. For, I make no secret of it, I have debts, a necessary evil
+for a single man of rank. Good heavens! we gentlemen nowadays----" he
+waves his hand grandiloquently. "Yet, I assure you, my friendship with
+Abraham Goldstein is a luxury which I would gladly deny myself. I pay
+four per----"
+
+"I take not the slightest interest in the percentage you pay,"
+interposes Selina, "but I cannot understand how you venture to repeat
+to me a piece of gossip so manifestly false."
+
+Her manner irritates him extremely, principally because it shows him
+that he stands by no means so high in her favour as he had supposed.
+The fair friendship, founded upon flattery, or at least upon mutual
+consideration for personal vanity, is in danger of a breach. Fainacky
+is consumed by a desire to irritate still further this insulting woman,
+and to do Treurenberg an injury.
+
+"Indeed!--a manifestly false piece of gossip?" he drawls,
+contemptuously.
+
+"Yes, nothing else," she declares; "apart from the fact that my
+husband has personal control of a considerable income,--my father made
+sure of that before he gave his consent to my marriage; he never
+would have welcomed as a son-in-law an aristocrat without independent
+means,--apart from this fact, of course my money is at his disposal."
+
+"Indeed! really? I thought you kept separate purses!" says the Pole,
+now--thanks to his irritation--giving free rein to his impertinence.
+
+Selina bites her lips and is silent.
+
+Meanwhile, Fainacky continues: "I can only say that my information as
+to Treurenberg's financial condition comes from the most trustworthy
+source, from Abraham himself. That indiscreet confidant informed
+me one day that the husband of 'the rich Harfink'--that was his
+expression--owed him money. The circumstance seemed to gratify his
+sense of humour. He has a fine sense of humour, the old rascal!"
+
+"I cannot understand--it is impossible. Lato cannot have so far
+forgotten himself!" exclaims the Countess, pale and breathless from
+agitation. "Moreover, his personal requirements are of the fewest. He
+is no spendthrift."
+
+"No," says the Pole, with an ugly smile, "he is no spendthrift, but he
+is a gambler! You may perhaps be aware of this, Countess, ignorant as
+you seem to be of your husband's private affairs?"
+
+"A gambler!" she breaks forth. "You are fond of big words, apparently."
+
+"And you, apparently, have a truly feminine antipathy to the truth. Is
+it possible that you are not aware that even as a young man Treurenberg
+was a notorious gambler?"
+
+"Since his marriage he has given up play."
+
+"Indeed? And what carries him to X---- day after day? How does he pass
+his mornings there? At cards!" Selina tries to speak, but words fail
+her, and the Pole continues, exultantly, "Yes, he plays, and his
+resources are exhausted,--and so is Abraham Goldstein's patience,--so
+he has taken to borrowing of his friends, as I happen to know; and if I
+am not vastly mistaken, Countess, one of these days he will swallow
+his hidalgo pride and cry _peccavi_ to you, turning to you to relieve
+his financial embarrassments; and if I were you I would not repulse
+him,--no, by heaven! not just now. You must do all that you can to keep
+your hold upon him just at this time."
+
+"And why just at this time?" she asks, hoarsely.
+
+"Why?" He laughs. "Have you no eyes? Were my hints, my warnings, the
+other evening, not sufficiently clear?"
+
+"What do you mean? What do you presume to----" Selina's dry lips refuse
+to obey her; the hints which had lately glanced aside from her armour
+of self-confidence now go to the very core,--not of her heart, but of
+her vanity.
+
+Drawing a deep breath, she recovers her voice, and goes on, angrily:
+"Are you insane enough to imagine that Lato could be seriously
+attracted for one moment by that school-girl? The idea is absurd, I
+could not entertain it for an instant. I have neglected Lato, it is
+true, but I need only lift my finger----"
+
+"I have said nothing," the Pole whines, repentantly,--"nothing in the
+world. For heaven's sake do not be so angry! Nothing has occurred, but
+Treurenberg has no tact, and Olga is the daughter of a play-actor, and
+also, as you must admit, and as every one can see, desperately in love
+with Lato. All I do is to point out the danger to you. Treat
+Treurenberg with caution, and then----"
+
+"Hush! Go!" she gasps.
+
+He rises and leaves the room, turning in the doorway to say, with a
+voice and gesture that would have won renown for the hero of a
+provincial theatre at the end of his fourth act, "Selina, I have ruined
+myself with you, I have thrown away your friendship, but I have perhaps
+saved your existence from shipwreck!"
+
+Whereupon he closes the door and betakes himself to the garden-room to
+have a last look at the decorations there. He does not think it worth
+while to carry thither his heroic air of self-sacrifice; on the
+contrary, as he gives an order to the upholsterer, a triumphant smile
+hovers upon his lips. "It will surprise me if Treurenberg now succeeds
+in arranging his affairs in that quarter," he thinks to himself.
+
+Meanwhile, Selina is left to herself. She does not suffer from wounded
+affection; no, her heart is untouched by what she has just heard. But
+memory, rudely awakened, recalls to her a hundred little occurrences
+all pointing in the same direction, and she trembles with rage at the
+idea that any one--that her own husband--should prefer that simpleton
+of a girl to her own acknowledged beauty.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+                                FAILURE.
+
+
+The clever Pole had, however, been quite mistaken as to the contents of
+Lato's letter. Abraham Goldstein's patience with the husband of the
+"rich Harfink" was not exhausted,--it was, in fact, inexhaustible; and
+if, nevertheless, the letter brought home to Lato the sense of his
+pecuniary embarrassments, it was because a young, inexperienced friend,
+whom he would gladly have helped had it been possible, had appealed to
+him in mortal distress. His young cousin Flammingen was the writer of
+the letter, in which he confessed having lost at play, and entreated
+Lato to lend him three thousand guilders. To the poor boy this sum
+appeared immense; it seemed but a trifle to the husband of the "rich
+Harfink," but nevertheless it was a trifle which there would be
+great difficulty in procuring. And the lad wanted the money within
+twenty-four hours, to discharge gambling-debts,--debts of honour.
+
+Treurenberg had once, when a young man, been in a like situation, and
+had been frightfully near vindicating his honour by a bullet through
+his brains. He was sorry for the young fellow, and, although his misery
+was good for him, he must be relieved. How? Lato turned his pockets
+inside out, and the most he could scrape together was twelve hundred
+guilders. This sum he enclosed in a short note, in which he told
+Flammingen that he hoped to send him the rest in the course of the
+afternoon, and despatched the waiting messenger with this consolation.
+His cousin's trouble made him cease for a while to ponder upon his own.
+
+Although he could not have brought himself to apply to his wife for
+relief in his own affairs, it seemed to him comparatively easy to
+appeal to her for another. He did not for an instant doubt that she
+would comply with his request. She was not parsimonious, but hard, and
+he could endure that for another's sake. He went twice to her room, in
+hopes of finding her there, but she was still in the dining-room.
+
+He frowned when her maid told him this, and, lighting a cigar, he went
+down into the garden, annoyed at the necessity of postponing his
+interview with his wife.
+
+Meanwhile, Olga, out of spirits and unoccupied, had betaken herself to
+the library. All day she had felt as if she had lost something; she
+could not have told what ailed her. She took up a book to amuse
+herself; by chance it was the very novel of Turgenieff's which she had
+been about to read, seated in the old boat, when Fainacky had intruded
+upon her. She had left the volume in the park, whence it had been
+brought back to her by the gardener. She turned over the leaves, at
+first listlessly, then a phrase caught her eye,--she began to read. Her
+interest increased from chapter to chapter; she devoured the words. Her
+breath came quickly, her cheeks burned. She read on to where the hero,
+in an access of anger, strikes Zenaide on her white arm with his
+riding-whip, and she calmly kisses the crimson welt made by the lash.
+
+There the book fell from the girl's hand; she felt no indignation at
+Zenaide's guilty passion, no horror of the cruel rage of the hero; no,
+she was conscious only of a kind of fierce envy of Zenaide, who could
+thus forgive. On the instant there awoke within her a passionate
+longing for a love which could thus triumph over all disgrace, all ill
+usage, and bear one exultantly to its heaven!
+
+She had become so absorbed in the book as to be insensible to what was
+going on around her. Now she started, and shrank involuntarily. A step
+advanced along the corridor; she heard a door open and shut,--the door
+of Selina's dressing-room.
+
+"Who is there?" Selina's voice exclaimed.
+
+"I." It was Treurenberg who replied.
+
+Selina's dressing-room was separated by only a partition-wall from the
+library.
+
+
+It was well-nigh noon, and Selina's maid was dressing her mistress's
+hair, when Treurenberg entered his wife's dressing-room for the first
+time for years without knocking. She had done her best to recover from
+the agitation caused her by Fainacky's words, had taken a bath, and had
+then rested for half an hour. Guests were expected in the afternoon,
+and she must impress them with her beauty, and must outshine the pale
+girl whom Lato had the bad taste to admire. When Treurenberg entered
+she was sitting before the mirror in a long, white peignoir, while her
+maid was brushing her hair, still long and abundant, reddish-golden in
+colour. Her arms gleamed full and white from out the wide sleeves of
+her peignoir.
+
+"Who is it?" she asked, impatiently, hearing some one enter.
+
+"Only I," he replied, gently.
+
+Why does the tone of his soft, melodious voice so affect her to-day?
+Why, in spite of herself, does Lato seem more attractive to her than he
+has done for years? She is irritated by the contradictory nature of her
+feelings.
+
+"What do you want?" she asks, brusquely.
+
+"To speak with you," he replies, in French. "Send away your maid."
+
+Instead of complying, Selina orders the girl, "Brush harder: you make
+me nervous with such half-work."
+
+Treurenberg frowns impatiently, and then quietly sends the maid from
+the room himself. Selina makes no attempt to detain her,--under the
+circumstances it would be scarcely possible for her to do so,--but
+hardly has the door closed behind Josephine, when she turns upon Lato
+with flashing eyes.
+
+"Why do you send away my servants against my express wish?"
+
+"I told you just now that I want to speak with you," he replies, with
+more firmness than he has ever hitherto displayed towards her,--the
+firmness of very weak men in mortal peril or moral desperation. "What I
+have to say requires no witnesses and can bear no delay."
+
+"Go on, then." She folds her arms. "What do you want?"
+
+He has seated himself astride of a chair near her, and, with his arms
+resting on the low back and his chin in his hands, he gazes at her
+earnestly. Why do his attitude and his way of looking at her remind her
+so forcibly of the early time of their married life? Then he often used
+to sit thus and look on while she arranged her magnificent hair
+herself, for then--ah, then----! But she thrusts aside all such
+reflections. Why waste tenderness upon a man who is not ashamed to--who
+has so little taste as to----
+
+"What do you want?" she asks, more crossly than before.
+
+"First of all, your sympathy," he replies, gravely.
+
+"Oh, indeed! is this what you had to tell me that could bear no delay?"
+
+He moves his chair a little nearer to her. "Lina," he murmurs, "we have
+become very much estranged of late."
+
+"Whose fault is it?" she asks, dryly.
+
+"Partly mine," he sadly confesses.
+
+"Only partly?" she replies, sharply. "That is a matter of opinion. The
+other way of stating it is that you neglected me and I put up with it."
+
+"I left you to yourself, because--because I thought I wearied you," he
+stammers, conscious that he is not telling quite the truth, knowing
+that he had hailed the first symptoms of her indifference as a relief.
+
+"It certainly is true that I have not grieved myself to death over your
+neglect. It was not my way to sue humbly for your favour. But let that
+go; let us speak of real things, of the matter which will not bear
+delay." She smiles contemptuously.
+
+"True," he replies; "I had forgotten it in my own personal affairs. I
+wanted to ask a favour of you."
+
+"Ah!" she interposes; and he goes on: "It happens that I have no ready
+money just now; what I have, at least, does not suffice. Will you
+advance me some?"
+
+She drums exultantly upon her dressing-table, loaded with its apparatus
+of glass and silver. "I would have wagered that we should come to this.
+H'm! how much do you want?"
+
+"Eighteen hundred guilders."
+
+"And do you consider that a trifle?" she exclaims, provokingly. "If I
+remember rightly, it amounts to the entire year's pay of a captain in
+the army. And you want the money to--discharge a gambling-debt, do you
+not?"
+
+"Not my own," he says, hoarsely. "God knows, I would rather put a
+bullet through my brains than ask you for money!"
+
+"That's very easily said," she rejoins, coldly. "I am glad, however, to
+have you assure me that you do not want the money for yourself. To pay
+your debts, for the honour of the name which I bear, I should have made
+any sacrifice, but I have no idea of supporting the extravagancies of
+the garrison at X----." And Selina begins to trim her nails with a
+glittering little pair of scissors.
+
+"But, Selina, you have no idea of the facts of the case!" Treurenberg
+exclaims. He has risen, and he takes the scissors from her and tosses
+them aside impatiently. "Women can hardly understand the importance of
+a gambling-debt. A life hangs upon its payment,--the life of a
+promising young fellow, who, if no help is vouchsafed him, must choose
+between disgrace and death. Suppose I should tell you tomorrow that he
+had shot himself,--what then?"
+
+"He will not shoot himself," she says, calmly. "Moreover, it was a
+principle with my father never to comply with the request of any one
+who threatened suicide; and I agree with him."
+
+"You are right in general; but this is an exception. This poor boy is
+not yet nineteen,--a child, unaccustomed to be left to himself, who has
+lost his head. What if you are right, and he cannot find the courage to
+put an end to himself,--the hand of a lad of eighteen who has condemned
+himself to death may well falter,--what then? Disgrace, for him, for
+his family; dismissal from the army; a degraded life. Have pity,
+Selina, for heaven's sake!"
+
+He pleads desperately, but he might as well appeal to a wooden doll,
+for all the impression his words make upon her, and at last he pauses,
+breathless with agitation. Selina, tossing her head and with a scornful
+air, says, "I have little sympathy for young good-for-naughts; it lies
+in the nature of things that they should bear the consequences of their
+actions; it is no affair of mine. I might, indeed, ask how it happens
+that you take such an interest in this case, did I not know that you
+have good reason to do so,--you are a gambler yourself."
+
+Treurenberg starts and gazes at her in dismay. "A gambler! What
+can make you think so? I often play to distract my mind, but a
+gambler!--'tis a harsh word. I am not aware that you have ever had to
+suffer from my love for cards."
+
+"No; your friendship with Abraham Goldstein stands you in stead. You
+have spared me, if it can be called sparing a woman to cause her
+innocently to incur the reputation for intense miserliness!"
+
+There is some truth in her words, some justice in her indignation. Lato
+casts down his eyes. Suddenly an idea occurs to him. "Fainacky has told
+you, then, of my relations with Abraham Goldstein?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Ah!" he exclaims; "I now understand the change in you. For heaven's
+sake, do not allow yourself to be influenced by that shallow, malicious
+coxcomb!"
+
+"I do not allow myself to be influenced by him," the Countess replies;
+"but his information produced an impression upon me, for it was, since
+you do not deny it, correct. You are a gambler; you borrow money at a
+high rate of percentage from a usurer, because you are too arrogant or
+too obstinate to tell me of your debts. Is this not so?"
+
+Treurenberg has gone towards the door, when he suddenly pauses and
+collects himself. He will make one more attempt to be reconciled with
+his wife, and it shall be the last. He turns towards her again.
+
+"Yes," he admits, "I have treated you inconsiderately, and your
+wounding of my pride, perhaps unintentionally, does not excuse me. I
+have been wrong,--I have neglected you. I play,--yes, Selina, I
+play,--I seek the society of strangers, but only because I am far, far
+more of a stranger at home. Selina," he goes on, carried away by his
+emotion, and in a voice which expresses his utter misery, "I cannot
+reconcile myself to life amid your surroundings; call it want of
+character, weakness, sensitiveness, as you please, but I cannot. Come
+away with me; let us retire to any secluded corner of the earth, and I
+will make it a paradise for you by my gratitude and devotion; I will
+serve you on my knees; my life shall be yours, only come away with me!"
+
+Poor Lato! he has wrought his own ruin. Why does he not understand that
+every word he speaks wounds the most sensitive part of her,--her
+vanity?
+
+"You would withdraw me from my surroundings? And, pray, what society do
+you offer me in exchange?" she asks, bitterly. "My acquaintances are
+not good enough for you; I am not good enough for the atmosphere in
+which you used to live."
+
+He sees his error, perceives that he has offended her, and it pains
+him.
+
+"Selina," he says, softly, "there shall be no lack of good friends for
+you at my side; and then, after all, what need have we of other people?
+Can we not find our happiness in each other? What if God should bless
+us with an angel like the one He has taken from us?"
+
+He kneels beside her and kisses her hand, but she withdraws it hastily.
+
+"Do not touch me!" she exclaims; "I am not Olga!"
+
+He starts to his feet as if stung by a serpent. "What do you mean?"
+
+"What I say."
+
+"I do not understand you!"
+
+"Hypocrite!" she gasps, her jealousy gaining absolute mastery of her;
+"I am not blind; do you suppose I do not know upon whom you lavish kind
+words and caresses every day, which fall to my share only when you want
+some favour of me?"
+
+It seems to him that he hears the rustle of feminine garments in the
+next room. "For God's sake, Selina, not so loud," he whispers.
+
+"Ah! your first emotion is dread of injuring her; all else is
+indifferent to you. It does not even occur to you to repel my
+accusation."
+
+"Accusation?" he murmurs, hopelessly. "I do not yet understand of what
+you accuse me."
+
+"Of your relations with that creature before my very eyes!"
+
+Transported with indignation at these words, he lifts his hand,
+possessed by a mad impulse to strike her, but he controls himself so
+far as only to grasp her by the arm.
+
+"Creature!" he exclaims, furiously. "Creature! Are you mad? Olga!--why,
+Olga is pure as an angel, more spotless than a snowflake before it has
+touched the earth."
+
+"I have no faith in such purity. If she has not actually fallen, her
+passion is plainly shown in her eyes. But there shall be no open
+scandal,--she must go. I will not have her in the house,--she must go!"
+
+"She must go!" Treurenberg repeats, in horror. "You would turn her out
+of doors,--a young, inexperienced, beautiful girl? Selina, I will go,
+and the sooner the better for all I care, but she must stay."
+
+"How you love her!" sneers the Countess.
+
+For a moment there is silence in the room. Lato gazes at his wife as if
+she were something strange which he had never seen before,--gazes at
+her in amazement mingled with horror. His patience is at an end; he
+forgets everything in the wild desire to break asunder the fetters
+which have bound him for so long, to be rid of the self-control which
+has so tortured him.
+
+"Yes," he says, raising his voice, "I love her,--love her intensely,
+unutterably; but this is the first time that I have admitted it even to
+myself, and you have brought me to do so. I have struggled against this
+passion night and day, have denied its existence, have done all that I
+could to stifle it, and I have tried to the utmost to be reconciled
+with you, to begin with you a new life in which I could hope to forget
+her. How you have seconded me you know. Of one thing, however, I can
+assure you,--the last word has been uttered between you and myself; it
+would not avail you now though you should sue for a reconciliation on
+your knees. A woman without tenderness or compassion I abhor. I have a
+horror of you!" He turns sway, and the door closes behind him.
+
+
+"Where is the Count?" Frau von Harfink asks a servant, at lunch, where
+Treurenberg's place is vacant.
+
+"The Herr Count had his horse saddled some time ago," the man replies,
+"and left word that he should not be here at lunch, since he had urgent
+business in X----."
+
+"Indeed!" the hostess says, indifferently, without expending another
+thought upon her son-in-law. She never suspects that within the last
+few hours, beneath her roof, the ruin has been completed of a human
+existence long since undermined.
+
+Lunch goes on,--a hurried meal, at which it is evident that the
+household is in a state of preparation for coming festivities; a meal
+at which cold dishes are served, because the entire culinary force is
+absorbed in elaborating the grand dinner for the evening; a lunch at
+which no one talks, because each is too much occupied with his or her
+own thoughts to desire to inquire into those of the others.
+
+Frau von Harfink mentally recapitulates the evening's _menu_, wondering
+if nothing can be added to it to reflect splendour upon the Harfink
+establishment.
+
+Paula's reveries are of her coming bliss; her usually robust appetite
+is scarcely up to the mark. In short, the only one who seems to eat
+with the customary relish is the Pole, who, very temperate in drinking
+and smoking, is always ready for a banquet. He is also the only one who
+notices the want of appetite in the rest. He does not waste his
+interest, however, upon the Baroness or Paula, but devotes his
+attention exclusively to Selina and Olga.
+
+The Countess is evidently in a very agitated state of mind, and,
+strange to relate of so self-satisfied a person, she is clearly
+discontented with herself and her surroundings. When her mother asks
+her whether two soups had better be served at dinner, or, since it is
+but a small family affair, only one, she replies that it is a matter of
+supreme indifference to her, and will certainly be the same to the
+guests, adding,--
+
+"The people who are coming will probably have some appetite; mine was
+spoiled some days ago by the mere _menu_, which I have been obliged to
+swallow every day for the last fortnight." These are the only words
+spoken by her during the entire meal.
+
+The Pole finds her mood tolerably comprehensible. She has had a scene
+with Treurenberg, and has gone too far,--that is what is annoying her
+at present. But Olga's mood puzzles him completely. The depression
+she has manifested of late has entirely vanished, she holds her head
+erect, her movements are easy, and there is a gleam in her eyes of
+transfiguring happiness, something like holy exultation.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+                                A VISIT.
+
+
+Meanwhile, Treurenberg is riding along the road to X----.
+
+The landscape is dreary. Autumn is creeping over the fields, vainly
+seeking the summer, seeking luxuriant life to kill, or exquisite beauty
+to destroy. In vain; the same withering drought rests upon everything
+like a curse, and in the midst of the brown monotony bloom succory and
+field-poppies.
+
+Treurenberg gazes to the right and left without really seeing anything.
+His eyes have a glassy, fixed look, and about his mouth there is a hard
+expression, almost wicked, and quite foreign to him. He is not the same
+man who an hour ago sought his wife to entreat her to begin a new life
+with him; not the same man who at dawn was so restless in devising
+schemes for a better future.
+
+His restlessness has vanished with his last gleam of hope; sensation is
+benumbed, the burning pain has gone. Something has died within him. He
+no longer reflects upon his life,--it is ended; he has drawn a black
+line through it. All that he is conscious of is intense, paralyzing
+weariness, the same that had overcome him in the early morning, only
+more crushing. After the scene with his wife he had been assailed by a
+terrible languor, an almost irresistible desire to lie down and close
+his eyes, but he could not yield to it, he had something to do. That
+poor lad must be rescued; the suffering the boy was enduring was
+wholesome, but he must be saved.
+
+Fainacky's assertion that Treurenberg was in the habit of borrowing
+from his friends had been a pure fabrication; he had borrowed money of
+no one save of Harry, with whom he had been upon the footing of a
+brother from early boyhood, and of Abraham Goldstein, upon whose
+secrecy he had supposed he could rely. It would have wounded him to
+speak to any stranger of the painful circumstances of his married life.
+Now all this was past; Selina could thank herself that it was so. He
+could not let the boy go to ruin, and, since Selina would not take pity
+upon him, he must turn to some one else; there was no help for it.
+
+For a moment he thought of Harry; but he reflected that Harry could
+hardly have so large a sum of ready money by him, and, as time was an
+important item in the affair, there was nothing for it but to apply for
+aid to Wodin, the husband of his cousin and former flame.
+
+
+The trees grow scantier, their foliage rustier, and the number of
+ragged children on the highway greater. Now and then some young women
+are to be seen walking along the road, usually in couples, rather oddly
+dressed, evidently after the plates in the journals of fashion, and
+with an air of affectation. Then come a couple of low houses with
+blackened roofs reaching almost to the ground, manure-heaps, grunting
+swine wallowing in slimy green pools, hedges where pieces of linen are
+drying, gnarled fruit-trees smothered in dust, an inn, a carters'
+tavern, with a red crab painted above the door-way, whence issues the
+noise of drunken quarrelling, then a white wall with some trees showing
+above it, the town-park of X----. Lato has reached his goal. On the
+square before the barracks he halts. A corporal takes charge of his
+horse, and he hurries up the broad, dirty steps, along the still
+dirtier and ill-smelling corridor, where he encounters dragoons in
+spurs and clattering sabres, where the officers' overworked servants
+are brushing their masters' coats and their mistresses' habits, to the
+colonel's quarters, quarters the luxurious arrangement of which is in
+striking contrast to the passages by which they are reached. Count
+Wodin is not at home, but is expected shortly; the Countess, through a
+servant, begs Lato to await him. He resolves to do so, and pays his
+respects meanwhile to his cousin, whom he finds in a spacious, rather
+low-ceilinged apartment, half smoking-room, half drawing-room,
+furnished with divans covered with Oriental stuff's, pretty buhl chairs
+and tables, and Japanese cabinets crowded to excess with all sorts of
+rare porcelain. An upright piano stands against the wall between two
+windows; above it hangs a miniature gondola, and beside it, on the
+floor, is a palm in a huge copper jar evidently procured from some
+Venetian water-carrier. Two china pugs, the size of life, looking like
+degenerate chimeras, gnash their teeth at all intruders in life-like
+hideousness. The door-ways are draped with Eastern rugs; the walls are
+covered with a dark paper, and two or three English engravings
+representing hunting-scenes hang upon them. In the midst of these
+studies in black and white hangs a small copy of Titian's Venus.
+
+The entire arrangement of the room betrays a mingling of vulgarity and
+refinement, of artistic taste and utter lack of it; and in the midst of
+it all the Countess reclines on a lounge, dressed in a very long and
+very rumpled morning-gown, much trimmed with yellowish Valenciennes
+lace. Her hair is knotted up carelessly; she looks out of humour, and
+is busy rummaging among a quantity of photographs. She is alone, but
+from the adjoining room come the sound of voices, as Treurenberg
+enters, and the rattle of bézique-counters.
+
+The Countess gives him her hand, presses his very cordially, and says,
+in a weary, drawling tone, "How are you after yesterday, Lato?"
+
+"After what?"
+
+"Why, our little orgie. It gave me a headache." She passes her hand
+across her forehead. "How badly the air tastes! Could you not open
+another window, Lato?"
+
+"They are all open," he says, looking round the room.
+
+"Ah! You have poisoned the atmosphere with your wine, your cigars, your
+gambling excitement. I taste the day after a debauch, in the air."
+
+He nods absently.
+
+"I admire people who never suffer the day after," she sighs, and waves
+her hand towards the door of the next room, through which comes a
+cheerful murmur of voices. Lato moves his head a little, and can see
+through the same door a curious couple,--the major's wife, stout,
+red-cheeked, her hair parted boldly on one side, and dressed in an old
+gown, enlarged at every seam, of the Countess's, while opposite her
+sits a young man in civilian's clothes, pale, coughing from time to
+time, his face long and far from handsome, but aristocratic in type,
+his chest narrow, and his waistcoat buttoned to the throat.
+
+"Your brother," Lato remarks, turning to the Countess.
+
+"Yes," she rejoins, "my brother, and my certificate of respectability,
+which is well, for there is need of it. _À propos_, do you know that in
+the matter of feminine companionship I am reduced to that stout Liese?"
+The Countess laughs unpleasantly. "I have tried every day to bring
+myself to the point of returning your wife's call. I do not know why I
+have not done so. But the ladies at Dobrotschau are really very
+amiable,--uncommonly amiable,--they have invited me to the betrothal
+_fête_ in spite of my incivility. _À propos_, Lato, will any one be
+there,--any one whom one knows?"
+
+"I have had nothing to do with the list of guests," he murmurs,
+listening for Wodin's step outside.
+
+"I should like to know. It would be unpleasant to meet any of my
+acquaintances,--they treat me so strangely. You know how it is." Again
+she laughs in the same unpleasant way. "But if I could be sure of
+meeting no one I would go to your _fête_, I have a new gown from Worth:
+I should like to display it somewhere; dragging my trains through these
+smoky rooms becomes monotonous after a while. I think I will come."
+
+The voices in the next room sound louder, and there is a burst of
+hearty laughter. Lato can see the major's wife slap her forehead in
+mock despair.
+
+"Easily entertained," the Countess says, crossly. "They are playing
+bézique for raisins. It makes a change for my brother; his physician
+has sent him to the country for the benefit of the air and a regular
+mode of life. He has come to the right place, eh?" Again she laughs;
+her breath fails her; she closes her eyes and leans back, white as a
+corpse.
+
+Lato shudders at the sight, he could hardly have told why. His youth
+rises up before him. There was a time when he loved that woman with
+enthusiasm, with self-devotion. That woman! He scans her now with a
+kind of curiosity. She is still beautiful, but the wan face has fallen
+away, the complexion all that can be seen of it beneath its coating of
+violet powder--is faded, the delicate nose is too thick at the tip, the
+nostrils are slightly reddened, the small mouth is constantly distorted
+in an affected smile, the arms from which the wide sleeves of the
+morning-gown have fallen back are thin, and the nails upon the long,
+slender hands remind one of claws. Even the white gown looks faded,
+crushed, as by the constant nervous movement of a restless,
+discontented wearer. Her entire personality is constrained, feverish.
+
+Involuntarily Lato compares this woman with Olga. He sees with his
+mind's eye the young girl, tall and slender as a lily, her white gowns
+always so pure and fresh, sees the delicately-rounded oval of her
+girlish face, her clear, large eyes, the innocent tenderness of her
+smile. And Selina could malign that same Olga! His blood boils. As if
+Olga were to blame for the wretched, guilty passion in his breast! His
+thoughts are far away from his present surroundings.
+
+"Seven thousand five hundred," the triumphant voice of the major's wife
+calls out in the next room. "If this goes on, Count Franz, I shall soon
+stop playing for raisins! Ah!" as, turning her head, she perceives
+Treurenberg; "you have a visitor, Lori."
+
+"Yes," Countess Lori replies, "but do not disturb yourselves, nor us."
+
+The rattle of the counters continues.
+
+"I must speak with your husband," Lato says presently; "if you know
+where he is----"
+
+"He will be here in ten minutes; you need have no fear, he is never
+late," Lori says. "_À propos_, do you know what I was doing when you
+came in? Sorting my old photographs." She hands him a picture from the
+pile beside her. "That is how I looked when you fell in love with me."
+
+He gazes, not without interest, at the pale little picture, which
+represents a tall, slender, and yet well-developed young girl with
+delicate, exquisitely lovely features, and with eyes, full of gentle
+kindliness, looking out curiously, as it were, into the world from
+beneath their arched eyebrows. An old dream floats through the wretched
+man's mind.
+
+"It was very like," he says.
+
+"Was it not? I was a comical-looking thing then, and how badly dressed!
+Look at those big sleeves and the odd skirt. It was a gown of my elder
+sister's made over. Good heavens! that gown had a part in my resolve to
+throw you over. Do you remember?"
+
+"Yes, Lori."
+
+"Only faintly, I think," she laughs. "And yet you seemed to take it
+sadly to heart then. I was greatly agitated myself. But what else was
+to be done? I was tired of wearing my sister's old gowns. Youth longs
+for splendour; it is one of its diseases, and when it has it--pshaw!
+you need not look so, Lato: I have no intention of throwing myself at
+your head. I know that old tale is told for both of us. And we never
+were suited for each other. It was well that I did not marry you, but,
+good heavens, I might have waited for some one else! It need not have
+been just that one--that----" with a hasty gesture of disgust she
+tosses aside a photograph of Count Wodin which she has just drawn from
+the heap. "What would you have? If a tolerably presentable man appears,
+and one knows that he can buy one as many gowns, diamonds, and horses
+as one wants, why, one forgets everything else and accepts him. What
+ideas of marriage one has at seventeen! And our parents take good care
+not to enlighten us. 'She will get used to it,' say father and mother,
+and the mother believes it because she wants to, and both rejoice that
+their daughter is provided for; and before one is aware the trap has
+fallen. I bore you, Lato."
+
+"No," he replies; "you grieve me."
+
+"Oh, it is only now and then that I feel thus," she murmurs. "Shall I
+tell you the cause of my wretched mood?"
+
+"Utter fatigue, the natural consequence of yesterday's pleasures."
+
+"Not at all. I accidentally came upon the picture of my cousin Ada
+to-day. Do you remember her? There she is." She hands him a photograph.
+"Exquisitely beautiful, is it not?"
+
+"Yes," he says, looking at the picture; "the eyes are bewitching, and
+there is such womanly tenderness, such delicate refinement, about the
+mouth."
+
+"Nothing could surpass Ada," says Countess Lori; "she was a saint,
+good, self-sacrificing, not a trace in her of frivolity or
+selfishness."
+
+"And yet she married Hugo Reinsfeld, if I am not mistaken?" says Lato.
+"I have heard nothing of her lately. News from your world rarely
+reaches me."
+
+"No one mentions her now," Lori murmurs. "She married without
+love; not from vanity as I did, but she sacrificed herself for her
+family,--sisters unprovided for, father old, no money. She was far
+better than I, and for a long time she honestly tried to do her
+duty,----and so she finally had to leave her husband!"
+
+The Countess stops; a long pause ensues. The steps of the passers-by
+sound through the languid September air; an Italian hurdy-gurdy is
+grinding out the lullaby from "Trovatore," sleepy and sentimental. The
+clatter from the barracks interrupts it now and then. A sunbeam slips
+through the window-shade into the half-light of the room and gleams
+upon the buhl furniture.
+
+"Well, she had the courage of her opinions," the Countess begins
+afresh at last. "She left her husband and lives with--well, with
+another man,--good heavens! you knew him too, Niki Gladnjik, in
+Switzerland; they live there for each other in perfect seclusion. He
+adores her; the world--our world, the one I do not want to meet at your
+ball--ignores Ada, but I write to her sometimes, and she to me. I have
+been reading over her letters to-day. She seems to be very happy,
+enthusiastically happy, so happy that I envy her; but I am sorry for
+her, for--you see, Niki really loves her, and wants to marry her--they
+have been waiting two years for the divorce which her husband opposes;
+and Niki is consumptive; you understand, if he should die before----"
+
+Lato's heart throbs fast at his cousin's tale. At this moment the door
+opens, and Count Wodin enters.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+                                AT LAST.
+
+
+Flammingen's affairs are satisfactorily adjusted. Treurenberg is
+relieved of that anxiety. He can devote his thoughts to his own
+complications, as he rides back from X---- to Dobrotschau.
+
+The dreamy lullaby from "Trovatore" still thrills his nerves, and again
+and again he recalls the pair living happily in Switzerland. He sees
+their valley in his mental vision enclosed amid lofty mountains,--walls
+erected by God Himself to protect that green Paradise from the
+intrusion and cruelty of mankind,--walls which shut out the world and
+reveal only the blue heavens. How happy one could be in that green
+seclusion, forgotten by the world! In fancy he breathes the fresh
+Alpine air laden with the wholesome scent of the pines; upon his ear
+there falls the rushing murmur of the mountain-stream. He sees a
+charming home on a mountain-slope, and at the door stands a lovely
+woman dressed in white, with large, tender eyes filled with divine
+sympathy. She is waiting for some one's return; whence does he come?
+From the nearest town, whither he is forced to go from time to time to
+adjust his affairs, but whither she never goes; oh, no! People pain
+her,--people who despise and envy her. But what matters it? He opens
+his arms to her, she flies to meet him; ah, what bliss, what rapture!
+
+His horse stumbles slightly; he rouses with a start. A shudder thrills
+him, and, as in the morning, he is horrified at himself. Will it always
+be thus? Can he not relax his hold upon himself for one instant without
+having every thought rush in one direction, without being possessed by
+one intense longing? How can he thus desecrate Olga's image?
+
+
+Meanwhile, the expected guests have arrived at Dobrotschau. They came
+an hour ago,--three carriage-loads of distinction from, Vienna, some of
+them decorated with feudal titles. A very aristocratic party will
+assemble at table in Dobrotschau to-day. Countess Weiseneck, a born
+Grinzing, wife of a rather disgraceful _mauvais sujet_, whose very
+expensive maintenance she contests paying, and from whom she has been
+separated for more than a year; Countess Mayenfeld, _née_ Gerstel, the
+wife of a gentleman not quite five feet in height, who is known in
+Vienna by the _sobriquet_ of "the numismatician." When his betrothal to
+the wealthy Amanda Gerstel was announced, society declared that he had
+chosen his bride to augment his collection of coins. His passion for
+collecting coins enables this knightly aristocrat to endure with
+philosophy the cold shoulders which his nearest relatives turned to him
+after his marriage; moreover, he lives upon excellent terms with his
+wizened little wife. One more couple with a brand-new but high-sounding
+title; then an unmarried countess, with short hair and a masculine
+passion for sport,--an acquaintance made at a watering-place; then
+Baron Kilary, the cleverest business-man among Vienna aristocrats, who
+is always ready to eat oysters and _pâte de foie gras_ at any man's
+table, without, however, so far forgetting himself as to require his
+wife and daughter to visit any one of his entertainers who is socially
+his inferior. The famous poet, Paul Angelico Orchys, and little Baron
+Königsfeld, complete the list of arrivals.
+
+The first greetings are over; ended also is the running to and fro of
+lady's-maids looking for mislaid handbags, with the explanations of
+servants, who, having carried the trunks to the wrong rooms, are trying
+to make good their mistakes. All is quiet. The ladies and gentlemen are
+seated at small tables in a shady part of the park, drinking tea and
+fighting off a host of wasps that have attacked the delicacies forming
+part of the afternoon repast.
+
+The castle is empty; the sound of distant voices alone falls on Lato's
+ear as he returns from his expedition to X---- and goes to his room,
+desirous only of deferring as long as possible the playing of his part
+in this tiresome entertainment. The first thing to meet his eyes
+on his writing-table is a letter addressed to himself. He picks
+it up; the envelope is stamped with a coronet and Selina's monogram.
+He tears the letter open; it encloses nothing save a package of
+bank-notes,--eighteen hundred guilders in Austrian currency.
+
+Lato's first emotion is anger. What good will the wretched money do him
+now? How rejoiced he is that he no longer needs it, that he can return
+it within the hour to Selina! The address arrests his attention; there
+is something odd about it. Is it Selina's handwriting? At first sight
+he had thought it was, but now, upon a closer inspection can it be his
+mother-in-law's hand? Is she trying to avoid a domestic scandal by
+atoning thus for her daughter's harshness? He tosses the money aside in
+disgust. Suddenly a peculiar fragrance affects him agreeably. What is
+it?--a faint odour of heliotrope. Could it be----? His downcast eyes
+discover a tiny bunch of faded purple blossoms lying on the floor
+almost at his feet. He stoops, picks it up, and kisses it passionately:
+it is the bunch of heliotrope which Olga wore on her breast at
+breakfast. It is she who has cared for him, who has thought of him!
+
+But instantly, after the first access of delight, comes the reaction.
+How could Olga have known? Selina, in her irritation, may have
+proclaimed his request to the entire household; the servants may be
+discussing in the kitchen Count Treurenberg's application to his wife
+for eighteen hundred guilders, and her angry refusal to grant them to
+him. He clinches his fist and bites his lip, when on a sudden he
+recalls the rustle of a robe in the next room, which he thought he
+heard at one time during his interview with Selina. The blood mounts to
+his forehead. Olga had been in the library; she had heard him talking
+with his wife. And if she had heard him ask Selina for the money, she
+had also heard---- Ah! He buries his face in his hands.
+
+The afternoon tea has been enjoyed; the ladies have withdrawn to their
+rooms to "arm themselves for the fray," as Paul Angelico expresses it;
+the gentlemen have betaken themselves to the billiard-room, where they
+are playing a game, as they smoke the excellent cigars which Baron
+Kilary has ordered a lackey to bring them.
+
+Lato has wandered out into the park. He is not quite himself; the
+ground beneath his feet seems uncertain. He leans against the trunk of
+a tree, always pondering the same question, "What if she heard?"
+
+He turns involuntarily into the garden-path where, but a short time
+since, he had soothed her agitation and dried her tears. There, on the
+rough birchen bench, something white gleams. Is it----?
+
+He would fain flee, but he cannot; he stands as if rooted to the spot.
+She turns her face towards him, and recognizes him. A faint colour
+flushes her cheek, and in her eyes, which rest full upon him, there is
+a heavenly light.
+
+"Lato!" she calls. Is that her voice sounding so full and soft? She
+rises and approaches him. He has never before seen her look so
+beautiful. Her slender figure is erect as a young fir; she carries her
+head like a youthful queen whose brow is crowned for the first time
+with the diadem. She stands beside him; her presence thrills him to his
+very soul.
+
+"Olga," he murmurs at last, "was it you who left the money on my table?
+How did you know that I wanted it?" he asks, bluntly, almost
+authoritatively.
+
+She is silent.
+
+"Olga, Olga, were you in the library while----?"
+
+She nods.
+
+"And you heard all,--everything?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Olga!" His eyes are riveted upon her face in what is almost horror.
+
+"Olga,--what now?"
+
+"I cannot bear to see you suffer," she murmurs, scarce audibly.
+
+Did he extend his arms to her? He could not himself tell; but what he
+has dreamed has happened,--he clasps her to his breast, his lips meet
+hers; his anguish is past; wings seem to be given him wherewith to soar
+to heaven.
+
+But only for an instant is he thus beguiled; then reality in its full
+force bursts upon him. He unclasps the dear arms from his neck, presses
+one last kiss upon the girlish hand before he releases it, and then
+turns and walks away with a firm tread, without looking round, and in
+the full consciousness of the truth,--the consciousness that no wings
+are his, and that the heavy burden which has weighed him down is doubly
+heavy now.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+                              THE DINNER.
+
+
+Taken altogether, Fainacky may be but a very ordinary pattern of a man,
+but as a _maître de plaisir_ in the arrangement of a _fête_ he is
+unrivalled. A more exquisite table than that around which the twenty
+people are assembled who form the rehearsing party for Harry's
+betrothal festival it would be difficult to imagine. The only criticism
+that can be made is that the guests are rather far apart; but who could
+have foreseen that at the last moment four people would be lacking? The
+Paul Leskjewitsches, with their niece, sent regrets, and Olga, just
+before dinner, was obliged to retire with a severe headache, to which
+she succumbed in spite of her aunt's exhortations to her "not to mind
+it." Lato is present; he is indifferent as to where his hours drag
+past. He is determined to prevent Olga's being made the subject of
+discussion, and his social training, with the numbness sure to ensue
+upon great mental agitation, stands him in stead; he plays his part
+faultlessly. Now and then the consciousness of his hopeless misery
+flashes upon him, then it fades again; he forgets all save the present
+moment, and he scans everything about him with keen observation, as if
+he had no part or parcel in it, but were looking at it all as at
+another world.
+
+Yes, the table is charmingly decorated; anything more tasteful or more
+correct in every respect could not be imagined; but the people gathered
+about this sparkling board, never before has he seen them so clearly or
+judged them so severely.
+
+His contempt is specially excited by his social equals. Fritz
+Mayenfeld, "the numismatician," does not long occupy his attention. In
+spite of his rank, he has always manifested thoroughly plebeian
+instincts; his greed of gain is notorious; and he looks, and is,
+entirely at home in the Harfink domestic atmosphere. The descent of the
+other aristocrats present, however,--of Kilary, of the short-haired
+Countess, and of the affected Count Fermor,--is tolerably evident in
+their faces, and they all seem determined to assert their aristocratic
+prestige in the same manner,--by impertinence.
+
+Lato is conscious of a horror of his own caste as he studies these
+degenerate members of it. He turns his attention to the three guests
+from Komaritz,--the Countess Zriny, Hedwig, and Harry. The old
+canoness, who is seated on his right, provokes his smile. The superb
+condescension with which, for love of her nephew, she treats "these
+people;" the formal courtesy with which she erects an insurmountable
+barrier between them and herself; the morsels of liberalism which she
+scatters here and there in her conversation for their comfort and
+delectation,--all are worthy of the most enthusiastic praise.
+
+Poor old woman! How important she is in her own eyes! Her gown is the
+ugliest and shabbiest there (the one the sporting Countess wears was
+given her by Selina), but six strings of wonderful pearls which she
+wears around her neck make her all right. Hedwig,--well, she is a
+little more affected than usual; she is flirting with little Baron
+Königsfeld, who took her in to dinner, playing him off against her
+neighbour on the other side, Count Fermor. And Harry,--with profound
+sympathy and intense compassion Lato's eyes rest upon his friend.
+Simple, without pretension or affectation, very courteous without
+condescension, a little formal, perhaps, withal,--as the most natural
+of men must be where he feels himself a stranger,--with that in his
+face and bearing that distinguishes him above every one present, he is
+the only specimen of his own caste there with whom Lato feels
+satisfied.
+
+"They may abuse us as they please," he thinks to himself,--"nay, I even
+join them in abusing,--but if one of us gives his word he stands to
+it." And then he questions whether in any other rank could be found
+such an example of noble and manly beauty, or of such quixotic,
+self-annihilating, chivalrous honour. "Good heavens! why not?" he makes
+reply to himself. "So far as moral worth is concerned, assuredly; only
+in form it would probably be less refined."
+
+Lato has had much experience of life. He has laid aside all the
+prejudices of his class, but the subtile caste-instinct still
+abides with him. He asks himself whether his family--the Harfink
+family--notice the difference between Harry and the other aristocrats
+present; whether the Harfinks will not be finally disgusted by the
+impertinence of these coxcombs; whether they do not feel the offensive
+condescension of the Countess Zriny. It would seem not. The Harfinks,
+mother and daughters, are quite satisfied with what is accorded them;
+they are overflowing with gratified vanity, and are enjoying the
+success of the festival. Even Selina is pleased; Olga's absence
+seems to have soothed her. She informs Lato, by all kinds of amiable
+devices,--hints which she lets fall in conversation, glances which she
+casts towards him,--that she is sorry for the scene of the morning, and
+is ready to acquiesce. She tells her neighbour at dinner, Baron Kilary,
+that to-day is the anniversary of her betrothal.
+
+Lato becomes more and more strongly impressed by the conviction that
+her severe attack of jealousy has aroused within her something of her
+old sentiment for him. The thought disgusts him profoundly; he feels
+for her a positive aversion.
+
+His attention is chiefly bestowed upon Harry. How the poor fellow
+suffers! writhing beneath the ostentatious anxiety of his betrothed,
+who exhausts herself in sympathetic inquiries as to his pallor,
+ascribing it to every cause save the true one.
+
+"What will become of him if he does not succeed in ridding himself of
+this intolerable burden?" Lato asks himself. An inexpressible dread
+assails him. "A candidate for suicide," he thinks, and for a moment he
+feels dizzy and ill.
+
+But why should Harry die, when his life might be adjusted by one word
+firmly uttered? He might be saved, and then what a sunny bright future
+would be his! If one could but help him!
+
+The dinner is half over; punch is being served. The tall windows of the
+dining-hall are wide open, the breeze has died away for the time, the
+night is quiet, the outlook upon the park enchanting. Coloured lamps,
+shaped like fantastic flowers, illumine the shrubbery, whence comes
+soft music.
+
+All the anguish which had been stilled for the moment stirs within
+Lato's breast at sound of the sweet insinuating tones. They arouse
+within him an insane thirst for happiness. If it were but possible to
+obtain a divorce! Caressingly, dreamily, the notes of "Southern Roses"
+float in from the park.
+
+"Ah! how that reminds me of my betrothal!" says Selina, moving her fan
+to and fro in time with the music. Involuntarily Lato glances at her.
+
+She wears a red gown, _decoletée_ as of old. Her shoulders have
+grown stouter, her features sharper, but she is hardly changed
+otherwise; many would pronounce her handsomer than she had been on that
+other sultry September evening when it had first occurred to him that
+he--loved her--no, when he lied to himself--because it seemed so easy.
+
+He falls into a revery, from which he is aroused by the poet Angelico
+Orchys, who rises, glass in hand, and in fluent verse proposes the
+health of the betrothed couple. Glasses are clinked, and scarcely are
+all seated again when Fainacky toasts the married pair who are
+celebrating to-day the sixth anniversary of their betrothal. Every one
+rises; Selina holds her glass out to Lato with a languishing glance
+from her half-closed eyes as she smiles at him over the brim.
+
+He shudders. And he has dared to hope for a divorce!
+
+The clinking of glasses has ceased; again all are seated; a fresh
+course of viands is in progress; there is a pause in the conversation,
+while the music wails and sighs outside, Fainacky from his place at
+table making all sorts of mysterious signs to the leader.
+
+Treurenberg's misery has become so intense within the last few minutes
+that he can scarcely endure it without some outward sign of it, when
+suddenly a thought occurs to him, a little, gloomy thought, that slowly
+increases like a thunder-cloud. His breath comes quick, the cold
+perspiration breaks out upon his forehead, his heart beats strong and
+fast.
+
+"Is anything the matter, Lato?" Selina asks, across the table; "you
+have grown so pale. Do you feel the draught?"
+
+He does not answer. His heart has ceased to beat wildly; a soothing
+calm, a sense of relief, takes possession of him; he seems to have
+discovered the solution of a huge, tormenting riddle.
+
+Presently the wine begins to take effect, and conversation drowns the
+tones of the music. Culinary triumphs have been discussed, there has
+been some political talk, anti-Semitic opinions, in very bad taste,
+have been expressed, and now, in spite of the presence of several young
+girls, various scandals are alluded to.
+
+"Have any of you heard the latest developments in the
+Reinsfeld-Gladnjik case?" Kilary asks.
+
+Treurenberg listens.
+
+The sporting Countess replies: "No: for two years I have seen nothing
+of Ada Reinsfeld--since the--well, since she left her husband; one
+really had to give her up. I am very lenient in such affairs, but one
+has no choice where the scandal is a matter of such publicity."
+
+"I entirely agree with you, my dear Countess," says the Baroness
+Harfink. "So long as due respect is paid to external forms, the private
+weaknesses of my neighbours are no concern of mine; but external forms
+must be observed."
+
+"My cousin's course throughout that business was that of a crazy
+woman," says "the numismatician," with his mouth full. "She was
+mistress of the best-ordered house in Gräz. Reinsfeld's cook was----!
+never in my life did I taste such salmi of partridges--except on this
+occasion," he adds, with an inclination towards his hostess. The next
+moment he motions to a servant to fill his glass, and forgets all about
+his cousin Ada.
+
+"Poor Ada! She was very charming, but she became interested in all
+sorts of free-thinking books, and they turned her head," says the
+Countess Zriny. "In my opinion a woman who reads Strauss and Renan is
+lost."
+
+"The remarks of the company are excessively interesting to me," Kilary
+now strikes in, with an impertinent intonation in his nasal voice, "but
+I beg to be allowed to speak, since what I have to tell is quite
+sensational. You know that Countess Ada has tried in vain to induce her
+noble husband to consent to a divorce. Meanwhile, Gladnjik's condition
+culminated in galloping consumption, and two days ago he died."
+
+"And she?" several voices asked at once.
+
+"She?--she took poison!"
+
+For a moment there is a bush in the brilliantly-lighted room, the soft
+sighing of the music in the shrubbery is again audible. Through the
+open windows is wafted in the beguiling charm of an Hungarian dance by
+Brahms.
+
+There is a change of sentiment in the assemblage: the harshness with
+which but now all had judged the Countess Ada gives place to
+compassionate sympathy.
+
+Countess Zriny presses her lace-trimmed handkerchief to her eyes. "Poor
+Ada!" she murmurs; "I can see her now; a more charming young girl there
+never was. Why did they force her to marry that old Reinsfeld?"
+
+"He had so excellent a cook," sneers Kilary, with a glance at "the
+numismatician," from whose armour of excellent appetite the dart falls
+harmless.
+
+"Forced!" Paula interposes eagerly, in her deep, guttural tones. "As if
+nowaday's any one with a spark of character could be forced to marry!"
+
+Harry twirls his moustache and looks down at his plate.
+
+"I am the last to defend a departure from duty," the old canoness goes
+on, "but in this case the blame really falls partly upon Ada's family.
+They forced her to marry; they subjected her to moral force."
+
+"That is true," even Kilary, heartless cynic as he is, admits. "They
+forced her, although they knew that she and Niki Gladnjik were attached
+to each other. Moreover, I must confess that, in spite of the admirable
+qualities which distinguish Reinsfeld,--as, for example, his excellent
+cook,--it must have been very difficult for a delicate-minded, refined
+young creature to live with the disgusting old satyr--my expressions
+are classically correct."
+
+"Niki took her marriage sorely to heart," sighed the sporting Countess.
+"They say he ruined his health by the dissipation into which he plunged
+to find forgetfulness. In that direction Ada certainly was much to
+blame; she was carried away by compassion."
+
+Meanwhile, Fainacky has made another sign for the music. The dreamy
+half-notes die away, and the loud tones of a popular march echo through
+the night.
+
+All rise from table.
+
+Treurenberg's brain spins, as with the Countess Zriny on his arm he
+walks into the garden-room, where the guests are to admire the
+decorations and to drink their coffee.
+
+"The fair Olga is not seriously ill?" he hears Kilary say to Selina.
+
+"Oh, not at all," Selina replies. "You need not fear anything
+infectious. Olga is rather overstrained and exaggerated; you cannot
+imagine what a burden papa left us in the care of her. But we have
+settled it to-day with mamma: she must leave the house,--at least for a
+time. My aunt Emilie is to take her to Italy. It will be a great relief
+to us all."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XL.
+
+                              A FAREWELL.
+
+
+While some of the guests are contented merely to admire the decorations
+of the garden-room, others suggest improvements. They cannot quite
+agree us to where the musicians should be placed, and the band migrates
+from one spot to another, like a set of homeless fugitives; in one
+place the music is too loud, in another it is not loud enough. Hilary's
+nasal, arrogant voice is heard everywhere in command. At last the band
+is stationed just before the large western window of the room. Some one
+suggests trying a waltz. Kilary waltzes with Selina. Treurenberg
+watches the pair. They waltz in the closest embrace, her head almost
+resting on his shoulder.
+
+Once Lato might have remonstrated with his wife upon such an exhibition
+of herself; but to-day, ah, how indifferent he is to it all! He turns
+away from the crowd and noise, and walks beyond the circle of light
+into the park. Here a hand is laid on his shoulder. He turns: Harry has
+followed him.
+
+"What is the matter, old fellow?" he asks, good-humouredly. "I do not
+like your looks to-day."
+
+"I cannot get Ada Reinsfeld out of my head," Treurenberg rejoins, in a
+low tone.
+
+"Did you know her?" asks Harry.
+
+"Yes; did you?"
+
+"Yes, but not until after her marriage. I liked her extremely; in
+fact, I have rarely met a more charming woman. And she seemed to me
+serious-minded and thoroughly sincere. The story to-day affected me
+profoundly."
+
+"Did you notice that not one of the women had a good word to say for
+the poor thing until they knew that she was dead?" Treurenberg asks,
+his voice sounding hard and stern.
+
+"Yes, I noticed it," replies Harry, scanning his friend attentively.
+
+"They may perhaps waste a wreath of immortelles upon her coffin,"
+Treurenberg goes on, in the same hard tone, "but not one of them would
+have offered her a hand while she lived."
+
+"Well, she did not lose much in the friendship of the women present
+to-day," Harry observes, dryly; "but, unfortunately, I am afraid that
+far nobler and more generous-minded women also withdrew their
+friendship from poor Ada; and, in fact, we cannot blame them. We cannot
+require our mothers and sisters to visit without remonstrance a woman
+who has run away from her husband and is living with another man."
+
+"Run away; living with another man: how vulgar that sounds!"
+Treurenberg exclaims, angrily.
+
+"Our language has no other words for this case."
+
+"I do not comprehend you; you judge as harshly as the rest."
+
+They have walked on and have reached a rustic seat quite in the shade,
+beyond the light even of the coloured lamps. Harry sits down; Lato
+follows his example.
+
+"How am I to judge, then?" Harry asks.
+
+"In my eyes Ada was a martyr," Treurenberg asserts.
+
+"So she was in mine," Harry admits.
+
+"I have the greatest admiration for her."
+
+"And I only the deepest compassion," Harry declares, adding, in a lower
+tone, "I say not a word in blame of her; Niki was the guiltier of the
+two. A really noble woman, when she loves, forgets to consider the
+consequences of her conduct, especially when pity sanctifies her
+passion and atones in her eyes for her sin. She sees an ideal life
+before her, and does not doubt that she shall attain it. Ada believed
+that she should certainly procure her divorce, and that all would be
+well. She did not see the mire through which she should have to
+struggle to attain her end, and that even were it attained, no power on
+earth could wash out the stains incurred in attaining it. Niki should
+have spared her that; he knew life well enough to be perfectly aware of
+the significance of the step she took for him."
+
+"Yes, you are right; women never know the world; they see about them
+only what is fair and sacred, a young girl particularly."
+
+"Oh, in such matters a young girl is out of the question," Harry
+sharply interrupts.
+
+There is an oppressive silence. Lato shivers.
+
+"You are cold," Harry says, with marked gentleness; "come into the
+house."
+
+"No, no; stay here!"
+
+Through the silence come the strains of a waltz of Arditi's "_La notte
+gia stendi suo manto stellato_," and the faint rustle of the dancers'
+feet.
+
+"How is your cousin?" Lato asks, after a while.
+
+"I do not know. I have not spoken with her since she left Komaritz,"
+Harry replies, evasively.
+
+"And have you not seen her?" asks Lato.
+
+"Yes, once; I looked over the garden-wall as I rode by. She looks pale
+and thin, poor child."
+
+Lato is mute. Harry goes on:
+
+"Do you remember, Lato? is it three or four weeks ago, the last time
+you were with me in Komaritz? I could jest then at my--embarrassments.
+I daily expected my release. Now----" he shrugs his shoulders.
+
+"You were angry with me then; angry because I would not interfere,"
+Lato says, with hesitation.
+
+"Oh, it would have been useless," Harry mutters.
+
+Instead of continuing the subject, Lato restlessly snaps a twig hanging
+above his head. "How terribly dry everything is!" he murmurs.
+
+"Yes," says Harry; "so long as it was warm we looked for a storm; the
+cool weather has come without rain, and everything is dead."
+
+"The spring will revive it all, and the blessing of the coming year
+will be doubled," Lato whispers, in a low, soft tone that rings through
+Harry's soul for years afterwards.
+
+"Harry! Harry! where are you? Come, try one turn with me." It is
+Paula's powerful voice that calls thus. She is steering directly for
+the spot where the friends are seated.
+
+"Give my love to Zdena, when you see her," Lato whispers in his
+friend's ear as he clasps Harry's hand warmly, and then vanishes among
+the dark shrubbery before the young fellow is aware of it.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XLI.
+
+                                RESOLVE.
+
+
+Lato now stands in need of all the energy with which Providence has
+endowed him. All the excellence and nobility that have hitherto lain
+dormant in his soul arouse to life, now that they can but help him to
+die like a man. He cannot sever the golden fetters which he himself has
+forged; he will not drag through the mire what is most sacred to him;
+well, then----
+
+Upon reaching his room he seated himself at his writing-table and wrote
+several letters,--the first to his father, requesting him to see that
+his debts were paid; one to Paula, one to his mother-in-law, and one to
+Harry. The letter to Harry ran thus:
+
+
+"My dear good old Comrade,--
+
+"When this note reaches you, you will be already freed from your
+fetters. I have never forgiven myself for refusing to perform the
+service you asked of me, and I have now retrieved my fault. I have
+written to Paula and to my mother-in-law, explaining your position to
+them, telling them the truth with brutal frankness, and leaving no
+course open to them save to release you. You are free. Farewell.
+
+                             "Yours till death,
+
+                                   "Lato Treurenberg."
+
+
+He tossed the pen aside.
+
+The others were still dancing. The sound of the music came softly from
+the distance. He rested his head on his hands and pondered.
+
+He has seen clearly that it must be. He had written the letters as the
+first irrevocable step. But how was it to be done?
+
+He looked for his revolver. It might all be over in a moment. He caught
+up the little weapon with a kind of greed. Suddenly he recalled a
+friend who had shot himself, and whose body he had seen lying on the
+bed where the deed had been done: there were ugly stains of blood upon
+the pillow. His nature revolted from everything ugly and unclean. And
+then the scene, the uproar that would ensue upon discovering the
+corpse. If he could only avoid all that, could only cloak the ugly
+deed. Meanwhile, his faithful hound came to him from a corner of the
+room, and, as if suspicious that all was not right with its master,
+laid its head upon his knee.
+
+The way was clear,--Lato had lately frequently risen early in the
+morning to stalk a deer, which had escaped his gun again and again; he
+had but to slip out of the house for apparently the same purpose,
+and---- and It would be more easily done beneath God's open skies. But
+several hours must elapse before he could leave the castle. That was
+terrible. Would his resolve hold good? He began to pace the room
+restlessly to and fro.
+
+Had he forgotten anything that ought to be done? He paused and
+listened, seeming to hear a light footfall in the room above him. Yes,
+it was Olga's room; he could hear her also walking to and fro, to and
+fro. His breath came quick; everything within him cried out for
+happiness, for life! He threw himself upon his bed, buried his face
+among the pillows, clinched his hands, and so waited, motionless.
+
+At last the steps overhead ceased, the music was silent; there was a
+rustling in the corridors,--the guests were retiring to their rooms;
+then all was still, as still as death.
+
+Lato arose, lit a candle, and looked at his watch,--half-past two.
+There was still something on his heart,--a discontent of which he would
+fain disburden himself before the end. He sat down again at his
+writing-table, and wrote a few lines to Olga, pouring out his soul to
+her; then, opening his letter to Harry, he added a postscript: "It
+would be useless to attempt any disguise with you,--you have read my
+heart too clearly,--and therefore I can ask a last office of friendship
+of you. Give Olga the enclosed note from me,--I do not wish any one
+here to know of this,--my farewell to her. Think no evil of her. Should
+any one slander her, never believe it!--never!"
+
+He would have written more, but words failed him to express what he
+felt; so he enclosed his note to Olga in his letter to Harry and sealed
+and stamped it.
+
+His thoughts began to wander vaguely. Old legends occurred to him.
+Suddenly he laughed at something that had occurred ten years before, at
+Komaritz,--the trick Harry had played upon Fainacky, the "braggart
+Sarmatian."
+
+He heard himself laugh, and shuddered. The gray dawn began to glimmer
+in the east. He looked at his watch,--it was time! He drew a long,
+sighing breath, and left his room; the dog followed him. In the
+corridor he paused, possessed by a wild desire to creep to Olga's door
+and, kneeling before it, to kiss the threshold. He took two steps
+towards the staircase, then, by a supreme effort, controlled himself
+and turned back.
+
+But in the park he sought the spot where he had met her yesterday,
+where he had kissed her for the first and only time. Here he stood
+still for a while, and, looking down, perceived the half-effaced
+impress of a small foot upon the gravel. He stooped and pressed his
+lips upon it.
+
+Now he has left the park, and the village too lies behind him;
+he has posted his letter to Harry in the yellow box in front of the
+post-office. He walks through the poplar avenue where she came to meet
+him scarcely three weeks ago. He can still feel the touch of her
+delicate hand. A bird twitters faintly above his head, and recalls to
+his memory how he had watched the belated little feathered vagabond
+hurrying home to its nest.
+
+"A life that warms itself beside another life in which it finds peace
+and comfort," he murmurs to himself. An almost irresistible force stays
+his steps. But no; he persists, and walks on towards the forest. He
+will only wait for the sunrise, and then----
+
+He waits in vain. The heavens are covered with clouds; a sharp wind
+sighs above the fields; the leaves tremble as if in mortal terror; for
+the first time in six weeks a few drops of rain fall. No splendour
+hails the awakening world, but along the eastern horizon there is a
+blood-red streak. Just in Lato's path a solitary white butterfly
+flutters upon the ground. The wind grows stronger, the drops fall more
+thickly; the pale blossoms by the roadside shiver; the red poppies do
+not open their cups, but hang their heads as if drunk with sleep.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XLII.
+
+                                 FOUND.
+
+
+Olga had remained in her room because she could not bring herself to
+meet Treurenberg again. No, she could never meet him after the words,
+the kiss, they had exchanged,--never--until he should call her. For it
+did not occur to her to recall what she had said to him,--she was ready
+for everything for his sake. Not a thought did she bestow upon the
+disgrace that would attach to her in the eyes of the world. What did
+she care what people said or thought of her? But he,--what if she had
+disgraced herself in his eyes by the confession of her love? The
+thought tortured her.
+
+She kept saying to herself, "He was shocked at me; I wounded his sense
+of delicacy. Oh, my God! and yet I could not see him suffer so,--I
+could not!"
+
+When night came on she lay dressed upon her bed for hours, now and then
+rising to pace the room to and fro. At last she fell asleep. She was
+roused by hearing a door creak. She listened: it was the door of Lato's
+room. Again she listened. No, she must have been mistaken; it was folly
+to suppose that Lato would think of leaving the house at a little after
+three in the morning! She tried to be calm, and began to undress, when
+suddenly a horrible suspicion assailed her; her teeth chattered, the
+heart in her breast felt like lead.
+
+"I must have been mistaken," she decided. But she could not be at rest.
+She went out into the corridor; all there was still. The dawn was
+changing from gray to white. She glided down the staircase to the door
+of Lato's room, where she kneeled and listened at the key-hole. She
+could surely hear him breathe, she thought. But how could she hear it
+when her own pulses were throbbing so loudly in her heart, in her
+temples, in her ears?
+
+She listened with all her might: nothing, nothing could she hear. Her
+head sank against the door, which was ajar and yielded. She sprang up
+and, half dead with shame, was about to flee, when she paused. If he
+were in his room would not the creaking of the door upon its hinges
+have roused him? Again she turned and peered into the room.
+
+At the first glance she perceived that it was empty, and that the bed
+had not been slept in.
+
+With her heart throbbing as if to break, she rushed up to her room,
+longing to scream aloud, to rouse the household with "He has gone! he
+has gone! Search for him! save him!"
+
+But how is this possible? How can she confess that she has been in his
+room? Her cheeks burn; half fainting in her misery, she throws wide her
+window to admit the fresh morning air.
+
+What is that? A scratching at the house door below, and then a
+melancholy whine. Olga hurries out into the corridor again, and at
+first cannot tell whence the noise proceeds. It grows louder and more
+persistent, an impatient scratching and knocking at the door leading
+out into the park. She hastens down the stairs and opens it.
+
+"Lion!" she exclaims, as the dog leaps upon her, then crouches before
+her on the gravel, gazes piteously into her face, and utters a long
+howl, hoarse and ominous. Olga stoops down to him. Good God! what is
+this? His shoulder, his paws are stained with blood. The girl's heart
+seems to stand still. The dog seizes her dress as if to drag her away;
+releases it, runs leaping into the park, turns and looks at her. Shall
+she follow him?
+
+Yes, she follows him, trembling, panting, through the park, through the
+village, out upon the highway, where the trees are vocal with the
+shrill twittering of birds. A clumsy peasant-cart is jolting along the
+road; the sleepy carter rubs his eyes and gazes after the strange
+figure with dishevelled hair and disordered dress, hastening towards
+the forest.
+
+She has reached it at last. The dog's uneasiness increases, and he
+disappears among the trees. Olga stops; she cannot go on. The dog howls
+more loudly, and slowly, holding by the trees, she totters forward.
+What is it that makes the ground here so slippery? Blood? There,--there
+by the poacher's grave, at the foot of the rude wooden cross, she finds
+him.
+
+A shriek, wild and hoarse, rings through the air. The leaves quiver and
+rustle with the flight of the startled birds among their branches. The
+heavens are filled with wailing, and the earth seems to rock beneath
+the girl's feet.
+
+Then darkness receives her, and she forgets the horror of it all in
+unconsciousness.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+                              COUNT HANS.
+
+
+There was a dinner at Count Capriani's, and Count Hans Treurenberg,
+slender and erect, the embodiment of elegant frivolity, had just said
+something witty. One of his fellow-aristocrats, a noble slave of
+Capriani's, had been discoursing at length upon the new era that was
+dawning upon the world, and had finally proposed a toast to the union
+of the two greatest powers on earth, wealth and rank. All present had
+had their glasses ready; Count Hans alone had hesitated for a moment,
+and had then remarked, with his inimitable smile,--
+
+"Well, let us, for all I care, drink to the marriage of the Golden Calf
+to the Chimera." And when every one stared in blank dismay, he added,
+thoughtfully, "What do you think, gentlemen, is it a marriage of
+expediency, or one of love? Capriani, it would be interesting to hear
+your views upon this question." Then, in spite of the lowering brow of
+the host, the aristocrats present burst into Homeric laughter.
+
+At that moment a telegram was brought to the Count. Why did his hand
+tremble as he unfolded it? He was accustomed to receive telegraphic
+messages:
+
+
+"There has been an accident. Lato seriously wounded while hunting.
+
+                                               "Selina."
+
+
+An hour afterwards he was in the railway-train.
+
+He had never been to Dobrotschau, and did not know that the route which
+he had taken stopped two stations away from the estate. The Harfink
+carriage waited for him at an entirely different station. He had to
+send his servant to a neighbouring village to procure a conveyance.
+Meanwhile, he made inquiries of the railway officials at the station as
+to the accident at Dobrotschau. No one knew anything with certainty:
+there was but infrequent communication between this place and
+Dobrotschau. The old Count began to hope. If the worst had happened,
+the ill news would have travelled faster. Selina must have exaggerated
+matters. He read his telegram over and over again:
+
+"There has been an accident. Lato seriously wounded while hunting."
+
+It was the conventional formula used to convey information of the death
+of a near relative.
+
+All around him seemed to reel as he pondered the missive in the bare
+little waiting-room by the light of a smoking lamp. The moisture stood
+in beads upon his forehead. For the first time a horrible thought
+occurred to him.
+
+"An accident while hunting? What accident could possibly happen to a
+man hunting with a good breechloader----? If--yes, if--but that cannot
+be; he has never uttered a complaint!" He suddenly felt mortally ill
+and weak.
+
+The servant shortly returned with a conveyance. Nor had he been able to
+learn anything that could be relied upon. Some one in the village had
+heard that there had been an accident somewhere in the vicinity, but
+whether it had resulted in death no one could tell.
+
+The Count got into the vehicle, a half-open coach, smelling of damp
+leather and mould. The drive lasted for two hours. At first it was
+quite dark; nothing could be seen but two rays of light proceeding from
+the coach-lamps, which seemed to chase before them a mass of blackness.
+Once the Count dozed, worn out with emotion and physical fatigue. He
+was roused by the fancy that something like a cold, moist wing brushed
+his cheek. He looked abroad; the darkness had become less dense, the
+dawn was breaking faintly above the slumbering earth. Everything
+appeared gray, shadowy, and ghost-like. A dog began to bark in the
+neighbouring village; there was a sound of swiftly-rolling wheels. The
+Count leaned forward and saw something vague and indistinct, preceded
+by two streaks of light flashing along a side-road.
+
+It was only a carriage, but he shuddered as at something supernatural.
+Everywhere he seemed to see signs and omens.
+
+"Are we near Dobrotschau?" he asked the coachman.
+
+"Almost there, your Excellency."
+
+They drove through the village. A strange foreboding sound assailed the
+Count's ears,--the long-drawn whine of a dog,--and a weird,
+inexplicable noise like the flapping of the wings of some huge captive
+bird vainly striving to be free. The Count looked up. The outlines of
+the castle were indistinct in the twilight, and hanging from the tower,
+curling and swelling in the morning air, was something huge--black.
+
+The carriage stopped. Martin came to the door, and, as he helped his
+former master to alight, informed him that the family had awaited the
+Count until past midnight, but that when the carriage returned empty
+from the railway-station they had retired. His Excellency's room was
+ready for him.
+
+Not one word did he say of the cause of the Count's coming. He could
+not bring himself to speak of that. They silently ascended the
+staircase. Suddenly the Count paused. "It was while he was hunting?" he
+asked the servant, bluntly.
+
+"Yes, your Excellency."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Very early yesterday morning."
+
+"Were you with him?" The Count's voice was sharper.
+
+"No, your Excellency; no one was with him. The Count went out alone."
+
+There was an oppressive silence. The father had comprehended. He turned
+his back to the servant, and stood mute and motionless for a while.
+"Take me to him," he ordered at last.
+
+The man led the way down-stairs and through a long corridor, then
+opened a door. "Here, your Excellency!"
+
+They had laid the dead in his own room, where he was to remain until
+the magnificent preparations for his burial should be completed. Here
+there was no pomp of mourning. He lay there peacefully, a cross clasped
+in his folded hands, a larger crucifix at the head of the bed, where
+two wax candles were burning--that was all.
+
+The servant retired. Count Hans kneeled beside the body, and tried to
+pray. But this Catholic gentleman, who until a few years previously had
+ardently supported every ultramontane measure of the reigning family,
+now discovered, for the first time, that he no longer knew his Pater
+Noster by heart. He could not even pray for the dead. He was possessed
+by a kind of indignation against himself, and for the first time he
+felt utterly dissatisfied with his entire life. His eyes were riveted
+upon the face of his dead son. "Why, why did this have to be?--just
+this?"
+
+His thoughts refused to dwell upon the horrible catastrophe; they
+turned away, wandering hither and thither; yesterday's hunting
+breakfast occurred to him; he thought of his witty speech and of the
+laughter it had provoked, laughter which even the host's frown could
+not suppress. The sound of his own voice rang in his ears: "Yes,
+gentlemen, let us drink to the marriage of the Golden Calf to the
+Chimera."
+
+Then he recalled Lato upon his first steeple-chase, on horseback, in a
+scarlet coat, still lanky and awkward, but handsome as a picture,
+glowing with enjoyment, his hunting-whip lifted for a stroke.
+
+His eyes were dry, his tongue was parched, a fever was burning in his
+veins, and at each breath he seemed to be lifting some ponderous
+weight. A feeling like the consciousness of a horrible crime oppressed
+him; he shivered, and suddenly dreaded being left there alone with the
+corpse, beside which he could neither weep nor pray.
+
+Slowly through the windows the morning stole into the room, while the
+black flag continued to flap and rustle against the castle wall, like a
+prisoned bird aimlessly beating its wings against the bars of its cage,
+and the dog whined on.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+                                SPRING.
+
+
+A few days afterwards Lato's body was consigned to the family vault of
+the Treurenbergs,--not, of course, without much funereal pomp at
+Dobrotschau.
+
+With him vanished the last descendant of an ancient race which had once
+been strong and influential, and which had preserved to the last its
+chivalric distinction.
+
+The day after the catastrophe Harry received a letter from Paula, in
+which, on the plea of a dissimilarity of tastes and interests which
+would be fatal to happiness in marriage, she gave him back his troth.
+As she remained at Dobrotschau for an entire week after the funeral, it
+may be presumed that she wished to give her former betrothed
+opportunity to remonstrate against his dismissal. But he took great
+care to avoid even a formal protest. A very courteous, very formal,
+very brief note, in which he expressed entire submission to her decree,
+was the only sign of life his former captor received from him.
+
+When Paula Harfink learned that Harry had left Komaritz and had
+returned to his regiment in Vienna, she departed from Dobrotschau with
+her mother and sister, to pass several months at Nice.
+
+In the beginning of January she returned with the Baroness Harfink to
+Vienna, heart-whole and with redoubled self-confidence. She was loud in
+her expressions of contempt for military men, especially for cavalry
+officers, a contempt in which even Arthur Schopenhauer could not have
+outdone her; she lived only for science and professors, a large number
+of whom she assembled about her, and among whom this young sultaness
+proposed with great caution and care to select one worthy to be raised
+to the dignity of her Prince-Consort.
+
+Selina did not return with her mother to Vienna, but remained for the
+time being with a female companion in Nice. As is usual with most
+blondes, her widow's weeds became her well, and her luxuriant beauty
+with its dark crape background attracted a score of admirers, who,
+according to report, were not all doomed to languish hopelessly at her
+feet.
+
+Fainacky, however, was never again received into favour.
+
+Olga retired to a convent, partly to sever all ties with the world,
+which had misunderstood and maligned her in her relations to the part
+she had played in the fearful drama enacted at Dobrotschau, partly to
+do penance by her asceticism for Lato's suicide, which was to her deep
+religious sense a fearful crime, and of which she considered herself in
+some measure the cause.
+
+Moreover, Lato's suicide produced a profound impression upon all his
+friends. Harry could hardly take any pleasure in his freedom, so dark
+was the shadow thrown upon his happiness by grief for the fate of his
+life-long friend and comrade. Under the circumstances, until, so to
+speak, the grass had grown over the terrible event, his betrothal to
+Zdena could not be thought of; the mere idea of it wounded his sense of
+delicacy. He contented himself, before returning to Vienna, with a
+farewell visit to Zirkow, when he informed the entire family of the
+sudden change in his position. The major, whose sense of delicacy was
+not so acute as his nephew's, could not refrain from smiling broadly
+and expressing a few sentiments not very flattering to Fräulein Paula,
+nor from asking Harry one or two questions which caused the young
+fellow extreme confusion.
+
+The major's efforts to force a _tête-à-tête_ upon the young people were
+quite vain. Zdena, when Harry left, accompanied the young officer
+openly, as she had often done, to the court-yard, where she stroked his
+horse before he mounted and fed him with sugar, as had ever been her
+wont.
+
+"Good-bye, Zdena," Harry said, simply kissing her cold hand, just as he
+had often done when taking leave of her. Then, with his hand on the
+bridle, ready to mount, he gazed deep into her eyes and asked, "When
+may I come back again, Zdena?"
+
+She replied, "In the spring," in a voice so low and trembling that it
+echoed through his soul, long after he had left her, like a caress. He
+nodded, swung himself into the saddle, turned once in the gate-way for
+a farewell look at her, and was gone. She stood looking after him until
+the sound of his horse's hoofs died away, then went back to the house
+and remained invisible in her room for the rest of the forenoon.
+
+
+The winter passed slowly. In the cavalry barracks in Vienna a change
+was observed in Harry Leskjewitsch. He began to be looked upon as a
+very earnest and hard-working young officer. His name stood first among
+those for whom a brilliant military career was prophesied. And, oddly
+enough, while there was a great increase in the regard in which he was
+held by his superior officers, there was no decrease in his popularity
+with his comrades.
+
+The youngest good-for-naughts did, it is true, reproach him with having
+become tediously serious, and with great caution in spending his money.
+But when by chance the cause of his sudden economy was discovered, all
+discontent with his conduct ceased, especially since his purse was
+always at the service of a needy comrade.
+
+When, after the Harfinks had returned from Nice, he first met Paula in
+the street, he was much confused, and was conscious of blushing. He
+felt strangely on beholding the full red lips which had so often kissed
+him, the form which had so often hung upon his arm. When, with some
+hesitation, he touched his cap, he wondered at the easy grace with
+which the young lady returned his salute. His wonder was still greater
+when, a few days afterwards, he encountered Frau von Harfink, who
+accosted him, and, after inquiring about his health, added, with her
+sweetest smile,--
+
+"I trust that my daughter's withdrawal from her engagement to you will
+not prevent you from visiting us. Good heavens! it was a mistake; you
+were not at all suited to each other. We shall be delighted to welcome
+you as a friend at any time. Come soon to see us."
+
+If Harry were changed, Zdena was not less so. She was more silent than
+formerly; the outbreaks of childish gaiety in which she had been wont
+to indulge had vanished entirely, while, on the other hand, there was
+never a trace of her old discontent. Indeed, there was no time for
+anything of the kind, she had so much to do.
+
+She had developed a wonderful interest in household affairs; spent some
+time each day in the kitchen, where, engaged in the most prosaic
+occupations, she displayed so much grace that the major could not help
+peeping at her from time to time. And when her uncle praised at table
+some wondrous result of her labours, she would answer, eagerly, "Yes,
+is it not good? and it is not very expensive."
+
+Whereupon the major would pinch her cheek and smile significantly.
+
+Frau Rosamunda was not at all aware of what was going on about her. She
+frequently commended the girl's dexterity in all that her awakened
+interest in household affairs led her to undertake, and after informing
+the major of his niece's improvement, and congratulating herself in
+being able to hand her keys over to the girl, she would add, with a
+sigh, "I am so glad she never took anything into her head with regard
+to Roderick. I must confess that I think his sudden disappearance very
+odd, after all the attention he paid her."
+
+The major would always sigh sympathetically when his wife talked thus,
+and would then take the earliest opportunity to leave the room to
+"laugh it out," as he expressed it.
+
+Thus life went on with its usual monotony at Zirkow.
+
+Harry's letters to the major, which came regularly twice a month, were
+always read aloud to the ladies with enthusiasm by the old dragoon,
+then shown in part to Krupitschka, and then left lying about anywhere.
+They invariably vanished without a trace; but once when the major
+wished to refer to one of these important documents and could not find
+it, it turned out that Zdena had picked it up--by chance.
+
+At last the spring made its joyous appearance and stripped the earth of
+its white robe of snow. For a few days it lay naked and bare, ugly and
+brown; then the young conqueror threw over its nakedness a rich mantle
+of blossoms, and strode on, tossing a bridal wreath into the lap of
+many a hopeless maiden, and cheering with flowers many a dying mortal
+who had waited but for its coming.
+
+Zdena and the major delighted in the spring; they were never weary of
+watching its swift work in the garden, enjoying the opening of the
+blossoms, the unfolding of the leaves, and the songs of the birds. The
+fruit-trees had donned their most festal array; but Zdena was grave and
+sad, for full three weeks had passed since any letter had come from
+Harry, who had been wont to write punctually every fortnight; and in
+his last he had not mentioned his spring leave of absence.
+
+In feverish impatience the girl awaited the milkman, who always brought
+the mail from X---- just before afternoon tea. For days she had vainly
+watched her uncle as he sorted the letters. "'The post brings no letter
+for thee, my love!'" he sang, gaily.
+
+But Zdena was not gay.
+
+This afternoon the milkman is late. Zdena cannot wait for him quietly;
+she puts on an old straw hat and goes to meet him. It is nearly six
+o'clock; the sun is quite low, and beams pale golden through a ragged
+veil of fleecy clouds. A soft breeze is blowing; spring odours fill the
+air. The flat landscape is wondrous in colour, but it lacks the sharp
+contrasts of summer. Zdena walks quickly, with downcast eyes. Suddenly
+the sound of a horse's hoofs falls upon her ear. She looks up. Can it
+be? Her heart stands still, and then--why, then she finds nothing
+better to do than to turn and run home as fast as her feet can carry
+her. But he soon overtakes her. Springing from his horse, he gives the
+bridle to a peasant-lad passing by.
+
+"Zdena!" he calls.
+
+"Ah, it is you!" she replies, in a weak little voice, continuing to
+hurry home. Not until she has reached the old orchard does she pause,
+out of breath.
+
+"Zdena!" Harry calls again, this time in a troubled voice, "what is the
+matter? Why are you so--so strange? You almost seem to be frightened!"
+
+"I--I--you came so unexpectedly. We had no idea----" she stammers.
+
+"Unexpectedly!" Harry repeats, and his look grows dark. "Unexpectedly!
+May I ask if you have again changed your mind?"
+
+Her face is turned from him. Dismayed, assailed by a thousand dark
+fancies, he gazes at her. On a sudden he perceives that she is sobbing;
+and then----
+
+Neither speaks a word, but he has clasped her to his breast, she has
+put both arms around his neck, and--according to the poets, who are
+likely to be right--the one perfect moment in the lives of two mortals
+is over!
+
+The spring laughs exultantly among the trees, and rains white blossoms
+upon the heads of the fair young couple beneath them. Around them
+breathes the fragrance of freshly-awakened life, the air of a new,
+transfigured existence; there is a fluttering in the air above, as a
+cloud of birds sails over the blossom-laden orchard.
+
+"Zdena, where are you?" calls the voice of the major. "Zdena, come
+quickly! Look! the swallows have come!"
+
+The old dragoon makes his appearance from a garden-path. "Why, what is
+all this?" he exclaims, trying to look stern, as he comes in sight of
+the pair.
+
+The young people separate hastily; Zdena blushes crimson, but Harry
+says, merrily,--
+
+"Don't pretend to look surprised; you must have known long ago that
+I--that we loved each other." And he takes Zdena's hand and kisses it.
+
+"Well, yes; but----" The major shrugs his shoulders.
+
+"You mean that I ought to have made formal application to you for
+Zdena's hand?" asks Harry.
+
+The old officer can contain himself no longer; his face lit up by the
+broadest of smiles, he goes to Zdena, pinches her ear, and asks,--
+
+"Aha, Zdena! why must people marry because they love each other, hey?"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XLV.
+
+                            OLD BARON FRANZ.
+
+
+Old Baron Franz Leskjewitsch had changed greatly during the past
+winter. Those who saw most of him declared that he was either about to
+die or was growing insane. He moved from one to another of his various
+estates more restlessly than ever, appearing several times at
+Vorhabshen, which he never had been in the habit of visiting in winter,
+and not only appearing there, but remaining longer than usual. There
+was even a report that on one occasion he had ordered his coachman to
+drive to Zirkow; and, in fact, the old tumble-down carriage of the grim
+Baron had been seen driving along the road to Zirkow, but just before
+reaching the village it had turned back.
+
+Yes, yes, the old Baron was either about to die or was "going crazy."
+There was such a change in him. He bought a Newfoundland dog, which he
+petted immensely, he developed a love for canary-birds, and, more
+alarming symptom than all the rest, he was growing generous: he stood
+godfather to two peasant babies, and dowered the needy bride of one of
+his bailiffs.
+
+In the beginning of April he appeared again at Vorhabshen, and seemed
+in no hurry to leave it.
+
+The day after Harry's sudden arrival at Zirkow, the old man was
+sitting, just after breakfast, in a leather arm-chair, smoking a large
+meerschaum pipe, and listening to Studnecka's verses, when the
+housekeeper entered to clear the table, a duty which Lotta, the despot,
+always performed herself for her master, perhaps because she wanted an
+opportunity for a little gossip with him.
+
+Studnecka's efforts at entertainment were promptly dispensed with, and
+the old Baron shortly began, "Lotta, I hear that good-for-naught Harry
+is in this part of the country again; is it so?"
+
+"Yes, Herr Baron; the cow-boy met him yesterday on the road," replied
+Lotta, sweeping the crumbs from the table-cloth into a green lacquered
+tray with a crescent-shaped brush.
+
+"What is he doing here?" the old man asked, after a pause.
+
+"They say he has come to court the Baroness Zdena."
+
+"Oh, indeed!" The Baron tried to put on a particularly fierce
+expression. "It would seem that since that money-bag at Dobrotschau has
+thrown him over, he wants to try it on again with the girl at Zirkow,
+in hopes I shall come round. Oh, we understand all that."
+
+"The Herr Baron ought to be ashamed to say such things of our Master
+Harry," Lotta exclaimed, firing up. "However, the Herr Baron can
+question the young Herr himself; there he is," she added, attracted to
+the window by the sound of a horse's hoofs. "Shall I show him up? or
+does the Herr Baron not wish to see him?"
+
+"Oh, send him up, send him up. I'll enlighten the fellow."
+
+In a few moments Harry makes his appearance. "Good-morning, uncle! how
+are you?" he calls out, his face radiant with happiness.
+
+The old Baron merely nods his head. Without stirring from his
+arm-chair, without offering his hand to his nephew, without even asking
+him to sit down, he scans him suspiciously.
+
+With his hand on his sabre, Harry confronts him, somewhat surprised by
+this strange reception, but nowise inclined to propitiate his uncle by
+any flattering attentions.
+
+"Do you want anything?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Indeed? You're not short of money, then?
+
+"On the contrary, I have saved some," Harry replies, speaking quite
+after his uncle's fashion.
+
+"Ah! saved some, have you? Are you growing miserly?--a fine thing at
+your age! You probably learned it of your financial acquaintances," the
+old Baron growls.
+
+"I have saved money because I am going to marry, and my betrothed is
+without means," Harry says, sharply.
+
+"Ah! for a change you want to marry a poor girl! You display a truly
+edifying fickleness of character. And who is the fair creature to whom
+you have sacrificed your avarice?"
+
+"I am betrothed to my cousin Zdena."
+
+"Indeed?--to Zdena?" the Baron says, with well-feigned indignation.
+"Have you forgotten that in that case I shall disinherit you?"
+
+"You will do as you choose about that," Harry replies, dryly. "I should
+be glad to assure my wife a pleasant and easy lot in life; but if you
+fancy that I have come here to sue for your favour, you are mistaken.
+It was my duty to inform you of my betrothal. I have done so; and that
+is all."
+
+"Indeed? That is all?" thunders old Leskjewitsch. "It shall be all!
+Wait, you scoundrel, you good-for-naught, and we'll see if you go on
+carrying your head so high! I will turn the leaf: I will make Zdena my
+heiress,--but only upon condition that she sends you about your
+business. She shall choose between you--that is, between poverty--and
+me!"
+
+"It will not take her long. Good-morning." With which Harry turns on
+his heel and leaves the room.
+
+The old Baron sits motionless for a while. The mild spring breeze blows
+in through the open windows; there is a sound in the air of cooing
+doves, of water dripping on the stones of the paved court-yard from the
+roof, of the impatient pawing and neighing of a horse, and then the
+clatter of spurs and sabre.
+
+The old man smiles broadly. "He shows race: the boy is a genuine
+Leskjewitsch," he mutters to himself,--"a good mate for the girl!" Then
+he goes to the window. Harry is just about to mount, when his uncle
+roars down to him, "Harry! Harry! The deuce take you! are you deaf?
+Can't you hear?"
+
+
+Meanwhile, the major and his niece are walking in the garden at Zirkow.
+It was the major who had insisted that Harry should immediately inform
+his uncle of his betrothal.
+
+Zdena has shown very little interest in the discussion as to how the
+cross-grained, eccentric old man would receive the news. And when her
+uncle suddenly looks her full in the face to ask how she can adapt
+herself to straitened means, she calmly lays her band on the arm of her
+betrothed, and whispers, tenderly, "You shall see." Then her eyes fill
+with tears as she adds, "But how will you bear it, Harry?"
+
+He kisses both her hands and replies, "Never mind, Zdena; I assure you
+that at this moment Conte Capriani is a beggar compared with myself."
+
+Just at this point Frau Rosamunda plucks her spouse by the sleeve and
+forces him, _nolens volens_, to retire with her.
+
+"I cannot understand you," she lectures him in their conjugal
+_tête-à-tête_. "You are really indelicate, standing staring at the
+children, when you must see that they are longing to kiss each other.
+Such young people must be left to themselves now and then." At first
+Frau Rosamunda found it very difficult to assent to this rather
+imprudent betrothal, but she is now interested in it heart and soul.
+She arranges everything systematically, even delicacy of sentiment. Her
+exact rules in this respect rather oppress the major, who would gladly
+sun himself in the light and warmth of happiness which surrounds the
+young couple, about whose future, however, he is seriously distressed,
+lamenting bitterly his own want of business capacity which has so
+impoverished him.
+
+"If I could but give the poor child more of a dowry," he keeps saying
+to himself. "Or if Franz would but come to his senses,--yes, if he
+would only listen to reason, all would be well."
+
+All this is in his thoughts, as he walks with his niece in the garden
+on this bright spring forenoon, while his nephew has gone to Vorhabshen
+to have an explanation with his uncle. Consequently he is absent-minded
+and does not listen to the girl's gay chatter, the outcome of intense
+joy in her life and her love.
+
+The birds are twittering loudly as they build their nests in the
+blossom-laden trees, the grass is starred with the first dandelions.
+
+Harry is expected at lunch. The major is burning with impatience.
+
+"One o'clock," he remarks. "The boy ought to be back by this time. What
+do you say to walking a little way to meet him?"
+
+"As you please, uncle," the girl gaily assents. They turn towards the
+house, whence Krupitschka comes running, breathless with haste.
+
+"What is the matter?" the major calls out.
+
+"Nothing, nothing, Herr Baron," the man replies; "but the Frau Baroness
+desires you both to come to the drawing-room; she has a visitor."
+
+"Is that any reason why you should run yourself so out of breath that
+you look like a fish on dry land?" the major bawls to his old servant.
+"You fairly frightened me, you ass! Who is the visitor?"
+
+"Please--I do not know," declares Krupitschka, lying brazenly, while
+the major frowns, saying, "There's an end to our walk," and never
+noticing the sly smile upon the old man's face.
+
+Zdena runs to her room to smooth her hair, tossed by the breeze, while
+the major, annoyed, goes directly to the drawing-room. He opens the
+door and stands as if rooted to the threshold. Beside the sofa where
+Frau Rosamunda is enthroned, with her official hostess expression,
+doing the honours with a grace all her own, sits a broad-shouldered old
+gentleman in a loose long-tailed coat, laughing loudly at something she
+has just told him.
+
+"Franz!" exclaims Paul von Leskjewitsch.
+
+"Here I am," responds the elder brother, with hardly-maintained
+composure. He rises; each advances towards the other, but before they
+can clasp hands the elder of the two declares, "I wish, Paul, you would
+tell your bailiff to see to the ploughing on your land. That field near
+the forest is in a wretched condition,--hill and valley, the clods
+piled up, and wheat sown there. I have always held that no military man
+can ever learn anything about agriculture. You never had the faintest
+idea of farming." And as he speaks he clasps the major's hand and
+pinches Harry's ear. The young fellow has been looking on with a smile
+at the meeting between the brothers.
+
+"I understand you, uncle: I am not to leave the service. I could not
+upon any terms," the young man assures him,--"not even if I were begged
+to do so."
+
+"He's a hard-headed fellow," Baron Franz says, with a laugh; "and so is
+the girl. Did she tell you that she met me in the forest? We had a
+conversation together, she and I. At first she took me for that fool
+Studnecka; then she guessed who I was, and read me such a lecture! I
+did not care: it showed me that she was a genuine Leskjewitsch. H'm! I
+ought to have come here then, but--I--could not find the way; I waited
+for some one to show it to me." He pats Harry on the shoulder. "But
+where the deuce is the girl? Is she hiding from me?"
+
+At this moment Zdena enters. The old man turns ghastly pale; his hands
+begin to tremble violently, as he stretches them out towards her. She
+gazes at him for an instant, then runs to him and throws her arms
+around his neck. He clasps her close, as if never to let her leave him.
+
+The others turn away. There is a sound of hoarse sobbing. All that the
+strong man has hoarded up in his heart for twenty years asserts itself
+at this moment.
+
+It is not long, however, before all emotion is calmed, and affairs take
+their natural course. The two elderly men sit beside Frau Rosamunda,
+still enthroned on her sofa, and the lovers stand in the recess of a
+window and look out upon the spring.
+
+"So we are not to be poor, after all?" Zdena says, with a sigh.
+
+"It seems not," Harry responds, putting his arm round her.
+
+She does not speak for a while; then she murmurs, softly, "'Tis a pity:
+I took such pleasure in it!"
+
+
+
+                               FOOTNOTE:
+
+[Footnote 1: One of a princely family who, although subject to royal
+authority, is allowed to retain some sovereign privileges.]
+
+
+
+                                THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+           Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                       BY JULIA HELEN TWELLS, JR.
+
+                         A Triumph of Destiny.
+
+                   12mo. Cloth, deckle edges, $1.25.
+
+"It is a book of uncommon characters and end-of-century problems; a
+story of strength told with interest and conviction.... The book is
+well worth reading."--_Philadelphia Press_.
+
+"Miss Twells is evidently a woman of extensive mental resources, who
+thinks deeply and clearly. Her story commands admiration and consequent
+attention from the first. There are not many characters, but about the
+few are clustered events of significance, and their relation to each
+other and to their own individual development is analyzed with strength
+and clearness."--_Washington Times_.
+
+                               *   *   *
+
+                           BY MRS. OLIPHANT.
+
+                          The Unjust Steward.
+
+                          12mo. Cloth, $1.25.
+
+"We have an admirable study of an old Scotch minister oppressed by the
+consciousness of a very venial fault in a small financial transaction.
+The tone is one of cheerful humor, the incidents are skilfully devised,
+verisimilitude is never sacrificed to effect, every episode is true to
+life."--_Philadelphia Press_.
+
+                               *   *   *
+
+                          BY ARTHUR PATERSON.
+
+                          For Freedom's Sake.
+
+                          12mo. Cloth, $1.25.
+
+"The subject-matter of this book is the desperate battle between
+freedom and slavery for possession of Kansas. One of the strongest
+characters introduced is old John Brown. A charming love story is
+naturally incidental, and the element of humor is by no means
+lacking."--_New York World_.
+
+                               *   *   *
+
+                J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA.
+
+
+
+
+
+                          By Amy E. Blanchard.
+
+                               *   *   *
+
+                             Betty of Wye.
+
+               With illustrations by Florence P. England.
+
+                          12mo. Cloth, $1.25.
+
+"It is the story of a little Maryland girl who grows from a
+turbulent girl into a loving and lovable woman. The book gives many
+suggestions that will help a reckless girl to see the beauty and value
+of a knowledge of conventionalities and obedience to accepted
+standards."--_New York Outlook_.
+
+                               *   *   *
+
+                               Two Girls.
+
+                    With illustrations by Ida Waugh.
+
+                          12mo. Cloth, $1.25.
+
+"'Two Girls' is a very pretty domestic tale, by Amy E. Blanchard. The
+title indicates its character--the story of the lives of two girls.
+They are girls of entirely different temperament, and the lessons
+deducted from their respective experiences, and the manner in which
+each met the daily troubles and tribulations of early life, make the
+book one of more than ordinary importance to the young, and especially
+to young girls. It is a story with a moral, and the moral, if rightly
+followed, cannot fail to influence the lives of its readers. The two
+girls are of American product and the plot is laid in Southwestern
+territory."--_St. Paul Dispatch_.
+
+                               *   *   *
+
+                            Girls Together.
+
+                    With illustrations by Ida Waugh.
+
+                          12mo. Cloth, $1.25.
+
+"Here is a story so realistic, detailed, and full of youthful sentiment
+and enthusiasm that it must be one of the pieces of literary work which
+seem 'easy' but are in reality so difficult to achieve. It is the sort
+of description that girls dearly love to read, and is wholesome in tone
+and wide awake in the telling."--_Portland Press_.
+
+                               *   *   *
+
+                      Blanchard Library for Girls.
+
+                               TWO GIRLS.
+                  GIRLS TOGETHER.        BETTY OF WYE.
+
+            3 volumes in a box. Illustrated. Cloth, $3.75.
+
+                               *   *   *
+
+                   J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of 'O Thou, My Austria!', by Ossip Schubin
+
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+<title>&quot;O Thou, My Austria!&quot;</title>
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+<meta name="Date" content="1897">
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+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of 'O Thou, My Austria!', by Ossip Schubin
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: 'O Thou, My Austria!'
+
+Author: Ossip Schubin
+
+Translator: A. L. Wister
+
+Release Date: March 2, 2011 [EBook #35454]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 'O THOU, MY AUSTRIA!' ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p class="hang1">Transcriber's Note:<br>
+<br>
+1. Page scan source:
+http://www.archive.org/details/othoumyaustria00schuiala</p>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h1>&quot;O THOU, MY AUSTRIA!&quot;</h1>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h4>TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN</h4>
+
+<h4>OF</h4>
+
+<h2>OSSIP SCHUBIN</h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h4>BY</h4>
+
+<h3>MRS. A. L. WISTER</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3><span class="sc2">PHILADELPHIA</span><br>
+J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY<br>
+1897.</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr class="W20">
+<h4>Copyright, 1890, by <span class="sc">J. B. Lippincott Company</span>.</h4>
+<hr class="W20">
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_01" href="#div1_01">CHAPTER I.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">A Manuscript Misappropriated.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_02" href="#div1_02">CHAPTER II.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">The Contents of the Manuscript.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_03" href="#div1_03">CHAPTER III.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">An Arrival.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_04" href="#div1_04">CHAPTER IV.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">A Quarrel.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_05" href="#div1_05">CHAPTER V.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Baroness Paula.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_06" href="#div1_06">CHAPTER VI.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Entrapped.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_07" href="#div1_07">CHAPTER VII.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">An Invitation.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_08" href="#div1_08">CHAPTER VIII.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">The Secret.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_09" href="#div1_09">CHAPTER IX.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">An Encounter.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_10" href="#div1_10">CHAPTER X.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">A Garrison Town.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_11" href="#div1_11">CHAPTER XI.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">An Old Friend.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_12" href="#div1_12">CHAPTER XII.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">A Graveyard in Paris.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_13" href="#div1_13">CHAPTER XIII.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">At Dobrotschau.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_14" href="#div1_14">CHAPTER XIV.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Olga.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_15" href="#div1_15">CHAPTER XV.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Comrades and Friends.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_16" href="#div1_16">CHAPTER XVI.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Lato Treurenberg.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_17" href="#div1_17">CHAPTER XVII.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Mismated.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_18" href="#div1_18">CHAPTER XVIII.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">A Friend's Advice.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_19" href="#div1_19">CHAPTER XIX.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Frau Rosa's Birthday.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_20" href="#div1_20">CHAPTER XX.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Komaritz Again.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_21" href="#div1_21">CHAPTER XXI.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">&quot;Poor Lato!&quot;</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_22" href="#div1_22">CHAPTER XXII.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Harry's Musings.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_23" href="#div1_23">CHAPTER XXIII.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Zdena to the Rescue.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_24" href="#div1_24">CHAPTER XXIV.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">A Sleepless Night.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_25" href="#div1_25">CHAPTER XXV.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">The Confession.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_26" href="#div1_26">CHAPTER XXVI.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">The Baron's Aid.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_27" href="#div1_27">CHAPTER XXVII.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Baron Franz.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_28" href="#div1_28">CHAPTER XXVIII.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">A Short Visit.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_29" href="#div1_29">CHAPTER XXIX.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Submission.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_30" href="#div1_30">CHAPTER XXX.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Persecution.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_31" href="#div1_31">CHAPTER XXXI.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Consolation.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_32" href="#div1_32">CHAPTER XXXII.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Interrupted Harmony.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_33" href="#div1_33">CHAPTER XXXIII.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Early Sunrise.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_34" href="#div1_34">CHAPTER XXXIV.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Struggles.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_35" href="#div1_35">CHAPTER XXXV.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">A Slanderer.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_36" href="#div1_36">CHAPTER XXXVI.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Failure.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_37" href="#div1_37">CHAPTER XXXVII.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">A Visit.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_38" href="#div1_38">CHAPTER XXXVIII.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">At Last.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_39" href="#div1_39">CHAPTER XXXIX.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">The Dinner.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_40" href="#div1_40">CHAPTER XL.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">A Farewell.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_41" href="#div1_41">CHAPTER XLI.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Resolve.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_42" href="#div1_42">CHAPTER XLII.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Found.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_43" href="#div1_43">CHAPTER XLIII.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Count Hans.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_44" href="#div1_44">CHAPTER XLIV.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Spring.</span></p>
+<br>
+<h3><a name="div1Ref_45" href="#div1_45">CHAPTER XLV.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Old Baron Franz.</span></p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h1>&quot;O THOU, MY AUSTRIA!&quot;</h1>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_01" href="#div1Ref_01">CHAPTER I.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>A MANUSCRIPT MISAPPROPRIATED.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Krupitschka, is it going to rain?&quot; Major von Leskjewitsch asked his
+servant, who had formerly been his corporal. The major was leaning out
+of a window of his pretty vine-wreathed country-seat, smoking a
+chibouque; Krupitschka, in the garden below, protected by a white
+apron, and provided with a dark-green champagne-bottle, was picking the
+Spanish flies from off the hawthorn-bushes. At his master's question,
+he looked up, gazed at a few clouds on the horizon, replied, &quot;Don't
+know--maybe, and then again maybe not,&quot; and deftly entrapped three
+victims at once in the long neck of his bottle. A few days previous he
+had made a very satisfactory bargain with the apothecary of the
+neighbouring little town for Spanish flies.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ass! Have you just got back from the Delphic oracle?&quot; the major
+exclaimed, angrily, turning away from the window.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the words &quot;Delphic oracle,&quot; Krupitschka pricked up his ears. It
+annoyed him to have his master and the other gentlemen make use of
+words that he did not understand, and he determined to buy a foreign
+dictionary with the proceeds of the sale of his cantharides. Meanwhile,
+he noted down, in a dilapidated memorandum-book, &quot;delphin wrackle,&quot;
+muttering the while, &quot;What sort of team is that, I wonder?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Unable to extort any prognosis of the weather from Krupitschka, the
+major turned to the barometer; but that stood, as it had done
+uninterruptedly for the past fortnight, at 'Changeable.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Blockhead!&quot; growled the major, shaking the barometer a little to rouse
+it from its lethargy; and then, seating himself at the grand piano, he
+thundered away at a piece of music familiar to all the country round as
+&quot;The Major's Triumphal March.&quot; All the country round was likewise
+familiar with the date of the origin of this effective work,--the
+spring of 1866.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At that time the major had composed this march with the patriotic
+intention of dedicating it to the victorious General Benedek, but the
+melancholy events of the brief summer campaign left him no desire to do
+so, and the march was never published; nevertheless, the major played
+it himself now and then, to his own immense satisfaction and to the
+horror of his really musical wife.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This wife, a Northern German by birth, fair and dignified in
+appearance, sat rocking comfortably in an American chair, reading the
+latest number of the <i>German Illustrated News</i>, while her husband
+amused himself at the piano.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The major banged away at the keys in a fury of enthusiasm, until a
+black poodle, which had crept under the piano in despair, howled
+piteously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, Paul,&quot; sighed Frau von Leskjewitsch, letting her paper drop in her
+lap, &quot;are you determined to make my piano atone for the loss of the
+battle of Königgratz?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why do you have a foreign piano, then?&quot; was the patriotic reply; and
+the major went on strumming.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You make Mori wretched,&quot; his wife remarked; &quot;that dog is really
+musical.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A nervous mongrel--a genuine lapdog,&quot; the major muttered,
+contemptuously, without ceasing his performance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your march is absolutely intolerable,&quot; Frau von Leskjewitsch said at
+last.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But if it were only by Richard Wagner--&quot; the major remarked,
+significantly: &quot;of course you Wagnerites do not admit even the
+existence of any composer except your idol.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With this he left the piano, and, with his thumbs stuck into the
+armholes of his vest, began to pace the apartment to and fro.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was quite space enough for him to do so, for the room was large
+and its furniture scanty. Nowhere was he in any danger of stumbling
+over a plush table loaded with bric-à-brac, or a dwarf arm-chair, or
+any other of the ornaments of a modern drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The stock of curios in the house--and it was by no means
+inconsiderable, consisting of exquisite figures and groups of
+Louisburg, Meissen, and old Viennese porcelain, of seventeenth-century
+fans, and of thoroughly useless articles of ivory and silver--was all
+arranged in two antique glass cabinets, standing in such extremely dark
+corners that their contents could not be seen even at mid-day without a
+candle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Baroness Leskjewitsch hated everything, as she was wont to express
+herself, that was useless, that gathered dust, and that was in the way.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In accordance with the severe style of the furniture, perfect order
+reigned everywhere, except that in an arm-chair lay an object in
+striking contrast to the rest of the apartment,--a brown work-basket
+about as large as a common-sized portmanteau. It lay quite forlornly
+upon one side, like a sailing-vessel capsized by the wind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The major paused, looked at the basket with an odd smile, and then
+could not resist the temptation to rummage in it a little.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His wife always maintained that he was something of a Paul Pry; and
+perhaps she was right.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah!&quot; he exclaimed, dragging to light a piece of embroidery upon
+Japanese canvas. &quot;The first design for a cushion--the 17th is
+my birthday. What little red book is this?--'Maximes de La
+Rochefoucauld'--don't know him. And here--why, only look!&quot; He pulled
+out a package tied with blue ribbon. &quot;A manuscript! It seems that Zdena
+has leanings to authorship! H'm--h'm! When a girl like our Zdena takes
+to such ways, it is usually a sign that she feels impelled to confide
+in a roundabout way, to paper, something which nothing could induce her
+to confess frankly to any living being. H'm! I really am curious to
+know what goes on in that whimsical, childish brain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'My Memoirs!'&quot; The major pulled aside the blue ribbon that held the
+package together. &quot;A motto! Two mottoes!--a perfect <i>luxe</i> of mottoes!&quot;
+he murmured, and then read out aloud,--</p>
+<br>
+
+<p style="text-indent:10%; font-size:90%">'Whether you marry or not, you will always repent it.'</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:40%"><span class="sc2">Plato</span>.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">Then comes,--</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<p class="t0" style="text-indent:-8px">'Should you marry, then be sure<br>
+Life's sorest ills you must endure.'</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:20%"><span class="sc2">Lermontow</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal" style="font-size:90%">'L'amour, c'est le grand moteur de toutes les bêtises humaines.'</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:30%"><span class="sc2">G. Sand</span>.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">I really should not have supposed that our Zdena had already pondered
+the marriage problem so deeply,&quot; he said, gleefully; then,
+contemplating with a smile the mass of wisdom scribbled in a bold,
+dashing handwriting, he added, &quot;there seems to be more going on in that
+small brain than we had suspected. &quot;What do you think, Rosel? may not
+Zdena possibly have a weakness for Harry?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nonsense!&quot; replied the Baroness. She was evidently somewhat
+annoyed,--first, because her husband had roused her from a pleasant
+nap, or, rather, disturbed her in the perusal of an article upon
+Grecian excavations, and secondly, because he had called her Rosel. Her
+real name was Rosamunda, a name of which she was very proud; she really
+could not, even after almost twenty years of married life, reconcile
+herself to her husband's thus robbing it of all its poetry. &quot;Nonsense!&quot;
+she exclaimed, with some temper. &quot;I have a very different match in view
+for her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I did not ask you what you had in view for Zdena,&quot; the major observed,
+contemptuously. &quot;I know that without asking. I only wish to know
+whether during your stay in Vienna you did not notice that Zdena had
+taken a liking to----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, Zdena is far too sensible, and, if I am not greatly mistaken, also
+too ambitious, to dream of marrying Harry. She knows that Harry would
+ruin his prospects by a marriage with her,&quot; Frau von Leskjewitsch
+continued. &quot;There's no living upon love and air alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nevertheless there are always some people who insist upon trying it,
+although the impossibility has long been demonstrated, both
+theoretically and practically,&quot; growled the major.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And, aside from all that, Harry is not at all the husband for your
+niece,&quot; Frau Rosamunda went on, didactically. &quot;She is wonderfully well
+developed intellectually, for her age. And he--well, he is a very good
+fellow, I have nothing to say against him, but----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'A very good fellow'! I should like to know where you could find me a
+better,&quot; cried the major. &quot;In the first place, he is as handsome as a
+man can be----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As if beauty in a man were of any importance!&quot; Frau von Leskjewitsch
+remarked, loftily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Paying no attention to this interruption, the major went on reckoning
+up his favourite's advantages, in an angry crescendo. &quot;He rides like a
+centaur!&quot; he declared, loudly, and the comparison pleased him so much
+that he repeated it twice,--&quot;yes, like a centaur; he passed his
+military examinations as if they had been mere play, and he is
+considered one of the most brilliant and talented officers in the
+army. He is a little quick-tempered, but he has the best heart in the
+world, and he has been in love with Zdena since he was a small boy;
+while she----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let me advise you to lower your voice a little,&quot; said Frau Rosamunda,
+going to the window, which she partly closed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Stuff!&quot; muttered her husband.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As you please. If you like to make Zdena a subject for gossip, you are
+quite free to do so, only I would counsel you in that case to consult
+your crony Krupitschka. He has apparently not lost a single word of
+your harangue. I saw him from the window just now, staring up here, his
+mouth wide open, and the Spanish flies crawling out of his bottle and
+up his sleeves.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With which words and a glance of dignified displeasure, Frau Rosamunda
+left the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;H'm! perhaps I was wrong,&quot; thought the major: &quot;women are keener in
+such matters than we men. 'Tis desirable I should be mistaken, but--I'd
+wager my gelding's forefoot,--no--&quot; He shook his head, and contemplated
+the manuscript tied up with blue ribbon. &quot;Let's see,&quot; he murmured, as
+he picked it up and carried it off to his smoking-room.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_02" href="#div1Ref_02">CHAPTER II.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>THE CONTENTS OF THE MANUSCRIPT.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Major Paul Von Leskjewitsch, proprietor of the estates of Lauschitz and
+Zirkow in southwestern Bohemia, had been for twenty years on the
+retired list, and was a prosperous agriculturist. He had formerly been
+a very well-to-do officer, the most steady and trustworthy in the whole
+regiment, always in funds, and very seldom in scrapes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In his youth he had often been a target for Cupid's arrows, a fact of
+which he himself was hardly aware.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What an ass I was!&quot; he was wont to exclaim to his cousin, Captain Jack
+Leskjewitsch, when on occasion the pair became confidential at midnight
+over a glass of good Bordeaux. The thought of his lost opportunities as
+a lover rather weighed upon the worthy dragoon.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In his regiment he had been very popular and had made many friends, but
+with none of them had he been so intimate as with his corporal
+Krupitschka. There was a rumour that before the major's wooing of his
+present wife, a Fräulein von Bösedow, from Pomerania, he had asked this
+famulus of his, &quot;Eh, Krupitschka, what do you think? Shall we marry or
+not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fortunately, this rumour had never reached the ears of the young lady,
+else she might have felt it her duty to reject the major, which would
+have been a pity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In blissful ignorance, therefore, she accepted his proposal, after
+eight days of prudent reflection, and three months later Baron
+Leskjewitsch led her to the altar.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Of course he was utterly wretched during the prolonged wedding
+festivities, and at least very uncomfortable during the honey-moon,
+which, in accordance with the fashion of the day, he spent with his
+bride in railway-carriages, inns, churches, picture-galleries,
+and so forth. In truth, he was terribly bored, tided himself over the
+pauses which frequently occurred in his conversations with his bride
+by reading aloud from the guide-book, took cold in the Colosseum,
+and--breathed a sigh of relief when, after all the instructive
+experiences of their wedding-tour, he found himself comfortably
+established in his charming country-seat at Zirkow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At present the Paul Leskjewitsches had long been known for a model
+couple in all the country round. Countess Zelenitz stoutly maintained
+that they were the least unhappy couple of her acquaintance,--that they
+were past-masters of their art; she meant the most difficult of all
+arts,--that of getting along with each other.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As every piece of music runs on in its own peculiar measure, one to a
+joyous three crotchets to the bar, another to a lyrically languishing
+and anon archly provocative six-quaver time, and so on, the married
+life of the Leskjewitsches was certainly set to a slow four crotchets
+to the bar,--or &quot;common time,&quot; as it is called.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The husband, besides agriculture, and his deplorable piano performances,
+cultivated a certain hypochondriac habit of mind, scrutinized the
+colour of his tongue very frequently, and, although in spite of his
+utmost efforts he was quite unable to discover a flaw in his health,
+tried a new patent tonic every year.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The wife cultivated belles-lettres, devoted some time and attention to
+music, and regulated her domestic affairs with punctilious order and
+neatness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The only fault Leskjewitsch had to find with her was that she was an
+ardent admirer of Wagner, and hence quite unable to appreciate his own
+talent as a composer; while she, for her part, objected to his intimacy
+with Krupitschka and with the stag-hounds. These, however, were mere
+bagatelles. The only real sore spot in this marriage was the luck of
+children.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The manner in which fate indemnified these two people by bestowing upon
+them a delightful companion in the person of a niece of the major's can
+best be learned from the young lady herself, in whose memoirs, with an
+utter disregard of the baseness of such conduct, the major has
+meanwhile become absorbed.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h4>MY MEMOIRS.</h4>
+
+<h4>I.</h4>
+
+<p class="normal">It rains--ah, how it rains! great drops following one another, and
+drenching the garden paths, plash--plash in all the puddles! Never a
+sunbeam to call forth a rainbow against the dark sky, never a gleam of
+light in the dull slaty gray. It seems as if the skies could never have
+done weeping over the monotony of existence--still the same--still the
+same!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I have tried everything by way of amusement. I curled Morl's hair with
+the curling-tongs. I played Chopin's mazurkas until my brain reeled. I
+even went up to the garret, where I knew no one could hear me, and, in
+the presence of an old wardrobe, where uncle's last uniform as a
+lieutenant was hanging, and of two rusty stove-pipes, I declaimed the
+famous monologue from the &quot;Maid of Orleans.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, I could tear my hair with vexation!&quot; as Valentine says. I read
+Faust a while ago,--since last spring I have been allowed to read all
+our classics,--and Faust interested me extremely, especially the
+prologue in heaven, and the first monologue, and then the walk. Ah,
+what a wonderful thing that walk is! But the love-scenes did not please
+me. Gretchen is far too meek and humble to Faust. &quot;Dear God! How ever
+is it such a man can think and know so much?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My voice is very strong and full, and I think I have a remarkable
+talent for the stage. I have often thought of becoming an actress, for
+a change; to--yes, it must out--to have an opportunity at last to show
+myself to the world,--to be admired. Miss O'Donnel is always telling me
+I was made to be admired, and I believe she is right. But what good
+does that do me? I think out all kinds of things, but no one will
+listen to them, especially now that Miss O'Donnel has gone. She seemed
+to listen, at all events, and every now and then would declare, &quot;Child,
+you are a wonder!&quot; That pleased me. But she departed last Saturday, to
+pay a visit to her relatives in Italy. Her niece is being educated
+there for an opera-singer. Since she went there is no one in whom I can
+confide. To be sure, I love Uncle Paul and Aunt Rosamunda dearly,--much
+more dearly than Miss O'Donnel; but I cannot tell them whatever happens
+to come into my head. They would not understand, any more than they
+understand how a girl of my age can demand more of life than if she
+were fifty--but indeed----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Rain--rain still! Since I've nothing else to do, I'll begin to-day to
+write my memoirs!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That sounds presumptuous--the memoirs of a girl whose existence flows
+on between Zirkow and Komaritz. But, after all,--</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<p class="t0" style="text-indent:-10px">
+&quot;Where'er you grasp this human life of ours<br>
+In its full force, be sure 'twill interest;&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="continue">which means, so far as I can understand, that, if one has the courage
+to write down one's personal observations and recollections simply and
+truthfully, it is sure to be worth the trouble.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I will be perfectly frank; and why not?--since I write for myself
+alone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But that's false reasoning; for how many men there are who feign to
+themselves for their own satisfaction, bribing their consciences with
+sophistry! My conscience, however, sleeps soundly without morphine; I
+really believe there is nothing for it to do at present. I can be frank
+because I have nothing to confess.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Every Easter, before confession, I rack my brains to scrape together a
+few sins of some consequence, and I can find nothing but unpunctuality
+at prayers, pertness, and too much desire for worldly frivolities.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Well! Now, to begin without further circumlocution. Most people begin
+their memoirs with the history of their grandparents, some with that of
+their great-grandparents, seeming to suppose that the higher they can
+climb in their genealogical tree the more it adds to their importance.
+I begin simply with the history of my parents.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My father and mother married for love; they never repented their
+marriage, and yet it was the ruin of both of them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My father was well born; not so my mother. Born in Paris, the daughter
+of a needy petty official, she was glad to accept a position as
+saleswoman in one of the fashionable Paris shops. Poor, dear mamma! It
+makes me wretched to think of her, condemned to make up parcels and tie
+up bundles, to mount on stepladders, exposed to the impertinence of
+capricious customers, who always want just what is not to be had,--all
+in the stifling atmosphere of a shop, and for a mere daily pittance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nothing in the world vexes me so much as to have people begin to
+whisper before me, glancing at me compassionately as they nod their
+heads. My ears are very acute, and I know perfectly well that they are
+talking of my poor mother and pitying me because my father married a
+shop-girl. I feel actually boiling with rage. Young as I was when I
+lost her, she still lives in my memory as the loveliest creature I have
+ever met in my life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Tall and very slender, but always graceful, perfectly natural in
+manner, with tiny hands and feet, and large, melancholy, startled eyes,
+in a delicate, old-world face, she looked like an elf who could not
+quite comprehend why she was condemned to carry in her breast so large
+a human heart, well-nigh breaking with tenderness and melancholy. I
+know I look like her, and I am proud of it. Whenever I am presented to
+one of my couple of hundred aunts whose acquaintance I am condemned to
+make, she is sure to exclaim, &quot;How very like Fritz she is!--all Fritz!&quot;
+And I never fail to rejoin, &quot;Oh, no, I am like my mother; every one who
+knew her says I am like mamma.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then my aunts' faces grow long, and they think me pert.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Although I was scarcely six years old when Uncle Paul took us away from
+Paris, I can remember distinctly my home there. It was in a steep
+street in Montmartre, very high up on the fourth or fifth floor of a
+huge lodging-house. The sunlight shone in long broad streaks into our
+rooms through the high windows, outside of which extended an iron
+balcony. Our rooms were very pretty, very neat,--but very plain. Papa
+did not seem to belong to them; I don't know how I discovered this, but
+I found it out, little as I was. The ceilings looked low, when he rose
+from the rocking-chair, where he loved to sit, and stood at his full
+height. He always held his head gaily, high in the air, never bowing it
+humbly to suit his modest lodgings.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His circumstances, cramped for the time, as I learned later, by his
+imprudent marriage, contracted in spite of his father's disapproval,
+apparently struck him as a good joke, or, at the worst, as a passing
+annoyance. He always maintained the gay humour of a man of rank who,
+finding himself overtaken by a storm upon some party of pleasure, is
+obliged to take refuge in a wretched village inn.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now and then he would stretch out his arms as if to measure the
+smallness of his house, and laugh. But mamma would cast down her large
+eyes sadly; then he would clasp her to his breast, kiss her, and call
+her the delight of his life; and I would creep out of the corner where
+I had been playing with my dolls, and pluck him by the sleeve,
+jealously desirous of my share of caresses.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In my recollection of my earliest childhood--a recollection without
+distinct outlines, and like some sweet, vague dream lingering in the
+most secret, cherished corner of my heart--everything is warm and
+bright; it is all light and love!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Papa is almost always with us in our sunny little nest. I see him
+still,--ah, how plainly!--leaning back in his rocking-chair, fair,
+with a rather haughty but yet kindly smile, his eyes sparkling with
+good-humoured raillery. He is smoking a cigarette, and reading the
+paper, apparently with nothing in the world to do but to enjoy life;
+all the light in the little room seems to come from him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The first four years of my life blend together in my memory like one
+long summer day, without the smallest cloud in the blue skies above it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I perfectly remember the moment in which my childish happiness was
+interrupted by the first disagreeable sensation. It was an emotion of
+dread. Until then I must have slept through all the hours of darkness,
+for, when once I suddenly wakened and found the light all gone, I was
+terrified at the blackness above and around me, and I screamed aloud.
+Then I noticed that mamma was kneeling, sobbing, beside my bed. Her
+sobs must have wakened me. She lighted a candle to soothe me, and told
+me a story. In the midst of my eager listening, I asked her, &quot;Where is
+papa?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She turned her head away, and said, &quot;Out in the world!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Out in the world----&quot; Whether or not it was the tone in which she
+pronounced the word &quot;world,&quot; I cannot tell, but it has ever since had a
+strange sound for me,--a sound betokening something grand yet terrible.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thus I made the discovery that there were nights, and that grown-up
+people could cry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Soon afterwards it was winter; the nights grew longer, the days
+shorter, and it was never really bright in our home again,--the
+sunshine had vanished.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was cold, and the trees in the gardens high up in Montmartre, where
+they took me to walk, grew bare and ugly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Once, I remember, I asked my mother, &quot;Mamma, will the trees never be
+green again?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, yes, when the spring comes,&quot; she made answer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And then will it be bright here again?&quot; I asked, anxiously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To this she made no reply, but her eyes suddenly grew so sad that I
+climbed into her lap and kissed her upon both eyelids.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Papa was rarely with us now, and I was convinced that he had taken the
+sunshine away from our home.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When at long intervals he came to dine with us, there was as much
+preparation as if a stranger had been expected. Mamma busied herself in
+the kitchen, helping the cook, who was also my nurse-maid, to prepare
+the dinner. She laid the cloth herself, and decorated the table with
+flowers. To me everything looked magnificent: I was quite awe-stricken
+by the unwonted splendour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One day a very beautiful lady paid us a visit, dressed in a velvet
+cloak trimmed with ermine--I did not know until some time afterwards
+the name of the fur--and a gray hat. I remember the hat distinctly, I
+was so delighted with the bird sitting on it. She expressed herself as
+charmed with everything in our home, stared about her through her
+eye-glass, overturned a small table and two footstools with her train,
+kissed me repeatedly, and begged mamma to come soon to see her. She was
+a cousin of papa's, a Countess Gatinsky,--the very one for whom, when
+she was a young girl and papa an elegant young attaché, he had been
+doing the honours of Paris on that eventful afternoon when, while she
+and her mother were busy and absorbed, shopping in the <i>Bon Marché</i>, he
+had fallen desperately in love with my pale, beautiful mother.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When the Countess left us, mamma cried bitterly. I do not know whether
+she ever returned the visit, but it was never repeated, and I never saw
+the Countess again, save once in the Bois de Boulogne, where I was
+walking with my mother. She was sitting in an open barouche, and my
+father was beside her. Opposite them an old man sat crouched up,
+looking very discontented, and very cold, although the day was quite
+mild and he was wrapped up in furs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They saw us in the distance; the Countess smiled and waved her hand;
+papa grew very red, and lifted his hat in a stiff, embarrassed way.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I remember wondering at his manner: what made him bow to us as if we
+were two strangers?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mamma hurried me on, and we got into the first omnibus she could find.
+I stroked her hand or smoothed the folds of her gown all the way home,
+for I felt that she had been hurt, although I could not tell how.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The days grow sadder and darker, and yet the spring has come. Was there
+really no sunshine in that April and May, or is it so only in my
+memory?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile, the trees have burst into leaf, and the first early cherries
+have decked our modest table. We have not seen papa for a long time. He
+is staying at a castle in the neighbourhood of Paris, but only for a
+few days.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It is a sultry afternoon in the beginning of June,--I learned the date
+of that wretched day later. The flowers in the balcony before our
+windows, scarlet carnations and fragrant mignonette, are drooping,
+because mamma has forgotten to water them, and mamma herself looks as
+weary as the flowers. Pale and miserable, she moves about the room with
+the air of one whom the first approach of some severe illness half
+paralyzes. Her pretty gown, a dark-blue silk with white spots, seems to
+hang upon her slender figure. She arranges the articles in the room
+here and there restlessly, and, noticing a soft silken scarf which papa
+sometimes wore knotted carelessly about his throat in the mornings, and
+which has been left hanging on the knob of a curtain, she picks it up,
+passes it slowly between her hands, and holds it against her cheek.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There!--is not that a carriage stopping before our door? I run out
+upon the balcony, but can see nothing of what is going on in the
+street below; our rooms are too high up. I can see, however, that the
+people who live opposite are hurrying to their windows, and that the
+passers-by stop in the street, and stand and talk together, gathering
+in a little knot. A strange bustling noise ascends the staircase; it
+comes up to our landing,--the heavy tread of men supporting some
+weighty burden.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mamma stands spellbound for a moment, and then flings the door open and
+cries out. It is papa whom they are bringing up, deadly pale, covered
+with blankets, helpless as a child.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There had been an accident in an avenue not far from Bellefontaine, the
+castle which the Countess Gatinsky had hired for the summer. Papa had
+been riding with her,--riding a skittish, vicious horse, against which
+he had been warned. He had only laughed, however, declaring that he
+knew how to manage the brute. But he could not manage him. As I learned
+afterwards, the horse, after vainly trying to throw his rider, had
+reared, and rolled over backwards upon him. He was taken up senseless.
+When he recovered consciousness in Bellefontaine, whither they carried
+him, and the physician told him frankly that he was mortally hurt, he
+desired to be taken home,--to those whom he loved best in the world.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At first they would not accede to his wishes; Countess Gatinsky wanted
+to send for mamma and me,--to bring us to Bellefontaine. But he would
+not hear of it. He was told that to take him to Paris would be an
+injury to him in his present condition. Injury!--he laughed at the
+word. He wanted to die in the dear little nest in Paris, and it was a
+dying man's right to have his way.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I have never talked of this to any one, but I have thought very often
+of our sorrow, of the shadow that suddenly fell upon my childhood and
+extinguished all its sunshine.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And I have often heard people whispering together about it when they
+thought I was not listening. But I listened, listened involuntarily, as
+one does to words which one would afterwards give one's life not to
+have heard. And when the evil words stabbed me like a knife, it was a
+comfort to be able to say to myself, &quot;It was merely the caprice of a
+moment,--his heart had no share in it;&quot; it was a comfort to be able to
+say that mamma sat at his bedside and that he died with his hand in
+hers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I do not remember how long the struggle lasted before death came, but I
+never can forget the moment when I was taken in to see him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I can see the room now perfectly,--the bucket of ice upon which the
+afternoon sun glittered, the bloody bandages on the floor, the
+furniture in disorder, and, lying here and there, articles of dress
+which had not yet been put away. There, in the large bed, where the gay
+flowered curtains had been drawn back as far as possible to let in the
+air, lay papa. His cheeks were flushed and his blue eyes sparkled, and
+when I went up to him he laughed. I could not believe that he was ill.
+Mamma sat at the head of the bed, dressed in her very prettiest gown,
+her wonderful hair loosened and hanging in all its silken softness
+about her shoulders. She, too, smiled; but her smile made me shiver.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Papa looked long and lovingly at me, and, taking my small hand in his,
+put it to his lips. Then he made the sign of the cross upon my
+forehead. I stood on tiptoe to kiss him, and I embraced him with all
+the fervour of my five years. Mamma drew me back. &quot;You hurt him,&quot; she
+said. He laughed,--laughed as a brave man laughs at pain. He always
+laughed: I never saw him grave but once,--only once. Mamma burst into
+tears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Minette, Minette, do not be a coward. I want you to be beautiful
+always,&quot; said he. Those words I perfectly remember.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes, he wanted her to be beautiful to the last!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They sent me out of the room. As I turned at the door, I saw how papa
+stroked mamma's wonderful hair--slowly--lingeringly--with his slender
+white hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I sat in the kitchen all the long summer afternoon. At first our
+servant told me stories. Then she had to go out upon an errand; I
+stayed in the kitchen alone, sitting upon a wooden bench, staring
+before me, my doll, with which I did not care to play, lying upon the
+brick floor beside me. The copper saucepans on the wall gleam and
+glitter in the rays of the declining sun, and the bluebottle flies
+crawl and buzz about their shining surfaces.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A moaning monotonous sound, now low, then loud, comes from my father's
+room. I feel afraid, but I cannot stir: I am, as it were, rooted to my
+wooden bench. The hoarse noise grows more and more terrible.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gradually twilight seems to fall from the ceiling and to rise from the
+floor; the copper vessels on the wall grow vague and indistinct; here
+and there a gleam of brilliancy pierces the gray gloom, then all is
+dissolved in darkness. In the distance a street-organ drones out
+Malbrough; I have hated the tune ever since. The moans grow louder. I
+lean my head forward upon my knees and stop my ears. What is that? One
+brief, piercing cry,--and all is still!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I creep on tiptoe to papa's room. The door is open. I can see mamma
+bending over him, kissing him, and lavishing caresses upon him: she is
+no longer afraid of hurting him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That night a neighbour took me home with her, and when I came back, the
+next day, papa lay in his black coffin in a darkened room, and candles
+were burning all around him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He seemed to me to have grown. And what dignity there was in his face!
+That was the only time I ever saw him look grave.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mamma lifted me up that I might kiss him. Something cold seemed
+to touch my cheek, and suddenly I felt I--cannot describe the
+sensation--an intense dread,--the same terror, only ten times as great,
+as that which overcame me when I first wakened in the night and was
+aware of the darkness. Screaming, I extricated myself from mamma's
+arms, and ran out of the room.----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">(Here the major stopped to brush away the tears before reading on.)</p>
+
+<p class="normal">----For a while mamma tried to remain in Paris and earn our living by
+the embroidery in which she was so skilful; but, despite all her
+trying, she could not do it. The servant-girl was sent away, our rooms
+grew barer and barer, and more than once I went to bed crying with
+hunger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In November, Uncle Paul came to see us, and took us back with him to
+Bohemia. I cannot recall the journey, but our arrival I remember
+distinctly,--the long drive from the station, along the muddy road,
+between low hedges, or tall, slim poplars; then through the forest,
+where the wind tossed about the dry fallen leaves, and a few
+crimson-tipped daisies still bloomed gaily by the roadside, braving the
+brown desolation about them; past curious far-stretching villages,
+their low huts but slightly elevated above the mud about them, their
+black thatched roofs green in spots with moss, their narrow windows gay
+with flowers behind the thick, dim panes; past huge manure-heaps, upon
+which large numbers of gay-coloured fowls were clucking and crowing,
+and past stagnant ditches where amber-coloured swine were wallowing
+contentedly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The dogs rush excitedly out of the huts, to run barking after our
+carriage, while a mob of barefooted, snub-nosed children, their breath
+showing like smoke in the frosty air, come bustling out of school, and
+shout after us &quot;Praised be Jesus Christ!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A turn--we have driven into the castle court-yard; Krupitschka hastens
+to open the carriage door. At the top of the steps stands a tall lady
+in mourning, very majestic in appearance, with a kind face. I see mamma
+turn pale, shrink--then all is a blank.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h4>II.</h4>
+
+<p class="normal">At the period when I again take up my reminiscences I am entirely at
+home at Zirkow, and almost as familiar with Uncle Paul and Aunt Rosa as
+if I had known them both all my life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Winter has set in, and, ah, such a wonderful, beautiful winter,--so
+bright, and glittering with such quantities of pure white snow! I go
+sleighing with Uncle Paul; I make a snow man with Krupitschka,--a monk
+in a long robe, because the legs of the soldier we tried to make would
+not stand straight; and I help Krupitschka's wife to make bread in a
+large wooden bowl with iron hoops. How delicious is the odour of
+the fermenting dough, and how delightful it is to run about the long
+brick-paved corridors and passages, to have so much space and light and
+air! When one day Uncle Paul asks me, &quot;Which is best, Paris or Zirkow?&quot;
+I answer, without hesitation, &quot;Zirkow!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Uncle Paul laughs contentedly, but mamma looks at me sadly. I feel that
+I have grieved her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now and then I think of papa, especially before I go to sleep at night.
+Then I sometimes wonder if the snow is deep on his grave in the
+churchyard at Montmartre, and if he is not cold in the ground. Poor
+papa!--he loved the sun so dearly! And I look over at mamma, who sits
+and sews at a table near my bed, and it worries me to see the tears
+rolling down her cheeks again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Poor mamma! She grows paler, thinner, and sadder every day, although my
+uncle and aunt do everything that they can for her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If I remember rightly, she was seldom with her hosts except at
+meal-times. She lived in strict retirement, in the two pretty rooms
+which had been assigned us, and was always trying to make herself
+useful with her needle to Aunt Rosa, who never tired of admiring her
+beautiful, delicate work.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Towards spring her hands were more than ever wont to drop idly
+in her lap, and when the snow had gone and everything outside was
+beginning to stir, she would sit for hours in the bow-window where
+her work-table stood, doing nothing, only gazing out towards the
+west,--gazing--gazing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The soiled snow had vanished; the water was dripping from roofs and
+trees; everything was brown and bare. A warm breath came sweeping over
+the world. For a couple of days all nature sobbed and thrilled, and
+then spring threw over the earth her fragrant robe of blossoms.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was my first spring in the country, and I never shall forget my
+joyful surprise each morning at all that had been wrought overnight. I
+could not tell which to admire most, buds, flowers, or butterflies.
+From morning till night I roamed about in the balmy air, amid the
+tender green of grass and shrubs. And at night I was so tired that I
+was asleep almost before the last words of my childish prayer had died
+upon my lips. Ah, how soundly I slept!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But one night I suddenly waked, with what seemed to me the touch of a
+soft hand upon my cheek,--papa's hand. I started up and looked about
+me; there was no one to be seen. The breeze of spring had caressed
+me,--that was all. How had it found its way in?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The moon was at the full, and in its white light everything in the room
+stood revealed and yet veiled. I sat up uneasily, and then noticed that
+mamma's bed was empty. I was frightened. &quot;Mamma! mamma!&quot; I called, half
+crying.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was no reply. I sprang from my little bed, and ran into the next
+room, the door of which was open.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mamma was standing there at the window, gazing out towards the west.
+The window was wide open; our rooms were at the back of the castle, and
+looked out upon the orchard, where nature was celebrating its
+resurrection with festal splendour. The huge old apple-trees were all
+robed in delicate pink-white blossoms, the tender grass beneath them
+glittered with dew, and above it and among the waving blossoms sighed
+the warm breeze of spring as if from human lips. Mamma stood with
+extended arms whispering the tenderest words out into the night,--words
+that sounded as if stifled among sighs and kisses. She wore the same
+dress in which she had sat by papa's bedside when he wished her to be
+beautiful at their parting. Her hair hung loose about her shoulders. I
+gasped for breath, and threw my arms about her, crying, &quot;Mamma! mamma!&quot;
+She turned, and seemed about to thrust me from her almost angrily, then
+suddenly began to weep bitterly like a child just wakened from sleep,
+and crept back gently and ashamed to our bedroom. Without undressing
+she lay down on her bed, and I covered her up as well as I could.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I could not sleep that night, and I heard her moan and move restlessly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next morning she could not come down to breakfast; a violent
+nervous fever had attacked her, and ten days afterwards she died.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They broke the sad truth to me slowly, first saying that she had gone
+on a journey, and then that she was with God in heaven. I knew she was
+dead,--and what that meant.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I can but dimly remember the days that followed her death. I dragged
+myself about beneath the burden of a grief far too great for my poor,
+childish little heart, and grew more and more weary, until at last I
+was attacked by the same illness of which my mother had died.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When I recovered, the memory of all that had happened before my illness
+no longer gave me any pain. I looked back upon the past with what was
+almost indifference. Not until long, long afterwards did I comprehend
+the wealth of love of which my mother's death had deprived me.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h4>III.</h4>
+
+<p class="normal">It really is very entertaining to write one's memoirs. I will go
+on, although it is not raining to-day. On the contrary, it is very
+warm,--so warm that I cannot stay out of doors.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Aunt Rosamunda is in the drawing-room, entertaining the colonel of the
+infantry regiment in garrison at X----. She sent for me, but I excused
+myself, through Krupitschka. When lieutenants of hussars come, she
+never sends for me. It really is ridiculous: does she suppose my head
+could be turned by any officer of hussars? The idea! Upon my word!
+Still, I should like for once just to try whether Miss O'Donnel is
+right, whether I only need wish to have--oh, how delightful it would be
+to be adored to my heart's content! Since, however, there is no
+prospect of anything of the kind, I will continue to write my memoirs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I have taken off my gown and slipped on a thin white morning wrapper,
+and the cook, with whom I am a great favourite, has sent me up a
+pitcher of iced lemonade to strengthen me for my literary labours. My
+windows are open, and look out upon a wilderness of old trees with wild
+roses blooming among them. Ah, how sweet the roses are! The bees buzz
+over them monotonously, the leaves scarcely rustle, not a bird is
+singing. The world certainly is very beautiful, even if one has nothing
+entertaining to do except to write memoirs. Now that I have finished
+telling of my parents, I will pass on to my nearest relatives.----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">(&quot;Oho!&quot; said the major. &quot;I am curious to see what she has to say of
+us.&quot;)</p>
+
+<p class="normal">----Uncle Paul is the middle one of three brothers, the eldest of whom
+is my grandfather.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Barons von Leskjewitsch are of Croatian descent, and are convinced
+of the antiquity of their family, without being able to prove it. There
+has never been any obstacle to their being received at court, and for
+many generations they have maintained a blameless propriety of
+demeanour and have contracted very suitable marriages.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Although all the members of this illustrious family are forever
+quarrelling among themselves, and no one Leskjewitsch has ever been
+known to get along well with another Leskjewitsch, they nevertheless
+have a deal of family feeling, which manifests itself especially in a
+touching pride in all the peculiarities of the Leskjewitsch
+temperament. These peculiarities are notorious throughout the
+kingdom,--such, at least, is the firm conviction of the Leskjewitsch
+family. Whatever extraordinary feats the Leskjewitsches may have
+performed hitherto, they have never been guilty of any important
+departure from an ordinary mode of life, but each member of the family
+has nevertheless succeeded in being endowed from the cradle with a
+patent of eccentricity, in virtue of which mankind are more or less
+constrained to accept his or her eccentricities as a matter of course.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I am shocked now by what I have here written down. Of course I am a
+Leskjewitsch, or I never should allow myself to pass so harsh a
+judgment upon my nearest of kin. I suppose I ought to erase those
+lines, but, after all, no one will ever see them, and there is
+something pleasing in my bold delineation of the family
+characteristics. The style seems to me quite striking. So I will let my
+words stand as they are,--especially since the only one of the family
+who has ever been kind to me--Uncle Paul--is, according to the
+universal family verdict, no genuine Leskjewitsch, but a degenerate
+scion. In the first place, his hair and complexion are fair, and, in
+the second place, he is sensible. Among men in general, I believe he
+passes for mildly eccentric; his own family find him distressingly like
+other people.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To which of the two other brothers the prize for special originality is
+due, to the oldest or to the youngest,--to my grandfather or to the
+father of my playmate Harry,--the world finds it impossible to decide.
+Both are widowers, both are given over to a craze for travel. My
+grandfather's love of travel, however, reminds one of the restlessness
+of a white mouse turning the wheel in its cage; while my uncle Karl's
+is like that of the Wandering Jew, for whose restless soul this globe
+is too narrow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My grandfather is continually travelling from one to another of his
+estates, seldom varying the round; Uncle Karl by turns hunts lions in
+the Soudan and walruses at the North Pole; and in their other
+eccentricities the brothers are very different. My grandfather is a
+cynic; Uncle Karl is a sentimentalist. My grandfather starts from the
+principle that all effort which has any end in view, save the
+satisfying of his excellent appetite and the promotion of his sound
+sleep, is nonsense; Uncle Karl intends to write a work which, if
+rightly appreciated, will entirely reform the spirit of the age. My
+grandfather is a miser; Uncle Karl is a spendthrift. Uncle Karl is
+beginning to see the bottom of his purse; my grandfather is enormously
+rich.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When I add that my grandfather is a conservative with a manner which is
+intentionally rude, and that Uncle Karl is a radical with the bearing
+of a courtier, I consider the picture of the two men tolerably
+complete. All that is left to say is that I know my uncle Karl only
+slightly, and my grandfather not at all, wherefore my descriptions
+must, unfortunately, lack the element of personal observation, being
+drawn almost entirely from hearsay.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My grandfather's cynicism could not always have been so pronounced as
+at present; they say he was not naturally avaricious, but that he
+became so in behalf of my father, his only son. He saved and pinched
+for him, laying by thousands upon thousands, buying estate after estate
+only to assure his favourite a position for which a prince might envy
+him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Finally he procured him an appointment as attaché in the Austrian
+Legation in Paris, and when papa spent double his allowance the old man
+only laughed and said, &quot;Youth must have its swing.&quot; But when my father
+married a poor girl of the middle class, my grandfather simply banished
+him from his heart, and would have nothing more to do with him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After this papa slowly consumed the small property he had inherited
+from his mother, and at his death nothing of it was left.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Uncle Paul was the only one of the family who still clung to my father
+after his <i>mésalliance</i>,--the one eccentricity which had never been set
+down in the Leskjewitsch programme. When mamma in utter destitution
+applied to him for help, he went to my grandfather, told him of the
+desperate extremity to which she was reduced, and entreated him to do
+something for her and for me. My grandfather merely replied that he did
+not support vagabonds.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My cousin Heda, whose custom it is to tell every one of everything
+disagreeable she hears said about them,--for conscience' sake, that
+they may know whom to mistrust,--furnished me with these details.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The upshot of the interview was, first, that my uncle Paul quarrelled
+seriously with my grandfather, and, second, that he resolved to go to
+Paris forthwith and see that matters were set right.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Aunt Rosa maintains that at the last moment he asked Krupitschka to
+sanction his decision. This is a malicious invention; but when Heda
+declares that he brought us to Bohemia chiefly with the view of
+disgracing and vexing my grandfather, there may be some grain of truth
+in her assertion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Many years have passed since our modest entrance here in Zirkow, but my
+amiable grandfather still maintains his determined hostility towards
+Uncle Paul and myself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His favourite occupation seems to consist in perfecting each year, with
+the help of a clever lawyer, his will, by which I am deprived, so far
+as is possible, of the small share of his wealth which falls to me
+legally as my father's heir. He has chosen for his sole heir his
+youngest brother's eldest son, my playmate Harry, upon condition that
+Harry marries suitably, which means a girl with sixteen quarterings. I
+have no quarterings, so if Harry marries me he will not have a penny.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">How could such an idea occur to him? It is too ridiculous to be thought
+of. But--what if he did take it into his head? Oh, I have sound sense
+enough for two, and I know exactly what I want,--a grand position, an
+opportunity to play in the world the part for which I feel myself
+capable,--everything, in short, that he could not offer me. Moreover, I
+am quite indifferent to him. I have a certain regard for him for the
+sake of old times, and therefore he shall have a chapter of these
+memoirs all to himself.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">----At the end of this chapter the major shook his head disapprovingly.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h4>IV.</h4>
+
+<h4>MY DEAREST PLAYMATE.</h4>
+
+<p class="normal">The first time that I saw him he was riding upon a pig,--a wonder of a
+pig; it looked like a huge monster to me,--which he guided by its ears.
+One is not a Leskjewitsch for nothing. It was at Komaritz---- But I
+will describe the entire day, which I remember with extraordinary
+distinctness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Uncle Paul himself took me to Komaritz in his pretty little dog-cart,
+drawn by a pair of spirited ponies in gay harness and trappings. Of
+course I sat on the box beside my uncle, being quite aware that this
+was the seat of honour. I wore an embroidered white gown, long black
+stockings, and a black sash, and carried a parasol which I had borrowed
+of Aunt Rosa, not because I needed it,--my straw hat perfectly shielded
+my face from the sun,--but because it seemed to me required for the
+perfection of my toilet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I was very well pleased with myself, and nodded with great
+condescension to the labourers and schoolchildren whom we met.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I have never attempted to conceal from myself or to deny the fact that
+I am vain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ah, how merrily we bowled along over the white, dusty road! The ponies'
+hoofs hardly touched the ground. After a while the road grew bad, and
+we drove more slowly. Then we turned into a rough path between high
+banks. What a road! Deep as a chasm; the wheels of the vehicle jolted
+right and left through ruts overgrown with thistles, brambles, and wild
+roses.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Suppose we should meet another carriage?&quot; I asked my uncle, anxiously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Just what I was asking myself,&quot; he replied, composedly; &quot;there is
+really no room for passing. But why not trust in Providence?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The road grows worse, but now, instead of passing through a chasm, it
+runs along the edge of a precipice. The dog-cart leans so far to one
+side that the groom gets out to steady it. The wheels grate against the
+stones, and the ponies shake their shaggy heads discontentedly, as much
+as to say, &quot;We were not made for such work as this.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In after-years, when so bad a road in the midst of one of the most
+civilized provinces of Austria seemed to me inexplicable, Uncle Paul
+explained it to me. At one time in his remembrance the authorities
+decided to lay out a fine road there, but Uncle Karl contrived to
+frustrate their purpose; he did not wish to have Komaritz too
+accessible--for fear of guests.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A delicious pungent fragrance is wafted from the vine-leaves in the
+vineyards on the sides of the hills, flocks of white and yellow
+butterflies hover above them, the grasshoppers chirp shrilly, and from
+the distance comes the monotonous sound of the sweep of the mower's
+scythe. The sun is burning hot, and the shadows are short and
+coal-black.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Click-clack--click-clack--precipice and ravine lie behind us, and we
+are careering along a delightful road shaded by huge walnut-trees.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A brown, shapeless ruin crowning a vine-clad eminence rises before us.
+Click-clack--click-clack--the ponies fly past a marble St. John, around
+which are grouped three giant lindens, whose branches scatter fading
+blossoms upon us; past a smithy, from which issues a strong odour of
+wagon-grease and burnt hoofs; past a slaughter-house, in front of which
+a butchered ox is hanging from a chestnut-tree; past pretty whitewashed
+cottages, some of them two stories high and with flower-gardens in
+front,--Komaritz is a far more important and prosperous village than
+Zirkow; then through a lofty but perilously ruinous archway into
+a spacious, steeply-ascending court-yard, through the entire length
+of which runs a broad gutter. Yes, yes, it was there--in that
+court-yard--that I saw him for the first time, and he was riding upon a
+pig, holding fast by its ears, and the animal, galloping furiously, was
+doing its best to throw him off. But this was no easy matter, for he
+sat as if he were part of his steed, and withal maintained a loftiness
+of bearing that would have done honour to a Spanish grandee at a
+coronation. He was very handsome, very slender, very brown, and wore a
+white suit, the right sleeve of which was spotted with ink.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In front of the castle, at a wooden table fastened to the ground
+beneath an old pear-tree, sat a yellow-haired young man, with a bloated
+face and fat hands, watching the spectacle calmly and drinking beer
+from a stone mug with a leaden cover.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When the pig found that it could not throw its rider, it essayed
+another means to be rid of him. It lay down in the gutter and rolled
+over in the mud. When Harry arose, he looked like the bad boys in
+&quot;Slovenly Peter&quot; after they had been dipped in the inkstand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I told you how it would be,&quot; the fat young man observed,
+phlegmatically, and went on drinking beer. As I afterwards learned, he
+was Harry's tutor, Herr Pontius.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What does it matter?&quot; said Harry, composedly, looking down at the mud
+dripping from him, as if such a bath were an event of every-day
+occurrence; &quot;I did what I chose to do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And now I shall do what I choose to do. You will go to your room and
+translate fifty lines of Horace.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. I now think that he was
+posing a little for our sakes, for we had just driven up to the castle,
+but then his composure made a great impression upon me. After he had
+bowed respectfully to Uncle Paul from where he stood, he vanished
+behind a side-door of the castle, at the chief entrance of which we had
+drawn up. A dignified footman received us in the hall, and a crowd of
+little black dachshunds, with yellow feet and eyebrows, barked a loud
+welcome.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">We were conducted into a large room on the ground-floor,--apparently
+reception-room, dining-room, and living-room all in one,--whence a low
+flight of wooden steps led out into the garden. A very sallow but
+otherwise quite pretty Frenchwoman, who reminded me--I cannot tell
+why--of the black dachshunds, and who proved to be my little cousin's
+governess, received us here and did the honours for us.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My cousin Heda, a yellow-haired little girl with portentously good
+manners, relieved me of my parasol, and asked me if I had not found the
+drive very warm. Whilst I made some monosyllabic and confused reply, I
+was wondering whether her brother would get through his punishment and
+make his appearance again before we left. When my uncle withdrew on the
+pretext of looking after some agricultural matter, Heda asked me if I
+would not play graces with her. She called it <i>jeu de gráce</i>, and, in
+fact, spoke French whenever it was possible.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I agreed, she brought the graces, and we went out into the garden.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Oh, that Komaritz garden! How clumsy and ugly, and yet what a dear,
+old-fashioned garden it was! Lying at the foot of the hill crowned by
+the ancient ruin and the small frame house built for the tutors,--who
+were changed about every two months,--it was divided into huge
+rectangular flower-beds, bordered with sage, lavender, or box, from
+which mighty old apricot-trees looked down upon a luxuriant wilderness
+of lilies, roses, blue monk's-hood, scarlet verbenas, and whatever else
+was in season. Back of this waste of flowers there were all sorts of
+shrubs,--hawthorns, laburnums, jessamines, with here and there an
+ancient hundred-leaved rose-bush, whose heavy blossoms, borne down by
+their own weight, drooped and lay upon the mossy paths that intersected
+this thicket. Then came a green lawn, where was a swing hung between
+two old chestnuts, and near by stood a queer old summerhouse, circular,
+with a lofty tiled roof, upon the peak of which gleamed a battered
+brass crescent. Everywhere in the shade were fastened in the ground
+comfortable garden-seats, smelling deliciously of moss and mouldering
+wood, and where you least expected it the ground sloped to a little
+bubbling spring, its banks clothed with velvet verdure and gay with
+marsh daisies and spiderwort, sprung from seed which the wind had
+wafted hither. I cannot begin to tell of the kitchen-garden and
+orchard; I should never be done.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And just as I have here described it as it was fourteen years ago the
+dear old garden stands to-day, with the exception of some trifling
+changes; but--they are talking of improvements--poor garden! What
+memories are evoked when I think of it!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Again I am six years old and playing with Heda,--I intent and awkward,
+Heda elegantly indifferent. If one of her hoops soars away over my
+head, or falls among the flowers in one of the beds, she shrugs her
+shoulders with an affected smile, and exclaims, &quot;<i>Monstre!</i>&quot; At first I
+offer to creep in among the flowers after the lost hoop, but she
+rejects my offer with a superior &quot;<i>Quelle idée!</i>&quot; and assures me that
+it is the gardener's business.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Consequently, we soon come to the end of our supply of hoops, and are
+obliged to have recourse to some other mode of amusing ourselves.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am quite out of breath,&quot; says Heda, fanning herself with her
+pocket-handkerchief. &quot;'Tis a stupid don't you think so?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But if I only could do it!&quot; I sigh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is quite out of fashion; nothing is played now but croquet,&quot; she
+informs me. &quot;Do you like to play croquet?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do not know what croquet is,&quot; I confess, much mortified.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ha, ha!&quot; she laughs. &quot;Mademoiselle,&quot; turning to the governess, who is
+now seated on the garden-steps, &quot;only think, <i>ma petite cousine</i> does
+not know what croquet is!--delicious! Excuse me,&quot; taking my hand, &quot;it
+is very ill bred to laugh, <i>mais c'est plus fort que moi</i>. It is a
+delightful game, that is played with balls and iron hoops. Sometimes
+you strike your foot, and that hurts; but more often you only pretend
+that it does, and then the gentlemen all come round you an pity you: it
+is too delightful. But sit down,&quot; pointing with self-satisfied
+condescension to the steps. We both sit down, and she goes on: &quot;Where
+did you pass the winter?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;At Zirkow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, in the country! I pity you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Heda--I mention this in a parenthesis--was at this time scarcely ten
+years old. &quot;No winter in the country for me,&quot; this pleasure-loving
+young person continues. &quot;Oh, what a delightful winter I had! I was at
+twelve balls. It is charming if you have partners enough--oh, when
+three gentlemen beg for a waltz! But society in Prague is nothing to
+that of Vienna--I always say there is only one Vienna. Were you ever in
+Vienna?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; I murmur. Suddenly, however, my humiliated self-consciousness
+rebels, and, setting my arms akimbo, I ask, &quot;And were you ever in
+Paris?&quot; The Frenchwoman behind us laughs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Down from above us falls a hard projectile upon Heda's fair head,--a
+large purple bean,--and then another. She looks up angrily. Harry is
+leaning out of a window above us, his elbows resting on the sill, and
+his head between his hands. &quot;What an ill-bred boor you are!&quot; she calls
+out.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And do you know what you are?&quot; he shouts; &quot;an affected
+braggart--that's what you are.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With which he jumps from the window into the branches of a tree just
+before it, and comes scrambling down to the ground. &quot;What is your
+name?&quot; he asks me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Zdena.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am happy to make your acquaintance, Zdena. Heda bores you, doesn't
+she?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I shake my head and laugh; feeling a protector near me, I am quite
+merry once more. &quot;Would you like to take a little ride, Zdena?&quot; he
+asks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Upon a pig?&quot; I inquire, in some trepidation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He laughs, somewhat embarrassed, and shrugs his shoulders. &quot;You do not
+really suppose that I am in the habit of riding pigs!&quot; he exclaims; &quot;I
+only do it when my tutor forbids it--it is too ridiculous to suppose
+such a thing!&quot; and he hurries away.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I look after him remorsefully. I am vexed to have been so foolish, and
+I am sorry to have frightened him away.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In a few minutes, however, he appears again, and this time on
+horseback. He is riding a beautiful pony, chestnut, with a rather
+dandified long tail and a bushy mane. Harry has a splendid seat, and is
+quite aware of it. Apparently he is desirous of producing an impression
+upon me, for he performs various astounding feats,--jumps through the
+swing, over a garden-seat and a wheelbarrow,--and then, patting his
+horse encouragingly on the neck, approaches me, his bridle over his
+arm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Will you try now?&quot; he asks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Of course I will. He lifts me into the saddle, where I sit sideways,
+buckles the stirrup shorter, quite like a grown-up admirer; and then I
+ride slowly and solemnly through the garden, he carefully holding me on
+the while. I become conscious of a wish to distinguish myself in his
+eyes. &quot;I should like to try it alone,&quot; I stammer, in some confusion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I see you are brave; I like that,&quot; he says, resigning the bridle to
+me. Trot, trot goes the pony. &quot;Faster, faster!&quot; I cry, giving the
+animal a dig with my heel. The pony rears, and--I am lying on the
+ground, with scraped hands and a scratched chin.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is nothing,&quot; I cry, bravely ignoring my pain, when Harry hurries up
+to me with a dismayed face. &quot;We must expect such things,&quot; I add, with
+dignity. &quot;Riding is always dangerous; my father was killed by being
+thrown from his horse.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Indeed? Really?&quot; Harry says, sympathetically, as he wipes the gravel
+off my hands. &quot;How long has he been dead?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, a long time,--a year.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My mother has been dead much longer,&quot; he says, importantly, almost
+boastfully. &quot;She has been dead three years. And is yours still living?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;N--no.&quot; And the tears, hitherto so bravely restrained, come in a
+torrent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He is frightened, kneels down beside me, even then he was much taller
+than I,--and wipes away the tears with his pocket-handkerchief. &quot;Poor
+little thing!&quot; he murmurs, &quot;I am so sorry for you; I did not know----&quot;
+And he puts his arm round me and strokes my hair. Suddenly a delightful
+and strange sensation possesses me,--a feeling I have not had since my
+poor dear mother gave me her last kiss: my whole childish being is
+penetrated by it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">We have been fond of each other ever since that moment; we are so
+to-day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come with me to the kitchen-garden now,&quot; he says, &quot;and see my
+puppies.&quot; And he calls to the gardener and commits to his charge the
+pony, that, quite content with the success of his man&#339;uvre, is
+quietly cropping the verbena-blossoms.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My tears are dried. I am crouching beside the kennel in the
+kitchen-garden, with four charming little puppies in my lap. There is a
+fragrance of cucumber-leaves, sorrel, and thyme all about. The bright
+sunshine gleams on the dusty glass of the hot-bed, on the pumpkins and
+cucumbers, on the water in the tub under the pump, beside which a
+weeping willow parades its proverbial melancholy. Harry's fair, fat
+tutor is walking past a trellis where the early peaches are hanging,
+smoking a long porcelain pipe. He pauses and pinches the fruit here and
+there, as if to discover when it will be ripe. I hold one after another
+of the silken, warm dog-babies to my cheek, and am happy, while Harry
+laughs good-humouredly at my enthusiasm and prevents the jealous mother
+of the puppies from snapping at me.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">----&quot;We have been fond of each other ever since.&quot; The major smiles
+contentedly as he reads this.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h4>V.</h4>
+
+<h4>KOMARITZ.</h4>
+
+<p class="normal">I was soon at home at Komaritz, often passed weeks there, feeling
+extremely comfortable amid those strange surroundings,--for the life
+led in the clumsy, unadorned old house upon which the mediæval castle
+looked down was certainly a strange one.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In fact, the modern structure was no whit superior to the castle except
+in the matter of ugliness and in the fact that it possessed a roof.
+Otherwise it was almost as ruinous as the ruin, and had to be propped
+up in a fresh place every year. The long passages were paved with worn
+tiles; the ground-floor was connected with the upper stories by a steep
+winding staircase. The locks on the doors were either broken or the
+keys were lost, and the clocks, if they went at all, all pointed to
+different hours.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In a large room called the drawing-room, where the plaster was
+crumbling down from the ceiling bit by bit, there stood, among
+three-legged tables and threadbare arm-chairs, many an exquisite
+antique. In the rooms in use, on the other hand, there was no article
+of mere luxury: all was plain and useful, as in some parsonage. And yet
+there was something strangely attractive in this curious home. The
+rooms were of spacious dimensions; those on the ground-floor were all
+vaulted. The sunbeams forced their way through leafy vines and creepers
+into the deep embrasures of the windows. The atmosphere was impregnated
+with a delicious, mysterious fragrance,--an odour of mould, old wood,
+and dried rose-leaves. Harry maintained that it smelled of ghosts, and
+that there was a white lady who &quot;walked&quot; in the corner room next to the
+private chapel.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I must confess, in spite of my love for the old barrack, that it was
+not a fit baronial mansion. No one had ever lived there, save a
+steward, before Uncle Karl, who, as the youngest Leskjewitsch,
+inherited it, took up his abode there. He had, when he was first
+married, planned a new castle, but soon relinquished his intention,
+first for financial reasons, and then from dread of guests, a dread
+that seems to have become a chronic disease with him. When his wife
+died, all thought of any new structure had been given up. From that
+time he scarcely ever stayed there himself, and the old nest was good
+enough for a summer residence for the children. With the exception of
+Heda,--besides Harry there was a good-for-nothing small boy,--the
+children thought so too. They had a pathetic affection for the old
+place where they appeared each year with the flowers, the birds, and
+the sunshine. They seemed to me to belong to the spring. Everything was
+bright and warm about me when they came.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry was my faithful knight from first to last; our friendship grew
+with our growth. He tyrannized over me a little, and liked to impress
+me, I think, with a sense of his superiority; but he faithfully and
+decidedly stood by me whenever I needed him. He drove me everywhere
+about the country; his two ponies could either be driven or ridden; he
+taught me to ride, climbed mountains with me, explored with me every
+corner of the old ruin on the hill, and then when we came home at
+night, each somewhat weary with our long tramp, he would tell me
+stories.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">How vividly I remember it all! I can fancy myself now sitting beside
+him on the lowest of the steps leading from the living-room into the
+garden. At our feet the flowers exhale sweet, sad odours, the pale
+roses drenched in dew show white amid the dim foliage; above our heads
+there is a dreamy whisper in the boughs of an old apricot-tree, whose
+leaves stand out sharp and black against the deep-blue sky, sown with
+myriads of sparkling stars. And Harry is telling me stories. Ah, such
+stories! the most terrible tales of robbers and ghosts, each more
+shudderingly horrible than its predecessor.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Oh, how delightful it is to feel one shudder after another creeping
+down your back in the warm summer evening! and if it grows too fearful,
+and I begin to be really afraid of the pale, bloodless phantoms which
+he conjures up before me, I move a little closer to him, and, as if
+seeking protection, clasp his hand, taking refuge from my ghostly fears
+in the consciousness of his warm young life.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h4>VI.</h4>
+
+<h4>HARRY'S TUTORS.</h4>
+
+<p class="normal">Every Sunday the Komaritzers come to us at Zirkow, driving over in a
+tumble-down old coach covered with faded blue cloth, hung on spiral
+springs, and called Noah's ark.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The coachman wears no livery, except such as can be found in an
+imposing broad gold band upon a very shabby high hat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Of course the children are always accompanied by the governess and the
+tutor.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The first governess whom I knew at Komaritz--Mademoiselle Duval--was
+bright, well-bred, and very lovable; the tutor was the opposite of all
+this.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He may have been a proficient in ancient languages, but he spoke very
+poor German. His nails were always in mourning, and he neglected his
+dress. Intercourse with good society made him melancholy. At our table
+he always took the worst place. Uncle Paul every Sunday addressed the
+same two questions to him, never remembering his name, but regularly
+calling him Herr Paulus, whereas his name was Pontius. After the tutor
+had answered these questions humbly, he never again, so long as dinner
+lasted, opened his mouth, except to put into it large mouthfuls, or his
+knife. Between the courses he twirled his thumbs and sniffed. He always
+had a cold in his head. When dinner was over he pushed his chair back
+against the wall, bowed awkwardly, and retired, never appearing among
+us during the rest of the afternoon, which he spent playing &quot;Pinch&quot;
+with Krupitschka, with a pack of dirty cards which from long usage had
+lost their corners and had become oval. We often surprised him at this
+amusement,--Harry and I.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As soon as he disappeared Aunt Rosamunda always expressed loudly and
+distinctly her disapproval of his bad manners. But when we children
+undertook to sneer at them, we were sternly repressed,--were told that
+such things were of no consequence, and that bad manners did not in the
+least detract from a human being's genuine worth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On one occasion Harry rejoined, &quot;I'm glad to hear it,&quot; and at the next
+meal sat with both elbows upon the table.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Moreover, I soon observed that Herr Pontius was by no means the meek
+lamb he seemed to be, and this I discovered at the harvest-home. There
+was a dance beneath the lindens at the farm, where Herr Pontius whirled
+the peasant-girls around, and capered about like a very demon. His face
+grew fierce, and his hair floated wildly about his head. We children
+nearly died of laughing at him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Soon afterwards he was dismissed, and in a great hurry. When I asked
+Harry to tell me the cause of his sudden disappearance, he replied that
+it was love that had broken Herr Pontius's neck. But when I insisted
+upon a more lucid explanation, Harry touched the tip of my nose with
+his forefinger and said, sententiously, &quot;Too much knowledge makes
+little girls ugly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was not the only one among Harry's tutors whose neck was broken
+through love: the next--a very model of a tutor--followed the example
+in this respect of the dance-loving Herr Pontius.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His name was Ephraim Schmied; he came from Hildesheim, and was very
+learned and well conducted,--in short, by long odds the best of all
+Harry's tutors. If he did not retain his position, it may well be
+imagined that it was the fault of the position.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As with every other fresh tutor, Harry set himself in opposition to him
+at first, and did his best to discover ridiculous traits in him. His
+efforts in this direction were for a time productive of no results, and
+Herr Schmied, thanks to his untiring patience combined with absolute
+firmness, was in a fair way to master his wayward pupil, when matters
+took an unexpected and unfortunate turn.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry, in fact, had finally discovered the weak place in Herr Schmied's
+armour, and it was in the region of the heart. Herr Schmied had fallen
+in love with Mademoiselle Duval. To fall in love was in Harry's eyes at
+that time the extreme of human stupidity (he ought to have rested in
+that conviction). Uncle Paul shared it. He chuckled when Harry one fine
+day told him of his discovery, and asked the keen-sighted young
+good-for-naught upon what he founded his supposition.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He sings Schubert's 'Wanderer' to her every evening, and yesterday he
+brought her a vase from X----,&quot; Harry replied: &quot;there the fright
+stands.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Uncle Paul took the vase in his hands, an odd smile playing about his
+mouth the while. It was decorated with little naked Cupids hopping
+about in an oval wreath of forget-me-nots.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How sentimental!&quot; said Uncle Paul, adding, after a while, &quot;If the
+little wretches only had wings, they might pass for angels, but as they
+are they leave something to be desired.&quot; Then, putting down the vase,
+he told me to be a good girl (he had just brought me over to stay a
+little while at Komaritz), got into his dog-cart, and drove off.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Scarcely had the door closed behind him when Harry brought from the
+next room a long quill pen and a large inkstand, and went to work
+eagerly and mysteriously at the vase.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At about five in the afternoon all assembled for afternoon coffee.
+Finally Herr Schmied appeared, a book in his hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What are you doing there?&quot; he asked his pupil, unsuspectingly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am giving these naughty boys swimming-breeches, Herr Schmied. Uncle
+Paul thought it hardly the thing for you to have presented this vase to
+a lady, and so----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sentence was never finished. There was a low laugh from the other
+end of the room, where Mademoiselle Duval, ensconced behind the
+coffee-equipage, had been an unobserved spectator of the scene. Herr
+Schmied flushed crimson, and, quite losing his usual self-control, he
+gave Harry a sounding box on the ear, and Harry--well, Harry returned
+it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Herr Schmied seized him by the shoulders as if to shake and strike him,
+then bit his lip, drew a long breath, released the boy, and left the
+room. But Harry's head drooped upon his breast, and he ate no supper
+that night. He knew that what had occurred could not be condoned, and
+he was sorry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At supper Herr Schmied informed Mademoiselle Duval that he had written
+to Baron Leskjewitsch that unforeseen circumstances made imperative his
+return to Germany. &quot;I did not think it necessary to be more explicit as
+to the true cause of my sudden departure,&quot; he added.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry grew very pale.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After supper, as I was sitting with Heda upon the garden-steps, looking
+for falling stars that would not fall, we observed Herr Schmied enter
+the room behind us; it was quite empty, but the lamp was lighted on the
+table. Soon afterwards, Harry appeared. Neither of them noticed us.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Slowly, lingeringly, Harry approached his tutor, and plucked him by the
+sleeve.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Herr Schmied looked around.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Must you really go away, Herr Schmied?&quot; the boy asked, in distress.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; the tutor replied, very gravely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry bit his lip, seemed undecided what to do or say, and finally,
+leaning his head a little on one side, asked, caressingly, &quot;Even if I
+beg your pardon?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Herr Schmied smiled, surprised and touched. He took the boy's hand in
+his, and said, sadly, &quot;Even then, Harry. Yet I am sorry, for I was
+beginning to be very fond of you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The tears were in Harry's eyes, but he evidently felt that no entreaty
+would be of any avail.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In fact, the next morning Herr Schmied took his departure. A few days
+afterwards, however, Harry received a letter from him with a foreign
+post-mark. He had written four long pages to his former pupil. Harry
+flushed with pride and joy as he read it, and answered it that very
+evening.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Herr Schmied is now Professor of Modern History in a foreign
+university, his name is well known, and he is held in high honour. He
+still corresponds with Harry, whose next tutor was a French abbé. The
+cause of the abbé's dismissal I have forgotten; indeed, I remember only
+one more among the numerous preceptors, and he was the last,--a German
+from Bohemia, called Ewald Finke.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His name was not really Ewald, but Michael, but he called himself Ewald
+because he liked it better. He had studied abroad, which always
+impressed us favourably, and, as Uncle Karl was told, he had already
+won some reputation in Leipsic by his literary efforts. He was looking
+for a situation as tutor merely that he might have some rest from
+intellectual labours that had been excessive. &quot;Moreover,&quot; his letter of
+recommendation from a well-known professor went on to say, &quot;the Herr
+Baron will not be slow to discover that he is here brought into contact
+with a rarely-gifted nature, one of those in intercourse with whom
+allowance must be made for certain peculiarities which at first may
+prove rather annoying.&quot; Uncle Karl instantly wrote, in reply, that
+&quot;annoying peculiarities&quot; were of no consequence,--that he would accord
+unlimited credit in the matter of allowance to the new tutor. In fact,
+he took such an interest in the genius thus offered him that he
+prolonged his stay in Komaritz to two weeks, instead of departing at
+the end of three days, as he had at first intended, solely in
+expectation of the new tutor.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">By the way, those who are familiar with my uncle's morbid restlessness
+may imagine the joy of his household at his prolonged stay in Komaritz.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Not knowing how otherwise to kill his time, he hit upon the expedient
+of shooting it, and, as the hunting season had not begun, he shot
+countless butterflies. We found them lying in heaps among the flowers,
+little, shapeless, shrivelled things, mere specks of brilliant dust.
+When weary of this amusement, he would seat himself at the piano and
+play over and over again the same dreary air, grasping uncertainly at
+the chords, and holding them long and firmly when once he had got them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry assured me that he was playing a funeral march for the dead
+butterflies, and I supposed it to be his own composition. This,
+however, was not the case, and the piece was not a funeral march, but a
+polonaise,--&quot;The Last Thought of Count Oginski,&quot; who is said to have
+killed himself after jotting down this music.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last Herr Finke made his appearance. He was a tall, beardless young
+man, with hair cut close to his head, and a sallow face adorned with
+the scars of several sabre-cuts, a large mouth, a pointed nose, the
+nostrils quivering with critical scorn, and staring black eyes with
+large round spectacles, through which they saw only what they chose to
+see.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Uncle Karl's reception of him was grandiloquent. &quot;Enter,&quot; he exclaimed,
+going to meet him with extended hands. &quot;My house is open to you. I
+delight in grand natures which refuse to be cramped within the limits
+of conventionality.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Herr Finke replied to this high-sounding address only by a rather
+condescending nod, shaking the proffered hand as if bestowing a favour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After he had been refreshed with food and drink, Uncle Karl challenged
+him to a fencing-match, which lasted upward of an hour, at the end of
+which time my uncle confessed that the new tutor was a master of fence,
+immediately wrote to thank the illustrious professor to whom he owed
+this treasure of learning, and left Komaritz that same evening.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Herr Finke remained precisely three weeks in his new situation. So far
+as lessons went he seemed successful enough, but his &quot;annoying
+peculiarities&quot; ended in an outbreak of positive insanity, during which
+he set fire to the frame house on the hill where he was lodged, and was
+carried off to a mad-house in a strait-waistcoat, raving wildly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Uncle Karl was sadly disappointed, and suddenly resolved to send Harry
+to a public school, being convinced that no good could come of tutors.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">From this time forward the young Leskjewitsches came to Komaritz only
+for the vacations.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h4>VII.</h4>
+
+
+<p class="normal">We were very good friends, Harry and I,--there's no denying that. We
+told each other all our secrets,--at least I told him mine,--and we
+divided all our bon-bons with each other. Sometimes on Sunday
+afternoons we played at marriage, the ceremony giving occasion for a
+deal of delightful &quot;dressing up.&quot; Moreover, we had long been agreed
+that, sooner or later, this play should become earnest, and that we
+would marry each other. But when the first down became perceptible on
+Harry's upper lip, our mutual friendship began to flag. It was just
+about the time that Harry went to a public school.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His indifference grieved me at first, then I became consoled, and at
+last I was faithless to him. A cousin of Harry's, who came to Komaritz
+to spend the holidays, gave occasion for this breach of faith. His name
+was Lato, Count Treurenberg. The name alone kindled my enthusiasm. He
+had scarcely been two days in Komaritz, where I too was staying at the
+time, when Hedwig confided to me that she was in love with him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So am I,&quot; I replied. I was firmly convinced that this was so.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My confession was the signal for a highly dramatic scene. Hedwig, who
+had frequently been to the theatre in Prague, ran about the room
+wringing her hands and crying, &quot;Both with the same man! both!--it is
+terrible! One of us must resign him, or the consequences will be
+fearful.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I diffidently offered to sacrifice my passion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She shrieked, &quot;No, I never can accept such a sacrifice from you! Fate
+shall decide between us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Whereupon we put one white and one black bean in a little, broken,
+handle-less coffee-pot which we found in the garret, and which Hedwig
+called an urn.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The decisive moment made my heart beat. We cast lots for precedence in
+drawing from the urn. It fell to me, and I drew out a black bean! The
+moment was thrilling. Heda sank upon a sofa, and fanned her joyful face
+with her pocket-handkerchief. She declared that if she had drawn the
+black bean she would have attempted her life. This declaration
+dispelled my despair; I shuddered at the idea of being the cause of
+anything so horrible.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">From that day Heda never spoke to Lato von Treurenberg without drooping
+her head on one side and rolling her eyes languishingly,--conduct which
+seemed to cause the young fellow some surprise, but which he treated
+with great courtesy, while Harry used to exclaim, &quot;What is the matter
+with you, Heda? You look like a goose in a thunder-storm!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My behaviour towards Lato underwent no change: I had drawn the &quot;black
+ball,&quot; and, in consequence, the most cordial friendship soon subsisted
+between us.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It would have been difficult not to like Lato, for I have never met a
+more amiable, agreeable young fellow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was about seventeen years old, very tall, and stooped slightly. His
+features were delicately chiselled; his smile was quite bewitching in
+its dreamy, all-embracing benevolence. There was decided melancholy in
+his large, half-veiled eyes, which caused Hedwig to liken him to Lord
+Byron.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His complexion was rather dark,--which was odd, as his hair was light
+brown touched with gold at the temples. His neck was too long, and his
+arms were uncommonly long. All his appointments, from his coats to his
+cigar-case, were extremely elegant, testifying to a degree of
+fastidiousness thitherto quite unknown in Komaritz. Nevertheless, he
+seemed very content in this primitive nest, ignoring all discomfort,
+and making no pretension. Heda, who was quick to seize upon every
+opportunity to admire him, called my attention to his amiable
+forbearance, or, I confess, I should not have noticed it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">From Hedwig I learned much concerning the young man; among other
+things, she gave me a detailed account of his family circumstances. His
+mother was, she informed me, a &quot;mediatisirte.&quot;<a name="div2Ref_01" href="#div2_01"><sup>[1]</sup></a> She uttered the word
+reverently, and, when I confessed that I did not know what it meant,
+she nearly fainted. His father was one of the most fascinating men in
+Austria. He is still living, and is by no means, it seems, at the end
+of his fascinations, but, being a widower, hovers about from one
+amusing capital to another, breaking hearts for pastime. It seems to be
+a wonderfully entertaining occupation, and, when one once indulges in
+it, the habit cannot be got rid of,--like opium-eating.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">While he thus paraded his brilliant fascinations in the gay world, he
+did not, of course, find much time to interest himself in his boy, who
+was left to the care of distant relatives, and who, when found to be
+backward in his studies, was placed, I believe by Uncle Karl's advice,
+under the care of a Prague professor by the name of Suwa, who kept, as
+Harry once told me, a kind of orthopædic institution for minds that
+lacked training.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Beside Lato, during that vacation there were two other guests at
+Komaritz, one a very distant cousin of Harry's, and the other a kind of
+sub-tutor whose duty it was to coach Harry in his studies.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">We could not endure the sub-tutor. His name was Franz Tuschalek; he was
+about nineteen, with hands and feet like shovels, and a flat, unmeaning
+face. His manner was intensely servile, and his coat-sleeves and
+trousers were too short, which gave him a terribly indigent air. One
+could not help regarding him with a mixture of impatience and sympathy.
+By my radical uncle's express desire, he and Harry called each other by
+their Christian names. Still, obnoxious as poor Tuschalek was to us, he
+was more to our minds than the distant cousin.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This last was a Pole, about twenty years old, with a sallow face and
+long oblique eyes, which he rolled in an extraordinary way. His hair
+was black, and he curled it with the curling-tongs. He was redolent of
+musk, and affected large plaid suits of clothes. His German was not
+good, and his French was no better, but he assured us that he was a
+proficient in Chinese and Arabic. He was always playing long and
+difficult concertos on the table, but he never touched the piano at
+Komaritz, declaring that the instrument was worn out. He was always
+short of funds, and was perpetually boasting of the splendour of his
+family.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He frequently sketched, upon some stray piece of paper, a magnificent
+and romantic structure, which he would display to us as his Polish
+home,--&quot;our ancestral castle.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Sometimes this castle appeared with two turrets, sometimes with only
+one, a fact to which Harry did not fail to call his attention.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His distinguished ancestry was a topic of never-failing interest
+to him; he was never weary of explaining his connection with
+various European reigning dynasties, and his visiting-cards bore
+the high-sounding names &quot;Le Comte Ladislas Othon Fainacky de
+Chrast-Bambosch,&quot; although, as Harry confided to us, he had no right to
+the title of comte, being the son of a needy Polish baron.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Although Franz Tuschalek was almost as obnoxious to Harry as the
+&quot;braggart Sarmatian,&quot; as Lato called the Pole, he never allowed his
+antipathy to be seen, but treated him with great consideration, as he
+did all inferiors, scarcely allowing himself to give vent to his
+distaste for him even in his absence. But he paraded his dislike of
+Fainacky, never speaking of him as a guest, but as an &quot;invasion,&quot; and
+always trying to annoy him by some boyish trick.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At length, one Sunday, the crisis in Harry's first vacation occurred.
+We had all been to early mass, and the celebrant had accompanied us
+back to Komaritz, as was his custom, to breakfast. After a hasty cup of
+coffee he took his leave of us children, and betook himself to the
+bailiff's quarters, where we more than suspected him of a quiet game of
+cards with that official and his underlings.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The door of the dining-room leading out into the garden was wide open,
+and delicious odours from the moist flower-beds floated in and mingled
+with the fragrance of the coffee. It had rained in the night, but the
+sun had emerged from the clouds and had thrown a golden veil over trees
+and shrubs. We were just rising from table when the &quot;braggart
+Sarmatian&quot; entered, booted and spurred, smelling of all the perfumes of
+Arabia, and with his hair beautifully curled. He had not been to mass,
+and had breakfasted in his room in the frame house on the hill, which
+had been rebuilt since the fire. After he had bidden us all an affected
+good-morning, he said, turning to Harry,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Has the man come with the mail?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; Harry replied, curtly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Did no registered letter come for me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Strange!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Very strange,&quot; Harry sneered. &quot;You have been expecting that letter a
+long time. If I were you, I'd investigate the matter.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There's something wrong with the post,&quot; the Pole declared, with an air
+of importance. &quot;I must see about it. I think I had best apply to my
+uncle the cabinet-minister.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry made a curious grimace. &quot;There is no need to exercise your powers
+of invention for me,&quot; he observed. &quot;I know your phrase-book and the
+meaning of each individual sentence. 'Has no registered letter come for
+me?' means 'Lend me some money.' My father instructed me to supply you
+with money if you needed it, but never with more than ten guilders at a
+time. Here they are, and, if you wish to drive to X----, tell the
+bailiff to have the drag harnessed for you. We--in fact, we will not
+look for you before evening. Good-bye.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I shall have to call you to account some day, Harry,&quot; Fainacky said,
+with a frown; then, relapsing into his usual languid affectation of
+manner, he remarked, over his shoulder, to Mademoiselle Duval, &quot;<i>C'est
+un enfant</i>,&quot; put away the ten-guilder piece in a gorgeous leather
+pocket-book, and left the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Scarcely had the door closed behind him when Harry began to express in
+no measured terms his views with regard to the &quot;Polish invasion.&quot; Then
+he set his wits to work to devise some plan of getting rid of Fainacky,
+but it was not until the afternoon, when we were assembled in the
+dining-room again, that a brilliant idea occurred to him while reading
+Heine's &quot;Romancero,&quot; a book which he loved to read when Heda and I were
+by because it was a forbidden volume to us.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Suddenly, starting up from his half-reclining position in a large
+arm-chair, he snapped his fingers, waved his book in the air, and
+exclaimed, &quot;Eureka!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is it?&quot; Lato asked, good-naturedly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have found something to drive the Pole wild!&quot; cried Harry, rubbing
+his hands with delight. Whereupon he began to spout, with immense
+enthusiasm and shouts of laughter, Heine's &quot;Two Knights,&quot; a poem in
+which he pours out his bitterest satire upon the Poles, their cause,
+and their country. This precious poem Harry commanded Tuschalek to
+write out in his finest round hand upon a large sheet of paper, which
+was then to be nailed upon the door of Fainacky's sleeping-apartment. I
+did not like the poem. I confess my Polish sympathies were strong, and
+I did not approve of ridiculing the &quot;braggart Sarmatian's&quot; nation by
+way of disgusting him with Komaritz; but nothing that I could say had
+any effect. The poem was written out upon the largest sheet of paper
+that the house afforded, and was the first thing to greet the eyes of
+Fainacky when he retired to his room for the night. In consequence, the
+Sarmatian declared, the next morning, at breakfast, that the insult
+thus offered to his nation and himself was not to be endured by a man
+of honour, and that he should leave Komaritz that very day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nevertheless, he stayed four weeks longer, during which time, however,
+he never spoke to Harry except upon three occasions when he borrowed
+money of him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Tuschalek departed at an earlier date. Harry's method for getting rid
+of him was much simpler, and consisted of a letter to his father. As
+well as I can recollect, it ran thus:</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<span class="sc">My Dear Father</span>,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I pray you send Tuschalek away. I assure you I will study diligently
+without him. To have about you a fellow hired at ten guilders a month,
+who calls you by your Christian name, is very deleterious to the
+character.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:30%">&quot;Your affectionate son,</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:60%">&quot;<span class="sc">Harry</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;P.S.--Pray, if you can, help him to another situation, for I can't
+help pitying the poor devil.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">About this time Lato sprained his ankle in leaping a ditch, and was
+confined for some days to a lounge in the dining-room. Heda scarcely
+left his side. She brought him flowers, offered to write his letters
+for him, and finally read aloud to him from the &quot;<i>Journal des
+Demoiselles</i>.&quot; Whether he was much edified I cannot say. He left
+Komaritz as soon as his ankle was strong again. I was really sorry to
+have him go; for years we heard nothing more of him.----</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The gypsy!&quot; exclaimed the major. &quot;How fluently she writes! Who would
+have thought it of her! I remember that Fainacky perfectly well,--a
+genuine Polish coxcomb! Lato was a charming fellow,--pity he should
+have married in trade!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At this moment a loud bell reminded the old cavalryman that the
+afternoon coffee was ready. He hurriedly slipped his niece's manuscript
+into a drawer of his writing-table, and locked it up before joining his
+family circle, where he appeared with the most guileless smile he could
+assume.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Zdena seemed restless and troubled, and confessed at last that she had
+lost her diary, which she was quite sure she had put into her
+work-basket. She had been writing in the garden, and had thrust it into
+the basket in a hurry. The major seemed uninterested in the loss, but,
+when the girl's annoyance reached its climax in a conjecture that the
+cook had, by mistake, used the manuscript for kindling, he comforted
+her, saying, &quot;Nonsense! the thing will surely be found.&quot; He could not
+bring himself to resign the precious document,--he was too much
+interested in reading it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next day, after luncheon, while Frau Rosamunda was refreshing
+herself with an afternoon nap and Zdena was in the garden posing for
+the Baron von Wenkendorf as the goddess of Spring, the major retired to
+his room and locked himself in, that he might not be disturbed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Could she possibly have fallen in love with that Lato? Some girls'
+heads are full of sentimental nonsense. But I hardly think it--and
+so--&quot; he went on muttering to himself whilst finding the place where he
+had left off on the previous day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next chapter of this literary <i>chef-d'&#339;uvre</i> began as follows:</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h4>VIII.</h4>
+
+
+<p class="normal">I had a long letter to-day from Miss O'Donnel in Italy, full of most
+interesting things. One of the two nieces whom she is visiting is
+being trained as an opera-singer. She seems to have a brilliant career
+before her. In Italy they call her &quot;<i>la Patti blonde</i>,&quot; and her
+singing-teacher, to whom she pays thirty-five francs a lesson, declares
+that she will certainly make at least a hundred thousand francs a year
+as a prima donna. What an enviable creature! I, too, have an admirable
+voice. Ah, if Uncle Paul would only let me be trained! But his opinions
+are so old-fashioned!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And everything that Miss O'Donnel tells me about the mode of life of
+the Misses Lyall interests me. They live with their mother in Italy,
+and receive every evening, principally gentlemen, which, it seems, is
+the Italian custom. The elder Miss Lyall is as good as engaged to a
+distinguished Milanese who lost his hair in the war of '59; while the
+younger, the blonde Patti, will not hear of marriage, but contents
+herself with turning the head of every man who comes near her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ah! I have arrived at the conviction that there can be no finer
+existence than that of a young girl in training for a prima donna, who
+amuses herself in the mean time by turning the head of every man who
+comes near her.----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">(&quot;Goose!&quot; exclaimed the major at this point.)</p>
+
+<p class="normal">----To-day I proposed to Uncle Paul that he should take me to Italy for
+the winter, to have me educated as a singer. There was a great row.
+Never before, since I have known him, has he spoken so angrily to
+me.----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">(&quot;I should think not!&quot; growled the major at this point.)</p>
+
+<p class="normal">----The worst was that he blamed Miss O'Donnel for putting such &quot;stuff&quot;
+(thus he designated my love for art) into my head, and threatened to
+forbid her to correspond with me. Ah, I wept for the entire afternoon
+amid the ruins of my shattered hopes. I am very unhappy. After a long
+interruption, the idea has occurred to me to-day of continuing my
+memoirs.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h4>IX.</h4>
+
+<h4>HARRY BECOMES A SOLDIER.</h4>
+
+
+<p class="normal">Uncle Karl finally yielded to Harry's entreaties, and allowed him to
+enter the army. That very autumn after the summer which Lato and
+Fainacky passed at Komaritz he was to enter a regiment of hussars.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It had been a problem for Uncle Karl, the taming of this eager young
+nature, and I think he was rather relieved by the military solution
+thus afforded.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As Harry of course had nothing to do in town before joining his
+regiment, he stayed longer than usual this year in Komaritz,--stayed
+all through September and until late in October. Komaritz was quite
+deserted: Lato had gone, the Pole had gone; but Harry still stayed on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And, strange to say, now, when we confronted our first long parting,
+our old friendship gradually revived, stirred, and felt that it had
+been living all this time, although it had had one or two naps. How
+well I remember the day when he came to Zirkow to take leave of us--of
+me!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was late in October, and the skies were blue but cold. The sun shone
+down upon the earth kindly, but without warmth. A thin silvery mist
+floated along the ground. The bright-coloured leaves shivered in the
+frosty air.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On the wet lawn, where the gossamers gleamed like steel, lay myriads of
+brown, red, and yellow leaves. The song-birds were gone, the sparrows
+twittered shrilly, and in the midst of the brown autumnal desolation
+there bloomed in languishing loveliness a white rose upon a leafless
+stalk.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With a scarlet shawl about my shoulders and my head bare I was
+sauntering about the garden, wandering, dreaming through the frosty
+afternoon. I heard steps behind me, and when I looked round I saw Harry
+approaching, his brows knitted gloomily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I only want to bid you 'good-bye,'&quot; he called out to me. &quot;We are off
+to-morrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;When are you coming back?&quot; I asked, hastily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Perhaps never,&quot; he said, with an important air. &quot;You know--a
+soldier----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, there is a threatening of war,&quot; I whispered, and my childish
+heart felt an intolerable pang as I spoke.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He shrugged his shoulders and tried to laugh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And, at all events, you, when I come back, will be a young lady
+with--lovers--and you will hardly remember me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, Harry, how can you talk so!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Rather awkwardly he holds out to me his long slender hand, in which I
+place my own.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ah, how secure my cold, weak fingers feel in that warm strong hand! Why
+do I suddenly recall the long-past moonlit evenings in Komaritz when we
+sat together on the garden-steps and Harry told me ghost-stories, in
+dread of which, when they grew too ghastly, I used to cling close to
+him as if to find shelter in his strong young life from the bloodless
+throng of spirits he was evoking?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thus we stand, hand in hand, before the white rose, the last which
+autumn had left. It droops above us, and its cheering fragrance mingles
+with the autumnal odours around us. I pluck it, stick it in Harry's
+button-hole, and then suddenly begin to sob convulsively. He clasps me
+close, close in his arms, kisses me, and murmurs, &quot;Do not forget me!&quot;
+and I kiss him too, and say, &quot;Never--never!&quot; while around us the faded
+leaves fall silently upon the grass.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h4>X.</h4>
+
+<h4>MY EDUCATION.</h4>
+
+<p class="normal">Now follow a couple of very colourless years. There was nothing more to
+anticipate from the summers. For, although Heda regularly appeared at
+Komaritz as soon as the city was too hot or too deserted, she did not
+add much to my enjoyment. Komaritz itself seemed changed when Harry was
+no longer there to turn everything upside-down with his good-humoured,
+madcap ways.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And there was a change for the worse in our circumstances; affairs at
+Zirkow were not so prosperous as they had been.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To vary the monotony of his country life, my uncle had built a brewery,
+from which he promised himself a large increase of income. It was to be
+a model brewery, but after it was built the startling discovery was
+made that there was not water enough to work it. For a while, water was
+brought from the river in wagons drawn by four horses, but, when this
+was found to be too expensive, the brewery was left to itself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For years now it has remained thus passive, digesting in triumphant
+repose the sums of money which it swallowed up. The monster!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Whenever there is any little dispute between my uncle and my aunt, she
+is certain to throw his brew-house in his face. But, instead of being
+crushed by the mischief he has wrought, he declares, &quot;The project was
+admirable: my idea was a brilliant one if it had only succeeded!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But it did not succeed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The consequence was--retrenchment and economy. My aunt dismissed two
+servants, my uncle kept only a pair of driving horses, and my new gowns
+were made out of my aunt Thérèse's old ones.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The entire winter we spent at Zirkow, and my only congenial friend was
+my old English governess, the Miss O'Donnel already mentioned, who came
+shortly before Harry's entrance into the army, not so much to teach me
+English as to learn German herself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Born in Ireland, and a Catholic, she had always had excellent
+situations in the most aristocratic English families. This had given
+her, besides her other acquirements, a great familiarity with the
+curious peculiarities of the British peerage, and with social
+distinctions of rank in England, as to which she enlightened me, along
+with much other valuable information.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At first I thought her quite ridiculous in many respects,--her general
+appearance,--she had once been a beauty, and still wore corkscrew
+curls,--her way of humming to herself old Irish ballads, &quot;Nora Creina,&quot;
+&quot;The harp that once through Tara's halls,&quot; etc., with a cracked voice
+and unconscious gestures, her formality and sensitiveness. After a
+while I grew fond of her. What quantities of books she read aloud to me
+in the long evenings in January and December, while my wooden needles
+clicked monotonously as I knitted woollen comforters for the poor!--all
+Walter Scott's novels, Dickens and Thackeray, many of the works of
+English historians, from the academic, fluent Gibbon to that strange
+prophet of history, Carlyle, and every day I had to study with her one
+act of Shakespeare, which bored me at first. She was so determined to
+form my literary taste that while my maid was brushing my hair she
+would read aloud some lighter work, such as &quot;The Vicar of Wakefield&quot; or
+Doctor Johnson's &quot;Rasselas.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As Uncle Paul was very desirous to perfect my education as far as
+possible, he was not content with these far-reaching efforts, but, with
+a view to further accomplishments on my part, sent me thrice a week to
+X----, where an old pianiste, who was said to have refused a Russian
+prince, and was now humpbacked, gave me lessons on the piano; and a
+former <i>ballerina</i>, at present married to the best caterer in X----,
+taught me to dance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This last was a short, fat, good-humoured person with an enormous
+double chin and a complexion spoiled by bad rouge. When a
+ballet-dancer she had been known as Angiolina Chiaramonte; her name now
+is Frau Anna Schwanzara. She always lost her breath, and sometimes the
+buttons off her waist, when she danced for her pupils, and she prided
+herself upon being able to teach every known dance, even to the cancan.
+I did not learn the cancan, but I did learn the fandango, the czardas,
+and the Highland fling, with many another national dance. Waltzes and
+polkas I did not learn, because we had no one for a partner to practise
+with me; Frau Schwanzara was too short-breathed, although she was very
+good-humoured and did her best.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Sometimes I thought it very hard to have to get up so early and drive
+between high walls of snow in a rattling inspector's wagon (Uncle Paul
+would not allow his last good carriage to be used on these journeys)
+two long leagues to X----, but it was, at all events, a break in the
+monotony of my life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If I was not too sleepy, we argued the whole way, Miss O'Donnel and I,
+usually over some historic event, such as the execution of Louis XVI.
+or Cromwell's rebellion. Sometimes we continued our debate as we walked
+about the town, where we must have been strange and yet familiar
+figures. Miss O'Donnel certainly was odd in appearance. She always wore
+a long gray cloth cloak, under which, to guard against dirt, she kilted
+up her petticoats so high that her red stockings gleamed from afar. On
+her head was perched a black velvet bonnet with a scarlet pompon, and
+in summer and winter she carried the same bulgy green umbrella, which
+she called her &quot;Gamp.&quot; Once we lost each other in the midst of a
+particularly lively discussion. Nothing daunted, she planted herself at
+a street-corner, and, pounding the pavement with her umbrella, called,
+lustily, &quot;Zdena! Zdena! Zdena!&quot; until a policeman, to whom I described
+her, conducted me to her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In addition to Miss O'Donnel's peculiarities, the extraordinary
+structure of our vehicle must have attracted some attention in X----.
+It was a long, old-fashioned coach hung on very high springs, and it
+looked very like the shabby carriages seen following the hearse at
+third-class funerals. Twin sister of the Komaritz &quot;Noah's Ark,&quot; it
+served a double purpose, and could be taken apart in summer and used as
+an open carriage. Sometimes it fell apart of itself. Once when we were
+driving quickly through the market-square and past the officers' casino
+in X----, the entire carriage window fell out upon the pavement. The
+coachman stopped the horses, and a very tall hussar picked up the
+window and handed it in to me, saying, with a smile, &quot;You have dropped
+something, mademoiselle!&quot; I was deeply mortified, but I would not for
+the world have shown that I was so. I said, simply, &quot;Thank you; put it
+down there, if you please,&quot; pointing to the opposite seat,--as if
+dropping a window out of the carriage were the most ordinary every-day
+occurrence. Upon my reply to him he made a profound bow, which I
+thought all right. He was a late arrival in the garrison; the other
+officers knew us or our carriage by sight. Every one of them, when he
+came to X----, paid his respects to my uncle, who in due course of time
+returned the visit, and there was an end of it. The officers were never
+invited to Zirkow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Sometimes the roads were so blocked with snow that we could not drive
+to town, nor could we walk far. For the sake of exercise, or what Miss
+O'Donnel called our &quot;daily constitutional,&quot; we used then to walk
+numberless times around the house, where the gardener had cleared a
+path for us. As we walked, Miss O'Donnel told me stories from the
+Arabian Nights or Ovid's Metamorphoses, varied sometimes by
+descriptions of life among the British aristocracy. When once she was
+launched upon this last topic, I would not let her finish,--I besieged
+her with questions. She showed me the picture of one of her pupils, the
+Lady Alice B----, who married the Duke of G---- and was the queen of
+London society for two years.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Tis odd how much you look like her,&quot; she often said to me. &quot;You are
+sure to make a sensation in the world; only have patience. You are born
+to play a great part.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If Uncle Paul had heard her, I believe he would have killed her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Every evening we played a rubber of whist. Miss O'Donnel never could
+remember what cards were out, and, whenever we wished to recall a card
+or to transgress some rule of the game, Aunt Rosamunda always said,
+&quot;That is not allowed at the Jockey Club.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Once my uncle and aunt took me upon a six weeks' pleasure-tour,--or,
+rather, an educational excursion. We thoroughly explored the greater
+part of Germany and Italy on this occasion, travelling very simply,
+with very little luggage, never speaking to strangers, having
+intercourse exclusively with pictures, sculptures, and valets-de-place.
+After thus becoming acquainted, in Baedeker's society, with a new piece
+of the world, as Aunt Rosamunda observed with satisfaction, we returned
+to Zirkow, and life went on as before.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And really my lonely existence would not have struck me as anything
+extraordinary, if Hedwig had not been at hand to enlighten me as to my
+deprivations.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had been introduced into society, and wrote me of her conquests.
+Last summer she brought a whole trunkful of faded bouquets with her to
+Komaritz,--ball-trophies. Besides this stuff, she brought two other
+acquisitions with her to the country, a sallow complexion and an
+adjective which she used upon every occasion--&quot;impossible!&quot; She tossed
+it about to the right and left, applying it to everything in the dear
+old nest which I so dearly loved, and which she now never called
+anything save &quot;Mon exil.&quot; The house at Komaritz, the garden, my
+dress,--all fell victims to this adjective.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Two of her friends shortly followed her to Komaritz, with a suitable
+train of governesses and maids,--countesses from Prague society, Mimi
+and Franziska Zett.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They were not nearly so affected as Heda,--in fact, they were not
+affected at all, but were sweet and natural, very pretty, and
+particularly pleasant towards me. But we were not congenial; we had
+nothing to say to one another; we had no interests in common. They were
+quite indifferent to my favourite heroes, from the Gracchi to the First
+Consul; in fact, they knew hardly anything about them, and I knew still
+less of the Rudis, Nikis, Taffis, and whatever else the young gentlemen
+were called, with whom they danced and flirted at balls and parties,
+and about whom they now gossiped with Heda.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They, too, brought each a trunkful of faded bouquets, and one day they
+piled them all up on the grass in the garden and set fire to them. They
+declared that it was the custom in society in Vienna thus to burn on
+Ash Wednesday every relic of the Carnival. To be sure, it was not Ash
+Wednesday in Komaritz, and the Carnival was long past, but that was of
+no consequence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The favourite occupation of the three young ladies was to sit in the
+summer-house, with a generous supply of iced raspberry vinegar, and
+make confession of the various <i>passions funestes</i> which they had
+inspired. I sat by and listened mutely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Once Mimi amiably asked me to give my experience. I turned my head
+away, and murmured, ashamed, &quot;No one ever made love to me.&quot; Mimi,
+noticing my distress, put her finger beneath my chin, just as if she
+had been my grand-aunt, and said, &quot;Only wait until you come out, and
+you will bear the palm away from all of us, for you are by long odds
+the prettiest of us all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When afterwards I looked in the glass, I thought she was right.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Until you go into society,&quot; Mimi had said. Good heavens! into
+society!--I! For some time a suspicion had dawned upon me that Uncle
+Paul did not mean that I should ever &quot;go into society.&quot; When, the day
+after Mimi's portentous speech, I returned to Zirkow, I determined to
+put an end to all uncertainty upon the subject.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After dinner--it had been an uncommonly good one--I put my hand
+caressingly within my uncle's arm, and whispered, softly, &quot;Uncle, do
+you never mean to take me to balls, eh?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had been very gay, but he at once grew grave, as he replied,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What good would balls do you? Make your eyes droop, and your feet
+ache! I can't endure the thought of having you whirled about by all the
+young coxcombs of Prague and then criticised afterwards. Marriages are
+made in heaven, Zdena, and your fate will find you here, you may be
+sure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I am not thinking of marriage,&quot; I exclaimed, indignantly. &quot;I want
+to see the world, uncle dear; can you not understand that?&quot; and I
+tenderly stroked his coat-sleeve.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He shook his curly head energetically.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Be thankful that you know nothing of the world,&quot; he said, with
+emphasis.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And I suddenly recalled the intense bitterness in my mother's tone as
+she uttered the word &quot;world,&quot; when I waked in the dark night and found
+her kneeling, crying, at my bedside in our old Paris home.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is it really so very terrible--the world?&quot; I asked, meekly, and yet
+incredulously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Terrible!&quot; he repeated my word with even more energy than was usual
+with him. &quot;It is a hot-bed of envy and vanity, a place where one learns
+to be ashamed of his best friend if he chance to wear an ill-made coat;
+that is the world you are talking of. I do not wish you to know
+anything about it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This was all he would say.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It might be supposed that the unattractive picture of the world drawn
+by Uncle Paul would have put a stop at once and forever to any desire
+of mine for a further acquaintance with it, but--there is ever a charm
+about what is forbidden. At present I have not the faintest desire to
+visit Pekin, but if I were forbidden to go near that capital I should
+undoubtedly be annoyed.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">And day follows day. Nearly a year has passed since that unedifying
+conversation with my uncle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The only amusement that varied the monotony of our existence was a
+letter at long intervals from Harry. For a time he was stationed in
+Salzburg; for a year he has been in garrison in Vienna, where, of
+course, he is absorbed in the whirl of Viennese society. I must confess
+that it did not greatly please me when I first learned that he had
+entered upon that brilliant worldly scene: will he not come to be like
+Hedwig? My uncle declares that the world is the hot-bed of envy and
+vanity; and yet there must be natures upon which poisonous atmospheres
+produce no effect, just as there are men who can breathe with impunity
+the air of the Pontine marshes; and Harry's nature is one of these. At
+least so it would seem from his letters, they are so cordial and
+simple, such warm affection speaks in every line. A little while ago he
+sent me his photograph. I liked it extremely, but I did not say so; all
+the more loudly, however, did my uncle express his admiration. He
+offered to wager that Harry is the handsomest officer in the entire
+army, and he shouted loudly for Krupitschka, to show him the picture.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry told us one interesting piece of news,--I forget whether it was
+this winter or the last; perhaps it was still longer ago, for Harry was
+stationed in Enns at the time, and the news related to our old friend
+Treurenberg.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had married a girl in the world of trade,--a Fräulein Selina von
+Harfink. Harry, whom Lato had bidden to his marriage, and who had gone
+for old friendship's sake from Enns to Vienna to be the escort in the
+church of the first of the eight bridesmaids, made very merry in his
+letter over the festivity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">We were all intensely surprised; we had not heard a word of Lato's
+betrothal, and the day after Harry's letter came the announcement of
+the marriage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Uncle Paul, who takes most of the events of life very philosophically,
+grew quite angry on learning of this marriage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Since Lato has married for money, he cares nothing more for him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I should not care if he had made a fool of himself and married
+an actress,&quot; he exclaimed, over and over again, &quot;but to sell
+himself--ugh!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When I suggested, &quot;Perhaps he fell in love with Selina,&quot; my uncle
+shrugged his shoulders, and seemed to consider any such possibility
+entirely out of the question.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">We talked for two weeks at Zirkow about Lato Treurenberg's marriage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now we have almost forgotten it. Since Lato has been married he has
+been quite estranged from his former associations.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">To-day is my birthday. I am nineteen years old. How kind my uncle and
+aunt are to me! How they try to give me pleasure! My heap of presents
+was really grand. Arrayed about my cake, with its lighted candles,
+I found two new gowns, a hat which Heda had purchased for me in
+Prague,--and which, by the way, would be highly appreciated upon the
+head of a monkey in a circus,--several volumes of English literature
+sent me by Miss O'Donnel from Italy, and, in a white silk sachet upon
+which Mimi Zett had embroidered a bird of paradise in the midst of a
+snow-scene (a symbol of my melancholy condition), a card, upon which
+was written, &quot;A visit to some watering-place, by the way of Vienna and
+Paris.&quot; I uttered a shriek of delight and threw my arms around my
+uncle's neck.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The three young girls from Komaritz came over to Zirkow to dine, in
+honour of the occasion; we drank one another's health in champagne, and
+in the afternoon we had coffee in the woods, which was very
+inconvenient but very delightful. Then we consulted the cards as to our
+future, and Heda lost her temper because the oracle declared that she
+would marry an apothecary.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What nonsense it was! The cards prophesied to me that I should marry
+for love;--I! As if I should think of such a thing! But I was not in
+the least vexed, although I knew how false it was.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Towards eight o'clock the girls drove home, and I concluded the evening
+by taking my new bonnet to pieces and then scribbling here at my
+writing-table. I cannot make up my mind to go to bed. I am fairly
+tingling to my finger-tips with delightful anticipations. To think of
+seeing Paris once more,--Paris, where I was born, the very centre of
+the civilized world! Oh, it is too charming!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Something extraordinary will happen during this trip,--I am sure of it.
+I shall meet some one who will liberate me from my solitude and set me
+upon the pedestal for which I long; an English peer, perhaps, or a
+Russian prince, oh, it will of course be a Russian prince--who spends
+most of his time in Paris. I shall not mind his not being very young.
+Elderly men are more easily managed.----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">(At this point the major frowns. &quot;I should not have thought it of her,
+I really should not have thought it of her. Well, we shall see whether
+she is in earnest.&quot; And he goes on with his reading.)</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="right">June 10, ----.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I have a piece of news to put down. The Frau von Harfink who bought
+Dobrotschau a while ago--the estate that adjoins Zirkow, a fine
+property with a grand castle but poor soil--is no other than Lato
+Treurenberg's mother-in-law. She called upon us to-day. When
+Krupitschka brought the cards of the Baroness Melanie von Harfink and
+her daughter Paula, Aunt Rosa denounced the visit as a presumption upon
+the part of the ladies. She had been engaged all day long in setting
+the house &quot;to rights,&quot; preparatory to our departure, and had on a very
+old gown in which she does not often appear; wherefore she would fain
+have denied herself. But I was burning with curiosity to see Lato's
+mother-in-law: so I remarked, &quot;Uncle Paul and I will go and receive the
+ladies, while you dress.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This made my aunt very angry. &quot;It never would occur to me to dress for
+these wealthy <i>parvenues</i>. This gown is quite good enough for them.&quot;
+And she smoothed the faded folds of her skirt so that a neatly-darned
+spot was distinctly conspicuous. The ladies were immediately shown in;
+they were extremely courteous and amiable, but they found no favour in
+my aunt's eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There really was no objection to make to Mamma von Harfink, who is
+still a very handsome woman, except that her manner was rather
+affected. The daughter, however, was open to criticism of various
+kinds, and subsequently became the subject of a serious dispute between
+my aunt and uncle. My aunt called Fräulein Paula disagreeable,
+absolutely hideous, and vulgar; whereupon my uncle, slowly shaking his
+head, rejoined,----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Say what you please, she may not be agreeable, but she is very
+pretty.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Upon this my aunt grew angry, and called Fräulein Paula a &quot;red-haired
+kitchen-maid.&quot; My uncle shrugged his shoulders, and observed,
+&quot;Nevertheless, there have been kitchen-maids who were not ugly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then my aunt declared, &quot;I can see nothing pretty about such fat
+creatures; but, according to her mother's account, you are not alone in
+your admiration. Madame Harfink had hardly been here five minutes when
+she informed me that Professor X----, of Vienna, had declared that her
+daughter reminded him of Titian's penitent Magdalen in the Borghese
+Gallery in Rome, and she asked me whether I was not struck with the
+resemblance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My uncle grinned--I could not see at what and said, &quot;H'm! the Magdalen,
+perhaps; but whether penitent or not----&quot; and he pinched my cheek.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The dispute continued for a while longer, and ended with my aunt's
+emphatic declaration that men always had the worst possible taste with
+regard to young girls. My uncle burst into a laugh at this, and
+replied, &quot;True. I gave proof of it on the 21st of May, 1858.&quot; It was
+his marriage-day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Of course my aunt laughed, and the quarrel ended. The subject was
+changed, and we discussed Lato Treurenberg's marriage, which had
+puzzled us all. My aunt declared that since she had seen the family
+Treurenberg's choice appeared to her more incomprehensible than ever.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My uncle shook his head sagely, and observed, &quot;If Selina Treurenberg at
+all resembles her sister, it explains much to me, especially when I
+recall the poor fellow's peculiarities. It makes me more lenient
+towards him, and--I pity him from my heart.&quot; They evidently did not
+wish to say anything more upon the subject before me.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="right">June 20.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This afternoon we start. I am in a fever of anticipation. How
+delightful! I seem to have come to the turning-point of my existence.
+Something wonderful is surely going to happen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile, I take my leave of my little book,--I shall have no time to
+write in it while we are away.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="right">July 30.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here we are back again in the old nest! Nothing either wonderful or
+even extraordinary happened upon the journey; on the contrary,
+everything was quite commonplace. I did not meet the Russian prince,
+but I have brought home with me a conviction of the beauty and delights
+of the world, and the certainty that, if fate would only grant me the
+opportunity, I could play a most brilliant part in it. But my destiny
+has nothing of the kind to offer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I am restless and discontented, and I have great trouble in concealing
+my mood from my uncle and aunt. I am likewise disgusted with my
+ingratitude. I know that the expenses of our trip weighed heavily upon
+my uncle. He has bought himself no new horses, although the old ones
+are lame in all four legs; and my aunt has given up her pilgrimage to
+Bayreuth, that I might go to the baths. She expected so much for me
+from this trip, and now----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Still, prosaic and commonplace as it all was, I will put it down here
+conscientiously in detail. Various pleasant little circumstances may
+recur to me as I write which have escaped me in my general discontent
+that has tinged everything.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Our few days in Vienna were the pleasantest part of the entire trip,
+little as I liked the city at first.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">We arrived at ten in the evening, rather exhausted by the heat, and of
+course we expected to see Harry at the railroad-station, my uncle
+having advised him of our arrival. But in vain did we peer in every
+direction, or rather in vain did Aunt Rosamunda thus peer (for I did
+nothing of the kind); there was no Harry to be seen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">While my aunt loudly expressed her wonder at his non-appearance, I
+never uttered a word, but was secretly all the more vexed at what
+seemed to me Harry's laziness and want of consideration. Of course, I
+attributed his absence to the fact that a young man who passed his time
+in flying from one fête to another in the world (which I was not to
+know) could hardly be very anxious to meet a couple of relatives from
+the country. Perhaps he had come to be just like Heda, and I shrugged
+my shoulders indifferently at the thought. What could it possibly
+matter to me? Meanwhile, my aunt had given our luggage-tickets to
+a porter and got with me into an open carriage, where we quietly and
+wearily awaited our trunks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Around us the lights flickered in the warm, dim, night air, which was
+almost as close as an in-door atmosphere, and smelled most unpleasantly
+of dust, dried leaves, and all sorts of exhalations. On every hand
+crowded houses of indescribable clumsiness and ugliness; I was
+depressed by the mere eight of them, and suddenly experienced the most
+painful sensation of shrivelling up. The deafening noise and bustle
+were in harmony with the houses: I never had heard anything like it.
+Everybody jostled everybody else, all were in a hurry, and no one paid
+the slightest regard to anybody. It seemed as if they were one and all
+bound for some great entertainment and feared to be too late.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the hotel the reason for Harry's absence was explained. We found two
+beautiful bunches of roses in our rooms, and a note, as follows:</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am more sorry than I can tell, not to be able to welcome you at the
+station. I am, unfortunately, on duty at a garden-party at the Archduke
+S----'s.... I shall report myself to you, however, at the earliest
+opportunity.</p>
+
+<p class="right">&quot;<span class="sc">Harry</span>.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">I supped with a relish, and slept soundly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My aunt had breakfasted in our sitting-room and was reading the paper,
+when I had scarcely begun to dress. I was just about to brush my
+hair,--I have very long hair, and it is quite pretty, light brown with
+a dash of gold,--in fact, I was standing before the mirror in my white
+peignoir, with my hair hanging soft and curling all around me, very
+well pleased with my reflection in the glass, when suddenly I heard the
+jingling of spurs and sabre, and a voice which was familiar and yet
+unfamiliar. I trembled from head to foot.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Zdena, hurry, and come!&quot; called my aunt. &quot;Here is a visitor!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I knew well enough who it was, but, as if I did not know, I opened the
+door, showed myself for a moment in my white wrapper and long, loose
+hair,--only for a moment,--and then hastily retreated.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come just as you are. 'Tis only Harry; it is not as if it were a
+stranger. Come!&quot; called my aunt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But I was not to be persuaded. Not for worlds would I have had Harry
+suspect that--that--well, that I was in any great hurry to see him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I dressed my hair with the most scrupulous care. Not before twenty
+minutes had passed did I go into the next room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">How plainly I see it all before me now,--the room, half drawing-room,
+half dressing-room; a trunk in one corner, in another an old
+piano, the key of which we were obliged to procure from the kellner; in
+an arm-chair a bundle of shawls, over the back of a sofa our
+travelling-wraps, our well-polished boots in front of the porcelain
+stove, great patches of misty sunshine lying everywhere, the
+breakfast-table temptingly spread near the window, and there, opposite
+my aunt, his sabre between his knees, tall, slender, very brown, very
+handsome, an officer of hussars,--Harry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I like him, and am a little afraid of him. He suddenly springs up and
+advances a step or two towards me. His eyes--the same eyes that had
+glanced at me as I appeared in my wrapper--open wide in amazement; his
+gaze is riveted upon my face. All my fear has gone; yes, I confess it
+to this paper,--I am possessed by an exultant consciousness of power.
+He is only my cousin, 'tis true, but he is the first man upon whom I
+have been able to prove my powers of conquest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I put my hands in his, so cordially extended, but when he stooped as if
+to kiss me, I shook my head, laughing, and said, &quot;I am too old for
+that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He yielded without a word, only touching my hand respectfully with
+his lips and then releasing me; whereupon I went directly to the
+breakfast-table. But, as he still continued to gaze at me, I asked,
+easily,----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is it, Harry? Is my hair coming down?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He shook his head, and said, in some confusion, &quot;Not at all. I was only
+wondering what you had done with all your magnificent hair!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I made no reply, but applied myself to my breakfast.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was really delightful, our short stay in Vienna. Harry was with us
+all the while. He went about with us from morning till night; patiently
+dragged with us to shops, picture-galleries, and cathedrals, and to the
+dusty, sunny Prater, where the vegetation along the drive seemed to
+have grown shabby. We drove together to Schönbrunn, the huge, dreamy,
+imperial summer residence, and wandered about the leafy avenues there.
+We fed the swans; we fed the monkeys and the bears, while my aunt
+rested near by, Baedeker in hand, upon any bench she could find. She
+rested a great deal, and grew more tired with every day of our stay in
+Vienna, and with very good reason; she can hardly endure the pavement
+in walking, and she refuses, from fastidiousness, to take advantage of
+the tramway, and, from economy, to hire a carriage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sunset has kindled flames in all the windows of the castle, and we
+are still wandering in the green avenues, talking of all sorts of
+things, music, and literature. Harry's taste is classic; mine is
+somewhat revolutionary. I talk more than he; he listens. Sometimes he
+throws in a word in the midst of my nonsense; at other times he laughs
+heartily at my paradoxes, and then again he suddenly looks askance at
+me and says nothing. Then I become aware that he understands far more
+than I of the matter in hand, and I fall silent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sun has set; the rosy reflection on the grass and at the foot of
+the old trees has faded; there is only a pale, gray gleam on the castle
+windows. All nature seems to sigh relieved. A cool mist rises from the
+basins of the fountains, like the caress of a water-nymph; the roses,
+petunias, and mignonette exhale delicious fragrance, which rises as
+incense to heaven; the lisp of the leaves and the plash of the fountain
+interpose a dreamy veil of sound, as it were, between us and some
+aggressive military music in the distance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The twilight falls; the nurses are all taking their charges home. Here
+and there on the benches a soldier and a nursemaid are sitting
+together. It is too dark to see to read Baedeker any longer. My aunt
+calls to us: &quot;Do come, children; the carriage has been waiting ever so
+long, and I am very hungry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And the time had seemed so short to me. My aunt is so easily fatigued,
+and her aversion to tramways is so insurmountable, that she stays at
+home half the time in the hotel, and I make many a little expedition
+with Harry alone. Then I take his arm. We stroll through the old part
+of the city, with its sculptured monuments, its beautiful gray palaces
+standing side by side with the commonest lodging-houses; about us
+people are thronging and pushing; we are in no hurry; we should like to
+have time stand still,--Harry and I; we walk very slowly. I am so
+content, so filled with a sense of protection, when I am with him thus.
+It is delightful to cling to him in the crowd.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It seems to me that I should like to spend my life in slowly wandering
+thus in the cool of the evening through the streets, where the lights
+are just beginning to be lighted, where a pair of large, kindly eyes
+rest upon my face, and the sound of distant military music is in my
+ears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The last evening before our departure arrived. We were sitting in our
+small drawing-room, and Harry and I were drinking iced coffee. My aunt
+had left hers untouched; the fever of travelling was upon her; she
+wandered from one room to another, opening trunks, drawers, and
+wardrobes, and casting suspicious glances under the piano and the
+sofas, sure that something would be left behind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The kellner brought in two cards,--Countess Zriny and Fräulein
+Tschaky,--a cousin of Uncle Paul's, with her companion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">We had called upon the Countess the day before, and had rejoiced to
+find her not at home. My aunt now elevated her eyebrows, and murmured,
+plaintively, &quot;It can't be helped!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she hurriedly carried two bundles of shawls and a hand-bag into
+the next room, and the ladies were shown in.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Countess Zriny is a very stout, awkward old maid, with the figure of a
+meal-sack and the face of a portly abbot. Harry maintains that she has
+holy water instead of blood in her veins, and that she has for ten
+years lived exclusively upon Eau de Lourdes and Count Mattei's
+miraculous pills. It is odd that she should have grown so stout upon
+such a diet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There is nothing to say of Fräulein Tschaky.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Aunt Rosamunda received the ladies with a majestic affability
+peculiarly her own, and presented me as &quot;Our child,--Fritz's daughter!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Countess gave me her hand, a round, fat little hand that felt as if
+her Swedish glove were stuffed with wadding, then put up her eyeglass
+and gazed at me, lifting her eyebrows the while.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;All her father!&quot; she murmured,--&quot;especially her profile.&quot; Then she
+dropped her eyeglass, sighed, &quot;Poor Fritz! poor Fritz!&quot; seated herself
+on the sofa with my aunt, and began to whisper to her, looking steadily
+at me all the while.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sensitive irritability of my nature was at once aflame. If she had
+pitied my father only for being snatched away so early in his fair
+young life, for being torn so suddenly from those whom he loved! But
+this was not the case. She pitied him solely because he had married my
+mother. Oh, I knew it perfectly well; and she was whispering about it
+to my aunt before me,--she could not even wait until I should be away.
+I could hear almost every word.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My heart suddenly grew heavy,--so heavy with the old grief that I would
+fain forget, that I could hardly bear it. But even in the midst of my
+pain I observed that Harry was aware of my suffering and shared it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Of course my cousin Zriny--for she is my cousin, after all--was
+otherwise extremely amiable to me. She turned from her mysterious
+conversation with Aunt Rosamunda, and addressed a couple of questions
+to me. She asked whether I liked country life, and when I replied,
+curtly, &quot;I know no other,&quot; she laughed good-humouredly, just as some
+contented old monk might laugh,--a laugh that seemed to shake her fat
+sides and double chin, as she said, &quot;<i>Elle a de l'esprit, la petite;
+elle n'est pas du tout banale</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">How she arrived at that conclusion from my brief reply, I am unable to
+say.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After a quarter of an hour she rose, took both my hands in hers by way
+of farewell, put her head on one side, sighed, &quot;Poor Fritz!&quot; and then
+kissed me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When the door had closed behind her, my aunt betook herself to the next
+room to make ready for a projected evening walk.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I was left alone with Harry. As I could not restrain my tears, and did
+not know how else to conceal them, I turned my back to him and
+pretended to arrange my hair at the pier-glass, before which stood a
+vase filled with the La France roses that he had brought me the day
+before.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a silly thing to do. He looked over my shoulder and saw in the
+mirror the tears on my cheeks, and then--he put his arm around my waist
+and whispered, &quot;You poor little goose! You sensitive little thing! Why
+should you grieve because a kindhearted, weak-minded old woman was
+silly?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then I could not help sobbing outright, crying, &quot;Ah, it is always the
+same,--I know it! I am not like the other girls in your world. People
+despise me, and my poor mother too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But this is childish,&quot; he said, gravely,--&quot;childish and foolish. No
+one despises you. And--don't scratch my eyes out, Zdena--it is not your
+heart, merely, that is wounded at present, but your vanity, the vanity
+of an inexperienced little girl who knows nothing of the world or of
+the people in it. If you had knocked about in it somewhat, you would
+know how little it signifies if people in general wink and nod, and
+that the only thing really to care for is, to be understood and loved
+by those to whom we cling with affection.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He said this more gently and kindly than I can write it. He suddenly
+seemed very far above me in his earnest kindness of heart and his sweet
+reasonableness. I was instantly possessed with a feeling akin to
+remorse and shame, to think how I had teased him and tyrannized over
+him all through those last few days. And I cannot tell how it happened,
+but he clasped me close in his arms and bent down and kissed me on the
+lips,--and I let him do it! Ah, such a thrill passed through me! And I
+felt sheltered and cared for as I had not done since my mother's
+clasping arms had been about me. I was for the moment above all petty
+annoyances,--borne aloft by a power I could not withstand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It lasted but a moment, for we were startled by the silken rustle of my
+aunt's gown, and did he release me? did I leave him? I do not know; but
+when Aunt Rosamunda appeared I was adjusting a rose in my breast, and
+Harry was--looking for his sabre!----. (When the major reached this
+point, he stamped on the floor with delight.)</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Aha, Rosel, which of us was right?&quot; he exclaimed aloud. He would have
+liked to summon his wife from where he could see her walking in the
+garden, to impart to her his glorious discovery. On reflection,
+however, he decided not to do so, chiefly because there was a good deal
+of manuscript still unread, and he was in a hurry to continue the
+perusal of what interested him so intensely.)</p>
+
+<p class="normal">----I avoided being alone with Harry all the rest of the evening, but
+the next morning at the railway-station, while my aunt was nervously
+counting over the pieces of luggage for the ninety-ninth time, I could not
+prevent his leaning towards me and saying, &quot;Zdena, we were so unfortunately
+interrupted last evening. You have not yet told me--that----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I felt myself grow scarlet. &quot;Wait for a while!&quot; I murmured, turning my
+head away from him, but I think that perhaps--I pressed his hand----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I must have done so, for happier eyes than those which looked after our
+train as it sped away I have never seen. Ah, how silly I had been! I
+carried with me for the rest of the journey a decided regret.----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">(The major frowned darkly. &quot;Why, this looks as if she would like to
+withdraw her promise! But let me see, there really has no promise
+passed between them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He glanced hurriedly over the following leaves. &quot;Descriptions of
+travel--compositions,&quot; he muttered to himself. &quot;Paris--variations upon
+Baedeker--the little goose begins to be tiresome----Ah, here is
+something about her parents' grave--poor thing! And here----&quot; He began
+to read again.)</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">----A few hours after our arrival we drove to the graveyard at
+Montmartre, an ugly, gloomy graveyard, bordering directly upon a
+business-street, so that the noise and bustle of the city sound
+deafeningly where the dead are reposing. The paths are as straight
+as if drawn by a ruler, and upon the graves lie wreaths of straw
+flowers or stiff immortelles. These durable decorations seem to me
+heartless,--as if the poor dead were to be provided for once for all,
+since it might be tiresome to visit them often.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My parents' grave lies a little apart from the broad centre path, under
+a knotty old juniper-tree.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I heaped it with flowers, and amid the fresh blossoms I laid the roses,
+now faded, which Harry gave me yesterday when we parted.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">I was enchanted with Paris. My aunt was delighted with the shops. She
+spent all her time in them, and thought everything very reasonable. At
+the end of four days she had bought so many reasonable articles that
+she had to purchase a huge trunk in which to take them home, and she
+had scarcely any money left.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was convinced that she must have made some mistake in her accounts,
+and she worked over them half through an entire night, but with no
+consoling result.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The upshot of it was that she wanted to go home immediately; but since
+the trip had been undertaken chiefly for my health and was to end in a
+visit to some sea-side resort, she wrote to my uncle, explaining the
+state of affairs--that is, of her finances--and asking for a subsidy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My uncle sent the subsidy, but requested us to leave Paris as soon as
+possible, and to choose a modest seaside resort.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next day we departed from Babylon.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After inquiring everywhere, and studying the guidebook attentively, my
+aunt finally resolved to go to St. Valery.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The evening was cold and windy when we reached the little town and drew
+up in the omnibus before the Hôtel de la Plage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The season had not begun, and the hotel was not actually open, but it
+received us.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As no rooms were taken, all were placed at our disposal, and we chose
+three in the first story, one for my aunt, one for me, and one for our
+trunks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The furniture, of crazy old mahogany, had evidently been bought of some
+dealer in second-band furniture in Rouen, but the beds were extremely
+good, and the bed-linen, although &quot;coarse as sacking,&quot; as Uncle Paul
+would have expressed it, was perfectly clean and white.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">From our windows we looked out upon the sea and upon the little wooden
+hut where the safety-boat was kept, and also upon the little town park,
+about a hundred square yards in extent; upon the Casino, quite an
+imposing structure on the shore; upon the red pennons which,
+designating the bathing-place, made a brilliant show in the midst of
+the prevailing gray, and upon a host of whitewashed bath-houses waiting
+for the guests who had not yet arrived.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">How indeed could they arrive? One had need to have come from Bohemia,
+not to go directly home, in such cold, damp weather as we had; but we
+wanted to get value from our expensive trip.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Casino was no more open than the hotel, it was even in a decided
+<i>négligé</i>, but it was busily dressing. A swarm of painters and
+upholsterers were decorating it. The upholsterers hung the inside with
+crimson, the painters coloured the outside red and white.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The proprietor, a broad-shouldered young man answering to the
+high-sounding name of Raoul Donval, daily superintended the work of
+the--artists. He always wore a white cap with a broad black visor, and
+a stick in the pocket of his short jacket, and plum-coloured
+knickerbockers; and I think he considered himself very elegant.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They were draping and beautifying and painting our hotel too.
+Everything was being painted instead of scrubbed,--the stairs, the
+doors, the floors; everywhere the dirt was hidden beneath the same
+dull-red colour. Aunt Rosa declared that they seemed to her to be
+daubing the entire house with blood. Just at this time she was wont to
+make most ghastly comparisons, because, for lack of other literature,
+she was reading an historical romance in the <i>Petit Journal</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was in a far more melancholy mood than I at St. Valery. Since it
+had to be, I made up my mind to it, consoling myself with the
+reflection that I was just nineteen, and that there was plenty of time
+for fate, if so minded, to shape my destiny brilliantly. Unfortunately,
+my aunt had not this consolation, but, instead, the depressing
+consciousness of having given up Bayreuth. It was hard. I was very
+sorry for her, and did all that I could to amuse her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I could always find something to laugh at in our visits to the empty
+Casino and in our walks through the town, but instead of cheering
+her my merriment distressed her. She had seen in the French journal
+which she studied faithfully every day an account of a sensitive
+trombone-player at the famous yearly festival at Neuilly who had broken
+his instrument over the head of an arrogant Englishman who had allowed
+himself to make merry over some detail of the festival. Therefore I
+could scarcely smile in the street without having my aunt twitch my
+sleeve and say,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For heaven's sake don't laugh at these Frenchmen!--remember that
+trombone at Neuilly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">During the first fortnight I had the whole shore, with the bath-houses
+and bathing-men, entirely to myself. It was ghastly! The icy
+temperature of the water seemed to bite into my flesh, my teeth
+chattered, and the bather who held me by both my hands was as blue as
+his dress. Our mutual isolation had the effect of establishing a
+friendship between the bather and myself. He had formerly been a
+sailor, and had but lately returned from Tonquin; he told me much that
+was interesting about the war and the cholera. He was a good-looking
+fellow, with a fair complexion and a tanned face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After my bath I ran about on the shore until I got warm, and then we
+breakfasted. My aunt did not bathe. She counted the days like a
+prisoner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When the weather permitted, we made excursions into the surrounding
+country in a little wagon painted yellow, drawn by a shaggy donkey,
+which I drove myself. The donkey's name was Jeanne d'Arc,--which
+horrified my aunt,--and she had a young one six months old that ran
+after us as we drove along.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For more than two weeks we were the sole inmates of the Hôtel de la
+Plage. The manager of the establishment--who was likewise the head of
+the kitchen--drove to the station every day to capture strangers, but
+never brought any back.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I see him now,--short and enormously broad, with a triple or quadruple
+chin, sitting on the box beside the coachman, his hands on his thighs.
+He always wore sky-blue trousers, and a short coat buckled about him
+with a broad patent-leather belt. The chambermaid, who revered him,
+informed me that it was the dress of an English courier.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One day he brought back to the host, who daily awaited the guests, two
+live passengers,--an old woman and a young man.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old woman was very poor, and took a garret room. She must have been
+beautiful formerly, and she looked very distinguished. She positively
+refused to write her name in the strangers' book. By chance we learned
+afterwards that she was a Comtesse d'Ivry, from Versailles, who had had
+great misfortunes. She had a passion for sunsets; every afternoon she
+had an arm-chair carried out on the shore, and sat there, wrapped in a
+thick black cloak, with her feet on a hot-water bottle, to admire the
+majestic spectacle. When it rained, she still persisted in going, and
+sat beneath a large ragged umbrella. Upon her return she usually sighed
+and told the host that the sunsets here were not nearly so fine as at
+Trouville,--appearing to think that this was his fault.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last the weather brightened and it grew warm; the sun chased away
+the clouds, and allured a crowd of people to the lonely shore. And such
+people! I shudder to think of them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">We could endure the solitude, but such society was unendurable.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next day I took my last bath.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On our return journey, at Cologne, an odd thing happened.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was early, and I was sleepy. I was waiting for breakfast in
+melancholy mood, and was contemplating a huge pile of elegant
+hand-luggage which a servant in a very correct dark suit was
+superintending, when two ladies, followed by a maid, made their
+appearance, one fair, the other dark, from the dressing-room, which
+had been locked in our faces. In honour of these two princesses we had
+been obliged to remain unwashed. Ah, how fresh and neat and pretty they
+both looked! The dark one was by far the handsomer of the two, but she
+looked gloomy and discontented, spoke never a word, and after a hurried
+breakfast became absorbed in a newspaper. The fair one, on the contrary,
+a striking creature, with a very large hat and a profusion of passementerie
+on her travelling-cloak, talked a great deal and very loudly to a short,
+fat woman who was going with her little son to Frankfort, and who addressed
+the blonde as &quot;Frau Countess.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The name of the short woman was Frau Kampe, and the name of the
+Countess, which I shortly learned, shall be told in due time. The
+Countess complained of the fatigue of travelling; Frau Kampe, in a
+sympathetic tone, declared that it was almost impossible to sleep in
+the railway-carriages at this time of year, they were so overcrowded.
+But the Countess rejoined with a laugh,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We had as much room as we wanted all the way; my husband secures that
+by his fees. He is much too lavish, as I often tell him. Since I have
+been travelling with him we have always had two railway-carriages, one
+for me and my maid, and the other for him and his cigars. It has been
+delightful.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Even upon your wedding tour?&quot; asked her handsome, dark companion,
+looking up from her reading.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ha, ha, ha! Yes, even upon our wedding tour,&quot; said the other. &quot;We were
+a very prosaic couple, entirely independent of each other,--quite an
+aristocratic match!&quot; And she laughed again with much self-satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where is the Herr Count?&quot; asked Frau Kampe. &quot;I should like to make his
+acquaintance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, he is not often to be seen; he is smoking on the platform
+somewhere. I scarcely ever meet him; he never appears before the third
+bell has rung. A very aristocratic marriage, you see, Frau Kampe,--such
+a one as you read of.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Countess's beautiful companion frowned, and the little Kampe boy
+grinned from ear to ear,--I could not tell whether it was at the
+aristocratic marriage or at the successful solution of an arithmetical
+problem which he had just worked out on the paper cover of one of
+Walter Scott's novels.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I must confess that I was curious to see the young husband who even
+upon his marriage journey had preferred the society of his cigars to
+that of his bride.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My aunt had missed the interesting conversation between Frau Kampe and
+her young patroness; she had rushed out to see the cathedral in the
+morning mist. I had manifested so little desire to join her in this
+artistic but uncomfortable enterprise that she had dispensed with my
+society. She now came back glowing with enthusiasm, and filled to
+overflowing with all sorts of information as to Gothic architecture.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Scarcely had she seated herself to drink the coffee which I poured out
+for her, when a tall young man, slightly stooping in his gait, and with
+a very attractive, delicately-chiselled face, entered. Was he not----?
+Well, whoever he was, he was the husband of the aristocratic marriage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He exchanged a few words with the blonde Countess, and was about to
+leave the room, when his glance fell upon my aunt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Baroness, you here!--what a delight!&quot; he exclaimed, approaching her
+hastily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lato!&quot; she almost screamed. She always talks a little loud away from
+home, which annoys me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was, in fact, our old friend Lato Treurenberg. Before she had been
+with him two minutes my aunt had forgotten all her prejudice against
+him since his marriage,--and, what was more, had evidently forgotten
+the marriage itself, for she whispered, leaning towards him with a sly
+twinkle of her eye and a nod in the direction of the ladies,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What noble acquaintances you have made!--from Frankfort, or Hamburg?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My heart was in my mouth. No one except Aunt Rosamunda could have made
+such a blunder.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The words had hardly escaped her lips when she became aware of her
+mistake, and she was covered with confusion. Lato flushed scarlet. At
+that moment the departure of our train was announced, and Lato took a
+hurried leave of us. I saw him outside putting the ladies into a
+carriage, after which he himself got into another.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">We travelled second-class, and therefore had the pleasure of sharing a
+compartment with the man-servant and maid of the Countess Lato
+Treurenberg.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My aunt took it all philosophically, while I, I confess, had much ado
+to conceal my ungrateful and mean irritation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I succeeded, however; I do not think my aunt even guessed at my state
+of mind. She went to sleep; perhaps she dreamed of Cologne Cathedral.
+I--ah, I no longer dreamed; I had long since awakened from my dreams,
+and had rubbed my eyes and destroyed all my fine castles in the air.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The trip from which I had promised myself so much was over, and what
+had been effected? Nothing, save a more distinct appreciation of our
+straitened circumstances and an increase of my old gnawing discontent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I recalled the delightful beginning of our trip, the long, dreamy
+summer days in Vienna, the evening at Schönbrunn. Again I saw about me
+the fragrant twilight, and heard, through the plash of fountains and
+the whispering of the linden leaves, the sound of distant military
+music. I saw Harry--good heavens! how plainly I saw him, with his
+handsome mouth, his large, serious eyes! How he used to look at me! And
+I recalled how beautiful the world had seemed to me then, so beautiful
+that I thought I could desire nothing better than to wander thus
+through life, leaning upon his arm in the odorous evening air, with the
+echo of distant military music in my ear.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then ambition rose up before me and swept away all these lovely
+visions, showing me another picture,--Harry, borne down by cares, in
+narrow circumstances, his features sharpened by anxiety, with a pale,
+patient face, jesting bitterly, his uniform shabby, though carefully
+brushed. Ah, and should I not love him ten times more then than now! he
+would always be the same noble, chivalric----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But I could not accept such a sacrifice from him. I could not; it would
+be unprincipled. Specious phrases! What has principle to do with it? I
+do not choose to be poor--no, I will not be poor, and therefore I am
+glad that we were interrupted at the right moment in Vienna. He cannot
+possibly imagine--ah, if he had imagined anything he would have written
+to me, and we have not had a line from him since we left him. He would
+have regretted it quite as much as I, if----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It never would occur to him to resign all his grandfather's wealth for
+the sake of my golden hair. Young gentlemen are not given to such
+romantic folly nowadays; though, to be sure, he is not like the rest of
+them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The result of all my reflections was an intense hatred for my
+grandfather, who tyrannized over me thus instead of allowing affairs to
+take their natural, delightful course; and another hatred, somewhat
+less intense, for the brewery, which had absorbed half of Uncle Paul's
+property,--that is, much more than would have been necessary to assure
+me a happy future. When I saw from the railway the brew-house chimney
+above the tops of the old lindens, I shook my fist at it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My uncle was waiting for us at the station. He was so frankly rejoiced
+to have us back again that it cheered my heart. His eyes sparkled as he
+came to me after greeting my aunt. He gazed at me very earnestly, as if
+he expected to perceive some great and pleasant change in me, and then,
+putting his finger under my chin, turned my face from side to side.
+Suddenly he released me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are even paler than you were before!&quot; he exclaimed, turning away.
+He had expected the sea-bathing to work miracles.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do I not please you as I am, uncle dear?&quot; I asked, putting my hand
+upon his arm. Then he kissed me; but I could see plainly that his
+pleasure was dashed.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Now we have been at home four days, and I am writing my memoirs,
+because I am tired of having nothing to do. It does not rain to-day;
+the sun is burning hot,--ah, how it parches the August grass! The
+harvest was poor, the rye-straw is short, and the grains of wheat are
+small. And everything was so promising in May! My uncle spends a great
+deal of time over his accounts.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="right">August 8.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Something quite extraordinary has happened. We have a visitor, a cousin
+of Aunt Rosamunda's,--Baron Roderich Wenkendorf. He is a very amiable
+old gentleman, about forty-five years old. He interests himself in
+everything that interests me,--even in Carlyle's 'French Revolution,'
+only he cannot bear it. Moreover, he is a Wagnerite; that is his only
+disagreeable characteristic. Every day he plays duets with Aunt
+Rosamunda from the 'Götterdämmerung,' which makes Uncle Paul and
+Morl nervous. Besides, he paints, of course only for pleasure, but
+very ambitiously. Last year he exhibited one of his pictures in
+Vienna--Napoleon at St. Helena--no, Charles the Fifth in the cloister.
+I remember, he cannot endure the Corsican upstart. He declares that
+Napoleon had frightful manners. We had a dispute about it. We often
+quarrel; but he entertains me, he pleases me, and so, perhaps----</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="right">August 10.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It might be worth while to take it into consideration. For my sake he
+would take up his abode in Bohemia. I do not dislike him, and my aunt
+says that marry whom you will you can never get used to him until after
+marriage. Harry and I should always be just the same to each other; he
+would always be welcome as a brother in our home, of course. I cannot
+really see why people must marry because they love each other.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_03" href="#div1Ref_03">CHAPTER III.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>AN ARRIVAL.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">When the major reached this point in his niece's memoirs, he rubbed his
+forehead thoughtfully. &quot;H'm!&quot; he murmured; &quot;why must people marry
+because they love each other? By Jove! On the whole, it is well that I
+now have some idea of what is going on in that insane little head.&quot;
+After this wise the major quieted his scruples as to the unpardonable
+indiscretion he had committed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The reading of Zdena's extraordinary production had so absorbed his
+attention that he had failed to hear the approach of some heavy vehicle
+which had drawn up before the castle, or the rhythmic beat of the hoofs
+of two riding-horses. Now he was suddenly startled by a firm step to
+the accompaniment of a low jingling sound in the corridor outside his
+room-door, at which there came a knock.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come in!&quot; he called out.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A young officer of hussars in a blue undress uniform entered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Harry! is it you?&quot; the major exclaimed, cordially. &quot;Let me have a look
+at you! What has put it into your head to drop down upon us so
+unexpectedly, like the <i>deus ex machinâ</i> in the fifth act of a
+melodrama?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The young fellow blushed slightly. &quot;I wanted to surprise you,&quot; he said,
+laughing, in some confusion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And you will stay a while with us? How long is your leave?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Six weeks.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's right. And you're glad to be at home once more?&quot; said the
+major, smiling broadly, and rubbing his hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He seemed to his nephew to be rather <i>distrait</i>, which he certainly
+was, for all the while he was thinking of matters of which no mention
+was made.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My uncle has either been taking a glass too much or he has drawn the
+first prize in a lottery,&quot; Harry thought to himself as he said, aloud,
+&quot;Hedwig has just come over, and Aunt Melanie.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, the Zriny: has she quartered herself upon you?&quot; the major asked,
+with something of a drawl.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I escorted her here from Vienna. Aunt Rosamunda deputed me to inform
+you of our relative's arrival, and to beg you to come immediately to
+the drawing-room.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;H'm, h'm!--I'll go, I'll go,&quot; murmured the major, and he left the room
+apparently not very well pleased. In the corridor he suddenly turned to
+his nephew, who was following at his heels. &quot;Have you seen Zdena yet?&quot;
+he asked, with a merry twinkle of his eye.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;N--o.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, go find her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where shall I look for her?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In the garden, in the honeysuckle arbour. She is posing for her
+elderly adorer that he may paint her as Zephyr, or Flora, or something
+of the kind.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Her elderly adorer? Who is he?&quot; Harry asked, with a frown, his voice
+sounding hard and sharp.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A cousin of my wife's, Baron Wenkendorf is his name, an enormously
+rich old bachelor, and head over ears in love with our girl. He calls
+himself a painter, in spite of his wealth, and he has induced the child
+to stand for some picture for him. He makes love to her, I suppose,
+while she poses.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And she--what has she to say to his homage?&quot; asked Harry, feeling as
+if some one were choking him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, she's tolerably condescending. She does not object to being made
+love to a little. He is an agreeable man in spite of his forty-six
+years, and it certainly would be an excellent match.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As the major finished his sentence with an expression of countenance
+which Harry could not understand, the paths of the two men separated.
+Harry hurried down into the garden; the major walked along the corridor
+to the drawing-room door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;H'm! I have warmed him up,&quot; the major said to himself; &quot;'twill do no
+harm if they quarrel a little, those two children: it will bring the
+little goose to her senses all the sooner. There is only <i>one</i> healthy
+solution for the entire problem. You----!&quot; he shook his forefinger at
+the empty air. &quot;Why must people marry because they love each other?
+Only wait, you ultrasensible little goose; I will remind you of that
+one of these days.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_04" href="#div1Ref_04">CHAPTER IV.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>A QUARREL.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile, Harry has rushed out into the garden. He is very restless,
+very warm, very much agitated. It never occurs to him that his uncle
+has been chaffing him a little; he cannot suspect that the major has
+any knowledge of his sentiments.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She cannot be so worthless!&quot; he consoles himself by reflecting, while
+his eyes search for her in the distance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With this thought filling his mind, the young officer hurries on. He
+does not find her at first; she is not in the honeysuckle arbour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sultriness of the August afternoon weighs upon the dusty vegetation
+of the late summer. The leaves of the trees and shrubs droop wearily;
+the varied luxuriance of bloom is past; the first crop of roses has
+faded, the next has not yet arrived at maturity. Only a few red
+verbenas and zinnias gleam forth from the dull green monotony.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At a turn of the path Harry suddenly starts, and pauses,--he has found
+what he is looking for.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Directly in the centre of the hawthorn-bordered garden-path there is an
+easel weighted with an enormous canvas, at which, working away
+diligently, stands a gentleman, of whom Harry can see nothing but a
+slightly round-shouldered back, the fluttering ribbons of a Scotch cap
+set on the back of a head covered with short gray hair, and a gigantic
+palette projecting beyond the left elbow; while at some distance from
+the easel, clearly defined against the green background, stands a tall,
+graceful, maidenly figure draped in a loose, fantastic robe, her arms
+full of wild poppies, a large hat wreathed with vine-leaves on her
+small head, her golden-brown hair loose upon her shoulders,--Zdena! Her
+eyes meet Harry's: she flushes crimson,--the poppies slip from her arms
+and fall to the ground.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You here!&quot; she murmurs, confusedly, staring at him. She can find no
+more kindly words of welcome, and her face expresses terror rather than
+joyful surprise, as a far less sharp-sighted lover than Harry
+Leskjewitsch could not fail to observe.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He makes no reply to her words, but says, bluntly, pointing to the
+artist at the easel, &quot;Be kind enough to introduce me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With a choking sensation in her throat, and trembling lips, Zdena
+stammers the names of her two adorers, the old one and the young one.
+The gentlemen bow,--Harry with angry formality, Baron Wenkendorf with
+formal amiability.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Aunt Rosa tells me to ask you to come to the drawing-room,&quot; Harry
+says, dryly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have any guests arrived?&quot; asks Zdena.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Only my sister and Aunt Zriny.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, then I must dress myself immediately!&quot; she exclaims, and before
+Harry is aware of it she has slipped past him and into the house.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Baron Wenkendorf pushes his Scotch cap a little farther back from his
+forehead, which gives his face a particularly amazed expression, and
+gazes with the same condescending benevolence, first at the vanishing
+maidenly figure, and then at the picture on the easel; after which he
+begins to put up his painting-materials. Harry assists him to do so,
+but leaves the making of polite remarks entirely to the &quot;elderly
+gentleman.&quot; He is not in the mood for anything of the kind. He sees
+everything at present as through dark, crimson glass.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Although Zdena's distress arises from a very different cause from her
+cousin's, it is none the less serious.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, heavens!&quot; she thinks to herself, as she hurries to her room to
+arrange her dishevelled hair, &quot;why must he come before I have an answer
+ready? He surely will not insist upon an immediate decision! It would
+be terrible! Anything but a forced decision; that is the worst thing in
+the world.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Such, however, does not seem to be the opinion of her hot-blooded
+cousin. When, a quarter of an hour afterwards, she goes out into the
+corridor and towards the drawing-room door, she observes a dark figure
+standing in the embrasure of a window. The figure turns towards her,
+then approaches her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Harry! ah!&quot; she exclaims, with a start; &quot;what are you doing here? Are
+you waiting for anybody?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; he replies, with some harshness, &quot;for you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah!&quot; And, without looking at him, she hurries on to the door of the
+drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There is no one there,&quot; he informs her; &quot;they have all gone to the
+summer-house in the garden. Wenkendorf proposes to read aloud the
+libretto of 'Parzifal.'&quot; He pauses.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And did you stay here to tell me this?&quot; she stammers, trying to pass
+him, on her way to the steps leading into the garden. &quot;It was very kind
+of you; you seem destined to play the part of sheep-dog to-day, to
+drive the company together.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They go into the garden, and the buzz of voices reaches their ears from
+the summer-house. They have turned into a shady path, above which
+arches the foliage of the shrubs on either side. Suddenly Harry pauses,
+and seizing his cousin's slender hands in both his own, he gazes
+steadily and angrily into her eyes, saying, in a suppressed voice,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Zdena, how can you hurt me so?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her youthful blood pulsates almost as fiercely as does his own; now,
+when the moment for an explanation has come, and can no longer be
+avoided, now, one kind word from him, and all the barriers which with
+the help of pure reason she has erected to shield her from the
+insidious sweetness of her dreams will crumble to dust. But Harry does
+not speak this word: he is far too agitated to speak it. Instead of
+touching her heart, his harshness irritates her pride. Throwing back
+her head, she darts an angry glance at him from her large eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do not know what you mean.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I mean that you are letting that old coxcomb make love to you,&quot; he
+murmurs, angrily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She lifts her eyebrows, and replies, calmly, &quot;Yes!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The young officer continues to gaze searchingly into her face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are thoughtless,&quot; he says, slowly, with emphasis. &quot;In your eyes
+Wenkendorf is an old man; but he does not think himself so old as you
+think him, and--and----&quot; Suddenly, his forced composure giving way, he
+bursts forth: &quot;At the least it is ridiculous! it is silly to behave as
+you are doing!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the entire dictionary Harry could have found no word with which to
+describe Zdena's conduct that would have irritated her more than
+&quot;silly.&quot; If he had called her unprincipled, devilish, odious, cruel,
+she could have forgiven him; but &quot;silly!&quot;--that word she never can
+forgive; it makes her heart burn and smart as salt irritates an open
+wound.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I should like to know by what right you call me thus to account!&quot; she
+exclaims, indignantly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;By what right?&quot; he repeats, beside himself. &quot;Can you ask that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She taps the gravel of the pathway defiantly with her foot and is
+obstinately silent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What did you mean by your treatment of me in Vienna? what did you mean
+by all your loving looks and kind words? what did you mean when you--on
+the evening before you left----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Zdena's face is crimson, her cheeks and ears burn with mortification.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We grew up together like brother and sister,&quot; she murmurs. &quot;I have
+always considered you as a brother----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, indeed! a brother!&quot; His pulses throb wildly; his anger well-nigh
+makes him forget himself. Suddenly an ugly idea occurs to him,--an
+odious suspicion. &quot;Perhaps you were not aware there in Vienna that by a
+marriage with you I should resign my brilliant prospects?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They confront each other, stiff, unbending, both angry, each more ready
+to offend than to conciliate.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Around them the August heat broods over the garden; the bushes, the
+flowers, the shrubbery, all cast black shadows upon the smooth-shaven,
+yellowing grass, where here and there cracks in the soil are visible.
+Everything is quiet, but in the distance can be heard the gardener
+filling his large watering-can at the pump, and the jolting along the
+road outside the garden of the heavy harvest-wagons laden with grain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Did you know it then?&quot; he asks again, more harshly, more
+contemptuously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Of course she knew it, quite as well as she knows it now; but what use
+is there in her telling him so, when he asks her about it in such a
+tone?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Instead of replying, she frowns haughtily and shrugs her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For one moment more he stands gazing into her face; then, with a bitter
+laugh, he turns from her and strides towards the summer-house.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Harry!&quot; she calls after him, in a trembling undertone, but his blood
+is coursing too hotly in his veins--he does not hear her. Although he
+is one of the softest-hearted of men, he is none the less one of the
+most quick-tempered and obstinate.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">We leave it to the reader to judge whether the major would have been
+very well satisfied with this result of his cunning diplomacy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Whilst the two young people have been thus occupied in playing at
+hide-and-seek with their emotions and sentiments, the little
+summer-house, where the reading was to be held, has been the scene of
+a lively dispute. Countess Zriny and Baron Wenkendorf have made mutual
+confession of their sentiment with regard to Wagner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Countess is a vehement opponent of the prophet of Bayreuth, in the
+first place because in her youth she was a pupil of Cicimara's and
+consequently cannot endure the 'screaming called singing' introduced by
+Wagner; secondly, because Wagner's operas always give her headache; and
+thirdly, because she has noticed that his operas are sure to exercise
+an immoral influence upon those who hear them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wenkendorf, on the contrary, considers Wagner a great moral reformer,
+the first genius of the century in Germany,--Bismarck, of course,
+excepted. As he talks he holds in his hand the thick volume of Wagner's
+collected librettos, with his forefinger on the title-page of
+'Parzifal,' impatiently awaiting the moment when he can begin to read
+aloud.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Hitherto, since the Countess and Wenkendorf are both well-bred people,
+their lively dispute has been conducted in rather a humorous fashion,
+but finally Wenkendorf suggests a most reprehensible and, in the eyes
+of the Countess, unpardonable idea.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Whatever may be thought of Wagner's work, it cannot be denied,&quot; he
+says, with an oratorical flourish of his hand, &quot;that he is at the head
+of the greatest musical revolution ever known; that he has, so to
+speak, delivered music from conventional Catholicism, overladen as it
+is with all sorts of silly old-world superstition. He is, if I may so
+express myself, the Luther of music.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the word 'Luther,' uttered in raised tones, the bigoted Countess
+nearly faints away. In her eyes, Luther is an apostate monk who married
+a nun, a monster whom she detests.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, if you so compare him, Wagner is indeed condemned!&quot; she exclaims,
+flushing with indignation, and trembling through all her mass of flesh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At this moment Zdena and her cousin enter. Countess Zriny feels it her
+duty to embrace the girl patronizingly. Hedwig says something to her
+about her new gown.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Did you get it in Paris?&quot; she asks. &quot;I saw one like it in Vienna last
+summer,--but it is very pretty. You carry yourself much better than you
+used to, Zdena,--really a great improvement!--a great improvement!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last all are seated. Baron Wenkendorf clears his throat, and opens
+the portly volume.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now we can begin,&quot; Frau Rosamunda observes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Baron begins. He reads himself into a great degree of enthusiasm,
+and is just pronouncing the words,--</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<p class="t0" style="text-indent:-10px">
+&quot;Then after pain's drear night<br>
+Comes morning's glorious light;<br>
+Before me gleams</p>
+<p class="t2">Brightly the sacred wave,</p>
+<p class="t0">The blessed daylight beams,</p>
+<p class="t2">From night of pain to save</p>
+<p class="t0">Gawain----&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="continue">when Frau Rosamunda, who has been rummaging in her work-basket, rises.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is the matter, Rosamunda?&quot; the Baron asks, impatiently. He is the
+only one who addresses her by her beautiful baptismal name unmutilated.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Excuse me, my dear Roderich, but I cannot find my thimble. Zdena, be
+so kind as to go and get me my thimble.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">While Zdena has gone to look for it, Frau von Leskjewitsch turns to her
+cousin, who is rather irritated by this interruption, and exclaims,
+&quot;Very interesting!--oh, extremely interesting! Do you not think so?&quot;
+turning for confirmation of her opinion to the other listeners. But the
+other listeners do not respond. Countess Zriny, who, with her hands as
+usual encased in Swedish gloves, is knitting with thick, wooden needles
+something brown for the poor, only drops her double chin majestically
+upon her breast, and Harry--usually quite unsurpassable in the
+well-bred art of being bored with elegance and decorum--is tugging
+angrily at his moustache.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Zdena shortly returns with the missing thimble. The reading begins
+afresh, and goes quite smoothly for a time; Wenkendorf is satisfied
+with his audience.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, wonderful and sacred one!&quot; he is reading, with profound emotion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Everyone is listening eagerly. Hark! A scratching noise, growing louder
+each minute, and finally ending in a pounding at the summer-house door,
+arouses the little company from its rapt attention. A smile lights up
+Frau Rosamunda's serene features:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is Morl. Let him in, Harry.&quot; Morl, the hostess's black poodle, is
+admitted, goes round the circle, laying his paw confidingly upon the
+knee of each member of it in turn, is petted and caressed by his
+mistress, and finally, after he has vainly tried to oust the Countess
+Zriny from the corner of the sofa which he considers his own special
+property, establishes himself, with a low growl, in the other corner of
+that piece of furniture.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wenkendorf, meanwhile, drums the march from 'Tannhäuser' softly on the
+cover of his thick book and frowns disapprovingly. Harry observes his
+annoyance with satisfaction, watching him the while attentively, and
+reflecting on the excellent match in view of which Zdena has forgotten
+her fleeting attachment for the playmate of her childhood.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A contemptible creature!&quot; he says to himself: &quot;any man is good enough
+to afford her amusement. Who would have thought it? Fool that I was!
+I'm well out of it,--yes, really well out of it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And whilst he thus seriously attempts to persuade himself that, under
+the circumstances, nothing could be more advantageous for him than this
+severance of all ties with his beautiful, fickle cousin, his heart
+burns like fire in his breast. He has never before felt anything like
+this torture. His glance wanders across to where Zdena sits sewing,
+with bent head and feverish intentness, upon a piece of English
+embroidery.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The reading is interrupted again,--this time by Krupitschka, who wants
+more napkins for afternoon tea. Wenkendorf has to be assured with great
+emphasis that they all think the text of 'Parzifal' extremely
+interesting before he can be induced to open the book again. Suddenly
+the gravel outside crunches beneath approaching footsteps. The major's
+voice is heard, speaking in courteous tones, and then another, strange
+voice, deep and guttural. The summer-house door is opened.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A surprise, Rosel,&quot; the major explains. &quot;Baroness Paula!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The first to go forward and welcome the young lady cordially is Harry.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_05" href="#div1Ref_05">CHAPTER V.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>BARONESS PAULA.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The unexpected entrance of the famous beauty produces two important
+results,--the final cessation of the reading of 'Parzifal,' and a
+temporary reconciliation between Wenkendorf and Countess Zriny.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Whilst Frau Rosamunda receives her guest, not without a degree of
+formal reserve, the two aforesaid worthy and inquisitive individuals
+retire to a corner to consult together as to where these Harfinks come
+from, to whom they are related, the age of their patent of nobility,
+and where they got their money.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Since neither knows much about the Harfinks, their curiosity is
+ungratified. Meanwhile, Baroness Paula, lounging in a garden-chair
+beside the majestic hostess, chatters in a lively fashion upon every
+conceivable topic, as much at her ease as if she had been a daily guest
+at Zirkow for years. Her full voice is rather loud, her fluent
+vocabulary astounding. She wears a green Russia linen gown with Turkish
+embroidery on the skirt and a Venetian necklace around her throat,
+with an artistically-wrought clasp in front of her closely-fitting
+waist. The effect of her cosmopolitan toilet is considerably enhanced
+by a very peaked Paris bonnet--all feathers--and a pair of English
+driving-gloves. She has come in her pony-carriage, which she drives
+herself. Not taking into account her dazzling toilet, Paula is
+certainly a pretty person,--very fully developed and well grown,
+with perhaps too short a waist and arms a trifle too stout. Her
+features are regular, but her face is too large, and its tints of red
+and white are not sufficiently mingled; her lips are too full, the
+dimples in her cheeks are too deep when she smiles. Her hair is
+uncommonly beautiful,--golden, with a shimmer of Titian red.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her manner corresponds with her exterior. There is not a trace of
+maidenly reserve about her. Her self-satisfaction is impregnable. She
+talks freely of things of which young girls do not usually talk, and
+knows things which young girls do not usually know.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She is clever and well educated,--left school with honours and
+listened to all possible university lectures afterwards. She scatters
+about Latin quotations like an old professor, and talks about
+everything,--the new battle panorama in Vienna, the latest greenroom
+scandal in Pesth, the most recent scientific hypothesis, and the last
+interesting English divorce case. One cannot help feeling that she has
+brought a certain life into the dead-and-alive little company which had
+failed to be enlivened by the reading of 'Parzifal.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Quelle type!</i>&quot; Wenkendorf remarks to Countess Zriny.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Épouvantable!</i>&quot; she whispers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Épouvantable!</i>&quot; he responds, staring meanwhile at the brilliant
+apparition. &quot;Her figure is not bad, though,&quot; he adds.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not bad?&quot; the Countess repeats, indignantly. &quot;Why, she has the figure
+of a country bar-maid; involuntarily one fancies her in short
+petticoats, with her arms full of beer-mugs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Baron shakes his head, as if reflecting that there is nothing so
+very unattractive in the image of the young lady in the costume of a
+bar-maid; at the same time, however, he declares with emphasis that
+these Harfinks seem to be odious <i>canaille</i>, which, although it is
+perhaps his conviction, does not hinder him from admiring Paula.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">All the gentlemen present admire her, and all three, the major, the
+Baron, and Harry, are soon grouped about her, while the ladies at the
+other end of the room converse,--that is, make disparaging remarks with
+regard to the Baroness Paula.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry, of the three men, is most pressing in his attentions, which
+amount almost to devotion. Whatever he may whisper to her she listens
+to with the unblushing ease which makes life so smooth for her.
+Sometimes she represses him slightly, and anon provokes his homage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The ladies hope for a while, but in vain, that she will go soon. She is
+pleased to take a cup of afternoon tea, after which all return to the
+house, where at Harry's request she makes a display of her musical
+acquirements.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">First she plays, with extreme force and much use of the pedals, upon
+the venerable old piano, unused to such treatment, even from the major,
+the ride of the Valkyrias, after which she sings a couple of soprano
+airs from 'Tannhäuser.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry admires her splendid method; Countess Zriny privately stops her
+ears with a little cotton-wool. Hour after hour passes, and Krupitschka
+finally announces supper. Baroness Paula begins hurriedly to put on her
+driving-gloves, but when Frau Leskjewitsch, with rather forced
+courtesy, invites her to stay to supper, she replies, &quot;With the
+greatest pleasure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And now the supper is over. Harry's seat, meanwhile, has been next to
+Paula's, and he has continued to pay her extravagant compliments, which
+he ought not to have done; and, moreover, without eating a morsel, he
+has drunk glass after glass of the good old Bordeaux of which the major
+is so proud. All this has produced a change in him. The gnawing pain at
+his heart is lulled to rest; his love for Zdena and his quarrel with
+her seem relegated to the far past. For the present, here is this
+luxuriant beauty, with her flow of talk and her Titian hair. Without
+being intoxicated, the wine has mounted to his brain; his limbs are a
+little heavy; he feels a pleasant languor steal over him; everything
+looks rather more vague and delightful than usual; instead of a severe,
+exacting beauty beside him, here is this wonderful creature, with her
+dazzling complexion and her green, naiad-like eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Countess Zriny and Hedwig have already ordered their old-fashioned
+coach and have started for home. Harry's horses--his own and his
+groom's--are waiting before the entrance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It is ten o'clock,--time for bed at Zirkow. Frau Rosamunda rubs her
+eyes; Zdena stands, unheeded and weary, in one of the window embrasures
+in the hall, looking out through the antique, twisted grating upon the
+brilliant August moonlight. Paula is still conversing with the
+gentlemen; she proposes a method for exterminating the phylloxera, and
+has just formulated a scheme for the improvement of the Austrian
+foundling asylums.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They are waiting for her pony-carriage to appear, but it does not come.
+At last, the gardener's boy, who is occasionally promoted to a
+footman's place, comes, quite out of breath, to inform his mistress
+that Baroness Paula's groom is in the village inn, so drunk that he
+cannot walk across the floor, and threatening to fight any one who
+interferes with him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Very unpleasant intelligence,&quot; says Paula, without losing an atom of
+her equanimity. &quot;There is nothing left to do, then, but to drive home
+without him. I do not need him; he sits behind me, and is really only a
+conventional encumbrance, nothing more. Good-night, Baroness! Thanks,
+for the charming afternoon. Goodnight! good-night! Now that the ice is
+broken, I trust we shall be good neighbours.&quot; So saying, she goes out
+of the open hall door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Rosamunda seems to have no objections to her driving without an
+escort to Dobrotschau, which is scarcely three-quarters of an hour's
+drive from Zirkow, and even the major apparently considers this
+broad-shouldered and vigorous young woman to be eminently fitted to
+make her way in the world alone. But Harry interposes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You don't mean to drive home alone?&quot; he exclaims. &quot;Well, I admire your
+courage,--as I admire every thing else about you,&quot; he adds, <i>sotto
+voce</i>, and with a Blight inclination of his head towards her,--&quot;but I
+cannot permit it. You might meet some drunken labourer and be exposed
+to annoyance. Do me the honour to accept me as your escort,--that is,
+allow me to take the place of your useless groom.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;By no means!&quot; she exclaims. &quot;I never could forgive myself for giving
+you so much trouble. I assure you, I am perfectly able to take care of
+myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;On certain occasions even the most capable and clever of women lose
+their capacity to judge,&quot; Harry declares. &quot;Be advised this time!&quot; he
+implores her, as earnestly as though he were praying his soul out of
+purgatory. &quot;My groom will accompany us. He must, of course, take my
+horse to Dobrotschau. Have no scruples.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As if it would ever have occurred to Baroness Paula to have &quot;scruples&quot;!
+Oh, Harry!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you really would be so kind then, Baron Harry,&quot; she murmurs,
+tenderly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank God, she has gone at last!&quot; sighs Frau Rosamunda, as she hears
+the light wagon rolling away into the night. &quot;At last!&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_06" href="#div1Ref_06">CHAPTER VI.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>ENTRAPPED.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Before Harry seated himself beside the robust Paula in the
+pony-carriage, a slender little hand was held out to him, and a pale
+little face, half sad, half pouting, looked longingly up at him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He saw neither the hand nor the face. Oh, the pity of it!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The night is sultry and silent. The full moon shines in a cloudless,
+dark-blue sky. Not a breath of air is stirring; the leaves of the tall
+poplars, casting coal-black shadows on the white, dusty highway, are
+motionless.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The harvest has been partly gathered in; sometimes the moonlight
+illumines the bare fields with a yellowish lustre; in other fields the
+sheaves are stacked in pointed heaps, and now and then a field of rye
+is passed, a plain of glimmering, silvery green, still uncut. The
+bearded stalks stand motionless with bowed heads, as if overtaken by
+sleep. From the distance comes the monotonous rustle of the mower's
+scythe; there is work going on even thus far into the night.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The heavy slumberous air has an effect upon Harry; his breath comes
+slowly, his veins tingle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ten minutes have passed, and he has not opened his lips. Paula Harfink
+looks at him now and then with a keen glance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She is twenty-seven years old, and, although her life has been that of
+a perfectly virtuous woman of her class, existence no longer holds any
+secrets for her. Endowed by nature with intense curiosity, which has
+been gradually exalted into a thirst for knowledge, she has read
+everything that is worth reading in native and foreign modern
+literature, scientific and otherwise, and she is consequently
+thoroughly conversant with the world in which she lives.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry's exaggerated homage during the afternoon has suggested the idea
+that he contemplates a marriage with her. That other than purely
+sentimental reasons have weight with him in this respect she thinks
+highly probable, but there is nothing offensive to her in the thought.
+She knows that, in spite of her beauty, she must buy a husband; why
+then should she not buy a husband whom she likes?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nothing could happen more opportunely than this drive in the moonlight.
+She is quite sure of bringing the affair to a satisfactory conclusion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Click-clack--the ponies' hoofs beat the dusty road in monotonous
+rhythm, tossing light silvery clouds of dust into the moonlight. Harry
+is still silent, when--a plump hand is laid upon his arm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Please,&quot; Paula murmurs, half laughing, and handing him the reins,
+&quot;drive for me. The ponies are so fresh to-night, they almost pull my
+hands off.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry bows, the ponies shake their manes, snort proudly, and increase
+their speed, seeming to feel a sympathetic hand upon the reins.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And I fancied I could drive!&quot; Paula says, with a laugh; &quot;it is a
+positive pleasure to see you handle the reins.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But such toys as these ponies!&quot; he remarks, with a rather impatient
+protest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Can you drive four-in-hand?&quot; she asks, bluntly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, and five-in-hand, or six-in-hand, for that matter,&quot; he replies.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course! How stupid of me to ask! Did you not drive five-in-hand on
+the Prater, three years ago on the first of May? Three chestnuts and
+two bays, if I remember rightly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes; you certainly have an admirable memory!&quot; Harry murmurs,
+flattered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not for everything,&quot; she declares, eagerly; &quot;I never can remember
+certain things. For instance, I never can remember the unmarried name
+of Peter the Great's mother.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She was a Narischkin, I believe,&quot; says Harry, who learned the fact on
+one occasion when some foolish Narischkin was boasting of his imperial
+connections.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Heaven knows what induces him to make a display to Paula of his
+historical knowledge. He usually suppresses everything in that
+direction which he owes to his good memory, as a learned marriageable
+girl will hold her tongue for fear of scaring away admirers. Harry
+thinks it beneath his dignity to play the cultured officer. He leaves
+that to the infantry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You distance me in every direction,&quot; Paula says; &quot;but as a whip you
+inspire me with the most respect. I could not take my eyes off your
+turn-out that day in the Prater. How docile and yet how spirited those
+five creatures were under your guidance! And you sat there holding the
+reins with as much indifference apparently as if they had been your
+shake at a state ceremony. I cannot understand how you contrive to keep
+the reins of a five-in-hand disentangled.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I find it much more difficult to understand how a man can play the
+guitar,&quot; Harry says, dryly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Paula laughs, though with a sense of vexation at being still so far
+from the attainment of her purpose. She takes off her tall hat, tosses
+it carelessly into the seat behind them, and slowly pulls the gloves
+off her white hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is refreshing!&quot; she says, and then is silent. For the nonce it is
+her wisest course.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry's eyes seek her face, then take in her entire figure, and then
+again rest upon her face. The moon is shining with a hard, bluish
+brilliancy, almost like that of an electric light, and it brings into
+wondrous relief the girl's mature beauty. Its intense brightness
+shimmers about her golden hair; the red and white of her complexion
+blend in a dim, warm pallor. Her white hands rest in her lap as she
+leans back among the cushions of the phaeton.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Click-clack--click-clack--the hoofs of the horses fly over the smooth,
+hard road; duller and less regular grows the beat of the horses' hoofs
+behind the wagon,--of Harry's steed and that of his groom.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The fields of grain have vanished. They are driving now through a
+village,--a silent village, where every one is asleep. The dark
+window-panes glisten in the moonlight; the shadows of the pointed roofs
+form a black zigzag on the road, dividing it into two parts,--one dark,
+one light. Only behind one window shines a candle; perhaps a mother is
+watching there beside a sick or dying child. The candle-light, with its
+yellow gleam, contrasts strangely with the bluish moonlight. A dog bays
+behind a gate; otherwise, all is quiet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And now the village lies behind them,--a chaos of black roofs,
+whitewashed walls, and dark lindens. To the right and left are
+pasture-lands, where countless wild chamomile-flowers glitter white and
+ghostly among the grass, in the midst of which rises a rude wooden
+crucifix. The pungent fragrance of the chamomile-flowers mingles with
+the odour of the dust of the road.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then the pastures vanish, with the chamomile-flowers and the oppressive
+silence. A forest extends on either side of the road,--a forest which
+is never silent, where even in so quiet a night as this the topmost
+boughs murmur dreamily. It sounds almost like the dull plaint of
+human souls, imprisoned in these ancient pines,--the souls of men
+who aspired too high in life, seeking the way to the stars which
+gleamed so kindly when admired from afar, but which fled like
+glittering will-o'-the-wisps from those who would fain approach them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The moonlight seems to drip down the boles of the monarchs of the wood
+like molten silver, to lie here and there upon the underbrush around
+their feet. A strong odour rises from the warm woodland earth,--the
+odour of dead leaves, mingling deliciously with all other forest
+fragrance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How wonderful!&quot; Paula whispers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, it is beautiful,&quot; says Harry; and again his eyes seek the face of
+his companion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And do you know what is still more beautiful?&quot; she murmurs. &quot;To feel
+protected, safe,--to know that some one else will think for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The road grows rough; the wheels jolt over the stones; the little
+carriage sways from side to side. Paula clutches Harry's arm. Her
+waving hair brushes his cheek; it thrills him. She starts back from
+him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pardon me,&quot; she murmurs, as if mortified.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pardon me, Baroness,&quot; he says. &quot;I had no idea that the forest-road was
+so rough; it is the shortest. Did you not come by it to Zirkow?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You ought to have warned me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I had forgotten it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Again the wheels creak; tire ponies snort their dissatisfaction, the
+little vehicle sways, and Paula trembles.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am afraid it will be rougher yet,&quot; says Harry. &quot;How stupid of me not
+to have thought of it! There!--the mud is really deep. Who could have
+supposed it in this drought? We are near the Poacher's ditch: I can
+perceive the swampy odour in the air.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Poacher's ditch?&quot; Paula repeats, in a low tone. &quot;Is that the
+uncanny place where the will-o'-the-wisps dance?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are you afraid?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So brave an Amazon--afraid?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, for the first time in my life. I do not know what has come over
+me,&quot; she whispers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A poor compliment for me!&quot; he says, then pauses and looks at her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She turns away her head as if she were blushing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The tall pines crowd closer and closer on either side of the road; the
+strip of moon-lit sky grows narrower overhead; the damp odour of
+decaying vegetation poisons the air. The gloom is intense, the
+moonbeams cannot find their way hither. In particular the road and the
+lower portion of the tree-trunks are veiled in deep shade. A tiny blue
+flame flickers up from the ground, dances among the trees,--then
+another--and another----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah!&quot; Paula screams and clings like a maniac to Harry. He puts his arm
+round her, and soothes her, half laughing the while. Did his lips
+actually seek hers? A sudden, lingering kiss bewilders him, like the
+intoxicating perfume of a flower.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It lasts but a second, and he has released her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Forgive me!&quot; he cries, distressed, confused.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Does she really not understand him? At all events she only shakes her
+head at his words, and murmurs, &quot;Forgive?--what is there to forgive? It
+came so unexpectedly. I had no idea that you loved me, Harry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His cheeks burn. The forest has vanished, the road is smooth;
+click-clack--the ponies' hoofs fly through the dust, and behind comes
+the irregular thud of eight other hoofs along the road. Harry looks
+round, and sees the groom, whom he had forgotten.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The dim woodland twilight has been left far behind; the moon floods the
+landscape with silvery splendour. All is silent around; not a leaf
+stirs; only the faint, dying murmur of the forest is audible for a few
+moments.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ten minutes later Harry draws up before the Dobrotschau castle. &quot;You
+will come to see mamma to-morrow?&quot; Paula whispers, pressing her lover's
+hand. But Harry feels as if he could annihilate her, himself, and the
+whole world.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_07" href="#div1Ref_07">CHAPTER VII.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>AN INVITATION.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My dear Baroness,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Will you and all your family give us the pleasure of your company at
+dinner on Sunday next, at six o'clock? We wish to surprise you with the
+revelation of a secret that will, we think, interest you.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I hear you have a friend with you. It would, of course, be an added
+pleasure if Baron Wenkendorf would join us on Sunday.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hoping for a favourable reply, I am</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:30%">&quot;Sincerely yours,</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:35%">&quot;<span class="sc">Emilie Harfink</span>.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">This note the Baroness Leskjewitsch takes from an envelope smelling of
+violets and adorned with an Edelweiss, and reads aloud in a depressed
+tone to her husband, her niece, and her cousin, all of whom listen with
+a more or less contemptuous expression of countenance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Not that the note is in itself any more awkward and pretentious than
+other notes of invitation,--no; but the fact that it comes from
+Baroness Harfink is quite sufficient to make the Zirkow circle
+suspicious and ironical.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Three days have passed since the afternoon when Harry and Zdena
+quarrelled, and Zdena has had time thoroughly to repent her experiment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The little company is assembled at the breakfast-table in a small
+summer-house whence there is a view of a tiny fountain leaping about a
+yard into the air from an oval basin.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Rosamunda thinks the view of this fountain refreshing; the major
+despises the plaything, calls this breakfast-arbour the &quot;wash-house,&quot;
+or, when he means to be particularly disagreeable, &quot;Wash-Basin Hall,&quot;
+assuming the attitude, as he so designates it, of a kangaroo,--his
+elbows pressed to his sides, the palms of his hands turned
+outwards,--and availing himself of his most elegant German accent,
+which is unfortunately rather unnatural.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Surprise us? What surprise can the Baroness Harfink prepare for us in
+which we shall take any interest?&quot; Frau Rosamunda says, musingly,
+laying the note down beside her plate.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, leave me out! She knows that you are prone to curiosity, and
+she is doing what she can to attract you to her house,&quot; the major
+declares. &quot;The 'surprise' is the bit of cheese in the Dobrotschau
+mouse-trap,--that is all. It may be a new service of old china, or some
+Japanese rug with golden monsters and chimeras sprawling about on it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No; there is a tone of exultation about the note which indicates
+something far grander,&quot; says Frau Rosamunda, thoughtfully, buttering a
+piece of bread. &quot;I rather think there is a new son-in-law to the fore.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;H'm! Fräulein Paula's betrothal would certainly be a matter of special
+importance to us,&quot; the major says, contemptuously. &quot;Perhaps it might
+make Harry ill. He made violent love to her the other day!&quot; and the old
+cuirassier glances at Zdena. She is sipping a cup of tea, however, and
+her face cannot be seen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I thought perhaps,&quot; Frau Rosamunda observes, &quot;that Harry might----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, Rosa. Your genius is really too great,&quot; the major interrupts her,
+&quot;if you can fancy for a moment that Harry meant anything serious by his
+attentions to that village bar-maid.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Zdena has put down her teacup; her delicate nostrils quiver
+disdainfully, her charming mouth expresses decided scorn. How could
+Harry suppose----? Nonsense!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, stranger things have come to pass,&quot; observes Frau Rosamunda,
+sagely. &quot;Do not forget that Lato Treurenberg has married into the
+Harfink family.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, he--he was in debt--h'm!--at least his father was in debt,&quot; the
+major explains. &quot;That is entirely different. But a man like Harry would
+never risk his colossal inheritance from his uncle for the sake of
+Paula Harfink. If it were for some one else, he might do so; but that
+red-cheeked dromedary--ridiculous!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I really do not understand you. You seemed perfectly devoted to her
+the other day,&quot; rejoins Frau Rosamunda. &quot;You all languished at her
+feet,--even you too, Roderich.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Baron Wenkendorf looks up from a pile of letters and papers which he
+has been sorting.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is the subject under discussion?&quot; he asks. Dressed in the extreme
+of fashion, in a light, summer suit, a coloured shirt with a very high
+collar, a thin, dark-blue cravat with polka-dots, and the inevitable
+Scotch cap, with fluttering ribbons at the back of the neck, he would
+seem much more at home, so far as his exterior is concerned, on the
+shore at Trouville, or in a magnificent park of ancient oaks with a
+feudal castle in the background, than amidst the modest Zirkow
+surroundings. He suspects this himself, and, in order not to produce a
+crushing effect where he is, he is always trying to display the
+liveliest interest in all the petty details of life at Zirkow. &quot;What is
+the subject under discussion?&quot; he asks, with an amiable smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, the Harfink.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Still?&quot; says Wenkendorf, lifting his eyebrows ironically. &quot;The young
+lady's ears must burn. She seems to me to have been tolerably well
+discussed during the last three days.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I merely observed that you were all fire and flame for her while she
+was here,&quot; Frau Rosamunda persists, &quot;and that consequently I do not
+understand why you now criticise her so severely.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The impression produced upon men by that kind of woman is always more
+dazzling than when it is lasting,&quot; says the major.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;H'm!--she certainly is a very beautiful person, but--h'm!--not a
+lady,&quot; remarks Wenkendorf; and his clear, full voice expresses the
+annoyance which it is sure to do whenever conversation touches upon the
+mushroom growth of modern <i>parvenues</i>. &quot;Who are these Harfinks, after
+all?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;People who have made their own way to the front,&quot; growls the major.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;By good luck, industry, and assurance,&quot; replies the major. &quot;Old
+Harfink used to go regularly to his work every morning, with his
+pickaxe on his shoulder; he slowly made his way upward, working in the
+iron-mines about here; then he married a wealthy baker's daughter, and
+gradually absorbed all the business of the district. He was very
+popular. I can remember the time when every one called him 'Peter.'
+Next he was addressed as 'Sir,' and it came to be the fashion to offer
+him your hand, but before giving you his he used to wipe it on his
+coat-tail. He was comical, but a very honest fellow, a plain man who
+never tried to move out of his proper sphere. I think we never grudged
+him his wealth, because it suited him so ill, and because he did not
+know what to do with it.&quot; And the major reflectively pours a little rum
+into his third cup of tea.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do not object to that kind of <i>parvenu</i>,&quot; says Wenkendorf. &quot;The type
+is an original one. But there is nothing to my mind more ridiculous
+than the goldfish spawned in a muddy pond suddenly fancying themselves
+unable to swim in anything save eau de cologne. H'm, h'm! And that
+plain, honest fellow was, you tell me, the father of the lovely Paula?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;God forbid!&quot; exclaims the major, bursting into a laugh at the mere
+thought.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You have a tiresome way of beginning far back in every story you tell,
+Paul,&quot; Frau Rosamunda complains. &quot;You begin all your pedigrees with
+Adam and Eve.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And you have a detestable habit of interrupting me,&quot; her husband
+rejoins, angrily. &quot;If you had not interrupted me I should have finished
+long ago.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, yes, we all know that. But first you would have given us a
+description of old Harfink's boots!&quot; Frau Rosamunda persists.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They really were very remarkable boots,&quot; the major declares, solemnly.
+&quot;They always looked as if, instead of feet, they had a peck of onions
+inside them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I told you so. Now comes the description of his cap,&quot; sighs Frau
+Rosamunda.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And the lovely Paula's origin retreats still further into obscurity,&quot;
+Wenkendorf says, with well-bred resignation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She is old Harfink's great-grand-daughter,&quot; says Zdena, joining for
+the first time in the conversation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Old Harfink had two sons,&quot; continues the major, who hates to have the
+end of his stories told prematurely; &quot;two sons who developed social
+ambition, and both married cultivated wives,--wives who looked down
+upon them, and with whom they could not agree. If I do not mistake,
+there was a sister, too. Tell me, Rosel, was there not a sister who
+married an Italian?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do not know,&quot; replies Frau Rosamunda. &quot;The intricacies of the
+Harfink genealogy never inspired me with the faintest interest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The major bites his lip.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;One thing more,&quot; says Wenkendorf. &quot;How have you managed to avoid an
+acquaintance with the Harfinks for so long, if the family has belonged
+to the country here for several generations?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Harfink number two never lived here,&quot; the major explains. &quot;And they
+owned the iron-mines, but no estate. Only last year the widow Harfink
+bought Dobrotschau,--gallery of ancestral portraits, old suits of
+armour, and all. The mines have been sold to a stock company.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not a very pleasing neighbourhood, I should say,&quot; observes Wenkendorf.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Surprise you with the revelation of a secret,'&quot; Frau Rosamunda reads,
+thoughtfully, in a low tone from the note beside her plate.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then all rise from table. Zdena, who has been silent during
+breakfast, twitches her uncle's sleeve, and, without looking at him,
+says,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Uncle dear, can I have the carriage?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The major eyes her askance: &quot;What do you want of the carriage?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I should like to drive over to Komaritz; Hedwig will think it strange
+that I have not been there for so long.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;H'm! don't you think Hedwig might do without you for a little while
+longer?&quot; says the major, who is in a teasing humour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, let her drive over,&quot; Frau Rosamunda interposes. &quot;I promised to
+send the housekeeper there a basket of Reine-Claudes for preserving,
+and Zdena can take them with her. And, Zdena, you might stop at
+Dobrotschau; I will leave it to your diplomatic skill to worm out the
+grand secret for us. I protest against assisting on Sunday at its
+solemn revelation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then shall I refuse the invitation for you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes; tell them that we expect guests ourselves on Sunday. And invite
+the Komaritz people to come and dine, that it may be true,&quot; the major
+calls after the girl.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She nods with a smile, and trips into the castle. It is easy to see
+that her heart is light.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Queer little coquette!&quot; thinks the major, adding to himself, &quot;But
+she's a charming creature, for all that.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_08" href="#div1Ref_08">CHAPTER VIII.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>THE SECRET.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">An hour later Zdena, a huge red silk sunshade held over her handsome
+head, is driving rapidly towards Dobrotschau. She intends to make peace
+with her cousin.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The exaggerated attentions which he paid to Paula vexed her for the
+moment, but now she remembers them with only a smile of contempt. &quot;Poor
+Harry!&quot; she murmurs, in a superior, patronizing way. &quot;Poor Harry! he is
+a thoroughly good fellow, and so devoted to me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The carriage rolls swiftly along the smooth road, upon which the last
+traces of a recent shower are fast fading beneath the August heat. The
+sky is blue and cloudless. The sun is rising higher; the stubble-fields
+to the right and left lie basking in its light; the shadows of the
+trees grow shorter and blacker, and the dark masses of the distant
+forests stand out in strong contrast with the sunny fields.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Avoiding the rough forest road, the coachman takes the longer course
+along the highway. An hour and a quarter passes before Zdena drives
+through an arched gate-way, surmounted by a crest carved in the stone,
+into a picturesque court-yard, where between two very ancient lindens
+stands a Saint John of Nepomuk, whose cross has fallen out of his
+marble arms, and at whose feet an antique fountain, plashing dreamily,
+tells of long-gone times,--times that possess no interest for the
+present inmates of the castle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Zdena does not waste a glance upon the picturesque beauty of her
+surroundings. Two riding-horses, very much heated, and led up and down
+the old-fashioned court-yard, at once engage her attention. Are those
+not Harry's horses? What is Harry doing here? A slight sensation of
+anxiety assails her. Then she smiles at her nonsensical suspicions, and
+is glad that she shall thus meet Harry sooner than she had hoped.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A footman in a plain and tasteful livery hurries forward to open her
+carriage door; the ladies are at home.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Zdena trips up the steps to the spacious, airy hall, where, among
+antique, heavy-carved furniture, a couple of full suits of armour are
+set up, sword in gauntlet, like a spellbound bit of the Middle Ages, on
+either side of a tall clock, upon whose brass face the effigy of a
+grinning Death--his scythe over his shoulder--celebrates his eternal,
+monotonous triumph. On the walls hang various portraits, dim with age,
+of the ancestors of the late possessor, some clad in armour, some with
+full-bottomed wigs, and others again wearing powdered queues; with
+ladies in patch and powder, narrow-breasted gowns, and huge stiff
+ruffs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If these worthies could suddenly come to life, how amazed they would
+be!&quot; thinks Zdena. She has no more time, however, for profound
+reflections; for from one of the high oaken doors, opening out of the
+hall, comes Harry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They both start at this unexpected encounter; he grows deadly pale, she
+flushes crimson. But she regains her self-possession sooner than he can
+collect himself, and while he, unable to utter a word, turns his head
+aside, she approaches him, and, laying her hand gently upon his arm,
+murmurs, in a voice sweet as honey, &quot;Harry!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He turns and looks at her. How charming she is! With the arch
+condescension of a princess certain of victory, she laughs in his face
+and whispers,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are you not beginning to be sorry that you said such hateful things to
+me the other day?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He has grown paler still; his eyes alone seem blazing in his head. For
+a while he leaves her question unanswered, devouring her lovely,
+laughing face with his gaze; then, suddenly seizing her almost roughly
+by both wrists, he exclaims,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And are you not beginning to be sorry that you gave me cause to do
+so?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At this question, imprudent as it is, considering the circumstances,
+Zdena hangs her golden head, and whispers, very softly, &quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It is cold and gloomy in the hall; the two suits of armour cast long
+dark-gray shadows upon the black-and-white-tiled floor; two huge
+bluebottle flies are buzzing on the frame of an old portrait, and a
+large moth with transparent wings and a velvet body is bumping its head
+against the ceiling, whether for amusement or in despair it is
+impossible to say.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Zdena trembles all over; she knows that she has said something
+conclusive, something that she cannot recall. She is conscious of
+having performed a difficult task, and she expects her reward.
+Something very sweet, something most delicious, is at hand. He must
+clasp her in his arms, as on that evening in Vienna. Ah, it is useless
+to try to deceive herself,--she cannot live without him. But he stands
+as if turned to stone, ashy pale, with a look of horror.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A door opens. Paula Harfink enters the hall, tall, portly, handsome
+after her fashion, in a flowered Pompadour gown, evidently equipped for
+a walk, wearing a pair of buckskin gloves and a garden-hat trimmed with
+red poppies and yellow gauze.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! have you been waiting for me up-stairs, Harry?&quot; she asks; then,
+perceiving Zdena, she adds, &quot;A visitor!--a welcome visitor!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To Zdena's amazement and terror, she finds herself tenderly embraced by
+Paula, who, looking archly from one to the other of the cousins, asks,
+&quot;Shall we wait until Sunday for the grand surprise, Harry? Let your
+cousin guess. Come, Baroness Zdena, what is the news at Dobrotschau?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For one moment Zdena feels as if a dagger were plunged into her heart
+and turned around in the wound; then she recovers her composure and
+smiles, a little contemptuously, perhaps even haughtily, but naturally
+and with grace.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, it is not very difficult to guess,&quot; she says. &quot;What is the news?
+Why, a betrothal. You have my best wishes, Baroness; and you too,
+Harry,--I wish you every happiness!&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_09" href="#div1Ref_09">CHAPTER IX.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>AN ENCOUNTER.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">No one can bear pain with such heroic equanimity as can a woman when
+her pride or her sense of dignity is aroused. Full twenty minutes have
+elapsed since the light has been darkened in Zdena's sky, her thought
+of the future embittered, and every joy blotted out of her existence.
+During these twenty minutes she has talked and laughed; has walked in
+the park with Paula and Harry; has pointed out to the betrothed couple
+the comically human physiognomy of a large pansy in a flower-bed; has
+looked on while Paula, plucking a marguerite, proceeds, with an arch
+look at Harry, to consult that old-fashioned oracle, picking off the
+petals one by one, with, &quot;He loves me, he loves me not.&quot; Yes, when
+urged to partake of some refreshment, she has even delicately pared and
+cut up with a silver knife a large peach, although she could not
+swallow a mouthful of it. How could she, when she felt as if an iron
+hand were throttling her!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And now she is in the carriage again, driving towards home. As she
+drove off she had a last glimpse of Paula and Harry standing side by
+side in the picturesque court-yard before the castle, beside the
+fountain, that vies with the lindens in murmuring its old tales,--tales
+that no longer interest any one. They stood there together,--Paula
+waving her hand and calling parting words after the visitor; Harry
+stiff and mute, lifting his cap. Then Paula put her hand upon his arm
+to go back into the castle with him,--him, her lover, her property!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And Zdena is alone at last. The pain in her heart is becoming torture.
+Her breath comes short and quick. At the same time she has the
+restless, impatient sensation which is experienced by all who are
+unaccustomed to painful emotion, before they can bring themselves
+to believe in the new and terrible trouble in which they find
+themselves,--a sensation of being called upon to shake off some burden
+unjustly imposed. But the burden can neither be shifted nor shaken off.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her consciousness is the burden, the burden of which she cannot be rid
+except with life itself. Life,--it has often seemed to her too short;
+and, in spite of all her transitory girlish discontent, she has
+sometimes railed at fate for according to mankind so few years in which
+to enjoy this lovely, sunny, laughing world. But now her brief earthly
+future stretches out endlessly before her,--an eternity in which joy is
+dead and everything black and gloomy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good God! will this torture last forever?&quot; she asks herself. No, it is
+not possible that such pain can last long: she will forget it, she
+must! It seems to her that she can at least be rid of some of it if she
+can only weep her fill in solitude. Yes, she must cry it out before she
+goes back to Zirkow, before she meets again the keen, kindly eyes that
+would fain pry into her very soul.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile, she has told the coachman to drive to Komaritz. The carriage
+rolls through the long village. The air tastes of straw and hay; the
+rhythmic beat of the thrashers' flails resounds from the peasants'
+small barns. Zdena stops her ears; she cannot bear the noise,--the
+noise and the garish, cruel light. At last the village lies behind her.
+The sound of flails is still heard in the distance; to Zdena they seem
+to be beating the summer to death with clubs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The carriage drives on, drives towards the forest. On the edge of the
+wood stands a red-and-white signpost, the two indexes of which point in
+opposite directions through the depths of the leafy thicket: one
+pathway is tolerably smooth, and leads to Komaritz; the other, starting
+from the same point, is rough, and leads to Zirkow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She calls to the coachman. He stops the horses.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Drive on to Komaritz and leave the plums there,&quot; she orders him, &quot;and
+I will meanwhile take the short path and walk home.&quot; So saying, she
+descends from the vehicle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He sees her walk off quickly and with energy; sees her tall, graceful
+figure gradually diminish in the perspective of the Zirkow woodland
+path. For a while he gazes after her, surprised, and then he obeys her
+directions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If Krupitschka had been upon the box he would have opposed his young
+mistress's order as surely as he would have disobeyed it obstinately.
+He would have said, &quot;The Baroness does not understand that so young a
+lady ought not to go alone through the forest--the Herr Baron would be
+very angry with me if I allowed it, and I will not allow it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Schmidt is a new coachman. He does as he is bidden, making no
+objection.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Zdena plunges into the wood, penetrates deeper and deeper into the
+thicket, aimlessly, heedlessly, except that she longs to find a spot
+where she can hide her despair from human eyes. She does not wish to
+see the heavens, nor the sun, nor the buzzing insects and wanton
+butterflies on the edge of the forest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last the shade is deep enough for her. The dark foliage shuts out
+the light; scarcely a hand's-breadth of blue sky can be seen among the
+branches overhead. She throws herself on the ground and sobs. After a
+while she raises her head, sits up, and stares into space.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How is it possible? How could it have happened?&quot; she thinks. &quot;I cannot
+understand. From waywardness? from anger because I was a little silly?
+Oh, God! oh, God! Yes, I take pleasure in luxury, in fine clothes, in
+the world, in attention. I really thought for the moment that these
+were what I liked best,--but I was wrong. How little should I care for
+those things, without him! Oh, God! oh, God! How could he find it in
+his heart to do it!&quot; she finally exclaims, while her tears flow afresh
+down her flushed cheeks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Suddenly she hears a low crackling in the underbrush. She starts and
+looks up. Before her stands an elderly man of medium height, with a
+carefully-shaven, sharp-cut face, and a reddish-gray peruke. His tall
+stove-pipe hat is worn far back on his head, and his odd-looking
+costume is made up of a long green coat, the tails of which he carries
+under his left arm, a pair of wide, baggy, nankeen trousers, a long
+vest, with buttons much too large, and a pair of clumsy peasant shoes.
+The most remarkable thing about him is the sharp, suspicious expression
+of his round, projecting eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What do you want of me?&quot; stammers Zdena, rising, not without secret
+terror.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I should like to know what you are crying for. Perhaps because you
+have quarrelled with your cousin Henry,&quot; he says, with a sneer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He addresses her familiarly: who can he be? Evidently some one of
+unsound mind; probably old Studnecka from X----, a former brewer, who
+writes poems, and who sometimes thinks himself the prophet Elisha,
+under which illusion he will stop people in the road and preach to
+them. This must be he. She has heard that so long as his fancies are
+humoured he is perfectly gentle and harmless, but that if irritated by
+contradiction he has attacks of maniacal fury, and has been known to
+lay violent hands upon those who thus provoke him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Before she finds the courage to answer him, he comes a step nearer to
+her, and repeats his question with a scornful smile which discloses a
+double row of faultless teeth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How do you know that I have a cousin?&quot; asks Zdena, still more alarmed,
+and recoiling a step or two.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, I know everything, just as the gypsies do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course this is the prophet,&quot; the girl thinks, trembling. She longs
+to run away, but tells herself that the prudent course will be to try
+to keep him in good humour until she has regained the path out of this
+thicket, where she has cut herself off from all human aid. &quot;Do you
+know, then, who I am?&quot; she asks, trying to smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, yes,&quot; replies this strange prophet, nodding his head. &quot;I have long
+known you, although you do not know me. You are the foolish daughter of
+a foolish father.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How should he have any knowledge of me or of my family?&quot; she reflects.
+The explanation is at hand. She remembers distinctly that the prophet
+Studnecka was one of the eccentric crowd that Baron Franz Leskjewitsch
+was wont to assemble about him for his amusement during the three or
+four weeks each year when the old man made the country around unsafe by
+his stay here.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You know my grandfather too, then?&quot; she continues.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, a little,&quot; the old man muttered. &quot;Have you any message to send
+him? I will take it to him for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have nothing to say to him!--I do not know him!&quot; she replies. Her
+eyes flash angrily, and she holds her head erect.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;H'm I he does not choose to know you,&quot; the old man remarks, looking at
+her still more keenly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The unwillingness is mutual. I have not the least desire to know
+anything of him,&quot; she says, with emphasis.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah!--indeed!&quot; he says, with a lowering glance from beneath his shaggy
+eyebrows. &quot;Shall I tell him so, from you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you choose!&quot; she replies. Suddenly an idea strikes her; she
+observes him in her turn more keenly than hitherto, his face, his
+figure, his hands, tanned and neglected, but slender and shapely, with
+almond-shaped nails. There is something familiar in his features.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Is he really the brewer Studnecka, the fool? And if no fool, who can it
+be that ventures thus to address her? Something thrills her entire
+frame. A portrait recurs to her memory,--a portrait of the elder
+Leskjewitsch, which, since the family embroilment, has hung in the
+lumber-room at Zirkow. There is not a doubt that this crazy old
+creature is her grandfather.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He sees that she has recognized him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her bearing has suddenly become haughty and repellent. She adjusts her
+large straw hat, which has been hanging at the back of her neck.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then I am to tell him from you that you do not wish to have anything
+to do with him?&quot; the old man asks again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes.&quot; Her voice is hard and dull.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And besides,&quot; he asks, &quot;have you nothing else to say to him?&quot; He looks
+at her as if to read her soul.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She returns his look with eyes in whose brown depths the tears so
+lately shed are still glistening. She knows that she is putting the
+knife to her own throat, but what matters it? The gathered bitterness
+of years overflows her heart and rises to her lips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And besides,&quot;--she speaks slowly and provokingly,--&quot;besides, I should
+like to tell him that I consider his conduct cold-hearted, petty, and
+childish; that after he has tormented to death two people, my father
+and my mother, he might, in his old age, attempt by love and kindness
+to make some amends for his wickedness, instead of going on weaving
+fresh misery out of his wretched hatred and obstinacy, and--that never
+whilst I live will I make one advance towards him!&quot; She bows slightly,
+turns, and leaves him. He looks after her graceful figure as it slowly
+makes its way among the underbrush and is finally lost to sight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A splendid creature! What a carriage! what a figure! and what a
+bewitching face! No wonder she has turned the brain of that silly lad
+at Komaritz. He knows what's what. The child shows race,&quot; he mutters;
+&quot;she's a genuine Leskjewitsch. All Fritz.--Poor Fritz!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old man passes his hand across his forehead, and then gazes after
+her once more. Is that her blue dress glimmering among the trees? No,
+it is a bit of sky. She has vanished.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Zdena manages to slip up to her own room unobserved when she reaches
+Zirkow. She makes her first appearance at table, her hair charmingly
+arranged, dressed as carefully as usual, talkative, gay. The most acute
+observer would hardly suspect that a few hours previously she had all
+but cried her eyes out.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And did you bring us the piece of news from Dobrotschau?&quot; asks Frau
+Rosamunda during the soup, which Zdena leaves untasted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, yes. And most extraordinary it is,&quot; she replies. &quot;Paula Harfink is
+betrothed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To whom?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To Harry,&quot; says Zdena, without the quiver of an eyelash, calmly
+breaking her bread in two as she speaks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To Harry? Impossible!&quot; shouts the major.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not at all,&quot; Zdena declares, with a smile. &quot;I saw him with her. She
+already calls him by his first name.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do not understand the world nowadays,&quot; growls the old soldier,
+adding, under his breath, &quot;That d--d driving about in the moonlight!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau von Leskjewitsch and her cousin Wenkendorf content themselves
+during the remainder of the meal with discussing the annoying
+consequences for the family from such a connection, partaking,
+meanwhile, very comfortably of the excellent dinner. The major glances
+continually at his niece. It troubles him to see her smile so
+perpetually. Is it possible that she is not taking the matter more
+seriously to heart?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After dinner, when Frau von Leskjewitsch has carried her cousin off to
+the greenhouse to show him her now gloxinias, the major chances to go
+into the drawing-room, which he supposes empty. It is not so. In the
+embrasure of a window stands a figure, motionless as a statue,--quite
+unaware of the approach of any one. The major's heart suffers a sharp
+pang at sight of that lovely, tender profile, the features drawn
+and pinched with suppressed anguish. He would like to go up to his
+darling,--to take her in his arms. But he does not dare to do so. How
+can one bestow caresses upon a creature sore and crushed in every limb?
+He leaves the room on tiptoe, as one leaves the room of an invalid who
+must not be disturbed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;God have mercy on the poor child!&quot; he murmurs.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_10" href="#div1Ref_10">CHAPTER X.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>A GARRISON TOWN.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">As was formerly remarked at the sale of the effects of Mademoiselle
+Pauline C----, &quot;Very little body-linen and very many diamonds,&quot; so it
+may be said of the population of X----: very few inhabitants, but very
+many hussars.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The town consists of a barracks and a Casino; the post-office, church,
+and school-house, as well as all the big and little houses, new and
+tasteless, or old and ruinous, are merely a secondary affair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The ugly square barracks, painted red, is situated upon what is called
+&quot;The Ring,&quot; a spacious, uneven square, unpaved but trodden hard, and,
+besides, covered with dust, straw, remains of bundles of hay, and all
+kinds of dirt pertaining to a stable.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Opposite the barracks is the Casino, also called &quot;<i>Hostinee u bylé
+ruze</i>,&quot; or &quot;The White Rose Inn.&quot; The barracks stands alone, haughtily
+exclusive. Adjoining the Casino and the post-office, however, are
+various ugly or half-ruinous structures, and opposite the post-office
+there is a line of unedifying building, describing a spacious
+circle,--low huts, two-storied houses, houses with mansard roofs,
+houses painted yellow, light green, or light pink, with a saint in a
+blue niche over the front door, and houses with creaking weathercocks
+on the roof, all half ruinous, but clinging affectionately to one
+another, like drunken recruits bent upon mutual support.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It is noon. From the open windows of the most pretentious of these
+houses come the notes of a waltz, with a loud sound of shuffling and
+scraping, alternating with screaming and laughter. The story goes that
+the wife of the steward of the Casino, Frau Albina Schwanzara, former
+<i>prima ballerina</i> at Troppau, is teaching the cancan behind those same
+windows to one of the celebrities of the little town, the wife of a
+wealthy tallow-chandler, and that the lady in question, for the
+entertainment of the corps of officers now stationed at X----, is to
+dance the aforesaid beautiful dance at the next &quot;sociable,&quot; dressed as
+a chimney-sweeper. &quot;Fast at any price!&quot; is the device of the celebrity.
+The lively music is the only animate circumstance in &quot;The Ring;&quot; the
+sultry August heat has stricken dead everything else. The kellner at
+the door of the Casino, the sentinel at the gate of the barracks, are
+nodding where they stand. In a corner of the square is the wagon of a
+troupe of strolling players,--a green-painted house on wheels,--to
+which is harnessed a one-eyed steed with very long legs and a tail like
+a rat's. The prima donna of the troupe, a slovenly woman in shabby
+dancing-slippers, is squatting on a bundle of hay, flirting with a
+cavalry sergeant. A lank youth with long, straight, fair hair is
+thrashing with his suspenders a pig tied at the back of the wagon,
+while he holds up his trousers over his stomach with his left hand.
+Several other children of Thespis lie stretched out snoring, among
+various drums and ropes, in the dust.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">All the people who happen to be in the square stare at them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The universal interest is shortly diverted, however, by the arrival of
+two equipages and a luggage-wagon, all three driving down a side street
+to rein up before the post-office. In the first of the two vehicles, a
+large convenient landau, two ladies are seated with a young man
+opposite them. The second carriage is occupied by a valet and two
+maids.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They have come from the nearest railway-station, and have merely
+stopped at the post-office for any letters and papers that may be
+awaiting them. While the servant is procuring these within the
+building, the young man alights from the landau and enters into
+conversation with the postmaster, eagerly inquiring what regiment is at
+present in garrison at X----.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The curiosity of an increasing public becomes almost morbid. All crowd
+around the post-office. The young actress has lost her admirer,--the
+sergeant has rushed up to the young man.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, Herr Lieutenant!&quot; he calls out, eagerly; then, ashamed of his
+want of due respect, he straightens himself to the correct attitude
+and salutes with his hand at his cap. Two officers, each with a
+billiard-cue in his hand, come hastily out of the Casino, followed by a
+third,--Harry Leskjewitsch. The stranger receives the first two with
+due courtesy; Harry he scans eagerly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You here, Harry!&quot; he exclaims, going up to him with outstretched
+hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The lady on the right in the landau lowers the red Bilk parasol with
+which she has hitherto shielded her face from public curiosity, and
+takes out her eye-glass; the other leans forward a little. Both ladies
+are in faultless travelling-dress. The one on the right is a beauty in
+her way, fair, with a good colour, a full figure, and regular features,
+although they may be a trifle sharp. Her companion is beautiful, too,
+but after an entirely different style,--a decided brunette, with a pale
+face and large eyes which, once gazed into, hold the gazer fast, as by
+the attraction one feels to solve a riddle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Treurenberg!&quot; Harry exclaims, grasping the stranger's hands in both
+his own.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I thought you were in Vienna,&quot; Treurenberg replies. &quot;I cannot tell you
+how glad I am to see you! When did we meet last?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;At your marriage,&quot; says Harry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;True! It seems an eternity since then.&quot; Treurenberg sighs. &quot;Only
+fancy, I had to shoot my 'Old Tom' last winter!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At this moment a little cavalcade passes across the square to reach the
+barracks,--an Amazon in a tight, very short riding-dress, followed and
+accompanied by several gentlemen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Treurenberg's attention is attracted by the horse-woman, who, although
+much powdered, rather faded, and with a feverish glow in her large,
+dark eyes, shows traces of very great beauty.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is not that Lori Trauenstein?&quot; Lato asks his new-found friend.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,--now Countess Wodin, wife of the colonel of the regiment of
+hussars in garrison here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;An old flame of mine,&quot; Lato murmurs. &quot;Strange! I scarcely recognized
+her. This is the first time I have seen her since----&quot; he laughs
+lightly--&quot;since she gave me my walking-ticket! Is Wodin the same as
+ever?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How could he be anything else!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And is she very fast?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Very,&quot; Harry assents.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The ladies in the landau have both stretched their necks to look after
+the Amazon. But while the face of the blonde expresses merely critical
+curiosity, in her companion's dark eyes there is sad, even horrified,
+surprise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Amazon and her train disappear beneath the arched gate-way of the
+barracks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lato!&quot; the portly blonde calls to Treurenberg from the landau.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He does not hear her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you remember my 'Old Tom'?&quot; he asks his friend, returning to his
+favourite theme.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I should think so. A chestnut,--a magnificent creature!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Magnificent! A friend,--an actual friend. That fat Rhoden--a cousin of
+my wife's--broke his leg in riding him at a hunt. But, to speak of
+something pleasanter, how are they all at Komaritz? Your cousin must be
+very pretty by this time?&quot; And Treurenberg looks askance at his friend.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Very,&quot; Harry replies, and his manner suddenly grows cold and
+constrained. &quot;But allow me to speak to your wife,&quot; he adds. &quot;By the
+way, who is the young lady beside her?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;H'm! a relative,--a cousin of my wife's.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Present me, I pray,&quot; says Harry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He then pays his respects to the Countess Treurenberg and to her
+companion, whose name he now learns is Olga Dangeri.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Countess offers him her finger-tips with a gracious smile. Olga
+Dangeri, nodding slightly, raises her dark, mysterious eyes, looks him
+full in the face for a moment, and then turns away indifferent. The
+servant comes out of the post-office with a great bundle of letters,
+which the Countess receives from him, and with two or three packages,
+which he hands over to the maids.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What are you waiting for, Lato? Get in,&quot; the Countess says.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Drive on. I shall stay here with Leskjewitsch for a while,&quot;
+Treurenberg replies.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mamma is waiting breakfast for us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I shall breakfast in the Casino. My respects to your mother.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As you please.&quot; The young Countess bows to Harry stiffly, with a
+discontented air, the horses start, a cloud of dust rises, and the
+landau rolls away. With his eyes half closed, Harry looks after the
+heavy brown carriage-horses.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lato, that off horse is spavined.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For heaven's sake don't notice it! My mother-in-law bought the pair
+privately to surprise me. She paid five thousand guilders for them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;H'm! Who persuaded her to buy them?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pistasch Kamenz. I do not grudge him his bargain,&quot; murmurs Lato,
+adding, with a shake of the head, &quot;'Tis odd, dogs and horses are the
+only things in which we have the advantage over the financiers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With which he takes his friend's arm and crosses the square to the
+Casino.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_11" href="#div1Ref_11">CHAPTER XI.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>AN OLD FRIEND.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">They are sitting in the farthest corner of the smoky dining-hall of the
+Casino, Harry and his friend, by a window that looks out upon a little
+yard. Harry is smoking a cigar, and sits astride of a chair; Lato
+contrives to sprawl over three chairs, and smokes cigarettes, using
+about five matches to each cigarette. Two glasses, a siphon, and a
+bottle of cognac stand upon a rickety table close by.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The room is low, the ceiling is almost black, and the atmosphere
+suggests old cheese and stale cigar-smoke. Between the frames of their
+Imperial Majesties a fat spider squats in a large gray web. At a table
+not far from the two friends a cadet, too thin for his uniform, is
+writing a letter, while a lieutenant opposite him is occupied in
+cutting the initials of his latest flame, with his English penknife, on
+the green-painted table. Before a Bohemian glass mirror in a glass
+frame stands another lieutenant, with a thick beard and a bald pate,
+which last he is endeavouring artistically to conceal by brushing over
+it the long thick hair at the back of his neck. His name is Spreil; he
+has lately been transferred to the hussars from the infantry, and he is
+the butt for every poor jest in the regiment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I cannot tell you how glad I am to see you,&quot; Treurenberg repeats to
+his friend. As he speaks, his cigarette goes out; he scrapes his
+twenty-fourth match in the last quarter of an hour, and breaks off its
+head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The same old lack of fire!&quot; Harry says, by way of a jest, handing him
+his lighted cigar.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, the same old lack of fire!&quot; Treurenberg repeats.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lack of fire! How often he has been reproached with it as a boy! Lack
+of fire; that means everything for which fire stands,--energy,
+steadfastness, manly force of will. There is no lack of passion, on the
+other hand; of dangerous inflammable material there is too much in his
+nature; but with him passion paralyzes effort instead of spurring to
+action. One need only look at him as he half reclines there, smiling
+dreamily to himself, scarcely moving his lips, to know him for what he
+is, indolent, impressionable, yet proud and morbidly refined withal; a
+thoroughly passive and very sensitive man. He is half a head taller
+than Harry, but carries himself so badly that he looks shorter; his
+face, framed in light brown hair and a soft pointed beard, is sallow;
+his large gray eyes are veiled beneath thick lids which he rarely opens
+wide. His hands are especially peculiar, long, slender, soft, incapable
+of a quick movement; hands formed to caress, but not to fight,--hardly
+even to clasp firmly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It is said that the colonel of the regiment of Uhlans, in which Lato
+served before his marriage to Selina Harfink, once declared of him,
+&quot;Treurenberg ought to have been a woman, and then, married to a good
+husband, something might perhaps have been made of him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This criticism, which ought to have been uttered by a woman rather than
+by a logical, conventional man, went the round of Treurenberg's
+comrades. &quot;The same old lack of fire,&quot; Lato repeats, smiling to
+himself. He has the mouth and the smile of a woman.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry knows the smile well, but it has changed since the last time he
+saw it. It used to be indolent, now it is sad.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have you any children?&quot; Harry asks, after a while.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Treurenberg shivers. &quot;I had a boy, I lost him when he was fifteen
+months old,&quot; he says, in a low, strained tone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My poor fellow! What did he die of?&quot; Harry asks, sympathetically.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of croup. It was over in one night,--and he was so fresh and healthy a
+child! My God! when I think of the plump little arms he used to stretch
+out to me from his little bed every morning,&quot; Lato goes on, hoarsely,
+&quot;and then, as I said, in a few hours--gone! The physician did all that
+he could for the poor little fellow,--in vain; nothing did any good. I
+knew from the first that there was no hope. How the poor little chap
+threw himself about in his bed! I sometimes dream that I hear him
+gasping for breath, and he clung to me as if I could help him!&quot;
+Treurenberg's voice breaks; he passes his hand over his eyes. &quot;He was
+very little; he could hardly say 'papa' distinctly, but it goes
+terribly near one's heart when one has nothing else in the world,--I--I
+mean, no other children,&quot; he corrects the involuntary confession.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, all days have not yet ended in evening,&quot; Harry says, kindly, and
+then pauses suddenly, feeling--he cannot tell why--that he has made a
+mistake.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile, the lieutenant at the table has finished his initials, and
+has, moreover, embellished them with the rather crude device of a
+heart. He rises and saunters aimlessly about the large, low room,
+apparently seeking some subject for chaff, for boyish play. He kills a
+couple of flies, performs gymnastic exercises upon two chairs, and
+finally approaches the cadet, who, ensconced in a corner, behind a
+table, is scribbling away diligently.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Whom are you writing to?&quot; he asks, sitting astride of a chair just
+opposite the lad.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The cadet is silent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To your sweetheart?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The cadet is still silent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I seem to have guessed rightly,&quot; says the lieutenant, adding, &quot;But
+tell me, does your present flame--here the sun called Wodin--tolerate a
+rival sun?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am writing to my mother,&quot; the cadet says, angrily. At the mention of
+the name of Wodin he flushes to the roots of his hair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Indeed!--how touching!&quot; the lieutenant goes on. &quot;What are you writing
+to her? Are you asking her for money? or are you soothing her anxiety
+with an account of the solid character of your principles? Do show me
+your letter.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The cadet spreads his arms over the sheet before him, thereby blotting
+the well-formed characters that cover it. &quot;I tell you what, Stein----!&quot;
+he bursts forth at his tormentor, his voice quivering with anger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile, Lato turns towards him. &quot;Toni!&quot; he exclaims, recognizing a
+relative in the irate young fellow,--&quot;Toni Flammingen!--can it be? The
+last time I saw you, you were in your public-school uniform. You've
+grown since then, my boy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Stein turns away from this touching family scene, and, taking his place
+behind Lieutenant Spreil, who is still occupied in dressing his hair,
+observes, in a tone of great gravity,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't you think, Spreil, that you could make part of your thick beard
+useful in decorating that bald head of yours? Comb it up each side and
+confine it in place with a little sticking-plaster. It might do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Spreil turns upon him in a fury. &quot;It might do for me to send you a
+challenge!&quot; he thunders.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;By all means: a little extra amusement would be welcome just now,&quot;
+Stein retorts, carelessly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Spreil bows, and leaves the room with majesty.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For heaven's sake, Stein, what are you about?&quot; Harry, who has been
+observing the scene, asks the idle lieutenant.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have made a vow to rid our regiment of the fellow,--to chaff him out
+of it,&quot; Stein replies, with the sublime composure which results from
+the certainty of being in the right. &quot;We do not want the infantry cad.
+If he is determined to mount on horseback, let him try a velocipede, or
+sit astride of Pegasus, for all I care; but in our regiment he shall
+not stay. You'll be my second, Les?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course, if you insist upon it,&quot; Harry replies; &quot;but it goes against
+the grain. I detest this perpetual duelling for nothing at all. It is
+bad form.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You need not talk; you used to be the readiest in the regiment to
+fight. I remember you when I was in the dragoons. But a betrothed man
+must, of course, change his views upon such subjects.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the word &quot;betrothed&quot; Harry shrinks involuntarily. Treurenberg looks
+up.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Betrothed!&quot; he exclaims. &quot;And to whom?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Guess,&quot; says the lieutenant, who is an old acquaintance of
+Treurenberg's.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is not hard to guess. To your charming little cousin Zdena.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The lieutenant puckers his lips as if about to whistle, and says, &quot;Not
+exactly. Guess again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile, Harry stands like a man in the pillory who is waiting for a
+shower of stones, and says not a word.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then--then--&quot; Treurenberg looks from the lieutenant to his friend, &quot;I
+have no idea,&quot; he murmurs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To the Baroness Paula Harfink,&quot; says the lieutenant, his face devoid
+of all expression.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There is a pause. Treurenberg's eyes try in vain to meet those of his
+friend.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">From without come the clatter of spurs and the drone of a hand-organ
+grinding out some popular air.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is it true?&quot; asks Treurenberg, who cannot rid himself of the idea that
+the mischievous lieutenant is jesting. And Harry replies, as calmly as
+possible,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is not yet announced. I am still awaiting my father's consent. He
+is abroad.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The lieutenant pours out a thimbleful of brandy from the flask
+on the table, mixes it with seltzer-water and sugar, and, raising
+it to his lips, says, gravely, &quot;To the health of your betrothed,
+Leskjewitsch,--of your sister-in-law, Treurenberg.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This, then, was the news of which my mother-in-law made such
+mysterious mention in her last letters,&quot; Lato murmurs. &quot;This is the
+surprise of which she spoke. I--I hope it will turn out well,&quot; he adds,
+with a sigh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry tries to smile. From the adjoining billiard-room come the voices
+of two players in an eager dispute. The malicious lieutenant pricks up
+his ears, and departs for the scene of action with the evident
+intention of egging on the combatants.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lato,&quot; Harry asks, clearing his throat, &quot;how do you mean to get home?
+I have my drag here, and I can drop you at Dobrotschau. Or will you
+drive to Komaritz with me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;With the greatest pleasure,&quot; Treurenberg assents. &quot;How glad I shall be
+to see the old place again!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He is just making ready for departure, when several officers drop in at
+the Casino, almost all of them old friends of his. They surround him,
+shake hands with him, and will not let him go.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Can you wait a quarter of an hour for me?&quot; he asks his friend.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry nods. He takes no part in the general conversation. He scarcely
+moves his eyes from the spider-web between the Imperial portraits. A
+fly is caught in it and is making desperate efforts to escape. The
+bloated spider goes on spinning its web, and pretends not to see it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have a game of bézique? You used to be so passionately fond of
+bézique,&quot; Harry hears some one say. He looks around. It is Count Wodin,
+the husband of the pretty, coquettish horsewoman, who is speaking. Lato
+turns to Harry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Can you wait for me long enough?&quot; he asks, and his voice sounds
+uncertain and confused. &quot;One short game.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry shrugs his shoulders, as if to say, &quot;As you please.&quot; Then,
+standing with one knee on a chair in the attitude of a man who is about
+to take leave and does not think it worth while to sit down again, he
+looks on at the game.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The first game ends, then another, and another, and Treurenberg makes
+no move to lay the cards aside. His face has changed: the languid smile
+has gone, his eyes are eager, watchful, and his face is a perfectly
+expressionless mask. His is the typical look of the well-bred gambler
+who knows how to conceal his agitation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Cent d'as</i>--double bézique!&quot; Thus it goes on to the accompaniment of
+the rustle of the cards, the rattle of the counters, and from the
+adjoining room the crack of the ivory balls against one another as they
+roll over the green cloth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, Lato, are you coming?&quot; asks Harry, growing impatient.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Only two games more. Can you not wait half an hour longer?&quot; asks
+Treurenberg.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To speak frankly, I am not much interested in listening to your 'Two
+hundred and fifty,'--'five hundred,'--and so on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Naturally,&quot; says Lato, with his embarrassed smile. He moves as if to
+rise. Wodin hands him the cards to cut. &quot;Go without me. I will not
+keep you any longer. Some one here will lend me a horse by and by.
+Shall we see you to-morrow at Dobrotschau?&quot; With which Treurenberg
+arranges his twelve cards, and Harry nods and departs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tell me, did you ever see a more blissful lover?&quot; asks the teasing
+lieutenant, who has just returned from the billiard-room. As the
+disputants, in spite of all his efforts to the contrary, have made up
+their quarrel, there is nothing more for him to do there. &quot;He seems
+inspired indeed at the thought of his beloved.&quot; And he takes a seat on
+the table nearest the players.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Every point in trumps,&quot; says Treurenberg, intent upon his game.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is my impression that he would like to drink her health in
+aconite,&quot; the lieutenant continues.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That betrothal seems to me a most mysterious affair,&quot; mutters Wodin.
+&quot;I do not understand Leskjewitsch: he was not even in debt.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The lieutenant bites his lip, makes a private sign to Wodin, and takes
+pains not to look at Treurenberg.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato flushes, and is absorbed in polishing his eyeglass, which has
+slipped out of his eye.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I lose three thousand,&quot; he says, slowly, consulting his tablets.
+&quot;Shall we have another game, Wodin?&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_12" href="#div1Ref_12">CHAPTER XII.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>A GRAVEYARD IN PARIS.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Paris, in the middle of August.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At about five in the afternoon, an old gentleman in a greenish-black
+overcoat that flutters about his thickset figure almost like a soutane,
+trousers that are too short, low shoes with steel buckles, and an
+old-fashioned high hat beneath which can be seen a rusty brown wig,
+issues from a quiet hotel much frequented by strangers of rank.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His features are marked and strong. His brown skin reminds one of
+walnut-shells or crumpled parchment. Beneath his bushy eyebrows his
+prominent eyes glance suspiciously about him. It would be difficult to
+guess at this man's social position from his exterior. To the
+superficial observer he might suggest the peasant class. The ease,
+however, with which he bears himself among the fashionably-dressed men
+in the street, the despotic abruptness of his manner, the irritability
+with which he disputes some petty item in his hotel bill, while he is
+not at all dismayed by the large sum total, give the kellner, who
+stands in the door-way looking after him, occasion for reflection.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He's another of those miserly old aristocrats who suppress their title
+for fear of being plundered,&quot; he decides, with a shrug, as he turns
+back into the hotel, stopping on his way to inform the <i>concierge</i>
+that, in his opinion, the old man is some half-barbaric Russian prince
+who has come to Europe to have a look at civilization.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The name in the strangers' book is simply Franz Leskjewitsch.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile, the stranger has walked on through the Rue de Rivoli to the
+corner of the Rue Castiglione, where he pauses, beckons to a fiacre,
+and, as he puts his foot heavily and awkwardly upon its step, calls to
+the driver, &quot;<i>Cimetière Montmartre!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The vehicle starts. The old man's eyes peer about sharply from the
+window. How changed it all is since he was last in this Babylon,
+twenty-two years ago, while the Imperial court was in its splendour,
+and Fritz was still alive!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, yes, it is all different,--radically different,&quot; he murmurs,
+angrily. &quot;The noise is the same, but the splendour has vanished. Paris
+without the Empire is like Baden-Baden without the gaming-tables. Ah,
+how fine it was twenty-two years ago, when Fritz was living!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes, he was not only living, but until then he had never been anything
+but a source of pleasure to his father; the same Fritz who had
+afterwards so embittered life for him that the same father had stricken
+him from his heart and had refused him even a place in his memory. But
+it is dangerous to try to rid ourselves of the remembrance of one whom
+we have once loved idolatrously. We may, for fear of succumbing to the
+old affection, close our hearts and lock them fast against all feeling
+of any kind. But if they do not actually die in our breasts, there
+will, sooner or later, come a day when memory will reach them in spite
+of our locks, and will demand for the dead that tribute of tears which
+we have refused to grant.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There are few things more ghastly in life than tears shed for the dead
+twenty years too late.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, a frivolous fellow, Fritz was,--frivolous and obstinate,&quot; the old
+man says to himself, staring at the brilliant shop-windows in the Rue
+de la Paix and at the gilded youths sauntering past them; &quot;but when was
+there ever a man his equal? What a handsome, elegant, charming fellow,
+bubbling over with merriment and good humour and chivalric generosity!
+And the fellow insisted on marrying a shop-girl!&quot; he mutters, between
+his teeth. The thought even now throws him into a fury. He had been so
+proud of the lad, and then--in one moment it was all over; no future to
+look to, the young diplomat's career cut short, the family pride
+levelled in the dust.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old rage had well-nigh filled his soul, when a lovely, pallid face
+rises upon his memory. Could Manette Duval have really been as charming
+as that golden-haired girl he had met awhile ago in the woods? The
+little witch looked as like Fritz as a delicate girl can look like a
+bearded man, and she had, withal, a foreign grace, the like of which
+had never hitherto characterized any Leskjewitsch child, and which
+might perhaps be an inheritance from her Parisian mother.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And suddenly the father's conscience, silenced through all these long
+years, asserts itself. Yes, the marriage had been a folly, and Fritz
+had ruined his career by it. But suppose Fritz had, through his own
+fault, broken both his arms, or put out his eyes, or done anything else
+that would have destroyed his future, would it have been for his father
+to turn from him, reproaching him angrily for his folly, saying, &quot;You
+have annihilated your happiness by your own fault; you have blasted the
+hopes I had for you; henceforth be as wretched as you deserve to be; I
+will have none of you, since I can no longer be proud of you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old man bites his lip and hangs his head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The carriage rolls on. The weather is excessively warm. In front of the
+shabby cafés on the Boulevard Clichy some people are sitting, brown and
+languid. Behind the dusty windows of the shops the shop-girls stand
+gazing drearily out upon their weary world, as if longing for somewhat
+of which they have read or dreamed,--something fresh and green; long
+shadows upon moist, fragrant lawns; gurgling brooks mirroring the sun.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">An emotion of compassion stirs in the old man's breast at sight of
+these &quot;prisoners,&quot; and if one by chance seems to him prettier, paler,
+sadder than the rest, he asks himself, &quot;Did she perhaps look so? No
+wonder Fritz pitied the poor creature! he had such a warm, tender
+heart!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The fiacre stops; the old man rubs his eyes. &quot;How much?&quot; he asks the
+driver.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The man scans his fare from head to foot with a knowing glance:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Five francs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Baron Leskjewitsch takes four francs from the left pocket of his
+waistcoat, and from the right pocket of his trousers, where he keeps
+his small change, one sou, as a gratuity. These he gives to the driver,
+and sternly dismisses him. The man drives off with a grin.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The old miser thinks he has made a good bargain,&quot; he mutters.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The 'miser' meanwhile paces slowly along the broad, straight path of
+the cemetery, between the tall chestnuts planted on either side.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">How dreary, how desolate a church-yard this is, upon which the
+noise and bustle of the swarming city outside its gates clamorously
+intrude!--a church-yard where the dead are thrust away as troublesome
+rubbish, only to put them where they can be forgotten. It is all so
+bare and prosaic; the flat stones lie upon the graves as if there was a
+fear lest, if not held down in such brutal fashion, the wretched dead
+would rise and return to a world where there is no longer any place for
+them, and where interests hold sway in which they have no part. Urns
+and other pagan decorations are abundant; there are but few crosses.
+The tops of the chestnut-trees are growing yellow, and here and there a
+pale leaf falls upon the baked earth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A gardener with a harshly-creaking rake is rooting out the sprouting
+grass from the paths; some gossiping women are seated upon the stone
+seats, brown, ugly, in starched and crimped white muslin caps, the gaps
+made by missing teeth in their jaws repulsively apparent as they
+chatter. A labouring man passes with a nosegay half concealed in the
+breast of his coat, and in his whole bearing that dull shamefacedness
+which would fain bar all sympathy, and which is characteristic of
+masculine grief. The old Baron looks about him restlessly, and finally
+goes up to the raking gardener and addresses him, asking for the
+superintendent of the place. After much circumlocution, gesticulation,
+and shouting on both sides, the two at last understand each other.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Monsieur cherche une tombe, la tombe d'un étranger décédé à Paris?</i>
+When? Fifteen years ago. That is a very long time. And no one has ever
+asked after the grave before? Had the dead man no relatives, then? Ah,
+such a forgotten grave is very sad; it will be difficult to identify
+it. Maybe--who knows?--some other bodies have been buried there. Here
+is the guard.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For what is Monsieur looking?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A grave.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The name?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Baron Frédéric Leskjewitsch.&quot; The old man's voice trembles: perhaps it
+is too late; perhaps he has again delayed too long.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But no: the guard's face immediately takes on an intelligent
+expression.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Tres bien, monsieur; par id, monsieur</i>. I know the grave well. Some
+one from the Austrian embassy comes every year to look after it on the
+part of the relatives, and this year, not long ago,--oh, only a short
+time ago,--two ladies came and brought flowers; an elderly lady, and
+one quite young--oh, but very lovely, monsieur. <i>Par ici, par ici</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Following the attendant, the old man turns aside from the broad,
+principal path into a labyrinth of narrow foot-ways winding irregularly
+in and out among the graves. Here the church-yard loses its formal
+aspect and becomes pathetic. All kinds of shrubbery overgrow the
+graves. Some flowers--crimson carnations, pale purple gillyflowers, and
+yellow asters--are blooming at the feet of strangely-gnarled old
+juniper-trees. The old man's breath comes short, a sort of greed
+possesses him, a wild burning longing for the bit of earth where lies
+buried the joy of his life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The labouring man with hanging head has reached his goal the first. He
+is already kneeling beside a grave,--tiny little grave, hardly three
+feet long, and as yet unprovided with a stone. The man passes his hard
+hand over the rough earth tenderly, gently, as if he were touching
+something living. Then he cowers down as if he would fain creep into it
+himself, and lays his head beside the poor little nosegay on the fresh
+soil.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Par ici</i>, monsieur,--here is the grave,&quot; calls the attendant.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old Baron shivers from head to foot.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A narrow headstone at the end of another stone lying flat upon the
+ground and enclosed by an iron palisade fence,--this is all--all! A
+terrible despair takes possession of the father. He envies the
+labourer, who can at least stroke the earth that covers his treasure,
+while he cannot even throw himself upon the grave from which a rusty
+iron grating separates him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nothing which he can press to his heart,--nothing in which he can take
+a melancholy delight. All gone,--all! A cold tombstone enclosed in a
+rusty iron grating,--nothing more--nothing!</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_13" href="#div1Ref_13">CHAPTER XIII.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>AT DOBROTSCHAU.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">It is the day after Treurenberg's meeting with Harry in the dusty
+little garrison town.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato is sitting at his writing-table, counting a package of
+bank-notes,--his yesterday's winnings. He divides them into two packets
+and encloses them in two letters, which he addresses and seals and
+sends by a servant to the post. He has thus wiped out two old debts. No
+sooner have the letters left his hand than he brushes his fingers with
+his handkerchief, as if he had touched something unclean.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Poor Treurenberg! He has never been a spendthrift, but he has been in
+debt ever since his boyhood. His pecuniary circumstances, however, have
+never been so oppressive, never have there been such disagreeable
+complications in his affairs, as since he has had a millionaire for a
+wife.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He leans his elbows on his writing-table and rests his chin on his
+hands. Angry discontent with himself is tugging at his nerves. Is it
+not disgusting to liquidate an old debt to his tailor, and to pay
+interest to a usurer, with his winnings at play? What detestable things
+cards are! If he loses he hates it, and if he wins--why, it gives him a
+momentary satisfaction, but his annoyance at having impoverished a
+friend or an acquaintance is all the greater afterwards. Every sensible
+disposition of the money thus won seems to him most inappropriate.
+Money won at cards should be scattered about, squandered; and yet how
+can he squander it,--he who has so little and needs so much? How often
+he has resolved never to touch cards again! If he only had some strong,
+sacred interest in life he might become absorbed in it, and so forget
+the cursed habit. He has not the force of character that will enable
+him to sacrifice his passion for play to an abstract moral idea. His is
+one of those delicate but dependent natures that need a prop in life,
+and he has never had one, even in childhood.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is the use of cudgelling one's brains till they ache, about
+what cannot be helped?&quot; he says at last, with a sigh, &quot;or which
+I at least cannot help,&quot; he adds, with a certain bitterness of
+self-accusation. He rises, takes his hat, and strolls out into the
+park. A huge, brown-streaked stag-hound, which had belonged to the old
+proprietor of the castle and which has dogged Lato's heels since the
+previous evening, follows him. From time to time he turns and strokes
+the animal's head. Then he forgets----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the same time, Paula is sitting in her study, on the ground-floor.
+It looks out on the court-yard, and is hung with sad-coloured leather,
+and decorated with a couple of good old pictures. She is sitting there
+clad in a very modern buff muslin gown, with a fiery red sash,
+listening for sounds without and with head bent meanwhile over
+Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The noise of distant hoofs falls upon her ear, and a burning blush
+suffuses her plump cheek. Upon the white shade, which is pulled down,
+falls the shadow of a horse's head, and then the upper portion of his
+rider's figure. The hoofs no longer sound. Through the sultry summer
+stillness--breaking the monotonous plashing of the fountain and the
+murmur of the old linden--is heard the light, firm pat of a masculine
+hand upon a horse's neck, the caress with which your true horseman
+thanks his steed for service rendered; then an elastic, manly tread,
+the clatter of spurs and sabre, a light knock at the door of Paula's
+room, and Harry Leskjewitsch enters.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Paula, with a smile, holds out to him both her hands; without smiling
+he dutifully kisses one of them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A pair of lovers in Meissen porcelain stands upon a bracket above
+Paula's writing-table,--lovers who have been upon the point of
+embracing each other for something more than a century. Above their
+heads hovers a tiny ray of sunshine, which attracts Harry's attention
+to the group. He and Paula fall into the very same attitudes as those
+taken by the powdered dandy in the flowered jacket and the little
+peasant-girl in dancing-slippers,--they are on the point of embracing;
+and for the first time in his life Harry wishes he were made of
+porcelain, that he might remain upon the point.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His betrothal is now eight days old. The first day he thought it would
+be mere child's play to loosen the knot tied by so wild a chance, but
+now he feels himself fast bound, and is conscious that each day casts
+about him fresh fetters. In vain, with every hour passed with his
+betrothed, does he struggle not to plunge deeper into this labyrinth,
+from which he can find no means of extricating himself. In vain does he
+try to enlighten Paula as to his sentiments towards her by a stiff,
+repellent demeanour, never lying to her by look, word, or gesture.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But what does it avail him to stand before her like a saint on a
+pedestal? Before he is aware, she has drawn his head towards her and
+kissed him on both eyes, whereupon both lovers sigh,--each for a
+different reason,--and then sit down opposite each other. Paula,
+however, does not long endure such formality. She moves her chair
+closer to his, and at last lays her hand on the young officer's
+shoulder.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry is positively wretched. No use to attempt to deceive himself any
+longer: Paula Harfink is in love with him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Although she brought about the betrothal by means of cool cunning and
+determination, daily intercourse with the handsome, chivalric young
+fellow has kindled a flame in her mature heart, and her passion for him
+grows with every hour passed in his society.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It is useless to say how little this circumstance disposes him in her
+favour. Love is uncommonly unbecoming to Paula. It is impossible to
+credit her with the impulse that forgets self and the world, or with
+the amount of ideal stupidity which invests all the nonsense of lovers
+with grace and naturalness. Involuntarily, every one feels inclined to
+smile when so robust and enlightened a woman--enlightened in all
+directions--suddenly languishes, and puts on the semblance of
+ultra-feminine weakness. Harry alone does not smile; he takes the
+matter very tragically.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Sometimes, in deep privacy he clinches his fist and mentally calls his
+betrothed &quot;a love-sick dromedary!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Naturally he does not utter such words aloud, not even when he is alone
+in his room, not even in the dark; but--thought is free!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What have you been doing all this time?&quot; Paula asks at last, archly,
+thus breaking the oppressive silence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This time? Do you mean since yesterday?&quot; he asks, frowning.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It seemed long to me,&quot; she sighs. &quot;I--I wrote you a letter, which I
+had not the courage to send you. There, take it with you!&quot; And she
+hands him a bulky manuscript in a large envelope. It is not the first
+sizable billet-doux which she has thus forced upon him. In a drawer of
+his writing-table at Komaritz there reposes a pile of such envelopes,
+unopened.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have you read the English novel I sent you yesterday?--wonderful, is
+it not?--hero and heroine so like ourselves.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I began it. I thought it rather shallow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, well, I do not consider it a learned work. I never care for depth
+in a novel,--only love and high life. Shall we go on with our
+Shakespeare?&quot; she asks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you choose. What shall we read?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The moonlight scene from Romeo and Juliet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry submits.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile, Lato, with his brown attendant, wanders along the shady
+paths of the Dobrotschau park. Now and then he pays some attention to
+his shaggy companion, strokes his head, sends him after a stick, and
+finally has him take a bath in the little reed-encircled lake on the
+shores of which stand weather-stained old statues, while stately swans
+are gliding above its green depths. These last indignantly chase the
+clumsy intruder from their realm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Poor fellow! they will have none of you!&quot; Treurenberg murmurs,
+consoling the dog as he creeps out upon the bank with drooping tail and
+ears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Suddenly he hears the notes of a piano from the direction of the
+castle. He turns and walks towards it, almost as if he were obeying a
+call.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Pausing before an open glass door leading into the garden, he looks in
+upon a spacious, airy apartment, the furniture of which consists of a
+large Gobelin hanging, a grand piano, and some bamboo chairs scattered
+about.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the piano a young girl is seated playing a dreamy improvisation upon
+'The Miller and the Brook,' that loveliest and saddest of all
+Schubert's miller-songs. It is Olga. Involuntarily Lato's eyes are
+riveted upon the charming picture. The girl is tall and slim, with
+long, slender hands and feet. If one might venture to criticise
+anything so beautiful as her face, its pure oval might be pronounced a
+thought too long.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her features are faultless, despite their irregularity; the forehead is
+low, the eyebrows straight and delicately pencilled, the eyes large and
+dark, and, when she opens them wide, of almost supernatural brilliancy.
+The mouth is small, the under lip a trifle too full, and the chin a
+little too long.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Those irregularities lend a peculiar charm to the face, reminding one
+of certain old Spanish family portraits,--dark-eyed beauties with high
+collars, and with huge pearls in their ears. The facts that Olga
+neither wears a bang nor curls her hair upon her forehead, but has it
+parted simply in the middle to lie in thick waves on either side of her
+head, and that her complexion is of a transparent pallor, contribute
+still further to her resemblance to those distinguished individuals.
+She wears a simple white gown, with a Malmaison rose stuck in her belt.
+Lato's eyes rest upon her with artistic satisfaction. The tender melody
+of the Miller's Song soothes his sore heart as if by a caress. He
+softly enters the room, sits down, and listens. Olga, suddenly aware by
+intuition of his presence, turns her head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah!--you here?&quot; she exclaims, blushing slightly, and taking her hands
+from the keys.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have made so bold,&quot; he replies, smiling. &quot;Have you any objection?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No; but you should have announced yourself,&quot; she says, with a little
+frown.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, indeed!&quot; he rejoins, in the tone in which one teases a child.
+&quot;Well, the listening to a musical soliloquy is generally considered
+only a harmless indiscretion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes; when I am playing something worth listening to I have no
+objection, but I prefer to keep my halting improvisations to myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, then, play something worth listening to,&quot; he says,
+good-humouredly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She turns again to the instrument, and begins, with great brilliancy of
+touch, to play a bravura-scherzo, by some Viennese composer at present
+in fashion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For heaven's sake,&quot; Treurenberg, whose feeling for music is as
+delicate as his appreciation of all beauty, interrupts her, &quot;do not go
+on with that ghastly Witches' Sabbath!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The 'ghastly Witches' Sabbath' is dedicated to your cousin, Countess
+Wodin,&quot; Olga replies, taking up a piece of music from the piano. &quot;There
+it is!&quot; she points to the title-page &quot;'Dedicated to the Frau Countess
+Irma Wodin, <i>née</i> Countess Trauenstein, by her devoted servant, etc.' I
+thought the thing might interest you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not in the least. Be a good girl, and play the Miller's Song over
+again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She nods amiably. Again the dreamy melody sighs among the strings of
+the piano. Lato, buried in thought, hums the words,--</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<p class="t0" style="text-indent:-10px">
+&quot;Where'er a true heart dies of love,<br>
+The lilies fade that grave above.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you know the words too?&quot; Olga exclaims, turning towards him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you but knew how often I have heard that song sung!&quot; he replies,
+with the absent air of a man whose thoughts are straying in a far past.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;At concerts?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, in private.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;By a lady?&quot; she asks, half persistently, half hesitatingly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, grand inquisitor, by a lady; by a lady for whom I had a little
+<i>tendresse</i>--h'm!--a very sincere <i>tendresse</i>. She sang it to me every
+day. The very evening before her betrothal she sang it to me; and how
+deliciously sweet it was! Would you like to know who it was?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Countess Wodin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Countess Wodin!&quot; Olga exclaims, amazed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato laughs. &quot;You cannot understand how any one could take any interest
+in such a flirt?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, no,&quot; she says, thoughtfully, &quot;it is not that. She is very pretty
+even yet, and gay and amusing, but--he is horrible, and I cannot
+understand her marrying him, when----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;When she might have had me?&quot; he concludes her sentence, laughing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Frankly, yes.&quot; As she speaks she looks full in his face with
+undisguised kindliness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He smiles, flattered, and still more amused. &quot;What would you have?
+Wodin was rich, and I--I was a poor devil.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, how odious!&quot; she murmurs, frowning, her dark eyes glowing with
+indignation. &quot;I cannot understand how any one can marry for money----&quot;
+She stops short. As she spoke her eyes met his, and his were instantly
+averted. An embarrassing pause ensues.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Olga feels that she is upon dangerous ground. They both change
+colour,--he turns pale, she blushes,--but her embarrassment is far
+greater than his. When he looks at her again he sees that there are
+tears in her eyes, and he pities her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do not vex yourself, Olga,&quot; he says, with a low, bitter laugh. And
+taking one of her slender hands in his, he strokes it gently, and then
+carries it to his lips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, still <i>aux petits soins</i>?--how touching!&quot; a harsh nasal voice
+observes behind the pair. They look round and perceive a young man,
+who, in spite of his instant apology for intruding, shows not the
+slightest disposition to depart. He is dressed in a light summer suit
+after the latest watering-place fashion. He is neither tall nor short,
+neither stout nor slender, neither handsome nor ugly, but thoroughly
+unsympathetic in appearance. His very pale complexion is spotted with a
+few pock-marks; his light green eyes are set obliquely in his head,
+like those of a Japanese; the long, twisted points of his moustache
+reach upward to his temples, and his hair is brushed so smoothly upon
+his head that it looks like a highly-polished barber's block. But all
+these details are simply by the way; what especially disfigures him is
+his smile, which shows his big white teeth, and seems to pull the end
+of his long, thin nose down over his moustache.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Fainacky!&quot; exclaims Treurenberg, unpleasantly surprised.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, the same! I am charmed to see you again, Treurenberg,&quot; exclaims
+the Pole. &quot;Have the kindness to present me to your wife,&quot; he adds,
+bowing to Olga.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think my wife is dressing,&quot; Treurenberg says, coldly. &quot;This is a
+young relative,--a cousin of my wife's.--Olga, allow me to introduce to
+you Count Fainacky.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">In the mean time Paula is occupied with her betrothed's education. In
+tones that grow drowsier and drowsier, while his articulation becomes
+more and more indistinct, Harry stumbles through Shakespeare's immortal
+verse.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Paula's part is given with infinite sentiment. The thing is growing too
+tiresome, Harry thinks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I really have had enough of this stuff for once!&quot; he exclaims, laying
+aside his volume.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, Harry, how can you speak so of the most exquisite poetry of love
+that ever has been written?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He twirls his moustache ill-humouredly, and murmurs, &quot;You are very much
+changed within the last few days.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But not for the worse?&quot; she asks, piqued.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;At last she is going to take offence,&quot; he says to himself, exultantly,
+and he is beginning to finger his betrothal-ring, when the door opens
+and a servant announces, &quot;Herr Count Fainacky.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How well you look, my dear Baroness Paula! Ah, the correct air,
+beaming with bliss,--<i>on connaît cela!</i> Taking advantage of your Frau
+mother's kind invitation, I present myself, as you see, without
+notification,&quot; the Pole chatters on. &quot;How are you, Harry? In the
+seventh heaven, of course,--of course.&quot; And he drops into an arm-chair
+and fans himself with a pink-bordered pocket-handkerchief upon which
+are depicted various jockeys upon race-horses, and which exhales a
+strong odour of musk.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am extremely glad to see you,&quot; Paula assures the visitor. &quot;I hope
+you have come to stay some days with us. Have you seen mamma yet?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No.&quot; And Fainacky fans himself yet more affectedly. &quot;I wandered around
+the castle at first without finding any one to announce me. Then I had
+an adventure,--ha, ha! <i>C'est par trop bête!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What was it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In my wanderings I reached an open door into a room looking upon the
+garden. There I found Treurenberg and a young lady,--only fancy,--I
+thought it was his wife. I took that--what is her name?--Olga--your
+<i>protégée</i>--for your sister,--for the Countess Selina, and begged
+Treurenberg to present me to his wife,--ha, ha! <i>Vraiment c'est par
+trop bête!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At this moment a tall, portly figure, with reddish hair, dazzling
+complexion, and rather sharp features, sails into the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Here is my sister,&quot; says Paula, and a formal introduction follows.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Before seeing the Countess Selina I thought my mistake only comical. I
+now think it unpardonable!&quot; Fainacky exclaims, with his hand on his
+heart. &quot;Harry, did the resemblance never strike you?&quot; He gazes in a
+rapture of admiration at the Countess.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What resemblance?&quot; asks Harry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, the resemblance to the Princess of Wales.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_14" href="#div1Ref_14">CHAPTER XIV.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>OLGA.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And pray who is Fräulein Olga?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It is Fainacky who puts this question to the Countess Treurenberg, just
+after luncheon, during which meal he has contrived to ingratiate
+himself thoroughly with Lato's wife.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He and the Countess are seated beneath a red-and-gray-striped tent on
+the western side of the castle; beside them stands a table from which
+the coffee has not yet been removed. The rest of the company have
+vanished.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Baroness Harfink is writing a letter to her brother, one of the
+leaders of the Austrian democracy, who was once minister for three
+months; Paula and Harry are enjoying a <i>tête-à-tête</i> in the park, and
+Treurenberg is taking advantage of the strong sunlight to photograph
+alternately and from every point of view a half-ruinous fountain and
+two hollyhocks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pray who is this Fräulein Olga?&quot; Fainacky asks, removing the ashes
+from the end of his cigarette with the long finger-nail of his little
+finger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, it is quite a sad story,&quot; is the Countess Selina's reply.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Excuse me if I am indiscreet; I had no idea----&quot; the Pole begins.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, you are one of the family, quite one of the family,&quot; Selina
+assures him, with an amiable smile. &quot;I might have thought the
+question embarrassing from any one else, but I can speak to you without
+reserve of these matters. You are perhaps aware that a sister of my
+father's,--is only sister,--when quite an old maid,--I believe she was
+thirty-seven,--ran off with an actor, a very obscure comedian; I think
+he played the elderly knights at the Rudolfsheim Theatre, and as the
+bandit Jaromir he turned her head. She displayed the <i>courage de ses
+opinions</i>, and married him. He treated her brutally, and she died,
+after fifteen years of wretched married life. On her death-bed she sent
+for my father, and bequeathed her daughter to his care. This was Olga.
+My father--I cannot tell how it happened--took the most immense fancy
+to the girl. He tried to persuade mamma to take her home immediately.
+Fancy! a creature brought up amid such surroundings, behind the
+foot-lights. True, my aunt was separated from her bandit Jaromir for
+several years before her death; but under such strange circumstances
+mamma really could not take the little gypsy into the house with her
+own half-grown daughters. So she was sent to a convent, and we all
+hoped she would become a nun. But no; and when her education was
+finished, shortly before papa's death, mamma took her home. I was
+married at the time, and I remember her arrival vividly. You can
+imagine how terrible it was for us to admit so strange an element among
+us. But, although he seldom interfered in domestic affairs, it was
+impossible to dispute papa's commands.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;H'm, h'm!&quot; And the Pole's slender white fingers drum upon the top of
+the table. &quot;<i>Je comprends</i>. It is a great charge for your mother, and
+<i>c'est bien dur</i>.&quot; Although he speaks French stumblingly, he
+continually expresses himself in that tongue, as if it is the only one
+in which he can give utterance to the inmost feelings of his soul.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, mamma has always sacrificed everything to duty!&quot; sighs Selina;
+&quot;and somebody had to take pity upon the poor creature.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nobly said, and nobly thought, Countess Selina; but then, after
+all,--an actor's daughter,--you really do not know all that it means.
+Does she show no signs of her unfortunate parentage?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; says Selina, thoughtfully; &quot;her manners are very good, the spell
+of the Sacré C&#339;ur Convent is still upon her. She is not particularly
+well developed intellectually, but, since you call my attention to it,
+she does show some signs of the overstrained enthusiasm which
+characterized her mother.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And in combination with her father's gypsy blood. Such signs are
+greatly to be deplored,&quot; the Pole observes. &quot;You must long to have her
+married?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A difficult matter to bring about. Remember her origin.&quot; The Countess
+inclines her head on one side, and takes a long stitch in her
+embroidery. &quot;She must be the image of her father. The bandit Jaromir
+was a handsome man of Italian extraction.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is the fellow still alive?&quot; asks the Pole.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, he is dead, thank heaven! it would be terrible if he were not,&quot;
+says Selina, with a laugh. &quot;<i>À propos</i>,&quot; she adds, selecting and
+comparing two shades of yellow, &quot;do you think Olga pretty?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;H'm! <i>pas mal</i>,--not particularly. Had I seen her anywhere else, I
+might perhaps have thought her pretty, but here--forgive my frankness,
+Countess Selina--no other woman has a chance when you are present. You
+must be conscious of that yourself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Vil flatteur!</i>&quot; the young wife exclaims, playfully lashing the Pole's
+hand with a skein of wool. The pair have known each other for scarcely
+three hours, and they are already upon as familiar a footing as if they
+had been friends from childhood. Moreover, they are connections. At
+Carlsbad, where Fainacky lately made the acquaintance of the Baroness
+Harfink and her daughter Paula, he informed the ladies that one of his
+grandmothers, a Löwenzahn by birth, was cousin to an uncle of the
+Baroness's.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The persistence with which he dwelt upon this fact, the importance he
+attached to being treated as a cousin by the Harfinks, touched Paula as
+well as her mother. Besides, as they had already told Selina, they
+liked him from the first.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;One is never ashamed to be seen with him,&quot; was the immediate decision
+of the fastidious ladies; and as time passed on they discovered in him
+such brilliant and unusual qualities that they considered him a great
+acquisition,--an entertaining, cultivated man of some talent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He is neither cultivated nor entertaining, and as for his talent, that
+is a matter of opinion. If his singing is commonplace, his performance
+on the piano commonplace, and the <i>vers de société</i> which he scribbles
+in young ladies' extract-books more commonplace than all, in one art he
+certainly holds the first rank,--the art of discovering and humouring
+the weaknesses of his fellow-mortals, the art of the flatterer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To pursue this art with distinguished ability two qualifications are
+especially needful,--impudence and lack of refinement. With the help
+of these allies the strongest incense may be wafted before one's
+fellow-creatures, and they will all--with the exception of a few
+suspicious originals--inhale it eagerly. Experience has taught Fainacky
+that boldness is of far more avail in this art than delicacy, and he
+conducts himself accordingly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Flattery is his special profession, his means for supporting his idle,
+coxcomb existence,--flattery and its sister art, slander. A successful
+epigram at another's expense gives many of us more pleasure than a
+compliment paid to ourselves.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He flutters, flattering and gossiping, from one house to another. The
+last few weeks he has spent with a bachelor prince in the
+neighbourhood, who, a sufferer from neuralgia in the face, has been
+known, when irritated, to throw the sofa-cushions at his guests. At
+first Fainacky professed to consider this a very good joke; but one day
+when the prince showed signs of selecting more solid projectiles for
+the display of his merry humour, Fainacky discovered that the time had
+come for him to bestow the pleasure of his society elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dobrotschau seemed to offer just what he sought, and he has won his
+hostess's heart a second time by his abuse during luncheon of his late
+host's cook.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">While he is now paying court to the Countess Selina, a touching scene
+is enacting in another part of the garden. Paula, who during her walk
+with her betrothed has perceived Treurenberg with his photographic
+apparatus in the distance, proposes to Harry that they be photographed
+as lovers. The poor young fellow's resistance avails nothing against
+Paula's strong will. She triumphantly drags him up before the
+apparatus, and, after much trying, discovers a pose which seems to her
+sufficiently tender. With her clasped hands upon Harry's shoulder, she
+gazes up at him with enthusiastic devotion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do not look so stern,&quot; she murmurs; &quot;if I did not know how you love
+me, I should almost fancy you hated me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato, half shutting his eyes in artistic observation of the pair, takes
+off the shield of the instrument, saying, &quot;Now, if you please!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The impression is a failure, because Harry moved his head just at the
+critical moment. When, however, Paula requires him to give pantomimic
+expression to his tender sentiments for the second time, he declares
+that he cannot stay three minutes longer, the 'vet' is waiting for him
+at Komaritz.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, that odious 'vet'!&quot; sighs Paula. &quot;This is the third time this week
+that you have had to leave me because of him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry bites his lip. Evidently it is high time to invent another
+pretext for the unnatural abbreviation of his visits. But--if she would
+only take offence at something!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Can you not come with me to Komaritz?&quot; he asks Lato, in order to give
+the conversation a turn, whereupon Lato, who instantly accedes to his
+request, hurries into the castle to make ready for his ride. Shortly
+afterwards, riding-whip in hand, he approaches Selina, who is still
+beneath the red-and-gray tent with Fainacky.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, you are going to leave me alone again, faithless spouse that you
+are!&quot; she calls out, threatening him with a raised forefinger. Then,
+turning to the Pole, she adds, &quot;Our marriage is a fashionable one, such
+as you read of in books: the husband goes one way, the wife another.
+'Tis the only way to make life tolerable in the long run, is it not,
+Lato?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato makes no reply, flushes slightly, kisses his wife's hand, nods
+carelessly to Fainacky, and turns to go.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Shall you come back to dinner?&quot; Selina calls after him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course,&quot; he replies, as he vanishes behind the shrubbery.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fainacky strokes his moustache thoughtfully, stares first at the
+Countess, then at the top of the table, and finally gives utterance to
+an expressive &quot;Ah!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato hurries on to overtake his friend, whom he espies striding towards
+the park gate.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Suddenly Olga approaches him, a huge straw hat shading her eyes, and in
+her hands a large, dish-shaped cabbage-leaf full of inviting, fresh
+strawberries.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Whither are you hurrying?&quot; she asks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am going to ride to Komaritz with Harry,&quot; he replies. &quot;Ah, what
+magnificent strawberries!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I know they are your favourite fruit, and I plucked them for you,&quot; she
+says.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In this heat?--oh, Olga!&quot; he exclaims.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The sun would have burned them up by evening,&quot; she says, simply.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He understands that she has meant to atone for her inadvertence of the
+morning, and he is touched.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Will you not take some?&quot; she asks, persisting in offering him the
+leaf.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He takes one. Meanwhile, his glance encounters Harry's. Olga is
+entirely at her ease, while Lato--from what cause he could not possibly
+tell--is slightly embarrassed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have no time now,&quot; he says, gently rejecting the hand that holds the
+leaf.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Shall I keep them for your dessert?--you are coming back to dinner?&quot;
+she asks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Certainly. I shall be back by six o'clock,&quot; he calls to her. &quot;Adieu,
+my child.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As the two friends a few minutes later ride down the long poplar
+avenue, Harry asks,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Has this Olga always lived here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No. She came home from the convent a year after my marriage. Selina
+befriends her because Paula cannot get along with her. She often
+travels with us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She seems pleasant and sympathetic,&quot; says Harry, adding, after a short
+pause, &quot;I have seldom seen so perfect a beauty.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She is as good as gold,&quot; Lato says, quickly, adding, in a rather lower
+tone, &quot;and most forlorn, poor thing!&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_15" href="#div1Ref_15">CHAPTER XV.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>COMRADES AND FRIENDS.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The clumsy Komaritz mansion casts its huge shadow upon the
+old-fashioned garden, upon the large rectangular flower-beds
+bordered with sage and parsley, wherein bloom in gay companionship
+sweet-smelling centifolia roses, dark-blue monk's-hood, scarlet
+verbenas, and lilac phlox; upon the tangle of raspberry- and
+blackberry-bushes that grow along the garden wall; and upon the
+badly-mown lawn. Ancient pear-trees and apple-trees mingle their shade
+with that of the old house.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">An afternoon languor broods over it all. The buzz of bees above the
+flower-beds sounds languid; languid sounds the rustle of the leaves
+when, after a prolonged slumber, they awake for an instant, shiver, and
+then fall silent again; languid is the tone of the old piano, upon
+which the youngest Leskjewitsch is practising the 'Cloches du
+Monastere,' under the supervision of a teacher engaged for the summer
+holidays,--a Fräulein Laut.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nothing is for the present to be seen or heard of the other inmates of
+the castle. Hedwig is consulting with her maid, and the Countess Zriny
+is endeavouring to repair a great misfortune. On her journey from
+Vienna to Komaritz she relieved her maid, who was overladen with
+hand-bags, of two objects particularly dear to her soul,--a carved,
+partly-painted and partly-gilded St. John, and a large bottle of eau de
+Lourdes. In changing trains at Pernik, she slipped and fell at full
+length upon the platform; the bottle of eau de Lourdes flew one way and
+the St. John another; the bottle was broken, and St. John not only lost
+his head and one hand, but when the poor Countess gathered up his
+remains he proved to be injured in every part. His resuscitation is at
+present the important task of the old lady's life. At this moment she
+is working away at the folds of his garment with much devotion--and
+black oil paint.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry and Lato have told no one of their arrival. They are lying upon a
+grassy slope beneath a huge apple-tree, smoking, and exchanging
+reminiscences.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How homelike all this is!&quot; says Treurenberg, in his soft voice, and
+with a slightly drawling intonation. &quot;I grow ten years younger here.
+The same flowers, the same trees, the same fragrance, the same
+world-forgotten solitude, and, if I am not mistaken,&quot;--he smiles a
+little,--&quot;the same music. You used to play the 'Convent Bells' then.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; Harry replies, &quot;'Les Cloches du Monastere' was the acme and
+the point of departure of my musical studies. I got rid of my last
+music-teacher and my last 'coach' at the same time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you mean Tuschalek?&quot; asks Treurenberg.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That was his name.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;H'm! I can see him now. Heavens! those hands!&quot; Treurenberg gazes
+reflectively into space. &quot;They were always as red as radishes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They reminded me rather of carrots that had just been pulled out of
+the ground,&quot; Harry mutters.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How the old times rise up before me!&quot; Lato muses, letting his glance
+wander anew over the garden, where there is buzzing of innumerable
+bees; over the clumsy façade of the mansion; over the little eminence
+where still stand the quarters of Tuschalek and the Pole; then up to
+the old ruined castle, which stands out against the dark-blue August
+skies an almost formless shape, brown and grim, with its old scars from
+fire, and hung about with wreaths of wild climbing vines.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Tis odd,--something has seemed to me lacking about the dear old
+nest,&quot; Lato begins again, after a pause. &quot;Now I know what it is.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The little figure of your cousin Zdena. I am always looking for her to
+come skipping from among the flowers like a wayward little fairy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry frowns, plucks a buttercup growing in the grass, and is mute.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Without heeding his friend's mood, Treurenberg goes on: &quot;As a child,
+she was most charming and unusually intelligent and gifted. Has the
+promise of her childhood not been fulfilled?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry pulls another buttercup out of the grass, and carefully deposits
+it beside the first.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is a matter of opinion,&quot; he remarks, carelessly, without looking
+at his friend.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Tis strange! Many a girl's beauty vanishes suddenly at about fourteen
+without leaving a trace; but I would have wagered my head that your
+cousin would have been beautiful,&quot; remarks Lato.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have not said that she is ugly,&quot; Harry growls.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But you do not like her!&quot; Lato now rivets his eyes full upon the
+gloomy face of his former playmate.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry turns away his head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I did not say I did not like her,&quot; he bursts out, &quot;but I can't talk of
+her, because--because it is all her fault!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is 'all'?&quot; asks Lato, still looking fixedly at his friend.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry frowns and says nothing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato does not speak again for a few moments. Then, having lighted a
+fresh cigar, he begins: &quot;I always fancied,--one so often arranges in
+imagination a friend's future for him, particularly when one's own fate
+is fixed past recall,--I always said to myself that you and your cousin
+would surely come together. I liked to think that it would be so. To
+speak frankly, your betrothal to Paula was a great surprise to me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Indeed? Well, so it was to me!&quot; Harry blurts out, then turns very red,
+is ashamed of his unbecoming confession; and then--then he is glad that
+it has been extorted from him; glad that he can speak frankly about the
+affair to any one with whom he can take counsel.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Treurenberg draws a long breath, and then whistles softly to himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Sets the wind in that quarter?&quot; he says at last. &quot;I thought so. I
+determined that you should show your colours. And may I ask how you
+ever got into such a confounded scrape?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry groans. &quot;What would you have?--moonlight, nervous
+excitement,--all of a sudden there we were! I had quarrelled with my
+cousin Zdena--God bless her! In spite of her whims and fancies,--one
+never knows what she would be at,--she is the dearest, loveliest
+creature----! But that is only by the way----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not at all, not at all; it interests me extremely,&quot; Treurenberg
+interrupts him, laughing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That may be, but it has very little to do with my explanation,&quot; Harry
+rejoins, dryly. &quot;The fact is, that it was a warm night in August, and I
+was driving alone with Paula,--that is, with no coachman, and only my
+groom, who followed with my horse, and whom I entirely forgot,--from
+Zirkow to Dobrotschau, along that rough forest road,--you
+remember,--where one is jolted against one's companion at every step,
+and there is opportunity for a girl to be becomingly timid--h'm! She
+suddenly became frightened at a will-o'-the-wisp, she never struck me
+before as having such weak nerves,--and--well, I was distraught over my
+quarrel with Zdena, and I had taken perhaps a glass too much of Uncle
+Paul's old Bordeaux; in short, I kissed her. In an instant I
+recollected myself, and, if I am not mistaken, I said, 'Excuse me!' or,
+'I beg pardon!' She cannot have heard this extremely sensible remark,
+however, for in the twinkling of an eye I was betrothed. The next day I
+was determined to put an end to such nonsense, and I sat down at my
+writing-table--confound it all! I never was great with the pen, and the
+model of such a letter as I wanted to write was not to be found in any
+'Complete Letter-Writer.' Everything I tried to put on paper seemed to
+me so terribly indelicate and rough, and so I determined to tell the
+mother. I meant to bring forward a previous and binding attachment; to
+plead in my excuse the superlative charms of the Baroness Paula--oh, I
+had it all splendidly planned; but the old Baroness never let me open
+my lips, and so matters came to be arranged as you find them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Through the open glass doors of the dining-room, across the
+flower-beds, comes the faint voice of the old piano. But it is no
+longer echoing the 'Cloches du Monastere,' but a wailing canzonetta by
+some popular local composer upon which the youngest Leskjewitsch is
+expending a most unnecessary amount of banging upon keys and pressing
+of pedals. With a grimace Harry stops his ears. Treurenberg looks very
+grave.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You do not, then, intend to marry Paula?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;God forbid!&quot; Harry exclaims.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then,&quot;--Lato bites his lip, but goes on calmly,--&quot;forgive an
+old friend who is aware of the difficulty of your position, for
+the disagreeable remark,--but if you do not intend to marry my
+sister-in-law, your conduct with regard to her is not only very
+unbecoming but also positively wrong.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why?&quot; Harry asks, crossly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why?&quot; Lato lifts his eyebrows. &quot;Why, because you compromise her more
+deeply with every visit you pay her. You cannot surely deceive yourself
+as to the fact that upon the superficial observer you produce the
+impression of an unusually devoted pair of lovers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do not understand how you can say such a thing!&quot; Harry exclaims,
+angrily, &quot;when you must have seen----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That you are on the defensive with Paula,&quot; Treurenberg interrupts him,
+with a wan smile. &quot;Yes, I have seen it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, she ought to see it too,&quot; Harry mutters.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato shrugs his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She must lose patience sooner or later,&quot; says Harry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is difficult to exhaust the patience of a young woman whose
+sensibilities are not very delicate and who is very much in love,&quot;
+his friend replies. &quot;You must devise some other, and--forgive my
+frankness--some more honest and straightforward means for attaining
+your end.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry puffs furiously at his cigarette, sending a cloud of smoke over
+the flower-bed. &quot;Lato, you are rough upon me, but not rougher than I am
+upon myself. If you knew how degraded I feel by my false position, if
+you knew how the whole matter weighs upon me, you would do something
+more for me than only hold up a candle by the light of which I perceive
+more clearly the misery of my position. You would----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What?&quot; Lato asks, disturbed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Help me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato looks at him in dismay for a moment, and then stammers, &quot;No,
+Harry, do not ask it of me,--not of me. I could do you no good. They
+never would let me speak, any more than my mother-in-law would allow
+you to speak. And even if I finally prevailed upon them to listen, they
+would blame me for the whole affair, would believe that I had excited
+your mind against the family.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How could they possibly imagine that you could conduct yourself so
+towards a friend?&quot; Harry asks, with a grim smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato turns his head aside.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then you will not do me this service?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I cannot!&quot; Treurenberg murmurs, faintly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I might have known it!&quot; Harry breaks forth, his eyes flashing with
+indignant scorn. &quot;You are the same old fellow, the very same,--a good
+fellow enough, yes, sympathetic, compassionate, and, as long as you are
+allowed to remain perfectly passive, the noblest of men. But as soon as
+anything is required of you,--if any active interference is called for
+at your hands, there's an end of it. You simply cannot, you would
+rather die than rouse yourself to any energetic action!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Perhaps so,&quot; Lato murmurs, with a far-away look in his eyes, and a
+smile that makes Harry's blood run cold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A pause ensues, the longest of the many pauses that have occurred in
+this <i>tête-à-tête</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The bees seem to buzz louder than ever. A dry, thirsty wind sighs in
+the boughs of the apple-tree; two or three hard green apples drop to
+the ground. At last Treurenberg gathers himself up.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You must take me as I am,&quot; he says, wearily; &quot;there is no cutting with
+a dull knife. I cannot possibly enlighten my mother-in-law as to the
+true state of your feelings. It would do no good, and it would make an
+infernal row. But I will give you one piece of good advice----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Before he is able to finish his sentence his attention is arrested by a
+perfect babel of sounds from the dining-room. The piano music is
+hushed, its discord merged into the angry wail of a shrieking feminine
+voice and the rough, broken, changing tones of a lad,--the rebellious
+pupil, Vladimir Leskjewitsch. The hurly-burly is so outrageous that
+every one is roused to investigate it. Countess Zriny rushes in, with
+short, waddling steps, the paint-brush with which she has been mending
+St. John's robe still in her hand; Hedwig rushes in; Harry and Lato
+rush in.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is the matter? What is the matter?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You poured that water on the keys intentionally, to prevent your
+playing,&quot; the teacher angrily declares to her pupil.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do not deny it,&quot; Vladimir rejoins, loftily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The spectators suppress a smile, and are all, as is, alas! so
+frequently the case, on the side of the culprit, a tall, overgrown lad
+of about fourteen, with a handsome dark face, large black eyes, a
+short, impertinent nose, and full, well-formed lips. With hands thrust
+deep into the pockets of his blue jacket, he gravely surveys the
+circle, and tosses his head defiantly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You hear him! you hear him!&quot; Fräulein Laut screams, turning to the
+by-standers. Then, approaching Vladimir, she asks, angrily, &quot;And how
+can you justify such conduct?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Vladimir scans her with majestic disdain. &quot;How can you justify your
+having ruined all my pleasure in music?&quot; he asks, in a tragic tone, and
+with a bombastic flourish of his hand. &quot;That piano has been my dear
+friend from childhood!&quot;--he points feelingly to the instrument, which
+is yellow with age, has thin, square legs, and six pedals, the use of
+which no one has ever yet fathomed,--&quot;yes, my friend! And today I hate
+it so that I have well-nigh destroyed it! Fräulein Laut, justify that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Must I be subjected to this insolence?&quot; groans the teacher.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Vladimir, go to your room!&quot; Harry orders, with hardly maintained
+gravity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Vladimir departs with lofty self-possession. The teacher turns
+contemptuously from those present, especially from Harry, who tries to
+appease her with a few courteous phrases. With a skilful hand she takes
+the piano apart, dismembers the key-board, and spreads the hammers upon
+sheets of tin brought for her from the kitchen by Blasius, the old
+servant, that the wet, swollen wood may be dried before the fire.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Take care lest there be an <i>auto-da-fé</i>,&quot; Harry calls after her.
+Without deigning to reply, she vanishes with the bowels of the piano.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Blasius, meanwhile, with imperturbable composure, has spread the table
+for the evening meal at one end of the spacious room, in which there is
+now diffused an agreeable odour of fresh biscuits. A mountain of
+reddish-yellow almond cakes is flanked on one side by a plate of
+appetizing rye bread, on the other by butter garnished with ice and
+cresses. There is a fruit-basket at either end of the table, filled
+with peaches, early grapes, and all kinds of ripe green and purple
+plums, while a bowl of cut glass holds whipped cream cooled in ice.
+Finally, old Blasius brings in a tray fairly bending beneath the burden
+of various pitchers and flagons, the bewildering number of which is due
+to the fact that at Komaritz the whims of all are consulted, and
+consequently each one orders something different, be it only a
+different kind of cream.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As of old, no one is in danger at Komaritz of death from starvation,&quot;
+Lato remarks, smiling.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Help us to be rid of the provision,&quot; Harry says.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Hedwig repeats the invitation rather affectedly, but Lato, looking at
+his watch, discovers that he has already overstayed his time by an
+hour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">All express regret, and bid him farewell.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And the good advice you were about to give me?&quot; Harry says,
+interrogatively, as he takes leave of his friend, having accompanied
+him to the gate of the court-yard.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Cut short your leave of absence; go away,&quot; Lato replies. &quot;You will at
+least be relieved for the time from any necessity for dissimulation,
+and such affairs are better adjusted by letter.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry gazes gloomily into space; Lato springs into the saddle. &quot;Adieu!&quot;
+he calls out, and is gone.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_16" href="#div1Ref_16">CHAPTER XVI.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>LATO TREURENBERG.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Ding-dong--ding-dong! the Angelus bells are ringing through the evening
+air with their message of rest for weary mortals.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The long shadows of the trees grow paler, and vanish, taking with them
+all the glory of the world and leaving only a dull, borrowed twilight
+to hover above the earth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sun has set. Ding-dong! rings the bell of Komaritz, near at hand,
+as Lato rides past; the bells of the other villages echo the sound
+dreamily, to have their notes tossed back by the bells of the lonely
+chapels on the mountain-sides across the steel-gray stream, whose
+waters glide silently on ward. Ding-dong! each answers to all, and the
+tired labourer rejoices in unison.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The hour of rest has come, the hour when families reassemble after
+the pursuits and labours of the day have ceased to claim and separate
+them,--when mortals feel more warmly and sensibly the reality of family
+ties. Thin blue smoke is curling from the chimneys; here and there a
+woman can be seen standing at the door of a cottage, shading her eyes
+with her hand as she looks expectantly down the road. Upon the doorstep
+of a poor hut sits a brown, worn labourer, dirty and ragged, about to
+eat his evening meal with a leaden spoon from an earthen bowl; a young
+woman crouches beside him, with her back against the door-post, content
+and silent, while a chubby child, with bare legs somewhat bowed, and a
+curly head, leans against his knee and, with its mouth open in
+expectation, peeps into the earthen bowl. The father smiles, and from
+time to time thrusts a morsel between the fresh, rosy lips. Then he
+puts aside the bowl and takes the little fellow upon his knee. It
+is a pretty child,--and perhaps in honour of the father's return
+home--wonderfully clean, but even were this not the case---- Most of
+the children tumbling about before the huts on this sultry August
+evening are neither pretty nor clean; they are dirty, ragged,
+dishevelled; many are sickly, and some are crippled; but there is
+hardly one among them to whom this hour does not bring a caress.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">An atmosphere of mutual human sympathy seems to brood in silence above
+the resting earth, while the bells ring on,--ding-dong, ding-dong.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato has left the village behind him, and is trotting along the
+road beneath the tall walnuts. The noise of wagons, heavily laden
+with the harvest, and the tramp of men upon the road fall upon his
+ear,--everything is going home.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There is a languor in the aromatic summer air, somewhat that begets in
+every human being a desire for companionship, a longing to share the
+burden of existence with another. Even the flowers seem to bend their
+heads nearer to one another.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now the bells are hushed, the road is deserted; Lato alone is still
+pursuing his way home. Home? Is it possible that he has accustomed
+himself to call his mother-in-law's castle home? In many a hotel--at
+&quot;The Lamb,&quot; for example, in Vienna he has felt much more at home.
+Where, then, is his home? He vainly asks himself this question. Has he
+ever had a home?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The question is still unanswered. His thoughts wander far back into the
+past, and find nothing, not even a few tender memories. Poor Lato! He
+recalls his earliest years, his childhood. His parents were considered
+the handsomest couple in Austria. The Count was fair, tall, slender,
+with an apparent delicacy of frame that concealed an amount of physical
+strength for which he was famous, and with nobly-chiselled features.
+His duels and his love-affairs were numerous. He was rashly brave, and
+irresistible; so poor an accountant that he always allowed his
+opponents to reckon up his gains at play, but when his turn came to pay
+a debt of honour he was never known to make an error in a figure. It is
+scarcely necessary to mention that his gambling debts were the only
+ones the payment of which he considered at all important. He was
+immensely beloved by his subordinates,--his servants, his horses, and
+his dogs; he addressed them all with the German &quot;thou,&quot; and treated
+them all with the same good-humoured familiarity. He was thought most
+urbane, and was never guilty of any definite intentional annoyance;
+but he suffered from a certain near-sightedness. He recognized as
+fellow-mortals only those fellow-mortals who occupied the same social
+plane with himself; all others were in his eyes simply population,--the
+masses.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There is little to tell of his wife, save that she was a brilliant
+brunette beauty, with very loud manners and a boundless greed of
+enjoyment. She petted little Lato like a lapdog; but one evening, just
+as she was dressed for a ball, she was informed that the child had been
+taken violently ill with croup, whereupon she flew into a rage with
+those who had been so thoughtless and unfeeling as to tell her such a
+thing at so inopportune a moment. Her carriage was announced; she let
+it wait while she ran up-stairs to the nursery, kissed the gasping
+little patient, exclaimed, with a lifted forefinger, &quot;Be a good boy, my
+darling; don't die while mamma is at the ball!&quot; and vanished.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The little fellow was good and did not die. As a reward, his mother
+gave him the largest and handsomest rocking-horse that was to be found
+in Vienna. Such was the Countess Treurenberg as a mother; and as
+a wife--well, Hans Treurenberg was satisfied with her, and her
+behaviour was no one else's affair. The couple certainly got along
+together admirably. They never were seen together except when they
+received guests.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Peace to her ashes! The Countess paid a heavy price for her short-lived
+joys. When scarcely twenty-six years old, she was attacked by a mortal
+disease. Her condition was all the more painful because she persisted
+in concealing her malady from the world, even denying its existence. Up
+to the last she went into society, and she died in full dress, diamonds
+and all, in a glare of light, on a lounge in her dressing-room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The widower at first took her death so terribly to heart that his
+associates remarked upon it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Treurenberg is really a very good fellow!&quot; they said, and so he was.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a time he kept little Lato with him constantly. Even on the
+evenings when gambling was going on, and they played long and high at
+Hans Treurenberg's, the boy was present. When hardly twelve years old
+he was fully initiated into the mysteries of all games of chance. He
+would sit silent and quiet until far into the night, watching the
+course of the game, trembling with excitement at any sudden turn of
+luck. And how proud he was when he was allowed to take a hand! He
+played extremely well for his age, and his luck was constant. His
+father's friends made merry over his gambling ability. His father would
+pat his cheeks, stroke his hair off his forehead, take his face between
+his hands, and kiss him. Then, with his fingers beneath the lad's chin,
+he would turn his face this way and that, calling his guests' attention
+to the boy's beauty, to his eyes sparkling with eagerness, to his
+flushed cheeks. Then he would kiss the boy again, make him drink a
+glass of champagne, and send him to bed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then was sown the seed of the evil passion which was in after-years to
+cause Lato so many an hour of bitter suffering. Calm, almost
+phlegmatic, with regard to all else, as soon as he touched a card his
+excitement was intense, however he might manage to conceal it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When Count Hans grew tired of the constant companionship of his son, he
+freed himself from it after a perfectly respectable fashion. He sent
+him to Prague, a city renowned for the stolidity of its institutions,
+committing him to the care of relatives, and of a professor who
+undertook to supply the defects of the boy's neglected education. When
+Lato was eighteen he entered a regiment of hussars.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Hereafter, if the father took but little pains about his son, he
+certainly showed him every kindness,--paid his debts, and laughed while
+he admired the young man's mad pranks. Moreover, he really loved him,
+which did not, however, hinder him from contriving to have Lato
+declared of age at twenty, that the young fellow might have possession
+of his maternal inheritance, since he himself needed money.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was at this time that the elder Treurenberg's view of life and the
+world underwent a remarkable change. He became a Liberal, and this not
+only in a political sense, but socially, a much rarer transformation.
+He appeared frequently at the tables of wealthy men of business, where
+he was valued not merely as an effective aristocratic decoration, but
+as a really charming companion. His liberal views took on more
+magnificent dimensions: he announced himself a heretic with regard to
+the exclusiveness of the Austrian aristocracy, smiled at the folly of
+Austrian court etiquette, and then, one fine day he made friends with
+the wealthy <i>parvenu</i>, Conte Capriani, and, throwing overboard as
+useless ballast impeding free action the '<i>noblesse oblige</i>' principle,
+he devoted himself blindly and with enthusiasm to stock-gambling. The
+result was hardly encouraging. When Lato applied to his father one day
+for a considerable sum of money, it was not to be had. Melancholy times
+for the Treurenbergs ensued; thanks, however, to the friendship of
+Conte Capriani, who sometimes helped him to a really profitable
+transaction, Count Hans was able to keep his head above water. And he
+continued to hold it as high as ever, to preserve the same air of
+distinction, to smile with the same amiable cordiality in which there
+was a spice of <i>hauteur</i>; in a word, he preserved the indefinable
+prestige of his personality, which made it impossible that Conte
+Capriani's demeanour towards him should ever partake of the nature of
+condescension. The only thing required of Count Hans by Capriani was
+that he should spend a couple of weeks with him every year in the
+hunting-season. This the Count seemed quite willing to do, and he
+therefore appeared every year, in August or October, at Heinrichsdorf,
+an estate in West Hungary, where Capriani had preferred to live since
+his affair with young Count Lodrin had made his castle of Schneeburg
+impossible for him as a place of residence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One year the Count asked his son to accompany him to Heinrichsdorf.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Will Lato ever forget the weeks he spent there, the turning-point as
+they were of his existence? How foreign and tiresome, how hard and
+bald, it all was! how uncomfortable, how uncongenial!--the furniture,
+among which here and there, as was the fashion, some costly antique was
+displayed; the guests, among whom were various representatives of
+historic Austrian nobility; the Conte's secretary, a choleric
+Hungarian, who concealed the remnant of a pride of rank which ill
+became his present position beneath an aggressive cynicism, and who was
+wont to carry in his pocket, when he went to walk, a little revolver,
+with which he shot at sparrows or at the flies creeping upon some wall,
+by way perhaps of working off the bitterness of his soul. There, too,
+was the master of the house, showing the same frowning brow to all whom
+he met, contradicting all with the same rudeness, hunting to earth any
+stray poetic sentiment, and then, after a violent explosion of pure
+reason, withdrawing gloomily to his cabinet, where he could give
+himself over to his two passions,--that for money-making, and that for
+setting the world at naught.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The only person in the assemblage whom Lato found attractive was the
+mistress of the mansion, with whom he often talked for hours, never
+ceasing to wonder at the melancholy grace and quiet dignity of her
+bearing, as well as at the well-nigh morbid delicacy and high moral
+tone of her sentiments.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Above all did Lato dislike those among the guests of a like rank with
+his own, men who were like himself in money difficulties, and who
+hovered about this deity of the stock market in hopes of obtaining his
+blessing upon their speculations.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Count Hans moved among all these aristocratic and un-aristocratic
+luminaries with the same unchanging grace that carried him victoriously
+over all annoyances,--always genial and courtly; but the son could not
+emulate his father's ease of mind and manner; he felt depressed and
+humiliated.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then the Baroness Harfink and her daughters made their appearance. The
+two striking, pleasure-loving girls had an enlivening effect upon the
+wearied assemblage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Paula was the cleverer of the two, but she talked too much, which was
+tiresome, and then she had a reputation for learning, which frightened
+men away. Selina, on the other hand, knew how to veil her lack of
+cleverness beneath an interesting taciturnity; she had a fashion of
+slowly lifting her eyelids which appealed to a man's fancy. With a
+degree of prudence frequently displayed by rather dull girls, she
+forbore to appeal to the crowd, and concentrated her efforts to charm
+upon Lato. She accompanied him in the pheasant-shooting parties, took
+lessons from him in lawn-tennis,--in a white dress, her loosened
+hair gleaming in the sunlight,--or simply lay quietly back in a
+rocking-chair in the shade in front of the castle, gazing at him with
+her large, half-closed eyes, while he, half in jest, half in earnest,
+said all sorts of pretty things.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was always play in the evenings at the castle, and usually very
+high play. The atmosphere about the gaming-tables was hardly agreeable,
+and the Conte moved about among them, taking no share in such &quot;silly
+waste of time,&quot; while every one else was eager to win. Lato took part
+in the unedifying pastime, and at first fortune befriended him; then he
+lost. His losses embarrassed him, and he withdrew from playing. He was
+not the only one to avoid the gambling-tables after a short trial of
+luck; several gentlemen followed his example. The Conte took triumphant
+note of this, and arranged a party for five-kreutzer whist, in which he
+joined.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato bit his lip. Never before had his unfortunate pecuniary
+circumstances so weighed upon him. The thirst for gold--the prevailing
+epidemic at Heinrichsdorf--demanded a fresh victim.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There had been a hunting-dinner; Conte Capriani's wine had been
+unusually fiery; every one was gay; Heinrichsdorf could remember no
+such brilliant festivity. The windows of the drawing-room where the
+company were assembled were open and looked out upon the park. The
+intoxicating fragrance of the sultry August night was wafted into the
+room; the stars sparkled above the black tree-tops, twinkling
+restlessly, like deceitful will-o'-the-wisps, in the blue vault of
+heaven; the sweet, wild music of a band of Hungarian gypsies came
+floating into the apartment with the fragrance of the night. Selina
+looked wonderfully beautiful on that evening, a sultana-like beauty,
+nothing more, but she harmonized with the spell of the August night.
+She wore a red crape gown, red as flickering fire, red as benumbing
+poppy-blossoms, very <i>décolletée</i>, and its decided colour heightened
+the white, pearly lustre of the girl's neck and arms. The lines about
+her mouth had not then settled into a stereotyped smile; her nose was
+not sharp; the sheen of her hair had not been dimmed by perpetual
+powdering. Essentially commonplace as she was, for the moment there was
+about her a mingling of languor and excitement, which betrays an
+accelerated movement of the heart. Selina Harfink was in love. Lato was
+perfectly aware of it, and that she was in love with him. He bestowed
+but little thought upon this fact, however. What could come of it? And
+yet, whenever he was with her, a cold shiver ran through him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The mysterious shades of night were invaded by music and the summer
+breeze; wherever Lato was he saw that red gown. A hand was laid upon
+his arm, and when he turned he gazed into a pair of eyes veiled yet
+glowing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why do you avoid me?&quot; Selina whispered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Southern Roses!&quot; one of the gentlemen standing near a window called to
+the musicians, and immediately there floated out into the night, to
+mingle with the low whisper of the linden leaves, the notes of the
+first bars of that most beguiling of all Strauss's beguiling waltzes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He danced with her, and then--almost rudely--he left her. It was the
+only time he had danced with her that evening, and now he left the
+room, hurrying away to be somewhere where that red dress was not before
+his eyes. And yet he had the sensation of overcoming himself, of
+denying himself at least a pleasant excitement.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Why? What could ever come of it?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For the first time in several days he joined the gamesters. He played
+high, with varying luck, but when he left the gaming-table he carried
+with him the consciousness of having lost more than he was at present
+in a condition to pay.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He went to his room and began mechanically to undress. A fever
+seemed burning in his veins; how sultry it was! through the open
+windows he could see black thunder-clouds gathering in the skies. The
+air was damp and laden with a fragrance so sweet as to be almost
+sickening. A low murmur sighed among the leaves of the shrubbery in the
+park,--melancholy, mysterious, alluring, yet mingled with a soft
+plaint, breathing above the late summer roses. &quot;Enjoy! enjoy! life is
+brief!&quot; He turned away, lay down, and closed his eyes; but still he
+seemed to see the red dress. He could not think of marrying her. A girl
+from such a family and with such a crowd of insufferable connections!
+Had she only been a poor little thing whom he could snatch away from
+her surroundings; but no, if he married her, he was sufficiently clear
+in his mind for the moment to understand, he must adjust himself to her
+social position. The power was hers,--money!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Oh, this wretched money! At every turn the lack of it tormented him; he
+had tried to retrench, to economize, but how paltry such efforts seemed
+to him! What a good use he could make of it if he had it! She was very
+beautiful----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A light footfall made itself heard in the passage outside his door. Was
+not that his father's step? Lato asked himself. The door opened; Count
+Hans entered, straight, tall, and slender, with haughty, refined
+features and sparkling blue eyes, very bald, very gray; but what
+vitality and energy he showed in his every movement! At this moment
+Lato felt a great admiration for his father, beside whom he himself
+seemed pitiably weak. He took shame to himself; what would his father
+say could he know of the ideas which he, Lato Treurenberg, had just
+been entertaining?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Still awake, Lato?&quot; the knightly old man asked, kindly, sitting down
+on the edge of his son's bed. &quot;I saw from below your light still
+burning, and I wanted to ask if anything were troubling you. You are
+not wont to suffer from sleeplessness.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato was touched, and doubly ashamed of the low, mean way of
+extricating himself from his difficulties which had but now seemed to
+him almost possible.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;One's thoughts run such riot, sometimes,&quot; he murmured.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;H'm!&quot; The father put his cigar between his lips and puffed forth a
+cloud of smoke to float upward to the ceiling. &quot;I think you lost at
+baccarat to-night,&quot; he remarked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Much?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;More than I can pay at present,&quot; Lato replied, with a weary smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As if that were of any moment!&quot; Count Hans consoled him. &quot;I am at your
+service, and am, besides, your debtor.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, father----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, yes, I tell you it is so. I am your debtor. Do you think I forget
+it? Indeed I do not. I am sorry that I cannot help it; but 'tis the
+fault of circumstances. The estates yield absolutely nothing; they
+require money enough, but when it comes to looking for any return I
+look in vain. No one who has not tried it knows what a sinking-fund
+land is. It cannot go on thus; we must make a fundamental effort, or we
+shall be ruined!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, father,&quot; Lato murmured, &quot;we must be in earnest, instead of
+enjoying ourselves thoughtlessly and with a dread of work. We have lost
+our force; we have been faithless to our principles; we must begin a
+new existence, you and I.&quot; As he uttered these high-sounding words,
+Lato had the unpleasant sensation of repeating something learned by
+rote; the big phrases confused him; he was embarrassed by the
+consciousness of his father's too ready satire. He looked up at him,
+but the old Count did not seem to have heard him. This was a relief; he
+sighed, and was silent. Suddenly the red dress fluttered before his
+eyes again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Count Hans raised his head, and murmured, &quot;She looked very lovely this
+evening.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who?&quot; asked Lato, slowly. He did not need to ask; he knew that his
+father had shared his thoughts. He was terribly startled. Something
+seemed to be crumbling away which he had believed would always stand
+firm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Selina, of course,--the only really pretty woman in the house,&quot; said
+Count Hans. &quot;Her beauty has expanded wonderfully in the last few days.
+It is always becoming to pretty women to be in love.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In love?&quot; Lato repeated, his throat contracted, his tongue dry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old Count laughed. &quot;Ah, you're a sly fellow, Lato.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato was mute.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His father continued: &quot;They are all jealous of you, Lato. Did you not
+see what happened this evening in the conservatory, just after dinner?
+Pistasch Kamenz proposed to her, and she refused him. He told me of it
+himself, and made light of it; but he was hard hit. I can quite
+understand it. She is an exceedingly beautiful woman; she does not
+carry herself well, 'tis true,--with women of her class the physical
+training is sure to be neglected,--but all that can be changed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato was still mute. So, then, Pistasch Kamenz had tried that of which
+he, Lato, had been ashamed, and had failed. He should not fail.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old Count waited a moment, and then went on: &quot;I am sorry for
+Kamenz; the match would have been an excellent one for him; he would
+have settled down.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Settled down--upon his wife's money!&quot; Lato muttered, without looking
+at his father.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is there anything new in that?&quot; exclaimed the Count, with unruffled
+composure. &quot;A man of honour can take nothing from a woman whom he
+loves, but everything from his wife. 'Tis an old rule, and it is
+comical,&quot;--Count Hans laughed softly,--&quot;how here in Austria we require
+that a rich wife should always belong to the same sphere with her
+husband; he is forgiven for a <i>mésalliance</i> only if he marries a
+beggar. It is pure folly! We shall never amount to anything unless we
+toss aside the entire burden of prejudice which we drag about with us.
+It weighs us down; we cannot keep step with the rest; how can a man run
+sheathed in mail? With the exception of a few magnates among us who are
+able to enjoy their prestige, we are wretchedly off. We spend our lives
+sacrificing ourselves for a position which we cannot maintain
+respectably; we pamper a chimera to be devoured by it in the end. Most
+of all do I admire the <i>bourgeoisie</i>, whom we impress, and whose
+servility keeps bright the nimbus about our heads. Bah! we can do
+nothing more with the old folly! We must mingle in the fresh life of
+the present.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; Lato muttered again, but more indistinctly than at first, &quot;we
+ought to work, to achieve somewhat.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Count Hans did not, perhaps, hear this remark; at all events he did not
+heed it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;All the huge new fortunes in England marry into the aristocracy,&quot; he
+said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Outside, the same strange alluring murmur breathed above the thirsty
+flowers; the breeze of the coming storm streamed into the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To marry a woman for the sake of her money is detestable,&quot; Count Hans
+began afresh, and his voice was almost as soft and wooing as that of
+the summer night outside; &quot;but, good heavens! why should one refuse to
+marry a girl whom he loves just because she is rich?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He paused. Lato had closed his eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are you asleep?&quot; his father murmured.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato shook his head, without speaking. The old Count arose,
+extinguished the candle on the table, and softly withdrew.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_17" href="#div1Ref_17">CHAPTER XVII.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>MISMATED.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">About four months afterwards Lato stood with Selina Harfink before the
+altar, in a large splendidly-decorated church filled with a crowd of
+people, among whom Lato, as he walked towards the altar, mechanically
+sought some familiar face,--at first in vain. At last he found some
+one,--his old English teacher; then a horse-dealer with whom he had had
+transactions; and then there in the background--how could they have
+escaped him?--about a dozen ladies of his own circle. Some of them held
+their eye-glasses to their eyes, then crowded together and whispered
+among themselves. He turned away his head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">How dared they whisper about him! He had not sold himself; he was
+marrying a girl whom he loved, who was accidentally rich!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The long train moved slowly up to the altar. Lato felt as if he were
+dragging after him a burden that grew heavier with every step. He was
+glad to be able to kneel down before the priest. He looked at his
+bride. She knelt beside him, brilliantly beautiful, glowing with
+passion, supremely content. In vain did he look for the shimmer of
+tears in her eyes, for a trace of virginal shyness in her features, for
+aught that could arouse sympathy and tenderness. No; about her full red
+lips there was the tremor of gratified vanity and of triumphant--love!
+Love?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">From her face Lato's gaze wandered among the wedding-guests.
+Strangers,--all strangers. His family was represented by his father and
+the Countess Zriny, a distant cousin of Count Hans, who had once been
+in love with him. Lato shivered. Solemn music resounded through the
+church. Tears rose to his eyes. Suddenly a strange wailing sound
+mingled with the strains of the chant. He looked up. Behind the tall
+church windows fluttered something black, formless, like a mourning
+banner. It was the broken top of a young tree, not quite torn from the
+parent stem, waving to and fro in the wind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then the priest uttered the words that decided his future fate.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Before the departure of the young couple, and whilst Selina was making
+ready for their journey, Count Hans had an opportunity for emotion. He
+paced restlessly to and fro in the room where with Lato he was awaiting
+the bride, trying vainly to say something cheering to the bridegroom,
+something to arouse in him a consciousness of the great good fortune in
+which he himself was a sharer. At last the voices of the bride and her
+friends were heard approaching. The old nobleman went up to his son,
+laid his hands tenderly upon his shoulders, and exclaimed, &quot;Hold up
+your head, old fellow: your life is before you, your life is before
+you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And Lato repeated, &quot;My life is before me----&quot; The next instant the door
+opened.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The carriage is waiting!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The last words that Selina said to her friends out of the window of the
+carriage just before driving off were, &quot;Do not forget to send me the
+newspapers, if there is anything in them about our marriage.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The horses started, the carriage rolled on. How swiftly the wheels flew
+over the stones! In the twilight, illumined only by the glare of the
+carriage lamps, Lato could see the outline of Selina's figure as she
+sat beside him, and the pure red and white of her face, only partially
+concealed by her veil. He put his arm around her, and she nestled close
+to him and raised her lips to his. His ardour was chilled by an
+annoying sensation which he could not at first trace to its source. It
+was produced by the strong perfume which Selina used. It was the same
+perfume that had been a favourite with the actress who had been Lato's
+first love, a handsome, fair woman, with an incomparable complexion. He
+was suddenly reminded that Selina looked like her, and it vexed him.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Selina had long since forgotten it,--women almost always forget such
+things,--but in the early times of her marriage it would not have
+pleased her to think it a &quot;distinguished one.&quot; She was desperately in
+love with Lato, served him like a slave, racked what brain she had to
+prepare surprises for him in the way of costly gifts, and left entirely
+to him the disposal of her property. Not a penny would she call her
+own. It all belonged to him,--all. It was quite touching to see her
+penitent air when she applied to him, whispering, &quot;I am a terrible
+spendthrift, Lato. Do not be angry; but I want some more money. Will
+you not pay my milliner's bill for me? And then, if I am very good,
+you'll give me something to put in my portomonnaie,--a hundred
+guilders,--only a hundred guilders, Lato darling?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At first such scenes annoyed him terribly, and he tried hard to prevent
+them. Then--well, he got used to them, even felt flattered, touched;
+almost forgot whence came the money that was now so abundant with
+him,--believed, at all events, that others had forgotten it,--and
+played the lavish husband with his wife, bestowed costly gifts upon
+her, and was pleased with her admiration of them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">All this time he lived in a kind of whirl. He had accustomed himself to
+his young wife's endearments, as he had accustomed himself to travel
+with a train of servants, to occupy the best rooms in the best hotels,
+to drink the best wines, to smoke the best cigars, to have enormous
+bills at the tailor's, to gratify all his expensive tastes, to spend
+time in devising costly plans for the future, and, half involuntarily,
+to do it all as if he no longer remembered a time when he had been
+obliged to consider well every outlay.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In after-years his cheeks burned when he recalled this part of his
+life,--but there was no denying the fact--he had for a time been
+ostentatiously extravagant, and with his wife's money. Poor Lato!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Two years the whirl lasted; no longer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At first he had tried to continue in the service, but the hardships of
+a military life became burdensome to him as he yielded to the new sense
+of luxury, and Selina, for her part, had no taste for the annoyances
+that fell to her share in the nomadic life of a soldier's wife. He
+resigned. They planned to purchase an estate, but could not agree upon
+where to purchase; and they zigzagged about, travelling from Nice to
+Rome, and from Rome to Paris, everywhere courteously received and
+fêted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then came their child. Selina, of course, passed the time of her
+confinement in Vienna, to be under her mother's protection, and nearly
+paid for her child's life with her own. When she recovered, her entire
+nature seemed changed; she was always tired. Her charm had fled. Her
+nose grew sharp, there were hard lines about her mouth, her face became
+thin, while her figure broadened.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And her feeling for Lato underwent a fundamental alteration. Hers was
+one of those sensual, cold-hearted natures which, when the first
+tempest of passion has subsided, are incapable of any deeper sentiment,
+and her tenderness towards her husband decreased with astonishing
+celerity. Henceforth, vanity became her sole passion, and in Vienna she
+was best able to satisfy it. The greatest enjoyment she derived from
+her foreign travel and from her intercourse with distinguished people
+lay in being able to discourse of them to her Vienna circle. She went
+into the world more than ever,--the world which she had known from
+childhood,--and dragged Lato with her. She was never weary of
+displaying in financial society her new title, her distinguished
+husband, her eccentric Parisian toilets.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her world sufficed her. She never dreamed of asking admission to his
+world. He made several melancholy attempts to introduce his wife among
+his relatives; they failed lamentably. No one had any particular
+objection to Selina. Had she been a poor girl all would have vied with
+one another in doing something for her &quot;for dear Lato's sake.&quot; But to
+receive all that loud, vulgar, ostentatious Harfink tribe, no one could
+require of them, not even the spirit of the age. Why did not Lato take
+his wife to the country, and separate her from her family and their
+influence? Then after some years, perhaps---- It was such an
+unfortunate idea to settle in Vienna with his wife!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes, an unfortunate idea!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wherever he showed himself with his wife, at the theatre, on the
+Prater, everywhere, his acquaintances greeted him cordially from a
+distance, and avoided him as if he had been stricken with a contagious
+disease. On the occasion of the death of one of his aunts, he received
+kind letters of condolence from relatives who lived in the next street!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Selina was not in the slightest degree annoyed by all this. It always
+had been so in Austria, and probably always would be so. She had
+expected nothing else. And Lato,--what had he expected? he who
+understood such matters better than she did? A miracle, perhaps; at
+least an exception in his favour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His life in Vienna was torture to him. He made front against his former
+world, defied it, even vilified it, and was possessed by a hungry
+desire for what he had lost, for what he had prized so little when it
+was naturally his own. If he could but have found something to replace
+what he had resigned! Sincerity, earnestness, a deeper grasp of life,
+elevation of thought,--all of which he might have found among the best
+of the <i>bourgeoisie</i>,--he had sufficient intellect and refinement to
+have enjoyed. Perhaps under such influences there was stuff in him of a
+kind to be remodelled, and he might have become a useful, capable man.
+But the circle in which he was forced to live was not that of the true
+<i>bourgeoisie</i>. It was an inorganic mass of rich people and idlers
+tossed together, all with titles of yesterday, who cared for nothing in
+the world save money-getting and display,--a world in which the men
+played at languid dulness and the women at frivolity, because they
+thought it '<i>chic</i>,' in which all wanted to be 'fast,' to make a
+sensation, to be talked of in the newspapers,--a world which, with
+ridiculous exclusiveness, boasted of its anti-Semitic prejudices, and
+in which the money acquired with such unnatural celerity had no room
+for free play, so that the golden calf, confined within so limited an
+arena, cut the most extraordinary capers. These people spent their time
+in perfecting themselves in aristocratic demeanour and in talking
+alternately of good manners, elegant toilets, and refined <i>menus</i>. The
+genuine patrician world of trade held itself aloof from this tinsel
+society, or only accidentally came into contact with it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato's was a very unpleasant experience. The few people of solid worth
+whom he met at his mother-in-law's avoided him. His sole pleasure in
+life was his little son, who daily grew plumper, prettier, merrier. He
+would stretch out his arms to his father when the merest baby, and crow
+with delight. What a joy it was for Lato to clasp the little creature
+in his arms!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The boy was just fifteen months old when the first real quarrel took
+place between Lato and his wife, and estranged them for life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Hitherto Lato had had the management and right of disposal of his
+wife's property, and although more than one disagreeable remark anent
+his extravagance had fallen from her lips he had taken pains not to
+heed them. But one day he bought a pair of horses for which he had been
+longing, paying an amateur price for them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was so delighted with his purchase that he immediately drove the
+horses in the Prater to try them. On his return home he was received by
+Selina with a very cross face. She had heard of his purchase, and asked
+about the horses.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He praised them with enthusiasm. Forgetting for the moment all the
+annoyances of his position, he cried, &quot;Come and look at them!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No need,&quot; she made answer. &quot;You did not ask my opinion before buying
+them; it is of no consequence now whether I like them or not.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He bit his lip.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What did you pay for them?&quot; she asked. He told her the price; she
+shrugged her shoulders and laughed contemptuously. &quot;So they told me,&quot;
+she said. &quot;I would not believe it!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;When you have seen the horses you will not think the price too high,&quot;
+Lato said, controlling himself with difficulty.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, the price may be all right,&quot; she rejoined, sharply, &quot;but the
+extravagance seems great to me. Of course, if you have it----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Everything swam before his eyes. He turned and left the room. That
+very day he sold the horses, fortunately without loss. He brought the
+bank-notes to his wife, who was seated at her writing-table, and put
+them down before her. She was startled, and tried to compromise
+matters. He was inflexible. For half a day the apple of discord in the
+shape of a bundle of bank-notes lay on the writing-table, a bait for
+dishonest servants; then it vanished within Selina's desk.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">From that moment Lato was not to be induced to use a single penny of
+his wife's money. He retrenched in all directions, living as well as he
+could upon his own small income, derived from his maternal inheritance,
+and paid him punctually by his father.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was not in the least annoyed by the shabby part he was consequently
+obliged to play among his wealthy associates, but when he recalled how
+he had previously appropriated his wife's money his cheeks and ears
+burned furiously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was no longer any talk of buying an estate. Instead, Selina's
+mother bought one. The Treurenbergs could pass their summers there. Why
+squander money on an estate? One magnificent castle in the family was
+enough.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Shortly after Lato's estrangement from his wife his little son died of
+the croup. This was the annihilation of his existence; the last sunbeam
+upon his path faded; all around and within him was dark and cold.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">He ponders all this as he rides from Komaritz to Dobrotschau. His
+horse's pace grows slower and slower, his bridle hangs loose. Evening
+has set in. Suddenly a sharp whirr rouses the lonely man. He looks up,
+to see a belated bird hurrying home to its nest. His dreamy gaze
+follows the black fluttering thing, and he wonders vaguely whether the
+little wanderer will find his home and be received with affection by
+his feathered family. The idle fancy makes him smile; but, &quot;What is
+there to laugh at?&quot; he suddenly reflects. &quot;Good heavens! a life
+that warms itself beside another life, in which it finds peace and
+comfort,--is not this the central idea of all existence, great or
+small? Everything else in the world is but of secondary interest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For him there is no human being in whom he can confide, to whom he can
+turn for sympathy; for him there is only cheerless solitude.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The moon is setting; above the low mountain-spur its silver crescent
+hovers in the liquid light green of the summer evening sky. The castle
+of Dobrotschau looms up in the twilight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is that? Along the road, towards the belated horseman, comes a
+white figure. Can it be Selina? His heart beats fast; he is ready to be
+grateful for the smallest proof of affection, so strong is the yearning
+within him for a little human sympathy. No, it is not Selina; it is a
+tall, slender girl. She has seen him, and hastens her steps.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lato!&quot; calls an anxious, familiar voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Olga!&quot; he exclaims, and, springing from his horse, he approaches her.
+Yes, it is Olga,--Olga in a white dress, without hat or gloves, and
+with a look of anxiety in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank heaven!&quot; she exclaims.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My child, what is the matter?&quot; he asks, half laughing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have been so anxious,&quot; she confesses. &quot;You are an hour and a half
+late for dinner, and you know how foolish I am. All sorts of fancies
+beset me. My imagination works swiftly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are a dear child, Olga,&quot; he whispers, softly, taking her hand and
+kissing it twice. Then they walk together towards the castle. He leads
+his horse by the bridle, and listens to all the trifling matters of
+which she tells him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The world is no longer dreary and empty for him. Here is at least one
+person who is not indifferent to his going and coming.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At Dobrotschau he finds the entire party in the garden-room. Selina and
+the Pole are playing a duett. Dinner is over. They could not wait for
+him, Selina explains, because the cook was trying to-day for the first
+time a soufflé of Parmesan cheese and truffles, which would have been
+ruined by delay. But his hospitable mother-in-law adds,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your dinner is all ready in the dining-room. I gave orders that it
+should be served as soon as you came.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And Lato goes to the dining-hall, a magnificent oak-wainscoted room, in
+which the chandelier, lighted in his honour, represents a round island
+of light in a sea of black darkness. The soup-tureen is on the
+sideboard: a servant lifts the cover, and the butler ladles out a
+plateful of the soup and places it before Lato.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He takes a spoonful discontentedly, then motions to the butler to take
+the plate away. Olga suddenly appears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have you left any for me?&quot; she asks. &quot;I am fearfully hungry, for I
+could not eat any dinner.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;From anxiety?&quot; asks Lato.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; she says, laughing, &quot;from anxiety.&quot; And she takes a seat
+opposite him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, you silly girl!&quot; says Treurenberg, watching her with satisfaction
+as she sips her soup. Lato himself suddenly has an access of appetite.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_18" href="#div1Ref_18">CHAPTER XVIII.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>A FRIEND'S ADVICE.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Few things in this world are more unpleasant than to be obliged to
+admit the excellence of a friend's advice when it runs counter to all
+our most secret and decided inclinations.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry Leskjewitsch finds himself thus disagreeably situated the evening
+after Lato's visit to Komaritz.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">While Lato, &quot;gens-d'armed&quot; by two lackeys, is eating his late dinner
+with Olga, Harry is striding discontentedly to and fro in the steep,
+uneven court-yard at Komaritz, muttering between his teeth,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lato is right, quite right. I am behaving unpardonably: no respectable
+man would play this double part. I must go away.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes, away; but how can he go away while he knows that Baron Wenkendorf
+is at Zirkow? It appears to him that he can still do something to
+prevent Zdena from giving ear to her elderly suitor, for such he
+certainly seems to be. Harry has been often at Zirkow of late,--no
+fewer than three times since his entanglement,--and he has consequently
+had opportunity to watch Zdena's behaviour. Her feeling for the man has
+certainly reached another stage; she conducts herself with more gravity
+towards him, and with more cordiality; she often turns to him with
+trifling questions, and seems to take a kind of pleasure in his
+society.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who knows?&quot; Harry says to himself, clinching his hand and almost mad
+with jealousy, as he paces the court-yard to and fro.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The crescent moon in the August sky creeps over the dark roof of the
+brew-house. The air is freshened by the fragrance of the group of
+walnuts; but another and more penetrating odour mingles with it,--the
+odour of old wood impregnated with some kind of fermenting stuff.
+There, against the uneven wall of the old brew-house, stands a row of
+huge casks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The casks recall to Harry memories that fill him with sweet and bitter
+sensations. Into one of them he had crept with Zdena, during a storm,
+in the early years of their acquaintance. Ah, what a bewitching little
+creature she was then! He can see her distinctly now, with her long,
+golden hair; her large, brown eyes, that had so truthful a gaze; the
+short upper lip of the childish mouth, that seemed always on the point
+of asking a question; yes, even the slender, childish hands he can see,
+with the wide, white apron-sleeves; the short skirt and the bare little
+legs, usually, it must be confessed, much scratched. He recalls the
+short, impatient movement with which she used to pull her skirts over
+her knees when she sat down. In one of those casks they had taken
+refuge from a shower,--he and she,--and they had sat there, close
+together, looking out upon the world through the gray curtain of the
+rain. How comically she had peered out, now and then holding out her
+hand to make sure that it was still pouring! It would not stop. Harry
+can hear at this moment the rustle of the rain through the foliage of
+the walnuts, its drip upon the cask, and the cackling of the agitated
+geese in the court-yard. He had told the child stories to amuse her,
+and she had gone to sleep with her head on his shoulder, and finally he
+had taken off his jacket to wrap it about her as he carried her through
+the rain into the house.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Oh, what a lecture they had had from Mademoiselle, who, meanwhile, had
+been sending everywhere to find the children, and was half crazy with
+anxiety!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I cannot conceive why you should have been anxious, mademoiselle,&quot; he
+had said, with all the dignity of his twelve years. &quot;You ought to know
+that Zdena is well taken care of when she is with me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Twelve years have passed since then, but it seems to him suddenly that
+it all happened only yesterday.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well taken care of,&quot; he mutters to himself,--&quot;well taken care of. I
+believe that she would be well taken care of with me to-day, but--good
+heavens!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His lips are dry, his throat feels contracted. Up to the present moment
+he has regarded his betrothal to Paula as a disagreeable temporary
+entanglement; never has he viewed it as a serious, enduring misfortune.
+Lato's words have thrown a vivid light upon his position; he sees
+clearly that he is no longer a free agent, and that every hour passed
+with Paula rivets his fetters more securely. Yes, Lato is right; he
+must go away. But he must see her once more before he goes,--only once.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_19" href="#div1Ref_19">CHAPTER XIX.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>FRAU ROSA'S BIRTHDAY.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">High festival is being held at Zirkow in honour of Frau Rosamunda's
+birthday, which is observed this year with even more ceremony than
+usual. Thanks to a fortunate combination of circumstances, the major
+has it in his power to bestow a costly gift upon his wife this year. He
+has lately concluded a very profitable bargain: he has sold the entire
+interior arrangements of the brew-house as old iron and copper to a Jew
+for the magnificent sum of fifteen hundred guilders. With such wealth
+much can be done. Nothing now prevents the devoted husband from
+fulfilling Frau Rosamunda's two ardent desires,--a trip to Bayreuth and
+the thorough repair of the much-defaced decorations on the Zirkow walls
+and ceilings. On her birthday-table Frau Rosamunda finds, in the midst
+of a tasteful arrangement of flowers, first, a kind of sign in
+miniature,--<i>i.e</i>., a square black card, upon which is written, in red
+letters, &quot;Good for house-decorators,&quot;--and a large earthenware prize
+pig with stiff, straddling legs and a beautifully-rounded body, upon
+which is written, also in red letters, &quot;A steed to carry you to
+Bayreuth.&quot; A bouquet of four-leaved clover (Zdena gathered it at dawn)
+is stuck like a green plume between the animal's projecting ears. A
+pin-cushion covered with a delicate imitation in needle-work of
+Irish guipure, the piano arrangement of 'Tristan and Isolde' and a
+potpourri from 'Parzifal,' both for four hands, complete the number of
+birthday-gifts. The Irish guipure is Zdena's work; the music comes from
+Wenkendorf. All these things even the house-decorator are of secondary
+importance to Frau Rosamunda. Her whole attention is absorbed by the
+pig, at which enigmatic monster she gazes in wonder.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A steed to carry you to Bayreuth.&quot; It sounds like a poor jest, a very
+poor jest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The major looks at his wife with a broad smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Take up the pig and shake it a little,&quot; he says at last. Frau
+Rosamunda obeys. There is a clink of coin. She understands, and runs to
+her husband with a cry of delight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She celebrates the remainder of her birthday by playing duets with her
+cousin from 'Tristan and Isolde' and 'Parzifal' alternately. The major
+walks about with his hands clasped behind him, deep in thought and well
+content, like a man who is about to carry out a carefully-devised plan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The afternoon sun is casting long shadows, and Krupitschka, who has
+just finished furbishing up the silver,--in honour of the birthday six
+more silver dishes than usual have been brought out to-day,--is sitting
+on a bench at the back of the castle, refreshing himself with an
+examination of the foreign dictionary which he has purchased with the
+money for his cantharides,--and which, by the way, he finds highly
+unsatisfactory,--when a young officer of hussars upon an English
+chestnut mare with a hide like satin comes galloping into the
+court-yard.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At sight of the horse and its rider all clouds vanish from
+Krupitschka's horizon; in his opinion there is no finer sight in the
+world than a &quot;handsome officer upon a handsome horse.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He is not the only one to admire Harry Leskjewitsch on his mare
+Frou-Frou. At one of the windows of the castle a pale, girlish face
+appears, and a pair of bright brown eyes look down into the court-yard,
+for a moment only. But Harry has seen the face, quickly as it
+disappears, and his heart beats fast.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are the ladies at home?&quot; he asks Krupitschka, as he gives his steed in
+charge to a groom who hurries up, clad in a striped stable-jacket very
+much darned at the elbows, and a cap with a tarnished silver band.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They are, Herr Baron.&quot; And Krupitschka shows Harry up the steps and to
+the door of the drawing-room, which he opens with dignity, not because
+such ceremony is at all necessary, but because the young man has been
+his favourite from childhood, and he loves to perform any service for
+him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When Harry enters, Frau Rosamunda and Wenkendorf are still at the
+piano, working away at 'Parzifal,' and do not seem over-pleased by the
+interruption. The major is lying back in a rocking-chair, smoking a
+cigarette and upon his nephew's entrance springs up with undisguised
+delight and goes towards him with extended hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tell the Baroness Zdena that a visitor has arrived!&quot; he calls out to
+Krupitschka; then, turning to Harry, he says, smiling, &quot;And so you have
+come to congratulate?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Congratulate?&quot; Harry repeats, surprised and preoccupied.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, you have forgotten, then?&quot; the major rejoins.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry slaps his forehead. &quot;Dearest aunt, forgive me! how thoughtless I
+am!&quot; And he kisses Frau Rosamunda's hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do not take it at all ill of you,&quot; she assures him. &quot;At my age
+people would rather have their birthday forgotten than remembered.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh--ah! I have not observed that,&quot; the major declares.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, it is different for you. You may be allowed to take notice of my
+being each year one year older, always provided that you give me upon
+all my birthdays as great a pleasure as to-day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You cannot reckon upon that, my dear; all years are not alike,&quot; the
+major replies. &quot;This was a lucky chance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have you had a stroke of good fortune, uncle?&quot; Harry asks, trying to
+take an interest in the matter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; the major informs him; &quot;I have just concluded a brilliant
+transaction. I have sold the iron from the interior of the brew-house.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For how much, may I ask?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Fifteen hundred guilders,&quot; the major declares, triumphantly. &quot;I would
+not abate one penny. The superintendent was surprised at the sum, I can
+tell you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do not understand such matters,&quot; Harry rejoins, thinking of the
+enormous expense of fitting up the brew-house some years ago. His
+uncle's 'brilliant transaction' reminds him of the story of 'Hans in
+Luck.' &quot;And in consequence your birthday-gifts have been very superior,
+aunt?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Rosamunda displays with delight the prize pig. The green plume
+between its ears is slightly faded, but the coins in its body clink as
+triumphantly as ever.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'A steed to carry you to Bayreuth,'&quot; Harry reads. &quot;I am so glad, my
+dear aunt, that your wish is to be fulfilled.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tickets for two performances besides the journey,&quot; the major proudly
+declares.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And my cousin has surprised me with some delightful music which I have
+long wanted.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not worth mentioning, Rosamunda,&quot; Wenkendorf says, deprecatingly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My wife's birthday has really turned out a Wagner festival,&quot; the
+major declares. &quot;Since ten o'clock this morning these two artists have
+been playing nothing but Wagner, for their own pleasure and the
+conversion of their hearers. Zdena ran away, but I stood my ground, and
+I have become quite accustomed to the noise.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is a good sign,&quot; Wenkendorf assures him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You ought to hear Wagner's compositions very often. What do you say,
+Roderich, to our playing for Harry some of the loveliest bits of
+'Parzifal'? We are just in the mood.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do not let me interrupt you; pray go on; it will give me the greatest
+pleasure,&quot; Harry murmurs, glancing towards the door. Why does she not
+come?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile, the two amateurs have begun with untiring energy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Kundry's Ride!&quot; Frau Rosamunda calls out to her nephew, while her
+hands dash over the keys. Harry does not hear her. He has seated
+himself beside the major, and absently takes a cigarette from the case
+which his uncle offers him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I came to bid you good-bye,&quot; he says, in an uncertain voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Indeed!&quot; says the major, looking at him scrutinizingly. &quot;Is your leave
+at an end?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, but----&quot; Harry hesitates and pulls at his moustache.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;H'm!&quot; A sly smile quivers upon the major's broad face. &quot;Have you
+quarrelled with your betrothed?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, but----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The door opens, and Zdena enters, slender and pale, dressed in a
+simply-fashioned linen gown. She has lost her fresh colour, and her
+face is much thinner, but her beauty, far from being injured thereby,
+is heightened by an added charm,--a sad, touching charm, that threatens
+to rob Harry of the remnant of reason he can still call his.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How are you, Zdena?&quot; he says, going to meet her, while the warmest
+sympathy trembles in his voice. &quot;You look pale. Are you well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The heat oppresses me,&quot; she says, with a slight forced smile,
+withdrawing the hand which he would fain have retained longer in his
+clasp than was fitting under the circumstances.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Balsam motif,&quot; Frau Rosamunda calls from the piano.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After a while Zdena begins:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How are they all at Komaritz? Heda sent her congratulations to-day
+with some lovely flowers, but said nothing with regard to the welfare
+of the family.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wonder that Heda did not remind you of the birthday, Harry!&quot; remarks
+the major.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, she rejoices over every forgetfulness in those around her,&quot; Harry
+observes, with some malice: &quot;she likes to stand alone in her extreme
+virtue.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Motif of the Redeemer's Sufferings,&quot; Frau Rosamunda calls out. Zdena
+leans forward, and seems absorbed in Wagner. Harry cannot take his eyes
+off her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What a change!&quot; he muses. &quot;Can she--could she be suffering on my
+account?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There is an agreeable flutter of his entire nervous system: it mingles
+with the sense of unhappiness which he drags about with him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, what a double-dyed fool I was!&quot; a voice within him cries out. &quot;How
+could I be so vexed with her scrap of childish worldly wisdom, instead
+of simply laughing at her for it, teasing her a little about it, and
+then, after I had set her straight, forgiving her, oh, how tenderly!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Zdena is not quite herself. I do not know what ails her,&quot; said the
+major, stroking the girl's thin cheek.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You have long been a hypochondriac on your own account; now you are
+trying it for other people,&quot; says Zdena, rising and going to the
+window, where she busies herself with some embroidery. &quot;I have a little
+headache,&quot; she adds.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Earthly Enjoyment motif,&quot; Frau Rosamunda calls out, enthusiastically,
+in a raised voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The major bursts into Homeric laughter, in which Zdena, whose
+overstrained nerves dispose her for tears as well as laughter, joins.
+Harry alone does not laugh: his head is too full of other matters.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is Zdena also going to Bayreuth?&quot; he asks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; the major replies; &quot;the finances are not equal to that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Tis a pity,&quot; Harry remarks: &quot;a little change of air might do her
+good.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So it seems to me,&quot; the major assents, &quot;and I was about to propose a
+plan. By the way, when do you take your departure?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are you going away?&quot; asks Frau Rosamunda, rising from the piano, aglow
+with enthusiasm and artistic zeal, to join the trio. Wenkendorf also
+rises and takes a seat near the rest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He is going away,&quot; the major replies.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; assents Harry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But what does your betrothed say?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have already put that question to him,&quot; said the major.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;One of my comrades has suddenly been taken ill,&quot; Harry stammers,
+frowning; &quot;and so--of course it is very unpleasant just now----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Very, very,&quot; murmurs the major, with a hypocritical show of sympathy.
+&quot;When do you start?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, the day after to-morrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That suits me remarkably well,&quot; the major remarks. &quot;There will be a
+vacant room at Komaritz, and Zdena might go over for a couple of days.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wenkendorf frowns disapprovingly. &quot;It is a great pity that you are not
+going with us to Bayreuth,&quot; he says, turning to the young girl.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That would be a fine way to cure the headache,&quot; the major observes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I would rather stay at home with you, uncle dear,&quot; Zdena assures him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That will not do. Friday evening my wife starts for Bayreuth; Saturday
+I expect the painters; the entire house will be turned upside-down, and
+I have no use for you. Therefore, since there is room for you at
+Komaritz----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There is always room at Komaritz for Zdena,&quot; Harry eagerly declares.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,--particularly after you have gone. It is decided; she is going. I
+shall take her over on Saturday afternoon,&quot; the major announces. &quot;You
+can tell Heda.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And who will go to Bayreuth with my aunt?&quot; asks Harry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Her musical cousin Roderich. By the way, Wenkendorf, you will come
+back to Zirkow from Bayreuth?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course I shall escort Rosamunda upon her return.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We shall be glad to welcome you for the hunting. I take it for granted
+you will give us a long visit then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That will depend upon circumstances,&quot; says Wenkendorf, with a
+significant glance towards Zdena, which does not escape Harry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile, the August twilight has set in. Krupitschka brings the
+lamps. Harry rises.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Will you not stay for supper?&quot; asks Frau Rosa.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, thank you; I have a deal to do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No wonder, before leaving,&quot; says the wily major, not making the
+slightest effort to detain the young fellow. &quot;You are looking for your
+sabre?--there it is. Ah, what a heavy thing! When I reflect upon how
+many years I dragged such a rattling tool about with me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry has gone. The major has accompanied him to the court-yard, and he
+now returns to the room, chuckling, and rubbing his hands, as if at
+some successful trick.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What an idea! So sudden a journey!--and a betrothed man!&quot; Frau Rosa
+remarks, thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If I were his betrothed I would hurry and have the monogram
+embroidered on my outfit,&quot; drawls the major. &quot;Let me come there, if you
+please.&quot; These last words are addressed to Wenkendorf, who is about to
+close the piano. The major takes his place at it, bangs away at his
+triumphal march with immense energy and a tolerably harmonious bass,
+then claps down the cover of the much-tortured instrument, locks it,
+and puts the key in his pocket. &quot;There, that's enough for to-day!&quot; he
+declares.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_20" href="#div1Ref_20">CHAPTER XX.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>KOMARITZ AGAIN.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The major carried out his plan. On Saturday the painter made solemn
+entry into Zirkow with his train of workmen, their ladders, paint-pots,
+and brushes, to turn the orderly household upside-down,--whereupon
+Baron Paul drove Zdena to Komaritz, in the same drag in which the child
+of six had first been driven thither by him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">More than a dozen years had passed since that afternoon, and yet every
+detail of the drive was vividly present in the young girl's mind. Much
+had changed since then; the drag had grown far shabbier, and the fiery
+chestnuts had been tamed and lamed by time, but the road was just as
+bad, and the country around as lovely and home-like. From time to time
+Zdena raised her head to gaze where the stream ran cool and gray on the
+other side of the walnut-trees that bordered the road, or at the brown
+ruin of the castle, the jagged tower of which was steadily rising in
+the blue atmosphere against the distant horizon. And then she would
+pull her straw hat lower over her eyes and look only at the backs of
+the horses. Why did her uncle keep glancing at her with such a sly
+smile? He could not divine the strange mixture of joy and unrest that
+was filling her soul. No one must know it. Poor Zdena! All night long
+she had been tormented by the thought that she had yielded too readily,
+had acceded too willingly to her uncle's proposal to take her to
+Komaritz during the bustle made by the painters, and she had soothed
+her scruples by saying to herself, &quot;He will not be there.&quot; And, yet,
+the nearer they came to Komaritz the more persistent was the joyous
+suggestion within her, &quot;What if he were not yet gone!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Click-clack! The ancient St. John, whose bead is lying at his feet
+precisely as it was lying so many years ago, stands gray and tall among
+the lindens in the pasture near the village; they have reached
+Komaritz. Click-clack!--the horses make an ambitious effort to
+end their journey with credit. The same ox, recently butchered,
+hangs before the butcher-shop on an old walnut; the same odour of
+wagon-grease and singed hoofs comes from the smithy, and before it the
+smith is examining the foot of the same horse, while a dozen village
+children stand around gazing. The same dear old Komaritz!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If only he might be there!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With a sudden jolt the drag rolls through the picturesque, ruinous
+archway of the court-yard. The chestnuts are reined in, the major's sly
+smile broadens expressively, and Zdena's young pulses throb with
+breathless delight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes, he is there! standing in the door-way of the old house, an
+embarrassed smile on his thin, tanned face as he offers his hand to
+Zdena to help her down from her high seat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What a surprise! You here?&quot; exclaims the old dragoon, with
+poorly-feigned astonishment, in which there is a slight tinge of
+ridicule. &quot;I thought you would be miles away by this time. It is a good
+thing that you were able to postpone your departure for a few days. No,
+I can't stop; I must drive home again immediately. Adieu, children!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Baron Paul turns his tired steeds, and, gaily waving his hand in token
+of farewell, vanishes beneath the archway.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There they stand, she and he, alone in front of the house. The old
+walnuts, lifting their stately crests into the blue skies along one
+side of the court-yard, whisper all sorts of pleasant things to them,
+but they have no words for each other.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last Harry asks, taking the black leather travelling-bag from his
+cousin's hand, &quot;Is this all your luggage?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The milkman is to bring a small trunk,&quot; she replies, without looking
+at him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We have had your old room made ready for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, my old room,--how delightful!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They cross the threshold, when Harry suddenly stands still.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are you not going to give me your hand?&quot; he asks, in a tone of
+entreaty, whereupon she extends her hand, and then instantly withdraws
+it. She seems to herself to be doing wrong. As matters stand, she must
+not make the smallest advance to him,--no, not the smallest: she has
+resolved upon that. In fact, she did not expect to see him here, and
+she must show him that she is quite annoyed by his postponing his
+departure.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yap, yap, yap! the rabble of dachshunds, multiplied considerably in the
+last twelve years, comes tumbling down the steps to leap about Zdena;
+Harry's faithful hound Hector comes and puts his paws on her shoulder;
+and, lastly, the ladies come down into the hall,--Heda, the Countess
+Zriny, Fräulein Laut,--and, surrounding Zdena, carry her off to her
+room. Here they stay talking with her for a while; then they withdraw,
+each to follow her own devices.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">How glad the girl is to be alone! She is strangely moved, perplexed,
+and yet unaccountably happy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It is clear that Harry intends to dissolve the engagement into which so
+mysterious a chain of circumstances has forced him. The difficulty of
+doing this Zdena does not take into consideration. Paula must see that
+he does not care for her; and then--then there will be nothing left for
+her save to release him. Thus Zdena concludes, and the world looks very
+bright to her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Oh, the dear old room! she would not exchange it for a kingdom.
+How home-like and comfortable!--so shady and cool, with its deep
+window-recesses, where the sunshine filters in through the green,
+rustling net-work of vines; with its stiff antiquated furniture forming
+so odd a contrast to the wild luxuriance of extraordinary flowers with
+which a travelling fresco-painter ages ago decorated walls and ceiling;
+with its old-fashioned embroidered <i>prie-dieu</i> beneath an ancient
+bronze crucifix, and its little bed, so snowy white and cool, fragrant
+with lavender and orris!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The floor, of plain deal planks, scrubbed to a milky whiteness, is
+bare, except that beside the bed lies a rug upon which a very yellow
+tiger is rolling, and gnashing his teeth, in a very green meadow, and
+on the wall hangs one single picture,--a faded chromo, at which Zdena,
+when a child, had almost stared her eyes out.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The picture represents a young lady gazing at her reflection in a
+mirror. Her hair is worn in tasteless, high puffs and much powdered,
+her waist is unnaturally long and slim, and her skirts are bunched up
+about her hips. To the modern observer she is not attractive, but Zdena
+hails her as an old acquaintance. Beneath the picture are the words
+&quot;<i>Lui plairai-je?</i>&quot; The thing hangs in one of the window-embrasures,
+above a marquetrie work-table, upon which has been placed a nosegay of
+fresh, fragrant roses.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who has plucked and placed them there?&quot; Zdena asks herself. Suddenly a
+shrill bell rings, calling to table the inmates of Komaritz in house
+and garden. Zdena hurriedly picks out of the nosegay the loveliest bud,
+and puts it in her breast, then looks at herself in the glass,--a tall,
+narrow glass in a smooth black frame with brass rosettes at the
+corners,--and murmurs, smiling, &quot;<i>Lui plairai-je?</i>&quot; then blushes
+violently and takes out the rose from her bosom. It is a sin even to
+have such a thought,--under existing circumstances.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_21" href="#div1Ref_21">CHAPTER XXI.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>&quot;POOR LATO!&quot;</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Five hours have passed since Zdena's arrival in Komaritz. Harry has
+been very good; that is, he has scarcely made an appearance; perhaps
+because he is conscious that when he is with Zdena he can hardly take
+his eyes off her, which, &quot;under existing circumstances,&quot; might strike
+others as, to Bay the least, extraordinary.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After dinner he goes off partridge shooting, inviting his younger
+brother, who is devoted to him and whom he spoils like a mother, to
+accompany him. But Vips, as the family prefer to call him instead of
+Vladimir, although usually proud and happy to be thus distinguished by
+his elder brother, declines his invitation today. In fact, he has
+fallen desperately in love with Zdena. He is lying at her feet on the
+steps leading from the dwelling-room into the garden. His hair is
+beautifully brushed, and he has on his best coat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Countess Zriny is in her room, writing to her father confessor;
+Fräulein Laut is at the piano, practising something by Brahms, to which
+musical hero she is almost as much devoted as is Rosamunda to her
+idolized Wagner; and Heda is sitting beside her cousin on the
+garden-steps, manufacturing with praiseworthy diligence crochetted
+stars of silk.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What do you really think of Harry's betrothal, Zdena?&quot; she begins at
+last, after a long silence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At this question the blood rushes to Zdena's cheeks; nevertheless her
+answer sounds quite self-possessed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What shall I say? I was very much surprised.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So was I,&quot; Heda confesses. &quot;At first I was raging, for, after all,
+<i>elle n'est pas de notre monde</i>. But lately so many young men of our
+set have married nobodies that one begins to be accustomed to it,
+although I must say I am by no means enchanted with it yet. One's own
+brother,--it comes very near; but it is best to shut one's eyes in such
+cases. Setting aside the <i>mésalliance</i>, there is no objection to make
+to Paula. She is pretty, clover, frightfully cultivated,--too
+cultivated: it is rather bad form,--and for the rest, if she would only
+dress a little better, she would be quite presentable. And then she
+makes such advances; it is touching. The last time I dined at
+Dobrotschau I found in my napkin a butterfly pendant, with little
+sapphires and rubies in its diamond wings. I must show it to you; 'tis
+delicious,&quot; she rattles on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And what did you find in your napkin, Vips?&quot; asks Zdena, who seems to
+herself to be talking of people with whom she has not the slightest
+connection, so strange is the whole affair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I? I was not at the dinner,&quot; says the boy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not invited?&quot; Zdena rallies him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not invited!&quot; Vips draws down the corners of his mouth scornfully.
+&quot;Oh, indeed! not invited! Why, they invited the entire household,--even
+her!&quot; He motions disdainfully towards the open door, through which
+Fräulein Laut can be seen sitting at the piano. &quot;Yes, we were even
+asked to bring Hector. But I stayed at home, because I cannot endure
+those Harfinks.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! your sentiments are also opposed to the <i>mésalliance</i>?&quot; Zdena goes
+on, ironically.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Mésalliance!</i>&quot; shouts Vips. &quot;You know very well that I am a Liberal!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Vips finished reading &quot;Don Carlos&quot; about a fortnight ago, and even
+before then showed signs of Liberal tendencies.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The previous winter, when he attended the representation, at a theatre
+in Bohemia, of a new play of strong democratic colouring, he applauded
+all the freethinking tirades with such vehemence that his tutor was at
+last obliged, to the great amusement of the public, to hold back his
+hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, indeed, you are Liberal?&quot; says Zdena. &quot;I am delighted to hear it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course I am; but every respectable man must be a bit of an
+aristocrat,&quot; Vips declares, grandly, &quot;and I cannot endure that Harry
+should marry that Paula. I told him so to his face; and I am not going
+to his wedding. I cannot understand why he takes her, for he's in
+love----&quot; He suddenly pauses. Two gentlemen are coming through the
+garden towards the steps,--Harry and Lato.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato greets Zdena cordially. Heda expresses her surprise at Harry's
+speedy return from his shooting, and he, who always now suspects some
+hidden meaning in her remarks, flushes and frowns as he replies, &quot;I saw
+Treurenberg in the distance, and so I turned back. Besides, the
+shooting all went wrong to-day,&quot; he adds, with a compassionate glance
+at the large hound now stretched out at his master's feet at the bottom
+of the steps. &quot;He would scarcely stir: I cannot understand it, he is
+usually so fresh and gay, and loves to go shooting more than all the
+others; to-day he was almost sullen, and lagged behind,--hey, old
+boy?&quot; He stoops and strokes the creature's neck, but the dog seems
+ill-tempered, and snaps at him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What! snap--snap at me! that's something new,&quot; Harry exclaims,
+frowning; then, seizing the animal by the collar, he shakes it
+violently and hurls it from him. &quot;Be off!&quot; he orders, sternly. The dog,
+as if suddenly ashamed, looks back sadly, and then walks slowly away,
+with drooping ears and tail. &quot;I don't know what is the matter with the
+poor fellow!&quot; Harry says, really troubled.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He walks strangely; he seems stiff,&quot; Vladimir remarks, looking after
+the dog. &quot;It seems to hurt him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Some good-for-nothing boy must have thrown a stone at him and bruised
+his back,&quot; Harry decides.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You had better be careful with that dog,&quot; Heda now puts in her word.
+&quot;Several dogs hereabouts have gone mad, and one roamed about the
+country for some time before he could be caught and killed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pray, hush!&quot; Harry exclaims, almost angrily, to his sister, with whom
+he is apt to disagree: &quot;you always forebode the worst. If a fly stings
+one you are always sure that it has just come from an infected horse or
+cow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You have lately been so irritable, I cannot imagine what is the matter
+with you,&quot; lisps Hedwig.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry frowns.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato, meanwhile, has paid no heed to these remarks: he is apparently
+absorbed in his own thoughts, as, sitting on a lower step, he has been
+drawing with the handle of his riding-whip cabalistic signs in the
+gravel of the path. Now he looks up.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have a letter for you from Paula,--here it is,&quot; he observes, handing
+Harry a thick packet wrapped in light-blue tissue paper. While Harry,
+with a dubious expression of countenance, drops the packet into his
+coat-pocket, Lato continues: &quot;Paula has all sorts of fancies about your
+absence. You have not been to Dobrotschau for two days. She is afraid
+you are ill, and that you are keeping it from her lest she should be
+anxious. She is coming over here with my wife tomorrow afternoon to
+look after you--I mean, to pay the ladies a visit.&quot; After Lato has
+given utterance to these words in a smooth monotone, his expression
+suddenly changes: his features betoken embarrassment, as, leaning
+towards Harry, he whispers, &quot;I should like to speak with you alone. Can
+you give me a few minutes?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Shortly afterwards, Harry rises and takes his friend with him to his
+own room, a spacious vaulted chamber next to the dining-room, which he
+shares with his young brother.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, old fellow?&quot; he begins, encouragingly, clapping Lato on the
+shoulder. Lato clears his throat, then slowly takes his seat in an
+arm-chair beside a table covered with a disorderly array of Greek and
+Latin books and scribbled sheets of paper. Harry sits opposite him, and
+for a while neither speaks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The silence is disturbed only by the humming of the bees, and by the
+scratching at the window of an ancient apricot-tree, which seems
+desirous to call attention to what it has to say, but desists with a
+low rustle that sounds like a sigh. The tall clock strikes five; it is
+not late, and yet the room is dim with a gray-green light; the sunbeams
+have hard work to penetrate the leafy screen before the windows.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well?&quot; Harry again says, at last, gently twitching his friend's
+sleeve.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is strange,&quot; Treurenberg begins; his voice has a hard, forced
+sound, he affects an indifference foreign to his nature, &quot;but since my
+marriage I have had excellent luck at play. To speak frankly, it has
+been very convenient. Do not look so startled; wait until you are in my
+position. In the last few days, however, fortune has failed me. In my
+circumstances this is extremely annoying.&quot; He laughs, and flicks a
+grain of dust from his coat-sleeve.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry looks at him, surprised. &quot;Ah! I understand. You want money. How
+much? If I can help you out I shall be glad to do so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Six hundred guilders,&quot; says Lato, curtly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry can scarcely believe his ears. How can Lato come to him for such
+a trifle?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I can certainly scrape together that much for you,&quot; he says,
+carelessly, and going to his writing-table he takes a couple of
+bank-notes out of a drawer. &quot;Here!&quot; and he offers the notes to his
+friend.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato hesitates for a moment, as if in dread of the money, then takes
+it, and puts it in his pocket.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thanks,&quot; he murmurs, hoarsely, and again there is a silence, which
+Lato is the first to break. &quot;Why do you look at me so inquiringly?&quot; he
+exclaims, almost angrily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Forgive me, Lato, we are such old friends.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What do you want to know?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I was only wondering how a man in your brilliant circumstances could
+be embarrassed for so trifling a sum as six hundred guilders!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A man in my brilliant circumstances!&quot; Lato repeats, bitterly. &quot;Yes,
+you think, as does everybody else, that I am still living upon my
+wife's money. But you are mistaken. I tried it, indeed, for a while,
+but I was not made to play that part, no! It was different at first; my
+wife wished that I should have the disposal of her means, and I half
+cheated myself into the belief that her millions belonged to me. She
+came to me for every farthing. I used to rally her upon her
+extravagance; I played at magnanimity, and forgave her, and made her
+costly presents--yes--good heavens, how disgusting! But that is long
+since past; we have separate purses at present, thank God! I am often
+too shabby nowadays for the grand folk at Dobrotschau, but that does
+not trouble me.&quot; He drums nervously upon the table.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry looks more and more amazed. &quot;But then I cannot see why--&quot; he
+murmurs, but lacks the courage to finish the sentence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I know what you wish to say,&quot; Lato continues, bitterly. &quot;You wonder
+why, under these circumstances, I cannot shake off the old habit. What
+would you have? Hitherto I have won almost constantly; now my luck has
+turned, and yet I cannot control myself. Those who have not this cursed
+love of play in their blood cannot understand it, but play is the only
+thing in the world in which I can become absorbed,--the only thing that
+can rid me of all sorts of thoughts which I never ought to entertain.
+There! now you know!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He draws a deep, hoarse breath, then laughs a hard, wooden laugh. Harry
+is very uncomfortable: he has never before seen Lato like this. It
+distresses him to notice how his friend has changed in looks of late.
+His eyes are hollow and unnaturally bright, his lips are dry and
+cracked as from fever, and he is more restless than is his wont.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Poor Lato! what fresh trouble have you had lately?&quot; asks Harry,
+longing to express his sympathy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato flushes crimson, then nervously curls into dog's-ears the leaves
+of a Greek grammar on the table, and shrugs his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, nothing,--disagreeable domestic complications,&quot; he mutters,
+evasively.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nothing new has happened, then?&quot; asks Harry, looking at him keenly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato cannot endure his gaze. &quot;What could have happened?&quot; he breaks
+forth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How do you get along with your wife?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not at all,--worse every day,&quot; Treurenberg says, dryly. &quot;And now comes
+this cursed, meddling Polish jackanapes----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If the gentlemen please, the Baroness sends me to say that coffee is
+served.&quot; With these words Blasius makes his appearance at the door.
+Lato springs hastily to his feet. The conversation is at an end.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_22" href="#div1Ref_22">CHAPTER XXII.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>HARRY'S MUSINGS.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What are you doing there, you young donkey,--your lessons not yet
+learned, and wasting time in this fashion?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">These were Harry's words addressed to his young brother. The boy was
+standing on an old wooden bench, gazing over the garden wall.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am looking after the girl who was here to-day with the people from
+Dobrotschau.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Whom do you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, the beauty; Olga--Olga Dangeri is her name. Come here and see for
+yourself if it is wasting time to look after her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With an involuntary smile at the lad's precocity, Harry mounted upon
+the bench beside his brother, and, through the gathering twilight,
+gazed after a couple--a man and a girl--slowly sauntering along the
+road outside the garden. The man walked with bent head and downcast
+look; the young girl, on the contrary, held her head proudly erect, and
+there was something regal in her firm gait. The man walked in silence
+beside his beautiful companion, who, on the other band, never stopped
+talking, chattering away with easy grace, and turning towards him the
+while. The silhouette of her noble profile was clearly defined against
+the evening sky. The last golden shimmer of the setting sun touched her
+brown hair with a reddish gleam. She had taken off her hat and hung it
+on her arm; her white gown fell in long, simple folds about her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There! is she not lovely?&quot; Vips exclaimed, with boyish enthusiasm. &quot;I
+cannot understand Lato: he hardly looks at her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry hung his head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They have vanished in the walnut avenue; you can't see them now,&quot; said
+Vips, leaving his post of observation. &quot;I like her; she is not only
+beautiful, she is clever and amiable,&quot; the boy went on. &quot;I talked with
+her for quite a while, although she is not so entertaining as our
+Zdena,--she is not half so witty. Let me tell you, there is no one in
+all the world like our Zdena.&quot; As he spoke, Vladimir, the keen-sighted,
+plucked his brother by the sleeve of his blue military blouse, and eyed
+him askance. &quot;What is the matter with you, Harry?&quot; For Harry shook the
+boy off rather rudely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, hold your tongue for a while!&quot; Harry exclaimed, angrily; &quot;I have a
+headache.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thus repulsed, Vladimir withdrew, not, however, without turning several
+times to look at his brother, and sighing each time thoughtfully.
+Meanwhile, Harry had seated himself on the old bench whence Vips had
+made his observations. His hands in his pockets, his legs stretched out
+before him, he sat wrapt in gloom, digging his spurs into the ground.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had passed a hard day,--a day spent in deceit; there was no help for
+it. How mean he was in his own eyes! and yet--how could he help it?
+Paula had carried out her threat, and had driven over with Selina,
+bringing Olga and Lato, &quot;to pay the ladies a visit.&quot; After the first
+greetings she had paid the ladies little further attention, but had
+devoted herself to her betrothed, drawing him with her into some
+window-recess or shady garden nook, where she could whisper loving
+words or lavish tender caresses, which he could not repulse without
+positive rudeness. Oh, how long the visit had seemed to him! Although
+Paula had withdrawn him from the rest of the company as far as
+possible, he had found opportunity to observe them. Olga, who could not
+drive backwards in a carriage comfortably, but with whom neither of the
+other ladies had offered to exchange seats, had arrived rather pale and
+dizzy. Zdena had immediately applied herself to restoring her, with the
+ready, tender sympathy that made her so charming. Vips was right: there
+was no one like Zdena in the world, although Olga was more beautiful,
+and also glowing with the charm to which no man is insensible,--the
+charm of a strong, passionate nature. Not even Harry, whose whole soul
+was filled at present with, another, and to him an infinitely more
+attractive, woman, could quite withstand this charm in Olga's society;
+it made the girl seem to him almost uncanny.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It had rather displeased Harry at first--he could not himself say
+why--to see how quickly a kind of intimacy established itself between
+Olga and Zdena. As the two girls walked arm in arm down the garden path
+he would fain have snatched Zdena away from her new friend, the pale
+beautiful Olga, whom nevertheless he so pitied.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile, Heda had done the honours of the mansion for Selina, in
+which duty she was assisted by the Countess Zriny, who displayed the
+greatest condescension on the occasion. Then the ladies asked to see
+the house, and had been conducted from room to room, evidently amazed
+at the plainness of the furniture, but loud in their praises of
+everything as &quot;so effective.&quot; Paula had begged to see Harry's room, and
+had rummaged among his whips, had put one of his cigars between her
+lips, and had even contrived, when she thought no one was looking, to
+kiss the tip of his ear. The Countess Zriny, however, accidentally
+looked round at that moment, to Harry's great confusion. Towards six
+o'clock the party had taken leave, with many expressions of delight and
+attachment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Before they drove off, however, there had been a rather unpleasant
+scene. Lato had requested his wife to exchange seats with Olga, since
+the girl could not, without extreme discomfort, ride with her back to
+the horses. Selina had refused to comply with his request, asserting
+that to ride backwards was quite as unpleasant for her as for Olga.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then Olga had joined in the conversation, saying she had heard that the
+path through the forest to Dobrotschau was very picturesque, and
+declaring that if Lato would accompany her she should much prefer to
+walk. To this Lato had made various objections, finally yielding,
+however, and setting out with his head hanging and his shoulders
+drooping, like a lamb led to the sacrifice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry's thoughts dwelt upon the pale girl with the large, dark eyes.
+Was it possible that none of the others could read those eyes? He
+recalled the tall, slim figure, the long, thin, but nobly-modelled
+arms, the slender, rather long hands, in which a feverish longing to
+have and to hold somewhat seemed to thrill; he recalled the gliding
+melancholy of her gait, he was spellbound by the impression of her
+youthful personality. Where had he seen a figure expressing the same
+yearning enthusiasm? Why, in a picture by Botticelli,--a picture
+representing Spring,--a pale, sultry Spring, in whose hands the flowers
+faded. Something in the girl's carriage and figure reminded him of that
+allegorical Spring, except that Olga's face was infinitely more
+beautiful than the languishing, ecstatic countenance in the old
+picture.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Long did Harry sit on the garden bench reflecting, and his reflections
+became every moment more distressing. He forgot all his own troubles in
+this fresh anxiety.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He thought of Treurenberg's altered mien. Olga had not yet awakened to
+a consciousness of herself, and that was a comfort. She was not only
+absolutely pure,--Harry was sure of that,--but she was entirely unaware
+of her own state of feeling. How long would this last, however? Passion
+walks, like a somnambulist, in entire security on the edge of profound
+abysses, so long as &quot;sense is shut&quot; in its eyes. But what if some rude
+hand, some unforeseen chance, awake it? Then--God have mercy!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry dug his spurs deeper into the gravel. &quot;What will happen if her
+eyes should ever be opened?&quot; he asked himself, with a shudder. &quot;She is
+in no wise inclined to wanton frivolity, but she is a passionate
+creature without firm principles, without family ties to restrain her.
+And Lato? Lato will do his best to conquer himself. But can he summon
+up the strength of character, the tact, requisite to avoid a
+catastrophe and to preserve the old order of things? And if not, what
+then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry leaned his head on his hands and his elbows on his knees. To what
+it would all lead he could not tell, but he dreaded something terrible.
+He knew Lato well, the paralyzing weakness, as well as the subtile
+refinement, of his nature. Stern principle, a strict sense of duty, he
+lacked: how could it be otherwise, with such early training as had been
+his? Instead, however, he possessed an innate sense of moral beauty
+which must save him from moral degradation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A young girl, one of his home circle!&quot; Harry murmured to himself. &quot;No,
+it is inconceivable! And, yet, what can come of it?&quot; And a sobbing
+breeze, carrying with it the scent of languid roses from whose cups it
+had drunk up the dew, rustled among the thirsty branches overhead with
+a sound that seemed to the young fellow like the chuckle of an exultant
+fiend.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_23" href="#div1Ref_23">CHAPTER XXIII.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>ZDENA TO THE RESCUE.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">But Harry ceases to muse, for the shrill clang of the bell summons him
+to supper. He finds the entire family assembled in the dining-room when
+he enters. All are laughing and talking, even Zdena, who is allowing
+handsome, precocious Vladimir to make love to her after more and more
+startling fashion. She informs Harry that Vips has just made her a
+proposal of marriage, which disparity of age alone prevents her from
+accepting, for in fact she is devoted to the lad.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I renounce you from a sense of duty, Vips,&quot; she assures the young
+gentleman, gently passing her delicate forefinger over his smooth brown
+cheek, whereupon Vips flushes up and exclaims,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you won't have me, at least promise me that I shall be best man at
+your wedding!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry laughs heartily. &quot;What an alternative! Either bridegroom or best
+man!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But you will promise me, Zdena, won't you?&quot; the boy persists.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It depends upon whom I marry,&quot; Zdena replies, with dignity. &quot;The
+bridegroom will have a word to say upon the subject.&quot; As she speaks,
+her eyes encounter Harry's; she drops them instantly, her cheeks flush,
+and she pauses in confusion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As she takes her place at table, she finds a letter beside her plate,
+post-marked Bayreuth, and sealed with a huge coat-of-arms. Evidently
+startled, she slips it into her pocket unopened.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;From whom?&quot; asks Heda, whose curiosity is always on the alert.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;From--from Bayreuth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;From Aunt Rosa?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Zdena makes no reply.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;From Wenkendorf?&quot; Harry asks, crossly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The blood rushes to her cheeks. &quot;Yes,&quot; she murmurs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How interesting!&quot; Heda exclaims. &quot;I really should like to hear his
+views as to the musical mysteries in Bayreuth. Read the letter aloud to
+us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, it is sure to be tiresome,&quot; Zdena replies, heaping her plate with
+potatoes in her confusion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wish you a good appetite!&quot; Vladimir exclaims.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Zdena looks in dismay at the potatoes piled upon her plate.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;At least open the letter,&quot; says Heda.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Open it, pray!&quot; Harry repeats.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mechanically Zdena obeys, breaks the seal, and hastily looks through
+the letter. Her cheeks grow redder and redder, her hands tremble.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come, read it to us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Instead of complying, Zdena puts the document in her pocket again, and
+murmurs, much embarrassed, &quot;There--there is nothing in it about
+Bayreuth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, secrets!&quot; Heda says, maliciously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Zdena makes no reply, but gazes in desperation at the mound of potatoes
+on her plate. It never decreases in the least during the entire meal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Jealousy, which has slept for a while in Harry's breast, springs to
+life again. One is not a Leskjewitsch for nothing. So she keeps up a
+correspondence with Wenkendorf! Ah! he may be deceived in her. Why was
+she so confused at the first sight of the letter? and why did she hide
+it away so hastily? Who knows?--she may be trifling with her old
+adorer, holding him in reserve as it were, because she has not quite
+decided as to her future. Who--who can be trusted, if that fair,
+angelic face can mask such guile?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Countess Zriny, as amiable and benevolent as ever,--Vips calls her
+&quot;syrup diluted with holy water,&quot;--notices that something has occurred
+to annoy the others, and attempts to change their train of thought.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How is your dog, my dear Harry?&quot; she asks her nephew across the table.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Very ill,&quot; the young officer replies, curtly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Indeed? Oh, how sad! What is the matter with him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wish I knew. He drags his legs, his tail droops, and he has fever. I
+cannot help thinking that some one has thrown a stone at him, and I
+cannot imagine who could have been guilty of such cruelty.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Poor Hector! 'Tis all up with him; he has no appetite,&quot; Vips murmurs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How do you know that?&quot; Harry turns sharply upon the lad.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I took him a piece of bread this afternoon,&quot; stammers Vips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Indeed?&quot; Harry bursts forth. &quot;Do that again and you shall suffer for
+it. I strictly forbade you to go near the dog!&quot; Then, turning to the
+others, he explains: &quot;I had to have the dog chained up, out of regard
+for the servants' nonsensical fears!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, Harry,&quot; Vips begins, coaxingly, after a while, &quot;if I must not go
+near the dog you ought not to have so much to do with him. You went to
+him several times to-day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's very different; he is used to me,&quot; Harry sternly replies to his
+brother, who is looking at him with eyes full of anxious affection. &quot;I
+have to see to him, since all the asses of servants, beginning with
+that old fool Blasius, are afraid of the poor brute. Moreover, he has
+everything now that he needs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Vips knits his brows thoughtfully and shakes his head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Suddenly the door of the dining-room opens, and old Blasius appears,
+pale as ashes, and trembling in every limb.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is the matter?&quot; Harry asks, springing up.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Herr Baron, I----&quot; the old man stammers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is the matter?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I told the Herr Baron how it would be,&quot; the old man declares, with the
+whimsical self-assertion which so often mingles with distress in the
+announcement of some misfortune: &quot;Hector has gone mad.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nonsense! what do you know about hydrophobia? Let the dog alone!&quot;
+Harry shouts, stamping his foot.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He has broken his chain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then chain him up again! Send Johann here.&quot; (Johann is Harry's special
+servant.)</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Johann is not at home. The Herr Baron does not know what he orders.
+The dog rushes at everything in its path, and tears and bites it. No
+one dares to go near him, not even the butcher. He must be killed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What, you coward!&quot; Harry shouts; &quot;my dog killed because of a little
+epilepsy, or whatever it is that ails him!&quot; Meanwhile, Harry notices
+that his brother, who had vanished into the next room for a moment, is
+now attempting with a very resolute air to go out through the door
+leading into the hall. Harry seizes him by the shoulder and stops him:
+&quot;Where are you going?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Vips is mute.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What have you in your hand?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It is Harry's revolver.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is it loaded?&quot; he asks, sternly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; Vips replies, scarce audibly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Put it down there on the piano!&quot; Harry orders, harshly. The poor boy
+obeys sadly, and then throws his arms around his brother.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But you will stay here, Harry? dear Harry, you will not go near the
+dog?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You silly boy, do you suppose I am to do whatever you bid me?&quot; Harry
+rejoins. And, pinning the lad's arms to his sides from behind, he lifts
+him up, carries him into the next room, locks him in, puts the key in
+his pocket, and, without another word, leaves the room. Blasius stays
+in the dining-room, wringing his hands, and finally engages in a
+wailing conversation with Vips, who is kicking violently at the door
+behind which he is confined. Heda, the Countess Zriny, and Fräulein
+Laut, their backs towards the piano, upon which lies the revolver, form
+an interesting group, expressing in every feature terror and
+helplessness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Perhaps he may not be mad,&quot; Countess Zriny observes, after a long
+silence, resolved as ever to ignore unpleasant facts. &quot;However, I have
+my eau de Lourdes, at all events.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At this moment the rustle of a light garment is heard. The Countess
+looks round for Zdena, but she has vanished. Whither has she gone?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The dining-room has four doors,--one into the garden, another opposite
+leading into the hall, a third opening into Harry's room, and a fourth
+into the pantry. Through this last Zdena has slipped. From the pantry a
+narrow, dark passage leads down a couple of steps into a lumber-room,
+which opens on the courtyard.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Zdena, when she steps into the court-yard, closes the door behind her
+and looks around. Her heart beats tumultuously. She hopes to reach
+Harry before he meets the dog; but, look where she may, she cannot see
+him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wandering clouds veil the low moon; its light is fitful, now bright,
+then dim. The shadows dance and fade, and outlines blend in fantastic
+indistinctness. The wind has risen; it shrieks and howls, and whirls
+the dust into the poor girl's eyes. A frightful growling sound mingles
+with the noise of the blast.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Zdena's heart beats faster; she is terribly afraid. &quot;Harry!&quot; she calls,
+in an agonized tone; &quot;Harry!&quot; In vain. She hears his shrill whistle at
+the other end of the court-yard, hears him call, commandingly, &quot;Hector,
+come here, sir!&quot; He is far away. She hurries towards him. Hark! Her
+heart seems to stand still. Near her sounds the rattle of a chain; a
+pair of fierce bloodshot eyes glare at her: the dog is close at hand.
+He sees her, and makes ready for a spring.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It is true that the girl has a revolver in her hand, but she has no
+idea what to do with it; she has never fired a pistol in her life. In
+desperate fear she clambers swiftly upon a wood-pile against the
+brewery wall. The dog, in blind fury, leaps at the wood, falls back,
+and then runs howling in another direction. The moon emerges from the
+clouds, and pours its slanting beams into the court-yard. At last Zdena
+perceives her headstrong cousin; he is going directly towards the dog.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hector!&quot; he shouts; &quot;Hector!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A few steps onward he comes, when Zdena slips down from her secure
+height. Panting, almost beside herself, the very personification of
+heroic self-sacrifice and desperate terror, she hurries up to Harry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is it--Zdena--you?&quot; Harry calls out. For, just at the moment when
+he stretches out his hand to clutch at the dog's collar, a slender
+figure rushes between him and the furious brute.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Here, Harry,--the revolver!&quot; the girl gasps, holding out the weapon.
+There is a sharp report: Hector turns, staggers, and falls dead!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The revolver drops from Harry's hand; he closes his eyes. For a few
+seconds he stands as if turned to stone, and deadly pale. Then he feels
+a soft touch upon his arm, and a tremulous voice whispers,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Forgive me, Harry! I know how you must grieve for your poor old
+friend, but--but I was so frightened for you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He opens his eyes, and, throwing his arm around the girl, exclaims,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You angel! Can you for an instant imagine that at this moment I have a
+thought to bestow upon the dog, dearly as I loved him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His arm clasps her closer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Harry!&quot; she gasps, distressed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With a sigh he releases her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the summits of the old walnuts there soughs a wail of discontent,
+and the moon, which shone forth but a moment ago so brilliantly, and
+which takes delight in the kisses of happy lovers, veils its face in
+clouds before its setting, being defrauded of any such satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come into the house,&quot; whispers Zdena. But walking is not so easy as
+she thinks. She is so dizzy that she can hardly put one foot before the
+other, and, whether she will or not, she must depend upon Harry to
+support her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Fool that I am!&quot; he mutters. &quot;Lean upon me, you poor angel! You are
+trembling like an aspen-leaf.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I can hardly walk,--I was so terribly afraid,&quot; she confesses.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;On my account?&quot; he asks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, not on your account alone, but on my own, too,&quot; she replies,
+laughing, &quot;for, entirely between ourselves, I am a wretched coward.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Really? Oh, Zdena--&quot; He presses the hand that rests on his arm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, Harry,&quot; she says, very gravely this time, &quot;I am not giddy now. I
+can walk very well.&quot; And she takes her hand from his arm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He only laughs, and says, &quot;As you please, my queen, but you need not
+fear me. If a man ever deserved Paradise, I did just then.&quot; He points
+to the spot beneath the old walnuts, where the moon had been
+disappointed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A few seconds later they enter the dining-room, where are the three
+ladies, and the Countess Zriny advances to meet Harry with a large
+bottle of eau de Lourdes, a tablespoonful of which Heda is trying to
+heat over the flame of the lamp, while Fräulein Laut pauses in her
+account of a wonderful remedy for hydrophobia.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry impatiently cuts short all the inquiries with which he is
+besieged, with &quot;The dog is dead; I shot him!&quot; He does not relate how
+the deed was done. At first he had been disposed to extol Zdena's
+heroism, but he has thought better of it. He resolves to keep for
+himself alone the memory of the last few moments, to guard it in his
+heart like a sacred secret. As Vips is still proclaiming his presence
+in the next room by pounding upon the door, Harry takes the key from
+his pocket and smilingly releases the prisoner. The lad rushes at his
+brother. &quot;Did he not bite you? Really not?&quot; And when Harry answers,
+&quot;No,&quot; he entreats, &quot;Show me your hands, Harry,--both of them!&quot; and then
+he throws his arms about the young man and clasps him close.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, you foolish fellow!&quot; Harry exclaims, stroking the boy's brown
+head. &quot;But now be sensible; don't behave like a girl. Do you hear?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My nerves are in such a state,&quot; sighs Heda.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry stamps his foot. &quot;So are mine! I would advise you all to retire,
+and recover from this turmoil.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Soon afterwards the house is silent. Even Vips has been persuaded to go
+to bed and sleep off his fright. Harry, however, is awake. After
+ordering Blasius to bury the dog, and to bring him his revolver, which
+he now remembers to have left lying beside the animal's body, he seats
+himself on the flight of steps leading from the dining-room into the
+garden, leans his elbows on his knees and his head on his hands,
+and dreams. The wind has subsided, and the night seems to him lovely
+in spite of the misty clouds that veil the sky. The flowers are
+fragrant,--oh, how fair life is! Suddenly he hears a light step; he
+rises, goes into the corridor, and finds Zdena putting a letter into
+the postbag. He approaches her, and their eyes meet. In vain does she
+attempt to look grave. She smiles, and her smile is mirrored in his
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To whom was the letter?&quot; he asks, going towards her. Not that there is
+a spark of jealousy left in his heart for the moment, but he delights
+to coax her secrets from her, to share in all that concerns her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is it any affair of yours?&quot; she asks, with dignity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, but I should like to know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will not tell you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Suppose I guess?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She shrugs her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To Wenkendorf,&quot; he whispers, advancing a step nearer her, as she makes
+no reply.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What did he write to you?&quot; Harry persists.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is no concern of yours.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What if I guess that, too?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then I hope you will keep your knowledge to yourself, and not mention
+your guess to any one,&quot; Zdena exclaims, eagerly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He proposed to you,&quot; Harry says, softly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Zdena sighs impatiently.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, yes!&quot; she admits at last, turning to Harry a blushing face as
+she goes on. &quot;But I really could not help it. I did what I could to
+prevent it, but men are so conceited and headstrong. If one of them
+takes an idea into his head there is no disabusing him of it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Indeed! is that the way with all men?&quot; Harry asks, ready to burst into
+a laugh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, except when they have other and worse faults,--are suspicious and
+bad-tempered.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But then these last repent so bitterly, and are so ashamed of
+themselves.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, as for that, he will be ashamed of himself too.&quot; Then, suddenly
+growing grave, she adds, &quot;I should be very sorry to have----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To have any one hear of his disappointed hopes,&quot; Harry interposes,
+with a degree of malicious triumph in his tone. &quot;Do not fear; we will
+keep his secret.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good-night!&quot; She takes up her candlestick, which she had put down on
+the table beside which they are standing, and turns towards the winding
+staircase.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Zdena!&quot; Harry whispers, softly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nothing: only--is there really not a regret in your heart for the
+wealth you have rejected?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She shakes her head slowly, as if reflecting. &quot;No,&quot; she replies: &quot;what
+good would it have done me? I could not have enjoyed it.&quot; Then she
+suddenly blushes crimson, and, turning away from him, goes to the
+staircase.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Zdena!&quot; he calls again; &quot;Zdena!&quot; But the white figure has vanished at
+the turn of the steps, and he is alone. For a while he stands gazing
+into the darkness that has swallowed her up. &quot;God keep you!&quot; he
+murmurs, tenderly, and finally betakes himself to his room, with no
+thought, however, of going to bed.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_24" href="#div1Ref_24">CHAPTER XXIV.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>A SLEEPLESS NIGHT.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">No, he could not sleep; he had something important to do. At last he
+must pluck up courage and establish his position. This wretched
+prevarication, this double dealing, could not go on any longer. It was
+ten times more disgraceful than the most brutal frankness. He seated
+himself at the very table where, scarcely more than a day before, he
+had listened to Lato's confessions, and began a rough sketch of his
+letter to Paula. But at the very first word he stopped. He was going to
+write, &quot;Dear Paula,&quot; but that would never do. Could he address her thus
+familiarly when he wanted to sever all relations with her? Impossible!
+&quot;Honoured Baroness&quot; he could not write, either; it sounded ridiculous,
+applied to a girl with whom he had sat for hours in the last fortnight.
+He decided to begin, &quot;Dear Baroness Paula.&quot; He dipped his pen in the
+ink, and wrote the words in a distinct hand: &quot;Dear Baroness Paula, I
+cannot express to you the difficulty I find in telling you what must,
+however, be told. I had hoped until now that you would discover it
+yourself----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thus far he wrote hurriedly, and as if in scorn of mortal danger. He
+paused now, and read over the few words. His cheeks burned. No, he
+could not write that to a lady: as well might he strike her in the
+face. It was impossible. But what should he do? At last an idea
+occurred to him, how strange not to have thought of it before! He must
+appeal to her mother. It was as clear as daylight. He took a fresh
+sheet of paper, having torn the other up and tossed it under the table,
+then dipped his pen anew in the ink. But no; it would not do. Every
+hour that he had spent with Paula, every caress he had allowed her to
+bestow upon him, was brought up before him by his conscience, which
+did not spare him the smallest particular. Lato's words recurred to
+him: &quot;You cannot disguise from yourself the fact that you--you and
+Paula--produce the impression of a devoted pair of lovers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He set his teeth. He could not deny that his conduct had been shameful.
+He could not sever his engagement to her without a lack of honour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, good God! how had it ever come to pass?&quot; What had induced him to
+ride over to Dobrotschau day after day? He had always been sure that an
+opportunity for an explanation would occur. When with Paula he had
+endured her advances in sullen submission, without facing the
+consequences; he had simply been annoyed; and now---- He shuddered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Once more he took up the pen, but in vain; never before had he felt so
+utterly hopeless. Every limb ached as if laden with fetters. He tossed
+the pen aside: under the circumstances he could not write the letter;
+Paula herself must sever the tie, if it could be severed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If it could be severed! What did that mean? He seemed to hear the words
+spoken aloud. Nonsense! If it could be severed! As if there were a
+doubt that it could be severed! But how? how?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His distress was terrible. He could see no way to extricate himself.
+Paula must be compelled to release him of her own accord; but how was
+it to be done? He devised the wildest schemes. Could he be caught
+flirting with a gypsy girl? or could he feign to be deeply in debt? No,
+no more feigning; and, besides, what would it avail? She would forgive
+everything.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Suddenly Vips cried out in his sleep.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Vips!&quot; Harry called, to waken him, going to his brother's bedside.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The lad opened his eyes, heavy with sleep, and said, &quot;I am so glad you
+waked me! I was having a horrible dream that you were being torn to
+pieces by a furious leopard.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You foolish boy!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, it was no joke, I can tell you!&quot; Then, pulling his brother down to
+him, he went on, &quot;Zdena took the revolver to you, I saw her through the
+keyhole; not one of the others would have raised a finger for you. No,
+there is no one in the world like our Zdena.&quot; Vips stroked his
+brother's blue sleeve with his long, slender hand. &quot;Do you know,&quot; he
+whispered very softly, &quot;I have no doubt that----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry frowned, and Vips blushed, shut his eyes, and turned his face to
+the wall.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The first gleam of morning was breaking its way through the twilight;
+a rosy glow illumined the eastern horizon; the stream began to
+glimmer, and then shone like molten gold; long shadows detached
+themselves from the universal gray and stretched across the garden
+among the dewy flower-beds. The dew lay everywhere, glistening like
+silvery dust on the blades of grass, and dripping in the foliage of the
+old apricot-tree by the open window at which Harry stood gazing sadly
+out into the wondrous beauty of the world. The cool morning breeze
+fanned his check; the birds began to twitter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The young fellow was conscious of the discomfort of a night spent
+without sleep; but far worse than that was the hopeless misery that
+weighed him down.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Hark! what was that? The sound of bells, the trot of horses on the
+quiet road. Harry leaned forward. Who was that?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Leaning back in an open barouche, a gray travelling-cap on his head, a
+handsome old man was driving along the road.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Father!&quot; exclaimed Harry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old gentleman saw him from the carriage and waved his hand gaily.
+In a twinkling Harry was opening the house-door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have surprised you, have I not?&quot; Karl Leskjewitsch exclaimed,
+embracing his son. &quot;But what's the matter with you? What ails you? I
+never saw you look so sallow,--you rogue!&quot; And he shook his forefinger
+at the young fellow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, nothing,--nothing, sir: we will talk of it by and by. Now come and
+take some rest.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_25" href="#div1Ref_25">CHAPTER XXV.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>THE CONFESSION.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Baron Leskjewitsch was in an admirable humour. He brightened up the
+entire household. The Countess Zriny, to be sure, lamented to Fräulein
+Laut his tireless loquacity, but perhaps that was because his loquacity
+displayed itself principally in the utterance of anti-Catholic views.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At breakfast, on the first morning after his arrival, he cut the old
+canoness to the heart. When he rallied her upon the indigestible nature
+of her favourite delicacy, raspberry jam with whipped cream, she
+replied that she could eat it with perfect impunity, since she always
+mixed a teaspoonful of eau de Lourdes with the jam before adding the
+cream.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Whereupon the Baron called this preservative &quot;Catholic quackery,&quot; and
+was annoyed that she made no reply to his attack. Like a former emperor
+of Russia, he longed for opposition. He did what he could to rouse
+Countess Zriny's. After a while he asserted that she was a heathen.
+Catholicism in its modern form, with its picturesque ritual and its
+superstitious worship of the saints, was nothing more than cowled
+Paganism.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Countess, to whom this rather antiquated wisdom was new, shuddered
+with horror, and regarded the Baron as antichrist, but nevertheless
+held her peace.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then he played his last trump. He informed her that he regarded the
+Darwinian theory as much less irreligious than her, Countess Zriny's,
+paltry conception of the Deity. Then the Countess arose and left the
+room, to write immediately to her father confessor, expressing her
+anxieties with regard to her cousin's soul, and asking the priest to
+say a mass for his conversion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Poor Kathi! have I frightened her away? I didn't mean to do that,&quot;
+said the Baron, looking after her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No, he had not meant to do it; he had merely desired to arouse
+opposition.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A splendid subject for an essay,&quot; he exclaimed, after a pause,--&quot;'the
+Darwinian theory and the Catholic ritual set forth by a man of true
+piety.' I really must publish a pamphlet with that title. It may bring
+me into collision with the government, but that would not be very
+distressing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Privately the Baron wished for nothing more earnestly than to be
+brought into collision with the government, to be concerned in some
+combination threatening the existence of the monarchy. But just as some
+women, in spite of every endeavour, never succeed in compromising
+themselves, so Karl Leskjewitsch had never yet succeeded in seriously
+embroiling himself with the government. No one took him in earnest;
+even when he made the most incendiary speeches, they were regarded as
+but the amusing babble of a political dilettante.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He eagerly availed himself of any occasion to utter his paradoxes, and
+at this first breakfast he was so eloquent that gradually all at the
+table followed the example of Countess Zriny, in leaving it, except his
+eldest son.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He lighted a cigar, and invited Harry to go into the garden with him.
+Harry, who had been longing for a word with his father in private,
+acceded readily to his proposal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sun shone brightly, the flowers in the beds sparkled like diamonds.
+The old ruin stood brown and clear against the sky, the bees hummed,
+and Fräulein Laut was practising something of Brahms's. Of course she
+had seated herself at the piano as soon as the dining-room was
+deserted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry walked beside his father, with bent head, vainly seeking for
+words in which to explain his unfortunate case. His father held his
+head very erect, kicked the pebbles from his path with dignity, talked
+very fast, and asked his son twenty questions, without waiting for an
+answer to one of them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have you been spending all your leave here? Does it not bore you? Why
+did you not take an interesting trip? Life here must be rather
+tiresome; Heda never added much to the general hilarity, and as for
+poor Kathi, do you think her entertaining? She's little more than a
+<i>mouton à l'eau bénite</i>. And then that sausage-chopper,&quot; with a glance
+in the direction whence proceeded a host of interesting dissonances.
+&quot;Surely you must have found your stay here a very heavy affair. Kathi
+Zriny is harmless, but that Laut--ugh!--a terrible creature! Look at
+her hair; it looks like hay. I should like to understand the aim of
+creation in producing such an article; we have no use for it.&quot; He
+paused,--perhaps for breath.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Father,&quot; Harry began, meekly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I should like to tell you something.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tell me, then, but without any preface. I detest prefaces; I never
+read them; in fact, a book is usually spoiled for me if I find it has a
+preface. What is a preface written for? Either to explain the book that
+follows it, or to excuse it. And why read a book that needs explanation
+or excuses? I told Franz Weyser, the famous orator, in the Reichsrath
+the other day, that----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Father,&quot; Harry began again, in a tone of entreaty, aware that he
+should have some difficulty in obtaining a hearing for his confession.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What an infernally sentimental air you have! Aha! I begin to see. You
+have evidently fallen in love with Zdena. It is not to be wondered at;
+she's a charming creature--pretty as a picture--looks amazingly like
+Charlotte Buff, of Goethe memory; all that is needed is to have her
+hair dressed high and powdered. What can I say? In your place I should
+have been no wiser. Moreover, if you choose to marry poverty for love,
+'tis your own affair. You must remember that Franz will undoubtedly
+stop your allowance. You cannot expect much from Paul; and as for
+myself, I can do nothing for you except give you my blessing. You know
+how matters stand with me; and I must think of your sister, who never
+can marry without a dowry. I cannot entirely deprive myself of means: a
+politician must preserve his independence, for, as I lately said to
+Fritz Böhm, in the Reichsrath----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In vain had Harry tried to edge in a word. With a bitter smile he
+recalled a passage in a Vienna humorous paper which, under the heading
+of &quot;A disaster prevented,&quot; set forth the peril from drowning from which
+the entire government had been saved by the presence of mind of the
+president of the Reichsrath, Herr Doctor Smolka, who had contrived just
+in the nick of time to put a stop to a torrent of words from Baron Karl
+Leskjewitsch.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Suddenly the Baron stumbled over a stone, which fortunately caused him
+to pause.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It has nothing to do with Zdena!&quot; Harry exclaimed, seizing his
+opportunity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not? Then----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have become betrothed,&quot; Harry almost shouted, for fear of not making
+his father hear.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And what do you want of me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You must help me to break the engagement,&quot; his son cried, in despair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At these words Karl Leskjewitsch, who with all his confusion of ideas
+had managed to retain a strong sense of humour, made a grimace, and
+pushed back the straw hat which he wore, and which had made the ascent
+of Mount Vesuvius with him and had a hole in the crown, so that it
+nearly fell off his head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, indeed! First of all I should like to know to whom you are
+betrothed,--the result, of course, of garrison life in some small town?
+I always maintain that for a cavalry officer----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry felt the liveliest desire to summon the aid of Doctor Smolka to
+stem the tide of his father's eloquence, but, since this could not be,
+he loudly interrupted him: &quot;I am betrothed to Paula Harfink!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Harfink!&quot; exclaimed the Baron. &quot;The Harfinks of K----?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes; they are at Dobrotschau this summer,&quot; Harry explained.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So she is your betrothed,--the Baroness Paula? She is handsome; a
+little too stout, but that is a matter of taste. And you want to marry
+her?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, no, I do not want to marry her!&quot; Harry exclaimed, in dismay.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, indeed! you do not want to marry her?&quot; murmured the Baron. &quot;And
+why not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Because--because I do not love her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why did you betroth yourself to her?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry briefly explained the affair to his father.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Baron looked grave. &quot;And what do you want me to do?&quot; he asked,
+after a long, oppressive silence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Help me out, father. Put your veto upon this connection.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What will my veto avail? You are of age, and can do as you choose,&quot;
+said the Baron, shaking his head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, legally,&quot; Harry rejoined, impatiently, &quot;but I never should dream
+of marrying against your will.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Karl Leskjewitsch found this assurance of filial submission on his
+son's part very amusing. He looked askance at the young fellow, and,
+suppressing a smile, extended his hand after a pompous theatric fashion
+and exclaimed, &quot;I thank you for those words. They rejoice my paternal
+heart.&quot; Then, after swinging his son's hand up and down like a
+pump-handle, he dropped it and said, dryly, &quot;Unfortunately, I have not
+the slightest objection to your betrothal to the Harfink girl. What
+pretext shall I make use of?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well,&quot;--Harry blushed,--&quot;you might say you cannot consent to the
+<i>mésalliance</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Indeed! Thanks for the suggestion. I belong to the Liberal party, and
+do not feel called upon to play the part of an aristocratic Cerberus
+defending his prejudices.&quot; Here the Baron took out his note-book.
+&quot;Aristocratic Cerberus,&quot; he murmured; &quot;that may be useful some day in
+the Reichsrath. Besides,&quot; he continued, &quot;it would just now be
+particularly unpleasant to quarrel with the Harfinks. If you had asked
+me before your betrothal whether I should like it, I should have
+frankly said no. The connection is a vulgar one; but, since matters
+have gone so far, I do not like to make a disturbance. The brother of
+the girl's mother, Doctor Grünbart, is one of the leaders of our
+party. He formerly conducted himself towards me with great reserve,
+suspecting that my liberal tendencies were due merely to a whim,
+to a fleeting caprice. I met him, however, a short time ago, on
+my tour through Sweden and Norway. He was travelling with his
+wife and daughter. We travelled together. He is a very clever man,
+but--between ourselves--intolerable, and with dirty nails. As for his
+women-folk,--good heavens!&quot; The Baron clasped his hands. &quot;The wife
+always eat the heads of the trout which I left in the dish, and the
+daughter travelled in a light-blue gown, with a green botany-box
+hanging at her back, and such teeth,--horrible! The wife is a
+schoolmaster's daughter, who married the old man to rid herself of a
+student lover. Very worthy, but intolerable. I travelled with them for
+six weeks, and won the Doctor's heart by my courtesy to his wife and
+daughter. I should have been more cautious if I had been at
+housekeeping in Vienna, although the most violent Austrian democrats
+are very reasonable in social respects, especially with regard to their
+women. They are flattered by attention to them on a journey, but they
+are not aggressive at home. This, however, is not to the point.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It did indeed seem not to the point to Harry, who bit his lip and
+privately clinched his fist. He was on the rack during his father's
+rambling discourse.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What I wanted to say&quot;--the Baron resumed the thread of his
+discourse--&quot;is, that this democrat's pride is his elegant sister,
+Baroness Harfink, and the fact that she was once invited, after great
+exertions in some charitable undertaking, to a ball at the Princess
+Colloredo's--I think it was at the Colloredo's. I should like to have
+seen her there!&quot; He rubbed his hands and smiled. &quot;My democrat maintains
+that she looked more distinguished than the hostess. You understand
+that if I should wound his family pride I could not hope for his
+support in the Reichsrath, where I depend upon it to procure me a
+hearing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry privately thought that it would be meritorious to avert such a
+calamity, but he said, &quot;Ah, father, that democrat's support is not so
+necessary as you think. Depend upon it, you will be heard without it.
+And then a quarrel with a politician would cause you only a temporary
+annoyance, while the continuance of my betrothal to Paula will simply
+kill me. I have done my best to show her the state of my feelings
+towards her. She does not understand me. There is nothing for it but
+for you to undertake the affair.&quot; Harry clasped his hands in entreaty,
+like a boy. &quot;Do it for my sake. You are the only one who can help me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Baron Karl was touched. He promised everything that his son asked of
+him.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_26" href="#div1Ref_26">CHAPTER XXVI.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>THE BARON'S AID.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The Baron never liked to postpone what he had to do; it was against his
+principles and his nature. The matter must be attended to at once. As
+soon as the mid-day meal was over, he had the carriage brought, put on
+a black coat, and set out for Dobrotschau.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The fountain plashed dreamily as he drove into the castle court-yard.
+The afternoon sun glittered on the water, and a great dog came towards
+him as he alighted, and thrust his nose into his hand. He knew the old
+dog.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How are you, old friend? how does the new <i>régime</i> suit you?&quot; he said,
+patting the animal's head. Two footmen hurried forward in drab breeches
+and striped vests. To one of them Baron Karl gave his card, and then
+awaited the mistress of the mansion in the spacious and rather dark
+drawing-room into which he had been shown.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He looked about him, and was very well pleased. The tall windows of the
+room were draped with pale-green silk; the furniture, various in shape
+and style, was all convenient and handsome; vases filled with flowers
+stood here and there on stands and tables; and in a black ebony
+cabinet, behind glass doors, there was a fine collection of old
+porcelain. The Baron was a connoisseur in old porcelain, and had just
+risen to examine these specimens, when the servant returned to conduct
+him to the Baroness's presence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Baron Karl's heart throbbed a little fast at the thought of his
+mission, and he privately anathematized &quot;the stupid boy&quot; who had been
+the cause of it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Since he got himself into the scrape, he might have got himself out of
+it,&quot; he thought, as he followed the lackey, who showed him into a small
+but charming boudoir, fitted up after a rural fashion with light
+cretonne.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'm in for it,&quot; the Baron thought, in English. He liked to sprinkle
+his soliloquies with English phrases, having a great preference for
+England, whence he imported his clothes, his soap, and his political
+ideas of reform <i>en gros</i>. In the Reichsrath they called him &quot;Old
+England.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he entered the pretty room, a lady rose from a low lounge and came
+towards him with outstretched hands. Those hands were small, soft, and
+shapely, and the rings adorning the third finger of one of them--a ruby
+and a large diamond, both very simply set--became them well. Baron Karl
+could not help carrying one of them to his lips; thus much, he thought,
+he owed the poor woman in view of the pain he was about to inflict upon
+her. Frau von Harfink said a few pleasant words of welcome, to which he
+replied courteously, and then, having taken his seat in a comfortable
+arm-chair near her favourite lounge, the conversation came to a
+stand-still. The Baron looked in some confusion at his hostess. There
+was no denying that, in spite of her fifty years, she was a pretty
+woman. Her features were regular, her teeth dazzling, and if there was
+a touch of rouge on her cheeks, that was her affair; it did not affect
+her general appearance. The fair hair that was parted to lie in smooth
+waves above her brow was still thick, and the little lace cap was very
+becoming. Her short, full figure was not without charm, and her gown of
+black <i>crêpe de Chine</i> fitted faultlessly. The Baron could not help
+thinking that it would be easier to give her pain if she were ugly.
+There was really no objection to make to her. He had hoped she would
+resemble his friend Doctor Grünbart, but she did not resemble him.
+While he pondered thus, Frau von Harfink stretched out her hand to the
+bell-rope.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My daughters are both out in the park; they will be extremely glad to
+see you, especially Paula, who has been most impatient to know you. I
+will send for them immediately.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Karl Leskjewitsch prevented her from ringing. &quot;One moment, first,&quot; he
+begged; &quot;I--I am here upon very serious business.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her eyes scanned his face keenly. Did she guess? did she choose not to
+understand him? Who can tell? Certain it is that no woman could have
+made what he had come to say more difficult to utter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, let 'serious business' go for the present!&quot; she exclaimed; &quot;there
+is time enough for that. A mother's heart of course is full----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In his confusion the Baron had picked up a pamphlet lying on the table
+between Frau von Harfink and himself. Imagine his sensations when, upon
+looking at it closely, he recognized his own work,--a pamphlet upon
+&quot;Servility among Liberals,&quot;--a piece of political bravado upon which
+the author had prided himself not a little at the time of its
+publication, but which, like many another masterpiece, had vanished
+without a trace in the yearly torrent of such literature. Not only were
+the leaves of this pamphlet cut, but as the Baron glanced through it he
+saw that various passages were underscored with pencil-marks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You see how well known you are here, my dear Baron,&quot; said Frau von
+Harfink, and then, taking his hat from him, she went on, &quot;I cannot have
+you pay us a formal visit: you will stay and have a cup of tea, will
+you not? Do you know that I am a little embarrassed in the presence of
+the author of that masterpiece?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, pray, madame!&quot;--the democrat <i>par excellence</i> could not exactly
+bring himself to an acknowledgment of Frau von Harfink's brand-new
+patent of nobility,--&quot;ah, madame, the merest trifle, a political
+<i>capriccio</i> with which I beguiled an idle hour; not worth mentioning.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Great in small things, my dear Baron, great in small things,&quot; she
+rejoined. &quot;No one since Schopenhauer has understood how to use the
+German language as you do. So admirable a style!--precise, transparent,
+and elegant as finely-cut glass. And what a wealth of original
+aphorisms! You are a little sharp here and there, almost cruel,&quot;--she
+shook her forefinger at him archly,--&quot;but the truth is always cruel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A remarkably clever woman!&quot; thought Baron Karl. Of course he could not
+refrain from returning such courtesy. &quot;This summer, in a little trip to
+the North Cape&quot;--Leskjewitsch was wont always to refer to his travels
+as little trips; a journey to California he would have liked to call a
+picnic--&quot;in a little trip to the North Cape, I had the pleasure of
+meeting your brother, Baroness,&quot; he cleared his throat before uttering
+the word, but he accomplished it. &quot;We had known each other politically
+in the Reichsrath, but in those northern regions our acquaintance
+quickly ripened into friendship.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have heard all about it already,&quot; said the Baroness: &quot;it was my
+brother who called my attention to this pearl.&quot; She pointed to the
+pamphlet. &quot;Of course he had no idea of the closer relations which we
+are to hold with each other; he simply described to me the impression
+you made upon him. Ah, I must read you one of his letters.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She opened a drawer in her writing-table, and unfolded a long letter,
+from which she began to read, then interrupted herself, turned the
+sheet, and finally found the place for which she was looking:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Baron Karl Leskjewitsch is an extremely clever individual, brilliantly
+gifted by nature. His misfortune has been that in forsaking the
+Conservatives he has failed to win the entire confidence of the
+Liberals. Now that I know him well, I am ready to use all my influence
+to support him in his career, and I do not doubt that I shall succeed
+in securing for him the distinguished position for which he is fitted.
+I see in him the future Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A few minutes previously Baron Karl had been conscious of some
+discomfort; every trace of it had now vanished. He was fairly
+intoxicated. He saw himself a great statesman, and was already
+pondering upon what to say in his first important conference with the
+Chancellor of the realm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pray, give my warm regards to Doctor Grünbart when you next write to
+him,&quot; he began, not without condescension, when suddenly a young lady
+hurried into the room,--tall, stout, with Titian hair and a dazzling
+complexion, her chest heaving, her eyes sparkling. In the Baron's
+present mood she seemed to him beautiful as a young goddess. &quot;By Jove!
+the boy has made a hit,&quot; he thought to himself. The vague sense of
+discomfort returned for a moment, but vanished when Paula advanced
+towards him with outstretched hands. He drew her to him, and imprinted
+a paternal kiss upon her forehead. Selina and Fainacky now made their
+appearance. It was quite a domestic scene.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Baroness rang, and the tea-equipage was brought in for afternoon
+tea. Olga made her appearance, but Treurenberg was absent; Selina
+remarked, crossly, that he was again spending the afternoon with the
+officers at X----. Baron Karl was throned upon roses and inhaling sweet
+incense, when finally the Baroness, lightly touching his arm, asked
+before all present,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And the 'serious business' you came to consult me about?&quot; He started,
+and was mute, while the lady went on, archly, &quot;What if I guess its
+import? You came in Harry's behalf, did you not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Baron Karl bowed his head in assent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To arrange the day, was it not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What could the poor man do? Before he had time to reflect, the
+Baroness said, &quot;We have considered the matter already; we must be in no
+hurry,--no hurry. It always is a sore subject for a mother, the
+appointing a definite time for her separation from her daughter, and
+every girl, however much in love she may be,&quot;--here the Baroness
+glanced at her stout Paula, who did her best to assume an air of
+maidenly reserve, &quot;would like to postpone the marriage-day. But men do
+not like to wait; therefore, all things considered, I have thought of
+the 19th of October as the day. Tell Harry so from me, and scold him
+well for not doing his errand himself. His delicacy of sentiment is
+really exaggerated! An old woman may be pardoned for a little
+enthusiasm for a future son-in-law, may she not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Shortly afterwards Baron Leskjewitsch was driving home along the road
+by which he had come. The shadows had lengthened; a cold air ascended
+from the earth. Gradually the Baron's consciousness, drugged by the
+flattery he had received, awoke, and he felt extremely uncomfortable.
+What had he effected? He was going home after a fruitless visit,--no,
+not fruitless. Harry's affairs were in a worse condition than before.
+He had absolutely placed the official seal upon his son's betrothal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What else could he have done? He could not have made a quarrel. He
+could not alienate Doctor Grünbart's sister. The welfare of the
+government might depend upon his friendly alliance with the leader of
+the democratic party. His fancy spread its wings and took its flight to
+higher spheres,--he really had no time to trouble himself about his
+son's petty destiny. His ambition soared high: he saw himself about to
+reform the monarchy with the aid of Doctor Grünbart, whose importance,
+however, decreased as his own waxed great.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He drove through the ruinous archway into the courtyard. A light wagon
+was standing before the house. When he asked whose it was, he was told
+that it had come from Zirkow to take home the Baroness Zdena. He went
+to the dining-room, whence came the sound of gay voices and laughter.
+They were all at supper, and seemed very merry, so merry that they had
+not heard him arrive.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Twilight was already darkening the room when the Baron entered by one
+door at the same moment that Blasius with the lamp made his appearance
+at the other. The lamplight fell full upon the group about the table,
+and Baron Karl's eyes encountered those of his son, beaming with
+delight. Poor fellow! He had not entertained a doubt that everything
+would turn out well. Zdena, too, looked up; her lips were redder than
+usual, and there was a particularly tender, touching expression about
+her mouth, while in her eyes there was a shy delight. There was no
+denying it, the girl was exquisitely beautiful.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had guessed Baron Karl's errand to Dobrotschau. She divined----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Pshaw! The Baron felt dizzy for a moment,--but, after all, such things
+must be borne. Such trifles must not influence the future 'Canning' of
+Austria.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Blasius set down the lamp. How comfortable and home-like the
+well-spread table looked, at the head the little army of cream-pitchers
+and jugs, over which the Countess Zriny was presiding.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A cup of coffee?&quot; the old canoness asked the newcomer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, no, thanks,&quot; he said. Something in his voice told Harry
+everything.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Baron tried to take his place at table, that the moment for
+explanation might be postponed, but Harry could not wait.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Something has occurred to-day upon the farm about which I want to
+consult you, sir,&quot; he said. &quot;Will you not come with me for a moment?&quot;
+And he made a miserably unsuccessful attempt to look as if it were a
+matter of small importance. The two men went into the next room, where
+it was already so dark that they could not see each other's faces
+distinctly. Harry lit a candle, and placed it on the table between his
+father and himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, father?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My dear boy, there was nothing to be done,&quot; the Baron replied,
+hesitating. For a moment the young man's misery made an impression upon
+him, but then his invincible loquacity burst forth. &quot;There was nothing
+to be done, Harry,&quot; he repeated. And, with a wave of his hand implying
+true nobility of sentiment, he went on: &quot;A betrothal is a contract
+sealed by a promise. From a promise one may be released; it cannot be
+broken. When the Harfinks refused to see the drift of my hints, and
+release you from your promise, there was nothing left for me save to
+acquiesce. As a man of honour, a gentleman, I could do no less; I could
+not possibly demand your release.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Baron Karl looked apprehensively at his son, with whose quick temper he
+was familiar, expecting to be overwhelmed by a torrent of reproaches,
+of bitter, provoking words, sure that the young man would be led into
+some display of violence; but nothing of the kind ensued. Harry stood
+perfectly quiet opposite his father, one hand leaning upon the table
+where burned the candle. His head drooped a little, and he was very
+pale, but not a finger moved when his father added, &quot;You understand
+that I could do nothing further?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He murmured, merely, &quot;Yes, I understand.&quot; His voice sounded thin and
+hoarse, like the voice of a sick child; and then he fell silent again.
+After a pause, he said, in a still lower tone, &quot;Uncle Paul has sent the
+wagon for Zdena, with a note asking me to drive her back to Zirkow. It
+has been waiting for an hour and a half, because Zdena did not want to
+leave before your return. Pray, do me the favour to drive her home in
+my place: I cannot.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then the young fellow turned away and went to a window, outside of
+which the old apricot-trees rustled and sighed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Baron Karl was very sorry for his son, but what else could he have
+done? Surely his case was a hard one. He seemed to himself a very
+Junius Brutus, sacrificing his son to his country. And having succeeded
+finally in regarding in this magnanimous light the part he had played,
+he felt perfectly at peace with himself again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He left the room, promising to attend to Zdena's return to Zirkow. But
+Harry remained standing by the window, gazing out into the gathering
+gloom. The very heart within his breast seemed turning to stone. He
+knew now that what he had at first held to be merely a ridiculous
+annoyance had come to be bitter earnest,--yes, terrible earnest! No
+escape was possible; he could see no hope of rescue; a miracle would
+have to occur to release him, and he did not believe in miracles.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_27" href="#div1Ref_27">CHAPTER XXVII.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>BARON FRANZ.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Every year, towards the end of August, Baron Franz Leskjewitsch, the
+family scarecrow and Cr&#339;sus, was wont to appear at his estate,
+Vorhabshen, near Zirkow, to learn the condition of the harvest, to
+spend a few days in hunting, and to abuse everything and everybody
+before, at the end of a couple of weeks, vanishing as suddenly as he
+had appeared.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On these occasions he avoided his brother Paul with evident
+determination. If any of the family were at Komaritz, he invited them
+to dinner once or twice, at such times taking pains to make himself
+particularly offensive to Heda, whom he could not endure.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had never spent any length of time at Vorhabshen since the family
+quarrel, and in consequence the dwelling-house, or castle, upon which,
+miser that he was, he never would spend a penny for repairs, had come
+to be tumble-down and sordid in appearance, both inside and out. It was
+a huge structure, with numerous windows, in which many of the sashes
+were sprung and some destitute of panes, never having been reglazed
+since the last hail-storm had worked ruin among them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Among the family portraits, which hung in a dark, oak-wainscoted
+gallery, the pigeons built their nests.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Like many another Bohemian castle, the mansion at Vorhabshen was built
+close to the farm-yard, and its front faced an immense, light-brown
+manure-heap.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The inmates of this unpicturesque ruin--whose duty it was to keep it
+ready for its master's brief visits--were, first, the housekeeper,
+Lotta Papoushek; then the Baron's court-fool, the former brewer
+Studnecka, who at times imagined himself the prophet Elisha, and at
+other times a great musical genius; then the superintendent, with his
+underlings; and finally, any young man who might be tempted to come
+hither to study modern agriculture, and whose studies were generally
+confined to allowing himself to be pampered by the housekeeper Lotta,
+who had all the admiration of her class for courteous young people.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Lotta had been in the Baron's service for more than forty years.
+Her large face was red, dotted with brown warts, and her features were
+hard and masculine. Although she certainly was far from attractive in
+appearance, there was a report that she had once been handsome, and
+that Baron Franz, when he received the news of his son's marriage with
+Marie Duval, had exclaimed, &quot;I'll marry my housekeeper! I'll marry
+Lotta!&quot; How this would have aided to re-establish the family prestige
+it is difficult to say, and it is doubtful whether the speech was made;
+but twenty years afterwards Lotta used to tell of it, and of how she
+had replied, &quot;That would be too nonsensical, Herr Baron!&quot;
+Notwithstanding her peculiarities and her overweening self-conceit, she
+was a thoroughly good creature, and devoted heart and soul to the
+Leskjewitsch family. Her absolute honesty induced the Baron to make her
+authority at Vorhabshen paramount, to the annoyance of the
+superintendent and his men.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a clear afternoon,--the 1st of September; the steam thresher was
+at work in the farm-yard, and its dreary puffing and groaning were
+audible in Lotta's small sitting-room, on the ground-floor of the
+mansion, where she was refreshing herself with a cup of coffee, having
+invited the student of agriculture--a young Herr von Kraschinsky--to
+share her nectar.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had been regaling him with choice bits of family history, as he lay
+back comfortably in an arm-chair, looking very drowsy, when, after a
+pause, she remarked, as if in soliloquy, &quot;I should like to know where
+the master is; I have had no answer to the long letter I sent to him at
+Franzburg.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, you correspond with the Baron, do you?&quot; murmured the student, too
+lazy to articulate distinctly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course I do. You must not forget that my position in the
+Leskjewitsch family is higher than that of a servant. I was once
+governess to our poor, dear Baron Fritz; and I have always been devoted
+to them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In fact, Lotta had been Fritz's nurse; and it was true that she had
+always been much valued, having been treated with great consideration
+on account of her absolute fidelity and her tolerably correct German.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; she went on, careless as to her companion's attention, &quot;I wrote
+to the Baron about the wheat and the young calves, and I told him of
+Baron Harry's betrothal. I am curious to know what he will say to it.
+For my part, it is not at all to my taste.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But then you are so frightfully aristocratic,&quot; said her guest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lotta smiled; nothing pleased her more than to be rallied upon her
+aristocratic tendencies, although she made haste to disclaim them. &quot;Oh,
+no; I am by no means so feudal&quot;--a favourite word of hers, learned from
+a circulating library to which she subscribed--&quot;as you think. I never
+shall forget how I tried to bring about a reconciliation between Baron
+Fritz and his father; but the master was furious, called the widow and
+her little child, after poor Fritz's death, 'French baggage,' and
+threatened me with dismissal if I ever spoke of them. What could I do?
+I could not go near the little girl when Baron Paul brought her to
+Zirkow; but I have watched her from a distance, and have rejoiced to
+see her grow lovelier every year, and the very image of her father. And
+when all the country around declared that Baron Harry was in love with
+her, I was glad; but our master was furious, although the young things
+were then mere children, and declared that not one penny of his money
+should his nephew have if he married the child of that shop-girl. I
+suppose Baron Harry has taken all this into consideration.&quot; The old
+woman's face grew stern as she folded her arms on her flat chest and
+declared again, &quot;I am curious to know what the master will think of
+this betrothal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Outside in the farm-yard the steam thresher continued its monotonous
+task; the superintendent, a young man, something of a coxcomb, stood
+apart from the puffing monster, a volume of Lenau in his hand, learning
+by heart a poem which he intended to recite at the next meeting of the
+&quot;Concordia Association,&quot; in X----. The court-fool, Studnecka, was
+seated at his harmonium, composing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Suddenly a clumsy post-chaise rattled into the courtyard. The
+superintendent started, and thrust his Lenau into his pocket. Lotta
+smoothed her gray hair, and went to meet the arrival. She knew that
+&quot;the master&quot; had come. It was his habit to appear thus unexpectedly,
+when it was impossible to be prepared for him. His masculine employees
+disliked this fashion extremely. Lotta was not at all disturbed by it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Studnecka was the last to notice that something unusual was going on.
+When he did so, he left the harmonium and went to the window.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the midst of a group of servants and farm-hands stood an old man in
+a long green coat and a shiny, tall hat. The court-fool observed
+something strange in his master's appearance. Suddenly he fairly
+gasped.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The world is coming to an end!&quot; he exclaimed. &quot;Wonders will never
+cease,--the Herr Baron has a new hat!&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_28" href="#div1Ref_28">CHAPTER XXVIII.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>A SHORT VISIT.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Lotta, too, noticed the master's new hat, but that was not the only
+change she observed in him. The expression of his face was not so stern
+as usual. Instead of sneering at the coxcombical superintendent, he
+smiled at his approach; his complexion was far less sallow than it had
+been; and, above all, he allowed the superintendent to pay the driver
+of the post-chaise without an inquiry as to the fare.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After nodding right and left, he asked Lotta if his room were ready.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course,&quot; the housekeeper replied, and at once conducted him to a
+spacious and exquisitely clean and neat apartment, rather scantily
+furnished with spindle-legged chairs and brass-mounted cabinets dating
+from the time of the First Empire. Not a speck of dust was to be seen
+anywhere. The Baron ordered coffee, and dismissed Lotta.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When she had gone he looked about him keenly, as if in search of
+somewhat, from the arm-chair into which he had thrown himself. Not
+finding what he sought, he arose and went into the adjoining room. Yes,
+there it was!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On the wall hung two portraits, in broad, tasteless gilt frames. One
+represented a fair, handsome woman, with bare shoulders and long, soft
+curls; the other a dark-browed man, in the red, gold-embroidered
+uniform of a court chamberlain. He smiled bitterly as he looked at this
+picture. &quot;Done with!&quot; he muttered, and turned his back upon the
+portraits; with those words he banished the memory of his past. A
+strange sensation possessed him: an anticipation of his future,--the
+future of a man of seventy-three! He walked about the room uncertainly,
+searching for something. A dark flush mounted to his cheek; he loosened
+his collar. At last he turned the key in the door, as if fearful of
+being surprised in some misdeed, and then went to his writing-table, a
+large and rather complicated piece of furniture, its numerous drawers
+decorated with brass ornaments. From one of the most secret of these he
+took a small portfolio containing about a dozen photographs. All
+represented the same person, but at various stages of existence, from
+earliest infancy to boyhood and manhood.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Fritz!&quot; murmured the old man, hoarsely; &quot;Fritz!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes, always Fritz. The father looked them through, lingering over each
+one with the same longing, hungry look with which we would fain call to
+life the images of our dead. There was Fritz with his first gun, Fritz
+in his school-uniform, and, at last, Fritz as a young diplomat,
+photographed in Paris, with a mountain view in the background.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This picture trembled in the old hands. How he had admired it! how
+proud he had been of his handsome son! and then----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a knock at the door. Buried in the past, he had not heard the
+bustle of preparation in the next room, and now he thrust away the
+pictures to take his seat at his well-furnished table, where Lotta was
+waiting to serve him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Sit down, sit down,&quot; the Baron said, with unwonted geniality, &quot;and
+tell me of what is going on here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lotta seated herself bolt upright at a respectful distance from her
+master.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well?&quot; began the Baron, pouring out the coffee for himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wrote all the news to the Herr Baron; nothing else has happened,
+except that the English sow which the Herr Baron bought at the fair
+littered last night,--twelve as nice fat little pigs as ever were
+seen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Indeed! very interesting. But what was in the letter? Since I never
+received it, it must be lying at Franzburg.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, all sorts of things,--about the short-horn calves, and the weight
+of the hay, and Baron Harry's betrothal; but of course the Herr Baron
+knew of that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Baron set down his cup so hastily that it came near being broken.
+&quot;Not a word!&quot; he exclaimed, doing his best to conceal the delight which
+would mirror itself in his face. Harry betrothed? To whom but to the
+golden-haired enchantress he had met in the forest, Fritz's daughter
+Zdena? To be sure, he had threatened to disinherit the boy if he
+married her, but the fellow had been quite right to set the threat at
+naught. The old man chuckled at the fright he would give them, and
+then---- Meanwhile, he tried to look indifferent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Indeed? And so the boy is betrothed?&quot; he drawled. &quot;All very
+fine--without asking any one's advice, hey? Of course your old heart is
+dancing at the thought of it, Lotta. Oh, I know you through and
+through.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't see any reason for rejoicing at the young master's betrothal,&quot;
+Lotta replied, crossly, thrusting out her chin defiantly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old man scanned her keenly. Something in the expression of her face
+troubled him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who is the girl?&quot; he asked, bluntly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The younger of the two Harfink fräuleins; the other married Count
+Treurenberg.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Harfink, do you say? Impossible!&quot; The Baron could not believe his
+ears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So I thought too, but I was mistaken. It is officially announced.
+Baron Karl has been to see the mother, and there is shortly to be a
+betrothal festival, to which all the great people in the country round
+are to be invited.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But what is the stupid boy thinking about? What do people say of him?&quot;
+thundered the Baron.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, what should they say? They say our young Baron had interested
+motives, that he is in debt----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Baron started up in a fury. &quot;In debt? A fine reason!&quot; he shouted.
+&quot;Am I not here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Whereupon Lotta looked at him very significantly. &quot;As if every one did
+not know what those get who come to the Herr Baron for money,&quot; she
+murmured.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old man's face flushed purple. &quot;Leave the room!&quot; he cried, pointing
+to the door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lotta arose, pushed back her chair to the wall, and walked out of the
+room with much dignity. She was accustomed to such conduct on her
+master's part: it had to be borne with. And she knew, besides, that her
+words had produced an impression, that he would not be angry with her
+long.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When the door had closed after her, the old man seated himself at his
+writing-table, determined to write to Harry, putting his veto upon the
+marriage of his nephew with the &quot;Harfink girl;&quot; but after the first few
+lines he dropped the pen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What affair is it of mine?&quot; he murmured. &quot;If he had yielded to
+a foolish impulse like my Fritz,&quot;--he passed his hand over his
+eyes,--&quot;why, then I might have seen things differently, and not as I
+did twenty years ago. But if, with love for another girl in his heart,
+he chooses to sell himself for money, he simply does not exist for me.
+Let him take the consequences. My money was not enough for him, or
+perhaps he was afraid he should have to wait too long for it. Well, now
+he can learn what it is to be married without a penny to a rich girl
+whom he does not love.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He pulled the bell furiously. The young gamekeeper who always filled
+the position of valet to the Baron upon these spasmodic visits to
+Vorhabshen entered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Harness the drag, Martin, so that I can catch the train.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That very evening he returned to Franzburg, where he sent for his
+lawyer to help him make a new will.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_29" href="#div1Ref_29">CHAPTER XXIX.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>SUBMISSION.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes, affairs had reached a terribly grave point, an Harry now fully
+appreciated. He felt like a man under sentence of death whose appeal
+for mercy has been rejected. The day for his execution was appointed;
+he had given his promise, and must keep it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The day after his father's visit to Dobrotschau the young man presented
+himself there, and informed the ladies that pressing business obliged
+him to return to Vienna; but Paula, who was perfectly aware of the
+duration of his leave, routed from the field every reason which he gave
+for the necessity for his presence in Vienna. A betrothal festival had
+been arranged for a day early in September; he could not possibly be
+absent. And Paula, the robust, whose nerves were of iron, wept and made
+a scene; and Harry stayed, and conscientiously paid at least three
+visits a week at Dobrotschau. He was changed almost past recognition:
+he had grown very thin, his voice had a hard, metallic sound, and his
+eyes had the restless brilliancy of some wild creature in a trap. He
+ate scarcely anything, and his hands burned with fever. His betrothed,
+whose passion was still on the increase, overwhelmed him with tender
+attentions, which he no longer strove to discourage, but which he
+accepted with the resignation of despair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His bridges were burned behind him; he saw no escape; he must accept
+what life had in store for him. Now and then he made a pathetic attempt
+to blot out of his soul the pale image of the charming girl which never
+left him. He even made every effort to love his betrothed, to penetrate
+her inward consciousness, to learn to know and value her; but he
+brought home from every such psychological exploring trip a positive
+aversion, so rude and coarse, so bereft of all delicacy, were her modes
+of thought and feeling. He pleased her; his quixotic courtesy, his
+unpractical view of life, she took delight in; but her vanity alone was
+interested, not her heart,--that is, she valued it all as &quot;gentlemanly
+accomplishment,&quot; as something aristocratic, like his seat on horseback,
+or the chiselling of his profile. She was an utter stranger to the best
+and truest part of him. And as her passion increased, what had been
+with him at first an impatient aversion changed to absolute loathing,
+something so terrible that at times he took up his revolver to put an
+end to it all. Such cowardice, however, was foreign to his principles;
+and then he was only twenty-four years old, and life might have been so
+fair if---- Even now at rare intervals a faint hope would arise within
+him, but what gave birth to it he could not tell.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile, the days passed, and the betrothal <i>fête</i> was near at hand.
+Fainacky, who had installed himself as <i>maître de plaisir</i>, an office
+which no one seemed inclined to dispute with him, was indefatigable in
+his labours, and displayed great inventive faculty. Every hour he
+developed some fresh idea: now it was a new garden path to be
+illuminated by coloured lamps, now a clump of shrubbery behind which
+the band of an infantry regiment in garrison in the neighbourhood was
+to be concealed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Music is the most poetic of all the arts, so long as one is spared the
+sight of the musician,&quot; he explained to Frau von Harfink, in view of
+this last arrangement. &quot;The first condition of success for a <i>fête</i> is
+a concealed orchestra.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He himself composed two stirring pieces of music--a Paula galop and a
+Selina quadrille--to enrich the entertainment. The decoration of the
+garden-room was carried out by a Viennese upholsterer under his special
+supervision. He filled up the cards of invitation, ordered the wine for
+the supper, and sketched the shapes for the plaques of flowers on the
+table. The menus, however, constituted his masterpiece. Civilized
+humanity had never seen anything like them. Beside each plate there was
+to lie a parchment roll tied with a golden cord, from, which depended a
+seal stamped with the Harfink coat of arms. These gorgeous things were
+Fainacky's <i>chef-d'&#339;uvre</i>. All his other devices--such as the torch
+dance at midnight, with congratulatory addresses from the Harfink
+retainers, the fireworks which were to reveal the intertwined
+initials of the betrothed pair shooting to the skies in characters of
+flame--were mere by-play. Yet, in spite of all his exertions in this
+line, the Pole found time to spy upon everybody, to draw his own
+conclusions, and to attend to his own interests.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">By chance it occurred to him to devote some observation to Olga
+Dangeri, whom hitherto he had scarcely noticed. He found her a subject
+well worth further attention, and it soon became a habit of his to
+pursue her with his bold glance, of course when unobserved by the fair
+Countess Selina, with whom he continued to carry on his flirtation.
+Whenever, unseen and unheard, he could persecute Olga with his insolent
+admiration and exaggerated compliments, he did so. Consequently she did
+her best to avoid him. He was quite satisfied with this result,
+ascribing it to the agitation caused by his homage. &quot;Poor girl!&quot; he
+thought; &quot;she does not comprehend the awakening within her of the
+tender passion!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In fact, a change was perceptible in Olga. She was languid, not easily
+roused to exertion; her lips and cheeks burned frequently, and she was
+more taciturn than ever. Her beauty was invested with an even greater
+charm. Upon his first arrival in Dobrotschau, the Pole had suspected a
+mutual inclination between Treurenberg and the beautiful &quot;player's
+daughter,&quot; but, since he had seen nothing to confirm his ugly
+suspicion, he had ceased to entertain it. Every symptom of an awakening
+attachment which he could observe in Olga, Ladislas Fainacky
+interpreted in his own favour.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_30" href="#div1Ref_30">CHAPTER XXX.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>PERSECUTION.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">September has fairly begun. The harvest is gathered in, and the wind is
+blowing over the stubble,--a dry, oppressive wind, calling up clouds
+which float across the sky in fantastic masses every morning and vanish
+at noon without a trace. All nature manifests languor and thirst; the
+dry ground shows large cracks here and there, and vegetation is losing
+its last tinge of green.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nowhere in all the country around are the effects of the drought more
+apparent than at Dobrotschau, where the soil is very poor. Not even in
+the park is there any freshness of verdure. The fountains refuse to
+play; the sward looks like a shabby, worn carpet; the leaves are
+withering on the trees.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Everything is longing for a storm, and yet all feel that relief, when
+it comes, will bring uproar with it; something must go to ruin and be
+shattered in the change. The great life of nature, spellbound and
+withheld in this sultry languor, will awake with some convulsion,
+angrily demanding a victim. It is inevitable; and one must take comfort
+in the thought that all else will flourish, refreshed and strengthened.
+Anything would be preferable to this wasting and withering, this
+perpetual hissing wind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To-day it seems finally lulled to rest, for the barometer is falling,
+and livid blue clouds are piling up on the horizon, as distinct in
+outline as a range of mountains, and so darkly menacing that in old
+times men would have regarded them with terror. Now every one says, &quot;At
+last! at last!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But they mount no higher; the air is more sultry, and not a cooling
+drop falls.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the shadiest part of the park there is a pond, bordered with rushes
+and surrounded by a scanty growth of underbrush, in the midst of which
+stand the black, skeleton trunks of several dead trees. During the
+winters preceding the coming to Dobrotschau of the Baroness Harfink,
+and shortly after the purchase of the estate, some of the most ancient
+of the trees--trees as old as the family whose downfall necessitated
+the sale of Dobrotschau--had died. Their lifeless trunks still pointed
+to the skies, tall and grim, as if in mute protest against the new
+ownership of the soil.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The pond, once a shining expanse of clear water, is almost dried up,
+and a net-work of water-plants covers its surface. Now, when the
+rosebuds are falling from their stems without opening, this marshy spot
+is gay with many-coloured blossoms.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the edge of the pond lies an old boat, and in it Olga is sitting,
+dressed in white, with a red rose in her belt, one of the few roses
+which the drought has spared. She is gazing dreamily, with half-shut
+eyes, upon the shallow water which here and there mirrors the skies. An
+open book lies in her lap, Turgenieff's &quot;A First Love,&quot; but she has
+read only a few pages of it. Her attitude expresses languor, and from
+time to time she shivers slightly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why is Lato so changed to me? why does he avoid me? what have I done
+to displease him?&quot; These are the thoughts that occupy her mind as she
+sits there, with her hands clasped in her lap, gazing down into the
+brown swamp, not observing that Fainacky, attracted by the light colour
+of her dress among the trees, has followed her to the pond and has been
+watching her for some time from a short distance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She loves,&quot; he says to himself, as he notices the dreamy expression of
+the girl's face; and his vanity adds, &quot;She loves me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He tries, by gazing fixedly at her, to force her to look up at him, but
+he is unsuccessful, and then has recourse to another expedient. In his
+thin, reedy tenor voice he begins to warble &quot;Salve dimora casta e pura&quot;
+from Gounod's &quot;Faust.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she looks round at him, but her face certainly does not express
+pleasure. She arises, leaves the skiff, and, passing her obtrusive
+admirer without a word, tries to turn into the shortest path leading to
+the castle. He walks beside her, however, and begins in a low voice:
+&quot;Fräulein Olga, I have something to say to you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tome?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, I want to explain myself, to correct some false impressions of
+yours, to lay bare my heart before you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He pauses after uttering this sentence, and she also stands still, her
+annoyance causing a choking sensation in her throat. She would fain let
+him know that she is not in the least interested in having his heart
+laid bare before her, but how can she do this without seeming cross or
+angry?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You have hitherto entirely misunderstood me,&quot; he assures her. &quot;Oh,
+Olga, why can you not lay aside your distrust of me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Distrust?&quot; she repeats, almost mechanically; &quot;I am not aware of any
+distrust.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do not deny it,&quot; he persists, clasping his hands affectedly; &quot;do not
+deny it. Your distrust of me is profound. It wounds me, it pains me,
+and--it pains you also!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Olga can hardly believe her ears. She stares at him without speaking,
+in utter dismay, almost fearing that he has suddenly lost his wits.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You must hear me,&quot; he continues, with theatric effect. &quot;Your distrust
+must cease, the distrust which has hitherto prevented you from
+perceiving how genuine is the admiration I feel for you. Oh, you must
+see how I admire you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here Olga loses patience, and, with extreme <i>hauteur</i>, replies, &quot;I have
+perceived your very disagreeable habit of staring at me, and of
+persecuting me with what I suppose you mean for compliments when you
+think no one is observing you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It was out of regard for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Excuse my inability to understand you,&quot; she rejoins, still more
+haughtily. &quot;I cannot appreciate regard of that description.&quot; And with
+head proudly erect she passes him and walks towards the castle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a moment he gazes after her, as if spellbound. How beautiful she
+is, framed in by the dark trees that arch above the pathway! &quot;She
+loves! she suffers!&quot; he murmurs. His fancy suddenly takes fire; this is
+no fleeting inclination, no!--he adores her!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With a bound he overtakes her. &quot;Olga! you must not leave me thus,
+adorable girl that you are! I love you, Olga, love you devotedly!&quot;
+He falls at her feet. &quot;Take all that I have, my name, my life, my
+station,--a crown should be yours, were it mine!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She is now thoroughly startled and dismayed. &quot;Impossible! I cannot!&quot;
+she murmurs, and tries to leave him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But with all the obstinacy of a vain fool he detains her. &quot;Oh, do not
+force those beauteous lips to utter cruel words that belie your true
+self. I have watched you,--you love! Olga, my star, my queen, tell me
+you love me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He seizes the girl's hands, and covers them with kisses; but with
+disgust in every feature she snatches them from him, just as Lato
+appears in the pathway.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fainacky rises; the eyes of the two men meet. Treurenberg's express
+angry contempt; in those of the Pole there is intense hatred, as,
+biting his lip in his disappointment, he turns and walks away.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_31" href="#div1Ref_31">CHAPTER XXXI.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>CONSOLATION.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is the matter? What is it?&quot; Treurenberg asks, solicitously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nothing, nothing,&quot; Olga replies; &quot;nothing at which I ought to take
+offence.&quot; Then, after a short pause, she adds, &quot;On the contrary, he did
+me the honour to offer to make me Countess Fainacky. The idea, it is
+true, seemed to occur to him rather tardily, after conducting himself
+impertinently.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato twirls his moustache nervously, and murmurs, in a dull,
+constrained voice, &quot;Well, and could you not bring yourself to consent?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lato!&quot; the girl exclaims, indignantly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The bitter expression on Lato's face makes him look quite unlike
+himself as he says, &quot;A girl who sets out to marry must not be too nice,
+you see!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His head is turned away from her; silence reigns around; the sultry
+quiet lies like a spell upon everything.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He hears a half-suppressed ejaculation, the rustle of a robe, short,
+quick steps, and, looking round, sees her tall figure walking rapidly
+away from him, offended pride and wounded feeling expressed in its
+every motion. He ought to let her go, but he cannot, and he hurries
+after her; almost before she is aware of his presence, he lightly
+touches her on the arm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Olga, my poor Olga, I did not mean this!&quot; he exclaims, gently. &quot;Be
+reasonable, my child; I did not mean to wound you, but to give you a
+common-sense view of the affair.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She looks away from him, and suddenly bursts into irrepressible sobs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You poor child! Hush, I pray you! I cannot bear this! Have I really
+grieved you--I--why, 'tis ridiculous--I, who would have my hand cut off
+to serve you? Come, be calm.&quot; And he draws her down upon a rustic bench
+and takes a seat beside her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her chest heaves as does that of a child who, although the cause of its
+grief has been removed, cannot stop crying at once. He takes her hand
+in his and strokes it gently.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A delightful sensation of content, even of happiness, steals upon him,
+but mingling with it comes a tormenting unrest, the dawning
+consciousness that he is entering upon a crooked path, that he is in
+danger of doing a wrong, and yet he goes on holding the girl's hand in
+his and gazing into her eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why are you not always kind to me?&quot; she asks him simply.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He is confused, and drops her hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For a whole week past you have seemed scarcely to see me,&quot; she says,
+reproachfully. &quot;Have you been vexed with me? Did I do anything to
+displease you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have had so much to worry me,&quot; he murmurs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Poor Lato! I thought so. If you only knew how my heart aches for
+you! Can you not tell me some of your troubles? They are so much easier
+to bear when shared with another.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And before he can reply she takes his hand in both of hers, and presses
+it against her cheek.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Just at that moment he sees the Pole, who has paused in departing and
+turned towards the pair; the man's sallow face, seen in the distance
+above Olga's dark head, seems to wear a singularly malevolent
+expression.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As soon, however, as he becomes aware that Treurenberg has perceived
+him, he vanishes again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato's confusion increases; he rises, saying, &quot;And now be good, Olga;
+go home and bathe your eyes, that no one may see that you have been
+crying.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, no one will take any notice, and there is plenty of time before
+dinner. Take a walk with me in the park; it is not so warm as it was.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I cannot, my child; I have a letter to write.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As you please;&quot; and she adds, in an undertone, &quot;You are changed
+towards me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Before he can reply, she is gone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The path along which she has disappeared is flecked with crimson,--the
+petals of the rose that she had worn in her girdle.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato feels as if rudely awakened from unconsciousness. He walks
+unsteadily, and covers his eyes with his hand as if dazzled by even the
+tempered light of the afternoon. The terrible bliss for which he longs,
+of which he is afraid, seems so near that he has but to reach out his
+hand and grasp it. He stamps his foot in horror of himself. What! a
+pure young girl! his wife's relative! The very thought is impossible!
+He is tormented by the feverish fancies of overwrought nerves. He
+shakes himself as if to be rid of a burden, then turns and walks
+rapidly along a path leading in an opposite direction from where the
+scattered rose-leaves are lying on the ground.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he passes on with eyes downcast, he almost runs against the Pole.
+The glances of the two men meet; involuntarily Lato averts his from
+Fainacky's face, and as he does so he is conscious of a slight
+embarrassment, which the other takes a malicious delight in noticing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Aha!&quot; he begins; &quot;your long interview with the fair Olga seems to have
+had a less agreeable effect upon your mood than I had anticipated.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Such a remark would usually have called forth from Lato a sharp
+rejoinder; to-day he would fain choose his words, to excuse himself, as
+it were.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She was much agitated,&quot; he murmurs. &quot;I had some trouble in
+soothing her. She--she is nervous and sensitive; her position in my
+mother-in-law's household is not a very pleasant one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, you certainly do your best to improve it,&quot; Fainacky says,
+hypocritically.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And you to make it impossible!&quot; Lato exclaims, angrily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Did the fair Olga complain of me, then?&quot; drawls the other.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There was no need that she should,&quot; Treurenberg goes on to say. &quot;Do
+you suppose that I need anything more than eyes in my head to see how
+you follow her about and stare at her?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fainacky gives him a lowering look, and then laughs softly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, yes, I confess, I have paid her some attention; she pleases me.
+Yes, yes, I do not deny my sensibility to female charms. I never played
+the saint!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Indeed! At least you seem to have made an effort to-day to justify
+your importunity,&quot; Treurenberg rejoins, filled with contempt for the
+simpering specimen of humanity before him. &quot;You have offered her your
+hand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Scarcely have the words left his lips when Treurenberg is conscious
+that he has committed a folly in thus irritating the man.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fainacky turns pale to the lips, and his expression is one of intense
+malice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is true,&quot; he says, &quot;that I so far forgot myself for a moment as to
+offer your youthful <i>protégeé</i> my hand. Good heavens! I am not the
+first man of rank who, in a moment of enthusiasm and to soothe the
+irritated nerves of a shy beauty, has offered to marry a girl of low
+extraction. The obstacle, however, which bars my way to her heart
+appears to be of so serious a nature that I shall make no attempt to
+remove it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He utters the words with a provoking smile and most malicious emphasis.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To what obstacle do you refer?&quot; Lato exclaims, in increasing anger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Can you seriously ask me that question?&quot; the Pole murmurs, in a low
+voice like the hiss of a serpent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Transported with anger, Treurenberg lifts his hand; the Pole scans him
+quietly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you wish for a duel, there is no need to resort to so drastic a
+measure to provoke it. But do you seriously think it would be well for
+the fair fame of your--your lovely <i>protégeé</i> that you should fight for
+her?&quot; And, turning on his heel, Fainacky walks towards the castle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato stands as if rooted to the spot, his gaze riveted on the ground.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_32" href="#div1Ref_32">CHAPTER XXXII.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>INTERRUPTED HARMONY.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Dinner is over, and the gilt chandelier in the garden-room, where
+coffee is usually served, is lighted. Selina is sitting at the piano
+accompanying Fainacky, who is singing. Paula is in her own rooms with
+her mother, inspecting the latest additions to her trousseau, just
+arrived from Vienna. Lato has remained in the garden-room, where he
+endures with heroic courage the sound of Fainacky's voice as he whines
+forth his sentimental French songs, accentuating them in the most
+touching places with dramatic gestures and much maltreatment of his
+pocket-handkerchief. After each song he compliments Selina upon her
+playing. Her touch reminds him of Madame Essipoff. Selina, whose
+digestion is perfect so far as flattery is concerned, swallows all his
+compliments and looks at him as if she wished for more.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On the wide gravel path, before the glass doors of the room, Olga is
+pacing to and fro. The broad light from door and window reveals clearly
+the upper portion of her figure. Her head is slightly bent, her hands
+are clasped easily before her. There is a peculiar gliding grace in all
+her movements. With all Treurenberg's efforts to become interested in
+the newspaper which he holds, he cannot grasp the meaning of a single
+sentence. The letters flicker before his eyes like a crowd of crawling
+insects. Weary of such fruitless exertion, he lifts his eyes, to
+encounter Olga's gazing at him with a look of tenderest sympathy. He
+starts, and makes a fresh effort to absorb himself in the paper, but
+before he is aware of it she has come in from the garden and has taken
+her seat on a low chair beside him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is anything the matter with you?&quot; she asks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What could be the matter with me?&quot; he rejoins, evasively.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I thought you might have a headache, you look so pale,&quot; she says, with
+a matronly air.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Olga, I would seriously advise you to devote yourself to the study of
+medicine, you are so quick to observe symptoms of illness in those
+about you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She returns his sarcasm with a playful little tap upon his arm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fainacky turns and looks at them, a fiendish light in his green eyes,
+in the midst of his most effective rendering of Massenet's &quot;<i>Nuits
+d'Espagne</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you want to talk, I think you might go out in the garden, instead
+of disturbing us here,&quot; Selina calls out, sharply.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato instantly turns to his newspaper, and when he looks up from it
+again, Olga has vanished. He rises and goes to the open door. The
+sultry magic of the September night broods over the garden outside. The
+moon is not yet visible,--it rises late,--but countless stars twinkle
+in the blue-black heavens, shedding a pale silvery lustre upon the dark
+earth. Olga is nowhere to be seen; but there---- He takes a step or two
+forward; she is walking quickly. He pauses, looks after her until she
+disappears entirely among the shrubbery, and then he goes back to the
+garden-room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It is Selina's turn to sing now, and she has chosen a grand aria from
+&quot;Lucrezia Borgia.&quot; She is a pupil of Frau Marchesi's, and she has a
+fine voice,--that is to say, a voice of unusual compass and power,
+which might perhaps have made a reputation on the stage, but which is
+far from agreeable in a drawing room. It is like the blowing of
+trumpets in the same space.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His wife's singing is the one thing in the world which Lato absolutely
+cannot tolerate, and never has tolerated. Passing directly through the
+room, he disappears through a door opposite the one leading into the
+garden.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Even in the earliest years of their married life Selina always took
+amiss her husband's insensibility to her musical performances, and now,
+when she avers his indifference to her in every other respect to be a
+great convenience, her sensitiveness as an artist is unchanged.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Breaking off in the midst of her song, she calls after him, &quot;Is that a
+protest?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He does not hear her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Continuez done, ma cousine</i>, I implore you,&quot; the Pole murmurs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With redoubled energy, accompanying herself, Countess Selina sings
+on, only dropping her hands from the keys when she has executed a
+break-neck cadenza by way of final flourish. Fainacky, meanwhile,
+gracefully leaning against the instrument, listens ecstatically, with
+closed eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Selina, you are an angel!&quot; he exclaims, when she has finished. &quot;Were I
+in Treurenberg's place you should sing to me from morning until night.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My husband takes no pleasure in my singing; at the first sound of my
+voice he leaves the room, as you have just seen. He has no more taste
+for music than my poodle.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Extraordinary!&quot; the Pole says, indignantly. And then, after a little
+pause, he adds, musingly, &quot;I never should have thought it. The day I
+arrived here, you remember, I came quite unexpectedly; and, looking for
+some one to announce me, I strayed into this very room----&quot; He
+hesitates.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well?--go on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, Nina, or Olga--what is your <i>protégeé's</i> name?&quot; He snaps his
+fingers impatiently.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Olga! Well, what of her?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nothing, nothing, only she was sitting at the piano strumming away at
+something, and Lato was listening as devoutly as if she----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Selina has risen hastily and is walking towards the door into the
+garden with short impatient steps, as if in need of the fresh air. Her
+face is flushed, and she plucks nervously at the lace about her throat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What have I done? Have I vexed you?&quot; the Pole whines, clasping his
+hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, no, you have nothing to do with it!&quot; the Countess sharply rejoins.
+&quot;I cannot understand Lato's want of taste in making so much fuss about
+that slip of a girl.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You ought to try to marry her off,&quot; sighs the Pole.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Try I try!&quot; the Countess replies, mockingly. &quot;There is nothing to be
+done with that obstinate thing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course it must be difficult; her low extraction, her lack of
+fortune,----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lack of fortune?&quot; Selina exclaims.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I thought Olga was entirely dependent upon your mother's generosity,&quot;
+Fainacky says, eagerly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not at all. My father saved a very fair sum for Olga from the remains
+of her mother's property. She has the entire control of a fortune of
+three or four hundred thousand guilders,--quite enough to make her a
+desirable match; but the girl seems to have taken it into her head that
+no one save a prince of the blood is good enough for her!&quot; And the
+Countess actually stamps her foot.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you really imagine that it is Olga's ambition alone that prevents
+her from contracting a sensible marriage?&quot; Fainacky drawls, with
+evident significance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What else should it be?&quot; Selina says, imperiously. &quot;What do you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nothing, nothing; she seems to me rather exaggerated,--overstrained.
+Let us try this duet of Boito's.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do not wish to sing any more,&quot; she replies, and leaves the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He gazes after her, lost in thought for a moment, then snaps his
+fingers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Four hundred thousand guilders--by Jove!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Whereupon he takes his seat at the piano, and improvises until far into
+the night upon the familiar air, &quot;In Ostrolenka's meads.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_33" href="#div1Ref_33">CHAPTER XXXIII.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>EARLY SUNRISE.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">It is early in the morning of the day before the famous betrothal
+festivity. The town-clock of X---- strikes three as Treurenberg, his
+bridle hanging loose, is riding along the lonely road towards
+Dobrotschau. He has passed the night with a few officers at the rooms
+of the Countess Wodin, his cousin and former flame, who &quot;threw him
+over&quot; because her views of life were more practical than his,--that is
+to say, than his were at that period; for he soon followed her example,
+and was very practical too. But it does not suit every man to be so.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The assemblage at the Countess Wodin's was unusually lively. She was
+the only lady present, with the exception of the major's wife, an
+insignificant, awkward woman, who was usually endowed with the
+Countess's cast-off gowns. A large number of men made up the
+gathering,--almost the entire corps of officers, and a couple of
+gentlemen from the neighbourhood. The time was whiled away with cards.
+At first Lato did not join the players, simply looking on at one and
+another of the tables; but by and by he took the cards for his cousin,
+who, suddenly possessed by an intense desire to dance, rose from her
+place, &quot;just to take a couple of turns around the room.&quot; She waltzed
+until she was breathless with Ensign Flammingen, Treurenberg's
+relative, who was apparently head over ears in love with her. An
+officer of dragoons meanwhile droned out the music for them upon a
+little drawing-room hand-organ. When the Countess again took her place
+at the card-table Lato had won a small fortune for her. She
+congratulated him upon his luck, and advised him to try it in his own
+behalf. He did so.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Between the games a good deal of wine had been drunk, and various
+questionable witticisms had been perpetrated. Treurenberg laughed
+louder than the rest, although all such jesting was distasteful to him,
+especially when women were present. But the Countess had expressly
+requested to be treated as a man; and the major's wife, after an
+unfortunate attempt to smoke a cigarette, had retired to a sofa in the
+adjoining room to recover from the effects of the experiment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the absence of this victim of an evil custom for which she was
+evidently unfitted, the merriment grew more and more boisterous, until
+suddenly young Flammingen, who had but a moment before been waltzing
+gaily with the hostess, fell into a most lachrymose condition. The rest
+tried, it is true, to regard it as only an additional amusement, but it
+was useless: the mirth had received a death-blow. Some one began to
+turn the hand-organ again, but without cheering results. All were
+tired. They found the air of the room suffocating; the smoke was too
+thick to see through. Then the unfortunate idea occurred to one of the
+party to open a window. The fresh air from without wafted in among the
+fumes of wine and cigar-smoke had a strange effect upon the guests:
+they suddenly fell silent, and in a very short time vanished, like
+ghosts at cock-crow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato took his leave with the rest, disappearing from his cousin's
+drawing-room with the consciousness of being a winner,--that was
+something. He rode through the quiet town, and on between the desolate
+fields of rye, where not an ear was left standing, between dark
+stretches of freshly-ploughed land, whence came the odour of the earth
+with its promise of renewed fertility. The moon was high in the
+colourless sky; along the eastern horizon there was a faint gleam
+of yellow light. The dawn enveloped all nature as in a white
+semi-transparent veil; every outline showed indistinct; the air was
+cool, and mingled with it there was a sharp breath of autumn. Here and
+there a dead leaf fell from the trees. The temperature had grown much
+cooler in the last few days; there had been violent storms in the
+vicinity, although the drought still reigned at Dobrotschau.
+Treurenberg felt weary in every limb; the hand holding the bridle
+dropped on his horse's neck. On either side stood a row of tall
+poplars; he had reached the avenue where Olga's white figure had once
+come to meet him. The castle was at hand. He shivered; a mysterious
+dread bade him turn away from it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The half-light seemed to roll away like curling smoke. Lato could
+clearly distinguish the landscape. The grass along the roadside was
+yellow and dry; blue succory bloomed everywhere among it; here and
+there a bunch of wild poppies hung drooping on their slender stalks.
+The blue flowers showed pale and sickly in the early light; the poppies
+looked almost black.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On a sudden everything underwent a change; broad shadows stretched
+across the road, and all between them glowed in magic crimson light.
+From a thousand twittering throats came greetings of the new-born day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Treurenberg looked up. Solemn and grand, in a semicircle of
+reddish-golden mist, the sun rose on the eastern horizon.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes, in a moment all was transformed,--the pale empty skies were filled
+with light and resonant inspiration, the earth was revivified.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Why languish in weary discouragement when a single moment can so
+transfigure the world? For him, too, the sun might rise, all might be
+bright within him. Then, at a sharp turn of the road, the castle of
+Dobrotschau appeared, interposing its mass between him and the sun. The
+crimson light, like a corona, played about the outlines of the castle,
+which stood out hard and dark against the flaming background.
+Treurenberg's momentary hopefulness faded at the sight,--it was folly
+to indulge in it: for him there was no sunrise; there was nothing
+before him but a dark, blank wall, shutting out light and hope, and
+against which he could but bruise and wound himself should he try to
+break through it.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_34" href="#div1Ref_34">CHAPTER XXXIV.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>STRUGGLES.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">As Lato trotted into the court-yard of the castle a window was suddenly
+closed, the window above his room,--Olga's. She had been awaiting his
+return, then. He began to shiver as in a fever-fit.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There must be an end to this,&quot; he said to himself, as he consigned his
+horse to a sleepy groom and entered the castle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His room was on the ground-floor; when he reached it he threw himself,
+still dressed, on the bed, in a state of intolerable agitation; by
+degrees he became calmer, his thoughts grew vague; without sleeping
+soundly he dreamed. He seemed to be swimming with Olga in his arms
+through a warm, fragrant lake, upon the surface of which pale
+water-lilies were floating. Suddenly these pale lilies turned to greedy
+flames, the lake glowed as with fire, and a stifling smoke filled the
+air. Lato started up, his heart beating, his brow damp with moisture.
+His fatigue tempted him to try again to rest, but he tossed about
+restlessly; thinking himself still awake, he listened to the ticking of
+his watch, and looked at Lion, who lay crouched beside his bed, when
+suddenly Olga stood there gazing at him, her eyes transfigured with
+heavenly compassion, as she murmured, &quot;Will you not share your woe with
+me?&quot; She stretched out her arms to him, he drew her towards him, his
+lips touched hers--he awoke with a cry. He rose, determined to dream no
+more, and, drawing up one of his window-shades, looked down into the
+courtyard. It was barely six o'clock. All was quiet, but for one of the
+grooms at work washing a carriage. The fountain before the St. John
+rippled and murmured; a few brown leaves floated in its basin. The
+silvery reflection from the water dazzled Lato's eyes; he turned away,
+and began slowly to pace the room. The motion seemed to increase his
+restlessness; he threw himself into an arm-chair, and took up a book.
+But he was not in a condition to read a line; before he knew it the
+volume fell from his hand, and the noise it made in falling startled
+him again. He shook his head in impatience with his nervousness; this
+state of affairs could not be longer endured, he must bring about some
+change; matters could not go on thus. He thought and thought. What
+could be patched up from the ruins of his life? He must try to stand on
+a better footing with his wife, to leave Dobrotschau as soon as
+possible. What would be his future? could he ever become reconciled to
+his existence? Oh! time was such a consoler, could adjust so much,
+perhaps it would help him to live down this misery.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then, like an honourable merchant who sees bankruptcy imminent, he
+reckoned up his few possessions. His wife had certainly loved him once
+passionately. It was long since he had recalled her former tenderness;
+he now did so distinctly. &quot;It is not possible,&quot; he thought to himself,
+&quot;that so strong a feeling can have utterly died out;&quot; the fault of
+their estrangement must be his, but it should all be different. If he
+could succeed in withdrawing her from the baleful influences that
+surrounded her, and in awakening all that was honest and true in her,
+they might help each other to support life like good friends. It was
+impossible to make their home in Vienna, where his sensitive nature was
+continually outraged and at war with her satisfied vanity. Under such
+circumstances irritation was unavoidable. But she had been wont to talk
+of buying a country-seat, and had been eloquent about, the delights of
+a country life. Yes, somewhere in the country, in a pretty, quiet home,
+forgotten by the world, they might begin life anew; here was the
+solution of the problem; this was the right thing to do! He thought of
+his dead child; perhaps God would bestow upon him another.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What would, meanwhile, become of Olga? Like a stab, the thought came
+to him that with her fate he had nothing to do. Olga would miss him,
+but in time, yes, in time she would marry some good man. He never for
+an instant admitted the idea that she could share his sinful affection.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I must let the poor girl go,&quot; he murmured to himself. &quot;I cannot help
+her; all must look out for themselves.&quot; He said this over several
+times, nervously clasping and unclasping his hands,--hands which, long,
+narrow, and white, suggested a certain graceful helplessness which is
+apt to distinguish the particularly beautiful hands of a woman. &quot;Yes,
+one must learn to control circumstances, to conquer one's self.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_35" href="#div1Ref_35">CHAPTER XXXV.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>A SLANDERER.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The others are seated at the breakfast-table when Treurenberg enters
+the dining-room, all except Fainacky, who, true to his self-imposed
+task, is still busy with the decorations of the garden-room. That
+enterprising <i>maître de plaisir</i> has a deal to do, since there is to be
+a rehearsal, as it were, in the evening of the morrow's festivities.
+Various guests from far and near are expected to admire and to enhance
+this prelude of coming glories.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A seat beside Selina is empty. Lato goes directly towards it. Nothing
+about him betrays his inward agitation or the sleeplessness of the past
+night. Rather pale, but refreshed by a long walk, and dressed with
+exquisite care, he looks so distinguished and handsome in his light
+summer array, that Selina is struck by his appearance. He has a rose in
+his hand, and as, bending over his wife, he places it among her curls,
+and then kisses her hand by way of morning greeting, she receives him
+quite graciously. She is inclined to be proud to-day of her
+aristocratic possession, which she is shortly to have an opportunity of
+displaying before so many less-favoured friends. Half returning the
+pressure of his hand, she says, &quot;To what do I owe these conjugal
+attentions?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The anniversary of our betrothal, Selina,&quot; he says, in the
+half-jesting tone in which married people of a certain social standing
+are wont to allude before witnesses to matters of sentiment, and then
+he takes his seat beside her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;True, our anniversary!&quot; she rejoins, in the same tone, evidently
+flattered. &quot;And you remembered it? As a reward, Lato, I will butter
+your toast for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here the Pole comes tripping into the room. &quot;<i>Changement de
+décoration</i>. You have taken my place to-day, Treurenberg,&quot; he says, not
+without irritation. &quot;Since when have modern couples been in the habit
+of sitting beside each other?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is permitted now and then <i>en famille</i>,&quot; Selina informs him,
+placing before Lato the toast she has just prepared for him. She
+glances at Fainacky, and instantly averts her eyes. For the first time
+it occurs to her to compare this affected trifler with her husband, and
+the comparison is sadly to Fainacky's disadvantage. The petty
+elegancies of his dress and air strike her as ridiculous. He divines
+something of this, and it enrages him. He cares not the slightest for
+Selina, but, since their late encounter in the park, he has most
+cordially hated Lato, whom he did not like before. The friendly
+demeanour of the pair towards each other this morning vexes him
+intensely; he sees that his attempt to cast suspicion upon Lato has
+failed with Selina; nay, it has apparently only fanned the flame of a
+desire to attract her husband. It irritates him; he would be devoured
+by envy should a complete reconciliation between the two be
+established, and he be obliged to look on while Lato again entered into
+the full enjoyment of his wife's millions. He takes the only vacant
+place, and looks about him for somewhat wherewith to interrupt this
+mood upon the part of the pair. Finally his glance rests upon Olga, who
+sits opposite him, crumbling a piece of biscuit on her plate.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No appetite yet, Fräulein Olga?&quot; he asks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Olga starts slightly, and lifts her teacup to her lips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you not think that Fräulein Olga has been looking ill lately?&quot; The
+Pole directs this question to all present.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Every one looks at Olga, and Fainacky gloats over the girl's confusion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Treurenberg looks also, and is startled by her pallor. &quot;Yes, my poor
+child, you certainly are below par,&quot; he says, with difficulty
+controlling his voice. &quot;Something must be done for your health.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Change of air is best in such cases,&quot; observes the Pole.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So I think,&quot; says Treurenberg; and, finding that he has himself better
+in hand than he had thought possible awhile ago, he adds, turning to
+his mother-in-law, &quot;I think, when everything here is settled after the
+old fashion----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;After the new fashion, you mean,&quot; Paula interposes, with a languishing
+air.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, when all the bustle is over,&quot; Treurenberg begins afresh, in some
+embarrassment this time, for his conscience pricks him sorely whenever
+Paula alludes to her betrothal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I understand, after my marriage,&quot; she again interposes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;About the beginning of November,&quot; Treurenberg meekly rejoins, again
+addressing his mother-in-law, &quot;you might take Olga to the south. A
+winter in Nice would benefit both of you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Tiens! c'est une idée</i>,&quot; Selina remarks. &quot;Such quantities of people
+whom we know are going to winter in Nice this year. Not a bad plan,
+Lato. Yes, we might spend a couple of months very pleasantly in Nice.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, I have other plans for ourselves, Lina,&quot; Treurenberg says,
+hastily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, I begin to understand,&quot; Frau von Harfink observes: &quot;we are
+to be got out of the way, Olga, you and I.&quot; And she smiles after a
+bitter-sweet fashion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, Baroness!&quot; Lato exclaims.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You entirely misunderstand him, Baroness,&quot; Fainacky interposes: &quot;he
+was only anxious for Fräulein Olga's health; and with reason: her want
+of appetite is alarming.&quot; Again he succeeds in attracting every one's
+attention to the girl, who is vainly endeavouring to swallow her
+breakfast.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I cannot imagine what ails you,&quot; Paula exclaims, in all the pride of
+her position as a betrothed maiden. &quot;If I knew of any object for your
+preference, I should say you were in love.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Such suppositions are not permitted to the masculine intelligence,&quot;
+the Pole observes, twirling his moustache and smiling significantly,
+his long, pointed nose drooping most disagreeably over his upper lip.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Olga trembles from head to foot; for his life Lato cannot help trying
+to relieve the poor child's embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nonsense!&quot; he exclaims; &quot;she is only a little exhausted by the heat,
+and rather nervous, that is all! But you must really try to eat
+something;&quot; and he hands her a plate. Her hand trembles so as she takes
+it that she nearly lets it fall.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau von Harfink frowns, but says nothing, for at the moment a servant
+enters with a letter for Treurenberg. The man who brought it is waiting
+for an answer. Lato hastily opens the missive, which is addressed in a
+sprawling, boyish hand, and, upon reading it, changes colour and
+hastily leaves the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;From whom can it be?&quot; Selina soliloquizes, aloud.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;H'm!&quot; the Pole drums lightly with his fingers on the table, with the
+air of a man who knows more than he chooses to tell. A little while
+afterwards he is left alone with Selina in the dining-room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have you any idea of whom the letter was from?&quot; the Countess asks him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not the least,&quot; he replies, buttoning his morning coat to the throat,
+an action which always in his case betokens the possession of some
+important secret.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Will you be kind enough to inform me of what you are thinking?&quot; Selina
+says, imperiously, and not without a certain sharpness of tone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are aware, Countess, that ordinarily your wish is law for me,&quot; the
+Pole replies, with dignity, &quot;but in this case it is unfortunately
+impossible for me to comply with your request.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Because you might be offended by my communication, and it would be
+terrible for me were I to displease you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tell me!&quot; the Countess commands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If it must be, then----&quot; He shrugs his shoulders as if to disclaim any
+responsibility in the matter, and, stroking his moustache affectedly,
+continues: &quot;I am convinced that the letter in question has to do with
+Treurenberg's pecuniary embarrassments,--<i>voilà</i>!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pecuniary embarrassments!&quot; exclaims the Countess, with irritation.
+&quot;How should my husband have any such?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She is vexed with the Pole, whose affectations begin to weary her, and
+she is strangely inclined to defend her husband. Her old tenderness for
+him seems to stir afresh within her. Fainacky perceives that his game
+to-day will not be easily won; nevertheless he persists.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then you are ignorant of the debts he contracts?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you have nothing more probable to tell me, you need trouble
+yourself no further,&quot; the Countess angrily declares.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pardon me, Countess,&quot; the Pole rejoins, &quot;I should not have told you
+anything of the kind were I not sure of my facts. Treurenberg has
+accidentally had resort to the same usurer that transacts my little
+affairs. For, I make no secret of it, I have debts, a necessary evil
+for a single man of rank. Good heavens! we gentlemen nowadays----&quot; he
+waves his hand grandiloquently. &quot;Yet, I assure you, my friendship with
+Abraham Goldstein is a luxury which I would gladly deny myself. I pay
+four per----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I take not the slightest interest in the percentage you pay,&quot;
+interposes Selina, &quot;but I cannot understand how you venture to repeat
+to me a piece of gossip so manifestly false.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her manner irritates him extremely, principally because it shows him
+that he stands by no means so high in her favour as he had supposed.
+The fair friendship, founded upon flattery, or at least upon mutual
+consideration for personal vanity, is in danger of a breach. Fainacky
+is consumed by a desire to irritate still further this insulting woman,
+and to do Treurenberg an injury.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Indeed!--a manifestly false piece of gossip?&quot; he drawls,
+contemptuously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, nothing else,&quot; she declares; &quot;apart from the fact that my
+husband has personal control of a considerable income,--my father made
+sure of that before he gave his consent to my marriage; he never
+would have welcomed as a son-in-law an aristocrat without independent
+means,--apart from this fact, of course my money is at his disposal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Indeed! really? I thought you kept separate purses!&quot; says the Pole,
+now--thanks to his irritation--giving free rein to his impertinence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Selina bites her lips and is silent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile, Fainacky continues: &quot;I can only say that my information as
+to Treurenberg's financial condition comes from the most trustworthy
+source, from Abraham himself. That indiscreet confidant informed
+me one day that the husband of 'the rich Harfink'--that was his
+expression--owed him money. The circumstance seemed to gratify his
+sense of humour. He has a fine sense of humour, the old rascal!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I cannot understand--it is impossible. Lato cannot have so far
+forgotten himself!&quot; exclaims the Countess, pale and breathless from
+agitation. &quot;Moreover, his personal requirements are of the fewest. He
+is no spendthrift.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; says the Pole, with an ugly smile, &quot;he is no spendthrift, but he
+is a gambler! You may perhaps be aware of this, Countess, ignorant as
+you seem to be of your husband's private affairs?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A gambler!&quot; she breaks forth. &quot;You are fond of big words, apparently.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And you, apparently, have a truly feminine antipathy to the truth. Is
+it possible that you are not aware that even as a young man Treurenberg
+was a notorious gambler?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Since his marriage he has given up play.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Indeed? And what carries him to X---- day after day? How does he pass
+his mornings there? At cards!&quot; Selina tries to speak, but words fail
+her, and the Pole continues, exultantly, &quot;Yes, he plays, and his
+resources are exhausted,--and so is Abraham Goldstein's patience,--so
+he has taken to borrowing of his friends, as I happen to know; and if I
+am not vastly mistaken, Countess, one of these days he will swallow
+his hidalgo pride and cry <i>peccavi</i> to you, turning to you to relieve
+his financial embarrassments; and if I were you I would not repulse
+him,--no, by heaven! not just now. You must do all that you can to keep
+your hold upon him just at this time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And why just at this time?&quot; she asks, hoarsely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why?&quot; He laughs. &quot;Have you no eyes? Were my hints, my warnings, the
+other evening, not sufficiently clear?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What do you mean? What do you presume to----&quot; Selina's dry lips refuse
+to obey her; the hints which had lately glanced aside from her armour
+of self-confidence now go to the very core,--not of her heart, but of
+her vanity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Drawing a deep breath, she recovers her voice, and goes on, angrily:
+&quot;Are you insane enough to imagine that Lato could be seriously
+attracted for one moment by that school-girl? The idea is absurd, I
+could not entertain it for an instant. I have neglected Lato, it is
+true, but I need only lift my finger----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have said nothing,&quot; the Pole whines, repentantly,--&quot;nothing in the
+world. For heaven's sake do not be so angry! Nothing has occurred, but
+Treurenberg has no tact, and Olga is the daughter of a play-actor, and
+also, as you must admit, and as every one can see, desperately in love
+with Lato. All I do is to point out the danger to you. Treat
+Treurenberg with caution, and then----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hush! Go!&quot; she gasps.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He rises and leaves the room, turning in the doorway to say, with a
+voice and gesture that would have won renown for the hero of a
+provincial theatre at the end of his fourth act, &quot;Selina, I have ruined
+myself with you, I have thrown away your friendship, but I have perhaps
+saved your existence from shipwreck!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Whereupon he closes the door and betakes himself to the garden-room to
+have a last look at the decorations there. He does not think it worth
+while to carry thither his heroic air of self-sacrifice; on the
+contrary, as he gives an order to the upholsterer, a triumphant smile
+hovers upon his lips. &quot;It will surprise me if Treurenberg now succeeds
+in arranging his affairs in that quarter,&quot; he thinks to himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile, Selina is left to herself. She does not suffer from wounded
+affection; no, her heart is untouched by what she has just heard. But
+memory, rudely awakened, recalls to her a hundred little occurrences
+all pointing in the same direction, and she trembles with rage at the
+idea that any one--that her own husband--should prefer that simpleton
+of a girl to her own acknowledged beauty.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_36" href="#div1Ref_36">CHAPTER XXXVI.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>FAILURE.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The clever Pole had, however, been quite mistaken as to the contents of
+Lato's letter. Abraham Goldstein's patience with the husband of the
+&quot;rich Harfink&quot; was not exhausted,--it was, in fact, inexhaustible; and
+if, nevertheless, the letter brought home to Lato the sense of his
+pecuniary embarrassments, it was because a young, inexperienced friend,
+whom he would gladly have helped had it been possible, had appealed to
+him in mortal distress. His young cousin Flammingen was the writer of
+the letter, in which he confessed having lost at play, and entreated
+Lato to lend him three thousand guilders. To the poor boy this sum
+appeared immense; it seemed but a trifle to the husband of the &quot;rich
+Harfink,&quot; but nevertheless it was a trifle which there would be
+great difficulty in procuring. And the lad wanted the money within
+twenty-four hours, to discharge gambling-debts,--debts of honour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Treurenberg had once, when a young man, been in a like situation, and
+had been frightfully near vindicating his honour by a bullet through
+his brains. He was sorry for the young fellow, and, although his misery
+was good for him, he must be relieved. How? Lato turned his pockets
+inside out, and the most he could scrape together was twelve hundred
+guilders. This sum he enclosed in a short note, in which he told
+Flammingen that he hoped to send him the rest in the course of the
+afternoon, and despatched the waiting messenger with this consolation.
+His cousin's trouble made him cease for a while to ponder upon his own.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Although he could not have brought himself to apply to his wife for
+relief in his own affairs, it seemed to him comparatively easy to
+appeal to her for another. He did not for an instant doubt that she
+would comply with his request. She was not parsimonious, but hard, and
+he could endure that for another's sake. He went twice to her room, in
+hopes of finding her there, but she was still in the dining-room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He frowned when her maid told him this, and, lighting a cigar, he went
+down into the garden, annoyed at the necessity of postponing his
+interview with his wife.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile, Olga, out of spirits and unoccupied, had betaken herself to
+the library. All day she had felt as if she had lost something; she
+could not have told what ailed her. She took up a book to amuse
+herself; by chance it was the very novel of Turgenieff's which she had
+been about to read, seated in the old boat, when Fainacky had intruded
+upon her. She had left the volume in the park, whence it had been
+brought back to her by the gardener. She turned over the leaves, at
+first listlessly, then a phrase caught her eye,--she began to read. Her
+interest increased from chapter to chapter; she devoured the words. Her
+breath came quickly, her cheeks burned. She read on to where the hero,
+in an access of anger, strikes Zenaide on her white arm with his
+riding-whip, and she calmly kisses the crimson welt made by the lash.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There the book fell from the girl's hand; she felt no indignation at
+Zenaide's guilty passion, no horror of the cruel rage of the hero; no,
+she was conscious only of a kind of fierce envy of Zenaide, who could
+thus forgive. On the instant there awoke within her a passionate
+longing for a love which could thus triumph over all disgrace, all ill
+usage, and bear one exultantly to its heaven!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had become so absorbed in the book as to be insensible to what was
+going on around her. Now she started, and shrank involuntarily. A step
+advanced along the corridor; she heard a door open and shut,--the door
+of Selina's dressing-room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who is there?&quot; Selina's voice exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I.&quot; It was Treurenberg who replied.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Selina's dressing-room was separated by only a partition-wall from the
+library.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">It was well-nigh noon, and Selina's maid was dressing her mistress's
+hair, when Treurenberg entered his wife's dressing-room for the first
+time for years without knocking. She had done her best to recover from
+the agitation caused her by Fainacky's words, had taken a bath, and had
+then rested for half an hour. Guests were expected in the afternoon,
+and she must impress them with her beauty, and must outshine the pale
+girl whom Lato had the bad taste to admire. When Treurenberg entered
+she was sitting before the mirror in a long, white peignoir, while her
+maid was brushing her hair, still long and abundant, reddish-golden in
+colour. Her arms gleamed full and white from out the wide sleeves of
+her peignoir.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who is it?&quot; she asked, impatiently, hearing some one enter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Only I,&quot; he replied, gently.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Why does the tone of his soft, melodious voice so affect her to-day?
+Why, in spite of herself, does Lato seem more attractive to her than he
+has done for years? She is irritated by the contradictory nature of her
+feelings.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What do you want?&quot; she asks, brusquely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To speak with you,&quot; he replies, in French. &quot;Send away your maid.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Instead of complying, Selina orders the girl, &quot;Brush harder: you make
+me nervous with such half-work.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Treurenberg frowns impatiently, and then quietly sends the maid from
+the room himself. Selina makes no attempt to detain her,--under the
+circumstances it would be scarcely possible for her to do so,--but
+hardly has the door closed behind Josephine, when she turns upon Lato
+with flashing eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why do you send away my servants against my express wish?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I told you just now that I want to speak with you,&quot; he replies, with
+more firmness than he has ever hitherto displayed towards her,--the
+firmness of very weak men in mortal peril or moral desperation. &quot;What I
+have to say requires no witnesses and can bear no delay.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Go on, then.&quot; She folds her arms. &quot;What do you want?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He has seated himself astride of a chair near her, and, with his arms
+resting on the low back and his chin in his hands, he gazes at her
+earnestly. Why do his attitude and his way of looking at her remind her
+so forcibly of the early time of their married life? Then he often used
+to sit thus and look on while she arranged her magnificent hair
+herself, for then--ah, then----! But she thrusts aside all such
+reflections. Why waste tenderness upon a man who is not ashamed to--who
+has so little taste as to----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What do you want?&quot; she asks, more crossly than before.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;First of all, your sympathy,&quot; he replies, gravely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, indeed! is this what you had to tell me that could bear no delay?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He moves his chair a little nearer to her. &quot;Lina,&quot; he murmurs, &quot;we have
+become very much estranged of late.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Whose fault is it?&quot; she asks, dryly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Partly mine,&quot; he sadly confesses.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Only partly?&quot; she replies, sharply. &quot;That is a matter of opinion. The
+other way of stating it is that you neglected me and I put up with it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I left you to yourself, because--because I thought I wearied you,&quot; he
+stammers, conscious that he is not telling quite the truth, knowing
+that he had hailed the first symptoms of her indifference as a relief.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It certainly is true that I have not grieved myself to death over your
+neglect. It was not my way to sue humbly for your favour. But let that
+go; let us speak of real things, of the matter which will not bear
+delay.&quot; She smiles contemptuously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;True,&quot; he replies; &quot;I had forgotten it in my own personal affairs. I
+wanted to ask a favour of you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah!&quot; she interposes; and he goes on: &quot;It happens that I have no ready
+money just now; what I have, at least, does not suffice. Will you
+advance me some?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She drums exultantly upon her dressing-table, loaded with its apparatus
+of glass and silver. &quot;I would have wagered that we should come to this.
+H'm! how much do you want?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Eighteen hundred guilders.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And do you consider that a trifle?&quot; she exclaims, provokingly. &quot;If I
+remember rightly, it amounts to the entire year's pay of a captain in
+the army. And you want the money to--discharge a gambling-debt, do you
+not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not my own,&quot; he says, hoarsely. &quot;God knows, I would rather put a
+bullet through my brains than ask you for money!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's very easily said,&quot; she rejoins, coldly. &quot;I am glad, however, to
+have you assure me that you do not want the money for yourself. To pay
+your debts, for the honour of the name which I bear, I should have made
+any sacrifice, but I have no idea of supporting the extravagancies of
+the garrison at X----.&quot; And Selina begins to trim her nails with a
+glittering little pair of scissors.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, Selina, you have no idea of the facts of the case!&quot; Treurenberg
+exclaims. He has risen, and he takes the scissors from her and tosses
+them aside impatiently. &quot;Women can hardly understand the importance of
+a gambling-debt. A life hangs upon its payment,--the life of a
+promising young fellow, who, if no help is vouchsafed him, must choose
+between disgrace and death. Suppose I should tell you tomorrow that he
+had shot himself,--what then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He will not shoot himself,&quot; she says, calmly. &quot;Moreover, it was a
+principle with my father never to comply with the request of any one
+who threatened suicide; and I agree with him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are right in general; but this is an exception. This poor boy is
+not yet nineteen,--a child, unaccustomed to be left to himself, who has
+lost his head. What if you are right, and he cannot find the courage to
+put an end to himself,--the hand of a lad of eighteen who has condemned
+himself to death may well falter,--what then? Disgrace, for him, for
+his family; dismissal from the army; a degraded life. Have pity,
+Selina, for heaven's sake!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He pleads desperately, but he might as well appeal to a wooden doll,
+for all the impression his words make upon her, and at last he pauses,
+breathless with agitation. Selina, tossing her head and with a scornful
+air, says, &quot;I have little sympathy for young good-for-naughts; it lies
+in the nature of things that they should bear the consequences of their
+actions; it is no affair of mine. I might, indeed, ask how it happens
+that you take such an interest in this case, did I not know that you
+have good reason to do so,--you are a gambler yourself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Treurenberg starts and gazes at her in dismay. &quot;A gambler! What
+can make you think so? I often play to distract my mind, but a
+gambler!--'tis a harsh word. I am not aware that you have ever had to
+suffer from my love for cards.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No; your friendship with Abraham Goldstein stands you in stead. You
+have spared me, if it can be called sparing a woman to cause her
+innocently to incur the reputation for intense miserliness!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There is some truth in her words, some justice in her indignation. Lato
+casts down his eyes. Suddenly an idea occurs to him. &quot;Fainacky has told
+you, then, of my relations with Abraham Goldstein?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah!&quot; he exclaims; &quot;I now understand the change in you. For heaven's
+sake, do not allow yourself to be influenced by that shallow, malicious
+coxcomb!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do not allow myself to be influenced by him,&quot; the Countess replies;
+&quot;but his information produced an impression upon me, for it was, since
+you do not deny it, correct. You are a gambler; you borrow money at a
+high rate of percentage from a usurer, because you are too arrogant or
+too obstinate to tell me of your debts. Is this not so?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Treurenberg has gone towards the door, when he suddenly pauses and
+collects himself. He will make one more attempt to be reconciled with
+his wife, and it shall be the last. He turns towards her again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; he admits, &quot;I have treated you inconsiderately, and your
+wounding of my pride, perhaps unintentionally, does not excuse me. I
+have been wrong,--I have neglected you. I play,--yes, Selina, I
+play,--I seek the society of strangers, but only because I am far, far
+more of a stranger at home. Selina,&quot; he goes on, carried away by his
+emotion, and in a voice which expresses his utter misery, &quot;I cannot
+reconcile myself to life amid your surroundings; call it want of
+character, weakness, sensitiveness, as you please, but I cannot. Come
+away with me; let us retire to any secluded corner of the earth, and I
+will make it a paradise for you by my gratitude and devotion; I will
+serve you on my knees; my life shall be yours, only come away with me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Poor Lato! he has wrought his own ruin. Why does he not understand that
+every word he speaks wounds the most sensitive part of her,--her
+vanity?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You would withdraw me from my surroundings? And, pray, what society do
+you offer me in exchange?&quot; she asks, bitterly. &quot;My acquaintances are
+not good enough for you; I am not good enough for the atmosphere in
+which you used to live.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He sees his error, perceives that he has offended her, and it pains
+him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Selina,&quot; he says, softly, &quot;there shall be no lack of good friends for
+you at my side; and then, after all, what need have we of other people?
+Can we not find our happiness in each other? What if God should bless
+us with an angel like the one He has taken from us?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He kneels beside her and kisses her hand, but she withdraws it hastily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do not touch me!&quot; she exclaims; &quot;I am not Olga!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He starts to his feet as if stung by a serpent. &quot;What do you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What I say.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do not understand you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hypocrite!&quot; she gasps, her jealousy gaining absolute mastery of her;
+&quot;I am not blind; do you suppose I do not know upon whom you lavish kind
+words and caresses every day, which fall to my share only when you want
+some favour of me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It seems to him that he hears the rustle of feminine garments in the
+next room. &quot;For God's sake, Selina, not so loud,&quot; he whispers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! your first emotion is dread of injuring her; all else is
+indifferent to you. It does not even occur to you to repel my
+accusation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Accusation?&quot; he murmurs, hopelessly. &quot;I do not yet understand of what
+you accuse me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of your relations with that creature before my very eyes!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Transported with indignation at these words, he lifts his hand,
+possessed by a mad impulse to strike her, but he controls himself so
+far as only to grasp her by the arm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Creature!&quot; he exclaims, furiously. &quot;Creature! Are you mad? Olga!--why,
+Olga is pure as an angel, more spotless than a snowflake before it has
+touched the earth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have no faith in such purity. If she has not actually fallen, her
+passion is plainly shown in her eyes. But there shall be no open
+scandal,--she must go. I will not have her in the house,--she must go!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She must go!&quot; Treurenberg repeats, in horror. &quot;You would turn her out
+of doors,--a young, inexperienced, beautiful girl? Selina, I will go,
+and the sooner the better for all I care, but she must stay.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How you love her!&quot; sneers the Countess.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a moment there is silence in the room. Lato gazes at his wife as if
+she were something strange which he had never seen before,--gazes at
+her in amazement mingled with horror. His patience is at an end; he
+forgets everything in the wild desire to break asunder the fetters
+which have bound him for so long, to be rid of the self-control which
+has so tortured him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; he says, raising his voice, &quot;I love her,--love her intensely,
+unutterably; but this is the first time that I have admitted it even to
+myself, and you have brought me to do so. I have struggled against this
+passion night and day, have denied its existence, have done all that I
+could to stifle it, and I have tried to the utmost to be reconciled
+with you, to begin with you a new life in which I could hope to forget
+her. How you have seconded me you know. Of one thing, however, I can
+assure you,--the last word has been uttered between you and myself; it
+would not avail you now though you should sue for a reconciliation on
+your knees. A woman without tenderness or compassion I abhor. I have a
+horror of you!&quot; He turns sway, and the door closes behind him.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where is the Count?&quot; Frau von Harfink asks a servant, at lunch, where
+Treurenberg's place is vacant.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Herr Count had his horse saddled some time ago,&quot; the man replies,
+&quot;and left word that he should not be here at lunch, since he had urgent
+business in X----.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Indeed!&quot; the hostess says, indifferently, without expending another
+thought upon her son-in-law. She never suspects that within the last
+few hours, beneath her roof, the ruin has been completed of a human
+existence long since undermined.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lunch goes on,--a hurried meal, at which it is evident that the
+household is in a state of preparation for coming festivities; a meal
+at which cold dishes are served, because the entire culinary force is
+absorbed in elaborating the grand dinner for the evening; a lunch at
+which no one talks, because each is too much occupied with his or her
+own thoughts to desire to inquire into those of the others.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau von Harfink mentally recapitulates the evening's <i>menu</i>, wondering
+if nothing can be added to it to reflect splendour upon the Harfink
+establishment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Paula's reveries are of her coming bliss; her usually robust appetite
+is scarcely up to the mark. In short, the only one who seems to eat
+with the customary relish is the Pole, who, very temperate in drinking
+and smoking, is always ready for a banquet. He is also the only one who
+notices the want of appetite in the rest. He does not waste his
+interest, however, upon the Baroness or Paula, but devotes his
+attention exclusively to Selina and Olga.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Countess is evidently in a very agitated state of mind, and,
+strange to relate of so self-satisfied a person, she is clearly
+discontented with herself and her surroundings. When her mother asks
+her whether two soups had better be served at dinner, or, since it is
+but a small family affair, only one, she replies that it is a matter of
+supreme indifference to her, and will certainly be the same to the
+guests, adding,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The people who are coming will probably have some appetite; mine was
+spoiled some days ago by the mere <i>menu</i>, which I have been obliged to
+swallow every day for the last fortnight.&quot; These are the only words
+spoken by her during the entire meal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Pole finds her mood tolerably comprehensible. She has had a scene
+with Treurenberg, and has gone too far,--that is what is annoying her
+at present. But Olga's mood puzzles him completely. The depression
+she has manifested of late has entirely vanished, she holds her head
+erect, her movements are easy, and there is a gleam in her eyes of
+transfiguring happiness, something like holy exultation.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_37" href="#div1Ref_37">CHAPTER XXXVII.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>A VISIT.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile, Treurenberg is riding along the road to X----.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The landscape is dreary. Autumn is creeping over the fields, vainly
+seeking the summer, seeking luxuriant life to kill, or exquisite beauty
+to destroy. In vain; the same withering drought rests upon everything
+like a curse, and in the midst of the brown monotony bloom succory and
+field-poppies.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Treurenberg gazes to the right and left without really seeing anything.
+His eyes have a glassy, fixed look, and about his mouth there is a hard
+expression, almost wicked, and quite foreign to him. He is not the same
+man who an hour ago sought his wife to entreat her to begin a new life
+with him; not the same man who at dawn was so restless in devising
+schemes for a better future.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His restlessness has vanished with his last gleam of hope; sensation is
+benumbed, the burning pain has gone. Something has died within him. He
+no longer reflects upon his life,--it is ended; he has drawn a black
+line through it. All that he is conscious of is intense, paralyzing
+weariness, the same that had overcome him in the early morning, only
+more crushing. After the scene with his wife he had been assailed by a
+terrible languor, an almost irresistible desire to lie down and close
+his eyes, but he could not yield to it, he had something to do. That
+poor lad must be rescued; the suffering the boy was enduring was
+wholesome, but he must be saved.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fainacky's assertion that Treurenberg was in the habit of borrowing
+from his friends had been a pure fabrication; he had borrowed money of
+no one save of Harry, with whom he had been upon the footing of a
+brother from early boyhood, and of Abraham Goldstein, upon whose
+secrecy he had supposed he could rely. It would have wounded him to
+speak to any stranger of the painful circumstances of his married life.
+Now all this was past; Selina could thank herself that it was so. He
+could not let the boy go to ruin, and, since Selina would not take pity
+upon him, he must turn to some one else; there was no help for it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a moment he thought of Harry; but he reflected that Harry could
+hardly have so large a sum of ready money by him, and, as time was an
+important item in the affair, there was nothing for it but to apply for
+aid to Wodin, the husband of his cousin and former flame.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The trees grow scantier, their foliage rustier, and the number of
+ragged children on the highway greater. Now and then some young women
+are to be seen walking along the road, usually in couples, rather oddly
+dressed, evidently after the plates in the journals of fashion, and
+with an air of affectation. Then come a couple of low houses with
+blackened roofs reaching almost to the ground, manure-heaps, grunting
+swine wallowing in slimy green pools, hedges where pieces of linen are
+drying, gnarled fruit-trees smothered in dust, an inn, a carters'
+tavern, with a red crab painted above the door-way, whence issues the
+noise of drunken quarrelling, then a white wall with some trees showing
+above it, the town-park of X----. Lato has reached his goal. On the
+square before the barracks he halts. A corporal takes charge of his
+horse, and he hurries up the broad, dirty steps, along the still
+dirtier and ill-smelling corridor, where he encounters dragoons in
+spurs and clattering sabres, where the officers' overworked servants
+are brushing their masters' coats and their mistresses' habits, to the
+colonel's quarters, quarters the luxurious arrangement of which is in
+striking contrast to the passages by which they are reached. Count
+Wodin is not at home, but is expected shortly; the Countess, through a
+servant, begs Lato to await him. He resolves to do so, and pays his
+respects meanwhile to his cousin, whom he finds in a spacious, rather
+low-ceilinged apartment, half smoking-room, half drawing-room,
+furnished with divans covered with Oriental stuff's, pretty buhl chairs
+and tables, and Japanese cabinets crowded to excess with all sorts of
+rare porcelain. An upright piano stands against the wall between two
+windows; above it hangs a miniature gondola, and beside it, on the
+floor, is a palm in a huge copper jar evidently procured from some
+Venetian water-carrier. Two china pugs, the size of life, looking like
+degenerate chimeras, gnash their teeth at all intruders in life-like
+hideousness. The door-ways are draped with Eastern rugs; the walls are
+covered with a dark paper, and two or three English engravings
+representing hunting-scenes hang upon them. In the midst of these
+studies in black and white hangs a small copy of Titian's Venus.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The entire arrangement of the room betrays a mingling of vulgarity and
+refinement, of artistic taste and utter lack of it; and in the midst of
+it all the Countess reclines on a lounge, dressed in a very long and
+very rumpled morning-gown, much trimmed with yellowish Valenciennes
+lace. Her hair is knotted up carelessly; she looks out of humour, and
+is busy rummaging among a quantity of photographs. She is alone, but
+from the adjoining room come the sound of voices, as Treurenberg
+enters, and the rattle of bézique-counters.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Countess gives him her hand, presses his very cordially, and says,
+in a weary, drawling tone, &quot;How are you after yesterday, Lato?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;After what?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, our little orgie. It gave me a headache.&quot; She passes her hand
+across her forehead. &quot;How badly the air tastes! Could you not open
+another window, Lato?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They are all open,&quot; he says, looking round the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! You have poisoned the atmosphere with your wine, your cigars, your
+gambling excitement. I taste the day after a debauch, in the air.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He nods absently.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I admire people who never suffer the day after,&quot; she sighs, and waves
+her hand towards the door of the next room, through which comes a
+cheerful murmur of voices. Lato moves his head a little, and can see
+through the same door a curious couple,--the major's wife, stout,
+red-cheeked, her hair parted boldly on one side, and dressed in an old
+gown, enlarged at every seam, of the Countess's, while opposite her
+sits a young man in civilian's clothes, pale, coughing from time to
+time, his face long and far from handsome, but aristocratic in type,
+his chest narrow, and his waistcoat buttoned to the throat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your brother,&quot; Lato remarks, turning to the Countess.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; she rejoins, &quot;my brother, and my certificate of respectability,
+which is well, for there is need of it. <i>À propos</i>, do you know that in
+the matter of feminine companionship I am reduced to that stout Liese?&quot;
+The Countess laughs unpleasantly. &quot;I have tried every day to bring
+myself to the point of returning your wife's call. I do not know why I
+have not done so. But the ladies at Dobrotschau are really very
+amiable,--uncommonly amiable,--they have invited me to the betrothal
+<i>fête</i> in spite of my incivility. <i>À propos</i>, Lato, will any one be
+there,--any one whom one knows?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have had nothing to do with the list of guests,&quot; he murmurs,
+listening for Wodin's step outside.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I should like to know. It would be unpleasant to meet any of my
+acquaintances,--they treat me so strangely. You know how it is.&quot; Again
+she laughs in the same unpleasant way. &quot;But if I could be sure of
+meeting no one I would go to your <i>fête</i>, I have a new gown from Worth:
+I should like to display it somewhere; dragging my trains through these
+smoky rooms becomes monotonous after a while. I think I will come.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The voices in the next room sound louder, and there is a burst of
+hearty laughter. Lato can see the major's wife slap her forehead in
+mock despair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Easily entertained,&quot; the Countess says, crossly. &quot;They are playing
+bézique for raisins. It makes a change for my brother; his physician
+has sent him to the country for the benefit of the air and a regular
+mode of life. He has come to the right place, eh?&quot; Again she laughs;
+her breath fails her; she closes her eyes and leans back, white as a
+corpse.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato shudders at the sight, he could hardly have told why. His youth
+rises up before him. There was a time when he loved that woman with
+enthusiasm, with self-devotion. That woman! He scans her now with a
+kind of curiosity. She is still beautiful, but the wan face has fallen
+away, the complexion all that can be seen of it beneath its coating of
+violet powder--is faded, the delicate nose is too thick at the tip, the
+nostrils are slightly reddened, the small mouth is constantly distorted
+in an affected smile, the arms from which the wide sleeves of the
+morning-gown have fallen back are thin, and the nails upon the long,
+slender hands remind one of claws. Even the white gown looks faded,
+crushed, as by the constant nervous movement of a restless,
+discontented wearer. Her entire personality is constrained, feverish.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Involuntarily Lato compares this woman with Olga. He sees with his
+mind's eye the young girl, tall and slender as a lily, her white gowns
+always so pure and fresh, sees the delicately-rounded oval of her
+girlish face, her clear, large eyes, the innocent tenderness of her
+smile. And Selina could malign that same Olga! His blood boils. As if
+Olga were to blame for the wretched, guilty passion in his breast! His
+thoughts are far away from his present surroundings.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Seven thousand five hundred,&quot; the triumphant voice of the major's wife
+calls out in the next room. &quot;If this goes on, Count Franz, I shall soon
+stop playing for raisins! Ah!&quot; as, turning her head, she perceives
+Treurenberg; &quot;you have a visitor, Lori.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; Countess Lori replies, &quot;but do not disturb yourselves, nor us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The rattle of the counters continues.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I must speak with your husband,&quot; Lato says presently; &quot;if you know
+where he is----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He will be here in ten minutes; you need have no fear, he is never
+late,&quot; Lori says. &quot;<i>À propos</i>, do you know what I was doing when you
+came in? Sorting my old photographs.&quot; She hands him a picture from the
+pile beside her. &quot;That is how I looked when you fell in love with me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He gazes, not without interest, at the pale little picture, which
+represents a tall, slender, and yet well-developed young girl with
+delicate, exquisitely lovely features, and with eyes, full of gentle
+kindliness, looking out curiously, as it were, into the world from
+beneath their arched eyebrows. An old dream floats through the wretched
+man's mind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It was very like,&quot; he says.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Was it not? I was a comical-looking thing then, and how badly dressed!
+Look at those big sleeves and the odd skirt. It was a gown of my elder
+sister's made over. Good heavens! that gown had a part in my resolve to
+throw you over. Do you remember?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Lori.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Only faintly, I think,&quot; she laughs. &quot;And yet you seemed to take it
+sadly to heart then. I was greatly agitated myself. But what else was
+to be done? I was tired of wearing my sister's old gowns. Youth longs
+for splendour; it is one of its diseases, and when it has it--pshaw!
+you need not look so, Lato: I have no intention of throwing myself at
+your head. I know that old tale is told for both of us. And we never
+were suited for each other. It was well that I did not marry you, but,
+good heavens, I might have waited for some one else! It need not have
+been just that one--that----&quot; with a hasty gesture of disgust she
+tosses aside a photograph of Count Wodin which she has just drawn from
+the heap. &quot;What would you have? If a tolerably presentable man appears,
+and one knows that he can buy one as many gowns, diamonds, and horses
+as one wants, why, one forgets everything else and accepts him. What
+ideas of marriage one has at seventeen! And our parents take good care
+not to enlighten us. 'She will get used to it,' say father and mother,
+and the mother believes it because she wants to, and both rejoice that
+their daughter is provided for; and before one is aware the trap has
+fallen. I bore you, Lato.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; he replies; &quot;you grieve me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, it is only now and then that I feel thus,&quot; she murmurs. &quot;Shall I
+tell you the cause of my wretched mood?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Utter fatigue, the natural consequence of yesterday's pleasures.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not at all. I accidentally came upon the picture of my cousin Ada
+to-day. Do you remember her? There she is.&quot; She hands him a photograph.
+&quot;Exquisitely beautiful, is it not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; he says, looking at the picture; &quot;the eyes are bewitching, and
+there is such womanly tenderness, such delicate refinement, about the
+mouth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nothing could surpass Ada,&quot; says Countess Lori; &quot;she was a saint,
+good, self-sacrificing, not a trace in her of frivolity or
+selfishness.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And yet she married Hugo Reinsfeld, if I am not mistaken?&quot; says Lato.
+&quot;I have heard nothing of her lately. News from your world rarely
+reaches me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No one mentions her now,&quot; Lori murmurs. &quot;She married without
+love; not from vanity as I did, but she sacrificed herself for her
+family,--sisters unprovided for, father old, no money. She was far
+better than I, and for a long time she honestly tried to do her
+duty,----and so she finally had to leave her husband!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Countess stops; a long pause ensues. The steps of the passers-by
+sound through the languid September air; an Italian hurdy-gurdy is
+grinding out the lullaby from &quot;Trovatore,&quot; sleepy and sentimental. The
+clatter from the barracks interrupts it now and then. A sunbeam slips
+through the window-shade into the half-light of the room and gleams
+upon the buhl furniture.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, she had the courage of her opinions,&quot; the Countess begins
+afresh at last. &quot;She left her husband and lives with--well, with
+another man,--good heavens! you knew him too, Niki Gladnjik, in
+Switzerland; they live there for each other in perfect seclusion. He
+adores her; the world--our world, the one I do not want to meet at your
+ball--ignores Ada, but I write to her sometimes, and she to me. I have
+been reading over her letters to-day. She seems to be very happy,
+enthusiastically happy, so happy that I envy her; but I am sorry for
+her, for--you see, Niki really loves her, and wants to marry her--they
+have been waiting two years for the divorce which her husband opposes;
+and Niki is consumptive; you understand, if he should die before----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato's heart throbs fast at his cousin's tale. At this moment the door
+opens, and Count Wodin enters.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_38" href="#div1Ref_38">CHAPTER XXXVIII.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>AT LAST.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Flammingen's affairs are satisfactorily adjusted. Treurenberg is
+relieved of that anxiety. He can devote his thoughts to his own
+complications, as he rides back from X---- to Dobrotschau.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The dreamy lullaby from &quot;Trovatore&quot; still thrills his nerves, and again
+and again he recalls the pair living happily in Switzerland. He sees
+their valley in his mental vision enclosed amid lofty mountains,--walls
+erected by God Himself to protect that green Paradise from the
+intrusion and cruelty of mankind,--walls which shut out the world and
+reveal only the blue heavens. How happy one could be in that green
+seclusion, forgotten by the world! In fancy he breathes the fresh
+Alpine air laden with the wholesome scent of the pines; upon his ear
+there falls the rushing murmur of the mountain-stream. He sees a
+charming home on a mountain-slope, and at the door stands a lovely
+woman dressed in white, with large, tender eyes filled with divine
+sympathy. She is waiting for some one's return; whence does he come?
+From the nearest town, whither he is forced to go from time to time to
+adjust his affairs, but whither she never goes; oh, no! People pain
+her,--people who despise and envy her. But what matters it? He opens
+his arms to her, she flies to meet him; ah, what bliss, what rapture!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His horse stumbles slightly; he rouses with a start. A shudder thrills
+him, and, as in the morning, he is horrified at himself. Will it always
+be thus? Can he not relax his hold upon himself for one instant without
+having every thought rush in one direction, without being possessed by
+one intense longing? How can he thus desecrate Olga's image?</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile, the expected guests have arrived at Dobrotschau. They came
+an hour ago,--three carriage-loads of distinction from, Vienna, some of
+them decorated with feudal titles. A very aristocratic party will
+assemble at table in Dobrotschau to-day. Countess Weiseneck, a born
+Grinzing, wife of a rather disgraceful <i>mauvais sujet</i>, whose very
+expensive maintenance she contests paying, and from whom she has been
+separated for more than a year; Countess Mayenfeld, <i>née</i> Gerstel, the
+wife of a gentleman not quite five feet in height, who is known in
+Vienna by the <i>sobriquet</i> of &quot;the numismatician.&quot; When his betrothal to
+the wealthy Amanda Gerstel was announced, society declared that he had
+chosen his bride to augment his collection of coins. His passion for
+collecting coins enables this knightly aristocrat to endure with
+philosophy the cold shoulders which his nearest relatives turned to him
+after his marriage; moreover, he lives upon excellent terms with his
+wizened little wife. One more couple with a brand-new but high-sounding
+title; then an unmarried countess, with short hair and a masculine
+passion for sport,--an acquaintance made at a watering-place; then
+Baron Kilary, the cleverest business-man among Vienna aristocrats, who
+is always ready to eat oysters and <i>pâte de foie gras</i> at any man's
+table, without, however, so far forgetting himself as to require his
+wife and daughter to visit any one of his entertainers who is socially
+his inferior. The famous poet, Paul Angelico Orchys, and little Baron
+Königsfeld, complete the list of arrivals.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The first greetings are over; ended also is the running to and fro of
+lady's-maids looking for mislaid handbags, with the explanations of
+servants, who, having carried the trunks to the wrong rooms, are trying
+to make good their mistakes. All is quiet. The ladies and gentlemen are
+seated at small tables in a shady part of the park, drinking tea and
+fighting off a host of wasps that have attacked the delicacies forming
+part of the afternoon repast.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The castle is empty; the sound of distant voices alone falls on Lato's
+ear as he returns from his expedition to X---- and goes to his room,
+desirous only of deferring as long as possible the playing of his part
+in this tiresome entertainment. The first thing to meet his eyes
+on his writing-table is a letter addressed to himself. He picks
+it up; the envelope is stamped with a coronet and Selina's monogram.
+He tears the letter open; it encloses nothing save a package of
+bank-notes,--eighteen hundred guilders in Austrian currency.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato's first emotion is anger. What good will the wretched money do him
+now? How rejoiced he is that he no longer needs it, that he can return
+it within the hour to Selina! The address arrests his attention; there
+is something odd about it. Is it Selina's handwriting? At first sight
+he had thought it was, but now, upon a closer inspection can it be his
+mother-in-law's hand? Is she trying to avoid a domestic scandal by
+atoning thus for her daughter's harshness? He tosses the money aside in
+disgust. Suddenly a peculiar fragrance affects him agreeably. What is
+it?--a faint odour of heliotrope. Could it be----? His downcast eyes
+discover a tiny bunch of faded purple blossoms lying on the floor
+almost at his feet. He stoops, picks it up, and kisses it passionately:
+it is the bunch of heliotrope which Olga wore on her breast at
+breakfast. It is she who has cared for him, who has thought of him!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But instantly, after the first access of delight, comes the reaction.
+How could Olga have known? Selina, in her irritation, may have
+proclaimed his request to the entire household; the servants may be
+discussing in the kitchen Count Treurenberg's application to his wife
+for eighteen hundred guilders, and her angry refusal to grant them to
+him. He clinches his fist and bites his lip, when on a sudden he
+recalls the rustle of a robe in the next room, which he thought he
+heard at one time during his interview with Selina. The blood mounts to
+his forehead. Olga had been in the library; she had heard him talking
+with his wife. And if she had heard him ask Selina for the money, she
+had also heard---- Ah! He buries his face in his hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The afternoon tea has been enjoyed; the ladies have withdrawn to their
+rooms to &quot;arm themselves for the fray,&quot; as Paul Angelico expresses it;
+the gentlemen have betaken themselves to the billiard-room, where they
+are playing a game, as they smoke the excellent cigars which Baron
+Kilary has ordered a lackey to bring them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato has wandered out into the park. He is not quite himself; the
+ground beneath his feet seems uncertain. He leans against the trunk of
+a tree, always pondering the same question, &quot;What if she heard?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He turns involuntarily into the garden-path where, but a short time
+since, he had soothed her agitation and dried her tears. There, on the
+rough birchen bench, something white gleams. Is it----?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He would fain flee, but he cannot; he stands as if rooted to the spot.
+She turns her face towards him, and recognizes him. A faint colour
+flushes her cheek, and in her eyes, which rest full upon him, there is
+a heavenly light.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lato!&quot; she calls. Is that her voice sounding so full and soft? She
+rises and approaches him. He has never before seen her look so
+beautiful. Her slender figure is erect as a young fir; she carries her
+head like a youthful queen whose brow is crowned for the first time
+with the diadem. She stands beside him; her presence thrills him to his
+very soul.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Olga,&quot; he murmurs at last, &quot;was it you who left the money on my table?
+How did you know that I wanted it?&quot; he asks, bluntly, almost
+authoritatively.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She is silent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Olga, Olga, were you in the library while----?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She nods.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And you heard all,--everything?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Olga!&quot; His eyes are riveted upon her face in what is almost horror.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Olga,--what now?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I cannot bear to see you suffer,&quot; she murmurs, scarce audibly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Did he extend his arms to her? He could not himself tell; but what he
+has dreamed has happened,--he clasps her to his breast, his lips meet
+hers; his anguish is past; wings seem to be given him wherewith to soar
+to heaven.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But only for an instant is he thus beguiled; then reality in its full
+force bursts upon him. He unclasps the dear arms from his neck, presses
+one last kiss upon the girlish hand before he releases it, and then
+turns and walks away with a firm tread, without looking round, and in
+the full consciousness of the truth,--the consciousness that no wings
+are his, and that the heavy burden which has weighed him down is doubly
+heavy now.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_39" href="#div1Ref_39">CHAPTER XXXIX.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>THE DINNER.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Taken altogether, Fainacky may be but a very ordinary pattern of a man,
+but as a <i>maître de plaisir</i> in the arrangement of a <i>fête</i> he is
+unrivalled. A more exquisite table than that around which the twenty
+people are assembled who form the rehearsing party for Harry's
+betrothal festival it would be difficult to imagine. The only criticism
+that can be made is that the guests are rather far apart; but who could
+have foreseen that at the last moment four people would be lacking? The
+Paul Leskjewitsches, with their niece, sent regrets, and Olga, just
+before dinner, was obliged to retire with a severe headache, to which
+she succumbed in spite of her aunt's exhortations to her &quot;not to mind
+it.&quot; Lato is present; he is indifferent as to where his hours drag
+past. He is determined to prevent Olga's being made the subject of
+discussion, and his social training, with the numbness sure to ensue
+upon great mental agitation, stands him in stead; he plays his part
+faultlessly. Now and then the consciousness of his hopeless misery
+flashes upon him, then it fades again; he forgets all save the present
+moment, and he scans everything about him with keen observation, as if
+he had no part or parcel in it, but were looking at it all as at
+another world.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes, the table is charmingly decorated; anything more tasteful or more
+correct in every respect could not be imagined; but the people gathered
+about this sparkling board, never before has he seen them so clearly or
+judged them so severely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His contempt is specially excited by his social equals. Fritz
+Mayenfeld, &quot;the numismatician,&quot; does not long occupy his attention. In
+spite of his rank, he has always manifested thoroughly plebeian
+instincts; his greed of gain is notorious; and he looks, and is,
+entirely at home in the Harfink domestic atmosphere. The descent of the
+other aristocrats present, however,--of Kilary, of the short-haired
+Countess, and of the affected Count Fermor,--is tolerably evident in
+their faces, and they all seem determined to assert their aristocratic
+prestige in the same manner,--by impertinence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato is conscious of a horror of his own caste as he studies these
+degenerate members of it. He turns his attention to the three guests
+from Komaritz,--the Countess Zriny, Hedwig, and Harry. The old
+canoness, who is seated on his right, provokes his smile. The superb
+condescension with which, for love of her nephew, she treats &quot;these
+people;&quot; the formal courtesy with which she erects an insurmountable
+barrier between them and herself; the morsels of liberalism which she
+scatters here and there in her conversation for their comfort and
+delectation,--all are worthy of the most enthusiastic praise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Poor old woman! How important she is in her own eyes! Her gown is the
+ugliest and shabbiest there (the one the sporting Countess wears was
+given her by Selina), but six strings of wonderful pearls which she
+wears around her neck make her all right. Hedwig,--well, she is a
+little more affected than usual; she is flirting with little Baron
+Königsfeld, who took her in to dinner, playing him off against her
+neighbour on the other side, Count Fermor. And Harry,--with profound
+sympathy and intense compassion Lato's eyes rest upon his friend.
+Simple, without pretension or affectation, very courteous without
+condescension, a little formal, perhaps, withal,--as the most natural
+of men must be where he feels himself a stranger,--with that in his
+face and bearing that distinguishes him above every one present, he is
+the only specimen of his own caste there with whom Lato feels
+satisfied.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They may abuse us as they please,&quot; he thinks to himself,--&quot;nay, I even
+join them in abusing,--but if one of us gives his word he stands to
+it.&quot; And then he questions whether in any other rank could be found
+such an example of noble and manly beauty, or of such quixotic,
+self-annihilating, chivalrous honour. &quot;Good heavens! why not?&quot; he makes
+reply to himself. &quot;So far as moral worth is concerned, assuredly; only
+in form it would probably be less refined.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato has had much experience of life. He has laid aside all the
+prejudices of his class, but the subtile caste-instinct still
+abides with him. He asks himself whether his family--the Harfink
+family--notice the difference between Harry and the other aristocrats
+present; whether the Harfinks will not be finally disgusted by the
+impertinence of these coxcombs; whether they do not feel the offensive
+condescension of the Countess Zriny. It would seem not. The Harfinks,
+mother and daughters, are quite satisfied with what is accorded them;
+they are overflowing with gratified vanity, and are enjoying the
+success of the festival. Even Selina is pleased; Olga's absence
+seems to have soothed her. She informs Lato, by all kinds of amiable
+devices,--hints which she lets fall in conversation, glances which she
+casts towards him,--that she is sorry for the scene of the morning, and
+is ready to acquiesce. She tells her neighbour at dinner, Baron Kilary,
+that to-day is the anniversary of her betrothal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato becomes more and more strongly impressed by the conviction that
+her severe attack of jealousy has aroused within her something of her
+old sentiment for him. The thought disgusts him profoundly; he feels
+for her a positive aversion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His attention is chiefly bestowed upon Harry. How the poor fellow
+suffers! writhing beneath the ostentatious anxiety of his betrothed,
+who exhausts herself in sympathetic inquiries as to his pallor,
+ascribing it to every cause save the true one.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What will become of him if he does not succeed in ridding himself of
+this intolerable burden?&quot; Lato asks himself. An inexpressible dread
+assails him. &quot;A candidate for suicide,&quot; he thinks, and for a moment he
+feels dizzy and ill.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But why should Harry die, when his life might be adjusted by one word
+firmly uttered? He might be saved, and then what a sunny bright future
+would be his! If one could but help him!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The dinner is half over; punch is being served. The tall windows of the
+dining-hall are wide open, the breeze has died away for the time, the
+night is quiet, the outlook upon the park enchanting. Coloured lamps,
+shaped like fantastic flowers, illumine the shrubbery, whence comes
+soft music.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">All the anguish which had been stilled for the moment stirs within
+Lato's breast at sound of the sweet insinuating tones. They arouse
+within him an insane thirst for happiness. If it were but possible to
+obtain a divorce! Caressingly, dreamily, the notes of &quot;Southern Roses&quot;
+float in from the park.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! how that reminds me of my betrothal!&quot; says Selina, moving her fan
+to and fro in time with the music. Involuntarily Lato glances at her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She wears a red gown, <i>decoletée</i> as of old. Her shoulders have
+grown stouter, her features sharper, but she is hardly changed
+otherwise; many would pronounce her handsomer than she had been on that
+other sultry September evening when it had first occurred to him that
+he--loved her--no, when he lied to himself--because it seemed so easy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He falls into a revery, from which he is aroused by the poet Angelico
+Orchys, who rises, glass in hand, and in fluent verse proposes the
+health of the betrothed couple. Glasses are clinked, and scarcely are
+all seated again when Fainacky toasts the married pair who are
+celebrating to-day the sixth anniversary of their betrothal. Every one
+rises; Selina holds her glass out to Lato with a languishing glance
+from her half-closed eyes as she smiles at him over the brim.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He shudders. And he has dared to hope for a divorce!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The clinking of glasses has ceased; again all are seated; a fresh
+course of viands is in progress; there is a pause in the conversation,
+while the music wails and sighs outside, Fainacky from his place at
+table making all sorts of mysterious signs to the leader.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Treurenberg's misery has become so intense within the last few minutes
+that he can scarcely endure it without some outward sign of it, when
+suddenly a thought occurs to him, a little, gloomy thought, that slowly
+increases like a thunder-cloud. His breath comes quick, the cold
+perspiration breaks out upon his forehead, his heart beats strong and
+fast.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is anything the matter, Lato?&quot; Selina asks, across the table; &quot;you
+have grown so pale. Do you feel the draught?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He does not answer. His heart has ceased to beat wildly; a soothing
+calm, a sense of relief, takes possession of him; he seems to have
+discovered the solution of a huge, tormenting riddle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Presently the wine begins to take effect, and conversation drowns the
+tones of the music. Culinary triumphs have been discussed, there has
+been some political talk, anti-Semitic opinions, in very bad taste,
+have been expressed, and now, in spite of the presence of several young
+girls, various scandals are alluded to.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have any of you heard the latest developments in the
+Reinsfeld-Gladnjik case?&quot; Kilary asks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Treurenberg listens.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sporting Countess replies: &quot;No: for two years I have seen nothing
+of Ada Reinsfeld--since the--well, since she left her husband; one
+really had to give her up. I am very lenient in such affairs, but one
+has no choice where the scandal is a matter of such publicity.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I entirely agree with you, my dear Countess,&quot; says the Baroness
+Harfink. &quot;So long as due respect is paid to external forms, the private
+weaknesses of my neighbours are no concern of mine; but external forms
+must be observed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My cousin's course throughout that business was that of a crazy
+woman,&quot; says &quot;the numismatician,&quot; with his mouth full. &quot;She was
+mistress of the best-ordered house in Gräz. Reinsfeld's cook was----!
+never in my life did I taste such salmi of partridges--except on this
+occasion,&quot; he adds, with an inclination towards his hostess. The next
+moment he motions to a servant to fill his glass, and forgets all about
+his cousin Ada.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Poor Ada! She was very charming, but she became interested in all
+sorts of free-thinking books, and they turned her head,&quot; says the
+Countess Zriny. &quot;In my opinion a woman who reads Strauss and Renan is
+lost.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The remarks of the company are excessively interesting to me,&quot; Kilary
+now strikes in, with an impertinent intonation in his nasal voice, &quot;but
+I beg to be allowed to speak, since what I have to tell is quite
+sensational. You know that Countess Ada has tried in vain to induce her
+noble husband to consent to a divorce. Meanwhile, Gladnjik's condition
+culminated in galloping consumption, and two days ago he died.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And she?&quot; several voices asked at once.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She?--she took poison!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a moment there is a bush in the brilliantly-lighted room, the soft
+sighing of the music in the shrubbery is again audible. Through the
+open windows is wafted in the beguiling charm of an Hungarian dance by
+Brahms.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There is a change of sentiment in the assemblage: the harshness with
+which but now all had judged the Countess Ada gives place to
+compassionate sympathy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Countess Zriny presses her lace-trimmed handkerchief to her eyes. &quot;Poor
+Ada!&quot; she murmurs; &quot;I can see her now; a more charming young girl there
+never was. Why did they force her to marry that old Reinsfeld?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He had so excellent a cook,&quot; sneers Kilary, with a glance at &quot;the
+numismatician,&quot; from whose armour of excellent appetite the dart falls
+harmless.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Forced!&quot; Paula interposes eagerly, in her deep, guttural tones. &quot;As if
+nowaday's any one with a spark of character could be forced to marry!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry twirls his moustache and looks down at his plate.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am the last to defend a departure from duty,&quot; the old canoness goes
+on, &quot;but in this case the blame really falls partly upon Ada's family.
+They forced her to marry; they subjected her to moral force.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is true,&quot; even Kilary, heartless cynic as he is, admits. &quot;They
+forced her, although they knew that she and Niki Gladnjik were attached
+to each other. Moreover, I must confess that, in spite of the admirable
+qualities which distinguish Reinsfeld,--as, for example, his excellent
+cook,--it must have been very difficult for a delicate-minded, refined
+young creature to live with the disgusting old satyr--my expressions
+are classically correct.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Niki took her marriage sorely to heart,&quot; sighed the sporting Countess.
+&quot;They say he ruined his health by the dissipation into which he plunged
+to find forgetfulness. In that direction Ada certainly was much to
+blame; she was carried away by compassion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile, Fainacky has made another sign for the music. The dreamy
+half-notes die away, and the loud tones of a popular march echo through
+the night.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">All rise from table.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Treurenberg's brain spins, as with the Countess Zriny on his arm he
+walks into the garden-room, where the guests are to admire the
+decorations and to drink their coffee.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The fair Olga is not seriously ill?&quot; he hears Kilary say to Selina.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, not at all,&quot; Selina replies. &quot;You need not fear anything
+infectious. Olga is rather overstrained and exaggerated; you cannot
+imagine what a burden papa left us in the care of her. But we have
+settled it to-day with mamma: she must leave the house,--at least for a
+time. My aunt Emilie is to take her to Italy. It will be a great relief
+to us all.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_40" href="#div1Ref_40">CHAPTER XL.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>A FAREWELL.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">While some of the guests are contented merely to admire the decorations
+of the garden-room, others suggest improvements. They cannot quite
+agree us to where the musicians should be placed, and the band migrates
+from one spot to another, like a set of homeless fugitives; in one
+place the music is too loud, in another it is not loud enough. Hilary's
+nasal, arrogant voice is heard everywhere in command. At last the band
+is stationed just before the large western window of the room. Some one
+suggests trying a waltz. Kilary waltzes with Selina. Treurenberg
+watches the pair. They waltz in the closest embrace, her head almost
+resting on his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Once Lato might have remonstrated with his wife upon such an exhibition
+of herself; but to-day, ah, how indifferent he is to it all! He turns
+away from the crowd and noise, and walks beyond the circle of light
+into the park. Here a hand is laid on his shoulder. He turns: Harry has
+followed him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is the matter, old fellow?&quot; he asks, good-humouredly. &quot;I do not
+like your looks to-day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I cannot get Ada Reinsfeld out of my head,&quot; Treurenberg rejoins, in a
+low tone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Did you know her?&quot; asks Harry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes; did you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, but not until after her marriage. I liked her extremely; in
+fact, I have rarely met a more charming woman. And she seemed to me
+serious-minded and thoroughly sincere. The story to-day affected me
+profoundly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Did you notice that not one of the women had a good word to say for
+the poor thing until they knew that she was dead?&quot; Treurenberg asks,
+his voice sounding hard and stern.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, I noticed it,&quot; replies Harry, scanning his friend attentively.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They may perhaps waste a wreath of immortelles upon her coffin,&quot;
+Treurenberg goes on, in the same hard tone, &quot;but not one of them would
+have offered her a hand while she lived.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, she did not lose much in the friendship of the women present
+to-day,&quot; Harry observes, dryly; &quot;but, unfortunately, I am afraid that
+far nobler and more generous-minded women also withdrew their
+friendship from poor Ada; and, in fact, we cannot blame them. We cannot
+require our mothers and sisters to visit without remonstrance a woman
+who has run away from her husband and is living with another man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Run away; living with another man: how vulgar that sounds!&quot;
+Treurenberg exclaims, angrily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Our language has no other words for this case.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do not comprehend you; you judge as harshly as the rest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They have walked on and have reached a rustic seat quite in the shade,
+beyond the light even of the coloured lamps. Harry sits down; Lato
+follows his example.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How am I to judge, then?&quot; Harry asks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In my eyes Ada was a martyr,&quot; Treurenberg asserts.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So she was in mine,&quot; Harry admits.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have the greatest admiration for her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And I only the deepest compassion,&quot; Harry declares, adding, in a lower
+tone, &quot;I say not a word in blame of her; Niki was the guiltier of the
+two. A really noble woman, when she loves, forgets to consider the
+consequences of her conduct, especially when pity sanctifies her
+passion and atones in her eyes for her sin. She sees an ideal life
+before her, and does not doubt that she shall attain it. Ada believed
+that she should certainly procure her divorce, and that all would be
+well. She did not see the mire through which she should have to
+struggle to attain her end, and that even were it attained, no power on
+earth could wash out the stains incurred in attaining it. Niki should
+have spared her that; he knew life well enough to be perfectly aware of
+the significance of the step she took for him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, you are right; women never know the world; they see about them
+only what is fair and sacred, a young girl particularly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, in such matters a young girl is out of the question,&quot; Harry
+sharply interrupts.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There is an oppressive silence. Lato shivers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are cold,&quot; Harry says, with marked gentleness; &quot;come into the
+house.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, no; stay here!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Through the silence come the strains of a waltz of Arditi's &quot;<i>La notte
+gia stendi suo manto stellato</i>,&quot; and the faint rustle of the dancers'
+feet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How is your cousin?&quot; Lato asks, after a while.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do not know. I have not spoken with her since she left Komaritz,&quot;
+Harry replies, evasively.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And have you not seen her?&quot; asks Lato.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, once; I looked over the garden-wall as I rode by. She looks pale
+and thin, poor child.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato is mute. Harry goes on:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you remember, Lato? is it three or four weeks ago, the last time
+you were with me in Komaritz? I could jest then at my--embarrassments.
+I daily expected my release. Now----&quot; he shrugs his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You were angry with me then; angry because I would not interfere,&quot;
+Lato says, with hesitation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, it would have been useless,&quot; Harry mutters.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Instead of continuing the subject, Lato restlessly snaps a twig hanging
+above his head. &quot;How terribly dry everything is!&quot; he murmurs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; says Harry; &quot;so long as it was warm we looked for a storm; the
+cool weather has come without rain, and everything is dead.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The spring will revive it all, and the blessing of the coming year
+will be doubled,&quot; Lato whispers, in a low, soft tone that rings through
+Harry's soul for years afterwards.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Harry! Harry! where are you? Come, try one turn with me.&quot; It is
+Paula's powerful voice that calls thus. She is steering directly for
+the spot where the friends are seated.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Give my love to Zdena, when you see her,&quot; Lato whispers in his
+friend's ear as he clasps Harry's hand warmly, and then vanishes among
+the dark shrubbery before the young fellow is aware of it.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_41" href="#div1Ref_41">CHAPTER XLI.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>RESOLVE.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato now stands in need of all the energy with which Providence has
+endowed him. All the excellence and nobility that have hitherto lain
+dormant in his soul arouse to life, now that they can but help him to
+die like a man. He cannot sever the golden fetters which he himself has
+forged; he will not drag through the mire what is most sacred to him;
+well, then----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Upon reaching his room he seated himself at his writing-table and wrote
+several letters,--the first to his father, requesting him to see that
+his debts were paid; one to Paula, one to his mother-in-law, and one to
+Harry. The letter to Harry ran thus:</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">&quot;<span class="sc">My dear good old Comrade</span>,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;When this note reaches you, you will be already freed from your
+fetters. I have never forgiven myself for refusing to perform the
+service you asked of me, and I have now retrieved my fault. I have
+written to Paula and to my mother-in-law, explaining your position to
+them, telling them the truth with brutal frankness, and leaving no
+course open to them save to release you. You are free. Farewell.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:45%">&quot;Yours till death,</p>
+
+<p class="right">&quot;<span class="sc">Lato Treurenberg</span>.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">He tossed the pen aside.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The others were still dancing. The sound of the music came softly from
+the distance. He rested his head on his hands and pondered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He has seen clearly that it must be. He had written the letters as the
+first irrevocable step. But how was it to be done?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He looked for his revolver. It might all be over in a moment. He caught
+up the little weapon with a kind of greed. Suddenly he recalled a
+friend who had shot himself, and whose body he had seen lying on the
+bed where the deed had been done: there were ugly stains of blood upon
+the pillow. His nature revolted from everything ugly and unclean. And
+then the scene, the uproar that would ensue upon discovering the
+corpse. If he could only avoid all that, could only cloak the ugly
+deed. Meanwhile, his faithful hound came to him from a corner of the
+room, and, as if suspicious that all was not right with its master,
+laid its head upon his knee.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The way was clear,--Lato had lately frequently risen early in the
+morning to stalk a deer, which had escaped his gun again and again; he
+had but to slip out of the house for apparently the same purpose,
+and---- and It would be more easily done beneath God's open skies. But
+several hours must elapse before he could leave the castle. That was
+terrible. Would his resolve hold good? He began to pace the room
+restlessly to and fro.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Had he forgotten anything that ought to be done? He paused and
+listened, seeming to hear a light footfall in the room above him. Yes,
+it was Olga's room; he could hear her also walking to and fro, to and
+fro. His breath came quick; everything within him cried out for
+happiness, for life! He threw himself upon his bed, buried his face
+among the pillows, clinched his hands, and so waited, motionless.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last the steps overhead ceased, the music was silent; there was a
+rustling in the corridors,--the guests were retiring to their rooms;
+then all was still, as still as death.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lato arose, lit a candle, and looked at his watch,--half-past two.
+There was still something on his heart,--a discontent of which he would
+fain disburden himself before the end. He sat down again at his
+writing-table, and wrote a few lines to Olga, pouring out his soul to
+her; then, opening his letter to Harry, he added a postscript: &quot;It
+would be useless to attempt any disguise with you,--you have read my
+heart too clearly,--and therefore I can ask a last office of friendship
+of you. Give Olga the enclosed note from me,--I do not wish any one
+here to know of this,--my farewell to her. Think no evil of her. Should
+any one slander her, never believe it!--never!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He would have written more, but words failed him to express what he
+felt; so he enclosed his note to Olga in his letter to Harry and sealed
+and stamped it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His thoughts began to wander vaguely. Old legends occurred to him.
+Suddenly he laughed at something that had occurred ten years before, at
+Komaritz,--the trick Harry had played upon Fainacky, the &quot;braggart
+Sarmatian.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He heard himself laugh, and shuddered. The gray dawn began to glimmer
+in the east. He looked at his watch,--it was time! He drew a long,
+sighing breath, and left his room; the dog followed him. In the
+corridor he paused, possessed by a wild desire to creep to Olga's door
+and, kneeling before it, to kiss the threshold. He took two steps
+towards the staircase, then, by a supreme effort, controlled himself
+and turned back.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But in the park he sought the spot where he had met her yesterday,
+where he had kissed her for the first and only time. Here he stood
+still for a while, and, looking down, perceived the half-effaced
+impress of a small foot upon the gravel. He stooped and pressed his
+lips upon it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now he has left the park, and the village too lies behind him;
+he has posted his letter to Harry in the yellow box in front of the
+post-office. He walks through the poplar avenue where she came to meet
+him scarcely three weeks ago. He can still feel the touch of her
+delicate hand. A bird twitters faintly above his head, and recalls to
+his memory how he had watched the belated little feathered vagabond
+hurrying home to its nest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A life that warms itself beside another life in which it finds peace
+and comfort,&quot; he murmurs to himself. An almost irresistible force stays
+his steps. But no; he persists, and walks on towards the forest. He
+will only wait for the sunrise, and then----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He waits in vain. The heavens are covered with clouds; a sharp wind
+sighs above the fields; the leaves tremble as if in mortal terror; for
+the first time in six weeks a few drops of rain fall. No splendour
+hails the awakening world, but along the eastern horizon there is a
+blood-red streak. Just in Lato's path a solitary white butterfly
+flutters upon the ground. The wind grows stronger, the drops fall more
+thickly; the pale blossoms by the roadside shiver; the red poppies do
+not open their cups, but hang their heads as if drunk with sleep.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_42" href="#div1Ref_42">CHAPTER XLII.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>FOUND.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Olga had remained in her room because she could not bring herself to
+meet Treurenberg again. No, she could never meet him after the words,
+the kiss, they had exchanged,--never--until he should call her. For it
+did not occur to her to recall what she had said to him,--she was ready
+for everything for his sake. Not a thought did she bestow upon the
+disgrace that would attach to her in the eyes of the world. What did
+she care what people said or thought of her? But he,--what if she had
+disgraced herself in his eyes by the confession of her love? The
+thought tortured her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She kept saying to herself, &quot;He was shocked at me; I wounded his sense
+of delicacy. Oh, my God! and yet I could not see him suffer so,--I
+could not!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When night came on she lay dressed upon her bed for hours, now and then
+rising to pace the room to and fro. At last she fell asleep. She was
+roused by hearing a door creak. She listened: it was the door of Lato's
+room. Again she listened. No, she must have been mistaken; it was folly
+to suppose that Lato would think of leaving the house at a little after
+three in the morning! She tried to be calm, and began to undress, when
+suddenly a horrible suspicion assailed her; her teeth chattered, the
+heart in her breast felt like lead.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I must have been mistaken,&quot; she decided. But she could not be at rest.
+She went out into the corridor; all there was still. The dawn was
+changing from gray to white. She glided down the staircase to the door
+of Lato's room, where she kneeled and listened at the key-hole. She
+could surely hear him breathe, she thought. But how could she hear it
+when her own pulses were throbbing so loudly in her heart, in her
+temples, in her ears?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She listened with all her might: nothing, nothing could she hear. Her
+head sank against the door, which was ajar and yielded. She sprang up
+and, half dead with shame, was about to flee, when she paused. If he
+were in his room would not the creaking of the door upon its hinges
+have roused him? Again she turned and peered into the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the first glance she perceived that it was empty, and that the bed
+had not been slept in.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With her heart throbbing as if to break, she rushed up to her room,
+longing to scream aloud, to rouse the household with &quot;He has gone! he
+has gone! Search for him! save him!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But how is this possible? How can she confess that she has been in his
+room? Her cheeks burn; half fainting in her misery, she throws wide her
+window to admit the fresh morning air.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What is that? A scratching at the house door below, and then a
+melancholy whine. Olga hurries out into the corridor again, and at
+first cannot tell whence the noise proceeds. It grows louder and more
+persistent, an impatient scratching and knocking at the door leading
+out into the park. She hastens down the stairs and opens it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lion!&quot; she exclaims, as the dog leaps upon her, then crouches before
+her on the gravel, gazes piteously into her face, and utters a long
+howl, hoarse and ominous. Olga stoops down to him. Good God! what is
+this? His shoulder, his paws are stained with blood. The girl's heart
+seems to stand still. The dog seizes her dress as if to drag her away;
+releases it, runs leaping into the park, turns and looks at her. Shall
+she follow him?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes, she follows him, trembling, panting, through the park, through the
+village, out upon the highway, where the trees are vocal with the
+shrill twittering of birds. A clumsy peasant-cart is jolting along the
+road; the sleepy carter rubs his eyes and gazes after the strange
+figure with dishevelled hair and disordered dress, hastening towards
+the forest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She has reached it at last. The dog's uneasiness increases, and he
+disappears among the trees. Olga stops; she cannot go on. The dog howls
+more loudly, and slowly, holding by the trees, she totters forward.
+What is it that makes the ground here so slippery? Blood? There,--there
+by the poacher's grave, at the foot of the rude wooden cross, she finds
+him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A shriek, wild and hoarse, rings through the air. The leaves quiver and
+rustle with the flight of the startled birds among their branches. The
+heavens are filled with wailing, and the earth seems to rock beneath
+the girl's feet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then darkness receives her, and she forgets the horror of it all in
+unconsciousness.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_43" href="#div1Ref_43">CHAPTER XLIII.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>COUNT HANS.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a dinner at Count Capriani's, and Count Hans Treurenberg,
+slender and erect, the embodiment of elegant frivolity, had just said
+something witty. One of his fellow-aristocrats, a noble slave of
+Capriani's, had been discoursing at length upon the new era that was
+dawning upon the world, and had finally proposed a toast to the union
+of the two greatest powers on earth, wealth and rank. All present had
+had their glasses ready; Count Hans alone had hesitated for a moment,
+and had then remarked, with his inimitable smile,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, let us, for all I care, drink to the marriage of the Golden Calf
+to the Chimera.&quot; And when every one stared in blank dismay, he added,
+thoughtfully, &quot;What do you think, gentlemen, is it a marriage of
+expediency, or one of love? Capriani, it would be interesting to hear
+your views upon this question.&quot; Then, in spite of the lowering brow of
+the host, the aristocrats present burst into Homeric laughter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At that moment a telegram was brought to the Count. Why did his hand
+tremble as he unfolded it? He was accustomed to receive telegraphic
+messages:</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There has been an accident. Lato seriously wounded while hunting.</p>
+
+<p class="right">&quot;<span class="sc">Selina</span>.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">An hour afterwards he was in the railway-train.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had never been to Dobrotschau, and did not know that the route which
+he had taken stopped two stations away from the estate. The Harfink
+carriage waited for him at an entirely different station. He had to
+send his servant to a neighbouring village to procure a conveyance.
+Meanwhile, he made inquiries of the railway officials at the station as
+to the accident at Dobrotschau. No one knew anything with certainty:
+there was but infrequent communication between this place and
+Dobrotschau. The old Count began to hope. If the worst had happened,
+the ill news would have travelled faster. Selina must have exaggerated
+matters. He read his telegram over and over again:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There has been an accident. Lato seriously wounded while hunting.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was the conventional formula used to convey information of the death
+of a near relative.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">All around him seemed to reel as he pondered the missive in the bare
+little waiting-room by the light of a smoking lamp. The moisture stood
+in beads upon his forehead. For the first time a horrible thought
+occurred to him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;An accident while hunting? What accident could possibly happen to a
+man hunting with a good breechloader----? If--yes, if--but that cannot
+be; he has never uttered a complaint!&quot; He suddenly felt mortally ill
+and weak.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The servant shortly returned with a conveyance. Nor had he been able to
+learn anything that could be relied upon. Some one in the village had
+heard that there had been an accident somewhere in the vicinity, but
+whether it had resulted in death no one could tell.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Count got into the vehicle, a half-open coach, smelling of damp
+leather and mould. The drive lasted for two hours. At first it was
+quite dark; nothing could be seen but two rays of light proceeding from
+the coach-lamps, which seemed to chase before them a mass of blackness.
+Once the Count dozed, worn out with emotion and physical fatigue. He
+was roused by the fancy that something like a cold, moist wing brushed
+his cheek. He looked abroad; the darkness had become less dense, the
+dawn was breaking faintly above the slumbering earth. Everything
+appeared gray, shadowy, and ghost-like. A dog began to bark in the
+neighbouring village; there was a sound of swiftly-rolling wheels. The
+Count leaned forward and saw something vague and indistinct, preceded
+by two streaks of light flashing along a side-road.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was only a carriage, but he shuddered as at something supernatural.
+Everywhere he seemed to see signs and omens.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are we near Dobrotschau?&quot; he asked the coachman.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Almost there, your Excellency.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They drove through the village. A strange foreboding sound assailed the
+Count's ears,--the long-drawn whine of a dog,--and a weird,
+inexplicable noise like the flapping of the wings of some huge captive
+bird vainly striving to be free. The Count looked up. The outlines of
+the castle were indistinct in the twilight, and hanging from the tower,
+curling and swelling in the morning air, was something huge--black.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The carriage stopped. Martin came to the door, and, as he helped his
+former master to alight, informed him that the family had awaited the
+Count until past midnight, but that when the carriage returned empty
+from the railway-station they had retired. His Excellency's room was
+ready for him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Not one word did he say of the cause of the Count's coming. He could
+not bring himself to speak of that. They silently ascended the
+staircase. Suddenly the Count paused. &quot;It was while he was hunting?&quot; he
+asked the servant, bluntly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, your Excellency.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;When?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Very early yesterday morning.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Were you with him?&quot; The Count's voice was sharper.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, your Excellency; no one was with him. The Count went out alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was an oppressive silence. The father had comprehended. He turned
+his back to the servant, and stood mute and motionless for a while.
+&quot;Take me to him,&quot; he ordered at last.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The man led the way down-stairs and through a long corridor, then
+opened a door. &quot;Here, your Excellency!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They had laid the dead in his own room, where he was to remain until
+the magnificent preparations for his burial should be completed. Here
+there was no pomp of mourning. He lay there peacefully, a cross clasped
+in his folded hands, a larger crucifix at the head of the bed, where
+two wax candles were burning--that was all.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The servant retired. Count Hans kneeled beside the body, and tried to
+pray. But this Catholic gentleman, who until a few years previously had
+ardently supported every ultramontane measure of the reigning family,
+now discovered, for the first time, that he no longer knew his Pater
+Noster by heart. He could not even pray for the dead. He was possessed
+by a kind of indignation against himself, and for the first time he
+felt utterly dissatisfied with his entire life. His eyes were riveted
+upon the face of his dead son. &quot;Why, why did this have to be?--just
+this?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His thoughts refused to dwell upon the horrible catastrophe; they
+turned away, wandering hither and thither; yesterday's hunting
+breakfast occurred to him; he thought of his witty speech and of the
+laughter it had provoked, laughter which even the host's frown could
+not suppress. The sound of his own voice rang in his ears: &quot;Yes,
+gentlemen, let us drink to the marriage of the Golden Calf to the
+Chimera.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then he recalled Lato upon his first steeple-chase, on horseback, in a
+scarlet coat, still lanky and awkward, but handsome as a picture,
+glowing with enjoyment, his hunting-whip lifted for a stroke.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His eyes were dry, his tongue was parched, a fever was burning in his
+veins, and at each breath he seemed to be lifting some ponderous
+weight. A feeling like the consciousness of a horrible crime oppressed
+him; he shivered, and suddenly dreaded being left there alone with the
+corpse, beside which he could neither weep nor pray.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Slowly through the windows the morning stole into the room, while the
+black flag continued to flap and rustle against the castle wall, like a
+prisoned bird aimlessly beating its wings against the bars of its cage,
+and the dog whined on.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_44" href="#div1Ref_44">CHAPTER XLIV.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>SPRING.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">A few days afterwards Lato's body was consigned to the family vault of
+the Treurenbergs,--not, of course, without much funereal pomp at
+Dobrotschau.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With him vanished the last descendant of an ancient race which had once
+been strong and influential, and which had preserved to the last its
+chivalric distinction.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The day after the catastrophe Harry received a letter from Paula, in
+which, on the plea of a dissimilarity of tastes and interests which
+would be fatal to happiness in marriage, she gave him back his troth.
+As she remained at Dobrotschau for an entire week after the funeral, it
+may be presumed that she wished to give her former betrothed
+opportunity to remonstrate against his dismissal. But he took great
+care to avoid even a formal protest. A very courteous, very formal,
+very brief note, in which he expressed entire submission to her decree,
+was the only sign of life his former captor received from him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When Paula Harfink learned that Harry had left Komaritz and had
+returned to his regiment in Vienna, she departed from Dobrotschau with
+her mother and sister, to pass several months at Nice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the beginning of January she returned with the Baroness Harfink to
+Vienna, heart-whole and with redoubled self-confidence. She was loud in
+her expressions of contempt for military men, especially for cavalry
+officers, a contempt in which even Arthur Schopenhauer could not have
+outdone her; she lived only for science and professors, a large number
+of whom she assembled about her, and among whom this young sultaness
+proposed with great caution and care to select one worthy to be raised
+to the dignity of her Prince-Consort.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Selina did not return with her mother to Vienna, but remained for the
+time being with a female companion in Nice. As is usual with most
+blondes, her widow's weeds became her well, and her luxuriant beauty
+with its dark crape background attracted a score of admirers, who,
+according to report, were not all doomed to languish hopelessly at her
+feet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fainacky, however, was never again received into favour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Olga retired to a convent, partly to sever all ties with the world,
+which had misunderstood and maligned her in her relations to the part
+she had played in the fearful drama enacted at Dobrotschau, partly to
+do penance by her asceticism for Lato's suicide, which was to her deep
+religious sense a fearful crime, and of which she considered herself in
+some measure the cause.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Moreover, Lato's suicide produced a profound impression upon all his
+friends. Harry could hardly take any pleasure in his freedom, so dark
+was the shadow thrown upon his happiness by grief for the fate of his
+life-long friend and comrade. Under the circumstances, until, so to
+speak, the grass had grown over the terrible event, his betrothal to
+Zdena could not be thought of; the mere idea of it wounded his sense of
+delicacy. He contented himself, before returning to Vienna, with a
+farewell visit to Zirkow, when he informed the entire family of the
+sudden change in his position. The major, whose sense of delicacy was
+not so acute as his nephew's, could not refrain from smiling broadly
+and expressing a few sentiments not very flattering to Fräulein Paula,
+nor from asking Harry one or two questions which caused the young
+fellow extreme confusion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The major's efforts to force a <i>tête-à-tête</i> upon the young people were
+quite vain. Zdena, when Harry left, accompanied the young officer
+openly, as she had often done, to the court-yard, where she stroked his
+horse before he mounted and fed him with sugar, as had ever been her
+wont.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good-bye, Zdena,&quot; Harry said, simply kissing her cold hand, just as he
+had often done when taking leave of her. Then, with his hand on the
+bridle, ready to mount, he gazed deep into her eyes and asked, &quot;When
+may I come back again, Zdena?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She replied, &quot;In the spring,&quot; in a voice so low and trembling that it
+echoed through his soul, long after he had left her, like a caress. He
+nodded, swung himself into the saddle, turned once in the gate-way for
+a farewell look at her, and was gone. She stood looking after him until
+the sound of his horse's hoofs died away, then went back to the house
+and remained invisible in her room for the rest of the forenoon.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The winter passed slowly. In the cavalry barracks in Vienna a change
+was observed in Harry Leskjewitsch. He began to be looked upon as a
+very earnest and hard-working young officer. His name stood first among
+those for whom a brilliant military career was prophesied. And, oddly
+enough, while there was a great increase in the regard in which he was
+held by his superior officers, there was no decrease in his popularity
+with his comrades.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The youngest good-for-naughts did, it is true, reproach him with having
+become tediously serious, and with great caution in spending his money.
+But when by chance the cause of his sudden economy was discovered, all
+discontent with his conduct ceased, especially since his purse was
+always at the service of a needy comrade.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When, after the Harfinks had returned from Nice, he first met Paula in
+the street, he was much confused, and was conscious of blushing. He
+felt strangely on beholding the full red lips which had so often kissed
+him, the form which had so often hung upon his arm. When, with some
+hesitation, he touched his cap, he wondered at the easy grace with
+which the young lady returned his salute. His wonder was still greater
+when, a few days afterwards, he encountered Frau von Harfink, who
+accosted him, and, after inquiring about his health, added, with her
+sweetest smile,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I trust that my daughter's withdrawal from her engagement to you will
+not prevent you from visiting us. Good heavens! it was a mistake; you
+were not at all suited to each other. We shall be delighted to welcome
+you as a friend at any time. Come soon to see us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If Harry were changed, Zdena was not less so. She was more silent than
+formerly; the outbreaks of childish gaiety in which she had been wont
+to indulge had vanished entirely, while, on the other hand, there was
+never a trace of her old discontent. Indeed, there was no time for
+anything of the kind, she had so much to do.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had developed a wonderful interest in household affairs; spent some
+time each day in the kitchen, where, engaged in the most prosaic
+occupations, she displayed so much grace that the major could not help
+peeping at her from time to time. And when her uncle praised at table
+some wondrous result of her labours, she would answer, eagerly, &quot;Yes,
+is it not good? and it is not very expensive.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Whereupon the major would pinch her cheek and smile significantly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Rosamunda was not at all aware of what was going on about her. She
+frequently commended the girl's dexterity in all that her awakened
+interest in household affairs led her to undertake, and after informing
+the major of his niece's improvement, and congratulating herself in
+being able to hand her keys over to the girl, she would add, with a
+sigh, &quot;I am so glad she never took anything into her head with regard
+to Roderick. I must confess that I think his sudden disappearance very
+odd, after all the attention he paid her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The major would always sigh sympathetically when his wife talked thus,
+and would then take the earliest opportunity to leave the room to
+&quot;laugh it out,&quot; as he expressed it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thus life went on with its usual monotony at Zirkow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry's letters to the major, which came regularly twice a month, were
+always read aloud to the ladies with enthusiasm by the old dragoon,
+then shown in part to Krupitschka, and then left lying about anywhere.
+They invariably vanished without a trace; but once when the major
+wished to refer to one of these important documents and could not find
+it, it turned out that Zdena had picked it up--by chance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last the spring made its joyous appearance and stripped the earth of
+its white robe of snow. For a few days it lay naked and bare, ugly and
+brown; then the young conqueror threw over its nakedness a rich mantle
+of blossoms, and strode on, tossing a bridal wreath into the lap of
+many a hopeless maiden, and cheering with flowers many a dying mortal
+who had waited but for its coming.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Zdena and the major delighted in the spring; they were never weary of
+watching its swift work in the garden, enjoying the opening of the
+blossoms, the unfolding of the leaves, and the songs of the birds. The
+fruit-trees had donned their most festal array; but Zdena was grave and
+sad, for full three weeks had passed since any letter had come from
+Harry, who had been wont to write punctually every fortnight; and in
+his last he had not mentioned his spring leave of absence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In feverish impatience the girl awaited the milkman, who always brought
+the mail from X---- just before afternoon tea. For days she had vainly
+watched her uncle as he sorted the letters. &quot;'The post brings no letter
+for thee, my love!'&quot; he sang, gaily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Zdena was not gay.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This afternoon the milkman is late. Zdena cannot wait for him quietly;
+she puts on an old straw hat and goes to meet him. It is nearly six
+o'clock; the sun is quite low, and beams pale golden through a ragged
+veil of fleecy clouds. A soft breeze is blowing; spring odours fill the
+air. The flat landscape is wondrous in colour, but it lacks the sharp
+contrasts of summer. Zdena walks quickly, with downcast eyes. Suddenly
+the sound of a horse's hoofs falls upon her ear. She looks up. Can it
+be? Her heart stands still, and then--why, then she finds nothing
+better to do than to turn and run home as fast as her feet can carry
+her. But he soon overtakes her. Springing from his horse, he gives the
+bridle to a peasant-lad passing by.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Zdena!&quot; he calls.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, it is you!&quot; she replies, in a weak little voice, continuing to
+hurry home. Not until she has reached the old orchard does she pause,
+out of breath.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Zdena!&quot; Harry calls again, this time in a troubled voice, &quot;what is the
+matter? Why are you so--so strange? You almost seem to be frightened!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I--I--you came so unexpectedly. We had no idea----&quot; she stammers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Unexpectedly!&quot; Harry repeats, and his look grows dark. &quot;Unexpectedly!
+May I ask if you have again changed your mind?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her face is turned from him. Dismayed, assailed by a thousand dark
+fancies, he gazes at her. On a sudden he perceives that she is sobbing;
+and then----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Neither speaks a word, but he has clasped her to his breast, she has
+put both arms around his neck, and--according to the poets, who are
+likely to be right--the one perfect moment in the lives of two mortals
+is over!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The spring laughs exultantly among the trees, and rains white blossoms
+upon the heads of the fair young couple beneath them. Around them
+breathes the fragrance of freshly-awakened life, the air of a new,
+transfigured existence; there is a fluttering in the air above, as a
+cloud of birds sails over the blossom-laden orchard.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Zdena, where are you?&quot; calls the voice of the major. &quot;Zdena, come
+quickly! Look! the swallows have come!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old dragoon makes his appearance from a garden-path. &quot;Why, what is
+all this?&quot; he exclaims, trying to look stern, as he comes in sight of
+the pair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The young people separate hastily; Zdena blushes crimson, but Harry
+says, merrily,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't pretend to look surprised; you must have known long ago that
+I--that we loved each other.&quot; And he takes Zdena's hand and kisses it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, yes; but----&quot; The major shrugs his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You mean that I ought to have made formal application to you for
+Zdena's hand?&quot; asks Harry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old officer can contain himself no longer; his face lit up by the
+broadest of smiles, he goes to Zdena, pinches her ear, and asks,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Aha, Zdena! why must people marry because they love each other, hey?&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_45" href="#div1Ref_45">CHAPTER XLV.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>OLD BARON FRANZ.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Old Baron Franz Leskjewitsch had changed greatly during the past
+winter. Those who saw most of him declared that he was either about to
+die or was growing insane. He moved from one to another of his various
+estates more restlessly than ever, appearing several times at
+Vorhabshen, which he never had been in the habit of visiting in winter,
+and not only appearing there, but remaining longer than usual. There
+was even a report that on one occasion he had ordered his coachman to
+drive to Zirkow; and, in fact, the old tumble-down carriage of the grim
+Baron had been seen driving along the road to Zirkow, but just before
+reaching the village it had turned back.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes, yes, the old Baron was either about to die or was &quot;going crazy.&quot;
+There was such a change in him. He bought a Newfoundland dog, which he
+petted immensely, he developed a love for canary-birds, and, more
+alarming symptom than all the rest, he was growing generous: he stood
+godfather to two peasant babies, and dowered the needy bride of one of
+his bailiffs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the beginning of April he appeared again at Vorhabshen, and seemed
+in no hurry to leave it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The day after Harry's sudden arrival at Zirkow, the old man was
+sitting, just after breakfast, in a leather arm-chair, smoking a large
+meerschaum pipe, and listening to Studnecka's verses, when the
+housekeeper entered to clear the table, a duty which Lotta, the despot,
+always performed herself for her master, perhaps because she wanted an
+opportunity for a little gossip with him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Studnecka's efforts at entertainment were promptly dispensed with, and
+the old Baron shortly began, &quot;Lotta, I hear that good-for-naught Harry
+is in this part of the country again; is it so?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Herr Baron; the cow-boy met him yesterday on the road,&quot; replied
+Lotta, sweeping the crumbs from the table-cloth into a green lacquered
+tray with a crescent-shaped brush.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is he doing here?&quot; the old man asked, after a pause.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They say he has come to court the Baroness Zdena.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, indeed!&quot; The Baron tried to put on a particularly fierce
+expression. &quot;It would seem that since that money-bag at Dobrotschau has
+thrown him over, he wants to try it on again with the girl at Zirkow,
+in hopes I shall come round. Oh, we understand all that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Herr Baron ought to be ashamed to say such things of our Master
+Harry,&quot; Lotta exclaimed, firing up. &quot;However, the Herr Baron can
+question the young Herr himself; there he is,&quot; she added, attracted to
+the window by the sound of a horse's hoofs. &quot;Shall I show him up? or
+does the Herr Baron not wish to see him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, send him up, send him up. I'll enlighten the fellow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In a few moments Harry makes his appearance. &quot;Good-morning, uncle! how
+are you?&quot; he calls out, his face radiant with happiness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old Baron merely nods his head. Without stirring from his
+arm-chair, without offering his hand to his nephew, without even asking
+him to sit down, he scans him suspiciously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With his hand on his sabre, Harry confronts him, somewhat surprised by
+this strange reception, but nowise inclined to propitiate his uncle by
+any flattering attentions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you want anything?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Indeed? You're not short of money, then?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;On the contrary, I have saved some,&quot; Harry replies, speaking quite
+after his uncle's fashion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! saved some, have you? Are you growing miserly?--a fine thing at
+your age! You probably learned it of your financial acquaintances,&quot; the
+old Baron growls.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have saved money because I am going to marry, and my betrothed is
+without means,&quot; Harry says, sharply.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! for a change you want to marry a poor girl! You display a truly
+edifying fickleness of character. And who is the fair creature to whom
+you have sacrificed your avarice?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am betrothed to my cousin Zdena.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Indeed?--to Zdena?&quot; the Baron says, with well-feigned indignation.
+&quot;Have you forgotten that in that case I shall disinherit you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You will do as you choose about that,&quot; Harry replies, dryly. &quot;I should
+be glad to assure my wife a pleasant and easy lot in life; but if you
+fancy that I have come here to sue for your favour, you are mistaken.
+It was my duty to inform you of my betrothal. I have done so; and that
+is all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Indeed? That is all?&quot; thunders old Leskjewitsch. &quot;It shall be all!
+Wait, you scoundrel, you good-for-naught, and we'll see if you go on
+carrying your head so high! I will turn the leaf: I will make Zdena my
+heiress,--but only upon condition that she sends you about your
+business. She shall choose between you--that is, between poverty--and
+me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It will not take her long. Good-morning.&quot; With which Harry turns on
+his heel and leaves the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old Baron sits motionless for a while. The mild spring breeze blows
+in through the open windows; there is a sound in the air of cooing
+doves, of water dripping on the stones of the paved court-yard from the
+roof, of the impatient pawing and neighing of a horse, and then the
+clatter of spurs and sabre.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old man smiles broadly. &quot;He shows race: the boy is a genuine
+Leskjewitsch,&quot; he mutters to himself,--&quot;a good mate for the girl!&quot; Then
+he goes to the window. Harry is just about to mount, when his uncle
+roars down to him, &quot;Harry! Harry! The deuce take you! are you deaf?
+Can't you hear?&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile, the major and his niece are walking in the garden at Zirkow.
+It was the major who had insisted that Harry should immediately inform
+his uncle of his betrothal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Zdena has shown very little interest in the discussion as to how the
+cross-grained, eccentric old man would receive the news. And when her
+uncle suddenly looks her full in the face to ask how she can adapt
+herself to straitened means, she calmly lays her band on the arm of her
+betrothed, and whispers, tenderly, &quot;You shall see.&quot; Then her eyes fill
+with tears as she adds, &quot;But how will you bear it, Harry?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He kisses both her hands and replies, &quot;Never mind, Zdena; I assure you
+that at this moment Conte Capriani is a beggar compared with myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Just at this point Frau Rosamunda plucks her spouse by the sleeve and
+forces him, <i>nolens volens</i>, to retire with her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I cannot understand you,&quot; she lectures him in their conjugal
+<i>tête-à-tête</i>. &quot;You are really indelicate, standing staring at the
+children, when you must see that they are longing to kiss each other.
+Such young people must be left to themselves now and then.&quot; At first
+Frau Rosamunda found it very difficult to assent to this rather
+imprudent betrothal, but she is now interested in it heart and soul.
+She arranges everything systematically, even delicacy of sentiment. Her
+exact rules in this respect rather oppress the major, who would gladly
+sun himself in the light and warmth of happiness which surrounds the
+young couple, about whose future, however, he is seriously distressed,
+lamenting bitterly his own want of business capacity which has so
+impoverished him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If I could but give the poor child more of a dowry,&quot; he keeps saying
+to himself. &quot;Or if Franz would but come to his senses,--yes, if he
+would only listen to reason, all would be well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">All this is in his thoughts, as he walks with his niece in the garden
+on this bright spring forenoon, while his nephew has gone to Vorhabshen
+to have an explanation with his uncle. Consequently he is absent-minded
+and does not listen to the girl's gay chatter, the outcome of intense
+joy in her life and her love.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The birds are twittering loudly as they build their nests in the
+blossom-laden trees, the grass is starred with the first dandelions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Harry is expected at lunch. The major is burning with impatience.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;One o'clock,&quot; he remarks. &quot;The boy ought to be back by this time. What
+do you say to walking a little way to meet him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As you please, uncle,&quot; the girl gaily assents. They turn towards the
+house, whence Krupitschka comes running, breathless with haste.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is the matter?&quot; the major calls out.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nothing, nothing, Herr Baron,&quot; the man replies; &quot;but the Frau Baroness
+desires you both to come to the drawing-room; she has a visitor.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is that any reason why you should run yourself so out of breath that
+you look like a fish on dry land?&quot; the major bawls to his old servant.
+&quot;You fairly frightened me, you ass! Who is the visitor?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Please--I do not know,&quot; declares Krupitschka, lying brazenly, while
+the major frowns, saying, &quot;There's an end to our walk,&quot; and never
+noticing the sly smile upon the old man's face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Zdena runs to her room to smooth her hair, tossed by the breeze, while
+the major, annoyed, goes directly to the drawing-room. He opens the
+door and stands as if rooted to the threshold. Beside the sofa where
+Frau Rosamunda is enthroned, with her official hostess expression,
+doing the honours with a grace all her own, sits a broad-shouldered old
+gentleman in a loose long-tailed coat, laughing loudly at something she
+has just told him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Franz!&quot; exclaims Paul von Leskjewitsch.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Here I am,&quot; responds the elder brother, with hardly-maintained
+composure. He rises; each advances towards the other, but before they
+can clasp hands the elder of the two declares, &quot;I wish, Paul, you would
+tell your bailiff to see to the ploughing on your land. That field near
+the forest is in a wretched condition,--hill and valley, the clods
+piled up, and wheat sown there. I have always held that no military man
+can ever learn anything about agriculture. You never had the faintest
+idea of farming.&quot; And as he speaks he clasps the major's hand and
+pinches Harry's ear. The young fellow has been looking on with a smile
+at the meeting between the brothers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I understand you, uncle: I am not to leave the service. I could not
+upon any terms,&quot; the young man assures him,--&quot;not even if I were begged
+to do so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He's a hard-headed fellow,&quot; Baron Franz says, with a laugh; &quot;and so is
+the girl. Did she tell you that she met me in the forest? We had a
+conversation together, she and I. At first she took me for that fool
+Studnecka; then she guessed who I was, and read me such a lecture! I
+did not care: it showed me that she was a genuine Leskjewitsch. H'm! I
+ought to have come here then, but--I--could not find the way; I waited
+for some one to show it to me.&quot; He pats Harry on the shoulder. &quot;But
+where the deuce is the girl? Is she hiding from me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At this moment Zdena enters. The old man turns ghastly pale; his hands
+begin to tremble violently, as he stretches them out towards her. She
+gazes at him for an instant, then runs to him and throws her arms
+around his neck. He clasps her close, as if never to let her leave him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The others turn away. There is a sound of hoarse sobbing. All that the
+strong man has hoarded up in his heart for twenty years asserts itself
+at this moment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It is not long, however, before all emotion is calmed, and affairs take
+their natural course. The two elderly men sit beside Frau Rosamunda,
+still enthroned on her sofa, and the lovers stand in the recess of a
+window and look out upon the spring.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So we are not to be poor, after all?&quot; Zdena says, with a sigh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It seems not,&quot; Harry responds, putting his arm round her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She does not speak for a while; then she murmurs, softly, &quot;'Tis a pity:
+I took such pleasure in it!&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_01" href="#div2Ref_01">Footnote 1</a>: One of a princely family who, although subject to royal
+authority, is allowed to retain some sovereign privileges.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>THE END.</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h4><span class="sc">Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia</span>.</h4>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>BY JULIA HELEN TWELLS, JR.</h2>
+
+<h1>A Triumph of Destiny.</h1>
+
+<h3>12mo. Cloth, deckle edges, $1.25.</h3>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is a book of uncommon characters and end-of-century problems; a
+story of strength told with interest and conviction.... The book is
+well worth reading.&quot;--<i>Philadelphia Press</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Miss Twells is evidently a woman of extensive mental resources, who
+thinks deeply and clearly. Her story commands admiration and consequent
+attention from the first. There are not many characters, but about the
+few are clustered events of significance, and their relation to each
+other and to their own individual development is analyzed with strength
+and clearness.&quot;--<i>Washington Times</i>.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<h2>BY MRS. OLIPHANT.</h2>
+
+<h1>The Unjust Steward.</h1>
+
+<h3>12mo. Cloth, $1.25.</h3>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We have an admirable study of an old Scotch minister oppressed by the
+consciousness of a very venial fault in a small financial transaction.
+The tone is one of cheerful humor, the incidents are skilfully devised,
+verisimilitude is never sacrificed to effect, every episode is true to
+life.&quot;--<i>Philadelphia Press</i>.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<h2>BY ARTHUR PATERSON.</h2>
+
+<h1>For Freedom's Sake.</h1>
+
+<h3>12mo. Cloth, $1.25.</h3>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The subject-matter of this book is the desperate battle between
+freedom and slavery for possession of Kansas. One of the strongest
+characters introduced is old John Brown. A charming love story is
+naturally incidental, and the element of humor is by no means
+lacking.&quot;--<i>New York World</i>.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<h2>J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA.</h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h1>By Amy E. Blanchard.</h1>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<h2>Betty of Wye.</h2>
+
+<h3>With illustrations by Florence P. England.</h3>
+
+<h3>12mo. Cloth, $1.25.</h3>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is the story of a little Maryland girl who grows from a
+turbulent girl into a loving and lovable woman. The book gives many
+suggestions that will help a reckless girl to see the beauty and value
+of a knowledge of conventionalities and obedience to accepted
+standards.&quot;--<i>New York Outlook</i>.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<h2>Two Girls.</h2>
+
+<h3>With illustrations by Ida Waugh.</h3>
+
+<h3>12mo. Cloth, $1.25.</h3>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Two Girls' is a very pretty domestic tale, by Amy E. Blanchard. The
+title indicates its character--the story of the lives of two girls.
+They are girls of entirely different temperament, and the lessons
+deducted from their respective experiences, and the manner in which
+each met the daily troubles and tribulations of early life, make the
+book one of more than ordinary importance to the young, and especially
+to young girls. It is a story with a moral, and the moral, if rightly
+followed, cannot fail to influence the lives of its readers. The two
+girls are of American product and the plot is laid in Southwestern
+territory.&quot;--<i>St. Paul Dispatch</i>.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<h2>Girls Together.</h2>
+
+<h3>With illustrations by Ida Waugh.</h3>
+
+<h3>12mo. Cloth, $1.25.</h3>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Here is a story so realistic, detailed, and full of youthful sentiment
+and enthusiasm that it must be one of the pieces of literary work which
+seem 'easy' but are in reality so difficult to achieve. It is the sort
+of description that girls dearly love to read, and is wholesome in tone
+and wide awake in the telling.&quot;--<i>Portland Press</i>.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<h2>Blanchard Library for Girls.</h2>
+
+<h2>TWO GIRLS.</h2>
+<h2>GIRLS TOGETHER. &nbsp;&nbsp; BETTY OF WYE.</h2>
+
+<h3>3 volumes in a box. Illustrated. Cloth, $3.75.</h3>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<h2>J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA.</h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of 'O Thou, My Austria!', by Ossip Schubin
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of 'O Thou, My Austria!', by Ossip Schubin
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: 'O Thou, My Austria!'
+
+Author: Ossip Schubin
+
+Translator: A. L. Wister
+
+Release Date: March 2, 2011 [EBook #35454]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 'O THOU, MY AUSTRIA!' ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+   1. Page scan source:
+      http://www.archive.org/details/othoumyaustria00schuiala
+
+   2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         "O THOU, MY AUSTRIA!"
+
+
+
+                       TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN
+
+                                   OF
+
+                             OSSIP SCHUBIN
+
+
+
+                                   BY
+
+                           MRS. A. L. WISTER
+
+
+
+
+
+                              PHILADELPHIA
+                        J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
+                                 1897.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+             Copyright, 1890, by J. B. Lippincott Company.
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CONTENTS.
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I.
+
+A Manuscript Misappropriated.
+
+                              CHAPTER II.
+
+The Contents of the Manuscript.
+
+                              CHAPTER III.
+
+An Arrival.
+
+                              CHAPTER IV.
+
+A Quarrel.
+
+                               CHAPTER V.
+
+Baroness Paula.
+
+                              CHAPTER VI.
+
+Entrapped.
+
+                              CHAPTER VII.
+
+An Invitation.
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII.
+
+The Secret.
+
+                              CHAPTER IX.
+
+An Encounter.
+
+                               CHAPTER X.
+
+A Garrison Town.
+
+                              CHAPTER XI.
+
+An Old Friend.
+
+                              CHAPTER XII.
+
+A Graveyard in Paris.
+
+                             CHAPTER XIII.
+
+At Dobrotschau.
+
+                              CHAPTER XIV.
+
+Olga.
+
+                              CHAPTER XV.
+
+Comrades and Friends.
+
+                              CHAPTER XVI.
+
+Lato Treurenberg.
+
+                             CHAPTER XVII.
+
+Mismated.
+
+                             CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+A Friend's Advice.
+
+                              CHAPTER XIX.
+
+Frau Rosa's Birthday.
+
+                              CHAPTER XX.
+
+Komaritz Again.
+
+                              CHAPTER XXI.
+
+"Poor Lato!"
+
+                             CHAPTER XXII.
+
+Harry's Musings.
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+Zdena to the Rescue.
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+A Sleepless Night.
+
+                              CHAPTER XXV.
+
+The Confession.
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+The Baron's Aid.
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+Baron Franz.
+
+                            CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+A Short Visit.
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+Submission.
+
+                              CHAPTER XXX.
+
+Persecution.
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+Consolation.
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+Interrupted Harmony.
+
+                            CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+Early Sunrisee.
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+Struggles.
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+A Slanderer.
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+Failure.
+
+                            CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+A Visit.
+
+                            CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+At Last.
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+The Dinner.
+
+                              CHAPTER XL.
+
+A Farewell.
+
+                              CHAPTER XLI.
+
+Resolve.
+
+                             CHAPTER XLII.
+
+Found.
+
+                             CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+Count Hans.
+
+                             CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+Spring.
+
+                              CHAPTER XLV.
+
+Old Baron Franz.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         "O THOU, MY AUSTRIA!"
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I.
+
+                     A MANUSCRIPT MISAPPROPRIATED.
+
+
+"Krupitschka, is it going to rain?" Major von Leskjewitsch asked his
+servant, who had formerly been his corporal. The major was leaning out
+of a window of his pretty vine-wreathed country-seat, smoking a
+chibouque; Krupitschka, in the garden below, protected by a white
+apron, and provided with a dark-green champagne-bottle, was picking the
+Spanish flies from off the hawthorn-bushes. At his master's question,
+he looked up, gazed at a few clouds on the horizon, replied, "Don't
+know--maybe, and then again maybe not," and deftly entrapped three
+victims at once in the long neck of his bottle. A few days previous he
+had made a very satisfactory bargain with the apothecary of the
+neighbouring little town for Spanish flies.
+
+"Ass! Have you just got back from the Delphic oracle?" the major
+exclaimed, angrily, turning away from the window.
+
+At the words "Delphic oracle," Krupitschka pricked up his ears. It
+annoyed him to have his master and the other gentlemen make use of
+words that he did not understand, and he determined to buy a foreign
+dictionary with the proceeds of the sale of his cantharides. Meanwhile,
+he noted down, in a dilapidated memorandum-book, "delphin wrackle,"
+muttering the while, "What sort of team is that, I wonder?"
+
+Unable to extort any prognosis of the weather from Krupitschka, the
+major turned to the barometer; but that stood, as it had done
+uninterruptedly for the past fortnight, at 'Changeable.'
+
+"Blockhead!" growled the major, shaking the barometer a little to rouse
+it from its lethargy; and then, seating himself at the grand piano, he
+thundered away at a piece of music familiar to all the country round as
+"The Major's Triumphal March." All the country round was likewise
+familiar with the date of the origin of this effective work,--the
+spring of 1866.
+
+At that time the major had composed this march with the patriotic
+intention of dedicating it to the victorious General Benedek, but the
+melancholy events of the brief summer campaign left him no desire to do
+so, and the march was never published; nevertheless, the major played
+it himself now and then, to his own immense satisfaction and to the
+horror of his really musical wife.
+
+This wife, a Northern German by birth, fair and dignified in
+appearance, sat rocking comfortably in an American chair, reading the
+latest number of the _German Illustrated News_, while her husband
+amused himself at the piano.
+
+The major banged away at the keys in a fury of enthusiasm, until a
+black poodle, which had crept under the piano in despair, howled
+piteously.
+
+"Ah, Paul," sighed Frau von Leskjewitsch, letting her paper drop in her
+lap, "are you determined to make my piano atone for the loss of the
+battle of Koeniggratz?"
+
+"Why do you have a foreign piano, then?" was the patriotic reply; and
+the major went on strumming.
+
+"You make Mori wretched," his wife remarked; "that dog is really
+musical."
+
+"A nervous mongrel--a genuine lapdog," the major muttered,
+contemptuously, without ceasing his performance.
+
+"Your march is absolutely intolerable," Frau von Leskjewitsch said at
+last.
+
+"But if it were only by Richard Wagner--" the major remarked,
+significantly: "of course you Wagnerites do not admit even the
+existence of any composer except your idol."
+
+With this he left the piano, and, with his thumbs stuck into the
+armholes of his vest, began to pace the apartment to and fro.
+
+There was quite space enough for him to do so, for the room was large
+and its furniture scanty. Nowhere was he in any danger of stumbling
+over a plush table loaded with bric-a-brac, or a dwarf arm-chair, or
+any other of the ornaments of a modern drawing-room.
+
+The stock of curios in the house--and it was by no means
+inconsiderable, consisting of exquisite figures and groups of
+Louisburg, Meissen, and old Viennese porcelain, of seventeenth-century
+fans, and of thoroughly useless articles of ivory and silver--was all
+arranged in two antique glass cabinets, standing in such extremely dark
+corners that their contents could not be seen even at mid-day without a
+candle.
+
+Baroness Leskjewitsch hated everything, as she was wont to express
+herself, that was useless, that gathered dust, and that was in the way.
+
+In accordance with the severe style of the furniture, perfect order
+reigned everywhere, except that in an arm-chair lay an object in
+striking contrast to the rest of the apartment,--a brown work-basket
+about as large as a common-sized portmanteau. It lay quite forlornly
+upon one side, like a sailing-vessel capsized by the wind.
+
+The major paused, looked at the basket with an odd smile, and then
+could not resist the temptation to rummage in it a little.
+
+His wife always maintained that he was something of a Paul Pry; and
+perhaps she was right.
+
+"Ah!" he exclaimed, dragging to light a piece of embroidery upon
+Japanese canvas. "The first design for a cushion--the 17th is
+my birthday. What little red book is this?--'Maximes de La
+Rochefoucauld'--don't know him. And here--why, only look!" He pulled
+out a package tied with blue ribbon. "A manuscript! It seems that Zdena
+has leanings to authorship! H'm--h'm! When a girl like our Zdena takes
+to such ways, it is usually a sign that she feels impelled to confide
+in a roundabout way, to paper, something which nothing could induce her
+to confess frankly to any living being. H'm! I really am curious to
+know what goes on in that whimsical, childish brain.
+
+"'My Memoirs!'" The major pulled aside the blue ribbon that held the
+package together. "A motto! Two mottoes!--a perfect _luxe_ of mottoes!"
+he murmured, and then read out aloud,--
+
+
+         'Whether you marry or not, you will always repent it.'
+
+                                                           Plato.
+
+
+Then comes,--
+
+           'Should you marry, then be sure
+            Life's sorest ills you must endure.'
+
+                                                Lermontow.
+
+     'L'amour, c'est le grand moteur de toutes les betises humaines.'
+
+                                                          G. Sand.
+
+
+I really should not have supposed that our Zdena had already pondered
+the marriage problem so deeply," he said, gleefully; then,
+contemplating with a smile the mass of wisdom scribbled in a bold,
+dashing handwriting, he added, "there seems to be more going on in that
+small brain than we had suspected. "What do you think, Rosel? may not
+Zdena possibly have a weakness for Harry?"
+
+"Nonsense!" replied the Baroness. She was evidently somewhat
+annoyed,--first, because her husband had roused her from a pleasant
+nap, or, rather, disturbed her in the perusal of an article upon
+Grecian excavations, and secondly, because he had called her Rosel. Her
+real name was Rosamunda, a name of which she was very proud; she really
+could not, even after almost twenty years of married life, reconcile
+herself to her husband's thus robbing it of all its poetry. "Nonsense!"
+she exclaimed, with some temper. "I have a very different match in view
+for her."
+
+"I did not ask you what you had in view for Zdena," the major observed,
+contemptuously. "I know that without asking. I only wish to know
+whether during your stay in Vienna you did not notice that Zdena had
+taken a liking to----"
+
+"Oh, Zdena is far too sensible, and, if I am not greatly mistaken, also
+too ambitious, to dream of marrying Harry. She knows that Harry would
+ruin his prospects by a marriage with her," Frau von Leskjewitsch
+continued. "There's no living upon love and air alone."
+
+"Nevertheless there are always some people who insist upon trying it,
+although the impossibility has long been demonstrated, both
+theoretically and practically," growled the major.
+
+"And, aside from all that, Harry is not at all the husband for your
+niece," Frau Rosamunda went on, didactically. "She is wonderfully well
+developed intellectually, for her age. And he--well, he is a very good
+fellow, I have nothing to say against him, but----"
+
+"'A very good fellow'! I should like to know where you could find me a
+better," cried the major. "In the first place, he is as handsome as a
+man can be----"
+
+"As if beauty in a man were of any importance!" Frau von Leskjewitsch
+remarked, loftily.
+
+Paying no attention to this interruption, the major went on reckoning
+up his favourite's advantages, in an angry crescendo. "He rides like a
+centaur!" he declared, loudly, and the comparison pleased him so much
+that he repeated it twice,--"yes, like a centaur; he passed his
+military examinations as if they had been mere play, and he is
+considered one of the most brilliant and talented officers in the
+army. He is a little quick-tempered, but he has the best heart in the
+world, and he has been in love with Zdena since he was a small boy;
+while she----"
+
+"Let me advise you to lower your voice a little," said Frau Rosamunda,
+going to the window, which she partly closed.
+
+"Stuff!" muttered her husband.
+
+"As you please. If you like to make Zdena a subject for gossip, you are
+quite free to do so, only I would counsel you in that case to consult
+your crony Krupitschka. He has apparently not lost a single word of
+your harangue. I saw him from the window just now, staring up here, his
+mouth wide open, and the Spanish flies crawling out of his bottle and
+up his sleeves."
+
+With which words and a glance of dignified displeasure, Frau Rosamunda
+left the room.
+
+"H'm! perhaps I was wrong," thought the major: "women are keener in
+such matters than we men. 'Tis desirable I should be mistaken, but--I'd
+wager my gelding's forefoot,--no--" He shook his head, and contemplated
+the manuscript tied up with blue ribbon. "Let's see," he murmured, as
+he picked it up and carried it off to his smoking-room.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II.
+
+                    THE CONTENTS OF THE MANUSCRIPT.
+
+
+Major Paul Von Leskjewitsch, proprietor of the estates of Lauschitz and
+Zirkow in southwestern Bohemia, had been for twenty years on the
+retired list, and was a prosperous agriculturist. He had formerly been
+a very well-to-do officer, the most steady and trustworthy in the whole
+regiment, always in funds, and very seldom in scrapes.
+
+In his youth he had often been a target for Cupid's arrows, a fact of
+which he himself was hardly aware.
+
+"What an ass I was!" he was wont to exclaim to his cousin, Captain Jack
+Leskjewitsch, when on occasion the pair became confidential at midnight
+over a glass of good Bordeaux. The thought of his lost opportunities as
+a lover rather weighed upon the worthy dragoon.
+
+In his regiment he had been very popular and had made many friends, but
+with none of them had he been so intimate as with his corporal
+Krupitschka. There was a rumour that before the major's wooing of his
+present wife, a Fraeulein von Boesedow, from Pomerania, he had asked this
+famulus of his, "Eh, Krupitschka, what do you think? Shall we marry or
+not?"
+
+Fortunately, this rumour had never reached the ears of the young lady,
+else she might have felt it her duty to reject the major, which would
+have been a pity.
+
+In blissful ignorance, therefore, she accepted his proposal, after
+eight days of prudent reflection, and three months later Baron
+Leskjewitsch led her to the altar.
+
+Of course he was utterly wretched during the prolonged wedding
+festivities, and at least very uncomfortable during the honey-moon,
+which, in accordance with the fashion of the day, he spent with his
+bride in railway-carriages, inns, churches, picture-galleries,
+and so forth. In truth, he was terribly bored, tided himself over the
+pauses which frequently occurred in his conversations with his bride
+by reading aloud from the guide-book, took cold in the Colosseum,
+and--breathed a sigh of relief when, after all the instructive
+experiences of their wedding-tour, he found himself comfortably
+established in his charming country-seat at Zirkow.
+
+At present the Paul Leskjewitsches had long been known for a model
+couple in all the country round. Countess Zelenitz stoutly maintained
+that they were the least unhappy couple of her acquaintance,--that they
+were past-masters of their art; she meant the most difficult of all
+arts,--that of getting along with each other.
+
+As every piece of music runs on in its own peculiar measure, one to a
+joyous three crotchets to the bar, another to a lyrically languishing
+and anon archly provocative six-quaver time, and so on, the married
+life of the Leskjewitsches was certainly set to a slow four crotchets
+to the bar,--or "common time," as it is called.
+
+The husband, besides agriculture, and his deplorable piano performances,
+cultivated a certain hypochondriac habit of mind, scrutinized the
+colour of his tongue very frequently, and, although in spite of his
+utmost efforts he was quite unable to discover a flaw in his health,
+tried a new patent tonic every year.
+
+The wife cultivated belles-lettres, devoted some time and attention to
+music, and regulated her domestic affairs with punctilious order and
+neatness.
+
+The only fault Leskjewitsch had to find with her was that she was an
+ardent admirer of Wagner, and hence quite unable to appreciate his own
+talent as a composer; while she, for her part, objected to his intimacy
+with Krupitschka and with the stag-hounds. These, however, were mere
+bagatelles. The only real sore spot in this marriage was the luck of
+children.
+
+The manner in which fate indemnified these two people by bestowing upon
+them a delightful companion in the person of a niece of the major's can
+best be learned from the young lady herself, in whose memoirs, with an
+utter disregard of the baseness of such conduct, the major has
+meanwhile become absorbed.
+
+
+
+                              MY MEMOIRS.
+
+                                   I.
+
+It rains--ah, how it rains! great drops following one another, and
+drenching the garden paths, plash--plash in all the puddles! Never a
+sunbeam to call forth a rainbow against the dark sky, never a gleam of
+light in the dull slaty gray. It seems as if the skies could never have
+done weeping over the monotony of existence--still the same--still the
+same!
+
+I have tried everything by way of amusement. I curled Morl's hair with
+the curling-tongs. I played Chopin's mazurkas until my brain reeled. I
+even went up to the garret, where I knew no one could hear me, and, in
+the presence of an old wardrobe, where uncle's last uniform as a
+lieutenant was hanging, and of two rusty stove-pipes, I declaimed the
+famous monologue from the "Maid of Orleans."
+
+"Oh, I could tear my hair with vexation!" as Valentine says. I read
+Faust a while ago,--since last spring I have been allowed to read all
+our classics,--and Faust interested me extremely, especially the
+prologue in heaven, and the first monologue, and then the walk. Ah,
+what a wonderful thing that walk is! But the love-scenes did not please
+me. Gretchen is far too meek and humble to Faust. "Dear God! How ever
+is it such a man can think and know so much?"
+
+My voice is very strong and full, and I think I have a remarkable
+talent for the stage. I have often thought of becoming an actress, for
+a change; to--yes, it must out--to have an opportunity at last to show
+myself to the world,--to be admired. Miss O'Donnel is always telling me
+I was made to be admired, and I believe she is right. But what good
+does that do me? I think out all kinds of things, but no one will
+listen to them, especially now that Miss O'Donnel has gone. She seemed
+to listen, at all events, and every now and then would declare, "Child,
+you are a wonder!" That pleased me. But she departed last Saturday, to
+pay a visit to her relatives in Italy. Her niece is being educated
+there for an opera-singer. Since she went there is no one in whom I can
+confide. To be sure, I love Uncle Paul and Aunt Rosamunda dearly,--much
+more dearly than Miss O'Donnel; but I cannot tell them whatever happens
+to come into my head. They would not understand, any more than they
+understand how a girl of my age can demand more of life than if she
+were fifty--but indeed----
+
+Rain--rain still! Since I've nothing else to do, I'll begin to-day to
+write my memoirs!
+
+That sounds presumptuous--the memoirs of a girl whose existence flows
+on between Zirkow and Komaritz. But, after all,--
+
+
+           "Where'er you grasp this human life of ours
+            In its full force, be sure 'twill interest;"
+
+
+which means, so far as I can understand, that, if one has the courage
+to write down one's personal observations and recollections simply and
+truthfully, it is sure to be worth the trouble.
+
+I will be perfectly frank; and why not?--since I write for myself
+alone.
+
+But that's false reasoning; for how many men there are who feign to
+themselves for their own satisfaction, bribing their consciences with
+sophistry! My conscience, however, sleeps soundly without morphine; I
+really believe there is nothing for it to do at present. I can be frank
+because I have nothing to confess.
+
+Every Easter, before confession, I rack my brains to scrape together a
+few sins of some consequence, and I can find nothing but unpunctuality
+at prayers, pertness, and too much desire for worldly frivolities.
+
+Well! Now, to begin without further circumlocution. Most people begin
+their memoirs with the history of their grandparents, some with that of
+their great-grandparents, seeming to suppose that the higher they can
+climb in their genealogical tree the more it adds to their importance.
+I begin simply with the history of my parents.
+
+My father and mother married for love; they never repented their
+marriage, and yet it was the ruin of both of them.
+
+My father was well born; not so my mother. Born in Paris, the daughter
+of a needy petty official, she was glad to accept a position as
+saleswoman in one of the fashionable Paris shops. Poor, dear mamma! It
+makes me wretched to think of her, condemned to make up parcels and tie
+up bundles, to mount on stepladders, exposed to the impertinence of
+capricious customers, who always want just what is not to be had,--all
+in the stifling atmosphere of a shop, and for a mere daily pittance.
+
+Nothing in the world vexes me so much as to have people begin to
+whisper before me, glancing at me compassionately as they nod their
+heads. My ears are very acute, and I know perfectly well that they are
+talking of my poor mother and pitying me because my father married a
+shop-girl. I feel actually boiling with rage. Young as I was when I
+lost her, she still lives in my memory as the loveliest creature I have
+ever met in my life.
+
+Tall and very slender, but always graceful, perfectly natural in
+manner, with tiny hands and feet, and large, melancholy, startled eyes,
+in a delicate, old-world face, she looked like an elf who could not
+quite comprehend why she was condemned to carry in her breast so large
+a human heart, well-nigh breaking with tenderness and melancholy. I
+know I look like her, and I am proud of it. Whenever I am presented to
+one of my couple of hundred aunts whose acquaintance I am condemned to
+make, she is sure to exclaim, "How very like Fritz she is!--all Fritz!"
+And I never fail to rejoin, "Oh, no, I am like my mother; every one who
+knew her says I am like mamma."
+
+And then my aunts' faces grow long, and they think me pert.
+
+
+Although I was scarcely six years old when Uncle Paul took us away from
+Paris, I can remember distinctly my home there. It was in a steep
+street in Montmartre, very high up on the fourth or fifth floor of a
+huge lodging-house. The sunlight shone in long broad streaks into our
+rooms through the high windows, outside of which extended an iron
+balcony. Our rooms were very pretty, very neat,--but very plain. Papa
+did not seem to belong to them; I don't know how I discovered this, but
+I found it out, little as I was. The ceilings looked low, when he rose
+from the rocking-chair, where he loved to sit, and stood at his full
+height. He always held his head gaily, high in the air, never bowing it
+humbly to suit his modest lodgings.
+
+His circumstances, cramped for the time, as I learned later, by his
+imprudent marriage, contracted in spite of his father's disapproval,
+apparently struck him as a good joke, or, at the worst, as a passing
+annoyance. He always maintained the gay humour of a man of rank who,
+finding himself overtaken by a storm upon some party of pleasure, is
+obliged to take refuge in a wretched village inn.
+
+Now and then he would stretch out his arms as if to measure the
+smallness of his house, and laugh. But mamma would cast down her large
+eyes sadly; then he would clasp her to his breast, kiss her, and call
+her the delight of his life; and I would creep out of the corner where
+I had been playing with my dolls, and pluck him by the sleeve,
+jealously desirous of my share of caresses.
+
+In my recollection of my earliest childhood--a recollection without
+distinct outlines, and like some sweet, vague dream lingering in the
+most secret, cherished corner of my heart--everything is warm and
+bright; it is all light and love!
+
+Papa is almost always with us in our sunny little nest. I see him
+still,--ah, how plainly!--leaning back in his rocking-chair, fair,
+with a rather haughty but yet kindly smile, his eyes sparkling with
+good-humoured raillery. He is smoking a cigarette, and reading the
+paper, apparently with nothing in the world to do but to enjoy life;
+all the light in the little room seems to come from him.
+
+The first four years of my life blend together in my memory like one
+long summer day, without the smallest cloud in the blue skies above it.
+
+I perfectly remember the moment in which my childish happiness was
+interrupted by the first disagreeable sensation. It was an emotion of
+dread. Until then I must have slept through all the hours of darkness,
+for, when once I suddenly wakened and found the light all gone, I was
+terrified at the blackness above and around me, and I screamed aloud.
+Then I noticed that mamma was kneeling, sobbing, beside my bed. Her
+sobs must have wakened me. She lighted a candle to soothe me, and told
+me a story. In the midst of my eager listening, I asked her, "Where is
+papa?"
+
+She turned her head away, and said, "Out in the world!"
+
+"Out in the world----" Whether or not it was the tone in which she
+pronounced the word "world," I cannot tell, but it has ever since had a
+strange sound for me,--a sound betokening something grand yet terrible.
+
+Thus I made the discovery that there were nights, and that grown-up
+people could cry.
+
+Soon afterwards it was winter; the nights grew longer, the days
+shorter, and it was never really bright in our home again,--the
+sunshine had vanished.
+
+It was cold, and the trees in the gardens high up in Montmartre, where
+they took me to walk, grew bare and ugly.
+
+Once, I remember, I asked my mother, "Mamma, will the trees never be
+green again?"
+
+"Oh, yes, when the spring comes," she made answer.
+
+"And then will it be bright here again?" I asked, anxiously.
+
+To this she made no reply, but her eyes suddenly grew so sad that I
+climbed into her lap and kissed her upon both eyelids.
+
+Papa was rarely with us now, and I was convinced that he had taken the
+sunshine away from our home.
+
+When at long intervals he came to dine with us, there was as much
+preparation as if a stranger had been expected. Mamma busied herself in
+the kitchen, helping the cook, who was also my nurse-maid, to prepare
+the dinner. She laid the cloth herself, and decorated the table with
+flowers. To me everything looked magnificent: I was quite awe-stricken
+by the unwonted splendour.
+
+One day a very beautiful lady paid us a visit, dressed in a velvet
+cloak trimmed with ermine--I did not know until some time afterwards
+the name of the fur--and a gray hat. I remember the hat distinctly, I
+was so delighted with the bird sitting on it. She expressed herself as
+charmed with everything in our home, stared about her through her
+eye-glass, overturned a small table and two footstools with her train,
+kissed me repeatedly, and begged mamma to come soon to see her. She was
+a cousin of papa's, a Countess Gatinsky,--the very one for whom, when
+she was a young girl and papa an elegant young attache, he had been
+doing the honours of Paris on that eventful afternoon when, while she
+and her mother were busy and absorbed, shopping in the _Bon Marche_, he
+had fallen desperately in love with my pale, beautiful mother.
+
+When the Countess left us, mamma cried bitterly. I do not know whether
+she ever returned the visit, but it was never repeated, and I never saw
+the Countess again, save once in the Bois de Boulogne, where I was
+walking with my mother. She was sitting in an open barouche, and my
+father was beside her. Opposite them an old man sat crouched up,
+looking very discontented, and very cold, although the day was quite
+mild and he was wrapped up in furs.
+
+They saw us in the distance; the Countess smiled and waved her hand;
+papa grew very red, and lifted his hat in a stiff, embarrassed way.
+
+I remember wondering at his manner: what made him bow to us as if we
+were two strangers?
+
+Mamma hurried me on, and we got into the first omnibus she could find.
+I stroked her hand or smoothed the folds of her gown all the way home,
+for I felt that she had been hurt, although I could not tell how.
+
+
+The days grow sadder and darker, and yet the spring has come. Was there
+really no sunshine in that April and May, or is it so only in my
+memory?
+
+Meanwhile, the trees have burst into leaf, and the first early cherries
+have decked our modest table. We have not seen papa for a long time. He
+is staying at a castle in the neighbourhood of Paris, but only for a
+few days.
+
+It is a sultry afternoon in the beginning of June,--I learned the date
+of that wretched day later. The flowers in the balcony before our
+windows, scarlet carnations and fragrant mignonette, are drooping,
+because mamma has forgotten to water them, and mamma herself looks as
+weary as the flowers. Pale and miserable, she moves about the room with
+the air of one whom the first approach of some severe illness half
+paralyzes. Her pretty gown, a dark-blue silk with white spots, seems to
+hang upon her slender figure. She arranges the articles in the room
+here and there restlessly, and, noticing a soft silken scarf which papa
+sometimes wore knotted carelessly about his throat in the mornings, and
+which has been left hanging on the knob of a curtain, she picks it up,
+passes it slowly between her hands, and holds it against her cheek.
+
+There!--is not that a carriage stopping before our door? I run out
+upon the balcony, but can see nothing of what is going on in the
+street below; our rooms are too high up. I can see, however, that the
+people who live opposite are hurrying to their windows, and that the
+passers-by stop in the street, and stand and talk together, gathering
+in a little knot. A strange bustling noise ascends the staircase; it
+comes up to our landing,--the heavy tread of men supporting some
+weighty burden.
+
+Mamma stands spellbound for a moment, and then flings the door open and
+cries out. It is papa whom they are bringing up, deadly pale, covered
+with blankets, helpless as a child.
+
+There had been an accident in an avenue not far from Bellefontaine, the
+castle which the Countess Gatinsky had hired for the summer. Papa had
+been riding with her,--riding a skittish, vicious horse, against which
+he had been warned. He had only laughed, however, declaring that he
+knew how to manage the brute. But he could not manage him. As I learned
+afterwards, the horse, after vainly trying to throw his rider, had
+reared, and rolled over backwards upon him. He was taken up senseless.
+When he recovered consciousness in Bellefontaine, whither they carried
+him, and the physician told him frankly that he was mortally hurt, he
+desired to be taken home,--to those whom he loved best in the world.
+
+At first they would not accede to his wishes; Countess Gatinsky wanted
+to send for mamma and me,--to bring us to Bellefontaine. But he would
+not hear of it. He was told that to take him to Paris would be an
+injury to him in his present condition. Injury!--he laughed at the
+word. He wanted to die in the dear little nest in Paris, and it was a
+dying man's right to have his way.
+
+I have never talked of this to any one, but I have thought very often
+of our sorrow, of the shadow that suddenly fell upon my childhood and
+extinguished all its sunshine.
+
+And I have often heard people whispering together about it when they
+thought I was not listening. But I listened, listened involuntarily, as
+one does to words which one would afterwards give one's life not to
+have heard. And when the evil words stabbed me like a knife, it was a
+comfort to be able to say to myself, "It was merely the caprice of a
+moment,--his heart had no share in it;" it was a comfort to be able to
+say that mamma sat at his bedside and that he died with his hand in
+hers.
+
+I do not remember how long the struggle lasted before death came, but I
+never can forget the moment when I was taken in to see him.
+
+I can see the room now perfectly,--the bucket of ice upon which the
+afternoon sun glittered, the bloody bandages on the floor, the
+furniture in disorder, and, lying here and there, articles of dress
+which had not yet been put away. There, in the large bed, where the gay
+flowered curtains had been drawn back as far as possible to let in the
+air, lay papa. His cheeks were flushed and his blue eyes sparkled, and
+when I went up to him he laughed. I could not believe that he was ill.
+Mamma sat at the head of the bed, dressed in her very prettiest gown,
+her wonderful hair loosened and hanging in all its silken softness
+about her shoulders. She, too, smiled; but her smile made me shiver.
+
+Papa looked long and lovingly at me, and, taking my small hand in his,
+put it to his lips. Then he made the sign of the cross upon my
+forehead. I stood on tiptoe to kiss him, and I embraced him with all
+the fervour of my five years. Mamma drew me back. "You hurt him," she
+said. He laughed,--laughed as a brave man laughs at pain. He always
+laughed: I never saw him grave but once,--only once. Mamma burst into
+tears.
+
+"Minette, Minette, do not be a coward. I want you to be beautiful
+always," said he. Those words I perfectly remember.
+
+Yes, he wanted her to be beautiful to the last!
+
+They sent me out of the room. As I turned at the door, I saw how papa
+stroked mamma's wonderful hair--slowly--lingeringly--with his slender
+white hand.
+
+I sat in the kitchen all the long summer afternoon. At first our
+servant told me stories. Then she had to go out upon an errand; I
+stayed in the kitchen alone, sitting upon a wooden bench, staring
+before me, my doll, with which I did not care to play, lying upon the
+brick floor beside me. The copper saucepans on the wall gleam and
+glitter in the rays of the declining sun, and the bluebottle flies
+crawl and buzz about their shining surfaces.
+
+A moaning monotonous sound, now low, then loud, comes from my father's
+room. I feel afraid, but I cannot stir: I am, as it were, rooted to my
+wooden bench. The hoarse noise grows more and more terrible.
+
+Gradually twilight seems to fall from the ceiling and to rise from the
+floor; the copper vessels on the wall grow vague and indistinct; here
+and there a gleam of brilliancy pierces the gray gloom, then all is
+dissolved in darkness. In the distance a street-organ drones out
+Malbrough; I have hated the tune ever since. The moans grow louder. I
+lean my head forward upon my knees and stop my ears. What is that? One
+brief, piercing cry,--and all is still!
+
+I creep on tiptoe to papa's room. The door is open. I can see mamma
+bending over him, kissing him, and lavishing caresses upon him: she is
+no longer afraid of hurting him.
+
+That night a neighbour took me home with her, and when I came back, the
+next day, papa lay in his black coffin in a darkened room, and candles
+were burning all around him.
+
+He seemed to me to have grown. And what dignity there was in his face!
+That was the only time I ever saw him look grave.
+
+Mamma lifted me up that I might kiss him. Something cold seemed
+to touch my cheek, and suddenly I felt I--cannot describe the
+sensation--an intense dread,--the same terror, only ten times as great,
+as that which overcame me when I first wakened in the night and was
+aware of the darkness. Screaming, I extricated myself from mamma's
+arms, and ran out of the room.----
+
+(Here the major stopped to brush away the tears before reading on.)
+
+----For a while mamma tried to remain in Paris and earn our living by
+the embroidery in which she was so skilful; but, despite all her
+trying, she could not do it. The servant-girl was sent away, our rooms
+grew barer and barer, and more than once I went to bed crying with
+hunger.
+
+In November, Uncle Paul came to see us, and took us back with him to
+Bohemia. I cannot recall the journey, but our arrival I remember
+distinctly,--the long drive from the station, along the muddy road,
+between low hedges, or tall, slim poplars; then through the forest,
+where the wind tossed about the dry fallen leaves, and a few
+crimson-tipped daisies still bloomed gaily by the roadside, braving the
+brown desolation about them; past curious far-stretching villages,
+their low huts but slightly elevated above the mud about them, their
+black thatched roofs green in spots with moss, their narrow windows gay
+with flowers behind the thick, dim panes; past huge manure-heaps, upon
+which large numbers of gay-coloured fowls were clucking and crowing,
+and past stagnant ditches where amber-coloured swine were wallowing
+contentedly.
+
+The dogs rush excitedly out of the huts, to run barking after our
+carriage, while a mob of barefooted, snub-nosed children, their breath
+showing like smoke in the frosty air, come bustling out of school, and
+shout after us "Praised be Jesus Christ!"
+
+A turn--we have driven into the castle court-yard; Krupitschka hastens
+to open the carriage door. At the top of the steps stands a tall lady
+in mourning, very majestic in appearance, with a kind face. I see mamma
+turn pale, shrink--then all is a blank.
+
+
+
+                                  II.
+
+At the period when I again take up my reminiscences I am entirely at
+home at Zirkow, and almost as familiar with Uncle Paul and Aunt Rosa as
+if I had known them both all my life.
+
+Winter has set in, and, ah, such a wonderful, beautiful winter,--so
+bright, and glittering with such quantities of pure white snow! I go
+sleighing with Uncle Paul; I make a snow man with Krupitschka,--a monk
+in a long robe, because the legs of the soldier we tried to make would
+not stand straight; and I help Krupitschka's wife to make bread in a
+large wooden bowl with iron hoops. How delicious is the odour of
+the fermenting dough, and how delightful it is to run about the long
+brick-paved corridors and passages, to have so much space and light and
+air! When one day Uncle Paul asks me, "Which is best, Paris or Zirkow?"
+I answer, without hesitation, "Zirkow!"
+
+Uncle Paul laughs contentedly, but mamma looks at me sadly. I feel that
+I have grieved her.
+
+Now and then I think of papa, especially before I go to sleep at night.
+Then I sometimes wonder if the snow is deep on his grave in the
+churchyard at Montmartre, and if he is not cold in the ground. Poor
+papa!--he loved the sun so dearly! And I look over at mamma, who sits
+and sews at a table near my bed, and it worries me to see the tears
+rolling down her cheeks again.
+
+Poor mamma! She grows paler, thinner, and sadder every day, although my
+uncle and aunt do everything that they can for her.
+
+If I remember rightly, she was seldom with her hosts except at
+meal-times. She lived in strict retirement, in the two pretty rooms
+which had been assigned us, and was always trying to make herself
+useful with her needle to Aunt Rosa, who never tired of admiring her
+beautiful, delicate work.
+
+Towards spring her hands were more than ever wont to drop idly
+in her lap, and when the snow had gone and everything outside was
+beginning to stir, she would sit for hours in the bow-window where
+her work-table stood, doing nothing, only gazing out towards the
+west,--gazing--gazing.
+
+The soiled snow had vanished; the water was dripping from roofs and
+trees; everything was brown and bare. A warm breath came sweeping over
+the world. For a couple of days all nature sobbed and thrilled, and
+then spring threw over the earth her fragrant robe of blossoms.
+
+It was my first spring in the country, and I never shall forget my
+joyful surprise each morning at all that had been wrought overnight. I
+could not tell which to admire most, buds, flowers, or butterflies.
+From morning till night I roamed about in the balmy air, amid the
+tender green of grass and shrubs. And at night I was so tired that I
+was asleep almost before the last words of my childish prayer had died
+upon my lips. Ah, how soundly I slept!
+
+But one night I suddenly waked, with what seemed to me the touch of a
+soft hand upon my cheek,--papa's hand. I started up and looked about
+me; there was no one to be seen. The breeze of spring had caressed
+me,--that was all. How had it found its way in?
+
+The moon was at the full, and in its white light everything in the room
+stood revealed and yet veiled. I sat up uneasily, and then noticed that
+mamma's bed was empty. I was frightened. "Mamma! mamma!" I called, half
+crying.
+
+There was no reply. I sprang from my little bed, and ran into the next
+room, the door of which was open.
+
+Mamma was standing there at the window, gazing out towards the west.
+The window was wide open; our rooms were at the back of the castle, and
+looked out upon the orchard, where nature was celebrating its
+resurrection with festal splendour. The huge old apple-trees were all
+robed in delicate pink-white blossoms, the tender grass beneath them
+glittered with dew, and above it and among the waving blossoms sighed
+the warm breeze of spring as if from human lips. Mamma stood with
+extended arms whispering the tenderest words out into the night,--words
+that sounded as if stifled among sighs and kisses. She wore the same
+dress in which she had sat by papa's bedside when he wished her to be
+beautiful at their parting. Her hair hung loose about her shoulders. I
+gasped for breath, and threw my arms about her, crying, "Mamma! mamma!"
+She turned, and seemed about to thrust me from her almost angrily, then
+suddenly began to weep bitterly like a child just wakened from sleep,
+and crept back gently and ashamed to our bedroom. Without undressing
+she lay down on her bed, and I covered her up as well as I could.
+
+I could not sleep that night, and I heard her moan and move restlessly.
+
+The next morning she could not come down to breakfast; a violent
+nervous fever had attacked her, and ten days afterwards she died.
+
+They broke the sad truth to me slowly, first saying that she had gone
+on a journey, and then that she was with God in heaven. I knew she was
+dead,--and what that meant.
+
+I can but dimly remember the days that followed her death. I dragged
+myself about beneath the burden of a grief far too great for my poor,
+childish little heart, and grew more and more weary, until at last I
+was attacked by the same illness of which my mother had died.
+
+When I recovered, the memory of all that had happened before my illness
+no longer gave me any pain. I looked back upon the past with what was
+almost indifference. Not until long, long afterwards did I comprehend
+the wealth of love of which my mother's death had deprived me.
+
+
+
+
+                                  III.
+
+It really is very entertaining to write one's memoirs. I will go
+on, although it is not raining to-day. On the contrary, it is very
+warm,--so warm that I cannot stay out of doors.
+
+Aunt Rosamunda is in the drawing-room, entertaining the colonel of the
+infantry regiment in garrison at X----. She sent for me, but I excused
+myself, through Krupitschka. When lieutenants of hussars come, she
+never sends for me. It really is ridiculous: does she suppose my head
+could be turned by any officer of hussars? The idea! Upon my word!
+Still, I should like for once just to try whether Miss O'Donnel is
+right, whether I only need wish to have--oh, how delightful it would be
+to be adored to my heart's content! Since, however, there is no
+prospect of anything of the kind, I will continue to write my memoirs.
+
+I have taken off my gown and slipped on a thin white morning wrapper,
+and the cook, with whom I am a great favourite, has sent me up a
+pitcher of iced lemonade to strengthen me for my literary labours. My
+windows are open, and look out upon a wilderness of old trees with wild
+roses blooming among them. Ah, how sweet the roses are! The bees buzz
+over them monotonously, the leaves scarcely rustle, not a bird is
+singing. The world certainly is very beautiful, even if one has nothing
+entertaining to do except to write memoirs. Now that I have finished
+telling of my parents, I will pass on to my nearest relatives.----
+
+("Oho!" said the major. "I am curious to see what she has to say of
+us.")
+
+----Uncle Paul is the middle one of three brothers, the eldest of whom
+is my grandfather.
+
+The Barons von Leskjewitsch are of Croatian descent, and are convinced
+of the antiquity of their family, without being able to prove it. There
+has never been any obstacle to their being received at court, and for
+many generations they have maintained a blameless propriety of
+demeanour and have contracted very suitable marriages.
+
+Although all the members of this illustrious family are forever
+quarrelling among themselves, and no one Leskjewitsch has ever been
+known to get along well with another Leskjewitsch, they nevertheless
+have a deal of family feeling, which manifests itself especially in a
+touching pride in all the peculiarities of the Leskjewitsch
+temperament. These peculiarities are notorious throughout the
+kingdom,--such, at least, is the firm conviction of the Leskjewitsch
+family. Whatever extraordinary feats the Leskjewitsches may have
+performed hitherto, they have never been guilty of any important
+departure from an ordinary mode of life, but each member of the family
+has nevertheless succeeded in being endowed from the cradle with a
+patent of eccentricity, in virtue of which mankind are more or less
+constrained to accept his or her eccentricities as a matter of course.
+
+I am shocked now by what I have here written down. Of course I am a
+Leskjewitsch, or I never should allow myself to pass so harsh a
+judgment upon my nearest of kin. I suppose I ought to erase those
+lines, but, after all, no one will ever see them, and there is
+something pleasing in my bold delineation of the family
+characteristics. The style seems to me quite striking. So I will let my
+words stand as they are,--especially since the only one of the family
+who has ever been kind to me--Uncle Paul--is, according to the
+universal family verdict, no genuine Leskjewitsch, but a degenerate
+scion. In the first place, his hair and complexion are fair, and, in
+the second place, he is sensible. Among men in general, I believe he
+passes for mildly eccentric; his own family find him distressingly like
+other people.
+
+To which of the two other brothers the prize for special originality is
+due, to the oldest or to the youngest,--to my grandfather or to the
+father of my playmate Harry,--the world finds it impossible to decide.
+Both are widowers, both are given over to a craze for travel. My
+grandfather's love of travel, however, reminds one of the restlessness
+of a white mouse turning the wheel in its cage; while my uncle Karl's
+is like that of the Wandering Jew, for whose restless soul this globe
+is too narrow.
+
+My grandfather is continually travelling from one to another of his
+estates, seldom varying the round; Uncle Karl by turns hunts lions in
+the Soudan and walruses at the North Pole; and in their other
+eccentricities the brothers are very different. My grandfather is a
+cynic; Uncle Karl is a sentimentalist. My grandfather starts from the
+principle that all effort which has any end in view, save the
+satisfying of his excellent appetite and the promotion of his sound
+sleep, is nonsense; Uncle Karl intends to write a work which, if
+rightly appreciated, will entirely reform the spirit of the age. My
+grandfather is a miser; Uncle Karl is a spendthrift. Uncle Karl is
+beginning to see the bottom of his purse; my grandfather is enormously
+rich.
+
+When I add that my grandfather is a conservative with a manner which is
+intentionally rude, and that Uncle Karl is a radical with the bearing
+of a courtier, I consider the picture of the two men tolerably
+complete. All that is left to say is that I know my uncle Karl only
+slightly, and my grandfather not at all, wherefore my descriptions
+must, unfortunately, lack the element of personal observation, being
+drawn almost entirely from hearsay.
+
+My grandfather's cynicism could not always have been so pronounced as
+at present; they say he was not naturally avaricious, but that he
+became so in behalf of my father, his only son. He saved and pinched
+for him, laying by thousands upon thousands, buying estate after estate
+only to assure his favourite a position for which a prince might envy
+him.
+
+Finally he procured him an appointment as attache in the Austrian
+Legation in Paris, and when papa spent double his allowance the old man
+only laughed and said, "Youth must have its swing." But when my father
+married a poor girl of the middle class, my grandfather simply banished
+him from his heart, and would have nothing more to do with him.
+
+After this papa slowly consumed the small property he had inherited
+from his mother, and at his death nothing of it was left.
+
+Uncle Paul was the only one of the family who still clung to my father
+after his _mesalliance_,--the one eccentricity which had never been set
+down in the Leskjewitsch programme. When mamma in utter destitution
+applied to him for help, he went to my grandfather, told him of the
+desperate extremity to which she was reduced, and entreated him to do
+something for her and for me. My grandfather merely replied that he did
+not support vagabonds.
+
+My cousin Heda, whose custom it is to tell every one of everything
+disagreeable she hears said about them,--for conscience' sake, that
+they may know whom to mistrust,--furnished me with these details.
+
+The upshot of the interview was, first, that my uncle Paul quarrelled
+seriously with my grandfather, and, second, that he resolved to go to
+Paris forthwith and see that matters were set right.
+
+Aunt Rosa maintains that at the last moment he asked Krupitschka to
+sanction his decision. This is a malicious invention; but when Heda
+declares that he brought us to Bohemia chiefly with the view of
+disgracing and vexing my grandfather, there may be some grain of truth
+in her assertion.
+
+Many years have passed since our modest entrance here in Zirkow, but my
+amiable grandfather still maintains his determined hostility towards
+Uncle Paul and myself.
+
+His favourite occupation seems to consist in perfecting each year, with
+the help of a clever lawyer, his will, by which I am deprived, so far
+as is possible, of the small share of his wealth which falls to me
+legally as my father's heir. He has chosen for his sole heir his
+youngest brother's eldest son, my playmate Harry, upon condition that
+Harry marries suitably, which means a girl with sixteen quarterings. I
+have no quarterings, so if Harry marries me he will not have a penny.
+
+How could such an idea occur to him? It is too ridiculous to be thought
+of. But--what if he did take it into his head? Oh, I have sound sense
+enough for two, and I know exactly what I want,--a grand position, an
+opportunity to play in the world the part for which I feel myself
+capable,--everything, in short, that he could not offer me. Moreover, I
+am quite indifferent to him. I have a certain regard for him for the
+sake of old times, and therefore he shall have a chapter of these
+memoirs all to himself.
+
+
+----At the end of this chapter the major shook his head disapprovingly.
+
+
+
+                                 IV.
+
+                          MY DEAREST PLAYMATE.
+
+The first time that I saw him he was riding upon a pig,--a wonder of a
+pig; it looked like a huge monster to me,--which he guided by its ears.
+One is not a Leskjewitsch for nothing. It was at Komaritz---- But I
+will describe the entire day, which I remember with extraordinary
+distinctness.
+
+Uncle Paul himself took me to Komaritz in his pretty little dog-cart,
+drawn by a pair of spirited ponies in gay harness and trappings. Of
+course I sat on the box beside my uncle, being quite aware that this
+was the seat of honour. I wore an embroidered white gown, long black
+stockings, and a black sash, and carried a parasol which I had borrowed
+of Aunt Rosa, not because I needed it,--my straw hat perfectly shielded
+my face from the sun,--but because it seemed to me required for the
+perfection of my toilet.
+
+I was very well pleased with myself, and nodded with great
+condescension to the labourers and schoolchildren whom we met.
+
+I have never attempted to conceal from myself or to deny the fact that
+I am vain.
+
+Ah, how merrily we bowled along over the white, dusty road! The ponies'
+hoofs hardly touched the ground. After a while the road grew bad, and
+we drove more slowly. Then we turned into a rough path between high
+banks. What a road! Deep as a chasm; the wheels of the vehicle jolted
+right and left through ruts overgrown with thistles, brambles, and wild
+roses.
+
+"Suppose we should meet another carriage?" I asked my uncle, anxiously.
+
+"Just what I was asking myself," he replied, composedly; "there is
+really no room for passing. But why not trust in Providence?"
+
+The road grows worse, but now, instead of passing through a chasm, it
+runs along the edge of a precipice. The dog-cart leans so far to one
+side that the groom gets out to steady it. The wheels grate against the
+stones, and the ponies shake their shaggy heads discontentedly, as much
+as to say, "We were not made for such work as this."
+
+In after-years, when so bad a road in the midst of one of the most
+civilized provinces of Austria seemed to me inexplicable, Uncle Paul
+explained it to me. At one time in his remembrance the authorities
+decided to lay out a fine road there, but Uncle Karl contrived to
+frustrate their purpose; he did not wish to have Komaritz too
+accessible--for fear of guests.
+
+A delicious pungent fragrance is wafted from the vine-leaves in the
+vineyards on the sides of the hills, flocks of white and yellow
+butterflies hover above them, the grasshoppers chirp shrilly, and from
+the distance comes the monotonous sound of the sweep of the mower's
+scythe. The sun is burning hot, and the shadows are short and
+coal-black.
+
+Click-clack--click-clack--precipice and ravine lie behind us, and we
+are careering along a delightful road shaded by huge walnut-trees.
+
+A brown, shapeless ruin crowning a vine-clad eminence rises before us.
+Click-clack--click-clack--the ponies fly past a marble St. John, around
+which are grouped three giant lindens, whose branches scatter fading
+blossoms upon us; past a smithy, from which issues a strong odour of
+wagon-grease and burnt hoofs; past a slaughter-house, in front of which
+a butchered ox is hanging from a chestnut-tree; past pretty whitewashed
+cottages, some of them two stories high and with flower-gardens in
+front,--Komaritz is a far more important and prosperous village than
+Zirkow; then through a lofty but perilously ruinous archway into
+a spacious, steeply-ascending court-yard, through the entire length
+of which runs a broad gutter. Yes, yes, it was there--in that
+court-yard--that I saw him for the first time, and he was riding upon a
+pig, holding fast by its ears, and the animal, galloping furiously, was
+doing its best to throw him off. But this was no easy matter, for he
+sat as if he were part of his steed, and withal maintained a loftiness
+of bearing that would have done honour to a Spanish grandee at a
+coronation. He was very handsome, very slender, very brown, and wore a
+white suit, the right sleeve of which was spotted with ink.
+
+In front of the castle, at a wooden table fastened to the ground
+beneath an old pear-tree, sat a yellow-haired young man, with a bloated
+face and fat hands, watching the spectacle calmly and drinking beer
+from a stone mug with a leaden cover.
+
+When the pig found that it could not throw its rider, it essayed
+another means to be rid of him. It lay down in the gutter and rolled
+over in the mud. When Harry arose, he looked like the bad boys in
+"Slovenly Peter" after they had been dipped in the inkstand.
+
+"I told you how it would be," the fat young man observed,
+phlegmatically, and went on drinking beer. As I afterwards learned, he
+was Harry's tutor, Herr Pontius.
+
+"What does it matter?" said Harry, composedly, looking down at the mud
+dripping from him, as if such a bath were an event of every-day
+occurrence; "I did what I chose to do."
+
+"And now I shall do what I choose to do. You will go to your room and
+translate fifty lines of Horace."
+
+Harry shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. I now think that he was
+posing a little for our sakes, for we had just driven up to the castle,
+but then his composure made a great impression upon me. After he had
+bowed respectfully to Uncle Paul from where he stood, he vanished
+behind a side-door of the castle, at the chief entrance of which we had
+drawn up. A dignified footman received us in the hall, and a crowd of
+little black dachshunds, with yellow feet and eyebrows, barked a loud
+welcome.
+
+We were conducted into a large room on the ground-floor,--apparently
+reception-room, dining-room, and living-room all in one,--whence a low
+flight of wooden steps led out into the garden. A very sallow but
+otherwise quite pretty Frenchwoman, who reminded me--I cannot tell
+why--of the black dachshunds, and who proved to be my little cousin's
+governess, received us here and did the honours for us.
+
+My cousin Heda, a yellow-haired little girl with portentously good
+manners, relieved me of my parasol, and asked me if I had not found the
+drive very warm. Whilst I made some monosyllabic and confused reply, I
+was wondering whether her brother would get through his punishment and
+make his appearance again before we left. When my uncle withdrew on the
+pretext of looking after some agricultural matter, Heda asked me if I
+would not play graces with her. She called it _jeu de grace_, and, in
+fact, spoke French whenever it was possible.
+
+I agreed, she brought the graces, and we went out into the garden.
+
+Oh, that Komaritz garden! How clumsy and ugly, and yet what a dear,
+old-fashioned garden it was! Lying at the foot of the hill crowned by
+the ancient ruin and the small frame house built for the tutors,--who
+were changed about every two months,--it was divided into huge
+rectangular flower-beds, bordered with sage, lavender, or box, from
+which mighty old apricot-trees looked down upon a luxuriant wilderness
+of lilies, roses, blue monk's-hood, scarlet verbenas, and whatever else
+was in season. Back of this waste of flowers there were all sorts of
+shrubs,--hawthorns, laburnums, jessamines, with here and there an
+ancient hundred-leaved rose-bush, whose heavy blossoms, borne down by
+their own weight, drooped and lay upon the mossy paths that intersected
+this thicket. Then came a green lawn, where was a swing hung between
+two old chestnuts, and near by stood a queer old summerhouse, circular,
+with a lofty tiled roof, upon the peak of which gleamed a battered
+brass crescent. Everywhere in the shade were fastened in the ground
+comfortable garden-seats, smelling deliciously of moss and mouldering
+wood, and where you least expected it the ground sloped to a little
+bubbling spring, its banks clothed with velvet verdure and gay with
+marsh daisies and spiderwort, sprung from seed which the wind had
+wafted hither. I cannot begin to tell of the kitchen-garden and
+orchard; I should never be done.
+
+And just as I have here described it as it was fourteen years ago the
+dear old garden stands to-day, with the exception of some trifling
+changes; but--they are talking of improvements--poor garden! What
+memories are evoked when I think of it!
+
+Again I am six years old and playing with Heda,--I intent and awkward,
+Heda elegantly indifferent. If one of her hoops soars away over my
+head, or falls among the flowers in one of the beds, she shrugs her
+shoulders with an affected smile, and exclaims, "_Monstre!_" At first I
+offer to creep in among the flowers after the lost hoop, but she
+rejects my offer with a superior "_Quelle idee!_" and assures me that
+it is the gardener's business.
+
+Consequently, we soon come to the end of our supply of hoops, and are
+obliged to have recourse to some other mode of amusing ourselves.
+
+"I am quite out of breath," says Heda, fanning herself with her
+pocket-handkerchief. "'Tis a stupid don't you think so?"
+
+"But if I only could do it!" I sigh.
+
+"It is quite out of fashion; nothing is played now but croquet," she
+informs me. "Do you like to play croquet?"
+
+"I do not know what croquet is," I confess, much mortified.
+
+"Ha, ha!" she laughs. "Mademoiselle," turning to the governess, who is
+now seated on the garden-steps, "only think, _ma petite cousine_ does
+not know what croquet is!--delicious! Excuse me," taking my hand, "it
+is very ill bred to laugh, _mais c'est plus fort que moi_. It is a
+delightful game, that is played with balls and iron hoops. Sometimes
+you strike your foot, and that hurts; but more often you only pretend
+that it does, and then the gentlemen all come round you an pity you: it
+is too delightful. But sit down," pointing with self-satisfied
+condescension to the steps. We both sit down, and she goes on: "Where
+did you pass the winter?"
+
+"At Zirkow."
+
+"Oh, in the country! I pity you."
+
+Heda--I mention this in a parenthesis--was at this time scarcely ten
+years old. "No winter in the country for me," this pleasure-loving
+young person continues. "Oh, what a delightful winter I had! I was at
+twelve balls. It is charming if you have partners enough--oh, when
+three gentlemen beg for a waltz! But society in Prague is nothing to
+that of Vienna--I always say there is only one Vienna. Were you ever in
+Vienna?"
+
+"No," I murmur. Suddenly, however, my humiliated self-consciousness
+rebels, and, setting my arms akimbo, I ask, "And were you ever in
+Paris?" The Frenchwoman behind us laughs.
+
+Down from above us falls a hard projectile upon Heda's fair head,--a
+large purple bean,--and then another. She looks up angrily. Harry is
+leaning out of a window above us, his elbows resting on the sill, and
+his head between his hands. "What an ill-bred boor you are!" she calls
+out.
+
+"And do you know what you are?" he shouts; "an affected
+braggart--that's what you are."
+
+With which he jumps from the window into the branches of a tree just
+before it, and comes scrambling down to the ground. "What is your
+name?" he asks me.
+
+"Zdena."
+
+"I am happy to make your acquaintance, Zdena. Heda bores you, doesn't
+she?"
+
+I shake my head and laugh; feeling a protector near me, I am quite
+merry once more. "Would you like to take a little ride, Zdena?" he
+asks.
+
+"Upon a pig?" I inquire, in some trepidation.
+
+He laughs, somewhat embarrassed, and shrugs his shoulders. "You do not
+really suppose that I am in the habit of riding pigs!" he exclaims; "I
+only do it when my tutor forbids it--it is too ridiculous to suppose
+such a thing!" and he hurries away.
+
+I look after him remorsefully. I am vexed to have been so foolish, and
+I am sorry to have frightened him away.
+
+In a few minutes, however, he appears again, and this time on
+horseback. He is riding a beautiful pony, chestnut, with a rather
+dandified long tail and a bushy mane. Harry has a splendid seat, and is
+quite aware of it. Apparently he is desirous of producing an impression
+upon me, for he performs various astounding feats,--jumps through the
+swing, over a garden-seat and a wheelbarrow,--and then, patting his
+horse encouragingly on the neck, approaches me, his bridle over his
+arm.
+
+"Will you try now?" he asks.
+
+Of course I will. He lifts me into the saddle, where I sit sideways,
+buckles the stirrup shorter, quite like a grown-up admirer; and then I
+ride slowly and solemnly through the garden, he carefully holding me on
+the while. I become conscious of a wish to distinguish myself in his
+eyes. "I should like to try it alone," I stammer, in some confusion.
+
+"I see you are brave; I like that," he says, resigning the bridle to
+me. Trot, trot goes the pony. "Faster, faster!" I cry, giving the
+animal a dig with my heel. The pony rears, and--I am lying on the
+ground, with scraped hands and a scratched chin.
+
+"It is nothing," I cry, bravely ignoring my pain, when Harry hurries up
+to me with a dismayed face. "We must expect such things," I add, with
+dignity. "Riding is always dangerous; my father was killed by being
+thrown from his horse."
+
+"Indeed? Really?" Harry says, sympathetically, as he wipes the gravel
+off my hands. "How long has he been dead?"
+
+"Oh, a long time,--a year."
+
+"My mother has been dead much longer," he says, importantly, almost
+boastfully. "She has been dead three years. And is yours still living?"
+
+"N--no." And the tears, hitherto so bravely restrained, come in a
+torrent.
+
+He is frightened, kneels down beside me, even then he was much taller
+than I,--and wipes away the tears with his pocket-handkerchief. "Poor
+little thing!" he murmurs, "I am so sorry for you; I did not know----"
+And he puts his arm round me and strokes my hair. Suddenly a delightful
+and strange sensation possesses me,--a feeling I have not had since my
+poor dear mother gave me her last kiss: my whole childish being is
+penetrated by it.
+
+We have been fond of each other ever since that moment; we are so
+to-day.
+
+"Come with me to the kitchen-garden now," he says, "and see my
+puppies." And he calls to the gardener and commits to his charge the
+pony, that, quite content with the success of his man[oe]uvre, is
+quietly cropping the verbena-blossoms.
+
+My tears are dried. I am crouching beside the kennel in the
+kitchen-garden, with four charming little puppies in my lap. There is a
+fragrance of cucumber-leaves, sorrel, and thyme all about. The bright
+sunshine gleams on the dusty glass of the hot-bed, on the pumpkins and
+cucumbers, on the water in the tub under the pump, beside which a
+weeping willow parades its proverbial melancholy. Harry's fair, fat
+tutor is walking past a trellis where the early peaches are hanging,
+smoking a long porcelain pipe. He pauses and pinches the fruit here and
+there, as if to discover when it will be ripe. I hold one after another
+of the silken, warm dog-babies to my cheek, and am happy, while Harry
+laughs good-humouredly at my enthusiasm and prevents the jealous mother
+of the puppies from snapping at me.
+
+
+----"We have been fond of each other ever since." The major smiles
+contentedly as he reads this.
+
+
+
+                                   V.
+
+                               KOMARITZ.
+
+I was soon at home at Komaritz, often passed weeks there, feeling
+extremely comfortable amid those strange surroundings,--for the life
+led in the clumsy, unadorned old house upon which the mediaeval castle
+looked down was certainly a strange one.
+
+In fact, the modern structure was no whit superior to the castle except
+in the matter of ugliness and in the fact that it possessed a roof.
+Otherwise it was almost as ruinous as the ruin, and had to be propped
+up in a fresh place every year. The long passages were paved with worn
+tiles; the ground-floor was connected with the upper stories by a steep
+winding staircase. The locks on the doors were either broken or the
+keys were lost, and the clocks, if they went at all, all pointed to
+different hours.
+
+In a large room called the drawing-room, where the plaster was
+crumbling down from the ceiling bit by bit, there stood, among
+three-legged tables and threadbare arm-chairs, many an exquisite
+antique. In the rooms in use, on the other hand, there was no article
+of mere luxury: all was plain and useful, as in some parsonage. And yet
+there was something strangely attractive in this curious home. The
+rooms were of spacious dimensions; those on the ground-floor were all
+vaulted. The sunbeams forced their way through leafy vines and creepers
+into the deep embrasures of the windows. The atmosphere was impregnated
+with a delicious, mysterious fragrance,--an odour of mould, old wood,
+and dried rose-leaves. Harry maintained that it smelled of ghosts, and
+that there was a white lady who "walked" in the corner room next to the
+private chapel.
+
+I must confess, in spite of my love for the old barrack, that it was
+not a fit baronial mansion. No one had ever lived there, save a
+steward, before Uncle Karl, who, as the youngest Leskjewitsch,
+inherited it, took up his abode there. He had, when he was first
+married, planned a new castle, but soon relinquished his intention,
+first for financial reasons, and then from dread of guests, a dread
+that seems to have become a chronic disease with him. When his wife
+died, all thought of any new structure had been given up. From that
+time he scarcely ever stayed there himself, and the old nest was good
+enough for a summer residence for the children. With the exception of
+Heda,--besides Harry there was a good-for-nothing small boy,--the
+children thought so too. They had a pathetic affection for the old
+place where they appeared each year with the flowers, the birds, and
+the sunshine. They seemed to me to belong to the spring. Everything was
+bright and warm about me when they came.
+
+Harry was my faithful knight from first to last; our friendship grew
+with our growth. He tyrannized over me a little, and liked to impress
+me, I think, with a sense of his superiority; but he faithfully and
+decidedly stood by me whenever I needed him. He drove me everywhere
+about the country; his two ponies could either be driven or ridden; he
+taught me to ride, climbed mountains with me, explored with me every
+corner of the old ruin on the hill, and then when we came home at
+night, each somewhat weary with our long tramp, he would tell me
+stories.
+
+How vividly I remember it all! I can fancy myself now sitting beside
+him on the lowest of the steps leading from the living-room into the
+garden. At our feet the flowers exhale sweet, sad odours, the pale
+roses drenched in dew show white amid the dim foliage; above our heads
+there is a dreamy whisper in the boughs of an old apricot-tree, whose
+leaves stand out sharp and black against the deep-blue sky, sown with
+myriads of sparkling stars. And Harry is telling me stories. Ah, such
+stories! the most terrible tales of robbers and ghosts, each more
+shudderingly horrible than its predecessor.
+
+Oh, how delightful it is to feel one shudder after another creeping
+down your back in the warm summer evening! and if it grows too fearful,
+and I begin to be really afraid of the pale, bloodless phantoms which
+he conjures up before me, I move a little closer to him, and, as if
+seeking protection, clasp his hand, taking refuge from my ghostly fears
+in the consciousness of his warm young life.
+
+
+
+                                  VI.
+
+                            HARRY'S TUTORS.
+
+Every Sunday the Komaritzers come to us at Zirkow, driving over in a
+tumble-down old coach covered with faded blue cloth, hung on spiral
+springs, and called Noah's ark.
+
+The coachman wears no livery, except such as can be found in an
+imposing broad gold band upon a very shabby high hat.
+
+Of course the children are always accompanied by the governess and the
+tutor.
+
+The first governess whom I knew at Komaritz--Mademoiselle Duval--was
+bright, well-bred, and very lovable; the tutor was the opposite of all
+this.
+
+He may have been a proficient in ancient languages, but he spoke very
+poor German. His nails were always in mourning, and he neglected his
+dress. Intercourse with good society made him melancholy. At our table
+he always took the worst place. Uncle Paul every Sunday addressed the
+same two questions to him, never remembering his name, but regularly
+calling him Herr Paulus, whereas his name was Pontius. After the tutor
+had answered these questions humbly, he never again, so long as dinner
+lasted, opened his mouth, except to put into it large mouthfuls, or his
+knife. Between the courses he twirled his thumbs and sniffed. He always
+had a cold in his head. When dinner was over he pushed his chair back
+against the wall, bowed awkwardly, and retired, never appearing among
+us during the rest of the afternoon, which he spent playing "Pinch"
+with Krupitschka, with a pack of dirty cards which from long usage had
+lost their corners and had become oval. We often surprised him at this
+amusement,--Harry and I.
+
+As soon as he disappeared Aunt Rosamunda always expressed loudly and
+distinctly her disapproval of his bad manners. But when we children
+undertook to sneer at them, we were sternly repressed,--were told that
+such things were of no consequence, and that bad manners did not in the
+least detract from a human being's genuine worth.
+
+On one occasion Harry rejoined, "I'm glad to hear it," and at the next
+meal sat with both elbows upon the table.
+
+Moreover, I soon observed that Herr Pontius was by no means the meek
+lamb he seemed to be, and this I discovered at the harvest-home. There
+was a dance beneath the lindens at the farm, where Herr Pontius whirled
+the peasant-girls around, and capered about like a very demon. His face
+grew fierce, and his hair floated wildly about his head. We children
+nearly died of laughing at him.
+
+Soon afterwards he was dismissed, and in a great hurry. When I asked
+Harry to tell me the cause of his sudden disappearance, he replied that
+it was love that had broken Herr Pontius's neck. But when I insisted
+upon a more lucid explanation, Harry touched the tip of my nose with
+his forefinger and said, sententiously, "Too much knowledge makes
+little girls ugly."
+
+He was not the only one among Harry's tutors whose neck was broken
+through love: the next--a very model of a tutor--followed the example
+in this respect of the dance-loving Herr Pontius.
+
+His name was Ephraim Schmied; he came from Hildesheim, and was very
+learned and well conducted,--in short, by long odds the best of all
+Harry's tutors. If he did not retain his position, it may well be
+imagined that it was the fault of the position.
+
+As with every other fresh tutor, Harry set himself in opposition to him
+at first, and did his best to discover ridiculous traits in him. His
+efforts in this direction were for a time productive of no results, and
+Herr Schmied, thanks to his untiring patience combined with absolute
+firmness, was in a fair way to master his wayward pupil, when matters
+took an unexpected and unfortunate turn.
+
+Harry, in fact, had finally discovered the weak place in Herr Schmied's
+armour, and it was in the region of the heart. Herr Schmied had fallen
+in love with Mademoiselle Duval. To fall in love was in Harry's eyes at
+that time the extreme of human stupidity (he ought to have rested in
+that conviction). Uncle Paul shared it. He chuckled when Harry one fine
+day told him of his discovery, and asked the keen-sighted young
+good-for-naught upon what he founded his supposition.
+
+"He sings Schubert's 'Wanderer' to her every evening, and yesterday he
+brought her a vase from X----," Harry replied: "there the fright
+stands."
+
+Uncle Paul took the vase in his hands, an odd smile playing about his
+mouth the while. It was decorated with little naked Cupids hopping
+about in an oval wreath of forget-me-nots.
+
+"How sentimental!" said Uncle Paul, adding, after a while, "If the
+little wretches only had wings, they might pass for angels, but as they
+are they leave something to be desired." Then, putting down the vase,
+he told me to be a good girl (he had just brought me over to stay a
+little while at Komaritz), got into his dog-cart, and drove off.
+
+Scarcely had the door closed behind him when Harry brought from the
+next room a long quill pen and a large inkstand, and went to work
+eagerly and mysteriously at the vase.
+
+At about five in the afternoon all assembled for afternoon coffee.
+Finally Herr Schmied appeared, a book in his hand.
+
+"What are you doing there?" he asked his pupil, unsuspectingly.
+
+"I am giving these naughty boys swimming-breeches, Herr Schmied. Uncle
+Paul thought it hardly the thing for you to have presented this vase to
+a lady, and so----"
+
+The sentence was never finished. There was a low laugh from the other
+end of the room, where Mademoiselle Duval, ensconced behind the
+coffee-equipage, had been an unobserved spectator of the scene. Herr
+Schmied flushed crimson, and, quite losing his usual self-control, he
+gave Harry a sounding box on the ear, and Harry--well, Harry returned
+it.
+
+Herr Schmied seized him by the shoulders as if to shake and strike him,
+then bit his lip, drew a long breath, released the boy, and left the
+room. But Harry's head drooped upon his breast, and he ate no supper
+that night. He knew that what had occurred could not be condoned, and
+he was sorry.
+
+At supper Herr Schmied informed Mademoiselle Duval that he had written
+to Baron Leskjewitsch that unforeseen circumstances made imperative his
+return to Germany. "I did not think it necessary to be more explicit as
+to the true cause of my sudden departure," he added.
+
+Harry grew very pale.
+
+After supper, as I was sitting with Heda upon the garden-steps, looking
+for falling stars that would not fall, we observed Herr Schmied enter
+the room behind us; it was quite empty, but the lamp was lighted on the
+table. Soon afterwards, Harry appeared. Neither of them noticed us.
+
+Slowly, lingeringly, Harry approached his tutor, and plucked him by the
+sleeve.
+
+Herr Schmied looked around.
+
+"Must you really go away, Herr Schmied?" the boy asked, in distress.
+
+"Yes," the tutor replied, very gravely.
+
+Harry bit his lip, seemed undecided what to do or say, and finally,
+leaning his head a little on one side, asked, caressingly, "Even if I
+beg your pardon?"
+
+Herr Schmied smiled, surprised and touched. He took the boy's hand in
+his, and said, sadly, "Even then, Harry. Yet I am sorry, for I was
+beginning to be very fond of you."
+
+The tears were in Harry's eyes, but he evidently felt that no entreaty
+would be of any avail.
+
+In fact, the next morning Herr Schmied took his departure. A few days
+afterwards, however, Harry received a letter from him with a foreign
+post-mark. He had written four long pages to his former pupil. Harry
+flushed with pride and joy as he read it, and answered it that very
+evening.
+
+Herr Schmied is now Professor of Modern History in a foreign
+university, his name is well known, and he is held in high honour. He
+still corresponds with Harry, whose next tutor was a French abbe. The
+cause of the abbe's dismissal I have forgotten; indeed, I remember only
+one more among the numerous preceptors, and he was the last,--a German
+from Bohemia, called Ewald Finke.
+
+His name was not really Ewald, but Michael, but he called himself Ewald
+because he liked it better. He had studied abroad, which always
+impressed us favourably, and, as Uncle Karl was told, he had already
+won some reputation in Leipsic by his literary efforts. He was looking
+for a situation as tutor merely that he might have some rest from
+intellectual labours that had been excessive. "Moreover," his letter of
+recommendation from a well-known professor went on to say, "the Herr
+Baron will not be slow to discover that he is here brought into contact
+with a rarely-gifted nature, one of those in intercourse with whom
+allowance must be made for certain peculiarities which at first may
+prove rather annoying." Uncle Karl instantly wrote, in reply, that
+"annoying peculiarities" were of no consequence,--that he would accord
+unlimited credit in the matter of allowance to the new tutor. In fact,
+he took such an interest in the genius thus offered him that he
+prolonged his stay in Komaritz to two weeks, instead of departing at
+the end of three days, as he had at first intended, solely in
+expectation of the new tutor.
+
+By the way, those who are familiar with my uncle's morbid restlessness
+may imagine the joy of his household at his prolonged stay in Komaritz.
+
+Not knowing how otherwise to kill his time, he hit upon the expedient
+of shooting it, and, as the hunting season had not begun, he shot
+countless butterflies. We found them lying in heaps among the flowers,
+little, shapeless, shrivelled things, mere specks of brilliant dust.
+When weary of this amusement, he would seat himself at the piano and
+play over and over again the same dreary air, grasping uncertainly at
+the chords, and holding them long and firmly when once he had got them.
+
+Harry assured me that he was playing a funeral march for the dead
+butterflies, and I supposed it to be his own composition. This,
+however, was not the case, and the piece was not a funeral march, but a
+polonaise,--"The Last Thought of Count Oginski," who is said to have
+killed himself after jotting down this music.
+
+At last Herr Finke made his appearance. He was a tall, beardless young
+man, with hair cut close to his head, and a sallow face adorned with
+the scars of several sabre-cuts, a large mouth, a pointed nose, the
+nostrils quivering with critical scorn, and staring black eyes with
+large round spectacles, through which they saw only what they chose to
+see.
+
+Uncle Karl's reception of him was grandiloquent. "Enter," he exclaimed,
+going to meet him with extended hands. "My house is open to you. I
+delight in grand natures which refuse to be cramped within the limits
+of conventionality."
+
+Herr Finke replied to this high-sounding address only by a rather
+condescending nod, shaking the proffered hand as if bestowing a favour.
+
+After he had been refreshed with food and drink, Uncle Karl challenged
+him to a fencing-match, which lasted upward of an hour, at the end of
+which time my uncle confessed that the new tutor was a master of fence,
+immediately wrote to thank the illustrious professor to whom he owed
+this treasure of learning, and left Komaritz that same evening.
+
+Herr Finke remained precisely three weeks in his new situation. So far
+as lessons went he seemed successful enough, but his "annoying
+peculiarities" ended in an outbreak of positive insanity, during which
+he set fire to the frame house on the hill where he was lodged, and was
+carried off to a mad-house in a strait-waistcoat, raving wildly.
+
+Uncle Karl was sadly disappointed, and suddenly resolved to send Harry
+to a public school, being convinced that no good could come of tutors.
+
+From this time forward the young Leskjewitsches came to Komaritz only
+for the vacations.
+
+
+
+                                  VII.
+
+We were very good friends, Harry and I,--there's no denying that. We
+told each other all our secrets,--at least I told him mine,--and we
+divided all our bon-bons with each other. Sometimes on Sunday
+afternoons we played at marriage, the ceremony giving occasion for a
+deal of delightful "dressing up." Moreover, we had long been agreed
+that, sooner or later, this play should become earnest, and that we
+would marry each other. But when the first down became perceptible on
+Harry's upper lip, our mutual friendship began to flag. It was just
+about the time that Harry went to a public school.
+
+His indifference grieved me at first, then I became consoled, and at
+last I was faithless to him. A cousin of Harry's, who came to Komaritz
+to spend the holidays, gave occasion for this breach of faith. His name
+was Lato, Count Treurenberg. The name alone kindled my enthusiasm. He
+had scarcely been two days in Komaritz, where I too was staying at the
+time, when Hedwig confided to me that she was in love with him.
+
+"So am I," I replied. I was firmly convinced that this was so.
+
+My confession was the signal for a highly dramatic scene. Hedwig, who
+had frequently been to the theatre in Prague, ran about the room
+wringing her hands and crying, "Both with the same man! both!--it is
+terrible! One of us must resign him, or the consequences will be
+fearful."
+
+I diffidently offered to sacrifice my passion.
+
+She shrieked, "No, I never can accept such a sacrifice from you! Fate
+shall decide between us."
+
+Whereupon we put one white and one black bean in a little, broken,
+handle-less coffee-pot which we found in the garret, and which Hedwig
+called an urn.
+
+The decisive moment made my heart beat. We cast lots for precedence in
+drawing from the urn. It fell to me, and I drew out a black bean! The
+moment was thrilling. Heda sank upon a sofa, and fanned her joyful face
+with her pocket-handkerchief. She declared that if she had drawn the
+black bean she would have attempted her life. This declaration
+dispelled my despair; I shuddered at the idea of being the cause of
+anything so horrible.
+
+From that day Heda never spoke to Lato von Treurenberg without drooping
+her head on one side and rolling her eyes languishingly,--conduct which
+seemed to cause the young fellow some surprise, but which he treated
+with great courtesy, while Harry used to exclaim, "What is the matter
+with you, Heda? You look like a goose in a thunder-storm!"
+
+My behaviour towards Lato underwent no change: I had drawn the "black
+ball," and, in consequence, the most cordial friendship soon subsisted
+between us.
+
+It would have been difficult not to like Lato, for I have never met a
+more amiable, agreeable young fellow.
+
+He was about seventeen years old, very tall, and stooped slightly. His
+features were delicately chiselled; his smile was quite bewitching in
+its dreamy, all-embracing benevolence. There was decided melancholy in
+his large, half-veiled eyes, which caused Hedwig to liken him to Lord
+Byron.
+
+His complexion was rather dark,--which was odd, as his hair was light
+brown touched with gold at the temples. His neck was too long, and his
+arms were uncommonly long. All his appointments, from his coats to his
+cigar-case, were extremely elegant, testifying to a degree of
+fastidiousness thitherto quite unknown in Komaritz. Nevertheless, he
+seemed very content in this primitive nest, ignoring all discomfort,
+and making no pretension. Heda, who was quick to seize upon every
+opportunity to admire him, called my attention to his amiable
+forbearance, or, I confess, I should not have noticed it.
+
+From Hedwig I learned much concerning the young man; among other
+things, she gave me a detailed account of his family circumstances. His
+mother was, she informed me, a "mediatisirte."[1] She uttered the word
+reverently, and, when I confessed that I did not know what it meant,
+she nearly fainted. His father was one of the most fascinating men in
+Austria. He is still living, and is by no means, it seems, at the end
+of his fascinations, but, being a widower, hovers about from one
+amusing capital to another, breaking hearts for pastime. It seems to be
+a wonderfully entertaining occupation, and, when one once indulges in
+it, the habit cannot be got rid of,--like opium-eating.
+
+While he thus paraded his brilliant fascinations in the gay world, he
+did not, of course, find much time to interest himself in his boy, who
+was left to the care of distant relatives, and who, when found to be
+backward in his studies, was placed, I believe by Uncle Karl's advice,
+under the care of a Prague professor by the name of Suwa, who kept, as
+Harry once told me, a kind of orthopaedic institution for minds that
+lacked training.
+
+Beside Lato, during that vacation there were two other guests at
+Komaritz, one a very distant cousin of Harry's, and the other a kind of
+sub-tutor whose duty it was to coach Harry in his studies.
+
+We could not endure the sub-tutor. His name was Franz Tuschalek; he was
+about nineteen, with hands and feet like shovels, and a flat, unmeaning
+face. His manner was intensely servile, and his coat-sleeves and
+trousers were too short, which gave him a terribly indigent air. One
+could not help regarding him with a mixture of impatience and sympathy.
+By my radical uncle's express desire, he and Harry called each other by
+their Christian names. Still, obnoxious as poor Tuschalek was to us, he
+was more to our minds than the distant cousin.
+
+This last was a Pole, about twenty years old, with a sallow face and
+long oblique eyes, which he rolled in an extraordinary way. His hair
+was black, and he curled it with the curling-tongs. He was redolent of
+musk, and affected large plaid suits of clothes. His German was not
+good, and his French was no better, but he assured us that he was a
+proficient in Chinese and Arabic. He was always playing long and
+difficult concertos on the table, but he never touched the piano at
+Komaritz, declaring that the instrument was worn out. He was always
+short of funds, and was perpetually boasting of the splendour of his
+family.
+
+He frequently sketched, upon some stray piece of paper, a magnificent
+and romantic structure, which he would display to us as his Polish
+home,--"our ancestral castle."
+
+Sometimes this castle appeared with two turrets, sometimes with only
+one, a fact to which Harry did not fail to call his attention.
+
+His distinguished ancestry was a topic of never-failing interest
+to him; he was never weary of explaining his connection with
+various European reigning dynasties, and his visiting-cards bore
+the high-sounding names "Le Comte Ladislas Othon Fainacky de
+Chrast-Bambosch," although, as Harry confided to us, he had no right to
+the title of comte, being the son of a needy Polish baron.
+
+Although Franz Tuschalek was almost as obnoxious to Harry as the
+"braggart Sarmatian," as Lato called the Pole, he never allowed his
+antipathy to be seen, but treated him with great consideration, as he
+did all inferiors, scarcely allowing himself to give vent to his
+distaste for him even in his absence. But he paraded his dislike of
+Fainacky, never speaking of him as a guest, but as an "invasion," and
+always trying to annoy him by some boyish trick.
+
+At length, one Sunday, the crisis in Harry's first vacation occurred.
+We had all been to early mass, and the celebrant had accompanied us
+back to Komaritz, as was his custom, to breakfast. After a hasty cup of
+coffee he took his leave of us children, and betook himself to the
+bailiff's quarters, where we more than suspected him of a quiet game of
+cards with that official and his underlings.
+
+The door of the dining-room leading out into the garden was wide open,
+and delicious odours from the moist flower-beds floated in and mingled
+with the fragrance of the coffee. It had rained in the night, but the
+sun had emerged from the clouds and had thrown a golden veil over trees
+and shrubs. We were just rising from table when the "braggart
+Sarmatian" entered, booted and spurred, smelling of all the perfumes of
+Arabia, and with his hair beautifully curled. He had not been to mass,
+and had breakfasted in his room in the frame house on the hill, which
+had been rebuilt since the fire. After he had bidden us all an affected
+good-morning, he said, turning to Harry,--
+
+"Has the man come with the mail?"
+
+"Yes," Harry replied, curtly.
+
+"Did no registered letter come for me?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Strange!"
+
+"Very strange," Harry sneered. "You have been expecting that letter a
+long time. If I were you, I'd investigate the matter."
+
+"There's something wrong with the post," the Pole declared, with an air
+of importance. "I must see about it. I think I had best apply to my
+uncle the cabinet-minister."
+
+Harry made a curious grimace. "There is no need to exercise your powers
+of invention for me," he observed. "I know your phrase-book and the
+meaning of each individual sentence. 'Has no registered letter come for
+me?' means 'Lend me some money.' My father instructed me to supply you
+with money if you needed it, but never with more than ten guilders at a
+time. Here they are, and, if you wish to drive to X----, tell the
+bailiff to have the drag harnessed for you. We--in fact, we will not
+look for you before evening. Good-bye."
+
+"I shall have to call you to account some day, Harry," Fainacky said,
+with a frown; then, relapsing into his usual languid affectation of
+manner, he remarked, over his shoulder, to Mademoiselle Duval, "_C'est
+un enfant_," put away the ten-guilder piece in a gorgeous leather
+pocket-book, and left the room.
+
+Scarcely had the door closed behind him when Harry began to express in
+no measured terms his views with regard to the "Polish invasion." Then
+he set his wits to work to devise some plan of getting rid of Fainacky,
+but it was not until the afternoon, when we were assembled in the
+dining-room again, that a brilliant idea occurred to him while reading
+Heine's "Romancero," a book which he loved to read when Heda and I were
+by because it was a forbidden volume to us.
+
+Suddenly, starting up from his half-reclining position in a large
+arm-chair, he snapped his fingers, waved his book in the air, and
+exclaimed, "Eureka!"
+
+"What is it?" Lato asked, good-naturedly.
+
+"I have found something to drive the Pole wild!" cried Harry, rubbing
+his hands with delight. Whereupon he began to spout, with immense
+enthusiasm and shouts of laughter, Heine's "Two Knights," a poem in
+which he pours out his bitterest satire upon the Poles, their cause,
+and their country. This precious poem Harry commanded Tuschalek to
+write out in his finest round hand upon a large sheet of paper, which
+was then to be nailed upon the door of Fainacky's sleeping-apartment. I
+did not like the poem. I confess my Polish sympathies were strong, and
+I did not approve of ridiculing the "braggart Sarmatian's" nation by
+way of disgusting him with Komaritz; but nothing that I could say had
+any effect. The poem was written out upon the largest sheet of paper
+that the house afforded, and was the first thing to greet the eyes of
+Fainacky when he retired to his room for the night. In consequence, the
+Sarmatian declared, the next morning, at breakfast, that the insult
+thus offered to his nation and himself was not to be endured by a man
+of honour, and that he should leave Komaritz that very day.
+
+Nevertheless, he stayed four weeks longer, during which time, however,
+he never spoke to Harry except upon three occasions when he borrowed
+money of him.
+
+Tuschalek departed at an earlier date. Harry's method for getting rid
+of him was much simpler, and consisted of a letter to his father. As
+well as I can recollect, it ran thus:
+
+
+"My Dear Father,--
+
+"I pray you send Tuschalek away. I assure you I will study diligently
+without him. To have about you a fellow hired at ten guilders a month,
+who calls you by your Christian name, is very deleterious to the
+character.
+
+                             "Your affectionate son,
+
+                                                     "Harry.
+
+"P.S.--Pray, if you can, help him to another situation, for I can't
+help pitying the poor devil."
+
+
+About this time Lato sprained his ankle in leaping a ditch, and was
+confined for some days to a lounge in the dining-room. Heda scarcely
+left his side. She brought him flowers, offered to write his letters
+for him, and finally read aloud to him from the "_Journal des
+Demoiselles_." Whether he was much edified I cannot say. He left
+Komaritz as soon as his ankle was strong again. I was really sorry to
+have him go; for years we heard nothing more of him.----
+
+
+"The gypsy!" exclaimed the major. "How fluently she writes! Who would
+have thought it of her! I remember that Fainacky perfectly well,--a
+genuine Polish coxcomb! Lato was a charming fellow,--pity he should
+have married in trade!"
+
+At this moment a loud bell reminded the old cavalryman that the
+afternoon coffee was ready. He hurriedly slipped his niece's manuscript
+into a drawer of his writing-table, and locked it up before joining his
+family circle, where he appeared with the most guileless smile he could
+assume.
+
+Zdena seemed restless and troubled, and confessed at last that she had
+lost her diary, which she was quite sure she had put into her
+work-basket. She had been writing in the garden, and had thrust it into
+the basket in a hurry. The major seemed uninterested in the loss, but,
+when the girl's annoyance reached its climax in a conjecture that the
+cook had, by mistake, used the manuscript for kindling, he comforted
+her, saying, "Nonsense! the thing will surely be found." He could not
+bring himself to resign the precious document,--he was too much
+interested in reading it.
+
+The next day, after luncheon, while Frau Rosamunda was refreshing
+herself with an afternoon nap and Zdena was in the garden posing for
+the Baron von Wenkendorf as the goddess of Spring, the major retired to
+his room and locked himself in, that he might not be disturbed.
+
+"Could she possibly have fallen in love with that Lato? Some girls'
+heads are full of sentimental nonsense. But I hardly think it--and
+so--" he went on muttering to himself whilst finding the place where he
+had left off on the previous day.
+
+The next chapter of this literary _chef-d'[oe]uvre_ began as follows:
+
+
+
+                                 VIII.
+
+I had a long letter to-day from Miss O'Donnel in Italy, full of most
+interesting things. One of the two nieces whom she is visiting is
+being trained as an opera-singer. She seems to have a brilliant career
+before her. In Italy they call her "_la Patti blonde_," and her
+singing-teacher, to whom she pays thirty-five francs a lesson, declares
+that she will certainly make at least a hundred thousand francs a year
+as a prima donna. What an enviable creature! I, too, have an admirable
+voice. Ah, if Uncle Paul would only let me be trained! But his opinions
+are so old-fashioned!
+
+And everything that Miss O'Donnel tells me about the mode of life of
+the Misses Lyall interests me. They live with their mother in Italy,
+and receive every evening, principally gentlemen, which, it seems, is
+the Italian custom. The elder Miss Lyall is as good as engaged to a
+distinguished Milanese who lost his hair in the war of '59; while the
+younger, the blonde Patti, will not hear of marriage, but contents
+herself with turning the head of every man who comes near her.
+
+Ah! I have arrived at the conviction that there can be no finer
+existence than that of a young girl in training for a prima donna, who
+amuses herself in the mean time by turning the head of every man who
+comes near her.----
+
+("Goose!" exclaimed the major at this point.)
+
+----To-day I proposed to Uncle Paul that he should take me to Italy for
+the winter, to have me educated as a singer. There was a great row.
+Never before, since I have known him, has he spoken so angrily to
+me.----
+
+("I should think not!" growled the major at this point.)
+
+----The worst was that he blamed Miss O'Donnel for putting such "stuff"
+(thus he designated my love for art) into my head, and threatened to
+forbid her to correspond with me. Ah, I wept for the entire afternoon
+amid the ruins of my shattered hopes. I am very unhappy. After a long
+interruption, the idea has occurred to me to-day of continuing my
+memoirs.
+
+
+
+                                  IX.
+
+                        HARRY BECOMES A SOLDIER.
+
+Uncle Karl finally yielded to Harry's entreaties, and allowed him to
+enter the army. That very autumn after the summer which Lato and
+Fainacky passed at Komaritz he was to enter a regiment of hussars.
+
+It had been a problem for Uncle Karl, the taming of this eager young
+nature, and I think he was rather relieved by the military solution
+thus afforded.
+
+As Harry of course had nothing to do in town before joining his
+regiment, he stayed longer than usual this year in Komaritz,--stayed
+all through September and until late in October. Komaritz was quite
+deserted: Lato had gone, the Pole had gone; but Harry still stayed on.
+
+And, strange to say, now, when we confronted our first long parting,
+our old friendship gradually revived, stirred, and felt that it had
+been living all this time, although it had had one or two naps. How
+well I remember the day when he came to Zirkow to take leave of us--of
+me!
+
+It was late in October, and the skies were blue but cold. The sun shone
+down upon the earth kindly, but without warmth. A thin silvery mist
+floated along the ground. The bright-coloured leaves shivered in the
+frosty air.
+
+On the wet lawn, where the gossamers gleamed like steel, lay myriads of
+brown, red, and yellow leaves. The song-birds were gone, the sparrows
+twittered shrilly, and in the midst of the brown autumnal desolation
+there bloomed in languishing loveliness a white rose upon a leafless
+stalk.
+
+With a scarlet shawl about my shoulders and my head bare I was
+sauntering about the garden, wandering, dreaming through the frosty
+afternoon. I heard steps behind me, and when I looked round I saw Harry
+approaching, his brows knitted gloomily.
+
+"I only want to bid you 'good-bye,'" he called out to me. "We are off
+to-morrow."
+
+"When are you coming back?" I asked, hastily.
+
+"Perhaps never," he said, with an important air. "You know--a
+soldier----"
+
+"Yes, there is a threatening of war," I whispered, and my childish
+heart felt an intolerable pang as I spoke.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders and tried to laugh.
+
+"And, at all events, you, when I come back, will be a young lady
+with--lovers--and you will hardly remember me."
+
+"Oh, Harry, how can you talk so!"
+
+Rather awkwardly he holds out to me his long slender hand, in which I
+place my own.
+
+Ah, how secure my cold, weak fingers feel in that warm strong hand! Why
+do I suddenly recall the long-past moonlit evenings in Komaritz when we
+sat together on the garden-steps and Harry told me ghost-stories, in
+dread of which, when they grew too ghastly, I used to cling close to
+him as if to find shelter in his strong young life from the bloodless
+throng of spirits he was evoking?
+
+Thus we stand, hand in hand, before the white rose, the last which
+autumn had left. It droops above us, and its cheering fragrance mingles
+with the autumnal odours around us. I pluck it, stick it in Harry's
+button-hole, and then suddenly begin to sob convulsively. He clasps me
+close, close in his arms, kisses me, and murmurs, "Do not forget me!"
+and I kiss him too, and say, "Never--never!" while around us the faded
+leaves fall silently upon the grass.
+
+
+
+                                   X.
+
+                             MY EDUCATION.
+
+Now follow a couple of very colourless years. There was nothing more to
+anticipate from the summers. For, although Heda regularly appeared at
+Komaritz as soon as the city was too hot or too deserted, she did not
+add much to my enjoyment. Komaritz itself seemed changed when Harry was
+no longer there to turn everything upside-down with his good-humoured,
+madcap ways.
+
+And there was a change for the worse in our circumstances; affairs at
+Zirkow were not so prosperous as they had been.
+
+To vary the monotony of his country life, my uncle had built a brewery,
+from which he promised himself a large increase of income. It was to be
+a model brewery, but after it was built the startling discovery was
+made that there was not water enough to work it. For a while, water was
+brought from the river in wagons drawn by four horses, but, when this
+was found to be too expensive, the brewery was left to itself.
+
+For years now it has remained thus passive, digesting in triumphant
+repose the sums of money which it swallowed up. The monster!
+
+Whenever there is any little dispute between my uncle and my aunt, she
+is certain to throw his brew-house in his face. But, instead of being
+crushed by the mischief he has wrought, he declares, "The project was
+admirable: my idea was a brilliant one if it had only succeeded!"
+
+But it did not succeed.
+
+The consequence was--retrenchment and economy. My aunt dismissed two
+servants, my uncle kept only a pair of driving horses, and my new gowns
+were made out of my aunt Therese's old ones.
+
+The entire winter we spent at Zirkow, and my only congenial friend was
+my old English governess, the Miss O'Donnel already mentioned, who came
+shortly before Harry's entrance into the army, not so much to teach me
+English as to learn German herself.
+
+Born in Ireland, and a Catholic, she had always had excellent
+situations in the most aristocratic English families. This had given
+her, besides her other acquirements, a great familiarity with the
+curious peculiarities of the British peerage, and with social
+distinctions of rank in England, as to which she enlightened me, along
+with much other valuable information.
+
+At first I thought her quite ridiculous in many respects,--her general
+appearance,--she had once been a beauty, and still wore corkscrew
+curls,--her way of humming to herself old Irish ballads, "Nora Creina,"
+"The harp that once through Tara's halls," etc., with a cracked voice
+and unconscious gestures, her formality and sensitiveness. After a
+while I grew fond of her. What quantities of books she read aloud to me
+in the long evenings in January and December, while my wooden needles
+clicked monotonously as I knitted woollen comforters for the poor!--all
+Walter Scott's novels, Dickens and Thackeray, many of the works of
+English historians, from the academic, fluent Gibbon to that strange
+prophet of history, Carlyle, and every day I had to study with her one
+act of Shakespeare, which bored me at first. She was so determined to
+form my literary taste that while my maid was brushing my hair she
+would read aloud some lighter work, such as "The Vicar of Wakefield" or
+Doctor Johnson's "Rasselas."
+
+As Uncle Paul was very desirous to perfect my education as far as
+possible, he was not content with these far-reaching efforts, but, with
+a view to further accomplishments on my part, sent me thrice a week to
+X----, where an old pianiste, who was said to have refused a Russian
+prince, and was now humpbacked, gave me lessons on the piano; and a
+former _ballerina_, at present married to the best caterer in X----,
+taught me to dance.
+
+This last was a short, fat, good-humoured person with an enormous
+double chin and a complexion spoiled by bad rouge. When a
+ballet-dancer she had been known as Angiolina Chiaramonte; her name now
+is Frau Anna Schwanzara. She always lost her breath, and sometimes the
+buttons off her waist, when she danced for her pupils, and she prided
+herself upon being able to teach every known dance, even to the cancan.
+I did not learn the cancan, but I did learn the fandango, the czardas,
+and the Highland fling, with many another national dance. Waltzes and
+polkas I did not learn, because we had no one for a partner to practise
+with me; Frau Schwanzara was too short-breathed, although she was very
+good-humoured and did her best.
+
+Sometimes I thought it very hard to have to get up so early and drive
+between high walls of snow in a rattling inspector's wagon (Uncle Paul
+would not allow his last good carriage to be used on these journeys)
+two long leagues to X----, but it was, at all events, a break in the
+monotony of my life.
+
+If I was not too sleepy, we argued the whole way, Miss O'Donnel and I,
+usually over some historic event, such as the execution of Louis XVI.
+or Cromwell's rebellion. Sometimes we continued our debate as we walked
+about the town, where we must have been strange and yet familiar
+figures. Miss O'Donnel certainly was odd in appearance. She always wore
+a long gray cloth cloak, under which, to guard against dirt, she kilted
+up her petticoats so high that her red stockings gleamed from afar. On
+her head was perched a black velvet bonnet with a scarlet pompon, and
+in summer and winter she carried the same bulgy green umbrella, which
+she called her "Gamp." Once we lost each other in the midst of a
+particularly lively discussion. Nothing daunted, she planted herself at
+a street-corner, and, pounding the pavement with her umbrella, called,
+lustily, "Zdena! Zdena! Zdena!" until a policeman, to whom I described
+her, conducted me to her.
+
+In addition to Miss O'Donnel's peculiarities, the extraordinary
+structure of our vehicle must have attracted some attention in X----.
+It was a long, old-fashioned coach hung on very high springs, and it
+looked very like the shabby carriages seen following the hearse at
+third-class funerals. Twin sister of the Komaritz "Noah's Ark," it
+served a double purpose, and could be taken apart in summer and used as
+an open carriage. Sometimes it fell apart of itself. Once when we were
+driving quickly through the market-square and past the officers' casino
+in X----, the entire carriage window fell out upon the pavement. The
+coachman stopped the horses, and a very tall hussar picked up the
+window and handed it in to me, saying, with a smile, "You have dropped
+something, mademoiselle!" I was deeply mortified, but I would not for
+the world have shown that I was so. I said, simply, "Thank you; put it
+down there, if you please," pointing to the opposite seat,--as if
+dropping a window out of the carriage were the most ordinary every-day
+occurrence. Upon my reply to him he made a profound bow, which I
+thought all right. He was a late arrival in the garrison; the other
+officers knew us or our carriage by sight. Every one of them, when he
+came to X----, paid his respects to my uncle, who in due course of time
+returned the visit, and there was an end of it. The officers were never
+invited to Zirkow.
+
+Sometimes the roads were so blocked with snow that we could not drive
+to town, nor could we walk far. For the sake of exercise, or what Miss
+O'Donnel called our "daily constitutional," we used then to walk
+numberless times around the house, where the gardener had cleared a
+path for us. As we walked, Miss O'Donnel told me stories from the
+Arabian Nights or Ovid's Metamorphoses, varied sometimes by
+descriptions of life among the British aristocracy. When once she was
+launched upon this last topic, I would not let her finish,--I besieged
+her with questions. She showed me the picture of one of her pupils, the
+Lady Alice B----, who married the Duke of G---- and was the queen of
+London society for two years.
+
+"'Tis odd how much you look like her," she often said to me. "You are
+sure to make a sensation in the world; only have patience. You are born
+to play a great part."
+
+If Uncle Paul had heard her, I believe he would have killed her.
+
+Every evening we played a rubber of whist. Miss O'Donnel never could
+remember what cards were out, and, whenever we wished to recall a card
+or to transgress some rule of the game, Aunt Rosamunda always said,
+"That is not allowed at the Jockey Club."
+
+Once my uncle and aunt took me upon a six weeks' pleasure-tour,--or,
+rather, an educational excursion. We thoroughly explored the greater
+part of Germany and Italy on this occasion, travelling very simply,
+with very little luggage, never speaking to strangers, having
+intercourse exclusively with pictures, sculptures, and valets-de-place.
+After thus becoming acquainted, in Baedeker's society, with a new piece
+of the world, as Aunt Rosamunda observed with satisfaction, we returned
+to Zirkow, and life went on as before.
+
+And really my lonely existence would not have struck me as anything
+extraordinary, if Hedwig had not been at hand to enlighten me as to my
+deprivations.
+
+She had been introduced into society, and wrote me of her conquests.
+Last summer she brought a whole trunkful of faded bouquets with her to
+Komaritz,--ball-trophies. Besides this stuff, she brought two other
+acquisitions with her to the country, a sallow complexion and an
+adjective which she used upon every occasion--"impossible!" She tossed
+it about to the right and left, applying it to everything in the dear
+old nest which I so dearly loved, and which she now never called
+anything save "Mon exil." The house at Komaritz, the garden, my
+dress,--all fell victims to this adjective.
+
+Two of her friends shortly followed her to Komaritz, with a suitable
+train of governesses and maids,--countesses from Prague society, Mimi
+and Franziska Zett.
+
+They were not nearly so affected as Heda,--in fact, they were not
+affected at all, but were sweet and natural, very pretty, and
+particularly pleasant towards me. But we were not congenial; we had
+nothing to say to one another; we had no interests in common. They were
+quite indifferent to my favourite heroes, from the Gracchi to the First
+Consul; in fact, they knew hardly anything about them, and I knew still
+less of the Rudis, Nikis, Taffis, and whatever else the young gentlemen
+were called, with whom they danced and flirted at balls and parties,
+and about whom they now gossiped with Heda.
+
+They, too, brought each a trunkful of faded bouquets, and one day they
+piled them all up on the grass in the garden and set fire to them. They
+declared that it was the custom in society in Vienna thus to burn on
+Ash Wednesday every relic of the Carnival. To be sure, it was not Ash
+Wednesday in Komaritz, and the Carnival was long past, but that was of
+no consequence.
+
+The favourite occupation of the three young ladies was to sit in the
+summer-house, with a generous supply of iced raspberry vinegar, and
+make confession of the various _passions funestes_ which they had
+inspired. I sat by and listened mutely.
+
+Once Mimi amiably asked me to give my experience. I turned my head
+away, and murmured, ashamed, "No one ever made love to me." Mimi,
+noticing my distress, put her finger beneath my chin, just as if she
+had been my grand-aunt, and said, "Only wait until you come out, and
+you will bear the palm away from all of us, for you are by long odds
+the prettiest of us all."
+
+When afterwards I looked in the glass, I thought she was right.
+
+"Until you go into society," Mimi had said. Good heavens!  into
+society!--I! For some time a suspicion had dawned upon me that Uncle
+Paul did not mean that I should ever "go into society." When, the day
+after Mimi's portentous speech, I returned to Zirkow, I determined to
+put an end to all uncertainty upon the subject.
+
+After dinner--it had been an uncommonly good one--I put my hand
+caressingly within my uncle's arm, and whispered, softly, "Uncle, do
+you never mean to take me to balls, eh?"
+
+He had been very gay, but he at once grew grave, as he replied,--
+
+"What good would balls do you? Make your eyes droop, and your feet
+ache! I can't endure the thought of having you whirled about by all the
+young coxcombs of Prague and then criticised afterwards. Marriages are
+made in heaven, Zdena, and your fate will find you here, you may be
+sure."
+
+"But I am not thinking of marriage," I exclaimed, indignantly. "I want
+to see the world, uncle dear; can you not understand that?" and I
+tenderly stroked his coat-sleeve.
+
+He shook his curly head energetically.
+
+"Be thankful that you know nothing of the world," he said, with
+emphasis.
+
+And I suddenly recalled the intense bitterness in my mother's tone as
+she uttered the word "world," when I waked in the dark night and found
+her kneeling, crying, at my bedside in our old Paris home.
+
+"Is it really so very terrible--the world?" I asked, meekly, and yet
+incredulously.
+
+"Terrible!" he repeated my word with even more energy than was usual
+with him. "It is a hot-bed of envy and vanity, a place where one learns
+to be ashamed of his best friend if he chance to wear an ill-made coat;
+that is the world you are talking of. I do not wish you to know
+anything about it."
+
+This was all he would say.
+
+It might be supposed that the unattractive picture of the world drawn
+by Uncle Paul would have put a stop at once and forever to any desire
+of mine for a further acquaintance with it, but--there is ever a charm
+about what is forbidden. At present I have not the faintest desire to
+visit Pekin, but if I were forbidden to go near that capital I should
+undoubtedly be annoyed.
+
+
+And day follows day. Nearly a year has passed since that unedifying
+conversation with my uncle.
+
+The only amusement that varied the monotony of our existence was a
+letter at long intervals from Harry. For a time he was stationed in
+Salzburg; for a year he has been in garrison in Vienna, where, of
+course, he is absorbed in the whirl of Viennese society. I must confess
+that it did not greatly please me when I first learned that he had
+entered upon that brilliant worldly scene: will he not come to be like
+Hedwig? My uncle declares that the world is the hot-bed of envy and
+vanity; and yet there must be natures upon which poisonous atmospheres
+produce no effect, just as there are men who can breathe with impunity
+the air of the Pontine marshes; and Harry's nature is one of these. At
+least so it would seem from his letters, they are so cordial and
+simple, such warm affection speaks in every line. A little while ago he
+sent me his photograph. I liked it extremely, but I did not say so; all
+the more loudly, however, did my uncle express his admiration. He
+offered to wager that Harry is the handsomest officer in the entire
+army, and he shouted loudly for Krupitschka, to show him the picture.
+
+Harry told us one interesting piece of news,--I forget whether it was
+this winter or the last; perhaps it was still longer ago, for Harry was
+stationed in Enns at the time, and the news related to our old friend
+Treurenberg.
+
+He had married a girl in the world of trade,--a Fraeulein Selina von
+Harfink. Harry, whom Lato had bidden to his marriage, and who had gone
+for old friendship's sake from Enns to Vienna to be the escort in the
+church of the first of the eight bridesmaids, made very merry in his
+letter over the festivity.
+
+We were all intensely surprised; we had not heard a word of Lato's
+betrothal, and the day after Harry's letter came the announcement of
+the marriage.
+
+Uncle Paul, who takes most of the events of life very philosophically,
+grew quite angry on learning of this marriage.
+
+Since Lato has married for money, he cares nothing more for him.
+
+"I should not care if he had made a fool of himself and married
+an actress," he exclaimed, over and over again, "but to sell
+himself--ugh!"
+
+When I suggested, "Perhaps he fell in love with Selina," my uncle
+shrugged his shoulders, and seemed to consider any such possibility
+entirely out of the question.
+
+We talked for two weeks at Zirkow about Lato Treurenberg's marriage.
+
+Now we have almost forgotten it. Since Lato has been married he has
+been quite estranged from his former associations.
+
+
+To-day is my birthday. I am nineteen years old. How kind my uncle and
+aunt are to me! How they try to give me pleasure! My heap of presents
+was really grand. Arrayed about my cake, with its lighted candles,
+I found two new gowns, a hat which Heda had purchased for me in
+Prague,--and which, by the way, would be highly appreciated upon the
+head of a monkey in a circus,--several volumes of English literature
+sent me by Miss O'Donnel from Italy, and, in a white silk sachet upon
+which Mimi Zett had embroidered a bird of paradise in the midst of a
+snow-scene (a symbol of my melancholy condition), a card, upon which
+was written, "A visit to some watering-place, by the way of Vienna and
+Paris." I uttered a shriek of delight and threw my arms around my
+uncle's neck.
+
+The three young girls from Komaritz came over to Zirkow to dine, in
+honour of the occasion; we drank one another's health in champagne, and
+in the afternoon we had coffee in the woods, which was very
+inconvenient but very delightful. Then we consulted the cards as to our
+future, and Heda lost her temper because the oracle declared that she
+would marry an apothecary.
+
+What nonsense it was! The cards prophesied to me that I should marry
+for love;--I! As if I should think of such a thing! But I was not in
+the least vexed, although I knew how false it was.
+
+Towards eight o'clock the girls drove home, and I concluded the evening
+by taking my new bonnet to pieces and then scribbling here at my
+writing-table. I cannot make up my mind to go to bed. I am fairly
+tingling to my finger-tips with delightful anticipations. To think of
+seeing Paris once more,--Paris, where I was born, the very centre of
+the civilized world! Oh, it is too charming!
+
+Something extraordinary will happen during this trip,--I am sure of it.
+I shall meet some one who will liberate me from my solitude and set me
+upon the pedestal for which I long; an English peer, perhaps, or a
+Russian prince, oh, it will of course be a Russian prince--who spends
+most of his time in Paris. I shall not mind his not being very young.
+Elderly men are more easily managed.----
+
+(At this point the major frowns. "I should not have thought it of her,
+I really should not have thought it of her. Well, we shall see whether
+she is in earnest." And he goes on with his reading.)
+
+
+                                                    June 10, ----.
+
+I have a piece of news to put down. The Frau von Harfink who bought
+Dobrotschau a while ago--the estate that adjoins Zirkow, a fine
+property with a grand castle but poor soil--is no other than Lato
+Treurenberg's mother-in-law. She called upon us to-day. When
+Krupitschka brought the cards of the Baroness Melanie von Harfink and
+her daughter Paula, Aunt Rosa denounced the visit as a presumption upon
+the part of the ladies. She had been engaged all day long in setting
+the house "to rights," preparatory to our departure, and had on a very
+old gown in which she does not often appear; wherefore she would fain
+have denied herself. But I was burning with curiosity to see Lato's
+mother-in-law: so I remarked, "Uncle Paul and I will go and receive the
+ladies, while you dress."
+
+This made my aunt very angry. "It never would occur to me to dress for
+these wealthy _parvenues_. This gown is quite good enough for them."
+And she smoothed the faded folds of her skirt so that a neatly-darned
+spot was distinctly conspicuous. The ladies were immediately shown in;
+they were extremely courteous and amiable, but they found no favour in
+my aunt's eyes.
+
+There really was no objection to make to Mamma von Harfink, who is
+still a very handsome woman, except that her manner was rather
+affected. The daughter, however, was open to criticism of various
+kinds, and subsequently became the subject of a serious dispute between
+my aunt and uncle. My aunt called Fraeulein Paula disagreeable,
+absolutely hideous, and vulgar; whereupon my uncle, slowly shaking his
+head, rejoined,----
+
+"Say what you please, she may not be agreeable, but she is very
+pretty."
+
+Upon this my aunt grew angry, and called Fraeulein Paula a "red-haired
+kitchen-maid." My uncle shrugged his shoulders, and observed,
+"Nevertheless, there have been kitchen-maids who were not ugly."
+
+Then my aunt declared, "I can see nothing pretty about such fat
+creatures; but, according to her mother's account, you are not alone in
+your admiration. Madame Harfink had hardly been here five minutes when
+she informed me that Professor X----, of Vienna, had declared that her
+daughter reminded him of Titian's penitent Magdalen in the Borghese
+Gallery in Rome, and she asked me whether I was not struck with the
+resemblance."
+
+My uncle grinned--I could not see at what and said, "H'm! the Magdalen,
+perhaps; but whether penitent or not----" and he pinched my cheek.
+
+The dispute continued for a while longer, and ended with my aunt's
+emphatic declaration that men always had the worst possible taste with
+regard to young girls. My uncle burst into a laugh at this, and
+replied, "True. I gave proof of it on the 21st of May, 1858." It was
+his marriage-day.
+
+Of course my aunt laughed, and the quarrel ended. The subject was
+changed, and we discussed Lato Treurenberg's marriage, which had
+puzzled us all. My aunt declared that since she had seen the family
+Treurenberg's choice appeared to her more incomprehensible than ever.
+
+My uncle shook his head sagely, and observed, "If Selina Treurenberg at
+all resembles her sister, it explains much to me, especially when I
+recall the poor fellow's peculiarities. It makes me more lenient
+towards him, and--I pity him from my heart." They evidently did not
+wish to say anything more upon the subject before me.
+
+
+                                                     June 20.
+
+This afternoon we start. I am in a fever of anticipation. How
+delightful! I seem to have come to the turning-point of my existence.
+Something wonderful is surely going to happen.
+
+Meanwhile, I take my leave of my little book,--I shall have no time to
+write in it while we are away.
+
+
+                                                     July 30.
+
+Here we are back again in the old nest! Nothing either wonderful or
+even extraordinary happened upon the journey; on the contrary,
+everything was quite commonplace. I did not meet the Russian prince,
+but I have brought home with me a conviction of the beauty and delights
+of the world, and the certainty that, if fate would only grant me the
+opportunity, I could play a most brilliant part in it. But my destiny
+has nothing of the kind to offer.
+
+I am restless and discontented, and I have great trouble in concealing
+my mood from my uncle and aunt. I am likewise disgusted with my
+ingratitude. I know that the expenses of our trip weighed heavily upon
+my uncle. He has bought himself no new horses, although the old ones
+are lame in all four legs; and my aunt has given up her pilgrimage to
+Bayreuth, that I might go to the baths. She expected so much for me
+from this trip, and now----
+
+Still, prosaic and commonplace as it all was, I will put it down here
+conscientiously in detail. Various pleasant little circumstances may
+recur to me as I write which have escaped me in my general discontent
+that has tinged everything.
+
+Our few days in Vienna were the pleasantest part of the entire trip,
+little as I liked the city at first.
+
+We arrived at ten in the evening, rather exhausted by the heat, and of
+course we expected to see Harry at the railroad-station, my uncle
+having advised him of our arrival. But in vain did we peer in every
+direction, or rather in vain did Aunt Rosamunda thus peer (for I did
+nothing of the kind); there was no Harry to be seen.
+
+While my aunt loudly expressed her wonder at his non-appearance, I
+never uttered a word, but was secretly all the more vexed at what
+seemed to me Harry's laziness and want of consideration. Of course, I
+attributed his absence to the fact that a young man who passed his time
+in flying from one fete to another in the world (which I was not to
+know) could hardly be very anxious to meet a couple of relatives from
+the country. Perhaps he had come to be just like Heda, and I shrugged
+my shoulders indifferently at the thought. What could it possibly
+matter to me? Meanwhile, my aunt had given our luggage-tickets to
+a porter and got with me into an open carriage, where we quietly and
+wearily awaited our trunks.
+
+Around us the lights flickered in the warm, dim, night air, which was
+almost as close as an in-door atmosphere, and smelled most unpleasantly
+of dust, dried leaves, and all sorts of exhalations. On every hand
+crowded houses of indescribable clumsiness and ugliness; I was
+depressed by the mere eight of them, and suddenly experienced the most
+painful sensation of shrivelling up. The deafening noise and bustle
+were in harmony with the houses: I never had heard anything like it.
+Everybody jostled everybody else, all were in a hurry, and no one paid
+the slightest regard to anybody. It seemed as if they were one and all
+bound for some great entertainment and feared to be too late.
+
+At the hotel the reason for Harry's absence was explained. We found two
+beautiful bunches of roses in our rooms, and a note, as follows:
+
+
+"I am more sorry than I can tell, not to be able to welcome you at the
+station. I am, unfortunately, on duty at a garden-party at the Archduke
+S----'s.... I shall report myself to you, however, at the earliest
+opportunity.
+
+                                                     "Harry."
+
+
+I supped with a relish, and slept soundly.
+
+My aunt had breakfasted in our sitting-room and was reading the paper,
+when I had scarcely begun to dress. I was just about to brush my
+hair,--I have very long hair, and it is quite pretty, light brown with
+a dash of gold,--in fact, I was standing before the mirror in my white
+peignoir, with my hair hanging soft and curling all around me, very
+well pleased with my reflection in the glass, when suddenly I heard the
+jingling of spurs and sabre, and a voice which was familiar and yet
+unfamiliar. I trembled from head to foot.
+
+"Zdena, hurry, and come!" called my aunt. "Here is a visitor!"
+
+I knew well enough who it was, but, as if I did not know, I opened the
+door, showed myself for a moment in my white wrapper and long, loose
+hair,--only for a moment,--and then hastily retreated.
+
+"Come just as you are. 'Tis only Harry; it is not as if it were a
+stranger. Come!" called my aunt.
+
+But I was not to be persuaded. Not for worlds would I have had Harry
+suspect that--that--well, that I was in any great hurry to see him.
+
+I dressed my hair with the most scrupulous care. Not before twenty
+minutes had passed did I go into the next room.
+
+How plainly I see it all before me now,--the room, half drawing-room,
+half dressing-room; a trunk in one corner, in another an old
+piano, the key of which we were obliged to procure from the kellner; in
+an arm-chair a bundle of shawls, over the back of a sofa our
+travelling-wraps, our well-polished boots in front of the porcelain
+stove, great patches of misty sunshine lying everywhere, the
+breakfast-table temptingly spread near the window, and there, opposite
+my aunt, his sabre between his knees, tall, slender, very brown, very
+handsome, an officer of hussars,--Harry.
+
+I like him, and am a little afraid of him. He suddenly springs up and
+advances a step or two towards me. His eyes--the same eyes that had
+glanced at me as I appeared in my wrapper--open wide in amazement; his
+gaze is riveted upon my face. All my fear has gone; yes, I confess it
+to this paper,--I am possessed by an exultant consciousness of power.
+He is only my cousin, 'tis true, but he is the first man upon whom I
+have been able to prove my powers of conquest.
+
+I put my hands in his, so cordially extended, but when he stooped as if
+to kiss me, I shook my head, laughing, and said, "I am too old for
+that."
+
+He yielded without a word, only touching my hand respectfully with
+his lips and then releasing me; whereupon I went directly to the
+breakfast-table. But, as he still continued to gaze at me, I asked,
+easily,----
+
+"What is it, Harry? Is my hair coming down?"
+
+He shook his head, and said, in some confusion, "Not at all. I was only
+wondering what you had done with all your magnificent hair!"
+
+I made no reply, but applied myself to my breakfast.
+
+It was really delightful, our short stay in Vienna. Harry was with us
+all the while. He went about with us from morning till night; patiently
+dragged with us to shops, picture-galleries, and cathedrals, and to the
+dusty, sunny Prater, where the vegetation along the drive seemed to
+have grown shabby. We drove together to Schoenbrunn, the huge, dreamy,
+imperial summer residence, and wandered about the leafy avenues there.
+We fed the swans; we fed the monkeys and the bears, while my aunt
+rested near by, Baedeker in hand, upon any bench she could find. She
+rested a great deal, and grew more tired with every day of our stay in
+Vienna, and with very good reason; she can hardly endure the pavement
+in walking, and she refuses, from fastidiousness, to take advantage of
+the tramway, and, from economy, to hire a carriage.
+
+The sunset has kindled flames in all the windows of the castle, and we
+are still wandering in the green avenues, talking of all sorts of
+things, music, and literature. Harry's taste is classic; mine is
+somewhat revolutionary. I talk more than he; he listens. Sometimes he
+throws in a word in the midst of my nonsense; at other times he laughs
+heartily at my paradoxes, and then again he suddenly looks askance at
+me and says nothing. Then I become aware that he understands far more
+than I of the matter in hand, and I fall silent.
+
+The sun has set; the rosy reflection on the grass and at the foot of
+the old trees has faded; there is only a pale, gray gleam on the castle
+windows. All nature seems to sigh relieved. A cool mist rises from the
+basins of the fountains, like the caress of a water-nymph; the roses,
+petunias, and mignonette exhale delicious fragrance, which rises as
+incense to heaven; the lisp of the leaves and the plash of the fountain
+interpose a dreamy veil of sound, as it were, between us and some
+aggressive military music in the distance.
+
+The twilight falls; the nurses are all taking their charges home. Here
+and there on the benches a soldier and a nursemaid are sitting
+together. It is too dark to see to read Baedeker any longer. My aunt
+calls to us: "Do come, children; the carriage has been waiting ever so
+long, and I am very hungry."
+
+And the time had seemed so short to me. My aunt is so easily fatigued,
+and her aversion to tramways is so insurmountable, that she stays at
+home half the time in the hotel, and I make many a little expedition
+with Harry alone. Then I take his arm. We stroll through the old part
+of the city, with its sculptured monuments, its beautiful gray palaces
+standing side by side with the commonest lodging-houses; about us
+people are thronging and pushing; we are in no hurry; we should like to
+have time stand still,--Harry and I; we walk very slowly. I am so
+content, so filled with a sense of protection, when I am with him thus.
+It is delightful to cling to him in the crowd.
+
+It seems to me that I should like to spend my life in slowly wandering
+thus in the cool of the evening through the streets, where the lights
+are just beginning to be lighted, where a pair of large, kindly eyes
+rest upon my face, and the sound of distant military music is in my
+ears.
+
+The last evening before our departure arrived. We were sitting in our
+small drawing-room, and Harry and I were drinking iced coffee. My aunt
+had left hers untouched; the fever of travelling was upon her; she
+wandered from one room to another, opening trunks, drawers, and
+wardrobes, and casting suspicious glances under the piano and the
+sofas, sure that something would be left behind.
+
+The kellner brought in two cards,--Countess Zriny and Fraeulein
+Tschaky,--a cousin of Uncle Paul's, with her companion.
+
+We had called upon the Countess the day before, and had rejoiced to
+find her not at home. My aunt now elevated her eyebrows, and murmured,
+plaintively, "It can't be helped!"
+
+Then she hurriedly carried two bundles of shawls and a hand-bag into
+the next room, and the ladies were shown in.
+
+Countess Zriny is a very stout, awkward old maid, with the figure of a
+meal-sack and the face of a portly abbot. Harry maintains that she has
+holy water instead of blood in her veins, and that she has for ten
+years lived exclusively upon Eau de Lourdes and Count Mattei's
+miraculous pills. It is odd that she should have grown so stout upon
+such a diet.
+
+There is nothing to say of Fraeulein Tschaky.
+
+Aunt Rosamunda received the ladies with a majestic affability
+peculiarly her own, and presented me as "Our child,--Fritz's daughter!"
+
+The Countess gave me her hand, a round, fat little hand that felt as if
+her Swedish glove were stuffed with wadding, then put up her eyeglass
+and gazed at me, lifting her eyebrows the while.
+
+"All her father!" she murmured,--"especially her profile." Then she
+dropped her eyeglass, sighed, "Poor Fritz! poor Fritz!" seated herself
+on the sofa with my aunt, and began to whisper to her, looking steadily
+at me all the while.
+
+The sensitive irritability of my nature was at once aflame. If she had
+pitied my father only for being snatched away so early in his fair
+young life, for being torn so suddenly from those whom he loved! But
+this was not the case. She pitied him solely because he had married my
+mother. Oh, I knew it perfectly well; and she was whispering about it
+to my aunt before me,--she could not even wait until I should be away.
+I could hear almost every word.
+
+My heart suddenly grew heavy,--so heavy with the old grief that I would
+fain forget, that I could hardly bear it. But even in the midst of my
+pain I observed that Harry was aware of my suffering and shared it.
+
+Of course my cousin Zriny--for she is my cousin, after all--was
+otherwise extremely amiable to me. She turned from her mysterious
+conversation with Aunt Rosamunda, and addressed a couple of questions
+to me. She asked whether I liked country life, and when I replied,
+curtly, "I know no other," she laughed good-humouredly, just as some
+contented old monk might laugh,--a laugh that seemed to shake her fat
+sides and double chin, as she said, "_Elle a de l'esprit, la petite;
+elle n'est pas du tout banale_."
+
+How she arrived at that conclusion from my brief reply, I am unable to
+say.
+
+After a quarter of an hour she rose, took both my hands in hers by way
+of farewell, put her head on one side, sighed, "Poor Fritz!" and then
+kissed me.
+
+When the door had closed behind her, my aunt betook herself to the next
+room to make ready for a projected evening walk.
+
+I was left alone with Harry. As I could not restrain my tears, and did
+not know how else to conceal them, I turned my back to him and
+pretended to arrange my hair at the pier-glass, before which stood a
+vase filled with the La France roses that he had brought me the day
+before.
+
+It was a silly thing to do. He looked over my shoulder and saw in the
+mirror the tears on my cheeks, and then--he put his arm around my waist
+and whispered, "You poor little goose! You sensitive little thing! Why
+should you grieve because a kindhearted, weak-minded old woman was
+silly?"
+
+Then I could not help sobbing outright, crying, "Ah, it is always the
+same,--I know it! I am not like the other girls in your world. People
+despise me, and my poor mother too."
+
+"But this is childish," he said, gravely,--"childish and foolish. No
+one despises you. And--don't scratch my eyes out, Zdena--it is not your
+heart, merely, that is wounded at present, but your vanity, the vanity
+of an inexperienced little girl who knows nothing of the world or of
+the people in it. If you had knocked about in it somewhat, you would
+know how little it signifies if people in general wink and nod, and
+that the only thing really to care for is, to be understood and loved
+by those to whom we cling with affection."
+
+He said this more gently and kindly than I can write it. He suddenly
+seemed very far above me in his earnest kindness of heart and his sweet
+reasonableness. I was instantly possessed with a feeling akin to
+remorse and shame, to think how I had teased him and tyrannized over
+him all through those last few days. And I cannot tell how it happened,
+but he clasped me close in his arms and bent down and kissed me on the
+lips,--and I let him do it! Ah, such a thrill passed through me! And I
+felt sheltered and cared for as I had not done since my mother's
+clasping arms had been about me. I was for the moment above all petty
+annoyances,--borne aloft by a power I could not withstand.
+
+It lasted but a moment, for we were startled by the silken rustle of my
+aunt's gown, and did he release me? did I leave him? I do not know; but
+when Aunt Rosamunda appeared I was adjusting a rose in my breast, and
+Harry was--looking for his sabre!----. (When the major reached this
+point, he stamped on the floor with delight.)
+
+"Aha, Rosel, which of us was right?" he exclaimed aloud. He would have
+liked to summon his wife from where he could see her walking in the
+garden, to impart to her his glorious discovery. On reflection,
+however, he decided not to do so, chiefly because there was a good deal
+of manuscript still unread, and he was in a hurry to continue the
+perusal of what interested him so intensely.)
+
+----I avoided being alone with Harry all the rest of the evening, but
+the next morning at the railway-station, while my aunt was nervously
+counting over the pieces of luggage for the ninety-ninth time, I could not
+prevent his leaning towards me and saying, "Zdena, we were so unfortunately
+interrupted last evening. You have not yet told me--that----"
+
+I felt myself grow scarlet. "Wait for a while!" I murmured, turning my
+head away from him, but I think that perhaps--I pressed his hand----
+
+I must have done so, for happier eyes than those which looked after our
+train as it sped away I have never seen. Ah, how silly I had been! I
+carried with me for the rest of the journey a decided regret.----
+
+(The major frowned darkly. "Why, this looks as if she would like to
+withdraw her promise! But let me see, there really has no promise
+passed between them."
+
+He glanced hurriedly over the following leaves. "Descriptions of
+travel--compositions," he muttered to himself. "Paris--variations upon
+Baedeker--the little goose begins to be tiresome----Ah, here is
+something about her parents' grave--poor thing!  And here----" He began
+to read again.)
+
+
+----A few hours after our arrival we drove to the graveyard at
+Montmartre, an ugly, gloomy graveyard, bordering directly upon a
+business-street, so that the noise and bustle of the city sound
+deafeningly where the dead are reposing. The paths are as straight
+as if drawn by a ruler, and upon the graves lie wreaths of straw
+flowers or stiff immortelles. These durable decorations seem to me
+heartless,--as if the poor dead were to be provided for once for all,
+since it might be tiresome to visit them often.
+
+My parents' grave lies a little apart from the broad centre path, under
+a knotty old juniper-tree.
+
+I heaped it with flowers, and amid the fresh blossoms I laid the roses,
+now faded, which Harry gave me yesterday when we parted.
+
+
+I was enchanted with Paris. My aunt was delighted with the shops. She
+spent all her time in them, and thought everything very reasonable. At
+the end of four days she had bought so many reasonable articles that
+she had to purchase a huge trunk in which to take them home, and she
+had scarcely any money left.
+
+She was convinced that she must have made some mistake in her accounts,
+and she worked over them half through an entire night, but with no
+consoling result.
+
+The upshot of it was that she wanted to go home immediately; but since
+the trip had been undertaken chiefly for my health and was to end in a
+visit to some sea-side resort, she wrote to my uncle, explaining the
+state of affairs--that is, of her finances--and asking for a subsidy.
+
+My uncle sent the subsidy, but requested us to leave Paris as soon as
+possible, and to choose a modest seaside resort.
+
+The next day we departed from Babylon.
+
+After inquiring everywhere, and studying the guidebook attentively, my
+aunt finally resolved to go to St. Valery.
+
+The evening was cold and windy when we reached the little town and drew
+up in the omnibus before the Hotel de la Plage.
+
+The season had not begun, and the hotel was not actually open, but it
+received us.
+
+As no rooms were taken, all were placed at our disposal, and we chose
+three in the first story, one for my aunt, one for me, and one for our
+trunks.
+
+The furniture, of crazy old mahogany, had evidently been bought of some
+dealer in second-band furniture in Rouen, but the beds were extremely
+good, and the bed-linen, although "coarse as sacking," as Uncle Paul
+would have expressed it, was perfectly clean and white.
+
+From our windows we looked out upon the sea and upon the little wooden
+hut where the safety-boat was kept, and also upon the little town park,
+about a hundred square yards in extent; upon the Casino, quite an
+imposing structure on the shore; upon the red pennons which,
+designating the bathing-place, made a brilliant show in the midst of
+the prevailing gray, and upon a host of whitewashed bath-houses waiting
+for the guests who had not yet arrived.
+
+How indeed could they arrive? One had need to have come from Bohemia,
+not to go directly home, in such cold, damp weather as we had; but we
+wanted to get value from our expensive trip.
+
+The Casino was no more open than the hotel, it was even in a decided
+_neglige_, but it was busily dressing. A swarm of painters and
+upholsterers were decorating it. The upholsterers hung the inside with
+crimson, the painters coloured the outside red and white.
+
+The proprietor, a broad-shouldered young man answering to the
+high-sounding name of Raoul Donval, daily superintended the work of
+the--artists. He always wore a white cap with a broad black visor, and
+a stick in the pocket of his short jacket, and plum-coloured
+knickerbockers; and I think he considered himself very elegant.
+
+They were draping and beautifying and painting our hotel too.
+Everything was being painted instead of scrubbed,--the stairs, the
+doors, the floors; everywhere the dirt was hidden beneath the same
+dull-red colour. Aunt Rosa declared that they seemed to her to be
+daubing the entire house with blood. Just at this time she was wont to
+make most ghastly comparisons, because, for lack of other literature,
+she was reading an historical romance in the _Petit Journal_.
+
+She was in a far more melancholy mood than I at St. Valery. Since it
+had to be, I made up my mind to it, consoling myself with the
+reflection that I was just nineteen, and that there was plenty of time
+for fate, if so minded, to shape my destiny brilliantly. Unfortunately,
+my aunt had not this consolation, but, instead, the depressing
+consciousness of having given up Bayreuth. It was hard. I was very
+sorry for her, and did all that I could to amuse her.
+
+I could always find something to laugh at in our visits to the empty
+Casino and in our walks through the town, but instead of cheering
+her my merriment distressed her. She had seen in the French journal
+which she studied faithfully every day an account of a sensitive
+trombone-player at the famous yearly festival at Neuilly who had broken
+his instrument over the head of an arrogant Englishman who had allowed
+himself to make merry over some detail of the festival. Therefore I
+could scarcely smile in the street without having my aunt twitch my
+sleeve and say,--
+
+"For heaven's sake don't laugh at these Frenchmen!--remember that
+trombone at Neuilly."
+
+During the first fortnight I had the whole shore, with the bath-houses
+and bathing-men, entirely to myself. It was ghastly! The icy
+temperature of the water seemed to bite into my flesh, my teeth
+chattered, and the bather who held me by both my hands was as blue as
+his dress. Our mutual isolation had the effect of establishing a
+friendship between the bather and myself. He had formerly been a
+sailor, and had but lately returned from Tonquin; he told me much that
+was interesting about the war and the cholera. He was a good-looking
+fellow, with a fair complexion and a tanned face.
+
+After my bath I ran about on the shore until I got warm, and then we
+breakfasted. My aunt did not bathe. She counted the days like a
+prisoner.
+
+When the weather permitted, we made excursions into the surrounding
+country in a little wagon painted yellow, drawn by a shaggy donkey,
+which I drove myself. The donkey's name was Jeanne d'Arc,--which
+horrified my aunt,--and she had a young one six months old that ran
+after us as we drove along.
+
+For more than two weeks we were the sole inmates of the Hotel de la
+Plage. The manager of the establishment--who was likewise the head of
+the kitchen--drove to the station every day to capture strangers, but
+never brought any back.
+
+I see him now,--short and enormously broad, with a triple or quadruple
+chin, sitting on the box beside the coachman, his hands on his thighs.
+He always wore sky-blue trousers, and a short coat buckled about him
+with a broad patent-leather belt. The chambermaid, who revered him,
+informed me that it was the dress of an English courier.
+
+One day he brought back to the host, who daily awaited the guests, two
+live passengers,--an old woman and a young man.
+
+The old woman was very poor, and took a garret room. She must have been
+beautiful formerly, and she looked very distinguished. She positively
+refused to write her name in the strangers' book. By chance we learned
+afterwards that she was a Comtesse d'Ivry, from Versailles, who had had
+great misfortunes. She had a passion for sunsets; every afternoon she
+had an arm-chair carried out on the shore, and sat there, wrapped in a
+thick black cloak, with her feet on a hot-water bottle, to admire the
+majestic spectacle. When it rained, she still persisted in going, and
+sat beneath a large ragged umbrella. Upon her return she usually sighed
+and told the host that the sunsets here were not nearly so fine as at
+Trouville,--appearing to think that this was his fault.
+
+At last the weather brightened and it grew warm; the sun chased away
+the clouds, and allured a crowd of people to the lonely shore. And such
+people! I shudder to think of them.
+
+We could endure the solitude, but such society was unendurable.
+
+The next day I took my last bath.
+
+On our return journey, at Cologne, an odd thing happened.
+
+It was early, and I was sleepy. I was waiting for breakfast in
+melancholy mood, and was contemplating a huge pile of elegant
+hand-luggage which a servant in a very correct dark suit was
+superintending, when two ladies, followed by a maid, made their
+appearance, one fair, the other dark, from the dressing-room, which
+had been locked in our faces. In honour of these two princesses we had
+been obliged to remain unwashed. Ah, how fresh and neat and pretty they
+both looked! The dark one was by far the handsomer of the two, but she
+looked gloomy and discontented, spoke never a word, and after a hurried
+breakfast became absorbed in a newspaper. The fair one, on the contrary,
+a striking creature, with a very large hat and a profusion of passementerie
+on her travelling-cloak, talked a great deal and very loudly to a short,
+fat woman who was going with her little son to Frankfort, and who addressed
+the blonde as "Frau Countess."
+
+The name of the short woman was Frau Kampe, and the name of the
+Countess, which I shortly learned, shall be told in due time. The
+Countess complained of the fatigue of travelling; Frau Kampe, in a
+sympathetic tone, declared that it was almost impossible to sleep in
+the railway-carriages at this time of year, they were so overcrowded.
+But the Countess rejoined with a laugh,--
+
+"We had as much room as we wanted all the way; my husband secures that
+by his fees. He is much too lavish, as I often tell him. Since I have
+been travelling with him we have always had two railway-carriages, one
+for me and my maid, and the other for him and his cigars. It has been
+delightful."
+
+"Even upon your wedding tour?" asked her handsome, dark companion,
+looking up from her reading.
+
+"Ha, ha, ha! Yes, even upon our wedding tour," said the other. "We were
+a very prosaic couple, entirely independent of each other,--quite an
+aristocratic match!" And she laughed again with much self-satisfaction.
+
+"Where is the Herr Count?" asked Frau Kampe. "I should like to make his
+acquaintance."
+
+"Oh, he is not often to be seen; he is smoking on the platform
+somewhere. I scarcely ever meet him; he never appears before the third
+bell has rung. A very aristocratic marriage, you see, Frau Kampe,--such
+a one as you read of."
+
+The Countess's beautiful companion frowned, and the little Kampe boy
+grinned from ear to ear,--I could not tell whether it was at the
+aristocratic marriage or at the successful solution of an arithmetical
+problem which he had just worked out on the paper cover of one of
+Walter Scott's novels.
+
+I must confess that I was curious to see the young husband who even
+upon his marriage journey had preferred the society of his cigars to
+that of his bride.
+
+My aunt had missed the interesting conversation between Frau Kampe and
+her young patroness; she had rushed out to see the cathedral in the
+morning mist. I had manifested so little desire to join her in this
+artistic but uncomfortable enterprise that she had dispensed with my
+society. She now came back glowing with enthusiasm, and filled to
+overflowing with all sorts of information as to Gothic architecture.
+
+Scarcely had she seated herself to drink the coffee which I poured out
+for her, when a tall young man, slightly stooping in his gait, and with
+a very attractive, delicately-chiselled face, entered. Was he not----?
+Well, whoever he was, he was the husband of the aristocratic marriage.
+
+He exchanged a few words with the blonde Countess, and was about to
+leave the room, when his glance fell upon my aunt.
+
+"Baroness, you here!--what a delight!" he exclaimed, approaching her
+hastily.
+
+"Lato!" she almost screamed. She always talks a little loud away from
+home, which annoys me.
+
+It was, in fact, our old friend Lato Treurenberg. Before she had been
+with him two minutes my aunt had forgotten all her prejudice against
+him since his marriage,--and, what was more, had evidently forgotten
+the marriage itself, for she whispered, leaning towards him with a sly
+twinkle of her eye and a nod in the direction of the ladies,--
+
+"What noble acquaintances you have made!--from Frankfort, or Hamburg?"
+
+My heart was in my mouth. No one except Aunt Rosamunda could have made
+such a blunder.
+
+The words had hardly escaped her lips when she became aware of her
+mistake, and she was covered with confusion. Lato flushed scarlet. At
+that moment the departure of our train was announced, and Lato took a
+hurried leave of us. I saw him outside putting the ladies into a
+carriage, after which he himself got into another.
+
+We travelled second-class, and therefore had the pleasure of sharing a
+compartment with the man-servant and maid of the Countess Lato
+Treurenberg.
+
+My aunt took it all philosophically, while I, I confess, had much ado
+to conceal my ungrateful and mean irritation.
+
+I succeeded, however; I do not think my aunt even guessed at my state
+of mind. She went to sleep; perhaps she dreamed of Cologne Cathedral.
+I--ah, I no longer dreamed; I had long since awakened from my dreams,
+and had rubbed my eyes and destroyed all my fine castles in the air.
+
+The trip from which I had promised myself so much was over, and what
+had been effected? Nothing, save a more distinct appreciation of our
+straitened circumstances and an increase of my old gnawing discontent.
+
+I recalled the delightful beginning of our trip, the long, dreamy
+summer days in Vienna, the evening at Schoenbrunn. Again I saw about me
+the fragrant twilight, and heard, through the plash of fountains and
+the whispering of the linden leaves, the sound of distant military
+music. I saw Harry--good heavens! how plainly I saw him, with his
+handsome mouth, his large, serious eyes! How he used to look at me! And
+I recalled how beautiful the world had seemed to me then, so beautiful
+that I thought I could desire nothing better than to wander thus
+through life, leaning upon his arm in the odorous evening air, with the
+echo of distant military music in my ear.
+
+Then ambition rose up before me and swept away all these lovely
+visions, showing me another picture,--Harry, borne down by cares, in
+narrow circumstances, his features sharpened by anxiety, with a pale,
+patient face, jesting bitterly, his uniform shabby, though carefully
+brushed. Ah, and should I not love him ten times more then than now! he
+would always be the same noble, chivalric----
+
+But I could not accept such a sacrifice from him. I could not; it would
+be unprincipled. Specious phrases! What has principle to do with it? I
+do not choose to be poor--no, I will not be poor, and therefore I am
+glad that we were interrupted at the right moment in Vienna. He cannot
+possibly imagine--ah, if he had imagined anything he would have written
+to me, and we have not had a line from him since we left him. He would
+have regretted it quite as much as I, if----
+
+It never would occur to him to resign all his grandfather's wealth for
+the sake of my golden hair. Young gentlemen are not given to such
+romantic folly nowadays; though, to be sure, he is not like the rest of
+them.
+
+The result of all my reflections was an intense hatred for my
+grandfather, who tyrannized over me thus instead of allowing affairs to
+take their natural, delightful course; and another hatred, somewhat
+less intense, for the brewery, which had absorbed half of Uncle Paul's
+property,--that is, much more than would have been necessary to assure
+me a happy future. When I saw from the railway the brew-house chimney
+above the tops of the old lindens, I shook my fist at it.
+
+My uncle was waiting for us at the station. He was so frankly rejoiced
+to have us back again that it cheered my heart. His eyes sparkled as he
+came to me after greeting my aunt. He gazed at me very earnestly, as if
+he expected to perceive some great and pleasant change in me, and then,
+putting his finger under my chin, turned my face from side to side.
+Suddenly he released me.
+
+"You are even paler than you were before!" he exclaimed, turning away.
+He had expected the sea-bathing to work miracles.
+
+"Do I not please you as I am, uncle dear?" I asked, putting my hand
+upon his arm. Then he kissed me; but I could see plainly that his
+pleasure was dashed.
+
+
+Now we have been at home four days, and I am writing my memoirs,
+because I am tired of having nothing to do. It does not rain to-day;
+the sun is burning hot,--ah, how it parches the August grass! The
+harvest was poor, the rye-straw is short, and the grains of wheat are
+small. And everything was so promising in May! My uncle spends a great
+deal of time over his accounts.
+
+
+                                                         August 8.
+
+Something quite extraordinary has happened. We have a visitor, a cousin
+of Aunt Rosamunda's,--Baron Roderich Wenkendorf. He is a very amiable
+old gentleman, about forty-five years old. He interests himself in
+everything that interests me,--even in Carlyle's 'French Revolution,'
+only he cannot bear it. Moreover, he is a Wagnerite; that is his only
+disagreeable characteristic. Every day he plays duets with Aunt
+Rosamunda from the 'Goetterdaemmerung,' which makes Uncle Paul and
+Morl nervous. Besides, he paints, of course only for pleasure, but
+very ambitiously. Last year he exhibited one of his pictures in
+Vienna--Napoleon at St. Helena--no, Charles the Fifth in the cloister.
+I remember, he cannot endure the Corsican upstart. He declares that
+Napoleon had frightful manners. We had a dispute about it. We often
+quarrel; but he entertains me, he pleases me, and so, perhaps----
+
+
+                                                        August 10.
+
+It might be worth while to take it into consideration. For my sake he
+would take up his abode in Bohemia. I do not dislike him, and my aunt
+says that marry whom you will you can never get used to him until after
+marriage. Harry and I should always be just the same to each other; he
+would always be welcome as a brother in our home, of course. I cannot
+really see why people must marry because they love each other.
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III.
+
+                              AN ARRIVAL.
+
+When the major reached this point in his niece's memoirs, he rubbed his
+forehead thoughtfully. "H'm!" he murmured; "why must people marry
+because they love each other? By Jove! On the whole, it is well that I
+now have some idea of what is going on in that insane little head."
+After this wise the major quieted his scruples as to the unpardonable
+indiscretion he had committed.
+
+The reading of Zdena's extraordinary production had so absorbed his
+attention that he had failed to hear the approach of some heavy vehicle
+which had drawn up before the castle, or the rhythmic beat of the hoofs
+of two riding-horses. Now he was suddenly startled by a firm step to
+the accompaniment of a low jingling sound in the corridor outside his
+room-door, at which there came a knock.
+
+"Come in!" he called out.
+
+A young officer of hussars in a blue undress uniform entered.
+
+"Harry! is it you?" the major exclaimed, cordially. "Let me have a look
+at you! What has put it into your head to drop down upon us so
+unexpectedly, like the _deus ex machina_ in the fifth act of a
+melodrama?"
+
+The young fellow blushed slightly. "I wanted to surprise you," he said,
+laughing, in some confusion.
+
+"And you will stay a while with us? How long is your leave?"
+
+"Six weeks."
+
+"That's right. And you're glad to be at home once more?" said the
+major, smiling broadly, and rubbing his hands.
+
+He seemed to his nephew to be rather _distrait_, which he certainly
+was, for all the while he was thinking of matters of which no mention
+was made.
+
+"My uncle has either been taking a glass too much or he has drawn the
+first prize in a lottery," Harry thought to himself as he said, aloud,
+"Hedwig has just come over, and Aunt Melanie."
+
+"Ah, the Zriny: has she quartered herself upon you?" the major asked,
+with something of a drawl.
+
+"I escorted her here from Vienna. Aunt Rosamunda deputed me to inform
+you of our relative's arrival, and to beg you to come immediately to
+the drawing-room."
+
+"H'm, h'm!--I'll go, I'll go," murmured the major, and he left the room
+apparently not very well pleased. In the corridor he suddenly turned to
+his nephew, who was following at his heels. "Have you seen Zdena yet?"
+he asked, with a merry twinkle of his eye.
+
+"N--o."
+
+"Well, go find her."
+
+"Where shall I look for her?"
+
+"In the garden, in the honeysuckle arbour. She is posing for her
+elderly adorer that he may paint her as Zephyr, or Flora, or something
+of the kind."
+
+"Her elderly adorer? Who is he?" Harry asked, with a frown, his voice
+sounding hard and sharp.
+
+"A cousin of my wife's, Baron Wenkendorf is his name, an enormously
+rich old bachelor, and head over ears in love with our girl. He calls
+himself a painter, in spite of his wealth, and he has induced the child
+to stand for some picture for him. He makes love to her, I suppose,
+while she poses."
+
+"And she--what has she to say to his homage?" asked Harry, feeling as
+if some one were choking him.
+
+"Oh, she's tolerably condescending. She does not object to being made
+love to a little. He is an agreeable man in spite of his forty-six
+years, and it certainly would be an excellent match."
+
+As the major finished his sentence with an expression of countenance
+which Harry could not understand, the paths of the two men separated.
+Harry hurried down into the garden; the major walked along the corridor
+to the drawing-room door.
+
+"H'm! I have warmed him up," the major said to himself; "'twill do no
+harm if they quarrel a little, those two children: it will bring the
+little goose to her senses all the sooner. There is only _one_ healthy
+solution for the entire problem. You----!" he shook his forefinger at
+the empty air. "Why must people marry because they love each other?
+Only wait, you ultrasensible little goose; I will remind you of that
+one of these days."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV.
+
+                               A QUARREL.
+
+
+Meanwhile, Harry has rushed out into the garden. He is very restless,
+very warm, very much agitated. It never occurs to him that his uncle
+has been chaffing him a little; he cannot suspect that the major has
+any knowledge of his sentiments.
+
+"She cannot be so worthless!" he consoles himself by reflecting, while
+his eyes search for her in the distance.
+
+With this thought filling his mind, the young officer hurries on. He
+does not find her at first; she is not in the honeysuckle arbour.
+
+The sultriness of the August afternoon weighs upon the dusty vegetation
+of the late summer. The leaves of the trees and shrubs droop wearily;
+the varied luxuriance of bloom is past; the first crop of roses has
+faded, the next has not yet arrived at maturity. Only a few red
+verbenas and zinnias gleam forth from the dull green monotony.
+
+At a turn of the path Harry suddenly starts, and pauses,--he has found
+what he is looking for.
+
+Directly in the centre of the hawthorn-bordered garden-path there is an
+easel weighted with an enormous canvas, at which, working away
+diligently, stands a gentleman, of whom Harry can see nothing but a
+slightly round-shouldered back, the fluttering ribbons of a Scotch cap
+set on the back of a head covered with short gray hair, and a gigantic
+palette projecting beyond the left elbow; while at some distance from
+the easel, clearly defined against the green background, stands a tall,
+graceful, maidenly figure draped in a loose, fantastic robe, her arms
+full of wild poppies, a large hat wreathed with vine-leaves on her
+small head, her golden-brown hair loose upon her shoulders,--Zdena! Her
+eyes meet Harry's: she flushes crimson,--the poppies slip from her arms
+and fall to the ground.
+
+"You here!" she murmurs, confusedly, staring at him. She can find no
+more kindly words of welcome, and her face expresses terror rather than
+joyful surprise, as a far less sharp-sighted lover than Harry
+Leskjewitsch could not fail to observe.
+
+He makes no reply to her words, but says, bluntly, pointing to the
+artist at the easel, "Be kind enough to introduce me."
+
+With a choking sensation in her throat, and trembling lips, Zdena
+stammers the names of her two adorers, the old one and the young one.
+The gentlemen bow,--Harry with angry formality, Baron Wenkendorf with
+formal amiability.
+
+"Aunt Rosa tells me to ask you to come to the drawing-room," Harry
+says, dryly.
+
+"Have any guests arrived?" asks Zdena.
+
+"Only my sister and Aunt Zriny."
+
+"Oh, then I must dress myself immediately!" she exclaims, and before
+Harry is aware of it she has slipped past him and into the house.
+
+Baron Wenkendorf pushes his Scotch cap a little farther back from his
+forehead, which gives his face a particularly amazed expression, and
+gazes with the same condescending benevolence, first at the vanishing
+maidenly figure, and then at the picture on the easel; after which he
+begins to put up his painting-materials. Harry assists him to do so,
+but leaves the making of polite remarks entirely to the "elderly
+gentleman." He is not in the mood for anything of the kind. He sees
+everything at present as through dark, crimson glass.
+
+Although Zdena's distress arises from a very different cause from her
+cousin's, it is none the less serious.
+
+"Oh, heavens!" she thinks to herself, as she hurries to her room to
+arrange her dishevelled hair, "why must he come before I have an answer
+ready? He surely will not insist upon an immediate decision! It would
+be terrible! Anything but a forced decision; that is the worst thing in
+the world."
+
+Such, however, does not seem to be the opinion of her hot-blooded
+cousin. When, a quarter of an hour afterwards, she goes out into the
+corridor and towards the drawing-room door, she observes a dark figure
+standing in the embrasure of a window. The figure turns towards her,
+then approaches her.
+
+"Harry! ah!" she exclaims, with a start; "what are you doing here? Are
+you waiting for anybody?"
+
+"Yes," he replies, with some harshness, "for you!"
+
+"Ah!" And, without looking at him, she hurries on to the door of the
+drawing-room.
+
+"There is no one there," he informs her; "they have all gone to the
+summer-house in the garden. Wenkendorf proposes to read aloud the
+libretto of 'Parzifal.'" He pauses.
+
+"And did you stay here to tell me this?" she stammers, trying to pass
+him, on her way to the steps leading into the garden. "It was very kind
+of you; you seem destined to play the part of sheep-dog to-day, to
+drive the company together."
+
+They go into the garden, and the buzz of voices reaches their ears from
+the summer-house. They have turned into a shady path, above which
+arches the foliage of the shrubs on either side. Suddenly Harry pauses,
+and seizing his cousin's slender hands in both his own, he gazes
+steadily and angrily into her eyes, saying, in a suppressed voice,--
+
+"Zdena, how can you hurt me so?"
+
+Her youthful blood pulsates almost as fiercely as does his own; now,
+when the moment for an explanation has come, and can no longer be
+avoided, now, one kind word from him, and all the barriers which with
+the help of pure reason she has erected to shield her from the
+insidious sweetness of her dreams will crumble to dust. But Harry does
+not speak this word: he is far too agitated to speak it. Instead of
+touching her heart, his harshness irritates her pride. Throwing back
+her head, she darts an angry glance at him from her large eyes.
+
+"I do not know what you mean."
+
+"I mean that you are letting that old coxcomb make love to you," he
+murmurs, angrily.
+
+She lifts her eyebrows, and replies, calmly, "Yes!"
+
+The young officer continues to gaze searchingly into her face.
+
+"You are thoughtless," he says, slowly, with emphasis. "In your eyes
+Wenkendorf is an old man; but he does not think himself so old as you
+think him, and--and----" Suddenly, his forced composure giving way, he
+bursts forth: "At the least it is ridiculous! it is silly to behave as
+you are doing!"
+
+In the entire dictionary Harry could have found no word with which to
+describe Zdena's conduct that would have irritated her more than
+"silly." If he had called her unprincipled, devilish, odious, cruel,
+she could have forgiven him; but "silly!"--that word she never can
+forgive; it makes her heart burn and smart as salt irritates an open
+wound.
+
+"I should like to know by what right you call me thus to account!" she
+exclaims, indignantly.
+
+"By what right?" he repeats, beside himself. "Can you ask that?"
+
+She taps the gravel of the pathway defiantly with her foot and is
+obstinately silent.
+
+"What did you mean by your treatment of me in Vienna? what did you mean
+by all your loving looks and kind words? what did you mean when you--on
+the evening before you left----"
+
+Zdena's face is crimson, her cheeks and ears burn with mortification.
+
+"We grew up together like brother and sister," she murmurs. "I have
+always considered you as a brother----"
+
+"Ah, indeed! a brother!" His pulses throb wildly; his anger well-nigh
+makes him forget himself. Suddenly an ugly idea occurs to him,--an
+odious suspicion. "Perhaps you were not aware there in Vienna that by a
+marriage with you I should resign my brilliant prospects?"
+
+They confront each other, stiff, unbending, both angry, each more ready
+to offend than to conciliate.
+
+Around them the August heat broods over the garden; the bushes, the
+flowers, the shrubbery, all cast black shadows upon the smooth-shaven,
+yellowing grass, where here and there cracks in the soil are visible.
+Everything is quiet, but in the distance can be heard the gardener
+filling his large watering-can at the pump, and the jolting along the
+road outside the garden of the heavy harvest-wagons laden with grain.
+
+"Did you know it then?" he asks again, more harshly, more
+contemptuously.
+
+Of course she knew it, quite as well as she knows it now; but what use
+is there in her telling him so, when he asks her about it in such a
+tone?
+
+Instead of replying, she frowns haughtily and shrugs her shoulders.
+
+For one moment more he stands gazing into her face; then, with a bitter
+laugh, he turns from her and strides towards the summer-house.
+
+"Harry!" she calls after him, in a trembling undertone, but his blood
+is coursing too hotly in his veins--he does not hear her. Although he
+is one of the softest-hearted of men, he is none the less one of the
+most quick-tempered and obstinate.
+
+We leave it to the reader to judge whether the major would have been
+very well satisfied with this result of his cunning diplomacy.
+
+Whilst the two young people have been thus occupied in playing at
+hide-and-seek with their emotions and sentiments, the little
+summer-house, where the reading was to be held, has been the scene of
+a lively dispute. Countess Zriny and Baron Wenkendorf have made mutual
+confession of their sentiment with regard to Wagner.
+
+The Countess is a vehement opponent of the prophet of Bayreuth, in the
+first place because in her youth she was a pupil of Cicimara's and
+consequently cannot endure the 'screaming called singing' introduced by
+Wagner; secondly, because Wagner's operas always give her headache; and
+thirdly, because she has noticed that his operas are sure to exercise
+an immoral influence upon those who hear them.
+
+Wenkendorf, on the contrary, considers Wagner a great moral reformer,
+the first genius of the century in Germany,--Bismarck, of course,
+excepted. As he talks he holds in his hand the thick volume of Wagner's
+collected librettos, with his forefinger on the title-page of
+'Parzifal,' impatiently awaiting the moment when he can begin to read
+aloud.
+
+Hitherto, since the Countess and Wenkendorf are both well-bred people,
+their lively dispute has been conducted in rather a humorous fashion,
+but finally Wenkendorf suggests a most reprehensible and, in the eyes
+of the Countess, unpardonable idea.
+
+"Whatever may be thought of Wagner's work, it cannot be denied," he
+says, with an oratorical flourish of his hand, "that he is at the head
+of the greatest musical revolution ever known; that he has, so to
+speak, delivered music from conventional Catholicism, overladen as it
+is with all sorts of silly old-world superstition. He is, if I may so
+express myself, the Luther of music."
+
+At the word 'Luther,' uttered in raised tones, the bigoted Countess
+nearly faints away. In her eyes, Luther is an apostate monk who married
+a nun, a monster whom she detests.
+
+"Oh, if you so compare him, Wagner is indeed condemned!" she exclaims,
+flushing with indignation, and trembling through all her mass of flesh.
+
+At this moment Zdena and her cousin enter. Countess Zriny feels it her
+duty to embrace the girl patronizingly. Hedwig says something to her
+about her new gown.
+
+"Did you get it in Paris?" she asks. "I saw one like it in Vienna last
+summer,--but it is very pretty. You carry yourself much better than you
+used to, Zdena,--really a great improvement!--a great improvement!"
+
+At last all are seated. Baron Wenkendorf clears his throat, and opens
+the portly volume.
+
+"Now we can begin," Frau Rosamunda observes.
+
+The Baron begins. He reads himself into a great degree of enthusiasm,
+and is just pronouncing the words,--
+
+
+           "Then after pain's drear night
+            Comes morning's glorious light;
+            Before me gleams
+              Brightly the sacred wave,
+            The blessed daylight beams,
+              From night of pain to save
+            Gawain----"
+
+
+when Frau Rosamunda, who has been rummaging in her work-basket, rises.
+
+"What is the matter, Rosamunda?" the Baron asks, impatiently. He is the
+only one who addresses her by her beautiful baptismal name unmutilated.
+
+"Excuse me, my dear Roderich, but I cannot find my thimble. Zdena, be
+so kind as to go and get me my thimble."
+
+While Zdena has gone to look for it, Frau von Leskjewitsch turns to her
+cousin, who is rather irritated by this interruption, and exclaims,
+"Very interesting!--oh, extremely interesting! Do you not think so?"
+turning for confirmation of her opinion to the other listeners. But the
+other listeners do not respond. Countess Zriny, who, with her hands as
+usual encased in Swedish gloves, is knitting with thick, wooden needles
+something brown for the poor, only drops her double chin majestically
+upon her breast, and Harry--usually quite unsurpassable in the
+well-bred art of being bored with elegance and decorum--is tugging
+angrily at his moustache.
+
+Zdena shortly returns with the missing thimble. The reading begins
+afresh, and goes quite smoothly for a time; Wenkendorf is satisfied
+with his audience.
+
+"Oh, wonderful and sacred one!" he is reading, with profound emotion.
+
+Everyone is listening eagerly. Hark! A scratching noise, growing louder
+each minute, and finally ending in a pounding at the summer-house door,
+arouses the little company from its rapt attention. A smile lights up
+Frau Rosamunda's serene features:
+
+"It is Morl. Let him in, Harry." Morl, the hostess's black poodle, is
+admitted, goes round the circle, laying his paw confidingly upon the
+knee of each member of it in turn, is petted and caressed by his
+mistress, and finally, after he has vainly tried to oust the Countess
+Zriny from the corner of the sofa which he considers his own special
+property, establishes himself, with a low growl, in the other corner of
+that piece of furniture.
+
+Wenkendorf, meanwhile, drums the march from 'Tannhaeuser' softly on the
+cover of his thick book and frowns disapprovingly. Harry observes his
+annoyance with satisfaction, watching him the while attentively, and
+reflecting on the excellent match in view of which Zdena has forgotten
+her fleeting attachment for the playmate of her childhood.
+
+"A contemptible creature!" he says to himself: "any man is good enough
+to afford her amusement. Who would have thought it? Fool that I was!
+I'm well out of it,--yes, really well out of it."
+
+And whilst he thus seriously attempts to persuade himself that, under
+the circumstances, nothing could be more advantageous for him than this
+severance of all ties with his beautiful, fickle cousin, his heart
+burns like fire in his breast. He has never before felt anything like
+this torture. His glance wanders across to where Zdena sits sewing,
+with bent head and feverish intentness, upon a piece of English
+embroidery.
+
+The reading is interrupted again,--this time by Krupitschka, who wants
+more napkins for afternoon tea. Wenkendorf has to be assured with great
+emphasis that they all think the text of 'Parzifal' extremely
+interesting before he can be induced to open the book again. Suddenly
+the gravel outside crunches beneath approaching footsteps. The major's
+voice is heard, speaking in courteous tones, and then another, strange
+voice, deep and guttural. The summer-house door is opened.
+
+"A surprise, Rosel," the major explains. "Baroness Paula!"
+
+The first to go forward and welcome the young lady cordially is Harry.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V.
+
+                            BARONESS PAULA.
+
+
+The unexpected entrance of the famous beauty produces two important
+results,--the final cessation of the reading of 'Parzifal,' and a
+temporary reconciliation between Wenkendorf and Countess Zriny.
+
+Whilst Frau Rosamunda receives her guest, not without a degree of
+formal reserve, the two aforesaid worthy and inquisitive individuals
+retire to a corner to consult together as to where these Harfinks come
+from, to whom they are related, the age of their patent of nobility,
+and where they got their money.
+
+Since neither knows much about the Harfinks, their curiosity is
+ungratified. Meanwhile, Baroness Paula, lounging in a garden-chair
+beside the majestic hostess, chatters in a lively fashion upon every
+conceivable topic, as much at her ease as if she had been a daily guest
+at Zirkow for years. Her full voice is rather loud, her fluent
+vocabulary astounding. She wears a green Russia linen gown with Turkish
+embroidery on the skirt and a Venetian necklace around her throat,
+with an artistically-wrought clasp in front of her closely-fitting
+waist. The effect of her cosmopolitan toilet is considerably enhanced
+by a very peaked Paris bonnet--all feathers--and a pair of English
+driving-gloves. She has come in her pony-carriage, which she drives
+herself. Not taking into account her dazzling toilet, Paula is
+certainly a pretty person,--very fully developed and well grown,
+with perhaps too short a waist and arms a trifle too stout. Her
+features are regular, but her face is too large, and its tints of red
+and white are not sufficiently mingled; her lips are too full, the
+dimples in her cheeks are too deep when she smiles. Her hair is
+uncommonly beautiful,--golden, with a shimmer of Titian red.
+
+Her manner corresponds with her exterior. There is not a trace of
+maidenly reserve about her. Her self-satisfaction is impregnable. She
+talks freely of things of which young girls do not usually talk, and
+knows things which young girls do not usually know.
+
+She is clever and well educated,--left school with honours and
+listened to all possible university lectures afterwards. She scatters
+about Latin quotations like an old professor, and talks about
+everything,--the new battle panorama in Vienna, the latest greenroom
+scandal in Pesth, the most recent scientific hypothesis, and the last
+interesting English divorce case. One cannot help feeling that she has
+brought a certain life into the dead-and-alive little company which had
+failed to be enlivened by the reading of 'Parzifal.'
+
+"_Quelle type!_" Wenkendorf remarks to Countess Zriny.
+
+"_Epouvantable!_" she whispers.
+
+"_Epouvantable!_" he responds, staring meanwhile at the brilliant
+apparition. "Her figure is not bad, though," he adds.
+
+"Not bad?" the Countess repeats, indignantly. "Why, she has the figure
+of a country bar-maid; involuntarily one fancies her in short
+petticoats, with her arms full of beer-mugs."
+
+The Baron shakes his head, as if reflecting that there is nothing so
+very unattractive in the image of the young lady in the costume of a
+bar-maid; at the same time, however, he declares with emphasis that
+these Harfinks seem to be odious _canaille_, which, although it is
+perhaps his conviction, does not hinder him from admiring Paula.
+
+All the gentlemen present admire her, and all three, the major, the
+Baron, and Harry, are soon grouped about her, while the ladies at the
+other end of the room converse,--that is, make disparaging remarks with
+regard to the Baroness Paula.
+
+Harry, of the three men, is most pressing in his attentions, which
+amount almost to devotion. Whatever he may whisper to her she listens
+to with the unblushing ease which makes life so smooth for her.
+Sometimes she represses him slightly, and anon provokes his homage.
+
+The ladies hope for a while, but in vain, that she will go soon. She is
+pleased to take a cup of afternoon tea, after which all return to the
+house, where at Harry's request she makes a display of her musical
+acquirements.
+
+First she plays, with extreme force and much use of the pedals, upon
+the venerable old piano, unused to such treatment, even from the major,
+the ride of the Valkyrias, after which she sings a couple of soprano
+airs from 'Tannhaeuser.'
+
+Harry admires her splendid method; Countess Zriny privately stops her
+ears with a little cotton-wool. Hour after hour passes, and Krupitschka
+finally announces supper. Baroness Paula begins hurriedly to put on her
+driving-gloves, but when Frau Leskjewitsch, with rather forced
+courtesy, invites her to stay to supper, she replies, "With the
+greatest pleasure."
+
+And now the supper is over. Harry's seat, meanwhile, has been next to
+Paula's, and he has continued to pay her extravagant compliments, which
+he ought not to have done; and, moreover, without eating a morsel, he
+has drunk glass after glass of the good old Bordeaux of which the major
+is so proud. All this has produced a change in him. The gnawing pain at
+his heart is lulled to rest; his love for Zdena and his quarrel with
+her seem relegated to the far past. For the present, here is this
+luxuriant beauty, with her flow of talk and her Titian hair. Without
+being intoxicated, the wine has mounted to his brain; his limbs are a
+little heavy; he feels a pleasant languor steal over him; everything
+looks rather more vague and delightful than usual; instead of a severe,
+exacting beauty beside him, here is this wonderful creature, with her
+dazzling complexion and her green, naiad-like eyes.
+
+Countess Zriny and Hedwig have already ordered their old-fashioned
+coach and have started for home. Harry's horses--his own and his
+groom's--are waiting before the entrance.
+
+It is ten o'clock,--time for bed at Zirkow. Frau Rosamunda rubs her
+eyes; Zdena stands, unheeded and weary, in one of the window embrasures
+in the hall, looking out through the antique, twisted grating upon the
+brilliant August moonlight. Paula is still conversing with the
+gentlemen; she proposes a method for exterminating the phylloxera, and
+has just formulated a scheme for the improvement of the Austrian
+foundling asylums.
+
+They are waiting for her pony-carriage to appear, but it does not come.
+At last, the gardener's boy, who is occasionally promoted to a
+footman's place, comes, quite out of breath, to inform his mistress
+that Baroness Paula's groom is in the village inn, so drunk that he
+cannot walk across the floor, and threatening to fight any one who
+interferes with him.
+
+"Very unpleasant intelligence," says Paula, without losing an atom of
+her equanimity. "There is nothing left to do, then, but to drive home
+without him. I do not need him; he sits behind me, and is really only a
+conventional encumbrance, nothing more. Good-night, Baroness! Thanks,
+for the charming afternoon. Goodnight! good-night! Now that the ice is
+broken, I trust we shall be good neighbours." So saying, she goes out
+of the open hall door.
+
+Frau Rosamunda seems to have no objections to her driving without an
+escort to Dobrotschau, which is scarcely three-quarters of an hour's
+drive from Zirkow, and even the major apparently considers this
+broad-shouldered and vigorous young woman to be eminently fitted to
+make her way in the world alone. But Harry interposes.
+
+"You don't mean to drive home alone?" he exclaims. "Well, I admire your
+courage,--as I admire every thing else about you," he adds, _sotto
+voce_, and with a Blight inclination of his head towards her,--"but I
+cannot permit it. You might meet some drunken labourer and be exposed
+to annoyance. Do me the honour to accept me as your escort,--that is,
+allow me to take the place of your useless groom."
+
+"By no means!" she exclaims. "I never could forgive myself for giving
+you so much trouble. I assure you, I am perfectly able to take care of
+myself."
+
+"On certain occasions even the most capable and clever of women lose
+their capacity to judge," Harry declares. "Be advised this time!" he
+implores her, as earnestly as though he were praying his soul out of
+purgatory. "My groom will accompany us. He must, of course, take my
+horse to Dobrotschau. Have no scruples."
+
+As if it would ever have occurred to Baroness Paula to have "scruples"!
+Oh, Harry!
+
+"If you really would be so kind then, Baron Harry," she murmurs,
+tenderly.
+
+"Thank God, she has gone at last!" sighs Frau Rosamunda, as she hears
+the light wagon rolling away into the night. "At last!"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI.
+
+                               ENTRAPPED.
+
+
+Before Harry seated himself beside the robust Paula in the
+pony-carriage, a slender little hand was held out to him, and a pale
+little face, half sad, half pouting, looked longingly up at him.
+
+He saw neither the hand nor the face. Oh, the pity of it!
+
+The night is sultry and silent. The full moon shines in a cloudless,
+dark-blue sky. Not a breath of air is stirring; the leaves of the tall
+poplars, casting coal-black shadows on the white, dusty highway, are
+motionless.
+
+The harvest has been partly gathered in; sometimes the moonlight
+illumines the bare fields with a yellowish lustre; in other fields the
+sheaves are stacked in pointed heaps, and now and then a field of rye
+is passed, a plain of glimmering, silvery green, still uncut. The
+bearded stalks stand motionless with bowed heads, as if overtaken by
+sleep. From the distance comes the monotonous rustle of the mower's
+scythe; there is work going on even thus far into the night.
+
+The heavy slumberous air has an effect upon Harry; his breath comes
+slowly, his veins tingle.
+
+Ten minutes have passed, and he has not opened his lips. Paula Harfink
+looks at him now and then with a keen glance.
+
+She is twenty-seven years old, and, although her life has been that of
+a perfectly virtuous woman of her class, existence no longer holds any
+secrets for her. Endowed by nature with intense curiosity, which has
+been gradually exalted into a thirst for knowledge, she has read
+everything that is worth reading in native and foreign modern
+literature, scientific and otherwise, and she is consequently
+thoroughly conversant with the world in which she lives.
+
+Harry's exaggerated homage during the afternoon has suggested the idea
+that he contemplates a marriage with her. That other than purely
+sentimental reasons have weight with him in this respect she thinks
+highly probable, but there is nothing offensive to her in the thought.
+She knows that, in spite of her beauty, she must buy a husband; why
+then should she not buy a husband whom she likes?
+
+Nothing could happen more opportunely than this drive in the moonlight.
+She is quite sure of bringing the affair to a satisfactory conclusion.
+
+Click-clack--the ponies' hoofs beat the dusty road in monotonous
+rhythm, tossing light silvery clouds of dust into the moonlight. Harry
+is still silent, when--a plump hand is laid upon his arm.
+
+"Please," Paula murmurs, half laughing, and handing him the reins,
+"drive for me. The ponies are so fresh to-night, they almost pull my
+hands off."
+
+Harry bows, the ponies shake their manes, snort proudly, and increase
+their speed, seeming to feel a sympathetic hand upon the reins.
+
+"And I fancied I could drive!" Paula says, with a laugh; "it is a
+positive pleasure to see you handle the reins."
+
+"But such toys as these ponies!" he remarks, with a rather impatient
+protest.
+
+"Can you drive four-in-hand?" she asks, bluntly.
+
+"Yes, and five-in-hand, or six-in-hand, for that matter," he replies.
+
+"Of course! How stupid of me to ask! Did you not drive five-in-hand on
+the Prater, three years ago on the first of May? Three chestnuts and
+two bays, if I remember rightly."
+
+"Yes; you certainly have an admirable memory!" Harry murmurs,
+flattered.
+
+"Not for everything," she declares, eagerly; "I never can remember
+certain things. For instance, I never can remember the unmarried name
+of Peter the Great's mother."
+
+"She was a Narischkin, I believe," says Harry, who learned the fact on
+one occasion when some foolish Narischkin was boasting of his imperial
+connections.
+
+Heaven knows what induces him to make a display to Paula of his
+historical knowledge. He usually suppresses everything in that
+direction which he owes to his good memory, as a learned marriageable
+girl will hold her tongue for fear of scaring away admirers. Harry
+thinks it beneath his dignity to play the cultured officer. He leaves
+that to the infantry.
+
+"You distance me in every direction," Paula says; "but as a whip you
+inspire me with the most respect. I could not take my eyes off your
+turn-out that day in the Prater. How docile and yet how spirited those
+five creatures were under your guidance! And you sat there holding the
+reins with as much indifference apparently as if they had been your
+shake at a state ceremony. I cannot understand how you contrive to keep
+the reins of a five-in-hand disentangled."
+
+"I find it much more difficult to understand how a man can play the
+guitar," Harry says, dryly.
+
+Paula laughs, though with a sense of vexation at being still so far
+from the attainment of her purpose. She takes off her tall hat, tosses
+it carelessly into the seat behind them, and slowly pulls the gloves
+off her white hands.
+
+"That is refreshing!" she says, and then is silent. For the nonce it is
+her wisest course.
+
+Harry's eyes seek her face, then take in her entire figure, and then
+again rest upon her face. The moon is shining with a hard, bluish
+brilliancy, almost like that of an electric light, and it brings into
+wondrous relief the girl's mature beauty. Its intense brightness
+shimmers about her golden hair; the red and white of her complexion
+blend in a dim, warm pallor. Her white hands rest in her lap as she
+leans back among the cushions of the phaeton.
+
+Click-clack--click-clack--the hoofs of the horses fly over the smooth,
+hard road; duller and less regular grows the beat of the horses' hoofs
+behind the wagon,--of Harry's steed and that of his groom.
+
+The fields of grain have vanished. They are driving now through a
+village,--a silent village, where every one is asleep. The dark
+window-panes glisten in the moonlight; the shadows of the pointed roofs
+form a black zigzag on the road, dividing it into two parts,--one dark,
+one light. Only behind one window shines a candle; perhaps a mother is
+watching there beside a sick or dying child. The candle-light, with its
+yellow gleam, contrasts strangely with the bluish moonlight. A dog bays
+behind a gate; otherwise, all is quiet.
+
+And now the village lies behind them,--a chaos of black roofs,
+whitewashed walls, and dark lindens. To the right and left are
+pasture-lands, where countless wild chamomile-flowers glitter white and
+ghostly among the grass, in the midst of which rises a rude wooden
+crucifix. The pungent fragrance of the chamomile-flowers mingles with
+the odour of the dust of the road.
+
+Then the pastures vanish, with the chamomile-flowers and the oppressive
+silence. A forest extends on either side of the road,--a forest which
+is never silent, where even in so quiet a night as this the topmost
+boughs murmur dreamily. It sounds almost like the dull plaint of
+human souls, imprisoned in these ancient pines,--the souls of men
+who aspired too high in life, seeking the way to the stars which
+gleamed so kindly when admired from afar, but which fled like
+glittering will-o'-the-wisps from those who would fain approach them.
+
+The moonlight seems to drip down the boles of the monarchs of the wood
+like molten silver, to lie here and there upon the underbrush around
+their feet. A strong odour rises from the warm woodland earth,--the
+odour of dead leaves, mingling deliciously with all other forest
+fragrance.
+
+"How wonderful!" Paula whispers.
+
+"Yes, it is beautiful," says Harry; and again his eyes seek the face of
+his companion.
+
+"And do you know what is still more beautiful?" she murmurs. "To feel
+protected, safe,--to know that some one else will think for you."
+
+The road grows rough; the wheels jolt over the stones; the little
+carriage sways from side to side. Paula clutches Harry's arm. Her
+waving hair brushes his cheek; it thrills him. She starts back from
+him.
+
+"Pardon me," she murmurs, as if mortified.
+
+"Pardon me, Baroness," he says. "I had no idea that the forest-road was
+so rough; it is the shortest. Did you not come by it to Zirkow?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You ought to have warned me."
+
+"I had forgotten it."
+
+Again the wheels creak; tire ponies snort their dissatisfaction, the
+little vehicle sways, and Paula trembles.
+
+"I am afraid it will be rougher yet," says Harry. "How stupid of me not
+to have thought of it! There!--the mud is really deep. Who could have
+supposed it in this drought? We are near the Poacher's ditch: I can
+perceive the swampy odour in the air."
+
+"The Poacher's ditch?" Paula repeats, in a low tone. "Is that the
+uncanny place where the will-o'-the-wisps dance?"
+
+"Are you afraid?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"So brave an Amazon--afraid?"
+
+"Yes, for the first time in my life. I do not know what has come over
+me," she whispers.
+
+"A poor compliment for me!" he says, then pauses and looks at her.
+
+She turns away her head as if she were blushing.
+
+The tall pines crowd closer and closer on either side of the road; the
+strip of moon-lit sky grows narrower overhead; the damp odour of
+decaying vegetation poisons the air. The gloom is intense, the
+moonbeams cannot find their way hither. In particular the road and the
+lower portion of the tree-trunks are veiled in deep shade. A tiny blue
+flame flickers up from the ground, dances among the trees,--then
+another--and another----
+
+"Ah!" Paula screams and clings like a maniac to Harry. He puts his arm
+round her, and soothes her, half laughing the while. Did his lips
+actually seek hers? A sudden, lingering kiss bewilders him, like the
+intoxicating perfume of a flower.
+
+It lasts but a second, and he has released her.
+
+"Forgive me!" he cries, distressed, confused.
+
+Does she really not understand him? At all events she only shakes her
+head at his words, and murmurs, "Forgive?--what is there to forgive? It
+came so unexpectedly. I had no idea that you loved me, Harry."
+
+His cheeks burn. The forest has vanished, the road is smooth;
+click-clack--the ponies' hoofs fly through the dust, and behind comes
+the irregular thud of eight other hoofs along the road. Harry looks
+round, and sees the groom, whom he had forgotten.
+
+The dim woodland twilight has been left far behind; the moon floods the
+landscape with silvery splendour. All is silent around; not a leaf
+stirs; only the faint, dying murmur of the forest is audible for a few
+moments.
+
+Ten minutes later Harry draws up before the Dobrotschau castle. "You
+will come to see mamma to-morrow?" Paula whispers, pressing her lover's
+hand. But Harry feels as if he could annihilate her, himself, and the
+whole world.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII.
+
+                             AN INVITATION.
+
+
+"My dear Baroness,--
+
+"Will you and all your family give us the pleasure of your company at
+dinner on Sunday next, at six o'clock? We wish to surprise you with the
+revelation of a secret that will, we think, interest you.
+
+"I hear you have a friend with you. It would, of course, be an added
+pleasure if Baron Wenkendorf would join us on Sunday.
+
+"Hoping for a favourable reply, I am
+
+                                   "Sincerely yours,
+
+                                         "Emilie Harfink."
+
+
+This note the Baroness Leskjewitsch takes from an envelope smelling of
+violets and adorned with an Edelweiss, and reads aloud in a depressed
+tone to her husband, her niece, and her cousin, all of whom listen with
+a more or less contemptuous expression of countenance.
+
+Not that the note is in itself any more awkward and pretentious than
+other notes of invitation,--no; but the fact that it comes from
+Baroness Harfink is quite sufficient to make the Zirkow circle
+suspicious and ironical.
+
+Three days have passed since the afternoon when Harry and Zdena
+quarrelled, and Zdena has had time thoroughly to repent her experiment.
+
+The little company is assembled at the breakfast-table in a small
+summer-house whence there is a view of a tiny fountain leaping about a
+yard into the air from an oval basin.
+
+Frau Rosamunda thinks the view of this fountain refreshing; the major
+despises the plaything, calls this breakfast-arbour the "wash-house,"
+or, when he means to be particularly disagreeable, "Wash-Basin Hall,"
+assuming the attitude, as he so designates it, of a kangaroo,--his
+elbows pressed to his sides, the palms of his hands turned
+outwards,--and availing himself of his most elegant German accent,
+which is unfortunately rather unnatural.
+
+"Surprise us? What surprise can the Baroness Harfink prepare for us in
+which we shall take any interest?" Frau Rosamunda says, musingly,
+laying the note down beside her plate.
+
+"Oh, leave me out! She knows that you are prone to curiosity, and
+she is doing what she can to attract you to her house," the major
+declares. "The 'surprise' is the bit of cheese in the Dobrotschau
+mouse-trap,--that is all. It may be a new service of old china, or some
+Japanese rug with golden monsters and chimeras sprawling about on it."
+
+"No; there is a tone of exultation about the note which indicates
+something far grander," says Frau Rosamunda, thoughtfully, buttering a
+piece of bread. "I rather think there is a new son-in-law to the fore."
+
+"H'm! Fraeulein Paula's betrothal would certainly be a matter of special
+importance to us," the major says, contemptuously. "Perhaps it might
+make Harry ill. He made violent love to her the other day!" and the old
+cuirassier glances at Zdena. She is sipping a cup of tea, however, and
+her face cannot be seen.
+
+"I thought perhaps," Frau Rosamunda observes, "that Harry might----"
+
+"No, Rosa. Your genius is really too great," the major interrupts her,
+"if you can fancy for a moment that Harry meant anything serious by his
+attentions to that village bar-maid."
+
+Zdena has put down her teacup; her delicate nostrils quiver
+disdainfully, her charming mouth expresses decided scorn. How could
+Harry suppose----? Nonsense!
+
+"Well, stranger things have come to pass," observes Frau Rosamunda,
+sagely. "Do not forget that Lato Treurenberg has married into the
+Harfink family."
+
+"Oh, he--he was in debt--h'm!--at least his father was in debt," the
+major explains. "That is entirely different. But a man like Harry would
+never risk his colossal inheritance from his uncle for the sake of
+Paula Harfink. If it were for some one else, he might do so; but that
+red-cheeked dromedary--ridiculous!"
+
+"I really do not understand you. You seemed perfectly devoted to her
+the other day," rejoins Frau Rosamunda. "You all languished at her
+feet,--even you too, Roderich."
+
+Baron Wenkendorf looks up from a pile of letters and papers which he
+has been sorting.
+
+"What is the subject under discussion?" he asks. Dressed in the extreme
+of fashion, in a light, summer suit, a coloured shirt with a very high
+collar, a thin, dark-blue cravat with polka-dots, and the inevitable
+Scotch cap, with fluttering ribbons at the back of the neck, he would
+seem much more at home, so far as his exterior is concerned, on the
+shore at Trouville, or in a magnificent park of ancient oaks with a
+feudal castle in the background, than amidst the modest Zirkow
+surroundings. He suspects this himself, and, in order not to produce a
+crushing effect where he is, he is always trying to display the
+liveliest interest in all the petty details of life at Zirkow. "What is
+the subject under discussion?" he asks, with an amiable smile.
+
+"Oh, the Harfink."
+
+"Still?" says Wenkendorf, lifting his eyebrows ironically. "The young
+lady's ears must burn. She seems to me to have been tolerably well
+discussed during the last three days."
+
+"I merely observed that you were all fire and flame for her while she
+was here," Frau Rosamunda persists, "and that consequently I do not
+understand why you now criticise her so severely."
+
+"The impression produced upon men by that kind of woman is always more
+dazzling than when it is lasting," says the major.
+
+"H'm!--she certainly is a very beautiful person, but--h'm!--not a
+lady," remarks Wenkendorf; and his clear, full voice expresses the
+annoyance which it is sure to do whenever conversation touches upon the
+mushroom growth of modern _parvenues_. "Who are these Harfinks, after
+all?"
+
+"People who have made their own way to the front," growls the major.
+
+"How?"
+
+"By good luck, industry, and assurance," replies the major. "Old
+Harfink used to go regularly to his work every morning, with his
+pickaxe on his shoulder; he slowly made his way upward, working in the
+iron-mines about here; then he married a wealthy baker's daughter, and
+gradually absorbed all the business of the district. He was very
+popular. I can remember the time when every one called him 'Peter.'
+Next he was addressed as 'Sir,' and it came to be the fashion to offer
+him your hand, but before giving you his he used to wipe it on his
+coat-tail. He was comical, but a very honest fellow, a plain man who
+never tried to move out of his proper sphere. I think we never grudged
+him his wealth, because it suited him so ill, and because he did not
+know what to do with it." And the major reflectively pours a little rum
+into his third cup of tea.
+
+"I do not object to that kind of _parvenu_," says Wenkendorf. "The type
+is an original one. But there is nothing to my mind more ridiculous
+than the goldfish spawned in a muddy pond suddenly fancying themselves
+unable to swim in anything save eau de cologne. H'm, h'm! And that
+plain, honest fellow was, you tell me, the father of the lovely Paula?"
+
+"God forbid!" exclaims the major, bursting into a laugh at the mere
+thought.
+
+"You have a tiresome way of beginning far back in every story you tell,
+Paul," Frau Rosamunda complains. "You begin all your pedigrees with
+Adam and Eve."
+
+"And you have a detestable habit of interrupting me," her husband
+rejoins, angrily. "If you had not interrupted me I should have finished
+long ago."
+
+"Oh, yes, we all know that. But first you would have given us a
+description of old Harfink's boots!" Frau Rosamunda persists.
+
+"They really were very remarkable boots," the major declares, solemnly.
+"They always looked as if, instead of feet, they had a peck of onions
+inside them."
+
+"I told you so. Now comes the description of his cap," sighs Frau
+Rosamunda.
+
+"And the lovely Paula's origin retreats still further into obscurity,"
+Wenkendorf says, with well-bred resignation.
+
+"She is old Harfink's great-grand-daughter," says Zdena, joining for
+the first time in the conversation.
+
+"Old Harfink had two sons," continues the major, who hates to have the
+end of his stories told prematurely; "two sons who developed social
+ambition, and both married cultivated wives,--wives who looked down
+upon them, and with whom they could not agree. If I do not mistake,
+there was a sister, too. Tell me, Rosel, was there not a sister who
+married an Italian?"
+
+"I do not know," replies Frau Rosamunda. "The intricacies of the
+Harfink genealogy never inspired me with the faintest interest."
+
+The major bites his lip.
+
+"One thing more," says Wenkendorf. "How have you managed to avoid an
+acquaintance with the Harfinks for so long, if the family has belonged
+to the country here for several generations?"
+
+"Harfink number two never lived here," the major explains. "And they
+owned the iron-mines, but no estate. Only last year the widow Harfink
+bought Dobrotschau,--gallery of ancestral portraits, old suits of
+armour, and all. The mines have been sold to a stock company."
+
+"Not a very pleasing neighbourhood, I should say," observes Wenkendorf.
+
+"'Surprise you with the revelation of a secret,'" Frau Rosamunda reads,
+thoughtfully, in a low tone from the note beside her plate.
+
+And then all rise from table. Zdena, who has been silent during
+breakfast, twitches her uncle's sleeve, and, without looking at him,
+says,--
+
+"Uncle dear, can I have the carriage?"
+
+The major eyes her askance: "What do you want of the carriage?"
+
+"I should like to drive over to Komaritz; Hedwig will think it strange
+that I have not been there for so long."
+
+"H'm! don't you think Hedwig might do without you for a little while
+longer?" says the major, who is in a teasing humour.
+
+"Oh, let her drive over," Frau Rosamunda interposes. "I promised to
+send the housekeeper there a basket of Reine-Claudes for preserving,
+and Zdena can take them with her. And, Zdena, you might stop at
+Dobrotschau; I will leave it to your diplomatic skill to worm out the
+grand secret for us. I protest against assisting on Sunday at its
+solemn revelation."
+
+"Then shall I refuse the invitation for you?"
+
+"Yes; tell them that we expect guests ourselves on Sunday. And invite
+the Komaritz people to come and dine, that it may be true," the major
+calls after the girl.
+
+She nods with a smile, and trips into the castle. It is easy to see
+that her heart is light.
+
+"Queer little coquette!" thinks the major, adding to himself, "But
+she's a charming creature, for all that."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII.
+
+                              THE SECRET.
+
+
+An hour later Zdena, a huge red silk sunshade held over her handsome
+head, is driving rapidly towards Dobrotschau. She intends to make peace
+with her cousin.
+
+The exaggerated attentions which he paid to Paula vexed her for the
+moment, but now she remembers them with only a smile of contempt. "Poor
+Harry!" she murmurs, in a superior, patronizing way. "Poor Harry! he is
+a thoroughly good fellow, and so devoted to me!"
+
+The carriage rolls swiftly along the smooth road, upon which the last
+traces of a recent shower are fast fading beneath the August heat. The
+sky is blue and cloudless. The sun is rising higher; the stubble-fields
+to the right and left lie basking in its light; the shadows of the
+trees grow shorter and blacker, and the dark masses of the distant
+forests stand out in strong contrast with the sunny fields.
+
+Avoiding the rough forest road, the coachman takes the longer course
+along the highway. An hour and a quarter passes before Zdena drives
+through an arched gate-way, surmounted by a crest carved in the stone,
+into a picturesque court-yard, where between two very ancient lindens
+stands a Saint John of Nepomuk, whose cross has fallen out of his
+marble arms, and at whose feet an antique fountain, plashing dreamily,
+tells of long-gone times,--times that possess no interest for the
+present inmates of the castle.
+
+Zdena does not waste a glance upon the picturesque beauty of her
+surroundings. Two riding-horses, very much heated, and led up and down
+the old-fashioned court-yard, at once engage her attention. Are those
+not Harry's horses? What is Harry doing here? A slight sensation of
+anxiety assails her. Then she smiles at her nonsensical suspicions, and
+is glad that she shall thus meet Harry sooner than she had hoped.
+
+A footman in a plain and tasteful livery hurries forward to open her
+carriage door; the ladies are at home.
+
+Zdena trips up the steps to the spacious, airy hall, where, among
+antique, heavy-carved furniture, a couple of full suits of armour are
+set up, sword in gauntlet, like a spellbound bit of the Middle Ages, on
+either side of a tall clock, upon whose brass face the effigy of a
+grinning Death--his scythe over his shoulder--celebrates his eternal,
+monotonous triumph. On the walls hang various portraits, dim with age,
+of the ancestors of the late possessor, some clad in armour, some with
+full-bottomed wigs, and others again wearing powdered queues; with
+ladies in patch and powder, narrow-breasted gowns, and huge stiff
+ruffs.
+
+"If these worthies could suddenly come to life, how amazed they would
+be!" thinks Zdena. She has no more time, however, for profound
+reflections; for from one of the high oaken doors, opening out of the
+hall, comes Harry.
+
+They both start at this unexpected encounter; he grows deadly pale, she
+flushes crimson. But she regains her self-possession sooner than he can
+collect himself, and while he, unable to utter a word, turns his head
+aside, she approaches him, and, laying her hand gently upon his arm,
+murmurs, in a voice sweet as honey, "Harry!"
+
+He turns and looks at her. How charming she is! With the arch
+condescension of a princess certain of victory, she laughs in his face
+and whispers,--
+
+"Are you not beginning to be sorry that you said such hateful things to
+me the other day?"
+
+He has grown paler still; his eyes alone seem blazing in his head. For
+a while he leaves her question unanswered, devouring her lovely,
+laughing face with his gaze; then, suddenly seizing her almost roughly
+by both wrists, he exclaims,--
+
+"And are you not beginning to be sorry that you gave me cause to do
+so?"
+
+At this question, imprudent as it is, considering the circumstances,
+Zdena hangs her golden head, and whispers, very softly, "Yes."
+
+It is cold and gloomy in the hall; the two suits of armour cast long
+dark-gray shadows upon the black-and-white-tiled floor; two huge
+bluebottle flies are buzzing on the frame of an old portrait, and a
+large moth with transparent wings and a velvet body is bumping its head
+against the ceiling, whether for amusement or in despair it is
+impossible to say.
+
+Zdena trembles all over; she knows that she has said something
+conclusive, something that she cannot recall. She is conscious of
+having performed a difficult task, and she expects her reward.
+Something very sweet, something most delicious, is at hand. He must
+clasp her in his arms, as on that evening in Vienna. Ah, it is useless
+to try to deceive herself,--she cannot live without him. But he stands
+as if turned to stone, ashy pale, with a look of horror.
+
+A door opens. Paula Harfink enters the hall, tall, portly, handsome
+after her fashion, in a flowered Pompadour gown, evidently equipped for
+a walk, wearing a pair of buckskin gloves and a garden-hat trimmed with
+red poppies and yellow gauze.
+
+"Ah! have you been waiting for me up-stairs, Harry?" she asks; then,
+perceiving Zdena, she adds, "A visitor!--a welcome visitor!"
+
+To Zdena's amazement and terror, she finds herself tenderly embraced by
+Paula, who, looking archly from one to the other of the cousins, asks,
+"Shall we wait until Sunday for the grand surprise, Harry? Let your
+cousin guess. Come, Baroness Zdena, what is the news at Dobrotschau?"
+
+For one moment Zdena feels as if a dagger were plunged into her heart
+and turned around in the wound; then she recovers her composure and
+smiles, a little contemptuously, perhaps even haughtily, but naturally
+and with grace.
+
+"Oh, it is not very difficult to guess," she says. "What is the news?
+Why, a betrothal. You have my best wishes, Baroness; and you too,
+Harry,--I wish you every happiness!"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IX.
+
+                             AN ENCOUNTER.
+
+
+No one can bear pain with such heroic equanimity as can a woman when
+her pride or her sense of dignity is aroused. Full twenty minutes have
+elapsed since the light has been darkened in Zdena's sky, her thought
+of the future embittered, and every joy blotted out of her existence.
+During these twenty minutes she has talked and laughed; has walked in
+the park with Paula and Harry; has pointed out to the betrothed couple
+the comically human physiognomy of a large pansy in a flower-bed; has
+looked on while Paula, plucking a marguerite, proceeds, with an arch
+look at Harry, to consult that old-fashioned oracle, picking off the
+petals one by one, with, "He loves me, he loves me not." Yes, when
+urged to partake of some refreshment, she has even delicately pared and
+cut up with a silver knife a large peach, although she could not
+swallow a mouthful of it. How could she, when she felt as if an iron
+hand were throttling her!
+
+And now she is in the carriage again, driving towards home. As she
+drove off she had a last glimpse of Paula and Harry standing side by
+side in the picturesque court-yard before the castle, beside the
+fountain, that vies with the lindens in murmuring its old tales,--tales
+that no longer interest any one. They stood there together,--Paula
+waving her hand and calling parting words after the visitor; Harry
+stiff and mute, lifting his cap. Then Paula put her hand upon his arm
+to go back into the castle with him,--him, her lover, her property!
+
+And Zdena is alone at last. The pain in her heart is becoming torture.
+Her breath comes short and quick. At the same time she has the
+restless, impatient sensation which is experienced by all who are
+unaccustomed to painful emotion, before they can bring themselves
+to believe in the new and terrible trouble in which they find
+themselves,--a sensation of being called upon to shake off some burden
+unjustly imposed. But the burden can neither be shifted nor shaken off.
+
+Her consciousness is the burden, the burden of which she cannot be rid
+except with life itself. Life,--it has often seemed to her too short;
+and, in spite of all her transitory girlish discontent, she has
+sometimes railed at fate for according to mankind so few years in which
+to enjoy this lovely, sunny, laughing world. But now her brief earthly
+future stretches out endlessly before her,--an eternity in which joy is
+dead and everything black and gloomy.
+
+"Good God! will this torture last forever?" she asks herself. No, it is
+not possible that such pain can last long: she will forget it, she
+must! It seems to her that she can at least be rid of some of it if she
+can only weep her fill in solitude. Yes, she must cry it out before she
+goes back to Zirkow, before she meets again the keen, kindly eyes that
+would fain pry into her very soul.
+
+Meanwhile, she has told the coachman to drive to Komaritz. The carriage
+rolls through the long village. The air tastes of straw and hay; the
+rhythmic beat of the thrashers' flails resounds from the peasants'
+small barns. Zdena stops her ears; she cannot bear the noise,--the
+noise and the garish, cruel light. At last the village lies behind her.
+The sound of flails is still heard in the distance; to Zdena they seem
+to be beating the summer to death with clubs.
+
+The carriage drives on, drives towards the forest. On the edge of the
+wood stands a red-and-white signpost, the two indexes of which point in
+opposite directions through the depths of the leafy thicket: one
+pathway is tolerably smooth, and leads to Komaritz; the other, starting
+from the same point, is rough, and leads to Zirkow.
+
+She calls to the coachman. He stops the horses.
+
+"Drive on to Komaritz and leave the plums there," she orders him, "and
+I will meanwhile take the short path and walk home." So saying, she
+descends from the vehicle.
+
+He sees her walk off quickly and with energy; sees her tall, graceful
+figure gradually diminish in the perspective of the Zirkow woodland
+path. For a while he gazes after her, surprised, and then he obeys her
+directions.
+
+If Krupitschka had been upon the box he would have opposed his young
+mistress's order as surely as he would have disobeyed it obstinately.
+He would have said, "The Baroness does not understand that so young a
+lady ought not to go alone through the forest--the Herr Baron would be
+very angry with me if I allowed it, and I will not allow it."
+
+But Schmidt is a new coachman. He does as he is bidden, making no
+objection.
+
+Zdena plunges into the wood, penetrates deeper and deeper into the
+thicket, aimlessly, heedlessly, except that she longs to find a spot
+where she can hide her despair from human eyes. She does not wish to
+see the heavens, nor the sun, nor the buzzing insects and wanton
+butterflies on the edge of the forest.
+
+At last the shade is deep enough for her. The dark foliage shuts out
+the light; scarcely a hand's-breadth of blue sky can be seen among the
+branches overhead. She throws herself on the ground and sobs. After a
+while she raises her head, sits up, and stares into space.
+
+"How is it possible? How could it have happened?" she thinks. "I cannot
+understand. From waywardness? from anger because I was a little silly?
+Oh, God! oh, God! Yes, I take pleasure in luxury, in fine clothes, in
+the world, in attention. I really thought for the moment that these
+were what I liked best,--but I was wrong. How little should I care for
+those things, without him! Oh, God! oh, God! How could he find it in
+his heart to do it!" she finally exclaims, while her tears flow afresh
+down her flushed cheeks.
+
+Suddenly she hears a low crackling in the underbrush. She starts and
+looks up. Before her stands an elderly man of medium height, with a
+carefully-shaven, sharp-cut face, and a reddish-gray peruke. His tall
+stove-pipe hat is worn far back on his head, and his odd-looking
+costume is made up of a long green coat, the tails of which he carries
+under his left arm, a pair of wide, baggy, nankeen trousers, a long
+vest, with buttons much too large, and a pair of clumsy peasant shoes.
+The most remarkable thing about him is the sharp, suspicious expression
+of his round, projecting eyes.
+
+"What do you want of me?" stammers Zdena, rising, not without secret
+terror.
+
+"I should like to know what you are crying for. Perhaps because you
+have quarrelled with your cousin Henry," he says, with a sneer.
+
+He addresses her familiarly: who can he be? Evidently some one of
+unsound mind; probably old Studnecka from X----, a former brewer, who
+writes poems, and who sometimes thinks himself the prophet Elisha,
+under which illusion he will stop people in the road and preach to
+them. This must be he. She has heard that so long as his fancies are
+humoured he is perfectly gentle and harmless, but that if irritated by
+contradiction he has attacks of maniacal fury, and has been known to
+lay violent hands upon those who thus provoke him.
+
+Before she finds the courage to answer him, he comes a step nearer to
+her, and repeats his question with a scornful smile which discloses a
+double row of faultless teeth.
+
+"How do you know that I have a cousin?" asks Zdena, still more alarmed,
+and recoiling a step or two.
+
+"Oh, I know everything, just as the gypsies do."
+
+"Of course this is the prophet," the girl thinks, trembling. She longs
+to run away, but tells herself that the prudent course will be to try
+to keep him in good humour until she has regained the path out of this
+thicket, where she has cut herself off from all human aid. "Do you
+know, then, who I am?" she asks, trying to smile.
+
+"Oh, yes," replies this strange prophet, nodding his head. "I have long
+known you, although you do not know me. You are the foolish daughter of
+a foolish father."
+
+"How should he have any knowledge of me or of my family?" she reflects.
+The explanation is at hand. She remembers distinctly that the prophet
+Studnecka was one of the eccentric crowd that Baron Franz Leskjewitsch
+was wont to assemble about him for his amusement during the three or
+four weeks each year when the old man made the country around unsafe by
+his stay here.
+
+"You know my grandfather too, then?" she continues.
+
+"Yes, a little," the old man muttered. "Have you any message to send
+him? I will take it to him for you."
+
+"I have nothing to say to him!--I do not know him!" she replies. Her
+eyes flash angrily, and she holds her head erect.
+
+"H'm I he does not choose to know you," the old man remarks, looking at
+her still more keenly.
+
+"The unwillingness is mutual. I have not the least desire to know
+anything of him," she says, with emphasis.
+
+"Ah!--indeed!" he says, with a lowering glance from beneath his shaggy
+eyebrows. "Shall I tell him so, from you?"
+
+"If you choose!" she replies. Suddenly an idea strikes her; she
+observes him in her turn more keenly than hitherto, his face, his
+figure, his hands, tanned and neglected, but slender and shapely, with
+almond-shaped nails. There is something familiar in his features.
+
+Is he really the brewer Studnecka, the fool? And if no fool, who can it
+be that ventures thus to address her? Something thrills her entire
+frame. A portrait recurs to her memory,--a portrait of the elder
+Leskjewitsch, which, since the family embroilment, has hung in the
+lumber-room at Zirkow. There is not a doubt that this crazy old
+creature is her grandfather.
+
+He sees that she has recognized him.
+
+Her bearing has suddenly become haughty and repellent. She adjusts her
+large straw hat, which has been hanging at the back of her neck.
+
+"Then I am to tell him from you that you do not wish to have anything
+to do with him?" the old man asks again.
+
+"Yes." Her voice is hard and dull.
+
+"And besides," he asks, "have you nothing else to say to him?" He looks
+at her as if to read her soul.
+
+She returns his look with eyes in whose brown depths the tears so
+lately shed are still glistening. She knows that she is putting the
+knife to her own throat, but what matters it? The gathered bitterness
+of years overflows her heart and rises to her lips.
+
+"And besides,"--she speaks slowly and provokingly,--"besides, I should
+like to tell him that I consider his conduct cold-hearted, petty, and
+childish; that after he has tormented to death two people, my father
+and my mother, he might, in his old age, attempt by love and kindness
+to make some amends for his wickedness, instead of going on weaving
+fresh misery out of his wretched hatred and obstinacy, and--that never
+whilst I live will I make one advance towards him!" She bows slightly,
+turns, and leaves him. He looks after her graceful figure as it slowly
+makes its way among the underbrush and is finally lost to sight.
+
+"A splendid creature! What a carriage! what a figure! and what a
+bewitching face! No wonder she has turned the brain of that silly lad
+at Komaritz. He knows what's what. The child shows race," he mutters;
+"she's a genuine Leskjewitsch. All Fritz.--Poor Fritz!"
+
+The old man passes his hand across his forehead, and then gazes after
+her once more. Is that her blue dress glimmering among the trees? No,
+it is a bit of sky. She has vanished.
+
+Zdena manages to slip up to her own room unobserved when she reaches
+Zirkow. She makes her first appearance at table, her hair charmingly
+arranged, dressed as carefully as usual, talkative, gay. The most acute
+observer would hardly suspect that a few hours previously she had all
+but cried her eyes out.
+
+"And did you bring us the piece of news from Dobrotschau?" asks Frau
+Rosamunda during the soup, which Zdena leaves untasted.
+
+"Oh, yes. And most extraordinary it is," she replies. "Paula Harfink is
+betrothed."
+
+"To whom?"
+
+"To Harry," says Zdena, without the quiver of an eyelash, calmly
+breaking her bread in two as she speaks.
+
+"To Harry? Impossible!" shouts the major.
+
+"Not at all," Zdena declares, with a smile. "I saw him with her. She
+already calls him by his first name."
+
+"I do not understand the world nowadays," growls the old soldier,
+adding, under his breath, "That d--d driving about in the moonlight!"
+
+Frau von Leskjewitsch and her cousin Wenkendorf content themselves
+during the remainder of the meal with discussing the annoying
+consequences for the family from such a connection, partaking,
+meanwhile, very comfortably of the excellent dinner. The major glances
+continually at his niece. It troubles him to see her smile so
+perpetually. Is it possible that she is not taking the matter more
+seriously to heart?
+
+After dinner, when Frau von Leskjewitsch has carried her cousin off to
+the greenhouse to show him her now gloxinias, the major chances to go
+into the drawing-room, which he supposes empty. It is not so. In the
+embrasure of a window stands a figure, motionless as a statue,--quite
+unaware of the approach of any one. The major's heart suffers a sharp
+pang at sight of that lovely, tender profile, the features drawn
+and pinched with suppressed anguish. He would like to go up to his
+darling,--to take her in his arms. But he does not dare to do so. How
+can one bestow caresses upon a creature sore and crushed in every limb?
+He leaves the room on tiptoe, as one leaves the room of an invalid who
+must not be disturbed.
+
+"God have mercy on the poor child!" he murmurs.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X.
+
+                            A GARRISON TOWN.
+
+
+As was formerly remarked at the sale of the effects of Mademoiselle
+Pauline C----, "Very little body-linen and very many diamonds," so it
+may be said of the population of X----: very few inhabitants, but very
+many hussars.
+
+The town consists of a barracks and a Casino; the post-office, church,
+and school-house, as well as all the big and little houses, new and
+tasteless, or old and ruinous, are merely a secondary affair.
+
+The ugly square barracks, painted red, is situated upon what is called
+"The Ring," a spacious, uneven square, unpaved but trodden hard, and,
+besides, covered with dust, straw, remains of bundles of hay, and all
+kinds of dirt pertaining to a stable.
+
+Opposite the barracks is the Casino, also called "_Hostinee u byle
+ruze_," or "The White Rose Inn." The barracks stands alone, haughtily
+exclusive. Adjoining the Casino and the post-office, however, are
+various ugly or half-ruinous structures, and opposite the post-office
+there is a line of unedifying building, describing a spacious
+circle,--low huts, two-storied houses, houses with mansard roofs,
+houses painted yellow, light green, or light pink, with a saint in a
+blue niche over the front door, and houses with creaking weathercocks
+on the roof, all half ruinous, but clinging affectionately to one
+another, like drunken recruits bent upon mutual support.
+
+It is noon. From the open windows of the most pretentious of these
+houses come the notes of a waltz, with a loud sound of shuffling and
+scraping, alternating with screaming and laughter. The story goes that
+the wife of the steward of the Casino, Frau Albina Schwanzara, former
+_prima ballerina_ at Troppau, is teaching the cancan behind those same
+windows to one of the celebrities of the little town, the wife of a
+wealthy tallow-chandler, and that the lady in question, for the
+entertainment of the corps of officers now stationed at X----, is to
+dance the aforesaid beautiful dance at the next "sociable," dressed as
+a chimney-sweeper. "Fast at any price!" is the device of the celebrity.
+The lively music is the only animate circumstance in "The Ring;" the
+sultry August heat has stricken dead everything else. The kellner at
+the door of the Casino, the sentinel at the gate of the barracks, are
+nodding where they stand. In a corner of the square is the wagon of a
+troupe of strolling players,--a green-painted house on wheels,--to
+which is harnessed a one-eyed steed with very long legs and a tail like
+a rat's. The prima donna of the troupe, a slovenly woman in shabby
+dancing-slippers, is squatting on a bundle of hay, flirting with a
+cavalry sergeant. A lank youth with long, straight, fair hair is
+thrashing with his suspenders a pig tied at the back of the wagon,
+while he holds up his trousers over his stomach with his left hand.
+Several other children of Thespis lie stretched out snoring, among
+various drums and ropes, in the dust.
+
+All the people who happen to be in the square stare at them.
+
+The universal interest is shortly diverted, however, by the arrival of
+two equipages and a luggage-wagon, all three driving down a side street
+to rein up before the post-office. In the first of the two vehicles, a
+large convenient landau, two ladies are seated with a young man
+opposite them. The second carriage is occupied by a valet and two
+maids.
+
+They have come from the nearest railway-station, and have merely
+stopped at the post-office for any letters and papers that may be
+awaiting them. While the servant is procuring these within the
+building, the young man alights from the landau and enters into
+conversation with the postmaster, eagerly inquiring what regiment is at
+present in garrison at X----.
+
+The curiosity of an increasing public becomes almost morbid. All crowd
+around the post-office. The young actress has lost her admirer,--the
+sergeant has rushed up to the young man.
+
+"Oh, Herr Lieutenant!" he calls out, eagerly; then, ashamed of his
+want of due respect, he straightens himself to the correct attitude
+and salutes with his hand at his cap. Two officers, each with a
+billiard-cue in his hand, come hastily out of the Casino, followed by a
+third,--Harry Leskjewitsch. The stranger receives the first two with
+due courtesy; Harry he scans eagerly.
+
+"You here, Harry!" he exclaims, going up to him with outstretched
+hands.
+
+The lady on the right in the landau lowers the red Bilk parasol with
+which she has hitherto shielded her face from public curiosity, and
+takes out her eye-glass; the other leans forward a little. Both ladies
+are in faultless travelling-dress. The one on the right is a beauty in
+her way, fair, with a good colour, a full figure, and regular features,
+although they may be a trifle sharp. Her companion is beautiful, too,
+but after an entirely different style,--a decided brunette, with a pale
+face and large eyes which, once gazed into, hold the gazer fast, as by
+the attraction one feels to solve a riddle.
+
+"Treurenberg!" Harry exclaims, grasping the stranger's hands in both
+his own.
+
+"I thought you were in Vienna," Treurenberg replies. "I cannot tell you
+how glad I am to see you! When did we meet last?"
+
+"At your marriage," says Harry.
+
+"True! It seems an eternity since then." Treurenberg sighs. "Only
+fancy, I had to shoot my 'Old Tom' last winter!"
+
+At this moment a little cavalcade passes across the square to reach the
+barracks,--an Amazon in a tight, very short riding-dress, followed and
+accompanied by several gentlemen.
+
+Treurenberg's attention is attracted by the horse-woman, who, although
+much powdered, rather faded, and with a feverish glow in her large,
+dark eyes, shows traces of very great beauty.
+
+"Is not that Lori Trauenstein?" Lato asks his new-found friend.
+
+"Yes,--now Countess Wodin, wife of the colonel of the regiment of
+hussars in garrison here."
+
+"An old flame of mine," Lato murmurs. "Strange! I scarcely recognized
+her. This is the first time I have seen her since----" he laughs
+lightly--"since she gave me my walking-ticket! Is Wodin the same as
+ever?"
+
+"How could he be anything else!"
+
+"And is she very fast?"
+
+"Very," Harry assents.
+
+The ladies in the landau have both stretched their necks to look after
+the Amazon. But while the face of the blonde expresses merely critical
+curiosity, in her companion's dark eyes there is sad, even horrified,
+surprise.
+
+The Amazon and her train disappear beneath the arched gate-way of the
+barracks.
+
+"Lato!" the portly blonde calls to Treurenberg from the landau.
+
+He does not hear her.
+
+"Do you remember my 'Old Tom'?" he asks his friend, returning to his
+favourite theme.
+
+"I should think so. A chestnut,--a magnificent creature!"
+
+"Magnificent! A friend,--an actual friend. That fat Rhoden--a cousin of
+my wife's--broke his leg in riding him at a hunt. But, to speak of
+something pleasanter, how are they all at Komaritz? Your cousin must be
+very pretty by this time?" And Treurenberg looks askance at his friend.
+
+"Very," Harry replies, and his manner suddenly grows cold and
+constrained. "But allow me to speak to your wife," he adds. "By the
+way, who is the young lady beside her?"
+
+"H'm! a relative,--a cousin of my wife's."
+
+"Present me, I pray," says Harry.
+
+He then pays his respects to the Countess Treurenberg and to her
+companion, whose name he now learns is Olga Dangeri.
+
+The Countess offers him her finger-tips with a gracious smile. Olga
+Dangeri, nodding slightly, raises her dark, mysterious eyes, looks him
+full in the face for a moment, and then turns away indifferent. The
+servant comes out of the post-office with a great bundle of letters,
+which the Countess receives from him, and with two or three packages,
+which he hands over to the maids.
+
+"What are you waiting for, Lato? Get in," the Countess says.
+
+"Drive on. I shall stay here with Leskjewitsch for a while,"
+Treurenberg replies.
+
+"Mamma is waiting breakfast for us."
+
+"I shall breakfast in the Casino. My respects to your mother."
+
+"As you please." The young Countess bows to Harry stiffly, with a
+discontented air, the horses start, a cloud of dust rises, and the
+landau rolls away. With his eyes half closed, Harry looks after the
+heavy brown carriage-horses.
+
+"Lato, that off horse is spavined."
+
+"For heaven's sake don't notice it! My mother-in-law bought the pair
+privately to surprise me. She paid five thousand guilders for them."
+
+"H'm! Who persuaded her to buy them?"
+
+"Pistasch Kamenz. I do not grudge him his bargain," murmurs Lato,
+adding, with a shake of the head, "'Tis odd, dogs and horses are the
+only things in which we have the advantage over the financiers."
+
+With which he takes his friend's arm and crosses the square to the
+Casino.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XI.
+
+                             AN OLD FRIEND.
+
+
+They are sitting in the farthest corner of the smoky dining-hall of the
+Casino, Harry and his friend, by a window that looks out upon a little
+yard. Harry is smoking a cigar, and sits astride of a chair; Lato
+contrives to sprawl over three chairs, and smokes cigarettes, using
+about five matches to each cigarette. Two glasses, a siphon, and a
+bottle of cognac stand upon a rickety table close by.
+
+The room is low, the ceiling is almost black, and the atmosphere
+suggests old cheese and stale cigar-smoke. Between the frames of their
+Imperial Majesties a fat spider squats in a large gray web. At a table
+not far from the two friends a cadet, too thin for his uniform, is
+writing a letter, while a lieutenant opposite him is occupied in
+cutting the initials of his latest flame, with his English penknife, on
+the green-painted table. Before a Bohemian glass mirror in a glass
+frame stands another lieutenant, with a thick beard and a bald pate,
+which last he is endeavouring artistically to conceal by brushing over
+it the long thick hair at the back of his neck. His name is Spreil; he
+has lately been transferred to the hussars from the infantry, and he is
+the butt for every poor jest in the regiment.
+
+"I cannot tell you how glad I am to see you," Treurenberg repeats to
+his friend. As he speaks, his cigarette goes out; he scrapes his
+twenty-fourth match in the last quarter of an hour, and breaks off its
+head.
+
+"The same old lack of fire!" Harry says, by way of a jest, handing him
+his lighted cigar.
+
+"Yes, the same old lack of fire!" Treurenberg repeats.
+
+Lack of fire! How often he has been reproached with it as a boy! Lack
+of fire; that means everything for which fire stands,--energy,
+steadfastness, manly force of will. There is no lack of passion, on the
+other hand; of dangerous inflammable material there is too much in his
+nature; but with him passion paralyzes effort instead of spurring to
+action. One need only look at him as he half reclines there, smiling
+dreamily to himself, scarcely moving his lips, to know him for what he
+is, indolent, impressionable, yet proud and morbidly refined withal; a
+thoroughly passive and very sensitive man. He is half a head taller
+than Harry, but carries himself so badly that he looks shorter; his
+face, framed in light brown hair and a soft pointed beard, is sallow;
+his large gray eyes are veiled beneath thick lids which he rarely opens
+wide. His hands are especially peculiar, long, slender, soft, incapable
+of a quick movement; hands formed to caress, but not to fight,--hardly
+even to clasp firmly.
+
+It is said that the colonel of the regiment of Uhlans, in which Lato
+served before his marriage to Selina Harfink, once declared of him,
+"Treurenberg ought to have been a woman, and then, married to a good
+husband, something might perhaps have been made of him."
+
+This criticism, which ought to have been uttered by a woman rather than
+by a logical, conventional man, went the round of Treurenberg's
+comrades. "The same old lack of fire," Lato repeats, smiling to
+himself. He has the mouth and the smile of a woman.
+
+Harry knows the smile well, but it has changed since the last time he
+saw it. It used to be indolent, now it is sad.
+
+"Have you any children?" Harry asks, after a while.
+
+Treurenberg shivers. "I had a boy, I lost him when he was fifteen
+months old," he says, in a low, strained tone.
+
+"My poor fellow! What did he die of?" Harry asks, sympathetically.
+
+"Of croup. It was over in one night,--and he was so fresh and healthy a
+child! My God! when I think of the plump little arms he used to stretch
+out to me from his little bed every morning," Lato goes on, hoarsely,
+"and then, as I said, in a few hours--gone! The physician did all that
+he could for the poor little fellow,--in vain; nothing did any good. I
+knew from the first that there was no hope. How the poor little chap
+threw himself about in his bed! I sometimes dream that I hear him
+gasping for breath, and he clung to me as if I could help him!"
+Treurenberg's voice breaks; he passes his hand over his eyes. "He was
+very little; he could hardly say 'papa' distinctly, but it goes
+terribly near one's heart when one has nothing else in the world,--I--I
+mean, no other children," he corrects the involuntary confession.
+
+"Well, all days have not yet ended in evening," Harry says, kindly, and
+then pauses suddenly, feeling--he cannot tell why--that he has made a
+mistake.
+
+Meanwhile, the lieutenant at the table has finished his initials, and
+has, moreover, embellished them with the rather crude device of a
+heart. He rises and saunters aimlessly about the large, low room,
+apparently seeking some subject for chaff, for boyish play. He kills a
+couple of flies, performs gymnastic exercises upon two chairs, and
+finally approaches the cadet, who, ensconced in a corner, behind a
+table, is scribbling away diligently.
+
+"Whom are you writing to?" he asks, sitting astride of a chair just
+opposite the lad.
+
+The cadet is silent.
+
+"To your sweetheart?"
+
+The cadet is still silent.
+
+"I seem to have guessed rightly," says the lieutenant, adding, "But
+tell me, does your present flame--here the sun called Wodin--tolerate a
+rival sun?"
+
+"I am writing to my mother," the cadet says, angrily. At the mention of
+the name of Wodin he flushes to the roots of his hair.
+
+"Indeed!--how touching!" the lieutenant goes on. "What are you writing
+to her? Are you asking her for money? or are you soothing her anxiety
+with an account of the solid character of your principles? Do show me
+your letter."
+
+The cadet spreads his arms over the sheet before him, thereby blotting
+the well-formed characters that cover it. "I tell you what, Stein----!"
+he bursts forth at his tormentor, his voice quivering with anger.
+
+Meanwhile, Lato turns towards him. "Toni!" he exclaims, recognizing a
+relative in the irate young fellow,--"Toni Flammingen!--can it be? The
+last time I saw you, you were in your public-school uniform. You've
+grown since then, my boy."
+
+Stein turns away from this touching family scene, and, taking his place
+behind Lieutenant Spreil, who is still occupied in dressing his hair,
+observes, in a tone of great gravity,--
+
+"Don't you think, Spreil, that you could make part of your thick beard
+useful in decorating that bald head of yours? Comb it up each side and
+confine it in place with a little sticking-plaster. It might do."
+
+Spreil turns upon him in a fury. "It might do for me to send you a
+challenge!" he thunders.
+
+"By all means: a little extra amusement would be welcome just now,"
+Stein retorts, carelessly.
+
+Spreil bows, and leaves the room with majesty.
+
+"For heaven's sake, Stein, what are you about?" Harry, who has been
+observing the scene, asks the idle lieutenant.
+
+"I have made a vow to rid our regiment of the fellow,--to chaff him out
+of it," Stein replies, with the sublime composure which results from
+the certainty of being in the right. "We do not want the infantry cad.
+If he is determined to mount on horseback, let him try a velocipede, or
+sit astride of Pegasus, for all I care; but in our regiment he shall
+not stay. You'll be my second, Les?"
+
+"Of course, if you insist upon it," Harry replies; "but it goes against
+the grain. I detest this perpetual duelling for nothing at all. It is
+bad form."
+
+"You need not talk; you used to be the readiest in the regiment to
+fight. I remember you when I was in the dragoons. But a betrothed man
+must, of course, change his views upon such subjects."
+
+At the word "betrothed" Harry shrinks involuntarily. Treurenberg looks
+up.
+
+"Betrothed!" he exclaims. "And to whom?"
+
+"Guess," says the lieutenant, who is an old acquaintance of
+Treurenberg's.
+
+"It is not hard to guess. To your charming little cousin Zdena."
+
+The lieutenant puckers his lips as if about to whistle, and says, "Not
+exactly. Guess again."
+
+Meanwhile, Harry stands like a man in the pillory who is waiting for a
+shower of stones, and says not a word.
+
+"Then--then--" Treurenberg looks from the lieutenant to his friend, "I
+have no idea," he murmurs.
+
+"To the Baroness Paula Harfink," says the lieutenant, his face devoid
+of all expression.
+
+There is a pause. Treurenberg's eyes try in vain to meet those of his
+friend.
+
+From without come the clatter of spurs and the drone of a hand-organ
+grinding out some popular air.
+
+"Is it true?" asks Treurenberg, who cannot rid himself of the idea that
+the mischievous lieutenant is jesting. And Harry replies, as calmly as
+possible,--
+
+"It is not yet announced. I am still awaiting my father's consent. He
+is abroad."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+The lieutenant pours out a thimbleful of brandy from the flask
+on the table, mixes it with seltzer-water and sugar, and, raising
+it to his lips, says, gravely, "To the health of your betrothed,
+Leskjewitsch,--of your sister-in-law, Treurenberg."
+
+"This, then, was the news of which my mother-in-law made such
+mysterious mention in her last letters," Lato murmurs. "This is the
+surprise of which she spoke. I--I hope it will turn out well," he adds,
+with a sigh.
+
+Harry tries to smile. From the adjoining billiard-room come the voices
+of two players in an eager dispute. The malicious lieutenant pricks up
+his ears, and departs for the scene of action with the evident
+intention of egging on the combatants.
+
+"Lato," Harry asks, clearing his throat, "how do you mean to get home?
+I have my drag here, and I can drop you at Dobrotschau. Or will you
+drive to Komaritz with me?"
+
+"With the greatest pleasure," Treurenberg assents. "How glad I shall be
+to see the old place again!"
+
+He is just making ready for departure, when several officers drop in at
+the Casino, almost all of them old friends of his. They surround him,
+shake hands with him, and will not let him go.
+
+"Can you wait a quarter of an hour for me?" he asks his friend.
+
+Harry nods. He takes no part in the general conversation. He scarcely
+moves his eyes from the spider-web between the Imperial portraits. A
+fly is caught in it and is making desperate efforts to escape. The
+bloated spider goes on spinning its web, and pretends not to see it.
+
+"Have a game of bezique? You used to be so passionately fond of
+bezique," Harry hears some one say. He looks around. It is Count Wodin,
+the husband of the pretty, coquettish horsewoman, who is speaking. Lato
+turns to Harry.
+
+"Can you wait for me long enough?" he asks, and his voice sounds
+uncertain and confused. "One short game."
+
+Harry shrugs his shoulders, as if to say, "As you please." Then,
+standing with one knee on a chair in the attitude of a man who is about
+to take leave and does not think it worth while to sit down again, he
+looks on at the game.
+
+The first game ends, then another, and another, and Treurenberg makes
+no move to lay the cards aside. His face has changed: the languid smile
+has gone, his eyes are eager, watchful, and his face is a perfectly
+expressionless mask. His is the typical look of the well-bred gambler
+who knows how to conceal his agitation.
+
+"_Cent d'as_--double bezique!" Thus it goes on to the accompaniment of
+the rustle of the cards, the rattle of the counters, and from the
+adjoining room the crack of the ivory balls against one another as they
+roll over the green cloth.
+
+"Well, Lato, are you coming?" asks Harry, growing impatient.
+
+"Only two games more. Can you not wait half an hour longer?" asks
+Treurenberg.
+
+"To speak frankly, I am not much interested in listening to your 'Two
+hundred and fifty,'--'five hundred,'--and so on."
+
+"Naturally," says Lato, with his embarrassed smile. He moves as if to
+rise. Wodin hands him the cards to cut. "Go without me. I will not
+keep you any longer. Some one here will lend me a horse by and by.
+Shall we see you to-morrow at Dobrotschau?" With which Treurenberg
+arranges his twelve cards, and Harry nods and departs.
+
+"Tell me, did you ever see a more blissful lover?" asks the teasing
+lieutenant, who has just returned from the billiard-room. As the
+disputants, in spite of all his efforts to the contrary, have made up
+their quarrel, there is nothing more for him to do there. "He seems
+inspired indeed at the thought of his beloved." And he takes a seat on
+the table nearest the players.
+
+"Every point in trumps," says Treurenberg, intent upon his game.
+
+"It is my impression that he would like to drink her health in
+aconite," the lieutenant continues.
+
+"That betrothal seems to me a most mysterious affair," mutters Wodin.
+"I do not understand Leskjewitsch: he was not even in debt."
+
+The lieutenant bites his lip, makes a private sign to Wodin, and takes
+pains not to look at Treurenberg.
+
+Lato flushes, and is absorbed in polishing his eyeglass, which has
+slipped out of his eye.
+
+"I lose three thousand," he says, slowly, consulting his tablets.
+"Shall we have another game, Wodin?"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII.
+
+                         A GRAVEYARD IN PARIS.
+
+
+Paris, in the middle of August.
+
+At about five in the afternoon, an old gentleman in a greenish-black
+overcoat that flutters about his thickset figure almost like a soutane,
+trousers that are too short, low shoes with steel buckles, and an
+old-fashioned high hat beneath which can be seen a rusty brown wig,
+issues from a quiet hotel much frequented by strangers of rank.
+
+His features are marked and strong. His brown skin reminds one of
+walnut-shells or crumpled parchment. Beneath his bushy eyebrows his
+prominent eyes glance suspiciously about him. It would be difficult to
+guess at this man's social position from his exterior. To the
+superficial observer he might suggest the peasant class. The ease,
+however, with which he bears himself among the fashionably-dressed men
+in the street, the despotic abruptness of his manner, the irritability
+with which he disputes some petty item in his hotel bill, while he is
+not at all dismayed by the large sum total, give the kellner, who
+stands in the door-way looking after him, occasion for reflection.
+
+"He's another of those miserly old aristocrats who suppress their title
+for fear of being plundered," he decides, with a shrug, as he turns
+back into the hotel, stopping on his way to inform the _concierge_
+that, in his opinion, the old man is some half-barbaric Russian prince
+who has come to Europe to have a look at civilization.
+
+The name in the strangers' book is simply Franz Leskjewitsch.
+
+Meanwhile, the stranger has walked on through the Rue de Rivoli to the
+corner of the Rue Castiglione, where he pauses, beckons to a fiacre,
+and, as he puts his foot heavily and awkwardly upon its step, calls to
+the driver, "_Cimetiere Montmartre!_"
+
+The vehicle starts. The old man's eyes peer about sharply from the
+window. How changed it all is since he was last in this Babylon,
+twenty-two years ago, while the Imperial court was in its splendour,
+and Fritz was still alive!
+
+"Yes, yes, it is all different,--radically different," he murmurs,
+angrily. "The noise is the same, but the splendour has vanished. Paris
+without the Empire is like Baden-Baden without the gaming-tables. Ah,
+how fine it was twenty-two years ago, when Fritz was living!"
+
+Yes, he was not only living, but until then he had never been anything
+but a source of pleasure to his father; the same Fritz who had
+afterwards so embittered life for him that the same father had stricken
+him from his heart and had refused him even a place in his memory. But
+it is dangerous to try to rid ourselves of the remembrance of one whom
+we have once loved idolatrously. We may, for fear of succumbing to the
+old affection, close our hearts and lock them fast against all feeling
+of any kind. But if they do not actually die in our breasts, there
+will, sooner or later, come a day when memory will reach them in spite
+of our locks, and will demand for the dead that tribute of tears which
+we have refused to grant.
+
+There are few things more ghastly in life than tears shed for the dead
+twenty years too late.
+
+"Yes, a frivolous fellow, Fritz was,--frivolous and obstinate," the old
+man says to himself, staring at the brilliant shop-windows in the Rue
+de la Paix and at the gilded youths sauntering past them; "but when was
+there ever a man his equal? What a handsome, elegant, charming fellow,
+bubbling over with merriment and good humour and chivalric generosity!
+And the fellow insisted on marrying a shop-girl!" he mutters, between
+his teeth. The thought even now throws him into a fury. He had been so
+proud of the lad, and then--in one moment it was all over; no future to
+look to, the young diplomat's career cut short, the family pride
+levelled in the dust.
+
+The old rage had well-nigh filled his soul, when a lovely, pallid face
+rises upon his memory. Could Manette Duval have really been as charming
+as that golden-haired girl he had met awhile ago in the woods? The
+little witch looked as like Fritz as a delicate girl can look like a
+bearded man, and she had, withal, a foreign grace, the like of which
+had never hitherto characterized any Leskjewitsch child, and which
+might perhaps be an inheritance from her Parisian mother.
+
+And suddenly the father's conscience, silenced through all these long
+years, asserts itself. Yes, the marriage had been a folly, and Fritz
+had ruined his career by it. But suppose Fritz had, through his own
+fault, broken both his arms, or put out his eyes, or done anything else
+that would have destroyed his future, would it have been for his father
+to turn from him, reproaching him angrily for his folly, saying, "You
+have annihilated your happiness by your own fault; you have blasted the
+hopes I had for you; henceforth be as wretched as you deserve to be; I
+will have none of you, since I can no longer be proud of you!"
+
+The old man bites his lip and hangs his head.
+
+The carriage rolls on. The weather is excessively warm. In front of the
+shabby cafes on the Boulevard Clichy some people are sitting, brown and
+languid. Behind the dusty windows of the shops the shop-girls stand
+gazing drearily out upon their weary world, as if longing for somewhat
+of which they have read or dreamed,--something fresh and green; long
+shadows upon moist, fragrant lawns; gurgling brooks mirroring the sun.
+
+An emotion of compassion stirs in the old man's breast at sight of
+these "prisoners," and if one by chance seems to him prettier, paler,
+sadder than the rest, he asks himself, "Did she perhaps look so? No
+wonder Fritz pitied the poor creature! he had such a warm, tender
+heart!"
+
+The fiacre stops; the old man rubs his eyes. "How much?" he asks the
+driver.
+
+The man scans his fare from head to foot with a knowing glance:
+
+"Five francs."
+
+Baron Leskjewitsch takes four francs from the left pocket of his
+waistcoat, and from the right pocket of his trousers, where he keeps
+his small change, one sou, as a gratuity. These he gives to the driver,
+and sternly dismisses him. The man drives off with a grin.
+
+"The old miser thinks he has made a good bargain," he mutters.
+
+The 'miser' meanwhile paces slowly along the broad, straight path of
+the cemetery, between the tall chestnuts planted on either side.
+
+How dreary, how desolate a church-yard this is, upon which the
+noise and bustle of the swarming city outside its gates clamorously
+intrude!--a church-yard where the dead are thrust away as troublesome
+rubbish, only to put them where they can be forgotten. It is all so
+bare and prosaic; the flat stones lie upon the graves as if there was a
+fear lest, if not held down in such brutal fashion, the wretched dead
+would rise and return to a world where there is no longer any place for
+them, and where interests hold sway in which they have no part. Urns
+and other pagan decorations are abundant; there are but few crosses.
+The tops of the chestnut-trees are growing yellow, and here and there a
+pale leaf falls upon the baked earth.
+
+A gardener with a harshly-creaking rake is rooting out the sprouting
+grass from the paths; some gossiping women are seated upon the stone
+seats, brown, ugly, in starched and crimped white muslin caps, the gaps
+made by missing teeth in their jaws repulsively apparent as they
+chatter. A labouring man passes with a nosegay half concealed in the
+breast of his coat, and in his whole bearing that dull shamefacedness
+which would fain bar all sympathy, and which is characteristic of
+masculine grief. The old Baron looks about him restlessly, and finally
+goes up to the raking gardener and addresses him, asking for the
+superintendent of the place. After much circumlocution, gesticulation,
+and shouting on both sides, the two at last understand each other.
+
+"_Monsieur cherche une tombe, la tombe d'un etranger decede a Paris?_
+When? Fifteen years ago. That is a very long time. And no one has ever
+asked after the grave before? Had the dead man no relatives, then? Ah,
+such a forgotten grave is very sad; it will be difficult to identify
+it. Maybe--who knows?--some other bodies have been buried there. Here
+is the guard."
+
+"For what is Monsieur looking?"
+
+"A grave."
+
+"The name?"
+
+"Baron Frederic Leskjewitsch." The old man's voice trembles: perhaps it
+is too late; perhaps he has again delayed too long.
+
+But no: the guard's face immediately takes on an intelligent
+expression.
+
+"_Tres bien, monsieur; par id, monsieur_. I know the grave well. Some
+one from the Austrian embassy comes every year to look after it on the
+part of the relatives, and this year, not long ago,--oh, only a short
+time ago,--two ladies came and brought flowers; an elderly lady, and
+one quite young--oh, but very lovely, monsieur. _Par ici, par ici_."
+
+Following the attendant, the old man turns aside from the broad,
+principal path into a labyrinth of narrow foot-ways winding irregularly
+in and out among the graves. Here the church-yard loses its formal
+aspect and becomes pathetic. All kinds of shrubbery overgrow the
+graves. Some flowers--crimson carnations, pale purple gillyflowers, and
+yellow asters--are blooming at the feet of strangely-gnarled old
+juniper-trees. The old man's breath comes short, a sort of greed
+possesses him, a wild burning longing for the bit of earth where lies
+buried the joy of his life.
+
+The labouring man with hanging head has reached his goal the first. He
+is already kneeling beside a grave,--tiny little grave, hardly three
+feet long, and as yet unprovided with a stone. The man passes his hard
+hand over the rough earth tenderly, gently, as if he were touching
+something living. Then he cowers down as if he would fain creep into it
+himself, and lays his head beside the poor little nosegay on the fresh
+soil.
+
+"_Par ici_, monsieur,--here is the grave," calls the attendant.
+
+The old Baron shivers from head to foot.
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Here."
+
+A narrow headstone at the end of another stone lying flat upon the
+ground and enclosed by an iron palisade fence,--this is all--all! A
+terrible despair takes possession of the father. He envies the
+labourer, who can at least stroke the earth that covers his treasure,
+while he cannot even throw himself upon the grave from which a rusty
+iron grating separates him.
+
+Nothing which he can press to his heart,--nothing in which he can take
+a melancholy delight. All gone,--all! A cold tombstone enclosed in a
+rusty iron grating,--nothing more--nothing!
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIII.
+
+                            AT DOBROTSCHAU.
+
+
+It is the day after Treurenberg's meeting with Harry in the dusty
+little garrison town.
+
+Lato is sitting at his writing-table, counting a package of
+bank-notes,--his yesterday's winnings. He divides them into two packets
+and encloses them in two letters, which he addresses and seals and
+sends by a servant to the post. He has thus wiped out two old debts. No
+sooner have the letters left his hand than he brushes his fingers with
+his handkerchief, as if he had touched something unclean.
+
+Poor Treurenberg! He has never been a spendthrift, but he has been in
+debt ever since his boyhood. His pecuniary circumstances, however, have
+never been so oppressive, never have there been such disagreeable
+complications in his affairs, as since he has had a millionaire for a
+wife.
+
+He leans his elbows on his writing-table and rests his chin on his
+hands. Angry discontent with himself is tugging at his nerves. Is it
+not disgusting to liquidate an old debt to his tailor, and to pay
+interest to a usurer, with his winnings at play? What detestable things
+cards are! If he loses he hates it, and if he wins--why, it gives him a
+momentary satisfaction, but his annoyance at having impoverished a
+friend or an acquaintance is all the greater afterwards. Every sensible
+disposition of the money thus won seems to him most inappropriate.
+Money won at cards should be scattered about, squandered; and yet how
+can he squander it,--he who has so little and needs so much? How often
+he has resolved never to touch cards again! If he only had some strong,
+sacred interest in life he might become absorbed in it, and so forget
+the cursed habit. He has not the force of character that will enable
+him to sacrifice his passion for play to an abstract moral idea. His is
+one of those delicate but dependent natures that need a prop in life,
+and he has never had one, even in childhood.
+
+"What is the use of cudgelling one's brains till they ache, about
+what cannot be helped?" he says at last, with a sigh, "or which
+I at least cannot help," he adds, with a certain bitterness of
+self-accusation. He rises, takes his hat, and strolls out into the
+park. A huge, brown-streaked stag-hound, which had belonged to the old
+proprietor of the castle and which has dogged Lato's heels since the
+previous evening, follows him. From time to time he turns and strokes
+the animal's head. Then he forgets----
+
+At the same time, Paula is sitting in her study, on the ground-floor.
+It looks out on the court-yard, and is hung with sad-coloured leather,
+and decorated with a couple of good old pictures. She is sitting there
+clad in a very modern buff muslin gown, with a fiery red sash,
+listening for sounds without and with head bent meanwhile over
+Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet.'
+
+The noise of distant hoofs falls upon her ear, and a burning blush
+suffuses her plump cheek. Upon the white shade, which is pulled down,
+falls the shadow of a horse's head, and then the upper portion of his
+rider's figure. The hoofs no longer sound. Through the sultry summer
+stillness--breaking the monotonous plashing of the fountain and the
+murmur of the old linden--is heard the light, firm pat of a masculine
+hand upon a horse's neck, the caress with which your true horseman
+thanks his steed for service rendered; then an elastic, manly tread,
+the clatter of spurs and sabre, a light knock at the door of Paula's
+room, and Harry Leskjewitsch enters.
+
+Paula, with a smile, holds out to him both her hands; without smiling
+he dutifully kisses one of them.
+
+A pair of lovers in Meissen porcelain stands upon a bracket above
+Paula's writing-table,--lovers who have been upon the point of
+embracing each other for something more than a century. Above their
+heads hovers a tiny ray of sunshine, which attracts Harry's attention
+to the group. He and Paula fall into the very same attitudes as those
+taken by the powdered dandy in the flowered jacket and the little
+peasant-girl in dancing-slippers,--they are on the point of embracing;
+and for the first time in his life Harry wishes he were made of
+porcelain, that he might remain upon the point.
+
+His betrothal is now eight days old. The first day he thought it would
+be mere child's play to loosen the knot tied by so wild a chance, but
+now he feels himself fast bound, and is conscious that each day casts
+about him fresh fetters. In vain, with every hour passed with his
+betrothed, does he struggle not to plunge deeper into this labyrinth,
+from which he can find no means of extricating himself. In vain does he
+try to enlighten Paula as to his sentiments towards her by a stiff,
+repellent demeanour, never lying to her by look, word, or gesture.
+
+But what does it avail him to stand before her like a saint on a
+pedestal? Before he is aware, she has drawn his head towards her and
+kissed him on both eyes, whereupon both lovers sigh,--each for a
+different reason,--and then sit down opposite each other. Paula,
+however, does not long endure such formality. She moves her chair
+closer to his, and at last lays her hand on the young officer's
+shoulder.
+
+Harry is positively wretched. No use to attempt to deceive himself any
+longer: Paula Harfink is in love with him.
+
+Although she brought about the betrothal by means of cool cunning and
+determination, daily intercourse with the handsome, chivalric young
+fellow has kindled a flame in her mature heart, and her passion for him
+grows with every hour passed in his society.
+
+It is useless to say how little this circumstance disposes him in her
+favour. Love is uncommonly unbecoming to Paula. It is impossible to
+credit her with the impulse that forgets self and the world, or with
+the amount of ideal stupidity which invests all the nonsense of lovers
+with grace and naturalness. Involuntarily, every one feels inclined to
+smile when so robust and enlightened a woman--enlightened in all
+directions--suddenly languishes, and puts on the semblance of
+ultra-feminine weakness. Harry alone does not smile; he takes the
+matter very tragically.
+
+Sometimes, in deep privacy he clinches his fist and mentally calls his
+betrothed "a love-sick dromedary!"
+
+Naturally he does not utter such words aloud, not even when he is alone
+in his room, not even in the dark; but--thought is free!
+
+"What have you been doing all this time?" Paula asks at last, archly,
+thus breaking the oppressive silence.
+
+"This time? Do you mean since yesterday?" he asks, frowning.
+
+"It seemed long to me," she sighs. "I--I wrote you a letter, which I
+had not the courage to send you. There, take it with you!" And she
+hands him a bulky manuscript in a large envelope. It is not the first
+sizable billet-doux which she has thus forced upon him. In a drawer of
+his writing-table at Komaritz there reposes a pile of such envelopes,
+unopened.
+
+"Have you read the English novel I sent you yesterday?--wonderful, is
+it not?--hero and heroine so like ourselves."
+
+"I began it. I thought it rather shallow."
+
+"Oh, well, I do not consider it a learned work. I never care for depth
+in a novel,--only love and high life. Shall we go on with our
+Shakespeare?" she asks.
+
+"If you choose. What shall we read?"
+
+"The moonlight scene from Romeo and Juliet."
+
+Harry submits.
+
+
+Meanwhile, Lato, with his brown attendant, wanders along the shady
+paths of the Dobrotschau park. Now and then he pays some attention to
+his shaggy companion, strokes his head, sends him after a stick, and
+finally has him take a bath in the little reed-encircled lake on the
+shores of which stand weather-stained old statues, while stately swans
+are gliding above its green depths. These last indignantly chase the
+clumsy intruder from their realm.
+
+"Poor fellow! they will have none of you!" Treurenberg murmurs,
+consoling the dog as he creeps out upon the bank with drooping tail and
+ears.
+
+Suddenly he hears the notes of a piano from the direction of the
+castle. He turns and walks towards it, almost as if he were obeying a
+call.
+
+Pausing before an open glass door leading into the garden, he looks in
+upon a spacious, airy apartment, the furniture of which consists of a
+large Gobelin hanging, a grand piano, and some bamboo chairs scattered
+about.
+
+At the piano a young girl is seated playing a dreamy improvisation upon
+'The Miller and the Brook,' that loveliest and saddest of all
+Schubert's miller-songs. It is Olga. Involuntarily Lato's eyes are
+riveted upon the charming picture. The girl is tall and slim, with
+long, slender hands and feet. If one might venture to criticise
+anything so beautiful as her face, its pure oval might be pronounced a
+thought too long.
+
+Her features are faultless, despite their irregularity; the forehead is
+low, the eyebrows straight and delicately pencilled, the eyes large and
+dark, and, when she opens them wide, of almost supernatural brilliancy.
+The mouth is small, the under lip a trifle too full, and the chin a
+little too long.
+
+Those irregularities lend a peculiar charm to the face, reminding one
+of certain old Spanish family portraits,--dark-eyed beauties with high
+collars, and with huge pearls in their ears. The facts that Olga
+neither wears a bang nor curls her hair upon her forehead, but has it
+parted simply in the middle to lie in thick waves on either side of her
+head, and that her complexion is of a transparent pallor, contribute
+still further to her resemblance to those distinguished individuals.
+She wears a simple white gown, with a Malmaison rose stuck in her belt.
+Lato's eyes rest upon her with artistic satisfaction. The tender melody
+of the Miller's Song soothes his sore heart as if by a caress. He
+softly enters the room, sits down, and listens. Olga, suddenly aware by
+intuition of his presence, turns her head.
+
+"Ah!--you here?" she exclaims, blushing slightly, and taking her hands
+from the keys.
+
+"I have made so bold," he replies, smiling. "Have you any objection?"
+
+"No; but you should have announced yourself," she says, with a little
+frown.
+
+"Ah, indeed!" he rejoins, in the tone in which one teases a child.
+"Well, the listening to a musical soliloquy is generally considered
+only a harmless indiscretion."
+
+"Yes; when I am playing something worth listening to I have no
+objection, but I prefer to keep my halting improvisations to myself."
+
+"Well, then, play something worth listening to," he says,
+good-humouredly.
+
+She turns again to the instrument, and begins, with great brilliancy of
+touch, to play a bravura-scherzo, by some Viennese composer at present
+in fashion.
+
+"For heaven's sake," Treurenberg, whose feeling for music is as
+delicate as his appreciation of all beauty, interrupts her, "do not go
+on with that ghastly Witches' Sabbath!"
+
+"The 'ghastly Witches' Sabbath' is dedicated to your cousin, Countess
+Wodin," Olga replies, taking up a piece of music from the piano. "There
+it is!" she points to the title-page "'Dedicated to the Frau Countess
+Irma Wodin, _nee_ Countess Trauenstein, by her devoted servant, etc.' I
+thought the thing might interest you."
+
+"Not in the least. Be a good girl, and play the Miller's Song over
+again."
+
+She nods amiably. Again the dreamy melody sighs among the strings of
+the piano. Lato, buried in thought, hums the words,--
+
+
+           "Where'er a true heart dies of love,
+            The lilies fade that grave above."
+
+
+"Do you know the words too?" Olga exclaims, turning towards him.
+
+"If you but knew how often I have heard that song sung!" he replies,
+with the absent air of a man whose thoughts are straying in a far past.
+
+"At concerts?"
+
+"No, in private."
+
+"By a lady?" she asks, half persistently, half hesitatingly.
+
+"Yes, grand inquisitor, by a lady; by a lady for whom I had a little
+_tendresse_--h'm!--a very sincere _tendresse_. She sang it to me every
+day. The very evening before her betrothal she sang it to me; and how
+deliciously sweet it was! Would you like to know who it was?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"The Countess Wodin."
+
+"The Countess Wodin!" Olga exclaims, amazed.
+
+Lato laughs. "You cannot understand how any one could take any interest
+in such a flirt?"
+
+"Oh, no," she says, thoughtfully, "it is not that. She is very pretty
+even yet, and gay and amusing, but--he is horrible, and I cannot
+understand her marrying him, when----"
+
+"When she might have had me?" he concludes her sentence, laughing.
+
+"Frankly, yes." As she speaks she looks full in his face with
+undisguised kindliness.
+
+He smiles, flattered, and still more amused. "What would you have?
+Wodin was rich, and I--I was a poor devil."
+
+"Oh, how odious!" she murmurs, frowning, her dark eyes glowing with
+indignation. "I cannot understand how any one can marry for money----"
+She stops short. As she spoke her eyes met his, and his were instantly
+averted. An embarrassing pause ensues.
+
+Olga feels that she is upon dangerous ground. They both change
+colour,--he turns pale, she blushes,--but her embarrassment is far
+greater than his. When he looks at her again he sees that there are
+tears in her eyes, and he pities her.
+
+"Do not vex yourself, Olga," he says, with a low, bitter laugh. And
+taking one of her slender hands in his, he strokes it gently, and then
+carries it to his lips.
+
+"Ah, still _aux petits soins_?--how touching!" a harsh nasal voice
+observes behind the pair. They look round and perceive a young man,
+who, in spite of his instant apology for intruding, shows not the
+slightest disposition to depart. He is dressed in a light summer suit
+after the latest watering-place fashion. He is neither tall nor short,
+neither stout nor slender, neither handsome nor ugly, but thoroughly
+unsympathetic in appearance. His very pale complexion is spotted with a
+few pock-marks; his light green eyes are set obliquely in his head,
+like those of a Japanese; the long, twisted points of his moustache
+reach upward to his temples, and his hair is brushed so smoothly upon
+his head that it looks like a highly-polished barber's block. But all
+these details are simply by the way; what especially disfigures him is
+his smile, which shows his big white teeth, and seems to pull the end
+of his long, thin nose down over his moustache.
+
+"Fainacky!" exclaims Treurenberg, unpleasantly surprised.
+
+"Yes, the same! I am charmed to see you again, Treurenberg," exclaims
+the Pole. "Have the kindness to present me to your wife," he adds,
+bowing to Olga.
+
+"I think my wife is dressing," Treurenberg says, coldly. "This is a
+young relative,--a cousin of my wife's.--Olga, allow me to introduce to
+you Count Fainacky."
+
+
+In the mean time Paula is occupied with her betrothed's education. In
+tones that grow drowsier and drowsier, while his articulation becomes
+more and more indistinct, Harry stumbles through Shakespeare's immortal
+verse.
+
+Paula's part is given with infinite sentiment. The thing is growing too
+tiresome, Harry thinks.
+
+"I really have had enough of this stuff for once!" he exclaims, laying
+aside his volume.
+
+"Ah, Harry, how can you speak so of the most exquisite poetry of love
+that ever has been written?"
+
+He twirls his moustache ill-humouredly, and murmurs, "You are very much
+changed within the last few days."
+
+"But not for the worse?" she asks, piqued.
+
+"At last she is going to take offence," he says to himself, exultantly,
+and he is beginning to finger his betrothal-ring, when the door opens
+and a servant announces, "Herr Count Fainacky."
+
+"How well you look, my dear Baroness Paula! Ah, the correct air,
+beaming with bliss,--_on connait cela!_ Taking advantage of your Frau
+mother's kind invitation, I present myself, as you see, without
+notification," the Pole chatters on. "How are you, Harry? In the
+seventh heaven, of course,--of course." And he drops into an arm-chair
+and fans himself with a pink-bordered pocket-handkerchief upon which
+are depicted various jockeys upon race-horses, and which exhales a
+strong odour of musk.
+
+"I am extremely glad to see you," Paula assures the visitor. "I hope
+you have come to stay some days with us. Have you seen mamma yet?"
+
+"No." And Fainacky fans himself yet more affectedly. "I wandered around
+the castle at first without finding any one to announce me. Then I had
+an adventure,--ha, ha! _C'est par trop bete!_"
+
+"What was it?"
+
+"In my wanderings I reached an open door into a room looking upon the
+garden. There I found Treurenberg and a young lady,--only fancy,--I
+thought it was his wife. I took that--what is her name?--Olga--your
+_protegee_--for your sister,--for the Countess Selina, and begged
+Treurenberg to present me to his wife,--ha, ha! _Vraiment c'est par
+trop bete!_"
+
+At this moment a tall, portly figure, with reddish hair, dazzling
+complexion, and rather sharp features, sails into the room.
+
+"Here is my sister," says Paula, and a formal introduction follows.
+
+"Before seeing the Countess Selina I thought my mistake only comical. I
+now think it unpardonable!" Fainacky exclaims, with his hand on his
+heart. "Harry, did the resemblance never strike you?" He gazes in a
+rapture of admiration at the Countess.
+
+"What resemblance?" asks Harry.
+
+"Why, the resemblance to the Princess of Wales."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIV.
+
+                                 OLGA.
+
+
+"And pray who is Fraeulein Olga?"
+
+It is Fainacky who puts this question to the Countess Treurenberg, just
+after luncheon, during which meal he has contrived to ingratiate
+himself thoroughly with Lato's wife.
+
+He and the Countess are seated beneath a red-and-gray-striped tent on
+the western side of the castle; beside them stands a table from which
+the coffee has not yet been removed. The rest of the company have
+vanished.
+
+The Baroness Harfink is writing a letter to her brother, one of the
+leaders of the Austrian democracy, who was once minister for three
+months; Paula and Harry are enjoying a _tete-a-tete_ in the park, and
+Treurenberg is taking advantage of the strong sunlight to photograph
+alternately and from every point of view a half-ruinous fountain and
+two hollyhocks.
+
+"Pray who is this Fraeulein Olga?" Fainacky asks, removing the ashes
+from the end of his cigarette with the long finger-nail of his little
+finger.
+
+"Ah, it is quite a sad story," is the Countess Selina's reply.
+
+"Excuse me if I am indiscreet; I had no idea----" the Pole begins.
+
+"Oh, you are one of the family, quite one of the family," Selina
+assures him, with an amiable smile. "I might have thought the
+question embarrassing from any one else, but I can speak to you without
+reserve of these matters. You are perhaps aware that a sister of my
+father's,--is only sister,--when quite an old maid,--I believe she was
+thirty-seven,--ran off with an actor, a very obscure comedian; I think
+he played the elderly knights at the Rudolfsheim Theatre, and as the
+bandit Jaromir he turned her head. She displayed the _courage de ses
+opinions_, and married him. He treated her brutally, and she died,
+after fifteen years of wretched married life. On her death-bed she sent
+for my father, and bequeathed her daughter to his care. This was Olga.
+My father--I cannot tell how it happened--took the most immense fancy
+to the girl. He tried to persuade mamma to take her home immediately.
+Fancy! a creature brought up amid such surroundings, behind the
+foot-lights. True, my aunt was separated from her bandit Jaromir for
+several years before her death; but under such strange circumstances
+mamma really could not take the little gypsy into the house with her
+own half-grown daughters. So she was sent to a convent, and we all
+hoped she would become a nun. But no; and when her education was
+finished, shortly before papa's death, mamma took her home. I was
+married at the time, and I remember her arrival vividly. You can
+imagine how terrible it was for us to admit so strange an element among
+us. But, although he seldom interfered in domestic affairs, it was
+impossible to dispute papa's commands."
+
+"H'm, h'm!" And the Pole's slender white fingers drum upon the top of
+the table. "_Je comprends_. It is a great charge for your mother, and
+_c'est bien dur_." Although he speaks French stumblingly, he
+continually expresses himself in that tongue, as if it is the only one
+in which he can give utterance to the inmost feelings of his soul.
+
+"Ah, mamma has always sacrificed everything to duty!" sighs Selina;
+"and somebody had to take pity upon the poor creature."
+
+"Nobly said, and nobly thought, Countess Selina; but then, after
+all,--an actor's daughter,--you really do not know all that it means.
+Does she show no signs of her unfortunate parentage?"
+
+"No," says Selina, thoughtfully; "her manners are very good, the spell
+of the Sacre C[oe]ur Convent is still upon her. She is not particularly
+well developed intellectually, but, since you call my attention to it,
+she does show some signs of the overstrained enthusiasm which
+characterized her mother."
+
+"And in combination with her father's gypsy blood. Such signs are
+greatly to be deplored," the Pole observes. "You must long to have her
+married?"
+
+"A difficult matter to bring about. Remember her origin." The Countess
+inclines her head on one side, and takes a long stitch in her
+embroidery. "She must be the image of her father. The bandit Jaromir
+was a handsome man of Italian extraction."
+
+"Is the fellow still alive?" asks the Pole.
+
+"No, he is dead, thank heaven! it would be terrible if he were not,"
+says Selina, with a laugh. "_A propos_," she adds, selecting and
+comparing two shades of yellow, "do you think Olga pretty?"
+
+"H'm! _pas mal_,--not particularly. Had I seen her anywhere else, I
+might perhaps have thought her pretty, but here--forgive my frankness,
+Countess Selina--no other woman has a chance when you are present. You
+must be conscious of that yourself."
+
+"_Vil flatteur!_" the young wife exclaims, playfully lashing the Pole's
+hand with a skein of wool. The pair have known each other for scarcely
+three hours, and they are already upon as familiar a footing as if they
+had been friends from childhood. Moreover, they are connections. At
+Carlsbad, where Fainacky lately made the acquaintance of the Baroness
+Harfink and her daughter Paula, he informed the ladies that one of his
+grandmothers, a Loewenzahn by birth, was cousin to an uncle of the
+Baroness's.
+
+The persistence with which he dwelt upon this fact, the importance he
+attached to being treated as a cousin by the Harfinks, touched Paula as
+well as her mother. Besides, as they had already told Selina, they
+liked him from the first.
+
+"One is never ashamed to be seen with him," was the immediate decision
+of the fastidious ladies; and as time passed on they discovered in him
+such brilliant and unusual qualities that they considered him a great
+acquisition,--an entertaining, cultivated man of some talent.
+
+He is neither cultivated nor entertaining, and as for his talent, that
+is a matter of opinion. If his singing is commonplace, his performance
+on the piano commonplace, and the _vers de societe_ which he scribbles
+in young ladies' extract-books more commonplace than all, in one art he
+certainly holds the first rank,--the art of discovering and humouring
+the weaknesses of his fellow-mortals, the art of the flatterer.
+
+To pursue this art with distinguished ability two qualifications are
+especially needful,--impudence and lack of refinement. With the help
+of these allies the strongest incense may be wafted before one's
+fellow-creatures, and they will all--with the exception of a few
+suspicious originals--inhale it eagerly. Experience has taught Fainacky
+that boldness is of far more avail in this art than delicacy, and he
+conducts himself accordingly.
+
+Flattery is his special profession, his means for supporting his idle,
+coxcomb existence,--flattery and its sister art, slander. A successful
+epigram at another's expense gives many of us more pleasure than a
+compliment paid to ourselves.
+
+He flutters, flattering and gossiping, from one house to another. The
+last few weeks he has spent with a bachelor prince in the
+neighbourhood, who, a sufferer from neuralgia in the face, has been
+known, when irritated, to throw the sofa-cushions at his guests. At
+first Fainacky professed to consider this a very good joke; but one day
+when the prince showed signs of selecting more solid projectiles for
+the display of his merry humour, Fainacky discovered that the time had
+come for him to bestow the pleasure of his society elsewhere.
+
+Dobrotschau seemed to offer just what he sought, and he has won his
+hostess's heart a second time by his abuse during luncheon of his late
+host's cook.
+
+While he is now paying court to the Countess Selina, a touching scene
+is enacting in another part of the garden. Paula, who during her walk
+with her betrothed has perceived Treurenberg with his photographic
+apparatus in the distance, proposes to Harry that they be photographed
+as lovers. The poor young fellow's resistance avails nothing against
+Paula's strong will. She triumphantly drags him up before the
+apparatus, and, after much trying, discovers a pose which seems to her
+sufficiently tender. With her clasped hands upon Harry's shoulder, she
+gazes up at him with enthusiastic devotion.
+
+"Do not look so stern," she murmurs; "if I did not know how you love
+me, I should almost fancy you hated me."
+
+Lato, half shutting his eyes in artistic observation of the pair, takes
+off the shield of the instrument, saying, "Now, if you please!"
+
+The impression is a failure, because Harry moved his head just at the
+critical moment. When, however, Paula requires him to give pantomimic
+expression to his tender sentiments for the second time, he declares
+that he cannot stay three minutes longer, the 'vet' is waiting for him
+at Komaritz.
+
+"Oh, that odious 'vet'!" sighs Paula. "This is the third time this week
+that you have had to leave me because of him."
+
+Harry bites his lip. Evidently it is high time to invent another
+pretext for the unnatural abbreviation of his visits. But--if she would
+only take offence at something!
+
+"Can you not come with me to Komaritz?" he asks Lato, in order to give
+the conversation a turn, whereupon Lato, who instantly accedes to his
+request, hurries into the castle to make ready for his ride. Shortly
+afterwards, riding-whip in hand, he approaches Selina, who is still
+beneath the red-and-gray tent with Fainacky.
+
+"Ah, you are going to leave me alone again, faithless spouse that you
+are!" she calls out, threatening him with a raised forefinger. Then,
+turning to the Pole, she adds, "Our marriage is a fashionable one, such
+as you read of in books: the husband goes one way, the wife another.
+'Tis the only way to make life tolerable in the long run, is it not,
+Lato?"
+
+Lato makes no reply, flushes slightly, kisses his wife's hand, nods
+carelessly to Fainacky, and turns to go.
+
+"Shall you come back to dinner?" Selina calls after him.
+
+"Of course," he replies, as he vanishes behind the shrubbery.
+
+Fainacky strokes his moustache thoughtfully, stares first at the
+Countess, then at the top of the table, and finally gives utterance to
+an expressive "Ah!"
+
+Lato hurries on to overtake his friend, whom he espies striding towards
+the park gate.
+
+Suddenly Olga approaches him, a huge straw hat shading her eyes, and in
+her hands a large, dish-shaped cabbage-leaf full of inviting, fresh
+strawberries.
+
+"Whither are you hurrying?" she asks.
+
+"I am going to ride to Komaritz with Harry," he replies. "Ah, what
+magnificent strawberries!"
+
+"I know they are your favourite fruit, and I plucked them for you," she
+says.
+
+"In this heat?--oh, Olga!" he exclaims.
+
+"The sun would have burned them up by evening," she says, simply.
+
+He understands that she has meant to atone for her inadvertence of the
+morning, and he is touched.
+
+"Will you not take some?" she asks, persisting in offering him the
+leaf.
+
+He takes one. Meanwhile, his glance encounters Harry's. Olga is
+entirely at her ease, while Lato--from what cause he could not possibly
+tell--is slightly embarrassed.
+
+"I have no time now," he says, gently rejecting the hand that holds the
+leaf.
+
+"Shall I keep them for your dessert?--you are coming back to dinner?"
+she asks.
+
+"Certainly. I shall be back by six o'clock," he calls to her. "Adieu,
+my child."
+
+As the two friends a few minutes later ride down the long poplar
+avenue, Harry asks,--
+
+"Has this Olga always lived here?"
+
+"No. She came home from the convent a year after my marriage. Selina
+befriends her because Paula cannot get along with her. She often
+travels with us."
+
+"She seems pleasant and sympathetic," says Harry, adding, after a short
+pause, "I have seldom seen so perfect a beauty."
+
+"She is as good as gold," Lato says, quickly, adding, in a rather lower
+tone, "and most forlorn, poor thing!"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XV.
+
+                         COMRADES AND FRIENDS.
+
+
+The clumsy Komaritz mansion casts its huge shadow upon the
+old-fashioned garden, upon the large rectangular flower-beds
+bordered with sage and parsley, wherein bloom in gay companionship
+sweet-smelling centifolia roses, dark-blue monk's-hood, scarlet
+verbenas, and lilac phlox; upon the tangle of raspberry- and
+blackberry-bushes that grow along the garden wall; and upon the
+badly-mown lawn. Ancient pear-trees and apple-trees mingle their shade
+with that of the old house.
+
+An afternoon languor broods over it all. The buzz of bees above the
+flower-beds sounds languid; languid sounds the rustle of the leaves
+when, after a prolonged slumber, they awake for an instant, shiver, and
+then fall silent again; languid is the tone of the old piano, upon
+which the youngest Leskjewitsch is practising the 'Cloches du
+Monastere,' under the supervision of a teacher engaged for the summer
+holidays,--a Fraeulein Laut.
+
+Nothing is for the present to be seen or heard of the other inmates of
+the castle. Hedwig is consulting with her maid, and the Countess Zriny
+is endeavouring to repair a great misfortune. On her journey from
+Vienna to Komaritz she relieved her maid, who was overladen with
+hand-bags, of two objects particularly dear to her soul,--a carved,
+partly-painted and partly-gilded St. John, and a large bottle of eau de
+Lourdes. In changing trains at Pernik, she slipped and fell at full
+length upon the platform; the bottle of eau de Lourdes flew one way and
+the St. John another; the bottle was broken, and St. John not only lost
+his head and one hand, but when the poor Countess gathered up his
+remains he proved to be injured in every part. His resuscitation is at
+present the important task of the old lady's life. At this moment she
+is working away at the folds of his garment with much devotion--and
+black oil paint.
+
+Harry and Lato have told no one of their arrival. They are lying upon a
+grassy slope beneath a huge apple-tree, smoking, and exchanging
+reminiscences.
+
+"How homelike all this is!" says Treurenberg, in his soft voice, and
+with a slightly drawling intonation. "I grow ten years younger here.
+The same flowers, the same trees, the same fragrance, the same
+world-forgotten solitude, and, if I am not mistaken,"--he smiles a
+little,--"the same music. You used to play the 'Convent Bells' then."
+
+"Yes," Harry replies, "'Les Cloches du Monastere' was the acme and
+the point of departure of my musical studies. I got rid of my last
+music-teacher and my last 'coach' at the same time."
+
+"Do you mean Tuschalek?" asks Treurenberg.
+
+"That was his name."
+
+"H'm! I can see him now. Heavens! those hands!" Treurenberg gazes
+reflectively into space. "They were always as red as radishes."
+
+"They reminded me rather of carrots that had just been pulled out of
+the ground," Harry mutters.
+
+"How the old times rise up before me!" Lato muses, letting his glance
+wander anew over the garden, where there is buzzing of innumerable
+bees; over the clumsy facade of the mansion; over the little eminence
+where still stand the quarters of Tuschalek and the Pole; then up to
+the old ruined castle, which stands out against the dark-blue August
+skies an almost formless shape, brown and grim, with its old scars from
+fire, and hung about with wreaths of wild climbing vines.
+
+"'Tis odd,--something has seemed to me lacking about the dear old
+nest," Lato begins again, after a pause. "Now I know what it is."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"The little figure of your cousin Zdena. I am always looking for her to
+come skipping from among the flowers like a wayward little fairy."
+
+Harry frowns, plucks a buttercup growing in the grass, and is mute.
+
+Without heeding his friend's mood, Treurenberg goes on: "As a child,
+she was most charming and unusually intelligent and gifted. Has the
+promise of her childhood not been fulfilled?"
+
+Harry pulls another buttercup out of the grass, and carefully deposits
+it beside the first.
+
+"That is a matter of opinion," he remarks, carelessly, without looking
+at his friend.
+
+"'Tis strange! Many a girl's beauty vanishes suddenly at about fourteen
+without leaving a trace; but I would have wagered my head that your
+cousin would have been beautiful," remarks Lato.
+
+"I have not said that she is ugly," Harry growls.
+
+"But you do not like her!" Lato now rivets his eyes full upon the
+gloomy face of his former playmate.
+
+Harry turns away his head.
+
+"I did not say I did not like her," he bursts out, "but I can't talk of
+her, because--because it is all her fault!"
+
+"What is 'all'?" asks Lato, still looking fixedly at his friend.
+
+Harry frowns and says nothing.
+
+Lato does not speak again for a few moments. Then, having lighted a
+fresh cigar, he begins: "I always fancied,--one so often arranges in
+imagination a friend's future for him, particularly when one's own fate
+is fixed past recall,--I always said to myself that you and your cousin
+would surely come together. I liked to think that it would be so. To
+speak frankly, your betrothal to Paula was a great surprise to me."
+
+"Indeed? Well, so it was to me!" Harry blurts out, then turns very red,
+is ashamed of his unbecoming confession; and then--then he is glad that
+it has been extorted from him; glad that he can speak frankly about the
+affair to any one with whom he can take counsel.
+
+Treurenberg draws a long breath, and then whistles softly to himself.
+
+"Sets the wind in that quarter?" he says at last. "I thought so. I
+determined that you should show your colours. And may I ask how you
+ever got into such a confounded scrape?"
+
+Harry groans. "What would you have?--moonlight, nervous
+excitement,--all of a sudden there we were! I had quarrelled with my
+cousin Zdena--God bless her! In spite of her whims and fancies,--one
+never knows what she would be at,--she is the dearest, loveliest
+creature----! But that is only by the way----"
+
+"Not at all, not at all; it interests me extremely," Treurenberg
+interrupts him, laughing.
+
+"That may be, but it has very little to do with my explanation," Harry
+rejoins, dryly. "The fact is, that it was a warm night in August, and I
+was driving alone with Paula,--that is, with no coachman, and only my
+groom, who followed with my horse, and whom I entirely forgot,--from
+Zirkow to Dobrotschau, along that rough forest road,--you
+remember,--where one is jolted against one's companion at every step,
+and there is opportunity for a girl to be becomingly timid--h'm! She
+suddenly became frightened at a will-o'-the-wisp, she never struck me
+before as having such weak nerves,--and--well, I was distraught over my
+quarrel with Zdena, and I had taken perhaps a glass too much of Uncle
+Paul's old Bordeaux; in short, I kissed her. In an instant I
+recollected myself, and, if I am not mistaken, I said, 'Excuse me!' or,
+'I beg pardon!' She cannot have heard this extremely sensible remark,
+however, for in the twinkling of an eye I was betrothed. The next day I
+was determined to put an end to such nonsense, and I sat down at my
+writing-table--confound it all! I never was great with the pen, and the
+model of such a letter as I wanted to write was not to be found in any
+'Complete Letter-Writer.' Everything I tried to put on paper seemed to
+me so terribly indelicate and rough, and so I determined to tell the
+mother. I meant to bring forward a previous and binding attachment; to
+plead in my excuse the superlative charms of the Baroness Paula--oh, I
+had it all splendidly planned; but the old Baroness never let me open
+my lips, and so matters came to be arranged as you find them."
+
+Through the open glass doors of the dining-room, across the
+flower-beds, comes the faint voice of the old piano. But it is no
+longer echoing the 'Cloches du Monastere,' but a wailing canzonetta by
+some popular local composer upon which the youngest Leskjewitsch is
+expending a most unnecessary amount of banging upon keys and pressing
+of pedals. With a grimace Harry stops his ears. Treurenberg looks very
+grave.
+
+"You do not, then, intend to marry Paula?"
+
+"God forbid!" Harry exclaims.
+
+"Then,"--Lato bites his lip, but goes on calmly,--"forgive an
+old friend who is aware of the difficulty of your position, for
+the disagreeable remark,--but if you do not intend to marry my
+sister-in-law, your conduct with regard to her is not only very
+unbecoming but also positively wrong."
+
+"Why?" Harry asks, crossly.
+
+"Why?" Lato lifts his eyebrows. "Why, because you compromise her more
+deeply with every visit you pay her. You cannot surely deceive yourself
+as to the fact that upon the superficial observer you produce the
+impression of an unusually devoted pair of lovers."
+
+"I do not understand how you can say such a thing!" Harry exclaims,
+angrily, "when you must have seen----"
+
+"That you are on the defensive with Paula," Treurenberg interrupts him,
+with a wan smile. "Yes, I have seen it."
+
+"Well, she ought to see it too," Harry mutters.
+
+Lato shrugs his shoulders.
+
+"She must lose patience sooner or later," says Harry.
+
+"It is difficult to exhaust the patience of a young woman whose
+sensibilities are not very delicate and who is very much in love,"
+his friend replies. "You must devise some other, and--forgive my
+frankness--some more honest and straightforward means for attaining
+your end."
+
+Harry puffs furiously at his cigarette, sending a cloud of smoke over
+the flower-bed. "Lato, you are rough upon me, but not rougher than I am
+upon myself. If you knew how degraded I feel by my false position, if
+you knew how the whole matter weighs upon me, you would do something
+more for me than only hold up a candle by the light of which I perceive
+more clearly the misery of my position. You would----"
+
+"What?" Lato asks, disturbed.
+
+"Help me!"
+
+Lato looks at him in dismay for a moment, and then stammers, "No,
+Harry, do not ask it of me,--not of me. I could do you no good. They
+never would let me speak, any more than my mother-in-law would allow
+you to speak. And even if I finally prevailed upon them to listen, they
+would blame me for the whole affair, would believe that I had excited
+your mind against the family."
+
+"How could they possibly imagine that you could conduct yourself so
+towards a friend?" Harry asks, with a grim smile.
+
+Lato turns his head aside.
+
+"Then you will not do me this service?"
+
+"I cannot!" Treurenberg murmurs, faintly.
+
+"I might have known it!" Harry breaks forth, his eyes flashing with
+indignant scorn. "You are the same old fellow, the very same,--a good
+fellow enough, yes, sympathetic, compassionate, and, as long as you are
+allowed to remain perfectly passive, the noblest of men. But as soon as
+anything is required of you,--if any active interference is called for
+at your hands, there's an end of it. You simply cannot, you would
+rather die than rouse yourself to any energetic action!"
+
+"Perhaps so," Lato murmurs, with a far-away look in his eyes, and a
+smile that makes Harry's blood run cold.
+
+A pause ensues, the longest of the many pauses that have occurred in
+this _tete-a-tete_.
+
+The bees seem to buzz louder than ever. A dry, thirsty wind sighs in
+the boughs of the apple-tree; two or three hard green apples drop to
+the ground. At last Treurenberg gathers himself up.
+
+"You must take me as I am," he says, wearily; "there is no cutting with
+a dull knife. I cannot possibly enlighten my mother-in-law as to the
+true state of your feelings. It would do no good, and it would make an
+infernal row. But I will give you one piece of good advice----"
+
+Before he is able to finish his sentence his attention is arrested by a
+perfect babel of sounds from the dining-room. The piano music is
+hushed, its discord merged into the angry wail of a shrieking feminine
+voice and the rough, broken, changing tones of a lad,--the rebellious
+pupil, Vladimir Leskjewitsch. The hurly-burly is so outrageous that
+every one is roused to investigate it. Countess Zriny rushes in, with
+short, waddling steps, the paint-brush with which she has been mending
+St. John's robe still in her hand; Hedwig rushes in; Harry and Lato
+rush in.
+
+"What is the matter? What is the matter?"
+
+"You poured that water on the keys intentionally, to prevent your
+playing," the teacher angrily declares to her pupil.
+
+"I do not deny it," Vladimir rejoins, loftily.
+
+The spectators suppress a smile, and are all, as is, alas! so
+frequently the case, on the side of the culprit, a tall, overgrown lad
+of about fourteen, with a handsome dark face, large black eyes, a
+short, impertinent nose, and full, well-formed lips. With hands thrust
+deep into the pockets of his blue jacket, he gravely surveys the
+circle, and tosses his head defiantly.
+
+"You hear him! you hear him!" Fraeulein Laut screams, turning to the
+by-standers. Then, approaching Vladimir, she asks, angrily, "And how
+can you justify such conduct?"
+
+Vladimir scans her with majestic disdain. "How can you justify your
+having ruined all my pleasure in music?" he asks, in a tragic tone, and
+with a bombastic flourish of his hand. "That piano has been my dear
+friend from childhood!"--he points feelingly to the instrument, which
+is yellow with age, has thin, square legs, and six pedals, the use of
+which no one has ever yet fathomed,--"yes, my friend! And today I hate
+it so that I have well-nigh destroyed it! Fraeulein Laut, justify that."
+
+"Must I be subjected to this insolence?" groans the teacher.
+
+"Vladimir, go to your room!" Harry orders, with hardly maintained
+gravity.
+
+Vladimir departs with lofty self-possession. The teacher turns
+contemptuously from those present, especially from Harry, who tries to
+appease her with a few courteous phrases. With a skilful hand she takes
+the piano apart, dismembers the key-board, and spreads the hammers upon
+sheets of tin brought for her from the kitchen by Blasius, the old
+servant, that the wet, swollen wood may be dried before the fire.
+
+"Take care lest there be an _auto-da-fe_," Harry calls after her.
+Without deigning to reply, she vanishes with the bowels of the piano.
+
+Blasius, meanwhile, with imperturbable composure, has spread the table
+for the evening meal at one end of the spacious room, in which there is
+now diffused an agreeable odour of fresh biscuits. A mountain of
+reddish-yellow almond cakes is flanked on one side by a plate of
+appetizing rye bread, on the other by butter garnished with ice and
+cresses. There is a fruit-basket at either end of the table, filled
+with peaches, early grapes, and all kinds of ripe green and purple
+plums, while a bowl of cut glass holds whipped cream cooled in ice.
+Finally, old Blasius brings in a tray fairly bending beneath the burden
+of various pitchers and flagons, the bewildering number of which is due
+to the fact that at Komaritz the whims of all are consulted, and
+consequently each one orders something different, be it only a
+different kind of cream.
+
+"As of old, no one is in danger at Komaritz of death from starvation,"
+Lato remarks, smiling.
+
+"Help us to be rid of the provision," Harry says.
+
+Hedwig repeats the invitation rather affectedly, but Lato, looking at
+his watch, discovers that he has already overstayed his time by an
+hour.
+
+All express regret, and bid him farewell.
+
+"And the good advice you were about to give me?" Harry says,
+interrogatively, as he takes leave of his friend, having accompanied
+him to the gate of the court-yard.
+
+"Cut short your leave of absence; go away," Lato replies. "You will at
+least be relieved for the time from any necessity for dissimulation,
+and such affairs are better adjusted by letter."
+
+Harry gazes gloomily into space; Lato springs into the saddle. "Adieu!"
+he calls out, and is gone.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVI.
+
+                           LATO TREURENBERG.
+
+
+Ding-dong--ding-dong! the Angelus bells are ringing through the evening
+air with their message of rest for weary mortals.
+
+The long shadows of the trees grow paler, and vanish, taking with them
+all the glory of the world and leaving only a dull, borrowed twilight
+to hover above the earth.
+
+The sun has set. Ding-dong! rings the bell of Komaritz, near at hand,
+as Lato rides past; the bells of the other villages echo the sound
+dreamily, to have their notes tossed back by the bells of the lonely
+chapels on the mountain-sides across the steel-gray stream, whose
+waters glide silently on ward. Ding-dong! each answers to all, and the
+tired labourer rejoices in unison.
+
+The hour of rest has come, the hour when families reassemble after
+the pursuits and labours of the day have ceased to claim and separate
+them,--when mortals feel more warmly and sensibly the reality of family
+ties. Thin blue smoke is curling from the chimneys; here and there a
+woman can be seen standing at the door of a cottage, shading her eyes
+with her hand as she looks expectantly down the road. Upon the doorstep
+of a poor hut sits a brown, worn labourer, dirty and ragged, about to
+eat his evening meal with a leaden spoon from an earthen bowl; a young
+woman crouches beside him, with her back against the door-post, content
+and silent, while a chubby child, with bare legs somewhat bowed, and a
+curly head, leans against his knee and, with its mouth open in
+expectation, peeps into the earthen bowl. The father smiles, and from
+time to time thrusts a morsel between the fresh, rosy lips. Then he
+puts aside the bowl and takes the little fellow upon his knee. It
+is a pretty child,--and perhaps in honour of the father's return
+home--wonderfully clean, but even were this not the case---- Most of
+the children tumbling about before the huts on this sultry August
+evening are neither pretty nor clean; they are dirty, ragged,
+dishevelled; many are sickly, and some are crippled; but there is
+hardly one among them to whom this hour does not bring a caress.
+
+An atmosphere of mutual human sympathy seems to brood in silence above
+the resting earth, while the bells ring on,--ding-dong, ding-dong.
+
+Lato has left the village behind him, and is trotting along the
+road beneath the tall walnuts. The noise of wagons, heavily laden
+with the harvest, and the tramp of men upon the road fall upon his
+ear,--everything is going home.
+
+There is a languor in the aromatic summer air, somewhat that begets in
+every human being a desire for companionship, a longing to share the
+burden of existence with another. Even the flowers seem to bend their
+heads nearer to one another.
+
+Now the bells are hushed, the road is deserted; Lato alone is still
+pursuing his way home. Home? Is it possible that he has accustomed
+himself to call his mother-in-law's castle home? In many a hotel--at
+"The Lamb," for example, in Vienna he has felt much more at home.
+Where, then, is his home? He vainly asks himself this question. Has he
+ever had a home?
+
+The question is still unanswered. His thoughts wander far back into the
+past, and find nothing, not even a few tender memories. Poor Lato! He
+recalls his earliest years, his childhood. His parents were considered
+the handsomest couple in Austria. The Count was fair, tall, slender,
+with an apparent delicacy of frame that concealed an amount of physical
+strength for which he was famous, and with nobly-chiselled features.
+His duels and his love-affairs were numerous. He was rashly brave, and
+irresistible; so poor an accountant that he always allowed his
+opponents to reckon up his gains at play, but when his turn came to pay
+a debt of honour he was never known to make an error in a figure. It is
+scarcely necessary to mention that his gambling debts were the only
+ones the payment of which he considered at all important. He was
+immensely beloved by his subordinates,--his servants, his horses, and
+his dogs; he addressed them all with the German "thou," and treated
+them all with the same good-humoured familiarity. He was thought most
+urbane, and was never guilty of any definite intentional annoyance;
+but he suffered from a certain near-sightedness. He recognized as
+fellow-mortals only those fellow-mortals who occupied the same social
+plane with himself; all others were in his eyes simply population,--the
+masses.
+
+There is little to tell of his wife, save that she was a brilliant
+brunette beauty, with very loud manners and a boundless greed of
+enjoyment. She petted little Lato like a lapdog; but one evening, just
+as she was dressed for a ball, she was informed that the child had been
+taken violently ill with croup, whereupon she flew into a rage with
+those who had been so thoughtless and unfeeling as to tell her such a
+thing at so inopportune a moment. Her carriage was announced; she let
+it wait while she ran up-stairs to the nursery, kissed the gasping
+little patient, exclaimed, with a lifted forefinger, "Be a good boy, my
+darling; don't die while mamma is at the ball!" and vanished.
+
+The little fellow was good and did not die. As a reward, his mother
+gave him the largest and handsomest rocking-horse that was to be found
+in Vienna. Such was the Countess Treurenberg as a mother; and as
+a wife--well, Hans Treurenberg was satisfied with her, and her
+behaviour was no one else's affair. The couple certainly got along
+together admirably. They never were seen together except when they
+received guests.
+
+Peace to her ashes! The Countess paid a heavy price for her short-lived
+joys. When scarcely twenty-six years old, she was attacked by a mortal
+disease. Her condition was all the more painful because she persisted
+in concealing her malady from the world, even denying its existence. Up
+to the last she went into society, and she died in full dress, diamonds
+and all, in a glare of light, on a lounge in her dressing-room.
+
+The widower at first took her death so terribly to heart that his
+associates remarked upon it.
+
+"Treurenberg is really a very good fellow!" they said, and so he was.
+
+For a time he kept little Lato with him constantly. Even on the
+evenings when gambling was going on, and they played long and high at
+Hans Treurenberg's, the boy was present. When hardly twelve years old
+he was fully initiated into the mysteries of all games of chance. He
+would sit silent and quiet until far into the night, watching the
+course of the game, trembling with excitement at any sudden turn of
+luck. And how proud he was when he was allowed to take a hand! He
+played extremely well for his age, and his luck was constant. His
+father's friends made merry over his gambling ability. His father would
+pat his cheeks, stroke his hair off his forehead, take his face between
+his hands, and kiss him. Then, with his fingers beneath the lad's chin,
+he would turn his face this way and that, calling his guests' attention
+to the boy's beauty, to his eyes sparkling with eagerness, to his
+flushed cheeks. Then he would kiss the boy again, make him drink a
+glass of champagne, and send him to bed.
+
+Then was sown the seed of the evil passion which was in after-years to
+cause Lato so many an hour of bitter suffering. Calm, almost
+phlegmatic, with regard to all else, as soon as he touched a card his
+excitement was intense, however he might manage to conceal it.
+
+When Count Hans grew tired of the constant companionship of his son, he
+freed himself from it after a perfectly respectable fashion. He sent
+him to Prague, a city renowned for the stolidity of its institutions,
+committing him to the care of relatives, and of a professor who
+undertook to supply the defects of the boy's neglected education. When
+Lato was eighteen he entered a regiment of hussars.
+
+Hereafter, if the father took but little pains about his son, he
+certainly showed him every kindness,--paid his debts, and laughed while
+he admired the young man's mad pranks. Moreover, he really loved him,
+which did not, however, hinder him from contriving to have Lato
+declared of age at twenty, that the young fellow might have possession
+of his maternal inheritance, since he himself needed money.
+
+It was at this time that the elder Treurenberg's view of life and the
+world underwent a remarkable change. He became a Liberal, and this not
+only in a political sense, but socially, a much rarer transformation.
+He appeared frequently at the tables of wealthy men of business, where
+he was valued not merely as an effective aristocratic decoration, but
+as a really charming companion. His liberal views took on more
+magnificent dimensions: he announced himself a heretic with regard to
+the exclusiveness of the Austrian aristocracy, smiled at the folly of
+Austrian court etiquette, and then, one fine day he made friends with
+the wealthy _parvenu_, Conte Capriani, and, throwing overboard as
+useless ballast impeding free action the '_noblesse oblige_' principle,
+he devoted himself blindly and with enthusiasm to stock-gambling. The
+result was hardly encouraging. When Lato applied to his father one day
+for a considerable sum of money, it was not to be had. Melancholy times
+for the Treurenbergs ensued; thanks, however, to the friendship of
+Conte Capriani, who sometimes helped him to a really profitable
+transaction, Count Hans was able to keep his head above water. And he
+continued to hold it as high as ever, to preserve the same air of
+distinction, to smile with the same amiable cordiality in which there
+was a spice of _hauteur_; in a word, he preserved the indefinable
+prestige of his personality, which made it impossible that Conte
+Capriani's demeanour towards him should ever partake of the nature of
+condescension. The only thing required of Count Hans by Capriani was
+that he should spend a couple of weeks with him every year in the
+hunting-season. This the Count seemed quite willing to do, and he
+therefore appeared every year, in August or October, at Heinrichsdorf,
+an estate in West Hungary, where Capriani had preferred to live since
+his affair with young Count Lodrin had made his castle of Schneeburg
+impossible for him as a place of residence.
+
+One year the Count asked his son to accompany him to Heinrichsdorf.
+
+Will Lato ever forget the weeks he spent there, the turning-point as
+they were of his existence? How foreign and tiresome, how hard and
+bald, it all was! how uncomfortable, how uncongenial!--the furniture,
+among which here and there, as was the fashion, some costly antique was
+displayed; the guests, among whom were various representatives of
+historic Austrian nobility; the Conte's secretary, a choleric
+Hungarian, who concealed the remnant of a pride of rank which ill
+became his present position beneath an aggressive cynicism, and who was
+wont to carry in his pocket, when he went to walk, a little revolver,
+with which he shot at sparrows or at the flies creeping upon some wall,
+by way perhaps of working off the bitterness of his soul. There, too,
+was the master of the house, showing the same frowning brow to all whom
+he met, contradicting all with the same rudeness, hunting to earth any
+stray poetic sentiment, and then, after a violent explosion of pure
+reason, withdrawing gloomily to his cabinet, where he could give
+himself over to his two passions,--that for money-making, and that for
+setting the world at naught.
+
+The only person in the assemblage whom Lato found attractive was the
+mistress of the mansion, with whom he often talked for hours, never
+ceasing to wonder at the melancholy grace and quiet dignity of her
+bearing, as well as at the well-nigh morbid delicacy and high moral
+tone of her sentiments.
+
+Above all did Lato dislike those among the guests of a like rank with
+his own, men who were like himself in money difficulties, and who
+hovered about this deity of the stock market in hopes of obtaining his
+blessing upon their speculations.
+
+Count Hans moved among all these aristocratic and un-aristocratic
+luminaries with the same unchanging grace that carried him victoriously
+over all annoyances,--always genial and courtly; but the son could not
+emulate his father's ease of mind and manner; he felt depressed and
+humiliated.
+
+Then the Baroness Harfink and her daughters made their appearance. The
+two striking, pleasure-loving girls had an enlivening effect upon the
+wearied assemblage.
+
+Paula was the cleverer of the two, but she talked too much, which was
+tiresome, and then she had a reputation for learning, which frightened
+men away. Selina, on the other hand, knew how to veil her lack of
+cleverness beneath an interesting taciturnity; she had a fashion of
+slowly lifting her eyelids which appealed to a man's fancy. With a
+degree of prudence frequently displayed by rather dull girls, she
+forbore to appeal to the crowd, and concentrated her efforts to charm
+upon Lato. She accompanied him in the pheasant-shooting parties, took
+lessons from him in lawn-tennis,--in a white dress, her loosened
+hair gleaming in the sunlight,--or simply lay quietly back in a
+rocking-chair in the shade in front of the castle, gazing at him with
+her large, half-closed eyes, while he, half in jest, half in earnest,
+said all sorts of pretty things.
+
+There was always play in the evenings at the castle, and usually very
+high play. The atmosphere about the gaming-tables was hardly agreeable,
+and the Conte moved about among them, taking no share in such "silly
+waste of time," while every one else was eager to win. Lato took part
+in the unedifying pastime, and at first fortune befriended him; then he
+lost. His losses embarrassed him, and he withdrew from playing. He was
+not the only one to avoid the gambling-tables after a short trial of
+luck; several gentlemen followed his example. The Conte took triumphant
+note of this, and arranged a party for five-kreutzer whist, in which he
+joined.
+
+Lato bit his lip. Never before had his unfortunate pecuniary
+circumstances so weighed upon him. The thirst for gold--the prevailing
+epidemic at Heinrichsdorf--demanded a fresh victim.
+
+There had been a hunting-dinner; Conte Capriani's wine had been
+unusually fiery; every one was gay; Heinrichsdorf could remember no
+such brilliant festivity. The windows of the drawing-room where the
+company were assembled were open and looked out upon the park. The
+intoxicating fragrance of the sultry August night was wafted into the
+room; the stars sparkled above the black tree-tops, twinkling
+restlessly, like deceitful will-o'-the-wisps, in the blue vault of
+heaven; the sweet, wild music of a band of Hungarian gypsies came
+floating into the apartment with the fragrance of the night. Selina
+looked wonderfully beautiful on that evening, a sultana-like beauty,
+nothing more, but she harmonized with the spell of the August night.
+She wore a red crape gown, red as flickering fire, red as benumbing
+poppy-blossoms, very _decolletee_, and its decided colour heightened
+the white, pearly lustre of the girl's neck and arms. The lines about
+her mouth had not then settled into a stereotyped smile; her nose was
+not sharp; the sheen of her hair had not been dimmed by perpetual
+powdering. Essentially commonplace as she was, for the moment there was
+about her a mingling of languor and excitement, which betrays an
+accelerated movement of the heart. Selina Harfink was in love. Lato was
+perfectly aware of it, and that she was in love with him. He bestowed
+but little thought upon this fact, however. What could come of it? And
+yet, whenever he was with her, a cold shiver ran through him.
+
+The mysterious shades of night were invaded by music and the summer
+breeze; wherever Lato was he saw that red gown. A hand was laid upon
+his arm, and when he turned he gazed into a pair of eyes veiled yet
+glowing.
+
+"Why do you avoid me?" Selina whispered.
+
+"Southern Roses!" one of the gentlemen standing near a window called to
+the musicians, and immediately there floated out into the night, to
+mingle with the low whisper of the linden leaves, the notes of the
+first bars of that most beguiling of all Strauss's beguiling waltzes.
+
+He danced with her, and then--almost rudely--he left her. It was the
+only time he had danced with her that evening, and now he left the
+room, hurrying away to be somewhere where that red dress was not before
+his eyes. And yet he had the sensation of overcoming himself, of
+denying himself at least a pleasant excitement.
+
+Why? What could ever come of it?
+
+For the first time in several days he joined the gamesters. He played
+high, with varying luck, but when he left the gaming-table he carried
+with him the consciousness of having lost more than he was at present
+in a condition to pay.
+
+He went to his room and began mechanically to undress. A fever
+seemed burning in his veins; how sultry it was! through the open
+windows he could see black thunder-clouds gathering in the skies. The
+air was damp and laden with a fragrance so sweet as to be almost
+sickening. A low murmur sighed among the leaves of the shrubbery in the
+park,--melancholy, mysterious, alluring, yet mingled with a soft
+plaint, breathing above the late summer roses. "Enjoy! enjoy! life is
+brief!" He turned away, lay down, and closed his eyes; but still he
+seemed to see the red dress. He could not think of marrying her. A girl
+from such a family and with such a crowd of insufferable connections!
+Had she only been a poor little thing whom he could snatch away from
+her surroundings; but no, if he married her, he was sufficiently clear
+in his mind for the moment to understand, he must adjust himself to her
+social position. The power was hers,--money!
+
+Oh, this wretched money! At every turn the lack of it tormented him; he
+had tried to retrench, to economize, but how paltry such efforts seemed
+to him! What a good use he could make of it if he had it! She was very
+beautiful----
+
+A light footfall made itself heard in the passage outside his door. Was
+not that his father's step? Lato asked himself. The door opened; Count
+Hans entered, straight, tall, and slender, with haughty, refined
+features and sparkling blue eyes, very bald, very gray; but what
+vitality and energy he showed in his every movement! At this moment
+Lato felt a great admiration for his father, beside whom he himself
+seemed pitiably weak. He took shame to himself; what would his father
+say could he know of the ideas which he, Lato Treurenberg, had just
+been entertaining?
+
+"Still awake, Lato?" the knightly old man asked, kindly, sitting down
+on the edge of his son's bed. "I saw from below your light still
+burning, and I wanted to ask if anything were troubling you. You are
+not wont to suffer from sleeplessness."
+
+Lato was touched, and doubly ashamed of the low, mean way of
+extricating himself from his difficulties which had but now seemed to
+him almost possible.
+
+"One's thoughts run such riot, sometimes," he murmured.
+
+"H'm!" The father put his cigar between his lips and puffed forth a
+cloud of smoke to float upward to the ceiling. "I think you lost at
+baccarat to-night," he remarked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Much?"
+
+"More than I can pay at present," Lato replied, with a weary smile.
+
+"As if that were of any moment!" Count Hans consoled him. "I am at your
+service, and am, besides, your debtor."
+
+"But, father----"
+
+"Yes, yes, I tell you it is so. I am your debtor. Do you think I forget
+it? Indeed I do not. I am sorry that I cannot help it; but 'tis the
+fault of circumstances. The estates yield absolutely nothing; they
+require money enough, but when it comes to looking for any return I
+look in vain. No one who has not tried it knows what a sinking-fund
+land is. It cannot go on thus; we must make a fundamental effort, or we
+shall be ruined!"
+
+"Yes, father," Lato murmured, "we must be in earnest, instead of
+enjoying ourselves thoughtlessly and with a dread of work. We have lost
+our force; we have been faithless to our principles; we must begin a
+new existence, you and I." As he uttered these high-sounding words,
+Lato had the unpleasant sensation of repeating something learned by
+rote; the big phrases confused him; he was embarrassed by the
+consciousness of his father's too ready satire. He looked up at him,
+but the old Count did not seem to have heard him. This was a relief; he
+sighed, and was silent. Suddenly the red dress fluttered before his
+eyes again.
+
+Count Hans raised his head, and murmured, "She looked very lovely this
+evening."
+
+"Who?" asked Lato, slowly. He did not need to ask; he knew that his
+father had shared his thoughts. He was terribly startled. Something
+seemed to be crumbling away which he had believed would always stand
+firm.
+
+"Selina, of course,--the only really pretty woman in the house," said
+Count Hans. "Her beauty has expanded wonderfully in the last few days.
+It is always becoming to pretty women to be in love."
+
+"In love?" Lato repeated, his throat contracted, his tongue dry.
+
+The old Count laughed. "Ah, you're a sly fellow, Lato."
+
+Lato was mute.
+
+His father continued: "They are all jealous of you, Lato. Did you not
+see what happened this evening in the conservatory, just after dinner?
+Pistasch Kamenz proposed to her, and she refused him. He told me of it
+himself, and made light of it; but he was hard hit. I can quite
+understand it. She is an exceedingly beautiful woman; she does not
+carry herself well, 'tis true,--with women of her class the physical
+training is sure to be neglected,--but all that can be changed."
+
+Lato was still mute. So, then, Pistasch Kamenz had tried that of which
+he, Lato, had been ashamed, and had failed. He should not fail.
+
+The old Count waited a moment, and then went on: "I am sorry for
+Kamenz; the match would have been an excellent one for him; he would
+have settled down."
+
+"Settled down--upon his wife's money!" Lato muttered, without looking
+at his father.
+
+"Is there anything new in that?" exclaimed the Count, with unruffled
+composure. "A man of honour can take nothing from a woman whom he
+loves, but everything from his wife. 'Tis an old rule, and it is
+comical,"--Count Hans laughed softly,--"how here in Austria we require
+that a rich wife should always belong to the same sphere with her
+husband; he is forgiven for a _mesalliance_ only if he marries a
+beggar. It is pure folly! We shall never amount to anything unless we
+toss aside the entire burden of prejudice which we drag about with us.
+It weighs us down; we cannot keep step with the rest; how can a man run
+sheathed in mail? With the exception of a few magnates among us who are
+able to enjoy their prestige, we are wretchedly off. We spend our lives
+sacrificing ourselves for a position which we cannot maintain
+respectably; we pamper a chimera to be devoured by it in the end. Most
+of all do I admire the _bourgeoisie_, whom we impress, and whose
+servility keeps bright the nimbus about our heads. Bah! we can do
+nothing more with the old folly! We must mingle in the fresh life of
+the present."
+
+"Yes," Lato muttered again, but more indistinctly than at first, "we
+ought to work, to achieve somewhat."
+
+Count Hans did not, perhaps, hear this remark; at all events he did not
+heed it.
+
+"All the huge new fortunes in England marry into the aristocracy," he
+said.
+
+Outside, the same strange alluring murmur breathed above the thirsty
+flowers; the breeze of the coming storm streamed into the room.
+
+"To marry a woman for the sake of her money is detestable," Count Hans
+began afresh, and his voice was almost as soft and wooing as that of
+the summer night outside; "but, good heavens! why should one refuse to
+marry a girl whom he loves just because she is rich?"
+
+He paused. Lato had closed his eyes.
+
+"Are you asleep?" his father murmured.
+
+Lato shook his head, without speaking. The old Count arose,
+extinguished the candle on the table, and softly withdrew.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVII.
+
+                               MISMATED.
+
+
+About four months afterwards Lato stood with Selina Harfink before the
+altar, in a large splendidly-decorated church filled with a crowd of
+people, among whom Lato, as he walked towards the altar, mechanically
+sought some familiar face,--at first in vain. At last he found some
+one,--his old English teacher; then a horse-dealer with whom he had had
+transactions; and then there in the background--how could they have
+escaped him?--about a dozen ladies of his own circle. Some of them held
+their eye-glasses to their eyes, then crowded together and whispered
+among themselves. He turned away his head.
+
+How dared they whisper about him! He had not sold himself; he was
+marrying a girl whom he loved, who was accidentally rich!
+
+The long train moved slowly up to the altar. Lato felt as if he were
+dragging after him a burden that grew heavier with every step. He was
+glad to be able to kneel down before the priest. He looked at his
+bride. She knelt beside him, brilliantly beautiful, glowing with
+passion, supremely content. In vain did he look for the shimmer of
+tears in her eyes, for a trace of virginal shyness in her features, for
+aught that could arouse sympathy and tenderness. No; about her full red
+lips there was the tremor of gratified vanity and of triumphant--love!
+Love?
+
+From her face Lato's gaze wandered among the wedding-guests.
+Strangers,--all strangers. His family was represented by his father and
+the Countess Zriny, a distant cousin of Count Hans, who had once been
+in love with him. Lato shivered. Solemn music resounded through the
+church. Tears rose to his eyes. Suddenly a strange wailing sound
+mingled with the strains of the chant. He looked up. Behind the tall
+church windows fluttered something black, formless, like a mourning
+banner. It was the broken top of a young tree, not quite torn from the
+parent stem, waving to and fro in the wind.
+
+And then the priest uttered the words that decided his future fate.
+
+
+Before the departure of the young couple, and whilst Selina was making
+ready for their journey, Count Hans had an opportunity for emotion. He
+paced restlessly to and fro in the room where with Lato he was awaiting
+the bride, trying vainly to say something cheering to the bridegroom,
+something to arouse in him a consciousness of the great good fortune in
+which he himself was a sharer. At last the voices of the bride and her
+friends were heard approaching. The old nobleman went up to his son,
+laid his hands tenderly upon his shoulders, and exclaimed, "Hold up
+your head, old fellow: your life is before you, your life is before
+you!"
+
+And Lato repeated, "My life is before me----" The next instant the door
+opened.
+
+"The carriage is waiting!"
+
+The last words that Selina said to her friends out of the window of the
+carriage just before driving off were, "Do not forget to send me the
+newspapers, if there is anything in them about our marriage."
+
+The horses started, the carriage rolled on. How swiftly the wheels flew
+over the stones! In the twilight, illumined only by the glare of the
+carriage lamps, Lato could see the outline of Selina's figure as she
+sat beside him, and the pure red and white of her face, only partially
+concealed by her veil. He put his arm around her, and she nestled close
+to him and raised her lips to his. His ardour was chilled by an
+annoying sensation which he could not at first trace to its source. It
+was produced by the strong perfume which Selina used. It was the same
+perfume that had been a favourite with the actress who had been Lato's
+first love, a handsome, fair woman, with an incomparable complexion. He
+was suddenly reminded that Selina looked like her, and it vexed him.
+
+
+Selina had long since forgotten it,--women almost always forget such
+things,--but in the early times of her marriage it would not have
+pleased her to think it a "distinguished one." She was desperately in
+love with Lato, served him like a slave, racked what brain she had to
+prepare surprises for him in the way of costly gifts, and left entirely
+to him the disposal of her property. Not a penny would she call her
+own. It all belonged to him,--all. It was quite touching to see her
+penitent air when she applied to him, whispering, "I am a terrible
+spendthrift, Lato. Do not be angry; but I want some more money. Will
+you not pay my milliner's bill for me? And then, if I am very good,
+you'll give me something to put in my portomonnaie,--a hundred
+guilders,--only a hundred guilders, Lato darling?"
+
+At first such scenes annoyed him terribly, and he tried hard to prevent
+them. Then--well, he got used to them, even felt flattered, touched;
+almost forgot whence came the money that was now so abundant with
+him,--believed, at all events, that others had forgotten it,--and
+played the lavish husband with his wife, bestowed costly gifts upon
+her, and was pleased with her admiration of them.
+
+All this time he lived in a kind of whirl. He had accustomed himself to
+his young wife's endearments, as he had accustomed himself to travel
+with a train of servants, to occupy the best rooms in the best hotels,
+to drink the best wines, to smoke the best cigars, to have enormous
+bills at the tailor's, to gratify all his expensive tastes, to spend
+time in devising costly plans for the future, and, half involuntarily,
+to do it all as if he no longer remembered a time when he had been
+obliged to consider well every outlay.
+
+In after-years his cheeks burned when he recalled this part of his
+life,--but there was no denying the fact--he had for a time been
+ostentatiously extravagant, and with his wife's money. Poor Lato!
+
+Two years the whirl lasted; no longer.
+
+At first he had tried to continue in the service, but the hardships of
+a military life became burdensome to him as he yielded to the new sense
+of luxury, and Selina, for her part, had no taste for the annoyances
+that fell to her share in the nomadic life of a soldier's wife. He
+resigned. They planned to purchase an estate, but could not agree upon
+where to purchase; and they zigzagged about, travelling from Nice to
+Rome, and from Rome to Paris, everywhere courteously received and
+feted.
+
+Then came their child. Selina, of course, passed the time of her
+confinement in Vienna, to be under her mother's protection, and nearly
+paid for her child's life with her own. When she recovered, her entire
+nature seemed changed; she was always tired. Her charm had fled. Her
+nose grew sharp, there were hard lines about her mouth, her face became
+thin, while her figure broadened.
+
+And her feeling for Lato underwent a fundamental alteration. Hers was
+one of those sensual, cold-hearted natures which, when the first
+tempest of passion has subsided, are incapable of any deeper sentiment,
+and her tenderness towards her husband decreased with astonishing
+celerity. Henceforth, vanity became her sole passion, and in Vienna she
+was best able to satisfy it. The greatest enjoyment she derived from
+her foreign travel and from her intercourse with distinguished people
+lay in being able to discourse of them to her Vienna circle. She went
+into the world more than ever,--the world which she had known from
+childhood,--and dragged Lato with her. She was never weary of
+displaying in financial society her new title, her distinguished
+husband, her eccentric Parisian toilets.
+
+Her world sufficed her. She never dreamed of asking admission to his
+world. He made several melancholy attempts to introduce his wife among
+his relatives; they failed lamentably. No one had any particular
+objection to Selina. Had she been a poor girl all would have vied with
+one another in doing something for her "for dear Lato's sake." But to
+receive all that loud, vulgar, ostentatious Harfink tribe, no one could
+require of them, not even the spirit of the age. Why did not Lato take
+his wife to the country, and separate her from her family and their
+influence? Then after some years, perhaps---- It was such an
+unfortunate idea to settle in Vienna with his wife!
+
+Yes, an unfortunate idea!
+
+Wherever he showed himself with his wife, at the theatre, on the
+Prater, everywhere, his acquaintances greeted him cordially from a
+distance, and avoided him as if he had been stricken with a contagious
+disease. On the occasion of the death of one of his aunts, he received
+kind letters of condolence from relatives who lived in the next street!
+
+Selina was not in the slightest degree annoyed by all this. It always
+had been so in Austria, and probably always would be so. She had
+expected nothing else. And Lato,--what had he expected? he who
+understood such matters better than she did? A miracle, perhaps; at
+least an exception in his favour.
+
+His life in Vienna was torture to him. He made front against his former
+world, defied it, even vilified it, and was possessed by a hungry
+desire for what he had lost, for what he had prized so little when it
+was naturally his own. If he could but have found something to replace
+what he had resigned! Sincerity, earnestness, a deeper grasp of life,
+elevation of thought,--all of which he might have found among the best
+of the _bourgeoisie_,--he had sufficient intellect and refinement to
+have enjoyed. Perhaps under such influences there was stuff in him of a
+kind to be remodelled, and he might have become a useful, capable man.
+But the circle in which he was forced to live was not that of the true
+_bourgeoisie_. It was an inorganic mass of rich people and idlers
+tossed together, all with titles of yesterday, who cared for nothing in
+the world save money-getting and display,--a world in which the men
+played at languid dulness and the women at frivolity, because they
+thought it '_chic_,' in which all wanted to be 'fast,' to make a
+sensation, to be talked of in the newspapers,--a world which, with
+ridiculous exclusiveness, boasted of its anti-Semitic prejudices, and
+in which the money acquired with such unnatural celerity had no room
+for free play, so that the golden calf, confined within so limited an
+arena, cut the most extraordinary capers. These people spent their time
+in perfecting themselves in aristocratic demeanour and in talking
+alternately of good manners, elegant toilets, and refined _menus_. The
+genuine patrician world of trade held itself aloof from this tinsel
+society, or only accidentally came into contact with it.
+
+Lato's was a very unpleasant experience. The few people of solid worth
+whom he met at his mother-in-law's avoided him. His sole pleasure in
+life was his little son, who daily grew plumper, prettier, merrier. He
+would stretch out his arms to his father when the merest baby, and crow
+with delight. What a joy it was for Lato to clasp the little creature
+in his arms!
+
+The boy was just fifteen months old when the first real quarrel took
+place between Lato and his wife, and estranged them for life.
+
+Hitherto Lato had had the management and right of disposal of his
+wife's property, and although more than one disagreeable remark anent
+his extravagance had fallen from her lips he had taken pains not to
+heed them. But one day he bought a pair of horses for which he had been
+longing, paying an amateur price for them.
+
+He was so delighted with his purchase that he immediately drove the
+horses in the Prater to try them. On his return home he was received by
+Selina with a very cross face. She had heard of his purchase, and asked
+about the horses.
+
+He praised them with enthusiasm. Forgetting for the moment all the
+annoyances of his position, he cried, "Come and look at them!"
+
+"No need," she made answer. "You did not ask my opinion before buying
+them; it is of no consequence now whether I like them or not."
+
+He bit his lip.
+
+"What did you pay for them?" she asked. He told her the price; she
+shrugged her shoulders and laughed contemptuously. "So they told me,"
+she said. "I would not believe it!"
+
+"When you have seen the horses you will not think the price too high,"
+Lato said, controlling himself with difficulty.
+
+"Oh, the price may be all right," she rejoined, sharply, "but the
+extravagance seems great to me. Of course, if you have it----"
+
+Everything swam before his eyes. He turned and left the room. That
+very day he sold the horses, fortunately without loss. He brought the
+bank-notes to his wife, who was seated at her writing-table, and put
+them down before her. She was startled, and tried to compromise
+matters. He was inflexible. For half a day the apple of discord in the
+shape of a bundle of bank-notes lay on the writing-table, a bait for
+dishonest servants; then it vanished within Selina's desk.
+
+From that moment Lato was not to be induced to use a single penny of
+his wife's money. He retrenched in all directions, living as well as he
+could upon his own small income, derived from his maternal inheritance,
+and paid him punctually by his father.
+
+He was not in the least annoyed by the shabby part he was consequently
+obliged to play among his wealthy associates, but when he recalled how
+he had previously appropriated his wife's money his cheeks and ears
+burned furiously.
+
+There was no longer any talk of buying an estate. Instead, Selina's
+mother bought one. The Treurenbergs could pass their summers there. Why
+squander money on an estate? One magnificent castle in the family was
+enough.
+
+Shortly after Lato's estrangement from his wife his little son died of
+the croup. This was the annihilation of his existence; the last sunbeam
+upon his path faded; all around and within him was dark and cold.
+
+
+He ponders all this as he rides from Komaritz to Dobrotschau. His
+horse's pace grows slower and slower, his bridle hangs loose. Evening
+has set in. Suddenly a sharp whirr rouses the lonely man. He looks up,
+to see a belated bird hurrying home to its nest. His dreamy gaze
+follows the black fluttering thing, and he wonders vaguely whether the
+little wanderer will find his home and be received with affection by
+his feathered family. The idle fancy makes him smile; but, "What is
+there to laugh at?" he suddenly reflects. "Good heavens! a life
+that warms itself beside another life, in which it finds peace and
+comfort,--is not this the central idea of all existence, great or
+small? Everything else in the world is but of secondary interest."
+
+For him there is no human being in whom he can confide, to whom he can
+turn for sympathy; for him there is only cheerless solitude.
+
+The moon is setting; above the low mountain-spur its silver crescent
+hovers in the liquid light green of the summer evening sky. The castle
+of Dobrotschau looms up in the twilight.
+
+"What is that? Along the road, towards the belated horseman, comes a
+white figure. Can it be Selina? His heart beats fast; he is ready to be
+grateful for the smallest proof of affection, so strong is the yearning
+within him for a little human sympathy. No, it is not Selina; it is a
+tall, slender girl. She has seen him, and hastens her steps.
+
+"Lato!" calls an anxious, familiar voice.
+
+"Olga!" he exclaims, and, springing from his horse, he approaches her.
+Yes, it is Olga,--Olga in a white dress, without hat or gloves, and
+with a look of anxiety in her eyes.
+
+"Thank heaven!" she exclaims.
+
+"My child, what is the matter?" he asks, half laughing.
+
+"I have been so anxious," she confesses. "You are an hour and a half
+late for dinner, and you know how foolish I am. All sorts of fancies
+beset me. My imagination works swiftly."
+
+"You are a dear child, Olga," he whispers, softly, taking her hand and
+kissing it twice. Then they walk together towards the castle. He leads
+his horse by the bridle, and listens to all the trifling matters of
+which she tells him.
+
+The world is no longer dreary and empty for him. Here is at least one
+person who is not indifferent to his going and coming.
+
+At Dobrotschau he finds the entire party in the garden-room. Selina and
+the Pole are playing a duett. Dinner is over. They could not wait for
+him, Selina explains, because the cook was trying to-day for the first
+time a souffle of Parmesan cheese and truffles, which would have been
+ruined by delay. But his hospitable mother-in-law adds,--
+
+"Your dinner is all ready in the dining-room. I gave orders that it
+should be served as soon as you came."
+
+And Lato goes to the dining-hall, a magnificent oak-wainscoted room, in
+which the chandelier, lighted in his honour, represents a round island
+of light in a sea of black darkness. The soup-tureen is on the
+sideboard: a servant lifts the cover, and the butler ladles out a
+plateful of the soup and places it before Lato.
+
+He takes a spoonful discontentedly, then motions to the butler to take
+the plate away. Olga suddenly appears.
+
+"Have you left any for me?" she asks. "I am fearfully hungry, for I
+could not eat any dinner."
+
+"From anxiety?" asks Lato.
+
+"Yes," she says, laughing, "from anxiety." And she takes a seat
+opposite him.
+
+"Oh, you silly girl!" says Treurenberg, watching her with satisfaction
+as she sips her soup. Lato himself suddenly has an access of appetite.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+                           A FRIEND'S ADVICE.
+
+
+Few things in this world are more unpleasant than to be obliged to
+admit the excellence of a friend's advice when it runs counter to all
+our most secret and decided inclinations.
+
+Harry Leskjewitsch finds himself thus disagreeably situated the evening
+after Lato's visit to Komaritz.
+
+While Lato, "gens-d'armed" by two lackeys, is eating his late dinner
+with Olga, Harry is striding discontentedly to and fro in the steep,
+uneven court-yard at Komaritz, muttering between his teeth,--
+
+"Lato is right, quite right. I am behaving unpardonably: no respectable
+man would play this double part. I must go away."
+
+Yes, away; but how can he go away while he knows that Baron Wenkendorf
+is at Zirkow? It appears to him that he can still do something to
+prevent Zdena from giving ear to her elderly suitor, for such he
+certainly seems to be. Harry has been often at Zirkow of late,--no
+fewer than three times since his entanglement,--and he has consequently
+had opportunity to watch Zdena's behaviour. Her feeling for the man has
+certainly reached another stage; she conducts herself with more gravity
+towards him, and with more cordiality; she often turns to him with
+trifling questions, and seems to take a kind of pleasure in his
+society.
+
+"Who knows?" Harry says to himself, clinching his hand and almost mad
+with jealousy, as he paces the court-yard to and fro.
+
+The crescent moon in the August sky creeps over the dark roof of the
+brew-house. The air is freshened by the fragrance of the group of
+walnuts; but another and more penetrating odour mingles with it,--the
+odour of old wood impregnated with some kind of fermenting stuff.
+There, against the uneven wall of the old brew-house, stands a row of
+huge casks.
+
+The casks recall to Harry memories that fill him with sweet and bitter
+sensations. Into one of them he had crept with Zdena, during a storm,
+in the early years of their acquaintance. Ah, what a bewitching little
+creature she was then! He can see her distinctly now, with her long,
+golden hair; her large, brown eyes, that had so truthful a gaze; the
+short upper lip of the childish mouth, that seemed always on the point
+of asking a question; yes, even the slender, childish hands he can see,
+with the wide, white apron-sleeves; the short skirt and the bare little
+legs, usually, it must be confessed, much scratched. He recalls the
+short, impatient movement with which she used to pull her skirts over
+her knees when she sat down. In one of those casks they had taken
+refuge from a shower,--he and she,--and they had sat there, close
+together, looking out upon the world through the gray curtain of the
+rain. How comically she had peered out, now and then holding out her
+hand to make sure that it was still pouring! It would not stop. Harry
+can hear at this moment the rustle of the rain through the foliage of
+the walnuts, its drip upon the cask, and the cackling of the agitated
+geese in the court-yard. He had told the child stories to amuse her,
+and she had gone to sleep with her head on his shoulder, and finally he
+had taken off his jacket to wrap it about her as he carried her through
+the rain into the house.
+
+Oh, what a lecture they had had from Mademoiselle, who, meanwhile, had
+been sending everywhere to find the children, and was half crazy with
+anxiety!
+
+"I cannot conceive why you should have been anxious, mademoiselle," he
+had said, with all the dignity of his twelve years. "You ought to know
+that Zdena is well taken care of when she is with me."
+
+Twelve years have passed since then, but it seems to him suddenly that
+it all happened only yesterday.
+
+"Well taken care of," he mutters to himself,--"well taken care of. I
+believe that she would be well taken care of with me to-day, but--good
+heavens!"
+
+His lips are dry, his throat feels contracted. Up to the present moment
+he has regarded his betrothal to Paula as a disagreeable temporary
+entanglement; never has he viewed it as a serious, enduring misfortune.
+Lato's words have thrown a vivid light upon his position; he sees
+clearly that he is no longer a free agent, and that every hour passed
+with Paula rivets his fetters more securely. Yes, Lato is right; he
+must go away. But he must see her once more before he goes,--only once.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIX.
+
+                         FRAU ROSA'S BIRTHDAY.
+
+
+High festival is being held at Zirkow in honour of Frau Rosamunda's
+birthday, which is observed this year with even more ceremony than
+usual. Thanks to a fortunate combination of circumstances, the major
+has it in his power to bestow a costly gift upon his wife this year. He
+has lately concluded a very profitable bargain: he has sold the entire
+interior arrangements of the brew-house as old iron and copper to a Jew
+for the magnificent sum of fifteen hundred guilders. With such wealth
+much can be done. Nothing now prevents the devoted husband from
+fulfilling Frau Rosamunda's two ardent desires,--a trip to Bayreuth and
+the thorough repair of the much-defaced decorations on the Zirkow walls
+and ceilings. On her birthday-table Frau Rosamunda finds, in the midst
+of a tasteful arrangement of flowers, first, a kind of sign in
+miniature,--_i.e_., a square black card, upon which is written, in red
+letters, "Good for house-decorators,"--and a large earthenware prize
+pig with stiff, straddling legs and a beautifully-rounded body, upon
+which is written, also in red letters, "A steed to carry you to
+Bayreuth." A bouquet of four-leaved clover (Zdena gathered it at dawn)
+is stuck like a green plume between the animal's projecting ears. A
+pin-cushion covered with a delicate imitation in needle-work of
+Irish guipure, the piano arrangement of 'Tristan and Isolde' and a
+potpourri from 'Parzifal,' both for four hands, complete the number of
+birthday-gifts. The Irish guipure is Zdena's work; the music comes from
+Wenkendorf. All these things even the house-decorator are of secondary
+importance to Frau Rosamunda. Her whole attention is absorbed by the
+pig, at which enigmatic monster she gazes in wonder.
+
+"A steed to carry you to Bayreuth." It sounds like a poor jest, a very
+poor jest.
+
+The major looks at his wife with a broad smile.
+
+"Take up the pig and shake it a little," he says at last. Frau
+Rosamunda obeys. There is a clink of coin. She understands, and runs to
+her husband with a cry of delight.
+
+She celebrates the remainder of her birthday by playing duets with her
+cousin from 'Tristan and Isolde' and 'Parzifal' alternately. The major
+walks about with his hands clasped behind him, deep in thought and well
+content, like a man who is about to carry out a carefully-devised plan.
+
+The afternoon sun is casting long shadows, and Krupitschka, who has
+just finished furbishing up the silver,--in honour of the birthday six
+more silver dishes than usual have been brought out to-day,--is sitting
+on a bench at the back of the castle, refreshing himself with an
+examination of the foreign dictionary which he has purchased with the
+money for his cantharides,--and which, by the way, he finds highly
+unsatisfactory,--when a young officer of hussars upon an English
+chestnut mare with a hide like satin comes galloping into the
+court-yard.
+
+At sight of the horse and its rider all clouds vanish from
+Krupitschka's horizon; in his opinion there is no finer sight in the
+world than a "handsome officer upon a handsome horse."
+
+He is not the only one to admire Harry Leskjewitsch on his mare
+Frou-Frou. At one of the windows of the castle a pale, girlish face
+appears, and a pair of bright brown eyes look down into the court-yard,
+for a moment only. But Harry has seen the face, quickly as it
+disappears, and his heart beats fast.
+
+"Are the ladies at home?" he asks Krupitschka, as he gives his steed in
+charge to a groom who hurries up, clad in a striped stable-jacket very
+much darned at the elbows, and a cap with a tarnished silver band.
+
+"They are, Herr Baron." And Krupitschka shows Harry up the steps and to
+the door of the drawing-room, which he opens with dignity, not because
+such ceremony is at all necessary, but because the young man has been
+his favourite from childhood, and he loves to perform any service for
+him.
+
+When Harry enters, Frau Rosamunda and Wenkendorf are still at the
+piano, working away at 'Parzifal,' and do not seem over-pleased by the
+interruption. The major is lying back in a rocking-chair, smoking a
+cigarette and upon his nephew's entrance springs up with undisguised
+delight and goes towards him with extended hands.
+
+"Tell the Baroness Zdena that a visitor has arrived!" he calls out to
+Krupitschka; then, turning to Harry, he says, smiling, "And so you have
+come to congratulate?"
+
+"Congratulate?" Harry repeats, surprised and preoccupied.
+
+"Oh, you have forgotten, then?" the major rejoins.
+
+Harry slaps his forehead. "Dearest aunt, forgive me! how thoughtless I
+am!" And he kisses Frau Rosamunda's hand.
+
+"I do not take it at all ill of you," she assures him. "At my age
+people would rather have their birthday forgotten than remembered."
+
+"Oh--ah! I have not observed that," the major declares.
+
+"Oh, it is different for you. You may be allowed to take notice of my
+being each year one year older, always provided that you give me upon
+all my birthdays as great a pleasure as to-day."
+
+"You cannot reckon upon that, my dear; all years are not alike," the
+major replies. "This was a lucky chance."
+
+"Have you had a stroke of good fortune, uncle?" Harry asks, trying to
+take an interest in the matter.
+
+"Yes," the major informs him; "I have just concluded a brilliant
+transaction. I have sold the iron from the interior of the brew-house."
+
+"For how much, may I ask?"
+
+"Fifteen hundred guilders," the major declares, triumphantly. "I would
+not abate one penny. The superintendent was surprised at the sum, I can
+tell you."
+
+"I do not understand such matters," Harry rejoins, thinking of the
+enormous expense of fitting up the brew-house some years ago. His
+uncle's 'brilliant transaction' reminds him of the story of 'Hans in
+Luck.' "And in consequence your birthday-gifts have been very superior,
+aunt?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Frau Rosamunda displays with delight the prize pig. The green plume
+between its ears is slightly faded, but the coins in its body clink as
+triumphantly as ever.
+
+"'A steed to carry you to Bayreuth,'" Harry reads. "I am so glad, my
+dear aunt, that your wish is to be fulfilled."
+
+"Tickets for two performances besides the journey," the major proudly
+declares.
+
+"And my cousin has surprised me with some delightful music which I have
+long wanted."
+
+"Not worth mentioning, Rosamunda," Wenkendorf says, deprecatingly.
+
+"My wife's birthday has really turned out a Wagner festival," the
+major declares. "Since ten o'clock this morning these two artists have
+been playing nothing but Wagner, for their own pleasure and the
+conversion of their hearers. Zdena ran away, but I stood my ground, and
+I have become quite accustomed to the noise."
+
+"That is a good sign," Wenkendorf assures him.
+
+"You ought to hear Wagner's compositions very often. What do you say,
+Roderich, to our playing for Harry some of the loveliest bits of
+'Parzifal'? We are just in the mood."
+
+"Do not let me interrupt you; pray go on; it will give me the greatest
+pleasure," Harry murmurs, glancing towards the door. Why does she not
+come?
+
+Meanwhile, the two amateurs have begun with untiring energy.
+
+"Kundry's Ride!" Frau Rosamunda calls out to her nephew, while her
+hands dash over the keys. Harry does not hear her. He has seated
+himself beside the major, and absently takes a cigarette from the case
+which his uncle offers him.
+
+"I came to bid you good-bye," he says, in an uncertain voice.
+
+"Indeed!" says the major, looking at him scrutinizingly. "Is your leave
+at an end?"
+
+"No, but----" Harry hesitates and pulls at his moustache.
+
+"H'm!" A sly smile quivers upon the major's broad face. "Have you
+quarrelled with your betrothed?"
+
+"No, but----"
+
+The door opens, and Zdena enters, slender and pale, dressed in a
+simply-fashioned linen gown. She has lost her fresh colour, and her
+face is much thinner, but her beauty, far from being injured thereby,
+is heightened by an added charm,--a sad, touching charm, that threatens
+to rob Harry of the remnant of reason he can still call his.
+
+"How are you, Zdena?" he says, going to meet her, while the warmest
+sympathy trembles in his voice. "You look pale. Are you well?"
+
+"The heat oppresses me," she says, with a slight forced smile,
+withdrawing the hand which he would fain have retained longer in his
+clasp than was fitting under the circumstances.
+
+"The Balsam motif," Frau Rosamunda calls from the piano.
+
+After a while Zdena begins:
+
+"How are they all at Komaritz? Heda sent her congratulations to-day
+with some lovely flowers, but said nothing with regard to the welfare
+of the family."
+
+"I wonder that Heda did not remind you of the birthday, Harry!" remarks
+the major.
+
+"Oh, she rejoices over every forgetfulness in those around her," Harry
+observes, with some malice: "she likes to stand alone in her extreme
+virtue."
+
+"Motif of the Redeemer's Sufferings," Frau Rosamunda calls out. Zdena
+leans forward, and seems absorbed in Wagner. Harry cannot take his eyes
+off her.
+
+"What a change!" he muses. "Can she--could she be suffering on my
+account?"
+
+There is an agreeable flutter of his entire nervous system: it mingles
+with the sense of unhappiness which he drags about with him.
+
+"Oh, what a double-dyed fool I was!" a voice within him cries out. "How
+could I be so vexed with her scrap of childish worldly wisdom, instead
+of simply laughing at her for it, teasing her a little about it, and
+then, after I had set her straight, forgiving her, oh, how tenderly!"
+
+"Zdena is not quite herself. I do not know what ails her," said the
+major, stroking the girl's thin cheek.
+
+"You have long been a hypochondriac on your own account; now you are
+trying it for other people," says Zdena, rising and going to the
+window, where she busies herself with some embroidery. "I have a little
+headache," she adds.
+
+"Earthly Enjoyment motif," Frau Rosamunda calls out, enthusiastically,
+in a raised voice.
+
+The major bursts into Homeric laughter, in which Zdena, whose
+overstrained nerves dispose her for tears as well as laughter, joins.
+Harry alone does not laugh: his head is too full of other matters.
+
+"Is Zdena also going to Bayreuth?" he asks.
+
+"No," the major replies; "the finances are not equal to that."
+
+"'Tis a pity," Harry remarks: "a little change of air might do her
+good."
+
+"So it seems to me," the major assents, "and I was about to propose a
+plan. By the way, when do you take your departure?"
+
+"Are you going away?" asks Frau Rosamunda, rising from the piano, aglow
+with enthusiasm and artistic zeal, to join the trio. Wenkendorf also
+rises and takes a seat near the rest.
+
+"He is going away," the major replies.
+
+"Yes," assents Harry.
+
+"But what does your betrothed say?"
+
+"I have already put that question to him," said the major.
+
+"One of my comrades has suddenly been taken ill," Harry stammers,
+frowning; "and so--of course it is very unpleasant just now----"
+
+"Very, very," murmurs the major, with a hypocritical show of sympathy.
+"When do you start?"
+
+"Oh, the day after to-morrow."
+
+"That suits me remarkably well," the major remarks. "There will be a
+vacant room at Komaritz, and Zdena might go over for a couple of days."
+
+Wenkendorf frowns disapprovingly. "It is a great pity that you are not
+going with us to Bayreuth," he says, turning to the young girl.
+
+"That would be a fine way to cure the headache," the major observes.
+
+"I would rather stay at home with you, uncle dear," Zdena assures him.
+
+"That will not do. Friday evening my wife starts for Bayreuth; Saturday
+I expect the painters; the entire house will be turned upside-down, and
+I have no use for you. Therefore, since there is room for you at
+Komaritz----"
+
+"There is always room at Komaritz for Zdena," Harry eagerly declares.
+
+"Yes,--particularly after you have gone. It is decided; she is going. I
+shall take her over on Saturday afternoon," the major announces. "You
+can tell Heda."
+
+"And who will go to Bayreuth with my aunt?" asks Harry.
+
+"Her musical cousin Roderich. By the way, Wenkendorf, you will come
+back to Zirkow from Bayreuth?"
+
+"Of course I shall escort Rosamunda upon her return."
+
+"We shall be glad to welcome you for the hunting. I take it for granted
+you will give us a long visit then?"
+
+"That will depend upon circumstances," says Wenkendorf, with a
+significant glance towards Zdena, which does not escape Harry.
+
+Meanwhile, the August twilight has set in. Krupitschka brings the
+lamps. Harry rises.
+
+"Will you not stay for supper?" asks Frau Rosa.
+
+"No, thank you; I have a deal to do."
+
+"No wonder, before leaving," says the wily major, not making the
+slightest effort to detain the young fellow. "You are looking for your
+sabre?--there it is. Ah, what a heavy thing! When I reflect upon how
+many years I dragged such a rattling tool about with me!"
+
+Harry has gone. The major has accompanied him to the court-yard, and he
+now returns to the room, chuckling, and rubbing his hands, as if at
+some successful trick.
+
+"What an idea! So sudden a journey!--and a betrothed man!" Frau Rosa
+remarks, thoughtfully.
+
+"If I were his betrothed I would hurry and have the monogram
+embroidered on my outfit," drawls the major. "Let me come there, if you
+please." These last words are addressed to Wenkendorf, who is about to
+close the piano. The major takes his place at it, bangs away at his
+triumphal march with immense energy and a tolerably harmonious bass,
+then claps down the cover of the much-tortured instrument, locks it,
+and puts the key in his pocket. "There, that's enough for to-day!" he
+declares.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XX.
+
+                            KOMARITZ AGAIN.
+
+
+The major carried out his plan. On Saturday the painter made solemn
+entry into Zirkow with his train of workmen, their ladders, paint-pots,
+and brushes, to turn the orderly household upside-down,--whereupon
+Baron Paul drove Zdena to Komaritz, in the same drag in which the child
+of six had first been driven thither by him.
+
+More than a dozen years had passed since that afternoon, and yet every
+detail of the drive was vividly present in the young girl's mind. Much
+had changed since then; the drag had grown far shabbier, and the fiery
+chestnuts had been tamed and lamed by time, but the road was just as
+bad, and the country around as lovely and home-like. From time to time
+Zdena raised her head to gaze where the stream ran cool and gray on the
+other side of the walnut-trees that bordered the road, or at the brown
+ruin of the castle, the jagged tower of which was steadily rising in
+the blue atmosphere against the distant horizon. And then she would
+pull her straw hat lower over her eyes and look only at the backs of
+the horses. Why did her uncle keep glancing at her with such a sly
+smile? He could not divine the strange mixture of joy and unrest that
+was filling her soul. No one must know it. Poor Zdena! All night long
+she had been tormented by the thought that she had yielded too readily,
+had acceded too willingly to her uncle's proposal to take her to
+Komaritz during the bustle made by the painters, and she had soothed
+her scruples by saying to herself, "He will not be there." And, yet,
+the nearer they came to Komaritz the more persistent was the joyous
+suggestion within her, "What if he were not yet gone!"
+
+Click-clack! The ancient St. John, whose bead is lying at his feet
+precisely as it was lying so many years ago, stands gray and tall among
+the lindens in the pasture near the village; they have reached
+Komaritz. Click-clack!--the horses make an ambitious effort to
+end their journey with credit. The same ox, recently butchered,
+hangs before the butcher-shop on an old walnut; the same odour of
+wagon-grease and singed hoofs comes from the smithy, and before it the
+smith is examining the foot of the same horse, while a dozen village
+children stand around gazing. The same dear old Komaritz!
+
+"If only he might be there!"
+
+With a sudden jolt the drag rolls through the picturesque, ruinous
+archway of the court-yard. The chestnuts are reined in, the major's sly
+smile broadens expressively, and Zdena's young pulses throb with
+breathless delight.
+
+Yes, he is there! standing in the door-way of the old house, an
+embarrassed smile on his thin, tanned face as he offers his hand to
+Zdena to help her down from her high seat.
+
+"What a surprise! You here?" exclaims the old dragoon, with
+poorly-feigned astonishment, in which there is a slight tinge of
+ridicule. "I thought you would be miles away by this time. It is a good
+thing that you were able to postpone your departure for a few days. No,
+I can't stop; I must drive home again immediately. Adieu, children!"
+
+Baron Paul turns his tired steeds, and, gaily waving his hand in token
+of farewell, vanishes beneath the archway.
+
+There they stand, she and he, alone in front of the house. The old
+walnuts, lifting their stately crests into the blue skies along one
+side of the court-yard, whisper all sorts of pleasant things to them,
+but they have no words for each other.
+
+At last Harry asks, taking the black leather travelling-bag from his
+cousin's hand, "Is this all your luggage?"
+
+"The milkman is to bring a small trunk," she replies, without looking
+at him.
+
+"We have had your old room made ready for you."
+
+"Ah, my old room,--how delightful!"
+
+They cross the threshold, when Harry suddenly stands still.
+
+"Are you not going to give me your hand?" he asks, in a tone of
+entreaty, whereupon she extends her hand, and then instantly withdraws
+it. She seems to herself to be doing wrong. As matters stand, she must
+not make the smallest advance to him,--no, not the smallest: she has
+resolved upon that. In fact, she did not expect to see him here, and
+she must show him that she is quite annoyed by his postponing his
+departure.
+
+Yap, yap, yap! the rabble of dachshunds, multiplied considerably in the
+last twelve years, comes tumbling down the steps to leap about Zdena;
+Harry's faithful hound Hector comes and puts his paws on her shoulder;
+and, lastly, the ladies come down into the hall,--Heda, the Countess
+Zriny, Fraeulein Laut,--and, surrounding Zdena, carry her off to her
+room. Here they stay talking with her for a while; then they withdraw,
+each to follow her own devices.
+
+How glad the girl is to be alone! She is strangely moved, perplexed,
+and yet unaccountably happy.
+
+It is clear that Harry intends to dissolve the engagement into which so
+mysterious a chain of circumstances has forced him. The difficulty of
+doing this Zdena does not take into consideration. Paula must see that
+he does not care for her; and then--then there will be nothing left for
+her save to release him. Thus Zdena concludes, and the world looks very
+bright to her.
+
+Oh, the dear old room! she would not exchange it for a kingdom.
+How home-like and comfortable!--so shady and cool, with its deep
+window-recesses, where the sunshine filters in through the green,
+rustling net-work of vines; with its stiff antiquated furniture forming
+so odd a contrast to the wild luxuriance of extraordinary flowers with
+which a travelling fresco-painter ages ago decorated walls and ceiling;
+with its old-fashioned embroidered _prie-dieu_ beneath an ancient
+bronze crucifix, and its little bed, so snowy white and cool, fragrant
+with lavender and orris!
+
+The floor, of plain deal planks, scrubbed to a milky whiteness, is
+bare, except that beside the bed lies a rug upon which a very yellow
+tiger is rolling, and gnashing his teeth, in a very green meadow, and
+on the wall hangs one single picture,--a faded chromo, at which Zdena,
+when a child, had almost stared her eyes out.
+
+The picture represents a young lady gazing at her reflection in a
+mirror. Her hair is worn in tasteless, high puffs and much powdered,
+her waist is unnaturally long and slim, and her skirts are bunched up
+about her hips. To the modern observer she is not attractive, but Zdena
+hails her as an old acquaintance. Beneath the picture are the words
+"_Lui plairai-je?_" The thing hangs in one of the window-embrasures,
+above a marquetrie work-table, upon which has been placed a nosegay of
+fresh, fragrant roses.
+
+"Who has plucked and placed them there?" Zdena asks herself. Suddenly a
+shrill bell rings, calling to table the inmates of Komaritz in house
+and garden. Zdena hurriedly picks out of the nosegay the loveliest bud,
+and puts it in her breast, then looks at herself in the glass,--a tall,
+narrow glass in a smooth black frame with brass rosettes at the
+corners,--and murmurs, smiling, "_Lui plairai-je?_" then blushes
+violently and takes out the rose from her bosom. It is a sin even to
+have such a thought,--under existing circumstances.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXI.
+
+                              "POOR LATO!"
+
+
+Five hours have passed since Zdena's arrival in Komaritz. Harry has
+been very good; that is, he has scarcely made an appearance; perhaps
+because he is conscious that when he is with Zdena he can hardly take
+his eyes off her, which, "under existing circumstances," might strike
+others as, to Bay the least, extraordinary.
+
+After dinner he goes off partridge shooting, inviting his younger
+brother, who is devoted to him and whom he spoils like a mother, to
+accompany him. But Vips, as the family prefer to call him instead of
+Vladimir, although usually proud and happy to be thus distinguished by
+his elder brother, declines his invitation today. In fact, he has
+fallen desperately in love with Zdena. He is lying at her feet on the
+steps leading from the dwelling-room into the garden. His hair is
+beautifully brushed, and he has on his best coat.
+
+The Countess Zriny is in her room, writing to her father confessor;
+Fraeulein Laut is at the piano, practising something by Brahms, to which
+musical hero she is almost as much devoted as is Rosamunda to her
+idolized Wagner; and Heda is sitting beside her cousin on the
+garden-steps, manufacturing with praiseworthy diligence crochetted
+stars of silk.
+
+"What do you really think of Harry's betrothal, Zdena?" she begins at
+last, after a long silence.
+
+At this question the blood rushes to Zdena's cheeks; nevertheless her
+answer sounds quite self-possessed.
+
+"What shall I say? I was very much surprised."
+
+"So was I," Heda confesses. "At first I was raging, for, after all,
+_elle n'est pas de notre monde_. But lately so many young men of our
+set have married nobodies that one begins to be accustomed to it,
+although I must say I am by no means enchanted with it yet. One's own
+brother,--it comes very near; but it is best to shut one's eyes in such
+cases. Setting aside the _mesalliance_, there is no objection to make
+to Paula. She is pretty, clover, frightfully cultivated,--too
+cultivated: it is rather bad form,--and for the rest, if she would only
+dress a little better, she would be quite presentable. And then she
+makes such advances; it is touching. The last time I dined at
+Dobrotschau I found in my napkin a butterfly pendant, with little
+sapphires and rubies in its diamond wings. I must show it to you; 'tis
+delicious," she rattles on.
+
+"And what did you find in your napkin, Vips?" asks Zdena, who seems to
+herself to be talking of people with whom she has not the slightest
+connection, so strange is the whole affair.
+
+"I? I was not at the dinner," says the boy.
+
+"Not invited?" Zdena rallies him.
+
+"Not invited!" Vips draws down the corners of his mouth scornfully.
+"Oh, indeed! not invited! Why, they invited the entire household,--even
+her!" He motions disdainfully towards the open door, through which
+Fraeulein Laut can be seen sitting at the piano. "Yes, we were even
+asked to bring Hector. But I stayed at home, because I cannot endure
+those Harfinks."
+
+"Ah! your sentiments are also opposed to the _mesalliance_?" Zdena goes
+on, ironically.
+
+"_Mesalliance!_" shouts Vips. "You know very well that I am a Liberal!"
+
+Vips finished reading "Don Carlos" about a fortnight ago, and even
+before then showed signs of Liberal tendencies.
+
+The previous winter, when he attended the representation, at a theatre
+in Bohemia, of a new play of strong democratic colouring, he applauded
+all the freethinking tirades with such vehemence that his tutor was at
+last obliged, to the great amusement of the public, to hold back his
+hands.
+
+"Ah, indeed, you are Liberal?" says Zdena. "I am delighted to hear it."
+
+"Of course I am; but every respectable man must be a bit of an
+aristocrat," Vips declares, grandly, "and I cannot endure that Harry
+should marry that Paula. I told him so to his face; and I am not going
+to his wedding. I cannot understand why he takes her, for he's in
+love----" He suddenly pauses. Two gentlemen are coming through the
+garden towards the steps,--Harry and Lato.
+
+Lato greets Zdena cordially. Heda expresses her surprise at Harry's
+speedy return from his shooting, and he, who always now suspects some
+hidden meaning in her remarks, flushes and frowns as he replies, "I saw
+Treurenberg in the distance, and so I turned back. Besides, the
+shooting all went wrong to-day," he adds, with a compassionate glance
+at the large hound now stretched out at his master's feet at the bottom
+of the steps. "He would scarcely stir: I cannot understand it, he is
+usually so fresh and gay, and loves to go shooting more than all the
+others; to-day he was almost sullen, and lagged behind,--hey, old
+boy?" He stoops and strokes the creature's neck, but the dog seems
+ill-tempered, and snaps at him.
+
+"What! snap--snap at me! that's something new," Harry exclaims,
+frowning; then, seizing the animal by the collar, he shakes it
+violently and hurls it from him. "Be off!" he orders, sternly. The dog,
+as if suddenly ashamed, looks back sadly, and then walks slowly away,
+with drooping ears and tail. "I don't know what is the matter with the
+poor fellow!" Harry says, really troubled.
+
+"He walks strangely; he seems stiff," Vladimir remarks, looking after
+the dog. "It seems to hurt him."
+
+"Some good-for-nothing boy must have thrown a stone at him and bruised
+his back," Harry decides.
+
+"You had better be careful with that dog," Heda now puts in her word.
+"Several dogs hereabouts have gone mad, and one roamed about the
+country for some time before he could be caught and killed."
+
+"Pray, hush!" Harry exclaims, almost angrily, to his sister, with whom
+he is apt to disagree: "you always forebode the worst. If a fly stings
+one you are always sure that it has just come from an infected horse or
+cow."
+
+"You have lately been so irritable, I cannot imagine what is the matter
+with you," lisps Hedwig.
+
+Harry frowns.
+
+Lato, meanwhile, has paid no heed to these remarks: he is apparently
+absorbed in his own thoughts, as, sitting on a lower step, he has been
+drawing with the handle of his riding-whip cabalistic signs in the
+gravel of the path. Now he looks up.
+
+"I have a letter for you from Paula,--here it is," he observes, handing
+Harry a thick packet wrapped in light-blue tissue paper. While Harry,
+with a dubious expression of countenance, drops the packet into his
+coat-pocket, Lato continues: "Paula has all sorts of fancies about your
+absence. You have not been to Dobrotschau for two days. She is afraid
+you are ill, and that you are keeping it from her lest she should be
+anxious. She is coming over here with my wife tomorrow afternoon to
+look after you--I mean, to pay the ladies a visit." After Lato has
+given utterance to these words in a smooth monotone, his expression
+suddenly changes: his features betoken embarrassment, as, leaning
+towards Harry, he whispers, "I should like to speak with you alone. Can
+you give me a few minutes?"
+
+Shortly afterwards, Harry rises and takes his friend with him to his
+own room, a spacious vaulted chamber next to the dining-room, which he
+shares with his young brother.
+
+"Well, old fellow?" he begins, encouragingly, clapping Lato on the
+shoulder. Lato clears his throat, then slowly takes his seat in an
+arm-chair beside a table covered with a disorderly array of Greek and
+Latin books and scribbled sheets of paper. Harry sits opposite him, and
+for a while neither speaks.
+
+The silence is disturbed only by the humming of the bees, and by the
+scratching at the window of an ancient apricot-tree, which seems
+desirous to call attention to what it has to say, but desists with a
+low rustle that sounds like a sigh. The tall clock strikes five; it is
+not late, and yet the room is dim with a gray-green light; the sunbeams
+have hard work to penetrate the leafy screen before the windows.
+
+"Well?" Harry again says, at last, gently twitching his friend's
+sleeve.
+
+"It is strange," Treurenberg begins; his voice has a hard, forced
+sound, he affects an indifference foreign to his nature, "but since my
+marriage I have had excellent luck at play. To speak frankly, it has
+been very convenient. Do not look so startled; wait until you are in my
+position. In the last few days, however, fortune has failed me. In my
+circumstances this is extremely annoying." He laughs, and flicks a
+grain of dust from his coat-sleeve.
+
+Harry looks at him, surprised. "Ah! I understand. You want money. How
+much? If I can help you out I shall be glad to do so."
+
+"Six hundred guilders," says Lato, curtly.
+
+Harry can scarcely believe his ears. How can Lato come to him for such
+a trifle?
+
+"I can certainly scrape together that much for you," he says,
+carelessly, and going to his writing-table he takes a couple of
+bank-notes out of a drawer. "Here!" and he offers the notes to his
+friend.
+
+Lato hesitates for a moment, as if in dread of the money, then takes
+it, and puts it in his pocket.
+
+"Thanks," he murmurs, hoarsely, and again there is a silence, which
+Lato is the first to break. "Why do you look at me so inquiringly?" he
+exclaims, almost angrily.
+
+"Forgive me, Lato, we are such old friends."
+
+"What do you want to know?"
+
+"I was only wondering how a man in your brilliant circumstances could
+be embarrassed for so trifling a sum as six hundred guilders!"
+
+"A man in my brilliant circumstances!" Lato repeats, bitterly. "Yes,
+you think, as does everybody else, that I am still living upon my
+wife's money. But you are mistaken. I tried it, indeed, for a while,
+but I was not made to play that part, no! It was different at first; my
+wife wished that I should have the disposal of her means, and I half
+cheated myself into the belief that her millions belonged to me. She
+came to me for every farthing. I used to rally her upon her
+extravagance; I played at magnanimity, and forgave her, and made her
+costly presents--yes--good heavens, how disgusting! But that is long
+since past; we have separate purses at present, thank God! I am often
+too shabby nowadays for the grand folk at Dobrotschau, but that does
+not trouble me." He drums nervously upon the table.
+
+Harry looks more and more amazed. "But then I cannot see why--" he
+murmurs, but lacks the courage to finish the sentence.
+
+"I know what you wish to say," Lato continues, bitterly. "You wonder
+why, under these circumstances, I cannot shake off the old habit. What
+would you have? Hitherto I have won almost constantly; now my luck has
+turned, and yet I cannot control myself. Those who have not this cursed
+love of play in their blood cannot understand it, but play is the only
+thing in the world in which I can become absorbed,--the only thing that
+can rid me of all sorts of thoughts which I never ought to entertain.
+There! now you know!"
+
+He draws a deep, hoarse breath, then laughs a hard, wooden laugh. Harry
+is very uncomfortable: he has never before seen Lato like this. It
+distresses him to notice how his friend has changed in looks of late.
+His eyes are hollow and unnaturally bright, his lips are dry and
+cracked as from fever, and he is more restless than is his wont.
+
+"Poor Lato! what fresh trouble have you had lately?" asks Harry,
+longing to express his sympathy.
+
+Lato flushes crimson, then nervously curls into dog's-ears the leaves
+of a Greek grammar on the table, and shrugs his shoulders.
+
+"Oh, nothing,--disagreeable domestic complications," he mutters,
+evasively.
+
+"Nothing new has happened, then?" asks Harry, looking at him keenly.
+
+Lato cannot endure his gaze. "What could have happened?" he breaks
+forth.
+
+"How do you get along with your wife?"
+
+"Not at all,--worse every day," Treurenberg says, dryly. "And now comes
+this cursed, meddling Polish jackanapes----"
+
+"If the gentlemen please, the Baroness sends me to say that coffee is
+served." With these words Blasius makes his appearance at the door.
+Lato springs hastily to his feet. The conversation is at an end.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXII.
+
+                            HARRY'S MUSINGS.
+
+
+"What are you doing there, you young donkey,--your lessons not yet
+learned, and wasting time in this fashion?"
+
+These were Harry's words addressed to his young brother. The boy was
+standing on an old wooden bench, gazing over the garden wall.
+
+"I am looking after the girl who was here to-day with the people from
+Dobrotschau."
+
+"Whom do you mean?"
+
+"Why, the beauty; Olga--Olga Dangeri is her name. Come here and see for
+yourself if it is wasting time to look after her."
+
+With an involuntary smile at the lad's precocity, Harry mounted upon
+the bench beside his brother, and, through the gathering twilight,
+gazed after a couple--a man and a girl--slowly sauntering along the
+road outside the garden. The man walked with bent head and downcast
+look; the young girl, on the contrary, held her head proudly erect, and
+there was something regal in her firm gait. The man walked in silence
+beside his beautiful companion, who, on the other band, never stopped
+talking, chattering away with easy grace, and turning towards him the
+while. The silhouette of her noble profile was clearly defined against
+the evening sky. The last golden shimmer of the setting sun touched her
+brown hair with a reddish gleam. She had taken off her hat and hung it
+on her arm; her white gown fell in long, simple folds about her.
+
+"There! is she not lovely?" Vips exclaimed, with boyish enthusiasm. "I
+cannot understand Lato: he hardly looks at her."
+
+Harry hung his head.
+
+"They have vanished in the walnut avenue; you can't see them now," said
+Vips, leaving his post of observation. "I like her; she is not only
+beautiful, she is clever and amiable," the boy went on. "I talked with
+her for quite a while, although she is not so entertaining as our
+Zdena,--she is not half so witty. Let me tell you, there is no one in
+all the world like our Zdena." As he spoke, Vladimir, the keen-sighted,
+plucked his brother by the sleeve of his blue military blouse, and eyed
+him askance. "What is the matter with you, Harry?" For Harry shook the
+boy off rather rudely.
+
+"Oh, hold your tongue for a while!" Harry exclaimed, angrily; "I have a
+headache."
+
+Thus repulsed, Vladimir withdrew, not, however, without turning several
+times to look at his brother, and sighing each time thoughtfully.
+Meanwhile, Harry had seated himself on the old bench whence Vips had
+made his observations. His hands in his pockets, his legs stretched out
+before him, he sat wrapt in gloom, digging his spurs into the ground.
+
+He had passed a hard day,--a day spent in deceit; there was no help for
+it. How mean he was in his own eyes! and yet--how could he help it?
+Paula had carried out her threat, and had driven over with Selina,
+bringing Olga and Lato, "to pay the ladies a visit." After the first
+greetings she had paid the ladies little further attention, but had
+devoted herself to her betrothed, drawing him with her into some
+window-recess or shady garden nook, where she could whisper loving
+words or lavish tender caresses, which he could not repulse without
+positive rudeness. Oh, how long the visit had seemed to him! Although
+Paula had withdrawn him from the rest of the company as far as
+possible, he had found opportunity to observe them. Olga, who could not
+drive backwards in a carriage comfortably, but with whom neither of the
+other ladies had offered to exchange seats, had arrived rather pale and
+dizzy. Zdena had immediately applied herself to restoring her, with the
+ready, tender sympathy that made her so charming. Vips was right: there
+was no one like Zdena in the world, although Olga was more beautiful,
+and also glowing with the charm to which no man is insensible,--the
+charm of a strong, passionate nature. Not even Harry, whose whole soul
+was filled at present with, another, and to him an infinitely more
+attractive, woman, could quite withstand this charm in Olga's society;
+it made the girl seem to him almost uncanny.
+
+It had rather displeased Harry at first--he could not himself say
+why--to see how quickly a kind of intimacy established itself between
+Olga and Zdena. As the two girls walked arm in arm down the garden path
+he would fain have snatched Zdena away from her new friend, the pale
+beautiful Olga, whom nevertheless he so pitied.
+
+Meanwhile, Heda had done the honours of the mansion for Selina, in
+which duty she was assisted by the Countess Zriny, who displayed the
+greatest condescension on the occasion. Then the ladies asked to see
+the house, and had been conducted from room to room, evidently amazed
+at the plainness of the furniture, but loud in their praises of
+everything as "so effective." Paula had begged to see Harry's room, and
+had rummaged among his whips, had put one of his cigars between her
+lips, and had even contrived, when she thought no one was looking, to
+kiss the tip of his ear. The Countess Zriny, however, accidentally
+looked round at that moment, to Harry's great confusion. Towards six
+o'clock the party had taken leave, with many expressions of delight and
+attachment.
+
+Before they drove off, however, there had been a rather unpleasant
+scene. Lato had requested his wife to exchange seats with Olga, since
+the girl could not, without extreme discomfort, ride with her back to
+the horses. Selina had refused to comply with his request, asserting
+that to ride backwards was quite as unpleasant for her as for Olga.
+
+Then Olga had joined in the conversation, saying she had heard that the
+path through the forest to Dobrotschau was very picturesque, and
+declaring that if Lato would accompany her she should much prefer to
+walk. To this Lato had made various objections, finally yielding,
+however, and setting out with his head hanging and his shoulders
+drooping, like a lamb led to the sacrifice.
+
+Harry's thoughts dwelt upon the pale girl with the large, dark eyes.
+Was it possible that none of the others could read those eyes? He
+recalled the tall, slim figure, the long, thin, but nobly-modelled
+arms, the slender, rather long hands, in which a feverish longing to
+have and to hold somewhat seemed to thrill; he recalled the gliding
+melancholy of her gait, he was spellbound by the impression of her
+youthful personality. Where had he seen a figure expressing the same
+yearning enthusiasm? Why, in a picture by Botticelli,--a picture
+representing Spring,--a pale, sultry Spring, in whose hands the flowers
+faded. Something in the girl's carriage and figure reminded him of that
+allegorical Spring, except that Olga's face was infinitely more
+beautiful than the languishing, ecstatic countenance in the old
+picture.
+
+Long did Harry sit on the garden bench reflecting, and his reflections
+became every moment more distressing. He forgot all his own troubles in
+this fresh anxiety.
+
+He thought of Treurenberg's altered mien. Olga had not yet awakened to
+a consciousness of herself, and that was a comfort. She was not only
+absolutely pure,--Harry was sure of that,--but she was entirely unaware
+of her own state of feeling. How long would this last, however? Passion
+walks, like a somnambulist, in entire security on the edge of profound
+abysses, so long as "sense is shut" in its eyes. But what if some rude
+hand, some unforeseen chance, awake it? Then--God have mercy!
+
+Harry dug his spurs deeper into the gravel. "What will happen if her
+eyes should ever be opened?" he asked himself, with a shudder. "She is
+in no wise inclined to wanton frivolity, but she is a passionate
+creature without firm principles, without family ties to restrain her.
+And Lato? Lato will do his best to conquer himself. But can he summon
+up the strength of character, the tact, requisite to avoid a
+catastrophe and to preserve the old order of things? And if not, what
+then?"
+
+Harry leaned his head on his hands and his elbows on his knees. To what
+it would all lead he could not tell, but he dreaded something terrible.
+He knew Lato well, the paralyzing weakness, as well as the subtile
+refinement, of his nature. Stern principle, a strict sense of duty, he
+lacked: how could it be otherwise, with such early training as had been
+his? Instead, however, he possessed an innate sense of moral beauty
+which must save him from moral degradation.
+
+"A young girl, one of his home circle!" Harry murmured to himself. "No,
+it is inconceivable! And, yet, what can come of it?" And a sobbing
+breeze, carrying with it the scent of languid roses from whose cups it
+had drunk up the dew, rustled among the thirsty branches overhead with
+a sound that seemed to the young fellow like the chuckle of an exultant
+fiend.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+                          ZDENA TO THE RESCUE.
+
+
+But Harry ceases to muse, for the shrill clang of the bell summons him
+to supper. He finds the entire family assembled in the dining-room when
+he enters. All are laughing and talking, even Zdena, who is allowing
+handsome, precocious Vladimir to make love to her after more and more
+startling fashion. She informs Harry that Vips has just made her a
+proposal of marriage, which disparity of age alone prevents her from
+accepting, for in fact she is devoted to the lad.
+
+"I renounce you from a sense of duty, Vips," she assures the young
+gentleman, gently passing her delicate forefinger over his smooth brown
+cheek, whereupon Vips flushes up and exclaims,--
+
+"If you won't have me, at least promise me that I shall be best man at
+your wedding!"
+
+Harry laughs heartily. "What an alternative! Either bridegroom or best
+man!"
+
+"But you will promise me, Zdena, won't you?" the boy persists.
+
+"It depends upon whom I marry," Zdena replies, with dignity. "The
+bridegroom will have a word to say upon the subject." As she speaks,
+her eyes encounter Harry's; she drops them instantly, her cheeks flush,
+and she pauses in confusion.
+
+As she takes her place at table, she finds a letter beside her plate,
+post-marked Bayreuth, and sealed with a huge coat-of-arms. Evidently
+startled, she slips it into her pocket unopened.
+
+"From whom?" asks Heda, whose curiosity is always on the alert.
+
+"From--from Bayreuth."
+
+"From Aunt Rosa?"
+
+Zdena makes no reply.
+
+"From Wenkendorf?" Harry asks, crossly.
+
+The blood rushes to her cheeks. "Yes," she murmurs.
+
+"How interesting!" Heda exclaims. "I really should like to hear his
+views as to the musical mysteries in Bayreuth. Read the letter aloud to
+us."
+
+"Oh, it is sure to be tiresome," Zdena replies, heaping her plate with
+potatoes in her confusion.
+
+"I wish you a good appetite!" Vladimir exclaims.
+
+Zdena looks in dismay at the potatoes piled upon her plate.
+
+"At least open the letter," says Heda.
+
+"Open it, pray!" Harry repeats.
+
+Mechanically Zdena obeys, breaks the seal, and hastily looks through
+the letter. Her cheeks grow redder and redder, her hands tremble.
+
+"Come, read it to us."
+
+Instead of complying, Zdena puts the document in her pocket again, and
+murmurs, much embarrassed, "There--there is nothing in it about
+Bayreuth."
+
+"Ah, secrets!" Heda says, maliciously.
+
+Zdena makes no reply, but gazes in desperation at the mound of potatoes
+on her plate. It never decreases in the least during the entire meal.
+
+Jealousy, which has slept for a while in Harry's breast, springs to
+life again. One is not a Leskjewitsch for nothing. So she keeps up a
+correspondence with Wenkendorf! Ah! he may be deceived in her. Why was
+she so confused at the first sight of the letter? and why did she hide
+it away so hastily? Who knows?--she may be trifling with her old
+adorer, holding him in reserve as it were, because she has not quite
+decided as to her future. Who--who can be trusted, if that fair,
+angelic face can mask such guile?
+
+Countess Zriny, as amiable and benevolent as ever,--Vips calls her
+"syrup diluted with holy water,"--notices that something has occurred
+to annoy the others, and attempts to change their train of thought.
+
+"How is your dog, my dear Harry?" she asks her nephew across the table.
+
+"Very ill," the young officer replies, curtly.
+
+"Indeed? Oh, how sad! What is the matter with him?"
+
+"I wish I knew. He drags his legs, his tail droops, and he has fever. I
+cannot help thinking that some one has thrown a stone at him, and I
+cannot imagine who could have been guilty of such cruelty."
+
+"Poor Hector! 'Tis all up with him; he has no appetite," Vips murmurs.
+
+"How do you know that?" Harry turns sharply upon the lad.
+
+"I took him a piece of bread this afternoon," stammers Vips.
+
+"Indeed?" Harry bursts forth. "Do that again and you shall suffer for
+it. I strictly forbade you to go near the dog!" Then, turning to the
+others, he explains: "I had to have the dog chained up, out of regard
+for the servants' nonsensical fears!"
+
+"But, Harry," Vips begins, coaxingly, after a while, "if I must not go
+near the dog you ought not to have so much to do with him. You went to
+him several times to-day."
+
+"That's very different; he is used to me," Harry sternly replies to his
+brother, who is looking at him with eyes full of anxious affection. "I
+have to see to him, since all the asses of servants, beginning with
+that old fool Blasius, are afraid of the poor brute. Moreover, he has
+everything now that he needs."
+
+Vips knits his brows thoughtfully and shakes his head.
+
+Suddenly the door of the dining-room opens, and old Blasius appears,
+pale as ashes, and trembling in every limb.
+
+"What is the matter?" Harry asks, springing up.
+
+"Herr Baron, I----" the old man stammers.
+
+"What is the matter?"
+
+"I told the Herr Baron how it would be," the old man declares, with the
+whimsical self-assertion which so often mingles with distress in the
+announcement of some misfortune: "Hector has gone mad."
+
+"Nonsense! what do you know about hydrophobia? Let the dog alone!"
+Harry shouts, stamping his foot.
+
+"He has broken his chain."
+
+"Then chain him up again! Send Johann here." (Johann is Harry's special
+servant.)
+
+"Johann is not at home. The Herr Baron does not know what he orders.
+The dog rushes at everything in its path, and tears and bites it. No
+one dares to go near him, not even the butcher. He must be killed."
+
+"What, you coward!" Harry shouts; "my dog killed because of a little
+epilepsy, or whatever it is that ails him!" Meanwhile, Harry notices
+that his brother, who had vanished into the next room for a moment, is
+now attempting with a very resolute air to go out through the door
+leading into the hall. Harry seizes him by the shoulder and stops him:
+"Where are you going?"
+
+Vips is mute.
+
+"What have you in your hand?"
+
+It is Harry's revolver.
+
+"Is it loaded?" he asks, sternly.
+
+"Yes," Vips replies, scarce audibly.
+
+"Put it down there on the piano!" Harry orders, harshly. The poor boy
+obeys sadly, and then throws his arms around his brother.
+
+"But you will stay here, Harry? dear Harry, you will not go near the
+dog?"
+
+"You silly boy, do you suppose I am to do whatever you bid me?" Harry
+rejoins. And, pinning the lad's arms to his sides from behind, he lifts
+him up, carries him into the next room, locks him in, puts the key in
+his pocket, and, without another word, leaves the room. Blasius stays
+in the dining-room, wringing his hands, and finally engages in a
+wailing conversation with Vips, who is kicking violently at the door
+behind which he is confined. Heda, the Countess Zriny, and Fraeulein
+Laut, their backs towards the piano, upon which lies the revolver, form
+an interesting group, expressing in every feature terror and
+helplessness.
+
+"Perhaps he may not be mad," Countess Zriny observes, after a long
+silence, resolved as ever to ignore unpleasant facts. "However, I have
+my eau de Lourdes, at all events."
+
+At this moment the rustle of a light garment is heard. The Countess
+looks round for Zdena, but she has vanished. Whither has she gone?
+
+The dining-room has four doors,--one into the garden, another opposite
+leading into the hall, a third opening into Harry's room, and a fourth
+into the pantry. Through this last Zdena has slipped. From the pantry a
+narrow, dark passage leads down a couple of steps into a lumber-room,
+which opens on the courtyard.
+
+Zdena, when she steps into the court-yard, closes the door behind her
+and looks around. Her heart beats tumultuously. She hopes to reach
+Harry before he meets the dog; but, look where she may, she cannot see
+him.
+
+Wandering clouds veil the low moon; its light is fitful, now bright,
+then dim. The shadows dance and fade, and outlines blend in fantastic
+indistinctness. The wind has risen; it shrieks and howls, and whirls
+the dust into the poor girl's eyes. A frightful growling sound mingles
+with the noise of the blast.
+
+Zdena's heart beats faster; she is terribly afraid. "Harry!" she calls,
+in an agonized tone; "Harry!" In vain. She hears his shrill whistle at
+the other end of the court-yard, hears him call, commandingly, "Hector,
+come here, sir!" He is far away. She hurries towards him. Hark! Her
+heart seems to stand still. Near her sounds the rattle of a chain; a
+pair of fierce bloodshot eyes glare at her: the dog is close at hand.
+He sees her, and makes ready for a spring.
+
+It is true that the girl has a revolver in her hand, but she has no
+idea what to do with it; she has never fired a pistol in her life. In
+desperate fear she clambers swiftly upon a wood-pile against the
+brewery wall. The dog, in blind fury, leaps at the wood, falls back,
+and then runs howling in another direction. The moon emerges from the
+clouds, and pours its slanting beams into the court-yard. At last Zdena
+perceives her headstrong cousin; he is going directly towards the dog.
+
+"Hector!" he shouts; "Hector!"
+
+A few steps onward he comes, when Zdena slips down from her secure
+height. Panting, almost beside herself, the very personification of
+heroic self-sacrifice and desperate terror, she hurries up to Harry.
+
+"What is it--Zdena--you?" Harry calls out. For, just at the moment when
+he stretches out his hand to clutch at the dog's collar, a slender
+figure rushes between him and the furious brute.
+
+"Here, Harry,--the revolver!" the girl gasps, holding out the weapon.
+There is a sharp report: Hector turns, staggers, and falls dead!
+
+The revolver drops from Harry's hand; he closes his eyes. For a few
+seconds he stands as if turned to stone, and deadly pale. Then he feels
+a soft touch upon his arm, and a tremulous voice whispers,--
+
+"Forgive me, Harry! I know how you must grieve for your poor old
+friend, but--but I was so frightened for you!"
+
+He opens his eyes, and, throwing his arm around the girl, exclaims,--
+
+"You angel! Can you for an instant imagine that at this moment I have a
+thought to bestow upon the dog, dearly as I loved him?"
+
+His arm clasps her closer.
+
+"Harry!" she gasps, distressed.
+
+With a sigh he releases her.
+
+In the summits of the old walnuts there soughs a wail of discontent,
+and the moon, which shone forth but a moment ago so brilliantly, and
+which takes delight in the kisses of happy lovers, veils its face in
+clouds before its setting, being defrauded of any such satisfaction.
+
+"Come into the house," whispers Zdena. But walking is not so easy as
+she thinks. She is so dizzy that she can hardly put one foot before the
+other, and, whether she will or not, she must depend upon Harry to
+support her.
+
+"Fool that I am!" he mutters. "Lean upon me, you poor angel! You are
+trembling like an aspen-leaf."
+
+"I can hardly walk,--I was so terribly afraid," she confesses.
+
+"On my account?" he asks.
+
+"No, not on your account alone, but on my own, too," she replies,
+laughing, "for, entirely between ourselves, I am a wretched coward."
+
+"Really? Oh, Zdena--" He presses the hand that rests on his arm.
+
+"But, Harry," she says, very gravely this time, "I am not giddy now. I
+can walk very well." And she takes her hand from his arm.
+
+He only laughs, and says, "As you please, my queen, but you need not
+fear me. If a man ever deserved Paradise, I did just then." He points
+to the spot beneath the old walnuts, where the moon had been
+disappointed.
+
+A few seconds later they enter the dining-room, where are the three
+ladies, and the Countess Zriny advances to meet Harry with a large
+bottle of eau de Lourdes, a tablespoonful of which Heda is trying to
+heat over the flame of the lamp, while Fraeulein Laut pauses in her
+account of a wonderful remedy for hydrophobia.
+
+Harry impatiently cuts short all the inquiries with which he is
+besieged, with "The dog is dead; I shot him!" He does not relate how
+the deed was done. At first he had been disposed to extol Zdena's
+heroism, but he has thought better of it. He resolves to keep for
+himself alone the memory of the last few moments, to guard it in his
+heart like a sacred secret. As Vips is still proclaiming his presence
+in the next room by pounding upon the door, Harry takes the key from
+his pocket and smilingly releases the prisoner. The lad rushes at his
+brother. "Did he not bite you? Really not?" And when Harry answers,
+"No," he entreats, "Show me your hands, Harry,--both of them!" and then
+he throws his arms about the young man and clasps him close.
+
+"Oh, you foolish fellow!" Harry exclaims, stroking the boy's brown
+head. "But now be sensible; don't behave like a girl. Do you hear?"
+
+"My nerves are in such a state," sighs Heda.
+
+Harry stamps his foot. "So are mine! I would advise you all to retire,
+and recover from this turmoil."
+
+Soon afterwards the house is silent. Even Vips has been persuaded to go
+to bed and sleep off his fright. Harry, however, is awake. After
+ordering Blasius to bury the dog, and to bring him his revolver, which
+he now remembers to have left lying beside the animal's body, he seats
+himself on the flight of steps leading from the dining-room into the
+garden, leans his elbows on his knees and his head on his hands,
+and dreams. The wind has subsided, and the night seems to him lovely
+in spite of the misty clouds that veil the sky. The flowers are
+fragrant,--oh, how fair life is! Suddenly he hears a light step; he
+rises, goes into the corridor, and finds Zdena putting a letter into
+the postbag. He approaches her, and their eyes meet. In vain does she
+attempt to look grave. She smiles, and her smile is mirrored in his
+eyes.
+
+"To whom was the letter?" he asks, going towards her. Not that there is
+a spark of jealousy left in his heart for the moment, but he delights
+to coax her secrets from her, to share in all that concerns her.
+
+"Is it any affair of yours?" she asks, with dignity.
+
+"No, but I should like to know."
+
+"I will not tell you."
+
+"Suppose I guess?"
+
+She shrugs her shoulders.
+
+"To Wenkendorf," he whispers, advancing a step nearer her, as she makes
+no reply.
+
+"What did he write to you?" Harry persists.
+
+"That is no concern of yours."
+
+"What if I guess that, too?"
+
+"Then I hope you will keep your knowledge to yourself, and not mention
+your guess to any one," Zdena exclaims, eagerly.
+
+"He proposed to you," Harry says, softly.
+
+Zdena sighs impatiently.
+
+"Well, yes!" she admits at last, turning to Harry a blushing face as
+she goes on. "But I really could not help it. I did what I could to
+prevent it, but men are so conceited and headstrong. If one of them
+takes an idea into his head there is no disabusing him of it."
+
+"Indeed! is that the way with all men?" Harry asks, ready to burst into
+a laugh.
+
+"Yes, except when they have other and worse faults,--are suspicious and
+bad-tempered."
+
+"But then these last repent so bitterly, and are so ashamed of
+themselves."
+
+"Oh, as for that, he will be ashamed of himself too." Then, suddenly
+growing grave, she adds, "I should be very sorry to have----"
+
+"To have any one hear of his disappointed hopes," Harry interposes,
+with a degree of malicious triumph in his tone. "Do not fear; we will
+keep his secret."
+
+"Good-night!" She takes up her candlestick, which she had put down on
+the table beside which they are standing, and turns towards the winding
+staircase.
+
+"Zdena!" Harry whispers, softly.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Nothing: only--is there really not a regret in your heart for the
+wealth you have rejected?"
+
+She shakes her head slowly, as if reflecting. "No," she replies: "what
+good would it have done me? I could not have enjoyed it." Then she
+suddenly blushes crimson, and, turning away from him, goes to the
+staircase.
+
+"Zdena!" he calls again; "Zdena!" But the white figure has vanished at
+the turn of the steps, and he is alone. For a while he stands gazing
+into the darkness that has swallowed her up. "God keep you!" he
+murmurs, tenderly, and finally betakes himself to his room, with no
+thought, however, of going to bed.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+                           A SLEEPLESS NIGHT.
+
+
+No, he could not sleep; he had something important to do. At last he
+must pluck up courage and establish his position. This wretched
+prevarication, this double dealing, could not go on any longer. It was
+ten times more disgraceful than the most brutal frankness. He seated
+himself at the very table where, scarcely more than a day before, he
+had listened to Lato's confessions, and began a rough sketch of his
+letter to Paula. But at the very first word he stopped. He was going to
+write, "Dear Paula," but that would never do. Could he address her thus
+familiarly when he wanted to sever all relations with her? Impossible!
+"Honoured Baroness" he could not write, either; it sounded ridiculous,
+applied to a girl with whom he had sat for hours in the last fortnight.
+He decided to begin, "Dear Baroness Paula." He dipped his pen in the
+ink, and wrote the words in a distinct hand: "Dear Baroness Paula, I
+cannot express to you the difficulty I find in telling you what must,
+however, be told. I had hoped until now that you would discover it
+yourself----"
+
+Thus far he wrote hurriedly, and as if in scorn of mortal danger. He
+paused now, and read over the few words. His cheeks burned. No, he
+could not write that to a lady: as well might he strike her in the
+face. It was impossible. But what should he do? At last an idea
+occurred to him, how strange not to have thought of it before! He must
+appeal to her mother. It was as clear as daylight. He took a fresh
+sheet of paper, having torn the other up and tossed it under the table,
+then dipped his pen anew in the ink. But no; it would not do. Every
+hour that he had spent with Paula, every caress he had allowed her to
+bestow upon him, was brought up before him by his conscience, which
+did not spare him the smallest particular. Lato's words recurred to
+him: "You cannot disguise from yourself the fact that you--you and
+Paula--produce the impression of a devoted pair of lovers."
+
+He set his teeth. He could not deny that his conduct had been shameful.
+He could not sever his engagement to her without a lack of honour.
+
+"Oh, good God! how had it ever come to pass?" What had induced him to
+ride over to Dobrotschau day after day? He had always been sure that an
+opportunity for an explanation would occur. When with Paula he had
+endured her advances in sullen submission, without facing the
+consequences; he had simply been annoyed; and now---- He shuddered.
+
+Once more he took up the pen, but in vain; never before had he felt so
+utterly hopeless. Every limb ached as if laden with fetters. He tossed
+the pen aside: under the circumstances he could not write the letter;
+Paula herself must sever the tie, if it could be severed.
+
+If it could be severed! What did that mean? He seemed to hear the words
+spoken aloud. Nonsense! If it could be severed! As if there were a
+doubt that it could be severed! But how? how?
+
+His distress was terrible. He could see no way to extricate himself.
+Paula must be compelled to release him of her own accord; but how was
+it to be done? He devised the wildest schemes. Could he be caught
+flirting with a gypsy girl? or could he feign to be deeply in debt? No,
+no more feigning; and, besides, what would it avail? She would forgive
+everything.
+
+Suddenly Vips cried out in his sleep.
+
+"Vips!" Harry called, to waken him, going to his brother's bedside.
+
+The lad opened his eyes, heavy with sleep, and said, "I am so glad you
+waked me! I was having a horrible dream that you were being torn to
+pieces by a furious leopard."
+
+"You foolish boy!"
+
+"Oh, it was no joke, I can tell you!" Then, pulling his brother down to
+him, he went on, "Zdena took the revolver to you, I saw her through the
+keyhole; not one of the others would have raised a finger for you. No,
+there is no one in the world like our Zdena." Vips stroked his
+brother's blue sleeve with his long, slender hand. "Do you know," he
+whispered very softly, "I have no doubt that----"
+
+Harry frowned, and Vips blushed, shut his eyes, and turned his face to
+the wall.
+
+The first gleam of morning was breaking its way through the twilight;
+a rosy glow illumined the eastern horizon; the stream began to
+glimmer, and then shone like molten gold; long shadows detached
+themselves from the universal gray and stretched across the garden
+among the dewy flower-beds. The dew lay everywhere, glistening like
+silvery dust on the blades of grass, and dripping in the foliage of the
+old apricot-tree by the open window at which Harry stood gazing sadly
+out into the wondrous beauty of the world. The cool morning breeze
+fanned his check; the birds began to twitter.
+
+The young fellow was conscious of the discomfort of a night spent
+without sleep; but far worse than that was the hopeless misery that
+weighed him down.
+
+Hark! what was that? The sound of bells, the trot of horses on the
+quiet road. Harry leaned forward. Who was that?
+
+Leaning back in an open barouche, a gray travelling-cap on his head, a
+handsome old man was driving along the road.
+
+"Father!" exclaimed Harry.
+
+The old gentleman saw him from the carriage and waved his hand gaily.
+In a twinkling Harry was opening the house-door.
+
+"I have surprised you, have I not?" Karl Leskjewitsch exclaimed,
+embracing his son. "But what's the matter with you? What ails you? I
+never saw you look so sallow,--you rogue!" And he shook his forefinger
+at the young fellow.
+
+"Oh, nothing,--nothing, sir: we will talk of it by and by. Now come and
+take some rest."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXV.
+
+                            THE CONFESSION.
+
+
+Baron Leskjewitsch was in an admirable humour. He brightened up the
+entire household. The Countess Zriny, to be sure, lamented to Fraeulein
+Laut his tireless loquacity, but perhaps that was because his loquacity
+displayed itself principally in the utterance of anti-Catholic views.
+
+At breakfast, on the first morning after his arrival, he cut the old
+canoness to the heart. When he rallied her upon the indigestible nature
+of her favourite delicacy, raspberry jam with whipped cream, she
+replied that she could eat it with perfect impunity, since she always
+mixed a teaspoonful of eau de Lourdes with the jam before adding the
+cream.
+
+Whereupon the Baron called this preservative "Catholic quackery," and
+was annoyed that she made no reply to his attack. Like a former emperor
+of Russia, he longed for opposition. He did what he could to rouse
+Countess Zriny's. After a while he asserted that she was a heathen.
+Catholicism in its modern form, with its picturesque ritual and its
+superstitious worship of the saints, was nothing more than cowled
+Paganism.
+
+The Countess, to whom this rather antiquated wisdom was new, shuddered
+with horror, and regarded the Baron as antichrist, but nevertheless
+held her peace.
+
+Then he played his last trump. He informed her that he regarded the
+Darwinian theory as much less irreligious than her, Countess Zriny's,
+paltry conception of the Deity. Then the Countess arose and left the
+room, to write immediately to her father confessor, expressing her
+anxieties with regard to her cousin's soul, and asking the priest to
+say a mass for his conversion.
+
+"Poor Kathi! have I frightened her away? I didn't mean to do that,"
+said the Baron, looking after her.
+
+No, he had not meant to do it; he had merely desired to arouse
+opposition.
+
+"A splendid subject for an essay," he exclaimed, after a pause,--"'the
+Darwinian theory and the Catholic ritual set forth by a man of true
+piety.' I really must publish a pamphlet with that title. It may bring
+me into collision with the government, but that would not be very
+distressing."
+
+Privately the Baron wished for nothing more earnestly than to be
+brought into collision with the government, to be concerned in some
+combination threatening the existence of the monarchy. But just as some
+women, in spite of every endeavour, never succeed in compromising
+themselves, so Karl Leskjewitsch had never yet succeeded in seriously
+embroiling himself with the government. No one took him in earnest;
+even when he made the most incendiary speeches, they were regarded as
+but the amusing babble of a political dilettante.
+
+He eagerly availed himself of any occasion to utter his paradoxes, and
+at this first breakfast he was so eloquent that gradually all at the
+table followed the example of Countess Zriny, in leaving it, except his
+eldest son.
+
+He lighted a cigar, and invited Harry to go into the garden with him.
+Harry, who had been longing for a word with his father in private,
+acceded readily to his proposal.
+
+The sun shone brightly, the flowers in the beds sparkled like diamonds.
+The old ruin stood brown and clear against the sky, the bees hummed,
+and Fraeulein Laut was practising something of Brahms's. Of course she
+had seated herself at the piano as soon as the dining-room was
+deserted.
+
+Harry walked beside his father, with bent head, vainly seeking for
+words in which to explain his unfortunate case. His father held his
+head very erect, kicked the pebbles from his path with dignity, talked
+very fast, and asked his son twenty questions, without waiting for an
+answer to one of them.
+
+"Have you been spending all your leave here? Does it not bore you? Why
+did you not take an interesting trip? Life here must be rather
+tiresome; Heda never added much to the general hilarity, and as for
+poor Kathi, do you think her entertaining? She's little more than a
+_mouton a l'eau benite_. And then that sausage-chopper," with a glance
+in the direction whence proceeded a host of interesting dissonances.
+"Surely you must have found your stay here a very heavy affair. Kathi
+Zriny is harmless, but that Laut--ugh!--a terrible creature! Look at
+her hair; it looks like hay. I should like to understand the aim of
+creation in producing such an article; we have no use for it." He
+paused,--perhaps for breath.
+
+"Father," Harry began, meekly.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I should like to tell you something."
+
+"Tell me, then, but without any preface. I detest prefaces; I never
+read them; in fact, a book is usually spoiled for me if I find it has a
+preface. What is a preface written for? Either to explain the book that
+follows it, or to excuse it. And why read a book that needs explanation
+or excuses? I told Franz Weyser, the famous orator, in the Reichsrath
+the other day, that----"
+
+"Father," Harry began again, in a tone of entreaty, aware that he
+should have some difficulty in obtaining a hearing for his confession.
+
+"What an infernally sentimental air you have! Aha! I begin to see. You
+have evidently fallen in love with Zdena. It is not to be wondered at;
+she's a charming creature--pretty as a picture--looks amazingly like
+Charlotte Buff, of Goethe memory; all that is needed is to have her
+hair dressed high and powdered. What can I say? In your place I should
+have been no wiser. Moreover, if you choose to marry poverty for love,
+'tis your own affair. You must remember that Franz will undoubtedly
+stop your allowance. You cannot expect much from Paul; and as for
+myself, I can do nothing for you except give you my blessing. You know
+how matters stand with me; and I must think of your sister, who never
+can marry without a dowry. I cannot entirely deprive myself of means: a
+politician must preserve his independence, for, as I lately said to
+Fritz Boehm, in the Reichsrath----"
+
+In vain had Harry tried to edge in a word. With a bitter smile he
+recalled a passage in a Vienna humorous paper which, under the heading
+of "A disaster prevented," set forth the peril from drowning from which
+the entire government had been saved by the presence of mind of the
+president of the Reichsrath, Herr Doctor Smolka, who had contrived just
+in the nick of time to put a stop to a torrent of words from Baron Karl
+Leskjewitsch.
+
+Suddenly the Baron stumbled over a stone, which fortunately caused him
+to pause.
+
+"It has nothing to do with Zdena!" Harry exclaimed, seizing his
+opportunity.
+
+"Not? Then----"
+
+"I have become betrothed," Harry almost shouted, for fear of not making
+his father hear.
+
+"And what do you want of me?"
+
+"You must help me to break the engagement," his son cried, in despair.
+
+At these words Karl Leskjewitsch, who with all his confusion of ideas
+had managed to retain a strong sense of humour, made a grimace, and
+pushed back the straw hat which he wore, and which had made the ascent
+of Mount Vesuvius with him and had a hole in the crown, so that it
+nearly fell off his head.
+
+"Ah, indeed! First of all I should like to know to whom you are
+betrothed,--the result, of course, of garrison life in some small town?
+I always maintain that for a cavalry officer----"
+
+Harry felt the liveliest desire to summon the aid of Doctor Smolka to
+stem the tide of his father's eloquence, but, since this could not be,
+he loudly interrupted him: "I am betrothed to Paula Harfink!"
+
+"Harfink!" exclaimed the Baron. "The Harfinks of K----?"
+
+"Yes; they are at Dobrotschau this summer," Harry explained.
+
+"So she is your betrothed,--the Baroness Paula? She is handsome; a
+little too stout, but that is a matter of taste. And you want to marry
+her?"
+
+"No, no, I do not want to marry her!" Harry exclaimed, in dismay.
+
+"Oh, indeed! you do not want to marry her?" murmured the Baron. "And
+why not?"
+
+"Because--because I do not love her."
+
+"Why did you betroth yourself to her?"
+
+Harry briefly explained the affair to his father.
+
+The Baron looked grave. "And what do you want me to do?" he asked,
+after a long, oppressive silence.
+
+"Help me out, father. Put your veto upon this connection."
+
+"What will my veto avail? You are of age, and can do as you choose,"
+said the Baron, shaking his head.
+
+"Yes, legally," Harry rejoined, impatiently, "but I never should dream
+of marrying against your will."
+
+Karl Leskjewitsch found this assurance of filial submission on his
+son's part very amusing. He looked askance at the young fellow, and,
+suppressing a smile, extended his hand after a pompous theatric fashion
+and exclaimed, "I thank you for those words. They rejoice my paternal
+heart." Then, after swinging his son's hand up and down like a
+pump-handle, he dropped it and said, dryly, "Unfortunately, I have not
+the slightest objection to your betrothal to the Harfink girl. What
+pretext shall I make use of?"
+
+"Well,"--Harry blushed,--"you might say you cannot consent to the
+_mesalliance_."
+
+"Indeed! Thanks for the suggestion. I belong to the Liberal party, and
+do not feel called upon to play the part of an aristocratic Cerberus
+defending his prejudices." Here the Baron took out his note-book.
+"Aristocratic Cerberus," he murmured; "that may be useful some day in
+the Reichsrath. Besides," he continued, "it would just now be
+particularly unpleasant to quarrel with the Harfinks. If you had asked
+me before your betrothal whether I should like it, I should have
+frankly said no. The connection is a vulgar one; but, since matters
+have gone so far, I do not like to make a disturbance. The brother of
+the girl's mother, Doctor Gruenbart, is one of the leaders of our
+party. He formerly conducted himself towards me with great reserve,
+suspecting that my liberal tendencies were due merely to a whim,
+to a fleeting caprice. I met him, however, a short time ago, on
+my tour through Sweden and Norway. He was travelling with his
+wife and daughter. We travelled together. He is a very clever man,
+but--between ourselves--intolerable, and with dirty nails. As for his
+women-folk,--good heavens!" The Baron clasped his hands. "The wife
+always eat the heads of the trout which I left in the dish, and the
+daughter travelled in a light-blue gown, with a green botany-box
+hanging at her back, and such teeth,--horrible! The wife is a
+schoolmaster's daughter, who married the old man to rid herself of a
+student lover. Very worthy, but intolerable. I travelled with them for
+six weeks, and won the Doctor's heart by my courtesy to his wife and
+daughter. I should have been more cautious if I had been at
+housekeeping in Vienna, although the most violent Austrian democrats
+are very reasonable in social respects, especially with regard to their
+women. They are flattered by attention to them on a journey, but they
+are not aggressive at home. This, however, is not to the point."
+
+It did indeed seem not to the point to Harry, who bit his lip and
+privately clinched his fist. He was on the rack during his father's
+rambling discourse.
+
+"What I wanted to say"--the Baron resumed the thread of his
+discourse--"is, that this democrat's pride is his elegant sister,
+Baroness Harfink, and the fact that she was once invited, after great
+exertions in some charitable undertaking, to a ball at the Princess
+Colloredo's--I think it was at the Colloredo's. I should like to have
+seen her there!" He rubbed his hands and smiled. "My democrat maintains
+that she looked more distinguished than the hostess. You understand
+that if I should wound his family pride I could not hope for his
+support in the Reichsrath, where I depend upon it to procure me a
+hearing."
+
+Harry privately thought that it would be meritorious to avert such a
+calamity, but he said, "Ah, father, that democrat's support is not so
+necessary as you think. Depend upon it, you will be heard without it.
+And then a quarrel with a politician would cause you only a temporary
+annoyance, while the continuance of my betrothal to Paula will simply
+kill me. I have done my best to show her the state of my feelings
+towards her. She does not understand me. There is nothing for it but
+for you to undertake the affair." Harry clasped his hands in entreaty,
+like a boy. "Do it for my sake. You are the only one who can help me."
+
+Baron Karl was touched. He promised everything that his son asked of
+him.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+                            THE BARON'S AID.
+
+
+The Baron never liked to postpone what he had to do; it was against his
+principles and his nature. The matter must be attended to at once. As
+soon as the mid-day meal was over, he had the carriage brought, put on
+a black coat, and set out for Dobrotschau.
+
+The fountain plashed dreamily as he drove into the castle court-yard.
+The afternoon sun glittered on the water, and a great dog came towards
+him as he alighted, and thrust his nose into his hand. He knew the old
+dog.
+
+"How are you, old friend? how does the new _regime_ suit you?" he said,
+patting the animal's head. Two footmen hurried forward in drab breeches
+and striped vests. To one of them Baron Karl gave his card, and then
+awaited the mistress of the mansion in the spacious and rather dark
+drawing-room into which he had been shown.
+
+He looked about him, and was very well pleased. The tall windows of the
+room were draped with pale-green silk; the furniture, various in shape
+and style, was all convenient and handsome; vases filled with flowers
+stood here and there on stands and tables; and in a black ebony
+cabinet, behind glass doors, there was a fine collection of old
+porcelain. The Baron was a connoisseur in old porcelain, and had just
+risen to examine these specimens, when the servant returned to conduct
+him to the Baroness's presence.
+
+Baron Karl's heart throbbed a little fast at the thought of his
+mission, and he privately anathematized "the stupid boy" who had been
+the cause of it.
+
+"Since he got himself into the scrape, he might have got himself out of
+it," he thought, as he followed the lackey, who showed him into a small
+but charming boudoir, fitted up after a rural fashion with light
+cretonne.
+
+"I'm in for it," the Baron thought, in English. He liked to sprinkle
+his soliloquies with English phrases, having a great preference for
+England, whence he imported his clothes, his soap, and his political
+ideas of reform _en gros_. In the Reichsrath they called him "Old
+England."
+
+As he entered the pretty room, a lady rose from a low lounge and came
+towards him with outstretched hands. Those hands were small, soft, and
+shapely, and the rings adorning the third finger of one of them--a ruby
+and a large diamond, both very simply set--became them well. Baron Karl
+could not help carrying one of them to his lips; thus much, he thought,
+he owed the poor woman in view of the pain he was about to inflict upon
+her. Frau von Harfink said a few pleasant words of welcome, to which he
+replied courteously, and then, having taken his seat in a comfortable
+arm-chair near her favourite lounge, the conversation came to a
+stand-still. The Baron looked in some confusion at his hostess. There
+was no denying that, in spite of her fifty years, she was a pretty
+woman. Her features were regular, her teeth dazzling, and if there was
+a touch of rouge on her cheeks, that was her affair; it did not affect
+her general appearance. The fair hair that was parted to lie in smooth
+waves above her brow was still thick, and the little lace cap was very
+becoming. Her short, full figure was not without charm, and her gown of
+black _crepe de Chine_ fitted faultlessly. The Baron could not help
+thinking that it would be easier to give her pain if she were ugly.
+There was really no objection to make to her. He had hoped she would
+resemble his friend Doctor Gruenbart, but she did not resemble him.
+While he pondered thus, Frau von Harfink stretched out her hand to the
+bell-rope.
+
+"My daughters are both out in the park; they will be extremely glad to
+see you, especially Paula, who has been most impatient to know you. I
+will send for them immediately."
+
+Karl Leskjewitsch prevented her from ringing. "One moment, first," he
+begged; "I--I am here upon very serious business."
+
+Her eyes scanned his face keenly. Did she guess? did she choose not to
+understand him? Who can tell? Certain it is that no woman could have
+made what he had come to say more difficult to utter.
+
+"Oh, let 'serious business' go for the present!" she exclaimed; "there
+is time enough for that. A mother's heart of course is full----"
+
+In his confusion the Baron had picked up a pamphlet lying on the table
+between Frau von Harfink and himself. Imagine his sensations when, upon
+looking at it closely, he recognized his own work,--a pamphlet upon
+"Servility among Liberals,"--a piece of political bravado upon which
+the author had prided himself not a little at the time of its
+publication, but which, like many another masterpiece, had vanished
+without a trace in the yearly torrent of such literature. Not only were
+the leaves of this pamphlet cut, but as the Baron glanced through it he
+saw that various passages were underscored with pencil-marks.
+
+"You see how well known you are here, my dear Baron," said Frau von
+Harfink, and then, taking his hat from him, she went on, "I cannot have
+you pay us a formal visit: you will stay and have a cup of tea, will
+you not? Do you know that I am a little embarrassed in the presence of
+the author of that masterpiece?"
+
+"Ah, pray, madame!"--the democrat _par excellence_ could not exactly
+bring himself to an acknowledgment of Frau von Harfink's brand-new
+patent of nobility,--"ah, madame, the merest trifle, a political
+_capriccio_ with which I beguiled an idle hour; not worth mentioning."
+
+"Great in small things, my dear Baron, great in small things," she
+rejoined. "No one since Schopenhauer has understood how to use the
+German language as you do. So admirable a style!--precise, transparent,
+and elegant as finely-cut glass. And what a wealth of original
+aphorisms! You are a little sharp here and there, almost cruel,"--she
+shook her forefinger at him archly,--"but the truth is always cruel."
+
+"A remarkably clever woman!" thought Baron Karl. Of course he could not
+refrain from returning such courtesy. "This summer, in a little trip to
+the North Cape"--Leskjewitsch was wont always to refer to his travels
+as little trips; a journey to California he would have liked to call a
+picnic--"in a little trip to the North Cape, I had the pleasure of
+meeting your brother, Baroness," he cleared his throat before uttering
+the word, but he accomplished it. "We had known each other politically
+in the Reichsrath, but in those northern regions our acquaintance
+quickly ripened into friendship."
+
+"I have heard all about it already," said the Baroness: "it was my
+brother who called my attention to this pearl." She pointed to the
+pamphlet. "Of course he had no idea of the closer relations which we
+are to hold with each other; he simply described to me the impression
+you made upon him. Ah, I must read you one of his letters."
+
+She opened a drawer in her writing-table, and unfolded a long letter,
+from which she began to read, then interrupted herself, turned the
+sheet, and finally found the place for which she was looking:
+
+"Baron Karl Leskjewitsch is an extremely clever individual, brilliantly
+gifted by nature. His misfortune has been that in forsaking the
+Conservatives he has failed to win the entire confidence of the
+Liberals. Now that I know him well, I am ready to use all my influence
+to support him in his career, and I do not doubt that I shall succeed
+in securing for him the distinguished position for which he is fitted.
+I see in him the future Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs."
+
+A few minutes previously Baron Karl had been conscious of some
+discomfort; every trace of it had now vanished. He was fairly
+intoxicated. He saw himself a great statesman, and was already
+pondering upon what to say in his first important conference with the
+Chancellor of the realm.
+
+"Pray, give my warm regards to Doctor Gruenbart when you next write to
+him," he began, not without condescension, when suddenly a young lady
+hurried into the room,--tall, stout, with Titian hair and a dazzling
+complexion, her chest heaving, her eyes sparkling. In the Baron's
+present mood she seemed to him beautiful as a young goddess. "By Jove!
+the boy has made a hit," he thought to himself. The vague sense of
+discomfort returned for a moment, but vanished when Paula advanced
+towards him with outstretched hands. He drew her to him, and imprinted
+a paternal kiss upon her forehead. Selina and Fainacky now made their
+appearance. It was quite a domestic scene.
+
+The Baroness rang, and the tea-equipage was brought in for afternoon
+tea. Olga made her appearance, but Treurenberg was absent; Selina
+remarked, crossly, that he was again spending the afternoon with the
+officers at X----. Baron Karl was throned upon roses and inhaling sweet
+incense, when finally the Baroness, lightly touching his arm, asked
+before all present,--
+
+"And the 'serious business' you came to consult me about?" He started,
+and was mute, while the lady went on, archly, "What if I guess its
+import? You came in Harry's behalf, did you not?"
+
+Baron Karl bowed his head in assent.
+
+"To arrange the day, was it not?"
+
+What could the poor man do? Before he had time to reflect, the
+Baroness said, "We have considered the matter already; we must be in no
+hurry,--no hurry. It always is a sore subject for a mother, the
+appointing a definite time for her separation from her daughter, and
+every girl, however much in love she may be,"--here the Baroness
+glanced at her stout Paula, who did her best to assume an air of
+maidenly reserve, "would like to postpone the marriage-day. But men do
+not like to wait; therefore, all things considered, I have thought of
+the 19th of October as the day. Tell Harry so from me, and scold him
+well for not doing his errand himself. His delicacy of sentiment is
+really exaggerated! An old woman may be pardoned for a little
+enthusiasm for a future son-in-law, may she not?"
+
+Shortly afterwards Baron Leskjewitsch was driving home along the road
+by which he had come. The shadows had lengthened; a cold air ascended
+from the earth. Gradually the Baron's consciousness, drugged by the
+flattery he had received, awoke, and he felt extremely uncomfortable.
+What had he effected? He was going home after a fruitless visit,--no,
+not fruitless. Harry's affairs were in a worse condition than before.
+He had absolutely placed the official seal upon his son's betrothal.
+
+What else could he have done? He could not have made a quarrel. He
+could not alienate Doctor Gruenbart's sister. The welfare of the
+government might depend upon his friendly alliance with the leader of
+the democratic party. His fancy spread its wings and took its flight to
+higher spheres,--he really had no time to trouble himself about his
+son's petty destiny. His ambition soared high: he saw himself about to
+reform the monarchy with the aid of Doctor Gruenbart, whose importance,
+however, decreased as his own waxed great.
+
+He drove through the ruinous archway into the courtyard. A light wagon
+was standing before the house. When he asked whose it was, he was told
+that it had come from Zirkow to take home the Baroness Zdena. He went
+to the dining-room, whence came the sound of gay voices and laughter.
+They were all at supper, and seemed very merry, so merry that they had
+not heard him arrive.
+
+Twilight was already darkening the room when the Baron entered by one
+door at the same moment that Blasius with the lamp made his appearance
+at the other. The lamplight fell full upon the group about the table,
+and Baron Karl's eyes encountered those of his son, beaming with
+delight. Poor fellow! He had not entertained a doubt that everything
+would turn out well. Zdena, too, looked up; her lips were redder than
+usual, and there was a particularly tender, touching expression about
+her mouth, while in her eyes there was a shy delight. There was no
+denying it, the girl was exquisitely beautiful.
+
+She had guessed Baron Karl's errand to Dobrotschau. She divined----
+
+Pshaw! The Baron felt dizzy for a moment,--but, after all, such things
+must be borne. Such trifles must not influence the future 'Canning' of
+Austria.
+
+Blasius set down the lamp. How comfortable and home-like the
+well-spread table looked, at the head the little army of cream-pitchers
+and jugs, over which the Countess Zriny was presiding.
+
+"A cup of coffee?" the old canoness asked the newcomer.
+
+"No, no, thanks," he said. Something in his voice told Harry
+everything.
+
+The Baron tried to take his place at table, that the moment for
+explanation might be postponed, but Harry could not wait.
+
+"Something has occurred to-day upon the farm about which I want to
+consult you, sir," he said. "Will you not come with me for a moment?"
+And he made a miserably unsuccessful attempt to look as if it were a
+matter of small importance. The two men went into the next room, where
+it was already so dark that they could not see each other's faces
+distinctly. Harry lit a candle, and placed it on the table between his
+father and himself.
+
+"Well, father?"
+
+"My dear boy, there was nothing to be done," the Baron replied,
+hesitating. For a moment the young man's misery made an impression upon
+him, but then his invincible loquacity burst forth. "There was nothing
+to be done, Harry," he repeated. And, with a wave of his hand implying
+true nobility of sentiment, he went on: "A betrothal is a contract
+sealed by a promise. From a promise one may be released; it cannot be
+broken. When the Harfinks refused to see the drift of my hints, and
+release you from your promise, there was nothing left for me save to
+acquiesce. As a man of honour, a gentleman, I could do no less; I could
+not possibly demand your release."
+
+Baron Karl looked apprehensively at his son, with whose quick temper he
+was familiar, expecting to be overwhelmed by a torrent of reproaches,
+of bitter, provoking words, sure that the young man would be led into
+some display of violence; but nothing of the kind ensued. Harry stood
+perfectly quiet opposite his father, one hand leaning upon the table
+where burned the candle. His head drooped a little, and he was very
+pale, but not a finger moved when his father added, "You understand
+that I could do nothing further?"
+
+He murmured, merely, "Yes, I understand." His voice sounded thin and
+hoarse, like the voice of a sick child; and then he fell silent again.
+After a pause, he said, in a still lower tone, "Uncle Paul has sent the
+wagon for Zdena, with a note asking me to drive her back to Zirkow. It
+has been waiting for an hour and a half, because Zdena did not want to
+leave before your return. Pray, do me the favour to drive her home in
+my place: I cannot."
+
+Then the young fellow turned away and went to a window, outside of
+which the old apricot-trees rustled and sighed.
+
+Baron Karl was very sorry for his son, but what else could he have
+done? Surely his case was a hard one. He seemed to himself a very
+Junius Brutus, sacrificing his son to his country. And having succeeded
+finally in regarding in this magnanimous light the part he had played,
+he felt perfectly at peace with himself again.
+
+He left the room, promising to attend to Zdena's return to Zirkow. But
+Harry remained standing by the window, gazing out into the gathering
+gloom. The very heart within his breast seemed turning to stone. He
+knew now that what he had at first held to be merely a ridiculous
+annoyance had come to be bitter earnest,--yes, terrible earnest! No
+escape was possible; he could see no hope of rescue; a miracle would
+have to occur to release him, and he did not believe in miracles.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+                              BARON FRANZ.
+
+
+Every year, towards the end of August, Baron Franz Leskjewitsch, the
+family scarecrow and Cr[oe]sus, was wont to appear at his estate,
+Vorhabshen, near Zirkow, to learn the condition of the harvest, to
+spend a few days in hunting, and to abuse everything and everybody
+before, at the end of a couple of weeks, vanishing as suddenly as he
+had appeared.
+
+On these occasions he avoided his brother Paul with evident
+determination. If any of the family were at Komaritz, he invited them
+to dinner once or twice, at such times taking pains to make himself
+particularly offensive to Heda, whom he could not endure.
+
+He had never spent any length of time at Vorhabshen since the family
+quarrel, and in consequence the dwelling-house, or castle, upon which,
+miser that he was, he never would spend a penny for repairs, had come
+to be tumble-down and sordid in appearance, both inside and out. It was
+a huge structure, with numerous windows, in which many of the sashes
+were sprung and some destitute of panes, never having been reglazed
+since the last hail-storm had worked ruin among them.
+
+Among the family portraits, which hung in a dark, oak-wainscoted
+gallery, the pigeons built their nests.
+
+Like many another Bohemian castle, the mansion at Vorhabshen was built
+close to the farm-yard, and its front faced an immense, light-brown
+manure-heap.
+
+The inmates of this unpicturesque ruin--whose duty it was to keep it
+ready for its master's brief visits--were, first, the housekeeper,
+Lotta Papoushek; then the Baron's court-fool, the former brewer
+Studnecka, who at times imagined himself the prophet Elisha, and at
+other times a great musical genius; then the superintendent, with his
+underlings; and finally, any young man who might be tempted to come
+hither to study modern agriculture, and whose studies were generally
+confined to allowing himself to be pampered by the housekeeper Lotta,
+who had all the admiration of her class for courteous young people.
+
+Frau Lotta had been in the Baron's service for more than forty years.
+Her large face was red, dotted with brown warts, and her features were
+hard and masculine. Although she certainly was far from attractive in
+appearance, there was a report that she had once been handsome, and
+that Baron Franz, when he received the news of his son's marriage with
+Marie Duval, had exclaimed, "I'll marry my housekeeper! I'll marry
+Lotta!" How this would have aided to re-establish the family prestige
+it is difficult to say, and it is doubtful whether the speech was made;
+but twenty years afterwards Lotta used to tell of it, and of how she
+had replied, "That would be too nonsensical, Herr Baron!"
+Notwithstanding her peculiarities and her overweening self-conceit, she
+was a thoroughly good creature, and devoted heart and soul to the
+Leskjewitsch family. Her absolute honesty induced the Baron to make her
+authority at Vorhabshen paramount, to the annoyance of the
+superintendent and his men.
+
+It was a clear afternoon,--the 1st of September; the steam thresher was
+at work in the farm-yard, and its dreary puffing and groaning were
+audible in Lotta's small sitting-room, on the ground-floor of the
+mansion, where she was refreshing herself with a cup of coffee, having
+invited the student of agriculture--a young Herr von Kraschinsky--to
+share her nectar.
+
+She had been regaling him with choice bits of family history, as he lay
+back comfortably in an arm-chair, looking very drowsy, when, after a
+pause, she remarked, as if in soliloquy, "I should like to know where
+the master is; I have had no answer to the long letter I sent to him at
+Franzburg."
+
+"Oh, you correspond with the Baron, do you?" murmured the student, too
+lazy to articulate distinctly.
+
+"Of course I do. You must not forget that my position in the
+Leskjewitsch family is higher than that of a servant. I was once
+governess to our poor, dear Baron Fritz; and I have always been devoted
+to them."
+
+In fact, Lotta had been Fritz's nurse; and it was true that she had
+always been much valued, having been treated with great consideration
+on account of her absolute fidelity and her tolerably correct German.
+
+"Yes," she went on, careless as to her companion's attention, "I wrote
+to the Baron about the wheat and the young calves, and I told him of
+Baron Harry's betrothal. I am curious to know what he will say to it.
+For my part, it is not at all to my taste."
+
+"But then you are so frightfully aristocratic," said her guest.
+
+Lotta smiled; nothing pleased her more than to be rallied upon her
+aristocratic tendencies, although she made haste to disclaim them. "Oh,
+no; I am by no means so feudal"--a favourite word of hers, learned from
+a circulating library to which she subscribed--"as you think. I never
+shall forget how I tried to bring about a reconciliation between Baron
+Fritz and his father; but the master was furious, called the widow and
+her little child, after poor Fritz's death, 'French baggage,' and
+threatened me with dismissal if I ever spoke of them. What could I do?
+I could not go near the little girl when Baron Paul brought her to
+Zirkow; but I have watched her from a distance, and have rejoiced to
+see her grow lovelier every year, and the very image of her father. And
+when all the country around declared that Baron Harry was in love with
+her, I was glad; but our master was furious, although the young things
+were then mere children, and declared that not one penny of his money
+should his nephew have if he married the child of that shop-girl. I
+suppose Baron Harry has taken all this into consideration." The old
+woman's face grew stern as she folded her arms on her flat chest and
+declared again, "I am curious to know what the master will think of
+this betrothal."
+
+Outside in the farm-yard the steam thresher continued its monotonous
+task; the superintendent, a young man, something of a coxcomb, stood
+apart from the puffing monster, a volume of Lenau in his hand, learning
+by heart a poem which he intended to recite at the next meeting of the
+"Concordia Association," in X----. The court-fool, Studnecka, was
+seated at his harmonium, composing.
+
+Suddenly a clumsy post-chaise rattled into the courtyard. The
+superintendent started, and thrust his Lenau into his pocket. Lotta
+smoothed her gray hair, and went to meet the arrival. She knew that
+"the master" had come. It was his habit to appear thus unexpectedly,
+when it was impossible to be prepared for him. His masculine employees
+disliked this fashion extremely. Lotta was not at all disturbed by it.
+
+Studnecka was the last to notice that something unusual was going on.
+When he did so, he left the harmonium and went to the window.
+
+In the midst of a group of servants and farm-hands stood an old man in
+a long green coat and a shiny, tall hat. The court-fool observed
+something strange in his master's appearance. Suddenly he fairly
+gasped.
+
+"The world is coming to an end!" he exclaimed. "Wonders will never
+cease,--the Herr Baron has a new hat!"
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+                             A SHORT VISIT.
+
+
+Lotta, too, noticed the master's new hat, but that was not the only
+change she observed in him. The expression of his face was not so stern
+as usual. Instead of sneering at the coxcombical superintendent, he
+smiled at his approach; his complexion was far less sallow than it had
+been; and, above all, he allowed the superintendent to pay the driver
+of the post-chaise without an inquiry as to the fare.
+
+After nodding right and left, he asked Lotta if his room were ready.
+
+"Of course," the housekeeper replied, and at once conducted him to a
+spacious and exquisitely clean and neat apartment, rather scantily
+furnished with spindle-legged chairs and brass-mounted cabinets dating
+from the time of the First Empire. Not a speck of dust was to be seen
+anywhere. The Baron ordered coffee, and dismissed Lotta.
+
+When she had gone he looked about him keenly, as if in search of
+somewhat, from the arm-chair into which he had thrown himself. Not
+finding what he sought, he arose and went into the adjoining room. Yes,
+there it was!
+
+On the wall hung two portraits, in broad, tasteless gilt frames. One
+represented a fair, handsome woman, with bare shoulders and long, soft
+curls; the other a dark-browed man, in the red, gold-embroidered
+uniform of a court chamberlain. He smiled bitterly as he looked at this
+picture. "Done with!" he muttered, and turned his back upon the
+portraits; with those words he banished the memory of his past. A
+strange sensation possessed him: an anticipation of his future,--the
+future of a man of seventy-three! He walked about the room uncertainly,
+searching for something. A dark flush mounted to his cheek; he loosened
+his collar. At last he turned the key in the door, as if fearful of
+being surprised in some misdeed, and then went to his writing-table, a
+large and rather complicated piece of furniture, its numerous drawers
+decorated with brass ornaments. From one of the most secret of these he
+took a small portfolio containing about a dozen photographs. All
+represented the same person, but at various stages of existence, from
+earliest infancy to boyhood and manhood.
+
+"Fritz!" murmured the old man, hoarsely; "Fritz!"
+
+Yes, always Fritz. The father looked them through, lingering over each
+one with the same longing, hungry look with which we would fain call to
+life the images of our dead. There was Fritz with his first gun, Fritz
+in his school-uniform, and, at last, Fritz as a young diplomat,
+photographed in Paris, with a mountain view in the background.
+
+This picture trembled in the old hands. How he had admired it! how
+proud he had been of his handsome son! and then----
+
+There was a knock at the door. Buried in the past, he had not heard the
+bustle of preparation in the next room, and now he thrust away the
+pictures to take his seat at his well-furnished table, where Lotta was
+waiting to serve him.
+
+"Sit down, sit down," the Baron said, with unwonted geniality, "and
+tell me of what is going on here."
+
+Lotta seated herself bolt upright at a respectful distance from her
+master.
+
+"Well?" began the Baron, pouring out the coffee for himself.
+
+"I wrote all the news to the Herr Baron; nothing else has happened,
+except that the English sow which the Herr Baron bought at the fair
+littered last night,--twelve as nice fat little pigs as ever were
+seen."
+
+"Indeed! very interesting. But what was in the letter? Since I never
+received it, it must be lying at Franzburg."
+
+"Oh, all sorts of things,--about the short-horn calves, and the weight
+of the hay, and Baron Harry's betrothal; but of course the Herr Baron
+knew of that."
+
+The Baron set down his cup so hastily that it came near being broken.
+"Not a word!" he exclaimed, doing his best to conceal the delight which
+would mirror itself in his face. Harry betrothed? To whom but to the
+golden-haired enchantress he had met in the forest, Fritz's daughter
+Zdena? To be sure, he had threatened to disinherit the boy if he
+married her, but the fellow had been quite right to set the threat at
+naught. The old man chuckled at the fright he would give them, and
+then---- Meanwhile, he tried to look indifferent.
+
+"Indeed? And so the boy is betrothed?" he drawled. "All very
+fine--without asking any one's advice, hey? Of course your old heart is
+dancing at the thought of it, Lotta. Oh, I know you through and
+through."
+
+"I don't see any reason for rejoicing at the young master's betrothal,"
+Lotta replied, crossly, thrusting out her chin defiantly.
+
+The old man scanned her keenly. Something in the expression of her face
+troubled him.
+
+"Who is the girl?" he asked, bluntly.
+
+"The younger of the two Harfink fraeuleins; the other married Count
+Treurenberg."
+
+"Harfink, do you say? Impossible!" The Baron could not believe his
+ears.
+
+"So I thought too, but I was mistaken. It is officially announced.
+Baron Karl has been to see the mother, and there is shortly to be a
+betrothal festival, to which all the great people in the country round
+are to be invited."
+
+"But what is the stupid boy thinking about? What do people say of him?"
+thundered the Baron.
+
+"Why, what should they say? They say our young Baron had interested
+motives, that he is in debt----"
+
+The Baron started up in a fury. "In debt? A fine reason!" he shouted.
+"Am I not here?"
+
+Whereupon Lotta looked at him very significantly. "As if every one did
+not know what those get who come to the Herr Baron for money," she
+murmured.
+
+The old man's face flushed purple. "Leave the room!" he cried, pointing
+to the door.
+
+Lotta arose, pushed back her chair to the wall, and walked out of the
+room with much dignity. She was accustomed to such conduct on her
+master's part: it had to be borne with. And she knew, besides, that her
+words had produced an impression, that he would not be angry with her
+long.
+
+When the door had closed after her, the old man seated himself at his
+writing-table, determined to write to Harry, putting his veto upon the
+marriage of his nephew with the "Harfink girl;" but after the first few
+lines he dropped the pen.
+
+"What affair is it of mine?" he murmured. "If he had yielded to
+a foolish impulse like my Fritz,"--he passed his hand over his
+eyes,--"why, then I might have seen things differently, and not as I
+did twenty years ago. But if, with love for another girl in his heart,
+he chooses to sell himself for money, he simply does not exist for me.
+Let him take the consequences. My money was not enough for him, or
+perhaps he was afraid he should have to wait too long for it. Well, now
+he can learn what it is to be married without a penny to a rich girl
+whom he does not love."
+
+He pulled the bell furiously. The young gamekeeper who always filled
+the position of valet to the Baron upon these spasmodic visits to
+Vorhabshen entered.
+
+"Harness the drag, Martin, so that I can catch the train."
+
+That very evening he returned to Franzburg, where he sent for his
+lawyer to help him make a new will.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+                               SUBMISSION.
+
+
+Yes, affairs had reached a terribly grave point, an Harry now fully
+appreciated. He felt like a man under sentence of death whose appeal
+for mercy has been rejected. The day for his execution was appointed;
+he had given his promise, and must keep it.
+
+The day after his father's visit to Dobrotschau the young man presented
+himself there, and informed the ladies that pressing business obliged
+him to return to Vienna; but Paula, who was perfectly aware of the
+duration of his leave, routed from the field every reason which he gave
+for the necessity for his presence in Vienna. A betrothal festival had
+been arranged for a day early in September; he could not possibly be
+absent. And Paula, the robust, whose nerves were of iron, wept and made
+a scene; and Harry stayed, and conscientiously paid at least three
+visits a week at Dobrotschau. He was changed almost past recognition:
+he had grown very thin, his voice had a hard, metallic sound, and his
+eyes had the restless brilliancy of some wild creature in a trap. He
+ate scarcely anything, and his hands burned with fever. His betrothed,
+whose passion was still on the increase, overwhelmed him with tender
+attentions, which he no longer strove to discourage, but which he
+accepted with the resignation of despair.
+
+His bridges were burned behind him; he saw no escape; he must accept
+what life had in store for him. Now and then he made a pathetic attempt
+to blot out of his soul the pale image of the charming girl which never
+left him. He even made every effort to love his betrothed, to penetrate
+her inward consciousness, to learn to know and value her; but he
+brought home from every such psychological exploring trip a positive
+aversion, so rude and coarse, so bereft of all delicacy, were her modes
+of thought and feeling. He pleased her; his quixotic courtesy, his
+unpractical view of life, she took delight in; but her vanity alone was
+interested, not her heart,--that is, she valued it all as "gentlemanly
+accomplishment," as something aristocratic, like his seat on horseback,
+or the chiselling of his profile. She was an utter stranger to the best
+and truest part of him. And as her passion increased, what had been
+with him at first an impatient aversion changed to absolute loathing,
+something so terrible that at times he took up his revolver to put an
+end to it all. Such cowardice, however, was foreign to his principles;
+and then he was only twenty-four years old, and life might have been so
+fair if---- Even now at rare intervals a faint hope would arise within
+him, but what gave birth to it he could not tell.
+
+Meanwhile, the days passed, and the betrothal _fete_ was near at hand.
+Fainacky, who had installed himself as _maitre de plaisir_, an office
+which no one seemed inclined to dispute with him, was indefatigable in
+his labours, and displayed great inventive faculty. Every hour he
+developed some fresh idea: now it was a new garden path to be
+illuminated by coloured lamps, now a clump of shrubbery behind which
+the band of an infantry regiment in garrison in the neighbourhood was
+to be concealed.
+
+"Music is the most poetic of all the arts, so long as one is spared the
+sight of the musician," he explained to Frau von Harfink, in view of
+this last arrangement. "The first condition of success for a _fete_ is
+a concealed orchestra."
+
+He himself composed two stirring pieces of music--a Paula galop and a
+Selina quadrille--to enrich the entertainment. The decoration of the
+garden-room was carried out by a Viennese upholsterer under his special
+supervision. He filled up the cards of invitation, ordered the wine for
+the supper, and sketched the shapes for the plaques of flowers on the
+table. The menus, however, constituted his masterpiece. Civilized
+humanity had never seen anything like them. Beside each plate there was
+to lie a parchment roll tied with a golden cord, from, which depended a
+seal stamped with the Harfink coat of arms. These gorgeous things were
+Fainacky's _chef-d'[oe]uvre_. All his other devices--such as the torch
+dance at midnight, with congratulatory addresses from the Harfink
+retainers, the fireworks which were to reveal the intertwined
+initials of the betrothed pair shooting to the skies in characters of
+flame--were mere by-play. Yet, in spite of all his exertions in this
+line, the Pole found time to spy upon everybody, to draw his own
+conclusions, and to attend to his own interests.
+
+By chance it occurred to him to devote some observation to Olga
+Dangeri, whom hitherto he had scarcely noticed. He found her a subject
+well worth further attention, and it soon became a habit of his to
+pursue her with his bold glance, of course when unobserved by the fair
+Countess Selina, with whom he continued to carry on his flirtation.
+Whenever, unseen and unheard, he could persecute Olga with his insolent
+admiration and exaggerated compliments, he did so. Consequently she did
+her best to avoid him. He was quite satisfied with this result,
+ascribing it to the agitation caused by his homage. "Poor girl!" he
+thought; "she does not comprehend the awakening within her of the
+tender passion!"
+
+In fact, a change was perceptible in Olga. She was languid, not easily
+roused to exertion; her lips and cheeks burned frequently, and she was
+more taciturn than ever. Her beauty was invested with an even greater
+charm. Upon his first arrival in Dobrotschau, the Pole had suspected a
+mutual inclination between Treurenberg and the beautiful "player's
+daughter," but, since he had seen nothing to confirm his ugly
+suspicion, he had ceased to entertain it. Every symptom of an awakening
+attachment which he could observe in Olga, Ladislas Fainacky
+interpreted in his own favour.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXX.
+
+                              PERSECUTION.
+
+
+September has fairly begun. The harvest is gathered in, and the wind is
+blowing over the stubble,--a dry, oppressive wind, calling up clouds
+which float across the sky in fantastic masses every morning and vanish
+at noon without a trace. All nature manifests languor and thirst; the
+dry ground shows large cracks here and there, and vegetation is losing
+its last tinge of green.
+
+Nowhere in all the country around are the effects of the drought more
+apparent than at Dobrotschau, where the soil is very poor. Not even in
+the park is there any freshness of verdure. The fountains refuse to
+play; the sward looks like a shabby, worn carpet; the leaves are
+withering on the trees.
+
+Everything is longing for a storm, and yet all feel that relief, when
+it comes, will bring uproar with it; something must go to ruin and be
+shattered in the change. The great life of nature, spellbound and
+withheld in this sultry languor, will awake with some convulsion,
+angrily demanding a victim. It is inevitable; and one must take comfort
+in the thought that all else will flourish, refreshed and strengthened.
+Anything would be preferable to this wasting and withering, this
+perpetual hissing wind.
+
+To-day it seems finally lulled to rest, for the barometer is falling,
+and livid blue clouds are piling up on the horizon, as distinct in
+outline as a range of mountains, and so darkly menacing that in old
+times men would have regarded them with terror. Now every one says, "At
+last! at last!"
+
+But they mount no higher; the air is more sultry, and not a cooling
+drop falls.
+
+In the shadiest part of the park there is a pond, bordered with rushes
+and surrounded by a scanty growth of underbrush, in the midst of which
+stand the black, skeleton trunks of several dead trees. During the
+winters preceding the coming to Dobrotschau of the Baroness Harfink,
+and shortly after the purchase of the estate, some of the most ancient
+of the trees--trees as old as the family whose downfall necessitated
+the sale of Dobrotschau--had died. Their lifeless trunks still pointed
+to the skies, tall and grim, as if in mute protest against the new
+ownership of the soil.
+
+The pond, once a shining expanse of clear water, is almost dried up,
+and a net-work of water-plants covers its surface. Now, when the
+rosebuds are falling from their stems without opening, this marshy spot
+is gay with many-coloured blossoms.
+
+At the edge of the pond lies an old boat, and in it Olga is sitting,
+dressed in white, with a red rose in her belt, one of the few roses
+which the drought has spared. She is gazing dreamily, with half-shut
+eyes, upon the shallow water which here and there mirrors the skies. An
+open book lies in her lap, Turgenieff's "A First Love," but she has
+read only a few pages of it. Her attitude expresses languor, and from
+time to time she shivers slightly.
+
+"Why is Lato so changed to me? why does he avoid me? what have I done
+to displease him?" These are the thoughts that occupy her mind as she
+sits there, with her hands clasped in her lap, gazing down into the
+brown swamp, not observing that Fainacky, attracted by the light colour
+of her dress among the trees, has followed her to the pond and has been
+watching her for some time from a short distance.
+
+"She loves," he says to himself, as he notices the dreamy expression of
+the girl's face; and his vanity adds, "She loves me!"
+
+He tries, by gazing fixedly at her, to force her to look up at him, but
+he is unsuccessful, and then has recourse to another expedient. In his
+thin, reedy tenor voice he begins to warble "Salve dimora casta e pura"
+from Gounod's "Faust."
+
+Then she looks round at him, but her face certainly does not express
+pleasure. She arises, leaves the skiff, and, passing her obtrusive
+admirer without a word, tries to turn into the shortest path leading to
+the castle. He walks beside her, however, and begins in a low voice:
+"Fraeulein Olga, I have something to say to you."
+
+"Tome?"
+
+"Yes, I want to explain myself, to correct some false impressions of
+yours, to lay bare my heart before you."
+
+He pauses after uttering this sentence, and she also stands still, her
+annoyance causing a choking sensation in her throat. She would fain let
+him know that she is not in the least interested in having his heart
+laid bare before her, but how can she do this without seeming cross or
+angry?
+
+"You have hitherto entirely misunderstood me," he assures her. "Oh,
+Olga, why can you not lay aside your distrust of me?"
+
+"Distrust?" she repeats, almost mechanically; "I am not aware of any
+distrust."
+
+"Do not deny it," he persists, clasping his hands affectedly; "do not
+deny it. Your distrust of me is profound. It wounds me, it pains me,
+and--it pains you also!"
+
+Olga can hardly believe her ears. She stares at him without speaking,
+in utter dismay, almost fearing that he has suddenly lost his wits.
+
+"You must hear me," he continues, with theatric effect. "Your distrust
+must cease, the distrust which has hitherto prevented you from
+perceiving how genuine is the admiration I feel for you. Oh, you must
+see how I admire you!"
+
+Here Olga loses patience, and, with extreme _hauteur_, replies, "I have
+perceived your very disagreeable habit of staring at me, and of
+persecuting me with what I suppose you mean for compliments when you
+think no one is observing you."
+
+"It was out of regard for you."
+
+"Excuse my inability to understand you," she rejoins, still more
+haughtily. "I cannot appreciate regard of that description." And with
+head proudly erect she passes him and walks towards the castle.
+
+For a moment he gazes after her, as if spellbound. How beautiful she
+is, framed in by the dark trees that arch above the pathway! "She
+loves! she suffers!" he murmurs. His fancy suddenly takes fire; this is
+no fleeting inclination, no!--he adores her!
+
+With a bound he overtakes her. "Olga! you must not leave me thus,
+adorable girl that you are! I love you, Olga, love you devotedly!"
+He falls at her feet. "Take all that I have, my name, my life, my
+station,--a crown should be yours, were it mine!"
+
+She is now thoroughly startled and dismayed. "Impossible! I cannot!"
+she murmurs, and tries to leave him.
+
+But with all the obstinacy of a vain fool he detains her. "Oh, do not
+force those beauteous lips to utter cruel words that belie your true
+self. I have watched you,--you love! Olga, my star, my queen, tell me
+you love me!"
+
+He seizes the girl's hands, and covers them with kisses; but with
+disgust in every feature she snatches them from him, just as Lato
+appears in the pathway.
+
+Fainacky rises; the eyes of the two men meet. Treurenberg's express
+angry contempt; in those of the Pole there is intense hatred, as,
+biting his lip in his disappointment, he turns and walks away.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+                              CONSOLATION.
+
+
+"What is the matter? What is it?" Treurenberg asks, solicitously.
+
+"Nothing, nothing," Olga replies; "nothing at which I ought to take
+offence." Then, after a short pause, she adds, "On the contrary, he did
+me the honour to offer to make me Countess Fainacky. The idea, it is
+true, seemed to occur to him rather tardily, after conducting himself
+impertinently."
+
+Lato twirls his moustache nervously, and murmurs, in a dull,
+constrained voice, "Well, and could you not bring yourself to consent?"
+
+"Lato!" the girl exclaims, indignantly.
+
+The bitter expression on Lato's face makes him look quite unlike
+himself as he says, "A girl who sets out to marry must not be too nice,
+you see!"
+
+His head is turned away from her; silence reigns around; the sultry
+quiet lies like a spell upon everything.
+
+He hears a half-suppressed ejaculation, the rustle of a robe, short,
+quick steps, and, looking round, sees her tall figure walking rapidly
+away from him, offended pride and wounded feeling expressed in its
+every motion. He ought to let her go, but he cannot, and he hurries
+after her; almost before she is aware of his presence, he lightly
+touches her on the arm.
+
+"Olga, my poor Olga, I did not mean this!" he exclaims, gently. "Be
+reasonable, my child; I did not mean to wound you, but to give you a
+common-sense view of the affair."
+
+She looks away from him, and suddenly bursts into irrepressible sobs.
+
+"You poor child! Hush, I pray you! I cannot bear this! Have I really
+grieved you--I--why, 'tis ridiculous--I, who would have my hand cut off
+to serve you? Come, be calm." And he draws her down upon a rustic bench
+and takes a seat beside her.
+
+Her chest heaves as does that of a child who, although the cause of its
+grief has been removed, cannot stop crying at once. He takes her hand
+in his and strokes it gently.
+
+A delightful sensation of content, even of happiness, steals upon him,
+but mingling with it comes a tormenting unrest, the dawning
+consciousness that he is entering upon a crooked path, that he is in
+danger of doing a wrong, and yet he goes on holding the girl's hand in
+his and gazing into her eyes.
+
+"Why are you not always kind to me?" she asks him simply.
+
+He is confused, and drops her hand.
+
+"For a whole week past you have seemed scarcely to see me," she says,
+reproachfully. "Have you been vexed with me? Did I do anything to
+displease you?"
+
+"I have had so much to worry me," he murmurs.
+
+"Poor Lato! I thought so. If you only knew how my heart aches for
+you! Can you not tell me some of your troubles? They are so much easier
+to bear when shared with another."
+
+And before he can reply she takes his hand in both of hers, and presses
+it against her cheek.
+
+Just at that moment he sees the Pole, who has paused in departing and
+turned towards the pair; the man's sallow face, seen in the distance
+above Olga's dark head, seems to wear a singularly malevolent
+expression.
+
+As soon, however, as he becomes aware that Treurenberg has perceived
+him, he vanishes again.
+
+Lato's confusion increases; he rises, saying, "And now be good, Olga;
+go home and bathe your eyes, that no one may see that you have been
+crying."
+
+"Oh, no one will take any notice, and there is plenty of time before
+dinner. Take a walk with me in the park; it is not so warm as it was."
+
+"I cannot, my child; I have a letter to write."
+
+"As you please;" and she adds, in an undertone, "You are changed
+towards me."
+
+Before he can reply, she is gone.
+
+The path along which she has disappeared is flecked with crimson,--the
+petals of the rose that she had worn in her girdle.
+
+
+Lato feels as if rudely awakened from unconsciousness. He walks
+unsteadily, and covers his eyes with his hand as if dazzled by even the
+tempered light of the afternoon. The terrible bliss for which he longs,
+of which he is afraid, seems so near that he has but to reach out his
+hand and grasp it. He stamps his foot in horror of himself. What! a
+pure young girl! his wife's relative! The very thought is impossible!
+He is tormented by the feverish fancies of overwrought nerves. He
+shakes himself as if to be rid of a burden, then turns and walks
+rapidly along a path leading in an opposite direction from where the
+scattered rose-leaves are lying on the ground.
+
+As he passes on with eyes downcast, he almost runs against the Pole.
+The glances of the two men meet; involuntarily Lato averts his from
+Fainacky's face, and as he does so he is conscious of a slight
+embarrassment, which the other takes a malicious delight in noticing.
+
+"Aha!" he begins; "your long interview with the fair Olga seems to have
+had a less agreeable effect upon your mood than I had anticipated."
+
+Such a remark would usually have called forth from Lato a sharp
+rejoinder; to-day he would fain choose his words, to excuse himself, as
+it were.
+
+"She was much agitated," he murmurs. "I had some trouble in
+soothing her. She--she is nervous and sensitive; her position in my
+mother-in-law's household is not a very pleasant one."
+
+"Well, you certainly do your best to improve it," Fainacky says,
+hypocritically.
+
+"And you to make it impossible!" Lato exclaims, angrily.
+
+"Did the fair Olga complain of me, then?" drawls the other.
+
+"There was no need that she should," Treurenberg goes on to say. "Do
+you suppose that I need anything more than eyes in my head to see how
+you follow her about and stare at her?"
+
+Fainacky gives him a lowering look, and then laughs softly.
+
+"Well, yes, I confess, I have paid her some attention; she pleases me.
+Yes, yes, I do not deny my sensibility to female charms. I never played
+the saint!"
+
+"Indeed! At least you seem to have made an effort to-day to justify
+your importunity," Treurenberg rejoins, filled with contempt for the
+simpering specimen of humanity before him. "You have offered her your
+hand."
+
+Scarcely have the words left his lips when Treurenberg is conscious
+that he has committed a folly in thus irritating the man.
+
+Fainacky turns pale to the lips, and his expression is one of intense
+malice.
+
+"It is true," he says, "that I so far forgot myself for a moment as to
+offer your youthful _protegee_ my hand. Good heavens! I am not the
+first man of rank who, in a moment of enthusiasm and to soothe the
+irritated nerves of a shy beauty, has offered to marry a girl of low
+extraction. The obstacle, however, which bars my way to her heart
+appears to be of so serious a nature that I shall make no attempt to
+remove it."
+
+He utters the words with a provoking smile and most malicious emphasis.
+
+"To what obstacle do you refer?" Lato exclaims, in increasing anger.
+
+"Can you seriously ask me that question?" the Pole murmurs, in a low
+voice like the hiss of a serpent.
+
+Transported with anger, Treurenberg lifts his hand; the Pole scans him
+quietly.
+
+"If you wish for a duel, there is no need to resort to so drastic a
+measure to provoke it. But do you seriously think it would be well for
+the fair fame of your--your lovely _protegee_ that you should fight for
+her?" And, turning on his heel, Fainacky walks towards the castle.
+
+Lato stands as if rooted to the spot, his gaze riveted on the ground.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+                          INTERRUPTED HARMONY.
+
+
+Dinner is over, and the gilt chandelier in the garden-room, where
+coffee is usually served, is lighted. Selina is sitting at the piano
+accompanying Fainacky, who is singing. Paula is in her own rooms with
+her mother, inspecting the latest additions to her trousseau, just
+arrived from Vienna. Lato has remained in the garden-room, where he
+endures with heroic courage the sound of Fainacky's voice as he whines
+forth his sentimental French songs, accentuating them in the most
+touching places with dramatic gestures and much maltreatment of his
+pocket-handkerchief. After each song he compliments Selina upon her
+playing. Her touch reminds him of Madame Essipoff. Selina, whose
+digestion is perfect so far as flattery is concerned, swallows all his
+compliments and looks at him as if she wished for more.
+
+On the wide gravel path, before the glass doors of the room, Olga is
+pacing to and fro. The broad light from door and window reveals clearly
+the upper portion of her figure. Her head is slightly bent, her hands
+are clasped easily before her. There is a peculiar gliding grace in all
+her movements. With all Treurenberg's efforts to become interested in
+the newspaper which he holds, he cannot grasp the meaning of a single
+sentence. The letters flicker before his eyes like a crowd of crawling
+insects. Weary of such fruitless exertion, he lifts his eyes, to
+encounter Olga's gazing at him with a look of tenderest sympathy. He
+starts, and makes a fresh effort to absorb himself in the paper, but
+before he is aware of it she has come in from the garden and has taken
+her seat on a low chair beside him.
+
+"Is anything the matter with you?" she asks.
+
+"What could be the matter with me?" he rejoins, evasively.
+
+"I thought you might have a headache, you look so pale," she says, with
+a matronly air.
+
+"Olga, I would seriously advise you to devote yourself to the study of
+medicine, you are so quick to observe symptoms of illness in those
+about you."
+
+She returns his sarcasm with a playful little tap upon his arm.
+
+Fainacky turns and looks at them, a fiendish light in his green eyes,
+in the midst of his most effective rendering of Massenet's "_Nuits
+d'Espagne_."
+
+"If you want to talk, I think you might go out in the garden, instead
+of disturbing us here," Selina calls out, sharply.
+
+Lato instantly turns to his newspaper, and when he looks up from it
+again, Olga has vanished. He rises and goes to the open door. The
+sultry magic of the September night broods over the garden outside. The
+moon is not yet visible,--it rises late,--but countless stars twinkle
+in the blue-black heavens, shedding a pale silvery lustre upon the dark
+earth. Olga is nowhere to be seen; but there---- He takes a step or two
+forward; she is walking quickly. He pauses, looks after her until she
+disappears entirely among the shrubbery, and then he goes back to the
+garden-room.
+
+It is Selina's turn to sing now, and she has chosen a grand aria from
+"Lucrezia Borgia." She is a pupil of Frau Marchesi's, and she has a
+fine voice,--that is to say, a voice of unusual compass and power,
+which might perhaps have made a reputation on the stage, but which is
+far from agreeable in a drawing room. It is like the blowing of
+trumpets in the same space.
+
+His wife's singing is the one thing in the world which Lato absolutely
+cannot tolerate, and never has tolerated. Passing directly through the
+room, he disappears through a door opposite the one leading into the
+garden.
+
+Even in the earliest years of their married life Selina always took
+amiss her husband's insensibility to her musical performances, and now,
+when she avers his indifference to her in every other respect to be a
+great convenience, her sensitiveness as an artist is unchanged.
+
+Breaking off in the midst of her song, she calls after him, "Is that a
+protest?"
+
+He does not hear her.
+
+"_Continuez done, ma cousine_, I implore you," the Pole murmurs.
+
+With redoubled energy, accompanying herself, Countess Selina sings
+on, only dropping her hands from the keys when she has executed a
+break-neck cadenza by way of final flourish. Fainacky, meanwhile,
+gracefully leaning against the instrument, listens ecstatically, with
+closed eyes.
+
+"Selina, you are an angel!" he exclaims, when she has finished. "Were I
+in Treurenberg's place you should sing to me from morning until night."
+
+"My husband takes no pleasure in my singing; at the first sound of my
+voice he leaves the room, as you have just seen. He has no more taste
+for music than my poodle."
+
+"Extraordinary!" the Pole says, indignantly. And then, after a little
+pause, he adds, musingly, "I never should have thought it. The day I
+arrived here, you remember, I came quite unexpectedly; and, looking for
+some one to announce me, I strayed into this very room----" He
+hesitates.
+
+"Well?--go on."
+
+"Well, Nina, or Olga--what is your _protegee's_ name?" He snaps his
+fingers impatiently.
+
+"Olga! Well, what of her?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing, only she was sitting at the piano strumming away at
+something, and Lato was listening as devoutly as if she----"
+
+But Selina has risen hastily and is walking towards the door into the
+garden with short impatient steps, as if in need of the fresh air. Her
+face is flushed, and she plucks nervously at the lace about her throat.
+
+"What have I done? Have I vexed you?" the Pole whines, clasping his
+hands.
+
+"Oh, no, you have nothing to do with it!" the Countess sharply rejoins.
+"I cannot understand Lato's want of taste in making so much fuss about
+that slip of a girl."
+
+"You ought to try to marry her off," sighs the Pole.
+
+"Try I try!" the Countess replies, mockingly. "There is nothing to be
+done with that obstinate thing."
+
+"Of course it must be difficult; her low extraction, her lack of
+fortune,----"
+
+"Lack of fortune?" Selina exclaims.
+
+"I thought Olga was entirely dependent upon your mother's generosity,"
+Fainacky says, eagerly.
+
+"Not at all. My father saved a very fair sum for Olga from the remains
+of her mother's property. She has the entire control of a fortune of
+three or four hundred thousand guilders,--quite enough to make her a
+desirable match; but the girl seems to have taken it into her head that
+no one save a prince of the blood is good enough for her!" And the
+Countess actually stamps her foot.
+
+"Do you really imagine that it is Olga's ambition alone that prevents
+her from contracting a sensible marriage?" Fainacky drawls, with
+evident significance.
+
+"What else should it be?" Selina says, imperiously. "What do you mean?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing; she seems to me rather exaggerated,--overstrained.
+Let us try this duet of Boito's."
+
+"I do not wish to sing any more," she replies, and leaves the room.
+
+He gazes after her, lost in thought for a moment, then snaps his
+fingers.
+
+"Four hundred thousand guilders--by Jove!"
+
+Whereupon he takes his seat at the piano, and improvises until far into
+the night upon the familiar air, "In Ostrolenka's meads."
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+                             EARLY SUNRISE.
+
+
+It is early in the morning of the day before the famous betrothal
+festivity. The town-clock of X---- strikes three as Treurenberg, his
+bridle hanging loose, is riding along the lonely road towards
+Dobrotschau. He has passed the night with a few officers at the rooms
+of the Countess Wodin, his cousin and former flame, who "threw him
+over" because her views of life were more practical than his,--that is
+to say, than his were at that period; for he soon followed her example,
+and was very practical too. But it does not suit every man to be so.
+
+The assemblage at the Countess Wodin's was unusually lively. She was
+the only lady present, with the exception of the major's wife, an
+insignificant, awkward woman, who was usually endowed with the
+Countess's cast-off gowns. A large number of men made up the
+gathering,--almost the entire corps of officers, and a couple of
+gentlemen from the neighbourhood. The time was whiled away with cards.
+At first Lato did not join the players, simply looking on at one and
+another of the tables; but by and by he took the cards for his cousin,
+who, suddenly possessed by an intense desire to dance, rose from her
+place, "just to take a couple of turns around the room." She waltzed
+until she was breathless with Ensign Flammingen, Treurenberg's
+relative, who was apparently head over ears in love with her. An
+officer of dragoons meanwhile droned out the music for them upon a
+little drawing-room hand-organ. When the Countess again took her place
+at the card-table Lato had won a small fortune for her. She
+congratulated him upon his luck, and advised him to try it in his own
+behalf. He did so.
+
+Between the games a good deal of wine had been drunk, and various
+questionable witticisms had been perpetrated. Treurenberg laughed
+louder than the rest, although all such jesting was distasteful to him,
+especially when women were present. But the Countess had expressly
+requested to be treated as a man; and the major's wife, after an
+unfortunate attempt to smoke a cigarette, had retired to a sofa in the
+adjoining room to recover from the effects of the experiment.
+
+In the absence of this victim of an evil custom for which she was
+evidently unfitted, the merriment grew more and more boisterous, until
+suddenly young Flammingen, who had but a moment before been waltzing
+gaily with the hostess, fell into a most lachrymose condition. The rest
+tried, it is true, to regard it as only an additional amusement, but it
+was useless: the mirth had received a death-blow. Some one began to
+turn the hand-organ again, but without cheering results. All were
+tired. They found the air of the room suffocating; the smoke was too
+thick to see through. Then the unfortunate idea occurred to one of the
+party to open a window. The fresh air from without wafted in among the
+fumes of wine and cigar-smoke had a strange effect upon the guests:
+they suddenly fell silent, and in a very short time vanished, like
+ghosts at cock-crow.
+
+Lato took his leave with the rest, disappearing from his cousin's
+drawing-room with the consciousness of being a winner,--that was
+something. He rode through the quiet town, and on between the desolate
+fields of rye, where not an ear was left standing, between dark
+stretches of freshly-ploughed land, whence came the odour of the earth
+with its promise of renewed fertility. The moon was high in the
+colourless sky; along the eastern horizon there was a faint gleam
+of yellow light. The dawn enveloped all nature as in a white
+semi-transparent veil; every outline showed indistinct; the air was
+cool, and mingled with it there was a sharp breath of autumn. Here and
+there a dead leaf fell from the trees. The temperature had grown much
+cooler in the last few days; there had been violent storms in the
+vicinity, although the drought still reigned at Dobrotschau.
+Treurenberg felt weary in every limb; the hand holding the bridle
+dropped on his horse's neck. On either side stood a row of tall
+poplars; he had reached the avenue where Olga's white figure had once
+come to meet him. The castle was at hand. He shivered; a mysterious
+dread bade him turn away from it.
+
+The half-light seemed to roll away like curling smoke. Lato could
+clearly distinguish the landscape. The grass along the roadside was
+yellow and dry; blue succory bloomed everywhere among it; here and
+there a bunch of wild poppies hung drooping on their slender stalks.
+The blue flowers showed pale and sickly in the early light; the poppies
+looked almost black.
+
+On a sudden everything underwent a change; broad shadows stretched
+across the road, and all between them glowed in magic crimson light.
+From a thousand twittering throats came greetings of the new-born day.
+
+Treurenberg looked up. Solemn and grand, in a semicircle of
+reddish-golden mist, the sun rose on the eastern horizon.
+
+Yes, in a moment all was transformed,--the pale empty skies were filled
+with light and resonant inspiration, the earth was revivified.
+
+Why languish in weary discouragement when a single moment can so
+transfigure the world? For him, too, the sun might rise, all might be
+bright within him. Then, at a sharp turn of the road, the castle of
+Dobrotschau appeared, interposing its mass between him and the sun. The
+crimson light, like a corona, played about the outlines of the castle,
+which stood out hard and dark against the flaming background.
+Treurenberg's momentary hopefulness faded at the sight,--it was folly
+to indulge in it: for him there was no sunrise; there was nothing
+before him but a dark, blank wall, shutting out light and hope, and
+against which he could but bruise and wound himself should he try to
+break through it.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+                               STRUGGLES.
+
+
+As Lato trotted into the court-yard of the castle a window was suddenly
+closed, the window above his room,--Olga's. She had been awaiting his
+return, then. He began to shiver as in a fever-fit.
+
+"There must be an end to this," he said to himself, as he consigned his
+horse to a sleepy groom and entered the castle.
+
+His room was on the ground-floor; when he reached it he threw himself,
+still dressed, on the bed, in a state of intolerable agitation; by
+degrees he became calmer, his thoughts grew vague; without sleeping
+soundly he dreamed. He seemed to be swimming with Olga in his arms
+through a warm, fragrant lake, upon the surface of which pale
+water-lilies were floating. Suddenly these pale lilies turned to greedy
+flames, the lake glowed as with fire, and a stifling smoke filled the
+air. Lato started up, his heart beating, his brow damp with moisture.
+His fatigue tempted him to try again to rest, but he tossed about
+restlessly; thinking himself still awake, he listened to the ticking of
+his watch, and looked at Lion, who lay crouched beside his bed, when
+suddenly Olga stood there gazing at him, her eyes transfigured with
+heavenly compassion, as she murmured, "Will you not share your woe with
+me?" She stretched out her arms to him, he drew her towards him, his
+lips touched hers--he awoke with a cry. He rose, determined to dream no
+more, and, drawing up one of his window-shades, looked down into the
+courtyard. It was barely six o'clock. All was quiet, but for one of the
+grooms at work washing a carriage. The fountain before the St. John
+rippled and murmured; a few brown leaves floated in its basin. The
+silvery reflection from the water dazzled Lato's eyes; he turned away,
+and began slowly to pace the room. The motion seemed to increase his
+restlessness; he threw himself into an arm-chair, and took up a book.
+But he was not in a condition to read a line; before he knew it the
+volume fell from his hand, and the noise it made in falling startled
+him again. He shook his head in impatience with his nervousness; this
+state of affairs could not be longer endured, he must bring about some
+change; matters could not go on thus. He thought and thought. What
+could be patched up from the ruins of his life? He must try to stand on
+a better footing with his wife, to leave Dobrotschau as soon as
+possible. What would be his future? could he ever become reconciled to
+his existence? Oh! time was such a consoler, could adjust so much,
+perhaps it would help him to live down this misery.
+
+Then, like an honourable merchant who sees bankruptcy imminent, he
+reckoned up his few possessions. His wife had certainly loved him once
+passionately. It was long since he had recalled her former tenderness;
+he now did so distinctly. "It is not possible," he thought to himself,
+"that so strong a feeling can have utterly died out;" the fault of
+their estrangement must be his, but it should all be different. If he
+could succeed in withdrawing her from the baleful influences that
+surrounded her, and in awakening all that was honest and true in her,
+they might help each other to support life like good friends. It was
+impossible to make their home in Vienna, where his sensitive nature was
+continually outraged and at war with her satisfied vanity. Under such
+circumstances irritation was unavoidable. But she had been wont to talk
+of buying a country-seat, and had been eloquent about, the delights of
+a country life. Yes, somewhere in the country, in a pretty, quiet home,
+forgotten by the world, they might begin life anew; here was the
+solution of the problem; this was the right thing to do! He thought of
+his dead child; perhaps God would bestow upon him another.
+
+What would, meanwhile, become of Olga? Like a stab, the thought came
+to him that with her fate he had nothing to do. Olga would miss him,
+but in time, yes, in time she would marry some good man. He never for
+an instant admitted the idea that she could share his sinful affection.
+
+"I must let the poor girl go," he murmured to himself. "I cannot help
+her; all must look out for themselves." He said this over several
+times, nervously clasping and unclasping his hands,--hands which, long,
+narrow, and white, suggested a certain graceful helplessness which is
+apt to distinguish the particularly beautiful hands of a woman. "Yes,
+one must learn to control circumstances, to conquer one's self."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+                              A SLANDERER.
+
+
+The others are seated at the breakfast-table when Treurenberg enters
+the dining-room, all except Fainacky, who, true to his self-imposed
+task, is still busy with the decorations of the garden-room. That
+enterprising _maitre de plaisir_ has a deal to do, since there is to be
+a rehearsal, as it were, in the evening of the morrow's festivities.
+Various guests from far and near are expected to admire and to enhance
+this prelude of coming glories.
+
+A seat beside Selina is empty. Lato goes directly towards it. Nothing
+about him betrays his inward agitation or the sleeplessness of the past
+night. Rather pale, but refreshed by a long walk, and dressed with
+exquisite care, he looks so distinguished and handsome in his light
+summer array, that Selina is struck by his appearance. He has a rose in
+his hand, and as, bending over his wife, he places it among her curls,
+and then kisses her hand by way of morning greeting, she receives him
+quite graciously. She is inclined to be proud to-day of her
+aristocratic possession, which she is shortly to have an opportunity of
+displaying before so many less-favoured friends. Half returning the
+pressure of his hand, she says, "To what do I owe these conjugal
+attentions?"
+
+"The anniversary of our betrothal, Selina," he says, in the
+half-jesting tone in which married people of a certain social standing
+are wont to allude before witnesses to matters of sentiment, and then
+he takes his seat beside her.
+
+"True, our anniversary!" she rejoins, in the same tone, evidently
+flattered. "And you remembered it? As a reward, Lato, I will butter
+your toast for you."
+
+Here the Pole comes tripping into the room. "_Changement de
+decoration_. You have taken my place to-day, Treurenberg," he says, not
+without irritation. "Since when have modern couples been in the habit
+of sitting beside each other?"
+
+"It is permitted now and then _en famille_," Selina informs him,
+placing before Lato the toast she has just prepared for him. She
+glances at Fainacky, and instantly averts her eyes. For the first time
+it occurs to her to compare this affected trifler with her husband, and
+the comparison is sadly to Fainacky's disadvantage. The petty
+elegancies of his dress and air strike her as ridiculous. He divines
+something of this, and it enrages him. He cares not the slightest for
+Selina, but, since their late encounter in the park, he has most
+cordially hated Lato, whom he did not like before. The friendly
+demeanour of the pair towards each other this morning vexes him
+intensely; he sees that his attempt to cast suspicion upon Lato has
+failed with Selina; nay, it has apparently only fanned the flame of a
+desire to attract her husband. It irritates him; he would be devoured
+by envy should a complete reconciliation between the two be
+established, and he be obliged to look on while Lato again entered into
+the full enjoyment of his wife's millions. He takes the only vacant
+place, and looks about him for somewhat wherewith to interrupt this
+mood upon the part of the pair. Finally his glance rests upon Olga, who
+sits opposite him, crumbling a piece of biscuit on her plate.
+
+"No appetite yet, Fraeulein Olga?" he asks.
+
+Olga starts slightly, and lifts her teacup to her lips.
+
+"Do you not think that Fraeulein Olga has been looking ill lately?" The
+Pole directs this question to all present.
+
+Every one looks at Olga, and Fainacky gloats over the girl's confusion.
+
+Treurenberg looks also, and is startled by her pallor. "Yes, my poor
+child, you certainly are below par," he says, with difficulty
+controlling his voice. "Something must be done for your health."
+
+"Change of air is best in such cases," observes the Pole.
+
+"So I think," says Treurenberg; and, finding that he has himself better
+in hand than he had thought possible awhile ago, he adds, turning to
+his mother-in-law, "I think, when everything here is settled after the
+old fashion----"
+
+"After the new fashion, you mean," Paula interposes, with a languishing
+air.
+
+"Yes, when all the bustle is over," Treurenberg begins afresh, in some
+embarrassment this time, for his conscience pricks him sorely whenever
+Paula alludes to her betrothal.
+
+"I understand, after my marriage," she again interposes.
+
+"About the beginning of November," Treurenberg meekly rejoins, again
+addressing his mother-in-law, "you might take Olga to the south. A
+winter in Nice would benefit both of you."
+
+"_Tiens! c'est une idee_," Selina remarks. "Such quantities of people
+whom we know are going to winter in Nice this year. Not a bad plan,
+Lato. Yes, we might spend a couple of months very pleasantly in Nice."
+
+"Oh, I have other plans for ourselves, Lina," Treurenberg says,
+hastily.
+
+"Ah, I begin to understand," Frau von Harfink observes: "we are
+to be got out of the way, Olga, you and I." And she smiles after a
+bitter-sweet fashion.
+
+"But, Baroness!" Lato exclaims.
+
+"You entirely misunderstand him, Baroness," Fainacky interposes: "he
+was only anxious for Fraeulein Olga's health; and with reason: her want
+of appetite is alarming." Again he succeeds in attracting every one's
+attention to the girl, who is vainly endeavouring to swallow her
+breakfast.
+
+"I cannot imagine what ails you," Paula exclaims, in all the pride of
+her position as a betrothed maiden. "If I knew of any object for your
+preference, I should say you were in love."
+
+"Such suppositions are not permitted to the masculine intelligence,"
+the Pole observes, twirling his moustache and smiling significantly,
+his long, pointed nose drooping most disagreeably over his upper lip.
+
+Olga trembles from head to foot; for his life Lato cannot help trying
+to relieve the poor child's embarrassment.
+
+"Nonsense!" he exclaims; "she is only a little exhausted by the heat,
+and rather nervous, that is all! But you must really try to eat
+something;" and he hands her a plate. Her hand trembles so as she takes
+it that she nearly lets it fall.
+
+Frau von Harfink frowns, but says nothing, for at the moment a servant
+enters with a letter for Treurenberg. The man who brought it is waiting
+for an answer. Lato hastily opens the missive, which is addressed in a
+sprawling, boyish hand, and, upon reading it, changes colour and
+hastily leaves the room.
+
+"From whom can it be?" Selina soliloquizes, aloud.
+
+"H'm!" the Pole drums lightly with his fingers on the table, with the
+air of a man who knows more than he chooses to tell. A little while
+afterwards he is left alone with Selina in the dining-room.
+
+"Have you any idea of whom the letter was from?" the Countess asks him.
+
+"Not the least," he replies, buttoning his morning coat to the throat,
+an action which always in his case betokens the possession of some
+important secret.
+
+"Will you be kind enough to inform me of what you are thinking?" Selina
+says, imperiously, and not without a certain sharpness of tone.
+
+"You are aware, Countess, that ordinarily your wish is law for me," the
+Pole replies, with dignity, "but in this case it is unfortunately
+impossible for me to comply with your request."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because you might be offended by my communication, and it would be
+terrible for me were I to displease you."
+
+"Tell me!" the Countess commands.
+
+"If it must be, then----" He shrugs his shoulders as if to disclaim any
+responsibility in the matter, and, stroking his moustache affectedly,
+continues: "I am convinced that the letter in question has to do with
+Treurenberg's pecuniary embarrassments,--_voila_!"
+
+"Pecuniary embarrassments!" exclaims the Countess, with irritation.
+"How should my husband have any such?"
+
+She is vexed with the Pole, whose affectations begin to weary her, and
+she is strangely inclined to defend her husband. Her old tenderness for
+him seems to stir afresh within her. Fainacky perceives that his game
+to-day will not be easily won; nevertheless he persists.
+
+"Then you are ignorant of the debts he contracts?"
+
+"If you have nothing more probable to tell me, you need trouble
+yourself no further," the Countess angrily declares.
+
+"Pardon me, Countess," the Pole rejoins, "I should not have told you
+anything of the kind were I not sure of my facts. Treurenberg has
+accidentally had resort to the same usurer that transacts my little
+affairs. For, I make no secret of it, I have debts, a necessary evil
+for a single man of rank. Good heavens! we gentlemen nowadays----" he
+waves his hand grandiloquently. "Yet, I assure you, my friendship with
+Abraham Goldstein is a luxury which I would gladly deny myself. I pay
+four per----"
+
+"I take not the slightest interest in the percentage you pay,"
+interposes Selina, "but I cannot understand how you venture to repeat
+to me a piece of gossip so manifestly false."
+
+Her manner irritates him extremely, principally because it shows him
+that he stands by no means so high in her favour as he had supposed.
+The fair friendship, founded upon flattery, or at least upon mutual
+consideration for personal vanity, is in danger of a breach. Fainacky
+is consumed by a desire to irritate still further this insulting woman,
+and to do Treurenberg an injury.
+
+"Indeed!--a manifestly false piece of gossip?" he drawls,
+contemptuously.
+
+"Yes, nothing else," she declares; "apart from the fact that my
+husband has personal control of a considerable income,--my father made
+sure of that before he gave his consent to my marriage; he never
+would have welcomed as a son-in-law an aristocrat without independent
+means,--apart from this fact, of course my money is at his disposal."
+
+"Indeed! really? I thought you kept separate purses!" says the Pole,
+now--thanks to his irritation--giving free rein to his impertinence.
+
+Selina bites her lips and is silent.
+
+Meanwhile, Fainacky continues: "I can only say that my information as
+to Treurenberg's financial condition comes from the most trustworthy
+source, from Abraham himself. That indiscreet confidant informed
+me one day that the husband of 'the rich Harfink'--that was his
+expression--owed him money. The circumstance seemed to gratify his
+sense of humour. He has a fine sense of humour, the old rascal!"
+
+"I cannot understand--it is impossible. Lato cannot have so far
+forgotten himself!" exclaims the Countess, pale and breathless from
+agitation. "Moreover, his personal requirements are of the fewest. He
+is no spendthrift."
+
+"No," says the Pole, with an ugly smile, "he is no spendthrift, but he
+is a gambler! You may perhaps be aware of this, Countess, ignorant as
+you seem to be of your husband's private affairs?"
+
+"A gambler!" she breaks forth. "You are fond of big words, apparently."
+
+"And you, apparently, have a truly feminine antipathy to the truth. Is
+it possible that you are not aware that even as a young man Treurenberg
+was a notorious gambler?"
+
+"Since his marriage he has given up play."
+
+"Indeed? And what carries him to X---- day after day? How does he pass
+his mornings there? At cards!" Selina tries to speak, but words fail
+her, and the Pole continues, exultantly, "Yes, he plays, and his
+resources are exhausted,--and so is Abraham Goldstein's patience,--so
+he has taken to borrowing of his friends, as I happen to know; and if I
+am not vastly mistaken, Countess, one of these days he will swallow
+his hidalgo pride and cry _peccavi_ to you, turning to you to relieve
+his financial embarrassments; and if I were you I would not repulse
+him,--no, by heaven! not just now. You must do all that you can to keep
+your hold upon him just at this time."
+
+"And why just at this time?" she asks, hoarsely.
+
+"Why?" He laughs. "Have you no eyes? Were my hints, my warnings, the
+other evening, not sufficiently clear?"
+
+"What do you mean? What do you presume to----" Selina's dry lips refuse
+to obey her; the hints which had lately glanced aside from her armour
+of self-confidence now go to the very core,--not of her heart, but of
+her vanity.
+
+Drawing a deep breath, she recovers her voice, and goes on, angrily:
+"Are you insane enough to imagine that Lato could be seriously
+attracted for one moment by that school-girl? The idea is absurd, I
+could not entertain it for an instant. I have neglected Lato, it is
+true, but I need only lift my finger----"
+
+"I have said nothing," the Pole whines, repentantly,--"nothing in the
+world. For heaven's sake do not be so angry! Nothing has occurred, but
+Treurenberg has no tact, and Olga is the daughter of a play-actor, and
+also, as you must admit, and as every one can see, desperately in love
+with Lato. All I do is to point out the danger to you. Treat
+Treurenberg with caution, and then----"
+
+"Hush! Go!" she gasps.
+
+He rises and leaves the room, turning in the doorway to say, with a
+voice and gesture that would have won renown for the hero of a
+provincial theatre at the end of his fourth act, "Selina, I have ruined
+myself with you, I have thrown away your friendship, but I have perhaps
+saved your existence from shipwreck!"
+
+Whereupon he closes the door and betakes himself to the garden-room to
+have a last look at the decorations there. He does not think it worth
+while to carry thither his heroic air of self-sacrifice; on the
+contrary, as he gives an order to the upholsterer, a triumphant smile
+hovers upon his lips. "It will surprise me if Treurenberg now succeeds
+in arranging his affairs in that quarter," he thinks to himself.
+
+Meanwhile, Selina is left to herself. She does not suffer from wounded
+affection; no, her heart is untouched by what she has just heard. But
+memory, rudely awakened, recalls to her a hundred little occurrences
+all pointing in the same direction, and she trembles with rage at the
+idea that any one--that her own husband--should prefer that simpleton
+of a girl to her own acknowledged beauty.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+                                FAILURE.
+
+
+The clever Pole had, however, been quite mistaken as to the contents of
+Lato's letter. Abraham Goldstein's patience with the husband of the
+"rich Harfink" was not exhausted,--it was, in fact, inexhaustible; and
+if, nevertheless, the letter brought home to Lato the sense of his
+pecuniary embarrassments, it was because a young, inexperienced friend,
+whom he would gladly have helped had it been possible, had appealed to
+him in mortal distress. His young cousin Flammingen was the writer of
+the letter, in which he confessed having lost at play, and entreated
+Lato to lend him three thousand guilders. To the poor boy this sum
+appeared immense; it seemed but a trifle to the husband of the "rich
+Harfink," but nevertheless it was a trifle which there would be
+great difficulty in procuring. And the lad wanted the money within
+twenty-four hours, to discharge gambling-debts,--debts of honour.
+
+Treurenberg had once, when a young man, been in a like situation, and
+had been frightfully near vindicating his honour by a bullet through
+his brains. He was sorry for the young fellow, and, although his misery
+was good for him, he must be relieved. How? Lato turned his pockets
+inside out, and the most he could scrape together was twelve hundred
+guilders. This sum he enclosed in a short note, in which he told
+Flammingen that he hoped to send him the rest in the course of the
+afternoon, and despatched the waiting messenger with this consolation.
+His cousin's trouble made him cease for a while to ponder upon his own.
+
+Although he could not have brought himself to apply to his wife for
+relief in his own affairs, it seemed to him comparatively easy to
+appeal to her for another. He did not for an instant doubt that she
+would comply with his request. She was not parsimonious, but hard, and
+he could endure that for another's sake. He went twice to her room, in
+hopes of finding her there, but she was still in the dining-room.
+
+He frowned when her maid told him this, and, lighting a cigar, he went
+down into the garden, annoyed at the necessity of postponing his
+interview with his wife.
+
+Meanwhile, Olga, out of spirits and unoccupied, had betaken herself to
+the library. All day she had felt as if she had lost something; she
+could not have told what ailed her. She took up a book to amuse
+herself; by chance it was the very novel of Turgenieff's which she had
+been about to read, seated in the old boat, when Fainacky had intruded
+upon her. She had left the volume in the park, whence it had been
+brought back to her by the gardener. She turned over the leaves, at
+first listlessly, then a phrase caught her eye,--she began to read. Her
+interest increased from chapter to chapter; she devoured the words. Her
+breath came quickly, her cheeks burned. She read on to where the hero,
+in an access of anger, strikes Zenaide on her white arm with his
+riding-whip, and she calmly kisses the crimson welt made by the lash.
+
+There the book fell from the girl's hand; she felt no indignation at
+Zenaide's guilty passion, no horror of the cruel rage of the hero; no,
+she was conscious only of a kind of fierce envy of Zenaide, who could
+thus forgive. On the instant there awoke within her a passionate
+longing for a love which could thus triumph over all disgrace, all ill
+usage, and bear one exultantly to its heaven!
+
+She had become so absorbed in the book as to be insensible to what was
+going on around her. Now she started, and shrank involuntarily. A step
+advanced along the corridor; she heard a door open and shut,--the door
+of Selina's dressing-room.
+
+"Who is there?" Selina's voice exclaimed.
+
+"I." It was Treurenberg who replied.
+
+Selina's dressing-room was separated by only a partition-wall from the
+library.
+
+
+It was well-nigh noon, and Selina's maid was dressing her mistress's
+hair, when Treurenberg entered his wife's dressing-room for the first
+time for years without knocking. She had done her best to recover from
+the agitation caused her by Fainacky's words, had taken a bath, and had
+then rested for half an hour. Guests were expected in the afternoon,
+and she must impress them with her beauty, and must outshine the pale
+girl whom Lato had the bad taste to admire. When Treurenberg entered
+she was sitting before the mirror in a long, white peignoir, while her
+maid was brushing her hair, still long and abundant, reddish-golden in
+colour. Her arms gleamed full and white from out the wide sleeves of
+her peignoir.
+
+"Who is it?" she asked, impatiently, hearing some one enter.
+
+"Only I," he replied, gently.
+
+Why does the tone of his soft, melodious voice so affect her to-day?
+Why, in spite of herself, does Lato seem more attractive to her than he
+has done for years? She is irritated by the contradictory nature of her
+feelings.
+
+"What do you want?" she asks, brusquely.
+
+"To speak with you," he replies, in French. "Send away your maid."
+
+Instead of complying, Selina orders the girl, "Brush harder: you make
+me nervous with such half-work."
+
+Treurenberg frowns impatiently, and then quietly sends the maid from
+the room himself. Selina makes no attempt to detain her,--under the
+circumstances it would be scarcely possible for her to do so,--but
+hardly has the door closed behind Josephine, when she turns upon Lato
+with flashing eyes.
+
+"Why do you send away my servants against my express wish?"
+
+"I told you just now that I want to speak with you," he replies, with
+more firmness than he has ever hitherto displayed towards her,--the
+firmness of very weak men in mortal peril or moral desperation. "What I
+have to say requires no witnesses and can bear no delay."
+
+"Go on, then." She folds her arms. "What do you want?"
+
+He has seated himself astride of a chair near her, and, with his arms
+resting on the low back and his chin in his hands, he gazes at her
+earnestly. Why do his attitude and his way of looking at her remind her
+so forcibly of the early time of their married life? Then he often used
+to sit thus and look on while she arranged her magnificent hair
+herself, for then--ah, then----! But she thrusts aside all such
+reflections. Why waste tenderness upon a man who is not ashamed to--who
+has so little taste as to----
+
+"What do you want?" she asks, more crossly than before.
+
+"First of all, your sympathy," he replies, gravely.
+
+"Oh, indeed! is this what you had to tell me that could bear no delay?"
+
+He moves his chair a little nearer to her. "Lina," he murmurs, "we have
+become very much estranged of late."
+
+"Whose fault is it?" she asks, dryly.
+
+"Partly mine," he sadly confesses.
+
+"Only partly?" she replies, sharply. "That is a matter of opinion. The
+other way of stating it is that you neglected me and I put up with it."
+
+"I left you to yourself, because--because I thought I wearied you," he
+stammers, conscious that he is not telling quite the truth, knowing
+that he had hailed the first symptoms of her indifference as a relief.
+
+"It certainly is true that I have not grieved myself to death over your
+neglect. It was not my way to sue humbly for your favour. But let that
+go; let us speak of real things, of the matter which will not bear
+delay." She smiles contemptuously.
+
+"True," he replies; "I had forgotten it in my own personal affairs. I
+wanted to ask a favour of you."
+
+"Ah!" she interposes; and he goes on: "It happens that I have no ready
+money just now; what I have, at least, does not suffice. Will you
+advance me some?"
+
+She drums exultantly upon her dressing-table, loaded with its apparatus
+of glass and silver. "I would have wagered that we should come to this.
+H'm! how much do you want?"
+
+"Eighteen hundred guilders."
+
+"And do you consider that a trifle?" she exclaims, provokingly. "If I
+remember rightly, it amounts to the entire year's pay of a captain in
+the army. And you want the money to--discharge a gambling-debt, do you
+not?"
+
+"Not my own," he says, hoarsely. "God knows, I would rather put a
+bullet through my brains than ask you for money!"
+
+"That's very easily said," she rejoins, coldly. "I am glad, however, to
+have you assure me that you do not want the money for yourself. To pay
+your debts, for the honour of the name which I bear, I should have made
+any sacrifice, but I have no idea of supporting the extravagancies of
+the garrison at X----." And Selina begins to trim her nails with a
+glittering little pair of scissors.
+
+"But, Selina, you have no idea of the facts of the case!" Treurenberg
+exclaims. He has risen, and he takes the scissors from her and tosses
+them aside impatiently. "Women can hardly understand the importance of
+a gambling-debt. A life hangs upon its payment,--the life of a
+promising young fellow, who, if no help is vouchsafed him, must choose
+between disgrace and death. Suppose I should tell you tomorrow that he
+had shot himself,--what then?"
+
+"He will not shoot himself," she says, calmly. "Moreover, it was a
+principle with my father never to comply with the request of any one
+who threatened suicide; and I agree with him."
+
+"You are right in general; but this is an exception. This poor boy is
+not yet nineteen,--a child, unaccustomed to be left to himself, who has
+lost his head. What if you are right, and he cannot find the courage to
+put an end to himself,--the hand of a lad of eighteen who has condemned
+himself to death may well falter,--what then? Disgrace, for him, for
+his family; dismissal from the army; a degraded life. Have pity,
+Selina, for heaven's sake!"
+
+He pleads desperately, but he might as well appeal to a wooden doll,
+for all the impression his words make upon her, and at last he pauses,
+breathless with agitation. Selina, tossing her head and with a scornful
+air, says, "I have little sympathy for young good-for-naughts; it lies
+in the nature of things that they should bear the consequences of their
+actions; it is no affair of mine. I might, indeed, ask how it happens
+that you take such an interest in this case, did I not know that you
+have good reason to do so,--you are a gambler yourself."
+
+Treurenberg starts and gazes at her in dismay. "A gambler! What
+can make you think so? I often play to distract my mind, but a
+gambler!--'tis a harsh word. I am not aware that you have ever had to
+suffer from my love for cards."
+
+"No; your friendship with Abraham Goldstein stands you in stead. You
+have spared me, if it can be called sparing a woman to cause her
+innocently to incur the reputation for intense miserliness!"
+
+There is some truth in her words, some justice in her indignation. Lato
+casts down his eyes. Suddenly an idea occurs to him. "Fainacky has told
+you, then, of my relations with Abraham Goldstein?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Ah!" he exclaims; "I now understand the change in you. For heaven's
+sake, do not allow yourself to be influenced by that shallow, malicious
+coxcomb!"
+
+"I do not allow myself to be influenced by him," the Countess replies;
+"but his information produced an impression upon me, for it was, since
+you do not deny it, correct. You are a gambler; you borrow money at a
+high rate of percentage from a usurer, because you are too arrogant or
+too obstinate to tell me of your debts. Is this not so?"
+
+Treurenberg has gone towards the door, when he suddenly pauses and
+collects himself. He will make one more attempt to be reconciled with
+his wife, and it shall be the last. He turns towards her again.
+
+"Yes," he admits, "I have treated you inconsiderately, and your
+wounding of my pride, perhaps unintentionally, does not excuse me. I
+have been wrong,--I have neglected you. I play,--yes, Selina, I
+play,--I seek the society of strangers, but only because I am far, far
+more of a stranger at home. Selina," he goes on, carried away by his
+emotion, and in a voice which expresses his utter misery, "I cannot
+reconcile myself to life amid your surroundings; call it want of
+character, weakness, sensitiveness, as you please, but I cannot. Come
+away with me; let us retire to any secluded corner of the earth, and I
+will make it a paradise for you by my gratitude and devotion; I will
+serve you on my knees; my life shall be yours, only come away with me!"
+
+Poor Lato! he has wrought his own ruin. Why does he not understand that
+every word he speaks wounds the most sensitive part of her,--her
+vanity?
+
+"You would withdraw me from my surroundings? And, pray, what society do
+you offer me in exchange?" she asks, bitterly. "My acquaintances are
+not good enough for you; I am not good enough for the atmosphere in
+which you used to live."
+
+He sees his error, perceives that he has offended her, and it pains
+him.
+
+"Selina," he says, softly, "there shall be no lack of good friends for
+you at my side; and then, after all, what need have we of other people?
+Can we not find our happiness in each other? What if God should bless
+us with an angel like the one He has taken from us?"
+
+He kneels beside her and kisses her hand, but she withdraws it hastily.
+
+"Do not touch me!" she exclaims; "I am not Olga!"
+
+He starts to his feet as if stung by a serpent. "What do you mean?"
+
+"What I say."
+
+"I do not understand you!"
+
+"Hypocrite!" she gasps, her jealousy gaining absolute mastery of her;
+"I am not blind; do you suppose I do not know upon whom you lavish kind
+words and caresses every day, which fall to my share only when you want
+some favour of me?"
+
+It seems to him that he hears the rustle of feminine garments in the
+next room. "For God's sake, Selina, not so loud," he whispers.
+
+"Ah! your first emotion is dread of injuring her; all else is
+indifferent to you. It does not even occur to you to repel my
+accusation."
+
+"Accusation?" he murmurs, hopelessly. "I do not yet understand of what
+you accuse me."
+
+"Of your relations with that creature before my very eyes!"
+
+Transported with indignation at these words, he lifts his hand,
+possessed by a mad impulse to strike her, but he controls himself so
+far as only to grasp her by the arm.
+
+"Creature!" he exclaims, furiously. "Creature! Are you mad? Olga!--why,
+Olga is pure as an angel, more spotless than a snowflake before it has
+touched the earth."
+
+"I have no faith in such purity. If she has not actually fallen, her
+passion is plainly shown in her eyes. But there shall be no open
+scandal,--she must go. I will not have her in the house,--she must go!"
+
+"She must go!" Treurenberg repeats, in horror. "You would turn her out
+of doors,--a young, inexperienced, beautiful girl? Selina, I will go,
+and the sooner the better for all I care, but she must stay."
+
+"How you love her!" sneers the Countess.
+
+For a moment there is silence in the room. Lato gazes at his wife as if
+she were something strange which he had never seen before,--gazes at
+her in amazement mingled with horror. His patience is at an end; he
+forgets everything in the wild desire to break asunder the fetters
+which have bound him for so long, to be rid of the self-control which
+has so tortured him.
+
+"Yes," he says, raising his voice, "I love her,--love her intensely,
+unutterably; but this is the first time that I have admitted it even to
+myself, and you have brought me to do so. I have struggled against this
+passion night and day, have denied its existence, have done all that I
+could to stifle it, and I have tried to the utmost to be reconciled
+with you, to begin with you a new life in which I could hope to forget
+her. How you have seconded me you know. Of one thing, however, I can
+assure you,--the last word has been uttered between you and myself; it
+would not avail you now though you should sue for a reconciliation on
+your knees. A woman without tenderness or compassion I abhor. I have a
+horror of you!" He turns sway, and the door closes behind him.
+
+
+"Where is the Count?" Frau von Harfink asks a servant, at lunch, where
+Treurenberg's place is vacant.
+
+"The Herr Count had his horse saddled some time ago," the man replies,
+"and left word that he should not be here at lunch, since he had urgent
+business in X----."
+
+"Indeed!" the hostess says, indifferently, without expending another
+thought upon her son-in-law. She never suspects that within the last
+few hours, beneath her roof, the ruin has been completed of a human
+existence long since undermined.
+
+Lunch goes on,--a hurried meal, at which it is evident that the
+household is in a state of preparation for coming festivities; a meal
+at which cold dishes are served, because the entire culinary force is
+absorbed in elaborating the grand dinner for the evening; a lunch at
+which no one talks, because each is too much occupied with his or her
+own thoughts to desire to inquire into those of the others.
+
+Frau von Harfink mentally recapitulates the evening's _menu_, wondering
+if nothing can be added to it to reflect splendour upon the Harfink
+establishment.
+
+Paula's reveries are of her coming bliss; her usually robust appetite
+is scarcely up to the mark. In short, the only one who seems to eat
+with the customary relish is the Pole, who, very temperate in drinking
+and smoking, is always ready for a banquet. He is also the only one who
+notices the want of appetite in the rest. He does not waste his
+interest, however, upon the Baroness or Paula, but devotes his
+attention exclusively to Selina and Olga.
+
+The Countess is evidently in a very agitated state of mind, and,
+strange to relate of so self-satisfied a person, she is clearly
+discontented with herself and her surroundings. When her mother asks
+her whether two soups had better be served at dinner, or, since it is
+but a small family affair, only one, she replies that it is a matter of
+supreme indifference to her, and will certainly be the same to the
+guests, adding,--
+
+"The people who are coming will probably have some appetite; mine was
+spoiled some days ago by the mere _menu_, which I have been obliged to
+swallow every day for the last fortnight." These are the only words
+spoken by her during the entire meal.
+
+The Pole finds her mood tolerably comprehensible. She has had a scene
+with Treurenberg, and has gone too far,--that is what is annoying her
+at present. But Olga's mood puzzles him completely. The depression
+she has manifested of late has entirely vanished, she holds her head
+erect, her movements are easy, and there is a gleam in her eyes of
+transfiguring happiness, something like holy exultation.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+                                A VISIT.
+
+
+Meanwhile, Treurenberg is riding along the road to X----.
+
+The landscape is dreary. Autumn is creeping over the fields, vainly
+seeking the summer, seeking luxuriant life to kill, or exquisite beauty
+to destroy. In vain; the same withering drought rests upon everything
+like a curse, and in the midst of the brown monotony bloom succory and
+field-poppies.
+
+Treurenberg gazes to the right and left without really seeing anything.
+His eyes have a glassy, fixed look, and about his mouth there is a hard
+expression, almost wicked, and quite foreign to him. He is not the same
+man who an hour ago sought his wife to entreat her to begin a new life
+with him; not the same man who at dawn was so restless in devising
+schemes for a better future.
+
+His restlessness has vanished with his last gleam of hope; sensation is
+benumbed, the burning pain has gone. Something has died within him. He
+no longer reflects upon his life,--it is ended; he has drawn a black
+line through it. All that he is conscious of is intense, paralyzing
+weariness, the same that had overcome him in the early morning, only
+more crushing. After the scene with his wife he had been assailed by a
+terrible languor, an almost irresistible desire to lie down and close
+his eyes, but he could not yield to it, he had something to do. That
+poor lad must be rescued; the suffering the boy was enduring was
+wholesome, but he must be saved.
+
+Fainacky's assertion that Treurenberg was in the habit of borrowing
+from his friends had been a pure fabrication; he had borrowed money of
+no one save of Harry, with whom he had been upon the footing of a
+brother from early boyhood, and of Abraham Goldstein, upon whose
+secrecy he had supposed he could rely. It would have wounded him to
+speak to any stranger of the painful circumstances of his married life.
+Now all this was past; Selina could thank herself that it was so. He
+could not let the boy go to ruin, and, since Selina would not take pity
+upon him, he must turn to some one else; there was no help for it.
+
+For a moment he thought of Harry; but he reflected that Harry could
+hardly have so large a sum of ready money by him, and, as time was an
+important item in the affair, there was nothing for it but to apply for
+aid to Wodin, the husband of his cousin and former flame.
+
+
+The trees grow scantier, their foliage rustier, and the number of
+ragged children on the highway greater. Now and then some young women
+are to be seen walking along the road, usually in couples, rather oddly
+dressed, evidently after the plates in the journals of fashion, and
+with an air of affectation. Then come a couple of low houses with
+blackened roofs reaching almost to the ground, manure-heaps, grunting
+swine wallowing in slimy green pools, hedges where pieces of linen are
+drying, gnarled fruit-trees smothered in dust, an inn, a carters'
+tavern, with a red crab painted above the door-way, whence issues the
+noise of drunken quarrelling, then a white wall with some trees showing
+above it, the town-park of X----. Lato has reached his goal. On the
+square before the barracks he halts. A corporal takes charge of his
+horse, and he hurries up the broad, dirty steps, along the still
+dirtier and ill-smelling corridor, where he encounters dragoons in
+spurs and clattering sabres, where the officers' overworked servants
+are brushing their masters' coats and their mistresses' habits, to the
+colonel's quarters, quarters the luxurious arrangement of which is in
+striking contrast to the passages by which they are reached. Count
+Wodin is not at home, but is expected shortly; the Countess, through a
+servant, begs Lato to await him. He resolves to do so, and pays his
+respects meanwhile to his cousin, whom he finds in a spacious, rather
+low-ceilinged apartment, half smoking-room, half drawing-room,
+furnished with divans covered with Oriental stuff's, pretty buhl chairs
+and tables, and Japanese cabinets crowded to excess with all sorts of
+rare porcelain. An upright piano stands against the wall between two
+windows; above it hangs a miniature gondola, and beside it, on the
+floor, is a palm in a huge copper jar evidently procured from some
+Venetian water-carrier. Two china pugs, the size of life, looking like
+degenerate chimeras, gnash their teeth at all intruders in life-like
+hideousness. The door-ways are draped with Eastern rugs; the walls are
+covered with a dark paper, and two or three English engravings
+representing hunting-scenes hang upon them. In the midst of these
+studies in black and white hangs a small copy of Titian's Venus.
+
+The entire arrangement of the room betrays a mingling of vulgarity and
+refinement, of artistic taste and utter lack of it; and in the midst of
+it all the Countess reclines on a lounge, dressed in a very long and
+very rumpled morning-gown, much trimmed with yellowish Valenciennes
+lace. Her hair is knotted up carelessly; she looks out of humour, and
+is busy rummaging among a quantity of photographs. She is alone, but
+from the adjoining room come the sound of voices, as Treurenberg
+enters, and the rattle of bezique-counters.
+
+The Countess gives him her hand, presses his very cordially, and says,
+in a weary, drawling tone, "How are you after yesterday, Lato?"
+
+"After what?"
+
+"Why, our little orgie. It gave me a headache." She passes her hand
+across her forehead. "How badly the air tastes! Could you not open
+another window, Lato?"
+
+"They are all open," he says, looking round the room.
+
+"Ah! You have poisoned the atmosphere with your wine, your cigars, your
+gambling excitement. I taste the day after a debauch, in the air."
+
+He nods absently.
+
+"I admire people who never suffer the day after," she sighs, and waves
+her hand towards the door of the next room, through which comes a
+cheerful murmur of voices. Lato moves his head a little, and can see
+through the same door a curious couple,--the major's wife, stout,
+red-cheeked, her hair parted boldly on one side, and dressed in an old
+gown, enlarged at every seam, of the Countess's, while opposite her
+sits a young man in civilian's clothes, pale, coughing from time to
+time, his face long and far from handsome, but aristocratic in type,
+his chest narrow, and his waistcoat buttoned to the throat.
+
+"Your brother," Lato remarks, turning to the Countess.
+
+"Yes," she rejoins, "my brother, and my certificate of respectability,
+which is well, for there is need of it. _A propos_, do you know that in
+the matter of feminine companionship I am reduced to that stout Liese?"
+The Countess laughs unpleasantly. "I have tried every day to bring
+myself to the point of returning your wife's call. I do not know why I
+have not done so. But the ladies at Dobrotschau are really very
+amiable,--uncommonly amiable,--they have invited me to the betrothal
+_fete_ in spite of my incivility. _A propos_, Lato, will any one be
+there,--any one whom one knows?"
+
+"I have had nothing to do with the list of guests," he murmurs,
+listening for Wodin's step outside.
+
+"I should like to know. It would be unpleasant to meet any of my
+acquaintances,--they treat me so strangely. You know how it is." Again
+she laughs in the same unpleasant way. "But if I could be sure of
+meeting no one I would go to your _fete_, I have a new gown from Worth:
+I should like to display it somewhere; dragging my trains through these
+smoky rooms becomes monotonous after a while. I think I will come."
+
+The voices in the next room sound louder, and there is a burst of
+hearty laughter. Lato can see the major's wife slap her forehead in
+mock despair.
+
+"Easily entertained," the Countess says, crossly. "They are playing
+bezique for raisins. It makes a change for my brother; his physician
+has sent him to the country for the benefit of the air and a regular
+mode of life. He has come to the right place, eh?" Again she laughs;
+her breath fails her; she closes her eyes and leans back, white as a
+corpse.
+
+Lato shudders at the sight, he could hardly have told why. His youth
+rises up before him. There was a time when he loved that woman with
+enthusiasm, with self-devotion. That woman! He scans her now with a
+kind of curiosity. She is still beautiful, but the wan face has fallen
+away, the complexion all that can be seen of it beneath its coating of
+violet powder--is faded, the delicate nose is too thick at the tip, the
+nostrils are slightly reddened, the small mouth is constantly distorted
+in an affected smile, the arms from which the wide sleeves of the
+morning-gown have fallen back are thin, and the nails upon the long,
+slender hands remind one of claws. Even the white gown looks faded,
+crushed, as by the constant nervous movement of a restless,
+discontented wearer. Her entire personality is constrained, feverish.
+
+Involuntarily Lato compares this woman with Olga. He sees with his
+mind's eye the young girl, tall and slender as a lily, her white gowns
+always so pure and fresh, sees the delicately-rounded oval of her
+girlish face, her clear, large eyes, the innocent tenderness of her
+smile. And Selina could malign that same Olga! His blood boils. As if
+Olga were to blame for the wretched, guilty passion in his breast! His
+thoughts are far away from his present surroundings.
+
+"Seven thousand five hundred," the triumphant voice of the major's wife
+calls out in the next room. "If this goes on, Count Franz, I shall soon
+stop playing for raisins! Ah!" as, turning her head, she perceives
+Treurenberg; "you have a visitor, Lori."
+
+"Yes," Countess Lori replies, "but do not disturb yourselves, nor us."
+
+The rattle of the counters continues.
+
+"I must speak with your husband," Lato says presently; "if you know
+where he is----"
+
+"He will be here in ten minutes; you need have no fear, he is never
+late," Lori says. "_A propos_, do you know what I was doing when you
+came in? Sorting my old photographs." She hands him a picture from the
+pile beside her. "That is how I looked when you fell in love with me."
+
+He gazes, not without interest, at the pale little picture, which
+represents a tall, slender, and yet well-developed young girl with
+delicate, exquisitely lovely features, and with eyes, full of gentle
+kindliness, looking out curiously, as it were, into the world from
+beneath their arched eyebrows. An old dream floats through the wretched
+man's mind.
+
+"It was very like," he says.
+
+"Was it not? I was a comical-looking thing then, and how badly dressed!
+Look at those big sleeves and the odd skirt. It was a gown of my elder
+sister's made over. Good heavens! that gown had a part in my resolve to
+throw you over. Do you remember?"
+
+"Yes, Lori."
+
+"Only faintly, I think," she laughs. "And yet you seemed to take it
+sadly to heart then. I was greatly agitated myself. But what else was
+to be done? I was tired of wearing my sister's old gowns. Youth longs
+for splendour; it is one of its diseases, and when it has it--pshaw!
+you need not look so, Lato: I have no intention of throwing myself at
+your head. I know that old tale is told for both of us. And we never
+were suited for each other. It was well that I did not marry you, but,
+good heavens, I might have waited for some one else! It need not have
+been just that one--that----" with a hasty gesture of disgust she
+tosses aside a photograph of Count Wodin which she has just drawn from
+the heap. "What would you have? If a tolerably presentable man appears,
+and one knows that he can buy one as many gowns, diamonds, and horses
+as one wants, why, one forgets everything else and accepts him. What
+ideas of marriage one has at seventeen! And our parents take good care
+not to enlighten us. 'She will get used to it,' say father and mother,
+and the mother believes it because she wants to, and both rejoice that
+their daughter is provided for; and before one is aware the trap has
+fallen. I bore you, Lato."
+
+"No," he replies; "you grieve me."
+
+"Oh, it is only now and then that I feel thus," she murmurs. "Shall I
+tell you the cause of my wretched mood?"
+
+"Utter fatigue, the natural consequence of yesterday's pleasures."
+
+"Not at all. I accidentally came upon the picture of my cousin Ada
+to-day. Do you remember her? There she is." She hands him a photograph.
+"Exquisitely beautiful, is it not?"
+
+"Yes," he says, looking at the picture; "the eyes are bewitching, and
+there is such womanly tenderness, such delicate refinement, about the
+mouth."
+
+"Nothing could surpass Ada," says Countess Lori; "she was a saint,
+good, self-sacrificing, not a trace in her of frivolity or
+selfishness."
+
+"And yet she married Hugo Reinsfeld, if I am not mistaken?" says Lato.
+"I have heard nothing of her lately. News from your world rarely
+reaches me."
+
+"No one mentions her now," Lori murmurs. "She married without
+love; not from vanity as I did, but she sacrificed herself for her
+family,--sisters unprovided for, father old, no money. She was far
+better than I, and for a long time she honestly tried to do her
+duty,----and so she finally had to leave her husband!"
+
+The Countess stops; a long pause ensues. The steps of the passers-by
+sound through the languid September air; an Italian hurdy-gurdy is
+grinding out the lullaby from "Trovatore," sleepy and sentimental. The
+clatter from the barracks interrupts it now and then. A sunbeam slips
+through the window-shade into the half-light of the room and gleams
+upon the buhl furniture.
+
+"Well, she had the courage of her opinions," the Countess begins
+afresh at last. "She left her husband and lives with--well, with
+another man,--good heavens! you knew him too, Niki Gladnjik, in
+Switzerland; they live there for each other in perfect seclusion. He
+adores her; the world--our world, the one I do not want to meet at your
+ball--ignores Ada, but I write to her sometimes, and she to me. I have
+been reading over her letters to-day. She seems to be very happy,
+enthusiastically happy, so happy that I envy her; but I am sorry for
+her, for--you see, Niki really loves her, and wants to marry her--they
+have been waiting two years for the divorce which her husband opposes;
+and Niki is consumptive; you understand, if he should die before----"
+
+Lato's heart throbs fast at his cousin's tale. At this moment the door
+opens, and Count Wodin enters.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+                                AT LAST.
+
+
+Flammingen's affairs are satisfactorily adjusted. Treurenberg is
+relieved of that anxiety. He can devote his thoughts to his own
+complications, as he rides back from X---- to Dobrotschau.
+
+The dreamy lullaby from "Trovatore" still thrills his nerves, and again
+and again he recalls the pair living happily in Switzerland. He sees
+their valley in his mental vision enclosed amid lofty mountains,--walls
+erected by God Himself to protect that green Paradise from the
+intrusion and cruelty of mankind,--walls which shut out the world and
+reveal only the blue heavens. How happy one could be in that green
+seclusion, forgotten by the world! In fancy he breathes the fresh
+Alpine air laden with the wholesome scent of the pines; upon his ear
+there falls the rushing murmur of the mountain-stream. He sees a
+charming home on a mountain-slope, and at the door stands a lovely
+woman dressed in white, with large, tender eyes filled with divine
+sympathy. She is waiting for some one's return; whence does he come?
+From the nearest town, whither he is forced to go from time to time to
+adjust his affairs, but whither she never goes; oh, no! People pain
+her,--people who despise and envy her. But what matters it? He opens
+his arms to her, she flies to meet him; ah, what bliss, what rapture!
+
+His horse stumbles slightly; he rouses with a start. A shudder thrills
+him, and, as in the morning, he is horrified at himself. Will it always
+be thus? Can he not relax his hold upon himself for one instant without
+having every thought rush in one direction, without being possessed by
+one intense longing? How can he thus desecrate Olga's image?
+
+
+Meanwhile, the expected guests have arrived at Dobrotschau. They came
+an hour ago,--three carriage-loads of distinction from, Vienna, some of
+them decorated with feudal titles. A very aristocratic party will
+assemble at table in Dobrotschau to-day. Countess Weiseneck, a born
+Grinzing, wife of a rather disgraceful _mauvais sujet_, whose very
+expensive maintenance she contests paying, and from whom she has been
+separated for more than a year; Countess Mayenfeld, _nee_ Gerstel, the
+wife of a gentleman not quite five feet in height, who is known in
+Vienna by the _sobriquet_ of "the numismatician." When his betrothal to
+the wealthy Amanda Gerstel was announced, society declared that he had
+chosen his bride to augment his collection of coins. His passion for
+collecting coins enables this knightly aristocrat to endure with
+philosophy the cold shoulders which his nearest relatives turned to him
+after his marriage; moreover, he lives upon excellent terms with his
+wizened little wife. One more couple with a brand-new but high-sounding
+title; then an unmarried countess, with short hair and a masculine
+passion for sport,--an acquaintance made at a watering-place; then
+Baron Kilary, the cleverest business-man among Vienna aristocrats, who
+is always ready to eat oysters and _pate de foie gras_ at any man's
+table, without, however, so far forgetting himself as to require his
+wife and daughter to visit any one of his entertainers who is socially
+his inferior. The famous poet, Paul Angelico Orchys, and little Baron
+Koenigsfeld, complete the list of arrivals.
+
+The first greetings are over; ended also is the running to and fro of
+lady's-maids looking for mislaid handbags, with the explanations of
+servants, who, having carried the trunks to the wrong rooms, are trying
+to make good their mistakes. All is quiet. The ladies and gentlemen are
+seated at small tables in a shady part of the park, drinking tea and
+fighting off a host of wasps that have attacked the delicacies forming
+part of the afternoon repast.
+
+The castle is empty; the sound of distant voices alone falls on Lato's
+ear as he returns from his expedition to X---- and goes to his room,
+desirous only of deferring as long as possible the playing of his part
+in this tiresome entertainment. The first thing to meet his eyes
+on his writing-table is a letter addressed to himself. He picks
+it up; the envelope is stamped with a coronet and Selina's monogram.
+He tears the letter open; it encloses nothing save a package of
+bank-notes,--eighteen hundred guilders in Austrian currency.
+
+Lato's first emotion is anger. What good will the wretched money do him
+now? How rejoiced he is that he no longer needs it, that he can return
+it within the hour to Selina! The address arrests his attention; there
+is something odd about it. Is it Selina's handwriting? At first sight
+he had thought it was, but now, upon a closer inspection can it be his
+mother-in-law's hand? Is she trying to avoid a domestic scandal by
+atoning thus for her daughter's harshness? He tosses the money aside in
+disgust. Suddenly a peculiar fragrance affects him agreeably. What is
+it?--a faint odour of heliotrope. Could it be----? His downcast eyes
+discover a tiny bunch of faded purple blossoms lying on the floor
+almost at his feet. He stoops, picks it up, and kisses it passionately:
+it is the bunch of heliotrope which Olga wore on her breast at
+breakfast. It is she who has cared for him, who has thought of him!
+
+But instantly, after the first access of delight, comes the reaction.
+How could Olga have known? Selina, in her irritation, may have
+proclaimed his request to the entire household; the servants may be
+discussing in the kitchen Count Treurenberg's application to his wife
+for eighteen hundred guilders, and her angry refusal to grant them to
+him. He clinches his fist and bites his lip, when on a sudden he
+recalls the rustle of a robe in the next room, which he thought he
+heard at one time during his interview with Selina. The blood mounts to
+his forehead. Olga had been in the library; she had heard him talking
+with his wife. And if she had heard him ask Selina for the money, she
+had also heard---- Ah! He buries his face in his hands.
+
+The afternoon tea has been enjoyed; the ladies have withdrawn to their
+rooms to "arm themselves for the fray," as Paul Angelico expresses it;
+the gentlemen have betaken themselves to the billiard-room, where they
+are playing a game, as they smoke the excellent cigars which Baron
+Kilary has ordered a lackey to bring them.
+
+Lato has wandered out into the park. He is not quite himself; the
+ground beneath his feet seems uncertain. He leans against the trunk of
+a tree, always pondering the same question, "What if she heard?"
+
+He turns involuntarily into the garden-path where, but a short time
+since, he had soothed her agitation and dried her tears. There, on the
+rough birchen bench, something white gleams. Is it----?
+
+He would fain flee, but he cannot; he stands as if rooted to the spot.
+She turns her face towards him, and recognizes him. A faint colour
+flushes her cheek, and in her eyes, which rest full upon him, there is
+a heavenly light.
+
+"Lato!" she calls. Is that her voice sounding so full and soft? She
+rises and approaches him. He has never before seen her look so
+beautiful. Her slender figure is erect as a young fir; she carries her
+head like a youthful queen whose brow is crowned for the first time
+with the diadem. She stands beside him; her presence thrills him to his
+very soul.
+
+"Olga," he murmurs at last, "was it you who left the money on my table?
+How did you know that I wanted it?" he asks, bluntly, almost
+authoritatively.
+
+She is silent.
+
+"Olga, Olga, were you in the library while----?"
+
+She nods.
+
+"And you heard all,--everything?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Olga!" His eyes are riveted upon her face in what is almost horror.
+
+"Olga,--what now?"
+
+"I cannot bear to see you suffer," she murmurs, scarce audibly.
+
+Did he extend his arms to her? He could not himself tell; but what he
+has dreamed has happened,--he clasps her to his breast, his lips meet
+hers; his anguish is past; wings seem to be given him wherewith to soar
+to heaven.
+
+But only for an instant is he thus beguiled; then reality in its full
+force bursts upon him. He unclasps the dear arms from his neck, presses
+one last kiss upon the girlish hand before he releases it, and then
+turns and walks away with a firm tread, without looking round, and in
+the full consciousness of the truth,--the consciousness that no wings
+are his, and that the heavy burden which has weighed him down is doubly
+heavy now.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+                              THE DINNER.
+
+
+Taken altogether, Fainacky may be but a very ordinary pattern of a man,
+but as a _maitre de plaisir_ in the arrangement of a _fete_ he is
+unrivalled. A more exquisite table than that around which the twenty
+people are assembled who form the rehearsing party for Harry's
+betrothal festival it would be difficult to imagine. The only criticism
+that can be made is that the guests are rather far apart; but who could
+have foreseen that at the last moment four people would be lacking? The
+Paul Leskjewitsches, with their niece, sent regrets, and Olga, just
+before dinner, was obliged to retire with a severe headache, to which
+she succumbed in spite of her aunt's exhortations to her "not to mind
+it." Lato is present; he is indifferent as to where his hours drag
+past. He is determined to prevent Olga's being made the subject of
+discussion, and his social training, with the numbness sure to ensue
+upon great mental agitation, stands him in stead; he plays his part
+faultlessly. Now and then the consciousness of his hopeless misery
+flashes upon him, then it fades again; he forgets all save the present
+moment, and he scans everything about him with keen observation, as if
+he had no part or parcel in it, but were looking at it all as at
+another world.
+
+Yes, the table is charmingly decorated; anything more tasteful or more
+correct in every respect could not be imagined; but the people gathered
+about this sparkling board, never before has he seen them so clearly or
+judged them so severely.
+
+His contempt is specially excited by his social equals. Fritz
+Mayenfeld, "the numismatician," does not long occupy his attention. In
+spite of his rank, he has always manifested thoroughly plebeian
+instincts; his greed of gain is notorious; and he looks, and is,
+entirely at home in the Harfink domestic atmosphere. The descent of the
+other aristocrats present, however,--of Kilary, of the short-haired
+Countess, and of the affected Count Fermor,--is tolerably evident in
+their faces, and they all seem determined to assert their aristocratic
+prestige in the same manner,--by impertinence.
+
+Lato is conscious of a horror of his own caste as he studies these
+degenerate members of it. He turns his attention to the three guests
+from Komaritz,--the Countess Zriny, Hedwig, and Harry. The old
+canoness, who is seated on his right, provokes his smile. The superb
+condescension with which, for love of her nephew, she treats "these
+people;" the formal courtesy with which she erects an insurmountable
+barrier between them and herself; the morsels of liberalism which she
+scatters here and there in her conversation for their comfort and
+delectation,--all are worthy of the most enthusiastic praise.
+
+Poor old woman! How important she is in her own eyes! Her gown is the
+ugliest and shabbiest there (the one the sporting Countess wears was
+given her by Selina), but six strings of wonderful pearls which she
+wears around her neck make her all right. Hedwig,--well, she is a
+little more affected than usual; she is flirting with little Baron
+Koenigsfeld, who took her in to dinner, playing him off against her
+neighbour on the other side, Count Fermor. And Harry,--with profound
+sympathy and intense compassion Lato's eyes rest upon his friend.
+Simple, without pretension or affectation, very courteous without
+condescension, a little formal, perhaps, withal,--as the most natural
+of men must be where he feels himself a stranger,--with that in his
+face and bearing that distinguishes him above every one present, he is
+the only specimen of his own caste there with whom Lato feels
+satisfied.
+
+"They may abuse us as they please," he thinks to himself,--"nay, I even
+join them in abusing,--but if one of us gives his word he stands to
+it." And then he questions whether in any other rank could be found
+such an example of noble and manly beauty, or of such quixotic,
+self-annihilating, chivalrous honour. "Good heavens! why not?" he makes
+reply to himself. "So far as moral worth is concerned, assuredly; only
+in form it would probably be less refined."
+
+Lato has had much experience of life. He has laid aside all the
+prejudices of his class, but the subtile caste-instinct still
+abides with him. He asks himself whether his family--the Harfink
+family--notice the difference between Harry and the other aristocrats
+present; whether the Harfinks will not be finally disgusted by the
+impertinence of these coxcombs; whether they do not feel the offensive
+condescension of the Countess Zriny. It would seem not. The Harfinks,
+mother and daughters, are quite satisfied with what is accorded them;
+they are overflowing with gratified vanity, and are enjoying the
+success of the festival. Even Selina is pleased; Olga's absence
+seems to have soothed her. She informs Lato, by all kinds of amiable
+devices,--hints which she lets fall in conversation, glances which she
+casts towards him,--that she is sorry for the scene of the morning, and
+is ready to acquiesce. She tells her neighbour at dinner, Baron Kilary,
+that to-day is the anniversary of her betrothal.
+
+Lato becomes more and more strongly impressed by the conviction that
+her severe attack of jealousy has aroused within her something of her
+old sentiment for him. The thought disgusts him profoundly; he feels
+for her a positive aversion.
+
+His attention is chiefly bestowed upon Harry. How the poor fellow
+suffers! writhing beneath the ostentatious anxiety of his betrothed,
+who exhausts herself in sympathetic inquiries as to his pallor,
+ascribing it to every cause save the true one.
+
+"What will become of him if he does not succeed in ridding himself of
+this intolerable burden?" Lato asks himself. An inexpressible dread
+assails him. "A candidate for suicide," he thinks, and for a moment he
+feels dizzy and ill.
+
+But why should Harry die, when his life might be adjusted by one word
+firmly uttered? He might be saved, and then what a sunny bright future
+would be his! If one could but help him!
+
+The dinner is half over; punch is being served. The tall windows of the
+dining-hall are wide open, the breeze has died away for the time, the
+night is quiet, the outlook upon the park enchanting. Coloured lamps,
+shaped like fantastic flowers, illumine the shrubbery, whence comes
+soft music.
+
+All the anguish which had been stilled for the moment stirs within
+Lato's breast at sound of the sweet insinuating tones. They arouse
+within him an insane thirst for happiness. If it were but possible to
+obtain a divorce! Caressingly, dreamily, the notes of "Southern Roses"
+float in from the park.
+
+"Ah! how that reminds me of my betrothal!" says Selina, moving her fan
+to and fro in time with the music. Involuntarily Lato glances at her.
+
+She wears a red gown, _decoletee_ as of old. Her shoulders have
+grown stouter, her features sharper, but she is hardly changed
+otherwise; many would pronounce her handsomer than she had been on that
+other sultry September evening when it had first occurred to him that
+he--loved her--no, when he lied to himself--because it seemed so easy.
+
+He falls into a revery, from which he is aroused by the poet Angelico
+Orchys, who rises, glass in hand, and in fluent verse proposes the
+health of the betrothed couple. Glasses are clinked, and scarcely are
+all seated again when Fainacky toasts the married pair who are
+celebrating to-day the sixth anniversary of their betrothal. Every one
+rises; Selina holds her glass out to Lato with a languishing glance
+from her half-closed eyes as she smiles at him over the brim.
+
+He shudders. And he has dared to hope for a divorce!
+
+The clinking of glasses has ceased; again all are seated; a fresh
+course of viands is in progress; there is a pause in the conversation,
+while the music wails and sighs outside, Fainacky from his place at
+table making all sorts of mysterious signs to the leader.
+
+Treurenberg's misery has become so intense within the last few minutes
+that he can scarcely endure it without some outward sign of it, when
+suddenly a thought occurs to him, a little, gloomy thought, that slowly
+increases like a thunder-cloud. His breath comes quick, the cold
+perspiration breaks out upon his forehead, his heart beats strong and
+fast.
+
+"Is anything the matter, Lato?" Selina asks, across the table; "you
+have grown so pale. Do you feel the draught?"
+
+He does not answer. His heart has ceased to beat wildly; a soothing
+calm, a sense of relief, takes possession of him; he seems to have
+discovered the solution of a huge, tormenting riddle.
+
+Presently the wine begins to take effect, and conversation drowns the
+tones of the music. Culinary triumphs have been discussed, there has
+been some political talk, anti-Semitic opinions, in very bad taste,
+have been expressed, and now, in spite of the presence of several young
+girls, various scandals are alluded to.
+
+"Have any of you heard the latest developments in the
+Reinsfeld-Gladnjik case?" Kilary asks.
+
+Treurenberg listens.
+
+The sporting Countess replies: "No: for two years I have seen nothing
+of Ada Reinsfeld--since the--well, since she left her husband; one
+really had to give her up. I am very lenient in such affairs, but one
+has no choice where the scandal is a matter of such publicity."
+
+"I entirely agree with you, my dear Countess," says the Baroness
+Harfink. "So long as due respect is paid to external forms, the private
+weaknesses of my neighbours are no concern of mine; but external forms
+must be observed."
+
+"My cousin's course throughout that business was that of a crazy
+woman," says "the numismatician," with his mouth full. "She was
+mistress of the best-ordered house in Graez. Reinsfeld's cook was----!
+never in my life did I taste such salmi of partridges--except on this
+occasion," he adds, with an inclination towards his hostess. The next
+moment he motions to a servant to fill his glass, and forgets all about
+his cousin Ada.
+
+"Poor Ada! She was very charming, but she became interested in all
+sorts of free-thinking books, and they turned her head," says the
+Countess Zriny. "In my opinion a woman who reads Strauss and Renan is
+lost."
+
+"The remarks of the company are excessively interesting to me," Kilary
+now strikes in, with an impertinent intonation in his nasal voice, "but
+I beg to be allowed to speak, since what I have to tell is quite
+sensational. You know that Countess Ada has tried in vain to induce her
+noble husband to consent to a divorce. Meanwhile, Gladnjik's condition
+culminated in galloping consumption, and two days ago he died."
+
+"And she?" several voices asked at once.
+
+"She?--she took poison!"
+
+For a moment there is a bush in the brilliantly-lighted room, the soft
+sighing of the music in the shrubbery is again audible. Through the
+open windows is wafted in the beguiling charm of an Hungarian dance by
+Brahms.
+
+There is a change of sentiment in the assemblage: the harshness with
+which but now all had judged the Countess Ada gives place to
+compassionate sympathy.
+
+Countess Zriny presses her lace-trimmed handkerchief to her eyes. "Poor
+Ada!" she murmurs; "I can see her now; a more charming young girl there
+never was. Why did they force her to marry that old Reinsfeld?"
+
+"He had so excellent a cook," sneers Kilary, with a glance at "the
+numismatician," from whose armour of excellent appetite the dart falls
+harmless.
+
+"Forced!" Paula interposes eagerly, in her deep, guttural tones. "As if
+nowaday's any one with a spark of character could be forced to marry!"
+
+Harry twirls his moustache and looks down at his plate.
+
+"I am the last to defend a departure from duty," the old canoness goes
+on, "but in this case the blame really falls partly upon Ada's family.
+They forced her to marry; they subjected her to moral force."
+
+"That is true," even Kilary, heartless cynic as he is, admits. "They
+forced her, although they knew that she and Niki Gladnjik were attached
+to each other. Moreover, I must confess that, in spite of the admirable
+qualities which distinguish Reinsfeld,--as, for example, his excellent
+cook,--it must have been very difficult for a delicate-minded, refined
+young creature to live with the disgusting old satyr--my expressions
+are classically correct."
+
+"Niki took her marriage sorely to heart," sighed the sporting Countess.
+"They say he ruined his health by the dissipation into which he plunged
+to find forgetfulness. In that direction Ada certainly was much to
+blame; she was carried away by compassion."
+
+Meanwhile, Fainacky has made another sign for the music. The dreamy
+half-notes die away, and the loud tones of a popular march echo through
+the night.
+
+All rise from table.
+
+Treurenberg's brain spins, as with the Countess Zriny on his arm he
+walks into the garden-room, where the guests are to admire the
+decorations and to drink their coffee.
+
+"The fair Olga is not seriously ill?" he hears Kilary say to Selina.
+
+"Oh, not at all," Selina replies. "You need not fear anything
+infectious. Olga is rather overstrained and exaggerated; you cannot
+imagine what a burden papa left us in the care of her. But we have
+settled it to-day with mamma: she must leave the house,--at least for a
+time. My aunt Emilie is to take her to Italy. It will be a great relief
+to us all."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XL.
+
+                              A FAREWELL.
+
+
+While some of the guests are contented merely to admire the decorations
+of the garden-room, others suggest improvements. They cannot quite
+agree us to where the musicians should be placed, and the band migrates
+from one spot to another, like a set of homeless fugitives; in one
+place the music is too loud, in another it is not loud enough. Hilary's
+nasal, arrogant voice is heard everywhere in command. At last the band
+is stationed just before the large western window of the room. Some one
+suggests trying a waltz. Kilary waltzes with Selina. Treurenberg
+watches the pair. They waltz in the closest embrace, her head almost
+resting on his shoulder.
+
+Once Lato might have remonstrated with his wife upon such an exhibition
+of herself; but to-day, ah, how indifferent he is to it all! He turns
+away from the crowd and noise, and walks beyond the circle of light
+into the park. Here a hand is laid on his shoulder. He turns: Harry has
+followed him.
+
+"What is the matter, old fellow?" he asks, good-humouredly. "I do not
+like your looks to-day."
+
+"I cannot get Ada Reinsfeld out of my head," Treurenberg rejoins, in a
+low tone.
+
+"Did you know her?" asks Harry.
+
+"Yes; did you?"
+
+"Yes, but not until after her marriage. I liked her extremely; in
+fact, I have rarely met a more charming woman. And she seemed to me
+serious-minded and thoroughly sincere. The story to-day affected me
+profoundly."
+
+"Did you notice that not one of the women had a good word to say for
+the poor thing until they knew that she was dead?" Treurenberg asks,
+his voice sounding hard and stern.
+
+"Yes, I noticed it," replies Harry, scanning his friend attentively.
+
+"They may perhaps waste a wreath of immortelles upon her coffin,"
+Treurenberg goes on, in the same hard tone, "but not one of them would
+have offered her a hand while she lived."
+
+"Well, she did not lose much in the friendship of the women present
+to-day," Harry observes, dryly; "but, unfortunately, I am afraid that
+far nobler and more generous-minded women also withdrew their
+friendship from poor Ada; and, in fact, we cannot blame them. We cannot
+require our mothers and sisters to visit without remonstrance a woman
+who has run away from her husband and is living with another man."
+
+"Run away; living with another man: how vulgar that sounds!"
+Treurenberg exclaims, angrily.
+
+"Our language has no other words for this case."
+
+"I do not comprehend you; you judge as harshly as the rest."
+
+They have walked on and have reached a rustic seat quite in the shade,
+beyond the light even of the coloured lamps. Harry sits down; Lato
+follows his example.
+
+"How am I to judge, then?" Harry asks.
+
+"In my eyes Ada was a martyr," Treurenberg asserts.
+
+"So she was in mine," Harry admits.
+
+"I have the greatest admiration for her."
+
+"And I only the deepest compassion," Harry declares, adding, in a lower
+tone, "I say not a word in blame of her; Niki was the guiltier of the
+two. A really noble woman, when she loves, forgets to consider the
+consequences of her conduct, especially when pity sanctifies her
+passion and atones in her eyes for her sin. She sees an ideal life
+before her, and does not doubt that she shall attain it. Ada believed
+that she should certainly procure her divorce, and that all would be
+well. She did not see the mire through which she should have to
+struggle to attain her end, and that even were it attained, no power on
+earth could wash out the stains incurred in attaining it. Niki should
+have spared her that; he knew life well enough to be perfectly aware of
+the significance of the step she took for him."
+
+"Yes, you are right; women never know the world; they see about them
+only what is fair and sacred, a young girl particularly."
+
+"Oh, in such matters a young girl is out of the question," Harry
+sharply interrupts.
+
+There is an oppressive silence. Lato shivers.
+
+"You are cold," Harry says, with marked gentleness; "come into the
+house."
+
+"No, no; stay here!"
+
+Through the silence come the strains of a waltz of Arditi's "_La notte
+gia stendi suo manto stellato_," and the faint rustle of the dancers'
+feet.
+
+"How is your cousin?" Lato asks, after a while.
+
+"I do not know. I have not spoken with her since she left Komaritz,"
+Harry replies, evasively.
+
+"And have you not seen her?" asks Lato.
+
+"Yes, once; I looked over the garden-wall as I rode by. She looks pale
+and thin, poor child."
+
+Lato is mute. Harry goes on:
+
+"Do you remember, Lato? is it three or four weeks ago, the last time
+you were with me in Komaritz? I could jest then at my--embarrassments.
+I daily expected my release. Now----" he shrugs his shoulders.
+
+"You were angry with me then; angry because I would not interfere,"
+Lato says, with hesitation.
+
+"Oh, it would have been useless," Harry mutters.
+
+Instead of continuing the subject, Lato restlessly snaps a twig hanging
+above his head. "How terribly dry everything is!" he murmurs.
+
+"Yes," says Harry; "so long as it was warm we looked for a storm; the
+cool weather has come without rain, and everything is dead."
+
+"The spring will revive it all, and the blessing of the coming year
+will be doubled," Lato whispers, in a low, soft tone that rings through
+Harry's soul for years afterwards.
+
+"Harry! Harry! where are you? Come, try one turn with me." It is
+Paula's powerful voice that calls thus. She is steering directly for
+the spot where the friends are seated.
+
+"Give my love to Zdena, when you see her," Lato whispers in his
+friend's ear as he clasps Harry's hand warmly, and then vanishes among
+the dark shrubbery before the young fellow is aware of it.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XLI.
+
+                                RESOLVE.
+
+
+Lato now stands in need of all the energy with which Providence has
+endowed him. All the excellence and nobility that have hitherto lain
+dormant in his soul arouse to life, now that they can but help him to
+die like a man. He cannot sever the golden fetters which he himself has
+forged; he will not drag through the mire what is most sacred to him;
+well, then----
+
+Upon reaching his room he seated himself at his writing-table and wrote
+several letters,--the first to his father, requesting him to see that
+his debts were paid; one to Paula, one to his mother-in-law, and one to
+Harry. The letter to Harry ran thus:
+
+
+"My dear good old Comrade,--
+
+"When this note reaches you, you will be already freed from your
+fetters. I have never forgiven myself for refusing to perform the
+service you asked of me, and I have now retrieved my fault. I have
+written to Paula and to my mother-in-law, explaining your position to
+them, telling them the truth with brutal frankness, and leaving no
+course open to them save to release you. You are free. Farewell.
+
+                             "Yours till death,
+
+                                   "Lato Treurenberg."
+
+
+He tossed the pen aside.
+
+The others were still dancing. The sound of the music came softly from
+the distance. He rested his head on his hands and pondered.
+
+He has seen clearly that it must be. He had written the letters as the
+first irrevocable step. But how was it to be done?
+
+He looked for his revolver. It might all be over in a moment. He caught
+up the little weapon with a kind of greed. Suddenly he recalled a
+friend who had shot himself, and whose body he had seen lying on the
+bed where the deed had been done: there were ugly stains of blood upon
+the pillow. His nature revolted from everything ugly and unclean. And
+then the scene, the uproar that would ensue upon discovering the
+corpse. If he could only avoid all that, could only cloak the ugly
+deed. Meanwhile, his faithful hound came to him from a corner of the
+room, and, as if suspicious that all was not right with its master,
+laid its head upon his knee.
+
+The way was clear,--Lato had lately frequently risen early in the
+morning to stalk a deer, which had escaped his gun again and again; he
+had but to slip out of the house for apparently the same purpose,
+and---- and It would be more easily done beneath God's open skies. But
+several hours must elapse before he could leave the castle. That was
+terrible. Would his resolve hold good? He began to pace the room
+restlessly to and fro.
+
+Had he forgotten anything that ought to be done? He paused and
+listened, seeming to hear a light footfall in the room above him. Yes,
+it was Olga's room; he could hear her also walking to and fro, to and
+fro. His breath came quick; everything within him cried out for
+happiness, for life! He threw himself upon his bed, buried his face
+among the pillows, clinched his hands, and so waited, motionless.
+
+At last the steps overhead ceased, the music was silent; there was a
+rustling in the corridors,--the guests were retiring to their rooms;
+then all was still, as still as death.
+
+Lato arose, lit a candle, and looked at his watch,--half-past two.
+There was still something on his heart,--a discontent of which he would
+fain disburden himself before the end. He sat down again at his
+writing-table, and wrote a few lines to Olga, pouring out his soul to
+her; then, opening his letter to Harry, he added a postscript: "It
+would be useless to attempt any disguise with you,--you have read my
+heart too clearly,--and therefore I can ask a last office of friendship
+of you. Give Olga the enclosed note from me,--I do not wish any one
+here to know of this,--my farewell to her. Think no evil of her. Should
+any one slander her, never believe it!--never!"
+
+He would have written more, but words failed him to express what he
+felt; so he enclosed his note to Olga in his letter to Harry and sealed
+and stamped it.
+
+His thoughts began to wander vaguely. Old legends occurred to him.
+Suddenly he laughed at something that had occurred ten years before, at
+Komaritz,--the trick Harry had played upon Fainacky, the "braggart
+Sarmatian."
+
+He heard himself laugh, and shuddered. The gray dawn began to glimmer
+in the east. He looked at his watch,--it was time! He drew a long,
+sighing breath, and left his room; the dog followed him. In the
+corridor he paused, possessed by a wild desire to creep to Olga's door
+and, kneeling before it, to kiss the threshold. He took two steps
+towards the staircase, then, by a supreme effort, controlled himself
+and turned back.
+
+But in the park he sought the spot where he had met her yesterday,
+where he had kissed her for the first and only time. Here he stood
+still for a while, and, looking down, perceived the half-effaced
+impress of a small foot upon the gravel. He stooped and pressed his
+lips upon it.
+
+Now he has left the park, and the village too lies behind him;
+he has posted his letter to Harry in the yellow box in front of the
+post-office. He walks through the poplar avenue where she came to meet
+him scarcely three weeks ago. He can still feel the touch of her
+delicate hand. A bird twitters faintly above his head, and recalls to
+his memory how he had watched the belated little feathered vagabond
+hurrying home to its nest.
+
+"A life that warms itself beside another life in which it finds peace
+and comfort," he murmurs to himself. An almost irresistible force stays
+his steps. But no; he persists, and walks on towards the forest. He
+will only wait for the sunrise, and then----
+
+He waits in vain. The heavens are covered with clouds; a sharp wind
+sighs above the fields; the leaves tremble as if in mortal terror; for
+the first time in six weeks a few drops of rain fall. No splendour
+hails the awakening world, but along the eastern horizon there is a
+blood-red streak. Just in Lato's path a solitary white butterfly
+flutters upon the ground. The wind grows stronger, the drops fall more
+thickly; the pale blossoms by the roadside shiver; the red poppies do
+not open their cups, but hang their heads as if drunk with sleep.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XLII.
+
+                                 FOUND.
+
+
+Olga had remained in her room because she could not bring herself to
+meet Treurenberg again. No, she could never meet him after the words,
+the kiss, they had exchanged,--never--until he should call her. For it
+did not occur to her to recall what she had said to him,--she was ready
+for everything for his sake. Not a thought did she bestow upon the
+disgrace that would attach to her in the eyes of the world. What did
+she care what people said or thought of her? But he,--what if she had
+disgraced herself in his eyes by the confession of her love? The
+thought tortured her.
+
+She kept saying to herself, "He was shocked at me; I wounded his sense
+of delicacy. Oh, my God! and yet I could not see him suffer so,--I
+could not!"
+
+When night came on she lay dressed upon her bed for hours, now and then
+rising to pace the room to and fro. At last she fell asleep. She was
+roused by hearing a door creak. She listened: it was the door of Lato's
+room. Again she listened. No, she must have been mistaken; it was folly
+to suppose that Lato would think of leaving the house at a little after
+three in the morning! She tried to be calm, and began to undress, when
+suddenly a horrible suspicion assailed her; her teeth chattered, the
+heart in her breast felt like lead.
+
+"I must have been mistaken," she decided. But she could not be at rest.
+She went out into the corridor; all there was still. The dawn was
+changing from gray to white. She glided down the staircase to the door
+of Lato's room, where she kneeled and listened at the key-hole. She
+could surely hear him breathe, she thought. But how could she hear it
+when her own pulses were throbbing so loudly in her heart, in her
+temples, in her ears?
+
+She listened with all her might: nothing, nothing could she hear. Her
+head sank against the door, which was ajar and yielded. She sprang up
+and, half dead with shame, was about to flee, when she paused. If he
+were in his room would not the creaking of the door upon its hinges
+have roused him? Again she turned and peered into the room.
+
+At the first glance she perceived that it was empty, and that the bed
+had not been slept in.
+
+With her heart throbbing as if to break, she rushed up to her room,
+longing to scream aloud, to rouse the household with "He has gone! he
+has gone! Search for him! save him!"
+
+But how is this possible? How can she confess that she has been in his
+room? Her cheeks burn; half fainting in her misery, she throws wide her
+window to admit the fresh morning air.
+
+What is that? A scratching at the house door below, and then a
+melancholy whine. Olga hurries out into the corridor again, and at
+first cannot tell whence the noise proceeds. It grows louder and more
+persistent, an impatient scratching and knocking at the door leading
+out into the park. She hastens down the stairs and opens it.
+
+"Lion!" she exclaims, as the dog leaps upon her, then crouches before
+her on the gravel, gazes piteously into her face, and utters a long
+howl, hoarse and ominous. Olga stoops down to him. Good God! what is
+this? His shoulder, his paws are stained with blood. The girl's heart
+seems to stand still. The dog seizes her dress as if to drag her away;
+releases it, runs leaping into the park, turns and looks at her. Shall
+she follow him?
+
+Yes, she follows him, trembling, panting, through the park, through the
+village, out upon the highway, where the trees are vocal with the
+shrill twittering of birds. A clumsy peasant-cart is jolting along the
+road; the sleepy carter rubs his eyes and gazes after the strange
+figure with dishevelled hair and disordered dress, hastening towards
+the forest.
+
+She has reached it at last. The dog's uneasiness increases, and he
+disappears among the trees. Olga stops; she cannot go on. The dog howls
+more loudly, and slowly, holding by the trees, she totters forward.
+What is it that makes the ground here so slippery? Blood? There,--there
+by the poacher's grave, at the foot of the rude wooden cross, she finds
+him.
+
+A shriek, wild and hoarse, rings through the air. The leaves quiver and
+rustle with the flight of the startled birds among their branches. The
+heavens are filled with wailing, and the earth seems to rock beneath
+the girl's feet.
+
+Then darkness receives her, and she forgets the horror of it all in
+unconsciousness.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+                              COUNT HANS.
+
+
+There was a dinner at Count Capriani's, and Count Hans Treurenberg,
+slender and erect, the embodiment of elegant frivolity, had just said
+something witty. One of his fellow-aristocrats, a noble slave of
+Capriani's, had been discoursing at length upon the new era that was
+dawning upon the world, and had finally proposed a toast to the union
+of the two greatest powers on earth, wealth and rank. All present had
+had their glasses ready; Count Hans alone had hesitated for a moment,
+and had then remarked, with his inimitable smile,--
+
+"Well, let us, for all I care, drink to the marriage of the Golden Calf
+to the Chimera." And when every one stared in blank dismay, he added,
+thoughtfully, "What do you think, gentlemen, is it a marriage of
+expediency, or one of love? Capriani, it would be interesting to hear
+your views upon this question." Then, in spite of the lowering brow of
+the host, the aristocrats present burst into Homeric laughter.
+
+At that moment a telegram was brought to the Count. Why did his hand
+tremble as he unfolded it? He was accustomed to receive telegraphic
+messages:
+
+
+"There has been an accident. Lato seriously wounded while hunting.
+
+                                               "Selina."
+
+
+An hour afterwards he was in the railway-train.
+
+He had never been to Dobrotschau, and did not know that the route which
+he had taken stopped two stations away from the estate. The Harfink
+carriage waited for him at an entirely different station. He had to
+send his servant to a neighbouring village to procure a conveyance.
+Meanwhile, he made inquiries of the railway officials at the station as
+to the accident at Dobrotschau. No one knew anything with certainty:
+there was but infrequent communication between this place and
+Dobrotschau. The old Count began to hope. If the worst had happened,
+the ill news would have travelled faster. Selina must have exaggerated
+matters. He read his telegram over and over again:
+
+"There has been an accident. Lato seriously wounded while hunting."
+
+It was the conventional formula used to convey information of the death
+of a near relative.
+
+All around him seemed to reel as he pondered the missive in the bare
+little waiting-room by the light of a smoking lamp. The moisture stood
+in beads upon his forehead. For the first time a horrible thought
+occurred to him.
+
+"An accident while hunting? What accident could possibly happen to a
+man hunting with a good breechloader----? If--yes, if--but that cannot
+be; he has never uttered a complaint!" He suddenly felt mortally ill
+and weak.
+
+The servant shortly returned with a conveyance. Nor had he been able to
+learn anything that could be relied upon. Some one in the village had
+heard that there had been an accident somewhere in the vicinity, but
+whether it had resulted in death no one could tell.
+
+The Count got into the vehicle, a half-open coach, smelling of damp
+leather and mould. The drive lasted for two hours. At first it was
+quite dark; nothing could be seen but two rays of light proceeding from
+the coach-lamps, which seemed to chase before them a mass of blackness.
+Once the Count dozed, worn out with emotion and physical fatigue. He
+was roused by the fancy that something like a cold, moist wing brushed
+his cheek. He looked abroad; the darkness had become less dense, the
+dawn was breaking faintly above the slumbering earth. Everything
+appeared gray, shadowy, and ghost-like. A dog began to bark in the
+neighbouring village; there was a sound of swiftly-rolling wheels. The
+Count leaned forward and saw something vague and indistinct, preceded
+by two streaks of light flashing along a side-road.
+
+It was only a carriage, but he shuddered as at something supernatural.
+Everywhere he seemed to see signs and omens.
+
+"Are we near Dobrotschau?" he asked the coachman.
+
+"Almost there, your Excellency."
+
+They drove through the village. A strange foreboding sound assailed the
+Count's ears,--the long-drawn whine of a dog,--and a weird,
+inexplicable noise like the flapping of the wings of some huge captive
+bird vainly striving to be free. The Count looked up. The outlines of
+the castle were indistinct in the twilight, and hanging from the tower,
+curling and swelling in the morning air, was something huge--black.
+
+The carriage stopped. Martin came to the door, and, as he helped his
+former master to alight, informed him that the family had awaited the
+Count until past midnight, but that when the carriage returned empty
+from the railway-station they had retired. His Excellency's room was
+ready for him.
+
+Not one word did he say of the cause of the Count's coming. He could
+not bring himself to speak of that. They silently ascended the
+staircase. Suddenly the Count paused. "It was while he was hunting?" he
+asked the servant, bluntly.
+
+"Yes, your Excellency."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Very early yesterday morning."
+
+"Were you with him?" The Count's voice was sharper.
+
+"No, your Excellency; no one was with him. The Count went out alone."
+
+There was an oppressive silence. The father had comprehended. He turned
+his back to the servant, and stood mute and motionless for a while.
+"Take me to him," he ordered at last.
+
+The man led the way down-stairs and through a long corridor, then
+opened a door. "Here, your Excellency!"
+
+They had laid the dead in his own room, where he was to remain until
+the magnificent preparations for his burial should be completed. Here
+there was no pomp of mourning. He lay there peacefully, a cross clasped
+in his folded hands, a larger crucifix at the head of the bed, where
+two wax candles were burning--that was all.
+
+The servant retired. Count Hans kneeled beside the body, and tried to
+pray. But this Catholic gentleman, who until a few years previously had
+ardently supported every ultramontane measure of the reigning family,
+now discovered, for the first time, that he no longer knew his Pater
+Noster by heart. He could not even pray for the dead. He was possessed
+by a kind of indignation against himself, and for the first time he
+felt utterly dissatisfied with his entire life. His eyes were riveted
+upon the face of his dead son. "Why, why did this have to be?--just
+this?"
+
+His thoughts refused to dwell upon the horrible catastrophe; they
+turned away, wandering hither and thither; yesterday's hunting
+breakfast occurred to him; he thought of his witty speech and of the
+laughter it had provoked, laughter which even the host's frown could
+not suppress. The sound of his own voice rang in his ears: "Yes,
+gentlemen, let us drink to the marriage of the Golden Calf to the
+Chimera."
+
+Then he recalled Lato upon his first steeple-chase, on horseback, in a
+scarlet coat, still lanky and awkward, but handsome as a picture,
+glowing with enjoyment, his hunting-whip lifted for a stroke.
+
+His eyes were dry, his tongue was parched, a fever was burning in his
+veins, and at each breath he seemed to be lifting some ponderous
+weight. A feeling like the consciousness of a horrible crime oppressed
+him; he shivered, and suddenly dreaded being left there alone with the
+corpse, beside which he could neither weep nor pray.
+
+Slowly through the windows the morning stole into the room, while the
+black flag continued to flap and rustle against the castle wall, like a
+prisoned bird aimlessly beating its wings against the bars of its cage,
+and the dog whined on.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+                                SPRING.
+
+
+A few days afterwards Lato's body was consigned to the family vault of
+the Treurenbergs,--not, of course, without much funereal pomp at
+Dobrotschau.
+
+With him vanished the last descendant of an ancient race which had once
+been strong and influential, and which had preserved to the last its
+chivalric distinction.
+
+The day after the catastrophe Harry received a letter from Paula, in
+which, on the plea of a dissimilarity of tastes and interests which
+would be fatal to happiness in marriage, she gave him back his troth.
+As she remained at Dobrotschau for an entire week after the funeral, it
+may be presumed that she wished to give her former betrothed
+opportunity to remonstrate against his dismissal. But he took great
+care to avoid even a formal protest. A very courteous, very formal,
+very brief note, in which he expressed entire submission to her decree,
+was the only sign of life his former captor received from him.
+
+When Paula Harfink learned that Harry had left Komaritz and had
+returned to his regiment in Vienna, she departed from Dobrotschau with
+her mother and sister, to pass several months at Nice.
+
+In the beginning of January she returned with the Baroness Harfink to
+Vienna, heart-whole and with redoubled self-confidence. She was loud in
+her expressions of contempt for military men, especially for cavalry
+officers, a contempt in which even Arthur Schopenhauer could not have
+outdone her; she lived only for science and professors, a large number
+of whom she assembled about her, and among whom this young sultaness
+proposed with great caution and care to select one worthy to be raised
+to the dignity of her Prince-Consort.
+
+Selina did not return with her mother to Vienna, but remained for the
+time being with a female companion in Nice. As is usual with most
+blondes, her widow's weeds became her well, and her luxuriant beauty
+with its dark crape background attracted a score of admirers, who,
+according to report, were not all doomed to languish hopelessly at her
+feet.
+
+Fainacky, however, was never again received into favour.
+
+Olga retired to a convent, partly to sever all ties with the world,
+which had misunderstood and maligned her in her relations to the part
+she had played in the fearful drama enacted at Dobrotschau, partly to
+do penance by her asceticism for Lato's suicide, which was to her deep
+religious sense a fearful crime, and of which she considered herself in
+some measure the cause.
+
+Moreover, Lato's suicide produced a profound impression upon all his
+friends. Harry could hardly take any pleasure in his freedom, so dark
+was the shadow thrown upon his happiness by grief for the fate of his
+life-long friend and comrade. Under the circumstances, until, so to
+speak, the grass had grown over the terrible event, his betrothal to
+Zdena could not be thought of; the mere idea of it wounded his sense of
+delicacy. He contented himself, before returning to Vienna, with a
+farewell visit to Zirkow, when he informed the entire family of the
+sudden change in his position. The major, whose sense of delicacy was
+not so acute as his nephew's, could not refrain from smiling broadly
+and expressing a few sentiments not very flattering to Fraeulein Paula,
+nor from asking Harry one or two questions which caused the young
+fellow extreme confusion.
+
+The major's efforts to force a _tete-a-tete_ upon the young people were
+quite vain. Zdena, when Harry left, accompanied the young officer
+openly, as she had often done, to the court-yard, where she stroked his
+horse before he mounted and fed him with sugar, as had ever been her
+wont.
+
+"Good-bye, Zdena," Harry said, simply kissing her cold hand, just as he
+had often done when taking leave of her. Then, with his hand on the
+bridle, ready to mount, he gazed deep into her eyes and asked, "When
+may I come back again, Zdena?"
+
+She replied, "In the spring," in a voice so low and trembling that it
+echoed through his soul, long after he had left her, like a caress. He
+nodded, swung himself into the saddle, turned once in the gate-way for
+a farewell look at her, and was gone. She stood looking after him until
+the sound of his horse's hoofs died away, then went back to the house
+and remained invisible in her room for the rest of the forenoon.
+
+
+The winter passed slowly. In the cavalry barracks in Vienna a change
+was observed in Harry Leskjewitsch. He began to be looked upon as a
+very earnest and hard-working young officer. His name stood first among
+those for whom a brilliant military career was prophesied. And, oddly
+enough, while there was a great increase in the regard in which he was
+held by his superior officers, there was no decrease in his popularity
+with his comrades.
+
+The youngest good-for-naughts did, it is true, reproach him with having
+become tediously serious, and with great caution in spending his money.
+But when by chance the cause of his sudden economy was discovered, all
+discontent with his conduct ceased, especially since his purse was
+always at the service of a needy comrade.
+
+When, after the Harfinks had returned from Nice, he first met Paula in
+the street, he was much confused, and was conscious of blushing. He
+felt strangely on beholding the full red lips which had so often kissed
+him, the form which had so often hung upon his arm. When, with some
+hesitation, he touched his cap, he wondered at the easy grace with
+which the young lady returned his salute. His wonder was still greater
+when, a few days afterwards, he encountered Frau von Harfink, who
+accosted him, and, after inquiring about his health, added, with her
+sweetest smile,--
+
+"I trust that my daughter's withdrawal from her engagement to you will
+not prevent you from visiting us. Good heavens! it was a mistake; you
+were not at all suited to each other. We shall be delighted to welcome
+you as a friend at any time. Come soon to see us."
+
+If Harry were changed, Zdena was not less so. She was more silent than
+formerly; the outbreaks of childish gaiety in which she had been wont
+to indulge had vanished entirely, while, on the other hand, there was
+never a trace of her old discontent. Indeed, there was no time for
+anything of the kind, she had so much to do.
+
+She had developed a wonderful interest in household affairs; spent some
+time each day in the kitchen, where, engaged in the most prosaic
+occupations, she displayed so much grace that the major could not help
+peeping at her from time to time. And when her uncle praised at table
+some wondrous result of her labours, she would answer, eagerly, "Yes,
+is it not good? and it is not very expensive."
+
+Whereupon the major would pinch her cheek and smile significantly.
+
+Frau Rosamunda was not at all aware of what was going on about her. She
+frequently commended the girl's dexterity in all that her awakened
+interest in household affairs led her to undertake, and after informing
+the major of his niece's improvement, and congratulating herself in
+being able to hand her keys over to the girl, she would add, with a
+sigh, "I am so glad she never took anything into her head with regard
+to Roderick. I must confess that I think his sudden disappearance very
+odd, after all the attention he paid her."
+
+The major would always sigh sympathetically when his wife talked thus,
+and would then take the earliest opportunity to leave the room to
+"laugh it out," as he expressed it.
+
+Thus life went on with its usual monotony at Zirkow.
+
+Harry's letters to the major, which came regularly twice a month, were
+always read aloud to the ladies with enthusiasm by the old dragoon,
+then shown in part to Krupitschka, and then left lying about anywhere.
+They invariably vanished without a trace; but once when the major
+wished to refer to one of these important documents and could not find
+it, it turned out that Zdena had picked it up--by chance.
+
+At last the spring made its joyous appearance and stripped the earth of
+its white robe of snow. For a few days it lay naked and bare, ugly and
+brown; then the young conqueror threw over its nakedness a rich mantle
+of blossoms, and strode on, tossing a bridal wreath into the lap of
+many a hopeless maiden, and cheering with flowers many a dying mortal
+who had waited but for its coming.
+
+Zdena and the major delighted in the spring; they were never weary of
+watching its swift work in the garden, enjoying the opening of the
+blossoms, the unfolding of the leaves, and the songs of the birds. The
+fruit-trees had donned their most festal array; but Zdena was grave and
+sad, for full three weeks had passed since any letter had come from
+Harry, who had been wont to write punctually every fortnight; and in
+his last he had not mentioned his spring leave of absence.
+
+In feverish impatience the girl awaited the milkman, who always brought
+the mail from X---- just before afternoon tea. For days she had vainly
+watched her uncle as he sorted the letters. "'The post brings no letter
+for thee, my love!'" he sang, gaily.
+
+But Zdena was not gay.
+
+This afternoon the milkman is late. Zdena cannot wait for him quietly;
+she puts on an old straw hat and goes to meet him. It is nearly six
+o'clock; the sun is quite low, and beams pale golden through a ragged
+veil of fleecy clouds. A soft breeze is blowing; spring odours fill the
+air. The flat landscape is wondrous in colour, but it lacks the sharp
+contrasts of summer. Zdena walks quickly, with downcast eyes. Suddenly
+the sound of a horse's hoofs falls upon her ear. She looks up. Can it
+be? Her heart stands still, and then--why, then she finds nothing
+better to do than to turn and run home as fast as her feet can carry
+her. But he soon overtakes her. Springing from his horse, he gives the
+bridle to a peasant-lad passing by.
+
+"Zdena!" he calls.
+
+"Ah, it is you!" she replies, in a weak little voice, continuing to
+hurry home. Not until she has reached the old orchard does she pause,
+out of breath.
+
+"Zdena!" Harry calls again, this time in a troubled voice, "what is the
+matter? Why are you so--so strange? You almost seem to be frightened!"
+
+"I--I--you came so unexpectedly. We had no idea----" she stammers.
+
+"Unexpectedly!" Harry repeats, and his look grows dark. "Unexpectedly!
+May I ask if you have again changed your mind?"
+
+Her face is turned from him. Dismayed, assailed by a thousand dark
+fancies, he gazes at her. On a sudden he perceives that she is sobbing;
+and then----
+
+Neither speaks a word, but he has clasped her to his breast, she has
+put both arms around his neck, and--according to the poets, who are
+likely to be right--the one perfect moment in the lives of two mortals
+is over!
+
+The spring laughs exultantly among the trees, and rains white blossoms
+upon the heads of the fair young couple beneath them. Around them
+breathes the fragrance of freshly-awakened life, the air of a new,
+transfigured existence; there is a fluttering in the air above, as a
+cloud of birds sails over the blossom-laden orchard.
+
+"Zdena, where are you?" calls the voice of the major. "Zdena, come
+quickly! Look! the swallows have come!"
+
+The old dragoon makes his appearance from a garden-path. "Why, what is
+all this?" he exclaims, trying to look stern, as he comes in sight of
+the pair.
+
+The young people separate hastily; Zdena blushes crimson, but Harry
+says, merrily,--
+
+"Don't pretend to look surprised; you must have known long ago that
+I--that we loved each other." And he takes Zdena's hand and kisses it.
+
+"Well, yes; but----" The major shrugs his shoulders.
+
+"You mean that I ought to have made formal application to you for
+Zdena's hand?" asks Harry.
+
+The old officer can contain himself no longer; his face lit up by the
+broadest of smiles, he goes to Zdena, pinches her ear, and asks,--
+
+"Aha, Zdena! why must people marry because they love each other, hey?"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XLV.
+
+                            OLD BARON FRANZ.
+
+
+Old Baron Franz Leskjewitsch had changed greatly during the past
+winter. Those who saw most of him declared that he was either about to
+die or was growing insane. He moved from one to another of his various
+estates more restlessly than ever, appearing several times at
+Vorhabshen, which he never had been in the habit of visiting in winter,
+and not only appearing there, but remaining longer than usual. There
+was even a report that on one occasion he had ordered his coachman to
+drive to Zirkow; and, in fact, the old tumble-down carriage of the grim
+Baron had been seen driving along the road to Zirkow, but just before
+reaching the village it had turned back.
+
+Yes, yes, the old Baron was either about to die or was "going crazy."
+There was such a change in him. He bought a Newfoundland dog, which he
+petted immensely, he developed a love for canary-birds, and, more
+alarming symptom than all the rest, he was growing generous: he stood
+godfather to two peasant babies, and dowered the needy bride of one of
+his bailiffs.
+
+In the beginning of April he appeared again at Vorhabshen, and seemed
+in no hurry to leave it.
+
+The day after Harry's sudden arrival at Zirkow, the old man was
+sitting, just after breakfast, in a leather arm-chair, smoking a large
+meerschaum pipe, and listening to Studnecka's verses, when the
+housekeeper entered to clear the table, a duty which Lotta, the despot,
+always performed herself for her master, perhaps because she wanted an
+opportunity for a little gossip with him.
+
+Studnecka's efforts at entertainment were promptly dispensed with, and
+the old Baron shortly began, "Lotta, I hear that good-for-naught Harry
+is in this part of the country again; is it so?"
+
+"Yes, Herr Baron; the cow-boy met him yesterday on the road," replied
+Lotta, sweeping the crumbs from the table-cloth into a green lacquered
+tray with a crescent-shaped brush.
+
+"What is he doing here?" the old man asked, after a pause.
+
+"They say he has come to court the Baroness Zdena."
+
+"Oh, indeed!" The Baron tried to put on a particularly fierce
+expression. "It would seem that since that money-bag at Dobrotschau has
+thrown him over, he wants to try it on again with the girl at Zirkow,
+in hopes I shall come round. Oh, we understand all that."
+
+"The Herr Baron ought to be ashamed to say such things of our Master
+Harry," Lotta exclaimed, firing up. "However, the Herr Baron can
+question the young Herr himself; there he is," she added, attracted to
+the window by the sound of a horse's hoofs. "Shall I show him up? or
+does the Herr Baron not wish to see him?"
+
+"Oh, send him up, send him up. I'll enlighten the fellow."
+
+In a few moments Harry makes his appearance. "Good-morning, uncle! how
+are you?" he calls out, his face radiant with happiness.
+
+The old Baron merely nods his head. Without stirring from his
+arm-chair, without offering his hand to his nephew, without even asking
+him to sit down, he scans him suspiciously.
+
+With his hand on his sabre, Harry confronts him, somewhat surprised by
+this strange reception, but nowise inclined to propitiate his uncle by
+any flattering attentions.
+
+"Do you want anything?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Indeed? You're not short of money, then?
+
+"On the contrary, I have saved some," Harry replies, speaking quite
+after his uncle's fashion.
+
+"Ah! saved some, have you? Are you growing miserly?--a fine thing at
+your age! You probably learned it of your financial acquaintances," the
+old Baron growls.
+
+"I have saved money because I am going to marry, and my betrothed is
+without means," Harry says, sharply.
+
+"Ah! for a change you want to marry a poor girl! You display a truly
+edifying fickleness of character. And who is the fair creature to whom
+you have sacrificed your avarice?"
+
+"I am betrothed to my cousin Zdena."
+
+"Indeed?--to Zdena?" the Baron says, with well-feigned indignation.
+"Have you forgotten that in that case I shall disinherit you?"
+
+"You will do as you choose about that," Harry replies, dryly. "I should
+be glad to assure my wife a pleasant and easy lot in life; but if you
+fancy that I have come here to sue for your favour, you are mistaken.
+It was my duty to inform you of my betrothal. I have done so; and that
+is all."
+
+"Indeed? That is all?" thunders old Leskjewitsch. "It shall be all!
+Wait, you scoundrel, you good-for-naught, and we'll see if you go on
+carrying your head so high! I will turn the leaf: I will make Zdena my
+heiress,--but only upon condition that she sends you about your
+business. She shall choose between you--that is, between poverty--and
+me!"
+
+"It will not take her long. Good-morning." With which Harry turns on
+his heel and leaves the room.
+
+The old Baron sits motionless for a while. The mild spring breeze blows
+in through the open windows; there is a sound in the air of cooing
+doves, of water dripping on the stones of the paved court-yard from the
+roof, of the impatient pawing and neighing of a horse, and then the
+clatter of spurs and sabre.
+
+The old man smiles broadly. "He shows race: the boy is a genuine
+Leskjewitsch," he mutters to himself,--"a good mate for the girl!" Then
+he goes to the window. Harry is just about to mount, when his uncle
+roars down to him, "Harry! Harry! The deuce take you! are you deaf?
+Can't you hear?"
+
+
+Meanwhile, the major and his niece are walking in the garden at Zirkow.
+It was the major who had insisted that Harry should immediately inform
+his uncle of his betrothal.
+
+Zdena has shown very little interest in the discussion as to how the
+cross-grained, eccentric old man would receive the news. And when her
+uncle suddenly looks her full in the face to ask how she can adapt
+herself to straitened means, she calmly lays her band on the arm of her
+betrothed, and whispers, tenderly, "You shall see." Then her eyes fill
+with tears as she adds, "But how will you bear it, Harry?"
+
+He kisses both her hands and replies, "Never mind, Zdena; I assure you
+that at this moment Conte Capriani is a beggar compared with myself."
+
+Just at this point Frau Rosamunda plucks her spouse by the sleeve and
+forces him, _nolens volens_, to retire with her.
+
+"I cannot understand you," she lectures him in their conjugal
+_tete-a-tete_. "You are really indelicate, standing staring at the
+children, when you must see that they are longing to kiss each other.
+Such young people must be left to themselves now and then." At first
+Frau Rosamunda found it very difficult to assent to this rather
+imprudent betrothal, but she is now interested in it heart and soul.
+She arranges everything systematically, even delicacy of sentiment. Her
+exact rules in this respect rather oppress the major, who would gladly
+sun himself in the light and warmth of happiness which surrounds the
+young couple, about whose future, however, he is seriously distressed,
+lamenting bitterly his own want of business capacity which has so
+impoverished him.
+
+"If I could but give the poor child more of a dowry," he keeps saying
+to himself. "Or if Franz would but come to his senses,--yes, if he
+would only listen to reason, all would be well."
+
+All this is in his thoughts, as he walks with his niece in the garden
+on this bright spring forenoon, while his nephew has gone to Vorhabshen
+to have an explanation with his uncle. Consequently he is absent-minded
+and does not listen to the girl's gay chatter, the outcome of intense
+joy in her life and her love.
+
+The birds are twittering loudly as they build their nests in the
+blossom-laden trees, the grass is starred with the first dandelions.
+
+Harry is expected at lunch. The major is burning with impatience.
+
+"One o'clock," he remarks. "The boy ought to be back by this time. What
+do you say to walking a little way to meet him?"
+
+"As you please, uncle," the girl gaily assents. They turn towards the
+house, whence Krupitschka comes running, breathless with haste.
+
+"What is the matter?" the major calls out.
+
+"Nothing, nothing, Herr Baron," the man replies; "but the Frau Baroness
+desires you both to come to the drawing-room; she has a visitor."
+
+"Is that any reason why you should run yourself so out of breath that
+you look like a fish on dry land?" the major bawls to his old servant.
+"You fairly frightened me, you ass! Who is the visitor?"
+
+"Please--I do not know," declares Krupitschka, lying brazenly, while
+the major frowns, saying, "There's an end to our walk," and never
+noticing the sly smile upon the old man's face.
+
+Zdena runs to her room to smooth her hair, tossed by the breeze, while
+the major, annoyed, goes directly to the drawing-room. He opens the
+door and stands as if rooted to the threshold. Beside the sofa where
+Frau Rosamunda is enthroned, with her official hostess expression,
+doing the honours with a grace all her own, sits a broad-shouldered old
+gentleman in a loose long-tailed coat, laughing loudly at something she
+has just told him.
+
+"Franz!" exclaims Paul von Leskjewitsch.
+
+"Here I am," responds the elder brother, with hardly-maintained
+composure. He rises; each advances towards the other, but before they
+can clasp hands the elder of the two declares, "I wish, Paul, you would
+tell your bailiff to see to the ploughing on your land. That field near
+the forest is in a wretched condition,--hill and valley, the clods
+piled up, and wheat sown there. I have always held that no military man
+can ever learn anything about agriculture. You never had the faintest
+idea of farming." And as he speaks he clasps the major's hand and
+pinches Harry's ear. The young fellow has been looking on with a smile
+at the meeting between the brothers.
+
+"I understand you, uncle: I am not to leave the service. I could not
+upon any terms," the young man assures him,--"not even if I were begged
+to do so."
+
+"He's a hard-headed fellow," Baron Franz says, with a laugh; "and so is
+the girl. Did she tell you that she met me in the forest? We had a
+conversation together, she and I. At first she took me for that fool
+Studnecka; then she guessed who I was, and read me such a lecture! I
+did not care: it showed me that she was a genuine Leskjewitsch. H'm! I
+ought to have come here then, but--I--could not find the way; I waited
+for some one to show it to me." He pats Harry on the shoulder. "But
+where the deuce is the girl? Is she hiding from me?"
+
+At this moment Zdena enters. The old man turns ghastly pale; his hands
+begin to tremble violently, as he stretches them out towards her. She
+gazes at him for an instant, then runs to him and throws her arms
+around his neck. He clasps her close, as if never to let her leave him.
+
+The others turn away. There is a sound of hoarse sobbing. All that the
+strong man has hoarded up in his heart for twenty years asserts itself
+at this moment.
+
+It is not long, however, before all emotion is calmed, and affairs take
+their natural course. The two elderly men sit beside Frau Rosamunda,
+still enthroned on her sofa, and the lovers stand in the recess of a
+window and look out upon the spring.
+
+"So we are not to be poor, after all?" Zdena says, with a sigh.
+
+"It seems not," Harry responds, putting his arm round her.
+
+She does not speak for a while; then she murmurs, softly, "'Tis a pity:
+I took such pleasure in it!"
+
+
+
+                               FOOTNOTE:
+
+[Footnote 1: One of a princely family who, although subject to royal
+authority, is allowed to retain some sovereign privileges.]
+
+
+
+                                THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+           Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                       BY JULIA HELEN TWELLS, JR.
+
+                         A Triumph of Destiny.
+
+                   12mo. Cloth, deckle edges, $1.25.
+
+"It is a book of uncommon characters and end-of-century problems; a
+story of strength told with interest and conviction.... The book is
+well worth reading."--_Philadelphia Press_.
+
+"Miss Twells is evidently a woman of extensive mental resources, who
+thinks deeply and clearly. Her story commands admiration and consequent
+attention from the first. There are not many characters, but about the
+few are clustered events of significance, and their relation to each
+other and to their own individual development is analyzed with strength
+and clearness."--_Washington Times_.
+
+                               *   *   *
+
+                           BY MRS. OLIPHANT.
+
+                          The Unjust Steward.
+
+                          12mo. Cloth, $1.25.
+
+"We have an admirable study of an old Scotch minister oppressed by the
+consciousness of a very venial fault in a small financial transaction.
+The tone is one of cheerful humor, the incidents are skilfully devised,
+verisimilitude is never sacrificed to effect, every episode is true to
+life."--_Philadelphia Press_.
+
+                               *   *   *
+
+                          BY ARTHUR PATERSON.
+
+                          For Freedom's Sake.
+
+                          12mo. Cloth, $1.25.
+
+"The subject-matter of this book is the desperate battle between
+freedom and slavery for possession of Kansas. One of the strongest
+characters introduced is old John Brown. A charming love story is
+naturally incidental, and the element of humor is by no means
+lacking."--_New York World_.
+
+                               *   *   *
+
+                J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA.
+
+
+
+
+
+                          By Amy E. Blanchard.
+
+                               *   *   *
+
+                             Betty of Wye.
+
+               With illustrations by Florence P. England.
+
+                          12mo. Cloth, $1.25.
+
+"It is the story of a little Maryland girl who grows from a
+turbulent girl into a loving and lovable woman. The book gives many
+suggestions that will help a reckless girl to see the beauty and value
+of a knowledge of conventionalities and obedience to accepted
+standards."--_New York Outlook_.
+
+                               *   *   *
+
+                               Two Girls.
+
+                    With illustrations by Ida Waugh.
+
+                          12mo. Cloth, $1.25.
+
+"'Two Girls' is a very pretty domestic tale, by Amy E. Blanchard. The
+title indicates its character--the story of the lives of two girls.
+They are girls of entirely different temperament, and the lessons
+deducted from their respective experiences, and the manner in which
+each met the daily troubles and tribulations of early life, make the
+book one of more than ordinary importance to the young, and especially
+to young girls. It is a story with a moral, and the moral, if rightly
+followed, cannot fail to influence the lives of its readers. The two
+girls are of American product and the plot is laid in Southwestern
+territory."--_St. Paul Dispatch_.
+
+                               *   *   *
+
+                            Girls Together.
+
+                    With illustrations by Ida Waugh.
+
+                          12mo. Cloth, $1.25.
+
+"Here is a story so realistic, detailed, and full of youthful sentiment
+and enthusiasm that it must be one of the pieces of literary work which
+seem 'easy' but are in reality so difficult to achieve. It is the sort
+of description that girls dearly love to read, and is wholesome in tone
+and wide awake in the telling."--_Portland Press_.
+
+                               *   *   *
+
+                      Blanchard Library for Girls.
+
+                               TWO GIRLS.
+                  GIRLS TOGETHER.        BETTY OF WYE.
+
+            3 volumes in a box. Illustrated. Cloth, $3.75.
+
+                               *   *   *
+
+                   J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of 'O Thou, My Austria!', by Ossip Schubin
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