The fight was over. The Baroness regarded me with searching eyes.
"You're a brave little hero," she said. "I was trembling for you."
The Baron called for the bill, asked to see the landlord and requested him to send for the police.
After this incident perfect harmony reigned amongst us. We vied in expressions of indignation about the rudeness of the natives. All the suppressed wrath of jealousy and wounded vanity was poured on the heads of those uncouth louts.
And later on, as we sat drinking punch in one of our own rooms, our old friendship burst into fresh flames; we forgot all about the police, who, moreover, had failed to put in an appearance.
On the following morning we met in the coffee-room, full of high spirits, and in our inmost hearts glad to have done with a disagreeable business, the consequences of which it would have been difficult to foretell.
After the first breakfast we went for a walk on the banks of the canal, in couples, and with a fair distance between us. When we had arrived at a lock where the canal made a strong curve, the Baron waited and turned to his wife with an affectionate, almost amorous smile.
"D'you remember this place, Marie?" he asked.
"Yes, yes, my dear, I remember," she answered, with a mingled expression of passion and sadness.
Later on she explained his question to me.
"It was here where he first told me of his love … one evening, under this very birch-tree, while a brilliant shooting-star flashed across the sky."
"That was three years ago," I completed her explanation, "and you are reviving old memories already. You live in the past because the present doesn't satisfy you."
"Oh, stop!" she exclaimed; "you've taken leave of your senses. … I loathe the past, and I am grateful to my husband for having delivered me from a vain mother whose doting tyranny was ruining me. No, I adore my husband, he's a loyal friend to me. … "
"As you like, Baroness; I'll agree with anything, to please you."
At the stated hour we went on board to return to town, and after a delightful passage across the blue sea, with its thousands of green islands, we arrived in Stockholm, where we parted.
I had made up my mind to return to work, determined to tear this love out of my heart, but I soon found that I had reckoned without forces much stronger than myself. On the day after our excursion I received an invitation to dinner from the Baroness; it was the anniversary of her wedding-day. I could not think of a plausible excuse, and, although I was afraid of straining our friendship, I accepted the invitation. To my great disappointment, I found the house turned upside down, undergoing the process of a general cleaning; the Baron was in a bad temper, and the Baroness sent her apologies for the delayed dinner. I walked up and down the garden with her irritable, hungry husband, who seemed unable to control his impatience. After half-an-hour's strenuous effort my powers of entertaining him were exhausted, and conversation ceased. He took me into the dining-room.
Dinner was laid, and the appetisers[1] had been put on the table, but the mistress of the house was still invisible.
"If we took a snack standing," said the Baron, "we should be able to wait."
Afraid of offending the Baroness, I did my utmost to dissuade him, but he remained obstinate, and being, as it were, between two fires, I was compelled to acquiesce in his proposal.
At last the Baroness entered: radiant, young, pretty; she was dressed in a diaphanous silk frock, yellow, like ripe corn, with a mauve stripe, reminiscent of pansies; this was her favourite combination of colours. The well-cut dress suited her girlish figure to perfection, and emphasised the beautiful contour of the shoulders and the curve of the exquisitely modelled arms.
I handed her my bunch of roses, wishing her many happy returns of the day; I also took good care to put all the blame for our rude impatience on the Baron.
When her eyes fell on the disordered table, she pursed up her lips and addressed a remark to her husband which was more stinging than humorous; he was not slow to reply to the undeserved rebuke. I threw myself into the breach by recalling the incidents of the previous day which I had already discussed with the Baron.
"And what d'you think of my charming cousin?" asked the Baroness.
"She's very amiable," I replied.
"Don't you agree with me, my dear fellow, that the child is a perfect treasure?" exclaimed the Baron, in a voice which expressed parental solicitude, sincere devotion and pity for this imp of Satan, supposed to be martyred by imaginary tyrants.
But in spite of the stress laid by her husband on the word "child," the Baroness continued mercilessly—
"Just look how that dear Baby has changed the style in which my husband does his hair!"
The parting which the Baron had been accustomed to wear had indeed disappeared. Instead of it, his hair was dressed in the manner of the young students, his moustache waxed—a style which did not suit him. Through an association of ideas, my attention was drawn to the fact—which, however, I kept to myself—that the Baroness, too, had adopted from the charming cousin certain details of dressing her hair, of wearing her clothes, of manner even. It made me think of the elective affinities of the chemists, in this case acting on living beings.
The dinner dragged on, slowly and heavily, like a cart which has lost its fourth wheel, and wearily lumbers along on the three remaining ones. But the cousin, henceforth the indispensable complement of our quartet, which, without her, was beginning to be out of harmony, was expected to come later on and take coffee with us.
At dessert I proposed a toast to the married couple, in conventional terms, without spirit or wit, like champagne which has grown flat.
Husband and wife, animated by the memories of the past, kissed tenderly, and, in mimicking their former fond ways, became affectionate, amorous even, just as an actor will feel genuinely depressed when he has been feigning tears.
Or was it that the fire was still smouldering underneath the ashes, ready to burst into fresh flames if fanned by a skilful hand? It was impossible to guess how matters stood.
After dinner we went into the garden and sat in the summer-house, the window of which looked on to the street. Digestive processes did not favour conversation. The Baron stood at the window, absent-mindedly watching the street, in the hope of catching a glimpse of the cousin. Suddenly he darted off like an arrow, evidently with the intention of going to meet the expected guest.
Left alone with the Baroness, I at once became embarrassed; I was not naturally self-conscious, but she had a queer way of looking at me and paying me compliments on certain details of my appearance. After a long, almost painful silence, she burst out laughing, and pointing in the direction in which the Baron had disappeared, she exclaimed—
"Dear old Gustav, he is head-over-ears in love!"
"It looks like it," I replied. "And you are really not jealous?"
"Not at all," she assured me. "I'm in love myself with the pretty little cat. And you?"
"Oh, I'm all right. I don't want to be rude, but I shall never feel in the least in sympathy with your cousin."
And this was true. From the first moment I had taken a dislike to this young woman, who, like myself, was of middle-class origin. She saw in me the odious witness, or rather the dangerous rival, hunting in the preserves which she had reserved for herself, and from which she hoped to force her way into society. Her keen grey eyes had at once recognised in me an acquaintance of whom she could make no use; her plebeian instinct scented an adventurer in me. And up to a certain point she was right, for I had entered the Baron's house in the hope of finding a patron for my unfortunate