Debit and Credit Part 58

Herr von Tarow's eyes tried hard to look dove-like as he went on to say, "The fellow must be concealed somewhere about."

"Possibly somewhere very near," said Anton, casting a significant glance at the mean-looking buildings around.

Our hero looked in vain among the gentlemen present for the stranger he had previously seen, and charitably attributed to him good reasons for wishing to remain unseen by German eyes. However, to make up for him, there was another gentleman of a striking aspect, who seemed to be treated with especial respect. "They come and go, a.s.semble and disperse," thought Anton, "just as the landlord said; there is a whole band of them to feel anxious about, not merely a few individuals." At that moment the stranger came up and began a courteous conversation.

However unstudied the speaker's manner might appear, yet Anton remarked that he led the conversation, with the view of extracting his opinions and feelings as a German. This made him reserved; and the Pole, finding him so, soon lost his interest in him, and turned to the ladies.

Anton had now time to look about him. A Vienna piano-forte stood amid furniture evidently made by the village carpenter, and near the sofa a tattered carpet was spread over the black boards. The ladies sat on velvet seats around a worn-out table. The mistress of the house and her grown-up daughters had elegant Parisian toilettes; but a side door being casually opened, Anton caught a sight of some children running about in the next room so scantily clothed that he heartily pitied them. They, however, did not seem to feel the cold, and were screaming and fighting like little demons.

A fine damask table-cloth was now laid on the unsteady table, and a silver tea-kettle put down. The conversation went on most pleasantly.

Graceful French bon mots and animated exclamations in melodious Polish blended occasionally with an admixture of quiet German. The sudden bursts of laughter, the gestures and the eagerness, all showed Anton that he was among foreigners. They spoke rapidly, and excitement shone in their eyes and reddened their cheeks.

They were a more excitable people, more elastic, and more impressionable than his countrymen. Anton remarked with amazement how perfectly Lenore seemed in her element among them. Her face, too, grew flushed; she laughed and gesticulated like the rest; and her eyes looked, he thought, boldly into the courteous faces of the gentlemen present. The same smile, the same hearty, natural manner that she had enchanted him with, when alone, she now lavished upon strangers, who had acted as highwaymen against her father's interests. This displeased him to the utmost. Then the saloon, so incongruous in its arrangements, the carpet dirty and torn, the children in the next room barefooted, and the master of the house the secret patron of a dishonest rogue, and perhaps worse still!

Anton contented himself with coldly looking on, and said as little as he possibly could.

At last a young gentleman struck a few chords on the piano, and all sprang up and voted for a dance. The lady of the house rang, four wild-looking men rushed into the room, s.n.a.t.c.hed up the grand piano, and carried it off. The whole party swept through the hall to an apartment opposite. Anton was tempted to rub his eyes as he entered it. It was an empty room, with rough-cast walls, benches around them, and a frightful old stove in a corner. In the middle, linen was hung on lines to dry.

Anton could hardly suppose they meant to dance here; but the linen was torn down by one servant in the twinkling of an eye, while another ran to the stove, and was equally expeditious in blowing up the fire, and in a very few moments six couples stood up for a quadrille. As there was a lady wanting, a young count, with a black beard like velvet, and a wondrously beautiful pair of blue eyes, bound his cambric handkerchief round his arm, and with a graceful courtesy announced himself a lady. He was immediately led out by another gentleman. Their dancing, in spite of its fashionable character, betrayed at times the fire and impetuosity of their race. Lenore threw herself into it heart and soul.

Meanwhile the baroness was conversing with great animation with her host, and Frau von Tarow made it her occupation to amuse the baron.

Here, then, were all the social forms, the keen enjoyment of the present, which Anton had so often admired, but now they only excited a cold smile. It did not seem to him creditable that a German family should be on terms of such intimacy with recent enemies--people who were probably at this very time plotting against them and their country.

Accordingly, when the first dance was over, and Lenore, pa.s.sing him, asked why he did not dance with her, he replied, "I am every moment expecting to see Bratzky's face appear in some corner of the room."

"We will not think of him at present," returned Lenore, turning away offended.

Dance followed dance, the heads of the young people swam, their curls hung down damp, and relaxed with their exertions. Another rush of bearded domestics, and iced Champagne was brought in. The dancers tossed it off standing, and immediately a cry rose on all sides for a Polish mazurka--the national dance. Now, then, the dresses fluttered wide and high; the dancers positively flew along; the ladies were tossed like b.a.l.l.s from one partner's arm to another; and Lenore, alas! in the midst of it all.

Anton stood near the distinguished Pole, carrying on a spiritless conversation, and coldly listened to the praises the former liberally bestowed on the German dancer. The rapid movements and strong excitement that were natural to the Polish girls made Lenore wild, and, Anton regretted to see, unfeminine; and his glance wandered away from her to the rough walls, the dusty stove, in which an immense f.a.got was burning, and the ceiling, from which long gray cobwebs hung down.

It was late before the baroness broke up the party. The furs were brought in, the guests were wrapped therein, and the little bells sounded again cheerily over the snowy scene. But Anton was glad that Lenore now drove her father, and that he had to take care of the baroness. Silently he guided the sledge, thinking all the while that another whom he knew would never have swung to and fro in the mazes of the mazurka beneath the fluttering cobwebs, and in the house of her country's foes.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

Mr. Itzig was now regularly established in business. Whoever visited him pa.s.sed through a much-frequented hall, and went up a not entirely clean staircase, at the head of which was a white door, on which a great plate revealed the name of "V. Itzig." This door was closed. It had a very ma.s.sive China handle, and was altogether much more suggestive and imposing than Ehrenthal's had been. Pa.s.sing through this door, the visitor entered an empty lobby, in which a shrewd youth spent the day as half porter, half errand-boy, and a spy besides. This youth differed from the original Itzig only by a species of shabby gentility in his appearance. He wore his master's old clothes--shining silk waistcoats, and a coat a little too large for him. He showed, in short, that the new firm was more advanced in matters of taste and toilette than the in many respects commonplace establishment of Ehrenthal. The visitor, advancing through the lobby, was received by Mr. Itzig in one of two small rooms, of which the first contained little furniture, but two strikingly handsome lamps--a temporary security for the unpaid interest of a note of hand. The second was his sleeping apartment; in it were a simple bed, a long sofa, and a large round mirror, with a broad gilt frame, an acquisition from the secret stores of the worthy Pinkus. Itzig himself was marvelously changed, and on dark days, in his dimly-lighted office, he might really--looked at from a little distance--have almost pa.s.sed for a gentleman. His haggard face had filled out, his great freckles had faded away, and his red hair, through much pomade and skillful brushing, had grown darker and more manageable. He had still a preference for black; but his clothes were new now, and fitted him better; for Mr.

Itzig had acquired a taste for externals. He no longer grudged himself good food--nay, he even allowed himself wine. Yet, insignificant as his new establishment was, Itzig only used it at night and during office-hours. His inclinations still led him to his old haunts at Lobel Pinkus's. Thus he led a double life--that of a respectable man of business in his newly-painted office, beneath the glare of his solar lamps; and when in the caravanserai, which fitted his taste far better, a modest sort of life, with red woolen curtains, and a four-cornered chest for a sofa. Perhaps this shelter suited him so exactly, because of his uncontested influence over the master of the house. Pinkus, to his shame be it spoken, had sunk into a mere tool of Veitel's, and his wife, too, was devoted in her allegiance to the rising man.

On the present occasion Itzig sat carelessly on his sofa, and smoked a pipe with an amber mouth-piece. He was completely the gentleman, and expected a visitor of distinction. The bell rang, the servant flew to the door, and a sharp voice was heard. Next there arose a dispute in the lobby, which moved Veitel to shut up his writing-table in all haste, and to put the key into his pocket.

"Not at home, indeed! He is at home, you wretched greenhorn you!" cried the sharp voice to the guardian of the door. Next some resisting body was heard to be thrust on one side. Veitel buried himself in an old mortgage. The door opened, and Hippus appeared, red-faced and much ruffled. He had never looked more like an old raven.

"So you deny yourself, do you? You tell that grub yonder to send away old friends! Of course, you are become quite genteel, you fool! Did one ever meet with such barefaced ingrat.i.tude? Because the fellow has swindled himself into two fine rooms, his former a.s.sociates are no longer good enough for him! But you have reckoned without your host, my boy, as far as I am concerned; I am not to be got rid of so easily."

Veitel looked at the angry little man before him with an expression of countenance by no means friendly.

"Why did you make a scene with the young man?" he said, coldly; "he has done nothing wrong. I was expecting a visitor on business, and I gave orders to exclude all strangers. How could I know that you would be coming? Have we not settled that you should only visit me in the evening? Why do you disturb me during my business hours?"

"Your business hours, you young gosling, with your sh.e.l.l still hanging about you!" cried Hippus, still more irate, and threw himself on the sofa. "Your business hours!" he continued, with infinite contempt; "any hours are good enough for your business."

"You are drunk again, Hippus," answered Veitel, thoroughly roused. "How often have I told you that I will have nothing to do with you when you come out of the spirit-shop?"

"Indeed!" cried Hippus; "you son of a witch, my visit is at all times an honor to you. I drunk!" he hiccoughed out; "and with what, you jack-pudding you? How is a man to get drunk," he screamed out, "when he has not wherewithal to pay for a gla.s.s?"

"I knew that he was without money again," said Veitel, in exasperation.

"I gave you a dollar quite lately, but you are a perfect sponge. It is a pity to waste a farthing upon you."

"You will prove, though, that it is not at all a pity," answered the old man, tauntingly; "you will give me ten dollars here on the spot."

"That I will not," cried Veitel. "I am sick of supplying you. You know our agreement; you are only to have money given you when you do something for me in return. And now you are not in a condition either to read or write."

"I am always good enough for you and such as you, even if I had had a ten times better breakfast," said the old man, more calmly. "Give me what you have got for me to do. You are become a covetous rascal, but I'll put up with you. I will forgive your having denied yourself; I will forgive your having become a presumptuous a.s.s--making a show with lamps that were meant for your betters; and I will not deprive you of my advice, provided, be it understood, I duly get my honorarium. And so we will make peace, my son. Now tell me what deviltry you have in hand."

Veitel pushed a thick parchment toward him, and said, "First of all, you must look over that, write me out an abstract of it, and tell me what you think of it. It has been offered me for sale. Now, however, I am expecting some one, so you must go into the other room, sit down at the table, and get through your task. When it is done we will talk about the money."

Mr. Hippus took the heavy deed under his arm and steered toward the door.

"To-day I am going to oblige you again, because you are a good boy,"

said he, affectionately, lifting his hand to pat Veitel on the cheek.

Veitel tolerated the caress, and was going to shut the door, when the drunken old man turned round once more, and inquired with a cunning leer, "So you expect some one, my child? Whom do you expect, little Itzig? Is it a lad or a lady?"

"It is a money-matter," said Veitel, shrugging his shoulders.

"A money-matter!" repeated Hippus, with tender approbation of his a.s.sociate. "Ay, you are great in them--an accomplished swindler. Truly he who gets money from you is lost; it were better for him to jump into the water at once, though water is a despicable element, you confounded little swindler you!" And, raising his head, he fixed his swimming eyes affectionately on Veitel.

"And yet you yourself are come to get money from me," replied Veitel, with a forced smile.

"Yes, I am determined," said Hippus, stammering. "I am not flesh and blood! I am Hippus! I am Death!" and he tried to laugh intelligently.

The door-bell rang. Veitel desired him to keep quiet, shut the door upon him, took up his amber pipe, and awaited his visitor.

A sword was heard to clatter in the lobby--a hussar officer came in.

Eugene Rothsattel had become a little older since the last winter, his fine face was more haggard, and he had a blue ring round his eyes. He put on an appearance of indifference, which did not deceive Mr. Itzig for a single second, for behind that mask his experienced glance detected the fever peculiar to hard-pressed debtors.

"Mr. Itzig?" inquired the officer de haut en bas.

"Such is my name," said Veitel, rising carelessly from the sofa. Eugene looked at him uneasily. This was the very man against whom his father had been warned, and now fate had driven him into the same snare. "I have to pay a debt in the course of the next few days to certain agents," began the lieutenant, "gentlemen of your acquaintance. When I proposed to hold a consultation with them, I was informed by both that they had sold their claims to you."

"I bought them unwillingly," replied Itzig. "I am not fond of having any thing to do with military men. Here are two notes of hand, one for eleven hundred, and the other for eight hundred, making a total of nineteen hundred dollars. Do you recognize these signatures as yours?"

he coldly inquired, producing the doc.u.ments; "and do you acknowledge nineteen hundred to be the sum borrowed by you?"

"I suppose it must be about that," said the lieutenant, reluctantly.

"I ask whether you acknowledge that to be the sum that you have to pay me on these notes of hand?"

"In the devil's name, yes," cried the lieutenant. "I own the debt, though I did not receive the half of it in cash."