CHAPTER II.
[IN THE LION'S DEN.]
Beate looked enterprising enough in the Spanish mantilla, which she had thrown as a hood over her head; her little eyes sparkled; she resembled a tiger cat, going out in search of prey.
She rang at the door of a large house, and before the sleepy porter opened it, she tried whether the dagger would spring easily and quickly out of its sheath.
She knew the way; it led through a spacious hall, and through a second door standing open, past a back building of stables and sheds, which looked as if some manor house had gone astray in the town.
Then she arrived at a small gate, and through the railing perceived a two-storied garden house, of which the shutters were closed; only through the door, draped with curtains on the ground floor, gleamed a red light, whose lost reflection fell upon the silver of the frosty snow, with which the nearest yew trees were covered.
The gate was locked. Beate had to ring again.
Then the snow crackled, and a gnome-like creature crept up to the gate; almost buried beneath the weight of snow which the clouds and trees had shed upon her, she stared at the stranger with glaring eyes; she looked like an Esquimaux woman, at whose hut some stranger's hand knocks.
It was Kätchen! After that meeting with Blanden she had stayed up in her chamber; had tossed about upon her straw couch as if in feverish delirium, until the grey morn rose above the roofs, then she had fallen fast asleep. But mother Hecht knew no consideration for lazy maid-servants, who neglected their duties--and when Kätchen, on the following morning, appeared in the kitchen with hollow eyes and pallid face, she was immediately driven out of the house.
The Italian, who had known her at the sea-side, and had long had an eye upon her, had also often spoken to her in the witch's kitchen, heard of it; according to his views she combined two qualities which were of equal value for his purposes; want of understanding, sullen indifference to all that lay beyond her horizon, and a marvellously developed instinct for everything in which she was interested. That which was repulsive, even idiotic in her nature, was peculiarly acceptable to him; she passed unnoticed, no one cared about her. Thus she could do excellent service as a spy, and at night she was always to be found at her post as porteress and sentinel where forbidden pleasures were pursued.
"Open the gate," said Beate. Kätchen examined her from head to foot, and shrugged her shoulders.
"Aprite dunque," repeated Beate angrily, although the porteress, who seemed to belong to the polar regions, did not bear the least resemblance to an Italian.
Kätchen asked her name. Beate gave her a card, upon which were written the words Beate Romani.
The little porteress sprang along the garden walk, in doing which it pleased her to sweep the bushes in the nearest beds, so that their boughs rattled, and threw out clouds of snow.
Beate became impatient, she had to wait a long time; she shook the bars of the railing like a wild beast in a cage.
At last Käthe returned and opened the garden gate. Beate followed her into the villa, they passed through a garden lighted with red lamps, up a flight of steps, covered with a lovely carpet. Beate had to wait in an ante-room; deathlike silence reigned in both the adjoining chambers disturbed by no cry, by no chink of money, as she had expected.
She looked at a picture on the wall; it represented a little church upon an island in a lake; on all sides, high, bare hills, which glowed in the radiant colouring of an Italian evening sky. She knew that church, and gazed at the picture with a shrug of her shoulders; it awoke a reminiscence, which at that moment was very unwelcome. And what mockery--the house of God in the antechamber of a gambling hell!
"I have not time now, Beate," said Baluzzi curtly, as he entered through a side door, "but I will make you a proposal! I have visitors with me, whom I am amusing with various games, now we are at roulette! Be my guest--che ne dite?"
"What shall I do there? Lose my good name?"
"Puo darsi! That is not an article which I keep in stock, but neither do those seek it who come to me. However, we are silent. If the means are wanting, I am at your service."
"I do not play!"
"Remember Monaco, you were a fisher of gold, the money clung to your rod."
"I am not prepared for it to-day."
"Here you have money, you shall play for me! But come, come, I have not time to talk."
Beate was not at all disinclined to take a peep into the secrets of the gaming hell; perhaps she might succeed in discovering something that could be useful to her friend; she allowed herself to be persuaded, laid cloak and hood aside, while Baluzzi said to her--
"You are doing me a slight favour, Beate! I need the fair sex in my parties, my graces gain wrinkles! But you are quite a pretty child, such a little snake with red, fiery eyes, you are a diavolessa. I know you; tanto meglio!"
Meanwhile they had traversed two empty rooms, and entered a brilliantly lighted saloon, the windows of which were made doubly safe by shutters and curtains.
A loud buzz of conversation met the new comers, the game having been interrupted. Baluzzi seemed happy to have captured an Italian woman, and, with some pride, introduced Beate to those present as his countrywoman.
"Beate Romani--whence did this golden orange drop?" said an elderly lady, with a complexion yellow as a citron, to her young neighbour, in a low dress. The latter put her eyeglass more firmly upon her pug nose, and replied--
"Little and impudent--a soubrette! The captain is talking to her already; she seems to be pert."
The Polish Captain of Lancers, a Herr von Mierowski, did, indeed, find pleasure in the wily Italian, whose smile was so charmingly reserved. At the same time she let her eyes pass over the assembly, and especially examined the ladies; of these there were four: the mother, with the yellow tint in her face, and daughter, with the pug nose, also bore Polish names, consisting of a whole plica polonica of letters. Then there was another beauty in pink silk. That rose was a Berlin lady, of remarkable loquacity. Her face did not correspond with her toilet's language of flowers; she was pale as wax, and the pink ribbons flowed down from flaxen hair. The fourth lady was an unusually slender sylph, and Beate guessed correctly and quickly that she must be a late performer in some ballet, who, after having gradually retreated from the front row into the very last, had retired with honours from the field of renown. She was a French-woman, who pretended to have taken part in the Grand Opera, but who certainly had earned her questionable laurels in booths, or on similar stages.
The female company answered to that which is termed refuse at an annual fair--gay glazed ware, full of bubbles and cracks. Beate soon recognised this, but without being particularly contented with that result of her observations. She knew only too well that none of these Circes could have won Baluzzi's affections.
Several patrician sons were to be found amongst the gentlemen, who rather prided themselves upon trying their luck at the gaming table, and having discovered a miniature Homburg and Baden-Baden in the city of pure reason, at which were not wanting the Graces, who rustled their silks through the state rooms and along the terraces. A Russian prince, possessor of many serfs, was very impatient at the pause in the game, and walked angrily up and down, caring as little about the seductive beauties as if they had been painted in faded colours upon the walls.
The play began afresh; the roulette ball commenced its fatal course; people betted upon rouge and noir upon pair and impair, here and there also considerable sums were placed upon single numbers, which Baluzzi swept off with great satisfaction. The little gaming table was arranged exactly after the pattern of the larger Rhenish banks, and here, despite the small dimensions, sums could be lost which were not at all proportionate to those dimensions. The young merchant sons rejoiced over the losses, as much as over their gains, because they could thus show that it mattered not at all to them how they sacrificed vast sums, the loss of which would have reduced others to a state of nervous agitation.
Most eager was the Pole; he belonged to those persons who have converted hazard into a system, and who lose themselves in deep calculations as to the chances of the game; he sat with a little writing tablet in his hand, and carefully noted the occurrences at the green board, laughed at by the free thinkers of the gaming table, who believe in chance only, just as others perceive but a game of hazard in the great comedy of the world, and ridicule the thinkers who strive to reduce it into a system. The mother and her flaxen-haired daughter also played devotedly, although they merely pledged small sums; at each gain or loss, a red streak suffused the yellow-bronzed complexion of the mother, and the waxen features of the daughter received a sudden crimson glow, which vanished again just as quickly.
Despite all absorption in the hieroglyphics of chance, Mierowski had leisure sufficient to observe Beate's mode of playing, which in its thoughtless recklessness pierced his heart. Owing to the lively interest which he felt in the dainty Italian, he could no longer look calmly on; he rose from the table, and whispered the necessary hints to her, not omitting to squeeze her hand in token of his friendship.
Beate followed these hints, and lost bravely, an event which seemed to confuse all rules of the gambling method. He was all the more eagerly bent upon proving the truth of his calculations by means of his own success.
The heaps of gold on his right hand increased; the Polish mamma entered into partnership with him already, and the flaxen-haired daughter was much inclined to follow her example, but her neighbour and protector, the son of the Kommerzienrath, in the Kneiphöf Lang-gasse, beneath whose pennon her louis d'ors ventured out to sea, would never have given his consent; he looked askant at the augmenting treasures of the Pole. Baluzzi also became uneasy, because Mierowski steadily increased his stakes.
At last that state of feverish excitement set in which always precedes any great crisis. The battle only raged between the banker and Mierowski; all others as it were merely paid the entrance money with their small stakes, in order to be present at this performance. The victory suddenly seemed to incline to Baluzzi's side; twice following he swept in heavy amounts. But the Pole doubled and trebled the stake in order to break the bank, "Le jeu est fait," rang forth; with beating hearts the little circle awaited the result which the weird, rolling ball should bring. Beate had become pale as death, she knew that this ball would once more pierce another's heart.
"Va banque," rang the Pole's cry of victory; all sprang up in tumultuous excitement, so that the heaps of gold were scattered in all directions, and some louis d'ors rolled upon the ground.
With apparent composure Baluzzi said--
"For to-day I acknowledge myself conquered, but the fortune of war changes."
At the same time he cast a venomous glance at the victorious Pole.
Beate took advantage of the tumult to retire unnoticed, and to await the Italian in a side room, so that her lengthy stay might not arouse observation.
Mierowski's glances sought her in vain, as he rushed away with his treasures; he was possessed with a violent passion for little Beate, and was in a very liberal humour; he longed for another champagne orgie, and the Hebe for it had been found, and was lost.
Outside, he enquired of the half-witted porteress, for the little black lady from Italy.
Kätchen stared at him with astonished eyes, and several times repeated the word, "Gone!" with pantomimic gesture. In so doing she was obeying no injunction of Beate, but only her own instinct.
The whole party broke up noisily; the Polish women lighted their cigarettes, the pink Berlin lady disappeared in a grey sack-like winter cloak, which suited her flaxen hair better. The gentlemen eagerly discussed the last decisive battle, and were so excited and absorbed that Kätchen picked up several louis d'ors at the garden gate, as perquisites.
In the house itself all had suddenly become silent; a tired lacquey snored upon the bench in the hall; no one remembered to extinguish the lamps and candles; a current of air blew in through the open doors; several lights flickered and went out; others burned down and filled the air with their odour.
Baluzzi hastened, in wild excitement, through the saloons, and at last found Beate upon a divan in the farthest room in the suite of apartments. Only one hanging lamp shed a dim light.
Beate sprang up from the sofa and assumed an attitude prepared for defiance, for the Italian was greatly excited, and she knew that he would then recklessly indulge his wild nature.
"There you are--you would speak to me--benissimo. I too would speak to you; you are probably afraid of me, little cat? You have an evil conscience, yes, per dio, I might shake you to death, because you are to blame for the last hesitation."
At these words, he caught Beate with his powerful hand. But she drew out her dagger.
"Stand back! I expected ill-usage; but I am prepared to protect myself from it."
The Italian started back at the unexpected sight of the shining steel.
"Corpo del diavolo," cried he, "the little witch has provided herself well, but if I were to struggle with you--"
"Just try it!"
"You are a little brigandess; it pleases me, it is Italian blood! But you are also an intriguer, a shameless intriguer; she follows your advice. I know it! Why was I obliged to go to the debtors' prison? Could you not release me one day sooner? If it were not for the disturbance, your dagger should not deter me, and even if the little cat were to spring into my face, I should be able to settle her."
"Let us talk rationally, Baluzzi."
"With the dagger in your hand?"
"There is something like a wild beast about you! Fasten it in a cage--and the dagger shall return to its sheath."
"Well, I will control myself, although it is difficult for me at this moment. The misfortunes which persecute me, transport me into ever new rage. Could the cursed ball not roll differently? Sono alla disperazione."
He had seized a chair, and threw it to the ground with such force that the back broke.
"Has your rage nearly exhausted itself?" asked Beate.
"It was a relapse--I will be calm. Sit down. What have you to tell me?"
They sat down upon the sofa; Beate watched his every movement with a keen glance.
"Let us talk quietly! This cannot go on much longer!"
"My business with Russia shall set me up again! 'E una fatalita!' This maledetto polacco! If only they had massacred him at Ostrolenka, or beaten him to death with the knout in Siberia. He is a gambler by profession, and believes to be in possession of the only luck-bringing theory; but his theory is folly, while the misfortune is that he is fortunate. It is the second time already that he has broken my bank--without him I should be the luckiest player! He exercises an evil eye upon me--I curse him!"
"Leave that alone! The misfortune is the gambling--give it up, Baluzzi! You will ruin yourself, and us with you."
"She still sings splendidly; while the gold of her voice resounds, gold will resound in her money box."
"But her voice is deteriorating."
"Bad fellows say so, and I punished one of them lately. Her voice is still first-rate capital, will bring interest for long yet; there is no want of it."
"We shall come to want! You are a leech, an outrageous leech! She can hardly pay for her own dress! And, to-day, bad luck again! No sooner are your debts paid than a new demand menaces us. You are a bankrupt every eight days."
"I will give up gambling now; I have no luck. But business is hazard, too; the Russian frontier Guards are no joke."
"Can you pursue no respectable business?"
"Fill a paper bag with quattrini, every day another farthing, and lie down to sleep happily when one paper bag is full, and a fresh one can be twisted up--that is not my style! I do business on a large scale, I would live grandly, I must, therefore, risk much! All or nothing--va banque! What else can I do with your little honorariums? You have no right to interfere with me; you deceive me, and you especially, little Satan; you rouse her against me, and spin tissues of lies, and persuade her to plead poverty. But I will sweep away the spider's web you have woven, malicious spider that you are, and trample you under foot."
The Italian assumed a menacing aspect; Beate kept her hand upon the dagger.
"Afraid again? Those little watchful eyes, how well they become you, but I tell you I want money, much money, and she must give it me once more! Could she not save during that couple of years when I lost all traces of her, because I was stationed far away in the interior of Russia, and could not escape from vile ill-luck? Why did she not save? Why does she live like a princess? Probably she is collecting a dowry for you; you are, doubtlessly, a pretty little betrothed; some unhappy being has gone into your net, beguiled by that pretty visage! There is still time to warn him!"
"Calumny, vile calumny!"
"But I shall hold her fast! Do she not fulfil her duties, I shall appear again, and lay my hand upon her before all the world."
"It is on this point that I would speak to you, Baluzzi. There is only one means by which she can still provide for you, even if her talent has failed her."
"And that means?"
"You must set her free."
"How your eyes sparkle, little viper," cried Baluzzi, springing up. "That is a fine plan, probably conceived in this charming little head. Do not give yourselves any trouble, things will remain as they were."
"Your own interest--"
"Is thus best ensured. Will always be. I have certainty."
"There are sufficient grounds for you, according to the laws of this country, if you only will--"
"Grounds abundant as flowers in May, as mushrooms after rain; but I stand by the decree of the Church. I am not a subject of this country, and will not become one."
"But if we had reasons, proofs--"
"Aha, I repeat it, it is in vain--we stand under the laws of Italy and of the Church, and what will you prove? That which was done was done with her consent, according to her own desire, yet at first in opposition to mine; and who tells you that I do not love her, love her fervently, that I will always remain far from her? If she cease to be the queen of the stage, then she will belong to me once again. No more beautiful angel of damnation ever dwelled with Lucifer in the depths of hell! Ha! how my bonds will rise; she shall preside at the green board, it will be like a gaming hell in heaven! For me, at least, because she shall be my slave, whom I love and chastise at the same time."
"The dreams of a madman."
"If they are only beautiful, those dreams, enchantingly beautiful, then it is a foretaste, and the day will come on which this madness will seek and find its victim."
"Baluzzi, be reasonable," said Beate, insinuatingly, as she drew the Italian down beside her, "you are not so foolish as you pretend to be; you consented formerly, because you saw that it was for your mutual good. Be reasonable now, too!"
"How the little cat can caress with its velvet paws."
"There is something in the air that can do you good also!"
"I curse that something and him, for I hate him also."
"Jealousy still, senseless jealousy--sareble vero! She does not love you; you cannot force her to do so! Is she the only woman in the world? You give yourself freedom again. Take a large profit with you, and then trouble yourself no more about her! We others may not be so beautiful, to be sure, yet we are not made of marble either, but of flesh and blood, and, if our eyes have not such depth, they flash all the more merrily."
Beate looked at the gambler with seductive glances. He put his arms round her supple form, which only resisted feebly, pressed a kiss upon her lips, but then wrenched himself away, pushed her from him, and cried, as he sprang up--
"Corpo di bacco, I know you, diavola! That is a worn-out game, and I know, too, how the cards are shuffled! You are not indisposed to be the victim of friendship. Aha, that is the cause of this sudden, pretended, fervent love. But where are the witnesses--the dumb walls, the lamps burning down? And, if there were witnesses, they would only be of use so far as separate maintenance is concerned, with which the Signora is not supplied. You have miscalculated, my child! To-day is buried from the world, and to-morrow I shall not know you again."
Beate stood drawn up erectly, the open dagger in her hand.
"You misunderstand me, Signor Baluzzi! Our business is at an end!"
At that moment Kätchen's head appeared in the half-open doorway.
"You called me, Signor?"
"Listener," cried Baluzzi, enraged, "this eavesdropping in my own house! Do not let me catch you a second time. Open the garden gate for the Signora; wait below with the key!"
Kätchen disappeared.
"I require money; I do not yet know how much. I will first learn the result of my business. You are a cunning mediatrix, little Beate, but neither your paws nor your claws have power over me; but if anything be in the air warn her not to venture upon too much, else she may have a narrow escape."
Below Kätchen was whistling upon the key of the gate. She soon conducted Beate, who had drawn the hood over her head, through the garden walks.
The wild cat left the lion's den.