Frederick had given in his resignation of the military service, and as a preliminary had received half-a-year’s leave till his request should be granted. I had now become rich, very rich. The death of my father, and of my brother and two sisters, had put me in possession of Grumitz and of the whole family property.
“Look here,” I said to Frederick, when the title deeds were delivered to me from the notary’s, “what would you say if I were now to praise the war which has just passed because of the advantages which have fallen to my share from its consequences?”
“Why, that you would not then be my Martha. Still I understand what you mean. The heartless egotism, which is capable of rejoicing over material gains that proceed out of the ruin of others—this impulse which every individual, even if he is base enough to feel it, still takes all possible care to hide—is proudly and openly confessed by nations and dynasties. ‘Thousands have perished in untold sufferings; but we have thereby increased in territory and in power: so let there be praises and thanks to Heaven for the successful war!’ ”
We lived very quietly, and retired, in a small villa situated on the shore of the lake. I was so oppressed by the scenes through which I had gone, that I would have absolutely no intercourse with any strangers. Frederick respected my mourning, and made no attempt whatever to recommend me the vulgar resource of “diversion” as a cure for it; I owed it to the graves at Grumitz—and my tender husband saw this well—to grieve over them for some time in perfect quiet. Those who had been hurried so speedily and so cruelly out of this fair world should not be equally quickly and coldly stolen also out of the place of memory which they held in my mourning heart.
Frederick himself went often into the city, in order to follow up the object of his stay here—the study of the Red Cross question. Of the results of this study I do not retain any clear recollection. I did not at that time keep any diary; and thus what Frederick communicated to me of the experiences he met with has for the most part passed out of my recollection. I only recollect clearly one impression which the whole of my surroundings made on me—the quiet, the ease, the cheerful activity of the people whom I happened to see, as if they were living in a most peaceful, most good-humoured time. There was hardly anywhere even an echo of the war that had just ended, or at the most in a conversational tone, as if it had contributed one more interesting event—nothing more—which might furnish pleasant matter for talk along with the rest of European gossip: as if the awful thunder of the cannonades on the Bohemian battlefields had had nothing more tragic in them than a new opera by Wagner. The thing belonged now to history, and had for its result some alterations in the atlas; but its horror had passed out of recollection, or perhaps had never been present to these neutrals; it was forgotten; the pain was over; it had vanished. The same with the newspapers. I read French newspapers chiefly; all the interest was concentrated about the Universal Exhibition in Paris which was in preparation for 1867; about the court festivities at Compiègne; about literary celebrities (two new geniuses had come to light who caused much discussion, Flaubert and Zola); about the events of the drama—a new opera by Gounod—a new leading part designed by Offenbach for Hortense Schneider; and so forth. The little exciting duel which the Prussians and Austrians had fought out là bas en Bohème was an event that had already become to some extent a thing of the past. Ah! what lies three months back or at thirty miles’ distance, what is not being played out in the domain of the Now and the Here, is a thing which the short feelers of the human heart and the human memory cannot reach! We quitted Switzerland towards the middle of October. We betook ourselves back to Vienna, where the course of the business of my inheritance required my presence. When this business was despatched, our intention was to stay for a considerable time at Paris. Frederick had it in his mind to smooth the way with all his power for the idea of a league of peace; and his view was that the projected Universal Exhibition offered the best opportunity for setting on foot a congress of friends of peace, and he also thought Paris the most appropriate place for giving actual vitality to what was a matter of international concern.
“I have,” he said, “renounced the trade of war, and that I have done from convictions gained in actual war. I will now work for these convictions. I enter the service of the peace army. A very small army indeed, it is true, and one whose combatants have no other shield or sword than the sentiment of justice and the love of humanity. Still, everything which has ultimately become great has started from small or invisible beginnings.”
“Ah!” I sighed; “it is a hopeless beginning. What can you—a single man—achieve against that mighty fortress, thousands of years old, and garrisoned by millions of men?”
“Achieve? I? I am not really so foolish as to hope that I personally shall bring about a conversion. I was only saying just then that I wished to enter the ranks of the peace-army. When I had my place in the army of war, did I, do you suppose, hope that I should save my country, that I should conquer a province? No; the individual can only serve. And still further, he must serve. A man who is penetrated by any cause cannot do better than work for it—than devote his life
