CHAPTER XXVIII.
[A PARIS LETTER.]
A few days after the appearance at Erlach Court of the grass-widow, the mail brings Rohritz a letter with the Paris post-mark. Edgar recognizes his sister-in-law's hand, opens it not without haste, and reads it not without interest. It runs thus:
"Eh bien, my dear Edgar, j'espere que vous serez content de moi," Thérèse always writes to her brother in a jargon of French, Italian, German, and English, which, out of regard for the pedantry of modern purists, we translate into as good English as we are able to command: "I hope you will be pleased with me. I frankly confess to you, what you probably guessed from my last postal card, that your request to me to try to brighten their life in Paris for two of your countrywomen did not afford me much pleasure. As a rule, compatriots so recommended are an unmitigated bore, from the pianists whose three hundred--no, that's too few--five hundred tickets we must dispose of, and who then, when you ask them to a soirée, are too grand to play the smallest mazourka of Chopin, to the Baronesses Wolnitzka, who request you to introduce them to Parisian society because they never have an opportunity to see any one at home. The pianists are bad enough, but the Wolnitzkas--oh! In one respect they are precisely alike: they are always offended. If you invite them en famille they are offended because they suppose you are ashamed of them; if you invite them to a ball they are offended because you pay them no particular attention. The upshot is that you always have to refuse them something,--to lend a thousand francs to the genius when he already owes you five hundred,--to procure for the Wolnitzkas an invitation to some ball at the embassy; then ensues a quarrel, and they draw down the corners of their mouths and look the other way when they meet you in the street.
"Only at the repeated request of your brother, who wherever anything Austrian is concerned is the personification of self-sacrificing devotion, did I make up my mind to call upon your acquaintance at the 'Negroes.'
"The hôtel is--very plain, but I believe very respectable,--which is more than one has a right to expect of just such furnished lodgings in Paris. The staircase, a narrow crooked flight of steps with slippery sloping stairs, creaked beneath my feet; I was afraid it would break down as I mounted to the Meinecks' appartement. One final, depressing, menacing memory of the Wolnitzkas assailed me. Justin rings, the door opens, and all my prejudices vanish like snow before the sun. The daughter alone was at home. I fell in love with her on the instant,--so deeply in love that before I left I called her Stella and kissed her cheek. She is enchanting.
"It is not only that she is exquisitely beautiful; she combines the most innocent simplicity with the greatest distinction, a combination never found except in Austrian women. You see I know how to value your countrywomen when they are really worth it.
"Her face, her entire air, seemed created to banish all sadness from her presence; and yet there was a pathos in her look, in her smile, that went to my heart. But she must be happy. I mean to search for happiness for her; and I shall find it.
"Ce que femme le veut y Dieu le veut! When I do anything I do it thoroughly. What do you think? It took me three weeks to resolve to call upon the Meinecks. I invited them to dine without waiting for them to return my visit. You know my way. We passed a charming evening together, strictly informal, to become acquainted with one another. The mother was as little eccentric as is possible for a blue-stocking to be, and in the course of four hours had only two attacks of absence of mind, which does her honour. What a handsome face! Edmund, who is a connoisseur in such matters, maintains that she must have been more beautiful than her daughter,--high praise, since the daughter, by the way, pleases him as much as she does me. And then what wealth of learning behind that brow with its white hair! Wells of knowledge! a walking encyclopædia!
"Although the fashion of her gown was that of twenty years ago, she is still a thorough grande dame; and that is saying much in consideration of the evident dilapidation of their finances.
"As a mother she may have her disagreeable side; she is too original,--too egotistic. She neglects her lovely daughter frightfully. All the time not absorbed by her literary labours she devotes to the study of Paris; and what mode of pursuing this study with the due amount of thoroughness do you suppose she has invented? She drives about for a certain number of hours daily on the tops of the various omnibuses.
"Fancy!--on the top of an omnibus! A day or two ago, coming home from the Bon-Marché, as I was detained by a crowd of vehicles in the Rue du Bac I saw her comfortably installed upon the dizzy height of an omnibus-top. She wore a short black velvet cloak frayed at all the seams, the fur trimming eaten away by moths, pearl-gray gloves (her hands are ridiculously small), such as were worn twenty years ago upon state occasions, a black straw bonnet, and no muff. She sat between two vagabonds in white blouses, with whom she was talking earnestly, and looked like--well, like a queen dowager in disguise. As it was just beginning to rain, I sent my servant to beg her to alight, and took her home in my carriage.
"A lady on the top of an omnibus! It is frightful; it is impossible. But still more impossible is a young girl who wishes to go upon the stage; and Stella wishes to go upon the stage.
"Nevertheless my relations with the Meinecks grow daily more intimate. Heroic conduct on my part, is it not?
"Poor little Stella! I feel an infinite pity for her. I have no faith in her career. Pshaw! Stella Meineck on the stage! 'Tis ridiculous! She does not know what she is talking about.
"Meanwhile, I have impressed upon her that she is to tell no one of her artistic plans, which may come to naught. It might do her an injury. And I have a scheme! Ah, leave it to me. What I do I do well. Before the season is over Stella will be married. To establish a young girl with no money is difficult nowadays, particularly in Paris, where every man has a fixed price; but there are bargains to be had occasionally.
"She is beautiful, she is lovely, and if the Meinecks do not date precisely from the Crusades the name sounds fine enough to impress some wealthy citizen who writes on his card the name of his estate in the country after his own, in hopes of thus manufacturing a title for himself.
"I see you curl your haughty Austrian lip; you regard all these pseudo-aristocrats with sovereign contempt. You are wrong. Good heavens! why should not a man call himself after his castle if it has a prettier name than his own? Do we not find it more agreeable to present him to our acquaintances as Monsieur de Hauterive than as Monsieur Cabouat? Now 'tis out! There is a certain Monsieur Cabouat de Hauterive whom I have in my eye for Stella. He is very rich, has frequented the society of gentlemen from childhood, and has been received during the last few years by everybody; he loves music, has one of the finest private picture-galleries in Paris, and is in the prime of life,--barely forty-two,--quite young for a man: in short, he seems made for Stella. Last summer he laughingly challenged me to find a wife for him, expressly stating that he desired no dowry. At that time he was longing for repose and a home. I heard lately, however, that he had become entangled in a liaison with S----, of the Opéra-Bouffe. That would be frightful.
"Moreover, I have two other men in view for Stella,--an Englishman, forty-five years old, rather shy in consequence of deafness, of very good family, an income of six thousand pounds sterling, and of good trustworthy character; and a Dutchman whose ears were cut off in Turkey, wherefore he is compelled to wear his hair after the fashion of the youthful Bonaparte; but these are trifles.
"Poor melancholy little Stella will be glad to shelter her weary head beneath any respectable roof. The only thing that troubles me is that Zino knew her three years ago in Venice, and is perfectly bewitched by her. Can I prevent him from making love to her? It would be dreadful. Not that it would ever occur to him to be wanting in respect for her, but he might turn her head, and that would ruin all my plans. She might then conceive the idea of marrying only a man with whom she is in love,--perfect nonsense in her position: there is none such for her. Love is an article of supreme luxury in marriage, and exists for wealthy people and day-labourers only.
"Yes, when I do anything I do it well! I do not write to you for two years, but then I give you twenty pages at once. Have you had the patience to read all this? If you have, let me entreat you to take to heart what follows.
"Give us the pleasure of a visit from you. You do not know our new home, and I am burning with desire to show it to you. In the first story of our little house there is a room all ready for you, very comfortable, and, I give you my word, the chimney does not smoke. If you cannot be induced to come to us, let Edmund take rooms for you wherever you please. Only come! I shall else fancy that you have never forgiven me for once being bold enough to want to marry you off. Adieu! I promise you faithfully not to try to lasso you again. With kindest messages from us all,
"Your affectionate sister,
"Thérèse."
An extra slip of paper accompanied this succinct document. Its contents were as follows:
"Paris, 27th December.
"How forgetful I am! The enclosed letter has been lying for a week in my portfolio. Although it is an old story now, I send it, because it will inform you of all that has been going on.
"Two words more. Since I wrote it I have invited Stella and Hauterive to dinner once, and have had them another evening in our box at the opera. They both dislike Wagner: that is something. Moreover, he thinks her enchanting, and she does not think him very disagreeable,--which is about all that can be expected in a mariage de conveyance. Everything is working along smoothly; the betrothal is a mere question of time. What do you say now to my energy and capacity?"
He says nothing. He is very pale, and his hands tremble as he folds the letter and puts it away in his desk. A distressing, paralyzing sensation overpowers him. For a moment he sits motionless at his writing-table, his elbows resting upon it, his head in his hands. Suddenly he springs to his feet.
"'Tis a crime! I must prevent it!" The next moment he slays his zeal with a smile. He prevent? And how? Shall he, like his namesake in the opera, rush in at the moment when the betrothal is going on and shout out his veto? And what is it to him if Stella chooses to lead a wealthy, brilliant existence beside an unloved husband? No one forces her to do so.
Meanwhile, the door of his room opens, and with the familiarity of an old comrade the captain enters.
"Will you not play a game of billiards with me, Edgar, before I drive out?" he asks.
Rohritz declares himself ready for a game.