Erlach Court Part 28

CHAPTER XXVI.

FIVE-O'CLOCK TEA.

However recklessly a woman may have trifled with her reputation in her youth, tossing it about as a thing of naught, there is sure to come a time in the progress of years when the first wrinkle appears, and instantly a careful search is made for the lost article. Then she needs a friend who shall smooth it out and polish it up and return it to her,--a friend who believes in its inherent spotlessness and will do her best to convince others of the same.

This office Stasy has undertaken to perform for the Princess Oblonsky.

And what is to be her reward for her efforts? Delicious food, exquisite lodgings and service in apartments fairy-like in their appointments, numerous presents, and altogether very considerate treatment, with the exception of a few outbreaks of temper, unavoidable with such women as the Princess.

From all which it may be clearly perceived that the position of the Oblonsky is far from being as good as it was upon her husband's death, three years ago, or she would scarcely covet at so high a price the support of such a person as Anastasia.

She certainly has been most unfortunate,--poor Princess Sophie. When, three years ago, she returned from Petersburg a widow and possessed of a colossal fortune, she hoped to obliterate all memories of former irregularities by a marriage with Prince Zino Capito. But Zino did not second her views. Two months after the death of the Prince he scarcely spoke to her.

It was during the following winter that Sophie Oblonsky committed the serious 'imprudence' by which she lost forever her social position. At the roulette-table in San Carlo she made the acquaintance of a young Hungarian who was presented to her as a Comte de Bethenyi. He was young, ardent, wore picturesque fur collars and jackets which well became his handsome gypsy face, flung his money about everywhere, and played the piano. Sophie Oblonsky was always sensitive to music. The picturesque Hungarian inspired her with an interest such as none but a disappointed woman of forty can experience. In dread of compromising herself, she consented to marry him, and they were betrothed, whereupon suddenly various Esterhazys and Zichys of her acquaintance appeared at San Carlo, and in the casino of the place met the Princess upon her lover's arm, bowed to her, and honoured her companion with a very odd stare. After they had pa.s.sed, Sophie heard them laugh.

In an hour all Monaco knew that the Princess Oblonsky had betrothed herself to a fencing-master from Klausenburg, who shortly before had won a prize of ten thousand marks in the Saxon lottery. That same evening Caspar Bethenyi risked his last thousand francs on number twenty-nine,--perhaps because the twenty-ninth of January was his birthday,--and lost. The following night he put a bullet through his brains.

The correspondent of 'Figaro' wrote an amusing article upon the episode, and the Princess Oblonsky was henceforth impossible: she had made herself ridiculous.

The world found the affair extremely comical,--so comical that there was a strong admixture of contempt even in the compa.s.sion accorded to the poor fencing-master, who had signed his name simply Caspar Bethenyi in the strangers' book, and who, it was afterwards discovered, had accepted rather unwillingly the rank bestowed upon him by waiters and journalists.

Since this had occurred, two years before, the Oblonsky had tried in vain to regain a footing in society. Considerable surprise was expressed that when thus exiled from the 'world' of western Europe she did not retire to Petersburg; but she probably had her own reasons for not doing so.

Another woman in her place, with her immense means, might have let go all she had lost and lived gaily from day to day. But she was naturally slow, and with the luxurious tendencies of her temperament were mingled sentimentality and a certain liability to sporadic attacks of a sense of propriety. She grasped at everything that could make her at one with the world.

She had set her heart upon a respectable marriage, becoming her rank.

In the far distance Edgar von Rohritz hovered before her as the St.

George who was destined to slay for her the dragon of prejudice.

Certain people, especially women, understand how to touch up their reminiscences with the same artistic skill that a photographer expends upon his pictures, so that very little remains of the fact as it was originally projected upon the memory.

Sophie Oblonsky erased, in this touching up of her reminiscences, everything that she disliked. She talked so much of her virtue that she finally came to believe in it.

Meanwhile, she behaved with perfect propriety and was fearfully bored.

It is five o'clock, and the heavy curtains before the windows of her drawing-room are already drawn close. The lamps shed a mild, agreeable light. A lackey has just brought in the tea. Upon a pretty j.a.panese stand, beside the silver samovar, sparkle the gla.s.s decanters of cordial and all the modern accompaniments of afternoon tea.

It is the Princess's reception-day.

That she entirely ignores in her intercourse with Stasy her own loss of position, that she ascribes her seclusion solely to a voluntary retirement from a hollow world which disgusts her, there is as little need of saying as that Stasy, without a word from the Princess to induce her to do so, feels herself under obligations to introduce Sophie to a new social circle.

This 'circle' consists as yet but of a few wealthy Americans, just arrived in Paris, and of--artists.

The Princess has a special liking for artists; they are, she maintains, so much fresher, so much quicker and pleasanter as companions, than her equals in rank, of whose wearisome shallowness she has many a story to tell. And her special favourite among these is the pianist Fuhrwesen.

Why, good heavens, the only occupation which really interests the Princess at this time is the search for some private irregularity in the lives of women of extreme apparent respectability; and in these investigations the pianist is always ready to a.s.sist her.

Dressed with great taste but with severe simplicity, holding a small j.a.panese hand-screen between her face and the glow from the fire, the Princess is leaning back in a low chair near the hearth, complaining of headache, and hoping that there will not be as many people here to-day as on her last reception-day.

A quarter of an hour--yes, half an hour--pa.s.ses, and no one appears.

Stasy is hungry; the _foie gras_ sandwiches are very tempting, but to partake of one would be a tacit admission that there is no hope of a visitor, and she must not be the first to confess the fact.

"Poor Boissy!"--this is a painter whom the Oblonsky has taken under her protection,--"poor Boissy! probably he cannot summon up the courage to come; he is ashamed of his wife. Ah, he really cannot dream how considerate I am for artists' wives. It is a theory of mine that it is our duty, as ladies, to educate artists' wives for their husbands. I know it is not usual to receive them; but that seems to me very petty, and I hate all pettiness."

Another quarter of an hour pa.s.ses. Stasy is faint with hunger.

"One of the Fanes must be ill," she observes, "or they would certainly be here. I must find out what----" But Sophie interrupts her impatiently.

"Pour me out a cup of tea," she orders her.

The tea is cold and bitter from waiting so long for guests who do not arrive. Sophie finds it detestable, and reproaches Stasy therefor.

Stasy consoles herself for her friend's capricious injustice by taking two gla.s.ses of cordial, three sandwiches, and half a dozen little cakes.

Meanwhile, Sophie observes, with a yawn, "I cannot tell you how glad I am that no one came. People bore me so. I revel in my solitude. And to think that I must shortly resign it! I must call upon our amba.s.sadress shortly."

In spite of her wonderful degree of _aplomb_, Anastasia at this point of the conversation is silent and looks rather confused.

"You saw her in the Bois lately," the Oblonsky continues, in a somewhat irritated tone.

"Yes; you pointed her out to me."

"Well, you must have noticed how stiffly she bowed. No wonder. She must have known how long I have been in Paris without calling upon her."

"I have always told you that you carry to excess your pa.s.sion for solitude," Stasy chirps. "It is easy to go too far in such a preference."

"Ah, the world is odious to me," Sophie declares.

The bell outside is heard to ring at this moment.

"Insufferable!" Sonja exclaims. "I trust no one is coming to disturb us now!" And, glancing at the mirror over the chimney-piece, she adjusts her _jabot_ and a curl above her forehead.

The lackey flings wide the folding doors and announces, "Mademoiselle Urwese,"--the French abbreviation, apparently, for Fuhrwesen; for, even more copper-coloured than usual, in consequence of the biting north wind outside, with her hair blowing about her eyes, a kind of reddish-yellow turban upon her head, and wearing her ta.s.sel-bedecked water-proof, the pianist enters.

"How nice of you! This is really charming, my dear Fuhrwesen!" exclaims Sophie, hastily concealing her disappointment. "This is my day, but I closed my doors for all strangers,--absolutely for all," the imaginative Princess a.s.severates; then, pausing suddenly, she glances uneasily at Stasy. But Stasy has long since learned to let such rhapsodies pa.s.s her by without so much as the quiver of an eyelash: her face is motionless, and the Oblonsky goes on fluently: "You were the only one whom Baptiste had orders to admit. Take off your wraps: you will stay and dine, of course, dear, will you not?"

"With your kind permission," Fraulein Fuhrwesen says, submissively, kissing the Oblonsky's hand.

"And now sit here by the fire and warm yourself. Anastasia,"--this is drawled over her shoulder,--"pour out a gla.s.s of cordial for her.--You can have nothing more, my dear; I cannot permit you to spoil your appet.i.te. We are going to have an extremely fine dinner."

"Your Highness is really too kind," says the pianist. "Ah, how intensely becoming that green gown is to you! Did you hear Prince Olary's description of you?--'The Venus of Milo, dressed by Worth.' Was it not capital?" And the pianist gazes at the Oblonsky with enthusiastic admiration.

"Yes, yes, you are in love with me, my dear: 'tis an old story," the Princess says, with a laugh. "But now tell us something new: you always have a budget of news. Any fresh scandal in the Faubourg?"

"Let me think," Fraulein Fuhrwesen says, reflectively. "What news have I heard? _a propos_--yes, I remember; but it will shock your Highness terribly. I really had no idea of such depravity in girls of what is called the best standing."

"Oh, tell us, tell us!" the Princess urges her.