"Georges! As head of the family I desire to be treated with more respect," said Oswald, laughing.
"Oh, it occurred to me, only because you were making so many corrections," rejoined Georges.
"The thing is quite difficult--it must be so worded that Gabrielle shall understand it,--and the telegraph operators shall not; I cannot manage it."
"Suppose you refresh your powers with a glass of sherry," proposed Georges, taking down an appetizing lunch-basket from the rack above his head, and drawing forth a bottle and three wine-glasses.
The wine had a decidedly soporific effect upon the three travellers. Truyn's political excitement was soothed, and after drinking to a better future, all three leaned back in silence.
Truyn pondered upon the shy, timid confession that his wife had made to him that morning early, very early, as they were sauntering together in the park, while the sun's first slant rays were breaking through the shrubbery, and the morning-dew was still glittering on the meadows. "The whole earth seems bathed in tears of delicious joy," his young wife had whispered, and then through her own happy tears she had begged him to give her a 'really large sum' from her own money that she might make some of the poor people on the estate happy too.
Gradually his thoughts wandered, and grew vague; the sounds of railway bells, and the shrill whistle of the engine, the grating voices of conductors, and the monotonous whirr of wheels mingled, subsided, and died away; his latest impressions faded, and, instead of the green park of Rautschin, a dim Roman street rises upon his mental vision, with a procession of masked torch-bearers accompanying a coffin;--the picture changes, the Roman street is transformed to a lofty hall so tragically solemn that the sunbeams lose their smile as they enter the high windows and glide pale and wan through the twilight gloom to die at the feet of ancient statues. He looks about him, lost in surprise and wondering where is he?--in the tomb of the Medici?--or among the monuments of the melancholy gray church of Santa Croce? No, he suddenly recollects it is the Bargello, and yon white marble, that gleams through the dim religious light in such lifelike, or rather deathlike, beauty, revealing, as it lies outstretched, such clear-cut, nay, such sharp outlines, and the noble attenuation of youth, eager and fiery, is Michael Angelo's 'dead Adonis,' the ideal embodiment of the springtime of manhood crushed in its bloom. Anon vapour curls upward, and the crimson flicker of torches plays over the white statue, the masked torch-bearers stand around it, a wailing chant echoes through the hall--who is it lying there listlessly, with the ineffable charm of a fair young form, which death has suddenly snatched, before the poison of disease has wasted and deformed it?--
Truyn started, broad awake, every pulse throbbing.--Merciful God! how could he dream anything so horrible! Oswald sat opposite, with eyes half-closed, an extinguished cigarette in his hand. His face wore the expression of absolute content which is so often strangely seen on the face of the dead and which none except the dead ever wear, save the few, who, by God's grace, have been permitted to behold Heaven upon earth. Truyn could not away with a sensation of painful anxiety.
"For Heaven's sake, Ossi, open your eyes!" he exclaimed.
"What is the matter?" asked Oswald.