CHAPTER I.
Rautschin, still Rautschin!--the tiny town lying at the feet of the huge castle on the tower of which the clock has stopped for twenty years--but no longer in pouring rain with thunder and lightning, but Rautschin beneath skies of sapphire blue, upon a hot July afternoon.
The sun was still high in the heavens. The crooked little row of houses on one side of the Market Square, cast short, black shadows, the national red kerchiefs, with broad borders of gay flowers hanging at the door of the principal shop, fluttered gently in the summer breeze. A melancholy hubbub of discords, struggling in vain for a solution, was heard through the open window of one of the newest and ugliest houses. Eugéne Alexander Cibulka, and the wife of the district commissioner, were playing Wagner's 'Walküre,' arranged for four hands, and each had again 'lost the place.' They regularly lose the place every time a leaf is turned, and so the one who gets first to the bottom of the page, very kindly waits for the other.
Rautschin Castle stands proudly superior to every structure about it, ensconced behind all kinds of farm-buildings and additions, at the extreme end of the Market Square, to which it turns its shoulder, as it were. Except for its imposing dimensions, it is in no wise remarkable.
Standing at the entrance of a very extensive park, it dates from the time of Maria Theresa, when the present clumsy edifice, its prim façade defaced by grass-green shutters, was built upon the remains of a feudal fortress. The court-yard is not perfectly square, and the arches of the arcade rest upon granite pillars. Its interior is quite in accordance with its exterior; it is anything but splendid, and has an air of empty, dignified distinction.
Before the western side of the Castle, Count Truyn with his young wife was sitting beneath the shade of a red and gray striped marquee; behind them in a garden-room, the glass doors of which were wide open, Oswald, standing on a step-ladder, was busy hanging on the wall a piece of gold-embroidered Oriental stuff, and Gabrielle was handing him the nails.
"Well Zini, are you beginning to like our home?" said Truyn, propping his elbows upon the white garden table, between himself and his wife. He looked so contented, so proud of his possessions, so triumphant, that Zinka could not refrain from teasing him a little.
"Taken all in all, yes," she said indifferently, "but then taken all in all, I should like Siberia, with you and Ella."
"Zinka! I must confess,"--Truyn's face assumed a disturbed and almost offended expression, "I must say that I cannot understand how any one can compare Rautschin to a place of exile!"
"I did not mean to do so, rest assured," Zinka said, "I think your Rautschin very delightful, I should only like to alter a few details."
"I cannot abide improvements," growled Truyn, "it is only the Caprianis and Company, who must always be beautifying everything old--that is destroying it. I think an old place should be left as it is, with all its characteristic defects--to try to improve them, seems to me like trying to correct the drawing of a Giotto or a Cimabue."
"I can understand a respect for the old mis-drawings," Zinka rejoined quietly, "but does one owe the same respect to modern retouching, to the vandalism that has made clumsy additions to an old picture?"
"Hm!" Truyn gazed thoughtfully around him--"no, in fact. It is remarkable that you are always right, you little witch. Now be frank Zini; what exactly would you like to have different? So far as my veneration and my finances permit, you shall have your will."
Zinka pointed to the lawn that lay before them, terribly disfigured by bright red and yellow arabesques. "I think that confectioner's ornamentation there almost as ugly as the carpet-gardening at the Villa Albani," she said, "don't you?"
Truyn ran his hands through his hair, "Well, yes,"--he meekly admitted after a pause, "but I cannot possibly alter that. Old Kraus, to surprise me, has taken infinite pains to portray our crest on the lawn--I had to praise him for his brilliant idea, however hideous I thought the thing, don't you see, Zini?"
"That alters the case entirely," Zinka admitted. "I would not hurt faithful old Kraus for the world. But"--she pointed to the basin of a fountain, the shape of which was particularly ugly--"old Kraus could not have designed that basin--that might be cleared away!"
Truyn looked thoroughly discomfited. "The basin is a horror," he confessed, "but I cannot help saying a good word for it. It is endeared to me by youthful associations--if only because when I was a boy of twelve, I was very nearly drowned in it."
"Oh then indeed ...." Zinka shrugged her shoulders, with a humourous air of resignation. "I now hardly dare to object to the green shutters," she went on, "for if, as in view of their colour is highly probable, they gave you opthalmia, some thirty years ago--it would ...."
"No, no, no, I give up the shutters," exclaimed Truyn laughing, "let them go. And now I have something to tell you that you will not relish--no need to change colour, the matter is an inconvenience, not a trial. While I have been away--for the last ten years in fact--the park has been open to the public. The little town has no other public garden. I have, indeed, in view of this, placed an extensive tract of land at the disposal of the town Council, but it is not yet laid out, and until it is, I should not like entirely to deprive the public of the freedom of the Park. Therefore I should like to have you point out as soon as possible what part you would prefer to have reserved entirely for yourself, that it may be portioned off. Indeed I cannot help it, Zini."
"You will be as condescending at last as a crowned head," Zinka said laughing. "You have already relinquished a corner of the park, because the new road, laid out for the convenience of the public, must run directly beneath your windows--and ..."
"I know--I know," Truyn interrupted her impatiently, "but one owes something to the people. Of course you think 'my husband is a perfect simpleton, he'll put up with anything'--but ...."
"Have you really no better idea of what I think of my husband, than that?" Zinka asked in a low tone, looking at him with tender raillery in her eyes.
"Oh you sweet-natured little woman!" he said, attempting to chuck her under the chin.
"What are you about?" she exclaimed, thrusting his hand away, "this wall here on the street is so low, that every little ragamuffin can see us. And let me tell you that this wall has seemed more odious than anything else to-day. Between ourselves--move your chair a little nearer, Erich--I have been all this while tormented by a desire to throw myself into your arms--you dear, good, whimsical fellow--but the wall!"
"Confound the wall!" Truyn exclaimed, angrily clinching his fist.
"Tell me," Zinka asked caressingly, "is the lowness of the wall also a question of humanity? Do you find it impossible to deny the townsfolk the satisfaction of conveniently observing the castle-folk?"
"Pshaw! I was vexed about the height of the wall ten years ago--that is when the road was laid out, but--well, I cannot myself say why it is--but unless we have a rage for building, nothing is done. We complain for ten years about the same evil, and ..."
"And to part with an evil about which one has complained for ten long years," interrupted Zinka laughing, "would be almost as distressing as to clear away the basin of a fountain, in which one had been nearly drowned, thirty years before, eh, Erich?"
The broad July sunshine lay upon the red and yellow splendour of the Truyn escutcheon, shimmered brilliantly about the foremost of the mighty trees, whose dark foliage contrasted with the emerald of the lawn where they stood, beyond the open, flower-decked portion of the park, and penetrated boldly into their thick shades, limning fanciful arabesques of light upon the darker green.
From the garden-room floated Gabrielle's sweet, childlike voice, "Io so una giardiniera," she sang. Oswald had finished his upholstering, and was bending over the piano. He combined a sincere enjoyment of music with a deplorable preference for sentimental popular ballads.
The creaking of wheels intruded upon the dreamy monotony of the hour. Truyn leaned forward and started to his feet. "Ah, old Swoboda, the doctor who attended Ella with the measles," he exclaimed joyfully, recognising Dr. Swoboda, in his comical little vehicle drawn by a white horse spotted with brown. "Is he still alive? I must call him in. Holla! Doctor, how are you?"
The doctor started, looked round, and took off his hat with a smile of delight, "your servant, Count Truyn."
"Come in and have a chat," said Truyn, "it was hardly fair not to have been to see us before."
"But, my dear Count, how could I suppose ..."
A few minutes later, the old doctor was seated opposite to Truyn, underneath the marquee, imparting to the Count exact information as to the weal and woe of a multitude of people belonging to the town, and to the country round, whom the proprietor of Rautschin remembered with wonderful distinctness.
Some had died, one or two were insane--a couple were bankrupt.
"Infernal swindling speculations! is my dear old Rautschin beginning to be carried away by them?" said Truyn, "certain epidemics cannot be arrested. Sad--very sad! And now the phylloxera has taken up its abode in Schneeburg."
"Is there much illness about here?" Zinka asked the doctor, in hopes perhaps of staving off a conservative outburst from her husband.
"None of any consequence. My business is at a low ebb, your Excellency."
"Where have you just been, doctor?" Truyn asked.
"I have just come from Schneeburg."
"Ah? anything seriously amiss in the Capriani household?--I could not shed a tear for King Midas."
"The Herr Count cannot suppose that those magnificoes would call in a poor country doctor, like myself."
"My dear Swoboda, we all have the greatest confidence in you!" Truyn said kindly.
"I thank you heartily, Herr Count, but this confidence is an old custom, and the Caprianis consider old customs as mere prejudices, and propose to do away with them. I have just come from our poor Count Fritz."
"Indeed? are the children ill?"
"No, not ill, but ailing; there is something or other the matter with them all the time--they are city children;--however, I am not really anxious about them, they'll come all right. But I am sick at heart for poor Count Fritz, he is far from well."
"Ah, indeed? what is the matter with him?" Truyn asked in a tone of evident irritation.
"His unfortunate circumstances are killing him," the doctor replied gloomily.
"Ah--hm,--I must confess to you--er--my dear doctor, that--er--I take it very ill of Fritz, that he, er--accepted a position,--er--with--that,--er--adventurer."
The old doctor looked the irritated gentleman full in the eyes. "When one is homesick and sees his children, who cannot bear the city air, hungering for bread, one will do many things, which could not be contemplated for an instant, under even slightly improved circumstances."
"Ossi always told you ...." began Zinka.
"Oh pshaw! Ossi is an enthusiast, whose heart is always drowning out his head."
The old doctor sighed. "Well, I will intrude no longer," he said. He had often enough seen his noble patients yawn, as the door was closing upon him after a prolonged visit.
"Not at all,--not at all--wait a moment; I must call the children; Gabrielle! Ossi!"
The young people appeared from the garden-room.
"Ah--it is the friend who saved my life," Gabrielle exclaimed, cordially extending her hand.
Oswald too greeted him kindly, but suddenly he, as well as the old physician became slightly embarrassed--each remembered the unpleasant scene in the inn.--The conversation did not flow very freely.
"Now, I really must go," the doctor insisted in some confusion.
"Come soon again," said Truyn, shaking hands with him, "give my remembrance to Fritz, and--er--tell him to come and see me soon." He walked towards the court-yard with the old man, and when he returned he observed that Oswald, as he was silently rolling up a cigarette, was frowning furiously, evidently angry.
"Where does the shoe pinch, Ossi?" he asked.
"I cannot understand, uncle, how you can be so hard upon Fritz!" exclaimed Oswald throwing away his cigarette. "You are wont to be the softest-hearted of men, but to that poor devil ...."
"Don't excite yourself so terribly," Truyn said kindly, but in some surprise at the young man's violence. How could he divine the disturbance of mind that was at the root of his indignation? "You are so irritable ...."
"I am perfectly calm," Oswald boldly asserted, "only .... how could you send messages to Fritz by the doctor, and ask him to come to you? Have you no idea of his miserably sore state of mind?--and physically too he is so wretched that he cannot last six months longer; I have begged you to go and see him."
"Papa! If Ossi begs you!" Gabrielle whispered, looking up at her father with the large pleading eyes of a child.
"Ah, you can't understand how any one can possibly refuse Ossi anything," Truyn said, smiling in the midst of his annoyance.
She blushed and cast down her eyes.
"What can you find to like in this fellow, Ella?" her father rallied her. "A man ready to take fire, and clinch his fist upon the smallest provocation. What would you say if I should put my veto upon this foolish betrothal with a young savage who is only half-responsible?"
Gabrielle's blush grew deeper, she looked alternately at her father and at her lover, and finally deciding in favour of the latter gently laid her hand upon his arm.
"You see, uncle!.... completely routed," exclaimed Oswald, his anger entirely dispelled by this little intermezzo. His voice rang with exultant happiness as he added, "nothing can part us now, Ella--not even a father's veto!"
And Ella clung silently to his arm and looked blissfully content.
"Poor little comrade!" said Truyn tenderly. Mingled with his emotion there was something of the pity which men of ripe years and experience always feel at the sight of the perfect happiness of young lovers.
"Poor little comrade!--well, to win back some share of your favour I will e'en put a good face upon it and comply with the wishes of your tyrant."