Chapter II: The Contents of the Manuscript (2)

"It is nothing," I cry, bravely ignoring my pain, when Harry hurries up to me with a dismayed face. "We must expect such things," I add, with dignity. "Riding is always dangerous; my father was killed by being thrown from his horse."

"Indeed? Really?" Harry says, sympathetically, as he wipes the gravel off my hands. "How long has he been dead?"

"Oh, a long time,--a year."

"My mother has been dead much longer," he says, importantly, almost boastfully. "She has been dead three years. And is yours still living?"

"N--no." And the tears, hitherto so bravely restrained, come in a torrent.

He is frightened, kneels down beside me, even then he was much taller than I,--and wipes away the tears with his pocket-handkerchief. "Poor little thing!" he murmurs, "I am so sorry for you; I did not know----" And he puts his arm round me and strokes my hair. Suddenly a delightful and strange sensation possesses me,--a feeling I have not had since my poor dear mother gave me her last kiss: my whole childish being is penetrated by it.

We have been fond of each other ever since that moment; we are so to-day.

"Come with me to the kitchen-garden now," he says, "and see my puppies." And he calls to the gardener and commits to his charge the pony, that, quite content with the success of his man[oe]uvre, is quietly cropping the verbena-blossoms.

My tears are dried. I am crouching beside the kennel in the kitchen-garden, with four charming little puppies in my lap. There is a fragrance of cucumber-leaves, sorrel, and thyme all about. The bright sunshine gleams on the dusty glass of the hot-bed, on the pumpkins and cucumbers, on the water in the tub under the pump, beside which a weeping willow parades its proverbial melancholy. Harry's fair, fat tutor is walking past a trellis where the early peaches are hanging, smoking a long porcelain pipe. He pauses and pinches the fruit here and there, as if to discover when it will be ripe. I hold one after another of the silken, warm dog-babies to my cheek, and am happy, while Harry laughs good-humouredly at my enthusiasm and prevents the jealous mother of the puppies from snapping at me.

----"We have been fond of each other ever since." The major smiles contentedly as he reads this.

V.

KOMARITZ.

I was soon at home at Komaritz, often passed weeks there, feeling extremely comfortable amid those strange surroundings,--for the life led in the clumsy, unadorned old house upon which the mediaeval castle looked down was certainly a strange one.

In fact, the modern structure was no whit superior to the castle except in the matter of ugliness and in the fact that it possessed a roof. Otherwise it was almost as ruinous as the ruin, and had to be propped up in a fresh place every year. The long passages were paved with worn tiles; the ground-floor was connected with the upper stories by a steep winding staircase. The locks on the doors were either broken or the keys were lost, and the clocks, if they went at all, all pointed to different hours.

In a large room called the drawing-room, where the plaster was crumbling down from the ceiling bit by bit, there stood, among three-legged tables and threadbare arm-chairs, many an exquisite antique. In the rooms in use, on the other hand, there was no article of mere luxury: all was plain and useful, as in some parsonage. And yet there was something strangely attractive in this curious home. The rooms were of spacious dimensions; those on the ground-floor were all vaulted. The sunbeams forced their way through leafy vines and creepers into the deep embrasures of the windows. The atmosphere was impregnated with a delicious, mysterious fragrance,--an odour of mould, old wood, and dried rose-leaves. Harry maintained that it smelled of ghosts, and that there was a white lady who "walked" in the corner room next to the private chapel.

I must confess, in spite of my love for the old barrack, that it was not a fit baronial mansion. No one had ever lived there, save a steward, before Uncle Karl, who, as the youngest Leskjewitsch, inherited it, took up his abode there. He had, when he was first married, planned a new castle, but soon relinquished his intention, first for financial reasons, and then from dread of guests, a dread that seems to have become a chronic disease with him. When his wife died, all thought of any new structure had been given up. From that time he scarcely ever stayed there himself, and the old nest was good enough for a summer residence for the children. With the exception of Heda,--besides Harry there was a good-for-nothing small boy,--the children thought so too. They had a pathetic affection for the old place where they appeared each year with the flowers, the birds, and the sunshine. They seemed to me to belong to the spring. Everything was bright and warm about me when they came.

Harry was my faithful knight from first to last; our friendship grew with our growth. He tyrannized over me a little, and liked to impress me, I think, with a sense of his superiority; but he faithfully and decidedly stood by me whenever I needed him. He drove me everywhere about the country; his two ponies could either be driven or ridden; he taught me to ride, climbed mountains with me, explored with me every corner of the old ruin on the hill, and then when we came home at night, each somewhat weary with our long tramp, he would tell me stories.

How vividly I remember it all! I can fancy myself now sitting beside him on the lowest of the steps leading from the living-room into the garden. At our feet the flowers exhale sweet, sad odours, the pale roses drenched in dew show white amid the dim foliage; above our heads there is a dreamy whisper in the boughs of an old apricot-tree, whose leaves stand out sharp and black against the deep-blue sky, sown with myriads of sparkling stars. And Harry is telling me stories. Ah, such stories! the most terrible tales of robbers and ghosts, each more shudderingly horrible than its predecessor.

Oh, how delightful it is to feel one shudder after another creeping down your back in the warm summer evening! and if it grows too fearful, and I begin to be really afraid of the pale, bloodless phantoms which he conjures up before me, I move a little closer to him, and, as if seeking protection, clasp his hand, taking refuge from my ghostly fears in the consciousness of his warm young life.

VI.

HARRY'S TUTORS.

Every Sunday the Komaritzers come to us at Zirkow, driving over in a tumble-down old coach covered with faded blue cloth, hung on spiral springs, and called Noah's ark.

The coachman wears no livery, except such as can be found in an imposing broad gold band upon a very shabby high hat.

Of course the children are always accompanied by the governess and the tutor.

The first governess whom I knew at Komaritz--Mademoiselle Duval--was bright, well-bred, and very lovable; the tutor was the opposite of all this.

He may have been a proficient in ancient languages, but he spoke very poor German. His nails were always in mourning, and he neglected his dress. Intercourse with good society made him melancholy. At our table he always took the worst place. Uncle Paul every Sunday addressed the same two questions to him, never remembering his name, but regularly calling him Herr Paulus, whereas his name was Pontius. After the tutor had answered these questions humbly, he never again, so long as dinner lasted, opened his mouth, except to put into it large mouthfuls, or his knife. Between the courses he twirled his thumbs and sniffed. He always had a cold in his head. When dinner was over he pushed his chair back against the wall, bowed awkwardly, and retired, never appearing among us during the rest of the afternoon, which he spent playing "Pinch" with Krupitschka, with a pack of dirty cards which from long usage had lost their corners and had become oval. We often surprised him at this amusement,--Harry and I.

As soon as he disappeared Aunt Rosamunda always expressed loudly and distinctly her disapproval of his bad manners. But when we children undertook to sneer at them, we were sternly repressed,--were told that such things were of no consequence, and that bad manners did not in the least detract from a human being's genuine worth.

On one occasion Harry rejoined, "I'm glad to hear it," and at the next meal sat with both elbows upon the table.

Moreover, I soon observed that Herr Pontius was by no means the meek lamb he seemed to be, and this I discovered at the harvest-home. There was a dance beneath the lindens at the farm, where Herr Pontius whirled the peasant-girls around, and capered about like a very demon. His face grew fierce, and his hair floated wildly about his head. We children nearly died of laughing at him.

Soon afterwards he was dismissed, and in a great hurry. When I asked Harry to tell me the cause of his sudden disappearance, he replied that it was love that had broken Herr Pontius's neck. But when I insisted upon a more lucid explanation, Harry touched the tip of my nose with his forefinger and said, sententiously, "Too much knowledge makes little girls ugly."

He was not the only one among Harry's tutors whose neck was broken through love: the next--a very model of a tutor--followed the example in this respect of the dance-loving Herr Pontius.

His name was Ephraim Schmied; he came from Hildesheim, and was very learned and well conducted,--in short, by long odds the best of all Harry's tutors. If he did not retain his position, it may well be imagined that it was the fault of the position.

As with every other fresh tutor, Harry set himself in opposition to him at first, and did his best to discover ridiculous traits in him. His efforts in this direction were for a time productive of no results, and Herr Schmied, thanks to his untiring patience combined with absolute firmness, was in a fair way to master his wayward pupil, when matters took an unexpected and unfortunate turn.

Harry, in fact, had finally discovered the weak place in Herr Schmied's armour, and it was in the region of the heart. Herr Schmied had fallen in love with Mademoiselle Duval. To fall in love was in Harry's eyes at that time the extreme of human stupidity (he ought to have rested in that conviction). Uncle Paul shared it. He chuckled when Harry one fine day told him of his discovery, and asked the keen-sighted young good-for-naught upon what he founded his supposition.

"He sings Schubert's 'Wanderer' to her every evening, and yesterday he brought her a vase from X----," Harry replied: "there the fright stands."

Uncle Paul took the vase in his hands, an odd smile playing about his mouth the while. It was decorated with little naked Cupids hopping about in an oval wreath of forget-me-nots.

"How sentimental!" said Uncle Paul, adding, after a while, "If the little wretches only had wings, they might pass for angels, but as they are they leave something to be desired." Then, putting down the vase, he told me to be a good girl (he had just brought me over to stay a little while at Komaritz), got into his dog-cart, and drove off.

Scarcely had the door closed behind him when Harry brought from the next room a long quill pen and a large inkstand, and went to work eagerly and mysteriously at the vase.

At about five in the afternoon all assembled for afternoon coffee. Finally Herr Schmied appeared, a book in his hand.

"What are you doing there?" he asked his pupil, unsuspectingly.

"I am giving these naughty boys swimming-breeches, Herr Schmied. Uncle Paul thought it hardly the thing for you to have presented this vase to a lady, and so----"

The sentence was never finished. There was a low laugh from the other end of the room, where Mademoiselle Duval, ensconced behind the coffee-equipage, had been an unobserved spectator of the scene. Herr Schmied flushed crimson, and, quite losing his usual self-control, he gave Harry a sounding box on the ear, and Harry--well, Harry returned it.

Herr Schmied seized him by the shoulders as if to shake and strike him, then bit his lip, drew a long breath, released the boy, and left the room. But Harry's head drooped upon his breast, and he ate no supper that night. He knew that what had occurred could not be condoned, and he was sorry.

At supper Herr Schmied informed Mademoiselle Duval that he had written to Baron Leskjewitsch that unforeseen circumstances made imperative his return to Germany. "I did not think it necessary to be more explicit as to the true cause of my sudden departure," he added.

Harry grew very pale.

After supper, as I was sitting with Heda upon the garden-steps, looking for falling stars that would not fall, we observed Herr Schmied enter the room behind us; it was quite empty, but the lamp was lighted on the table. Soon afterwards, Harry appeared. Neither of them noticed us.

Slowly, lingeringly, Harry approached his tutor, and plucked him by the sleeve.

Herr Schmied looked around.

"Must you really go away, Herr Schmied?" the boy asked, in distress.

"Yes," the tutor replied, very gravely.

Harry bit his lip, seemed undecided what to do or say, and finally, leaning his head a little on one side, asked, caressingly, "Even if I beg your pardon?"

Herr Schmied smiled, surprised and touched. He took the boy's hand in his, and said, sadly, "Even then, Harry. Yet I am sorry, for I was beginning to be very fond of you."

The tears were in Harry's eyes, but he evidently felt that no entreaty would be of any avail.

In fact, the next morning Herr Schmied took his departure. A few days afterwards, however, Harry received a letter from him with a foreign post-mark. He had written four long pages to his former pupil. Harry flushed with pride and joy as he read it, and answered it that very evening.

Herr Schmied is now Professor of Modern History in a foreign university, his name is well known, and he is held in high honour. He still corresponds with Harry, whose next tutor was a French abbe. The cause of the abbe's dismissal I have forgotten; indeed, I remember only one more among the numerous preceptors, and he was the last,--a German from Bohemia, called Ewald Finke.

His name was not really Ewald, but Michael, but he called himself Ewald because he liked it better. He had studied abroad, which always impressed us favourably, and, as Uncle Karl was told, he had already won some reputation in Leipsic by his literary efforts. He was looking for a situation as tutor merely that he might have some rest from intellectual labours that had been excessive. "Moreover," his letter of recommendation from a well-known professor went on to say, "the Herr Baron will not be slow to discover that he is here brought into contact with a rarely-gifted nature, one of those in intercourse with whom allowance must be made for certain peculiarities which at first may prove rather annoying." Uncle Karl instantly wrote, in reply, that "annoying peculiarities" were of no consequence,--that he would accord unlimited credit in the matter of allowance to the new tutor. In fact, he took such an interest in the genius thus offered him that he prolonged his stay in Komaritz to two weeks, instead of departing at the end of three days, as he had at first intended, solely in expectation of the new tutor.

By the way, those who are familiar with my uncle's morbid restlessness may imagine the joy of his household at his prolonged stay in Komaritz.

Not knowing how otherwise to kill his time, he hit upon the expedient of shooting it, and, as the hunting season had not begun, he shot countless butterflies. We found them lying in heaps among the flowers, little, shapeless, shrivelled things, mere specks of brilliant dust. When weary of this amusement, he would seat himself at the piano and play over and over again the same dreary air, grasping uncertainly at the chords, and holding them long and firmly when once he had got them.

Harry assured me that he was playing a funeral march for the dead butterflies, and I supposed it to be his own composition. This, however, was not the case, and the piece was not a funeral march, but a polonaise,--"The Last Thought of Count Oginski," who is said to have killed himself after jotting down this music.

At last Herr Finke made his appearance. He was a tall, beardless young man, with hair cut close to his head, and a sallow face adorned with the scars of several sabre-cuts, a large mouth, a pointed nose, the nostrils quivering with critical scorn, and staring black eyes with large round spectacles, through which they saw only what they chose to see.

Uncle Karl's reception of him was grandiloquent. "Enter," he exclaimed, going to meet him with extended hands. "My house is open to you. I delight in grand natures which refuse to be cramped within the limits of conventionality."

Herr Finke replied to this high-sounding address only by a rather condescending nod, shaking the proffered hand as if bestowing a favour.

After he had been refreshed with food and drink, Uncle Karl challenged him to a fencing-match, which lasted upward of an hour, at the end of which time my uncle confessed that the new tutor was a master of fence, immediately wrote to thank the illustrious professor to whom he owed this treasure of learning, and left Komaritz that same evening.

Herr Finke remained precisely three weeks in his new situation. So far as lessons went he seemed successful enough, but his "annoying peculiarities" ended in an outbreak of positive insanity, during which he set fire to the frame house on the hill where he was lodged, and was carried off to a mad-house in a strait-waistcoat, raving wildly.

Uncle Karl was sadly disappointed, and suddenly resolved to send Harry to a public school, being convinced that no good could come of tutors.

From this time forward the young Leskjewitsches came to Komaritz only for the vacations.

VII.

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 orthopaedic 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'[oe]uvre_ began as follows:

VIII.

I had a long letter to-day from Miss O'Donnel in Italy, full of most interesting things. One of the two nieces whom she is visiting is being trained as an opera-singer. She seems to have a brilliant career before her. In Italy they call her "_la Patti blonde_," and her singing-teacher, to whom she pays thirty-five francs a lesson, declares that she will certainly make at least a hundred thousand francs a year as a prima donna. What an enviable creature! I, too, have an admirable voice. Ah, if Uncle Paul would only let me be trained! But his opinions are so old-fashioned!

And everything that Miss O'Donnel tells me about the mode of life of the Misses Lyall interests me. They live with their mother in Italy, and receive every evening, principally gentlemen, which, it seems, is the Italian custom. The elder Miss Lyall is as good as engaged to a distinguished Milanese who lost his hair in the war of '59; while the younger, the blonde Patti, will not hear of marriage, but contents herself with turning the head of every man who comes near her.

Ah! I have arrived at the conviction that there can be no finer existence than that of a young girl in training for a prima donna, who amuses herself in the mean time by turning the head of every man who comes near her.----

("Goose!" exclaimed the major at this point.)

----To-day I proposed to Uncle Paul that he should take me to Italy for the winter, to have me educated as a singer. There was a great row. Never before, since I have known him, has he spoken so angrily to me.----

("I should think not!" growled the major at this point.)

----The worst was that he blamed Miss O'Donnel for putting such "stuff" (thus he designated my love for art) into my head, and threatened to forbid her to correspond with me. Ah, I wept for the entire afternoon amid the ruins of my shattered hopes. I am very unhappy. After a long interruption, the idea has occurred to me to-day of continuing my memoirs.

IX.

HARRY BECOMES A SOLDIER.

Uncle Karl finally yielded to Harry's entreaties, and allowed him to enter the army. That very autumn after the summer which Lato and Fainacky passed at Komaritz he was to enter a regiment of hussars.

It had been a problem for Uncle Karl, the taming of this eager young nature, and I think he was rather relieved by the military solution thus afforded.

As Harry of course had nothing to do in town before joining his regiment, he stayed longer than usual this year in Komaritz,--stayed all through September and until late in October. Komaritz was quite deserted: Lato had gone, the Pole had gone; but Harry still stayed on.

And, strange to say, now, when we confronted our first long parting, our old friendship gradually revived, stirred, and felt that it had been living all this time, although it had had one or two naps. How well I remember the day when he came to Zirkow to take leave of us--of me!

It was late in October, and the skies were blue but cold. The sun shone down upon the earth kindly, but without warmth. A thin silvery mist floated along the ground. The bright-coloured leaves shivered in the frosty air.

On the wet lawn, where the gossamers gleamed like steel, lay myriads of brown, red, and yellow leaves. The song-birds were gone, the sparrows twittered shrilly, and in the midst of the brown autumnal desolation there bloomed in languishing loveliness a white rose upon a leafless stalk.

With a scarlet shawl about my shoulders and my head bare I was sauntering about the garden, wandering, dreaming through the frosty afternoon. I heard steps behind me, and when I looked round I saw Harry approaching, his brows knitted gloomily.

"I only want to bid you 'good-bye,'" he called out to me. "We are off to-morrow."

"When are you coming back?" I asked, hastily.

"Perhaps never," he said, with an important air. "You know--a soldier----"

"Yes, there is a threatening of war," I whispered, and my childish heart felt an intolerable pang as I spoke.

He shrugged his shoulders and tried to laugh.

"And, at all events, you, when I come back, will be a young lady with--lovers--and you will hardly remember me."

"Oh, Harry, how can you talk so!"

Rather awkwardly he holds out to me his long slender hand, in which I place my own.

Ah, how secure my cold, weak fingers feel in that warm strong hand! Why do I suddenly recall the long-past moonlit evenings in Komaritz when we sat together on the garden-steps and Harry told me ghost-stories, in dread of which, when they grew too ghastly, I used to cling close to him as if to find shelter in his strong young life from the bloodless throng of spirits he was evoking?

Thus we stand, hand in hand, before the white rose, the last which autumn had left. It droops above us, and its cheering fragrance mingles with the autumnal odours around us. I pluck it, stick it in Harry's button-hole, and then suddenly begin to sob convulsively. He clasps me close, close in his arms, kisses me, and murmurs, "Do not forget me!" and I kiss him too, and say, "Never--never!" while around us the faded leaves fall silently upon the grass.

X.

MY EDUCATION.

Now follow a couple of very colourless years. There was nothing more to anticipate from the summers. For, although Heda regularly appeared at Komaritz as soon as the city was too hot or too deserted, she did not add much to my enjoyment. Komaritz itself seemed changed when Harry was no longer there to turn everything upside-down with his good-humoured, madcap ways.

And there was a change for the worse in our circumstances; affairs at Zirkow were not so prosperous as they had been.

To vary the monotony of his country life, my uncle had built a brewery, from which he promised himself a large increase of income. It was to be a model brewery, but after it was built the startling discovery was made that there was not water enough to work it. For a while, water was brought from the river in wagons drawn by four horses, but, when this was found to be too expensive, the brewery was left to itself.

For years now it has remained thus passive, digesting in triumphant repose the sums of money which it swallowed up. The monster!

Whenever there is any little dispute between my uncle and my aunt, she is certain to throw his brew-house in his face. But, instead of being crushed by the mischief he has wrought, he declares, "The project was admirable: my idea was a brilliant one if it had only succeeded!"

But it did not succeed.

The consequence was--retrenchment and economy. My aunt dismissed two servants, my uncle kept only a pair of driving horses, and my new gowns were made out of my aunt Therese's old ones.

The entire winter we spent at Zirkow, and my only congenial friend was my old English governess, the Miss O'Donnel already mentioned, who came shortly before Harry's entrance into the army, not so much to teach me English as to learn German herself.

Born in Ireland, and a Catholic, she had always had excellent situations in the most aristocratic English families. This had given her, besides her other acquirements, a great familiarity with the curious peculiarities of the British peerage, and with social distinctions of rank in England, as to which she enlightened me, along with much other valuable information.

At first I thought her quite ridiculous in many respects,--her general appearance,--she had once been a beauty, and still wore corkscrew curls,--her way of humming to herself old Irish ballads, "Nora Creina," "The harp that once through Tara's halls," etc., with a cracked voice and unconscious gestures, her formality and sensitiveness. After a while I grew fond of her. What quantities of books she read aloud to me in the long evenings in January and December, while my wooden needles clicked monotonously as I knitted woollen comforters for the poor!--all Walter Scott's novels, Dickens and Thackeray, many of the works of English historians, from the academic, fluent Gibbon to that strange prophet of history, Carlyle, and every day I had to study with her one act of Shakespeare, which bored me at first. She was so determined to form my literary taste that while my maid was brushing my hair she would read aloud some lighter work, such as "The Vicar of Wakefield" or Doctor Johnson's "Rasselas."

As Uncle Paul was very desirous to perfect my education as far as possible, he was not content with these far-reaching efforts, but, with a view to further accomplishments on my part, sent me thrice a week to X----, where an old pianiste, who was said to have refused a Russian prince, and was now humpbacked, gave me lessons on the piano; and a former _ballerina_, at present married to the best caterer in X----, taught me to dance.

This last was a short, fat, good-humoured person with an enormous double chin and a complexion spoiled by bad rouge. When a ballet-dancer she had been known as Angiolina Chiaramonte; her name now is Frau Anna Schwanzara. She always lost her breath, and sometimes the buttons off her waist, when she danced for her pupils, and she prided herself upon being able to teach every known dance, even to the cancan. I did not learn the cancan, but I did learn the fandango, the czardas, and the Highland fling, with many another national dance. Waltzes and polkas I did not learn, because we had no one for a partner to practise with me; Frau Schwanzara was too short-breathed, although she was very good-humoured and did her best.

Sometimes I thought it very hard to have to get up so early and drive between high walls of snow in a rattling inspector's wagon (Uncle Paul would not allow his last good carriage to be used on these journeys) two long leagues to X----, but it was, at all events, a break in the monotony of my life.

If I was not too sleepy, we argued the whole way, Miss O'Donnel and I, usually over some historic event, such as the execution of Louis XVI. or Cromwell's rebellion. Sometimes we continued our debate as we walked about the town, where we must have been strange and yet familiar figures. Miss O'Donnel certainly was odd in appearance. She always wore a long gray cloth cloak, under which, to guard against dirt, she kilted up her petticoats so high that her red stockings gleamed from afar. On her head was perched a black velvet bonnet with a scarlet pompon, and in summer and winter she carried the same bulgy green umbrella, which she called her "Gamp." Once we lost each other in the midst of a particularly lively discussion. Nothing daunted, she planted herself at a street-corner, and, pounding the pavement with her umbrella, called, lustily, "Zdena! Zdena! Zdena!" until a policeman, to whom I described her, conducted me to her.

In addition to Miss O'Donnel's peculiarities, the extraordinary structure of our vehicle must have attracted some attention in X----. It was a long, old-fashioned coach hung on very high springs, and it looked very like the shabby carriages seen following the hearse at third-class funerals. Twin sister of the Komaritz "Noah's Ark," it served a double purpose, and could be taken apart in summer and used as an open carriage. Sometimes it fell apart of itself. Once when we were driving quickly through the market-square and past the officers' casino in X----, the entire carriage window fell out upon the pavement. The coachman stopped the horses, and a very tall hussar picked up the window and handed it in to me, saying, with a smile, "You have dropped something, mademoiselle!" I was deeply mortified, but I would not for the world have shown that I was so. I said, simply, "Thank you; put it down there, if you please," pointing to the opposite seat,--as if dropping a window out of the carriage were the most ordinary every-day occurrence. Upon my reply to him he made a profound bow, which I thought all right. He was a late arrival in the garrison; the other officers knew us or our carriage by sight. Every one of them, when he came to X----, paid his respects to my uncle, who in due course of time returned the visit, and there was an end of it. The officers were never invited to Zirkow.

Sometimes the roads were so blocked with snow that we could not drive to town, nor could we walk far. For the sake of exercise, or what Miss O'Donnel called our "daily constitutional," we used then to walk numberless times around the house, where the gardener had cleared a path for us. As we walked, Miss O'Donnel told me stories from the Arabian Nights or Ovid's Metamorphoses, varied sometimes by descriptions of life among the British aristocracy. When once she was launched upon this last topic, I would not let her finish,--I besieged her with questions. She showed me the picture of one of her pupils, the Lady Alice B----, who married the Duke of G---- and was the queen of London society for two years.

"'Tis odd how much you look like her," she often said to me. "You are sure to make a sensation in the world; only have patience. You are born to play a great part."

If Uncle Paul had heard her, I believe he would have killed her.

Every evening we played a rubber of whist. Miss O'Donnel never could remember what cards were out, and, whenever we wished to recall a card or to transgress some rule of the game, Aunt Rosamunda always said, "That is not allowed at the Jockey Club."

Once my uncle and aunt took me upon a six weeks' pleasure-tour,--or, rather, an educational excursion. We thoroughly explored the greater part of Germany and Italy on this occasion, travelling very simply, with very little luggage, never speaking to strangers, having intercourse exclusively with pictures, sculptures, and valets-de-place. After thus becoming acquainted, in Baedeker's society, with a new piece of the world, as Aunt Rosamunda observed with satisfaction, we returned to Zirkow, and life went on as before.

And really my lonely existence would not have struck me as anything extraordinary, if Hedwig had not been at hand to enlighten me as to my deprivations.

She had been introduced into society, and wrote me of her conquests. Last summer she brought a whole trunkful of faded bouquets with her to Komaritz,--ball-trophies. Besides this stuff, she brought two other acquisitions with her to the country, a sallow complexion and an adjective which she used upon every occasion--"impossible!" She tossed it about to the right and left, applying it to everything in the dear old nest which I so dearly loved, and which she now never called anything save "Mon exil." The house at Komaritz, the garden, my dress,--all fell victims to this adjective.

Two of her friends shortly followed her to Komaritz, with a suitable train of governesses and maids,--countesses from Prague society, Mimi and Franziska Zett.

They were not nearly so affected as Heda,--in fact, they were not affected at all, but were sweet and natural, very pretty, and particularly pleasant towards me. But we were not congenial; we had nothing to say to one another; we had no interests in common. They were quite indifferent to my favourite heroes, from the Gracchi to the First Consul; in fact, they knew hardly anything about them, and I knew still less of the Rudis, Nikis, Taffis, and whatever else the young gentlemen were called, with whom they danced and flirted at balls and parties, and about whom they now gossiped with Heda.

They, too, brought each a trunkful of faded bouquets, and one day they piled them all up on the grass in the garden and set fire to them. They declared that it was the custom in society in Vienna thus to burn on Ash Wednesday every relic of the Carnival. To be sure, it was not Ash Wednesday in Komaritz, and the Carnival was long past, but that was of no consequence.

The favourite occupation of the three young ladies was to sit in the summer-house, with a generous supply of iced raspberry vinegar, and make confession of the various _passions funestes_ which they had inspired. I sat by and listened mutely.

Once Mimi amiably asked me to give my experience. I turned my head away, and murmured, ashamed, "No one ever made love to me." Mimi, noticing my distress, put her finger beneath my chin, just as if she had been my grand-aunt, and said, "Only wait until you come out, and you will bear the palm away from all of us, for you are by long odds the prettiest of us all."

When afterwards I looked in the glass, I thought she was right.

"Until you go into society," Mimi had said. Good heavens! into society!--I! For some time a suspicion had dawned upon me that Uncle Paul did not mean that I should ever "go into society." When, the day after Mimi's portentous speech, I returned to Zirkow, I determined to put an end to all uncertainty upon the subject.

After dinner--it had been an uncommonly good one--I put my hand caressingly within my uncle's arm, and whispered, softly, "Uncle, do you never mean to take me to balls, eh?"

He had been very gay, but he at once grew grave, as he replied,--

"What good would balls do you? Make your eyes droop, and your feet ache! I can't endure the thought of having you whirled about by all the young coxcombs of Prague and then criticised afterwards. Marriages are made in heaven, Zdena, and your fate will find you here, you may be sure."

"But I am not thinking of marriage," I exclaimed, indignantly. "I want to see the world, uncle dear; can you not understand that?" and I tenderly stroked his coat-sleeve.

He shook his curly head energetically.

"Be thankful that you know nothing of the world," he said, with emphasis.

And I suddenly recalled the intense bitterness in my mother's tone as she uttered the word "world," when I waked in the dark night and found her kneeling, crying, at my bedside in our old Paris home.

"Is it really so very terrible--the world?" I asked, meekly, and yet incredulously.

"Terrible!" he repeated my word with even more energy than was usual with him. "It is a hot-bed of envy and vanity, a place where one learns to be ashamed of his best friend if he chance to wear an ill-made coat; that is the world you are talking of. I do not wish you to know anything about it."

This was all he would say.

It might be supposed that the unattractive picture of the world drawn by Uncle Paul would have put a stop at once and forever to any desire of mine for a further acquaintance with it, but--there is ever a charm about what is forbidden. At present I have not the faintest desire to visit Pekin, but if I were forbidden to go near that capital I should undoubtedly be annoyed.

And day follows day. Nearly a year has passed since that unedifying conversation with my uncle.