Part one, Chapter one of our own set. This is a libovox according
all libervoxycordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
please visit librevox dot org. Recording by Caroline, our own set by Ossib
Shubin, translated by Clara Belle. Part one the Carnival Chapter one. At
Rome in eighteen seventy, Roman society was already divided into Lemonte Noir and Le
mont Blanc, which as yet gave no sign of amalgation into a Mont Greece.
His Holiness the Pope had entrenched himself in the Vatican behind his prestige of
martyrdom, and the King already held his court at the Quirinal. Among the
distinguished Austrians who were spending the winter in Rome were the otso Ilsenbergsto Wilsenberg,
one of the leading members of the Austrian feudal aristocracy, was in Rome,
professedly for his health, but in reality solely in order to avail himself of
the resources of the Vatican Library in compiling that work of the history of miracle,
which she has lately given to the world under a quaint pseudonym. He
and his wife with a troop of red haired Elsenberg's big and little inhabited a
straggling historical palazzo on the corso, with a glassial stone staircase and vast drawing
rooms which looked more fit for the meeting of conspirators than for innocent tea drinkings
and dances. The contest was at home every evening, when there was no
better amusement to be had. She was by birth a Princess Auerstein of the
Auerstein Soling branch, in which, as we all know, the women are
remarkable for their white eyebrows and their strict morality. The Ilsenberg salon was much
frequented. The prevailing tone was by no means formal smoking was allowed in the
drawing room. Nay, the Countess herself smoked. To be precise, she
smoked regalias. It was in the beginning of December, a wet evening,
and the heavy drops splashed against the window panes. Count Ilsenberg was sitting in
an immense reception room decorated with frescoes, at a bull table, evidently constructed
for no more arduous duties than the evolution of love letters. He was absorbed
in the concoction of an article of our times, a paper of strictly aristocratic
conservative tendencies, patronized by himself, taken in by his fellow aristocrats, read
by absolutely no one except the liberal newspaper writers. When in search of reactionary
perversities. Count Elsenbag was in great trouble. The Austrian ministry had crowned their
distinguished achievements by one even more distinguished. For the fourth time within three years,
a new era was announced, and in defiance of prejudice, is big
and span liberal ministry was being composed, destined, no doubt to establish the
prosperity of the Austrian people on a permanent basis, and beyond a doubt,
to cause a fresh importation of excellencies into the fashionable salons of the Ringstrasse.
At Vienna, Count Elsenberg was prophesizing the end of all things. The contest
was sitting at her ease on a sofa close to the fireplace with its Renaissance
chimeras of White Mars. The handsomest editions of the works of Ampere and Mumsen
lay on the tables. But she held on her lap a ragged volume of
a novel from a circulating library She was a tall, fair woman with a
high color and apricot colored hair, a languid figure, slender extremities, and
significant features. She spoke French and German alike with a strong Viennese accent,
dressed fashionably and moved awkwardly. Still. No one who knew what was what
could fail to see that she was a lady and an aristocrat. At all
court functions, she was an imposing figure. She never stumbled over her train
and wore the family diamonds with stately indifference. The portierre was lifted and General
von Klinger was announced. General von Klinger was an old Austrian soldier whose good
fortune had been to he have an opportunity of distinguishing himself with his cavalry at
Sadoa, after which, righteously wroth at the national disaster, he had laid
down his sword and retired with his general's rank, to devote himself wholly to
painting. Even as a soldier, he had enjoyed a reputation as a genius
and had covered himself with glory by the way in which he would sketch with
his gold cased pencil on the back of an old letter or a visiting card
a galloping horse and jockey bending over its mane, a work of art,
especially admired for the rapidity with which it was executed. Since then he had
studied out in Paris, had three times had his pictures refused at the Salon,
and had succeeded in persuading himself that this was a distinction in which he
found a parallel in Rousseau de Lacroix and fifty fellow victims who had been obliged
to submit to a similar abouf. Then he had come to Rome an unappreciated
genius, and had established himself in a magnificent studio in the Piazza Navona,
which he threw open to the public every day from three till five, and
which became a popular rendezvous for the fashionable world. They laughed at the old
soldier's artistic pretensions, but they could not laugh at him. He was,
in every sense of the word, a gentleman, like many an old bachelor
who cherishes the memory of an unsuccessful love affair in early life. He covered
a sentimental vein by abiding tongue. A pessimist idealist perhaps describes him. He
was handsome and upright, with a stiffly starched shirt color and romantic dark eyes,
a thorough old soldier and a favorite with all the fine ladies of Roman
society. It is very nice of you to have thought of us, said
the Countess, greeting him heartily. It is dreadful weather too, Come and
warm yourself. The count looked up from his writing. How are you,
General, he said, and then went on with his article, adding,
such an old friend as you are, will allow me to go on with
my work only a few lines, half a dozen words. These are grave
times when every man must hold his own in the ranks, and the forlorn
hope of the feudal course dipped his pen and the ink with a sigh.
The General begged him not to disturb himself. The Countess said a few words
about some musical soiree, and presently her husband ended his page with an emphatic
flourish, exclaiming that will give them something to think about, and came to
join them by the fire. A carriage was heard to draw up in the
street. That may be Tryne. He arrived yesterday, observed the Countess,
and Count Trine was in fact announced. Erich Trene was at that time a
man of rather more than thirty, with her prematurely gray and a glance of
frosty and deference. People said he had been niced, for he always looked
as though he had been frozen to the marrow in sublime superiority. His frigid
exterior had won him a reputation for excessive pride and totally belight the man.
He was an uncommonly kind and noble hearted soul, and what passed for pride
was merely the shrinking of a sensitive nature which had now and again exposed itself
to ridicule, perhaps by some outburst of high flown idealism, and which now
sought only to hide its sanctuary from the desecration of the multitude. Ah troyne
at last, and how are you, cried the count as, with sincere
pleasure, much as ever, replied train. And where is your wife,
asked Elzenburg. I do not know. Is she still at Nice? I
do not know. And as he spoke, his expression was colder and more
set than before. Are you to be longing in rome? Said the Countess,
anxious to divert the conversation into a more pleasing channel. As long as
my little companion likes and it suits her, answered Tryne. His little companion
always meant his only child, a girl of about twelve. You must bring
Gabrielle to see me very soon, said the lady. My Mimi and Linchey
are of the same age. I will bring her as soon as possible.
Unluckily, she is so very shy she cannot bear strange as. But she
has quite lost her heart to the General and to our cousins. Sampali,
what's nikki? Exclaimed the Countess. Do you mean that he has the patience
to devote himself to children. He has a peculiar talent for it. He
dined with us to day. He is an unaccountable creature, sighed the Countess.
He hardly ever comes near us at this moment. A quick step was
heard outside, and count Simpali was announced. Loupo Sinfabula remarked. Elzenberg.
The newcomer was a young man of eight or nine and twenty, not tall,
but powerfully though slightly built. His remarkably handsome, well cut features and
clear brown complexion were beautified by a most engaging smile and by fine blue eyes
with dark lashes and shaded lids. Under cover of that smile, he could
say the most audacious things, and whether the glance of those eyes were a
lightning flash or his sunbeam, no one had ever been quite certain. He
gallantly kissed the tips of the Countess's fingers, nodded to them in with a
sort of brusque heartiness, and then seated himself on a cushion at the lady's
feet. Well, it is a mercy to be allowed to see you at
last. You really do not come often enough, Nicki, and in society
I hardly ever meet you, complained the Countess, in a tone of kindly
reproof. Why do you so seldom appear in the respectable world? Because he
is better amused in the other world, said Elzenbeck, with a giggle in
an undertone, But a reproachful glance from his wife warned him to be sober.
I simply have not the time for it, said simply, half laughing.
I have too much to do. Too much to do, said Struyne,
with his quiet irony in diplomacy, what is the latest news? A
remarkable article in the tons on the great washing basin question, replied simply,
with mock gravity. The washing basin question, replied, the others, puzzled
yes, continued simply, the state of affairs is this when not long since
the young Duke of b was required to serve under the conscription. His feelings
were deeply hurt by the fact that he had not only to live in barracks,
but to wash at the pomp like a common soldier. This so outraged
his mamma that she went to the Minister of War to petition that her son
might have a separate washing basin. But after serious discussion, her application was
refused. It was decided that this separate washing basin would be a brain.
Which of the immortal principles of eighty nine it is hardly credible, observed troyne
Ilsenberg. Shrugged his shoulders, and the contest innocently asked, what are the
immortal principles of eighty nine? A sort of ideal convention between the aristocracy and
the Canalier said simply, coolly, or, if you prefer it, the
first steps towards the amplication of privilege at the feet of the higher humanity,
he added with a smile. The Countess was no wiser than before, simply
laughed maliciously as he fanned himself with a Japanese screen and Ilsenberg said, then
you are a democrat, simply from a bird's eide point of view, added
Treyne dryly. He had not much faith in his cousin's liberalism. I am
always a democrat when I have just been reading The Dark Ages, said simply.
The Dark Ages was the name he chose to give to Uzenbeg's newspaper.
Besides joking apart, I am really illiberal, though I own I am uneasy
at the growing power of the radicals. By the bye, I had nearly
forgotten to give you two items of news that will delight you, Fritzi,
addressing the Countess, the Rats have won all the Paris elections, and at
Madrid they have been shooting at the king. Horrible, exclaimed the Countess,
and she shuddered. We shall see the Commune again before long ninety three,
said Tryne, with his tone of dry irony. We really ought to draw
a cordon around the Austrian throne to protect it against the pestilential flot of democracy,
said simply, very gravely, E Sinberg, you must petition the Upper
House. Your jokes are very much out of place, said the Countess.
The matter is serious. Oh no, not for us, said Troyne.
Our people are too long suffering. They are sound at the corps, interrupted
Elsinbeg with a dramatic emphasis. They do not yet know the meaning of liberty,
said simply laughing. And to them equality is a mere abstraction, a
metaphysical delicacy. They are thoroughly good and loyal, exclaimed Elsenburg. And they
know, oh, cried simply, they know very little. And that is
your safeguard. When once their eyes are opened, your life will cease to
be secure. If I had been a bricklayer, I should certainly have been
a socialist. And he crossed his arms and looked defiantly at his audience.
A socialist, cried, ilsenbech indignantly. You no, you could not have
been a socialist. Your religious feelings would have preserved you from such wickedness.
Huh, replied simply suspiciously, And Tryne said, with a twist off his
lips, as a bricklayer simply might not have been so religious. He might
have found some difficulty in worshiping a good who had treated him so scurvily.
Hush, Trayne exclaimed, simply, somewhat anxiously to his cousin. You know
I dislike all such discussions. True, I remember you were Catholic blinkers and
are always nervous about your beliefs, and you would not like to feel any
doubt as to the unlimited prolongation of your comfortable little existence, said Trayne,
in a tone of grave and languid banter, for simply was not burthened with
religion, though like many folks to whom life is easy, he clung desperately
to a hope of a future life, for which reason he affected Catholic blinkers,
and would not have opened a page of Strauss for the world. The
sword is at our breast, sighed the Countess, still sunk in dark forebodings,
this new ministry, and she shook her head. It will do no
harm beyond producing a few dreary articles in the papers and in undating us with
new acts, which the Crown will not trouble itself about for a moment.
Observed simply the Austrian mobile gnashing their teeth already, said the lady. Nonsense.
The Austrian mob is a very good dog at bottom. It will not
bite you till you forbid it to lick your hands, said her cousin.
Calmly, I should dislike one as much as the other, said the Countess,
looking complacently at her slender white fingers. But tell Usniki, asked Elsenberg,
has not the change of ministry put a stop to your chances of promotion?
Simply? Was in fact an apprentice in the Roman branch of the Great
Austrian political incubator, of course, replied simply. I had hoped to be
sent to London as secretary, But to one of our secretaries here is to
go to England, and the Democrats are sending us one of their own proteges
in his place. My chief told me so this morning. Oh who is
your new secretary, asked the Countess, much interested. If he is a
protege of those creatures, you must be a terrible specimen. Here is one
Schtetzel, and highly recommended. He comes from Teheran, where he has distinguished
himself greatly, said simply Stetzel, replied Elsenberg scornfully. Stetzel cried the lady
in disgust. It is to be hoped he has no wife that would crown
all. On that point, I can reassure you, said the general Schdatzel
is unmarried. You know him, murmured the Countess, slightly abashed. He
is the son of one of my dearest friends, a fellow officer replied the
General. And if he has grown up as he promised, he must be
a man of talent and character. His abilities were brilliant. That is something
at any rate isnbeg condescended to say. Yes, so it strikes me,
added simply, we require one man who knows what work means. It was
promised that my nephew should have the appointment, muttered the Countess. It is
disgusting, utterly said simply, with a whimsical intonation. A foreign element is
always intrusive. We we are much more comfortable among ourselves. Tea was now
brought in on a Japanese table, and the Secretary and his inferior birth were
for the time forgotten. And of chapter one, Part one, Chapter two
of Our Own set by Subshubin, translated by Clara Belle. This Liberox recording
is in the public domain recording by Carolyn Part one Chapter two simply was not
merely affecting the Democrat to annoy his cousin the Countess. He firmly believed himself
to be a liberal because he laughed at conservatism and regarded the nobility as a
time on its structure, a relic of the past, like the Pyramids,
only not quite so perdurable. But in spite of his theoretical respect for the
rights of man and his satirical contempt for the claims of privilege, simply was
really less tolerant than his cousin of the dark ages. Ilsenberg, with all
his feudal crotchets, was an aristocrat only from a sense of fitness, while
Sempaly was an aristocrat by instinct. Ilsenberg's pride of rank was an affair of
party and dignity. Sampalice was a matter of superfine nerves. A few days
after this conversation, Sempaly met the General and told him that the new secretary
had arrived, adding with a smile, I do not think he will do
Why not, asked the General. He speaks very bad French and he knows
nothing about bric a brac, replied simply, with perfect gravity. I introduced
him yesterday to Madame de Gondries, and he had hardly turned his back when
she asked me she is the daughter of a leather cella at lil you know,
is he a man of family? And would you believe it? I
could not tell her. That is the sort of thing I never know.
Then he added, with a singular smile. His name is cecil cecil Maria,
cecil Maria Schtetzel. It sounds well, do you not think, cecil
Maria. It was a ridiculous name, and ill suited the man. His
father had been an officer of dragoons who had retired early to become a country
gentleman, the dearest dream of the retired officer. His mother was a faded
freuleinfon who had all her linen, not merely for her trousseau, but all
she ever purchased, marked with her coronet, who stuck up a flag on
the turret of their little country house with her arms, and insisted on being
a dress as barness, which she never had been by all her acquaintance.
When within a year of her marriage she became the mother of a fine boy,
it was a burning question what his name should be. Cecil Maria lisped
the lady. Nonsense. The boy shall be called Anthony, after his grandfather,
said his father, and the mother burst into tears. What man can
resist the tears of the mother of his first born. The child was christened
Cecil. His father died at the early age of forty. His youngest child,
a girl whom he worshiped, was dangerously ill of scarlet fever, and
he fell a victim to his devotion to her. Cecil was at that time
a pretty but rather delicate boy, with an intense contempt for the French language
which his cister, this governess, tried to instill into him, and a
pronounced preference for the society of the stable lads and peasant boys. The baroness
was always complaining that he was dirty and did not care to keep his hands
white. The guardianship of the orphans devolved on General Stetze, their father's elder
brother, who honestly did his best for them, managing their little fortune with
care and conscientiously directing their education. After a brief but keen inspection of the
clever, spoilt boy, of his silly mother and of his cringing tutor,
he shrugged his shoulders over this country gentleman's life and placed the lad in the
Teresianum, a college which, in the estimation of every Austrian officer, is
the first educational establishment in the world, provided that is to say that he
himself was not brought up there. During the first last six months, Cecil
was boundlessly miserable. All his life long till now he had been accustomed to
be the first, and it was hard suddenly to find himself last. Although
his abilities were superior, his neglected education placed him far below most of his
companions. And besides this, he was, as it happened, the only
boy not of noble birth in this fashionable college, with the exception of a
young terre Leese whose descent was illegitimate. Though he nevertheless was always boasting of
his family. Then his companions laughed at his provincial accent, at his want
of strength, and at his queer name. We all have an our turn
hat to submit to this rough jesting. He could not, for a long
time get accustomed to it, and during the first half year he incessantly plagued
his mother and guardian to release him from what he called a prison, but
there remained deaf to his entreatees. The visible outcome when Cecil went home for
the summer holidays was a very subdued frame of mind and nicely kept long white
nails. The next term began with his giving a sound thrashing to the odious
Tyrrelles, who board the whole school. With his endless bragging and ass this
made him immensely popular. Then he began to work in earnest. His masters
praised his industry, and his complaints ceased. Had the subtle poison of pretentious
vanity which infected the whole college crept into his veins, had he begun to
find a charm in hearing mass read on Sundays and high days by a bishop,
to be waited on by servants and livery, to learn to dance from
the same teacher who gave lessons at court, and to call the titled youth
of the Empire do it is difficult to say. He seemed perfectly indifferent to
all these privileges, and assumed no airs or affectations. His pride was of
a fierce at temper. He finished his education by learning Eastern languages, passed
brilliantly, and still aided by his uncle, went in for diplomacy. He
was sent to an Asiatic capital, which was just then undergoing a visitation of
cholera and revolution. There again he distinguished himself and was decorated with the Order
of the Iron Crown. One thing was soon evident to everyone in Rome.
The new Secretary was not a man whose character could be summed up in an
epigram. There was nothing commonplace so pretty in the man externally, who was
tall and broad shoulders, with a well set carriage that gave him the air
of a soldier in mufty. His hair was brown and close cropped, and
his features sharply cut in manner, he was awkward, but perfectly well bred,
unpretentious and simple. The Ambassador's verdict on the new Secretary was very different
from Saintpalice. He is my best worker, said his excellency. A wonderful
worker and a long head, extraordinarily capable, but not pliant enough. Not
pliant enough. Nor was it only with his superiors that he found favor.
The younger officials with whom he came in contact were soon on the best terms
with him. He had one peculiarity, very rare in men who take life
so seriously as he did. He never quibbled. The embassy at Rome at
that time swarmed to such an extent with hintsome fashionable idlers that the Palazzo di
Vinizia was like a superior school for fine ladies with mus starshis as sempalyiaptly said
Stiezze looked on at their feeble doings with indulgent good humor. It was impossible
to hope for any definite views or action from these young gentlemen. It would
have been as wise to try to make butterflies do the work of ants.
He himself was always ready to make good their neglect, and gave them every
liberty for their amusements. He wished to work to make his mark. That
was his business. To frett away life and enjoy themselves was theirs. Thus
they agreed to admiration. But though his subultants were soon his devoted allies,
society at large was still disposed to offer him a cold shoulder. His predecessor
in office had never pretended to do anything noteworthy as a diplomatist, but he
had been an admirable Waltzer, and which was even more important, he had
not disdained that social diversion. Consequently, he had been a favorite with the
ladies of Rome, who loudly bewailed his departure and were not cordial to his
successor. Stetzel took no pains to fill his place. He had no trace
of that obsequious politeness and superficial amiability which make a man popular in general society.
His blunt conscientiousness and quite pedantic frankness of speech were displeasing on first acquaintance.
In a drawing room, he commonly stood silently observant, or if he
spoke, he said exactly what he thought, and expected the same sincerity from
others. He could never be brought to understand that the flattery and subterfuge usual
in company were merely a degenerate form of love for your neighbor. That the
uncompromising truthfulness that he required must result in universal warfare, That the limit line
between sincerity and rudeness, between deference and hypocrisy, have never been rigidly defined.
That the naked truth is as much out of place in a drawing room
as a man in his shirt slaves. And that, considering the defects and
deformities of our souls, we cannot be too thankful that custom prohibits their being
displayed without a decent amount of clothing. Merciful heaven, What should we see
if they were laid bare? No we cannot live without lying. A man
who is used to society demands that it should tell lies. It is his
right and a courtesy to which he has every claim. When a man finds
that society no longer thinks him worth lying to his part is played out,
and he had better vanish from the scene in short sheets, let no sort
of success with women. They dubbed him by the nickname of Le Paison du
Danube. Men respected him, They only regretted that he had so many extravagant
notions, particularly a morbid touchiness as to matters of honor. However, that
tis a fault which men do not seriously disapprove of. To shettle himself,
it was a matter of entire indifference what was said of him by people who
were not his personal friends. For a friend, he would go through fire
and water. But he would often neglect even to bow to an acquaintance in
the street as he walked on straight to his destination. His hit full of
grand schemes. He was fully determined to make his mark, to do,
perhaps to become something great. But end of chapter two, Part one,
Chapter three of Our Own set by Ossip Sue been translated by Clara Belle.
This Liberox according is in the public domain recording by Carolyn, Part one,
Chapter three. Princess Vulpini, who had not escaped the fashionable complaint the Morbus
Schlimannianzes, had found a treasure no further off than in an old clothes shop
in the Via Aracoeli, where she had bought two wonderful shields from designs.
She was assured of Benvenuto Cellini's and a fragment of tapestry said to have been
designed by Rafael, and she had invited a few intimate friends tren Sempali,
Vanklinger and Count Zigburg in Austria Natache to give their opinion as to the genuineness
of her find. She was Trene's sister and a few years younger than he.
She had met Prince Volpini at Vshi when spent a season there with her
invalid father, and soon afterwards had married him. And now for twelve years
she had lived in Rome, loving it well, though she never ceased a
railing at it for sundry and conveniences, was always singing the praises of Vienna,
and would have all her shopping done for her at home. Because she
was convinced that nothing was to be had in Rome but photographs, antiques,
and wax matches. The company had just finished a lively dinner, throughout which
they had unanimously abused the new Italian Ministry. But with the arrival of the
coffee and cigarettes, they turned to the consideration of the Princess's antiques, which
she had spread out on the floor for inspection. The gentlemen threw themselves on
all fours to examine the arras and the shields, and pronounced their verdict with
conscientious frankness. No one, it seemed to was thoroughly convinced of the authenticity
of the treasures, but the contesse Marie Charlingen, a lady who had been
for some few weeks in romas the Princess's guest. All the others had doubts.
The most vigorous skeptic of them all was Count Zikburg, who, to
be sure, was the one who knew least of such matters, but who
nevertheless spoke of electrotype casts and modern imitations with supreme decisiveness. Whips or more
correctly wiprecht. Zikburg was the spoiled child of the Austrian circle. I doubt
whether he could have invented gunpowder, have discovered America, or have proved that
the earth goes round. But for a worky day company, he was certainly
pleasanter than Schwartz, Columbus or Galileo. He had been attached to the embassy
with no hopes of his finding a career, but simply to get him away
from Vienna, where his debts had at last become inconveniently heavy. His widowed
mother, after much meditation, had hit upon this admirable plan for checking her
son in his extravagance. You make me quite nervous, Zigburg, said the
princess at length. Though I know that you have not the faintest glimmering of
knowledge on the point. Perhaps you are right, he answered coolly. At
any rate, I have lost confidence lately in my critical instincts. I always
used to think that the genuineness of antiquities was in proportion to their dirt.
But now that I have learned that even the dirtiest counterfeit, I have lost
all basis of judgment. They all laughed at this confession, not so much
Fret's wit, as because everyone laughed at Zigborg's little Sally's. They were in
the smoking room, a snock apartment, picturesquely and comfortably furnished with carved wood
and oriental cushions. All the party were on the intimate terms of just ourselves,
a mixture of courteous deference and hearty friendliness. The conversation was not precisely
learned. On the contrary, there was a certain frivolity in its tone.
Very bad jokes were perpetrated, and some anecdotes related savoring of Saint Simon in
raciness, without anyone being scandalized, for they were not in the mood to
run every jest on earth, to treat every point by chemical analysis, or
take every word literally. Superficiality is sometimes a gracious and a blessed thing.
I feel so thoroughly at home today in such an Austrian atmosphere, exclaimed the
hostess. But I have a presentiment that it will not be of long duration.
Madame de Gondri and Ferguson are dining in this neighborhood. As she spoke,
the servant announced Prince Norina coming events cast their shadows before, quoted Simpally.
It was well known that when Prince Nourina made his appearance. The Comtesse
de Gondrie would soon follow. Norina was fat and fair, handsome on the
Barbou's block pattern, and for the last four or five years had been dancing
attendance on the French countess. He bowed to the princess, shook hands with
the men, and was instantly seized upon by the Master of the house to
listen to a tirard on the latest misdemeanors of the government. Volpini was the
blackest of the black, a strong adherent of the pope, though from political
rather than religious bias, chiefly indeed, as a fanatically exclusive Roman who scorned
to make common cause with Italy at large, and regarded Italia Anita as a
wild Chimera. Prince Norina, who had no political convictions, listened to him
and not a dissent to anything and everything. The company now adjourned to the
drawing Room, a large, uncomfortable room furnished in a motly style, partly
Louis the Fifteenth and partly Empire, and which opened out of the more splendid
salon, in which the princess received formally, and to the boudoir, to
which none but her most intimate friends were admitted the conversation had lost much of
its liveliness and had flattened to a level at which some of the company had
taken refuge in photographs when Madame de Gondri and Missus Ferguson were announced and rustled
in. Madame de Gondri, a pale brunette, interesting rather than pretty,
with a turned up nose and hard bright eyes, noisy and coquettish, inconsiderate
and saucy because she fancied it gave her his style, had for the last
five years ruled the destinies of Prince Norina. Society had, however, agreed,
perhaps for its own convenience, to regard their intimacy as mere good fellowship.
The lady was looked upon as one of those giddy creatures who loved to
sport on the edge of an abyss. Missus Ferguson, the daughter of a
hotel keeper at San Francisco and wife of a man whose wealth increased daily,
was the exact opposite of Madame de gondriy white and pink, with large eyes
and sharp little teeth, very slender and flat figured. Like many Americans,
she dyed her hair rouged dressed conspicuously, spoke eccentric English and detestable French,
sang Judith's songs, and had been introduced to Roman society by the marqueis Bes,
who had met her at Nice. Her friendship with Madame de Gondrie had
begun on the strength of a lon d'eau they had hired between them, had
culminated in an opera box on the same terms, and would probably be destroyed
by a lover in common too. A few gentlemen had also arrived, Count
de Gondrie, who looked like a hairdresser and was suspected of carrying on a
covid business as Dela in antiquities. Monsieur Dieu Donat Crispigny de Bellancourt, a
square built French diplomatist, the son of a butcher and son in law for
Duke, etcetera, etcetera. The latest bankruptcy, the climate of Rome,
the excavations were all discussed. Madame de Gondrie and Missus Ferguson submitted at first
to the tedium of a general conversation, but contrived at the same time to
attract as much of the men's attention as was possible. Under the circumstances.
Soon after eleven, the Contesse Ilsenberg came in. She had come from a
grand diner and looked bored to death. It really is absurd how one meets
everyone in Rome, she said, presently, when she had been questioned as
to the how and where of the party, she had just quitted. Who
do you think I came across today, Marie, that Lensk girl from Vienna.
Now she is a duchess, or a contesse montidor heaven no switch.
Once years ago I had something to do with the charity sale she got up.
So now she comes up to me as if I were an old acquaintance
and pretends to be intimate. Talks of we Austrians and at home at Vienna
amusing rather poor Fritzie, I feel for you, exclaimed simply, with a
malicious laugh. But there is a greater treat in store for you, the
Shtetzel women, mother and sister coming in a few days. Indeed, that
is pleasant. Certainly, why, asked Madame de Gondrie, throwing herself into
the conversation. Are they objectionable people? By no means? Said the Countess
quickly. I believe they are the most respectable people in the world. But
it is a bore to be constantly meeting people here whom one could not possibly
recognize in Vienna. You should give him a hint, Nikki, tell him
explain to him to be sure, said simpally, laughing, I might say,
look here, my good friend, beware of taking your mother and sister
out anywhere. My cousin, the contest would rather not meet them. The
contest shrugged her shoulders and turned away from her flippant Interlucuta, tapping her fan
impatiently. Do you mean to receive them, Marie? She asked? Whom
do I not receive, said the princess in an undertone, with a significant
glance. Well I cannot decidedly not, said the Countess excitedly. Though I
shall be grieved to annoy Schiazzel, it will be his own fault entirely if
he forces me to explain myself. Do as you think proper, replied her
friend. But you know I am very fond of Scherzzl. He stands high
in my good graces. What Lepeizon de Danube, giggled Madame de Gondrey,
who had only partly understood the conversation, Chertel is a man of the highest
respectability, said the Countess Icily. She did not intend to allow that little
frenchwoman to laugh at her fellow countryman, though he was not a man of
birth. Lepeizon de Danube is my particular friend, said the princess, with
this simple heartiness that was so peculiarly her own. I am very fond of
him. He is quite one of ourselves. He can have no higher reward
on earth, said her brother, with good humored irony. When my small
boy fell and broke his arm here in this very room, Schezel picked him
up, and you should have seen how gently he held my poor darling,
added the princess. That is simple evidence in favor of the fact that his
womenkind are presentable. Laughed simply. But allow me to ask, interposed the
Madame de Gondrie, just that I may understand what I am about these chanzls.
They are not in good society in Austria. Our Austrian etiquette can afford
no standpoint for foreign society, said Trayne with unusual sharpness, for he could
not endure Madame de Gondrie. We receive no one who is not by birth
one of ourselves. Yes, said simply, with a keen glance. Austrian
society is as exclusive as the House of Israel and scorns proselytes. And the
leather celler's daughter, who had not understood or not chosen to understand Trone's speech,
replied with much presence of mind. Ah, I am glad to know
what I am about. Zigborg, who was sitting behind her, glanced at
simply and made an expressive grimace. Princess Vulpini looked almost spiteful. I will
not leave Shadzeln the lurk, she said. And if his sister is like
his description of her, he has talked to you about his sister, interrupted
Simply to be sure, said the princess, with a smile, And to
you too, I should not wonder, Niki. No, indeed, he
does not show me his sacred places. I am not worthy, replied simply.
He only told me that she was coming, and with a very singular
smile. Ha ha ha. He seems to set a great store by the
young lady, and will no doubt look out for a fine match for her.
I should not wonder if he had got her here for that express purpose.
Noarena, take care of yourself forewarned, You know, Mademoiselle Schietzel will
hardly aspire to a prince's crown, exclaimed Madame de Gondrie, up in arms
to defend her property. SCHAETTEO will not let his sister go for less,
asserted, simply, do not talk such nonsense, said Tryne to check Simply's
audacity. But simply was leaning over a table and scribbling on the back of
an old letter. Presently he handed the half sheet to the Comtesse Eltenburg.
Madame de Gondrie peeped over his shoulder, capital she exclaimed, delicious simply has
sketched Stadzel as an auctioneer, the hammer in one hand and a fashionably dressed
doll in the other, With all the princes in Rome crowd drowned in one
corner. He had written this lot Freuleanchdatzel once twice thrice the sketch was handed
round. The likeness of Schtetzel was unmistakable. Soon after the Contesse Silsenberg went
away, and as the company were not in the best of humors, the
two friends also withdrew shortly after midnight, followed by those gentlemen who had come
in that train. Fritzi is really a victim to an idea fix. The
princess began when this indiscreet group had departed. She wants me to intrench myself
in dignified reserve against this poor little thing. What harm can the child do
to me? I cannot imagine, said zig Book. Indeed, if she
is pretty and has some money, it strikes me I will marry her myself.
That will get matters straight. Zigborg was fond of talking of the money
that his wife must bring in, and liked to air the selfishness of which
he was innocent, as very rich folks sometimes make a proude of poverty.
And it was really very stupid of Fritzy to ventilate his idiotic nonsense before those
two women. Added the princess, who was apt to express herself strongly.
But nothing that she said ever sounded badly. On the contrary, she lent
a grace to whatever she said. Does she think she can make me turn
exclusive? I hope you observed how that Pinchbeck comtesse was prepared to tread in
her footsteps, said zigbog. Treyn meanwhile, was hunting eagerly about the chimney
shelf and the tables assisted by the master of the house. What are you
looking for, Erech asked his sister, for that sketch of Saint Palice.
I should not like to leave the thing about. Excuse me, Nikki.
The caricature was capital. I have nothing to say against it if it had
only been among ourselves. But you really ought not to have shown it to
strange. As you are so heedless, you do not think of what you
are doing. And what have I done? Now, asked simply, without
any trace of annoyance, you have simply stamped this young girl as an adventurous
on the lookout for a husband. Pooh, as if so trifling a jest
could be taken in Earnest said simply, they searched everywhere for the carricature,
but in Vain, I am convinced that wretched woman put it in her pocket,
cried the princess indignantly. That wretched woman was, of course, Madame
de Gondri. It was true that Princess Vulpini was very fond of Stazza,
and he returned her regard with almost rapturous devotion. In spite of an unpolished
and absent manner, he had a vein of poetic chivalry and a pure reverence
for true and lofty womanhood. He could not think it worth his while to
offer to any woman that flattery often impertinent enough in reality, that gratifies some
of her sex, And he had never learned the abc of modern gallantry.
But in his intercourse with those whom he spoke of as true women, there
was a touch of chivalrous protection and reserved deaference. His behavior to them was
so full of an old fashioned courtesy that he was certain to win their favor.
He treated them partly like children that must be cared for, and partly
like sacred beings before whom we must bow the knee. Immediately on his arrival
in Rome, the Princess found great pleasure their acquaintance. She confided to him
all her little indignation at this or that grievance in Rome, and allowed him
to take a variety of small cares of her shoulders, being as all women
of her soft nature are very fastidious and utterly underpractical. There had been few
sweeter girls in the Vienna world than the contesse Marie Trine in her day,
and there was not now in Rome a more lovable woman than the Princess Wilpini,
when in the afternoons she drove out in her open carriage with her four
or five children that looked as though they had been stolen straight out of one
of the Kate Greenaway's picture books along the corso to the Villa Borghes. Her
fashionable acquaintance, who had brought out their most recent or most fashionable bosom friend
instead of their children, would exclaim, here comes true happiness, and the
men bowed to her with particular respect, eager to win the friendly and gracious
smile that warmed all hearts like a ray of spring sunshine. She had never
been a regular beauty, and had early lost her youthful freshness and the slim
figure that had been almost proverbial. Nevertheless, her charm was undiminished. Her
chief ornament, a wonderful abundance of bright brown hair, was as fine as
ever. She wore it still, and when a girl of sixteen simply combed
back and gathered into a knot down at the back, in spite of her
faded complexion, there was a childlike sweetness in her small, round face,
with its kind little eyes, its delicate turned up nose, and soft lips
that had no beauty till they smiled. All her movements were simple and graceful,
and her whole appearance conveyed the impression of exquisite refinement and the loftiest womanliness.
Her dress was apt to be a little out of fashion. The latest
chic never suited her. She was a great reader, even of very solid
books, especially affecting natural science. But she retained nevertheless the literal faith of
her infancy, and this innocent orthodoxy was part and parcel of the simple fervency
of her character. Simply, who was sincerely attached to her, always spoke
of her devout piety as one of her most engaging qualities. He declared that
a woman to be truly sympathetic must be religious. That a man may allow
himself to profess free thought, but that a skeptical woman was as odious as
a woman with the hump. To this observation, which Simply once threw out
in the presence of Schiazzl, Cecil took great exception. Though he himself was
as due void of religious beliefs as Simply himself. He thought it impertinent men
do not jest about the women whose names are sacred to them. He said,
with the pedantic chivalry which always provoked his colleagues's opposition. However, Simply
only retorted with a sneering smile and a shrug. End of Chapter three,
Part one, Chapter four of Our Own set by Ossip Shubin, translated by
Clara Belle. This libovox recording is in the public domain recording by Carolyn.
Chapter four. A few days after the evening, when Simply had given such
brilliant proof of his talent as caricaturist, General von Klinger was sitting in his
studio on a divan covered with a picturesque Persian rug, and endeavoring, having
for the moment nothing better to do, to teach his parrot to sing the
Austrian anthem, a loyal task which the bird, perched on the top of
its cage, persistently refused to learn. It was a gorgeous studio with a
coved ceiling painted in fresco and a rococo plaster cornice. The walls hung with
old tapestry, Eastern stuffs, and other properties. It was so large that
minn looked like dwarfs in it, and the general's works of art like illustrations
cut out from a picture book this Scirocco brooded in the atmosphere, and the
General was out of swords. He could not get on with his painting,
and though it was now a quarter to five, not a visitor had he
seen. Usually by this hour he had a number, sometimes too many.
The General often grumbled to himself, of course, at the interruption, but
he always enjoyed the little dissipation. It made him melancholy to be left to
himself. He was thinking just now how difficult it was to get on as
a painter. His coloring was capital, so all his artist friends assured him,
but that his drawing left much to be desired. He himself confessed his
two strong points were a harmonious effect of gray Towne and horses seen from behind.
All his pictures returned to him from the exhibitions unsold, excepting one which
was purchased by the Emperor, in consideration of the general's former merits as a
soldier rather than of his talents as an artist. The painters who came to
smoke his cigarettes accounted for this by saying that his art stick aims were too
independent, that he made no concessions to public taste, and so could not
hope for popularity. He was in the very act of whistling the national anthem
for the sixteenth time to the reculcitrant Bird, when he had a knocked at
the door. He rose to open it and simply came in. He had
called to inform the General that he had discovered a very fine, though much
damaged piece of tapestry in a convent, and had board it for a mere
song. He had in fact purchased it for the General because he knew that
it was just such a specimen as he had long wished for. But if
you do not care to take it, I shall be very glad to keep
it, he added. No one had the art of doing an obliging thing
with a better grace than he. It was one of his little accomplishments.
When they had settled their business, simply broke into loud lamentations that he was
obliged to dine that day at the British Embassy, and then to dance at
the French ambassadors, and raved about the ideal life led by his friend.
He only wished he could lead such a life in which there were no evening
parties, routs, balls or dinners. Next, he wandered round the room
looking at all the studies that hid their faces against the wall. Charming superb
he kept exclaiming in French with his Austrian accent. From a sheer impulse to
say something pleasant, he always tried to make himself pleasant. Why do not
work that thing up? He said at length, pointing to a sketch on
canvas of a group of bashi bazouks. It might sell, replied the artist,
whose great difficulty always lay in the working up. But you know I
am independent in my aims. I set my face against making concessions to the
vulgar. I must work on my own principles and not ponder to the public.
Simply smiled at this profession of faith. As it is a mere whim
with you to ever sell at all, he answered, My advice is that
you should never attempt it, but leave all your works to the nation,
so that we may have a musez Vietz at Vienna. The General assured him
that he was quite in earnest in his desire to sell his pictures, but
simply smiled knowingly. There was once upon a time he began a cobbler who
was a man of genius. But he prided himself on his sense of beauty
and his artistic convictions, and he heeded not the requirements of his customers.
He would make nothing but Greek sandals. He died a beggar, but happy
in the consciousness of never having made a concession to the vulgar. The General
was on the point of making an indignant reply to this malicious anecdote when the
loud rap was again heard, which seems to be traditional at a studio door.
It is supposed to be necessary to arouse the artist from his absorption in
his work. The General went to admit his visitor. There was a small
ante room between the studio and the stairs. The door was no sooner opened
than in flitted a slender creature, fair and blooming, tall, slim and
bewitchingly pretty, in a dark dress and a sealed skin jacket. What you,
zinker, cried the old general, delightedly. This is a surprise.
How long have you been in room? Only since this morning? Answered again
voice. And are you alone? Asked the artist in astonishment, as Zinka
shut the door and went forward into the atelier. Yes, quite alone,
she said, calmly. I left the maid at home. She and Mamma
are fast asleep resting after their journey. I came alone in a carriage.
It was very nice of me. Do not think, why what a face
to make? And why have you not given me a kiss? Uncle Kilinga.
She stood before him, bright and confident, her head a little thrown
back, her hands in a tiny muff, gazing at him with surprise in
her frank gray eyes. My dear Zinka, the general began, for like
all conscientious old gentlemen with romantic memories, he was desperately punctilious as to the
proprieties. When any lady in whom he took an interest was implicated. I
am charmed, delighted to see you, but in a strange place where you
know no one, and in a strange housewhere, oh now I understand,
cried the girl. It is not proper. I shall live to be a
hundred before I know exactly what is proper. It is very odd. But
Uncle Shtazzel used always to say that it was of no use to worry about
it, that if people were ladies and gentlemen, everything was proper, and
if they were not, why it was all the same. But he did
not know what he was talking about. It would seem and she turned sharply
on her heel and made for the door. But my dear Zinka, cried
the general, holding her back. Tell me at least where you are living,
before you whisk off like a whirlwind. Do not be so utterly unreasonable.
I am perfectly reasonable, she retorted. She was both embarrassed and angry.
Her cheeks were scarlet and her eyes full of tears. It would never
have occurred to me, sir, that there was anything improper in calling on
an old gentleman, and she emphasized the words quite viciously in his studio,
Oh the vanity of men who can foresee its limits. But I am perfectly
reasonable. I acknowledge my mistake, simpleton, that I am, and I
have been looking forward all day to taking you by surprise. I meant to
ask you to dine with us at the Hotel de la Rope, and to
come with me fast to the Pincio to see the sunset, and these other
things I get. I do not trouble yourself to get your hated as a
wayst of trouble. I do not want you now. Goodbye, and she
flew off her head in the air without looking back once at the General,
who dutifully escorted her to the carriage. The old man came back much crestfallen.
A voice greeted him cheerfully, quite in disgrace. General, it was
simply who had witnessed the whole scene from recess, and whom the General had
entirely forgotten, so it seems, said he shortly beginning to scrape his palette.
But tell me who is this, this particulartle princess. Who, oh,
my god, daughter Zinka Schtiazzo. Thunderbolts are out of date, No
one believes in them nowadays. Nevertheless, it is a fact which Sempali himself
never contradicted, that he fell in love with Zinka at first sight. And
when a few days after Zinca's eruption into the General's studio, the old gentleman
accepted an invitation to dine with the Baroness Schierzzo at the Hotel de L'Or rope.
On entering the room, he found eagerly employed in looking over a quantity
of photographs with the young lady Count Sempali. The two gentlemen were the only
guests, and yet, or perhaps in consequence, the little party was as
gay and pleasant as was possible with so affected and formal a hostess as the
Baroness. This lady, in narrow and perverse soul as ever lived, was
the very essence of vanity and affectation. She imagined, having alone knows on
what grounds, that the General had formerly loved her hopelessly, and she always
treated him accordingly, with a consideration that was intolerably irritating. She had made
great strides in the airs of refinement since she and the General had last met
at a time before she, or rather her children, had become rich through
an advantageous sale of part of their land, and this, of course added
to the charms of her society. She was perpetually complaining, in a tone
of feeble elegance, the sleeping carriages were intolerable, These seats were so badly
stuffed. Rome was so dirty, the hotels were so bad, the conveyances
so miserable. She brought in the names of all the aristocratic acquaintances they had
made at Nice, at Miran, and at Biaritz, and asked, the
next day, being a Saint's day, which church was fit to go to.
The vehement old General answered hotly that God was in them all but simply
informed her with the politest gravity that Cardinal x Red Marsen the morning at Saint
Peter's and that the music was splendid. I advise you to try Saint Peter's.
Indeed, is Saint Peter's possible on a Saint's Day? She asked?
The company is usually so mixed in those large church. The General fairly blushed
for her follies on her children's account. Have you forgiven me, Zinca,
he said, to change the conversation, as if I had time to trouble
myself about your straight laced proprieties, exclaimed she, coloring slightly. She evidently
did not like this allusion to her little indiscretion. I have something much worse
to think about. Why what is the matter, sweetheart, asked her brother,
who took everything seriously. I have lost something, she said, in
a tone of deep melancholy, which evidently covered some jest. Not a four
leaved shamrock or a metal blessed by the Pope, asked the General. Oh
no, something much more important, y pass exclaimed the baroness hastily, but
Zinca burst out laughing, No, no, something much great. You will
never guess. Rome On which schd'atzel, who could never make out what his
fascinating little sister would be at only said that is beyond me, but simply
was sympathetic. I see you are terribly disappointed, he said, and Zinca
went on like a person accustomed to be listened to. Yes, Ever since
I could think at all, I have dreamt of Rome and longed to see
it. My Rome was a suburb of Heaven, but this Rome is a
suburb of Paris. My room was glorious, and this Rome is simply hideous.
Do not be flippant, Zinka, said, the general, who always
upheld traditional worship. Well. As a city, Rome is really very ugly
interposed, her brother, it is more interesting as a museum of antiquities,
with life size illustrations. Still you do not know it yet. You have
seen nothing as yet but lodgings, you mean, retorted Zinka, casting down
her eyes with sanctimonious sauciness. It is dreadful, the baroness began. We
have been here five days and cannot find an apartment fit to live in.
Wherever we go, there's some drawback. The stairs are too dark, or
the entrances bed, or there is only one door to the salon or the
servants rooms. But my dear Zinca, interrupted the general. If you really
have seen nothing of Rome excepting the lodgings in the corso, of course,
Oh but I have seen something else, cried Zinca. Indeed, I know
my way around Rome very well in your dreams. No, I went yesterday.
Mamma had a sick headache. Oh those headaches, sighed the baroness,
putting her salts to her nose. I am a perfect martyr to them.
To have sick headaches and to be a strict Catholic were marks of good style.
In the Baroness's estimation, simply put on a sympathetic expression, but returned
at once to the subject on hand. Yes, I know Rome very well,
Zinka went on. You have only to ask the driver of the street
cap number twelve or three, and he will tell you. I drove about
with him for three hours yesterday. You see, to have been in Rome
a whole week and to have seen nothing but furnished lodgings was really too bad.
So I took advantage of the opportunity. When Mamma was in bed,
I slipped out. You need not make that face, uncle, I took
the maid with me. We went to walk everywhere with the map. Of
course, we lost our way Sela va Sondr And as we were standing helpless,
each holding the map by a corner, a driver signed to us.
So with the first finger in we got and he asked us where we wished
to go. But as I had no answer ready, he said, with
the most paternal air, Ah, the Simora wants to see Rome. Good,
I will show her Rome. And he set off round and round and
in and out all through the city. I was positively giddy with this waltz
around all the sights of Rome. He showed me a perfect forest of fallen
pillars with images of guards and fragments of sculpture carefully heaped around them like Christmas
boxes for lovers of antiquities. The campol Vaccino, he called it. I
believe it was the Forum. Then he pointed out the Palace of Beatrice Cenci,
the Deuice Quarter, the Theater of Marcellus, the Temple of Vesta.
And every time he showed me anything, he added, now, am I
not a capital guide? Many a driver would only take you from place to
place, and what would you say? Nothing? A heap of stones.
But I tell you that is the Colisseum, and this is the portico of
Octavia, and then the stones have some meaning. And at last he set
me down at the door of the hotel and said, quite seriously, now
the Seora has seen Rome. They were now at dessert. The baroness looked
anything rather than pleased, allow me to request. She said that for the
future, in the first place, you will not make friends with a common
driver, and in the second that you will not drive about Rome in a
botta a one horse carriage. It is not at all the thing. You
have no sense of fitness whatever. Zinka, who was both sensitive and spoilt
colored, let her be mother. Why should she not learn a little Italian
and write in a butta, said she Deatzer, who rubbed his mother the
wrong way from morning till night, simply took prompt advantage of the situation to
whisper to Zinka, I cannot promise to be as good company as your butta
driver, but if you will allow me, I will do my best to
help you find the room you have lost. Are you sure you know your
way about? Asked the girl with frank in civility. I am the la
cadeplus of the embassy, I assure you, replied, simply laughing. My
only serious occupation consists in showing stranger as the sights of Rome. After this,
the evening passed gaily. The Baroness made a few idiotic speeches, but
simply forebore to be ironical. He was on his very best behavior, and
the Baroness was quite taken in by his elaborate reserve. So Schdazzel, who
was himself too painfully alive to her aristocratic airs and pretensions. However, the
society of his sister, whom he adored, had put him into the best
of humors. He lounged forth a few bitter epigrams against the priesthood, and
was satirical about the society of Rome. But Zinka stopped him every time with
some engaging nonsense, and in listening to her chatter he forgot his bitterness.
At last, he asked her to sing a Moravian popular song. She seated
herself at the hotel piano and began. There was something mystical in the low,
veiled tones of her voice, like an echo of the past, As
she sang the melancholy, dreamy strains of her native land. Schdatzel, who
always yawned all through an opera, listened to her singing, his head resting
on his hand in a sort of ecstasy. In Simply Too, who,
in spite of his Hungarian name, was by birth a Moravian. Sinkas's simple
melody roused the half choked echoes of his youth, and when she ceased,
he thanked her with genuine feeling. Zincas was in april weather nature. After
bringing the tears into the eyes of her hearers, nay, into her own,
with her song, she suddenly struck up an air by lecoq that she
had heard Judik sing at niece. The words, as was perfectly evident to
all of the party, were Hebrew to the girl, but the bareness was
beside herself. Sinca, she exclaimed, in extreme consternation. You really are
incredible. What must these gentlemen think of you? Do not be in the
least uneasy, said the general. But zincast short, her face was pale
and quivering. She eedtcell interposed, It is often a little difficult to follow
my sister's vagaries, he said, turning to Simply. Then he tenderly stroked
her golden head with his large, firm hand, saying, do not be
unhappy, sweetheart, but you are a little too much of a goose for
your age. When presently simply had quitted the hotel with the general, his
first words were, tell me, how is it that with such a fool
of a mother that child has remained so angelically fresh? So but TICHELLI end
of chapter four, Part one, Chapter five of Our Own set by Ossip
Shubin, translated by Clara Belle. This libovox according is in the public domain.
Acording by Carolyn Part one, Chapter five, A mine somewhere in Poland
or Bohemia came to grief about this time by some accidental visitation, and five
hundred families were left destitute through the disaster. Of course, the opportunity was
immediately seized upon for charitable dissipations, for qualifying for Orders of Merit by liberal
donations, and for attracting the eyes of Europe by the most extravagant display of
philanthropy. After much deliberation, contess Ilsenberg had arrived at the conviction that,
as both the ambassador's families were hindered by mourning from giving any public entertainment,
the duty of taking the lead devolved upon her. The rooms in her palazza
were made on purpose for grand festivities, and after endless discussion, it was
decided that the entertainment should be dramatic. An operetta, a proverb by mouse
and a series of tableau vivants were finally put in rehearsal, and a collection
was to be made after the performance. Madame de Gondri threw herself into the
undertaking with the most commendable Ardor. She was on intimate terms with the leading
spirits at the Villa Medici, the French Academy of Arts at Rome, and
she interested herself in the painting of the scenes and in the artistic designing of
the dresses, in which she proved invaluable. Up to a certain point,
all went smoothly. The operetta, an unpublished effort, of course by a
Russian amateur of rank who was very proud of not even knowing his notes,
was soon cast. It needed only three performers and led up to the introduction
of an elaborate masquerade and of certain suggestive French songs. Missus Ferguson, who
never let slip an opportunity of powdering her hair and sticking on patches was to
sing the soprano part. Caspigni took that of a husband or a guardian in
a nightcap or a flowered dressing gown, and a young French painter Monsieur Barier,
who was at all times equally ready to sketch or to wear a becoming
costume, was to fill that of the lover. The cast of the little
French play was equally satisfactory. But when the arrangement of the tableau came to
be considered, difficulties arose. In the first place, all the ladies were
eager to display their charms under the becoming light of a tableau vivant, and
the number of volunteers was quite bewildering to the committee of management that met every
day at the Elsenberg's house. Then squabbles and dissatisfaction arose. The ladies did
not approve of the choice of subjects. They thought their dresses on becoming their
position's disadvantageous. Each one to whom a place at the site was assigned was
deeply aggraved. An unappreciated beauty who prided herself on her profile from the left
would not for worlds be seen from the right, etcetera, etcetera, and
above all an insuperable difficulty. Almost all the available men of the set manifested
the greatest objection to making themselves ridiculous, and positively rejected the most flattering blandishments
of the ladies Committee. Sampali, who had been asked to appear as a
Roman emperor, would not hear of putting on flesh colored tights and a wreath
of vine, and train had shrugged his shoulders at the proposal that he should
done a week with long curls Zikbook little zik Book, as he was always
called, though he was nearly six feet high. After defense, funding himself
with considerable humor, good naturedly agreed to stand as Piero in a watur scene
in which the Volpini children were to appear, and Schatzer, being personally requested
by his ambassador, submitted, though with an ill grace, to be the
executioner in de la Roche's picture of Lady Jane Gray. This tableau was to
be the crowning glory of the performance. Barria had taken infinitely more pains with
it than with any other. The part of Lady Jane was to be filled
by a fair English girl, Lady Henrietta's stare, and then within a few
days of the performance, Lady Henrietta fell ill of the measles. The committee
were in despair when this news reached them, and all who were concerned in
the performance were summoned to meet at the Palazzo that evening to talk the matter
over. Hardly anyone was absent, only Schtatz, who detested the whole charity
scramble, as he called it, sent his excuses. Every lady present expected
to find herself called upon to stand, or rather to kneel, as Lady
Jane Gray, But Missus Ferguson was the first to give utterance to the thought
and to offer herself heroically as Lady Henrietta's substitute, to the astonishment of all
the company. Saintpauli, whose interest in the work of benevolence had hitherto displayed
itself only in satirical remarks and suggestions as to the representation of Macau's entrance of
Charles, the fifth or of Simyratsky's Living Torches, took an eager part in
the discussion your self sacrifice, Missus Ferguson said, he is more admirable every
day, dear me, replied the lady innocently, Where is the self sacrifice
in having an old gown cut up into a historical costume? That, indeed
would be no sacrifice, said simply coolly. But it must be a sacrifice
for a lady to appear in a part that suits her so remarkably ill.
Missus Ferguson smiled rather like some pretty little wild beast showing its teeth. Ah,
she said, I suppose you think I have none of that pathetic grace
that Monsieur Barrier is so fond of talking about. No more than of saving
grace, said simply solemnly. Then, while the women were disputing over the
matter, he found an opportunity of whispering a few words to Barrial. Barrier
looked up delighted. At this moment, they were joined by Comtesse Elzenberg.
I have another suggestion to offer, Madame la Comtesse. I have thought of
some one, some newly imported American, laughed Madame de Gonde, or a
painter's model with studied grayce and yellow hair. You may rest assured that I
should not for an instant think of proposing to employ a model Barria emphatically declared,
No, the lady in question is a very charming person, Freilanche dazzl
I saw her the day before yesterday at Lady Julia Ellis's. She is an
Austrian. You must know her. Surely I have not that pleasure, said
the Countess dryly. You do not think she will do murmured the artist abashed.
The Comtesse cleared her throat. Bless me, cried Madame de Gondre,
furious at the pride of her Austrian friend. You take the matter really too
much, in earnest, Why on earth should not the girl act with us
on these occasions? In Vienna, as I have been informed, even actors
are invited to help. That is quite different, said the Comtesse. Madame,
and the Gondrey shrugged her shoulders and turned away, and the Comtesse beckoned
to her cousin Sempaly. I am heartily sick of the whole business, she
exclaimed. At home, I have got this sort of thing up a score
of times, and everything has gone well. While here, yes, there
is more method among us, replied simply sympathetically. The people here are so
unmangible. Everyone wants to play the best parts, said the comtesse. That
is the result of the republican element, observed simply, And now there is
all this difficulty about the Lady Jane Gray tableau, sighed the comtesse. Why
need that English girl take the measles now, just when she is wanted?
The English are always so inconsiderate, said simply, gravely, do you happen
to have met this little Stetzel girl? Yes? What does she look like?
Oh? Well, she looks like a very pretty girl. And besides
that, besides that, she looks very much like our own girls. It
is really a most extraordinary freak of nature. She seems to be very presentable.
On further acquaintance, Princess Vulpini is quite in love with her. Indeed,
au Weel Barria is possessed with the idea of having her to play the
part of Lady Jane Gray. And in Heaven's name, let him have his
own way, cried the Countess. If Marie Vulpini will bring her here,
I will make the best of it. What you mean to say that you
will let her figure in your tableau and not invite her? Mother laughed,
Simply invite her to the performance, of course, I invite Tom Dick and
Harry and all the English Parsons, and all the foreign artists and all their
families. Fritzi, you are an admirable woman, retorted Sempaly ironically. But
the rehearsals are so perfectly intimate, she murmured. Time pressed, however,
well have it so for all I care, said the countess resignedly, and
the next morning she paid a polite call on the Baroness Schiertze to request Zinca's
assistance, and, as she had as much tact as pride, she had
soon reconciled not only Zinka but her sensitive, thin skinned brother to the fact
that the young girl had only been asked at the last moment, and under
the pressure of necessity to take part in the performance. Cecil did not altogether
like the idea of displaying his pretty sister in a tableau, and only consented
because he did not like to deprive Zinka of the pleasure which she looked forward
to with great delight. He adored the child and could refuse her nothing.
The evening of the festival arrived, The performances took place in a vast room
almost lined with mirrors and lighted by wonderful Venetian tandeliers that hung from the decorated
ceiling, where frescoes were framed and tasteless gilled scroll work. In spite of
its size, the room was crowded. The most illustrious of the company sat
in solitary dignity in the front row, and behind them was packed a fashionable
but somewhat mixed crowd. Manly forms of consumed elegance were squeezed against the walls,
and the assembly sparkled like a sea of sheeny silks and glittering jewels.
Princess Vulpini, who was helping the contest to do the honors, hovered on
the margin, graceful and kindly, but a little pale and tired. And
the Countess herself reigned supreme in that regal dignity which she could so becomingly assume
on fitting occasions. There were very few women who could wear a diamond cornet
with such good grace as Fritzi Ilsenberg. Even her intractable cousin sempleaded her that
much justice. The great success of the evening was not the little French play
in which Madame de Gondri and the all accomplished Barria made and perried their hits
after the accepted methods of the Teatre Fonsea. It was not the operetta,
in which Missus Ferguson looked bewitchingly pretty and sang lissenti ni convert to admiration.
It was not even the children's tableau, in which the volpinies looked like a
bunch of freshly gathered roses. The great success of the evening was the tableau
of Lady Jane Gray. Stetzel's face in this scene was a perfect tragedy.
All the misery of an executioner who adores his victim was legible there, and
Zinka gazing up to heaven with ecstatic pathos, her whole attitude expressive of sacred
resignation and childlike awe. She was the very embodiment of the hapless and innocent
being before whom the executioner lowers his gaze. His string quartet played the allegretto
from Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, and the melancholy music heightened the effect of the poetical
tableau, thrilling the audience like a lullaby sung by angels to soothe the struggling
suffering human soul. The whole artistic corps, who had been invited from the
Villa Medici, with the director at their head, unanimously decided that this performance
far excelled all that had gone before, and contesse Eltenberg forgotten its success all
the annoyance that had occasioned her. After the collection, which produced a magnificent
sum, most of the company dispersed. Eltenberg, with his most feudal smile,
expressed his thanks to all the performance in turn, and presented elegant bouquets
to the ladies. The entertainment lost its formal character and became a social gathering.
Zinca was sitting in a side room surrounded by a host of young Romans
and Frenchmen. As she was one of those rare natures who derive not the
smallest satisfaction from the homage of min for whom they have no regard, she
listened to their enthusiastic compliments with absolute indifference. She had asked for an ice,
and Norina had offered it to her on his knees, remaining in that
position to pour out his string of high flown compliments. Zinca, unaccustomed to
this Southern effusiveness was remonstrating with some annoyance, but without the slightest effect when
simply came in and exclaimed in the ABRs he commonly used to younger men,
get up, norina, do you not see that your devotion is not appreciated.
The Prince rose, with a scowl, simply drew a seat to Zinka's
side, and in five minutes hard as usual, entirely monopolized her. My
cousin, the comtesse owes everything to you, he said, in his most
musical tones, you saved the whole thing. I detest all amateur performances,
but that tableau of Lady Jane Gray was really beautiful. I liked the French
play very much. Madame de Gondre's acting was full of spirit. Bah,
I have had more than enough of such spirit. Indeed, laughed she.
It seems to me that you are suffering from general weariness of life. You
are blasee. What do you understand by being blaseie? He asked, why
that exhaustion of heart and soul which comes to the fatigue produced by a life
of perpetual enjoyment. It is, I believe, an essential element in the
character of a man of fashion, something between a melody and an affectation,
remarked, simply, just so. In short, to be bluzzy is the
heart sickness of a fop. Simply glanced at her keenly. Your definition is
admirable, he said. I will make a note of it, but the
cap does not fit me. I am not bluzzy. I am not indifferent
to anything. Sham's hypocrisy and meretriciousness irritate me. But when I meet with
anything really good or lovely or genuine, I can recognize it and admire it
more perhaps than most men. Meanwhile, the winner of the musical price from
the Villa Medici had set down to the piano and plunged straight away out of
a maundering improvisation and to a waltz by Strauss. The Countess had no objection
if they liked to dance, and several couples were soon spinning under the flaring
candles. Simply rose, May I have the honor, he said to Zinka,
and they went together into the dancing room. Zinka had the pretty peculiarity
of turning pale rather than read as she danced. Her movements were not so
sprightly, but gliding and dreamy. In fact, she waltzed with uncommon grace,
simply had long since lost the subalternse delight in a dance. He only
asked ladies who had some special interest or charm for him, and every one
knew it. Huh, said Zigburg, shaking his head as he went up
to Generlfhonklinga, who was watching the graceful couple from a recess. My little
game has come to nothing, it seems to me. Have you retired,
then asked the General. By no means quite the contrary, But my chances
are small enough at present. I fancy what do you say? He looked
straight into the old man's eyes. He understood and said nothing. She dances
beautifully. I never saw a girl dance better. How well she holds her
head, he murmured. Suddenly, a flash of amusement lighted up his eyes.
Look at Fritzy's face, he exclaimed, what a horrified expression, A
perfect Niobi. End of chapter five, Part one, Chapter six of Our
Own set by Ossip Schubin, translated by Clara Belle. This libovox according is
in the public domain recording by Caroline. Part one, Chapter six Simpally's symptimacy
with the steadzels grew daily. He did the honest of Rome to Zinca and
dined with them as a fourth two or three times a week. After the
tableaux at the Elsenberg's, Zinca was asked everywhere. All the men were at
her feet, and all the ladies wanted to learn her songs. The men
she treated with the utmost indifference, and to the ladies she was always obliging,
particularly to those whom no one else would take the pains to be civil
to, all of which added greatly to her popularity. Trains little girl,
a spoilt, shy thing who quarreled with her maid three times a week regularly,
and insisted on learning everything from Latin to water collar drawing, though she
would submit to no teacher, but her father perfectly worshiped Zinca and to her
was as dose as a lamb. Princess Vulpini was delighted at her influence on
her little knees and declared that Zinka was a real treasure. And Lady Julia
Ellis, who had met the young girl's acquaintance two years since, said Miran,
was proud to take her out whenever the baroness could not go. The
English lady was always ready to chap her and Zinca, and when Lady Julia
was at home, Zinca had to help her receive her guests and to make
tea contesse. Charleingen A Canonis, devoted to painting, full of sentimentality and
romance, whose ideas had not yet got beyond Vintatala called Zinca quite delicious,
took her on excursions, dragged her to all the curiosity dealers, and finally
painted her portrait on handscreen for Princess Vulpini, her head and shoulders in gauzy
drapery coming out of a lily. Before the end of a fortnight, a
rich American had inquired about her rank and extraction, and the handsome Crespigny had
learnt all about her fortune. Norina paid her escort to her when his tyrant's
back was turned, and Missus Ferguson did her the honor of being madly jealous.
But all this did not turn her head. It did not seem to
even astonish her. She had always been spoilt, and wherever she had gone
she had found friends and admirers. When people were kind to her, she
was delighted, but she would have been much more astonished if they had not
been kind. Sempaly had called her a Botticelli, but the word was only
applicable to her mind. In appearance, she had none of the ascetic grace
of the pre rephael lights. She was more like the crayon figures of Latou,
or that typical beauty of the eighteenth century La Lamballe. She had not
the bloom of pink and white, but was pale even in her youthful freshness,
with soft shadows under her eyes. And her hair, which was thick
and waved naturally, had reddish lights in the brown. It tender down,
softened its outline on her temples without shading her forehead, and gave her face
a look of peculiar innocence. She was slight, but not angular. Her
arms were long and thin, Her hands were small and sometimes red. Her
moods varied between dreamy thoughtfulness and saucy high spirits. Her gait was usually free
and light, but occasionally a little awkward, like an angel with its wings
clipped. Simply said, she had a low, veiled voice in speaking that
reminded one of the vibrating tones of a Amati violin. She was as wild
as a boy, as graceful as water Nixie, and as innocent as a
child, with the crude innocence of a girl who has been brought up chiefly
by men. And all her ideas had the stamp of dreamy seclusion and fervid
sentiment. She had had French and English governesses, and had been to school
in a convent for a year. Still, the ruling influence in her life
had been that of her guardian, General Schtiezzel, an eccentric being with an
intense horror of sentimental school friendships and of the conventional propriety that comes of too
early familiarity with the world. It was to him that Zinka owed the one
good word which Contesse Ilsenberg spoke in her favor. One thing must be admitted.
She is not affected. She is as natural as one of our own
girls. Poor Kurralis. The Baroness would frequently exclaim, what a pity that
she is not here, what a trait it would be for her. Yes,
Sheatsil would answer in his dry way, she was in too great a
hurry, and the Baroness would cast her eyes up to heaven. Coralie was
her eldest and favorite daughter. Disappointed in her love of some hard hearted gentleman,
she had renounced the vanities of the world some years since. But like
her mother's worthy daughter, even in the depth of her disappointment and despair,
she had taken care to choose a convent where the recluses were divided into ladies
and sisters, where the children who came to school there played hide and seek
under a French name, and where being a border was called being all position.
Poor Coralie the Baroness would sigh, and then, seating herself at her
writing table, she would scribble endlessly about the delights of a residence at Rome
to all her friends in Austria, and especially to her sister, the Baroness
Volnitzka. Baroness Schietzel, was a typical specimen of a class of nobility peculiar
to Austria and called there. Heaven knows why the onion nobility swiber noblesse.
It is a circle that may be described as a branch concern of the best
society, a half blood relation, a mixture of the elements that have been
sifted out of the upper aristocracy and of the parvenus from below, who find
that they can be reciprocally useful. A circle in which almost every man is
a baron and every woman, without exception is a baroness. Its members are
for the most part poor but refined beyond expression. The mothers scold their children
in bad French and talked to their friends in fashionable slang. They give parties
at which there is nothing to eat, but the family plate is displayed,
and where the company always consists of the same old bachelors who dye their hair
and know the Almanach de Gorta by heart. Everyone is well informed about the
doings of the world. How many shifts Minnie n had in her trousseau,
why the engagement between Fritz Oh and Lori Pey was broken off? And much
more of the same effect. Of late years, the Onion nobility, with
various other offshoots of the higher culture, has been swarmped by the advance of
the liberals, that is to say, by the progress of the financial classes.
Only a year since the Baroness herself had stood on the stairs of the
opera house to watch the occupants of the grand tier at that time appropriated to
the cream of the aristocracy to take note of aristocratic dresses and to hear aristocratic
nothings from aristocratic lips. Now in Rome, she was living in the world
of society. Her satisfaction knew no bounds, and she made daily progress in
exclusiveness. The contest Eldenbergs, compared to her, was a mere bungler,
But she was never so amusing to watch as when she met some fellow countrymen
of untitled rank. It happened that this winter there was in Rome a certain
her brauer, an old simpleton with a very handsome wife, who laid herself
open for the admiration of all the young men of any pretensions. Being furnished
with a few letters of introduction, he and his fascinating partner disported themselves very
contentedly in the outer circle, the suburbs, so to speak, of good
society, without having a suspicion how far they were from the center. Baroness
she dad still could never cease wondering how those people could be tolerated. She
was always well dressed, She gave capital little dinners. She had the neatest
coopee and the most comfortable landeaux, and her coachman had the cleanest shaved imperial
face and the smartest livery in Rome. Her manners were somewhat changeable, since
she was constantly endeavoring to appropriate the airs and graces of the most fashionable women
she met. She was extremely unpopular and consequently bored to death wherever she went.
She was never quite easy as to her footing in society, and lived
in the discomfort of a person who was always trying to walk on tiptoe.
Her sole unqualified pleasure during this period, which however, she always spoke of
as the happiest of her life, was the writing of the above mentioned letters
home, and especially, as had been said to her sister, the Baroness
Volnitzka in Bohemia. She craved a public to witness her success, and like
all mean natures, she knew no greater joy than that of exciting envy.
She would often read these epistles to Zinka, for she was very proud of
her wordy style. Zinka was somewhat disturbed by these flowery compositions, which always
ended with these words, what a pity it is that you should not be
here. It would give us the greatest pleasure to have you with us.
Take care, Mamma, said the girl, They will take you at your
word and descend upon us. What are you dreaming of? Said the baroness,
folding her letter with the utmost philosophy. They have no money and of
chapter six, Part one, Chapter seven of Our Own set by Ossip Shubin,
translated by Clara Belle. This librivoxycoriding is in the public domain recording by
Carolyn Part one, Chapter seven hovels deep sunk in the ground, moss covered,
thatched roofs. Here and there an old lime tree or a tall pear
tree with crebbed branches standing out, blackened bear against the wintry sky, slimy
poddles, a pond full to the brim, in which three forlorn looking geese
are sadly paddling. A swampy road along which a procession of plows are splashing
their way at the heels of the muddy, unkept teams. Enshored a bohemian
village with a shabby manor house beyond over the tumbled down gateway with a pig
stay on one side and a dog kennel on the other. Hangs a coat
of arms. The mansion a square house with a steep shingle roof, stands
according to the unromantic custom of the country, with one side looking onto the
farmyard, and the drawing room windows open exactly over an enormous dung heap,
which a party of women are in the very act of turning with pitchforks,
under the superintendence of a short stout man in a weather beaten hunting hat and
shooting coat with padded silk sleeves, out of which the wedding is peeping at
a hundred holes. He is smoking a pipe with a china bowl decorated with
a mincing ordalisque. His face is broad and red, his ears purple,
and his aspect is anything rather than an aristocratic as he stands giggling and testing
with the damsels of the steaming midden. This is Baron Volnitski, a man
who, like a good many others, got himself a good deal talked about
in eighteen forty eight, and then vanished from the scene without leaving a trace
behind. Often, when we see some dry and barren tray shedding its cyent
moldy leaves in the autumn, we find it hard to believe that it bore
blossoms in the spring, and the Baron was like such a tray. In
the springtide of eighteen forty eight, an overteeming spring throughout Europe, his soul
too had blossomed. He had had patriotic visions and had uttered them in rhyme,
and his country had hailed him as a prophet, perhaps because it needed
an idle, or perhaps because in those agitated times that could not tell black
from white. In those days, he had displayed himself in a magnificent national
costume, with sleeves of the most elaborate cut, had married a patriotic wife
who always dressed in the slav colors blue, white, and red, and
who got two young men, also dressed in slav costume, to mount guard
at the door of her house. He was descended from a Polish family that
had emigrated many generations since, and his connections were as far as possible from
being aristocratic. While he owed his little fortune entirely to his father, who
had put no baron before his name, and who had earned it honestly as
a master baker in feudal times, it would hardly have occurred to him to
furbish up this very doubtful patent of nobility. But in the air of liberty,
it might pass muster and prove useful a very shy peddigray serfs to shid
glory on a democratic martyr. During the Insurrection of June, he fled with
his wife in picturesque disguise, at first to Dresden, and then to Switzerland,
where he lived for some time in a boarding house at Geneva, receiving
Omasha as a political refugee and horrifying the mistress by his enormous uptide. At
length he returned to Bohemia, where the events of forty eight endeds picturesquely appereled
leaders had fallen into oblivion. He retired to his little estate and turned philosopher.
Philosophy ever since the day of Diogenes, has been the acknowledged refuge of
shipwrecked hopes and pretensions. There he went out walking in his shirt sleeves,
played card with the peasants, and grew more vulgar, fetter and hungaria every
day. And if he ever had an idea, it was unintentionally in a
bad dream, after eating too much of some national delicacy. His wife,
a robust and worthy soul, though full of absurdities, bore a strong resemblance
to the mother of the Regent Orleans. In as much as she had a
sound understanding, combined with a very sentimental nature, was subtly devoid of tact,
bitter to the verge of cynicism, thoroughly in discreet, and a great
chatterbox. She resigned herself without demure to the new order of things, and
brought a new tribe of children into the world, most of whom died young.
Three survived, two sons who so far broke through the traditions of the
family as to become infantry officers, and one daughter, in whom patriotic romance
once more flickered into fanaticism. This girl had been christened Boho's Love, a
name which was commonly shortened into Slava, which in the more important dialects of
the slav tongue means fame. She, like her mother, was of stalwood
build but her features were regular, though statuesque and heavy. She was said
to be like the Apollo Belvedre. She had already had four suitors, but
neither of them had met her views, and now, at twenty, having
been born in forty eight, she was spending the winter unmarried and sorely discontented
in the country, where she occupied herself with serious studies and accepted the attentions
of a needy young Paul, who was devoted to her and in whom she
condescended to take some slight interest. But Baron Volnitsky is still standing by the
midden, the great black dog, which till this moment has never ceased,
barking at the door of his skin Cannel, now, to introduce some variety
into the program, jumps on to its roof, from which advantageous standpoint he
still barks without paws. Everything is dripping from the reluctantly thawed snow, and
the air is full of the splash and gurgle of dropping and trickling water.
The gray February twilight sinks upon the world, and everything looks stingy and soaked.
A sound of creaking wheels is heard approaching, and a dunk cart appears
in the gateway. Well, what is going on in the town? Says
the baron to the man who comes up to him, wrapped in an evil
smelling sheepskin and with the ears of his fur cap tied under his chin,
to kiss his master's elbow. Have you brought the newspapers. Yes, your
grace, my lord Baron, says the man, and a letter too,
and he draws a packet tied up in a red and white handkerchief, out
of a pocket of his cheap skin. The Baron looks at the documents.
Another letter from Rome already, he mutters, grinning, I must take it
in at once, that the women may have something to talk about. The
women, that is to say, his wife and daughter were sitting in the
dining room at a long table covered with a flowered cloth, on which stood
the tea things, a paraffine lamp, and a bread basket of dull silver
filigrey work. The lamp was smoking, and the table looked as uncomfortable and
dingy as the village outside, half buried and manure. The Baroness, in
a tan colored loose gown, in which she looked squarer than ever without a
cap, her thin gray head cut short, was hunting for the tenth timed
on and under every article of furniture for the keep of the store room.
Bohuslava meanwhile, sat still with a volume of Mikiwts in her hand, out
of which she was reading aloud and rather stumbling polish with a harsh voice,
a young man with a sharp cut, sallow face, and long black hair,
in a Polish braided coat, white color and olive colored satin cravat corrected
her pronunciation. Now and then he was her Polish adora. He was one
of that familiar species, the teacher of languages with a romance in the background.
He lived in the neighboring town and came every Saturday to the village four
railway stations off to instruct Bohuslava in Polish and spend Sunday with the family.
When the union of these two patriots, which had already been secretly discussed,
was to take place, depended on a mysterious lawsuit that the young pole was
carrying on against the Russian government. His name was Vladimir de Matushovski. His
grandmother had been a pototchka, and when he was not giving lessons, he
was meditating conspiracies. Is there nothing else for tea, asked the baron,
casting a doubtful eye on the stale looking rolls in the bread basket. No,
the dogs have eaten up the cakes, replied the baroness coolly. She
was at the moment on all fours under the piano, hunting for the key
behind the paddle, you will get an apoplexy, said Buslava crossly, but
without anxiety, and without making the smallest attempt to assist the old lady.
But at this instant a housemaid came in with the sort for key on a
bent and copper colored Britannia metal waiter. Oh thank Heaven, cried the Baroness.
Where was the wretched thing in the dog kennel? Your grace, my
lady Baroness, The poppy had dragged it there in her love four dogs again,
The Baroness resembled the duchess of all leon. She always had a litter
of half a dozen puppies to bring up, and the kennel was a well
known hiding place for everything that could not be found in its right place,
the little rascals, she exclaimed, with an admiring laugh at the ingenuous perversity
of her mischievous pets. Bring the sugar, then, Clara, I have
a surprise for you, growled her husband a letter from Rome, and she
produced the document with its mixed odors of pachuli and damp sheepskin, and pushed
it across to his wife while he took up the rum bottle to flavor his
tea. From Rome, exclaimed the Baroness, that is delightful, Where oh
where are my spectacles? And she felt and patted herself all over till the
superfluous substance shook like a jelly. Ah, here they are, I am
sitting on them now, then, children, And she began to read the
letter aloud. Dear Lotte, you must not take it ill that I so
seldom write to you. The Baroness looked up over her spectacles so seldom.
She never in her life wrote to me so often as from Rome. But
you cannot imagine the turmoil in which we live. At dinner party every day,
two evening parties and a boar. We are spending the carnival with the
Creme de la creme of a Roman society. Tomorrow we dine with Princess.
She was a Troyn and is the sister of train of r. The next
day we have theatricals sed ist ceter Zinca is an immense success. Nikki simply
among others, the brother of Prince Sempali, the Great Landed Proprietor, is
very attentive to her. Here she was interrupted by her husband. Well,
I never thought the old goose was quite such a simple turn, he exclaimed,
drumming his fingers angrily on the red and white flowered cloth. I cannot
imagine how Clotild allows it, cried the Baroness. And still less do I
understand, cecil, take my advice, Lotti, go to Rome, observed
the baron ironically, go and set their heads straight on their shoulders with the
greatest pleasure, replied his wife, taking his irony quite seriously. But unfortunately
we have not the money. Then she read the letter to the end.
Like all Clotelle's epistles, it ended with the words, what a pity it
is that you should not be here too. It would give us the greatest
pleasure to have you with us. Tea was done, the maid servant cleared
the table with a great clatter of cups and spoons. The baron retired to
play bulka with his neighbors in the village. In parlor, the three who
were left sat in meditative mood. I must confess that I should like to
go to Rome, said the baroness, as she swept the crumbs off her
lap on to the floor. And it would be pleasant too to have relations
there for their great acquaintance I own. I do not care a straw.
I do not see why we should avoid all society if we were there,
exclaimed Slava hotly. Well, well, you could do as you liked about
it, of course, said the baroness, who held her daughter in the
deepest respect. I could stay at home, you see, my dear Vladimir.
She added most condescendingly to her son in law, and spay, I
am uncomfortable in any company where I cannot get into my slippers. In the
evening, Mamma cried her daughter, beside herself. You really are The baroness
sat, bashed and silent. No one spoke. There was not a sound
in the room but the crackling of the fire in the huge tiled stove,
and the snoring of the big hunting dog that lay sleeping on the tail of
his mistress's skirt. If we only could sell the Bernini, murmured the Baroness,
presently resuming the thread of their conversation. The Bernini was a bust of
Apollo that the baroness had inherited from her mother's face. Emily said to be
an adaptation by Bernini from the head of the Apollo Belvedre. Whenever the Volnitsky's
were in any financial straits, the Bernini was packed off to some dealer in
objects of virtu, from which excursions it invariably returned unsold. Not many days
previously the traveled Apollo he had seen New York, London, and Saint Petersburg,
had come home from a visit to Maya of Berlin. By the bye,
Vladimir, you have not seen it yet, said Slava. I must
show you the bust. Is it the head that is said to be so
strikingly like you? That will interest me greatly? Said the young pole,
casting an adoring eye on Slava. Bring the lamp, the bostes in the
drawing room. Vladimir, carrying the lamp, led the way into the drawing
room, a large, scantily furnished room which was never dusted more than once
a month. There, on a marble plinth in a corner stood the radiant
God, a copy from the Berlveder Apollo. No doubt, but by Bernini.
The likeness is extraordinary, cried Vladimir ecstatically and gazing alternately at the bust,
end at Slava. Oh, it is a gem, a masterpiece.
You ought never to part with it. Well, but I must say I
should very much like to go to Rome, said the baroness, But Slava
only bit her lips. End of chapter seven, Part one, Chapter eight
of Our Own set by Ossip Shubin, translated by Clara Belle. This libovoxy
coding is in the public domain recording by Kierlea. Part one, Chapter eight,
and what shall we do tomorrow? Simply would ask Zinka almost every evening
when he met her, fresh and smiling at some party. He had made
it his task to help her to find her lost Rome, and devoted himself
to it with praiseworthy diligence. The disappointment that she had experienced in her expedition
under the guidance of the Bota driver to the ruins of the capital of the
Caesars is a common enough phenomenon. It comes over almost everyone who sets out
with his fancy crammed with the mystical cobwebs that recent literature has spun round the
name of Rome, to see for the first time that dense mass of splendor
and rubbish among the bare modern houses. And the disappointment as greatest in those
who come for a long stay in Venice or Verona. Rome has none of
the seductive charm of those North Italian cities. Its architecture is somber and heavy,
and the prevailing hues in winter are a somber gray and a dull,
bluish green, more suggestive of a subtly toned tempera picture than of a glowing
oil painting. It is vain to look for the sheen of the shimmering lagoons,
or the fantastic outline of the campan yeelds against the sky of Venice,
for the half ruined frescoes or amber sunshine of Verona. After the cities of
North Italy, Rome has the effect of a severe coral by Handel after a
nocturne by Chopin. The first impression is crushing, said simply Tuzinca. But
one wearies of the nocturne, and never of the coral, to which Zinca
replied, but the coral is so drowned by trivial, hardy gurdy tunes that
I find it very difficult to follow, to which he laughed and said,
we will speak of that again in a fortnight. By the end of the
fortnight, Zinca had thrown too Zoldi into the Fountain of Trevi to make sure
that she should someday see Rome again, And in fanaticism for Rome she outdid
even the fanatical General Fonklinger Sempaly had contributed mainly to her conversion. Nothing could
be more amusing or more interesting than to explore every nook of the city of
Ruins under his escort. He was constantly remembering this or that wonderful thing that
he must positively show to Zinca, an artistic bass relief that had been built
to some queer orange colored house above the tobacconists or heathen divinity, which had
had wings attached to its shoulders, to qualify it for admission as an angel
into a Christian church. He rode out with her into the Campania and pointed
out all the most picturesque parts of the Trust of Air, and he could
find a ridiculous suggestion even in the most reverend things the halls of the Vatican,
in which the liberal minded vickers of Christ have granted a refuge to the
pengenus of antiquity. He called the poor house of the Gods, and always
spoke of Saint Peter's, which is commonly known as La Parocchia de Forestieri as
the Papal Grand Hotel. There was not a fountain, a fragment of sculpture,
or a picturesque keeper ruins of which he could not relate, some history,
comic, or a pathetic, or he invented one. But he never
produced the impression that he was giving a lecture. He had, in fact
a particularly unpretending way of telling an appropriate and not too lengthy anecdote. He
never handed it round on a waiter, as it were for examination, but
let it drop quietly out of his pocket. His knowledge of art was but
shallow, but his feeling for it, like all his instincts, was amazingly
keen. His information on all subjects was miscellaneous and slender, not an article
of his intellectual wardrobe. As Charles Lamb has it was whole. But he
draped himself in the rags with audacious grace, and made no attempt to hide
the holes. Trene and his little daughter often joined them and these expeditions,
and sometimes cecil but only when his mother did not choose to go out,
and his demeanor on these occasions peripatetic esthetics. He called their walks was highly
characteristic. He would walk by the side of his sister and simply or a
few steps behind them, sunk in silence, but always sharply observant. From
time to time he would correct their sisterone in his states, which simply took
with sublime indifference, and for which, taking off his hat, he invariably
thanked him with princely courtesy. Stetzel only sympathized with the classical style of the
Renaissance. The real antiques, which Zinca raved about, he smiled at as
caricatures. Guido, on the other hand, for whom simply had a weakness
as a chapin among painters, so detested he declared that the Beatrice sense had
a cold, wet bandage on her head, and that the picture was nothing
more than a study apparently made from an idiot in a madhouse. When Zinca
talked of her favorite antiques or other works, and the mystical and sentimental slang
of the click, he laughed at her, but quite good naturedly. He
scorned all extravagance and raptures as cant and affectation. Still he was merciful to
his sister, and when she turned from a frontia with tears in her eyes,
or a tanned pale as she quoted Shelley or spoke of Leonardo's Medusa in
Florence, he did no more than shrug his shoulders and say, Zinca,
you're crazy, or gently pull her by the ear. Everything in Zinca was
right, even her want of sound common sense. The baroness had at last
found a lodging, almost to her mind, a small palazzo in a side
strait of the corso, furnished in atrocious taste but otherwise very nice. The
palacetto was in fact a gem in its way, with a simple and elegant
stone front and a court surrounded by a colonnade with red camellia shrubs and a
fountain in the midst There were several much injured antique statutes, too, one
of which was a famous and very beautiful Amazon, at whose feet a rose
bush bloomed profusely. This Amazon struck Zinca as remarkably picturesque, and she sketched
her from every point of view without ever reading the warning in her sad face.
Alas Zinca had gazed at the sun and it had blinded her. But
how could Cecil allow this daily growing intimacy between Simply and his sister. Simply's
elder brother, Prince Simply, had been married ten years and was childless.
So the Attache, as heir presumptive, was in duty bound to make a
brilliant marriage, did not yet so know this. Yes, he knew it,
but he did not trouble his head about it. He was under no
illusion as to the singularity, not to say the improbability of simply marrying a
girl of inferior birth. He had no desire that it should be otherwise.
He was no democrat. On the contrary, his was a particularly conservative and
old world nature, equally remote from cringing or from envy. That simply should
marry any other girl not his equal in rank would have struck him as altogether
wrong. But Zinca Zinca was different. He worshiped her as only a strong
elder brother can worship a much younger, weaker sister. And there was no
social elevation of which he deemed her unwealthy. And when he saw Simply smile
down so tenderly and at the same time so respectfully on his butterfly, as
he called her, he was rejoiced at her good fortune, and never for
an instant doubted it. Zinca was not sentimental. For a long time,
there was no tinge of any feeling stronger than good fellowship in her intercourse with
Simply. Her talk was all fun, her glance soucy and wilful by degrees.
However, a change came over her. Her whole manner softened. There
was a gentle dreaminess even in her capras, and when she smiled it was
often with tears in her eyes. Simply was not regular in his visits to
the Palacetto. Sometimes for two or three days he failed to appear. Then
he would call very early at noon, perhaps join the family unceremoniously at their
breakfast, go out driving with the ladies, accept an invitation to stay to
dinner, and if Zinca was looking pale or out of spirits, he would
pay her fifty kind little attentions to conjure a smile to her lips. Occasionally
he would fall into the melancholy vein and s talk of his loveless youth and
let her pity him for it. He would tell her about his elder brother,
praising his many noble qualities, and then add with a shrug, Yes,
he is a splendid fellow, but he has ideas. When Zinca asked
what sort of ideas, simply sighed, I hope you may someday know him,
and then you judge for yourself. But this was in a low tone,
and he seemed to regret having said it. Then he would frequently allude
to this or that picture in his brother's house at Vienna, or to some
curious family relic, and say how much he should like to someday show it
to Zinca. His favorite theme, however, was Edsburg, the old castle,
which for numberless generations had been the family summer retreat of the Sampolice,
and of which he was passionately fond. Excepting as regards his estate, he
was singularly free from all false or family pride. He declared that his brother's
Viennapolis was an unhealthy Barrack scouted at the simply braid of horses, laughed at
the simply nose, and praised the traditional simply toki more in irony than in
good faith. But then he came round to Edsburg again and simply raved about
it, not about the Oriental luxury with which part of the castle was fitted
up. Not in the best taste of that he never spoke. Indeed,
he said more about its deficiencies than its perfections. But in a tone of
such loving excuse, he talked of the large, bare rooms were For years
he had watched for the apparition of the white lady, half longing, half
dreading to see her, Of the doleful groaning of the weather cock, of
the rocco statutes in the grounds, and of the gloomy pools with their low
sad murmur and their carpet of white water lilies. The statues were bad,
the pools unhealthy, he admitted, And yet as he said it, his
usually mocking glance was soft and almost devout. Once, when Zinc had grown
quite dismal or for his reminiscences, he took her hand and pressed it tenderly
to his lips. You must see adspook someday, he murmured. His behavior
to her was that of a man who is perfectly clear as to his own
intentions, but who for some reason is not immediately afraid to sue for the
hand of a girl whom, in his heart of hearts he already regards as
his own. What did he mean by all this? What was he thinking
of? I believe absolutely nothing. He went with the tide. There are
many men like him selfish, luxurious natures, who swim with the stream of
life and never attempt to stare. They have for the most part, happy
tempers. They are content with any harbor so long as they reach it without
effort or damage. And if in their passive course they run down anyone else,
they exclaim with their usual amiable politeness, Oh, I beg your pardon,
and are quite satisfied that the mishap was due to fat and not to
any fault of theirs. End of chapter eight, Part one, Chapter nine
of Our Own set by Ossip Shubin, translated by Clara Belle. This LibriVox
recording is in the public domain recording by Carolyn Part one, chapter nine.
It was in the end of February, shortly before the close of the carnival.
Trayne going to the Schatzels with his little girl to take a walk with
Zinka, saw at the door of the palacetto a hackney carriage with a small
portmanteau on the top. Schetzel's manservant, an elegant person with close cut hair
shaved all but a short beard, and wearing an impressive watchchain, was condescending
to exchange a few words with the driver, blinking in the sunshine. The
drawing room into which Trayne and his daughter were admitted unannounced, was in the
full blaze of light. The moats danced their aimless rainbow colored dance in the
middle of the rooms. That Zinca with both hands on a table over which
she was bending to gaze at a magnificent basket of flowers. There was something
in her attitude, quaint but graceful, in the elegant line of her bust,
the pathetic joy of her radiant face, the soft flow of her plain
long dress, which stamped the picture once and forever on Troyne's memory, as
sunbeam wanted in her hair, turning it to gold, and her whole figure
was the embodiment of sweet and happy spring delight. The basket of flowers,
too, was a masterpiece of its kind, a capriccio of lilies of the
valley, gardenia's snowflakes, and pale tinted roses that looked as though the wayward
west wind had blown them into company. Schatzel was standing by with a pleasant
smile, and the Baroness, in an attitude of affected astonishment, stood a
little apart with a visiting card in her hand. Neither Cecil nor his sister.
She absorbed in the flowers, and he, in gazing at her,
had heard train arrive. When he knocked at the door, the Baroness said,
come in, and gave him the tips of her fingers. Then,
with a wave of her hand towards the basket, she lisped out, did
you ever see such extravagance? Zinca looked up and welcomed him, and so
did Shedezzel. It is perfect folly, quite reckless, sighed the Baroness.
Such a basket of flowers costs of fortune? Why only one Guardymia Zinca's underlip
pouted impatiently, and she Datzel said, in his dry way, my dear
mother, do not destroy Zinca's illusions. The basket fell from heaven expressly for
her, and she does not want to believe that it was bored just like
any other in the via Condotti or Babuino. What do you say, count
simply sent it to her to console her for the departure of her brother.
The reason is too absurd, Do you not think I do not believe you
would miss me, particularly for a few days, child? And he put
his hand affectionately under her chin. Where are you off to? So suddenly
asked train, very seriously, to Naples. Franz Anspeg has telegraphed me to
ask me to meet him there. He is on his way to Paris from
Constantinople, and he is a great friend of mine, and has come by
way of Naples on purpose that we may meet the aunts perk Myrians. You
know their property adjoins ours, the baroness, explained Schezzel, who knew very
well that Troyne was far better informed as to the antsperg Myrians than his mother.
Was annoyed and uncomfortable. However, he kissed her hand and then turned
to his sister. God shield you, my darling butterfly, write me a
few lines, or is that too much to ask? Then he kissed her
and whispered, mind, you have not lost those bright eyes by the time
I return. Train accompanied him to the carriage with a very long face.
He and Generifonklinger had watched Sempali's conduct with much disquietude. They knew him to
be susceptible but not impressionable, alive to every new emotion and train would ere
this have spoken to Sempaly on the subject if he had not been sure that
it would merely provoke and irritate him without producing any good effect. The General,
on the other hand, could not make up his mind to open Detzel's
eyes to the state of affairs, because, like Baron Stockmar, he had
an invincible dislike to interfering in matters that did not concern him. Like that
famous man, not for worlds would he have committed an indiscretion to save a
friend for whom he would have sacrificed his life. And this terror of being
indiscreet is a form of cowardice which is considered meritorious in The Fashionable World,
Chapter nine, Part one, Chapter ten of Our Own set by Ossip Shubin,
translated by Clara Belle. This libovox recording is in the public domain recording
by Carolyn Part one, chapter ten. It is Shrove Tuesday. The storious
Jade of the wretchedest Bota has a paper rose stock behind his air. Though
during the hours sacred to the carnival, they are paria sent outcasts from the
Corso two horse carriages are dressed in garlands, and the horses have plumes on
their heads. The Piazza di Spana is alive with peddlers and hawkers selling flowers
and little tapers mokoli, and with bias of every nation doing their best to
cheapen them. Baskets full of violets, roses, anemones, snowflakes, baskets
full of indescribable bunches of greenery, the ammunition of the mob, which have
already done deety for two or three days, and are like nothing on earth
but the wisps of rushes with which the boards are rubbed. In some parts
of Austria, the cells of coral and tortoise shell cry out to you to
buy a carnevale, and in the side streets for misery dares not show its
hid. In the main thoroughfares today the biggest crowd more closely than ever around
the pedestrian, with their perpetual cry more Jodifame. The houses on the corso
wear their gay carnival trappings today for the last time, as smart dress flutters
on every balcony. Several stands have been erected, and all the window sills
are covered some with colored schnitz and some with gold brocade. All Thursday,
Saturday and Monday, Zinca and Gabriel had driven unweariedly up and down the Corso
with count Train, flinging flowers at all their acquaintances and at a good many
strangers. Today, however, they had agreed to look on from the windows
of the Palazza Volpini for the close of the carnival is apt to be somewhat
riots. Everyone who lives on the corso seizes the opportunity of paying long owing
debts of civility and office a place in a window to as many friends as
can possibly be squeezed in. There was a large party at the Volpines.
For the most part Italians and relations of the Princess, Madame de Gondri and
Missus Ferguson had invited themselves, and Zinca, with Gabriel Train, was to
see the turmoil in the corso from the balcony of the palazzo. The Baroness
had Tigdolorus, which kept her at home and which no one regretted. At
six o'clock before the beginning of the moccoli, all the company were to go
to the Falcone, a well known and especially Roman restaurant, where they would
dine more comfortably and easily than at home. From thence they were to adjoin
to the Teatro Constance. Prince Volpini had drawn up this thoroughly carnival program for
the special benefit of the Contesse Charlingen, who had a passion for local color,
and who was enchanted. The Princess was resigned. Local color had no
interest for her, and she was somewhat prejudiced against Italian native dishes and masked
festivities of all kinds. It was three o'clock. Baskets of flowers and whole
heaps of sweet little sugar plum boxes were read piled in the windows for ammunition.
The little Volpinies, who entirely filled the large center window, and their
shy English governess in her black gown, had just come into the room,
skipping about and pulling each other's hair for sheer impatience and excitement. And when
their governess reproved them for behaving so roughly, ma E Carnevale is thought sufficient
excuse, the company laughed, and the English girl said no more. All
the party had assembled, Madame de Gondri and Missus Ferguson were both looking pretty
and picturesque. The former had stuck on a face and the other a quaintly
folded handkerchief of oriental stuff in honor of the carnival, when eccentricity of costume
is admissible and conventional hit gear are condemned. From the windows down to the
carriages, From the carriages up to the windows, the war was e gully
wage, Bunches of flowers and bonboniers from spielmants and nazaries fly in all directions,
and scraps of colored paper full like snow through the air. Then the
blair and pipe of a military band came up from the Piazza di Venezia,
and the masquis crowded in among the carriages. One of the liveliest groups along
the corso was certainly that where the Volpini children were grouped with Zinca in their
midst she having undertaken the charge of them at their own earnest and treaty.
She and Gabriel were both laughing with glee, but at the height of their
fun they remembered to pay all sorts of little civilities to the half scared English
governess and had stuck a splendid bunch of lilies of the valley in front of
her camphor scented black silk dress. What especially interested the children was watching for
Norina's carriage, for they not only recognized the prince who was driving, but
knew all his party. Train zik wook Sempaly, and as it passed with
its four bays, the little volpinies jumped with delight and chirped and piped like
a tree full of birds. The gentlemen waved their hands, smiled and gallantly
aimed bouquets without end at the windows of the Palazza, But all the finest
flowers that they were beyond the doubt aimed at Zinca. The floor all around
her was heaped with snowflakes and violets and roses. In her hand, she
had caught a huge bunch of roses flung up to her by Sempali oh Oh,
cried Madame de Gondriy, retiring from the window to rest for a few
minutes and refresh herself with a sip of wine. Ah, Mademoiselle, glancing
enviously at the mass of blossoms strewn around Zinca, you have as many bouquets
as a prima Donna Zinca nodded, then, contemplating her hat, which she
had thrown off in her excitement, with a whimsical air of regret, and
pulling the feather straight, she said, with a mockery of repentance, My
poor hat will be glad to rest on ash Wednesday. It is perfect,
Marie, really perfect, This Roman carnival a thing never to be forgotten,
exclaimed the Comtesse Charlingen, coming in from the window. She was a genuine
Austrian, always ready to go into ecstasies of enthusiasm. It is horrid,
answered the princess impatiently. Under the new government, it is nothing but an
amusement for the strangers and street boys. The barbieri have rushed past, and
the procession has once more begun to move on, But its interest and excitement
are over. The crowd in the road begins to thin and simply tren Noreena
Zigburg and the General have come in as agreed to escort the ladies to the
falcone. The children have all been kissed and sent off to their dinner at
home. Gabrielle, somewhat ill pleased at not being allowed to go with the
elder party and train himself. Not liking to part with his little companion,
Zinka wishes to comfort Gabriel by remaining with the little ones, but this was
not to be heard of. Only too many of us would wish to follow
your example, whispers princess Fulpini, to whom this dinner at a Roman restaurant
is detestable. They are to go on foot, but they are so long
getting ready after this little delay, that the one peaceful half hour before the
mogoli is lost. By the time they sully into the street. The crowd,
which had dispersed, is getting denser every minute. The darkness comes on
rapidly like a gray curt and let down suddenly from the skies. The gaudy
hangings are being taken in from the windows lest they should catch fire. The
carnival is putting on its ball dress. Now. The first twinkling tapers are
seen here and there, like glow worms in the dusk, and are instantly
pelted with mazetti and bunches of greenery, mostly picked up from the pavement.
Fi Fori is the monotonous cry on every side, and presently sen sa moccolo
Verregonna, the death cries of the carnival. The Austrian gentlemen find their position
anything rather than pleasant, for it is impossible to protect the ladies effectually against
being jostled and pushed, still less against hearing much rough jesting. At last
they are out of the Corso and have divided in the narrow straits, some
having turned into the Via Madalena, while others have crossed the Piazza Caprnitza to
the Piazza de la Rotunda. But at last they are all met. After
various small adventures at the Falconne, the lady's toilettes have suffered a little,
and Princess Volpini looks very unhappy. The Falcone is a very unpretending restaurant,
where the waiters wear white jackets, the terifas moderate, and the risottos celebrated.
Volpini orders a thoroughly Italian dinner in an upper room. Suddenly, Trene
exclaims in dismay what has become of Zinca and Saint Palis. They have lingered
talking on the way, says Madame de Gondry with pinched lips, as she
leans back in her chair and pulls off her gloves. People always walk slowly
when they have so much to say to each other. Train frowned. I
am afraid they have got entangled in the crowd and have not been able to
make their way out. I have hated this expedition from the first. I
cannot imagine, Marie, what could have put such a plan in your head?
Mine, says his sister in an undertone with a meaning glance. But
she says no more. He knows perfectly well that she is as innocent of
the scheme as the angels in heaven. Why what on earth is the matter?
Asks Volpini, pouring huge quantities of grated cheese into his soup, while
Missus Ferguson complains that she is dying of hunger, which is singular considering the
enormous number of bonbons she has eaten in the course of the day. Madame
de Gondri asks for a series of fringed dishes which the Falcone has never heard
of. Countess Charleinging is loud in her praises of the Italian cookery, and
is only sorry that she has no appetite. Trayne and the General sat gazing
at the door in growing anxiety. Zinc and simply do not make their appearance.
Train can hardly conceal his alarm. I certainly cannot understand what you are
so uneasy about, says Madame de Gondrie, with a perfidious smile. If
Fraeulein Zinka has been mobbed and hindered, simply is in the same predicament,
and will take good care of her if she were with any one less trustworthy,
less competent, with whom she was less intimate than I could understand.
Trine passes his hand over his gray hair in extreme perplexity and mutters in his
mother tongue, this woman will be the death of me, and then he
again blames his sister. Yet another quarter of an hour, though the waiters
are not nimble, they have got to the desert and still no signs of
sempaly and Zinka. I am beginning to feel very anxious, says Marie.
I only hope the child has not fainted in the crowd. Madame de Gondrie
makes a meaning grimace. It is perhaps the cleverest thing she could have done,
she says. Tryne hears and bites his lip. The door just now
opens, and Zinc and simply come in she come and sweet. He dark
and scowling. Thank God, cries Trayne. What in the world has happened,
asked the princess, while Tryne draws a chair to the table for Zinka
next to himself. What has happened? Repeated Simply the most obvious thing in
the world. We got into the thick of the mob and could not get
through. I cannot understand how that should have occurred, says Madame de Gondrie.
We all came through. You may perhaps recollect that we were the last
of the party contests. We had hardly gone twenty yards when the crowd had
become a compact mass. We pressed on, determined to get through at any
cost. Alone could have managed it, but with a lady suddenly we were
in the thick of a few is squabble, curses, blows and knives.
I cannot tell you how miserable I was at finding myself out in the street
with a lady, a young girl. Freuleinch. Dad still seems to take
it all much more coolly than you do, count, simply interposes Madame de
Gondris. Spitefully. She does not appear to have been at all terrified by
the adventure. Falenzinca was very brave, replied, simply, gidness me.
What was there to be afraid of? Says Zinca, with the simplicity of
childish innocence. The responsibility was count simplice, not mine. The French woman
laughs sharply. We must be moving now, she says, if we mean
to go to Constance's. And there is a clatter of chairs and a little
scene of confusion in which no one can find the right shawl or wrap for
each lady. But Princess Volpini makes no attempt to move. I am going
nowhere else this evening, she says, with unwonted determination. I will not
take Zinca to Constancis. I will wait till she has eaten her beefsteak,
and then I will take her home. I hope you will all enjoy yourselves.
Zinca eats her beefsteak with the greatest calmness and unmistakably good appetite. She
is perfectly sweet and docilent natural. She has no suspicion that her name will
to morrow morning be in every mouth. Train is as pale as death.
He has heard Madame de Gondre's whisper to her friend. After this he must
make her an offer. And of Part one, chapter ten and of Part
one the Carnival, Part two, chapter one of our own set by of
Subshubin, translated by Clara Belle. This libovoxyc is in the public domain recording
by Caroline part two lent chapter one. I am glad to have found you,
cried Trene next morning, as he entered Simpali's room in the Palazza di
Vinizia and discovered him sipping his coffee after his late breakfast, with a book
in his hand. I am delighted that you should for once have taken the
trouble to climb up to me. I must show you my frontier. The
dealer who sold it to me declares it as a frontier. But you look
worried. What has brought you here? I only wanted to know to ask
you whether you will drive out to Frascati with us today, to Frascati this
afternoon. What's an idea? Exclaimed Simpali. And in any case I cannot
join you, for I am going to the Palatine at three o'clock with the
Sdetzos. Yes, said Tren, uncommonly grave, may I offer you a
cup of coffee, asked simply coolly. No, thank you, replied Trayne.
Shortly, he was evidently uneasy and began examining the odds and ends at
the table to give himself countenance. By accident, he took up the book
that simply had been reading when he came in. It was Charles Lamb's Essays,
and on the first page was written in a large firm hand, in
friendly remembrance of a terrible quarrel. Zinkaschtazzo, the child lost a bet with
me not long since, simply explained. Another bet is still unsettled and is
to be decided to day at the palatine. Tryne shut the book sharply and
threw it down, then setting his elbows on the table at which they were
sitting, and fixing his eyes keenly on Sempali's face, he said, do
you intend to marry? Zinkashiatzo simply started, What do you mean, he
exclaimed, what are you dreaming of? But as Tryne said no more,
simply gazing fixedly at him, he took up an attitude of defiance. He
looked Tryne straight in the face with an angry glare, and retorted and suppose
I do, then I can only hope you will have enough resolution to carry
out your intentions, said Tyryne, For to stop halfway in such a case
as a crime. He drew a deep breath and looked at the ground,
but simply's face, instead of clearing, grew darker. He was prepared for
vehement opposition, and his cousin's calm consent, not to say encouragement, put
him in the position of a man who, after straining every muscle to lift
a heavy weight, suddenly discovers that it is a piece of painted pasteboard.
It completely threw him off his balance. Well, I must say, he
began in a tone of extreme annoyance. You speak of it as if it
were a no more serious question than the dancing of a courtillan. In plain
terms, the thing is impossible. What are we to live on? I
have long since run through all my fortune. If I took what my brother
would regard as so monstrous a step, he would cut off all supplies.
And Zinka is not of age. I might, to be sure take to
selling dripping to maintain my wife, which would have the additional advantage that my
mother in law would cut me in consequence, or perhaps you would advise me
to let Dame Clotilchtazzel keep us till Zinka comes into her money. Well,
says Trenne, calmly. If you can take such a reasonable view of the
impossibility of your marriage with Zinka Stazze, your behavior to her is perfectly inexplicable.
Trine was still sitting by the little table on which the pretty coffee service
was set out, while sempalyly, his arms in his pockets, was walking
up and down the room, kicking and shoving the furniture with all the irritation
of a man who knows himself to be in the wrong. Upon my soul,
I cannot make out what you would be at, he suddenly exclaimed,
standing still and facing his cousin. Schetzel has never found any fault with my
behavior, and it is much more his affair than yours. Trayne changed color
a little, but did not lose his presence of mind. Schdetz, with
all his dryness of manner, is an idealist, he said, who would
fetch the stars from heaven for his sister if he could. He has never
for an instant doubted that your intentions with regard to her were quite serious.
That is impossible, cried SEMPALYI. But it is so, oh, Trene
asserted, he is too blind to think his sister beneath any one's notice.
And he's right, exclaimed, simply perfectly right. But the pressure of circumstances
of position, the duties I have inherited. He had seated himself on the
deep inner ledge of one of the windows, with his elbows on his knees,
in his chin between his hands, and was staring thoughtfully at the floor.
Allow me to ask you, he said, what induced you to mix
yourself up in the affair. It has weighed on my shoulder for a long
time, said Trayne. But what especially moved me to speak of it to
day is the circumstance that last evening before you came into the falcon, Madame
de Gandri and Ferguson allowed themselves to speak in a way which convinced me that
your constant intimacy with Zinca is beginning to do her no good. Oh,
of course, if you listen to the gossip of every washerwoman simply interrupted angrily,
and he muttered a long speech in which the words sacred responsibility due regard
for the duties imposed by providence, who were freely thrown in. Traine's handsome
face flushed with contempt, and at length he broke into his cousin's harangue,
to which for a few minutes he had listened in silence. No swager nor
bluster. The matter is quite simple. Do you love Zinca? The attache
frowned. Yes, he said fiercely. Then it is only that you have
not the courage to face the annoyances that a marriage with her would involve you
in. Simply was dumb. Then, my dear fellow, there is no
choice. You must break off the intimacy as gently, but as immediately as
possible. That I neither can nor will attempt, cried, simply stamping his
foot. If within three days we have not taken the necessary steps to secure
your removal from Rome, I shall feel myself compelled to give Shadzl a hint,
or your brother, whichever you prefer. Train spoke quite firmly, and
now good bye. Good bye, said simply, without moving, and Trayne
went to the door. There he paused and said, hesitatingly, do not
take it a miss, Niki. I could do no less. Remember that
though the writer is a bitter morsel. It has a good after taste.
Poor child, poor sweet little girl, Tryn murmured to himself as he descended
the gray stone stairs of the Palazzo Devinezzia. Is this a time to be
talking of inherited responsibilities and of the duties of position? Now? Good heavens,
He lighted a cigar and then flung it angrily away. Good heavens,
to have met a girl like Zinka, to have won her love, and
to be free. He hurried out into the street, leaving the gate porter,
astonished that the count, who was usually so courteous, should have taken
no notice of his respectful bow. Such a thing had never happened before.
He was a strange man, this gray haired young count Train. He had
grown up as one of a very happy family, and when still quite young,
he had been hurried much against his will into a marriage with the handsome
Gabrielle Sinsenburg. He had never been able to reconcile himself to the empty worldliness
of his life in her society. She was a heartless, superficial woman,
some few years older than himself, who had staked everything on her hope of
achieving a marriage with him. Within a few years they had separated quite amiably
by mutual consent. He had given her his name, and she gave him
his child. His life was spoilt. He had a noble and a loving
heart, but he might not be stowed on any woman. He must carry
it about in his breast, where it grew heavy to bear. His love
for his little girl, devoted as he was to her, was not enough
to live by, and a bitter sense of craving lurked in his spirit.
For in many years he had lived a great deal abroad, his mind had
expanded, and he had shed several of his purely Austrian prejudices. At home,
he was still regarded as a staunch conservative, because he always passively voted
on that side. But he was only indifferent, absolutely indifferent to all political
strive, and smiled alike at the recklessness of the left and the excitability of
the right, While in his inmost soul he regarded the perfecting of government as
mere labor lost, for he was no optimist, and thought that to heal
the woes of humanity nothing would avail but its thorough regeneration, and that men
have no mind for such regeneration. All they ask is to be allowed to
cry out when they are hurt and shift their sins onto each other's shoulders.
It afforded him no satisfaction to cry out. His weary soul found no rest
but an unbounded benevolence and some police nature experimental groping. His way through life
had seemed to him to day more odious than ever. How can a man
be at once so tender and such a coward, he asked himself. He
is the most completely selfish being I ever met, with a thorough epicurean and
sentiment, and has only just hard enough for his own pleasure and enjoyment.
The bad outstanding between zinc and s and Pali was not decided that afternoon,
did not go to the palatine, but excused himself at the last moment in
a little note to Zinca. Trene's words, though he would not have admitted
it to himself, had made a very deep impression, and though he fought
against it, he could no longer avoid looking the situation in the face.
To get himself transferred to some other capital, to give up all his pleasant,
idle habits here. The idea was intolerable. He felt exactly like a
man who has been suddenly roused from a slumber, bright with pleasant drains.
He did not want to wake or to rub his eyes clear off. The
vision was everything at an end, Troyne had to be sure suggested an alternative
if he could but call up sufficient energy. It rested only with himself to
turn the sweet dream into a still sweeter and lovelier reality, and his whole
being thrilled with ecstasy. As this delightful possibility flattered his fancy, he was
long past the age at which a man commits some matrimonial folly, believing that
he can reclaim the morals of some disrespectable second rate actress, or that his
highest happiness is to devote his life to his sister's governess, who is a
dozen years older than himself. When he contemplated the possibility of his marryings in
Kashdiat's laughter, all it was with the certainty that his feeling for her was
not a mere transient madness, but that it had its roots in the depths
of his nature. Every form and kind of enjoyment had been at his command,
and he had hated them, all things in which other men of his
age and position could find excitement and interest roused his fastidious nature to disgust.
Life had long since become to him a vain and empty show. When he
had met Zinca, then all this sweetest spirits of spring had descended, fluttering
into his vacant heart. A magical touch had made it the garden of flowers
and filled it with fair, mad dreams of love. All the sweet sorrow
of life was revealed to him in a new form. And now was he
to tread the blossoms and to dust give up seeing her get myself sent away?
Never? I cannot and I will not do it, he muttered to
himself indignantly, as he thought it all over. What business is it of
trains? What right has he to issue his orders to me? But when
he had resolved simply to go on with Zinca as he had begun to sun
himself, as heretofore in her smile, her gentleness, and her beauty,
he was still uncomfortable. He felt that it would not be the same.
Till now his heart had simply been content. Now it could speak and ask
for more. To try to satisfy it with this shadow of delight was like
attempting to slake a raging thirst with the dew of a rosebud. He loved
her now suddenly and madly. Interesting. Women had hitherto utterly failed to interest
him. They were like brookolids filled by the rain. The muddiness of the
water prevented their shallowness, being immediately perceptible. The storms of life had spoilt
their clearness and purity. Zinc on the contrary, was like a mountain lake,
whose waters are so transparent that near the shore every pebblous visible. And
though in the middle the bottom is no longer seen, it is because they
are deep, and not because they are turbid, till their crystalline opacity reflects
the sky overhead. And in the depths of that lake, he thought lay
a treasure which one alone, guided and blessed by God, might hope to
find. How he longed to sound dead, She was made for him.
Never for an instant had he been dull in her society. She satisfied both
his head and his heart. All the bewitching, inconsistency and contradictions of her
nature captivated him. He had said of her that she was like a little
handbook of the study of women. She was made up of such a variety
of characteristics. In the midst of her childlike moods, she had such unexpected
depth of thought, such flashes of wisdom. Her wildest wagaries were so original,
and often ended so suddenly in wistful reverie. Her little selfish caprices were
the converse of such devoted self sacrifice. Her grace was so spontaneous, her
voice so soft and appealing. Why but should he No, it must not
be Train had said it. He must quit Rome, the sooner the better.
He took his hat and went out to call on the ambassador and discussed
the matter with him. His Excellency was not at home, and simperly betook
himself to the club, where he lost several games at Ecrte. He was
greatly annoyed. Then he went home and sat looking constantly at the cloak,
as though he were expecting some one. His irritation creased every minute. And
of Part two, Chapter one, Part two, Chapter two of Our Own
set by Ossip Schubin, translated by Clara Belle. This LibriVox according is in
the public domain recording by Caroline. Part two, Chapter two, Bright May,
the sweetest month of spring, The trees and fields with flowers are strown,
dear heart to thee life's May I bring, take it and keep it
for thine own, Nay, draw the knife. I will not start pierce.
If thou wilt my willing breast. There thou shalt find my faithful heart,
whose truth and death shall stand confessed. These words, sung in the
Roman dialect to a very simple air, came quavering out of the open window
of the drawing room of the Setzel's Palacetto as simply passed by it. That
evening he had gone out to pay some visits to divert his mind, and
though his way did not take him along the side straight in which the palacettos
stood, he had not been able to resist the temptation to make a detour.
It was a mild evening, and the tones floated down like an invitation.
He recognized Zinka's voice as she sang one of the melancholy ston Nelli,
in which the peasants of the Campagna give utterance to their loves. He had
ceased, and she was just moving away when another even sweeter and more piercing
lament broke the warm silence. Where shall I die? Poison itself could have
no terrors if I took it from thy hand. Thy heart should be my
death bid and my grave. The passionate words were sung with subdued vehemence to
a rather monotonous tune, like a faded wraith of spring flowers borne along by
some murmuring stream. He turned back and listened with suspended breath. The song
ended on a long, full note. He felt that he would give God
knows how much to hear the last to line once more, La sepultura mia
sara il too seno. Now Zinka was speaking. It vexed him beyond measure
that he could not hear what she was saying, saying it was maddening good
heavens, what a fool he was to stand fretting outside. When he went
into the drawing room, to his great surprise, he was met by Schtetzel.
Begged so soon, he exclaimed, as he shook hands with him.
Yes, Ainstein had only two days to spare napples, replied Schtetzel. I
was delighted to see him again, but well, I must be growing very
old. I was so glad to find myself at home again. And he
drew his sister to him and lightly stroked her pretty brown hair, his brotherly
caress added to some plice excitement. No wonder that you like your home,
he was saying, when the Baroness appeared with an evening wrap on her shoulders,
a fan and a scent bottle in her hand, and as usual,
dying of refinement and airs not ready yet is in naid ah, my dear,
simply, how very sweet of you, and she gave him the tips
of her fingers. We were quite anxious about you when you so suddenly excused
yourself from joining us. Zinka was afraid you had to take in the Roman
fever, she said sentimentally. Zinka has an imagination that feeds on horace,
said she Dedzeled, smiling. I did think that you must have some very
urgent reason, said Zinca hastily, and in some confusion, simply looked into
her eyes. I was doing ash Wednesday pennance, that was all, he
said, in a low voice. Well, to complete the mortification, come
now to Lady Dalrymple's. The Baroness suggested, Oh, be merciful, grant
me a dispensation. I should so much enjoy quiet evening, cried simply,
And I too, added Zinka. I am mouttily sick of suarees and rauts.
These performances give me the impression of a full dress review at which such
and such fashionable regiments are paraded. Give us a holiday, mother, Remember
it is ash Wednesday, and we are good Catholics, said her son.
I had some scruples myself, but the Duchess of Ortranto is going list the
baroness. However, when simply had assured her that the Duchess of Otranto was,
by no means a standard authority in Roman society, she yielded to the
common desire that they should remain at home, and withdrew to her room to
write some letters before tea. Most men have senses and nerves only in their
brain, while women, as is well known, have them all over the
body. In this respect, simply was like a woman. He had senses
even in his finger tips. As a Frenchman had once said of him,
I la verlis So poet. A poet's nerves. The most trifling external conditions
gave him disproportionate pleasure or pain. The smallest detail of ugliness was enough to
spoil his appreciation of the noblest and grandest work of art. He would not
have felt the beauty of Faust if he had first read it in a shabby
or dirty copy. Now, when the Baroness had left the room, there
was no detail that could disturb his enjoyment in being with Zinca Schadsld taking up
his newspaper. Zinca, at Sampali's request, had seated herself at the piano.
She always accompanied herself by heart, and sat with her head bowed a
little over the keys and half shut dreamy eyes. The sober tone of the
room, with its tape, straight walls and happy medley of knick knacks,
broad leaved plants, Japanese screens, and comfortable furniture, formed a harmonious background
to her slight white figure. The light of the lamp was moderated by its
rose colored shade. A subdued Mitza Voce tone of color prevailed in the room,
which was full of the scent of roses and violets, and the heavy
perfume seemed in sympathy with the gloomy sentiment of the popular love songs. Simplyi's
whole nature thrilled with rapturous suspense, such as few men would perhaps quite understand.
At his desire Zinka sang one after another of the Stonnelli. Her voice
grew fuller and deeper. Do not sing too long, Zini, it will
tire you. Said her brother. Only one more, the one I heard
from outside, begged simply, and she sang la sepoltura mia, sara il
tuo seno. The words tremble on her lips. Her hands slipped off the
last notes into her lap. Simply took the warm, soft little hands into
his own. A sort of delightful giddiness mounted to his brain as he touched
them. Zinka, He said, tell me, do you feel a little
of what your voice expresses. Her eyes met his, and she blinked as
we blink at a strong, bright light. She shrank back a little,
as we shrank from too great and sudden joy. Her answer was fluttering on
her lips. When the door opened, the Italian servant pronounced some perfectly unintelligible
gibberish by way of a name, and in marched, followed by her daughter
and their polish swaying the bareness wolnut scar Oh, thank goodness, I have
found you at home, she exclaimed. We counted on finding you at home
on ash Wednesday. God bless Sue Zinca. Zinca was petrified. Mamma Schdetzel
rushed in from an adjoining room at the sound of those rough tones. Charlotte
was all she could stammer out. Char Let you hear quite a surprise,
is it not, Clotilde? Yes, the most unhoped for things sometimes happen.
We arrived today at three o'clock and called here this afternoon, but you
were out, so then we decided to try in the evening. It is
rather late, to be sure, and I, for my part, should
have been here long ago. But Slava insisted on dressing for such near relations.
Quite upset, but I do not like to contradict her. She is
so easily put out, so I waited to dress too, and the bareness.
After embracing her, sister and her niece, plumped down uninvited on a
very low chair. She had dressed with a vengeance. A black olais cap
was perched on the top of her short gray hair, with the lapids that
hung down over her ears. Her massive person was squeezed into a violet satin
gown, which she had evidently outgrown, and a lace scarf picturesquely thrown over
her shoulders was intended to conceal its defects. Her lavender colored gloves were very
short and much too tight, and a burst at all the buttonholes. Slava
had a general effect of tricolor, and she wore some old jewelry that she
had bought off a dealer in antiquities at Verona. She had curled and piled
up her hair after the antique, and kept her head constantly turned over her
left shoulder to be as much like the Apollo as possible, at the same
time making a grimace as if she were being photographed, and wished to look
bewitching. Vladimir Matuschauzski's tall, slouching figure was buttoned into a braided coat.
He held a low crowned hat with tassels in his hand, and glared at
the plain dress coats of the other two men as though they were a personal
insult. Monsieur Vladimir de Matoshawski said the Baroness introducing him a a friend of
the family, but she said it in French. When the Baroness Volnitzkaw was
set all at a loss, she commonly spoke French. Her sister, who
by this time had got over her astonishment now began to wish to dazzle the
newcomers. Count Sempali, she said, presenting the attache a friend of our
family, my sister, the Baroness Wolnitzka. You have no doubt heard of
the famous slav leader Baron Volnitsky, who was so conspicuous a figure in forty
eight. Simply bowed without speaking. Baroness Volnitzka rose and politely offered him her
hand. I am delighted to make your acquaintance, she said. I have
heard a great deal about you. My sister has mentioned you in all her
letters, and I am quite o Kurn again simply bowed in silence and then
retiring into the background. While the mistress of the house turned to address Slava,
he said to Schatzo, I will take an opportunity of slipping away a
stranger, as always an intruder at a family meeting. His manner was suddenly
cold and stiff, and his tone intolerably arrogant. Schtetzo nodded. Go by
all means, he replied, but Baroness Schatzo, perceiving his purpose, exclaimed,
no, no, my dear SEMPALYI you really must not run away.
You are not in the least detroit and a stranger you certainly can never be
hit. Would look as though we had frightened you away, and that I
will not imagine, added her sister archly, so simply stayed, only perhaps
from the impulse that so often prompts us to drink a bitter cup to the
dregs. Pray command yourself, a little Zini, whispered Cecil to his sister.
The interruption is unpleasant, but you should not show your annoyance so plainly.
Tea was now brought in. Sieze devoted himself in an exemplary manner to
his cousin Slava, so as to give his spoilt little sister as much liberty
as possible. Slava treated him with the greatest condescension and kept glancing over her
huge Japanese fan at Sampali, who was sitting by Zinca on a small sofa,
taciturn and ill pleased, while he helped her to pour out the tea.
Therein as Volnitskag gulped down one cup after another, eat up almost all
the tea cake, and never seized an endless medley of chatta, the young
pole sat brooding, gloomily, ostentatiously, refused old food and spoke not a
word. His arms crossed on his breast, he set the image of the
dignity of man on the defensive. I am desperately hungry. Madame Volnitzskag confessed.
We are at a very good hotel, Hotel de la Stella in Via
de la Pacere. We were told of it by a priest with whom we
met on our journey. It is not absolutely first class. Still, only
people of the highest rank frequented. Two Polish counts dined at the table,
Dots and a French marquise. In her case, I must own I thought
I could smell a rat. I suspect she is running away with her lover,
from her husband or from her creditors. Out of defense to the highest
rank. The baroness had put her hand up to her mouth on the side
nearest to the young couple as she made this edifying communication. The dinner was
very good. She went on capital and we pay six francs a day for
our board. Seven corrected Slava six Slava seven, Mamma, And a discussion
of the deepest interest to the rest of the party and suit between the mother
and daughter. As to this important point, Slava remained master of the field.
And with wax lights and service, it comes to eight, she added
triumphantly. I let her talk, whispered her mother, again, directing her
words with her hand. She is very peculiar in that way. Everything cheap
she thinks must be better. However, what I was going to say was
that, to tell the truth, I did not get enough to eat at
dinner. There were flowers on the table, and she reached herself a slice
of plum cake. At this moment the door opened to admit Count Sikbourg.
Good evening. He began. Seeing you so brightly lighted up, I could
not resist the temptation to come in and see how you were spending your ash
Wednesday. He glanced around at the three strangers and instantly grasped the situation,
but far from taking the tragical view of it, he had once determined to
get as much fun out of it as possible. After being introduced, he
placed himself in a position from which he could command the whole party, simply
included and converse both with Madame Volnitzka and her daughter. He addressed himself first
to the letter the name of Voynetski is known to fame. He said,
Yes, my father played a distinguished part in forty eight, replied Slava zik
Borg zik Bork. Madame Volnitzka was meanwhile murmuring to herself, which of the
zik works the zik books of Budor, or of Waldau or the Wildau Branch,
said Baroness Scheltzer. His mother was a princess hag, and she leaned
back on her cushions. Ah, the Wildau zik books quite the best zig
books, remarked her sister, in a tone of astonishment. Of course,
replied Baroness Scheltzer, with great coolness, as though she had never in her
life spoken to anyone less than the best zik books. Madame Volnitzsky arranged her
broad face in the most afeable wrinkles she could command, and smiling at the
young count, watching for an opportunity of putting in a word for the present.
However, this did not offer, for her sister addressed her asking in
a bitter sweet voice, and what made you decide on coming to Rome?
Can you ask? I have wished for years to see Rome, and you
wrote so kindly and so constantly, Clotilde, so at length and here followed
the history of the Bernini. You remember our Bernini, Clotilde. Her sister
nodded, well, I had the Apollo the head, only a copy by
Bernini. It is a work of art that has been in our family for
generations. She continued, turning to Zigburg as she saw that he was listening
to her narrative for centuries, added Madame Schtazzer, I must confess that I
could hardly bear to part with it. Her sister went on, However,
I made up my mind to do so, when too, the great antiquary
from Vienna came one day and bid for it. She'atzi, to whom the
god's wanderings were known, made some allusion to them in his dry way,
on which the Baroness Volnitzkash shuffled herself a little nearer to Zikbog and addressed herself
to him. You see, Count, it was something like what often happens
with a girl. You drag her about to balls for years, take her
from one wandering place to another, and never get her off your hands.
Then you settle down quietly at home, and suddenly, when you least expected
as suitor, turns up. I could hardly bear to see the last of
the bust. I assure you it must indeed have been a harrowing parting,
said Zigbog, with much feeling. Terrible, said the baroness, and doubly
painful, because and here she leaned over to whisper, and zik ear,
Slava is so amazingly like the Bernini, does not her likeness to the Apollo
strike you. I saw it at once as soon as I came in,
Zigbook declared, without hesitation. Everyone says, so, well, then you
can understand what a sacrifice it was. It cut me to the heart only
to think of it. Oh, these great emotions. Excuse me if I
take off my cap. And she hastily snatched off the black lace structure,
and passing her fingers through her thin gray hair, with the vehemence of a
genius, she exclaimed, Merciful God, how we poor women are ill,
used, crushed, fettered. Yes, a woman's lot is not a happy
one, said Zigboog sympathetically. You are quite an original, exclaimed her sister,
giggling rather uncomfortably. For in good society it is quite understood that when
we are suffering under relations devoid of manners, and whom if we dared we
should shut up at once in a mad house. We may do what we
can to render them harmless by ticketing them with this title, quite an original.
Are you still always ready to break a lance for the emancipation of our
sex? No, replied Madame Volnitzka. No, my dear Clotilde, I
have given that up since I learned by experience that every woman is ready to
set aside the idea of emancipation as soon as she has a chance of marrying.
I have lost my sympathy with the cause. The emancipation of women,
of course, can only be interesting to those who cannot marry, observed Sdetz,
who had not long since read an article on this much ventilated question.
And as there are undoubtedly more women than men in the world, legalized polygamies
the only solution of the dayfficulty. His aunt asserted, Mamma, you really
are, said Slava with an angry flare. Your views are necessarily pity and
narrow, retorted her mother. If I were speaking on the subject in a
light and frivolous tone, I could understand your indignation. But I am looking
at the matter from a philosophical point of view. You understand me. I
am sure, Count zik Book perfectly, My dear Madam, zig Book assured
her with grave dignity. You look at the question from the point of national
and political economy, and from that point of view, improprieties have no existence.
Simply sat twirling his mustache. Zinka first blushed and then turned pale,
while the mistress of the house patted her sist on the shoulder, saying with
a sharp, awkward laugh, quite an original, Quite an original. But
she deads it, seeing that zik Book was excessively entertained by the old woman's
absurdities, and was on the point of amusing himself still further at her expense
by laying some fresh trap for her folly. Happily, bethought him that the
only way to procure silence would be to ask Slava to sing, so he
begged his cousin to give them some national air. Zikbook joined in the request,
but Slava tried to excuse herself on a variety of pretexts. The piano
was too low, the room was bad to sing in, and so forth,
and so forth. At last, however, she was persuaded to sing
some patriotic songs in which Matushawski accompanied her. Her tall, vulcure like figure,
swayed and trembled with romantic emotion, and faithful to the traditions of the
art Fremisson the thrilling school, she held a piece of music fast in both
hands for the sake of effect, though it had not the remotest connection with
the song she was singing. Her mother sat in breathless silence. Tears of
admiration ran down her cheeks. Like many other mothers, she only recognized those
of Slava's defects which came in to conflict with her own idiosyncrasy, and admired
everything else. When Slava had shouted the last verse of the latest revolutionary ditty,
which would have been prohibited in forty eight, and Schetzl was still asking
himself whether it was worse to listen to the mother's tongue or the daughter's singing,
Matushawski, whose ch grin at the small approval bestowed on his and Slava's
musical efforts, had reached an unendurable pitch, observed that it was growing latent
that the ladies must be needing rest after all their exertions and fatigues. Madame
Volnitzka hastened to devour the last slice of tea cake, brushed the crumbs away
from her purpose, set in lap onto the carpet, rose slowly and made
her away with many bows and courtesies towards the door, taking at least half
an hour before she was fairly gone. When his relatives had at length disappeared,
Scheedzeler accompanied the two gentlemen, who had also bid the ladies good night,
into the hall and said good humoredly to Zigbourg, You, I fancy
are the only one of the party who has really enjoyed the evening. Zig
Book colored. Then, looking up frankly at his friend, he said,
you are not offended. Well, perhaps just a little, replied Setzel with
a smile. But I must admit that the temptation was a strong one,
and really and truly I'm very sorry for you. Zig Book went on with
that ingenuous want of tact that never lost him a friend. There is nothing
in the world so odious as to have a pusse of disagreeable relations who suddenly
appear and cling on to your coat tails. I know it by experience.
Last spring at Vienna, half a dozen old aunts of my mother's came down
upon us from Bukania like a snow storm. Sampaline, meanwhile, had buttoned
himself into his fur lined coat and said nothing. And of Part two,
Chapter two, Part two, Chapter three of Our Own set by Ossip Shu,
being translated by Clara Belle. This libovox recording is in the public domain.
Recording by Caroline. Part two, Chapter three. The three days have
gone by in which Trine had desired his cousin to make up his mind.
Three days since the sudden descent of Baroness Vomittska scared away the sweet vision that
till then had dwelt in Simpally's soul and checked the declaration actually on his lips.
But he has not yet requested to be removed from Rome. Trene's eye
has been upon him all through these three days, has constantly met his own
with grave questioning, as though to say, have you decided? No,
He had not decided. To a man like Sempaly. There is nothing in
the world so difficult as a decision. Fate decides for him, He for
himself. Never his encounter with the preposterous barreness might silence the avowal he was
on the verge of uttering, but it was not so powerful as to banish
Zinca's image once and for all from his mind. The silly old woman's chatter
he had by this time forgotten. The stornelli that Zinca had been singing still
rang in his ears. For two days. He had had the resolution to
avoid the Palasetto, but he had seen Zinka for a moment by accident.
Yesterday on the Corso. She was in the carriage with Marie Volpini. She
had on a gray velvet dress and a broad brimmed musquetaire hat that threw a
shadow on her forehead and her golden brown hair. She held a large bouquet
of flowers and was chatting merrily with the little Volpinis and Gabrielle train. What
pretty merry ways she had with children. His blood fire in his veins as
their eyes met, and she blushed as she returned his bow. It was
the first time she had blushed at seeing him. All that night he dreamed
the wildest dreams, and now he was taking a solitary early walk in the
spring sunshine on the Pincio, lost in thought, but snapping the twigs as
he passed along to vent his irritation. More and more he felt that marriage
with Zinca was a sinequa non of his existence. He had never in his
life denied himself a pleasure. And now the brilliant March sun flooded the Piazza
di Spanna. The warders of the Barracaccia sparkled and danced, reflecting the radiant
blue sky, against which the towers of the Trinita del Monte stood out sharp
and clear. All over the shallow steps of the church, models were lounging
in the regulation peasant costumes, and blind beggars incessantly muttering their prayers. In
front of the Hotel de l'orbes. The cab drivers were sweetly slumbering under the
huge patched umbrellas stuck up behind their coach boxes for protection against the sun.
Or flower sellers were squatted on every doorstep, and here and there sat a
brown eyed, snubnosed, white Pomeranian dog. The piazza was swarming with tourists,
and Beatrice di Cenci gazed with the saddest eyes in the world out of
a photographer's shop at the motley crowd and bustle Zigburg in happy unconsciousness of coming
evil, had just come out of laws the money changes, and was inhaling
with peculiar satisfaction the delicious pervading scent of hyacinths when his eye was accidentally attracted
by the fine figure of a young english woman who passed him in a closely
fitting jersey. He was still watching her when a harsh voice close to him
exclaimed, good morning, count what luck. He turned around and recognized,
under a vast shady hat, the broad, dark face of the Baroness Wolnut
scar. Though the day was splendidly fine, she had on that most undressed
of garments, originally meant as a protection against rain, but subsequently adopted to
conceal every conceivable defect of costume, and long since known to the mocking youth
of Paris as a kashmizer, or to rendered freely a slut cover. And
though the pavement was perfectly dry, under this waterproof she held up the gown
at head so high that her white feet, in their untidy boots with elastic
sides, were plainly displayed. Ah Baroness, he said, lifting his hat.
I really did not No, you did not recognize me, she said,
calmly. That was why I spoke to you. What luck. But
you are the embassy too, certainly, that is they very thing I have
a request to make them. My daughter is most anxious to have an audience
of his holiness. Slava, you must know, is a fervent Catholic,
though between you and me it is a mere matter of fashion. Now,
I, for my part, take a philosophical view of religious matters. At
the same time, I should be very much interested in seeing the Pope.
But the Pope is unfortunately more inaccessible than ever, said Ziegburg. Besides,
as I do not belong to the papal embassy, I cannot, I regret
to say give you the smallest assistance. That is what my nephew says.
It is disastrous, positively disastrous. At this moment, Slava joined them,
emerging from Pilali's library in an eccentric director costume with a peaked hat and feather
and a pair of gloves no longer clean, drawn far up over her elbows.
Ah, good morning, said she, offering the count her finger tips,
while Matushawski, who was in attendance, sulkily bowed. By this time,
zikbog hemmed in on all sides began to think this situation unpleasant. It
is so delightful to meet with a fellow countryman in a foreign land. Slava
began quite delightful, replied Zigbog, thinking to himself, how am I to
get out of this? When suddenly the absurdity of the thing came upon him
afresh, for he had the baroness once more, good morning, count what
luck? And at the same moment she bore down on no lesser man than
Simpali, who had just come down the sunlit steps and was crossing the piazza.
Lost in sullen meditation. I beg your pardon, he muttered, somewhat
startled. I really did not recognize you, And he gazed helplessly into the
distance, as though he looked for a rescue. But the bare went on.
I am so delighted to have met you. I have a particular request
to make. Could you not procure me admission to the Farnesina. The Duke
di Ripalda is said to be all powerful. I am sorry to say it
is quite im But at this instant a party of foreigners called Saint Palie's Eye,
two young ladies with a maid. The two girls tall and straight as
pine trees, both remarkably handsome and dressed in neatly fitting English linen dresses,
were eagerly bargaining with an Italian who had embroidered cambric trimmings for sale, and
they seemed to think it a delightful adventure to buy something in the street.
Two charming girls. Surely I know them, cried Madame Volnitzka. Are they
not the Datinsky's. One of the young ladies, looking up, called out
Nikki Niki half across the piazza, with the friend audacity of people who have
grown up in the belief that the world was created expressly for their use.
Excuse me, said simply with a bow to the Baroness, my cousins,
and without more ado, he made his escape. How long have you been
here? Where are you staying? We arrived this morning Hotel de Landre,
Mamma wrote to you at once to the embassy. Ah, here is another
Austrian, for Zigburg had contrived to join them. Rome is but a suburb
of Vienna, after all. But tell me who on earth were that old
fortune teller and her extraordinary daughter to whom you were both devoting yourselves so attentively.
The Voonitsky trio had, in the meantime, moved away. The Baroness
very gracious Slava very haughty, as became the living representative of the Apollo belverdre
passed the two handsome girls sent down the via Condotte. Suddenly Baroness Wonitzka stopped.
I quite forgot to ask Count Sempaly to get me an invitation to the
International Artists Festival, she exclaimed, striking her forehead, and she promptly turned
about, evidently intending to repair the omission. Only Matsushawski's decided interference preserved simply
from her return to the charge. This scene is now the Pincio between five
and six in the afternoon, the hour when the band plays every day on
the Great Terrace, while the crowd collects to watch the sunset behind Saint Peter's.
The reflection of the glow gilds the gravel, glints from the lace on
the uniforms and the brass instruments, and throws golden sparks on the water in
the white basin behind the band stand. The black shadows rapidly lengthen on the
grass and the palmettos and evergreen oaks stand out in rich, deep tones against
the sky that fades from crimson to salmon and gray. A special set of
visitors hount the shady side of the Pincio, not the fashionable world governesses and
nurses with their charges, and priests, priests of every degree, the illustrious
monsignori, with their finely chiseled features, their upright bearing, and their elegant
hands. Monks with their bearded faces comfortably framed in their cowls, and whole
regiments of priest links from the seminaries in their uniforms of every hue, lank
lean figures with sallow, unformed features, separated from these only by a leafy
screen. The beaudy and fashion of a Rome drive up and down the residents
and handsome private carriages, the foreigners and hyat vig of varying DeGrace of respectability,
or even in the humble one hoarse hackney cab. The crowd grows denser
every minute. As this stream of Roman rank and wealth swells along the Via
Borgaese, across the Piazza del Popolo, and up the hill on the top
of the Pincio, the carriages come to a standstill. Gentlemen on foot gather
around them, bowing and smiling. The ladies talk across from one victoria to
another, all sorts of trivial small talk, unintelligible to the uninitiated. Up
from the gardens which line the road from the Via Margutta comes a fragrance of
budding and growing spring. Down below lies Rom and lurding it grandly over the
labyrinthine mass of houses and ruins, solemn and severe, its crown touched by
the last rays of vanished sun stands. Saint Peter's Contess Ilsenberg's carriage was drawn
up side by side with that of Princess Vulpini. The newly arrived party of
the Jatinskys was divided between them, the Countess mother reclining indolently with a gracious
smile on her lips, by the side of Contess Ilsenberg, while the Princess
had undertaken to Chapra and the young ladies on the front seat by his cousin
Eugenie Nini they called her. Said Sampali Zigbuk was leaning over the carriage door,
talking all sorts of nonsense and relating all the gossip of Rome that was
fit for maiden ears to the two newcomers. They infinitely amused laughed till their
simple merriment infected even Saint Pali, who had taken the seat coveted of all
the golden youth of Rome, the seat next his beautiful cousin, in a
very gloomy and taciturn humor. Presently, there was an evident sensation among the
public. Every one was looking in the same direction. What is happening,
asked Polissenna, the elder of the two Jatinska girls. It must be the
Duryas's new drag or the king, said Princess Volpini, screwing up her short
sighted eyes. No, said Ziegborg, looking back, neither. It is
Beroness Voynitska. And in fact, Madame Schtetzel's pretty landau, which she had
placed at the disposal of her sister for the afternoon, was coming up the
road. In it the Voonidska's mother and daughter, both in their finest array.
Slava was leaning back elegantly languid, while her mother stood up in the
carriage and surveyed the world of Rome through an opera glass. From time to
time, either to restore it because she suddenly lost her balance, she sat
down, and then she filled up her time by examining every detail of the
trimming and lining of the landau. It was this singular demeanor, combined with
her very conspicuous person, that attracted so much attention to the Schetzel's vehicle,
an attention which both mother and daughter, of course, ascribed to Slava's extraordinary
resemblance to the belverdra apollo. Baroness Wolnitzka, the wonderful old woman we saw
with you yesterday in the Piazza di Spanna, cried Polissenna. Yes, only
think Nikki. She went on to simply, Mamma knows her. Who is
it that I know? Asked her mother from the other carriage, Baroness Wolnitzka.
Mamma, do you see her out there? Heaven? Preserve me?
Exclaimed the comtesse fervently. I do not feel secure of my life when I
am near her. Her she fell upon me to day in the Villa Wolkonski,
how on earth do you happen to know the old woman? Aunt asked
simply, irritably. Oh, my husband had some political connection with hers.
The Countess explained, she is not to be born. She stuck to me
like a leech for half an hour. Your conversation must have been very interesting,
said Siegburg. He did not interest me, replied the Countess rather sharply.
She told me how much her journey had cost her what she pays a
day for the carriage higher, and that when she was young she had singing
lessons of Sissimarra. And she chatted endlessly about her sister Schierazze, who is
living here in the first styland. Nos, absolutely none but the creme de
la cremee. You laugh well, mamma, you must confess that the association
of such a name as Schierzza with the cream of society is irresistibly funny,
cried Polissenna. It was anything rather than funny to me, said the comtesse
ruefully. By the way, though she did tell me one thing that her
niece zenaich Dadze. Well, what is there to laugh at now, zenaich
d'adze. The name is a poem in itself, cried Polisenna. It is
as though an English woman were named Belinda Brown, or a French girl called
Roxala and du bois. Well, it seems from what the old woman told
me that the fair Zenaide is about to relinquish the graceless name of schi'azzo for
one of the noblest names in Austria. That is the old idiot's story.
It has not yet been made public, so she could not tell me the
bright Girlm's name. But Zenaide is as good as betrothed to young count and
natache to the Austrian embassy. Who on earth could it be you ought to
know? Ah? Ah, is it you, said Pulisenna, turning to
Zigburg. But zig Book shook his head, stroking his yellow mustache to conceal
a malicious smile as he watched Saimpally's conspicuous annoyance. Or is it you,
Nikki? The young comtesse went on. I congratulate you on marrying into such
a delightful family. But such a marked effect of embarrassment was produced by her
speech that she was suddenly silent. I know nothing of it, said simply,
with a gloomy scowl. That old chatterbox's imagination is positively stupendous. The
play of light on the gold lace of the uniforms and the brass instruments is
fast fading away, and the sheen of the glossy leaved evergreens is almost extinct.
Gerand Dieu Maurer si Giovanna is the tune the band is playing. The
sun is down, the day is dead. Night shrouds the scene. The
only color left is a dull glow behind Saint Peter's, like a dying fire
at the Elysis. This evening zig Book calls out to the ladies as he
lifts his hat and turns away. The carriages make their way down the hill
passed the Villa Medici, back into Rome, and their steady roar is like
that of a torrent rushing to join the sea. And of Part two,
chapter three, Part two, chapter four of Our Own set by Ossip Schubin,
translated by Clara Belle. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording
by Carolyn Part two, Chapter four, Mister and Lady Julia Ellis. She
was an earldest daughter. English people of enormous wealth and amazing condescension, had
for many years spent the winters in Rome. In former times, the lady's
eccentricities had given rise to much discuss. Now she was an old lady with
white hair, fine regular features, and much too fat arms, like all
English women of her day. She appeared in a low gown on all occasions
of full dress, and was fond of decking her hit with a pink feather.
Her husband was younger than she was, and had a handsome, thoroughly
English face, with a short beard and very picturesque, curly white hair.
His profile was rather like that of Mendelssohn, a fact of which she was
succeedingly proud. Besides this, he was proud of two other things of his
wife, who had been admired in her youth by King George the four,
and of a very old umbrella, because Felix Mendelssohn had once borrowed it.
He had a weakness for performing on the concertina, and had musical evenings once
a week, it happened, and that on the occasion when the Jatinskys first
went on one of these parties. Tolpin, the Russian genius whose great work
had served as the introduction to the ismbeg Tableau, was elaborating a new opera
to a French libretto on a national Russian story. He was, of course,
one of those Russians who combined a passionate devotion to the national slav cause
with a fervent wish to be mistaken for born Parisians wherever they appear. The
piano groaned under his hands, while Sundrey favorite phrases from Orfeo Sanfals and other
well known works were heard above the rolling sea of tremolos. From time to
time the performer threw in a word to elucidate the situation. The czar speaks,
the Bohas speaks, the peasant speaks, the sighing of the wind in
the Caucasus, the foaming of the torrent, while mister Ellis, who believed
implicitly in the opera, was heard murmuring splendid, magnificent. The opera must
be worked out. It must not remain unperformed, worked out, sighed Taupin
with melancholy irony. That is no concern of mine. We we have the
ideas, the working out we leave to to to others. In short,
you must remember that I cannot read a note of music, literally, not
a note, he repeated with intense and visible satisfaction, and he flung off
a few stumbling apreggios, while mister Ellis cried astonishing and compared him with Mendelssohn,
which Tulpin, who believed only in the music of the future, took
very much amiss a Grand pri de Musique from the French Academy of Arts at
the Villamidici, who had been waiting more than an hour to perform his Arab
symphony, muttered to himself, good Heavens, leave music to us, and
to let us be thankful that we are not great folks. At last,
Lady Julia took pity on her guests and invited them to go to take tea.
Everyone was only too glad to accept, and in a few minutes the
music room was almost empty. Madame Tolpin, out of devotion, the Grand
Prix out of spite, and mister Ellis out of duty, were all that
remained within hearing. In the adjoining room, everyone had burst into conversation over
their tea. Still as certain gloom prevailed. Melancholy seemed to have fallen upon
the party like an epidemic, and the subject that was most eagerly discussed was
the easiest motive, suicide. Tulpin rattled and thumped on. Suddenly he stopped.
The Jatinskys had come in and their advent was such a godsend that even
the genius abandoned the piano in their honor. They all three were smiling in
the most friendly, it might almost be said, in the most reassuring manner.
For contesse Elzenbeg had not failed to impress upon them the very mixed character
of Roman society, and, feeling their own superiority, they were able to
cover their self consciousness with the most engaging amiability. The two younger ladies were
surrounded besieged, and the strange thing was that the women paid them even greater
homage than the men. Everything about them was admired. Their small feet,
their finely cut profiles, their incredibly slender waists, the color of their hair,
the artistic simplicity of their dresses and beds were laid as to whether these
were the production of funny or of worth. But now there was the little
commotion in the next room that is caused by the arrival of some very popular
person. Zinka, without her mother, under her brother's escort, only came
in and gave her a slim hand with an affectionate greeting to the lady of
the house. You are an incorrigible truant. You always come too late,
said lady Julia in loving reproach. I like repentance, and the police,
said Zinca merrily, and then Lady Julia introduced her to Comtesse Jatinska. But
you must help me with the tea. You know I always reckon on you
for that. Lady Julia went on, give your charming country women some will
you. Polysena and Nemi were sitting a yard or two off, surrounded by
all the young men of Rome. Zinka was going towards them with her winning
grace of manner, when simply happened to come up and found himself so unexpected
face to face with her, that he had no alternative but to shake hands,
and he could not avoid saying a few words. Of course, like
any other man in his place, he made precisely the most unlucky speech she
could possibly have hit upon. We have not met for some time. She
looked him in the face, but of half shut eyes, with her head
slightly thrown back, and replied, with very becoming defiance. You have carried
out the penancy began on ash Wednesday perhaps, and he could not help smiling.
She shrugged her shoulders. I had intended to break off our friendship.
She went on. But now that I see the cause of your faithlessness,
and she glanced at the handsome young contesses, I quite understand it. Will
you, at any rate do me the favor of introducing me to the ladies,
for Lunchez said simply. But hardly had she uttered the words, when
a scarcely suppressed smile curled Policenna's lip. Zinka saw the smile, and she
saw too that Saint Palice's manner instantly changed. He puts on an artificial expression
of intolerable condescension. Zinka turned very pale, her eyes flashed indignantly as she
hastily returned the young Austrian's bow and at once went back to her post.
Schiazzer, who was talking to Twine in a recess and saw the little scene
from a distance, frowned darkly. Samtpally meanwhile seated himself on a stool by
his cousins and with his back to the tea table where Zinka was busying herself.
So this is the far famed Zinka, Schtazzer, exclaimed, Poliicenna.
She does credit to your tasniki, but she allows herself to speak to you
in a very extraordinary manner. It is really rather too much. Simply made
no reply. She treats you already as if you were her own property.
But seen now, said Nimi, trying to moderate her sister's irony. At
least do not speak so loud. In a few minutes, mister Ellis came
to announce that Monsieur Baa was about to play his Arab symphony, and the
company moved back into the drawing room. The evening had other trades in store.
When Monsieur Bea had done, his place was taken by a young Belgian
count who devoted all his spare time to the composition of funeral marches, who
could also play songs and ballads such as are usually confined to the Straits of
Florence or the Cafe Chentense of Paris, arranged for the piano, and who
gave a duet between a clock, and who gave a duet between a cock
and hen, with so much feeling and effect that all the audience applauded heartily,
especially the Jatinskis, to whom this style of thing was quite a novelty.
Then Missus Ferguson sang her French couplets. Mister Ellis played anadaggio by Beethoven
on the concertina, and then Zinka was asked to sing. What am I
to sing? You know the extent of my collection, she said, with
rather forced brightness to mister Ellis oh Eshtonello, We beg for Eshtonello, said
Zegborg, following her to the piano Vienni Maggio, Vienni Primavera, and Lady
Julia seconded the request. Zinca laid her hands on the keys and began.
Her voice sounded through the room, a little husky at first, but very
sweet, like the tone of a forest bird. Never before had she sat
down to sing without bringing him to her side, even from the remotest corner
of the room. At the very first notes, and now, involuntarily she
looked up to meet his gaze, but he was sitting by poly Senna on
a small sofa in a very familiar attitude, leaning back, holding one foot
on the other knee, and laughing at something that she was whispering to him.
Zinca lost her self command and was suddenly paralyzed with self consciousness. She
could not sing that song before him. Her voice broke, she forgot the
accompaniment, fell about the notes, struck two or three wrong chords, and
at length rose with an awkward laugh. I cannot remember anything this evening,
she stammered. Poly Senna had some spiteful comment to make, of course,
and simply grew angry. He was on the point of rising to go to
Zinca and console her for her failure, but before he could quite make up
his mind to move, Mimi had risen. In spite of her shyness.
She made her way straight across the room to Zinca and said something kind to
her. Simplice stayed where he was, but as they were leaving, he
put on Mimi's cloak for her and sat in a low tone, Mimi,
you are a good fellow, and he kissed her hand. Simpally's attentions had
made Zinca the fashion. His sudden discontinuance, not merely of attentions, but
of any but the barest civilities, of course, made her the laughing stock
of all their circle. The capital caricature that Sempaly had droll off Scherzel and
his sister that evening at the Volpines was remembered once more. Madame de Gondre,
to whom Sempaly had been very civil till he had neglected her. For
Zinca showed the sketch to all her acquaintance with a plentiful seasoning of spiteful incations.
Everyone was ready to laugh at the adventuress who had come to Rome to
bid for a princess coronet, and who had been obliged to submit to such
condign humiliation. The leaders of foreign society vied with each other in doing honor
to the Jatinskys. Madame de Gondris at the example by giving a party at
which Ristori was engaged to reside. Sezzo was of course invited, his mother
and sister were left out. It was the first time since Zinka's appearance at
the Uzenbergs that she had been omitted from any entertainment. However, select many
ladies of the International Circle followed Madame de Gondri's lead, wishing like her to
make a parade before the Austrians of their own exclusiveness and at the same time
to be revenged on Zinka for many a saucy speech she had ventured to make
when she was still one of the initiated of the Sacred Inner Circle. The
Italian society of Rome did not, of course, trouble itself about all these
trumpery subtleties, and behaved to Zinka with the same superficial politeness as before.
She, for her part, took no more note of their amenities than she
did of the pin pricks from the other side. If her feelings had not
been so deeply engaged by sempaly, she would no doubt have taken all these
pity social humiliations very hardly. But her anguish of soul had dulled her shallower
feelings. There is a form of suffering which didn't the senses, and which
mockery cannot touch. It was all the same to her, whether she was
invited or not. She could not bear to go anywhere. The idea of
meeting simply with his cousins was as terrible as death itself. She was an
altered creature. His shy, scared smile was always on her lips, like
the ghost of departed joys. Her movements had lost all their elasticity, and
her gait was more than ever like that of an angel whose wings have been
clipped. Baroness Stetslow course still drove out regularly on the corso and made the
most praiseworthy attempts to keep up a bowing acquaintance with her former friends, and
as often as she could she went out in the evening alone. There was
some consolation too, in the proud consciousness of having quarreled with Madame de Gondriy
and being on visiting terms with all the Roman duchesses. The only thing that
caused her any serious discomfort was her sister Volnidzka's persistent and indiscreet catechism as to
the state of affairs between Sinca and Saint Palis. She herself, out of
mere idle bragging, had told Charlotte the first day of her arrival in Rome
that Zinca's engagement was not yet made public. Her aunt's coarse remarks and hints
were fast driving Zinca crazy when Zigbog, fortunately perhaps intentionally out of compassion for
her, so frightened the mother and daughter one evening when he met them at
the Palacetto by his account of the Roman fever, that they were panic stricken
and fled the very next morning to Naples. The member of the family who
was most keenly alive to the change in their social relations oddly enough was cecil
He has been once to feel himself superior to these silly class jealousies, and
at the same time had a reasonable and manly dignity of his own that had
preserved him from that morbid petulence which sometimes stands in arms against all friendly advances
from min who, after all, cannot help the fact of their superior birth.
Democratic touchiness is a disease to which, in the Old World countries where
hereditary rank is still a living fact, every man who is not a toady
is liable from verta downwards when fate brings him into contact with aristocratic circles.
Sheds had moved in them so long that he was acclimatized, or rather it
had attacked him late in life. And, as is always the case when
grown up men take infantine complaints with aggravated severity, he attributed all his sister's
misery not to his own want of caution and simplice weakness of character, but
to the tyranny of social prejudice. And he turned against society with vindictive contempt,
making himself perfectly intolerable wherever he went. Being a well bred man,
a customed all his life to the graces of politeness. He could not become
absolutely ill mannered, but as ill mannered as he could be, he certainly
was assertive, irritable, always on the defensive, he was constantly involved in
some argument or dispute. Even at home, he was not the same.
His pride was deeply nettled by Zinca's total inability to hide her suffering, while
he felt it humiliating to be able to do nothing to comfort her. At
first, in the hope of diverting her thoughts, he would bring her tickets
for concerts in the theater and give her a thousand costly trinkets, old treasures
of porcelain, carved irony, and curiosities of art, such as she had
once loved. She used to rejoice over these pretty trifles. Now she smiled
as a sick man smiles at some dainty. He no longer has any appetite,
for he could see how sincerely she tried to be delighted, but the
tears were in her eyes all the while. This drove Stadzlo to desperation.
At first, he religiously avoided mentioning sempaly in her presence, But as days
and weeks passed and she brought no change in her crushed melancholy, he waxed
impatient. He took it into his head that it would be well to open
Zinca's eyes. With regard to sempaly, Schatzel himself was energetic, always looking
to the future. He had it out with his disappointments and got rid of
them, however hard he might have been hit. He had always let things
roll if they would not stand, and then set to work to begin again.
His great point in life was to see things as they were. Truth
was his divinity, and he could not understand that to a creature constituted like
Zinca, illusion was indispensable. That she still laid no blame simply, but
only on the alteration in his circumstances, on her own unworthiness, on anything
and everything but himself, that it was a necessity of her nature to be
able still to love him, even though she knew that he was lost to
her forever. His austere nature could not enter and to zink U's soft and
impressible susceptibility. So when he took to speaking slightingly or contemptuously of simply on
every possible opportunity, she never answered him, but listened in silence, looking
at him with frightened, astonished eyes and a pale face, like a marcher
to whom her tormentous tried to prove that there is no God. The result
of Cecil's well meant but injudicious proceedings, was a temporary coolness between himself and
his sister, the coolness which on his part lay only on the surface,
but which froze her spirit to its depth. And all this naturally tended to
add fuel to Stetzel's detestation of Sempalyi. The two men were in daily intercourse,
and now in a state of constant friction. Stetzel would make biting remarks
over the smallest negligence or oversight of which simply might be guilty, and was
bitterly sarcastic as to the incompetence of a young connection of the Simpalice, who
had not long since been attached to the embassy. To be sure, he
ended in declaring, in Austria, it is a matter of far greater importance
that Natache should be a man of family than that he should know how to
spell to such depth of clumsy rudeness could he descend simply without losing his supercilious
good humor, would only smile or answer in his most piping tones, if
you are very right, the view we take of privilege is quite extraordinary.
We should form ourselves on the model of the French court diplomatique. Do not
you think so? For a few days previously the Figaro had published a satirical
article on the presentation of a plebeian representative to the Republic at some foreign court.
Well simply might have retorted in a much hotier key, But the later
his irony, the more in exasperated. Datza end of Part two, Chapter
four, Part two, Chapter five of Our Own set by Ossip Shubin,
translated by Clarabelle. This librivoxyquiding is in the public domain recording by Carolyn.
Part two, chapter five contes Jatinska spent almost the whole of first stay in
Rome on the so far. When she was asked what she thought of Rome,
she replied that she found it very fatiguing. When the same question was
put to her daughters, they, on the contrary, declared themselves enchanted,
simply knew full well that in all Rome there was nothing they liked better than
their never do well cousin. He displayed for their benefit all his most amiable
graces, criticized or admired their dresses, touched up their coiffure with his own
light hand, faithfully reported to them all their conquests, and made them presents
of cigarettes and of trinkets from castellanies. When there was nothing else to be
done, he was ready to attend them, of course, under the charge
of some older lady, to see galleries and churches. Polyicenna had a way
that was highly characteristic of rushing past. The greatest works were her nose in
the air and laughing as she repeated some imbecile remark that she had overheard or
pointed out some eccentricity of tourist costume. Niini took out more seriously, looked
carefully at everything by the catalog, and even kept a diary. Sana was
commonly thought the handsomer and the more brilliant of the sisters, and simply apparently
devoted himself chiefly to her. But he decidedly liked Nini best. The hours
that he did not spend with his cousins he passed at the club, where
he gambled away large sums. Meanwhile, he was looking very ill and complained
of a return of old Roman fever, and what did the world say to
his behavior? The phlegmatic Italians did not trouble themselves about the matter. Madame
de Gondrie and Missus Ferguson laughed over it. Zigbuk pronounced it disgraceful, and
ilsn'bear called it a bad taste to say the least, that he ought to
have arranged to leave Rome. Everybody agreed. Princess Volpini held long and lamentable
conferences with Generalfonklinger, reproaching herself bitterly for not having seen the position of affairs
long ago. But she had never attached any importance to Simply's marked attentions,
having had no eyes for anything but zig Book's devotion to Zinca, and she
had taken a quite motherly interest in what she regarded as a good match for
both. Trene was perfectly furious with Simply. All that he was to Zinca
during these weeks can only be divined by those who have passed through such a
time of grief and humiliation. With the consciousness of having a high, souled
and tender friend in the background. He was the only person who never aggravated
her wound. He had the gentle touch, the delicate skill which the best
man or woman can only acquire through the ordeal of an aching heart. He
came every afternoon with his little girl to take Zinca for a walk, for
he knew that the regular drive on the corso would only bring her added pain.
And while the baroness, with outspread skirts, drove in the wake of
fashion up to the Villa Borghes and the Pincio, these three, with the
general, not unfrequently for a fourth, would wander through silent and deserted cloisters,
or take long walks across the Campania. Not once did Train bring a
secret tear to her eye. If some accidental remark or association brought the hot
color to her thin cheek, he could always turn the subject so as to
spare her. One sultry afternoon late in spring, Train and his two daughters,
as he was wanted to call Zinca and Gabrielle, with the soldier artist,
were sauntering home after a long walk through the somber and picturesque straits that
surrounded the Pantheon. The neighborhood is humble and wretched, but over a garden
wall arose a mulbray tray and whose green branches. A blackbird was singing,
and a few red geraniums blazed behind rusty window bars. Bright specks in the
monotonous brown above the roofs bent the deep blue sky. The air was heavy
and hot, and full of obscure smells of guttess and stale vegetables. Somewhere
in an upstairs room, a woman sang love song of melancholy longing. Suddenly,
the blackbird and the woman ceased singing. At the same time. A
dismal howl and groan echoed through the strait, and a mass of black shadows
darkened the scene. Zinca, who had lately become excessively nervous, started and
shuddered. It is nothing only a funeral, Trene explained, taking off his
hat. That was all a Roman funeral grim but picturesque, a long procession
of mysteriously shrouded figures, only able to see through two slits in the sacle
like cowls that covered their heads, ropes around their waists, and torches or
mystical banners in their hands, banners with the emblems of death. These were
followed by a troop of barefooted friars and lust came the beer, covered with
a bright yellow pal carried by four more of the shrouded figures, who bent
under its weight as they shuffled along the ruddy flare. In the black smoke
wreaths the groan like chanted, the uncanny glitter of the men's eyes, out
of the formless hoods, ghastly, ghostly, and exhaling a savor of moldiness
and incense, like the resurrection of a fragment of the Middle Ages. The
procession defiled through the narrow strait zinca half fainting clungu Tetrine. Gabriel, whose
childish nerves were less shoocked, watched them with intense curiosity and began to question
a woman who stood near her in the crowd that had collected in her fluent
bungling Italian. Who is it they are burying? She asked at length a
woman was the answer? Was she young? See? And what did she
die of? Of? Fever? No, said the Roman, shrugging her
shoulders, and then she added, in the slow musical drawl of the Roman
peasant di Pascione, the procession had passed, The chanting had died away.
The blackbird was singing, singing lustily. Once more. They went on their
way, Trained first, with Zinca hanging wearily on his arm behind them.
Gabriel and the General pacione. Is that a Roman illness, she asked with
her insatiable inquisitiveness. No, it occurs in most parts of the world,
said the General dryly, But only among poor people, I suppose, said
the child. No, it is known to the better classes too, But
it is not called by the same name, said the old man, with
some bitterness, more to himself than to Gabriel. Then it is wrong,
a shameful thing to die of, she asked with wide, astonished eyes.
Suddenly the General perceived that Zinka was listening. Her head drooped as she heard
the child's heedless catechism. He, under the circumstances, would have felt paralyzed.
He would not have known what to say to the poor, crushed soul.
But not so Train. He turned to his companion and said something in
a low tone what the General could not hear. But it must have been
something kind and helpful, something which, without any direct reference to the past,
conveyed his unalterable respect and regard for She answered him almost brightly. Then
he went on talking of trifles, remembering little incidents of his boyhood, characteristic
anecdotes of his parents in such small matters as may divert a sick and weary
spirit, till when they parted at the door of the Palacetto, Zinka was
smiling that he has the brains of a genius. I will not say,
but he has genius of heart. I dare swear. Thought the soldier Trayne
had gone out riding with her two or three times across the Campagna, and
she had enjoyed it. But one day they met Simpli, galloping with his
two handsome cousins over the anemone strewn sward. From that day she made excuses
for avoiding the Campania, as though she thus avoided the chance almost the certainty
of meeting him and them, Why then did she remain in Rome at all?
Schetzel would not hear of her quitting it, because he thought that the
world of Rome would regard it as a flight after defeat. His mother,
too, on different grounds, set her face against any such abridgment of their
stay in Rome. Had she not taken the palacette till the fifteenth of May
and did Zinka in fact wish to go. She often spoke of longing to
be at home again, but whenever their departure was seriously discussed, it gave
her a shock. She dreaded meeting him and longed for it at the same
time, and in the evening, when a few old friends dropped into call
Trayn every evening and Zik book very frequently, Trayne noticed that every time there
was a ring, she sat with her eyes fixed and eager expectation on the
door. She still cherished a sort of hope, a broken, moory bound
hope that was in fact no more than unrest. The vitality of suffering.
And of Part two, chapter five, and of Part two lent Part three,
chapter one of Our Own set by Ossip Shubin, translated by Clara Belle.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Carolyn. Part three
Easter, chapter one, Passion Week in Rome, and in all the glory
and glow of an Italian spring, the glinting radiance brightens even the mystical gloom
of Saint Peter's sparkles. For an instant on the holy water in the basins,
wonders from the hits of the gigantic caribs and the colossal statues down to
the inlate pavement. With the cold sheen of sunlight on polished marble, the
hours glide on the long solemn hours of Holy Thursday. In Rome, the
last gleam of daylight has faded away. The vast cathedral is filled with almost
palpable twilight, and its magnificence seems shrouded in a transparent veil of crape.
The stone walls look dim and distant, the fin seems built of shadows,
and sacred mystery falls as if it were from Heaven, deeper and more solemn.
As the minutes slip by to sanctify the spot. In the papal chapel,
Zinca is kneeling with Trayne and Gabrielle, her eyes fixed on her hands,
which are convulsively clasped, and praying with the passion of youthful nature,
whose yearning has found no foothold on earth and seeks a home in Heaven.
On both sides sit the prelates and dignitaries of the Church in their carved stalls.
Inquisitive and prayerless foreigners crowd at their feet. The tragedy of the passion
is being recited in a monotonous, inconclusive chant that dies away in the dim
corners of the chapel. The last of the twelve tapers on the altar is
extinguished. Miserre demi. The choristes cry with terrible emphasis, and then awful
but most sweet. Beginning as a mere breath and rising to a mighty wail
of grace, comes a voice like the utterance of the anguish of the God
of Love over the mystery from which he can never release mankind, and before
the majesty of that divine and selfless sorrow. Human sorrow bows in silence.
Zinca bends her head. It is ended. The last sound has died away
in a sob. The crowd rises to follow the procession, which, with
the cardinal at the head, wends its way through the church. Trayne and
the two girls quit the chapel. Behind them, the steps of the priests
and choristairs, drowned in their own echoes, sound like the rustling of angelic
wings. The brooding, melancholy peacefulness has lulled Zinca's heart to rest for the
first time. For many weeks. She has forgotten most interesting but the bus
was horse. It was Policina Jatinsky who pronounced this summary criticism of the solemn
ceremony. I close to Zinka. Zinka looked around simply with his aunt and
cousins were at her side. They had attended the service and reserved places in
the choir. Involuntarily, yielding to an impulse of pain, Zinca pressed forward,
but Gabrielle had flown to join them. Then she was obliged to stay
and talk. The Jatinskis were perfectly friendly. Policina giving her her hand simply
alone held aloof on going out. The air struck chill, almost cold on
Zinka's face, and she shivered. A well known voice close behind her said
rather brusquely, you are too lightly dressed, and there's fever in the air.
Put this around you, and simply threw over her shoulders a scarf that
he was carrying for one of the ladies. Thank you, I am not
cold. These ladies will want the scarf. Zinca hastily and repellently. Polysena
said nothing. Perhaps she may have thought it strange that, in his anxiety
for this little stranger, her cousin should forget to consider that one of them
might take cold, but Nini exclaimed, no, no f relanchdazze. We
are well wrapped up. At this juncture, Tryne's servant, who had been
seeking them among the crowd, told them where the carriage was waiting. While
Zinka, wrapped in Nini's china crape shawl, is borne along between the splashing
fountains, across the bridge of Saint Angelo, and through the empty, ill
lighted straits of the Palacetto. All her pulses are dancing and throbbing, and
the stars in the sky overhead seem unnaturally bright. It is the resurrection of
her pain, and with it the lovely, mocking visions of the joy she
has lost. Good God, how vividly she remembers the more, how keenly,
the long, dreamy afternoons on the Palatine, the delicious hours in the
Corsini garden, under the plain trays by the fountain, where he talked about
Etsbourg, while the perfume of violets and lilies fanned her with their intoxicating breath.
The sound of his voice, the touch of his light thin hand,
his smile, his way of saying particular words, of looking at her in
particular moments she is walking with him once more in the Vatican, in rapt
enjoyment of the beauty of the statues. The Belveder fountain trickled and splashed in
dreamy monotony. Golden sunbeams fleck the pavement like footmarks left by the guards before
they mounted their pedestals. There is a mysterious rustle and whisper in the lofty
corridors, as of far, far distant ghostly es. And then suddenly she
is in front of San Donofrio's. The air is thick with pale mist at
her feet, Veiled in the thin haze, indistinct and mirage, like the
very ghost of departed splendor, lies Rome, the vast reliquary of the world,
Rome, on whose monuments and ruins, every conceivable crime and every imaginable
virtue have set their stamp, where the tragedies of antiquity cry out the sacrifice
on Calvary. They had stood together a long time, looking down on it.
Then she had lost a little bunch of violets which she had been wearing,
and as she turned around to seek them, she had perceived that he
had picked them up and was holding them to his lips. Their eyes had
met. Yes, he had loved her. He loved her still he must,
she knew it. She told herself that, in pulsive and excitable as
he was, the merest trifle would suffice to bring him back to her.
But whether it was worth while to long so desperately for a man who could
be turned by the slightest breath, that she did not ask herself. And
through all the torturing whirl of these memories, above the clatter of the horse's
hoofs and the rattle of the wheels over the wretched pavement, she heard the
cry miserere de may, But her thoughts turned no more to the gods sacrificed
for a man. The strongest angel's wings cannot bear us quite to heaven,
so long as our heart dwells on earth. Good Night, she said,
kissing Gabrielle, as the carriage drew up at the door of the palacetto.
Will you let me have Mimi's scarf? For Gabrielle said, Tryne, I'm
afraid my little companion may catch cold. Oh, of course, cried Zinka,
and she wrapped the child carefully in the shawl and kissed her again.
When shall I learn to think of any one but myself, she added,
vexed with herself Easter Monday, all the bells in the chatches of Roma once
more wagging their brazen tongs after their week of dumb mourning, and images of
the Resurrection in every conceivable form, sugar wax soap decorate all the shop windows.
Baroness Volnitzka had returned fresher, gayer, and more enterprising than ever from
her visit to Naples, where she not only had had her self photographed in
a lyric attitude leaning on a pillar in the ruins of Pompeii, but in
spite of her huge size, which was very much against her taking such excursions,
she had, with the help of two guides and a remarkably vigorous mule,
reached the top of Vesuvius. Thanks too to a cardinal's nephew with whom
she had scraped acquaintance on her journey with a view to making him useful,
she had succeeded in obtaining not indeed a private audience of the Pope, but
leave to attend the private Mass and receive the communion in company with three hundred
other Orthodox souls from his sacred hand. This morning she had been to the
Palacetto to take leave of her sister, to ask once more after Sampali,
to give a full and particular account of the service at the Vatican, and
to deliver a discourse on the philosophical value of the mass. Slava, whose
orthodox he had been found to bigotry, and who Anista Eve had duly climbed
the Santaskala on her knees, had supplemented her mother's narrative with a variety of
interesting details. It was most exclusive, quite our own set, and few
families of the Polish colony. I wore my black satin dress beaded with a
jet and I heard a gentleman behind me say, that is the only woman
whose veil is put on with any taste. Stetzel had kept out of the
way during their visit. Zinca had smiled amiably, but had not attended.
Baroness Clotilde had plied her sister with questions. Then the Volidskas had left to
go to the consecration of a bishop, also by invitation from the cardinal's nephew.
The ladies were to be admitted to the sacristy and be presented with flowers
and refreshments. It was about six o'clock in the evening when Generelfon Klinger was
shown into the drawing room of the Palacetto. The room was not so pretty
as it used to be. The furniture was all set out squarely against the
walls by the symmetrical taste of the servants, and the flower vases that were
always so gracefully arranged now never held anything but bunches of magnolias or violets.
Zinka no longer cared to arrange them. I am so glad you happened to
have come today, she cried as he came in. The brilliancy of her
eyes and the redness of her lips showed that she was already suffering from that
terrible spring fever which makes harvoc with young creatures. In the warm days of
April and May. She was sitting by her brother on a low red sofa,
as she had so often sat with Simplely, the Baroness was lounging in
an armchair, fanning herself. There was a sort of triumphant solemnity in her
manner. Even Cecil too was evidently in some excitement, though his air was
just as frank and natural as ever good evening, General, what hot,
trying weather, drawled the baroness. It is an extraordinary event to find us
all at home together at this hour. But we all have a sacred horror
of the mob in the streets on a holiday afternoon. Oh, Mamma,
interrupted Zinka. It is not only the crowd. We wanted to enjoy our
good fortune together, did not weigh Cecil. He nodded and stroked her hair.
Yes, little Zini, only think Uncle Kilinga. You knew, of
course that Cecil's book on Persia had attracted a great deal of attention. But
that is not all. He has been appointed charges d'affaires at Constantinople. The
General offered his congratulations and shook hands warmly with the young man. I could
wish for nothing more exactly to my mind, said Cecil. There is always
something to do there. A man always has a chance of making his market.
Getting on. He was sincerely and frankly satisfied, and affected no indifference
to the distinction he had earned. Five We shall see you, ambassador,
exclaimed the General, with the happy exaggeration that is irresistible on such occasions.
We do not go quite so fast as that, laughed Sdetzel. However,
I hope to rise in due time. Will not you be proud of me,
Butterfly, when I am your excellency, I am proud of you already,
said Zinka. And you know how vain I am and how much I
value such things. It was the first time for some weeks that the general
had seen the two so happy together, and it rejoiced his heart. And
the climate is good, Schatzer went on, one of the best in Europe.
The foreign colony is friendly and pleasant. You will enjoy studying Oriental manners
from a bird's eye of Euzini, and the change of air will do you
good. You will take me too, she said, turning pale. Why,
of course, the Bay of Constantinople is lovely, and we can often
sail out on it. Then in the autumn, if I have time,
we will make an excursion in grease. You will be quite a traveled person.
He put his finger under her chin and looked with tender anxiety into her
thin face. Every trace of color had suddenly faded from it, and the
light that her brother's success had kindled in her eyes had died out. It
will be very nice, she said, wearily, delightful. Thank you,
cecil, You're always so kind. When are we to start? You might
get often about a week. The sea voyage will not overtire you, and
you can stop to rest at Athens. In the hot season, we can
go up to the hills. Then suddenly he glanced sharply in her face,
and his whole expression changed. He added, roughly, with a scowl,
but you need not come unless you like. Stay here if you choose,
I do not want to force you. At this instant, the maid appeared
to announce the arrival of a case from the railway. The new ball dresses,
cried the Baroness in great excitement. I am thankful they have come in
time. I was quite in despair for fear I should not have my new
gown in time for the ball at the Barancoliones. It would have seemed so
uncourteous to the princess. Now let us see what funny has hit upon that
is new, and she rustled out of the room. Zinca sat still with
a frozen smile, looking like a criminal to whom the day of execution had
just been announced, and uneasily twisting her fingers. Of course, I like
it Cecil, how can you think? And on Wednesday week we can start.
Wednesday will be best. Now I must go and see what my new
dress is like. Do not laugh at me, uncle. I must make
myself look as nice as I can for my last appearance. And she hurried
off, but on her way she stumbled against the table, and the book
fell to the ground. She stopped, picked the book up, turned over
the leaves, and laid it down. Then, as if she wished to
make up to her brother for some unkindness, she went back to Cecil and
put her hand on his shoulder. I do really thank you very much,
she said, And I am glad, really and truly glad, and very
proud of you. He looked up in her face and their eyes met.
His lips quivered with rage, the rage of a lofty, generous and masterful
nature at finding itself incapable of making a woman dear to it happy. Zinca
shrank into herself my ball dress, she faintly exclaimed, and she slipped out
of the room. For a few minutes, the two men were silent presently.
The General's Zinca is going to the Broncoliones tomorrow, yes, replied Stetzer.
At least she has promised to go. Whether she will change her mind
at the last moment and stay at home, of course I cannot foresee,
but she really seems to care about it this time, said the general.
At least she took an interest in her dress. Her dress. She did
not even know what she was talking about. She fled that we might not
see her tears. Schatzl broke out, losing all his self control. Then
he looked sternly at his friend, as though he thought he had betrayed a
secret. But the old man's sad face reassured him. It is of no
use to try to act before you, he went on. You are not
blind. You must see how wretched she is. It is all over,
General, she is utterly broken. He started to his feet, and,
after pacing the room two or three times, stood still, and, with
helpless wave of the hands and a desperate shrug, he exclaimed, there is
nothing to be done. Nothing, And he sat down again and buried his
face in his hands. Von Klinger cleared his throat, paused for a word,
and could find nothing better to say than in time things will mend.
You must have patience. Patience, echoed Steltzel with an indescribable accent patience.
Yes, if I could only hope that things would mend. At first it
provoked me that she should let everybody see No. I thought she might have
more spirit and self command. But now, good heavens, she does all
she can, and it is killing her. That is not her fault.
If only she were resentful. But she never complains. She is always content
with everything. She never even contradicts my mother. Now, and then what
is worst of all? I hear her at night? Her room is so
over a mine, walking up and down, very softly, as if she
were afraid of waking any one, Up and down for hours, and often
I hear her sobbing. She never sheds a tear by day, he sighed.
And then if it were for a man who was worth at all,
he went on. But that blue eyed, boneless good for nothing, simpleton.
I ought never to have allowed her to step out of her own sphere.
I ought never to have allowed them to become intimate. I knew he
was not worthy of her, even when, as I believed. But you
will laugh at my simplicity. Perhaps he condescended to be in earnest. You
cannot imagine what it is now to have to meet him every day, to
hear him ask every day, how are you all at home? I feel
ready to choke. I could crush him under foot like a warm and I
am bound to be civil. I may not even tell him that he has
insulted me. The baroness here came back lovely, she exclaimed, with her
affected giggle. Quite perfect. Zinca has never had a dress that suited her
so well. That is well, said Dedzel vaguely. Where is she?
She has gone to lie down. She has a bad headache, minced the
Baroness. The young girls of the present day have no stamina? Why at
her age? I the General was not in the mood to listen to her
sentimental reminiscences, and he took his leave in the hall. He once more
wrung Cecil's hand. Fortune has favored you, he said, you have a
splendid career before you, and in her new and pleasant home, Zinca will
forget. I congratulate you on your new start in life. Aye, his
new start in life. End of Part three, Chapter one, Part three,
Chapter two of Our Own set by Ossip Shubin, translated by Clarabelle.
This Libovoxycuiding is in the public domain recording by Carolyn Part three, chapter two.
The Branco Leone Palace, on the slope of the Quirinal is one of
the finest in Rome, and particularly famous for its gardens, laid out in
terraces down the side of the hill, with the lower rooms of the palazzo
opening onto the uppermost level. The dancing was in a large, almost square
room adjoining a long vaulted corridor full of old pictures, relieved here and there
by the cold severity of an antique marble statue. It was lighted by marvelous
chandeliers of Venetian glass that hung from the ceiling. At the end of the
corridor, two steps led down into an ante room, dividing it from a
smaller sanctuary, where the gems of the Bronco Leone collections were displayed, mixed
up unfortunately with several modern monstrosities, and from this room a door opened into
the garden. Zinca arrived late. A transient and feverish expectancy lent her pinched
features the brilliancy they had lost, while her timid reserve gave her even more
charm than her former innocent self. Confidence, and her dress was certainly wonderfully
becoming. Nor had she lost all her old popularity, for she was soon
surrounded by a little crowd of Roman swells, one or two even of the
Jatinskas admirers deserted for Zinca Trine was not present. The cold histe little girl
had court at Saint Peter's had developed into a serious ill, and he could
not leave her. Zinka with her gliding grace, her small head held a
little high, and her softened glance was still pretty to watch as she danced
and attracted general attention. The music, the splendor of the entertainment, the
consciousness of looking well put her into unwonted spirits. She sent a searching glance
around the room. No, he was not there. She Danzel stood talking
with the general, delighted with her little, triumphant, charming appearance. Then
he was congratulated by several men of distinction on his recent promotion. He thanked
them with characteristic simplicity and sincerity. The evening was a success for him too.
Not long after midnight he left to attend to pressing business. Matters were
in a very unsettled state, and went to the embassy Within a short time,
Sempaly came in. He had spent the previous night, as was very
generally known at Card's. This was a new form of dissipation for him.
He had lost a great deal of money, and he looked worn and out
of spirits. He did not care for dancing, and came so late to
ask his handsome cousins for the courtiller that they were both engaged, a result
to which he was so manifestly indifferent that Nenia actually wiped away a secret tear.
He was now standing with his fingers in his waistcoat pockets and his glass
in his eye, exchanging impertinent comments with a number of other young men on
the figure of this woman or that girl, and trying to imagine himself in
the position of the fabulous savage who found himself for the first time in a
civilized ball room. Suddenly he was silent, and something had arrested his attention.
The band was playing a waltz at that time very popular, stirring Gimi
by Tosti. The room was very hot. It was the moment when the
curls of the young ladies begin to straighten, and their movements, at first
little prim begin to gain in freedom. When there is an electrical tension in
the air suggestive of possible storms, and the most indifferent locron is aware of
an obscure excitement. Crespignee and Sinker spun past him. Zinca pale and cool
in the midst of the emotional stir around her. She was not living in
the present. She was in a dream. Suddenly, Krispigny, who was
not a good dancer, stumbled against another couple, caught his foot in a
lady's train, and fell with his partner. Simply pushed his way through the
dancers with blind force, and was the first to help Zinka to her feet,
without thinking for a moment of the hundred eyes that were fixed upon him.
He leaned over the young girl. Her power over him had risen from
the dead. She bewildered by her fall, did not, perhaps at first,
see who it was that had helped her to rise. She clung to
his arm with half shut eyes. Then as he whispered a few sympathizing words,
she looked up, started colored, and shrank from him. A very
unpleasant accident, said some of the ladies. Sempaly had taken possession of Zinka's
slunder hand and drew it with gentle insistence through his arm. Then he let
her out of the heated ball room into the adjoining gallery. The accident for
which she had besieged heaven with prayers had happened, the accident which threw him
once more in her way. His old passion was awake again. Saw it,
she could read it in his eyes. She summoned up all her self
command to conceal her happiness, not so much out of deliberate calculation as from
genuine timidity and womanly pride. He talked, saying all sorts of eager,
sympathetic things. She asked only the coldest and simplest questions. He had fetched
her a wrap, and with the white shawl thrown around her, he led
her from one room to another, among the fan palms and creamy yellow statues.
Now and then she spoke to some acquaintance whom they met wandering like themselves,
But these were fewer and fewer. This supper room was thrown open,
and everyone was gone to the buffet. Zinka's coldness, for which he was
not at all prepared, provoked simply greatly. He felt with sudden conviction that
there could be no joy on earth to compare with that of once holding her
in his arms and kissing her, devouring her with kisses. This image took
entire possession of him, and beyond the possible fulfillment of that dream, he
did not look. That joy must be his at any cost, if the
whole world were to crumble at his feet. Zinka, he said, in
a low tone, Zinka, lent is over, Easter is come. Yes,
what do you mean, she said, coldly, almost sternly. I
mean, he said, and he looked her straight in the face, that
I have fasted, and that now I will feast and be happy. They
were in a small room, a sort of raised recess, divided from the
ballroom by a row of pillars. They were alone. A joy so acute
as to be almost pain came over as a It blinded and stunned her.
She did not speak, She did not smile. She did not even look
up at him. She could not have stirred even if she had wished it.
She was paralyzed. He thought she would not hear him. Zinca,
he urged, can you not forgive me for having jingled the fool's cap for
six weeks till I could not hear the music of the spheres. Can you
not forgive me for the sake of the misery I have endured? I can
bear it no longer. I confess and yield unconditionally. I cannot live without
you. Zinka was not strong enough to bear such emotion. The terrible tangent
to which for the last quarter of an hour her pride had compelled her,
gave way. She tottered, put out her hands and was falling. He
put his arm around her, and with the other hand pushed open a glass
door that led into the godden Come out the air will do you good,
he said, scarcely audibly, and they went out on to the deserted terrace.
His arm clasped her more closely and drew her to him involuntarily. He
waited till she could make some effort to free herself from his hold, but
she was quite passive. She only raised a tear bedued face with a blissful
gaze into his eyes and whispered, I ought not to forgive you so easily.
And then, with no more distrust or fear than a child clinging to
its mother, she let her head fall on his shoulder and sobbed for happiness.
His strange reverence came over him. The sound of some chatch bell came
up from the city. He kissed her with solemn tenderness on the forehead and
only said, my darling, my sake, treasure. She was safe.
When the General came out of the card room to look once more at the
dances before he withdrew the contillon, with its fanciful figures and lavish distribution of
ribbons and flowers, was nearly over. What a cruel idea he heard in
a lamentable voice from one of the row of chaprins, to give a ball
in such a heat as this. It was the baroness who was searching all
around the room with her eye glass and a very sour and pocket expression of
face. Zigburg, who, as the General knew, was to have danced
the courtillon with Zinca, was sitting out. When from Klinger asked him the
reason, He answered very calmly that he believed Zinka had felt tired and had
gone home. But the way in which she said it roused the old man's
suspicions. That he put forward this hypothesis to prevent any further sach being made
for Zinca. He had seen her last in the corridor with Sempali, and
he hurried off to find her. He sought in Vain and all the nooks
hidden by the plants in Vain, in the recesses behind the pillars, but
the door to the garden was open. This filled him with apprehension. He
went out, sure that he must be following them. The air was suppressively
sultry and damp. It crushed him with a sense of hopeless anxiety. This
Sciroco had cast its baleful spell over Rome. Northern US who have never been
in Rome have no idea of the nature of the Sciroco. They supposed to
be a storm of hot wind. No, it is when the air is
still and damp, when it distills, but does not after heavy perfume,
that the Sciroco diffuses its poison, a subtle influence compounded of the scent of
flowers that it forces into life, only to destroy them. Of the mists
from the Tiber, whose yellow flood like mud mixed with gold, which rolls
over the corpses and treasure that lie buried in its depth, of the exhalations
from the grave, and the perennial incense from all the churches of Rome.
The Scirocho cheats the soul with delusive fancies and fills the heart with a gloom
and oppression. It inspires the imagination with dreams of splendid achievement, and stretches
the limbs on a couch in languor and exhaustion. It penetrates even the cool
seclusion of the cloister, and breathes on the pale cheek of the young nun
who is struggling for devout aspiration, reminding her of long forgotten dreams. All
that is melancholy, all that is cruel and wicked in Rome, much too,
that is beautiful, is engendered by the Sciroco. It is creative of
glorious conceptions and of hideous deeds. One feels inclined to fancy that on the
day when Caesar fell under the dag of Brutus, Sciroco and Tramontane fought their
last fight for the mastery of Rome, and Sciroko won. The day,
a dense gray cloud hung over the city and veiled the sinking Moon, a
cascade that tumbled from basin to basin down the terraced slope of the quirinal plashed
weirdly in the deep twilight of the earliest dawn, which was just beginning shyly
to vie with the dying moon light and shade had ceased to exist. The
whole scene presented the dim smutch defect of a rubbed charcoal drawing. The General
sent a peering glance through the laurel hedged alleys that let down the hill.
Above the clipped evergreens rose huge ilexes, wreathed to the very top with ivy
and climbing roses. Here and there, something white gleamed dimly in the gray.
He rushed to meet it. It was a statute, or a white
blossomed shrub. Roses and magnolias opened their blossoms to the solitude, and the
scent of orange flowers filled the heavy air, stronger than all the other perfumes
of the morning. Now and then, like a faint sigh, a shiver
ran through the leaves, the fall of a dying flower. The old man
held his breath to listen. He called zinca sampalis. No answer. Suddenly
he heard low voices in a path known as the alley of the Sarcophagus,
and thither he bent his steps. The sullen light fell through a gap in
the leafy wall on simply and Zinka seated on a bench, hand in hand
and talking familiarly, forgetful of all the world. Besides, Zinka was the
first to see him, she was not in the least disconcerted. Oh,
Uncle Kilinga, she exclaimed, Mamma is waiting for me. I dare say,
but do not scold me. I entreat you. Thank God for those
happy, innocent eyes that looked so frankly into his on purity like hers.
Skiroko could have no power. No, he could not be angry with her,
but he SAMPLI cried the old man, indignantly. What possesses you?
I have at length made up my mind to be happy, said simply,
with feeling, and he raised Zinka's hand to his lips. That is all.
And I ought not to have forgiven him so easily all te murmured Zinka,
quailing at the general's stern frown, and her head drooped. Zinka has
been missed. You know how spiteful people are, exclaimed Vanklinga, angrily,
ignoring the sentimentality of the situation, simply interrupted him with vehement irritation. What
I should like to do, he said, half to himself, is to
go straight back to the ball room and tell my most intimate friends at once
of our engagement. But even as he spoke, he reconsidered the matter.
But I cannot, he went on. Unfortunately I cannot. I must,
even in trade you, Zinka, to keep it a secret, even from
your own household. Come at once with me, said the General dryly.
My carriage is waiting in the piazza. If I am not mistaken, there
is a little gate here which leads on to it. A yes, here
it is. I will tell your mother, so that others shall hear it,
that you felt ill and left before the contien began, and that lady
Julia took you home. When Zinka was safely on her way to the palacetto
in charge of the General's trusty old coachman, the two men looked each other
in the face. Outrageous growled the General furiously simply turned upon him. Quickly,
think what you will of me, he said, But do not let
the shadow of a suspicion rest on Zinca. You know that if you hold
up across to the devil himself, his power is quelled without answering a word.
The general hurried past Sempalis and straight into the ball room, but he
found time to look behind him the alcove door leading into the garden. In
the ball room, he was met by the Baroness, who anxiously asked him,
where Zinca have you seen Zinka. Zinka felt shaken and upset by her
fall. She went away a long time since with Lady Julia, who took
her home. He spoke very distinctly and in French, so that several persons
who were standing near might hear him. She might have let me know,
exclaimed the Baroness. Peevishly. We looked for you, but could nowhere find
you, said the general. Never in his life before had he told a
lie at some unearthly hour. The next morning, he called on Lady Julia
to confide to her the whole mystery of the night's adventure. That she might
not contradict his story. As he had actually put Zinka into her carriage,
there seemed to be no other danger. Though she disliked the falsehood as much
as he did, she was quite ready to confirm the fiction. At the
same time, she could not help saying again and again, poor little thing.
I hope it may all come right. And of Part three, Chapter
two, Part three, Chapter three of Our Own set by Osipshubin, translated
by Clara Belle. This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Recording by
Caroline. Part three, Chapter three, Dearest Zinka, my own sweet love.
My brother arrived in Rome last night. He is on his way to
Australia, and I am thankful to say stays only a few days. So
long as he is here, I must make every sacrifice and hardly see you
at all, for he must know nothing of our engagement. Now shall I
tell you the real, sordid reason why I cannot speak to him of my
happiness during these last few miserable weeks, simply and solely to kill the time.
I have gambled and have always been unlucky, and I have got deeply
into debt. My brother will pay, as he always has done, so
long as the conditions remain unchanged. But however, it is not a matter
to write about believe this much, only that his narrow views can never affect
my feelings towards you, though I may seem to yield, for I think
it useless to provoke his antagonism. As soon as he has sailed, there
will be nothing in the way of our engagement, and we will be married
immediately. To an accomplished fact, he must surrender if I possibly can.
I will see you this evening at the palacett door, just to have one
kid sent a loving word, till then I can only implore you to keep
this absolutely secret. You're perfectly devoted NS. This was the note that Zinka
received the morning after the ball, as she was breakfasting alone in her own
room rather than usual, but with a convalescent appetite. The color mounted to
her cheeks and her eyes flushed indignantly. Coldness and neglect she had borne,
But the meanness and weakness, the moral cowardice that his note betrayed, degraded
him in her eyes till she almost scorned him. She felt as though a
sudden glare had shown her the real sempaly, as though the man she loved
was not he but someone else. The man she had loved was a lofty,
young god who had chosen to descend from his high estate to break the
heart of an insignific vant girl who ought to have thought herself happy, only
to have gazed upon him. But this was a boneless, nerveless mortal who
could stoop to pity subterfuge for fear of having to face the wrath of his
brother. She was furious. All the pride that had been crushed into silence
by her dejection was roused to arms. She went to her desk and Rhodes
as follows. I am prepared to marry you in defiance of your brother's will,
but I could never think of becoming your wife behind his back. I
am ready to defy him, but I do not choose to cheat him.
It is of no use to come to the house this evening unless you are
quite clear on this point. I could not think of marrying you unless I
were perfectly sure that I was more indispensable to your happiness than your brother's good
will. You must therefore consider yourself released from every tie, and regard out
the words you spoke yesterday in a moment of excitement, as if faced from
my memory. Ever, yours, Zinkastiatzo Zinca enclosed this peremptory note in an
envelope, addressed it rang for her maid, and desired her to have it
sent immediately to the Palazzo di Vinizia. And shall I say there's an answer,
asked the girl. No, said Zinka shortly. No. Sooner had
the maid gone on her errand than the helpless Zinka felt utterly wretched, and
almost repented of having written so indignantly. She might have said all that was
in the note without expressing herself so bitterly she thought the words over knit.
Her brows, shook her head, and at that moment her eye fell on
another letter, which had been brought to her with some palice, and which
she had forgotten to open. She saw that the writing was Trains. She
hastily read the note, which which was a short one. Dear Zinca,
my poor little girl has been much worse, and the doctor gives me very
little hope. She constantly asks for you, both when she is conscious and
in her delirium, Come to her, if you can, your old friend
train p s. It is nothing catching inflammation of the lungs. Zinca started
up. She forgot everything, her happiness, her grave, simply himself,
remembering only Trene's indefatigable kindness and the sorrow that threatened him. Nothing catching,
she repeated to herself, Poor man, he thinks of others even now,
it is just like him. While I I She colored deeply, for she
recollected how that evening the child had sat shivering by her side, and she
had not noticed it. I had my head turned by a kind word from
him, she thought, vexed with her own folly. In a very few
minutes, she was hurrying across the corso towards the Piazza d' spanna. Her
mate had some difficulty in keeping up with her. Zinca almost flew, heeding
nothing and looking at no one, till in the Piazza d' spanna she came
upon a group of persons coming out of the Hotel de Landre and felt a
light hand on her arm. Looking around, she saw Nimi. Good morning.
Where are you off to in such a hurry? Asked the young countess
pleasantly. Good morning, said Zinca hastily. I am in a great hurry.
I am going to the Hotel de la Robe. Gabriel tren is very
ill. She wants to see me. But at this moment Zinca perceived a
tall, broad shouldered man with a very handsome face and haughty expression, standing
close to Nini. He was gazing at her with perfectly well bred admiration,
and Nini introduced him as Prince Sempaali. Then she saw that Nicholas Sempali was
just behind with Polisenna. His eyes met hers with a passionate flash, but
he only bowed with distant formality. Zinca had no time to think about his
manner. She was hardly conscious of his presence. All she felt was that
she was being detained. You must excuse me, she said, smiling an
apology to Nmi and shaking hands warmly with her, without stopping to think of
the formalities of caste. Poor Count Trine is expecting me, and she hurried
on again. Who is that sweet looking girl, Nini asked the prince,
For of course you omitted to mention her name. Freulanche d'atz, replied Nemi,
the sister of one of the secretaries to the embassy. Schtatzer repeated the
prince somewhat flatly. Ze Naidatze said Polissenna over her shoulder, But the ironical
accent emphasis she laid on the odd mixture of the romantic and the commonplace was
thrown away upon Prince Sempali, who was much too fine a gentleman to laugh
at his inferiors. All he said was Schtatzer. I seem to know the
name Schtatzer. I served for a time under a Colonel Schdatzel of the Uhlans.
He was a very superior man. Zinka, meanwhile, was flying onto
the Hotel de la Rope. In the sun flooded courtyard stood two rose trays,
a white and a red. Two brown, curly headed little boys were
fighting a duel with walking sticks. In a shady corner. Two English families
were a packing themselves into rum Milandorus for an excursion, and sending the servants
in and out to fetch things that they had forgotten. The air was full
of the scent of roses and sunshine and laughter. But one of the English
women hushed her companion, who had laughed rather loudly, and pointing up to
one of the windows, said, remember the sick child. A cold chill
phelon Zinka's hart. She ran up the familiar stairs in Troyne's drawing rooms at
Gabriel's English governess, anxious but helpless, may I go in? Asked Zinka.
No, wait a minute, the doctor's there. At this moment Troyne
came out of the child's room with doctor e the German physician, and conducted
him downstairs. Train had the fixed carom white face of a man who is
accustomed to his sorrows alone. When he returned, he went up to zinc
and took her hand. She asks for you constantly, he said, But
do you think you can prevent her, seeing that you are unhappy and alarmed.
Yes, indeed you may trust me, said Zinca, bravely, wiping
away her tears, and she went into the child's room as silent and bright
as a sunbeam. And of Part three, chapter three, Part three,
chapter four of our Own set by of Subshubin, translated by Clara Belle.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Carolyn Part three, chapter
four. Someone must have seen zinc And simply in the course of their moonlight
walk, or else have found out something about it in spite of the general's
precautions. This was made evident by an article which came out on the Friday
after the ball in a French society paper published weekly in Rome. The title
of the article was a Moonlight Contillore. It began with an exact description of
Zinca, of whom it spoke as Freulein z A s dash L, the
sister of a secretary in the Austrian Embassy, referred to the sensation produced by
her appearance as Lady Jane Gray, spoke of her as an elegant adventuress,
a professional beauty, and hinted at her various unsuccessful schemes for winning a princely
coronet, schemes which had culminated in a moonlight walk a few nights since during
a ball at the house of a distinguished member of Roman society, and which
had outdone in audacity all that had ever been known to the Coronique Scandalus of
Rome. Will she earn her reward in the form of a cornet? And
will the pages of High Life ere long announce a fashionable marriage in which this
young lady will fill a part that is the question? So the article ended
High Life. This was the name of the paper graced by this effusion,
was scouted, abused, and condemned by everybody, covidly maintained by several,
and read by most with disgust and indignation. It is true, but still
read on this fateful Friday, every copy of High Life was sold in no
time, and before the sun had said, Zinca's name was in every mouth.
What said the world of Rome? Lady Julia cried, had some tea,
and went to bid. Mister Ellis said shocking, assured his wife that
he was convinced of Zinka's innocence and that it would certainly triumph over a calumny,
after which she quietly went about his business and spent two whole hours in
practicing a difficult passage on the concertina. It was the Brawers, the Setzel's
old neighbors before mentioned, who contributed chiefly to the diffusion of the article,
supplementing it with their own comments. They had some acquaintance among the cream of
Rome, though they had not been invited to the ball at the Braco Leone
Palace. Frau Brauers assumed a tone of perfidious compassion. It was a terrible
affair for a young girl's reputation, though for her part, she could see
nothing extraordinary in the moonlight wandering with an intimate friend her husband, to whom
the Scheedzel family had paid very little attention. The baroness out of conceit and
sesilent Zinca, because he was in fact intolerably affected, pompuous, and patronizing,
said with a sneering smile that he had never seen anything to admire in
that little adventuress, with her free and easy innocence, pushing herself into society.
She was not born too. She had always thought it most unbecoming,
and it must be a pleasant thing. Indeed, for the Duchess of Bracolione
to have such a scandalous business take place in her house. She would be
more careful for the future whom she invited. Madame de Gondri and Missus Ferguson
thought the article very amusingly written, not that they would ever have said a
word about such a piece of imprudence, for really, no one was safe
to be sure. Any evil that might be written again them would be a
lie, a pure invention, which, in Zinca's case was quite unnecessary.
So they sent the paper round to all their friends as a warning against a
rushing into acquaintance with strangers. One cannot be too careful. Zinc had seemed
to them suspicious from the first, for after all, she was not the
real thing. All these spiteful and cruel insinuations. They even ventured to utter
in the presence of Princess Vulpini in the General's atlier, the spot where all
that circle concentrated whenever anything had occurred to excite or startle it, and they
made the princess furious. I am an Austrian myself, she said, and
was brought up with ideas of exclusiveness, which are as much above suspicion as
they are beyond your comprehension. I am strictly conservative in all mine views.
But Zinca is elect by nature, an exceptional creature before whom all such laws
give way. I should have regarded it as pure folly to sacrifice the pleasure
of her acquaintance for the sake of a social dogma. Exceptions always fair badly,
murmured the General. Contesse Ilsenberg, who was as strict on points of
honor as she was on matters of etiquette, was deeply aggraved by the article.
She expressed herself briefly but strongly on the subject of the freedom of the
press, and confessed that whether Zinca were innocent or guilty, things looked very
ugly for Sempalis. The Count rushed into eloquence, giving an exhaustive discourse on
the whole social question. Princess Vulpini is quite right, he said, for
lanchdeat'sl is a bewitching creature, quite a and if any departure from traditional law
is ever permissible, it would be so in her case. But the general
is too right. Exceptions must always fare badly in the world, and we
cannot endanger the very essence and being of social stability in order to improve the
position of any single individual. Above all, we must never create a precedent,
and he proceeded to enlarge on the horrible consequences which must result from such
a mixture of classes, referred to the example of France, and proposed the
introduction of the Hindu system of caste in its strictest application, as a further
bulwark for the protection of society in Europe and the coercion of ambitious spirits.
His wife, at this juncture objected that European society had not yet reached such
a summit of absolute exclusiveness as he would assume, and that consequently, what
was immediately needed was not any such far reaching scheme for its protection, but
some plan for dealing with the disagreeable circumstances in which its imperfection had at this
time placed them. He replied that the matter lay in a nutshell. Either
the story in High Life was a lie, in which case Sempaly had nothing
to do but to deny it categorically, to prove an alibi at the hour
mentioned, and to horsewhip the editor or the facts stated were true. And
then, under the circumstances there was nothing for it. But the lady's previous
character was quite above suspicion. There was nothing for it but and he shrugged
his shoulders. But to make free Lanche d'azzel contesse, Sempaly, cried Madame
de Gondri. Well, I must say, I do think it rather too
much to give an adventurous little chit a coronet as a reward for sheer imprudence.
But I beg your pardon. General, I had forgotten that you are
a friend of the family, and I exclaimed the General, beside himself and
quite pale with rage. I, Madame, was within an ace of forgetting
that I was listening to a lady princess. Wilpini interposed you yourself, said
Madame, that he had always avoided any acquaintance with Zinca. Now I have
known her intimately and seen her almost every day. I have observed her demeanor
with Min, with young Min, and heard her conversation with other girls.
And I can assure you that the word imprudence is no more applicable to her
conduct than to that of my little girl of three. And if she did,
in fact go into the garden with my cousin the knight of the ball,
it is a proof simply of romantic thoughtlessness, of such perfect, unsuspicious
innocence that it ought of itself to protect her against slander. I spent last
night with Zinka by the bedside of my little niece, who is ill,
And no girl with a stain on her conscience could look so sweetly pure,
or a smile with such childlike sincerity. I would put my hand in the
fire for her spotless innocence. The princess spoke with such dignity and warmth,
and while she spoke, she fixed such a scathing eye on Madame de Gondriy
that the frenchwoman abashed, and in spite of herself, could only mutter some
incoherent answer, and with a drew with missus Ferguson in her awake. The
four Austrians were alone. The person who puzzles me in this business, said
the princess is Nicki Sampali. As soon as this wretched paper came into my
hands, I sent it to his rooms. There I heard that he had
just gone out with the Jatinskis. I went to the Hotel Delorope to talk
it over with my brother, but he had gone to lie down, and
I had not the heart to wake him. Besides, he could have done
no good, and I could not bear to disturb his happiness over his child's
amendment. So I came to unburden my heart to you. General. Simply
cannot have seen it yet, suggested Elzenburg. The princess shrugged her shoulders.
Comtesse Ilzenburg once more expressed her opinion that it was a very unpleasant affair and
that she had foreseen it all from the first, after which, finding that
it would be difficult to prevent her husband from delivering another lecture, she arose
to go. Had this instant Prince Vulpini came into the studio with a beaming
countenance. Ah, here you are. I saw the carriage at the door
as I was passing. Have you heard the latest news. Simply is engaged
to Zinca, cried his wife. No, cried the Prince. The wind
last night tore down the national flag on the coirinal. Hurrah for the Tramontana.
A few minutes later, the General was alone. After a moment's hesitation,
he took up his hat and hurried off to the palacetto to see how
madters stood there. He was one of those who had been the latest to
hear of the slenderer's article, and at the same time to be the most
deeply wounded by it. But perhaps by this time simply had engaged himself to
Zinca, he said to himself, and he hastened his pace. It was
the baroness's day at home. This silly woman was sitting dressed and displayed a
gray glove on one hand, while with the other she pretended to arrange it
dish of bombones. How kind of you, she exclaimed. As the General
entered the room, the stereotyped formula came piping out of her thin lips without
the smallest variation to every fresh visitor, as chilling and as colorless as snow.
He had hardly greeted the baroness when he looked around for Zinka at first,
without seeing her. It was not till a bright voice exclaimed, here,
I am uncle, Come and give me a kiss that he discovered her
in the darkest corner of the room, leaning back in a deep armchair and
looking rather tired and sleepy, but wonderfully pretty and unwontedly happy. I am
so tired, so tired, you cannot think how tired I am, she
said, laying his hand coaxingly against her cheek. And Mamma, is so
cruel as to insist on my staying in the drawing room, because it is
her day at home. And I was sound asleep when you came in.
For Thank Heaven, we have had no visitors yet. I sat with Gabriel
all last night and the night before without closing my eyes. But then I
was so glad to think that the little pet would not take her medicine from
any one but me, And last night, at length, in the middle
of one of my stories, she fell asleep on my shoulder. But then,
in order not to disturb her, I sat quite still for six hours.
I felt as if I had been nailed to a cross and to day.
I am so stiff, I can hardly move. And she stretched her
arms and curled herself into her chair again with the pretty caressing action of her
shoulders. You ought to have stayed in bed, said the general paternally.
Oh, dear, no, why I slept on till quite late in the
morning. Besides my being tired is of no real import. Utens the great
pointers that Gabriel is out of danger. Oh if anything had happened to her,
and she shuddered, I cannot bear to think of it. Count Trayne
is firmly convinced that I have contributed in some mysterious way to the child's amendment.
And when I came away this morning, he kissed my hands in gratitude,
as if I had been the Holy Bambino himself. I laughed and cried
both at once. And now I am so happy. My heart feels as
light as one of those air balls the children carried tight by a string,
that they may not fly off up to the clouds. But why do you
look so grave? Are you not as glad as I am? Uncle?
That the baroness, who had been looking at her watch here, expressed her
surprise that not a living soul had come near them to day. You are
evidently not a living soul. Uncle, nothing but my dear grumpy old friend,
said Zinca, with her pathetic little laugh. There was something peculiarly caressing
and touching about her to day. The old man's eyes were moist and his
heart bled for the sweet child. Outside the door, they heard a heavy
swift step, the step of a man impressing but crushing trouble. The door
was torn open, and stazzled breathless green rather than pale, foaming with rage,
stomped in a newspaper in his hand. What is the matter, What
has happened? Cried Zinca, dismayed. He came straight up to her and
stared at her with dreadful eyes. Were you really in the garden with sempaly
during the courtillon? He said hoarsely, Yes, she said, trembling.
He gave a little start and shuddered, tottered, then pulled himself up and
flung the newspaper at her feet. At hers his butterfly. His darling read
that, he said. Van Klinger tried to seize the paper, but Shedtzel
held him with a fan hand. Eurliniency is out of place, he said,
dully, she may read anything, Zinka red. Suddenly she sprang up
with a cry of horror, and the paper fell out of her hand.
Even now she did not understand the matter. Exactly what was she accused of,
she did not know, only that it was something unwomanly and disgraceful,
Cecil. She began looking into his face, Cecil, and then she covered
her face, which from white had turned crimson, with her hands. He
meanwhile, had felt the absolute innocence of the girl, and was repenting of
his rash and cruel wrath. Zini. He cried, forgive me. I
was mad with rage, mad, and he tried to put his arm around
her, but she held him off. Leave me, Leave me, she
said, no, I cannot forgive you, oh Cecil. If all the
newspapers in the world had said you had cheated, for instance, do you
think I should have believed them? He bent his head before her with certain
reverence. But this is different, Zini, he said, very gently.
I do not say it is an excuse for myself, but it is different.
You do not see how different, because you are a child, an
angel, poor sweet little butterfly. And he drew her strongly to his breast
and laid his lips on the golden head. She, however, would not
surrender, and insisted on freeing herself. What on earth is going on?
The baroness asked again for the twentieth time, getting even now no reply,
She picked up the newspaper that was lying on the floor, caught sight of
the article, read a few lines of it, and broke out into railing
complaints of Zinca, enumerting all the sins of which Zinca had been guilty from
her earliest years, and particularly within her recent memory, and ending with the
words, and you will ruin, Cecil, Yet in his career, be
quiet, mother said Cecil sternly. My career is not the present question.
We must think of our honor and of her happiness. And, leaning over
the fragile and trembling form of his sister, he said, imploringly, tell
me Zeni exactly what happened. She had freed herself from his clasp and was
standing before him with her arms folded across rigid though tremulous, and her voice
was cold and monotonous as she obeyed him and gave with naive exactitude her short
and simple report, blushing as she spoke. When she had ended cecil drew
a deep breath, and since that you have heard nothing of simply, he
asked. The next morning he sent me a note, Zinka, do not
be angry with me. Show me that note. She left the room and
soon returned with the letter, which she handed to Stetze. He read it
through with great gravity and marked attention. Then, knitting his brows, he
slowly folded it up and turned it over. And you, answered him,
he asked, yes, And what did you say? Very little that I
was quite prepared to marry him without his brother's consent, but behind his brother's
back. No, in the midst of his trouble. A flush of pride
lighted up Stetzel's weary eyes. Bravo, he murmured, and he took his
answer in silence. Zinca paused to think, yes, she said, but
no, he sent me a note to the Hotel de la Robe. And
what does he say in that? I have not read it yet. It
came just at the moment when Gabriel was at the worst, and then I
forgot it. But here it is, and she drew it out of the
pocket of her blue serge dress. Sderzel shook his head and glanced with a
puzzled air at his sister. Then he opened the note. It was as
follows, my darling little treasure, my haughty, indignant little sweetheart. Immediately
on the receipt of your note, I rushed to see you. The porter
told me that you were not at home, but with your poor little friend
Gabrielle. Of course, I cannot think of intruding on you there, though
I would this day give a few years of my life for sight of you,
for one sooner than lose you. I am ready to throw up everything
command and I obey, but no, I must be wise for us both.
I must wait till my affairs are somewhat in order. There is no
help for it. I can only ask your forgiveness. I kiss your hands
and the hem of your garment. I am utterly unworthy of you, but
I love you beyond words, simply. When Sheetzel had read this highly characteristic
letter, he slowly paced the room two or three times, and finally stood
in front of his sister. Then, taking her hand and kissing it fondly,
he said, forgive me, Zini. I am really proud of you.
You have behaved like an angel, but he he is a contemptible sneak.
But this she could not stand. I do not defend him, she
exclaim, vehemently. But at any rate, he loves me, and he
understands me. He at any rate, would never have suspected me. And
and but it was in vain that she paused for a word. She could
say nothing more in his favor, but she called up all her pride,
and, holding her head very high, she left the room. As soon
as she was outside, they could hear her sob convulsively. The Baroness rose
to follow her, but Cecil stood in her way. Where are you going,
he asked sternly to Zinka. I really must make her see what mischief
she has done. It is outrageous. Why at thirteen I should have known
better? She had slid, smiled bitterly. Very likely, he said,
But I must beg you to leave Zinca to herself. She is miserable enough
without that. And are we to submit to her heedlessness without even reproving her
for it? Said the Baroness indignantly. Yes, mother, he said decidedly.
Our business now is not to reprove her, but to protect and comfort
her. Had this junctured dinner was announced, she yet sell bigged the General
to remain and dine with them, for he had he said, several things
to talk over with him. He evidently wished above everything to avoid being alone
with his mother. Before sitting down, he went to Zinka's room to see
whether she would not eat at least a little soup. But he came back
much distressed. She would hardly speak to me, he said, she is
quite beside herself, and he himself sat in silence, eating nothing, drinking
little, crumbling his bread, and playing with his napkin. Each time the
door opened, he looked anxiously around. The meal was short and uncomfortable.
When they had returned to the drawing room and were drinking their coffee, the
servant brought Schatzel a letter cecil. Took it hastily, looked at the address,
and, not recognizing the writing, at last opened it. It contained
only a half sheet of notepaper with a cleverly sketched caricature Schedzel himself as auctioneer,
the hammer in one hand, a doll in the other, and before
him the coroneted heads of Rome. Schedzel at once recognize the likeness, though
his lank figure was absurdly exaggerated, and his whole appearance made as grotesque as
possible. He only shrugged his shoulders and said, indifferently, does anyone really
think that such a thing as this can hurt or vex me? Now,
look, General, simply no doubt as the ingenuous artist of this masterpiece.
The General took the paper and would have torn across to prevent Sdeazza from examining
it any further. But before he could do so, Cecil, looking over
his shoulder, had snatched it out of his hand. There's something written on
it, he said, deciphering the scribble in one corner in Simplice's weak,
illegible handwriting. Mademoiselle schdatz going going gone, Ah, I understand. His
face grew purple, and he breathed with difficulty to send you this is contemptible,
cried the General simply drew this before he had ever seen Zinca. I
know it. I was present at the time. What difference does that make,
said Schatzl. If this is the view people took off me and my
proceedings, Oh well, and after all they were right. I should have
liked to see my sister brilliantly married. I meant it well, and I
have made myself ridiculous and have been the ruin of the poor child. His
rage and misery were beyond control. He walked up and down, then suddenly
stood still, looking out of the open window. Then again he paced the
room simplice incomprehensible. He began quite incomprehensible. I had no very high opinion
of his character, particularly lately, but I could not have supposed him capable
of such baseness and cruelty. What do you gather from his not coming here
to day? He simply has not happened to see the paper. The General
suggested he has gone on some expedition with his brother and his cousins. Well,
But even supposing that he has not read this article, Saich debts a,
it still is very strange that, as matters stand between him and Zinker,
he should have let two days go by with without making any attempt to
see her. The General was silent. You know him better than I do.
Cecil began again presently, And as Zinka tells me, you are present
during some part of this romantic moonlight promenade, do you think he seriously intends
to marry her? I know that he is madly in love with her,
and even the Ilsenburgs, who were discussing the matter at my house with the
princess Volpini saw no alternative for him, irrespective of his attachment to her,
but to make her an offer. We shall see murmured Dabzir. He looked
at the clock half past nine. He exclaimed, this is becoming quite mysterious.
I will try once more to see him at his rooms. His chasseur
will perhaps know one he is expected to return home. Would you mind remaining
here, he added, in alone voice, keep my mother from going to
Zinka. The poor child cannot bear it, and he hurried off. In
about half an hour he returned well, asked the General. He set out
at one o'clock for Frascati with the Prince the Jatinskis, and Zigbourg said she
deadzel gloomily. When I asked whether he was to be back this evening,
the man said certainly, for he was to set off tomorrow morning with his
excellency the Ambassador. He has been afraid to declare his engagement for fear of
a scene with his brother. He has gone out of Rome for fear of
a scene with me. High life was lying open on his writing table.
They heard the light rustle of address. Chad looked around. Behind him stood
Zinka, with tumbled hair and anxious, eager, tear dimmed eyes. Zinka,
he cried, stepping forward to catch her, for her gaze was fixed.
She staggered, put out her hands with a helpless gesture, and fell
into his arms. He laid her head tenderly on his shoulder and carried her
away. And of Part three, Chapter four, Part three, chapter five
of Our Own set by a Subshubin, translated by Clara Belle. This librivoxycording
is in the public domain recording by Caroline Part three, Chapter five. Sampali's
nervous system was very sensitive, and his ear remarkably delicate. He had,
in consequence a horror a perfect mania of aversion for any scene which might involve
excitement and loud talking. Besides this, he had the peculiarity, common enough
with the spoilt children of fortune, of always ignoring, as far as possible,
the inevitable difficulties of life, in the hope that some deus ex machina
would interfere to set matters straight for him. His passion for Zinca was perfectly
genuine at once vehement and tender, far from diminishing, it had, if
possible, increased during these last three days. Though that hour of sentimental and
guileless's talk with Zinca under the midnight moon had for sometimes satisfied her, it
had only fevered him. And while his cowardly double dealing had lowered him in
her esteem, her straightforward pride had raised her infinitely in his. He was
utterly miserable, but this did not prevent him from allowing his good natured senior
to pay his ans debts, nor in order to propitiate him from paying specious
attentions to his cousins. It must, however, be said, in extenuation,
that his flirtation was not so much deliberate as instinctive. For he was
a man whose untutored and unbounded impulse to make himself agreeable led him irresistibly to
do his utmost to produce a pleasant impression, even at the sacrifice of his
honor. If only once during these three days he had had an opportunity of
speaking to Zinca, all might perhaps have turned out differently. He would perhaps
have found it easy, with his wonderful fascination of person to recover the ground
he had lost, and her proud rectitude might possibly have influenced him to take
a bolder course of action. But in the first instance he could not intrude
on Zinca while she was sitting by her little friend Gabrielle, and the idea
of rushing into an explanation with Schtezzo did not smile on his fancy. Thus
he let the hours slip by till on the Friday morning, the luckless copy
of High Life was brought in to him, addressed in a faint hand.
This made him furious, and he was on the point of rushing off to
the Palacetto when he remembered that he had promised to be ready to join the
party to Frascati at one o'clock. He had dipped his pen and prepared the
paper to send an excuse to the Hotel de Landre when there was a knook
and Prince Sempaly with his two cousins, walked in half an hour before the
appointed time. What a surprise, an unexpected donna, he exclaimed, somewhat
disconcerted. That is what we intended, said Pulisena, laughing, hum there's
a rather pronounced perfume of Latakia in your room. But the whole effect is
pretty, very pretty. While Nini looked timidly about her with her fawn like
eyes. A bachelor's quarters are as is well known one of the most interesting
mysteries that ever exercised the curious imagination of a young lady. The girls insisted
on seeing your den, the prince explained, so I had to bring them
whether or no, while zik book amuses their mamma, Oh why you yourself
proposed at Oscar, cried Nini simply bowed. From this time, henceforth this
room is consecrated ground, he said gallantly. And high Life was lying on
his desk all the time, and an iron fist seemed clenched upon his heart.
If his brother had but come alone, but with these two girls it
was crucial. Sena began to touch and examine all his odds and ends,
to open his books, and at last to hover around his writing table,
where, with graceful impertinence, she was about to take up the fatal sheet.
Stop, stop, cried Nikki, that is not for your eyes.
Sooner, look but touch not, said the prince with a good natured laugh.
Young maidens like you are not permitted to inspect the secrets of a bachelor's
rooms too closely, you might see the scorpion before we could interfere. Besides,
we must not keep your mother waiting any longer. Children, make haste
and get ready. Nikki, for a moment simply tried to think of an
excuse. Then he reflected that it really was not worth while to spoil the
pleasure of Oscar's last day. All might be set right afterwards. So he
only asked for a time to write a note, and scribbled a few lines
to Schiazze, in which he formerly proposed for a zinca. This note,
he confided to a porter, desiring him to carry it at once to the
Secretary's office. After this he was for a time very much pleased with himself.
But as the afternoon wore on, the more uneasy he became, and
it was to his unrest that most of the tender glances were due that the
Prince cast alternately on him and on Niini. He felt more and more as
if he were being driven into a trap. In the Villa Aldobrandini, he
found an issue from some of his difficulties. Suddenly, as they were standing
by the great fountain, Nei and he found themselves tet a tete, a
circumstance arising from the constantaneous willingness of the rest of the party to give them
such an opportunity. He seized the propitious moment to disburden his soul. He
addressed her as his sister, confessed his secret betrothal, and implored her kind
interest. For Zinca Nini, who felt as though she had been stabbed to
the heart, was brave as became her, and for sheer dread of betraying
her own feelings, she tried to take a pleasure she was far from feeling
in the success of his love affair. He kissed her hand and kept near
her for the rest of the day. His brother, who perceived that the
young couple had come to an understanding, communicated his observations to contesse Jhatinska with
extreme satisfaction. He was himself a man of strong and lofty feeling, free
from all duplicity, and he could not conceive that a young man could have
anything to say to a very handsome girl in private, but to make love
to her. The day was at an end, with that want of precaution
of which only foreign us in Rome can be guilty. They set out homewards
much too late, and did not reach the hotel before ten. Here Nemesis
overtook Sempali at the end of supper which the little party had served to them
in the Contess's private sitting room, and at which the confidential footing on which
Simpally stood with regard to his cousin was thrown into greater relief. The Prince,
with a frank smile of self satisfaction at his powers of divination, raised
his glass and said, to the health of the happy couple. Nimi turned
crimson, Niki turned pale. He was in the shrap, now brought to
bay. He could do nothing but turn upon the foe, whom he could
not evade. He was possessed by a wild impulse to snatch the odious mask
from his own face. And who are the happy couple? He asked?
You need not be so mysterious about it. Niki cried his brother warmly of
you, and but a glance at Niini reduced him to silence. Of me
and freulein Zincosh dancer said simply, with vehement emphasis. The blood flew to
the Prince's head, rage and horror. Fairly deprived him of speech. Comtesse
Jatinska laughed awkwardly, Policina pursed her lips disdainfully, while Nini gave her cousin
her hand and said loyally, your bride shall always find a friend in me.
But now the princess Wrath broke loose. He was furious. He swore
that this insane marriage should never take place, and could not conceive how his
brother, a man old enough to know better, could have allowed such a
piece of mad cap folly to enter his head. The ladies rose and withdrew
Impali, who till within a few minutes had been so weak and vaccillating,
had suddenly become rigid in obstinacy, and he desired the waiter to bring him
the fateful number of high life. The Prince read it, but his first
observation was well, and a pretty state the world would soon come to if
every man who lets a charming adventuress and trap him into an indiscretion were to
pay for it by marrying her. At this insulting epithet applied to Zinca,
simply fired up, he did not attempt to screen himself. He defended Zinca
as against himself with the most unsparing self accusation. Egoistical, sensitive, and
morally effet as he was, he was still a gentleman, and he now
said no limits to his self indictment. It seemed as though he thought that
by heaping invective on his own head, he could expiate the baseness into which
he had been betrayed during the last few days. He told the whole story
that he had loved Zinca from the first time of seeing her, that he
had been on the point of making her an offer when an accidental interruption had
suddenly snatched him from the heaven of hope and bliss, that he had neglected
and forsaken her, That his constant intimacy with his handsome cousins had raised a
barrier between him and Zinca. Then how he had met her that night at
the Brancoliones, and how as he helped her to rise after her tumble,
his passion had taken entire possession of him. And this he told, down
to the moment when she had laid her head on his shoulder. And before
such guileless trust, what man is there that would not bow in reverence?
He ended all Rome can bear witness to her sweetness and goodness. Ask whom
you will, Marie Vulpini, Trene, even the Illenberg's or Zigburg. Here,
the Prince turned to Zigburg. I can make neither hid nor tail of
the matter, he said, Is all he says of this girl true or
mere raving? Zik Book's answer was simple, eager, and plain. It
is at all times a difficult thing for a young man to praise a girl
without reflecting on her in any way. But zik Book's testimony in Zinka's favor
was a little masterpiece of genuine and respectful enthusiasm. Prince Sempali's face grew darker
as he spoke. And the young lady in question is the girl we met
the other day in the piazza, he said, Yes, the sister of
the Secretary of Legation, whom the Ambassador introduced to me yesterday, and the
niece of my old colonel. Yes. And from what you tell me,
not only an absolute blameless creature, but universally beloved. Yes. For a
minute, the Prince was silent. Every fiber of his being had its wrote
in the traditions of the cast into which he had been born, and a
connection between Zincashtezzel, and as sympathy was to him simply monstrous. He had
in the highest degree a respect for his past, the respect de run.
But they must be grand ruins of a noble past or. They did not
touch him at all. With his head resting on his hand, he sat
silently by the supper table, which was not yet cleared, and where the
lights sparkled in the half empty champagne glasses, and the flowers placed for the
ladies still lay by their plates. Suddenly he looked up, and, pointing
to the newspaper, he asked, had you seen that article when we came
to fetch you from your rooms this morning? Yes, the Prince sat bolt
upright, and you did not stay in Rome to defend the girl. His
black eyes looked straight into his brother's blue ones. You came with us.
You left this young lady to be for the whole day, though victim of
the slander of all the evil tongues of Rome, for fear of an unpleasant
explanation, for fear of a few high words with me. You have behaved
an a base and unmanly way throughout this affair, both to this young lady
and to the poor sweet creature in there, and he pointed to the door
behind which the two young countesses disappeared with their mother. Of course, I
shall not let you starve. Your allowance shall be paid to your regularly,
as heretofore. But beyond that we have no further connection. We have nothing
in common. You and I go the dio sx Markina had failed to appear.
The dreaded scene with his brother had been postponed for a few hours,
but it had come at last, and simply had gained nothing. By his
procrastination and duplicity. He had provoked not merely his brother's anger, but his
scorn as well, while his marriage with Zinka, when he had at last
found himself compelled to announce it to his brother, had altogether lost its startling
and interesting aspect as a chivalrous romance, and had come down to a mere
act of reparation to satisfy his conscience. Simply rose rather earlier than usual next
morning, his nerves still conscious of the remembrance of this unsatisfactory scene and of
the sleepless night that had been the consequence. Vexed with himself had once surprised
and touched by his brother's lofty indignation, ashamed to think of the case calumny
to which his irresolution and his absence must have exposed Zinca. He was in
that state of sensitive irritability, in which a man holds all the world in
some degree responsible for his own short comings, and is ready to revenge himself
on the first man he meets for the misery he is enduring. While he
was waiting for his breakfast, walking up and down the sitting room half drawing
room, half smoking room, the General came in for the first time in
his life, simply grated the old man as an intruder. Good morning,
He cried, What procures me the honor of such an early visit? Well,
said von Klinger hotly, it can scarcely surprise you that I, as
Zinca's godfather and oldest friend, should come to ask you what you mean by
you extraordinary conduct, that, it seems to me is her brother's business,
said simply roughly, It is on purpose to prevent a collision between you and
Schetzel that I have come so early, replied the general, who has cut
out for an officer of dragoons rather than for a diplomatist. Chedel is beside
himself with fury. And I know that your intentions with regard to Zinka are
perfectly honorable and so. But at this moment the General's eye fell on a
traveling bag that the luxurious young attache was wont to carry with him on short
journeys, and which lay packed on the divan. You're going away, asked
the old man, surprised. I had intended to accompany my brother as far
as Austia today and return early tomorrow. But that is at an end.
The Prince and I have quarreled. Yes, I have quarreled past all possibility
of a reconciliation with my noble and generous brother. Are you satisfied? And
he stamped with rage. And is the want of judgment that has led to
your parting any fold of mind? Prey, exclaimed the general angrily. There
was a hasty rap at the door, on Simplyi's answering come in. Statzel
walked in. He did not take Simpley's offered hand, but he drew a
newspaper out of his pocket, held it out in front of simply, and
asked, abruptly, have you read this article? Yes, said Simply,
from between his teeth. Yesterday before you went out. Schetzel went on this
word for word repetition of the Prince's question touched all Simplyi's most painful and shameful
recollections of the scene to the quick. His eyes flashed, but he said
nothing. Schtetzel could contain himself no longer. All the bitter feelings of the
last six weeks seethed in his blood, and the luckless traveling bag caught his
eye. This was too much. What happened next, the General saw it
all in a flash of time, unexpected and inevitable. Schetzel took one stride
forward and struck simply in the face with the newspaper. At the same moment,
Simpolic's servant came in with the breakfast tray. A few minutes later,
Steedzel and the General went down the stairs of the embassy in silence, not
even looking at each other. When they were outside, the young man stopped
and drew a deep breath. Simply, will send you his seconds in the
course of the morning, he said, I must ask you to act for
me. The General nodded but did not speak. I will send words to
Crespine too, and then you can do whatever you think proper. Still,
the general said nothing, and his silence irritated Schatzer. I could bear it
no longer, he muttered, as if in delirium, what do you suppose
too much? By this time they were in the corso towards them came Zigburg,
as bright and gay as ever, his hat pushed back on his head.
I am happy to be the first to congratulate Gushtetzer, he cried.
On what pray, said Stetzel, fiercely, on your sister's engagement to Sampali.
Oh what then? You really did know nothing about it? Schezer was
bewildered. What is it? What are you talking about? I do not
understand, he stammered, What have you not heard? Zig book began the
boom fell. Last evening, Nikki declared his engagement Oscar, to whom the
whole business was news. Come to this cafe and I will tell you exactly
all about it. It does not do to discuss such things in the strait.
I I have not time, muttered Deadza with a fixed, vacant stare.
And as he spoke he shot past Zikbourg. But his gait was unsteady,
and he ran up against a passer by what on earth ails him,
said Zikbug, looking after him. I thought he would be pleased, and
oh well, the ways of man are past. Finding out this marriage will
create a sensation in Vienna, Eir General. But I approve, I entirely
approve. We are on the threshold of a new area, as Schiller or
some one has said, Bismarck. Very likely, and we shall live to
tell our children how we stood by and looked on. But what is the
matter with you? Both you and Schezzo to be sure you were coming from
the Palazza di Vinizia. Have Nicki and Schtetzel quarreled, had challenge? The
General nodded. But it can be amicably arranged now, said zig Book consolingly.
And of Part three, chapter five, Part three, chapter six of
Our Own set by Ossip Shubin, translated by Clara Belle. This libovox recording
is in the public domain recording by Carolyn put three, chapter six. On
his return home, Schtetzel found some police's note of the day before. The
porter had taken it as he was ordered to the secretary's office, but as
Schetzel had not gone there all day, it had lain unopened till this morning.
One of the messengers had thought it well to bring it to the palacetto
or Schetzel read it and hid his face in his hands. Within a short
time, simpolice seconds were announced. Ziegburg and a military attache from the Russian
emberssay, now it could not be amicably arranged under the circumstances. There was
but one way of satisfying the point of honor. This point of honor,
what is it, his social dogma of the man of the world and the
whole creed of the Southern aristocrat. Schetze was to start that night by the
eleven o'clock train for Vienna on matters of business, before setting out for Constantinople.
The affair must therefore be settled at once. Beyond fixing the hour,
Schtetz left everything to his seconds sorts. At seven that evening, among the
ruins opposite the tomb of the Mettellas was fire finally agreed on. Soon after
six, Stettel and his seconds set out. The carriage bore them swiftly along
through the gloomy, stuffy straits, which led to the forest along the foot
of the Palatine, and passed the Colosseum, through the arch of Constantine into
the via uppia, on and on between the gray moss grown walls, over
which they caught glimpses of ruins and tall dark cypresses. Then the walls disappeared,
and bushy green hedge rows covered with creepers boarded the road, and presently
the campania lay before them, an endless, rolling green carpet, with its
attractive melancholy and the poisonous beauty of orchids and asphodels, with which each returning
spring decks its waste monotony, like a wilderness in a fevered dream. Stetzel
sat in silence on the back seat, facing his two friends. He did
not even pretend to be cheerful. A brave man may sometimes face death with
indifference, but hardly with a light heart. Death is a great king to
whom we must need do homage. His soul was heavy, but his two
companions, who knew not only his staunch nature but all the circumstances of the
duo, knew that it was not from anxiety as to his own fate.
He could not forget that this catastrophe was at last do solely and entirely to
his own violence and loss of self command. He never once reflected that this
engagement, brought about by a series of migshifts and accidents, could hardly have
resulted in a happy marriage. He had forgotten some police since and remembered one
thing, only that his sister might have had the moon she had longed for,
and that he alone had snatched it from her grasp. Her powerful fragrance
filled the air, coming up from the orchids, from the blossoming hedges,
from the fresh greenery of the gardens, like the very soul of the spring,
bringing a thousand memories to his brooding brain and aching heart. It reminded
him of the great untended orchard at home, and of one morning in the
last May he had spent there before going to school. The apple treys were
clothed with rosy blossom. Butterflies were flitting through the air, and to the
first Forget Me Not speeped bluely among the trailing brambles, on the brink of
the brook that danced across the garden, murmury sleepily to the shadowy, whispering
alders. There was a fragrance of the soil, of the trace of the
flowers, just as there was now, and Zinka, then a mere baby
had come tripping to meet him, and had sat with her little confidential and
important air. I do believe that God must have set the gates of heaven
open, for once there is such a good smell. He could see her
now, in her white pinafore and long golden hair, clinging to her big
brother with her soft, weak little hands. And he had lifted her up
and said, yes, God left the door open, and you slipped out,
my little carib With what large wondering eyes she had looked into his face.
She had always been his particular pet. His father had given her into
his special charge. And now, poor sweet butterfly, He said to himself,
half audibly, do not be too strict in your fence, said deep
voice close to him. It was Caspigni who thus startled him from his dream
of the past. Do not be too scientific. You have everything in your
favor practice, skill and strength. But simply I know his swort play well
has one dangerous peculiarity. You never know what he will be at Seeds looked
over his shoulder. The tomb of Cecilia Mettella was standing before them. Opposite.
The tomb of Cecilia Mettella is a deserted and half ruined early Gothic structure,
a singular mixed character of heathen grander and of medieval strength, lonely and
ruthless under the blue sky, a weather beaten cross let into the crumbling stone
work above the doorway betokens at the sanctuary of the primitive Christian times. On
entering we see a still uninjured apse where the altar table once stood. No
ornament of any kind, not even a scrap of basrelief is to be seen.
Nothing but frail fans, light plumes of maidenhair that deck the old walls
with their emerald fronts. The floor is smooth and covered with fine taff,
from which in springtime white and red daisies smile up at the sky, and
dead nettles grow from every chink and along the foot of the walls. The
other party were already on the spot. Sempaly was talking unconcernedly, but with
no affectation of levity to the Russian, and bowed politely to the three men
as came in. His manner and conduct were admirable in spite of his irritable
nervousness. There were moments when he had and in the highest degree that unshaken
steadfastness, which is part of the discipline of a man of the world,
to whom it is a matter of course that under certain circumstances he must fight,
just as under certain others he must take off his hat. Zigbok changed
color a good deal. The others were quite cool. They made a careful
survey lest some intruding listeners should be within hearing. But all was still as
death. The vineyard behind the little chapel was deserted. The formalities were soon
got through. Sempaly and Schetzel took off their coats and waistcoats and took the
places assigned to them by their seconds. The signal was given. The word
of command was heard in the silent and immediately after the first click of the
swords as they engaged. Anyone who has lived through the prolonged anticipation of a
known peril ordeal knows that when the decisive moment has arrived, the tension of
the nerves suddenly relaxes, anxiety seems lifted from the soul, fear vanishes,
and all that remains is a sort of breathless curiosity. This was the case
with the General and zig Work. They watched the sword play attentively but almost
calmly. Sempaly was the first to attack and was extraordinarily nimble. Stetzel stood
strictly on the defensive. He fenced in the German fashion, giving force to
his lunch with the whole weight of his body, and this, with his
skill and care, gave him a marked advantage over his lighter adversary. The
sense of superior strength seemed at first to hinder his freedom. In fact,
the contest from a mere technical point of view was remarkably interesting. Simply displayed
a marvelous and, as Crespinnie had said, quite irresponsible subtleness, which had
no effect against Stetziel's imperturbable coolness. It was evident that he hoped to weary
out his antagonist and then to end the duel by wounding him slightly. He
had pricked simply just under the arm, but simply would not be satisfied.
It was nothing, he said, and after a short pause they began again.
Simply was beginning to look pale and exhausted. His faints were short,
straight and violent. Steedzel, on the contrary, looked fresher, like every
accomplished swordsman in the course of a long fight. He had warmed to his
work and was fighting as he would have done with the foils, without duly
calculating the strength of his play. Things looked ill, for simply. Suddenly,
through the silence, a song was heard in the distance, in a
boy's thin piping soprano. Bright, May, the sweetest month of spring,
The trees and fields with flowers are strown. He had sent a thrill through
Stetzel's veins, reminding him of the evening when Zinka had sung those words.
To simply, the romantic element that was so strong in him searched to his
brain. He lost his head, fearing to wound simply mortally, he thoced
to cover himself, and for a second he suddenly stood as awkward and exposed,
as though he had never had a sword in his hand. The seconds
rushed forward too late, with this scarcely audible sound that a sharp steel makes
as it pierces the flesh, Simplice's sword ran into his adversary's side. Shiatzel's
flannel shirt was dyed with blood. His eyes glazed, he staggered forward a
step or two. Then he felt senseless. The duel was over a quarter
of an hour later, and the wound would have been bound up as best
it might, and in the closed to landau, which they had made as
comfortable as they could by arranging the cushions so as to form a couch,
the General supporting the groaning man's head on his arm, and opposite to him
the surgeon. They were driving homewards slowly, slowly, dusk had fallen on
the Campania. From time to time the General looked out anxiously to see how
far they were still from Rome. The road was empty and more deserted.
Every minute a cart rattled past them, full of peasants, shouting and singing
at the top of their voices. Then they met a few white robed monks
wending their way with flaring torches to some church. And then the road was
perfectly empty. The cypresses stood up tall and black against the dull hued sky,
and the white plain was one stretch of gray. At last, the
arch of Constantine bents over them for a minute, and the horses hoofs clatter
on the stones. Slowly, slowly, the lamps of Rome twinkle in the
distance. They have reached the Corso at this hour, almost empty of vehicles,
but crowded with eye blers, and the cafes are brilliantly lighted up.
This slowly moving landau excites attention. The gaper's crowd into knots and stare and
whisper. At last they reach the palacettor, turn into the courtyard and get
out. The porter comes out of his den, his dog at his heel,
sparking loudly. Hush, silence, says the General. The servants come
rushing down. The women begin to sob and cry, and again the General
says, hush, hush, as if it were worth while to keep zinc
and ignorance for a minute. More or less, with some difficulty, the
heavy man is lifted out and carried upstairs. The heavy shuffling steps sound loud
in the silence. Suddenly they hear Zinka's voice loud in terror, and the
baronesses, in harsh reprove her door is flung open, and Zinka rushes out
to meet them. A half smothered cry of anguish breaks from her very heart,
the cry with which we wake from a hideous dream. They carried him
into his room, and while they carefully settled him in bed, the servant
announced doctor e, the famous German physician, of whom mention has already been
made, SIMPLI, who had driven back at full speed and had reached Rome
more than an hour sooner than the general with the wounded man had sent him
at Once. Doctor E examined the patient with the greatest care, adjusted the
bandage with admirable skill, wrote a prescription, and ordered the application of ice.
He gave a sympathetic hand to each of the ladies who were standing anxiously
at the door as he left the room, and reassured them with an encouraging
smile, promising them with that kindly hopefulness to which he owed half his fashionable
practice, that the wounded man would pass a quiet night. But when he
was face to face with the general who escorted him downstairs, the smile vanished.
They won't just dangerous, asked the old man with a trembling heart.
The sergeant shook his head. Are you a relation, he asked, No,
but a very old friend. It is mortal, said doctor E.
I may be mistaken, of course I may be wrong. Nature sometimes works
miracles, and the patient has a splendid physique, what fine limbs. I
have rarely seen so powerful a man, but so far as human science can
foresee, and he left the death warrant unspoken. It is always a comfort
to the survivors to know that all that can be done has been done.
I will come early tomorrow morning to inquire. Sent the prescription to the French
chemists. It is the best. Good night, and he got into the
carriage that was waiting for him. The General gave the prescription to the porter,
who, with the readiness and simplicity that are so characteristic of the Italians,
rushed off at once without his hat, as if there were really any
hurry. The old soldier, composing himself by an effort, returned to the
bedroom. Zinca was standing very humbly at the foot of the bed, pale
and tearless, but trembling from head to foot. The baroness was pacing the
room and sobbing, violently, wringing her hands and pushing her hair back from
her temples. Of course, she flew at the General with questions as to
the surgeon's prognosis. His evasive fences were enough to fill her with unreasonable hope
and to revive the worldly instincts which her terrors had for a moment cast into
the background. Yes, yes, he will pass a quiet night, she
whimpered. He will get well again. It would have been too bad with
such a brilliant career before him, But this is an end to Constantinople.
Zinca, on the contrary, had turned still paler at the general's report,
but she said nothing that there had been a duel. She and her mother
had, of course understood. What did she infer from that? What did
she think? What did she feel? She herself never rightly knew. In
her soul all was dark, in her heart, all was cold. Her
whole being was concentrated in horror. After much and hodge and persuasion, the
General succeeded in inducing the baroness to leave the room and to lie down for
a time, to spare herself for her son's sake. She had hardly closed
the door when the servant came quietly in and said that Count Tryne had come.
Zinca looked up. Shall I let him come in? Asked the general.
Zinka nodded. Zigbuk had told him, and though it was now eleven
train had hurried off to the palacettor. He came into the room without speaking,
and straight up to Zinca the simple feeling with which he took her hand
in both his. The deep and tender sorrow at being unable to help,
but to reassure her that spoke in his eyes comforted and warmed her heart.
The frozen horror that had held her in his clasp seemed to thaw. Tears
started to her eyes. A tremulous sob died on her lips. Then,
controlling herself with great difficulty, she murmured intelligibly, there is no hope,
no hope. His mother's loud lamentations had not roused the wounded man, but
the first sound from Zinca recalled him to consciousness. He began to move uneasily
and opened his sunken eyes. The whites shone dimly like polished silver as he
fixed them on his sister's face. From thence they wandered to a blood stained
handkerchief that had been forgotten, and then to the general. Slowly and painfully,
he seemed to comprehend the situation. He struggled for breath with an impatient
movement of his hands and shoulders, and then shivered as with a spasm.
He was conscious now and sighed deeply. The first thing that occurred to him
was his official duty? Have you sent word to the ambassador, he asked
the general almost angrily. No, not yet, then make haste pray they
must telegraph to Vienna. Yes, yes, said Fontlinger, soothingly. I
will see to it at once. Would he be good enough to stay till
I return, he added to Trayne, and he hurried away. For a
few minutes, not a word was spoken. Then Scheatzel began. Do you
know how it all happened? Count Trayne bowed and you, Zini asked Cecil,
looking sadly at the girl's white face. I know that you are suffering.
That is all I want to know, she replied, Oh, semi.
Schtetzel struggled for breath and held out his hands to Zinka. Then they
went on, in a hoarse and hardly audible voice. Zini, Butterfly,
it was all my doing. I have spoilt your life. I did it.
She tried to stop him. You must not excite yourself, she said,
leaning over him tenderly. Forget all that till you are better. I
know that you have always loved me, and that you would have fetched the
stars from heaven for me if you could have reached them. He shuddered convulsively.
No, Zini, no, you might have had the stars, he
said, in a panting staccato. The finest stars simply was not to blame
only I. The prince had agreed, But I I forgot myself, and
I spoilt it all. Oh, a drink of water, Zini, please.
She gave him the water, and he drank it great. But when
she gently tried to stop his mouth with her hand, he pushed it away
and went on eagerly, though with a fast failing voice. No, I
must tell you it is a weight upon my soul. There in my desk
count in the little pocket on the left, there is a letter for Zinca.
Give it her train did his bidding. The letter was sealed and addressed
to Zinka. In Cecil's fine, firm hand. She opened it. It
contained the note that Sempali had written before starting for Frascati, and Schetel had
added a few words of explanation in case it should not fall into Zinca's hands
till after his death. She read it all while the dying man anxiously watched
her face, but her expression did not alter by a shade. Sampali's words
glided over her heart without touching it. Even when she had read both notes,
she did not speak. Two red flames burned in her pale cheeks.
I got the note too late, said she deadseel sadly. The General can
tell you how it all happened. I lost my head, but he he
is safe. So you must forgive me and do act as if I had
never existed. Then I shall rest in peace and be happy in my grave,
if I know that you are happy. Still, she did not speak.
Her eyes were strangely overcast, but it was not with grief for her
lost happiness. Suddenly she tore the note across and dropped the pieces on the
floor. If he had written ten letters, she cried, it would have
made no difference. Now do not let that worry you, Cecil. It
is all at an end. Even if there were no gulf between us.
I could never be his wife. I have ceased to love him. How
mean he is in my eyes compared with you. And so the brother and
sister were at one again. The discord was solved. For more than four
and twenty hours, Cecil wrestled with death, and Zinca never left his side.
The certainty of their mutual and complete devotion was a melancholy consolation. In
the midst of this cruel parting. The pain he suffered was agonizing, particularly
during the night and the early morning, but he bore it with superb fortitude.
And it was only by the nervous killer off his hands and the involuntary
distortion of his features that he betrayed his suffering. He hardly for a moment
slept. He refused the opiate sent by the surgeon. He wished to keep
his head as long as possible. When Zinka, with a thousand tender circumlocutions,
suggested to him that he should receive the last sacraments of the church,
he agreed. If it will be any comfort to you, Butterfly, he
sighed, and she received the priest with reverent composure. In the afternoon,
he was easier. Zincer began to hope you are better, she whispered,
imploringly. You are better, are you not? I am in less pain,
he said, and then she began making plans for the future. He
smiled, sadly. No man could die with a better grace, And yet
it was hard to die. The catastrophe had roused universal sympathy. The terrible
news had spread like wildfire through the city, and a sort of panic fell
on the rank and fashion of Rome. No one that day who had ever
spoken a spiteful or flippant word against Stetzel or his sister failed to feel a
prick of ramose. Every one came or sent to the palacetto to inquire for
them. Now once again the baroness would come and triumphantly in her hand that
particularly distinguished a visiting card with its corner turned down, and Russell up to
the bedside. Hinzenberg came himself to the door to ask after you. Late
in the day he fell into an uneasy sleep. Zinca and the General did
not quit the room. The window was open, but the air that blew
in through the Venetian blinds was damp and sultray. The strait was strewn with
straw. The roll of the carriages in the corso came dulled by distance up
to the chamber of death. Then twilight fell, and the rumbling echoes were
still presently. The slow, irregular tramp of a crowd broke the silence with
the accompaniment of a solemn, but dismal chant Zinka sprang up to close the
window, but she was not quick enough. The sleeper had opened his weary
eyes and was listening a funeral, he muttered. After this, he could
not rest, and his sufferings began once more. He tossed on his pillow,
talked of his will, begging the general to make a note of certain
trifling altars. And when Zinca entreated him not to torment himself, but to
think of that by and by, he shook his head and murmured, in
a voice that was hoarse and tremulous with pain. No I am in a
hurry time presses. Railway fever, railway fever. When Zinka, unable to
control herself, was leaving the room to hide her tears, he desired her
to remain. Only stop by me. Do not leave me, Zini,
he said, cry, if it is a relief to you, but stay
here, poor little butterfly. Yes you will miss me. Once only did
he lose his self command. It was late in the evening. He had
begged them to send to the embassy for an English newspaper which would give some
information as to a certain political matter in which he was particularly interested. The
ambassador himself brought it to his bedside. How are you, How are you
now, he asked, with sincere emotion. You are quite right dead,
sir Ignazi. If as done exactly as you said, you have a wonderful
power of divination. I shall miss you desperately when you go to Constantinople.
And his excellency fairly broke down. There was a painful pause. I am
going further than Constantinople, Schatzel murmured at length. I should like to know
who will get my place. His voice failed him, and he ground as
he hid his face in the pillow. The end came at midnight. Doctor
e had warned the general that it would be terrible, but it was in
vain that they tried to persuade Zinca to leave the room. The whole night
through, she knelt by the dying man's bed in her tumbled white dressing gown,
praying. At about five in the morning, his moaning ceased. Was
all over? No, he spoke again. A strange, far away look,
peculiar to the dying came into his eyes. Do not cry, little
one, it will all come right. And then he felt about with his
hands as if he were seeking for something, for some idea that had escaped
him. He gazed at his sister go to bed. SEINNI, I am
better, sleepy Constante. He turned his head to the wall and breathed deeply.
He had started on his journey. The General closed his eyes and drew
Zinca away. Outside in the corridor stood a crushed and miserable man. It
was simply pale, wretched and restless. He had stolen into the palacetto,
and as he stood aside, his hands trembled. His eyes were haggard.
She did not shrink from him. As she went by, she did not
see him. A glorious morning shone on the little garden court. In a
darkly shady corner, A swarm of blue butterflies were fluttering over the grass,
like atoms fallen from the sky. It was the corner in which the Amazon
stood and of Pot three Chapter six, Part three, chapter seven of Our
Own set by Ossip Shubin, translated by Clara Belle. This libovox recording is
in the public domain. Recording by Carolyn Part three, chapter seven, thanks
to zik Books Always Judicious Indiscretion. All Rome knew year long that Prince Simpali
had consented to Zinka's marriage with his brother. The evening before the duel and
at the same time it heard of Stetzel's burst of anger and its fearful expiation
Princess Volpini's unwavering friendship, which during these few days she took every opportunity of
displaying silenced evil tongues and saved Zinca's good name. Now, indeed, there
was a general and powerful revulsion of feeling in Schtetzel's favor had suddenly became absurd,
pity in the very worst taste, to doubt Zinca, Zinca and Cecil
had always been exceptional natures. Schtetzel had expressed a wish to be buried at
home. The body was embalmed and laid in a large empty room where once
upon a time the Baroness had wanted to give a ball. There were flowers
against the wall and on the floor the beer was covered with them. It
was a complete Roman in fiorata. The windows were darkened with hangings, and
the dim ruddy light of dozens of wax tapers filled the room. Contesse Ilsenberg
and the Jatinskys came to this lying in state distinguished company and ceremonial black crowded
around the coffin. Never had the baroness had so full a day, and
her sentimental graces showed that even under these gold circumstances, she felt this as
a satisfaction. She stood by the beer in flowing robes loaded with crape,
a black boarded handkerchief in her hand, and a tear on each cheek,
and received her visitors. They pressed her hand and made sympathetic speeches, and
she murmured, feebly, you are so good. It is so comforting.
Having spoken to the mother, they turned to look for the sister. Everyone
longed to express, or at least to show their sincere sympathy for her dreadful
sorrow. But she was not in the crowd, not to be seen till
a lady whispered, there she is, And in a dark recess, Princess
Wilpini was discovered with a quivering, sobbing creature as pale as death, and
drowned in tears. But no one ventured to intrude on her grave, No
one but Nini, who looked almost as miserable as Zinca herself, and who
went up to her and put her arms around her and kissed her. Next
day, mass was performed in the chapel of San Marco adjoining the embassy and
a quartette of voices saying the same pathetic allegretto from the Seventh Symphony that had
been played hardly three months since for the Lady Jane Gray tableau. A week
later, the Schetzels quitted Rome. Up to the very last, the Baroness
was receiving visits of condolence, and to the very last she repeated her monotonous
formula of lament. And on the threshold of such a splendid career, Zinca
was never in the drawing room, and very few ventured to go to her
little boudoir. Wasted to a shadow, with sunken, cry out eyes and
pinched features. It was heart rending to see her, and after the first
violence of her grave was spent, she seemed even more inconsolable. It is
so with deep natures. Our first sorrow over the dead is always mixed with
a certain rebellion against fate. It is a paroxysm in which we forget everything,
even the cause of our passionate tears. It is not till we have
dried our eyes and our heart has raged itself into weariness, not till we
have at last said to ourselves, submit that we can measure the awful gap
that death has torn into our life, or know how empty and cold and
silent the world has become. Every day, Mate, Zinca feel more deeply
what it was that she had lost. She was always feeling for the strong
arm which had so tenderly supported her. The General and Volpini did everything in
their power to help her through this trying face. But the person with whom
she felt most at her ease was train, and very often, after seven
in the evening, when she was sure of meeting no one, she stole
off to visit Gabrielle. It was touching to see how the little girl understood
the trouble of her older friend, and how sweetly she would caress and pet
her. On the morning of their departure, Train and the General saw them
off from the station. After the ladies were in the carriage, Trayne got
in too, to open or close the windows and blinds. When he had
done this, Zinca put out her hand, God, bless you for all
your kindness, she said, And as she spoke, she put up her
face to give him a kiss. For an instant he hesitated, Then he
signed her forehead with a cross, and bending down, touched her hair with
his lips. Au revoir, he murmured in a half choked voice. He
bowed to the Baroness and jumped out as he watched the train leave the station.
His face was crimson, and his eyes sparkled strangely, and he stood
bareheaded to catch the last glimpse of a pale little face at the window.
If only I had the right to care for her and protect her, he
muttered. And of Part three, chapter seven, Part three, chapter eight
of Our Own set by Ossip Schubin, translated by Clara Belle. This libovox
according is in the public domain recording by Caroline Part three, chapter eight.
And now to conclude, Baroness Schietzel was one of those happily rare natures who
have not one redeemer point in her Moravian estate, whither they now retired.
She was sick of her life and treated Zinca with affectionate austerity. Bored and
embittered, she was always bewailing herself and made everyone miserable by her sour,
mean and doleful appearance. When the year of mourning was ended, she began
to crave for some excitement. She made excursions to watering places and to Vienna,
where she gathered round her the fragmentary remains of her old circle of acquaintance
and tried to astonish them by magnificent reminiscences of her sojourn in Rome. At
the same time, she still wore deep fur blows of crape and wrote her
invitations on black edged paper. She talked incessantly of her broken mother's heart,
wearing as it were a sort of niobe nimbus, while in in fact her
display of mourning was nothing more than a last foothold of her vanity. General
Vonklinga always declared that at the bottom of her heart she was very proud of
her son, having been run through by a Simpali. She died about three
years after the catastrophe of Bronchides, which only proved fatal because though she already
had a severe cold, nothing could dissuade her from going on a keen April
morning to see the ceremony of washing the beggar's feet at the berg with a
friend from the Convent of the Sacred Heart. Zinca felt the loss of her
mother more deeply than could have been expected. Year after years, she spent
summer and winter in her country house, where Gabrielle Treyne, with her English
governess, sometimes passed a few weeks with her. Her only visitors, Trayne
very rarely went to see her and never stayed more than a few hours,
and the sacrifice it was to him to lend his little companion for those visits
can only be appreciated by those who have understood how completely his life was bound
up in hers with Princess Vulpini. Zinka kept up an affectionate correspondence. Very
very slowly did her grief fade into the background, but as is always the
case with a noble nature, it elevated and strengthened her. She gave up
her whole time to acts of kindness and benevolence. The only pleasure in which
for years she could find any real comfort was alleviating the woes of others.
Not long after the death of the baroness, General von Klinger left Europe to
travel and did not return till the following spring. Twelve months he disembarked at
Lavre and proceeded to Paris, where he proposed spending a few days to see
the Salon before going home. By the obliging intervention of a friend, he
was admitted to the Vernisage Vanishing Day, or more properly, the private view
the day before the galleries were opened to the public. Among the little crowd
of fashionable ladies who had gained admittance by the good offices of a drawing master
or an artist friend, he observed a remarkably pretty young girl, who,
with her nose in the air, was skipping from one picture to another with
a light and vigorous step, and pronouncing judgment on the works exhibited with the
inexorable severity and innocent conceit of a fanatical novice. This fair young critic was
so thoroughly aristocratic in her bearing. There was something so engaging in her girlishas
arrogance, so like a spoilt child, in her confidential chat with her companion,
an elderly man and one of the best known artists of Paris, that
the old soldier painter could not help watching her with kindly interest. Presently,
she happened to see him, scarrutinized him for a moment, and came back
to meet him with gay familiarity. Why general, are you back at last?
How glad Papa will be, and you have not altered in the very
least. I cannot say the same of you, Comtesse Gabrielle, He replied,
Well, of course, we last met four years ago at Zini's.
I think she chatted on. Then I was a child, and now I
am grown up. And I will tell you something, General. I have
exhibited a picture, quite a small water color drawing, and she blushed,
which made her look like her father. You will come and look at it,
will you not, of course, he declared, and then, glancing
at her dress, You are in mourning, he said hesitatingly. Yes,
she replied, in half mourning now for poor mamma. It is nearly a
year since she died, and a shade crossed her face. Ah, there's
Papa, she exclaimed, suddenly brightening. We are always losing each other.
Our tastes are different. Papa is old fashioned, you know, quite behind
the times. Tryne greeted the General very heartily. Gabrielle stood looking from one
to the other. Little roguish dimples played in her cheeks, and at last
she stood on tiptoe and whispered something to her father. At first he seemed
doubtful, and it was not without a shade of embarrassment that he said,
we are going on to the hotel Bristol, where we are to breakfast with
my sister. It will I am sure give her the great pleasure if you
will join her party. The General made some excuses, it was an intrusion,
and so forth, but he allowed himself to be persuaded and drove off
with them through the flowery and well watered alleys of the Chanselyisee to the hotel
in the place Vendome and Marie, said Gabrielle, as she danced into the
room. Guess who's here with us, Ah General, said the princess warmly.
You are the right man in the right place. But another figure caught
his eye. A little way behind his hostess stood Zinca. This sorrow she
had experienced had stamped its lines indelibly on her face. Still there was in
her eyes a light of coom and assured happiness that blended very sweetly with the
traces of past grave. The bright may morning of her life had been brave,
and it was past. But there there was so tender charm in her
face and manner that even Gabrielle, with the radiance of eighteen could not vie
with her. Trayne went up to her, and there was an awkward silence.
Then Gabrielle began to laugh heartily. And cannot you guess, general,
she exclaimed, It is not yet announced to the world. Tryne stammered out,
but you have always taken such a kind interest, and he took Zinca's
hand. The old man's face beamed. He positively hugged Zinca and shook hands
vehemently with Train. But Zinca burst into tears. Oh uncle, she said,
if only Cecil were here, And simply after the catastrophe, he vanished
from the scene, went to the east, and there again came to the
surface. His simply made anything. He is now considered one of our most
brilliant diplomatists. But he has gone through a singular change. From a dandified,
frivolous attache, he became a hard and fast off a shell. He
looks, if possible, more distinguished than ever, and his features are more
sharply cut. He is irritable, arrogant, and ruthless, never sparing man
or woman, the biting sarcasms that dwell on the tip of his tongue,
and yet still nay more than ever. He exercises an almost irresistible spell over
all who come in contact with him. One day, when the General was
waiting at some frontier station in Hungary for a train to Vienna, he was
struck by the full, rich voice of a traveler in a seal skin coat
with a fur cap pulled down over his brows, who was giving remptory orders
to his servant. The old man looked around, and his eyes met those
of the stranger. It was simply also on his way to Vienna from the
east. They spoke, exchanging a few commonplace remarks, but without any cordiality.
Presently, Sempaly began with the abruptness for which his name was a by
word. You have just come from Paris. You were present at the wedding.
What do you think of Trine's marriage? I am delighted at it,
said the General. Well everybody seemed satisfied. Marie Volpini is enchanted, and
Gabrielle pleaded for her papa. So I hear. So everything is for the
best in this best of all possible worlds, he added, in his sharp,
hasty tones. And Zinka, how is she looking? The papers said
she was lovely. She is still very charming, said the General. With
the facile garrulity of old age and happiness always beautifies a woman. She had
but one regret that Cecil had not lived to see it. He was suddenly
conscious of his stupendous want of tact, so to put the conversation on neutral
ground, he eagerly began to compliment, simply on the wonderful rapidity of his
advancement, remarking that it must afford him great satisfaction to have so fitting a
sphere for the exercise of his peculiar talents. Simply looked at him, keenly
and shrugging his shoulders with his singular smile, he said, it is a
strange thing, General. When we are young, we claim happiness at the
hands of destiny, as if it were all right. As we grow older,
we humbly sew only for peace as an alms. We get what we
demand more easily than what we beg for, but it slips through our fingers.
End of Part three, Chapter eight, End of Our Own set by
Ossip Shubin, translated by Clara Belle, recording by Caroline in Oslo, Norway
in April and May two thousand and twelve. Thanks for listening,