I.--A Mountain Romance
"Yes! she is certainly very beautiful as well as very rich," said Count Abel Larinski, as he watched, through his hotel window, the graceful figure of Mlle. Antoinette Moriaz. "A marriage between Count Abel Larinski, the sole descendant of one of the most ancient and noble families of Poland, and Mlle. Moriaz, the daughter of the President of the French Institute, is a thing which might be arranged. But alas! Count Abel Larinski, you are a very poor man. Let me see how long you will be able to stay in Saint Moritz? These hotels in the Upper Engadine are frightfully dear!"
The handsome young Polish nobleman opened his purse and looked at the contents rather sadly. It was almost empty. He would certainly have to sell some of his family jewels, if he wanted to stay at Saint Moritz. Unhappily, he now had only the fine diamond ring, which he wore on his finger, and a Persian bracelet composed of three golden plates connected by a band of filigree work.
"Now, which shall I sell," said the Count; "the Larinski ring, or the bracelet which belonged to Samuel Brohl? The ring, I think. It will bring in much more money, and besides, the bracelet might be useful as a present."
After strolling some time about the garden, Mlle. Moriaz saw her father waiting for her at the door.
"What do you think, Antoinette, of an excursion to Silvaplana Lake?" said M. Moriaz. "I'm feeling so much better already, and I absolutely long, my dear, for a good walk."
"I should be delighted," said his daughter, "if you think it will not tire you."
M. Moriaz was sure an excursion would not tire him. So they set out for a long walk, through the wild mountain scenery. Antoinette was delighted to find that her father was recovering his strength, but he was alarmingly quiet and thoughtful. Was she in for one of those serious lectures on the subject of marriage which he used to read to her at Paris? Yes! Camille must have written to him. For as she was standing on a mountain bridge, listening to the liquid gurgling of the torrent at the bottom of the gorge, she said to him:
"Isn't the music of this wild stream delightful?"
"Yes!" he replied. "But I think this bridge that spans the gorge is a more wonderful thing than all the wild works of nature around us. I admire men, like our friend Camille Langis, who know how to build these bridges. What a fine fellow he is! Most men, with his wealth, lead idle, useless lives. But there he is now, building bridges across mountains just as wild as these, in Hungary. Why don't you marry him, my dear? He is madly in love with you, and you have known him all your life."
"That's just it," said his daughter, with a movement of impatience, "I have known him all my life. How can I now fall wildly and suddenly in love with him? No! If ever I lose my heart, I am sure it will be to some stranger, to someone quite different from all the men we meet in Paris."
"You are incorrigibly romantic, Antoinette," said her father, with just a touch of ill-humour. "You want a fairy prince, eh?--one of those strange, picturesque, impossible creatures that only exist in the imagination of poets and school girls. You are now twenty-four years old, Antoinette, and if you don't soon become more reasonable, you will die an old maid."
"Would that be a very great misfortune, father darling?" said Antoinette with a roguish smile. "If ever I marry, you know, I shall have to leave you. And what would you do then? You would be driven to marry your cook!"
This sally put the old scientist in a good humour. His daughter was the charm and solace of his life, and though he would have liked to see her happily married, he did not know what he should do when she left him. On the way back to the hotel, Antoinette tried to find some edelweiss, but she was not able to clamber up to the high rocks on which this rare flower grows. Great therefore were her joy and surprise, on returning to the hotel, to find on the table of her room a wicker basket, full of edelweiss, and rarer Alpine flowers. Was it for her? Yes! For in the basket was a note addressed, "Mlle. Moriaz." Fluttering with excitement she opened it, and read:
"I arrived in this valley, disgusted with life, sad, and weary to death. But I saw you pass by my window, and some strange, new power entered my soul. Now I know that I shall live, and accomplish my work in the world. 'What does this matter to me?' you will say when you read these lines--and you will be right. My only excuse for writing to you in this way is that I shall depart in a few days, and that you will never see me, and never know who I am."
After getting over her first impression of profound astonishment, Antoinette laughed, and then gave way to curiosity. Who had brought the flowers? "A little peasant boy," said the hotel porter, "but I did not know him. He must have come from another village."
For some days, Mlle. Moriaz glanced at everybody she met, but she never found a single romantic figure in the crowd of invalids that sauntered about St. Moritz. If, however, she had always accompanied her father, who, growing stronger every day, began to go out on long geological excursions, she might have met a very picturesque and striking young man. For Count Abel Larinski now always followed M. Moriaz, and watched over him like a guardian angel. "Oh, if he would only fall down one of the rocks he is always hammering at, and break a leg, or even sprain an ankle!" said the gallant Polish nobleman. "Wouldn't that be a lucky accident for me!"
All things, it is said, come to those who know how to wait. One afternoon M. Moriaz climbed up a very steep slope of crumbling rock, and came to a narrow gorge over which he was afraid to leap. He could not descend by the way he had come up, for the slope was really dangerous. It looked as though he should have to wait hours, and perhaps, days, until some herdsman passed by; and he began to shout wildly in the hopes of attracting attention. To his great joy, his shout was answered, and Count Larinski climbed up the other side of the gorge, carrying a plank, torn from a fence he passed on his way. By means of this, he bridged the gorge, and rescued the father of Antoinette, and naturally, he had to accompany him to the hotel, and stay to dinner. As we have said, Count Larinski was a very handsome man; tall, broad-shouldered, with strange green eyes touched with soft golden tints. When he began to talk, simply and modestly of the part he had played in the last Polish Revolution against the despotic power of Russia, Antoinette felt at last that she was in the presence of a hero. And what a cultivated man he was! He played the piano divinely, and they passed many pleasant evenings together. One night, the Count left behind him a piece of music, inscribed "Abel Larinski." "Surely," Mlle. Moriaz thought, "I have seen that writing somewhere!" Her breath came quickly, as with a trembling hand she took out of her bosom the letter which had been sent with the flowers, and compared the handwritings. They were identical.
II.--A Conversation with a Dead Man
Just a week afterwards, Count Larinski had a very serious conversation with his partner, Samuel Brohl. The strange thing about the conversation was that there was only one man in the room, and he talked all the time to himself. Sometimes he spoke in German with lapses into Yiddish, and any one would then have said that he was Samuel Brohl, a notorious Jewish adventurer. Then, recovering himself, he talked in Polish, and he might have been mistaken for a Polish gentleman. He seemed to be a man who was trying to study a difficult matter from two different points of view, and he undoubtedly had an actor's talent for throwing himself into the character of the nobleman he was impersonating.