Sunrise by William Black (love letters to the dead .TXT) 📕

was opened, and the mother came into the room.

"Madame," said Brand, quickly, "come and speak to your daughter. I have had to tell her something that has upset her, perhaps, for a moment; but you will console her; she is brave."

"Child, how you tremble, and how cold your hands are!" the mother cried.

"It does not matter, mother. From every pain there is a release, is there not?"

"I do not understand you, Natalushka?"

"And I--and I, mother--"

She was on the point of breaking down, but she held firm. Then she released herself from her mother's hold, and went forward and took her lover's hand, and regarded him with the sad, fearless, beautiful eyes.

"I have been selfish," she said; "I have been thinking of myself, when that is needless. For me there will be a release--quickly enough: I shall pray for it. Now tell me what I must do: I will obey you."

"First, then," said he, speaking in a low voice, and in English, so that her mother should not understand, "you must make light of this affair, or you will distress your mother greatly, and she is not able to bear distress. Some day, if you think it right, you may tell her; you know nothing that could put the enterprise in peril; she will be as discreet and silent as yourself, Natalie. Then you must put it out of your mind, my darling, that you have any share in what has occurred. What have I to regret? My life was worthless to me; you made it beautiful for a time; perhaps, who knows, it may after all turn out to have been of some service, and then there can be no regret at all. They think so, and it is not for me to question."

"May I not tell my mother now?" she said, imploringly. "Dearest, how can I speak to her, and be thinking of you far away?"

"As you please, Natalie. The little I have told you or Evelyn can do no harm, so long as you keep it among yourselves."

"But I shall see again?" It was her heart that cried to him.

"Oh yes, Natalie," he said, gravely. "I may not have to leave England for a week or two. I will see you as often as I can until I go, my darling, though it may only be torture to you."

"Torture?" she said, sadly. "That will come after--until there is an end of the pain."

"Hush, you must not talk like that. You have now one with you whom it is your duty to support and console. She has not had a very happy life either, Natalie."

He was glad now that he was able to leave this terror-stricken girl in such tender hands. And as for himself, he found, when he had left, that somehow the strengthening of another had strengthened himself. He had less dread of the future; his face was firm; the time for vain regrets was over.


CHAPTER XLIII.


A QUARREL.

Meanwhile, almost immediately after George Brand had left the house in Lisle Street, Reitzei and Beratinsky left also. On shutting the street-door behind them, Beratinsky bade a curt good-night to his companion, and turned to go; but Reitzei, who seemed to be in very high spirits, stayed him.

"No, no, friend Beratinsky; after such a fine night's work I say we must have a glass of wine together. We will walk up to the Culturverein."

"It is late," said the other, somewhat ungraciously.

"Never mind. An hour, three-quarters of an hour, half an hour, what matter? Come," said he, laying hold of his arm and taking him away unwillingly, "it is not polite of you to force me to invite myself. I do not suppose it is the cost of the wine you are thinking of. Mark my words: when I am elected a member, I shall not be stingy."

Beratinsky suffered himself to be led away, and together the two walked up toward Oxford Street. Beratinsky was silent, and even surly: Reitzei garrulous and self-satisfied.

"Yes, I repeat it; a good night's work. For the thing had to be done; there were the Council's orders; and who so appropriate as the Englishman? Had it been you or I, Beratinsky, or Lind, how could any one of us have been spared? No doubt the Englishman would have been glad to have Lind's place, and Lind's daughter, too: however, that is all settled now, and very well done. I say it was very well done on the part of Lind. And what did you think of my part, friend Beratinsky?"

"I think you made a fool of yourself, friend Reitzei," said the other, abruptly.

Reitzei was a vain young man, and he had been fishing for praise.

"I don't know what you mean," he said, angrily.

"What I mean I say," replied the other, with something very like cool contempt. "I say you made a fool of yourself. When a man is drunk, he does his best to appear sober; you, being sober, tried to appear drunk, and made a fool of yourself."

"My friend Beratinsky," said the younger man, hotly, "you have a right to your own opinion--every man has that; but you should take care not to make an ass of yourself by expressing it. Do not speak of things you know nothing about--that is my advice to you."

Beratinsky did not answer; and the two walked on in silence until they reached the Verein, and entered the long, resounding hall, which was nearly empty. But the few members who remained were making up for their paucity of numbers by their mirth and noise. As Beratinsky and his companion took their seats at the upper end of the table the chairman struck his hammer violently, and commanded silence.

"Silentium, meine Herren!" he thundered out. "I have a secret to communicate. A great honor has been done one of our members, and even his overwhelming modesty permits it to be known at last. Our good friend Josef Hempel has been appointed Hof-maler to the Grand-duke of ----. I call in you to drink his health and the Grand-duke's too!"

Then there was a quick filling of glasses; a general uprising; cries of "Hempel! Hempel!" "The Duke!" followed by a resounding chorus--


"Hoch sollen sie leben!
Hoch sollen sie leben!
Dreimal hoch!"--


that echoed away down the empty hall. Then the tumult subsided; and the president, rising, said gravely,

"I now call on our good friend Hempel to reply to the toast, and to give us a few remarks on the condition of art in the Grand Duchy of ----, with some observations and reflections on the altered position of the Duchy since the unification of our Fatherland."

In answer to this summons there rose to his feet a short old gentleman, with a remarkably fresh complexion, silvery-white hair, and merry blue eyes that peered through gold-rimmed spectacles. He was all smiles and blushes; and the longer they cheered the more did he smile and blush.

"Gentlemen," he said; and this was the signal for further cheering; "Gentlemen," said the blushing orator, at length, "our friend is at his old tricks. I cannot make a speech to you--except this: I ask you to drink a glass of champagne with me. Kellner--Champagner!"

And he incontinently dropped into his seat again, having forgotten altogether to acknowledge the compliment paid to himself and the Grand-duke.

However, this was like the letting in of water; for no sooner had the two or three bottles ordered by Herr Hempel been exhausted than one after another of his companions seemed to consider it was their turn now, and loud-shouted orders were continually being administered to the busy waiter. Wine flowed and sparkled; cigars were freely exchanged; the volume of conversation rose in tone, for all were speaking at once; the din became fast and furious.

In the midst of all this Reitzei alone sat apart and silent. Ever since coming into the room the attention of Beratinsky had been monopolized by his neighbor, who had just come back from a great artistic fete in some German town, and who, dressed as the Emperor Barbarossa, and followed by his knights, had ridden up the big staircase into the Town-hall. The festivities had lasted for a fortnight; the Staatsweinkeller had furnished liberal supplies; the Princess Adelheid had been present at the crowning ceremony. Then he had brought with him sketches of the various costumes, and so forth. Perhaps it was inadvertently that Beratinsky so grossly neglected his guest.

The susceptible vanity of Reitzei had been deeply wounded before he entered, but now the cup of his wrath was filled to overflowing. The more champagne he drank--and there was plenty coming and going--the more sullen he became. For the rest, he had forgotten the circumstance that he had already drunk two glasses of brandy before his arrival, and that he had eaten nothing since mid-day.

At length Beratinsky turned to him.

"Will you have a cigar, Reitzei?"

Reitzei's first impulse was to refuse to speak; but his wrongs forced him. He said, coldly,

"No, thanks; I have already been offered a cigar by the gentleman next me. Perhaps you will kindly tell me how one, being sober, had any need to pretend to be sober?"

Beratinsky stared at him.

"Oh, you are thinking about that yet, are you?" he said, indifferently; and at this moment, as his neighbor called his attention to some further sketches, he again turned away.

But now the souls of the sons of the Fatherland, warmed with wine, began to think of home and love and patriotism, and longed for some more melodious utterances than this continuous guttural clatter. Silence was commanded. A handsome young fellow, slim and dark, clearly a Jew, ascended the platform, and sat down at the piano; the bashful Hempel, still blushing and laughing, was induced to follow; together they sung, amidst comparative silence, a duet of Mendelssohn's, set for tenor and barytone, and sung it very well indeed. There was great applause, but Hempel insisted on retiring. Left to himself, the young man with the handsome profile and the finely-set head played a few bars of prelude, and then, in a remarkably clear and resonant voice, sung Braga's mystical and tender serenade, the "Legende Valaque," amidst a silence now quite secured. But what was this one voice or that to all the passion of music demanding utterance? Soon there was a call to the young gentleman to play an accompaniment; and a huge black-a-vised Hessian, still sitting at the table, held up his brimming glass, and began, in a voice like a hundred kettle-drums,


"Ich nehm' mein Glaschen in die Hand:"


then came the universal shout of the chorus, ringing to the roof,


"Vive la Compagneia!"


Again the raucous voice bawled aloud,


"Und fahr' damit in's Unterland:"


and again the thunder of the chorus, this time prolonged, with much beating of time on the table, and jangling of wine-glasses,

"Vive la Compagneia!
Vive la, vive la, vive la, va! vive la, vive la, hopsasa!
Vive la Compagneia!"

And so on to the end, the chorus becoming stormier and more thunderous than ever; then, when peace had been restored, there was a general rising, though here and there a final glass was drunk with "stosst an! setzt an! fertig! los!" and