CHAPTER V.
"There is nothing to be done with the fellow.--I never encountered such weakness of mind," exclaimed Capriani to his wife.
The hour was three, and just before dinner; in accordance with Austrian custom, or rather with the national bad habit, they dined at Schneeburg at half-past three, although the whole family, especially those of the second generation, accustomed to late foreign hours, found this earlier hour very inconvenient.
"Of whom are you talking?" Madame Capriani asked in her depressed tone; she was sitting erect upon a small gilt chair, she wore a gray, silk-muslin gown, rather over-trimmed, gants de Suéde, and an air of constraint.
"Of whom are you talking?" she asked a second time, smoothing her gloves.
"Of whom?--of that blockhead, Malzin," growled Capriani.
"I told you from the first that he would never be able to fill that position," his wife rejoined.
"Fill--!" Capriani shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, "fill--! it takes him two hours to write a business-letter. But I was prepared for that. His office is a sinecure; the salary that I pay him is an alms,--but Alfred Capriani can do as he pleases there,--and at least the fellow understands something about horses. What outrages me is to see how he squanders my money, the money that I give him. He ransacks the country round to buy back from the peasants relics of his parents. First an old clock, that struck twelve just as he was born, then an old piano, upon which his sisters used to strum the scales. 'Tis enough to drive one mad!"
Frau von Capriani looked distressed. "That is a matter of sentiment," she suggested.
"A matter of sentiment--a matter of sentiment," Capriani repeated sarcastically. "It would be a matter of sentiment and conscience to think of saving up something for his children."
"You are right, you are right," the Countess rejoined, in her emphatic yet not unmelodious Russian-German, "but this time you are in some measure to blame for his folly. I begged you a hundred times to ask him what he would like to keep for himself of the furniture which was entirely useless to us. Instead, you had it all put up at auction."
"And the proceeds of the sale are to be devoted to the building of a new school, to be entirely independent of ecclesiastical influence," said Capriani, "the old rubbish shall aid, willy-nilly, in the spread of modern liberal ideas. It is my aim to root out prejudices not to foster them. Would you have me minister directly to Malzin's folly? It would be nonsense. It makes me shudder to see this man, who owns nothing, positively nothing, except what I give him out of sheer kindness, and who ought to look ahead, keeping his eyes fixed upon the past, and sentimentally collecting empty bon-bon boxes, the contents of which his forefathers have devoured to the last crumb. He is the personification of the invincible narrowness of his class."
"He is a good honest man," the Contessa said gently.
"Honest,--honest!" Capriani repeated impatiently, "a man whose desires have been anticipated from his childhood, upon whose plate the pheasants have always fallen ready trussed and roasted, would naturally not contemplate picking pockets. To be sure, he might be tempted to try it, but he can't do it--he is too unpractical to be dishonest. There is nothing praiseworthy in that, for all the honesty that you ascribe to him he is a thorough selfish egotist; without the smallest scruple he robs his own children of thousands."
"Malzin!" Frau von Capriani exclaimed, "why he would let his ears be cut off for his children, and if he refused to lose his hands too, it would only be because he needed them to work for his family."
"To work!" rejoined Capriani ironically. "If he would only sacrifice for their sakes his miserable pride of rank he could do far more for them than by his work! He--and work! Do you know what reply he made to my splendid offer for his family vault? 'The vault is not for sale, it is the only spot of home that is left me. I will at least lie among my people when I am dead!' Can you conceive of greater insolence?"
"Insolence--poor Malzin--he is as modest....!"
"Modest!" sneered Capriani, interrupting her, "he is fairly bristling with arrogance. A starving pauper, living on my bounty, and all the while thinking himself superior to all of us. Intercourse with us is not at all to his taste."
"He is always exquisitely courteous to me. I like him very much," Frau von Capriani declared. Her husband's constant attacks upon Malzin were beyond measure painful to her.
"Men of his stamp are always gracious to ladies," snarled Capriani.
Meanwhile his two children had entered the room, Arthur and Ad'lin, both in faultless toilettes, and both out of humour. The self-same weariness weighs upon both, the weariness of idlers who do not know how to squander time gracefully. Perhaps Georges Lodrin is not far wrong when he maintains that to idle away life gracefully is an art most difficult to acquire, and rarely learned in a single generation.
Both asked fretfully whether the post had come, and then each sank into an arm-chair and fumed. One by one the various guests then staying in the castle appeared. Paul Angelico Orchis, a conceited little versifier, (lauded in the Blanktown Gazette as 'the first lyric poet of modern times') and the possessor of a dyspepsia acquired at the expense of others. A farce by him had been produced in Blanktown, and for ten years he had been promising the public a tragedy. Meanwhile his latest effort was the invention of a picturesque waterproof cloak. Frank, the famous tailor carried out his idea in dark brown tweed, in which the poet draped himself upon every conceivable occasion. After him followed two men of the kind which Georges Lodrin describes as 'gentlemen at reduced prices,' stunted specimens of the aristocracy, who played a very insignificant part in their own circles, and from time to time fled to their inferiors in rank to enjoy a little admiration. One, Baron Kilary, is a sportsman, insolent in bearing, lewd in talk; the other, Count Fermor, is a dilettante composer and pianist, affected and sentimental.
Malzin and his wife also entered; while he bowed silently, and then respectfully kissed the hand of the hostess, Charlotte congratulated the two ladies upon the splendour of their attire, and lavished exaggerated admiration upon a couple of costly pieces of furniture which she had often seen before.
Last of all appeared our old acquaintance, the Baroness Melkweyser, who had been at Schneeburg for a week. What was she doing there? The Caprianis looked to her for their admission into Austrian society, she looked to King Midas for the augmentation of her diminished income,--and something too might be gained from country air and regular meals for her worn and weary digestion.