Countess Erika's Apprenticeship Part 16

"Yes, he ought to have known. And now tell me what you have on your mind, for I see by your bonnet's being all awry that you have not engaged in a duel with that simpleton Friedrich without some special cause."

"Ah, yes!" Countess Brock groaned. "I have a request--an audacious request--to make, and you must not refuse me."

"We shall see. Is it fifty yards of red flannel for your a.s.sociation for the relief of rheumatic old women?"

"Oh, if it were only that I should have no doubt of your a.s.sent,--every one knows how generous you are; but you have certain whims." The wicked fairy's smile was sourly sweet: "I begged Goswyn to prefer my request, for I know how much you like him, and that you would not willingly refuse him anything; but he would not do it. He behaves so queerly to me."

"Tell me what you mean, without any further preliminaries. I am curious to know what the matter is with which Goswyn will have nothing to do."

"It is about my next Thursday,--no, not the next, I shall simply skip that, but the one after the next,--which, under the circ.u.mstances, ought to be particularly brilliant. I want to have tableaux, and two of the greatest beauties in Berlin have promised to help me,--Dorothea Sydow and Constance Muhlberg," Countess Brock explained, breathlessly.

"H'm! that is magnificent," her friend interposed.

"Well, yes; but every one knows them by heart, and I want to show the Berlin folk something new. In short, I have come to the conclusion that the great attraction for my next evening reception must be your enchanting grand-daughter," the 'fairy' declared, wriggling herself out of her seal-skin coat.

Erika, who had hitherto kept modestly in the background, occupying herself with some embroidery, here paused, her needle suspended in the air, and looked up curiously.

"My grand-daughter?" her grandmother exclaimed, in surprise.

"Yes, yes; I have fallen in love with your granddaughter,--actually fallen in love with her. She has a natural air of distinction, with a certain barbaric charm which is immensely aristocratic: it reminds me of some n.o.ble wild animal: the aristocracy always reminds me of a n.o.ble wild animal, and the bourgeoisie of a well-fed barn-yard fowl,--except that the former is never hunted and the latter never slaughtered. But, then, who can tell, _par le temps qui court? Mais je me perds_. The matter in hand is not socialism nor any other threatening horror, but my tableaux. There are to be only three,--Senta lost in dreams of the Flying Dutchman, by Constance Muhlberg, Werther's Charlotte, by Thea Sydow, and last your grand-daughter as a heather blossom. She will bear away the palm, of course: the others are not to be compared with her."

Countess Lenzdorff looked at Erika and smiled good-naturedly, as she saw how the young girl had gone on sewing diligently as if hearing nothing of this conversation. It never occurred to the old lady that it might not be advisable thus calmly to extol that young person's beauty in her presence.

"You will let the child do me this favour, will you not?" the 'fairy'

persisted. "It is all admirably arranged. Riedel is to pose them,--you know him,--the little painter with such good manners who has his s.h.i.+rts laundered in Paris."

"Oh, that colour-grinder!" Countess Lenzdorff said, contemptuously.

The 'fairy' shrugged her shoulders impatiently. "Colour-grinder or not, he is one of the few artists whom one can meet socially."

"Yes, yes; and he will find it much easier to arrange a couple of pictures than to paint them," Countess Lenzdorff declared.

"Then you consent? I may count upon your grand-daughter?"

"I must first consider the matter," Countess Lenzdorff replied, but in a tone which plainly showed that she was not averse to granting her eccentric old friend's request.

"I see that affairs look favourable for me," Countess Brock murmured.

"Thank heaven! I think I should have killed myself if I had met with a refusal. What o'clock is it?"

"Six o'clock,--a few minutes past. Where are you going?"

"To dine with the Geroldsteins. We are going to the Lessing Theatre afterwards. There have been no tickets to be had for ten days past."

"You--are going to dine with the Geroldsteins?" The old Countess clasped her hands in frank, if discourteous, astonishment.

"I am going to dine with the Geroldsteins," the 'wicked fairy'

repeated, with irritated emphasis; "and what of it? You have received her for more than a year."

"I have no social prejudices. Moreover, I do not receive her: I simply do not turn her out of doors."

"Well, at present she suits me," Countess Brock declared, her features working violently. "I have been longing for two months to be present at this first representation, without being able to get a seat: she offers me the best seat in a box,--no, she does not offer it to me, she entreats me to take it as a favour to her. And then think how I begged Goswyn yesterday to introduce G---- to me. No, he would not do it. She will see to all that. She is the most obliging woman in all Germany.

And then--this very morning I saw her driving with Hedwig Norbin in the Thiergarten. Surely any one may know a woman with whom Hedwig Norbin drives through the Thiergarten."

She ran off, repeating her request as she vanished. "You will let me know your decision to-morrow, Anna?"

Countess Lenzdorff shook her head as she looked after her,--shook her head and smiled. She is still smiling as she thoughtfully paces the room to and fro.

What is she considering? Whether it is fitting thus, in this barefaced manner, to call the attention of society to a young girl's beauty.

Evidently Goswyn does not think it right; but Goswyn is a prig. The Countess's delicacy gives way and troubles her no further. Another consideration occupies her: will her grand-daughter hold her own in comparison with the acknowledged beauties who are to share with her the honours of the evening? Her gaze rests upon Erika. "That crackbrained Elise is right. Erika hold her own beside them! the others cannot compare with her."

"What do you say, child?" she asked, approaching the girl. "Would you like to do it?"

"Yes," Erika confesses, frankly.

"It would not be quite undesirable," says her grandmother, whose mind is entirely made up. "You cannot go out much this year, and it would be something to appear once to excite attention and then to retire to the background for the rest of the season. Curiosity would be aroused, and would prepare a fine triumph for you next year."

The following morning Countess Brock received a note from Anna Lenzdorff containing a consent to her request.

About ten days afterwards Countess Erika Lenzdorff presented herself before a select public, chosen from the most exclusive society in Berlin, as "Heather Blossom," in a ragged petticoat, with her hair falling about her to her knees.

It was a strange _soiree_, that in which the youthful beauty made her first appearance in the world.

Countess Brock, the childless widow of a very wealthy man who had derived much of his social prestige from his wife, had inherited from the deceased the use during her lifetime of a magnificent mansion, together with an income the narrowness of which was in striking contrast with her residence.

The consequence whereof was much shabbiness amid brilliant surroundings.

The tableaux were given in a s.p.a.cious ball-room, decorated with white and gold, at one end of which a small stage had been erected. The stage-decorations had been painted for nothing, by aspiring young artists. The curtain consisted of several worn old yellow damask portieres sewed together, upon which the 'wicked fairy' herself had painted various fantastic flowers to conceal the threadbare spots.

Whatever ridicule might attach to her Thursday evenings generally, on this one her preparations were crowned with success. The effect of the whole was greatly heightened by the musical accompaniment, furnished by G---- at the instigation of the indefatigable Frau von Geroldstein.

For once this talented but shy young virtuoso forgot himself, and presented his audience with something more than a pattern-card of conquered technical difficulties.

Whether it were the result of caprice, or of a vivid impression made upon him by Erika, or of a presumptuous desire to do all that he could to add to her triumph, thus irritating the acknowledged beauties of the day, certain it is that he played all his musical trumps in his accompaniment to the representation of "Heather Blossom."

Old Countess Lenzdorff, who had been wont to compare his clear sharp performance to a richly-furnished c.o.c.kney drawing-room far too brilliantly lighted, and with gas into the bargain, could scarcely believe her ears when as an introduction to the third picture the low wailing notes of the familiar but lovely melody "Ah, had I never left my moor!" rang through the crowded a.s.semblage of fas.h.i.+onable people.

How sweet, how melancholy, were the tones breathed from the instrument!

they seemed to rouse an echo in the soul of Boris Lensky's magic violin.

The curtain drew up, and revealed a waste, dreary heath, treated with tolerable conventionality by the amiable Riedel, and in the midst of it a single figure, tall, slender, in a worn petticoat and coa.r.s.e white linen s.h.i.+ft that left exposed the n.o.bly-formed neck and the long and as yet rather thin arms, a pale face framed in heavy gleaming ma.s.ses of hair, the features delicate yet strong, and with unfathomable, indescribable eyes.

The painter Riedel had tried to force the Heather Blossom into the att.i.tude of Ary Scheffer's Mignon. She had apparently yielded to his efforts, but at the last moment had posed according to her own wish, with her head bent slightly forward and her arms hanging straight by her side.

The audacious simplicity of her pose puzzled the spectators, and those elegant votaries of fas.h.i.+on, weary of counterfeit presentments of art and poetry, were in a manner shaken out of the monotonous indifference of their lives at sight of the blank dumb despair embodied in this young creature. They seemed suddenly to feel among them the working of some mysterious force of nature.

The curtain remained lifted for a longer time than usual; the young girl maintained her motionless att.i.tude with a strength born of vanity; the wailing, sighing music sounded on.

The curtain fell. The public was wild with enthusiasm. Three times the curtain rose; but when there was a demand for a fourth glimpse of the strange, pathetic picture, it remained obstinately down: Erika had retired.