melancholy; 'I walk out every day. I cannot sit still. I find time hang
so heavy, as I am not skilled in work. But then I wear a very thick
veil, the everlasting staring is so hateful to me, particularly in a
strange place. There was only one evening, when standing before a
bright shop-window, that I did venture to throw back my veil--at that
very moment Herr van Kuylen chanced to pass, and since then he has
often and often recognized me, though I am wrapped up like a nun.
Besides I always have Babette with me. I should be afraid of going out
alone, for though it is now more than a year since I left home, I still
feel so desolate and forlorn, and my heart aches so, that I am often
tempted to jump into the first deep water I come across, and get rid of
myself, and my whole useless existence.'
"Her smile had vanished, and instead, tears stood in her eyes.
"'Were you not then beloved in your home?' I enquired. 'So beautiful
and sweet a child must--'
"'Loved! Yes, indeed, if only there had been sense in their affection.
I was loved sometimes too much, sometimes too little. If I had had
another face it would all have been right enough. But they expected all
sorts of wonders, and out of sheer vanity must make me unhappy. There
were six brothers and sisters older than myself--I am the youngest and
last--and all the rest, who had quite common-place human countenances,
are now contented and well provided for, married unnoticed folk of whom
no bad or good is said, and about whom no one troubles himself to
enquire. But as for me, no sooner was I out of my swaddling-clothes
than I was pronounced a little wonder of the world, and all the aunts
and cousins lifted their hands in amazement at the sight of me, and
told my mother no princess need be ashamed of having brought such a
child into the world. And there was something wonderful in it, too. My
father was a poor schoolmaster, my mother a sexton's daughter, neither
of them particularly handsome; only through my maternal grandmother,
pretty hands and feet, and beautiful long hair, had come into the
family. But as it happened, while I was coming into the world, Count
F----, the patron of our church, put up a magnificent new window
in St. Catharine's, representing the Saint kneeling by the wheel, a
palm-branch between her folded hands, and painted in such beautiful
vivid colours, people were never tired of looking at it. Our whole
village, Catholics and Protestants, crowded to see it, and for weeks
nothing else was spoken of, at least in our house. My eldest brother,
who already drew very well, copied it at once, but my good mother
especially saw the picture--as she afterwards told us--constantly
before her day and night, whether her eyes were open or shut; and when
I was born, she insisted upon it that I must be baptised by the name of
Katharine. It was not long before they all took to calling me "the fair
Kate," and all agreed that I had stolen my face from the picture on the
window.
"'You may suppose that when I first came to understand this, trotting
about as a little child, I had no cause to regret it. Everybody coaxed
and praised me, and if the kissing and stroking was at times rather too
much of a good thing, yet on the whole it had its advantages. As the
last of the batch, too, I was better treated in every way than my
brothers and sisters, nor had I anything to endure from their jealousy,
for they really, as well as my parents, did consider me a thing apart,
a special gift and grace of God to the family, reflecting some glory on
its other members. It was a thing, of course, that I--so far as our
poverty permitted it--should be well dressed, have the best food kept
for me, and receive more instruction than the rest. My father used to
devote his two hours of leisure to me; I must needs learn French and
pianoforte playing, and it was evident to all that not only must I take
no share in the house-work, but that my delicate fingers must not be
spoilt by sewing or knitting. I only wonder that I did not become more
idle and vain than I actually was. But indeed to me, too, it seemed so
much a thing of course that I did not give it any particular thought.
Apricots have different flavours to wild pears, and cost different
sums. That is all very natural. One man has a hundred thousand dollars,
another a voice in his throat that bewitches people, a third is so
learned that all take off their hats to him, and _I_ was "the fair
Kate," with whom everybody fell in love. What the exact value of _that_
was--I mean the falling in love--I did not know; I had not found out
that I too had a heart, I was not even very fond of my own family,
because I found it tiresome to be always so much made of, and as to
falling in love with myself, that couldn't well happen, as I had been
used to my bit of red and white, and all the rest that people made such
a fuss about, from a child.
"'I had only one playfellow that I cared at all for, and for the very
reason that he was rather cross than kind to me; a youth different to
the rest, but neither particularly handsome or lively, and one of the
poorest. His father shipped charcoal up and down the Rhine, and worked
very hard; his mother was a quiet sickly woman, always at home or in
the church, with a sorrowful face that made me feel ashamed of my smart
clothes. Her son, too--he was about five years older than I, and had
often to help his father--would look more crossly than ever out of his
eyes if he met me on a Sunday, when my mother had decked me with all
sorts of colours. He made no remarks, but he always avoided me on those
occasions, and childish as I was, and vain, too, of being the fair
Kate, this never failed to give me a pang. I would contrive to get into
my every-day clothes to creep down about twilight to the banks of the
Rhine where his cottage stood, and I was quite happy if Hans Lutz would
only be good-natured to me and say, "Now you look like a human being
again, and not like a doll." He had a way--silent as he was--of amusing
me better than anybody else, would cut me out little boats of bark that
rode at anchor in a little harbour that he built; he could play me my
favourite airs on a reed-pipe, and it was often night, and I had to be
scolded away before I would consent to part from him.
"'You see already what that was leading to. I could no longer do
without him, although others held him cheap as being inferior to
them all, because he had had the small-pox and went about in the
coarsest and most thread-bare jacket. I almost think there was some
vanity in it. I seemed to myself to be a princess condescending to the
charcoal-burner; then again in my better hours I noticed that I had an
especial respect for him, more indeed than for any other human
creature, and that I never respected myself so much as when he had
given me a kind word.
"'Our years of childish play were nearly over; he was fifteen, I ten,
when a legacy came to his parents, not, indeed, enough to set them up
with carriage and horses, but to make them much more comfortable than
before. The father gave up the charcoal-loading business, and became--I
really do not quite know what--a sort of factor or agent. The eldest
son, my Hans Lutz, was sent off to a school for artisans; he was to be
an engineer, and was indeed made for it. His younger brother, who was
about my own age, remained at home and took to violin playing, in hopes
of gaining admission into the Ducal Chapel; they had a distant cousin
there who played the bassoon.
"'Time went on: at first I missed my companion dreadfully, I did
not know what to do with myself on Sundays, and found out fully how
much he had been to me. However, I gradually got accustomed to his
absence, to going about again dressed like a doll, to being serenaded
by the students who passed through the town, or to reading poems and
love-letters which were thrown in to me through the window, but which I
never answered. For my mother was pretty strict with me, and after my
first Communion, I was never allowed to leave the house alone. I
believe she was afraid that one of the mad Englishmen, who stared at me
worst of all, would carry me off, or that the Rhine water-sprites would
draw me down out of envy and spite. Now and then real wooers would make
their appearance, very respectable people, quite able to support a
wife. But they had a pretty reception! My father was not going to part
with me on such easy terms; he would hear of nothing under a Count, as
I overheard him telling my mother, or else a man so rich as to be able
to lay down my weight in money. It was all one to me, the privilege
that I enjoyed of being the beautiful Kate, and treated as the most
remarkable and important person in our district quite satisfied me, and
since the departure of Hans Lutz I did not so much as know that I had a
heart.
"'He never wrote to me, never sent me a message. It was only seldom
that I heard from his mother how well he was doing, how industrious he
was, and how much he was praised by his instructors. I used to wonder
that he never came over for a visit. The distance from Carlsruhe was
not so great after all, and however sparing of his time or his money,
he might, I thought, have made the effort if he cared about seeing me
again.
"'But the most wonderful thing of all, and to me wholly
incomprehensible, was that he _did_ once come over, spent a whole long
day with his parents, and seemed to think that there was nothing else
to be seen in the neighbourhood. I never so much as got a distant
glimpse of him, nor did he leave a single message for me. Naturally I
was very much offended, and determined if I ever saw him again to make
him rue it. A year or so later there came an opportunity of doing this.
I was just seventeen years old, he, therefore, was two-and-twenty, when
it was rumoured that he had passed through all the schools with great
honour, and was now looking out for some post or other which he was
sure to get. That he should in the first instance pay a visit to his
parents, stood to reason, but he had not fixed the day and hour. I was,
therefore, not a little startled one afternoon, when sitting with my
sister in the wood behind the old castle and sketching the view,--for
I, too, took drawing-lessons, though I had no particular talent--just
when I was about to pronounce his name and to ask Lina if she knew the
day of his return, I saw a tall, slender, dark young man emerge from
the bushes, take off his hat, and prepare to go down the hill without a
word. I knew him instantly; he had still his old face, only with the
addition of a dark beard, and he was much better-looking. The marks of
the small-pox had almost disappeared. "Good Heavens!" cried I springing
from my seat, "it is you, Hans Lutz! How can you startle one so!" "I
beg your pardon," he said, in a formal polite way, "I had no idea that
I should be disturbing young ladies here; I will no longer intrude upon
them," and therewith he again took off his hat, the abominable man, and
went straight away as if he had only met an old woman picking sticks,
and not the playfellow of his childhood, the paragon of beauty whom
other people took long journeys to admire, and who had such a fine
lecture to read him, too.
"'I do believe I should have burst into tears if I had been alone, but
before Lina I restrained myself, only saying, "He has indeed grown
haughty and rude," and tried to go on with my drawing. To no purpose. I
could not put in another stroke, my eyes swam so in tears.
"'And in the midst of all my disappointment and vexation, the worst
part of it was that I could not be angry with him, that I would have
done anything to get a friendly look from him; and my shame at this
weakness made me so thoroughly unhappy, that at that moment, spite of
my much-extolled beauty, I seemed to myself the most wretched human
creature in the whole world.
"'I could not go on keeping up appearances much longer, but threw my
arms round my good sister's neck, and with many tears confessed to her
how deeply hurt I was, and that I must find out the reason of his
estrangement, or my heart would break. The kind soul comforted me as
well as she could, and when evening came, helped me to invent a pretext
to induce our mother to let us both go down together to the river, to
the very place where in former days our little harbour used to be.
There Lina left me alone, found out that she had something to do at
Hans Lutz's home, and whispered into his ear that I was waiting outside
under the willow, and had something to ask him. At first, as she told
me afterwards, he had looked very gloomy, and left her in doubt as to
what he would do. Then he seemed to relent, and a little later I saw
him coming down the road straight towards me, and I do not yet know how
I had courage to stand still and wait for him.
"'But at least I was rewarded for my courage. For he was by no means as
chilling as before, he even gave me his hand and said, "It is very kind
of you, Katharine, still to remember an old playfellow, and what is it
you have to say to me?" "Nothing," I said, "only that I wanted to know
what I had done to offend him, or whether anybody had been gossiping
about me that he should treat me as if I was not worth a word or a
look. That was all I asked to know, and then I would go away again
immediately." Upon which he told me in his quiet way as if it did not
signify to _him_ in the least, that he had heard I had grown into a
vain conceited little princess, held my head very high, did nothing but
look in the glass, or let myself be stared at by foreign fools, and as
he was not the man to come in to that, and had, indeed, other things to
do than to be always swinging incense before such a Madonna, he thought
I should have no loss of him, and that it would be better for us both
if he kept out of my way.
"'All that he said to me, and still more the way in which he said it,
hurt me so cruelly that I had not a word to answer, but burst into a
flood of tears that I could not check, that got worse and worse, till I
was shaken by such a convulsion of sobs that I thought I must have died
on the spot. When he saw this, he was suddenly transformed; he embraced
me, and in the tenderest voice said a thousand things that at first,
owing to the confusion in my head, I only half understood. He told me
he had behaved so rudely merely to guard against his own heart, that
through all these years he had had no other thought but me, and had
only kept away in order not quite to lose his senses, and that if it
were true that I cared at all for him--well, you can imagine the rest!
That evening we pledged ourselves to live only for each other, and when
at last Lina came and drew me away, that our parents need not scold, I
had quite forgotten that I was the _fair_ Kate, and only thought that a
_happier_ Kate was not to be found in all Rhineland, or anywhere under
the sun.'
"When she had got so far, she rose and went to the door, as if to look
after the child, who was quietly sitting on a garden-seat, and weaving
her garland. When Kate turned round to us again, I noticed the traces
of tears. Van Kuylen, however, did not seem to observe them; he had got
hold of an old cork and was carving away at it, his cold pipe still in
the corner of his mouth.
"'And how was it,' said I after a while, 'that fortune deserted you,
and that what began so well had so melancholy an issue? I find it hard
to believe that he was not true to you!'
"'_He!_' returned she with an indescribable tone and expression. 'If it
had only all depended upon him! But you see the misfortune was just
this, that I was such a wonder of the world they needs must make the
most of me, however unhappy I myself might be. My elder sisters--if
Hans Lutz had taken a fancy to one of them, why he would have had her
with all the pleasure in the world, and indeed the husbands that they
did get were not fit to hold a candle to my lover. But _I_, that he
should aspire to _me_, he who was neither a Count nor made of money,
that was such audacity that he could hardly be supposed to be right in
his mind. True he did not himself think of marrying at the present
time, all that he wanted was our betrothal, and then a couple of years
to try his fortune in, and I--to wait ten years for him would have been
as nothing to me. But you should have heard my father! The Emperor of
China, if some crazy sailor were to apply for his daughter's hand,
could not put on a more majestic aspect, or pronounce a more
compassionate "No." He was not even angry, he treated the whole thing
as a mere stupid jest. It was only when my mother--who well knew how my
heart stood--ventured to address him on the subject, and to represent
Hans Lutz as not after all a quite despicable suitor, that he was
roused to indignation and silenced her at once. As for me, when I
declared that I never would have any one else for my husband, I was
locked up, and sat for eight days like an imprisoned princess in the
best room, only visited by my mother and sister. To be sure I still had
my pretty face, but what was that to me, I was made to feel that I
myself had no right to it.
"'I sent through Lina, a letter to Hans Lutz, declaring that I would
remain true to him, and begging for God's sake, that he would not
punish me for my father's vengeance and anger. To which he wrote me
back word that he had no hope, that he was going far away, perhaps to
America, and did not know that he should ever return. I was to give up
all thought of him, and he formally returned both my word and my ring.
For well he knew what would be the end of it all; my parents would look
me out some husband after their own heart, and at last I too should get
tired of waiting, and so he would not bind me, and add to all other
sorrow, the weight of a broken promise on my heart. You may well
imagine with how many tears I read that letter, when Lina told me that
the writer was already no one knew how far away, and had not wished her
to give it me till after his departure.
"'After this all went on apparently in the old way, with this
exception, that though I was still "the fair Kate," and estimated as
such, there stole over me a silent and unconquerable detestation of my
own face, since it had cost me my dearest happiness. But for my father,
who was bent upon cutting a figure with me, I should never have come
down from my upper room, and as it was I only did so when I could not
possibly help it. I never sat in the open window except with my back
turned, no power on earth could get me on a steamer where the English
stared so, and when artists came to draw or paint me, I never _would_
sit still, let my father be as angry as he liked.
"'But all my indoor life, and fretting and grieving did nothing for me;
I grew handsomer day by day, and since I had become indifferent to what
I wore, I seemed to be more admired than ever, most people having
probably thought before with Hans Lutz that I was an over-dressed doll.
But no letter came from the one I loved best, and no news of any kind;
and so from three to four years passed by, and I found that life is a
most wretched pastime when one has not got one's heart's desire.
"'Then, besides, there were constant disputes at home, for every fresh
offer of marriage was a new bone of contention. There were many of
these suitors--though, indeed, none of them were Counts--to whom my
father would most willingly have given me; there was a rich Russian,
who swore he would jump into the Rhine if he did not get me, but
afterwards preferred to drown himself in Champagne, and went about
Wiesbaden with ladies of all kinds. Then there was a young baron, who
was master of the horse to some prince, and was wild about horses as
well as about me, and there were numbers of worthy well-to-do people
who were all intolerable to me because I secretly compared them with my
Hans Lutz. My sister Lina was long ago married and happy, and I still
sat useless at home, and as my father was not the best of managers, and
my mother was sickly, we were often straitened enough, and while one
rich suitor after another went away rejected, want began to stare us in
the face. Now nothing sours the temper so much as not having enough to
eat, and what with unkind words and spiteful remarks, you may believe I
spent wretched days, and cried my eyes red at night.
"'At last my father lost all patience, and when another suitor appeared
who seemed to him worthy to carry away the jewel of beauty, since he
was able to bid high for it, he declared to me either I must consent,
or he would make me feel the whole weight of his anger. What he exactly
meant by that I really did not know, but I was glad of a change myself,
for I could no longer endure my father's anger and my mother's grief.
So I said that I would give my hand to Mr. So-and-so, provided no
message came from Hans Lutz in the course of the next three months.
This contented my parents, and made the bridegroom more than blessed;
he was actually idiotic with rapture, said the craziest things to me,
and in spite of my misery, it made me again feel proud and childish to
find that I had such power over any human being. He was a young and
very rich tanner from the neighbouring town of M----, not so bad as to
face or figure; indeed he passed for a handsome man; but it made me
positively ill if I had to sit by him longer than a quarter of an hour,
first because his love rendered him so silly and mawkish, and then
because he had a habit of deluging himself with scents, probably to get
rid of the smell of the tan-yard. I will not weary you with the history
of this horrible engagement. I get goose-skin all over at the very
recollection of it; the visits here, there, and everywhere; the
congratulations at which I had to smile when I would much rather have
cried; the day when he took me over his house and factory, and I
thought the smell of the dyes and skins would have suffocated me. Well,
it went on as long as it could go on, that is till it came to the
point. On the day before the wedding day, my bridegroom gave a party to
my favourite friends and my parents at his own house; the actual
marriage was to be solemnized at my parent's house. He was so
inordinately happy, foolish, and scented, that I suddenly said to
myself, "Better suffer anything than please such a simpleton as this,"
and that very night when they were all asleep, I actually left the
house, only taking with me a few necessaries in a bundle, and leaving
behind a letter to my parents saying they must forgive the sorrow I had
caused them, but that marry I could not and would not, and so in order
to be no longer a burden to them, I had gone off to my aunt at Speyer,
and would see whether I could not do something to support myself.
"'I was helped in my flight by the brother of my Hans Lutz, who
happened to be on a visit to his parents at the time, and would have
gone through fire and water for me. He took me safely to where I wanted
to go, to my aunt Millie's, her real name was Amelia, but so we
children always called her. She was an old widow-woman, lived upon her
small means, and had always been very fond of me, though she used to
shake her head at the way in which my family idolised me. When I told
her all that had happened she neither praised nor blamed me, but wrote
to my parents and tried to bring them round. That, alas, was in vain.
My father answered very curtly that if I did not marry the young tanner
I was no child of his; my mother tried persuasion. I now found out that
it was only my unfortunate beauty that they had really loved, that a
red-and-white mask stood between my own parents' hearts and that of
their child. Out of sheer admiration and worship, they had less
fondness for me than for any of their other children.