1 files changed, 3122 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/76750-0.txt b/76750-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6739bf8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/76750-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,3122 @@
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76750 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+  TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
+  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold is denoted by =equals=.
+
+  Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.
+
+
+
+
+                                             [Illustration: colophon]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                          THE TWO COUNTESSES
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                                               _THE “UNKNOWN” LIBRARY_
+
+
+
+
+                       THE “UNKNOWN” LIBRARY.
+
+
+  1. =MLLE. IXE.= By LANOE FALCONER.
+
+  2. =STORY OF ELEANOR LAMBERT.= By MAGDALEN BROOKE.
+
+  3. =MYSTERY OF THE CAMPAGNA.= By VON DEGEN.
+
+  4. =THE FRIEND OF DEATH.= Adapted by MARY T. SERRANO.
+
+  5. =PHILIPPA.= By ELLA.
+
+  6. =THE HOTEL D’ANGLETERRE.= By LANOE FALCONER.
+
+  7. =AMARYLLIS.= By ΓΕΩΡΓΙΟΣ ΔΡΟΣΙΝΗΣ.
+
+  8. =SOME EMOTIONS AND A MORAL.= By JOHN OLIVER HOBBES.
+
+  9. =EUROPEAN RELATIONS.= By TALMAGE DALIN.
+
+  10. =JOHN SHERMAN, and DHOYA.= By GANCONAGH.
+
+  11. =THROUGH THE RED-LITTEN WINDOWS.= By THEODOR HERTZ-GARTEN.
+
+  12. =BACK FROM THE DEAD.= By SAQUI SMITH.
+
+  13. =IN TENT AND BUNGALOW.= By AN IDLE EXILE.
+
+  14. =THE SINNER’S COMEDY.= By JOHN OLIVER HOBBES.
+
+  15. =THE WEE WIDOW’S CRUISE.= By AN IDLE EXILE.
+
+  16. =A NEW ENGLAND CACTUS.= By FRANK POPE HUMPHREY.
+
+  17. =GREEN TEA.= By V. SCHALLENBERGER.
+
+  18. =A SPLENDID COUSIN.= By MRS. ANDREW DEAN.
+
+  19. =GENTLEMAN UPCOTT’S DAUGHTER.= By TOM COBBLEIGH.
+
+  20. =AT THE THRESHOLD.= By LAURA DEARBORN.
+
+  21. =HER HEART WAS TRUE.= By AN IDLE EXILE.
+
+  22. =THE LAST KING OF YEWLE.= By P. L. MCDERMOTT.
+
+  23. =A STUDY IN TEMPTATIONS.= By JOHN OLIVER HOBBES.
+
+  24. =THE PALIMPSEST.= By GILBERT AUGUSTIN THIERRY.
+
+  25. =SQUIRE HELLMAN, and Other Stories.= By JUHANI AHO.
+
+  26. =A FATHER OF SIX.= By N. E. POTAPEEKO.
+
+  27. =THE TWO COUNTESSES.= By MARIE EBNER VON ESCHENBACH.
+
+
+
+
+                             THE TWO
+                                 COUNTESSES
+
+
+                                  BY
+                      MARIE EBNER VON ESCHENBACH
+
+
+                            TRANSLATED BY
+                              MRS. WAUGH
+
+
+
+
+                               NEW YORK
+                      CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY
+                       104 & 106 FOURTH AVENUE
+
+
+
+
+                         COPYRIGHT, 1893, BY
+                     CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY.
+
+
+                        _All rights reserved._
+
+                                            THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS,
+                                                  RAHWAY, N. J.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Decorative image]
+
+
+
+
+THE TWO COUNTESSES.
+
+
+
+
+COUNTESS MUSCHI.
+
+
+                                                SEBENBERG CASTLE,
+                                                     November, 1882.
+
+The shooting season is over; all our guests have left the castle; we
+are as dull as ditch water, and I at length have time to write to
+you, dear Nesti.
+
+Poor Fred, too, has gone. He was awfully kind and amusing, but
+woefully unhappy. I am truly sorry for him, poor fellow, but I cannot
+help it. His estate up in the mountains brings in next to nothing;
+and we could not live upon air, first-rate as it seems to be up
+there.
+
+But I have something much more interesting to tell you about, and
+will plunge you at once in _milias res_--Latin, my love; comes from
+_milieu_. Where did I pick that up? Heaven only knows. I am awfully
+quick at learning, as my poor old governess Nagel, whom I have
+brought up, solemnly avers to this day.
+
+So, now, prick up your ears!
+
+Yesterday, while engaged in collecting postage stamps--you must
+know that one million stamps procures one a little Chinese baby; no
+humbug! You may trust my word for it, and send me a few thousands
+if you happen to have them by you--I suddenly came upon one from
+Würtemberg.
+
+“Who is our correspondent in Würtemberg, mamma?”
+
+“That is a secret,” answers mamma, and I see that she is burning to
+tell me. A few minutes later I know all about it. As a young man,
+papa had served in the same regiment with a Count Aich-Kronburg. Both
+fell in love with the same girl, a rich heiress; the Swabian was
+the successful lover, papa the first to congratulate him. So they
+remained friends. Now their son and heir, the young count, is on his
+travels, and is to stop at Sebenberg to do the agreeable to papa and
+mamma and--whom else? Mamma made me guess, and then embraced me, as
+our mothers have a way of doing when they hope soon to be rid of us.
+
+So my probable lord and master is a Swabian! If only I knew what he
+was like, and that he has not great clod-hopping feet on which to
+stump off to drink beer with his steward and people through the long
+hours of the afternoon!
+
+But, oh, my dear girl, after supper it was so deadly dull that I
+began to think if he had feet like an elephant I would accept him! An
+evening in which we are condemned to our own society, as sometimes
+happens now at Sebenberg, is quite too ghastly. Papa persuades
+himself that he is reading the _Sporting Times_, and goes fast asleep
+over it. Mamma knits white wraps, the patterns of which are decided
+by the form of her cigar ash as it falls. My uncle plays tactics with
+the singing-mistress, and Aunt Julia devotes herself to word-making
+with Fräulein Nagel.
+
+“The fifty-seventh word, Fräulein?”
+
+“A village in Servia.”
+
+“In Servia?”
+
+“Yes. It begins with a K and ends with an E.”
+
+“Kindly pass me Meyer.”
+
+“I have looked there, and cannot find it.”
+
+“Then Ritter.”
+
+And they fall to studying Ritter. There you have table No. 1.
+
+At table No. 2, at the far end of the drawing room, the little ones
+are playing games with the nursery governess, and I sit on the
+_causeuse_ in solitary state, betwixt youth and age, like Dido upon
+Naxos.
+
+Dear me! another classical allusion. You really must overlook it; I
+am so bored I am growing quite stupid. My bulldog gives a stretch and
+yawns at me.
+
+“_Venez_,” I say to her, “let us go out on to the balcony. Perhaps a
+bat may fly by for our amusement.”
+
+As I gracefully recline upon the parapet I hear a manly tread behind
+me. It is papa. He, too, leans upon the balcony, and at first says
+nothing. Then suddenly:
+
+“Pussy!”
+
+“What, papa?”
+
+“What are you doing?”
+
+“Questioning the bats, papa.”
+
+He laughs.
+
+“I’ll tell you something, but, mind, no chattering.”
+
+“Oh, no, papa.”
+
+“You won’t say a word?”
+
+“No, papa.”
+
+He looks straight into my eyes. “Not even to mamma?” And then he told
+me all about the young count’s coming visit.
+
+I merely asked did the Kronburgs keep a racing stud? Papa did not
+know--thought most probably not. Alas!
+
+                                                           Your
+                                                             MUSCHI.
+
+
+                                                  SEBENBERG CASTLE,
+                                                    November 10, 1882.
+
+DEAR NESTI: Do not be so impatient. I cannot sit all day long at
+my writing table keeping you informed as to our doings. We are
+not nearly so far advanced as you imagine; there is no talk of
+“congratulations” at present, and I beg above all things that you
+will not indulge in sentimentalities. The name of the _fiancé_--how
+ridiculous you are, child--is Carl, like our groom of the chambers,
+who, ever since the count’s arrival, has been called by his surname.
+He is not so tall as papa, though a very good height, and would have
+quite presentable feet if only he had a better bootmaker. But he
+wears square-toed boots that are simply hideous.
+
+He arrived in a kind of cloth tunic, which the poor fellow apparently
+had made expressly for traveling. I must find out who is his tailor,
+that I may duly warn all my friends against him. It is unfortunate,
+too, that he wears gloves like any commercial traveler, or one of the
+_jeunesse dorée_ of a German novel.
+
+Understand from this, Nesti, that I have not, by any means, made up
+my mind yet.
+
+The amusing part of it is the intense amiability displayed by papa
+and mamma toward him. It is irresistibly funny. Papa even kept quite
+wide awake last evening; and he, who usually takes no interest in
+talking to people about anything but their horses or dogs, began
+inquiring all about the laws of forestry in Swabia; whether land was
+farmed out there; if owners lived much upon their estates; what kind
+of hunting there was, et-z-r-a (which stands for “and so on.” I am
+afraid it is not the right way to write it, but, to tell truth, I
+never could do it properly).
+
+The count answered very nicely, only he is rather shy, and that gives
+him a somewhat pedantic manner. About nine o’clock it began to get
+decidedly tame, when, to my surprise and delight, Fred unexpectedly
+appeared with his brother and the two Hockhaus. They were on their
+way to the military steeple chase at Raigern, and came to beg
+quarters for the night. I at once got up a circus entertainment,
+sent for a four-in-hand driving whip, and trotted Fred out first
+as the thoroughbred mare Arabi. It sent us into fits to see how he
+sprang over chairs, and backed, and reared, and finally picked up
+my handkerchief from the floor with his teeth. Then we made Nagel
+sit down to the piano and play a set of quadrilles for the four to
+dance. They did it splendidly; they are such dear boys. The youngest
+Hockhaus is so good-natured, and he really has a face like a horse.
+At last Fred, jumping upon his brother’s back, introduced himself
+as Mlle. Pimpernelle upon her splendidly trained horse Rob Roy. If
+only you could have seen him--the coquettish glances he gave, his
+mincing airs, and the farewell kisses of the hand he sent back in
+all directions as he was gayly trotted off. I never saw anything so
+funny. We were immensely amused, papa and mamma as much, as any of
+us. But the count looked on stiff as buckram, until I thought to
+myself, “My good sir, if you happened to be stolen. I’d not be the
+one to send the crier after you.” The best thing of all in our circus
+was when the noble steed, having had more than enough of Mlle.
+Pimpernelle’s riding whip, suddenly took to rearing and plunging, and
+rolled over with his fair rider.
+
+We were so overheated from laughing that, to cool down, I proposed
+a _jeu d’esprit_ of my own invention. The whole company sat round
+a table, a saucer of pounded sugar was brought in, and each one in
+turn had to dip his nose in it. Then, when all were ready, I gave the
+word--one, two, three--and everyone had to try to lick away the sugar
+from the tip of his nose. The one who did it first was the winner.
+Oh, to see the grimaces and contortions we made, and how indignant my
+dear old Nagel was, and yet had to join in it! description fails me.
+
+Papa was the first winner, then Kuni Hockhaus, then I; and Fred only,
+with his dear little _retroussé_ nose, could not accomplish it; he
+was thoroughly beaten, poor fellow! He is such a dear old boy.
+
+                                                           Your
+                                                             MUSCHI.
+
+
+                                                  SEBENBERG CASTLE,
+                                                    November 19, 1882.
+
+With all due respect be it said, my love, you are as pedantic as any
+old bluestocking. Only go on in like manner and you will soon be
+eligible for a writer of penny dreadfuls.
+
+I have given you, as yet, no description of his personal appearance?
+All right; I will ask him for his passport; therein you will read:
+Blue eyes, fair hair, reddish mustache, face clean shaven, regular
+features--and you will be just as wise as you were before. Clumsy?
+No, that he is decidedly not. His ears are the best point about him,
+small, well shaped, and close set. And disposition? That you needs
+must know, too. Well, good, a trifle quiet, with a touch of the
+grand-fatherly in it. But I will modernize him, poor fellow.
+
+I told him the other day that the men about us were in the habit of
+getting their hosiery and a couple of suits, at least, from England
+every year: and that an ill-dressed man was an anomaly in society.
+
+“Why?” he asked. “Please explain.”
+
+His simplicity annoyed me, and I answered, “The thing is clear
+enough, and needs no explanation.”
+
+“Good Heavens!” said he, “if it be our clothes alone which fit us for
+society, how highly we should esteem those who make them. A man ought
+never to be seen but arm in arm with his tailor.”
+
+Have you ever heard anything so idiotic? Tell me honestly.
+
+Yesterday we were out with the harriers. I, well in front on my
+good Harras, not caring so much for the hunt, but enjoying the
+exhilaration of meeting the keen wind, when, at a bit of a ditch my
+fool of a horse, hang it! gathers himself for a springs as if he were
+going at a hurdle, and I--Nesti--I flew over his head.
+
+There lay I, and Harras standing snorting angrily, and looking as if
+he had never set eyes on me before. He seemed not to know me, would
+not believe I was his mistress, was ready to tear off away from me,
+and let me limp home on foot.
+
+Nesti, my heart beat wildly. Rising very slowly, so as not to
+frighten him I kept saying, “Harasserl, quiet, my beauty, it was
+only a joke!” And while he snorted at me I caught hold of his
+bridle, and, looking round, saw no one near. Oh, what joy, thought
+I; led Harras to the bank of the ditch, and was just about to
+spring into the saddle, when he grows wild again, and gets quite
+unmanageable--and why? He hears a horse galloping, and true enough,
+that stupid count must needs come dashing up.
+
+“What has happened, countess?” he asks.
+
+“Nothing,” I answer, and turn away that he may not see my hot cheeks.
+“I was only doing something to my saddle.”
+
+“You are all right?”
+
+“All right.”
+
+He springs off his horse, and without a word holds out his hand.
+I place my foot on it, and suffer myself to be lifted on to the
+saddle, and to have the folds of my habit straightened, without the
+slightest idea of whether he has an inkling of what has happened.
+Then, drawing out his handkerchief, he begins to wipe me down, and
+now for the first time I perceive that I am covered with mud from
+head to foot. You may imagine my feelings. Well! this done, the count
+tucks his handkerchief into his breast pocket and mounts again, and,
+giving Harras a taste of my whip, I jump him five times backward and
+forward over the ditch; not where it was dry and narrow, but further
+on, where it broadens and is full of water. Then we rode quietly
+along to meet papa. It was a long time before I could persuade myself
+to speak; yet it had to be, if I were not to feel uncomfortable all
+the rest of the day. So at last I said:
+
+“Please do not tell a soul of my fall.”
+
+Smiling, he answered, “I give you my word that I will not betray you.”
+
+So for a moment we were good friends, and I absolutely began to think
+whether I would not have him after all. But it did not last long,
+and now I think him simply detestable. My dear child, he is nothing
+but a pedantic old German schoolmaster. Just listen. On our way to
+the stables I suddenly heard a rustling and crackling, and among the
+bushes espied a pair of little bare feet.
+
+“A wood stealer!” cried I. “Hullo, I must see to that. I’ll catch the
+young rascal!”
+
+And with a look at the count to keep still, I jumped off my horse
+and ran to the opening made by the little scamp. True enough, in a
+very short time out crawls my man, dragging a whole bundle of fagots
+after him. He looks up, sees me, screeches like a hare, and scampers
+off as fast as his legs will carry him toward the village. I fly
+after him; of course soon catch him up; stop, pull off his cap, and
+tell him if he wants it again he must come to the castle and fetch
+it. Where-upon he whimpers the usual tale; begs, entreats, kneels to
+me, until I have enough of it, and throw him back his cap. And then
+what do you think he did? With a grimace at me, he had the impudence
+to pick up the bundle of fagots and make off. I was on the point of
+going after him, to give it him hot and strong, when up rides the
+count with a face as long as my arm, and has the impertinence to say
+to me:
+
+“You make an excellent ranger!”
+
+“Is it not customary with you to protect your woods against wood
+stealers?” I ask.
+
+“Oh, undoubtedly,” he makes reply, “but we prefer to leave that
+somewhat subordinate occupation to our foresters.”
+
+When I think it over calmly the answer in itself does not appear so
+exasperating; but the way he looked at me as he said it, making me
+feel so uncommonly small.
+
+                                                           Your
+                                                             MUSCHI.
+
+
+                                                  SEBENBERG CASTLE,
+                                                    November 28, 1882.
+
+We are the best of friends again. Our reconciliation was effected by
+means of Rattler and the little Chinese boy. You must know, Nesti,
+that ever since the count’s arrival papa has been more than odd. He
+who on my sixth birthday gave me my first pony, and allowed me to
+have as many dogs as I chose, is now forever frowning and saying,
+“Can’t you find anything better to talk about than horses?” or “Where
+on earth can the child have got this mania for dogs?” while mamma,
+as she lights a fresh cigar, remarks, “Muschi must always go to
+extremes.” That day it was her ninth since lunch. Sometimes I amuse
+myself by counting how many she gets through in a day. The end of it
+was that when papa heard that my English terrier had had pups, he
+declared that he would throw every man Jack of them out of the window
+if he caught any of them about the castle. So nothing remained for
+me but to ensconce the whole family party in the library. Not a soul
+goes in there, and the pups are under my eye.
+
+They are such hungry little fellows, and are as comfortable as
+possible in their basket under the table by the fire, cozily hidden
+by the table cover, that hangs down to the ground. Three times a
+day I go to see the mother and take her some milk. To-day their was
+great joy; two of the pups had opened their eyes. I congratulated
+their mamma, and said, “Don’t you think you might move about a little
+now, you lazy thing! Get up, get up!” But she, giving me a limp paw,
+sets up barking, and I, in an agony of fear, take hold of her nose
+and hold it tightly, with a threatening “Quiet, Rattler, or you will
+lose your pups!” At the same moment I hear a laughing “Good-morning”
+behind me. You know the big armchair that stands in the window
+recess, its back turned to the fireplace? With one knee upon it, his
+arms resting upon the back, as if he were in an opera box, is the
+count. “Bother take you, Mr. Detective!” I think to myself; and the
+following conversation ensues:
+
+_I._ When did you come in?
+
+_He._ Oh, I was here long before you came.
+
+_I._ Indeed! And pray what were you doing?
+
+_He._ Reading.
+
+_I._ Reading? You need not think I am such a little greenhorn as to
+believe that.
+
+_He._ Your doubts surprise me! Why should I not have been reading?
+
+_I._ On such a day, when you might have been following the hounds?
+You may tell that to the marines.
+
+_He_ (springing from his post of vantage, and coming toward me with a
+forbidding expression on his face). Your opinion of the pleasure to
+be derived from books seems to be but small?
+
+_I._ Were it a question of life or death with you, my opinion would
+remain the same.
+
+_He_ (with expression still more forbidding). I am much obliged! I
+value my life too highly to stake it in such a cause.
+
+_I._ I assure you, on my honor, you would not be risking much.
+
+_He_ (like an old professor at an exam.). You apparently occupy
+yourself but little with reading?
+
+_I._ Just enough to do penance for my sins, and to keep up my English.
+
+_He_ (with a kind of fatherly solicitude which strikes me as
+intensely comical, and with an air of severity which exasperates me).
+And, may I ask, do you think it necessary to keep up your French in
+the same manner?
+
+_I._ In the same manner.
+
+(Oh, my dear, I grew crimson; for the thought of that wretched book
+flashed across my mind that Fred got for me last winter, and of which
+I would not tell you one word, despite all your entreaties.)
+
+_He._ You are acquainted, then, with the modern French ideas of
+society?
+
+_I_ (impatiently). I might say “No,” and you would believe me; but I
+hate a lie, and so, like an honorable fellow, I prefer to say “Yes.”
+
+_He_ (looks at me a long while--not angrily this time, but quite
+sorrowfully--and murmurs, “What a pity! but ‘honorable fellow’ is
+delightful”). Tell me, old man--I beg pardon, honored countess--do
+you ever read a German book? We have some well worth reading.
+
+_I._ Oh, Goethe and Schiller! Yes, I know----
+
+Nesti, a weary prospect opened out to me. In imagination I saw
+ourselves sitting like the young couple on the title page of a
+German magazine--he reading aloud, of course out of Schiller; I, in
+“attitude of rapt attention,” nestling up to him; our baby, in the
+arms of my one maid and general factotum, gravely turning over the
+leaves of a family Goethe.
+
+“If that is his picture of our domestic life,” thought I, “the sooner
+I undeceive him the better.” And as he hurriedly asked, “You know
+Goethe and Schiller?” I answered resolutely, “Pooh! do not expect me
+to study the classics. Goethe, I have always been told, is immoral;
+and Schiller is quite too long-winded for me.”
+
+So that was settled once for all. We then talked about other things,
+principally about Rattler, whom he said was a jolly little creature,
+swearing not to betray me. And he was as nice as could be when I
+asked him to collect postage stamps for me. It certainly took him
+some time before he understood what I wanted them for, and that they
+have to be sent out to China, as soon as one has a million, to buy
+a little Chinese boy. “And what will you do with him when you have
+got him?” he asked. And I told him that he was to be christened and
+trained for me as my little page, to stand behind my chair and wait
+upon me at table, in a yellow dress with a long pigtail. The count
+laughed heartily (he is delightful when he laughs) and with a hearty
+shake of the hand, said, “All right, I will help you. At any rate,
+this is one ideal object.” _Addio._
+
+                                                           Your
+                                                             MUSCHI.
+
+
+                                                   SEBENBERG CASTLE,
+                                                     December 6, 1883.
+
+You may think yourself highly honored at my sitting down to write to
+you at this hour; it is 2 A.M., and I am dead tired.
+
+My dear Nesti, we are in a whirl. Fred and his friends are back from
+Raigern, and have brought some officers with them. Old Countess
+Aarheim and her four daughters are staying here; the lake is hard
+frozen, and the snow a foot deep.
+
+Our mornings are spent in visiting the stables and riding school;
+after luncheon we skate or go sleighing; in the evening we play
+games, or dance, or just simply lounge about. Cloclo, to my infinite
+amusement, has set up a furious flirtation with the count; Mitzi is
+still pining with love for Fred; and as for Kitzi and Pips, they
+remain faithful to each other, and will carry the day yet. What
+can parents do when their children won’t give in? It would be too
+absurd for a captain to marry on his pay. He certainly would not be
+my taste, but the two geese reply to every common-sense remonstrance
+that they love each other. As if they could have any reason more
+senseless for making each other miserable.
+
+The count has quite joined the masculine community, and is first and
+foremost among them; he has given up paying compliments, and, do you
+know, my dear, I have made up my mind to accept him.
+
+Fred, who of course scented at once the meaning of the count’s visit,
+is behaving so sensibly that one cannot praise him enough; he really
+is a dear old fellow. Do you remember at the last carnival his
+wearing my colors, and yet, even then, he never breathed a word to
+trouble me, nor has he now.
+
+This morning I was trying the paces of a foal, and Fred, whip in
+hand, came up.
+
+“How do you like the count?” said he. “I think him a capital fellow,
+and he has thirty thousand pounds a year.”
+
+“And not a single racer,” said I; upon which, with a sly look, he
+replied:
+
+“That will soon be altered. If you should want a first-rate master of
+the hounds, think of a friend at Rahn up in the mountains----”
+
+I should think I would! He shall be one of the first I invite in my
+new home, to make people sociable together.
+
+Good-night, Nesterl. I declare I am half asleep--a moment ago I was
+wide awake, but the thought of the admirable Clara Aarheim has set
+me yawning. “My domesticated daughter,” as the old countess calls
+her, because she has evidently given up all hope of establishing
+her--“my domesticated daughter” is more insipid than ever; she would
+do very well for a major’s wife--say a major in the infantry, who
+lives upon his pay. Now my young lady has renounced the world, she
+finds no pleasure in society--in other words, no partners. No one can
+endure her with her mincing ways and everlasting blushes. She bores
+even the count, and he is never as lively with her as with us. Only
+fancy, he considers her good-looking! A good-looking stick. That kind
+of beauty is not to my taste; it reminds me of those statues we pass
+by in museums, with downcast glance, when we walk along so discreetly
+with our mammas--poor mammas! if they only knew that we are not as
+demure as we look!
+
+Only fancy, the count can be satirical. He actually persuaded Clara
+to mount before us all, and then praised her riding to the skies. We
+were dying with laughter, and she looked so confused; and I, catching
+up a book, rushed forward, saying gravely:
+
+“Allow me to celebrate the episode in verse,” and sang:
+
+      “Slow and sure, slow and sure,
+      To guard our bones is the best cure?”
+
+Good-night, I am dead asleep; I must say my prayers in the morning.
+And only think, the count said to me:
+
+“You have such a charming voice, what a pity you have never taken
+singing lessons.”
+
+Here I went to sleep last night, my pen fell on the paper, and you
+will receive a letter adorned with blots. I have one thing more to
+tell you about the worthy Clara. You must know that she raves about
+the count, and took it upon herself to read me a lecture yesterday.
+
+“With such a man”--oh! the emphasis on “such a man,” and her eyes
+lit up like a couple of Bengal lights--“with such a man you should
+conduct yourself very differently, dearest Muschi. He is not
+accustomed to the kind of conversation you indulge in with the fast
+young men you have about you. It is plain that he likes you; how
+could it be otherwise? but it is very evident that your talk and
+manners often horrify him.” And then she must needs launch out into
+a tirade against horsiness and stable talk, frivolity and lack of
+reading and thinking, and goodness only knows what. Heaven knows, I
+detest everything fast, but her way of depreciating the things that I
+most like and value exhausted my--never too great--stock of patience.
+I dare say I answered her very rudely, and I certainly told her that
+her room was as good as her company. And so my lady took herself
+off, looking uncommonly like a bedraggled poodle. And in my first
+fury I sat down then and there and made a sketch of her presiding
+over the school of needlework she had started at home, a book under
+each arm, one hand wielding a birch rod, the other displaying a
+darned stocking, upon the tip of her nose, flattened for the purpose,
+pirouettes a tiny weeny scholar. My caricature made the round of the
+drawing room, and everybody had a secret giggle over it. Nagel, of
+course, deplored my fresh piece of mischief, and had nearly let the
+cat out of the bag. Clara was more amused by it than anyone, which
+was far from my intention, and the count was amazed at my talent for
+drawing, and thought it a thousand pities that I had not had drawing
+lessons. The remainder of the evening he devoted to Clara, presumably
+talking to her about the school of needlework. Poor man!
+
+                                                           Yours,
+                                                             MUSCHI.
+
+
+I open this to tell you that the count has begged me to grant him an
+interview. Things are becoming serious. My parents are beaming. I
+will telegraph to you when our engagement is to be made known.
+
+
+                                                   SEBENBERG CASTLE,
+                                                    December 28, 1883.
+
+Yes, dearest, we shall soon be coming to Vienna, and I shall be
+jolly glad to see your sweet self again, and glad of Carnival. What
+a nuisance that it is cut so short now; there is no possibility of
+crowding in enough dances; and I feel inclined to rush in madly for
+gayety. Unluckily Fred will be away; he is spending the winter in
+Old England, as he wrote papa a few days ago, with apologies to the
+ladies for not having come over to say good-by before starting. Papa
+is angry because Fred rather did him over some horses--as if that----
+
+Your letter has just come--the third in which you bombard me with
+questions. Don’t you see that I have been taking a rise out of you?
+How do you suppose that I should consent to be immured in Swabia,
+where the men go in for domestic life as a profession, and the women
+knit socks from conviction?
+
+We certainly did have a conversation, Count Carl and I, but of a very
+different nature from what you have been imagining.
+
+He began by saying that his visit to us had been a memorable one, in
+that it had given him quite new impressions--had opened out a new
+world to him.
+
+“If it was new to you, you have adapted yourself very readily to it,”
+I made reply.
+
+“What wonder, with such a guide as you, countess--such a model in all
+knightly arts and usages.”
+
+“Is that intended to be ironical?”
+
+“By no means. I return to my Penates richer than I came.”
+
+“To where?”
+
+“To my household gods.”
+
+“Aha!”
+
+Here the interview came to a slight hitch, but I set it going again
+by asking what was the gain he had made by coming among us.
+
+“Of a friend!” he exclaimed; “a young, charming, reliable friend,
+named Countess Muschi.”
+
+“_Pardi!_” I exclaimed.
+
+And he, losing no time, seized my hand, coloring fiery red, and his
+voice shook. “A friend upon whose help and support I count in the
+most important moment of my life.”
+
+“What moment do you mean?”
+
+“That which must decide the weal or woe of all my after life--that
+in which you will win my eternal gratitude--by asking----” Here his
+shaky voice toppled over entirely.
+
+“Whom am I to ask--myself?” I blurted out; but, luckily for me, in
+his agitation he was unconscious how I had given myself away, and
+went on:
+
+“Countess Clara Aarheim.”
+
+Here I must have looked uncommonly sold, for he exclaimed hurriedly,
+“You think there is no chance for me. Is it too late--is Countess
+Clara no longer free?”
+
+Nesti, human nature would not stand it; and I broke out with “What
+a sell!” Upon which the poor count was thrown into fresh alarm,
+and conjured me to be frank with him, and only tell him if he must
+renounce the idea. Of course, it would have been a miracle if such a
+treasure as Clara had not already found a suitor, and he had been a
+fool to hope for such a miracle.
+
+“Stuff and rubbish,” thinks I to myself; then aloud, “Not such a fool
+as you think! I know Clara’s affairs tolerably well. So far she has
+had no admirers.”
+
+“Is it so--is it so?” and seizing my hand he kissed it passionately.
+“And she? Has she not seemed to care for anyone?”
+
+“Not a bit of it. A girl is hardly likely to be so unpractical as to
+care for a man if he does not care for her. That is hardly our way.”
+
+He heaved a deep sigh.
+
+“You have no idea what a girl in your sphere can do, who has the
+courage not to ‘be led by fashion.’”
+
+“Pray do not expect such _courage_ from me. To my mind it is as
+little like the real thing as is forced laughter to real honest
+mirth.”
+
+“And yet I do not know. There may be a higher standpoint than that of
+society.”
+
+“That is the one consolation of those who are excluded from it.”
+
+“Then at least grant it to such poor devils, who would otherwise be
+left despairing,” he said, with a good-humored laugh; and, going back
+to his subject, he overwhelmed me with entreaties to find out from
+Clara, without her knowing it, if he were in any way obnoxious to her.
+
+To this I answered that I could save myself that trouble; that he was
+anything but obnoxious to her.
+
+“And you think, then, that I may hope in time----?”
+
+“In time? This very day, if you only choose to ask.”
+
+“Countess!”
+
+“Why are you so surprised? Clara would never dream for a moment of
+refusing you. When has she ever had a chance of making such a match
+before?”
+
+“Ah--of making such a match,” he repeated, crestfallen. “If it
+were only----You could not have given me greater discouragement,
+countess, than in that one word.”
+
+And so, in his discouragement, he poured out to poor me an harangue
+about love, intellect, mutual understanding; winding up with the
+trite remark that nothing in married life is so important as are
+these things. Any poor devil who had not known a day’s happiness
+in his life, or what money can bring, could not have spoken more
+eloquently.
+
+Awfully odd! it did not seem all nonsense to me--at least not the
+whole time. There were actually moments in which the thought came
+over me, perhaps, after all, he is not so utterly wrong; perhaps
+there really is something in sympathy of taste, as well as in
+suitability of position. (Certainly position alone does not promote
+happiness.) And then I thought to myself, “You are a good man and
+clever; I am not a bad girl or a stupid one; why should not we have
+suited each other? Perhaps I was a goose for my pains to have thrown
+you in Clara’s way! But that little _malaise_ soon passed over, and I
+began to picture her felicity, and the joke it would be to ask her if
+she would accept the count. Then, too, I remembered the many tricks I
+had played her; and how ill I had requited her friendship for me; and
+so, extending my hand in right good fellowship, I exclaimed:
+
+“All right! Shake hands upon it. I will obtain permission for you to
+plead your cause. Take it all in all, Clara is well suited to you.
+She has always said that in marriage the bridegroom was more to be
+considered than his rentroll.”
+
+My red sportswoman’s hands have often been kissed, but never so
+fervently as by the count at that juncture.
+
+Suffice it to say, Nesti, all went off splendidly. Clara’s perplexity
+was tremendous; how at first she said No, in her humility and
+discretion; how the count then went at it with a will, swearing a man
+could only marry one woman--and what was to be done if that woman
+would not have him?
+
+The bliss of Casa Aarheim can be more easily imagined than described.
+My people seemed less overjoyed. Mamma puffed away at her nineteenth
+cigar that day. Papa pinched my cheek, and said:
+
+“I say, pussy.”
+
+“What, papa?”
+
+“You are a goose.”
+
+“Family secret, papa. If you betray it, it’s at your own cost.”
+
+Three days later, the count went home to make all necessary
+preparations for the reception of his young wife, to whom he is to be
+married during Carnival. His departure was quickly followed by that
+of the Aarheims.
+
+The lovers’ parting was, Heaven be praised, accomplished without a
+scene. He held her hand for a long pressure in his, looking at her
+as if to say, “Trust me.” She, in the same language, made answer,
+“Unreservedly.”
+
+It was a parting thoroughly _comme il faut_, and I thought to
+myself--but why always confess to you all that I think?
+
+Farewell, dear girl, and observe that it is not always as pleasant as
+it looks to be a sporting countess, pure and simple.
+
+                                                           Yours,
+                                                             MUSCHI.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Decorative image]
+
+
+
+
+COUNTESS PAULA.
+
+
+We had quite a crowded reception last night after the theater. He was
+there--more reserved and silent than ever. He is going away--about to
+be transferred to some other legation--probably to Serajewo.
+
+My friends say it is the very place for him; they are merciless to
+any man who happens to be deficient in “style”; absolutely merciless.
+
+Countess Albertine was for some time in conversation with the
+secretary of the French Legation, by whom he was standing. I heard
+the secretary remark that our German literature, otherwise so rich,
+was curiously deficient in memoirs. The countess, evidently not
+greatly impressed by this fact, murmured “Ah,” and smiled as sweetly
+as if the greatest homage had been offered at her shrine. But he
+whom I like so well and esteem so highly, he, who is so gifted and
+patriotic, replied:
+
+“Yes; unfortunately it is too true.”
+
+Oh, thought I, then the Frenchman is right; and I formed a
+resolution: If I do not marry--and I do not mean ever to marry--there
+shall I be my whole life without a single occupation. Were it not a
+worthy aim to devote my poor abilities to help supply so deplorable a
+deficiency? At least I will try. I enter, then, upon this work with a
+due feeling of its solemn import. May Heaven prosper it!
+
+
+MY MEMOIRS.
+
+The 15th of May, 1865, witnessed my entry into this world, to the
+anything but satisfaction of my parents. My sister was already
+married, my brother preparing for his final examination. During the
+first year of my existence my father never deigned to look at me.
+But I, nothing daunted, grew big and plump. Big, or rather tall, I
+am still; but plump, Heaven be praised, I am not. And as for my dear
+old father, if at first he did not love me, there is no trace of any
+such want now. He would do anything for me, and I have quite given up
+asking his permission to anything beforehand; his one and only answer
+being always, “Do whatever you like!”
+
+My childhood was passed almost entirely alone; first with my nurse as
+sole companion; afterward with my governess, a perfect angel, knowing
+no more of the things of earth than angels do. For instance--of
+botany she simply knew nothing. If I asked her what was larkspur in
+French, she would answer, “_C’est le coucou bleu_”; a buttercup was
+“_le coucou jaune_”; eyebright, “_le coucou blanc_.” All flowers,
+that is all wild and field flowers, to her were various colored
+_coucous_. But I must do her the justice to say that she was fully
+authorized not to go too thoroughly into my education, my dear good
+father having engaged her on the express stipulation that what he
+required for his daughter was a good “superficial” education. And
+that was what I certainly obtained. Thus for a long time I thought
+I knew the history of the world from beginning to end; when suddenly
+I found that Mme. Duphot, at mamma’s request, had quietly suppressed
+the whole of one century--that of the Reformation. They desired
+that I should know nothing of Luther. But I discovered him--in the
+eleventh volume of Schlosser’s “History of the World,” accidentally
+forgotten and left behind when it had been decided to turn out my
+brother’s old books and pack them off to a second-hand dealer.
+
+Heaven forgive me if I am a bad Catholic, but, honestly, Dr. Luther
+does not seem to me such a terrible creature that one dare not even
+know of his existence. Of course I did not venture to express so
+heterodox an opinion to my devout Duphot; it would have destroyed
+her peace of mind forever, and she would henceforth have been
+spending all her poor little savings on the reading of masses for the
+restoration of my endangered faith. But I did tell the chaplain when
+next I went to confession. He merely imposed an extra penitential
+prayer--nothing more; nor did he in any way alter his customary
+admonition, nor the sentence with which it always closed--“And then
+say, ‘Dear God, I thank thee for all the mercies which thou dost
+vouchsafe to me, and to my noble family.’”
+
+I always used to think it strangely worded, and not exactly in
+accordance with the manner in which we should address the Divine
+Being, who takes no account of “noble” families, we being all equal
+in his sight.
+
+And this was not the only thing in which the reverend chaplain gave
+me ground for astonishment. Upon learned subjects he held views
+shared by no one save, perhaps, Mme. Duphot and myself--and myself
+only up to a certain period. For example: he used to give me my
+geography lessons, we beginning with physiography as being the most
+difficult, and, once mastered, the rest being bound to follow as a
+matter of course. Among other things the reverend chaplain informed
+us: “At the North Pole it is cold, and at the South Pole” (Siedpol,
+he called it) “hot, I suppose.”
+
+As he said it the thing seemed clear, but afterward I had my doubts,
+for, on reference to my dictionary, I found that _süd_ (south) and
+_sied_ (scorching, boiling) had nothing whatever to do with each
+other.
+
+But now enough of my studies, and to turn to my home life.
+
+It was as happy as it could be. At the first sign of spring, I and
+my Duphot used to repair to Trostburg, our country seat, whither my
+parents followed for a stay of some weeks during the hunting season.
+
+As with the dawn, long before sunrise, the sky is light, so, long
+before my dear ones arrived, my heart would be full of joyful
+expectation. True, their coming never realized things exactly as I
+had pictured them. The many guests arriving simultaneously with them
+claimed their constant attention, and, with the departure of the
+guests, they, too, went off to pastures new. We would go down to the
+carriage to see them off, Duphot and I. Papa would kiss me fondly,
+mamma allow me to carry out her tiny lapdog to her, from which she
+was never parted for a day. On pretext of placing it on her lap, I
+used to get into the carriage, put my arms round her neck, and kiss
+her as much as ever I wanted. It may be imagined if my kisses were
+few! Then they would drive away, mamma waving her dear hand to me
+ever so far along the road. When I could see them no longer from the
+courtyard, I would run to the turret room and watch at the window
+until the carriage appeared like a tiny speck in the cutting through
+which they had to drive to reach the railway station. Half an hour
+later a dense white cloud would pass along the horizon, slowly to
+dissolve in fleecy streaks; and then I knew: They are gone! That
+cloud fading away in the sky had been emitted by the fiery engine
+which was bearing away from me those I loved best on earth.
+
+After such partings I invariably cried, as I imagined, until far into
+the night--in reality until about ten o’clock; and the following
+morning I had already begun to look forward to our next meeting in
+Vienna.
+
+There I was much better off. Papa would often come to visit me in the
+schoolroom; and mamma would send for me to the drawing room to see
+those friends who asked for me. Almost daily we would meet in the
+Prater, and that was the acme of delight to me. Mamma was always so
+pleased to see me--especially if I were prettily dressed. I got to
+know that she liked me best in my gray velvet pelisse trimmed with
+fur; and whenever my good Duphot took it into her head to have me
+dressed in anything else, I was like a little fury.
+
+One day in spring--I shall never forget it; it happened to be my
+birthday, and I was ten years old--a very warm day. I had insisted on
+being dressed in my fur pelisse, much against Mme. Duphot’s better
+judgment. I was so hot in it I thought I should melt, what with
+delight and the temperature!
+
+I was playing in one of the copses with some of my little friends
+near the walk, looking out the while for mamma, and thinking only
+of her. At length I saw her coming down the avenue with a party of
+ladies and gentlemen, and, pointing her out to my little friends,
+said proudly:
+
+“There; that is my mamma--the tallest, most beautiful of all mammas!”
+
+The children looked up eagerly, and one little precocious creature,
+with whom I often used to fight, exclaimed:
+
+“Yes, she might be if she were not so old. My mamma says that yours
+is old, and already has a lot of wrinkles round her eyes.”
+
+To hear this speech, fling myself upon her, and give her a slap,
+was with me the work of a second. Of course she struck back, and it
+became a free fight. Our governesses in vain tried to part us; all
+they got for their pains was a stray blow from one or the other,
+intended for the adversary. Suddenly I heard mamma’s voice calling
+me, and, forgetful of rage, scrimmage, and the enemy, I rushed off
+into the walk, with arms outstretched, toward her.
+
+Repelling me with a look which rooted me to the spot, she exclaimed:
+
+“_Comme vous voilà faite!_”
+
+And for the first time in my life I saw mamma angry. Turning to Mme.
+Duphot, who was courtesying to the ground, she haughtily inquired
+why I was not wearing my spring costume; and as she passed on we
+caught the words, “Really, these governesses are insupportable.” And
+I--I could have wept for pity over my poor Duphot, and for shame over
+myself; wept--but sparks of fire, like Shakspere’s Queen, of whom, by
+the by, I knew nothing in those days.
+
+For three whole days we did not dare present ourselves in the Prater.
+
+So I grew up.
+
+Year by year my parents prolonged their stay at Trostburg, until
+they have got to spend the whole of the summer there. My dear
+mother’s life is now passed in good works. She treats the sick
+folk of the village homeopathically, and has already effected some
+marvelous cures among them. She has founded a _crèche_, and a
+house of correction, where the lazy are to be made to work, and the
+ne’er-do-wells to be kept under stern discipline. Nothing could be
+more practical; the pity is that one cannot force the people to go
+into it; and, left to their own choice, they prefer to stay away.
+
+My Duphot is in her element.
+
+She accompanies mamma twice daily to church, reads religious books
+aloud to her, and prepares homeopathic dilutions.
+
+Meanwhile I am papa’s companion--and he is such a dear! We take long
+rides together. At first we used to follow the hounds, and he was
+delighted when I shot a hare--more delighted than I was. As far as
+I am concerned, hares might have free lease of their lives to the
+detriment of any number of plantations and cabbages. Last autumn
+something happened that forever put me out of conceit with hunting.
+The preserves were to be thinned, and some of the chamois to be
+shot. Papa, who had to leave home on a short absence, entrusted the
+commission to me, thinking I should thoroughly enjoy the task, and
+I had not the courage to tell him that it would be anything but an
+enjoyable one to me.
+
+So, accompanied by the head ranger and my good gun, I sallied forth
+one afternoon into the peaceful shade and green depths of the deer
+park. Along the moss-grown path, whence I had so often heard the
+rustle of the herds going down to water, we came to the pond, skirted
+it, and saw, through a break on the other side, a young chamois just
+emerging from the wood on the slope. Stretching her slender neck,
+she snuffed the air and came slowly forward.
+
+“That’s what we want, the female,” whispered the ranger. “Take steady
+aim--fire!”
+
+His lips trembled with eagerness, his old gray eyes looked
+mistrustfully at me. As for me, an ice-cold thrill ran through me as,
+raising my gun in feverish haste and nervously pulling the trigger, I
+was only conscious of having taken aim. There was a report. “A dead
+hit!” exclaimed the ranger triumphantly, and ran forward. I slowly
+followed, my heart beating so loudly I could not run.
+
+“Shot in the heart!” cried the old forester from afar. “A crack shot!
+Could not have been better.”
+
+Intoxicated at my success he wildly waved his hat, then begged mine
+that he might stick a pine twig in it. While thus engaged, and
+I standing there gazing with wide-open eyes at the pretty young
+creature lying prone, its graceful head thrown back, there appeared
+on the verge of the wood a tiny kid.
+
+“Good Heavens, Bayer!” I exclaimed. And looking up, the ranger cried:
+
+“My word! had she got a little one! If I had only known it!”
+
+Meanwhile the young one came confidingly and fearlessly up to us.
+Surely if mother could lie so quietly on the grass by those people
+they would do it no harm, it thought, and began pushing its mother
+with its moist shining nose, and then quietly to drink in its last
+nourishment from the accustomed source; and when no more would come,
+not one drop, left off trying, and stood up looking inquiringly at
+its mother and at us, looking as innocently as only an animal can
+look.
+
+The ranger, taking it up in his arms, carried it home. It had the
+warmest corner in the pine plantation given to it; a little hut was
+built for it, with a soft bed of moss and hay. I have spent whole
+days by it. Never in all my life did I desire anything so ardently as
+that it should grow used to me and not be afraid of me. But trustful
+in freedom, timid and full of mistrust in confinement, it never grew
+used to me, never lost its dread of me--it died.
+
+When my dear father came home I told him I never would go shooting
+again. He laughed; and in my excitement I cried:
+
+“You ought not to desire it of me. If ever I married, and had a
+daughter who took pleasure in shooting any living creature, I should
+be utterly miserable.”
+
+“Don’t talk such nonsense. You have grown quite idiotic, child. And,”
+he continued entreatingly, “and, above all, do talk in English.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now I am going to tell of my dear father. To describe him so
+accurately as that all who read these memoirs should seem to have
+his living presentment before them is beyond my power; I will only
+endeavor to portray him as he is, and, especially, as he is to me.
+He really often has occasion to find fault with me. I am either too
+noisy and too merry, or else too much in my own room reading. He
+says a learned woman is the greatest of all calamities. He looks
+upon learning as an importunate being ever ready to spring upon one
+unawares, on one’s making it the slightest advance. In vain do I try
+to comfort him with the assurance that I might know of the whole
+contents of my library by heart, and yet not have any pretensions to
+be a bluestocking.
+
+“Heaven grant it!” is his answer. “A woman’s head should be in
+her heart. From her heart and disposition should come all her
+understanding.” He has said this so often to me, that I yesterday
+ventured to raise an objection.
+
+“You tell me it must come; but it does not. There are things which
+even a woman cannot fathom from the mere depths of her temperament.
+So Baron Schwarzburg von Livland said lately; and I have not the
+least idea what he means, and my heart certainly has not told me.”
+
+But I am anticipating events.
+
+There is not a single handsome book in my library that papa himself
+has not given me; he, who is always inveighing against love of
+books. Handsome, I mean here, more with regard to exterior than
+to interior. But happy for me that there are handsome editions of
+books with irresistible illustrations. Happy for me that you have
+lived and sketched, Gustave Doré! To you I owe the pearl of my
+collection; to you is it due that my beloved father has grown almost
+into a bookworm--as much a bookworm, that is, as I can be called a
+bluestocking. The noble knight of La Mancha it was that conquered
+him. At first it was the illustrations which captivated him, and on
+their account I acquired the book. The unimportant text, though not
+even English, was, as it were, thrown in with the purchase. What a
+surprise it was to me! I had thanked him profusely for a picture
+book, and what a treasure had come into my possession! I could not
+keep my rapture in it for myself, and day by day as I read, I told
+the story to my father, and day by day his interest in Dulcinea’s
+knight grew warmer.
+
+“What has the donkey been doing to-day?” he would ask, and for
+a while I suffered it to be “the donkey.” Not for long, though.
+Soon I laughed no longer; rather melted with sympathy, burned with
+admiration. I grew to love the man ever deceived, but ever believing;
+the knight so often worsted, but never vanquished; and declared to my
+father that I desired no better fortune than to meet with such a Don
+Quixote in real life, and become his wife. Then papa began to think I
+was getting too excited over it, and it would be well to change the
+course of my studies. And from that time he took to overlooking my
+reading, and got to do what he had never done before--to read. And it
+would have been impossible to see anything more beautiful than the
+expression of devotion and absorption in his noble Wallenstein-like
+countenance, in every fold of the fine brow, when thus engaged.
+Sometimes he heaves a deep sigh, and twists one side of his mustache
+so furiously that the point is all awry, his eyes get fixed, the
+eyelids red with the unwonted application. Then I can stand it no
+longer; I jump up, go to him, and giving him a light kiss on the
+shoulder, so light that he can pretend he does not perceive it, say:
+
+“Shall we go for a walk, papa? I am quite stiff with sitting.”
+
+“Upon my word, so am I,” he says, and it does me good to see how
+he straightens himself and draws in a free breath. But he does not
+immediately carry out my suggestion; the book-marker must first be
+deliberately placed in the page.
+
+“So far”; he takes the perused pages between the palms of his hands.
+“Will it be too little for you?”
+
+And I, unthinking, ungrateful as I can be, have so often
+thoughtlessly made reply, “Oh, much too little; why, it is hardly
+anything. You must let me read on further, papa.”
+
+Closing the book, he slowly shakes his head, looks at me, considers a
+little, looks at me again, and then follows: “Do whatever you like!”
+
+And I, before he can defend himself, rush into his arms.
+
+“No, no, only what _thou likest_, not what _I like_, shall be done,
+now and always.”
+
+“You might just as well have said that in English,” he answers.
+
+“Oh, you dear good father of mine!”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Last year my sister, for the first time since her marriage, passed
+the winter in Vienna. Report said that her husband on the wedding
+journey had informed her that she should not set foot in the capital
+again until he had cured her of her “countess” ways.
+
+He is a tall, cold, haughty man, who barely vouchsafes to utter
+twenty words in a day, even when most loquacious. It is difficult to
+know what his tastes are. The sole interests he seems to have are
+his palace, his equipages, his servants’ liveries, and his wife’s
+toilets; and that merely to show them off. She makes merry over it,
+and sometimes says very witty things about it; but I think she would
+do better if she were to say them to his face instead of behind his
+back. She has no children, to my sorrow; I should so love to be an
+aunt. It was decided that I was to come out at one of the balls my
+sister was to give in the course of the season. I had already been
+to several soirées the previous winter with papa during Lent; thus
+had a tolerably extended acquaintance with society folk, and had
+been mostly struck by the dead level of quality when taken in the
+quantity. At seventeen one begins to exercise one’s thinking powers,
+and my reflection had been: If one could disembody the souls of all
+these fine people and let them go free (the men especially), it
+would be a sheer impossibility to distinguish one from the other.
+
+Their conversation was simply comical. I could tell off on my fingers
+the set questions: “Are you coming out next Carnival?” “Are you fond
+of dancing?” so often had they been put to me; and not a man among
+them had appeared to me to be one whit different from the crowd of
+others.
+
+One morning I was informed that papa and mamma desired to see me in
+the small drawing room--style: Empire, white and gold.
+
+Mamma was sitting upon the sofa, knitting woolen comforters for the
+Reformatory. With a dainty little white lace cap upon her head, and
+her white India cashmere morning dress, she looked like a queen or
+a saint. Papa was sitting beside her in an armchair, very erect and
+agitated, as could be easily seen from the blinking of his eyes, a
+trick he had when much moved. My Duphot, in her boundless diffidence,
+had chosen for her seat the smallest possible tabouret with the most
+slender of legs, and the effect of her corpulent person upon its
+ethereal support was killing.
+
+“Will you be pleased to be seated?” my father asked, with forced
+gayety, and I took a chair as close as possible to my Duphot, so as
+to be at hand to lend my aid in the event of a catastrophe.
+
+The faces of my parents grew more and more solemn. A sudden feeling
+of dread came over me, and I began to examine my conscience if
+perchance----It was clear, thank Heaven, else I should have felt very
+miserable.
+
+My father looked expectantly at my mother.
+
+“Caroline, will you have the kindness?”
+
+“I thought that you meant to----” returned my mother.
+
+“Oh, no, I beg you----” said he. And with an effort, and dropping her
+hands upon the comforter, my mother began:
+
+“Paula, you are now grown up; nearly eighteen----”
+
+“And look as if you were twenty,” added my father; to which my
+Duphot, making assent, becomes scarlet, and totters upon her
+treacherous seat.
+
+My mother continues: “Next year, dear child, you are to go out into
+the great world.”
+
+“Oh, yes; I am so glad, dear mamma.”
+
+“You are glad because you do not know how poor and worthless are the
+pleasures which await you there, and how dearly bought.”
+
+“Yes, yes,” put in papa, “and one should ask one’s self _cui bono_,
+what is the aim of it all?”
+
+Mamma took up the argument. “None other than that of
+self-examination, and to enable one to arrive at the conclusion, _que
+le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle_. Everyone plays at the game for a
+time, my dear Paula, because it is the correct thing to do.”
+
+“Oh, and because it is amusing, mamma, and because one is young and
+loves gayety and dancing!”
+
+She assented.
+
+“But thinking persons cannot hide from themselves the consciousness
+of the hollowness of it all, and then they turn to the realities of
+life, often bitterly to repent of their wasted years. Now my question
+to you is: Were it not wiser to save yourself these wasted years, and
+to begin at once with the realities of life?”
+
+“It is but a question,” interposed my father, in a tone of deepest
+affection, and I read in his words the silent refrain, “Do whatever
+you like.”
+
+“Yes, certainly, it is but a question,” assented mamma.
+
+And my Duphot echoed, “_Une question_,” while drops of perspiration
+stood out upon her forehead. Her trouble and agitation overcame me. I
+thought, “Great Heavens! what can they be meaning to do with me?” And
+seized with a sudden dread, I cried:
+
+“Am I to go into a convent?”
+
+Mamma smiled; papa laughed; Mme. Duphot blurted out: “_Tout au
+contraire!_”
+
+I grew still more agitated. Suddenly it flashed across me. “Then I am
+going to be married!”
+
+Papa patted me kindly on the shoulder. “You must surely have observed
+that one of the gentlemen introduced to you at your sister’s house
+has been paying you marked attention?”
+
+“No, papa. I assure you I have not.”
+
+“But he has conversed with you every evening; the last time he
+remained a full half hour in conversation with you.”
+
+“Who is it?”
+
+“Count Taxen.”
+
+“A tall, dark man?”
+
+“No, a fair young man, of middle height.”
+
+At length I remembered. Of course, a fair young man, of middle
+height, had often come up to talk to me. About what? Had I been
+placed on the rack I could not have told, so completely had the
+subject of our various talks vanished from my memory.
+
+Papa and mamma now imparted to me that he was an exceptionally
+delightful young man, the darling of his mother, who had never
+allowed him to be separated from her, and had brought him up with
+the strictest principles. My parents actually vied with each other in
+singing the count’s praises, and Mme. Duphot, with tears of emotion,
+exclaimed enthusiastically:
+
+“_Quel bonheur, mon enfant!_”
+
+The gate bell struck twice.
+
+“They are coming,” said my mother; and my father gave, oh, such a
+loving look at me! I cannot describe it other, even had it been
+enveloped in ever so tyrannical a “You shall, you must!” than the
+old gentle, heart-stirring, tender, “Do whatever you like.” And my
+oppressed heart beat freely once more, my downcast courage revived;
+I even felt an irresistible longing to laugh; while Mme. Duphot, who
+had made a precipitate movement to rise from her tabouret--it had
+really belonged to Josephine’s _salon_--fell back upon it, and I
+said:
+
+“Do take care; or you will go to pieces like the French Empire.”
+
+“Child, child!” remonstrated my mother.
+
+“And now, whatever you do, no display of bluestockingism,” added my
+father hurriedly, as the door was thrown open and the Countess Taxen
+and her son were announced.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And from that day forth they appeared regularly twice a week at three
+o’clock, to make their afternoon call; and, moreover, every Saturday
+I met the count at my sister’s. My parents treated him with marked
+attention. Mme. Duphot designated him “_un jeune homme accompli_.”
+Even my brother-in-law, whom I had never seen unbend before, did so
+to him. The countess never failed to tell me, in her conversations
+with me, that her son had never caused her an uneasy hour, and that
+she was to be esteemed the happiest of mothers. I should have gone
+contrary to the wishes of my dear ones, and of those whose opinion
+I valued, had I found the least objection to the state of things;
+and yet, withal, I felt the strongest inclination to do so, though
+without knowing why.
+
+No formal proposal had been made. I was only told that the count
+was attracted by me; and that, through his mother, he had begged
+permission to become more nearly acquainted with me. It must,
+however, in his estimation, have been of far greater importance
+that I should know him than that he should know me, for his whole
+conversation was about himself, his mode of life, his habits,
+and tastes. He seemed especially to like to dilate upon his love
+of order, and the punctuality he exacted from his _entourage_. He
+graphically described to us his old historic castle, the arrangements
+of the apartments, the decorations of its halls and corridors. We
+heard less of the country where his estates were situated; of the
+people living about, not one word.
+
+“And what about the neighborhood?” my sister asked one day. And
+Bernhard, my brother, home on leave, exclaimed:
+
+“Bruno Schwarzburg must have lived somewhere in your vicinity before
+his troubles.”
+
+Thus, on April 13, 1882, for the first time I heard the name
+afterward to be so dear to me. They began talking and laughing
+about him as a half-mad man, Bernhard constantly putting in,
+good-naturedly, “After all, he is a fine fellow!”
+
+“Yes, with a bee in his bonnet,” returned the count. “He will never
+make his fortune, as I have often told him, even at the time he
+was doing the craziest thing of all and entering an action against
+himself.”
+
+“How could he do that?” I asked. “How can anyone enter an action
+against himself?”
+
+“Ah, how can one!” replied the count; “I don’t understand it, nor
+would any other man with a grain of common sense in his composition.
+His father, who left a heap of debts behind him, had had the
+foresight just before his death to hand over to his son, by deed of
+gift, the indisputable possession of a small capital. The father
+dead, the creditors seized upon everything--a set of miserable
+money-lenders, for the most part, who had been paid over and over
+again during the old baron’s lifetime. But one widow woman with five
+children----”
+
+“Excuse me,” interrupted Bernhard, “one daughter, a blind girl.”
+
+The count, who does not like to have his statements questioned, here
+said impatiently:
+
+“My dear fellow, what does it matter? So this widow came off badly,”
+he resumed, turning to me. “‘Nothing is left,’ she was told when she
+presented her claim. ‘What do you mean--there is my money,’ says
+Bruno. ‘The creditors have no claim upon that,’ explains the lawyer,
+who was also Schwarzburg’s trustee. His father, I must explain,
+had taken the precaution to appoint a trustee, as Master Bruno
+had already shown signs of emulating his progenitor in the matter
+of squandering. So now he insists upon paying the widow’s claim;
+the trustee objects, and the upshot of it was a trial, in which
+Schwarzburg appeared as plaintiff against himself, and which he won
+by losing the little property he had.”
+
+The laughter was general, and more things were told about the man
+whom they all seemed to look upon as an original.
+
+But I thought to myself, all his mad pranks--and many were told of
+all kinds and descriptions--seem always to agree in two points; there
+is invariably a noble motive at the bottom of them, and he invariably
+comes off worst in them. So I remarked:
+
+“This baron certainly seems to do any number of foolish things, but
+luck is very unkind to him.”
+
+“That I cannot see,” returned the count; and I had already learned
+to know that those words, with him, meant, If I do not see a thing,
+it does not exist. “If I choose to do idiotic things, I have no right
+to call myself unlucky because I find myself on the wrong side of
+the hedge. Moreover, what people are so ready to call want of luck
+is, more often than not, want of sense. A common-sense man is rarely
+unlucky.”
+
+Here Bernhard murmured half aloud, “Sickness, death, tempest.”
+
+Again the irritation with which the count greets the most modest
+expression of opinion became evident--an irritation he seems
+incapable of checking--as he dryly observed:
+
+“I insure against tempest.”
+
+I felt a sudden exasperation against this child of fortune, who
+seemed so disposed to take to himself as individual merit the lavish
+gifts of Providence, and I rejoined:
+
+“Had you had such a father as that of Baron Schwarzburg, who
+squandered away all the family property, you would have been unable
+to exercise that wise foresight, for you would have nothing left to
+you worth insuring.”
+
+His mother crimsoned; my parents exchanged a concerned look, and
+I felt more than ever alarmed at my own temerity. The greatest of
+heroes experience a reflex fear, we are told; but there was nothing
+of the hero in me at that moment, only a rush of feelings of shame,
+embarrassment, and dread; and these wretched feelings rose like
+smoke, so to speak, from a still darker background--the knowledge
+that I had offended the count!
+
+He gave vent to a few disconnected phrases, intended to be severe
+and cutting, but which were only savage and peevish. It was not the
+first time that I had made a mental note that the exalted and noble
+diffidence, so highly vaunted by my parents, was in inseparable
+connection with the flattery and deference accorded to him. The
+slightest expression of censure changed it at once into arrogance,
+and, without an attempt at justifying his opinion, he would angrily
+reject any comment as absurd, contemptible, and unworthy of notice.
+
+After he had taken his leave, my parents began to reproach me
+severely.
+
+“You behaved shockingly. You seem to have no idea of the honor
+conferred upon you by the count’s attentions. Such a man--such a son!”
+
+“Who never caused his mother a single uneasy hour,” I meekly added.
+
+“You are aware of that, and yet do not cherish the highest esteem for
+him?”
+
+“Of course I esteem what is estimable in him.”
+
+“Then pray show it in your manner and bearing. You acknowledge that
+you esteem the count, and have every reason so to do, then why
+conceal the sentiment?” said mamma. “I entreat you, dear child, to
+let your esteem for him be made more evident.”
+
+She glanced meaningly at papa, and now he began begging me to show
+my esteem for the count more openly; asking how it was that I, so
+pleasant and amiable to people in general, should observe such a cold
+and distant manner to this admirable young man.
+
+Alas, I could give him no answer. It was a question I had too often
+vainly asked myself. The trivial faults which struck me in the count
+were as nothing compared to the good qualities he possessed in the
+eyes of my parents. And so I promised them from henceforth to be much
+more courteous and attentive to him than I had been before. But even
+this did not quite satisfy my dear ones.
+
+“See, Paula,” said my father earnestly--and his voice was
+agitated--“see, dear child, your sister’s marriage with Edward has
+brought her happiness and placed her in a brilliant position. No man
+could be a more affectionate husband than he, and so true a _grand
+seigneur_. Your brother, after having caused us much anxiety by his
+thoughtlessness, has settled down into the right way; and thus we can
+look forward to both their futures with easy minds. All we desire
+now is to be able to feel that your happiness is insured.”
+
+“And that we should do,” began mamma afresh, “if you, dear child,
+would receive the count’s attentions favorably.”
+
+“Yes,” resumed papa, “that would make us happy and contented.”
+
+He stretched out his hand to me; I seized it and kissed it, and
+suddenly felt a sharp pain in my eyes, and as through a quivering
+mist saw his dear face become more and more gentle and tender, and
+then the dear voice began:
+
+“Besides----”
+
+But the words which usually followed upon this beginning were
+wanting. I waited yearningly--in vain. They remained unsaid.
+
+That night, on going to bed, I prayed more earnestly than ever; and
+yet my prayer was that of a foolish child. I prayed for strength to
+obey my parents gladly and cheerfully; I ought to have framed my
+prayer quite differently--that I was quickly to be taught in the
+immediate future.
+
+On the 24th of April, 1882, one of the most perfect days I can
+remember, we were driving in the open carriage in the Prater, papa
+and I.
+
+The horse-chestnuts were beginning to blossom, the delicate green of
+spring diffusing its halo all around; that green so tender and so
+unspeakably joyous, just emerging from its winter covering into the
+golden sunlight, all unconscious, as yet, of storm or scorching heat.
+
+Our carriage rolled leisurely along by our Rotten Row. Friends and
+acquaintances galloped or trotted past us; then three horsemen
+abreast came toward us, the count in the middle. He was riding
+a handsome chestnut; man and horse alike presenting an air of
+comfortable self-satisfaction. “The world goes well with us,” they
+seemed to be thinking--if they thought at all. On the count’s left
+rode my brother, looking very handsome and spick and span in his
+uniform of major in the Lancers. To his right rode a gaunt man on a
+gaunt steed. He sat very erect upon his horse, which seemed as if
+devoured by inward fire, so wild and beautiful were its fine eyes;
+for the rest it was a long-legged, bony mare--to say the least of it,
+positively ugly. Nor did its rider please at first sight. Luckily
+for him, no one would be content with merely a single glance at the
+striking countenance. Long and narrow, it reveals a quite unusual
+amount of energy. The dark eyes, the nose with its dilating nostrils,
+the sharply pointed beard, the mustache twirling high and leaving the
+mouth free, reminded me of the portraits of Spanish noblemen of the
+seventeenth century. But what reminded me of no one, and could be
+compared to no one but himself, was the animated, sympathetic spirit
+that sparkled in his eyes. Gravely bowing, he retained his hat in his
+hand long after the count had resumed his, thus displaying a noble
+broad forehead, surmounted by thick, waving hair. The brain, I once
+read, shapes its own place, and his had formed an arch for itself.
+I know some which are content to reside under a flat level. The
+stranger looked observantly at me. I felt myself grow red under his
+gaze, and touched papa’s arm, who was exchanging greetings in the
+drive. He turned to me, and, following my eyes, recognized the rider.
+
+“Do you know him?” I asked.
+
+“Who?”
+
+“He of La Mancha,” said I, with a sorry jest, to conceal my confusion.
+
+Papa, not noticing it, answered: “Oh, yes. It is that mad fellow,
+Schwarzburg.”
+
+My presence of mind had returned, and I ventured to ask:
+
+“Tell me more about his foolish doings.”
+
+“I know nothing about him,” said papa.
+
+“Oh, yes, you do. Bernhard is constantly talking of him.”
+
+“To make fun of him.”
+
+“Not always. He really likes and admires him, and says he has a great
+future before him.”
+
+“Then things must greatly alter.”
+
+“Not so much, after all, dear papa--a little turn of fortune’s
+wheel; so far he has had nothing but sorrow since his childhood.
+Remember what Bernhard told us quite lately about him. His parents
+separated; his mother living abroad, and married again; his father,
+a spendthrift, caring nothing for the boy--worse off than an orphan;
+ill used at school, because the payments were so irregular. And he
+grows up, struggling through it all, and, even as a mere lad, takes a
+man’s cares upon himself and sets to earning his living.”
+
+“Yes, yes; but then his Don Quixotism with his small inheritance, and
+his ridiculous love story.”
+
+“Love story? That is odd.”
+
+An unpleasant sensation came over me, and I thought it strange that
+Bernhard had told me nothing of this love story. After a while, I
+asked:
+
+“Who was he in love with, this baron?”
+
+Papa had thought no more of our conversation, and could not at first
+think whom I meant; then answered abruptly:
+
+“He can only adore her memory now. She is dead.”
+
+“When?”
+
+“Some years ago, as the wife of another man, whom she preferred to
+him--ingratitude to fidelity which would have gained him a name
+in the Middle Ages, but which in modern times has simply made him
+ridiculous.”
+
+“I do not understand that. How can the exercise of any virtue render
+anyone ridiculous? And fidelity is a virtue!”
+
+Papa gave a slight cough, “If you ride a virtue to death, it becomes
+folly.”
+
+Wisdom--folly. I hated those words, so often in the count’s mouth.
+
+“Ah, well, papa,” said I, “it seems to me that there is no need for
+any virtue to grow into folly; it is a folly from the very beginning.
+That is why I have so little regard for wisdom either.”
+
+“That is very evident,” observed my father.
+
+“And why I love the constancy which, seeking no reward, yet remains
+stanch.”
+
+“Indeed? You do not see how senseless it is in a man to believe he
+is loved by a woman when he is not? To let himself be fooled by her?
+To give no ear when he is told she does not care a straw for him?
+You do not see how senseless is such conduct? Or, perhaps, it rather
+attracts your admiration because it is such a piece of utter folly!”
+
+“But did she really not love him?”
+
+“She simply fooled him, I tell you. And he, poor fool, must needs be
+keeping lover’s watch under her windows, quarreling with those who
+saw through the little game, which cost him more than one duel.”
+
+I was delighted.
+
+“Quite right! I honor him! I can see it now--can hear how after
+the fight, whether conquered or conqueror, he cries, ‘Dulcinea del
+Toboso is the most peerless lady in all the world, and I am her true
+knight!’ Splendid, papa!”
+
+“My dear child! What rubbish you talk! But it all comes from those
+confounded books, and I will----But enough of it!”
+
+These last words were said in English, and I knew it was high time
+to give up a subject when my dear good father took to speaking
+English!
+
+For some weeks past mamma had begun to receive again, every evening
+after the theater. She desired to give the count opportunities
+of coming more frequently to our house, without thereby exciting
+attention. Fruitless endeavor! Although his courtship proceeded so
+quietly that, thank Heaven, even I was scarcely aware of it, my girl
+friends began teasing me about him. Most of them, strange to say,
+called me a lucky girl; and one--I will name her Dora--never failed
+to add “but as silly, awfully silly, as she is lucky!”
+
+She is older than I am, and is considered to be very clever and well
+read. When quite a little girl, an aunt, who was a woman of learning,
+bequeathed her whole library to her, and she was allowed to have it
+arranged in her own room; her parents letting her have her own way
+in everything. Thus at thirteen there was she deep in the study of
+Humboldt’s “Cosmos,” and Strauss’ “Life of Jesus.” She has explained
+whole pages of this latter to me, but not very clearly; I never could
+understand it.
+
+Dora used often to threaten that, if I did not know how to value the
+count better, she would get him away from me. And I, only too ready,
+would reply:
+
+“Take him, by all means; you could not please me better.”
+
+For a long time she thought I was only joking.
+
+“Do you know,” she said, “that the Taxens have a prince’s crown in
+their coat of arms?”
+
+“How could one fail to know it?”
+
+“And have you not thought how well your monogram will look with a
+crown over it?”
+
+I burst into a fit of laughter.
+
+“Is that the result of studying Humboldt and Strauss at thirteen, to
+make you such a baby at twenty?”
+
+“Oh, that is quite another thing. I know what is due to the world.
+The greatest men of learning attach value to position, and would be
+only too glad to be admitted into princely salons, but as they are so
+prosy and pedantic----”
+
+Indignant at her silly chatter, I cried:
+
+“You ought to be ashamed to talk such rubbish. Pray what do you know
+about learned men: you have never even seen one!”
+
+“Nor you, either.”
+
+“No, nor anyone of us, because they do not frequent society, nor
+have the slightest wish to do so. But you are talking about what you
+do not understand. You prate about knowledge of the world, and see no
+further than your own little circle. That is all you think about!”
+
+She was piqued. She is as much accustomed to be admired as the count,
+and can as little as he endure to be contradicted.
+
+Our passage of arms had been carried on before a room full of my
+friends, of both sexes, to their great delectation. Dora was not a
+favorite among her girl friends, and they chuckled audibly at my
+onslaught.
+
+“You may be as contemptuous as you please,” said Dora angrily, but in
+so low a voice that only I heard. “You will see the consequences of
+having made an enemy of me,” with a meaning look toward the door, by
+which the count was just then entering.
+
+I understood her, and answered in an equally low voice:
+
+“If you only succeed in what you mean, you will make me a friend for
+life.”
+
+“Very well, I accept your challenge!” she responded, little knowing
+how I was silently rejoicing in her determination, and wishing it all
+speed.
+
+The count stood before me; and it seemed as if with his presence the
+atmosphere about me had become more oppressive, the light darkened.
+Dora rising, left him the chair opposite to me, and seated herself
+on the arm of mine. In her white gauze dress, and hair so becomingly
+arranged, she looked charming, as charming as a Dresden china figure;
+and the contrast between her bewitching get-up and the conversation
+she carried on was irresistibly funny.
+
+“I wager,” exclaimed the count, “that the thermometer is up to 28°.”
+
+“If it were 38°,” said she, “I should not feel it. I am never warm. I
+am the marble guest.”
+
+With an uninterested look the count murmured:
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“But also, I never feel the cold.”
+
+“Ha, ha! You are doing the original. I am not at all original;
+perfectly prosaic.”
+
+“Oh! I am very prosaic. Would you believe it? I take snuff.”
+
+“Indeed?”
+
+“I always carry my snuffbox about with me.”
+
+“With nothing in it?”
+
+She produced a tiny gold box, no larger than a florin, from her
+pocket.
+
+“There happens to be nothing in it, just to-day. Look, I have had a
+death’s head engraved on the lid; and I use death’s-head notepaper.
+I am always thinking of death. I believe I shall commit suicide one
+day.”
+
+The count looked aghast.
+
+“I always carry a dagger about with me.”
+
+“Do you really?” said the count.
+
+“So that I may plunge it into my heart the moment that tobacco, my
+one friend, has no more charms for me.”
+
+He smiled. He began to find her interesting; and as she now went
+on to tell of a curious old chest which had been discovered in a
+lumber room of her castle, he became thoroughly engrossed. Seizing an
+opportunity when they were absorbed in their conversation, I rose
+and stole away. As I turned, I saw Bernhard standing by me.
+
+“I have been looking for you ever so long,” said he. “One cannot stir
+a step in this crush.”
+
+And looking round, he called:
+
+“Schwarzburg!”
+
+And I, surprised and so delighted, as though it had been some dear,
+impatiently looked-for friend, exclaimed:
+
+“Is he here?”
+
+Now, be it said, Bernhard scolded me afterward, quite roundly, for my
+“Is he here?” But I have never been able to repent it. As I said it,
+I looked into a pair of eyes radiant with bliss, far too great for me
+ever to repent the words which called it forth.
+
+Baron Schwarzburg bowed so low before me, that the reverence thus
+expressed in his salutation almost abashed me. What had I done to
+arouse reverence?
+
+We had a long talk together, much too long, I was afterward told
+reproachfully. I cannot say what it was about; I was unconscious of
+the lapse of time, and of the presence of others. He was talking to
+me, and all that he said and his manner of saying it was pleasant to
+me, and worth listening to; seemed better and wiser than anything I
+had ever heard before, at once dear and true.
+
+When, looking back to that evening, I ask myself the question: Was
+that when we first made acquaintance? I answer, No. We did not need
+it; we greeted each other as friends of long standing; our first
+meeting was as a coming together after separation.
+
+Our conversation was interrupted by papa. He wanted to consult with
+the baron concerning some matters connected with his estate, and
+Bernhard had told him that he could not do better than put them into
+his hands. Both gentlemen engaged in earnest conversation; and at its
+close I saw them shake hands, and felt quite elated. So the fool of a
+Schwarzburg could talk sensibly for once--his advice could even be of
+use!
+
+The soirée was over. Most of the guests had left. Among the last
+to go were Dora and her people, and the count and his mother. The
+_comtesse douairière_, as my Duphot called her, was especially
+amiable to me on saying good-night.
+
+“You are so sweet, dear child, I quite admired you. How charming you
+were this evening toward that poor baron, the _attaché_ fellow! But
+do not forget that there may be a danger of your good nature being
+misunderstood. That class of person does not always know how to
+accept our notice, and is often made uncomfortable by our desire to
+make them feel _à leur aise_ in our society.”
+
+I hardly knew what to make of this comment; whether to take it as one
+of praise or blame.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I will not attempt to describe my simple love story at length. That
+my parents would consent to my marriage with Baron Schwarzburg, the
+“_attaché_ fellow,” I did not for a moment believe. The consciousness
+of my love for him and of its hopelessness revealed themselves
+simultaneously to me; and it would have been a grave wrong in me had
+I given myself up to the former. But I had not given myself up to
+it; it had taken hold of me before I was aware, and from the first
+moment I was as completely under its sway as I am to this day. It was
+the same with him. His affection for me came as suddenly as did my
+great love for him. It was only his perfect absence of vanity which
+for a long time made him think it impossible that he could inspire
+me with any warmer feelings than those of friendship. But even that
+seemed to make him supremely happy; and as for me--a new life had
+unfolded to me since he had taken me into his confidence, and since
+I had learned to know the workings of his noble, unselfish heart. He
+had met almost on every side with injustice, and yet he always held
+that Right must conquer. He had endured countless bitternesses, yet
+had come through them without one taint of bitterness. Truly with
+such a fund of love and strength in his own heart, how should he
+believe in anything but goodness?
+
+The wonderful thing to me is that his own estimate of himself should
+be so different from what he really is. He affirms the motive of the
+greater part of his actions, and the source of all his strength, to
+have been self-will. The other day when he was repeating this to me,
+I asked:
+
+“And was it mere act of self-will that led you, as a young barrister,
+to enter that action against yourself?”
+
+He replied, with a frown, “Is that old story not yet forgotten?”
+
+“Not yet.”
+
+“Then allow me to give you the true reading of it. It was undertaken
+in no ridiculous spirit of self-sacrifice, but in order to defend
+my integrity against my money; a thing of priceless worth against
+that which has a marketable value. My client was the widow of an
+estimable man and faithful old servant; the money in question his
+savings honestly earned. How many years back the sum had been in
+all confidence intrusted to his master’s keeping, the wife did not
+know. She only knew that his master had repeatedly assured him that
+the money had been invested in a thoroughly sound mortgage. What the
+mortgage was her husband had no idea, and as the widow of the baron’s
+most faithful and devoted servant it would never have occurred to her
+to ask if her money was safely invested, or in what. All very well,
+the lawyer said, but why was the woman so stupid? Could she not see
+what was going on, and how the baron was making ducks and drakes of
+his property? She had seen it all, but trusted to her lord’s word
+more than to the evidence of her senses. And for that implicit trust,
+was she to be made the victim, and was her master’s son to consent to
+such plunder? Could he? What is your opinion, countess; how would you
+have acted in his place?”
+
+My answer was, “As you did.”
+
+“And would that have been anything extraordinary?”
+
+“No; only what was right.”
+
+“Thank God!” he exclaimed, while a great peaceful joy illumined his
+countenance; “only what was right. Yes, that is it.”
+
+He looked radiant.
+
+“Why thank God?” I asked.
+
+“Because I have been permitted to justify myself to you.”
+
+“You justify yourself--to me!” I said in some confusion.
+
+“And because you made it so easy to me, and because you have such a
+clear insight into things, and such an upright mind. Above all, that
+you concede that we only do what is right, even must we defend that
+right doing to our own loss.”
+
+“But is not that natural?”
+
+“No, egotism is natural. And the world just now prizes it highly.
+Take up any newspaper, and you will read any number of articles
+in favor of it and its ally, ‘healthy realism.’ In this age of
+humanitarianism--strange anomaly--we find idealism arraigned, and
+every kind of unusual display of self-denial, that groundwork and
+absolute necessity of humanitarianism, stigmatized as sickly and
+sentimental.”
+
+Here the count, my sister, and Dora came up to us.
+
+“Aha, here is the baron laying down the law!” exclaimed the count.
+
+And Schwarzburg, looking dismayed, turned apologetically to me,
+saying:
+
+“Is it true--was I really laying down the law?”
+
+“It is rather a habit of yours,” interposed the count, assuming the
+cold haughty manner of people in society, to those not so highly
+privileged, and that to me is so narrow and petty.
+
+“You were certainly not laying down the law,” I cried; “on the
+contrary, you were telling me something of great interest.”
+
+“A secret?” giggled Dora.
+
+“Certainly not.”
+
+“Then pray impart your interesting story to us, especially if it
+is not too long. But I fear it is long--as long-winded as it is
+interesting. I have been watching you at a distance. You are always
+so vastly entertaining, you two.”
+
+My cheek crimsoned, and Baron Schwarzburg leveled a look at Dora
+which spoiled all inclination to pursue her ill-bred jesting further.
+But it had done its work, and bore ill consequences for me. Count
+Taxen did not stir from my side the remainder of the evening; and we
+carried on a melancholy duologue anent ancient castellated halls and
+old armor! “A mold and mildew type of conversation,” as Elizabeth
+calls it, when her husband, who is uncommonly like the count in
+essentials, begins one of his interminable talks with her on that
+theme. I saw her look across at me several times with unconcealed
+commiseration.
+
+The next day she came to talk over matters with me. It was early in
+the afternoon, and I had just gone up to my room after luncheon,
+when she came in.
+
+She began taking off her bonnet and arranging a refractory lock
+displaced by the wind, apparently very intent on so doing; but I
+could see very plainly that her thoughts were no wise occupied by the
+lovely, intellectual looking face reflected in the looking-glass.
+Suddenly she began:
+
+“Tell me, child, what are you meaning by this Schwarzburg worship of
+yours?”
+
+Her unexpected question took me by surprise, and I answered in a low
+voice:
+
+“What can I mean?”
+
+“That is what I want to know. I want to know what you are thinking,
+what dreams you are allowing yourself to indulge in! Do you know that
+for some time past you are quite altered?”
+
+I felt myself growing more and more downhearted.
+
+“How altered, Elizabeth?”
+
+“Oh,” she said, “do not let us waste time in fencing. The manner in
+which you distinguish Schwarzburg is the subject of general remark.
+You make your almost veneration of him so ostentatiously apparent.”
+
+“I do not make it ostentatiously apparent; I only do not conceal it.”
+
+“And what is it to lead to?”
+
+“It will lead to nothing,” I answered dejectedly. “In a few weeks he
+goes to Bosnia; and I to Trostburg.”
+
+Shrugging her shoulders, she made a few steps forward, then sat down
+on the chair before my writing table. The volume with “My Memoirs”
+written large upon it attracted her attention; her face relaxed its
+grave expression, and she began to laugh.
+
+“So the child has taken to writing her ‘Memoirs’; here are all the
+secrets--one need only to look in and find them all laid bare. Do not
+look so frightened. I am curious, but not indiscreet.”
+
+While her words were sarcastic, her great blue eyes were so sincere,
+were looking at me with such a depth of love and sympathy, that,
+taking courage, I went up to her and said:
+
+“You asked me what I want. I will confess to you what I do not want;
+I will not marry Count Taxen.”
+
+“Bravo, that is good,” she answered phlegmatically. “And what about
+the count, who purposes either to-day or to-morrow to make formal
+proposal for your hand?”
+
+In deadly fear, I cried:
+
+“How do you know this?”
+
+“From himself.”
+
+“And does he not see how utterly indifferent he is to me?”
+
+“No. That would be the last thing he would be likely to see.”
+
+“And how much more, how unspeakably more, I prefer another to him?”
+
+“That still less. A Count Taxen simply considers it an impossibility
+that a Baron Schwarzburg should be preferred before him.”
+
+“And Dora, who is a thousand times better suited to him, and who
+promised me that she would make capture of him--Dora, on whom I have
+set my hopes--why is she not as good as her word?”
+
+“Because she cannot, sweet Simplicity. Because she has done all in
+her power, but in vain. She is not to the count’s taste. He scents
+the egoist in her, and is too utterly the egoist himself not to avoid
+his duplicate.”
+
+“Oh, what can I do, Elizabeth! what can I do? If I have to marry the
+count I shall die of despair.”
+
+She threw her arms round me, and drew me down to her, and I laid my
+cheek upon her wavy hair.
+
+“Do you really think so?” she asked. “I believe you might manage to
+be not so desperately unhappy with him. Only you need to be a little
+wise, my pet; do not go against him in little things, and you would
+soon find that you had your own way in more important ones. You would
+have to be very careful not to hurt his vanity, and where possible to
+sing his praises to him.”
+
+“What, flatter him!” I cried, “praise what I do not approve!
+Flattery! oh, the shame and disgrace of it!”
+
+“Do not give it such high-sounding names,” said she. “To be a bad
+wife is the only shame and disgrace to a woman. In comparison with
+that, any self-imposed humiliation weighs but lightly in the scale.
+And after all, it is but a case of weighing one evil against another,
+a compromise with the enemy, otherwise called the ills of life.
+Perfect happiness, cloudless, whose lot is it? Who even may indulge
+an unbroken dream of it?”
+
+“Oh, were it only a matter of a dream, I should soon be in possession
+of it.”
+
+“Indeed! Then trust me, and put your dream into words.”
+
+“Dare I? May I?”
+
+“You must.”
+
+“Do not forget that it is only a dream.”
+
+“Well--begin.”
+
+“I should dream that I was his--you know whom I mean--and had no more
+ardent wish than to make life, hitherto so hard to him, sweet and
+beautiful. At his side I would grow wise, and clever, and better day
+by day. Every breath I drew would be a song of praise to him. Did,
+however, so strange a thing happen that he could ever do anything my
+conscience did not approve, I would tell it him, frankly, freely. I
+would shrink from no pain; for he would be there to bear it with me,
+and its burden would be lightened. What pain could come to me, so
+long as I was his, and his love mine?”
+
+“Yes,” said Elizabeth, in a low, stifled voice; “yes.”
+
+“That is what my dream is like--the purest bliss. But the reality
+is horror--horror, Elizabeth! You have utterly crushed me. That
+miserable compromise; that mean-spirited subjection in order to
+preserve the outward appearance of unity while hiding the inward
+disunion--I could not do it. And you----”
+
+A horrible thought had flashed across me; I bent down and looked into
+her face; it was bathed in tears. “Can you do it, my darling?” I
+said, sinking on my knees, and embracing her.
+
+She pressed me convulsively, and agonizing sobs shook her breast, as
+she answered:
+
+“I have learned to do it!”
+
+For a time we preserved deep silence. When at length I raised my eyes
+to her dear face, it wore its accustomed look of composure.
+
+She rose.
+
+“Come with me to our parents, child,” she said. “I cannot help you to
+the realization of your dream; but you shall not be sacrificed.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mamma was sitting in the corner of the sofa, knitting. Mme. Duphot
+was reading aloud to her, Ozanani’s “Poëtas Francis Caius.”
+
+“May we come in, mamma? We want to speak to you.”
+
+Without looking up, mamma answered:
+
+“Please let us just finish the chapter. Sit down, girls.”
+
+We sat down, and Mme. Duphot finished the beautiful legend of the
+Holy Francis and Wolf von Gubio. Then placing her book, over which
+she had several times hurriedly glanced at me, on the table, she rose.
+
+I caught her hand.
+
+“Stay!” I whispered to her; and Elizabeth hurriedly joined in.
+
+“Stay, dear Duphot, we count upon your help. We want papa here, too,
+as well. May I send to ask him to come, mamma?”
+
+“Yes, ask him to come.”
+
+Dear mamma! so unsuspectingly and peacefully going on with her work,
+meditating over the sweet teaching of St. Francis. I felt so sorry
+for her. How gladly would I have spared her the pain I was about to
+cause her, but--how could I?
+
+The door opened. Papa came in, but not alone; my brother was with
+him. The eyes of both were directed upon me as they came in.
+
+“Oh, yes; there she is,” said papa, in a severe, menacing voice.
+
+I wanted to rise, but my knees shook too violently, and I could only
+stretch out my hand to seize his as he passed me. He drew it hastily
+back, and going across to the sofa, sat down by mamma. My brother
+subsided on to a chair near them; and Mme. Duphot, who had been
+sitting by mamma, diffident as ever, pushed her tabouret a little
+further back. My sister and I sat at a little distance from them,
+like a criminal and his counsel before their judges.
+
+“Dear papa, dear mamma,” began Elizabeth, “in Paula’s name I would
+pray you ask the count to cease paying his addresses to her. Paula
+cannot like him, and is determined that she will not marry him.”
+
+I was dismayed and terrified at the abrupt manner in which she said
+this.
+
+Mme. Duphot sighed.
+
+Bernhard muttered “Oho!”
+
+My father and mother were silent.
+
+“It is Paula’s earnest hope,” resumes Elizabeth, “that you, dear
+father and mother, will give your sanction to her decision.”
+
+“Oh, do!” I broke in; “be merciful. I will be forever grateful to
+you. I cannot marry Count Taxen. I do not feel the smallest particle
+of affection for him; rather the reverse.”
+
+“Does that mean that you have a dislike to him?” exclaimed papa
+angrily. “Who has been putting such folly into your head? I suppose
+your elder sister?”
+
+“For all I hold dearest in the world, do not think that! It is I who
+have implored her to intercede for me with you.”
+
+“In the first place,” said mamma, “you need no one to intercede
+between you and your parents, but should have come in all confidence
+to them yourself. In the second place, your sister, instead of being
+so ready to take this office upon herself, should have pointed out
+to you how foolish it is to have allowed any such fancy not only to
+exist, but to be blurted out before us, and for which there is not
+the slightest reason.”
+
+“She declares it--that is her reason!” returned Elizabeth.
+
+Her voice, before somewhat veiled, was now as hard and sharp as when
+first she came to me. I drew nearer to her, and put my arm round
+her--her whole frame quivered.
+
+“Folly--folly,” repeated papa. “We cannot listen to such trash.”
+
+“The count is an upright, honorable man; well bred, good looking, and
+of unexceptionable manners; a man with whom you could not fail to be
+happy, Paula,” pronounced mamma, in severe and uncompromising tones.
+“You may not love him now, but you will certainly learn to do so when
+it has become your duty.”
+
+A shudder ran through me, and I stammered out:
+
+“No, mamma, no! I shall never learn to love him, because I----”
+
+The confession I was about to make died away upon my lips. I turned
+a look of entreaty upon my sister. Her lovely face was aflame; with
+arms crossed upon her breast, she was looking unflinchingly, an
+expression of reproach and indignation in her eyes, at mamma.
+
+“Do you remember,” she said, “some seventeen years ago addressing
+that same promise to me, and with about as much justification? My
+suitor, too, was upright, well bred, and good looking. Now, mother
+dear, as you have not seen or guessed how matters stand with me, hear
+once for all; your promise has _not_ brought its fulfillment.”
+
+“Elizabeth!” cried my father and mother together.
+
+Bernhard, who at first had listened with somewhat skeptical smile,
+suddenly sunk his head. Mme. Duphot had risen, and slipped out of
+the room like a shadow. With a calm that chilled me to the heart,
+Elizabeth continued:
+
+“That love, which as a matter of course was to come with marriage,
+enveloping me in blessed blindness, in happy deception, came not. My
+heart remained cold, my eyes clear, and with those clear eyes of mine
+I saw my upright, well-bred husband through and through----” She gave
+a short hard laugh. “It was no edifying spectacle.”
+
+I had been so shocked at Elizabeth’s words, above all by the decided
+manner in which she had said them, that I had not ventured to look
+at my parents. I cast a furtive glance at the chair previously
+occupied by Bernhard. It was empty; my brother had risen, and was
+standing by the window near to which Elizabeth was sitting, looking
+earnestly at her, but, to my relief, not angrily.
+
+“What does this mean?” asked papa. “What accusation do you bring
+against your husband? He has never acted other than as a gentleman;
+never been guilty of a single reprehensible action.”
+
+“Never! He has never wronged another in the matter of honor or
+property,” returned Elizabeth; “nor has he ever, of his own free
+will, stirred a finger to help another, let alone made any sacrifice
+for anyone; has never forgotten self for the sake of any living
+creature. He has no notion of generosity, or of the beautiful,
+save”--and a roguish look flashed across her face--“when he comes
+across it in the shape of some old oak chest or rusty spur, lost four
+centuries ago by some brave knight intent on plundering a traveling
+merchant.”
+
+“My dear Elizabeth!” said Bernhard reproachfully, as, standing now
+behind her, he laid his hand on the back of her chair.
+
+“I know I ought not to talk like this,” she answered. “It has never
+happened before, and would not to-day, were it not for the sake of
+saving this child from the fate which has befallen me.”
+
+Dear mamma was in a state of greatest agitation and perplexity.
+
+“You exaggerate cruelly, Elizabeth,” said she reproachfully. “You
+accuse your parents, and speak unbefittingly of your husband.”
+
+Elizabeth nodded. “Yes, so I do! But then I have promised my sister
+to stand by her in her hard fight between the filial obedience she
+would so gladly show to you, and the aversion she feels for the
+count.”
+
+“Aversion,” muttered my father; “absurd!”
+
+“And keeping my word, I say to her in your presence. Do not yield!
+You are my own sister. Placed in circumstances similar to mine, your
+life would be as wretched as is mine,” continued Elizabeth, still
+speaking with that terrible calmness.
+
+While papa cried: “Wretched! What an extraordinary expression to use!”
+
+And she: “Did I know one stronger, I would adopt it! Nothing is too
+strong to express the humiliation of knowing the being one looks
+up to--or rather one should look up to--to be a nonentity; or the
+hypocrisy of seeming to defer to him one knows to be one’s inferior.”
+
+“Pride! pride!” sighed mamma. Her work had fallen on to her lap,
+she was white as death; and my heart felt how she was suffering, as
+Elizabeth, merely acknowledging her interruption by a scornful curl
+of the lips, continued icily:
+
+“The moral death it is, and how one despises one’s self for it--but
+only with penitent humiliation to crawl again under the sacred
+yoke--that, of course, is understood. Who would make a public scandal
+of their matrimonial troubles; who seek escape from them; who attempt
+to drown themselves? Such, I have heard, is done by the vulgar horde
+who are without religion, or are the poor-spirited descendants of
+some worthy shoemaker or candlestick-maker, without courage or
+endurance. We, of the upper ten, are religious, strong to endure,
+have the blood of heroes in our veins! We know no deserters from our
+posts! Therefore, Paula, weigh well before you undertake the post. It
+is a vilely loathsome one.”
+
+She turned to our parents:
+
+“Dear father and mother, when you say to your child ‘Accept
+So-and-so, he will give you a good position, splendid castles, a
+great establishment, well-appointed carriages,’ and the like, you are
+doubtless doing what is right in your own eyes. But do not say to
+her, ‘Do it because it will bring you happiness.’ That you have no
+right to say. Believe me, it is presumptuous.”
+
+Only those who heard these words could form any idea of the effect,
+uttered as they were by Elizabeth, without raising her voice or
+accompanying them by the slightest gesture. Low and deliberately
+they dropped like heart’s blood from some deep wound; and as I
+hearkened to them, there arose in me the burning wish that there
+were anything on this earth, anything, however great and well-nigh
+impossible, that I might be privileged to do for my sister.
+
+Mamma was petrified. Papa had sunk his arms upon his knees, and
+was looking down at his clenched fingers. His forehead was deeply
+furrowed, and for the first time the thought struck me how old he
+looked.
+
+Bernhard broke the silence:
+
+“My dear parents, I entreat you if things are thus--it would be my
+opinion--you understand what I mean----”
+
+Oh, it was a blessing to us all, the warm-hearted manner in which he
+spoke!
+
+Papa raising his head, thanked the dear fellow with an approving nod,
+then looking at mamma inquiringly: “What do you think?”
+
+She, trying to answer, could not; could only sigh:
+
+“O God! O God!”
+
+“What do you think, Caroline?” repeated papa. “Are you not also----”
+
+“I do not know,” said she painfully. “It is very difficult.”
+
+“There is nothing difficult in it; it is all quite simple,” broke
+in Bernhard. “You have only to tell the count our daughter is fully
+sensible of the honor, etc., etc.; but she cannot yet make up her
+mind to marry; she does not want to leave us--and the thing is done!”
+
+There ensued a long, painful silence. Papa brought it to an end by
+saying:
+
+“Yes. If she really does want to stay with us----”
+
+And mamma put in hesitatingly: “Paula is certainly still very young!”
+
+“Much too young!” cried I. This solution had never occurred to me.
+“Oh, my darling parents!” I would have rushed to them, but mamma made
+a sign to Elizabeth, and my sister, rising, went and stood before her.
+
+“You have given us much pain to-day, Elizabeth,” said papa. He held
+out his hand to her. She did not offer to kiss it. What must have
+been her feelings at that moment! Our dearest father had given her
+his hand in reconciliation, and Elizabeth had not kissed it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At that moment the count was announced; and with him my
+brother-in-law, to fetch his wife for the usual drive. Both
+gentlemen seemed to be in a high state of annoyance at some blunder
+of their harness-maker; in each case their ideas had failed to be
+carried out.
+
+Bernhard sympathized ironically in their grievances, but they took
+his malicious comments in sober earnest.
+
+As Elizabeth and her husband left the room, running after them, I
+threw my arms vehemently round my sister, and thanked her, caring
+nothing for the disapproving looks of my brother-in-law.
+
+“What is all this frantic excitement about?” he asked.
+
+Bernhard, who, too, following my example, had left the room, answered:
+
+“Ah, my dear fellow! If you only knew the vagaries of this small
+person!” and he winked at me. “Only think, this person refuses to
+have anything to say to Count Taxen. Count Taxen! the wittiest,
+noblest, and handsomest of men, and--she will have nothing to say to
+him!”
+
+My brother-in-law, who evidently took it as a bad joke, answered:
+“Ah, well, it is a good thing that you are here to bring her to
+reason.” He turned toward the door, Elizabeth with him. We looked
+after her, walking so calmly by his side--my poor, poor sister.
+
+“I have often shuddered to think what must come to light if ever the
+secrets of that prison house were unfolded,” said Bernhard.
+
+“I, too, have often dreaded that she was unhappy,” I replied, unable
+longer to restrain my tears. “My only wonder was that she never
+complained.”
+
+“No need to wonder at that!” he cried. “It is not suitable for
+general conversation. If circumstances force it from a true woman,
+she may speak of it once, but never again. Take example from her;”
+and he affectionately patted my cheek. “Our friend in the drawing
+room is getting his _congé_. Are you content, pussy?”
+
+I was about to thank him for his goodness; but with an impatient
+movement he drew back, as he said:
+
+“For Heaven’s sake, don’t come the sentimental!”
+
+My parents said no more to me about the count; and it may be readily
+imagined that I never mentioned him to them. A few evenings before
+the soirée at which I made the resolve to write my Memoirs, his
+mother was present, and made a point of showing me the greatest
+kindness. This noble heartedness made me feel so small and ashamed
+that I had to exercise the greatest self-control to prevent myself
+from earnestly praying the countess to think kindly of me and forgive
+me. It would have been a fearful want of tact had I done so.
+
+As she moved away, mischievous Pierre Coucy said, with a titter, “She
+is more _la crème_ to-night than ever--but sour.”
+
+“No wonder,” rejoined his brother, with a side glance at me.
+
+Then to Elizabeth: “Have you heard our paragon son is off on a
+cruise--to Bohemia?”
+
+“No, no,” put in Pierre; “in an air balloon to recover his
+equilibrium.”
+
+I was confused at their sallies. But Elizabeth, with her majestic
+calm, said: “You are romancing, now the secret is out! I have long
+suspected your silent proclivities.”
+
+“You are wrong, countess! More than a writer of romance, I am a
+prophet!”
+
+“Highly necessary, in order to see through a sphinx like our friend
+Count Taxen.”
+
+So they went on cutting bad jests, until I felt quite sorry for the
+count, who looked upon the Coucys as his friends. They must have
+imparted their surmise to others besides ourselves, for when Baron
+Schwarzburg came up to me that evening, I read it on his brow, and
+it laughed in his eyes, as he heartily wished the count a pleasant
+journey.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Things are very strange at home now, and not altogether pleasant.
+Even my Duphot, for the first time in my life, bears a grudge against
+me--in her gentle way, be it understood, and quite as much to her
+sorrow as to mine.
+
+My beloved father is out of sorts, and although he often says, “Do
+whatever you like,” the words over which I used to exult now make
+me sad. I always dread lest I should hear in them, “Our wishes, of
+course, are of no account to you.”
+
+Mamma, too, seems depressed, and spends more time in church than ever.
+
+She must be praying there for Elizabeth; for she has laid it upon
+me in my daily prayers to commend my poor sister to God, that he
+may turn her heart, and awaken in it a befitting and dutiful love
+to her husband. And I pray accordingly, though I must confess I
+doubt whether the Divine Power will see fit to be influenced in
+such a cause. The true love which can arouse that burning devotion
+in us, akin only to sacred adoration, is given us by our Heavenly
+Father, if to be given at all, from the very beginning. The miserable
+supplementary love, gathered together for us by joint prayers, what
+can that avail?
+
+_May 25th._--Reading through these pages yesterday, I asked myself
+if these really are memoirs that I am writing? Memoirs treat of
+interesting people, and I am only writing about myself; they treat of
+interesting times, and I only occupy myself with the present, which,
+for the matter of that, is very interesting.
+
+“A momentous period in the political world!” I heard an old gentleman
+say the other day.
+
+My whole understanding for politics, however, is confined to a
+decided interest in all that concerns the governorship of our
+province. Opportunities of discussing it, ever so welcome to me, are
+not wanting, papa having interests at stake in it. His object is
+to prevent the inhabitants of one of the districts, against better
+judgment, from cutting down the trees and tilling the land of one
+of the forests belonging to him. Until quite lately he was forever
+complaining of the laxity of the local authorities. Suddenly, his
+invectives have ceased. I had long wanted to know why, but had not
+ventured to inquire into the subject on account of his not standing
+well with the authorities. At length to-day, taking courage, I said:
+
+“How are things going about the district forest, papa? Is it going to
+be under tillage?”
+
+“No, it is not.”
+
+“Then you have carried your point. That is capital.”
+
+“Father has carried his point, because he has put it, at last,
+into the hands of the right man,” interposed Bernhard, continuing,
+unabashed by papa’s meaning look--“of the man of right, who this time
+has proved the truth of his axiom, Right must conquer.”
+
+Mamma and Mme. Duphot in vain endeavored to turn the subject;
+Bernhard, sticking to his point, would not yield until he had forced
+from dear papa the acknowledgment that Baron Schwarzburg was a man of
+great talent, and a very fine fellow.
+
+That afternoon it was settled that in a week we should leave town for
+Trostburg. Elizabeth was to come on a long visit to us, and without
+her husband, who has just bought a new place in the Marmaros, and is
+about to build a hunting castle there.
+
+My sister is quite another person since her husband’s departure;
+so much more animated, lively to audacity, and so loving and
+affectionate to papa and mamma.
+
+She coaxes and pets me as if I were a baby.
+
+“If only you had a real baby!” I said to her once.
+
+“Silence!” she cried. “It is my one source of thankfulness that
+Heaven has not given me one! I should have hated it as I do----”
+
+She did not finish her sentence; but I understood her too well, and
+felt a rush of deepest pity for her.
+
+When I see her breathing thus freely again in her liberty, it
+always makes me think of a certain lovely mountain ash tree in
+the forest. A terrific storm beating over it had bowed down the
+young tree, until its crest had caught in the branches of a puny
+misshapen fir tree, much smaller than it, and the poor ash could
+not free itself. Its slender stem was bent like a bow; its tender
+branches, accustomed only to the free space of heaven above them
+wherein to stir and expand at their own sweet will, hung to earth
+withered and disconsolate, pining in the straggling clutches of the
+tyrant. Fortunately my father and I happened to pass that way. He
+had the worthless fir tree cut down; and oh, joy! the mountain ash
+was freed; its elastic stem quickly righted itself, its branches
+swayed blissfully in the breeze, each individual leaflet uplifted
+itself with joyous flutter, and its graceful summit seemed to bow
+in greeting to its companions, and to the blue sky above it, which,
+answering, shed the gladdening rays of sunlight full upon it.
+
+The mountain ash is forever freed from its oppressor. My poor
+sister must return to her imprisonment when summer is over. But she
+does not allow this thought to trouble her happiness; she is too
+noble-spirited. She says, Enjoy your blessings while you have them;
+it is only the pampered children of fortune who do not give thanks
+for happiness, because it is fleeting. A Crœsus has no easy minute,
+for he has no security but that he may outlive his riches. The beggar
+does not enjoy the crust you give him any the less through fear of
+to-morrow’s hunger.
+
+The more I am with her, the more do I admire her and sorrow for her;
+and the more I compare our lots, the more grateful am I for mine.
+How merciful God has been to me! The blessed freedom only granted
+for a brief space to my sister, is mine forever to enjoy, and in
+addition to it the great, silent bliss of being privileged to think
+to my heart’s content of him who is so unspeakably dear to me. Though
+separated from him, I will walk as if in his sight in all I do, or
+leave undone, asking myself, “Would he approve it?” he the right man,
+the man of right!
+
+There must be something unusual in contemplation. There are
+mysterious conferences in the small drawing room; long discussions
+in papa’s study. Confusion reigns in every nook and corner. Mamma
+has sent round notes of excuse, and is not holding the remaining
+receptions this season; and Baron Schwarzburg, who seemed to have
+received no intimation of the change in her arrangements, was greatly
+astonished the other evening on finding us alone. I noticed papa and
+Bernhard exchange a hurried glance as he was announced, and that they
+looked with some concern at mamma. Her manner to him was cold, but
+not half as cold as that of my Duphot. She has conceived the most
+inexplicable antipathy to the baron, and has confided to me more than
+once, with symptoms of extremest aversion, that she looks upon him as
+an _esprit fort_. He stayed an hour. The happiness I experienced in
+seeing and hearing him was sadly marred by thinking every instant,
+“Now he will take his leave, and I shall see and hear him no more,
+perhaps, for years--perhaps, who knows? forever!”
+
+It was an unspeakable surprise to me to hear papa say to him, as they
+shook hands: “You must look in again and see us before you leave.” I
+could not help it--I rushed to papa and impulsively kissed his hand.
+Looking at me severely, he muttered:
+
+“What is the matter? You seem to be growing foolish.”
+
+_May 30th._--I must write down what has happened--if I can, if my
+trembling hand will let me, if my thoughts do not chase each other
+too swiftly. I have kept so calm all the evening, have been able to
+speak of the most indifferent things with such composure--why then
+should I feel so painfully agitated now? I certainly did think that
+my family quietly overlooked the answers _à tort et à travers_ I gave
+them at first. Could I have been mistaken? They all looked so wise,
+and the wildest imaginings were flying through my brain. But that was
+afterward; what first took place was as follows:
+
+This afternoon I was sitting alone in the great drawing room,
+awaiting the return of mamma and Mme. Duphot from church; when the
+door suddenly opened, and, without being announced, Baron Schwarzburg
+came in, saying:
+
+“I came to say good-by, countess. I start to-morrow.”
+
+And I, in my bewilderment, could say nothing but:
+
+“My mamma is not at home.”
+
+“I know,” he replied.
+
+“She will soon be back,” I said. Upon which he bowed silently.
+
+I had risen at his entry, and now did not know whether I might ask
+him to be seated. To leave him standing was too uncourteous. This
+threw me into a dilemma, and the first few delicious moments of our
+being alone together were truly uncomfortable.
+
+He walked to the window, and for a while appeared to be absorbed
+in what was passing below. Then he turned again toward me. He was
+holding his hat in one hand, his gloves in the other, beating them on
+the brim of his hat.
+
+For the sake of saying something, I remarked:
+
+“The dust is blowing up very unpleasantly to-day.”
+
+The dearest smile played about his lips as he answered:
+
+“Oh, no. It has been raining hard.”
+
+Another pause ensued, this time a long one; until the baron brought
+it to a close by saying:
+
+“You are aware that I am very glad to be going to Bosnia?”
+
+I replied:
+
+“Yes, I know; and I know the reason. You have a great work before you
+there.”
+
+“For the small scope of my office,” he hastened to make reply. “It
+is just the inferiority of the office I hold which gives a certain
+importance to the work in hand. At any rate, it must take a long
+time to settle; and I shall not think of coming home until it is
+completed.”
+
+“But you will have leave from time to time?”
+
+“Yes, certainly.”
+
+“And you will come and see us?”
+
+“Oh, of course.”
+
+“That will give pleasure to many--to me especially.”
+
+These very natural words of mine seemed to produce a remarkable
+impression upon him.
+
+With warmth and agitation, he repeated:
+
+“You, especially? you, especially?”
+
+He seemed about to add something, took a step toward me, then
+recalling himself, preserved silence, merely throwing his gloves
+impetuously into his hat, which he had placed upon the window-sill.
+Then I, regaining courage, said: “Do take a seat, Baron Schwarzburg.”
+
+He accepted my invitation, and we sat down on the two easychairs by
+the flower table, facing each other, near the French window leading
+on to the balcony.
+
+“How heavy and oppressive the air is in town, now!” he exclaimed.
+
+And I agreed that it would be ever so much pleasanter in the country,
+and in Bosnia, too.
+
+“Oh, infinitely. And will you be as glad to go into the country as I
+to go to Bosnia?”
+
+I said yes. And then he wanted a description of my life at Trostburg,
+and I gave him a detailed account of the way I spent each day. He
+thanked me warmly. It would be so delightful to know where his
+thoughts could seek me at every hour of the day; in the woods, in
+the garden, in my own room, or in the library absorbed in some
+interesting book. “And be sure that my thoughts will often follow
+you,” he added.
+
+“I shall count upon that,” was my reply.
+
+“And will you be thinking of me?” He looked into my eyes as he asked
+it.
+
+With as firm a look, I answered:
+
+“Always.”
+
+Then he seized my hand, and held it nervously, almost as though I
+were some priceless treasure.
+
+“No, that you must not do! Even to one’s best friend--and that I am
+to you--one does not give up all one’s thoughts. He will consider
+himself happy indeed if you occasionally grant him a kindly
+remembrance.”
+
+This modest requirement disconcerted and displeased me, and I had
+the courage to tell him so. He must know perfectly well, I thought
+to myself, how very dear he is to me--and if I can make so bold as
+to assume that he likes me, he surely might be satisfied of my love
+for him. And so I told him that, for my part, I should always have
+him in my thoughts, and that to do so would be my greatest happiness.
+My dear parents had now quite yielded to my wish that I should never
+marry. So that danger was over--once for all. I should go on living
+with them, loving and tending them as long as their dear lives
+lasted; and when I had them no longer on earth, would honor their
+memories, carry on their good works, and lead the life of an old
+maid, honored, happy, and perhaps of some use in my generation.
+
+He listened patiently, then responded:
+
+“Very good. You have made me fully acquainted with it all: first,
+of your rules day by day; now your plans for the future. Very good,
+we will keep to it. You a willing and contented old maid; I,” he
+shrugged his shoulders, “of necessity, an old bachelor.”
+
+“Of necessity?”
+
+“Yes!” he cried. “Where should I find a wife willing to share the
+hard life which I, at least temporarily, have to offer her?”
+
+“Oh, on that account? A hard life is no obstacle!”
+
+“And what is?”
+
+“The wishes of one’s parents.”
+
+“Ah, there we come back to the same thing. The parents’ wishes
+spring from the feeling that the children they have brought up in
+luxury must not make a bad match; it would only lead to unhappiness
+and misery. It would lower them in their own eyes, and they would
+lose caste.”
+
+Waxing hotter and hotter as he went on, in his warmth he said many
+things which were utterly illogical. He derided the prejudices of
+society, and yet constrained himself with painful self-mastery to
+declare that custom had sanctified these prejudices, and that they
+who belonged to the circles where they held good, did right to honor
+them.
+
+“Then you do not act up to your convictions?” I said.
+
+“I? Good Heavens! Do not speak of what I do. I, as everyone will
+tell you, am a fool. I am far from acting up to those convictions,
+because I do not, in truth, hold them; and on that account I am a
+very fool. But not fool enough, countess, not fool enough to persuade
+the one I love”--and here he pressed my hand with such force that I
+had the greatest difficulty to prevent an exclamation--“to follow my
+example, and be my companion on my lonely way.”
+
+He clenched his teeth. His eyes looked wild; his accustomed
+self-control had quite forsaken him. He looked so fearfully agitated
+that he would have terrified me had I not loved him so well; but
+because I loved him so well I felt, oh, so sorry for him, and I said:
+
+“I know somebody who would have no need of persuasion; who would only
+be too glad to go with you, if she dared!”
+
+Instead of calming him, my words only seemed to excite him the more.
+
+“Happy for that foolish girl that she does not dare! Happy for her.
+She little knows what she would be taking upon herself; little as I
+knew, nor the name that would be given me, and that I first heard
+myself christened in scorn and derision, ‘Idealist!’ Be one! Struggle
+against the mighty element; waste your strength in useless warfare!
+Wrench yourself free from all the fresh, joyous pursuits of your
+equals, your associates--once your brethren, now your adversaries,
+whose interest you oppose, whose convictions you belie, and--to whom
+you yet cling with every fiber of your heart!”
+
+He was silent. And I did not venture to break the silence. Still ever
+louder, more distinct, there arose within me: Foolish girl! Yes,
+twice foolish; to have thought it enough to follow him at a distance.
+With him is your place. All my other duties suddenly seemed to me
+unimportant in comparison. My dread of my beloved father, childish.
+I believe that it was then that in a very low, yet decided, voice, I
+said:
+
+“Were it not better, in such a fight, to have a companion at one’s
+side?”
+
+“A companion?”
+
+“One equally minded with one’s self; but who, hitherto, has not so
+plainly stated her views, because she could not trust herself, did
+not so clearly see----”
+
+I came to a standstill; I did not dare to look up at him. But I felt
+that his eyes were resting upon me as he asked gently, and with a
+ring of deep affection in his voice:
+
+“Has it really only just become clear to her?”
+
+“Yes, she knows that she, like you, is an idealist.”
+
+“Miracle of miracles!” he said, in oh, so playful a voice, and with
+such repressed rapture. “Am I really to meet with so rare a being as
+an idealist in your circle? Nowadays? Impossible!”
+
+“Convince yourself.”
+
+“Shall I? Dare I? Would the idealist you speak of be able to endure
+to cast her lot with one so obscure, so unknown as I?”
+
+“Of course. And I only wish, with all my heart that you may remain
+obscure and unknown, that I may the better prove to you----”
+
+I got no further; for, rejoicing, he interrupted me:
+
+“You! You! You then are willing to be that faithful, devoted
+companion? And to me is to be granted that rare fortune--highest of
+all earthly joys--to find in the wife of my soul the sharer of my
+views, the confidante of all, even my boldest aims; my counselor in
+doubt, sweetest consoler in sorrow, closest sympathizer in success?
+You will be to me all that? All--despite everybody?”
+
+“It will not need to be despite everybody,” I made answer, confused
+by the passionate delight with which he pressed me to him. “I will
+entreat my dear father----”
+
+“Your father!” he cried. And springing back, he struck his forehead
+like one possessed.
+
+And I, to my great amazement, looking up, saw my father and Bernhard
+standing there.
+
+“Well!” said papa; “kept your word?”
+
+“Do not ask me. Do not ask me!” cried Schwarzburg, beside himself.
+
+With a loud laugh, Bernhard cried:
+
+“What, have you not succeeded in persuading her against Baron
+Schwarzburg? I am jolly glad!”
+
+“I am not,” responded papa. “It is as I expected. But then, I am no
+idealist; I know mankind.”
+
+Bernhard blurted out, “If he had really been such a Don Quixote as
+to----”
+
+“Be still!” said my father authoritatively.
+
+But he continued: “I would have cut him dead.”
+
+Here a footman announced that mamma awaited the gentlemen in the
+small drawing room. They obeyed the summons at once; papa sending me
+up to my own room. Here I still am. They seem to have quite forgotten
+me; or else they will have no more to say to me. No one seems to
+trouble about me. Oh, if I had not you, my faithful Diary, in which
+to confide my every thought, I should indeed be greatly, greatly to
+be pitied.
+
+[Illustration: Decorative image]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Decorative image]
+
+
+
+
+EPILOGUE.
+
+
+If you have followed me thus far, kind readers, my thanks are due
+to you for your constancy. We must now bid farewell to each other.
+Not only have the Memoirs I so presumptuously undertook to write
+degenerated into a diary, but even that diary must now give place to
+a correspondence, the nature of which will forever remain the secret
+of two individuals.
+
+If you care to know how this came about, grant me your indulgence yet
+a little longer.
+
+They left me an unconscionable time to myself that day. It had grown
+dark, and a deathlike stillness reigned around. Even the most
+indefatigable songster among my birds had ceased singing, and, all
+crouched up, was asleep on his perch. How I envied the pretty little
+creature’s peace of mind.
+
+At last I heard the sound of footsteps approaching my door, the tiny
+step of my Duphot.
+
+“Ah, _ma chère_!” she said, mournful and reproachful, as she came in
+and bade me go with her to my parents. So wild a beating of the heart
+I do not suppose anyone has ever experienced as that with which I
+obeyed her behest; it was too agonizing, too dreadful.
+
+Besides papa and mamma, I found my brother and sister and Baron
+Schwarzburg. He stood up as I came in; I, too, remained standing.
+Papa began:
+
+“Paula, your mother and I, not desiring to incur a second time the
+reproach that the happiness of one of our children----”
+
+“Or what she considers to be happiness,” broke in mamma.
+
+“Is of less importance to us,” continued papa, “than it should be to
+parents who love their children, had therefore given our permission
+to Baron Schwarzburg to speak to you before he left. It has
+resulted----”
+
+“Differently from what we anticipated,” interpolated mamma.
+
+“And, as I hear, you are agreed in the idea----”
+
+“Or in imagining,” suggested mamma.
+
+“That you are made for each other,” said papa.
+
+To which I said “Yes.”
+
+“Yes,” repeated the Baron Schwarzburg, deeply moved.
+
+“Well then, if two people are really made for each other--a thing
+which very rarely happens--there is but one thing to be done. But
+it remains to be proved; and proof requires time. Endurance is the
+proof; so you must wait.”
+
+“We will wait,” said Schwarzburg.
+
+“Three years,” said papa.
+
+My head turned. I could not realize my happiness. So it was not, as I
+had with fear and trembling so fully expected to hear: “Do it if you
+will. But give up all hope of our consent!”
+
+“Only three years?” I asked.
+
+“Not a day less,” said mamma.
+
+And I: “Why, that is nothing! We would wait _ten_ years if you
+required it, dearest father and mother. We are happy beyond
+everything, and have no other wish than----”
+
+“Speak for yourself!” put in Bernhard.
+
+Baron Schwarzburg was looking decidedly alarmed, and I asked him:
+“Do you think so? To wait--wait for each other--what could be more
+heavenly?”
+
+“The shorter, the more heavenly,” he returned.
+
+Elizabeth, coming up to me, had taken me in her arms. “See, what a
+wise, sensible child it is! Three years’ probation are too little for
+her; she prefers ten. Ah, she knows death is easy, but marriage is a
+venture!”
+
+“Do not jest, countess,” interposed Schwarzburg. “I consent to three
+years--not a day less, but not a day more.” His voice faltered, but a
+strong, unswerving determination gleamed in his eyes.
+
+“So it is settled, and so it shall remain. A few hours ago,” he
+continued, turning to me, “I had counted the happiness that has come
+to me as utterly unattainable; but now I have known it; it is mine,
+and I hold it fast, as fast as I am wont to hold the things most
+precious to me; and you are the most precious thing of all to me,
+Paula, and, I well know, the most sure.” He took my hand, “In three
+years; but then; for life.”
+
+“From now; for life.” I could say no more.
+
+He took leave of us all. How sweet and natural Elizabeth was with
+him! Oh, dear sister mine, can I ever thank you enough?
+
+Only when the door had closed upon him, did the consciousness of
+our parting fall with leaden weight upon my heart. He had gone, and
+we had scarce--nay, we had not even said good-by to each other. An
+unspeakable sense of yearning came over me; I fought with the tears
+which choked me. No one said a word.
+
+Suddenly Bernhard said laughingly: “Why, he has actually gone without
+his hat!”
+
+All at once it flashed across me where it had been left; and I ran
+to the great drawing room to fetch it. To the drawing room they
+came, papa and the baron--and how it happened I have not the least
+conception, but the next instant I was in the arms of my betrothed,
+pressed close to his heart, and he was showering kisses upon me--hot,
+passionate kisses.
+
+Papa was standing by us; no longer the stern papa of the last few
+weeks, but the tender, loving one of old, and of all time to come.
+
+I had only to look into his dear face to straightway regain my former
+boundless confidence in him; and in the strength of this confidence
+to say:
+
+“May I write to him, papa?”
+
+“And I to her?” asked Schwarzburg.
+
+Papa hesitated.
+
+“Why? what for? See----” he broke off, sighed, looked at us both with
+strong emotion, then with all the loving intonation of old came the
+dear, priceless formula:
+
+“Well, do whatever you like.”
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+  TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
+
+  Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
+  corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within
+  the text and consultation of external sources.
+
+  Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text,
+  and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.
+
+  Pg 33: ‘and goodess only’ replaced by ‘and goodness only’.
+  Pg 42: ‘so, extendng’ replaced by ‘so, extending’.
+  Pg 64: ‘know off the’ replaced by ‘know of the’.
+  Pg 142: ‘la crême’ replaced by ‘la crème’.
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76750 ***