CHAPTER I.
The new year had come, but it brought little that was new.
One day, about the middle of January, when a light snow was falling in large flakes, the carriage of the old countess had been standing for more than an hour before the hotel in which Irene was stopping with her uncle. The coachman, buried in his high-shouldered bearskin coat, had fallen into a doze, and the horses hung their heads and meekly suffered themselves to be covered with the falling snow. But it seemed as though the silent fall of the flakes would come to an end sooner than the storm of German and French phrases with which the lively old lady overwhelmed the young Fräulein, who sat absently listening to her.
Her uncle had retired into a window-niche, and was looking over an illustrated hunting-book; now and then he threw in a word, a question about this or that acquaintance, which immediately gave the old countess an opportunity to begin a new chapter of her town-gossip.
When, in the midst of this, the servant announced the arrival of the lieutenant, Irene could not suppress a glad "Ah!" This time she found his riding-boots, stiff with snow, and his shabby old winter overcoat, in which he was muffled up to the eyes, by no means so objectionable as usual, but welcomed him as a friend in need, and, smiling gratefully, gave him her hand, which he pressed tightly between his rough buckskin gloves.
But for all that she was disappointed in her hope, for he silently threw himself into a chair, stretched out his legs and beat time with his riding-whip on his high boots, while the old lady, taking up the lost thread of her discourse again, began to spin on as zealously as ever.
Her conversation dealt for the most part with the festival calendar of the great world, with receptions, soirées, routs, and the amateur theatricals that had been given by the French ambassador. Then the question whether there was a prospect of any court balls, and how many there would be, was discussed at length, with great vigor, and with many references to former times, when the good lady was a reigning belle.
All at once it seemed to occur to her that she had the conversation entirely to herself.
"Mais savez-vous, mon cher Schnetz," she said, turning to him, "que vous avez une mine à faire peur? Je ne parle pas de votre toilette--in that respect you have never been very indulgent toward us. But all the time I am trying to initiate our dear Irene into the programme of her winter pleasures--for we can never think of letting her travel off into that land of cholera and brigands, where they are threatening to cut the throat of our religion and of the holy Father--you sit there like Hippocrates--le dieu du silence; et on voit bien, que vous vous moquez intérieurement de tous ces plaisirs innocents. Of course, in regard to dancing, the gentlemen now-a-days are quite blasé. But although you yourself can no longer take any pleasure in the joys of the carnival--"
"You are greatly mistaken, my dear countess," interrupted Schnetz, seriously. "I am so far from being indifferent to the pleasures of dancing that I actually propose to dance all night long, four days from to-day, provided I can find a partner who will dare to trust herself with such a dancing bear."
"Four days from to-day? Vous plaisantez, mon ami. Where is there going to be a ball four days from to-day?"
"Not in the higher spheres, gracious lady, but still a very excellent and respectable hall; moreover, in masks, which fact would in itself make it worth attending. The truth is," he said, addressing himself to Irene, "on Saturday we propose to open the carnival in our 'Paradise,' about which I have already told you. You undoubtedly remember that young baron, who took our boat in tow that day on the lake, and who afterward had the difficulty with that murderous scoundrel? He is going away to America--no one knows exactly why; and, as we all like him, we are anxious to give him a formal farewell fête. For in all the five points of the globe he will never see again such a masquerade as we can make for him!"
A short pause followed these words. Irene had suddenly grown as pale as death; it seemed to her as if she could not breathe; her uncle laid aside his hunter's album, and rose, contriving, as he did so, to secretly step on Schnetz's toe--the latter was apparently occupied in the most innocent manner, with his heavy silver watch-chain, from which were suspended a boar's tooth, a few trinkets, and a large seal ring.
"Comment?" said the old lady. "He is going off to America? C'est drôle--and at this time of year--au cœur de l'hiver! And I have been meaning to ask you, my dear Schnetz, to bring this young man to see me--he certainly looks as if he might be a magnificent dancer, and from his birth and education he could not but prefer the balls in society to any dancing parties that your artist friends might give."
"That is a question, countess," remarked Schnetz, dryly, as he rubbed his disfigured ear; "or, rather, knowing the man as I do, it is not a question at all. My friend's taste is altogether too unprejudiced for him to consult the peerage to find out whether he may amuse himself or not, or to judge by a merry dancer's eyes whether she is worth having for a partner. He has had sufficient experience of what you are pleased to call society to enable him to turn his back upon it without regret. He now seeks society where he can find it; and, if it belongs to the set you consider disreputable, it is good enough for him on carnival eve, if for no other reason than because the so-called 'good society' is only called so because, as a well-known Weimar councilor once remarked, 'it never yet afforded material for even the smallest poem.'"
"Toujours le même frondeur!" laughed the old lady. "Mais on doit pourtant observer les convenances; I mean, even if your friend does sometimes condescend to enter this Bohème, as you yourself do--"
Schnetz immediately cleared his throat loudly. "As to the condescension," he said, with emphasis, "there can be so little talk of that in the present case, that I can assure you that if the most accomplished courtiers in your exclusive society should present themselves for admission to this Paradise, they would be blackballed, with but very few exceptions. This will give you an idea of what the gentleman are like. As for our female guests--though they might not always find favor in the eyes of delicate ladies--I will do them the justice to say that they always behave themselves with propriety while they are with us, and that they have a very good idea of what is expected of them on such occasions. If this were not the case, do you think I would dare to invite our honored Fräulein to this masked ball? to do which, by the way, was the occasion of my present visit."
"Irene? Well, I must confess, Schnetz--cést l'idée la plus extravagante que vous ayez jamais eue. Irene, qu'en dites-vous, ma chère enfant? Mais c'est un idée--
"It is our rule," said Schnetz, turning to Irene, without paying the slightest heed to this interruption, "to allow each member to bring a lady with him, no matter whether she is known to the others or not. Her cavalier is held responsible by the society for her behaving herself with propriety. And up to the present time all have shown so much tact in their choice, that nothing like a scandal has ever occurred. Of course these good children are of all degrees of education and origin, respectable burghers' daughters, actresses belonging to the smaller theatres, and very likely you will find a little seamstress or milliner among them, for whose unswerving principles I should hardly like to answer. But all these inequalities disappear in the masquerade, and one sees nothing but round, pretty faces, which their artist friends try to set off as charmingly as possible. To have taken part in such a thing, my dear Fräulein, will be an experience for you which you will not forget as quickly as you do the artificial routs of our aristocratic friends, that pass without mirth or comfort, and of which one is the exact counterpart of all the rest.
"Then, besides," he continued, as Irene gave no sign either of assent or dissent, "you needn't stand on any ceremony at all. If you should not feel at home among us Bohemians, you can regard the matter as you would a play, whose end we do not stop to see if it bores or depresses us. I need only add that the young lady to whom Jansen is secretly engaged is coming, as well as our honest friend Angelica, so that you will not lack a guard of honor. Now, do help me persuade the Fräulein, my dear countess. I am well enough acquainted with her uncle, to know that he will have nothing to say against it."
"I help you, you godless tempter of youth?" cried the old lady, wavering between sincere anger and a desire to laugh. "Mais décidément vous tournez à la folie, mon cher Schnetz! Have you forgotten that I fill the place of a spiritual mother, pour ainsi dire, to our Irene? that I feel myself responsible for all the impressions and experiences she may encounter in our Munich? And you ask me to persuade her to enter a society to which women de la plus basse extraction, shop-girls, grisettes and models belong--a society, in a word, which is of a thoroughly mauvais genre, no matter how much you bad men may prefer it to ours?"
While she was pouring forth this hasty speech, a singular play of anger, pity, and withering scorn came and went upon Schnetz's face. At length the old lady having come to an end, and making as though she would draw Irene to her arms, as if she were a little chicken who sought protection from the claws of a hawk, the lieutenant slowly rose, planted himself before the sofa, folded his arms over his chest and said, bringing out each word with a certain dry satisfaction:
"You are too old, my good countess, and moreover too thoroughly petrified by the atmosphere of courts, for me to venture to hope that you will change, in any way, your ideas about men and things. But I must respectfully request you not to make use of the expression mauvais genre in connection with any society to which I permit myself the honor of inviting Fräulein Irene. It is opposed to my principles to introduce young ladies whom I esteem into any circle where they could be insulted by anything immoral or vulgar. Upon this point, I hold even more exclusive views than you, in spite of your duties as spiritual mother. In the days when I was still a frequenter of 'society,' which is undoubtedly neither better nor worse here than it is in other capitals, I often overheard ballroom-talk which would not have been excused in our Paradise, even by the license allowed to those who wear masks--though we can scarcely be called prudish. It is true the conversation was veiled in smooth French and still smoother double meanings, which undoubtedly accounts for its being considered bon genre. So much for mere words. And when we come to consider the deeds of this haute extraction from a moral point of view--why, you yourself have kept a record long enough to know that one may be very well versed in the manners of a court, and may yet, as far as looseness of principles is concerned, rival many a grisette, or, for that matter, many a model; and that blue blood is quite as apt to run away with the weaker sex as red. Those gentlemen, especially--to whom you would not hesitate to trust Fräulein Irene for an entire cotillion--may I be allowed to remind you of certain stories, in connection with some of your own partners? About Baron X., for instance, who--" and he bent down over the old lady, and whispered for some time in her ear, notwithstanding the comical struggles she made to protect herself from the auricular confession thus forced upon her.
"Mais vous êtes affreux," she cried out at length and struck at him with her handkerchief, very much in the same way that one tries to rid one's self of a swarm of importunate gnats.
"I beg a thousand pardons," growled Schnetz, again addressing himself to Irene. "C'est contre la bienséance, de chuchoter en société--you see I haven't quite forgotten my catechism of good-breeding even yet, though I do sometimes sin against it. I merely wished to convince the countess that the 'Bohème' from which I have chosen my friends, does indeed consist of men, and not of angels, but that it would be impossible for me to introduce the Fräulein to any one there, from whom the history of morals and civilization in this city could learn as much as it could from certain members of the best circles."
The old countess hastily rose. Her face had grown very red, her nostrils quivered. She gave a slight cough, and then said, turning with a motherly smile to Irene, who was helping her on with her furs.
"Ce cher Schnetz, il a toujours le petit mot pour rire. Well, ma mignonne, faites ce que vous voudrez. Je m'en lave les mains. Adieu, Baron! À tantôt! Adieu, Schnetz, you renegade, you horrid wretch! I see it is true what the world says of you, and what I have always disputed, that you have the most malicious tongue in the whole city."
She gave him as she passed a little tap, intended to be light and coquettish, but really delivered so sharply that the recipient could easily see how glad the same hand would have been to give him a more forcible lesson--if it had only been good ton.