'Gloria Victis!' A Romance. Ossip Schubin
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Название: 'Gloria Victis!' A Romance
Автор: Ossip Schubin
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 4064066142247
isbn:
There was a incoherent cry, a savage word. … !
The Contessa, very pale, put down her scissors; she trembled violently.
"I think it would be better to separate them," Zoë remarked very calmly.
"I will try to," gasped Madame Capriani, and opening the door into the next room, she called, "Mon-ami, the Baroness Melkweyser is here--I believe she brings you some news. … "
"Il s'agit de votre fameuse affaire, mon cher comte," Zoë called coaxingly.
Her words produced a magical effect; both men made their appearance, the father with a honeyed smile, the son, a short thick-set fellow with handsome features but a rude ill-tempered air, frowning and sullen.
"Bon soir baronne."
"Bon soir."
"Eh bien?" and settling himself in an arm-chair, his legs outstretched, and toying with his double eyeglass in the triumphant attitude with which he was wont to contemplate the favourable development of some particularly clever business transaction, Capriani began, "So you have at last found a favourable opportunity."
"No,--no, not at all!" said Zoë, "but I thought best not to leave you in uncertainty any longer, and so I came to you this evening."
"You know I gave you no authority to make a direct proposal," said the Conte.
"How can you suppose me capable of such want of tact!" Zoë rejoined hypocritically, "unfortunately I have not been able even to find out how the land lies. If you had commissioned me a little sooner--just a little sooner,--but there is nothing to be done now, for Gabrielle Truyn is already betrothed!"
"Nom d'un chien!" muttered Arthur; he had been no less impressed by Gabrielle's beauty than by her lofty descent--"nom d'un chien!"
"Indeed, already betrothed," his father said coldly, slowly putting his eyeglass upon his nose and scanning the baroness mistrustfully as he asked, "betrothed to whom?"
"To her cousin, Oswald Lodrin."
"To Oswald Lodrin," he repeated quickly. "You cannot, indeed, enter the lists against him, my poor Arthur!"
"Perhaps not as far as arrogance is concerned," growled the Vicomte, "he is the haughtiest human being I ever came across."
"That may be, but--" the Conte smiled oddly, "he is also one of the handsomest and most distinguished of Austrians, and he is renowned as such."
Whilst Arthur continued to mutter unintelligibly, but in evident ill-humor, Capriani senior left his arm-chair and taking a low seat beside Zoë, said, "To-morrow the X---- railway stock is to be issued. The shares will be in great demand; shall I save you a couple of hundred?"
CHAPTER IV.
The fragrance of the elder blossoms floated sweet and strong upon the air in the dim warm stillness of the Avenue Labédoyère. The poetry that breathes in the odour of flowers no words can reproduce, music alone can sometimes translate it; it ascended from the full white panicles in the little garden before the Hôtel Truyn and breathed through the open window into Gabrielle's chamber like an exultant yearning, like a song filled with love's delicious pain.
Zinka sat on the edge of the little white bed where the young girl was lying, her golden hair rippling about her brow and temples, while upon her pale face lay the melancholy of illimitable joy; her eyes were moist.
"And you are not surprised, Zini … not at all?" she whispered.
"No, my child," replied Zinka tenderly, "not in the least; I knew you were destined for each other from the first moment that I saw you together."
"Ah," Gabrielle sighed, "I cannot comprehend it yet. It all seems to me like a delicious dream from which I must waken, but even if I must, even if the dear God takes from me all that He has given me, I shall thank Him on my knees as long as I live for this one lovely dream."
"Calm yourself, my darling," Zinka whispered, lovingly stroking the young girl's cheeks, "how your cheeks burn!" And she poured a few drops of essence of orange flowers into a glass of water, "drink this, you little enthusiast."
"It will do no good, dear little mother," said Gabrielle, obediently lifting the composing draught to her burning lips. "Ah, you cannot imagine how I feel, it seems as if--as if my heart would break with happiness!"
Zinka kissed her, made the sign of the cross upon her forehead, drew the coverlet over her shoulders, once more admonished her to be calm, and left her.
Thunder rumbled without; Zinka started and as a second clap resounded she turned back. "Are you afraid of the storm, Ella, shall I stay with you?" she asked gently.
"Ah no, dear little mother," Gabrielle replied in the intoxication of her happiness, "I hardly hear the thunder."
And Zinka departed. "I do not know why I cannot rejoice in this as I ought," she said to herself, "it seems to me as if we had forgotten to invite some one of the twelve fairies to this betrothal."
And whilst the thunder crashed above the Champs Elysées she suddenly recalled an old fairy story that a fever-stricken peasant from the Trastevere had once told her in Rome.
It was a gloomy story, one of those legends in which the popular imagination, boldly overleaping all chronological and historical obstacles, bestows upon Pagan gods the wings of Christian angels, and arms God the Father with the lightnings of angry Jove. It ran somewhat thus:
"There was once a beautiful maiden who was good as an angel, so good that it gave her unutterable pain to see any one sad and not to be able to help; and once when she had cried herself to sleep over the woes of mankind she had a wonderful vision. A dark form with a veiled face approached her and said, 'If you have the courage to cut your heart out of your breast and plant it deep in the earth, there will spring from it a flower so glorious, so wonderful, that whoever inhales its fragrance will feel a bliss so intense that he would gladly purchase it with all the torture of our mortal existence.'
"And the maiden cut her heart out of her breast and planted it deep in the brown earth, and watered it with her tears, and there sprang from it a magically-beautiful flower, with luxuriant green leaves, and large white blossoms with blood-red calyxes, and whoever inhaled the breath of these blossoms felt an intoxicating delight course through his veins, so that in his wild ecstasy he forgot all earthly care and trouble. The flowers unfolded to more and more enchanting loveliness, and through the thick foliage sighed the sweetest music.
"Now when the angels in Heaven heard of this strange plant they entreated the Almighty Father to allow them to go get it and to plant it in Paradise.
"The Lord granted their request. Then they fluttered down from Heaven, but when they approached the wondrous plant a voice spoke from it, saying, 'Let me alone, I blossom for the consolation of the earth, I could not live in Paradise; the soil in which I flourish must be watered with heart's blood and tears!'
"But the angels did not СКАЧАТЬ