Transcriber's Note:
1. Page scan source: http://www.archive.org/details/othoumyaustria00schuiala

"O THOU, MY AUSTRIA!"

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN

OF

OSSIP SCHUBIN

BY

MRS. A. L. WISTER

PHILADELPHIA
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1897.

Copyright, 1890, by J. B. Lippincott Company.

CONTENTS.

"O THOU, MY AUSTRIA!"

"Krupitschka, is it going to rain?" Major von Leskjewitsch asked his servant, who had formerly been his corporal. The major was leaning out of a window of his pretty vine-wreathed country-seat, smoking a chibouque; Krupitschka, in the garden below, protected by a white apron, and provided with a dark-green champagne-bottle, was picking the Spanish flies from off the hawthorn-bushes. At his master's question, he looked up, gazed at a few clouds on the horizon, replied, "Don't know--maybe, and then again maybe not," and deftly entrapped three victims at once in the long neck of his bottle. A few days previous he had made a very satisfactory bargain with the apothecary of the neighbouring little town for Spanish flies.

"Ass! Have you just got back from the Delphic oracle?" the major exclaimed, angrily, turning away from the window.

At the words "Delphic oracle," Krupitschka pricked up his ears. It annoyed him to have his master and the other gentlemen make use of words that he did not understand, and he determined to buy a foreign dictionary with the proceeds of the sale of his cantharides. Meanwhile, he noted down, in a dilapidated memorandum-book, "delphin wrackle," muttering the while, "What sort of team is that, I wonder?"

Unable to extort any prognosis of the weather from Krupitschka, the major turned to the barometer; but that stood, as it had done uninterruptedly for the past fortnight, at 'Changeable.'

"Blockhead!" growled the major, shaking the barometer a little to rouse it from its lethargy; and then, seating himself at the grand piano, he thundered away at a piece of music familiar to all the country round as "The Major's Triumphal March." All the country round was likewise familiar with the date of the origin of this effective work,--the spring of 1866.

At that time the major had composed this march with the patriotic intention of dedicating it to the victorious General Benedek, but the melancholy events of the brief summer campaign left him no desire to do so, and the march was never published; nevertheless, the major played it himself now and then, to his own immense satisfaction and to the horror of his really musical wife.

This wife, a Northern German by birth, fair and dignified in appearance, sat rocking comfortably in an American chair, reading the latest number of the German Illustrated News, while her husband amused himself at the piano.

The major banged away at the keys in a fury of enthusiasm, until a black poodle, which had crept under the piano in despair, howled piteously.

"Ah, Paul," sighed Frau von Leskjewitsch, letting her paper drop in her lap, "are you determined to make my piano atone for the loss of the battle of Königgratz?"

"Why do you have a foreign piano, then?" was the patriotic reply; and the major went on strumming.

"You make Mori wretched," his wife remarked; "that dog is really musical."

"A nervous mongrel--a genuine lapdog," the major muttered, contemptuously, without ceasing his performance.

"Your march is absolutely intolerable," Frau von Leskjewitsch said at last.

"But if it were only by Richard Wagner--" the major remarked, significantly: "of course you Wagnerites do not admit even the existence of any composer except your idol."

With this he left the piano, and, with his thumbs stuck into the armholes of his vest, began to pace the apartment to and fro.

There was quite space enough for him to do so, for the room was large and its furniture scanty. Nowhere was he in any danger of stumbling over a plush table loaded with bric-à-brac, or a dwarf arm-chair, or any other of the ornaments of a modern drawing-room.

The stock of curios in the house--and it was by no means inconsiderable, consisting of exquisite figures and groups of Louisburg, Meissen, and old Viennese porcelain, of seventeenth-century fans, and of thoroughly useless articles of ivory and silver--was all arranged in two antique glass cabinets, standing in such extremely dark corners that their contents could not be seen even at mid-day without a candle.

Baroness Leskjewitsch hated everything, as she was wont to express herself, that was useless, that gathered dust, and that was in the way.

In accordance with the severe style of the furniture, perfect order reigned everywhere, except that in an arm-chair lay an object in striking contrast to the rest of the apartment,--a brown work-basket about as large as a common-sized portmanteau. It lay quite forlornly upon one side, like a sailing-vessel capsized by the wind.

The major paused, looked at the basket with an odd smile, and then could not resist the temptation to rummage in it a little.

His wife always maintained that he was something of a Paul Pry; and perhaps she was right.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, dragging to light a piece of embroidery upon Japanese canvas. "The first design for a cushion--the 17th is my birthday. What little red book is this?--'Maximes de La Rochefoucauld'--don't know him. And here--why, only look!" He pulled out a package tied with blue ribbon. "A manuscript! It seems that Zdena has leanings to authorship! H'm--h'm! When a girl like our Zdena takes to such ways, it is usually a sign that she feels impelled to confide in a roundabout way, to paper, something which nothing could induce her to confess frankly to any living being. H'm! I really am curious to know what goes on in that whimsical, childish brain.

"'My Memoirs!'" The major pulled aside the blue ribbon that held the package together. "A motto! Two mottoes!--a perfect luxe of mottoes!" he murmured, and then read out aloud,--

'Whether you marry or not, you will always repent it.'

Plato.

Then comes,--

'Should you marry, then be sure
Life's sorest ills you must endure.'

Lermontow.

'L'amour, c'est le grand moteur de toutes les bêtises humaines.'

G. Sand.

I really should not have supposed that our Zdena had already pondered the marriage problem so deeply," he said, gleefully; then, contemplating with a smile the mass of wisdom scribbled in a bold, dashing handwriting, he added, "there seems to be more going on in that small brain than we had suspected. "What do you think, Rosel? may not Zdena possibly have a weakness for Harry?"

"Nonsense!" replied the Baroness. She was evidently somewhat annoyed,--first, because her husband had roused her from a pleasant nap, or, rather, disturbed her in the perusal of an article upon Grecian excavations, and secondly, because he had called her Rosel. Her real name was Rosamunda, a name of which she was very proud; she really could not, even after almost twenty years of married life, reconcile herself to her husband's thus robbing it of all its poetry. "Nonsense!" she exclaimed, with some temper. "I have a very different match in view for her."

"I did not ask you what you had in view for Zdena," the major observed, contemptuously. "I know that without asking. I only wish to know whether during your stay in Vienna you did not notice that Zdena had taken a liking to----"

"Oh, Zdena is far too sensible, and, if I am not greatly mistaken, also too ambitious, to dream of marrying Harry. She knows that Harry would ruin his prospects by a marriage with her," Frau von Leskjewitsch continued. "There's no living upon love and air alone."

"Nevertheless there are always some people who insist upon trying it, although the impossibility has long been demonstrated, both theoretically and practically," growled the major.

"And, aside from all that, Harry is not at all the husband for your niece," Frau Rosamunda went on, didactically. "She is wonderfully well developed intellectually, for her age. And he--well, he is a very good fellow, I have nothing to say against him, but----"

"'A very good fellow'! I should like to know where you could find me a better," cried the major. "In the first place, he is as handsome as a man can be----"

"As if beauty in a man were of any importance!" Frau von Leskjewitsch remarked, loftily.

Paying no attention to this interruption, the major went on reckoning up his favourite's advantages, in an angry crescendo. "He rides like a centaur!" he declared, loudly, and the comparison pleased him so much that he repeated it twice,--"yes, like a centaur; he passed his military examinations as if they had been mere play, and he is considered one of the most brilliant and talented officers in the army. He is a little quick-tempered, but he has the best heart in the world, and he has been in love with Zdena since he was a small boy; while she----"

"Let me advise you to lower your voice a little," said Frau Rosamunda, going to the window, which she partly closed.

"Stuff!" muttered her husband.

"As you please. If you like to make Zdena a subject for gossip, you are quite free to do so, only I would counsel you in that case to consult your crony Krupitschka. He has apparently not lost a single word of your harangue. I saw him from the window just now, staring up here, his mouth wide open, and the Spanish flies crawling out of his bottle and up his sleeves."

With which words and a glance of dignified displeasure, Frau Rosamunda left the room.

"H'm! perhaps I was wrong," thought the major: "women are keener in such matters than we men. 'Tis desirable I should be mistaken, but--I'd wager my gelding's forefoot,--no--" He shook his head, and contemplated the manuscript tied up with blue ribbon. "Let's see," he murmured, as he picked it up and carried it off to his smoking-room.

[CHAPTER II.]

THE CONTENTS OF THE MANUSCRIPT.

Major Paul Von Leskjewitsch, proprietor of the estates of Lauschitz and Zirkow in southwestern Bohemia, had been for twenty years on the retired list, and was a prosperous agriculturist. He had formerly been a very well-to-do officer, the most steady and trustworthy in the whole regiment, always in funds, and very seldom in scrapes.

In his youth he had often been a target for Cupid's arrows, a fact of which he himself was hardly aware.

"What an ass I was!" he was wont to exclaim to his cousin, Captain Jack Leskjewitsch, when on occasion the pair became confidential at midnight over a glass of good Bordeaux. The thought of his lost opportunities as a lover rather weighed upon the worthy dragoon.

In his regiment he had been very popular and had made many friends, but with none of them had he been so intimate as with his corporal Krupitschka. There was a rumour that before the major's wooing of his present wife, a Fräulein von Bösedow, from Pomerania, he had asked this famulus of his, "Eh, Krupitschka, what do you think? Shall we marry or not?"

Fortunately, this rumour had never reached the ears of the young lady, else she might have felt it her duty to reject the major, which would have been a pity.

In blissful ignorance, therefore, she accepted his proposal, after eight days of prudent reflection, and three months later Baron Leskjewitsch led her to the altar.

Of course he was utterly wretched during the prolonged wedding festivities, and at least very uncomfortable during the honey-moon, which, in accordance with the fashion of the day, he spent with his bride in railway-carriages, inns, churches, picture-galleries, and so forth. In truth, he was terribly bored, tided himself over the pauses which frequently occurred in his conversations with his bride by reading aloud from the guide-book, took cold in the Colosseum, and--breathed a sigh of relief when, after all the instructive experiences of their wedding-tour, he found himself comfortably established in his charming country-seat at Zirkow.

At present the Paul Leskjewitsches had long been known for a model couple in all the country round. Countess Zelenitz stoutly maintained that they were the least unhappy couple of her acquaintance,--that they were past-masters of their art; she meant the most difficult of all arts,--that of getting along with each other.

As every piece of music runs on in its own peculiar measure, one to a joyous three crotchets to the bar, another to a lyrically languishing and anon archly provocative six-quaver time, and so on, the married life of the Leskjewitsches was certainly set to a slow four crotchets to the bar,--or "common time," as it is called.

The husband, besides agriculture, and his deplorable piano performances, cultivated a certain hypochondriac habit of mind, scrutinized the colour of his tongue very frequently, and, although in spite of his utmost efforts he was quite unable to discover a flaw in his health, tried a new patent tonic every year.

The wife cultivated belles-lettres, devoted some time and attention to music, and regulated her domestic affairs with punctilious order and neatness.

The only fault Leskjewitsch had to find with her was that she was an ardent admirer of Wagner, and hence quite unable to appreciate his own talent as a composer; while she, for her part, objected to his intimacy with Krupitschka and with the stag-hounds. These, however, were mere bagatelles. The only real sore spot in this marriage was the luck of children.

The manner in which fate indemnified these two people by bestowing upon them a delightful companion in the person of a niece of the major's can best be learned from the young lady herself, in whose memoirs, with an utter disregard of the baseness of such conduct, the major has meanwhile become absorbed.

MY MEMOIRS.

I.

It rains--ah, how it rains! great drops following one another, and drenching the garden paths, plash--plash in all the puddles! Never a sunbeam to call forth a rainbow against the dark sky, never a gleam of light in the dull slaty gray. It seems as if the skies could never have done weeping over the monotony of existence--still the same--still the same!

I have tried everything by way of amusement. I curled Morl's hair with the curling-tongs. I played Chopin's mazurkas until my brain reeled. I even went up to the garret, where I knew no one could hear me, and, in the presence of an old wardrobe, where uncle's last uniform as a lieutenant was hanging, and of two rusty stove-pipes, I declaimed the famous monologue from the "Maid of Orleans."

"Oh, I could tear my hair with vexation!" as Valentine says. I read Faust a while ago,--since last spring I have been allowed to read all our classics,--and Faust interested me extremely, especially the prologue in heaven, and the first monologue, and then the walk. Ah, what a wonderful thing that walk is! But the love-scenes did not please me. Gretchen is far too meek and humble to Faust. "Dear God! How ever is it such a man can think and know so much?"

My voice is very strong and full, and I think I have a remarkable talent for the stage. I have often thought of becoming an actress, for a change; to--yes, it must out--to have an opportunity at last to show myself to the world,--to be admired. Miss O'Donnel is always telling me I was made to be admired, and I believe she is right. But what good does that do me? I think out all kinds of things, but no one will listen to them, especially now that Miss O'Donnel has gone. She seemed to listen, at all events, and every now and then would declare, "Child, you are a wonder!" That pleased me. But she departed last Saturday, to pay a visit to her relatives in Italy. Her niece is being educated there for an opera-singer. Since she went there is no one in whom I can confide. To be sure, I love Uncle Paul and Aunt Rosamunda dearly,--much more dearly than Miss O'Donnel; but I cannot tell them whatever happens to come into my head. They would not understand, any more than they understand how a girl of my age can demand more of life than if she were fifty--but indeed----

Rain--rain still! Since I've nothing else to do, I'll begin to-day to write my memoirs!

That sounds presumptuous--the memoirs of a girl whose existence flows on between Zirkow and Komaritz. But, after all,--

"Where'er you grasp this human life of ours
In its full force, be sure 'twill interest;"

which means, so far as I can understand, that, if one has the courage to write down one's personal observations and recollections simply and truthfully, it is sure to be worth the trouble.

I will be perfectly frank; and why not?--since I write for myself alone.

But that's false reasoning; for how many men there are who feign to themselves for their own satisfaction, bribing their consciences with sophistry! My conscience, however, sleeps soundly without morphine; I really believe there is nothing for it to do at present. I can be frank because I have nothing to confess.

Every Easter, before confession, I rack my brains to scrape together a few sins of some consequence, and I can find nothing but unpunctuality at prayers, pertness, and too much desire for worldly frivolities.

Well! Now, to begin without further circumlocution. Most people begin their memoirs with the history of their grandparents, some with that of their great-grandparents, seeming to suppose that the higher they can climb in their genealogical tree the more it adds to their importance. I begin simply with the history of my parents.

My father and mother married for love; they never repented their marriage, and yet it was the ruin of both of them.

My father was well born; not so my mother. Born in Paris, the daughter of a needy petty official, she was glad to accept a position as saleswoman in one of the fashionable Paris shops. Poor, dear mamma! It makes me wretched to think of her, condemned to make up parcels and tie up bundles, to mount on stepladders, exposed to the impertinence of capricious customers, who always want just what is not to be had,--all in the stifling atmosphere of a shop, and for a mere daily pittance.

Nothing in the world vexes me so much as to have people begin to whisper before me, glancing at me compassionately as they nod their heads. My ears are very acute, and I know perfectly well that they are talking of my poor mother and pitying me because my father married a shop-girl. I feel actually boiling with rage. Young as I was when I lost her, she still lives in my memory as the loveliest creature I have ever met in my life.

Tall and very slender, but always graceful, perfectly natural in manner, with tiny hands and feet, and large, melancholy, startled eyes, in a delicate, old-world face, she looked like an elf who could not quite comprehend why she was condemned to carry in her breast so large a human heart, well-nigh breaking with tenderness and melancholy. I know I look like her, and I am proud of it. Whenever I am presented to one of my couple of hundred aunts whose acquaintance I am condemned to make, she is sure to exclaim, "How very like Fritz she is!--all Fritz!" And I never fail to rejoin, "Oh, no, I am like my mother; every one who knew her says I am like mamma."

And then my aunts' faces grow long, and they think me pert.

Although I was scarcely six years old when Uncle Paul took us away from Paris, I can remember distinctly my home there. It was in a steep street in Montmartre, very high up on the fourth or fifth floor of a huge lodging-house. The sunlight shone in long broad streaks into our rooms through the high windows, outside of which extended an iron balcony. Our rooms were very pretty, very neat,--but very plain. Papa did not seem to belong to them; I don't know how I discovered this, but I found it out, little as I was. The ceilings looked low, when he rose from the rocking-chair, where he loved to sit, and stood at his full height. He always held his head gaily, high in the air, never bowing it humbly to suit his modest lodgings.

His circumstances, cramped for the time, as I learned later, by his imprudent marriage, contracted in spite of his father's disapproval, apparently struck him as a good joke, or, at the worst, as a passing annoyance. He always maintained the gay humour of a man of rank who, finding himself overtaken by a storm upon some party of pleasure, is obliged to take refuge in a wretched village inn.

Now and then he would stretch out his arms as if to measure the smallness of his house, and laugh. But mamma would cast down her large eyes sadly; then he would clasp her to his breast, kiss her, and call her the delight of his life; and I would creep out of the corner where I had been playing with my dolls, and pluck him by the sleeve, jealously desirous of my share of caresses.

In my recollection of my earliest childhood--a recollection without distinct outlines, and like some sweet, vague dream lingering in the most secret, cherished corner of my heart--everything is warm and bright; it is all light and love!

Papa is almost always with us in our sunny little nest. I see him still,--ah, how plainly!--leaning back in his rocking-chair, fair, with a rather haughty but yet kindly smile, his eyes sparkling with good-humoured raillery. He is smoking a cigarette, and reading the paper, apparently with nothing in the world to do but to enjoy life; all the light in the little room seems to come from him.

The first four years of my life blend together in my memory like one long summer day, without the smallest cloud in the blue skies above it.

I perfectly remember the moment in which my childish happiness was interrupted by the first disagreeable sensation. It was an emotion of dread. Until then I must have slept through all the hours of darkness, for, when once I suddenly wakened and found the light all gone, I was terrified at the blackness above and around me, and I screamed aloud. Then I noticed that mamma was kneeling, sobbing, beside my bed. Her sobs must have wakened me. She lighted a candle to soothe me, and told me a story. In the midst of my eager listening, I asked her, "Where is papa?"

She turned her head away, and said, "Out in the world!"

"Out in the world----" Whether or not it was the tone in which she pronounced the word "world," I cannot tell, but it has ever since had a strange sound for me,--a sound betokening something grand yet terrible.

Thus I made the discovery that there were nights, and that grown-up people could cry.

Soon afterwards it was winter; the nights grew longer, the days shorter, and it was never really bright in our home again,--the sunshine had vanished.

It was cold, and the trees in the gardens high up in Montmartre, where they took me to walk, grew bare and ugly.

Once, I remember, I asked my mother, "Mamma, will the trees never be green again?"

"Oh, yes, when the spring comes," she made answer.

"And then will it be bright here again?" I asked, anxiously.

To this she made no reply, but her eyes suddenly grew so sad that I climbed into her lap and kissed her upon both eyelids.

Papa was rarely with us now, and I was convinced that he had taken the sunshine away from our home.

When at long intervals he came to dine with us, there was as much preparation as if a stranger had been expected. Mamma busied herself in the kitchen, helping the cook, who was also my nurse-maid, to prepare the dinner. She laid the cloth herself, and decorated the table with flowers. To me everything looked magnificent: I was quite awe-stricken by the unwonted splendour.

One day a very beautiful lady paid us a visit, dressed in a velvet cloak trimmed with ermine--I did not know until some time afterwards the name of the fur--and a gray hat. I remember the hat distinctly, I was so delighted with the bird sitting on it. She expressed herself as charmed with everything in our home, stared about her through her eye-glass, overturned a small table and two footstools with her train, kissed me repeatedly, and begged mamma to come soon to see her. She was a cousin of papa's, a Countess Gatinsky,--the very one for whom, when she was a young girl and papa an elegant young attaché, he had been doing the honours of Paris on that eventful afternoon when, while she and her mother were busy and absorbed, shopping in the Bon Marché, he had fallen desperately in love with my pale, beautiful mother.

When the Countess left us, mamma cried bitterly. I do not know whether she ever returned the visit, but it was never repeated, and I never saw the Countess again, save once in the Bois de Boulogne, where I was walking with my mother. She was sitting in an open barouche, and my father was beside her. Opposite them an old man sat crouched up, looking very discontented, and very cold, although the day was quite mild and he was wrapped up in furs.

They saw us in the distance; the Countess smiled and waved her hand; papa grew very red, and lifted his hat in a stiff, embarrassed way.

I remember wondering at his manner: what made him bow to us as if we were two strangers?

Mamma hurried me on, and we got into the first omnibus she could find. I stroked her hand or smoothed the folds of her gown all the way home, for I felt that she had been hurt, although I could not tell how.

The days grow sadder and darker, and yet the spring has come. Was there really no sunshine in that April and May, or is it so only in my memory?

Meanwhile, the trees have burst into leaf, and the first early cherries have decked our modest table. We have not seen papa for a long time. He is staying at a castle in the neighbourhood of Paris, but only for a few days.

It is a sultry afternoon in the beginning of June,--I learned the date of that wretched day later. The flowers in the balcony before our windows, scarlet carnations and fragrant mignonette, are drooping, because mamma has forgotten to water them, and mamma herself looks as weary as the flowers. Pale and miserable, she moves about the room with the air of one whom the first approach of some severe illness half paralyzes. Her pretty gown, a dark-blue silk with white spots, seems to hang upon her slender figure. She arranges the articles in the room here and there restlessly, and, noticing a soft silken scarf which papa sometimes wore knotted carelessly about his throat in the mornings, and which has been left hanging on the knob of a curtain, she picks it up, passes it slowly between her hands, and holds it against her cheek.

There!--is not that a carriage stopping before our door? I run out upon the balcony, but can see nothing of what is going on in the street below; our rooms are too high up. I can see, however, that the people who live opposite are hurrying to their windows, and that the passers-by stop in the street, and stand and talk together, gathering in a little knot. A strange bustling noise ascends the staircase; it comes up to our landing,--the heavy tread of men supporting some weighty burden.

Mamma stands spellbound for a moment, and then flings the door open and cries out. It is papa whom they are bringing up, deadly pale, covered with blankets, helpless as a child.

There had been an accident in an avenue not far from Bellefontaine, the castle which the Countess Gatinsky had hired for the summer. Papa had been riding with her,--riding a skittish, vicious horse, against which he had been warned. He had only laughed, however, declaring that he knew how to manage the brute. But he could not manage him. As I learned afterwards, the horse, after vainly trying to throw his rider, had reared, and rolled over backwards upon him. He was taken up senseless. When he recovered consciousness in Bellefontaine, whither they carried him, and the physician told him frankly that he was mortally hurt, he desired to be taken home,--to those whom he loved best in the world.

At first they would not accede to his wishes; Countess Gatinsky wanted to send for mamma and me,--to bring us to Bellefontaine. But he would not hear of it. He was told that to take him to Paris would be an injury to him in his present condition. Injury!--he laughed at the word. He wanted to die in the dear little nest in Paris, and it was a dying man's right to have his way.

I have never talked of this to any one, but I have thought very often of our sorrow, of the shadow that suddenly fell upon my childhood and extinguished all its sunshine.

And I have often heard people whispering together about it when they thought I was not listening. But I listened, listened involuntarily, as one does to words which one would afterwards give one's life not to have heard. And when the evil words stabbed me like a knife, it was a comfort to be able to say to myself, "It was merely the caprice of a moment,--his heart had no share in it;" it was a comfort to be able to say that mamma sat at his bedside and that he died with his hand in hers.

I do not remember how long the struggle lasted before death came, but I never can forget the moment when I was taken in to see him.

I can see the room now perfectly,--the bucket of ice upon which the afternoon sun glittered, the bloody bandages on the floor, the furniture in disorder, and, lying here and there, articles of dress which had not yet been put away. There, in the large bed, where the gay flowered curtains had been drawn back as far as possible to let in the air, lay papa. His cheeks were flushed and his blue eyes sparkled, and when I went up to him he laughed. I could not believe that he was ill. Mamma sat at the head of the bed, dressed in her very prettiest gown, her wonderful hair loosened and hanging in all its silken softness about her shoulders. She, too, smiled; but her smile made me shiver.

Papa looked long and lovingly at me, and, taking my small hand in his, put it to his lips. Then he made the sign of the cross upon my forehead. I stood on tiptoe to kiss him, and I embraced him with all the fervour of my five years. Mamma drew me back. "You hurt him," she said. He laughed,--laughed as a brave man laughs at pain. He always laughed: I never saw him grave but once,--only once. Mamma burst into tears.

"Minette, Minette, do not be a coward. I want you to be beautiful always," said he. Those words I perfectly remember.

Yes, he wanted her to be beautiful to the last!

They sent me out of the room. As I turned at the door, I saw how papa stroked mamma's wonderful hair--slowly--lingeringly--with his slender white hand.

I sat in the kitchen all the long summer afternoon. At first our servant told me stories. Then she had to go out upon an errand; I stayed in the kitchen alone, sitting upon a wooden bench, staring before me, my doll, with which I did not care to play, lying upon the brick floor beside me. The copper saucepans on the wall gleam and glitter in the rays of the declining sun, and the bluebottle flies crawl and buzz about their shining surfaces.

A moaning monotonous sound, now low, then loud, comes from my father's room. I feel afraid, but I cannot stir: I am, as it were, rooted to my wooden bench. The hoarse noise grows more and more terrible.

Gradually twilight seems to fall from the ceiling and to rise from the floor; the copper vessels on the wall grow vague and indistinct; here and there a gleam of brilliancy pierces the gray gloom, then all is dissolved in darkness. In the distance a street-organ drones out Malbrough; I have hated the tune ever since. The moans grow louder. I lean my head forward upon my knees and stop my ears. What is that? One brief, piercing cry,--and all is still!

I creep on tiptoe to papa's room. The door is open. I can see mamma bending over him, kissing him, and lavishing caresses upon him: she is no longer afraid of hurting him.

That night a neighbour took me home with her, and when I came back, the next day, papa lay in his black coffin in a darkened room, and candles were burning all around him.

He seemed to me to have grown. And what dignity there was in his face! That was the only time I ever saw him look grave.

Mamma lifted me up that I might kiss him. Something cold seemed to touch my cheek, and suddenly I felt I--cannot describe the sensation--an intense dread,--the same terror, only ten times as great, as that which overcame me when I first wakened in the night and was aware of the darkness. Screaming, I extricated myself from mamma's arms, and ran out of the room.----

(Here the major stopped to brush away the tears before reading on.)

----For a while mamma tried to remain in Paris and earn our living by the embroidery in which she was so skilful; but, despite all her trying, she could not do it. The servant-girl was sent away, our rooms grew barer and barer, and more than once I went to bed crying with hunger.

In November, Uncle Paul came to see us, and took us back with him to Bohemia. I cannot recall the journey, but our arrival I remember distinctly,--the long drive from the station, along the muddy road, between low hedges, or tall, slim poplars; then through the forest, where the wind tossed about the dry fallen leaves, and a few crimson-tipped daisies still bloomed gaily by the roadside, braving the brown desolation about them; past curious far-stretching villages, their low huts but slightly elevated above the mud about them, their black thatched roofs green in spots with moss, their narrow windows gay with flowers behind the thick, dim panes; past huge manure-heaps, upon which large numbers of gay-coloured fowls were clucking and crowing, and past stagnant ditches where amber-coloured swine were wallowing contentedly.

The dogs rush excitedly out of the huts, to run barking after our carriage, while a mob of barefooted, snub-nosed children, their breath showing like smoke in the frosty air, come bustling out of school, and shout after us "Praised be Jesus Christ!"

A turn--we have driven into the castle court-yard; Krupitschka hastens to open the carriage door. At the top of the steps stands a tall lady in mourning, very majestic in appearance, with a kind face. I see mamma turn pale, shrink--then all is a blank.

II.

At the period when I again take up my reminiscences I am entirely at home at Zirkow, and almost as familiar with Uncle Paul and Aunt Rosa as if I had known them both all my life.

Winter has set in, and, ah, such a wonderful, beautiful winter,--so bright, and glittering with such quantities of pure white snow! I go sleighing with Uncle Paul; I make a snow man with Krupitschka,--a monk in a long robe, because the legs of the soldier we tried to make would not stand straight; and I help Krupitschka's wife to make bread in a large wooden bowl with iron hoops. How delicious is the odour of the fermenting dough, and how delightful it is to run about the long brick-paved corridors and passages, to have so much space and light and air! When one day Uncle Paul asks me, "Which is best, Paris or Zirkow?" I answer, without hesitation, "Zirkow!"

Uncle Paul laughs contentedly, but mamma looks at me sadly. I feel that I have grieved her.

Now and then I think of papa, especially before I go to sleep at night. Then I sometimes wonder if the snow is deep on his grave in the churchyard at Montmartre, and if he is not cold in the ground. Poor papa!--he loved the sun so dearly! And I look over at mamma, who sits and sews at a table near my bed, and it worries me to see the tears rolling down her cheeks again.

Poor mamma! She grows paler, thinner, and sadder every day, although my uncle and aunt do everything that they can for her.

If I remember rightly, she was seldom with her hosts except at meal-times. She lived in strict retirement, in the two pretty rooms which had been assigned us, and was always trying to make herself useful with her needle to Aunt Rosa, who never tired of admiring her beautiful, delicate work.

Towards spring her hands were more than ever wont to drop idly in her lap, and when the snow had gone and everything outside was beginning to stir, she would sit for hours in the bow-window where her work-table stood, doing nothing, only gazing out towards the west,--gazing--gazing.

The soiled snow had vanished; the water was dripping from roofs and trees; everything was brown and bare. A warm breath came sweeping over the world. For a couple of days all nature sobbed and thrilled, and then spring threw over the earth her fragrant robe of blossoms.

It was my first spring in the country, and I never shall forget my joyful surprise each morning at all that had been wrought overnight. I could not tell which to admire most, buds, flowers, or butterflies. From morning till night I roamed about in the balmy air, amid the tender green of grass and shrubs. And at night I was so tired that I was asleep almost before the last words of my childish prayer had died upon my lips. Ah, how soundly I slept!

But one night I suddenly waked, with what seemed to me the touch of a soft hand upon my cheek,--papa's hand. I started up and looked about me; there was no one to be seen. The breeze of spring had caressed me,--that was all. How had it found its way in?

The moon was at the full, and in its white light everything in the room stood revealed and yet veiled. I sat up uneasily, and then noticed that mamma's bed was empty. I was frightened. "Mamma! mamma!" I called, half crying.

There was no reply. I sprang from my little bed, and ran into the next room, the door of which was open.

Mamma was standing there at the window, gazing out towards the west. The window was wide open; our rooms were at the back of the castle, and looked out upon the orchard, where nature was celebrating its resurrection with festal splendour. The huge old apple-trees were all robed in delicate pink-white blossoms, the tender grass beneath them glittered with dew, and above it and among the waving blossoms sighed the warm breeze of spring as if from human lips. Mamma stood with extended arms whispering the tenderest words out into the night,--words that sounded as if stifled among sighs and kisses. She wore the same dress in which she had sat by papa's bedside when he wished her to be beautiful at their parting. Her hair hung loose about her shoulders. I gasped for breath, and threw my arms about her, crying, "Mamma! mamma!" She turned, and seemed about to thrust me from her almost angrily, then suddenly began to weep bitterly like a child just wakened from sleep, and crept back gently and ashamed to our bedroom. Without undressing she lay down on her bed, and I covered her up as well as I could.

I could not sleep that night, and I heard her moan and move restlessly.

The next morning she could not come down to breakfast; a violent nervous fever had attacked her, and ten days afterwards she died.

They broke the sad truth to me slowly, first saying that she had gone on a journey, and then that she was with God in heaven. I knew she was dead,--and what that meant.

I can but dimly remember the days that followed her death. I dragged myself about beneath the burden of a grief far too great for my poor, childish little heart, and grew more and more weary, until at last I was attacked by the same illness of which my mother had died.

When I recovered, the memory of all that had happened before my illness no longer gave me any pain. I looked back upon the past with what was almost indifference. Not until long, long afterwards did I comprehend the wealth of love of which my mother's death had deprived me.

III.

It really is very entertaining to write one's memoirs. I will go on, although it is not raining to-day. On the contrary, it is very warm,--so warm that I cannot stay out of doors.

Aunt Rosamunda is in the drawing-room, entertaining the colonel of the infantry regiment in garrison at X----. She sent for me, but I excused myself, through Krupitschka. When lieutenants of hussars come, she never sends for me. It really is ridiculous: does she suppose my head could be turned by any officer of hussars? The idea! Upon my word! Still, I should like for once just to try whether Miss O'Donnel is right, whether I only need wish to have--oh, how delightful it would be to be adored to my heart's content! Since, however, there is no prospect of anything of the kind, I will continue to write my memoirs.

I have taken off my gown and slipped on a thin white morning wrapper, and the cook, with whom I am a great favourite, has sent me up a pitcher of iced lemonade to strengthen me for my literary labours. My windows are open, and look out upon a wilderness of old trees with wild roses blooming among them. Ah, how sweet the roses are! The bees buzz over them monotonously, the leaves scarcely rustle, not a bird is singing. The world certainly is very beautiful, even if one has nothing entertaining to do except to write memoirs. Now that I have finished telling of my parents, I will pass on to my nearest relatives.----

("Oho!" said the major. "I am curious to see what she has to say of us.")

----Uncle Paul is the middle one of three brothers, the eldest of whom is my grandfather.

The Barons von Leskjewitsch are of Croatian descent, and are convinced of the antiquity of their family, without being able to prove it. There has never been any obstacle to their being received at court, and for many generations they have maintained a blameless propriety of demeanour and have contracted very suitable marriages.

Although all the members of this illustrious family are forever quarrelling among themselves, and no one Leskjewitsch has ever been known to get along well with another Leskjewitsch, they nevertheless have a deal of family feeling, which manifests itself especially in a touching pride in all the peculiarities of the Leskjewitsch temperament. These peculiarities are notorious throughout the kingdom,--such, at least, is the firm conviction of the Leskjewitsch family. Whatever extraordinary feats the Leskjewitsches may have performed hitherto, they have never been guilty of any important departure from an ordinary mode of life, but each member of the family has nevertheless succeeded in being endowed from the cradle with a patent of eccentricity, in virtue of which mankind are more or less constrained to accept his or her eccentricities as a matter of course.

I am shocked now by what I have here written down. Of course I am a Leskjewitsch, or I never should allow myself to pass so harsh a judgment upon my nearest of kin. I suppose I ought to erase those lines, but, after all, no one will ever see them, and there is something pleasing in my bold delineation of the family characteristics. The style seems to me quite striking. So I will let my words stand as they are,--especially since the only one of the family who has ever been kind to me--Uncle Paul--is, according to the universal family verdict, no genuine Leskjewitsch, but a degenerate scion. In the first place, his hair and complexion are fair, and, in the second place, he is sensible. Among men in general, I believe he passes for mildly eccentric; his own family find him distressingly like other people.

To which of the two other brothers the prize for special originality is due, to the oldest or to the youngest,--to my grandfather or to the father of my playmate Harry,--the world finds it impossible to decide. Both are widowers, both are given over to a craze for travel. My grandfather's love of travel, however, reminds one of the restlessness of a white mouse turning the wheel in its cage; while my uncle Karl's is like that of the Wandering Jew, for whose restless soul this globe is too narrow.

My grandfather is continually travelling from one to another of his estates, seldom varying the round; Uncle Karl by turns hunts lions in the Soudan and walruses at the North Pole; and in their other eccentricities the brothers are very different. My grandfather is a cynic; Uncle Karl is a sentimentalist. My grandfather starts from the principle that all effort which has any end in view, save the satisfying of his excellent appetite and the promotion of his sound sleep, is nonsense; Uncle Karl intends to write a work which, if rightly appreciated, will entirely reform the spirit of the age. My grandfather is a miser; Uncle Karl is a spendthrift. Uncle Karl is beginning to see the bottom of his purse; my grandfather is enormously rich.

When I add that my grandfather is a conservative with a manner which is intentionally rude, and that Uncle Karl is a radical with the bearing of a courtier, I consider the picture of the two men tolerably complete. All that is left to say is that I know my uncle Karl only slightly, and my grandfather not at all, wherefore my descriptions must, unfortunately, lack the element of personal observation, being drawn almost entirely from hearsay.

My grandfather's cynicism could not always have been so pronounced as at present; they say he was not naturally avaricious, but that he became so in behalf of my father, his only son. He saved and pinched for him, laying by thousands upon thousands, buying estate after estate only to assure his favourite a position for which a prince might envy him.

Finally he procured him an appointment as attaché in the Austrian Legation in Paris, and when papa spent double his allowance the old man only laughed and said, "Youth must have its swing." But when my father married a poor girl of the middle class, my grandfather simply banished him from his heart, and would have nothing more to do with him.

After this papa slowly consumed the small property he had inherited from his mother, and at his death nothing of it was left.

Uncle Paul was the only one of the family who still clung to my father after his mésalliance,--the one eccentricity which had never been set down in the Leskjewitsch programme. When mamma in utter destitution applied to him for help, he went to my grandfather, told him of the desperate extremity to which she was reduced, and entreated him to do something for her and for me. My grandfather merely replied that he did not support vagabonds.

My cousin Heda, whose custom it is to tell every one of everything disagreeable she hears said about them,--for conscience' sake, that they may know whom to mistrust,--furnished me with these details.

The upshot of the interview was, first, that my uncle Paul quarrelled seriously with my grandfather, and, second, that he resolved to go to Paris forthwith and see that matters were set right.

Aunt Rosa maintains that at the last moment he asked Krupitschka to sanction his decision. This is a malicious invention; but when Heda declares that he brought us to Bohemia chiefly with the view of disgracing and vexing my grandfather, there may be some grain of truth in her assertion.

Many years have passed since our modest entrance here in Zirkow, but my amiable grandfather still maintains his determined hostility towards Uncle Paul and myself.

His favourite occupation seems to consist in perfecting each year, with the help of a clever lawyer, his will, by which I am deprived, so far as is possible, of the small share of his wealth which falls to me legally as my father's heir. He has chosen for his sole heir his youngest brother's eldest son, my playmate Harry, upon condition that Harry marries suitably, which means a girl with sixteen quarterings. I have no quarterings, so if Harry marries me he will not have a penny.

How could such an idea occur to him? It is too ridiculous to be thought of. But--what if he did take it into his head? Oh, I have sound sense enough for two, and I know exactly what I want,--a grand position, an opportunity to play in the world the part for which I feel myself capable,--everything, in short, that he could not offer me. Moreover, I am quite indifferent to him. I have a certain regard for him for the sake of old times, and therefore he shall have a chapter of these memoirs all to himself.

----At the end of this chapter the major shook his head disapprovingly.

IV. MY DEAREST PLAYMATE.

The first time that I saw him he was riding upon a pig,--a wonder of a pig; it looked like a huge monster to me,--which he guided by its ears. One is not a Leskjewitsch for nothing. It was at Komaritz---- But I will describe the entire day, which I remember with extraordinary distinctness.

Uncle Paul himself took me to Komaritz in his pretty little dog-cart, drawn by a pair of spirited ponies in gay harness and trappings. Of course I sat on the box beside my uncle, being quite aware that this was the seat of honour. I wore an embroidered white gown, long black stockings, and a black sash, and carried a parasol which I had borrowed of Aunt Rosa, not because I needed it,--my straw hat perfectly shielded my face from the sun,--but because it seemed to me required for the perfection of my toilet.

I was very well pleased with myself, and nodded with great condescension to the labourers and schoolchildren whom we met.

I have never attempted to conceal from myself or to deny the fact that I am vain.

Ah, how merrily we bowled along over the white, dusty road! The ponies' hoofs hardly touched the ground. After a while the road grew bad, and we drove more slowly. Then we turned into a rough path between high banks. What a road! Deep as a chasm; the wheels of the vehicle jolted right and left through ruts overgrown with thistles, brambles, and wild roses.

"Suppose we should meet another carriage?" I asked my uncle, anxiously.

"Just what I was asking myself," he replied, composedly; "there is really no room for passing. But why not trust in Providence?"

The road grows worse, but now, instead of passing through a chasm, it runs along the edge of a precipice. The dog-cart leans so far to one side that the groom gets out to steady it. The wheels grate against the stones, and the ponies shake their shaggy heads discontentedly, as much as to say, "We were not made for such work as this."

In after-years, when so bad a road in the midst of one of the most civilized provinces of Austria seemed to me inexplicable, Uncle Paul explained it to me. At one time in his remembrance the authorities decided to lay out a fine road there, but Uncle Karl contrived to frustrate their purpose; he did not wish to have Komaritz too accessible--for fear of guests.

A delicious pungent fragrance is wafted from the vine-leaves in the vineyards on the sides of the hills, flocks of white and yellow butterflies hover above them, the grasshoppers chirp shrilly, and from the distance comes the monotonous sound of the sweep of the mower's scythe. The sun is burning hot, and the shadows are short and coal-black.

Click-clack--click-clack--precipice and ravine lie behind us, and we are careering along a delightful road shaded by huge walnut-trees.

A brown, shapeless ruin crowning a vine-clad eminence rises before us. Click-clack--click-clack--the ponies fly past a marble St. John, around which are grouped three giant lindens, whose branches scatter fading blossoms upon us; past a smithy, from which issues a strong odour of wagon-grease and burnt hoofs; past a slaughter-house, in front of which a butchered ox is hanging from a chestnut-tree; past pretty whitewashed cottages, some of them two stories high and with flower-gardens in front,--Komaritz is a far more important and prosperous village than Zirkow; then through a lofty but perilously ruinous archway into a spacious, steeply-ascending court-yard, through the entire length of which runs a broad gutter. Yes, yes, it was there--in that court-yard--that I saw him for the first time, and he was riding upon a pig, holding fast by its ears, and the animal, galloping furiously, was doing its best to throw him off. But this was no easy matter, for he sat as if he were part of his steed, and withal maintained a loftiness of bearing that would have done honour to a Spanish grandee at a coronation. He was very handsome, very slender, very brown, and wore a white suit, the right sleeve of which was spotted with ink.

In front of the castle, at a wooden table fastened to the ground beneath an old pear-tree, sat a yellow-haired young man, with a bloated face and fat hands, watching the spectacle calmly and drinking beer from a stone mug with a leaden cover.

When the pig found that it could not throw its rider, it essayed another means to be rid of him. It lay down in the gutter and rolled over in the mud. When Harry arose, he looked like the bad boys in "Slovenly Peter" after they had been dipped in the inkstand.

"I told you how it would be," the fat young man observed, phlegmatically, and went on drinking beer. As I afterwards learned, he was Harry's tutor, Herr Pontius.

"What does it matter?" said Harry, composedly, looking down at the mud dripping from him, as if such a bath were an event of every-day occurrence; "I did what I chose to do."

"And now I shall do what I choose to do. You will go to your room and translate fifty lines of Horace."

Harry shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. I now think that he was posing a little for our sakes, for we had just driven up to the castle, but then his composure made a great impression upon me. After he had bowed respectfully to Uncle Paul from where he stood, he vanished behind a side-door of the castle, at the chief entrance of which we had drawn up. A dignified footman received us in the hall, and a crowd of little black dachshunds, with yellow feet and eyebrows, barked a loud welcome.

We were conducted into a large room on the ground-floor,--apparently reception-room, dining-room, and living-room all in one,--whence a low flight of wooden steps led out into the garden. A very sallow but otherwise quite pretty Frenchwoman, who reminded me--I cannot tell why--of the black dachshunds, and who proved to be my little cousin's governess, received us here and did the honours for us.

My cousin Heda, a yellow-haired little girl with portentously good manners, relieved me of my parasol, and asked me if I had not found the drive very warm. Whilst I made some monosyllabic and confused reply, I was wondering whether her brother would get through his punishment and make his appearance again before we left. When my uncle withdrew on the pretext of looking after some agricultural matter, Heda asked me if I would not play graces with her. She called it jeu de gráce, and, in fact, spoke French whenever it was possible.

I agreed, she brought the graces, and we went out into the garden.

Oh, that Komaritz garden! How clumsy and ugly, and yet what a dear, old-fashioned garden it was! Lying at the foot of the hill crowned by the ancient ruin and the small frame house built for the tutors,--who were changed about every two months,--it was divided into huge rectangular flower-beds, bordered with sage, lavender, or box, from which mighty old apricot-trees looked down upon a luxuriant wilderness of lilies, roses, blue monk's-hood, scarlet verbenas, and whatever else was in season. Back of this waste of flowers there were all sorts of shrubs,--hawthorns, laburnums, jessamines, with here and there an ancient hundred-leaved rose-bush, whose heavy blossoms, borne down by their own weight, drooped and lay upon the mossy paths that intersected this thicket. Then came a green lawn, where was a swing hung between two old chestnuts, and near by stood a queer old summerhouse, circular, with a lofty tiled roof, upon the peak of which gleamed a battered brass crescent. Everywhere in the shade were fastened in the ground comfortable garden-seats, smelling deliciously of moss and mouldering wood, and where you least expected it the ground sloped to a little bubbling spring, its banks clothed with velvet verdure and gay with marsh daisies and spiderwort, sprung from seed which the wind had wafted hither. I cannot begin to tell of the kitchen-garden and orchard; I should never be done.

And just as I have here described it as it was fourteen years ago the dear old garden stands to-day, with the exception of some trifling changes; but--they are talking of improvements--poor garden! What memories are evoked when I think of it!

"O Thou, My Austria!"

"O THOU, MY AUSTRIA!"

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN

OF

OSSIP SCHUBIN

BY

MRS. A. L. WISTER

PHILADELPHIAJ. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY1897.

Copyright, 1890, by J. B. Lippincott Company.

CONTENTS.

"O THOU, MY AUSTRIA!"

A MANUSCRIPT MISAPPROPRIATED.

THE CONTENTS OF THE MANUSCRIPT.

MY MEMOIRS.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

MY DEAREST PLAYMATE.

PHILADELPHIA
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1897.