I
Letitia felt vague longings.
She accompanied her aunt, the countess, to the south of Switzerland,
and loitered in wonder at the foot of blue glaciers; she lay on the
shore of Lake Geneva, dreaming or reading poetry. When she appeared
smiling on the promenade, admiring glances were all about her.
Enthusiastically conscious of her youth and of her emotional wealth,
she enjoyed the day and the evening as each came, pictures and books,
fragrances and tones. But her longings did not cease.
Many came and spoke to her of love--some frankly and some by
implication. And she too was full of love--not for him who spoke, but
for his words, expressions, presages. If a delighted glance met hers,
it delighted her. And she lent her ear with equal patience to wooers of
twenty or of sixty.
But her yearnings were not assuaged.
Her aunt, the countess, said: “Have nothing to do with aristocrats,
my dear. They are uncultivated and full of false pride. They don’t
know the difference between a woman and a horse. They would nail your
young heart to a family tree, and if you don’t appreciate that favour
sufficiently, they stamp you as déclassée for life. If they have no
money they are too stupid to earn any; if they have it they don’t know
how to spend it sensibly. Have no dealings with them. They’re not quite
human.”
The countess’ experiences with the aristocracy had been very bitter.
“You can imagine, my dear,” she said, “that I was hard pressed in my
time to be forced to say these things now.”
Letitia sat on the edge of her bed and regarded her silk stocking,
which had a little hole in it, and still felt the same longing.
Judith wrote her: “We expect you and the countess so soon as we are
settled in our new house near Frankfort. It’s a kind of fairy palace
that papa has built us, and it’s to be the family seat hereafter.
It’s situated in the forest of Schwanheim, and is only ten minutes by
motor from the city. Everybody who has seen it is mad about it. Felix
Imhof says it reminds him of the palace of the Minotaur. There are
thirty-four guest-rooms, a gallery fifty metres long with niches and
columns, and a library that’s been modelled after the cupola of St.
Peter’s at Rome. There are twenty thousand perfectly new books in it.
Who’s to read them all?”
“I love the thought of them,” said Letitia, and pressed her hand
against her heart.
She had had a golden charm made in the likeness of a tiny toad. She did
not wear it about her neck, but kept it in a little leathern case, from
which she often took it, and brooded over it lovingly.
In Schwetzingen she had met a young Argentinian of German descent.
He was studying law at Heidelberg, but he confessed to her frankly
that he had come to Europe to get him a German wife. He gave her this
information at noon. At night he gave her to understand that in her he
had met his goal.
His name was Stephen Gunderam. His skin was olive, his eyes glowing,
his hair coal black and parted in the middle. Letitia was fascinated
by his person, the countess by the rumours of his wealth. She made
inquiries, and discovered that the rumours had not been exaggerated.
The lands of the Gunderams on the Rio Plata were more extensive than
the Duchy of Baden.
“Now, sweetheart, there’s a husband for you!” said the countess. But
when she considered that she would have to part with Letitia, she
began to cry, and lost her appetite for a whole forenoon.
Stephen Gunderam told them about his far, strange country, about his
parents, brothers, servants, herds, houses. He declared that the bride
he brought home would be a queen. He was so strong that he could bend a
horse-shoe. But he was afraid of spiders, believed in evil omens, and
suffered from frequent headaches. At such times he would lie in bed,
and drink warm beer mixed with milk and the yolk of eggs. This was a
remedy which an old mulatto woman had once given him.
Letitia barely listened. She was reading:
“And have you seen an inmost dream
Fled from you and denied?
Then gaze into the flowing stream,
Where all things change and glide.”
“You really must hurry, darling,” the countess admonished her again.
But Letitia was so full of longing.