XXVII
MENTONE AND VENICE
The news of the Crown Prince’s death · Sojourn in Mentone · Octave Mirbeau · A winter in Venice · Old acquaintances · Princess Tamara and Marietta Saibante · Visit of Felix Moscheles to the widow “Tillings” · Moscheles as a peace propagandist · Formation of a section in Venice through Marquis Pandolfi · Grelix · The Princess of Montenegro · Princess Hatzfeld, born Von Buch · A memory of Cosima Wagner
In the beginning of the year 1889 (my novel was then still a manuscript in Pierson’s hesitating hands) we once more gave ourselves the treat of a little pleasure trip. And this time our course took us to the Riviera—our destination Mentone. We were caught on the way by the news of Crown Prince Rudolf’s death. The first report spoke of it as a hunting accident; only a little at a time did we learn the terrible contradictory details. The tragedy affected us deeply.
From Mentone, our headquarters, we made excursions to Monte Carlo, Nice, Cannes. Naturally My Own was fascinated with the beauties of the Riviera. To one who loves nature so passionately as he did the sight of this blooming, paradisal corner of the world must afford an intense enjoyment; and the combination there of the charm of artificial luxury with the charm of nature was a double attraction to him, with his receptivity for every kind of elegance. But we did not participate in this social life; our vacation budget would not have permitted it, nor had we any inclination to do so.
We made a very interesting acquaintance a few days after our arrival at Mentone,—that of Octave Mirbeau. The young writer had even then become famous through his novel Le Calvaire. I knew the novel, and a chapter in it that describes a marvelous scene from the Franco-German War—describes it in a way that expresses a hearty condemnation of war. The chapter had captivated me, and it was a pleasure to me to be able to shake hands with the author.
Octave Mirbeau with his pretty young wife lived in a tiny villa which he had bought in Garavent, and there they invited us to dinner. The young writer looked more like an Englishman than like a Frenchman. He reminded me a little of Achille Murat. Very tall, broad-shouldered, with a fine blond mustache. But, if his exterior had an English air, his manner and conversation were genuinely French, that is to say, full of piquant wit. Yet he talked also of very serious things. Social problems seemed to be what he had most at heart. There need be no misery in the world, was his fixed belief; that there nevertheless was, was the occasion of his wrath.
On our way home from the Riviera we spent a week in Venice. The beautiful dead city of the doges was like a revelation to My Own. He fell in love with it. It filled him with jubilant admiration. And so we made up our minds that sometime we would spend a whole winter in Venice.
This plan we carried out in the year 1890–1891. We took rooms in a small palazzo on the Grand Canal. A delectable little palace, on the outside gilded and gayly colored—the Palazzo Dario; we rejoiced in the view of it every time we saw it from the gondola. The interior also pleased us immensely, for the rooms were wholly in old Venetian style. We had taken a gondola by the month. One of the two gondoliers was likewise our valet. The landlady furnished us with good Italian cooking, and I had engaged a pretty girl as my waiting maid. You are not to suppose that we had discontinued our work. The forenoon hours were regularly appropriated to writing. We were happy as happy could be. Die Waffen nieder had been out now for a year, and I was still receiving critical articles from the periodicals and letters from the public regarding it.
How round the world really is, and how small! Wherever one goes one always meets friends and acquaintances from the remotest regions. So it was here. We were introduced into society by our consul general, Baron Kraus, and quite unexpectedly we met dear old friends.
Princess Tamara of Georgia, in whose house in Tiflis, and again four years before in Paris, we had spent so much time, was now settled in Venice and was there introducing her two daughters into society. I even found a friend of my girlhood days—Marietta Saibante—in the Marchesa Pandolfi, whose salons in the Palazzo Bianca Capello were a meeting-place for Venetian society. We had not seen each other in nearly twenty-five years, and had quite lost track of each other; so it was a delightful surprise to both of us to meet again so unexpectedly. Her husband, a member of the Italian parliament for Sicily, had just come from Rome. He is the same Marchese Benjamino Pandolfi who afterwards took a prominent part in the peace movement.
One forenoon my husband and I were sitting and chatting together after breakfast, when a card was brought in. On it was written the inquiry whether Mr. Felix Moscheles of London, who had chanced the day before to learn through Sir Austen Henry Layard that the author of Die Waffen nieder was in Venice, might be permitted to present his respects.
I sent down word that it would be a pleasure to me.
My husband went to meet the visitor in the anteroom.
“My wife will be much pleased ...” he began politely.
“What! How is this?” cried the other. “Can you be Baron Suttner? So you are not dead? Why, you were shot in Paris!”
“Excuse me, no....”
Thereupon the two gentlemen came in where I was, and the stranger explained why he had been so surprised to find me in the possession of a living spouse, when he knew from the story of my life, which he had lately read, that I had lost my two husbands, and he had not supposed (somewhat reproachfully) that I was married for the third time.
We laughingly explained to him that the two deceased military men were mere creations of fancy, and all that was taken from reality was the loving and happy wedded intercourse which the book depicts—and this, thank God, had not been sundered by any cruel fate.
Mr. Felix Moscheles, a son of the famous musician, and editor of the correspondence between his father and Mendelssohn, now explained to us that he, together with Hodgson Pratt, Cardinal Manning, Lord Ripon, the Bishop of London, the Duke of Westminster, and others, belonged to the directorate of the London Peace Association. Being a permanent resident of London and a naturalized Englishman, he had set himself the task of carrying on propaganda for his peace association whenever he was traveling. His chief specialty was table-d’hôte conversion; but this, he laughingly acknowledged, was generally a wretched failure, or else brought upon him the counter attempts of old women tract distributers to convert him.
The preceding winter he had spent with his wife in Cairo, where he had made quite a number of Egyptian studies,—Mr. Moscheles is a painter by profession,—and there he had succeeded in winning over sundry beys to his peace theories. A friend from Berlin had sent him my book, and that had awakened in him an eager desire to make the acquaintance of the unfortunate woman who had suffered so much by war and who had expressed in this book so much that he himself had at heart. Now the day before he had learned quite by accident, in a soirée at the house of Sir Austen Henry Layard, the well-known ex-diplomat, that the author was in Venice, and he could not but pay his respects to her: first as a friend of peace, to thank her for the book, and secondly as a man, to express his sympathy for the poor broken-hearted widow ... and—what disillusions life brings—he is received by the husband of a jocund woman!
In the course of the conversation Mr. Moscheles told us that it would have been very agreeable to him if in Venice he could have met with people who would be disposed to form a local section of the Peace Association; but that there was no prospect of it—no one took any interest in the question. He was therefore planning to return to England in two days.
“Who knows?” said I. “Perhaps it might be possible to do something in the matter after all. This evening there is a reception in Casa Pandolfi; I will speak about your wish to the marquis, who, to the best of my knowledge and belief, belongs to the Parliament at Rome and to the Peace Association there.”
So that same evening, in what had been the Palazzo Bianca Capello, while the young people were dancing in the next room, I asked the host for a word with him. With but little hope of any results I told him about the visit of the English friend of peace, and about his desire. The Marquis Pandolfi seemed very much surprised to hear me speak of such things; and even more joyfully surprised was I when I now learned that he was one of the most enthusiastic and active adherents of the cause, that the group of sympathizers in the Italian Chamber already comprised a large proportion of the popular representatives, and that he, Pandolfi, was at work on the organization of this group and the preparations for the next conference. He most willingly took up the idea of having a section formed in Venice, and commissioned me to request Mr. Moscheles to be good enough to call on him for further conference the next forenoon.
A few days later a provisional committee had been formed, a notice sent out, and a meeting called. About a hundred persons attended at the hall, among them many journalists and lawyers. Only two women were present,—Mr. Felix Moscheles’s wife Grete and I.
The two given names Grete and Felix had among their friends grown into the collective name Grelix. For Grelix is altogether of one mind; Grelix is enthusiastic for every kind of social progress and works for it; Grelix paints in partnership, visits every picturesque corner of the earth with sketchbook and pencil; Grelix’s self is a pretty sight too, he with his thick snow-white hair crowning still fresh features and an elastic figure, she looking as if she might be his daughter, nice and delicate as a little doll, with goldblond hair tumbling about a rococo face; and the house in London, containing the two studios and all the art treasures collected in traveling, is called “The Grelix,” after its owner.
Pandolfi gave those who were present a kindling address—it is well known how fierily Italians speak if they are orators—in which he urged the formation of a Venetian section of the universal European league of peace and explained the aims of the interparliamentary group to which he belonged. Then several others took part and expressed their views.
It was the first time in my life that I had been present on such an occasion, for I had never belonged to any kind of a Union, or looked on at a meeting of one or at its formation. The result was that a committee was at once appointed, with Pandolfi as chairman; dispatches were sent to the Peace Association in London and to the peace and arbitration group in Rome; and so the group so ardently desired by our English guest was founded.
The next day all the Italian papers had notices of this event, and for a while it was the talk of the day in our circles. In such fashion, to be sure, as parlor talk in the presence of a new movement, striving to accomplish a great revolution in any field, ordinarily is,—expression of sapient doubts and probable objections, hinted mockery, condescending recognition of the noble aim,—and all against a background of stolid, obstinate indifference.
And especially—is it credible?—especially women are the ones that manage to find beautiful aspects of war, that neither can nor will conceive of a condition when their sons will not any longer have to die for their country, but simply to live for it.
Among the ladies of Venetian society with whom I associated at that time, and who showed some interest in the newly founded Pandolfi Union, these two were foremost: first the widowed Princess Darinka of Montenegro—who died a year later. “We shall yet live to see the world shaking off war,” she said to me. “The Emperor of Russia, you may believe me, cherishes a deep horror of it.” Well, she did not live to see that day; but what difference does the presence of us ephemera make when it is a question of the history of humanity, which goes on living—and we in it—?
The second of the women who took an interest in the question was the Princess Hatzfeld, born Von Buch. A splendid old lady—she had just celebrated her seventieth birthday. She had a receptive mind and warm enthusiasm for everything that took place in the world in politics and art. When Richard Wagner was living in Venice she was on terms of intimate friendship with him and Frau Cosima. She was the first who learned of his fatal illness and hastened to his deathbed. A note from the stricken wife, “Come!” had summoned her. When she entered the room where Wagner lay, he had just drawn his last breath, and Frau Cosima with a wild cry threw herself on his dead body. After a while she rose to her feet, and, pale, tearless, stepped to a little table on which lay a pair of scissors; these she seized, and, cutting off her long thick tresses, placed this blond silken cushion under the dead man’s head.