CHAPTER VI.

"You really do not know what you wish," said Truyn in surprise when Oswald changed his mind for the third time about leaving Prague. After going with Truyn to the races on the first day succeeding the election, he would not hear of attending them with Georges and Pistasch on the second day. It was settled that he was to return home with Truyn; then he began to waver and fidget, and at last he telegraphed, countermanding the carriage that had been ordered to meet him, and got up a sudden interest in the horses of the Y---- stud which were to race for the first time. Before long, however, this interest subsided, and to Truyn's great surprise Oswald informed him at a moment's notice, that after all he was going home with him.

"You will send me over to Tornow, uncle--or shall I telegraph for the horses?" asked Oswald.

"Good Heavens, no! You can spend an hour with us, at Rautschin and take a cup of tea, and then I will send you home, you whimsical fellow, you," replied his uncle, and so they drove together through the quiet summer morning to the station.

The streets were deserted except by the street sweepers, with their watering-pots busily laying the dust. The wheels of the hack rumbled noisily over the uneven pavement past brilliant cafes and shop windows, finally by the fine new National Bohemian Theatre, until their sound was deadened by the wooden planks of the Suspension Bridge. As usual the bridge is undergoing repairs; and this delays the hack, which, in addition is impeded by a battalion of infantry and two lumbering ox carts; there is a strong smell of mouldy planks, and hot pitch, by no means adding to the fragrance of the morning air. But these trifling annoyances cannot provoke Truyn, or destroy his pleasure in gazing on his native town.

The Moldau, slaty grey in hue, with silvery reflections, flows among its green, feathery islands, and, parallel with the modern suspension monstrosity, the mediaeval Konigsbridge, picturesque, and clumsy,--the statues on its broad bal.u.s.trade black with age like the primitive ill.u.s.trations in some old Chronicle,--spans the stream with its solemn arches.

The Kaiserburg, surrounded by haughty palaces with an unfinished gothic cathedral, looks down from the summit of the Hradschin, upon its image mirrored in the water in waving lines, and columns tinged with green.

The morning sun glows on the five red gla.s.s stars before the green St.

John on the Karlsbridge, and far away on the left and right, far into the receding distance, until all objects are mellowed and blent, stretch the banks of the river like a long drawn symphony of colour dying away in palest violet.

"After all, it is a fine, a magnificent city!" exclaimed Truyn with enthusiasm.

"Pistasch said yesterday that Prague was a dismal hole," was Oswald's reply, "you may both be right--it all depends upon how you look at it."

The phrase falls keen and chilling upon Truyn's enthusiasm, like ice into boiling water. Surprised, and well nigh irritated, he turned to his future son-in-law. As, however, he is far less sensitive than good-natured, a glance at Oswald converts irritation into eager compa.s.sion: "I wonder where you can have caught it?" he sighed, shaking his head.

"Good Heavens, what?" asked Oswald.

"I wish I knew," said Truyn, "either intermittent fever or a slight touch of jaundice,--for a man of your age and with your const.i.tution there's no cause for alarm, but your mother will reproach me with your looking so ill!" Then Truyn leaned out of the window of the hack to admire the Hradschin once more, before subsiding into a corner with a sigh of content, and lighting a cigar.

Oswald's nature is certainly as poetic as Truyn's, and never before had he driven over the suspension bridge, on a summer's morning, without revelling in the beauty of the Bohemian capital. But to-day everything is metamorphosed, beauty is ugliness. For him the world within two days had undergone a transformation.

The human mind is like a mirror, upon the quality whereof depends the character of the reflection in its depths; in one mirror all things are reflected yellow, in another green, in a third every line is vague, shadowy and undecided; one shows objects lengthened, another broadened, and should the mirror be cracked, everything that it reflects will be distorted.

CHAPTER VII.

Zinka and Gabrielle were at the railway station to meet Truyn, both gay, cordial and surpa.s.singly lovely. The sight of them, and their merry talk at first brightened Oswald's mood. But suddenly at tea, which on the travellers' account was a substantial meal, a wretched sense of discomfort attacked him anew.

As he had often laughingly boasted of his punctilious fulfilment of any commission from a lady, Gabrielle, before he left for Prague, had entrusted to him, to have repaired, a gold clasp of Hungarian workmanship set with rare, coloured stones.

When at the table she asked him, "How about my clasp--did you bring it with you, or is the jeweller to send it?" he started, saying, "Forgive me, I forgot all about it."

Gabrielle stared--"Forgot--my commission?"

"Good Heavens! I am not the only man who ever forgot anything!"

exclaimed Oswald irritably.

It was the first unkind word he had ever uttered to his betrothed.

Astonished and grieved she cast down her eyes. But Truyn, who, as long as Oswald was well and merry, was continually finding fault with him, being now seriously concerned about the young man's health took his part.

"Have a little patience with him, comrade," said he to his daughter, "he is not well,--look at him, a man who looks as he does must not be scolded. When he is himself again we will both scold him roundly."

"Forgive me, Ella," entreated Oswald humbly, holding out his hand to her. "I have an intolerable headache, uncle. Please have the carriage brought round, I must go home."

CHAPTER VIII.

The road from Rautschin castle to Tornow goes directly through the village, across the market-place, and past the inn, 'The Rose.'

Involuntarily Oswald glanced towards the unpretending front of the tavern. Conceited and bedizened, with a dirty coat, and with bare feet thrust into morocco slippers down at the heel, the same waiter is standing in the doorway, just as he stood there on that rainy afternoon in spring, when Oswald took refuge in the inn-parlour.

Was everything to be forever reminding him of that odious scene?--In Prague he had fancied that he should soon be able to shake off the hateful sensation produced by the interview with Capriani, just as we all overcome the nervous shudder, caused by some revolting spectacle.

But no! for three days it had lasted and he could not rid himself of it,--on the contrary this hateful sensation was growing more defined.

Of course he did not frame his suspicion in words, he was ashamed of it; he called it an _idee fixe_, resulting from nervous irritability still remaining from a slight sunstroke which he had had the year before, but for all that, he could not away with it. Countless memories of trifling events, dating from earliest childhood, crowded upon his mind, all pointing, with a sneer, one way. There was a lump in his throat, a weight as of lead upon his heart; the pain waxed more and more intolerable. He could have leaped out of the carriage and have flung himself down in the road with his face in the very dust, in an agony of shame and horror!

For the first time in his life he was reluctant to go home; he was afraid of meeting his mother. There was a kind of relief in the thought that she was not expecting him, and would not come to meet him. He clinched his hands tightly, and gazed abroad, striving by the sight of distinct, familiar objects, to exorcise the evil phantoms that possessed his soul. But everything that his eyes beheld was stamped with ugliness and dejection. The leaves on the trees were limp and dusty. The grain, lodged by the storms, lay on the ground, half rotted in its own luxuriance. The farmers could recall no former year so rich in promise, so poor in fulfilment.

When at length he reached the castle, he could hardly bring himself to ask after his mother, or to go and look for her. How could he, while his mind was filled with such vile abomination? He went up to his room, where the first object that met his eyes was the white death-mask upon the wall. He grew dizzy, a black, crimson-edged cloud seemed to rise before him; he flung open the window,--the air cooled by the sunset, and laden with the fragrance of flowers, played about him, and refreshed him,--he breathed more freely.

Just then a soft, gentle sound fell upon his ear--his mother's voice!

He shivered nervously from head to foot. How sweet, how n.o.ble was that voice!

"So, so, old friend; fine, good Darling! Bravo, old dog, bravo!"

These words spoken with caressing tenderness, reached him through the silence. He leaned out of the window--there she sat in a large wicker garden-chair, playing with his Newfoundland, that, with huge forepaws upon her lap, was looking familiarly into her face. Her full, elegant figure, about which some soft, black material fell in graceful folds, stood out against the background of a clump of pale purple phlox in luxuriant bloom. Oswald watched her in silence; the beautiful placid expression of her features, the rich harmony of her voice, the tender grace of her movements, as she pa.s.sed her hands lovingly over the dog's head and neck,--all appealed to him. He never could tire of watching those hands. So slender and delicate that a girl of eighteen might have coveted them, there was something more about them than mere physical beauty, something clinging, pathetic, which is never found in the hands of young girls or of childless women. They were true mother-hands,--hands with an innate genius for soothing caresses; Oswald recalled the time when he had been extremely ill, and those delicate, white hands had tended him day and night with untiring patience and unsurpa.s.sable skill;--he could even yet feel their touch upon his suffering, weary limbs.

And this saint,--his mother, his glorious, incomparable mother,--he had presumed to sully by such vile suspicions! He, her son!

Without another thought he hurried down into the park. He saw her at a distance. The dog was lying quiet at her feet; she sat with hands clasped in her lap, and in her half-closed eyes there lay the look of the visionary, dim or far-seeing, always beholding more, or less than the actual. The dog heard his master's step and began to wag his tail, then rose, barking with joy, and ran to meet Oswald.

"Ossi!" and the Countess opened her arms to him. Not even from his betrothed had he ever heard a tone of welcome so fervent, and as his mother clasped him close, and kissed him, he felt as if G.o.d Himself had laid His hand upon his sore heart and healed it. Gone were all his evil surmises, all fled, leaving only a sensation of angry self-reproach.

"You are a day sooner than you said," she exclaimed, kissing him affectionately. "Well, I shall not complain, I am a few hours richer than I thought."

"How so, mamma?"

"Do you not understand? Do you really not yet know that I am counting the thirty-three days before your marriage--the last days that I shall have you to myself--and that to each one as it goes, I bid a sad farewell? Let me look at you,--my poor child, how you have come back to me! you look as if you had had an illness."

"I have felt miserably, really wretchedly ever since I went away," he admitted, speaking slowly and without looking at her. "Uncle Erich diagnosed either the jaundice or intermittent fever, but it does not amount to anything, I am well again."

"You do not look so," said the Countess, shaking her head. "Take an arm-chair, that seat is very uncomfortable."