CHAPTER II.
"Bright May--the sweetest month of Spring; The trees and fields with flowers are strown-- Dear Heart, to thee Life's May I bring; Take it and keep it for thine own-- Nay--draw the knife!--I will not start, Pierce if thou wilt, my willing breast. There thou shalt find my faithful heart Whose truth in death shall stand confessed."
These words, sung in the Roman dialect to a very simple air, came quavering out of the open window of the drawing-room of the Sterzls' palazetto as Sempaly passed by it that evening; he had gone out to pay some visits, to divert his mind, and though his way did not take him along the side street in which the palazetto stood, he had not been able to resist the temptation to make a detour. It was a mild evening and the tones floated down like an invitation; he recognized Zinka's voice as she sang one of the melancholy Stornelli in which the peasants of the Campagna give utterance to their loves. It ceased, and he was just moving away, when another even sweeter and more piercing lament broke the warm silence.
"Or shall I die?--Poison itself could have
No terrors if I took it from thy hand.
Thy heart should be my death-bed and my grave."
The passionate words were sung with subdued vehemence to a rather monotonous tune--like a faded wreath of spring flowers borne along by some murmuring stream. He turned back, and listened with suspended breath. The song ended on a long, full note; he felt that he would give God knows how much to hear the last line once more:
'La sepoltura mia sara il tuo seno!....'
Now Zinka was speaking--it vexed him beyond measure that he could not hear what she was saying. It was maddening ... Good heavens! what a fool he was to stand fretting outside!
When he went into the drawing-room to his great surprise he was met by Sterzl.
"Back so soon?" he exclaimed as he shook hands with him.
"Yes, Arnstein had only two days to spare in Naples," replied Sterzl; "I was delighted to see him again, but--well, I must be growing very old, I was so glad to find myself at home again," and he drew his sister to him and lightly stroked her pretty brown hair. His brotherly caress added to Sempaly's excitement "No wonder that you like your home!" he was saying, when the baroness appeared with an evening wrap on her shoulders, a fan and scent-bottle in her hand, and, as usual, dying of refinement and airs.
"Not ready yet, Zenaïde? Ah, my dear Sempaly, how very sweet of you!" and she gave him the tips of her fingers.--"We were quite anxious about you when you so suddenly excused yourself from joining us. Zinka was afraid you had taken the Roman fever," she said sentimentally.
"Zinka has an imagination that feeds on horrors," said Sterzl smiling.
"I did think that you must have some very urgent reason," said Zinka hastily and in some confusion.
Sempaly looked into her eyes: "I was doing Ash-Wednesday penance, that was all," he said in a low voice.
"Well, to complete the mortification come now to Lady Dalrymple's," the baroness suggested.
"Oh, be merciful! Grant me a dispensation. I should so much enjoy a quiet evening," cried Sempaly.
"And I too," added Zinka. "I am utterly sick of soirées and routs. These performances give me the impression of a full-dress review, at which such and such fashionable regiments are paraded."
"Give us a holiday, mother; remember, it is Ash-Wednesday, and we are good Catholics," said her son.
"I had some scruples myself, but the Duchess of Otranto is going," lisped the baroness.
However, when Sempaly had assured her that the Duchess of Otranto was by no means a standard authority in Roman society she yielded to the common desire that they should remain at home, and withdrew to her room to write some letters before tea.
Most men have senses and nerves only in their brain while women, as is well known, have them all over the body; in this respect Sempaly was like a woman. He had senses even in his finger tips--as a Frenchman had once said, of him: "il avait les sens poète!" (a poet's nerves). The most trifling external conditions gave him disproportionate pleasure or pain. The smallest detail of ugliness was enough to spoil his appreciation of the noblest and grandest work of art; he would not have felt the beauty of Faust if he had first read it in a shabby or dirty copy. Now, when the baroness had left the room, there was no detail that could disturb his enjoyment in being with Zinka.
Sterzl had taken up his newspaper; Zinka, at Sempaly's request, had seated herself at the piano. She always accompanied herself by heart and sat with her head bowed a little over the keys and half-shut dreamy eyes. The sober tone of the room, with its tapestried walls and happy medley of knick-knacks, broad-leaved plants, Japanese screens, and comfortable furniture, formed a harmonious background to her slight, white figure. The light of the one lamp was moderated by its rose-colored shade; a subdued mezza-voce tone of color prevailed in the room which was full of the scent of roses and violets, and the heavy perfume seemed in sympathy with the gloomy sentiment of the popular love songs. Sempaly's whole nature thrilled with rapturous suspense, such as few men would perhaps quite understand. At his desire Zinka sang one after another of the Stornelli ... her voice grew fuller and deeper ...
"Do not sing too long, Zini, it will tire you," said her brother.
"Only one more--the one I heard from outside," begged Sempaly, and she sang:
"La sepoltura mia sara il tuo seno...."
The words trembled on her lips; her hands slipped off the last notes into her lap. Sempaly took the warm, soft little hands in his own; a sort of delightful giddiness mounted to his brain as he touched them.
"Zinka," he said, "tell me, do you feel a little of what your voice expresses?"
Her eyes met his--and she blinked, as we blink at a strong, bright light; she shrank back a little, as we shrink from too great and sudden joy. Her answer was fluttering on her lips when the door opened--the Italian servant pronounced some perfectly unintelligible gibberish by way of a name, and in marched--followed by her daughter and their Polish swain--the Baroness Wolnitzka.
"Oh, thank goodness, I have found you at home!" she exclaimed. "We counted on finding you at home on Ash-Wednesday. God bless you, Zinka!"
Zinka was petrified. Mamma Sterzl rushed in from an adjoining room at the sound of those rough tones.
"Charlotte!" was all she could stammer out, "Char--lotte ... you ... here!"
"Quite a surprise, is it not, Clotilde? Yes, the most unhoped-for things sometimes happen. We arrived to-day at three o'clock and called here this afternoon but you were out; so then we decided to try in the evening. It is rather late, to be sure, and I, for my part, should have been here long ago, but Slawa insisted on dressing--for such near relations! Quite absurd ... but I do not like to contradict her, she is so easily put out--so I waited to dress too."
And the baroness, after embracing her sister and her niece, plumped down uninvited on a very low chair.
She had dressed with a vengeance: a black lace cap was perched on the top of her short, grey hair, with lappets that hung down over her ears. Her massive person was squeezed into a violet satin gown, which she had evidently out-grown, and a lace scarf picturesquely thrown over her shoulders was intended to conceal its defects; her lavender-colored gloves were very short and much too tight, and burst at all the button-holes. Slawa had a general effect of tricolor, and she wore some old jewelry that she had bought of a dealer in antiquities at Verona. She had curled and piled up her hair after the antique and kept her head constantly turned over her left shoulder, to be as much like the Apollo as possible, at the same time making a grimace as if she were being photographed and wished to look bewitching.
Vladimir Matuschowsky's tall, slouching figure was buttoned into a braided coat; he held a low-crowned hat with tassels in his hand, and glared at the plain dress-coats of the other two men as though they were a personal insult.
"Monsieur Vladimir de Matuschowsky," said the baroness introducing him, "a ... a ... friend of the family." But she said it in French: when the Baroness Wolnitzka was at all at a loss she commonly spoke French.
Her sister, who by this time had got over her astonishment, now began to wish to dazzle the new-comers.
"Count Sempaly," she said, presenting the attaché; "a friend of our family ... my sister, the Baroness Wolnitzka. You have no doubt heard of the famous Slav leader Baron Wolnitzky, who was so conspicuous a figure in forty-eight."
Sempaly bowed without speaking; Baroness Wolnitzka rose and politely offered him her hand: "I am delighted to make your acquaintance," she said. "I have heard a great deal about you; my sister has mentioned you in all her letters and I am quite au courant."
Again Sempaly bowed in silence and then, retiring into the background while the mistress of the house turned to address Slawa, he said to Sterzl:
"I will take an opportunity of slipping away--a stranger is always an intruder at a family meeting," His manner was suddenly cold and stiff and his tone intolerably arrogant.
Sterzl nodded: "Go by all means," he replied. But Baroness Sterzl perceiving his purpose exclaimed:
"No, no, my dear Sempaly, you really must not run away--you are not in the least de trop--and a stranger you certainly can never be."
"It would look as though we had frightened you away, and that I will not imagine," added her sister archly.
So Sempaly stayed; only, perhaps, from the impulse that so often prompts us to drink a bitter cup to the dregs.
"Pray command yourself a little, Zini," whispered Cecil to his sister. "The interruption is unpleasant; but you should not show your annoyance so plainly."
Tea was now brought in; Sterzl devoted himself in an exemplary manner to his cousin Slawa, so as to give his spoilt little sister as much liberty as possible. Slawa treated him with the greatest condescension and kept glancing over her huge Japanese fan at Sempaly, who was sitting by Zinka on a small sofa, taciturn and ill-pleased, while he helped her to pour out the tea.
Baroness Wolnitzka gulped down one cup after another, eat up almost all the tea-cake, and never ceased an endless medley of chatter. The young Pole sat brooding gloomily, ostentatiously refused all food and spoke not a word; his arms crossed on his breast he sat the image of the Dignity of Man on the defensive.
"I am desperately hungry," Madame Wolnitzka confessed. "We are at a very good hotel--Hotel della Stella, in Via della Pace; we were told of it by a priest with whom we met on our journey. It is not absolutely first-class--still, only people of the highest rank frequent it; two Polish counts dined at the table d'hôte and a French marquise;--in her case I must own I thought I could smell a rat--I suspect she is running away with her lover from her husband, or from her creditors."
Out of deference to the "highest rank" the baroness had put her hand up to her mouth on the side nearest to the young people as she made this edifying communication. "The dinner was very good," she went on, "capital, and we pay six francs a day for our board."
"Seven," corrected Slawa.
"Six, Slawa."
"Seven, mamma."
And a discussion of the deepest interest to the rest of the party ensued between the mother and daughter as to this important point. Slawa remained master of the field; "and with wax-lights and service it comes to eight," she added triumphantly.
"I let her talk," whispered her mother, again directing her words with her hand, "she is very peculiar in that way; everything cheap she thinks must be bad. However, what I was going to say was that, to tell the truth, I did not get enough to eat at dinner--there were flowers on the table,"--and she reached herself a slice of plum-cake.
At this moment the door opened to admit Count Siegburg.
"Good evening," he began--"seeing you so brightly lighted up I could not resist the temptation to come in and see how you were spending your Ash-Wednesday."
He glanced around at the three strangers and instantly grasped the situation; but, far from taking the tragical view of it, he at once determined to get as much fun out of it as possible. After being introduced he placed himself in a position from which he could command the whole party, Sempaly included, and converse both with Madame Wolnitzka and her daughter. He addressed himself first to the latter.
"The name of Wolnitzky is known to fame," he said.
"Yes, my father played a distinguished part in forty-eight," replied Slawa.
"Siegburg--Siegburg?..." Madame Wolnitzka was meanwhile murmuring to herself. "Which of the Siegburgs? The Siegburgs of Budow, or of Waldau, or ...?"
"The Waldau branch," said Baroness Sterzl. "His mother was a Princess Hag," and she leaned back on her cushions.
"Ah! the Waldau Siegburgs! quite the best Siegburgs!" remarked her sister in a tone of astonishment.
"Of course," replied Baroness Sterzl with great coolness, as though she had never in her life spoken to anyone less than "the best Siegburgs."
Madame Wolnitzka arranged her broad face in the most affable wrinkles she could command, and sat smiling at the young count, watching for an opportunity of putting in a word. For the present, however, this did not offer, for her sister addressed her, asking, in a bitter-sweet voice:
"And what made you decide on coming to Rome?"
"Can you ask? I have wished for years to see Rome, and you wrote so kindly and so constantly, Clotilde--so at length ..." and here followed the history of the Bernini. "You remember our Bernini, Clotilde?"
Her sister nodded.
"Well, I had the Apollo, the head only, a copy by Bernini. It is a work of art that has been in our family for generations," she continued, turning to Siegburg as she saw that he was listening to her narrative.
"For centuries," added Madame Sterzl.
"I must confess that I could hardly bear to part with it," her sister went on. "However, I made up my mind to do so when Tulpe, the great antiquary from Vienna, came one day and bid for it."
Sterzl, to whom the god's wanderings were known, made some allusion to them in his dry way; on which the Baroness Wolnitzka shuffled herself a little nearer to Siegburg and addressed herself to him.
"You see, count, it was something like what often happens with a girl: you drag her about to balls for years, take her from one watering-place to another, and never get her off your hands; then you settle down quietly at home and suddenly, when you least expect it, a suitor turns up. I could hardly bear to see the last of the bust I assure you."
"It must indeed have been a harrowing parting," said Siegburg with much feeling.
"Terrible!" said the baroness, "and doubly painful because"--and here she leaned over to whisper in Siegburg's ear--"Slawa is so amazingly like the Bernini. Does not her likeness to the Apollo strike you?"
"I saw it at once--as soon as I came in," Siegburg declared without hesitation.
"Every one says so--well then, you can understand what a sacrifice it was ... it cuts me to the heart only to think of it. Oh! these great emotions! Excuse me if I take off my cap ..." and she hastily snatched off the black lace structure and passing her fingers through her thin grey hair with the vehemence of a genius she exclaimed: "Merciful God! How we poor women are ill-used! crushed, fettered ..."
"Yes, a woman's lot is not a happy one;" said Siegburg sympathetically.
"You are quite an original!" exclaimed her sister, giggling rather uncomfortably--for in good society it is quite understood that when we are suffering under relations devoid of manners, and whom, if we dared, we should shut up at once in a mad-house, we may do what we can to render them harmless by ticketing them with this title--"Quite an original. Are you still always ready to break a lance for the emancipation of our sex?"
"No," replied Madame Wolnitzka, "no, my dear Clotilde, I have given that up. Since I learnt by experience that every woman is ready to set aside the idea of emancipation as soon as she has a chance of marrying I have lost my sympathy with the cause."
"The emancipation of women of course can only be interesting to those who cannot marry," observed Sterzl, who had not long since read an article on this much ventilated question.
"And as there are undoubtedly more women than men in the world, legalized polygamy is the only solution of the difficulty," his aunt asserted.
"Mamma! you really are!..." said Slawa with an angry flare.
"Your views are necessarily petty and narrow," retorted her mother. "If I were speaking of the subject in a light and frivolous tone I could understand your indignation; but I am looking at the matter from a philosophical point of view--you understand me, I am sure, Count Siegburg."
"Perfectly, my dear madam," Siegburg assured her with grave dignity. "You look at the question from the point of national and political economy and from that point of view improprieties have no existence."
Sempaly sat twirling his moustache; Zinka first blushed and then turned pale, while the mistress of the house patted her sister on the shoulder, saying with a sharp, awkward laugh: "Quite an original--quite an original."
But Sterzl, seeing that Siegburg was excessively entertained by the old woman's absurdities, and was on the point of amusing himself still further at her expense by laying some fresh trap for her folly, happily bethought him that the only way to procure silence would be to ask Slawa to sing. So he begged his cousin to give them some national air. Siegburg joined in the request, but Slawa tried to excuse herself on a variety of pretexts: the piano was too low, the room was bad to sing in, and so forth and so forth ... at last, however, she was persuaded to sing some patriotic songs in which Matuschowsky accompanied her.
Her tall, Walkure-like figure swayed and trembled with romantic emotion, and faithful to the traditions of the "art frémissant"--the thrilling school--she held a piece of music fast in both hands for the sake of effect, though it had not the remotest connection with the song she was singing. Her mother sat in breathless silence; tears of admiration ran down her cheeks; like many other mothers, she only recognized those of Slawa's defects which came into conflict with her own idiosyncracy and admired everything else. When Slawa had shouted the last verse of the latest revolutionary ditty, which would have been prohibited in forty-eight, and Sterzl was still asking himself whether it was worse to listen to the mother's tongue or the daughter's singing, Matuschowsky, whose chagrin at the small approval bestowed on his and Slawa's musical efforts had reached an unendurable pitch, observed that it was growing late and that the ladies must be needing rest after all their exertions and fatigues. Madame Wolnitzka hastened to devour the last slice of tea-cake, brushed the crumbs away from her purple satin lap on to the carpet, rose slowly, and made her way with many bows and courtesies towards the door, taking at least half an hour before she was fairly gone.
When his relatives had at length disappeared Sterzl accompanied the two gentlemen, who had also bid the ladies good-night, into the hall, and said good-humoredly to Siegburg:
"You, I fancy, are the only one of the party who has really enjoyed the evening." Siegburg colored; then looking up frankly at his friend he said: "You are not offended?"
"Well--perhaps, just a little," replied Sterzl, with a smile, "but I must admit that the temptation was a strong one."
"And really and truly I am very sorry for you," Siegburg went on, with that ingenuous want of tact that never lost him a friend. "There is nothing in the world so odious as to have a posse of disagreeable relations who suddenly appear and cling on to your coat-tails. I know it by experience. Last spring, at Vienna, half a dozen old aunts of my mother's came down upon us from Bukowina like a snow-storm...." Sempaly meanwhile had buttoned himself into his fur-lined coat and said nothing.