Part 27 (1/2)
CHAPTER VI.
”You really do not know what you wish,” said Truyn in surprise when Oswald changed his mind for the third time about leaving Prague. After going with Truyn to the races on the first day succeeding the election, he would not hear of attending them with Georges and Pistasch on the second day. It was settled that he was to return home with Truyn; then he began to waver and fidget, and at last he telegraphed, countermanding the carriage that had been ordered to meet him, and got up a sudden interest in the horses of the Y---- stud which were to race for the first time. Before long, however, this interest subsided, and to Truyn's great surprise Oswald informed him at a moment's notice, that after all he was going home with him.
”You will send me over to Tornow, uncle--or shall I telegraph for the horses?” asked Oswald.
”Good Heavens, no! You can spend an hour with us, at Rautschin and take a cup of tea, and then I will send you home, you whimsical fellow, you,” replied his uncle, and so they drove together through the quiet summer morning to the station.
The streets were deserted except by the street sweepers, with their watering-pots busily laying the dust. The wheels of the hack rumbled noisily over the uneven pavement past brilliant cafes and shop windows, finally by the fine new National Bohemian Theatre, until their sound was deadened by the wooden planks of the Suspension Bridge. As usual the bridge is undergoing repairs; and this delays the hack, which, in addition is impeded by a battalion of infantry and two lumbering ox carts; there is a strong smell of mouldy planks, and hot pitch, by no means adding to the fragrance of the morning air. But these trifling annoyances cannot provoke Truyn, or destroy his pleasure in gazing on his native town.
The Moldau, slaty grey in hue, with silvery reflections, flows among its green, feathery islands, and, parallel with the modern suspension monstrosity, the mediaeval Konigsbridge, picturesque, and clumsy,--the statues on its broad bal.u.s.trade black with age like the primitive ill.u.s.trations in some old Chronicle,--spans the stream with its solemn arches.
The Kaiserburg, surrounded by haughty palaces with an unfinished gothic cathedral, looks down from the summit of the Hradschin, upon its image mirrored in the water in waving lines, and columns tinged with green.
The morning sun glows on the five red gla.s.s stars before the green St.
John on the Karlsbridge, and far away on the left and right, far into the receding distance, until all objects are mellowed and blent, stretch the banks of the river like a long drawn symphony of colour dying away in palest violet.
”After all, it is a fine, a magnificent city!” exclaimed Truyn with enthusiasm.
”Pistasch said yesterday that Prague was a dismal hole,” was Oswald's reply, ”you may both be right--it all depends upon how you look at it.”
The phrase falls keen and chilling upon Truyn's enthusiasm, like ice into boiling water. Surprised, and well nigh irritated, he turned to his future son-in-law. As, however, he is far less sensitive than good-natured, a glance at Oswald converts irritation into eager compa.s.sion: ”I wonder where you can have caught it?” he sighed, shaking his head.
”Good Heavens, what?” asked Oswald.
”I wish I knew,” said Truyn, ”either intermittent fever or a slight touch of jaundice,--for a man of your age and with your const.i.tution there's no cause for alarm, but your mother will reproach me with your looking so ill!” Then Truyn leaned out of the window of the hack to admire the Hradschin once more, before subsiding into a corner with a sigh of content, and lighting a cigar.
Oswald's nature is certainly as poetic as Truyn's, and never before had he driven over the suspension bridge, on a summer's morning, without revelling in the beauty of the Bohemian capital. But to-day everything is metamorphosed, beauty is ugliness. For him the world within two days had undergone a transformation.
The human mind is like a mirror, upon the quality whereof depends the character of the reflection in its depths; in one mirror all things are reflected yellow, in another green, in a third every line is vague, shadowy and undecided; one shows objects lengthened, another broadened, and should the mirror be cracked, everything that it reflects will be distorted.
CHAPTER VII.
Zinka and Gabrielle were at the railway station to meet Truyn, both gay, cordial and surpa.s.singly lovely. The sight of them, and their merry talk at first brightened Oswald's mood. But suddenly at tea, which on the travellers' account was a substantial meal, a wretched sense of discomfort attacked him anew.
As he had often laughingly boasted of his punctilious fulfilment of any commission from a lady, Gabrielle, before he left for Prague, had entrusted to him, to have repaired, a gold clasp of Hungarian workmans.h.i.+p set with rare, coloured stones.
When at the table she asked him, ”How about my clasp--did you bring it with you, or is the jeweller to send it?” he started, saying, ”Forgive me, I forgot all about it.”
Gabrielle stared--”Forgot--my commission?”
”Good Heavens! I am not the only man who ever forgot anything!”
exclaimed Oswald irritably.
It was the first unkind word he had ever uttered to his betrothed.