What wonder that it TURNED HER HEAD?
SAT VERb.u.m SAPIENTI."
"REASONS FOR NOT MARRYING.
""The lovely Miss S.
Will surely say "yes,"
You"ve only to ask and try;"
"That subject we"ll quit;"
Says Georgy the wit, "I"VE A MUCH BETTER SPEC IN MY EYE!""
This last epigram especially was voted so killing that it flew like wildfire; and I know for a fact that our Charge-d"Affaires at Kalbsbraten sent a courier express with it to the Foreign Office in England, whence, through our amiable Foreign Secretary, Lord P-lm-rston, it made its way into every fashionable circle: nay, I have reason to believe caused a smile on the cheek of R-y-lty itself. Now that Time has taken away the sting of these epigrams, there can be no harm in giving them; and "twas well enough then to endeavor to hide under the lash of wit the bitter pangs of humiliation: but my heart bleeds now to think that I should have ever brought a tear on the gentle cheek of Dorothea.
Not content with this--with humiliating her by satire, and with wounding her accepted lover across the nose--I determined to carry my revenge still farther, and to fall in love with somebody else. This person was Ottilia v. Schlippenschlopp.
Otho Sigismund Freyherr von Schlippenschlopp, Knight Grand Cross of the Ducal Order of the Two-Necked Swan of Pumpernickel, of the Porc-et-Siflet of Kalbsbraten, Commander of the George and Blue-Boar of Dummerland, Excellency, and High Chancellor of the United Duchies, lived in the second floor of a house in the Schwapsga.s.se; where, with his private income and his revenues as Chancellor, amounting together to some 300L. per annum, he maintained such a state as very few other officers of the Grand-Ducal Crown could exhibit. The Baron is married to Marie Antoinette, a Countess of the house of Kartoffelstadt, branches of which have taken root all over Germany. He has no sons, and but one daughter, the Fraulein OTTILIA.
The Chancellor is a worthy old gentleman, too fat and wheezy to preside at the Privy Council, fond of his pipe, his ease, and his rubber. His lady is a very tall and pale Roman-nosed Countess, who looks as gentle as Mrs. Robert Roy, where, in the novel, she is for putting Baillie Nicol Jarvie into the lake, and who keeps the honest Chancellor in the greatest order. The Fraulein Ottilia had not arrived at Kalbsbraten when the little affair between me and Dorothea was going on; or rather had only just come in for the conclusion of it, being presented for the first time that year at the ball where I--where I met with my accident.
At the time when the Countess was young, it was not the fashion in her country to educate the young ladies so highly as since they have been educated; and provided they could waltz, sew, and make puddings, they were thought to be decently bred; being seldom called upon for algebra or Sanscrit in the discharge of the honest duties of their lives. But Fraulein Ottilia was of the modern school in this respect, and came back from the pension at Strasburg speaking all the languages, dabbling in all the sciences: an historian, a poet,--a blue of the ultramarinest sort, in a word. What a difference there was, for instance, between poor, simple Dorothea"s love of novel reading and the profound encyclopaedic learning of Ottilia!
Before the latter arrived from Strasburg (where she had been under the care of her aunt the canoness, Countess Ottilia of Kartoffeldstadt, to whom I here beg to offer my humblest respects), Dorothea had pa.s.sed for a bel esprit in the little court circle, and her little simple stock of accomplishments had amused us all very well. She used to sing "Herz, mein Herz" and "T"en souviens-tu," in a decent manner (ONCE, before heaven, I thought her singing better than Grisi"s), and then she had a little alb.u.m in which she drew flowers, and used to embroider slippers wonderfully, and was very merry at a game of loto or forfeits, and had a hundred small agremens de societe! which rendered her an acceptable member of it.
But when Ottilia arrived, poor Dolly"s reputation was crushed in a month. The former wrote poems both in French and German; she painted landscapes and portraits in real oil; and she tw.a.n.ged off a rattling piece of Listz or Kalkbrenner in such a brilliant way, that Dora scarcely dared to touch the instrument after her, or ventured, after Ottilia had trilled and gurgled through "Una voce," or "Di piacer"
(Rossini was in fashion then), to lift up her little modest pipe in a ballad. What was the use of the poor thing going to sit in the park, where so many of the young officers used ever to gather round her? Whir!
Ottilia went by galloping on a chestnut mare with a groom after her, and presently all the young fellows who could buy or hire horseflesh were prancing in her train.
When they met, Ottilia would bounce towards her soul"s darling, and put her hands round her waist, and call her by a thousand affectionate names, and then talk of her as only ladies or authors can talk of one another. How tenderly she would hint at Dora"s little imperfections of education!--how cleverly she would insinuate that the poor girl had no wit! and, thank G.o.d, no more she had. The fact is, that do what I will I see I"m in love with her still, and would be if she had fifty children; but my pa.s.sion blinded me THEN, and every arrow that fiery Ottilia discharged I marked with savage joy. Dolly, thank heaven, didn"t mind the wit much; she was too simple for that. But still the recurrence of it would leave in her heart a vague, indefinite feeling of pain, and somehow she began to understand that her empire was pa.s.sing away, and that her dear friend hated her like poison; and so she married Klingenspohr. I have written myself almost into a reconciliation with the silly fellow; for the truth is, he has been a good, honest husband to her, and she has children, and makes puddings, and is happy.
Ottilia was pale and delicate. She wore her glistening black hair in bands, and dressed in vapory white muslin. She sang her own words to her harp, and they commonly insinuated that she was alone in the world,--that she suffered some inexpressible and mysterious heart-pangs, the lot of all finer geniuses,--that though she lived and moved in the world she was not of it, that she was of a consumptive tendency and might look for a premature interment. She even had fixed on the spot where she should lie: the violets grew there, she said, the river went moaning by; the gray willow whispered sadly over her head, and her heart pined to be at rest. "Mother," she would say, turning to her parent, "promise me--promise me to lay me in that spot when the parting hour has come!" At which Madame de Schlippenschlopp would shriek, and grasp her in her arms; and at which, I confess, I would myself blubber like a child. She had six darling friends at school, and every courier from Kalbsbraten carried off whole reams of her letter-paper.
In Kalbsbraten, as in every other German town, there are a vast number of literary characters, of whom our young friend quickly became the chief. They set up a literary journal, which appeared once a week, upon light-blue or primrose paper, and which, in compliment to the lovely Ottilia"s maternal name, was called the Kartoffelnkranz. Here are a couple of her ballads extracted from the Kranz, and by far the most cheerful specimen of her style. For in her songs she never would willingly let off the heroines without a suicide or a consumption.
She never would hear of such a thing as a happy marriage, and had an appet.i.te for grief quite amazing in so young a person. As for her dying and desiring to be buried under the willow-tree, of which the first ballad is the subject, though I believed the story then, I have at present some doubts about it. For, since the publication of my Memoirs, I have been thrown much into the society of literary persons (who admire my style hugely), and egad! though some of them are dismal enough in their works, I find them in their persons the least sentimental cla.s.s that ever a gentleman fell in with.
"THE WILLOW-TREE.
"Know ye the willow-tree Whose gray leaves quiver, Whispering gloomily To yon pale river?
Lady, at even-tide Wander not near it, They say its branches hide A sad, lost spirit!
"Once to the willow-tree A maid came fearful, Pale seemed her cheek to be, Her blue eye tearful; Soon as she saw the tree, Her step moved fleeter, No one was there--ah me!
No one to meet her!
"Quick beat her heart to hear The far bell"s chime Toll from the chapel-tower The trysting time: But the red sun went down In golden flame, And though she looked round, Yet no one came!
"Presently came the night, Sadly to greet her,-- Moon in her silver light, Stars in their glitter.
Then sank the moon away Under the billow, Still wept the maid alone-- There by the willow!
"Through the long darkness, By the stream rolling, Hour after hour went on Tolling and tolling.
Long was the darkness, Lonely and stilly; Shrill came the night-wind, Piercing and chilly.
"Shrill blew the morning breeze, Biting and cold, Bleak peers the gray dawn Over the wold.
Bleak over moor and stream Looks the grey dawn, Gray, with dishevelled hair, Still stands the willow there--
THE MAID IS GONE!
"Domine, Domine!
Sing we a litany,-- Sing for poor maiden-hearts broken and weary; Domine, Domine!
Sing we a litany, Wail we and weep we a wild Miserere!"
One of the chief beauties of this ballad (for the translation of which I received some well-merited compliments) is the delicate way in which the suicide of the poor young woman under the willow-tree is hinted at; for that she threw herself into the water and became one among the lilies of the stream, is as clear as a pikestaff. Her suicide is committed some time in the darkness, when the slow hours move on tolling and tolling, and is hinted at darkly as befits the time and the deed.
But that unromantic brute, Van Cutsem, the Dutch Charge-d"Affaires, sent to the Kartoffelnkranz of the week after a conclusion of the ballad, which shows what a poor creature he must be. His pretext for writing it was, he said, because he could not bear such melancholy endings to poems and young women, and therefore he submitted the following lines:--
I.
"Long by the willow-trees Vainly they sought her, Wild rang the mother"s screams O"er the gray water: "Where is my lovely one?
Where is my daughter?
II.
""Rouse thee, sir constable-- Rouse thee and look; Fisherman, bring your net, Boatman your hook.
Beat in the lily-beds, Dive in the brook!"
III.
"Vainly the constable Shouted and called her; Vainly the fisherman Beat the green alder; Vainly he flung the net, Never it hauled her!
IV.
"Mother beside the fire Sat, her nightcap in; Father, in easy chair, Gloomily napping; When at the window-sill Came a light tapping!
V.
"And a pale countenance Looked through the cas.e.m.e.nt.
Loud beat the mother"s heart, Sick with amazement, And at the vision which Came to surprise her, Shrieked in an agony-- "Lor! it"s Elizar!"
VI
"Yes, "twas Elizabeth-- Yes, "twas their girl; Pale was her cheek, and her Hair out of curl.
"Mother!" the loving one, Blushing, exclaimed, "Let not your innocent Lizzy be blamed.
VII.
""Yesterday, going to aunt Jones"s to tea, Mother, dear mother, I FORGOT THE DOOR-KEY!
And as the night was cold, And the way steep, Mrs. Jones kept me to Breakfast and sleep."
VIII.