The Count of Nideck Part 2

"But you see, I have no room for any more."

"Pshaw! with a nose like yours, there's always room enough."

At this moment Sperver cried, "Here I am, comrades!"

"Ha, Gideon! back so soon?"

Marie Lagoutte made haste to shake off her numerous pegs with a motion of her head; the big majordomo emptied his gla.s.s, and everybody turned to look at us.

"Is the Count better?"

"Hum!" exclaimed the majordomo, drawing down his under-lip.

"Is his condition unchanged?"

"Just about," answered Marie Lagoutte, who never took her eyes off me.

Sperver noticed this.

"Let me present to you my foster-son, Monsieur de la Roche, from Tubingen," he said proudly. "Things will change now in the Castle, Master Tobie; now that Gaston has come, this cursed malady will be put to flight. If we could only have found him out sooner! However, better late than never."

Marie Lagoutte was still watching me, and the examination seemed to satisfy her, for, turning to the majordomo, "Come, come, Monsieur Offenloch! Stir yourself," she said; "offer monsieur the doctor a chair!

You sit there with your mouth open like a great carp!"

With these words, the good woman sprang up as though moved by a spring, and came to help me off with my greatcoat.

"Permit me, monsieur."

"You are very good, my dear woman."

"Hand it to me, monsieur. Such weather! Ah, monsieur, what a country this is!"

"So our master is neither better nor worse," continued Sperver, shaking the snow from his cap. "We are here in time. Ho! Kasper! Kasper!"

A little man with a drooping shoulder, indicating a partial paralysis of his frame, and a face liberally sprinkled with freckles, came out of the chimney-corner.

"Here I am."

"Good! You must prepare for the doctor the chamber at the end of the long gallery,--Hugh's chamber. You know which one."

"Yes, Sperver. I will see to it at once."

"One moment! You will take the doctor's valise with you as you go.

Knapwurst will give it to you. As to supper--"

"Never fear; I will take care of all that."

"Very good."

The little man went out, and Gideon, after throwing off his cape, left us to go and inform the young Countess of my arrival. I was somewhat embarra.s.sed by the attentions of Marie Lagoutte.

"Come, up with you, Sebalt!" she said to the master of the hounds; "you ought to be sufficiently roasted by this time, sprawling there since morning. Sit down by the fire, Monsieur Doctor; your feet must be cold.

Stretch out your legs; that's the way." Then, after a minute: "You have come just in time; our master had his second attack yesterday, and it was a terrible one; hey, Master Offenloch?"

"Terrible is just the word," replied the majordomo gravely.

"Nor is it to be wondered at, when a man takes no nourishment; and he eats nothing, monsieur. Fancy, it is two days since he has taken so much as a bowl of broth."

"Or a gla.s.s of wine," added Tobie, crossing his fat hands on his comfortable waistband.

I felt it inc.u.mbent upon me to express some surprise, so I shook my head; whereupon the majordomo came over and sat down on my right, saying, "Take my advice, doctor, and prescribe a bottle of Marcobrunner every day."

"And a chicken wing at each meal," added Marie Lagoutte; "the poor man is as thin as a ghost."

"We have some Marcobrunner sixty years old, and Johannisberg of the year '14; for Villars's fellows didn't drink it all, as Madame Offenloch would have it. You might prescribe now and then a gla.s.s of Johannisberg; there is nothing like it to set a man on his feet."

"There was a time," said the master of the hounds in a melancholy tone, "there was a time when our master went on the hunt twice a week, and he was well; now that he has stopped, he is ill."

"That is reasonable enough," observed Marie Lagoutte; "the fresh air gave him an appet.i.te. The doctor should order him three hunts a week to make up for lost time."

"Two would do," replied the master of the hounds dismally; "two would do. The dogs must have some time to rest. They must be considered as well as we."

A few moments of silence succeeded, during which I could hear the wind rattling the windows and whistling boisterously through the loopholes and along the empty halls. Sebalt had crossed his legs, and with his elbow on his knee supporting his chin, he gazed into the fire with unspeakable gloominess. Marie Lagoutte refreshed herself with a pinch of snuff, and I was reflecting on that strange infirmity that leads us to press our advice on others, whether they desire it or not, when the majordomo rose, and leaning over the back of my chair, said:

"Will you have a gla.s.s of wine, doctor?"

"Thank you, but I never drink before visiting a patient."

"What, not even one small gla.s.s?"

"Not even a tiny gla.s.s."

He opened his eyes very wide, and looked with astonishment at his wife.

"Monsieur the doctor is right," she said; "I am of his opinion; I prefer to drink with my meals and take a gla.s.s of cognac afterwards. In my country, the women drink cognac; it is more genteel than kirschwa.s.ser."

Marie Lagoutte had hardly finished this explanation, when Sperver opened the door part way, and motioned me to follow him. I nodded a farewell to the worthy company, and as I stepped into the pa.s.sage, I heard Tobie's wife saying to him, "He is a nice-looking young man. He would have made a fine soldier!" Sperver looked uneasy; he said nothing. I too was thoughtful.

A few steps beneath the shadowy arches of the Castle served completely to efface from my mind the grotesque figures of Tobie and Marie Lagoutte,--poor, inoffensive creatures, living like bats under the vulture's powerful wing. Soon Gideon threw open the door of a sumptuous apartment, hung with violet-colored velvet worked in gold. A bronze lamp, resting on a corner of the mantelpiece, and covered with a globe of ground crystal, vaguely lighted up the room. Thick rugs deadened the sound of our footsteps. It seemed like a refuge consecrated to silence and meditation.

On entering, Sperver lifted the heavy draperies that concealed a turret window. I saw him gaze earnestly into the plain beneath, and I divined his thoughts; he was looking to see if the witch were still there, crouching in the snow,--but he could see nothing, for the night was dark. As I moved forward into the room, I made out, by the pale rays of the lamp, a young woman of girlish figure seated in an armchair, her forehead resting in her hand, and her whole att.i.tude one of patient but despairing sorrow. Her back was slightly turned towards us, and for this reason I could not at first see her face.

But at the rustle of our entrance she rose quickly, and exhibited to my gaze the most beautiful presence I had ever beheld. The tall, stately figure, the ideal formation of the features, the glory of golden hair that fell about the fair, white neck, the deep, l.u.s.trous eyes that bespoke a soul as pure and beautiful as the scenes among which it flourished,--everything about the young mistress of the Castle proclaimed her to be of that n.o.ble type which we meet with but once, if at all, in a lifetime. Just what my feelings were at sight of this beautiful young woman I know not, but certain it is that they were of a nature hitherto unknown to me, and I felt a strange sense of harmony and contentment within me as my glance continued to rest upon her.

After a moment the Countess advanced, and said simply, "You are welcome, monsieur;" then, motioning towards the alcove where the Count lay, she added, "There is my father."

I bowed low, and without reply,--such was my agitation,--I approached the couch of the sick man. Sperver, standing at the head of the bed, held the lamp in his raised hand, and the light, softened by the crystal globe, fell palely upon the face of the Count. Odile remained near me, waiting anxiously for my first word.

At the first glance I was struck with the strange physiognomy of the Lord of Nideck, and in contrast to the admiration that his daughter had inspired within me, my first thought was, "He is an old wolf!" And in truth, his head bristling with gray hair and swelling behind the ears; his long, pointed face and receding forehead; his narrow eyes and s.h.a.ggy eyebrows that met in a point over the bridge of his nose, imperfectly shading the dull, cold eye beneath; his short, stiff beard, spreading unevenly over his bony jaws,--in short, everything about the man made me shudder, and brought involuntarily to my mind the oft-alleged affinities between man and the brute creation.