XXII.
It is already twilight. Eugene von Rhoeden sits with his cousin Raimund in the Harfinks' drawing-room. As Pistasch had ridden to Traunberg, where Rhoeden seldom accompanied him, the Countess Dey was in bed with a headache, and Scirocco had one of those fits of desperate melancholy which so often tormented him, and was wandering about the woods, Eugene had nothing to do in Iwanow. For a change he had ridden over to Marienbad. At the forest spring, where the guests were assembled around the music-stand, he had met Raimund, and had heard from him that "the old man" had driven over with his wife to see the arrogant Linda; he, Raimund, had spared them his society.
Eugene resolved to await the return of the pair; it interested him to learn something about the result of the visit.
The two cousins soon came to the conclusion that the music and the crowd around the pavilion were intolerable as well as the heat, and betook themselves to the Mühl strasse, where Papa Harfink, more conservative than superstitious, and besides wholly secure in his new happiness from indiscreet visits of Susanna's ghost, occupied the same apartments in which for long years he had "suffered" every summer with the deceased.
With a tinge of bitterness Eugene looked about him as he entered the bright room in which he had passed so many sweet hours with Linda. There stood the old-fashioned arm-chair yet, with the same covering, now, to be sure, worn at all the corners, the chair in which she used to lean back in the sultry summer afternoons, teasingly pulling to pieces his last gift of flowers with her delicate fingers, while Papa Harfink snored in the adjoining room; Mamma Harfink, in her maid's room, discussed the cut of her new toilet with the latter, but he, Eugene, crouching at the feet of the young girl, told her gay, trifling little stories, many times half-jokingly interspersing a tender word. Then she threw a flower in his face; her hand remained imprisoned in his, and he kissed it for punishment. Thus it went on for hours, until Papa Harfink entered the room with scarcely opened eyes and hair tumbled by sleep, and asked, "Are we going to have coffee at home to-day?"
Eugene had never seen the room since he had rushed into it, now more than five years ago, the bunch of white gardenias in his hand, and had found his cousin Lanzberg's fiancée. At that time he had not changed his expression, had not by one word betrayed his passion, knowing well that a man like him who wishes to rise in the world is condemned to perpetual agreeableness.
How he had felt at that time!
His was no sentimental nature, but he had a faithful memory, and remembered distinctly how he had murmured the most polite phrases of congratulation; had drawn a comparison between himself and the man of old family, and beside, Felix had seemed to himself like a handsome dry-goods clerk.
His love for Linda--it had been genuine of its kind--had long fled, but the wound which her vanity had inflicted in his still burned. The wish to repay Linda for her arrogance still animated him.
The hour was near.
Outside a carriage was heard, then loud, creaking steps on the wooden stairs; a hoarse, croaking woman's voice gasped out from time to time furious and incomprehensible words; the door opened and Juanita entered. Crimson, with swollen veins and sparkling eyes, she threw her fan, broken in the middle, upon the table.
In vain did Papa Harfink again and again stretch his short arms out to her and cry, "Lovely angel, calm yourself!" She had no time for love.
"To insult me!--me--me!" she beat her breast; "me, Juanita, the Marchesa Carini--bah!" she clenched her fist, "he, a criminal--a----"
"Who has insulted you, who is a criminal?" asks Raimund.
"He--he--this Lanzberg!" she gasps. "Oh, I will revenge myself--they shall see--I will revenge myself--Caro, Caro!" screams the Spaniard.
Caroline is the maid, who enters at her mistress's loud cry.
"Bring me the little black casket with the golden bird!" commands Juanita.
The maid disappears; soon she returns with the casket, which she places upon the table before her mistress, whereupon she withdraws.
The blood throbs in Eugene's finger-tips, but, apparently perfectly indifferent, he stoops for the lace scarf which, with a quick gesture, Juanita has thrown from her upon the floor. Papa Harfink, who took the matter very phlegmatically, rang to order a flask of spring water and a lemon.
Juanita rummaged for a long time among old newspapers in which her triumphs were recorded. She turned them over more and more uneasily. Papa Harfink had long since ordered his spring water, when at last Juanita "found it."
"There it is!" cried she. "Will you read it?"
Eugene von Rhoeden refused. Raimund read it aloud.
It was an article in a scandalous journal which appeared in Vienna early in the sixties, but since then had failed or been suppressed. In that impertinent tone of cheap wit which seeks intellect in mockery, knowledge of human nature in cynicism, the story was told of a very arrogant young blue blood who in a weak hour had forged his father's name and who "now could further cultivate his talent for drawing in the prison of T----."
The name of the young man was given as Baron L----. Some one had written "Lanzberg" above it.
"That is not possible!" cried Raimund.
"Oh, if you please--if you please--possible!" screamed Juanita. "It is all true--perfectly true!"
"I once heard something of that," declared Harfink, senior, whom the whole story troubled very little, and who had not enlightened Susanna.
Rhoeden was silent.
"And this despicable rascal has dared to marry into our honest family!" cried Raimund, beside himself.
"Susie knew of it! He-he-he!" burst out Mr. Harfink, who now only too gladly accused the deceased.
"My mother knew it!" Raimund struck his forehead. "Linda surely does not know it!"
"Leave her in her delusion," said Eugene, sweetly. "One cannot change matters in the slightest, and all these years Felix has behaved so blamelessly, so nobly, so----"
He knew that his praise of Lanzberg would bring forth a new burst of rage from Juanita.
"Indeed!" now repeated the Spaniard, with malevolent emphasis, "nobly, blamelessly!" and seized the paper.
"No; Linda must know it; I shall write to her this very day!" cried Raimund.
"That you will not do," said Eugene, firmly.
"Why?"
"Because it would be vulgar." With that Eugene rose and took his hat.
Juanita had meanwhile added to the time-obliterated pencil-mark a new, heavier one, had wrapped up the paper with remarkable deftness, and addressed it.
"Will you put that in the post-box?" she asked.
"No, my dear madam," he replied, gravely, bowed and left. Behind him he heard the voice of the Spaniard: "Caro, Caro--to the post--but immediately!"
Through the damp evening shadows he trotted to Iwanow. He enjoyed the pleasant conviction of having behaved throughout as an eminently upright man, and also the pleasant conviction that he had attained his aim.
At a turn of the road, castle Traunberg shone gray and ghost-like between the dark old lindens. Eugene took off his hat, smiling ironically, and murmured, "Good evening, Linda!"