When we rose from table, we went back into the drawing-room, in which the chandelier, which had now been lighted, diffused a festive glow.
The door on to the terrace was open. Outside was the warm summer night, flooded by the gentle light of the moon. The evening star shed its rays over the grassy expanse of the park, fragrant with hay, and mirrored itself in glittering silver on the lake which spread out in the background. … Could that really be the same moon which a short time ago had shown me the heap of corpses against the church wall surrounded by the shrieking birds of prey? And were these people inside—just then a Prussian lieutenant opened the piano to play one of Mendelssohn’s “Lieder ohne Worte”—could they be the same as were laying about them with their sabres a short time since to cleave men’s skulls?
After a time Prince Henry and Rosa came out too. They did not see me in my dark corner, and passed by me. They were now standing, leaning on the balustrade, near, very near each other. I even believe that the young Prussian—the foe—was holding my sister’s hand in his. They were speaking low, but still some of the prince’s words reached me. “Charming girl … sudden, conquering passion … longing for domestic happiness … the die is cast … for mercy’s sake do not say ‘No.’ Do I then inspire you with disgust?” Rosa shook her head. Then he raised her hand to his lips and tried to put his arm round her waist. She, like a well-brought-up girl, disengaged herself at once.
Ah! I would almost have preferred that the soft moonlight had then and there shone on the kiss of love. … After all the pictures of hate and bitter woe which I had been obliged to witness a short time ago, a picture of love and sweet pleasure would have seemed to me like some compensation.
“Oh! is it you, Martha?”
Rosa had now become aware of me, and was at first very much shocked that anyone should have been listening at this scene, but then pacified that it was only me.
The prince, however, was in the highest degree discomposed and perplexed. He stepped towards me.
“I have just made an offer of my hand to your sister, gracious madam. Kindly say a word in my favour. My action may perhaps seem to both of you somewhat sudden and presumptuous. At another time I should myself perhaps have proceeded more cautiously and more modestly; but in these last few weeks I have been accustoming myself to advance quickly and boldly—no hesitation or trembling was allowed then—and the practice which I formed in war I have now involuntarily again exercised in love. Pray forgive me, and be favourable to me. You are silent, countess? Do you refuse me your hand?”
“My sister,” said I, coming to Rosa’s assistance, who was standing there in deep emotion with her head turned aside, “cannot surely be expected to decide her fate so quickly. Who knows whether our father will give his consent to a marriage with ‘an enemy’; who knows again whether Rosa will return an inclination so suddenly kindled?”
“I know,” she replied, and stretched out both her hands to the young man; and he pressed her warmly to his heart.
“Oh, you silly children,” I said, and drew back a few paces to the drawing-room door, to watch that—at least at that moment—no one should come out.
On the following day the betrothal was celebrated. My father offered no opposition. I should have thought that his hatred of the Prussians would have made it impossible for him to receive into his family a hostile warrior and a victor; but whether it was that he separated altogether the individual question from the national (a common method of action—for one often hears people protest: “I hate them as a nation, not as individuals,” though there is no sense in it, no more sense than if one were to say: “I hate wine as a drink, but I swallow each drop with pleasure”; still a phrase need not be rational in order to be popular, quite the contrary), or whether it was that ambition got the upper hand and an alliance with a princely house flattered him, or, finally, that the sudden love of the young folks so romantically expressed touched him—in short, he said yes, and with seeming heartiness. Aunt Mary was less disposed to agree. “Impossible!” was her first exclamation. “The prince is surely of the Lutheran sect.” But in the end she comforted herself with the consideration that Rosa would probably convert her husband. The deepest
