Ossip Schubin

“ Zdena's heart beats faster; she is terribly afraid. "Harry!" she calls, in an agonized tone; "Harry!" In vain. She hears his shrill whistle at the other end of the court-yard, hears him call, commandingly, "Hector, come here, sir!" He is far away. She hurries towards him. Hark! Her heart seems to stand still. Near her sounds the rattle of a chain; a pair of fierce bloodshot eyes glare at her: the dog is close at hand. He sees her, and makes ready for a spring.
It is true that the girl has a revolver in her hand, but she has no idea what to do with it; she has never fired a pistol in her life. ”

“ Nowhere in all the country around are the effects of the drought more apparent than at Dobrotschau, where the soil is very poor. Not even in the park is there any freshness of verdure. The fountains refuse to play; the sward looks like a shabby, worn carpet; the leaves are withering on the trees.
Everything is longing for a storm, and yet all feel that relief, when it comes, will bring uproar with it; something must go to ruin and be shattered in the change. The great life of nature, spellbound and withheld in this sultry languor, will awake with some convulsion, angrily demanding a victim. ”

“ On the walls hang various portraits, dim with age, of the ancestors of the late possessor, some clad in armour, some with full-bottomed wigs, and others again wearing powdered queues; with ladies in patch and powder, narrow-breasted gowns, and huge stiff ruffs.
"If these worthies could suddenly come to life, how amazed they would be!" thinks Zdena. She has no more time, however, for profound reflections; for from one of the high oaken doors, opening out of the hall, comes Harry.
They both start at this unexpected encounter; he grows deadly pale, she flushes crimson. ”

“ The crescent moon in the August sky creeps over the dark roof of the brew-house. The air is freshened by the fragrance of the group of walnuts; but another and more penetrating odour mingles with it,--the odour of old wood impregnated with some kind of fermenting stuff. There, against the uneven wall of the old brew-house, stands a row of huge casks.
The casks recall to Harry memories that fill him with sweet and bitter sensations. Into one of them he had crept with Zdena, during a storm, in the early years of their acquaintance. ”

“ The castle of Dobrotschau looms up in the twilight.
"What is that? Along the road, towards the belated horseman, comes a white figure. Can it be Selina? His heart beats fast; he is ready to be grateful for the smallest proof of affection, so strong is the yearning within him for a little human sympathy. No, it is not Selina; it is a tall, slender girl. She has seen him, and hastens her steps.
"Lato!" calls an anxious, familiar voice.
"Olga!" he exclaims, and, springing from his horse, he approaches her. ”

“ The moon is shining with a hard, bluish brilliancy, almost like that of an electric light, and it brings into wondrous relief the girl's mature beauty. Its intense brightness shimmers about her golden hair; the red and white of her complexion blend in a dim, warm pallor. Her white hands rest in her lap as she leans back among the cushions of the phaeton.
Click-clack--click-clack--the hoofs of the horses fly over the smooth, hard road; duller and less regular grows the beat of the horses' hoofs behind the wagon,--of Harry's steed and that of his groom. ”

“ The bearded stalks stand motionless with bowed heads, as if overtaken by sleep. From the distance comes the monotonous rustle of the mower's scythe; there is work going on even thus far into the night.
The heavy slumberous air has an effect upon Harry; his breath comes slowly, his veins tingle.
Ten minutes have passed, and he has not opened his lips. Paula Harfink looks at him now and then with a keen glance.
She is twenty-seven years old, and, although her life has been that of a perfectly virtuous woman of her class, existence no longer holds any secrets for her. ”

“ Her eyes meet Harry's: she flushes crimson,--the poppies slip from her arms and fall to the ground.
"You here!" she murmurs, confusedly, staring at him. She can find no more kindly words of welcome, and her face expresses terror rather than joyful surprise, as a far less sharp-sighted lover than Harry Leskjewitsch could not fail to observe.
He makes no reply to her words, but says, bluntly, pointing to the artist at the easel, "Be kind enough to introduce me."
With a choking sensation in her throat, and trembling lips, Zdena stammers the names of her two adorers, the old one and the young one. ”

“ Love is uncommonly unbecoming to Paula. It is impossible to credit her with the impulse that forgets self and the world, or with the amount of ideal stupidity which invests all the nonsense of lovers with grace and naturalness. Involuntarily, every one feels inclined to smile when so robust and enlightened a woman--enlightened in all directions--suddenly languishes, and puts on the semblance of ultra-feminine weakness. Harry alone does not smile; he takes the matter very tragically.
Sometimes, in deep privacy he clinches his fist and mentally calls his betrothed "a love-sick dromedary!" ”

“ Selina," he goes on, carried away by his emotion, and in a voice which expresses his utter misery, "I cannot reconcile myself to life amid your surroundings; call it want of character, weakness, sensitiveness, as you please, but I cannot. Come away with me; let us retire to any secluded corner of the earth, and I will make it a paradise for you by my gratitude and devotion; I will serve you on my knees; my life shall be yours, only come away with me!"
Poor Lato! he has wrought his own ruin. Why does he not understand that every word he speaks wounds the most sensitive part of her,--her vanity? ”

“ Then she smiles at her nonsensical suspicions, and is glad that she shall thus meet Harry sooner than she had hoped.
A footman in a plain and tasteful livery hurries forward to open her carriage door; the ladies are at home.
Zdena trips up the steps to the spacious, airy hall, where, among antique, heavy-carved furniture, a couple of full suits of armour are set up, sword in gauntlet, like a spellbound bit of the Middle Ages, on either side of a tall clock, upon whose brass face the effigy of a grinning Death--his scythe over his shoulder--celebrates his eternal, monotonous triumph. ”

“ The sun has set; the rosy reflection on the grass and at the foot of the old trees has faded; there is only a pale, gray gleam on the castle windows. All nature seems to sigh relieved. A cool mist rises from the basins of the fountains, like the caress of a water-nymph; the roses, petunias, and mignonette exhale delicious fragrance, which rises as incense to heaven; the lisp of the leaves and the plash of the fountain interpose a dreamy veil of sound, as it were, between us and some aggressive military music in the distance. ”

“ Harry stiff and mute, lifting his cap. Then Paula put her hand upon his arm to go back into the castle with him,--him, her lover, her property!
And Zdena is alone at last. The pain in her heart is becoming torture. Her breath comes short and quick. At the same time she has the restless, impatient sensation which is experienced by all who are unaccustomed to painful emotion, before they can bring themselves to believe in the new and terrible trouble in which they find themselves,--a sensation of being called upon to shake off some burden unjustly imposed. ”

“ Harry, however, is awake. After ordering Blasius to bury the dog, and to bring him his revolver, which he now remembers to have left lying beside the animal's body, he seats himself on the flight of steps leading from the dining-room into the garden, leans his elbows on his knees and his head on his hands, and dreams. The wind has subsided, and the night seems to him lovely in spite of the misty clouds that veil the sky. The flowers are fragrant,--oh, how fair life is! Suddenly he hears a light step; he rises, goes into the corridor, and finds Zdena putting a letter into the postbag. ”

“ Come, Baroness Zdena, what is the news at Dobrotschau?"
For one moment Zdena feels as if a dagger were plunged into her heart and turned around in the wound; then she recovers her composure and smiles, a little contemptuously, perhaps even haughtily, but naturally and with grace.
"Oh, it is not very difficult to guess," she says. "What is the news? Why, a betrothal. You have my best wishes, Baroness; and you too, Harry,--I wish you every happiness!"
CHAPTER IX. AN ENCOUNTER.
No one can bear pain with such heroic equanimity as can a woman when her pride or her sense of dignity is aroused. ”

“ It seems to her that she can at least be rid of some of it if she can only weep her fill in solitude. Yes, she must cry it out before she goes back to Zirkow, before she meets again the keen, kindly eyes that would fain pry into her very soul.
Meanwhile, she has told the coachman to drive to Komaritz. The carriage rolls through the long village. The air tastes of straw and hay; the rhythmic beat of the thrashers' flails resounds from the peasants' small barns. Zdena stops her ears; she cannot bear the noise,--the noise and the garish, cruel light. ”

“ A pair of lovers in Meissen porcelain stands upon a bracket above Paula's writing-table,--lovers who have been upon the point of embracing each other for something more than a century. Above their heads hovers a tiny ray of sunshine, which attracts Harry's attention to the group. He and Paula fall into the very same attitudes as those taken by the powdered dandy in the flowered jacket and the little peasant-girl in dancing-slippers,--they are on the point of embracing; and for the first time in his life Harry wishes he were made of porcelain, that he might remain upon the point. ”

“ He thought of Treurenberg's altered mien. Olga had not yet awakened to a consciousness of herself, and that was a comfort. She was not only absolutely pure,--Harry was sure of that,--but she was entirely unaware of her own state of feeling. How long would this last, however? Passion walks, like a somnambulist, in entire security on the edge of profound abysses, so long as "sense is shut" in its eyes. ”

“ At sight of the horse and its rider all clouds vanish from Krupitschka's horizon; in his opinion there is no finer sight in the world than a "handsome officer upon a handsome horse."
He is not the only one to admire Harry Leskjewitsch on his mare Frou-Frou. At one of the windows of the castle a pale, girlish face appears, and a pair of bright brown eyes look down into the court-yard, for a moment only. But Harry has seen the face, quickly as it disappears, and his heart beats fast. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Both ladies are in faultless travelling-dress. The one on the right is a beauty in her way, fair, with a good colour, a full figure, and regular features, although they may be a trifle sharp. Her companion is beautiful, too, but after an entirely different style,--a decided brunette, with a pale face and large eyes which, once gazed into, hold the gazer fast, as by the attraction one feels to solve a riddle.
"Treurenberg!" Harry exclaims, grasping the stranger's hands in both his own. ”

“ Lato murmurs, with a far-away look in his eyes, and a smile that makes Harry's blood run cold.
A pause ensues, the longest of the many pauses that have occurred in this tête-à-tête.
The bees seem to buzz louder than ever. A dry, thirsty wind sighs in the boughs of the apple-tree; two or three hard green apples drop to the ground. At last Treurenberg gathers himself up.
"You must take me as I am," he says, wearily; "there is no cutting with a dull knife. ”

“ Even the white gown looks faded, crushed, as by the constant nervous movement of a restless, discontented wearer. Her entire personality is constrained, feverish.
Involuntarily Lato compares this woman with Olga. He sees with his mind's eye the young girl, tall and slender as a lily, her white gowns always so pure and fresh, sees the delicately-rounded oval of her girlish face, her clear, large eyes, the innocent tenderness of her smile. And Selina could malign that same Olga! His blood boils. As if Olga were to blame for the wretched, guilty passion in his breast! ”

“ Treurenberg gazes to the right and left without really seeing anything. His eyes have a glassy, fixed look, and about his mouth there is a hard expression, almost wicked, and quite foreign to him. He is not the same man who an hour ago sought his wife to entreat her to begin a new life with him; not the same man who at dawn was so restless in devising schemes for a better future.
His restlessness has vanished with his last gleam of hope; sensation is benumbed, the burning pain has gone. Something has died within him. He no longer reflects upon his life,--it is ended ”

“ Then the pastures vanish, with the chamomile-flowers and the oppressive silence. A forest extends on either side of the road,--a forest which is never silent, where even in so quiet a night as this the topmost boughs murmur dreamily. It sounds almost like the dull plaint of human souls, imprisoned in these ancient pines,--the souls of men who aspired too high in life, seeking the way to the stars which gleamed so kindly when admired from afar, but which fled like glittering will-o'-the-wisps from those who would fain approach them. ”

“ There is a languor in the aromatic summer air, somewhat that begets in every human being a desire for companionship, a longing to share the burden of existence with another. Even the flowers seem to bend their heads nearer to one another.
Now the bells are hushed, the road is deserted; Lato alone is still pursuing his way home. Home? Is it possible that he has accustomed himself to call his mother-in-law's castle home? In many a hotel--at "The Lamb," for example, in Vienna he has felt much more at home. ”

“ Through the sultry summer stillness--breaking the monotonous plashing of the fountain and the murmur of the old linden--is heard the light, firm pat of a masculine hand upon a horse's neck, the caress with which your true horseman thanks his steed for service rendered; then an elastic, manly tread, the clatter of spurs and sabre, a light knock at the door of Paula's room, and Harry Leskjewitsch enters. ”