'Gloria Victis!' A Romance. Ossip Schubin

Чтение книги онлайн.

CHAPTER III.

       Table of Contents

      Zoë Melkweyser was an Austrian and a distant relative of Truyn's. Very well-born, but in very narrow pecuniary circumstances, she had grown up on her widowed father's heavily-mortgaged estate, condemned through want of means to a continued residence there, restless as was the temperament with which nature had endowed her. As a school-girl she had no greater pleasure than imaginary journeys from place to place upon the map, and one day she confided to her governess, Mrs. Sidney, under the seal of secrecy, that she would consent to marry any man, even were he a negro, who would promise to indulge her restlessness and allow her to travel to her heart's content.

      It was no negro, however, but a banker from Brussels, who finally fulfilled her requirements. She met him at a watering-place, whither she had gone under the chaperonage of a wealthy and compassionate relative. In spite of her thirst for travel she could hardly have made up her mind to marry an Austrian banker, but a Belgian Crœ sus was quite a different affair in her opinion.

      All the objections and remonstrances of her aristocratic connections in Austria upon her return thither betrothed, she cut short with, "What would you have? Of course I never should have met him here, but he was received at court in Brussels."

      And in fact Baron Alfred Melkweyser was not only received at court in Brussels, but what was still more extraordinary, by the Princess L----, being admitted to the most exclusive Belgian circles, 'among the people whom everyone knows.'

      It would have been difficult to find any fault with him except for his brand-new patent of nobility, and Zoë never had any cause to repent her marriage. His manners were perfectly correct, he rode well, had a laudable passion for antiquities, ordered his clothes at Poole's, always used vous in talking with his wife, paid all her bills without even a wry face, patiently travelled with her all over the world, and at her desire removed with her to Paris.

      After ten years of childless marriage he died suddenly, of his first and unfortunately unsuccessful attempt to drive four-in-hand. As this, his first ambitious folly, was also his last, society forbore to ridicule it, and even after his death he enjoyed the reputation of an 'homme parfaitement bien.'

      His widow bewailed his loss sincerely, and purchased all her mourning of Cyprès at reduced prices. Bargains had always been a passion with her, and scarcely had her year of mourning passed, before, thanks to her expensive taste for cheap, useless articles, she had disposed of half the source of her income. Among other things she purchased at low prices various stocks which turned out badly. She owed her familiarity with financial affairs entirely to her speculative vein, and not at all, as her aristocratic relatives and country-folk erroneously imagined, to her deceased husband, who had, in fact, held himself persistently aloof from former financial acquaintances.

      It was not acquisitiveness that spurred Zoë on to her various undertakings, but the restlessness of her temperament. She delighted in everything novel and fatiguing, whether it were a pilgrimage to Lourdes, a bargain day at the Bon Marché, or a first representation at the Français, to which, by persistent wire-pulling and constant appeals to one and another person of influence, she was able to obtain tickets of admission not only for herself but for all her most intimate friends. She had one means, however, far more entertaining than all others, of procuring the excitement needed by her temperament, and this was the introduction to 'the world,' of American or European financial magnates. She extorted for them invitations to the most distinguished routs, she designed the balls which these wealthy people were to give to dazzle Paris withal, and she expended an incredible amount of cunning and energy in inducing the aristocratic world to appear at these entertainments. Her tactics were those of genius; instead of contenting herself after the fashion of less skilful mortals with inviting the poorer and more modest members of Paris society, she bent all her efforts to securing the presence of some legitimist duchess at the ball, if only for an hour. She succeeded in doing this in most cases by placing at the duchess' disposal a large sum of money for charitable purposes. When she had gained over two or three of these fixed stars, the planets of Parisian society began to appear at these balls.

      Planets, in their social relations, are notably much more fastidious than fixed stars, as is but natural; they are forced to reflect a light not their own.

      The entire scheme was usually most successful; the balls were beautiful and everything went excellently well. Sometimes, indeed, not one of the assembled guests had the civility to invite the mistress of the mansion to dance, and many of those present affected to mistake the host for a footman, but none the less was everyone content and pleased when the ball was over. Zoë Melkweyser was glad that she had enjoyed so brilliant an opportunity of getting out of breath; the givers of the ball were pleased to read the long list of their distinguished guests in Figaro; and le monde rejoiced in having something to laugh at, and spent three days in ridiculing the extravagance of the Cotillon favours.

      The latest and most brilliant of Zoë's protégés was Conte Capriani.

      Who was he? What was he? 'A poisonous fungus that the sultry storm-laden atmosphere had bred upon heaven only knows what muck-heap.'

      A clever statesman had made use of this phrase not long before to define the innate characteristics of this Crœ sus. The phrase had been laughingly caught up and repeated, and no one had troubled themselves further about Capriani's antecedents. In a smaller city they would soon have been investigated, but Paris never busies itself long with the solution of such commonplace mysteries; on the contrary it takes care not to pry into the past of an adventurer whom it finds of very great use. Thus the antecedents of this financial Jove remained, like those of most deities, shrouded in myth.

      Among the many legends that had at first been circulated concerning him, was one that he had formerly been a lady's physician and that he had been most successful with his aristocratic patients.

      Whether this were or were not true, certain it was that his air and manner suggested that adulatory, fawning servility which characterizes those physicians whose professional efforts are, for lack of other occupation, chiefly directed to soothing the nerves of hysteric women. His exterior was that of a man who has once been handsome, cidevant-beau, spoiled only by the piercing glance of his large black eyes, and the cynical droop of his loose under-lip. He carried his head well forward, as if listening, and around his mouth and eyes there were strange lines and wrinkles in the yellow skin which had of late grown flabby,--lines suggesting that some of the figures with which he played the despot had flown angrily into his face and embedded themselves there.

      That he had begun life with nothing he himself was wont to declare, whenever he gave way to the fit of rage that seized him upon any offence offered СКАЧАТЬ