has not given me; he, who is always inveighing against love of
books. Handsome, I mean here, more with regard to exterior than
to interior. But happy for me that there are handsome editions of
books with irresistible illustrations. Happy for me that you have
lived and sketched, Gustave Doré! To you I owe the pearl of my
collection; to you is it due that my beloved father has grown almost
into a bookworm--as much a bookworm, that is, as I can be called a
bluestocking. The noble knight of La Mancha it was that conquered
him. At first it was the illustrations which captivated him, and on
their account I acquired the book. The unimportant text, though not
even English, was, as it were, thrown in with the purchase. What a
surprise it was to me! I had thanked him profusely for a picture
book, and what a treasure had come into my possession! I could not
keep my rapture in it for myself, and day by day as I read, I told
the story to my father, and day by day his interest in Dulcinea’s
knight grew warmer.
“What has the donkey been doing to-day?” he would ask, and for
a while I suffered it to be “the donkey.” Not for long, though.
Soon I laughed no longer; rather melted with sympathy, burned with
admiration. I grew to love the man ever deceived, but ever believing;
the knight so often worsted, but never vanquished; and declared to my
father that I desired no better fortune than to meet with such a Don
Quixote in real life, and become his wife. Then papa began to think I
was getting too excited over it, and it would be well to change the
course of my studies. And from that time he took to overlooking my
reading, and got to do what he had never done before--to read. And it
would have been impossible to see anything more beautiful than the
expression of devotion and absorption in his noble Wallenstein-like
countenance, in every fold of the fine brow, when thus engaged.
Sometimes he heaves a deep sigh, and twists one side of his mustache
so furiously that the point is all awry, his eyes get fixed, the
eyelids red with the unwonted application. Then I can stand it no
longer; I jump up, go to him, and giving him a light kiss on the
shoulder, so light that he can pretend he does not perceive it, say:
“Shall we go for a walk, papa? I am quite stiff with sitting.”
“Upon my word, so am I,” he says, and it does me good to see how
he straightens himself and draws in a free breath. But he does not
immediately carry out my suggestion; the book-marker must first be
deliberately placed in the page.
“So far”; he takes the perused pages between the palms of his hands.
“Will it be too little for you?”
And I, unthinking, ungrateful as I can be, have so often
thoughtlessly made reply, “Oh, much too little; why, it is hardly
anything. You must let me read on further, papa.”
Closing the book, he slowly shakes his head, looks at me, considers a
little, looks at me again, and then follows: “Do whatever you like!”
And I, before he can defend himself, rush into his arms.
“No, no, only what _thou likest_, not what _I like_, shall be done,
now and always.”
“You might just as well have said that in English,” he answers.
“Oh, you dear good father of mine!”
* * * * *
Last year my sister, for the first time since her marriage, passed
the winter in Vienna. Report said that her husband on the wedding
journey had informed her that she should not set foot in the capital
again until he had cured her of her “countess” ways.
He is a tall, cold, haughty man, who barely vouchsafes to utter
twenty words in a day, even when most loquacious. It is difficult to
know what his tastes are. The sole interests he seems to have are
his palace, his equipages, his servants’ liveries, and his wife’s
toilets; and that merely to show them off. She makes merry over it,
and sometimes says very witty things about it; but I think she would
do better if she were to say them to his face instead of behind his
back. She has no children, to my sorrow; I should so love to be an
aunt. It was decided that I was to come out at one of the balls my
sister was to give in the course of the season. I had already been
to several soirées the previous winter with papa during Lent; thus
had a tolerably extended acquaintance with society folk, and had
been mostly struck by the dead level of quality when taken in the
quantity. At seventeen one begins to exercise one’s thinking powers,
and my reflection had been: If one could disembody the souls of all
these fine people and let them go free (the men especially), it
would be a sheer impossibility to distinguish one from the other.
Their conversation was simply comical. I could tell off on my fingers
the set questions: “Are you coming out next Carnival?” “Are you fond
of dancing?” so often had they been put to me; and not a man among
them had appeared to me to be one whit different from the crowd of
others.
One morning I was informed that papa and mamma desired to see me in
the small drawing room--style: Empire, white and gold.
Mamma was sitting upon the sofa, knitting woolen comforters for the
Reformatory. With a dainty little white lace cap upon her head, and
her white India cashmere morning dress, she looked like a queen or
a saint. Papa was sitting beside her in an armchair, very erect and
agitated, as could be easily seen from the blinking of his eyes, a
trick he had when much moved. My Duphot, in her boundless diffidence,
had chosen for her seat the smallest possible tabouret with the most
slender of legs, and the effect of her corpulent person upon its
ethereal support was killing.
“Will you be pleased to be seated?” my father asked, with forced
gayety, and I took a chair as close as possible to my Duphot, so as
to be at hand to lend my aid in the event of a catastrophe.
The faces of my parents grew more and more solemn. A sudden feeling
of dread came over me, and I began to examine my conscience if
perchance----It was clear, thank Heaven, else I should have felt very
miserable.
My father looked expectantly at my mother.
“Caroline, will you have the kindness?”
“I thought that you meant to----” returned my mother.
“Oh, no, I beg you----” said he. And with an effort, and dropping her
hands upon the comforter, my mother began:
“Paula, you are now grown up; nearly eighteen----”
“And look as if you were twenty,” added my father; to which my
Duphot, making assent, becomes scarlet, and totters upon her
treacherous seat.
My mother continues: “Next year, dear child, you are to go out into
the great world.”
“Oh, yes; I am so glad, dear mamma.”
“You are glad because you do not know how poor and worthless are the
pleasures which await you there, and how dearly bought.”
“Yes, yes,” put in papa, “and one should ask one’s self _cui bono_,
what is the aim of it all?”
Mamma took up the argument. “None other than that of
self-examination, and to enable one to arrive at the conclusion, _que
le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle_. Everyone plays at the game for a
time, my dear Paula, because it is the correct thing to do.”
“Oh, and because it is amusing, mamma, and because one is young and
loves gayety and dancing!”
She assented.
“But thinking persons cannot hide from themselves the consciousness
of the hollowness of it all, and then they turn to the realities of
life, often bitterly to repent of their wasted years. Now my question
to you is: Were it not wiser to save yourself these wasted years, and
to begin at once with the realities of life?”
“It is but a question,” interposed my father, in a tone of deepest
affection, and I read in his words the silent refrain, “Do whatever
you like.”
“Yes, certainly, it is but a question,” assented mamma.
And my Duphot echoed, “_Une question_,” while drops of perspiration
stood out upon her forehead. Her trouble and agitation overcame me. I
thought, “Great Heavens! what can they be meaning to do with me?” And
seized with a sudden dread, I cried:
“Am I to go into a convent?”
Mamma smiled; papa laughed; Mme. Duphot blurted out: “_Tout au
contraire!_”
I grew still more agitated. Suddenly it flashed across me. “Then I am
going to be married!”
Papa patted me kindly on the shoulder. “You must surely have observed
that one of the gentlemen introduced to you at your sister’s house
has been paying you marked attention?”
“No, papa. I assure you I have not.”
“But he has conversed with you every evening; the last time he
remained a full half hour in conversation with you.”
“Who is it?”
“Count Taxen.”
“A tall, dark man?”
“No, a fair young man, of middle height.”
At length I remembered. Of course, a fair young man, of middle
height, had often come up to talk to me. About what? Had I been
placed on the rack I could not have told, so completely had the
subject of our various talks vanished from my memory.
Papa and mamma now imparted to me that he was an exceptionally
delightful young man, the darling of his mother, who had never
allowed him to be separated from her, and had brought him up with
the strictest principles. My parents actually vied with each other in
singing the count’s praises, and Mme. Duphot, with tears of emotion,
exclaimed enthusiastically:
“_Quel bonheur, mon enfant!_”
The gate bell struck twice.
“They are coming,” said my mother; and my father gave, oh, such a
loving look at me! I cannot describe it other, even had it been
enveloped in ever so tyrannical a “You shall, you must!” than the
old gentle, heart-stirring, tender, “Do whatever you like.” And my
oppressed heart beat freely once more, my downcast courage revived;
I even felt an irresistible longing to laugh; while Mme. Duphot, who
had made a precipitate movement to rise from her tabouret--it had
really belonged to Josephine’s _salon_--fell back upon it, and I
said:
“Do take care; or you will go to pieces like the French Empire.”
“Child, child!” remonstrated my mother.
“And now, whatever you do, no display of bluestockingism,” added my
father hurriedly, as the door was thrown open and the Countess Taxen
and her son were announced.
* * * * *
And from that day forth they appeared regularly twice a week at three
o’clock, to make their afternoon call; and, moreover, every Saturday
I met the count at my sister’s. My parents treated him with marked
attention. Mme. Duphot designated him “_un jeune homme accompli_.”
Even my brother-in-law, whom I had never seen unbend before, did so
to him. The countess never failed to tell me, in her conversations
with me, that her son had never caused her an uneasy hour, and that
she was to be esteemed the happiest of mothers. I should have gone
contrary to the wishes of my dear ones, and of those whose opinion
I valued, had I found the least objection to the state of things;
and yet, withal, I felt the strongest inclination to do so, though
without knowing why.
No formal proposal had been made. I was only told that the count
was attracted by me; and that, through his mother, he had begged
permission to become more nearly acquainted with me. It must,
however, in his estimation, have been of far greater importance
that I should know him than that he should know me, for his whole
conversation was about himself, his mode of life, his habits,
and tastes. He seemed especially to like to dilate upon his love
of order, and the punctuality he exacted from his _entourage_. He
graphically described to us his old historic castle, the arrangements
of the apartments, the decorations of its halls and corridors. We
heard less of the country where his estates were situated; of the
people living about, not one word.
“And what about the neighborhood?” my sister asked one day. And
Bernhard, my brother, home on leave, exclaimed:
“Bruno Schwarzburg must have lived somewhere in your vicinity before
his troubles.”
Thus, on April 13, 1882, for the first time I heard the name
afterward to be so dear to me. They began talking and laughing
about him as a half-mad man, Bernhard constantly putting in,
good-naturedly, “After all, he is a fine fellow!”
“Yes, with a bee in his bonnet,” returned the count. “He will never
make his fortune, as I have often told him, even at the time he
was doing the craziest thing of all and entering an action against
himself.”
“How could he do that?” I asked. “How can anyone enter an action
against himself?”
“Ah, how can one!” replied the count; “I don’t understand it, nor
would any other man with a grain of common sense in his composition.
His father, who left a heap of debts behind him, had had the
foresight just before his death to hand over to his son, by deed of
gift, the indisputable possession of a small capital. The father
dead, the creditors seized upon everything--a set of miserable
money-lenders, for the most part, who had been paid over and over
again during the old baron’s lifetime. But one widow woman with five
children----”
“Excuse me,” interrupted Bernhard, “one daughter, a blind girl.”
The count, who does not like to have his statements questioned, here
said impatiently:
“My dear fellow, what does it matter? So this widow came off badly,”
he resumed, turning to me. “‘Nothing is left,’ she was told when she
presented her claim. ‘What do you mean--there is my money,’ says
Bruno. ‘The creditors have no claim upon that,’ explains the lawyer,
who was also Schwarzburg’s trustee. His father, I must explain,
had taken the precaution to appoint a trustee, as Master Bruno
had already shown signs of emulating his progenitor in the matter
of squandering. So now he insists upon paying the widow’s claim;
the trustee objects, and the upshot of it was a trial, in which
Schwarzburg appeared as plaintiff against himself, and which he won
by losing the little property he had.”
The laughter was general, and more things were told about the man
whom they all seemed to look upon as an original.
But I thought to myself, all his mad pranks--and many were told of
all kinds and descriptions--seem always to agree in two points; there
is invariably a noble motive at the bottom of them, and he invariably
comes off worst in them. So I remarked:
“This baron certainly seems to do any number of foolish things, but
luck is very unkind to him.”
“That I cannot see,” returned the count; and I had already learned
to know that those words, with him, meant, If I do not see a thing,
it does not exist. “If I choose to do idiotic things, I have no right
to call myself unlucky because I find myself on the wrong side of
the hedge. Moreover, what people are so ready to call want of luck
is, more often than not, want of sense. A common-sense man is rarely
unlucky.”
Here Bernhard murmured half aloud, “Sickness, death, tempest.”
Again the irritation with which the count greets the most modest
expression of opinion became evident--an irritation he seems
incapable of checking--as he dryly observed:
“I insure against tempest.”
I felt a sudden exasperation against this child of fortune, who
seemed so disposed to take to himself as individual merit the lavish
gifts of Providence, and I rejoined:
“Had you had such a father as that of Baron Schwarzburg, who
squandered away all the family property, you would have been unable
to exercise that wise foresight, for you would have nothing left to
you worth insuring.”
His mother crimsoned; my parents exchanged a concerned look, and
I felt more than ever alarmed at my own temerity. The greatest of
heroes experience a reflex fear, we are told; but there was nothing
of the hero in me at that moment, only a rush of feelings of shame,
embarrassment, and dread; and these wretched feelings rose like
smoke, so to speak, from a still darker background--the knowledge
that I had offended the count!
He gave vent to a few disconnected phrases, intended to be severe
and cutting, but which were only savage and peevish. It was not the
first time that I had made a mental note that the exalted and noble
diffidence, so highly vaunted by my parents, was in inseparable
connection with the flattery and deference accorded to him. The
slightest expression of censure changed it at once into arrogance,
and, without an attempt at justifying his opinion, he would angrily
reject any comment as absurd, contemptible, and unworthy of notice.
After he had taken his leave, my parents began to reproach me
severely.
“You behaved shockingly. You seem to have no idea of the honor
conferred upon you by the count’s attentions. Such a man--such a son!”
“Who never caused his mother a single uneasy hour,” I meekly added.
“You are aware of that, and yet do not cherish the highest esteem for
him?”
“Of course I esteem what is estimable in him.”
“Then pray show it in your manner and bearing. You acknowledge that
you esteem the count, and have every reason so to do, then why
conceal the sentiment?” said mamma. “I entreat you, dear child, to
let your esteem for him be made more evident.”
She glanced meaningly at papa, and now he began begging me to show
my esteem for the count more openly; asking how it was that I, so
pleasant and amiable to people in general, should observe such a cold
and distant manner to this admirable young man.
Alas, I could give him no answer. It was a question I had too often
vainly asked myself. The trivial faults which struck me in the count
were as nothing compared to the good qualities he possessed in the
eyes of my parents. And so I promised them from henceforth to be much
more courteous and attentive to him than I had been before. But even
this did not quite satisfy my dear ones.
“See, Paula,” said my father earnestly--and his voice was
agitated--“see, dear child, your sister’s marriage with Edward has
brought her happiness and placed her in a brilliant position. No man
could be a more affectionate husband than he, and so true a _grand
seigneur_. Your brother, after having caused us much anxiety by his
thoughtlessness, has settled down into the right way; and thus we can
look forward to both their futures with easy minds. All we desire
now is to be able to feel that your happiness is insured.”
“And that we should do,” began mamma afresh, “if you, dear child,
would receive the count’s attentions favorably.”
“Yes,” resumed papa, “that would make us happy and contented.”
He stretched out his hand to me; I seized it and kissed it, and
suddenly felt a sharp pain in my eyes, and as through a quivering
mist saw his dear face become more and more gentle and tender, and
then the dear voice began:
“Besides----”
But the words which usually followed upon this beginning were
wanting. I waited yearningly--in vain. They remained unsaid.
That night, on going to bed, I prayed more earnestly than ever; and
yet my prayer was that of a foolish child. I prayed for strength to
obey my parents gladly and cheerfully; I ought to have framed my
prayer quite differently--that I was quickly to be taught in the
immediate future.
On the 24th of April, 1882, one of the most perfect days I can
remember, we were driving in the open carriage in the Prater, papa
and I.
The horse-chestnuts were beginning to blossom, the delicate green of
spring diffusing its halo all around; that green so tender and so
unspeakably joyous, just emerging from its winter covering into the
golden sunlight, all unconscious, as yet, of storm or scorching heat.
Our carriage rolled leisurely along by our Rotten Row. Friends and
acquaintances galloped or trotted past us; then three horsemen
abreast came toward us, the count in the middle. He was riding
a handsome chestnut; man and horse alike presenting an air of
comfortable self-satisfaction. “The world goes well with us,” they
seemed to be thinking--if they thought at all. On the count’s left
rode my brother, looking very handsome and spick and span in his
uniform of major in the Lancers. To his right rode a gaunt man on a
gaunt steed. He sat very erect upon his horse, which seemed as if
devoured by inward fire, so wild and beautiful were its fine eyes;
for the rest it was a long-legged, bony mare--to say the least of it,
positively ugly. Nor did its rider please at first sight. Luckily
for him, no one would be content with merely a single glance at the
striking countenance. Long and narrow, it reveals a quite unusual
amount of energy. The dark eyes, the nose with its dilating nostrils,
the sharply pointed beard, the mustache twirling high and leaving the
mouth free, reminded me of the portraits of Spanish noblemen of the
seventeenth century. But what reminded me of no one, and could be
compared to no one but himself, was the animated, sympathetic spirit
that sparkled in his eyes. Gravely bowing, he retained his hat in his
hand long after the count had resumed his, thus displaying a noble
broad forehead, surmounted by thick, waving hair. The brain, I once
read, shapes its own place, and his had formed an arch for itself.
I know some which are content to reside under a flat level. The
stranger looked observantly at me. I felt myself grow red under his
gaze, and touched papa’s arm, who was exchanging greetings in the
drive. He turned to me, and, following my eyes, recognized the rider.
“Do you know him?” I asked.
“Who?”
“He of La Mancha,” said I, with a sorry jest, to conceal my confusion.
Papa, not noticing it, answered: “Oh, yes. It is that mad fellow,
Schwarzburg.”
My presence of mind had returned, and I ventured to ask:
“Tell me more about his foolish doings.”
“I know nothing about him,” said papa.
“Oh, yes, you do. Bernhard is constantly talking of him.”
“To make fun of him.”
“Not always. He really likes and admires him, and says he has a great
future before him.”
“Then things must greatly alter.”
“Not so much, after all, dear papa--a little turn of fortune’s
wheel; so far he has had nothing but sorrow since his childhood.
Remember what Bernhard told us quite lately about him. His parents
separated; his mother living abroad, and married again; his father,
a spendthrift, caring nothing for the boy--worse off than an orphan;
ill used at school, because the payments were so irregular. And he
grows up, struggling through it all, and, even as a mere lad, takes a
man’s cares upon himself and sets to earning his living.”
“Yes, yes; but then his Don Quixotism with his small inheritance, and
his ridiculous love story.”
“Love story? That is odd.”
An unpleasant sensation came over me, and I thought it strange that
Bernhard had told me nothing of this love story. After a while, I
asked:
“Who was he in love with, this baron?”
Papa had thought no more of our conversation, and could not at first
think whom I meant; then answered abruptly:
“He can only adore her memory now. She is dead.”
“When?”
“Some years ago, as the wife of another man, whom she preferred to
him--ingratitude to fidelity which would have gained him a name
in the Middle Ages, but which in modern times has simply made him
ridiculous.”
“I do not understand that. How can the exercise of any virtue render
anyone ridiculous? And fidelity is a virtue!”
Papa gave a slight cough, “If you ride a virtue to death, it becomes
folly.”
Wisdom--folly. I hated those words, so often in the count’s mouth.
“Ah, well, papa,” said I, “it seems to me that there is no need for
any virtue to grow into folly; it is a folly from the very beginning.
That is why I have so little regard for wisdom either.”
“That is very evident,” observed my father.
“And why I love the constancy which, seeking no reward, yet remains
stanch.”
“Indeed? You do not see how senseless it is in a man to believe he
is loved by a woman when he is not? To let himself be fooled by her?
To give no ear when he is told she does not care a straw for him?
You do not see how senseless is such conduct? Or, perhaps, it rather
attracts your admiration because it is such a piece of utter folly!”
“But did she really not love him?”
“She simply fooled him, I tell you. And he, poor fool, must needs be
keeping lover’s watch under her windows, quarreling with those who
saw through the little game, which cost him more than one duel.”
I was delighted.
“Quite right! I honor him! I can see it now--can hear how after
the fight, whether conquered or conqueror, he cries, ‘Dulcinea del
Toboso is the most peerless lady in all the world, and I am her true
knight!’ Splendid, papa!”
“My dear child! What rubbish you talk! But it all comes from those
confounded books, and I will----But enough of it!”
These last words were said in English, and I knew it was high time
to give up a subject when my dear good father took to speaking
English!
For some weeks past mamma had begun to receive again, every evening
after the theater. She desired to give the count opportunities
of coming more frequently to our house, without thereby exciting
attention. Fruitless endeavor! Although his courtship proceeded so
quietly that, thank Heaven, even I was scarcely aware of it, my girl
friends began teasing me about him. Most of them, strange to say,
called me a lucky girl; and one--I will name her Dora--never failed
to add “but as silly, awfully silly, as she is lucky!”