Artist and Model Part 23

"Yes, dear Vera, to-morrow. I have promised the prince to come and take his instructions to-morrow. I shall go back to Elva now. Do you have a good night's rest, and you will be as strong and brave when you wake as if you had not traveled four hundred leagues."

And Soublaieff, having kissed his daughter tenderly, retired.

Night was falling. The great portraits of the ancestors of the Olsdorfs that hung on the walls of the room; the suits of armor which stood as if they covered still the men who had worn them of old; the fantastic shadows which the last rays of daylight lengthened, streaming through the colored gla.s.s of the Gothic window-frames; the mournful silence that reigned around her, all filled Vera with so sudden a fear that she fled in terror to the rooms which Yvan had told her were to be hers.

They were in the right wing of the chateau, near to those that Pierre's son and his governess, Mme. Bernard, a worthy woman quite wrapped up in the child intrusted to her care, occupied. It was the suite which was usually reserved for the prince's more intimate friends. Very elegantly furnished, it consisted of a dressing-room, a bath-room, and a small sitting-room.

As soon as she got there, Vera burst into tears and sobs.

So all was over; the prince deserted her, careless of the love he had won, love which either he did not see or perhaps despised; he was going away, leaving her to her memories and her despair. She had been nothing but a tool in his hands, of which he rid himself pitilessly. Her dream was all a lie; he did not love her. What did she care for the comfort he wished to leave her in? Was not her future life quite ruined? Why, then, should she stay at Pampeln? No, she would not. With her father only could she hope for forgetfulness. She would keep none of the rich dresses and jewels that he had given her. They would but recall to her hours of bliss and hope which she would no longer have the right to remember. She would go back to Elva as she had come from it, poor and simple, not to-morrow but then, that night, without seeing the man who thought of her no more. She would walk the road from Pampeln to Elva, all alone, as she used to do when she was a little girl and knew only by sight, because they stopped at the farm on hunting days, elegant carriages such as she had been driven about Paris in. The darkness would not frighten her. What misfortune could happen to her greater than that she was now suffering? And the poor child, her eyes filled with tears, her hair falling about her shoulders, her hands trembling, turned over the things in her trunks to find, among the silks and laces, the linen gown and national head-dress which she had worn three months before journeying to France. But each of the things she touched painfully revived the memory of the past. This necklet of pearls was the prince's first gift; these diamonds were in her ears that evening at the opera when her appearance there for the first time had caused such surprise.

This white silk dress she had worn at the Italian opera when Patti sung; in this furred mantle Pierre Olsdorf had wrapped her as they were leaving the theater. These fans, these bracelets, she remembered with what sweet words they had been given to her. On each thing she could have put a date, so close in accord were her memory and her heart.

A long sigh, a sigh of love and despair, escaped from her lips, and a blush rose to her face. She saw the dressing-gown of blue, trimmed with lace, that she had taken off on that terrible night, in which was but one moment of bliss, when, half naked, she had clung about the neck of the prince to defend him or to seek his protection as the door of her room was flung open. Could she ever forget that moment? Pierre had not understood how she adored him. Yet had not she betrayed it plainly, in her eyes, at the moment of that mad embrace?

"Oh, no," she sobbed, ready to fall to the ground, conquered by all these emotions, "no, he will never love me."

"Never more than at this moment, Vera," a voice said suddenly that made her tremble.

She sunk into the arms of Pierre Olsdorf who, without being heard by her, had entered the room and had been watching her for some moments.

"Is it you?" murmured Soublaieff's daughter, closing her eyes as if, fancying this was a new dream, she wished to lengthen it.

The prince carried rather than led her to a large sofa at one side of the room. He laid her down on it, and kneeling beside her, said:

"Why do you doubt me? Vera, I have the sincerest and tenderest affection for you. I will never forget what you have done for me nor the trouble I have brought into your life. I am responsible for your future, and I swear to you it shall be happy."

"You speak of happiness for me, Pierre Alexandrowich, and you are leaving me," sobbed the young girl, with a despairing look in her eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with tears. "Why do you go? Why do you leave me alone?"

Never was woman more beautiful, more desirable, more intoxicating than Vera in her sorrow and her chaste _abandon_. The dusky flood of her hair sweeping about her, her scarlet lips parted as if they begged for a kiss, the subtle fragrance of youth and maidenhood that innocently offered itself--all this intoxicated Pierre Olsdorf. He had seized in his the cold hands of the young girl, and, his head swimming, he felt himself drawn irresistibly to her. But a last gleam of reason arrested him; and rising he exclaimed:

"Oh, no, no; it would be an act of cowardice unworthy of me."

Vera, amazed, half raised herself, and her face showed such pain that the prince, going to her quickly again, said hurriedly, mastering his heart and his pa.s.sions by a strong effort:

"Listen to me, my child, my darling, my beloved, and do not take from me by your despair the courage I need. Yes, I love you, and yet I must go from you. I must; it is my duty; that you may still be worthy of respect and that I may still be an honorable man. I will not have it thought that what happened in Paris happened only that I might be happy through you. I will not give power to any one to accuse you of having been my willing accomplice. How long shall I be away? G.o.d alone knows. Perhaps I shall not have the strength to prolong our separation; but part we must, for your sake and for mine. While I am far away and thinking of you you will be a mother to my son and to that little creature who bears my name, and whom, though I can not love, I can not abandon. You will be mistress at Pampeln; and later, when time, if it has not cured, at least will have cicatrized the horrible wound that I have received, I will return, and I shall have forgotten nothing. Adieu."

Without waiting for Vera to answer him, Vera, who understood nothing but that he was going to leave her, Prince Olsdorf seized her in his arms, pressed his lips in a long kiss to hers quivering with sobs, and, s.n.a.t.c.hing himself from this intoxicating embrace, he let her sink, fainting, on the sofa.

When Soublaieff's daughter again opened her eyes, she was alone.

Next morning, at day-break, after kissing his son, and having had long interviews with his steward, Beschef, and the farmer of Elva, to whom he gave a letter for his daughter, the prince left Pampeln for St.

Petersburg, where he had to submit to the will of the Holy Synod.

He had not had the courage to see Vera again. He took with him only his faithful Yvan, to have near him some one on whom he could rely should death strike him when far from home.

A fortnight later Pierre Olsdorf took ship at Brindisi for Egypt, to begin the long exile to which he had condemned himself.

CHAPTER II.

THE STUDIO IN THE RUE D'a.s.sAS.

While Prince Olsdorf had gone from the sight of all who loved him, and Vera Soublaieff, in despair, but obedient, was devoting herself at Pampeln to the two poor little forsaken ones intrusted to her care, Mme.

Paul Meyrin found forgetfulness of the past in the love of the man she had chosen. The memory of her children, parted from her forever, sometimes wrung her heart; and when her mother chose, from time to time, to send her any news of them, her eyes would fill with tears.

We may be sure, knowing her character, that Mme. Podoi never failed to fill her letters to her daughter with reproaches and insulting comparisons. As if to humiliate and awaken feelings of jealousy in her, she never mentioned Vera except in the most flattering terms.

"This young girl is irreproachable," she wrote to her five or six months after her marriage; "at Pampeln everybody loves and respects and obeys her. No one dares raise the least doubt of her virtue, of the purity of her relations with the prince during her stay in Paris. She is absolute mistress at the chateau, where your name in a very short time will not be remembered. Your son Alexander himself will forget it, and will know only that of the woman who has become his real mother. As for Tekla, she will probably never speak it.

"I know what is going on in Courland from that excellent Madame Bernard, your son's governess. The prince authorized her to keep me informed about the health of the children. You may imagine I shall not ever go again to Pampeln. I do not want to have to blush for you.

"It is reported in St. Petersburg that Pierre Olsdorf is in j.a.pan; but he only writes to Vera Soublaieff. She is the only person who knows for certain where he is.

"This is what your folly has brought my dream of ambition to. May G.o.d grant that no worse misfortunes are in store for you."

When poor Lise had received one of these letters, in which her mother was thus pitiless, she kept it from her husband, for he might have forbidden the correspondence, but she would hurry to Mme. Daubrel, who wept and did her best to console her. Then she would return to the Rue d'a.s.sas, and a kiss from Paul would bring her calmness. The love of the ex-Princess Olsdorf for the man whose name she now bore was unchanged; she was still pa.s.sionately attached to this man, to whom she had yielded so completely from the first hour.

Nor had Paul Meyrin changed; he was still the lover he had been. Lise was his adored, intoxicating, and extravagant mistress yet. Proud of the beauty and the distinguished air of his wife, he took her everywhere, and received many friends--painters, literary men, artists of all kinds, all enthusiastic about this n.o.ble stranger who, to marry one of their cla.s.s, had given up without regret the t.i.tle of princess and so high a social position.

Lise, on her part, had neglected nothing that could win the affection of this impressionable world, of which now she formed a part.

At first visitors came with a feeling of distrust, perhaps, too, in a critical spirit, for they wondered how this great Russian lady would bear herself toward them, habituated as she was to homage of every kind, and ready, perhaps, to think that they must be only too happy to be received by her; but in the case of each of them a few moments'

conversation with Mme. Meyrin was enough to make them think her perfectly charming. She was simple, sweet, and anxious for the comfort of all of them.

Excellent musician as she was, other musicians found in her a nature able to understand them, and an executant of the first cla.s.s for the interpretation of their works. The painters soon cited her as an able judge, and a critic both fair-dealing and kindly. As such she was looked upon by the literary men, some of whom got into the habit of putting their ideas before her, and asking for advice. It was not long before the studio in the Rue d'a.s.sas became a meeting-place of much renown. The ex-Princess Olsdorf was happy and proud in doing the honors there.

This was the life she had pictured to herself with the man she loved, who, thanks to her, was now becoming well known as an artist. In the day-time, while Paul worked at some picture, the idea of which she had inspired, Lise would sit not far from him at her embroidery, reading or music, until the hour when the usual visitors to the studio gathered round her to tell her the chit-chat of the Parisian day. In the evening, if they had n.o.body to dinner, they would go to the theater; or they would go out arm in arm for a short walk--only a little way, that they might the sooner be at home and alone together again.

Full of good taste and used to luxurious surroundings from her childhood upward, Mme. Meyrin, having engaged suitable servants, well trained in their work, had arranged the house in charming style. Everything in it bespoke the presence of an elegant, intelligent woman, with a care for the comfort of those about her. She charged herself with the personal care of the flowers that were always to be seen in the studio; and Paul was delighted with this room, which flattered his sense of the beautiful and the voluptuous in a way that he had not dreamed of before.

The young couple, in a word, were quite happy. All they lacked was intercourse with their family, for Mme. Frantz nursed her wrath against her brother-in-law and his wife. She never saw them, and it was in secret alone, to avoid bickerings, that Mme. Meyrin, the mother, could steal away sometimes to go and embrace her son.

The respectful and affectionate reception she met with from Lise quite charmed the good old lady, who puzzled her brain to find a means of bringing her children together. As yet she had failed.

The exiles of the Rue d'a.s.sas were not without stout champions in the Rue de Douai. First and foremost there was Mme. Daubrel. She took every chance to sing the praises of Lise, with whom, as we have seen, she was more intimate than ever, though she was not a guest at any of the dinners or "At Homes." Mme. Paul Meyrin had tried in vain to persuade Marthe to occasionally meet her other friends. She refused once for all.

"My dear Lise," she said one day, when her friend returned to the subject, "you know how I am placed. Not wishing to give the shadow of a pretext for malicious chatter, I am forced to deny myself the pleasure of seeing you when you have visitors. You are merry here, you laugh and are happy. My heart sympathizes with your joys, but they are forbidden me. After my misfortune, I said: 'Having been guilty of a sin, I swear, now going back to my mother's roof, to expiate the past by an exemplary life. In America, far from me, I have a son, whom G.o.d will, perhaps, let me see again some day; and I wish to become worthy of him.' For five years I have had no friends but the Meyrins; I have never been inside a theater, nor made a new friend in that time, except you. Your affection is so sweet to me, and gives me such delight, that sometimes I reproach myself about it as a happiness which I ought not to indulge in. Don't press me, then, I beg of you. Besides, I think I love you more and better when we are alone."

The answer of Marthe had touched and at the same time painfully moved Mme. Paul Meyrin in reminding her that she too had children in another land, who bore a name not hers, whom she was forever parted from, and whom even the death of the father would not give back to her, whom she might not nurse if they were sick, and whose hands would not close her eyes as they stood weeping by her pillow at the hour of eternal parting.

The unhappy mother could then almost have cursed the divorce that had estranged her from those she loved; but she had been careful not to return with Mme. Daubrel to this subject, which was so full of pain for both of them.

Happily at about this time Lise found that she was about to again become a mother. It was a supreme consolation to her. Her husband seemed not less delighted, and the fact made her regret still more that the efforts were vain of Marthe and all who helped her steadily to bring about a reconciliation with Mme. Frantz.

The good-hearted Mme. Daubrel was not left to plead alone in the Rue de Douai Paul's cause and his wife's. There was also Mme. Meyrin, the mother, who would have liked to kiss her son every day, and who felt herself drawn by ties of affection to his wife. Then little Nadeje, who remembered well the caresses and presents of the Princess Olsdorf, asked in her simplicity how it was that she did not see this beautiful lady any more now that they were aunt and niece. Lastly, there was a third person, whom our readers have caught only a glimpse of at present, the actor Dumesnil.