Part 64 (2/2)

Adolphus had put Emily into a cab.

The cab drove up with unusual rapidity.

”Hem!” murmured the porter, as he hung the key to No. 36 again on its hook on the board; ”I thought at once it would be so. Well, I cannot keep the people if they must needs run away.”

CHAPTER X.

In William street, the real Faubourg St. Germain of the great city, Prince Waldenberg's head steward had bought shortly before New Year one of the largest and finest town mansions, the owner of which had recently died. The prince himself, who came soon afterwards from Grunwald, had superintended the inner arrangements, and pushed them so rapidly, in spite of the magnificent style in which they were carried on, that he could move in with his numerous household before the end of January. He took one wing for himself; the other wing remained unoccupied, as he did not wish to antic.i.p.ate the desires and the good taste of his betrothed, who was to leave Grunwald with her mother in the beginning of the month and to come to Berlin. The upper story, however, was full of workmen and upholsterers. Here his mother, the princess, was to stay and to receive company.

He was gratified to see this part of the house also fully furnished and ready for her reception when he left the town on the first of March for the harbor of Stettin, where the steamer from St. Petersburg was expected in a day or two. At the same time his steward had engaged a suite of rooms at the Hotel de Russie, Unter den Linden, for his father, Count Malikowsky, who was expected from Munich.

It was the same evening on which the above mentioned events had taken place in the furnished lodgings in Broad street.

In one of the magnificent rooms of the Hotel Waldenberg, in a well-padded easy-chair, which had been moved quite close up to the bright fire burning in the fire-place, the Princess Letbus was reclining. The prince stood by her, bending his tall form down to her, as if to spare his mother even the trouble of speaking loud. As the fire was blazing up brighter, so that brilliant flashes of light fell upon the two figures, the group with its background of tall mirrors and costly pictures would have formed a superb subject for the hand of a modern Rembrandt. It would not have been easy to find two more striking representatives of frail womanly beauty and overpowering male strength than the forms of mother and son. While the latter, with his broad shoulders and long muscular arms, looked as if he were made to perform the labors of Hercules, the lady, sitting bent and drooping, and wrapped up in costly furs in spite of the blazing fire, might have suggested that even the weight of a fly could have been troublesome to her. Nor was there any resemblance to be traced in the features.

Although the lips were languid and the cheeks faded; and although the brow of the lady, who could hardly be over forty, looked narrow between the sunken temples and beneath the dark hair with its numerous silver threads, the connoisseur could still see that these lips and these cheeks must have once been of surpa.s.sing beauty, and that the hair once upon a time furnished a frame of glorious curls around a blooming face of marvellous perfection. The large black eyes were very beautiful still, when she raised her long silken eye-lashes, which she ordinarily held drooping, and a deeper emotion brought back for a moment the fire which had shone in them in days gone by, with too great lavishness, perhaps, and fatal danger. There could have been no stronger contrast with this soft melting beauty than the low forehead of the prince, half hid under thick, crisp curly hair, which stood in perfect harmony with the coa.r.s.e though energetic lines of his face. And yet in spite of this thorough difference in their physical natures, mother and son felt for each other a tender affection, which in the former almost rose to enthusiasm, and in the latter formed almost the only sentiment which acted as a counterpoise to his boundless pride, and the prevailing pa.s.sion of his energetic but unintelligent mind.

”Good-by, dear mamma,” said the prince, bending still lower, and carrying his mother's feeble hand to his lips. ”It is time for me to go, if I do not mean to be too late at the station; the train will be in.”

”Adieu, my dear son,” replied the princess. ”Welcome your betrothed in my name. Tell her she will find a second mother here. Has the count consented to be present when the ladies come?”

”Yes, dear mamma.”

”Well, then, my dear son, go with G.o.d; and may He bless your going out and coming in!”

She breathed a kiss on the brow of the prince, who then arose and noiselessly stepped on the thick carpet to the door.

The princess remained deeply imbedded in her easy-chair after her son had left her. There were evidently no pleasant thoughts pa.s.sing through her mind at that moment, for her features became darker and darker, and the black eyes stared more fixedly than ever at the blaze in the fire-place, so that they shone like weird fires in the flickering light, and contrasted almost painfully with the pale face. At last a shudder seemed to pa.s.s over her and to rouse her; she rang the tiny silver bell that stood close by her on the little buhl table.

Immediately her first waiting-woman, Nadeska, entered the room.

Nadeska was a serf, who had grown up with the princess, and gradually made herself indispensable to her mistress by her pliant submission, and especially by her perfect skill in carrying on all kinds of intrigue. The princess had, in her somewhat stormy youth, required the a.s.sistance of such a person; and when she became afterwards a devotee, being sick in body and soul, she was not disposed to dismiss a servant who had always been near her person, and knew, therefore, all her secrets in their minutest detail. And, besides, Nadeska had always been faithful to her, and even made many a sacrifice for her. Only once, in one of the most serious difficulties to which the princess had been exposed by her evil inclinations, had she suspected her of having played false. But Nadeska had sworn by all the saints of the almanac; and as there was no evidence against her, her mistress had at last received her back again in her favor.

”What does your grace desire?” asked Nadeska, in a tone of voice which betrayed, through all its deep respectfulness, a certain familiarity.

”Have the candles lit in the rooms, Nadeska; and, you hear, let all the servants be called together to receive the ladies in the great hall.

Whom will you give them for their personal attendants?”

”I thought Katinka, Mademoiselle Virginie; and, among the German girls, Mary and Louisa.”

”Very well. You will receive the ladies yourself at the door, and show them to their rooms.”

”Has your grace any other orders?”

”No, Nadeska.”

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