Part 6

Felix listened, listened, like an old man who suddenly hears once more the cradle song with which he used to be lulled to sleep.

It overcame him. He bent down deeper over his little son, and murmured softly, "Poor child, poor child!" And the words woke the child, he opened his large eyes and lisped, unabashed, "Why, poor child? Is Gery sick?"

X.

"Elsa, dear Elsa, this is lovely in you! What an surprise! I only know you from my husband's accounts, and from my wedding-day, but I shall love you frightfully, that I feel already."

Crying out these words, Linda had jumped out of the carriage with which Felix had met her at the railway station, and greeted Elsa, who, at her brother's wish, had come to Traunberg to welcome the young wife to her new home. Then leaving Elsa, Linda let her eyes wander over the facade of the castle. "_Charmant! magnifique!_" she cried. "A portal like a church, gray walls, cracked window-sills, balconies and volutings, small-paned old cloister windows! I am charmed, Felix--charmed! _C'est tout a fait seigneurial!_ If you knew, Elsa, how tired I am of modern villas, stucco and plate glass. Ah, you poor, little creature! I had half forgotten you;" with this Linda bends down to her son, who had first stamped his little feet with joy and excitement at his mother's arrival, but then, ever more and more abashed by the flow of words which had carelessly been uttered over his head, with his finger in his mouth, now seemed to take a mournful pleasure in crying.

"Have all children a habit of sticking their fingers in their mouths, or is it an invention of my young hopeful?" asks Linda, after she has hastily kissed and caressed the child. "He will be pretty, the little brat. It is a pity that his hair will not grow. When he had typhoid fever or measles--what was it, Felix?"

"Scarlet fever," he replied, tenderly raising the tiny man in his arms.

"Oh, yes, scarlet fever; we had to cut his hair, and since then it has never grown long."

"I think you can be satisfied with him as he is," says Elsa, looking approvingly at the handsome child.

"Yes, he is a nice little thing," admits Linda; "he has splendid eyes, the true Lanzberg eyes. Oh, I am so glad that he resembles Felix."

"Well, his beauty would not have suffered if he had resembled you," replies Elsa, with an admiring glance at her sister-in-law.

Linda's physique has developed splendidly. The discontented expression which formerly disfigured her face has vanished, has given place to a bewitching smile and brilliant glance. Negligence and grace are united in her carriage. She displays the gayety and cordiality of a person who is satisfied with herself. Laying her arm caressingly around Elsa's waist, she whispers: "So you really do not find me too homely for a Lanzberg; one would not guess from my looks where I come from, eh?"

"Where you come from?--from the world of society--that certainly," says Elsa.

"Bah! From an iron foundry!" cries Linda, laughing.

Elsa glances once more at the picturesque distinction of the slender figure near her.

"No," says she, decidedly.

Indeed Linda does not look like the daughter of a self-made manufacturer; rather like a Parisian actress with a talent for aristocratic roles.

"And now you must show me everything in my new domain, Elsa, everything," cries the young woman, and Elsa says, "Are you not tired, will you not first have a cup of tea?" Then Linda says animatedly, "No, no, I must first see everything, everything!"

Felix has disappeared with his little darling. Elsa leads her sister-in-law through the rooms of the ground floor and first story, shows her the elegantly furnished rooms which Elsa has herself helped arrange for her.

"Oh, you poor Elsa, how you have tormented yourself for me!" cries Linda, and finds everything splendid and charming, with the affability of a newly married queen who, entering her kingdom, wishes to make herself popular.

"There! I will reserve the attic rooms. I begin to feel the dust of travel. It is now much too late to take tea; as soon as I have changed my clothes, I will join you in the drawing-room. I do not yet know the way to my room--oh, yes--that is the room for my maid---_parfait, parfait--au revoir_, my dear heart!" And before she leaves her, Linda presses another kiss upon Elsa's cheek.

On her way to the drawing-room, Elsa heard a little voice prattling and laughing behind one of the tall doors which open on the corridor. "May I come in?" she asked, and without waiting for an answer, she entered the room where Felix, his child on his knee, sat in an arm-chair and held a sugar-plum high in the air, while the child climbed up on him, half laughing, half vexed at his vain attempt to overcome his father's teasing resistance. Both were so absorbed in their occupation that they did not notice Elsa's entrance. She gazed at the pretty group with emotion--the gray-haired man, the blond child, until finally Felix surrendered the sugar-plum, and the child ate it with a very important air, smacking his lips, and with contortions of the face by which he seemed to show the ambitious desire of resembling as much as possible his little friend the monkey in the London Zoo.

Then Elsa laid her hand lovingly on her brother's shoulder. "Oh, how you play with the child," said she.

He raised his face to her, the pale face with the sunken eyes and hollow cheeks, in which everything was old but pain, which appeared fresh and young every morning, and said hastily: "I must love him doubly now. Who knows whether later he will have anything to do with me?"

XI.

"I could not resolve to dress; to appear at dinner in a _peignoir_ is a fault which is pardoned in convalescents, and after twenty-four hours of railway travel, I feel at least like a convalescent. Ah, how pretty it is here!"

So cried Linda, entering the drawing-room where Felix and Elsa awaited her, a half hour later.

What she called a _peignoir_ was a confusion of yellowish lace and India muslin with elbow sleeves and the unavoidable Watteau plait in the back.

Her soft hair hung loose over her shoulders.

"I have a headache, and cannot bear a comb, and as we are _entre nous_----" she excused herself smilingly at Elsa's astonished glance, as she pushed back the heavy waves from temples and neck. Her gestures were full of seductive grace, and her whole form was pervaded with a moist, sweet perfume which reminded one of a summer morning after a storm, and which exhales from a woman who has just taken a perfumed bath. In her whole appearance lay something which excited Elsa's nerves without her being able to explain it--which wounded her feelings of delicacy.

Linda suspected nothing of the impression which she made. "It is pretty here," she repeated, with a lazy glance of satisfaction around the room--"I thank you so much, Elsa! One sees everywhere that a woman's tact has superintended the furnishing--a workman never produces such an impression. Everything looks so cosey, so irregular. How happy I am to be home at last!" and Linda took her sister-in-law's slender, sallow hand in her white, rosy-tipped one, and kissed it with childish exaggeration.

"Who is already here besides the Deys?" she asked then. "Before next week I must really think of paying calls."

Elsa was spared an answer by the quick rolling of a carriage. Springing up she cried--whether her emotion betrayed merely a severe feeling of propriety, and did not also display an unconscious premonition of jealousy I cannot say--"Linda, it is Erwin who has come for me. Put up your hair; it would be unpleasant for you to meet a strange man so!"

With a peculiar expression in glance and smile, Linda fulfilled her sister-in-law's wish. Elsa quickly helped her to twist up her hair, and thereby breathed the peculiar perfume which Baroness Lanzberg used.

She will think of this perfume in many terrible hours which fate has in store for her.

With both hands at her neck, her beautiful figure clearly outlined, her white arms exposed to the elbow by the falling back sleeves, Linda is just fastening a pin in her improvised _coiffure_, when Erwin enters the drawing-room.

"I did not think that you would take the trouble to come over here," stammers Linda, childishly, shyly offering him her hand, "or else you should have found me in more correct toilet."

Elsa starts. Instead of answering, Erwin has kissed the warm white hand of his sister-in-law.

The Garzins remained to dinner in Traunberg. Linda would not hear of their return to Steinbach, she was so happy at last to have an opportunity of learning to know her relations better. She asked advice and indulgence so childishly, was so gay, so amusing, so charming, that Elsa's antipathy to her increased and Erwin's rapidly lessened. Soon he fell into the tone of indifferent gallantry with her which in society almost every man takes with every woman who does not inspire a direct repugnance in him.

But Elsa, inexperienced as she was, did not know this tone, did not know that one can listen with an expression of the most intense interest to a woman without having the slightest idea half an hour later of what she had said; that one pays her the little flatteries for which she hungers as one picks up her handkerchief--from polite habit; that for the time which one devotes to her, one is obliged, if not absolutely to forget the charms of all other women, still in no case to remind her of them.

Linda behaved very cleverly with her brother-in-law, displayed a naive wish to please him--no forward coquetry. She knew that naturalness, lack of reserve in a really pretty woman is always the most dangerous charm--she was refinedly natural. She told the drollest Parisian stories, made the drollest faces without the slightest regard for her symmetrical features; she made use of a momentary absence of the servants to throw a bread-ball in Felix's face with all the skill of a full-blooded street-boy, and as Felix frowned and Erwin could not conceal a slight astonishment, she excused herself so penitently, told with so much emphasis of how Marie Antoinette in her time had bombarded Louis XVI. with bread balls in Trianon, that Erwin was the first to console her, while there was something in his conventional courtesy of the encouraging consideration which a mature man shows to a spoiled child.

After dinner Linda offered to sing something. "She had to be sure no voice, not even so much as a raven or Mlle. X----" she remarked smilingly, "but she relied upon her dramatic accent and----" as she remorsefully admitted--"she had taken such expensive lessons. Would not Elsa accompany her?"

Elsa refused gently, almost with embarrassment. She could scarcely read the notes, and Erwin? He could read notes and could play enough to strum his favorite operatic airs by ear in weak moments. He would try to accompany Linda if she would promise to be very patient.

"The worse you play, so much the more excuse will there be for my faulty singing," cried Linda gayly, and opened that charming, foolish cuckoo song from "Marbolaine."

A pretty confusion followed, a laughing, correcting, her little hands playing between his. "Can we begin?" she cried finally, and still half leaning over him with one finger pointing to the notes, she began to sing "Cuckoo!"

Her voice, in truth, did not remind one in the least of the gloomy organ of a raven, or the passionate hoarseness of the X----, rather of a child's laugh, it was so clear and boldly gay, even if somewhat thin and shrill.

Felix, who had meanwhile been telling Elsa of Gery's scarlet fever with most interesting explicitness, grew silent, not, perhaps, because the cuckoo song was even half as interesting to him as Gery's parched lips and little hands--no! But because he noticed that the usually so patient and sympathetic Elsa no longer listened to him. Her eyes were fixed on Linda; that thin, flippant voice pained _her_, could it please Erwin?

Then the last note ceased. "I am so sorry that I have hindered you by my miserable playing," he excused himself. "You sing so very charmingly! Another one, I beg you."

For the first time in her life Elsa was vexed that she was not musical.

XII.

"Cuckoo," hummed Erwin absently to himself as he drove back with his wife to Steinbach through the capricious, flickering evening shadows.

A filmy confusion of pink and white, a tumbled knot of pale brown hair, two large, cold eyes, mysterious greenish riddles in a flattering, open child-face, a seductive, rococo figure which leaned over the stone balustrade of the terrace, and threw gay kisses after the departing carriage, this is the last impression which Erwin takes away with him from Traunberg, in the landau in which he now sits beside his pale wife.

"She has changed greatly for the better. It is a pity that she has such bad manners," he breaks the silence after a while.

"Do you really think that she has such bad manners?" replies Elsa, without looking at him.

"There can scarcely be any doubt as to that," says he. "Some people may certainly think that it is becoming to her. Nevertheless I should wish that she gave them up. You must undertake her neglected education, child!"

"Oh, I will leave that to you," she replies, coldly, almost irritably. "Linda is not a person who will learn anything from women."

"Do not be harsh," he whispers, reproachfully, perhaps with a trace of impatience.

The gloomy Traunberg lindens are far behind them, only show as a dark spot on the horizon. The carriage rolls on between gigantic poplars; the sun has set and the shadows have vanished with it. Over the earth is that dull gray light which might be called dead light. The new moon floats in the heavens, small and white, like a tiny cloud; pale yellow and reddish tints are on the horizon, above the violet distant mountains. At the left, only separated by a blooming clover-field, is the forest.

"Elsa, do you feel strong enough to walk home through the woods?" whispers Erwin to his wife, coaxingly, and as she nods assent he stops the carriage, and they take a path through the clover to the shady woods.

"Now, was not that a good idea of mine, is it not pretty here?" he asks, gayly and proudly, as if he had made the wood, surveying all its beauties.

"Lovely," whispers she, but her voice sounds sad.

At her feet the ground is blue with forget-me-nots; under the wild rose-bushes already lie many white petals. A sob and a sigh pass through the gloomy trees as if spring mourned that the first roses were dead. All is grave and solemn, the air spiced with the odor of withered generations of leaves, with the perfume of fading or still blooming flowers.

Erwin teasingly waits for Elsa to speak to him--he waits in vain. With head thrown back and earnest eyes she wanders near him, and does not rest her little hands tenderly on his arm as usual.

What is the matter with her? That she can be jealous does not occur to him.

They have almost crossed the forest; the meadow which separates it from Steinbach park shines between the sparse trees, then Erwin discovers a striking trace of game; he bends down to observe it more closely. "A roebuck," he murmurs. "Strange--in this region."

"Is there no other way across?" asks Elsa, who has meanwhile crawled close to the edge of the meadow, and casting a somewhat anxious glance over the knee-high, dewy grass.

"No, wait a moment," he replies, still absorbed in contemplating the strange trace.

"It will cost me a pair of shoes," she murmurs somewhat vexedly, raises her gown, and resolutely prepares for a very cold foot-bath.

"Elsa, what are you doing?" cries he, perceiving her intention, and, leaving his hunter's problem, he hurries quickly up to her. "With your genius for taking cold."

Before she has time to answer he has taken her in his arms and carries her through the dew. He has wholly forgotten Linda Lanzberg, and also that he had been vexed with his poor nervous wife's unjust, childish antipathy for Linda. He looks down tenderly upon the dear head, which rests with half-closed eyes on his shoulder.

"How light you are," he remarks softly and anxiously; "you do not weigh much more than Litzi now, my mouse."

Elsa does not answer, but her slender arms twine round his neck, and as his lips seek her pale face, he feels that she is crying.

"What is the matter, my darling?" he asks.

"I do not know myself," she murmurs with a slight shiver. "I am afraid."

XIII.

"We really must invite her," says, in a mournful tone, Countess Mimi Dey, a large stately woman, with a too high forehead, a feature which has the proud advantage of being a family inheritance in the Sempaly family, an aristocratic, small, turn-up nose, a benevolent smile, and a near-sighted glance.

The Countess is the best woman in the world, of proverbial good nature and unfeigned condescension in association with music-teachers, governesses, companions, maids, tutors and officials, and such poor devils who are paid and supported by the aristocracy, and politely courtesy to them; but she is unapproachably stiff to the upper middle classes, those persons who demand a place in society.

She belongs to that exclusive coterie which considers itself the sole patented extract of humanity, and looks upon all the rest of the world as only a common herd, a mob which, under certain circumstances, permits itself to pay its servants better, and to give more to charitable aims than princely houses, a mob which speaks French, wears Swedish gloves, and lives in palaces. She has a vague idea that it speaks incorrect French, that under the gloves coarse hands are concealed, that the palaces are always furnished with the taste of first-class waiting-rooms, but knows nothing definite about it, does not know "these people" at all, does not see them, although they are everywhere--they do not exist for her.

They tell an amusing anecdote of her: that once at the opera on a Patti evening, her cousin Pistasch Kamenz entered her box, and asked her, "Is any one in the theatre to-night?" She, after she had glanced around the crowded building, answered mournfully, "Not a soul!"

What particularly amuses the Countess is that, as she hears, this great class of _bourgeoise_, "which one does not know," is, on its side, divided by various differences in education and condition into classes which do not "know" each other.

"I really must invite her," she repeats, mournfully.

She leans back in a deep arm-chair in a large drawing-room with brown wainscoting and numerous family portraits, and smokes a cigarette.

"Pardon me that I really cannot so deeply pity you as you seem to expect," replies Scirocco Sempaly, who, now on leave, occupies a second armchair opposite his sister.

"Hm! I do not care about the positive fact; last week I dined with my bailiff's wife, but--it is a matter of principle."

"_Cent a'as_," says, with indifferent gravity, an old acquaintance of ours, Eugene von Rhoeden, who sits by an open window before a mediaeval inlaid table and plays bezique with the above-mentioned cousin of the hostess, Count Pistasch Kamenz.

"_Cent d'as_," he says, apparently wholly absorbed in his cards, and moves an ivory counter.

A mild gentle rain is falling, the perfume of half-drowned roses and fresh foliage floats into the room. In one corner sits the only daughter of the widowed hostess, Countess Elli, a dark little girl in a white muslin frock, and near her, in a black silk gown, the governess.

The obligatory half hour which Elli must spend in the drawing-room so as to become accustomed to society, is over. Elli is rejoiced, sixteen-year-old girl that she is. She takes no particular pleasure in the society of grown people, who can no longer pet her as a child, and who must not yet treat her as a young lady.

A rustle of silk and muslin, a shy "_Bon soir!_" and Mademoiselle retreats with her charge.

Scirocco rises to open the door for the governess, makes her a deep bow as she disappears. Rhoeden also rises, only Pistasch indolently remains seated.

"Pistasch, you might trouble yourself to say good evening to Mademoiselle," says the Countess half jokingly.

"Pardon," replies Pistasch, "pure absent-mindedness, Mimi, and then she is so homely."

"That simplifies matters ten-fold," replies Scirocco, hastily. "One can never be too polite to homely governesses--it is only the pretty ones that are troublesome."

"I do not understand that," says Pistasch, and marks double bezique.

"One never knows how one can be attentive enough to them so as not to vex them, and yet reserved enough not to impress them," says Scirocco, dryly.

"Hm! You have very virtuous principles, Rudi; for some time you have moved wholly in the icy regions of lofty feelings of duty, where the tender flowers of the affections never bloom," laughs Pistasch. "I admire you, upon my word, but--hm--I do not trace the slightest desire to follow you into this rare atmosphere," and he rubbed his hands with satisfaction. He considered his cousin's conscientiousness either feigned or morbid. How could one be conscientious with women? Conscientious in regard to debts of honor, that is something quite different, that is self-understood; but regarding governesses--bah!

"Count Pistasch Kamenz is a charming man." So at least say all the ladies and also all the men who have not yet come in conflict with him. He has the handsomest blond cinque-cento face, speaks the Viennese jargon with the most aristocratic accent, and possesses the most enviable talents. He rides like Renz, dances like Frappart, and more than that, in private theatricals he is like Blasel, Matras and Knaak in one person. In all Austria, no man has a greater talent for representing Polish Jews, poverty-stricken Czechs, drunken valets, provincials of all kinds. But his greatest triumph is the "Vienna shoemaker's boy." What accuracy of costume and grimaces! The ladies say he has a pug nose when he plays the shoemaker's boy, and a way of sticking out his tongue--ah!

He has played for benevolent objects a hundred times, and in Vienna is a universally known and boundlessly popular individual, because he is intimate with actresses, occasionally from a freak rides in an omnibus, or another time is seen in the standing place of the opera house (for a half act), because one sometimes meets him in sausage houses, because in rainy weather he walks with an umbrella and upturned trousers, because once even--the gods and a pretty girl alone know why--he travelled from Salzburg to Vienna second class.

The public see in him a pleasant, affable man without pride, and feel drawn to him like a brother. Poor public! I would not advise you to stretch out your hardened hand to him, for between ourselves Count Pistasch is one of the most arrogant of Austrian cavaliers.

The actors with whom he one evening drinks friendship, and the next greets with "Hm!--ah--You, Mr.---- what do you call him," can tell this. One of them once challenged him. This was a great joke to the Count; he laughed until he cried, could not control himself, and finally settled it thus: "You are a fine fellow, am very sorry, etc., deserve an order for personal bravery--ah--if I can be of any service to you," etc.

He has never been outside of Austria, possesses the vaguest ideas of history. The French Revolution is a kind of accidental calamity for him, something between the earthquakes of Lisbon and the pest in Florence. He is a strict Catholic from aristocratic tradition, has very good manners when he wishes, speaks French well, and we can assure our readers, that just as he is, without a suspicion of the "principles of '89," he would be received with open arms in the most republican _salons_ of Paris, and would be admired by the ladies for his "_purete de race_" and "_grand air_."