"You show too much agitation. Show me how to cut out the germ properly. This is the plan. After the ceremony, on the day when Diodora is confined to her room and I am with her, a festival banquet will be spread in the shooting-box. It will be a noisy, dissolute company that meets there, and Siegfried will drink most, be the loudest and least well-behaved of the set. The bride will pretend to be afraid of the groom, and at last she will break away from his hands, and ask the protection of the only sober, sensible, and decent man present, namely, yourself. The bridegroom will have lost all self-control through drink. He will swear, and use all sorts of bad language, and the bride will sob and entreat you to take her away, protesting that she hated the sight of the vulgar wretch she had just married, but had been forced to do his will, although he knew well that in reality she loved you, and you alone. At last, growing desperate, she will attempt to leap out of the window to escape from this place, even at the risk of her life. You will take pity on her; her tears and charms will conquer your resistance, and you will tell her to dispose of you for ever, and take shelter in your own castle from the ruffian who was not worthy of the treasure he had obtained. You will order your carriage, and take Cenni with you; but, as soon as you have left, the fellow-plotters will mount their horses, and, by a short cross-cut, arrive there before you, discover the intended elopement of the bride, and carry off you and her as criminals. You will of course offer to fight every one of them, until all, the bride included, will burst out into Olympian laughter, and you stand stunned and bewildered. But, pray, show me how to insert the germ properly into the T-shape?"
My whole frame trembled with excitement.
"What is his object in all this?" I asked.
"To give you the usual 'jump,' as they call it in our set. If, for instance, a member of some other class of society—in your case a simple nobleman—is pushing his way into high aristocracy, he must be 'jumped,' each in his own different way. One is made to drink until he makes himself obnoxious even to his nearest friends; another is made to gamble until he either wins or loses a fortune, generally the latter; but all must 'jump,' and if they break their necks, well and good! It was proposed to 'jump' you in courtship; you refused to aspire to Diodora. In a duel you are not afraid of a fight, and so this course was decided on. You had been 'jumped' already—at the election—but the triumph and your downfall were not complete. Your vanity—don't start—was not yet wounded to death, and you will have to 'jump' once more—once in private and once at a second election. But this time you will not rise again. Hopp! Hopp! That's the design. Don't look at me—that's all!"
I was fairly choked with emotion. "But why do they play that trick on me? I did not want to enter their society; in fact, never valued it at all; but I cared for Siegfried, and he lured me on with protestations of friendship. What was his reason for that? What have I done to him to merit this?"
"What have you done? You have provoked him—called him out. You said you could not believe in the existence of a spiritual or corporal being who would do mischief without a material motive, simply for the sake of mischief and the pleasure he found in the despair of a fellow-being: you did not believe that there are men who will afflict the innocent with pain and sorrow, who will degrade, socially and morally humiliate you, and then laugh you in the face and make game of you. Stay here, move in our society, and you will find out your mistake! Why, what a sight it will be to have the great debater, the candidate-elect, the sage and learned doctor, and heir of old Diogenes caught in the act of robbing another man of his bride! They will have a painter there to take a sketch of the fine situation 'en plein air.'"
At that moment one of the lawn-tennis players throw the ball just in front of my feet, and Siegfried came running to fetch it.
"Well, have you profited at all by this lesson on inoculating?" he asked the girl, and he added a remark which was so vulgar and impertinent that he would not have dared to use the expression in a variety theatre or any other low place of common entertainment.
"I have," said the girl, with low emphasis, and laid down the knife.
I was in such a state of anguish that I did not know for certain whether the spot I was standing on belonged to this earth or was part of the infernal kingdom, for the soil actually burned my feet. Countess Mamma thanked me for the horticultural lesson I had given her, and I was so much embarrassed that I repeated her own words verbally, instead of giving her a courteous reply. Siegfried laughed.