_The Prussians advance on Vienna.--Prussian officers quartered at
Grumitz.--My brother Otto’s warlike ardour.--He gets into
trouble.--A grand dinner to the self-invited guests.--Sudden
engagement of my sister Rosa to Prince Henry von Reuss.--General
felicity and enjoyment.--Departure of the Prussians.--Outbreak of
cholera at Grumitz.--The château is infected.--First some of the
servants, then my sisters, then Otto die of cholera, and lastly my
father dies from heart disease, cursing war with his last
breath.--Conrad’s suicide._
There were Prussians quartered everywhere in the neighbourhood, and now
Grumitz had to come into the circle.
Though the suspension of hostilities was already in force, and peace was
almost certain, yet general fear and mistrust reigned throughout the
people. The idea that these spike-helmeted tigers would tear them to
pieces if they could was not easily eradicated out of the people. The
three claps of the hand at Nicolsburg had not yet availed to undo the
effect of the three claps of the declaration of war, and to make the
country-folk look on the Prussians again in the light of brothers. The
very name of the opposing nation gathers round it in war time a whole
host of hateful implied meanings. It is not merely the distinctive name
of a nation hostile for the moment, but it becomes the synonym for
“enemy,” and comprises in itself all the repugnance which that word
expresses.
And so it happened that the folks in the neighbourhood trembled, as
before wolves broken loose, if a Prussian quartermaster came there to
procure lodging for his troops. With some besides fear hatred also was
expressed, and these thought they were discharging a patriotic duty if
they did anything to injure a Prussian, if they sent a rifle bullet out
of some place of concealment after “the foe”. This had often taken
place, and if the guilty party was caught he was executed without much
circumstance. These examples had the effect of making the people
suppress their hatred and receive without opposition the soldiers
quartered on them. Then they found to their no small amazement that “the
enemy” really consisted of nothing but good-humoured, friendly fellows,
who paid their way honestly.
One morning, it was early in August, I was sitting in the bow-window of
the library and looking out through the open window. From this point was
a long view over the surrounding country. I thought I saw from a
distance a troop of cavalry moving along the high road in our direction.
“Prussians coming for quarters,” was my first thought. I adjusted a
telescope which stood in the bow, and looked towards the point in
question. Right; it was a troop of about ten riders with waving black
and white little flags on the points of their lances. And among them a
man on foot, in hunting costume. Why was he walking in this way between
the horses? A prisoner? The glass was not powerful enough. I could not
make out whether the man I took for a prisoner might not be one of our
own foresters.
Still it was right to warn the inhabitants of the château of the fate
impending over them. I hastily left the library to look for papa and
Aunt Mary. I found both in the drawing-room. “The Prussians are coming,
the Prussians are coming,” I announced to them breathlessly. One is
always glad to be able to be the first to communicate important tidings.
“Devil take them,” was my father’s rather inhospitable exclamation,
while Aunt Mary hit on the right thing to do, as she said: “I will
immediately give Frau Walter her orders for the necessary
preparations”.
“And where is Otto?” I asked. “Some one must acquaint him, and warn him
not to let his hatred of the Prussians peep out anyhow, and not to be
uncivil to the guests.”
“Otto is not at home,” replied my father. “He went out early to-day
after the partridges. You should have seen him, how well his
hunting-dress sat on him. He grows a fine fellow. My delight is in him.”
Meanwhile the house filled with noise. Hasty steps were heard, and
excited voices.
“They are come already--those windbags,” muttered my father.
The door was dashed open, and Franz, the _valet de chambre_, rushed in.
“The Prussians--the Prussians,” he shouted, in the same tone as one
calls “Fire, fire!”
“Well, they won’t eat us,” growled my father.
“But they are bringing a man with them--a man from Grumitz,” the man
went on in a trembling voice. “I do not know who it is. He has fired on
them; and who would not like to fire on such a scum? But it is all over
with him.”
Now one heard the tramp of horses and tumult of voices together. We went
down to the ground floor and looked through the windows which opened out
into the courtyard. At that moment the Uhlans came riding in, and in
their midst, with pale, defiant face, Otto, my brother.
My father uttered a shriek and hurried down the steps. My heart stood
still. The scene before us was horrible. If Otto had really fired at the
Prussian soldiers, which seemed very like him---- I dared not think of
the conclusion.
I had not the courage to go after my father. Consolation and assistance
in all sorrows I always sought from Frederick only. So I collected
myself in order to betake myself to Frederick’s room. But before I got
there, my father came back again and Otto after him. By their bearing I
saw that the danger was over. The hearing of the matter had given the
following result: The shot had been discharged accidentally. When the
Uhlans came riding on, Otto wanted to see them close, ran across the
field, stumbled, fell down into a ditch, and in doing so discharged his
gun. At the first moment the statement of the young sportsman was
doubted by the men. They took him in their midst and brought him to the
château as their prisoner. But when it came out that the young gentleman
was the son of General Althaus, and was himself a military student, they
accepted his explanation.
“The son of a soldier, and himself a future soldier, might well fire on
hostile soldiers in honourable fight, but not in time of truce, and not
like an assassin.” On this speech of my father’s the Prussian subaltern
had set the young man free.
“And are you really innocent?” I asked Otto. “For from your hatred of
the Prussians it would not surprise me if----”
He shook his head.
“I shall, I trust, have plenty of opportunities in the course of my life
to fire at a few of them; but not from behind, not without exposing my
heart, too, to their bullets.”
“Bravo, my boy!” cried my father, delighted by these words.
I could not share his delight. All these phrases, in which _life_,
whether one’s own or another’s, is tossed about so contemptuously and so
boastfully, have a repellent tone for me. But I was glad at heart that
the matter had passed over thus. How horrible would it have been for my
poor father if these men had shot down the presumed malefactor without
more ado! In that case the unhappy war by which our house had hitherto
been spared would have yet plunged it into misery.
The detachment in question had come in the regular way to take up
quarters. Schloss Grumitz had been selected as the habitation of two
colonels and six officers of the Prussian army. The men were to be
lodged in the village. Two men were to be set as sentinels in the
courtyard of the château.
An hour or two after the settlement of the quarters the involuntary and
self-invited guests made their entry into our house. We had been
prepared for the event for several days, and Frau Walter had seen that
all the guest chambers and beds were in readiness. The cook also had
laid in plenty of provisions, and the cellar held a sufficient number of
full barrels and old bottles. The Prussian gentlemen should not find any
scarcity in our house.
* * * * *
When the company in the château mustered in the drawing-room that day at
the sound of the dinner-bell the room presented a brilliant and lively
picture. The gentlemen, all excepting Minister “To-be-sure,” who was our
guest for the moment, all in uniform, the ladies in full dress. For the
first time for a long while we were all in our glory--Lori
especially--the lively Lori--who had arrived that same day from Vienna,
had, on the news that foreign officers were to be present, unpacked her
fine dresses, and adorned herself with fresh roses. The object, no
doubt, was to turn the head of one or other of the members of the
enemy’s army. Well, as far as I was concerned she might have conquered
the whole Prussian battalion, so she left Frederick undazzled. Lilly,
the happy _fiancée_, wore a light blue robe. Rosa, who also seemed very
happy to have the chance once more of showing herself off to young
cavaliers, was dressed in pink muslin; and I, feeling that war time,
even if one has no person to mourn, is always a time of mourning, put on
a black dress.
I recollect still the singular impression which it made on me when I
entered the drawing-room, in which the rest were already assembled.
Glitter, cheerfulness, distinguished elegance, the well-dressed ladies,
the smart uniforms--what a contrast to the scenes of woe, filth, and
terror that I had seen so short a time since. And it is these same
glittering, cheerful, elegant personages who of their own accord set
this woe in motion, who refuse to do anything to abolish it, who on the
contrary glorify it, and by means of their gold lace and stars testify
the pride which they find in being the agents and props of this system
of woe!
My entrance broke up the conversation which was being carried on in the
different groups, since all our Prussian guests had to be introduced to
me, most of them distinguished-sounding names ending in “ow” and in
“witz,” many “vons,” and even a prince--one Henry--I don’t know of what
number--of the house of Reuss.
Such then were our enemies! perfect gentlemen with the most exquisite
manners in society. Well, certainly one knows as much as this: that if
war is to be carried on at the present day with a neighbouring nation
one has not to do with Huns and Vandals; but for all that it would be
much more natural to think of the enemy as a horde of savages, and it
requires some effort to look upon them as honourable and civilised
citizens. “God, who drivest back by Thy mighty protection the
adversaries of those who trust in Thee, hear us graciously as we pray
for Thy mercy, so that the rage of the enemy having been suppressed we
may praise Thee to all eternity.” This was the prayer daily offered by
the priest at Grumitz. What conception must there have been formed by
the common people of this “raging enemy”? Certainly not anything like
these courteous noblemen who were now giving their arms to the ladies
present to take them to dinner.... Besides this, God this time had
listened to the prayer of the other side and had suppressed _our_
rage--the foaming, murderous foe who through the might of the Divine
protection (which, to be sure, we called the needle-gun) had been driven
back were _ourselves_. Oh! what a pious concatenation of nonsense! I was
thinking something to this effect as we were sitting down in a brilliant
row at the table, adorned with flowers and dishes of fruit. The silver,
too, had been brought out of its hiding-place at the order of the master
of the house. I was seated between a stately colonel, ending in “ow,”
and a tall lieutenant in “itz”; Lilly, of course, by her lover’s side.
Rosa had been taken in to dinner by Prince Henry, and the naughty Lori
had once again succeeded in getting my Frederick as her next-door
neighbour. But what of that? I was not going to be jealous. He was
assuredly _my_ Frederick, my very own.
The conversation was very abundant and very lively. “The Prussians”
evidently felt highly pleased, after the toils and privations they had
gone through, to be sitting down again at a well-furnished table and in
good company; and the consciousness that the campaign which was ended
had been a victorious one must certainly have contributed to raise their
spirits. But even we, the vanquished, did not allow anything of grudge
or humiliation to appear, and did all we could to play the part of the
most amiable of hosts. To my father it must have cost some self-control,
as I could judge from knowing his sentiments, but he played his part
throughout with exemplary courtesy. The one who was most dejected was
Otto. It was visibly against the grain for him, with the hatred which he
had been cherishing against the Prussians in these late days, with his
eagerness to chase them out of the country, to have now to reach the
pepper and salt for this same foe in the most polite manner, instead of
being allowed to pierce him with a bayonet. The topic of the war was
carefully avoided in the conversation; the foreigners were treated by us
as if they had been pleasure-travellers who happened to be passing
through our neighbourhood, and they themselves with still greater
caution avoided even hinting at the real state of things--_viz._, that
they were stationed here as our conquerors. My young lieutenant even
tried, quite in earnest, to pay his court to me. He swore, by his honour
and credit, that there was no such pleasant place in the world as
Austria, and that there (shooting sidewards a needle-gun glance) the
most charming women in the world were to be found. I do not deny that I
too coquetted a little with the smart son of Mars, but that was to show
Lori Griesbach and her neighbour that in a certain given case I was
capable of having my revenge; the folks opposite, however, remained
quite as undisturbed as I myself was really at the bottom of my heart.
It would have been more reasonable and more to the purpose, however, if
my dashing lieutenant had directed his killing glances to the fair Lori.
Conrad and Lilly in their character of engaged persons (and such folks
should really be always put behind a grating) exchanged loving glances
quite openly, and whispered and clanked their glasses together by
themselves, and played all sorts of other drawing-room turtle-dove
tricks. And as it seemed to me a third flirtation began on the spot to
develop itself. For the German prince--Henry the So and So--kept
conversing in the most pressing way with my sister Rosa, and as it went
on his countenance became a picture of the most unconcealed admiration.
When we rose from table, we went back into the drawing-room, in which
the chandelier, which had now been lighted, diffused a festive glow.
The door on to the terrace was open. Outside was the warm summer night,
flooded by the gentle light of the moon. The evening star shed its rays
over the grassy expanse of the park, fragrant with hay, and mirrored
itself in glittering silver on the lake which spread out in the
background.... Could that really be the same moon which a short time ago
had shown me the heap of corpses against the church wall surrounded by
the shrieking birds of prey? And were these people inside--just then a
Prussian lieutenant opened the piano to play one of Mendelssohn’s
“Lieder ohne Worte”--could they be the same as were laying about them
with their sabres a short time since to cleave men’s skulls?
After a time Prince Henry and Rosa came out too. They did not see me in
my dark corner, and passed by me. They were now standing, leaning on the
balustrade, near, very near each other. I even believe that the young
Prussian--the foe--was holding my sister’s hand in his. They were
speaking low, but still some of the prince’s words reached me. “Charming
girl ... sudden, conquering passion ... longing for domestic happiness
... the die is cast ... for mercy’s sake do not say ‘No’. Do I then
inspire you with disgust?” Rosa shook her head. Then he raised her hand
to his lips and tried to put his arm round her waist. She, like a
well-brought-up girl, disengaged herself at once.
Ah! I would almost have preferred that the soft moonlight had then and
there shone on the kiss of love.... After all the pictures of hate and
bitter woe which I had been obliged to witness a short time ago, a
picture of love and sweet pleasure would have seemed to me like some
compensation.
“Oh! is it you, Martha?”
Rosa had now become aware of me, and was at first very much shocked that
any one should have been listening at this scene, but then pacified that
it was only me.
The prince, however, was in the highest degree discomposed and
perplexed. He stepped towards me.
“I have just made an offer of my hand to your sister, gracious madam.
Kindly say a word in my favour. My action may perhaps seem to both of
you somewhat sudden and presumptuous. At another time I should myself
perhaps have proceeded more cautiously and more modestly; but in these
last few weeks I have been accustoming myself to advance quickly and
boldly--no hesitation or trembling was allowed then--and the practice
which I formed in war I have now involuntarily again exercised in love.
Pray forgive me, and be favourable to me. You are silent, countess? Do
you refuse me your hand?”
“My sister,” said I, coming to Rosa’s assistance, who was standing there
in deep emotion with her head turned aside, “cannot surely be expected
to decide her fate so quickly. Who knows whether our father will give
his consent to a marriage with ‘an enemy’; who knows again whether Rosa
will return an inclination so suddenly kindled?”
“I know,” she replied, and stretched out both her hands to the young
man; and he pressed her warmly to his heart.
“Oh, you silly children,” I said, and drew back a few paces to the
drawing-room door, to watch that--at least at _that_ moment--no one
should come out.
* * * * *
On the following day the betrothal was celebrated. My father offered no
opposition. I should have thought that his hatred of the Prussians would
have made it impossible for him to receive into his family a hostile
warrior and a victor; but whether it was that he separated altogether
the individual question from the national (a common method of
action--for one often hears people protest: “I hate them as a nation,
not as individuals,” though there is no sense in it, no more sense than
if one were to say: “I hate wine as a drink, but I swallow each drop
with pleasure”; still a phrase need not be rational in order to be
popular, quite the contrary), or whether it was that ambition got the
upper hand and an alliance with a princely house flattered him, or,
finally, that the sudden love of the young folks so romantically
expressed touched him--in short, he said yes, and with seeming
heartiness. Aunt Mary was less disposed to agree. “Impossible!” was her
first exclamation. “The prince is surely of the Lutheran sect.” But in
the end she comforted herself with the consideration that Rosa would
probably convert her husband. The deepest resentment it awoke was in
Otto’s heart. “How would you like it,” he said, “supposing the war was
to break out again, that I should chase my brother-in-law out of the
country?” But to him also the famous theory of the difference between
nation and individual was explained, and to my astonishment--for I could
never understand it--he understood it.
How quickly and easily does one in happy circumstances forget the misery
one has gone through. Two pairs of lovers, or, if I may venture to say
so, _three_--for Frederick and I, the married ones, were not much less
in love with each other than the betrothed--well, so many pairs of
lovers in the little company gave an air of felicity to everything. For
the next day or two Schloss Grumitz was an abode of cheerfulness and
worldly enjoyment. I, too, gradually felt the pictures of terror of the
past weeks fading out of my remembrance. It was not without reproaches
of conscience that I became aware how my compassion, which had been so
burning a short time since, was at some moments quite gone. It is true
that sounds of mourning still came pealing from the world without, the
complaints of people who in the war had lost goods or money or lives of
those dear to them, accounts of threatened financial catastrophes, of
the outbreak of pestilence. It was said that the cholera had shown
itself among the Prussian troops; a case had even been reported in our
village, but only a doubtful one, it is true: “It might be diarrhœa,
which occurs every summer,” was the consolatory remark. Let us only
chase away troubled thoughts and anxious fears with: “It is nothing,” or
“It has passed over,” or “It will not come”; all this is so easy to say.
All that is wanted is a vigorous shake of the head and the unpleasant
facts are gone.
“I say, Martha,” said the happy _fiancée_ to me one day, “this war was
indeed a horrible thing, and yet I must bless it; without it should I
ever have been so immeasurably happy as I am now? Should I ever have had
the opportunity of making Henry’s acquaintance? And as to him, would he
ever have found a bride to love him so?”
“Very well, dear Rosa. I shall be happy to share this view of it with
you. Let your two hearts made happy be weighed against the many
thousands of hearts that have been broken.”
“But it is not only individual destinies that are concerned, Martha. In
the gross and on the whole war also brings great gain to those who
conquer, and therefore to a whole nation. You must hear Henry talk on
that subject. He says Prussia shines out grandly. In the army universal
exultation reigns, and enthusiastic thankfulness and love for the
generals who have led it to victory. And in this way there arises for
German civilisation, for commerce--or perhaps he said for the prosperity
of Germany, I have forgot the exact term--its historical mission--in
short, you should hear him talk himself.”
“Why, does not your _fiancé_ prefer to speak of your love rather than of
political and military matters?”
“Oh, we speak about everything, and everything he says sounds like music
in my ears. I feel that it is so good for him that he is proud and happy
to have joined in fighting out this war for his king and country----”
“And carried away for himself so dear a sweetheart as his booty,” I
added, to finish her sentence.
His future son-in-law suited my father very well, and who would not have
been pleased with such a grand young man? Still he gave him his sympathy
and his blessing with all kinds of protestations and restrictions.
“You are dear to me in every respect, dear Reuss--as a man and as a
soldier and as a prince”--this is what he said to him repeatedly, and in
various modes of speech--“but as a Prussian officer of course I reserve
to myself the right, despite any family connection, of wishing for
nothing so much as a future war, in which Austria may pay back
handsomely the present victory snatched from her. The political question
must be separated altogether from the personal. My son will one day--God
grant that I may live to see it--take the field against the Prussian
state. I myself, if I were not too old, and if my emperor were to summon
me to it, would at once accept a command to fight William I., and
especially his overbearing Bismarck. This does not prevent me from
recognising the military virtues of the Prussian army, and the strategic
science of its leaders; and from thinking it quite a matter of course
that in the next campaign you, at the head of your battalion, should try
to storm our capital, and set fire to the house in which your
father-in-law lives--in short----”
“In short,” said I, one day breaking in on a rhapsody of this kind,
“confusions in terms and inconsistencies of fact twine round each other
like the _infusoria_ in a putrefying drop of water. It is always so,
when you pen up together conceptions repugnant to each other. To hate
the whole and love its parts, to want to have one way of thinking as
members of a nation and another as a man. That will not do; it must be
one thing or another. So I approve of the Indian chief’s way of looking
at it. He entertains for the adherent of a different tribe--as to which
he does not even know that it consists of individuals--no other wish
than to scalp him.”
“But my dear girl, Martha, such savage feelings do not suit the stage
of our civilisation, which has grown more cultured and more humane.”
“Rather say that our present stage of civilisation does not suit the
savagery which has come down to us from old times. As long as this
savagery, that is, so long as the spirit of war is not cast out, our
much-valued ‘humanity’ cannot be looked on as _reasonable_. For surely
now as to the speech you made just now, in which you assured Prince
Henry that you would love him as a son-in-law and hate him as a
Prussian, value him dearly as a man, and abominate him as an officer,
that you give him your paternal blessing with pleasure, and at the same
time allow him the right, in given circumstances, of firing on you,
forgive me, my dear father, but will you really uphold this as
reasonable?”
“What are you saying? I do not catch a word.”
The favourite deafness had again come on at the right moment.
* * * * *
After a few days all became quiet again at Grumitz. The soldiers
quartered on us had to march off, and Conrad had been ordered to join
his regiment. Lori Griesbach and the Minister had already departed
before.
The marriage of my two sisters had been postponed till October. Both
were to be married on the same day at Grumitz. Prince Henry was to quit
the service; now that he had finished this glorious campaign in which he
had earned distinction, he could easily do this, and so repose on his
laurels, and on his estates.
The partings of the two pairs of lovers were painful and joyful at the
same time. They promised to write to each other every day, and the
certain prospect of bliss so near made the anguish of parting seem not
so severe.
_Certain_ prospect of bliss? There is in reality no such thing, and
assuredly least of all in seasons of war. Then misfortunes hover around
“as thick as the swarms of gnats in the air,” and the chances that you
may be standing on a spot that will be spared by the descending scourge
are at best but small.
True, the war was over. That is, it had been proclaimed that peace was
concluded. A word is sufficient to unchain the horrors, and thence one
is apt to think that a word will also suffice to remove them again, but
no spell has in reality that power. Hostilities may be suspended, and
yet hostility may persist. The seed of future war is sown, and the fruit
of the war just ended spreads still further, in wretchedness, savagery,
and plagues. Yes, no falsehood and no “not thinking of it” was any good
now, the cholera was raging through the country.
It was on the morning of 8th August. We were all seated at the
breakfast-table and reading our correspondence which had just come by
the post. The two _fiancées_ had fastened on the love letters that had
come for them, I was turning over the newspapers. From Vienna the news
was:--
The cholera death-rate is rising considerably. Not only in the
military but also in the civil hospitals many cases have been
already reported, which must be looked on as genuine Asiatic
cholera, and energetic measures are being taken on all sides to
check the progress of the epidemic.
I was about to read the passage aloud when Aunt Mary, who had in her
hand a letter from one of her friends in a neighbouring château, gave a
cry of horror.
“Horrible! Betty writes me that in her house two persons have died of
cholera, and now her husband is ill also.”
“Your excellence, the schoolmaster wishes to speak to you.”
The gentleman announced followed the footman into the room. He looked
pale and bewildered.
“Count, I tell you, with all deference, that I must close the school.
Two children were taken ill yesterday, and to-day they are dead.”
“The cholera?” we cried out.
“I think it is. I think we must give it that name. The so-called
diarrhœa which broke out among the soldiers quartered here, and of
which twenty of them died, was the cholera. Great terror prevails in
the village, because the doctor who came here from town has affirmed
without any concealment that the horrible disease has now beyond doubt
taken hold of the population of this place.”
“What sound is that,” I asked, listening, “that one hears?”
“That is the passing-bell, baroness,” announced the schoolmaster. “Some
one must be lying at his last gasp. The doctor tells us that in town the
passing-bell absolutely never stops ringing.”
We all looked round at each other, pale and speechless. So here it was
again--Death--and each one of us saw his bony hand stretched out in the
direction of some dear one’s head.
“Let us flee!” suggested Aunt Mary.
“Flee? whither?” answered the schoolmaster. “The pest has by this time
spread everywhere round.”
“Oh, far, far away, over the frontier----”
“But a cordon will be drawn there, over which no one will be allowed to
pass.”
“Oh, that would be horrible! Surely no one would hinder people from
quitting a land stricken with pestilence?”
“Assuredly, the healthy neighbourhoods will protect themselves against
infection.”
“What is to be done? what is to be done?” And Aunt Mary wrung her hands.
“To await God’s will,” answered my father. “You are besides such a
believer in destiny, Mary, I cannot understand your desire for flight.
Every one’s fate finds him, wherever he is. But, at the same time, I
should like it better if you, children, could depart; and you, Otto, see
that you touch no more fruit.”
“I will telegraph at once to Bresser,” said Frederick, “to send on
disinfectants.”
What happened immediately after this I am no longer able to set down in
detail, because the scene at the breakfast-table was the last which at
that time I entered in the red book. I can only tell the events of the
next few days from memory. Fear and anxiety filled us all--yes, all.
Who, in a time of epidemic, could help trembling when living amongst
those dear to him? For the sword of Damocles was always suspended over
the dear one’s head, and even to die oneself, so terribly and so
uselessly, who is there that such a thought would not fill with horror?
The chief proof of courage consists in _this_: not to think about it.
To flee? The idea had occurred to myself also, so as to get my little
Rudolf into a safe place.
My father, in spite of all his fatalism, insisted on flight for the
others. The whole family were to be off next day. He alone determined on
remaining, in order not to abandon his household and the inhabitants of
the village in their danger. Frederick declared in the most decisive
manner his determination to remain, and this involved at once my
decision. I would never voluntarily leave my husband.
Aunt Mary with the two girls and with Otto and Rudolf were to depart as
quickly as possible--whither? That was not yet settled. In the first
place, to Hungary--as far away as possible. The _fiancées_ did not make
any opposition whatever, but were busy in helping to pack. To die, when
the near future promised the fulfilment of the warm desires of love,
_i.e._, a tenfold delight in living, would be to die tenfold.
The boxes had been brought into the dining-room, so that with the united
assistance of all the work might go on quicker. I was bringing a package
of Rudolf’s clothes under my arm.
“Why does not your maid do that?” asked my father.
“I do not know where Netty has got to. I have rung for her several
times, and she does not come, so I prefer to wait on myself.”
“You spoil your people,” said my father angrily, and he gave orders to a
footman to look for the girl everywhere and bring her there immediately.
After a time the man who had been sent returned, looking confused.
“Netty is lying down in her room. She is--she has--she is----”
“Well, can’t you speak?” thundered my father. “What is the matter with
her?”
“She is already--quite black.”
A cry burst out of all our mouths. So the horrible spectre was already
present in our own very house.
Now, what should we do? Could one leave the poor girl to die unaided?
But whoever went near her brought death on himself almost certainly, and
not only on himself, he spread it again more widely among the rest. Ah!
a house like that, into which the pest has penetrated, is like one
encircled by robbers, or as if it were in flames; everywhere and in
every corner and place, at every step and move, Death is grinning at
you.
“Fetch the doctor immediately,” was my father’s order. “And you,
children, hurry your departure.”
“The doctor went back to town an hour ago,” was the servant’s reply to
my father’s direction.
“Oh, dear! I feel so ill,” now cried Lilly, and she turned pale to her
very lips, and clutched at the arm of her chair.
We ran to her: “What is the matter with you?”--“Don’t be foolish”--“It
is only fear”.
But it was not fear, there was no doubt what it was. We had to carry the
poor thing to her room, where she was seized at once with violent
vomiting and the other symptoms. This was the second case of cholera in
the château in this same day.
It was horrible to see my poor sister’s sufferings. And no doctor at
hand! Frederick was the only one who could perform the duty of one, as
well as he might. He ordered what was wanted--warm fomentations, mustard
poultices to the stomach and the legs, ice in fragments, champagne.
Nothing did any good. These means, which are sufficient for slight
attacks of cholera, could not save in this case. But at least they gave
the patient and the bystanders the comfort of knowing that _something_
was being done. When the attacks had subsided, the cramps followed,
quiverings and tearings of the whole frame till the very bones cracked.
The poor thing tried to lament, but could not, for her voice failed,
the skin turned blue and cold, the breath stopped.
My father was running up and down, wringing his hands. Once I put myself
in his way.
“This is war, father,” I said. “Will not you curse it?”
He shook me off and gave no reply.
In ten hours Lilly was dead. Netty, my poor lady’s maid had died
before--alone, in her room. We were all of us busy about Lilly, and of
the servants, none had ventured to go near one who had “already turned
quite black”.
* * * * *
Meanwhile Dr. Bresser had arrived. He himself brought the medicines
which we had telegraphed for. I could have kissed his hands as he walked
into the midst of us to devote his self-sacrificing services to his old
friends. He at once took on himself the command of the establishment. He
had the two corpses carried into a remote chamber, barred up the rooms
in which the poor things had died, and made us all submit to a powerful
disinfecting process. An intense carbolic odour now penetrated all the
rooms, and to this day, whenever this smell meets me, those dreadful
days of cholera rise before my imagination.
The intended flight had to be postponed a second time. On the very day
of Lilly’s death, the carriage was standing ready which was to convey
away Aunt Mary, Rosa, Otto, and my little boy, when the coachman, seized
by the invisible destroyer, was forced to get off the coach-box again.
“Then I will drive you,” said my father, when the news was brought to
him. “Quick, is everything ready?”
Rosa came out. “Drive on,” she said, “but I must stop behind. I am going
Lilly’s way.”
And she spoke truth. The break of day dawned on this second young bride
too in the chamber of death.
Of course, in the horror of this new calamity, the departure of the
others was not carried out.
In the midst of my anguish, of my raging fear, the deepest scorn again
seized me for that gigantic folly which had voluntarily called forth so
great a calamity. My father, when Rosa’s corpse had been carried out,
had sunk on his knees, with his head against the wall.
I went to him, and took him by the arm. “Father,” I said, “this is war.”
No answer. “Father, do you hear? Now or never, will you now curse war?”
He, however, collected himself.
“You remind me of it--this misfortune shall be borne with a soldier’s
courage. It is not I alone, the whole country has to offer its sacrifice
of blood and tears.”
“What comfort then has come to the country from the sufferings of you
and your brethren? What comfort from the lost battles? What from these
two girls’ lives cut short? Father! Oh do me this kindness for the love
of me!--curse war! See here”--I drew him to a window, and just then a
black coffin was being brought on a car into the courtyard--“See here;
that is for our Lilly, and to-morrow another such for our Rosa, and the
day after perhaps a third; and why, why?”
“Because God has willed it so, my child.”
“God--always God. All that, however, is folly. All savagery, all the
arbitrary action of men, hiding itself under the shield of God’s will.”
“Do not blaspheme, Martha! Do not blaspheme now when God’s chastening
hand is so visibly----”
A footman came into the room.
“Your excellency, the carpenter will not carry the coffin into the
chamber where the countesses are lying, and no one will venture into
it.”
“Not you, either, coward?”
“I could not alone.”
“Then I will help you. I will myself see to my daughters;” and he strode
to the door.
“Back,” he cried to me, as I was following him; “you must not go with
me. You must not die as well as me--think of your child.”
What could I do? I hesitated. That is the most torturing thing in such
circumstances--not to know at all _where_ one’s duty lies. If one pays
to the sick and the dead the loving service which one’s heart yearns to
do, then one spreads the germs of the evil wider again, and brings
danger on the others who have as yet been spared. One would be willing
to sacrifice oneself; but one knows that in risking this one risks
sacrificing others also.
In such a dilemma there is only one helpful way--to give up life, not
one’s own merely, but also that of all one’s dear ones--to assume that
all is done with, and for each one to stand by the other in his hours of
suffering, as long as they last. Looking backward, looking forward--all
that must cease. Together! On the deck of a sinking ship, no means of
escape--“let us hold each other in our arms--close, close as possible,
to the last moment; and adieu, fair world.”
This resignation had come over us all. The plan of flight had been given
up; every one went to the bed of every patient, and of every one who had
died. Even Bresser no longer tried to keep us from this, the only humane
way of acting. His neighbourhood, his energetic, unresting rule gave us
a certain feeling of security. Our sinking ship was at least not without
a captain.
Oh that cholera week in Grumitz! Over twenty years have passed since
then, but I still feel a shudder through my bones and marrow when I
think of it. Tears, wailing, heart-rending death-scenes, the smell of
carbolic acid, the cracking of the bones of those seized with cramp, the
disgusting symptoms, the incessant tolling of the death-bell, the
interment--no, the huddling away--of the dead, for in such cases there
is no funeral pomp. All the order of life given up; no meal times--the
cook was dead. No going to sleep at nights. Here and there a morsel
snatched standing, and a doze as one sat in one’s chair in the morning
hours. Outside, as though from the irony of indifferent Nature, the
most splendid summer weather; the joyous song of the blackbird, the
luxuriant colours of the flower-beds. In the village, death without
cessation. All the Prussians who were left behind were dead.
“I met the man who buries the dead to-day,” said Francis, our _valet de
chambre_, “as he was coming back from the churchyard with his empty
carriage. ‘One or two more taken there?’ I asked. ‘Oh yes; six or
seven--about half-a-dozen every day, sometimes even more; and it does
happen sometimes that one or other gives a grunt or so inside the hearse
there; but that makes no matter, in he goes into the trench, the d----d
Prussian.”
Next day the monster died himself, and another man had to take up his
office--at that time the most laborious in the place. The post brought
nothing but sorrow--news from all quarters of the ravages of the pest;
and love letters--letters to remain for ever unanswered--from Prince
Henry, who knew nothing of what was going on. To Conrad I had sent a
single line to prepare him for the awful event--“Lilly very ill”. He
could not come immediately, the service detained him. It was not till
the fourth day that the poor fellow rushed into the house.
“Lilly!” he cried. “Is it true?” He had heard of the misfortune as he
was on the way.
We said yes.
He remained unnaturally still and tearless.
“I have loved her many years,” was all he said, low to him self. Then
aloud: “Where is she lying? In the churchyard? Good-bye. She is waiting
for me.”
“Shall I come with you?” some one offered.
“No, I prefer going alone.”
He went, and we saw him no more. On the grave of his sweetheart he put a
bullet through his brains.
So ended Conrad Count Althaus, captain-lieutenant in the Fourth Regiment
of Hussars, in his twenty-seventh year.
At another time the tragic nature of this event would have produced a
very shocking effect; but now, how many young officers had not the war
carried off immediately, this one only indirectly! And at the moment
when we heard of his deed a new misfortune had occurred in our midst
which called for all the anguish of our hearts. Otto, my poor father’s
adored and only son, was seized by the destroying angel. His sufferings
lasted the whole night and the next day, with alternations of hope and
despair; about 7 P.M. all was over. My father threw himself on the
corpse with such a thrilling shriek that it pealed through the whole
house. We could hardly tear him from the dead body. And oh! the cries of
agony that now ensued; for hours and hours long the old man poured out
howling, roaring, rattling shrieks of desperation. His son--his
pride--his Otto--his all!
To this outburst succeeded on a sudden a stiff, dumb apathy. He had not
had the strength to attend the burial of his darling. He lay on a sofa,
motionless, and, it almost seemed, unconscious. Bresser ordered him to
be undressed and put to bed.
After an hour he seemed to awake. Aunt Mary, Frederick and I were at his
side. For a time he looked about him with a questioning look, and then
sat up and tried to speak. He could not, however, pronounce a word and
was struggling for breath, with a puzzled face of anguish. Then he began
to shake and to throw himself about, as if he were attacked by those
terrible cramps which are the last symptoms of the cholera, though he
had not shown any of the other symptoms of it. At last he got out one
word--“Martha!”
I fell on my knees at his bedside.
“Father, my poor, dear father!”
He held his hands over my head.
“Your wish,” said he with difficulty, “may be fulfilled. I curse--I
cur----”
He could get no further and sank back on his pillow.
In the meantime, Bresser had come in, and, in answer to our anxious
questions, gave us his opinion that a spasm of the heart had caused my
father’s death.
“The most terrible thing,” said Aunt Mary after we had buried him, “is
that he departed with a curse on his lips.”
“Don’t trouble about that, aunt,” I said, to console her. “If that curse
fell from the lips of everybody--yes, of everybody--it would be a great
blessing to humanity.”
* * * * *
Such was the cholera week at Grumitz. In the space of seven days nine
inhabitants of the château had been snatched away: my father, Lilly,
Rosa, Otto, my maid Netty, the cook, the coachman, and two grooms. In
the village, during the same time, over eighty persons died.
Stated in this dry way all this sounds like a noteworthy statistical
fact, or if it stands recorded in a tale book, like an extravagant play
of the author’s fancy. But it is neither so dry as the one nor so
romantically terrible as the other. It is a cold, intelligible fact,
full of sadness.
It was not Grumitz alone in our neighbourhood that was so hardly hit.
Whoever chooses to search the annals of the neighbouring villages and
châteaux may find there plenty of similar cases of enormous calamity.
For example, there is Schloss Stockern, in the vicinity of the little
town of Horn. Of the family which inhabited it, during the time from the
9th to the 13th of August, 1866, and also after the departure of the
Prussian troops quartered there, four members of the family--Rudolf aged
twenty, his sisters Emily and Bertha, and his uncle Candide; and,
besides them, five of the servants succumbed to the plague. The youngest
daughter, Pauline von Engelshofen, was spared. She afterwards married a
Baron Suttner, and she, even now, still tells with a shudder the tale of
the cholera week at Stockern.
At that time such a resignation to woe and death had come over me that I
was in daily expectation that Death, whose characters had been stamped
on the land for the last two months, would carry off myself and my loved
ones. My Frederick, my Rudolf; I actually wept for them in
anticipation. And yet, along with all this, and in the midst of my
trouble, I still had sweet moments. Such were when leaning on my
husband’s breast, and encircled by his loving arms, I could pour my
tears out on his faithful heart. How gently then would he speak words to
me, not of consolation, but of fellow-feeling and love; so that my own
heart warmed and expanded to them. No, the world is not so bad, I was
compelled against my will to think. The world is not all lamentation and
cruelty. Compassion and love are alive in it--at present, it is true,
only in individual souls, not as an all-pervading law and a prevailing
normal condition. Still they are _present_; and just as these feelings
glow in us twain, sweetening, by means of their gentle contact, even
this time of suffering, just as they dwell in many other, nay, in _most_
other souls, so they will one day come to an outbreak, and will dominate
the general relations of the human family. The future belongs to
goodness.