CHAPTER XII.

SPRING DAYS.

It was the 13th of March, 1848, the day of the popular uprising in Vienna.

The Plankenhorst parlours were even on that day filled with their usual frequenters; but instead of piano-playing and gossip, entertainment was furnished by the distant report of musketry and the hoarse cries of the mob. Every face was pale and anxious, and all present were eager to learn the latest news from any newcomer.

At length, toward evening, the secretary of the police department entered. His mere outward appearance indicated but too well that things were going badly for the government. Instead of his official uniform, he wore a common workman's blouse, and his face was pale and careworn. As soon as he was recognised in his disguise, all pressed around him for the latest tidings.

"Well, are you sweeping the streets?" asked the high official of the commissary department, in anxious haste.

"There is no making head against the rascals," answered the secretary in a trembling voice. "I have just left the office and only escaped by means of this disguise. The mob has broken into the building, thrown down the statue of Justice, and wrecked the censor's office."

"But, for heaven's sake, can't more soldiery be sent out against them?"

"We have soldiers enough, but the emperor will not permit any more bloodshed. He is displeased that any lives at all should have been sacrificed."

"But why ask his permission? He is too tender-hearted by far. Let the war department manage that."

"Well, you go and tell them how to do it," returned the secretary petulantly. "What is to be done when the soldiers fire in such a way that a whole platoon volley fails to hit a single man? In St. Michael Square I saw with my own eyes the cannoneers stick their slow-matches into the mud, and heard them declare they wouldn't fire on the people."

"Heavens! what will become of us?"

"I came to give you warning. For my part, I believe the people have fixed upon certain houses as objects of their fury, and I would not pass the night in one of them for all the Rothschild millions."

"Do you think my house is one of the number?" asked Baroness Plankenhorst. The only reply she got was a significant shrug of the shoulders.

"And now I must hasten away," concluded the secretary. "I have to order post-horses and relays for the chancellor."

"What! has it come to that already?"

"So it seems."

"And do you go with him?"

"I shall take good care not to remain long behind. And you too, madam, I should advise at the earliest opportunity--"

"I will consider the matter," returned Antoinette composedly, and she let him hurry away.

* * * * *

JenA' Baradlay never left his room all that day. The brave who laugh at danger little know the agony of fear that the timid and nervous must overcome before resolving to face peril and rush, if need be, into the jaws of death. Finally, at nine o'clock in the evening, his anxiety for Alfonsine's safety impelled him to seek her. With no means of self-defence, he went out on the street and exposed himself to its unknown perils. What he there encountered was by no means what he had, in the solitude of his own room, nerved himself to face. Instead of meeting with a violent and raging mob, he found himself surrounded by an exultant throng, drunk with joy and shouting itself hoarse in the cause of "liberty." JenA''s progress toward his destination was slow, but at last he managed to push his way into the street where the Plankenhorst house was situated. His heart beat with fear lest he should find the building a mass of ruins. Many a fine residence had that day fallen a sacrifice to the fury of the mob.

Greatly to the young man's surprise, however, upon turning a corner he beheld the house brilliantly illuminated from basement to attic, two white silk banners displayed from the balcony, and a popular orator standing between them and delivering a spirited address to the crowd below.

JenA' quite lost his head at this spectacle, and became thenceforth the mere creature of impulse. Reaching the steps of the house, he encountered nothing but white cockades and faces flushed with triumph, while cheers were being given for the patronesses of the cause of liberty by the throng before the house. Pushing his way into the drawing-room, he saw two ladies standing at a table and beaming with happy smiles upon their visitors. With difficulty he assured himself that they were the baroness and her daughter. The former was making cockades out of white silk ribbon, with which the latter decorated the heroes of the people, fastening bands of the same material around their arms. And meanwhile the faces of the two ladies were wreathed in smiles.

The young man suffered himself to be swept along by the crowd until Alfonsine, catching sight of him, gave a cry of joy, rushed forward, threw her arms about his neck, kissed him, and sank on his breast, exclaiming:

"Oh, my friend, what a joyful occasion!" and she kissed him again, before all the people and before her mother. The latter smiled her approval, while the people applauded and cheered. They found it all entirely natural. Their shouts jarred on JenA''s nerves, but the kisses thrilled him with new life.

In the days that followed, JenA' Baradlay found it quite a matter of course that he should be at the Plankenhorsts' at all hours, uninvited and unannounced, amid a throng of students, democrats, popular orators, all wearing muddy boots, long swords, and pendent feathers in their caps. He also found nothing strange in the fact that Alfonsine frequently received him in her morning wrapper and with her hair uncurled, that she embraced him warmly on each occasion, and that she took no pains to conceal her endearments either from strangers or from friends. It was a time when everything was permitted.

As the two turned aside one evening in their walk, to join a throng of eager listeners who were being addressed by one impassioned speaker after another, JenA' was startled at seeing his brother A-dAśn mount the platform as one of the orators of the occasion. He, too, it appeared, was on the side of the people; he was one of the parliamentary speakers who were making their voices heard in favour of popular rights and legislative reform. His speech swept all before it; no one could listen to his words without feeling his heart stirred and his pulse quickened. Alfonsine waved her handkerchief in her enthusiasm, but her companion was suddenly seized with a mysterious fear and dread. What premonition was it that seemed to whisper in his ear the true significance of that elevated platform on which his brother stood?

When the two had returned from their stroll, weary with walking the streets, and JenA' had been dismissed with a good-night kiss, Alfonsine, at last alone with her mother, threw her hat with its tricoloured ribbons into a corner and sank exhausted upon a sofa.

"Oh," she cried, "how tired I am of this horrid world!"