But the voices who prophesied misfortune to this marriage were in the right. The bitterest disappointment followed the short term of happiness. It had been a dangerous mistake to believe that a woman like Zalika Rojanow, grown up in boundless freedom and accustomed to the uncontrolled, extravagant life of the families of the Bojars of her country, could ever submit herself to German views and conditions.
To gallop about on fiery horses; to associate freely with men who spent their time in hunting and gambling, and who surrounded themselves in their homes with a splendor which went hand in hand with the most corrupted indebtedness of estates--such was life as she had known it so far, and the only life which suited her.
A conception of duty was as foreign to her as the knowledge of her new position in life. And this woman was to accommodate herself now to the household of a young officer of but limited means, and to the conditions of a small German garrison!
That this was impossible was proved in the first weeks. Zalika began by throwing aside every consideration, and furnishing her house in her usual style, squandering heedlessly her by no means insignificant dowry.
In vain her husband entreated, remonstrated; he found no hearing. She had only sarcasm for forms and rules which were holy to him; only a shrug of the shoulder for his strict sense of honor and ideas of decorum.
Very soon they had the most vehement controversies, and Falkenried recognized too late the serious error which he had committed. He had counted upon the all-powerful efficacy of love to battle against those warning voices which had pointed out the difference of descent, education and character, but he was forced now to recognize that Zalika had never loved him; that caprice alone, or a sudden outburst of passion, which died as suddenly, had brought her to his arms.
She saw in him now only the uncomfortable companion who begrudged her every pleasure of life; who, with his foolish--his ridiculous ideas of honor, fettered and bound her on every side. Still, she feared this man, whose dominant will succeeded always in bowing her characterless nature under his rod.
Even the birth of little Hartmut was not sufficient to reconcile this unhappy marriage; it only held it, apparently, together. Zalika loved her child passionately; she knew her husband would never permit her to keep it if they separated. This alone retained her at his side, while Falkenried bore his domestic misery with concealed pain, putting forth every effort to hide it at least from the world.