"Gloria Victis!"
by Ossip Schubin.
CHAPTER I.
"There is no help for it, I must do it to-day," the Baroness Melkweyser murmured with a sigh breathed into the depths of the toilet-gla.s.s, before which, she was sitting while her maid dressed her hair. "It is now just a week," she went on to herself, after having uttered the above words aloud, "quite one week since Capriani entrusted the affair to me. I have met him three times, and each time was obliged to tell him that there had been no favourable opportunity as yet. He is beginning to take my delay ill. Come, then, _courage!_.... _en avant!_.... Truyn certainly ought to be glad to marry his daughter as soon as possible, and I cannot see why Gabrielle should make any objection to becoming the sister-in-law of the Duke of Larothiere. To be sure, most Austrians have such antediluvian ideas! _Nons verrons!_ I will, as Capriani desires, see how the land lies."
She shrugged her shoulders as though shifting off all responsibility and turning to her maid exclaimed: "_mais depechez vous donc_, Euphrosine, will you never remember how much I always have to do!"
Whereupon the impatient lady, s.n.a.t.c.hed from her maid the head-dress which she was arranging, and, quite in the style of Napoleon I., crowned herself.
The scene lies in Paris. The short after-season which, like an echo of the carnival, is wont to follow Lent, that holy intermezzo crowded with charity-bazaars, musical soirees and other elegant penitential observances, is rather duller than usual this year. Easter came too late and although _Figaro_ continues its daily record of b.a.l.l.s and routs, Paris takes very little heed. All genuine enthusiasm for such entertainments is lacking. Paris thinks of nothing now save the races, the last auction at the Hotel Drouot, the latest change of ministry, and the newest thing in stocks.
It is the beginning of May. Two weeks ago, rather later than usual, spring made its appearance--like a young king full of eager benevolence, and generous promises, with green banner held aloft and crowned with sunshine--thus it swept above the earth which sullenly and reluctantly opened its weary eyes. "Awake, awake, I bring with me joy!"
called spring in sweet siren tones sometimes low and wooing and anon loud and imperious. And a mysterious whisper thrilled and stirred the land, the trees stretched their black branches, the buds burst. Men felt a pleasant languor, while their hearts beat louder.
The spring advanced quickly, working its lovely miracles--loading the trees with blossoms and filling human hearts with joy--and upon those for whom its lavish hand had left nothing else, it bestowed a smile, or it granted them a dream.
There are, indeed, some unfortunates for whom its brilliant splendour never does aught save reveal the scars of old wounds, which in its careless gayety it formerly inflicted; and while others flock abroad to admire its beauty, these hide away their misery. But when daylight"s haughty glare has faded, and spring has modestly shrouded its loveliness in a veil of grey, these wretches inhaling its fragrance in their seclusion come forth from their concealment, into the soothing twilight, among the dewy blossoms, and once more give utterance to the yearning that has so long been mute, rejoicing with tears in their old anguish, crying: "Oh Spring, oh youth--even thy falsehood was lovely--"
thus doing it homage by their grief, for spring has no enemies.
Somewhat apart from the aggressive brilliancy of the Avenue l"Imperatrice wind a couple of quiet streets like detached fragments of the Faubourg St. Germain. Everything here breathes that charming and genuine elegance which is almost an instinct, and rules mankind despotically. It is not a grimace artificially a.s.sumed for show.
One of the prettiest of the small hotels standing between its court-yard and garden, in the Avenue ----, formerly it was called the Avenue Labedoyere, tomorrow it may perhaps be the Avenue Paul de Ca.s.sagnac, and the day after the Avenue Montmorency--was occupied by Count Truyn with his young wife and his daughter.
This evening the family had a.s.sembled in a pleasant drawing-room on the rez-de-chaussee, and one after another each expressed delight in the repose and relief of such an hour after the social exertions of the day. The husband and wife as they sat opposite each other near the fireplace--he with his _Figaro_, and she busy with the restoration of some antique embroidery--were evidently people who had attained the goal of existence and were content. It was plain that their thoughts did not range beyond the present.
Not so with Gabrielle. Twice during the last quarter of an hour she has changed her seat and three times she has consulted the clock upon the chimney-piece.
At last she goes to a mirror and arranges her breast-knot of violets.
"Our Ella is beginning to be pretty," said Truyn opening his eyes after a doze behind the _Figaro_.
"Have you just discovered that?" Zinka asked smiling.
"Do you think my gown is becoming, Zini?" Gabrielle asked as gravely as if the matter were the Eastern question.
"Very becoming," her step-mother kindly a.s.sured her.
"Oho!" said Truyn banteringly, "our Ella is beginning to be vain."
Whereupon Gabrielle blushed deeply and to hide her confusion went to the piano and began to strum "Annette and Lubin." She did not play well but her hands looked very pretty running over the keys.
"I am surprised that Ossi does not make his appearance," said Truyn, laying aside his _Figaro_. Like all Austrians residing in Paris he had a special preference for that frivolous journal. "I met him this afternoon on the Boulevard, and he asked me expressly whether we were to be at home this evening."
Gabrielle looked, as her father observed with surprise, rather embarra.s.sed. He had spoken thoughtlessly, and in masculine ignorance of the state of affairs. He was just beginning to teaze the girl about her behaviour when the footman announced the Baroness Melkweyser.
Her head-dress of red feathers sat somewhat askew upon the old-fashioned puffs of hair that framed her sallow face. She wore a gown of flowered brocade, the surpa.s.sing ugliness of which showed it to have been purchased at a bargain at some great bazaar as a "_fin de saison_." She squinted slightly, winked constantly, was entirely out of breath, and sank exhausted into an arm-chair, before uttering a word of greeting.
"Ah, if you only knew all I have done this blessed day!" she exclaimed.
The Truyn trio looked at her in smiling silence.
"Confessed and received the sacrament very early," the baroness began the list of her achievements, "always on the second of every month--I never can manage it on the first--then at the Pierson sale I bought six things marked with Louis Philippe"s cipher, then I went to see Ada de Thienne"s trousseau,--then to a breakfast at the new minister"s--too comical--his wife made herself perfectly ridiculous, in a bare neck at two o"clock in the daytime!"
"That is the inevitable consequence of a change of ministers," Zinka remarked. Her manner of speech, quiet, and rather inclined to irony, was that of those who, with rigid self-control have for years endured with dignity some great grief.
The baroness, meanwhile, rattled on, unheeding. "Then I went my round of charities, then looked for a wedding-present for my niece Stefanie...."
"Heavens, Zoe!" Truyn groaned.
"Yes, I lead a most fatiguing existence," the baroness wailed. "Just as I sat down to supper,--I missed my dinner--it occurred to me that it really would be better not to let to-day pa.s.s without making you a very important communication--that is--hm--discussing--a most important matter with you--and--here I am. Pray, Zinka, let me have a sandwich, for I am dying of hunger."
"Ring the bell, Erich," Zinka said with a smile.
"And now to business," said the baroness, "_je tiens une occasion_--it really is the most advantageous opportunity!"
"You shall have your sandwich, Zoe," said Truyn, quietly stretching out his hand to the bell handle, "but pray spare me your advantageous opportunities. If I had availed myself of all your boasted "opportunities," I should now be the proud possessor of fourteen rattle-trap Buhl pianos and at least twenty-five tumble-down country houses. As it is I have bought for love of you three holy-water pots of Mme. Maintenon"s, an inkstand of the Pompadour"s, and I can"t tell how many nightcaps of Louis XVI., warranted genuine."
"And an excellent bargain you had of them," the baroness declared.
"Louis Sixteenth"s nightcaps have latterly been going up in price. But this time there is no question of purchase," she went on to say, "and that is the best of it."
"That certainly is very fine," muttered Truyn.
"The question is,--I suppose I ought to ask Gabrielle to leave the room, that used to be the way, girls never were allowed to be present while their parents disposed of their future, but I .... _j"aime a attaquer les choses franchement_. The question is, in fact, with regard to--Gabrielle"s marriage."
Zinka with a smile took the hand of the young girl standing beside her in her own, and tenderly laid it against her cheek.
"Gabrielle"s beauty produced a sensation at the last ball at the Spanish emba.s.sy"s," the baroness continued.
"I must entreat you not to make such a fatal a.s.sault upon my daughter"s modesty," exclaimed Zinka.
"Bah!" the baroness shrugged her shoulders, "stop up your ears, Gabrielle. Produced a sensation is the correct phrase. It is remarkable--the _succes_ that the Austrian women always have in Paris.
I have a suitor for Gabrielle--the most brilliant _parti_ in Paris."
"Stop, stop, Zoe, I beg you," said Truyn, provoked, "you make me nervous! You always forget how your French way of arranging marriages goes against the grain with us and our old-fashioned Austrian ideas.
You say I have a rich husband for your daughter in just the same tone in which you say I have a purchaser for your house! And I seriously entreat you to consider that a jewel like my dear comrade yonder, may be bestowed, upon one deemed worthy of such a possession, but can never be sold."
"Ah, here is my sandwich!" exclaimed the baroness, paying no attention to his words in her satisfaction over the tea-tray. Whilst Gabrielle was occupied with making tea the visitor applied herself to the refreshments, whispering meanwhile confidentially and mysteriously to Truyn. "I thought that your new domestic relations might make you desirous to have Gabrielle mar ...."
An angry flash in Truyn"s blue eyes, usually so kindly, warned her that she was on the wrong track; she lost countenance and consequently proceeded rather too precipitately in her investigations as to "how the land lay."
"At least my proposition is worth being taken into serious consideration," she said hastily. "Count Capriani commissioned me to ask you whether there was any prospect of his obtaining Gabrielle"s hand for his only--remember, his only son."