attacked by a very sudden indisposition. As he was going to get up one
morning, his legs gave way. He was obliged to go back to bed, and he
felt pain in his right knee. We hoped it would not amount to anything.
Our trunks were already packed, the sleeping-car tickets were already
bought, and our rooms in Monaco engaged. Also the lecture which I was
going to deliver at a public meeting on the events of the Hague
Conference was prepared and announced.
“If by day after to-morrow I am not all right again, you must go,”
insisted my husband; “it is your duty.”
And so it came about. The doctor ordered that the disabled leg should be
kept wrapped up and perfectly quiet. This was a great grief to us both;
we had counted so much on the journey together, and the separation
filled me with tribulation. Up to the last moment he hoped still to be
able to go, or at least to follow me a day later, but it was not
possible. I had to go to Monaco without him, yet I was not alone; my
friend Countess Hedwig Pötting accompanied me. The delight in the visit
there was spoiled for me by the separation from him and my anxiety about
him. Every day I had a telegram from him, and besides he wrote me three
letters. These letters lie in my jewel casket; they are the last which
he ever wrote me. They must have a place in these memoirs:
Easter Sunday, 1902
My beloved Löwos:
I am afraid this written greeting will be all that you will get from
me while you are in Monaco. How happy I should be if this very
afternoon I could convince myself that I was going to be able to
follow you. When I think that to-morrow you will probably be traveling
without me, it makes my heart so terribly heavy! It was not good of
Nemo[46] to separate us so cruelly. He might have let us enjoy this
little pleasure! But I will not make your heart heavier than it is
already. You must keep your head clear and be easy in mind, so as to
fulfill the duty which you have no right to shun.
My holiest wishes and my heart’s love accompany you on your way, my
dear old Löwos, though in these circumstances it is rather a thorny
way. But it ought not to be that; you must enter upon it with the
joyous feeling that you are rendering a fine service and are going to
render fine service yet again. So you must get all the pleasure you
can out of the lovely place and the friends who all cling to you with
such love and respect.
Enjoy your stay, my dearest, and then you will come back to me with
all the more delight and contentment.
This is all for this time; and now I take your dear head, my Löwos,
between my hands and kiss it a thousand times.
Your Own
March 31, 1902
My dear old heart’s Löwos:
Those were sad hours of loneliness and abandonment after your
departure! It enabled me to realize how deep you have grown into my
heart, my precious, precious pet. Now I am trying to accustom myself
to the unavoidable, but reactions will be sure to return, for I miss
you too deeply.
I have followed you in my thoughts on the stages of your journey. Now
you are probably through breakfast and waiting for the train at the
railway station.
If only days enough had gone by, so that I could say, “Day after
to-morrow it will be day after to-morrow, and so on.”
I shall not be so well looked after to-day as I am by you. Maria
Louise has just been in for a moment; she has taken cold, so is not
exactly rosy and merry.
As soon as I have finished writing these lines I must rest awhile.
Even writing takes hold of me. I will lie back and think about you. If
our nerves were only receptive for telepathy we should certainly be in
close contact these days! The doctor is taking his time about his
morning visit to-day; but I believe the leg is somewhat better.
Farewell, my dearest, I kiss you many thousand times.
Your Own
April 2, 1902
My precious Löwos:
Ten o’clock! There you are perhaps at this very minute standing on the
platform and giving your address, which is not very long. So, as far
as I can follow it, I am taking part in the Congress. The newspaper
reports will not give any very detailed account of it.
Yesterday Chimani[47] was here. He discovered some improvement, but
there is still inflammation; therefore strict orders not to get out of
bed.
I received your telegram yesterday evening about half past eight. I
was beginning to be a trifle uneasy when no word came. My reply, which
I intrusted to the messenger, you will not be likely to get until
to-day.
It is a beautiful summer’s day—and here I am in bed! Have such a
longing to get out.
Nothing interesting in the mail. Among other things a crazy letter to
you from a crazy photographer in Graz. Then came a letter of twenty
quarto pages from Linz and a little book which the author published
ten years ago through Schabelitz. Of course I do not send you this
stuff.
Thank the Hex [Countess Pötting] for her card and sisterly greeting.
Kisses on thy Löwos mouth from
Thy Own
How the poor man would have enjoyed those days at Monaco! The place was
all a glory of spring splendor. We had seen the Riviera before, but not
at a time of such luxurious profusion of flowers.
A hall in the new building destined for the Oceanographic Museum had
been cleared for the proceedings of the Congress. All the speeches and
debates had a constant accompaniment of distant hammering. In the
immediate neighborhood the work was at a standstill during the hours of
session, but not very far away the pounding and sawing and nailing went
steadily on. This seemed to disturb some of the orators; yet one of them
found in it a welcome occasion for bringing out in a beautiful picture
how the work in the name of which we were there assembled was also an
edifice, already designed but still unfinished,—an edifice which, like
this, would also arise in usefulness and beauty to the honor of the
builders and to the advantage of mankind.
After the opening session, which Prince Albert had attended, all the
participants stood about in the open space before the entrance to
exchange greetings and to enjoy the scenes of recognition which are
repeated at every Congress: “Ah, it’s you! This is fine!”
This time all addressed me with the question, “And where is the Baron?”
I had to tell them about his illness, which elicited general regret. I
really believe there was no one in the whole world who had ever known
him, even superficially, without being drawn into sympathy with him.
The prince stood not far from me in a group, and was talking with
General Türr. I was able to get a good look at him. Of rather more than
medium height, of slender and supple figure, he was then at the
beginning of the fifties, but not yet turning gray. He wore a closely
trimmed, dark beard, and his expression was unusually melancholy. He
came up to me and offered me his hand. He was delighted, he said, to see
me, for he had long known of my devotion to the cause for the
furtherance of which he now desired to work as energetically as he
could. He remained some time in conversation with me.
“One thing occurs to me to say to you,” he remarked in the course of the
conversation; “you see this work going on here,” pointing toward the
Museum; “this shows the tendency of my aims and endeavors; it is
intended as a corrective,”—and now he indicated the crags of Monte Carlo
visible in the distance and crowned with the Casino,—“a corrective to
that inheritance which is so hateful to me.”
I especially recollect among the transactions the indignant and pathetic
protest of the Frenchman, Pierre Quillard, against the atrocious
massacres being perpetrated on the Armenians at that time, and
unfortunately still going on. Thus our Congresses definitely assumed the
burden of furnishing a forum for the complaints and for the defense of
all the persecuted,—a service which the governments, relying on the
principle of nonintervention, still refuse to undertake.
In the course of the day we members of the Congress inspected the castle
which is the home of the Prince of Monaco, and which rises high above
the crags. It is an antiquated edifice with battlements, outside
stairways, and porticoes. In the cloistered private garden there is an
endless profusion of flowers. Palms as high as a house stand there on
rocky ground, to which every atom of soil had to be carried. The state
rooms we saw for the first time in the evening, when they were all
ablaze with light, at a gala reception given in honor of the Congress;
the officials of Nice were also invited. Especially imposing is the
throne room, although the throne of such a tiny kingdom is not imposing.
My attention was attracted in this room to a kind of tower of flowers
reaching to the ceiling. I was told that this was the throne, with its
seat, its steps, and its baldachin, all masked by this gigantic screen
of flowers.
A second festivity was arranged by the city for our benefit. It was a
kind of “Venetian Night.” All the ships and boats in the harbor and all
the houses along the bay were illuminated, Bengal fires were blazing on
the mountains, there were torchlight processions and bands of music. The
entire population, strangers visiting the resort, the citizens of
Monaco, laboring men, and peasants from the regions round about took
part in the gayeties. Tents were pitched on the heights for the
Congressists and the prince, and from here there was a fine prospect of
the whole region bathed in light. I sat in the prince’s tent, between
him and his cousin, the Duke of Urach. The latter, an officer in the
German army, talked with me on the subject of the Congress. He granted
that war would sometime be overcome by civilization, but before that
day, he thought, many economic and perhaps also social battles would be
fought out with weapons.
“What was discussed in the session this afternoon?” Prince Albert asked
me.
“Propaganda,” I replied.
“Look at this picture and listen to this babel of voices; all the people
have learned to-day that there is an active peace movement; that is a
propaganda,” said the prince.
He presided at the final banquet. He sat between Madame Séverine and me.
On this occasion he told me much about his labors and his plans. His
book, _La carrière d’un navigateur_, had recently been published; he
proposed to send it to me, and told me that I should find in it the
whole story of his studies and his—soul!
When it came to the toasts he arose and delivered the first speech:
“It fills me with pride and joy” (these were almost the identical words
of his exordium) “to take a place in the peace movement; for the
scientific work to which my life is devoted requires for its development
the victory of the peace work, the victory over the cruel inheritance of
primitive barbarism, the victory over the warlike spirit which poisons
the fruits of civilization.”
Not in after-dinner speeches alone—which vanish like the foam on the
lifted glass—did Prince Albert utter such opinions, but also in the
dedication of his book, “A Seaman’s Career,”[48] he says:
I dedicate the German version of this book to his Majesty Emperor
William II, who is the patron of labor and science, and is thus
preparing for the realization of the noblest desire of human
consciousness, namely the union of all civilizing forces for the
purpose of bringing about the reign of an inviolable peace.
Later I saw the Emperor’s manuscript reply, in which, in a
page-and-a-half quarto, he thanks his _cher cousin_ for the dedication,
and in perfect agreement with his ideas repeats the words therein
referring to the peace cause.
Although the dispatches that I got every day from Harmannsdorf were
encouraging, I was feverishly impatient to be at home again. Great was
the joy of being reunited. During our twenty-six years of married life
this was the first time we had ever been separated for more than a day
or two. We had said good-by in tears; in tears I threw my arms again
around my dear one’s neck. And alas! he had not yet recovered; he was
still obliged to lie in bed. His illness, so the doctor said, had been
an attack of periostitis, and he was bidden to be very careful for some
time to come. When he got up the first time he suffered severely from
palpitation of the heart; and this was of frequent recurrence. Under the
twelfth of April I find in my diary for the first time the anxious
exclamation, “Palpitation again—oh, that is a serious malady.... Organic
disorder—I am deeply worried.”
After some time there was an improvement and my anxieties were allayed.
The Transvaal war showed no sign of coming to an end; to be sure peace
negotiations had already been broached, but no armistice was declared at
the same time; on the contrary, English reënforcements were shipped anew
to Africa. This caused the London _Times_ to express great satisfaction.
Oh, these war-inciting editorial patriots! The neutral powers were not
to be induced to offer mediation. Surely one must not hamper the arm of
a fighter! But as far as affording assistance to the fighter by lending
money or furnishing horses,—enormous transports of horses were leaving
Fiume for the English,—that the neutrals permit themselves to do. _Les
affaires sont les affaires!_
Article 27 of the Hague Convention was forgotten. Moreover the Hague
Tribunal—the poor new-born infant—seemed condemned to die for lack of
sustenance. Then suddenly came a controversy which was submitted to the
tribunal—an old quarrel between the United States and Mexico regarding
Church property. President Roosevelt brought the matter before the Hague
Tribunal.
I knew that our friend D’Estournelles, who had taken upon himself the
task of preventing the work at The Hague from dying of asphyxiation, had
undertaken a journey to America, where he was making a lecture tour. I
suspected that he had not been without influence in bringing about the
trial of the Church-property question before the tribunal. And, in fact,
this was the case; two documents furnish proof of it. First, the
following letter from D’Estournelles in reply to one expressing my
conjecture that he had been concerned in the matter. Here is his letter:
Paris, Chamber of Deputies
September 5, 1902
Dear Friend:
You have guessed it; my object in going to the United States was in
large measure to show President Roosevelt the great part he might play
in world politics, now that the liberal spirit in Europe had foregone
its chance. I told him the whole story and he understood it.
I said: “You are a danger or a hope for the world, according as you
advance toward conquest or arbitration, toward violence or justice. It
is believed that you are inclined to the side of violence; prove the
contrary.”
“How?”
“By giving life to the Hague Court.”
And that is what the President has done. I have waited until the Court
assembled before mentioning what I did. It is now in session. That is
a great point, and we must praise Roosevelt, first because he deserves
it, and secondly that he may find imitators.
The affectionate friend of you both
D’Estournelles
The second document is an extract from a report made by the French
embassy at Washington to the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Paris. I
received an authentic copy of this extract. It reads:
Washington, Embassy of the French Republic
April 7, 1902
Sir:
We must tell the truth, and render to each what is due. When, nearly
two months ago, I presented M. d’Estournelles to President Roosevelt,
our fellow-countryman spoke to him with much enthusiasm about the
Conference at the Hague; he held up before his eyes the glory with
which Mr. Roosevelt would cover his incumbency if he would open the
Arbitral Tribunal for any question, no matter how insignificant, and
thus give an example to the world. President Roosevelt was struck with
M. d’Estournelles’s language, and yesterday I was confidentially
informed by him that on the very next day after the latter’s visit he
charged Mr. Hay to find some matter to submit to the permanent judges
of The Hague.
(Signed) Jules Cambon
To the Minister of Foreign Affairs
And thus through the devotion of a single person, supported by the
energy of a powerful ally, that machine was set in motion. A proof was
given to the world that it could perform its functions. Of course the
opponents objected that it was nothing but a quite insignificant case
which was submitted—as if insignificant cases had not many times led to
war. Not the case but the method is what counts.
My husband had so far recovered that we were able to go to Switzerland
together to attend the opening of the Bloch Museum. The preliminary
arrangements had been well advanced during the founder’s lifetime, but
it took his widow’s entire energy, her entire capacity for sacrifice,
and her extraordinary activity to finish the work. What the six-volume
work “War” relates and proves with the printed word, the Lucerne War and
Peace Museum reiterates with its weapons, its models, its pictures, and
its charts.
The opening festival and the events of the succeeding days took the form
of a small Peace Congress; for Madame von Bloch had invited a great
number of influential personages belonging to the movement to come to
Lucerne as her guests. And thus at this festival the whole company met
again,—Frédéric Passy, W. T. Stead, Gaston Moch, General Türr, Madame
Séverine, Dr. Richter (the veteran chairman of the German Peace
Society), Professor Wilhelm Förster, Moneta, D’Estournelles, and many
others.
War is the duel of the nations; the duel is war between two individuals.
Now a movement had been started against the primitive custom of dueling
so firmly intrenched in the continental countries, though England long
ago got rid of it. Prince Löwenstein and Prince Alfonso de Borbon were
at the head of this movement. The latter especially showed a tireless
zeal. I wrote him at this time of my intention to bring the objects of
the anti-dueling league up for discussion at the next meeting of the
Union. The prince replied:
Ebenzweier, August 12, 1902
Madam:
I thank you heartily for your kind letter of July 22 and the
prospectus of your Vienna Conference. I hope the Conference may be
followed by the best results. You are working, madam, with admirable
devotion to your cause. I shall be very glad to see our anti-dueling
movement once more approved by your assembly, as it was last year by
the one at Glasgow.
With the highest regard, I remain
Yours faithfully
Alfonso de Borbon y Austria-Este
A manager made me an offer to arrange a tour through the United States
for readings from my works. I declined; My Own’s uncertain state of
health would have been a sufficient excuse for refusing the offer. I had
no very clear conception of America, but I have a letter from Hodgson
Pratt which he wrote after making a flying trip across “the great pond,”
and in which he says, among other things:
... But my visit to the States convinced me that the great treaty
would come! I returned quite infatuated with the Yankees,—improved
Englishmen I call them,—so bright, so clear in thought and word, so
resolute, so animated, so strong! It was almost a new revelation to
hear and see those dear younger cousins. They have our British
solidity, but with a youthfulness we have lost. I never spent six
months of such enthusiasm.
When I first read this letter, dated in 1897, it did not mean much to
me. But since I myself have been in America I understand Hodgson Pratt’s
words, and I subscribe to every one of them. Yes, “clear and strong,
resolute and animated,” they certainly are; yes, “a revelation,”—so
appeared to me, too, that new young world!
In the summer of 1902 we received several interesting visits at
Harmannsdorf; I mean visits from abroad, for with our friends of the
neighborhood there was always continual going back and forth. The
visitors to whom I refer came from St. Petersburg and the Caucasus.
First Emanuel Nobel, my departed friend Alfred Nobel’s nephew. I found
that Emanuel had many traits of resemblance to Alfred,—the same
seriousness, the same depth, the same broad, democratic ideas. In his
outward semblance, also, and in his voice the nephew reminded me of the
uncle. Emanuel is unmarried. The rumor that he was to marry his friend
Minister Witte’s sister proved to be false; he lives in absolute
devotion to his brother’s numerous family. He is at the head of the
greatest naphtha business in the world. Fourteen vessels carry its
products on the seas. Twice a year he journeys to Baku, where his most
productive oil wells flow. When, a few years later, during the
Russo-Japanese war, those oil wells were set on fire and blazed up into
the skies like pillars of flame, his losses must have been immense.
The second visit from abroad was from the Princess Tamara of Georgia and
her two daughters. They stayed two days at Harmannsdorf, and we indulged
in endless reminiscences of the old times in the Caucasus. That beloved,
beautiful country, too, was to endure the most atrocious sufferings from
that miserable war.
During August of that year my husband and I accepted an invitation from
Count Heinrich Taaffe (son of the former Austrian Prime Minister) and
his charming wife to visit them at Castle Ellischau in northern Bohemia,
where we spent a very delightful week.
A beautiful surprise was sprung upon me there. One evening about nine
o’clock, as we sat after dinner on the balcony, from which there is a
wide prospect of wooded mountains outlined on the horizon, suddenly on a
summit against the dark sky the word “Pax” stood out in giant letters of
flame. At the same time, from the distance, little lights, glimmering
ever more numerous and ever nearer, approached the castle through the
shrubbery. It was a torchlight procession. A throng of people came up, a
band of music began to play, and finally the whole procession halted on
the open place below the balcony. A man stepped forward—he was the
school-teacher—and delivered an address in Bohemian, in which the word
“peace” frequently occurred. I had to make a reply, also in Bohemian, my
host whispering the words to me, for I do not know my native tongue. To
be sure the Kinskys are a Czechish family, but in my childhood the
Czechish national consciousness had not awakened, and as I grew older I
was no longer receptive to it, having attained the European
consciousness. But I was none the less pleased with the schoolmaster’s
discourse. The village people—those also from neighboring
villages—stayed about for a long time; the musicians played a polka and
the young people danced. My husband and I were heartily delighted with
the clever little festival. Never did a more grateful fireworks audience
utter its “ah!” than we at the moment when the lofty “Pax” illumined the
evening sky.
Fortunate will be our descendants for whom this word shall gleam on the
political horizon, not as a fleeting pyrotechnical display but as an
unalterable token.
In September the Interparliamentary Conference was to have been held in
Vienna. Baron Pirquet was at the head of the organization committee. The
preparations were under way, the programme had been sent out, the
opening day was appointed, when, just on the eve of it, a circular was
dispatched stating that on account of unforeseen technical difficulties
the Conference would have to be given up and postponed until the
following year. Baron Pirquet confidentially informed me that the
difficulties were not technical but political. This was a hard blow to
him.
I also was painfully affected by the circumstance, but at this time I
had quite different troubles. While at Ellischau, even while at Lucerne,
My Own had often complained of pain, and many of our friends later told
me that they had been shocked at his appearance.
A long, long illness began. First—but no. I will not here relate the
story of this tragic time—not here. In _Briefe an einen Toten_ (“Letters
to One Dead”) I have related to the beloved Shade everything,—how he and
how I suffered, and how he died.
December 10, 1902, was the day of his death. Up to the ninth I confided
to my diary all the phases of my anxiety and my hope, my despondency and
my despair. It is astounding how much like a friend such a book becomes
to one—how one can tell it all one’s thoughts and complaints, how one
can shed over it the tears that one must hide from others, particularly
from a dear one who is ill. But on the tenth of December I could write
no more, and not for a long time afterward.
Much later I came back to this trusty confidant and made a large cross
on the last written leaf. On the new page I wrote: