Читать книгу Erlach Court - Ossip Schubin - Страница 6

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Stasy had vented so much malice upon Stella that Rohritz had involuntarily begun to think well of her. After he had retired, in the watches of the night, and was trying in vain to be interested in a volume of Tauchnitz, his thoughts were still busied with her. "Poor thing," he reflected, "there must be something attractive about her, or Les and his wife would not be so devoted to her. And, after all, what did that venomous old maid's accusations amount to?--that she has an antipathy for artillery-officers,"--Rohritz as a former cavalry-man shrugged his shoulders indulgently at this weakness,--"and that she wants to go upon the stage. That, to be sure, is bad. I know nothing in the world more repulsive than girls of what are called the better classes who are studying for the stage."

And Rohritz recalled a certain officer's daughter whom he had once met at an evening entertainment, and who in proof of her distinguished talent had declaimed various 'selections.' He had been quite unable to detect her talent, and had spoken of her contemptuously as an hysterical tree-frog. The appellation had met with acceptance and had been frequently repeated.

The remembrance of the officer's bony daughter lay heavy on his soul. "Yes, if Stella should remind me in the least of that hysterical tree-frog, I really could not stay here much longer," he thought, with a shudder. "And in any case I cannot but regret these last pleasant days. That old dandy and the faded beauty were bad enough, but they could be ignored; while a young girl--and a relative, too, of the family---- Pshaw! at all events I can take my leave."

With which he put out his candle and went to bed.

What it was that was dear to him in the sleepy and very uninteresting life at Erlach Court it would be difficult to say. Perhaps he prized it as chiming in so admirably with the precious ennui which he had brought home from America ten years previously, and which had since been his inseparable companion. It was such a finished, elegant ennui; it never yawned and looked about for amusement, never in fact felt the least desire for it, but looked down in self-satisfied superiority upon those childish mortals who were actually capable of being irritated or entertained upon this old exhausted globe.

He was proud of this kind of moral ossification, which was gradually paralyzing all his really noble qualities.

"'Tis a pity!" said Leskjewitsch, whose youth was still warm in his veins, and who declared that he had never been bored for half an hour in his life, except upon a pitch-dark night in winter at some lonely outpost when he had been delayed on the march; and although the honest captain was a demi-savage and "still in roundabouts," we cannot help repeating his words with reference to Rohritz, "'Tis a pity!"

Yes, a pity! Who that saw Edgar von Rohritz--his mother had bestowed upon him his melodramatic name in a fit of enthusiasm for Walter Scott and Donizetti,--who that saw him to-day could believe that in his youth, under a thin disguise of aristocratic nonchalance, he was far more sentimentally inclined than his former comrade Leskjewitsch? But sentiment had fared ill with him. After having overcome, not without a hard struggle, the pain of a very bitter disappointment, his demands upon existence were of the most moderate description, and this partly to spare himself useless pain and partly from caution lest he should make himself ridiculous. He kept his heart closely shut; and if at times sentiment, now fallen into disgrace with him, softly appealed to it, entreating admission, he refused to listen. He was no longer at home for sentiment.

About twenty years since he had begun his military career in the same regiment of dragoons with Jack Leskjewitsch, and when hardly five-and-twenty he had left the service and travelled round the world, perhaps because change of air is as beneficial for diseases of the heart as for other maladies.

For years now he had made his home in Grätz, whence he took frequent flights to Vienna. He was but moderately addicted to society, so called. He never danced; at balls he played whist, and dryly criticised the figures and the toilettes of the dancers. He had the reputation of being a woman-hater, and accordingly all the young married women thought him excessively interesting. He was held to be one of the best matches in Grätz, wherefore he was exposed to persecution by all mothers blest with marriageable daughters.

Wearied of this varied homage, he had gradually withdrawn from society, and had even relinquished his game of Boston, when one day a report was circulated that he had suddenly lost almost all his property through the negligence of an agent. All that was left him--so it was said--was a mere pittance. Since he never contradicted this report, it was thought to be confirmed. The mothers of marriageable daughters discovered that he had a disagreeable disposition, and that it would be very difficult to live with him. One week after this sad report had been in circulation, he observed with a peculiar smile that during this space of time he had received at least half a dozen fewer invitations to dinners and balls than usual. Shortly afterwards meeting a friend in the street who offered him his sincere condolence, he replied, with a twirl of his moustache,--

"Do not, trouble yourself about me: I assure you that it is sometimes very comfortable to be poor!"

The news of his sadly-altered circumstances penetrated even to the secluded Erlach Court, and Captain Leskjewitsch, who learned it from a casual mention of it in a postscript to a letter from a comrade, was exceedingly agitated by it. He ran to his wife with the open letter in his hand, exclaiming, "Ah çà, Katrine, read that. Rohritz has lost every penny! Under such circumstances he must need entire change of scene for a time. We must invite him here immediately,--immediately, that is, if you have no objection."

For a wonder, the quarrelsome couple were perfectly at one on this point.

"I shall be delighted to see him," replied Katrine. "Invite him at once; that is, if you are not afraid of his making love to me."

The captain's face took on an odd expression. "There is no danger of your allowing a stranger to make love to you," he muttered. "Your disagreeable characteristic is that you will not allow even me to make love to you."

Katrine raised her eyebrows: "I have an aversion for rechauffées."

The captain took instant advantage of his opportunity: "You certainly cannot expect to be the first woman who I--hm!--thought had fine eyes?"

But Katrine was very busy with her household accounts, and consequently she had no time at present to indulge in her favourite amusement, a lively discussion.

"Don't agitate yourself, my dear," she rejoined, "but go and write a beautiful letter to Rohritz; and do it quickly, that it may go by to-day's post. Shall I compose it for you?"

"Thanks, I think I am equal to that myself," the captain replied, with a laugh. "Upon my word, a poor dragoon has to put up with a deal from so cultivated a woman."

As he turned to go, Katrine called after him: "I warn you beforehand that I have a weakness for Rohritz. All the rest is your affair. I wash my hands of it."

Nothing so aroused Katrine Leskjewitsch's sarcasm as the problematical conscientiousness of those young wives who combine a decided love for flirtation with a determination to cast all the blame for it upon their husbands, posing in the eyes of the world as suffering angels at the side of black-hearted monsters. Her ridicule of such women was sharp and plentiful.

"A deuce of a woman!" the captain murmured as he betook himself to his library and--rare effort for a dragoon--indited a letter four pages long to his old comrade.

His friend's epistle, strange to say, touched Rohritz. It was so cordial, so frank, and so warmly sympathetic, such a contrast to the formal assurances of sympathy which he met with elsewhere, that he accepted the invitation extended to him, and made his appearance at Erlach Court a week afterwards.

He had been here now for three weeks, and had been really content, especially during the early period of his visit, when he had been alone with his host and hostess. The arrival of the general and Stasy had somewhat annoyed him, and the news of the approach of another detachment of guests consisting, moreover, of a mother and daughter positively irritated him. Good heavens! another mother, another daughter! Was there then no spot upon the face of the globe where one could be safe from mothers and daughters?