Gloria Victis! Part 28

He had seated himself upon a low stool at her feet.

"No, no, mamma," he replied smiling, "this seat is all right, and now tell me of what you were thinking as I came towards you. Your thoughts must have been very pleasant!"

"Must you know everything," she replied gaily, "I had no thoughts,--my dreams...." she patted him lightly on the cheek and whispered--"were of my grandchildren."

"Indeed? Perfectly reconciled, then, to my marriage?"

"We must learn to acquiesce in the inevitable, and--and--it really would be delightful to have a chubby little Ossi, in miniature, to pet, and cosset."

He did not speak, but leaned a little forward and pressed the hem of her gown to his lips.

"You goose!" she remonstrated; but when he raised his head she perceived that his eyes were filled with tears. "What is the matter?"

"A momentary weakness, as you see," he said with forced gaiety; adding earnestly,--"I am not ashamed of it before you. Of the evil that is in us, we are more ashamed before those whom we love than before all the rest of the world; but of our weaknesses we are ashamed only before those to whom we are indifferent!"

Paler and paler grow the blossoms of the sweet rocket, sweeter and sweeter their fragrance rises aloft, like a mute prayer,--twilight hovers over the meadows and the leafy summits of the lindens grow black. The quiet air is stirred by the village bells ringing the Angelus. The Countess folded her hands,--of late years she has grown devout. Oswald is overcome by intense la.s.situde, the la.s.situde that follows the sudden relaxation of nervous tension in men upon whom severe physical exertion has no effect.--He lays his head upon his mother's knee, and recalls the time when, only twenty years old, and smarting under a severe disappointment, he had taken refuge there. Then he had lain his head upon her lap, and sleep, wooed in vain through feverish nights, had fallen on him.--He remembers how, regardless of her own discomfort, she had let him sleep there for hours, never moving, lest he should be disturbed. And how many other instances of her love and self-sacrifice fill his memory! She strokes his hair, and for a moment he wishes he might die, thus, now, and here,--yes, it would be far better, a hundredfold better to die thus at her feet, his heart filled with filial adoration, than to have to live down again the anguish of the last three days.

BOOK FOURTH.

CHAPTER I.

After all, what had induced Conte Capriani to spend his summer in Austria? His wife and his children were unutterably bored in their exile, and he--he was consumed with secret chagrin. He had intended to astound the earth whereon he had once run barefoot, but nothing had fulfilled his expectations, absolutely nothing. The Austrian climate did not agree with him, decidedly not. Instead of the intoxicating consciousness of triumph wherein he had hoped to revel, he was tormented, from morning until night, by a sensation of rasping humiliation. His arrogance sickened, shrivelled up; even his possessions suddenly seemed to him insignificant. His wealth was, to be sure, more easily convertible into cash, more available than that of the Austrian aristocrats. But what availed his airy, fleeting millions compared with these well-nigh indestructible possessions, rooted for centuries in native soil?

Many, many years before, on a muddy road the sides of which were spotted with patches of dirty snow fast melting in the early spring, little Alfred Stein had run behind a high old-fashioned green coach hung on spiral springs, and had tried to steal a ride on the hind axle.

The bearded coachman--a stout, patriarchal coachman with a broad fur collar--looked back, saw him, and snapped his whip at him, so sharply that the boy, frightened, let go the axle, and fell off into a puddle.

A chubby child, at the carriage window, leaned far out to see him, and laughed, without any malice, loud and heartily, as all healthy children laugh at anything comical. But rage seized young Alfred, and when he could do it un.o.bserved, he clenched his fist, and shook it at the carriage.

At that time his envy did not reach higher than to a green coach, with a stately fur-clad coachman who could cut at all barefoot boys who were clinging on behind. How many miles his envy had travelled since then, how many ragam.u.f.fins his coachman had since then whipped off from his carriages, and yet at times it seemed to him that in reality he had not gained a step since that warm damp day in spring, when he had fallen into the puddle, and had been laughed at by the saucy little boy.

The child of poor parents, his extraordinary beauty had attracted the notice of a Bohemian Countess, who oddly enough was the owner of that same green coach. He was the best scholar in the village school, and the Countess befriended him. He became the playmate of her proud, good-natured, indolent children. By-and-by he shared their lessons, and his progress was remarkable. He was patted on the shoulder, his diligence was commended, and at last, by dint of flattery and servility, he obtained the means to study in Vienna. The years of his student life were most wretched. He possessed neither the dullness nor the imagination that can make poverty tolerable, but his were the endurance and the cunning that overcome poverty. Averse to no secret infamy, he, nevertheless made a parade of morality, and was an adept in what a witty Frenchman calls _le charlatanisme du desinteress.e.m.e.nt_.

Although a Sybarite by nature, and susceptible to all physical enjoyment, the instant that the attainment of his aims was at stake, he became a pattern of abstinence. He knew how to allow himself to be heaped with benefits, without acquiring the reputation of a parasite on the one hand or of a man who used his friends without any show of grat.i.tude on the other.

From the outset of his career he owed his success, not alone to his personal beauty, but to his faculty for intuitively detecting the evil propensities of others, and for privately pandering to them, yet always preserving a show of indulgent charity withal. His medical practise opened to him the doors of certain social circles which would else probably have been forever closed to him. He practised medicine for a while at fashionable watering places, and he had many distinguished patients among the fair s.e.x; at last, however, his marriage to a rich Russian girl relieved him from the necessity of pursuing his profession, and led his speculative mind into other paths.

His wife's fortune, however, was soon but a small part of that which he acc.u.mulated and added to it. Always restless, often unprincipled, he heaped up his millions, seeming fairly to conjure money out of other men's pockets. His greed of gain was no petty pa.s.sion, there was in it something of the heroic. Wealth was not his end, but a means to his end, a weapon,--power.

In Paris this power had not failed him, but in Austria no one was dazzled by it except those towards whom he felt utterly indifferent.

Day by day he grew more irritable, more bitter; what did his millions avail with these Austrian aristocrats who, had, with indolent elegance dragged after them for centuries, in spite of all levelling tendencies of any age, the burden of their ancient traditions--called by the Liberals prejudices--and who had grown weary at last of justifiable carping at their official and unofficial prerogatives, and had taken refuge upon an island as it were of determined exclusiveness, where, entrenched as behind the wall of China, they loftily ignored all the revolutionary hubbub around them.

He had succeeded in much, why should he not succeed in making a breach in this wall of China? This was the aim of all his efforts. He was one of those who would fain destroy what they cannot attain. By a thousand enticing temptations he had striven to arouse the avarice of the _Right Honourables_, as he called them, that the base, degrading greed of gain might bruise the strict sense of honour that was like a 'hoop of gold to bind in' Austrian exclusiveness. To brand an aristocrat as a swindler would be a keener joy than to make him a beggar.

He had hitherto had only a few petty triumphs in this direction, but he was too ambitious, too clear-sighted to be contented in the long run with these trifling victories.

One consciousness of terrible import to others had at times afforded Capriani some consolation, but of late even this consciousness had lost somewhat of its soothing charm.

When, after his return from Prague, Kilary had asked him, with a sneer, if he had really succeeded in twisting Oswald Lodrin around his finger the Conte had replied with some embarra.s.sment, "We have not done with each other yet, but I rather think that what I said to him will have an effect."

And while he was making private marks with coloured pencils upon his business letters, or telegraphic despatches which arrived in large numbers for him every day, he repeated to himself, again and again: "It will have an effect!"

CHAPTER II.

It is evening in the drawing-room at Tornow, and the air breathes soft and fragrance-laden through the open window; the monotonous chirp of the crickets sounds loud and shrill as if to drown the sweet plaint of the nightingale. Beyond the circle of light cast by the lamps more than half of the s.p.a.cious room is quite dark.

The Countess Lodrin is bending over an embroidery frame, busied in working the Zinsenburg crest upon a ha.s.sock; Oswald, Georges, and Pistasch, who, when the races were over had accepted an invitation to come to Tornow with Georges, are eagerly discussing a false start.

Oswald, the quietest of the three, glances from time to time at his mother.

He has, to be sure, succeeded in shaking off his ugly _idee fixe_, and in regaining his former cheerfulness; but yet, by fits and starts, he is a.s.sailed by a paralysing sensation of dread. Then he takes refuge with his mother; by her side the odious fancies have no power. There are times when he is possessed by a wild impulse to deliver Capriani's message, to ask his mother whether she ever really knew Doctor Stein and to watch the effect; but at the critical moment his heart has always failed him, and he has been ashamed of yielding even thus much to his disgraceful weakness.

When they have exhausted the false start, Georges and Pistasch enter upon a discussion of the best method of shoeing horses. This interesting topic absorbs them so entirely that neither perceives that for several minutes the Countess has been searching for something which she has mislaid,--finally even stooping to look for it on the floor. It is Oswald who rises and asks, "What are you looking for, mamma?"

"A strand of scarlet silk."

The two gentlemen of course feel it their duty to offer their services, but too late; Oswald has already picked up the silk. This trifling diversion, however, puts a stop to the sporting talk.

"Mimi Dey came to see me this morning; I asked her to dine with us on Thursday."

"Is Elli Rhoeden coming too?" asked Oswald.

"If I am not mistaken she has gone to Kreuznach," observed Pistasch.

"Yes," said the Countess, "unfortunately we cannot depend upon her, but you will probably enjoy the society of Fraulein von Klette. Mimi will do her best to make her stay at home, but she cannot promise."

"Is she living still,--that Spanish fly?" asked Georges, surprised.

"Indeed she is, and with the same enormous appet.i.te," Pistasch calmly declared, "I believe she is qualifying herself for the post of Minister of Finance; her talent for levying taxes is more brilliantly developed every year. Unfortunately her sphere of action is limited to the circle of her most intimate friends."

"It appears that she has just embarked in a novel and very interesting financial enterprise," remarked the Countess with a smile, "she is raffling a sofa cushion."

"Oh, that famous negro head," observed Pistasch, "she has been working at it for two years, and she issues a fresh batch of chances every three months."

"Before I forget it," said the Countess half to herself, "would you not like to write to Fritz to come to dinner day after to-morrow, Ossi? we shall be entirely by ourselves. He will feel at home, and I am always glad to entice him to forget his sorrows, if only for a few hours."

"I paid him a visit yesterday," said Georges, "he is going down hill very fast in health. He asked eagerly after you, Ossi, and mentioned that he had not seen you for a long while."