CHAPTER I.
A jingling of bells, a clatter of hoofs from five spirited bays harnessed in Russian fashion, and hardly seeming to touch the earth as they fly along, a rattle of wheels, a whirling cloud of dust,--and Oswald Lodrin's five-in-hand came sweeping round a corner in one of the old-fashioned streets in Rautschin. People ran from everywhere to stare,--a housemaid cleaning a window, leaned out at the risk of her neck, to follow the gay equipage; two small boys going home from school, paused and vented their delight in waving their caps and cheering; Oswald nodded to them kindly. His eyes were aglow with happiness, he had a white rosebud in his button-hole. His future father-in-law sat beside him in the driver's seat, and Georges was on the seat behind.
It was the day before the election. Oswald had just come from Castle Rautschin, where, according to agreement, he was to pick up his uncle to drive with him to the railway station, and he had taken this opportunity to display his new five-in-hand to his betrothed. The five horses clattered along gaily, as if to the races, instead of to a railway station.
"We must hurry, there is the signal," said Georges half rising from his seat, to gaze in the direction of the station.
"Don't be afraid," rejoined Oswald, "it is an Express, to be sure, but if it sees us coming, it will wait!"
"True! I forgot we were in Austria," said Georges laughing.
The bays flew like birds along the avenue of ancient poplars. The sun shone on their trim, plain harness, upon their glossy hides; white and blue butterflies were fluttering above the earliest wayside-flowers. A few minutes later Oswald drew up before the station, built Austrian-wise, after the ugly fashion of a Swiss cottage.
"Sapristi! He too is going to the election," exclaimed Georges, as he observed Capriani's equipage.
"You may be very sure he will not hide his light under a bushel," grumbled Truyn.
"And I quite forgot to have a railway coupé reserved for us. Did you remember it, uncle?" asked Oswald.
Time passed. Oswald's servant hurried off to get the tickets, and when the gentlemen went to take their places, they found that there were but two first-class coupé's, one occupied by a lady with her invalid daughter, the other by the Caprianis, father and son. What was to be done? It was most vexatious; the three gentlemen, with their servants bearing portmanteaux and dust-coats, the station master and the conductor, all stood on the platform in consultation, while the train patiently waited.
The third signal whistled, Conte Capriani appeared at the door of his coupé with a smile of invitation.
Georges calmly shifted his cigar from one corner to the other of his mouth.
"Better open an empty second-class for us," said Truyn frowning.
"I have none quite empty," the conductor explained; "but this gentleman will get out at the third station."
"It is the cattle-dealer from Kamnitz," whispered Oswald with a little grimace, after glancing through the window of the coupé. But it made no difference to his uncle who immediately sprang in and took his seat, followed by the young men. What if the man were a cattle-dealer? Truyn remembered having seen him before, and at once entered into conversation with him upon the price of meat, a conversation in which Oswald, remarkably well up as he always was in all agricultural matters, took part. The cattle-dealer alighted at his destination, greatly impressed by the affability of the noblemen, and convinced that all he had heard of their arrogance was false.
"If the coupé only did not smell so insufferably of warm leather!" exclaimed Truyn after the dealer's departure, "and ugh! the man's cigar was positively--"
"It often happens now-a-days," interposed Georges, "that a gentleman is forced to travel second-class to avoid a stock-jobber. The question in my mind is, when will our civilization be so far advanced that the stock-jobber will travel second-class to avoid one of us."
"We shall never live to see that," said Oswald.
"The insolence of those people waxes gigantic," said Georges.
"It is our own fault; if we had not danced hand-in-hand with them before the golden calf, they would not now be so presuming," observed Truyn, "remember --73."
"Hm,--our worship of that idol showed simplicity, to say the least," remarked Georges, "the golden calf returned so much gratitude for our homage."
"So much gratitude," growled Truyn. "I did not share in the worship, but I do in the disgrace!--But enough of that! Can Capriani vote? He has not owned Schneeburg for a year yet."
"No, but has he not another estate in Northern Bohemia?" asked Georges.
"You are right, he has," said Truyn. "I suppose he will vote with the Liberals."
"In all probability!" replied Oswald. "Tous les républicains ne sont pas canaille, mais toute la canaille est républicaine."
"I do not think that Capriani openly ranks among the Liberals," remarked Georges, "I know of a certainty that not long ago he placed large sums of money for charitable purposes at the disposal of several ladies of the Faubourg St. Germain."
"That was when he was a candidate for the Jockey Club," rejoined Oswald. "I heard about that. Ever since he was black-balled there, he sings a different song. He is organizing Liberal schools at Schneeburg, and has a great deal to do with universal enlightenment."
"Confound universal enlightenment!" railed Truyn.
Oswald shrugged his shoulders, "I should not shed a tear for it," said he, "in the first ardour of my charitable schemes I took some interest in it, but I soon detected the wretched business, masked by that high-sounding phrase;--it means universal distribution of rancid scraps of learning sure to provoke an indigestion which as surely will develop into an enlargement of the spleen. That kind of knowledge never widens the horizon of the masses--it does nothing, except pick holes in their illusions."
"Widen the horizon--pretty stuff that!" said Truyn, the reactionary. "In my opinion a contracted horizon is the condition of happiness for the masses."
"My dear fellow, if you attempt to advocate such views ...." began Georges, half laughing, half indignant.
"My views, remember," interrupted Truyn, "are the result of years of experience; I have lived here all my life, and know the people better than any freshly imported Herr Capriani, blown hither, Heaven only knows whence. What we want is a contented, well-fed, warmly-clad people, that will play merrily with the children on Saturday evening, go piously to church on Sunday morning, and not discuss too much on Sunday afternoon."
"Yes, of course," assented Georges. "What you want, first and foremost, is a people that won't disturb your peaceful enjoyment of life. There's no denying that."
"I am perfectly open to conviction," asserted Truyn with dignity. "As soon as you prove to me that these disturbers of the public peace promote the happiness of the masses, I will ground arms before them."
"Happiness!--I don't believe that those people care as much as they pretend for the happiness of the masses," said Oswald, looking up from his note-book in which he had begun to scribble rapidly. "Happiness is conservative--they would gain nothing from that. As far as I can see, all they want is to rouse the discontent of the people by constant irritation," and he turned to his note-book again. His scribbling did not seem to run as smoothly as before.
"There you are right," agreed Truyn. "Their aim is to arouse the discontent of the people--the discontent of the masses is the tool of their entire party, and they will go on sharpening it until some fine day they'll cut their fingers off with it, and serve them right."
"Decry the degenerate portion of the species as much as you choose," replied Georges, "you cannot but acknowledge that modern democracy has been of immense service to mankind."
"Verité de monsieur de La Palisse," muttered Oswald, without looking up.
"Don't talk to me of your 'modern democracy,' I made its acquaintance in France--this 'modern democracy' of yours," thundered Truyn in a rage. He drew a deep, shuddering breath, lighted a cigar and gazed out of the coupé-window, apparently to allay his political anxiety by the sight of his dearly-loved fatherland.
He did not succeed, however, for before a minute had passed, he turned to Georges again and exclaimed angrily, "How delightful to contemplate the next generation; what a charming prospect! A people all ignorant atheists. I ask no severer punishment for the agitators who have wrought the mischief in this generation, than to be obliged to govern the next.
"I suppose they themselves would desire nothing better," said Oswald smiling.
"That's perfectly true; all they are struggling for, is power," muttered Truyn.
"Excuse me, my dear friend; but what are you struggling for?" asked Georges.
"What are we struggling for," repeated Truyn, looking at him compassionately, "what are we struggling for?--I will tell you;--for the Emperor and our fatherland, which means for order and justice, for the dignity of the throne, for the sanctity of home, for the fostering of beauty and nobility, for all the wealth of human achievement which we have inherited from the past, and ought to bequeath to the future--in a word, Georges,--we are protecting civilization."
"Bursts of applause from the Right--aha--congratulations to the orator from the Left!" said Georges laughing, then turning to Oswald who was still scribbling, he observed, "I rather think you have been taking short-hand notes of your uncle's speech. We will send them to Otto Ilsenbergh, he will be delighted."
"Nonsense!" said Oswald. "I am composing a telegram."
"In verse?" Georges asked innocently.
"Georges! As head of the family I desire to be treated with more respect," said Oswald, laughing.
"Oh, it occurred to me, only because you were making so many corrections," rejoined Georges.
"The thing is quite difficult--it must be so worded that Gabrielle shall understand it,--and the telegraph operators shall not; I cannot manage it."
"Suppose you refresh your powers with a glass of sherry," proposed Georges, taking down an appetizing lunch-basket from the rack above his head, and drawing forth a bottle and three wine-glasses.
The wine had a decidedly soporific effect upon the three travellers. Truyn's political excitement was soothed, and after drinking to a better future, all three leaned back in silence.
Truyn pondered upon the shy, timid confession that his wife had made to him that morning early, very early, as they were sauntering together in the park, while the sun's first slant rays were breaking through the shrubbery, and the morning-dew was still glittering on the meadows. "The whole earth seems bathed in tears of delicious joy," his young wife had whispered, and then through her own happy tears she had begged him to give her a 'really large sum' from her own money that she might make some of the poor people on the estate happy too.
Gradually his thoughts wandered, and grew vague; the sounds of railway bells, and the shrill whistle of the engine, the grating voices of conductors, and the monotonous whirr of wheels mingled, subsided, and died away; his latest impressions faded, and, instead of the green park of Rautschin, a dim Roman street rises upon his mental vision, with a procession of masked torch-bearers accompanying a coffin;--the picture changes, the Roman street is transformed to a lofty hall so tragically solemn that the sunbeams lose their smile as they enter the high windows and glide pale and wan through the twilight gloom to die at the feet of ancient statues. He looks about him, lost in surprise and wondering where is he?--in the tomb of the Medici?--or among the monuments of the melancholy gray church of Santa Croce? No, he suddenly recollects it is the Bargello, and yon white marble, that gleams through the dim religious light in such lifelike, or rather deathlike, beauty, revealing, as it lies outstretched, such clear-cut, nay, such sharp outlines, and the noble attenuation of youth, eager and fiery, is Michael Angelo's 'dead Adonis,' the ideal embodiment of the springtime of manhood crushed in its bloom. Anon vapour curls upward, and the crimson flicker of torches plays over the white statue, the masked torch-bearers stand around it, a wailing chant echoes through the hall--who is it lying there listlessly, with the ineffable charm of a fair young form, which death has suddenly snatched, before the poison of disease has wasted and deformed it?--
Truyn started, broad awake, every pulse throbbing.--Merciful God! how could he dream anything so horrible! Oswald sat opposite, with eyes half-closed, an extinguished cigarette in his hand. His face wore the expression of absolute content which is so often strangely seen on the face of the dead and which none except the dead ever wear, save the few, who, by God's grace, have been permitted to behold Heaven upon earth. Truyn could not away with a sensation of painful anxiety.
"For Heaven's sake, Ossi, open your eyes!" he exclaimed.
"What is the matter?" asked Oswald.
"Nothing," said Truyn, "only...." at that moment the train stopped.
"Pemik!" shouted the conductor, "ten minute's stop," and then opening the coupé door he politely informed the travellers that another coupé was now at their service.