Our Own Set

At Rome in 1870. Roman society was already divided into "Le Monde noir" and "Le Monde blanc" which as yet gave no sign of amalgamation into a "Monde gris." His Holiness the Pope had entrenched himself in the Vatican behind his prestige of martyrdom; and the King already held his court at the Quirinal.

Among the distinguished Austrians who were spending the winter in Rome were the Otto Ilsenberghs. Otto Ilsenbergh, one of the leading members of the Austrian feudal aristocracy, was in Rome professedly for his health, but in reality solely in order to avail himself of the resources of the Vatican library in compiling that work on the History of Miracle which he has lately given to the world under a quaint pseudonym. He and his wife with a troup of red-haired Ilsenberghs, big and little, inhabited a straggling, historical palazzo on the Corso, with a glacial stone staircase and vast drawing-rooms which looked more fit for the meetings of conspirators than for innocent tea-drinkings and dances.

The countess was "at home" every evening when there was no better amusement to be had. She was by birth a princess Auerstein, of the Auerstein-Zolling branch, in which--as we all know--the women are remarkable for their white eyebrows and their strict morality. The Ilsenbergh salon was much frequented; the prevailing tone was by no means formal; smoking was allowed in the drawing-room--nay the countess herself smoked: to be precise she smoked regalias.

It was in the beginning of December; a wet evening and the heavy drops splashed against the window panes. Count Ilsenbergh was sitting in an immense reception-room decorated with frescoes, at a buhl table, evidently constructed for no more arduous duties than the evolution of love letters. He was absorbed in the concoction of an article for "Our Times." A paper of strictly aristocratic-conservative tendencies, patronized by himself, taken in by his fellow-aristocrats, but read by absolutely no one--excepting the liberal newspaper writers when in search of reactionary perversities. Count Ilsenbergh was in great trouble; the Austrian Ministry had crowned their distinguished achievements by one even more distinguished--for the fourth time within three years a new era was announced, and in defiance of prejudice a spick-and-span liberal ministry was being composed, destined no doubt to establish the prosperity of the Austrian people on a permanent basis--and beyond a doubt to cause a fresh importation of "Excellencies" into the fashionable salons of the Ringstrasse at Vienna. Count Ilsenbergh was prophesying the end of all things.

The countess was sitting at her ease on a sofa close to the fire-place, with its Renaissance chimaeras of white marble. The handsomest editions of the works of Ampère and Mommsen lay on the tables, but she held on her lap a ragged volume of a novel from a circulating library. She was a tall, fair woman with a high color and apricot-colored hair, a languid figure, slender extremities and insignificant features; she spoke French and German alike with a strong Viennese accent, dressed unfashionably, and moved awkwardly; still, no one who knew what was what, could fail to see that she was a lady and an aristocrat. At all court functions she was an imposing figure, she never stumbled over her train and wore the family diamonds with stately indifference.

The portière was lifted and General von Klinger was announced. General von Klinger was an old Austrian soldier whose good fortune it had been to have an opportunity of distinguishing himself with his cavalry at Sadowa, after which, righteously wroth at the national disaster, he had laid down his sword and retired with his General's rank to devote himself wholly to painting. Even as a soldier he had enjoyed a reputation as a genius and had covered himself with glory by the way in which he could sketch, with his gold-cased pencil on the back of an old letter or a visiting-card, a galloping horse and a jockey bending over its mane; a work of art especially admired for the rapidity with which it was executed. Since then he had studied art in Paris, had three times had his pictures refused at the salon and had succeeded in persuading himself that this was a distinction--in which he found a parallel in Rousseau, Delacroix and fifty fellow-victims who had been obliged to submit to a similar rebuff. Then he had come to Rome, an unappreciated genius, and had established himself in a magnificent studio in the Piazza Navona, which he threw open to the public every day from three till five and which became a popular rendezvous for the fashionable world. They laughed at the old soldier's artistic pretensions, but they could not laugh at him. He was in every sense of the word a gentleman. Like many an old bachelor who cherishes the memory of an unsuccessful love affair in early life, he covered a sentimental vein by a biting tongue--a pessimist idealist perhaps describes him. He was handsome and upright, with a stiffly starched shirt collar and romantic dark eyes--a thorough old soldier and a favorite with all the fine ladies of Roman society.

"It is very nice of you to have thought of us," said the countess greeting him heartily; "it is dreadful weather too--come and warm yourself."

The count looked up from his writing: "How are you General?" he said, and then went on with his article, adding: "Such an old friend as you are will allow me to go on with my work; only a few lines--half a dozen words. These are grave times, when every man must hold his own in the ranks!"--and the forlorn hope of the feudal cause dipped his pen in the ink with a sigh.

The general begged him not to disturb himself, the countess said a few words about some musical soirée, and presently her husband ended his page with an emphatic flourish, exclaiming: "That will give them something to think about!" and came to join them by the fire.

A carriage was heard to draw up in the street.

"That may be Truyn, he arrived yesterday," observed the countess, and Count Truyn was in fact announced.

Erich Truyn was at that time a man of rather more than thirty with hair prematurely gray and a glance of frosty indifference. People said he had been iced, for he always looked as though he had been frozen to the marrow in sublime superiority; his frigid exterior had won him a reputation for excessive pride, and totally belied the man. He was an uncommonly kind and noble-hearted soul, and what passed for pride was merely the shrinking of a sensitive nature which had now and again exposed itself to ridicule, perhaps by some outburst of high-flown idealism, and which now sought only to hide its sanctuary from the desecration of the multitude.

"Ah! Truyn, at last, and how are you?" cried the countess with sincere pleasure.

"Much as ever," replied Truyn.

"And where is your wife?" asked Ilsenbergh.

"I do not know."

"Is she still at Nice?"

"I do not know." And as he spoke his expression was colder and more set than before.

"Are you to be long in Rome?" said the countess, anxious to divert the conversation into a more pleasing channel.

"As long as my little companion likes and it suits her," answered Truyn. His 'little companion' always meant his only child, a girl of about twelve.

"You must bring Gabrielle to see me very soon," said the lady. "My Mimi and Lintschi are of the same age."

"I will bring her as soon as possible; unluckily she is so very shy she cannot bear strangers. But she has quite lost her heart to the general and to our cousin Sempaly."

"What, Nicki!" exclaimed the countess. "Do you mean that he has the patience to devote himself to children?"

"He has a peculiar talent for it. He dined with us to-day."

"He is an unaccountable creature!" sighed the countess. "He hardly ever comes near us."

At this moment a quick step was heard outside and Count Sempaly was announced.

"Lupus in Fabula!" remarked Ilsenbergh.

The new-comer was a young man of eight or nine and twenty, not tall, but powerfully though slightly built; his remarkably handsome, well-cut features and clear brown complexion were beautified by a most engaging smile, and by fine blue eyes with dark lashes and shaded lids. Under cover of that smile he could say the most audacious things, and whether the glance of those eyes were a lightning flash or a sunbeam no one had ever been quite certain. He gallantly kissed the tips of the countess's fingers, nodded to the men with a sort of brusque heartiness, and then seated himself on a cushion at the lady's feet.

"Well, it is a mercy to be allowed to see you at last; you really do not come often enough, Nicki; and in society I hardly ever meet you," complained the countess in a tone of kindly reproof. "Why do you so seldom appear in the respectable world?"

"Because he is better amused in the other world!" said Ilsenbergh with a giggle in an undertone.

But a reproachful glance from his wife warned him to be sober.

"I simply have not the time for it," said Sempaly half laughing. "I have too much to do."

"Too much to do!" said Truyn with his quiet irony.... "In diplomacy?--What is the latest news?"

"A remarkable article in the 'Temps' on the great washing-basin question," replied Sempaly with mock gravity.

"The washing-basin question!" repeated the others puzzled.

"Yes," continued Sempaly. "The state of affairs is this: When, not long since, the young duke of B---- was required to serve under the conscription, his feelings were deeply hurt by the fact that he had not only to live in barracks, but to wash at the pump like a common soldier. This so outraged his mamma that she went to the Minister of War to petition that her son might have a separate washing-basin; but after serious discussion her application was refused. It was decided that this separate washing-basin would be a breach of the Immortal Principles of '89."

"It is hardly credible!" observed Truyn; Ilsenbergh shrugged his shoulders and the countess innocently asked:

"What are the immortal principles of '89?"

"A sort of ideal convention between the aristocracy and the canaille," said Sempaly coolly. "Or if you prefer it, the first steps towards the abdication of privilege at the feet of the higher humanity," he added with a smile.

The countess was no wiser than before, Sempaly laughed maliciously as he fanned himself with a Japanese screen, and Ilsenbergh said: "Then you are a democrat, Sempaly?"

"From a bird's-eye point of view," added Truyn drily; he had not much faith in his cousin's liberalism.

"I am always a democrat when I have just been reading 'The Dark Ages,'" said Sempaly--'The Dark Ages' was the name he chose to give to Ilsenbergh's newspaper.--"Besides, joking apart, I am really a liberal, though I own I am uneasy at the growing power of the radicals. By the bye, I had nearly forgotten to give you two items of news that will delight you Fritzi,"--addressing the countess. "The reds have won all the Paris elections, and at Madrid they have been shooting at the king."

"Horrible!" exclaimed the countess, and she shuddered, "we shall see the Commune again before long."

"'93," said Truyn, with his tone of dry irony.

"We really ought to draw a cordon round the Austrian throne to protect it against the pestilential flood of democracy," said Sempaly very gravely. "Ilsenbergh you must petition the upper house."

"Your jokes are very much out of place," said the countess, "the matter is serious."

"Oh, no! not for us," said Truyn. "Our people are too long suffering."

"They are sound at the core," interrupted Ilsenbergh with dramatic emphasis.

"They do not yet know the meaning of liberty," said Sempaly laughing, "and to them equality is a mere abstraction--a metaphysical delicacy."

"They are thoroughly good and loyal!" exclaimed Ilsenbergh, "and they know...."

"Oh!" cried Sempaly, "they know very little and that is your safeguard. When once their eyes are opened your life will cease to be secure. If I had been a bricklayer I should certainly have been a socialist," and he crossed his arms and looked defiantly at his audience.

"A socialist!" cried Ilsenbergh indignantly. "You!--never. No, you could not have been a socialist; your religious feelings would have preserved you from such wickedness!"

"Hm!" replied Sempaly suspiciously, and Truyn said with a twist of his lips:

"As a bricklayer Sempaly might not have been so religious; he might have found some difficulty in worshipping a God who had treated him so scurvily."

"Hush, Truyn!" exclaimed Sempaly, somewhat anxiously to his cousin. "You know I dislike all such discussions."

"True. I remember you wear Catholic blinkers and are always nervous about your beliefs; and you would not like to feel any doubt as to the unlimited prolongation of your comfortable little existence," said Truyn in a tone of grave and languid banter. For Sempaly was not burthened with religion, though, like many folks to whom life is easy, he clung desperately to a hope in a future life, for which reason he affected 'Catholic blinkers' and would not have opened a page of Strauss for the world.

"The sword is at our breast!" sighed the countess still sunk in dark forebodings. "This new ministry!..." And she shook her head.

"It will do no harm beyond producing a few dreary articles in the papers and inundating us with new Acts which the crown will not trouble itself about for a moment," observed Sempaly.

"The Austrian mob are gnashing their teeth already!" said the lady.

"Nonsense! The Austrian mob is a very good dog at bottom; it will not bite till you forbid it to lick your hands," said her cousin calmly.

"I should dislike one as much as the other," said the countess, looking complacently at her slender white fingers.

"But tell us, Nicki," asked Ilsenbergh, "has not the change of ministry put a stop to your chances of promotion?" Sempaly was in fact an apprentice in the Roman branch of the great Austrian political incubator.

"Of course," replied Sempaly. "I had hoped to be sent to London as secretary; but one of our secretaries here is to go to England, and the democrats are sending us one of their own protégés in his place. My chief told me so this morning."

"Oh! who is our new secretary?" asked the countess much interested. "If he is a protégé of those creatures he must be a terrible specimen."

"He is one Sterzl--and highly recommended; he comes from Teheran where he has distinguished himself greatly," said Sempaly.

"Sterzl!" repeated Ilsenbergh scornfully.

"Sterzl!" cried the lady in disgust. "It is to be hoped he has no wife,--that would crown all."

"On that point I can reassure you," said the general; "Sterzl is unmarried."

"You know him?" murmured the countess slightly abashed.

"He is the son of one of my dearest friends--a fellow-officer," replied the general, "and if he has grown up as he promised he must be a man of talent and character--his abilities were brilliant."

"That is something at any rate," Ilsenbergh condescended to say.

"Yes, so it strikes me," added Sempaly; "we require one man who knows what work means."

"I was promised that my nephew should have the appointment," muttered the countess. "It is disgusting!"

"Utterly!" said Sempaly with a whimsical intonation. "A foreign element is always intrusive; we are much more comfortable among ourselves."

Tea was now brought in on a Japanese table and the secretary and his inferior birth were for the time forgotten.