There thou shalt find my faithful heart Whose truth in death shall stand confessed."
These words, sung in the Roman dialect to a very simple air, came quavering out of the open window of the drawing-room of the Sterzls"
palazetto as Sempaly pa.s.sed by it that evening; he had gone out to pay some visits, to divert his mind, and though his way did not take him along the side street in which the palazetto stood, he had not been able to resist the temptation to make a detour. It was a mild evening and the tones floated down like an invitation; he recognized Zinka"s voice as she sang one of the melancholy _Stornelli_ in which the peasants of the Campagna give utterance to their loves. It ceased, and he was just moving away, when another even sweeter and more piercing lament broke the warm silence.
"Or shall I die?--Poison itself could have No terrors if I took it from thy hand.
Thy heart should be my death-bed and my grave."
The pa.s.sionate words were sung with subdued vehemence to a rather monotonous tune--like a faded wreath of spring flowers borne along by some murmuring stream. He turned back, and listened with suspended breath. The song ended on a long, full note; he felt that he would give G.o.d knows how much to hear the last line once more:
"_La sepoltura mia sara il tuo seno!_...."
Now Zinka was speaking--it vexed him beyond measure that he could not hear what she was saying. It was maddening ... Good heavens! what a fool he was to stand fretting outside!
When he went into the drawing-room to his great surprise he was met by Sterzl.
"Back so soon?" he exclaimed as he shook hands with him.
"Yes, Arnstein had only two days to spare in Naples," replied Sterzl; "I was delighted to see him again, but--well, I must be growing very old, I was so glad to find myself at home again," and he drew his sister to him and lightly stroked her pretty brown hair. His brotherly caress added to Sempaly"s excitement "No wonder that you like your home!" he was saying, when the baroness appeared with an evening wrap on her shoulders, a fan and scent-bottle in her hand, and, as usual, dying of refinement and airs.
"Not ready yet, Zenade? Ah, my dear Sempaly, how very sweet of you!"
and she gave him the tips of her fingers.--"We were quite anxious about you when you so suddenly excused yourself from joining us. Zinka was afraid you had taken the Roman fever," she said sentimentally.
"Zinka has an imagination that feeds on horrors," said Sterzl smiling.
"I did think that you must have some very urgent reason," said Zinka hastily and in some confusion.
Sempaly looked into her eyes: "I was doing Ash-Wednesday penance, that was all," he said in a low voice.
"Well, to complete the mortification come now to Lady Dalrymple"s," the baroness suggested.
"Oh, be merciful! Grant me a dispensation. I should so much enjoy a quiet evening," cried Sempaly.
"And I too," added Zinka. "I am utterly sick of soirees and routs.
These performances give me the impression of a full-dress review, at which such and such fashionable regiments are paraded."
"Give us a holiday, mother; remember, it is Ash-Wednesday, and we are good Catholics," said her son.
"I had some scruples myself, but the d.u.c.h.ess of Otranto is going,"
lisped the baroness.
However, when Sempaly had a.s.sured her that the d.u.c.h.ess of Otranto was by no means a standard authority in Roman society she yielded to the common desire that they should remain at home, and withdrew to her room to write some letters before tea.
Most men have senses and nerves only in their brain while women, as is well known, have them all over the body; in this respect Sempaly was like a woman. He had senses even in his finger tips--as a Frenchman had once said, of him: "il avait les sens poete!" (a poet"s nerves). The most trifling external conditions gave him disproportionate pleasure or pain. The smallest detail of ugliness was enough to spoil his appreciation of the n.o.blest and grandest work of art; he would not have felt the beauty of Faust if he had first read it in a shabby or dirty copy. Now, when the baroness had left the room, there was no detail that could disturb his enjoyment in being with Zinka.
Sterzl had taken up his newspaper; Zinka, at Sempaly"s request, had seated herself at the piano. She always accompanied herself by heart and sat with her head bowed a little over the keys and half-shut dreamy eyes. The sober tone of the room, with its tapestried walls and happy medley of knick-knacks, broad-leaved plants, j.a.panese screens, and comfortable furniture, formed a harmonious background to her slight, white figure. The light of the one lamp was moderated by its rose-colored shade; a subdued _mezza-voce_ tone of color prevailed in the room which was full of the scent of roses and violets, and the heavy perfume seemed in sympathy with the gloomy sentiment of the popular love songs. Sempaly"s whole nature thrilled with rapturous suspense, such as few men would perhaps quite understand. At his desire Zinka sang one after another of the _Stornelli_ ... her voice grew fuller and deeper ...
"Do not sing too long, Zini, it will tire you," said her brother.
"Only one more--the one I heard from outside," begged Sempaly, and she sang:
"_La sepoltura mia sara il tuo seno_...."
The words trembled on her lips; her hands slipped off the last notes into her lap. Sempaly took the warm, soft little hands in his own; a sort of delightful giddiness mounted to his brain as he touched them.
"Zinka," he said, "tell me, do you feel a little of what your voice expresses?"
Her eyes met his--and she blinked, as we blink at a strong, bright light; she shrank back a little, as we shrink from too great and sudden joy. Her answer was fluttering on her lips when the door opened--the Italian servant p.r.o.nounced some perfectly unintelligible gibberish by way of a name, and in marched--followed by her daughter and their Polish swain--the Baroness Wolnitzka.
"Oh, thank goodness, I have found you at home!" she exclaimed. "We counted on finding you at home on Ash-Wednesday. G.o.d bless you, Zinka!"
Zinka was petrified. Mamma Sterzl rushed in from an adjoining room at the sound of those rough tones.
"Charlotte!" was all she could stammer out, "Char--lotte ... you ...
here!"
"Quite a surprise, is it not, Clotilde? Yes, the most unhoped-for things sometimes happen. We arrived to-day at three o"clock and called here this afternoon but you were out; so then we decided to try in the evening. It is rather late, to be sure, and I, for my part, should have been here long ago, but Slawa insisted on dressing--for such near relations! Quite absurd ... but I do not like to contradict her, she is so easily put out--so I waited to dress too."
And the baroness, after embracing her sister and her niece, plumped down uninvited on a very low chair.
She had dressed with a vengeance: a black lace cap was perched on the top of her short, grey hair, with lappets that hung down over her ears.
Her ma.s.sive person was squeezed into a violet satin gown, which she had evidently out-grown, and a lace scarf picturesquely thrown over her shoulders was intended to conceal its defects; her lavender-colored gloves were very short and much too tight, and burst at all the b.u.t.ton-holes. Slawa had a general effect of tricolor, and she wore some old jewelry that she had bought of a dealer in antiquities at Verona.
She had curled and piled up her hair after the antique and kept her head constantly turned over her left shoulder, to be as much like the Apollo as possible, at the same time making a grimace as if she were being photographed and wished to look bewitching.
Vladimir Matuschowsky"s tall, slouching figure was b.u.t.toned into a braided coat; he held a low-crowned hat with ta.s.sels in his hand, and glared at the plain dress-coats of the other two men as though they were a personal insult.
"Monsieur Vladimir de Matuschowsky," said the baroness introducing him, "a ... a ... friend of the family." But she said it in French: when the Baroness Wolnitzka was at all at a loss she commonly spoke French.
Her sister, who by this time had got over her astonishment, now began to wish to dazzle the new-comers.
"Count Sempaly," she said, presenting the attache; "a friend of our family ... my sister, the Baroness Wolnitzka. You have no doubt heard of the famous Slav leader Baron Wolnitzky, who was so conspicuous a figure in forty-eight."
Sempaly bowed without speaking; Baroness Wolnitzka rose and politely offered him her hand: "I am delighted to make your acquaintance," she said. "I have heard a great deal about you; my sister has mentioned you in all her letters and I am quite _au courant_."
Again Sempaly bowed in silence and then, retiring into the background while the mistress of the house turned to address Slawa, he said to Sterzl:
"I will take an opportunity of slipping away--a stranger is always an intruder at a family meeting," His manner was suddenly cold and stiff and his tone intolerably arrogant.
Sterzl nodded: "Go by all means," he replied. But Baroness Sterzl perceiving his purpose exclaimed:
"No, no, my dear Sempaly, you really must not run away--you are not in the least _de trop_--and a stranger you certainly can never be."