Lay Down Your Arms: The Autobiography of Martha von Tilling
by Bertha von Suttner · English · Gutenberg #49294 · 882,412 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Lay Down Your Arms: The Autobiography of Martha von Tilling
Author: Bertha von Suttner
Translator: T. Holmes
Release date: June 27, 2015 [eBook #49294]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARTHA VON TILLING ***
LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS.
LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
MARTHA VON TILLING
BY
BERTHA VON SUTTNER
AUTHORISED TRANSLATION BY
T. HOLMES
REVISED BY THE AUTHORESS
_New Impression_
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK
LONDON, BOMBAY, CALCUTTA AND MADRAS
1914
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
When I was requested by the Committee of the International Arbitration
and Peace Association, of which I have the honour to be a Member, to
undertake the translation of the novel entitled _Die Waffen Nieder_, I
considered it my duty to consent; and I have found the labour truly a
delight. Baroness Suttner’s striking tale has had so great a success on
the Continent of Europe that it seems singular that no complete
translation into English should yet have appeared. An incomplete version
was published some time since in the United States, without the sanction
of the authoress; but it gives no just idea of the work.
Apart from its value as a work of fiction--great as that is--the book
has a transcendent interest for the Society with which I am connected
from its bearing on the question of war in general and of the present
state of Europe in particular. We English-speaking people, whether in
England, in the Colonies, or in the United States, being ourselves in no
immediate danger of seeing our homes invaded, and our cities laid under
contribution by hostile armies, are apt to forget how terribly the
remembrance of such calamities, and the constant threat of their
recurrence, haunt the lives of our Continental brethren. Madame
Suttner’s vivid pages will enable those of us who have not seen anything
of the ravages of war, or felt the griefs and anxieties of
non-combatants, to realise the state in which people live on the
Continent of Europe, under the grim “shadow of the sword,” with
constantly increasing demands on the treasure accumulated by their
labour, and on their still dearer treasure--their children--drawn into
the ravenous maw of the Conscription, to meet the ever-increasing
demands of war, which seems daily drawing nearer and nearer, in spite of
the protestations made by every Government of its anxiety for peace.
What can we expect to change this terrible condition except the
formation of a healthy public opinion? And what can more powerfully
contribute to its formation than a clear conception both of the horrors
and sufferings that have attended the great wars waged in our times, and
also of the inadequacy of the reasons, at least the ostensible reasons,
for their commencement, and the ease with which they might have been
avoided, if their reasons had been indeed their causes? This work
appears to me of especial value, as setting this forth more plainly than
a formal treatise could do, and it is towards the formation of such a
public opinion that we hope it may contribute. The dawn of a better day
in respect of war is plain enough in our country. We have advanced far
indeed from the state of things that existed a century ago, when
Coleridge could indignantly say of England:--
’Mid thy herds and thy cornfields secure thou hast stood
And joined the wild yelling of famine and blood!
England since then has given and is giving many gratifying proofs of her
sincere desire for peace, and her readiness to submit her claims to
peaceful arbitration. Is it too much to hope that we may see our
country joining in some well-considered scheme for general treaties of
Arbitration and for the institution of an International Court? And may
we not hope that our influence, as that of a nation not implicated in
the mad race of armaments, and yet not removed from the area of European
war, may avail to bring the question of disarmament before an
International Conference and thus introduce the twentieth century into a
world in which there will be some brighter prospect than that
War shall endless war still breed?
Let as trust that this may not be found quite an idle dream, and that we
may without self-delusion look forward to a more happy era, and join the
cry of Baroness Suttner’s Rudolf--“Es lebe die Zukunft”.
HAIL TO THE FUTURE!
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
The rapid sale of the first edition of this translation has encouraged
the Association at whose request it was made to endeavour to make it
more widely known to the various English-speaking populations, by
printing a larger edition at a lower price. It is hoped, also, that the
enlarged circulation of a work so graphic, and written by one who has so
thoroughly studied the real aspects of war, as seen by those on the
spot, may lead not so much to sentimental emotions and vague protests,
as to a business-like discussion of the means by which the resort to war
may be at any rate rendered more and more infrequent. The English
Government has lately given repeated and practical proofs of its sincere
desire to substitute the peaceful and rational method of arbitration for
the rough, cruel, and uncertain decision of force; and the conspicuous
success of that method hitherto--though tried under circumstances not
altogether favourable--must have prepared thinking men for the question:
“Why cannot some scheme for the formation of an International Tribunal
of Arbitration be formed and debated among the Powers who, by taking
part in the Congress at Paris after the Crimean War, formally admitted
the principle, and who have already seen it successfully applied in
practice”? To this question, which has been frequently asked, no
satisfactory answer has yet been given, nor to the further question why
our Government should not introduce the subject to the great Powers,
after showing so unmistakably its adherence to the principle. People
differ, and, probably, will always differ, as to the light in which they
regard war. A very small and rapidly diminishing minority regard it as a
good thing in itself--most as an evil which in our present stage of
civilisation cannot always be avoided; some as a crime formally
prohibited by the moral law and the Christian religion. All of the two
latter classes ought to join in any practical steps for diminishing the
occasions of war; and of these the one which is most within the scope of
politicians is the promotion of International Arbitration. The
Association to which I belong has published this work in the confident
hope that its circulation will aid in hastening this much-needed reform.
THE TRANSLATOR.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
Girlish days. My first marriage and birth of my first child. My
husband summoned to the Italian war of 1859 1
CHAPTER II.
Period of war. A wife’s anxieties. Terrible news 18
CHAPTER III.
Years of widowhood. Re-entry into society. Introduction to Baron
Tilling. Manner of my husband’s death 40
CHAPTER IV.
Progress of my friendship for Tilling. His mother’s death. Growth
of love 59
CHAPTER V.
Doubts and fears. Engagement to Tilling 84
CHAPTER VI.
Marriage and garrison life. Outbreak of the Schleswig-Holstein
war. History of its causes 116
CHAPTER VII.
My husband ordered off to the war. Premature confinement and
deadly peril. Letters from the seat of war 141
CHAPTER VIII.
Re-union. Financial ruin 164
CHAPTER IX.
Approach of the Austro-Prussian war. The preliminaries to it.
War declared 187
CHAPTER X.
Early period of the war 215
CHAPTER XI.
War-sketches by a soldier who abhors war 231
CHAPTER XII.
After Königgrätz. My experiences in a journey over the Bohemian
battlefields in search of my husband 245
CHAPTER XIII.
Prussian advance on Vienna. Life at Grumitz 283
CHAPTER XIV.
Festivities at Grumitz, followed by an outbreak of cholera which
sweeps off nearly the whole family 303
CHAPTER XV.
Period of mourning. Discussion with a military chaplain. Death
of Aunt Mary 327
CHAPTER XVI.
Threat of war between France and Prussia. Arbitration. Life in
Paris during the exhibition of 1868 and afterwards in 1870.
Birth of a daughter 356
CHAPTER XVII.
Approach of war between France and Prussia. We linger in Paris.
War breaks out 380
CHAPTER XVIII.
The Franco-German war. Departure from Paris prevented by
illness. Siege of Paris. My husband shot by the Communards 396
CHAPTER XIX.
The end. “Hail to the future!” 420
LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS.
CHAPTER I.
_Girlish days and girlish fancies.--Youthful enthusiasm for
war.--Education.--“Coming out.”--An important visit to
Marienbad.--Love at first sight.--Marriage.--A first child.--The
baby-soldier.--Threatenings of war.--Declaration of war with
Sardinia.--My husband is to see active service._
At seventeen I was a thoroughly overwrought creature. This perhaps I
should no longer be aware of to-day, if it were not that my diaries have
been preserved. But in them the enthusiasms long since fled, the
thoughts which have never been thought again, the feelings never again
felt have immortalised themselves, and thus I can judge at this present
time what exalted notions had stuck in my silly, pretty head. Even this
prettiness, of which my glass has now little left to say, is revealed to
me by the portraits of long ago. I can figure to myself what an envied
person the Countess Martha Althaus--youthful, thought beautiful, and
surrounded by all kinds of luxury--must have been. These remarkable
diaries, however, bound in their red covers, point more to melancholy
than to joy in life. The question I now ask myself is, Was I really so
silly as not to recognise the advantages of my position or was I only so
enthusiastic as to believe that only melancholy feelings were elevated
and worthy of being expressed in poetical form and as such enrolled in
the red volumes? My lot seems not to have contented me--for thus is it
written:--
“O Joan of Arc! heroic virgin favoured of heaven! could I be like to
thee--to wave the oriflamme, to crown my king, and then die--for the
fatherland, the beloved!”
No opportunity offered itself to me of realising these modest views of
life. Again, to be torn to pieces in the circus by a lion as a Christian
martyr, another vocation for which I longed--see entry of September 19,
1853--was not to be compassed by me, and so I had plainly to suffer
under the consciousness that the great deeds after which my soul
thirsted must remain ever unaccomplished, that my life, considered
fundamentally, was a failure. Ah! why had I not come into the world as a
boy? (another fruitless reproach against destiny which often found
expression in the red volumes); in that case I would have been able to
strive after and to achieve “the exalted”. Of female heroism history
affords but few examples. How seldom do we succeed in having the Gracchi
for our sons, or in carrying our husbands out to the Weinsberg Gates, or
in being saluted by sabre-brandishing Magyars with the shout, “Hurrah
for Maria Theresa our king”. But when one is a man, then one need only
gird on the sword and start off to win fame and laurels--win for oneself
a throne like Cromwell, or the empire of the world, like Bonaparte. I
recollect that the highest conception of human greatness seemed to me to
be embodied in warlike heroism. For scholars, poets, explorers, I had
indeed a sort of respect, but only the winners of battles inspired me
with real _admiration_. These were indeed the chief pillars of history,
the rulers of the fate of countries; these were in importance and in
elevation near to the Divinity, as elevated above all other folk as the
peaks of the Alps and Himalayas above the turf and flowers of the
valley.
From all which I need not conclude that I possessed a heroic nature. The
fact was simply that I was capable of enthusiasm and impassioned, and
so I was of course passionately enthusiastic for that which was most
highly accounted of by my school-books and my _entourage_.
My father was a general in the Austrian army, and had fought at Custozza
under “Father Radetzky,” whom he venerated to superstition. What eternal
campaigning stories had I to listen to! Dear papa was so proud of his
warlike experiences, and spoke with such satisfaction of the campaigns
in which he had fought, that I felt an involuntary pity for every man
who possessed no such reminiscences. But what a drawback for the female
sex to be excluded from this most magnificent display of the manly
feeling of honour and duty! If anything came to my ears about the
efforts of women after equality--and of this in my youth but little was
heard, and then usually in a tone of contempt and condemnation--I
conceived the wish for emancipation only in one direction, _viz._, that
women also should have the right to carry arms and take the field. Ah,
how beautiful was it to read in history about a Semiramis or a Catherine
II. “She carried on war with this or that neighbouring state--she
conquered this or that country!”
Speaking generally it is history which, as our youth are instructed, is
the chief source of the admiration of war. From thence it is stamped on
the childish mind that the Lord of armies is constantly decreeing
battles, that these are, as it were, the vehicle upon which the destiny
of nations is carried on through the ages; that they are the fulfilment
of an inevitable law of nature and must always occur from time to time
like storms at sea or earthquakes; that terror and woe are indeed
connected with them; but the latter is fully counterpoised, for the
commonwealth by the importance of the results, for individuals by the
blaze of glory which may be won in them, or even by the consciousness of
the fulfilment of the most elevated duty. Can there be a more glorious
death than that on the field of honour, a nobler immortality than that
of the hero? All this comes out clear and unanimous in all school-books
of “readings for the use of schools,” where, besides the formal
history, which is only represented as a concatenation of military
events, even the separate tales and poems always manage to tell only of
heroic deeds of arms. This is a part of the patriotic system of
education. Since out of every scholar a defender of his country has to
be formed, therefore the enthusiasm even of the child must be aroused
for this its first duty as a citizen; his spirit must be hardened
against the natural horror which the terrors of war might awaken, by
passing over as quickly as possible the story of the most fearful
massacres and butcheries as of something quite common and necessary, and
laying meanwhile all possible stress on the ideal side of this ancient
national custom; and it is in this way they have succeeded in forming a
race eager for battle and delighting in war.
The girls--who indeed are not to take the field--are educated out of the
same books as are prepared for the military training of the boys, and so
in the female youth arises the same conception which exhausts itself in
envy that they have nothing to do with war and in admiration for the
military class. What pictures of horror out of all the battles on earth,
from the Biblical and Macedonian and Punic Wars down to the Thirty
Years’ War and the wars of Napoleon, were brought before us tender
maidens, who in all other things were formed to be gentle and mild; how
we saw there cities burnt and the inhabitants put to the sword and the
conquered trodden down--and all this was a real enjoyment; and of course
through this heaping up and repetition of the horrors the perception
that they were horrors becomes blunted, everything which belongs to the
category of war comes no longer to be regarded from the point of view of
humanity, and receives a perfectly peculiar mystico-historico-political
consecration. War must be--it is the source of the highest dignities and
honours--_that_ the girls see very well, and they have had also to learn
by heart the poems and tirades in which war is magnified. And thus
originate the Spartan mothers, and the “mothers of the colours,” and the
frequent invitations to the cotillon which are given to a corps of
officers when it is the turn of the ladies to choose partners.[1] I was
not like so many of my companions in rank educated in a convent, but
under the direction of governesses and masters in my father’s house. My
mother I lost early. Our aunt, an old canoness, filled the place of a
mother to us children--for there were three younger children. We spent
the winter months in Vienna, the summer on a family estate in Lower
Austria.
I can remember that I gave my governesses and masters much satisfaction,
for I was an industrious and ambitious scholar, gifted with an accurate
memory. When I could not, as I have remarked, satisfy my ambition by
winning battles like a heroine, I contented myself with passing
judgments on them in my lessons, and extorting admiration by my zeal for
learning. In the French and English languages I was nearly perfect. In
geology and astronomy I made as much progress as was ordinarily
accessible in the programme of the education of a girl, but in the
subject of history I learned more than was required of me. Out of the
library of my father I fetched the ponderous works of history, in which
I studied in my leisure hours. I always thought myself a little bit
cleverer when I could enrich my memory with an event, a name, or a date
out of past times. Against pianoforte-playing--which was put down in the
plan of education--I made a resolute resistance. I possessed neither
talent nor desire for music, and felt that in it, for me, no
satisfaction of my ambition would be found. I begged so long and so
pressingly that my precious time, which I might spend on my other
studies, should not be shortened by this meaningless strumming, that my
good father let me off this musical servitude, to the great grief of my
aunt, whose opinion was that without pianoforte-playing there could be
no proper education.
On March 10, 1857, I celebrated my seventeenth birthday. “Seventeen
already!” runs the entry of that date in my diary. This “already” is in
itself a poem. There is no commentary added, but probably I meant by it
“and as yet nothing done for immortality”. These red volumes do me
excellent service now, when I want to recall the recollections of a
life. They render it possible for me to depict even down to their
minutest details the feelings of the past, which would have remained in
my memory only as faded outlines, and to reproduce whole trains of
thought long forgotten, and long-silent speeches.
In the following carnival I was to be “brought out”. This prospect
delighted me, but not to such an extraordinary degree as is usually the
case with young girls. My spirit yearned for something higher than the
triumphs of the ballroom. What was it I yearned for? A question that I
could have hardly answered to myself. Probably for love, though I was
not aware of it. All those glowing dreams of aspiration and ambition
which swell the hearts of young men and women, and which long to work
themselves out all sorts of ways--as thirst for knowledge, love of
travel or adventure--are in reality for the most part only the
unrecognised activity of the growing instinct of love.
This summer my aunt was ordered a course of the waters at Marienbad. She
was pleased to take me with her. Though my official introduction into
the so-called “world” was not to take place till the following winter, I
was yet allowed to take part in some little dances at the Kurhaus, with
an idea also of exercising me in dancing and conversation, so that I
might not be altogether too shy and awkward in entering on my first
carnival season.
But what happened at the first party which I visited? A serious, vital
love affair. It was of course a lieutenant of hussars. The civilians in
the hall appeared to me like cockchafers to butterflies compared to the
soldiers. And of the wearers of uniforms present the hussars were every
way the most splendid; and, finally, of all the hussars Count Arno
Dotzky was the most dazzling. Over six feet high, with black curly hair,
twisted moustaches, glittering white teeth, dark eyes, with such a
penetrating and tender expression--in fine, at his question, “Have you
the cotillon free, countess?” I felt that there might be other triumphs
as exciting as the banner-waving of the Maid of Orleans, or the
sceptre-waving of the great Catherine. And he at the age of twenty-two
felt something very similar as he flew round the room in the waltz with
the prettiest girl in the hall (for one may say so thirty years
afterwards)--at any rate he was probably thinking, “To possess thee,
thou sweet creature, would outweigh a field-marshal’s baton”.
“Why, Martha, Martha,” remonstrated my aunt, as I sank breathless on the
seat at her side, covering her head-dress with the floating muslins of
my robe.
“Oh, I beg your pardon, auntie,” said I, and sat more upright. “I could
not help it.”
“I was not finding fault with you for that. My blame was for your
behaviour with that hussar. You ought not to cling so in dancing, and
who would ever look so close into a gentleman’s eyes?”
I blushed deep. Had I committed some unmaidenly offence, and might the
Incomparable have conceived a bad idea of me?
I was relieved of this anxious doubt before the ball was over, for in
the course of the supper waltz the Incomparable whispered to me: “Listen
to me. I cannot help it--you must know it even to-day--I love you.”
This sounded a little more sweet than Joan’s famous “voices”. However,
while the dance was going on I could not give him any reply. He must
have seen this, for he came to a stop. We were standing in an empty
corner of the room, and could continue the conversation without being
overheard.
“Speak, countess; what have I to hope?”
“I do not understand you,” was my insincere reply.
“Perhaps you do not believe in love at first sight? I myself held it a
fable till now, but to-day I have experienced the truth of it.”
How my heart beat! but I was silent.
“I have leapt head over heels into my fate,” he continued. “You or no
one! Decide then for my bliss or my death, for without you I neither can
nor will live. Will you be mine?”
To so direct a question I was obliged to give some reply. I sought for
some extremely diplomatic phrase which without cutting off all hope
would sacrifice nothing of my dignity, but I got out nothing more than a
tremulous whispered “yes”.
“Then may I to-morrow propose for your hand to your aunt, and write to
Count Althaus?”
“Yes” again, this time a little firmer.
“Oh, what happiness! So at first sight you love me too?”
This time I only answered with my eyes, but they, I fancy, spoke the
plainest “yes”.
On my eighteenth birthday I was married, after having been first
introduced into society, and presented to the empress on my engagement.
After our wedding we went for a tour in Italy. For this purpose Arno had
got a long leave of absence; of retirement from the military service
nothing was ever said. It is true we both possessed a tolerable
property, but my husband loved his profession, and I agreed with him. I
was proud of my handsome hussar officer, and looked forward with
satisfaction to the time when he would rise to the rank of major,
colonel, even general. Who knows? Perhaps he might even be called to a
higher fortune; perhaps he might shine in the glorious history of his
country as a great military commander!
That the red volumes exhibit a break just during the happy wedding time
and the honeymoon is now to me a great grief. The joys of those days
would indeed have been evaporated, dispersed, scattered to the winds,
even if I had entered them there, but at any rate a reflection of them
would have been kept bound tight between the leaves. But no! for my
grief and my pain I could not find complaints enough--enough dashes and
notes of exclamation. All grievous things had to be cried over
carefully before the world, present and to come, but the happy hours I
enjoyed in silence. I was not proud of my happiness, and so gave no one,
not even myself, in my diary, any information about it, but sufferings
and longings I looked on as a kind of merit, and so made much of them.
But how true a mirror these red volumes present of my sad experiences,
while in the happy times the leaves are quite blank! It is too silly! It
is as if during a walk a man were to make a collection to bring home
with him, and to collect of all the things he found by the way only
those that were ugly, as if he filled his botanic case with nothing but
thorns, thistles, worms and toads, and left the flowers and butterflies
behind.
Still I recollect that it was a grand time, a kind of fairy dream. I had
indeed everything that the heart of a young woman could wish: love,
wealth, rank, fortune, and most of it so new, so surprising, so
incredible! We loved each other--my Arno and I--devotedly, with all the
fire of our youth, abounding as it was in life and scenes of beauty. And
it so happened that my darling hussar was besides a worthy,
good-hearted, noble-minded young gentleman, with the education of a man
of the world and a cheerful temper--it happened so; for he might as
well, for anything that the ball at Marienbad could testify to the
contrary, have been a vicious, rough man--and as it happened also I was
a moderately sensible, good-hearted creature; for he might just as well
at the said ball have fallen in love with a pretty, capricious, little
goose. And so it came about that we were completely happy, and that as a
consequence the red-bound book of lamentation remained empty for a long
while.
Stop; here I do find a joyous entry--Raptures over the new dignity of
motherhood. On the 1st of January, 1859 (was not _that_ a new-year’s
gift?), a little son was born to us. Of course this event awakened in us
as much astonishment and pride as if we were the first pair to which
anything of the kind had happened; and this accounts also for the
resumption of the diary. Of this wonder, and of this dignity of mine,
the world of the future had to be informed. Besides, the theme
“youthful motherhood” is so extremely well adapted for art and
literature. It belongs to the class of the best sung and most carefully
painted subjects; besides, it may be treated mystically and sacredly,
touchingly and pathetically, simply and affectionately--in short,
immensely poetically. To nurse this disposition all possible collections
of poems, illustrated journals, picture galleries, and current phrases
of rapture, such as “mother’s love,” “mother’s happiness,” “mother’s
pride,” contribute their power, just as the school-books do to nurse the
admiration for war. The highest pitch of deification which has been
reached next to the adoration of heroes (see Carlyle’s _Hero Worship_)
is reached by the multitude in “baby worship”; and of course in this
also I was not left behind. My little charming Ruru was to me the
mightiest wonder of the world. Ah, my son! my grown-up, stately Rudolf,
what I feel for you is such that against it that childish baby-wonder
loses colour, against it that blind, apish, devouring love of the young
mother is as insignificant as the child himself in swaddling clothes is
insignificant by the side of the grown man.
The young father was not less proud of his successor, and built on him
the fairest schemes for the future. “What will he be?” This question,
not as yet a very pressing one, was nevertheless often discussed over
Ruru’s cradle and always decided unanimously--a soldier. Sometimes it
awoke a weak protest on the mother’s part. “But suppose he should meet
with any accident in a war?” “Ah, bah!” was the answer to this
objection, “every one must die when and where it is appointed him.” Ruru
was also not to remain the only son; of the following sons one might,
please God, be brought up as a diplomatist, another as a country
gentleman, a third as a priest; but the eldest, he must choose his
father’s and grandfather’s profession--the noblest profession of all. He
must be a soldier.
And so it was settled. Ruru, as soon as he was two months old, was
promoted by us to be lance-corporal.[2] Well, as all crown princes
immediately they are born are named “proprietors” of some regiment, why
should not we also decorate our little one with an imaginary rank? It
was only a regular joke this playing at soldiers with our baby.
On April 1, as the third monthly recurrence of his birthday (for to keep
only the anniversaries would have given too few opportunities for
festivity), Ruru was promoted from lance-corporal to corporal. But on
the same day there happened also something more mournful--something that
made my heart heavy, and obliged me to relieve it into the red volumes.
There had been now for a long time a certain black point visible on the
political horizon, about the possible increase of which the liveliest
commentaries were made in all journals and at all private parties. I had
up to that time thought nothing about it. My husband and my father and
their military friends might have often said in my hearing, “There will
soon be something to settle with Italy,” but it glanced off my
understanding. I had little time or inclination to trouble myself about
politics. So that however eagerly people about me might debate about the
relations between Sardinia and Austria, or the behaviour of Napoleon
III., of whose help Cavour had assured himself by taking part in the
Crimean War, or however constantly they might talk about the tension
which this alliance had called forth between us and our Italian
neighbours, I took no notice of it.
But on April 1 my husband said to me very seriously:--
“Do you know, dear, that it will soon break out?”
“What will break out, darling?”
“The war with Sardinia.”
I was terrified. “My God! that would be terrible! And will you have to
go?”
“I hope so.”
“How can you say such a thing? Hope to leave your wife and child!”
“If duty calls.”
“One might reconcile oneself to it; but to hope--which means wish--that
such a bitter duty should arise!”
“Bitter! A rattling jolly war like that must be something glorious! You
are a soldier’s wife; don’t forget that.”
I fell on his neck. “O my dear husband, be content. I also can be brave!
How often have I sympathised with the heroes and heroines of history!
What an elevating feeling it must be to go into battle! If I only might
fight, fall, or conquer at your side!”
“Bravely spoken, little wife, but nonsense! Your place is here, by the
cradle of the little one, who also is to become a defender of his
country when he is grown up. Your place is at our household hearth. It
is to protect this, and guard it from any hostile attack, to preserve
peace for our homes and our wives, that we men have to go to battle.”
I don’t know why, but these words, which, or something of the same sort,
I had often before heard and read with assent, this time seemed to me to
be in a sense mere “phrases”. There was certainly no hearth menaced, no
horde of barbarians at the gate, merely a political tension between two
cabinets. So, if my husband was all on fire to rush into the war, it was
not so much from the pressing need of defending his wife, child, and
country, but much rather his delight in the march out, which promised
change and adventure--his seeking for distinction and promotion. “Oh,
yes,” was my conclusion from this train of thought, “it is ambition--a
noble, honourable ambition--delight in the brave discharge of duty.”
It was good of him that he was rejoicing in the _chance_ of being
obliged to take the field--for as yet there was assuredly no certainty.
Perhaps the war might not break out at all, and even in case they came
to blows, who knows whether it would be Arno’s fate to be sent off?--the
whole army does not always see the enemy. No, this splendid, perfect
happiness which fate had just built as a snug house for me, it was
impossible that the same fate should roughly shatter it to pieces! “O
Arno, my dearly-loved husband! it would be horrible to know that you
are in danger!” These and similar outpourings fill the leaves of the
diary which were written in those days.
From this period the red volumes are full for some time of political
stuff. Louis Napoleon is an intriguer; Austria cannot long be only a
spectator. It is coming to war. Sardinia will be frightened at our
superior power, and give in. Peace is going to be maintained. My wishes,
despite of all theoretical admiration of the battles of the past, were,
of course, secretly directed to the preservation of peace, but the wish
of my spouse called openly for the other alternative. He did not say
anything out plainly, but he always communicated any news about the
increase of “the black spot” with sparkling eyes; while, on the
contrary, he always took note of such peaceful prospects as occurred now
and then (but, alas! they became always rarer) with a kind of dejection.
My father, also, was all on fire for the war. To conquer the Piedmontese
would be only child’s play; and, in support of this assertion, the
Radetzky anecdotes were poured out again. I heard the impending campaign
talked about always from the strategic point of view--_i.e._, a
balancing of the chances on the two sides; how and where the enemy would
be routed, and the advantages which would thereby accrue to “us”. The
humane point of view, _viz._, that whether lost or won every battle
demands innumerable sacrifices of blood and tears, was quite left out of
sight. The interests which were here in question were represented as
raised to such a height above any private destiny, that I felt ashamed
of the meanness of my way of thinking, if at times the thought occurred
to me: “Ah! what joy do the poor slain men, the poor cripples, the poor
widows, get out of the victory?” However, very soon the old school-book
dithyrambs came in again for an answer to all these despairing
questionings: “Glory offers recompense for all”. Still--suppose the
enemy wins? This question I propounded in the circle of my military
friends, but was ignominiously hissed down. The mere mention of the
possibility of a shadow of a doubt is in itself unpatriotic. To be
certain beforehand of one’s invincibility is a part of a soldier’s
duties; and, therefore, in her degree, of those of a loyal wife of a
lieutenant.
My husband’s regiment was quartered in Vienna. From our home there was a
view over the Prater, and from the window there was such a lovely
promise of summer over everything. It was a wonderful spring. The air
was warm and redolent of violets, and the fresh foliage sprouted out
more early than in other years. I was amusing myself without any anxiety
over the great processions in the Prater which were planned for the
following month. We had, for this purpose, procured a tasty little
equipage--a brake with a four-in-hand team of Hungarian horses. Even
already, in this splendid April weather, we kept driving almost daily in
the alleys of the Prater--but that was only a foretaste of the pleasure
peculiar to May. Ah! if the war had not broken in on all that!
“Now, thank God, at last this uncertainty is at an end,” cried my
husband one morning--April 19--on coming home from parade. “The
ultimatum has been sent.”
I shrieked out: “Eh, what? What does that mean?”
“It means that the last word of the diplomatic formalities, the one
which precedes the declaration of war, has been spoken. Our ultimatum to
Sardinia calls on Sardinia to disarm. She, of course, will take no
notice of it, and we march across the frontier.”
“Good God! But perhaps they may disarm?”
“Well, then, the quarrel would be at an end, and peace would continue.”
I fell on my knees. I could not help it. Silently, but still as
earnestly as if with a cry, there rose the prayer from my soul to heaven
for “Peace! peace!”
Arno raised me up.
“My silly child, what are you doing?”
I threw my arms round his neck and began to weep. It was no burst of
pain, for the misfortune was certainly as yet not decided on; but the
news had so shaken me that my nerves quivered, and that caused this
flood of tears.
“Martha, Martha, you will make me angry,” said Arno, reproachfully. “Is
this being my brave little soldier’s wife? Do you forget that you are a
general’s daughter, wife of a first lieutenant, and,” he concluded with
a smile, “mother of a corporal?”
“No, no, Arno. I do not comprehend myself. It was only a kind of
seizure. I am really myself ardent for military glory. But--I do not
know how it is--a little while ago everything was hanging on a single
word, which must by this time have been spoken--‘yes’ or ‘no’--in answer
to this ultimatum as it is called, and this ‘yes’ or ‘no’ is to decide
whether thousands must bleed and die--die in these sunny happy days of
spring--and so it came over me that the word of peace _must_ come, and I
could not help falling on my knees in prayer.”
“To inform the Almighty of the position of affairs, you dear little
goose!”
The house bell rang. I dried my eyes at once. Who could it be so early?
It was my father. He rushed in all in a hurry.
“Now, children,” he cried, all out of breath, throwing himself into an
arm-chair. “Have you heard the great news? The ultimatum----”
“I have just told my wife.”
“Tell me, dear papa, what you think,” I asked anxiously. “Will that
prevent the war?”
“I am not aware that an ultimatum ever prevented a war. It would indeed
be only prudent of this wretched rabble of Italians to give in and not
expose themselves to a second Novara. Ah! if good Father Radetzky had
not died last year I believe he would, in spite of his ninety years,
have put himself again at the head of his army, and, by God! I would
have marched along with him. We two have, I think, shown already how to
manage these foreign scum. But it seems they have not yet had enough of
it, the puppies! They want a second lesson. All right. Our
Lombardo-Venetian kingdom will get a handsome addition in the
Piedmontese territory, and I already look forward to the entry of our
troops into Turin.”
“But, papa, you speak just as if war were already declared, and you were
glad of it! But how if Arno has to go too?” And the tears were already
in my eyes again.
“That he will too--the enviable young fellow!”
“But my terror! The danger----”
“Eh! what? Danger! ‘A man may fight and not be slain,’ as the saying
goes. I have gone through more than one campaign, thank God, and been
wounded more than once--and yet I am all alive, just because it was
ordained that I should live through it.”
The old fatalist way of talking! the same as prevailed to settle Ruru’s
choice of a profession--and which even now appeared to me again as quite
philosophical.
“Even if it should chance that my regiment is not ordered out----” Arno
began.
“Ah, yes!” I joyfully broke in, “there is still that hope.”
“In that case I would get exchanged, if possible.”
“Oh, it will be quite possible,” my father assured him. “Hess is to
receive the command-in-chief and he is a good friend of mine.” My heart
trembled, and yet I could not help admiring both the men. With what a
joyful equanimity they spoke of a coming campaign, as if it were only a
question of some pleasure trip that had been arranged. My brave Arno was
desirous, even if his duty did not summon him, to go and meet the foe,
and my magnanimous father thought that quite simple and natural. I
collected myself. Away with childish, womanish fear! Now was the time to
show myself worthy of this my love, to raise my heart above all
egotistic fears and find room for nothing but the noble reflection--“my
husband is a hero”.
I sprang up and stretched out both my hands to him: “Arno, I am proud of
you!”
He put my hands to his lips, then turned to papa and said, with a face
radiant with joy:--
“You have brought the girl up well, father-in-law!”
Rejected! The ultimatum rejected! This took place at Turin, April 26.
The die is cast! War has broken out.
CHAPTER II.
_Last hours with the beloved one.--Public feeling in the prospect
of war.--The parting.--Employments of the women at home.--Anxieties
over the news from the seat of war.--Ill-success of
Austria.--Friends in trouble.--The Patriotic Aid
Association.--Visit to a friend.--Dreadful news._
For a week I had been prepared for the catastrophe, and yet its
occurrence gave me a bitter blow. I threw myself sobbing on the sofa,
and hid my face in the cushion when Arno brought me the news.
He sat down by me, and began gently to comfort me.
“My darling! Courage! Compose yourself! It is not so bad after all. In a
short time we shall return as conquerors. Then we two shall be doubly
happy. Do not weep so--it breaks my heart. I am almost sorry that I have
engaged to go in any case. But, no; just think, if my comrades are
forced to go, with what right could I remain at home? You yourself would
feel ashamed of me. No. I must experience the baptism of fire some time,
and till that has happened I do not feel myself truly a man or a
soldier. Only think how delightful if I come back with a third star on
my collar--perhaps with the cross on my breast.”
I rested my head on his shoulder, and kept on weeping the more. But I
reflected how small such things were. Stars and crosses seemed to be at
that moment only empty spangles. Not ten grand crosses on that dear
breast could offer me any recompense for the terrible possibility that a
ball might shatter it.
Arno kissed me on the forehead, put me softly aside, and stood up.
“I must go out now, my dear, to my colonel. Have your cry out. When I
come back I hope to find you firm and cheerful. That is what I have need
of, and not to be shaken with sad anticipations. At such a decisive
moment as this my own dear little wife surely will do nothing to take
the heart out of me or damp my ardour for exploits? Good-bye, my
treasure.” And he departed.
I collected myself. His last words were still ringing in my ears. Yes,
plainly my duty now was not merely not to damp, but as far as possible
to increase, his spirit and his ardour for exploits. That is the only
way in which we women can exercise our patriotism, in which we can take
any share in the glory our husbands bring from the battlefields.
“Battlefields”--it is surprising how this word suddenly presented itself
to my mind in two radically different meanings. Partly in the accustomed
historical signification, so pathetic, and so calculated to awake the
highest admiration; partly in the loathsomeness of the bloody, brutal
syllable “fight”. Yes, those poor men who were being hurried out had to
lie stricken down on the field, with their gaping, bleeding wounds, and
among them perhaps--and a loud shriek escaped me as the thought passed
through my mind.
My maid Betty came running in all in a fright. “For God’s sake, my lady,
what has happened?” she asked trembling.
I looked at the girl. Her eyes also were red with weeping. I guessed;
she knew the tidings already, and her lover was a soldier. I felt as if
I could press my sister in misfortune to my heart.
“It is nothing, my child,” I said softly. “Those who go away will surely
return.”
“Ah, my gracious lady, not all,” she replied, breaking out anew into
tears.
My aunt now came in, and Betty withdrew.
“I am come, Martha, to speak comfort to you,” said the old lady as she
embraced me, “and to preach to you resignation in this trial.”
“So you know it?”
“The whole city knows it, and great joy prevails, for this war is very
popular.”
“Joy, Aunt Mary?”
“Oh, yes, among those who see no beloved member of their families
ordered out. I could easily understand that you must be sad, and so I
hastened here. Your papa will also come directly, but not to comfort,
only to congratulate. He is quite beside himself with joy that it is to
go on, and looks on it as a noble chance for Arno to take part in it.
And he is right in the main. For a soldier there is nothing better than
a war. And that is the way you must look at it, my dear child. To fulfil
the duty of your calling is before everything. What must be----”
“Yes, you are right, aunt; what must be, what is inevitable----”
“What is the will of God----” put in Aunt Mary in corroboration.
“Must be borne with composure and resignation.”
“Bravo, Martha. It is certain that everything happens as is before
determined by a wise and all-merciful Providence in His immutable
counsels. Every one’s death-hour is fixed and written down at the hour
of his birth. And for our dear warriors we will pray so much and so
earnestly!”
I did not stop to debate more closely the contradiction that lay between
the two assumptions that a fatal event was at the same time ordained and
also could be turned aside by prayer. I was myself not clear on the
point, and had from my whole education a vague impression that in such
sacred matters one ought not to embark on reasonings. And, indeed, if I
had given voice to such scruples before my aunt it would have grievously
shocked her. Nothing could hurt her more than for people to express
rational doubt on certain points. “Not to argue about it” is the
conventional commandment in matters mysterious. As etiquette forbids to
address questions to a king, so it is a kind of impious breach of
etiquette to want to make inquiries or criticise about a dogma. “Not to
argue about it” is also a commandment easily obeyed, and on this
occasion I followed it very willingly; and so I did not enter into any
contention with my aunt, but on the contrary clung to the consolation
that lay in the resort to prayer. Yes, during the whole time my lord was
absent, I determined to beg so earnestly for the protection of Heaven,
that it should turn aside every bullet in the volley from Arno. Turn
them aside! Whither? To the breast of another, for whom, nevertheless,
prayers were also being made?... And, besides, what had been
demonstrated to me in my course of physics about the accurately
computable and infallible effects of matter and its motion?... What,
another doubt? Away with it.
“Yes, aunt,” I said aloud, in order to break short these contradictions
that kept crossing each other in my mind. “Yes, we will pray continually
and God will hear us. Arno will keep unhurt.”
“You see--you see, dear child, how in heavy times the soul still flies
to religion.... Perhaps the Almighty sends you this trial in order that
you may lay aside your former lukewarmness.”
This again did not strike me as correct. That the whole misunderstanding
between Austria and Sardinia, dating even from the Crimean War, all the
negotiations, the despatch of the ultimatum and its rejection, could
have been ordained by God, in order to warm up my lukewarm spirit!
But to express this doubt would also have been a breach of propriety. As
soon as any one introduces the name of the Almighty, the claims
connected with that name give him a kind of spiritual immunity. But with
regard to the charge of lukewarmness, it had some foundation. My aunt’s
religious feeling came from the depths of her heart, while my piety was
more external. My father was in this respect quite indifferent, and so
was my husband; and so I had had no stimulus from either the one or the
other to any particular zeal of belief. I had never had any means either
of plunging deeply into ecclesiastical learning, since I had always been
able to leave such things unattacked on the “not-argue-about-them”
principle. True, I went every week to mass and every year to confession,
and attended these services with much reverence and devotion; but the
whole thing was still more or less an observance of the etiquette
becoming to my position: I fulfilled my religious duties with the same
correctness as I went through the figures of the Lancers at the state
ball and made the state courtesy when the empress came into the room.
Our chaplain at the château in Lower Austria and the nuntio in Vienna
could have nothing to say against me--yet the charge which my aunt
brought against me was perfectly justified.
“Yes, my child,” she went on, “in prosperity and happiness people easily
forget their home above; but if sickness or fear of death breaks in on
us--or, still more, on those we love--if we are stricken down or in
sorrow----”
She would have gone on in this style for a long time, but the door burst
open, and my father rushed in.
“Hurrah, it’s begun now,” was his joyful greeting to us. “They wanted a
whipping, these puppies, did they? And a whipping they shall have--that
they shall!”
* * * * *
It was a time of excitement. The war “has broken out”. People forget
that it is really two masses of men who are rushing to fight each other,
and conceive of the event as if it was some exalted overruling third
power, whose outbreak compels these two masses into the fight. The whole
responsibility falls on this power, lying beyond the wills of
individuals, and which on its side merely produces the fulfilment of the
destined fate of the nations. Such is the dark and awful conception
which the majority of mankind have of war, and which was mine too. There
was no question of my feeling any revolt against making war in general.
What I suffered from was only that my beloved husband had to go out into
the danger and I to stay behind in anxiety and solitude. I rummaged up
all my old impressions from the days of my historical studies, in order
to strengthen and inspire me with the conviction that it was the
highest of human duties which called my dear one away, and that thereby
the possibility was offered to him of covering himself with glory and
honour. Now at any rate I was living in the midst of an epoch of
history, and this again was a peculiarly elevating thought. Since from
Herodotus and Tacitus, down to the historians of modern times, wars have
always been represented as the events of most importance and of
weightiest consequence, I concluded that at the present time also a war
of this sort would pass with future historians as an event to serve for
the title of a chapter.
This elevated tone, overpowering in its impressiveness, was that which
prevailed everywhere else. Nothing else was spoken of in rooms or
streets, nothing else read in the newspapers, nothing else prayed about
in the churches. Wherever one went one found everywhere the same excited
faces, the same eager talk about the possibilities of the war.
Everything else which engaged the people’s interest at other times--the
theatre, business, art--was now looked on as perfectly insignificant. It
seemed to one as if it were not right to think of anything else whilst
the opening scene in this great drama of the destiny of the world was
being played out. And the different orders to the army with the
well-known phrases of the certainty of victory and promise of glory; and
the troops marching out with clanging music and waving banners; and the
leading articles and public speeches conceived in the most glowing tone
of loyalty and patriotism; the eternal appeal to virtue, honour, duty,
courage, self-sacrifice; the assurances made on both sides that their
nation was known to be the most invincible, most courageous, most
certainly destined to a higher extension of power, the best and the
noblest--all this spread around an atmosphere of heroism, which filled
the whole population with pride and called out in each individual the
belief that he was a great citizen in a great state.
Such bad qualities, however, as these--lust of conquest, love of
fighting, hatred, cruelty, guile, were also certainly to be found, and
were admitted to be shown in war, but always by “the enemy”. To him,
his being in the wrong was quite clear. Quite apart from the political
necessity of the campaign just commenced, apart also from the patriotic
advantages which undoubtedly grew out of it, the conquest over one’s
adversary was a moral work, a discipline carried out by the genius of
culture. These Italians! what a foul, false, sensual, light-minded,
conceited people! And this Louis Napoleon! what a mixture of ambition
and the spirit of intrigue! When his proclamation of war, published on
April 29, appeared with its motto, “Italy free to the Adriatic Sea,” it
called out amongst us a storm of indignation. I did allow myself a
feeble remark that this was at least an unselfish and noble idea, which
must have an inspiriting influence on Italian patriots, but I was soon
put to silence. The dogma that “Louis Napoleon is a scoundrel” was not
to be shaken as long as he was “the enemy”. Everything proceeding from
him was _ab initio_ “scoundrelly”.
Another slight doubt arose in me. In all the battle-stories of history I
had found that the sympathy and admiration of the relaters were always
expressed for the party who wanted to free themselves from a foreign
yoke and who fought for freedom. It is true that I was not capable of
giving any distinct idea of the meaning of the word “yoke,” or of that
of “freedom,” though so abundantly sung about; but one thing seemed to
me perfectly clear, _viz._, that “the shaking off of the yoke” and “the
struggle for freedom” lay this time on the side, not of Austria, but of
Italy. But even for these scruples, timidly conceived as they were, and
still more timidly expressed, I was thundered down. For, here I was so
unlucky as again to trench on a sacred principle--namely, that our
government--_i.e._, the government under which one happened to have been
born--could never result in a yoke, but only in a blessing; that any who
wished to tear themselves loose from “us” could not be warriors of
freedom but only simple rebels; and that generally and in all
circumstances “we” were always and everywhere wholly in the right.
In the early days of May--they were luckily cold and rainy days--sunny
spring weather would have made too painful a contrast--the regiment into
which Arno had exchanged marched. At seven in the morning----
Ah, the preceding night! what a terrible night it was! If the dear one
had only been going on a journey of business, free from any danger, the
parting would have made me unspeakably sorrowful--parting is indeed so
sad! but to the war! to meet the fiery shower of the enemy’s bullets!
Why could I no longer on that night apprehend at all in that word “war”
its elevated historical signification, but only its terror and
threatening of death?
Arno had fallen asleep. He lay there breathing quietly, with a cheerful
expression on his features. I had lighted a fresh candle and put it
behind a screen; I could not be in the dark that night. Of sleep there
was no question whatever for me in that, the _last_, night. I felt that
I must spend the whole time in gazing at least into the beloved face. I
lay on our bed wrapped in a dressing-gown, and, with my elbow on the
pillow, and my chin resting on the palm of my hand, looked down on the
sleeper and wept silently. “How I love you, how I love you, my own
one--and you are going away from me! Why is fate so cruel? How shall I
live without you? O that you may soon come back to me! O God! my good
God! my merciful Father above! let him come back soon--him and all. Let
there soon be peace! Why then cannot there be peace always? We were so
happy--perhaps too happy--for there cannot be any perfect happiness on
earth. Oh, rapture! if he comes home unhurt, and then lies at my side as
he is doing now, and no parting threatened for the morrow! How quietly
you are sleeping, O my dear, brave husband! But how shall you sleep
there? There there is no soft bed for you hung with silk and lace;
there you must lie on the hard wet earth--perhaps in some
ditch--helpless--wounded!” And with this thought I could not help
picturing a gaping sabre-cut on his forehead with the blood trickling
from it, or a bullet-wound in his breast--and a hot pang of compassion
seized me. How I should have liked to throw my arms round him and kiss
him--but I dared not wake him, he wanted this invigorating sleep. Not
six o’clock yet!--tick-tack, tick-tack, unpityingly swift and sure time
marches on to every mark. This indifferent tick-tack distressed me. The
light, too, burned just as indifferently behind its screen as this clock
ticked with its silly, motionless Cupid.... Can it be that all these
things have no perception that it is our _last_ night? My tearful lids
fell together, my consciousness gradually went away, and letting my head
sink on the pillow, I fell asleep at last myself. But only for a short
time. Hardly had I lost my sense in the fog of some formless dream, when
my heart suddenly contracted painfully, and I awoke with a violent
palpitation, and the same feeling of fear as when one is awakened by a
cry for help or an alarm of fire. “Parting, parting!” was the alarm cry.
When I had started so out of sleep for the tenth or twelfth time it was
day, and the candle was flickering out. A knock came at the door.
“Six o’clock, lieutenant,” said the orderly, who had been ordered to
wake him in good time.
Arno rose up. So now the hour was come--now was to be spoken this sad,
sad word--“Farewell”.
It had been settled that I was not to go to the railway with him. The
one quarter of an hour more or less together--that was not worth much.
And the pain of tearing ourselves asunder at last! That I did not wish
to show to strangers. I wanted to be alone in my room when we exchanged
the parting kiss, that I might be able to throw myself on the floor and
shriek--shriek out loud.
Arno put on his clothes quickly. As he was doing so he made me all kinds
of comforting speeches.
“Courage, Martha! In two months at the most the affair will be over, and
I shall be back again at cuckoo-time; only one in a thousand bullets
hits, and that one must not hit me. Others before me have come back from
the wars--look at your papa. It must happen sometime or other. You did
not marry an officer of hussars with the notion that his business was
to grow hyacinths. I will write to you as often as possible, and tell
you how pleasantly and livelily the whole campaign is going on. If
anything bad were destined for me I could not feel so cheerful. I am
going only to win an order, nothing else. Take great care here of
yourself and our Ruru; and if I get promotion he shall have another step
too. Kiss him for me; I will not repeat the parting of last night. The
time will come when it will be a treat for him to have his father tell
him how in the year ’59 he was present at the great victory over Italy.”
I listened to him greedily. This confident chatter did me good. He was
going away all pleased and in good spirits, and so my suffering must be
egotistic and therefore wrong; this thought ought to give me strength to
conquer it.
Another knock at the door.
“Time now, lieutenant.”
“I am quite ready; coming directly.” He spread out his arms. “Now then,
Martha--my wife--my love.”
I lay at once on his breast. I could not speak a word. The word
“farewell” would not pass my lips. I felt that in saying that word I
should give way, and I did not dare to poison the peace, the
cheerfulness of his departure. I reserved the outbreak of my pain as a
kind of reward for my solitude.
But now he spoke the heartbreaking word.
“Good-bye, my all, good-bye,” and pressed his lips closely to mine.
We could not tear ourselves out of this embrace--as though it were our
last. Then on a sudden I felt how his lips were trembling, how
convulsively his bosom heaved, and then releasing me, he covered his
face and sobbed aloud.
That was too much for me. I thought I was going out of my mind.
“Arno, Arno!” I cried out, throwing my arms round him, “stay, stay!” I
knew I was asking what was impossible; still I cried out persistently:
“Stay, stay!”
“Lieutenant,” we heard from outside, “it is now quite time.”
One more kiss--the last of all--and he rushed out.
* * * * *
To tear charpie, to read the news in the papers, to stick pins with
flags into our maps in order to follow the movements of the two armies,
and try to solve the chess problems that followed from them in the sense
that “Austria attacks and gives mate at the fourth move”; to pray
continually in the churches for the protection of our loved ones and the
victory of our country’s arms; to talk of nothing except the news that
came in from the theatre of war; such was what filled up my existence
now and that of my relatives and acquaintance. Life with all its other
interests appeared suspended as it were during the term of the campaign.
Everything except the question “How and when will this war end?” was
bereft of importance--nay, almost of reality. One ate, drank, read, saw
after one’s affairs, but all this had no real concern for us; one thing
only concerned us thoroughly--the telegrams from Italy.
My chief gleams of light were, of course, the news that I received from
Arno himself. They were in a curt style--letter-writing had never been
his strong point--but they brought me the most cheering testimony that
he was still alive and unwounded. These letters and despatches could not
indeed arrive with much regularity, for the communications were often
interrupted, or when an action was impending the field-post was
suspended.
If a few days had passed thus, without my hearing from Arno, and a list
of killed and wounded was published, with what terror did I not read
over the names! It is as great a strain as for the holder of a lottery
ticket to look through the winning numbers in the list of a drawing--but
in the opposite sense; what one seeks in this case, well knowing, thank
God, that the chance is against one, is the chief prize in misery.
The first time that I read the names of the slain--and I had been four
days without news--and saw that the name of Arno Dotzky was not among
them, I folded my hands and cried aloud: “My God, I thank Thee!” But the
words were hardly out of my mouth when it seemed to me like a shrill
discord. I took the paper in my hand again and looked at the list of
names once more. So I thank God because Adolf Schmidt and Carl Müller
and many others were slain, but not Arno Dotzky. Then the same
thanksgiving would have been appropriate if it had risen to heaven from
the hearts of those who trembled for Schmidt and Müller, if they had
read “Dotzky” instead of those names. And why should my thanks in
particular be more pleasing to Heaven than theirs? Yes, this was the
shrill discord of my ejaculation, the presumption and the self-seeking
which lay in it, in believing that Arno had been spared in love for me,
and thanking God that not I but Schmidt’s mother and Müller’s affianced
and fifty others had to burst out in tears over that list.
On the same day I received from Arno another letter:--
“Yesterday we had another stout fight. Unfortunately--unfortunately a
defeat. But comfort yourself, my beloved Martha, the next battle will
bring us victory. It was my first great affair. I was standing in the
midst of a heavy storm of bullets--a peculiar feeling. I will tell you
by word of mouth--but it is frightful. The poor fellows whom one sees
falling around one, and must leave there in spite of their sad
cries--_c’est la guerre_! Hope to see you soon again, my dear. If we can
once dictate terms of peace at Turin, you shall travel after to meet me.
Aunt Mary will be kind enough to take care of our little corporal.”
But if the receipt of letters like these constituted the sunshine of my
life, its darkest shadows were my nights. If I woke out of some dream of
blessed forgetfulness, and the horrible reality with its horrible
possibilities came before my consciousness, I was seized with an almost
intolerable pain, and could not sleep again for hours. I could not get
rid of the idea that Arno was perhaps at that moment lying in a ditch
groaning and dying--thirsting after a drop of water, and calling
longingly for me. The only way that I could gradually compose myself was
by bringing, with all my force, the scene of his return before my
imagination. This was, at any rate, as probable--nay, perhaps more
probable than his lonely death; and so I pictured him to myself as
bursting into the room, and how I should fling myself on his bosom, and
how I should then lead him to Ruru’s cradle, and how happy and how
joyful we might then once more be.
My father was much cast down. One bad news came upon another. First
Montebello, then Magenta. And not he alone, but all Vienna was cast
down. We had at the beginning so confidently hoped that uninterrupted
messages of victory would give occasion for mounting flags on our houses
and singing _Te Deums_, but instead of this the flags were waving and
the priests singing at Turin. There the word now was: “Lord God, we
praise Thee that Thou hast helped us to strike down the wicked
‘Tedeschi’”.
“Do not you think, papa,” I began, “that if another defeat was to happen
to us, peace would then be made? In that case I should wish that----”
“Are you not ashamed to say anything of the kind? I had rather it should
be a seven years’--aye, a thirty years’ war, so that our arms should
conquer at last, and we dictate the terms of peace! What do men go to
war for? I suppose not to get out of it again as quickly as possible; if
so, they might as well remain at home!”
“And that would be by far the best,” sighed I.
“What a cowardly lot you women folk are! Even you--you, who have been so
well grounded in the principles of love of country and feelings of
honour, are yet quite out of heart already, and prize your personal
quiet more than the welfare and fame of your country.”
“Ah! if I did not love my Arno so dearly.”
“Love of your husband, love of your family--all that is very good; but
it ought only to occupy the second place.”
“_Ought_ it?”
* * * * *
The list of killed had already brought the names of several officers
whom I had known personally. Among others, that of the son--her only
one--of an old lady for whom I had conceived a great feeling of respect.
That day I determined to visit the poor lady. It was, for me, a painful,
heavy journey. I could certainly give her no consolation--could only
weep with her. But it was the duty of affection, and so I set out.
When I got to Frau v. Ullmann’s dwelling, I long hesitated before
pulling the bell. The last time I had been there was to a cheerful
little dance. The dear old mistress of the house was herself then full
of joy. “Martha,” she said to me in the course of the evening, “we are
the two most enviable women in Vienna. You have the handsomest of
husbands, and I the most excellent of sons.” And to-day? I still,
indeed, had my husband. But who knows? The shells and grape-shot were
flying there still without ceasing. The minute just past might have made
me a widow: and I began to weep before the door. That was the proper
temper for so mournful a visit. I rang. No one came. I rang a second
time. Again no answer. Then some one put his head out of the door of one
of the other floors.
“It is no good ringing, miss. The dwelling is empty.”
“What! Has Frau v. Ullmann gone?”
“She was taken to a lunatic asylum three days since.” And the head
disappeared again as the door shut.
I remained for a minute or two motionless, rooted to the spot, and the
scenes which must have been going on here passed before my eyes. To what
a height must the poor lady’s sufferings have risen before her agony
broke out in madness!
“And there is my father wishing that the war might last thirty years for
the welfare of the country! How many more such mothers in the country
would have been driven to desperation!”
I went down the stairs shaken to my inmost depth. I determined that I
would pay another visit to a young lady, a friend of mine, whose
husband, like mine, was at the theatre of war.
My way led me through the Herrengasse, past the building called the
Landhaus, where the “Patriotic Aid Association” had established its
offices. At that time there was not as yet any “Convention of Geneva,”
any “Red Cross,” and this aid association had been formed as a
forerunner of these humane institutions, its task being to receive alms
of all kinds, in money, linen, charpie, bandages, etc., for the poor
wounded, and forward them to the seat of war. The gifts came flowing in
abundantly from all sides; it was necessary to have whole shops to
receive them, and scarcely were the different articles packed up and
sent off when new ones were piled up again in their place.
I went in. I was in distress till I could hand over to the committee all
that I had in my purse. Perhaps that might bring health and deliverance
to some suffering soldier, and save _his_ mother from madness.
I knew the president. “Is Prince C---- here?” I asked the porter.
“Not just now. But the vice-president, Baron S----, is upstairs.” He
showed me the way to the room where the alms in money were paid. I had
to pass through several halls, where on long tables were the packets
lying in rows. Parcels of linen, cigars, tobacco, and especially
mountains of charpie. It made me shudder. How many wounds must be
bleeding there, to be covered with all this torn linen? “And there was
my father,” I thought again, “wishing that for the country’s good the
war might last another thirty years! How many of the country’s sons must
in that case sink under their wounds!”
Baron S---- received my contribution with thanks, and gave me the most
ready information about the working of the association in reply to my
numerous questions. It was joyful and comforting to hear how much good
was thus done. Just at the time came the postman with some letters that
had newly arrived, and announced that two barrows of offerings had to
be delivered from the country. I placed myself on a sofa which was in
the lower part of the room to watch the reception of the packets. They
were, however, delivered in another room. A very old gentleman now came
in, who by his bearing was evidently an old soldier.
“Permit me, baron,” he said, as he drew out his purse and sat down on a
stool by the table, “permit me to add my little mite too to your noble
work.” And he gave him a note for a hundred florins. “I look on all this
organisation of yours as really angelic; you see I am an old soldier
myself,” and he gave his name as General ----, “and I can judge what an
enormous blessing it is to the poor fellows who are fighting out there.
I served in the campaigns of the years ’9 and ’13--at that time there
was no ‘Patriotic Aid Association’--at that time no one sent chests of
bandages and charpie after the wounded. How many must then have bled to
death in misery when the resources of the army surgeons were exhausted,
who might have been saved by sending such things as I see here! Ah!
yours is a blessed work. You good noble men, you do not know--no, you do
not know--how much good you are doing there.” And two great tears fell
on the old man’s white moustache.
A noise of steps and voices arose outside. Both leaves of the entrance
door were thrown open and a guardsman announced “Her Majesty the
Empress”.
The vice-president hurried out to the gate to receive his exalted
visitor, as beseemed, at the foot of the stairs, but she had already got
into the ante-room.
I, from my concealed position, looked with admiration on the young
sovereign who in common walking dress appeared to me almost lovelier
than in her state robes at the court ball.
“I am come,” she said to Baron S----, “because I received a letter
to-day from the emperor from the seat of war, in which he writes to tell
me how useful and acceptable the gifts of the Patriotic Aid Association
have proved, and so I wished to look into the matter myself, and put
the committee in receipt of the emperor’s acknowledgment.”
On this she made them give her information about all the details of the
working of the association, and examined as she went along the various
objects from their stores. “Just look, countess,” she said to the
mistress of the robes, who was with her, taking an article of
underclothing in her hand, “how good this linen is, and how beautifully
sewn.” Then she begged the vice-president to conduct her into another of
the rooms, and left the hall by his side. She spoke to him with visible
contentment, and I heard her say besides: “It is a fine patriotic
undertaking, and to the poor soldiers----”
I could not catch any more. “Poor soldiers,” the word kept coming back
to me for a long time, she had pronounced it with so much pity. Yes,
“poor” indeed, and the more one could do to send them help and comfort
the better. But it ran through my head: “If they had not sent these poor
people into this misery at all, would not that have been much better?”
I tried to scare away the thought. It must be so! It must be so! There
is no other excuse for the cruelty of making war except what is
contained in the little word “must”.
Now I went on my way again. The friend whom I was going to visit lived
quite close to the Landhaus on the Kohlmarkt. As I walked along I went
into a book and print shop to buy myself a new map of Upper Italy--ours
had become quite riddled with sticking in the little flags on pins.
Besides me there were many other customers in the place. All were asking
for maps, diagrams, and so forth. Now came my turn.
“Do you want the theatre of war, too, please?” asked the bookseller.
“You have guessed it.”
“No difficulty in that. There is hardly anything else bought.”
He went to get what I wanted, and while he wrapped up the roll in paper
for me, he said to a gentleman standing next to me: “You see, professor,
just now things go badly for those who write or publish books on
_belles lettres_ or science. No one asks for such things. As long as the
war lasts no interest is taken by any one in intellectual matters. It is
a bad time for writers and booksellers.”
“And a bad time for the nation,” replied the professor, “since a loss of
interest in such things is naturally followed by its decline in the
intellectual scale.”
“And there is my father wishing,” thought I for the third time, “that
for the good of the country a thirty years’ war----”
I now took part audibly in the conversation.
“So your business is doing badly?”
“Mine only? No, almost all, your ladyship,” answered the bookseller.
“Except the providers for the army there are no tradesmen to whom the
war has not brought untold loss. Everything is at a standstill; work in
the factories; work in the fields; men without number are without places
and without bread. Our paper is falling; the exchange rising; all desire
for enterprise is decaying; many firms must go bankrupt--in short, it is
a misery! a misery!”
“And there is my father wishing----” I repeated in silence as I left the
shop.
* * * * *
My friend was at home.
Countess Lori Griesbach was in more than one respect the sharer of my
lot. A general’s daughter, like me--married for only a short time to an
officer, like me--and, like me, a “grass widow”. In one thing she went
beyond me: she had not only a husband, but two brothers also at the war.
But Lori was not of an apprehensive nature; she was fully persuaded that
her dear ones were under the peculiar protection of a saint whom she
highly venerated, and she counted confidently on their return.
She received me with open arms.
“Ah! God bless you, Martha; it is indeed good of you to come and see me.
But how pale and worn you are looking; you have not had any bad news
from the seat of war?”
“No, thank God! But the whole thing is so sad.”
“Ah, yes! You mean the defeat. But you must not think too much of that,
the next news may announce a victory.”
“Whether we conquer or are conquered, war is in itself dreadful
altogether. Would it not be better if there could be nothing of the
kind?”
“Then what would be the good of soldiers?”
“What, indeed!” I assented; “then there would be none----”
“What nonsense you are talking. That would be a nice state of things;
nothing but civilians! It makes me shudder. Happily that is impossible.”
“Impossible? Yes, you must be right. I _will_ believe so, or else I
could not conceive that it would not long since have happened.”
“What happened?”
“The abolition of war. But, no; I might as well talk of the abolition of
earthquakes.”
“I don’t know what you mean. As far as I am concerned I am glad this war
has broken out, because I hope that my Louis will distinguish himself.
And for my brothers, too, it is a good thing. Promotion has been going
on so slowly; now they have at least a chance.”
“Have you had any news lately?” I interrupted. “Are your relatives all
well?”
“No, not for a pretty long time now. But, you know, the postal service
is often interrupted, and when people are tired out with a hot march or
a battle, they have not much taste for writing. I am quite easy. Both
Louis and my brothers wear blessed amulets. Mamma hung them on herself.”
“What would you expect to happen, Lori, in a war in which every man in
both armies wore an amulet? If the bullets were flying on both sides,
would they retire back into the clouds and do no harm?”
“I do not understand you. You are so lukewarm in faith. Your Aunt Mary
often laments about it to me.”
“Why do you not answer my question?”
“Because it involves a sneer at a thing which to me is sacred.”
“Sneer; oh, no! only a reasonable reflection.”
“But you must know that it is a sin to entrust your own reason with the
power of judging in things which are above us.”
“Well, I have done, Lori. You may be right. Reflection and research are
of no use. For sometime all kinds of doubts have risen within me about
my most ancient convictions, and I find only pain from them. If I were
to lose the conviction that it was a necessity and a good thing to begin
this war, I should never be able to forgive him who----”
“You mean Louis Napoleon. What an intriguer he is!”
“Whether he or another, I should like to remain in the undisturbed
belief that there are no men at all who have caused the war, but that it
‘broke out’ of itself--broke out, like a nervous fever, like the
eruption of Vesuvius.”
“How excited you get, my love. But let us speak reasonably; so listen to
me. In a short time the war will be over and our husbands will come back
captains. I will then try to get mine to obtain four or six weeks’
leave, and take a trip with me to a watering-place. It will do him good
after all the fatigues he will have undergone; and me also, after the
heat, and the ennui, and the anxiety I have undergone. For you must not
think that I have no fear at all. It may be God’s will after all that
one of my dear ones should meet with a soldier’s death--and even though
it is a noble, enviable death, on the field of honour, for emperor and
fatherland----”
“Why, you are speaking just like one of the proclamations to the army!”
“Yet it would be frightful--poor mamma!--if anything was to happen to
Gustave or Karl. Don’t let us talk about it! And so, to refresh us after
all our terror, it would be good to have a gay season at a
watering-place. I should prefer Carlsbad, and I went there when I was a
girl, and amused myself amazingly.”
“I too went to Marienbad. It was there I made Arno’s acquaintance. But
why are we sitting here idle like this? Have you no linen at hand that
we could tear into charpie? I was at the Patriotic Aid Association
to-day, and there came in, who do you think?”
Here I was interrupted. A footman brought in a letter.
“From Gustave,” cried Lori joyfully, as she broke the seal.
When she had read two lines she gave a shriek, the paper fell out of her
hand and she threw herself on my neck.
“Lori, my poor dear, what is it?” I cried, deeply moved; “your husband?”
“O God, O God!” she groaned. “Read for yourself.”
I took the letter from the floor and began to read. I can reproduce the
phraseology exactly, because afterwards I begged the letter from Lori to
copy it into my diary.
“Read out loud,” she said; “I was not able to read it through.”
I did as she wished.
“Dear Sister,--Yesterday we had a hot combat; there must be a long list
of casualties. In order that you, and in order that our poor mother may
not hear in that way of the misfortune, that you may be able to prepare
her for it gradually (tell her he is severely wounded), I write at once,
my dear, to tell you that our brave brother Karl is of the number of the
warriors who have died for their country.”
I interrupted my reading to embrace my friend.
“I had got so far,” she said gently.
With tearful voice I read on.
“Your husband is untouched, and so am I. Would that the enemy’s bullet
had hit me instead! I envy Karl his hero’s death. He fell at the
beginning of the battle, and did not know that this one again was lost.
It is really too bitter. I saw him fall, for we were riding near each
other. I jumped down at once to pick him up. Only one look and he was
dead. The bullet must have passed through his lungs or heart. It was a
quick painless death. How many others had to suffer for hours, and to
lie helpless on the field in the heat of the battle, till death
released them! It was a murderous day--more than a thousand corpses,
friend and enemy, covered the battlefield. I recognised among the dead
the faces of so many dear friends; and, amongst others, there is
poor”--here I had to turn the page--“poor Arno Dotzky.”
I fell unconscious on the floor.
CHAPTER III.
_First years of widowhood.--Solitude, study, enlarged views.--I
return into society.--Renewed enjoyment of life.--Thoughts of
second marriage.--I chaperon my younger sisters.--I am introduced
to Baron Tilling.--He brings me an account of the manner of Arno’s
death._
“Now, Martha, it is all over. Solferino was decisive--we are beaten.”
My father came hastily one morning on to the terrace, with these words,
where I was sitting under the shadow of a clump of lime trees.
I had gone back home, to the house of my girlhood, with my little Ruru.
A week after the great battle, which had struck me down, my family moved
to Grumitz, our country house in Lower Austria, and I with them. I
should have been in despair alone. Now all were again around me, just as
before my marriage--papa, Aunt Mary, my little brother, and my two
growing sisters. All of them did what they possibly could to mitigate my
grief, and treated me with a certain consideration which did me good.
Evidently they found in my sad fate a sort of consecration, a something
which raised me above those around me, even a kind of merit. Next to the
blood which soldiers pour out on the altar of their country, the tears
which the bereaved mothers, wives, and sweethearts of the soldiers pour
on the same altar become a libation hardly less sacred. And thus it was
a slight feeling of pride, a consciousness that to have lost a beloved
husband on the field of honour conferred a kind of military merit, which
helped me most to bear my pain; and I was far from being the only one.
How many, ah! how many women in the whole of the country were then
mourning over their loved ones sleeping in Italian earth!
At that time no further particulars were known to me of Arno’s end. He
had been found dead, recognised, and buried. That was all I knew. His
last thought doubtless had flown towards me and our little darling, and
his consolation in the last moment must have been: “I have done my duty,
and more than my duty”.
“We are beaten,” repeated my father gloomily, as he sat down by me on
the garden seat.
“So those who have been sacrificed were sacrificed in vain.” I sighed.
“Those who have been sacrificed are to be envied, for they know nothing
of the shame which has befallen us. But we will soon pick up again for
all that, even if at present peace, as they say, must be concluded.”
“Ah, God grant it,” I interrupted. “Too late, indeed, for my poor Arno,
but still thousands of others will be spared.”
“You are always thinking of yourself and of individuals. But in this
matter it is Austria which is in question.”
“Well, but does not she consist entirely of individuals?”
“My dear, a kingdom, a state, lives a longer and more important life
than individuals do. They disappear, generation after generation, while
the state expands still farther, grows into glory, greatness and power,
or sinks and crumples up and disappears, if it allows itself to be
overcome by other kingdoms. Therefore the most important and the highest
aim for which any individual has to struggle, and for which he ought to
be glad to die, is the existence, the greatness and the well-being of
the kingdom.”
I impressed these words on my mind in order to put them down the same
day in the red volume. They seemed to me to express so clearly and
strongly the feeling which I had derived in my student days from the
books of history, a feeling which in these last times, after Arno’s
departure, had been driven out of my mind by fear and pity. I wanted to
cleave to it again as close as possible, in order to find consolation
and support in the idea that my darling had fallen in a great cause, and
that my misfortune itself was only one element in this great cause.
Aunt Mary had, on the other hand, a different source of consolation
ready.
“Do not weep, dear child,” she used to say, when I was sunk in profound
grief. “Do not be so selfish as to bewail him who is now so happy. He is
among the blessed, and is looking down on you with blessing. After a few
quickly passing years on earth you will find him again in the fulness of
his glory. For those who have fallen on the field of battle Heaven
reserves its fairest dwellings. Happy those who were called away just at
the moment when they were fulfilling a holy duty. The dying soldier
stands next in merit to the dying martyr.”
“Then I am to be glad that Arno----”
“No, not to be glad, that would be asking too much, but to bear your lot
with humble resignation. It is a probation that Heaven sends you, and
from which you should emerge purified and strengthened in faith.”
“So, in order that I might be tried and purified, Arno had to----”
“No, not on that account. But who dare seek to sound the hidden ways of
Providence? Not I at least.”
Although such objections always would rise in me against Aunt Mary’s
consolations, yet in the depths of my heart I readily fell in with the
mystical assumption that my glorified one was now enjoying in Heaven the
reward of his death of sacrifice, and that his memory on earth was
adorned with the eternal glory of sainthood.
How exalting, though painful at the same time, was the effect on me of
the great mourning celebration at which I was present in the cathedral
of St. Stephen’s on the day of our departure! It was the _De Profundis_
for our warriors who had fallen on foreign soil and were buried there.
In the centre of the church a high catafalque had been erected,
surrounded by a hundred lighted candles and decorated with military
emblems, flags and arms. From the choir came down the moving strains of
the requiem, and those present, chiefly women in mourning, were almost
all weeping aloud. And each one was weeping not only for him whom she
had lost, but for the rest who had met with the same death, for all of
them together, all the poor brave brothers-in-arms, who had given their
young lives for us all--that is, for the country, the honour of the
nation. And the living soldiers who attended this ceremony--all the
generals and officers who had remained behind in Vienna were there, and
several companies of soldiers filled the background--all were waiting
and ready to follow their fallen comrades without delay, without murmur,
without fear. Yes, with the clouds of incense, with the pealing bells,
and the voice of the organ, with the tears poured out in a common woe,
there must surely have risen a well-pleasing sacrifice to Heaven, and
the Lord of armies must shower His blessing down on those to whom this
catafalque was erected.
So I thought at that time. At least these were the words with which the
red book describes this mourning ceremony.
About fourteen days later than the news of the defeat of Solferino came
the news of the signing of the preliminaries of peace at Villafranca. My
father took all the pains possible to explain to me that for political
reasons it was a matter of pressing necessity to conclude this peace, on
which I assured him that it seemed to me joyful news anyhow that this
fighting and dying should come to an end. But my good papa would not be
hindered from setting forth at length all his exculpatory statements.
“You must not think that we are afraid. Even if it has a look as if we
had made concessions, yet we forego nothing of our dignity, and know
perfectly what we are about. If it concerned ourselves only we should
never have given up the game on account of this little check at
Solferino. Oh, no! far from it. We should only have had to send down
another _corps d’armée_, and the enemy would have been obliged to
evacuate Milan again in quick time. But you know, Martha, that other
things are concerned--general interests and principles. We renounced the
further prosecution of the war for this reason: in order to secure the
other principalities in Italy which are menaced--those that the captain
of the Sardinian robbers, with his French hangman-ally, would be glad to
fall upon also. They want to advance against Modena, Tuscany--where, as
you know, dynasties are in power related to our own imperial
family--nay, even against Rome, against the Pope, the Vandals. If we do
provisionally give up Lombardy, yet we keep Venetia all the time, and
are able to assure the south Italian states and the Holy See of our
support. So you perceive that it is merely for political reasons, and in
the interest of the balance of power in Europe----”
“Oh, yes, father,” I broke in; “I perceive it. But oh that these reasons
had prevailed before Magenta!” I continued, sighing bitterly. Then, to
change the subject, I pointed to a parcel of books that had come in that
day from Vienna.
“See here! the bookseller has sent us several things on approval.
Amongst them there is the work of an English natural philosopher--one
Darwin--_The Origin of Species_, and he calls our attention to it as
being of special interest, and likely to be of epoch-making importance.”
“My worthy friend must excuse me. Who, in such a momentous time as this,
could take an interest in these tomfooleries? What can a book about the
kinds of beasts and plants contain of epoch-making importance for us
men? The confederation of the Italian states, the hegemony of Austria in
the German Bund--these are matters of far-stretching influence; these
will long keep their place in history, when no living man shall any
longer know anything about that English book there. Mark my words.”
I did mark them.
* * * * *
Four years later, my two sisters, now seventeen and eighteen years old,
were to be presented at court. On this occasion I determined that I
would also again “go into society”.
The time which had elapsed had done its work, and gradually mitigated my
pain. Despair changed into mourning, mourning into sorrow, sorrow into
indifference, and even this at last into renewed pleasure in life. I
woke one fine morning to the conviction that I really was in an enviable
condition, and one that promised happiness. Twenty-three years old,
beautiful, rich, high-born, free, the mother of a darling child, a
member of an affectionate family--was not all this enough to make my
life pleasant?
The short year of my married life lay behind me like a dream. No doubt I
had been desperately in love with my handsome hussar--no doubt my loving
husband had made me very happy--no doubt the parting had caused me
grievous pain and his loss wild agony! but that was all over--over! My
love had assuredly never grown so closely into the whole existence of my
soul that I could never have survived its uprooting, never have lost the
pain of it; our life together had been too short for that. We had adored
each other like a pair of ardent lovers; but to have entered into each
other, heart to heart, soul to soul, to be fast bound to each other in
mutual reverence and friendship, to have shared for long years our joys
and our sorrows--this, which is the lot of some married people, had not
been given to us two. Even I was assuredly not his highest object, not
something indispensable, otherwise he could not so cheerfully and with
no compulsion of duty (for his own regiment was never ordered out) have
left me. Besides, in these four years I had gradually become another
creature, my spiritual horizon had enlarged in many respects, I had come
into possession of acquirements and views of which I had no notion when
I married, and of which Arno also--as I could now perceive--had no idea
either, and so--if he could have risen again--he would have stood in the
position of a stranger towards many parts of my present spiritual life.
How had this change come about with me? This is how it happened.
One year of my widowhood had passed. The first phase--despair--had given
place to mourning. But it was very deep mourning, and my heart was
bleeding. Of any renewal of the intercourse of society I would not hear.
I thought that from this time my life must be occupied only with the
education of my son Rudolf. I called the child no longer Ruru, or
corporal. The baby-jokes of the pair of married lovers were over. The
little one turned into “my son Rudolf”--the sacred centre of all my
effort, hope, and love. In order to be one day a good teacher for him,
or rather in order to follow his studies, and be able to become his
intellectual companion, I wanted to acquire myself all the knowledge
that I could, and with this view reading was the only amusement I
allowed myself; and so I plunged anew into the treasures of the library
of our château. I was especially impelled to take up again the study
which was my peculiar favourite--history. Latterly, when the war had
demanded such heavy sacrifices from my contemporaries and myself, my
former enthusiasm had become much cooled, and I now wished to light it
up again by appropriate reading. And, in fact, it brought me sometimes a
kind of consolation, if I had been reading a few pages of accounts of
battles with the praises of the heroes which are the natural
continuation of those accounts, to think that the death of my poor
husband and my own widowed grief were comprised as items in a similar
grand historical process. I say “sometimes”--not always. I could not get
myself back entirely and absolutely into the feelings of my girlhood,
when I wanted to rival the Maid of Orleans. Much, very much, in the
over-wrought tirades of glory, which accompanied the accounts of the
battles, sounded to me false and hollow, if at the same time I set
before me the terrors of the fight--as false and hollow as a sham coin
paid as the price for a genuine pearl. The pearl, life--can it be fairly
paid for with the tinsel phrases of historical glory?
I had soon exhausted the provision of historical works to be found in
our library. I begged our bookseller to send me some new historical work
to look at. He sent Thomas Buckle’s _History of Civilisation in
England_. “The work is not finished,” wrote the bookseller, “but the
accompanying two volumes, which form the introduction, compose by
themselves a complete whole, and their appearance has excited, not only
in England, but in the rest of the educated world, the greatest
attention. The author, it is said, has in this work laid the foundation
for a new conception of history.”
Yes, indeed, quite a new one. When I had read these two volumes, and
then read them again, I felt like a man who had dwelt all his life in
the bottom of a narrow valley, and then, for the first time, had been
taken up to one of the mountain tops around, from which a long stretch
of country was to be seen, covered with buildings and gardens and ending
in the boundless ocean. I will not assert that I--only twenty years old
and who had received only the well-known superficial “young lady’s”
education--understood the book in all the extent of its bearings, or, to
keep to the former metaphor, that I appreciated the loftiness of the
monumental buildings and the immensity of the ocean which lay before my
astonished gaze; but I was dazzled, overcome; I saw that beyond the
narrow valley in which I was born there lay a wide, wide world, of
which, up to this time, I had never heard. It is not till now that,
after fifteen or twenty years I have read the book again and have
studied other works conceived in the same spirit, I may, perhaps, take
it on myself to say that I understand it. One thing, however, was clear
to me even then: that the history of mankind was not decided by, as the
old theory taught, kings and statesmen, nor by the wars and treaties
that were created by the greed of the former or the cunning of the
latter, but by the gradual development of the intellect. The chronicles
of courts and battles which are strung together in the history books
represent isolated phenomena of the condition of culture at those
epochs, not the causes which produce those conditions. Of the
old-fashioned admiration with which other historical writers are
accustomed to relate the lives of mighty conquerors and devastators of
countries I could find absolutely nothing in Buckle. On the contrary, he
brings proof that the estimation in which the warrior class is held is
in inverse ratio to the height of culture which the nation has reached;
the lower you go in the barbaric past, the more frequent are the wars of
the time, the narrower the limits of peace, province against province,
city against city, family against family. He lays stress on the fact
that, as society progresses, not only war itself, but the love of war
will be found to diminish. That word spoke to my innermost heart. Even
in my short spiritual experience this diminution had been going on, and
though I had often repressed this movement as something cowardly or
unworthy, believing that I alone was the cause of such a fault within
me, now, on the contrary, I perceived that this feeling in me was only
the faint echo of the spirit of the age, that learned men and thinkers,
like this English historian, and innumerable men along with him, had
lost the old idolatry for war, which, just as it had been a phase of my
childhood, was represented in this book as being also a phase of the
childhood of society.
And so in Buckle’s _History of Civilisation_ I had found just the
opposite of what I sought. And yet I counted what I found as all pure
gain. I felt myself elevated by it, enlightened, pacified. Once I tried
to talk with my father about this point of view that I had just
attained, but in vain. He would not follow me up the mountain, _i.e._,
he would not read the book, and so it was to no purpose to talk with him
of things which one could only see from the top of it.
Now followed the year--my second phase--in which mourning turned into
melancholy. I now read and studied with even greater assiduity. This
first work of Buckle had given me an appetite for reflection, and given
me an inkling of an enlarged view of the world. I wanted now to enjoy
this yet more and more; and therefore I followed this book up with a
great many more conceived in the same spirit. And the interest, the
enjoyment, which I found in these studies helped me to pass into the
third phase, _i.e._, to cause the disappearance of my melancholy. But
when the last change was wrought in me, _i.e._, when my joy in life
awoke again, then all at once books contented me no longer, then I saw
all at once that ethnography and anthropology, comparative mythology,
and all the other ’ologies and ’graphies were insufficient to set my
longings at rest, that for a young woman in my position, life had other
flowers of bliss all ready, and for which I had only to stretch my hand
out. And so it came about that in the winter of 1863 I offered myself to
introduce my younger sisters into the world and opened my saloons to
Vienna society.
* * * * *
“Martha, Countess Dotzky, a rich young widow.” It was under this
promising title that I had to play my part in the comedy of the “great
world”. And I must say that the character suited me. It is no slight
pleasure to get greetings from all sides, to be _fêted_, spoiled, on all
hands, and overwhelmed with distinctions. It is no slight enjoyment,
after nearly four years’ separation from the world, to come all at once
into a whirlpool of all sorts of pleasures, to make the acquaintance of
interesting and influential persons, to be present at some splendid
entertainment almost every day, and when there to feel yourself the
centre of universal attention.
We three sisters had got the nickname of the “three goddesses of Mount
Ida”; and the “Apples of Discord,” which the several young Parises
distributed amongst us, were innumerable. I, of course, in the dignity
of my description in the list of _dramatis personæ_ as “rich young
widow,” was the one generally preferred. Besides it was taken as a
settled thing in our family, and even ever so little in my own inward
consciousness, that I was to marry again. Aunt Mary was no longer in the
habit in her homilies of dwelling on the blessed one who “was waiting
for me above,” for if I, in my few short years on earth that separated
me from the grave, united myself to a second husband, an event desired
by Aunt Mary herself, the pleasantness of the meeting again in Heaven
would be a good deal spoiled thereby.
Every one around me seemed to have forgotten Arno’s existence. I was the
only one who did not. Though time had relieved my pain about him, his
image had not been extinguished. One may cease to mourn for one’s dead;
mourning does not depend quite on the will, but one ought not to forget
them. I looked on this dead silence about the dead, which was preserved
by my _entourage_, as a second and additional slaughter, and shrank from
killing the poor fellow in my thoughts. I had made it my duty to speak
every day to little Rudolf of his father, and the child had always to
say in his prayers at night: “God make me good and brave as my dear
father Arno would have me!”
My sisters and I “amused” ourselves extremely, and certainly I not less
than they. It was, so to speak, my _début_ also in society. The first
time I was introduced as an engaged girl, and a newly-married woman; and
so all admirers had of course held aloof from me; and what is a higher
enjoyment in society than the admirers? But, strange to say, however
much I was pleased to be surrounded by a crowd of worshippers, none of
them made any deep impression on me. There was a bar between them and me
which was quite impassable. And this bar was what I had been erecting
during my three years of lonely study and thought. All these brilliant
young gentlemen, whose interests in life culminated in sport, the
ballet, the chatter of the court, or (with those who soared highest) in
professional ambition (for most were soldiers), had not the faintest
idea of the things which I had looked at from afar in my books, and on
which my soul’s life depended. That language, of which I grant I had
only as yet learned the elements--but as to which I was assured that it
was in it that men of science would debate and ultimately decide the
highest questions--that language was to them not Greek merely, but
Patagonian.
From this category of young folks I was not going to select a husband;
that was quite settled. Besides, I was in no hurry to give up once more
my freedom, which was very pleasant to me. I managed to keep my would-be
suitors sufficiently at a distance to prevent any from making an offer,
and at the same time to prevent anybody in society from putting about
concerning me the compromising rumour that I was laying myself out for
lovers. My son Rudolf should hereafter be able to feel proud of his
mother, no breath of suspicion should sully the pure mirror of her
reputation. But if the case should occur that my heart should glow once
more with love--and that could only be for one worthy of it--then I was
fully disposed to realise the claim which my youth still had to
happiness in this world, and enter into a second marriage.
Meanwhile, apart from love or happiness, I thoroughly enjoyed myself.
The dance, the theatre, dress--I found the liveliest pleasure in all of
them. But I did not for them neglect either my little Rudolf or my own
education. It was not that I plunged into special studies, but I always
kept _au courant_ with the movement of the intellectual world, by
procuring all the most prominent new productions in the literature of
the age, and regularly reading attentively all the articles, even the
most scientific, in the _Revue des deux Mondes_ and similar magazines.
These occupations had indeed the result that the bar I have just spoken
of, which cut off my inward life from the surrounding world of young men
of fashion, became constantly higher--but it was right that it should be
so. I would gladly have drawn into my saloons a few persons from the
world of literature and scholarship, but that could hardly be done in
the society in which I moved. Bourgeois elements could not be mixed with
what was called “the circles” of Vienna. Especially at that
period--since then this exclusive spirit has somewhat changed, and it
has become the fashion to open one’s saloons to individual
representatives of art and science. At the time of which I speak this
was not the case yet; any one not “Hof-fähig,” _i.e._, who could not
count sixteen ancestors, was excluded thence. Our ordinary society
would have been most unpleasantly surprised to have met at my house
people not ennobled, and could not have hit on the right tone to
converse with them. And these persons themselves would certainly have
found my drawing-room, full of countesses and sportsmen, old generals
and old canonesses, intolerably dull. What part could men of intellect
and science, writers and artists, take in the eternally same
conversation--who had given a dance yesterday and who would give one
to-morrow--whether Schwarzenberg, or Pallavicini, or the Court--what
love affairs Baroness Pacher was causing--which party Countess Palffy
was opposing--how many estates Prince Croy possessed--what right the
young Lady Almasy possessed to the title of a lady of rank, whether as a
Festetics or a Wentheim, and if a Wentheim whether by that Wentheim
whose mother became a Khevenhüller, etc.? That was indeed the matter of
most of the conversations that went on around me. Even the intellectual
and educated people, some of whom were really to be found in our circle,
statesmen and so forth, thought themselves bound when they associated
with us, the young folks who danced, to adopt the same frivolous and
meaningless tone. How gladly would I often have gone to some dinner in a
quiet corner at which one or two of our travelled diplomatists or
eloquent parliamentarians, or other men of mark might express their
opinions on weighty questions!--but that was not feasible. I had to keep
along with the other young ladies, and talk of the toilettes that we
were getting ready for the next great ball. And even if I had squeezed
into such a company the conversations that might have been just begun
about the economy of nations, about Byron’s poetry, about the theories
of Strauss and Renan, would have been hushed, and the talk would have
been: “Ah, Countess Dotzky, how charming you looked yesterday at the
ladies’ pic-nic; and are you going to-morrow to the reception at the
Russian embassy?”
“Allow me, dear Martha,” said my cousin Conrad Althaus, “to introduce to
you Lieutenant-Colonel Baron Tilling.”
I bowed. The introducer went away, and the one introduced did not
speak. I took this for an invitation to dance, and rose from my seat
with my left arm raised and bent, ready to lay it on Baron Tilling’s
shoulder.
“Forgive me, countess,” he said, with a slight smile, which showed his
dazzlingly white teeth, “I do not dance.”
“Indeed! so much the better,” I answered, sitting down again. “I had
just retreated here to get a little repose.”
“And I had requested the honour of being introduced to you, countess, as
I had a communication to make to you.”
I looked up in amazement. The baron put on a very serious face. He was
altogether a man who looked very serious, no longer young, somewhere
about forty, with a few streaks of grey on the temples--on the whole, a
prepossessing sympathetic look. I had accustomed myself to look sharply
on each new introduction with the question: “Are you a suitor? and
should I take you?” Both questions I answered in this case with a prompt
negative. The person before me had not that expression of intimate
adoration which all those are in the habit of assuming who approach
ladies with “views,” as the saying is, and the other question was
resolved in the negative at once by his uniform. I would give my hand to
no soldier a second time, that I had absolutely fixed with myself, not
alone because I would not be again exposed to the horrible pain of
seeing my husband depart to the campaign, but because since that time I
had arrived at views about war in which it would be impossible for me to
agree with a soldier.
Lieutenant-Colonel v. Tilling did not avail himself of my invitation to
sit beside me.
“I will not intrude on you long, countess. What I have to communicate to
you is not suited for a ballroom. I only wanted to ask you for
permission to present myself in your house; could you be so very kind as
to fix a day and hour in which I may speak to you?”
“I receive on Saturdays between two and four.”
“Then your house between two and four on Saturday most likely resembles
a bee-hive, where the honey bees are flying in and out.”
“And I sit in the middle as queen you would say, a very pretty
compliment.”
“I never make compliments, no more than I make honey, so the hour of
swarming on Saturday does not suit me at all. I must speak to you
alone.”
“You awaken my curiosity. Let us say then to-morrow, Tuesday, at the
same hour. I will be at home to you and no one else.”
He thanked me, bowed, and went away. A little later my cousin Conrad
came by. I called him to me, got him to sit by my side, and asked for
information about Baron Tilling.
“Does he please you? Has he made a deep impression on you that you ask
after him so eagerly? He is to be had, _i.e._, he is not yet married.
Still he may not be free for all that. It is whispered that a very great
lady (Althaus named a princess of the royal family) holds him to herself
by tender bonds, and therefore he does not marry. His regiment has only
recently been moved hither, and so he has not been much seen in society
as yet; and he is also it seems an enemy of balls and things of that
sort. I made his acquaintance in the Nobles’ Club, where he passes an
hour or two every day, but generally over the papers in the
reading-room, or absorbed in a game of chess with some of our best
players. I was astonished to meet him here; however, as the lady of the
house is his cousin, that explains his short appearance at the ball; he
is off again already. As soon as he had taken leave of you, I saw him go
out.”
“Have you introduced him to many other ladies besides?”
“No, only to you. But you must not imagine from that that you have
brought him down at a long shot, and that therefore he is anxious to
know you. He asked me: ‘Could you tell me whether a certain Countess
Dotzky, _née_ Althaus, probably a relation of yours, is here at present?
I want to speak to her.’ ‘Yes,’ I answered, pointing to you, ‘sitting in
that corner on the sofa, in a blue dress.’ ‘Oh, that is she! Will you
be so kind as to introduce me?’ That I did with much pleasure, without
any idea that I might be ruining your peace of mind thereby.”
“Don’t talk such nonsense, Conrad. My peace is not so easily disturbed.
Tilling? Of what family is he? I have never heard the name before.”
“Aha! you will not confess! Perhaps he is the favoured one! I have tried
by the exercise of all my power of witchery to penetrate into your heart
for the last three months, but in vain! And now this cold
lieutenant-colonel--for, let me tell you, he is cold and without
feeling--came, saw, and conquered. Of what family is Tilling, do you
say? I believe of Hanoverian origin. But his father before him was in
the Austrian service. His mother is a Prussian. You must surely have
noticed his North German accent.”
“Yes, he speaks most beautiful German.”
“Of course. Everything about him is most beautiful.” Althaus got up.
“Well, I have had quite enough now. Permit me to leave you to your
dreams. I will try to entertain myself with ladies who----”
“May appear most beautiful in your eyes. There are plenty such.”
I left the ball early. My sisters could remain behind under Aunt Mary’s
guard, and there was nothing to detain me. The desire for dancing had
left me. I felt tired, and longed for solitude. Why? Surely not to have
the opportunity for thinking about Tilling without interruption? Still
it seemed so. For it was about midnight that I enriched the red book by
transferring into it the conversation above set down, and added the
following observations: “An interesting man this Tilling. The great lady
who is in love with him is thinking probably about him now, or perhaps
at this moment he is kneeling at her feet, and she is not so lonely--so
lonely as I am. Ah, to love any one so entirely and inwardly! Not
Tilling, of course--I do not know him even. I envy the princess, not on
account of Tilling, but on account of her being beloved. And the more
passionately, the more warmly she is attached to him, so much the more I
envy her.”
My first thought on waking was once more--Tilling. And naturally, for he
had made an appointment with me for to-day, on account of some important
communication. Not for a long time had I felt so excited as I was about
this visit.
At the appointed hour I gave orders that no one should be admitted
except the gentleman expected. My sisters were not at home. Aunt Mary,
that indefatigable chaperon, had gone with them to the skating rink.
I placed myself in my little drawing-room, in a pretty house dress of
violet velvet (violet, it is allowed, suits blonde complexions), took a
book in my hand and waited. I had not to wait long. At ten minutes past
two Freiherr v. Tilling entered.
“You see, countess, I have punctually availed myself of your
permission,” he said, kissing my hand.[3]
“Luckily so,” I answered laughingly, as I showed him a chair, “otherwise
I should have died of impatience; for really you have thrown me into a
state of great suspense.”
“Then I will say what I have got to say at once, without any long
introduction. The reason I did not do so yesterday was in order not to
disturb your serenity.”
“You frighten me.”
“In one word, I was present at the battle of Magenta.”
“And you saw Arno die?” I shrieked.
“Yes. I am in a position to give you information about his last
moments.”
“Speak,” I said shuddering.
“Do not tremble, countess. If those last moments had been as horrible as
those of so many other of my comrades, I would assuredly have said
nothing about it to you; for there is nothing sadder than to hear of a
dear one dead that he died in agony: but that is not the case here.”
“You take a weight off my heart. Go on with your narrative.”
“I will not repeat to you the empty phrase with which the survivors of
soldiers are usually comforted, ‘He died like a hero,’ for I do not
quite know what that means. But I can offer you the substantial
consolation that he died without thinking about death. He was convinced
from the beginning that nothing would happen to him. We were much
together, and he often told me of his domestic happiness, showed me the
picture of his beautiful young wife, and of his child; he invited me,
‘as soon as ever the campaign was over,’ to visit him in his home. In
the massacre of Magenta I found myself, by accident, at his side. I
spare you the sketch of the scenes that were going on--one cannot relate
such things. Men, who have the warrior spirit, are seized in the midst
of the powder-fog and bullet-rain with such an intoxication that they do
not know exactly what is going on. Dotzky was a man of this kind. His
eyes sparkled. He laid about him with a firm hand. He was in the full
intoxication of war. I who was sober could see it. Then came a shell,
and fell a few steps from where we were. When the monster burst ten men
were blown to pieces, Dotzky among them. There rose a shriek of anguish
from the injured men, but Dotzky gave no cry--he was dead. I and a few
comrades stooped down to see to the wounded, and give them aid if
possible. But it was not possible. They were all writhing in death,
terribly torn and dismembered--the prey of horrible tortures. But
Dotzky, at whose side I first knelt on the ground, breathed no more; his
heart had stopped beating, and out of his torn side the blood was
flowing in such a stream that if even his state was only faintness and
not death, there was no fear that he would come to again.”
“Fear?” said I weeping.
“Yes, for we had to leave him lying there helpless. Before us the
murderous ‘Hurrah!’ burst out again, and behind us mounted squadrons
were coming on, who must charge over these dying men. Lucky those who
had lost consciousness! His face had a perfectly placid, painless look,
and when after the battle was over we picked up our dead and wounded, I
found him on the same spot, in the same position, and with the same
peaceful look. That is what I had to say to you, countess. I might
indeed have done so years since, or, even if I had not met you, have
written it to you, but the idea only came into my head yesterday when my
cousin said she was expecting among her guests the beautiful widow of
Arno Dotzky. Forgive me if I have recalled painful memories. I think,
however, I have discharged a duty and freed you from torturing doubts.”
He stood up. I gave him my hand.
“I thank you, Baron Tilling,” I said, drying my tears. “You have indeed
conferred a precious gift on me--the tranquillity of knowing that the
end of my dear husband was free from pain or torment. But stay a little,
I beg you. I should like to hear you speak more. You struck a note in
your way of expressing yourself before which made a certain chord
vibrate in my feelings. Without beating about the bush, you abhor war?”
Tilling’s visage clouded.
“Forgive me, countess,” he said, “if I cannot stop to talk with you on
this subject. I am sorry, too, that I cannot prolong our interview. I am
expected elsewhere.”
It was now my countenance which assumed a cold expression. The princess,
I suppose, was expecting him, and the thought was unpleasant to me.
“Then I will not detain you, colonel,” I said coldly.
Without any request to be allowed to come again, he bowed and left the
room.
CHAPTER IV.
_Progress of my friendship for Tilling.--The toy soldiers.--A
dinner at my father’s.--The brave Hupfauf.--Darwin.--A charming
tête-à-tête, ending in a misunderstanding.--Growing attachment.--A
call on Countess Griesbach.--Jealousy dispelled.--Absence of the
loved one.--A touching letter from Tilling on his mother’s death._
The carnival was over. Rosa and Lilly, my sisters, had “amused
themselves immensely”. Each had a list of half-a-dozen conquests. Still
there was no desirable _partie_ among them, and “the right person” had
not shown himself for either. So much the better. They would gladly
enjoy a few years more of maidenhood before taking on themselves the
married yoke.
And as to me? I noted my impression of the carnival in the red volume as
follows: “I am glad that this dancing is over. It has already begun to
be monotonous. Always the same rounds, and the same conversation, and
the same dancers, for whether it happens to be X----, lieutenant of
hussars, or Y----, brevet-captain of dragoons, or Z----, captain of
uhlans, there are always the same bows, the same remarks, the same sighs
and glances. Not an interesting man amongst them--not one. And the only
one who in any case--we will say nothing about him. He belongs, I know,
to his princess. She is a beautiful woman truly, I admit it, but I think
her very disagreeable.”
Though the carnival with its great balls was over, yet the enjoyment of
society had not stopped. Soirees, dinners, concerts--the whirl went on.
There was also a great amateur theatrical performance projected, but
not till after Easter. During the fasting season a certain moderation in
our pleasures was enjoined on us. In Aunt Mary’s opinion we were far
from being as moderate as we ought. She could not quite forgive me for
not going regularly to the Lenten sermons, and indemnified herself for
my lukewarmness by dragging Rosa and Lilly to hear all the preachers at
the Chapel Royal. The girls submitted to this easily. Occasionally they
found their whole _coterie_ assembled at church. Father Klinkowström was
as much the fashion at the Jesuits’ Church as Mdlle. Murska at the
opera, and so they were tolerably gay--in a mild way.
Not only from the sermons, however, but from the soirees too, I held
myself a good deal aloof during this season. I had all at once lost my
taste for society parties, and delighted in staying at home to play with
my son, and when the little fellow was taken to bed, to sit by the fire
with a good book and read. Sometimes my father visited me at these
times, and chatted away for an hour or two with me. Of course the
campaigning reminiscences came to the front then continually. I had
communicated to him Tilling’s account of Arno’s death, but he received
the story rather coolly. Whether a man’s death was painful or painless
seemed to him a secondary consideration. To be “left on the field”--as
death in battle is called--appeared to him an end so glorious, bestowed
by such an elevated destiny, that the details of the bodily suffering
which might possibly have occurred were not worth taking into account.
In his mouth to be “left on the field” always sounded like the grudging
admission of an especial distinction, and next to “being left” what was
most pleasant evidently was to be severely wounded. The style and manner
in which he proudly showed his respect for himself or any one else in
saying that he had been wounded at a fight named after this or that
place made one quite forget that the thing in itself could have given
anybody pain. What a difference from Tilling’s short recital! in his
sketch of the ten poor creatures who were shattered by the bursting
shell, and broke out in loud shrieks! What a different tone of
shuddering pity in it! I did not repeat Tilling’s words to my father,
because I felt instinctively that they would have seemed to him
unsoldierly, and would have diminished his respect for the speaker,
which would have hurt me, for it was just the horror--unsoldierly it
might be, but certainly nobly humane--with which he saw and told of the
terrible end of his comrades that had penetrated into my heart.
How gladly would I have spoken further on this theme with Tilling, but
he seemed not to wish to cultivate my acquaintance. Fourteen days had
elapsed since his visit, and he had neither repeated the visit, nor had
I met him in society. Only two or three times had I seen him in the
Ringsstrasse,[4] and once at the Burg Theatre. He bowed respectfully,
and I acknowledged his greeting in a friendly manner, but nothing more.
Nothing more? Why did my heart beat at these accidental meetings? Why
could I not for hours get his gesture as he greeted me out of my mind?
“My dear child, I have something to beg of you.” My father came into my
house one morning with these words. He held in his hand a parcel wrapped
in paper, and added, “Here is something I am bringing for you,” as he
laid the thing on the table.
“What, a request and a present together?” I said laughing. “That is
bribery indeed!”
“Then hear my request before you unpack my gift, and are blinded by its
magnificence. I have to-day a tedious dinner.”
“Yes, I know. Three old generals and their wives.”
“And two Ministers and their wives--in short, a solemn, stiff, sleepy
business.”
“But you do not expect that I----”
“Yes, I expect you there, because, as ladies are pleased to honour me
with their company, I must at least have a lady to do the honours.”
“But Aunt Mary has always undertaken that office.”
“She is again attacked to-day by her usual headache, and so I have
nothing else left----”
“But to offer up your daughter, as other fathers did in ancient times;
for example, King Agamemnon with Iphigenia? Well, I submit.”
“Besides, there are among the guests a pair of younger elements: Dr.
Bresser, who treated me in my last illness so excellently that I wished
to show him the attention of an invitation; and also Lieutenant-Colonel
Tilling. Why, you are getting as red as fire! What is the matter with
you?”
“Me? It is curiosity. Now, I really must look at what you have brought
me.” And I began to take the parcel out of its paper wrapping.
“Oh, that is nothing for you. Don’t expect a pearl necklace. That
belongs to Rudi.”
“Yes, I see, a plaything. Ah! a box of lead soldiers! But, father, a
little child of four cannot----”
“I used to play at soldiers when I was only three years old. You can’t
begin too early. My very earliest impressions were of drums, sabres,
manœuvres, words of command: that’s the way to awaken the love for
the trade, that’s the way.”
“My son Rudolf shall never join the army,” I interrupted.
“Martha! I know at least it was his father’s wish.”
“Poor Arno is no more. Rudolf is all I have, and I do not choose----”
“That he should join the noblest and most honourable of professions?”
“The life of my only child shall not be gambled for in a war.”
“I was an only son also and became a soldier. Arno had no brothers, as
far as I know, and your brother Otto is also an only son, yet I have
sent him to the Military Academy. The tradition of our family requires
that the offspring of a Dotzky and an Althaus should devote his services
to his country.”
“His country will not want him as much as I.”
“If all mothers thought so----”
“Then there would be no more parades and reviews, no walls of men to
batter down, no ‘food for powder,’ as the common expression for them
goes. And that would be far from a misfortune.”
My father made a very wry face; but then he shrugged his shoulders.
“Oh, you women,” he said contemptuously. “Luckily the young one will not
ask your permission. The blood of soldiers is running in his veins. Nay,
and he will surely not remain your only son. You must marry again,
Martha. At your age it is not good to be alone. Tell me, is there none
of your suitors that finds grace in your sight? For instance, there is
Captain Olensky, who is desperately in love with you; he has been just
now pouring out his sighs to me again. He would suit me thoroughly as a
son-in-law.”
“But not me as a husband.”
“Then there is Major Millersdorf.”
“No; if you run down the whole military gamut to me, it is in vain. At
what time does your dinner take place? when shall I come?” I said to
turn the subject.
“At five. But come half-an-hour earlier; and now, adieu--I must go. Kiss
Rudi for me--the future commander-in-chief of the Imperial and Royal
Army.”
* * * * *
A solemn, stiff, sleepy business, that is how my father qualified his
proposed dinner, and that is how I should have looked on the ceremony
also if it had not been for the one guest whose presence moved me in a
singular way.
Baron Tilling came the instant before the meat--so when he saluted me in
the drawing-room I had no time for more than the briefest exchange of
words; and at table, where I sat between two snow-white generals, the
baron was removed so far from me that it was impossible for me to draw
him into the conversation carried on at our end of the table. I was
pleased at the return into the drawing-room; there I meant to call
Tilling to me and question him still further about that battle-scene: I
longed to hear again that tone of voice which had at first sounded so
sympathetically in my ears.
But no opportunity offered itself to me at first to carry out this
intention; the two old generals kept constant to me after dinner too,
and sat down at my side when I took my place in the drawing-room to pour
out _café noir_. To them joined themselves in a semicircle my father,
the Minister, Dr. Bresser, and, finally, Tilling, but the conversation
which arose was on general topics. The rest of the guests--all the
ladies among them--had got together in another corner of the
drawing-room where smoking was not going on; whilst in our corner
smoking was allowed, and even I myself had lighted a cigarette.
“Suppose it should soon break out again?” suggested one of the old
generals.
“Hum,” said the other, “I think the next war we shall have will be with
Russia.”
“Must there always be a ‘next war’?” I interposed, but no one took any
notice.
“With Italy first,” my father persisted; “we must at all events get back
our Lombardy. Just such a march into Milan as we had in ’49 with Father
Radetzky at our head. I should like to live to see that. It was on a
sunny morning----”
“Oh,” I interrupted, “we all know the story of the entry into Milan.”
“And do you know also that of the brave Hupfauf?”
“I do; and I think it very revolting.”
“What do you understand of such things?”
“Let us hear it, Althaus; we do not know the story.”
My father did not wait to be asked twice.
“Well, this Hupfauf, of the regiment of Tyrolese Jaegers, he was a
Tyrolese himself; he did a famous piece of work. He was the best shot
that can be imagined; he was always king at all the shooting matches; he
hit the mark almost always. What did he do when the Milanese revolted?
Why, he begged for permission to go on the roof of the cathedral with
four comrades, and fire down from thence on the rebels. He got
permission and carried out his plan. The four others, each of whom
carried a rifle, did nothing else but load their weapons without
intermission and hand them to Hupfauf, so that he might lose no time.
And in this way he shot ninety Italians dead, one after the other.”
“Horrible!” I cried out. “Each of these slaughtered Italians on whom
that man fired down from his safe position above had a mother and a
sweetheart at home, and was himself no doubt reckoning on his opening
life.”
“My dear, all of them were enemies, and that alters the whole point of
view.”
“Very true,” said Dr. Bresser; “as long as the idea of a state of enmity
between men is sanctioned, so long the precepts of humanity cannot be of
universal application.”
“What say you, Baron Tilling?” I asked.
“I should have wished for the man a decoration to adorn his valiant
breast, and a bullet to pierce his hard heart. Both would have been well
deserved.”
I threw the speaker a warm, thankful glance; but the others, except the
doctor, seemed affected unpleasantly by the words they had just heard. A
little pause ensued. As the French say: “_Cela avait jeté un froid_”.
“Have you ever heard, excellency, of a book by an English natural
philosopher named Darwin?” said the doctor, turning to my father.
“No, never.”
“Oh yes, papa, just recollect. It is now four years ago since our
bookseller sent us the book, just after its appearance, and you then
said it would soon be forgotten by the whole world.”
“Well, as far as I am concerned, I have quite forgotten it.”
“The world in general, on the contrary, seems in a pretty state of
excitement about it,” said the doctor. “There is a fight going on for or
against the new theory of origin in every place.”
“Ah, you mean the ape theory?” asked the general on my right. “There
was a talk about that yesterday in the casino. These scientific
gentlemen hit on strange notions sometimes--that a man should have been
an ourang-outang to begin with!”
“To be sure,” said the Minister nodding (and when Minister ---- said “to
be sure” it was always a sign that he was making himself up for a long
talk), “the thing sounds rather funny, and yet it is capable of being
taken seriously. It is a scientific theory built up not without talent,
and with the apparatus of an industrious collection of facts; and
though, to be sure, these have been satisfactorily controverted by the
specialists, yet like all adventurous notions, however extravagant they
may be, it has produced a certain effect, and finds its defenders. It
has become a fashion to discuss Darwin; but this will not last
long--though the word Darwinism has been invented--and then, to be sure,
the so-called theory will itself cease to be taken seriously. It is a
pity that people get so hot fighting over this eccentric Englishman; his
theory thus acquires an importance to which it has no claim. It is, of
course, the clergy who especially set themselves in array against the
imputation, which, to be sure, is a degrading one, that man, created in
the image of God, should now all of a sudden be thought to be derived
from the race of brutes--an assumption which, to be sure, is very
shocking from a religious point of view. Still it is notorious that
ecclesiastical condemnation of a theory which introduces itself in the
garb of science is not capable of stopping its dissemination. Such a
theory does not become harmless till it has been reduced _ad absurdum_
by the representatives of science, and that in respect of Darwinism, to
be sure----”
“But what nonsense!” broke in my father, fearful, as it seemed, that
another long string of “to be sures” might weary the rest of his guests,
“what nonsense! From apes to men! Surely what is called the ordinary
healthy common-sense is enough to refute all such mad notions--scientific
refutation is hardly wanted.”
“Well, I can scarcely regard these refutations as so perfectly and
demonstrably certain,” said the doctor. “They have, it is true,
awakened reasonable doubts of it; but, still, the theory has much
probability in its favour, and it will take some little time to bring
men of learning to unanimity about it.”
“I think these gentry will never be unanimous,” said the general on my
left, who spoke with a harsh accent, and generally used the Viennese
dialect; “why, they live by disputing. I have also heard something of
this ape business. But it was too stupid, to my mind, to suit me. Why,
if one bothered oneself about all the chatter that the star-gazers and
grass-collectors and frog-dissectors use to make us believe that X is Y,
one should lose one’s ears and eyes. Besides, a little while ago, in an
illustrated paper, I saw the visage of this Darwin, and that is itself
so apish that I can well believe his grandfather was a chimpanzee.”
This joke, which pleased the speaker mightily, was followed by a burst
of laughter, in which my father joined with the affability of a host.
“Ridicule is, to be sure, a weapon,” said the Minister seriously, “but
it does not prove anything. It is possible, however, to meet
Darwinism--I may use this new term--and conquer it, with serious
arguments resting on a scientific basis. If one can oppose to an author
of no authority such names as Linnæus, Cuvier, Agassiz, Quatrefages, his
system must fall in pieces. On the other hand, to be sure, it cannot be
denied that between men and apes there is a great similarity of
structure and that----”
“In spite of this similarity, however, the cleft is miles wide,” broke
in the quieter general. “Can you imagine an ape capable of inventing the
telegraph? Speech alone raises men so far above beasts----”
“I beg your excellency’s pardon,” said Dr. Bresser, “speech and artistic
inventions were not originally congenital in mankind. Even to-day a
savage could not construct any sort of telegraphic apparatus. All this
is the fruit of slow improvement and development.”
“Yes, yes, my dear doctor,” replied the general. “I know ‘development’
is the cant word of the new theory. Still you cannot develop a camel out
of a kangaroo, and why does not one at this time see an ape turning into
a man?”
I turned to Baron Tilling.
“And what say you? have you heard of Darwin, and do you reckon yourself
among his followers or opponents?”
“I have heard a good deal about the matter, countess, but I have formed
no judgment on it; for as to the work under discussion, _The Origin of
Species_, I have not read it.”
“I must confess,” said the doctor, “that I have not either.”
“_Read_ it? Well, to be sure, I have not either,” said the Minister.
“Nor I--nor I--nor I,” came from the rest.
“But,” the Minister proceeded, “the subject has been so much spoken of,
the cant words of the system ‘fight for existence,’ ‘natural selection,’
‘evolution,’ etc., are in everybody’s mouth, so that one can form a
clear conception of the whole matter and select a side decidedly with
its supporters or opponents, to which first class, to be sure, belong
only some Hotspurs who love violent changes and are always grasping
after effect, while the cool, strictly critical people, who demand proof
positive, cannot possibly choose any other than the position of
opponents--shared by so many specialists of consideration--a position
which, to be sure----”
“That can hardly be positively asserted,” said Tilling, reviewing the
whole matter, “unless one knows the position of its supporters. In order
to know what the strength of the opposing arguments is, which, as soon
as a new idea comes up, are heard shouting in chorus all round it, one
must oneself have penetrated into the idea. It is generally the worst
and weakest reasons which are repeated by the masses with such
unanimity; and on such grounds I do not choose to pass a judgment. When
the theory of Copernicus came up, only those who had gone through the
labour of following the calculations of Copernicus could see that they
were correct: the others, who guided their judgment by the anathemas
which were thundered against the new system from Rome----”
“In our century,” interrupted the Minister, “as I observed before,
scientific hypotheses, if incorrect, are no longer rejected on the
grounds of orthodoxy but of science.”
“Not only if incorrect,” answered Tilling, “but even when they are going
afterwards to be established, new hypotheses are always at first
controverted by the old fogeys of science. This set does not like even
in our day to be shaken in their long-accustomed views and dogmas--just
as at that time it was not only the fathers of the Church but the
astronomers also who were zealous in attacking Copernicus.”
“Do you mean by this,” broke in the rough-speaking general, “that this
ape-notion of our eccentric Englishman is as correct as that the earth
goes round the sun?”
“I will make no assertion at all about it, because, as I said, I do not
know the book. But I will make a point of reading it. Perhaps (but only
perhaps, for my knowledge of such matters is only slight) I shall then
be able to form a judgment. Up to the present time I must confine myself
to supporting my opinion on the fact that this theory meets with
widespread and passionate opposition--a fact, ‘to be sure,’ which, to my
mind, speaks rather for than against its truth.”
“You brave, straightforward, clear spirit,” said I to myself,
apostrophising the speaker.
About eight o’clock the guests in general broke up. My father wanted to
detain them all longer, and I also murmured mechanically a few
hospitable phrases, _e.g._, “At least you will stay for a cup of
tea”--but in vain. Each produced some excuse: one had an engagement at
the casino; another at a party; one of the ladies had her box at the
opera and wanted to see the fourth act of the “Huguenots”; another
expected some friends at her house; in short, we were obliged to let
them go, and not so unwillingly as we pretended. Tilling and Dr.
Bresser, who had risen at the same time as the others, were the last to
take their leave.
“And what have you two so important to do?” asked my father.
“I myself, nothing,” answered Tilling smiling; “but as the other guests
are going, it would be indiscreet----”
“That is my case too,” said the doctor.
“Well, then, I will not let either of you go.”
A few minutes later my father and the doctor had seated themselves at a
card table, and were deep in a game of piquet, while Baron Tilling kept
close to the fire by my side. “A sleepy business,” this dinner? “No,
truly no evening could have passed in a more pleasant and more awakening
manner,” was the thought that passed through my mind. Then I said
aloud:--
“Really, I have to scold you, Baron Tilling. Why, after your first
visit, have you forgotten the way to my house?”
“You did not ask me to come again.”
“But I told you that on Saturdays----”
“Oh, yes; between two and four. But, frankly, you must not expect that
from me, countess. Honestly, I know of nothing more horrible than these
official reception days. To enter a drawing-room full of strangers, bow
to the hostess, take your seat on the outer edge of a semicircle, listen
to remarks about the weather--and if one manages to sit next to an
acquaintance, venture on a remark of one’s own; to be distinguished by
the lady of the house, in spite of every difficulty, with a question
which you answer in all possible haste, in the hope that it may
originate a conversation with her whom you came to see; but in vain. At
that moment comes in another guest, who has to be received, and who then
takes the nearest empty place in the semicircle, and, under the
impression that the subject has not yet been touched, propounds a new
observation about the weather; and then, ten minutes after, perhaps a
new reinforcement of visitors comes--say a mamma with four marriageable
daughters, for whom there are not chairs enough--and so you have to get
up along with some others, take leave of the lady of the house, and go.
No, countess, that sort of thing passes my talents for company, which
are only weak at the best.”
“You seem, as a general rule, to keep yourself apart from society. One
sees you nowhere. Are you a misanthrope? But, no; I withdraw the
question. From a good deal you have said I drew the conclusion that you
love all men.”
“I love humanity; but as to all men, no. There are too many among them
worthless, _bornés_, self-seeking, cold-blooded, cruel. Those I cannot
love, though I may pity them, because their education and circumstances
have not allowed them to be worthy of love.”
“Circumstances and education? But character depends chiefly on one’s
inborn disposition. Do you not think so?”
“What you call ‘inborn disposition’ is, however, nothing more than
circumstances--ancestral circumstances.”
“Then, are you of the opinion that a bad man is not blamable for his
badness, and, therefore, not to be abominated?”
“The consequent is not determined by the antecedent; he may be not
blamable and still to be abominated. You also are not responsible for
your beauty, still you are to be admired----”
“Baron Tilling! we began to talk about serious matters like two
reasonable persons. Do I deserve then all of a sudden to be treated like
a compliment-hunting society lady?”
“I beg your pardon, I did not so intend it. I only used the nearest
argument I could find.”
A short pause followed. Tilling’s look rested with an admiring, almost
tender, expression on my eyes, and I did not drop them. I am quite aware
that I ought to have looked away; but I did not. I felt my cheeks glow,
and knew that, if he had thought me pretty before, I must at that moment
be looking still more pretty--it was a pleasant, “mischievous,”
confusing sensation, and lasted half-a-minute. It could not continue
longer. I put my fan before my face and changed my position; then in an
indifferent tone I said:--
“You gave Minister ‘To-be-sure’ a capital answer just now.”
Tilling shook his head as if he were rousing himself out of a dream.
“I? just now? I don’t recollect. On the contrary, I fancy that I gave
offence by my remark about Springauf--or Hupsauf was it?--or whatever
the name of the brave sharpshooter was.”
“Hupfauf.”
“You were the only one who liked what I said. Their excellencies, on the
other hand, I offended, of course, by an expression so unbecoming to an
imperial and royal lieutenant-colonel as ‘hard heart,’ applied to one
who had given the enemy so grand a sample of his shooting. Blasphemy!
Soldiers, as is well known, are the more agreeable company the more
coolly they deal out death, while there is no more sentimental character
to move the feelings in the melodramatic repertory than the warrior grey
in battle, but soft of heart--a wooden-legged veteran who could not hurt
a fly.”
“Why did you become a soldier?”
“You put the question in a way which shows you have looked into my
heart. It was not I, nor Frederick Tilling, thirty-nine years old, who
had seen three campaigns, who chose the profession, but little Freddy,
ten or twelve years old, who had grown up among wooden war-horses and
regiments of leaden soldiers, and to whom his father, the decorated
general, and his uncle, the lady-killing lieutenant, would put the
question cheeringly: ‘Now, my boy, what are you going to be?’ What else
except a real soldier, with a real sabre, and a live horse?”
“I had a box of leaden soldiers given me to-day for my son Rudolf, but I
am not going to give them to him. But why, now that Freddy has grown
into Frederick, why have you not quitted a condition which has become
hateful to you?”
“Hateful? That is saying too much. I hate the position of affairs which
lays on us men such cruel duties as making war; but as this position
does exist, and exists inevitably, why, I cannot hate the people who
take on themselves the duties arising from it, and fulfil them
conscientiously with the expenditure of their best powers. Suppose I
left the service of the army, would there be any the less warfare? Truly
not. It would only be that some one else would hazard his life in my
place, and I can do that myself.”
“Could not you render better service to your fellow-men in another
condition?”
“I do not know. I have learned nothing thoroughly except soldiering. A
man can always do something good and useful in his surroundings. I have
plenty of opportunity of lightening the lot of those around me. And as
far as concerns myself--for I may regard myself also as a fellow-man--I
enjoy the respect which the world pays to my profession. I have passed a
tolerably distinguished career, am beloved by my comrades, and am
pleased at what I have attained. I have no estate, and, as a private
person, I should not have the means to assist any one else, nor even
myself. So on what grounds should I abandon my way of life?”
“Because killing people is repulsive to you.”
“If it is a question of defending one’s life against another man
attacking it, one’s personal responsibility for causing death ceases.
War is often, and justly, styled murder on a large scale; still, no
individual feels himself to be a murderer. However, that fighting is
repulsive to me, that the sad entry on to a field of battle causes me
pain and disgust, that is true enough. I suffer from it, suffer
intensely, but so must many a seaman suffer during a storm from
sea-sickness; still, if he is anything of a brave man, he holds out on
deck, and always, if needs must, ventures to sea again.”
“Yes, if needs must. But must there then be war?”
“That is a different question. But individuals _must_ do their share in
it, and that gives them, if not pleasure, at least strength to do their
duty.”
And so we went on speaking for a time in a low tone, so as not to
disturb the piquet-players, and perhaps, too, in order not to be
overheard by them, for the views we exchanged, as Tilling sketched a few
more episodes of war and the horror he had experienced from them, and I
communicated to him the observations made by Buckle about the diminution
of the war-spirit with the advance of civilisation--such conversation
would have decidedly not suited the ears of General Althaus. I felt that
it was a sign of great confidence on Tilling’s part to display his
inward feeling to me on this matter so unreservedly, and assuredly a
stream of sympathy passed from one soul to another between us.
“Why, how deep you are plunged in your eager whispers there,” cried my
father to us once while the cards were being shuffled; “what are you two
plotting about?”
“I am telling the countess campaigning tales.”
“Oh, well, she is accustomed to that from her childhood. I tell her some
too occasionally. Six cards, doctor, and a quart-major.”
We resumed our whispered talk.
Suddenly, as Tilling spoke--and he had again fastened his gaze on mine,
and such intimate sympathy spoke in his voice--I thought of the
princess.
It gave me a stab, and I turned my head away. Tilling stopped in the
middle of a sentence.
“Why do you change countenance so, countess?” he asked in alarm. “Have I
said anything to displease you?”
“Oh no! it was only a painful thought: pray go on.”
“I have forgotten what I was talking about. I would rather you would
confide your painful thought to me. I have been the whole time pouring
my heart out to you so openly. Now repay it to me.”
“It is quite impossible for me to confide to you what I was thinking
about just now.”
“Impossible! May I guess? Was it about yourself?”
“No.”
“Me?”
I nodded.
“Something painful about me, and something you cannot tell me. Is
it----?”
“Do not trouble your head about it: I refuse any more information.” Then
I rose and looked at the clock. “Why, it is half-past nine! I am going
to say good-bye to you now, papa.”
My father looked up from his cards.
“What! are you too going to a party?”
“No; I am going home. I went to bed very late yesterday.”
“And so you are sleepy? Tilling, that is not very complimentary to you!”
“No, no,” I protested laughingly, “it is no fault of the baron; we have
been talking very livelily.”
I took leave of my father and the doctor--Tilling begged to be permitted
to see me into my carriage. It was he who put my cloak on in the
ante-room and gave me his arm down the steps. As we went down he stopped
for a moment and asked me seriously:--
“Once more, countess, have I anyhow offended you?”
“No; on my honour.”
“Then I am pacified.”
When he put me into the carriage he pressed my hand hard and put it to
his lips.
“When may I wait on you?”
“On Saturday I am----”
“At home--I understand--not at all then.”
He bowed and stepped back.
I wanted to call after him, but the servant shut the carriage door.
I threw myself back in the corner, and should have liked to cry--tears
of spite like a naughty child. I was in a rage with myself; how could I
ever have been so cold, so impolite, so rough almost to a man with whom
I feel such warm sympathy? It was the fault of the princess. How I hated
her! What was this? Jealousy? Then the explanation of what was moving me
burst on me--I was in love with Tilling. “In love, love, love!” rattled
out the wheels on the pavement. “You are in love with him!” was what the
street lamps as they flew past darted on to me. “You love him!” was
breathed to me out of my glove, which I pressed to my lips on the place
that he had kissed.
Next day I wrote the following lines in the red book: “What the carriage
wheels and the street lamps were saying to me yesterday is not true--or
at least much exaggerated. A sympathetic attraction to a noble and
clever man. True; but passion? Ha! I am not going to throw my heart away
on any man who belongs to another woman. He also feels sympathy for me.
We understand each other in many things. Perhaps he is the only man who
shares my views about war; but he is not on that account anywhere near
falling in love with me, and I ought to be just as far from falling in
love with him. That I did not ask him to visit me on another day than
the regular reception day, which he hates so, might indeed have looked a
little unkind, after the intimate conversation we had been having. But
perhaps it is better so. After the interval or a week or two, after
yesterday’s impressions, which have shaken me so, I shall be able to
meet Tilling again quite calmly, relying on the idea that he is in love
with another lady, and shall be able to refresh myself with his friendly
and suggestive conversation. For it is indeed a pleasure to converse
with him; it is so different, so totally different, from all others. I
am truly glad that I am able to-day to sum up this so calmly. Yesterday
I might for an instant have even apprehended that my peace was gone,
that I might become the prey of torturing jealousy. This fear has to-day
disappeared.”
The same day I paid a visit to my friend Lori Griesbach--the same at
whose house I heard of the death of my poor Arno. She was the one among
the young ladies of my acquaintance with whom I associated most, and
most intimately. Not that we agreed in many of our views, or that we
understood each other completely--though this is no doubt the foundation
of a real friendship--but we had been playmates as children, we had
shared the same position as young married women, had then seen each
other almost daily; and so a certain habitual familiarity had sprung up
between us, which, in spite of so much difference in the principles of
our nature, made our conversation together quite pleasant and
comfortable. The province on which we met each other was limited and
narrow, but in it we were perfectly happy together. Whole pages of my
spiritual life were quite closed to her. Of the views and judgments
which I had reached in my quiet hours of study I had never told her a
word, nor did I feel any desire to do so. How rarely can one give
oneself _entirely_ to any one! I have often experienced this in life,
that I could lay open to one person only one side, to another only
another, of my spiritual personality; that, as often as I conversed with
one or the other, a certain part, so to say, of the register was opened,
while all the rest of the notes remained mute.
Between Lori and me there were plenty of circumstances which gave us
material for hours of chat--our childish recollections, our children,
the events and incidents in the circle of our acquaintance, dress,
English novels, and the like.
Lori’s boy Xavier was of the same age as my son Rudolf and his favourite
playmate, and Lori’s little daughter Beatrix, who was then ten months
old, was playfully destined by us to become one day Countess Rudolf
Dotzky.
“So here you are again at last,” was Lori’s greeting to me. “Lately you
have become quite a hermit! Even my future son-in-law I have not had the
honour of seeing for ever so long! Beatrix will be quite offended. Now
tell us, dear, what are you about? and how are Rosa and Lilly? Besides,
I have some interesting news for Lilly, which my husband brought me
yesterday from the café. There is some one deeply in love with her, one
that I thought was making up to you; but I will tell you all about it
later. What a lovely gown that is that you have on! It is from
Francine’s I know. I could tell that at once. She has such a peculiar
style of her own. And your bonnet is from Gindreau? It suits you
completely. He makes dresses too, now, not bonnets only, and with
immense taste too. Yesterday evening at the Dietrichsteins (why were
you not there?) Nini Chotek was there with an Gindreau dress, and looked
almost pretty.”
So she went on for some time, and I answered in the same style. After I
had dexterously led the talk to the gossip which was current in society,
I put this question in the most unconcerned tone possible:--
“Have you heard that Princess ---- has a _liaison_ with a certain Baron
Tilling?”
“I have heard something of it, but, anyhow, that is _de l’histoire
ancienne_. To-day it is a perfectly well-known thing that the princess
is mad after a low comedian. What, have you any interest in this Baron
Tilling? Why, you are blushing! Ah! it is no good shaking your head!
Better confess! But for this, it would be an unheard-of thing that you
should remain so long cold and unfeeling. It would be a true
satisfaction for me to know you were in love at last. It is true that
Tilling would be no match for you; for you have more brilliant
suitors--and he must have absolutely nothing. To be sure, you are rich
enough yourself, but then, besides, he is too old for you. How old would
poor Arno have been now? Oh! that moment, it was too sad, when you read
my brother’s letter out to me. I shall never forget it. Ah! war is
certainly a sad business, for some. For others it is an excellent
business. My husband wishes for nothing more ardently than that
something should occur, he so longs to distinguish himself. I can
understand it. If I were a soldier I should also wish, myself, to do
some great exploit; or, at least, to get on in my profession.”
“Or to be crippled or shot dead?”
“I should never think of that. One should not think of that, and besides
it only happens to those whose destiny it is. Your destiny, my love, was
to be a young widow.”
“And the war with Italy had to break out to bring it about?”
“And suppose it is my destiny to be the wife of a relatively young
general.”
“Well then, must there be a general war in order that Griesbach may get
quick promotion? You prescribe a very simple course for the government
of the world. But what were you going to tell me in reference to Lilly?”
“That your cousin, Conrad, raves about her. I expect he will very soon
make an offer for her.”
“I doubt that. Conrad Althaus is too flighty a madcap to think of
marrying.”
“Oh! they are all madcaps and flighty--still they do get married when
they get foolishly fond of a girl. Do you think Lilly likes him?”
“I have not observed at all.”
“It would be a very good match. On the death of his uncle Drontheim he
inherits the Selavetz estate. Talking of Drontheim, do you know that
Ferdy Drontheim--the same that broke off his connection with Grilli the
_danseuse_--is now to marry a rich banker’s daughter? However, no one
will receive her. Are you going to the English embassy to-night? What,
again no? Well, really you are right. In these embassy routs one feels
after all not quite at home, there are such a lot of funny people there,
of whom one never can be certain whether they are _comme il faut_. Every
English tourist who can get an introduction to the ambassador is
invited--if he is only a commercial man turned landowner, or even a mere
tradesman. I like Englishmen only in the Tauchnitz editions. Have you
yet read _Jane Eyre_? Is it not really wonderfully pretty? As soon as
Beatrix begins to talk I shall hire an English nurse. About Xavier, I am
not at all pleased with his French maid. A little while ago I met her in
the street, as she was walking out with the boy, and a young man, who
looked like a shopman, was walking with her, and seemed in intimate
conversation. All at once I stood before them--you should have seen
their confusion! One has always some trouble with one’s people. There is
my own maid, who has given me warning, because she is going to get
married just now when I had got used to her! There is nothing more
intolerable than new faces among one’s servants. What! do you want to
go?”
“Yes, my love. I must pay some calls now that cannot be put off. Adieu.”
And I would not be moved to stay “only for five minutes more,” though
the calls that could not be put off were a fiction. At another time I
might no doubt have entertained myself for hours in hearing such
meaningless tittle-tattle and tattling back again, but to-day it
displeased me. One longing had seized me--for a talk like yesterday
evening! Ah, Tilling! Frederick Tilling! The carriage wheels were right
then in their refrain! A change had happened in me, I had been raised
into another world of feeling; these petty matters in which my friend
was so deeply interested--dresses, nursemaids, stories about marriages
and estates--all that was too pitiful, too insignificant, too stifling.
Away from it--above it--into a different atmosphere of life! And Tilling
was really free; the princess “is mad after a low comedian”. He could
not surely have ever been in love with her! some transitory, yes,
_transitory_ adventure, nothing more.
* * * * *
Several days passed without my seeing Tilling again. Every evening I
went to the theatre, and from thence to a party, expecting and hoping to
meet him, but in vain.
My reception day brought me many visitors, but, of course, not him. But
I did not expect him. It was not like him after his decisive “That you
really must not expect from me, countess,” and his saying at the
carriage door in so hurt a manner “I understand--then not at all,” to
present himself after all at my house on a day of the kind. I had
offended him that evening--that was certain; and he avoided meeting me
again--that was clear. Only, what could I do? I was all on fire to see
him again, to make amends for my rudeness on the former occasion, and
get another hour of a talk such as I had had at my father’s--an hour’s
talk the delight of which would now be increased to me an hundredfold by
the consciousness, which had now become plain to me, of my love.
In default of Tilling, the following Saturday brought me at least
Tilling’s cousin, the lady at whose ball I had made his acquaintance. On
her entrance my heart began to beat. Now I could at least learn
something about the man who gave me so much to think about. Still I
could not bring myself to put a direct question to this effect. I felt
that I was not in a condition to speak out his very name without
blushing so as to betray myself; and therefore I talked to my visitor
about a hundred different things--even the weather amongst the rest--but
avoided that very topic which lay at my heart.
“Oh, Martha,” said she, without any preparation, “I have a message to
give you. My cousin Frederick begs to be remembered to you. He went away
the day before yesterday.”
I felt the blood desert my cheeks. “Went away? Where? Is his regiment
moved?”
“No; but he has taken a short leave of absence, to hurry off to Berlin,
where his mother is on her deathbed. Poor fellow, I am sorry for him,
for I know how he adores his mother.”
Two days afterwards I received a letter in a hand I did not know, with
the postmark of Berlin. Even before I saw the signature, I knew that the
letter was Tilling’s. It ran thus:--
“8 FRIEDRICH ST., _Mar. 30, 1863_, 1 A.M.
“Dear Countess,--I _must_ tell my grief to some one, but why to
you? Have I any right to do so? No; but I have an irresistible
impulse. You will feel with me. I know you will.
“If you had known her who is dying you would have loved her. That
soft heart, that clear intellect, that joyous temper--all her
dignity and worth--all is now destined for the grave. No hope! I
have spent the whole day at her bedside, and am going to spend the
night also up here--her last night. She has suffered much, poor
thing. Now she is quiet. Her powers are failing. Her pulse is
already almost stopped. Besides me there are watching in her room
her sister and a physician.
“Ah! this terrible separation! Death! One knows, it is true, that
it must happen to every one; and yet one can never rightly take in
that it may reach those whom we love also. What this mother of mine
was to me I cannot tell you. She knows that she is dying. When I
arrived this morning she received me with an exclamation of joy.
‘So that is you! I see you once more, my Fritz. I did so fear you
would come too late.’ ‘You will get well again, mother,’ I cried.
‘No! No! There is nothing to say about that, my dear boy. Do not
profane our last time together with the usual sick-bed
consolations. Let us bid each other good-bye.’
“I fell sobbing on my knees at the bedside.
“‘You are crying, Fritz. Look! I am not going to say to you the
usual “Do not weep”. I am glad that your parting from your best and
oldest friend gives you pain. That assures me that I shall long
live in your remembrance. Remember that you have given me much joy.
Except the anxiety which the illnesses of your childhood caused,
and the torture when you were on campaign, you have given me none
but happy feelings, and have helped me to bear every sadness which
my lot has laid on me. I bless you for it, my child.’ And now
another attack of her pain came on. It was heartrending to see how
she cried and groaned, how her features were distorted. Yes! Death
is a fearful, a cruel enemy; and the sight of this agony called
back to my recollection all the agonies which I had witnessed on
battlefields and in the hospitals. When I think that we men
sometimes hound each other on to death gratuitously and cheerfully,
that we expect youth in the fulness of its strength to offer itself
willingly to this enemy, against whom even weary and broken old age
yet fights desperately--it is revolting!
“This night is fearfully long. If the poor sufferer could only
sleep! but she lies there with her eyes open. I pass constantly the
space of half-an-hour motionless by her bedside; and then I slip
off to this sheet of paper, and write a few words, and then back
again to her. In this way it has come to four o’clock. I have just
heard the four strokes pealing from all the clock towers--it
strikes one as so cold, so unfeeling, that time is striding on
steadily and unerringly through all eternity, while at this very
moment for one warmly-loved being time must stop--for all eternity.
But by how much the colder, the more unfeeling, the universe seems
to our pain, by so much the more longingly do we fly back to
another human heart which we believe is beating in unison with our
feelings. And therefore it is that this white sheet of paper, which
the physician left lying on the table when he wrote his
prescription, attracted me, and therefore it is that I send you
this letter.
“Seven o’clock. It is over.
“‘Farewell, my dear boy.’ Those were her last words. Then she
closed her eyes and slept. Sleep soundly, my dear mother. In tears
I kiss your dear hands.
“Yours in deadly sorrow,
“FRIEDRICH TILLING.”
I still keep this letter. How frayed and discoloured the sheet looks
now! It is not only the twenty-five years that have elapsed which have
caused this decay, but also the tears and kisses with which I covered
the beloved writing: “In deadly sorrow”. Yes, but “shouting for joy” was
what I felt also when I read it. Though there was no word of love in it,
yet no letter could give plainer proof that the writer loved the
recipient, and no one else. That at such a moment, at the deathbed of
his mother, he longed to pour out his grief into the heart, not of the
princess, but into mine, must surely stifle every jealous doubt.
I sent on the same day a funeral wreath of a hundred large white
camelias, with a single half-blown red rose in it. Would he understand
that the pale scentless flowers belonged to the departed as a symbol of
mourning, and the little rose--to himself?
CHAPTER V.
_Conrad Althaus’s suit to Lilly.--The Easter foot-washing.--I meet
Tilling again and receive him at my own house.--A disappointing
interview.--Tilling announces his departure from Vienna.--A
conversation about war.--I invite him to a last interview, which is
interrupted by my father.--A ride in the Prater.--We understand
each other at last._
Three weeks had passed.
Conrad Althaus had proposed for my sister Lilly, and met with a refusal.
But he did not take the matter much to heart, and remained a zealous
visitor at our house, and hovered about us in the drawing-rooms of our
society. I expressed to him once my admiration for his unshaken fidelity
to his slavery.
“I am very glad,” I said, “that you are not angry; but it is a proof to
me that your feeling for Lilly was not so ardent after all as you
pretend, for rejected love is wont to be angry and resentful.”
“You are mistaken, my respected Mrs. Cousin; I love Lilly to
distraction. At first I believed that my heart belonged to you, but you
held yourself so aloof and were so cold that I stifled my budding
passion in good time; and then for a time I was interested in Rosa; but
at last I fixed my affection on Lilly, and to this affection I will now
remain true to the end of my life.”
“Oh, that is very like you!”
“Lilly or no one!”
“But as she will not have you, my poor Conrad?”
“Do you think I am the first who has been met by a refusal, and has gone
back to the same lady a second and a third time, and has been accepted
at the fourth offer, just to stop his importunity? Lilly has not fallen
in love with me, which is a matter not easily to be accounted for, but
is still a fact. That under these circumstances she should have resisted
the temptation, which for so many maidens is irresistible, to become a
wife, and would not accept an offer which in a worldly point of view
would be a desirable one, that seems to me most good in her, and I am
more in love with her than ever. Gradually my devotion will touch her
and awaken a return of love, and then, dearest Martha, you will become
my sister-in-law. I hope you will not go against me?”
“I? Oh no! On the contrary, your system of perseverance pleases me. With
time and the exhibition of tenderness one can always succeed in ‘wooing
and winning,’ as the English call it. But as to _minnen und
gewinnen_,[5] our young gentlemen seem hardly disposed to take the
necessary trouble. They want not to strive after and gain their
happiness, but to pluck it without any trouble, like some wayside
flower.”
In a fortnight Tilling was back in Vienna, as I heard, and yet he did
not come to my house. I could not, of course, expect to meet him in
people’s drawing-rooms, since his bereavement kept him away from all
society. Still I had hoped that he would have come, or at least written
to me; but one day after another passed and did not bring the expected
visit or letter.
“I cannot think, Martha, what has come to you,” said Aunt Mary to me one
morning. “For some time you have been so out of humour, so _distraite_,
so--I don’t know what to call it. You are very wrong not to lend an ear
to any of your suitors. This solitary existence, as I have said from the
very first, is not good for you. The consequence of it is these low
spirits which distinguish you just now. Have you quite forgotten your
Easter devotions? They would help to do you good.”
“I think that both things--I mean both marrying and going to
confession--should be done for love of the thing itself, not as a remedy
for low spirits. None of my suitors please me; and as for
confession----”
“Well, it is high time for that; to-morrow is Maundy Thursday. Have you
tickets for the foot-washing?”
“Yes, papa has sent me some, but I really do not know whether I shall
go.”
“Oh! but you must. There is nothing more beautiful and more elevating
than this ceremony. The triumph of Christian humility. The emperor and
empress prostrating themselves to the earth to wash the feet of poor men
and women in their service. Does not that symbolise well how small and
insignificant is earthly majesty before the heavenly?”
“In order to represent humility symbolically by kneeling down one must
feel oneself to be really a very exalted personage. It means--‘What
God’s Son was in comparison with the apostles, I, the emperor, am in
comparison with these poor folks’. This fundamental motive of the
ceremony does not strike me as peculiarly humble.”
“What curious notions you have, Martha. In these three years that you
have passed in solitude in the country, and in the perusal of wicked
books, your ideas have become so perverted.”
“_Wicked_ books?”
“Yes, wicked. I maintain that the word is correct. The other day when in
my innocence I spoke to the archbishop about a book I had seen on your
table, and which from its title I took for a religious work, _The Life
of Jesus_, by one Strauss, why, he smote his hands together above his
head, and cried out: ‘Merciful Heaven, how came you by such a profligate
work?’ I turned as red as fire, and assured him that I had not read the
book myself, but had only seen it at a relation’s. ‘Then demand of your
relation, as she values her salvation, to throw this book into the
fire.’ And that I do now Martha. Will you burn the book?”
“If we were two or three centuries earlier we might have watched, not
the book, but the author, going to the flames. That would have been more
effectual--more effectual for the time, though not for long.”
“You give me no answer. Will you burn this book?”
“No.”
“What! nothing but no?”
“Why should we have any long talk about it? We do not yet understand
each other in these matters, dear auntie. Let me rather tell you what
little Rudolf yesterday----”
And thus the conversation was happily led off to another and a fruitful
subject, in which no difference of opinion came in between us; for we
were both agreed on this matter, that Rudolf Dotzky was the dearest, the
most original, and, for his age, the most advanced child in the world.
Next day I resolved nevertheless to attend the foot-washing. A little
after ten, in black clothes, as beseems Passion week, my sister Rosa and
I presented ourselves in the great hall of state in the Burg. On a
scaffold there places were reserved for members of the aristocracy and
of the diplomatic corps. Thus one was again in one’s own set, and
greetings were exchanged left and right. The gallery too was closely
packed, also with persons selected, and who had got cards of admission,
but still a little “mixed,” not belonging only to the _crème_, as we
were on our scaffold. In short, the old caste separations and
privileges, to correspond with this _fête_ of symbolical humility. I do
not know whether the others were in a mood of religious devotion, but I
awaited what was coming with just the same feeling with which one looks
forward in the theatre to a promised “spectacle”. Just as there, after
exchanging salutations from box to box, one looks with excitement for
the rise of the curtain, so I was looking in the direction in which the
chorus and soloists in the show before me were to appear. The whole
scene was already set, especially the long table at which the twelve old
men and twelve old women had to seat themselves.
Still I was glad I had come, for I felt excited, and this is always a
pleasant feeling, and one which delivers one from troublous thoughts for
the moment. My trouble was constantly “Why does not Tilling show
himself?” Just now this fixed idea had left me. What I was expecting and
wishing to see was the imperial and the humble actors in the _fête_
before me. And exactly at that moment, when I was not thinking of him,
my eyes fell on Tilling.
The mass was just over, the dignitaries of the Court had just entered
the hall, followed by the general staff and the corps of officers, and I
was letting my gaze wander unconcernedly over all these persons in
uniform, who were not the chief actors, but only intended to fill the
stage--when suddenly I recognised Tilling, who had taken his position
just opposite our seat. It ran through me like an electric shock. He was
not looking our way. His look showed traces of the suffering he had gone
through during the last few weeks--an expression of deep sorrow rested
on his features. How gladly would I have shown my sympathy with him by a
silent warm pressure of the hand! I kept my gaze firmly fixed on him,
hoping that by this magnetic power I might compel him to look in my way
too--but in vain.
“They are coming! they are coming!” cried Rosa, nudging me. “Only look!
How beautiful--what a picture!”
It was the old men and women, clothed in the old German costume, who
were now introduced. The youngest of the women--so said the
newspapers--was eighty-eight years old, the youngest of the men
eighty-five. Wrinkled, toothless, bowed--I could not see really the
point of Rosa’s “How beautiful!” What pleased me, however, was the
costume. This was peculiarly and excellently suited to the whole
ceremony, so penetrated with the spirit of the Middle Ages. The
anachronism, in this respect, was ourselves--in our modern clothes and
with our modern notions we did not harmonise with the picture.
After the twenty-four old people had taken their seats at the table, a
number of gentlemen, mostly elderly, bedizened with gold-sticks and
orders, came into the hall; the privy councillors and chamberlains, many
countenances of our acquaintance, Minister “To-be-sure” among the rest,
were there. Lastly followed the priests, who had to officiate in the
solemn rite. So now the march of the supernumeraries into the hall was
over, and the expectation of the public rose to the highest pitch of
excitement.
My eyes, however, were not so closely fixed as those of the other
spectators in that direction from which the court was to come, but kept
always turning back to Tilling. The latter had at last looked my way,
and recognised me. He saluted me.
Rosa’s hand was again laid on my arm.
“Martha, are you ill? You have turned pale and red all at once! Look!
Now! Now!”
In fact, the chapel master--I should have said the chief master of the
ceremonies--raised his staff and gave the signal of the approach of the
imperial couple. This promised at any rate a sight worth seeing, for,
apart from their being the highest, they were certainly one of the most
beautiful couples in the land. At the same time as the emperor and
empress several archdukes and archduchesses had entered, and now the
ceremony was to begin. Stewards and pages brought in the dishes, full of
food, and the emperor and empress placed them before the old people as
they sat at table. This afforded more _tableaux_ than ever. The
utensils, the meats, and the way in which the pages carried them,
reminded one of many famous pictures of banquets in the Renaissance
style.
Scarcely, however, had the dishes been put on, when the table was taken
away again, a labour which again, as a sign of humility, was done by the
archdukes. And when the table had been carried away, the special
climax-scene of the piece (what the French call _le clou de la
pièce_)--the foot-washing--began. This was indeed only a sham washing,
as the meal had been only a sham meal. Kneeling on the floor, the
emperor stroked down the feet of the old men with a towel, while the
assisting priest made a show of pouring water out of a can over them;
and so he glided from the first to the twelfth old man, whilst the
empress--whom one was accustomed to see only majestically seated on
high--in the same humble attitude, in which she did not however lose
anything of her accustomed grace, went through the same proceeding with
the twelve old women. The accompanying music, or, if you like, the
explanatory chorus, was formed by the reading of the gospel of the day.
I should have been glad for a few moments to have been able to feel what
was passing in the minds of these old people while they were sitting in
this strange costume stared at by a glittering crowd, and with the
country’s father, the country’s mother--their majesties--at their feet.
Probably, if the momentary exchange of consciousness I wished for could
have been granted me, it would have been no definite feeling I should
have experienced, but only a confused, dazzled half dream, a sensation
at once glad and painful, confused and solemn, a complete suspension of
thought in those poor heads, already so ignorant and weak with age. All
that was real and comprehensible in the matter for the good old folks
might have been the prospect of the red silk purses with the thirty
silver pieces in them which were hung about each neck by their
majesties’ own hands, and of the basket of food which was given to each
on their departure home.
The whole ceremony was soon over, and the hall then began to empty at
once. First the Court went out, then all the others who had taken parts
withdrew, and the public out of the scaffold and gallery at the same
time.
“It _was_ beautiful! It _was_ beautiful!” whispered Rosa with a deep
breath.
I answered nothing. I had, in fact, no cause to pity the confusion and
incapacity of thought of the old folks in the ceremony, for my own
conception of what had been going on was just as confused, and I had
only one thought in my mind--“Will some one be waiting for us outside?”
However, we did not get to the exit so quickly as I should have liked.
First there was shaking hands and exchanging a few words with nearly all
the spectators on the scaffold, who had left their places at the same
time as ourselves. They kept standing in a great group on the stairway,
and it became a regular morning party.
“Good-day, Tini!”
“_Bon-jour_, Martha.”
“Ah! are you there too, countess?”
“Are you engaged for Easter Sunday?”
“Good-day, your highness, don’t forget that we are expecting you to a
little dance on Monday evening.”
“Were you at the sermon at the Dominicans’ yesterday?”
“No; I was at the Sacred Heart, where my daughters are in retreat.”
“The next rehearsal for our charity performance is on Tuesday, at
twelve, dear baron; pray be punctual.”
“The empress looked superb again.”
“Did you notice, Lori, how the Archduke Ludwig Victor kept sidling off
to the divine Fanny?”
“_Madame, j’ai l’honneur de vous présenter mes hommages._”
“_Ah! c’est vous, marquis, charmée!_”
“I wish you good-morning, Lord Chesterfield!”
“Oh! how are you? awfully fine woman, your empress.”
“Have you yet secured a box for Adelina Patti’s performance? A
wonderfully rising star.”
“So the news of Ferdy Drontheim’s engagement with the banker’s daughter
is quite confirmed. It _is_ a scandal!”
And so the chatter went on from all sides. An unimpassioned listener
would hardly have concluded from these speeches that they sprang out of
the impressions of a scene of humble devotion just concluded.
At last we got out of the gate, where our carriages were in waiting, and
a crowd of people were collected. These folks wanted at least to see
those who had been so lucky as to have seen the gentry who had been
spectators of the Court; and then, on their side, they could pass
themselves off as people only a little less distinguished, as having
seen the spectators.
We had scarcely got out when Tilling stood before me. He made me a bow.
“I have to thank you again, Countess Dotzky, for the beautiful wreath.”
I gave him my hand, but could not speak a word.
Our carriage had come up; I was obliged to get in, and Rosa was pressing
me forward. Tilling raised his hand to his cap, and was retiring. Then I
made a great effort, and said, in a tone which sounded quite strange in
my own ears:--
“On Sunday, between two and three, I shall be at home”.
He bowed in silence, and we got in.
“You must have taken cold, Martha,” remarked my sister as we drove away.
“Your invitation sounded quite hoarse; and why did not you introduce
that melancholy staff-officer to me? I have seldom seen a less cheerful
visage.”
On the day appointed, and at the hour named, Tilling was announced.
Before that I had made the following entry in the red book:--
“I expect that this day will be decisive of my fate. I feel such a
solemnity, such an anxiety, so sweet an expectation. I must fix this
frame of mind on these pages, so that, if I turn back to them again
after long years, I may be able to recall quite vividly the hours which
I am now looking forward to with so much emotion. Perhaps it will turn
out quite differently from what I expect--perhaps exactly the same. At
any rate it will be interesting to me to see how far anticipation and
reality correspond. The expected guest loves me; the letter he wrote
from his mother’s deathbed proves that. He is loved in return; the
rosebud in the funeral wreath must have shown him that. And now we are
to meet without witnesses, moved to our hearts’ core--he in need of
comfort, I penetrated with the desire to console him. I expect there
will not be many words pass. Tears in both our eyes, hands clasped
tremblingly, and we shall have understood one another. Two loving, two
happy mortals, earnest, devoted, passionate, devoutly happy; while in
society the thing will be announced indifferently and drily, somewhat in
this fashion: ‘Have you heard? Martha Dotzky is engaged to Tilling--a
poor match!’ It is five minutes past two. He may come now any minute.
There is a ring! This palpitation, this trembling: I feel that----”
This is as far as I got. The last line is scrawled in letters which are
almost illegible--a sign that “this palpitation, this trembling” was not
a mere figure of rhetoric.
Anticipation and reality did not correspond. During his half-hour’s call
Tilling behaved very reservedly and very coldly. He begged my
forgiveness for the liberty he had taken in writing to me, and hoped I
would attribute this breach of etiquette to the loss of control which a
man in such sorrowful moments may well experience. Then he told me
something more of the last days and of the life of his mother; but of
what I was looking for, not a word. And so I also became every moment
more reserved and cold. When he rose to go I made no effort to detain
him, and I did not ask him to come again.
When he had gone I rushed again to the red book, which was lying there
open, and went on with the interrupted topic.
“I feel that all is over--that I have shamefully deceived myself, that
he does not love me, and will even think now that he is as indifferent
to me as I to him. I received him in an almost repellent way. I feel
that he will never come again. And yet the world holds for me no second
man. There is no one else so good, so noble, so intellectual--and there
is no other woman, Frederick, who has loved you as I have loved
you--assuredly not your princess, to whom, as it seems, you have turned
back again. Son Rudolf, you must now be my consolation and my stay. From
this time I will have no more to do with woman’s love--it is mother’s
love alone which must now fill my heart and my life. If I can succeed in
forming you into such a man as _he_ is--if some day I may be wept by
you, as he weeps for his mother--I shall have gained my end.”
It is surely a foolish habit--this diary-writing. These wishes, plans,
and views, always changing, vanishing and coming anew, which form the
current of our soul’s life--to strive to immortalise them by writing
them down is a mistake to start with, and brings before oneself, when
one peruses it in after years, the constant shame of having to recognise
one’s own fickleness. Here are recorded now on the same page, and under
the same date, two such different humours--first the most confident
hope, and by its side the most complete despair, and the pages next it
may give proof of something quite different again.
The Easter Monday was favoured by the most splendid spring weather, and
the ride in the Prater, which takes place, according to custom, on that
day, a kind of holiday preparatory to the great Corso of May Day, went
off with especial lustre. I cannot say how much this lustre, this
delight in holiday and spring which was all around me, contrasted with
the sorrow which filled my spirit. And yet I would not have given up my
sorrow, would not have had again the same light, and therefore also
empty heart, as two months before--when I had not made Tilling’s
acquaintance. For, though my love was, according to all appearance, an
unhappy one, yet it was love--and this implies a raising of the
intensity of life--that warm, tender feeling which expanded my heart as
often as the dear image passed before my inward eye. I could not have
lived without it.
I had never thought it likely that the subject of my dreams would come
before my eyes here in the Prater, in the midst of this whirl of worldly
pleasure. And yet when, without thinking, I happened once to let my gaze
wander towards the ride, I saw far off galloping down the promenade in
our direction an officer, in whom--though my short sight could not
distinguish him clearly--I at once recognised Tilling. As soon as he
came near, and crossed our carriage, with a salute in passing, I
returned his greeting, not with a mere bow, but with warm gestures. At
the same moment I was aware that I had done what was unbecoming and
improper.
“Who is that you were making those signs to?” asked my sister Lilly.
“Ah, I see,” she added, “there is the inevitable Conrad walking--you
were waving your hand to him?”
This timely appearance of the “inevitable Conrad” came very _apropos_
for me. I was thankful to my trusty cousin for it, and proceeded at once
to give effect to my gratitude.
“Look here, Lilly,” I said, “he is, I am sure, a good man, and, no
doubt, is here only on your account again. You should take pity on
him--you should be good to him. Oh, if you knew how sweet it is to have
any one dear to you, you would not shut your heart so. Go make him
happy, the good fellow.”
Lilly stared at me in astonishment.
“But suppose he is indifferent to me, Martha?”
“Perhaps you are in love with some one else?”
She shook her head: “No, no one”.
“Oh, poor thing!”
We made two or three more turns up and down the promenade. But the one
whom my eyes were searching after all about I did not see a second time.
He had quitted the Prater again.
* * * * *
A few days later, in the afternoon, Tilling was announced. He did not,
however, find me alone, for my father and Aunt Mary had come to call,
and besides these Rosa and Lilly, Conrad Althaus and Minister
“To-be-sure” were in my drawing-room.
I almost uttered a cry of astonishment--this visit came upon me with
such a surprise and at the same time so delighted and excited me. But
the delight was soon over, when Tilling, after exchanging salutations
with the company, and taking a seat opposite to me, at my invitation,
said in an unconcerned tone:--
“I am come _pour prendre congé_, countess. I am leaving Vienna in a few
days.”
“For long?” “Where are you going?” “What is the reason?” “What is it
about?” asked the others, all at once, and with interest, while I
remained dumb.
“Perhaps for good.” “To Hungary.” “Exchanging into another regiment.”
“For love of the Magyars,” explained Tilling, in answer to his different
questioners.
Meanwhile I had collected myself.
“It was a sudden resolution,” I said, as calmly as I could. “What harm
has our Vienna done to you that you quit it in such a violent hurry?”
“It is too lively and too gay for me. I am in a mood which makes one
long to mope in solitude.”
“Oh, well!” said Conrad, “the gloomier one’s mood, the more one ought to
seek amusement. An evening in the Karls theatre has a much more
refreshing effect than passing all day musing alone.”
“The best thing, my dear Tilling, to give you a shake up,” said my
father, “would, I am certain, be a jolly rattling war, but unluckily
there is no prospect of that before us. The peace threatens to last as
long as one can see.”
“Well,” I could not help remarking, “that is an extraordinary
collocation of words, ‘war’ and ‘jolly,’ ‘peace’ and ‘threatening’.”
“To be sure,” assented the Minister, “the political horizon at the
moment does not show any black point, still storm-clouds sometimes rise
quite unexpectedly all of a sudden, and the chance can never be excluded
that a difference--even unimportant in itself--may cause the outbreak of
war. I say that for your comfort, colonel. As for myself, since I, in
virtue of my office, have to manage the home affairs of the country, my
wishes must, to be sure, be directed exclusively to the maintenance of
peace as long as possible--for it is this alone which is naturally
adapted to further the interests lying in my domain. Still this does not
prevent me from taking note of the just desires of those who from a
military point of view are, to be sure----”
“Permit me, your excellence,” interrupted Tilling, “as far as I am
myself concerned, to protest against the assumption that I wish for a
war, and also to protest against the underlying principle that the
military point of view ought to be different from the human. We exist in
order to protect the country should an enemy threaten it, just as a fire
engine exists in order to put out a fire if it breaks out, but that
gives the soldier no right to desire war any more than a fireman to wish
for a fire. Both involve misfortune--heavy misfortune--and no one, as a
man, ought to rejoice over the misfortunes of his fellow-men.”
“You good, you dear man,” I said, in silence, to the speaker.
The latter continued:--
“I am quite aware that the opportunity for personal distinction comes to
the one only from conflagrations and to the other only from campaigns;
but how poor of heart and narrow of mind must a man be before his
selfish interests can seem to him so gigantic as to blot out the sight
of the universal misery! Peace is the greatest blessing, or rather the
absence of the greatest curse. It is, as you said yourself, the only
condition in which the interests of the population can be furthered, and
yet you would give to a large fragment of this population, the army, the
right to wish for the cessation of the condition of growth and to long
for that of destruction? To nourish this ‘just’ wish till it grows into
a demand, and then, perhaps, obtains its fulfilment? To make war that
the army may anyhow be occupied and satisfied is just as if we set fire
to houses that the fire brigade may distinguish itself and earn renown.”
“Your comparison, dear colonel, is a lame one,” replied my father,
giving Tilling, contrary to his habit, his military title, perhaps to
remind him that his opinions were not consistent with his calling.
“Conflagrations do nothing but damage, while wars may get power and
greatness for the country. How else have states been formed and extended
except by victorious campaigns? Personal ambition is surely not the only
thing that makes soldiers delight in war. It is above all things, pride
in one’s race, in one’s country, that finds its dearest nourishment
there--in a word, patriotism.”
“Especially love of home?” replied Tilling. “I do not really understand
why it is we soldiers in particular who make as if we had a monopoly of
this feeling, which is natural to the majority of mankind. Every one
loves the soil on which he grows up; every one wishes the elevation and
the good of his own countrymen. But happiness and renown are to be
reached by quite other means than war; pride can be excited by quite
other exploits than deeds of arms. I, for instance, am much prouder of
Anastatius Grün than of any of our field-marshals.”
“Well, but can anybody even compare a poet with a commander?” cried my
father.
“That is my question too. The bloodless laurel is by far the more
lovely.”
“But, my dear baron,” said my aunt at this point, “I have never heard a
soldier speak so. What becomes, then, of the ardour of battle, of the
warlike fire?”
“Dear lady, those are feelings not at all unknown to me. It was by them
that I was animated when as a youngster of nineteen I took the field for
the first time. But when I had seen the realities of butchery, when I
had been a witness of the bestialities which are connected with it, my
enthusiasm evaporated, and I went into my subsequent battles, not with
pleasure, but with resignation.”
“Listen to me, Tilling. I have been present at more campaigns than you,
and have also seen plenty of scenes of horror; but my zeal has not yet
cooled. When in the year ’49 I followed Radetzky, though a middle-aged
man, I felt all the same delight as on the first occasion.”
“Excuse me, your excellence. But you belong to an older generation--a
generation in which the warlike spirit is much more lively than in ours,
and in which the feeling for humanity, which is zealous for the
abolition of all misery, and which is at this time extending in
ever-widening circles, was still totally unknown.”
“What is the good? Misery there must always be: it can no more be
abolished than war.”
“Pray observe, Count Althaus, that in these words you are defining the
only point of view (one now much shaken) from which the past used to
regard all social evils--_i.e._, the point of view of resignation--as
one looks at what is inevitable, what is a natural necessity. But if
ever, at the sight of a great evil, the doubtful question has forced
itself on one’s heart, ‘Must this be so?’ then the heart can no longer
remain cold; and, besides pity, a kind of repentance springs up. Not a
personal repentance indeed, but--how shall I express it?--a _protest
from the conscience of the age_.”
My father shrugged his shoulders. “That is above me,” said he. “I can
only assure you that it is not only we old grandfathers who think with
pride and joy on our old campaigns, but also that most of the young men
and boys, if asked whether they would like to go out to a war, would
answer at once: ‘Yes, with pleasure, all possible pleasure’.”
“The boys, surely. They have still in their hearts the enthusiasm which
is implanted at school. And of the others, many answer, as you say,
‘With pleasure’ because that answer is looked on, according to the
popular conception, as manly and courageous; and the honest ‘Not
willingly’ might easily be interpreted as a proof of cowardice.”
“Oh!” sa
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