CHAPTER XX.
Curiosity carried the day. The Countess Lenzdorff left her card at the Palazzo Luzani, and as a consequence the Baroness Neerwinden called upon both ladies and left a written invitation for them which informed them that "my dear friend Minona von Rattenfels will delight us by reading aloud her latest, and unpublished, work."
To her grandmother's surprise, Erika seemed quite willing to go to this one of the Baroness Neerwinden's entertainments, and Constance Mühlberg accompanied them. The party was full of laughing expectation, much as if the pleasure in prospect had been a masquerade.
Expectation on this occasion did not much exceed reality: the old Countess and Constance Mühlberg were extremely entertained. And Erika----? Well, they arrived at a tolerably early hour, ten o'clock, and found the three immense rooms in which the Neerwinden was wont to receive almost empty.
The lady of the house, when they entered, was seated on a small divan, beneath a kind of canopy of antique stuffs in the remotest of these rooms. Her black eyes were still fine; her features were not ignoble, but were hard and unattractive.
She received the Countess Lenzdorff with effusive cordiality, referred to several youthful reminiscences which they possessed in common, and was quite gracious to both the younger ladies. After several commonplace remarks, she dashed boldly into a discourse upon the final destiny of the earth and the adjacent stars.
She had just informed her guests that she was privately engaged upon the improvement of the electric light, and should soon have completed a system of universal religion, when a sudden influx of guests caused her to stop in the middle of a sentence, leaving her hearers in doubt as to whether the catechism of the new faith was to be printed in Volapük or in French, in which latter language most of the Baroness's intellectual efforts were given to the world.
Erika was obliged to leave her place beside the hostess and to mingle in the crowd that now rapidly filled the three reception-rooms.
She found very few acquaintances, and made the rather annoying discovery that, with the exception of a couple of flat-chested English girls, she was the only young girl present. If Count Treurenberg had not made his appearance to play cicerone, she must have utterly failed to understand what was going on around her.
The masculine element was the more strongly represented, but the feminine contingent was undoubtedly the more aristocratic. It consisted chiefly of very beautiful and distinguished women of rank who almost without exception had by some fatality rendered their reception at court impossible. Most of them were divorced, although upon what grounds was not clear.
The strictly orthodox Venetian and Austrian families avoided these entertainments, not so much upon moral grounds as because it was embarrassing to meet déclassées of their own rank, and because, besides, they believed this salon to be a hotbed of the rankest radicalism, both in morals and in politics.
In this they were not altogether wrong. There was nothing here of the Kapilavastu system of which the old Countess was wont to complain in Berlin; no, every imaginable topic was discussed, and after the most heterogeneous fashion. Consequently the salon was in its way an amusing one, its tiresome side being the determination on the part of the hostess not to allow her guests to amuse themselves, but always to offer them a plat de résistance in some shape or other.
On this evening this plat was Fräulein Minona von Rattenfels; and in the midst of Count Treurenberg's most amusing witticisms the guests were all bidden to assemble for the reading in the largest of the three rooms.
Here she sat, with her manuscript already open, and the conventional glass of water on a spindle-legged table beside her.
She was about fifty years old, large-boned, stout, and very florid, dressed in a red gown shot with black, which gave her the appearance of a half-boiled lobster, and with strings of false coin around her neck and in her hair.
Before the performance began, the electric lights were turned off, and the only illumination proceeded from two wax candles with pink shades on the table beside Minona. The literary essay was preceded by a musical prologue rendered by the pianist G----, who happened to be in Venice at the time.
He played a paraphrase of Siegmund's and Sieglinda's love-duet, gradually gliding into the motive of Isolde's death, all of which naturally increased the receptive capacity of the audience for the coming treat. The last tone died away. Minona von Rattenfels cleared her throat.
"Tombs!" She hurled the word, as it were, in a very deep voice into the midst of her audience. This was the pleasing title of her latest collection of love-songs.
It consisted of two parts, 'Love-Life' and 'Love-Death.' In the first part there was a great deal said about Dawn and Dew-drops, and in the second part quite as much about Worms and Withered Flowers, while in both there was such an amount of ardent passion that one could not but be grateful to the Baroness for her Bayreuth fashion of darkening the auditorium, thus veiling the blushes of certain sensitive ladies, as well as the sneering looks of others.
Of course Minona's delivery was highly dramatic. She screamed until her voice failed her, she rolled her eyes until she fairly squinted, and Count Treurenberg offered to wager an entire set of her works that one of her eyes was glass.
In most of her verses the lover was cold, hard, or faithless, but now and then she revelled in an 'oasis in the desert of life.' Then she became unutterably grotesque, the only distinguishable word in a languishing murmur being "L--o--ve!"
Suddenly in the midst of this extraordinary performance was heard the clicking of a couple of steel knitting needles, and shortly afterwards the reading came to an end.
Again the room was flooded with light. In the silence that reigned the clicking needles made the only sound. Erika looked to see whence the noise proceeded, and perceived an elderly lady with gray hair brushed smoothly over her temples, and a shrewd--almost masculine--face, sitting very erect, and dressed in a charming old-fashioned gown. Her brows were lifted, and her face showed unmistakably her decided disapproval of the performance. In the midst of the heated atmosphere she produced the impression of a stainless block of ice.
"Who is that?" Erika asked the Countess Mühlberg, who sat beside her.
"Fräulein Agatha von Horn. Shall I present you?"
Erika assented, and the Countess led her to the lady in question, who, still knitting, was seated on a sofa with three young, very shy artists, and overshadowed by a tall fan-palm.
The Countess presented Erika. The artists rose, and the two ladies took their seats on the sofa beside Fräulein von Horn.
The Fräulein sighed, and conversation began.
"If I am not mistaken, you are a dear friend of the gifted lady whom we have to thank this evening for so much pleasure," said Constance Mühlberg.
"We travel together, because it is cheaper," Fräulein von Horn replied, calmly, "but; as with certain married couples, we have nothing in common save our means of living."
"Indeed?" said Constance. "I am glad to hear it; for in that case we can express our sentiments freely with regard to the poetess."
"Quite freely."
Just then Count Treurenberg joined the group, and informed the ladies that he had been congratulating Minona upon her magnificent success.
"What did you say to her?" the truth-loving Agatha asked, almost angrily.
"'In you I hail our modern Sappho.' That is what I told her."
"And she replied----?" asked Constance Mühlberg.
The Count fanned himself with his opera-hat with a languishing air, and lisped, "'Ah, oui, Sappho; c'est bien Sappho, toujours la même histoire, after more than two thousand years.'"
"Poor Minona! and to think that she cudgels it all out of her imagination!" Fräulein Agatha remarked, ironically. "She has no more personal experience than--well, than I."
"'Sh!--not so loud," Constance whispered, laughing. "She never would forgive you for betraying her thus."
"I have known her from a child," Fräulein von Horn continued, composedly. "She once exchanged love-letters with her brother's tutor, and since then she has always played the game with a dummy."
The dry way in which she imparted this piece of information was irresistibly comical, but in the midst of the laughter which it provoked a loud voice was heard declaiming at the other end of the room, where, in the midst of a circle of listeners, stood a black-bearded individual with a Mephistophelian cast of countenance, holding forth upon some subject.
"Who is that?" asked Countess Mühlberg.
"I do not know the fellow," said the Count. "Not in my line."
"A writer from Vienna," Fräulein von Horn explained. "He was invited here, that he might write an article upon Minona."
"What is he talking about?" asked the Count.
Countess Mühlberg, who had been stretching her delicate neck to listen, replied, "About love."
"Indeed!" exclaimed Count Treurenberg, springing up from his seat: "I must hear what the fellow has to say." And, followed shortly afterwards by Constance Mühlberg, he joined the circle about the black-bearded seer.
Erika remained sitting with Fräulein Agatha on the sofa beneath the palm. They could hear the seer's drawling voice as he announced very distinctly, "Love is the instinctive desire of an individual for union with a certain individual of the opposite sex."
Fräulein von Horn meditatively smoothed her gray hair with one of her long knitting-needles, and said, carelessly, "I know that definition: it is Max Norden's." Whereupon she left her seat beside Erika to devote herself to the three artists, her protégés.
Erika was left entirely alone under the palm, in a state of angry discontent. Never before, wherever she had been, had she been so little regarded. She was of no more importance here than Fräulein Agatha,--hardly of as much. For the first time it occurred to her that under certain circumstances it was quite inconvenient to be unmarried.
At the same time she was conscious of a great disappointment: she had not come hither to study the Baroness Neerwinden's eccentricities, or to listen to Minona von Rattenfels's love-plaints: she had come---- What, in fact, had she come for?
From the other end of the room came the seer's voice: "The only strictly moral union is founded upon elective affinity."
"Very true!" exclaimed Frau von Neerwinden.
A short pause followed. The servants handed about refreshments. Rosenberg, the black-bearded seer, stood with his left elbow propped upon the back of his friend Minona's chair; in his right he held his opera-hat.
A French littérateur, who had understood enough of the whole performance to be jealous of his German colleague, began to proclaim his view of love: "L'amour est une illusion, qui--que----" There he stuck fast.
Then somebody whom Erika did not know exclaimed, "Where is Lozoncyi? He knows more of the subject than we do; he ought to be able to help us."
"I think his knowledge is practical rather than theoretical," said Count Treurenberg.
Not long afterwards a few guests took leave, as it was growing late. The circle was smaller, and Erika discovered Lozoncyi seated on a lounge between two ladies, Frau von Geroldstein and the Princess Gregoriewitsch. The Princess was a beauty in her way, tall, stout, very décolletée, and with long, languishing eyes. Lozoncyi was leaning towards her, and whispering in her ear.
Erika rose with a sensation of disgust and walked out upon a balcony, where she had scarcely cast a glance upon the veiled magnificence of the opposite palaces when Lozoncyi stood beside her. "Good-evening, Countess. I had no idea that you were here; I discovered you only this moment."
In her irritated mood she did not offer him her hand. "You are astonished that my grandmother should have brought me here," she said, with a shrug.
But, to her surprise, she perceived that nothing of the kind had occurred to him: his sense of what was going on about him was evidently blunted.
"Why?" he asked. "Because--because of the antecedents of the hostess? It is long since people have troubled themselves about those, and it is the brightest salon in Venice."
"There has certainly been nothing lacking in the way of animation to-night," Erika observed, coldly.
She was leaning with both hands on the balustrade of the balcony, and she spoke to him over her shoulder. He cared little for what she said, but her beauty intoxicated him. Always strongly influenced by his surroundings, the least noble part of his nature had the upper hand with him to-night.
"Rosenberg has taken great pains to entertain his audience," he remarked, carelessly.
"And his efforts have assuredly been crowned with success," Erika replied, contemptuously. Then, with a shade more of scorn in her voice, she asked, "Is there always as much--as much talk of love here?"
"It is frequently discussed," he replied. "And why not? It is the most important thing in the world." Then, with his admiring artist-stare, he added, in a lower tone, "As you will discover for yourself."
She frowned, turned away, and re-entered the room.
He stayed outside, suddenly conscious of his want of tact, but inclined to lay the fault of it at her door. "'Tis a pity she is so whimsical a creature," he muttered between his teeth; "and so gloriously beautiful; a great pity!" Nevertheless he was vexed with himself, and was firmly resolved, if chance ever gave him another interview with her, to make better use of his opportunity.
Shortly afterwards Countess Lenzdorff, with Erika and Constance Mühlberg, took her leave. She was in a very good humour, and exchanged all sorts of witticisms with Constance with regard to their evening.
"And how did you enjoy yourself?" she asked Erika, when, after leaving Constance at home, the two were alone in the gondola on their way to the 'Britannia.'
"I?" asked Erika, with a contemptuous depression of the corners of her mouth. "How could I enjoy myself in an assemblage where there was nothing talked of but love?"
Her grandmother laughed heartily: "Yes, it was rather a silly way to pass the time, I confess. I cannot conceive why they waste so many words upon what is perfectly plain to any one with eyes. They grope about, and no one explains in the least the nature of love." She threw back her head, and, without for an instant losing the slightly mocking smile which was so characteristic of her beautiful old face, she said, "Love is an irritation of the fancy, produced by certain natural conditions, which expresses itself, so long as it lasts, in the exclusive glorification of one single individual, and robs the human being who is its victim of all power of discernment. All things considered, those people are very lucky who, when the torch of passion is extinguished, can find anything save humiliation in the memory of their love."
The old Countess was privately very proud of her definition, and looked round at Erika with an air of self-satisfaction at having clothed what was so self-evident, so cheerful a view, in such uncommonly appropriate words. But Erika's face had assumed a dark, pained expression. Her grandmother's words had aroused in her the old anguish,--anguish for her mother. It was not to be denied that in some cases her grandmother's view was the true one. Was it true always? No! Something in the girl's nature rebelled against such a thought. No! a thousand times no!
"But the love of which you speak, grandmother, is only sham love," she said, in a husky, trembling voice. "There is surely another kind,--a genuine, sacred, ennobling love!"
"There may be," said her grandmother. "The pity is that one never knows the true from the false until it is past."
Erika said no more.
The air was mild; the scent of roses was wafted across the sluggish water of the lagoon; there was a faint sound of distant music. But an icy chill crept over Erika, and in her heart there was a strange, aching, yearning pain.