O Thou, My Austria! Part 8

Ah, how secure my cold, weak fingers feel in that warm strong hand! Why do I suddenly recall the long-past moonlit evenings in Komaritz when we sat together on the garden-steps and Harry told me ghost-stories, in dread of which, when they grew too ghastly, I used to cling close to him as if to find shelter in his strong young life from the bloodless throng of spirits he was evoking?

Thus we stand, hand in hand, before the white rose, the last which autumn had left. It droops above us, and its cheering fragrance mingles with the autumnal odours around us. I pluck it, stick it in Harry's b.u.t.ton-hole, and then suddenly begin to sob convulsively. He clasps me close, close in his arms, kisses me, and murmurs, "Do not forget me!"

and I kiss him too, and say, "Never--never!" while around us the faded leaves fall silently upon the gra.s.s.

X.

MY EDUCATION.

Now follow a couple of very colourless years. There was nothing more to antic.i.p.ate from the summers. For, although Heda regularly appeared at Komaritz as soon as the city was too hot or too deserted, she did not add much to my enjoyment. Komaritz itself seemed changed when Harry was no longer there to turn everything upside-down with his good-humoured, madcap ways.

And there was a change for the worse in our circ.u.mstances; affairs at Zirkow were not so prosperous as they had been.

To vary the monotony of his country life, my uncle had built a brewery, from which he promised himself a large increase of income. It was to be a model brewery, but after it was built the startling discovery was made that there was not water enough to work it. For a while, water was brought from the river in wagons drawn by four horses, but, when this was found to be too expensive, the brewery was left to itself.

For years now it has remained thus pa.s.sive, digesting in triumphant repose the sums of money which it swallowed up. The monster!

Whenever there is any little dispute between my uncle and my aunt, she is certain to throw his brew-house in his face. But, instead of being crushed by the mischief he has wrought, he declares, "The project was admirable: my idea was a brilliant one if it had only succeeded!"

But it did not succeed.

The consequence was--retrenchment and economy. My aunt dismissed two servants, my uncle kept only a pair of driving horses, and my new gowns were made out of my aunt Thrse's old ones.

The entire winter we spent at Zirkow, and my only congenial friend was my old English governess, the Miss O'Donnel already mentioned, who came shortly before Harry's entrance into the army, not so much to teach me English as to learn German herself.

Born in Ireland, and a Catholic, she had always had excellent situations in the most aristocratic English families. This had given her, besides her other acquirements, a great familiarity with the curious peculiarities of the British peerage, and with social distinctions of rank in England, as to which she enlightened me, along with much other valuable information.

At first I thought her quite ridiculous in many respects,--her general appearance,--she had once been a beauty, and still wore corkscrew curls,--her way of humming to herself old Irish ballads, "Nora Creina,"

"The harp that once through Tara's halls," etc., with a cracked voice and unconscious gestures, her formality and sensitiveness. After a while I grew fond of her. What quant.i.ties of books she read aloud to me in the long evenings in January and December, while my wooden needles clicked monotonously as I knitted woollen comforters for the poor!--all Walter Scott's novels, d.i.c.kens and Thackeray, many of the works of English historians, from the academic, fluent Gibbon to that strange prophet of history, Carlyle, and every day I had to study with her one act of Shakespeare, which bored me at first. She was so determined to form my literary taste that while my maid was brus.h.i.+ng my hair she would read aloud some lighter work, such as "The Vicar of Wakefield" or Doctor Johnson's "Ra.s.selas."

As Uncle Paul was very desirous to perfect my education as far as possible, he was not content with these far-reaching efforts, but, with a view to further accomplishments on my part, sent me thrice a week to X----, where an old pianiste, who was said to have refused a Russian prince, and was now humpbacked, gave me lessons on the piano; and a former _ballerina_, at present married to the best caterer in X----, taught me to dance.

This last was a short, fat, good-humoured person with an enormous double chin and a complexion spoiled by bad rouge. When a ballet-dancer she had been known as Angiolina Chiaramonte; her name now is Frau Anna Schwanzara. She always lost her breath, and sometimes the b.u.t.tons off her waist, when she danced for her pupils, and she prided herself upon being able to teach every known dance, even to the cancan.

I did not learn the cancan, but I did learn the fandango, the czardas, and the Highland fling, with many another national dance. Waltzes and polkas I did not learn, because we had no one for a partner to practise with me; Frau Schwanzara was too short-breathed, although she was very good-humoured and did her best.

Sometimes I thought it very hard to have to get up so early and drive between high walls of snow in a rattling inspector's wagon (Uncle Paul would not allow his last good carriage to be used on these journeys) two long leagues to X----, but it was, at all events, a break in the monotony of my life.

If I was not too sleepy, we argued the whole way, Miss O'Donnel and I, usually over some historic event, such as the execution of Louis XVI.

or Cromwell's rebellion. Sometimes we continued our debate as we walked about the town, where we must have been strange and yet familiar figures. Miss O'Donnel certainly was odd in appearance. She always wore a long gray cloth cloak, under which, to guard against dirt, she kilted up her petticoats so high that her red stockings gleamed from afar. On her head was perched a black velvet bonnet with a scarlet pompon, and in summer and winter she carried the same bulgy green umbrella, which she called her "Gamp." Once we lost each other in the midst of a particularly lively discussion. Nothing daunted, she planted herself at a street-corner, and, pounding the pavement with her umbrella, called, l.u.s.tily, "Zdena! Zdena! Zdena!" until a policeman, to whom I described her, conducted me to her.

In addition to Miss O'Donnel's peculiarities, the extraordinary structure of our vehicle must have attracted some attention in X----.

It was a long, old-fas.h.i.+oned coach hung on very high springs, and it looked very like the shabby carriages seen following the hea.r.s.e at third-cla.s.s funerals. Twin sister of the Komaritz "Noah's Ark," it served a double purpose, and could be taken apart in summer and used as an open carriage. Sometimes it fell apart of itself. Once when we were driving quickly through the market-square and past the officers' casino in X----, the entire carriage window fell out upon the pavement. The coachman stopped the horses, and a very tall hussar picked up the window and handed it in to me, saying, with a smile, "You have dropped something, mademoiselle!" I was deeply mortified, but I would not for the world have shown that I was so. I said, simply, "Thank you; put it down there, if you please," pointing to the opposite seat,--as if dropping a window out of the carriage were the most ordinary every-day occurrence. Upon my reply to him he made a profound bow, which I thought all right. He was a late arrival in the garrison; the other officers knew us or our carriage by sight. Every one of them, when he came to X----, paid his respects to my uncle, who in due course of time returned the visit, and there was an end of it. The officers were never invited to Zirkow.

Sometimes the roads were so blocked with snow that we could not drive to town, nor could we walk far. For the sake of exercise, or what Miss O'Donnel called our "daily const.i.tutional," we used then to walk numberless times around the house, where the gardener had cleared a path for us. As we walked, Miss O'Donnel told me stories from the Arabian Nights or Ovid's Metamorphoses, varied sometimes by descriptions of life among the British aristocracy. When once she was launched upon this last topic, I would not let her finish,--I besieged her with questions. She showed me the picture of one of her pupils, the Lady Alice B----, who married the Duke of G---- and was the queen of London society for two years.

"'Tis odd how much you look like her," she often said to me. "You are sure to make a sensation in the world; only have patience. You are born to play a great part."

If Uncle Paul had heard her, I believe he would have killed her.

Every evening we played a rubber of whist. Miss O'Donnel never could remember what cards were out, and, whenever we wished to recall a card or to transgress some rule of the game, Aunt Rosamunda always said, "That is not allowed at the Jockey Club."

Once my uncle and aunt took me upon a six weeks' pleasure-tour,--or, rather, an educational excursion. We thoroughly explored the greater part of Germany and Italy on this occasion, travelling very simply, with very little luggage, never speaking to strangers, having intercourse exclusively with pictures, sculptures, and valets-de-place.

After thus becoming acquainted, in Baedeker's society, with a new piece of the world, as Aunt Rosamunda observed with satisfaction, we returned to Zirkow, and life went on as before.

And really my lonely existence would not have struck me as anything extraordinary, if Hedwig had not been at hand to enlighten me as to my deprivations.

She had been introduced into society, and wrote me of her conquests.

Last summer she brought a whole trunkful of faded bouquets with her to Komaritz,--ball-trophies. Besides this stuff, she brought two other acquisitions with her to the country, a sallow complexion and an adjective which she used upon every occasion--"impossible!" She tossed it about to the right and left, applying it to everything in the dear old nest which I so dearly loved, and which she now never called anything save "Mon exil." The house at Komaritz, the garden, my dress,--all fell victims to this adjective.

Two of her friends shortly followed her to Komaritz, with a suitable train of governesses and maids,--countesses from Prague society, Mimi and Franziska Zett.

They were not nearly so affected as Heda,--in fact, they were not affected at all, but were sweet and natural, very pretty, and particularly pleasant towards me. But we were not congenial; we had nothing to say to one another; we had no interests in common. They were quite indifferent to my favourite heroes, from the Gracchi to the First Consul; in fact, they knew hardly anything about them, and I knew still less of the Rudis, Nikis, Taffis, and whatever else the young gentlemen were called, with whom they danced and flirted at b.a.l.l.s and parties, and about whom they now gossiped with Heda.

They, too, brought each a trunkful of faded bouquets, and one day they piled them all up on the gra.s.s in the garden and set fire to them. They declared that it was the custom in society in Vienna thus to burn on Ash Wednesday every relic of the Carnival. To be sure, it was not Ash Wednesday in Komaritz, and the Carnival was long past, but that was of no consequence.

The favourite occupation of the three young ladies was to sit in the summer-house, with a generous supply of iced raspberry vinegar, and make confession of the various _pa.s.sions funestes_ which they had inspired. I sat by and listened mutely.

Once Mimi amiably asked me to give my experience. I turned my head away, and murmured, ashamed, "No one ever made love to me." Mimi, noticing my distress, put her finger beneath my chin, just as if she had been my grand-aunt, and said, "Only wait until you come out, and you will bear the palm away from all of us, for you are by long odds the prettiest of us all."

When afterwards I looked in the gla.s.s, I thought she was right.

"Until you go into society," Mimi had said. Good heavens! into society!--I! For some time a suspicion had dawned upon me that Uncle Paul did not mean that I should ever "go into society." When, the day after Mimi's portentous speech, I returned to Zirkow, I determined to put an end to all uncertainty upon the subject.

After dinner--it had been an uncommonly good one--I put my hand caressingly within my uncle's arm, and whispered, softly, "Uncle, do you never mean to take me to b.a.l.l.s, eh?"

He had been very gay, but he at once grew grave, as he replied,--

"What good would b.a.l.l.s do you? Make your eyes droop, and your feet ache! I can't endure the thought of having you whirled about by all the young c.o.xcombs of Prague and then criticised afterwards. Marriages are made in heaven, Zdena, and your fate will find you here, you may be sure."

"But I am not thinking of marriage," I exclaimed, indignantly. "I want to see the world, uncle dear; can you not understand that?" and I tenderly stroked his coat-sleeve.

He shook his curly head energetically.

"Be thankful that you know nothing of the world," he said, with emphasis.

And I suddenly recalled the intense bitterness in my mother's tone as she uttered the word "world," when I waked in the dark night and found her kneeling, crying, at my bedside in our old Paris home.

"Is it really so very terrible--the world?" I asked, meekly, and yet incredulously.

"Terrible!" he repeated my word with even more energy than was usual with him. "It is a hot-bed of envy and vanity, a place where one learns to be ashamed of his best friend if he chance to wear an ill-made coat; that is the world you are talking of. I do not wish you to know anything about it."

This was all he would say.

It might be supposed that the unattractive picture of the world drawn by Uncle Paul would have put a stop at once and forever to any desire of mine for a further acquaintance with it, but--there is ever a charm about what is forbidden. At present I have not the faintest desire to visit Pekin, but if I were forbidden to go near that capital I should undoubtedly be annoyed.

And day follows day. Nearly a year has pa.s.sed since that unedifying conversation with my uncle.