IV
Progress of My Friendship for Tilling—The Toy Soldiers—A Dinner at My Father’s—The Brave Hupfauf—Darwin—A Charming Tête-à-Tête, Ending in a Misunderstanding—Growing Attachment—A Call on Countess Griesbach—Jealousy Dispelled—Absence of the Loved One—A Touching Letter from Tilling on His Mother’s Death.
The carnival was over. Rosa and Lilly, my sisters, had “amused themselves immensely.” Each had a list of half-a-dozen conquests. Still there was no desirable partie among them, and “the right person” had not shown himself for either. So much the better. They would gladly enjoy a few years more of maidenhood before taking on themselves the married yoke.
And as to me? I noted my impression of the carnival in the red volume as follows: “I am glad that this dancing is over. It has already begun to be monotonous. Always the same rounds, and the same conversation, and the same dancers, for whether it happens to be X⸺, lieutenant of hussars, or Y⸺, brevet-captain of dragoons, or Z⸺, captain of uhlans, there are always the same bows, the same remarks, the same sighs and glances. Not an interesting man amongst them—not one. And the only one who in any case—we will say nothing about him. He belongs, I know, to his princess. She is a beautiful woman truly, I admit it, but I think her very disagreeable.”
Though the carnival with its great balls was over, yet the enjoyment of society had not stopped. Soirees, dinners, concerts—the whirl went on. There was also a great amateur theatrical performance projected, but not till after Easter. During the fasting season a certain moderation in our pleasures was enjoined on us. In Aunt Mary’s opinion we were far from being as moderate as we ought. She could not quite forgive me for not going regularly to the Lenten sermons, and indemnified herself for my lukewarmness by dragging Rosa and Lilly to hear all the preachers at the Chapel Royal. The girls submitted to this easily. Occasionally they found their whole coterie assembled at church. Father Klinkowström was as much the fashion at the Jesuits’ Church as Mdlle. Murska at the opera, and so they were tolerably gay—in a mild way.
Not only from the sermons, however, but from the soirees too, I held myself a good deal aloof during this season. I had all at once lost my taste for society parties, and delighted in staying at home to play with my son, and when the little fellow was taken to bed, to sit by the fire with a good book and read. Sometimes my father visited me at these times, and chatted away for an hour or two with me. Of course the campaigning reminiscences came to the front then continually. I had communicated to him Tilling’s account of Arno’s death, but he received the story rather coolly. Whether a man’s death was painful or painless seemed to him a secondary consideration. To be “left on the field”—as death in battle is called—appeared to him an end so glorious, bestowed by such an elevated destiny, that the details of the bodily suffering which might possibly have occurred were not worth taking into account. In his mouth to be “left on the field” always sounded like the grudging admission of an especial distinction, and next to “being left” what was most pleasant evidently was to be severely wounded. The style and manner in which he proudly showed his respect for himself or anyone else in saying that he had been wounded at a fight named after this or that place made one quite forget that the thing in itself could have given anybody pain. What a difference from Tilling’s short recital in his sketch of the ten poor creatures who were shattered by the bursting shell, and broke out in loud shrieks! What a different tone of shuddering pity in it! I did not repeat Tilling’s words to my father, because I felt instinctively that they would have seemed to him unsoldierly, and would have diminished his respect for the speaker, which would have hurt me, for it was just the horror—unsoldierly it might be, but certainly nobly humane—with which he saw and told of the terrible end of his comrades that had penetrated into my heart.
How gladly would I have spoken further on this theme with Tilling, but he seemed not to wish to cultivate my acquaintance. Fourteen days had elapsed since his visit, and he had neither repeated the visit, nor had I met him in society. Only two or three times had I seen him in the Ringsstrasse,4 and once at the Burg Theatre. He bowed respectfully, and I acknowledged his greeting in a friendly manner, but nothing more. Nothing more? Why did my heart beat at these accidental meetings? Why could I not for hours get his gesture as he greeted me out of my mind?
“My dear child, I have something to beg of you.” My father came into my house one morning with these words. He held in his hand a parcel wrapped in paper, and added, “Here is something I am bringing for you,” as he laid the thing on the table.
“What, a request and a present together?” I said laughing. “That is bribery indeed!”
“Then hear my request before you unpack my gift, and are blinded by its magnificence. I have today a tedious dinner.”
“Yes, I know. Three old generals and their wives.”
“And two Ministers and their wives—in short, a solemn, stiff, sleepy business.”
“But you do not expect that I—”
“Yes, I expect you there, because, as ladies are pleased to honour me with their company, I must at least have a lady to do the honours.”
“But Aunt Mary has always undertaken that office.”
“She is again attacked today by her usual headache, and so I have nothing else left—”
“But to offer up your daughter, as other fathers did in ancient times; for example, King Agamemnon with Iphigenia? Well, I
