Chapter 1 No.1

Though rather early in the morning, the well-known esplanade along the beautiful Traunsee at Gmunden, surrounded by green-decked Saline Mountains, was already thronged to overflowing with eager-looking sightseers, watching excitedly the completion of the grandstands which were now being erected for the great event of the day.

Special trains arrived hourly from Ischel, Aussee, Hallstadt, and other mountain resorts of prominence, and the excitement seemed to increase each moment more and more.

Humdrum life was thrown aside by young and old; everyone looked on expectantly, reviewing the grandstands, the tourists, and everything new around them.

Fair-browed girls robed in spotless white muslin, garlanded with flowers and bright with rosy badges in honor of the occasion, were seen here and there, while their eyes sparkled and their lips drank from the cup of happiness, enjoying life and the blessing of being young.

The constantly increasing throng of summer visitors and tourists from all parts of the globe, speaking different languages and wearing outlandish clothes, made up a bewildering picture, while the July sun beamed down upon them, and over lake and green-decked mountain-tops.

The much talked of floral regatta of 1910 was not to take place until five, but by one o'clock the grandstands near the water, hardly completed, began to fill rapidly with the elite of Viennese society. These floral festivals, which had been so popular in previous years, were to be surpassed in artistic splendor and brilliant originality by today's display of picturesque effects, and symbolism of national life.

Members of the highest nobility had consented to take leading parts in the regatta, which was under the protectorate of the Archduke Victor. Many celebrities of the musical world, living there in their beautiful cottages, were seen quietly taking their seats. The great bare mountain "Traunstein" seemed to smile down on them from his aerial height in friendly approval; they were no strangers to him, these music giants, but rather belonged to his enthusiastic admirers.

Every spring they came to him, seeking relaxation for their over-strained nerves, and every fall, when his bald head began to be covered with a cap of snow, they went home full of elasticity and creative power, often bringing along conceptions of masterpieces which were later to fill the entire musical world with admiration. No wonder then, that the bald-headed old fellow up there so high above his neighbors looked down so proudly upon them.

Loud blasts of trumpets in the distance announced to the patiently awaiting throng the approach of a long line of richly decorated boats. Archduke Victor, leading the procession, sat in the stern of his boat, which was gorgeously arrayed to represent a bower of field roses. He opened the festival by throwing red carnations into the water as far as his hand could reach. Next came the customary exchange of greetings among the Austrian nobility, whose elaborately decorated boats were stationed on both sides of the lake. At their approach, the orchestra on the esplanade burst forth with the National anthem of Austria, and the spectators applauded frantically.

Right and left, as far as the eye could see, the shimmering surface of the lake, with its little, gently splashing wavelets, was covered with brightly colored crafts, every one an unique marvel of its kind.

There came splashing along a huge Easter egg, made up of lilies of the valley; here a pagoda of large sunflowers called forth the admiration of the delighted sightseers.

From the opposite shore there came floating a half opened Nautilus, out of which a green-clad naiad cast coquettishly her golden net, trying to catch some inexperienced young fish in her golden meshes. Nearby sailed a sleeping beauty (though rather wide awake) embowered enchantingly in clusters of American Beauties, looking in all directions for her enchanted Prince to appear and make ardent love to her.

Suddenly there came, as if by magic, a gondola from the other side of the lake; it was gorgeously decorated, shining brightly in the brilliant afternoon sun. This floating work of art was made of lotus flowers, over which a canopy of glittering, diaphanous material was hanging, presumably as a suitable background for a lady now the cynosure of all eyes. She was of such entrancing beauty that all who beheld her sat spellbound and actually forgot to applaud, according to the customary greeting to newcomers, scarcely knowing which to admire first; the magnificent craft, so artistically constructed, or the dazzling apparition within.

Amazed and speechless, the distinguished gathering gazed at her. "Who is she?" they whispered to each other. Her name was not on the list of nobilities. Nobody knew anything about her, but she was gorgeously dressed, her costume representing that of Cleopatra, made up of pale green crepe de chine, covered with little amorettes of silver pearls, which hung loosely in artistic folds about the luxurious outlines of her bewitching form. Long flaxen hair, artistically arranged, set off with diamond sparks, fell about her, and shone like molten gold in the setting sun. It was supposed to be a real reproduction, according to ancient pictures, of the flirtatious Queen of Egypt, seen in the art galleries of Florence, Genoa and Rome. Her large black eyes held a singular fascination in their sparkling depths, which if once looked into, fastened themselves upon the imagination of man to be forgotten no more.

At the sight of all these splendors amid such exclusive surroundings, she looked with a frightened stare into space, as if she were a newcomer, a stranger in this atmosphere of wealth and distinction. Her features were rigid and white, and she seemed fascinated, dumb with admiration at the sight of the splendid surroundings. For this reason, she had failed to notice the sensation her beauty had aroused among the masculine sightseers.

A slender man, with deep set eyes, and thin and bloodless lips tightly pressed together, sat in an unpretentious little boat a short distance away, murmuring grimly unintelligible words to himself. She caught sight of him and sent him a friendly glance and a smile similar to the greeting of well-known friends. He did not lose sight of her for a moment, but almost devoured her with his eyes.

With feverish eagerness he followed her every movement, knitting his brows threateningly when any boat of the Viennese "Jeunesse doree" came with admiring curiosity too near to her's. In his jealous rage he felt like driving all of them from the spot.

He began to reproach himself for having yielded to her cajoling entreaty to be allowed to take part in the festivity.

"Miserable fops," he murmured contemptuously, as he contemplated the admiring men with a scornful sneer. "I loathe the sight of all these nobodies," he grumblingly soliloquized.

Many of them, in fact, had nothing to boast about. Many of these so-called nobles in addition to a noble name, combined magnificent poverty and an abhorrence for honest work; they acquired a heap of debts and their inherited estates were often in the hands of unscrupulous usurers, or mortgaged to the last cent, while the sneering one had money in such abundance that he could have purchased patents of nobility for an entire regiment, and still have a reserve revenue from his unfathomable gold mine in South Africa. His finances would have allowed him the luxury of such a woman-although it must be whispered he had a wife in England, divorced some people asserted.

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