Ranata

“ Ranata smiled again and passed on, but in truth she was repelled at the unmasked passion in his face. It was evident that she had succeeded too well; and, while to fascinate him was a necessary part of her programme, his love both disgusted and faintly alarmed her. Like all women whose depths have been profoundly stirred by one man, she regarded the proffered love of other men as an insult, and was merciless. ”

“ If I didn’t love Ranata, nothing would amuse me more than to look on at his attempts to reduce her to submission. But the situation is not humorous; it is tragic! What in Heaven’s name are we to do to help her? We shall not be able even to get a word of consolation to her; not one of us will be allowed to visit her; she will receive no letters; she will be shut up for months, perhaps, with Maria Leopoldina, for whom I feel an even more acute sympathy than for herself. And she, with that active brain, that nervous temperament—no exercise, no society, no change—Good God! she may lose her reason. ”

“ Ranata, having no practical knowledge of men, and still throbbing with a reckless desire for adventure, hesitated no longer. She had learned that this American’s power of self-control was very great; and if he would permit her to play with fire until the wildest in her was exhausted, and she could feel for him again as [265] she had felt in sadder hours of self-communing, why should she fling aside an opportunity which might never come again? He held her in a light embrace, but it filled her with happiness and submission. She was all woman, and the sensation intoxicated her. ”

“ Ranata, in more passionate hours of longing and anguish, had felt the possibilities she relinquished, rather than grasped them with her reason, but now she knew their full significance, and the knowledge helped her to deeper indignation of the mediæval conditions into which she had abruptly been thrust.
The days passed and the lover gave no sign that he was as distraught as the prisoner. There are times in life when one lives very fast. ”

“ Ranata received her first electric shock of passion. He had won again and with her own weapons. Tumultuous delight, amazement, anger, rushed through her brain. She clinched her hand in an attempt at self-control, and it slipped from her knee and touched his. She recovered herself at once.
“One would think you were a Hungarian!” she said scornfully, oblivious of the significance of her failure to comment upon the ancient ocean that rolled between them. “They need only a spark, and are accustomed to women who are always expectant of the language of love. ”

“ There is no more dazzling combination of color in the world, and on moonlight nights it is but the exchange of gold for silver.
Ranata, standing on the stone terrace in front of the library and overhanging the sea, her back to the war-ship on the right of the castle, her eyes roaming from the incomparable expanse of the Adriatic to Trieste and the mountains beyond, felt that with knowledge, in addition to the faith that sustained her, she could serenely endure her exile throughout what she believed to be the inevitable [398] months. ”

“ No matter what the pressure of the speed, not a foot was trodden, not a temper shaken. Fessenden had danced half the native dances of the world, sometimes in hours of greater abandon than this, and Ranata had a natural love of the dance and indulged it whenever possible. As she had recognized and intuitively obeyed her friend’s brother, she realized in a flash that for sixteen years he had occupied a silent but permanent place in a shadowy realm that was hers alone. He had been Alexandra’s favorite theme from childhood, and Ranata’s interest had never flagged. ”

“ Alexandra was on the alert at once. “You are quite mistaken,” she said indifferently. “Ranata has a very particular reason for turning my brother’s head. I promised, in a moment of enthusiasm, to help her. I do not know that that would hold, but I am in a quandary. I want Ranata to succeed in all that she has undertaken, but I do not want my brother sacrificed.”
“At your age tender consideration for a man is a characteristic! It is one of the amusing reminiscences of age. When you have learned, my child, how much they can stand—enfin! ”

“ As Ranata carried a lighted taper in her own hand, she motioned to him to walk behind her, and picked her way on the uneven stones worn by four centuries of men and women who had gone down with the dead, or to pray among the ruins of those [353] who had ruled and loved and oppressed, or battled in secret and impotence with the wretched comedy of their existence. Twice before—since her early girlhood, when her tutor in history had included an occasional visit to the Hapsburg dust in his course—had Ranata descended this stair: behind the coffin of Rudolf, and the coffin of her mother. ”

“ Ranata stared hard at him, her pulse quickening. She had always envied him, and now he seemed to her to embody all the hopeful ambitions of all the world, a Titan whom only a new country with its utter disregard of failure could have produced. What order of men would his republics bring forth?
“But shall you never have a reverse, never fail?” she murmured. “There is a relentless law of compensation in Nature; surely you must have your blows, your bitterness, like other mortals.” ”

“ Ranata had immense strength, had been ill but once in her life, hardly ever had experienced the sensation of utter fatigue. Her horsemanship was as remarkable as her mother’s had been; and when she appeared in the Prater beside the equally accomplished Emperor, it was a sight that no man ever forgot. She broke in her own horses; when in the country, frequently groomed and saddled them. After Alexandra, they were her only intimates, and she had known her keenest happiness when riding eight hours of the day through the forests of Upper Austria. ”

“ Ranata wandered past the brilliant silver-like coffin of Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph, but she did not linger; she had little sympathy with the unknown uncle whose wavering brain had cost him throne and life. “If I had had Mexico,” she thought arrogantly, “I should have kept it. Picturesque an object as he was with his American empire, and his brave death, he will never be a favorite in history or romance, for human nature despises the waverer. What the Americans call bluff is not only the wiser policy, but makes a stronger appeal to the imagination.” ”

“ Only an American can imagine the force of the reaction. And this morning, returning after a long absence to find her friend more than ever in need of the diversion she knew so well how to provide, she was forced to pause suddenly and bite her lip. But Ranata’s ancestors were slumbering, and the atmosphere of freedom came subtly to her nostrils. ”

“ And will your Imperial Highness exert yourself to remember that the wife of the American ambassador, although no doubt charming, is still an American? It is not necessary to inquire after her entire family. And—my dear child, your hair looks like a rat’s nest! I shall dismiss that coiffeur to-morrow!”
Ranata laughed. “She should be glad of a holiday, poor soul. I had rather be a poor prisoner of a princess than a slave of a duenna like an Obersthofmeisterin—I have an idea! Why not Sarolta? She is Hungarian. She is in every way suitable. ”

“ Alexandra was retiring through the outer room. Fessenden raised the hand he held and pressed his lips to it twice quickly. “I am humblest of your slaves,” he said unsteadily.
“No you are not!” replied Ranata almost as unsteadily. “And I wish you would go. I have never been late for dinner in my life.”
When she was alone she turned her eyes to the rocking-chair; then, after a manifest effort in another direction, she moved slowly towards it, regarded it impatiently, tenderly, then sank slowly into its embrace and dropped her head against the cushion. ”

“ For it is in such depths of mental suffering, when the passions are in absolute control of the brain, and the victim if not mad might as well be, that life is taken. The strength in Ranata’s soul fought dumbly and persistently for mastery, and won in the end, but a weaker woman, with imagination and passions as strong, would have killed herself. ”

“ Alexandra had decided not to enter in Ranata’s wake. Having none of that unwisdom which permits a wound to self-love that a grievance may be nursed afterwards, nor yet affinity for the rôle of the humble follower, she was always careful not to be placed in any position by her exalted friend that might rankle too late in her brain. She had, therefore, entered the room early, under the chaperonage of Princess Nadasdy, and Zrinyi, as ever, hovered close. He was a beautiful object in his thick gold embroideries, his plum-colored velvet cloak, his buttons and his chains ”

“ Never was the egotism of man so wise in its exercise. It was the last magnet he needed to draw the soul of the woman to him. As he unrolled his vast schemes, so practical and so ideal, Ranata forgot her own conventional ambitions. She seemed to herself to step out of a volume of history and mingle in the great throng of individuals, who made their own laws and thought for themselves.
“Before many years have passed,” said Fessenden, “I hope to have united South America in one great republic. ”

“ The artist evidently had caught her in some mood of self-repression and penetrated the mask she wore so well. Fessenden studied it for a moment in silence, then turned and looked at her sharply. Again the subtle delight of being understood stirred in Ranata, who had yet to learn that the truly masculine man never understands a woman, and has only a fleeting desire to do so when anxious or uncomfortable. ”

“ Passing a window her eye was idly attracted by the shabby figure of a tourist. It was a bright winter’s day, and visitors to the great capital came to look at the fine bronze of old Emperor Franz and the gilded wall where the drawbridge had been. Ranata envied them deeply, nameless as no doubt they were—she had a vague idea that all sight-seers were a composite with a number—for they had their precious liberty, no doubt belonged to such free and happy countries as England and America. ”

“ But Ranata’s eyes did not encounter his, and as she advanced closer to that tossed sea of flashing eyes and shouting voices, this daughter of the Cæsars, who had convinced an emperor and his Metternich that she could maintain the integrity of an empire, for a moment forgot her great rôle and permitted her soul to murmur, “Is he [255] here? Is he here? If he is, does he think me the most beautiful woman in the world? Is he thrilled with my triumph? Does he love me the more for it? Does he love me at all?” ”

“ No one knew better than Ranata that this glitter and tinsel was but the prelude to true fame, and that without the opportunity to prove her wisdom as a ruler she would take no place in history outside the covers of some “Book of Beauty”; nevertheless she found the notoriety and incense sweet after her long monotonies, and her pride was deeply gratified with the unequivocal success of her first programme. She would have been more satisfied if she could have had proof of the jealous uneasiness of William of Germany ”

“ In those days I fancied myself a poor boy who had begun life in the orthodox log-cabin and must end in the White House. But that I should love a daughter of the Cæsars and hold her in my arms among the eternal snows of the loneliest of the Alps never muttered in my most exalted moments. Life is a rum thing.”
Ranata laughed in spite of the chaotic emotions that [320] had driven her forth. “Which do you really love best, I wonder, the sublime or the ridiculous? ”

“ It is a scene almost incredible in its childish superstition, but so pathetic that in that rapt audience neither Jew nor Protestant paid his brain the tribute of a smile. Ranata, of all persons, saw no humor in it, for her mind traversed the history of her race, and halted suddenly at the memory of Maria Theresia, who had sent her daughters down alone into the imperial crypt on the eve of their marriage to pray among the coffins of their ancestors. ”

“ Alexandra drew her breath in and her brows together. She had hardly expected such frankness, well as she knew the methods of diplomacy. But she answered readily: “A man does not sacrifice his honor and his friendship, and place the world at the feet of the adored object with no hope of reward. Do you mean to say that you purpose to dazzle my brother with the hope of ultimate success?”
“No; it will not be long before we understand each other too completely for that!”
“What do you mean?”
A deep blush suffused Ranata’s face, and she stood up suddenly. ”

“ Ranata turned her head and regarded him intently. “If I did not know you so well through my intimacy with Alexandra,” she said, “I should find it difficult to believe that patriotism with you was a consuming passion. You have so much carelessness, boyishness, in your manner—and—you are so practical!”
[243] “If I tore about like a raging bull I might accomplish notoriety, but I certainly should accomplish nothing else. And the secret of the failure of the ‘reformers’ of the United States is that they have the ideals and the political bosses have the sense.” ”

“ In this instance the man was playing a very big game; and although Ranata was in no mood for analysis, instinct told her that he was the one man who had ever loved her with whom she could trust herself. ”

“ But it is both difficult and anomalous to nurse the severer passions while moving one’s body and feet to the cry of the Chardash for the fulfilment of human happiness. A mist rose to and diffused itself through the historic tiers of Ranata’s brain, and created an illusion. [193] The music of the Chardash, older than the House of Hapsburg, as old, perhaps, as that mysterious gypsy people who brought it to Hungary, was the song of the wind among peaks about a wild and lovely valley high in the Eastern Alps. She was primeval woman dancing with primeval man. ”