Читать книгу "O Thou, My Austria!" - Ossip Schubin - Страница 15

We were very good friends, Harry and I,--there's no denying that. We told each other all our secrets,--at least I told him mine,--and we divided all our bon-bons with each other. Sometimes on Sunday afternoons we played at marriage, the ceremony giving occasion for a deal of delightful "dressing up." Moreover, we had long been agreed that, sooner or later, this play should become earnest, and that we would marry each other. But when the first down became perceptible on Harry's upper lip, our mutual friendship began to flag. It was just about the time that Harry went to a public school.

His indifference grieved me at first, then I became consoled, and at last I was faithless to him. A cousin of Harry's, who came to Komaritz to spend the holidays, gave occasion for this breach of faith. His name was Lato, Count Treurenberg. The name alone kindled my enthusiasm. He had scarcely been two days in Komaritz, where I too was staying at the time, when Hedwig confided to me that she was in love with him.

"So am I," I replied. I was firmly convinced that this was so.

My confession was the signal for a highly dramatic scene. Hedwig, who had frequently been to the theatre in Prague, ran about the room wringing her hands and crying, "Both with the same man! both!--it is terrible! One of us must resign him, or the consequences will be fearful."

I diffidently offered to sacrifice my passion.

She shrieked, "No, I never can accept such a sacrifice from you! Fate shall decide between us."

Whereupon we put one white and one black bean in a little, broken, handle-less coffee-pot which we found in the garret, and which Hedwig called an urn.

The decisive moment made my heart beat. We cast lots for precedence in drawing from the urn. It fell to me, and I drew out a black bean! The moment was thrilling. Heda sank upon a sofa, and fanned her joyful face with her pocket-handkerchief. She declared that if she had drawn the black bean she would have attempted her life. This declaration dispelled my despair; I shuddered at the idea of being the cause of anything so horrible.

From that day Heda never spoke to Lato von Treurenberg without drooping her head on one side and rolling her eyes languishingly,--conduct which seemed to cause the young fellow some surprise, but which he treated with great courtesy, while Harry used to exclaim, "What is the matter with you, Heda? You look like a goose in a thunder-storm!"

My behaviour towards Lato underwent no change: I had drawn the "black ball," and, in consequence, the most cordial friendship soon subsisted between us.

It would have been difficult not to like Lato, for I have never met a more amiable, agreeable young fellow.

He was about seventeen years old, very tall, and stooped slightly. His features were delicately chiselled; his smile was quite bewitching in its dreamy, all-embracing benevolence. There was decided melancholy in his large, half-veiled eyes, which caused Hedwig to liken him to Lord Byron.

His complexion was rather dark,--which was odd, as his hair was light brown touched with gold at the temples. His neck was too long, and his arms were uncommonly long. All his appointments, from his coats to his cigar-case, were extremely elegant, testifying to a degree of fastidiousness thitherto quite unknown in Komaritz. Nevertheless, he seemed very content in this primitive nest, ignoring all discomfort, and making no pretension. Heda, who was quick to seize upon every opportunity to admire him, called my attention to his amiable forbearance, or, I confess, I should not have noticed it.

From Hedwig I learned much concerning the young man; among other things, she gave me a detailed account of his family circumstances. His mother was, she informed me, a "mediatisirte."^[1] She uttered the word reverently, and, when I confessed that I did not know what it meant, she nearly fainted. His father was one of the most fascinating men in Austria. He is still living, and is by no means, it seems, at the end of his fascinations, but, being a widower, hovers about from one amusing capital to another, breaking hearts for pastime. It seems to be a wonderfully entertaining occupation, and, when one once indulges in it, the habit cannot be got rid of,--like opium-eating.

While he thus paraded his brilliant fascinations in the gay world, he did not, of course, find much time to interest himself in his boy, who was left to the care of distant relatives, and who, when found to be backward in his studies, was placed, I believe by Uncle Karl's advice, under the care of a Prague professor by the name of Suwa, who kept, as Harry once told me, a kind of orthopædic institution for minds that lacked training.

Beside Lato, during that vacation there were two other guests at Komaritz, one a very distant cousin of Harry's, and the other a kind of sub-tutor whose duty it was to coach Harry in his studies.

We could not endure the sub-tutor. His name was Franz Tuschalek; he was about nineteen, with hands and feet like shovels, and a flat, unmeaning face. His manner was intensely servile, and his coat-sleeves and trousers were too short, which gave him a terribly indigent air. One could not help regarding him with a mixture of impatience and sympathy. By my radical uncle's express desire, he and Harry called each other by their Christian names. Still, obnoxious as poor Tuschalek was to us, he was more to our minds than the distant cousin.

This last was a Pole, about twenty years old, with a sallow face and long oblique eyes, which he rolled in an extraordinary way. His hair was black, and he curled it with the curling-tongs. He was redolent of musk, and affected large plaid suits of clothes. His German was not good, and his French was no better, but he assured us that he was a proficient in Chinese and Arabic. He was always playing long and difficult concertos on the table, but he never touched the piano at Komaritz, declaring that the instrument was worn out. He was always short of funds, and was perpetually boasting of the splendour of his family.

He frequently sketched, upon some stray piece of paper, a magnificent and romantic structure, which he would display to us as his Polish home,--"our ancestral castle."

Sometimes this castle appeared with two turrets, sometimes with only one, a fact to which Harry did not fail to call his attention.

His distinguished ancestry was a topic of never-failing interest to him; he was never weary of explaining his connection with various European reigning dynasties, and his visiting-cards bore the high-sounding names "Le Comte Ladislas Othon Fainacky de Chrast-Bambosch," although, as Harry confided to us, he had no right to the title of comte, being the son of a needy Polish baron.

Although Franz Tuschalek was almost as obnoxious to Harry as the "braggart Sarmatian," as Lato called the Pole, he never allowed his antipathy to be seen, but treated him with great consideration, as he did all inferiors, scarcely allowing himself to give vent to his distaste for him even in his absence. But he paraded his dislike of Fainacky, never speaking of him as a guest, but as an "invasion," and always trying to annoy him by some boyish trick.

At length, one Sunday, the crisis in Harry's first vacation occurred. We had all been to early mass, and the celebrant had accompanied us back to Komaritz, as was his custom, to breakfast. After a hasty cup of coffee he took his leave of us children, and betook himself to the bailiff's quarters, where we more than suspected him of a quiet game of cards with that official and his underlings.

The door of the dining-room leading out into the garden was wide open, and delicious odours from the moist flower-beds floated in and mingled with the fragrance of the coffee. It had rained in the night, but the sun had emerged from the clouds and had thrown a golden veil over trees and shrubs. We were just rising from table when the "braggart Sarmatian" entered, booted and spurred, smelling of all the perfumes of Arabia, and with his hair beautifully curled. He had not been to mass, and had breakfasted in his room in the frame house on the hill, which had been rebuilt since the fire. After he had bidden us all an affected good-morning, he said, turning to Harry,--

"Has the man come with the mail?"

"Yes," Harry replied, curtly.

"Did no registered letter come for me?"

"No."

"Strange!"

"Very strange," Harry sneered. "You have been expecting that letter a long time. If I were you, I'd investigate the matter."

"There's something wrong with the post," the Pole declared, with an air of importance. "I must see about it. I think I had best apply to my uncle the cabinet-minister."

Harry made a curious grimace. "There is no need to exercise your powers of invention for me," he observed. "I know your phrase-book and the meaning of each individual sentence. 'Has no registered letter come for me?' means 'Lend me some money.' My father instructed me to supply you with money if you needed it, but never with more than ten guilders at a time. Here they are, and, if you wish to drive to X----, tell the bailiff to have the drag harnessed for you. We--in fact, we will not look for you before evening. Good-bye."

"I shall have to call you to account some day, Harry," Fainacky said, with a frown; then, relapsing into his usual languid affectation of manner, he remarked, over his shoulder, to Mademoiselle Duval, "C'est un enfant," put away the ten-guilder piece in a gorgeous leather pocket-book, and left the room.

Scarcely had the door closed behind him when Harry began to express in no measured terms his views with regard to the "Polish invasion." Then he set his wits to work to devise some plan of getting rid of Fainacky, but it was not until the afternoon, when we were assembled in the dining-room again, that a brilliant idea occurred to him while reading Heine's "Romancero," a book which he loved to read when Heda and I were by because it was a forbidden volume to us.

Suddenly, starting up from his half-reclining position in a large arm-chair, he snapped his fingers, waved his book in the air, and exclaimed, "Eureka!"

"What is it?" Lato asked, good-naturedly.

"I have found something to drive the Pole wild!" cried Harry, rubbing his hands with delight. Whereupon he began to spout, with immense enthusiasm and shouts of laughter, Heine's "Two Knights," a poem in which he pours out his bitterest satire upon the Poles, their cause, and their country. This precious poem Harry commanded Tuschalek to write out in his finest round hand upon a large sheet of paper, which was then to be nailed upon the door of Fainacky's sleeping-apartment. I did not like the poem. I confess my Polish sympathies were strong, and I did not approve of ridiculing the "braggart Sarmatian's" nation by way of disgusting him with Komaritz; but nothing that I could say had any effect. The poem was written out upon the largest sheet of paper that the house afforded, and was the first thing to greet the eyes of Fainacky when he retired to his room for the night. In consequence, the Sarmatian declared, the next morning, at breakfast, that the insult thus offered to his nation and himself was not to be endured by a man of honour, and that he should leave Komaritz that very day.

Nevertheless, he stayed four weeks longer, during which time, however, he never spoke to Harry except upon three occasions when he borrowed money of him.

Tuschalek departed at an earlier date. Harry's method for getting rid of him was much simpler, and consisted of a letter to his father. As well as I can recollect, it ran thus:

"My Dear Father,--

"I pray you send Tuschalek away. I assure you I will study diligently without him. To have about you a fellow hired at ten guilders a month, who calls you by your Christian name, is very deleterious to the character.

"Your affectionate son,

"Harry.

"P.S.--Pray, if you can, help him to another situation, for I can't help pitying the poor devil."

About this time Lato sprained his ankle in leaping a ditch, and was confined for some days to a lounge in the dining-room. Heda scarcely left his side. She brought him flowers, offered to write his letters for him, and finally read aloud to him from the "Journal des Demoiselles." Whether he was much edified I cannot say. He left Komaritz as soon as his ankle was strong again. I was really sorry to have him go; for years we heard nothing more of him.----

"The gypsy!" exclaimed the major. "How fluently she writes! Who would have thought it of her! I remember that Fainacky perfectly well,--a genuine Polish coxcomb! Lato was a charming fellow,--pity he should have married in trade!"

At this moment a loud bell reminded the old cavalryman that the afternoon coffee was ready. He hurriedly slipped his niece's manuscript into a drawer of his writing-table, and locked it up before joining his family circle, where he appeared with the most guileless smile he could assume.

Zdena seemed restless and troubled, and confessed at last that she had lost her diary, which she was quite sure she had put into her work-basket. She had been writing in the garden, and had thrust it into the basket in a hurry. The major seemed uninterested in the loss, but, when the girl's annoyance reached its climax in a conjecture that the cook had, by mistake, used the manuscript for kindling, he comforted her, saying, "Nonsense! the thing will surely be found." He could not bring himself to resign the precious document,--he was too much interested in reading it.

The next day, after luncheon, while Frau Rosamunda was refreshing herself with an afternoon nap and Zdena was in the garden posing for the Baron von Wenkendorf as the goddess of Spring, the major retired to his room and locked himself in, that he might not be disturbed.

"Could she possibly have fallen in love with that Lato? Some girls' heads are full of sentimental nonsense. But I hardly think it--and so--" he went on muttering to himself whilst finding the place where he had left off on the previous day.

The next chapter of this literary chef-d'œuvre began as follows: