[EXPECTED GUESTS.]
Erlach Court,--a vine-wreathed castle, not very imposing, on the Save,--a pleasant dining-room, with wide-open windows through which thousands of golden stars are seen twinkling in the dark blue of a July sky, while the air is laden with the fragrance of acacia- and linden-blossoms. Beneath a hanging lamp, around a table whereon are finger-bowls and the remains of a luxurious dessert, are grouped six persons,--the master of the house, Captain von Leskjewitsch, his wife, and his seven-year-old son and heir, Freddy, a Fräulein von Gurlichingen, whose acquaintance Frau von Leskjewitsch had made twenty years before and whom she had never since been able to shake off, and two gentlemen, Baron Rohritz and General von Falk.
The general is the same youthful veteran whom we have all met before in some Viennese drawing-room or in some watering-place in Bohemia,--accredited throughout Austria from time immemorial as excellent company, dreaded as an incorrigible gossip, and notorious as a thorough idler. He often boasts that in thirty years he has never once dined at home; he might add, nor at his own expense. He is never positively invited anywhere, but since he has never been turned out of doors he is met everywhere. Absolutely free from prejudice in his social proclivities, he is equally at home in aristocratic society and in the world of finance; in fact, he rather prefers the latter; the dinners there are better, he maintains.
In spite of his seventy years, he is still as erect as a fir-tree,--dressed in the most youthful style,--occasionally, although with a half-ironical smile, alludes in conversation to 'us young men,' and dances at balls with the agility of a boy.
Baron Rohritz, who is scarcely six-and-thirty, already ranks himself, on the contrary, for the sake of his personal ease, with the old men. Tall and slender, with delicate, clearly-cut features, he is a remarkably distinguished figure, even in the circle to which he belongs. Although his moustache is brown, his hair is already very gray, which women find extremely interesting, especially since there is said to be some connection between this premature change of colour and an unfortunate love-affair. The finest thing about his face is his deep-set blue eyes; but since he uses an eye-glass, is near-sighted, and often nearly closes his eyes, there is something haughty in his look, which produces a chilling effect. When he smiles his expression is very attractive, but he smiles only rarely, and shows to the best advantage in his treatment of dogs, horses, and children.
Fräulein von Gurlichingen, commonly called Stasy,--the diminutive of her baptismal name, Anastasia, and a play upon her perpetual state of ecstatic excitement,--is an old maid, who was once accounted a great beauty, and in consequence is fond of wearing golden bands around her romantically frizzed curls. Her languishing, light-blue eyes were once compared to forget-me-nots sprinkled with sugar, and her complexion is suggestive of Swedish kid dusted with violet powder. She was young twenty years since, and has forgotten to stop being so. She once nearly married a prince of the blood, and has lately been jilted by an infantry-officer. She has come to Erlach Court to recover from this last blow, perhaps in hopes of eventually obtaining a recompense for the loss of the captain.
Little Freddy is a very pretty, spoiled child, in a sailor suit, with bare legs very much scratched; and the master and mistress of the house are two genial people, who eight years previously, both having outlived the bloom of their early illusions, although she was only six-and-twenty and the captain thirty, had "patched together their tattered lives," which means that they had married each other, not so much in the hope of being happy themselves, as in that of making two other fellow-beings miserable.
Although, however, they had thus married for pique, and though each had brought to the union nothing save a remnant of unfortunate love for somebody else, although they quarrelled with each other continually, they got along together not much worse than two-thirds of the married people whose union has been the result of passionate attachment.
All were waiting for the after-dinner coffee, which the mistress of the mansion, in dread of spots, never allowed to be served in the drawing-room, except on state occasions. Its appearance was unpardonably delayed to-day, and the famous Erlach Court sociability was beginning to degenerate into yawning ennui.
With the exception of Baron Rohritz, who had been occupied the entire time in gazing with half-closed eyes into the clouds of blue smoke from his cigar, all present had done their best to enliven the prevailing mood: the general had told anecdotes from the 'Fliegende Blätter,' Freddy had succeeded in producing a particularly charming noise by running a wet forefinger around the rims of various wineglasses, Fräulein Stasy had suggested a poetic comparison between dry storms and the tearless anguish of a stricken heart, and the married pair had squabbled with special earnestness about the most diverse matters, first about the potato-rot, then about a problematical constitution for Poland; and yet the conversation had failed to become fluent.