Felix Lanzberg's Expiation Part 22

Erwin lowered his head. "Drinks--drinks!" he murmured with embarra.s.sment but excusingly. "You must not call it that exactly; it is not yet so bad!"

"You--you seem to have known it," cried Elsa, staring at him. He looked away.

Elsa paces twice through the room, her arms crossed on her breast. Her short, unequal breaths can be heard. Then she stops before Erwin; the blood has rushed to her cheeks, and causes there two uneven red spots under her eyes. Her hatred for Linda suddenly bursts forth. "Oh, this repulsive, ordinary, tactless person! How deeply she has dragged him down!" she says, with set teeth.

Erwin, to whom the cause of this unlovely and immoderate anger is wholly inexplicable, is displeasedly silent. This irritates Elsa still more, and in an even more unpleasant tone she continues, "Well, do you, perhaps, doubt that she and only she has ruined Felix by her incredible lack of tact?"

For the first time since Erwin has known his wife he lost patience with her, and shrugging his shoulders, replied, "I find it hard to expect tact from a person who does not suspect the complicated difficulties of her position."

"Erwin!--Erwin!--you--you surely do not believe that Felix would have married Linda without telling her of his circ.u.mstances?" She was now quite pale again, she trembled, her voice sounded weak and hoa.r.s.e. He was terribly sorry for her, at this moment he would have given everything to be silent. He took refuge in vague phrases. "A mere suspicion--I spoke without thinking."

But Elsa shook her head; an indescribable pain curved her lips. "No, Erwin," cried she, "you may not be the demi-G.o.d whom for nine years I have worshiped in you, but you are not capable of saying anything so degrading about my brother upon a mere suspicion. From whom do you know that?"

She stood before him, drawn up to her full height, and looked him in the eyes with an expression which one could not lie to.

"I judge so from questions which she has asked me," he stammers, and immediately adds, hastily, "Certainly Felix would not purposely have concealed the affair from her; he may have told her mother----"

"That is all the same," interrupts Elsa. "His action remains unanswerable, for the first as well as the second time. Erwin, you poor man, into what a family have you married! Why would you have me? I did not wish it--I knew that it would be for no good." She is almost beside herself.

"No good! Think of the nine years which we leave behind us," he replies, gently.

"Think of the twenty, thirty years which we have before us," cries she.

"The sacrifice which you made for me was too great."

"I know of no sacrifice," he replies, warmly. "It is pure childishness which makes you bring that up again. Once for all, Elsa, I would not exchange a life at your side for the most brilliant career--to which, besides, I could scarcely have been called." With these words he goes up to her, and lays his hand gently under her chin to raise her face to his, but she breaks loose from him.

"I thank you," says she, with hateful mockery. She thought of the thousand pretty speeches and charming attentions with which he had satisfied Linda's greedy vanity to-day. She was sick with suppressed jealousy. The bright light which Erwin's communication threw upon Linda's whole manner, and which so excused Linda, and on the other hand, so lowered Felix, mingled a new pain in all her morbid feelings.

She literally no longer knew what she said, her voice became more and more cutting: "I thank you," she repeated. "You are very polite, you have a particular talent for politeness, you are the most charming man I know, but--but, I am sorry you had your way at that time."

"Sorry, Elsa? For G.o.d's sake take that back," cried he. The pain which she had caused him was too deep for him to consider how much of her words were to be ascribed to true conviction, and what to her over-excited nerves.

She shook her head obstinately. "Yes, I am sorry," she continued in her insensate speech. "At that time you could not live without me"--she spoke very bitterly--"yes, you would have been unhappy without me--a month, perhaps a year--who knows?--but then you would have consoled yourself, and it would have been better for you and for me. Good night!" and with head held high, with rigid face and trembling limbs she tottered out of the room.

X.

Marienbad at six o'clock in the morning.

The air is still fresh and fragrant, the long, slanting sunbeams fall between the damp coolness of the woody shadows. The guests crowd along the narrow spring walk, their gla.s.ses in their hands. They form a line before the spring after they have emptied their goblets, considerately turn and conscientiously take exercise.

The sand beneath their feet, moist with the night dew, is of a dark reddish color. On the leaves of the graceful trees sparkle little drops of dew like finest enamel. In the turf which borders the sand walk great drops shine like diamonds. A white mist, too transparent to be called a fog, fills the distance. Thicker and thicker the guests crowd around the spring.

Marienbad is overfull this year. Pleased landlords rub their fat hands, and push up prices to a most unheard-of amount. Guests who have omitted to engage rooms by telegraph can find no decent accommodations, seek shelter in the most miserable private houses, offer gold mines to shoemakers, tailors and glove-makers for one room. A whole excursion trainful pa.s.s the night in the waiting-room.

The daughter of some reigning family, travelling incognito under the name "Comtesse Stip," has engaged the greatest part of the largest hotel for herself and her little prince in Scottish costume. A swarm of distinguished moths from every country has followed the princely light, and a crowd of _parvenus_, like a swarm of insects of the night, has followed the moths, who pa.s.s their time in Marienbad bandying strangely unselfish compliments.

The famous Vienna artists play every evening in the stuffy theatre; princesses and dramatic _coryphees_ meet each other on the spring promenade.

To-day a new animation is displayed by the spring pilgrims. All gaze at a couple who have this morning appeared for the first time upon the promenade. The aristocratic curiosity seems even more awakened than the plebeian, and all the thirty or forty pairs of eyes of Marienbad "society" are fixed upon the same spot--upon the knight of Harfink and his young wife.

"That is the Juanita, the Carini; how badly she is dressed, how fat she has grown, how homely!" goes from mouth to mouth. "And not even an artistic temperament--a woman who could be sensible enough to marry a 'checked' iron founder. When she sees Lanzberg--how he must feel!" Thus says society. Meanwhile, not noticing the voices hissing around her, Juanita, the widowed Marchesa Carini, upright and stiff, with the consequential manner of a retired dancer, walks between the knightly Harfink and his son, beaming with pride and satisfaction.

How she looked fifteen years ago, at the time when she so fatally crossed the path of life of Felix Lanzberg, it would be difficult to determine. Today she looks like all elderly Spaniards, who to our unpractised northern eyes resemble each other almost as much as elderly negresses.

An immoderately fleshy form, not very tall, with high bust, and unnaturally compressed waist, the hands tiny, like accidental appendages to her fat arms, the feet still incomparably beautiful, but too short to support the huge figure, the gait waddling, the face yellow and fat, mouth, eyes, and nose almost hidden by a pair of enormous cheeks--that is Juanita.

She who, in her day, had worn the bandeaux of her nation coming down over her ears, now, probably because this manner of wearing the hair seems to her peasant-like, wears the hair drawn back from her withered temples, falling in black ringlets on her forehead, a hat on the back of her head, a green silk gown and diamonds. Her tiny shoes and stockings are the only parts of her costume which are faultless. The former, charming little black satin affairs, the latter of open-work black silk. In consequence of this, she wears her gown short beyond all bound in front, which increases the width of the whole appearance.

She continually exchanges the most tender, loving glances with her husband, and a happy honeymoon smile illumines her yellow face when he addresses her.

As she uses the cure with the same conscientiousness as he, she stands beside him at the spring. Little Comtesse L----, a lively lady whom nothing escapes, a.s.serts that every time before emptying her goblet, Juanita coquettishly hits it against that of the "retired iron founder."

The "checked iron founder" is a name given Mr. von Harfink on account of his immoderate preference for striking green and blue checked clothes. For two weeks Juanita has borne his name--for two weeks he has known how badly he really fared under Susanna's rule.

The aforesaid Susanna had died a year after Linda's marriage. Linda, who at that time had not fully recovered from Gery's birth, expressed no wish to go to Vienna for her mother's burial or her father's consolation. Mr. von Harfink had been left to bear the heavy loss alone.

At the funeral Baron von Harfink shed many tears into a black-bordered handkerchief, and displayed all the symptoms of honest emotion; after the funeral he fell into a condition of silent apathy. The flame which had given light to his mind was extinguished, all was dark within him.

He felt like an actor of poor memory whose excellent prompter has died.

About a week after the catastrophe, his nearest relatives a.s.sembled at a dinner in his house, with the good-natured view of diverting him. He sat in their midst, silently bent over his plate. They had adjourned to the drawing-room for coffee, and still he had not spoken a word.

"The poor fellow! it has gone harder with him than we thought," the relatives whispered to each other. Then stretching himself comfortably in an arm-chair, and rubbing his stomach, he began, "Ah! things have not tasted so good to me as they did to-day for a long time."

The feeling of an immense relief had awakened in him. No longer to be afraid of making stupid remarks, no longer, when he had put on his favorite checked vest, to be reproved with, "Anton, your vest insults my aesthetic feeling," or, when he had given himself up to the comfortable enjoyment of a favorite dish, to be frightened with, "Anton, a day-laborer is nothing in comparison with you;" to be forced to listen to no more articles from the _Rundschau_ and the _Revue des Deux Mondes_,--it was very pleasant.

Scarcely had Susanna been three weeks in her grave, when Mr. von Harfink stopped the subscriptions to the _Revue_ and its German cousin, the _Rundschau_, retired to his estate, played nine-pins with his brewer and cook, and in his shirt sleeves, ordered those new checked plush vests, and ruined his stomach three times a week.

Soon he displayed the most peculiar matrimonial intentions. He made love to the former companion of his deceased wife, an elderly spinster with thin hair and a very deep feeling for a blond theology student who, at that time in Magdeberg, sued for her hand.

The improbable occurred; the companion refused the knight and his three millions, although after his death a settlement of seven hundred thousand guldens was a.s.sured her.

The family was astonished at this unexpected unselfishness, and from thankfulness, and to prevent the romantic maiden from changing her mind later, married her to her student, with a splendid dowry.

After they had met this model of prudence, the relations wrung their hands. If the charms of a forty-year-old, half bald companion had almost brought him to the altar, how should they protect him from a _mesalliance_?

Only by the sharpest oversight was Mr. von Harfink prevented from marrying his housekeeper. Fearful conflicts burst forth on his estate--the castle became an inn.

"Susie must have been cleverer than I accredited her with being," once remarked Eugene von Rhoeden, who indifferently looked on upon his relative's movements. "It certainly takes skill to govern the rhinoceros. None of you equal her!"

At length the relatives were weary, and left Baron von Harfink to the guidance of his son, that is, to his fate. Raimund was far too much engaged in cultivating his high C to watch his father. The poor young man, who had been destined by his mother to be a genius, at this time suffered from deep depression. He had failed everywhere--at the university, on the stage, finally in literature.

After long efforts, he had obtained an engagement in a Bohemian watering-place, and under the stage name of Remondo Monte-chiaro, had sung Raoul in a beautiful pale violet costume of real silk velvet.

The audience hissed and laughed; he sprained his ankle by the leap from the window, and appeared no more.

Then he prepared a comedy which fell through in P----, an accident which he attributed to the lack of cultivation of the audience there; then he wrote essays upon the love affair of George Sand and Alfred de Musset, the murder of the amba.s.sador at Rastadt, and the Iron Mask.