that tragic love which was to send Lassalle to his too early death. She
was the daughter of a Bavarian diplomatist who had held appointments in
Italy, and later in Switzerland. She was betrothed as a child of twelve
to an Italian of forty years of age. At a time when, as she says, her
thoughts should have been concentrated upon her studies, they were
distracted by speculations on marriage and the marriage tie. A young
Wallachian student named Yanko Racowitza crossed her path. His
loneliness--he was far from home and friends--kindled her sympathy. Dark
and ugly, she compared him to Othello, and called him her "Moor." In
spite of some parental opposition she insisted upon plighting her troth
to him, and the Italian lover was scornfully dismissed. Then comes the
opening scene of the present story. It was in Berlin, whither Helen--we
will adopt the English spelling of the name--had travelled with her
grandmother in 1862, that she was asked at a ball the momentous question,
"Do you know Lassalle?" She had never heard his name. Her questioner
was Baron Korff, a son-in-law of Meyerbeer, who, charmed by her
originality, remarked that she and Lassalle were made for one another.
Two weeks later her curiosity was further excited, when Dr. Karl
Oldenberg let fall some similar remark as to her intellectual kinship
with the mysterious Lassalle. She asked her grandmother about him, and
was told that he was a "shameless demagogue." Then she turned to her
lover, who promised to inquire. Racowitza brought her information about
the Countess, the casket, and other "sensations"--only to excite her
curiosity the more. Finally a friend, Frau Hirsemenzel, undertook to
introduce her to the notorious Socialist. The introduction took place at
a party, and if her account is to be trusted, no romance could be more
dramatic than the actuality. They loved one another at first sight,
conversed with freedom, and he called her by an endearing name as he
offered her his arm to escort her home.
"Somehow it did not seem at all remarkable," she says, "that a stranger
should thus call me 'Du' on first acquaintance. We seemed to fit to one
another so perfectly."
She was in her nineteenth year, Lassalle in his thirty-ninth. The pair
did not see one another again for some months, not in fact until Helen
visited Berlin as the guest of a certain lawyer Holthoff. Here she met
Lassalle at a concert, and the friendly lawyer connived at their being
more than once together. At a ball, on one occasion, Lassalle asked her
what she would do if he were sentenced to death, and she beheld him
ascending the scaffold.
"I should wait till your head was severed," was her answer, "in order
that you might look upon your beloved to the last, and then--I should
take poison."
He was pleased with her reply, but declared that there was no fear--his
star was in the ascendant! And so it seemed; for although young
Racowitza even then accosted him in the ballroom, the friendly Holthoff
soon arranged an informal betrothal; and Lassalle was on the eve of a
great public triumph which seemed more likely to take him to the throne
than to the scaffold.
To many this will seem an exaggeration. Yet hear Prince Bismarck in the
Reichstag seventeen years after Lassalle's death:--
He was one of the most intellectual and gifted men with whom I have
ever had intercourse, a man who was ambitious in high style, but who
was by no means Republican: he had very decided national and
monarchical sympathies, and the idea which he strove to realize was
the German Empire, and therein we had a point of contact. Lassalle
was extremely ambitious, and it was perhaps a matter of doubt to him
whether the German Empire would close with the Hohenzollern dynasty or
the Lassalle dynasty; but he was monarchical through and through.
Lassalle was an energetic and very intellectual man, to talk with whom
was very instructive. Our conversations lasted for hours, and I was
always sorry when they came to an end. {198}
The year 1864, which was to close so tragically, opened indeed with
extraordinary promise. Lassalle left Berlin in May--Helen had gone back
to Geneva two or three months earlier--travelling by Leipzig and Cologne
through the Rhenish provinces, and holding a "glorious review" the while.
"I have never seen anything like it," he writes to the Countess von
Hatzfeldt. "The entire population indulged in indescribable
jubilation. The impression made upon me was that such scenes must
have attended the founding of new religions."
And it appeared possible that Heine's description of Lassalle as the
Messiah of the nineteenth century was to be realized. The Bishop of
Mayence was on his side, and the King of Prussia sympathetic. As he
passed from town to town the whole population turned out to do him
honour. Countless thousands met him at the stations: the routes were
ornamented with triumphal arches, the houses decorated with wreaths, and
flowers were thrown upon him as he passed. As the cavalcade approached
the town of Ronsdorf, for example, it was easy to see that the people
were on tip-toe with expectation. At the entrance an arch bore the
inscription:--
Willkommen dem Dr. Ferdinand Lassalle
Viel tausendmal im Ronsdorfer Thal!
Under arches and garlands, smothered with flowers thrown by young work-
girls, whose fathers, husbands, brothers, cheered again and again,
Lassalle and his friends entered the town, while a vast multitude
followed in procession. It was at Ronsdorf that Lassalle made the speech
which had in it something of fateful presentiment:--
"I have not grasped this banner," he said, "without knowing quite
clearly that I myself may fall. The feelings which fill me at the
thought that I may be removed cannot be better expressed than in the
words of the Roman poet:
'_Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor_!'
or in German, '_Moge_, _wenn ich beseitigt werde_, _irgend ein Racher
und Nachfolger aus meinen Gebeinen auferstehen_!' May this great and
national movement of civilization not fall with my person, but may the
conflagration which I have kindled spread farther and farther, so long
as one of you still breathes. Promise me that, and in token raise
your right hands."
All hands were raised in silence, and the impressive scene closed with a
storm of acclamation.
But Lassalle was worn out, and he fled for a time from the storm and
conflict to Switzerland. Helen at Geneva heard of his sojourn at Righi-
Kaltbad, and she made an excursion thither with two or three friends, and
thus on July 25 (1864) the lovers met again. An account of their
romantic interview comes to us in Helen's own diary and in the letter
which Lassalle wrote to the Countess Hatzfeldt two days later. Helen
tells how they climbed the Kulm together, discussing by the way the
question of their marriage and the possibility of opposition.
"What have your parents against me?" asked Lassalle; and was told that
only once had she mentioned his name before them, and that their horror
of the Jew agitator had ever since closed her mouth. So the conversation
sped. The next morning their hope of "a sunrise" was destroyed by a fog.
"How often," says Helen, "when in later years I have stood upon the
summit of the Righi and seen the day break in all its splendour, have I
recalled this foggy, damp morning, and Lassalle's disappointment!"
As he looked upon her, so pale and trembling, he abused the climate, and
promised that he would give up politics, devote himself to science and
literature, and take her to Egypt or India. He talked to her of the
Countess, "who will think only of my happiness," and he talked of
religion. Was his Jewish faith against him in her eyes? Mahommedanism
and Judaism, it was all one to her, was the answer, but paganism by
preference! They parted, to correspond immediately, and Lassalle to
write to the astonished, and in this affair, unsympathetic Countess, of
the meeting with his beloved. With the utmost friendliness, however, he
endeavoured to keep the elder lady at a distance for a time.
On July 20 Helen writes to him, repeating her promise to become his wife.
You said to me yesterday: "Say but a sensible and decided 'Yes'--_et
je me charge du reste_." Good; I say "Yes"--_chargez-vous donc du
reste_. I only require that we first do all in our power to win my
parents to a friendly attitude. To me belongs, however, a painful
task. I must slay in cold blood the true heart of Yanko von
Racowitza, who has given me the purest love, the noblest devotion.
With heartless egotism I must destroy the day-dream of a noble youth.
But for your sake I will even do what is wrong.
Meanwhile Lassalle's unhappy attempts to conciliate the Countess
continue. He writes of Helen's sympathy and dwells upon her entire
freedom from jealousy. He tells Frau von Hatzfeldt how much Helen is
longing to see his old friend. In conclusion, as though not to show
himself too blind a lover, he remarks that Helen's one failing is a total
lack of will. "When, however, we are man and wife," he adds, "then shall
I have 'will' enough for both, and she will be as clay in the hands of
the potter." The Countess continues obdurate, and in a further letter
(Aug. 2) Lassalle says:--
It is really a piece of extraordinary good fortune that, at the age of
thirty-nine and a half, I should be able to find a wife so beautiful,
so sympathetic, who loves me so much, and who--an indispensable
requirement--is so entirely absorbed in my personality.
At Lassalle's request, Helen herself wrote thus to the Baroness von
Hatzfeldt:--
DEAR AND BELOVED COUNTESS,--
Armed with an introduction from my lord and master, I, his affianced
wife, come to you--unhappily only in writing--_le coeur et la main
ouverte_, and beg of you a little of that friendship which you have
given to him so abundantly. How deeply do I regret that your illness
separates us, that I cannot tell you face to face how much I love and
honour him, how ardently I long for your help and advice as to how I
can best make my beautiful and noble eagle happy. This my first
letter must necessarily seem somewhat constrained to you; for I am an
insignificant, unimportant being, who can do nothing but love and
honour him, and strive to make him happy. I would fain dance and sing
like a child, and drive away all care from him. My one desire is to
understand his great and noble nature, and in good fortune and in bad
to stand faithful and true by his side.
Then followed a further appeal for the love and help of this friend of
Lassalle's early years. It was all in vain. Instead of a letter, Helen
received from the Countess what she called "a scrawl," and Lassalle a
long homily on his lack of judgment and foresight. Lassalle defended
himself, and so the not too pleasing correspondence went on.
Yet these days in Berne were the happiest in the lives of Lassalle and
his betrothed. Helen was staying with a Madame Aarson, and was
constantly visited by her lover. It was agreed between them that
Lassalle should follow her to Geneva, and see her parents. But no sooner
had he entered his room at the Pension Leovet, in the neighbourhood of
the house of Herr von Donniges, than a servant handed him a letter from
Helen. It told how on her arrival she had found the whole house excited
by the betrothal of her sister Margaret to Count von Keyserling. Her
mother's delight in the engagement had tempted her (contrary to
Lassalle's express wish) to confidences, and she had told of her love for
the arch-agitator. Her mother had turned upon her with loathing,
execrated Lassalle without stint, spoken scornfully of the Countess, the
casket robbery, and kindred matters. "It is quite impossible," urged the
frantic woman, "that Count Keyserling will unite himself to a family with
a connexion of this kind." The father joined in the upbraiding, the
disowning of an undutiful daughter. One has but to remember the vulgar,
tradesman instinct, which then, as now, guides the marriage ideals of a
certain class, to take in the whole situation at a glance.
Lassalle had hardly begun to read the letter when Helen appeared before
him, and begged him to take her away immediately--to France--anywhere!
Her father's violence, her mother's abuse, had driven her to despair.
Lassalle was indignant with her. Why had she not obeyed him? He would
speak to her father. All would yet be well. But--she was compromised
there--at his hotel. Had she a friend in the neighbourhood?
At this moment her maid came in to say that there was a carriage ready to
take them to the station. A train would start for Paris in a quarter of
an hour. Helen renewed her entreaty, but Lassalle remained resolute. He
would only receive her from her father. To what friend could he take
her? Helen named Madame Caroline Rognon, who beheld them with
astonishment.
A few minutes later Frau von Donniges and her daughter Margaret entered
the house. Then followed a disagreeable scene between Lassalle and the
mother, ending, after many scornful words thrown at the ever
self-restrained lover, in Helen being carried off before his eyes--indeed,
by his wish. Lassalle had shown dignity and self-restraint, but he had
killed the girl's love--until it was too late.
Duhring speaks of Lassalle's "inconceivable stupidity," and there is a
great temptation at this date, with all the circumstances before us, to
look at the matter with Duhring's eyes. But to one whom Heine had called
a Messiah, whom Humboldt had termed a "Wunderkind," and Bismarck had
greeted as among the greatest men of the age, it may well have seemed
flatly inconceivable that this insignificant little Swiss diplomatist
could long refuse the alliance he proposed. Yet stronger and more potent
may have been the feeling--although of this there is no positive evidence
extant--that the social movement which he had so much at heart could not
well endure a further scandal. The Hatzfeldt story had been used against
him frequently enough. An elopement--so sweetly romantic under some
circumstances--would have been the ruin of his great political
reputation.
Lassalle speedily regretted his course of action--what man in love would
not have done so?--but his first impulse was consistent with the life of
strenuous effort for the cause he had embraced. To a romantic girl,
however, his conduct could but seem brutal and treacherous. Helen had
done more than enough. She had compromised herself irretrievably, and an
immediate marriage was imperatively demanded by the conventionalities.
She was, however, seized by a brutal father and confined to her room,
until she understood that Lassalle had left Geneva. Then the entreaties
of her family, the representation that her sister's marriage, even her
father's position, were in jeopardy, caused her to declare that she would
abandon Lassalle.
At this point the story is conflicting. Helen herself says that she
never saw Lassalle again after he had handed her over to her mother, and
that after a long period of ill-usage and petty persecution, she was
hurried one night across the lake. Becker, however, declares that as
Lassalle and his friend Rustow were walking in Geneva a carriage passed
them on the way to the station containing Helen and another lady, and
that Helen acknowledged their salute. Anyway, it is clear that Helen
went to Bex on August 9, and that Lassalle left Geneva on the 13th.
Letter after letter was sent by Lassalle to Helen--one from Karlsruhe on
the 15th, and one from Munich on the 19th, but no answer. In Karlsruhe,
according to von Hofstetten, Lassalle wept like a child. His
correspondence with the Countess and with Colonel Rustow becomes forcible
in its demands for assistance. Writing to Rustow, he tells of a two
hours' conversation with the Bavarian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Baron
von Schrenk, who assures him of his sympathy, says that he cannot
understand the objections of von Donniges, and that in similar
circumstances he would be proud of the alliance, although he deprecated
the political views of Lassalle. Finally this accommodating Minister of
State--here, at least, the tragi-comedy is but too apparent--engages to
send a lawyer, Dr. Haenle, as an official commissioner to negotiate with
the obdurate father and refractory ambassador.
Richard Wagner, the great composer, the Bishop of Mayence, and noblemen,
generals, and scholars without number were also pressed into the service,
but in vain. The treachery of intimate friends more than counterbalanced
all that could be achieved by well-meaning strangers. If Helen is to be
believed--and the charge is not denied--Lassalle's friend Holthoff, sent
to negotiate in his favour, entreated her to abandon Lassalle, and to
comply with her parents' wishes. Lassalle, he declared, was not in any
way a suitable husband, and her father had decided wisely. The poor girl
lived in a constant atmosphere of petty persecution. Her father, she was
told, might lose his post in the Bavarian service if she married this
Socialist, her brother would have absolutely no career open to him, her
sisters could not marry in their own rank of life; in fact, the whole
family were alleged to be entirely unhappy and miserable through her
stubbornness. The following letter--obviously dictated--was the not
unnatural outcome:--
TO HERR LASSALLE.
SIR,--
I have again become reconciled to my betrothed bridegroom, Herr Yanko
von Racowitza, whose love I have regained, and I deeply repent my
earlier action. I have given notice of this to your legal
representative, Herr Holthoff, and I now declare to you of my own free
will and firm conviction, that there never can be any further question
of a marriage between us, and that I hold myself in all respects to be
released from such an engagement. I am now firmly resolved to devote
to my aforesaid betrothed bridegroom my eternal love and fidelity.
HELENE VON DONNIGES.
This letter came through Rustow, and Lassalle addressed the following
reply to Helen, which, however, she never received--it came in fact into
the possession of the Countess--a sufficient commentary on the duplicity
and the false friendship not only of Holthoff, but of Colonel Rustow and
the Countess Hatzfeldt in this sad affair.
MUNICH, _Aug._ 20, 1864.
HELEN,--
My heart is breaking! Rustow's letter will kill me. That you have
betrayed me seems impossible! Even now I cannot believe in such
shamelessness, in such frightful treachery. It is only for a moment
that some one has overridden your will and obliterated your true self.
It is inconceivable that this can be your real, your abiding
determination. You cannot have thrown aside all shame, all love, all
fidelity, all truth. If you did, you would dishonour and disfigure
humanity. There can be no truth left in the world if you are false,
if you are capable of descending to this depth of abandonment, of
breaking such holy oaths, of crushing my heart. Then there is nothing
more under the sun in which a man can still believe.
Have you not filled me with a longing to possess you? Have you not
implored me to exhaust all proper measures, before carrying you away
from Wabern? Have you not by your own lips and by your letters, sworn
to me the most sacred oaths? Have you not declared to me, even in
your last letters, that you were nothing, nothing but my loving wife,
and that no power on earth should stay your resolution? And now,
after you have bound this true heart of mine to yourself so strongly,
this heart which when once it gives itself away gives itself for ever;
now, when the battle has scarcely begun, do you cast me off? Do you
betray me? Do you destroy me? If so, you succeed in doing what else
no fate can do; you will have crushed and shattered one of the hardest
of men, who could withstand unflinchingly all outward storms. No, I
can never survive such treachery. It will kill me inwardly and
outwardly. It is not possible that you are so dishonourable, so
shameless, so reckless of duty, so utterly unworthy and infamous. If
you were, you would deserve of me the most deadly hatred. You would
deserve the contempt of the world. Helen, it is not your own
resolution which you have communicated to Rustow. Some one has
fastened it upon you by a coercion of your better feelings. Listen to
me. If you abide by this resolution, you will lament it as long as
you live.
Helen, true to my words, "_Je me charge du reste_," I shall stay here,
and shall take all possible steps to break down your father's
opposition. I have already excellent means in my hand, which will
certainly not remain unused, and if they do not succeed, I shall still
possess thousands of other means, and I will grind all hindrances to
dust if you will but remain true to me. If you remain true, there is
no limit to my strength or to my love of you, _Je me charge toujours
du reste_! The battle is hardly begun, you cowardly girl. But can it
be, that while I sit here, and have already achieved what seemed
impossible, you are betraying me, and listening to the flattering
words of another man? Helen, my fate is in your hands! But if you
destroy me by this wicked treachery, from which I cannot recover, then
may evil fall upon you, and my curse follow you to the grave! This is
the curse of a true heart, of a heart that you wantonly break, and
with which you have cruelly trifled. Yes, this curse of mine will
surely strike you.
According to Rustow's message, you want your letters to be returned to
you. In any case, you will never receive them otherwise than from
me--after a personal interview. For I must and will speak to you
personally, and to you alone. I must and will hear my death-doom from
your own lips. It is only thus that I can believe what otherwise
seems impossible to me.
I am continuing here to take further steps to win you, and when I have
done all that is possible, I shall come to Geneva. Helen, our
destinies are entwined!
F. LASSALLE. {213}
It is pitiable to realize the amount of false or imperfect friendship
which led Lassalle on to his ruin. Rustow was false, and Holthoff was
false, if it were not rather that both looked upon Lassalle's affection
for this girl, half his age, as a mad freak to be cured and forgotten.
More might have been expected from the Countess, to whom Lassalle had
given so much pure and disinterested devotion; but here again, a sense of
maternal ownership in Lassalle was sufficient to justify, in such a
woman, any means to keep him apart from this fancy of the hour. To the
Countess, however, Helen had turned for help, and had received a note
which had but enraged her, and made the breach between her and Lassalle
yet wider. In the after years, Helen published one letter and the
Countess another as the actual reply of the Countess to Helen's appeal,
and the truth will now never be known. Meanwhile Dr. Arndt, a nephew of
von Donniges, had gone to Berlin to fetch Yanko von Racowitza. Of Yanko
Helen has herself given us a pleasant picture, as the one man for whom
she really cared until the overwhelming presence of Lassalle appeared
upon the scene, as her one friend during her persecution. Absent from
Lassalle's influence, it was not strange that the delicate
Wallachian--even younger than herself and the slave of her every
whim--should have an influence in her life. Had Lassalle, however, had
yet another personal interview with her, there can scarcely be a doubt
that she would have been as he had once said, "as clay in the hands of
the potter"--but this was not to be. Lassalle came back to Geneva on
August 23, and immediately wrote an earnest letter to Herr von Donniges,
begging for an interview, and stating that he had not the least enmity
towards him for what had happened. With the fear of the Foreign Minister
at Munich before his eyes Helen's father could not well refuse again, and
the interview took place. Lassalle, according to von Donniges, demanded
that Yanko von Racowitza should be forbidden the house, while he himself
should have ready access to Helen. He further charged von Donniges with
cruelty to his daughter, and was called a liar to his face, while even
the cook was called upon the scene to give her evidence as to the
domestic ethics of this family circle. The letter of von Donniges to Dr.
Haenle was clearly meant to be shown to the Foreign Minister, and the
wily diplomatist naturally took the opportunity both to justify himself
and to vilify Lassalle. Then began a painful dispute as to whether Herr
von Donniges had ill-used his daughter; the overwhelming evidence, which
includes the testimony of that daughter, written long after her father's
death, tending to prove the truth of Lassalle's allegation. Lassalle
meanwhile found no opportunity of approaching Helen, and having every
reason to believe that she was entirely faithless, gave up the struggle.
He referred to the girl in language characteristic of a despairing and
jilted lover, and sent von Donniges a challenge, although many years
before, in a political controversy, he had declined to fight--on
principle. His seconds were to be General Becker and Colonel Rustow, and
the latter has left us a long account of the affair.