LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS.

LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
MARTHA VON TILLING
BY
BERTHA VON SUTTNER
AUTHORISED TRANSLATION BY
T. HOLMES
REVISED BY THE AUTHORESS
New Impression
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK
LONDON, BOMBAY, CALCUTTA AND MADRAS
1914

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

WHEN I was requested by the Committee of the International Arbitration and Peace Association, of which I have the honour to be a Member, to undertake the translation of the novel entitled Die Waffen Nieder, I considered it my duty to consent; and I have found the labour truly a delight. Baroness Suttner’s striking tale has had so great a success on the Continent of Europe that it seems singular that no complete translation into English should yet have appeared. An incomplete version was published some time since in the United States, without the sanction of the authoress; but it gives no just idea of the work.

Apart from its value as a work of fiction—great as that is—the book has a transcendent interest for the Society with which I am connected from its bearing on the question of war in general and of the present state of Europe in particular. We English-speaking people, whether in England, in the Colonies, or in the United States, being ourselves in no immediate danger of seeing our homes invaded, and our cities laid under contribution by hostile armies, are apt to forget how terribly the remembrance of such calamities, and the constant threat of their recurrence, haunt the lives of our Continental brethren. Madame Suttner’s vivid pages will enable those of us who have not seen anything of the ravages of war, or felt the griefs and anxieties of non-combatants, to realise the state in which people live on the Continent of Europe, under the grim “shadow of the sword,” with constantly increasing demands on the treasure accumulated by their labour, and on their still dearer treasure—their children—drawn into the ravenous maw of the Conscription, to meet the ever-increasing demands of war, which seems daily drawing nearer and nearer, in spite of the protestations made by every Government of its anxiety for peace.

What can we expect to change this terrible condition except the formation of a healthy public opinion? And what can more powerfully contribute to its formation than a clear conception both of the horrors and sufferings that have attended the great wars waged in our times, and also of the inadequacy of the reasons, at least the ostensible reasons, for their commencement, and the ease with which they might have been avoided, if their reasons had been indeed their causes? This work appears to me of especial value, as setting this forth more plainly than a formal treatise could do, and it is towards the formation of such a public opinion that we hope it may contribute. The dawn of a better day in respect of war is plain enough in our country. We have advanced far indeed from the state of things that existed a century ago, when Coleridge could indignantly say of England:—

’Mid thy herds and thy cornfields secure thou hast stood
And joined the wild yelling of famine and blood!

England since then has given and is giving many gratifying proofs of her sincere desire for peace, and her readiness to submit her claims to peaceful arbitration. Is it too much to hope that we may see our country joining in some well-considered scheme for general treaties of Arbitration and for the institution of an International Court? And may we not hope that our influence, as that of a nation not implicated in the mad race of armaments, and yet not removed from the area of European war, may avail to bring the question of disarmament before an International Conference and thus introduce the twentieth century into a world in which there will be some brighter prospect than that

War shall endless war still breed?

Let as trust that this may not be found quite an idle dream, and that we may without self-delusion look forward to a more happy era, and join the cry of Baroness Suttner’s Rudolf—“Es lebe die Zukunft”.

Hail to the Future!

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

THE rapid sale of the first edition of this translation has encouraged the Association at whose request it was made to endeavour to make it more widely known to the various English-speaking populations, by printing a larger edition at a lower price. It is hoped, also, that the enlarged circulation of a work so graphic, and written by one who has so thoroughly studied the real aspects of war, as seen by those on the spot, may lead not so much to sentimental emotions and vague protests, as to a business-like discussion of the means by which the resort to war may be at any rate rendered more and more infrequent. The English Government has lately given repeated and practical proofs of its sincere desire to substitute the peaceful and rational method of arbitration for the rough, cruel, and uncertain decision of force; and the conspicuous success of that method hitherto—though tried under circumstances not altogether favourable—must have prepared thinking men for the question: “Why cannot some scheme for the formation of an International Tribunal of Arbitration be formed and debated among the Powers who, by taking part in the Congress at Paris after the Crimean War, formally admitted the principle, and who have already seen it successfully applied in practice”? To this question, which has been frequently asked, no satisfactory answer has yet been given, nor to the further question why our Government should not introduce the subject to the great Powers, after showing so unmistakably its adherence to the principle. People differ, and, probably, will always differ, as to the light in which they regard war. A very small and rapidly diminishing minority regard it as a good thing in itself—most as an evil which in our present stage of civilisation cannot always be avoided; some as a crime formally prohibited by the moral law and the Christian religion. All of the two latter classes ought to join in any practical steps for diminishing the occasions of war; and of these the one which is most within the scope of politicians is the promotion of International Arbitration. The Association to which I belong has published this work in the confident hope that its circulation will aid in hastening this much-needed reform.

THE TRANSLATOR.

CONTENTS.

L A Y D O W N Y O U R A R M S.

CHAPTER I.

Girlish days and girlish fancies.—Youthful enthusiasm for war.—Education.—“Coming out.”—An important visit to Marienbad.—Love at first sight.—Marriage.—A first child.—The baby-soldier.—Threatenings of war.—Declaration of war with Sardinia.—My husband is to see active service.

AT seventeen I was a thoroughly overwrought creature. This perhaps I should no longer be aware of to-day, if it were not that my diaries have been preserved. But in them the enthusiasms long since fled, the thoughts which have never been thought again, the feelings never again felt have immortalised themselves, and thus I can judge at this present time what exalted notions had stuck in my silly, pretty head. Even this prettiness, of which my glass has now little left to say, is revealed to me by the portraits of long ago. I can figure to myself what an envied person the Countess Martha Althaus—youthful, thought beautiful, and surrounded by all kinds of luxury—must have been. These remarkable diaries, however, bound in their red covers, point more to melancholy than to joy in life. The question I now ask myself is, Was I really so silly as not to recognise the advantages of my position or was I only so enthusiastic as to believe that only melancholy feelings were elevated and worthy of being expressed in poetical form and as such enrolled in the red volumes? My lot seems not to have contented me—for thus is it written:—

“O Joan of Arc! heroic virgin favoured of heaven! could I be like to thee—to wave the oriflamme, to crown my king, and then die—for the fatherland, the beloved!”

No opportunity offered itself to me of realising these modest views of life. Again, to be torn to pieces in the circus by a lion as a Christian martyr, another vocation for which I longed—see entry of September 19, 1853—was not to be compassed by me, and so I had plainly to suffer under the consciousness that the great deeds after which my soul thirsted must remain ever unaccomplished, that my life, considered fundamentally, was a failure. Ah! why had I not come into the world as a boy? (another fruitless reproach against destiny which often found expression in the red volumes); in that case I would have been able to strive after and to achieve “the exalted”. Of female heroism history affords but few examples. How seldom do we succeed in having the Gracchi for our sons, or in carrying our husbands out to the Weinsberg Gates, or in being saluted by sabre-brandishing Magyars with the shout, “Hurrah for Maria Theresa our king”. But when one is a man, then one need only gird on the sword and start off to win fame and laurels—win for oneself a throne like Cromwell, or the empire of the world, like Bonaparte. I recollect that the highest conception of human greatness seemed to me to be embodied in warlike heroism. For scholars, poets, explorers, I had indeed a sort of respect, but only the winners of battles inspired me with real admiration. These were indeed the chief pillars of history, the rulers of the fate of countries; these were in importance and in elevation near to the Divinity, as elevated above all other folk as the peaks of the Alps and Himalayas above the turf and flowers of the valley.

From all which I need not conclude that I possessed a heroic nature. The fact was simply that I was capable of enthusiasm and impassioned, and so I was of course passionately enthusiastic for that which was most highly accounted of by my school-books and my entourage.

My father was a general in the Austrian army, and had fought at Custozza under “Father Radetzky,” whom he venerated to superstition. What eternal campaigning stories had I to listen to! Dear papa was so proud of his warlike experiences, and spoke with such satisfaction of the campaigns in which he had fought, that I felt an involuntary pity for every man who possessed no such reminiscences. But what a drawback for the female sex to be excluded from this most magnificent display of the manly feeling of honour and duty! If anything came to my ears about the efforts of women after equality—and of this in my youth but little was heard, and then usually in a tone of contempt and condemnation—I conceived the wish for emancipation only in one direction, viz., that women also should have the right to carry arms and take the field. Ah, how beautiful was it to read in history about a Semiramis or a Catherine II. “She carried on war with this or that neighbouring state—she conquered this or that country!”

Speaking generally it is history which, as our youth are instructed, is the chief source of the admiration of war. From thence it is stamped on the childish mind that the Lord of armies is constantly decreeing battles, that these are, as it were, the vehicle upon which the destiny of nations is carried on through the ages; that they are the fulfilment of an inevitable law of nature and must always occur from time to time like storms at sea or earthquakes; that terror and woe are indeed connected with them; but the latter is fully counterpoised, for the commonwealth by the importance of the results, for individuals by the blaze of glory which may be won in them, or even by the consciousness of the fulfilment of the most elevated duty. Can there be a more glorious death than that on the field of honour, a nobler immortality than that of the hero? All this comes out clear and unanimous in all school-books of “readings for the use of schools,” where, besides the formal history, which is only represented as a concatenation of military events, even the separate tales and poems always manage to tell only of heroic deeds of arms. This is a part of the patriotic system of education. Since out of every scholar a defender of his country has to be formed, therefore the enthusiasm even of the child must be aroused for this its first duty as a citizen; his spirit must be hardened against the natural horror which the terrors of war might awaken, by passing over as quickly as possible the story of the most fearful massacres and butcheries as of something quite common and necessary, and laying meanwhile all possible stress on the ideal side of this ancient national custom; and it is in this way they have succeeded in forming a race eager for battle and delighting in war.

The girls—who indeed are not to take the field—are educated out of the same books as are prepared for the military training of the boys, and so in the female youth arises the same conception which exhausts itself in envy that they have nothing to do with war and in admiration for the military class. What pictures of horror out of all the battles on earth, from the Biblical and Macedonian and Punic Wars down to the Thirty Years’ War and the wars of Napoleon, were brought before us tender maidens, who in all other things were formed to be gentle and mild; how we saw there cities burnt and the inhabitants put to the sword and the conquered trodden down—and all this was a real enjoyment; and of course through this heaping up and repetition of the horrors the perception that they were horrors becomes blunted, everything which belongs to the category of war comes no longer to be regarded from the point of view of humanity, and receives a perfectly peculiar mystico-historico-political consecration. War must be—it is the source of the highest dignities and honours—that the girls see very well, and they have had also to learn by heart the poems and tirades in which war is magnified. And thus originate the Spartan mothers, and the “mothers of the colours,” and the frequent invitations to the cotillon which are given to a corps of officers when it is the turn of the ladies to choose partners.[1] I was not like so many of my companions in rank educated in a convent, but under the direction of governesses and masters in my father’s house. My mother I lost early. Our aunt, an old canoness, filled the place of a mother to us children—for there were three younger children. We spent the winter months in Vienna, the summer on a family estate in Lower Austria.

I can remember that I gave my governesses and masters much satisfaction, for I was an industrious and ambitious scholar, gifted with an accurate memory. When I could not, as I have remarked, satisfy my ambition by winning battles like a heroine, I contented myself with passing judgments on them in my lessons, and extorting admiration by my zeal for learning. In the French and English languages I was nearly perfect. In geology and astronomy I made as much progress as was ordinarily accessible in the programme of the education of a girl, but in the subject of history I learned more than was required of me. Out of the library of my father I fetched the ponderous works of history, in which I studied in my leisure hours. I always thought myself a little bit cleverer when I could enrich my memory with an event, a name, or a date out of past times. Against pianoforte-playing—which was put down in the plan of education—I made a resolute resistance. I possessed neither talent nor desire for music, and felt that in it, for me, no satisfaction of my ambition would be found. I begged so long and so pressingly that my precious time, which I might spend on my other studies, should not be shortened by this meaningless strumming, that my good father let me off this musical servitude, to the great grief of my aunt, whose opinion was that without pianoforte-playing there could be no proper education.

On March 10, 1857, I celebrated my seventeenth birthday. “Seventeen already!” runs the entry of that date in my diary. This “already” is in itself a poem. There is no commentary added, but probably I meant by it “and as yet nothing done for immortality”. These red volumes do me excellent service now, when I want to recall the recollections of a life. They render it possible for me to depict even down to their minutest details the feelings of the past, which would have remained in my memory only as faded outlines, and to reproduce whole trains of thought long forgotten, and long-silent speeches.

In the following carnival I was to be “brought out”. This prospect delighted me, but not to such an extraordinary degree as is usually the case with young girls. My spirit yearned for something higher than the triumphs of the ballroom. What was it I yearned for? A question that I could have hardly answered to myself. Probably for love, though I was not aware of it. All those glowing dreams of aspiration and ambition which swell the hearts of young men and women, and which long to work themselves out all sorts of ways—as thirst for knowledge, love of travel or adventure—are in reality for the most part only the unrecognised activity of the growing instinct of love.

This summer my aunt was ordered a course of the waters at Marienbad. She was pleased to take me with her. Though my official introduction into the so-called “world” was not to take place till the following winter, I was yet allowed to take part in some little dances at the Kurhaus, with an idea also of exercising me in dancing and conversation, so that I might not be altogether too shy and awkward in entering on my first carnival season.

But what happened at the first party which I visited? A serious, vital love affair. It was of course a lieutenant of hussars. The civilians in the hall appeared to me like cockchafers to butterflies compared to the soldiers. And of the wearers of uniforms present the hussars were every way the most splendid; and, finally, of all the hussars Count Arno Dotzky was the most dazzling. Over six feet high, with black curly hair, twisted moustaches, glittering white teeth, dark eyes, with such a penetrating and tender expression—in fine, at his question, “Have you the cotillon free, countess?” I felt that there might be other triumphs as exciting as the banner-waving of the Maid of Orleans, or the sceptre-waving of the great Catherine. And he at the age of twenty-two felt something very similar as he flew round the room in the waltz with the prettiest girl in the hall (for one may say so thirty years afterwards)—at any rate he was probably thinking, “To possess thee, thou sweet creature, would outweigh a field-marshal’s baton”.

“Why, Martha, Martha,” remonstrated my aunt, as I sank breathless on the seat at her side, covering her head-dress with the floating muslins of my robe.

“Oh, I beg your pardon, auntie,” said I, and sat more upright. “I could not help it.”

“I was not finding fault with you for that. My blame was for your behaviour with that hussar. You ought not to cling so in dancing, and who would ever look so close into a gentleman’s eyes?”

I blushed deep. Had I committed some unmaidenly offence, and might the Incomparable have conceived a bad idea of me?

I was relieved of this anxious doubt before the ball was over, for in the course of the supper waltz the Incomparable whispered to me: “Listen to me. I cannot help it—you must know it even to-day—I love you.”

This sounded a little more sweet than Joan’s famous “voices”. However, while the dance was going on I could not give him any reply. He must have seen this, for he came to a stop. We were standing in an empty corner of the room, and could continue the conversation without being overheard.

“Speak, countess; what have I to hope?”

“I do not understand you,” was my insincere reply.

“Perhaps you do not believe in love at first sight? I myself held it a fable till now, but to-day I have experienced the truth of it.”

How my heart beat! but I was silent.

“I have leapt head over heels into my fate,” he continued. “You or no one! Decide then for my bliss or my death, for without you I neither can nor will live. Will you be mine?”

To so direct a question I was obliged to give some reply. I sought for some extremely diplomatic phrase which without cutting off all hope would sacrifice nothing of my dignity, but I got out nothing more than a tremulous whispered “yes”.

“Then may I to-morrow propose for your hand to your aunt, and write to Count Althaus?”

“Yes” again, this time a little firmer.

“Oh, what happiness! So at first sight you love me too?”

This time I only answered with my eyes, but they, I fancy, spoke the plainest “yes”.

On my eighteenth birthday I was married, after having been first introduced into society, and presented to the empress on my engagement. After our wedding we went for a tour in Italy. For this purpose Arno had got a long leave of absence; of retirement from the military service nothing was ever said. It is true we both possessed a tolerable property, but my husband loved his profession, and I agreed with him. I was proud of my handsome hussar officer, and looked forward with satisfaction to the time when he would rise to the rank of major, colonel, even general. Who knows? Perhaps he might even be called to a higher fortune; perhaps he might shine in the glorious history of his country as a great military commander!

That the red volumes exhibit a break just during the happy wedding time and the honeymoon is now to me a great grief. The joys of those days would indeed have been evaporated, dispersed, scattered to the winds, even if I had entered them there, but at any rate a reflection of them would have been kept bound tight between the leaves. But no! for my grief and my pain I could not find complaints enough—enough dashes and notes of exclamation. All grievous things had to be cried over carefully before the world, present and to come, but the happy hours I enjoyed in silence. I was not proud of my happiness, and so gave no one, not even myself, in my diary, any information about it, but sufferings and longings I looked on as a kind of merit, and so made much of them. But how true a mirror these red volumes present of my sad experiences, while in the happy times the leaves are quite blank! It is too silly! It is as if during a walk a man were to make a collection to bring home with him, and to collect of all the things he found by the way only those that were ugly, as if he filled his botanic case with nothing but thorns, thistles, worms and toads, and left the flowers and butterflies behind.

Still I recollect that it was a grand time, a kind of fairy dream. I had indeed everything that the heart of a young woman could wish: love, wealth, rank, fortune, and most of it so new, so surprising, so incredible! We loved each other—my Arno and I—devotedly, with all the fire of our youth, abounding as it was in life and scenes of beauty. And it so happened that my darling hussar was besides a worthy, good-hearted, noble-minded young gentleman, with the education of a man of the world and a cheerful temper—it happened so; for he might as well, for anything that the ball at Marienbad could testify to the contrary, have been a vicious, rough man—and as it happened also I was a moderately sensible, good-hearted creature; for he might just as well at the said ball have fallen in love with a pretty, capricious, little goose. And so it came about that we were completely happy, and that as a consequence the red-bound book of lamentation remained empty for a long while.

Stop; here I do find a joyous entry—Raptures over the new dignity of motherhood. On the 1st of January, 1859 (was not that a new-year’s gift?), a little son was born to us. Of course this event awakened in us as much astonishment and pride as if we were the first pair to which anything of the kind had happened; and this accounts also for the resumption of the diary. Of this wonder, and of this dignity of mine, the world of the future had to be informed. Besides, the theme “youthful motherhood” is so extremely well adapted for art and literature. It belongs to the class of the best sung and most carefully painted subjects; besides, it may be treated mystically and sacredly, touchingly and pathetically, simply and affectionately—in short, immensely poetically. To nurse this disposition all possible collections of poems, illustrated journals, picture galleries, and current phrases of rapture, such as “mother’s love,” “mother’s happiness,” “mother’s pride,” contribute their power, just as the school-books do to nurse the admiration for war. The highest pitch of deification which has been reached next to the adoration of heroes (see Carlyle’s Hero Worship) is reached by the multitude in “baby worship”; and of course in this also I was not left behind. My little charming Ruru was to me the mightiest wonder of the world. Ah, my son! my grown-up, stately Rudolf, what I feel for you is such that against it that childish baby-wonder loses colour, against it that blind, apish, devouring love of the young mother is as insignificant as the child himself in swaddling clothes is insignificant by the side of the grown man.

The young father was not less proud of his successor, and built on him the fairest schemes for the future. “What will he be?” This question, not as yet a very pressing one, was nevertheless often discussed over Ruru’s cradle and always decided unanimously—a soldier. Sometimes it awoke a weak protest on the mother’s part. “But suppose he should meet with any accident in a war?” “Ah, bah!” was the answer to this objection, “every one must die when and where it is appointed him.” Ruru was also not to remain the only son; of the following sons one might, please God, be brought up as a diplomatist, another as a country gentleman, a third as a priest; but the eldest, he must choose his father’s and grandfather’s profession—the noblest profession of all. He must be a soldier.

And so it was settled. Ruru, as soon as he was two months old, was promoted by us to be lance-corporal.[2] Well, as all crown princes immediately they are born are named “proprietors” of some regiment, why should not we also decorate our little one with an imaginary rank? It was only a regular joke this playing at soldiers with our baby.

On April 1, as the third monthly recurrence of his birthday (for to keep only the anniversaries would have given too few opportunities for festivity), Ruru was promoted from lance-corporal to corporal. But on the same day there happened also something more mournful—something that made my heart heavy, and obliged me to relieve it into the red volumes.

There had been now for a long time a certain black point visible on the political horizon, about the possible increase of which the liveliest commentaries were made in all journals and at all private parties. I had up to that time thought nothing about it. My husband and my father and their military friends might have often said in my hearing, “There will soon be something to settle with Italy,” but it glanced off my understanding. I had little time or inclination to trouble myself about politics. So that however eagerly people about me might debate about the relations between Sardinia and Austria, or the behaviour of Napoleon III., of whose help Cavour had assured himself by taking part in the Crimean War, or however constantly they might talk about the tension which this alliance had called forth between us and our Italian neighbours, I took no notice of it.

But on April 1 my husband said to me very seriously:—

“Do you know, dear, that it will soon break out?”

“What will break out, darling?”

“The war with Sardinia.”

I was terrified. “My God! that would be terrible! And will you have to go?”

“I hope so.”

“How can you say such a thing? Hope to leave your wife and child!”

“If duty calls.”

“One might reconcile oneself to it; but to hope—which means wish—that such a bitter duty should arise!”

“Bitter! A rattling jolly war like that must be something glorious! You are a soldier’s wife; don’t forget that.”

I fell on his neck. “O my dear husband, be content. I also can be brave! How often have I sympathised with the heroes and heroines of history! What an elevating feeling it must be to go into battle! If I only might fight, fall, or conquer at your side!”

“Bravely spoken, little wife, but nonsense! Your place is here, by the cradle of the little one, who also is to become a defender of his country when he is grown up. Your place is at our household hearth. It is to protect this, and guard it from any hostile attack, to preserve peace for our homes and our wives, that we men have to go to battle.”

I don’t know why, but these words, which, or something of the same sort, I had often before heard and read with assent, this time seemed to me to be in a sense mere “phrases”. There was certainly no hearth menaced, no horde of barbarians at the gate, merely a political tension between two cabinets. So, if my husband was all on fire to rush into the war, it was not so much from the pressing need of defending his wife, child, and country, but much rather his delight in the march out, which promised change and adventure—his seeking for distinction and promotion. “Oh, yes,” was my conclusion from this train of thought, “it is ambition—a noble, honourable ambition—delight in the brave discharge of duty.”

It was good of him that he was rejoicing in the chance of being obliged to take the field—for as yet there was assuredly no certainty. Perhaps the war might not break out at all, and even in case they came to blows, who knows whether it would be Arno’s fate to be sent off?—the whole army does not always see the enemy. No, this splendid, perfect happiness which fate had just built as a snug house for me, it was impossible that the same fate should roughly shatter it to pieces! “O Arno, my dearly-loved husband! it would be horrible to know that you are in danger!” These and similar outpourings fill the leaves of the diary which were written in those days.

From this period the red volumes are full for some time of political stuff. Louis Napoleon is an intriguer; Austria cannot long be only a spectator. It is coming to war. Sardinia will be frightened at our superior power, and give in. Peace is going to be maintained. My wishes, despite of all theoretical admiration of the battles of the past, were, of course, secretly directed to the preservation of peace, but the wish of my spouse called openly for the other alternative. He did not say anything out plainly, but he always communicated any news about the increase of “the black spot” with sparkling eyes; while, on the contrary, he always took note of such peaceful prospects as occurred now and then (but, alas! they became always rarer) with a kind of dejection.

My father, also, was all on fire for the war. To conquer the Piedmontese would be only child’s play; and, in support of this assertion, the Radetzky anecdotes were poured out again. I heard the impending campaign talked about always from the strategic point of view—i.e., a balancing of the chances on the two sides; how and where the enemy would be routed, and the advantages which would thereby accrue to “us”. The humane point of view, viz., that whether lost or won every battle demands innumerable sacrifices of blood and tears, was quite left out of sight. The interests which were here in question were represented as raised to such a height above any private destiny, that I felt ashamed of the meanness of my way of thinking, if at times the thought occurred to me: “Ah! what joy do the poor slain men, the poor cripples, the poor widows, get out of the victory?” However, very soon the old school-book dithyrambs came in again for an answer to all these despairing questionings: “Glory offers recompense for all”. Still—suppose the enemy wins? This question I propounded in the circle of my military friends, but was ignominiously hissed down. The mere mention of the possibility of a shadow of a doubt is in itself unpatriotic. To be certain beforehand of one’s invincibility is a part of a soldier’s duties; and, therefore, in her degree, of those of a loyal wife of a lieutenant.

My husband’s regiment was quartered in Vienna. From our home there was a view over the Prater, and from the window there was such a lovely promise of summer over everything. It was a wonderful spring. The air was warm and redolent of violets, and the fresh foliage sprouted out more early than in other years. I was amusing myself without any anxiety over the great processions in the Prater which were planned for the following month. We had, for this purpose, procured a tasty little equipage—a brake with a four-in-hand team of Hungarian horses. Even already, in this splendid April weather, we kept driving almost daily in the alleys of the Prater—but that was only a foretaste of the pleasure peculiar to May. Ah! if the war had not broken in on all that!

“Now, thank God, at last this uncertainty is at an end,” cried my husband one morning—April 19—on coming home from parade. “The ultimatum has been sent.”

I shrieked out: “Eh, what? What does that mean?”

“It means that the last word of the diplomatic formalities, the one which precedes the declaration of war, has been spoken. Our ultimatum to Sardinia calls on Sardinia to disarm. She, of course, will take no notice of it, and we march across the frontier.”

“Good God! But perhaps they may disarm?”

“Well, then, the quarrel would be at an end, and peace would continue.”

I fell on my knees. I could not help it. Silently, but still as earnestly as if with a cry, there rose the prayer from my soul to heaven for “Peace! peace!”

Arno raised me up.

“My silly child, what are you doing?”

I threw my arms round his neck and began to weep. It was no burst of pain, for the misfortune was certainly as yet not decided on; but the news had so shaken me that my nerves quivered, and that caused this flood of tears.

“Martha, Martha, you will make me angry,” said Arno, reproachfully. “Is this being my brave little soldier’s wife? Do you forget that you are a general’s daughter, wife of a first lieutenant, and,” he concluded with a smile, “mother of a corporal?”

“No, no, Arno. I do not comprehend myself. It was only a kind of seizure. I am really myself ardent for military glory. But—I do not know how it is—a little while ago everything was hanging on a single word, which must by this time have been spoken—‘yes’ or ‘no’—in answer to this ultimatum as it is called, and this ‘yes’ or ‘no’ is to decide whether thousands must bleed and die—die in these sunny happy days of spring—and so it came over me that the word of peace must come, and I could not help falling on my knees in prayer.”

“To inform the Almighty of the position of affairs, you dear little goose!”

The house bell rang. I dried my eyes at once. Who could it be so early?

It was my father. He rushed in all in a hurry.

“Now, children,” he cried, all out of breath, throwing himself into an arm-chair. “Have you heard the great news? The ultimatum——”

“I have just told my wife.”

“Tell me, dear papa, what you think,” I asked anxiously. “Will that prevent the war?”

“I am not aware that an ultimatum ever prevented a war. It would indeed be only prudent of this wretched rabble of Italians to give in and not expose themselves to a second Novara. Ah! if good Father Radetzky had not died last year I believe he would, in spite of his ninety years, have put himself again at the head of his army, and, by God! I would have marched along with him. We two have, I think, shown already how to manage these foreign scum. But it seems they have not yet had enough of it, the puppies! They want a second lesson. All right. Our Lombardo-Venetian kingdom will get a handsome addition in the Piedmontese territory, and I already look forward to the entry of our troops into Turin.”

“But, papa, you speak just as if war were already declared, and you were glad of it! But how if Arno has to go too?” And the tears were already in my eyes again.

“That he will too—the enviable young fellow!”

“But my terror! The danger——”

“Eh! what? Danger! ‘A man may fight and not be slain,’ as the saying goes. I have gone through more than one campaign, thank God, and been wounded more than once—and yet I am all alive, just because it was ordained that I should live through it.”

The old fatalist way of talking! the same as prevailed to settle Ruru’s choice of a profession—and which even now appeared to me again as quite philosophical.

“Even if it should chance that my regiment is not ordered out——” Arno began.

“Ah, yes!” I joyfully broke in, “there is still that hope.”

“In that case I would get exchanged, if possible.”

“Oh, it will be quite possible,” my father assured him. “Hess is to receive the command-in-chief and he is a good friend of mine.” My heart trembled, and yet I could not help admiring both the men. With what a joyful equanimity they spoke of a coming campaign, as if it were only a question of some pleasure trip that had been arranged. My brave Arno was desirous, even if his duty did not summon him, to go and meet the foe, and my magnanimous father thought that quite simple and natural. I collected myself. Away with childish, womanish fear! Now was the time to show myself worthy of this my love, to raise my heart above all egotistic fears and find room for nothing but the noble reflection—“my husband is a hero”.

I sprang up and stretched out both my hands to him: “Arno, I am proud of you!”

He put my hands to his lips, then turned to papa and said, with a face radiant with joy:—

“You have brought the girl up well, father-in-law!”

Rejected! The ultimatum rejected! This took place at Turin, April 26. The die is cast! War has broken out.

CHAPTER II.

Last hours with the beloved one.—Public feeling in the prospect of war.—The parting.—Employments of the women at home.—Anxieties over the news from the seat of war.—Ill-success of Austria.—Friends in trouble.—The Patriotic Aid Association.—Visit to a friend.—Dreadful news.

FOR a week I had been prepared for the catastrophe, and yet its occurrence gave me a bitter blow. I threw myself sobbing on the sofa, and hid my face in the cushion when Arno brought me the news.

He sat down by me, and began gently to comfort me.

“My darling! Courage! Compose yourself! It is not so bad after all. In a short time we shall return as conquerors. Then we two shall be doubly happy. Do not weep so—it breaks my heart. I am almost sorry that I have engaged to go in any case. But, no; just think, if my comrades are forced to go, with what right could I remain at home? You yourself would feel ashamed of me. No. I must experience the baptism of fire some time, and till that has happened I do not feel myself truly a man or a soldier. Only think how delightful if I come back with a third star on my collar—perhaps with the cross on my breast.”

I rested my head on his shoulder, and kept on weeping the more. But I reflected how small such things were. Stars and crosses seemed to be at that moment only empty spangles. Not ten grand crosses on that dear breast could offer me any recompense for the terrible possibility that a ball might shatter it.

Arno kissed me on the forehead, put me softly aside, and stood up.

“I must go out now, my dear, to my colonel. Have your cry out. When I come back I hope to find you firm and cheerful. That is what I have need of, and not to be shaken with sad anticipations. At such a decisive moment as this my own dear little wife surely will do nothing to take the heart out of me or damp my ardour for exploits? Good-bye, my treasure.” And he departed.

I collected myself. His last words were still ringing in my ears. Yes, plainly my duty now was not merely not to damp, but as far as possible to increase, his spirit and his ardour for exploits. That is the only way in which we women can exercise our patriotism, in which we can take any share in the glory our husbands bring from the battlefields. “Battlefields”—it is surprising how this word suddenly presented itself to my mind in two radically different meanings. Partly in the accustomed historical signification, so pathetic, and so calculated to awake the highest admiration; partly in the loathsomeness of the bloody, brutal syllable “fight”. Yes, those poor men who were being hurried out had to lie stricken down on the field, with their gaping, bleeding wounds, and among them perhaps—and a loud shriek escaped me as the thought passed through my mind.

My maid Betty came running in all in a fright. “For God’s sake, my lady, what has happened?” she asked trembling.

I looked at the girl. Her eyes also were red with weeping. I guessed; she knew the tidings already, and her lover was a soldier. I felt as if I could press my sister in misfortune to my heart.

“It is nothing, my child,” I said softly. “Those who go away will surely return.”

“Ah, my gracious lady, not all,” she replied, breaking out anew into tears.

My aunt now came in, and Betty withdrew.

“I am come, Martha, to speak comfort to you,” said the old lady as she embraced me, “and to preach to you resignation in this trial.”

“So you know it?”

“The whole city knows it, and great joy prevails, for this war is very popular.”

“Joy, Aunt Mary?”

“Oh, yes, among those who see no beloved member of their families ordered out. I could easily understand that you must be sad, and so I hastened here. Your papa will also come directly, but not to comfort, only to congratulate. He is quite beside himself with joy that it is to go on, and looks on it as a noble chance for Arno to take part in it. And he is right in the main. For a soldier there is nothing better than a war. And that is the way you must look at it, my dear child. To fulfil the duty of your calling is before everything. What must be——”

“Yes, you are right, aunt; what must be, what is inevitable——”

“What is the will of God——” put in Aunt Mary in corroboration.

“Must be borne with composure and resignation.”

“Bravo, Martha. It is certain that everything happens as is before determined by a wise and all-merciful Providence in His immutable counsels. Every one’s death-hour is fixed and written down at the hour of his birth. And for our dear warriors we will pray so much and so earnestly!”

I did not stop to debate more closely the contradiction that lay between the two assumptions that a fatal event was at the same time ordained and also could be turned aside by prayer. I was myself not clear on the point, and had from my whole education a vague impression that in such sacred matters one ought not to embark on reasonings. And, indeed, if I had given voice to such scruples before my aunt it would have grievously shocked her. Nothing could hurt her more than for people to express rational doubt on certain points. “Not to argue about it” is the conventional commandment in matters mysterious. As etiquette forbids to address questions to a king, so it is a kind of impious breach of etiquette to want to make inquiries or criticise about a dogma. “Not to argue about it” is also a commandment easily obeyed, and on this occasion I followed it very willingly; and so I did not enter into any contention with my aunt, but on the contrary clung to the consolation that lay in the resort to prayer. Yes, during the whole time my lord was absent, I determined to beg so earnestly for the protection of Heaven, that it should turn aside every bullet in the volley from Arno. Turn them aside! Whither? To the breast of another, for whom, nevertheless, prayers were also being made?... And, besides, what had been demonstrated to me in my course of physics about the accurately computable and infallible effects of matter and its motion?... What, another doubt? Away with it.

“Yes, aunt,” I said aloud, in order to break short these contradictions that kept crossing each other in my mind. “Yes, we will pray continually and God will hear us. Arno will keep unhurt.”

“You see—you see, dear child, how in heavy times the soul still flies to religion.... Perhaps the Almighty sends you this trial in order that you may lay aside your former lukewarmness.”

This again did not strike me as correct. That the whole misunderstanding between Austria and Sardinia, dating even from the Crimean War, all the negotiations, the despatch of the ultimatum and its rejection, could have been ordained by God, in order to warm up my lukewarm spirit!

But to express this doubt would also have been a breach of propriety. As soon as any one introduces the name of the Almighty, the claims connected with that name give him a kind of spiritual immunity. But with regard to the charge of lukewarmness, it had some foundation. My aunt’s religious feeling came from the depths of her heart, while my piety was more external. My father was in this respect quite indifferent, and so was my husband; and so I had had no stimulus from either the one or the other to any particular zeal of belief. I had never had any means either of plunging deeply into ecclesiastical learning, since I had always been able to leave such things unattacked on the “not-argue-about-them” principle. True, I went every week to mass and every year to confession, and attended these services with much reverence and devotion; but the whole thing was still more or less an observance of the etiquette becoming to my position: I fulfilled my religious duties with the same correctness as I went through the figures of the Lancers at the state ball and made the state courtesy when the empress came into the room. Our chaplain at the château in Lower Austria and the nuntio in Vienna could have nothing to say against me—yet the charge which my aunt brought against me was perfectly justified.

“Yes, my child,” she went on, “in prosperity and happiness people easily forget their home above; but if sickness or fear of death breaks in on us—or, still more, on those we love—if we are stricken down or in sorrow——”

She would have gone on in this style for a long time, but the door burst open, and my father rushed in.

“Hurrah, it’s begun now,” was his joyful greeting to us. “They wanted a whipping, these puppies, did they? And a whipping they shall have—that they shall!”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It was a time of excitement. The war “has broken out”. People forget that it is really two masses of men who are rushing to fight each other, and conceive of the event as if it was some exalted overruling third power, whose outbreak compels these two masses into the fight. The whole responsibility falls on this power, lying beyond the wills of individuals, and which on its side merely produces the fulfilment of the destined fate of the nations. Such is the dark and awful conception which the majority of mankind have of war, and which was mine too. There was no question of my feeling any revolt against making war in general. What I suffered from was only that my beloved husband had to go out into the danger and I to stay behind in anxiety and solitude. I rummaged up all my old impressions from the days of my historical studies, in order to strengthen and inspire me with the conviction that it was the highest of human duties which called my dear one away, and that thereby the possibility was offered to him of covering himself with glory and honour. Now at any rate I was living in the midst of an epoch of history, and this again was a peculiarly elevating thought. Since from Herodotus and Tacitus, down to the historians of modern times, wars have always been represented as the events of most importance and of weightiest consequence, I concluded that at the present time also a war of this sort would pass with future historians as an event to serve for the title of a chapter.

This elevated tone, overpowering in its impressiveness, was that which prevailed everywhere else. Nothing else was spoken of in rooms or streets, nothing else read in the newspapers, nothing else prayed about in the churches. Wherever one went one found everywhere the same excited faces, the same eager talk about the possibilities of the war. Everything else which engaged the people’s interest at other times—the theatre, business, art—was now looked on as perfectly insignificant. It seemed to one as if it were not right to think of anything else whilst the opening scene in this great drama of the destiny of the world was being played out. And the different orders to the army with the well-known phrases of the certainty of victory and promise of glory; and the troops marching out with clanging music and waving banners; and the leading articles and public speeches conceived in the most glowing tone of loyalty and patriotism; the eternal appeal to virtue, honour, duty, courage, self-sacrifice; the assurances made on both sides that their nation was known to be the most invincible, most courageous, most certainly destined to a higher extension of power, the best and the noblest—all this spread around an atmosphere of heroism, which filled the whole population with pride and called out in each individual the belief that he was a great citizen in a great state.

Such bad qualities, however, as these—lust of conquest, love of fighting, hatred, cruelty, guile, were also certainly to be found, and were admitted to be shown in war, but always by “the enemy”. To him, his being in the wrong was quite clear. Quite apart from the political necessity of the campaign just commenced, apart also from the patriotic advantages which undoubtedly grew out of it, the conquest over one’s adversary was a moral work, a discipline carried out by the genius of culture. These Italians! what a foul, false, sensual, light-minded, conceited people! And this Louis Napoleon! what a mixture of ambition and the spirit of intrigue! When his proclamation of war, published on April 29, appeared with its motto, “Italy free to the Adriatic Sea,” it called out amongst us a storm of indignation. I did allow myself a feeble remark that this was at least an unselfish and noble idea, which must have an inspiriting influence on Italian patriots, but I was soon put to silence. The dogma that “Louis Napoleon is a scoundrel” was not to be shaken as long as he was “the enemy”. Everything proceeding from him was ab initio “scoundrelly”.

Another slight doubt arose in me. In all the battle-stories of history I had found that the sympathy and admiration of the relaters were always expressed for the party who wanted to free themselves from a foreign yoke and who fought for freedom. It is true that I was not capable of giving any distinct idea of the meaning of the word “yoke,” or of that of “freedom,” though so abundantly sung about; but one thing seemed to me perfectly clear, viz., that “the shaking off of the yoke” and “the struggle for freedom” lay this time on the side, not of Austria, but of Italy. But even for these scruples, timidly conceived as they were, and still more timidly expressed, I was thundered down. For, here I was so unlucky as again to trench on a sacred principle—namely, that our government—i.e., the government under which one happened to have been born—could never result in a yoke, but only in a blessing; that any who wished to tear themselves loose from “us” could not be warriors of freedom but only simple rebels; and that generally and in all circumstances “we” were always and everywhere wholly in the right.

In the early days of May—they were luckily cold and rainy days—sunny spring weather would have made too painful a contrast—the regiment into which Arno had exchanged marched. At seven in the morning——

Ah, the preceding night! what a terrible night it was! If the dear one had only been going on a journey of business, free from any danger, the parting would have made me unspeakably sorrowful—parting is indeed so sad! but to the war! to meet the fiery shower of the enemy’s bullets! Why could I no longer on that night apprehend at all in that word “war” its elevated historical signification, but only its terror and threatening of death?

Arno had fallen asleep. He lay there breathing quietly, with a cheerful expression on his features. I had lighted a fresh candle and put it behind a screen; I could not be in the dark that night. Of sleep there was no question whatever for me in that, the last, night. I felt that I must spend the whole time in gazing at least into the beloved face. I lay on our bed wrapped in a dressing-gown, and, with my elbow on the pillow, and my chin resting on the palm of my hand, looked down on the sleeper and wept silently. “How I love you, how I love you, my own one—and you are going away from me! Why is fate so cruel? How shall I live without you? O that you may soon come back to me! O God! my good God! my merciful Father above! let him come back soon—him and all. Let there soon be peace! Why then cannot there be peace always? We were so happy—perhaps too happy—for there cannot be any perfect happiness on earth. Oh, rapture! if he comes home unhurt, and then lies at my side as he is doing now, and no parting threatened for the morrow! How quietly you are sleeping, O my dear, brave husband! But how shall you sleep there? There there is no soft bed for you hung with silk and lace; there you must lie on the hard wet earth—perhaps in some ditch—helpless—wounded!” And with this thought I could not help picturing a gaping sabre-cut on his forehead with the blood trickling from it, or a bullet-wound in his breast—and a hot pang of compassion seized me. How I should have liked to throw my arms round him and kiss him—but I dared not wake him, he wanted this invigorating sleep. Not six o’clock yet!—tick-tack, tick-tack, unpityingly swift and sure time marches on to every mark. This indifferent tick-tack distressed me. The light, too, burned just as indifferently behind its screen as this clock ticked with its silly, motionless Cupid.... Can it be that all these things have no perception that it is our last night? My tearful lids fell together, my consciousness gradually went away, and letting my head sink on the pillow, I fell asleep at last myself. But only for a short time. Hardly had I lost my sense in the fog of some formless dream, when my heart suddenly contracted painfully, and I awoke with a violent palpitation, and the same feeling of fear as when one is awakened by a cry for help or an alarm of fire. “Parting, parting!” was the alarm cry. When I had started so out of sleep for the tenth or twelfth time it was day, and the candle was flickering out. A knock came at the door.

“Six o’clock, lieutenant,” said the orderly, who had been ordered to wake him in good time.

Arno rose up. So now the hour was come—now was to be spoken this sad, sad word—“Farewell”.

It had been settled that I was not to go to the railway with him. The one quarter of an hour more or less together—that was not worth much. And the pain of tearing ourselves asunder at last! That I did not wish to show to strangers. I wanted to be alone in my room when we exchanged the parting kiss, that I might be able to throw myself on the floor and shriek—shriek out loud.

Arno put on his clothes quickly. As he was doing so he made me all kinds of comforting speeches.

“Courage, Martha! In two months at the most the affair will be over, and I shall be back again at cuckoo-time; only one in a thousand bullets hits, and that one must not hit me. Others before me have come back from the wars—look at your papa. It must happen sometime or other. You did not marry an officer of hussars with the notion that his business was to grow hyacinths. I will write to you as often as possible, and tell you how pleasantly and livelily the whole campaign is going on. If anything bad were destined for me I could not feel so cheerful. I am going only to win an order, nothing else. Take great care here of yourself and our Ruru; and if I get promotion he shall have another step too. Kiss him for me; I will not repeat the parting of last night. The time will come when it will be a treat for him to have his father tell him how in the year ’59 he was present at the great victory over Italy.”

I listened to him greedily. This confident chatter did me good. He was going away all pleased and in good spirits, and so my suffering must be egotistic and therefore wrong; this thought ought to give me strength to conquer it.

Another knock at the door.

“Time now, lieutenant.”

“I am quite ready; coming directly.” He spread out his arms. “Now then, Martha—my wife—my love.”

I lay at once on his breast. I could not speak a word. The word “farewell” would not pass my lips. I felt that in saying that word I should give way, and I did not dare to poison the peace, the cheerfulness of his departure. I reserved the outbreak of my pain as a kind of reward for my solitude.

But now he spoke the heartbreaking word.

“Good-bye, my all, good-bye,” and pressed his lips closely to mine.

We could not tear ourselves out of this embrace—as though it were our last. Then on a sudden I felt how his lips were trembling, how convulsively his bosom heaved, and then releasing me, he covered his face and sobbed aloud.

That was too much for me. I thought I was going out of my mind.

“Arno, Arno!” I cried out, throwing my arms round him, “stay, stay!” I knew I was asking what was impossible; still I cried out persistently: “Stay, stay!”

“Lieutenant,” we heard from outside, “it is now quite time.”

One more kiss—the last of all—and he rushed out.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

To tear charpie, to read the news in the papers, to stick pins with flags into our maps in order to follow the movements of the two armies, and try to solve the chess problems that followed from them in the sense that “Austria attacks and gives mate at the fourth move”; to pray continually in the churches for the protection of our loved ones and the victory of our country’s arms; to talk of nothing except the news that came in from the theatre of war; such was what filled up my existence now and that of my relatives and acquaintance. Life with all its other interests appeared suspended as it were during the term of the campaign. Everything except the question “How and when will this war end?” was bereft of importance—nay, almost of reality. One ate, drank, read, saw after one’s affairs, but all this had no real concern for us; one thing only concerned us thoroughly—the telegrams from Italy.

My chief gleams of light were, of course, the news that I received from Arno himself. They were in a curt style—letter-writing had never been his strong point—but they brought me the most cheering testimony that he was still alive and unwounded. These letters and despatches could not indeed arrive with much regularity, for the communications were often interrupted, or when an action was impending the field-post was suspended.

If a few days had passed thus, without my hearing from Arno, and a list of killed and wounded was published, with what terror did I not read over the names! It is as great a strain as for the holder of a lottery ticket to look through the winning numbers in the list of a drawing—but in the opposite sense; what one seeks in this case, well knowing, thank God, that the chance is against one, is the chief prize in misery.

The first time that I read the names of the slain—and I had been four days without news—and saw that the name of Arno Dotzky was not among them, I folded my hands and cried aloud: “My God, I thank Thee!” But the words were hardly out of my mouth when it seemed to me like a shrill discord. I took the paper in my hand again and looked at the list of names once more. So I thank God because Adolf Schmidt and Carl Müller and many others were slain, but not Arno Dotzky. Then the same thanksgiving would have been appropriate if it had risen to heaven from the hearts of those who trembled for Schmidt and Müller, if they had read “Dotzky” instead of those names. And why should my thanks in particular be more pleasing to Heaven than theirs? Yes, this was the shrill discord of my ejaculation, the presumption and the self-seeking which lay in it, in believing that Arno had been spared in love for me, and thanking God that not I but Schmidt’s mother and Müller’s affianced and fifty others had to burst out in tears over that list.

On the same day I received from Arno another letter:—

“Yesterday we had another stout fight. Unfortunately—unfortunately a defeat. But comfort yourself, my beloved Martha, the next battle will bring us victory. It was my first great affair. I was standing in the midst of a heavy storm of bullets—a peculiar feeling. I will tell you by word of mouth—but it is frightful. The poor fellows whom one sees falling around one, and must leave there in spite of their sad cries—c’est la guerre! Hope to see you soon again, my dear. If we can once dictate terms of peace at Turin, you shall travel after to meet me. Aunt Mary will be kind enough to take care of our little corporal.”

But if the receipt of letters like these constituted the sunshine of my life, its darkest shadows were my nights. If I woke out of some dream of blessed forgetfulness, and the horrible reality with its horrible possibilities came before my consciousness, I was seized with an almost intolerable pain, and could not sleep again for hours. I could not get rid of the idea that Arno was perhaps at that moment lying in a ditch groaning and dying—thirsting after a drop of water, and calling longingly for me. The only way that I could gradually compose myself was by bringing, with all my force, the scene of his return before my imagination. This was, at any rate, as probable—nay, perhaps more probable than his lonely death; and so I pictured him to myself as bursting into the room, and how I should fling myself on his bosom, and how I should then lead him to Ruru’s cradle, and how happy and how joyful we might then once more be.

My father was much cast down. One bad news came upon another. First Montebello, then Magenta. And not he alone, but all Vienna was cast down. We had at the beginning so confidently hoped that uninterrupted messages of victory would give occasion for mounting flags on our houses and singing Te Deums, but instead of this the flags were waving and the priests singing at Turin. There the word now was: “Lord God, we praise Thee that Thou hast helped us to strike down the wicked ‘Tedeschi’ ”.

“Do not you think, papa,” I began, “that if another defeat was to happen to us, peace would then be made? In that case I should wish that——”

“Are you not ashamed to say anything of the kind? I had rather it should be a seven years’—aye, a thirty years’ war, so that our arms should conquer at last, and we dictate the terms of peace! What do men go to war for? I suppose not to get out of it again as quickly as possible; if so, they might as well remain at home!”

“And that would be by far the best,” sighed I.

“What a cowardly lot you women folk are! Even you—you, who have been so well grounded in the principles of love of country and feelings of honour, are yet quite out of heart already, and prize your personal quiet more than the welfare and fame of your country.”

“Ah! if I did not love my Arno so dearly.”

“Love of your husband, love of your family—all that is very good; but it ought only to occupy the second place.”

“Ought it?”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The list of killed had already brought the names of several officers whom I had known personally. Among others, that of the son—her only one—of an old lady for whom I had conceived a great feeling of respect.

That day I determined to visit the poor lady. It was, for me, a painful, heavy journey. I could certainly give her no consolation—could only weep with her. But it was the duty of affection, and so I set out.

When I got to Frau v. Ullmann’s dwelling, I long hesitated before pulling the bell. The last time I had been there was to a cheerful little dance. The dear old mistress of the house was herself then full of joy. “Martha,” she said to me in the course of the evening, “we are the two most enviable women in Vienna. You have the handsomest of husbands, and I the most excellent of sons.” And to-day? I still, indeed, had my husband. But who knows? The shells and grape-shot were flying there still without ceasing. The minute just past might have made me a widow: and I began to weep before the door. That was the proper temper for so mournful a visit. I rang. No one came. I rang a second time. Again no answer. Then some one put his head out of the door of one of the other floors.

“It is no good ringing, miss. The dwelling is empty.”

“What! Has Frau v. Ullmann gone?”

“She was taken to a lunatic asylum three days since.” And the head disappeared again as the door shut.

I remained for a minute or two motionless, rooted to the spot, and the scenes which must have been going on here passed before my eyes. To what a height must the poor lady’s sufferings have risen before her agony broke out in madness!

“And there is my father wishing that the war might last thirty years for the welfare of the country! How many more such mothers in the country would have been driven to desperation!”

I went down the stairs shaken to my inmost depth. I determined that I would pay another visit to a young lady, a friend of mine, whose husband, like mine, was at the theatre of war.

My way led me through the Herrengasse, past the building called the Landhaus, where the “Patriotic Aid Association” had established its offices. At that time there was not as yet any “Convention of Geneva,” any “Red Cross,” and this aid association had been formed as a forerunner of these humane institutions, its task being to receive alms of all kinds, in money, linen, charpie, bandages, etc., for the poor wounded, and forward them to the seat of war. The gifts came flowing in abundantly from all sides; it was necessary to have whole shops to receive them, and scarcely were the different articles packed up and sent off when new ones were piled up again in their place.

I went in. I was in distress till I could hand over to the committee all that I had in my purse. Perhaps that might bring health and deliverance to some suffering soldier, and save his mother from madness.

I knew the president. “Is Prince C—— here?” I asked the porter.

“Not just now. But the vice-president, Baron S——, is upstairs.” He showed me the way to the room where the alms in money were paid. I had to pass through several halls, where on long tables were the packets lying in rows. Parcels of linen, cigars, tobacco, and especially mountains of charpie. It made me shudder. How many wounds must be bleeding there, to be covered with all this torn linen? “And there was my father,” I thought again, “wishing that for the country’s good the war might last another thirty years! How many of the country’s sons must in that case sink under their wounds!”

Baron S—— received my contribution with thanks, and gave me the most ready information about the working of the association in reply to my numerous questions. It was joyful and comforting to hear how much good was thus done. Just at the time came the postman with some letters that had newly arrived, and announced that two barrows of offerings had to be delivered from the country. I placed myself on a sofa which was in the lower part of the room to watch the reception of the packets. They were, however, delivered in another room. A very old gentleman now came in, who by his bearing was evidently an old soldier.

“Permit me, baron,” he said, as he drew out his purse and sat down on a stool by the table, “permit me to add my little mite too to your noble work.” And he gave him a note for a hundred florins. “I look on all this organisation of yours as really angelic; you see I am an old soldier myself,” and he gave his name as General ——, “and I can judge what an enormous blessing it is to the poor fellows who are fighting out there. I served in the campaigns of the years ’9 and ’13—at that time there was no ‘Patriotic Aid Association’—at that time no one sent chests of bandages and charpie after the wounded. How many must then have bled to death in misery when the resources of the army surgeons were exhausted, who might have been saved by sending such things as I see here! Ah! yours is a blessed work. You good noble men, you do not know—no, you do not know—how much good you are doing there.” And two great tears fell on the old man’s white moustache.

A noise of steps and voices arose outside. Both leaves of the entrance door were thrown open and a guardsman announced “Her Majesty the Empress”.

The vice-president hurried out to the gate to receive his exalted visitor, as beseemed, at the foot of the stairs, but she had already got into the ante-room.

I, from my concealed position, looked with admiration on the young sovereign who in common walking dress appeared to me almost lovelier than in her state robes at the court ball.

“I am come,” she said to Baron S——, “because I received a letter to-day from the emperor from the seat of war, in which he writes to tell me how useful and acceptable the gifts of the Patriotic Aid Association have proved, and so I wished to look into the matter myself, and put the committee in receipt of the emperor’s acknowledgment.”

On this she made them give her information about all the details of the working of the association, and examined as she went along the various objects from their stores. “Just look, countess,” she said to the mistress of the robes, who was with her, taking an article of underclothing in her hand, “how good this linen is, and how beautifully sewn.” Then she begged the vice-president to conduct her into another of the rooms, and left the hall by his side. She spoke to him with visible contentment, and I heard her say besides: “It is a fine patriotic undertaking, and to the poor soldiers——”

I could not catch any more. “Poor soldiers,” the word kept coming back to me for a long time, she had pronounced it with so much pity. Yes, “poor” indeed, and the more one could do to send them help and comfort the better. But it ran through my head: “If they had not sent these poor people into this misery at all, would not that have been much better?”

I tried to scare away the thought. It must be so! It must be so! There is no other excuse for the cruelty of making war except what is contained in the little word “must”.

Now I went on my way again. The friend whom I was going to visit lived quite close to the Landhaus on the Kohlmarkt. As I walked along I went into a book and print shop to buy myself a new map of Upper Italy—ours had become quite riddled with sticking in the little flags on pins. Besides me there were many other customers in the place. All were asking for maps, diagrams, and so forth. Now came my turn.

“Do you want the theatre of war, too, please?” asked the bookseller.

“You have guessed it.”

“No difficulty in that. There is hardly anything else bought.”

He went to get what I wanted, and while he wrapped up the roll in paper for me, he said to a gentleman standing next to me: “You see, professor, just now things go badly for those who write or publish books on belles lettres or science. No one asks for such things. As long as the war lasts no interest is taken by any one in intellectual matters. It is a bad time for writers and booksellers.”

“And a bad time for the nation,” replied the professor, “since a loss of interest in such things is naturally followed by its decline in the intellectual scale.”

“And there is my father wishing,” thought I for the third time, “that for the good of the country a thirty years’ war——”

I now took part audibly in the conversation.

“So your business is doing badly?”

“Mine only? No, almost all, your ladyship,” answered the bookseller. “Except the providers for the army there are no tradesmen to whom the war has not brought untold loss. Everything is at a standstill; work in the factories; work in the fields; men without number are without places and without bread. Our paper is falling; the exchange rising; all desire for enterprise is decaying; many firms must go bankrupt—in short, it is a misery! a misery!”

“And there is my father wishing——” I repeated in silence as I left the shop.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

My friend was at home.

Countess Lori Griesbach was in more than one respect the sharer of my lot. A general’s daughter, like me—married for only a short time to an officer, like me—and, like me, a “grass widow”. In one thing she went beyond me: she had not only a husband, but two brothers also at the war. But Lori was not of an apprehensive nature; she was fully persuaded that her dear ones were under the peculiar protection of a saint whom she highly venerated, and she counted confidently on their return.

She received me with open arms.

“Ah! God bless you, Martha; it is indeed good of you to come and see me. But how pale and worn you are looking; you have not had any bad news from the seat of war?”

“No, thank God! But the whole thing is so sad.”

“Ah, yes! You mean the defeat. But you must not think too much of that, the next news may announce a victory.”

“Whether we conquer or are conquered, war is in itself dreadful altogether. Would it not be better if there could be nothing of the kind?”

“Then what would be the good of soldiers?”

“What, indeed!” I assented; “then there would be none——”

“What nonsense you are talking. That would be a nice state of things; nothing but civilians! It makes me shudder. Happily that is impossible.”

“Impossible? Yes, you must be right. I will believe so, or else I could not conceive that it would not long since have happened.”

“What happened?”

“The abolition of war. But, no; I might as well talk of the abolition of earthquakes.”

“I don’t know what you mean. As far as I am concerned I am glad this war has broken out, because I hope that my Louis will distinguish himself. And for my brothers, too, it is a good thing. Promotion has been going on so slowly; now they have at least a chance.”

“Have you had any news lately?” I interrupted. “Are your relatives all well?”

“No, not for a pretty long time now. But, you know, the postal service is often interrupted, and when people are tired out with a hot march or a battle, they have not much taste for writing. I am quite easy. Both Louis and my brothers wear blessed amulets. Mamma hung them on herself.”

“What would you expect to happen, Lori, in a war in which every man in both armies wore an amulet? If the bullets were flying on both sides, would they retire back into the clouds and do no harm?”

“I do not understand you. You are so lukewarm in faith. Your Aunt Mary often laments about it to me.”

“Why do you not answer my question?”

“Because it involves a sneer at a thing which to me is sacred.”

“Sneer; oh, no! only a reasonable reflection.”

“But you must know that it is a sin to entrust your own reason with the power of judging in things which are above us.”

“Well, I have done, Lori. You may be right. Reflection and research are of no use. For sometime all kinds of doubts have risen within me about my most ancient convictions, and I find only pain from them. If I were to lose the conviction that it was a necessity and a good thing to begin this war, I should never be able to forgive him who——”

“You mean Louis Napoleon. What an intriguer he is!”

“Whether he or another, I should like to remain in the undisturbed belief that there are no men at all who have caused the war, but that it ‘broke out’ of itself—broke out, like a nervous fever, like the eruption of Vesuvius.”

“How excited you get, my love. But let us speak reasonably; so listen to me. In a short time the war will be over and our husbands will come back captains. I will then try to get mine to obtain four or six weeks’ leave, and take a trip with me to a watering-place. It will do him good after all the fatigues he will have undergone; and me also, after the heat, and the ennui, and the anxiety I have undergone. For you must not think that I have no fear at all. It may be God’s will after all that one of my dear ones should meet with a soldier’s death—and even though it is a noble, enviable death, on the field of honour, for emperor and fatherland——”

“Why, you are speaking just like one of the proclamations to the army!”

“Yet it would be frightful—poor mamma!—if anything was to happen to Gustave or Karl. Don’t let us talk about it! And so, to refresh us after all our terror, it would be good to have a gay season at a watering-place. I should prefer Carlsbad, and I went there when I was a girl, and amused myself amazingly.”

“I too went to Marienbad. It was there I made Arno’s acquaintance. But why are we sitting here idle like this? Have you no linen at hand that we could tear into charpie? I was at the Patriotic Aid Association to-day, and there came in, who do you think?”

Here I was interrupted. A footman brought in a letter.

“From Gustave,” cried Lori joyfully, as she broke the seal.

When she had read two lines she gave a shriek, the paper fell out of her hand and she threw herself on my neck.

“Lori, my poor dear, what is it?” I cried, deeply moved; “your husband?”

“O God, O God!” she groaned. “Read for yourself.”

I took the letter from the floor and began to read. I can reproduce the phraseology exactly, because afterwards I begged the letter from Lori to copy it into my diary.

“Read out loud,” she said; “I was not able to read it through.”

I did as she wished.

“Dear Sister,—Yesterday we had a hot combat; there must be a long list of casualties. In order that you, and in order that our poor mother may not hear in that way of the misfortune, that you may be able to prepare her for it gradually (tell her he is severely wounded), I write at once, my dear, to tell you that our brave brother Karl is of the number of the warriors who have died for their country.”

I interrupted my reading to embrace my friend.

“I had got so far,” she said gently.

With tearful voice I read on.

“Your husband is untouched, and so am I. Would that the enemy’s bullet had hit me instead! I envy Karl his hero’s death. He fell at the beginning of the battle, and did not know that this one again was lost. It is really too bitter. I saw him fall, for we were riding near each other. I jumped down at once to pick him up. Only one look and he was dead. The bullet must have passed through his lungs or heart. It was a quick painless death. How many others had to suffer for hours, and to lie helpless on the field in the heat of the battle, till death released them! It was a murderous day—more than a thousand corpses, friend and enemy, covered the battlefield. I recognised among the dead the faces of so many dear friends; and, amongst others, there is poor”—here I had to turn the page—“poor Arno Dotzky.”

I fell unconscious on the floor.

CHAPTER III.

First years of widowhood.—Solitude, study, enlarged views.—I return into society.—Renewed enjoyment of life.—Thoughts of second marriage.—I chaperon my younger sisters.—I am introduced to Baron Tilling.—He brings me an account of the manner of Arno’s death.

“NOW, Martha, it is all over. Solferino was decisive—we are beaten.”

My father came hastily one morning on to the terrace, with these words, where I was sitting under the shadow of a clump of lime trees.

I had gone back home, to the house of my girlhood, with my little Ruru. A week after the great battle, which had struck me down, my family moved to Grumitz, our country house in Lower Austria, and I with them. I should have been in despair alone. Now all were again around me, just as before my marriage—papa, Aunt Mary, my little brother, and my two growing sisters. All of them did what they possibly could to mitigate my grief, and treated me with a certain consideration which did me good. Evidently they found in my sad fate a sort of consecration, a something which raised me above those around me, even a kind of merit. Next to the blood which soldiers pour out on the altar of their country, the tears which the bereaved mothers, wives, and sweethearts of the soldiers pour on the same altar become a libation hardly less sacred. And thus it was a slight feeling of pride, a consciousness that to have lost a beloved husband on the field of honour conferred a kind of military merit, which helped me most to bear my pain; and I was far from being the only one. How many, ah! how many women in the whole of the country were then mourning over their loved ones sleeping in Italian earth!

At that time no further particulars were known to me of Arno’s end. He had been found dead, recognised, and buried. That was all I knew. His last thought doubtless had flown towards me and our little darling, and his consolation in the last moment must have been: “I have done my duty, and more than my duty”.

“We are beaten,” repeated my father gloomily, as he sat down by me on the garden seat.

“So those who have been sacrificed were sacrificed in vain.” I sighed.

“Those who have been sacrificed are to be envied, for they know nothing of the shame which has befallen us. But we will soon pick up again for all that, even if at present peace, as they say, must be concluded.”

“Ah, God grant it,” I interrupted. “Too late, indeed, for my poor Arno, but still thousands of others will be spared.”

“You are always thinking of yourself and of individuals. But in this matter it is Austria which is in question.”

“Well, but does not she consist entirely of individuals?”

“My dear, a kingdom, a state, lives a longer and more important life than individuals do. They disappear, generation after generation, while the state expands still farther, grows into glory, greatness and power, or sinks and crumples up and disappears, if it allows itself to be overcome by other kingdoms. Therefore the most important and the highest aim for which any individual has to struggle, and for which he ought to be glad to die, is the existence, the greatness and the well-being of the kingdom.”

I impressed these words on my mind in order to put them down the same day in the red volume. They seemed to me to express so clearly and strongly the feeling which I had derived in my student days from the books of history, a feeling which in these last times, after Arno’s departure, had been driven out of my mind by fear and pity. I wanted to cleave to it again as close as possible, in order to find consolation and support in the idea that my darling had fallen in a great cause, and that my misfortune itself was only one element in this great cause.

Aunt Mary had, on the other hand, a different source of consolation ready.

“Do not weep, dear child,” she used to say, when I was sunk in profound grief. “Do not be so selfish as to bewail him who is now so happy. He is among the blessed, and is looking down on you with blessing. After a few quickly passing years on earth you will find him again in the fulness of his glory. For those who have fallen on the field of battle Heaven reserves its fairest dwellings. Happy those who were called away just at the moment when they were fulfilling a holy duty. The dying soldier stands next in merit to the dying martyr.”

“Then I am to be glad that Arno——”

“No, not to be glad, that would be asking too much, but to bear your lot with humble resignation. It is a probation that Heaven sends you, and from which you should emerge purified and strengthened in faith.”

“So, in order that I might be tried and purified, Arno had to——”

“No, not on that account. But who dare seek to sound the hidden ways of Providence? Not I at least.”

Although such objections always would rise in me against Aunt Mary’s consolations, yet in the depths of my heart I readily fell in with the mystical assumption that my glorified one was now enjoying in Heaven the reward of his death of sacrifice, and that his memory on earth was adorned with the eternal glory of sainthood.

How exalting, though painful at the same time, was the effect on me of the great mourning celebration at which I was present in the cathedral of St. Stephen’s on the day of our departure! It was the De Profundis for our warriors who had fallen on foreign soil and were buried there. In the centre of the church a high catafalque had been erected, surrounded by a hundred lighted candles and decorated with military emblems, flags and arms. From the choir came down the moving strains of the requiem, and those present, chiefly women in mourning, were almost all weeping aloud. And each one was weeping not only for him whom she had lost, but for the rest who had met with the same death, for all of them together, all the poor brave brothers-in-arms, who had given their young lives for us all—that is, for the country, the honour of the nation. And the living soldiers who attended this ceremony—all the generals and officers who had remained behind in Vienna were there, and several companies of soldiers filled the background—all were waiting and ready to follow their fallen comrades without delay, without murmur, without fear. Yes, with the clouds of incense, with the pealing bells, and the voice of the organ, with the tears poured out in a common woe, there must surely have risen a well-pleasing sacrifice to Heaven, and the Lord of armies must shower His blessing down on those to whom this catafalque was erected.

So I thought at that time. At least these were the words with which the red book describes this mourning ceremony.

About fourteen days later than the news of the defeat of Solferino came the news of the signing of the preliminaries of peace at Villafranca. My father took all the pains possible to explain to me that for political reasons it was a matter of pressing necessity to conclude this peace, on which I assured him that it seemed to me joyful news anyhow that this fighting and dying should come to an end. But my good papa would not be hindered from setting forth at length all his exculpatory statements.

“You must not think that we are afraid. Even if it has a look as if we had made concessions, yet we forego nothing of our dignity, and know perfectly what we are about. If it concerned ourselves only we should never have given up the game on account of this little check at Solferino. Oh, no! far from it. We should only have had to send down another corps d’armée, and the enemy would have been obliged to evacuate Milan again in quick time. But you know, Martha, that other things are concerned—general interests and principles. We renounced the further prosecution of the war for this reason: in order to secure the other principalities in Italy which are menaced—those that the captain of the Sardinian robbers, with his French hangman-ally, would be glad to fall upon also. They want to advance against Modena, Tuscany—where, as you know, dynasties are in power related to our own imperial family—nay, even against Rome, against the Pope, the Vandals. If we do provisionally give up Lombardy, yet we keep Venetia all the time, and are able to assure the south Italian states and the Holy See of our support. So you perceive that it is merely for political reasons, and in the interest of the balance of power in Europe——”

“Oh, yes, father,” I broke in; “I perceive it. But oh that these reasons had prevailed before Magenta!” I continued, sighing bitterly. Then, to change the subject, I pointed to a parcel of books that had come in that day from Vienna.

“See here! the bookseller has sent us several things on approval. Amongst them there is the work of an English natural philosopher—one Darwin—The Origin of Species, and he calls our attention to it as being of special interest, and likely to be of epoch-making importance.”

“My worthy friend must excuse me. Who, in such a momentous time as this, could take an interest in these tomfooleries? What can a book about the kinds of beasts and plants contain of epoch-making importance for us men? The confederation of the Italian states, the hegemony of Austria in the German Bund—these are matters of far-stretching influence; these will long keep their place in history, when no living man shall any longer know anything about that English book there. Mark my words.”

I did mark them.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Four years later, my two sisters, now seventeen and eighteen years old, were to be presented at court. On this occasion I determined that I would also again “go into society”.

The time which had elapsed had done its work, and gradually mitigated my pain. Despair changed into mourning, mourning into sorrow, sorrow into indifference, and even this at last into renewed pleasure in life. I woke one fine morning to the conviction that I really was in an enviable condition, and one that promised happiness. Twenty-three years old, beautiful, rich, high-born, free, the mother of a darling child, a member of an affectionate family—was not all this enough to make my life pleasant?

The short year of my married life lay behind me like a dream. No doubt I had been desperately in love with my handsome hussar—no doubt my loving husband had made me very happy—no doubt the parting had caused me grievous pain and his loss wild agony! but that was all over—over! My love had assuredly never grown so closely into the whole existence of my soul that I could never have survived its uprooting, never have lost the pain of it; our life together had been too short for that. We had adored each other like a pair of ardent lovers; but to have entered into each other, heart to heart, soul to soul, to be fast bound to each other in mutual reverence and friendship, to have shared for long years our joys and our sorrows—this, which is the lot of some married people, had not been given to us two. Even I was assuredly not his highest object, not something indispensable, otherwise he could not so cheerfully and with no compulsion of duty (for his own regiment was never ordered out) have left me. Besides, in these four years I had gradually become another creature, my spiritual horizon had enlarged in many respects, I had come into possession of acquirements and views of which I had no notion when I married, and of which Arno also—as I could now perceive—had no idea either, and so—if he could have risen again—he would have stood in the position of a stranger towards many parts of my present spiritual life. How had this change come about with me? This is how it happened.

One year of my widowhood had passed. The first phase—despair—had given place to mourning. But it was very deep mourning, and my heart was bleeding. Of any renewal of the intercourse of society I would not hear. I thought that from this time my life must be occupied only with the education of my son Rudolf. I called the child no longer Ruru, or corporal. The baby-jokes of the pair of married lovers were over. The little one turned into “my son Rudolf”—the sacred centre of all my effort, hope, and love. In order to be one day a good teacher for him, or rather in order to follow his studies, and be able to become his intellectual companion, I wanted to acquire myself all the knowledge that I could, and with this view reading was the only amusement I allowed myself; and so I plunged anew into the treasures of the library of our château. I was especially impelled to take up again the study which was my peculiar favourite—history. Latterly, when the war had demanded such heavy sacrifices from my contemporaries and myself, my former enthusiasm had become much cooled, and I now wished to light it up again by appropriate reading. And, in fact, it brought me sometimes a kind of consolation, if I had been reading a few pages of accounts of battles with the praises of the heroes which are the natural continuation of those accounts, to think that the death of my poor husband and my own widowed grief were comprised as items in a similar grand historical process. I say “sometimes”—not always. I could not get myself back entirely and absolutely into the feelings of my girlhood, when I wanted to rival the Maid of Orleans. Much, very much, in the over-wrought tirades of glory, which accompanied the accounts of the battles, sounded to me false and hollow, if at the same time I set before me the terrors of the fight—as false and hollow as a sham coin paid as the price for a genuine pearl. The pearl, life—can it be fairly paid for with the tinsel phrases of historical glory?

I had soon exhausted the provision of historical works to be found in our library. I begged our bookseller to send me some new historical work to look at. He sent Thomas Buckle’s History of Civilisation in England. “The work is not finished,” wrote the bookseller, “but the accompanying two volumes, which form the introduction, compose by themselves a complete whole, and their appearance has excited, not only in England, but in the rest of the educated world, the greatest attention. The author, it is said, has in this work laid the foundation for a new conception of history.”

Yes, indeed, quite a new one. When I had read these two volumes, and then read them again, I felt like a man who had dwelt all his life in the bottom of a narrow valley, and then, for the first time, had been taken up to one of the mountain tops around, from which a long stretch of country was to be seen, covered with buildings and gardens and ending in the boundless ocean. I will not assert that I—only twenty years old and who had received only the well-known superficial “young lady’s” education—understood the book in all the extent of its bearings, or, to keep to the former metaphor, that I appreciated the loftiness of the monumental buildings and the immensity of the ocean which lay before my astonished gaze; but I was dazzled, overcome; I saw that beyond the narrow valley in which I was born there lay a wide, wide world, of which, up to this time, I had never heard. It is not till now that, after fifteen or twenty years I have read the book again and have studied other works conceived in the same spirit, I may, perhaps, take it on myself to say that I understand it. One thing, however, was clear to me even then: that the history of mankind was not decided by, as the old theory taught, kings and statesmen, nor by the wars and treaties that were created by the greed of the former or the cunning of the latter, but by the gradual development of the intellect. The chronicles of courts and battles which are strung together in the history books represent isolated phenomena of the condition of culture at those epochs, not the causes which produce those conditions. Of the old-fashioned admiration with which other historical writers are accustomed to relate the lives of mighty conquerors and devastators of countries I could find absolutely nothing in Buckle. On the contrary, he brings proof that the estimation in which the warrior class is held is in inverse ratio to the height of culture which the nation has reached; the lower you go in the barbaric past, the more frequent are the wars of the time, the narrower the limits of peace, province against province, city against city, family against family. He lays stress on the fact that, as society progresses, not only war itself, but the love of war will be found to diminish. That word spoke to my innermost heart. Even in my short spiritual experience this diminution had been going on, and though I had often repressed this movement as something cowardly or unworthy, believing that I alone was the cause of such a fault within me, now, on the contrary, I perceived that this feeling in me was only the faint echo of the spirit of the age, that learned men and thinkers, like this English historian, and innumerable men along with him, had lost the old idolatry for war, which, just as it had been a phase of my childhood, was represented in this book as being also a phase of the childhood of society.

And so in Buckle’s History of Civilisation I had found just the opposite of what I sought. And yet I counted what I found as all pure gain. I felt myself elevated by it, enlightened, pacified. Once I tried to talk with my father about this point of view that I had just attained, but in vain. He would not follow me up the mountain, i.e., he would not read the book, and so it was to no purpose to talk with him of things which one could only see from the top of it.

Now followed the year—my second phase—in which mourning turned into melancholy. I now read and studied with even greater assiduity. This first work of Buckle had given me an appetite for reflection, and given me an inkling of an enlarged view of the world. I wanted now to enjoy this yet more and more; and therefore I followed this book up with a great many more conceived in the same spirit. And the interest, the enjoyment, which I found in these studies helped me to pass into the third phase, i.e., to cause the disappearance of my melancholy. But when the last change was wrought in me, i.e., when my joy in life awoke again, then all at once books contented me no longer, then I saw all at once that ethnography and anthropology, comparative mythology, and all the other ’ologies and ’graphies were insufficient to set my longings at rest, that for a young woman in my position, life had other flowers of bliss all ready, and for which I had only to stretch my hand out. And so it came about that in the winter of 1863 I offered myself to introduce my younger sisters into the world and opened my saloons to Vienna society.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“Martha, Countess Dotzky, a rich young widow.” It was under this promising title that I had to play my part in the comedy of the “great world”. And I must say that the character suited me. It is no slight pleasure to get greetings from all sides, to be fêted, spoiled, on all hands, and overwhelmed with distinctions. It is no slight enjoyment, after nearly four years’ separation from the world, to come all at once into a whirlpool of all sorts of pleasures, to make the acquaintance of interesting and influential persons, to be present at some splendid entertainment almost every day, and when there to feel yourself the centre of universal attention.

We three sisters had got the nickname of the “three goddesses of Mount Ida”; and the “Apples of Discord,” which the several young Parises distributed amongst us, were innumerable. I, of course, in the dignity of my description in the list of dramatis personæ as “rich young widow,” was the one generally preferred. Besides it was taken as a settled thing in our family, and even ever so little in my own inward consciousness, that I was to marry again. Aunt Mary was no longer in the habit in her homilies of dwelling on the blessed one who “was waiting for me above,” for if I, in my few short years on earth that separated me from the grave, united myself to a second husband, an event desired by Aunt Mary herself, the pleasantness of the meeting again in Heaven would be a good deal spoiled thereby.

Every one around me seemed to have forgotten Arno’s existence. I was the only one who did not. Though time had relieved my pain about him, his image had not been extinguished. One may cease to mourn for one’s dead; mourning does not depend quite on the will, but one ought not to forget them. I looked on this dead silence about the dead, which was preserved by my entourage, as a second and additional slaughter, and shrank from killing the poor fellow in my thoughts. I had made it my duty to speak every day to little Rudolf of his father, and the child had always to say in his prayers at night: “God make me good and brave as my dear father Arno would have me!”

My sisters and I “amused” ourselves extremely, and certainly I not less than they. It was, so to speak, my début also in society. The first time I was introduced as an engaged girl, and a newly-married woman; and so all admirers had of course held aloof from me; and what is a higher enjoyment in society than the admirers? But, strange to say, however much I was pleased to be surrounded by a crowd of worshippers, none of them made any deep impression on me. There was a bar between them and me which was quite impassable. And this bar was what I had been erecting during my three years of lonely study and thought. All these brilliant young gentlemen, whose interests in life culminated in sport, the ballet, the chatter of the court, or (with those who soared highest) in professional ambition (for most were soldiers), had not the faintest idea of the things which I had looked at from afar in my books, and on which my soul’s life depended. That language, of which I grant I had only as yet learned the elements—but as to which I was assured that it was in it that men of science would debate and ultimately decide the highest questions—that language was to them not Greek merely, but Patagonian.

From this category of young folks I was not going to select a husband; that was quite settled. Besides, I was in no hurry to give up once more my freedom, which was very pleasant to me. I managed to keep my would-be suitors sufficiently at a distance to prevent any from making an offer, and at the same time to prevent anybody in society from putting about concerning me the compromising rumour that I was laying myself out for lovers. My son Rudolf should hereafter be able to feel proud of his mother, no breath of suspicion should sully the pure mirror of her reputation. But if the case should occur that my heart should glow once more with love—and that could only be for one worthy of it—then I was fully disposed to realise the claim which my youth still had to happiness in this world, and enter into a second marriage.

Meanwhile, apart from love or happiness, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. The dance, the theatre, dress—I found the liveliest pleasure in all of them. But I did not for them neglect either my little Rudolf or my own education. It was not that I plunged into special studies, but I always kept au courant with the movement of the intellectual world, by procuring all the most prominent new productions in the literature of the age, and regularly reading attentively all the articles, even the most scientific, in the Revue des deux Mondes and similar magazines. These occupations had indeed the result that the bar I have just spoken of, which cut off my inward life from the surrounding world of young men of fashion, became constantly higher—but it was right that it should be so. I would gladly have drawn into my saloons a few persons from the world of literature and scholarship, but that could hardly be done in the society in which I moved. Bourgeois elements could not be mixed with what was called “the circles” of Vienna. Especially at that period—since then this exclusive spirit has somewhat changed, and it has become the fashion to open one’s saloons to individual representatives of art and science. At the time of which I speak this was not the case yet; any one not “Hof-fähig,” i.e., who could not count sixteen ancestors, was excluded thence. Our ordinary society would have been most unpleasantly surprised to have met at my house people not ennobled, and could not have hit on the right tone to converse with them. And these persons themselves would certainly have found my drawing-room, full of countesses and sportsmen, old generals and old canonesses, intolerably dull. What part could men of intellect and science, writers and artists, take in the eternally same conversation—who had given a dance yesterday and who would give one to-morrow—whether Schwarzenberg, or Pallavicini, or the Court—what love affairs Baroness Pacher was causing—which party Countess Palffy was opposing—how many estates Prince Croy possessed—what right the young Lady Almasy possessed to the title of a lady of rank, whether as a Festetics or a Wentheim, and if a Wentheim whether by that Wentheim whose mother became a Khevenhüller, etc.? That was indeed the matter of most of the conversations that went on around me. Even the intellectual and educated people, some of whom were really to be found in our circle, statesmen and so forth, thought themselves bound when they associated with us, the young folks who danced, to adopt the same frivolous and meaningless tone. How gladly would I often have gone to some dinner in a quiet corner at which one or two of our travelled diplomatists or eloquent parliamentarians, or other men of mark might express their opinions on weighty questions!—but that was not feasible. I had to keep along with the other young ladies, and talk of the toilettes that we were getting ready for the next great ball. And even if I had squeezed into such a company the conversations that might have been just begun about the economy of nations, about Byron’s poetry, about the theories of Strauss and Renan, would have been hushed, and the talk would have been: “Ah, Countess Dotzky, how charming you looked yesterday at the ladies’ pic-nic; and are you going to-morrow to the reception at the Russian embassy?”

“Allow me, dear Martha,” said my cousin Conrad Althaus, “to introduce to you Lieutenant-Colonel Baron Tilling.”

I bowed. The introducer went away, and the one introduced did not speak. I took this for an invitation to dance, and rose from my seat with my left arm raised and bent, ready to lay it on Baron Tilling’s shoulder.

“Forgive me, countess,” he said, with a slight smile, which showed his dazzlingly white teeth, “I do not dance.”

“Indeed! so much the better,” I answered, sitting down again. “I had just retreated here to get a little repose.”

“And I had requested the honour of being introduced to you, countess, as I had a communication to make to you.”

I looked up in amazement. The baron put on a very serious face. He was altogether a man who looked very serious, no longer young, somewhere about forty, with a few streaks of grey on the temples—on the whole, a prepossessing sympathetic look. I had accustomed myself to look sharply on each new introduction with the question: “Are you a suitor? and should I take you?” Both questions I answered in this case with a prompt negative. The person before me had not that expression of intimate adoration which all those are in the habit of assuming who approach ladies with “views,” as the saying is, and the other question was resolved in the negative at once by his uniform. I would give my hand to no soldier a second time, that I had absolutely fixed with myself, not alone because I would not be again exposed to the horrible pain of seeing my husband depart to the campaign, but because since that time I had arrived at views about war in which it would be impossible for me to agree with a soldier.

Lieutenant-Colonel v. Tilling did not avail himself of my invitation to sit beside me.

“I will not intrude on you long, countess. What I have to communicate to you is not suited for a ballroom. I only wanted to ask you for permission to present myself in your house; could you be so very kind as to fix a day and hour in which I may speak to you?”

“I receive on Saturdays between two and four.”

“Then your house between two and four on Saturday most likely resembles a bee-hive, where the honey bees are flying in and out.”

“And I sit in the middle as queen you would say, a very pretty compliment.”

“I never make compliments, no more than I make honey, so the hour of swarming on Saturday does not suit me at all. I must speak to you alone.”

“You awaken my curiosity. Let us say then to-morrow, Tuesday, at the same hour. I will be at home to you and no one else.”

He thanked me, bowed, and went away. A little later my cousin Conrad came by. I called him to me, got him to sit by my side, and asked for information about Baron Tilling.

“Does he please you? Has he made a deep impression on you that you ask after him so eagerly? He is to be had, i.e., he is not yet married. Still he may not be free for all that. It is whispered that a very great lady (Althaus named a princess of the royal family) holds him to herself by tender bonds, and therefore he does not marry. His regiment has only recently been moved hither, and so he has not been much seen in society as yet; and he is also it seems an enemy of balls and things of that sort. I made his acquaintance in the Nobles’ Club, where he passes an hour or two every day, but generally over the papers in the reading-room, or absorbed in a game of chess with some of our best players. I was astonished to meet him here; however, as the lady of the house is his cousin, that explains his short appearance at the ball; he is off again already. As soon as he had taken leave of you, I saw him go out.”

“Have you introduced him to many other ladies besides?”

“No, only to you. But you must not imagine from that that you have brought him down at a long shot, and that therefore he is anxious to know you. He asked me: ‘Could you tell me whether a certain Countess Dotzky, née Althaus, probably a relation of yours, is here at present? I want to speak to her.’ ‘Yes,’ I answered, pointing to you, ‘sitting in that corner on the sofa, in a blue dress.’ ‘Oh, that is she! Will you be so kind as to introduce me?’ That I did with much pleasure, without any idea that I might be ruining your peace of mind thereby.”

“Don’t talk such nonsense, Conrad. My peace is not so easily disturbed. Tilling? Of what family is he? I have never heard the name before.”

“Aha! you will not confess! Perhaps he is the favoured one! I have tried by the exercise of all my power of witchery to penetrate into your heart for the last three months, but in vain! And now this cold lieutenant-colonel—for, let me tell you, he is cold and without feeling—came, saw, and conquered. Of what family is Tilling, do you say? I believe of Hanoverian origin. But his father before him was in the Austrian service. His mother is a Prussian. You must surely have noticed his North German accent.”

“Yes, he speaks most beautiful German.”

“Of course. Everything about him is most beautiful.” Althaus got up. “Well, I have had quite enough now. Permit me to leave you to your dreams. I will try to entertain myself with ladies who——”

“May appear most beautiful in your eyes. There are plenty such.”

I left the ball early. My sisters could remain behind under Aunt Mary’s guard, and there was nothing to detain me. The desire for dancing had left me. I felt tired, and longed for solitude. Why? Surely not to have the opportunity for thinking about Tilling without interruption? Still it seemed so. For it was about midnight that I enriched the red book by transferring into it the conversation above set down, and added the following observations: “An interesting man this Tilling. The great lady who is in love with him is thinking probably about him now, or perhaps at this moment he is kneeling at her feet, and she is not so lonely—so lonely as I am. Ah, to love any one so entirely and inwardly! Not Tilling, of course—I do not know him even. I envy the princess, not on account of Tilling, but on account of her being beloved. And the more passionately, the more warmly she is attached to him, so much the more I envy her.”

My first thought on waking was once more—Tilling. And naturally, for he had made an appointment with me for to-day, on account of some important communication. Not for a long time had I felt so excited as I was about this visit.

At the appointed hour I gave orders that no one should be admitted except the gentleman expected. My sisters were not at home. Aunt Mary, that indefatigable chaperon, had gone with them to the skating rink.

I placed myself in my little drawing-room, in a pretty house dress of violet velvet (violet, it is allowed, suits blonde complexions), took a book in my hand and waited. I had not to wait long. At ten minutes past two Freiherr v. Tilling entered.

“You see, countess, I have punctually availed myself of your permission,” he said, kissing my hand.[3]

“Luckily so,” I answered laughingly, as I showed him a chair, “otherwise I should have died of impatience; for really you have thrown me into a state of great suspense.”

“Then I will say what I have got to say at once, without any long introduction. The reason I did not do so yesterday was in order not to disturb your serenity.”

“You frighten me.”

“In one word, I was present at the battle of Magenta.”

“And you saw Arno die?” I shrieked.

“Yes. I am in a position to give you information about his last moments.”

“Speak,” I said shuddering.

“Do not tremble, countess. If those last moments had been as horrible as those of so many other of my comrades, I would assuredly have said nothing about it to you; for there is nothing sadder than to hear of a dear one dead that he died in agony: but that is not the case here.”

“You take a weight off my heart. Go on with your narrative.”

“I will not repeat to you the empty phrase with which the survivors of soldiers are usually comforted, ‘He died like a hero,’ for I do not quite know what that means. But I can offer you the substantial consolation that he died without thinking about death. He was convinced from the beginning that nothing would happen to him. We were much together, and he often told me of his domestic happiness, showed me the picture of his beautiful young wife, and of his child; he invited me, ‘as soon as ever the campaign was over,’ to visit him in his home. In the massacre of Magenta I found myself, by accident, at his side. I spare you the sketch of the scenes that were going on—one cannot relate such things. Men, who have the warrior spirit, are seized in the midst of the powder-fog and bullet-rain with such an intoxication that they do not know exactly what is going on. Dotzky was a man of this kind. His eyes sparkled. He laid about him with a firm hand. He was in the full intoxication of war. I who was sober could see it. Then came a shell, and fell a few steps from where we were. When the monster burst ten men were blown to pieces, Dotzky among them. There rose a shriek of anguish from the injured men, but Dotzky gave no cry—he was dead. I and a few comrades stooped down to see to the wounded, and give them aid if possible. But it was not possible. They were all writhing in death, terribly torn and dismembered—the prey of horrible tortures. But Dotzky, at whose side I first knelt on the ground, breathed no more; his heart had stopped beating, and out of his torn side the blood was flowing in such a stream that if even his state was only faintness and not death, there was no fear that he would come to again.”

“Fear?” said I weeping.

“Yes, for we had to leave him lying there helpless. Before us the murderous ‘Hurrah!’ burst out again, and behind us mounted squadrons were coming on, who must charge over these dying men. Lucky those who had lost consciousness! His face had a perfectly placid, painless look, and when after the battle was over we picked up our dead and wounded, I found him on the same spot, in the same position, and with the same peaceful look. That is what I had to say to you, countess. I might indeed have done so years since, or, even if I had not met you, have written it to you, but the idea only came into my head yesterday when my cousin said she was expecting among her guests the beautiful widow of Arno Dotzky. Forgive me if I have recalled painful memories. I think, however, I have discharged a duty and freed you from torturing doubts.”

He stood up. I gave him my hand.

“I thank you, Baron Tilling,” I said, drying my tears. “You have indeed conferred a precious gift on me—the tranquillity of knowing that the end of my dear husband was free from pain or torment. But stay a little, I beg you. I should like to hear you speak more. You struck a note in your way of expressing yourself before which made a certain chord vibrate in my feelings. Without beating about the bush, you abhor war?”

Tilling’s visage clouded.

“Forgive me, countess,” he said, “if I cannot stop to talk with you on this subject. I am sorry, too, that I cannot prolong our interview. I am expected elsewhere.”

It was now my countenance which assumed a cold expression. The princess, I suppose, was expecting him, and the thought was unpleasant to me.

“Then I will not detain you, colonel,” I said coldly.

Without any request to be allowed to come again, he bowed and left the room.

CHAPTER IV.

Progress of my friendship for Tilling.—The toy soldiers.—A dinner at my father’s.—The brave Hupfauf.—Darwin.—A charming tête-à-tête, ending in a misunderstanding.—Growing attachment.—A call on Countess Griesbach.—Jealousy dispelled.—Absence of the loved one.—A touching letter from Tilling on his mother’s death.

THE carnival was over. Rosa and Lilly, my sisters, had “amused themselves immensely”. Each had a list of half-a-dozen conquests. Still there was no desirable partie among them, and “the right person” had not shown himself for either. So much the better. They would gladly enjoy a few years more of maidenhood before taking on themselves the married yoke.

And as to me? I noted my impression of the carnival in the red volume as follows: “I am glad that this dancing is over. It has already begun to be monotonous. Always the same rounds, and the same conversation, and the same dancers, for whether it happens to be X——, lieutenant of hussars, or Y——, brevet-captain of dragoons, or Z——, captain of uhlans, there are always the same bows, the same remarks, the same sighs and glances. Not an interesting man amongst them—not one. And the only one who in any case—we will say nothing about him. He belongs, I know, to his princess. She is a beautiful woman truly, I admit it, but I think her very disagreeable.”

Though the carnival with its great balls was over, yet the enjoyment of society had not stopped. Soirees, dinners, concerts—the whirl went on. There was also a great amateur theatrical performance projected, but not till after Easter. During the fasting season a certain moderation in our pleasures was enjoined on us. In Aunt Mary’s opinion we were far from being as moderate as we ought. She could not quite forgive me for not going regularly to the Lenten sermons, and indemnified herself for my lukewarmness by dragging Rosa and Lilly to hear all the preachers at the Chapel Royal. The girls submitted to this easily. Occasionally they found their whole coterie assembled at church. Father Klinkowström was as much the fashion at the Jesuits’ Church as Mdlle. Murska at the opera, and so they were tolerably gay—in a mild way.

Not only from the sermons, however, but from the soirees too, I held myself a good deal aloof during this season. I had all at once lost my taste for society parties, and delighted in staying at home to play with my son, and when the little fellow was taken to bed, to sit by the fire with a good book and read. Sometimes my father visited me at these times, and chatted away for an hour or two with me. Of course the campaigning reminiscences came to the front then continually. I had communicated to him Tilling’s account of Arno’s death, but he received the story rather coolly. Whether a man’s death was painful or painless seemed to him a secondary consideration. To be “left on the field”—as death in battle is called—appeared to him an end so glorious, bestowed by such an elevated destiny, that the details of the bodily suffering which might possibly have occurred were not worth taking into account. In his mouth to be “left on the field” always sounded like the grudging admission of an especial distinction, and next to “being left” what was most pleasant evidently was to be severely wounded. The style and manner in which he proudly showed his respect for himself or any one else in saying that he had been wounded at a fight named after this or that place made one quite forget that the thing in itself could have given anybody pain. What a difference from Tilling’s short recital! in his sketch of the ten poor creatures who were shattered by the bursting shell, and broke out in loud shrieks! What a different tone of shuddering pity in it! I did not repeat Tilling’s words to my father, because I felt instinctively that they would have seemed to him unsoldierly, and would have diminished his respect for the speaker, which would have hurt me, for it was just the horror—unsoldierly it might be, but certainly nobly humane—with which he saw and told of the terrible end of his comrades that had penetrated into my heart.

How gladly would I have spoken further on this theme with Tilling, but he seemed not to wish to cultivate my acquaintance. Fourteen days had elapsed since his visit, and he had neither repeated the visit, nor had I met him in society. Only two or three times had I seen him in the Ringsstrasse,[4] and once at the Burg Theatre. He bowed respectfully, and I acknowledged his greeting in a friendly manner, but nothing more. Nothing more? Why did my heart beat at these accidental meetings? Why could I not for hours get his gesture as he greeted me out of my mind?

“My dear child, I have something to beg of you.” My father came into my house one morning with these words. He held in his hand a parcel wrapped in paper, and added, “Here is something I am bringing for you,” as he laid the thing on the table.

“What, a request and a present together?” I said laughing. “That is bribery indeed!”

“Then hear my request before you unpack my gift, and are blinded by its magnificence. I have to-day a tedious dinner.”

“Yes, I know. Three old generals and their wives.”

“And two Ministers and their wives—in short, a solemn, stiff, sleepy business.”

“But you do not expect that I——”

“Yes, I expect you there, because, as ladies are pleased to honour me with their company, I must at least have a lady to do the honours.”

“But Aunt Mary has always undertaken that office.”

“She is again attacked to-day by her usual headache, and so I have nothing else left——”

“But to offer up your daughter, as other fathers did in ancient times; for example, King Agamemnon with Iphigenia? Well, I submit.”

“Besides, there are among the guests a pair of younger elements: Dr. Bresser, who treated me in my last illness so excellently that I wished to show him the attention of an invitation; and also Lieutenant-Colonel Tilling. Why, you are getting as red as fire! What is the matter with you?”

“Me? It is curiosity. Now, I really must look at what you have brought me.” And I began to take the parcel out of its paper wrapping.

“Oh, that is nothing for you. Don’t expect a pearl necklace. That belongs to Rudi.”

“Yes, I see, a plaything. Ah! a box of lead soldiers! But, father, a little child of four cannot——”

“I used to play at soldiers when I was only three years old. You can’t begin too early. My very earliest impressions were of drums, sabres, manœuvres, words of command: that’s the way to awaken the love for the trade, that’s the way.”

“My son Rudolf shall never join the army,” I interrupted.

“Martha! I know at least it was his father’s wish.”

“Poor Arno is no more. Rudolf is all I have, and I do not choose——”

“That he should join the noblest and most honourable of professions?”

“The life of my only child shall not be gambled for in a war.”

“I was an only son also and became a soldier. Arno had no brothers, as far as I know, and your brother Otto is also an only son, yet I have sent him to the Military Academy. The tradition of our family requires that the offspring of a Dotzky and an Althaus should devote his services to his country.”

“His country will not want him as much as I.”

“If all mothers thought so——”

“Then there would be no more parades and reviews, no walls of men to batter down, no ‘food for powder,’ as the common expression for them goes. And that would be far from a misfortune.”

My father made a very wry face; but then he shrugged his shoulders.

“Oh, you women,” he said contemptuously. “Luckily the young one will not ask your permission. The blood of soldiers is running in his veins. Nay, and he will surely not remain your only son. You must marry again, Martha. At your age it is not good to be alone. Tell me, is there none of your suitors that finds grace in your sight? For instance, there is Captain Olensky, who is desperately in love with you; he has been just now pouring out his sighs to me again. He would suit me thoroughly as a son-in-law.”

“But not me as a husband.”

“Then there is Major Millersdorf.”

“No; if you run down the whole military gamut to me, it is in vain. At what time does your dinner take place? when shall I come?” I said to turn the subject.

“At five. But come half-an-hour earlier; and now, adieu—I must go. Kiss Rudi for me—the future commander-in-chief of the Imperial and Royal Army.”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A solemn, stiff, sleepy business, that is how my father qualified his proposed dinner, and that is how I should have looked on the ceremony also if it had not been for the one guest whose presence moved me in a singular way.

Baron Tilling came the instant before the meat—so when he saluted me in the drawing-room I had no time for more than the briefest exchange of words; and at table, where I sat between two snow-white generals, the baron was removed so far from me that it was impossible for me to draw him into the conversation carried on at our end of the table. I was pleased at the return into the drawing-room; there I meant to call Tilling to me and question him still further about that battle-scene: I longed to hear again that tone of voice which had at first sounded so sympathetically in my ears.

But no opportunity offered itself to me at first to carry out this intention; the two old generals kept constant to me after dinner too, and sat down at my side when I took my place in the drawing-room to pour out café noir. To them joined themselves in a semicircle my father, the Minister, Dr. Bresser, and, finally, Tilling, but the conversation which arose was on general topics. The rest of the guests—all the ladies among them—had got together in another corner of the drawing-room where smoking was not going on; whilst in our corner smoking was allowed, and even I myself had lighted a cigarette.

“Suppose it should soon break out again?” suggested one of the old generals.

“Hum,” said the other, “I think the next war we shall have will be with Russia.”

“Must there always be a ‘next war’?” I interposed, but no one took any notice.

“With Italy first,” my father persisted; “we must at all events get back our Lombardy. Just such a march into Milan as we had in ’49 with Father Radetzky at our head. I should like to live to see that. It was on a sunny morning——”

“Oh,” I interrupted, “we all know the story of the entry into Milan.”

“And do you know also that of the brave Hupfauf?”

“I do; and I think it very revolting.”

“What do you understand of such things?”

“Let us hear it, Althaus; we do not know the story.”

My father did not wait to be asked twice.

“Well, this Hupfauf, of the regiment of Tyrolese Jaegers, he was a Tyrolese himself; he did a famous piece of work. He was the best shot that can be imagined; he was always king at all the shooting matches; he hit the mark almost always. What did he do when the Milanese revolted? Why, he begged for permission to go on the roof of the cathedral with four comrades, and fire down from thence on the rebels. He got permission and carried out his plan. The four others, each of whom carried a rifle, did nothing else but load their weapons without intermission and hand them to Hupfauf, so that he might lose no time. And in this way he shot ninety Italians dead, one after the other.”

“Horrible!” I cried out. “Each of these slaughtered Italians on whom that man fired down from his safe position above had a mother and a sweetheart at home, and was himself no doubt reckoning on his opening life.”

“My dear, all of them were enemies, and that alters the whole point of view.”

“Very true,” said Dr. Bresser; “as long as the idea of a state of enmity between men is sanctioned, so long the precepts of humanity cannot be of universal application.”

“What say you, Baron Tilling?” I asked.

“I should have wished for the man a decoration to adorn his valiant breast, and a bullet to pierce his hard heart. Both would have been well deserved.”

I threw the speaker a warm, thankful glance; but the others, except the doctor, seemed affected unpleasantly by the words they had just heard. A little pause ensued. As the French say: “Cela avait jeté un froid”.

“Have you ever heard, excellency, of a book by an English natural philosopher named Darwin?” said the doctor, turning to my father.

“No, never.”

“Oh yes, papa, just recollect. It is now four years ago since our bookseller sent us the book, just after its appearance, and you then said it would soon be forgotten by the whole world.”

“Well, as far as I am concerned, I have quite forgotten it.”

“The world in general, on the contrary, seems in a pretty state of excitement about it,” said the doctor. “There is a fight going on for or against the new theory of origin in every place.”

“Ah, you mean the ape theory?” asked the general on my right. “There was a talk about that yesterday in the casino. These scientific gentlemen hit on strange notions sometimes—that a man should have been an ourang-outang to begin with!”

“To be sure,” said the Minister nodding (and when Minister —— said “to be sure” it was always a sign that he was making himself up for a long talk), “the thing sounds rather funny, and yet it is capable of being taken seriously. It is a scientific theory built up not without talent, and with the apparatus of an industrious collection of facts; and though, to be sure, these have been satisfactorily controverted by the specialists, yet like all adventurous notions, however extravagant they may be, it has produced a certain effect, and finds its defenders. It has become a fashion to discuss Darwin; but this will not last long—though the word Darwinism has been invented—and then, to be sure, the so-called theory will itself cease to be taken seriously. It is a pity that people get so hot fighting over this eccentric Englishman; his theory thus acquires an importance to which it has no claim. It is, of course, the clergy who especially set themselves in array against the imputation, which, to be sure, is a degrading one, that man, created in the image of God, should now all of a sudden be thought to be derived from the race of brutes—an assumption which, to be sure, is very shocking from a religious point of view. Still it is notorious that ecclesiastical condemnation of a theory which introduces itself in the garb of science is not capable of stopping its dissemination. Such a theory does not become harmless till it has been reduced ad absurdum by the representatives of science, and that in respect of Darwinism, to be sure——”

“But what nonsense!” broke in my father, fearful, as it seemed, that another long string of “to be sures” might weary the rest of his guests, “what nonsense! From apes to men! Surely what is called the ordinary healthy common-sense is enough to refute all such mad notions—scientific refutation is hardly wanted.”

“Well, I can scarcely regard these refutations as so perfectly and demonstrably certain,” said the doctor. “They have, it is true, awakened reasonable doubts of it; but, still, the theory has much probability in its favour, and it will take some little time to bring men of learning to unanimity about it.”

“I think these gentry will never be unanimous,” said the general on my left, who spoke with a harsh accent, and generally used the Viennese dialect; “why, they live by disputing. I have also heard something of this ape business. But it was too stupid, to my mind, to suit me. Why, if one bothered oneself about all the chatter that the star-gazers and grass-collectors and frog-dissectors use to make us believe that X is Y, one should lose one’s ears and eyes. Besides, a little while ago, in an illustrated paper, I saw the visage of this Darwin, and that is itself so apish that I can well believe his grandfather was a chimpanzee.”

This joke, which pleased the speaker mightily, was followed by a burst of laughter, in which my father joined with the affability of a host.

“Ridicule is, to be sure, a weapon,” said the Minister seriously, “but it does not prove anything. It is possible, however, to meet Darwinism—I may use this new term—and conquer it, with serious arguments resting on a scientific basis. If one can oppose to an author of no authority such names as Linnæus, Cuvier, Agassiz, Quatrefages, his system must fall in pieces. On the other hand, to be sure, it cannot be denied that between men and apes there is a great similarity of structure and that——”

“In spite of this similarity, however, the cleft is miles wide,” broke in the quieter general. “Can you imagine an ape capable of inventing the telegraph? Speech alone raises men so far above beasts——”

“I beg your excellency’s pardon,” said Dr. Bresser, “speech and artistic inventions were not originally congenital in mankind. Even to-day a savage could not construct any sort of telegraphic apparatus. All this is the fruit of slow improvement and development.”

“Yes, yes, my dear doctor,” replied the general. “I know ‘development’ is the cant word of the new theory. Still you cannot develop a camel out of a kangaroo, and why does not one at this time see an ape turning into a man?”

I turned to Baron Tilling.

“And what say you? have you heard of Darwin, and do you reckon yourself among his followers or opponents?”

“I have heard a good deal about the matter, countess, but I have formed no judgment on it; for as to the work under discussion, The Origin of Species, I have not read it.”

“I must confess,” said the doctor, “that I have not either.”

“Read it? Well, to be sure, I have not either,” said the Minister.

“Nor I—nor I—nor I,” came from the rest.

“But,” the Minister proceeded, “the subject has been so much spoken of, the cant words of the system ‘fight for existence,’ ‘natural selection,’ ‘evolution,’ etc., are in everybody’s mouth, so that one can form a clear conception of the whole matter and select a side decidedly with its supporters or opponents, to which first class, to be sure, belong only some Hotspurs who love violent changes and are always grasping after effect, while the cool, strictly critical people, who demand proof positive, cannot possibly choose any other than the position of opponents—shared by so many specialists of consideration—a position which, to be sure——”

“That can hardly be positively asserted,” said Tilling, reviewing the whole matter, “unless one knows the position of its supporters. In order to know what the strength of the opposing arguments is, which, as soon as a new idea comes up, are heard shouting in chorus all round it, one must oneself have penetrated into the idea. It is generally the worst and weakest reasons which are repeated by the masses with such unanimity; and on such grounds I do not choose to pass a judgment. When the theory of Copernicus came up, only those who had gone through the labour of following the calculations of Copernicus could see that they were correct: the others, who guided their judgment by the anathemas which were thundered against the new system from Rome——”

“In our century,” interrupted the Minister, “as I observed before, scientific hypotheses, if incorrect, are no longer rejected on the grounds of orthodoxy but of science.”

“Not only if incorrect,” answered Tilling, “but even when they are going afterwards to be established, new hypotheses are always at first controverted by the old fogeys of science. This set does not like even in our day to be shaken in their long-accustomed views and dogmas—just as at that time it was not only the fathers of the Church but the astronomers also who were zealous in attacking Copernicus.”

“Do you mean by this,” broke in the rough-speaking general, “that this ape-notion of our eccentric Englishman is as correct as that the earth goes round the sun?”

“I will make no assertion at all about it, because, as I said, I do not know the book. But I will make a point of reading it. Perhaps (but only perhaps, for my knowledge of such matters is only slight) I shall then be able to form a judgment. Up to the present time I must confine myself to supporting my opinion on the fact that this theory meets with widespread and passionate opposition—a fact, ‘to be sure,’ which, to my mind, speaks rather for than against its truth.”

“You brave, straightforward, clear spirit,” said I to myself, apostrophising the speaker.

About eight o’clock the guests in general broke up. My father wanted to detain them all longer, and I also murmured mechanically a few hospitable phrases, e.g., “At least you will stay for a cup of tea”—but in vain. Each produced some excuse: one had an engagement at the casino; another at a party; one of the ladies had her box at the opera and wanted to see the fourth act of the “Huguenots”; another expected some friends at her house; in short, we were obliged to let them go, and not so unwillingly as we pretended. Tilling and Dr. Bresser, who had risen at the same time as the others, were the last to take their leave.

“And what have you two so important to do?” asked my father.

“I myself, nothing,” answered Tilling smiling; “but as the other guests are going, it would be indiscreet——”

“That is my case too,” said the doctor.

“Well, then, I will not let either of you go.”

A few minutes later my father and the doctor had seated themselves at a card table, and were deep in a game of piquet, while Baron Tilling kept close to the fire by my side. “A sleepy business,” this dinner? “No, truly no evening could have passed in a more pleasant and more awakening manner,” was the thought that passed through my mind. Then I said aloud:—

“Really, I have to scold you, Baron Tilling. Why, after your first visit, have you forgotten the way to my house?”

“You did not ask me to come again.”

“But I told you that on Saturdays——”

“Oh, yes; between two and four. But, frankly, you must not expect that from me, countess. Honestly, I know of nothing more horrible than these official reception days. To enter a drawing-room full of strangers, bow to the hostess, take your seat on the outer edge of a semicircle, listen to remarks about the weather—and if one manages to sit next to an acquaintance, venture on a remark of one’s own; to be distinguished by the lady of the house, in spite of every difficulty, with a question which you answer in all possible haste, in the hope that it may originate a conversation with her whom you came to see; but in vain. At that moment comes in another guest, who has to be received, and who then takes the nearest empty place in the semicircle, and, under the impression that the subject has not yet been touched, propounds a new observation about the weather; and then, ten minutes after, perhaps a new reinforcement of visitors comes—say a mamma with four marriageable daughters, for whom there are not chairs enough—and so you have to get up along with some others, take leave of the lady of the house, and go. No, countess, that sort of thing passes my talents for company, which are only weak at the best.”

“You seem, as a general rule, to keep yourself apart from society. One sees you nowhere. Are you a misanthrope? But, no; I withdraw the question. From a good deal you have said I drew the conclusion that you love all men.”

“I love humanity; but as to all men, no. There are too many among them worthless, bornés, self-seeking, cold-blooded, cruel. Those I cannot love, though I may pity them, because their education and circumstances have not allowed them to be worthy of love.”

“Circumstances and education? But character depends chiefly on one’s inborn disposition. Do you not think so?”

“What you call ‘inborn disposition’ is, however, nothing more than circumstances—ancestral circumstances.”

“Then, are you of the opinion that a bad man is not blamable for his badness, and, therefore, not to be abominated?”

“The consequent is not determined by the antecedent; he may be not blamable and still to be abominated. You also are not responsible for your beauty, still you are to be admired——”

“Baron Tilling! we began to talk about serious matters like two reasonable persons. Do I deserve then all of a sudden to be treated like a compliment-hunting society lady?”

“I beg your pardon, I did not so intend it. I only used the nearest argument I could find.”

A short pause followed. Tilling’s look rested with an admiring, almost tender, expression on my eyes, and I did not drop them. I am quite aware that I ought to have looked away; but I did not. I felt my cheeks glow, and knew that, if he had thought me pretty before, I must at that moment be looking still more pretty—it was a pleasant, “mischievous,” confusing sensation, and lasted half-a-minute. It could not continue longer. I put my fan before my face and changed my position; then in an indifferent tone I said:—

“You gave Minister ‘To-be-sure’ a capital answer just now.”

Tilling shook his head as if he were rousing himself out of a dream.

“I? just now? I don’t recollect. On the contrary, I fancy that I gave offence by my remark about Springauf—or Hupsauf was it?—or whatever the name of the brave sharpshooter was.”

“Hupfauf.”

“You were the only one who liked what I said. Their excellencies, on the other hand, I offended, of course, by an expression so unbecoming to an imperial and royal lieutenant-colonel as ‘hard heart,’ applied to one who had given the enemy so grand a sample of his shooting. Blasphemy! Soldiers, as is well known, are the more agreeable company the more coolly they deal out death, while there is no more sentimental character to move the feelings in the melodramatic repertory than the warrior grey in battle, but soft of heart—a wooden-legged veteran who could not hurt a fly.”

“Why did you become a soldier?”

“You put the question in a way which shows you have looked into my heart. It was not I, nor Frederick Tilling, thirty-nine years old, who had seen three campaigns, who chose the profession, but little Freddy, ten or twelve years old, who had grown up among wooden war-horses and regiments of leaden soldiers, and to whom his father, the decorated general, and his uncle, the lady-killing lieutenant, would put the question cheeringly: ‘Now, my boy, what are you going to be?’ What else except a real soldier, with a real sabre, and a live horse?”

“I had a box of leaden soldiers given me to-day for my son Rudolf, but I am not going to give them to him. But why, now that Freddy has grown into Frederick, why have you not quitted a condition which has become hateful to you?”

“Hateful? That is saying too much. I hate the position of affairs which lays on us men such cruel duties as making war; but as this position does exist, and exists inevitably, why, I cannot hate the people who take on themselves the duties arising from it, and fulfil them conscientiously with the expenditure of their best powers. Suppose I left the service of the army, would there be any the less warfare? Truly not. It would only be that some one else would hazard his life in my place, and I can do that myself.”

“Could not you render better service to your fellow-men in another condition?”

“I do not know. I have learned nothing thoroughly except soldiering. A man can always do something good and useful in his surroundings. I have plenty of opportunity of lightening the lot of those around me. And as far as concerns myself—for I may regard myself also as a fellow-man—I enjoy the respect which the world pays to my profession. I have passed a tolerably distinguished career, am beloved by my comrades, and am pleased at what I have attained. I have no estate, and, as a private person, I should not have the means to assist any one else, nor even myself. So on what grounds should I abandon my way of life?”

“Because killing people is repulsive to you.”

“If it is a question of defending one’s life against another man attacking it, one’s personal responsibility for causing death ceases. War is often, and justly, styled murder on a large scale; still, no individual feels himself to be a murderer. However, that fighting is repulsive to me, that the sad entry on to a field of battle causes me pain and disgust, that is true enough. I suffer from it, suffer intensely, but so must many a seaman suffer during a storm from sea-sickness; still, if he is anything of a brave man, he holds out on deck, and always, if needs must, ventures to sea again.”

“Yes, if needs must. But must there then be war?”

“That is a different question. But individuals must do their share in it, and that gives them, if not pleasure, at least strength to do their duty.”

And so we went on speaking for a time in a low tone, so as not to disturb the piquet-players, and perhaps, too, in order not to be overheard by them, for the views we exchanged, as Tilling sketched a few more episodes of war and the horror he had experienced from them, and I communicated to him the observations made by Buckle about the diminution of the war-spirit with the advance of civilisation—such conversation would have decidedly not suited the ears of General Althaus. I felt that it was a sign of great confidence on Tilling’s part to display his inward feeling to me on this matter so unreservedly, and assuredly a stream of sympathy passed from one soul to another between us.

“Why, how deep you are plunged in your eager whispers there,” cried my father to us once while the cards were being shuffled; “what are you two plotting about?”

“I am telling the countess campaigning tales.”

“Oh, well, she is accustomed to that from her childhood. I tell her some too occasionally. Six cards, doctor, and a quart-major.”

We resumed our whispered talk.

Suddenly, as Tilling spoke—and he had again fastened his gaze on mine, and such intimate sympathy spoke in his voice—I thought of the princess.

It gave me a stab, and I turned my head away. Tilling stopped in the middle of a sentence.

“Why do you change countenance so, countess?” he asked in alarm. “Have I said anything to displease you?”

“Oh no! it was only a painful thought: pray go on.”

“I have forgotten what I was talking about. I would rather you would confide your painful thought to me. I have been the whole time pouring my heart out to you so openly. Now repay it to me.”

“It is quite impossible for me to confide to you what I was thinking about just now.”

“Impossible! May I guess? Was it about yourself?”

“No.”

“Me?”

I nodded.

“Something painful about me, and something you cannot tell me. Is it——?”

“Do not trouble your head about it: I refuse any more information.” Then I rose and looked at the clock. “Why, it is half-past nine! I am going to say good-bye to you now, papa.”

My father looked up from his cards.

“What! are you too going to a party?”

“No; I am going home. I went to bed very late yesterday.”

“And so you are sleepy? Tilling, that is not very complimentary to you!”

“No, no,” I protested laughingly, “it is no fault of the baron; we have been talking very livelily.”

I took leave of my father and the doctor—Tilling begged to be permitted to see me into my carriage. It was he who put my cloak on in the ante-room and gave me his arm down the steps. As we went down he stopped for a moment and asked me seriously:—

“Once more, countess, have I anyhow offended you?”

“No; on my honour.”

“Then I am pacified.”

When he put me into the carriage he pressed my hand hard and put it to his lips.

“When may I wait on you?”

“On Saturday I am——”

“At home—I understand—not at all then.”

He bowed and stepped back.

I wanted to call after him, but the servant shut the carriage door.

I threw myself back in the corner, and should have liked to cry—tears of spite like a naughty child. I was in a rage with myself; how could I ever have been so cold, so impolite, so rough almost to a man with whom I feel such warm sympathy? It was the fault of the princess. How I hated her! What was this? Jealousy? Then the explanation of what was moving me burst on me—I was in love with Tilling. “In love, love, love!” rattled out the wheels on the pavement. “You are in love with him!” was what the street lamps as they flew past darted on to me. “You love him!” was breathed to me out of my glove, which I pressed to my lips on the place that he had kissed.

Next day I wrote the following lines in the red book: “What the carriage wheels and the street lamps were saying to me yesterday is not true—or at least much exaggerated. A sympathetic attraction to a noble and clever man. True; but passion? Ha! I am not going to throw my heart away on any man who belongs to another woman. He also feels sympathy for me. We understand each other in many things. Perhaps he is the only man who shares my views about war; but he is not on that account anywhere near falling in love with me, and I ought to be just as far from falling in love with him. That I did not ask him to visit me on another day than the regular reception day, which he hates so, might indeed have looked a little unkind, after the intimate conversation we had been having. But perhaps it is better so. After the interval or a week or two, after yesterday’s impressions, which have shaken me so, I shall be able to meet Tilling again quite calmly, relying on the idea that he is in love with another lady, and shall be able to refresh myself with his friendly and suggestive conversation. For it is indeed a pleasure to converse with him; it is so different, so totally different, from all others. I am truly glad that I am able to-day to sum up this so calmly. Yesterday I might for an instant have even apprehended that my peace was gone, that I might become the prey of torturing jealousy. This fear has to-day disappeared.”

The same day I paid a visit to my friend Lori Griesbach—the same at whose house I heard of the death of my poor Arno. She was the one among the young ladies of my acquaintance with whom I associated most, and most intimately. Not that we agreed in many of our views, or that we understood each other completely—though this is no doubt the foundation of a real friendship—but we had been playmates as children, we had shared the same position as young married women, had then seen each other almost daily; and so a certain habitual familiarity had sprung up between us, which, in spite of so much difference in the principles of our nature, made our conversation together quite pleasant and comfortable. The province on which we met each other was limited and narrow, but in it we were perfectly happy together. Whole pages of my spiritual life were quite closed to her. Of the views and judgments which I had reached in my quiet hours of study I had never told her a word, nor did I feel any desire to do so. How rarely can one give oneself entirely to any one! I have often experienced this in life, that I could lay open to one person only one side, to another only another, of my spiritual personality; that, as often as I conversed with one or the other, a certain part, so to say, of the register was opened, while all the rest of the notes remained mute.

Between Lori and me there were plenty of circumstances which gave us material for hours of chat—our childish recollections, our children, the events and incidents in the circle of our acquaintance, dress, English novels, and the like.

Lori’s boy Xavier was of the same age as my son Rudolf and his favourite playmate, and Lori’s little daughter Beatrix, who was then ten months old, was playfully destined by us to become one day Countess Rudolf Dotzky.

“So here you are again at last,” was Lori’s greeting to me. “Lately you have become quite a hermit! Even my future son-in-law I have not had the honour of seeing for ever so long! Beatrix will be quite offended. Now tell us, dear, what are you about? and how are Rosa and Lilly? Besides, I have some interesting news for Lilly, which my husband brought me yesterday from the café. There is some one deeply in love with her, one that I thought was making up to you; but I will tell you all about it later. What a lovely gown that is that you have on! It is from Francine’s I know. I could tell that at once. She has such a peculiar style of her own. And your bonnet is from Gindreau? It suits you completely. He makes dresses too, now, not bonnets only, and with immense taste too. Yesterday evening at the Dietrichsteins (why were you not there?) Nini Chotek was there with an Gindreau dress, and looked almost pretty.”

So she went on for some time, and I answered in the same style. After I had dexterously led the talk to the gossip which was current in society, I put this question in the most unconcerned tone possible:—

“Have you heard that Princess —— has a liaison with a certain Baron Tilling?”

“I have heard something of it, but, anyhow, that is de l’histoire ancienne. To-day it is a perfectly well-known thing that the princess is mad after a low comedian. What, have you any interest in this Baron Tilling? Why, you are blushing! Ah! it is no good shaking your head! Better confess! But for this, it would be an unheard-of thing that you should remain so long cold and unfeeling. It would be a true satisfaction for me to know you were in love at last. It is true that Tilling would be no match for you; for you have more brilliant suitors—and he must have absolutely nothing. To be sure, you are rich enough yourself, but then, besides, he is too old for you. How old would poor Arno have been now? Oh! that moment, it was too sad, when you read my brother’s letter out to me. I shall never forget it. Ah! war is certainly a sad business, for some. For others it is an excellent business. My husband wishes for nothing more ardently than that something should occur, he so longs to distinguish himself. I can understand it. If I were a soldier I should also wish, myself, to do some great exploit; or, at least, to get on in my profession.”

“Or to be crippled or shot dead?”

“I should never think of that. One should not think of that, and besides it only happens to those whose destiny it is. Your destiny, my love, was to be a young widow.”

“And the war with Italy had to break out to bring it about?”

“And suppose it is my destiny to be the wife of a relatively young general.”

“Well then, must there be a general war in order that Griesbach may get quick promotion? You prescribe a very simple course for the government of the world. But what were you going to tell me in reference to Lilly?”

“That your cousin, Conrad, raves about her. I expect he will very soon make an offer for her.”

“I doubt that. Conrad Althaus is too flighty a madcap to think of marrying.”

“Oh! they are all madcaps and flighty—still they do get married when they get foolishly fond of a girl. Do you think Lilly likes him?”

“I have not observed at all.”

“It would be a very good match. On the death of his uncle Drontheim he inherits the Selavetz estate. Talking of Drontheim, do you know that Ferdy Drontheim—the same that broke off his connection with Grilli the danseuse—is now to marry a rich banker’s daughter? However, no one will receive her. Are you going to the English embassy to-night? What, again no? Well, really you are right. In these embassy routs one feels after all not quite at home, there are such a lot of funny people there, of whom one never can be certain whether they are comme il faut. Every English tourist who can get an introduction to the ambassador is invited—if he is only a commercial man turned landowner, or even a mere tradesman. I like Englishmen only in the Tauchnitz editions. Have you yet read Jane Eyre? Is it not really wonderfully pretty? As soon as Beatrix begins to talk I shall hire an English nurse. About Xavier, I am not at all pleased with his French maid. A little while ago I met her in the street, as she was walking out with the boy, and a young man, who looked like a shopman, was walking with her, and seemed in intimate conversation. All at once I stood before them—you should have seen their confusion! One has always some trouble with one’s people. There is my own maid, who has given me warning, because she is going to get married just now when I had got used to her! There is nothing more intolerable than new faces among one’s servants. What! do you want to go?”

“Yes, my love. I must pay some calls now that cannot be put off. Adieu.”

And I would not be moved to stay “only for five minutes more,” though the calls that could not be put off were a fiction. At another time I might no doubt have entertained myself for hours in hearing such meaningless tittle-tattle and tattling back again, but to-day it displeased me. One longing had seized me—for a talk like yesterday evening! Ah, Tilling! Frederick Tilling! The carriage wheels were right then in their refrain! A change had happened in me, I had been raised into another world of feeling; these petty matters in which my friend was so deeply interested—dresses, nursemaids, stories about marriages and estates—all that was too pitiful, too insignificant, too stifling. Away from it—above it—into a different atmosphere of life! And Tilling was really free; the princess “is mad after a low comedian”. He could not surely have ever been in love with her! some transitory, yes, transitory adventure, nothing more.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Several days passed without my seeing Tilling again. Every evening I went to the theatre, and from thence to a party, expecting and hoping to meet him, but in vain.

My reception day brought me many visitors, but, of course, not him. But I did not expect him. It was not like him after his decisive “That you really must not expect from me, countess,” and his saying at the carriage door in so hurt a manner “I understand—then not at all,” to present himself after all at my house on a day of the kind. I had offended him that evening—that was certain; and he avoided meeting me again—that was clear. Only, what could I do? I was all on fire to see him again, to make amends for my rudeness on the former occasion, and get another hour of a talk such as I had had at my father’s—an hour’s talk the delight of which would now be increased to me an hundredfold by the consciousness, which had now become plain to me, of my love.

In default of Tilling, the following Saturday brought me at least Tilling’s cousin, the lady at whose ball I had made his acquaintance. On her entrance my heart began to beat. Now I could at least learn something about the man who gave me so much to think about. Still I could not bring myself to put a direct question to this effect. I felt that I was not in a condition to speak out his very name without blushing so as to betray myself; and therefore I talked to my visitor about a hundred different things—even the weather amongst the rest—but avoided that very topic which lay at my heart.

“Oh, Martha,” said she, without any preparation, “I have a message to give you. My cousin Frederick begs to be remembered to you. He went away the day before yesterday.”

I felt the blood desert my cheeks. “Went away? Where? Is his regiment moved?”

“No; but he has taken a short leave of absence, to hurry off to Berlin, where his mother is on her deathbed. Poor fellow, I am sorry for him, for I know how he adores his mother.”

Two days afterwards I received a letter in a hand I did not know, with the postmark of Berlin. Even before I saw the signature, I knew that the letter was Tilling’s. It ran thus:—

“8 Friedrich St., Mar. 30, 1863, 1 A.M.

“Dear Countess,—I must tell my grief to some one, but why to you? Have I any right to do so? No; but I have an irresistible impulse. You will feel with me. I know you will.

“If you had known her who is dying you would have loved her. That soft heart, that clear intellect, that joyous temper—all her dignity and worth—all is now destined for the grave. No hope! I have spent the whole day at her bedside, and am going to spend the night also up here—her last night. She has suffered much, poor thing. Now she is quiet. Her powers are failing. Her pulse is already almost stopped. Besides me there are watching in her room her sister and a physician.

“Ah! this terrible separation! Death! One knows, it is true, that it must happen to every one; and yet one can never rightly take in that it may reach those whom we love also. What this mother of mine was to me I cannot tell you. She knows that she is dying. When I arrived this morning she received me with an exclamation of joy. ‘So that is you! I see you once more, my Fritz. I did so fear you would come too late.’ ‘You will get well again, mother,’ I cried. ‘No! No! There is nothing to say about that, my dear boy. Do not profane our last time together with the usual sick-bed consolations. Let us bid each other good-bye.’

“I fell sobbing on my knees at the bedside.

“ ‘You are crying, Fritz. Look! I am not going to say to you the usual “Do not weep”. I am glad that your parting from your best and oldest friend gives you pain. That assures me that I shall long live in your remembrance. Remember that you have given me much joy. Except the anxiety which the illnesses of your childhood caused, and the torture when you were on campaign, you have given me none but happy feelings, and have helped me to bear every sadness which my lot has laid on me. I bless you for it, my child.’ And now another attack of her pain came on. It was heartrending to see how she cried and groaned, how her features were distorted. Yes! Death is a fearful, a cruel enemy; and the sight of this agony called back to my recollection all the agonies which I had witnessed on battlefields and in the hospitals. When I think that we men sometimes hound each other on to death gratuitously and cheerfully, that we expect youth in the fulness of its strength to offer itself willingly to this enemy, against whom even weary and broken old age yet fights desperately—it is revolting!

“This night is fearfully long. If the poor sufferer could only sleep! but she lies there with her eyes open. I pass constantly the space of half-an-hour motionless by her bedside; and then I slip off to this sheet of paper, and write a few words, and then back again to her. In this way it has come to four o’clock. I have just heard the four strokes pealing from all the clock towers—it strikes one as so cold, so unfeeling, that time is striding on steadily and unerringly through all eternity, while at this very moment for one warmly-loved being time must stop—for all eternity. But by how much the colder, the more unfeeling, the universe seems to our pain, by so much the more longingly do we fly back to another human heart which we believe is beating in unison with our feelings. And therefore it is that this white sheet of paper, which the physician left lying on the table when he wrote his prescription, attracted me, and therefore it is that I send you this letter.

“Seven o’clock. It is over.

“ ‘Farewell, my dear boy.’ Those were her last words. Then she closed her eyes and slept. Sleep soundly, my dear mother. In tears I kiss your dear hands.

“Yours in deadly sorrow,

“Friedrich Tilling.”

I still keep this letter. How frayed and discoloured the sheet looks now! It is not only the twenty-five years that have elapsed which have caused this decay, but also the tears and kisses with which I covered the beloved writing: “In deadly sorrow”. Yes, but “shouting for joy” was what I felt also when I read it. Though there was no word of love in it, yet no letter could give plainer proof that the writer loved the recipient, and no one else. That at such a moment, at the deathbed of his mother, he longed to pour out his grief into the heart, not of the princess, but into mine, must surely stifle every jealous doubt.

I sent on the same day a funeral wreath of a hundred large white camelias, with a single half-blown red rose in it. Would he understand that the pale scentless flowers belonged to the departed as a symbol of mourning, and the little rose—to himself?

CHAPTER V.

Conrad Althaus’s suit to Lilly.—The Easter foot-washing.—I meet Tilling again and receive him at my own house.—A disappointing interview.—Tilling announces his departure from Vienna.—A conversation about war.—I invite him to a last interview, which is interrupted by my father.—A ride in the Prater.—We understand each other at last.

THREE weeks had passed.

Conrad Althaus had proposed for my sister Lilly, and met with a refusal. But he did not take the matter much to heart, and remained a zealous visitor at our house, and hovered about us in the drawing-rooms of our society. I expressed to him once my admiration for his unshaken fidelity to his slavery.

“I am very glad,” I said, “that you are not angry; but it is a proof to me that your feeling for Lilly was not so ardent after all as you pretend, for rejected love is wont to be angry and resentful.”

“You are mistaken, my respected Mrs. Cousin; I love Lilly to distraction. At first I believed that my heart belonged to you, but you held yourself so aloof and were so cold that I stifled my budding passion in good time; and then for a time I was interested in Rosa; but at last I fixed my affection on Lilly, and to this affection I will now remain true to the end of my life.”

“Oh, that is very like you!”

“Lilly or no one!”

“But as she will not have you, my poor Conrad?”

“Do you think I am the first who has been met by a refusal, and has gone back to the same lady a second and a third time, and has been accepted at the fourth offer, just to stop his importunity? Lilly has not fallen in love with me, which is a matter not easily to be accounted for, but is still a fact. That under these circumstances she should have resisted the temptation, which for so many maidens is irresistible, to become a wife, and would not accept an offer which in a worldly point of view would be a desirable one, that seems to me most good in her, and I am more in love with her than ever. Gradually my devotion will touch her and awaken a return of love, and then, dearest Martha, you will become my sister-in-law. I hope you will not go against me?”

“I? Oh no! On the contrary, your system of perseverance pleases me. With time and the exhibition of tenderness one can always succeed in ‘wooing and winning,’ as the English call it. But as to minnen und gewinnen,[5] our young gentlemen seem hardly disposed to take the necessary trouble. They want not to strive after and gain their happiness, but to pluck it without any trouble, like some wayside flower.”

In a fortnight Tilling was back in Vienna, as I heard, and yet he did not come to my house. I could not, of course, expect to meet him in people’s drawing-rooms, since his bereavement kept him away from all society. Still I had hoped that he would have come, or at least written to me; but one day after another passed and did not bring the expected visit or letter.

“I cannot think, Martha, what has come to you,” said Aunt Mary to me one morning. “For some time you have been so out of humour, so distraite, so—I don’t know what to call it. You are very wrong not to lend an ear to any of your suitors. This solitary existence, as I have said from the very first, is not good for you. The consequence of it is these low spirits which distinguish you just now. Have you quite forgotten your Easter devotions? They would help to do you good.”

“I think that both things—I mean both marrying and going to confession—should be done for love of the thing itself, not as a remedy for low spirits. None of my suitors please me; and as for confession——”

“Well, it is high time for that; to-morrow is Maundy Thursday. Have you tickets for the foot-washing?”

“Yes, papa has sent me some, but I really do not know whether I shall go.”

“Oh! but you must. There is nothing more beautiful and more elevating than this ceremony. The triumph of Christian humility. The emperor and empress prostrating themselves to the earth to wash the feet of poor men and women in their service. Does not that symbolise well how small and insignificant is earthly majesty before the heavenly?”

“In order to represent humility symbolically by kneeling down one must feel oneself to be really a very exalted personage. It means—‘What God’s Son was in comparison with the apostles, I, the emperor, am in comparison with these poor folks’. This fundamental motive of the ceremony does not strike me as peculiarly humble.”

“What curious notions you have, Martha. In these three years that you have passed in solitude in the country, and in the perusal of wicked books, your ideas have become so perverted.”

“Wicked books?”

“Yes, wicked. I maintain that the word is correct. The other day when in my innocence I spoke to the archbishop about a book I had seen on your table, and which from its title I took for a religious work, The Life of Jesus, by one Strauss, why, he smote his hands together above his head, and cried out: ‘Merciful Heaven, how came you by such a profligate work?’ I turned as red as fire, and assured him that I had not read the book myself, but had only seen it at a relation’s. ‘Then demand of your relation, as she values her salvation, to throw this book into the fire.’ And that I do now Martha. Will you burn the book?”

“If we were two or three centuries earlier we might have watched, not the book, but the author, going to the flames. That would have been more effectual—more effectual for the time, though not for long.”

“You give me no answer. Will you burn this book?”

“No.”

“What! nothing but no?”

“Why should we have any long talk about it? We do not yet understand each other in these matters, dear auntie. Let me rather tell you what little Rudolf yesterday——”

And thus the conversation was happily led off to another and a fruitful subject, in which no difference of opinion came in between us; for we were both agreed on this matter, that Rudolf Dotzky was the dearest, the most original, and, for his age, the most advanced child in the world.

Next day I resolved nevertheless to attend the foot-washing. A little after ten, in black clothes, as beseems Passion week, my sister Rosa and I presented ourselves in the great hall of state in the Burg. On a scaffold there places were reserved for members of the aristocracy and of the diplomatic corps. Thus one was again in one’s own set, and greetings were exchanged left and right. The gallery too was closely packed, also with persons selected, and who had got cards of admission, but still a little “mixed,” not belonging only to the crème, as we were on our scaffold. In short, the old caste separations and privileges, to correspond with this fête of symbolical humility. I do not know whether the others were in a mood of religious devotion, but I awaited what was coming with just the same feeling with which one looks forward in the theatre to a promised “spectacle”. Just as there, after exchanging salutations from box to box, one looks with excitement for the rise of the curtain, so I was looking in the direction in which the chorus and soloists in the show before me were to appear. The whole scene was already set, especially the long table at which the twelve old men and twelve old women had to seat themselves.

Still I was glad I had come, for I felt excited, and this is always a pleasant feeling, and one which delivers one from troublous thoughts for the moment. My trouble was constantly “Why does not Tilling show himself?” Just now this fixed idea had left me. What I was expecting and wishing to see was the imperial and the humble actors in the fête before me. And exactly at that moment, when I was not thinking of him, my eyes fell on Tilling.

The mass was just over, the dignitaries of the Court had just entered the hall, followed by the general staff and the corps of officers, and I was letting my gaze wander unconcernedly over all these persons in uniform, who were not the chief actors, but only intended to fill the stage—when suddenly I recognised Tilling, who had taken his position just opposite our seat. It ran through me like an electric shock. He was not looking our way. His look showed traces of the suffering he had gone through during the last few weeks—an expression of deep sorrow rested on his features. How gladly would I have shown my sympathy with him by a silent warm pressure of the hand! I kept my gaze firmly fixed on him, hoping that by this magnetic power I might compel him to look in my way too—but in vain.

“They are coming! they are coming!” cried Rosa, nudging me. “Only look! How beautiful—what a picture!”

It was the old men and women, clothed in the old German costume, who were now introduced. The youngest of the women—so said the newspapers—was eighty-eight years old, the youngest of the men eighty-five. Wrinkled, toothless, bowed—I could not see really the point of Rosa’s “How beautiful!” What pleased me, however, was the costume. This was peculiarly and excellently suited to the whole ceremony, so penetrated with the spirit of the Middle Ages. The anachronism, in this respect, was ourselves—in our modern clothes and with our modern notions we did not harmonise with the picture.

After the twenty-four old people had taken their seats at the table, a number of gentlemen, mostly elderly, bedizened with gold-sticks and orders, came into the hall; the privy councillors and chamberlains, many countenances of our acquaintance, Minister “To-be-sure” among the rest, were there. Lastly followed the priests, who had to officiate in the solemn rite. So now the march of the supernumeraries into the hall was over, and the expectation of the public rose to the highest pitch of excitement.

My eyes, however, were not so closely fixed as those of the other spectators in that direction from which the court was to come, but kept always turning back to Tilling. The latter had at last looked my way, and recognised me. He saluted me.

Rosa’s hand was again laid on my arm.

“Martha, are you ill? You have turned pale and red all at once! Look! Now! Now!”

In fact, the chapel master—I should have said the chief master of the ceremonies—raised his staff and gave the signal of the approach of the imperial couple. This promised at any rate a sight worth seeing, for, apart from their being the highest, they were certainly one of the most beautiful couples in the land. At the same time as the emperor and empress several archdukes and archduchesses had entered, and now the ceremony was to begin. Stewards and pages brought in the dishes, full of food, and the emperor and empress placed them before the old people as they sat at table. This afforded more tableaux than ever. The utensils, the meats, and the way in which the pages carried them, reminded one of many famous pictures of banquets in the Renaissance style.

Scarcely, however, had the dishes been put on, when the table was taken away again, a labour which again, as a sign of humility, was done by the archdukes. And when the table had been carried away, the special climax-scene of the piece (what the French call le clou de la pièce)—the foot-washing—began. This was indeed only a sham washing, as the meal had been only a sham meal. Kneeling on the floor, the emperor stroked down the feet of the old men with a towel, while the assisting priest made a show of pouring water out of a can over them; and so he glided from the first to the twelfth old man, whilst the empress—whom one was accustomed to see only majestically seated on high—in the same humble attitude, in which she did not however lose anything of her accustomed grace, went through the same proceeding with the twelve old women. The accompanying music, or, if you like, the explanatory chorus, was formed by the reading of the gospel of the day.

I should have been glad for a few moments to have been able to feel what was passing in the minds of these old people while they were sitting in this strange costume stared at by a glittering crowd, and with the country’s father, the country’s mother—their majesties—at their feet. Probably, if the momentary exchange of consciousness I wished for could have been granted me, it would have been no definite feeling I should have experienced, but only a confused, dazzled half dream, a sensation at once glad and painful, confused and solemn, a complete suspension of thought in those poor heads, already so ignorant and weak with age. All that was real and comprehensible in the matter for the good old folks might have been the prospect of the red silk purses with the thirty silver pieces in them which were hung about each neck by their majesties’ own hands, and of the basket of food which was given to each on their departure home.

The whole ceremony was soon over, and the hall then began to empty at once. First the Court went out, then all the others who had taken parts withdrew, and the public out of the scaffold and gallery at the same time.

“It was beautiful! It was beautiful!” whispered Rosa with a deep breath.

I answered nothing. I had, in fact, no cause to pity the confusion and incapacity of thought of the old folks in the ceremony, for my own conception of what had been going on was just as confused, and I had only one thought in my mind—“Will some one be waiting for us outside?”

However, we did not get to the exit so quickly as I should have liked. First there was shaking hands and exchanging a few words with nearly all the spectators on the scaffold, who had left their places at the same time as ourselves. They kept standing in a great group on the stairway, and it became a regular morning party.

“Good-day, Tini!”

“Bon-jour, Martha.”

“Ah! are you there too, countess?”

“Are you engaged for Easter Sunday?”

“Good-day, your highness, don’t forget that we are expecting you to a little dance on Monday evening.”

“Were you at the sermon at the Dominicans’ yesterday?”

“No; I was at the Sacred Heart, where my daughters are in retreat.”

“The next rehearsal for our charity performance is on Tuesday, at twelve, dear baron; pray be punctual.”

“The empress looked superb again.”

“Did you notice, Lori, how the Archduke Ludwig Victor kept sidling off to the divine Fanny?”

“Madame, j’ai l’honneur de vous présenter mes hommages.”

“Ah! c’est vous, marquis, charmée!”

“I wish you good-morning, Lord Chesterfield!”

“Oh! how are you? awfully fine woman, your empress.”

“Have you yet secured a box for Adelina Patti’s performance? A wonderfully rising star.”

“So the news of Ferdy Drontheim’s engagement with the banker’s daughter is quite confirmed. It is a scandal!”

And so the chatter went on from all sides. An unimpassioned listener would hardly have concluded from these speeches that they sprang out of the impressions of a scene of humble devotion just concluded.

At last we got out of the gate, where our carriages were in waiting, and a crowd of people were collected. These folks wanted at least to see those who had been so lucky as to have seen the gentry who had been spectators of the Court; and then, on their side, they could pass themselves off as people only a little less distinguished, as having seen the spectators.

We had scarcely got out when Tilling stood before me. He made me a bow.

“I have to thank you again, Countess Dotzky, for the beautiful wreath.”

I gave him my hand, but could not speak a word.

Our carriage had come up; I was obliged to get in, and Rosa was pressing me forward. Tilling raised his hand to his cap, and was retiring. Then I made a great effort, and said, in a tone which sounded quite strange in my own ears:—

“On Sunday, between two and three, I shall be at home”.

He bowed in silence, and we got in.

“You must have taken cold, Martha,” remarked my sister as we drove away. “Your invitation sounded quite hoarse; and why did not you introduce that melancholy staff-officer to me? I have seldom seen a less cheerful visage.”

On the day appointed, and at the hour named, Tilling was announced. Before that I had made the following entry in the red book:—

“I expect that this day will be decisive of my fate. I feel such a solemnity, such an anxiety, so sweet an expectation. I must fix this frame of mind on these pages, so that, if I turn back to them again after long years, I may be able to recall quite vividly the hours which I am now looking forward to with so much emotion. Perhaps it will turn out quite differently from what I expect—perhaps exactly the same. At any rate it will be interesting to me to see how far anticipation and reality correspond. The expected guest loves me; the letter he wrote from his mother’s deathbed proves that. He is loved in return; the rosebud in the funeral wreath must have shown him that. And now we are to meet without witnesses, moved to our hearts’ core—he in need of comfort, I penetrated with the desire to console him. I expect there will not be many words pass. Tears in both our eyes, hands clasped tremblingly, and we shall have understood one another. Two loving, two happy mortals, earnest, devoted, passionate, devoutly happy; while in society the thing will be announced indifferently and drily, somewhat in this fashion: ‘Have you heard? Martha Dotzky is engaged to Tilling—a poor match!’ It is five minutes past two. He may come now any minute. There is a ring! This palpitation, this trembling: I feel that——”

This is as far as I got. The last line is scrawled in letters which are almost illegible—a sign that “this palpitation, this trembling” was not a mere figure of rhetoric.

Anticipation and reality did not correspond. During his half-hour’s call Tilling behaved very reservedly and very coldly. He begged my forgiveness for the liberty he had taken in writing to me, and hoped I would attribute this breach of etiquette to the loss of control which a man in such sorrowful moments may well experience. Then he told me something more of the last days and of the life of his mother; but of what I was looking for, not a word. And so I also became every moment more reserved and cold. When he rose to go I made no effort to detain him, and I did not ask him to come again.

When he had gone I rushed again to the red book, which was lying there open, and went on with the interrupted topic.

“I feel that all is over—that I have shamefully deceived myself, that he does not love me, and will even think now that he is as indifferent to me as I to him. I received him in an almost repellent way. I feel that he will never come again. And yet the world holds for me no second man. There is no one else so good, so noble, so intellectual—and there is no other woman, Frederick, who has loved you as I have loved you—assuredly not your princess, to whom, as it seems, you have turned back again. Son Rudolf, you must now be my consolation and my stay. From this time I will have no more to do with woman’s love—it is mother’s love alone which must now fill my heart and my life. If I can succeed in forming you into such a man as he is—if some day I may be wept by you, as he weeps for his mother—I shall have gained my end.”

It is surely a foolish habit—this diary-writing. These wishes, plans, and views, always changing, vanishing and coming anew, which form the current of our soul’s life—to strive to immortalise them by writing them down is a mistake to start with, and brings before oneself, when one peruses it in after years, the constant shame of having to recognise one’s own fickleness. Here are recorded now on the same page, and under the same date, two such different humours—first the most confident hope, and by its side the most complete despair, and the pages next it may give proof of something quite different again.

The Easter Monday was favoured by the most splendid spring weather, and the ride in the Prater, which takes place, according to custom, on that day, a kind of holiday preparatory to the great Corso of May Day, went off with especial lustre. I cannot say how much this lustre, this delight in holiday and spring which was all around me, contrasted with the sorrow which filled my spirit. And yet I would not have given up my sorrow, would not have had again the same light, and therefore also empty heart, as two months before—when I had not made Tilling’s acquaintance. For, though my love was, according to all appearance, an unhappy one, yet it was love—and this implies a raising of the intensity of life—that warm, tender feeling which expanded my heart as often as the dear image passed before my inward eye. I could not have lived without it.

I had never thought it likely that the subject of my dreams would come before my eyes here in the Prater, in the midst of this whirl of worldly pleasure. And yet when, without thinking, I happened once to let my gaze wander towards the ride, I saw far off galloping down the promenade in our direction an officer, in whom—though my short sight could not distinguish him clearly—I at once recognised Tilling. As soon as he came near, and crossed our carriage, with a salute in passing, I returned his greeting, not with a mere bow, but with warm gestures. At the same moment I was aware that I had done what was unbecoming and improper.

“Who is that you were making those signs to?” asked my sister Lilly. “Ah, I see,” she added, “there is the inevitable Conrad walking—you were waving your hand to him?”

This timely appearance of the “inevitable Conrad” came very apropos for me. I was thankful to my trusty cousin for it, and proceeded at once to give effect to my gratitude.

“Look here, Lilly,” I said, “he is, I am sure, a good man, and, no doubt, is here only on your account again. You should take pity on him—you should be good to him. Oh, if you knew how sweet it is to have any one dear to you, you would not shut your heart so. Go make him happy, the good fellow.”

Lilly stared at me in astonishment.

“But suppose he is indifferent to me, Martha?”

“Perhaps you are in love with some one else?”

She shook her head: “No, no one”.

“Oh, poor thing!”

We made two or three more turns up and down the promenade. But the one whom my eyes were searching after all about I did not see a second time. He had quitted the Prater again.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A few days later, in the afternoon, Tilling was announced. He did not, however, find me alone, for my father and Aunt Mary had come to call, and besides these Rosa and Lilly, Conrad Althaus and Minister “To-be-sure” were in my drawing-room.

I almost uttered a cry of astonishment—this visit came upon me with such a surprise and at the same time so delighted and excited me. But the delight was soon over, when Tilling, after exchanging salutations with the company, and taking a seat opposite to me, at my invitation, said in an unconcerned tone:—

“I am come pour prendre congé, countess. I am leaving Vienna in a few days.”

“For long?” “Where are you going?” “What is the reason?” “What is it about?” asked the others, all at once, and with interest, while I remained dumb.

“Perhaps for good.” “To Hungary.” “Exchanging into another regiment.” “For love of the Magyars,” explained Tilling, in answer to his different questioners.

Meanwhile I had collected myself.

“It was a sudden resolution,” I said, as calmly as I could. “What harm has our Vienna done to you that you quit it in such a violent hurry?”

“It is too lively and too gay for me. I am in a mood which makes one long to mope in solitude.”

“Oh, well!” said Conrad, “the gloomier one’s mood, the more one ought to seek amusement. An evening in the Karls theatre has a much more refreshing effect than passing all day musing alone.”

“The best thing, my dear Tilling, to give you a shake up,” said my father, “would, I am certain, be a jolly rattling war, but unluckily there is no prospect of that before us. The peace threatens to last as long as one can see.”

“Well,” I could not help remarking, “that is an extraordinary collocation of words, ‘war’ and ‘jolly,’ ‘peace’ and ‘threatening’.”

“To be sure,” assented the Minister, “the political horizon at the moment does not show any black point, still storm-clouds sometimes rise quite unexpectedly all of a sudden, and the chance can never be excluded that a difference—even unimportant in itself—may cause the outbreak of war. I say that for your comfort, colonel. As for myself, since I, in virtue of my office, have to manage the home affairs of the country, my wishes must, to be sure, be directed exclusively to the maintenance of peace as long as possible—for it is this alone which is naturally adapted to further the interests lying in my domain. Still this does not prevent me from taking note of the just desires of those who from a military point of view are, to be sure——”

“Permit me, your excellence,” interrupted Tilling, “as far as I am myself concerned, to protest against the assumption that I wish for a war, and also to protest against the underlying principle that the military point of view ought to be different from the human. We exist in order to protect the country should an enemy threaten it, just as a fire engine exists in order to put out a fire if it breaks out, but that gives the soldier no right to desire war any more than a fireman to wish for a fire. Both involve misfortune—heavy misfortune—and no one, as a man, ought to rejoice over the misfortunes of his fellow-men.”

“You good, you dear man,” I said, in silence, to the speaker.

The latter continued:—

“I am quite aware that the opportunity for personal distinction comes to the one only from conflagrations and to the other only from campaigns; but how poor of heart and narrow of mind must a man be before his selfish interests can seem to him so gigantic as to blot out the sight of the universal misery! Peace is the greatest blessing, or rather the absence of the greatest curse. It is, as you said yourself, the only condition in which the interests of the population can be furthered, and yet you would give to a large fragment of this population, the army, the right to wish for the cessation of the condition of growth and to long for that of destruction? To nourish this ‘just’ wish till it grows into a demand, and then, perhaps, obtains its fulfilment? To make war that the army may anyhow be occupied and satisfied is just as if we set fire to houses that the fire brigade may distinguish itself and earn renown.”

“Your comparison, dear colonel, is a lame one,” replied my father, giving Tilling, contrary to his habit, his military title, perhaps to remind him that his opinions were not consistent with his calling. “Conflagrations do nothing but damage, while wars may get power and greatness for the country. How else have states been formed and extended except by victorious campaigns? Personal ambition is surely not the only thing that makes soldiers delight in war. It is above all things, pride in one’s race, in one’s country, that finds its dearest nourishment there—in a word, patriotism.”

“Especially love of home?” replied Tilling. “I do not really understand why it is we soldiers in particular who make as if we had a monopoly of this feeling, which is natural to the majority of mankind. Every one loves the soil on which he grows up; every one wishes the elevation and the good of his own countrymen. But happiness and renown are to be reached by quite other means than war; pride can be excited by quite other exploits than deeds of arms. I, for instance, am much prouder of Anastatius Grün than of any of our field-marshals.”

“Well, but can anybody even compare a poet with a commander?” cried my father.

“That is my question too. The bloodless laurel is by far the more lovely.”

“But, my dear baron,” said my aunt at this point, “I have never heard a soldier speak so. What becomes, then, of the ardour of battle, of the warlike fire?”

“Dear lady, those are feelings not at all unknown to me. It was by them that I was animated when as a youngster of nineteen I took the field for the first time. But when I had seen the realities of butchery, when I had been a witness of the bestialities which are connected with it, my enthusiasm evaporated, and I went into my subsequent battles, not with pleasure, but with resignation.”

“Listen to me, Tilling. I have been present at more campaigns than you, and have also seen plenty of scenes of horror; but my zeal has not yet cooled. When in the year ’49 I followed Radetzky, though a middle-aged man, I felt all the same delight as on the first occasion.”

“Excuse me, your excellence. But you belong to an older generation—a generation in which the warlike spirit is much more lively than in ours, and in which the feeling for humanity, which is zealous for the abolition of all misery, and which is at this time extending in ever-widening circles, was still totally unknown.”

“What is the good? Misery there must always be: it can no more be abolished than war.”

“Pray observe, Count Althaus, that in these words you are defining the only point of view (one now much shaken) from which the past used to regard all social evils—i.e., the point of view of resignation—as one looks at what is inevitable, what is a natural necessity. But if ever, at the sight of a great evil, the doubtful question has forced itself on one’s heart, ‘Must this be so?’ then the heart can no longer remain cold; and, besides pity, a kind of repentance springs up. Not a personal repentance indeed, but—how shall I express it?—a protest from the conscience of the age.”

My father shrugged his shoulders. “That is above me,” said he. “I can only assure you that it is not only we old grandfathers who think with pride and joy on our old campaigns, but also that most of the young men and boys, if asked whether they would like to go out to a war, would answer at once: ‘Yes, with pleasure, all possible pleasure’.”

“The boys, surely. They have still in their hearts the enthusiasm which is implanted at school. And of the others, many answer, as you say, ‘With pleasure’ because that answer is looked on, according to the popular conception, as manly and courageous; and the honest ‘Not willingly’ might easily be interpreted as a proof of cowardice.”

“Oh!” said Lilly, with a little shudder, “I should be a coward too. Oh, how horrible it must be with bullets flying on all sides, and death threatening every instant!”

“That is a sentiment which is natural in your mouth as a young girl,” replied Tilling. “But we men have to repress the instinct of self-preservation. Soldiers have also to repress the compassion, the sympathy for the gigantic trouble which invades both friend and foe; for, next to cowardice, what is most disgraceful to us is all sentimentality, all that is emotional.”

“Only in war, my dear Tilling,” said my father, “only in war. In private life, thank God, we too have soft hearts.”

“Oh yes! I know it. It is a kind of magic. Immediately on the declaration of war one says all at once of any horror: ‘Oh! that goes for nothing’. Children sometimes make the same agreement in their games. ‘If I do this or that it goes for nothing,’ you may hear them say. And in the game of war the same conventions, though unspoken, apply. Manslaughter is no longer to count as manslaughter; robbery counts no longer as robbery; theft is not thieving but ‘requisition’; villages burnt represent, not conflagrations, but ‘positions taken’. To all the precepts of the statute book, of the catechism, of the moral law, as long as the game lasts, the same applies—‘It goes for nothing’. But if ever occasionally the gambling fervour slackens, if the convention that ‘it goes for nothing’ disappears from one’s conscience for one moment, and one comprehends the scenes around one in their reality, and conceives of this depth of misery, this wholesale crime as meaning something, then one would wish for one thing only to deliver one out of the intolerable woe of such a sight—namely, to be dead.”

“Well, really!” remarked Aunt Mary meditatively, “sentences like ‘Thou shalt not murder,’ ‘Thou shalt not steal,’ ‘Love thy neighbour as thyself,’ ‘Forgive thine enemies’——”

“Go for nothing,” repeated Tilling; “and those, whose calling it is to teach these sentences, are the first to bless our arms and call down Heaven’s blessing on our murderous work.”

“And rightly so,” said my father. “The God of the Bible was of old time the God of battles, the Lord of armies. He it is who commands us to draw the sword. He it is——”

“Men always,” interrupted Tilling, “decree that what they themselves want to see done is His will; and they attribute to Him the enactment of eternal laws of love, which, whenever His children begin the great game of hatred, He suspends by His divine ‘Goes for nothing’. Just as rough, just as inconsistent, just as childish as man is the God whom man has set before us. And now, countess,” he added, getting up, “forgive me for having inflicted such a tedious discussion on you, and allow me to take leave.”

Stormy feelings were thrilling through me. All that he had just said had rendered the beloved man yet dearer to me. And must I now part from him, perhaps never to see him again? To exchange thus a cold farewell with him before other people and let all end so? It was not possible. I should have been obliged, if the door had closed on him, to burst out in sobs. That must not be: I rose up.

“One moment, Baron Tilling,” I said; “I must at any rate show you that photograph I spoke to you about a little while ago.”

He looked at me in amazement, for no talk about a photograph had ever passed between us. However he followed me to the other corner of the drawing-room, where some albums were lying on a table, and where we were out of hearing of the others.

I opened an album, and Tilling stooped over it. Meanwhile I spoke to him in a low voice and all in a tremble.

“I cannot let you go in this way. I will, I must speak to you.”

“As you will, countess; I am listening.”

“No, not now; you must come again—to-morrow, at this hour.”

He seemed to hesitate.

“I command it. By the memory of your mother, for whom I wept with you!”

“Oh, Martha!”

My name so pronounced thrilled through me like a flash of joy.

“To-morrow then,” I repeated, and looked into his eyes, “at the same hour.”

We had settled it. I returned back to the others, and Tilling, after he had put my hand to his lips again and saluted the others with a bow, went out of the door.

“A singular person,” remarked my father, shaking his head. “What he has been saying just now would find little favour in the higher circles.”

When the appointed hour struck next day I gave orders, as on the occasion of his first visit, to admit no one else except Tilling.

I looked forward to the coming visit with a mixture of feelings—passionate anxiety, sweet impatience, and some degree of embarrassment. I did not quite know the precise things I should say to him; on that subject I would not reflect at all. If Tilling asked me some such question as “Now then, countess, what have you to communicate to me—what do you wish with me?” I could not surely answer him with the truth: “I have to communicate to you that I love you; my wish is that you should stay here”. But he would not surely cross-examine me in so bald a way, and we should readily understand each other without such categoric questions and answers. The main point was to see him once more; and not to part, if parting must come, without having spoken one heartfelt word and exchanged one fervent farewell. But even in thinking the word “farewell” my eyes filled with tears.

At this moment the appointed visitor came.

“I obey your command, countess, and—but what is the matter with you?” said he, interrupting himself. “You have been weeping? You are weeping still?”

“I? No, it was the smoke, the chimney in the next room. Sit down, Tilling. I am glad you have come.”

“And I happy that you ordered me to come, do you recollect, in the name of my mother. On that I determined to tell you all that is in my heart. I——”

“Well, why do you stop?”

“To speak is even harder to me than I thought.”

“You showed so much confidence in me on that night of pain when you were watching by the deathbed. How comes it that you have now lost all confidence again?”

“In those solemn hours I had gone out of myself: since then my usual shyness has again seized me. I perceive that on that occasion I had overstepped my right, and I have avoided your neighbourhood that I might not overstep it again.”

“Yes, indeed, you seem to avoid me—why?”

“Why? Because—because I adore you!”

I answered nothing, and to hide my emotion I turned my head away. Tilling also was struck dumb. At last I collected myself and broke the silence.

“And why did you wish to leave Vienna?” I asked.

“For the same reason.”

“Could not you recall the determination?”

“Yes, I certainly could; the exchange is not yet settled.”

“Then remain.”

He seized my hand.

“Martha!”

It was the second time he had called me by my name. These two syllables had an intoxicating sound for me. I was compelled to answer what would sound as sweet to him—another two syllables, in which lay all that was bursting my heart—so, lifting my eyes to his, I said softly:—

“Frederick”.

At this instant the door opened and my father came in.

“Ah! you are there. The footman said you were not at home, but I replied I would wait for you. Good-day, Tilling! I am much surprised to find you here after your adieu of yesterday.”

“My departure is put off again, your excellence, and so I came——”

“To pay my daughter an arrival-call—all right. And now to tell you what brought me here, Martha. There is a family event——”

Tilling got up.

“Then I am perhaps in the way.”

“Oh, my communication is not so very pressing.”

I wished papa and his family event at the Antipodes. No interruption could have come more inopportunely. Tilling could do nothing now but go. But after what had passed between us going did not mean parting. Our thoughts, our hearts remained united.

“When shall I see you again?” he asked in a low voice as he kissed my hand on leaving.

“To-morrow, at nine o’clock, in the Prater, on horseback,” I answered rapidly in the same tone.

My father took a rather cold leave of him as he went out, and when the door was shut behind him—

“What is the meaning of this?” he asked, with a stern countenance. “You tell them to deny you—and I find you tête-à-tête with this gentleman?” I turned red, half in anger, half in embarrassment.

“What is the family event which you——”

“This is it—I wanted to get your lover out of the way, so that I might tell you what I think of it. And I regard it as a very important event for our family that you, Countess Dotzky, née Althaus, should trifle with your reputation in this way.”

“My dear father, the most secure guard of my reputation and my honour has been given me in the person of little Rudolf Dotzky—and, as to what concerns the authority of the Count Althaus, allow me to remind you with all possible respect that, in my capacity as an independent widow, I have outgrown it. I have no intention at all of taking a lover, if that is what your conjecture points at, as it seems to be—but, if I choose to decide on marrying again, I reserve myself the right of choosing quite freely according to my own heart.”

“Marry Tilling? What are you thinking about? That would be a real calamity in the family. I should almost like better—but, no—I won’t say that; but, seriously, you have no such notion, I hope.”

“What is there to say against it? It is only a little while since you came offering me a brevet-captain, a captain, and a major—Tilling has already risen to the rank of lieutenant-colonel——”

“That is the worst thing about him. If he were a civilian, he might be pardoned for such views as he expressed yesterday—but in a soldier they come near the bounds of treason.... No doubt, he would like to get his discharge, so as not to be exposed to the danger of having to make another campaign, the fatigues and sufferings of which he evidently dreads. And, as he has no fortune, it is a very good idea of his to want to make a rich marriage. But I hope to God that he will not find a woman to carry this idea out who is the daughter of an old soldier, that has fought in four wars, and would be ready to-day to turn out with all possible pleasure, and the widow of a brave young warrior, who found a glorious death on the field of honour.”

My father, who had been pacing up and down the room with great strides as he spoke thus, had become as red as fire, and his voice trembled with excitement. I also was moved to my heart’s core. The set of the phrases, the contemptuous words in which the attack on the man of my heart was clothed annoyed me. But I did not care to make any rejoinder. I quite felt that my defence could not remove the unfounded injustice here done to Tilling. That my father considered the views expressed yesterday as so completely false depended merely on a total failure to understand them. My father was utterly blind to the point of view which Tilling had reached. I could not make him see. I could not teach him to apply a different ethical standard than the military (which indeed was, in General Althaus’s eyes, the highest standard) to the thoughts which Tilling cherished as a man and as a philosopher. But while I remained so completely dumb in presence of the outbreak that I had had to listen to, that my father might well believe he had made me ashamed of myself, and stifled my project in the bud, I felt myself drawn with redoubled longing towards the man so misunderstood, and strengthened in my resolve to be his. By good luck, I was really free. My father’s disapproval might, to be sure, trouble me; but, as to restraining me from following my heart’s impulse, that it could not do. And, besides, there was no room in my soul for any great trouble. The wonderful, the mighty happiness which had opened before me in the last quarter of an hour was too lively to allow any vexation to mingle with it.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Next morning I woke with a feeling like the one I always had as a child on Christmas Eve, and once on the morning of my marriage with Arno—the same inexpressible expectation, the same excited anxiousness, that to day something joyful, something great was at hand. The remembrance of the words which my father spoke the day before did, to be sure, cause a little trouble, but I quickly chased this thought away again.

It had not struck nine when I left my carriage at the entry to the Prater Promenade and mounted my horse which had been sent forward with the groom. The weather was spring-like and mild—sunless, indeed, but only the milder for that; and, besides, I carried the sunshine in my heart. It had rained in the night; the leaves were adorned in their freshest green, and a smell of moist earth rose up out of the soil.

I had hardly ridden a hundred paces down the promenade when I was aware of the tread behind me of a horse coming on at a round trot.

“Ah, how are you, Martha? I am pleased to meet you here.”

It was Conrad—the inevitable. I was not at all pleased at this meeting. However, the Prater was certainly not my private park, and on such a beautiful spring morning the ride is always full. How could I have been so foolish as to reckon on an undisturbed rendezvous here? Althaus had made his horse follow the pace of mine, and settled himself evidently to be my faithful attendant in my ride. At this time I perceived Frederick v. Tilling at a distance, who was galloping down the ride in our direction.

“Cousin! you are my good ally, are you not? You know that I take all possible trouble to dispose Lilly in your favour?”

“Yes, my noblest of cousins.”

“Only yesterday evening I was again vaunting your good qualities, for you are really a grand young fellow—pleasant, discreet——”

“Whatever do you want with me?”

“Just to give your horse the spur and ride off.”

Tilling was by this time quite near. Conrad looked first at him, then at me, and, without speaking a word, nodded at me with a smile, and went off as if he was flying for his life.

“This Althaus again” were Tilling’s first words after he had turned round, so as to ride on by my side. In his tone and his manner jealousy was plainly expressed.

I was pleased at it.

“Is he so out of patience at seeing me? or has his horse run away?”

“I sent him away, because——”

“Countess Martha, odd that I should meet you with this Althaus, of all people! Do you know that the world says he is in love with his cousin?”

“It is true.”

“And is trying to win her favour?”

“That is true also.”

“And not without hope?”

“Not quite without hope.”

Tilling was silent. I looked into his face with a happy smile.

“Your look contradicts your last words,” he said, after a pause. “For your look seems to me to say ‘Althaus loves me without hope’.”

“He is not in love with me at all. The object of his suit is my sister Lilly.”

“You take a weight off my heart. This man was one of the reasons for my wishing to leave Vienna. I could not have borne to be obliged to look on.”

“And what other reasons had you besides?” I interposed.

“The fear that my passion was increasing; that I should not be able to conceal it longer; that it would make me ridiculous and miserable at the same time.”

“Are you miserable to-day?”

“Oh, Martha! Since yesterday I have been living in such a tumult of feeling that I am almost beside myself. But not without the fear, as when one has too sweet a dream, that I may suddenly awake to a painful reality. I have no right to expect any return for my love. What can I offer you? To-day your favour smiles on me, and lifts me into the seventh Heaven. To-morrow, or a little later, you will withdraw from me again this undeserved favour, and plunge me into an abyss of despair. I know myself no longer. How hyperbolically I am speaking—I who was formerly such a calm, circumspect man, an enemy of all extravagance. But in your presence nothing seems to me extravagant. In your power it lies to make me happy or wretched.”

“Let me speak of my doubts too. The princess ——”

“Oh, has that chatter come to your ears too? There is nothing in it, nothing at all.”

“Of course you deny; that is your duty.”

“The lady in question, whose heart is now imprisoned, as is well known, in the Burg theatre, and how long will that last?—for it is a heart which gives itself away pretty often—this lady is one about whom the most circumspect gentleman need hardly observe the silence of death. So you are doubly bound to believe me. And, besides, should I have wished to leave Vienna if that rumour had had any foundation?”

“Jealousy does not draw reasonable inferences. Should I have ordered you to remain here if I had been near making up a match with my cousin Althaus?”

“It is hard for me, Martha, to be riding so quietly by your side. I should like to fall at your feet, to kiss at least your beloved hand.”

“Dear Frederick,” said I tenderly, “such outward acts are not needed. One can embrace with words too, and caress all the same as——”

“If we kissed,” he said, concluding the sentence.

At this last word, which thrilled through us both like an electric shock, we looked for some time into each other’s eyes, and found that one can kiss even with looks.

He spoke first. “Since when?” I understood the unfinished question well enough.

“Since that dinner at my father’s,” I replied. “And you?”

“You? That you[6] does not suit, Martha. If I am to answer the question it must be put in a different form.”

“Well? and thou?”

“I? Just since the same evening. But it was not so clear and decided to me till at the deathbed of my poor mother. With what longing did my thoughts turn to you!”

“Yes, that I understood. But you, on the contrary, did not understand what the red rose meant which was wound in among the white flowers of death, or else, when you came here, you would not have so avoided me. I do not yet comprehend the reason of this holding off, and why you wanted to go away!”

“Because my thoughts never rose to the hope that I could win you. It was not till you ordered me, by the memory of my mother—ordered me to come to you, and to remain near you—that I understood that you were favourably disposed to me, that I might dedicate my life to you.”

“So if I had not myself ‘thrown myself at your head,’ as the French say, you would not have troubled yourself about me?”

“You have a great many admirers. I could not mix myself up among these swarms.”

“Oh, they do not count for anything. Most of them have no other object except as to the rich widow.”

“Don’t you see? That word describes the bar which kept me from paying my court—a rich widow, and I quite without fortune. Better perish of unrequited love than be despised by the world, and especially by the woman I adore, for the very thing which you have just imputed to the crowd of your suitors——”

“O you proud, noble, dear fellow! I should never have been capable of attributing one low thought to you.”

“Whence this confidence? You really know me so little as yet.”

And now we began questioning each other further. On the question “Since when” had we loved each other, followed now the discussion “Why?” What had first attracted me was the way in which he had spoken of war. What I had thought and felt in silence—believing that no soldier could think any such thing, much less utter it—he had thought more clearly than I, felt it more strongly, and uttered it with perfect freedom. Then I saw how his heart towered above the interests of his profession and his intellect above the views of the period. It was that which, so to speak, laid the foundation of my devoted love for him; and besides that there were innumerable other “becauses” in reply to the “why”. Because he had so handsome and distinguished a presence; because in his voice there thrilled a soft yet firm tone of its own; because he had been such a loving son; because....

“And you—why do you love me?” I asked, interrupting myself in thus rendering my account.

“For a thousand reasons and one.”

“Let us hear. First the thousand.”

“The great heart; the little foot; the lovely eyes; the brilliant mind; the soft smile; the lively wit; the white hand; the womanly dignity; the wonderful——”

“Stop! stop! Are you going through the whole thousand? Better tell me the one reason.”

“That is no doubt simpler, since the one in its power and irresistibleness embraces all the others. I love you, Martha, because I love you. That is why.”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

From the Prater I drove direct to my father’s. The communication which I had to make to him would, I foresaw, give rise to unpleasant discussions. Still I wanted to get over these inevitable unpleasantnesses as quickly as possible—and I preferred to face them at once under the first impression of the happiness I had just won. My father, who was a late riser, was still sitting over his breakfast, with the morning papers, when I ran into his study. Aunt Mary was present also, and likewise busy over the paper.

On my rather hasty entrance my father looked up in surprise from the Presse, and Aunt Mary laid down the Fremdenblatt.

“Martha! so early, and in riding dress! What does that mean?”

I embraced them both, and then said, as I threw myself into an arm-chair:—

“It means that I am come from a ride in the Prater, where something has taken place which I wanted to tell you about without delay. So I did not even take the time to drive home and change my dress.”

“And what is this thing so important and so pressing?” asked my father, lighting a cigar. “Tell us, we are all anxiety.”

Should I beat about the bush? Should I make introductions and preparations? No, better leap in head over heels, as people leap from a spring-board into the water.

“I have engaged myself——”

Aunt Mary flung her hands over her head and my father wrinkled his brow.

“I hope, however, not——” he began, but I did not let him finish.

“Engaged myself to a man, whom I love from my heart, and reverence, and of whom I believe that he will make me completely happy—Baron Fried. v. Tilling.”

My father jumped up!

“What do you say? After all I said to you yesterday.”

Aunt Mary shook her head.

“I would sooner have heard a different name,” she said. “In the first place, Baron Tilling is not a match for you, he cannot have anything; and, in the second, his principles and his views seem to me——”

“His principles and views coincide entirely with mine; and as to looking for ‘a match,’ as it is called, I am not disposed to do so. Father, dearest father of mine, do not look so cruelly at me, do not spoil the great happiness which I feel at this moment! my good, dear, beloved papa!”

“Well, but, my child,” he replied, in a somewhat softened tone, for a little coaxing used always to disarm him, “it is nothing but your happiness which I have in view. I could not feel happy with any soldier who is not a soldier from his heart and soul.”

“But really you have not to marry Tilling,” remarked Aunt Mary, in a very judicious way. “The soldiership is the least matter in question,” she added; “but I could not be happy with a man who speaks in a tone of such little reverence of the God of the Bible, as the other day——”

“Allow me, dearest Aunt Mary, to call your attention to the fact that you also have not to marry Tilling.”

“Well, what a man chooses is a heaven to him,” said my father with a sigh, sitting down again. “Tilling will quit the service, I suppose?”

“We have not mentioned the subject as yet. I own I should prefer it, but I fear he will not do so.”

“To think,” sighed Aunt Mary, “that you should have refused a prince; and now, instead of raising yourself, you will come down in the social scale.”

“How unkind you are, both of you, and yet you say you love me. Here I come to you, the first time since poor Arno’s death, with the news that I feel perfectly happy, and instead of being glad of it, you try to embitter it with all kinds of matters—militarism, Jehovah, the social scale!”

Still, after half-an-hour or so, I had succeeded somehow or other in talking the old folks round. After the conversation he had held with me the day before, I had expected my father’s opposition to be much more violent. Possibly if I had only spoken of projects and inclinations he would have still striven hard to quench such projects and inclinations; but in presence of the fait accompli he saw that resistance could not be of any further use. Or, possibly, it was the effect of the overflowing feeling of bliss which must have been sparkling in my eyes and quivering in my voice which chased away his annoyance and in which he was obliged against his will to take a sympathising part—in fine, when I stood up to go he pressed my cheek with a hearty kiss, and made me a promise that he would come to my house the same evening, and there salute his future son-in-law in that capacity.

How the rest of the day and the evening passed I am sorry to find not described in the red book. The details have escaped my recollection after so long a time. I only know they were delightful hours.

At tea I had the whole family circle assembled round me, and I presented my Fried. v. Tilling to them as my future husband.

Rosa and Lilly were delighted. Conrad Althaus cried “Bravo, Martha! And now, Lilly, you take a lesson!” My father had either overcome his old antipathy, or he managed to conceal it for my sake; and Aunt Mary was softened and touched.

“Marriages are made in Heaven,” she said, “and every one’s lot is according to His will. You will be happy if you have God’s blessing, and I will pray continually that you may have it.”

The “new papa” was presented to son Rudolf too, and it was to me a moment of peculiar delight and joyful anticipation when the dear man took up my dear child in his arms, kissed him warmly, and said: “Of you, little fellow, we two will make a perfect man”.

In the course of the evening my father put his idea about quitting the service into words.

“You will give up your profession, Tilling, I suppose? As you are already not in love with war.”

Tilling threw his head back with a gesture of surprise.

“Give up my profession! Why, I have no other! And a man need not be in love with war to perform his military duty, any more than——”

“Yes, yes,” my father interposed, “that is what you said the other day—any more than a fireman need be an admirer of conflagrations.”

“I could bring forward more instances. No more than a physician need love cancer or typhus, or a judge be an especial admirer of burglaries. But to give up my way of life? What motive is there for that?”

“The motive,” said Aunt Mary, “would be to spare your wife the life of a garrison town, and to spare her anxiety in case of a war breaking out—though such anxiety is, to be sure, nonsense, for if it is decreed to any one to live to be old, he lives so, in spite of all dangers.”

“The reasons you have named would no doubt be weighty. To keep the lady who is to be my wife from all the unpleasantnesses of life, as far as possible, will certainly be my most earnest endeavour; but the unpleasantness of having a husband who would be without any profession or business would, I am sure, be even greater than those of garrison life. And the danger that my retirement might be charged against me by any one as laziness or cowardice would be even more terrible than those of a campaign. The idea really never occurred to me for a moment; and I hope not to you either, Martha?”

“But suppose I made a condition of it?”

“You would not do so. For otherwise I should have to renounce the height of bliss. You are rich. I have nothing except my military standing, and the outlook to a higher rank in the future; and that is a possession I will not give up. It would be against all dignity, against my ideas of honour.”

“Bravo, my son! Now I am reconciled. It would be a sin and an outrage against your profession. You have not much farther to go to be colonel, and will certainly rise to general’s rank—may at last become commandant of a fortress, governor, or minister of war. That gives your wife also a desirable position.”

I remained quite silent. The prospect of being a commandant’s lady had no charms for me. It would have better suited me to have spent my life with the man of my choice in retirement in the country; but, still, the resolution he had just expressed was dear to me, for it protected him from any stain of the suspicion which my father nourished against him, and which would certainly have clung to him in the eyes of the world.

“Yes, quite reconciled,” my father went on, “and rightly too: for I believed it was chiefly for that purpose—— Now, now, you need not look in such a rage—I mean partly, for the purpose of withdrawing into private life; and that would have been very unfair of you. Unfair too towards my Martha—for she is the child of a soldier, the widow of a soldier; and I don’t believe that she could love a man in civilian’s costume for a continuance.”

Tilling was now obliged to smile. He threw me a look which said plainly “I know you better,” and answered aloud: “I think so too; she really only fell in love with my uniform”.

CHAPTER VI.

Marriage and visit to Berlin.—Lady Cornelia von Tessow and her son.—A wedding tour.—Life in garrison at Olmütz.—Christmas at Vienna.—Rumours of war.—A new-year’s party.—Back at Olmütz.—War imminent.—Outbreak of the Schleswig-Holstein War.—History of the quarrel.

IN September of this year our marriage took place.

My bridegroom had got two months leave for the wedding-tour. Our first stage was Berlin. I had expressed a wish to lay a wreath on the grave of Frederick’s mother, and begin our tour with that pilgrimage.

We stopped eight days in the Prussian capital. Frederick introduced me to his relatives who were living there, and all seemed to me the most amiable people in the world. And, really, everything we met was pleasant and beautiful—wearing as we did the rose-coloured glasses through which one looks at the outside world during the honeymoon. Besides, the newly-married pair were greeted on all sides with cheerful and kindly politeness; every one seemed to find it a duty to strew new roses on a path already so sunny.

What pleased me particularly in North Germany was the dialect. Not only because it was marked by my husband’s accent—one of his qualities which had excited my love at first—but also because in comparison with the way of speaking used in Austria it seemed to announce a higher level of education, or rather did not seem, but was really its result. Grammatical solecisms such as deform the common speech of the best circles in Vienna do not occur in good society at Berlin. The Prussian substitution of the accusative for the dative, “Gib mich einen Federhut,” is confined to the lower classes, while in Vienna the ordinary confusions of cases, such as “Ohne dir,” “Mit die kinder,” are heard commonly enough in the best drawing-rooms. We may for all that call our way of speaking kindly, and get foreigners to take it as being so, but it shows some inferiority nevertheless. If one measures human worth by the scale of education—and what more correct standard can one have?—then the North German is a little bit more of a man than the South German—an assertion that would sound very arrogant in the mouth of a Prussian, and may seem very “unpatriotic” from the pen of an Austrian authoress; but how seldom is there any outspoken truth which does not give offence, somewhere or somehow?

Our first visit in Berlin, after the churchyard, was to the sister of the deceased. From the amiability and intellectual accomplishments of this lady I could infer how amiable and accomplished his mother must have been if she was like Frau Cornelia v. Tessow. The latter was the widow of a Prussian general, and had an only son, who had just then become a lieutenant.

I never met with a handsomer young man in my whole life than this Godfrey v. Tessow. It was touching to see the affection between mother and son; and in this also Frau Cornelia seemed to have a resemblance to her deceased sister. When I saw the pride which she visibly had in Godfrey, and the tenderness with which he treated his mother, I was already delighting myself with imagining the time when my son Rudolf should be grown up. One thing only I could not understand, and this I expressed to my husband, thus:—

“How can a mother allow her only child, her treasure, to embrace so dangerous a profession as the army?”

“My dear, there are simple reflections which no one ever makes,” Frederick answered, “considerations which lie so near one that no one ever heeds them. Such a reflection is the danger of the military profession. People do not allow themselves to take that into consideration; it is thought a kind of impropriety or cowardice to allow that to weigh with one. And so it is assumed as a matter of course and inevitable that such danger must be survived, and indeed is nearly always survived by good luck (the percentages of killed are distributed over other people), and so the chance of being killed is not thought of. To be sure, it exists; but so it does for every one born into the world, and yet no one thinks about death. The mind can do a great deal to chase away troublesome thoughts. And, lastly, what more pleasant and more respected position can a Prussian nobleman occupy than that of a cavalry officer?”

Aunt Cornelia appeared also pleased with me.

“Ah!” she sighed on one occasion, “how I wish that my poor sister could have lived to feel the joy of having such a daughter-in-law and seeing her Frederick so happy as he is now with you. It was always her warmest wish to see him married. But he demanded so much from marriage——”

“That it did not seem likely he would fall in love with me, aunty.”

“That is what the English call ‘fishing for a compliment’. I only wish my Godfrey could get such a prize. I have been long impatient to know the joy of being a grandmother. But I shall have long to wait for that, my son is only twenty-one.”

“He may turn many young ladies’ heads,” I said, “break many hearts.”

“That would not be like him; a better, more straightforward young man does not exist. One day he will make a wife very happy——”

“As Frederick makes his.”

“You cannot tell that quite yet, my dear. We must talk about that ten years hence. In the first few weeks almost every one is happy. Not that I would express any doubt of my nephew or of you; I believe quite that your happiness will be lasting.”

This prophecy of Aunt Cornelia I wrote down in my diary, and wrote underneath it: “Did it come true? The answer to be written ten years hence.” And then I left a line blank. How I filled up that line in the year 1873—well, that must not be set down in this place as yet.

After leaving Berlin we went to the German watering-places. If my short tour in Italy with Arno were left out of account—and of this I had besides only a dreamy recollection—I had never been away from home. To make acquaintance in this way with new places, new people, new ways of life, put me into a most elevated state of mind. The world appeared to me to have become all at once so beautiful, and thrice as interesting. If it had not been for my little Rudolf that I had left behind, I should have pressed Frederick: “Let us travel about like this for years. We will visit the whole of Europe and then the other quarters of the globe. Let us enjoy this wandering life, this unfettered roving to and fro, let us collect the treasures of new impressions and experiences. Anywhere that we come to, however strange may be the people or the country, we shall be sure, in virtue of our companionship, to bring a sufficient portion of home along with us.” What would Frederick have answered to such a proposition? Probably, that a man cannot make it his business to spend his life in a wedding-tour, that his leave only lasted for two months, and many more such reasonable matters.

We visited Baden-Baden, Homburg, and Wiesbaden. Everywhere the same cheerful, elegant way of living; everywhere so many interesting people from all the chief countries of the world. It was in intercourse with these foreigners that I first became aware that Frederick was a perfect master of the French and English languages—a thing which made him rise to a still higher place in my admiration. I was always discovering new qualities in him—gentleness, liveliness, the most quick feeling for everything beautiful. A voyage on the Rhine threw him into raptures, and in the theatre or concert-room, when the artists performed anything peculiarly excellent, his enjoyment shone out of his eyes. This made the Rhine and its castles seem to me doubly romantic; this redoubled my admiration of the performances of celebrated musicians.

These two months passed over only too swiftly. Frederick applied for an extension of his leave, but it was decided against him. It was my first unpleasant moment since my marriage when this official paper arrived, which, in curt style, ordered our return home.

“And men call that freedom!” I cried, throwing the offending document down on the table.

Tilling smiled. “Oh! I never looked on myself as free in the least, my mistress,” he replied.

“If I were your mistress I could find it in my heart to command you to bid adieu to military service, and live only to serve me in the future.”

“On this question we had agreed——”

“Yes, I know. I am obliged to submit; but that proves that you are not my slave; and at bottom I feel that that is right, my dear, proud husband!”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

On our return from our tour, we went to a small Moravian city, the fortress of Olmütz, where Frederick’s regiment lay in garrison. There was no opportunity for social intercourse in the neighbourhood, so we two lived in complete retirement, with the exception of the hours given up to duty—he as lieutenant-colonel with his dragoons, I as a mother with my Rudolf. We gave ourselves up to each other only. The necessary ceremonial calls and return calls had been exchanged with the ladies of the regiment; but I could not lend myself to any intimate acquaintance; it did not amuse me in the least to go to afternoon tea parties and hear stories about servant-maids and the gossip of the town, and Frederick held off quite as far from the gambling parties of the colonel and the drinking bouts of the officers. We had something better to do. The world in which we moved, when we sat in the evening by the boiling tea-kettle, was worlds away from the world of Olmütz society. “Worlds away” often in a literal sense; for some of the favourite excursions of our spirit were directed towards the firmament. For we often read together scientific works and instructed ourselves in the wonders of the formation of the world. In this way we penetrated into the depths of the earth’s centre, and the heights of the heavenly spaces. In this way we explored the secrets of the infinite minuteness revealed by the microscope, and the infinite distances of the telescope; and by how much the wider the universe expanded before our gaze, by so much did the affairs of the Olmütz circle shrink into narrower dimensions. Our readings did not confine themselves to the natural sciences, but embraced many other branches of inquiry and thought. Thus I took up, among other things, my favourite Buckle, for the third time, to make Frederick acquainted with that author, whom he admired quite as much as I did; and, at the same time, we did not neglect the poets or novelists. And so our evening readings together became real feasts of the mind, while the rest of our existence besides was a continual feast of the heart. Every day we became more fond of each other. As passion cooled in its flame, affection increased in its intimacy and respect in its steadfastness. The relations between Frederick and Rudolf were a source of delight to me. The two were the best friends in the world, and to see them playing together was charming. Frederick was, if anything, the more childish of the two. Of course I joined in the game at once, and all the nonsense that we acted and said at these times we hoped the wise and learned men would forgive us, whose works we read when Rudolf had been put to bed. Frederick, it is true, maintained that apart from him he was not very fond of children; but, in the first place, the little boy was the son of his Martha, and in the next, he was really such a dear good little fellow, and suited his stepfather so wonderfully. We often laid plans for the boy’s future. A soldier? No. He should have no aptitude for it, since in our scheme of education there would be no drilling him into a love for military glory. A diplomatist? Perhaps. But most likely a country gentleman. As heir, presently, to the Dotzky estate, which must come to him on the death of Arno’s uncle, now sixty-six years old, he would have sufficient business in managing his possessions properly. Then he might take his little bride Beatrix to himself and live happily. We ourselves were so happy that we would gladly have seen all the world—aye, and future generations too—assured of the treasures of all life’s joys. Yet we did not shut our eyes to the misery in which the greater part of mankind was groaning, and in which, for some generations at any rate, they must continue to groan—poverty, ignorance, want of freedom, exposed to so many dangers and ills; and among these ills the most dreadful of all—War. “Ah, could one contribute anything towards warding it off?” This wish often sprang with groans from our hearts; but the contemplation of the prevailing circumstances and views was enough to discourage us and make us feel that it was impossible. Alas! the beautiful dream that for every one it might “be well with them, and they might live long upon the earth” could not be fulfilled, at least not at present. The pessimist theory, however, that life itself is an evil, that it would have been better for every one if he had never been born—that was radically refuted by our own lot.

At Christmas we undertook an excursion to Vienna, in order to spend the holidays in the circle of my family. My father was now fully reconciled to Frederick. The fact that the latter had not quitted the army had chased away his former doubts and suspicions. That I had made “a bad match” remained indeed the conviction both of my father and Aunt Mary; but, on the other hand, they could not help perceiving the fact that my husband made me very happy, and that they reckoned in his favour.

Rosa and Lilly were sorry that they would have to go into “the world” next carnival not under my supervision but the much more severe one of their aunt. Conrad Althaus was still, as before, a constant visitor at the house; and I could see, I thought, that he had made progress in Lilly’s graces.

Christmas Eve turned out very gay. A great Christmas tree was lighted up and all kinds of presents were exchanged between one and the other. The king of the feast and the one who had most presents was, of course, my son Rudolf, but all the others were thought of. Amongst the rest Frederick got one from me, at the sight of which he could not repress a cry of joy. It was a silver letter-weight in the form of a stork. In its bill it held a slip of paper on which in my writing were the words: “I am bringing you something in the summer of 1864”. Frederick embraced me warmly. If the others had not been there he would certainly have waltzed round the room with me.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

On Boxing Day the whole family gathered together again at dinner at my father’s. There were no strangers except the Right Honourable “To-be-sure” and Dr. Bresser. As we were sitting at table in the familiar dining-room I could not help having a lively remembrance of that evening when we two first plainly recognised our love. Dr. Bresser had the same thought.

“Have you forgotten the game of piquet which I was playing with your father, while you chatted over the fire with Baron Tilling?” he asked me. “I seemed, it is true, quite absorbed in my play, but nevertheless I had my ear cocked in your direction, and heard from the sound of the voices—for I could not catch the words—something which awoke in me the conviction, ‘Those two will come together’. And now that I observe you together a new conviction arises in me, ‘Those two are and will remain happy together’.”

“I admire your penetration, doctor. Yes, we are happy. Shall we remain so? That, unfortunately, depends not on ourselves but on Fate.... Over every happiness there hangs a danger, and the more heartfelt is the former so much the more terrible the latter.”

“What have you to fear?”

“Death.”

“Ah, yes! That did not occur to me. As a physician, it is true, I have frequent opportunities of meeting the gentleman, but I do not think of him. And, indeed, for young and healthy people, like the happy pair we are speaking of, he lies so far in the distance——”

“What is a soldier better for youth and health?”

“Chase away such ideas, dear baroness. There is really no war in prospect. Is it not true, your excellency,” he said, turning to the Minister, “that at present the dark point so often spoken of is not visible?”

“ ‘Point’ is far too little to say,” he replied. “It is rather a black, heavy cloud.”

I trembled to my heart’s core.

“What,” I cried out sharply, “what do you mean?”

“Denmark is going altogether too far——”

“Oh, Denmark?” I said, much relieved. “Then the cloud is not threatening us? It is indeed to me a sad thing, under any circumstances, to hear that there is to be fighting anywhere; but if it is to be the Danes and not the Austrians, I feel pity indeed, but no fear.”

“Well, you have no need for fear either,” my father broke in hastily; “even if Austria were to protect her own interests. If we have to defend the rights of Schleswig-Holstein against the supremacy of Denmark, we are not risking anything in doing so. There is no question of any Austrian territory, the loss of which might be involved in an unsuccessful campaign.”

“Do you think then, father, that if our troops should have to march out I should be thinking of such things as Austrian territory, Schleswig-Holstein’s rights, or Danish supremacy? I should see one thing only—the danger of our dear ones. And that would remain just as great, whether the war were waged for one cause or another.”

“My dear child, the fate of individuals does not come into consideration in cases where the events of the world’s history are being decided. If a war breaks out, the question whether one or another will fall in it or not is silenced in the presence of the one mighty question whether one’s own country will gain or lose in it. And, as I said, if we fight with the Danes we have nothing to lose in the war, and may improve our power and position in the German Bund. I am always dreaming that the Hapsburgs may yet one day get back the dignity of German emperor, which is their birthright. It would indeed be only proper. We are the most considerable state in the Bund—the Hegemony is secured to us, but that is not enough. I should welcome the war with Denmark as a very happy event, not only to wipe out the stain of ’59, but also so to improve our position in the German Bund that we should get a rich compensation for the loss of Lombardy, and—who knows?—gain in power to such an extent that the reconquest of that province will be an easy task.”

I looked across to Frederick. He had taken no part in the conversation, but had engaged in a lively laughing prattle with Lilly. A stab of pain shot through my soul, a pain which united into one twenty different fancies: war; and he, my All, would have to go, would be crippled, shot dead; the child in my bosom, whose coming he had greeted with such joy yesterday, would be born into the world an orphan; all destroyed, all destroyed, our happiness yet scarcely full-blown, but bearing the promise of such rich fruit! This danger in the one scale—and in the other——? Austria’s consideration in the German Bund, the liberation of Schleswig-Holstein, “fresh laurels in the army’s crown of glory”—i.e., a lot of phrases for school themes and army proclamations—and even that only dubious, for defeat is always just as possible as victory. And this supposed benefit to the country is to be set against not one individual’s suffering—mine—but thousands and thousands of individuals in our own and in the enemy’s country must be exposed to the same pain as was now quivering through me. Oh! could not this be prevented? Could it not be warded off? If all were to unite, all learned, good, and just men to avert the threatened evil!

“But tell me,” I said aloud, turning to the Minister, “are affairs really in so bad a condition? You ministers and diplomatists, have you no means of hindering this conflict? Do you know of no way of preventing it from breaking out?”

“Do you think then, baroness, that it is our office to maintain perpetual peace? That would, to be sure, be a grand mission, only not practicable. We exist only to watch over the interests of our respective states and dynasties, to work against anything that may threaten the diminution of their power, and strive to conquer for them every supremacy possible, jealously to guard the honour of the country, to avenge any insult cast on it——”

“In short,” I interrupted, “to act on the principle of war—to do the enemy, i.e., every other state, all the harm possible, and if a dispute begins, to persist as long as possible in asserting that you are in the right, even if you see you are in the wrong. Eh?”

“To be sure.”

“Till the patience of the two disputants gives way, and they have to begin hacking away at each other. It is horrible.”

“But that is the only way out. How else can a dispute between nations be decided?”

“How then are trials between civilised individuals decided?”

“By the tribunals. But nations have no such over them.”

“No more have savages,” said Dr. Bresser, coming to my help. “Ergo, nations in their intercourse with each other are still uncivilised, and it will take a good long time yet before we come to the point of establishing an international tribunal of arbitration.”

“We shall never get to that,” said my father. “There are things which can only be fought out, and cannot be settled by law. Even if one chose to try to establish such an arbitration court, the stronger governments would as little submit to it as two men of honour, one of whom has been insulted, would carry their difference into a court of law. They simply send their seconds and fight to set themselves right.”

“But the duel is a barbarous, uncivilised custom.”

“You won’t alter it, doctor.”

“Still, your excellency, I would not defend it.”

“What say you, then, Frederick?” said my father, turning to his son-in-law. “Is it your opinion that a man who has received a slap on the face should take the matter before a court of law and get five florins’ damages?”

“I should not do so.”

“You would challenge the man who insulted you?”

“Of course.”

“Aha, doctor—aha, Martha,” said my father in triumph. “Do you hear? Even Tilling, who is no friend of war, submits to, and is a friend of, duelling.”

“A friend? I have never said so. I only said that in a given case I would, as a matter of course, have recourse to the duel, as indeed I have actually done once or twice: just as, equally as a matter of course, I have several times taken part in a war; and will do so again on the next occasion. I guide myself by the rules of honour; but I by no means imply thereby that those rules, as they now exist amongst us, correspond to my own moral ideal. By degrees, as this ideal gains the sovereignty, the conception of honour will also experience a change. Some day an insult one may have experienced, and which is unprovoked, will redound as a disgrace, not on the receiver, but on the savage inflicter; and when this is the case, self-revenge in matters of honour also will fall as much out of use as in civilised society it has become practically out of the question to right oneself in other matters. Till that time comes——”

“Well, we shall have some time to wait for that,” my father broke in. “As long as there are persons of quality anywhere——”

“But that too may not perhaps be for ever,” hinted the doctor.

“Holloa! you would not get rid of rank, Mr. Radical?” cried my father.

“Well, I would, of feudal rank. The future has no need for ‘nobility’.”

“So much the more need for noble men,” said Frederick in confirmation.

“And this new race will put up with their slaps on the face?”

“First of all they will give none——”

“And will not defend themselves if a neighbouring state makes a hostile attack on them?”

“There will be no attacks from neighbouring states, no more than our country seats now are besieged by neighbouring citizens. As the nobleman no longer needs armed squires to defend his castle——”

“So the state of the future will dispense with its armed hosts? What will become then of you lieutenant-colonels?”

“What has become of the squires?”

And so the old dispute began again, and was prolonged for some time longer. I hung with delight on Frederick’s lips. It did me more good than I can say to see the cause of noble humanity so firmly and so confidently defended; and in spirit I applied to himself the name he had just used—“noble man”.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

We stayed a fortnight longer in Vienna. But it was by no means a pleasant holiday to me. This fatal “prospect of war,” which now filled all newspapers and all conversations, robbed me of all pleasure in my life. As often as I thought of any of the things of which my happiness was made up, and especially my possession of a husband who was becoming daily dearer to me, so often was I reminded also of the uncertainty, of the imminent danger which hung over all my happiness, in view of the war which was looming in sight. And so I could not, as the saying is, “feel myself comfortable”. Of the accidents of sickness and death, conflagrations, inundations, in short, all the menaces of Nature and the elements, there are sufficient; but one has habituated oneself not to think about them, and one lives in a certain sense of security in spite of these dangers. But how is it that men have created for themselves other dangers arbitrarily devised by themselves, and thus of their own will and in pure wantonness thrown into artificial eruption the volcanic soil on which the happiness of this life is founded? It is true that people have also accustomed themselves to think of war too as a natural phenomenon, and to speak of it as eluding calculation in the same category with the earthquake or drought—and therefore to think of it as little as possible. But I could no longer bring myself to this way of looking at it. The question, of which Frederick had once spoken: “Must it then be so?” I had often answered with a negative in the case of war—and at this time instead of resignation I felt pain and vexation—I should have liked to shout out to them all: “Do not do it; do not do it”. This business of Schleswig-Holstein and the Danish constitution, what did it matter to us? Whether the “Protocol-Prince” abolished the fundamental law of November 13, 1863, or confirmed it, what did it matter to us? Yet all the journals and speeches at that time were full of discussions on this matter, as if it were the most important, most decisive, most universally comprehensive question in the world, so that in comparison with it the query “Are our husbands and sons to be shot dead?” ought not even to be considered. Only at intervals could I myself for a moment feel anyhow reconciled to this state of things, i.e., when the conception of “duty” came directly before my soul. It was true, no doubt, we belonged to the German Bund, and, in common with our brothers of Germany combined in that society, we were bound to fight for the rights of German brothers who were being oppressed. The principle of nationality was no doubt a thing that with elemental force demanded its field of action, and therefore from this point of view the thing must be. By sticking to this idea the painful indignation of my soul subsided a little. Had I been able to foresee how, two years later, the whole of this German band of brothers would be broken up by the bitterest enmity, that then the hatred of Prussia would have become far more burning in Austria than the hatred of Denmark now was, I should have recognised even so early what I learned to know later on, that the motives which are adduced in order to justify hostilities are nothing but phrases—phrases and pretexts.

New-Year’s eve we again spent in my father’s house. As it struck twelve he raised his glass.

“May the campaign which is before us in this new year be a glorious one for our arms,” he said solemnly; and at these words I put my glass, which I had just lifted up, down on the table again. “And,” he concluded, “may our dear ones be spared to us!”

In that I concurred.

“Why did you not drink to the first half of my toast, Martha?”

“Because I can have no wish about a campaign, except that it may never occur.”

When we had got back into the hotel, and into our bedroom, I threw myself on Frederick’s neck.

“My own one! Frederick! Frederick!”

“What is the matter with you, Martha? You are weeping; and to-day—on New-Year’s night! Why then salute the New Year with tears? Are you not happy? Have I given you any offence?”

“You? Oh no! no! You make me only too happy—much too happy—and that makes me anxious——”

“Superstitious, Martha? Do you then conjure up for yourself envious gods, who destroy men’s happiness when it is too great?”

“Not gods; it is senseless men who call misery down on themselves.”

“You are hinting at this possible war. But it is certainly not settled as yet. Why then this premature grief? Who knows whether it will come to blows? and who knows, if so, whether I shall be called out? Come here, my darling, and let us sit down,” and he drew me to the sofa by his side. “Do not spend your tears on a bare possibility.”

“Even the possibility is terrible to me. If it were a certainty, Frederick, I should not be crying so softly and quietly on your shoulder. I should have to shriek and wail out loud. But the possibility, nay, the probability, that in the year which is opening you may be torn from my arms by a marching order. That is quite enough to transport me with anxiety and grief.”

“Bethink you, Martha. You are yourself going to meet a peril, as this Christmas box of yours so charmingly informed me, and yet we two do not think of the cruel possibility which threatens every woman in childbed about as much as every man on the battlefield. Let us enjoy our life, and not think of the death which is impending over the heads of all of us.”

“You are talking just like Aunt Mary, dearest, as if our lot depended on ‘Providence,’ and not on the thoughtlessness, cruelty, excesses, and follies of our fellow-men. Wherein lies the inevitable necessity of this war with Denmark?”

“It has not yet broken out, and there may still——”

“I know, I know; accidents may still happen to avert the evil. But it is not accident, not political intrigues and humours which ought to decide such questions of destiny; but the firm, righteous will of mankind. But what is the good of my ‘ought’ or ‘ought not’? I cannot alter the order of things. I can only complain of it. But do help me so far, Frederick! Do not try to console me with hollow conventional evasions! You do not believe in them yourself! You yourself are shuddering with noble repugnance! The only consolation I find is in thinking that you condemn and bewail as I do what will make me and numberless others so unhappy.”

“Yes, my dear; if this fatality should come to pass, then I will say you are right. Then I will not hide from you the shuddering and the hate which the national slaughter ordained on us awakes in me. But to-day let us still enjoy our life. We surely have each other—nothing separates us. There is not the slightest bar between our souls! Let us enjoy this happiness as long as we have it; enjoy it to the full. Let us not think of the threatened destruction of it. No joy assuredly can last for ever. In a hundred years it will be all the same whether our life has been long or short. The number of beautiful days is not the question, but the degree of their beauty. Let the future bring what it pleases, my dearly-loved wife; our present is so beautiful, so very beautiful, that I cannot now feel anything but a blessed delight.”

As he said this, he threw his arm around me, and kissed my head, which rested on his breast. And then the threatening future disappeared for me also, and I too let myself sink into the sweet transport of the moment.

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On 10th January we returned to Olmütz.

No one any longer doubted about the outbreak of war. I had heard a few individuals in Vienna hope that the Schleswig-Holstein dispute could even yet be capable of diplomatic settlement; but in the military circles of our garrison town all possibility of peace was held to be out of the question. Among the officers and their wives there prevailed an excited, but on the whole joyfully excited, temper. Opportunities for distinction and advancement were in prospect, for the satisfaction of the love of adventure in one, the ambition of another, the thirst for promotion of a third.

“This is a famous war which is in prospect,” said the colonel, to whose house, with several other officers and their wives, we were invited to dinner; “a famous war, and one that must be immensely popular. No danger to our territory; and even the population of our country will suffer no diminution, since the scene of war lies on foreign soil.”

“What inspires me in the matter,” said a young first lieutenant, “is the noble motive, to defend the rights of our brethren under oppression. The fact that the Prussians are marching with us—or rather we with them—assures us in the first place of victory, and in the next place it will bind still closer the bonds of nationality. The national idea——”

“I had rather you would not talk about that,” interposed the colonel rather sternly. “That humbug does not sit well on an Austrian. It was that that raised up the Italian war against us; for it was on this hobby-horse, ‘Italy for the Italians,’ that Louis Napoleon kept always mounting, and the whole principle is specially unsuitable for Austria. Bohemians, Hungarians, Germans, Croats—where is the bond of nationality? We know one principle only which unites us, and that is a loyal love of our reigning family. Therefore, what ought to put spirit into us when we take the field is not the circumstance that we are Germans, and have Germans as allies, but that we can render loyal service to our exalted and beloved commander-in-chief. The emperor’s health!”

All stood up to drink the toast. A spark of animation even reached my heart, inflaming it for a moment and filling it with a warmth that did me good. That thousands should love one and the same cause, one and the same person, is a thing which produces a peculiar, a thousandfold impulse of devotion. And that is the feeling which swells the heart under the name of loyalty, patriotism, or esprit-de-corps. It is in reality nothing but love; and this has such a mighty working that a man regards the work of hatred ordained in its name, even the most horrible work of the deadliest hatred—War—as the fulfilment of the duty of his love.

But this glow only lasted in my heart for one instant, for a love stronger than that for any earthly fatherland or father of the country filled its depths—the love of my husband. His life was to me in all cases the dearest of my possessions, and if it was to be the stake I could do nothing but abhor the game, whether it was to be played for Schleswig-Holstein or Japan.

The time which now followed I passed in unspeakable anxiety. On 16th January the powers of the Bund addressed a demand to Denmark calling on her to abrogate a certain law, against which the Convocation of Estates and the nobles of Holstein had invoked the protection of the Bund, and to do this in twenty-four hours. Denmark refused. Who would consent to be commanded in that fashion? This refusal had been foreseen, of course, for Austrian and Prussian troops stood ready posted on the frontier; and on 1st February they crossed the Eider.

So the bloody die was cast again—the game had begun. This gave occasion to my father to send us a letter of congratulation.

“Rejoice, my children,” he wrote. “Now we have at length an opportunity to repair the losses we got in ’59, by inflicting losses on the Danes. When we have come back from the north as conquerors, we shall be able to turn our faces southwards again. The Prussians will remain our constant allies; and in that case these shabby Italians and their intriguing Louis Napoleon cannot again stand up against us.”

Frederick’s regiment, to the great disappointment of the colonel and the corps of officers, was not despatched to the frontier. This fact brought us a paternal letter of condolence:—

“I am heartily sorry that Tilling has the ill-luck to be serving in just one of the regiments which are not called on to open the campaign which has such glorious prospects, but there remains always the possibility that he will be marked out to follow in support. Martha, indeed, will look on the best side of the business, and be glad that the fear for her beloved husband is spared her, and Frederick also is confessedly no friend of war; but I think he is only against it in principle, that is to say, he would rather, on grounds of so-called ‘humanity,’ that it should never come to fighting, but when it has so come, then he would, I know, rather have a part in it, for then I know his manly love of battle would awake. In truth it ought to be the whole army that should always be sent to meet the foe; at such a time to be forced to stay at home is surely something altogether too hard on a soldier.”

“Does it strike you as hard, my Frederick, to remain with me?” I asked, after reading the letter.

He pressed me to his heart. The dumb reply contented me.

But what was the good of it? My peace was gone. The order to march might come any day. If the unhappy war could only be brought to an end quickly! With the greatest eagerness did I read in the newspapers the news from the seat of war, and warmly did I wish that the allies might win speedy and decisive victories. I confess that the wish had no patriotism at all in it. I should indeed have preferred that the victory should be on our side; but what I hoped from it was the termination of the war, before my “all on earth” was out there; and then only in the second degree the triumph of my countrymen, and quite in the last the “sea-surrounded” patch of country. Whether, however, Schleswig was to belong to Denmark or no, what in the world could that matter to me? And finally, what matter could it make to the Danes and Schleswig-Holsteiners themselves? Could not then the two nations themselves see that it was only their rulers who were quarrelling about the possession of territory and power, and that in the present case, for example, the question was not their good or their suffering, but the wishes of the so-called Prince “Protocol” and of the Augustenburgs? If a number of dogs are fighting over some bones, it is still only the dogs themselves who tear each other; but in the history of nations it is chiefly the poor silly bones themselves that rush at each other and knock each other to pieces on the two sides, in fighting for the rights of the combatants who covet them. “Lion wants me,” or “Towser has a claim on me”. “I protest against Caro’s fangs,” or “I reckon it an honour to be swallowed by Growler,” cry the bones. “Denmark up to the Eider,” shouted the Danish patriots. “We will have Frederick of Augustenburg for our duke,” shouted the loyalists of Holstein. The articles in our papers and the talk of our quidnuncs were all of course permeated by the principle that the cause for which “we” had entered into the war was the right one, the only one which was “historically developed”—the only one necessary for the maintenance of “the balance of power in Europe”. And of course the opposite principle was maintained with equal emphasis in the leading articles and the political speeches in Copenhagen. Why not on both sides weigh the rival claims, in order to come to an understanding; and if this should fail, make a third power arbitrator? Why go on always shouting on both sides, “I, I am in the right”—and even shouting it out against one’s own conviction, till one has shouted oneself hoarse, and finishes by leaving the decision to Force? Is not that savagery? And even should a third power mix in the strife, it also does so, not with a balancing of rights or a judicial sentence, but equally with downright blows! And that is what people call “foreign politics”. Foreign and domestic savagery it is—statesmanlike tomfoolery—international barbarism!

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It is true that I did not at that time look at what was going on in this light with such certainty as this. It was only for a few moments that doubts of this sort woke up in me, and then I took all possible pains to chase them away. I attempted to persuade myself that the mysterious thing called “reasons of state,” a thing elevated above all private reason, and particularly my own poor faculties, was a principle on which the life of states depends, and I began a zealous study of the history of Schleswig-Holstein, in order to arrive at a conception of the “historic rights” which it was the object of the present proceedings to maintain.

And then I discovered that the strip of land in dispute had, as early as the year 1027, been ceded to Denmark. So, in reality, the Danes are in the right. They are the legitimate kings of the country.

But then, 200 years later, the district was made over to a younger branch of the royal house, and then ranked rather as a fief of the Danish crown. In 1326 Schleswig was given over to Count Gerhard of Holstein, and “the Constitution of Waldemar” provides that “it should never again be so far united with Denmark that there should be but one lord”. Oh! then the right is still on the side of the allies. We are fighting for the Constitution of Waldemar. That is quite correct, for what is the use of these securities on paper if they are not to be upheld?

In the year 1448 the Constitution of Waldemar was again confirmed by King Christian I. So there can be no doubt that there must and shall never again be “one lord”. What has the Protocol-Prince to do in the matter?

Twelve years later, the ruler of Schleswig dies without issue, and the Estates of the country meet at Ripen (it would be well if we always knew with such exactness when and where the Estates met—well, it was in 1460 at Ripen), and they proclaim the King of Denmark Duke of Schleswig, in return for which he promises them that the countries “shall remain together for ever, undivided”. This makes me again a little confused. The only point to hold by is that they “shall remain together for ever”.

But the confusion goes on constantly increasing, as this historical study takes a wider circuit; for now in spite of the formula “for ever undivided” (the word “for ever” plays an exquisite part generally in political business), there commences an everlasting cutting up and division of the territory amongst the king’s sons and a reunion of these under a succeeding king, and the founding of new families, Holstein-Gottorp and Schleswig-Sonderburg, which with reciprocal shuffling and cessions of their shares, again separate themselves into the families of Sonderburg-Augustenburg, Beck-Glücksburg, Sonderburg-Glücksburg, Holstein-Glückstadt. In short, I no longer knew where I was.

But there is more to come. Perhaps the “historical claim” for which the sons of our country have to bleed to-day may not have been established till later.

Christian IV. mixed himself up in the Thirty Years’ War, and the Imperialists and Swedes invaded the duchies. Now was made (at Copenhagen, 1658) another treaty, by which the lordship over the Schleswig portion was secured to the house of Holstein Gottorp, and so at last we have got done with the Danish feudal lordship. Done with it for ever. Thank God. Now I find myself again all right.

But what happened by the Patent of 22nd August, 1721? Simply this: the Gottorps’ dominion of Schleswig was incorporated into the kingdom of Denmark. In January, 1773, Holstein also was ceded to the royal house of Denmark; the whole ranked now as a Danish province.

That changes the affair, the Danes are in the right.

Yet not entirely so. The Congress of Vienna, in 1815, declares Holstein to be a part of the German Bund. This, however, vexes the Danes. They invent the cry: “Denmark up to the Eider,” and struggle for the complete possession of Schleswig—called by them “South Jutland,” against which the “hereditary right of Augustenburg” was employed as a watchword and used in German national proclamations. In the year 1846 King Christian writes a public letter in which he proposes the integrity of the entire state as his object, and against this “the German countries” protest. Two years later the complete union is announced from the Throne, no longer as an object, but as a fait accompli, and then the uprising occurs in the “German countries”. And now the fighting begins. At first the Danes gain the victory in one fight, next the Schleswig-Holsteiners in a second. Then the German Bund intervenes. The Prussians “occupy” the heights of Düppel, but that does not terminate the strife. Prussia and Denmark make peace. Schleswig-Holstein has now to fight the Danes single-handed, and is struck down at Idstedt.

The Bund now calls on the “revolters” to discontinue the war, which they proceed to do. Austrian troops take possession of Holstein, and the two duchies are separated. So what has become of the paper-stipulation “to be for ever united”?

Still the situation is not made completely secure. Now I find a Protocol of London, 8th May, 1852 (it is a good thing that we always know so exactly the date when these fragile treaties are made), which secures the succession of Schleswig to Prince Christian of Glücksburg (“secures” is good). And now I know at any rate the origin of the name “Protocol-Prince”.

In the year 1854, after each duchy had received a constitution of its own, both were “Danised”. But in 1858 the Danisation of Holstein had to be revoked again. And now this historical sketch is coming quite close to the present time; and yet it is not so clear to me to whom the two countries “rightly belong,” or what was the precise cause of the outbreak of the present war.

On 18th November, 1858, the famous “Fundamental law for the mutual relations between Denmark and Schleswig” was passed by the Reichsrath. Two days afterwards the king died. With him again was extinguished a family—that of Holstein-Glückstadt—and when the successor of the monarch presented himself on the scene, in reliance on the two-days-old law, Frederick of Augustenburg (a family I had nearly forgotten) raised his claim, and together with his nobility turned for support to the German Bund.

The latter at once occupied Holstein with Saxon and Hanoverian troops, and proclaimed Augustenburg duke. Why? But Prussia and Austria were not of accord in this proceeding. Why? That I do not to this day understand.

It is said the London Protocol had to be respected. Why? Are these Protocols about things which concern us absolutely nothing so exceedingly to be respected, that we must defend them at the price of the blood of our own sons? If so, there must lie in the background some mysterious “reason of state” for it. It must be firmly held as a dogma that what the gentlemen round the green table of diplomacy may decide is the highest wisdom, and has for its aim the greatest possible advance of the power of one’s country. The London Protocol of 8th May, 1852, had to be maintained intact; but the Fundamental Law of Copenhagen, of 13th January, 1863, had to be abolished, and that within twenty-four hours. On that hung Austria’s honour and welfare. The dogma was a little hard to believe, but in political matters, almost more willingly than in religious, the masses allow themselves to be led by the principle of the “quia absurdum”—they have renounced beforehand the attempt to reason and understand. When the sword is once drawn nothing more is necessary than to shout “Hurrah,” and press hotly on to victory. Besides that, all that is necessary is to invoke the blessing of heaven on the war. For so much is certain, that it must be the business of the Almighty to see that the Protocol of the 8th May is maintained, and the Law of 5th November repealed. He must conduct the matter so that the precise number of men bleed to death and villages are set on fire, that are necessary in order that the family of Glückstadt, or that of Augustenburg should rule over a particular spot of earth. What a foolish world—still in leading strings—cruel, unthinking! Such was the result of my historical studies.

CHAPTER VII.

The course of the Danish war.—Suspension of hostilities.—War renewed.—My husband ordered off just on the eve of my confinement.—The parting.—My confinement occurs simultaneously with my husband’s departure.—A dead child.—The mother in deadly peril.—Frederick’s letters from the seat of war.—Cousin Godfrey and the alliance between Austria and Prussia.—My recovery.—Anxiety and relapse.—Return of my husband.

FROM the theatre of war came good tidings. The allies won battle after battle. Immediately after the first combats the Danes were forced to abandon the entire Danewerk. Schleswig and Jutland up to Limfjord were occupied by our troops, and the enemy only maintained himself in the lines at Düppel and at Alsen.

I knew all this so accurately, because on the tables were again laid the maps stuck about with pins on which were marked the movements and positions of the troops as each despatch arrived. “If we could now only take the lines at Düppel, or if we could even conquer Alsen,” said the citizens of Olmütz (for no one is so fond of speaking of deeds of war with the “we” as those who were never present at them), “then we should be at an end of it. Now our Austrians are showing again what they can do. The brave Prussians too are fighting splendidly. Both together are of course invincible. The end will be that all Denmark will be overrun and will be annexed to the German Bund—a glorious, beneficent war.”

I too wished for nothing so anxiously as the storming of Düppel—the sooner, the better—for this action would at any rate be decisive and put an end to the butchery. Put an end to it, I hoped, before Frederick’s regiment got marching orders.

Oh, this Damocles’ sword! Every day when I woke the fear came on me that the news would be brought “We are to march”. Frederick was calm about it. He did not wish it, but saw it coming.

“Accustom yourself, dear, to the thought of it,” he said to me. “Against inexorable necessity no striving is of any avail. I do not believe that even if Düppel falls the war will thereby terminate. The allied army which has been despatched is far too small to force the Danes to a conclusion; we shall be obliged to send considerable reinforcements besides, and then my regiment will not be spared.”

In fact, this campaign had lasted more than two months, and yet no result. If the cruel game could have been settled in one fight like a duel! But no; if one battle is lost, another is offered; if one position has to be given up, another is taken, and so on till one or the other army is annihilated, or both are exhausted.

At last, on 14th April, the lines of Düppel were stormed.

The news was received with such a shout of joy as if the recovered paradise had lain behind these lines. People embraced each other in the streets. “Don’t you know? Düppel—Oh, our brave army! An unheard-of exploit. Now let all join in thanking God!” And there was singing of Te Deums in all the churches, and among the military choirmasters an industrious composition of “The Lines of Düppel March,” “Storm of Düppel Galop,” and so forth.

My husband’s comrades and their wives had, it is true, a drop of bitterness in their cup of joy, not to have been there, to have been obliged to miss such a triumph; what bad luck!

This victory gave me one great joy, for immediately after it a peace conference assembled in London and occasioned a suspension of hostilities. What a recovery of free breath even that word “suspension of hostilities” caused.

How the world would at last breathe again, thought I then for the first time, if on all hands could be heard: “Lay down your arms,” down with them for ever! I put the words into my red book, but beside them I wrote despondingly in brackets “Utopia”.

That the London Congress would make an end of the Schleswig-Holstein War I made no doubt at all. The allies had won, the lines of Düppel were carried, these lines had played so great a part in recent times that their capture seemed to me to be finally decisive: how could Denmark hold out longer? The negotiations dragged on for an incredible length of time. This would have been torture to me if I had not from the very beginning had the conviction that their result must be peaceful. If the plenipotentiaries of great states, who therefore must be reasonable, well-meaning persons, unite together to attain so desirable an end as the conclusion of peace, how could it fail? So much the more horribly was I undeceived when after debates continued for two months the news came that the congress had dissolved without accomplishing anything.

And two days later came marching orders for Frederick!

For preparations and for leave-taking he had twenty-four hours given him. And I was on the point of my confinement. In the heavy death-menacing hours, when a woman’s only comfort lies in having her dear husband by her, I had to remain alone, alone with that consciousness awful beyond everything that this dear husband was gone to the war—knowing too that it must be just as painful to him to leave his poor wife at such a moment as it would be painful to me to be without him.

It was in the morning of 20th June. All the details of this memorable day remain impressed on my memory. Oppressive heat prevailed outside, and to shut this out the Venetian blinds had been let down in my room. Covered with light, loose clothing, I was lying exhausted on the sofa. I had passed an almost sleepless night, and had now shut my eyes in a dreamy half-doze. Near me on my table was standing a vase with some powerfully smelling roses. Through the open window the sound of a distant exercise in trumpet-playing came in. Everything was provocative of slumber, yet consciousness had not quite left me. Only one half of it—I mean that of care—had departed. I had forgotten the danger of war and the danger that stood before myself. I knew only that I was alive—that the roses, along with the rhythm of the reveillé which the trumpeter was playing, were giving out sweet soothing influences—that my beloved husband might come in at any minute, and if he saw me asleep would only tread in the lightest manner so as not to awaken me. I was right; next minute the door opposite to me opened. Without raising my lids I could see through a tiny cleft between the eyelashes that it was he whom I was expecting. I made no attempt to rouse myself from my half-slumber, for by doing so I might chase away the whole picture; for it might be that the appearance at the door was only the continuation of a dream, and it might be that I was only dreaming that I had opened my eyelids ever so little. So now I shut them entirely and took pains to continue the dream—that the dear one came closer, that he bent over me and kissed my forehead.

And so indeed it was. Then he knelt down by my couch and remained motionless for a while. The roses were still breathing and the distant horn playing its tra-ra-ra.

“Martha, are you asleep?” I heard him ask softly.

Then I opened my eyes.

“For God’s sake, what is it?” I cried out, frightened to death, for the countenance of my husband as he knelt by me was so deeply overclouded by sorrow that I guessed at once that some misfortune had happened. Instead of replying he laid his head on my breast.

I understood all. He had to go. I had thrown my arm round his neck, and we remained both in the same position for some time without speaking.

“When?” I asked at length.

“Early to-morrow morning.”

“Oh, my God! my God!”

“Calm yourself, my poor Martha.”

“No, no, let me weep. My misfortune is too great, and I know—I see it in your face—so is yours. Never did I see so much pain in any human face as I have just read in your features.”

“Yes, my wife. I am unfortunate to have to leave you in such a moment——”

“Frederick, Frederick; we shall never see each other again. I shall die——”

“Or I shall fall. Yes, I believe it, too; we shall never see each other again!”

It was a heart-breaking parting that occupied these last twenty-four hours. This was now the second time in my life that I had seen a dear husband depart to the war. But this second tearing ourselves apart was incomparably worse than the first. Then my way of taking it and still more Arno’s was quite different and more primitive. I looked on the departure as a natural necessity which overbalanced all personal feelings, and he looked at it even as a joyous expedition in search of glory. He went with cheerfulness. I remained without a murmur. There still clung to me something of the admiration for war which I had imbibed from my youthful education. I still shared to some extent with the departing soldier in the pride which he visibly felt in the “great emprise”. But now I knew that he who was going went to the work of death with horror rather than with exultation, I knew that he loved the life which he had to set on the hazard—that to him one thing was dearer than everything, yes, everything, even the claims of the Augustenburgs—his wife—his wife who in a few days was to be a mother. Whilst in Arno’s case I had the conviction that he departed with feelings for which he was surely to be envied, I discerned that in this second separation both of us were deserving of equal pity. Yes, we suffered in equal measure, and we confessed it and bewailed it to each other. No hypocrisies, no empty phrases of consolation, no swagger; we were one in all things, and neither sought to deceive the other. It was still our best consolation that each could fully understand the other’s inconsolability. We did not seek to conceal the magnitude of the misfortune that had burst on us by any conventional cloaks or masks of patriotism or heroism. No, the prospect of being allowed to shoot and hack at the Danes was to him no compensation for the anguish of having to leave me—on the contrary, rather an aggravation—for killing and destroying is repulsive to every “noble man”. And to me it was no recompense—absolutely none—for my suffering to think that my dear one might perhaps gain a step in rank. And should the misfortune of this perilous separation rise to the still greater misfortune of parting for ever—should Frederick fall—the reasons of state on account of which this war had to be waged were not in the faintest degree elevated or holy enough to my mind to balance such a sacrifice. “Defender of his Country,” that is the fair-sounding title with which the soldier is decorated. And in fact what nobler duty can there be for the members of a commonwealth than to defend their state when menaced? But then why does his military oath bind the soldier to a hundred other warlike duties, besides the defensive? Why is he obliged to go and attack? Why must he, in cases where there is not the slightest menace of any invasion of his country, hazard the same possessions—his life and his hearth—in the quarrels of certain foreign princes for territory or ambition, as if it were a question, as it surely ought to be to justify war, of the defence of endangered life and hearth? Why, for example, in the present instance, must the Austrian army march out to set the Augustenburgs on a foreign throne? Why? Why? The question is one which to address to an emperor or pope is in itself treasonable and blasphemous, which in the latter case passes for irreligion and in the former for want of loyalty, and which never deserves an answer.

The regiment was to march at 10 A.M. We stayed up the whole night. Not a minute of the time still left to us to spend together would we lose.

There was so much that we had still to say to each other, and yet we spoke little. It was mainly kisses and tears, which said more plainly than any words: “I love you, and I have to leave you”. From time to time there dropped in a hopeful word, “When you come back again”. It was certainly possible. Surely there are so many that come back; yet it was strange I repeated “When you come back” and tried to put before myself the delights of this event; but in vain. My imagination could form no other picture than that of my husband’s corpse on the field of battle, or myself on the bier, with a dead child in my arms.

Frederick was filled with similar gloomy forebodings, for his “When I come back” did not sound natural; and more often he spoke of what might happen, “If I should fall”.

“Do not marry a third time, Martha! Do not wash out, by the impressions of a new love, the recollections of this glorious year! Has it not been a happy time?”

We now recalled a hundred little details which had impressed themselves on our minds, from our first meeting to the present hour, and passed them through our remembrance.

“And my little one, my poor little one, whom perhaps I may never press to my heart, what is its name to be?”

“Frederick or Frederica.”

“No; Martha is prettier. If it is a girl call it by the name which its dying father at the last moment——”