Countess Erika's Apprenticeship Part 35

These five monsters, the women with guitars, the men with violins, were accompanying themselves in a love-song, their mouths wide open, and the drawling notes issuing thence echoed from one end to the other of the s.p.a.cious Piazza. The burden of the ditty was,--

"Tu m'hai bagnato il seno mio di lagrime, T'amo d'immenso amor."

The old Countess, with a laugh and the easy grace of a great lady, tossed the singers a coin half-way across the Piazza. Erika frowned. A feverish indignation possessed her. Good heavens! did the whole world circle about one and the same thing? Must she hear it even from the lips of these wretched cripples? She bit her lip: from the distance came the drawling wail,--

"T'amo d'immenso amor."

"Erika, look there!"

The words are spoken by old Countess Lenzdorff in the library of the monastery of San Lazaro, and as she speaks she plucks her grand-daughter's sleeve.

The monastery is the same in which Lord Byron, more than half a century ago, was taught by long-bearded monks; and the Lenzdorffs, taking advantage of the fine weather, had been rowed over to it on the afternoon of the day on which they had visited the exhibition at the Circolo.

The monk who acted as their cicerone had conducted them to the library to show them Lord Byron's signature and his portrait, a small, authentic likeness. In addition he showed them many likenesses of his lordship which were by no means authentic, but which represented him in various costumes and at various periods of his existence, and which it was hoped romantic tourists might be tempted to purchase as _souvenirs de Venise_.

Two gentlemen are standing laughing and criticising one of these pictures, and it is to these gentlemen that the Countess directs her grand-daughter's attention. One of them is standing with his back turned to the ladies, but his faultlessly-fitting English overcoat, his gray gaiters, his way of balancing himself with legs slightly apart, the distinction and gray-haired worthlessness that characterize him, leave Erika in no doubt as to his ident.i.ty. It is Count Hans Treurenberg, an old Austrian friend of her grandmother's. The other, whose profile is turned towards the ladies, is a man of middle height, delicately built, well dressed, although his clothes have not the English _cachet_ that distinguishes Count Treurenberg's, and with a frank, attractive bearing and a clear-cut dark face. Taken all in all, he might be supposed to be a man of the world,--some young relative of the Count's,--were it not for his eyes, strange, gleaming eyes, which after a brief glance at the grandmother are riveted upon the grand-daughter. No mere man of the world ever had such eyes. Meanwhile, Count Treurenberg has turned round.

"Ladies, I kiss your hands!" he exclaims. "You too have employed this fine weather in an excursion: you could not do better."

The old Countess was about to reply, when Treurenberg's companion whispered a few words to him.

"Permit me to present Herr von Lozoncyi," said the Count,--whereupon the old Countess, before Lozoncyi had quite finished his formal obeisance, called out, "I am delighted to know you. I belong among your oldest admirers. Do not misunderstand me: I do not, of course, refer to my own age, but to that of my admiration."

"I am immensely flattered, Frau Countess," Lozoncyi replied, in the gentle, agreeable voice of a Viennese of mixed descent and doubtful nationality. "Might I ask when first I had the good fortune to arouse your interest?"

"How long ago is it, Erika?--five or six years?" asked the old lady.

"You will know."

"Six years ago, I think, grandmother."

"Six years ago, then," the Countess went on. "It was in Berlin, where you were exhibiting two pictures, one before a curtain, the other behind a curtain. I saw both; and I have believed in your talent ever since,--which has not, however, prevented me from being surprised by your last picture in the Circolo artistico."

"You are very kind."

"One thing I should like to know: do you fancy there are trees in full leaf in h.e.l.l?"

"What?--in h.e.l.l?" asked the artist, lifting his eyebrows. "So far as I can tell, I have never pictured h.e.l.l to myself; although I have more than once felt as if I had been there."

"Why, then, did you paint Francesca da Rimini after that fashion?"

"Francesca da Rimini?" Again he looked at her in surprise.

"The picture in the Circolo," the old lady persisted. "But"--and her tone was much cooler--"perhaps I am mistaken, and the picture is not yours?"

"No, no," he replied, laughing. "The picture to which you refer is certainly mine, Countess, but my picture-dealer invented the t.i.tle for it. I never for a moment intended to paint that most attractive of all sinning women."

"What did your picture mean, then?"

"To tell you the truth, I do not know." He said it with an odd smile in which there was some annoyance. "I want to paint a series of pictures under the t.i.tle of 'Mes Cauchemars,'--' Evil Dreams,'--and the thing in the Circolo was to be number one. If I could have dared to challenge comparison with Botticelli,--which I could not,--I should perhaps have called the picture 'Spring.'"

As he spoke, his eyes had continually strayed towards Erika: at last they rested upon her with so uncivilized a stare that she turned away, annoyed, and Count Treurenberg held up his hand as a screen, saying, with a laugh, "Spare your eyes, my dear Lozoncyi: what sort of way is that to gaze upon the sun?"

"You are right, Count," the painter said, rather bluntly; then, turning again to the young girl, he said, in a very different tone, "I am not recalling our meeting in the Calle San Giacomo. If I do not mistake,--I can hardly believe it, but if I do not,--our acquaintance dates from much farther back. Have you a step-father called Strachinsky?"

"Unfortunately, yes," her grandmother replied, dolefully.

"Well, then," he said, eagerly, "I----" He made a sudden pause. "How foolish I am! You must long ago have forgotten what I am remembering."

"No, I have forgotten nothing," Erika replied, lifting her eyes to his with a strange expression of mingled pride and reproach. "I recognized you long ago; but it was not for me to tell you so."

"Countess! Allow me to kiss your hand, in memory of the dear little fairy who brought me good fortune."

"What's all this?" Count Treurenberg asked, inquisitively, and the old Countess as curiously inquired, "Where did you make each other's acquaintance?"

Erika hesitates: a sudden shyness makes her uncertain how to begin the story. Lozoncyi comes to her aid. His narrative is a little masterpiece of pathos and humour. He tells everything; how the Baron--he describes him perfectly in a single phrase--sent him off with an alms,--two kreutzers,--his own indignation, his despair, his hunger, the sudden appearance of the little girl; he describes her sweet little face, her faded gown, her long thin legs in their red stockings, and the basket of food decorated with asters; he describes the landscape, the little brook creeping shyly beneath the huge bridge,--a bridge about as suitable, he declares, as the tomb of Cecilia Metella would be as a monument for a dead dog; he repeats the little fairy's every word, and tells how, finally, she slipped the five guilders into his pocket, a.s.suring him that she knew how terrible it was to be without money.

The old lady and Treurenberg laugh; Erika listens eagerly and with emotion. The story lacks something. Yes, in spite of its minute details, something is missing. Is he keeping it for the conclusion, or does he think it necessary to suppress this detail altogether? Erika is indignant at such discretion. When he has finished, she says, calmly, "You have forgotten one trifling incident, Herr Lozoncyi: you set a price upon your picture of me----" She pauses, and then, coolly surveying her listeners, she goes on, "I had to promise Herr Lozoncyi to give him a kiss for my portrait."

"And may I ask if you kept your word, Countess?" asks Count Treurenberg, laughing.

"Yes," Erika replies, curtly.

"Charming!" exclaims Count Treurenberg. "And, between ourselves, I would not have believed it of you, Countess! You were a lucky fellow, Lozoncyi."

Erika is visibly embarra.s.sed, but Lozoncyi steps a little nearer to her, and says, with a very kindly smile, "What a gloomy face! Ah, Countess, can you regret the alms bestowed upon a poor lad by an infant nine years old? If you only knew how often the memory of your childish kindness has strengthened and encouraged me, you would not grudge it."

The matter could not have been adjusted with more amiable tact, and Erika begins to laugh, and confesses that she has been foolish,--a fact which her grandmother confirms gaily. The old lady is delighted with the little story: the part played therein by Strachinsky gives it an additional relish. She is charmed with Lozoncyi.

They leave the damp, musty library, and go out into the cloisters that encircle the garden of the monastery. The scent of roses is in the air, and from the monastery kitchen comes the odour of freshly-roasted coffee. Count Treurenberg is glad of the opportunity to cover his bald head with his English gray felt hat, and as he does so anathematizes the Western idea of courtesy which makes it necessary for a gentleman to catch cold in his head so frequently. He walks in front with the old Countess, and Erika and Lozoncyi follow. The two old people talk incessantly; the younger couple scarcely speak.

Lozoncyi is the first to break the silence. "Strange, that chance should have brought us together again," he says.

She clears her throat and seems about to speak, but is mute.

"You were saying, Countess----?" he asks, smiling.

"I said nothing."

"You were thinking, then----?"

"Yes, I was thinking, in fact, that it is strange that you should have left it to chance to bring about our meeting." The words are amiable enough, but they sound cold and constrained as Erika utters them.

"Do you imagine that I have made no attempt to find you again, Countess?"