Hovels deep sunk in the ground, moss-grown thatched roofs, here and there an old lime-tree or a tall pear-tree with crabbed branches standing out black and bare against the wintry sky, slimy puddles, a pond full to the brim in which three forlorn-looking geese are sadly paddling, a swampy road along which a procession of ploughs are splashing their way at the heels of the muddy, unkempt teams--in short, a Bohemian village, with a shabby manor-house beyond. Over the tumble-down gate-way, with a pigsty on one side and a dog-kennel on the other, hangs a coat of arms. The mansion--a square house with a steep shingle roof--stands, according to the unromantic custom of the country, with one side looking on to the farm-yard; and the drawing-room windows open exactly over an enormous dung heap which a party of women are in the very act of turning with pitch-forks, under the superintendence of a short stout man in a weather-beaten hunting-hat and shooting-coat with padded silk sleeves out of which the wadding is peeping at a hundred holes. He is smoking a pipe with a china bowl decorated with a mincing odalisque. His face is broad and red, his ears purple, and his aspect is anything rather than aristocratic as he stands giggling and jesting with the damsels of the steaming midden.
This is Baron Wolnitzky, a man who, like a good many others, got himself a good deal talked about in 1848 and then vanished from the scene without leaving a trace behind.
Often when we see some dry and barren tree shedding its sere and mouldy leaves in the autumn we find it hard to believe that it bore blossoms in the spring; and the baron was like such a tree. In the spring-tide of 1848--an over-teeming spring throughout Europe--his soul too had blossomed. He had had patriotic visions and had uttered them in rhyme, and his country had hailed him as a prophet--perhaps because it needed an idol, or perhaps because in those agitated times it could not tell black from white. In those days he had displayed himself in a magnificent national costume with sleeves of the most elaborate cut, had married a patriotic wife who always dressed in the Slav colors: blue, white, and red, and who got two young men, also dressed in Slav costume, to mount guard at the door of her house. He was descended from a Polish family that had immigrated many generations since and his connections were as far as possible from being aristocratic, while he owed his little fortune entirely to his father who had put no 'baron' before his name, and who had earned it honestly as a master baker. In feudal times it would hardly have occurred to him to furbish up this very doubtful patent of nobility; but in the era of liberty it might pass muster and prove useful. A very shy pedigree serves to shed glory on a democratic martyr.
During the insurrection of June he fled with his wife in picturesque disguise; at first to Dresden, and then to Switzerland where he lived for some time in a boarding-house at Geneva, receiving homage as a political refugee, and horrifying the mistress by his enormous appetite. At length he returned to Bohemia where the events of forty-eight and its picturesquely aparelled leaders had fallen into oblivion. He retired to his little estate and turned philosopher--philosophy, ever since the days of Diogenes, has been the acknowledged refuge of shipwrecked hopes and pretensions.
There he went out walking in his shirt sleeves, played cards with the peasants and grew more vulgar, fatter, and hungrier every day; and if he ever had an idea it was unintentionally, in a bad dream after eating too much of some national delicacy.
His wife, a robust and worthy soul, though full of absurdities, bore a strong resemblance to the mother of the Regent Orleans in as much as she had a sound understanding combined with a very sentimental nature, was utterly devoid of tact, bitter to the verge of cynicism, thoroughly indiscreet and a great chatterbox.
She resigned herself without demur to the new order of things and brought a new tribe of children into the world, most of whom died young. Three survived; two sons, who so far broke through the traditions of the family as to become infantry officers, and one daughter, in whom patriotic romance once more flickered into fanaticism. This girl had been christened Bohuslawa, a name which was commonly shortened into Slawa, which in the more important dialects of the Slav tongue means Fame. She, like her mother, was of stalwart build, but her features were regular though statuesque and heavy--she was said to be like the Apollo Belvedere. She had already had four suitors but neither of them had met her views and now at twenty--having been born in forty-eight--she was spending the winter, unmarried and sorely discontented, in the country, where she occupied herself with serious studies and accepted the attentions of a needy young Pole who was devoted to her and in whom she condescended to take some slight interest.
But Baron Wolnitzky is still standing by the midden; the great black dog, which till this moment has never ceased barking at the door of his kennel, now, to introduce some variety into the programme, jumps on to its roof, from which advantageous standpoint he still barks without pause. Everything is dripping from the recently-thawed snow, and the air is full of the splash and gurgle of dropping and trickling water; the grey February twilight sinks upon the world and everything looks dingy and soaked.
A sound of creaking wheels is heard approaching, and a dung-cart appears in the gate-way.
"Well, what is going on in the town?" says the baron to the man who comes up to him, wrapped in an evil-smelling sheepskin and with the ears of his fur cap tied under his chin, to kiss his master's elbow. "Have you brought the newspapers?"
"Yes, your Grace, my Lord Baron," says the man, "and a letter too." And he draws a packet tied up in a red and white handkerchief out of a pocket in his sheepskin. The baron looks at the documents. "Another letter from Rome already," he mutters, grinning; "I must take it in at once that the women may have something to talk about."
The women, that is to say his wife and daughter, were sitting in the dining-room at a long table covered with a flowered cloth, on which stood the tea things, a paraffine lamp, and a breadbasket of dull silver filagree work. The lamp was smoking and the table looked as uncomfortable and dingy as the village outside, half-buried in manure. The baroness, in a tan-colored loose gown, in which she looked squarer than ever, without a cap, her thin grey hair cut short, was hunting for the tenth time to-day, on and under every article of furniture, for the key of the storeroom. Bohuslawa, meanwhile sat still, with a volume of Mickiewicz in her hand, out of which she was reading aloud in rather stumbling Polish, with a harsh voice. A young man with a sharp-cut sallow face and long black hair, in a Polish braided coat, wide collar and olive-coloured satin cravat, corrected her pronunciation now and then. He was her Polish adorer. He was one of that familiar species, the teacher of languages with a romance in the background; he lived in the neighouring town and came every Saturday to the village, four railway stations off, to instruct Bohuslawa in Polish and spend Sunday with the family.
When the union of these two patriots--which had already been secretly discussed--was to take place, depended on a mysterious law-suit that the young Pole was carrying on against the Russian government. His name was Vladimir de Matuschowsky, his grandmother had been a Potocka, and when he was not giving lessons, he was meditating conspiracies.
"Is there nothing else for tea?" asked the baron, casting a doubtful eye on the stale-looking rolls in the bread-basket.
"No, the dogs have eaten up the cakes," replied the baroness coolly. She was at the moment on all-fours under the piano, hunting for the key behind the pedal.
"You will get an apoplexy," said Bohuslawa crossly but without anxiety, and without making the smallest attempt to assist the old lady. But at this instant a housemaid came in with the sought-for key on a bent and copper-colored britannia-metal waiter.
"Oh, thank Heaven!" cried the baroness, "where was the wretched thing?"
"In the dog kennel,--your grace, my lady baroness, the puppy had dragged it there."
In her love for dogs again the baroness resembled the Duchess of Orleans; she always had a litter of half a dozen puppies to bring up, and the kennel was a well-known hiding place for everything that could not be found in its right place.
"The little rascals!" she exclaimed, with an admiring laugh at the ingenious perversity of her mischievous pets. "Bring the sugar then, Clara."
"I have a surprise for you," growled her husband, "a letter from Rome," and he produced the document, with its mixed odors of patchouli and damp sheepskin, and pushed it across to his wife, while he took up the rum bottle to flavor his tea.
"From Rome!" exclaimed the baroness, "that is delightful. Where, oh where are my spectacles?" And she felt and patted herself all over till the superfluous substance shook like a jelly.
"Ah, here they are--I am sitting on them--now then, children," and she began to read the letter aloud.
"Dear Lotti, you must not take it ill that I so seldom write to you"--the baroness looked up over her spectacles--"so seldom!... she never in her life wrote to me so often as from Rome"--"but you cannot imagine the turmoil in which we live. A dinner-party every day, two evening parties and a ball. We are spending the carnival with the crême de la crême of Roman society. To-morrow we dine with Princess Vulpini--she was a Truyn and is the sister of Truyn of R. The next day we have theatricals, etc., etc. Zinka is an immense success. Nicki Sempaly among others--the brother of Prince Sempaly, the great landed proprietor--is very attentive to her...."
Here she was interrupted by her husband. "Well, I never thought the old goose was quite such a simpleton!" he exclaimed, drumming his fingers angrily on the red and white flowered cloth.
"I cannot imagine how Clotilde allows it!" cried the baroness--"and still less do I understand Cecil."
"Take my advice, Lotti, go to Rome," observed the baron ironically; "go and set their heads straight on their shoulders."
"With the greatest pleasure," replied his wife, taking his irony quite seriously, "but unfortunately we have not the money."
Then she read the letter to the end; like all Clotilde's epistles it ended with the words; "What a pity it is that you should not be here too; it would give us the greatest pleasure to have you with us."
Tea was done; the maid servant cleared the table with a great clatter of cups and spoons, the baron retired to play Bulka with his neighbors in the village inn-parlor; the three who were left sat in meditative mood.
"I must confess that I should like to go to Rome," said the baroness, as she swept the crumbs off her lap on to the floor, "and it would be pleasant, too, to have relations there--for their grand acquaintance I own I do not care a straw."
"I do not see why we should avoid all society if we were there," exclaimed Slawa hotly.
"Well, you could do as you liked about it, of course," said the baroness, who held her daughter in the deepest respect, "I could stay at home; you see, my dear Vladimir," she added almost condescendingly to her son-in-law in spe, "I am uncomfortable in any company where I cannot get into my slippers in the evening...."
"Mamma!" cried her daughter beside herself, "you really are!..."
The baroness sat abashed and silent--no one spoke. There was not a sound in the room but the crackling of the fire in the huge tiled stove and the snoring of the big hunting-dog that lay sleeping on the tail of his mistress's skirt.
"If we only could sell the Bernini!" murmured the baroness presently, resuming the thread of their conversation.
The Bernini was a bust of Apollo that the baroness had inherited from her mother's family--said to be an adaptation by Bernini from the head of the Apollo Belvedere. Whenever the Wolnitzkys were in any financial straits the Bernini was packed off to some dealer in objects of vertu, from which excursions it invariably returned unsold. Not many days previously the travelled Apollo--he had seen New York, London, and St. Petersburg--had come home from a visit to Meyer of Berlin.
"By the bye, Vladimir, you have not seen it yet," said Slawa, "I must show you the bust."
"Is it the head that is said to be so strikingly like you?--that will interest me greatly," said the young Pole, casting an adoring eye on Slawa.
"Bring the lamp, the bust is in the drawing-room."
Vladimir, carrying the lamp, led the way into the drawing-room, a large, scantily-furnished room which was never dusted more than once a month. There, on a marble plinth in a corner, stood the radiant god--a copy from the Belvedere Apollo no doubt--but by Bernini...?
"The likeness is extraordinary!" cried Vladimir ecstatically, and gazing alternately at the bust and at Slawa. "Oh, it is a gem, a masterpiece! you ought never to part with it."
"Well, but I must say I should very much like to go to Rome," sighed the baroness; but Slawa only bit her lips.
"And what shall we do to-morrow?" Sempaly would ask Zinka almost every evening when he met her, fresh and smiling, at some party; he had made it his task to help her to find her lost Rome and devoted himself to it with praiseworthy diligence.
The disappointment that she had experienced in her expedition under the guidance of the botta driver to the ruins of the capital of the Caesars is a common enough phenomenon; it comes over almost everyone who sets out with his fancy crammed with the mystical cobwebs that recent literature has spun round the name of Rome, to see for the first time that dense mass of splendor and rubbish among the bare modern houses. And the disappointment is greatest in those who come from a long stay in Venice or Verona. Rome has none of the seductive charm of those North Italian cities. Its architecture is sombre and heavy, and the prevailing hues in winter are a sober grey and a dull bluish-green, more suggestive of a subtly toned tempera picture than of a glowing oil painting. It is vain to look for the sheen of the shimmering lagoons or the fantastic outline of the campaniles against the sky of Venice; for the half-ruined frescoes, or amber sunshine of Verona.
"After the cities of North Italy Rome has the effect of a severe choral by Handel after a nocturne by Chopin. The first impression is crushing," said Sempaly to Zinka; "but one wearies of the nocturne, and never of the choral."
To which Zinka replied: "But the choral is so drowned by trivial hurdy-gurdy tunes that I find it very difficult to follow." To which he laughed and said: "We will speak of that again in a fortnight."
By the end of the fortnight Zinka had thrown two soldi into the Fountain of Trevi to make sure that she should some day see Rome again, and in fanaticism for Rome she outdid even the fanatical General von Klinger. Sempaly had contributed mainly to her conversion. Nothing could be more amusing or more interesting than to explore every nook of the city of ruins under his escort. He was constantly remembering this or that wonderful thing that he must positively show to Zinka. An artistic bas-relief that had been built to some queer orange-colored house above a tobacconist's, or a heathen divinity which had had wings attached to its shoulders to qualify it for admission as an angel into a Christian church. He rode out with her into the Campagna, and pointed out all the most picturesque parts of the Trastevere, and he could find a ridiculous suggestion even in the most reverend things. The halls of the Vatican in which the liberal minded Vicars of Christ have granted a refuge to the pensioners of antiquity, he called the Poor-house of the gods; and always spoke of St. Peter's, which is commonly known as la Parocchia dei Forestieri, as the Papal Grand Hotel. There was not a fountain, a fragment of sculpture, or a picturesque heap of ruins of which he could not relate some history, comic or pathetic, or he invented one; but he never produced the impression that he was giving a lecture. He had in fact a particularly unpretending way of telling an appropriate and not too lengthy anecdote; he never handed it round on a waiter, as it were, for examination, but let it drop quietly out of his pocket. His knowledge of art was but shallow, but his feeling for it, like all his instincts, was amazingly keen. His information on all subjects was miscellaneous and slender, not an article of his intellectual wardrobe--as Charles Lamb has it--was whole; but he draped himself in the rags with audacious grace and made no attempt to hide the holes.
Truyn and his little daughter often joined them in these expeditions, and sometimes Cecil, but only when his mother did not choose to go out, and his demeanor on these occasions--'peripatetic æsthetics' he called their walks--was highly characteristic. He would walk by the side of his sister and Sempaly, or a few steps behind them, sunk in silence but always sharply observant. From time to time he would correct their cicerone in his dates, which Sempaly took with sublime indifference and for which--taking off his hat--he invariably thanked him with princely courtesy. Sterzl only sympathized with the classical style of the Renaissance; the real antiques which Zinka raved about he smiled at as caricatures; Guido on the other hand--for whom Sempaly had a weakness, as a Chopin among painters--Sterzl detested. He declared that the Beatrice Cenci had a cold wet bandage on her head, and that the picture was nothing more than a study apparently made from an idiot in a mad-house. When Zinka talked of her favorite antiques or other works in the mystical and sentimental slang of the clique, he laughed at her, but quite good-naturedly. He scorned all extravagance and raptures as cant and affectation. Still he was merciful to his sister, and when she turned from a Francia with tears in her eyes, or turned pale as she quoted Shelley, or spoke of Leonardo's Medusa in Florence, he did no more than shrug his shoulders and say: "Zinka, you are crazy," or gently pull her by the ear. Everything in Zinka was right, even her want of sound common sense.
The baroness had at last found a lodging, almost to her mind: a small palazzo in a side street, off the Corso, "furnished in atrocious taste, but otherwise very nice." The palazetto was in fact a gem in its way, with a simple and elegant stone front and a court surrounded by a colonnade with red camellia shrubs and a fountain in the midst. There were several much injured antique statues too, one of which was a famous and very beautiful Amazon at whose feet a rose-bush bloomed profusely. This Amazon struck Zinka as remarkably picturesque and she sketched her from every point of view without ever reading the warning in her sad face. Alas! Zinka had gazed at the sun and it had blinded her.
But how could Cecil allow this daily-growing intimacy between Sempaly and his sister? Sempaly's elder brother, Prince Sempaly, had been married ten years and was childless, so the attaché, as heir presumptive, was in duty bound to make a brilliant marriage. Did not Sterzl know this? Yes, he knew it, but he did not trouble his head about it. He was under no illusion as to the singularity, not to say the improbability of Sempaly marrying a girl of inferior birth; he had no desire that it should be otherwise. He was no democrat; on the contrary, his was a particularly conservative and old world nature, equally remote from cringing or from envy. That Sempaly should marry any other girl not his equal in rank would have struck him as altogether wrong, but Zinka--Zinka was different. He worshipped her as only a strong elder brother call worship a much younger weaker sister and there was no social elevation of which he deemed her unworthy. And when he saw Sempaly smile down so tenderly and at the same time so respectfully on his 'butterfly,' as he called her, he was rejoiced at her good fortune and never for an instant doubted it Zinka was not sentimental. For a long time there was no tinge of any feeling stronger than good fellowship in her intercourse with Sempaly; her talk was all fun, her glance saucy and wilful. By degrees, however, a change came over her; her whole manner softened, there was a gentle dreaminess even in her caprice and when she smiled it was often with tears in her eyes.
Sempaly was not regular in his visits to the palazetto; sometimes for two or three days he failed to appear, then he would call very early--at noon perhaps, join the family unceremoniously at their breakfast, go out driving with the ladies, accept an invitation to stay to dinner, and if Zinka was looking pale or out of spirits, he would pay her fifty kind little attentions to conjure a smile to her lips. Occasionally he would fall into the melancholy vein and talk of his loveless youth, and let her pity him for it. He would tell her about his elder brother, praising his many noble qualities, and then add with a shrug: "Yes, he is a splendid fellow, but ... he has ideas!" When Zinka asked what sort of ideas, Sempaly sighed: "I hope you may some day know him and then you can judge for yourself."
But this was in a low tone and he seemed to regret having said it. Then he would frequently allude to this or that picture in his brother's house at Vienna, or to some curious family relic, and say how much he should like some day to show it to Zinka. His favorite theme, however, was Erzburg, the old castle which for numberless generations had been the family summer-retreat of the Sempalys and of which he was passionately fond. Excepting as regards this estate he was singularly free from all false or family pride; he declared that his brother's Vienna palace was an unhealthy barrack, scouted at the Sempaly breed of horses, laughed at the Sempaly nose, and praised the traditional Sempaly tokay more in irony than in good faith--but then he came round to Erzburg again and simply raved about it Not about the oriental luxury with which part of the castle was fitted up--not in the best taste--of that he never spoke; indeed, he said more about its deficiencies than its perfections, but in a tone of such loving excuse! He talked of the large bare rooms where, for years, he had watched for the apparition of the white lady, half longing, half dreading to see her; of the doleful groaning of the weather-cock of the rococo statues in the grounds, and of the gloomy pools with their low sad murmur, and their carpet of white waterlilies. The statues were bad, the pools unhealthy he admitted, and yet, as he said it, his usually mocking glance was soft and almost devout Once, when Zinka had grown quite dismal over his reminiscences, he took her hand and pressed it tenderly to his lips: "You must see Erzburg some day," he murmured.
His behavior to her was that of a man who is perfectly clear as to his own intentions but who for some reason is not immediately free to sue for the hand of a girl whom in his heart of hearts he already regards as his own. What did he mean by all this? What was he thinking of? I believe absolutely nothing. He went with the tide. There are many men like him, selfish, luxurious natures who swim with the stream of life and never attempt to steer; they have for the most part happy tempers, they are content with any harbor so long as they reach it without effort or damage, and if in their passive course they run down any one else they exclaim with their usual amiable politeness: "Oh! I beg your pardon!" and are quite satisfied that the mishap was due to fate and not to any fault of theirs.
It was in the end of February, shortly before the close of the carnival. Truyn, going to the Sterzls' with his little girl to take a walk with Zinka, saw at the door of the palazetto a hackney carriage with a small portmanteau on the top. Sterzl's man-servant, an elegant person with close-cut hair, shaved all but a short beard, and wearing an impressive watch-chain, was condescending to exchange a few words with the driver blinking in the sunshine.
The drawing-room into which Truyn and his daughter were admitted unannounced was in the full blaze of light. The motes danced their aimless rainbow-colored dance; in the middle of the room stood Zinka with both hands on a table over which she was bending to gaze at a magnificent basket of flowers. There was something in her attitude, quaint but graceful, in the elegant line of her bust, the pathetic joy of her radiant face, the soft flow of her plain long dress, which stamped the picture once and for ever on Truyn's memory. A sunbeam wantoned in her hair turning it to gold and her whole figure was the embodiment of sweet and happy spring delight The basket of flowers, too, was a masterpiece of its kind--a capriccio of lilies of the valley, gardenias, snow-flakes, and pale-tinted roses, that looked as though the wayward west-wind had blown them into company. Sterzl was standing by, with a pleased smile, and the baroness, in an attitude of affected astonishment, stood a little apart with a visiting-card in her hand. Neither Cecil nor his sister--she absorbed in the flowers and he in gazing at her--had heard Truyn arrive. When he knocked at the door the baroness said "come in," and gave him the tips of her fingers; then, with a wave of her hand towards the basket, she lisped out: "Did you ever see such extravagance!"
Zinka looked up and welcomed him and so did Sterzl. "It is perfect folly ... quite reckless...." sighed the baroness, "such a basket of flowers costs a fortune. Why, only one gardenia...."
Zinka's underlip pouted impatiently and Sterzl said in his dry way:
"My dear mother, do not destroy Zinka's illusions; the basket fell from heaven expressly for her and she does not want to believe that it was bought, just like any other, in the Via Condotti or Babuino. What do you say, Count? Sempaly sent it to her to console her for the departure of her brother. The reason is too absurd, do not you think? I do not believe you would miss me particularly for a few days, child?" and he put his hand affectionately under her chin.
"Where are you off to so suddenly?" asked Truyn very seriously.
"To Naples. Franz Arnsperg has telegraphed to me to ask me to meet him there; he is on his way to Paris from Constantinople, and he is a great friend of mine and has come by way of Naples on purpose that we may meet."
"The Arnsperg-Meiringens; you know their property adjoins ours," the baroness explained. Sterzl, who knew very well that Truyn was far better informed as to the Arnsperg-Meiringens than his mother, was annoyed and uncomfortable. However, he kissed her hand and then turned to his sister:
"God shield you, my darling butterfly--write me a few lines, or is that too much to ask?" Then he kissed her and whispered: "Mind you have not lost those bright eyes by the time I return."
Truyn accompanied him to the carriage with a very long face; he and General von Klinger had watched Sempaly's conduct with much disquietude, they knew him to be susceptible but not impressionable, alive to every new emotion; and Truyn would ere this have spoken to Sempaly on the subject if he had not been sure that it would merely provoke and irritate him without producing any good effect; the general, on the other hand, could not make up his mind to open Sterzl's eyes to the state of affairs because, like Baron Stockmar, he had an invincible dislike to interfering in matters that did not concern him. Like that famous man, not for worlds would he have committed an indiscretion to save a friend for whom he would have sacrificed his life; and this terror of being indiscreet is a form of cowardice which is considered meritorious in the fashionable world.
It is Shrove Tuesday. The sorriest jade of the wretchedest botta has a paper rose stuck behind his ear, though during the hours sacred to the carnival they are pariahs and outcasts from the Corso. Two-horse carriages are dressed in garlands and the horses have plumes on their heads. The Piazza di Spagna is alive with pedlars and hawkers, selling flowers and little tapers (moccoli), and with buyers of every nation doing their best to cheapen them. Baskets full of violets, roses, anemones, snowflakes--baskets full of indescribable bunches of greenery--the ammunition of the mob which have already done duty for two or three days and are like nothing on earth but the wisps of rushes with which the boards are rubbed in some parts of Austria. The sellers of coral and tortoise-shell cry out to you to buy--"e carnevale...." and in the side streets--for misery dares not show its head in the main thoroughfares to-day--the beggars crowd more closely than ever round the pedestrian with their perpetual cry: "muojo di fame."
The houses on the Corso wear their gay carnival trappings to-day for the last time. A smart dress flutters on every balcony, several stands have been erected and all the window-sills are covered, some with colored chintz and some with gold brocade. All Thursday, Saturday, and Monday Zinka and Gabrielle had driven unweariedly up and down the Corso with Count Truyn, flinging flowers at all their acquaintances and at a good many strangers. To-day, however, they had agreed to look on from the windows of the Palazzo Vulpini, for the close of the carnival is apt to be somewhat riotous. Every one who lives on the Corso seizes the opportunity of paying long owing debts of civility and offers a place in a window to as many friends as can possibly be squeezed in.
There was a large party at the Vulpinis', for the most part Italians and relations of the prince's. Madame de Gandry and Mrs. Ferguson had invited themselves, and Zinka, with Gabrielle Truyn, was to see the turmoil in the Corso from the balcony of the palazzo. The baroness had "tic douloureux" which kept her at home,--and which no one regretted. At six o'clock, before the beginning of the moccoli, all the company were to go to the 'Falcone,' a well-known and especially Roman restaurant where they would dine more comfortably and easily than at home. From thence they were to adjourn to the Teatro Costanzi. Prince Vulpini had drawn up this thoroughly carnival programme for the special benefit of the Countess Schalingen who had a passion for "local color," and who was enchanted. The princess was resigned; local color had no interest for her and she was somewhat prejudiced against Italian native dishes and masked festivities of all kinds.
It was three o'clock. Baskets of flowers and whole heaps of sweet little sugar-plum boxes were ready piled in the windows for ammunition. The little Vulpinis, who entirely filled the large centre window, and their shy English governess in her black gown, had just come into the room, skipping about and pulling each other's hair for sheer impatience and excitement; and when their governess reproved them for behaving so roughly "ma è carnevale" is thought sufficient excuse; the company laughed and the English girl said no more. All the party had assembled. Madame de Gandry and Mrs. Ferguson were both looking pretty and picturesque; the former had stuck on a fez, and the other a quaintly-folded handkerchief of oriental stuff, in honor of the carnival, when eccentricity of costume is admissible and conventional head-gear are contemned.
From the windows down to the carriages, from the carriages up to the windows the war was eagerly waged; bunches of flowers, and bonbonnières from Spillman's and Nazzari's fly in all directions and scraps of colored paper fall like snow through the air. Then the blare and pipe of a military band came up from the Piazza di Venezia and the maskers crowded in among the carriages. One of the liveliest groups along the Corso was certainly that where the Vulpini children were grouped, with Zinka in their midst, she having undertaken the charge of them at their own earnest entreaty. She and Gabrielle were both laughing with glee, but at the height of their fun they remembered to pay all sorts of little civilities to the half-scared English governess and had stuck a splendid bunch of lilies of the valley in front of her camphor-scented black silk dress. What especially interested the children was watching for Norina's carriage, for they not only recognized the prince who was driving, but knew all his party: Truyn, Siegburg, Sempaly, and as it passed with its four bays the little Vulpinis jumped with delight and chirped and piped like a tree full of birds; the gentlemen waved their hands, smiled, and gallantly aimed bouquets without end at the windows of the palazzo. But all the finest flowers that day were, beyond a doubt, aimed at Zinka. The floor all round her was heaped with snowflakes, and violets, and roses. In her hand she had caught a huge bunch of roses flung up to her by Sempaly.
"Oh, oh!" cried Madame de Gandry, retiring from the window to rest for a few minutes and refresh herself with a sip of wine. "Ah, mademoiselle!" glancing enviously at the mass of blossoms strewn round Zinka, "you have as many bouquets as a prima donna!" Zinka nodded; then, contemplating her hat, which she had thrown off in her excitement, with a whimsical air of regret and pulling the feather straight she said with a mockery of repentance:
"My poor hat will be glad to rest on Ash Wednesday."
"It is perfect, Marie, really perfect, this Roman carnival--a thing never to be forgotten!" exclaimed the Countess Schalingen, coming in from the window. She was a genuine Austrian, always ready to go into ecstasies of enthusiasm.
"It is horrid," answered the princess impatiently. "Under the new government it is nothing but an amusement for the strangers and street boys."
The Barberi have rushed past, and the procession has once more begun to move on but its interest and excitement are over; the crowd in the road begins to thin, and Sempaly, Truyn, Norina, Siegburg, and the general have come in, as agreed, to escort the ladies to the 'Falcone,' The children have all been kissed and sent off to their dinner at home; Gabrielle somewhat ill-pleased at not being allowed to go with the elder party and Truyn himself not liking to part with his little companion. Zinka wishes to comfort Gabrielle by remaining with the little ones, but this was not to be heard of.
"Only too many of us would wish to follow your example," whispers Princess Vulpini, to whom this dinner at a Roman restaurant is detestable.
They are to go on foot, but they are so long getting ready after this little delay that the one peaceful half-hour before the moccoli is lost; by the time they sally into the street the crowd, which had dispersed, is getting denser every minute. The darkness comes on rapidly, like a grey curtain let down suddenly from the skies; the gaudy hangings are being taken in from the windows lest they should catch fire; the carnival is putting on its ball-dress. Now the first twinkling tapers are seen here and there, like glow-worms in the dusk, and are instantly pelted with mazetti and bunches of greenery, mostly picked up from the pavement "Fuori! fuori!" is the monotonous cry on every side, and presently: "senza moccolo, vergogna!"--the death cries of the carnival.
The Austrian gentlemen find their position anything rather than pleasant, for it is impossible to protect the ladies effectually against being jostled and pushed, still less against hearing much rough jesting. At last they are out of the Corso and have divided in the narrow streets; some having turned into the Via Maddalena, while others have crossed the Piazza Capranica to the Piazza della Rotunda; but at last they are all met after various small adventures at the 'Falcone.' The ladies' toilets have suffered a little and Princess Vulpini looks very unhappy.
The 'Falcone' is a very unpretending restaurant where the waiters wear white jackets; the tariff is moderate and the risotto celebrated. Vulpini orders a thoroughly Italian dinner in an upper room.
Suddenly Truyn exclaims in dismay: "What has become of Zinka and Sempaly?"
"They have lingered talking on the way," says Madame de Gandry with pinched lips as she leans back in her chair and pulls off her gloves. "People always walk slowly when they have so much to say to each other."
Truyn frowned. "I am afraid they have got entangled in the crowd and have not been able to make their way out. I have hated this expedition from the first. I cannot imagine, Marie, what could have put such a plan into your head...."
"Mine!" says his sister in an undertone and with a meaning glance. But she says no more. He knows perfectly well that she is as innocent of the scheme as the angels in heaven.
"Why, what on earth is the matter?" asks Vulpini pouring huge quantities of grated cheese into his soup, while Mrs. Ferguson complains that she is dying of hunger, which is singular, considering the enormous number of bonbons she has eaten in the course of the day. Madame de Gandry asks for a series of French dishes which the 'Falcone' has never heard of Countess Schalingen is loud in her praises of the Italian cookery and is only sorry that she has no appetite.
Truyn and the general sat gazing at the door in growing anxiety; Zinka and Sempaly do not make their appearance--Truyn can hardly conceal his alarm.
"I certainly cannot understand what you are so uneasy about," says Madame de Gandry with a perfidious smile; "if Fräulein Zinka has been mobbed and hindered Sempaly is in the same predicament and will take good care of her. If she were with any one less trustworthy, less competent, with whom she was less intimate ... then I could understand...." Truyn passes his hand over his grey hair in extreme perplexity and mutters in his mother tongue: "This woman will be the death of me!" and then he again blames his sister.
Yet another quarter of an hour; though the waiters are not nimble they have got to the dessert and still no signs of Sempaly and Zinka.
"I am beginning to feel very anxious," says Marie. "I only hope the child has not fainted in the crowd."
Madame de Gandry makes a meaning grimace. "It is perhaps the cleverest thing she could have done," she says. Truyn hears and bites his lip.
The door just now opens and Zinka and Sempaly come in; she calm and sweet, he dark and scowling.
"Thank God!" cries Truyn.
"What in the world has happened?" asks the princess, while Truyn draws a chair to the table for Zinka, next to himself. "What has happened?" repeated Sempaly. "The most obvious thing in the world. We got into the thick of the mob and could not get through."
"I cannot understand how that should have occurred," says Madame de Gandry. "We all came through."
"You may perhaps recollect that we were the last of the party, countess; we had hardly gone twenty yards when the crowd had become a compact mass, we pressed on, determined to get through at any cost--alone I could have managed it--but with a lady--suddenly we were in the thick of a furious squabble--curses, blows, and knives. I cannot tell you how miserable I was at finding myself out in the street with a lady--a young girl...."
"Fräulein Sterzl seems to take it all much more coolly than you do. Count Sempaly," interposes Madame de Gandry spitefully; "she does not appear to have been at all terrified by the adventure."
"Fräulein Zinka was very brave," replied Sempaly.
"Goodness me! what was there to be afraid of;" says Zinka with the simplicity of childish innocence. "The responsibility was Count Sempaly's not mine."
The French woman laughs sharply. "We must be moving now," she says, "if we mean to go to Costanzi's," and there is a clatter of chairs and a little scene of confusion in which no one can find the right shawl or wrap for each lady.
But Princess Vulpini makes no attempt to move: "I am going nowhere else this evening," she says with unwonted determination. "I will not take Zinka to Constanzi's. I will wait till she has eaten her beef-steak and then I will take her home. I hope you will all enjoy yourselves."
Zinka eats her beef-steak with the greatest calmness and an unmistakably good appetite; she is perfectly sweet and docile and natural; she has no suspicion that her name will to-morrow morning be in every mouth. Truyn is as pale as death; he has heard Madame de Gandry's whisper to her friend: "After this he must make her an offer."