Chapter I

Society once more—Happiness returns—A second marriage suggested—My
younger sisters need a chaperone—Baron Tilling introduced—He tells
of Arno’s death.

Four years passed quietly, and my sisters, now seventeen and eighteen years old, are to be presented at court. “Why should I not too return to society?” I thought. Time had done its work and quieted my grief. Despair had mellowed into sorrow, sorrow into melancholy, then came listlessness, and finally I felt a renewing of my interest in life. I woke one fine morning with the realisation that I was a woman to be envied—twenty-three, beautiful, nobly born, rich, the mother of a darling boy, and one of a devoted family. What had I still to ask to make life delightful?

Behind me like a sweet dream lay the short period of my married life. The shadowy past began to swallow up the memory of my desperate love, my handsome Huzzar, my married happiness, my terrible separation and grief. The duration of it had not been long enough to create a close sympathy. Our devotion had been too shortly cut off to have grown into the friendship and reverence which is often felt by those who have shared years of joy and sorrow. Could I have been indispensable to him when, for no cause, he rushed into the war and left his regiment, which was not called out? Yes, four years made me a different being. My mind had broadened, and knowledge and culture had come to me which, I felt, Arno would have had no sympathy with. If he could come back he would be a stranger to my present spiritual life.

How did it all come about?

One year of widowhood passed in despair, deep mourning, and heart-breaking. Of society I would not hear. Rudolf’s education should be my one thought. The “baby” turned into “my son,” and became the centre of my hope, my pride, and my existence. To be able some day to be his guide and intellectual companion, I buried myself in the treasures of the chateau library. History, in which my interest had cooled, became my passion again, as well as my consolation, for the account of battles and heroics seemed to relate me to the grand historical processes, for which I, too, had lived. Not that I ever got back the old enthusiasms of girlish days for the Maid of Orleans. Many of the overwrought accounts now sounded hollow and mocking, when I thought of the horrors of war.

Can the priceless gem life be paid for with the tinsel coin of posthumous fame?

But the history-shelf of my father’s library was soon exhausted; I begged the bookseller to send me more. He wrote:—

I send you Thomas Buckle’s _History of Civilisation in England_. The
work is unfinished, but these two volumes form a complete whole, and
have attracted great attention, not only in England but over the
world. They say that the author is introducing a new conception of
history.

New, indeed! Reading and re-reading it, I felt like a creature taken suddenly from the bottom of a narrow valley to the mountain tops and viewing the world for the first time, out, beyond and beyond, to the boundless ocean. Not that I, a superficial mind of twenty, could grasp the book—but, to keep to my picture, I saw that lofty monumental things lay before my astonished vision. I was dazzled, overcome, my horizon moved out into the immensities of life. Though the full understanding only came to me later, yet that one vision I caught even then, that the history of mankind itself was not formulated by wars, kings, statesmen, treaties, greed, cunning, but by the gradual development of the intellect. Court chronicles gave no explanation to underlying causes, nor a picture of the civilisation of the time. Buckle did not paint war and devastation with a glamour, but demonstrated that the respect for arms diminished as a people rose in culture and intelligence. The lower into barbarism you go, the more war, and he holds even that some day the love of war and its romance will die out of our culture and cease to exist. Just as childhood’s wrangling ceases, so must society outgrow its childishness.

How all this appealed to the convictions of my heart, which I had so often dismissed as unworthy and weak! I now felt that these growing ideals in me were an echo of the spirit of the age, and saw that thinkers were losing their idolatry for war, and doubting its necessity. The book gave me the opposite of what I sought, yet how it solaced me, enlightened, elevated, and pacified me. Once I tried to talk to my father about it, but he would have none of it; he refused to follow me to the mountain top, that is, he refused to read the book, so it was useless to discuss it.

During the second year of my sorrow I studied with renewed ardour, and as the mind expanded the old unhappiness disappeared. Buckle had unconsciously given me a taste for the larger world again, and I satisfied my craving to follow out his idea in other authors. The passion for life renewed itself, and the melancholy disappeared. Then the third change was wrought in me. Books alone would not satisfy me. I saw that with all this reading my longings were not being gratified—life’s flowers were still for me to pluck if I only stretched out the hand. So in the winter of 1863 I entered the salons of Viennese society once more, to introduce my younger sisters there.

“Martha, Countess Dotzky, the rich young widow,” thus spoken of, I took my part in the great comedy of the world again. The part suited me, and I was greeted, fêted, spoiled on all sides, much to my delight, after four years of social starving.

The entire family quietly presumed that I would remarry. My aunt no longer referred to my soldier saint above. The future promised meeting might not be so agreeable if a second husband stepped in. Every one except myself seemed to have forgotten his existence. My pain was gone, but his image could never be wiped out. Daily Rudolf’s evening prayer closed with: “God keep me good and brave for love of my father, Arno.”

We sisters enjoyed society in the extreme. It was really my first glimpse, too, for I had married so soon that I had missed the gaiety and attentions. My crowd of admirers, however, did not impress me much, for between us there lay a chasm. Brilliant young beaux chatting of ballroom, court, and theatre had not the faintest glimpse of the things which my life was beginning to depend upon. Though I had only begun to lisp in the language of the higher things of soul and science, yet that was farther removed from these chatterers than Greek or even Patagonian. I had begun to think in the tongue with which men of science would some day debate, and finally solve the greatest riddles of the world.

It was quite certain that in such a circle I would scarcely find a congenial mate, and I carefully avoided all entangling rumours, devoted myself to my boy, plunged into study, kept in touch with the intellectual world, read and relished keenly all the latest things. This barred me from many of the frivolities, and yet I keenly enjoyed the gaiety, the company, and dancing. I longed to open my salon to a few of the upper world of scholarship, but my social position made that impossible. I dared not hope to mix the classes in Vienna. Since that day the exclusive spirit has changed, and fashion to-day finds it acceptable to open its doors to brains of the rarer sort. But at that time it would have been quite impossible to receive except such as were presentable at court—counting at least sixteen ancestors. Our own social set would not have been able to converse with the thinking class, and the latter class would have found it intolerably dull to mingle with a drawing-room full of sportsmen, cloister-bred young girls, old generals, and canonesses. All the talk was a vapid recital of where the last ball had been and the next one was to be—perhaps at Schwartzenberg’s or Pallavicini’s; who was the latest adorer of Baroness Pacher, and the latest rejected of the Countess Palffy; how many estates had Prince Croy; was Lady Amalay’s title from her father’s or mother’s side? Could such drivel possibly have interested the intellectual set?

Occasionally an able statesman, diplomat, or man of genius cropped up among us, but they always assumed the frivolous conversation of the rest. A quiet after-dinner chat with some of our parliamentarians or men of mark would have been made impossible almost, for hardly would the conversation turn on some political or scientific subject when it would be interrupted with, “Ah, dearest Countess Dotzky, how charming you looked yesterday at the picnic! And are you going to the Russian embassy to-morrow?”

* * * * *

“Allow me, dear Martha,” said my cousin Conrad Althaus, “to introduce Lieutenant-Colonel Baron Tilling.” I bowed and arose, thinking the introduction meant an invitation to dance.

“Pardon me, Countess,” he said, with a slight smile, showing a perfect row of teeth, “I do not dance.”

“So much the better, for I would like a moment’s rest,” I said, reseating myself.

“I was bold enough to ask for the introduction, for I had some information for you,” he continued.

I looked up at him in surprise. He was no longer young, somewhat grey, and with a serious countenance, but withal a distinguished and sympathetic face.

“I will not intrude, Countess, but what I have to tell you is not suited to a ballroom chat. If you will fix the hour, I will come to you with it.”

“I am at home on Saturdays between two and four.”

“I would rather see you alone.”

“Then come to-morrow at the same hour.” The Baron bowed and left me. Later, Cousin Conrad passed; I called him to my side and questioned him concerning Tilling.

“Ah ha! Has he so impressed you that you are setting an investigation on foot? He is unmarried, but a distinguished princess of the reigning house has him entangled in her silken web, and therefore he does not wish to marry. His regiment has just been ordered here, but he is no friend of society. I meet him every day at the ‘Noble’s Club,’ where he always seems absorbed in the papers or a game of chess. I was astonished to see him here, but the hostess is his cousin. After speaking with you he went away immediately.”

“And he was introduced to no other ladies?”

“No; but do not imagine that it was your beauty that brought him down at long range, and therefore asked to know you. He merely questioned: ‘Could you tell me whether a certain Countess Dotzky, formerly an Althaus, probably a relative of yours, is here to-day? I want to speak to her.’ I pointed to you. ‘There she sits in the blue dress.’ ‘Oh,’ said he, ‘that is she? Will you introduce me?’ And I brought him over with no idea that I would disturb your peace of mind.”

“Such nonsense, Conrad, as though my peace were so easily ruffled! Tilling! What family is that? The name is new to me.”

“So you are interested? Perhaps he is the lucky fellow. I who have tried for three months to interest you in me must step aside for this cold-hearted lieutenant-colonel. Let me warn you, he is without feeling. The Tilling family, I believe, is of Hanoverian origin, although his father was an Austrian officer and his mother a Prussian. Did you note his North German accent?”

“He speaks beautiful German.”

“You find everything about him beautiful, no doubt.” Conrad rose. “I have heard enough. Let me leave you to dream—I can find plenty of beautiful ladies who——”

“Who will think you charming, Conrad. Indeed there are plenty.”

I was uneasy and left the ball early. Surely not to be able to think uninterruptedly about the new friend, although I found myself doing it! At midnight I enriched the red book with the conversation given above, and added my unpleasant doubts that he might even then be sitting at the feet of the princess. I ended my sentence by envying her—not Tilling, oh no!—for being beloved by some one. My waking thought was once more—Tilling. Naturally; had he not made an appointment for that day? For some time nothing had excited me like this visit.

At ten minutes past two the Baron von Tilling was announced.

“As you see, Countess, I am prompt,” he said, kissing my hand.

“Luckily, for I am overwhelmed with curiosity to know your news.”

“Then, without delay, I will tell you. It is this: I was in the battle of Magenta.”

“And you saw Arno die?” I cried.

“Yes. I can tell you of his last moments, and it will be a relief to you. Do not tremble, for if the finish had been shocking I would not tell you.”

“You take a weight from my heart. Go on, go on!”

“The empty phrase, ‘He died as a hero,’ I will not use. But it will comfort you to know that he died instantly and without knowing it. We were often together, and he was so confident of his safety. He showed me the pictures of his wife and boy, and insisted that after the campaign I should be his guest. I chanced in the Magenta massacre to be at his side. I will not relate the terrible scenes. The intoxication of the warrior passion had quite seized Dotzky in the thick of the bullet-hail and powder-fog. His eyes were blazing and he was fighting like mad. I, who was sober, saw it all. Suddenly a shell, and ten men—Dotzky among them—fell. He was instantly killed, but many of them shrieked in agony. All but he were shockingly mangled, but we had to leave them, for a charging column came upon us with a murderous hurrah, pell-mell over the dead and wounded. Lucky those who were dead! After the battle I found Dotzky, with the placid smile on his face, a painless look, and in the same spot and position. I have meant for several years to come and tell you, and relieve you of a painful uncertainty. But forgive me if I have recalled torturing memories.”

The Baron rose to go, and I thanked him while drying my tears: “You cannot know what a relief it is to feel that he died without agony. But stay. A certain tone in your remarks has touched a like strain in my thought. Tell me frankly, you too hate war?”

His face darkened: “Forgive me if I cannot stop to discuss the subject. I am sorry, but I am expected elsewhere.”

A cold expression passed over me, and the unpleasant thought of the princess came into my mind. “Then I will not detain you, Colonel,” I said coldly, and he left without asking if he might be allowed to come again.