Iolanthe's Wedding Part 2

A fine old piece. A slender dame. Long narrow blue eyes, silver hair under a black lace cap, a melancholy smile, fine yellow hands. A bit too dainty for a country gentlewoman, and especially for such a boor of a husband.

She welcomed me with great propriety--while the old man kept screaming as if possessed.

"Iolanthe--girl--where are you hiding? A bachelor's here--a suitor--a----"

"Krakow!" I said, completely taken aback. "Don't joke that way about an old blade like me."

And the Baroness saved me by saying very neatly:

"Don't worry, Baron. We mothers gave you up as hopeless years ago."

"But the girl can come in at any rate," screamed the old fellow.

And finally she came.

Gentlemen, take off your hats! I stood there as if somebody had knocked me on the head. A thoroughbred, gentlemen, a thoroughbred! A figure like a young queen's, her hair loose, in a thousand wavelets and ringlets, golden brown, like the mane of a Barbary steed. Her throat full, white and voluptuous. Her bosom not too high, and broad and curving at the sides. In a horse, we call it a lion's chest. And when she breathed, her whole body seemed to breathe along with her lungs, so strongly did the air pulsate through that glorious young body.

Gentlemen, you don't have to go in for breeding animals as a pa.s.sionate pursuit to know how much toil and effort it costs to produce a perfect specimen, no matter of what species. And I'm not a woman connoisseur, and one doesn't have to be, to fold one's hands at the sight of so perfect a creature and pray, "O Lord, I thank Thee for allowing such a thing to walk the earth. For as long as such bodies are created we need have no fear for our souls."

The one thing I did not quite like at first was her eyes. Too pale a blue, too languis.h.i.+ng for such an abundance of life. They seemed to be soaring towards heaven, and yet, when they narrowed, a searching, lowering look came into them, the sort of look surly dogs get from being beaten too often.

Old Krakow caught her by both shoulders and began to brag outrageously.

"This is _my_ work--this is what I brought into being--I'm the father of this," and so on.

She tried to shake him off and turned scarlet.

Aha, ashamed of him.

Then the ladies got the table ready for coffee. Fresh brown waffles, preserves after the Russian fas.h.i.+on, gleaming damask, knives and spoons with buckhorn handles, the fine blue smoke of charcoal puffing up from the chimney of the bra.s.s coffee machine, making everything still cosier.

We sat there drinking our coffee. Old Krakow bl.u.s.tered, the Baroness smiled a fine melancholy smile, and Iolanthe made eyes at me.

Yes, gentlemen, made eyes at me. You may be at the time of life when that sort of thing happens to you none too rarely. But just you get to be well on in your forties, conscious to the very depths of your soul of your fatness and baldness, and you'll see how grateful you'll be even to a housemaid or a barmaid for taking the trouble to ogle you.

And a thousand times more so if she happens to be one of the elite like this one, a creature allowed to walk this earth by G.o.d's grace.

At first I thought I hadn't seen straight, then I stuck my red hands in my pockets, then I got a fit of coughing, then I swore at myself--"You blooming idiot! you donkey!"--then I wanted to bolt, and finally I took to staring into my empty coffee cup. Like an old maid.

But when I looked up--I had to look up now and then--I always met those great, light-blue languis.h.i.+ng eyes. They seemed to say:

"Don't you know I am an enchanted princess whom you are to set free?"

"Do you know why I gave her that crazy name?" the old man asked, grinning at her slily.

She tossed her head scornfully and stood up. She seemed to know his jokes.

"This is how it was. She was a week old. She was lying in her cradle kicking her legs--legs like little sausages. And her little b.u.t.tocks, you know----"

Ye G.o.ds! I scarcely risked looking up, I was so embarra.s.sed. The Baroness behaved as if she heard nothing, and Iolanthe left the room.

But the old man shook with laughter.

"Ha--ha--such a rosy mite--such softness, and a shape like a rose leaf.

Well, when I looked at her, I said, in my young father's joy, 'That girl's going to be beautiful and bad and will kick her legs the whole of her life. She must have a very poetic name. Then she'll rise in value with the suitors.' So I looked up names in the dictionary--Thekla, Hero, Elsa, Angelica. No, they were all too soft, like squashed plums. With a name like that she'll languish away for some briefless lawyer. Then Rosaura, Carmen, Beatrice, Wanda--nixy--too pa.s.sionate--would elope with the manager of the estate. Because a person's name is his fate. Finally I found Iolanthe.

Iolanthe melts so sweetly on your tongue--just the name for lovers--and yet it doesn't lead on to silly freaks. It is both tempting and dignified. It lures a man on, but inspires him with serious intentions, too. That's the way I calculated, and my calculations have turned out to be quite right so far, if in the end she doesn't remain on my hands on account of her affectation and squeamishness."

At this point Iolanthe came into the room again. Her eyes were half closed and she was smiling like a child in disgrace. I was sorry for the poor pretty creature, and to turn the conversation quickly, I began to speak about the business I had come on.

The ladies cleared the table without speaking, and the old man filled the half-charred bowl of his pipe. He seemed inclined to listen patiently.

But scarcely did the name Putz cross my lips when he jumped up and dashed his pipe against the stove so that the burning tobacco leaves flew about in all directions. The mere sight of his face was enough to frighten you. It turned red and blue and swelled up as if he had been seized with a stroke of apoplexy.

"Sir-r-r!" he shouted. "Is that the reason you visited me--to poison my home? Don't you know that that d---- name is not to be breathed in this house? Don't you know I curse the fellow in his grave, and curse his brood, and curse all----"

At this point he choked and was seized with a fit of coughing and had to sink down into his upholstered chair. The Baroness gave him sweetened water to drink.

I took up my hat without saying anything. Then I happened to notice Iolanthe standing there white as chalk, with her hands folded, and looking at me as if in her shame and misery she wished to beg my pardon, or expected something like help from me.

I wanted to say good-bye at least. So I waited quietly until I felt I might a.s.sume that the old man, who was lying there groaning and panting, was in a condition to understand me. Then I said:

"Baron von Krakow, you must realise, of course, that after such an attack upon my friend and his son, whom I love as if he were my own, our relations----"

He pounded with his hands and feet as a sign to me not to go on speaking, and after trying several times to catch his breath, he finally succeeded in saying:

"That asthma--the devil take it--like a halter around your neck--snap--your throat goes shut. But what's that you're cackling about _our_ relations? _Our_ relations, that is, your and my relations, there never has been anything wrong with them, my dear sir. They are the best relations in the world. If I insulted that litigious fellow, the--the--n.o.ble man, I take it all back and call myself a vile cur.

Only n.o.body must speak to me about him. I don't want to be reminded that he has a son and heir. To me he's dead, you see--he's dead, dead, dead."

He cut the air three times with his fist, and looked at me triumphantly, as if he had dealt my friend Putz his death-blow.

"Nevertheless, Baron----" I started to say.

"No neverthelessing here. You are my friend! You are the friend of my family--look at my womenfolk--completely smitten. Don't be ashamed, Iolanthe! Just make eyes at him, child. Do you think I don't see anything, goosie?"

She did not blush nor did she seem to be abashed, but raised her folded hands slightly. It was such a touching, helpless gesture that it completely disarmed me. So I sat down again for a few moments and spoke about indifferent matters. Then I took leave as soon as I could without provoking him again.

"Go to the door with him, Iolanthe," said the old man, "and be charming to him. He's the richest man in the district."

At that we all laughed. But walking beside me in the twilight of the hall, Iolanthe said very softly, with a sort of timid grief:

"I know you don't want to come again."

"No, I don't," I said frankly, and was about to give my reasons, when she suddenly s.n.a.t.c.hed up my hand, pressed it between her slim white palms, and said, half crying:

"Oh, come again! Please, please come again."

That's the way you're taken in. Old nincomp.o.o.p that I was, I went daft on the instant.

In my excitement I chewed up the whole of my cigar on the ride home, forgetting to light it.