O Thou, My Austria! Part 3

Now and then I think of papa, especially before I go to sleep at night.

Then I sometimes wonder if the snow is deep on his grave in the churchyard at Montmartre, and if he is not cold in the ground. Poor papa!--he loved the sun so dearly! And I look over at mamma, who sits and sews at a table near my bed, and it worries me to see the tears rolling down her cheeks again.

Poor mamma! She grows paler, thinner, and sadder every day, although my uncle and aunt do everything that they can for her.

If I remember rightly, she was seldom with her hosts except at meal-times. She lived in strict retirement, in the two pretty rooms which had been a.s.signed us, and was always trying to make herself useful with her needle to Aunt Rosa, who never tired of admiring her beautiful, delicate work.

Towards spring her hands were more than ever wont to drop idly in her lap, and when the snow had gone and everything outside was beginning to stir, she would sit for hours in the bow-window where her work-table stood, doing nothing, only gazing out towards the west,--gazing--gazing.

The soiled snow had vanished; the water was dripping from roofs and trees; everything was brown and bare. A warm breath came sweeping over the world. For a couple of days all nature sobbed and thrilled, and then spring threw over the earth her fragrant robe of blossoms.

It was my first spring in the country, and I never shall forget my joyful surprise each morning at all that had been wrought overnight. I could not tell which to admire most, buds, flowers, or b.u.t.terflies.

From morning till night I roamed about in the balmy air, amid the tender green of gra.s.s and shrubs. And at night I was so tired that I was asleep almost before the last words of my childish prayer had died upon my lips. Ah, how soundly I slept!

But one night I suddenly waked, with what seemed to me the touch of a soft hand upon my cheek,--papa's hand. I started up and looked about me; there was no one to be seen. The breeze of spring had caressed me,--that was all. How had it found its way in?

The moon was at the full, and in its white light everything in the room stood revealed and yet veiled. I sat up uneasily, and then noticed that mamma's bed was empty. I was frightened. "Mamma! mamma!" I called, half crying.

There was no reply. I sprang from my little bed, and ran into the next room, the door of which was open.

Mamma was standing there at the window, gazing out towards the west.

The window was wide open; our rooms were at the back of the castle, and looked out upon the orchard, where nature was celebrating its resurrection with festal splendour. The huge old apple-trees were all robed in delicate pink-white blossoms, the tender gra.s.s beneath them glittered with dew, and above it and among the waving blossoms sighed the warm breeze of spring as if from human lips. Mamma stood with extended arms whispering the tenderest words out into the night,--words that sounded as if stifled among sighs and kisses. She wore the same dress in which she had sat by papa's bedside when he wished her to be beautiful at their parting. Her hair hung loose about her shoulders. I gasped for breath, and threw my arms about her, crying, "Mamma! mamma!"

She turned, and seemed about to thrust me from her almost angrily, then suddenly began to weep bitterly like a child just wakened from sleep, and crept back gently and ashamed to our bedroom. Without undressing she lay down on her bed, and I covered her up as well as I could.

I could not sleep that night, and I heard her moan and move restlessly.

The next morning she could not come down to breakfast; a violent nervous fever had attacked her, and ten days afterwards she died.

They broke the sad truth to me slowly, first saying that she had gone on a journey, and then that she was with G.o.d in heaven. I knew she was dead,--and what that meant.

I can but dimly remember the days that followed her death. I dragged myself about beneath the burden of a grief far too great for my poor, childish little heart, and grew more and more weary, until at last I was attacked by the same illness of which my mother had died.

When I recovered, the memory of all that had happened before my illness no longer gave me any pain. I looked back upon the past with what was almost indifference. Not until long, long afterwards did I comprehend the wealth of love of which my mother's death had deprived me.

III.

It really is very entertaining to write one's memoirs. I will go on, although it is not raining to-day. On the contrary, it is very warm,--so warm that I cannot stay out of doors.

Aunt Rosamunda is in the drawing-room, entertaining the colonel of the infantry regiment in garrison at X----. She sent for me, but I excused myself, through Krupitschka. When lieutenants of hussars come, she never sends for me. It really is ridiculous: does she suppose my head could be turned by any officer of hussars? The idea! Upon my word!

Still, I should like for once just to try whether Miss O'Donnel is right, whether I only need wish to have--oh, how delightful it would be to be adored to my heart's content! Since, however, there is no prospect of anything of the kind, I will continue to write my memoirs.

I have taken off my gown and slipped on a thin white morning wrapper, and the cook, with whom I am a great favourite, has sent me up a pitcher of iced lemonade to strengthen me for my literary labours. My windows are open, and look out upon a wilderness of old trees with wild roses blooming among them. Ah, how sweet the roses are! The bees buzz over them monotonously, the leaves scarcely rustle, not a bird is singing. The world certainly is very beautiful, even if one has nothing entertaining to do except to write memoirs. Now that I have finished telling of my parents, I will pa.s.s on to my nearest relatives.----

("Oho!" said the major. "I am curious to see what she has to say of us.")

----Uncle Paul is the middle one of three brothers, the eldest of whom is my grandfather.

The Barons von Leskjewitsch are of Croatian descent, and are convinced of the antiquity of their family, without being able to prove it. There has never been any obstacle to their being received at court, and for many generations they have maintained a blameless propriety of demeanour and have contracted very suitable marriages.

Although all the members of this ill.u.s.trious family are forever quarrelling among themselves, and no one Leskjewitsch has ever been known to get along well with another Leskjewitsch, they nevertheless have a deal of family feeling, which manifests itself especially in a touching pride in all the peculiarities of the Leskjewitsch temperament. These peculiarities are notorious throughout the kingdom,--such, at least, is the firm conviction of the Leskjewitsch family. Whatever extraordinary feats the Leskjewitsches may have performed hitherto, they have never been guilty of any important departure from an ordinary mode of life, but each member of the family has nevertheless succeeded in being endowed from the cradle with a patent of eccentricity, in virtue of which mankind are more or less constrained to accept his or her eccentricities as a matter of course.

I am shocked now by what I have here written down. Of course I am a Leskjewitsch, or I never should allow myself to pa.s.s so harsh a judgment upon my nearest of kin. I suppose I ought to erase those lines, but, after all, no one will ever see them, and there is something pleasing in my bold delineation of the family characteristics. The style seems to me quite striking. So I will let my words stand as they are,--especially since the only one of the family who has ever been kind to me--Uncle Paul--is, according to the universal family verdict, no genuine Leskjewitsch, but a degenerate scion. In the first place, his hair and complexion are fair, and, in the second place, he is sensible. Among men in general, I believe he pa.s.ses for mildly eccentric; his own family find him distressingly like other people.

To which of the two other brothers the prize for special originality is due, to the oldest or to the youngest,--to my grandfather or to the father of my playmate Harry,--the world finds it impossible to decide.

Both are widowers, both are given over to a craze for travel. My grandfather's love of travel, however, reminds one of the restlessness of a white mouse turning the wheel in its cage; while my uncle Karl's is like that of the Wandering Jew, for whose restless soul this globe is too narrow.

My grandfather is continually travelling from one to another of his estates, seldom varying the round; Uncle Karl by turns hunts lions in the Soudan and walruses at the North Pole; and in their other eccentricities the brothers are very different. My grandfather is a cynic; Uncle Karl is a sentimentalist. My grandfather starts from the principle that all effort which has any end in view, save the satisfying of his excellent appet.i.te and the promotion of his sound sleep, is nonsense; Uncle Karl intends to write a work which, if rightly appreciated, will entirely reform the spirit of the age. My grandfather is a miser; Uncle Karl is a spendthrift. Uncle Karl is beginning to see the bottom of his purse; my grandfather is enormously rich.

When I add that my grandfather is a conservative with a manner which is intentionally rude, and that Uncle Karl is a radical with the bearing of a courtier, I consider the picture of the two men tolerably complete. All that is left to say is that I know my uncle Karl only slightly, and my grandfather not at all, wherefore my descriptions must, unfortunately, lack the element of personal observation, being drawn almost entirely from hearsay.

My grandfather's cynicism could not always have been so p.r.o.nounced as at present; they say he was not naturally avaricious, but that he became so in behalf of my father, his only son. He saved and pinched for him, laying by thousands upon thousands, buying estate after estate only to a.s.sure his favourite a position for which a prince might envy him.

Finally he procured him an appointment as attach in the Austrian Legation in Paris, and when papa spent double his allowance the old man only laughed and said, "Youth must have its swing." But when my father married a poor girl of the middle cla.s.s, my grandfather simply banished him from his heart, and would have nothing more to do with him.

After this papa slowly consumed the small property he had inherited from his mother, and at his death nothing of it was left.

Uncle Paul was the only one of the family who still clung to my father after his _msalliance_,--the one eccentricity which had never been set down in the Leskjewitsch programme. When mamma in utter dest.i.tution applied to him for help, he went to my grandfather, told him of the desperate extremity to which she was reduced, and entreated him to do something for her and for me. My grandfather merely replied that he did not support vagabonds.

My cousin Heda, whose custom it is to tell every one of everything disagreeable she hears said about them,--for conscience' sake, that they may know whom to mistrust,--furnished me with these details.

The upshot of the interview was, first, that my uncle Paul quarrelled seriously with my grandfather, and, second, that he resolved to go to Paris forthwith and see that matters were set right.

Aunt Rosa maintains that at the last moment he asked Krupitschka to sanction his decision. This is a malicious invention; but when Heda declares that he brought us to Bohemia chiefly with the view of disgracing and vexing my grandfather, there may be some grain of truth in her a.s.sertion.

Many years have pa.s.sed since our modest entrance here in Zirkow, but my amiable grandfather still maintains his determined hostility towards Uncle Paul and myself.

His favourite occupation seems to consist in perfecting each year, with the help of a clever lawyer, his will, by which I am deprived, so far as is possible, of the small share of his wealth which falls to me legally as my father's heir. He has chosen for his sole heir his youngest brother's eldest son, my playmate Harry, upon condition that Harry marries suitably, which means a girl with sixteen quarterings. I have no quarterings, so if Harry marries me he will not have a penny.

How could such an idea occur to him? It is too ridiculous to be thought of. But--what if he did take it into his head? Oh, I have sound sense enough for two, and I know exactly what I want,--a grand position, an opportunity to play in the world the part for which I feel myself capable,--everything, in short, that he could not offer me. Moreover, I am quite indifferent to him. I have a certain regard for him for the sake of old times, and therefore he shall have a chapter of these memoirs all to himself.

----At the end of this chapter the major shook his head disapprovingly.

IV.

MY DEAREST PLAYMATE.

The first time that I saw him he was riding upon a pig,--a wonder of a pig; it looked like a huge monster to me,--which he guided by its ears.

One is not a Leskjewitsch for nothing. It was at Komaritz---- But I will describe the entire day, which I remember with extraordinary distinctness.

Uncle Paul himself took me to Komaritz in his pretty little dog-cart, drawn by a pair of spirited ponies in gay harness and trappings. Of course I sat on the box beside my uncle, being quite aware that this was the seat of honour. I wore an embroidered white gown, long black stockings, and a black sash, and carried a parasol which I had borrowed of Aunt Rosa, not because I needed it,--my straw hat perfectly s.h.i.+elded my face from the sun,--but because it seemed to me required for the perfection of my toilet.

I was very well pleased with myself, and nodded with great condescension to the labourers and schoolchildren whom we met.