Gloria Victis! Part 23

"In verse?" Georges asked innocently.

"Georges! As head of the family I desire to be treated with more respect," said Oswald, laughing.

"Oh, it occurred to me, only because you were making so many corrections," rejoined Georges.

"The thing is quite difficult--it must be so worded that Gabrielle shall understand it,--and the telegraph operators shall not; I cannot manage it."

"Suppose you refresh your powers with a gla.s.s of sherry," proposed Georges, taking down an appetizing lunch-basket from the rack above his head, and drawing forth a bottle and three wine-gla.s.ses.

The wine had a decidedly soporific effect upon the three travellers.

Truyn's political excitement was soothed, and after drinking to a better future, all three leaned back in silence.

Truyn pondered upon the shy, timid confession that his wife had made to him that morning early, very early, as they were sauntering together in the park, while the sun's first slant rays were breaking through the shrubbery, and the morning-dew was still glittering on the meadows.

"The whole earth seems bathed in tears of delicious joy," his young wife had whispered, and then through her own happy tears she had begged him to give her a 'really large sum' from her own money that she might make some of the poor people on the estate happy too.

Gradually his thoughts wandered, and grew vague; the sounds of railway bells, and the shrill whistle of the engine, the grating voices of conductors, and the monotonous whirr of wheels mingled, subsided, and died away; his latest impressions faded, and, instead of the green park of Rautschin, a dim Roman street rises upon his mental vision, with a procession of masked torch-bearers accompanying a coffin;--the picture changes, the Roman street is transformed to a lofty hall so tragically solemn that the sunbeams lose their smile as they enter the high windows and glide pale and wan through the twilight gloom to die at the feet of ancient statues. He looks about him, lost in surprise and wondering where is he?--in the tomb of the Medici?--or among the monuments of the melancholy gray church of Santa Croce? No, he suddenly recollects it is the Bargello, and yon white marble, that gleams through the dim religious light in such lifelike, or rather deathlike, beauty, revealing, as it lies outstretched, such clear-cut, nay, such sharp outlines, and the n.o.ble attenuation of youth, eager and fiery, is Michael Angelo's 'dead Adonis,' the ideal embodiment of the springtime of manhood crushed in its bloom. Anon vapour curls upward, and the crimson flicker of torches plays over the white statue, the masked torch-bearers stand around it, a wailing chant echoes through the hall--who is it lying there listlessly, with the ineffable charm of a fair young form, which death has suddenly s.n.a.t.c.hed, before the poison of disease has wasted and deformed it?--

Truyn started, broad awake, every pulse throbbing.--Merciful G.o.d! how could he dream anything so horrible! Oswald sat opposite, with eyes half-closed, an extinguished cigarette in his hand. His face wore the expression of absolute content which is so often strangely seen on the face of the dead and which none except the dead ever wear, save the few, who, by G.o.d's grace, have been permitted to behold Heaven upon earth. Truyn could not away with a sensation of painful anxiety.

"For Heaven's sake, Ossi, open your eyes!" he exclaimed.

"What is the matter?" asked Oswald.

"Nothing," said Truyn, "only...." at that moment the train stopped.

"Pemik!" shouted the conductor, "ten minute's stop," and then opening the coupe door he politely informed the travellers that another coupe was now at their service.

CHAPTER II.

Pernik is the junction of several railway lines, trains coming from two separate watering-places connect here with trains from Prague, and set free the travellers who have tried the virtue of the various baths.

Ladies with faded faces, and bouquets of faded flowers, were wandering about looking for hand-bags gone astray or for waiting-maids, men were busily munching, glad to forget over their first sandwich, the dietetic limitations to which they had been forced to submit while undergoing a course of the baths; locomotives were hissing and puffing like monsters out of breath after a race; the sunshine glittered on the flat roofs of the railway-carriages, the whole atmosphere reeked with coal-dust, and hot iron; there was the usual bustle of hand-cars piled with luggage pushed along the rails, of the shifting of cars on the tracks, and of vendors of fresh water and Pernik beer, with newspaper boys loudly extolling their various wares.

Escorted by the obsequious conductor, and followed by the servants, the three conservatives were making their way through the hurly-burly when they nearly ran against a young man, who, with his hands in the pockets of his rough coat, was striding through the crowd, never turning to the right or the left, in a line as straight as that of the railway between St. Petersburg and Moscow.

"Pistasch!" exclaimed Oswald.

"Ah, I thought I should meet you somewhere."

All began to talk at once, when suddenly Pistasch turned, and said, "Good-day!" to Conte Capriani, who was coming towards him with extended hand, and an air of great cordiality.

Oswald and Truyn held themselves very erect, looked straight before them, and, pa.s.sing Pistasch and Capriani, entered their coupe.

"I do not understand Kamenz," said Truyn, after they had installed themselves comfortably, and Georges had called from the window for a gla.s.s of Pernik beer. Oswald, his elbows propped on the frame of his window, was taking a prolonged observation of the interview between Capriani and Pistasch Kamenz.

The third bell rang--the speculator and the n.o.bleman shook hands and separated; then Pistasch approached the coupe where sat the three conservatives, and asked, "Any room in there for me?"

"Room enough, but we're not sure that we ought to let you come with us, you renegade!" said Oswald, unlatching the coupe door. "Are you too going to Prague for the election?"

"No," said Pistach lazily, "not if I know it, in this heat. I am going to the races--but I shall vote."

"Such indifference, nowadays, is culpable," said Truyn gravely. "This is a serious time."

"Bah! it is all one to me, who goes to the Reichsrath;--moreover, whoever he may be, he exists princ.i.p.ally for the benefit of the newspapers," replied Pistasch apathetically.

Only a few years previously, Truyn himself had defined the Reichsrath, as a 'circus for political acrobats'--but his political views were now daily gaining in consistency.

An interest in politics is usually aroused in men of his stamp, when they are between forty and fifty years of age--at a time when the taste for champagne begins to yield to that for claret. Almost all men are thus aroused at two different periods of life; in early youth and in late middle age.

That which ten years before Truyn had ridiculed, was now invested for him with a sacred earnestness.

"We must be true to our convictions for our country's sake!" he exclaimed.

"Has any one really any convictions,--political ones I mean?" asked Pistasch, "my conviction is that it is all up with us, but the country will last as long as I shall--after that I take no interest in it."

"And is this your latest creed?" asked Truyn indignantly.

"It is a very time-honoured creed, uncle," said Georges, "if I am not mistaken it was the fundamental article of faith of that lugubrious Solomon in a full-bottomed wig, who played such unholy pranks in France, under Voltaire's reign. '_Apres nous le deluge!_'"

"Louis Fifteenth, do you mean?" asked Truyn.

But Pistasch observed, "You have become fearfully erudite while you have been abroad, Georges. I fancy you are preparing to apply for a professorship of history, in the event of the social cataclysm that seems at hand."

All the while the train is rushing onwards, past pastures seamed by narrow ditches, past turnip-fields, past villages with ragged thatched roofs, and tumble-down picket fences upon which red and blue garments are hanging to dry, while lolling over them are sunflowers, with yellow haloes encircling their black velvet faces. Nowhere is there a trace of romantic exuberance, everything tells of sober, practical thrift.

A white, dusty road winds among slender plum-trees, and along it is jolting a small waggon, drawn by a pair of thirsty dogs, their tongues hanging from their mouths; a labourer, half through his swath in a clover-field, fascinated by the whizzing train, stops mowing and stares with open mouth and eyes.

Truyn has become absorbed in the contents of 'The Press' which he holds stretched wide in both hands. Oswald, Georges, and Pistasch have improvised a table out of a wrap laid across their knees, and are indulging in a game of cards.

"What's the news, uncle?" Oswald asked as he shuffled the cards.

"The authorities have forbidden the importation of rags at any Austrian port; and a Jew has been butchered somewhere in Russia," Pistasch replied incontinently. Truyn paid no heed to Oswald's question but all at once he dropped the newspaper.

"What is the matter?" asked the young men.

"Wips Seinsberg has died suddenly!" said Truyn.

"Poor devil!" said Oswald, with about as much sympathy as we feel for people not particularly congenial. "He was a good fellow, but somewhat vacillating! Ever since his marriage I have seen very little of him."

"Was he married?" asked Truyn, who, during his stay abroad, had lost sight of Wips Seinsberg.

"He married into trade," Oswald said curtly.

It is odd; elsewhere the daughters of tradesmen marry into the n.o.bility;--in Austria the sons of the n.o.bility marry into trade!