“And there is my father wishing—” I repeated in silence as I left the shop.
My friend was at home.
Countess Lori Griesbach was in more than one respect the sharer of my lot. A general’s daughter, like me—married for only a short time to an officer, like me—and, like me, a “grass widow.” In one thing she went beyond me: she had not only a husband, but two brothers also at the war. But Lori was not of an apprehensive nature; she was fully persuaded that her dear ones were under the peculiar protection of a saint whom she highly venerated, and she counted confidently on their return.
She received me with open arms.
“Ah! God bless you, Martha; it is indeed good of you to come and see me. But how pale and worn you are looking; you have not had any bad news from the seat of war?”
“No, thank God! But the whole thing is so sad.”
“Ah, yes! You mean the defeat. But you must not think too much of that, the next news may announce a victory.”
“Whether we conquer or are conquered, war is in itself dreadful altogether. Would it not be better if there could be nothing of the kind?”
“Then what would be the good of soldiers?”
“What, indeed!” I assented; “then there would be none—”
“What nonsense you are talking. That would be a nice state of things; nothing but civilians! It makes me shudder. Happily that is impossible.”
“Impossible? Yes, you must be right. I will believe so, or else I could not conceive that it would not long since have happened.”
“What happened?”
“The abolition of war. But, no; I might as well talk of the abolition of earthquakes.”
“I don’t know what you mean. As far as I am concerned I am glad this war has broken out, because I hope that my Louis will distinguish himself. And for my brothers, too, it is a good thing. Promotion has been going on so slowly; now they have at least a chance.”
“Have you had any news lately?” I interrupted. “Are your relatives all well?”
“No, not for a pretty long time now. But, you know, the postal service is often interrupted, and when people are tired out with a hot march or a battle, they have not much taste for writing. I am quite easy. Both Louis and my brothers wear blessed amulets. Mamma hung them on herself.”
“What would you expect to happen, Lori, in a war in which every man in both armies wore an amulet? If the bullets were flying on both sides, would they retire back into the clouds and do no harm?”
“I do not understand you. You are so lukewarm in faith. Your Aunt Mary often laments about it to me.”
“Why do you not answer my question?”
“Because it involves a sneer at a thing which to me is sacred.”
“Sneer; oh, no! only a reasonable reflection.”
“But you must know that it is a sin to entrust your own reason with the power of judging in things which are above us.”
“Well, I have done, Lori. You may be right. Reflection and research are of no use. For some time all kinds of doubts have risen within me about my most ancient convictions, and I find only pain from them. If I were to lose the conviction that it was a necessity and a good thing to begin this war, I should never be able to forgive him who—”
“You mean Louis Napoleon. What an intriguer he is!”
“Whether he or another, I should like to remain in the undisturbed belief that there are no men at all who have caused the war, but that it ‘broke out’ of itself—broke out, like a nervous fever, like the eruption of Vesuvius.”
“How excited you get, my love. But let us speak reasonably; so listen to me. In a short time the war will be over and our husbands will come back captains. I will then try to get mine to obtain four or six weeks’ leave, and take a trip with me to a watering-place. It will do him good after all the fatigues he will have undergone; and me also, after the heat, and the ennui, and the anxiety I have undergone. For you must not think that I have no fear at all. It may be God’s will after all that one of my dear ones should meet with a soldier’s death—and even though it is a noble, enviable death, on the field of honour, for emperor and fatherland—”
“Why, you are speaking just like one of the proclamations to the army!”
“Yet it would be frightful—poor mamma!—if anything was to happen to Gustave or Karl. Don’t let us talk about it! And so, to refresh us after all our terror, it would be good to have a gay season at a watering-place. I should prefer Carlsbad, and I went there when I was a girl, and amused myself amazingly.”
“I too went to Marienbad. It was there I made Arno’s acquaintance. But why are we sitting here idle like this? Have you no linen at hand that we could tear into charpie? I was at the Patriotic Aid Association today, and there came in, who do you think?”
Here I was interrupted. A footman brought in a letter.
“From Gustave,” cried Lori joyfully, as she broke the seal.
When she had read two lines she gave a shriek, the paper fell out of her hand and she threw herself on my neck.
“Lori, my poor dear, what is it?” I cried, deeply moved; “your husband?”
“O God, O God!” she groaned. “Read for yourself.”
I took the letter from the floor and began
