CHAPTER VI.
The pale, quiet woman opened the door for them, and looked neither at Schnetz nor his companion, but withdrew hastily to a little back-room near the kitchen, without giving any other answer than a slow shake of the head to her master's kind nod and inquiry whether any one had been there. Felix was struck, even more than the first time, by the sad, timid expression of her eyes, which had a noble form and a soft brilliancy, while her features could never have been handsome even in her younger days.
"You must excuse me," said Schnetz, when they had entered his room, where he offered his visitor a cigar--he himself smoked Algerian tobacco out of a short clay-pipe--"for not having introduced you to Madame Thersites. You would not have gained much by it, for the spirits of that good soul are not, unfortunately, the best in the world. She labors under the fixed delusion that she is the great misfortune of my life, because I quitted the service on her account; since which time I have had hard work to keep her from quitting life itself in some moment of depression. Yes, my dear fellow, there is a little example of the profound sense, wisdom, and morality of our social condition. This excellent woman, who has now borne the world with me for ten years, comes of a family of country schoolmasters. I became acquainted with her when I was visiting the lord of the manor; her old father had been pensioned, her mother was dead, and she, the eldest daughter, took entire charge of the household, educated her brothers and sisters, and yet found time enough to do something for herself and perfect her education. Of course she is a Protestant. Well, I began to respect her greatly; and so one thing followed another, until I discovered that I could not live without her. The fact that I could not give the bonds which a lieutenant must have in order to marry, did not seem to me at the time an insurmountable difficulty. My sweetheart thought just as I did, that we only need wait until her second sister was old enough to take her place in the household. As soon as this was possible, we could live in the city. An old aunt, whose heir I expected to be, had, as she said herself, long had her trunks packed for the journey to the other world, and then I could easily raise the necessary sum; while the fact that my marriage would be a mésalliance especially delighted my heart on account of my family, with whom I had long before broken off all relations.
"But the departure of my aunt was put off from year to year; and we resolved not to wait till our best days were past, and lived for some four or five years in Christian and true marriage, though it had not received ecclesiastical sanction. Our only trouble was the loss of our four children. At last my aunt betook herself to her last resting-place; and now, for we were again expecting a child, we made preparations to procure an official recognition of our union, though nothing could make it closer than it was already. But see what sublime sentiments were all at once expressed by my good comrades!--the whole corps knew our relations to one another in all its uprightness, and knew me besides. The honor of the corps would suffer under it, they said, if I married a 'person' who had had children before the official recognition of her marriage. They wouldn't have found it in the least offensive had I merely continued the old relations. The logic of this point d'honneur was incomprehensible to my stupid head, as well as to my wife's. But while it merely made mine sit all the firmer on my shoulders, so that I preferred to resign rather than to submit, it threw my poor wife's completely off its balance. We went through the ceremony sadly; the child, which was soon after brought into the world, died within a few months; and since that time the poor creature has been afflicted with the melancholy delusion that she has the ruin of my life upon her conscience. I have tried a hundred times to make it clear to her that I could have wished for nothing better than to be free from the routine of military service, and devote my life to my studies. There are certain points in military history, and also a few technical problems and controversial questions, concerning which I sometimes have a word or two to say in military periodicals; and so, when the wretched campaign of '66 came, in which we had hard work to save the honor of our arms, to say nothing of our having been delightfully fooled by Austria, I thanked the Lord that I was not forced to march with the rest, but had done forever with a trade which can make a man act against his convictions. Since then, we have lived on unmolested, and I devote my spare hours, as you see, to illustrating my prosaic existence according to the best of my ability."
His eyes wandered over the little room, which certainly did not seem very cheerful, and had, even on this summer day, a strangely chilling air. It is possible that this impression was caused in part by the peculiar decoration of the walls, that were but sparsely relieved by a few plain articles of furniture, a black leather sofa and a carved, worm-eaten wardrobe. Instead of framed pictures or engravings, wherever there was a vacant spot, and even behind the stove and in the niche of the solitary window, there were the most grotesque silhouettes cut out of black paper and pasted on the bare plaster, which had once been painted white. They formed an extraordinary collection of figures, taken from the most different stations of life, most of them exhibited in ridiculous postures appropriate to their respective occupations--pedantic scholars, students, artists, women, ecclesiastics, and soldiers--all as if caught in flagrante in their pet weaknesses and sins, and fixed upon the wall, standing revealed in shadowy outline. Yet an artist could not help taking delight in the broad yet spirited strokes with which each figure was portrayed; and it was simply the superabundance of these weird groups that covered the walls, and had already begun to overspread the smoke-stained ceiling, which was calculated to excite feverish dreams in a quiet brain if they were looked at for any length of time.
"You see now why I dragged you up here," said Schnetz, throwing off his riding-jacket and crossing his lean arms (round which flapped a pair of coarse shirtsleeves) behind his back. "From my intercourse with artists I have caught vanity enough to mercilessly entice inoffensive people into my den, although the black art which I pursue appears to very few of them to be worth the trouble of toiling up four flights of stairs to examine. Life viewed from the wrong side--the fancies of a misanthrope--a Thersites album, or rather nigrum--well, am I wrong in thinking that this world of shadows is even less to your taste than an ordinary art exhibition?
"But when you consider the matter more carefully, you will find it has its good side. What is it that is so absolutely lacking in all modern art, and the absence of which is the source of all other defects? Simply this: it no longer respects the silhouette! In landscape and genre, historical and portrait painting, yes, even in sculpture, you find everywhere a lot of pretty little tricks of execution; delicate shades, tones, and touches; a devilish careful, nervous, and, on the whole, attractive piece of work, but in it all not a single great feature; no strong decoration, no solid construction, the very shadow of which suggests something. Give me a pair of shears and a quire of black paper, and I will cut you out the whole history of art up to the nineteenth century; the Sistine Madonna and Claude Lorraine as well as Teniers and Ruysdael; Phidias and Michael Angelo as well as Bernini; so that every one of them shall make a good showing, the rococo period included, which, after all, had something sounder at bottom than our boasted present. Take away from the latter its finical, over-refined tricks of color, and what is left? An incredible poverty of form, a little brilliancy or aspiring 'idealism,' and the bare canvas. The same thing might, it seems to me, be justly applied to our literature, and from that to all the other manifestations of our boasted civilization. But I, on the contrary, have from the very first devoted my attention to the essential part, the primary form, and the really determining outlines; and as these, unfortunately, only come out strongly in our sins and weaknesses, I have become a silhouette cutter--an art that not only earns no bread, but even takes out of one's mouth the bread he might otherwise have gained. Naturally, mankind will never forgive one who shows it its dark side, and points out its excrescences and deformities and defects; for each individual thinks he is just the one all of whose sides the sun should especially light up."
It was fortunate for Felix, in his absent-minded state, that Schnetz was one of those men who, when they once begin upon the great theme of their life, upon their mission or their one idea, take no offense when their hearer leaves them to run on alone, but play upon their single whim in inexhaustible variations. When, after half an hour or so, Felix interrupted Schnetz with the laughing remark that his teacher would scold him if he came to work too late, he found that he himself had not spoken a dozen words; and yet the lieutenant took leave of him with the remark that he rejoiced to have discovered in him a congenial spirit, and hoped the four flights of stairs would not be so high as to keep him from their acquaintance later over a glass of beer and a tolerable cigar.
CHAPTER VII.
The weird shadow-pictures and the biting epigrams of his new friend haunted Felix all the way down the four flights. His head was in a whirl with them; his heart felt a keen sympathy for this extraordinary being. "What a life!" he said to himself. "How much power is rusting and going to decay there in the dark! And who is to blame for it?--and I, who knows but what I--"
He pursued his soliloquy no further. As he stepped into the sunny streets a carriage rolled quickly past, and from it fluttered a silver-gray veil. In a moment all his thoughts were upon Irene again. Of course it could not have been she; not to-day, at all events. But if she should return from her excursion to-morrow and drive by like this--what then? What would she think? That he had followed her and was seeking an opportunity for reconciliation, after she had bidden him go? Anything rather than such a suspicion! Even though he knew that he was not entirely blameless, his pride was too deeply hurt, his honor was too deeply wounded, for him to make any advances or to suffer even the suspicion of doing so. That she was not running after him, and that she had not the slightest idea in what direction he had turned his steps, he did not for a moment doubt. He knew her proud spirit so well, that he only feared one thing, and that was, that upon catching the faintest hint of his being anywhere near her, she would throw aside all her plans and insist upon leaving the city again; indeed, would rather face the Italian summer and all the dangers of sickness, than give rise to the suspicion that she felt she had been too hasty with him and wished the unfortunate letter unwritten.
The simplest and at the same time the most chivalrous way of getting out of the difficulty would have been for him to have gone out of her way himself; but after brief consideration he rejected this plan as altogether impracticable. An uncontrollable love of art was suddenly aroused in his soul--a strong conviction as to his duty toward Jansen and his own future; and it seemed to him so humiliating to have to confide to his friends the reasons which induced him to run away from school again so soon, that he hastily struck into the nearest way to the studio, as if he felt that there was the place where he would be safest from all vexations and temptations.
Besides, he had a whole day left in which to take serious counsel with himself, to look at the matter from all sides, and to decide what it was best to do.
As he entered the court he saw a carriage standing at the door of the rear house. Although he knew it could not be hers, it gave him a sharp start, and he beckoned to the janitor and asked him who had come to call. "A lady, neither young nor old, with two gentlemen; and they spoke French." It was evidently a matter of no interest to him, and so, without devoting another thought to it, he opened the door of Jansen's studio and went in.
The visitors were standing directly before the Adam and Eve, with their backs to the door, and did not hear him enter. Jansen gave him a nod of welcome, and old Homo rose slowly from his tiger-skin to rub his gray head against Felix's hand. For a moment, therefore, he could examine the three visitors at his leisure. In the youth with the curly black hair he immediately recognized the young Greek he had met in "Paradise." He was pointing to different parts of the work with animated gestures, and seemed to be expressing to the lady his enthusiastic admiration. The latter, holding an eye-glass close to her eyes, stood silent and motionless before the group, to all appearances completely carried away by it. She was dressed with simple elegance, was rather petite than tall, and her face, seen as Felix saw it, in very slight profile, was not exactly youthful or of special beauty, but was striking because of the whiteness of the skin and a certain expression of force and intelligence in the slightly-parted lips.
The Slavic type could be recognized at the first glance, even before she opened her lips, and expressed her admiration to Jansen with that soft modulation which is so peculiar to the Poles and Russians.
The gentleman on her left took advantage of the first pause to put in his word. He was a lean, elderly, carelessly-dressed man, who continually swayed his long body to and fro while speaking, and raised his eyebrows with an odd expression of importance, he, too, spoke with a foreign accent; but it turned out, in the course of his conversation, that he was a born German, and had merely acquired this touch of Slavic pronunciation by long residence in Russia. He had introduced himself as an art-collector and professor of æsthetics; and explained that, while making a professional journey to Italy and France, he had, to his great joy and surprise, encountered at the hotel the countess, whom he had known before in Berlin as an ardent art-lover. Although he had never visited Italy, he spoke of its masterpieces of sculpture with the greatest confidence; nor did he seem to find anything in Jansen's studio for which he had not a formula at his tongue's end.
In the mean while Stephanopulos had turned round and recognized Felix, and had hastened to introduce him to the lady. Her keen, brown eyes rested with evident pleasure upon the stately figure of the young man; she asked him how long he had enjoyed the good-fortune to be the pupil of such an artist, and wished to see some of his own productions, a favor which Felix politely but firmly refused to grant.
"Do you fully realize," said she, in her deep, mellow voice, "what an enviable being you are? You unite the aristocracy of blood and talent, and the fact that you have decided in favor of sculpture sets the crown to your happiness. What is life, what is all other happiness in life, but an endless series of excitements? What are all other arts but oil to the fire, fuel for the passionate soul that yearns to free itself from the trammels of the world, and seeks repose in the ideal, and, instead of repose, finds merely more inspired emotions? I express myself very awkwardly--you must supply what I mean. But, really, now, in regard to sculpture--is it not, if only because of its material, peculiarly suggestive of moderation and repose, even in the liveliest plays of lines and forms? Take, for instance, that Bacchante over there--what person, no matter how light of foot and fond of dancing, feels when he looks at it the time of the music in the tips of his toes, as if he heard a dance played? Even the storm and whirl of the maddest reel is controlled by the law of beauty, much as one conceives of the idea of the unfettered air in the spirit of the Creator of the universe. And then this unutterably grand group of the first human beings! All disquiet and trouble, all the fates that were reserved for mankind, repose here as if in the germ--in the bud. In the presence of this wonderful work, one forgets all petty wishes and weaknesses! But why haven't you finished the head of your Eve, honored master?"
A sudden blush suffused Jansen's face as he replied that he had not quite made up his mind in regard to the type of face. He was, according to his wont, monosyllabic and almost awkward in the presence of this eloquent woman. But it struck Felix that his face did not darken with suppressed disgust, as was usually the case when he received tiresome visitors, but that he preserved the same patient, smiling mien during the wise utterances of the professor and the rambling scintillations of the lady. They had not met for two days. Felix had no suspicion of what had happened in the mean time that caused his friend's eyes to sparkle with such unwonted mildness and animation.
Meanwhile the countess was engaged in inspecting the statues that stood about the studio. The professor had previously expressed the opinion that the greater the genius of the man the less he was capable of duly estimating his own labors, and that for that reason he ought to have his own works explained to him; and, in accordance with this sentiment, he now relieved Jansen of the trouble of acting as cicerone in his own workshop. The casts of separate limbs in dimensions larger than life seemed to interest the lady, and the beautifully-shaped breast of a young girl afforded the professor an opportunity to launch into a long discourse on the form of the Venus of Milo as compared with that of the Venus of Medici.
Suddenly the lady turned to a little female figure which stood, still in clay, on the modeling-board near the window, and which must have been a work of the last few days; for even Felix had never seen it before. Although the head was not larger than a child's fist, and the execution was, as yet, only very sketchy, it was easy to see at the first glance that Julie's picture had floated before the eyes of the sculptor. The beautiful figure leaned gently against the back of a simple fauteuil, her right arm, from which the sleeve was pushed back, resting on the arm of the chair, her cheek pressed against her hand, while her left arm hung listlessly down so that the long, exquisitely-formed fingers just touched the head of a dog that was sleeping by her side. The eyes were half closed, just as Julie's generally were; and, quickly as the features had been designed, an expression of thoughtful attention, of earnest and loving sympathy, was clearly conveyed in the face.
In this position she had sat before him while he told her his unhappy story. Amid all the remembrances of the past his eyes had been enchained by the charm of the present, and with that strange, independent action of the artistic temperament, that capacity of the senses for observing closely while the soul smarts and bleeds, he had taken in every line of the beloved figure.
Then, when he had returned to his studio, where Felix did not make his appearance that day, and no one else broke his solitude, he had begun, at first with a careless hand, to form from a piece of clay the picture that never left him, until at length he had grown serious over his pastime, and had produced in an incredibly short time the whole charming figure. A spirit of life, a natural grace, breathed through the whole work, and was still further heightened by its diminutive proportions, reminding one of the fairy-tale about the pygmy maiden who was carried about by her happy lover in a casket.
The æsthetic professor took advantage of the occasion to hold forth concerning sitting statues from the time of the Agrippinas down to that of Marie Louise in Parma; about the importance of portraits in general, and about other profound subjects of like nature. As for Stephanopulos, he was sincerely carried away by the charm of the figure, and expressed his admiration in enthusiastic terms.
The countess remained silent for a considerable time. Enthusiastically as she had expressed herself concerning Jansen's other works; she evidently found it hard to conquer a certain jealousy in regard to this beautiful woman.
"How often did the lady sit to you?" she asked, at length.
He answered, with a peculiar smile, that he had made the sketch from memory.
"Really? Then you are something more than a magician. You not only conjure up spirits, but spirit and body together. To be sure, we know what helping spirit assists artists in their works of magic--a spirit that rules all other men, and is the servant of genius only.--Or don't you believe, professor," said she, turning to her companion, "that Raphael and Titian could conjure up those whom they loved before their imaginations more vividly than they could other mortals?"
The professor delivered a few brilliant remarks about the power of fancy, which the countess received with an absent smile; for she was once more deeply absorbed in contemplation of the statue.
"Does she live here, and is she to be seen?" she said, suddenly interrupting his flow of eloquence.
"I think, madame, you will give yourself useless trouble in trying to make her acquaintance," replied Jansen, dryly. "The lady lives in a very retired way, and I doubt--"
"Very well, very well, I understand; you are miserly with your treasures, and want to keep the most beautiful to yourself. Unfortunately, it is impossible to be angry with anything genius does! Present my compliments to the charming, mysterious original, and tell her--but who is that playing up-stairs?"
At this moment they heard Rosenbusch's flute, which had been playing a light prelude for some time, strike up a grand bravura movement with all the power and feeling of which its owner was capable.
Jansen gave Felix a meaning look. Then he told as much about Rosenbusch as was necessary to excite the lady's curiosity. Upon taking leave, she gave the master and his pupil an invitation for that evening.
"You must come," she said; "to be sure, I haven't much to offer you, especially no such beautiful women as you are accustomed to. But we shall have music--you love music, too, don't you? And, for the rest, you must be contented with what we can do for you. I live in the hotel; a bird of passage never has a comfortable nest. But only come to Moscow some time; I own a few good old pictures and some sculptures there. Will you? We will talk of this again. Well, good-by until this evening. Here is my address, in case you should be as forgetful as geniuses and friends of beautiful women generally are. Au revoir!"
She gave Jansen her card and a shake of the hand, bowed cordially to Felix, and left the studio, followed by her two adjutants.
"Our rat-catcher has made a lucky hit again," laughed Jansen, as they heard the strangers going up-stairs; and immediately afterward the flute stopped in the room above. "When I have visitors, he invariably becomes musical, in order to remind them that there are other people living in the top story. This time I am especially grateful to him. Upon my word, my patience and politeness were put to a hard test."
"You are right; the professor certainly was a tough morsel," interrupted Felix. "But, as for the lady--although I know enough of her kind not to be deceived--still, for all that, it is a game of the sex that one never fails to follow with interest."
"A charming game!" cried Jansen, and his face darkened. "I would rather see the most stolid Esquimaux or Hottentot standing before my works than one of these highly-cultured, artificially-excited devotees of art, hungry for emotion--seeking in everything nothing but their own gratification, and worrying a really earnest man to death by their conceited coquetry with all that he holds most sacred. There is nothing which will awe them into silence, or even make them forget themselves. Just as they interest themselves in living creatures only so far as they tend to increase their own importance, so all works of art exist for them only so far as they can be made of use in setting off their beloved ego. This same woman visited me once before, a good while ago, and I was so rude to her that I hoped I had shaken her off forever. But even rudeness excites these blasé women of the world, just as Pumpernickel does the palate when one has been eating too much sugar-cake. In reality, she cares as little for sculpture as for anything else; unless, perhaps, the study of the nude interests her. And she is here in Munich in search of very different things--trying to gain proselytes for the new school of music."
"I can't help thinking you are rather unjust to her. The very fact that she feels a respect for you, and even a sort of secret fear, shows that you interest her. That is one thing I like about these women; they are strongly attracted by anything that represents power, and is capable of producing something."
"Yes," laughed Jansen, "until this power humbles itself to be a foot-stool for their restless little feet; then it will be thrown aside. No, my dear fellow, the only reason these comets are not more particular is because they are forced to keep adding to their tails; I'd be willing to bet that even our harmless little Rosebud will not be thought too insignificant to be enrolled in her body-guard. But let her do whatever she likes--what difference does it make to us? But where have you been hiding yourself these last few days? and what is the matter with you now? You are staring at the Russian's visiting-card as if your senses had suddenly been spirited away to Siberia!"
"It is nothing," stammered Felix, putting down the card again. He had read the name of the hotel on it; it happened to be the same one in which Irene was stopping. "'Countess Nelida F----;' I assure you I never heard the name before. Are you going to-night?"
"Possibly, unless something should happen to prevent. It is a matter of perfect indifference to me now with what sort of people I mix, since I--"
He hesitated. His eye glanced involuntarily toward the statuette. Then, after a pause, he said:
"Listen: all sorts of things have happened since we last met. Don't you notice any change in me? I thought I must have grown ten years younger."
Felix looked at him searchingly.
"That could make no one happier than it would me, old Dædalus. And, since we are on the subject, it has somewhat depressed me to find--I must out with it--a different man from the friend I left ten years ago. I always thought it must be my fault that made you so much more reserved and distant toward me than you used to be. If you would only be the same old fellow again--but mayn't I know what has brought this about?"
"Not yet," answered the sculptor, seizing the hand Felix held out to him, and pressing it with evident emotion. "I haven't got permission yet, much as the secret burns in my breast. But, take my word for it, my dear fellow, all will come right now. I tell you miracles and wonders still happen; a withered staff burgeons and flourishes, and is filled once more with green sap and white blossoms. The winter was a little long, and no wonder that even you felt the cold."
A knock on the door interrupted him. They heard the voice of the battle-painter outside, eagerly demanding admission.
Jansen drew the bolts which, in his disgust, he had fastened behind the æsthetical professor, and let Rosenbusch in.
"Well!" cried he to his friend, "what do you say to this divine creature? Hasn't she been making herself agreeable to you too? A woman of the gods, by my life! How she hits the nail on the head with every word, draws out the most secret thoughts of the soul, so that one has only to keep his ears and mouth open, and always nod an affirmative! There isn't a horseshoe in all my Battle of Lützen about which she didn't show a profound knowledge; and if she remains in Munich any length of time, she says she shall visit me often, so as to watch me at my work. I am on the only true road, she said; art is action, passion, excitement--a battle for life and death, and other things of the sort, which she actually seemed to snatch from my mouth. A devilish smart woman, and her traveling companion also seems to be a first-rate judge of art. Of course you have been invited to the musical soirée this evening. She wants me to bring my flute with me; but I sha'n't be such a fool as to expose myself before this northern Semiramis. What are you laughing at?"
"We are only laughing at the rapid progress of this friend of art in discovering what fits the occasion. Down here she declared that true art was repose. A flight higher and the sight of the Battle of Lützen caused a new light to be thrown on the subject, and she finds that art is nothing but turmoil and excitement. Yon have effected a speedy conversion, Rosenbusch. If it is only as permanent as speedy!"
For once the battle-painter failed to see the humor of the thing.
"All the same," he said; "I am devilish anxious to continue this acquaintance. Why shouldn't a talented woman be many-sided? So this evening at eight o'clock I will call for you, baron. What a pity that I should have shaved off my beard and cropped my hair just at this time! I should have been much more imposing with my former romantic head than in this bald, Philistine guise. However, if the spirit is only unshorn and free--and in any case my velvet jacket will carry me through!"
CHAPTER VIII.
Punctually at eight o'clock Rosenbusch made his appearance at Felix's lodgings. He was arrayed with a gorgeousness such as he only assumed on the most extraordinary occasions. It is true, picturesque lights played in the folds of his violet velvet jacket, indicative of the extreme age of its material; but those who knew that this garment, as was authentically proved by the records, was cut from the robe of state worn by an historical Countess of Tilly, regarded it with reverence, especially as it was exceedingly becoming to its present red-cheeked wearer. About his neck he had wound a spotlessly white cambric necktie, tied in a delicate knot. His white waistcoat was, to be sure, a little yellowed, and his black trousers were a little shiny in places; but when he entered his friend's room with an elastic step, carrying his tall, antiquated cylinder hat under his arm, and swinging a pair of tolerably white kid gloves in one hand, he cut, upon the whole, such an excellent figure that Felix felt called upon to say something flattering concerning his toilet.
"One must maintain the honor of his station, and prove to the world that the tailor ought to learn from the artist, and not the reverse," replied the painter, with great solemnity, stopping before the glass and endeavoring to give a bolder wave to his cropped hair.
"Now you," he continued, "haven't by any means got rid of the baron yet. Take my word for it, clothes really do make the man. One is a very different kind of fellow in his shirt-sleeves or in a blouse, than in one of the elegant, pinched-up monkey-jackets of the latest style. Doesn't every one of us play a rôle? Now just ask Elfinger whether the true spirit of the rôle doesn't lie in the costume of the actor. I, for example, in a coat that any Tom or Dick could wear, should feel myself so lowered to their level that I shouldn't want to take a brush in my hand. But dressed as I am, even in my company toilet, I can shout anch' io as lustily as far greater people. But you show no signs of getting ready. What do you say to making a sensation by coming late?"
Felix had had time to relapse once more into his melancholy mood. He answered that he had had disagreeable news from home, and was in no humor for going into company. Rosenbusch must excuse him; besides, it would make no difference to the countess whether an unknown beginner--
"What!" cried the battle-painter, "you are going to leave me to go alone to the enchanted garden of this Armida, while all the time I have been counting on you to save me in case of necessity! Jansen is sure to come late in any case, even if he decides to go at all. No, my dear fellow, you know I expend such unheard-of courage on canvas, that not much remains to me for the salon. So, back to back, shoulder to shoulder, with a friend and companion-in-arms, or I will crawl into the first violon-cello-case I come to, and bring disgrace upon the Paradise Club."
He forced Felix, who half laughed and half protested, to make his toilet, and then dragged him out with him, holding tightly to his arm even after they were in the street, as though he still feared that he might try to give him the slip. At heart Felix was glad to be forced. He was secretly ashamed of his fear to enter, even on a day when she was absent, the house where his old sweetheart was living; but now all the depression which had weighed upon him ever since he found out she was in the city left him in the company of his merry friend, and the latter's account of his latest adventures as rejected suitor and happy lover put him in the most cheerful humor. He rallied the artist upon his flighty heart, which, instead of dreading the fire like a burned child, wanted to singe itself in this new flame; all of which Rosenbusch received with a quiet sigh.
"The fact is," he said, "a countess like this is not so very dangerous. It goes without saying, that in all intercourse with her one must respect certain limits when one is a poor fool of a painter who has to let himself be snubbed even by a glove-maker. But if, on the other hand, a female demon like this should really take it into her head to elope with one of my sort to Italy or Siberia, let us say--well, she will know what she is about; and in the mean time we can let things go as Heaven wills."
Amid talk of this sort they had reached the hotel, in the first story of which a row of lighted windows had already shown them where the female autocrat of all the arts was holding her court. Felix pulled his hat down lower over his forehead, and sprang up the stairs so rapidly that Rosenbusch was left behind breathless.
"You are an extraordinary fellow!" he cried, laughing, after he had overtaken him at the top. "It takes a good deal of diplomacy to get you started, but once started, you can't get there soon enough."
Felix made no reply, for just then a servant opened a side-door and they entered a spacious salon, which resounded with the last notes of one of Chopin's nocturnes, with which the hostess herself had opened the soirée.
A rather mixed company was grouped about the piano, mostly young people with long hair and pale faces, of the music-of-the-future sort; mingled with these a few diplomatists, officers, journalists, and people without any other profession than that of knowing everybody and being introduced everywhere. The professor of æsthetics advanced to meet the new arrivals with a sort of host-like cordiality, and shook hands with them. He wore an old-fashioned blue dress-coat with gold buttons, a yellow piqué waistcoat, white summer trousers, and a stiff, black cravat, that compelled him to keep his chin perpetually thrown up. Stephanopulos emerged from the crowd of enthusiastic courtiers in order to welcome the guests, which he too did as if he felt himself quite at home. But now the dense circle divided, and the countess herself swept up to the new-comers.
She had made an exceedingly becoming toilet--a dark dress of light material, that left bare her shoulders, which were still youthful in appearance; and a Venetian point-lace veil, thrown with studied carelessness about her head, and fastened on one side by a fresh, dark-red rose. The dead white of her cheeks looked more blooming than usual in the warm light of the candles, and her keen, piercing eyes and white teeth vied with one another in brilliancy.
"I am so glad you have kept your word," she exclaimed to the young men, giving one of her soft little hands to each of them. "I hope, too, your talented friend and master will also find his way here; and you shall not regret having come. To be sure, I told you beforehand you must be contented with what your ears would let you enjoy. Still, your eyes sha'n't go away quite unsatisfied. Come, I will show you something beautiful."
She took Felix's arm, and, talking rapidly all the time, led him to the other end of the salon. In a corner, on a semicircular sofa, sat several mothers and duennas, and in the chairs on either side perhaps a half dozen young girls, all belonging to the stage or the music-school, engaged in earnest conversation with some young musicians about the latest opera and the last concert. A little to one side of them a group of elderly gentlemen could be seen gathered about a slight, youthful figure, who sat near a little flower-stand, and who appeared to be listening in rather an absent way to a white-haired little man, who was giving a long disquisition on Bach's Passion-Music. Her back was turned toward the side from which the countess approached with Felix. Now, upon hearing the hostess's voice, she turned with much dignity.
"Allow me, ma toute belle, to introduce to you Baron von Weiblingen and Herr Rosenbusch," said the countess. "The gentlemen are artists, dear Irene; Herr Rosenbusch is a painter and musician.--You have brought your flute, haven't you?"
The painter exhausted himself in assurances of his inability to produce his sounds of Nature, as he called them, for any ears but his own; but the countess had already turned to Felix again.
"Did I say too much?" she whispered, loud enough for the Fräulein to hear her. "Isn't she charming? But your silence says enough. Happy youth! For a woman's ears there is no sweeter music than such silence, when she herself is the cause of it. I leave you to your enchantment; bonne chance!"
She tapped his arm lightly with her black fan, nodded slyly to the beautiful girl, and disappeared once more in the crowd about the piano.
The old gentleman, a musical amateur of the old school whom the countess hoped to convert to the new movement, had withdrawn upon the approach of the young men. Rosenbusch took advantage of the moment to make his bows as gracefully as possible, and to open the conversation by asking how the gracious Fräulein liked Munich. Then, upon turning round to give Felix a chance to say something, he discovered to his great surprise that the latter had withdrawn into one of the window niches, from which he vanished a few minutes after. "What devil has got into our young baron?" thought Rosenbusch. It seemed to him out of all propriety to abruptly turn one's back on a charming young lady. However, he determined to take advantage of this opportunity to show himself in a still more favorable light, for the Fräulein pleased him.
She was very simply dressed, which fact, however, only served to contrast her advantageously with the others, with their silks and showy ornaments. The excursion that was to have lasted several days had been shortened, for the old countess had been seized with an attack of neuralgia, and Irene had scarcely reached home when she was taken possession of by her fellow-lodger for this, as the latter had assured her, entirely improvised soirée, for which there was no need to make any great toilet. Her uncle had fled to a gentlemen's club. It was impossible for her to refuse the invitation.
In truth, it was a matter of perfect indifference to her into what company she went. What did she care for any strange faces since the one which was dearest to her had become a stranger? And she had not had the faintest suspicion that she should meet him here.
And now she stood opposite him, and the only look that was exchanged between them showed her that he had come into her presence not less unexpectedly.
A violin concerto, which, to Rosenbusch's great disgust, interrupted him in an eloquent description of the pleasant summer weather in the Bavarian mountains, gave her time to collect her thoughts and to recover herself so far, at least, as not to betray by her manner the emotions that were at strife within her. But what would come next--what she ought to do--was no clearer to her now, when the last tones of the violins were dying away, than in the first few minutes.
"My friend the baron has suddenly disappeared," Rosenbusch now began again. "You must have got a curious impression of him; for, upon my word, he stood before you like a painted Turk, as they say here in Munich. I'll eat my head if I can understand why he suddenly became such a stick. He is generally a devilish jolly fellow, and not at all bashful in the presence of ladies."
"He is--your friend?" she asked, in an almost inaudible voice.
"We have known each other for several weeks, and you know, until one has eaten salt with a man--in the mean time, I imagine I think more of him than he does of your humble servant."
"Your friend--is also an artist?"
"Most certainly, Fräulein. He has devoted himself to sculpture under the instruction of his old friend, the celebrated Jansen. How he suddenly came to do it, no one knows. Don't you, too, think he looks more like a cavalier? At all events there is something so romantic, interesting, and Lord Byronish about him that I should not wonder at all if he found tremendous favor with the women. I beg pardon, if I have expressed myself too freely."
He grew red and plucked at his cuffs. She appeared to take no offense at his forcible style, but merely asked again, in the most indifferent tone:
"You think he has no talent?"
"How much talent he has, God only knows," replied his friend candidly. "But one thing is certain, a gigantic courage and a devilish deal of perseverance are required of one who ventures to take up with sculpture nowadays. You wouldn't believe, Fräulein, how difficult it is--in this profession of all others--to find the means with which to mount to the source, in this strait-laced civilization of ours, with its conventional prejudices. The days when three goddesses did not think it improper to get a certificate of their beauty from a royal goatherd--I beg a thousand pardons, I always do wax warm when I think of our wretched art-condition, and then I blurt out whatever comes into my head. This much is certain: if my friend has allowed himself to be induced merely by his love of beauty to become an artist, instead of living on his estates, he will find he has reckoned without his host even here in Munich. There are charming girls here, to be sure;--seen on the street as they sweep by in their coquettish costumes, with their little hats and chignons, one might almost be tempted to sell one's soul to the devil out of pure delight--but when one comes to examine them by a stronger light--"
The Fräulein all at once seemed to discover that her presence was imperatively required opposite, where the music pupils were sitting. She rose hastily, bowed coldly to the astonished artist, and approached one of the young ladies with the question whether she too did not find it very warm.
Rosenbusch gazed upon her with open mouth. A suspicion dawned in his innocent brain that perhaps his conversation had appeared rather too free-and-easy to this young lady. He could not understand this, and laid it to the score of her North German education. He had talked in a similar way with his countrywomen at balls, without arousing any special displeasure. Now he slunk pensively away from the flower-stand, just as a promising amateur began to perform one of Bach's preludes. Slipping quietly along, and keeping close to the wall, he succeeded in reaching the adjoining room, which was dimly lighted, without attracting attention. A lady's-maid had been making tea there. The national samovar was still singing on the little table, as though secretly accompanying the playing outside. But in the doorway stood Felix, his gaze, piercing through all the crowd and confusion, fixed upon one particular spot.
He started as the battle-painter's hand was laid softly on his shoulder, and scowled angrily. Rosenbusch thought he did not wish to be disturbed while listening to the music, and kept as still as a mouse as long as the prelude lasted. He himself did not care for Bach. He was, as he expressed it, too "cyclopean" for him. He preferred something melting or merry. So he spent the time in looking about the room, and was astonished to see on an easel near the window, in a sufficiently good light to attract attention, that cartoon of the Bride of Corinth which had brought so little honor to Stephanopulos in "Paradise." The burned corner had not yet been repaired, so that the singular picture made a still more weird impression among its elegant surroundings.
How came it here? Who could have brought it to the countess? Could it be that the young sinner himself had lent a helping hand in getting it for her? His name stood in the corner that had been spared by the fire. It was possible that the honest finder, whom Rosenbusch caught in flagranti that night in the "Paradise" garden, had returned it to the artist; that the countess had seen it in his studio, and thought that it would be piquant to exhibit a drawing in her house which had been condemned by the male critics on account of its lack of modesty. Oh, these countesses!--these Russians!
The door leading to a third room was also standing open--to no less a sanctum than the sleeping-chamber of the lady of the house. A hanging-lamp was suspended within, whose light streamed through a rose-colored shade, casting its dreamy rays upon the furniture, and upon the bed hung with embroidered muslin. Near the bed, in an arm-chair, a woman's figure reclined, motionless, so that it could only be discerned with difficulty by a person outside. But Rosenbusch, who was to-day in one of his reckless moods, had already advanced several steps into the sanctum, when he suddenly saw two piercing eyes fixed upon him. He felt as if he had encountered the glowing eyes of a cat in the dark. Confusedly stammering an apology, he bowed to the silent unknown, and hastily beat a retreat into the front room.
In the mean while the playing had come to an end, and the salon resounded once more with a confusion of voices in all tongues and dialects; but still Felix stood there, solitary and unapproachable, as if no one among all who surrounded him knew how to speak his language.
"You don't seem inclined to be particularly gallant," he now heard the cheerful voice of the battle-painter remark; "or was it merely because you didn't want to cut me out that you refrained from engaging in any further conversation with that splendid Fräulein? If you had looked closer at her, you would hardly have been capable of such rather insulting magnanimity toward my poor self. A perfectly splendid girl, I assure you; very exclusive, intellectual and amiable; and without wanting to flatter myself, I really believe I didn't give her a bad impression of the Munich artists. If I were not so wholly engaged already--But, by-the-way, have you seen what is standing over there, on the easel? That Stephanopulos!--just look at him over there, half sprawling over the piano--how he follows the countess with his eyes, all the while, with a face like an Ecce Homo of Mount Athos! A devilish queer kind of fellow!"
"Did she inquire about me?" interrupted Felix, suddenly starting out of his brooding. He passed his hand over his forehead, on which the cold perspiration had started, and drew a long breath. Just at that moment Irene's slender figure glided out of the salon in spite of the countess's earnest attempts to detain her.
"Inquire after you?" repeated the artist. "Of course she did. Such a dumb cavalier, who immediately vanishes into obscurity, couldn't help exciting a woman's curiosity."
"And what--what did you say about me?" eagerly inquired Felix.
"I excused you as well as I could, saying that you were generally much more gallant toward ladies."
"Thank you. You are really very kind, Rosenbusch. And she--what did she say to that?"
"Why, what could she say? She didn't appear to feel in the least offended. Very likely she thought her beauty had rather struck you dumb--no woman is offended at that. Don't tell me I don't understand women! And then I talked to her about sculpture--But, upon my word, here comes Jansen. I must go and say good-evening to him."