Bertha von Suttner

The joy of re-union.—Summer at Grumitz.—Recollections of the war.—My husband resolves to quit the service.—Education of my little son.—Cousin Conrad’s love affair.—The end of the Danish war and the conditions of peace.—New troubles.—I lose my fortune, and my husband is obliged to remain in the service.—Lori Griesbach’s flirtation with my husband.—Jealousy.—An April fool.

AS in the last hours of his departure our pain had expressed itself in tears and kisses more than in words, so it was in this hour of our seeing each other again. That one can become mad with joy, I plainly felt, as I held fast him whom I had believed to be lost, as sobbing and laughing and trembling with excitement, I kept clasping the dear head again between both my hands, and kissing him on the forehead and eyes and mouth, while I stammered out unmeaning words.

On my first cry of joy Aunt Mary hurried in from the next room. She also had had no idea of Frederick’s return, and at his sight she sank on the nearest chair with a loud cry of “Jesus, Maria, and Joseph!”

It was a long time before the first tumult of joy had sufficiently subsided to allow space for questions and counter-questions on both sides, confidences and news. Then we found that Frederick had been left lying in a peasant’s house, while his regiment marched on. The wound was not a severe one; but he lay for several days in a fever, unconscious. During this period no letters reached him, nor was it possible for him to send any. When he recovered, the suspension of arms had been proclaimed, and the war was virtually at an end. Nothing prevented his hastening home. At that time he did not write or telegraph any more, but travelled night and day in order to get home as soon as possible. Whether I was still alive, whether I was out of danger, he knew not. He would not even make any inquiry about it, only get there, get there, without losing an hour, and without cutting off the hope from his homeward journey of finding his dearest again. And this hope was not frustrated; he had now found his dearest again, saved and happy, happy above all measure.

In a little while we all removed to my father’s country-seat. Frederick had obtained a long leave for the restoration of his health, and the means prescribed by his physician—rest and good air—he could best find at our house at Grumitz.

It was a happy time, that late summer. I do not recollect any period in my life which was more fair. Union at last with a loved one long sighed for may well be held infinitely sweet; but to me the re-union with one half given up for lost necessarily seemed almost sweeter still. When I only for an instant brought back to my own memory the fearful feelings that had filled my heart before Frederick’s return, or called up before myself again the pictures which had tormented my feverish nights, of Frederick’s suffering all kinds of death-agonies, and then satiated myself with his sight, my heart leapt for joy. I now loved him more, a hundred times more, my regained husband, and I regarded the possession of him as ever-increasing riches. A little while ago I looked on myself as a beggar, now I had drawn the grand prize!

The whole family was assembled at Grumitz. Otto, too, my brother, was spending his holidays with us. He was now fifteen years old, and had three years to pass at the Neustadt Military Academy at Vienna. A fine fellow my brother, and my father’s darling and pride. He as well as Lilly and Rosa filled the house with their merriment. It was a constant laughing and romping and playing ball and rackets and all sorts of mad antics. Cousin Conrad, whose regiment lay not far from Grumitz in garrison, came as often as possible, riding over, and took his part gallantly in all these youthful sports. The old folks formed a second party, namely, Aunt Mary, my father, and a few of his comrades who were staying as guests in the house. Among them there was serious card-playing, quiet walks in the park, a devoted cultivation of the pleasures of the table, and immeasurable talks about politics. The military events that had just taken place, and the Schleswig-Holstein question, which the latter had by no means set at rest, offered a rich field for these talks. Frederick and I lived practically separate, or nearly so, from the rest—we only met them at meals, and not always then—we were allowed to do as we liked. It was taken as a settled thing that we were going through a second edition of our honeymoon, and that solitude suited us. And indeed we were best pleased to be alone. Not at all, as the others perhaps thought, to play and caress in honeymoon fashion, we were not “newly married” enough for that, but because we found most satisfaction in mutual conversation. After the heavy sorrows we had just passed through, we could not share the naÏve gaiety of the youthful party, and still less did we sympathise with the interests and the conversations of the dignified personages, and so we preferred to secure for ourselves a good deal of retirement, under the privilege of a pair of lovers, which was tacitly granted to us. We undertook long walks together—sometimes excursions in the neighbourhood, in which we stayed away the whole day—we spent whole hours alone together in the book-room, and in the evening, when the various card parties were being made up, we retired into our rooms where over tea and cigarettes we resumed our familiar chat. We always found an infinity of things to say to each other. We liked best to tell each other of the feelings of woe and horror which we experienced during our separation, for this always awakened again the joy of our re-union. We agreed that presentiments of death and such like things are nothing but superstition, since both of us, from the hour of our leave-taking, had been penetrated with the conviction that one or the other must necessarily die, yet here we had each other back! Frederick had to recount to me in detail all the dangers and sufferings which he had just gone through, and to describe the pictures of horror from the battlefield and hospital which he had absorbed lately into his shuddering soul. I loved the tone of repugnance and pain which quivered in his voice during such recitals. From the way in which he spoke of the cruelties he had witnessed during the confusion of the war, I gathered the promise of an elevation of humanity, the result of which would be, first in individuals, then in the many, and finally in all to overcome the old barbarity.

My father also and Otto often called upon Frederick to interest them with episodes from the late campaign. This indeed was done in quite a different spirit from that in which I begged for such stories, and Frederick’s relation was given in quite a different spirit. He contented himself with describing the tactical movements of the forces, the events of the battles, the names of the places taken or defended, recounting single camp-scenes, repeating speeches which had been made by the generals, and such like miscellanea of the war. His audience was delighted with it. My father listened with satisfaction, Otto with admiration, the generals with the solemnity of experts. I alone could not find any relish in this dry style of narrative. I knew that this covered a whole world of feelings and thoughts which the matters related had awakened in the depths of the speaker’s soul. When I once reproached him with this when we were alone, he replied:—

“Falsehood? Dishonesty? Want of enthusiasm? No, my dear; you are mistaken. It is mere decorum. Do you remember our wedding-tour, our departure from Vienna, the first time we were alone in the carriage, the night in the hotel at Prague? Did you ever repeat the details of those hours, or ever sketch to your friends and relations the feelings and emotions of that happy time?”

“No; of course not. Every woman must surely be silent about such things.”

“Then don’t you see that there are things also which every man is silent about? You could not tell of your joys in love; nor could we of our sufferings in war. The former might lay bare your chief virtue, modesty; the latter ours, courage. The delights of the honeymoon, and the terrors of the battlefield, no ‘womanly’ woman can speak of the one, nor any ‘manly’ man of the other. What? You may, in the rapture of love, have poured out sweet tears! and I may have in the imminence of the death-agony uttered a cry. How could you acknowledge such a sensibility; how could I such a cowardice?”

“But did you cry out, Frederick, did you tremble? You may surely say it to me. I do not, you know, conceal the joys of my love from you, and you may to me——”

“Confess to you the fears of death which seize us soldiers on the field of battle? How can it be otherwise? Phrases and poetry tell lies about it. The inspiration artificially caused in this way by phrases and poetry is, I grant, capable for an instant of overcoming the natural instinct towards self-preservation; but only for an instant. In cruel men the pleasure of killing and destroying may also sometimes chase away their fear for their own lives. In men tenacious of honour pride is capable of suppressing the outward manifestation of this fear; but how many of the poor young fellows have I not heard groaning and whimpering? What looks of despair, what faces agonised with the fear of death have I not seen? What wild wailings, and curses, and beseeching prayers have I not heard?”

“And that gave you pain, my good, gentle husband.”

“Such pain often that I cried out, Martha. And yet too little to express properly my power of sympathy.... One might think that if, at the sight of a single suffering, a man is seized with pity, a suffering multiplied a thousandfold would therefore excite a thousand times stronger pity. But the contrary occurs; the magnitude stupefies one. One cannot be so tenderly grieved for an individual when one sees, all round him, 999 others just as miserable. But even if one has not the capacity to feel beyond a certain level of compassion, yet one may be capable of thinking and computing that one has an inconceivable quantity of woe before one.”

“You, and one or two others may be capable, but the majority of men neither think nor compute.”

I succeeded in moving Frederick to the resolve of quitting the service. The circumstance that he had, after his marriage, served now more than a year, and taken a distinguished part in a campaign, would defend him from the suspicion which had occurred to my father during our engagement, that the whole marriage had for its object only to enable him to give up his career. Now, when peace should once be made, the preliminaries of which were in train, and when to all probability there were long years of peace in prospect, retirement from the army would now not involve anything dishonourable. It was, indeed, still, to some extent, repugnant to Frederick’s pride to give up his rank and income, and, as he said, “to do nothing, to be nothing, and to have nothing,” but his love for me was with him an even more powerful feeling than his pride, and he could not resist my entreaties. I declared that I could not go through a second time the anguish of mind which his last parting caused me; and he himself might well shrink from again calling down on us both such pain. The feeling of delicacy, which, before his marriage with me, made him shrink from the idea of living on the fortune of a rich woman, no longer came into play, for we had become so completely one that there was no longer any perceptible difference between “mine” and “yours,” and we understood each other so well that no misjudgment of his character on my part was any longer to be feared. The last campaign had besides so greatly increased his aversion to the murderous duties of war, and his unqualified expression of that aversion had so rooted it in him, that his retirement got to appear not like a concession made to our domestic happiness so much as the putting into action of his own intention, as a tribute to his convictions, and so he promised me in the coming autumn, if the negotiations for peace were then concluded, to take his discharge.

We planned buying an estate with my fortune, which was then in the hands of Schmidt & Sons, the bankers, and Frederick was to find employment in managing it. In this way the first part of his trouble, “doing nothing, being nothing, and having nothing,” would be removed. As to “being” and “having,” we could also find a remedy.

“To be a retired colonel in the imperial and royal service, and a happy man, is not that enough?” I asked. “And to have? You have us—me and Rudi—and those who are coming. Is not that enough, too?”

He smiled, and took me in his arms.

We did not choose just at first to communicate anything of our plans to my father and the rest. They would certainly raise objections, give pieces of advice, express disapprobation, and all that was quite superfluous as yet. Later on we should know how to put ourselves above all that, for, when two people are all in all to each other, all foreign opinion falls off them without making any impression. The certainty for the future thus obtained increased still more the enjoyment of the present, which, even without that, was so heightened and enlarged by the delirium of the bitter past which we had gone through. I can only repeat it was a happy time. My son Rudolf, now a little fellow of seven, was beginning at this time to learn reading and writing, and his instructress was myself. I had never given my bonne the delight—which, besides, would, I daresay, have been none for her—of seeing this little soul slowly expand, and of bringing to it the first surprises of knowledge. The boy was often the companion of our walks, and we were never tired of answering the questions which his growing appetite for knowledge made him address to us. To answer, that is, as well and as far as we could. We never permitted ourselves to tell a falsehood. We never avoided answering such questions as we could not decide—such as no man can decide—with a plain “that no one knows, Rudi”. At first it would happen that Rudolf, not satisfied with such an answer, took his question sometimes to Aunt Mary, or to his grandfather, or to the nurse, and then he always got unhesitating solutions. Then he would come back to us in triumph: “You don’t know how old the moon is? I know now. It’s six thousand years—you remember.” Frederick and I exchanged a silent glance. A whole volume full of pedagogic fault-finding and opinions was contained in that glance and that silence.

Above all things unbearable to me were the soldiers’ games which not only my father but my brother carried on with the boy. The idea of “enemy” and “cutting down” were thus instilled into him, I know not how. One day Frederick and I came up as Rudolf was mercilessly beating two whimpering young dogs with a riding-switch.

“That is a lying Italian,” he said, laying on to one of the poor beasts, “and that,” on to the other, “an impudent Dane.”

Frederick snatched the switch out of the hand of this national corrector.

“And that is a cruel Austrian,” he said, letting one or two good blows fall on Rudolf’s shoulders. The Italian and the Dane gladly ran off, and the whimpering was now done by our little countryman.

“You are not angry with me, Martha, for striking your son? I am not, it is true, in favour generally of corporal punishment, but cruelty to animals provokes me.”

“You did right,” I said.

“Then is it only to men ... that one may ... be cruel?” asked the boy between his sobs.

“Oh no; still less.”

“But you, yourself, have hit Italians and Danes.”

“They were enemies.”

“Then one may hate them?”

“And to-day or to-morrow,” said Frederick, aside to me, “the priest will be telling him that one ought to love one’s enemies. What logic!” Then, aloud to Rudolf: “No; it is not because we hate them that we may strike our foes, but because they want to strike us.”

“And what do they want to strike us for?”

“Because we wanted to—No, no,” he interrupted himself. “I find no way out of the circle. Go and play, Rudi; we forgive you, but don’t do so any more.”

Cousin Conrad was, as I thought, making progress in Lilly’s favour. There is nothing like perseverance. I should have been very glad to see this match now made up, and I observed with pleasure how my sister’s countenance lighted up with joy when the tread of Conrad’s horse was heard in the distance, and how she sighed when he rode off again. He no longer courted her, i.e., he spoke no more of his love, and did not bring his suit forward, but his proceedings constituted a regular siege.

“As there are different ways of taking a fortress,” he explained to me one day, “by storm or by famine, so there are many ways of making a lady capitulate. One of the most effectual of these is custom; sympathy. It must touch her at length that I am so constant in loving, and so constant in keeping silence about it, and always coming again. If I should stay away, it would make a great gap in her way of life; and if I go on in this way some time longer, she will not be able to do without me at all.”

“And how many times seven years do you mean to serve for your chosen one?”

“I have not counted that up. Till she takes me.”

“I do admire you. Are there then no other girls in the world?”

“Not for me. I have got Lilly into my head. She has something in the corners of her mouth, in her gait, her way of speaking, that no other woman can equal, for me. You, for example, Martha, are ten times as pretty, and a hundred times as clever.”

“Thank you.”

“But I would not have you for a wife.”

“Thank you.”

“Just because you are too clever. You would be sure to look down on me from a higher level. The star on my collar, my sabre and my spurs do not impose on you. Lilly, however, looks with respect on a man of action. I know she adores soldiers, while you——”

“Still, I have twice married a soldier,” replied I laughing.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

During meals, at the upper end of the table where my father and his old friends gave the tone, and where Frederick and I also sat (the young folks at the other end had their own talk to themselves), politics was the chief subject; that was the favourite material for conversation with the old gentlemen. The negotiations for peace which were in progress gave sufficient ground for this display of wisdom, for it is a firm conviction of most people that political events form the most sterling matter for conversation and that most suited for serious men. From gallantry and out of friendly regard for my female weakness of intellect, one of the generals said by the way: “These things can hardly interest our young friend Baroness Martha; we should only speak about them when we are alone. Eh! fair lady?”

I defended myself from this and begged them seriously to continue the subject. I took a real and an anxious interest in the proceedings of the military and diplomatic world. Not from the same point of view as these gentlemen, but it was of great moment to me to follow to its ultimate conclusion “the Danish question,” whose origin and course I had studied so carefully during the war. Now, after these battles and victories the fate of the disputed duchies must surely be settled, and yet the questions and the doubts were always going on. The Augustenburg—that famous Augustenburg on account of whose immemorial rights all the contest had been lighted up—was he then installed now? Nothing of the kind. Nay, a new pretender arrived on the scene. GlÜcksburg and Gottorp, and all the lines and branch lines, whatever their names were, which I had been painfully committing to memory, were not enough. Now Russia stepped in and opposed to the Augustenburg an Oldenburg! However, the result of the war up to this point was that the duchies were to belong neither to a GlÜcks-nor to an Augusten-nor to an Olden-nor to any other-burg, but to the allied victors. The following I found out were the articles of the conditions of peace then in progress:—

1. “Denmark surrenders the duchies to Austria and Prussia.”

I was pleased with that. The allies would now, of course, hasten to give up the countries, which they had conquered not for themselves but for another, to that other.

2. “The frontiers will be accurately defined.”

That again is quite right, if only these definitions could have a little more stability; but it is pitiable even to see what everlasting shiftings these blue and green lines on the maps have to suffer unceasingly.

3. “The public debts will be allocated in proportion to the populations.”

That I did not understand. In my studies I had not got up to questions of political economy and finance. I took interest in politics only so far as they bore on peace and war, for this was the vital question to me as a human being and a wife.

4. “The duchies bear the cost of the war.”

That again was to some extent intelligible to me. The country had been devastated, its harvests trampled down, its sons massacred; some reparation was due to it: so let it pay the expenses of the war.

“And what news is there about Schleswig-Holstein?” I myself asked, as the conversation had not yet been brought into the field of politics.

“The latest news is,” said my father, “on August 13 that Herr v. Beust has put the question before the assembly of the Bund, with what right can the allies accept the cession of the duchies from a king whom the Bund has never recognised as their lawful possessor?”

“That is truly a very reasonable objection,” I remarked, “for it surely means that the Protocol-Prince is not the legitimate lord of German soil, and now you accept it solemnly from Christian IX.”

“You don’t understand, dear,” interrupted my father. “It is only an impudence, a trick of this Herr v. Beust, nothing else. The duchies, besides, belong to us already, for we have conquered them.”

“But surely not conquered them for yourselves? for the Augustenburg.”

“That again you do not understand. The reasons, which before the outbreak of a war are put forward by the cabinets as the motive for it, retreat into the background as soon as the battles are once engaged. Then the victories and defeats bring out quite new combinations; then kingdoms diminish or increase, or shape themselves in relations before unforeseen.”

“These reasons then are really no reasons, but only pretexts?” I asked.

“Pretexts? no,” said one of the generals, coming to my father’s aid; “motives rather, starting-points for the events which then shape themselves according to the scale of the results.”

“If I had had to speak,” said my father, “I would really not have given in to any peace negotiations after DÜppel and Alsen; all Denmark might have been conquered.”

“What to do with it?”

“Incorporate it in the German Bund.”

“Why, your speciality is only that of an Austrian patriot, dear father. What business is it of yours to enlarge Germany?”

“Have you forgotten that the Hapsburgs were German emperors, and may become so again?”

“That would rejoice you?”

“What Austrian would it not fill with joy and pride?”

“But,” remarked Frederick, “suppose the other great power of Germany cherishes similar dreams?”

My father laughed outright.

“What! the crown of the Holy Romano-German Empire on the head of a Protestant kingling? Are you in your senses?”

“Whether now or at another time,” said Dr. Bresser, “a quarrel will occur between the two powers over the object for which they have fought in alliance. To conquer the Elbe provinces, that was a trifle; but what to do with them? That may yet give occasion to all kinds of complications. Every war, however it may turn out, inevitably contains within itself the germ of a succeeding war. Very naturally; for an act of violence always violates some right. Sooner or later this right raises its claims, and the new conflict breaks out, is then again brought to a conclusion by force pregnant with injustice, and so on, ad infinitum.”

A few days later a fresh event occurred. King William of Prussia paid a visit to the emperor at SchÖnbrunn. Extraordinarily warm reception, embraces, the Prussian Eagle hoisted, Prussian popular hymns played by all the military bands, triumphant huzzahs. To me this news was satisfactory, for by it the evil prophecies of Dr. Bresser were put to shame, that the two powers would get into a quarrel with each other over the countries they had joined in liberating. The newspapers also gave expression on all hands to this consolatory assurance.

My father was equally pleased with the friendly news from SchÖnbrunn. Not, however, from the point of view of peace, but of war. “I am glad,” he said, “that we have now a new ally. In alliance with Prussia we can, just as easily as we have conquered the Elbe provinces, get Lombardy back again.”

“Napoleon III. will not consent to that; and Prussia will certainly not be willing to embroil herself with him,” one of the generals said. “Besides, it is a bad sign that Benedetti, the bitterest enemy of Austria, is now ambassador at Berlin.”

“But tell me, gentlemen,” I cried out, folding my hands together, “why do not all the civilised states in Europe form an alliance? That surely would be the simplest way.”

The gentlemen shrugged their shoulders, smiled in a superior fashion, and gave me no answer. I had plainly given utterance again to one of those silly things which “the ladies” are in the habit of saying, when they venture into the, to them, inaccessible region of the higher politics.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The autumn had come, peace was signed at Vienna on October 30, and with it had come the time when my darling wish, Frederick’s retirement, could be carried out. But man proposes, and circumstances master him. An event occurred—a heavy blow for me—which brought to nothing the plans we had cherished so joyfully. It was simply this: the house of Schmidt & Sons failed, and my whole private fortune was gone.

This bankruptcy was also a sequel of the war. The shot and shells shatter not only the walls against which they are aimed, but, through this destruction, banking houses and financial companies over a wide area fall to pieces also.

I was not brought thereby, as so many others were, to beggary; for my father would not let me want for anything. But the plan of retirement had to be quite given up. We were no longer independent persons. Frederick’s pay was now our sole substantial resource. Even if my father could assure me a sufficient allowance, it was out of the question under such circumstances that Frederick should quit the service. I myself could not suggest it to him. What sort of a part would he be playing, in the eye of my father?

There was nothing to do, we had to submit. “Destiny” in Aunt Mary’s phrase. I have not much to tell of the affliction which this great pecuniary loss caused me; it was a question of several hundred thousand florins; for there are no long entries in my diary about it, and even my memory—which has experienced since then so many impressions of far deeper pain—bears no longer any very lively traces of these incidents. I only know that I was chiefly sorry for the beautiful castle in the air which we had been building—retirement, purchase of an estate, a life independent and apart from the so-called “world”—in other things the loss did not hurt me so much. For, as I have said, my father would during his life not allow me to want for anything, and would afterwards leave me a sufficiency, and my son Rudolf was sure of wealth in the future. One thing comforted me: there was not the slightest prospect of any war; one might hope for ten or twenty years of peace. Till then——

Schleswig-Holstein and Lauenburg were finally given over by the treaty of October 30 to the free disposition of Prussia and Austria. These two, now the best of friends, were to share in a brotherly way the advantages so accruing, and find no cause for quarrelling over them. Nowhere on the whole political horizon was there any “black spot” visible to one’s consideration. The shame of the defeat we had sustained in Italy was sufficiently atoned by the military glory we had gained in Schleswig-Holstein, and so there was no longer any occasion for military ambition to conjure up new campaigns. And I was also pacified with the following consideration. That war had come so short a time since, I took as a pledge that it would not be very soon repeated. Sunshine follows after rain and in the sunshine one forgets the rain. Even after earthquakes and eruptions of volcanoes men build up new dwellings again and do not think of the danger of a repetition of the past catastrophe. A chief element in our life’s energy appears to reside in forgetfulness.

We took up our winter quarters in Vienna. Frederick had now got employment in the Ministry of War, a business which he at any rate preferred to barrack life. This year my sisters and Aunt Mary had gone to spend the carnival at Prague. That Conrad’s regiment was then quartered in the Bohemian capital was perhaps only a coincidence. Or could this circumstance have had any influence on their choice of a winter resort? When I gave a hint of this to my sister Lilly she blushed deeply and answered with a shrug of her shoulders: “Why, you must know that I do not want him”.

My father repaired to his old dwelling in the Herrengasse. He proposed to us that we should settle down with him as he had room enough: but we preferred to live by ourselves, and hired an entresol on the Franz Joseph’s Quay. My husband’s pay and the monthly allowance made me by my father amply sufficed for our modest housekeeping. We had indeed to renounce subscriptions to opera-boxes, court balls—in fact, all going into “society”. But how easily did we renounce it! It was indeed a pleasure to us that my pecuniary losses made this quiet way of life necessary, for we loved a quiet way of life.

To a small circle of relatives and friends our house was always open. In particular, Lori Griesbach, the friend of my youth, often visited us—almost more often than I liked. Her talk, which had before appeared to me sorely superficial, I now found so insipid as to be quite wearisome; and her intellectual horizon, whose narrowness I had always perceived, seemed now still more restricted. But she was pretty and lively and coquettish. I understood that in society she turned many men’s heads, and it was said that she had no objection to be made love to. What was very unpleasant to me was to perceive that Frederick was very much to her taste, and that she shot many darts out of her eyes at him, which were evidently intended to fix themselves in his heart. Lori’s husband, the ornament of the Jockey Club, the race-course, and the coulisses, was well known to be so little true to her that a slight imitation on her side would not have deserved too strong condemnation. But that Frederick should serve as the medium of her revenge—I had a good deal to say against that. I jealous! I turned red as I caught myself in this agitation. I was, in truth, so sure of his heart. No other woman, none in the world, could he love as he did me. Ah, yes, love, but a little blaze of flirtation? that might perhaps have flashed up by the side of the soft glow which was consecrated to me.

Lori did not in any way conceal from me how much Frederick attracted her.

“I say, Martha! you are really to be envied to have such a charming husband,” or “You should keep a good look-out on this Frederick of yours, for all the women I know are running after him”.

“I am quite certain of his fidelity,” I replied to this.

“Don’t flatter yourself; to think of ‘fidelity’ and ‘husband’ being coupled together! That is impossible. For example, you know how my husband——”

“Good heavens! you may perhaps have been wrongly informed. Besides, surely all men are not alike!”

“Yes, they are—all—believe me. I know none of our gentlemen who do not.... Among those who pay me attention are several married men. And what is their object? Certainly not to give me or themselves exercises in fidelity to marriage.”

“I suppose they know you will not listen to them. And do you think Frederick belongs to this crew?” I asked with a smile.

“That is more than I can tell you, you little goose. But for all that it is very good of me to let you know how much I am struck with him. Now, all you have to do is to keep your eyes open.”

“My eyes are wide open already, Lori, and they have before now observed with displeasure several attempts at coquetry on your part.”

“Oh, that’s it! Then I must disguise it better in future.”

We both laughed, but I still felt that in the same way as behind the jealousy which I pretended for fun a real movement of this passion lay hid, so behind the chat with which she affected to tease me there lay a germ of truth.

The arrangement to marry my son Rudolf one day to Lori’s little Beatrix was still kept intact. It was of course more in play than in reality—the main question whether the children’s hearts would beat for each other could only be decided by the future. That in a worldly point of view my Rudolf would be a most eligible match was certain, and so much the more fastidious might he be in choosing. Beatrix indeed promised to be a great beauty, but if she took after her mother in coquetry and shallowness of mind she would not be one I should desire for a daughter-in-law. But all that was in the far distance.

Lori’s husband had not shared in the Schleswig-Holstein campaign, and that annoyed him much. Lori too was grieved at this “ill-luck”.

“Such a nice victorious war,” she complained. “Griesbach would have been sure to have got a step by this time. However, the comfort is that in the next campaign——”

“What are you thinking of?” I broke in. “There is not the least prospect of that. Do you know any cause for it? What should a war be waged about now?”

“What for? Really I have nothing to do with that. Wars come—and there they are. Every five or six years something breaks out. That is the regular course of history.”

“But surely some reasons must exist for it.”

“Perhaps, but who knows what they are? Certainly I don’t, nor my husband either. I asked him in the course of the late war ‘What is the exact thing they are fighting about down there?’ ‘I don’t know,’ he replied, shrugging his shoulders, ‘it is all the same to me. But it is a bore that I am not there,’ he added. Oh, Griesbach is a true soldier. The ‘why’ and ‘what for’ of the wars are not the business of the soldiers. The diplomatists settle that amongst themselves. I never bothered my brains about all these political squabbles. It is not the business of us women at all—we should besides understand nothing of it. When once the storm has broken we have only to pray——”

“That it may strike our neighbours and not ourselves—that is certainly the most simple plan.”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“Dear Madam,—A friend—or perhaps an enemy, no matter—a person who knows but wishes to remain unknown—takes this means of informing you that you are being betrayed. Your husband, so seeming virtuous, and your friend who wants to pass for an innocent, are laughing at you for your good-humoured confidence—you poor blinded wife. I have my own reasons for wishing to tear the mask off both their faces. It is not from goodwill to you that I so act, for I can easily imagine that this detection of two persons dear to you may bring you more pain than profit—but I have no goodwill to you in my heart. Perhaps I am a rejected adorer, who is taking his revenge this way. What matters the motive? The fact is there, and if you wish for proofs I can furnish them to you. Besides, without proofs you would give no credit to an anonymous letter. The accompanying ‘billet’ was lost by Countess Gr——”

This astounding letter lay on our breakfast-table one fine spring morning. Frederick was sitting opposite to me, busied with his letters, while I read and re-read the above ten times over. The note which accompanied the traitorous epistle was enclosed in an envelope of its own, and I put off tearing it open.

I looked at Frederick. He was deep in a morning paper; still he must have felt the look which I fixed on him, for he let the newspaper fall, and with his usual kindly, smiling expression, turned his face to me.

“Hollo, what is the matter, Martha? Why are you staring at me in that way?”

“I wanted to know whether you are still fond of me.”

“Oh, no, not for a long time,” he said jestingly. “Really I have never been able to bear you.”

“That I do not believe.”

“But now I begin to see—— But you are quite pale. Have you had any bad news?”

I hesitated. Should I show him the letter? Should I first look at the piece of evidence which I held in my hand still unbroken? The thoughts whirled through my head—my Frederick, my all, my friend and husband, him whom I trusted and loved—could he be lost to me? Unfaithful, he! Oh, it must have been only a momentary intoxication of the senses—nothing more. Was there not enough indulgence in my heart to forgive it, to forget it, to regard it as having never happened? But to be false! How would it be, if his heart, too, had turned from me; how, if he preferred the seductive Lori to me?

“Well, do speak. You seem quite to have lost your voice. Show me the letter which has so shocked you,” and he stretched his hand out for it.

“There it is for you.” I gave him the letter I had just read—the enclosure I kept back. He glanced over the informer’s writing. With an angry curse, he crumpled up the paper, and sprang from his seat.

“Infamous!” he cried, “and where is the proof he speaks of?”

“Here, not opened. Frederick, say one word only, and I throw the thing into the fire. I do not want to see any proofs that you have betrayed me.”

“Oh, my own one!” He was now by my side, and embraced me closely. “My treasure! Look into my eyes. Do you doubt me? Proof or no proof—is my word enough for you?”

“Yes,” I said, and threw the paper into the fire.

But it did not fall into the flames, but remained close to the bars. Frederick jumped up to get it, and picked it out.

“No, no! we must not destroy that. I am too curious. We will look at it together. I do not recollect ever writing anything to your friend which could lead to the inference of a relation which does not exist.”

“But you have smitten her, Frederick. You have only to throw your handkerchief to her.”

“Do you think so? Come, let us look at this document. Right, my own hand. Oh, look here! It is surely the two lines which you dictated to me some weeks back, when you had hurt your right hand.”

“The finder of this note did not understand the meaning of the parenthesis. This is really a funny confusion. Thank God that this grand proof was not burned; now my innocence is plain. Or have you still any suspicion?”

“No; after you had looked in my face I had no more. Do you know, Frederick, I should have been very unhappy, but I should have forgiven you? Lori is coquettish, very pretty. Tell me, has not she made advances to you? You shake your head. Well, truly, in this matter you have not only the right but almost the duty of deceiving even me; a man cannot betray a lady’s favour whether he accepts or rejects it.”

“And so you would have forgiven me a false step? Are you not jealous?”

“Yes; in a way that tears my heart. If I think of you at another’s feet; sipping joy from another’s lips; grown cold to me; all desire dead—it is horrible to me. Yet, it was not the death of your love that I feared. Your heart would under no circumstances turn cold to me, that I am sure of; our souls are surely so interwoven with each other. But——”

“I understand. But you need by no means think of me that my feeling for you is like that of a husband after the silver wedding. We have been married too short a time for that; so long as the fire of youth glows in me (for indeed I am forty years old already), it burns for you. You are the only woman on earth to me. And should some other temptation in reality again assail me, my will is quite strong enough to keep it away from me. The happiness which is contained in the consciousness of having kept one’s plighted troth, the proud repose of conscience with which a man can say of himself that he has kept the firmly-tied bond of his life in every respect sacred—all this is to me too noble to allow it to be destroyed by a passing intoxication of the senses. You have besides made so perfectly happy a man of me, my Martha, that I am raised as far above everything—above all intoxication, all amusement, all pleasure—as the possessor of ingots of gold above the gain of copper pieces.”

With what delight did such words as these sink into my heart! I was expressly thankful to the anonymous letter-writer, for helping me to this delightful scene. And I transferred every word into my red book. I can still reproduce the entry here, under date 1/4/1865. Ah, how far, how far back is all that!

Frederick, on the contrary, was highly incensed against the slanderer. He swore that he would find out who had been guilty of the composition, so as to punish the actor as he deserved. I found out the same day what the origin and aim of the writing was. Its result, which was that Frederick and I were thenceforth drawn a little closer together, its originator could hardly have foreseen.

In the afternoon I went to my friend Lori to show her the letter. I wanted to let her know that she had an enemy by whom she was falsely exposed to suspicion, and I wanted to laugh with her over the chance that my dictated note had been so misconstrued.

She laughed more than I expected.

“So you were shocked at the letter?”

“Yes, mortally; and yet I had nearly burned the enclosed note.”

“Oh! then the whole joke would have missed fire.”

“What joke?”

“You would have believed to the end that I had really betrayed you. Let me take this opportunity to make you a confession, that I did in an hour of delirium—it was after the dinner at your father’s at which I sat next to Tilling, and it was because I had drunk too much champagne—that I did then, so to say, offer him my heart on a salver.”

“And he?”

“And he answered me very much to the purpose, that he loved you above all other things and was firmly resolved to remain true to you to death. The whole joke was contrived to teach you to prize this phenomenon better.”

“What is this joke that you keep talking of?”

“Why, you must know, inasmuch as the letter and the envelope come from me.”

“From you? I know nothing about it.”

“Have you then not turned the enclosure round? See here—on the back of it is written my name and the date—April 1.”