Always keenly alive to intellectual interests, she was, by the time she had reached her twenty-fifth year, a confirmed blue-stocking; she studied Sanskrit, and was in correspondence with half the scientific men in Europe. Moreover, she was by no means 'sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,' but full of wit and spirit. She swam like a fish, venturing alone far out upon river or lake, and rode with the boldness of a trained equestrian, without even a groom as escort. She had always disdained to dance; at the only ball she had ever been induced to attend she had been merely an on-looker. She could not comprehend how there could be any pleasure in dancing, she remarked, with a contemptuous glance towards the whirling couples: it was either ridiculous, or childish, or else positively disgusting.
Her contempt for love-making was as pronounced as for dancing. The homage of the young exquisites of society bored her inexpressibly; it was absolutely odious to her. She often boasted that in her life she had had but three loves,--Buonaparte, Lord Byron, and Machiavelli.
All her acquaintance, more especially the feminine portion of it, were astounded when a report was suddenly circulated that she was smitten with Franz Meineck, a simple, fair-haired hussar, with nothing to recommend him save his handsome face and his fine chivalric bearing.
It was easy to see what attracted him in her,--her rich brunette beauty, and, in strange contrast with it, the cold, defiant bluntness of her air and manner, the nimbus of originality that surrounded her, the fact that towards all other men her indifference was well-nigh discourtesy, while to him she was amiability itself. But what she, she of all girls in the world, could find to attract her in him,--this was what puzzled the brains of all the wiseacres in Lemberg.
But that he pleased her no one could deny, least of all she herself. Once, after a dinner at which Meineck had been her neighbour, a very cultivated and interesting friend asked her how she could possibly find any entertainment in that superficial hussar. She replied, with a shrug, that she found it much more amusing to hear a superficial hussar talk than to see a distinguished philosopher masticate his food, which according to her experience was the only entertainment afforded by great scientific lights at a dinner.
While, however, Meineck's love for her was, from the very beginning, of an enthusiastic, passionate nature, the inclination she felt for him was at first very gentle in character.
For her he was but a child; the idea that her relations with him could end in marriage would have seemed more mad and improbable to her than to any one else. Her demeanour towards him was always friendly; she would rally him good-humouredly, and anon treat him with a kindliness that was almost maternal. There was nothing in her manner to suggest her being in love with him.
Towards the end of February, when some treacherously mild weather heralded, as all prophesied, a cold windy March, Lina allowed her youthful adorer to be her escort in long rides on horseback. Here he was in his element, and greatly her superior in spite of her Amazonian skill. It was after one of these expeditions, when she reached home with eyes sparkling and cheeks slightly flushed, that she suddenly had an attack of terror. She knew that, accustomed as she had been for so long to absolute freedom, she must sooner or later find any fetters galling; she did not wish to marry.
The next day, without informing any one save her nearest of kin of her intention, she left Lemberg and retired to a small estate near Prague, where after her independent fashion she was often wont to stay for months alone with an old gardener and her maid.
It was a pretty, romantic spot, formerly a mill. A venerable weeping-willow stood beside it, its branches trailing above the antiquated mansard roof; a little brook rippled past it, gurgling and sobbing between banks of forget-me-nots and jonquils on its way to the larger stream. In this particular March, however, jonquils and forget-me-nots were still sleeping soundly beneath the snow, and the brook was silent. The February prophets were right: March was terribly cold. Long icicles hung from the eaves of the mill, almost reaching its windows, and the weeping-willow was clad in a fairy-like robe of glistening snow.