Major Paul Von Leskjewitsch, proprietor of the estates of Lauschitz and Zirkow in southwestern Bohemia, had been for twenty years on the retired list, and was a prosperous agriculturist. He had formerly been a very well-to-do officer, the most steady and trustworthy in the whole regiment, always in funds, and very seldom in scrapes.

In his youth he had often been a target for Cupid's arrows, a fact of which he himself was hardly aware.

"What an ass I was!" he was wont to exclaim to his cousin, Captain Jack Leskjewitsch, when on occasion the pair became confidential at midnight over a glass of good Bordeaux. The thought of his lost opportunities as a lover rather weighed upon the worthy dragoon.

In his regiment he had been very popular and had made many friends, but with none of them had he been so intimate as with his corporal Krupitschka. There was a rumour that before the major's wooing of his present wife, a FrÄulein von BÖsedow, from Pomerania, he had asked this famulus of his, "Eh, Krupitschka, what do you think? Shall we marry or not?"

Fortunately, this rumour had never reached the ears of the young lady, else she might have felt it her duty to reject the major, which would have been a pity.

In blissful ignorance, therefore, she accepted his proposal, after eight days of prudent reflection, and three months later Baron Leskjewitsch led her to the altar.

Of course he was utterly wretched during the prolonged wedding festivities, and at least very uncomfortable during the honey-moon, which, in accordance with the fashion of the day, he spent with his bride in railway-carriages, inns, churches, picture-galleries, and so forth. In truth, he was terribly bored, tided himself over the pauses which frequently occurred in his conversations with his bride by reading aloud from the guide-book, took cold in the Colosseum, and--breathed a sigh of relief when, after all the instructive experiences of their wedding-tour, he found himself comfortably established in his charming country-seat at Zirkow.

At present the Paul Leskjewitsches had long been known for a model couple in all the country round. Countess Zelenitz stoutly maintained that they were the least unhappy couple of her acquaintance,--that they were past-masters of their art; she meant the most difficult of all arts,--that of getting along with each other.

As every piece of music runs on in its own peculiar measure, one to a joyous three crotchets to the bar, another to a lyrically languishing and anon archly provocative six-quaver time, and so on, the married life of the Leskjewitsches was certainly set to a slow four crotchets to the bar,--or "common time," as it is called.

The husband, besides agriculture, and his deplorable piano performances, cultivated a certain hypochondriac habit of mind, scrutinized the colour of his tongue very frequently, and, although in spite of his utmost efforts he was quite unable to discover a flaw in his health, tried a new patent tonic every year.

The wife cultivated belles-lettres, devoted some time and attention to music, and regulated her domestic affairs with punctilious order and neatness.

The only fault Leskjewitsch had to find with her was that she was an ardent admirer of Wagner, and hence quite unable to appreciate his own talent as a composer; while she, for her part, objected to his intimacy with Krupitschka and with the stag-hounds. These, however, were mere bagatelles. The only real sore spot in this marriage was the luck of children.

The manner in which fate indemnified these two people by bestowing upon them a delightful companion in the person of a niece of the major's can best be learned from the young lady herself, in whose memoirs, with an utter disregard of the baseness of such conduct, the major has meanwhile become absorbed.

MY MEMOIRS.

I.

It rains--ah, how it rains! great drops following one another, and drenching the garden paths, plash--plash in all the puddles! Never a sunbeam to call forth a rainbow against the dark sky, never a gleam of light in the dull slaty gray. It seems as if the skies could never have done weeping over the monotony of existence--still the same--still the same!

I have tried everything by way of amusement. I curled Morl's hair with the curling-tongs. I played Chopin's mazurkas until my brain reeled. I even went up to the garret, where I knew no one could hear me, and, in the presence of an old wardrobe, where uncle's last uniform as a lieutenant was hanging, and of two rusty stove-pipes, I declaimed the famous monologue from the "Maid of Orleans."

"Oh, I could tear my hair with vexation!" as Valentine says. I read Faust a while ago,--since last spring I have been allowed to read all our classics,--and Faust interested me extremely, especially the prologue in heaven, and the first monologue, and then the walk. Ah, what a wonderful thing that walk is! But the love-scenes did not please me. Gretchen is far too meek and humble to Faust. "Dear God! How ever is it such a man can think and know so much?"

My voice is very strong and full, and I think I have a remarkable talent for the stage. I have often thought of becoming an actress, for a change; to--yes, it must out--to have an opportunity at last to show myself to the world,--to be admired. Miss O'Donnel is always telling me I was made to be admired, and I believe she is right. But what good does that do me? I think out all kinds of things, but no one will listen to them, especially now that Miss O'Donnel has gone. She seemed to listen, at all events, and every now and then would declare, "Child, you are a wonder!" That pleased me. But she departed last Saturday, to pay a visit to her relatives in Italy. Her niece is being educated there for an opera-singer. Since she went there is no one in whom I can confide. To be sure, I love Uncle Paul and Aunt Rosamunda dearly,--much more dearly than Miss O'Donnel; but I cannot tell them whatever happens to come into my head. They would not understand, any more than they understand how a girl of my age can demand more of life than if she were fifty--but indeed----

Rain--rain still! Since I've nothing else to do, I'll begin to-day to write my memoirs!

That sounds presumptuous--the memoirs of a girl whose existence flows on between Zirkow and Komaritz. But, after all,--

which means, so far as I can understand, that, if one has the courage to write down one's personal observations and recollections simply and truthfully, it is sure to be worth the trouble.

I will be perfectly frank; and why not?--since I write for myself alone.

But that's false reasoning; for how many men there are who feign to themselves for their own satisfaction, bribing their consciences with sophistry! My conscience, however, sleeps soundly without morphine; I really believe there is nothing for it to do at present. I can be frank because I have nothing to confess.

Every Easter, before confession, I rack my brains to scrape together a few sins of some consequence, and I can find nothing but unpunctuality at prayers, pertness, and too much desire for worldly frivolities.

Well! Now, to begin without further circumlocution. Most people begin their memoirs with the history of their grandparents, some with that of their great-grandparents, seeming to suppose that the higher they can climb in their genealogical tree the more it adds to their importance. I begin simply with the history of my parents.

My father and mother married for love; they never repented their marriage, and yet it was the ruin of both of them.

My father was well born; not so my mother. Born in Paris, the daughter of a needy petty official, she was glad to accept a position as saleswoman in one of the fashionable Paris shops. Poor, dear mamma! It makes me wretched to think of her, condemned to make up parcels and tie up bundles, to mount on stepladders, exposed to the impertinence of capricious customers, who always want just what is not to be had,--all in the stifling atmosphere of a shop, and for a mere daily pittance.

Nothing in the world vexes me so much as to have people begin to whisper before me, glancing at me compassionately as they nod their heads. My ears are very acute, and I know perfectly well that they are talking of my poor mother and pitying me because my father married a shop-girl. I feel actually boiling with rage. Young as I was when I lost her, she still lives in my memory as the loveliest creature I have ever met in my life.

Tall and very slender, but always graceful, perfectly natural in manner, with tiny hands and feet, and large, melancholy, startled eyes, in a delicate, old-world face, she looked like an elf who could not quite comprehend why she was condemned to carry in her breast so large a human heart, well-nigh breaking with tenderness and melancholy. I know I look like her, and I am proud of it. Whenever I am presented to one of my couple of hundred aunts whose acquaintance I am condemned to make, she is sure to exclaim, "How very like Fritz she is!--all Fritz!" And I never fail to rejoin, "Oh, no, I am like my mother; every one who knew her says I am like mamma."

And then my aunts' faces grow long, and they think me pert.

Although I was scarcely six years old when Uncle Paul took us away from Paris, I can remember distinctly my home there. It was in a steep street in Montmartre, very high up on the fourth or fifth floor of a huge lodging-house. The sunlight shone in long broad streaks into our rooms through the high windows, outside of which extended an iron balcony. Our rooms were very pretty, very neat,--but very plain. Papa did not seem to belong to them; I don't know how I discovered this, but I found it out, little as I was. The ceilings looked low, when he rose from the rocking-chair, where he loved to sit, and stood at his full height. He always held his head gaily, high in the air, never bowing it humbly to suit his modest lodgings.

His circumstances, cramped for the time, as I learned later, by his imprudent marriage, contracted in spite of his father's disapproval, apparently struck him as a good joke, or, at the worst, as a passing annoyance. He always maintained the gay humour of a man of rank who, finding himself overtaken by a storm upon some party of pleasure, is obliged to take refuge in a wretched village inn.

Now and then he would stretch out his arms as if to measure the smallness of his house, and laugh. But mamma would cast down her large eyes sadly; then he would clasp her to his breast, kiss her, and call her the delight of his life; and I would creep out of the corner where I had been playing with my dolls, and pluck him by the sleeve, jealously desirous of my share of caresses.

In my recollection of my earliest childhood--a recollection without distinct outlines, and like some sweet, vague dream lingering in the most secret, cherished corner of my heart--everything is warm and bright; it is all light and love!

Papa is almost always with us in our sunny little nest. I see him still,--ah, how plainly!--leaning back in his rocking-chair, fair, with a rather haughty but yet kindly smile, his eyes sparkling with good-humoured raillery. He is smoking a cigarette, and reading the paper, apparently with nothing in the world to do but to enjoy life; all the light in the little room seems to come from him.

The first four years of my life blend together in my memory like one long summer day, without the smallest cloud in the blue skies above it.

I perfectly remember the moment in which my childish happiness was interrupted by the first disagreeable sensation. It was an emotion of dread. Until then I must have slept through all the hours of darkness, for, when once I suddenly wakened and found the light all gone, I was terrified at the blackness above and around me, and I screamed aloud. Then I noticed that mamma was kneeling, sobbing, beside my bed. Her sobs must have wakened me. She lighted a candle to soothe me, and told me a story. In the midst of my eager listening, I asked her, "Where is papa?"

She turned her head away, and said, "Out in the world!"

"Out in the world----" Whether or not it was the tone in which she pronounced the word "world," I cannot tell, but it has ever since had a strange sound for me,--a sound betokening something grand yet terrible.

Thus I made the discovery that there were nights, and that grown-up people could cry.

Soon afterwards it was winter; the nights grew longer, the days shorter, and it was never really bright in our home again,--the sunshine had vanished.

It was cold, and the trees in the gardens high up in Montmartre, where they took me to walk, grew bare and ugly.

Once, I remember, I asked my mother, "Mamma, will the trees never be green again?"

"Oh, yes, when the spring comes," she made answer.

"And then will it be bright here again?" I asked, anxiously.

To this she made no reply, but her eyes suddenly grew so sad that I climbed into her lap and kissed her upon both eyelids.

Papa was rarely with us now, and I was convinced that he had taken the sunshine away from our home.

When at long intervals he came to dine with us, there was as much preparation as if a stranger had been expected. Mamma busied herself in the kitchen, helping the cook, who was also my nurse-maid, to prepare the dinner. She laid the cloth herself, and decorated the table with flowers. To me everything looked magnificent: I was quite awe-stricken by the unwonted splendour.

One day a very beautiful lady paid us a visit, dressed in a velvet cloak trimmed with ermine--I did not know until some time afterwards the name of the fur--and a gray hat. I remember the hat distinctly, I was so delighted with the bird sitting on it. She expressed herself as charmed with everything in our home, stared about her through her eye-glass, overturned a small table and two footstools with her train, kissed me repeatedly, and begged mamma to come soon to see her. She was a cousin of papa's, a Countess Gatinsky,--the very one for whom, when she was a young girl and papa an elegant young attachÉ, he had been doing the honours of Paris on that eventful afternoon when, while she and her mother were busy and absorbed, shopping in the Bon MarchÉ, he had fallen desperately in love with my pale, beautiful mother.

When the Countess left us, mamma cried bitterly. I do not know whether she ever returned the visit, but it was never repeated, and I never saw the Countess again, save once in the Bois de Boulogne, where I was walking with my mother. She was sitting in an open barouche, and my father was beside her. Opposite them an old man sat crouched up, looking very discontented, and very cold, although the day was quite mild and he was wrapped up in furs.

They saw us in the distance; the Countess smiled and waved her hand; papa grew very red, and lifted his hat in a stiff, embarrassed way.

I remember wondering at his manner: what made him bow to us as if we were two strangers?

Mamma hurried me on, and we got into the first omnibus she could find. I stroked her hand or smoothed the folds of her gown all the way home, for I felt that she had been hurt, although I could not tell how.

The days grow sadder and darker, and yet the spring has come. Was there really no sunshine in that April and May, or is it so only in my memory?

Meanwhile, the trees have burst into leaf, and the first early cherries have decked our modest table. We have not seen papa for a long time. He is staying at a castle in the neighbourhood of Paris, but only for a few days.

It is a sultry afternoon in the beginning of June,--I learned the date of that wretched day later. The flowers in the balcony before our windows, scarlet carnations and fragrant mignonette, are drooping, because mamma has forgotten to water them, and mamma herself looks as weary as the flowers. Pale and miserable, she moves about the room with the air of one whom the first approach of some severe illness half paralyzes. Her pretty gown, a dark-blue silk with white spots, seems to hang upon her slender figure. She arranges the articles in the room here and there restlessly, and, noticing a soft silken scarf which papa sometimes wore knotted carelessly about his throat in the mornings, and which has been left hanging on the knob of a curtain, she picks it up, passes it slowly between her hands, and holds it against her cheek.

There!--is not that a carriage stopping before our door? I run out upon the balcony, but can see nothing of what is going on in the street below; our rooms are too high up. I can see, however, that the people who live opposite are hurrying to their windows, and that the passers-by stop in the street, and stand and talk together, gathering in a little knot. A strange bustling noise ascends the staircase; it comes up to our landing,--the heavy tread of men supporting some weighty burden.

Mamma stands spellbound for a moment, and then flings the door open and cries out. It is papa whom they are bringing up, deadly pale, covered with blankets, helpless as a child.

There had been an accident in an avenue not far from Bellefontaine, the castle which the Countess Gatinsky had hired for the summer. Papa had been riding with her,--riding a skittish, vicious horse, against which he had been warned. He had only laughed, however, declaring that he knew how to manage the brute. But he could not manage him. As I learned afterwards, the horse, after vainly trying to throw his rider, had reared, and rolled over backwards upon him. He was taken up senseless. When he recovered consciousness in Bellefontaine, whither they carried him, and the physician told him frankly that he was mortally hurt, he desired to be taken home,--to those whom he loved best in the world.

At first they would not accede to his wishes; Countess Gatinsky wanted to send for mamma and me,--to bring us to Bellefontaine. But he would not hear of it. He was told that to take him to Paris would be an injury to him in his present condition. Injury!--he laughed at the word. He wanted to die in the dear little nest in Paris, and it was a dying man's right to have his way.

I have never talked of this to any one, but I have thought very often of our sorrow, of the shadow that suddenly fell upon my childhood and extinguished all its sunshine.

And I have often heard people whispering together about it when they thought I was not listening. But I listened, listened involuntarily, as one does to words which one would afterwards give one's life not to have heard. And when the evil words stabbed me like a knife, it was a comfort to be able to say to myself, "It was merely the caprice of a moment,--his heart had no share in it;" it was a comfort to be able to say that mamma sat at his bedside and that he died with his hand in hers.

I do not remember how long the struggle lasted before death came, but I never can forget the moment when I was taken in to see him.

I can see the room now perfectly,--the bucket of ice upon which the afternoon sun glittered, the bloody bandages on the floor, the furniture in disorder, and, lying here and there, articles of dress which had not yet been put away. There, in the large bed, where the gay flowered curtains had been drawn back as far as possible to let in the air, lay papa. His cheeks were flushed and his blue eyes sparkled, and when I went up to him he laughed. I could not believe that he was ill. Mamma sat at the head of the bed, dressed in her very prettiest gown, her wonderful hair loosened and hanging in all its silken softness about her shoulders. She, too, smiled; but her smile made me shiver.

Papa looked long and lovingly at me, and, taking my small hand in his, put it to his lips. Then he made the sign of the cross upon my forehead. I stood on tiptoe to kiss him, and I embraced him with all the fervour of my five years. Mamma drew me back. "You hurt him," she said. He laughed,--laughed as a brave man laughs at pain. He always laughed: I never saw him grave but once,--only once. Mamma burst into tears.

"Minette, Minette, do not be a coward. I want you to be beautiful always," said he. Those words I perfectly remember.

Yes, he wanted her to be beautiful to the last!

They sent me out of the room. As I turned at the door, I saw how papa stroked mamma's wonderful hair--slowly--lingeringly--with his slender white hand.

I sat in the kitchen all the long summer afternoon. At first our servant told me stories. Then she had to go out upon an errand; I stayed in the kitchen alone, sitting upon a wooden bench, staring before me, my doll, with which I did not care to play, lying upon the brick floor beside me. The copper saucepans on the wall gleam and glitter in the rays of the declining sun, and the bluebottle flies crawl and buzz about their shining surfaces.

A moaning monotonous sound, now low, then loud, comes from my father's room. I feel afraid, but I cannot stir: I am, as it were, rooted to my wooden bench. The hoarse noise grows more and more terrible.

Gradually twilight seems to fall from the ceiling and to rise from the floor; the copper vessels on the wall grow vague and indistinct; here and there a gleam of brilliancy pierces the gray gloom, then all is dissolved in darkness. In the distance a street-organ drones out Malbrough; I have hated the tune ever since. The moans grow louder. I lean my head forward upon my knees and stop my ears. What is that? One brief, piercing cry,--and all is still!

I creep on tiptoe to papa's room. The door is open. I can see mamma bending over him, kissing him, and lavishing caresses upon him: she is no longer afraid of hurting him.

That night a neighbour took me home with her, and when I came back, the next day, papa lay in his black coffin in a darkened room, and candles were burning all around him.

He seemed to me to have grown. And what dignity there was in his face! That was the only time I ever saw him look grave.

Mamma lifted me up that I might kiss him. Something cold seemed to touch my cheek, and suddenly I felt I--cannot describe the sensation--an intense dread,--the same terror, only ten times as great, as that which overcame me when I first wakened in the night and was aware of the darkness. Screaming, I extricated myself from mamma's arms, and ran out of the room.----

(Here the major stopped to brush away the tears before reading on.)

----For a while mamma tried to remain in Paris and earn our living by the embroidery in which she was so skilful; but, despite all her trying, she could not do it. The servant-girl was sent away, our rooms grew barer and barer, and more than once I went to bed crying with hunger.

In November, Uncle Paul came to see us, and took us back with him to Bohemia. I cannot recall the journey, but our arrival I remember distinctly,--the long drive from the station, along the muddy road, between low hedges, or tall, slim poplars; then through the forest, where the wind tossed about the dry fallen leaves, and a few crimson-tipped daisies still bloomed gaily by the roadside, braving the brown desolation about them; past curious far-stretching villages, their low huts but slightly elevated above the mud about them, their black thatched roofs green in spots with moss, their narrow windows gay with flowers behind the thick, dim panes; past huge manure-heaps, upon which large numbers of gay-coloured fowls were clucking and crowing, and past stagnant ditches where amber-coloured swine were wallowing contentedly.

The dogs rush excitedly out of the huts, to run barking after our carriage, while a mob of barefooted, snub-nosed children, their breath showing like smoke in the frosty air, come bustling out of school, and shout after us "Praised be Jesus Christ!"

A turn--we have driven into the castle court-yard; Krupitschka hastens to open the carriage door. At the top of the steps stands a tall lady in mourning, very majestic in appearance, with a kind face. I see mamma turn pale, shrink--then all is a blank.

II.

At the period when I again take up my reminiscences I am entirely at home at Zirkow, and almost as familiar with Uncle Paul and Aunt Rosa as if I had known them both all my life.

Winter has set in, and, ah, such a wonderful, beautiful winter,--so bright, and glittering with such quantities of pure white snow! I go sleighing with Uncle Paul; I make a snow man with Krupitschka,--a monk in a long robe, because the legs of the soldier we tried to make would not stand straight; and I help Krupitschka's wife to make bread in a large wooden bowl with iron hoops. How delicious is the odour of the fermenting dough, and how delightful it is to run about the long brick-paved corridors and passages, to have so much space and light and air! When one day Uncle Paul asks me, "Which is best, Paris or Zirkow?" I answer, without hesitation, "Zirkow!"

Uncle Paul laughs contentedly, but mamma looks at me sadly. I feel that I have grieved her.

Now and then I think of papa, especially before I go to sleep at night. Then I sometimes wonder if the snow is deep on his grave in the churchyard at Montmartre, and if he is not cold in the ground. Poor papa!--he loved the sun so dearly! And I look over at mamma, who sits and sews at a table near my bed, and it worries me to see the tears rolling down her cheeks again.

Poor mamma! She grows paler, thinner, and sadder every day, although my uncle and aunt do everything that they can for her.

If I remember rightly, she was seldom with her hosts except at meal-times. She lived in strict retirement, in the two pretty rooms which had been assigned us, and was always trying to make herself useful with her needle to Aunt Rosa, who never tired of admiring her beautiful, delicate work.

Towards spring her hands were more than ever wont to drop idly in her lap, and when the snow had gone and everything outside was beginning to stir, she would sit for hours in the bow-window where her work-table stood, doing nothing, only gazing out towards the west,--gazing--gazing.

The soiled snow had vanished; the water was dripping from roofs and trees; everything was brown and bare. A warm breath came sweeping over the world. For a couple of days all nature sobbed and thrilled, and then spring threw over the earth her fragrant robe of blossoms.

It was my first spring in the country, and I never shall forget my joyful surprise each morning at all that had been wrought overnight. I could not tell which to admire most, buds, flowers, or butterflies. From morning till night I roamed about in the balmy air, amid the tender green of grass and shrubs. And at night I was so tired that I was asleep almost before the last words of my childish prayer had died upon my lips. Ah, how soundly I slept!

But one night I suddenly waked, with what seemed to me the touch of a soft hand upon my cheek,--papa's hand. I started up and looked about me; there was no one to be seen. The breeze of spring had caressed me,--that was all. How had it found its way in?

The moon was at the full, and in its white light everything in the room stood revealed and yet veiled. I sat up uneasily, and then noticed that mamma's bed was empty. I was frightened. "Mamma! mamma!" I called, half crying.

There was no reply. I sprang from my little bed, and ran into the next room, the door of which was open.

Mamma was standing there at the window, gazing out towards the west. The window was wide open; our rooms were at the back of the castle, and looked out upon the orchard, where nature was celebrating its resurrection with festal splendour. The huge old apple-trees were all robed in delicate pink-white blossoms, the tender grass beneath them glittered with dew, and above it and among the waving blossoms sighed the warm breeze of spring as if from human lips. Mamma stood with extended arms whispering the tenderest words out into the night,--words that sounded as if stifled among sighs and kisses. She wore the same dress in which she had sat by papa's bedside when he wished her to be beautiful at their parting. Her hair hung loose about her shoulders. I gasped for breath, and threw my arms about her, crying, "Mamma! mamma!" She turned, and seemed about to thrust me from her almost angrily, then suddenly began to weep bitterly like a child just wakened from sleep, and crept back gently and ashamed to our bedroom. Without undressing she lay down on her bed, and I covered her up as well as I could.

I could not sleep that night, and I heard her moan and move restlessly.

The next morning she could not come down to breakfast; a violent nervous fever had attacked her, and ten days afterwards she died.

They broke the sad truth to me slowly, first saying that she had gone on a journey, and then that she was with God in heaven. I knew she was dead,--and what that meant.

I can but dimly remember the days that followed her death. I dragged myself about beneath the burden of a grief far too great for my poor, childish little heart, and grew more and more weary, until at last I was attacked by the same illness of which my mother had died.

When I recovered, the memory of all that had happened before my illness no longer gave me any pain. I looked back upon the past with what was almost indifference. Not until long, long afterwards did I comprehend the wealth of love of which my mother's death had deprived me.

III.

It really is very entertaining to write one's memoirs. I will go on, although it is not raining to-day. On the contrary, it is very warm,--so warm that I cannot stay out of doors.

Aunt Rosamunda is in the drawing-room, entertaining the colonel of the infantry regiment in garrison at X----. She sent for me, but I excused myself, through Krupitschka. When lieutenants of hussars come, she never sends for me. It really is ridiculous: does she suppose my head could be turned by any officer of hussars? The idea! Upon my word! Still, I should like for once just to try whether Miss O'Donnel is right, whether I only need wish to have--oh, how delightful it would be to be adored to my heart's content! Since, however, there is no prospect of anything of the kind, I will continue to write my memoirs.

I have taken off my gown and slipped on a thin white morning wrapper, and the cook, with whom I am a great favourite, has sent me up a pitcher of iced lemonade to strengthen me for my literary labours. My windows are open, and look out upon a wilderness of old trees with wild roses blooming among them. Ah, how sweet the roses are! The bees buzz over them monotonously, the leaves scarcely rustle, not a bird is singing. The world certainly is very beautiful, even if one has nothing entertaining to do except to write memoirs. Now that I have finished telling of my parents, I will pass on to my nearest relatives.----

("Oho!" said the major. "I am curious to see what she has to say of us.")

----Uncle Paul is the middle one of three brothers, the eldest of whom is my grandfather.

The Barons von Leskjewitsch are of Croatian descent, and are convinced of the antiquity of their family, without being able to prove it. There has never been any obstacle to their being received at court, and for many generations they have maintained a blameless propriety of demeanour and have contracted very suitable marriages.

Although all the members of this illustrious family are forever quarrelling among themselves, and no one Leskjewitsch has ever been known to get along well with another Leskjewitsch, they nevertheless have a deal of family feeling, which manifests itself especially in a touching pride in all the peculiarities of the Leskjewitsch temperament. These peculiarities are notorious throughout the kingdom,--such, at least, is the firm conviction of the Leskjewitsch family. Whatever extraordinary feats the Leskjewitsches may have performed hitherto, they have never been guilty of any important departure from an ordinary mode of life, but each member of the family has nevertheless succeeded in being endowed from the cradle with a patent of eccentricity, in virtue of which mankind are more or less constrained to accept his or her eccentricities as a matter of course.

I am shocked now by what I have here written down. Of course I am a Leskjewitsch, or I never should allow myself to pass so harsh a judgment upon my nearest of kin. I suppose I ought to erase those lines, but, after all, no one will ever see them, and there is something pleasing in my bold delineation of the family characteristics. The style seems to me quite striking. So I will let my words stand as they are,--especially since the only one of the family who has ever been kind to me--Uncle Paul--is, according to the universal family verdict, no genuine Leskjewitsch, but a degenerate scion. In the first place, his hair and complexion are fair, and, in the second place, he is sensible. Among men in general, I believe he passes for mildly eccentric; his own family find him distressingly like other people.

To which of the two other brothers the prize for special originality is due, to the oldest or to the youngest,--to my grandfather or to the father of my playmate Harry,--the world finds it impossible to decide. Both are widowers, both are given over to a craze for travel. My grandfather's love of travel, however, reminds one of the restlessness of a white mouse turning the wheel in its cage; while my uncle Karl's is like that of the Wandering Jew, for whose restless soul this globe is too narrow.

My grandfather is continually travelling from one to another of his estates, seldom varying the round; Uncle Karl by turns hunts lions in the Soudan and walruses at the North Pole; and in their other eccentricities the brothers are very different. My grandfather is a cynic; Uncle Karl is a sentimentalist. My grandfather starts from the principle that all effort which has any end in view, save the satisfying of his excellent appetite and the promotion of his sound sleep, is nonsense; Uncle Karl intends to write a work which, if rightly appreciated, will entirely reform the spirit of the age. My grandfather is a miser; Uncle Karl is a spendthrift. Uncle Karl is beginning to see the bottom of his purse; my grandfather is enormously rich.

When I add that my grandfather is a conservative with a manner which is intentionally rude, and that Uncle Karl is a radical with the bearing of a courtier, I consider the picture of the two men tolerably complete. All that is left to say is that I know my uncle Karl only slightly, and my grandfather not at all, wherefore my descriptions must, unfortunately, lack the element of personal observation, being drawn almost entirely from hearsay.

My grandfather's cynicism could not always have been so pronounced as at present; they say he was not naturally avaricious, but that he became so in behalf of my father, his only son. He saved and pinched for him, laying by thousands upon thousands, buying estate after estate only to assure his favourite a position for which a prince might envy him.

Finally he procured him an appointment as attachÉ in the Austrian Legation in Paris, and when papa spent double his allowance the old man only laughed and said, "Youth must have its swing." But when my father married a poor girl of the middle class, my grandfather simply banished him from his heart, and would have nothing more to do with him.

After this papa slowly consumed the small property he had inherited from his mother, and at his death nothing of it was left.

Uncle Paul was the only one of the family who still clung to my father after his mÉsalliance,--the one eccentricity which had never been set down in the Leskjewitsch programme. When mamma in utter destitution applied to him for help, he went to my grandfather, told him of the desperate extremity to which she was reduced, and entreated him to do something for her and for me. My grandfather merely replied that he did not support vagabonds.

My cousin Heda, whose custom it is to tell every one of everything disagreeable she hears said about them,--for conscience' sake, that they may know whom to mistrust,--furnished me with these details.

The upshot of the interview was, first, that my uncle Paul quarrelled seriously with my grandfather, and, second, that he resolved to go to Paris forthwith and see that matters were set right.

Aunt Rosa maintains that at the last moment he asked Krupitschka to sanction his decision. This is a malicious invention; but when Heda declares that he brought us to Bohemia chiefly with the view of disgracing and vexing my grandfather, there may be some grain of truth in her assertion.

Many years have passed since our modest entrance here in Zirkow, but my amiable grandfather still maintains his determined hostility towards Uncle Paul and myself.

His favourite occupation seems to consist in perfecting each year, with the help of a clever lawyer, his will, by which I am deprived, so far as is possible, of the small share of his wealth which falls to me legally as my father's heir. He has chosen for his sole heir his youngest brother's eldest son, my playmate Harry, upon condition that Harry marries suitably, which means a girl with sixteen quarterings. I have no quarterings, so if Harry marries me he will not have a penny.

How could such an idea occur to him? It is too ridiculous to be thought of. But--what if he did take it into his head? Oh, I have sound sense enough for two, and I know exactly what I want,--a grand position, an opportunity to play in the world the part for which I feel myself capable,--everything, in short, that he could not offer me. Moreover, I am quite indifferent to him. I have a certain regard for him for the sake of old times, and therefore he shall have a chapter of these memoirs all to himself.

----At the end of this chapter the major shook his head disapprovingly.

IV.

MY DEAREST PLAYMATE.

The first time that I saw him he was riding upon a pig,--a wonder of a pig; it looked like a huge monster to me,--which he guided by its ears. One is not a Leskjewitsch for nothing. It was at Komaritz---- But I will describe the entire day, which I remember with extraordinary distinctness.

Uncle Paul himself took me to Komaritz in his pretty little dog-cart, drawn by a pair of spirited ponies in gay harness and trappings. Of course I sat on the box beside my uncle, being quite aware that this was the seat of honour. I wore an embroidered white gown, long black stockings, and a black sash, and carried a parasol which I had borrowed of Aunt Rosa, not because I needed it,--my straw hat perfectly shielded my face from the sun,--but because it seemed to me required for the perfection of my toilet.

I was very well pleased with myself, and nodded with great condescension to the labourers and schoolchildren whom we met.

I have never attempted to conceal from myself or to deny the fact that I am vain.

Ah, how merrily we bowled along over the white, dusty road! The ponies' hoofs hardly touched the ground. After a while the road grew bad, and we drove more slowly. Then we turned into a rough path between high banks. What a road! Deep as a chasm; the wheels of the vehicle jolted right and left through ruts overgrown with thistles, brambles, and wild roses.

"Suppose we should meet another carriage?" I asked my uncle, anxiously.

"Just what I was asking myself," he replied, composedly; "there is really no room for passing. But why not trust in Providence?"

The road grows worse, but now, instead of passing through a chasm, it runs along the edge of a precipice. The dog-cart leans so far to one side that the groom gets out to steady it. The wheels grate against the stones, and the ponies shake their shaggy heads discontentedly, as much as to say, "We were not made for such work as this."

In after-years, when so bad a road in the midst of one of the most civilized provinces of Austria seemed to me inexplicable, Uncle Paul explained it to me. At one time in his remembrance the authorities decided to lay out a fine road there, but Uncle Karl contrived to frustrate their purpose; he did not wish to have Komaritz too accessible--for fear of guests.

A delicious pungent fragrance is wafted from the vine-leaves in the vineyards on the sides of the hills, flocks of white and yellow butterflies hover above them, the grasshoppers chirp shrilly, and from the distance comes the monotonous sound of the sweep of the mower's scythe. The sun is burning hot, and the shadows are short and coal-black.

Click-clack--click-clack--precipice and ravine lie behind us, and we are careering along a delightful road shaded by huge walnut-trees.

A brown, shapeless ruin crowning a vine-clad eminence rises before us. Click-clack--click-clack--the ponies fly past a marble St. John, around which are grouped three giant lindens, whose branches scatter fading blossoms upon us; past a smithy, from which issues a strong odour of wagon-grease and burnt hoofs; past a slaughter-house, in front of which a butchered ox is hanging from a chestnut-tree; past pretty whitewashed cottages, some of them two stories high and with flower-gardens in front,--Komaritz is a far more important and prosperous village than Zirkow; then through a lofty but perilously ruinous archway into a spacious, steeply-ascending court-yard, through the entire length of which runs a broad gutter. Yes, yes, it was there--in that court-yard--that I saw him for the first time, and he was riding upon a pig, holding fast by its ears, and the animal, galloping furiously, was doing its best to throw him off. But this was no easy matter, for he sat as if he were part of his steed, and withal maintained a loftiness of bearing that would have done honour to a Spanish grandee at a coronation. He was very handsome, very slender, very brown, and wore a white suit, the right sleeve of which was spotted with ink.

In front of the castle, at a wooden table fastened to the ground beneath an old pear-tree, sat a yellow-haired young man, with a bloated face and fat hands, watching the spectacle calmly and drinking beer from a stone mug with a leaden cover.

When the pig found that it could not throw its rider, it essayed another means to be rid of him. It lay down in the gutter and rolled over in the mud. When Harry arose, he looked like the bad boys in "Slovenly Peter" after they had been dipped in the inkstand.

"I told you how it would be," the fat young man observed, phlegmatically, and went on drinking beer. As I afterwards learned, he was Harry's tutor, Herr Pontius.

"What does it matter?" said Harry, composedly, looking down at the mud dripping from him, as if such a bath were an event of every-day occurrence; "I did what I chose to do."

"And now I shall do what I choose to do. You will go to your room and translate fifty lines of Horace."

Harry shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. I now think that he was posing a little for our sakes, for we had just driven up to the castle, but then his composure made a great impression upon me. After he had bowed respectfully to Uncle Paul from where he stood, he vanished behind a side-door of the castle, at the chief entrance of which we had drawn up. A dignified footman received us in the hall, and a crowd of little black dachshunds, with yellow feet and eyebrows, barked a loud welcome.

We were conducted into a large room on the ground-floor,--apparently reception-room, dining-room, and living-room all in one,--whence a low flight of wooden steps led out into the garden. A very sallow but otherwise quite pretty Frenchwoman, who reminded me--I cannot tell why--of the black dachshunds, and who proved to be my little cousin's governess, received us here and did the honours for us.

My cousin Heda, a yellow-haired little girl with portentously good manners, relieved me of my parasol, and asked me if I had not found the drive very warm. Whilst I made some monosyllabic and confused reply, I was wondering whether her brother would get through his punishment and make his appearance again before we left. When my uncle withdrew on the pretext of looking after some agricultural matter, Heda asked me if I would not play graces with her. She called it jeu de grÁce, and, in fact, spoke French whenever it was possible.

I agreed, she brought the graces, and we went out into the garden.

Oh, that Komaritz garden! How clumsy and ugly, and yet what a dear, old-fashioned garden it was! Lying at the foot of the hill crowned by the ancient ruin and the small frame house built for the tutors,--who were changed about every two months,--it was divided into huge rectangular flower-beds, bordered with sage, lavender, or box, from which mighty old apricot-trees looked down upon a luxuriant wilderness of lilies, roses, blue monk's-hood, scarlet verbenas, and whatever else was in season. Back of this waste of flowers there were all sorts of shrubs,--hawthorns, laburnums, jessamines, with here and there an ancient hundred-leaved rose-bush, whose heavy blossoms, borne down by their own weight, drooped and lay upon the mossy paths that intersected this thicket. Then came a green lawn, where was a swing hung between two old chestnuts, and near by stood a queer old summerhouse, circular, with a lofty tiled roof, upon the peak of which gleamed a battered brass crescent. Everywhere in the shade were fastened in the ground comfortable garden-seats, smelling deliciously of moss and mouldering wood, and where you least expected it the ground sloped to a little bubbling spring, its banks clothed with velvet verdure and gay with marsh daisies and spiderwort, sprung from seed which the wind had wafted hither. I cannot begin to tell of the kitchen-garden and orchard; I should never be done.

And just as I have here described it as it was fourteen years ago the dear old garden stands to-day, with the exception of some trifling changes; but--they are talking of improvements--poor garden! What memories are evoked when I think of it!

Again I am six years old and playing with Heda,--I intent and awkward, Heda elegantly indifferent. If one of her hoops soars away over my head, or falls among the flowers in one of the beds, she shrugs her shoulders with an affected smile, and exclaims, "Monstre!" At first I offer to creep in among the flowers after the lost hoop, but she rejects my offer with a superior "Quelle idÉe!" and assures me that it is the gardener's business.

Consequently, we soon come to the end of our supply of hoops, and are obliged to have recourse to some other mode of amusing ourselves.

"I am quite out of breath," says Heda, fanning herself with her pocket-handkerchief. "'Tis a stupid don't you think so?"

"But if I only could do it!" I sigh.

"It is quite out of fashion; nothing is played now but croquet," she informs me. "Do you like to play croquet?"

"I do not know what croquet is," I confess, much mortified.

"Ha, ha!" she laughs. "Mademoiselle," turning to the governess, who is now seated on the garden-steps, "only think, ma petite cousine does not know what croquet is!--delicious! Excuse me," taking my hand, "it is very ill bred to laugh, mais c'est plus fort que moi. It is a delightful game, that is played with balls and iron hoops. Sometimes you strike your foot, and that hurts; but more often you only pretend that it does, and then the gentlemen all come round you an pity you: it is too delightful. But sit down," pointing with self-satisfied condescension to the steps. We both sit down, and she goes on: "Where did you pass the winter?"

"At Zirkow."

"Oh, in the country! I pity you."

Heda--I mention this in a parenthesis--was at this time scarcely ten years old. "No winter in the country for me," this pleasure-loving young person continues. "Oh, what a delightful winter I had! I was at twelve balls. It is charming if you have partners enough--oh, when three gentlemen beg for a waltz! But society in Prague is nothing to that of Vienna--I always say there is only one Vienna. Were you ever in Vienna?"

"No," I murmur. Suddenly, however, my humiliated self-consciousness rebels, and, setting my arms akimbo, I ask, "And were you ever in Paris?" The Frenchwoman behind us laughs.

Down from above us falls a hard projectile upon Heda's fair head,--a large purple bean,--and then another. She looks up angrily. Harry is leaning out of a window above us, his elbows resting on the sill, and his head between his hands. "What an ill-bred boor you are!" she calls out.

"And do you know what you are?" he shouts; "an affected braggart--that's what you are."

With which he jumps from the window into the branches of a tree just before it, and comes scrambling down to the ground. "What is your name?" he asks me.

"Zdena."

"I am happy to make your acquaintance, Zdena. Heda bores you, doesn't she?"

I shake my head and laugh; feeling a protector near me, I am quite merry once more. "Would you like to take a little ride, Zdena?" he asks.

"Upon a pig?" I inquire, in some trepidation.

He laughs, somewhat embarrassed, and shrugs his shoulders. "You do not really suppose that I am in the habit of riding pigs!" he exclaims; "I only do it when my tutor forbids it--it is too ridiculous to suppose such a thing!" and he hurries away.

I look after him remorsefully. I am vexed to have been so foolish, and I am sorry to have frightened him away.

In a few minutes, however, he appears again, and this time on horseback. He is riding a beautiful pony, chestnut, with a rather dandified long tail and a bushy mane. Harry has a splendid seat, and is quite aware of it. Apparently he is desirous of producing an impression upon me, for he performs various astounding feats,--jumps through the swing, over a garden-seat and a wheelbarrow,--and then, patting his horse encouragingly on the neck, approaches me, his bridle over his arm.

"Will you try now?" he asks.

Of course I will. He lifts me into the saddle, where I sit sideways, buckles the stirrup shorter, quite like a grown-up admirer; and then I ride slowly and solemnly through the garden, he carefully holding me on the while. I become conscious of a wish to distinguish myself in his eyes. "I should like to try it alone," I stammer, in some confusion.

"I see you are brave; I like that," he says, resigning the bridle to me. Trot, trot goes the pony. "Faster, faster!" I cry, giving the animal a dig with my heel. The pony rears, and--I am lying on the ground, with scraped hands and a scratched chin.

"It is nothing," I cry, bravely ignoring my pain, when Harry hurries up to me with a dismayed face. "We must expect such things," I add, with dignity. "Riding is always dangerous; my father was killed by being thrown from his horse."

"Indeed? Really?" Harry says, sympathetically, as he wipes the gravel off my hands. "How long has he been dead?"

"Oh, a long time,--a year."

"My mother has been dead much longer," he says, importantly, almost boastfully. "She has been dead three years. And is yours still living?"

"N--no." And the tears, hitherto so bravely restrained, come in a torrent.

He is frightened, kneels down beside me, even then he was much taller than I,--and wipes away the tears with his pocket-handkerchief. "Poor little thing!" he murmurs, "I am so sorry for you; I did not know----" And he puts his arm round me and strokes my hair. Suddenly a delightful and strange sensation possesses me,--a feeling I have not had since my poor dear mother gave me her last kiss: my whole childish being is penetrated by it.

We have been fond of each other ever since that moment; we are so to-day.

"Come with me to the kitchen-garden now," he says, "and see my puppies." And he calls to the gardener and commits to his charge the pony, that, quite content with the success of his manoeuvre, is quietly cropping the verbena-blossoms.

My tears are dried. I am crouching beside the kennel in the kitchen-garden, with four charming little puppies in my lap. There is a fragrance of cucumber-leaves, sorrel, and thyme all about. The bright sunshine gleams on the dusty glass of the hot-bed, on the pumpkins and cucumbers, on the water in the tub under the pump, beside which a weeping willow parades its proverbial melancholy. Harry's fair, fat tutor is walking past a trellis where the early peaches are hanging, smoking a long porcelain pipe. He pauses and pinches the fruit here and there, as if to discover when it will be ripe. I hold one after another of the silken, warm dog-babies to my cheek, and am happy, while Harry laughs good-humouredly at my enthusiasm and prevents the jealous mother of the puppies from snapping at me.

----"We have been fond of each other ever since." The major smiles contentedly as he reads this.

V.

KOMARITZ.

I was soon at home at Komaritz, often passed weeks there, feeling extremely comfortable amid those strange surroundings,--for the life led in the clumsy, unadorned old house upon which the mediÆval castle looked down was certainly a strange one.

In fact, the modern structure was no whit superior to the castle except in the matter of ugliness and in the fact that it possessed a roof. Otherwise it was almost as ruinous as the ruin, and had to be propped up in a fresh place every year. The long passages were paved with worn tiles; the ground-floor was connected with the upper stories by a steep winding staircase. The locks on the doors were either broken or the keys were lost, and the clocks, if they went at all, all pointed to different hours.

In a large room called the drawing-room, where the plaster was crumbling down from the ceiling bit by bit, there stood, among three-legged tables and threadbare arm-chairs, many an exquisite antique. In the rooms in use, on the other hand, there was no article of mere luxury: all was plain and useful, as in some parsonage. And yet there was something strangely attractive in this curious home. The rooms were of spacious dimensions; those on the ground-floor were all vaulted. The sunbeams forced their way through leafy vines and creepers into the deep embrasures of the windows. The atmosphere was impregnated with a delicious, mysterious fragrance,--an odour of mould, old wood, and dried rose-leaves. Harry maintained that it smelled of ghosts, and that there was a white lady who "walked" in the corner room next to the private chapel.

I must confess, in spite of my love for the old barrack, that it was not a fit baronial mansion. No one had ever lived there, save a steward, before Uncle Karl, who, as the youngest Leskjewitsch, inherited it, took up his abode there. He had, when he was first married, planned a new castle, but soon relinquished his intention, first for financial reasons, and then from dread of guests, a dread that seems to have become a chronic disease with him. When his wife died, all thought of any new structure had been given up. From that time he scarcely ever stayed there himself, and the old nest was good enough for a summer residence for the children. With the exception of Heda,--besides Harry there was a good-for-nothing small boy,--the children thought so too. They had a pathetic affection for the old place where they appeared each year with the flowers, the birds, and the sunshine. They seemed to me to belong to the spring. Everything was bright and warm about me when they came.

Harry was my faithful knight from first to last; our friendship grew with our growth. He tyrannized over me a little, and liked to impress me, I think, with a sense of his superiority; but he faithfully and decidedly stood by me whenever I needed him. He drove me everywhere about the country; his two ponies could either be driven or ridden; he taught me to ride, climbed mountains with me, explored with me every corner of the old ruin on the hill, and then when we came home at night, each somewhat weary with our long tramp, he would tell me stories.

How vividly I remember it all! I can fancy myself now sitting beside him on the lowest of the steps leading from the living-room into the garden. At our feet the flowers exhale sweet, sad odours, the pale roses drenched in dew show white amid the dim foliage; above our heads there is a dreamy whisper in the boughs of an old apricot-tree, whose leaves stand out sharp and black against the deep-blue sky, sown with myriads of sparkling stars. And Harry is telling me stories. Ah, such stories! the most terrible tales of robbers and ghosts, each more shudderingly horrible than its predecessor.

Oh, how delightful it is to feel one shudder after another creeping down your back in the warm summer evening! and if it grows too fearful, and I begin to be really afraid of the pale, bloodless phantoms which he conjures up before me, I move a little closer to him, and, as if seeking protection, clasp his hand, taking refuge from my ghostly fears in the consciousness of his warm young life.

VI.

HARRY'S TUTORS.

Every Sunday the Komaritzers come to us at Zirkow, driving over in a tumble-down old coach covered with faded blue cloth, hung on spiral springs, and called Noah's ark.

The coachman wears no livery, except such as can be found in an imposing broad gold band upon a very shabby high hat.

Of course the children are always accompanied by the governess and the tutor.

The first governess whom I knew at Komaritz--Mademoiselle Duval--was bright, well-bred, and very lovable; the tutor was the opposite of all this.

He may have been a proficient in ancient languages, but he spoke very poor German. His nails were always in mourning, and he neglected his dress. Intercourse with good society made him melancholy. At our table he always took the worst place. Uncle Paul every Sunday addressed the same two questions to him, never remembering his name, but regularly calling him Herr Paulus, whereas his name was Pontius. After the tutor had answered these questions humbly, he never again, so long as dinner lasted, opened his mouth, except to put into it large mouthfuls, or his knife. Between the courses he twirled his thumbs and sniffed. He always had a cold in his head. When dinner was over he pushed his chair back against the wall, bowed awkwardly, and retired, never appearing among us during the rest of the afternoon, which he spent playing "Pinch" with Krupitschka, with a pack of dirty cards which from long usage had lost their corners and had become oval. We often surprised him at this amusement,--Harry and I.

As soon as he disappeared Aunt Rosamunda always expressed loudly and distinctly her disapproval of his bad manners. But when we children undertook to sneer at them, we were sternly repressed,--were told that such things were of no consequence, and that bad manners did not in the least detract from a human being's genuine worth.

On one occasion Harry rejoined, "I'm glad to hear it," and at the next meal sat with both elbows upon the table.

Moreover, I soon observed that Herr Pontius was by no means the meek lamb he seemed to be, and this I discovered at the harvest-home. There was a dance beneath the lindens at the farm, where Herr Pontius whirled the peasant-girls around, and capered about like a very demon. His face grew fierce, and his hair floated wildly about his head. We children nearly died of laughing at him.

Soon afterwards he was dismissed, and in a great hurry. When I asked Harry to tell me the cause of his sudden disappearance, he replied that it was love that had broken Herr Pontius's neck. But when I insisted upon a more lucid explanation, Harry touched the tip of my nose with his forefinger and said, sententiously, "Too much knowledge makes little girls ugly."

He was not the only one among Harry's tutors whose neck was broken through love: the next--a very model of a tutor--followed the example in this respect of the dance-loving Herr Pontius.

His name was Ephraim Schmied; he came from Hildesheim, and was very learned and well conducted,--in short, by long odds the best of all Harry's tutors. If he did not retain his position, it may well be imagined that it was the fault of the position.

As with every other fresh tutor, Harry set himself in opposition to him at first, and did his best to discover ridiculous traits in him. His efforts in this direction were for a time productive of no results, and Herr Schmied, thanks to his untiring patience combined with absolute firmness, was in a fair way to master his wayward pupil, when matters took an unexpected and unfortunate turn.

Harry, in fact, had finally discovered the weak place in Herr Schmied's armour, and it was in the region of the heart. Herr Schmied had fallen in love with Mademoiselle Duval. To fall in love was in Harry's eyes at that time the extreme of human stupidity (he ought to have rested in that conviction). Uncle Paul shared it. He chuckled when Harry one fine day told him of his discovery, and asked the keen-sighted young good-for-naught upon what he founded his supposition.

"He sings Schubert's 'Wanderer' to her every evening, and yesterday he brought her a vase from X----," Harry replied: "there the fright stands."

Uncle Paul took the vase in his hands, an odd smile playing about his mouth the while. It was decorated with little naked Cupids hopping about in an oval wreath of forget-me-nots.

"How sentimental!" said Uncle Paul, adding, after a while, "If the little wretches only had wings, they might pass for angels, but as they are they leave something to be desired." Then, putting down the vase, he told me to be a good girl (he had just brought me over to stay a little while at Komaritz), got into his dog-cart, and drove off.

Scarcely had the door closed behind him when Harry brought from the next room a long quill pen and a large inkstand, and went to work eagerly and mysteriously at the vase.

At about five in the afternoon all assembled for afternoon coffee. Finally Herr Schmied appeared, a book in his hand.

"What are you doing there?" he asked his pupil, unsuspectingly.

"I am giving these naughty boys swimming-breeches, Herr Schmied. Uncle Paul thought it hardly the thing for you to have presented this vase to a lady, and so----"

The sentence was never finished. There was a low laugh from the other end of the room, where Mademoiselle Duval, ensconced behind the coffee-equipage, had been an unobserved spectator of the scene. Herr Schmied flushed crimson, and, quite losing his usual self-control, he gave Harry a sounding box on the ear, and Harry--well, Harry returned it.

Herr Schmied seized him by the shoulders as if to shake and strike him, then bit his lip, drew a long breath, released the boy, and left the room. But Harry's head drooped upon his breast, and he ate no supper that night. He knew that what had occurred could not be condoned, and he was sorry.

At supper Herr Schmied informed Mademoiselle Duval that he had written to Baron Leskjewitsch that unforeseen circumstances made imperative his return to Germany. "I did not think it necessary to be more explicit as to the true cause of my sudden departure," he added.

Harry grew very pale.

After supper, as I was sitting with Heda upon the garden-steps, looking for falling stars that would not fall, we observed Herr Schmied enter the room behind us; it was quite empty, but the lamp was lighted on the table. Soon afterwards, Harry appeared. Neither of them noticed us.

Slowly, lingeringly, Harry approached his tutor, and plucked him by the sleeve.

Herr Schmied looked around.

"Must you really go away, Herr Schmied?" the boy asked, in distress.

"Yes," the tutor replied, very gravely.

Harry bit his lip, seemed undecided what to do or say, and finally, leaning his head a little on one side, asked, caressingly, "Even if I beg your pardon?"

Herr Schmied smiled, surprised and touched. He took the boy's hand in his, and said, sadly, "Even then, Harry. Yet I am sorry, for I was beginning to be very fond of you."

The tears were in Harry's eyes, but he evidently felt that no entreaty would be of any avail.

In fact, the next morning Herr Schmied took his departure. A few days afterwards, however, Harry received a letter from him with a foreign post-mark. He had written four long pages to his former pupil. Harry flushed with pride and joy as he read it, and answered it that very evening.

Herr Schmied is now Professor of Modern History in a foreign university, his name is well known, and he is held in high honour. He still corresponds with Harry, whose next tutor was a French abbÉ. The cause of the abbÉ's dismissal I have forgotten; indeed, I remember only one more among the numerous preceptors, and he was the last,--a German from Bohemia, called Ewald Finke.

His name was not really Ewald, but Michael, but he called himself Ewald because he liked it better. He had studied abroad, which always impressed us favourably, and, as Uncle Karl was told, he had already won some reputation in Leipsic by his literary efforts. He was looking for a situation as tutor merely that he might have some rest from intellectual labours that had been excessive. "Moreover," his letter of recommendation from a well-known professor went on to say, "the Herr Baron will not be slow to discover that he is here brought into contact with a rarely-gifted nature, one of those in intercourse with whom allowance must be made for certain peculiarities which at first may prove rather annoying." Uncle Karl instantly wrote, in reply, that "annoying peculiarities" were of no consequence,--that he would accord unlimited credit in the matter of allowance to the new tutor. In fact, he took such an interest in the genius thus offered him that he prolonged his stay in Komaritz to two weeks, instead of departing at the end of three days, as he had at first intended, solely in expectation of the new tutor.

By the way, those who are familiar with my uncle's morbid restlessness may imagine the joy of his household at his prolonged stay in Komaritz.

Not knowing how otherwise to kill his time, he hit upon the expedient of shooting it, and, as the hunting season had not begun, he shot countless butterflies. We found them lying in heaps among the flowers, little, shapeless, shrivelled things, mere specks of brilliant dust. When weary of this amusement, he would seat himself at the piano and play over and over again the same dreary air, grasping uncertainly at the chords, and holding them long and firmly when once he had got them.

Harry assured me that he was playing a funeral march for the dead butterflies, and I supposed it to be his own composition. This, however, was not the case, and the piece was not a funeral march, but a polonaise,--"The Last Thought of Count Oginski," who is said to have killed himself after jotting down this music.

At last Herr Finke made his appearance. He was a tall, beardless young man, with hair cut close to his head, and a sallow face adorned with the scars of several sabre-cuts, a large mouth, a pointed nose, the nostrils quivering with critical scorn, and staring black eyes with large round spectacles, through which they saw only what they chose to see.

Uncle Karl's reception of him was grandiloquent. "Enter," he exclaimed, going to meet him with extended hands. "My house is open to you. I delight in grand natures which refuse to be cramped within the limits of conventionality."

Herr Finke replied to this high-sounding address only by a rather condescending nod, shaking the proffered hand as if bestowing a favour.

After he had been refreshed with food and drink, Uncle Karl challenged him to a fencing-match, which lasted upward of an hour, at the end of which time my uncle confessed that the new tutor was a master of fence, immediately wrote to thank the illustrious professor to whom he owed this treasure of learning, and left Komaritz that same evening.

Herr Finke remained precisely three weeks in his new situation. So far as lessons went he seemed successful enough, but his "annoying peculiarities" ended in an outbreak of positive insanity, during which he set fire to the frame house on the hill where he was lodged, and was carried off to a mad-house in a strait-waistcoat, raving wildly.

Uncle Karl was sadly disappointed, and suddenly resolved to send Harry to a public school, being convinced that no good could come of tutors.

From this time forward the young Leskjewitsches came to Komaritz only for the vacations.

VII.

We were very good friends, Harry and I,--there's no denying that. We told each other all our secrets,--at least I told him mine,--and we divided all our bon-bons with each other. Sometimes on Sunday afternoons we played at marriage, the ceremony giving occasion for a deal of delightful "dressing up." Moreover, we had long been agreed that, sooner or later, this play should become earnest, and that we would marry each other. But when the first down became perceptible on Harry's upper lip, our mutual friendship began to flag. It was just about the time that Harry went to a public school.

His indifference grieved me at first, then I became consoled, and at last I was faithless to him. A cousin of Harry's, who came to Komaritz to spend the holidays, gave occasion for this breach of faith. His name was Lato, Count Treurenberg. The name alone kindled my enthusiasm. He had scarcely been two days in Komaritz, where I too was staying at the time, when Hedwig confided to me that she was in love with him.

"So am I," I replied. I was firmly convinced that this was so.

My confession was the signal for a highly dramatic scene. Hedwig, who had frequently been to the theatre in Prague, ran about the room wringing her hands and crying, "Both with the same man! both!--it is terrible! One of us must resign him, or the consequences will be fearful."

I diffidently offered to sacrifice my passion.

She shrieked, "No, I never can accept such a sacrifice from you! Fate shall decide between us."

Whereupon we put one white and one black bean in a little, broken, handle-less coffee-pot which we found in the garret, and which Hedwig called an urn.

The decisive moment made my heart beat. We cast lots for precedence in drawing from the urn. It fell to me, and I drew out a black bean! The moment was thrilling. Heda sank upon a sofa, and fanned her joyful face with her pocket-handkerchief. She declared that if she had drawn the black bean she would have attempted her life. This declaration dispelled my despair; I shuddered at the idea of being the cause of anything so horrible.

From that day Heda never spoke to Lato von Treurenberg without drooping her head on one side and rolling her eyes languishingly,--conduct which seemed to cause the young fellow some surprise, but which he treated with great courtesy, while Harry used to exclaim, "What is the matter with you, Heda? You look like a goose in a thunder-storm!"

My behaviour towards Lato underwent no change: I had drawn the "black ball," and, in consequence, the most cordial friendship soon subsisted between us.

It would have been difficult not to like Lato, for I have never met a more amiable, agreeable young fellow.

He was about seventeen years old, very tall, and stooped slightly. His features were delicately chiselled; his smile was quite bewitching in its dreamy, all-embracing benevolence. There was decided melancholy in his large, half-veiled eyes, which caused Hedwig to liken him to Lord Byron.

His complexion was rather dark,--which was odd, as his hair was light brown touched with gold at the temples. His neck was too long, and his arms were uncommonly long. All his appointments, from his coats to his cigar-case, were extremely elegant, testifying to a degree of fastidiousness thitherto quite unknown in Komaritz. Nevertheless, he seemed very content in this primitive nest, ignoring all discomfort, and making no pretension. Heda, who was quick to seize upon every opportunity to admire him, called my attention to his amiable forbearance, or, I confess, I should not have noticed it.

From Hedwig I learned much concerning the young man; among other things, she gave me a detailed account of his family circumstances. His mother was, she informed me, a "mediatisirte."^[1] She uttered the word reverently, and, when I confessed that I did not know what it meant, she nearly fainted. His father was one of the most fascinating men in Austria. He is still living, and is by no means, it seems, at the end of his fascinations, but, being a widower, hovers about from one amusing capital to another, breaking hearts for pastime. It seems to be a wonderfully entertaining occupation, and, when one once indulges in it, the habit cannot be got rid of,--like opium-eating.

While he thus paraded his brilliant fascinations in the gay world, he did not, of course, find much time to interest himself in his boy, who was left to the care of distant relatives, and who, when found to be backward in his studies, was placed, I believe by Uncle Karl's advice, under the care of a Prague professor by the name of Suwa, who kept, as Harry once told me, a kind of orthopÆdic institution for minds that lacked training.

Beside Lato, during that vacation there were two other guests at Komaritz, one a very distant cousin of Harry's, and the other a kind of sub-tutor whose duty it was to coach Harry in his studies.

We could not endure the sub-tutor. His name was Franz Tuschalek; he was about nineteen, with hands and feet like shovels, and a flat, unmeaning face. His manner was intensely servile, and his coat-sleeves and trousers were too short, which gave him a terribly indigent air. One could not help regarding him with a mixture of impatience and sympathy. By my radical uncle's express desire, he and Harry called each other by their Christian names. Still, obnoxious as poor Tuschalek was to us, he was more to our minds than the distant cousin.

This last was a Pole, about twenty years old, with a sallow face and long oblique eyes, which he rolled in an extraordinary way. His hair was black, and he curled it with the curling-tongs. He was redolent of musk, and affected large plaid suits of clothes. His German was not good, and his French was no better, but he assured us that he was a proficient in Chinese and Arabic. He was always playing long and difficult concertos on the table, but he never touched the piano at Komaritz, declaring that the instrument was worn out. He was always short of funds, and was perpetually boasting of the splendour of his family.

He frequently sketched, upon some stray piece of paper, a magnificent and romantic structure, which he would display to us as his Polish home,--"our ancestral castle."

Sometimes this castle appeared with two turrets, sometimes with only one, a fact to which Harry did not fail to call his attention.

His distinguished ancestry was a topic of never-failing interest to him; he was never weary of explaining his connection with various European reigning dynasties, and his visiting-cards bore the high-sounding names "Le Comte Ladislas Othon Fainacky de Chrast-Bambosch," although, as Harry confided to us, he had no right to the title of comte, being the son of a needy Polish baron.

Although Franz Tuschalek was almost as obnoxious to Harry as the "braggart Sarmatian," as Lato called the Pole, he never allowed his antipathy to be seen, but treated him with great consideration, as he did all inferiors, scarcely allowing himself to give vent to his distaste for him even in his absence. But he paraded his dislike of Fainacky, never speaking of him as a guest, but as an "invasion," and always trying to annoy him by some boyish trick.

At length, one Sunday, the crisis in Harry's first vacation occurred. We had all been to early mass, and the celebrant had accompanied us back to Komaritz, as was his custom, to breakfast. After a hasty cup of coffee he took his leave of us children, and betook himself to the bailiff's quarters, where we more than suspected him of a quiet game of cards with that official and his underlings.

The door of the dining-room leading out into the garden was wide open, and delicious odours from the moist flower-beds floated in and mingled with the fragrance of the coffee. It had rained in the night, but the sun had emerged from the clouds and had thrown a golden veil over trees and shrubs. We were just rising from table when the "braggart Sarmatian" entered, booted and spurred, smelling of all the perfumes of Arabia, and with his hair beautifully curled. He had not been to mass, and had breakfasted in his room in the frame house on the hill, which had been rebuilt since the fire. After he had bidden us all an affected good-morning, he said, turning to Harry,--

"Has the man come with the mail?"

"Yes," Harry replied, curtly.

"Did no registered letter come for me?"

"No."

"Strange!"

"Very strange," Harry sneered. "You have been expecting that letter a long time. If I were you, I'd investigate the matter."

"There's something wrong with the post," the Pole declared, with an air of importance. "I must see about it. I think I had best apply to my uncle the cabinet-minister."

Harry made a curious grimace. "There is no need to exercise your powers of invention for me," he observed. "I know your phrase-book and the meaning of each individual sentence. 'Has no registered letter come for me?' means 'Lend me some money.' My father instructed me to supply you with money if you needed it, but never with more than ten guilders at a time. Here they are, and, if you wish to drive to X----, tell the bailiff to have the drag harnessed for you. We--in fact, we will not look for you before evening. Good-bye."

"I shall have to call you to account some day, Harry," Fainacky said, with a frown; then, relapsing into his usual languid affectation of manner, he remarked, over his shoulder, to Mademoiselle Duval, "C'est un enfant," put away the ten-guilder piece in a gorgeous leather pocket-book, and left the room.

Scarcely had the door closed behind him when Harry began to express in no measured terms his views with regard to the "Polish invasion." Then he set his wits to work to devise some plan of getting rid of Fainacky, but it was not until the afternoon, when we were assembled in the dining-room again, that a brilliant idea occurred to him while reading Heine's "Romancero," a book which he loved to read when Heda and I were by because it was a forbidden volume to us.

Suddenly, starting up from his half-reclining position in a large arm-chair, he snapped his fingers, waved his book in the air, and exclaimed, "Eureka!"

"What is it?" Lato asked, good-naturedly.

"I have found something to drive the Pole wild!" cried Harry, rubbing his hands with delight. Whereupon he began to spout, with immense enthusiasm and shouts of laughter, Heine's "Two Knights," a poem in which he pours out his bitterest satire upon the Poles, their cause, and their country. This precious poem Harry commanded Tuschalek to write out in his finest round hand upon a large sheet of paper, which was then to be nailed upon the door of Fainacky's sleeping-apartment. I did not like the poem. I confess my Polish sympathies were strong, and I did not approve of ridiculing the "braggart Sarmatian's" nation by way of disgusting him with Komaritz; but nothing that I could say had any effect. The poem was written out upon the largest sheet of paper that the house afforded, and was the first thing to greet the eyes of Fainacky when he retired to his room for the night. In consequence, the Sarmatian declared, the next morning, at breakfast, that the insult thus offered to his nation and himself was not to be endured by a man of honour, and that he should leave Komaritz that very day.

Nevertheless, he stayed four weeks longer, during which time, however, he never spoke to Harry except upon three occasions when he borrowed money of him.

Tuschalek departed at an earlier date. Harry's method for getting rid of him was much simpler, and consisted of a letter to his father. As well as I can recollect, it ran thus:

"My Dear Father,--

"I pray you send Tuschalek away. I assure you I will study diligently without him. To have about you a fellow hired at ten guilders a month, who calls you by your Christian name, is very deleterious to the character.

"Your affectionate son,

"Harry.

"P.S.--Pray, if you can, help him to another situation, for I can't help pitying the poor devil."

About this time Lato sprained his ankle in leaping a ditch, and was confined for some days to a lounge in the dining-room. Heda scarcely left his side. She brought him flowers, offered to write his letters for him, and finally read aloud to him from the "Journal des Demoiselles." Whether he was much edified I cannot say. He left Komaritz as soon as his ankle was strong again. I was really sorry to have him go; for years we heard nothing more of him.----

"The gypsy!" exclaimed the major. "How fluently she writes! Who would have thought it of her! I remember that Fainacky perfectly well,--a genuine Polish coxcomb! Lato was a charming fellow,--pity he should have married in trade!"

At this moment a loud bell reminded the old cavalryman that the afternoon coffee was ready. He hurriedly slipped his niece's manuscript into a drawer of his writing-table, and locked it up before joining his family circle, where he appeared with the most guileless smile he could assume.

Zdena seemed restless and troubled, and confessed at last that she had lost her diary, which she was quite sure she had put into her work-basket. She had been writing in the garden, and had thrust it into the basket in a hurry. The major seemed uninterested in the loss, but, when the girl's annoyance reached its climax in a conjecture that the cook had, by mistake, used the manuscript for kindling, he comforted her, saying, "Nonsense! the thing will surely be found." He could not bring himself to resign the precious document,--he was too much interested in reading it.

The next day, after luncheon, while Frau Rosamunda was refreshing herself with an afternoon nap and Zdena was in the garden posing for the Baron von Wenkendorf as the goddess of Spring, the major retired to his room and locked himself in, that he might not be disturbed.

"Could she possibly have fallen in love with that Lato? Some girls' heads are full of sentimental nonsense. But I hardly think it--and so--" he went on muttering to himself whilst finding the place where he had left off on the previous day.

The next chapter of this literary chef-d'oeuvre began as follows:

VIII.

I had a long letter to-day from Miss O'Donnel in Italy, full of most interesting things. One of the two nieces whom she is visiting is being trained as an opera-singer. She seems to have a brilliant career before her. In Italy they call her "la Patti blonde," and her singing-teacher, to whom she pays thirty-five francs a lesson, declares that she will certainly make at least a hundred thousand francs a year as a prima donna. What an enviable creature! I, too, have an admirable voice. Ah, if Uncle Paul would only let me be trained! But his opinions are so old-fashioned!

And everything that Miss O'Donnel tells me about the mode of life of the Misses Lyall interests me. They live with their mother in Italy, and receive every evening, principally gentlemen, which, it seems, is the Italian custom. The elder Miss Lyall is as good as engaged to a distinguished Milanese who lost his hair in the war of '59; while the younger, the blonde Patti, will not hear of marriage, but contents herself with turning the head of every man who comes near her.

Ah! I have arrived at the conviction that there can be no finer existence than that of a young girl in training for a prima donna, who amuses herself in the mean time by turning the head of every man who comes near her.----

("Goose!" exclaimed the major at this point.)

----To-day I proposed to Uncle Paul that he should take me to Italy for the winter, to have me educated as a singer. There was a great row. Never before, since I have known him, has he spoken so angrily to me.----

("I should think not!" growled the major at this point.)

----The worst was that he blamed Miss O'Donnel for putting such "stuff" (thus he designated my love for art) into my head, and threatened to forbid her to correspond with me. Ah, I wept for the entire afternoon amid the ruins of my shattered hopes. I am very unhappy. After a long interruption, the idea has occurred to me to-day of continuing my memoirs.

IX.

HARRY BECOMES A SOLDIER.

Uncle Karl finally yielded to Harry's entreaties, and allowed him to enter the army. That very autumn after the summer which Lato and Fainacky passed at Komaritz he was to enter a regiment of hussars.

It had been a problem for Uncle Karl, the taming of this eager young nature, and I think he was rather relieved by the military solution thus afforded.

As Harry of course had nothing to do in town before joining his regiment, he stayed longer than usual this year in Komaritz,--stayed all through September and until late in October. Komaritz was quite deserted: Lato had gone, the Pole had gone; but Harry still stayed on.

And, strange to say, now, when we confronted our first long parting, our old friendship gradually revived, stirred, and felt that it had been living all this time, although it had had one or two naps. How well I remember the day when he came to Zirkow to take leave of us--of me!

It was late in October, and the skies were blue but cold. The sun shone down upon the earth kindly, but without warmth. A thin silvery mist floated along the ground. The bright-coloured leaves shivered in the frosty air.

On the wet lawn, where the gossamers gleamed like steel, lay myriads of brown, red, and yellow leaves. The song-birds were gone, the sparrows twittered shrilly, and in the midst of the brown autumnal desolation there bloomed in languishing loveliness a white rose upon a leafless stalk.

With a scarlet shawl about my shoulders and my head bare I was sauntering about the garden, wandering, dreaming through the frosty afternoon. I heard steps behind me, and when I looked round I saw Harry approaching, his brows knitted gloomily.

"I only want to bid you 'good-bye,'" he called out to me. "We are off to-morrow."

"When are you coming back?" I asked, hastily.

"Perhaps never," he said, with an important air. "You know--a soldier----"

"Yes, there is a threatening of war," I whispered, and my childish heart felt an intolerable pang as I spoke.

He shrugged his shoulders and tried to laugh.

"And, at all events, you, when I come back, will be a young lady with--lovers--and you will hardly remember me."

"Oh, Harry, how can you talk so!"

Rather awkwardly he holds out to me his long slender hand, in which I place my own.

Ah, how secure my cold, weak fingers feel in that warm strong hand! Why do I suddenly recall the long-past moonlit evenings in Komaritz when we sat together on the garden-steps and Harry told me ghost-stories, in dread of which, when they grew too ghastly, I used to cling close to him as if to find shelter in his strong young life from the bloodless throng of spirits he was evoking?

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.

X.

MY EDUCATION.

Now follow a couple of very colourless years. There was nothing more to anticipate from the summers. For, although Heda regularly appeared at Komaritz as soon as the city was too hot or too deserted, she did not add much to my enjoyment. Komaritz itself seemed changed when Harry was no longer there to turn everything upside-down with his good-humoured, madcap ways.

And there was a change for the worse in our circumstances; affairs at Zirkow were not so prosperous as they had been.

To vary the monotony of his country life, my uncle had built a brewery, from which he promised himself a large increase of income. It was to be a model brewery, but after it was built the startling discovery was made that there was not water enough to work it. For a while, water was brought from the river in wagons drawn by four horses, but, when this was found to be too expensive, the brewery was left to itself.

For years now it has remained thus passive, digesting in triumphant repose the sums of money which it swallowed up. The monster!

Whenever there is any little dispute between my uncle and my aunt, she is certain to throw his brew-house in his face. But, instead of being crushed by the mischief he has wrought, he declares, "The project was admirable: my idea was a brilliant one if it had only succeeded!"

But it did not succeed.

The consequence was--retrenchment and economy. My aunt dismissed two servants, my uncle kept only a pair of driving horses, and my new gowns were made out of my aunt ThÉrÈse's old ones.

The entire winter we spent at Zirkow, and my only congenial friend was my old English governess, the Miss O'Donnel already mentioned, who came shortly before Harry's entrance into the army, not so much to teach me English as to learn German herself.

Born in Ireland, and a Catholic, she had always had excellent situations in the most aristocratic English families. This had given her, besides her other acquirements, a great familiarity with the curious peculiarities of the British peerage, and with social distinctions of rank in England, as to which she enlightened me, along with much other valuable information.

At first I thought her quite ridiculous in many respects,--her general appearance,--she had once been a beauty, and still wore corkscrew curls,--her way of humming to herself old Irish ballads, "Nora Creina," "The harp that once through Tara's halls," etc., with a cracked voice and unconscious gestures, her formality and sensitiveness. After a while I grew fond of her. What quantities of books she read aloud to me in the long evenings in January and December, while my wooden needles clicked monotonously as I knitted woollen comforters for the poor!--all Walter Scott's novels, Dickens and Thackeray, many of the works of English historians, from the academic, fluent Gibbon to that strange prophet of history, Carlyle, and every day I had to study with her one act of Shakespeare, which bored me at first. She was so determined to form my literary taste that while my maid was brushing my hair she would read aloud some lighter work, such as "The Vicar of Wakefield" or Doctor Johnson's "Rasselas."

As Uncle Paul was very desirous to perfect my education as far as possible, he was not content with these far-reaching efforts, but, with a view to further accomplishments on my part, sent me thrice a week to X----, where an old pianiste, who was said to have refused a Russian prince, and was now humpbacked, gave me lessons on the piano; and a former ballerina, at present married to the best caterer in X----, taught me to dance.

This last was a short, fat, good-humoured person with an enormous double chin and a complexion spoiled by bad rouge. When a ballet-dancer she had been known as Angiolina Chiaramonte; her name now is Frau Anna Schwanzara. She always lost her breath, and sometimes the buttons off her waist, when she danced for her pupils, and she prided herself upon being able to teach every known dance, even to the cancan. I did not learn the cancan, but I did learn the fandango, the czardas, and the Highland fling, with many another national dance. Waltzes and polkas I did not learn, because we had no one for a partner to practise with me; Frau Schwanzara was too short-breathed, although she was very good-humoured and did her best.

Sometimes I thought it very hard to have to get up so early and drive between high walls of snow in a rattling inspector's wagon (Uncle Paul would not allow his last good carriage to be used on these journeys) two long leagues to X----, but it was, at all events, a break in the monotony of my life.

If I was not too sleepy, we argued the whole way, Miss O'Donnel and I, usually over some historic event, such as the execution of Louis XVI. or Cromwell's rebellion. Sometimes we continued our debate as we walked about the town, where we must have been strange and yet familiar figures. Miss O'Donnel certainly was odd in appearance. She always wore a long gray cloth cloak, under which, to guard against dirt, she kilted up her petticoats so high that her red stockings gleamed from afar. On her head was perched a black velvet bonnet with a scarlet pompon, and in summer and winter she carried the same bulgy green umbrella, which she called her "Gamp." Once we lost each other in the midst of a particularly lively discussion. Nothing daunted, she planted herself at a street-corner, and, pounding the pavement with her umbrella, called, lustily, "Zdena! Zdena! Zdena!" until a policeman, to whom I described her, conducted me to her.

In addition to Miss O'Donnel's peculiarities, the extraordinary structure of our vehicle must have attracted some attention in X----. It was a long, old-fashioned coach hung on very high springs, and it looked very like the shabby carriages seen following the hearse at third-class funerals. Twin sister of the Komaritz "Noah's Ark," it served a double purpose, and could be taken apart in summer and used as an open carriage. Sometimes it fell apart of itself. Once when we were driving quickly through the market-square and past the officers' casino in X----, the entire carriage window fell out upon the pavement. The coachman stopped the horses, and a very tall hussar picked up the window and handed it in to me, saying, with a smile, "You have dropped something, mademoiselle!" I was deeply mortified, but I would not for the world have shown that I was so. I said, simply, "Thank you; put it down there, if you please," pointing to the opposite seat,--as if dropping a window out of the carriage were the most ordinary every-day occurrence. Upon my reply to him he made a profound bow, which I thought all right. He was a late arrival in the garrison; the other officers knew us or our carriage by sight. Every one of them, when he came to X----, paid his respects to my uncle, who in due course of time returned the visit, and there was an end of it. The officers were never invited to Zirkow.

Sometimes the roads were so blocked with snow that we could not drive to town, nor could we walk far. For the sake of exercise, or what Miss O'Donnel called our "daily constitutional," we used then to walk numberless times around the house, where the gardener had cleared a path for us. As we walked, Miss O'Donnel told me stories from the Arabian Nights or Ovid's Metamorphoses, varied sometimes by descriptions of life among the British aristocracy. When once she was launched upon this last topic, I would not let her finish,--I besieged her with questions. She showed me the picture of one of her pupils, the Lady Alice B----, who married the Duke of G---- and was the queen of London society for two years.

"'Tis odd how much you look like her," she often said to me. "You are sure to make a sensation in the world; only have patience. You are born to play a great part."

If Uncle Paul had heard her, I believe he would have killed her.

Every evening we played a rubber of whist. Miss O'Donnel never could remember what cards were out, and, whenever we wished to recall a card or to transgress some rule of the game, Aunt Rosamunda always said, "That is not allowed at the Jockey Club."

Once my uncle and aunt took me upon a six weeks' pleasure-tour,--or, rather, an educational excursion. We thoroughly explored the greater part of Germany and Italy on this occasion, travelling very simply, with very little luggage, never speaking to strangers, having intercourse exclusively with pictures, sculptures, and valets-de-place. After thus becoming acquainted, in Baedeker's society, with a new piece of the world, as Aunt Rosamunda observed with satisfaction, we returned to Zirkow, and life went on as before.

And really my lonely existence would not have struck me as anything extraordinary, if Hedwig had not been at hand to enlighten me as to my deprivations.

She had been introduced into society, and wrote me of her conquests. Last summer she brought a whole trunkful of faded bouquets with her to Komaritz,--ball-trophies. Besides this stuff, she brought two other acquisitions with her to the country, a sallow complexion and an adjective which she used upon every occasion--"impossible!" She tossed it about to the right and left, applying it to everything in the dear old nest which I so dearly loved, and which she now never called anything save "Mon exil." The house at Komaritz, the garden, my dress,--all fell victims to this adjective.

Two of her friends shortly followed her to Komaritz, with a suitable train of governesses and maids,--countesses from Prague society, Mimi and Franziska Zett.

They were not nearly so affected as Heda,--in fact, they were not affected at all, but were sweet and natural, very pretty, and particularly pleasant towards me. But we were not congenial; we had nothing to say to one another; we had no interests in common. They were quite indifferent to my favourite heroes, from the Gracchi to the First Consul; in fact, they knew hardly anything about them, and I knew still less of the Rudis, Nikis, Taffis, and whatever else the young gentlemen were called, with whom they danced and flirted at balls and parties, and about whom they now gossiped with Heda.

They, too, brought each a trunkful of faded bouquets, and one day they piled them all up on the grass in the garden and set fire to them. They declared that it was the custom in society in Vienna thus to burn on Ash Wednesday every relic of the Carnival. To be sure, it was not Ash Wednesday in Komaritz, and the Carnival was long past, but that was of no consequence.

The favourite occupation of the three young ladies was to sit in the summer-house, with a generous supply of iced raspberry vinegar, and make confession of the various passions funestes which they had inspired. I sat by and listened mutely.

Once Mimi amiably asked me to give my experience. I turned my head away, and murmured, ashamed, "No one ever made love to me." Mimi, noticing my distress, put her finger beneath my chin, just as if she had been my grand-aunt, and said, "Only wait until you come out, and you will bear the palm away from all of us, for you are by long odds the prettiest of us all."

When afterwards I looked in the glass, I thought she was right.

"Until you go into society," Mimi had said. Good heavens! into society!--I! For some time a suspicion had dawned upon me that Uncle Paul did not mean that I should ever "go into society." When, the day after Mimi's portentous speech, I returned to Zirkow, I determined to put an end to all uncertainty upon the subject.

After dinner--it had been an uncommonly good one--I put my hand caressingly within my uncle's arm, and whispered, softly, "Uncle, do you never mean to take me to balls, eh?"

He had been very gay, but he at once grew grave, as he replied,--

"What good would balls do you? Make your eyes droop, and your feet ache! I can't endure the thought of having you whirled about by all the young coxcombs of Prague and then criticised afterwards. Marriages are made in heaven, Zdena, and your fate will find you here, you may be sure."

"But I am not thinking of marriage," I exclaimed, indignantly. "I want to see the world, uncle dear; can you not understand that?" and I tenderly stroked his coat-sleeve.

He shook his curly head energetically.

"Be thankful that you know nothing of the world," he said, with emphasis.

And I suddenly recalled the intense bitterness in my mother's tone as she uttered the word "world," when I waked in the dark night and found her kneeling, crying, at my bedside in our old Paris home.

"Is it really so very terrible--the world?" I asked, meekly, and yet incredulously.

"Terrible!" he repeated my word with even more energy than was usual with him. "It is a hot-bed of envy and vanity, a place where one learns to be ashamed of his best friend if he chance to wear an ill-made coat; that is the world you are talking of. I do not wish you to know anything about it."

This was all he would say.

It might be supposed that the unattractive picture of the world drawn by Uncle Paul would have put a stop at once and forever to any desire of mine for a further acquaintance with it, but--there is ever a charm about what is forbidden. At present I have not the faintest desire to visit Pekin, but if I were forbidden to go near that capital I should undoubtedly be annoyed.

And day follows day. Nearly a year has passed since that unedifying conversation with my uncle.

The only amusement that varied the monotony of our existence was a letter at long intervals from Harry. For a time he was stationed in Salzburg; for a year he has been in garrison in Vienna, where, of course, he is absorbed in the whirl of Viennese society. I must confess that it did not greatly please me when I first learned that he had entered upon that brilliant worldly scene: will he not come to be like Hedwig? My uncle declares that the world is the hot-bed of envy and vanity; and yet there must be natures upon which poisonous atmospheres produce no effect, just as there are men who can breathe with impunity the air of the Pontine marshes; and Harry's nature is one of these. At least so it would seem from his letters, they are so cordial and simple, such warm affection speaks in every line. A little while ago he sent me his photograph. I liked it extremely, but I did not say so; all the more loudly, however, did my uncle express his admiration. He offered to wager that Harry is the handsomest officer in the entire army, and he shouted loudly for Krupitschka, to show him the picture.

Harry told us one interesting piece of news,--I forget whether it was this winter or the last; perhaps it was still longer ago, for Harry was stationed in Enns at the time, and the news related to our old friend Treurenberg.

He had married a girl in the world of trade,--a FrÄulein Selina von Harfink. Harry, whom Lato had bidden to his marriage, and who had gone for old friendship's sake from Enns to Vienna to be the escort in the church of the first of the eight bridesmaids, made very merry in his letter over the festivity.

We were all intensely surprised; we had not heard a word of Lato's betrothal, and the day after Harry's letter came the announcement of the marriage.

Uncle Paul, who takes most of the events of life very philosophically, grew quite angry on learning of this marriage.

Since Lato has married for money, he cares nothing more for him.

"I should not care if he had made a fool of himself and married an actress," he exclaimed, over and over again, "but to sell himself--ugh!"

When I suggested, "Perhaps he fell in love with Selina," my uncle shrugged his shoulders, and seemed to consider any such possibility entirely out of the question.

We talked for two weeks at Zirkow about Lato Treurenberg's marriage.

Now we have almost forgotten it. Since Lato has been married he has been quite estranged from his former associations.

To-day is my birthday. I am nineteen years old. How kind my uncle and aunt are to me! How they try to give me pleasure! My heap of presents was really grand. Arrayed about my cake, with its lighted candles, I found two new gowns, a hat which Heda had purchased for me in Prague,--and which, by the way, would be highly appreciated upon the head of a monkey in a circus,--several volumes of English literature sent me by Miss O'Donnel from Italy, and, in a white silk sachet upon which Mimi Zett had embroidered a bird of paradise in the midst of a snow-scene (a symbol of my melancholy condition), a card, upon which was written, "A visit to some watering-place, by the way of Vienna and Paris." I uttered a shriek of delight and threw my arms around my uncle's neck.

The three young girls from Komaritz came over to Zirkow to dine, in honour of the occasion; we drank one another's health in champagne, and in the afternoon we had coffee in the woods, which was very inconvenient but very delightful. Then we consulted the cards as to our future, and Heda lost her temper because the oracle declared that she would marry an apothecary.

What nonsense it was! The cards prophesied to me that I should marry for love;--I! As if I should think of such a thing! But I was not in the least vexed, although I knew how false it was.

Towards eight o'clock the girls drove home, and I concluded the evening by taking my new bonnet to pieces and then scribbling here at my writing-table. I cannot make up my mind to go to bed. I am fairly tingling to my finger-tips with delightful anticipations. To think of seeing Paris once more,--Paris, where I was born, the very centre of the civilized world! Oh, it is too charming!

Something extraordinary will happen during this trip,--I am sure of it. I shall meet some one who will liberate me from my solitude and set me upon the pedestal for which I long; an English peer, perhaps, or a Russian prince, oh, it will of course be a Russian prince--who spends most of his time in Paris. I shall not mind his not being very young. Elderly men are more easily managed.----

(At this point the major frowns. "I should not have thought it of her, I really should not have thought it of her. Well, we shall see whether she is in earnest." And he goes on with his reading.)

June 10, ----.

I have a piece of news to put down. The Frau von Harfink who bought Dobrotschau a while ago--the estate that adjoins Zirkow, a fine property with a grand castle but poor soil--is no other than Lato Treurenberg's mother-in-law. She called upon us to-day. When Krupitschka brought the cards of the Baroness Melanie von Harfink and her daughter Paula, Aunt Rosa denounced the visit as a presumption upon the part of the ladies. She had been engaged all day long in setting the house "to rights," preparatory to our departure, and had on a very old gown in which she does not often appear; wherefore she would fain have denied herself. But I was burning with curiosity to see Lato's mother-in-law: so I remarked, "Uncle Paul and I will go and receive the ladies, while you dress."

This made my aunt very angry. "It never would occur to me to dress for these wealthy parvenues. This gown is quite good enough for them." And she smoothed the faded folds of her skirt so that a neatly-darned spot was distinctly conspicuous. The ladies were immediately shown in; they were extremely courteous and amiable, but they found no favour in my aunt's eyes.

There really was no objection to make to Mamma von Harfink, who is still a very handsome woman, except that her manner was rather affected. The daughter, however, was open to criticism of various kinds, and subsequently became the subject of a serious dispute between my aunt and uncle. My aunt called FrÄulein Paula disagreeable, absolutely hideous, and vulgar; whereupon my uncle, slowly shaking his head, rejoined,----

"Say what you please, she may not be agreeable, but she is very pretty."

Upon this my aunt grew angry, and called FrÄulein Paula a "red-haired kitchen-maid." My uncle shrugged his shoulders, and observed, "Nevertheless, there have been kitchen-maids who were not ugly."

Then my aunt declared, "I can see nothing pretty about such fat creatures; but, according to her mother's account, you are not alone in your admiration. Madame Harfink had hardly been here five minutes when she informed me that Professor X----, of Vienna, had declared that her daughter reminded him of Titian's penitent Magdalen in the Borghese Gallery in Rome, and she asked me whether I was not struck with the resemblance."

My uncle grinned--I could not see at what and said, "H'm! the Magdalen, perhaps; but whether penitent or not----" and he pinched my cheek.

The dispute continued for a while longer, and ended with my aunt's emphatic declaration that men always had the worst possible taste with regard to young girls. My uncle burst into a laugh at this, and replied, "True. I gave proof of it on the 21st of May, 1858." It was his marriage-day.

Of course my aunt laughed, and the quarrel ended. The subject was changed, and we discussed Lato Treurenberg's marriage, which had puzzled us all. My aunt declared that since she had seen the family Treurenberg's choice appeared to her more incomprehensible than ever.

My uncle shook his head sagely, and observed, "If Selina Treurenberg at all resembles her sister, it explains much to me, especially when I recall the poor fellow's peculiarities. It makes me more lenient towards him, and--I pity him from my heart." They evidently did not wish to say anything more upon the subject before me.

June 20.

This afternoon we start. I am in a fever of anticipation. How delightful! I seem to have come to the turning-point of my existence. Something wonderful is surely going to happen.

Meanwhile, I take my leave of my little book,--I shall have no time to write in it while we are away.

July 30.

Here we are back again in the old nest! Nothing either wonderful or even extraordinary happened upon the journey; on the contrary, everything was quite commonplace. I did not meet the Russian prince, but I have brought home with me a conviction of the beauty and delights of the world, and the certainty that, if fate would only grant me the opportunity, I could play a most brilliant part in it. But my destiny has nothing of the kind to offer.

I am restless and discontented, and I have great trouble in concealing my mood from my uncle and aunt. I am likewise disgusted with my ingratitude. I know that the expenses of our trip weighed heavily upon my uncle. He has bought himself no new horses, although the old ones are lame in all four legs; and my aunt has given up her pilgrimage to Bayreuth, that I might go to the baths. She expected so much for me from this trip, and now----

Still, prosaic and commonplace as it all was, I will put it down here conscientiously in detail. Various pleasant little circumstances may recur to me as I write which have escaped me in my general discontent that has tinged everything.

Our few days in Vienna were the pleasantest part of the entire trip, little as I liked the city at first.

We arrived at ten in the evening, rather exhausted by the heat, and of course we expected to see Harry at the railroad-station, my uncle having advised him of our arrival. But in vain did we peer in every direction, or rather in vain did Aunt Rosamunda thus peer (for I did nothing of the kind); there was no Harry to be seen.

While my aunt loudly expressed her wonder at his non-appearance, I never uttered a word, but was secretly all the more vexed at what seemed to me Harry's laziness and want of consideration. Of course, I attributed his absence to the fact that a young man who passed his time in flying from one fÊte to another in the world (which I was not to know) could hardly be very anxious to meet a couple of relatives from the country. Perhaps he had come to be just like Heda, and I shrugged my shoulders indifferently at the thought. What could it possibly matter to me? Meanwhile, my aunt had given our luggage-tickets to a porter and got with me into an open carriage, where we quietly and wearily awaited our trunks.

Around us the lights flickered in the warm, dim, night air, which was almost as close as an in-door atmosphere, and smelled most unpleasantly of dust, dried leaves, and all sorts of exhalations. On every hand crowded houses of indescribable clumsiness and ugliness; I was depressed by the mere eight of them, and suddenly experienced the most painful sensation of shrivelling up. The deafening noise and bustle were in harmony with the houses: I never had heard anything like it. Everybody jostled everybody else, all were in a hurry, and no one paid the slightest regard to anybody. It seemed as if they were one and all bound for some great entertainment and feared to be too late.

At the hotel the reason for Harry's absence was explained. We found two beautiful bunches of roses in our rooms, and a note, as follows:

"I am more sorry than I can tell, not to be able to welcome you at the station. I am, unfortunately, on duty at a garden-party at the Archduke S----'s.... I shall report myself to you, however, at the earliest opportunity.

"Harry."

I supped with a relish, and slept soundly.

My aunt had breakfasted in our sitting-room and was reading the paper, when I had scarcely begun to dress. I was just about to brush my hair,--I have very long hair, and it is quite pretty, light brown with a dash of gold,--in fact, I was standing before the mirror in my white peignoir, with my hair hanging soft and curling all around me, very well pleased with my reflection in the glass, when suddenly I heard the jingling of spurs and sabre, and a voice which was familiar and yet unfamiliar. I trembled from head to foot.

"Zdena, hurry, and come!" called my aunt. "Here is a visitor!"

I knew well enough who it was, but, as if I did not know, I opened the door, showed myself for a moment in my white wrapper and long, loose hair,--only for a moment,--and then hastily retreated.

"Come just as you are. 'Tis only Harry; it is not as if it were a stranger. Come!" called my aunt.

But I was not to be persuaded. Not for worlds would I have had Harry suspect that--that--well, that I was in any great hurry to see him.

I dressed my hair with the most scrupulous care. Not before twenty minutes had passed did I go into the next room.

How plainly I see it all before me now,--the room, half drawing-room, half dressing-room; a trunk in one corner, in another an old piano, the key of which we were obliged to procure from the kellner; in an arm-chair a bundle of shawls, over the back of a sofa our travelling-wraps, our well-polished boots in front of the porcelain stove, great patches of misty sunshine lying everywhere, the breakfast-table temptingly spread near the window, and there, opposite my aunt, his sabre between his knees, tall, slender, very brown, very handsome, an officer of hussars,--Harry.

I like him, and am a little afraid of him. He suddenly springs up and advances a step or two towards me. His eyes--the same eyes that had glanced at me as I appeared in my wrapper--open wide in amazement; his gaze is riveted upon my face. All my fear has gone; yes, I confess it to this paper,--I am possessed by an exultant consciousness of power. He is only my cousin, 'tis true, but he is the first man upon whom I have been able to prove my powers of conquest.

I put my hands in his, so cordially extended, but when he stooped as if to kiss me, I shook my head, laughing, and said, "I am too old for that."

He yielded without a word, only touching my hand respectfully with his lips and then releasing me; whereupon I went directly to the breakfast-table. But, as he still continued to gaze at me, I asked, easily,----

"What is it, Harry? Is my hair coming down?"

He shook his head, and said, in some confusion, "Not at all. I was only wondering what you had done with all your magnificent hair!"

I made no reply, but applied myself to my breakfast.

It was really delightful, our short stay in Vienna. Harry was with us all the while. He went about with us from morning till night; patiently dragged with us to shops, picture-galleries, and cathedrals, and to the dusty, sunny Prater, where the vegetation along the drive seemed to have grown shabby. We drove together to SchÖnbrunn, the huge, dreamy, imperial summer residence, and wandered about the leafy avenues there. We fed the swans; we fed the monkeys and the bears, while my aunt rested near by, Baedeker in hand, upon any bench she could find. She rested a great deal, and grew more tired with every day of our stay in Vienna, and with very good reason; she can hardly endure the pavement in walking, and she refuses, from fastidiousness, to take advantage of the tramway, and, from economy, to hire a carriage.

The sunset has kindled flames in all the windows of the castle, and we are still wandering in the green avenues, talking of all sorts of things, music, and literature. Harry's taste is classic; mine is somewhat revolutionary. I talk more than he; he listens. Sometimes he throws in a word in the midst of my nonsense; at other times he laughs heartily at my paradoxes, and then again he suddenly looks askance at me and says nothing. Then I become aware that he understands far more than I of the matter in hand, and I fall silent.

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.

The twilight falls; the nurses are all taking their charges home. Here and there on the benches a soldier and a nursemaid are sitting together. It is too dark to see to read Baedeker any longer. My aunt calls to us: "Do come, children; the carriage has been waiting ever so long, and I am very hungry."

And the time had seemed so short to me. My aunt is so easily fatigued, and her aversion to tramways is so insurmountable, that she stays at home half the time in the hotel, and I make many a little expedition with Harry alone. Then I take his arm. We stroll through the old part of the city, with its sculptured monuments, its beautiful gray palaces standing side by side with the commonest lodging-houses; about us people are thronging and pushing; we are in no hurry; we should like to have time stand still,--Harry and I; we walk very slowly. I am so content, so filled with a sense of protection, when I am with him thus. It is delightful to cling to him in the crowd.

It seems to me that I should like to spend my life in slowly wandering thus in the cool of the evening through the streets, where the lights are just beginning to be lighted, where a pair of large, kindly eyes rest upon my face, and the sound of distant military music is in my ears.

The last evening before our departure arrived. We were sitting in our small drawing-room, and Harry and I were drinking iced coffee. My aunt had left hers untouched; the fever of travelling was upon her; she wandered from one room to another, opening trunks, drawers, and wardrobes, and casting suspicious glances under the piano and the sofas, sure that something would be left behind.

The kellner brought in two cards,--Countess Zriny and FrÄulein Tschaky,--a cousin of Uncle Paul's, with her companion.

We had called upon the Countess the day before, and had rejoiced to find her not at home. My aunt now elevated her eyebrows, and murmured, plaintively, "It can't be helped!"

Then she hurriedly carried two bundles of shawls and a hand-bag into the next room, and the ladies were shown in.

Countess Zriny is a very stout, awkward old maid, with the figure of a meal-sack and the face of a portly abbot. Harry maintains that she has holy water instead of blood in her veins, and that she has for ten years lived exclusively upon Eau de Lourdes and Count Mattei's miraculous pills. It is odd that she should have grown so stout upon such a diet.

There is nothing to say of FrÄulein Tschaky.

Aunt Rosamunda received the ladies with a majestic affability peculiarly her own, and presented me as "Our child,--Fritz's daughter!"

The Countess gave me her hand, a round, fat little hand that felt as if her Swedish glove were stuffed with wadding, then put up her eyeglass and gazed at me, lifting her eyebrows the while.

"All her father!" she murmured,--"especially her profile." Then she dropped her eyeglass, sighed, "Poor Fritz! poor Fritz!" seated herself on the sofa with my aunt, and began to whisper to her, looking steadily at me all the while.

The sensitive irritability of my nature was at once aflame. If she had pitied my father only for being snatched away so early in his fair young life, for being torn so suddenly from those whom he loved! But this was not the case. She pitied him solely because he had married my mother. Oh, I knew it perfectly well; and she was whispering about it to my aunt before me,--she could not even wait until I should be away. I could hear almost every word.

My heart suddenly grew heavy,--so heavy with the old grief that I would fain forget, that I could hardly bear it. But even in the midst of my pain I observed that Harry was aware of my suffering and shared it.

Of course my cousin Zriny--for she is my cousin, after all--was otherwise extremely amiable to me. She turned from her mysterious conversation with Aunt Rosamunda, and addressed a couple of questions to me. She asked whether I liked country life, and when I replied, curtly, "I know no other," she laughed good-humouredly, just as some contented old monk might laugh,--a laugh that seemed to shake her fat sides and double chin, as she said, "Elle a de l'esprit, la petite; elle n'est pas du tout banale."

How she arrived at that conclusion from my brief reply, I am unable to say.

After a quarter of an hour she rose, took both my hands in hers by way of farewell, put her head on one side, sighed, "Poor Fritz!" and then kissed me.

When the door had closed behind her, my aunt betook herself to the next room to make ready for a projected evening walk.

I was left alone with Harry. As I could not restrain my tears, and did not know how else to conceal them, I turned my back to him and pretended to arrange my hair at the pier-glass, before which stood a vase filled with the La France roses that he had brought me the day before.

It was a silly thing to do. He looked over my shoulder and saw in the mirror the tears on my cheeks, and then--he put his arm around my waist and whispered, "You poor little goose! You sensitive little thing! Why should you grieve because a kindhearted, weak-minded old woman was silly?"

Then I could not help sobbing outright, crying, "Ah, it is always the same,--I know it! I am not like the other girls in your world. People despise me, and my poor mother too."

"But this is childish," he said, gravely,--"childish and foolish. No one despises you. And--don't scratch my eyes out, Zdena--it is not your heart, merely, that is wounded at present, but your vanity, the vanity of an inexperienced little girl who knows nothing of the world or of the people in it. If you had knocked about in it somewhat, you would know how little it signifies if people in general wink and nod, and that the only thing really to care for is, to be understood and loved by those to whom we cling with affection."

He said this more gently and kindly than I can write it. He suddenly seemed very far above me in his earnest kindness of heart and his sweet reasonableness. I was instantly possessed with a feeling akin to remorse and shame, to think how I had teased him and tyrannized over him all through those last few days. And I cannot tell how it happened, but he clasped me close in his arms and bent down and kissed me on the lips,--and I let him do it! Ah, such a thrill passed through me! And I felt sheltered and cared for as I had not done since my mother's clasping arms had been about me. I was for the moment above all petty annoyances,--borne aloft by a power I could not withstand.

It lasted but a moment, for we were startled by the silken rustle of my aunt's gown, and did he release me? did I leave him? I do not know; but when Aunt Rosamunda appeared I was adjusting a rose in my breast, and Harry was--looking for his sabre!----. (When the major reached this point, he stamped on the floor with delight.)

"Aha, Rosel, which of us was right?" he exclaimed aloud. He would have liked to summon his wife from where he could see her walking in the garden, to impart to her his glorious discovery. On reflection, however, he decided not to do so, chiefly because there was a good deal of manuscript still unread, and he was in a hurry to continue the perusal of what interested him so intensely.)

----I avoided being alone with Harry all the rest of the evening, but the next morning at the railway-station, while my aunt was nervously counting over the pieces of luggage for the ninety-ninth time, I could not prevent his leaning towards me and saying, "Zdena, we were so unfortunately interrupted last evening. You have not yet told me--that----"

I felt myself grow scarlet. "Wait for a while!" I murmured, turning my head away from him, but I think that perhaps--I pressed his hand----

I must have done so, for happier eyes than those which looked after our train as it sped away I have never seen. Ah, how silly I had been! I carried with me for the rest of the journey a decided regret.----

(The major frowned darkly. "Why, this looks as if she would like to withdraw her promise! But let me see, there really has no promise passed between them."

He glanced hurriedly over the following leaves. "Descriptions of travel--compositions," he muttered to himself. "Paris--variations upon Baedeker--the little goose begins to be tiresome----Ah, here is something about her parents' grave--poor thing! And here----" He began to read again.)

----A few hours after our arrival we drove to the graveyard at Montmartre, an ugly, gloomy graveyard, bordering directly upon a business-street, so that the noise and bustle of the city sound deafeningly where the dead are reposing. The paths are as straight as if drawn by a ruler, and upon the graves lie wreaths of straw flowers or stiff immortelles. These durable decorations seem to me heartless,--as if the poor dead were to be provided for once for all, since it might be tiresome to visit them often.

My parents' grave lies a little apart from the broad centre path, under a knotty old juniper-tree.

I heaped it with flowers, and amid the fresh blossoms I laid the roses, now faded, which Harry gave me yesterday when we parted.

I was enchanted with Paris. My aunt was delighted with the shops. She spent all her time in them, and thought everything very reasonable. At the end of four days she had bought so many reasonable articles that she had to purchase a huge trunk in which to take them home, and she had scarcely any money left.

She was convinced that she must have made some mistake in her accounts, and she worked over them half through an entire night, but with no consoling result.

The upshot of it was that she wanted to go home immediately; but since the trip had been undertaken chiefly for my health and was to end in a visit to some sea-side resort, she wrote to my uncle, explaining the state of affairs--that is, of her finances--and asking for a subsidy.

My uncle sent the subsidy, but requested us to leave Paris as soon as possible, and to choose a modest seaside resort.

The next day we departed from Babylon.

After inquiring everywhere, and studying the guidebook attentively, my aunt finally resolved to go to St. Valery.

The evening was cold and windy when we reached the little town and drew up in the omnibus before the HÔtel de la Plage.

The season had not begun, and the hotel was not actually open, but it received us.

As no rooms were taken, all were placed at our disposal, and we chose three in the first story, one for my aunt, one for me, and one for our trunks.

The furniture, of crazy old mahogany, had evidently been bought of some dealer in second-band furniture in Rouen, but the beds were extremely good, and the bed-linen, although "coarse as sacking," as Uncle Paul would have expressed it, was perfectly clean and white.

From our windows we looked out upon the sea and upon the little wooden hut where the safety-boat was kept, and also upon the little town park, about a hundred square yards in extent; upon the Casino, quite an imposing structure on the shore; upon the red pennons which, designating the bathing-place, made a brilliant show in the midst of the prevailing gray, and upon a host of whitewashed bath-houses waiting for the guests who had not yet arrived.

How indeed could they arrive? One had need to have come from Bohemia, not to go directly home, in such cold, damp weather as we had; but we wanted to get value from our expensive trip.

The Casino was no more open than the hotel, it was even in a decided nÉgligÉ, but it was busily dressing. A swarm of painters and upholsterers were decorating it. The upholsterers hung the inside with crimson, the painters coloured the outside red and white.

The proprietor, a broad-shouldered young man answering to the high-sounding name of Raoul Donval, daily superintended the work of the--artists. He always wore a white cap with a broad black visor, and a stick in the pocket of his short jacket, and plum-coloured knickerbockers; and I think he considered himself very elegant.

They were draping and beautifying and painting our hotel too. Everything was being painted instead of scrubbed,--the stairs, the doors, the floors; everywhere the dirt was hidden beneath the same dull-red colour. Aunt Rosa declared that they seemed to her to be daubing the entire house with blood. Just at this time she was wont to make most ghastly comparisons, because, for lack of other literature, she was reading an historical romance in the Petit Journal.

She was in a far more melancholy mood than I at St. Valery. Since it had to be, I made up my mind to it, consoling myself with the reflection that I was just nineteen, and that there was plenty of time for fate, if so minded, to shape my destiny brilliantly. Unfortunately, my aunt had not this consolation, but, instead, the depressing consciousness of having given up Bayreuth. It was hard. I was very sorry for her, and did all that I could to amuse her.

I could always find something to laugh at in our visits to the empty Casino and in our walks through the town, but instead of cheering her my merriment distressed her. She had seen in the French journal which she studied faithfully every day an account of a sensitive trombone-player at the famous yearly festival at Neuilly who had broken his instrument over the head of an arrogant Englishman who had allowed himself to make merry over some detail of the festival. Therefore I could scarcely smile in the street without having my aunt twitch my sleeve and say,--

"For heaven's sake don't laugh at these Frenchmen!--remember that trombone at Neuilly."

During the first fortnight I had the whole shore, with the bath-houses and bathing-men, entirely to myself. It was ghastly! The icy temperature of the water seemed to bite into my flesh, my teeth chattered, and the bather who held me by both my hands was as blue as his dress. Our mutual isolation had the effect of establishing a friendship between the bather and myself. He had formerly been a sailor, and had but lately returned from Tonquin; he told me much that was interesting about the war and the cholera. He was a good-looking fellow, with a fair complexion and a tanned face.

After my bath I ran about on the shore until I got warm, and then we breakfasted. My aunt did not bathe. She counted the days like a prisoner.

When the weather permitted, we made excursions into the surrounding country in a little wagon painted yellow, drawn by a shaggy donkey, which I drove myself. The donkey's name was Jeanne d'Arc,--which horrified my aunt,--and she had a young one six months old that ran after us as we drove along.

For more than two weeks we were the sole inmates of the HÔtel de la Plage. The manager of the establishment--who was likewise the head of the kitchen--drove to the station every day to capture strangers, but never brought any back.

I see him now,--short and enormously broad, with a triple or quadruple chin, sitting on the box beside the coachman, his hands on his thighs. He always wore sky-blue trousers, and a short coat buckled about him with a broad patent-leather belt. The chambermaid, who revered him, informed me that it was the dress of an English courier.

One day he brought back to the host, who daily awaited the guests, two live passengers,--an old woman and a young man.

The old woman was very poor, and took a garret room. She must have been beautiful formerly, and she looked very distinguished. She positively refused to write her name in the strangers' book. By chance we learned afterwards that she was a Comtesse d'Ivry, from Versailles, who had had great misfortunes. She had a passion for sunsets; every afternoon she had an arm-chair carried out on the shore, and sat there, wrapped in a thick black cloak, with her feet on a hot-water bottle, to admire the majestic spectacle. When it rained, she still persisted in going, and sat beneath a large ragged umbrella. Upon her return she usually sighed and told the host that the sunsets here were not nearly so fine as at Trouville,--appearing to think that this was his fault.

At last the weather brightened and it grew warm; the sun chased away the clouds, and allured a crowd of people to the lonely shore. And such people! I shudder to think of them.

We could endure the solitude, but such society was unendurable.

The next day I took my last bath.

On our return journey, at Cologne, an odd thing happened.

It was early, and I was sleepy. I was waiting for breakfast in melancholy mood, and was contemplating a huge pile of elegant hand-luggage which a servant in a very correct dark suit was superintending, when two ladies, followed by a maid, made their appearance, one fair, the other dark, from the dressing-room, which had been locked in our faces. In honour of these two princesses we had been obliged to remain unwashed. Ah, how fresh and neat and pretty they both looked! The dark one was by far the handsomer of the two, but she looked gloomy and discontented, spoke never a word, and after a hurried breakfast became absorbed in a newspaper. The fair one, on the contrary, a striking creature, with a very large hat and a profusion of passementerie on her travelling-cloak, talked a great deal and very loudly to a short, fat woman who was going with her little son to Frankfort, and who addressed the blonde as "Frau Countess."

The name of the short woman was Frau Kampe, and the name of the Countess, which I shortly learned, shall be told in due time. The Countess complained of the fatigue of travelling; Frau Kampe, in a sympathetic tone, declared that it was almost impossible to sleep in the railway-carriages at this time of year, they were so overcrowded. But the Countess rejoined with a laugh,--

"We had as much room as we wanted all the way; my husband secures that by his fees. He is much too lavish, as I often tell him. Since I have been travelling with him we have always had two railway-carriages, one for me and my maid, and the other for him and his cigars. It has been delightful."

"Even upon your wedding tour?" asked her handsome, dark companion, looking up from her reading.

"Ha, ha, ha! Yes, even upon our wedding tour," said the other. "We were a very prosaic couple, entirely independent of each other,--quite an aristocratic match!" And she laughed again with much self-satisfaction.

"Where is the Herr Count?" asked Frau Kampe. "I should like to make his acquaintance."

"Oh, he is not often to be seen; he is smoking on the platform somewhere. I scarcely ever meet him; he never appears before the third bell has rung. A very aristocratic marriage, you see, Frau Kampe,--such a one as you read of."

The Countess's beautiful companion frowned, and the little Kampe boy grinned from ear to ear,--I could not tell whether it was at the aristocratic marriage or at the successful solution of an arithmetical problem which he had just worked out on the paper cover of one of Walter Scott's novels.

I must confess that I was curious to see the young husband who even upon his marriage journey had preferred the society of his cigars to that of his bride.

My aunt had missed the interesting conversation between Frau Kampe and her young patroness; she had rushed out to see the cathedral in the morning mist. I had manifested so little desire to join her in this artistic but uncomfortable enterprise that she had dispensed with my society. She now came back glowing with enthusiasm, and filled to overflowing with all sorts of information as to Gothic architecture.

Scarcely had she seated herself to drink the coffee which I poured out for her, when a tall young man, slightly stooping in his gait, and with a very attractive, delicately-chiselled face, entered. Was he not----? Well, whoever he was, he was the husband of the aristocratic marriage.

He exchanged a few words with the blonde Countess, and was about to leave the room, when his glance fell upon my aunt.

"Baroness, you here!--what a delight!" he exclaimed, approaching her hastily.

"Lato!" she almost screamed. She always talks a little loud away from home, which annoys me.

It was, in fact, our old friend Lato Treurenberg. Before she had been with him two minutes my aunt had forgotten all her prejudice against him since his marriage,--and, what was more, had evidently forgotten the marriage itself, for she whispered, leaning towards him with a sly twinkle of her eye and a nod in the direction of the ladies,--

"What noble acquaintances you have made!--from Frankfort, or Hamburg?"

My heart was in my mouth. No one except Aunt Rosamunda could have made such a blunder.

The words had hardly escaped her lips when she became aware of her mistake, and she was covered with confusion. Lato flushed scarlet. At that moment the departure of our train was announced, and Lato took a hurried leave of us. I saw him outside putting the ladies into a carriage, after which he himself got into another.

We travelled second-class, and therefore had the pleasure of sharing a compartment with the man-servant and maid of the Countess Lato Treurenberg.

My aunt took it all philosophically, while I, I confess, had much ado to conceal my ungrateful and mean irritation.

I succeeded, however; I do not think my aunt even guessed at my state of mind. She went to sleep; perhaps she dreamed of Cologne Cathedral. I--ah, I no longer dreamed; I had long since awakened from my dreams, and had rubbed my eyes and destroyed all my fine castles in the air.

The trip from which I had promised myself so much was over, and what had been effected? Nothing, save a more distinct appreciation of our straitened circumstances and an increase of my old gnawing discontent.

I recalled the delightful beginning of our trip, the long, dreamy summer days in Vienna, the evening at SchÖnbrunn. Again I saw about me the fragrant twilight, and heard, through the plash of fountains and the whispering of the linden leaves, the sound of distant military music. I saw Harry--good heavens! how plainly I saw him, with his handsome mouth, his large, serious eyes! How he used to look at me! And I recalled how beautiful the world had seemed to me then, so beautiful that I thought I could desire nothing better than to wander thus through life, leaning upon his arm in the odorous evening air, with the echo of distant military music in my ear.

Then ambition rose up before me and swept away all these lovely visions, showing me another picture,--Harry, borne down by cares, in narrow circumstances, his features sharpened by anxiety, with a pale, patient face, jesting bitterly, his uniform shabby, though carefully brushed. Ah, and should I not love him ten times more then than now! he would always be the same noble, chivalric----

But I could not accept such a sacrifice from him. I could not; it would be unprincipled. Specious phrases! What has principle to do with it? I do not choose to be poor--no, I will not be poor, and therefore I am glad that we were interrupted at the right moment in Vienna. He cannot possibly imagine--ah, if he had imagined anything he would have written to me, and we have not had a line from him since we left him. He would have regretted it quite as much as I, if----

It never would occur to him to resign all his grandfather's wealth for the sake of my golden hair. Young gentlemen are not given to such romantic folly nowadays; though, to be sure, he is not like the rest of them.

The result of all my reflections was an intense hatred for my grandfather, who tyrannized over me thus instead of allowing affairs to take their natural, delightful course; and another hatred, somewhat less intense, for the brewery, which had absorbed half of Uncle Paul's property,--that is, much more than would have been necessary to assure me a happy future. When I saw from the railway the brew-house chimney above the tops of the old lindens, I shook my fist at it.

My uncle was waiting for us at the station. He was so frankly rejoiced to have us back again that it cheered my heart. His eyes sparkled as he came to me after greeting my aunt. He gazed at me very earnestly, as if he expected to perceive some great and pleasant change in me, and then, putting his finger under my chin, turned my face from side to side. Suddenly he released me.

"You are even paler than you were before!" he exclaimed, turning away. He had expected the sea-bathing to work miracles.

"Do I not please you as I am, uncle dear?" I asked, putting my hand upon his arm. Then he kissed me; but I could see plainly that his pleasure was dashed.

Now we have been at home four days, and I am writing my memoirs, because I am tired of having nothing to do. It does not rain to-day; the sun is burning hot,--ah, how it parches the August grass! The harvest was poor, the rye-straw is short, and the grains of wheat are small. And everything was so promising in May! My uncle spends a great deal of time over his accounts.

August 8.

Something quite extraordinary has happened. We have a visitor, a cousin of Aunt Rosamunda's,--Baron Roderich Wenkendorf. He is a very amiable old gentleman, about forty-five years old. He interests himself in everything that interests me,--even in Carlyle's 'French Revolution,' only he cannot bear it. Moreover, he is a Wagnerite; that is his only disagreeable characteristic. Every day he plays duets with Aunt Rosamunda from the 'GÖtterdÄmmerung,' which makes Uncle Paul and Morl nervous. Besides, he paints, of course only for pleasure, but very ambitiously. Last year he exhibited one of his pictures in Vienna--Napoleon at St. Helena--no, Charles the Fifth in the cloister. I remember, he cannot endure the Corsican upstart. He declares that Napoleon had frightful manners. We had a dispute about it. We often quarrel; but he entertains me, he pleases me, and so, perhaps----

August 10.

It might be worth while to take it into consideration. For my sake he would take up his abode in Bohemia. I do not dislike him, and my aunt says that marry whom you will you can never get used to him until after marriage. Harry and I should always be just the same to each other; he would always be welcome as a brother in our home, of course. I cannot really see why people must marry because they love each other.