CHAPTER XV.
[SCATTERED.]
Summer has gone. The birds are silent; brown leaves cover the green grass, falling thicker and thicker from the weary trees; long, white gossamers float in the damp, oppressive air: the autumn is weaving a shroud for the dying year.
Scared by the whistling blasts and the floods of rain, the swallows have assembled in dark flocks; they are seen in long rows on the telegraph-wires in eager twittering discussion of their approaching flight, and then, the next morning, early, before the lingering autumn sun has opened its drowsy eyes, the heavens are black with their flying squadrons.
But the final death-struggle is not yet over, the warmth in all vegetation is not yet chilled; bright flowers still bloom at the feet of the fast-thinning trees, and, shaking the falling leaves from their cups, laugh up at the blue skies.
The little company which at the beginning of this simple story we found assembled at Erlach Court is now dispersed to all quarters of the world: the general is 'grazing,' as Jack Leskjewitsch expresses it, with somebody in Southern Hungary; Stasy is fluttering, with sweet smiles and covert malice, from friend to friend, seeming at present on the lookout for a fixed engagement for the winter; Rohritz is off on his wonted autumnal hunting-expedition, and more than usually bored by it; and the Leskjewitsches are still at Erlach Court, where Freddy is in perpetual conflict with his new tutor, a spare, lank philosopher lately imported for him from Bohemia, and Katrine quaffs full draughts of her beloved solitude, without experiencing the great degree of rapture she had anticipated from it; there is a cloud upon her brow, and her annoyance is principally due to the fact that the captain begins to show unmistakable signs of a lapse from his former manly energy of character; he scarcely holds himself as erect as was his wont, and the only occupation which he pursues with any notable degree of self-sacrifice and devotion is the breaking of a pair of very young and very fiery horses. This praiseworthy pursuit, however, absorbs only a few hours at most of each day, and he kills the rest of the time as best he can, irritating by his idleness his wife, who is always occupied with most interesting matters. In addition he reads silly novels, and greatly admires the 'Maître de Forges.'
"How can any man admire the 'Maitre de Forges'?" Katrine asks, indignantly.
The Baroness and Stella have been back in their mill-cottage at Zalow for many weeks, and Stella is, as usual, left entirely to herself.
In addition to the daily scribbling over of various sheets of foolscap, the Baroness, instead of bestowing any attention upon her daughter, is mainly occupied with superintending the carrying out of all the governmental prophylactic measures which are to secure to Zalow entire immunity from the cholera. She has come off victorious in many a battle with the culpably negligent village authority, and, to the immense edification of the inmates of the various villas, already somewhat accustomed to the vagaries of the Baroness Meineck, she now goes from one manure-heap to another of the place, at the head of a battalion of barefooted village children provided with watering-pots filled with a disinfectant, the due apportionment of which she thus oversees herself.
It was long an undecided question whether this winter, like the last, should be spent in Zalow. Finally the Baroness decided that it was absolutely necessary for herself as well as for Stella that the cold season of the year should be passed in Paris, for herself that she might have access to much information needed for the completion of her 'work,' for Stella that a final polish might be given to her singing and that she might be definitively prepared for the stage.
Every one who has ever had anything to do with Lina Meineck knows that if she once takes any scheme into her head it is sure to be carried out: therefore, having made up her mind to go to Paris, she will go, although no one among all her relatives has an idea of where the requisite funds are to come from.
It does not occur to any one that she could lay hands upon the small fortune belonging to Stella, who has lately been declared of age.