Part 10

Erwin smoked a cigarette, glanced over a paper, finally, looking out of the window, remarked that it was a beautiful moonlight night and he was going shooting, kissed Elsa's forehead, bowed to Miss Sidney, and was about to leave the room when from Elsa's lips came anxiously:

"But----!"

"Do you want anything?"

"Are you going to take any one with you?"

"Why?" asked he, and raised his eyebrows; then suddenly laughing aloud he added, "Would you perhaps like to accompany me, mouse? The night is mild, I will find you an easy path; we need not go far."

She hesitated, only for a moment she hesitated. She had formerly often gone with him; he had bought her a small rifle, and with anxious carefulness taught her to shoot, and as long as her health was good enough they had often hunted gayly together like good comrades. Why must just now Mimi Dey and the grouse hunt in the Tyrol come to her mind?

"Thank you, I dare not venture out in the dew;" thus politely, but without a trace of warmth she refused his good-natured offer, and he shrugged his shoulders slightly and vanished.

English philanthropy suddenly lost all interest for Elsa. She took leave of Miss Sidney quite absently, and went to her room which, since baby's existence, she had shared with the delicate little creature. She passed two tormenting hours; she was tortured by the most nonsensical fancies; she thought only of poachers and assassins; she did not close her eyes until she heard Erwin's step creep thoughtfully, softly past her door, but at least she had not been like Mimi Dey.

Sempaly and Pistasch had accepted the invitation to dine in Steinbach on the Sunday for which Linda was invited. Elsa had been able to secure no ladies. Never had Linda been more beautiful than on this Sunday. She wore a dazzling toilet; "from Worth," she replied, in explanation to some polite remark which Elsa had made upon her dress. "From Worth, but I had to change it entirely. I cannot bear Worth any longer; he is too American. And how do you like my gown, Erwin?" she turned to him.

"Linda, you surely are not trying to make me think that you care anything about the taste of such a rusty hayseed as I am!" cried he, laughingly.

"Ah, you know very well that you are the only one, yes, the only one on God's earth from whom I will accept fault-finding," answered Linda, and putting her arm around Elsa's neck, she whispered in the latter's ear, "Your husband has bewitched me, Elsa. If I did not wish you the best of everything, I really could envy you him."

Oh, the serpent! She feels very well that Elsa shivers in her arms, and she is happy.

During the dinner Elsa suffered fearful torments. Monosyllabic she sat between Scirocco, who, more quiet and melancholy than usual, did not help her to talk, and Pistasch who, gazing at Linda, forgot to talk. Linda, on the contrary, chatted unweariedly, entertained the whole table with her odd little stories, and knew how to absorb Erwin so deeply by her artfully naive flatteries and carefully veiled coquetries that he, the most polite man in the world, scarcely found time to address a few pleasant phrases to the Englishwoman who, for the sake of symmetry, sat at his left.

After dinner Linda sang. Erwin accompanied her, and Pistasch lost his tongue with enthusiasm, except for the three words, "Superb! magnificent! delicious!" which he burst forth with again and again, gasping for breath.

Elsa, who took no interest in French chansonnettes, and Sempaly, who did not care to hear them rendered by respectable women, or those who at least should be so, stood together in a window recess half chatting, half silent, like people who know and understand each other well. But suddenly Scirocco was silent, his glance wandered to Felix, who sat in the darkest corner of the drawing-room, and in order to give himself countenance, stroked Erwin's great hunting-dog. A little rattle of glasses had attracted Sempaly's notice. He went up to Felix, and after he had spoken a few words to him returned with him to Elsa. Elsa was frightened at sight of her brother. His cheeks were flushed to his forehead, the features swollen, the eyes shining as in one who has a severe fever.

When everything had become quiet again in Steinbach, and Elsa was alone with Erwin in the drawing-room, she went to the table from which Sempaly had brought Felix away, and discovered there the _corpus delicti_ in the shape of a half-emptied flask of Chartreuse.

"Ah!" cried she shuddering, and turned to Erwin. "Do you know the latest?--Felix drinks!"

Erwin lowered his head. "Drinks--drinks!" he murmured with embarrassment but excusingly. "You must not call it that exactly; it is not yet so bad!"

"You--you seem to have known it," cried Elsa, staring at him. He looked away.

Elsa paces twice through the room, her arms crossed on her breast. Her short, unequal breaths can be heard. Then she stops before Erwin; the blood has rushed to her cheeks, and causes there two uneven red spots under her eyes. Her hatred for Linda suddenly bursts forth. "Oh, this repulsive, ordinary, tactless person! How deeply she has dragged him down!" she says, with set teeth.

Erwin, to whom the cause of this unlovely and immoderate anger is wholly inexplicable, is displeasedly silent. This irritates Elsa still more, and in an even more unpleasant tone she continues, "Well, do you, perhaps, doubt that she and only she has ruined Felix by her incredible lack of tact?"

For the first time since Erwin has known his wife he lost patience with her, and shrugging his shoulders, replied, "I find it hard to expect tact from a person who does not suspect the complicated difficulties of her position."

"Erwin!--Erwin!--you--you surely do not believe that Felix would have married Linda without telling her of his circumstances?" She was now quite pale again, she trembled, her voice sounded weak and hoarse. He was terribly sorry for her, at this moment he would have given everything to be silent. He took refuge in vague phrases. "A mere suspicion--I spoke without thinking."

But Elsa shook her head; an indescribable pain curved her lips. "No, Erwin," cried she, "you may not be the demi-god whom for nine years I have worshiped in you, but you are not capable of saying anything so degrading about my brother upon a mere suspicion. From whom do you know that?"

She stood before him, drawn up to her full height, and looked him in the eyes with an expression which one could not lie to.

"I judge so from questions which she has asked me," he stammers, and immediately adds, hastily, "Certainly Felix would not purposely have concealed the affair from her; he may have told her mother----"

"That is all the same," interrupts Elsa. "His action remains unanswerable, for the first as well as the second time. Erwin, you poor man, into what a family have you married! Why would you have me? I did not wish it--I knew that it would be for no good." She is almost beside herself.

"No good! Think of the nine years which we leave behind us," he replies, gently.

"Think of the twenty, thirty years which we have before us," cries she. "The sacrifice which you made for me was too great."

"I know of no sacrifice," he replies, warmly. "It is pure childishness which makes you bring that up again. Once for all, Elsa, I would not exchange a life at your side for the most brilliant career--to which, besides, I could scarcely have been called." With these words he goes up to her, and lays his hand gently under her chin to raise her face to his, but she breaks loose from him.

"I thank you," says she, with hateful mockery. She thought of the thousand pretty speeches and charming attentions with which he had satisfied Linda's greedy vanity to-day. She was sick with suppressed jealousy. The bright light which Erwin's communication threw upon Linda's whole manner, and which so excused Linda, and on the other hand, so lowered Felix, mingled a new pain in all her morbid feelings. She literally no longer knew what she said, her voice became more and more cutting: "I thank you," she repeated. "You are very polite, you have a particular talent for politeness, you are the most charming man I know, but--but, I am sorry you had your way at that time."

"Sorry, Elsa? For God's sake take that back," cried he. The pain which she had caused him was too deep for him to consider how much of her words were to be ascribed to true conviction, and what to her over-excited nerves.

She shook her head obstinately. "Yes, I am sorry," she continued in her insensate speech. "At that time you could not live without me"--she spoke very bitterly--"yes, you would have been unhappy without me--a month, perhaps a year--who knows?--but then you would have consoled yourself, and it would have been better for you and for me. Good night!" and with head held high, with rigid face and trembling limbs she tottered out of the room.

X.

Marienbad at six o'clock in the morning.

The air is still fresh and fragrant, the long, slanting sunbeams fall between the damp coolness of the woody shadows. The guests crowd along the narrow spring walk, their glasses in their hands. They form a line before the spring after they have emptied their goblets, considerately turn and conscientiously take exercise.

The sand beneath their feet, moist with the night dew, is of a dark reddish color. On the leaves of the graceful trees sparkle little drops of dew like finest enamel. In the turf which borders the sand walk great drops shine like diamonds. A white mist, too transparent to be called a fog, fills the distance. Thicker and thicker the guests crowd around the spring.

Marienbad is overfull this year. Pleased landlords rub their fat hands, and push up prices to a most unheard-of amount. Guests who have omitted to engage rooms by telegraph can find no decent accommodations, seek shelter in the most miserable private houses, offer gold mines to shoemakers, tailors and glove-makers for one room. A whole excursion trainful pass the night in the waiting-room.

The daughter of some reigning family, travelling incognito under the name "Comtesse Stip," has engaged the greatest part of the largest hotel for herself and her little prince in Scottish costume. A swarm of distinguished moths from every country has followed the princely light, and a crowd of _parvenus_, like a swarm of insects of the night, has followed the moths, who pass their time in Marienbad bandying strangely unselfish compliments.

The famous Vienna artists play every evening in the stuffy theatre; princesses and dramatic _coryphees_ meet each other on the spring promenade.

To-day a new animation is displayed by the spring pilgrims. All gaze at a couple who have this morning appeared for the first time upon the promenade. The aristocratic curiosity seems even more awakened than the plebeian, and all the thirty or forty pairs of eyes of Marienbad "society" are fixed upon the same spot--upon the knight of Harfink and his young wife.

"That is the Juanita, the Carini; how badly she is dressed, how fat she has grown, how homely!" goes from mouth to mouth. "And not even an artistic temperament--a woman who could be sensible enough to marry a 'checked' iron founder. When she sees Lanzberg--how he must feel!" Thus says society. Meanwhile, not noticing the voices hissing around her, Juanita, the widowed Marchesa Carini, upright and stiff, with the consequential manner of a retired dancer, walks between the knightly Harfink and his son, beaming with pride and satisfaction.

How she looked fifteen years ago, at the time when she so fatally crossed the path of life of Felix Lanzberg, it would be difficult to determine. Today she looks like all elderly Spaniards, who to our unpractised northern eyes resemble each other almost as much as elderly negresses.

An immoderately fleshy form, not very tall, with high bust, and unnaturally compressed waist, the hands tiny, like accidental appendages to her fat arms, the feet still incomparably beautiful, but too short to support the huge figure, the gait waddling, the face yellow and fat, mouth, eyes, and nose almost hidden by a pair of enormous cheeks--that is Juanita.

She who, in her day, had worn the bandeaux of her nation coming down over her ears, now, probably because this manner of wearing the hair seems to her peasant-like, wears the hair drawn back from her withered temples, falling in black ringlets on her forehead, a hat on the back of her head, a green silk gown and diamonds. Her tiny shoes and stockings are the only parts of her costume which are faultless. The former, charming little black satin affairs, the latter of open-work black silk. In consequence of this, she wears her gown short beyond all bound in front, which increases the width of the whole appearance.

She continually exchanges the most tender, loving glances with her husband, and a happy honeymoon smile illumines her yellow face when he addresses her.

As she uses the cure with the same conscientiousness as he, she stands beside him at the spring. Little Comtesse L----, a lively lady whom nothing escapes, asserts that every time before emptying her goblet, Juanita coquettishly hits it against that of the "retired iron founder."

The "checked iron founder" is a name given Mr. von Harfink on account of his immoderate preference for striking green and blue checked clothes. For two weeks Juanita has borne his name--for two weeks he has known how badly he really fared under Susanna's rule.

The aforesaid Susanna had died a year after Linda's marriage. Linda, who at that time had not fully recovered from Gery's birth, expressed no wish to go to Vienna for her mother's burial or her father's consolation. Mr. von Harfink had been left to bear the heavy loss alone.

At the funeral Baron von Harfink shed many tears into a black-bordered handkerchief, and displayed all the symptoms of honest emotion; after the funeral he fell into a condition of silent apathy. The flame which had given light to his mind was extinguished, all was dark within him. He felt like an actor of poor memory whose excellent prompter has died.

About a week after the catastrophe, his nearest relatives assembled at a dinner in his house, with the good-natured view of diverting him. He sat in their midst, silently bent over his plate. They had adjourned to the drawing-room for coffee, and still he had not spoken a word.

"The poor fellow! it has gone harder with him than we thought," the relatives whispered to each other. Then stretching himself comfortably in an arm-chair, and rubbing his stomach, he began, "Ah! things have not tasted so good to me as they did to-day for a long time."

The feeling of an immense relief had awakened in him. No longer to be afraid of making stupid remarks, no longer, when he had put on his favorite checked vest, to be reproved with, "Anton, your vest insults my aesthetic feeling," or, when he had given himself up to the comfortable enjoyment of a favorite dish, to be frightened with, "Anton, a day-laborer is nothing in comparison with you;" to be forced to listen to no more articles from the _Rundschau_ and the _Revue des Deux Mondes_,--it was very pleasant.

Scarcely had Susanna been three weeks in her grave, when Mr. von Harfink stopped the subscriptions to the _Revue_ and its German cousin, the _Rundschau_, retired to his estate, played nine-pins with his brewer and cook, and in his shirt sleeves, ordered those new checked plush vests, and ruined his stomach three times a week.

Soon he displayed the most peculiar matrimonial intentions. He made love to the former companion of his deceased wife, an elderly spinster with thin hair and a very deep feeling for a blond theology student who, at that time in Magdeberg, sued for her hand.

The improbable occurred; the companion refused the knight and his three millions, although after his death a settlement of seven hundred thousand guldens was assured her.

The family was astonished at this unexpected unselfishness, and from thankfulness, and to prevent the romantic maiden from changing her mind later, married her to her student, with a splendid dowry.

After they had met this model of prudence, the relations wrung their hands. If the charms of a forty-year-old, half bald companion had almost brought him to the altar, how should they protect him from a _mesalliance_?

Only by the sharpest oversight was Mr. von Harfink prevented from marrying his housekeeper. Fearful conflicts burst forth on his estate--the castle became an inn.

"Susie must have been cleverer than I accredited her with being," once remarked Eugene von Rhoeden, who indifferently looked on upon his relative's movements. "It certainly takes skill to govern the rhinoceros. None of you equal her!"

At length the relatives were weary, and left Baron von Harfink to the guidance of his son, that is, to his fate. Raimund was far too much engaged in cultivating his high C to watch his father. The poor young man, who had been destined by his mother to be a genius, at this time suffered from deep depression. He had failed everywhere--at the university, on the stage, finally in literature.

After long efforts, he had obtained an engagement in a Bohemian watering-place, and under the stage name of Remondo Monte-chiaro, had sung Raoul in a beautiful pale violet costume of real silk velvet.

The audience hissed and laughed; he sprained his ankle by the leap from the window, and appeared no more.

Then he prepared a comedy which fell through in P----, an accident which he attributed to the lack of cultivation of the audience there; then he wrote essays upon the love affair of George Sand and Alfred de Musset, the murder of the ambassador at Rastadt, and the Iron Mask.

These effusions were published in a Vienna paper. The superficial public found the themes old, and did not read the articles. The intimate friends of the author read the first five sentences, had the satisfaction of discovering a grammatical error therein, and as, with the malice with which friendship meets every young striver, they sought nothing else in the articles, they laid them aside, satisfied. Raimund felt deeply wounded. The world seemed to him nothing more than an immense porcupine, which, with all its quills of prejudice, repelled his genius.

He passed his days in gloomy brooding--then a message from his humorous cousin, Eugene von Rhoeden, in Venice, waked him.

"Help what can be helped," he wrote. "He is going courting again; this time it is in earnest."

Yes, it was in earnest.

In Marienbad, the year before, he had first made her acquaintance; he had followed her to Venice. She had there, under the name Juanita, tried to obliterate the reputation of Pepita. Later she had borne the name of a Marchese Carini. She had been obliged to dance even as a Marchesa, for the Marchese did not disdain to make use of his wife's talent, and had dragged her from theatre to theatre. At one of her brilliant performances in St. Petersburg she broke her leg, and since then could dance no more. Now she became fat, sleepy, devout and irritable; the Marchese gambled away the greater part of her fortune, and died of galloping consumption. Ignorant of all business, continually deceived by her lovers, the Marchese Carini would have come to a sad end if the Knight of Harfink had not appeared as rescuer in her need.

He married her in the beginning of June.

Raimund, very depressed and deeply in debt, did not refuse to offer to kiss his new mamma's hand dutifully. She knew how so to fascinate him at the first meeting, that he was almost as slavishly submissive to her as his father. Juanita desired social position. She insisted upon being introduced to Linda. Harfink did not know that she had formerly had strange relations with Felix--she did not touch upon it; on the contrary, she reserved her power over Felix, which she had so boundlessly misused, for a favorable moment.

Mr. von Harfink told his nephew, Eugene, when he met him in Marienbad, his wife's desire. "I really do not know what to do; Linda is so curious," he said.

And Rhoeden answered with his sly smile, "Write Linda and ask her when you may bring her new mamma to see her--or, really I see no reason why you should not quietly drive over one of these days without announcing yourself."

"I do not understand what any one could have against Chuchu!" said the young husband, enthusiastically. "What a woman she is! She has diamonds from the Emperor of ---- and a gold coat of mail from the Duke of ----, and with all that, she is nevertheless all domesticity and love! She calls me Tony, and darns my socks from pure love."

XXI.

At this time life was for poor Felix only a heavy, oppressing burden.

He knew that Juanita was staying in Marienbad; knew that she had married his father-in-law. He felt neither horror nor astonishment at this step; nothing which she did would have astonished him, but he felt oppressed by the sense of her nearness; a true superstitious fear of the magic charm which her beauty had for him weighed upon him. His recollections, his imagination, had been busy with the picture of her which he still possessed--had invested it with the most refined charms. For Felix, the only excuse for his inexcusable conduct, by which he had ruined his life, lay in the demoniac fascination of the dancer.

Linda had written her father, before his marriage, an annihilating letter, to which she had received no answer. She believed her father angry, and therefore expected nothing less than a visit from him. Felix, who thought her opinion sensible, nevertheless showed from time to time a certain fear, and thereby excited the spirit of contradiction in Linda.

"One can be glad that papa has done nothing worse," she remarked once, indifferently. "It is not to be supposed that they will have children--_et pour le reste_, such a marriage with a dancer has a certain _cachet_. I shall make no advances to her, but if she comes I must receive her!"

Felix shuddered and was silent.

Bitterly ashamed of himself, for a time he had tried to restrain his thirst for liquor. But he could control himself no longer. When the old remembrance began to burn in his heart like eating poison, he at first tried hard to occupy himself. He read, but, unaccustomed to all mental activity, a book scarcely chained his attention. He took long walks, he was too uneasy to become tired; he rode, he was too good a horseman to have any trouble with his horse.

His heart grew more and more heavy, and he drank--drank privately in his room so as not to be surprised in an unreliable condition. He was always temperate at table. No one saw him now with flabby lips and tottering knees, and his friends did not notice that he was really never quite sober now. His hands shook perpetually, there was a watery look in his staring, hollow eyes. A slight bluish flush colored his nostrils, and his voice was quavering.

Meanwhile Linda, careless and indifferent, fluttered around him, bitterness in her heart, on her lips a charming smile and malicious jests. A butterfly with a wasp's sting, Scirocco had called her, and Pistasch repeated it to her. It had greatly pleased her.

At this time Pistasch came to Traunberg almost daily. Linda coquetted with him, but her coquetry was vague and cold, and was neither challenging nor encouraging. He made no progress, as he expressed himself to Scirocco. "She has no temperament and no heart," he grumbled, and once he added, "Perhaps I am not the right one----"

"What do you mean?" replied Scirocco, impatiently, remembering the suspicion which had been cast upon him. But Pistasch only answered crossly, "Garzin!"