CHAPTER XX.
[THÉRÈSE DE ROHRITZ.]
Winter--such winter as Paris is familiar with--has set in, to make itself at home. The gardeners have stripped the squares and public gardens of their last flowers; the trees and the grass and the bare sod are powdered with snow. When one says 'as white' or 'as pure' as snow, one must never think of Paris snow, for it is brown, black, gray,--everything except white; and, as if ashamed of its characterless existence, it creeps as soon as possible into the earth.
Full six weeks have passed since the Meinecks took up their abode in 'The Three Negroes.' In order to increase their means, the Baroness has generously determined to write newspaper articles, although she has a supreme contempt for all journalistic effort, and she has also completed two shorter essays, for which the Berlin 'Tribune' paid her twenty-five marks.
With a view to making her descriptions of the world's capital vividly real, she pursues her study of Paris with all the thoroughness that characterizes her study of history. She has visited the Morgue, as well as Valentino's, note-book in hand, but escorted by an old carpenter, who once mended a trunk for her and won her heart by his sensible way of talking politics. She paid him five francs for his companionship, and maintains that he was far less tiresome at Valentino's than a fine gentleman. She has devised a most interesting visit shortly to be paid to the Parisian sewers. Meanwhile, in order to make herself perfectly familiar with the life of the streets, she spends three hours daily, two in the forenoon and one in the afternoon, upon the top of various omnibuses.
And Stella,--how does she pass her time? Four times a week she takes a singing-lesson,--two private lessons, and two in della Seggiola's 'class,' besides which she practises daily for about two hours at home. She is at liberty to spend the rest of her time in any mode of self-culture that pleases her. She can go, if she is so inclined, to the Rue Richelieu with her mother, or visit the Louvre alone, can attend to little matters at home, or read learned works and write extracts from them in the book bound in antique leather which her mother gave her upon her birthday.
What wealth of various and interesting occupations and pleasures for a girl of twenty-one! It is quite inconceivable, but nevertheless it is true, that in spite of them she feels lonely and unhappy,--grows daily more nervous and restless, and, without being able to define exactly the cause of her sadness, more melancholy. Her energetic mother, to whom such a vague discontent is absolutely inconceivable, reproaches her with a want of earnestness in her studies and induces a physician to prescribe iron for her.
What is there that iron is not expected to cure?
To-day Stella is again alone at home; her mother has gone out after lunch to take her bird's-eye view of Paris from the top of an omnibus. She has graciously offered to take Stella with her, but Stella thanks her and declines; she detests riding in omnibuses, on the top she grows dizzy, and inside she becomes ill.
"Well, I suppose the only thing that would really please you would be to drive in a barouche-and-pair in the Bois," her mother remarks. "Unfortunately, that I cannot afford." With which she hurries away.
Stella's throat aches; she often has a throat-ache,--the specific throat-ache of a poor child of mortality who has learned to sing with seven different professors, and whose voice has been treated at different times as a soprano, a mezzo-soprano, and a deep contralto. She has been obliged to stop practising in consequence, to-day, and has taken up a volume of Gibbon, but is too distraite to comprehend what she reads. It really is strange how slight an interest she takes in the decline of the Roman Empire.
"And if I should not succeed upon the stage, if my voice should not turn out well," she constantly asks herself, "what then? what then?"
Why, for a moment--oh, how her cheeks hum as she recalls her delusion!--she absolutely allowed herself to imagine that---- How bitterly she has learned to sneer at her fantastic dreams!
"Has Edmund Rohritz's wife not yet been to see you?" Leskjewitsch had asked her mother in a letter shortly before. "You do not know her, but I begged Edgar awhile ago to send her to you,--she would be so advantageous an acquaintance for Stella."
"She would indeed," the poor child thinks; "but not even his old friend's request has induced him to do me a kindness."
Her sad, weary glance wanders absently over the various lithographs that adorn the walls, portraits of famous singers, Tamberlik, Rubini, Mario, all with the signature of those celebrities. Apparently the hotel must formerly have enjoyed an extensive artistic patronage.
She takes up Gibbon once more, and does her best to become absorbed in the destinies of the tribunes of the people. In vain.
"Good heavens!" she exclaims, irritably, "who could read a serious book in all this noise? And 'The Negroes' was recommended to us as a quiet hotel!"
The Deputy from the south of France is pacing the room above her to and fro, now repeating in a murmur and anon declaiming with grotesque pathos to the empty air the speech which he is learning by heart.
In the room next to him an amateur performer is piping 'The Last Rose of Summer' on a very hoarse flute,--an English bagman, who is suffering from an inflammation of the eyes, wherefore we must not grudge him his musical distractions. He is piping 'The Last Rose' for the eighteenth time; Stella has counted.
"'Tis beyond endurance!" the girl exclaims, closing her Gibbon. "Ah, heavens, how dreary life is!" she groans. "I wish I were dead!"
Just then there comes a ring at the door. Stella opens it. A tall, smooth-shaven lackey stands in the corridor and hands her a card:
"La Baronne Edmond de Rohritz, née Princesse Capito."
"Madame la Baronne wishes to know if the Frau Baroness is receiving?" the man asks, vanishing when Stella assents.
"He probably takes me for a waiting-maid," Stella thinks, childishly, not without some petty annoyance that she was forced to open the door herself for the servant, and she hurries into the salon, to put away a piece of mending which is by no means ornamental. Scarcely has she done so when a light foot-fall comes tripping up the stairs. There is another ring, and again Stella opens the door. A lady enters, slender, very pale, with delicately-cut features, and large, black, rather restless eyes, which she slightly closes as she looks at Stella, and then pleasantly holds out her hand:
"Mademoiselle Meineck, n'est-ce pas?"
Not for one moment is she in doubt whether this tall girl in a plain stuff dress be a soubrette or not.
"My brother-in-law Rohritz wrote me some time ago telling me to call upon your mother and yourself and to ask if I could be of any service to you. I have promised myself the pleasure of doing so every day since; my very critical brother's letter inspired me with eager curiosity; but one never has time for anything in Paris,--nothing pleasant, that is. Well, here I am at last. Is your mother at home?"
"My mother has gone out, but will shortly return; she would greatly regret missing you, madame. If you could be content with my society for a while----" Stella rejoins.
"I should be delighted to have a little talk with you," the lady assures her; "but do you suppose I have time to stay? What an idea in Paris! I had to fairly steal a quarter of an hour of time already appropriated to come to see you. We must postpone our talk. I trust I shall see a great deal of you; I am always at leisure in the evening,--that is, when I do not have to go to bed from sheer fatigue! And how have you passed the time since you came to Paris?"
Madame de Rohritz has installed herself in an arm-chair by the fireplace, has put up her veil and thrown back her furs from her shoulders.
A delicate fragrance exhales from her robes; all Parisian women use perfumes, but how refined, how exquisite, is this fragrance compared with the overpowering odour of Peau, d'Espagne which surrounds the Princess Oblonsky!
Thérèse Rohritz does not possess her brother's beauty, but everything about her is graceful and attractive,--her veiled glance,--a glance which can be half impertinent sometimes, but which rests upon Stella with evident liking,--her beaming and yet slightly weary smile,--yes, even her hurried articulation and her high-pitched but soft and melodious voice.
"How have you passed the time since you came to Paris?" she asks again.
"We live very quietly," Stella stammers. "Mamma is studying that she may finish her book, and of course has no time to go out with me."
"Yes, yes, I know; my brother-in-law told me," Madame de Rohritz replies. "And you----"
"I? I take singing-lessons four times a week."
"My brother-in-law wrote me that you intend to go upon the stage." Madame de Rohritz laughs. "If I were a Frenchwoman I should be horrified at the idea, but I am half an Austrian. I know those whims: a cousin of mine, a Russian, Natalie Lipinski----"
"Natalie Lipinski! Ah!" Stella exclaims; "my fellow-student. We take lessons together twice a week in Signor della Seggiola's class."
"Indeed! Well, she is thinking of going upon the stage,--and with a fortune of ten million roubles. In Austria and Russia such ideas will take possession of the brains of the best-born and best-bred girls; cela ne tire pas à consequence! I never oppose Natalie, but I mean to have her married before she knows what she is about. And what shall I do with you, my fair one with the golden locks? Do you know I like you exceedingly? Le coup de foudre en plein,--love at first sight."
The clock on the chimney-piece--a clock apparently dating from the days when 'L'Africaine' was the rage, for the face is adorned with a manchineel-tree in miniature and a barbaric maiden in a head-dress of feathers dying beneath it--strikes three.
The lady starts up, takes out her watch, and compares it with the clock.
"Positively three o'clock, and my poor little boy is waiting for me in the carriage! I was to take him to his solfeggio class at three. Adieu, adieu; my compliments to your mother, and au revoir, n'est-ce pas?" She turns once again in the door-way, and, taking both Stella's hands, says, "You will come to dine with us once this week with your mother quite en famille the first time, that we may learn to know one another. I will excuse a formal call: you can pay that later: it is silly to lose time with formalities when one is simpatica. Adieu, adieu. What beautiful eyes you have! Je me sauve!"
The lively young madame kisses Stella's forehead, and then goes--or rather flies--away.
Stella's heart beats fast and loud.
"After all, he sent her: he has not quite forgotten me."