Above all things unbearable to me were the soldiers’ games which not only my father but my brother carried on with the boy. The idea of “enemy” and “cutting down” were thus instilled into him, I know not how. One day Frederick and I came up as Rudolf was mercilessly beating two whimpering young dogs with a riding-switch.
“That is a lying Italian,” he said, laying on to one of the poor beasts, “and that,” on to the other, “an impudent Dane.”
Frederick snatched the switch out of the hand of this national corrector.
“And that is a cruel Austrian,” he said, letting one or two good blows fall on Rudolf’s shoulders. The Italian and the Dane gladly ran off, and the whimpering was now done by our little countryman.
“You are not angry with me, Martha, for striking your son? I am not, it is true, in favour generally of corporal punishment, but cruelty to animals provokes me.”
“You did right,” I said.
“Then is it only to men … that one may … be cruel?” asked the boy between his sobs.
“Oh no; still less.”
“But you, yourself, have hit Italians and Danes.”
“They were enemies.”
“Then one may hate them?”
“And today or tomorrow,” said Frederick, aside to me, “the priest will be telling him that one ought to love one’s enemies. What logic!” Then, aloud to Rudolf: “No; it is not because we hate them that we may strike our foes, but because they want to strike us.”
“And what do they want to strike us for?”
“Because we wanted to—No, no,” he interrupted himself. “I find no way out of the circle. Go and play, Rudi; we forgive you, but don’t do so any more.”
Cousin Conrad was, as I thought, making progress in Lilly’s favour. There is nothing like perseverance. I should have been very glad to see this match now made up, and I observed with pleasure how my sister’s countenance lighted up with joy when the tread of Conrad’s horse was heard in the distance, and how she sighed when he rode off again. He no longer courted her, i.e., he spoke no more of his love, and did not bring his suit forward, but his proceedings constituted a regular siege.
“As there are different ways of taking a fortress,” he explained to me one day, “by storm or by famine, so there are many ways of making a lady capitulate. One of the most effectual of these is custom; sympathy. It must touch her at length that I am so constant in loving, and so constant in keeping silence about it, and always coming again. If I should stay away, it would make a great gap in her way of life; and if I go on in this way some time longer, she will not be able to do without me at all.”
“And how many times seven years do you mean to serve for your chosen one?”
“I have not counted that up. Till she takes me.”
“I do admire you. Are there then no other girls in the world?”
“Not for me. I have got Lilly into my head. She has something in the corners of her mouth, in her gait, her way of speaking, that no other woman can equal, for me. You, for example, Martha, are ten times as pretty, and a hundred times as clever.”
“Thank you.”
“But I would not have you for a wife.”
“Thank you.”
“Just because you are too clever. You would be sure to look down on me from a higher level. The star on my collar, my sabre and my spurs do not impose on you. Lilly, however, looks with respect on a man of action. I know she adores soldiers, while you—”
“Still, I have twice married a soldier,” replied I laughing.
During meals, at the upper end of the table where my father and his old friends gave the tone, and where Frederick and I also sat (the young folks at the other end had their own talk to themselves), politics was the chief subject; that was the favourite material for conversation with the old gentlemen. The negotiations for peace which were in progress gave sufficient ground for this display of wisdom, for it is a firm conviction of most people that political events form the most sterling matter for conversation and that most suited for serious men. From gallantry and out of friendly regard for my female weakness of intellect, one of the generals said by the way: “These things can hardly interest our young friend Baroness Martha; we should only speak about them when we are alone. Eh! fair lady?”
I defended myself from this and begged them seriously to continue the subject. I took a real and an anxious interest in the proceedings of the military and diplomatic world. Not from the same point of view as these gentlemen, but it was of great moment to me to follow to its ultimate conclusion “the Danish question,” whose origin and course I had studied so carefully during the war. Now, after these battles and victories the fate of the disputed duchies must surely be settled, and yet the questions and the doubts were always going on. The Augustenburg—that famous Augustenburg on account of whose immemorial rights all the contest had been lighted up—was he then installed now? Nothing of the kind. Nay, a new pretender arrived on the scene. Glücksburg and Gottorp, and all the lines and branch lines, whatever their names were, which I had been painfully committing to memory, were not enough. Now Russia stepped in and opposed to the Augustenburg an Oldenburg! However, the result of the war up to this point was that the duchies were to belong neither to a Glücks-nor to an Augusten-nor to an Olden-nor to any other-burg, but to the allied victors. The following I found out were the articles of the conditions of peace then in progress:—
1. “Denmark surrenders the duchies to Austria and Prussia.”
I was pleased with that. The allies would now,
