Felix Lanzberg's Expiation Part 18

After dinner--Miss Sidney has gone into the garden with Litzi to play grace hoops--the husband and wife sit vexedly silent in the drawing-room, when a servant presents a letter to Erwin from Traunberg. Elsa has at once perceived that it is in Linda's, not in Felix's handwriting. Erwin has opened it, apparently indifferently, then suddenly the blood rushes to his cheeks, almost violently he throws the letter away, kneels before Elsa and takes both her hands in his. "How could I forget the 27th? Elsa, are you very angry with me?"

he cries.

It would be hard to remain angry with him, if he had not been reminded of his duty by just Linda. But this vexes Elsa so much that she answers his warm glance and pleasant smile only with a cool "Why should I be angry?" as indifferently and calmly as if the 27th no more concerned her than the date of the battle of Leipzig.

"Had you forgotten, also?" he asks, wounded.

"Forgotten?--what?" asks she, dully.

"That to-day is my lucky day--the loveliest day of all the year for me?

Oh, Elsa! Has it become indifferent to you?"

His voice goes deep to her heart, but she is ashamed to be so moved by his first warm words--is ashamed to show him how his forgetfulness has pained her. In proud fear of having shown too much feeling, she hardens her heart, and with the peculiar histrionic talent which is at the disposal of most women in critical moments, and which they love to display, so as to thereby ruin the happiness of their life, she says calmly, pleasantly, half laughingly: "Ah, indeed!--I should tease you for your lack of memory!"

"Elsa!" confused and surprised he looks in her eyes. "Do you not remember how we have always valued the day; do you not remember the first year? You had forgotten it, then?--and when I put the ring on your finger--perhaps you do not wear it any longer?"

"Oh, yes;" and Elsa looks down at the large diamond which sparkles like a dewdrop or a tear near her wedding-ring.

"Well, you were ashamed, then, not to have thought of me," he continued, "and then--then you repeated to me, half crying, half laughing, very tenderly a little childish wish: 'Had I an empire I would lay it at thy feet, alas, I can offer you nothing but a kiss,' do you not remember, Elsa?"

But Elsa only replies coldly, almost mockingly: "It is very long ago--hm! What does Linda write to you besides that to-day is the 27th?"

"I have not read all of her letter, read it yourself if you wish," and with that he hands his wife the letter.

Elsa at first struggles with herself, but then she reads it, and half aloud:

Dear Erwin:--It is really too charming in you to so kindly gratify my thoughtless wish. Many, many thanks for the beautiful White d.u.c.h.ess.

Felix just tells me that to-day is the 27th, a day on which you will have no pleasure in playing lawn-tennis with me. You might perhaps force yourself to come so as not to vex me, solitary as I am now.

Therefore I release you from your promise. Kiss Elsa for me, and, with most cordial greetings, Sincerely yours, Linda Lanzberg.

"How well she writes," says Elsa, who is sorry that she can find nothing to complain of in the letter, and with the firm resolve not to let her jealousy be perceived in the slightest, she continues: "I should be sorry if our foolish lovers' traditions should prevent you from amusing yourself a little, my poor Erwin." She had taken up some fancy work and seemed to ponder over a difficulty in it. "Pray go over to Traunberg and invite Linda to dinner Sunday."

Erwin gazes angrily before him. "You send me away, Elsa--you--to-day--on our wedding-day?" says he then, slowly.

She laughs lightly and threads a fresh needle. "Ah! do not be childish, Erwin," cries she. "It is not suited to our age now."

He pulls the bell rope violently. "Elsa," he whispers once more before the servant enters, but with such intolerable cordiality she says, "Well, Erwin?" that he turns away his head and calls to the servant, who just then appears, "Tell Franz to saddle my horse."

XVII.

A small room with large windows opening on the park, innumerable flowers in vases of different forms standing about the room, a perfume as intoxicating and painfully sweet as poison which gives one death in a last rapture; on the walls, hung with silver-worked rococo damask, a few rare pictures, only five or six; two Greuze heads with red-kissed lips and tear-reddened eyes, eyes which look up to heaven because earth has deceived them; then a Corot, a spring landscape, where dishevelled nymphs dance a wild round with dry leaves which winter has left; a Watteau, in which women, in the bouffant paniers of the time of the regents, with bared bosoms and hair drawn high up on their heads, touch gla.s.ses of champagne with gallant cavaliers, a picture in which everything smiles, and which yet makes one deeply mournful; a picture in which men and women, especially women, seem to have no heart, no soul, no enjoyment on earth, no belief in heaven; but in deepest _ennui_ float about like b.u.t.terflies, tormented by the curse of the consciousness that their life lasts only from sunrise to sunset; a Rembrandt, a negress, brutally healthy, b.e.s.t.i.a.lly stupid, with dull glance, broad, hungry lips, huge, homely, and wholly satisfied with herself and creation; about the room soft, inviting furniture; no dazzling light, pale reddish reflections; draperies in Roman style, artistic knick-knacks and soft rugs--this is what Erwin finds as, pushing aside the drawn portieres, he enters Linda's boudoir without announcement.

Amid these surroundings she sits at an upright piano, and softly and dreamily sings an Italian love-song.

Erwin comes close up to the piano. "Ah!" cries she, springing up. It would be impossible not to see what unusual pleasure his visit gives her. Her eyes shine, and a faint blush pa.s.ses over her cheeks. "Erwin, did you not receive my letter?" she cries almost shyly, and gives him a soft hand which trembles and grows warm in his.

"Certainly," he replies. "It was very nice in you to consider our foo----" in spite of all the bitterness which for the moment he feels toward Elsa, he cannot use the byword foolish, and rather says--"little traditions. I only came for a moment, I----" he hesitates. "Elsa hopes that you will do us the pleasure of dining with us Sunday."

"Sunday?" repeats Linda, letting her fingers wander absently in dreamy preluding over the keys.

"Have you planned anything else?" asked Erwin, who had meanwhile taken a very comfortable chair.

"What should I have planned?" asked she, shrugging her pretty shoulders. "No, no, I will come gladly. You are very good to me, Erwin, and I am inexpressibly thankful to you."

A strangely exaggerated feeling was in her accent, in her moist glance, and the quick gesture with which she stretched out both hands to him.

"Where is Felix?" he asked, turning the conversation.

"Felix is, I believe, over in Lanzberg," she answered. "He has 'something to attend to.' He always has 'something to attend to' when I expect people," she added, bitterly. "It makes my position so uncommonly easy, Erwin! Can you account for his behavior? Would you, if you had once resolved to choose a wife of unequal birth, afterward be so pa.s.sionately ashamed of her as Felix is?"

"How can you talk so foolishly, Linda?" Erwin interrupted the young wife, uneasily.

"Foolishly!" Linda shook her head with discouragement. "If you only saw him! Lately he made a scene before I could be permitted to accept the Deys' invitation; then, at the last moment, he had a headache, and expressed the wish that I should join Elsa and go without him."

"Strange idea to hang this monster in your pretty rococo nest!" cried Erwin, growing more and more embarra.s.sed, and abruptly changing the conversation from Felix to the Rembrandt negress.

"The monster pleases me, I like contrasts--but to return to Felix----"

"You expect Pistasch and Sempaly, do you not?"

"They wished to come this evening--alas--I could renounce their society; to-day I should like greatly to confide in you, Erwin. You are the only person who is sorry for me."

There was a pause in the conversation of the two. Without, a murmur like a sigh of love sounds through the trees, and a few withered rose-leaves are blown into the room. Erwin's glance rests dreamily upon the young woman. She pleases him in somewhat the same manner as the Greuze head on the wall; no, differently--there is always something dead about a picture. A picture is either a recollection preserved in colors or a dream, and has the charm of a recollection, of a dream; while Linda has the charm of a foreboding, of a riddle, and above all things, the charm of life, of full young life.

Then a carriage approaches. "Pistasch and Sempaly," cries Erwin, looking out of the window and seizing his hat. "On Sunday, eh, Linda?"

says he in a tone of farewell.

"Now you run away from me just like Felix," cries she, pouting. "Please stay; it is so unpleasant for me to receive young people without a protector."

And he stays.

"You have come late; we have scarcely three-quarters of an hour of daylight left."

With these words, spoken in a very indifferent tone, Linda receives the young men. "Shall we set about it at once?" she continues.

The lawn-tennis court is in a broad flat meadow in the park. The ground is not yet dry from yesterday's rain, still the players are unwearied, Erwin, after a short time, as animated as the others. He competes vigorously with Pistasch, whose skill he soon surpa.s.ses, and enjoys the society of the two agreeable and to-day good-tempered young men, who are both old acquaintances of his.

Pistasch in old times he has pulled by the ear, paid his youthful debts, and on holidays taken him away from the Theresanium; with Scirocco, who is but little younger than Erwin himself, he has taken an Oriental trip, they were both overturned in the same drag, both raved over the same dancer, etc.

Merry reminiscences pa.s.s between the players almost as quickly as the tennis b.a.l.l.s, and Linda encourages all these reminiscences most charmingly; her smile lends a new spice to the play and the conversation.

Erwin is of a much too lovable nature, is far too much occupied with the happiness of others and too little with his own, to think of what might have been if he had not, for love of Elsa, renounced the world.