When the baron stepped into the hall next morning, he saw the boy engaged in conversation with the two lift attendants who were showing him the pictures in one of Karl May’s juvenile books. Since his mother was not present, it might be inferred that she was still engrossed in the cares of her person. For the first time, Sternfeldt took conscious notice of the child, who appeared to be about twelve years old, underdeveloped, shy, nervous, jerky in his movements, and possessed of a pair of dark, roving eyes. Like so many youngsters of his age, he gave the impression of being scared, as if he had suddenly been roused from sleep and placed in unfamiliar surroundings. He was by no means plain, but his face was still undifferentiated; the struggle between the man that was to be and the child that had been was hardly begun; his features were moulded but not finally set; there was no clear line, no striking silhouette, only a pale and somewhat uncouth mass. In addition, being at the awkward age, his clothes did not seem to belong to him; his thin arms and frail legs were lost in the folds of jacket and trousers; he lacked interest in his appearance.
The lad created a very poor impression. He was constantly getting in the way. At one moment it was the hall-porter who pushed him aside; at another he would be mixed up in the revolving door. The outer world was unfriendly. But he tried to compensate for this by futile and incessant chatter with the hotel servants. When they had time they would endeavour to answer his numerous questions, but would break off as soon as possible and go about their business. The baron contemplated the boy, a compassionate smile curling his lips. Poor child, he examined everything with curiosity, only to be fobbed off with roughness. If another human eye caught his inquisitive look, he would cringe away, unhappy at being observed, miserable that he had been detected in the act of investigating. Sternfeldt was amused; he began to feel his interest waxing. Then a thought struck him: why not make friends with the lad and utilize this friendship in order to get acquainted with the mother? It was only fear that made the youngster so shy. Well, a fellow could try. Unobtrusively he followed Edgar, who had gone outside and was stroking the soft nose of a cab-horse. Ill-luck dogged him even in this innocent pastime, for the cabby unceremoniously ordered him to leave the beast alone. Ruffled and bored, Edgar was again reduced to standing about with his vacant expression of countenance, not knowing what next to be at.
The baron seized his chance, and said in a jovial voice:
“Well, young man, how do you like this place?”
The boy flushed, and looked up anxiously. He rubbed his hands on the seat of his trousers in his embarrassment. This was his first experience of a gentleman opening conversation with him.
“Very much, thank you,” he answered awkwardly, gulping down the last two words.
“You surprise me. I should say it was a rotten hole, especially for a young man such as you. What on earth can you find to do all day?”
The boy was still too flustered to find a speedy response. How was it possible that this stranger should take notice of a small boy about whom nobody ever bothered? He felt immensely shy and immensely proud likewise of what was happening to him. With an effort he pulled himself together.
“I like reading, and we go for walks. Sometimes we hire a carriage for a drive. I’ve been ill, and Mother brought me here for my health. The doctor said I was to sit about a lot in the sun.”
As he spoke, an accent of self-confidence came into his voice. Children are invariably proud of their illnesses, for they guess that the danger makes them doubly important to their relatives.
“Yes the sun is most beneficial for a young gentleman in your state of health. You ought to burn to a fine brown. But it’s not good to be sitting about all day. A big boy like you would do better to go for rambles on his own, to be a bit uppish, and to play all kinds of pranks. It seems to me you are too obedient and well behaved. You look like a regular bookworm, always going about with a ponderous tome tucked under your arm. When I think of the young scamp I was at your age...Why, d’you know, every evening I came home with torn breeches;a terrible pickle I was in. No use for a man to be too good.”
In spite of himself Edgar smiled, and on the instant his shyness vanished. He would have loved to respond to the baron’s advances, but was afraid of appearing cheeky. How friendly this smartly tailored gentleman was! It was splendid to be talking on equal terms with him. The boy’s pleasure in the encounter tied his tongue for very happiness. What would he not have given to find suitable words to continue the conversation! But his thoughts were in a whirl. As luck would have it, the hotel manager’s Saint Bernard loped by at this crucial moment. Then it stopped still, came to sniff both boy and man, allowed itself to be patted and fondled.
“D’you like dogs?” the baron inquired abruptly.
“Very much. Grandma has one at her place in Baden, and when we go there on a visit he spends the whole day with me. It’s topping. But we’re only there in summer.”
“I’ve a couple of dozen dogs on my estate, and maybe I’ll give you one, a brown chap with white ears, little more than a puppy, but well trained. How’d you like that?”
The lad blushed with delight.
“Fine!” he exclaimed spontaneously. But then a revulsion of feeling overtook him, and he stuttered bashfully: “But Mother will never agree. She hates dogs about the house, they make so much work.”
The baron chuckled, well pleased, for he had at length guided the talk on to the lady who interested him.
“Is your mother very strict?”
Edgar reflected for a moment, looked up at his new friend questioningly as if to see whether the stranger could be trusted, and then answered cautiously:
“No, can’t exactly say she’s strict. She lets me do anything I like just now because I’ve been ill. Perhaps she’d let me have a dog...”
“Shall I put in a good word for you?”
“Oh, golly!” cried the boy delightedly. “She’d be sure to agree. What’s the dog like? White ears, did you say? Can he beg and retrieve?”
“He can do any and every trick you can think of.”
It was tickling to Otto’s vanity to watch the spark he had kindled in the youngster’s eyes. All trace of shyness disappeared; and the child’s spontaneity, no longer crippled by anxiety and fear, bubbled up like a spring of fresh water. The awkward boy had been replaced by a natural and exuberant creature. If only the mother could prove similar to her son, thought the baron. A score of questions were showered upon him at this instant by the youth.
“What’s it called?”
“Caro.”
“Caro! Caro!”
Edgar seemed to revel in the word, and to be intoxicated with delight at having acquired a friend so unexpectedly. The baron himself was no little surprised at his easy conquest, and decided to strike while the iron was hot. He invited Edgar to go for a stroll, and the lad, who for weeks had hungered after companionship, was in the seventh heaven of delight. He gave free rein to his tongue, responding innocently to his new friend’s subtle questions and assumed interest. It was not long before the baron knew all he needed concerning the family: that Edgar was the only son of a Viennese lawyer belonging to the well-to-do Jewish stratum. Plying the boy with adroit questions, he further learned that the mother was not particularly pleased with their stay in Semmering, that she had grumbled at the lack of society. Moreover, it would appear from the evasive answers given by Edgar that Mother was not particularly fond of Father, so that Sternfeldt surmised the situation to a nicety. He felt almost ashamed of himself for extracting these scraps of information thus easily from his decoy who, unused to finding anyone interested in what he had to say, allowed himself to be inveigled into confidence after confidence. Edgar’s youthful heart beat quick with pride, especially when, in the course of the walk the baron took his arm affectionately. It was an infinite delight for the child to be seen in such company. Soon he forgot his juvenility, and prattled disingenuously as to an equal. His conversation proved him to be a bright lad, somewhat precocious intellectually as is usual with sickly children who pass a large part of their time among elders, and prone to like or to dislike persons and things to excess. He seemed, so far as his emotional life was concerned, to be unbalanced, feeling either hatred towards or passionate love for objects and individuals. The golden mean did not exist for him and his tender face would at times become contorted with the excess of his emotions. There was something wild and resilient in his mode of expression which coloured his words with fanatical ardour, and his gawkiness might possibly be explained as an outcome of a painfully repressed anxiety at the violence of his own passions.
The baron soon won Edgar’s confidence. In half an hour he held the child’s warm and palpitating heart in his hand. Children are so easily hoaxed, for grown-ups seldom try to ingratiate themselves and when they do they catch the innocents unawares. Sternfeldt merely had to think himself back into his own boyhood, and the puerile conversation immediately seemed the most natural in the world. Edgar, for his part, had by now quite accepted the elder man as a chum, and very soon lost any sense of inferiority. All he was aware of was that he had found a friend—and what a friend! His relatives and friends in Vienna were forgotten, his pals with their squeaky voices, their idiotic chatter, might never have existed! They were submerged beneath this new and unprecedented experience. He had become an intimate of the stranger, his wonderful friend; and he swelled with pride when at parting, he was invited to a further ramble on the morrow. They separated as brothers and this farewell was, perhaps, the most glorious of Edgar’s life. Children are so easily hoaxed....
Baron Otto von Sternfeldt grinned as Edgar ran off. An intermediary had been found. The boy would doubtless regale his mother to satiety with every word, every gesture of this amazing encounter. The woman-hunter preened himself upon the subtle compliments he had conveyed through the son to the mother. He had invariably spoken of her as “Your lovely mother”—Edgar would do what was necessary; he, the baron, need make no further advances. The charming unknown would come to him. Not requisite to lift a finger. The baron could muse over the landscape from morning to night, from night till morning...A child’s warm hands, he knew, were building a bridge between his heart and the heart of the woman he coveted.
