XVIII
IN KUTAIS (1877)
Lessons · Rumors of war and outbreak of war · Red Cross fever · The plague on the horizon · Bad times · Conclusion of peace · Mathilde · Beginning of literary career
Our wedding excursion to the Caucasus lasted nine years. A long honeymoon!
The first summer we spent uninterruptedly in Gordi, where we were kept until the family themselves went away—Niko to St. Petersburg, the Dedopali to Zugdidi. But the illusion regarding a position at the Russian court had shown itself to be an illusion. At first Niko took kindly to the idea, but soon it became apparent that if an attempt should be made to turn it into a reality, impossibilities would be encountered. So what was to be done? That life of nothing but pleasure and festivity which we had led there in the mountains could not be kept up without end, and to be forever “an always welcome guest” is really not a vocation. We had broken with Harmannsdorf—or rather the parents had broken with us: they could not pardon us for our reckless step. Neither did we seek pardon. We had defiantly announced that we would make our way, and now we had to do it. We had kept up a most affectionate correspondence with the brothers and sisters, but the parents sent us a wrathy letter of reproach and repudiation, and never another word. My mother, to whom My Own had made a visit before our journey, had not indeed approved of the whole match and of the erratic elopement; but in a few days she had taken My Own into her heart, and her blessing accompanied us.
We now decided to settle in Kutais, and, for the time being, until Prince Niko had found a suitable situation for us (which he still treated as a possibility), to earn our living there by giving lessons in music and the languages. A cousin of the princess, who had been visiting at Gordi with us and whose home was in Kutais, promised to get pupils for us in her circles. These were certainly not exhilarating prospects, but our inner exhilaration was invulnerable. The whole life, the whole country seemed to us so interesting that the intensified sense of travel and adventure with which we had started out remained ever vivid; and, moreover, we were so unspeakably happy in each other that really (just as there are conditions in which one envies all people) we pitied all people who were not ourselves. The most delightful thing was that we felt our love not only not diminishing, but all the time increasing.
So, after the general breaking up of the party at Gordi, we went to Kutais, where another friend of the Dedopali—General Hagemeister—took us into his house as guests to remain until we should find a house and pupils. In a few weeks we were established in a little home of our own, and a number of the daughters of noble families in Kutais had presented themselves to me for piano and singing lessons. My Own gave a few lessons in German.
Now rumors of war began to buzz through the air. The year before an insurrection had broken out in Bulgaria. (It was asserted in other than Russian countries that this was fomented by Russian agents.) Russia demanded of Turkey reforms and guaranties for the safety of the Christians. Now the great powers met in conference—from November, 1876, until January, 1877, in Constantinople; in March, 1877, in London; but their decrees were refused by Turkey. Would Russia now declare war? This portentous question was on every tongue. The troops were waiting in expectation on the border.
And, sure enough, on the 24th of April came the Russian declaration of war, and, simultaneously, the crossing of the Pruth and of the Armenian border. The news was the more exciting for the reason that the Caucasus itself served as one of the two theaters of the war, and an invasion of Kutais by the Turks was one of the possible dangers.
I do not remember that we felt anxious. Nor did I have any feeling of protest against war in general, any more than in the years ’66 and ’70. My Own likewise looked upon the war that had broken out as merely an elemental event, yet one of especial historical importance. To be in the midst of it gives one personally an irradiation of this importance.
We received from my mother, from my sisters-in-law, letter after letter, telegram after telegram: we must make our escape! We did not think of such a thing; on the contrary we wanted to make ourselves useful, and we offered our services to the governor, Prince Mirsky, as voluntary nurses of the wounded. Only one condition we made,—that we should work in the same place, if possible in the same hospital. That was not possible; they wanted to use him here and me there, and so we withdrew our offer. For to separate, especially in such perilous circumstances, no price would tempt us! So we remained in Kutais. Our sympathies (at that time we still had “sympathies” in war) were with the Russians. The word was, “to free our Slav brethren”; that was the common talk all around us, and we accepted it in perfect faith. Moreover, a second watchword was in the air, raised by the Mohammedans living in the Caucasus, by the wild mountain tribes, Shamyl’s comrades: revolt—shaking off the Russian yoke. All this sounded very heroic. But no insurrection broke out; the Caucasus proved to be satisfactorily Russianized and loyal. The sons of the land, looking very handsome in their Cossack uniforms, went to the front as one man to beat the Turks. “Sotnias,” as bodies of a hundred mounted noblemen were called, joined the army as volunteers, and we saw them riding away under our windows.
The first death announced in the war bulletins was that of a young fellow whom we knew in Kutais, the only son of a Russian general’s widow.
Of course, in all the neighborhood everybody who remained behind was seized with the Red Cross fever: making bandages, sending off supplies of tea and tobacco, treating the regiments that went through with food and drink, collecting money, planning and executing enterprises of beneficence,—all for the good of the poor soldiers. To-day it seems to me there might be something still better than this good,—not to send them out! To-day, too, we know from Tolstoi, the man who has the courage of truth, what the case was with the “dear Slav brethren” at that time. He writes thus in his book “Patriotism and Christianity,” which came out since the war:
Just as is now the case with the love between the Russians and the French, on the eve of the Turco-Russian war we had a sudden view of the love of the Russians for I know not what Slavonic brethren. These Slavonic brethren had been ignored for centuries; the Germans, the French, the English, were and still are infinitely nearer to us than these Montenegrins and Servians and Bulgarians. And at that time we began to celebrate solemn festivities and organize receptions under the puffing of men like Katkof and Aksákof, who are very properly regarded in Paris as models of patriotism. Then, as now, the talk was of nothing else than the sudden love with which the Russians were burning for the Slavs of the Balkans.
First—exactly as was just now done in Paris—people gathered in Moscow to eat and to drink and to talk nonsense to one another, to melt with emotion over the noble feelings which they had, and to say things about peace and harmony, passing over in silence the main point—the project against Turkey. The press magnified the enthusiasm, and little by little the government took a hand in the game. Servia revolted; diplomatic notes and semi-official articles began to appear. The newspapers produced more and more lies, inventions, and grew so heated that at length Alexander II, who really did not want the war, could not help giving his consent. And then what we know took place: hundreds of thousands of innocent men were lost, and hundreds of thousands were reduced to savagery and robbed of every Christian feeling.
Well, at that time we two believed in this Slavonic brother love. My husband sent to the Neue Freie Presse at Vienna a series of letters about those events of the war of which the echo reached us. These were gratefully accepted for a time, but at length were found to be too pro-Russian—the Neue Freie Presse took the side of the Turks—and were declined.
As far as I was concerned, since I could not take care of the wounded, at least I helped diligently in the enterprises got up by the ladies of Kutais in their behalf. I remember an evening garden-party which assembled the inhabitants of the city on the “Boulevard,” as a promenade in the middle of the town, shaded by trees, is called. There were Chinese lanterns, orchestral music (“God save the Tsar,” a potpourri from Glinka’s opera Zhizn dlya Tsarya, the Balkan March, Slavonic songs, and the like), sale booths, and a tombola. Between two trees, brilliantly lighted up, had been placed a great painting of a touching scene on the battlefield: in the foreground a wonderfully beautiful Russian sister of charity, with tears on her cheeks, bending tenderly over a wounded Turkish soldier, whose head she was raising in order to give him nourishment; in the background a tent, powder smoke, dead horses, and bursting shells. I myself shed a tear or two as I stood in front of that picture; and at the tombola, where I bought chances till my pocketbook was drained, I won a small earthen vase, which I had them raffle off again. And thus I believed that I had paid my tribute of sympathy for the tragedy of the Balkans.
The war took its course. We received very sad letters from the Dedopali; she was worried about her two sons, who had gone with the army.
Suddenly there arose the rumor that the plague had broken out in a place not far away. That filled us with real dismay. When the news came I burst out in self-reproaches.
“Oh, where have I brought you? It is my fault that you came here, My Own.”
He comforted me: “Not for a moment have I regretted it. If only nothing happens to you! But even if we must perish now, still we have had our share of happiness.”
The pestilence, however did not spread. The fate of being carried off by the terrible angel of destruction, to which we had resigned ourselves, was spared us.
In other respects things were going very badly with us. In the disorder caused by the events of the war no one any longer thought of taking lessons, and we were fearfully pinched. There were days when we actually made the acquaintance of the specter Hunger. But everything that befell us, whether joy or sorrow, brought us closer and closer together, and later we were grateful to Fate for having enriched us with such experiences. Without doubt they were essential to the strengthening of our characters, and to educating us into that sympathy with the sorrows of humanity, with the wretchedness of the people, which in days to come formed the basis of our united work in the service of mankind, and which awakened in each of us feelings that gave delight to the other.
The war moved toward its end. On March 3, 1878, the Peace of San Stefano was signed. The Dedopali’s two sons had come out unscathed; the older—with the rank of colonel—had fought at Plevna in the emperor’s suite; the younger, then a captain, had taken part in the storming of Kars. In Kutais many families were in mourning. The returning sotnias (“hundreds”) did not return as hundreds.
Our family at home were greatly rejoiced that the war had spared us. My mother-in-law had gone with her two daughters Luise and Mathilde to spend the winter in Florence, because the latter was ill with a severe cough and the physician had prescribed a mild climate. In the spring, on their way home, they stopped at Meran, and from there came the news that Mathilde’s condition had grown worse; that she was suffering from severe attacks of fever, and her life was in danger. A few days later came the tidings of her death. Not yet twenty years old, and so beautiful and so worshiped by her mother ... how could that mother bear such a blow!
They say she looked like an angel on her bier with a wreath of roses on her golden hair unbound and streaming down on both sides. The remains were brought back to Harmannsdorf—it must have been a sad journey for the poor mother—and from there were transferred to the family vault in Höflein.
The news brought us deep grief, and we wept bitterly for the sister so prematurely snatched away from us, with whom we had spent many happy hours, and who had always stood lovingly by us.
As I say, it was ebb tide in the lessons. So my husband tried his hand at writing. The war correspondence published in the Presse had been much praised, and in producing it he had discovered in himself a talent for writing a light and picturesque style. He now composed some descriptive articles on the Caucasus and its people, and sent them to various German weeklies. These contributions were gladly accepted and paid for.
Was it envy or was it imitativeness? I wanted to see if I could not write something too. I had never felt the call within me. When I was sixteen—at that time it was envy and imitativeness, awakened by Elvira’s successes—I had indeed written a short story entitled Erdenträume im Monde, and a periodical which long since had suspended publication, Die deutsche Frau, had brought it out and through the editor’s correspondence department had asked for further contributions: “I should not bury my talent.” Since that time, however, with the exception of letters (which I was tremendously fond of writing), I had written nothing.
So now, in the year 1878, I made my first (the Erdenträume did not count) attempt as an author. I composed in all secrecy a feuilleton entitled Fächer und Schürze—“Fans and Aprons”—and sent it to the old Presse at Vienna, and lo and behold! almost by return mail I received a copy of the paper containing it, and twenty florins. Oh, that first honorarium of an author! What a proud satisfaction its receipt gives—indescribable! The little work was signed with the pseudonym B. Oulot, a word formed from the nickname “Boulotte,” which had been given to me at the Suttners’; and when I saw these six letters in print under the feuilleton, which really seemed to me a very good one, I had the impression that about that time Central Europe must be stirred by the question, Now who can this B. Oulot be?
And from that moment I have gone on writing without interruption up to this day.