CHAPTER II
So I let three days pass, gentlemen, to sleep on the matter--then my two coach-horses into the harness--my yellow trap--and heigho for Krakowitz. Beautiful bit of property, no denying that. Somewhat run down, but full of possibilities. Lots of black fallow--might do for winter kale or something of the sort. The wheat so-so. The cattle splendid.
The courtyard! Well, you know, a courtyard is like the human heart. Once you have learned to see into it, you cannot be bamboozled so easily. There are neglected hearts, but you can see gold nuggets peeping out through the dirt. Then there are hearts all done up and polished and smartened, hearts fed up, you might say, on arsenic. They glitter and glisten, and all you can say when you look at them is "By Jingo!" Yet they are rotten and mouldy. There are hearts in the ascending and descending scale, hearts of which the better is more hopeless than the much, much worse, because the worse improves while the other gradually declines. Well, and so on.
The Krakowitz yard was a little of all this. Bright, clean barns, miserable wagons, fine drains for the stables, but the stalls badly placed. An air of whimsicality about the whole place, with a touch of stinginess or lack of means. From appearances it is difficult to distinguish between the two. The manor-house--two stories, red brick faced with yellow stones and overgrown with ivy. In a word, not bad, something unstudied about it--well, you know what I mean.
"Is the Baron at home?"
"Yes. What name shall I give?"
"Hanckel, Baron Hanckel--Ilgenstein."
"Step in, sir."
So I walked in--everything old--old furniture, old pictures--worm-eaten, but cosy.
I heard some one begin to curse and swear in the adjoining room.
"The dirty blackguard--the impudence of him--always was a friend of that Pütz, the cur!"
"Pleasant reception," I thought.
Women's voices joined in.
"Papa, papa!"
"Good Lord! All right! All right!"
Then he came in--gentlemen, if I hadn't just heard it with my own ears!--holding out his hands, his old sinner's face beaming, his dachs eyes blinking slily, but with a beam of pleasure in them.
"My dear sir, delighted."
"See here, Krakow," I said, "look out. I heard every word just now."
"What did you hear, what did you hear?"
"The epithets you bestowed on me--dirty blackguard and heaven knows what else."
"Oh that," he said, without a twitch of his lids. "I tell my wife every day that the doors are no good. But, my dear sir, you mustn't mind what I said. I always have been angry that you stood by Pütz. And I tell you, sir, my womenfolk mix just as good punches as he. If you had come to us--Iolanthe!--Iolanthe's my daughter. Iolanthe!! The comfort of my soul! Doesn't hear, doesn't hear. Didn't I just say the doors are no good? But both those women are at the keyhole now! Will you get away from there, you hussies? Do you hear their skirts rustling? They're running away. Ha--ha! Those women!"
Gentlemen, who could take offence? I couldn't. Perhaps I'm too thick--skinned? But I couldn't.
What did he look like?
The creature didn't reach much above my waist-line. Round, fat, bow-legged. But that absurd body of his was topped by a regular apostle's head, either St. Peter's or perhaps St. Andrew's, or somebody's of the sort. A fine, round, broad beard, with a band of white running down from each corner of his mouth, yellow parchment skin, thick crows' feet at the corners of his eyes, the top of his head bald, but two huge grey bushes over his ears.
The fellow danced about me like wild.
Don't for a moment suppose, gentlemen, that I was taken in by his goings-on. I had known him long enough. I saw through and through him. But--call me a simpleton if you will--I couldn't help it--I liked him. And I liked his surroundings.
There was a little corner at the window with carved oak cabinets all around--the window overgrown with ivy--very cosy. The sun shone in bright and clear as in an arbour, and on the table in an ivory bowl was a ball of worsted, and a copy of Daheim,and a piece of nibbled cake.
As I said, altogether comfortable and cosy.
We sat down in the corner, and a maid brought cigars.
The cigars were no good, but the smoke curled so merrily in the sunshine that I did not pay much attention to their burning away like matches.
I wanted to begin to talk about my business, but Krakow laid his hand on my shoulder and said:
"After the coffee!"
"If you please, Krakow," I said.
"After the coffee!"
I courteously enquired about his farming and pretended great interest in his innovations, about which he boasted extravagantly, though they were as old as the hills to me.
Then the Baroness came in.
A fine old piece. A slender dame. Long narrow blue eyes, silver hair under a black lace cap, a melancholy smile, fine yellow hands. A bit too dainty for a country gentlewoman, and especially for such a boor of a husband.
She welcomed me with great propriety--while the old man kept screaming as if possessed.
"Iolanthe--girl--where are you hiding? A bachelor's here--a suitor--a----"
"Krakow!" I said, completely taken aback. "Don't joke that way about an old blade like me."
And the Baroness saved me by saying very neatly:
"Don't worry, Baron. We mothers gave you up as hopeless years ago."
"But the girl can come in at any rate," screamed the old fellow.
And finally she came.
Gentlemen, take off your hats! I stood there as if somebody had knocked me on the head. A thoroughbred, gentlemen, a thoroughbred! A figure like a young queen's, her hair loose, in a thousand wavelets and ringlets, golden brown, like the mane of a Barbary steed. Her throat full, white and voluptuous. Her bosom not too high, and broad and curving at the sides. In a horse, we call it a lion's chest. And when she breathed, her whole body seemed to breathe along with her lungs, so strongly did the air pulsate through that glorious young body.
Gentlemen, you don't have to go in for breeding animals as a passionate pursuit to know how much toil and effort it costs to produce a perfect specimen, no matter of what species. And I'm not a woman connoisseur, and one doesn't have to be, to fold one's hands at the sight of so perfect a creature and pray, "O Lord, I thank Thee for allowing such a thing to walk the earth. For as long as such bodies are created we need have no fear for our souls."
The one thing I did not quite like at first was her eyes. Too pale a blue, too languishing for such an abundance of life. They seemed to be soaring towards heaven, and yet, when they narrowed, a searching, lowering look came into them, the sort of look surly dogs get from being beaten too often.
Old Krakow caught her by both shoulders and began to brag outrageously.
"This is my work--this is what I brought into being--I'm the father of this," and so on.
She tried to shake him off and turned scarlet.
Aha, ashamed of him.
Then the ladies got the table ready for coffee. Fresh brown waffles, preserves after the Russian fashion, gleaming damask, knives and spoons with buckhorn handles, the fine blue smoke of charcoal puffing up from the chimney of the brass coffee machine, making everything still cosier.
We sat there drinking our coffee. Old Krakow blustered, the Baroness smiled a fine melancholy smile, and Iolanthe made eyes at me.
Yes, gentlemen, made eyes at me. You may be at the time of life when that sort of thing happens to you none too rarely. But just you get to be well on in your forties, conscious to the very depths of your soul of your fatness and baldness, and you'll see how grateful you'll be even to a housemaid or a barmaid for taking the trouble to ogle you. And a thousand times more so if she happens to be one of the élite like this one, a creature allowed to walk this earth by God's grace.
At first I thought I hadn't seen straight, then I stuck my red hands in my pockets, then I got a fit of coughing, then I swore at myself--"You blooming idiot! you donkey!"--then I wanted to bolt, and finally I took to staring into my empty coffee cup. Like an old maid.
But when I looked up--I had to look up now and then--I always met those great, light-blue languishing eyes. They seemed to say:
"Don't you know I am an enchanted princess whom you are to set free?"
"Do you know why I gave her that crazy name?" the old man asked, grinning at her slily.
She tossed her head scornfully and stood up. She seemed to know his jokes.
"This is how it was. She was a week old. She was lying in her cradle kicking her legs--legs like little sausages. And her little buttocks, you know----"
Ye gods! I scarcely risked looking up, I was so embarrassed. The Baroness behaved as if she heard nothing, and Iolanthe left the room.
But the old man shook with laughter.
"Ha--ha--such a rosy mite--such softness, and a shape like a rose leaf. Well, when I looked at her, I said, in my young father's joy, 'That girl's going to be beautiful and bad and will kick her legs the whole of her life. She must have a very poetic name. Then she'll rise in value with the suitors.' So I looked up names in the dictionary--Thekla, Hero, Elsa, Angelica. No, they were all too soft, like squashed plums. With a name like that she'll languish away for some briefless lawyer. Then Rosaura, Carmen, Beatrice, Wanda--nixy--too passionate--would elope with the manager of the estate. Because a person's name is his fate. Finally I found Iolanthe. Iolanthe melts so sweetly on your tongue--just the name for lovers--and yet it doesn't lead on to silly freaks. It is both tempting and dignified. It lures a man on, but inspires him with serious intentions, too. That's the way I calculated, and my calculations have turned out to be quite right so far, if in the end she doesn't remain on my hands on account of her affectation and squeamishness."
At this point Iolanthe came into the room again. Her eyes were half closed and she was smiling like a child in disgrace. I was sorry for the poor pretty creature, and to turn the conversation quickly, I began to speak about the business I had come on.
The ladies cleared the table without speaking, and the old man filled the half-charred bowl of his pipe. He seemed inclined to listen patiently.
But scarcely did the name Pütz cross my lips when he jumped up and dashed his pipe against the stove so that the burning tobacco leaves flew about in all directions. The mere sight of his face was enough to frighten you. It turned red and blue and swelled up as if he had been seized with a stroke of apoplexy.
"Sir-r-r!" he shouted. "Is that the reason you visited me--to poison my home? Don't you know that that d---- name is not to be breathed in this house? Don't you know I curse the fellow in his grave, and curse his brood, and curse all----"
At this point he choked and was seized with a fit of coughing and had to sink down into his upholstered chair. The Baroness gave him sweetened water to drink.
I took up my hat without saying anything. Then I happened to notice Iolanthe standing there white as chalk, with her hands folded, and looking at me as if in her shame and misery she wished to beg my pardon, or expected something like help from me.
I wanted to say good-bye at least. So I waited quietly until I felt I might assume that the old man, who was lying there groaning and panting, was in a condition to understand me. Then I said:
"Baron von Krakow, you must realise, of course, that after such an attack upon my friend and his son, whom I love as if he were my own, our relations----"
He pounded with his hands and feet as a sign to me not to go on speaking, and after trying several times to catch his breath, he finally succeeded in saying:
"That asthma--the devil take it--like a halter around your neck--snap--your throat goes shut. But what's that you're cackling about our relations? Our relations, that is, your and my relations, there never has been anything wrong with them, my dear sir. They are the best relations in the world. If I insulted that litigious fellow, the--the--noble man, I take it all back and call myself a vile cur. Only nobody must speak to me about him. I don't want to be reminded that he has a son and heir. To me he's dead, you see--he's dead, dead, dead."
He cut the air three times with his fist, and looked at me triumphantly, as if he had dealt my friend Pütz his death-blow.
"Nevertheless, Baron----" I started to say.
"No neverthelessing here. You are my friend! You are the friend of my family--look at my womenfolk--completely smitten. Don't be ashamed, Iolanthe! Just make eyes at him, child. Do you think I don't see anything, goosie?"
She did not blush nor did she seem to be abashed, but raised her folded hands slightly. It was such a touching, helpless gesture that it completely disarmed me. So I sat down again for a few moments and spoke about indifferent matters. Then I took leave as soon as I could without provoking him again.
"Go to the door with him, Iolanthe," said the old man, "and be charming to him. He's the richest man in the district."
At that we all laughed. But walking beside me in the twilight of the hall, Iolanthe said very softly, with a sort of timid grief:
"I know you don't want to come again."
"No, I don't," I said frankly, and was about to give my reasons, when she suddenly snatched up my hand, pressed it between her slim white palms, and said, half crying:
"Oh, come again! Please, please come again."
That's the way you're taken in. Old nincompoop that I was, I went daft on the instant.
In my excitement I chewed up the whole of my cigar on the ride home, forgetting to light it.
I made right for a mirror--lit all the lights, locked the door--back to the mirror. Examined myself front and back, and, with the help of my shaving mirror, my noble profile, too.
Result--crushing. A heavy bald pate, bull's neck, puffs under my eyes, double chin, my skin a fiery russet, like a glowing copper kettle.
And what was worse than all that--when I looked at myself in all my six feet of bulk, a chandelier went up. I knew why everybody immediately called me a "good fellow." Even in the regiment they used to call me a good fellow.
Once you are branded with a Cain's mark like that, the rest of your life turns into nothing but a series of events to prove the truth of it. People come to you with hard-luck stories, you're a butt for their jokes, they blarney you and borrow from you. If once you make a timid attempt to defend yourself, then they say, "Why I thought you were a good fellow!" So you can't get out of it. You are and you remain a good fellow. You've been stamped and sealed.
And then you, a good fellow, want to take up with women? With women, who languish for the Mephistophelean, who, to love properly, want to be deserted, duped, and generally maltreated.
"Hanckel, don't be an ass," I said to myself. "Go away from the mirror, put out the lights, knock those silly dreams out of your head, and get into bed."
Gentlemen, I had a bed--and still have it--a perfectly ordinary bed, as narrow as a coffin, of pine, stained red--no springs, no mattress--a deerskin instead. Twice a year it is filled with fresh straw. That was the extent of my luxury. Gentlemen, there are many stories about the poor camp cots of persons in high life. You see them on exhibition in castles and historical museums, and when the visitors are herded past them, they invariably clasp their hands and dutifully exclaim:
"What power of renunciation! What Spartan simplicity!"
Buncombe, gentlemen! You can't sleep more comfortably anywhere than on a bed like that--provided, of course, that you have a good day's work behind you, a good conscience within you, and no woman beside you--which all amount to about the same thing.
You stretch yourself deliciously until your feet just touch the bottom of the bed, you bite the comfortable a few times, burrow in the pillows, reach out for a good book lying on the table next to the bed, and groan from sheer bliss.
That's what I did that night after the tempter had left me, and as I slowly dozed off I thought:
"Well, well, no woman will make you traitor to your dear, hard, narrow bachelor's sack of straw, even if her name is Iolanthe, and even if she is the finest thoroughbred that ever galloped about on God's lovely pastures.
"Perhaps all the less so.
"Because--who knows?"