Through Night to Light Part 33

"I thought the company, to tell the truth, was rather mixed," said Hortense, who looked a few degrees more _blasee_ since Emily had come; "I counted not less than four--say four--artillery officers who were not n.o.ble."

"Why, that is very likely," said Emily, "although I had no time to count them. I have even danced with one of them--Jones, or Smith, or whatever his name was--and, by the way, he waltzed as magnificently as I could wish."

"But, dear Emily, might you not have escaped that?" said Hortense, drawing up her cloak.

"Precisely the same question which Prince Waldenberg asked. 'Your Highness,' I replied, 'I am no enthusiast about the artillery; but, after all, I would rather dance with a man who is not n.o.ble than not to dance at all."

This allusion to a misfortune which had twice occurred to Hortense last night, put the poor lady in such an excited state that the rouge on her cheeks became quite useless. She was just about to commit the folly of betraying by a violent answer how deep the venomous arrow shot by Emily had wounded her, when the servant announced "Professor and Mrs. Jager."

The man was so well trained that he did not, as usually, admit the persons he announced at once into the parlor, but closed the door behind him and remained standing there bolt upright, waiting for further orders.

"You will excuse me, my friends," said Anna Maria, apologizing, and turning to the company present, "if I receive the professor and his wife. The good people have always shown themselves loyal, and quite aware of their social position. I think it is our duty to encourage such people."

Upon a sign of his mistress the servant went out, and there appeared the man of the Fragment and the poetess making deep bows and courtesies, which were returned with a gentle nod by the n.o.ble company.

Only the old baron rose, shook hands with them, and bade them welcome in his cordial, unvarnished manner.

If Primula, who looked somewhat shyly from under the cornflowers on her bonnet, seemed to stand rather in need of some such encouragement, the editor of Chrysophilos evidently could very well do without it.

Humility, it is true, spoke from his small eyes, which squinted suspiciously above the golden rim of his spectacles as he approached with bent back; modesty, it is true, smiled from the unpleasant lines which, marked the large mouth with its low-drawn comers; but they were the humility and the modesty of a cat rubbing her back against the foot of the ladder which leads to the garret where the fat pigeons are cooing. He went up to the baroness, kissed repeatedly her graciously-extended hand, bowed low to the other two ladies, not quite so low to the gentlemen, seated himself after some hesitation on the edge of a chair which stood rather outside of the circle, and waited, his head slightly on one side, till somebody should feel disposed to honor him with a question.

The conversation of the company turned on a most interesting subject, the person of his Highness, First Lieutenant Prince Waldenberg, who had been ordered a few weeks ago from his regiment of the Guards at the Capital to the line regiment which was in garrison at Grunwald, and who had of course, from his first appearance, become, the lion of the whole country n.o.bility now residing in town.

"Only I should like to know why he has been ordered here," said Cloten. "Felix, with whom I talked it over yesterday--_apropos_, it is very well, madame, you make him keep his room; he looks really very badly--Felix thinks the prince has probably had another duel; they say he is the most pa.s.sionate man in the world."

"Why, Arthur!" said Emily. "You talk as if pa.s.sion were a crime. I wish some people I know had a little more of it."

"Are not the Waldenbergs of Slavonic descent?" asked Hortense. "It seems to me the prince looks like a Mongolian."

"Oh! you have not seen him near, my dearest Barnewitz," said Emily; "he is one of the handsomest men I have ever seen, and he dances divinely."

"I believe the Waldenbergs are originally a Polish family," said Anna Maria.

"Not at all, madame," cried Cloten; "pure Germanic, upon honor, pure Germanic."

"I am sure Professor Jager can tell us something more about that," said the baroness, turning with a gracious smile towards the man of science.

"Indeed, my gracious lady," said the latter, glad to have found an opportunity for the display of his knowledge; "indeed, I have always taken special pleasure, while pursuing my historical studies, to trace out the genealogies of n.o.ble families, and thus it happens that have given special attention to the history of the Waldenberg family, which is in many respects a most interesting one. The Waldenbergs were, if you will excuse me for correcting your remarks, of purely German descent. They came originally from Franconia, and only went to Prussia with the German knights. Afterwards, it is true, they have largely intermarried with n.o.ble Polish families, and hence they own still large estates in the Lausitz, where the family estate lies, and in Russian Poland. The present prince, also, has both Slavonic and Germanic blood in his veins. His mother, the Princess Stephanie Letbus, of the house of Wartenberg, married in eighteen hundred and twenty-two, in St.

Petersburg, where she has lived from her early youth--I mentioned before that part of their possessions are in Russia--a Count Constantin Malikowsky, the last scion of a once very rich and powerful Polish family, who is now, however, quite reduced. The Emperor Alexander, who, as they say, was under obligations to both families" (here the professor ventured upon a stealthy smile to the young princess, who was lady in waiting to the empress and exceedingly beautiful, and to the count whose family had been mainly ruined by Russian confiscations,) "has the credit of having made the match. Such influence was perhaps necessary, because the reputation of the count was--I trust you will pardon the veracity of a conscientious historian--was, how shall I call it, somewhat doubtful. Young n.o.blemen must sow their wild oats, we all know that; but Count Malikowsky had probably carried the matter a little too far. However that may be, the offspring of this marriage of Count Constantin Malikowsky with the Princess Stephanie Letbus is the prince, who at first was in the Russian service; but when with the last Prince Waldenberg the male succession in the family came to an end, and the estates lapsed back to the crown, the King of Prussia as a special favor declared him qualified to succeed, and he entered our service as Prince Count Malikowsky Waldenberg. His full name is, as you may possibly not know yet, Raimund Gregorius Stephan, Prince Count Malikowsky Waldenberg, hereditary lord of Letbus."

The company had followed the genealogical lecture of the learned professor with the same attention with which a company of ordinary crows might listen to the report of an owl about the descent of a rare raven who measures four yards from tip to tip. The devout silence was suddenly interrupted by the voice of the servant, who opened the door with nervous haste and called out, "His Highness, Prince Waldenberg!"

The nervous servant seemed to have electrified the whole company in the room. A moment later and they all stood straight up before their chairs, anxiously looking at the door, through whose wide-open frame the prince was entering so quickly that Anna Maria was not able to make the three steps to meet him which etiquette required, but had only time for one and a half.

"You have had the kindness, madame," said the prince in excellent French, slightly bending over the hand of the baroness, "to antic.i.p.ate my wishes by your invitation, before I had an opportunity to make myself worthy of such an attention. Permit me to try to make amends for my neglect."

"An effort, _mon prince_," answered Anna Maria, with her sweetest smile, also in French, "which in a gentleman like yourself is sure of success. I regret exceedingly that, rarely as we are from home, an unfortunate accident should have caused us the other day to be absent just when you thought of honoring us with a visit. Permit me to present to you my friends: the baron, my husband; Baron and Baroness Barnewitz; Baron and Baroness Cloten."

"I have already the honor," said the prince, smiling.

"Professor Jager, an excellent scholar, and a friend of our house; Mrs.

Jager, a lady whose poetical talent deserves encouragement."

The prince bowed to each one of the persons presented--even to the last-mentioned, which made quite a sensation--with the same dignity and courtesy, and gave the signal to sit down by choosing himself a seat by Anna Maria on an easy-chair.

During this long salutation those who had not known the prince before had an opportunity to study his outward appearance. His was a Herculean form, calculated to impress a professional boxer forcibly, and to create a sensation in a circus, dressed up as an athlete; but for ordinary life was, perhaps, a little too large. Upon the large, powerful body, whose height was in full harmony with the breadth of the shoulders and the magnificent chest, there was set a head more angular than round, covered all over with short, curling black hair, and firmly resting upon a neck which looked too short for the size of the head.

The features of the face corresponded with the whole. The brow was low and straight, the eyes of bright darkness but small, and apparently still further reduced in size by the heavy eyelids with their dark lashes. The nose as well as the thick lips were somewhat protruding. A beard, thicker and blacker than the hair on the head, covered the cheeks and the upper lip. The chin alone, shaved smooth, in military style, was the energetic base of this energetic face. Taken all in all, the a.s.sertion made by Hortense that the prince looked like a Mongolian agreed as little with the reality as Emily's judgment that he was strikingly handsome. Nevertheless, the whole was a far too striking individuality and too full of character to be called plain, even if the strict rules of ideal beauty were not all observed. A physiognomist would in vain have looked for ideal qualities of any kind in the face of the prince, but he would have discovered, in return, a most energetic, powerful will; and, perhaps, if he had examined carefully, a boundless pride, which slept with open eyes behind the mask, like a lion behind the bars of his cage, and could be roused by a mere nothing.

The prince wore the simple uniform of the regiment in garrison in Grunwald, but the two decorations on his breast--a small cross set in diamonds, probably Russian; and the order of the Blue Falcon of the second cla.s.s, with crossed swords--proved abundantly that he was a man whose importance was great, aside from epaulet and sword-knot.

Anna Maria treated her great guest with a distinction corresponding fully with this higher mystical importance, which was only revealed to the profane eye by the awe-inspiring sparkling of the diamonds. It was this that caused the modest silence into which Barnewitz and Cloten had fallen since his arrival; the coquetry with which Hortense and Clotilde tried to attract his attention, and the embarra.s.sment of the author of the fragments and the poetess, who had a vague impression that they were more than superfluous in this most n.o.ble company, and yet did not dare to rise from their seats and to go away. The prince and the baroness at first kept up the conversation alone, until Hortense succeeded in wedging in a casual remark, expressed in excellent French, and thus to obtain the word to the great annoyance of Emily, who had to leave her adversary in the undisturbed enjoyment of this triumph, as she spoke French but imperfectly, and was hardly able to follow the rapid utterance of her rival. Hortense, who knew Emily's weak point, carried her malice so far as to turn round to her continually with a "_qu'en dites--vous, chere amie? N'est ce pas, Emilie?_" and to force her in this way to reply in a manner which might be clever in spirit but was very imperfect in form. Any one who could have noticed the intense delight with which Hortense enjoyed her triumph over her adversary would have been compelled to acknowledge that even malice has its moments of happiness. The delight, however, became almost too great to be borne, when at last the prince hardly noticed Emily any longer, and gave himself up entirely to the charm of Hortense's amusing conversation.

Emily, however, was far too frivolous and too bold to lose her good humor at once, because of such a momentary defeat. The prince was not to her taste, although she had before praised him in order to annoy her rival; and if he did not choose to speak German to her, as he had done the night before, he might leave it alone. Emily played with her beaux as a trifling child plays with its dolls; it was utterly indifferent to her whether she broke the head of one, or the other fell into the water; she felt it only when one of her favorite dolls and she had occasionally, for the sake of variety, one that she overwhelmed with caresses and kisses--was not willing to be tender to her and to return her affection. Oswald had been such a favorite, but cold, desperately cold doll for her. She might have married him and become his faithful wife if he had belonged to the same circles in which she lived--at least her fancy represented it to her as possible in dreamy hours--but now she was Baroness Cloten, and then--what did it matter to her? Was she not handsome and young, and ten times cleverer than her foolish husband with his everlasting "upon honor!" and "divine!" Why will foolish men marry clever and handsome young wives, especially when these wives have a fondness for fancies brighter than the dull gray of actual life? Are the wives to be blamed in such cases if they go their own way, which is sometimes so narrow and dark that virtue and honor, the faithful companions of good wives, are lost by the way?

Emily Cloten had been watching the whole time for an opportunity to enter into conversation with Mrs. Jager, who, she suspected, might be able to give her some news about Oswald, whom she had not seen again since the night before. She availed herself, therefore, of the favorable moment when the prince was speaking to the baroness and Hortense, and the baron to the reverend gentleman, in order to inquire of Primula about "that young man who was tutor at Grenwitz last summer--Fels, I think, or Rock, or Stein, or whatever his name was--since a friend of hers was in need of a teacher." Emily was not mistaken; Primula could give her all information about Mr. Stein--"not Fels, although he has a heart like the poet's hero, Felsenfest; not Rock, although he towers like a rock above all men"--as the enthusiastic poetess added warmly. He called nearly every day, she said (Oswald had been there once); he was like a member of the family, and as truly united with her in warm friends.h.i.+p as in their common aspirations. "Excelsior!" She did not think, however, Oswald would just now accept such a position, as he was "suffering in the dull bonds of a school," but she would mention to him the offer.

"Perhaps you had better not say anything," said Emily, after a short meditation. "You know Mr. Stein--how could I forget the name--did not leave our circle in perfect harmony. He might reject the offer at once, if it came to him in that way. Could you not--how shall we manage it?--yes! that's the way! Could you not arrange it so, my dear Mrs.

Jager, that I should meet him at your house as if by mere chance? I have long since desired to see the table on which the author of the 'Cornflowers' composes her beautiful poems."

"You overwhelm me with your kindness," cried Primula. "I can only say with Zeus at the distribution of the gifts of the earth: if you really wish to enter my lowly hut, as often as you come it shall be open to you. Shall we say day after to-morrow, at seven?"

"That will suit me exactly," said Emily.

Emily had given herself so completely to this interesting conversation that her husband had to remind her of the intended breaking up of the company. The prince had risen; the others had followed his example.

"_Madame_," said the prince, "_jai l'honneur_"--the word died on his lips, for he saw in the large mirror before him the form of a marvellously beautiful girl who had suddenly entered the room without being announced by the servant. He turned round almost frightened, and stepped aside, with a low bow, to make room for the young lady, who went up to the baroness. The young lady was Helen Grenwitz.

Her appearance here was unexpected by all except the baron and the baroness, and surprised and interested each one in his own way. The prince, who saw her now for the first time, was the only one who knew nothing of the difficulties in the family; the others had discussed the Grenwitz catastrophe for weeks with great zeal and vast ingenuity in all directions, and as Helen had thus been the common topic of conversation, this first meeting of mother and daughter was therefore to them all a most attractive scene. But if they had expected anything extraordinary they were doomed to disappointment. The baron, to be sure, showed some emotion as he rose to meet Helen and to kiss her brow, but mother and daughter met with courteous coldness, which furnished little food for the curiosity and thirst for scandal of the a.s.sembly, ready as they were to notice every gesture, and to treasure up every word.

"Ah, good-day, my dear child," said the baroness, in French, kissing Helen likewise on her forehead, but very lightly. "You come just in time. Permit me, _mon prince_, to present my daughter, Helen--His Highness, Prince Waldenberg, my child, the most recent as well as the most brilliant acquisition for our society."

Helen returned the low bow of the prince, apparently not dazzled by his high rank and his imposing appearance, and then turned to Emily Cloten, who welcomed her most heartily. Emily's sharp eyes had not failed to observe the impression which Helen's startling beauty had produced on the prince. Let the prince admire whom he pleased, so Hortense lost her triumph!

"Oh, how nice!" she cried, embracing Helen, "that you show yourself at last. I was coming to see you soon; we have a whole world to tell each other." And she seized her friend by both hands and drew her aside a few steps, so as to be able to say to her: "Look, the prince is done for, _totalement_ done for! He does not take is black eyes off you for an instant! If you want him, I'll let you have him. He dances beautifully, but he is not my _genre_. Encourage him a little; it annoys the Barnewitz fearfully. Just think, the old coquette still wants to play her part, although she has now to paint even her veins blue, and last night remained twice without a partner! How do you like the She Bear? _Apropos_, have you heard anything of Oswald Stein? I shall never forget that evening at your house! We came too late with our warning, but he pulled through beautifully. Even Arthur says he acted like a perfect gentleman. Don't turn round, the prince is coming this way. He no doubt wants to secure the first waltz for tomorrow."

Emily's cunning had guessed right. The prince had really, while keeping up a conversation with the baroness, looked incessantly at Helen, and had been so absent in his answers that one could easily see his thoughts were elsewhere. Suddenly he interrupted a brilliant sentence of Anna Maria's by asking whether there would be dancing to-morrow, and whether he might be allowed to ask Fraulein von Grenwitz to keep him a dance? When both questions had been answered with a gracious "_Mais oui, monseigneur!_" he approached the two ladies with a bow.

"I beg pardon," he said in German, "if I interrupt the ladies in an interesting conversation; but I cannot leave without having made an effort to secure a dance for to-morrow. May I hope, madame? May I have the honor, Miss Helen?"

The madame and the miss had the goodness to grant the prince's request, and his highness left with a haste which clearly showed that nothing had kept him so long but the accomplishment of this important task.

The departure of his highness was a signal for the other company, who had been waiting for it to go likewise, to the great satisfaction of coachmen and servants in the street below, who began to be as impatient as the horses.

The carriages had rolled away. The reception-rooms were once more empty; only the baron and the baroness remained, for the two Clotens had taken Helen in their carriage; the interrupted dialogue might have been resumed. But it was not done. The old gentleman felt too tired, and Anna Maria began to look in an entirely new light upon the question whether Helen should remain at the boarding-school or not? For about ten minutes ago the thought had suddenly entered her mind that it might, after all, be wiser to be reconciled to her daughter, who had at least as much prospect as any other young lady, and probably more, to become Princess of Waldenberg Malikowsky, Countess of Letbus.

CHAPTER III.