Gloria Victis! Part 4

CHAPTER IV.

The fragrance of the elder blossoms floated sweet and strong upon the air in the dim warm stillness of the Avenue Labedoyere. The poetry that breathes in the odour of flowers no words can reproduce, music alone can sometimes translate it; it ascended from the full white panicles in the little garden before the Hotel Truyn and breathed through the open window into Gabrielle's chamber like an exultant yearning, like a song filled with love's delicious pain.

Zinka sat on the edge of the little white bed where the young girl was lying, her golden hair rippling about her brow and temples, while upon her pale face lay the melancholy of illimitable joy; her eyes were moist.

"And you are not surprised, Zini ... not at all?" she whispered.

"No, my child," replied Zinka tenderly, "not in the least; I knew you were destined for each other from the first moment that I saw you together."

"Ah," Gabrielle sighed, "I cannot comprehend it yet. It all seems to me like a delicious dream from which I must waken, but even if I must, even if the dear G.o.d takes from me all that He has given me, I shall thank Him on my knees as long as I live for this one lovely dream."

"Calm yourself, my darling," Zinka whispered, lovingly stroking the young girl's cheeks, "how your cheeks burn!" And she poured a few drops of essence of orange flowers into a gla.s.s of water, "drink this, you little enthusiast."

"It will do no good, dear little mother," said Gabrielle, obediently lifting the composing draught to her burning lips. "Ah, you cannot imagine how I feel, it seems as if--as if my heart would break with happiness!"

Zinka kissed her, made the sign of the cross upon her forehead, drew the coverlet over her shoulders, once more admonished her to be calm, and left her.

Thunder rumbled without; Zinka started and as a second clap resounded she turned back. "Are you afraid of the storm, Ella, shall I stay with you?" she asked gently.

"Ah no, dear little mother," Gabrielle replied in the intoxication of her happiness, "I hardly hear the thunder."

And Zinka departed. "I do not know why I cannot rejoice in this as I ought," she said to herself, "it seems to me as if we had forgotten to invite some one of the twelve fairies to this betrothal."

And whilst the thunder crashed above the Champs Elysees she suddenly recalled an old fairy story that a fever-stricken peasant from the Trastevere had once told her in Rome.

It was a gloomy story, one of those legends in which the popular imagination, boldly overleaping all chronological and historical obstacles, bestows upon Pagan G.o.ds the wings of Christian angels, and arms G.o.d the Father with the lightnings of angry Jove. It ran somewhat thus:

"There was once a beautiful maiden who was good as an angel, so good that it gave her unutterable pain to see any one sad and not to be able to help; and once when she had cried herself to sleep over the woes of mankind she had a wonderful vision. A dark form with a veiled face approached her and said, 'If you have the courage to cut your heart out of your breast and plant it deep in the earth, there will spring from it a flower so glorious, so wonderful, that whoever inhales its fragrance will feel a bliss so intense that he would gladly purchase it with all the torture of our mortal existence.'

"And the maiden cut her heart out of her breast and planted it deep in the brown earth, and watered it with her tears, and there sprang from it a magically-beautiful flower, with luxuriant green leaves, and large white blossoms with blood-red calyxes, and whoever inhaled the breath of these blossoms felt an intoxicating delight course through his veins, so that in his wild ecstasy he forgot all earthly care and trouble. The flowers unfolded to more and more enchanting loveliness, and through the thick foliage sighed the sweetest music.

"Now when the angels in Heaven heard of this strange plant they entreated the Almighty Father to allow them to go get it and to plant it in Paradise.

"The Lord granted their request. Then they fluttered down from Heaven, but when they approached the wondrous plant a voice spoke from it, saying, 'Let me alone, I blossom for the consolation of the earth, I could not live in Paradise; the soil in which I flourish must be watered with heart's blood and tears!'

"But the angels did not heed these words, and, beguiled by the delicious fragrance, they tried to tear away the roots from the lap of earth; their efforts were vain, they had to return with their purpose unfulfilled.

"When mankind saw this it exulted in its blissful possession. Happy mortals laughed at the angels' futile envy. Then the angels prostrated themselves anew at the feet of the Almighty, and implored Him to revenge them upon the blasphemers. And the Almighty gave ear to their prayer; He hurled a thunderbolt at the plant, and it was swept from off the face of the earth.

"But its roots still slumber underground, and sometimes when in mild spring nights a mysterious fragrance steals upon the air, a fragrance wafted from no visible blossom, these roots are stirring to life, and green leaves shoot upward into the spring. But the sweet perfume still moves the angels to anger, and it scarcely rises aloft before the thunder rolls over the earth and the lightning blasts the green leaves.

The flower will never blossom again."

CHAPTER V.

Oswald and his cousin Georges were sitting at breakfast in their pleasant room in the Hotel Bristol by a window that looked out upon the Place Vendome, and down the brilliant Rue de la Paix, the perspective of which was lost in a hurly-burly of omnibuses, orange carts, flower wagons, advertising vehicles painted fiery red, fiacres, sun-illumined dust, and human beings rushing madly hither and thither. Whilst Georges was drinking his tea in sober comfort with a brief remark as to the incomparable excellence of the Paris b.u.t.ter, Oswald, who although endowed by nature with an excellent appet.i.te had paid but scant attention to his meals of late, recounted for the tenth time to his cousin the extraordinary combination of circ.u.mstances which had brought together Gabrielle and himself. He was a victim of the lovers' delusion that sees in the most ordinary occurrences the finger of the Deity, and that regards their happiness as a special marvel wrought by Providence for their benefit.

It was, so Oswald narrated, in April, on the second day of the Auteuil races, the first faint tinge of green was perceptible on the landscape.

He was on horseback, riding a magnificent Arabian steed which one of his friends had lent him, and which he was handling with the excessive care which an Austrian always bestows upon a horse that is not his own.

Suddenly he saw walking across the race-course a young lady in a dark green dress; a ray of sunlight that turned her hair to gold attracted his attention to her. She walked quickly past with an elderly gentleman and Oswald turned to look after her. His horse was a little restless, his rider's spurs were rather too sharp; with the sudden movement he scratched the animal's silken skin, and instantly exclaimed, "_Ah, pardon!_" a piece of courtesy for which his companions ridiculed him loudly. In the meantime the young lady with the gray-haired gentleman had vanished.

"Who is that exquisitely beautiful girl?" he asked, and Wips Siegburg, secretary of the Austrian Legation, replied laughing, "Do you not know her, she is your cousin!"

"Gabrielle Truyn!" exclaimed Oswald; and Siegburg said sagely, "this comes of enjoying one's self too busily in Paris, and consequently finding no time to visit one's nearest relatives."

Oswald peered in every direction but he could not discover her again.

After the race, under the leafless trees of the Champs Elysees rolled crowds of carriages, victorias, all sorts of coaches, four-in-hands, lumbering roomy omnibuses,--all veiled in the whirling, sunlit dust as in golden gauze, while everywhere, alike in the omnibuses and in the more elegant vehicles, reigned a uniform air of dull fatigue.

Paris had lost another battle with ennui.

In the motley throng Oswald was almost forced to walk his horse, pondering as he went upon the best way of excusing his discourtesy to his uncle. He had now been four entire weeks in Paris, and had not yet presented himself in the Avenue Labedoyere. Fortunately he had gone so little into society that he had not yet met the Truyns; Paris is so huge, perhaps they had not yet heard that he was there. Yes, Paris is huge, but 'society' everywhere is small. No, he could hardly venture to appear at his uncle's yet.

He was growing quite melancholy over these reflections, when he suddenly observed that his horse had coolly poked his nose over the hood, which had been thrown back, of a low carriage in front, and was nibbling at a bouquet of white roses that he found there. Oswald shortened his bridle, and just then a lady sitting in the carriage turned round; it was Gabrielle Truyn. With no attempt to conceal her displeasure she observed what had been done, and when Oswald, hat in hand, humbly stammered his excuses, she bestowed upon him the haughty stare which an insolent intruder would have merited, and turned away.

She knew perfectly well who he was, as he afterwards learned, and that he had been four weeks in Paris. The gentleman beside her now turned round, his eyes met Oswald's; he smiled, and said with good-humoured sarcasm ... "Ossi!--what an unexpected pleasure!"

"Uncle--I--I have long been intending to pay you my respects...."

Oswald stammered.

"Apparently your resolutions require time to ripen," said Truyn drily.

"Ah uncle!--I--may I come to see you now?"

"You do us too much honour," said Truyn provokingly, "we will kill the fatted calf and celebrate the Prodigal's return." Then taking pity upon his nephew's embarra.s.sment he added. "Don't be afraid, we shall not turn you out of doors, we have some consideration for young gentlemen who are in Paris for the first time; we know that they have other things to do besides looking up tiresome relatives, what say you, Ella?"

"My cousin has forgotten me," the young man murmured, "have the kindness to present me to her."

"It is your cousin, Oswald Lodrin, an old playmate of yours."

At her father's words Gabrielle merely turned her exquisite profile towards her cousin and acknowledged his low bow by a slight inclination of her head. Then she stretched out her hand for her bouquet, murmuring, "My poor roses! they are entirely ruined." And she suddenly tossed them away into the road. There was an opening in the blockade of carriages before them; Gabrielle's golden hair gleamed before Oswald's eyes for a flash, then all around grew gray; the twilight had absorbed the last glimmer of sunshine.

That same evening Oswald ordered at a large flower shop, on the Madeleine Boulevard, the most exquisite bouquet of gardenias, orchids and white roses that Paris could produce and sent it to his cousin to replace her ruined roses.

All this he retailed. His first visit, too, in the Avenue Labedoyere, the visit when he did not find Truyn at home, and when Gabrielle did not make her appearance, but Zinka, whom he had not known before, received him. There had been much discussion in Austria over this second marriage of his uncle, and Oswald had brought to Paris a violent antipathy to Zinka. But it soon vanished, or rather was transformed into a very affectionate esteem.

And then the first little dinner, a very little dinner (just to make them acquainted, Truyn said) strictly _en famille_--no strangers, only Oswald and Siegburg. The brightly-lit table with its flowers, gla.s.s, and sparkling silver, in the middle of the dim brown dining-room, the delicate fair heads of the two ladies in their light dresses standing out so charmingly against the background of the old leather hangings, Truyn's paternal cordiality, and Zinka's kindly raillery,--he thought he had never had so delightful a dinner.

Gabrielle, to be sure, held herself rather aloof. She evidently resented his tardy appearance in the Avenue Labedoyere; she hardly noticed his beautiful flowers. She talked exclusively to Siegburg who was odiously entertaining, and who glanced across the table now and then, his eyes sparkling with merry malice, at Oswald. Then as they were serving the asparagus, he took it into his head to ask Gabrielle, "Do you know who is the most courteous man in Paris, Countess Gabrielle?"

"No, how should I?"

"Your charming cousin there," rejoined the young diplomat.

"Indeed!" Gabrielle said with incredulous emphasis, bending her head a little on one side as is the fashion with pretty women when they undertake the inconvenient task of eating asparagus.

"Yes, verily, he says '_pardon_' even to his horse, when he scratches it with his spurs."