Part 13 (2/2)
It sounded as monosyllabic and rebuking as possible, but Rojanow was not the man to be rebuked. He was accustomed to have his personality felt everywhere--to meet with consideration and importance, particularly among the ladies, and he felt it almost an insult that this oft-tested success was denied him here. But it excited him to enforce a conversation which apparently was not desired.
”Are you satisfied with your stay at Furstenstein?” he began anew. ”I have not yet been there, and have only seen the castle from afar, but it seems to overlook the whole vicinity. A peculiar taste is needed, however, to find the country beautiful.”
”And this taste does not seem to be yours.”
”At any rate, I do not love the monotony, and here one has the same view everywhere. Forest and forest and nothing but forest! It is enough sometimes to create despair.”
It sounded like suppressed resentment. The poor German forests had to atone for torturing the returned prodigal to such an extent that he had been upon the point several times of fleeing from their whispering and rustling. He could not bear it--this grave, monotonous tune of old times which the leaves whispered to him.
His companion heard, of course, only the sarcasm in the remark.
”You are a foreigner, Herr Rojanow?” she asked calmly.
A dark shadow pa.s.sed again over Hartmut's brow. He hesitated for a moment, then replied coldly: ”Yes, gracious Fraulein.”
”I thought so; your name, as well as appearance, betrays it, and therefore your opinion is conceivable.”
”It is certainly an unbiased opinion,” said Hartmut, irritated by the reproach contained in the last words. ”I have seen a great deal of the world, and have but now returned from the Orient. Whoever has known the ocean in its brilliant, transparent blue, or its majestic, stormy uproar; whoever has enjoyed the charm of the tropics, and been intoxicated with their splendor and coloring--to him these evergreen forest depths appear but cold and colorless, like all of these German landscapes, anyhow.”
The contemptuous shrug of the shoulders with which he concluded seemed to finally arouse his companion from her cool indifference. An expression of displeasure flitted across her features, and her voice betrayed a certain excitement as she answered: ”That is probably solely and entirely a matter of taste. I know, if not the Orient, at least the south of Europe. Those sun-glaring, color-s.h.i.+ning landscapes intoxicate for the moment, certainly, and then they weary one. They lack freshness and strength. One can dream and enjoy there, but not live and work. But why argue about it? You do not understand our German forests.”
Hartmut smiled with undeniable satisfaction. He had succeeded in breaking the icy reticence of his companion. All of his charming politeness had been without effect, but he saw now that there was something which could call life into those cold features, and he found it attractive to draw it out. If he offended by it, it did not matter; it gave him pleasure.
”That sounds like a reproof which, alas! I have to accept,” he said, with an undisguised sneer. ”It is possible that this understanding is wanting in me. I am accustomed to measure nature differently from most people. Live and work! It depends greatly upon what one calls living and working. I have lived for years in Paris, that mighty centre of civilization, where life throbs and flows in a thousand streams.
Whoever is used to being borne on those sparkling waves cannot bring himself again into narrow, _pet.i.t_ views--into all those prejudices and pedantries which in this good Germany are called 'life.'”
The contemptuous stress which he put upon the last words had something of a challenge in it, and reached its aim.
His companion came to a sudden standstill and measured him from head to foot, while from the formerly cold, blue eyes there flashed a spark of burning anger. She seemed to have an angry reply upon her lips, but suppressed it. She only straightened herself to her fullest height, and her words were few and of icy, haughty reprimand.
”You forget, mein Herr, that you speak to a German. I remind you of it.”
Hartmut's brow glowed dark-red under this stern reproof, and yet it was directed only to the stranger--the foreigner--who forgot the consideration of a guest.
If this girl had an idea who spoke so to her--if she knew! Hot, burning shame rose suddenly within him, but he was man of the world enough to control himself immediately.
”I beg your pardon,” he said with a slight, half-sarcastic bow. ”I was under the impression that we were exchanging only general views, which have the right of unbiased opinions. I am sorry to have offended you, gracious Fraulein.”
An inimitable, proud and disdainful motion of the head a.s.sured him that he did not even possess the power to offend her. She shrugged her shoulders in a barely perceptible manner.
”I do not wish to bias your opinions in the least, but as our views are so widely different on this matter, we will do better to discontinue our conversation.”
Rojanow was not inclined to continue it. He knew now that those cold, blue eyes could flash. He had wished to see it--had caused it to happen, and yet the matter had ended differently from what he had antic.i.p.ated. He glanced with a half hostile look at the slender figure at his side, and then his eyes roamed resentfully again in the bitterly abused green depths of the forest.
CHAPTER XII.
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