Gloria Victis! Part 18

Yes, of a truth, Fritz had grown up with chimeras; they had been his playmates, born and bred and domesticated in Schneeburg.

To them it was due that Fritz had married a second-rate actress; that Fritz, under all the most distressing circ.u.mstances, had still suffered from homesickness, and had taken refuge 'at home;' that he had always possessed a character not merely respectable, but thoroughly n.o.ble; never forfeiting the esteem of his equals although stricken from their visiting lists; and that, when in fulness of time he should make ready for the final journey, he might boldly face these very chimeras and say: "Often have I sinned against myself, and my own best happiness, but never, never against you; come therefore and help me to die."

His father was a gentleman, a philosopher, a freethinker,--a visionary, if you will. He raved about the new gospel of 1789, as one raves about an exotic flower, because of its unparalleled oddity, and from the conviction that it never can endure our climate. He had all kinds of bourgeois intimates and the "Contrat social" was his favourite book.

But when his son, not from blind pa.s.sion, but to satisfy conscientious scruples, married an actress, he was beside himself. When Fritz, not without a hint as to the circ.u.mstances that had led him to the fatal step, announced his marriage, his letter was sent by the old Count to his lawyer to answer. He himself refused any further intercourse with his son.

Had Fritz's mother been living, all might perhaps have been different.

His wife would have been personally more distasteful to her than to his father, the fact of the connection would have seemed to her more miserable than to the old Count; but compa.s.sion for her child would have triumphed finally over every other consideration, her heart might have bled, but she would have taken home the distasteful daughter-in-law, and have tried to educate her for her position. At all events she would have known that when a man has trifled away 'the world,' his own home is his true place of refuge.

To all this the old Count gave never a thought, although he was kind-hearted, and Fritz had always been avowedly his favourite. He saw nothing but the misery and degradation of it all; his heart was benumbed by anger. All that was bestowed upon Fritz when he married, was his father's curse, the property which he inherited from his mother, and his share of what had belonged to an elder brother who had died. Although he had from the outset belonged among the "_forcats du mariage_," he did not for some time feel the burden of his chain and of the enforced companions.h.i.+p. Of an intensely sanguine temperament he had a positive genius for looking on the bright side of life. What annoyed him most at first was being obliged, on account of his marriage, to quit the service. He was terribly bored by having to spend the entire day without his comrades or his horses. His yearly income at this time amounted to the modest sum of six thousand gulden. After he had made out a list of necessary expenses,--that is, added up certain figures upon a visiting card with a gold pencil, he came to the conclusion, with a shrug, that a married man could not possibly live upon six thousand gulden a year, and that therefore, under the circ.u.mstances, he might allow himself the privilege of contracting debts.

Of course he would have thought it n.i.g.g.ardly to save up anything while in the army; yet he had never been extravagant, he had always at the end of the month had something left over with which to help out a comrade.

He hoped to be able to curtail his household expenses; but there were so many things that no respectable man 'could go without,' and still more, which his wife could not deny herself.--

When Fritz was quite a little boy, his father had often admonished him as to the serious nature of life, and had impressed him as a younger son with the necessity of restricting his needs as much as possible, and even of earning his own living. His narrow circ.u.mstances in the future, had occupied the boy's mind, and one day he opened his heart to his sister's governess, at that time his confidante. He said to her, "Madame! Papa yesterday told of a contractor who employed people for fifty kreutzers a day.--Is that fair?"

"Certainly, _mon bijou_. Why do you ask?"

The boy looked very important, and began to reckon on his small fingers, "Fifty kreutzers a day--hm--that makes five gulden for ten persons--if I marry, and my wife keeps a maid, and I a man--and if we have six children beside--five gulden a day--I can afford that at least."

At twenty-six years of age Fritz's ideas with regard to economy were not much more practical. A household with neither man-servant nor maid-servant did not come within his range of possibilities.

He spent a couple of weeks with his young wife at the Hotel Munsch; a hostelry now out of fas.h.i.+on, but having for generations enjoyed the patronage of the Malzin family, and after that he hired a pretty suite of second-story rooms in a retired street, and arranged it according to his taste, and as he honestly believed, as moderately as possible. He had none of the sn.o.bbishness of an impoverished parvenu, who is ashamed of being obliged suddenly to retrench, and hides his economies as a crime. On the contrary, he exulted boyishly when he had succeeded in procuring at a moderate price some pretty piece of furniture, an old oriental rug, or a carved chest, nor did he ever hesitate to lend a hand himself; he hammered and tacked with his slender fingers, as if he had been bred to such work all his life.

And it must be admitted that, with the exception of the drawing-room, which his wife in spite of his remonstrances persisted in disfiguring with green damask hangings, purchased at an auction with her savings, his little home was a masterpiece of tasteful comfort. His former comrades liked to drop in often for a game of cards with him. There was no high play, and the drinking was very moderate, but the supper, the style of the company, and the company itself, were always alike exquisite.

The only disturbing element at these unostentatious gatherings was the mistress of the household, who sat opposite her husband at supper, affected and peevish in manner, and really bored by the high-bred and respectful courtesy with which she was treated.

At first Fritz had indulged in ideal schemes of educating his wife, but they all came to grief. There was no trace in the wife of the docile devotion of the betrothed. A woman whose whole heart is her husband's never feels humiliated by his superiority. Her whole being aspires to him, her perceptions become all the more acute, and in a very short while she learns to divine, to avoid, whatever may offend him.

This was, however, by no means the case with Charlotte. Her love for Fritz was of a very humdrum kind, and comprehension of him she had none. She did not acknowledge his superiority. All his good-humoured little preachments upon manners, she listened to with stubborn irritability. She was characterized to an extreme degree by the obdurate narrow-mindedness which sneers conceitedly at everything unlike itself, and absolutely refuses to learn. Fine clothes and pedantic affectations awed her, but she had no appreciation for the simple good-breeding of a man whose manners are the natural outgrowth of the habits of his cla.s.s. Genuine good-breeding is like a mother-tongue which is spoken from childhood unconsciously as to its source, and correctly, without a thought of conjugations and declensions.

This she neither knew nor understood; she was far better pleased with the artificial manners which are acquired when one is grown up, like a foreign tongue from the grammar, and which are continually seasoned with pretentious quotations, from modern dictionaries of etiquette. The difference between Count Fritz and a smugly-dressed bagman, lay in her eyes solely in the t.i.tle.

Before long Fritz grew tired of trying to educate her, and confined himself merely to the most necessary admonitions.

Time pa.s.sed--and there was a cradle hung with green silk in the Countess's room, and within it lay a boy of rare beauty. Charlotte petted and caressed her child with the instinct of tenderness shown by the lower animals towards their young, an instinct which fades out gradually, as soon as the offspring can forego its mother's physical care. Fritz rejoiced over the little fellow and had him christened Siegfried after the old Count his father, to whom he announced the birth of his grandson, hoping that it might help to bring about a reconciliation with the angry parent.

But the Count took no notice of the announcement.

At first Fritz's paternal sentiments were by no means enthusiastic, and if at times he caressed the little man, it was more out of kindness towards the mother than out of real interest in the child.

On one occasion, however, he happened to enter the nursery just before going out, his hat on his head. The little one was in his bath, an expression of absolute physical comfort in his half-closed eyes, and on his plump little body, every dimple of which could be seen distinctly beneath the clear water.

Fritz stopped, and playfully sprinkled a few drops of water upon the pretty baby-face. The child opened wide his eyes, and when his father repeated the play, the little one chuckled so merrily that it sounded like the cooing of doves, while throwing back his head and clinching his rosy fists upon his breast.

A few days afterward Fritz went again to the nursery; this time the boy was just out of his bath and was being dried in the nurse's lap. He recognised his father and stretched out his plump arms to him. Fritz could not help tickling him a little, touching his dimples with a forefinger, and catching hold of the wee hands; a strange sensation crept over him at the touch of the pure warm baby-flesh.

From that time he went into the nursery every day, if only for a moment. The child grew more and more lovely. His little pearly teeth appeared, and soft, golden hair hung over his forehead. He soon began in his short frocks to creep on all-fours over the carpet, and even to rise to his feet, holding by some article of furniture; and once, as Fritz was watching him with a languid smile, the boy suddenly left the chair against which he was leaning, and proudly and laboriously putting one foot before the other, advanced four steps towards his father, upon whose knee he was placed triumphantly quite out of breath with the mighty effort.

When a little girl appeared as a claimant for the green-draped cradle, a pretty diminutive bedstead was placed in Fritz Malzin's room.

What good comrades they were, Papa, and Siegi! Fritz talked to the little fellow of all sorts of things that he never mentioned to any one else, of his loved ones, of his home! And Siegi would look at him out of his large eyes, as earnestly as if he understood every word. Long before he could put words together, the boy learned to say "grandpapa,"

and when his father, pointing to the photograph of an old castle, that hung framed in the smoking-room, asked "Siegi, what is that?" the little fellow would reply "Neeburg."

The child was his father's friend, his companion, and was loved with an idolatry such as only those fathers can know who are estranged from their wives, and have no other interest in life.

Of course the child had a French bonne, but her post was almost a sinecure. Fritz scarcely lost sight of the child for a moment.

Shortly after his removal to Wiplinger street he had become convinced by certain calculations, that, in view of the high price demanded by hack-drivers, it was a great economy to keep horses.

The result of these calculations was attained after the fas.h.i.+on of the clever man who demonstrated clearly that it is far cheaper to live in a first-cla.s.s Hotel than in one of the second cla.s.s.

When Siegi was barely three years old, Fritz used to put him on the seat beside him in his dog-cart, and drive with him in the Prater. For greater security the child was tied fast to the back of the seat with a broad, silken scarf.

Count Malzin's dog-cart was soon one of the best-known turn-outs in the Prater; the picturesque, lovely child beside the handsome, distinguished man could not fail to attract notice. Siegi was always dressed in good taste, and his soft curls lay like gold upon his shoulders. From time to time his little face was turned up eagerly to his father with some childish question. Then Fritz would bend over him with a smile, and sometimes put his arm around him.

It was a positive delight to see them thus together. Many a lady who since Fritz's marriage had returned his bow but coldly, now nodded to him kindly as they gazed after the child.

Once on a lovely day in April, Fritz alighted from his dog-cart with his little son and took him to walk, as was customary in Vienna, in the Prater. He was surrounded in a few minutes by a group of ladies with whom he had formerly been acquainted. Siegi had a triumphant success, every one wanted a kiss or a pat from his little hand.

"Exquisite!" exclaimed one after another. "What a little angel! Malzin, you must bring the child to see us."

"Fritz, do bring him to see me to-morrow at five, my children take their dancing-lesson then. You will come, won't you? You know the way."

And Fritz, flattered, smiled and bowed.

Since his marriage he had not gone into society; but for his boy's sake he accepted these invitations; the little fellow must learn to a.s.sociate with his equals. Fritz resolved that he himself should alone endure the consequences of his folly, his son should not suffer from it.

Although well-bred people of rank in their normal condition usually train their children to a conventional modesty of demeanour, Fritz, on the contrary, took pleasure in making his son almost haughty, he, whose own lack of all pretention had been a by-word!

When pride stands on the defensive, it always deteriorates somewhat.

In spite of the modest scale of his household expenses, Fritz found to his surprise that during the first year he had spent just double his income. "It is always so the first year," he consoled himself by thinking, but when the second year was no better but much worse, the matter began to annoy him.

At his card-parties, which were still kept up, although Charlotte but seldom appeared at them, (a relief usually purchased by Fritz with a box for her at the theatre,) one of the guests was a certain Baron Schneller, a good-natured, well-to-do fellow, who had no taste for earning money, and was in consequence rather in disgrace with his family, who showed great diligence in that direction. He squandered his income among antiquities and ballet-girls. His volunteer year he had served in Fritz's squadron.

In his embarra.s.sment Fritz applied to Schneller, and asked whether he knew of any more profitable investment for money than Austrian government bonds? Whereupon the banker's indolent son replied that he himself always invested upon principle in mortgages, but if Fritz wanted to know, he would ask his brother, who was at the head of his father's banking-firm.

The next day he came, in his good-natured way, to see Fritz, bringing a list of 'safe stocks,' which were just then paying enormous dividends, and saying "My brother sends his regards, and begs you to consider him entirely at your service in any financial operation."

With characteristic carelessness, Fritz delivered over his property to the banker, and the banker protested that it was an honour to oblige the young gentleman.