Felix Lanzberg's Expiation Part 10

IX.

About a week after the conversation between Erwin and Elsa, recorded in the last chapter, a bowed man appeared in Steinbach whom at first Elsa did not recognize, but into whose arms she fell with a cry when he stretched out two trembling hands to her with a sad smile. She had forgotten his unsuitable behavior; every bitter word which she had p.r.o.nounced against him fell heavily on her heart; she no longer felt anything for him but boundless, compa.s.sionate love. The sight of him shocked her, his hair had grown gray, his voice hoa.r.s.e. An anxious habit of raising his shoulders, and pressing his elbows against his ribs, that shy manner of poor tutors and other despised individuals, who seem to strive to make themselves as small as possible, to deprive others of as little room as they can--lent his figure a sickly, narrow-chested look. He spoke a great deal, with forced fluency, often repeating himself. He whom for so long Elsa had at most only heard laugh fondly at Litzi's little wise sayings, now laughed continually, loudly and harshly at the slightest provocation, whereupon the wrinkles grew deeper in his face, the shadows under his eyes darker. Often after such an outburst of nervous hilarity, his face suddenly grew flabby, as if wearied by too great exertion, and for a moment displayed the stony features, the rigid pain of one who has died a hard death.

He had travelled in advance of his wife, who was staying with friends at the Italian lakes, in order to prepare everything for her reception.

He talked a great deal about his son, whom he could not bring to Elsa because the day was cold, and the little fellow was somewhat hoa.r.s.e.

All the little habits of the child, his manner of p.r.o.nouncing words, he told his patiently listening sister.

His voice sounded sadder than ever when he spoke of the child, and from time to time he sighed, "Poor boy, poor boy!"

"What he must have suffered!" sobbed Elsa, when she was alone again with Erwin. "What he must have suffered!"

Yes, what he had suffered! Not even those who saw the evident traces of suffering in this thin, gray, feverish man, could imagine the greatness of his misery, could judge the darkness of his soul which his intercourse with the world had caused.

Immediately after the intoxication of the honeymoon, even during the wedding trip, which at Linda's wish they had made to Egypt, when he began to learn to know his wife, he came to the sad conviction that the most trivial acquaintance would have offered him as much distraction as this marriage. Pretty, coquettish, graceful, seductive. Linda was all these, but she had absolutely no mind. Like all narrow women without intelligence she became, after continued acquaintance, tiresome.

Incessantly occupied with the ambition to appear a true aristocrat, in whom one could not perceive the _parvenue_, she had no room for other thoughts. Her joy at being now a "Lanzberg" was fairly nave. He really could not be angry with her when she displayed her little vanities to him. She wished to flatter him. He looked at her compa.s.sionately at such times and turned away his head.

From Cairo she had dragged him to Paris. There, at first, they had led an irregular, stranger life, with half-packed trunks in the Grand Hotel, went to the theatre and drove in the Bois de Boulogne. Linda for a while was satisfied with the acquaintances which she made in the hotel reading-room, at the skating-rink, etc. Felix always avoided a _table a'hote_, which Linda, even if the _tete-a-tete_ meals were at times a bore to her, never opposed, as an elegant custom.

Then she was one day accidentally asked by one of her friends whether she should attend the last _soiree_ of the Austrian amba.s.sador. A pang went through Linda's heart. She enveloped her denial of the simple question in a confusion of excuses and explanations--she had only recently married, she had not yet thought of paying visits. Scarcely was she alone with Felix when she asked him if he knew the amba.s.sador.

Yes, Felix knew him, but had not seen him for years. Naturally Linda ascribed his evident objection to visiting His Excellency to the shyness which his _mesalliance_ caused in him. A scene followed, tears, cutting remarks--headache.

The next morning, Felix stood mournfully before one of Froment-Meurice's windows and asked himself whether he should not buy his wife a diamond cl.u.s.ter of wheat to calm her anger, when some one seized his arm and cried, "Why, how are you, Felix?"

Felix turned, discovered an old friend, who, many years younger, had served a degree lower in the same regiment with him at that time.

Now the friend was attache at the emba.s.sy, and a favorite with the Parisian ladies, a gay, hot-blooded comrade for whom some one had found the nickname, "Scirocco." "How are you, Felix?" he cried a second time, offering his former comrade his hand.

Felix started. No one in all Austria knew his story better than this very Scirocco, and Scirocco offered him his hand.

"Thank you, Rudi," he murmured softly. "It is very good in you to still remember me."

Poor Scirocco grew very hot and uncomfortable. Lovable and impulsive, he had spoken to Felix without thinking for a moment how hard it is to a.s.sociate with "such a man." Felix looked so miserable, so depressed that Scirocco would have told all the lies which might occur to him to talk him out of his sadness.

"I was going to run after you in the Bois the other day," he went on, "but you were walking with your wife, and I did not wish to intrude.

_Sapristi!_ How long have you been married? Here in foreign parts one loses all Austrian news. Your wife is a sensational beauty. Do not take it amiss that I do not even know who she is. I absolutely do not remember to have seen any one who could remind me of this fairy-like apparition a few years ago in short clothes."

"You certainly never knew her," replied Felix. "She is the daughter of a Viennese manufacturer--Harfink."

"Ah!" Somewhat robbed of his self-possession Scirocco, hastily leading the conversation from an unpleasant subject, stumbles upon yet more dangerous topics. "Do you live in jealous honeymoon solitude, do you not go out at all?"

Felix looks pleadingly at him. "You know that I cannot go out," he murmurs.

And Scirocco hurries over that--he will not understand. "Nonsense!" he cries. "People are wiser here than with us at home. Mind and beauty count for as much as n.o.bility." Poor Scirocco, he was never guilty of a more trivial plat.i.tude. "You must take your wife to the X's," he continued.

X was the amba.s.sador at that time. "Never!" said Felix, violently. They had reached the Grand Hotel now.

"When may I call upon your wife?" asked Scirocco.

Felix had averted his face from his former friend. "When you wish, Rudi," he murmured, then, suddenly turning towards him, "G.o.d reward you for your kindness, but do not force yourself."

Scirocco saw that tears rolled over the cheeks of the "certain Lanzberg."

Scirocco did not philosophize over the weakness of his former comrade, he was far too deeply shocked. The result of his great cordiality to Felix was an uneasy conscience, the feeling that with the best intentions he had acted with a want of tact, and the need of inflicting punishment upon some one for Felix's tears. "Poor Felix! such a splendid fellow!" he murmured to himself.

Scirocco, whom we must introduce to our readers by his name Count Sempaly, was noted for his good-natured precipitation and thoughtless generosity, by which he was often subsequently forced pitilessly to harshness which would be spared a less lovable but more prudent man.

For instance, at one time there was the American Smythe, who had been guilty of a breach of etiquette in a Parisian circle at cards, and whom society had avoided, without harshness, with the a.s.surance that he had a.s.suredly been only stupid. They bowed to him on the street, they invited him to large entertainments, but they hoped that he would not accept the invitations; they cut him dead when he accepted them.

Then there was the Marquis de Coup de Foudre, who was accused of cheating on the race-track, and who, from indignation--hm!--retired from the track. He was not wholly given up, but every one would only see him as far off as his neighbor did, in the beautiful bond of mutual responsibility which holds society together.

Then finally there was Lady Jane Nevermore, who had permitted herself several little irregularities with her husband, and who now, divorced, with a grown daughter, rendered Paris and Nice uneasy.

How he had defended these people, with what deep respect, with what sympathy he had spoken of them--showed himself with them on public occasions, made good all their lack of tact (people in an uncertain social position always develop a particular genius for this). He lent them more of his shadow than the devoted Bendel lent his master, Peter Schemil, procured the widest social credit for them.

He made a legion of enemies, but the clouds which rested on Lady Jane, Coup de Foudre and Smythe--their names here stand for many--rested on him. People said at last that he must have his reasons for defending these people. Weary, angry, he then suddenly withdrew from his _proteges_, whom by this he injured much more than he had benefited, and who now could, without opposition, proclaim their social bankruptcy.

Like many foolhardy heroes, at the last moment he was forced to beat a shameful retreat, when a perfectly respectable withdrawal would have been possible before.

But with however a wounded heart he might return from his campaign against public opinion, he always ventured into battle again.

After this philosophical interlude, we would perhaps do better to return to Scirocco, who is meanwhile breakfasting in the "Cafe Riche."

He was not hungry--he pondered. Lanzberg's fall did not in the least remind one of Smythe's, Coup de Foudre's, or Lady Jane's. In regard to these people, to a certain extent, prejudice had been justified, as if prejudice is not always to a certain extent justified!

Scirocco's pondering ended in the resolution to launch Lanzberg in Parisian society as one launches an unpopular _debutante_ of the theatre.

The next day he called upon Linda, and the day after Count X---- paid his visit.

How high she held her head among her acquaintances of the reading-room and skating-rink: "X----, an old friend of my husband," etc., etc.

She took an apartment in the Avenue de l'Imperatrice, an apartment with a large cold _salon_ which was distinguished by gilded mouldings and white walls, pink doors, conventional chairs, and sky-blue satin upholstering. Linda very soon understood that this dazzling elegance, which at first had blinded her inexperienced eyes, was intolerably "_dentiste_," as they say on the Boulevard.

She surrounded herself with old brocades, with modern bronzes, with Smyrna rugs--an irregular confusion of picturesque treasures whose unsuitableness justified the temporary look of the whole establishment.

Scirocco helped her in everything. He found out auction sales in the Hotel Drouot for her, stood for half the afternoon on an old Flemish chair, to drive a nail with his own hands in the wall for her to hang a Diaz or a Corot upon--procured all the invitations for her which she wished--in short, was unweariedly obliging, and, _nota bene_, he only paid her enough attention to make her the fashion.

She was clever enough to take with him the good-natured, brusque tone of a woman who may permit herself little liberties because she is sure of her heart and of the respect of the man with whom she a.s.sociates.

She lived in the seventh heaven. To drive every day, leave orders with Worth and Fanet, not to dine at home a single day, to attend two b.a.l.l.s and three routs in one night, never to have a moment for reflection, to be always out of breath with pleasure, and besides this, to be surrounded by a crowd of young men with distinguished attractions and fine names, animated by the consciousness that for her sake an attache, in despair over her virtuous harshness, had had himself transferred to Persia--oh! in her romantic boarding-school dreams she had never suspected such a lovely life.

And Felix.