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Countess Erika's Apprenticeship

<h2>CHAPTER XI.</h2> A Thread in the web of Erika's existence snapped with Goswyn's departure. The sudden separation from him without even a farewell she felt to be very sad, and long after he had gone the mere mention of his name would thrill her with a vague, restless pain, a nervous dissatisfaction with herself, with the world, with him, a dim sense that some error had crept into her life's reckoning and that the story ought to have turned out otherwise. In the depths of her heart she was bitterly disappointed when after a rather gay summer and autumn she heard upon her return to Berlin that young Sydow had been transferred to Breslau. Soon, indeed, she lacked the time for occupying her thoughts with her dear good friend but unwelcome suitor. Existence developed brilliantly for her, and the world's incense mounted to her head, and bewildered her, as it bewilders all, even the wisest and gravest, if they are exposed to its influence. She was presented at court, where she produced the most favourable impression, and was distinguished by the highest personages in the land in a manner to excite much envy. Of course she went out a great deal,--so much that her grandmother, who had always been characterized by a certain social indolence, grew weary of accompanying her, and, whenever she could, intrusted her to the chaperonage of her oldest friend, Frau von Norbin. But when Erika reached home at midnight or after it she had to recount her triumphs at her grandmother's bedside. The old Countess would scrutinize her closely, as she would have done a work of art, and once she said, "Yes, you are a rare creature, it cannot be denied: you are more lovely after a ball than before it. How life thrills through you! But I do not understand you. I know your mind, and your nerves, but I have never proved the depths of your heart." Then she shook her head, sighed, kissed the youthful beauty upon her eyelids, and sent her to bed. Yes, there was no end to the homage paid her. No young girl had ever been so admired and caressed as was Erika Lenzdorff in the first two years after her presentation. It fairly rained adorers and suitors. Then--not because her beauty began to fade; no, she had never been more beautiful, she had developed magnificently--her conquests decreased. Her admirers were capricious, returning to her at times, and then holding aloof again; and as for suitors, they entirely disappeared. One fact was too patent not to be acknowledged by even the girl's adoring grandmother. To the usual society man Erika was duller and more uninteresting than the rawest pink-and-white village girl whose natural coquetry taught her how to flatter his vanity and emphasize his superiority. She did not know how to talk to her admirers, and her admirers did not know how to talk to her. The men thought her 'queer.' She passed for a blue-stocking because she read serious books, and for 'highfalutin' because she speculated upon matters quite uninteresting to young girls in general. Since with all her feminine refinement of mind she combined not an iota of worldly wisdom, she harboured the conviction that every one regarded life from her own serious stand-point, and would fearlessly propound the problems that occupied her to the most superficial dandy who happened to be her partner in the german. Her grandmother once said to her, "You scare away your admirers with your attempts to teach them to fly. Men do not wish to learn to fly: you would succeed far better if you should try to teach them to crawl on all fours. Most of them have a decided predilection for doing so, and those women who can furnish them with a plausible pretext for it--for crawling on all fours, I mean--are sure to be the most popular with them." In reply to such a declaration Erika would gaze at her grandmother with an expression 'so pathetically stupid' that the old Countess could not help drawing the girl towards her and kissing her. "It is a pity you would not have Goswyn," the old Countess generally concluded, with a sigh: "you are caviare for people in general, and Goswyn was the only one who knew how to value you. I cannot comprehend you, Erika. Goswyn is the very ideal of a husband; warm-hearted, brave, and true, there is real support in his stout arm, and his broad shoulders are just fitted to bear a burden that another would find too heavy. He is no genius, but instead is brimful of the noblest kind of sense. Understand me, Erika; there is a great difference between the noblest kind and the inferior article." But by the time she had reached this point in her eulogy of Goswyn, Erika was standing with her hand on the latch of the door, stammering, "Yes, yes, grandmother; but I--I have a letter to write." She liked to avoid any discussion of Goswyn: a sensation of unrest, always the same, never developing into any distinct desire, was sure to assail her heart at the mention of his name. The girls who had made their débuts with her were now almost all married. Very commonplace girls, whom she had treated with condescending kindness, married her own former admirers: she was no longer wooed. At first she laughed at the airs of superiority which the young wives took on in her society; but the second winter she was annoyed by them. Meanwhile, a fresh bevy of beauties made their appearance, and many a girl was admired and fêted, simply because she had not been seen as often as the Countess Erika. In the depths of her heart, she had no desire whatever to marry. In her thoughts marriage was simply a clumsy, inconvenient requirement of our social organization, compliance with which she would postpone as long as possible. Against 'all for love' her inmost being rebelled, and yet her lack of suitors vexed her. Then, when the first social feminine authorities of Berlin began to shake their heads over her as a 'critical case,' she suddenly startled society by the announcement of her betrothal to a very wealthy English peer, Percy, Earl of Langley. She became acquainted with him at Carlsbad, whither her grandmother had gone for the waters. For several days she noticed that an elderly, distinguished-looking man followed her with his eyes whenever she appeared. At last, one morning he approached the old Countess, and with a smile asked whether she had really forgotten him or whether it was her deliberate intention persistently to cut him. She offered him her hand courteously, and replied, "Lord Langley, on the Continent a gentleman is supposed to speak first to a lady. Moreover, if I had been willing to comply with your national custom, I should hardly have known whether it were well to present myself to you." He laughed, with half-closed eyes, and rejoined that her remark could bear reference only to a period of his life long since past; now he was an old man, etc. "I have sown my wild oats," he declared, adding, "I've taken a long time to sow them, haven't I? But it's all over now!" Whereupon he requested an introduction to the Countess's companion. From that time he devoted himself to the two ladies. Erika was flattered by his respectful admiration, and liked to talk with him. In fact, she had never conversed with so much pleasure with any other man. He had formerly belonged to the diplomatic corps, and had known personally all the people mentioned by Lord Malmesbury in his memoirs,--in short, everybody who during the past forty years had been either famous or notorious, from the Emperor Nicholas, for whom he had an enthusiasm, to Cora Pearl, concerning whom he whispered anecdotes in the old Countess's ear, and whose career he declared, with a shrug, was a riddle to him. He was the keenest observer and cleverest talker imaginable, distinguished in appearance, always well dressed, a perfect type of the Englishman who, casting aside British cant, leads a gay life on the Continent, without faith, without any moral ideal, saturated through and through with a refined, cynical, witty Epicureanism, gently suppressed when in the society of ladies, although from indolence he did not entirely disguise it. Two weeks after recalling himself to the Countess Lenzdorff's memory, he wrote her a letter asking for her grand-daughter's hand. The old lady, not without embarrassment, informed the young girl of his proposal. "It certainly is trying," she began. "I cannot see how it ever entered his head to think of you. A blooming young creature like you, and his sixty years! What shall I say to him?" Erika stood speechless for a moment. The old Englishman's proposal was an utter surprise to her, but, oddly enough, it did not produce so disagreeable an impression upon her as upon her grandmother. She had always wished to mingle in English society. Wealthy as she was, she was aware that her wealth bore no comparison to that of Lord Langley. And then the position of the wife of an English peer was very different from that of the wife of any Prussian nobleman. Her fatal inheritance of romantic enthusiasm had latterly found expression with her in a certain craving for distinction. What a field opened before her! She saw herself fêted, admired, besieged with petitions, one of the political influences of Europe. "Well?" asked Countess Lenzdorff, who had meanwhile taken her seat at her writing-table. "Well?" Erika repeated, in some confusion. "What shall I say? That you will not have him, of course; but how shall I courteously give him to understand---- It is intolerable! Do not get me into such a scrape again. Although, poor child, you cannot help it." Erika was silent. Her grandmother had begun to write, when she heard a very low, rather timid voice just behind her say,-- "Grandmother!" She turned round. "What is it, child?" "You see--if I must marry----" Her grandmother stared, then exclaimed, sharply, "You could be induced----?" Erika nodded. The old lady fairly bounded from her chair, tore up the letter she had begun, threw the pieces on the floor, and left the room. The door was closed behind her, when she opened it again to say, curtly, "Write to him yourself!" Two days after his betrothal, Lord Langley left Carlsbad to superintend the preparations at Eyre Castle for the reception of his bride, whom he hoped to take to England at the end of August. The lovers shed no tears at parting, and there was no other display of tenderness than a reverential kiss imprinted by Lord Langley upon his betrothed's hand. This respectful homage appeared to Erika highly satisfactory. After the old Countess had taken the cure at Carlsbad she betook herself with Erika to Franzensbad to complete it. At that time a great deal was said, in the sleepy, lounging life of Franzensbad, of the Bayreuth performances. 'Parsifal' was the topic of universal interest. The old Countess at first absolutely refused to listen to Erika's earnest request to go to Bayreuth; in fact, she had been in a bad humour ever since the betrothal, and her tenderness towards Erika had ostensibly diminished. She contradicted her frequently, was quite irritable, and would often reply to some perfectly innocent proposal of her grand-daughter's, "Wait until you are married." She would not hear of going to Bayreuth, maintaining that the bits of 'Parsifal' which she had heard played as duets had been quite enough for her,--she had no desire to hear the whole performance; moreover, she had had a headache--ever since Erika's betrothal. Her opposition lasted a good while, but at last curiosity triumphed, and she announced herself ready to sacrifice herself and go to Bayreuth with her granddaughter. Lord Langley's last letter had come from Munich, where one of his daughters (he was a widower, and had no son) was married to a young English diplomat. Grandmother and grand-daughter were to meet him there, and then all were to proceed to Castle Wetterstein in Westphalia, the family seat of Count Lenzdorff, a great-uncle of Erika's, where the marriage was to take place. Highly delighted at her grandmother's consent to her wishes, Erika wrote to Lord Langley asking him to meet them at Bayreuth instead of waiting for them at Munich, although, she added, he was to feel quite free to do as he pleased. Lüdecke, the faithful, was sent to Bayreuth to arrange for lodgings and tickets, and a few days afterwards the old Countess, with Erika and her maid Marianne, left Franzensbad, with its waving white birches, its good bread and weak coffee, its symphony concerts, and its languishing, pale, consumptive beauties. The dew glistened on leaves and flowers as they drove to the station. After they had reached it, Marianne, the maid, was sent back to the hotel for a volume of 'Opera and Drama,' and a pamphlet upon 'the psychological significance of Kundry,' in the former of which the old Countess was absorbed during the journey to Bayreuth. They were received with genial enthusiasm by the fair, fresh wife of the baker, in whose house Lüdecke had procured them lodgings, and they followed her up a bare damp staircase to the tile-paved landing upon which their rooms opened. They consisted of a spacious, low-ceilinged apartment, with a small island of carpet before the sofa in a sea of yellow varnished board floor, furnished with red plush chairs, two india-rubber trees, a bird in a painted cage, and a cupboard with glass doors, on either side of which were doors opening into the bedrooms,--everything comfortable, clean, and old-fashioned. After some refreshment the two ladies drove about the town, and out into the trim open country through beautiful, shady avenues, avenues such as usually lead to princely residences, and into the quiet deserted park, where there were few strangers besides themselves to be seen. Returning, they dined at 'the Sun,' at the same table with Austrian aristocrats, Berlin councillors of commerce, and numerous pilgrims to the festival from known and unknown lands. Then they sauntered about the dear old town, with its many-gabled architecture, and visited the Master's grave and the old theatre. The old Countess lost herself in speculations as to what the Margravine would have thought of the great German show that now wakes the lethargic old capital from its repose at least every other year; and Erika, laughing, called her grandmother's attention to the 'Parsifal slippers' and the 'Nibelungen bonbons' in the unpretentious shop-windows. The sun was very low, and the shadows were creeping across the broad squares and down the narrow streets, when the old Countess proposed to go back to their rooms to refresh herself with a cup of tea. Erika accompanied her to the door of their lodgings, and then said, "I should like to look about for a volume of Tauchnitz. May I not go alone? This seems little more than a village." "If you choose," her grandmother, already halfway up the staircase, replied. With no thought of ill, Erika turned the corner of the nearest street. She walked slowly, gazing up at the antique house-fronts on either side of her. Suddenly she heard a voice behind her call "Rika! Rika!" She turned, and started as if stunned by a flash of lightning. Before her, his whiskers brushed straight out from his cheeks, rather more florid than of yore, in a very dandified plaid suit, with an eye-glass stuck in his eye, stood--Strachinsky. "Rika, my dear little Rika!" he cried, holding out his hand. "What a surprise, and what a pleasure, to find you here, and without the Cerberus who always has barred our meeting! Fate will yet avenge it upon her." Erika trembled with indignation, but her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth. Try as she might, she could not reply. A senseless, childish panic mastered her, as terrible as it would have been had this man still had power over her and been able to snatch her from her present surroundings and carry her back to the dreary life at Luzano. "You are quite speechless," he went on, having meanwhile seized her hand and carried it to his lips. "No wonder, it is so long since we have seen each other. That jealous old drag----" "I must beg you not to allude to my grandmother in that way!" she exclaimed, conscious of a benumbing, nervous pain at the remembrance of her terrible, sordid existence with this man. "You are under the old woman's influence," Strachinsky declared, "and nothing else was to be expected; but now all will be different: when you are once married, more cordial relations will be established between us. I bear no malice; I forgive everything: I was always too forgiving,--it was my only fault. My poor wife always called me an idealist, a Don Quixote,--my poor, idolized Emma,--I never can forget her." And he passed his hand over his eyes. "I must go home: my grandmother is expecting me," Erika murmured. "I should think you could consent to bestow a few minutes upon your old father, if only out of regard for your mother's memory," Strachinsky observed, assuming his loftiest expression. Regard for her mother's memory! Certainly, she would not let him starve or suffer absolute want. "Do you need anything?" she asked. "No," he replied, curtly, with a show of wounded feeling. Then followed a pause. She looked round, ignorant of where she was, for during this most unwelcome interview she had continued to walk on without observing whither she was going. "Will you show me the way to Maximilian Street?" she asked him. "To the left, here," he replied, laconically; then, with lifted eyebrows, he observed, "Unpractical idealist that I am, I was disposed to forget and forgive the outrageous ingratitude with which you have treated me in these latter years,--nay, always. I had even resolved to call upon your betrothed; although that would have been to reverse the order of affairs. But I perceive that your arrogance and pride are greater than ever. No matter! I only hope you may not be punished for them too severely!" With these words, he touched his hat with grotesque dignity and was gone before she could collect herself to reply. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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