Felix Lanzberg's Expiation Part 7

"That may all be true," cried Felix, almost violently, "but nevertheless I cannot expect this philosophical consideration from a young girl. Oh, my dear madam, do you not deceive yourself?"

From without sounded the gay click of high heels. Linda had returned sooner than her mamma had expected. The blood rushed to her face, she trembled so with excitement that, thanks to her cameos, she rattled like a rickety weather-vane in a storm. "Linda pardons you everything,"

cried she, hastily. "Linda loves you, she only begs you one thing, that you will never speak to her of your past. That would be too painful for her!"

The door opened. Linda entered, her hair in charming disorder, and her large straw hat carelessly pushed back from her forehead. When she perceived Felix she started slightly and joyously, then she rested her large eyes, radiant with happiness, upon him.

"_A tantot_, you dear people," cried Mrs. Harfink, and, gracefully waving her hand, this courageous and philanthropic liar left the room.

For a few seconds there was utter silence. Linda gazed in astonishment at Felix, who stood there deathly pale and motionless, his hand resting on the corner of the table. That the charm of her person so confused him flattered her, it seemed to her interesting and romantic to cause such deep heart wounds, still his manner remained enigmatical to her.

She tapped her foot in pretty impatience and coughed slightly.

Then he looked up, his eyes full of pleading tenderness and dread.

"Linda, will you really consecrate your young, blooming life to me?--me--a broken man who----" He paused.

The situation became more dramatic, and pleased her better and better.

She came close up to him.

"If you ever permit yourself, in the presence of your betrothed, to remember your past, and look so sad, I will run away, do you hear, and will never know anything more of you." Her voice sounded so gentle, so sweet, her warm little hand lay so coaxingly and confidingly on his arm.

"Poor Felix!" murmured she, looking up at him tenderly. He closed his eyes, blinded with tears and happiness, then he took her violently in his arms, and kissed her. Her hat slipped from her head and fell to the floor. She laughed at it very charmingly. He released her in order to look at her better. He was happy--he had forgotten. He drew a ring from his finger. "It was my mother's engagement ring," he whispered, and placed it on her finger. Then it proved that the ring was almost too small for her. "What slender fingers you must have!" cried she, and gazed with pride at his slender, aristocratic hand.

Then there was a knock at the door. "Ah!" cried Linda, with a displeasure which her _fiance_ found bewitching.

Eugene von Rhoeden entered, a bouquet of white flowers in his hand.

"Gardenias, Lin! Gardenias!" he cried, triumphantly. "What do you say to this progress of Marienbad civilization? Ah, Baron--excuse me--I really had not----" He glances from one to the other, sees the diamond ring sparkling on Linda's hand. "What a magnificent ring you have, Lin!"

"A present," replies Linda, with a pretty gesture toward Felix. "May one accept gardenias from a relative?" she asks him, coaxingly--and takes one from the bouquet to place in his b.u.t.tonhole.

"Ah!" cries Eugene, suddenly changing an acid expression into a polite smile. "May I congratulate you, or will my congratulations not be received?"

Felix gives him his hand with emotion. "Congratulate me, congratulate me," he murmurs.

"I do not know which of you is more to be congratulated," says Eugene, with tact and feeling.

In the adjoining room is heard a selection from the Huguenots, which breaks off in the middle, then a great, terrible howl, whereupon the improvised Rarol, red as his cravat, bursts in and cries, "Did you hear, Linda? That was C."

"Unfortunately," says she, laughing.

Raimund starts back. As he notices guests, he cries, "I will not disturb----" and vanishes.

"And I also will not disturb you," says Rhoeden, with indescribably loving accent. "Adieu!" and kissing Linda's hand, whereupon he says to Felix, "Your betrothed, my cousin," he disappears.

VII.

The music-stand in Franzensbad is torn down, the whining potpourries have ceased, the park is deserted, legions of dry leaves whirl on the sand, and exchange cutting remarks with the autumn wind upon the perpetual change of every earthly thing, which short-sighted humanity calls transitoriness.

It is the 18th of October, the "certain Baron Lanzberg's" wedding-day.

The week of torture in which he could not resolve to tell the severe Elsa of his betrothal is past, and when he at length resolved upon it, he received only a sad glance and a silent shrug of the shoulders as answer from her--past are the happy hours of the betrothal time--almost past.

If the intoxication, the confusion which never becomes consciousness is happiness, then Felix was very happy in this time. Pa.s.sion had numbed everything in him which did not refer to the present or to the 18th of October. He existed only in a feeling of longing and expectation. He had no time to tell himself that Linda's happy coquetries proved a very flippant conception of the serious situation--he himself had forgotten the gravity of the situation. He did not think, he only felt and saw a white, ever-changing face, a face which can smile in at least two hundred ways--felt a perpetual warm excitement, felt something like an electric shock when two soft lips touched his temples and left them quickly like b.u.t.terflies which will not be caught, when two soft hands played round his neck.

Yes, ft is the 18th of October, Felix Lanzberg's wedding-day.

The wedding was to be solemnized at Castle Rineck, the Harfinks' new possession, and in a white circular chapel, with small windows shaded by ivy, and an altar-piece which was dark as the Catholic religion.

The castle is crowded with guests, mostly honest manufacturers, who are proud of their fortunes acquired by their own ability, and others also less honest, who, after they have retired from business, wish to know nothing more of their money-making past.

Needless to say, the wedding preparations were unpleasant to the infatuated Felix. The bride had joined in his request for a quiet wedding, for the contact with so much industry of which a considerable part had not yet become "finance," little pleased her; but the parents could not let the opportunity pa.s.s without displaying their wealth to the astonished throng.

The afternoon is gray and moist. Mrs. von Harfink--for the past week, no longer through the obligingness of her acquaintances, but through the obligingness of a democratic ministry thus t.i.tled--Mrs. von Harfink, then, composes a toast for her husband to deliver at the wedding dinner. Raimund stands beside the piano--to sing while sitting might injure his voice--and strives to render the cry of the Valkyrs in Wagner's worthy accents; a sympathetic poodle seconds him in this melodious occupation.

Outside in the park Linda wanders alone through the damp October air.

The dead foliage lies thick on the lawn, and between the leaves s.h.i.+nes the gra.s.s, bright and fresh as hope which lies under all the load of shattered joys of broken life, undisturbed.

The bushes, glowing in autumnal splendor, look like huge moulting birds who s.h.i.+veringly lose their feathers. Many flower-beds are already empty, only a couple of stiff georginias and chrysanthemums still raise their heads proudly and solitary in the universal desolation.

Linda is quite alone; her friends, none of whom are very dear to her, are too zealously busied with cares of the toilet to disturb her solitude; they are also afraid to expose their complexions to the morning air. Linda feels no anxiety about her complexion, it is too beautiful for that. With her loosened hair which, brown as the dead leaves, falls over her back, and with the red cloak, in which she has wrapped herself, she is a bright spot in the park.

[Ill.u.s.tration: pg 66 She is a shy bride and not at all melancholy.]

She is not a shy bride, and not at all melancholy. Her eyes s.h.i.+ne, her lips quiver with excitement--distinguished acquaintances, foreign entertainments of which she will be queen. In mind, she already sees herself on the arm of one and another prince of the blood royal. She could clap her hands with joy that to-day at six o'clock she will no longer be called Harfink.

She remains standing beside a pond where near the bank four swans, s.h.i.+vering and melancholy, swim round a yellow bath-house. Then a hand is laid lightly on her shoulder. "Felix!" whispers she with the charming smile which she always has in readiness for her betrothed.

"No, not Felix--only Eugene," replies a gay voice, and blond, handsome, with clothes a trifle too modern, and a too p.r.o.nounced perfume of Ylang-ylang, her cousin and former admirer stands near her.

"Ah, have you really come?" says she, joyously.

"Why naturally," replies he. "You do not think that for the sake of a few forlorn chamois I would stay away from your wedding?" Rhoeden has come from Steinmark, to be the cavalier of his cousin's second bridesmaid.

"We had already begun to fear--that is, Emma was afraid," said Linda, coquettishly. "Naturally it was indifferent to me."

"Wholly indifferent? I do not believe it," said he. His arm has slipped down from her shoulder, he has seated himself upon a low iron garden chair, from which, with elbows on his knees, his face between his hands, with the boldness which she likes so well in him, he can look at her as much as he pleases.

"Wholly indifferent!" she repeats, and throws a pebble between the swans, who dip their black bills greedily in the green water.

"O Lin! You naughty Lin! And nothing that concerns you is indifferent to me!" he groans. "The Trauns did not wish to let me go from them--but rather than not see you to-day I would have fought a duel with all the Trauns in the world!"

Linda has slowly approached him; flattered vanity speaks from her s.h.i.+ning eyes and glowing lips. He seizes her hand and draws her to him.

"Do you know, Lin, that I was once absurdly in love with you?"

She nods. "Yes, I know it."

"And you?"