BOOK III.
CHAPTER XVIII. RUDOLPH AND ANDROMACHE.
New Year’s Eve at Athens by the Greek calendar. The long street of Hermes was an execrable confusion of the mingled sounds of loud chatter, laughter, jostling and popguns. Everybody was buying monster bouquets for presentation on the morrow. Sensitive nerves were laid prostrate in shivering ache by the din of squib and rattle, and the intolerable and unceasing explosions, and the raw colours were an offence to the eye. But the unfastidious Greeks were drunk with excitement and pleasure. They proudly carried the purchased bouquets with which the New Year’s greetings were to be exchanged, ate sweets, laughed hilariously, and took their jostling very good-naturedly. All the booths erected on either side of the street were covered with flowers, and men went about bearing aloft long poles to which bouquets for sale were affixed,—and these wands wore a curious triumphal aspect. Oh, the dolorous strangeness and multiplied effects of an Oriental town in holiday attire! Its clamorous and enervating gaieties, and its exasperating want of tone! Think of it with a strong sun beating down upon it, with not a touch of shadow or repose to soothe the pained eyes, with incessant speech clanging and clattering through the air, and every delicate sense affronted!
Foreigners and natives were abroad to view and drink at this local fount of joy. One group we recognise. Rudolph Ehrenstein elbows his way through the crowd and turns protectively every moment to his delighted and staring companion, Andromache with the March-violet eyes, whom we last saw with shamed and drooping head flee Madame Jarovisky’s ball-room. How well, and young, and prettily infatuated the pair look! And there is the glorious Miltiades behind them, bearing on his arm his portly and panting mother. Was there ever conqueror so irresistible? ever hero more gallantly conscious of his heroism? The spectator thought of those hapless five thousand Turks, and shuddered; heard the ostentatious rattle of his spurs, and that terrible weapon of destruction hanging from his side in the eloquence of war; looked at the scarlet plumes nodding above his noble brow, measured the awful imposingness of his tall slim form in the sombre simplicity of the Artillery Uniform and his long military boots, and rejoiced that Providence is good enough to limit the number of such heroes, else would surely be exterminated the horde of non-heroic.
This slaughterer of Turks was now content to be regarded as an amiable slaughterer of women. Twirling his fierce moustache, with a casual eye upon the young couple in front, he was looking round eagerly in search of his latest victim, Miss Mary Perpignani, while his mother breathed shortly on his arm, and kept muttering, “Poh! Poh! Poh! what a crush!” while she vigorously fanned and rubbed her sallow face with her handkerchief.
Above the foolish pair in front, Love’s star shone with a very gentle fulgence. Just a sense of delicious trouble, unmarred by any passionate impulses, stirred Rudolph. There was a delicate fragrance of homage in his shy and boyish fancy. It was a happiness, exquisite in its completeness and unexactingness, to be with Andromache, to listen to her voice and look quickly, with the tell-tale blood of fervour in his face, into her pretty eyes, his own shining and candid and content. Was there ever a sweeter, more innocent idyll? and the pity was that these two should not be allowed to run smoothly and trustingly into the shade of forest depths and live the life of nature, with no knowledge of the shabby compromises of civilisation and the more turbulent emotions of the heart.
He called her Mademoiselle Andromache, and with a look of shyest prayer had prevailed on her to call him sometimes Monsieur Rudolph. But the Monsieur and Mademoiselle tripped by with alarming facility; the tongue dwelt and faltered and whipped scarlet colour into each susceptible cheek upon the Andromache and Rudolph. Flattering, foolish, happy creatures! If pulses never beat less innocently, and senses never stirred more rapturously, the period of loverhood would indeed be a spot of Arcadia upon the rough road of life.