My husband went to meet the visitor in the anteroom.
“My wife will be much pleased ...” he began politely.
“What! How is this?” cried the other. “Can you be Baron Suttner? So you
are not dead? Why, you were shot in Paris!”
“Excuse me, no....”
Thereupon the two gentlemen came in where I was, and the stranger
explained why he had been so surprised to find me in the possession of a
living spouse, when he knew from the story of my life, which he had
lately read, that I had lost my two husbands, and he had not supposed
(somewhat reproachfully) that I was married for the third time.
We laughingly explained to him that the two deceased military men were
mere creations of fancy, and all that was taken from reality was the
loving and happy wedded intercourse which the book depicts—and this,
thank God, had not been sundered by any cruel fate.
Mr. Felix Moscheles, a son of the famous musician, and editor of the
correspondence between his father and Mendelssohn, now explained to us
that he, together with Hodgson Pratt, Cardinal Manning, Lord Ripon, the
Bishop of London, the Duke of Westminster, and others, belonged to the
directorate of the London Peace Association. Being a permanent resident
of London and a naturalized Englishman, he had set himself the task of
carrying on propaganda for his peace association whenever he was
traveling. His chief specialty was table-d’hôte conversion; but this, he
laughingly acknowledged, was generally a wretched failure, or else
brought upon him the counter attempts of old women tract distributers to
convert him.
The preceding winter he had spent with his wife in Cairo, where he had
made quite a number of Egyptian studies,—Mr. Moscheles is a painter by
profession,—and there he had succeeded in winning over sundry beys to
his peace theories. A friend from Berlin had sent him my book, and that
had awakened in him an eager desire to make the acquaintance of the
unfortunate woman who had suffered so much by war and who had expressed
in this book so much that he himself had at heart. Now the day before he
had learned quite by accident, in a soirée at the house of Sir Austen
Henry Layard, the well-known ex-diplomat, that the author was in Venice,
and he could not but pay his respects to her: first as a friend of
peace, to thank her for the book, and secondly as a man, to express his
sympathy for the poor broken-hearted widow ... and—what disillusions
life brings—he is received by the husband of a jocund woman!
In the course of the conversation Mr. Moscheles told us that it would
have been very agreeable to him if in Venice he could have met with
people who would be disposed to form a local section of the Peace
Association; but that there was no prospect of it—no one took any
interest in the question. He was therefore planning to return to England
in two days.
“Who knows?” said I. “Perhaps it might be possible to do something in
the matter after all. This evening there is a reception in Casa
Pandolfi; I will speak about your wish to the marquis, who, to the best
of my knowledge and belief, belongs to the Parliament at Rome and to the
Peace Association there.”
So that same evening, in what had been the Palazzo Bianca Capello, while
the young people were dancing in the next room, I asked the host for a
word with him. With but little hope of any results I told him about the
visit of the English friend of peace, and about his desire. The Marquis
Pandolfi seemed very much surprised to hear me speak of such things; and
even more joyfully surprised was I when I now learned that he was one of
the most enthusiastic and active adherents of the cause, that the group
of sympathizers in the Italian Chamber already comprised a large
proportion of the popular representatives, and that he, Pandolfi, was at
work on the organization of this group and the preparations for the next
conference. He most willingly took up the idea of having a section
formed in Venice, and commissioned me to request Mr. Moscheles to be
good enough to call on him for further conference the next forenoon.
A few days later a provisional committee had been formed, a notice sent
out, and a meeting called. About a hundred persons attended at the hall,
among them many journalists and lawyers. Only two women were
present,—Mr. Felix Moscheles’s wife Grete and I.
The two given names Grete and Felix had among their friends grown into
the collective name Grelix. For Grelix is altogether of one mind; Grelix
is enthusiastic for every kind of social progress and works for it;
Grelix paints in partnership, visits every picturesque corner of the
earth with sketchbook and pencil; Grelix’s self is a pretty sight too,
he with his thick snow-white hair crowning still fresh features and an
elastic figure, she looking as if she might be his daughter, nice and
delicate as a little doll, with goldblond hair tumbling about a rococo
face; and the house in London, containing the two studios and all the
art treasures collected in traveling, is called “The Grelix,” after its
owner.
Pandolfi gave those who were present a kindling address—it is well known
how fierily Italians speak if they are orators—in which he urged the
formation of a Venetian section of the universal European league of
peace and explained the aims of the interparliamentary group to which he
belonged. Then several others took part and expressed their views.
It was the first time in my life that I had been present on such an
occasion, for I had never belonged to any kind of a Union, or looked on
at a meeting of one or at its formation. The result was that a committee
was at once appointed, with Pandolfi as chairman; dispatches were sent
to the Peace Association in London and to the peace and arbitration
group in Rome; and so the group so ardently desired by our English guest
was founded.
The next day all the Italian papers had notices of this event, and for a
while it was the talk of the day in our circles. In such fashion, to be
sure, as parlor talk in the presence of a new movement, striving to
accomplish a great revolution in any field, ordinarily is,—expression of
sapient doubts and probable objections, hinted mockery, condescending
recognition of the noble aim,—and all against a background of stolid,
obstinate indifference.
And especially—is it credible?—especially women are the ones that manage
to find beautiful aspects of war, that neither can nor will conceive of
a condition when their sons will not any longer have to die for their
country, but simply to live for it.
Among the ladies of Venetian society with whom I associated at that
time, and who showed some interest in the newly founded Pandolfi Union,
these two were foremost: first the widowed Princess Darinka of
Montenegro—who died a year later. “We shall yet live to see the world
shaking off war,” she said to me. “The Emperor of Russia, you may
believe me, cherishes a deep horror of it.” Well, she did not live to
see that day; but what difference does the presence of us ephemera make
when it is a question of the history of humanity, which goes on
living—and we in it—?
The second of the women who took an interest in the question was the
Princess Hatzfeld, born Von Buch. A splendid old lady—she had just
celebrated her seventieth birthday. She had a receptive mind and warm
enthusiasm for everything that took place in the world in politics and
art. When Richard Wagner was living in Venice she was on terms of
intimate friendship with him and Frau Cosima. She was the first who
learned of his fatal illness and hastened to his deathbed. A note from
the stricken wife, “Come!” had summoned her. When she entered the room
where Wagner lay, he had just drawn his last breath, and Frau Cosima
with a wild cry threw herself on his dead body. After a while she rose
to her feet, and, pale, tearless, stepped to a little table on which lay
a pair of scissors; these she seized, and, cutting off her long thick
tresses, placed this blond silken cushion under the dead man’s head.
PART SIX
1890–1891
XXVIII
THE AUSTRIAN INTERPARLIAMENTARY GROUP IS FORMED
Return · Skeptical reception of my reports · Resumption of our literary
labors · Pandolfi suggests enlisting recruits in the Austrian parliament
for the conference at Rome · Correspondence with members: Baron Kübeck,
Pernerstorfer, Dr. Jaques, Dr. Exner · The group is formed, Baron
Pirquet turning the scale
On our return from Venice to Harmannsdorf we stopped for a few days in
Vienna.
On the very first evening we met at the Hotel Meissl a few members of
the Reichsrat who were friends of ours, and, still under the influence
of our exciting experiences, I told them the whole story of the founding
of the Venetian Peace Society through a member of the Italian chamber. I
also told them about the Interparliamentary League which had been formed
in Paris in the year 1888, had met in London the year before, and was to
have its rendezvous in Rome this year.
The gentlemen listened with interest but with very skeptical faces. As
to joining, none of them had any idea of it.
At Harmannsdorf we industriously resumed our work. My husband wrote his
Caucasian story “Shamyl,” and I also sketched the plan of a new novel,
_Vor dem Gewitter_ (“Before the Storm”). What was meant was the
political and social storm whose clouds are rolling up in all quarters.
Literary work did not keep me from busying myself with the peace cause
so dear to me, for I kept up a steady correspondence with Hodgson Pratt,
Moscheles, Frédéric Passy, and others.
I received word from Pandolfi that he, encouraged by his success in
Venice, was now zealously at work in the Roman chamber, enlisting as
large a committee as possible for the Interparliamentary Conference. He
was having brilliant success; three hundred senators and deputies
enrolled themselves. Now he was especially concerned to have
parliamentary committees formed in Germany and Austria also, in order to
send representatives to the conference in Rome, the date of which was
set for November. He urged me, in case I had any connections with
Austrian parliamentarians, to assist in the matter. That was at the
beginning of June. What difficulties and what delays preceded the
formation of an Austrian group, will be apparent from a bunch of letters
which I have preserved from that time. The writers were people with whom
I had communicated in the matter first personally (we went to Vienna for
that purpose) and then by correspondence.
From Baron Kübeck, whose name I found in the London Peace Association
and who therefore seemed to me most fitted to further the cause, I
received a very explicit answer, which is interesting especially by its
excursions into the domain of foreign politics as they were understood
in the year 1891 in our political circles.