Part 8 (2/2)

Every evening we played a rubber of whist. Miss O'Donnel never could remember what cards were out, and, whenever we wished to recall a card or to transgress some rule of the game, Aunt Rosamunda always said, ”That is not allowed at the Jockey Club.”

Once my uncle and aunt took me upon a six weeks' pleasure-tour,--or, rather, an educational excursion. We thoroughly explored the greater part of Germany and Italy on this occasion, travelling very simply, with very little luggage, never speaking to strangers, having intercourse exclusively with pictures, sculptures, and valets-de-place.

After thus becoming acquainted, in Baedeker's society, with a new piece of the world, as Aunt Rosamunda observed with satisfaction, we returned to Zirkow, and life went on as before.

And really my lonely existence would not have struck me as anything extraordinary, if Hedwig had not been at hand to enlighten me as to my deprivations.

She had been introduced into society, and wrote me of her conquests.

Last summer she brought a whole trunkful of faded bouquets with her to Komaritz,--ball-trophies. Besides this stuff, she brought two other acquisitions with her to the country, a sallow complexion and an adjective which she used upon every occasion--”impossible!” She tossed it about to the right and left, applying it to everything in the dear old nest which I so dearly loved, and which she now never called anything save ”Mon exil.” The house at Komaritz, the garden, my dress,--all fell victims to this adjective.

Two of her friends shortly followed her to Komaritz, with a suitable train of governesses and maids,--countesses from Prague society, Mimi and Franziska Zett.

They were not nearly so affected as Heda,--in fact, they were not affected at all, but were sweet and natural, very pretty, and particularly pleasant towards me. But we were not congenial; we had nothing to say to one another; we had no interests in common. They were quite indifferent to my favourite heroes, from the Gracchi to the First Consul; in fact, they knew hardly anything about them, and I knew still less of the Rudis, Nikis, Taffis, and whatever else the young gentlemen were called, with whom they danced and flirted at b.a.l.l.s and parties, and about whom they now gossiped with Heda.

They, too, brought each a trunkful of faded bouquets, and one day they piled them all up on the gra.s.s in the garden and set fire to them. They declared that it was the custom in society in Vienna thus to burn on Ash Wednesday every relic of the Carnival. To be sure, it was not Ash Wednesday in Komaritz, and the Carnival was long past, but that was of no consequence.

The favourite occupation of the three young ladies was to sit in the summer-house, with a generous supply of iced raspberry vinegar, and make confession of the various _pa.s.sions funestes_ which they had inspired. I sat by and listened mutely.

Once Mimi amiably asked me to give my experience. I turned my head away, and murmured, ashamed, ”No one ever made love to me.” Mimi, noticing my distress, put her finger beneath my chin, just as if she had been my grand-aunt, and said, ”Only wait until you come out, and you will bear the palm away from all of us, for you are by long odds the prettiest of us all.”

When afterwards I looked in the gla.s.s, I thought she was right.

”Until you go into society,” Mimi had said. Good heavens! into society!--I! For some time a suspicion had dawned upon me that Uncle Paul did not mean that I should ever ”go into society.” When, the day after Mimi's portentous speech, I returned to Zirkow, I determined to put an end to all uncertainty upon the subject.

After dinner--it had been an uncommonly good one--I put my hand caressingly within my uncle's arm, and whispered, softly, ”Uncle, do you never mean to take me to b.a.l.l.s, eh?”

He had been very gay, but he at once grew grave, as he replied,--

”What good would b.a.l.l.s do you? Make your eyes droop, and your feet ache! I can't endure the thought of having you whirled about by all the young c.o.xcombs of Prague and then criticised afterwards. Marriages are made in heaven, Zdena, and your fate will find you here, you may be sure.”

”But I am not thinking of marriage,” I exclaimed, indignantly. ”I want to see the world, uncle dear; can you not understand that?” and I tenderly stroked his coat-sleeve.

He shook his curly head energetically.

”Be thankful that you know nothing of the world,” he said, with emphasis.

And I suddenly recalled the intense bitterness in my mother's tone as she uttered the word ”world,” when I waked in the dark night and found her kneeling, crying, at my bedside in our old Paris home.

”Is it really so very terrible--the world?” I asked, meekly, and yet incredulously.

”Terrible!” he repeated my word with even more energy than was usual with him. ”It is a hot-bed of envy and vanity, a place where one learns to be ashamed of his best friend if he chance to wear an ill-made coat; that is the world you are talking of. I do not wish you to know anything about it.”

This was all he would say.

It might be supposed that the unattractive picture of the world drawn by Uncle Paul would have put a stop at once and forever to any desire of mine for a further acquaintance with it, but--there is ever a charm about what is forbidden. At present I have not the faintest desire to visit Pekin, but if I were forbidden to go near that capital I should undoubtedly be annoyed.

And day follows day. Nearly a year has pa.s.sed since that unedifying conversation with my uncle.

<script>