Part 13 (2/2)
”Yes,” said Fritz, ”and every time with a fresh scheme for my complete relief from all difficulties, which he always unfolds with the same fervid enthusiasm. The schemes are impracticable, but never mind!
Existence always seems more tolerable to me while I am talking with him, and when he has gone, it is as if a soft spring shower had just pa.s.sed over, purifying and freshening the air. There really is something very remarkable about the fellow. With all his fiery energy, he is so unutterably tender; ordinarily when a man situated as I am comes in contact with such a favorite of fortune, he inevitably feels annoyed--it is like a glare of light for weak eyes. But there is nothing of the kind with him--he warms without dazzling,--he understands how to stoop to misery, without condescending to it.”
”Yes, yes, he has his good qualities,” Truyn grumbled, ”very good qualities. But he has stolen from me my little comrade's heart, and I cannot say I am greatly pleased.”
”You do not expect me to pity you on the score of your future son-in-law?” said Fritz, laughing.
”Not exactly--if I must have one, then ....”
”Then thank G.o.d that just these young people have come together,” Fritz said in that tone of admonition, which even young men, when forsaken of fortune, sometimes adopt towards their happier seniors. ”Do you know what he has done for me--among other things--just a trifle?”
”How should I? He certainly would never tell me.”
”Of course not! We had not seen each other for years, but he came to see me as soon as he knew that I was at Schneeburg, and asked me if he could do anything for me. I thought it kind, but did not take his words seriously and so thanked him and a.s.sured him he could do nothing. He came again, bringing presents for the children with kind messages from his mother, and asked me to dinner. When we retired to the smoking-room after that dinner he said to me with the embarra.s.sed manner of a generous man, about to confer a benefit: 'Fritz, tell me frankly; does no old debt annoy you?' Of course, at first I did not want to confess, but at last I admitted that a couple of unliquidated accounts did trouble me. An unstained name is a luxury that is the hardest of all to forego. He arranged everything, and now I am perfectly free from debt.
He has such a charming way of giving, as if it were the merest pastime.
I once asked him how a man as happy as he, found so much time to think for others? He answered that happiness was like a rose-bush, the more blossoms one gives away, the more it flourishes!”
”Yes, yes, he certainly is a fine fellow.--We quarrel sometimes, but he is a very fine fellow!” said Truyn, ”he suits the child--you must know her. And what about your children? Ossi says they are very pretty--you have three, have you not?”
”No, only two,” Fritz replied, and his voice trembled as he took a little photograph from the wall--”only two; my eldest died. Look at him--” handing the picture to Truyn, ”he was a pretty child, was he not?--my poor little Siegi--but too lovely, too good for the life that had fallen to his lot. He is better dead--better!” he uttered in the hard tone in which the reason a.s.serts what the heart denies.
From the park the vague, dreamy fragrance of the fading white rocket was wafted into the room. The light flickered dimly through the leafy screen of the apricot tree before the open window that looked out upon the vegetable garden. On Fritz's writing-table the old Empire clock, wheezing in its struggle for breath, struck five times. Truyn knew the old timepiece well, but formerly it used to swing its pendulum as merrily on into eternity as if it expected a fresh delight every hour.
It seemed as if by this time it had almost lost its voice from grief, so asthmatic was the sob with which it counted the seconds. And not only with the clock, with everything around him Truyn was familiar. The entire shabby apartment betrayed a fanatical wors.h.i.+p of the past. The chairs were the same monstrosities with lyre-shaped backs and crooked legs, which had been wont to endure the angry kicks of the little Malzins, when their tutor kept them too long at their lessons. Even the pattern of the wall-paper, with its apocryphal birds and b.u.t.terflies among impossible wreaths of flowers, was the same which a travelling house-painter had pasted up there thirty years before.
But what most struck Truyn, was the decoration on one of the low doors in the thick wall--it was marked all over with lines in pencil and scribbled names. Upon that door the young Malzins used to record their growth from year to year.
”Pipsi, 14,” he read, ”and something over,” ”Erich,”--he smiled involuntarily, and read on,--”Oscar 12,” and then far below in uncertain characters looking as if an elder sister had guided the hand of a very little child, ”Fritzl.”
And through Truyn's memory there sounded the crumpling of copy-book leaves--of childrens' voices, of Cramer's Exercises, and of sleepily recited Latin verbs. Yes, even the peculiar fragrance of lavender and fresh linen, formerly exhaled from the light chintz gown of his pretty cousin, came wafting to him over the past.
”This is your old school-room!” he exclaimed.
”Of course it is,” said Fritz, ”can you guess whom I have to thank for keeping it intact?”
”The avarice of your princ.i.p.al?”
”No, the delicacy of his wife. Before I moved in here she said to me, 'my husband wished to have the house put in order for you, Herr Count, but I thought that perhaps you liked old a.s.sociations, and I therefore beg you to make only what changes you think best.'”
”A good woman!” Truyn murmured.
Just then an extraordinary figure entered the room,--the same female that Truyn had encountered in the hall, but splendidly transformed, tightly laced, with cheeks covered thick with pink powder--Fritz Malzin's wife!
”Very good of you,” she began after Fritz had presented Truyn to her.
Her voice had the forced sweetness of stage training. ”Very good to honour our humble dwelling with a visit. May I take the liberty of offering you a cup of coffee, that is, Herr Count,” as Truyn evidently hesitated, ”if you can put up with our simple fare; in the country, you know, when one is not prepared ....”
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