ELOISE
"You have been here before?" Who does not know that mysterious greeting
with which, when we turn the corner of some road, the prospect meets us?
Only a few years ago Charcot assured me that this strange sensation of
the mind is a result of inequality in the rhythm of thought, a
mechanical accident affecting one side of the brain. I accepted his
explanation with a smile.
Seated now by my father as we dashed along the broad avenue, my heart
was on fire. I knew that at the turning just before us, the turning
where the avenue bent upon itself, the house would burst upon us in full
view. Unable to contain myself, scarce knowing what I did, I jumped on
the front seat, and, standing, holding on to Joubert's coat, I waited.
The carriage turned the corner of the drive, the house broke into view,
and my dream vanished.
It was like being recalled to consciousness from some happy vision by a
blow in the face.
I could not in the least tell what sort of house it was that I expected
to see, but I could tell that the house before me was not--it.
Vast and grey and formal, the Schloss Lichtenberg stood back-grounded by
waving pine-trees; above it, coiling to the wind, the flag of Prussia,
proclaiming that the king was a guest, floated in the evening sunshine.
Before the huge porch, trampling the gravel, the horses of a hunting
party were reined in; the hunters were dismounting. They had been
hawking; and on the gloved wrists of the green-coated jägers the hooded
falcons shook their little bells.
"The King is here!" said my father, when he saw the flag.
The horses of the hunters were being led away, and most of the party had
disappeared into the house when we drew up before the door.
Only two people stood to greet us on the steps, Baron Carl von
Lichtenberg and a man--a great man, with a dominating face, and hooded
eyes that never wavered, never lowered, eyes direct, far-seeing, and
fearless as the eyes of an eagle.
I was in a terrible fright. Those words, "The King is here," had thrown
me in consternation. Though my father was a close friend of Napoleon, I
had never been brought into contact, as yet, with that enigmatical
person. I knew nothing of courts; and the idea that I was to sleep under
the same roof as the King of Prussia, and be spoken to by him, perhaps,
filled my imaginative mind with such a panic that I quite forgot my
ghostly dread of Baron von Lichtenberg.
I thought the big man with the strange eyes was the King. He was not the
King. He was Bismarck.
Bismarck! Good heavens! How little we know of a man till we have seen
him in his everyday mood! Bismarck slapped my father on the back--he had
all the good-humour and boisterous manner of a great schoolboy--as he
accompanied us up the steps. He had met my father several times before,
and liked him, as everyone liked him. And in the vast hall of the
schloss, hung with trophies of the battle and the chase, I stood by,
forgotten, whilst my father, in the midst of a group of gentlemen, stood
talking to the boisterous great man, whose hard voice and tremendous
personality dominated the scene.
I have said that Bismarck's voice was hard. It was, but it was not a
mean or commonplace voice; it was as full of force as the man, and you
never forgot it, once you heard it.
A large party of guests were at the schloss; and I, standing alone, felt
very much alone indeed--shy, and filled with fear of the King. I was
standing like this, when from the door of a great room opening upon the
hall came a little figure skipping.
Gay as a beam of sunshine, she came into the vast and gloomy hall. She
wore a blue scarf, white dress, frilled pantalettes, and shoes with
crossed straps over her tiny insteps.
She glanced at me as she passed, making straight for Bismarck, whose
coat she plucked at.
"Another time--another time!" growled he, letting drop a hand for the
sunbeam to play with whilst he continued his conversation with the
others. But I noticed that, despite his hardness and seeming
indifference, the big hand, with the seal-ring on the little finger,
caressed the child's hand; but she wanted more than this. Swinging
around, still clasping his hand, but pouting, and with a finger to her
lips, her eyes rested on me.
I had forgotten the King now; a flood of bashfulness overwhelmed me,
and, as I stood there holding my képi in one hand, I, mesmerised by the
figure in pantalettes before me, made a stiff little bow. Dropping
Bismarck's hand, she made a little curtsey, and came skipping to me
across the shining floor.
"And you, too, are a soldier?" said she, speaking in French. "Bon jour,
M. l'Officier!"
"Bon jour, mademoiselle!"
"My name is Eloise," said the apparition of light. "Do you like my
dress?"
"Oui, mademoiselle!"
She pursed her lips. "Oui, mademoiselle? Oh, how dull you are! Now, if I
wert thou, and thou wert I, know you what I would have said?"
"Non, mademoiselle."
"Non, mademoiselle! Oh, how droll you are. I would have said:
'Mademoiselle, your toilet is ravishing!' Now say it."
"Mademoiselle, your toilet is ravishing."
She laughed with pleasure at having made me repeat the words. Despite
her conversation, she had no touch of the old-fashioned, or the pert, or
the objectionable about her. Brimming over with life, pure from its
source, fresh as a daisy, sparkling as a dewdrop, sweetness was written
upon her brow, across that ineffable mark of purity with which God
stamps His future angels.
"And your name?" said she.
"Patrick," I replied.
"Pawthrick," said she, trying to put her small mouth round the word. "I
cannot say it. I will call you Toto. Come with me," leading me by the
sleeve, "and I will introduce you to my mother. She is here"--drawing
towards the door of the room from whence she had come--"in here. Do you
know why I call you Toto?"
"Non, mademoiselle."
"He was my rabbit, and he died," said Eloise, as we entered a great
salon where several ladies were seated conversing.
Toward one of these ladies, more beautiful in my eyes than the dawn,
Eloise led me.
"Maman," said she, "this is Toto."
The Countess Feliciani, for that was the name of the mother of Eloise,
smiled upon us. I dare say we made a quaint and pretty enough pair. She
was perhaps, thirty--the Countess Feliciana, a woman of Genoa, blue-eyed
and golden-haired, and beautiful--Ah! when a blonde is beautiful, her
beauty transcends the beauty of all brunettes.
I bowed, she spoke to me, I stammered. She put my awkwardness down to
bashfulness, no doubt, but it was not bashfulness. I was in love with
the Countess Feliciani, stricken to the heart at first sight.
The love of a child of nine for a beautiful woman of thirty! How absurd
it seems, but how real, and what a mystery! I swear that the love I had
for that woman, love that haunted me for a long, long time, was equal in
strength to the love of a full-grown man, with this difference: that it
was immaterial, and, as far as my conscience tells me, utterly divorced
from earthly passion.
"Now go and play," said the Countess. And Eloise led me away, I knew not
whither.