CHAPTER XIV.
Truyn had insisted that the betrothal of his daughter to Oswald Lodrin should be celebrated in Bohemia. Zinka had yielded with great reluctance and sorrow, and had at last resolved to bid farewell to her dear foreign home.
"Why," she persisted in asking him, "cannot the ceremony take place, as in our own case, at the Austrian Embassy?"
But Truyn would not hear of it. "Dear heart," he replied, "it would go against the grain. The betrothals of all my sisters and of my aunts were celebrated at Rautschin, why should I depart from the traditions of my family?"
"As if you had not already departed from them, and in the most vital regard," said Zinka, with arch tenderness.
"That is a very different thing,--if there were any good reason, then--then--!"
"Ah, dear friend, you have grown insufferably conservative, you would have shouted on the first day of the creation of the world: 'Conserves le chaos, seigneur Dieu, conservez le chaos!'"
Whereupon Truyn, kissing her hand, made reply. "That comes of living in France, dear child."
And so the pretty house in the Avenue Labédoyère was deserted. The shutters were closed, the carpets rolled up, the bric-à-brac stowed away; only in some roundabout fashion did a bluish beam of light slip into the vault-like obscurity, and the restless motes pursue their fantastic dance among the shrouded shapes of the furniture.
The Truyn family were rapidly approaching their home. Nearly thirty hours had passed since Paris had faded from their eyes in the misty blue distance--since the last gigantic announcement of the 'Belle Jardinière,' and of the 'Pauvre diable' had flitted past them. The Bavarian boundary, with its stupid Custom House formalities lay behind them. Truyn was reading a Vienna newspaper with great interest, Gabrielle was gazing abstractedly at the crimson coupé cushions opposite, with the far-away look in her eyes of young lovers. Zinka was leaning back in her corner, her veil half drawn aside, her hands folded in her lap, the latest impressions of her Paris life hovering kaleidiscopically before her mental vision, her heart oppressed by a strange melancholy.
"Ah, this defamed, delightful Paris! how it captivates the heart with its good-for-nothing beauty, and its corrupt, sickly sentiment!"
She was still mentally rehearsing the last days before her departure, the going to and fro from shop to shop, the interesting consultations with Monsieur Worth, the affected face with which that eminent artist put his finger to his lip, while attending the ladies to their carriage, and continued to 'compose' Gabrielle's wedding dress, murmuring to himself with his English accent: "Oui, oui, une orginalité distahnguée c'est ce qu'il fant," while sleek young clerks, and young girls faultless in figure, displayed to the best advantage the richest costumes, trailing about silks and satins of fabulous elegance.
"Ce n'est pas cela, qui ferait votre affaire, Madame la Comtesse je le sais bien," said Mons. Worth pointing to certain monstrosities devised for American parvenus, "ah, Madame la Comtesse cannot imagine, how hard it is for an artist to have to work for people of no taste! Ah oui, une originalité distahnguée!"
The man-milliner's, monotonous refrain kept sounding on in Zinka's ears. Then she thought of the farewell visits, the daily heap of cards filling the great copper salver in the vestibule, the wearisome farewell entertainments, and of her husband's toast--the toast which he proposed at the magnificent banquet, given in his honour, by the Austrian Hungarians in Paris. Unutterably distasteful as it always is to men of his stamp, to be conspicuous, he at last made up his mind to propose this toast; he worked at it for an entire week, and subjected it to the criticism, not only of his wife and of his daughter, but of every one whose judgment he respected in Paris. It was a masterpiece of a toast, a toast designed to unite in brotherly affection all the Austrians in Paris, and which ultimately, with its well-meant, many-sided compliments gave occasion for dissatisfaction to every member of the Austrian-Hungarian colony, whether conservative or liberal. Zinka laughed to herself as she recalled that poor misunderstood toast. She laughed outright, started, and--awoke--rubbed her eyes and looked out.
Yes, Paris lay far behind her, very far. She was in Austria, beautiful, dreamingly-drowsy Austria, and, in spite of the reluctance with which she returned to her fatherland, it affected her.
A low blue chain of hills lay on the western horizon like a vanishing storm-cloud. The landscape around was level and extended. Large, quiet pools, surrounded by tall rushes, and covered with a network of fragrant waterlilies, gleamed here and there among the emerald meadows.
The sun was near its setting. The shadows of the telegraph poles stretched out indefinitely. Little towns contentedly sleeping away their dull lives among green lindens, showed their old-fashioned silhouettes, black against the sunlit evening clouds.
Truyn laid aside his newspaper, and his face grew eager and animated, every knotted gnarled willow, every half-ruinous garden wall here interested him.
A forest of firs, their trunks glowing red in the last rays of the sun, bordered the railway. "There, just by that stunted fir, I shot my first deer," Truyn exclaimed, and in his eyes sparkled the memory of a happy boyhood; then, drawing Zinka to him, he whispered tenderly: "You are at home, Zini; we are travelling upon our own soil."
"Ah," replied Zinka, nestling close to him, timid as a child afraid of ghosts.
"How nervous you are!" he said, gently stroking her cheek--"you silly little goose you!"
"It is not for myself," she whispered, "so long as you love me, you and Ella, I can bear anything. But I know you--it would grieve you to the very heart, if ...."
"Tickets, if you please!"
A breathless panting--a shrill whistle.
"Rautschin--five minutes stay!"
"Aunt Wjera!" Gabrielle exclaimed, joyously hurrying out of the coupé.
There was something like defiance in Zinka's heart, but when she saw the woman, who in all her exquisite beauty, all the distinguished grace of manner inspired by kindness and cordiality, advanced to meet them, her defiant mood vanished in admiration, and with a feeling of almost childlike reverence, she bowed to the superiority of the elder lady, who greeted her most cordially.
After the first excitement of meeting was over, Countess Wjera's attention was naturally concentrated upon her son's betrothed.
"I can but congratulate you from my heart, Ossi," she said earnestly, looking full into the young girl's eyes--eyes that shone like two blue violets under the clearest skies--violets that had suffered nothing from late frosts or too ardent sunshine. "You are a favourite of fortune, my child."
Gabrielle blushed, and buried her face in the bunch of white roses, which Oswald had brought her; and Oswald was touched, and smiled his thanks to his mother, as he whispered a tender word to his betrothed.
"Do you know who came in the same train with us?" Truyn suddenly asked, interrupting the happy moment.
"Capriani, father and son, I saw them," said Oswald, "look at him, mamma, there is my rival, the enterprising young spark, who sued for Gabrielle's hand. A mad idea, was it not? Gabrielle, and a son of Capriani!--we shouted with laughter, when the Melkweyser announced the proposal."
The flurry of the arrival had subsided, and the Countess leisurely inspected through her eyeglass the sallow young man who was talking with Georges Lodrin. Gabrielle said something about his dark blue travelling-suit, shot with gold; Zinka made inquiries, all in a breath, of her husband, and of the two lady's-maids, whether this or that article of luggage had not been left in Paris or in the railway coupé.
When at last all her anxieties on this point had been relieved, and they had passed through the station to the carriages, they observed a magnificent four-in-hand, the harness decorated with a coronet.
"By Jove!" Truyn exclaimed with delight, "superb, Ossi, superb! I have rarely seen four such beauties together!"
"Nor have I," said Oswald, examining the horses critically, "unfortunately they are not mine--they belong to Capriani."
"Impossible!" Truyn said disdainfully, "speculator that he is, he may bore through the isthmus of Panama, for all I care, but he cannot get together such a four-in-hand as that."
"Fritz Malzin selected and arranged it for him," Oswald explained. "Poor Fritz!"
"I cannot understand him," Truyn said in an undertone, and hastily changing the subject, he asked: "Have you come to terms with Capriani, about the Kanitz affair, Ossi? Could not the sale be revoked?"
"The matter would have been very difficult to adjust, I am told--of course I understand nothing of such things,--" replied Oswald, "but Capriani--what will you say to this, uncle?--yielded the point, 'out of special regard' for me, as his lawyer informed Dr. Schindler. Between ourselves, it was--what word shall I use?--audacious, for I have never spoken to him in my life, and yet I had to accept his uncalled-for courtesy, for Schmitt's sake."
"Remarkable, very!" said Truyn, "We usually have to pay dear for the courtesies of a Capriani and his kind!"
"Have you everything, Ella?" asked Zinka, "shall we start?"
"I should like to have my hand-bag, Hortense has left it with the large luggage."
Meanwhile, with an unpleasant smile and hat in hand, a sallow-faced, grey-haired, elderly man, with the look of a bird of prey, approached the Countess Wjera, and held out his right hand. "I am immensely gratified, your Excellency, after so long a time ....!"
The Countess, her eyes half closed, measured him haughtily. "With whom have I the pleasure ...?"
"Conte Capriani."
The Countess silently shrugged her shoulders, and turning half away, called in an irritated tone, "Are we ready to go at last, Ossi?...."
A whirling cloud of dust was soon the only trace left of the bustle of the arrival.
The short drive was spent by Truyn in reminiscences, by the betrothed pair in sentiment.
At the tea, which was awaiting the travellers, and of which the Lodrin's stayed to partake, there was much laughter over the chic of the Caprianis, over their wealth, and--their obtrusiveness. Oswald suddenly grew thoughtful.
"Did you ever before meet these people, mamma?" he asked.
"I never knew any Conte Capriani in my life,--who are these Caprianis?" asked the Countess.
"Nobody knows," said Oswald. "Some say he is a Greek, some that he comes from Marseilles, and others that he is a Turk."
"They are all wrong," Georges said drily, "he comes originally from Bohemia; he was formerly a physician, and his name was Stein."