IX
THE YEAR 1866
Return · Elvira’s death · Fürstenberg’s death · The war · Homburg once more · Back to Baden · Baron Koller
We journeyed back to our Baden villa. Professor Beranek was indignant at Madame Viardot. For a long time I would sing no more. But at length he brought me to it.
“You will not have been the first,” he said consolingly, “who has failed of recognition at a trial and has then put the false prophets to shame through greatness fairly won.”
But my self-confidence was too completely crushed. It did not so quickly wake to new force. At the same time a hard sorrow befell me. Word came from Venice that my cousin Elvira was very ill, that her lung trouble had taken a turn for the worse, and that she was confined to her bed. Not many days later there came the news of her death. For the first time in my life I learned how it feels to lose a dear one. An incomprehensible emptiness, an unintelligible shuddering....
The bereaved mother came to us. She was on the verge of despair. Now of course all singing was hushed in the house.
The year 1866 brought me still another severe loss, that of my much-loved paternal friend Fürstenberg. He departed this life after a brief illness at his residence in Vienna. And one thing more that unblest year brought,—war.
I am ashamed to say it again, but this event made no impression upon me—none at all. I took knowledge of it just as one learns by hearsay that somewhere in the distance floods have set in, or fires broken out,—elemental events, of a very lamentable nature, but they will pass by. And at bottom the thing is not uninteresting—it is something historical. The Prussians will of course get a thrashing; and if we should lose the game, there would be peace again after it anyhow. We had no one dear to us in the army, so we were not anxious. I read no newspaper; and the stories that they told,—victories of the Prussians in Hannover, at Frankfurt, later also in Bohemia (but not much of it came to our ears, and if anything did I have forgotten it),—nothing of all that has remained imprinted on my memory: a proof that it was heartily indifferent to me.
To-day I cannot understand how I could be so stupid. Even apart from my future ardent sentiments in behalf of peace, which ought at that time to have been already dormant in the young woman of twenty-three and to have been awakened on this occasion, such a tremendous event should at any rate, even from the ordinary point of view, have stirred me, should have filled me with some kind of emotion, either patriotic enthusiasm or tingling human sympathy or, if nothing more, anxiety and terror; but there was nothing, nothing.
It would not be necessary to set down in these reminiscences the confession of such a fact, doubly humiliating for a future opponent of war, but the incongruity that is here apparent is a thing that distinctly deserves scrutiny. The most interesting thing for the reader of memoirs, I think, is always the opportunity to observe how and whereby certain destinies, talents, or deeds, which are known to pertain to the writer of the memoir, have been prepared for and developed; one wishes to trace out what inner aptitudes, and what outer influences, have contributed to the formation of the total product. From this there always result useful lessons and bits of knowledge. Provided, of course, that the autobiographer is entirely sincere: useful lessons are to be drawn only from unfalsified facts.
Here, in bringing to my present consciousness the conception of war that I then had, I myself find occasion for an interesting observation, an instruction worth taking to heart. Human society as a whole passes through just such stages of shifting ideas, knowledges, conceptions, and judgments, as does an individual man. Should not I to-day fully understand, and fully pardon, the fact that the generality of men in their preponderating mass take as cold and unconcerned an attitude toward war (when it does not lay hold directly of their own lives) as did I myself a few decades ago? Should I be amazed that this same generality regards the occasional breaking out of wars as a matter of course, a thing involved in natural law, which one may possibly sigh over, but which one cannot condemn and cannot antagonize? Against the inevitable one raises no voice of blame, strikes no blow.
And as the individual (in the case in hand, I myself) may under the influence of experiences and considerations come to have quite altered views, so may and will the generality obtain new insights and act accordingly.
When to-day in certain circles I meet with case-hardened misconception of the peace movement, when they try to show me the obvious naturalness and historical necessity of the scourge of war by arguments at which wrath and discouragement threaten to take possession of me, all I need to do, that my wrath may subside and my courage rise, is to think back to my own past. Moreover, in the matters of war and peace the generality is not even in such a state of stupidity any longer, for by this time almost every one has at least heard something of the movement, and the number of those who sympathize with it or even take an active part in it is growing every day. A greater and greater number of people are taking sides on the issue, either for it or against it; but at the time of which I am now talking the fact was that no one knew anything about the peace movement, because there was none; for the sporadic emergence of individual minds who took a stand for the abolition of war cannot be called “a movement.”
We spent the summer of 1886 once more in Homburg vor der Höhe, and although the war penetrated into our very near neighborhood there were no indications of it to be detected in the life of the bathers and gamblers at that cosmopolitan watering-place. The official band played; Patti sang; the Spaniard Garcia, who had become famous for his luck at gambling, continued to make his harvest of a hundred thousand francs a day at the trente-et-quarante table—until one fine morning he did begin to lose, and gradually put in all the millions he had won, and something of his own besides.
The Princess of Mingrelia was there again with her family, and I spent many hours of the day in her company. Her daughter, Princess Salomé, was by this time eighteen and released from the nursery, and I now kept up as lively an intercourse with her as with her mother. In age we two girls were actually better mates; an additional point was that we took riding lessons together, and every morning we used to go for a ride side by side in the roads of the park, under the oversight of the riding-master. That was a fine occasion for chatting, and we soon formed a cordial friendship.
Salomé was to be presented at court at St. Petersburg the following winter, and to be introduced into society there—she looked out into the future with joyous hopes and plans; I, on the other hand, assumed rather a melancholy and resigned aspect, as one who no longer expected much from life. The two deaths by which dear ones were taken from me had really made me low-spirited; and the collapse of my artistic dreams had left me in a bad frame of mind, but of this matter I told her nothing. I confided to my new friend only the fact that two years before I had been in love with her uncle Heraclius—now, indeed, I had got the unhappy passion out of my mind, but yet there remained a certain dejection. Salomé only laughed at me for it.
“How could one ever fall in love with such a sallow, bilious old man! No, no, Contessina, you will yet find a much better one.”
The Dedopali’s two sons also had now grown up into tall, handsome young men. Prince Niko, the older, once caused us all a fine fright. He was to have a duel. He had been pursuing a little lady from Paris too ardently, and a rival had got into a rage over it; ugly words were exchanged, and the other man announced that on the following day he should send his seconds. The scene had had witnesses, and the old princess learned of it. Weeping and trembling she told me about the misfortune that had befallen, and I wept and trembled with her. Nothing was to be done about it: duels also belong to the unavoidable dispensation of things in this world—what young nobleman could refuse to take part in them?
It was a sad business, of course, but no one in our circle dreamed of such a thing as harboring a mutinous thought against the absurdity of it. There was at that time as little talk of an anti-dueling league as of a league in opposition to duels between nations. To be exposed to murdering and being murdered was simply one of the chivalric and patriotic necessities that life brings to men. And when that is the case women can do nothing else but weep in timid admiration.
But the duel did not come off: I cannot recall now whether the opponent had left town or whether the witnesses had succeeded in effecting a reconciliation. I only know that the threatening cloud passed over, and that we were all very happy. My really deep-felt and spontaneously shown sympathy had brought me much closer yet to the Mingrelian family; and especially Prince Niko himself, as long as he lived, never forgot that I had so taken to heart the danger to which he had been exposed.
When we went home that autumn the war was a thing of the past. We took still another lodger in our Baden villa, a Saxon officer. He most courteously came to make us a call. I do not think that we talked much about the campaign just ended, for I remember only that at the Herr Lieutenant’s second visit, which was his visit of farewell, I sang something for him; I can also remember what it was,—the adagio from the grand aria in La Sonnambula, “Ah non credea.” The Saxon officer was enraptured.
“Oh, most gracious countess, you sing like Patti!”
“That young man has a great appreciation of art,” remarked my mother, when the lieutenant had taken his departure.
“And are you really going to stick to your decision that you will renounce an artistic career,” she added after a while; “is that reasonable, is it courageous?”
“But Madame Viardot’s decision—” I opposed hesitatingly.
“Madame Viardot is not infallible; and if you had only kept on with her for a while—”
“Not for the world would I have come into her sight again!”
“But there are other great singing-teachers; we will ask Beranek.”
Herr Beranek was still our lodger, and naturally he was ready at once to take up the proposition of resuming the musical plans. He spoke of Lamperti in Milan, Duprez in Paris, and Marchesi in Vienna as among the greatest teachers. I would not hear of Vienna, but in the very act of pronouncing this limitation I had already tacitly acknowledged that perhaps I would be content, either in Milan or in Paris, to pick up the thread which had been so abruptly broken off in Baden-Baden.
And to that it gradually came. I no longer gave a decided “no” when any one spoke to me of an artistic future, and I resumed my singing lessons with Beranek. The old love of song, the old ambitious plans, the old self-confidence awoke and gathered strength once more. The resolve to persevere in my studies, and to continue them under some famous master, matured in my mind. I wrote to Maître Duprez in Paris to ask him if he would be willing to accept an ambitious, enthusiastic pupil; he replied that he would, and so it came to pass that my life had once more found the “one important thing.”
There was living at that time in Baden an old bachelor, a former ambassador, with whom we constantly associated. His name was Baron Koller. He was tall and very thin, closely shaven, extremely correct and elegant in his attire. He owned a house near the Kurpark, externally insignificant, but furnished in exquisite taste within. Here he frequently gave us little dinners.
The contemplation of the beautiful mementos which he had gathered about him in his rooms was a great pleasure to me. I “turned the leaves” in these rooms as in an interesting book of memoirs. All those fabrics, weapons, trinkets, female portraits, had stories to tell of distant journeys, of high life at courts and in society, and of intimate love affairs. And the master of the house himself: ancien régime in his manners, sparkling with wit in his conversation.
There developed between the old gentleman and me a sort of—what shall I call it?—esprit-flirtation, a tossing back and forth of conversational shuttlecocks. He took special delight in my mastery of the elegances of the French language, and, because I realized this, I wrote in that language a whole booklet about his home, associating with the various trinkets and pictures imaginary stories and all sorts of observations. I copied it neatly, tied it with a blue ribbon, and sent it to him. He then gave it back to me, as a loan, with his marginal notes. He wanted me to see what keen pleasure the reading of it had given him,—a pleasure which was expressed in underlinings, exclamation marks, and a few brief sentences.
One time he honored me by the gift of a cup of old porcelain with the inscription Respice finem. To this I made answer in a few rhymed lines, the text of which I find jotted down in the diary which I was keeping at that time:
RESPICE FINEM
Zu fluges Wort, ein hemmnis dem Beginnen,
Das fühne Taten scheut in zauderhastem Sinnen;
Das mit berechnend faltem Geist
Das heute wegen Morgen von sich weist,
Und das manchen, der zu viel ans End’ gedacht,
Verzagt und flügelnd um sein Glüd gebracht.
Wagen und Beginnen liegt in jedes Menschen hand—
Das Ende hat fein Weiser noch erfannt.
Es trifft nicht in die vorgedachte Bahn,
Wie sie ersonnen hat des Grüblers Wahn;
Drum hat sich arg getäuscht, wer an das End’ gedacht,
Wenn er zu lichten wähnt der Zukunft dunkle Nacht.
Des Daseins höchste Frag’ ist: Werden und Bestehen,
Es wirke alles ohne Sorge ums Vergehen.
Die Blüte denkt ans Welken nicht,
Ums Löschen unbekümmert strahlt das Licht;
Im Weltenplan hat Gott ans Ende nicht gedacht,
Denn was er schuf, hat ohne Ende er gemacht.
THINK ON THE END
Too shrewd a phrase, by which the start is checked!
It shuns bold acts and dallies to reflect,
And, coldly calculating, thrusts away
For some To-morrow’s sake the sure To-day;
It brings the chance of happiness to naught
For many, who too much upon the end have thought.
Daring, beginning, lies in each man’s hand;
The end no sage’s eye has ever scanned.
It does not come by such a course at last
As by the purblind reasoner was forecast.
Therefore he sadly errs who on the end has thought,
If to light up the Future’s darksome night he sought.
To grow, to hold our ground, is life’s supreme affair.
No anxious thought of perishing should enter there.
The flower on fading does not think,
The light does not in fear of quenching sink.
God, when he planned the world, upon the end ne’er thought,
For endless did he make the universe he wrought!
He often sent me books from his library, and I wrote down for him my impressions regarding them; and so back and forth went messages, flowers, bonbons, and manuscripts,—a real flirtation! But it was wholly without erotic background; for the gallant diplomat might have been my grandfather.