Felix Lanzberg's Expiation Part 26

Then he murmurs so softly that his voice seems only an echo, "Yes!"

She staggers back, remains speechless for a moment, and then bursts into not convulsive, not hysterical, no, only indescribably mocking laughter. "And I was proud to bear the name of Lanzberg," she murmurs.

"Now at last I know how I came by that honor." She feels not one iota of pity for the mortally wounded man who has quivered at each of her words as beneath the blow of a whip; she feels nothing at all but her immense humiliation. The wish to pain him as much as possible burns within her, and for a moment she pauses in her speech because she can think of nothing that is cutting and venomous enough. "And if you had even informed me of the situation, had given me the choice whether I would bear a branded name or not," she at length begins again.

Then he who had until this moment sat there perfectly silent, with anxiously raised shoulders, his hand over his eyes, raises his head wearily. "Linda, I begged your mother to tell you of my disgrace--she a.s.sured me that she had done so. On my word of----" he pauses, a horrible smile parts Linda's lips.

"Go on," cries she, "your word of honor. I will believe you--it is possible that you speak the truth. My mother suppressed your confession, good; but every glance and word of mine during our engagement must have convinced you that she had suppressed it. You cannot answer that to your conscience," she hissed.

To that he replies nothing, but sits there motionless and silent. She wishes to force him to proclaim his shame by an outcry, a gesture of supplication. "I have borne a branded name for five years--I have brought into the world a branded child," says she quickly and distinctly, her eyes resting intently upon him.

At length he shudders; he looks at her with a glance which pleases her, it shows such fearful misery--her eyes sparkle. "And all for the sake of a Juanita!" she cries again scornfully, and leaves the room.

She rushes down stairs breathlessly; there in the large drawing-room stands the picture, the package of letters lies on a table. Tears of rage rush to Linda's eyes. She pulls the bell sharply. "Take that picture away!" she commands the servant who appears.

She would like to declare to the servant that she knew nothing of the Lanzberg disgrace when she married a Lanzberg.

XXIV.

"All for the sake of a Juanita!" That was the most biting remark Linda had made, was what made Felix feel most keenly his degradation.

He had heard of people who sinned for a good object, who had forged their fathers' names from generous precipitancy to save the honor of a friend, with the ideal conviction that the father himself must declare that he was satisfied with the wrong action on account of the unfortunate complications. But he? No false idea of sacrifice, no desire for martyrdom had confused him; as the cause of his action he found nothing but egoism and search for enjoyment, a brutal pa.s.sion for an unworthy woman.

The explanation of his act lay in the hot-blooded temperament of a thoroughly spoiled and indulged man, whose first ungratified wish robs him of his senses--the excuse of his act lay nowhere. He also had never sought it, and had never for one instant forgiven himself, but all these years, wherever he went, had dragged about with him the consciousness of his degradation.

It had weighed so heavily upon him that this in itself had prevented every moral elevation in him.

Had his sense of honor not been by nature and education so fanatic, so morbidly sensitive, he would perhaps have learned in time to accustom himself to his situation, and become a commonplace, anxiously respectable man who contented himself with playing first fiddle in circles which were a step lower than his own.

But however he was situated, he never learned to reckon with his detracted honor. It could not satisfy him to represent an ordinary, respectable man.

"How was it possible; oh, G.o.d, how was it possible that I, Felix Lanzberg, could so forget myself?" he groaned.

He let his head fall upon his folded arms on his writing-desk.

Then through his weary mind, like a triumphal fanfare of temptation, rang the melody of a Spanish national dance, with its exciting, sharply accented rhythm and perfidious modulations. The portion of his past in which his present grief had root rose vividly and with the most minute particulars to his memory.

It dated back--oh, that beautiful unrecallable time--twenty-three years. Very wealthy, handsome, of good family, fond of gay life and without any serious aims, he liked to amuse himself, rendered homage to his colonel's wife, as is obligatory in every young officer, supported here a factory-girl, there a glove-maker, but at that time his great pa.s.sion was really four-in-hand driving. On the whole, he was of too ideal temperament to find enjoyment in light-minded pa.s.sions, and had no talent for such. In a.s.sociation with all other beings--his superiors, comrades, subordinates, tradespeople and proletaries--full of a certain good-nature, self-satisfied. In intercourse with women he was almost shy, stiff, grave, and well-bred to the finger-tips. He was everywhere considered sentimental and solid.

The last Easter he had raved over Countess Adelina L----, the sister of the same Count L---- whom he had encountered so unpleasantly at Mimi Dey's--had danced three cotillons with her, lost two philopenas to her, and pa.s.sed much time at receptions, seated in a low arm-chair beside her, gazing at her with enraptured eyes, and accompanying his glances with a few anxious, very involved and equally unmeaning phrases. It only required some sharp elderly friend of the Countess to make matters plain to him--that is, to call his attention to the fact that he was really betrothed.

He seemed made to marry early, to adore his wife, and to bore his intimate friends with accounts of the wonderful peculiarities of his children. Then, on a mild, damp spring evening, after a good dinner, and not quite sober, he chanced to go with several comrades to the Orpheum, which later, owing to an American who walked a telegraph wire with much ease and grace, became a great attraction, but which then tried its fortune with Spanish dancers and a lion-tamer.

The dance production began with four Spaniards, two women, two men, all four old, homely, and so thin that they did not need castanets to rattle, danced with convulsive charm, smiled like painted death's heads, and on the whole reminded one strongly of certain repulsive pictures of Goya, which are usually voted exaggerated, so as to allay the horror which they cause.

The officers cried "Brava!" with biting irony, the audience hissed, several indignant voices grumbled at the director. Then the first bars of the madrilena resounded through the atmosphere impregnated with tobacco smoke and the odor of eatables. A new apparition stepped upon the stage. A smile--a glance--the deepest indignation changed to the most breathless astonishment. With the voluptuous bowing and swaying of a Spanish dance, the most beautiful woman that was ever called Senorita floated over the stage. That was Juanita! The horrible background of the quartette heightened the luxuriant charm of her figure.

She was no practised dancer, none of our conventional ballerinas, whose perfect flexibility destroys all individual charm; her limbs had not been disfigured by year-long torture; they possessed neither the pitiful thinness nor the dazzling rapidity of a race-horse. She did not know how to execute with the lower extremities the most ambitious figures, while--as is considered essential--the upper body remained stiff; she did no gymnastics--she danced! And not only with her limbs--she danced with her whole body.

Oh, what an intoxicating bending and swaying! A proud drawing up of the body, and caressing sinking backward! Her dancing had nothing animated, challenging about it, but something subtly alluring, almost magically seductive. Her whole appearance suggested longing weariness, as when in a storm the flowers shudderingly bend their heads earthward. And she was beautiful! The short oval of her face, the low brow, the short, straight nose, the delicate, quivering nostrils, the high cheek-bones, the slightly sunken cheeks, the long, deep-set eyes, full of loving dreaminess and pa.s.sion, the full, curved lips, turning upward with an expression of languis.h.i.+ng weariness--all this reminded one not in the least of the ideal, gentle brunette Madonnas of Murillo. It reminded one of nothing holy, nothing cla.s.sical--but it was the most seductive earthly beauty which one could imagine!

The audience raved; the officers screamed themselves hoa.r.s.e with "Brava! Brava!" Some of them made poor jokes about the dancer, others hummed or whistled reminiscences of the Spanish music. Only Felix was silent. "You act like one to whom a ghost has announced death," jested Prince Hugo B----, and thereupon proposed that the officers should go upon the stage in a body and give Juanita an ovation.

How he remembers all that to-day! The large half-lighted room near the stage, the dusty old rafters, the ropes, the torn scenes, the dim gas-lights, the crowd of actors and actresses huddled together, the trapeze artist who wore a brown waterproof over his pink doublet and green tights, and in the midst of this unsavory crowd--Juanita. In a shabby gray dress, and green and blue checked shawl, she stood near an elderly very shabby woman, and smiled with her languis.h.i.+ng lips most indifferently, while the men vied with each other in paying her the most effusive compliments in imaginary Spanish or bad French. When they withdrew Felix stumbled over something. It was the yellow flower which Juanita had worn in her hair, dusty, withered, trodden upon. Carefully he wiped the dust from it, and tried to revive the faded, crumpled petals.

"Deuce take it! We should invite her to supper," cried Prince B----, suddenly standing still.

"Why, Hugo?" stammered Felix.

The former laughed, turned on his heel, gave his invitation, and Juanita nodded perfectly contentedly. She had no objection to sup with the gentlemen. To be sure, she took her theatre mother with her.

How Felix recalled all this!

The glaring gas-light in the long narrow room of the restaurant; the sleepy, blinking waiter; Manuela--that was the name of the dancer's protecting angel--who, without removing hat or wrap, and also without saying a word, with the usual appet.i.te of all theatre mothers, bent over her plate; the officers who, with faces flushed with wine, proposed clumsy toasts, and Juanita who, seated beside the Prince upon a red divan, again and again rubbed her large weary eyes with her little hands, like a sleepy child.

She ate without affectation and without greediness--only sipped the champagne, smiled good-naturedly at the boldest jokes, whether she understood them not, with the resignation of a being who was accustomed to earn her bread in this manner.

The old Manuela had long been snoring. Some the officers had grown melancholy, the others were noisy only by fits and starts--Juanita's eyes closed.

"Let her go, she is tired," remarked an elderly captain.

"Before we part, I beg one especial favor," cried Prince B----. "That the Senorita give us each a kiss."

The dancer made a few gestures of dissent, because that was a part of her trade, and then yielded.

Patiently she let one after the other of the young men press his mustache, smelling of wine and smoke, upon her beautiful mouth. At length Felix's turn came, but he avoided her lips, profaned by the kisses of his comrades, and only kissed her hand very softly.

Misunderstanding the tenderness of his action, she believed that he despised her kiss.

A few minutes later the two sleepy Spaniards rolled away to their home in a carriage which Prince B---- had paid for.

"A beautiful creature, but a perfect goose," remarked B---- to Felix, as he strolled back to the barracks with him. The other officers drove.

"Besides, she is at least twenty-five or six years old; that is old for a Spaniard," chatted the Prince.

Felix walked silently beside him, a hot, unsatisfied feeling in his heart, a withered flower in his hand.

He cherished it like a lover the rose-bud which his dear one had given him; yes, thus would Felix cherish the faded yellow flower which the dust in the wings of the stage had soiled--upon which an acrobat might have trodden. He placed it in a gla.s.s of water, and finally pressed it in a book of poems.

Explain it who will! In the moment when Felix had avoided her lips, the narrow-minded Spaniard had taken a decided dislike for him, a dislike which more intimate acquaintance with him did not overcome, but which increased to aversion. Neither his unusual, truly somewhat effeminate, beauty, nor his reserved, chivalrous manners, pleased her. B----, with his bold, condescending ways, had more success with her, but her deepest, tenderest feelings were for the trapeze artist of the Orpheum, a young man with strongly developed muscles and bushy hair, who apparently seldom washed his face and never his hands; but, on the other hand, used the strongest-smelling pomade, and always wore the most brilliant cravats. One met him often when one visited Juanita.

At that time Juanita lived in the Rossau, in a very plain locality, which continually smelt of mutton tallow and onions, because Manuela, in spite of the warm time of year, loved to cook unappetizing national dishes upon the drawing-room stove.

Manuela was never seen without her crumpled black satin hat and her green shawl adorned with red palms. Around the old woman's waist, on a worn-out cord hung a pocket from which protruded a gay paper fan, and which beside this lodged a pack of cards, a rosary and cigarettes.

Juanita lay from morning to night upon a divan, clad in a loose white wrapper, without corsets, without stockings, a rose behind her ear, and tiny black satin slippers upon her small bare feet. But how beautiful she was thus!

The soft white clinging garment outlined her form distinctly. One could think of nothing more charming than her little feet, scarcely as long as one's palm, so narrow, beautifully arched, with pink soles and dainty dimples, and with blue veins around her ankles as they peeped out of the satin slippers.