I cannot rightly remember any of my grandparents, for grandmamma, as we all called her, whom I learnt to know and love in my childhood, was in reality only my mother’s stepmother, my grandfather, the Duke of Nassau’s second wife. She was a daughter of the terrible Prince Paul of Wurtemberg, so notorious for the violence of his temper, and her mother was one of the lovely Princesses of Altenburg, another of whom had been my grandfather’s first wife, and died in giving birth to my mother, her eighth child. As their mother was a Princess of Mecklenburg, sister to Queen Louisa of Prussia, my grandmother and the old Emperor William were first cousins.

Five years had passed since the death of his first wife, before my grandfather could be persuaded to think of marrying again, so deeply did he regret this good and amiable woman, and so happy had he been with her. But then, hearing so much said in praise of this young niece of hers, he suddenly determined to see and judge for himself, whether the good looks and other good qualities with which she was credited, should seem sufficient to compensate for the slight deafness from which she suffered. So he set off for Stuttgart incognito, even taking the precaution to disguise himself and muffle up his face, and watching his opportunity, he followed the young princess home from church, and taking up his stand under her window, listened to her conversation with her companions, in order to find out whether her infirmity prevented her taking part in it to advantage. Her beauty and grace so enchanted him, his mind was made up at once, and throwing off the muffler that concealed his features, he stepped forth in full view of the astonished little group. There was a cry of—“Uncle Wilhelm!” from some of the young people, and then the next moment the intruder had vanished, as quickly as he came, only to re-appear a little later with all due formality, in the character of suitor for the hand of the fair young girl, whom he carried off as his bride. It was no such easy matter for her, the scarce eighteen-year-old wife, to enter her new home and take up her position there, in the house in which, but a short time since, she the young cousin had played, a child herself, with the other children. Three of these were about her own age; the two elder sons, Adolphus and Maurice, now almost grown up, and ThÉrÈse, the eldest daughter, although only fifteen, very much spoilt and very independent, and too much accustomed to play the part of mistress of the house and have her own way in everything, to feel disposed to part with these privileges in favour of anyone else. It was therefore the very greatest comfort to the youthful stepmother to find herself warmly welcomed by the youngest member of the family, a real child still, my mother, then a little girl of five with her long fair hair falling in curls below her waist. The very warmest affection sprang up at once between them, and lasted throughout their whole lives.

Grandmamma’s own life had been anything but smooth and untroubled from her earliest years, and it is no wonder that when she one day later on sat down to write her recollections, she should have done so under the title—Histoire de mes Peines. Her parents’ married life had been excessively unhappy; her father having even, in order to rid himself of a wife he detested, gone to the length on one occasion of actually hiding a man in her bedroom, and then bursting in upon her followed by the whole Court, in the hope that his unsuspecting victim’s confusion might lend her an appearance of guilt! But his diabolical plot fell through, for, all helpless and defenceless as she was, the poor lady’s innocence was perfectly evident, and her accuser’s character only too well known for anyone to put faith in anything he said. It was shortly after this charming exploit that Prince Paul determined to send his daughters to school in France. I am not sure when it was exactly, whether at an earlier or later date, that he gave them into the care of such an ill-natured governess, that they had to suffer for the rest of their lives from the effects of her petty tyranny, grandmamma’s deafness having been caused, she always believed, from her having been forced by her tormentor to stand sometimes for a couple of hours at a time, barefoot in her nightdress on the cold stone floor, whilst her sister Charlotte’s digestion was ruined by her never being allowed to satisfy the cravings of her healthy young appetite. They were no better off during their schooldays in France. In the establishment in which their father placed them, the spirit of the Revolution still prevailed to such an extent, that everyone of aristocratic birth was looked upon with suspicion, and as for the title of princess, to bear that was little less than a crime! So that the poor little Wurtemberg princesses had a hard time of it, mistrusted and shunned by their schoolfellows, who refused even to let them join in their games, and played all sorts of mischievous tricks on them, whilst the governesses for their part vented their dislike in imposing on them the most unsuitable tasks—even of a menial description. Not only from grandmamma herself, but also from her sister, afterwards the Grand Duchess HÉlÈne of Russia, with whom much of my own girlhood was spent, did I hear all about this. It was she who told me how often in her sadness and loneliness she would seat herself on the stairs, to watch the movements of the hands of the big clock opposite, as if that were her only friend and companion, listening through the long dreary hours to its melancholy ticking, and counting the slow monotonous swinging of the pendulum backwards and forwards.

When the sisters returned to the Wurtemberg Court, they were as lonely as ever, for they had become strangers to everyone, including the King and Queen, during their exile. But soon, the Emperor Nicholas having seen the one, asked for her hand in marriage for his brother Michael; and thus it was that the Princess Charlotte was sent to Russia in charge of a governess—for she was only fourteen years old—to finish her education and be received under the name of HÉlÈne into the Orthodox Church as a preliminary to the wedding.

And so grandmamma was left alone and but for the occasional society of her two brothers, more forsaken and disconsolate than ever. It was when she was eighteen, as I have said, that a change came into her life also, with her marriage. But the husband with whom she entered her new home was no young man, he was the widower of her aunt, and she had been accustomed to regard him in the light of an uncle,—one of the older generation, rather to be respected and looked up to than to be treated as an equal. So that my grandfather need have been at no pains to inspire her with awe for his person and frighten her into submissiveness. However, that there might be no mistake at all as to the position he intended to assume, the wedding-ceremony was no sooner over, and the newly-married couple alone in their travelling carriage, than he proceeded to light his pipe, and closing the windows, smoked hard in her face for a few hours, just to see if she would venture to remonstrate or complain! Needless to say, she was too well broken in by a long course of severity, to dare to utter a word of protest, and it seems to me that had her husband but known how joyless her youth had hitherto been, he must have tried rather to cheer her and raise her spirits, than to crush her still more by the assumption of so brutal an attitude. Unfortunately in Germany the custom still prevails, of trying to keep women in subjection. A foolish notion survives among us, that women ought to keep silence, and thus, while our wiser French neighbours demand of their women-folk to take the lead in all conversation, which they enliven and stimulate with their wit and brilliancy, the German on the other hand expects members of the other sex to be content to listen in silent admiration, needle in hand, while he holds forth ponderously on whatever subject he pleases. The natural reaction from this absurd tyranny is a sort of revolt of womankind, attended by exaggeration in the opposite direction—a tendency that certainly deprives its adherents of much of their former grace and charm, whilst it is to be questioned whether there be any compensating gain in strength. In all this we have undoubtedly fallen behind our ancestors, for in the old Germanic tribes not only was the entire rule and management of the household given up to women, but our rude forefathers also reverenced in them their best friends and counsellors, priestesses of the hearth and altar, superior beings in fact. It was only when Roman institutions had the supremacy, that the contrary opinion came into force, and was carried to the utmost extremes, it being found convenient to ascribe inferior brain-power to those who were to be reduced to subjection. I wonder if it never struck any of the wiseacres who propounded this ludicrous theory, that as the propagation of the human race can only be carried on by the co-operation of the female portion, it must, if the latter be in reality so wofully inferior, necessarily in course of time deteriorate altogether! Surely, if they were not blinded by their own vanity, each one of these superior beings must be aware that his first youthful health and physical vigour, together probably with much of the mental and moral force on which he prides himself, were in the first instance derived from one of the sex he so looks down upon, and imbibed with his mother’s milk! What is strangest of all is that women should so long have put up with being treated in this manner. Was it that they did not think it worth their while to protest, that for all these centuries they have smilingly seen through the unwarrantable pretensions of their husbands, brothers and sons, calm and confident in their own quiet strength, which must, if they but chose to put it forth, prevail against irrational blustering? To me, in any case, it would appear rather a confession of weakness on the part of some of my sisters, when I hear them clamouring for their so-called rights. Which of the old Roman legislators was it, who in helping to frame the laws which press so hardly on our sex, gave it as his reason, that unless women were firmly kept down, they would soon get the upper-hand altogether, being, as he had the courage and honesty to confess—“so much stronger and cleverer than men!”

My mother has very often told me of her joy at the arrival of the pretty new mamma, who looked so sweet, and took her in her arms so kindly, as if she felt it a real comfort to find this little one prepared to love her, and to whom she might try to be a real mother. Not quite as she would have wished though, as she soon found out, for that would not have fallen in with my grandfather’s views. He wanted his wife for himself, and expected her to be constantly in her own rooms awaiting his good will and pleasure, and not that he should perhaps be told if he went to look for her there, that she had gone upstairs to the schoolroom or nursery. It was for this reason that my mother in her turn had to continue leading a lonely life in her childhood, only seeing her parents at stated hours, and ever in the greatest dread of her father, who, if he were annoyed at anything, generally, I regret to say, laid about him with his riding-whip pretty freely. Such energetic modes of enforcing obedience or expressing disapproval were already somewhat going out of fashion in my childhood, and I am glad to think how many children there now are who have never received a blow, and are wholly free from the terrorising influences under which earlier generations grew up.

My mother’s first impression of her stepmother was, as I have said, one of pure enthusiasm. She was old enough to feel the charm of a pretty face, and to observe the pride her father took in his young wife’s beauty, and the intense satisfaction he felt in witnessing the admiration she excited. He was rather fond of teasing his little daughter with the prospect of very soon finding a husband for her, to which the little girl would reply quite gravely—“No, I do not mean ever to get married!” And her father would cast an enquiring glance at his wife, as if wondering whether she had the air of a victim of the marriage yoke, to be however promptly reassured by her smile of unaffected amusement at the child’s ingenuousness. Grandmamma’s first baby did not live, but she had in course of time four other children, who were to the little elder sister a source of unfailing delight. She would amuse them for hours, telling them the most wonderful stories, which she made up herself, and the little ones simply adored her. For her own elder brothers my mother had, as I shall have occasion to relate, an almost passionate attachment. I must speak of them in their own place, but in this sort of family history, the lives are all so mixed up together, and have so many points of contact, one must from time to time let a side-light fall on some, whose turn to be treated at length has not yet come.

The occasional visits which the terrible Prince Paul paid his daughter were rather like the explosion of a bomb in the household. As an instance of the alarm which his presence inspired, my mother used to relate with amusement the story of her step-mother’s consternation at finding her one day alone with him for a few minutes, imitating the tone of commiseration with which she said to her:—“What, all alone, poor child! Go upstairs and rest!” It was the only time that she ever heard grandmamma say a word that could imply the slightest dislike to her father. Her manner towards him was always perfect, and she never criticised his conduct.

My mother was just fourteen, grandmamma therefore only twenty-seven, when my grandfather suddenly died. Grandmamma was so inconsolable, that for the first week she shut herself up in her own room, refusing to see anyone, and shedding floods of tears. And yet her married life cannot have been a very cheerful one. What dreary evenings those must have been, on which her husband came home tired from his shooting, and fell asleep on the sofa directly after dinner, his wife and daughters not daring to speak a word, for fear of disturbing his slumbers! Nor was it perhaps much better, to have at other times to stand the whole evening beside the billiard-table, looking on at the interminable games he played with his chamberlains. As for the visits from other Courts, these were mostly terribly stiff and formal affairs, and if, as was sometimes the case, the Rhine-steamers bringing the expected guests were delayed, then it meant several hours of tedious waiting. Standing about waiting was part of the daily business of Court life, and children were not spared, they had to do just like the rest. As for asking them if they were tired or bored, that occurred to nobody; it was the proper thing and had to be done, and that was enough.

It was only much later that I could at all appreciate what infinite tact must have been requisite on grandmamma’s part, to enable her, the young widow with her little children, to take up exactly the right position towards her stepson, now Duke of Nassau, so little younger than herself. But her innate sense of the fitness of things pointed out to her exactly the right line of conduct, and it was with the most perfect womanly dignity and grace that she settled down at once into the part of the middle-aged, one might say the elderly woman, which she had decided should henceforth be hers. She had a stately way of receiving visitors, nearly always standing, and with the doors on all sides thrown wide open. Even her doctor was accustomed to stand and talk to her, or else would walk up and down with her, hat in hand, through the rooms with their big folding-doors opening one into the other. All this perpetual living on view as it were, this lack of privacy, seemed to us then perfectly natural—one is always inclined to take the difficulties in the lives of others as a matter of course, especially if they themselves accept them unmurmuringly. So that it never even occurred to me how frightfully dull and monotonous was the life grandmamma led—just the same little round of duties and occupations day by day, a drive to the same spot at the same hour, varied only by a little walk while the carriage waited for her, and just the same set of people received in audience over and over again. There could of course never be any pleasure to her in receiving visitors, on account of her deafness, but she never let this interfere with the enjoyment of others, and nothing pleased her so much as to sit, smiling and serene, in the midst of a crowd of gay and laughing young people, whose words she could not hear, but whose bright laughing faces enabled her to share in their mirth. It is in looking back on them now, that such details throw fresh light for me on the inner meaning of that beautiful and serene, yet in reality solitary existence, and I reflect on the amount of silent endurance, the long practice in self-restraint and self-sacrifice, all the disappointments and disenchantments, by which in the end that appearance of placid content, of sweet and smiling resignation, had been acquired.

My own happiest hours were those spent with grandmamma. Oh! how we loved everything about her!—her house,—that pretty house, standing on a hill covered with rose-trees, so that it was a perfect bower of roses during the summer months, and inside fragrant the whole year round with the perfume of the flowers that filled it everywhere! She had at first taken another house in Wiesbaden, for she insisted on moving from Biebrich directly after her husband’s death, in order to give up the Castle to his eldest son, who then had this house built on purpose for her, and in it she lived the whole of her widowed life. It was called after her the “Paulinenpalais,” and bore that name still for many years after her death. But now it has been sold, has passed into other hands, and retains nothing of the charm that belonged to it in grandmamma’s time. How well I remember every nook and corner of it, each one endeared to me by some special association, and with grandmamma’s presence pervading it all,—the drawing-room we thought so lovely, with its oriental decorations, in imitation of the Alhambra, and her dear little boudoir, with its soft blue hangings, and the delicately scented note-paper on her writing-table, of the special pale green tint she always used, for the sake of her somewhat weak eyes.

And what lovely fine crochet-work was done by those beautiful hands of hers, gloved or ungloved. One wore gloves much more in those days, it was considered a duty to take care of one’s hands, and would have been condemned as a mark of excessive ill-breeding, to hold out a hand that was not beautifully cared for, for others to kiss. Very rarely though did one give one’s hand at all. It is very different now-a-days, when young princes content themselves with a silent shake of the hand, and young princesses too find nothing to say, and put it on the ground of their shyness. My mother knew what it meant to suffer from shyness, she hardly ever entered the drawing-room in her youth without having shed tears beforehand, so terrible an ordeal was it to her, but she knew what would have awaited her had she not at once gone round the circle of guests speaking to each in turn. Nor did grandmamma’s deafness ever prevent her from entering into conversation with each person presented to her, finding the right thing to say to each one, whilst only her heightened colour betrayed to those who knew her well, the torture it was to her to go on talking thus, without hearing more than a chance word here and there of the other’s replies. It was in her drawing-room that I took unconsciously my first lessons in deportment, her way of holding a reception seeming to me so gracious and so natural, I felt that no better model could be found. To me she was invariably of the most exquisite kindness, but I should never have taken it into my head to be otherwise than extremely respectful towards her. I was never happier than when sitting at her feet, playing with the tips of her delicate tapering fingers, which she left in my clasp, whilst she went on conversing with the others. Sometimes she took me out for a drive, and I felt very proud at being alone with her in the carriage. “Sit very upright,” she used to say, “and then people will think you are grown-up!”

But the greatest delight of all was to be allowed to be present at grandmamma’s toilet, to watch her hair being dressed, and see her arrange her curls, as she always did herself, with her own hands. Her hair was coiled round at the back, and a piece of black lace hung over it, and then in the front the mass of soft little curls shaded her forehead most becomingly, after the fashion of her youth, to which she always clung. Nor did she ever change the style of her dress, during all the years of her widowhood. Her dressing-room seemed to me quite a little sanctuary, so dainty and sweet, with the delicious smell of the rose-water she used to bathe her eyes, and all the beautiful glass-stoppered bottles set out on the toilet-table, and yet there were no toilet arts or mysteries at all, nothing that need be concealed from a child’s gaze.

Grandmamma often stayed with us for months together, for my mother and she were intensely fond of one another, and there was even a great likeness between them, which was not surprising, as they were first cousins. She wrote a great deal, had a special facility with her pen, and many a document for the use of her stepson was drawn up by her. French she wrote with perhaps even greater ease, always employing that language for any notes she made for her own reference, for it was of course the language of her youth, being spoken exclusively at the German Courts in the old days. My mother also spoke it before she could speak German, hardly knowing a word of the latter language at the time of her father’s second marriage.

The year 1848, so full of unrest throughout Europe, did not pass unfelt in Nassau. My uncle, the Duke, was absent when the revolution broke out, and an angry mob collected round grandmamma’s palace in Wiesbaden, and even began piling faggots at every corner, with the evident intention of setting it on fire. Then when popular excitement was at the highest pitch, two or three delegates of the revolutionary party came up to demand of any members of the ducal family the signing of the new constitution. There was no time for reflection; grandmamma had to sign the paper herself, and let her son Nicholas, a boy of fourteen, do the same, and then she took up her stand on the balcony, with what outward calm she might, but in her heart longing for her stepson to return and restore order. At last, to her relief, she perceived the plumes of his helmet on the other side of the square, and soon could recognise him, in full uniform, making his way quietly on foot through the thickest of the crowd. He had heard the news of the revolution at Frankfort, and jumping on the first railway-engine that left, came back with all speed. In her joy grandmamma waved her handkerchief as a signal, and in a moment, from all the houses round, whose inmates had been watching the course of events behind closed windows, countless handkerchiefs were waving also, notwithstanding the danger of thus attracting to oneself a shot from the insurgents. There was an anxious pause whilst the Duke came forward to the edge of the balcony, and leaning over, called down into the crowd below, in a clear and decided if not very well-pleased tone of voice,—“The engagement my mother and brother have entered into for me, I will fulfil!” The last syllable echoing across the square with cutting emphasis, as I have often been told by those who were present at the scene.

Nassau was a gem among the states of Germany. There was an alliterative saying about the sources of the country’s wealth: from water, in the first place, for besides the Rhine flowing through it, there were all the magnificent mineral and medicinal springs; then its wine, the very best in Germany, and in the whole world! Next, the woods, of such splendid and luxuriant growth, and the home of innumerable wild creatures,—feathered and four-footed game of all sorts! As for wheat, there were corn-fields in abundance, enclosed by fruit trees, whose branches were drooping with their load; and last, though not least, the ways, those roads for which the land was famous,—the so-called vicinal ways,—were as good as the finest highways elsewhere. With all this, rates and taxes were things unknown, in that fortunate country, in those halcyon days. The state was prosperous, the reigning family wealthy, and any deficit in the revenue was supplied by the gaming-tables at Wiesbaden. As these were only open to foreigners, neither the townspeople nor the innocent countryfolk around were ever exposed to the temptations and dangers so eloquently set forth in certain pamphlets. There, the misery of the peasantry is depicted in moving terms,—honest families reduced to the direst poverty after losing their little all in the gambling-saloons! But it so happened that no peasant was ever admitted inside the doors, or had he succeeded in gaining entrance, he would very speedily have been turned out, before he had time even to watch the play, much less stake his own money! An officer in the army seen there would have been immediately cashiered, nor was access to the tables granted to any magistrate or functionary, or to anyone belonging to the territory. It is not that I wish to undertake the defence of gambling, but, apart from the question of its intrinsic immorality, so much that is erroneous has been written on the subject and has come to my own notice, that I cannot refrain from stating here the facts of the case, as they are known to me. For Nassau it may emphatically be said, that the institution only benefited the country, very materially adding to its prosperity, without doing it any harm at all.

On rainy days, our favourite walk was under the arcades, where we wandered up and down, looking in at the shop windows, that seemed to me an Eldorado, with all the treasures they displayed. And never shall I forget my sensations, the day that for the first time I possessed a whole thaler of my own, to spend as I liked! I drove with grandmamma to the Arcade, and we got out there, that I might make my purchase. Now I had long since set my heart on the loveliest little basket, lined with pink silk, which I had often gazed at with longing eyes, thinking it quite an unattainable object. “That costs a gulden,” said the shopkeeper, in answer to my somewhat embarrassed question, for it seemed to me rather an indelicate thing to ask the price of anything, a feeling I have not altogether got over to this day. A gulden! my spirits sank. “Ah! I have only a thaler!” “But that is a great deal too much,” replied the friendly shopman, with whom I was delighted, as in addition to my purchase, he handed me back numberless little coins, with which I at once bought several other charming knicknacks. For I could not tolerate the idea of taking a single pfennig home with me. To have money in one’s pocket seemed to me already then a real misfortune, and I have never changed in that respect. How should one change? Does one not remain the same from the cradle to the grave? And what a number of pretty little things I had for my money! Some of them I have to this day, for I could not bear to part with them, and brought them with me to Roumania.

The year 1856 saw us for the last time all assembled round grandmamma, in the month of February, to celebrate her forty-fifth birthday. I was just twelve years old, but already so familiar with the outward signs of ill-health and sickness, that the change in her appearance at once astonished and even disquieted me. It was the strange bright patch of red on each cheek that struck me especially. Her complexion had always remained brilliant, and her cheeks rosy, but now they were much redder, and seemed to be encircled by a hard line that made the skin around look whiter than ever. I think she had also a little dry hacking cough. It soon became evident that her lungs were attacked, her fits of coughing were accompanied by hemorrhage, and the doctors pronounced her to be in a decline. We saw but little of my mother that spring and summer, as she was constantly in Wiesbaden, the invalid always asking for her, and liking no other nursing so well as hers. Already early in July it was announced that there was no longer any hope, and my mother, whose perpetual dread it was that my naturally impulsive nature should gain more and more the upper hand, counting on the solemn impressions of such a scene to sober me for life, resolved to take me with her to the death-bed.

Such an experience was indeed well calculated to damp a child’s high spirits, and it remains with me as the most vivid recollection of my youth. For accustomed as I was to sickness and suffering, death I was yet unacquainted with. And now, all at once, I was to see someone die! But what a radiant, blissful death that was! The evening before she passed away, grandmamma seemed positively transfigured. A rapturous expression was on her face, as she lay there stretching out her arms towards something that was seen by her alone, and repeating with marked emphasis the words “at four o’clock!” For many hours we all sat or knelt round her bed, until at last my mother sent me away to get a little sleep, promising to have me awakened when the end approached. I stopped to press my lips once more to the dear wasted hand, and at that grandmamma opened her eyes, looked at me and smiled, and her lips shaped themselves as if to give me a kiss. My eyes were running over with tears, as I stooped over her for that last kiss. Even then, almost in her death-agony, her natural sweetness and affability never deserted her for a moment, and as with her failing eyes she caught sight of a doctor who had been summoned in haste, with one of her own peculiarly graceful gestures she pointed to a chair by her bedside, begging him to be seated.

Meanwhile, in the next room, still, in my little dressing-gown I had thrown myself on a camp-bedstead that had been placed there for anyone able to snatch a few minutes’ rest, and had fallen into an uneasy sleep, until a little before four o’clock my mother woke me, everyone thinking that the end must come then.

In these few hours I found that a great change had taken place,—still the same hot flush on the cheeks, but the eyes sunken, and without the slightest look of consciousness, and her breath coming in short quick gasps. I trembled all over. Through the door open into the boudoir beyond, I could see the old clergyman, Pastor Dilthey, who had officiated both at my mother’s confirmation and at her marriage, sitting there in his full canonicals, grave and imposing, waiting to perform the last solemn rites. The room was left in darkness, only the first rays of morning stealing in through the closed shutters flickered strangely here and there, and fell over the old pastor’s silvery hair, making his pale serious face look still more grave and pale. I watched him from the doorway, but felt in too great awe to go up and speak to him, so I stole up quietly to grandmamma’s writing-table, and looked once more at all the little articles standing on it, with which I had sometimes been allowed to play and all of which had the scent of the filagree vinaigrettes she kept among them. The hands of the little clock there already pointed to four,—when she suddenly began to breathe a little more freely, and the danger seemed no longer so imminent. We knelt round her bed, without a sound, except when one or other of her daughters, unable to control her sobs, was immediately called to order by my mother lest the calm of the death-bed should be disturbed.

And so the hours passed. I grew more and more tired. Then, between one and two o’clock that afternoon, a terrific storm broke out. The open windows banged to and fro, the rain splashed and dashed against the window-panes, the thunder rolled, and grandmamma’s breath came in fitful gasps. She could no longer swallow even the few drops of water that were held to her lips. So the storm raged on, and her breathing grew more painful and irregular, and I knelt on like the rest at her bedside, when suddenly I knew no more, all grew dark before my eyes, and I had fallen forward, my dark curls streaming across my mother’s feet, fast asleep. Or was it perhaps in reality faintness that had overcome me, and that then passed into the sound sleep of childhood, worn out as I was with the unwonted hours of watching and fasting I had gone through? It is very possible, for I had eaten nothing for the last four-and-twenty hours, and was exhausted with kneeling and with all the tears I had shed. When I came to myself again, the storm had spent its fury, the flashes of lightning were less frequent, the thunder only went on rumbling in the distance, the rain had stopped, and a ray of sunshine streamed into the room and right across the face of the dying woman, whose breathing was still slower and feebler. At last, as the big belfry clocks in the town began to strike the hour, one after the other, there were still longer pauses between the gasps for breath. I saw then for the first time what it means to smile from sheer despair. Good old Dr. Fritze, who had attended grandmamma all her life, and who literally idolised her, had seated himself on the bed and lifted her in his arms, to try to ease her breathing a little. When the clocks began striking, he smiled, and said aloud,—“one more breath!” and then,—“one more!” And again:—“and just one more!” And after that there was a deathly silence, whilst the old Black Forest clock above her head struck four. Her daughters hid their faces in the pillows to stifle their sobs, and the deep rich voice of the old pastor rang out in words of solemn prayer. Then the head of the family, the Duke of Nassau, rose to his feet, and stretching out his hand across the sleeping form, called on his brother and sisters to unite with him in the vow, that her dear memory should hold them together in all things henceforth, just as if she were still living in their midst. Their tears fell fast over the still white face, so unmoved in death, as they joined hands with him in answer to his appeal. The one daughter, the Princess of Waldeck, was so beside herself with grief, that it took all my mother’s firmness to enable her to regain her composure, the latter being indeed a tower of strength to them all in that sad hour.

After a little while we were all sent away, in order that the laying out of the corpse might be attended to, before too great rigidity should have set in, and once more I became sadly conscious of the shortcomings of human nature, at least in my own person, as the pangs of hunger began to assert themselves, after this prolonged fast. It was perhaps not very astonishing, considering my youth, that I should have been able to enjoy even at such a moment the repast which was now provided for me, but I felt terribly ashamed of myself, above all that the servants waiting on me should see me eating with such hearty appetite, and I wondered if everyone thought me very hard-hearted! Had I not fallen asleep just at the wrong moment too? I felt thoroughly small, and there was no one to comfort me with the assurance that it was not my heart that was in fault, but only my poor little body demanding its rights!

In the one drawing-room, that which was known as the “sisters’-room,” as it had specially belonged to my aunts, three beds were put up, and here my mother and I were to sleep together with her youngest sister, for the house was so overfull that proper accommodation was wanting, the dining-room, the largest room of all, being converted into a chapelle ardente. Of this last detail I knew nothing. I had been so simply brought up, the ways of a Court were unfamiliar and even quite distasteful to me. Next morning I was up betimes, and without disturbing anyone I crept out into the garden, taking with me the first tablecloth that came to hand, and this I filled with all the roses I could gather, fresh fragrant roses, still wet with dew, to take to grandmamma. Without a word to anyone, I made my way upstairs very softly to her room, and began placing my roses in a big garland round her. I did not feel at all afraid at first, but in course of time the intense stillness began to affect me, so that I was quite glad when FrÄulein von Preen, grandmamma’s lady-in-waiting, came into the room with one or two of the maids and helped me to arrange my flowers. The day passed slowly, chiefly taken up with giving orders for mourning, bonnets of the correct shape, with the point coming very low down on the forehead, and long crape veils, falling right over the heavy folds of the black woollen dresses with their long trains. I too was to have a little black woollen dress, and that made me sadder than ever, it seemed to me such a melancholy garb. The following morning I again got up as early as possible, feeling rather impatient to see my aunt go on sleeping so soundly, for she was never an early riser, and had not yet made up for the rest she had lost. But I hardly knew what to do with myself, having been told that I could not go to see grandmamma to-day, and I turned and twisted about restlessly in the room. All at once I caught sight of a sheet of grandmamma’s own special pale green note-paper, with something written on it in her hand-writing, lying on a table. Young as I was, I quite understood that one must not read every paper one sees lying about, my mother never even opened a letter addressed to me, so as to set me the example of the respect due to private correspondence. But this paper lay spread wide open for every one to see, and was evidently not a letter at all, that much was clear to me, notwithstanding my short-sight. It was certainly allowable, I told myself, to look at dear grandmamma’s hand-writing once more. It turned out to be a translation of some English verses,—a poem of Longfellow’s, which is known to everybody, but with which I first made acquaintance then, through the medium of grandmamma’s German version. The first verse of the original runs:

Quick as thought I had made a copy of the verses, and leaving the paper where I found it, I was reading my treasure through once more when my aunt awoke and called her sister, and it was only then that I noticed that my mother must have been up and dressed before me, as she had already left the room. Thrusting my beloved verses back in my pocket, I softly approached my aunt’s bedside, wishing her good morning.—“Good morning!” she replied, continuing with a sigh:—“to-day is my birthday!”—“Oh!” I said, and could find no more to say. I felt perfectly well how unkind and unfeeling I must appear, I quite understood how tragic it was for her, to celebrate her eighteenth birthday beside her mother’s open coffin, I was simply choking with affection and sympathy—but I could not get out a single word to express what I felt. And what indeed could a small child say to help and console! Myself I had just found great comfort in those beautiful verses, and I longed to show her these, but was not quite sure whether I had done right in copying them, and so my poor aunt and I just went on looking at one another in silence, when fortunately my mother came in, breaking the ice with the warmth of her presence, and, finding exactly the right thing to say, in the fewest words possible, as she folded her sister in her arms. I withdrew, very quietly, leaving them together, and that was perhaps the only sensible thing that I did, or could have done, under the circumstances.

The next few days were the most gloomy and depressing of all, with the lying in state in the chapelle ardente, in which grandmamma seemed to have become something so distant and removed from me, all shrouded in lace, and with tapers burning round her, high up and scarcely to be seen from the steps of the catafalque on which we could only kneel and pray—no longer my own dear grandmamma round whom I might strew roses, but something cold and strange, and far-off, at which crowds came to stare—a mere show! I wanted to think of her still as I had seen her the evening before her death, glorified, as it were, and already belonging to that other and better world, on the threshold of which she stood; it was on this picture my thoughts loved to dwell, and on the memory of her last kiss, and of the magnificent storm which raged while she was drawing her last breath. Everything that had come afterwards was dull and commonplace in comparison—a pageant, out of which the loftiness and sanctification had departed! Out of this chilling atmosphere I withdrew then more and more into myself, cherishing these sacred recollections, and above all musing over my priceless treasure, the poem I had discovered, and which seemed to me like a message from grandmamma herself; so much must the words have meant to her, I fancied I could hear her voice speaking through them; and so little heed did I in consequence pay to what was going on around me, that of the actual funeral ceremonies, at some portion of which in any case I must have been present, I have no remembrance at all. I must have passed through it all as if in a dream, and there is altogether a blank in my mind concerning it.

Aunt Sophie, the youngest sister of my mother, returned with us to Monrepos, and took up her abode with us for a time. She became betrothed, still in her deep mourning, to the Prince of Sweden, who suddenly made his appearance in our midst, I could not at all make out why. And I was just as much puzzled to know why, one evening when my aunt and FrÄulein von Bunsen were playing Haydn’s “Seven Words from the Cross,” as arranged by Neukomm for piano and organ, the prince should so persistently have kept his eyes fixed on my aunt, who was only playing the piano, whilst as everyone knows, the organ, which FrÄulein von Bunsen was playing, is the far more important part! He, however, never took his gaze off my aunt, who certainly looked very interesting with her well cut profile thrown up by the long black veil. Later on I understood a little better what it meant, after I had heard him sing “AdelaÏde” to my aunt’s accompaniment, with all the power of his fine tenor voice, and with a fervour of expression which I have never heard since.

Life seemed to go on again then just as before, only dear grandmamma’s place was empty. I remember too, being present when the question of her tombstone was being discussed. It had been her especial desire, not to be put inside a vault, but to be buried under the open sky, and it seemed to me that it was a very poor way of carrying out her wish, if after all a great heavy stone monument were to be raised above her, on which no flowers could ever grow, nor the sunshine and the rains of heaven penetrate it. Only of course my opinion was not asked, and I kept it to myself, not at all convinced by the explanation given, that the grave, if left open to the sky, and not covered by any sort of tombstone, would in course of time look very neglected and uncared for. What a much better plan it were, to keep the houses, or at any rate the rooms, which people have lived in, sacred to their memory, by leaving them just as they were when they inhabited them, filled with the spirit of the past! That would be a true and living monument, and would speak with far greater eloquence than all the epitaphs and inscriptions, so soon effaced and forgotten.

With regard to myself, my mother had certainly accomplished the purpose she had in view, perhaps even more fully than she had intended, my natural tendency to melancholy, which seldom showed itself on the surface, being fostered and encouraged by events of such gravity. The poetic impulse grew stronger, but was kept just as secret as all the rest of my inner life. I was always writing verses, trying my hand even at a novel, and now to all the old ideals stirring confusedly within me, new visions from without came flashing across my brain, suggested by the scenes of death and mourning I had just passed through. I saw again the dimly lighted chamber, the first rays of dawn stealing through upon the silvery hair and motionless form of the old pastor, and playing over all the inanimate objects, that seemed to take no part in what was going on. And yet—had not her own little clock stood still at the hour of four? That then had known and understood! But I told no one my impressions and sensations, my deepest and strongest feelings I had ever been accustomed to keep to myself, it being impossible to me to overcome the reserve that, unfortunately for me, accompanied so highly-strung and impulsive a temperament. The effort to unlock my soul would have cost me too much, and I felt instinctively that to impart its tumult, even had I been able to do so, would have been by no means a welcome proceeding to those around me. It was all too strong, too wild, too violent. So I shut myself up as before, and went on living in a world of my own, very much more true and real, it seemed to me, than the outer world, in which most of my fellow-creatures were content to live.

Before the year was over, my father’s mother was also dead. But I had never known her,—her mind had been affected for many years, and none of us ever saw her. So that I could not mourn for her, as for the grandmamma I had known and loved, and it was to the latter my thoughts flew back once more, as I knelt beside the coffin of her who had once ruled, as wife and mother, in the home to which she now only returned for her last long slumber. It was for her I wept again, rather than for this unknown grandmother, sorrow for whom was also somewhat crushed by the funeral pomp and ceremony. It left me merely a little sadder and more thoughtful than before, as having had yet another lesson in the vanity of all earthly things.