A FIERCE DISCIPLINARIAN
Diamonds used to punish children--Face object of attacks--Grunting
and snorting at the royal table--Blood flowing at dinner--My brother
jumps out of a window.
CASTLE WACHWITZ, _April 1, 1893_.
Nothing of consequence happened since my last entry, and I continue the
story of my girlhood.
Her Imperial Highness, my pious mother, had a terrible way of punishing
her children. The face of the culprit was invariably the object of her
attacks. She hit us with the flat of her bony hand, rendered more
terrible by innumerable rings. The sharp diamonds cut into the flesh and
usually made the blood flow freely.
The court chaplain at Salzburg was a peasant's boy without manners or
breeding of any kind. While the least violation of etiquette or
politeness on the children's part was punished by a box on the ear, or
by withholding the next meal, mother overlooked the swinishness of the
chaplain simply because he wore a black coat.
One of the chaplain's most offensive habits was to grunt and snort when
eating. On one occasion my brother Leopold gave a somewhat exaggerated
imitation of these disgusting practices at table, whereupon mother,
blind with fury, for she thought a priest could do no wrong, struck
Leopold in the face, causing the blood to gush from his lacerated cheek.
Father immediately rose from table and savagely turning upon mother
said, "Understand, Madame, that as a sovereign and head of the family I
will have no one punished in my presence. If I think punishment
necessary, I will inflict it myself in a dignified way."
Mother immediately began to cry. She always had a flood of tears ready
when father offered the slightest reprimand. Afterwards she upbraided
father and us, the children. If it were not for her incessant prayers,
she said, and for the Christian life she was leading, God would have
destroyed the Tuscans long ago, and she wasn't sure that either of us
would attain Paradise except for her intercession with the Almighty.
This and similar scenes and incidents disgusted me with religion early
in life. Myself and all my brothers and sisters hated the very sight of
the court chaplain who licked our mother's boots, while heaping
punishments and indignities upon us.
At one time my brother Leopold didn't know his catechism. "I will teach
your Imperial Highness to skip your lessons," said the court chaplain.
"Kneel before me and read the passage over ten times as a punishment."
Leopold promptly answered: "I won't."
"Yes, you will, Imperial Highness, for such are my orders," cried the
court chaplain.
Leopold said doggedly, "I kneel before the altar and before the Emperor,
if he demands it, not before such as you."
"Suppose I call on your Imperial Highness's mother and ask her to forbid
you to mount a horse for a month or so?" queried our tormentor.
Horseback riding was Leopold's chief pleasure, and the chaplain had no
sooner launched his threat, when Leopold opened the window and
apparently jumped out. As the school-room was situated in the third
story, the teacher thought his pupil dead on the pavement below, but
Leopold was merely hanging on to the stone coping and shutters. That
gave him the whip hand over the teacher. "I will let go if you don't
promise not to inform mother," demanded the twelve-year-old boy.
"I promise, only come in," moaned the teacher.
"Promise furthermore there shall be no punishment whatever for what I
did and said."
"None whatever, your Imperial Highness."
"Swear it on the cross."
The chaplain did as ordered and Leopold crawled back to safety.
Leopold is a good deal like me, and has been in hot water more or less
all his life.
When I was a girl of fifteen, he defended my honor at the risk of the
fearful punishments my mother had in store for those children that
wouldn't buckle down to the chaplain, but that is so sad a chapter of my
girlhood days I cannot bring myself to put it down today.