O Thou, My Austria! Part 30

"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 a.s.sociates, 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 pa.s.s 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 souffl 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 appet.i.te.

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 ap.r.o.n-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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 circ.u.mstances, 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-cus.h.i.+on 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.