Part 33 (1/2)
”I thought the company, to tell the truth, was rather mixed,” said Hortense, who looked a few degrees more _blasee_ since Emily had come; ”I counted not less than four--say four--artillery officers who were not n.o.ble.”
”Why, that is very likely,” said Emily, ”although I had no time to count them. I have even danced with one of them--Jones, or Smith, or whatever his name was--and, by the way, he waltzed as magnificently as I could wish.”
”But, dear Emily, might you not have escaped that?” said Hortense, drawing up her cloak.
”Precisely the same question which Prince Waldenberg asked. 'Your Highness,' I replied, 'I am no enthusiast about the artillery; but, after all, I would rather dance with a man who is not n.o.ble than not to dance at all.”
This allusion to a misfortune which had twice occurred to Hortense last night, put the poor lady in such an excited state that the rouge on her cheeks became quite useless. She was just about to commit the folly of betraying by a violent answer how deep the venomous arrow shot by Emily had wounded her, when the servant announced ”Professor and Mrs. Jager.”
The man was so well trained that he did not, as usually, admit the persons he announced at once into the parlor, but closed the door behind him and remained standing there bolt upright, waiting for further orders.
”You will excuse me, my friends,” said Anna Maria, apologizing, and turning to the company present, ”if I receive the professor and his wife. The good people have always shown themselves loyal, and quite aware of their social position. I think it is our duty to encourage such people.”
Upon a sign of his mistress the servant went out, and there appeared the man of the Fragment and the poetess making deep bows and courtesies, which were returned with a gentle nod by the n.o.ble company.
Only the old baron rose, shook hands with them, and bade them welcome in his cordial, unvarnished manner.
If Primula, who looked somewhat shyly from under the cornflowers on her bonnet, seemed to stand rather in need of some such encouragement, the editor of Chrysophilos evidently could very well do without it.
Humility, it is true, spoke from his small eyes, which squinted suspiciously above the golden rim of his spectacles as he approached with bent back; modesty, it is true, smiled from the unpleasant lines which, marked the large mouth with its low-drawn comers; but they were the humility and the modesty of a cat rubbing her back against the foot of the ladder which leads to the garret where the fat pigeons are cooing. He went up to the baroness, kissed repeatedly her graciously-extended hand, bowed low to the other two ladies, not quite so low to the gentlemen, seated himself after some hesitation on the edge of a chair which stood rather outside of the circle, and waited, his head slightly on one side, till somebody should feel disposed to honor him with a question.
The conversation of the company turned on a most interesting subject, the person of his Highness, First Lieutenant Prince Waldenberg, who had been ordered a few weeks ago from his regiment of the Guards at the Capital to the line regiment which was in garrison at Grunwald, and who had of course, from his first appearance, become, the lion of the whole country n.o.bility now residing in town.
”Only I should like to know why he has been ordered here,” said Cloten. ”Felix, with whom I talked it over yesterday--_apropos_, it is very well, madame, you make him keep his room; he looks really very badly--Felix thinks the prince has probably had another duel; they say he is the most pa.s.sionate man in the world.”
”Why, Arthur!” said Emily. ”You talk as if pa.s.sion were a crime. I wish some people I know had a little more of it.”
”Are not the Waldenbergs of Slavonic descent?” asked Hortense. ”It seems to me the prince looks like a Mongolian.”
”Oh! you have not seen him near, my dearest Barnewitz,” said Emily; ”he is one of the handsomest men I have ever seen, and he dances divinely.”
”I believe the Waldenbergs are originally a Polish family,” said Anna Maria.
”Not at all, madame,” cried Cloten; ”pure Germanic, upon honor, pure Germanic.”
”I am sure Professor Jager can tell us something more about that,” said the baroness, turning with a gracious smile towards the man of science.
”Indeed, my gracious lady,” said the latter, glad to have found an opportunity for the display of his knowledge; ”indeed, I have always taken special pleasure, while pursuing my historical studies, to trace out the genealogies of n.o.ble families, and thus it happens that have given special attention to the history of the Waldenberg family, which is in many respects a most interesting one. The Waldenbergs were, if you will excuse me for correcting your remarks, of purely German descent. They came originally from Franconia, and only went to Prussia with the German knights. Afterwards, it is true, they have largely intermarried with n.o.ble Polish families, and hence they own still large estates in the Lausitz, where the family estate lies, and in Russian Poland. The present prince, also, has both Slavonic and Germanic blood in his veins. His mother, the Princess Stephanie Letbus, of the house of Wartenberg, married in eighteen hundred and twenty-two, in St.
Petersburg, where she has lived from her early youth--I mentioned before that part of their possessions are in Russia--a Count Constantin Malikowsky, the last scion of a once very rich and powerful Polish family, who is now, however, quite reduced. The Emperor Alexander, who, as they say, was under obligations to both families” (here the professor ventured upon a stealthy smile to the young princess, who was lady in waiting to the empress and exceedingly beautiful, and to the count whose family had been mainly ruined by Russian confiscations,) ”has the credit of having made the match. Such influence was perhaps necessary, because the reputation of the count was--I trust you will pardon the veracity of a conscientious historian--was, how shall I call it, somewhat doubtful. Young n.o.blemen must sow their wild oats, we all know that; but Count Malikowsky had probably carried the matter a little too far. However that may be, the offspring of this marriage of Count Constantin Malikowsky with the Princess Stephanie Letbus is the prince, who at first was in the Russian service; but when with the last Prince Waldenberg the male succession in the family came to an end, and the estates lapsed back to the crown, the King of Prussia as a special favor declared him qualified to succeed, and he entered our service as Prince Count Malikowsky Waldenberg. His full name is, as you may possibly not know yet, Raimund Gregorius Stephan, Prince Count Malikowsky Waldenberg, hereditary lord of Letbus.”
The company had followed the genealogical lecture of the learned professor with the same attention with which a company of ordinary crows might listen to the report of an owl about the descent of a rare raven who measures four yards from tip to tip. The devout silence was suddenly interrupted by the voice of the servant, who opened the door with nervous haste and called out, ”His Highness, Prince Waldenberg!”
The nervous servant seemed to have electrified the whole company in the room. A moment later and they all stood straight up before their chairs, anxiously looking at the door, through whose wide-open frame the prince was entering so quickly that Anna Maria was not able to make the three steps to meet him which etiquette required, but had only time for one and a half.
”You have had the kindness, madame,” said the prince in excellent French, slightly bending over the hand of the baroness, ”to antic.i.p.ate my wishes by your invitation, before I had an opportunity to make myself worthy of such an attention. Permit me to try to make amends for my neglect.”
”An effort, _mon prince_,” answered Anna Maria, with her sweetest smile, also in French, ”which in a gentleman like yourself is sure of success. I regret exceedingly that, rarely as we are from home, an unfortunate accident should have caused us the other day to be absent just when you thought of honoring us with a visit. Permit me to present to you my friends: the baron, my husband; Baron and Baroness Barnewitz; Baron and Baroness Cloten.”
”I have already the honor,” said the prince, smiling.