Part 2

Our mornings are spent in visiting the stables and riding school; after luncheon we skate or go sleighing; in the evening we play games, or dance, or just simply lounge about. Cloclo, to my infinite amusement, has set up a furious flirtation with the count; Mitzi is still pining with love for Fred; and as for Kitzi and Pips, they remain faithful to each other, and will carry the day yet. What can parents do when their children won’t give in? It would be too absurd for a captain to marry on his pay. He certainly would not be my taste, but the two geese reply to every common-sense remonstrance that they love each other. As if they could have any reason more senseless for making each other miserable.

The count has quite joined the masculine community, and is first and foremost among them; he has given up paying compliments, and, do you know, my dear, I have made up my mind to accept him.

Fred, who of course scented at once the meaning of the count’s visit, is behaving so sensibly that one cannot praise him enough; he really is a dear old fellow. Do you remember at the last carnival his wearing my colors, and yet, even then, he never breathed a word to trouble me, nor has he now.

This morning I was trying the paces of a foal, and Fred, whip in hand, came up.

“How do you like the count?” said he. “I think him a capital fellow, and he has thirty thousand pounds a year.”

“And not a single racer,” said I; upon which, with a sly look, he replied:

“That will soon be altered. If you should want a first-rate master of the hounds, think of a friend at Rahn up in the mountains----”

I should think I would! He shall be one of the first I invite in my new home, to make people sociable together.

Good-night, Nesterl. I declare I am half asleep--a moment ago I was wide awake, but the thought of the admirable Clara Aarheim has set me yawning. “My domesticated daughter,” as the old countess calls her, because she has evidently given up all hope of establishing her--“my domesticated daughter” is more insipid than ever; she would do very well for a major’s wife--say a major in the infantry, who lives upon his pay. Now my young lady has renounced the world, she finds no pleasure in society--in other words, no partners. No one can endure her with her mincing ways and everlasting blushes. She bores even the count, and he is never as lively with her as with us. Only fancy, he considers her good-looking! A good-looking stick. That kind of beauty is not to my taste; it reminds me of those statues we pass by in museums, with downcast glance, when we walk along so discreetly with our mammas--poor mammas! if they only knew that we are not as demure as we look!

Only fancy, the count can be satirical. He actually persuaded Clara to mount before us all, and then praised her riding to the skies. We were dying with laughter, and she looked so confused; and I, catching up a book, rushed forward, saying gravely:

“Allow me to celebrate the episode in verse,” and sang:

“Slow and sure, slow and sure, To guard our bones is the best cure?”

Good-night, I am dead asleep; I must say my prayers in the morning. And only think, the count said to me:

“You have such a charming voice, what a pity you have never taken singing lessons.”

Here I went to sleep last night, my pen fell on the paper, and you will receive a letter adorned with blots. I have one thing more to tell you about the worthy Clara. You must know that she raves about the count, and took it upon herself to read me a lecture yesterday.

“With such a man”--oh! the emphasis on “such a man,” and her eyes lit up like a couple of Bengal lights--“with such a man you should conduct yourself very differently, dearest Muschi. He is not accustomed to the kind of conversation you indulge in with the fast young men you have about you. It is plain that he likes you; how could it be otherwise? but it is very evident that your talk and manners often horrify him.” And then she must needs launch out into a tirade against horsiness and stable talk, frivolity and lack of reading and thinking, and goodness only knows what. Heaven knows, I detest everything fast, but her way of depreciating the things that I most like and value exhausted my--never too great--stock of patience. I dare say I answered her very rudely, and I certainly told her that her room was as good as her company. And so my lady took herself off, looking uncommonly like a bedraggled poodle. And in my first fury I sat down then and there and made a sketch of her presiding over the school of needlework she had started at home, a book under each arm, one hand wielding a birch rod, the other displaying a darned stocking, upon the tip of her nose, flattened for the purpose, pirouettes a tiny weeny scholar. My caricature made the round of the drawing room, and everybody had a secret giggle over it. Nagel, of course, deplored my fresh piece of mischief, and had nearly let the cat out of the bag. Clara was more amused by it than anyone, which was far from my intention, and the count was amazed at my talent for drawing, and thought it a thousand pities that I had not had drawing lessons. The remainder of the evening he devoted to Clara, presumably talking to her about the school of needlework. Poor man!

Yours, MUSCHI.

I open this to tell you that the count has begged me to grant him an interview. Things are becoming serious. My parents are beaming. I will telegraph to you when our engagement is to be made known.

SEBENBERG CASTLE, December 28, 1883.

Yes, dearest, we shall soon be coming to Vienna, and I shall be jolly glad to see your sweet self again, and glad of Carnival. What a nuisance that it is cut so short now; there is no possibility of crowding in enough dances; and I feel inclined to rush in madly for gayety. Unluckily Fred will be away; he is spending the winter in Old England, as he wrote papa a few days ago, with apologies to the ladies for not having come over to say good-by before starting. Papa is angry because Fred rather did him over some horses--as if that----

Your letter has just come--the third in which you bombard me with questions. Don’t you see that I have been taking a rise out of you? How do you suppose that I should consent to be immured in Swabia, where the men go in for domestic life as a profession, and the women knit socks from conviction?

We certainly did have a conversation, Count Carl and I, but of a very different nature from what you have been imagining.

He began by saying that his visit to us had been a memorable one, in that it had given him quite new impressions--had opened out a new world to him.

“If it was new to you, you have adapted yourself very readily to it,” I made reply.

“What wonder, with such a guide as you, countess--such a model in all knightly arts and usages.”

“Is that intended to be ironical?”

“By no means. I return to my Penates richer than I came.”

“To where?”

“To my household gods.”

“Aha!”

Here the interview came to a slight hitch, but I set it going again by asking what was the gain he had made by coming among us.

“Of a friend!” he exclaimed; “a young, charming, reliable friend, named Countess Muschi.”

“_Pardi!_” I exclaimed.

And he, losing no time, seized my hand, coloring fiery red, and his voice shook. “A friend upon whose help and support I count in the most important moment of my life.”

“What moment do you mean?”

“That which must decide the weal or woe of all my after life--that in which you will win my eternal gratitude--by asking----” Here his shaky voice toppled over entirely.

“Whom am I to ask--myself?” I blurted out; but, luckily for me, in his agitation he was unconscious how I had given myself away, and went on:

“Countess Clara Aarheim.”

Here I must have looked uncommonly sold, for he exclaimed hurriedly, “You think there is no chance for me. Is it too late--is Countess Clara no longer free?”

Nesti, human nature would not stand it; and I broke out with “What a sell!” Upon which the poor count was thrown into fresh alarm, and conjured me to be frank with him, and only tell him if he must renounce the idea. Of course, it would have been a miracle if such a treasure as Clara had not already found a suitor, and he had been a fool to hope for such a miracle.

“Stuff and rubbish,” thinks I to myself; then aloud, “Not such a fool as you think! I know Clara’s affairs tolerably well. So far she has had no admirers.”

“Is it so--is it so?” and seizing my hand he kissed it passionately. “And she? Has she not seemed to care for anyone?”

“Not a bit of it. A girl is hardly likely to be so unpractical as to care for a man if he does not care for her. That is hardly our way.”

He heaved a deep sigh.

“You have no idea what a girl in your sphere can do, who has the courage not to ‘be led by fashion.’”

“Pray do not expect such _courage_ from me. To my mind it is as little like the real thing as is forced laughter to real honest mirth.”

“And yet I do not know. There may be a higher standpoint than that of society.”

“That is the one consolation of those who are excluded from it.”

“Then at least grant it to such poor devils, who would otherwise be left despairing,” he said, with a good-humored laugh; and, going back to his subject, he overwhelmed me with entreaties to find out from Clara, without her knowing it, if he were in any way obnoxious to her.

To this I answered that I could save myself that trouble; that he was anything but obnoxious to her.

“And you think, then, that I may hope in time----?”

“In time? This very day, if you only choose to ask.”

“Countess!”

“Why are you so surprised? Clara would never dream for a moment of refusing you. When has she ever had a chance of making such a match before?”

“Ah--of making such a match,” he repeated, crestfallen. “If it were only----You could not have given me greater discouragement, countess, than in that one word.”

And so, in his discouragement, he poured out to poor me an harangue about love, intellect, mutual understanding; winding up with the trite remark that nothing in married life is so important as are these things. Any poor devil who had not known a day’s happiness in his life, or what money can bring, could not have spoken more eloquently.

Awfully odd! it did not seem all nonsense to me--at least not the whole time. There were actually moments in which the thought came over me, perhaps, after all, he is not so utterly wrong; perhaps there really is something in sympathy of taste, as well as in suitability of position. (Certainly position alone does not promote happiness.) And then I thought to myself, “You are a good man and clever; I am not a bad girl or a stupid one; why should not we have suited each other? Perhaps I was a goose for my pains to have thrown you in Clara’s way! But that little _malaise_ soon passed over, and I began to picture her felicity, and the joke it would be to ask her if she would accept the count. Then, too, I remembered the many tricks I had played her; and how ill I had requited her friendship for me; and so, extending my hand in right good fellowship, I exclaimed:

“All right! Shake hands upon it. I will obtain permission for you to plead your cause. Take it all in all, Clara is well suited to you. She has always said that in marriage the bridegroom was more to be considered than his rentroll.”

My red sportswoman’s hands have often been kissed, but never so fervently as by the count at that juncture.

Suffice it to say, Nesti, all went off splendidly. Clara’s perplexity was tremendous; how at first she said No, in her humility and discretion; how the count then went at it with a will, swearing a man could only marry one woman--and what was to be done if that woman would not have him?

The bliss of Casa Aarheim can be more easily imagined than described. My people seemed less overjoyed. Mamma puffed away at her nineteenth cigar that day. Papa pinched my cheek, and said:

“I say, pussy.”

“What, papa?”

“You are a goose.”

“Family secret, papa. If you betray it, it’s at your own cost.”

Three days later, the count went home to make all necessary preparations for the reception of his young wife, to whom he is to be married during Carnival. His departure was quickly followed by that of the Aarheims.

The lovers’ parting was, Heaven be praised, accomplished without a scene. He held her hand for a long pressure in his, looking at her as if to say, “Trust me.” She, in the same language, made answer, “Unreservedly.”

It was a parting thoroughly _comme il faut_, and I thought to myself--but why always confess to you all that I think?

Farewell, dear girl, and observe that it is not always as pleasant as it looks to be a sporting countess, pure and simple.

Yours, MUSCHI.

[Illustration: Decorative image]

COUNTESS PAULA.

We had quite a crowded reception last night after the theater. He was there--more reserved and silent than ever. He is going away--about to be transferred to some other legation--probably to Serajewo.

My friends say it is the very place for him; they are merciless to any man who happens to be deficient in “style”; absolutely merciless.

Countess Albertine was for some time in conversation with the secretary of the French Legation, by whom he was standing. I heard the secretary remark that our German literature, otherwise so rich, was curiously deficient in memoirs. The countess, evidently not greatly impressed by this fact, murmured “Ah,” and smiled as sweetly as if the greatest homage had been offered at her shrine. But he whom I like so well and esteem so highly, he, who is so gifted and patriotic, replied:

“Yes; unfortunately it is too true.”

Oh, thought I, then the Frenchman is right; and I formed a resolution: If I do not marry--and I do not mean ever to marry--there shall I be my whole life without a single occupation. Were it not a worthy aim to devote my poor abilities to help supply so deplorable a deficiency? At least I will try. I enter, then, upon this work with a due feeling of its solemn import. May Heaven prosper it!

MY MEMOIRS.

The 15th of May, 1865, witnessed my entry into this world, to the anything but satisfaction of my parents. My sister was already married, my brother preparing for his final examination. During the first year of my existence my father never deigned to look at me. But I, nothing daunted, grew big and plump. Big, or rather tall, I am still; but plump, Heaven be praised, I am not. And as for my dear old father, if at first he did not love me, there is no trace of any such want now. He would do anything for me, and I have quite given up asking his permission to anything beforehand; his one and only answer being always, “Do whatever you like!”

My childhood was passed almost entirely alone; first with my nurse as sole companion; afterward with my governess, a perfect angel, knowing no more of the things of earth than angels do. For instance--of botany she simply knew nothing. If I asked her what was larkspur in French, she would answer, “_C’est le coucou bleu_”; a buttercup was “_le coucou jaune_”; eyebright, “_le coucou blanc_.” All flowers, that is all wild and field flowers, to her were various colored _coucous_. But I must do her the justice to say that she was fully authorized not to go too thoroughly into my education, my dear good father having engaged her on the express stipulation that what he required for his daughter was a good “superficial” education. And that was what I certainly obtained. Thus for a long time I thought I knew the history of the world from beginning to end; when suddenly I found that Mme. Duphot, at mamma’s request, had quietly suppressed the whole of one century--that of the Reformation. They desired that I should know nothing of Luther. But I discovered him--in the eleventh volume of Schlosser’s “History of the World,” accidentally forgotten and left behind when it had been decided to turn out my brother’s old books and pack them off to a second-hand dealer.

Heaven forgive me if I am a bad Catholic, but, honestly, Dr. Luther does not seem to me such a terrible creature that one dare not even know of his existence. Of course I did not venture to express so heterodox an opinion to my devout Duphot; it would have destroyed her peace of mind forever, and she would henceforth have been spending all her poor little savings on the reading of masses for the restoration of my endangered faith. But I did tell the chaplain when next I went to confession. He merely imposed an extra penitential prayer--nothing more; nor did he in any way alter his customary admonition, nor the sentence with which it always closed--“And then say, ‘Dear God, I thank thee for all the mercies which thou dost vouchsafe to me, and to my noble family.’”

I always used to think it strangely worded, and not exactly in accordance with the manner in which we should address the Divine Being, who takes no account of “noble” families, we being all equal in his sight.

And this was not the only thing in which the reverend chaplain gave me ground for astonishment. Upon learned subjects he held views shared by no one save, perhaps, Mme. Duphot and myself--and myself only up to a certain period. For example: he used to give me my geography lessons, we beginning with physiography as being the most difficult, and, once mastered, the rest being bound to follow as a matter of course. Among other things the reverend chaplain informed us: “At the North Pole it is cold, and at the South Pole” (Siedpol, he called it) “hot, I suppose.”

As he said it the thing seemed clear, but afterward I had my doubts, for, on reference to my dictionary, I found that _süd_ (south) and _sied_ (scorching, boiling) had nothing whatever to do with each other.

But now enough of my studies, and to turn to my home life.

It was as happy as it could be. At the first sign of spring, I and my Duphot used to repair to Trostburg, our country seat, whither my parents followed for a stay of some weeks during the hunting season.

As with the dawn, long before sunrise, the sky is light, so, long before my dear ones arrived, my heart would be full of joyful expectation. True, their coming never realized things exactly as I had pictured them. The many guests arriving simultaneously with them claimed their constant attention, and, with the departure of the guests, they, too, went off to pastures new. We would go down to the carriage to see them off, Duphot and I. Papa would kiss me fondly, mamma allow me to carry out her tiny lapdog to her, from which she was never parted for a day. On pretext of placing it on her lap, I used to get into the carriage, put my arms round her neck, and kiss her as much as ever I wanted. It may be imagined if my kisses were few! Then they would drive away, mamma waving her dear hand to me ever so far along the road. When I could see them no longer from the courtyard, I would run to the turret room and watch at the window until the carriage appeared like a tiny speck in the cutting through which they had to drive to reach the railway station. Half an hour later a dense white cloud would pass along the horizon, slowly to dissolve in fleecy streaks; and then I knew: They are gone! That cloud fading away in the sky had been emitted by the fiery engine which was bearing away from me those I loved best on earth.

After such partings I invariably cried, as I imagined, until far into the night--in reality until about ten o’clock; and the following morning I had already begun to look forward to our next meeting in Vienna.

There I was much better off. Papa would often come to visit me in the schoolroom; and mamma would send for me to the drawing room to see those friends who asked for me. Almost daily we would meet in the Prater, and that was the acme of delight to me. Mamma was always so pleased to see me--especially if I were prettily dressed. I got to know that she liked me best in my gray velvet pelisse trimmed with fur; and whenever my good Duphot took it into her head to have me dressed in anything else, I was like a little fury.

One day in spring--I shall never forget it; it happened to be my birthday, and I was ten years old--a very warm day. I had insisted on being dressed in my fur pelisse, much against Mme. Duphot’s better judgment. I was so hot in it I thought I should melt, what with delight and the temperature!

I was playing in one of the copses with some of my little friends near the walk, looking out the while for mamma, and thinking only of her. At length I saw her coming down the avenue with a party of ladies and gentlemen, and, pointing her out to my little friends, said proudly:

“There; that is my mamma--the tallest, most beautiful of all mammas!”

The children looked up eagerly, and one little precocious creature, with whom I often used to fight, exclaimed:

“Yes, she might be if she were not so old. My mamma says that yours is old, and already has a lot of wrinkles round her eyes.”

To hear this speech, fling myself upon her, and give her a slap, was with me the work of a second. Of course she struck back, and it became a free fight. Our governesses in vain tried to part us; all they got for their pains was a stray blow from one or the other, intended for the adversary. Suddenly I heard mamma’s voice calling me, and, forgetful of rage, scrimmage, and the enemy, I rushed off into the walk, with arms outstretched, toward her.

Repelling me with a look which rooted me to the spot, she exclaimed:

“_Comme vous voilà faite!_”