VI
A SEASON IN HOMBURG VOR DER HÖHE
Our way of living · My first singing lessons · The Princess of Mingrelia · Tsar Alexander II · Adelina Patti
1864—that was the year in which the Austrian troops, in conjunction with the German, were waging war against Denmark. When I call up that year in my own memory, this event plays no part in it at all. Doubtless I must have heard something of it, but, as no one near and dear to me was participating in it, what I heard was too faint a tone to leave traces on my psychical phonograph. And in general the naïve conception of martial events which was then mine, and is doubtless widespread even to-day, is that wars are things that take place as necessarily and regularly and outside of the sphere of all human influence as do processes in the interior of the earth and in the firmament; so one is not to get into a rage over them. And if they take place at a distance it is like the collision of two stars—such a thing does not really concern one, one will not let himself be disturbed in his occupations and amusements by it—at most one may find it interesting that “history” has again become active, and may be anxious to see what new lines its stylus will engrave on the map. I do not think, for that matter, that I felt this anxiety. I did not read the political part of the papers when I read papers at all (my reading consisted only of French and English books); and if I learned of the victory of the allies, and took pleasure in it, this was at most brought about by the fact that the Düppler-Schanzen-Marsch was to be seen in all the music shops, with the usual pretty picture of charging soldiers on the cover, one of them in the foreground at the left waving the flagstaff on high, while at the top the bunting rolls over the whole page in such great undulations that one positively hears it flap in the wind. The cover of that piece of music has remained in my memory; aside from this, of the whole Schleswig-Holstein campaign—nothing.
The year 1864, especially the summer, brought me far other experiences, which affected me deeply and have remained indelible in my memory.
We had gone to Bad Homburg v. d. Höhe. In causing my mother’s choice to fall upon this place, the attraction of the trente-et-quarante table was certainly the determining factor. It was her intention never again to enter a gambling-room—this she had declared years ago; but now the hankering had awakened again, and also the idea that perhaps it might after all be possible to repeat the experiment that had been made at home, and to harvest a trifle of a million, which is in all cases agreeable. I did not say no to this scheme, for Homburg was incidentally a very fashionable watering-place, where I should certainly find opportunity for entertainment. My guardian did not approve at all; he thought the gambling-room dangerous for my mother, and the society that moved there unsuitable for me. Homburg was reputed to be a haunt of the Parisian demi-monde. And in fact, we used to see on the terrace that year two notably striking figures whose names are doubtless still in the memory of those who go back to the time of the second French empire, Cora Pearl and Léonide Leblanc. I was not unacquainted with the existence of the haute galanterie of Paris. As a reader of the French novelists, Alexandre Dumas, Eugène Sue, George Sand, Paul Féval, who were then the latest thing, I had acquired a knowledge of the life and luxury of the grandes courtisanes, as they were called by those authors.—Yet, along with such society, Homburg harbored also a highly respectable community of foreigners who came to take the waters, from everywhere under the sun—especially Russians and English.
Our apartments had been engaged in advance, in a house that stood opposite the Kursaal; its owner was a banker named Wormser. Frau Wormser was a dear, sensible, prepossessing woman. With this mention I send a greeting to her in the realm of shadows.
I do not know how Homburg has developed since then. I see it before me like this: a long, wide street leading from the railway to infinity, interrupted on the right hand by a square where the Kursaal stands; along the street the houses either are hotels,—the usual Englischer Hof, Russischer Hof, or other Hof,—or bear a placard reading Appartements meublés. When you get beyond the Kursaal the hotels diminish, the street leading to infinity takes on the character of a small city, and into it open the little streets and alleys that pertain to the capital of the reigning Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg. At that time the last of the landgraves was seated on this throne; for two years later not only did his line die out with him, so that the landgraviate fell to Hesse-Darmstadt, but by the terms of the peace of September 3, 1886, it was incorporated into the kingdom of Prussia as a part of the province of Hesse. Hesse-Homburg patriotism, if there was any, must have been retrimmed in quick succession into a Darmstadt patriotism, a Nassau patriotism, a Prussian and an Imperial German patriotism.
Where the great street broke off at Kurhaus Square, a side street turned to the right, running opposite the Kursaal to the park. Here was the foremost hotel of the place, Hotel Bellevue, and around the corner, where the park was already beginning, stood the large three-story Weckerlin house, on the ground floor of which I had many a joyous hour—of this more anon.
When we arrived we knew nobody, but acquaintances are readily formed in watering-places. Thus it came to pass that on the very first evening, at our landlord’s bank, where my mother was having money changed (the capital for the indubitable winning of those millions), we fell in with an old gentleman whom Herr Wormser introduced to us as “Banker Königswarter from Paris.” Then when we came to the music the next afternoon Herr von Königswarter joined us, and introduced to us several other guests of the spa, both gentlemen and ladies. Thus we became acquainted with a Countess Vitztum who lived in Paris, Baron Alphonse Rothschild from Naples, and several others whom I do not now remember.
We had organized our life thus: mother spent the forenoon at her work, I stayed at home meanwhile (for it was settled as a fundamental principle that I was not to enter the gambling-rooms), and during this time I occupied myself with my piano and with my books. We had immediately rented a piano and subscribed for six volumes at a time from the circulating library, which was in the house next door. I was always a ravenous devourer of books: without three volumes of belles-lettres (novels in several volumes were the style then), two of Tauchnitz, and one of German science, I was not to be contented. In all time to which my thoughts go back, I have always, under all circumstances and in every situation, led two lives—my own and that of my reading. I mean, the events that I lived through and those that came to me through description have simultaneously enriched my store of memories; to the persons known to me in daily intercourse there have been added the heroes of my authors; it is under the influence of a double experience that what I am has taken shape. The stories of the “Thousand and One Nights” belong to my impressions of the Orient just as much as does my real stay in the Caucasus, and many a living gallant has quickened my pulse less acutely than has the imagined figure of Marquis Posa. And does not one often feel it as one of the experiences of life when from the words of a thinker or scientist a new truth breaks forth, when suddenly a fold of the veil that wraps the great mystery “Universe” is lifted?
—Well, then, I devoted the forenoon to my occupation at home. At one o’clock my mother came from her work (oh, how laborious and really hateful she said it was!) and we lunched in our room. In the afternoon we dressed nicely for the concert; at seven o’clock came dinner at the Kurhaus restaurant, mostly in company, and after it, three times a week, opera. Just then Adelina Patti, still quite young but already renowned, was singing there als Gast. She was receiving an honorarium of five thousand francs for every performance. I heard her in La Sonnambula, Faust, Lucia di Lammermoor, Don Pasquale, La Traviata, Linda di Chamouni, Crispino e la Comare. It must surely be a divine sensation to stand there on the boards, the incarnation of an ideal figure, and with the magic of one’s art to take so many hearts captive, to acquire so much glory, honor, wealth, and withal to intoxicate one’s self with the sweetness of one’s own voice,—these thoughts, joined with a certain feeling of envy, ran through my mind while Patti sang, and now I understood why my mother had felt it such an impairment of her happiness in life that she had been hindered from becoming a Malibran. Malibran, it was affirmed, had been a hundred times greater than Patti; and her voice (my mother’s) had, she said, been put on a level with Malibran’s by connoisseurs. Might not I, perhaps, have inherited this divine gift?
We sent for the leader of the orchestra at the opera to come and test whether I had voice, and if I had, to give me singing lessons. He came, tested, thought the material was good, and gave me lessons; of course only exercises for developing the voice. That was somewhat of a bore to me; I should have liked to learn a bravura aria at once, and I felt it as a disappointment that when I let a beautiful F or G swell to fortissimo and then diminish again till it died away, the Herr Kapellmeister did not spring up to cry out in enthusiasm, “Why, that beats Patti!” And so we gave up the lessons after a week—the more readily because to my mother, whose work often failed of success in most inexplicable fashion, the fee of twenty francs an hour seemed decidedly too high.
One afternoon, at the music, Herr von Königswarter said to us,
“The Princess of Mingrelia has a keen desire to make the acquaintance of the ladies.”
We had long known who the Princess of Mingrelia was, since we saw her daily in the Kurpark and at the theater, and since Herr von Königswarter, who was on friendly terms with her, had told us as much as he knew of the story of her life. Ekaterina Dadiani, formerly princess of the Caucasian country (now incorporated in the Russian empire) of Mingrelia, was a very elegant lady of about forty-six or forty-seven, still goodly to look upon, and must in her youth have been a dazzling beauty of the genuine Georgian type. She had for some years been living in Europe, alternately Paris and St. Petersburg, for the sake of her children’s education; in summer she came regularly to drink the health-giving waters of Homburg. Every morning at seven o’clock she went to the spring; she often made the round of the gambling-rooms, but never played; at the afternoon concert she used to sit in a particular place on the Kurhaus terrace, always surrounded by a whole little court. Her family consisted of two sons and a daughter. Her oldest son Nikolaus, called Niko, was at that time seventeen years old, her daughter Salomé sixteen, and her youngest son André fourteen. Her household (she occupied the whole ground floor of the Weckerlin house) comprised a secretary, the governess for her daughter, the tutor for the boys, a valet, and two maids.
After her husband’s death she had taken the reins of government as her son’s guardian. Once, hard pressed by the Turks, she herself went against the enemy at the head of her horsemen. But it had been impossible for her to hold her ground, and she had to accept the protection of Russia, a protection that was practically annexation. The heir was allowed to keep his title of Prince of Mingrelia, and his lands, but in the form of a majorat; the throne he must forego. A considerable appanage was set apart for the dowager princess, and at the Russian court she was allowed the rank of a foreign sovereign. She was content, for those Caucasian principalities and kingdoms—Georgia, Imeretia, Mingrelia, etc.—were always threatened by Mohammedan enemies, and under Russian safeguard they could develop peacefully, thrive, and remain true to their ancestral standards of life, their customs, their languages, and their dress.
In the princess’s company there were frequently to be seen a few Caucasian ladies wearing their picturesque home costume; she herself ordered her gowns from Worth and wore them with all the chic and elegance of a genuine grande dame. She spoke French fluently, even though it was with a strong Russian accent; with her children she conversed mostly in the Georgian language.
The desired acquaintance was made. I brought the interesting woman girlish admiration, and she took me to her heart. Soon I became almost a child of the house. At first I only sat in the great circle during the concert; then the princess invited me to accompany her to the spring in the morning, to come and see her at her apartments, to dine with her. My mother held aloof: a few formal calls made and returned, that was all. I, on the other hand, was taken into the intimacy of the princess, who had a great predilection for young people. Salomé, her daughter, far nearer to me in years, came in contact with me much less than did her mother; she, with her hardly completed sixteen summers, was still rated as a child, and had to stay with her governess most of the time.
By her fellow-countrymen the princess was addressed as “Dedopali”; this means queen, literally “mother of mothers,” and is in that country the correct title for every female sovereign. I was generally called by the family “la contessina.” A friend of the Dadiani household, the Italian Marchese Almorini, had thus addressed me, and the designation had stuck to me. He was a comical sight, this Almorini. An old beau, always paying compliments, always skipping about, always aux petits soins with the ladies. He did not show his age: he wore a coal-black wig and dyed his beard. He could relate so many stories and chronicles of times long gone by that there had grown up a standing joke that he had been centuries in the world, like Cagliostro.
The princess’s secretary, who was likewise her courier, major-domo, shawl-bearer,—in a word, factotum,—bore the name of Monsieur Ferry, and was a Frenchman. He was the picture of devotion. Since one cannot all the time be bending the upper part of the body forward as in reverential salutations, he stood with his hip sloping to one side when he spoke to his mistress, and always addressed her as “Altesse.” He was a man of about forty, with a reddish imperial and side whiskers. The old valet, called Monsieur David, a fat, smooth-shaven Swiss, had been one of the household for twenty years, had served the late prince in Mingrelia, and was the genuine type of the devoted old servant, possessing the absolute confidence of his mistress and the love of her children.
Innumerable and clear-cut are the recollections which the hours that I spent in the Dedopali’s house and in her company have left in my mind. The oriental, exotic quality, commingled with the Russian and Parisian tone of high society, spiced with romance and surrounded with the glitter of wealth, exercised a peculiar fascination upon me; I was truly downright happy in this relationship, it was to me like the coming true of indefinite, long-cherished dreams. When I entered her apartments in the Weckerlin house at any hour I had a glad and buoyant feeling. From the front room one entered a large dining-room with three windows and a balcony; at its right there was a corner drawing-room in which the princess spent most of her time, and back of that was her sleeping-room. At the left of the dining-room were the children’s rooms. It was only an ordinary appartement meublé, though a high-grade one; nothing of princely splendor about it; but yet by the many personal objects scattered about, by the flowers, by the fashion in which the furniture was placed, the whole had a private and characteristic stamp of its own; the very odor that filled these rooms—a mixture of orange-flower perfume, Russian cigarettes, and leather—had something personal about it. In the course of years I met the Dedopali in many places, and everywhere that she stayed this same odor hovered about her rooms and adhered to all her possessions.
I spent many hours in that corner drawing-room and listened to the words of the princess, who related to me much that was romantic in her career. She would stay in Europe a few years more, and then return to her own country with her sons. In the meantime her daughter would doubtless have married. “And you, too, Contessina, will sometime visit me in the Caucasus with your husband, will you not? You are already twenty-one, and so pretty—you must soon make a brilliant match and be right happy.—Come, I will show you what wedding present I intend for you.”
And she took me into her sleeping-room, commanded her maid to set out the jewel casket, and showed me her treasures,—a magnificent collection of pearls, diamonds, and other precious stones. She took out a pretty little brooch of brilliants.
“See, this is the cadeau de noce, mais d’abord il faut avoir ‘le promis.’”
She questioned me: was there no one who was attentive to me, no one who especially pleased me? No, my heart was free.—She herself, a short time before, had been not far from contracting a second marriage. The preceding summer at Biarritz the Duke of Osuna, the greatest and richest nobleman of Spain, had sued for her hand, but she could not make up her mind to it; she was now living only for the future of her children, and besides she was already taking too much delight in looking forward to her return to her native land, from which she was banished until her son Niko should have reached his majority.
One afternoon, during the Kur-concert, we were all sitting on the terrace once more in our usual places in the Dedopali’s circle. There was a rumor that the Tsar, Alexander II, was in Homburg on that day: perhaps he would come into the Kurpark. In fact, suddenly a commotion arose, and from all sides came the cry, L’Empereur, l’Empereur!... And down below in the park could be seen the tall, imposing figure of Alexander II, who, accompanied by his aides, was promenading below the terrace. As soon as his eye fell on the Dedopali he came hurrying up the steps. The princess arose and moved forward to meet him, and he seized her hand and kissed it. The rest of us stood at a respectful distance; but I heard when after a short conversation the Emperor proposed in a somewhat louder tone and in French, “Shall we not take a turn through the gaming-rooms?” And he offered her his arm. The rest of us followed.
At the roulette table Alexander II borrowed a few gold pieces from his companion,—either he had no money with him or else he thought that borrowed money brings luck,—and threw the stake on the red. He won, let the money stand a few times, but ultimately it was swept in by the little rake, relentless even toward autocrats.
Another episode remains in my memory, a call which Adelina Patti paid to the Princess of Mingrelia. She came accompanied by a lady companion, and remained a short half hour in the corner drawing-room, while I also happened to be there. The sort of awesome timidity with which the autocrat of all the Russias had affected me a few days before filled me now in a different way, but almost to the same degree, in the presence of this victorious yet childishly bashful sovereign in the empire of song—an empire which had stood before my mind as one of the mightiest ever since my childhood. The conversation turned principally on music, and when she was asked as to her favorite rôle, Adelina Patti named Marguerite in Faust.