From the author of _I Promessi Sposi_:
[13]E troppo ricompenso per dei poveri lavori la simpatia d’un animo
gentile e elevato come quello che si manifesta nella lettera ch’ Ella
m’ha fatto l’onore di scrivermi. In un tale animo è cosa naturale che
abbia luogo anche l’indulgenza; e se, in questo caso, essa eccede, è
una ragione di più per eccitare in me una viva riconoscenza. Del
rimanente, l’eccesso dei buoni sentimenti è un inconveniente dei meno
pericolosi in questo mondo. Dio mantenga e ricompensi le nobili
inclinazioni di cui le ha fatto dono.
Voglia gradire la rispettosa espressione della mia riconoscenza e
l’attestato dell’ alta stima con cui ho l’onore di rassegnarmele.
Umil^{mo}, devot^{mo} servitore
Alessandro Manzoni
Under the date “Gads Hill Place Higham by Rochester Kent, Monday
twenty-seventh January 1862,” and on mourning paper, Charles Dickens
sent the transcript of some lines from “David Copperfield.”
The book further contains all sorts of dried plants picked at famous
places, pictures, bits of flags, even a scrap “from the shirt worn with
his wedding suit by Louis I of Anjou,” a little stone from “the ruins of
the palace of Catherine Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus,” another from
“Torquato Tasso’s prison door”—a whole panorama of historical
shadow-pictures. All, all, who are gathered on these pages, are dead—all
but the one who inserted the word “Past.” And this word is the real
leitmotif of the whole book: Past, past—and so I close it with a sigh.
IV
MORE EPISODES OF YOUTH
The War of 1859 · A prank · Elvira’s marriage
So the year 1859 saw us in Wiesbaden again, and there we experienced the
episode, so mortifying after our sacrifices made and accepted and after
all my puff romances of the past year, of the incomparable Friedrich von
Hadeln not wasting on us a word, not a look, beyond the most ceremonial
politeness. So far as I now remember, we did not greatly take this
mortification to heart: Elvira was perhaps glad that she did not have to
witness a rival’s triumph, and I was perhaps relieved at not inflicting
such deep suffering on my luckless friend and at the same time making
such a bad match into the bargain. Nor did the real Hadeln continue to
inspire in me those sensations which his image in memory had inspired.
In short, we spent a very enjoyable summer in Wiesbaden.
And yet it was the summer of 1859, i.e. the battles of Magenta and
Solferino were being fought. Austria, our country, was suffering
defeats. Great bloody fights were heard of. But I know perfectly that at
that time the event was as indifferent to me, as little existent, as it
would to-day be indifferent to me to learn that a volcano had broken out
in a West Indian island whose name I had never heard. An elemental event
at a great distance, that is what the war in Italy was to me. I did not
read the newspapers much either; to be sure we often went into the
reading-room where the papers lay open, but there it was not the
political but the literary papers that attracted us; all the more as
Elvira had written some novelettes which were accepted by family
magazines, and I had in mind the idea of _also_ writing one.—For in the
preceding summer, in the white heat of emotion, I had put into rhyme
three stanzas to the object of my affections. But in my case the next to
the last line did not rhyme with Hadeln (one really must not be so utter
an ape), but with Friedrich.
In the illustrated papers pictures of “the theater of the war” did
strike my eye from time to time, but I did not pause over them: soldiers
and horses lying about, broken cannon, or confused scrimmages, such as I
have seen a great many of in history textbooks, do not make pretty
pictures. I turned over the leaf quickly.
We did not have in the war anybody nearly connected with us, for whom we
might have trembled. My brother, who in the year 1854 had been
commissioned as lieutenant, had left the service a year before the war,
because he had spit blood and because the service in general was in the
highest degree repugnant to him. He was living with us. Mother was
jubilant over her only son’s not being still in the army when the war
broke out.
So I did not concern myself in the least about events in Italy. There
did not arise in me any feeling of horror at the atrocities and misery
that were connected with them (why should one be horrified at inevitable
deaths that do not concern one?), and of all things there did not arise
any feeling of revolt at the waging of war—I was too thoroughly
penetrated with the respect and admiration which are generally accorded
to this form of historical eventuation. I was not disturbed by any
inkling of the shadow of a possibility that one could think of war’s not
being in the world at all. As well might one think of leaves not being
on the trees, or waves on the sea. Why, war is the form in which human
history accomplishes itself: the founding of empires, the settlement of
controversies, are seen to by war. Perhaps I did not even reflect on the
matter so much as that; I only accepted it as something existent and
irreversible, as one accepts the existence of the sun. Many may share
this standpoint even to-day; at that time almost all did still share it.
Not even Dunant had yet written his little book “Solferino” and thereby
given the impulse for the founding of the Red Cross. No one was yet
thinking of the possibility of internationalizing the care of the
wounded in war; who (except a few men like the Abbé de St. Pierre and
Immanuel Kant) would have dared think of endeavoring to obtain an
international agreement not to make any such wounded at all?—In the year
1849, to be sure, a Peace Congress had already been held with Victor
Hugo in the chair; but who, beside the participants, knew anything about
it? Every time, like every man, has for its own a certain field of
thought, beyond which nothing is perceived.
When we returned to Austria the war was over. Austria had lost Milan—and
our two mothers also had losses to record. All systems, methods, gifts
of presentiment and of conjecture, had shown themselves fallacious, and
it was solemnly vowed that henceforth and forever the green table was
done with. The fee for the lesson had had to be paid, but at least they
were now free from the delusion, and at heart glad to be free from it;
for gaming is not only reprehensible, it is really also disagreeable,
repulsive. Now, thank God, there was no longer any need of tormenting
one’s self with the trying duty of utilizing the gift of second sight;
for it had been proved once more, and this time definitively, that the
faculty of presentiment failed to work at green tables.
The fee for the lesson had not been small. Economy was the word now. My
mother gave up her residence in Vienna and rented a little country place
near the city, in Klosterneuburg. Here two years were to be spent in the
utmost seclusion and frugality. After this period I should be eighteen
years old, and a sufficient sum would have been laid by to replace that
“fee” and to come back to the world, into which I was then to be
introduced. Meanwhile this lonely life in Klosterneuburg was not at all
without charms. Aunt Lotti and Elvira were with us, and we two girls
again diligently took up our studies and other occupations. Elvira wrote
new dramas, corresponded, and industriously wrote letters to all kinds
of famous people.[14] I did a good deal of piano-playing and studied
languages. For our recreation there was more puff-playing too: Friedrich
von Hadeln had nothing more to _adeln_ now; once more the most varied
figures were introduced as the heroes of our romances, from American
cowboys to European attachés of legation and on again to Indian
Maharajahs. Once every week came my dear guardian Fritzerl driving out
from Vienna, played his game of tarteln with mother, and told all the
happenings at court and in society. There was also an elderly clergyman
from the Klosterneuburg convent who was often at our house—a _bel
esprit_, philosopher, and jovial associate. We took long walks in the
Danube meadows in Aunt Lotti’s company; my mother was not a good
pedestrian and contented herself with taking the air in our little
garden. It was quite a wild garden, with a brook running through it. I
still remember happy hours spent in dreaming on the banks of that brook;
the water dancing over pebbles, the growth of bushes all along the bank,
among them a few willows with low-hanging branches, all afforded me a
quite peculiar enjoyment that I have never found again in any landscape
in the world.
The winter then, to be sure, was rather monotonous in our country nest.
So once, for diversion’s sake, I played a prank in all quietness.
Without telling anybody anything, I composed an advertisement and sent
it to the Vienna _Presse_, where it appeared; it made a sensation in our
circle.
“I’m going to write to those people!” cried Elvira.
The words of the advertisement were:
“From pure caprice on the one hand, and from the mind’s demand for an
exchange of ideas on the other, a brother and sister of gentle birth,
living in a lonely castle, desire to enter into correspondence with
persons who feel warmly and think deeply. The correspondence will be
supervised by a stern papa who means to show the young enthusiasts how
unpractical they are with their idea of an exchange of souls. Address
_Cela n’engage à rien_, office of this paper.”
“Yes, I’ll write to those people,” repeated Elvira.
“I forbid it,” said Aunt Lotti; “who would answer an advertisement?”
“Oh, let her, aunt,” I pleaded.
My mother fired up: “Perhaps you mean to write too? You’ll do no such
thing!”
“Oh, no, I shouldn’t at all care to,—the stuff is too crazy.”
There was a good deal more of talk back and forth about the
unconventional advertisement, but I did not betray by the change of a
feature that I was the criminal.
In sending in the advertisement I had at the same time written to the
editor of the _Presse_ to collect the answers that came in, and, after
the lapse of some days, to dispatch them to Klosterneuburg, _poste
restante_, under a certain cipher.
Five days later we were going by the post office on our usual walk.
“Please, aunt,” said I, “let us go in; I want to buy stamps.”
We went in. But at the window, instead of asking for stamps, I inquired,
“Is there anything for A—R 25?”
The clerk looked, and handed me a bulky package. My heart leaped into my
throat with joy.
“What does that mean?” cried the others.
“You’ll find out at home.”
When we reached home I tore open the envelope and let about sixty or
seventy letters fall on the table, all bearing the address _Cela
n’engage à rien_.
“Look, these are the answers to my advertisement—I’m the brother and
sister!”
“And there’s my letter too,” cried Elvira, pulling out a missive on
which she recognized her own writing, “that’s mean!” and she tore it
into little bits.
“So you did answer in spite of my prohibition!” said Aunt Lotti in
indignant tones.
“And you send advertisements to the paper behind the backs of us all?”
added my mother, not less indignant. “You are a nice pair of children!”
“Well, to pay for it we now have the entertainment of reading all this,”
I said soothingly.
And the reading did in fact prove very amusing. Some of the answers were
imbecile, but others were witty; and among the witty ones were some so
interesting that we decided to reply to them, anonymously of course, and
this time with our mothers’ permission.
A letter from a lady, signed “Doris in See,” had especially captivated
Elvira. She assumed the rôle of the “brother” in the advertisement, and
entered into a correspondence with Doris in See which soon became very
lively. I too selected some correspondents, but the letters soon petered
out. My cousin, however, wrote Miss Doris longer and longer letters and
poems, fuller and fuller of devotion, and whole treatises too on the
most various topics; and Doris wrote as assiduously to Mr. “Kurt im
Walde”—that was the name that Elvira signed.
A whole year long the manuscripts—they could no longer be called
letters—flew back and forth; the two souls had actually gone out to each
other in full exchange.
Then conscience awoke in Elvira.
“Doris thinks I am a young man; she will be falling in love with me yet;
I must confess to her that her comrade Kurt is a girl.”
And she did. Back came a voice of jubilation:
“Glorious! my best friend, my poet and thinker Kurt, is a young woman,
and Doris—I must tell it now—is an officer in his Royal and Imperial
Majesty’s navy.”
The end of the story was that soon afterward Elvira married Doris, alias
Joseph Tiefenbacher, ensign on a ship of the line in the Austrian navy,
and was perfectly happy in her short married life.
PART TWO
1862–1872
V
ENTERING THE WORLD
Engaged · The engagement ended · Baden · Marietta · Season in Rome ·
Carnival at Venice
And now I was to be taken “into the world.” Our name might have given us
the right to move among the highest aristocracy, for there is doubtless
not a family of the high nobility of Austria with which we were not
connected by blood or by marriage. But one is ill acquainted with this
high nobility if one thinks that name and kinship suffice to get one
received. For this there is required (it was especially so in my youth;
now they have come to be somewhat less exclusive) first and foremost the
possession of sixteen great-great-grandparents; in other words, the
right of admission to court. This we had not—my mother was not
_Geborene_; besides, our means were also very modest; so it was not
possible for us to attain to the first society—the _société_, as it
styled itself—of Vienna. That stung me; oh, what a vain, superficial
thing I was! To think it was essential to the happiness of life to move
among the _crème_, and to think I was suffering an unmerited wrong by
the withholding of this happiness!
Now it came to pass that one of the richest men in Vienna sued for my
hand through the mediation of the author Joseph von Weilen, who used to
call at our house. Mother and guardian declared themselves favorable. To
be sure the suitor was not an aristocrat, and already fifty-two years
old. But he was willing to surround my existence and my mother’s with
the utmost splendor, villas, castles, palaces,—I was dazzled and said
“yes.”
I do not attempt to put a good face on this fact. It is an ugly fact
when an eighteen-year-old girl is willing to give her hand to an unloved
man so much older than herself, just because he is a millionaire! to
call it by its right name, it is selling herself. If I were writing a
novel I should certainly not tell such a story of its heroine, if she
was intended to be attractive; but what I am setting down here is the
experiences of a real person, for whose actions I am not by a long way
so responsible as I should be for those of a figure drawn from fancy.
For the latter would be fashioned according to my own present views and
feelings, while this eighteen-year-old Bertha Kinsky—though it is I
myself—is nothing more than a vague picture in memory. What the original
of the picture experienced is retained in bare outlines in my
recollection; it has also contributed to the shaping of my present
character; but what sort of character that original itself had at that
time appears to me as a thing in which I have as little part as in the
caprices of Cleopatra or Semiramis.
A few pictures from this engagement episode:
The presentation: Herr von Weilen brings the suitor for a morning call.
Stiff conversation in the drawing-room. Each studies the other. Pleased?
No, the elderly gentleman scarcely pleases me—but does not displease me.
Invitation to dinner the next day; Fürstenberg also there. Still stiff.
On the fourth or fifth day a letter to my mother asking for my hand. I
hesitate. That same evening we were to go to a ball—my coming out. An
aristocratic picnic: the _crème_ used to appear at this ball, but not
exclusively—elements of less consequence are also present. I can still
see my toilet, a white dress sprinkled all over with little rosebuds.
Full of joyous anticipation I entered the hall. Full of piqued
disappointment I left it. I had found but few partners; I should have
been left to sit out the cotillion had not a homely infantry officer,
who had had his matrimonial proposals rejected in numerous quarters,
taken pity on me. The aristocratic mothers sat together, my mother sat
alone; the countesses stood in groups and chattered, I knew none of
them; at the supper merry little coteries were formed, I was left out.
On the way home I said to my mother, “Mamma, I have made up my mind now,
I will accept the proposal.”
The next picture: The happy suitor, in possession of my acceptance,
brings me a whole cargo of betrothal presents: a set of sapphires and a
pearl necklace. He also presents to me his nearly sixteen-year-old
daughter (for he was a widower), and she calls me her dear, beautiful
mamma, which is great fun for me.
Next picture: A brilliant ball in the _haute finance_, in which we
participate as affianced lovers. Now I am surrounded, and the most
gorgeous young cavalry officers are paying court to me—one in particular
begs permission to call at my house when I am married. Evidently he
thinks an old man’s young wife may become interesting. But my fiancé is
furious, and makes a scene with me because I propose to go out to supper
on the uhlan’s arm. I laugh, leave my cavalier, and take the arm of the
angry man.
“Oh, I’ll be good,” I say soothingly.
Still another picture: A drive about the city, three of us, my mother
and the engaged couple, to look at house-furnishing goods, carriages,
gowns; also a drive to the suburbs to look at the truly princely villa
that was destined as a nuptial gift for me.
One picture more: An afternoon at our home. My betrothed and I are alone
for the first time.
“Bertha, do you know how ravishing you are?” He puts his arm around me
and presses his lips to mine. The first love-kiss that a man had given
me. An old man, an unloved man.—
With a suppressed cry of disgust I tear myself free, and in me arises a
passionate protest—No, never—
On the next day the presents were sent back; I broke the engagement. My
people had indeed tried to remonstrate: the scandal—the breach of
faith—I ought not to have said yes, I had not been compelled to, but to
draw back suddenly now—I should at least think it over for a while yet—
“No, no—I cannot, _cannot_—I’d rather die!”
And so the letter of dismissal was sent off.
A few hours later the daughter rushed to me and wept at my feet: I must
not treat her father so badly—I must revoke the cruel decision....
But there was no changing my mind now. Stubbornly I clung to my “I
cannot, I _cannot_!”
Soon the whole episode lay behind me like a bad dream which I felt it a
refreshment to have waked from. My engagement and disengagement had
taken place at carnival time; in the summer I was no longer thinking of
them. We spent this summer in Baden near Vienna, where my mother had
bought a small villa. It was a jolly summer, full of picnics,
watering-place music, and dancing parties.
A little circle of society was formed, including a few elegant and
pretty young girls and numerous young gentlemen, mostly officers, and
also the indispensable mothers; we met daily—often three times a day, at
noon in the park during the music, in the afternoon walking to the
Helenental, and again in the evening (if there was not a _réunion_) at
the home of one family or another, or at the evening music in the park.
I had formed an especially intimate friendship with a girl of my own
age, by name Marietta, Marchesa Saibante. She was a striking sight: a
tall and rotund figure (at that time angular thinness was not yet
stylish), raven-black hair and eyes, dazzling teeth, very red lips and
very red cheeks—but withal a snub nose and coarse features in general.
Marietta’s mother, a Baroness Scheibler by birth, had been married to an
Italian, Marchese Saibante, and was a widow of many years’ standing. She
had only this single daughter, and worshiped her. With the two lived
also an unmarried sister of the Marchesa, and this Aunt Helene, as she
was called, worshiped Marietta still more. The two middle-aged ladies
(what a pity there is no German word for the expressively descriptive
English “middle-aged”) did not let their favorite get a step away from
their immediate presence. They were living in very modest circumstances,
but were rather prideful, since they were related to all the illustrious
families of the aristocracy. A deceased third sister had been married to
a Prince Auersperg. They had also a rich uncle, Field Marshal Count
Wratislav, who cherished a particular affection for Helene. This uncle
was constantly being spoken of. Very often, too, mention was made of a
cousin with the proud name Rohan (_Roi ne puis, prince ne daigne, Rohan
je suis_). Cousin Rohan was spoken of only incidentally—not
pretentiously,—“I have a cousin who is a Princess Rohan,”—but there were
told anecdotes and facts that were in themselves worth speaking of, and
that only happened by chance to be connected with Cousin Rohan. Query:
do not most people have among their kinsfolk and friends, or even mere
acquaintances, a person who is in a higher position then theirs, whom
they regard as their “Cousin Rohan” and utilize for the apparently
unintentional embellishment of their conversation?
That summer Elvira celebrated her marriage with Doris in See. Marietta
and I figured as bridesmaids. While the breakfast was still going on the
young couple left Baden for Pola, where the newly married ensign’s ship
was lying at anchor.
Now I was thrown altogether on Marietta. It was a strong contrast. After
my cousin,—the poetess, the scholar,—the Rohan’s cousin, who was a
worldling through and through, with nothing else in her head but the
enjoyments and glitter of social life. She had tasted of them, despite
her limited circumstances; for she had spent a whole carnival in Prague,
and had there, under the ægis of the Auerspergs, the Wratislavs, and the
Rohans, danced at twenty balls and flirted (without results) with many
an _épouseur_. Now in Baden it was dancing and coquetting again;
Marietta and I were the belles of the season. These entertainments were
now “the important thing.”—As if the world had been created for no other
purpose than to be our place of amusement.
The following winter we (that is, my mother and brother and I) spent in
Rome. It had come about thus. The just-dethroned Queen of Naples, with
her suite, had spent this summer at the Weilburg in Baden as guests of
Archduke Albrecht. The historic tragedy that had preceded, the defense
and loss of Gaeta, had made but little impression on me; I only listened
with interest to the stories that were told of it by the queen’s chief
steward, an old _principe_, who often visited us. It was he who depicted
to us the life of foreigners in Italy, especially in Rome, so
temptingly, and urged us so strenuously to come there next winter that
we let ourselves be prevailed upon. The prospect took my fancy greatly.
Yet, to my shame, I must avow that what attracted me was not eternal
Rome with the magic of its historic memories, but the portrayals of
Roman society life. And it remained so during our stay. What made most
impression on me there—what was to me “the important thing”—was not the
Vatican and Castel Sant’Angelo and the Forum, but the Monte Pincio with
its elegant Corso, the Teatro Costanza with its opera season consisting
of two alternating operas (one of them _Il Trovatore_), and the balls
and soirées that we attended in the palaces of the Roman magnates or in
the drawing-rooms of the colonies of foreigners. I did not bring away
deep impressions in any respect from that stay in Rome; it was reserved
to a time many years later for me to take in, with some comprehension,
the enchantment which this classic soil must exert upon any half-way
receptive mind.
Our friend of Baden days, the Neapolitan _principe_, once invited us to
an excursion to his home city, and took us from there to Pompeii, the
Blue Grotto, and the marvelous Capo di Monte, where he owned a villa—but
it was rather dilapidated, as was he himself for that matter. When he
came out next with a proposal of marriage, at the close of the season
when we were already packed up for our journey, I said “no” without
hesitation. I would not conjure down upon myself a second time the fate
which I had newly escaped—that of becoming the wife of an unloved old
man. Oh yes, if my suitor’s twenty-five-year-old son, the black-eyed
Duca di ..., who quite pleased me, had appeared as suitor, I do not
know—but he did not take it into his head; I think he was more inclined
to feel an antipathy to me, for he must have seen into his father’s
plans, and a second marriage on the father’s part would presumably have
been extremely unwelcome to the son. Not till afterward did we learn
that in our circle it had been generally assumed that the elderly
_principe_, who loaded us with attentions, had even in Baden been my
unacknowledged fiancé.
From Rome we returned to Baden, where the life of last year’s season was
repeated; and in the following winter, 1864, we went to Venice to go
“into the world” again there.
Venice! Thee too, marvelously charming, death-pale queen of the lagoons,
I learned only in much later years to understand and love. Totally
insensible to her beauty I was not, to be sure, even at that time; but
yet “the important thing” to me was social life. It did my heart good to
be again in the vicinity of my beloved cousin Elvira. Her husband was
now stationed at Venice, and the couple were living there quite
secluded, but in the profoundest domestic happiness. Only two things
disturbed this happiness: first, the young husband’s prospective early
return to sea service, which threatened them with a year’s separation,
and secondly Elvira’s unsettled health; she coughed much, and was often
seized with the fear that she was consumptive. Those who surrounded her,
and the physician too, would talk her out of this fear, and then she
would once more give herself up to the full gladness of living.
I, meanwhile, was reveling in the enjoyment of the Venetian carnival.
Venice was at that time an Austrian city, and society life moved in
Austrian circles. The houses which we frequented were those of the
Austrian governor, the Austrian consul, and sundry Austrian aristocrats.
A rich English family named Greaves, adorned by a beautiful daughter,
also kept open house, but the Italian families were hostile and held
aloof.
Our life ran this course: at noon a military band played in the Piazza
di San Marco, and there—just as we used to do in the Kurpark at Baden—we
promenaded up and down, accompanied by whatever gallants were at
hand—mostly navy officers—and continued the conversations of last
night’s ball. If it rained, we sat in the cafés under the Procuratie and
had our social intercourse there. At five in the afternoon we called on
each other, and every evening we met at private balls or soirées. A
great fancy-dress ball was given, and once—I think it was in the
Wimpffen house—there was an exhibition of amateur theatricals, and
living pictures with them.
The toilets that I wore on these three occasions I can still see in my
memory. I do not intend to describe them, but only to show by this
confession what it is that makes so deep an impression on a silly girl’s
mind—and, withal, I was not even one of the silliest. They made much of
my intellect—they made much of me in every way that season at Venice, so
that I felt myself one of their queens. An agreeable feeling, at all
events. It went to my head violently, and I took advantage of this
agreeable self-sufficiency to send some suitors off with vigorous
refusals. This brought upon me worldly-wise reproaches from my people;
but how well it is for me that I did this, for otherwise I should be
to-day the wife of some admiral or commodore, and should not have
possessed that husband whose possession was my life’s consecration, nor
should I have come into touch with the peace movement, in which my
activities and endeavors have received their most fervid inspiration.
One may be disposed to stigmatize as frivolity the type of character
exhibited by a young female who is wholly taken up with social
enjoyments, who does not concern herself about the events that move the
world, but who does bestow on her own toilets, worn at festal occasions,
such intense attention that after forty years the memory is not yet
extinct. Well, I would ask an old, ever-so-efficient general if he does
not remember the clink of the saber dragging behind him when he went out
for the first time after he received his commission; I would ask the
most learned professor of the political sciences if he cannot still see
before his eyes the color of the ribbon which he wore on his student
cap.
But in these things—ball bouquet, lieutenant’s saber, students’ society
colors—there lies something additional, quite other than what they are;
the fragrance and clink and gleam is of the symbol; they are admission
cards to the advertised great festival, winning tickets for the hoped
chief prizes of the great lottery,—the Future.
Ball triumphs—I can still remember what intensified feelings of
intoxication they bring with them. I say intensified, for youth in happy
and care-free circumstances is in itself an intoxication. One need not
be “frivolous” by a long way—in the sense of superficial and
brainless—if one then plunges with a certain passionate fullness of
satisfaction in the flood of social amusements; there is vibrating a
peculiar electric fluid full of invisible sparks which mean to discharge
themselves as happiness or as love—or at least as joy. And the warmer a
girl’s emotional life is, the more her mind has been fed on poetic diet,
the more proudly she feels that she has treasures of happiness to
bestow, the more devoted love she feels the force within her capable of,
so much the more sensitive is she to the mysterious crackle of those
sparks. He who does not hear the crackle, to whose head the intoxicating
foam is not rising, through whom the passionate hopes of happiness are
not glowing,—well, he does find the whole business flat and vapid, and
charges the young fools who are giving themselves up to all this with
being superficial.
But after a few seasons a sobering-down comes to everybody. One who lets
himself be forever satisfied with social festivities, even when the
first flush of youth is past and the promises have not been fulfilled,
who does not then recognize “the important thing” in other aims, in new
duties, in serious activity, is indeed irredeemably frivolous.
Besides, I was talking of the feelings of our young girls in society at
the time of my youth. To-day everything has changed greatly. The girl
fresh from a good school no longer, as at that time, finds in the ball
her highest joy and her only opportunity for fulfilling her vocation, a
happy conquest. Dancing is being displaced by sport, and of callings
that are open to women there are more every day. Society life itself has
grown more tedious too: the young men shun the ballrooms; the seasons do
not last so long that people get better and better acquainted and so
enjoy each other’s company more and more; neither in winter in the city
nor in summer at the watering-place does society meet for the whole
season—they fly from place to place, from the mountains to the sea, from
the northern city to the South, from Scheveningen to St. Moritz, from
the Pyrenees to Egypt, up to the not distant time when from the Isle of
Wight they will make excursions to the fashionable Japanese baths.
VI
A SEASON IN HOMBURG VOR DER HÖHE
Our way of living · My first singing lessons · The Princess of
Mingrelia · Tsar Alexander II · Adelina Patti
1864—that was the year in which the Austrian troops, in conjunction with
the German, were waging war against Denmark. When I call up that year in
my own memory, this event plays no part in it at all. Doubtless I must
have heard something of it, but, as no one near and dear to me was
participating in it, what I heard was too faint a tone to leave traces
on my psychical phonograph. And in general the naïve conception of
martial events which was then mine, and is doubtless widespread even
to-day, is that wars are things that take place as necessarily and
regularly and outside of the sphere of all human influence as do
processes in the interior of the earth and in the firmament; so one is
not to get into a rage over them. And if they take place at a distance
it is like the collision of two stars—such a thing does not really
concern one, one will not let himself be disturbed in his occupations
and amusements by it—at most one may find it interesting that “history”
has again become active, and may be anxious to see what new lines its
stylus will engrave on the map. I do not think, for that matter, that I
felt this anxiety. I did not read the political part of the papers when
I read papers at all (my reading consisted only of French and English
books); and if I learned of the victory of the allies, and took pleasure
in it, this was at most brought about by the fact that the
_Düppler-Schanzen-Marsch_ was to be seen in all the music shops, with
the usual pretty picture of charging soldiers on the cover, one of them
in the foreground at the left waving the flagstaff on high, while at the
top the bunting rolls over the whole page in such great undulations that
one positively hears it flap in the wind. The cover of that piece of
music has remained in my memory; aside from this, of the whole
Schleswig-Holstein campaign—nothing.
The year 1864, especially the summer, brought me far other experiences,
which affected me deeply and have remained indelible in my memory.
We had gone to Bad Homburg v. d. Höhe. In causing my mother’s choice to
fall upon this place, the attraction of the trente-et-quarante table was
certainly the determining factor. It was her intention never again to
enter a gambling-room—this she had declared years ago; but now the
hankering had awakened again, and also the idea that perhaps it might
after all be possible to repeat the experiment that had been made at
home, and to harvest a trifle of a million, which is in all cases
agreeable. I did not say no to this scheme, for Homburg was incidentally
a very fashionable watering-place, where I should certainly find
opportunity for entertainment. My guardian did not approve at all; he
thought the gambling-room dangerous for my mother, and the society that
moved there unsuitable for me. Homburg was reputed to be a haunt of the
Parisian demi-monde. And in fact, we used to see on the terrace that
year two notably striking figures whose names are doubtless still in the
memory of those who go back to the time of the second French empire,
Cora Pearl and Léonide Leblanc. I was not unacquainted with the
existence of the _haute galanterie_ of Paris. As a reader of the French
novelists, Alexandre Dumas, Eugène Sue, George Sand, Paul Féval, who
were then the latest thing, I had acquired a knowledge of the life and
luxury of the _grandes courtisanes_, as they were called by those
authors.—Yet, along with such society, Homburg harbored also a highly
respectable community of foreigners who came to take the waters, from
everywhere under the sun—especially Russians and English.
Our apartments had been engaged in advance, in a house that stood
opposite the Kursaal; its owner was a banker named Wormser. Frau Wormser
was a dear, sensible, prepossessing woman. With this mention I send a
greeting to her in the realm of shadows.
I do not know how Homburg has developed since then. I see it before me
like this: a long, wide street leading from the railway to infinity,
interrupted on the right hand by a square where the Kursaal stands;
along the street the houses either are hotels,—the usual Englischer Hof,
Russischer Hof, or other Hof,—or bear a placard reading _Appartements
meublés_. When you get beyond the Kursaal the hotels diminish, the
street leading to infinity takes on the character of a small city, and
into it open the little streets and alleys that pertain to the capital
of the reigning Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg. At that time the last of the
landgraves was seated on this throne; for two years later not only did
his line die out with him, so that the landgraviate fell to
Hesse-Darmstadt, but by the terms of the peace of September 3, 1886, it
was incorporated into the kingdom of Prussia as a part of the province
of Hesse. Hesse-Homburg patriotism, if there was any, must have been
retrimmed in quick succession into a Darmstadt patriotism, a Nassau
patriotism, a Prussian and an Imperial German patriotism.
Where the great street broke off at Kurhaus Square, a side street turned
to the right, running opposite the Kursaal to the park. Here was the
foremost hotel of the place, Hotel Bellevue, and around the corner,
where the park was already beginning, stood the large three-story
Weckerlin house, on the ground floor of which I had many a joyous
hour—of this more anon.
When we arrived we knew nobody, but acquaintances are readily formed in
watering-places. Thus it came to pass that on the very first evening, at
our landlord’s bank, where my mother was having money changed (the
capital for the indubitable winning of those millions), we fell in with
an old gentleman whom Herr Wormser introduced to us as “Banker
Königswarter from Paris.” Then when we came to the music the next
afternoon Herr von Königswarter joined us, and introduced to us several
other guests of the spa, both gentlemen and ladies. Thus we became
acquainted with a Countess Vitztum who lived in Paris, Baron Alphonse
Rothschild from Naples, and several others whom I do not now remember.
We had organized our life thus: mother spent the forenoon at her work, I
stayed at home meanwhile (for it was settled as a fundamental principle
that I was not to enter the gambling-rooms), and during this time I
occupied myself with my piano and with my books. We had immediately
rented a piano and subscribed for six volumes at a time from the
circulating library, which was in the house next door. I was always a
ravenous devourer of books: without three volumes of belles-lettres
(novels in several volumes were the style then), two of Tauchnitz, and
one of German science, I was not to be contented. In all time to which
my thoughts go back, I have always, under all circumstances and in every
situation, led two lives—my own and that of my reading. I mean, the
events that I lived through and those that came to me through
description have simultaneously enriched my store of memories; to the
persons known to me in daily intercourse there have been added the
heroes of my authors; it is under the influence of a double experience
that what I am has taken shape. The stories of the “Thousand and One
Nights” belong to my impressions of the Orient just as much as does my
real stay in the Caucasus, and many a living gallant has quickened my
pulse less acutely than has the imagined figure of Marquis Posa. And
does not one often feel it as one of the experiences of life when from
the words of a thinker or scientist a new truth breaks forth, when
suddenly a fold of the veil that wraps the great mystery “Universe” is
lifted?
—Well, then, I devoted the forenoon to my occupation at home. At one
o’clock my mother came from her work (oh, how laborious and really
hateful she said it was!) and we lunched in our room. In the afternoon
we dressed nicely for the concert; at seven o’clock came dinner at the
Kurhaus restaurant, mostly in company, and after it, three times a week,
opera. Just then Adelina Patti, still quite young but already renowned,
was singing there _als Gast_. She was receiving an honorarium of five
thousand francs for every performance. I heard her in _La Sonnambula_,
_Faust_, _Lucia di Lammermoor_, _Don Pasquale_, _La Traviata_, _Linda di
Chamouni_, _Crispino e la Comare_. It must surely be a divine sensation
to stand there on the boards, the incarnation of an ideal figure, and
with the magic of one’s art to take so many hearts captive, to acquire
so much glory, honor, wealth, and withal to intoxicate one’s self with
the sweetness of one’s own voice,—these thoughts, joined with a certain
feeling of envy, ran through my mind while Patti sang, and now I
understood why my mother had felt it such an impairment of her happiness
in life that she had been hindered from becoming a Malibran. Malibran,
it was affirmed, had been a hundred times greater than Patti; and her
voice (my mother’s) had, she said, been put on a level with Malibran’s
by connoisseurs. Might not I, perhaps, have inherited this divine gift?
We sent for the leader of the orchestra at the opera to come and test
whether I had voice, and if I had, to give me singing lessons. He came,
tested, thought the material was good, and gave me lessons; of course
only exercises for developing the voice. That was somewhat of a bore to
me; I should have liked to learn a bravura aria at once, and I felt it
as a disappointment that when I let a beautiful F or G swell to
fortissimo and then diminish again till it died away, the Herr
Kapellmeister did not spring up to cry out in enthusiasm, “Why, that
beats Patti!” And so we gave up the lessons after a week—the more
readily because to my mother, whose work often failed of success in most
inexplicable fashion, the fee of twenty francs an hour seemed decidedly
too high.
One afternoon, at the music, Herr von Königswarter said to us,
“The Princess of Mingrelia has a keen desire to make the acquaintance of
the ladies.”
We had long known who the Princess of Mingrelia was, since we saw her
daily in the Kurpark and at the theater, and since Herr von
Königswarter, who was on friendly terms with her, had told us as much as
he knew of the story of her life. Ekaterina Dadiani, formerly princess
of the Caucasian country (now incorporated in the Russian empire) of
Mingrelia, was a very elegant lady of about forty-six or forty-seven,
still goodly to look upon, and must in her youth have been a dazzling
beauty of the genuine Georgian type. She had for some years been living
in Europe, alternately Paris and St. Petersburg, for the sake of her
children’s education; in summer she came regularly to drink the
health-giving waters of Homburg. Every morning at seven o’clock she went
to the spring; she often made the round of the gambling-rooms, but never
played; at the afternoon concert she used to sit in a particular place
on the Kurhaus terrace, always surrounded by a whole little court. Her
family consisted of two sons and a daughter. Her oldest son Nikolaus,
called Niko, was at that time seventeen years old, her daughter Salomé
sixteen, and her youngest son André fourteen. Her household (she
occupied the whole ground floor of the Weckerlin house) comprised a
secretary, the governess for her daughter, the tutor for the boys, a
valet, and two maids.
After her husband’s death she had taken the reins of government as her
son’s guardian. Once, hard pressed by the Turks, she herself went
against the enemy at the head of her horsemen. But it had been
impossible for her to hold her ground, and she had to accept the
protection of Russia, a protection that was practically annexation. The
heir was allowed to keep his title of Prince of Mingrelia, and his
lands, but in the form of a _majorat_; the throne he must forego. A
considerable appanage was set apart for the dowager princess, and at the
Russian court she was allowed the rank of a foreign sovereign. She was
content, for those Caucasian principalities and kingdoms—Georgia,
Imeretia, Mingrelia, etc.—were always threatened by Mohammedan enemies,
and under Russian safeguard they could develop peacefully, thrive, and
remain true to their ancestral standards of life, their customs, their
languages, and their dress.
In the princess’s company there were frequently to be seen a few
Caucasian ladies wearing their picturesque home costume; she herself
ordered her gowns from Worth and wore them with all the _chic_ and
elegance of a genuine _grande dame_. She spoke French fluently, even
though it was with a strong Russian accent; with her children she
conversed mostly in the Georgian language.
The desired acquaintance was made. I brought the interesting woman
girlish admiration, and she took me to her heart. Soon I became almost a
child of the house. At first I only sat in the great circle during the
concert; then the princess invited me to accompany her to the spring in
the morning, to come and see her at her apartments, to dine with her. My
mother held aloof: a few formal calls made and returned, that was all.
I, on the other hand, was taken into the intimacy of the princess, who
had a great predilection for young people. Salomé, her daughter, far
nearer to me in years, came in contact with me much less than did her
mother; she, with her hardly completed sixteen summers, was still rated
as a child, and had to stay with her governess most of the time.
By her fellow-countrymen the princess was addressed as “Dedopali”; this
means queen, literally “mother of mothers,” and is in that country the
correct title for every female sovereign. I was generally called by the
family “la contessina.” A friend of the Dadiani household, the Italian
Marchese Almorini, had thus addressed me, and the designation had stuck
to me. He was a comical sight, this Almorini. An old beau, always paying
compliments, always skipping about, always _aux petits soins_ with the
ladies. He did not show his age: he wore a coal-black wig and dyed his
beard. He could relate so many stories and chronicles of times long gone
by that there had grown up a standing joke that he had been centuries in
the world, like Cagliostro.
The princess’s secretary, who was likewise her courier, major-domo,
shawl-bearer,—in a word, factotum,—bore the name of Monsieur Ferry, and
was a Frenchman. He was the picture of devotion. Since one cannot all
the time be bending the upper part of the body forward as in reverential
salutations, he stood with his hip sloping to one side when he spoke to
his mistress, and always addressed her as “Altesse.” He was a man of
about forty, with a reddish imperial and side whiskers. The old valet,
called Monsieur David, a fat, smooth-shaven Swiss, had been one of the
household for twenty years, had served the late prince in Mingrelia, and
was the genuine type of the devoted old servant, possessing the absolute
confidence of his mistress and the love of her children.
Innumerable and clear-cut are the recollections which the hours that I
spent in the Dedopali’s house and in her company have left in my mind.
The oriental, exotic quality, commingled with the Russian and Parisian
tone of high society, spiced with romance and surrounded with the
glitter of wealth, exercised a peculiar fascination upon me; I was truly
downright happy in this relationship, it was to me like the coming true
of indefinite, long-cherished dreams. When I entered her apartments in
the Weckerlin house at any hour I had a glad and buoyant feeling. From
the front room one entered a large dining-room with three windows and a
balcony; at its right there was a corner drawing-room in which the
princess spent most of her time, and back of that was her sleeping-room.
At the left of the dining-room were the children’s rooms. It was only an
ordinary _appartement meublé_, though a high-grade one; nothing of
princely splendor about it; but yet by the many personal objects
scattered about, by the flowers, by the fashion in which the furniture
was placed, the whole had a private and characteristic stamp of its own;
the very odor that filled these rooms—a mixture of orange-flower
perfume, Russian cigarettes, and leather—had something personal about
it. In the course of years I met the Dedopali in many places, and
everywhere that she stayed this same odor hovered about her rooms and
adhered to all her possessions.
I spent many hours in that corner drawing-room and listened to the words
of the princess, who related to me much that was romantic in her career.
She would stay in Europe a few years more, and then return to her own
country with her sons. In the meantime her daughter would doubtless have
married. “And you, too, Contessina, will sometime visit me in the
Caucasus with your husband, will you not? You are already twenty-one,
and so pretty—you must soon make a brilliant match and be right
happy.—Come, I will show you what wedding present I intend for you.”
And she took me into her sleeping-room, commanded her maid to set out
the jewel casket, and showed me her treasures,—a magnificent collection
of pearls, diamonds, and other precious stones. She took out a pretty
little brooch of brilliants.
“See, this is the _cadeau de noce, mais d’abord il faut avoir ‘le
promis.’_”
She questioned me: was there no one who was attentive to me, no one who
especially pleased me? No, my heart was free.—She herself, a short time
before, had been not far from contracting a second marriage. The
preceding summer at Biarritz the Duke of Osuna, the greatest and richest
nobleman of Spain, had sued for her hand, but she could not make up her
mind to it; she was now living only for the future of her children, and
besides she was already taking too much delight in looking forward to
her return to her native land, from which she was banished until her son
Niko should have reached his majority.
One afternoon, during the Kur-concert, we were all sitting on the
terrace once more in our usual places in the Dedopali’s circle. There
was a rumor that the Tsar, Alexander II, was in Homburg on that day:
perhaps he would come into the Kurpark. In fact, suddenly a commotion
arose, and from all sides came the cry, _L’Empereur, l’Empereur!_... And
down below in the park could be seen the tall, imposing figure of
Alexander II, who, accompanied by his aides, was promenading below the
terrace. As soon as his eye fell on the Dedopali he came hurrying up the
steps. The princess arose and moved forward to meet him, and he seized
her hand and kissed it. The rest of us stood at a respectful distance;
but I heard when after a short conversation the Emperor proposed in a
somewhat louder tone and in French, “Shall we not take a turn through
the gaming-rooms?” And he offered her his arm. The rest of us followed.
At the roulette table Alexander II borrowed a few gold pieces from his
companion,—either he had no money with him or else he thought that
borrowed money brings luck,—and threw the stake on the red. He won, let
the money stand a few times, but ultimately it was swept in by the
little rake, relentless even toward autocrats.
Another episode remains in my memory, a call which Adelina Patti paid to
the Princess of Mingrelia. She came accompanied by a lady companion, and
remained a short half hour in the corner drawing-room, while I also
happened to be there. The sort of awesome timidity with which the
autocrat of all the Russias had affected me a few days before filled me
now in a different way, but almost to the same degree, in the presence
of this victorious yet childishly bashful sovereign in the empire of
song—an empire which had stood before my mind as one of the mightiest
ever since my childhood. The conversation turned principally on music,
and when she was asked as to her favorite rôle, Adelina Patti named
Marguerite in _Faust_.
VII
HERACLIUS OF GEORGIA
A disappointed dream of love
One day a new figure appeared in the princess’s circle. A man of about
forty: elegant figure of medium height, regular features with a
melancholy, almost gloomy expression, and a long, narrow black imperial.
“My dear cousin, Prince Heraclius of Georgia—my darling Contessina, of
whom I have told you so much,” said the princess, as she introduced us.
The cousin from Georgia pleased me and I pleased him also. Such a thing
is detected instantly. A lively conversation immediately sprang up
between us. Now we met several times a day, for the prince was
constantly in his cousin’s company, was invited to her rooms for all
meals and for the evenings. In the evening they used to have music—what
is called music: the oldest son drummed on the piano and sang all kinds
of songs from the music-halls and the boulevards; the rest joined in; I
rendered a few real piano pieces,—Chopin nocturnes, Mendelssohn
caprices, and Liszt rhapsodies,—sang a few of the ballads that were
lying around, and reaped a rich harvest of applause. I was admired day
after day as a musical marvel.
I liked to have the Dedopali tell me about her cousin. He was the son of
the last King of Georgia; properly bore the name Bagration, just as the
Russian emperors are Romanofs—he was a “Bagratide.” This designation
sounded to me particularly heroic and classic. He had a palace in Tiflis
and an ancient royal castle in the mountains. He lived much in Europe,
but frequently went back to his home in the Caucasus, where he was still
treated by the population as a king. In temperament he was melancholy
rather than cheerful, the probable cause being his not altogether robust
health—his yellowish complexion indicated a diseased liver. To cure such
ailments he alternately drank of the waters of Homburg, Karlsbad, or
Vichy.
“He would cure his ailments better,” added the princess, “if he would
take a young wife who would cheer him up and make him right happy, a
sweet young wife like you, _ma petite Contessina_—Just try and see if
you can’t turn his head a little; it has long been the wish of my heart
to have him married.”
Such advice turned _my_ head a little. I really found this exotic sprig
of royalty, this dark Bagratide, who was at the same time a thorough
_homme du monde_, in the highest degree interesting. There is yet a step
from being interested to being in love, but not a very long one. The
slightest occasion, and this step is taken. This is the way it happened
with me (I made use of this episode many years later in my novel
_Trente-et-quarante_):
One day I had again been invited to dinner at the Villa Weckerlin. Those
who sat next me at table were an Englishman—Lord Hillsborough—and
Heraclius. After dinner the company repaired to the salon; the mistress
of the house requested me to play something for them. Without being
urged, I sat down at the grand piano and played with bravura a Chopin
valse. Heraclius stood near me.
“You are an artist,” he said when I had finished.
It was now time to break up. The princess’s guests had also taken a box
at the opera for that evening, and it had been agreed that we should go
to the opera together.
I followed the princess into her dressing-room to rearrange, my hair a
little. The locks to be curled, and the faded roses to be replaced with
fresh ones. While Masha, the maid, was doing this work, I looked at my
own picture set in the silver frame of the toilet mirror. How
advantageously this thick polished glass showed the image: or was it the
effect of the champagne that my cheeks glowed so vividly, as if they had
been rouged? I took up the oval hand mirror; it showed the same dazzling
color; and by means of the double reflection I could now also see the
effect of the spray of roses drooping between the dark locks at the back
of my neck.
The princess stood near the toilet table.
“Take a little _poudre de riz_, my love,” she said, and lifted the
silver cover of a round glass jar. I pressed the puff into the fragrant
powder and dabbed it against my face and neck; how cooling it was, how
refreshing to the hot cheeks! And then, after the visible traces of rice
flour had been wiped off with the soft rabbit’s foot, the too deep red
in the cheeks had been changed to a tender rose, the lips glowed the
more vividly, and the eyes sparkled darker than before.
To complete my toilet the princess gave me a sandalwood fan with steel
spangles, and now we were ready.
When we entered the box the performance was already in progress. They
were giving _Rigoletto_. Gilda was just rushing down the steps to meet
her father. _Mio padre!—Figlia mia!_ As it were a flood of delicate
waves of tone came purling down from the stage, and the thickly packed
theater presented a brilliant spectacle. The impressions of life’s
splendor and joy which I was receiving that day kept on crescendo.
Heraclius of Georgia was present in the box. He sat opposite me and kept
his eyes fixed on me. It seemed to me as if the captivating melodies in
the duet between Gilda and the duke expressed what was streaming from
heart to heart between Heraclius and me, still unspoken but already
understood on both sides. I listened to the fiery strains of Verdi, and
slowly moved my fan back and forth, every motion sending me a breath of
sandalwood. Once I slightly turned my head and met the eyes of my
vis-à-vis fixed upon me full of tenderness and admiration. Then I
dropped my lids, but soon, in spite of myself, I lifted them again and
gave the dear fellow a long, full gaze of love.
Now the curtain fell; the princess turned around, and Heraclius stood
up; he made room for various visitors who came crowding into the box,
and went out. Shortly afterwards I saw him on the other side of the
house with his opera glass directed on me. During the rest of the
performance Lord Hillsborough stayed in the box and Heraclius did not
return.
After the quartet in the last act the princess stood up.
“Let us go,” said she; “I do not want to see the coming storm and the
dragging out of the bag with the corpse. Instead, let us take a turn
through the gaming-rooms.”
At the exit of the auditorium stood Heraclius. He came to my side.
“The performance is over at last! Were you very much fascinated by the
Englishman’s conversation?”
“I was fascinated by the Italian’s music,” said I in reply.
A long gallery leads from the theater to the gaming-rooms. Heraclius
walked by my side, and I expected every moment that he would put into
words what had just now been uttered through the eyes; but then the
princess began to involve her cousin in a conversation, which lasted
till we entered the gaming-rooms.
Here we took our stand at the roulette table, and the princess flung
some gold pieces on the _tableau_.
“I am going to make a proposition,” said Heraclius to his cousin.
“To-day is Wednesday, and there is a ball here; let us go to the gallery
and look on.”
The princess agreed, and the little company mounted the steps leading to
the ballroom gallery.
This was full of people. There was hardly a place to be found between
the spectators who were leaning over the railing. We had to separate;
the princess took her place at one end of the gallery, I was at the
other. Heraclius joined me. It was like a tête-à-tête. Crowded by the
people who stood beside us, he had to come so near me that his arm
rested on the railing close against mine. What we said no one else could
hear, for the noise of the waltz music prevented words exchanged at
close quarters from carrying to any remoter place. It was to a Strauss
waltz—the _Morgenblätter_—that the couples on the floor below were
whirling. But, though I looked down, I saw little of the swarm on the
floor; my ball was up above. More giddily than under the maddest galop
time I felt myself whirled onward by the prince’s proximity, by his
words. The atmosphere was oppressive; the chandelier near us poured out
a hot and dazzling light. I kept my fan going incessantly, and with its
sandalwood scent it said something to me—for scents also speak—that
enravished me.
“You are a magnificent girl,” Heraclius’s flattering voice was
whispering in my ear meantime. “You have all the qualities to turn the
soberest heads, to set the coldest hearts to beating. I had no idea that
earth contained a being who could exercise such a witchery as you—”
“Children!” exclaimed the princess, coming up to us, “it is beyond
endurance here; this heat is suffocating, the light makes one’s eyes
ache, the music is deafening, and there is not much to look at in the
dancing of those four or five ill-gowned Homburg girls. Don’t you agree
with me? Let us go!”
Well, we had to go, for it was for the princess to decide, but I
assuredly did not agree with her. The heat-radiating chandelier was to
me a magic sun, the noise of the wind instruments was like the music of
the spheres—a more glorious festivity I had never yet experienced.
The princess and her cousin accompanied me to the door of my house. It
was still open.
“_A demain, chérie!_” said the princess, kissing me on the forehead.
“But not at the spring,” she added. “Come at two o’clock.”
My mother was still up.
“How late you are! The theater was out long ago!”
“We have been looking on at the ball, mamma.”
“How did you enjoy yourself? Tell me.”
“To-morrow, dear mamma!”