"_Eh bien!_"

Oswald cleared his throat. "You remember Dr. Schmitt? He was our family physician, a true man if ever there was one, my father valued him highly. Well, he leased an estate from us, Kanitz, it lies in one corner of the Schneeburg grounds; after the old man's death his son held the lease, he is a very good fellow, we served together in the same regiment in our volunteer year. He married, and set great store by the lease, which would run out in three years. Before his marriage he came to me to know whether he might depend upon an extension of the lease; of course I promised it to him, thereby relieving him of immense anxiety. And now Siegl has sold the property at a high price to Capriani, and is very proud of the transaction, and it is all because of my thoughtlessness, because I thought it too tedious to read through his roundabout epistle and .... and young Schmitt, poor devil, is quite beside himself, and writes me this letter! I cannot understand Siegl, he might have asked me again, he knows me perfectly well, he ought to have known that I could never have contemplated anything of the kind ....! But it's just the way with all my people! If they can make a few gulden for me, no matter how, they pride themselves upon it hugely; no one seems to understand that I care precious little for the augmentation of my income; what I want is, to alleviate as far as lies in my power the existence of as many men as possible!"

"How old are you, Ossi?" Georges asked with an oddly-scrutinizing glance at his cousin.

"Twenty-six. What makes you ask?"

"Your transcendental views of life, my child. Men and ants are born with wings, but both rub them off in the struggle for existence,--men usually do so before they are twenty-four."

"That goal is pa.s.sed," rejoined Oswald, "and the winged ants do not lose their wings, they only die young," and he became again absorbed in study of the two letters. "I cannot blame Siegl this time, try as hard as I can, it is _my_ fault; 'tis enough to drive one mad!"

"I can understand how it goes against the grain, but--well, you must indemnify Schmitt with another property."

"That of course, but it does not help the matter," Oswald grumbled, "he has a special love for Kanitz--he was born there, his parents are buried there in a pretty little churchyard on the edge of the woods by the Holt.i.tzer brook. He takes care of their graves himself--they are perfect beds of flowers. And his wife!--I paid her a visit last Autumn,--she is a dear little shy thing, and she looked at me out of her large eyes as if I were Omnipotence itself. There is such an old-fashioned loyalty, so poetic a content about those people; upon whom shall we depend if we heedlessly destroy the devotion of such as they? Schmitt must keep Kanitz, even although I buy it back at double the price paid for it!"

"My dear fellow you can do nothing with money where Capriani is concerned," Georges observed calmly, "but I am convinced that he is very desirous of standing well with all of you. If you make a personal request of him he certainly will not object to annul his purchase. If the matter is really important to you go and call upon Capriani, and...."

Oswald tossed his head angrily. "What? ask me to have any personal intercourse with that man--no--in an extreme case indeed----but there must be some legal way out of the difficulty, it is a matter for our agents--_ca!_ A quarter of twelve and I breakfast at Truyn's."

"You must make haste. Can I do anything for you?"

Oswald went to the writing-table and in large bold characters wrote a couple of lines on a sheet of paper. "Pray see that this telegraph to Schmitt goes off immediately, and then one thing more--if it does not bore you too much--please leave a card for me at the places on this list. Do not take any trouble, but if you should be pa.s.sing.... Good-bye old fellow--remember we are to go home together."

"Hotspur!" murmured Georges as the door closed after his cousin. "Well, after all, I do not grudge him his position; he becomes it well."

CHAPTER VII.

If Oswald Lodrin might be regarded as the chivalric embodiment of the old-time '_n.o.blesse oblige_,' his cousin Georges was on the contrary the personification of the modern axiom '_n.o.blesse permet_.'

He had made use of the credit of the Lodrins, the acc.u.mulation of centuries, to screen his maddest pranks. True, he had never overdrawn this credit, he had never by any of his numberless eccentricities raised any barrier between himself and his equals in rank. He had grown to manhood discontentedly convinced that Count Hugo Lodrin, his father's elder brother, had done him great wrong, and this wrong was his marriage late in life with the beautiful Princess Wjera Zinsenburg.

Georges was barely eight years old at the time, but he remembered as long as he lived how angrily his father, after a life of careless extravagance led in the certainty of inheriting the Lodrin estates, had received the announcement of the betrothal, and how hardly he had spoken of Wjera Zinsenburg.

The boy grew up, his heart filled with a hatred none the less vehement because it was childish, first for his aunt, and afterward for his cousin.

His hatred for his aunt grew with his growth, but as for his hatred for his cousin?... It was difficult to cherish resentment against his loving, helpless little cousin with his big black eyes and pretty rosy mouth. And in the summer holidays, which he spent every year in Tornow with his father, he struck up a friendship with the little fellow.

It was a lasting friendship. One day after his father's death when he had for several years been an officer of hussars, and always in pecuniary difficulties, Georges received a letter, which upon very slanting lines evidently ruled in pencil by Ossi, himself, and in very sprawling clumsy characters, ran thus:

"Dear Georges,

"Papa says you need money, I don't need any, so I send you my pocket money, and when I'm big you shall have more. The donkeys are given away. Papa got angry with Jack because he bit me. Now, for a punishment, he has to carry sand for the gardeners. I have a pair of ponies now; they are very pretty and I ride every day. I can ride quite well and I am not afraid, but I stroke Jack whenever I see him, and I think he is ashamed of himself.

"Your Ossi."

Yes, he needed money--a great deal of money; his father had left him next to nothing, and the small allowance which his uncle made him, always seasoning it with good advice, did not nearly suffice him.

His uncle paid his debts upon condition that he should exchange from the hussars into the dragoons, then held in rather high estimation as heavy cavalry. Georges needed money quite as much as a dragoon, however, as when a hussar. Then came feminine influences--a quarrel with his colonel--a duel. He resigned his commission with honour and to the regret of the entire staff. Once more, and, as he was solemnly informed, for the last time, his uncle paid his debts, and wishing to have no further concern in his nephew's money matters he also paid out a handsome sum as a release from all further demands.

Georges manifested his repentance after this settlement by an immediate excursion to Paris with a pert little French concert-saloon singer.

This was the finishing stroke in the eyes of his strictly moral, nay, even bigotted uncle. From that time onward the young man's letters to the old count were returned to him unopened. Georges vanished from the scene. The rumour ran that after he had tried his luck and failed in the California gold diggings, he had been a rider in a circus; there was also a report that he had served mahogany-coloured Spaniards and jet-black negroes as waiter at Rio Janeiro, that he had been an omnibus driver in New York--this last fact was vouched for. Still, he contrived to impress the stamp of spontaneous eccentricity upon every one of the expedients to which he resorted in his pecuniary embarra.s.sments.

One day after Oswald had attained his majority he received a letter in which his cousin, after appealing to the old boyish friendship, described his present condition. Oswald, who was kindheartedness itself, and, moreover, enthusiastically eager to discharge his duties as head of the family, did not delay an hour in arranging his cousin's affairs and in settling upon him an income suitable to his rank.

Thus Georges returned to his old sphere of life and to his former habits, smiling calmly, but testifying no special delight, and not the slightest surprise at the change in his circ.u.mstances. The honest friendship which he felt for the cousin whom as a child he had petted, quite destroyed his old grudge against his fate.

CHAPTER VIII.

Picture a sleepy little market-town lying, at a respectful distance, near a very large castle, where the clock in the tower has not gone for twenty years; a ruggedly uneven market-place, thickly paved with sharp stones and no sidewalk, queer old-fashioned houses with high-gabled roofs and small windows, and here and there a faded-out image of the Virgin above an arched gateway, a tradesman's shop serving as post-office as well as for the sale of tobacco, and adorned over the doorway with a wreath of wooden lemons and pomegranates, and the imperial double-eagle, a corner where stands a piled-up carrier's van covered with black oilskin, a smithy sending forth from its dark interior a shower of crimson sparks, while from the low pa.s.sage-way of the opposite inn, 'The Golden Lion,' a waiter with a dirty ap.r.o.n, and bare feet thrust into old red slippers, is gazing over at the smithy where a crowd of dripping street boys are collected about two thoroughbreds and a groom liveried in the English fashion--picture all this and you see Rautschin,--Rautschin on a dark afternoon in May in a pouring rain with an accompaniment of thunder and lightning.

Somewhat apart from the gaping urchins a young man is walking to and fro in front of the row of houses; his quick impatient step testifies to his having been detained by some untoward mishap and also to his being quite unused to such delay.

The rain descends from heaven in fine, regular, grey sheets. The young man's cigar has gone out, he is cold, and thoroughly annoyed he pa.s.ses the unattractive waiter and enters the inn.

The room in which he takes refuge is low and s.p.a.cious with bright blue walls, and a well-smoked ceiling. Limp, soiled muslin curtains reminding one of the train of an old ball-dress, hang before the windows where are gla.s.s hanging-lamps, and flower-pots of painted porcelain filled with mignonette, cactuses, and catnip. The furniture consists of two chromos representing the Emperor and his consort, of a number of yellow chairs, of several green tables, and of an array of spittoons.

At one of the tables sit three guests evidently much at home; one of them is tuning a zither, while the other two are smoking very malodorous cigars, and drinking beer out of tankards of greenish gla.s.s.

Engaged in eager conversation none of them observed the entrance of the stranger who, to avoid attracting attention, seated himself in a dark corner with his back to the group.

"A couple more truck-loads of all sorts of fine furniture have arrived at Schneeburg," remarked one of the trio, a young man with red hair, and unusual length of limb. He is a surveyor's clerk, his name is Wenzl Wostraschil, but he is familiarly known as 'the Daily News' from the amount of sensational intelligence which he disperses. "Count Capriani ...."

"I know of no Count Capriani," interrupted an old gentleman with white hair and a red face; he is Doctor Swoboda, by profession district physician, in politics just as strictly conservative as Count Truyn became as soon as he had proclaimed his socialism by taking to himself a bourgeoise bride--"I know of no Count Capriani, you probably mean Conte!"

"It is the same thing," observed the zither player, Herr Cibulka.

"In the dictionary, perhaps," the old doctor rejoined sarcastically.

"The two t.i.tles are synonymous in my opinion," said Herr Cibulka as he laid aside his tuning-key and began to play 'The Tyrolean and his child,' while with closed lips he half-hummed, half-murmured the air to himself, his big fat hands groping to and fro on the instrument as if trying to aid his memory.

Herr Cibulka--this sonorous Slavonic name signifies _onion_ in Bohemian--Eugene Alexander Cibulka--he is wont to sign his name with a very tiny Cibulka at the end of a very big Eugene Alexander--a.s.sistant district-attorney, transcendentalist, and Lovelace, is the pioneer of culture in the sleepy droning little town. He is a tall young fellow inclining to corpulence, with an uncommonly luxuriant growth of hair on both his head and face, and with the flabby oily skin of a man who has all his life long been fed upon dainties.

Evidently much occupied with his outer man he dresses himself as he says, 'simply but tastefully;' he pulls his cuffs well over his knuckles, and delights in a snuff-coloured velvet coat with metal b.u.t.tons. He fancies that he looks like the Flying Dutchman, or at least like the brigand, Jaromir. In reality he looks like an advertis.e.m.e.nt for 'the only genuine onion ointment for the beard.' He is considered by the Rautschin ladies as quite irresistible and fabulously cultured.

He criticises everything--music, literature and politics, being especially great in the domain of politics, and he discourses at length whenever an opportunity presents itself, combating with admirable energy perils that have long ceased to terrify any one. It is not clear as to what party he belongs, but since he berates the clergy, hates the n.o.bility, and despises the lower-cla.s.ses, consequently pursuing the straight and narrow path of his subjective vanities and social aspirations, he probably considers himself a Liberal. His uncle is in the ministerial department and _he_ dreams of a portfolio.

Meanwhile the red-haired man with an air of indifference has taken up his tankard. "Count or Conte, as you please," he said, giving the disputed point the go-by, and continuing as he put his beer gla.s.s down on an uninviting little brown table, "at all events he must be accustomed to live in fine style, for he declared that it was impossible for a man used to modern conveniences to live in Schneeburg in the condition in which Count Malzin had occupied it. So the house has been entirely newly furnished. Immense! the doings of these money-giants--the world belongs to them!"

"Unfortunately, and our poor n.o.bles must go to the wall," sighed the old doctor, whose platonic love for the n.o.bility keeps pace with the red-haired man's equally platonic affection for money. "Except a couple of owners of entailed estates here and there none of them will be able to compete with these great financiers."