I was not brought thereby, as so many others were, to beggary; for my father would not let me want for anything. But the plan of retirement had to be quite given up. We were no longer independent persons. Frederick’s pay was now our sole substantial resource. Even if my father could assure me a sufficient allowance, it was out of the question under such circumstances that Frederick should quit the service. I myself could not suggest it to him. What sort of a part would he be playing, in the eye of my father?
There was nothing to do, we had to submit. “Destiny” in Aunt Mary’s phrase. I have not much to tell of the affliction which this great pecuniary loss caused me; it was a question of several hundred thousand florins; for there are no long entries in my diary about it, and even my memory—which has experienced since then so many impressions of far deeper pain—bears no longer any very lively traces of these incidents. I only know that I was chiefly sorry for the beautiful castle in the air which we had been building—retirement, purchase of an estate, a life independent and apart from the so-called “world”—in other things the loss did not hurt me so much. For, as I have said, my father would during his life not allow me to want for anything, and would afterwards leave me a sufficiency, and my son Rudolf was sure of wealth in the future. One thing comforted me: there was not the slightest prospect of any war; one might hope for ten or twenty years of peace. Till then—
Schleswig-Holstein and Lauenburg were finally given over by the treaty of October 30 to the free disposition of Prussia and Austria. These two, now the best of friends, were to share in a brotherly way the advantages so accruing, and find no cause for quarrelling over them. Nowhere on the whole political horizon was there any “black spot” visible to one’s consideration. The shame of the defeat we had sustained in Italy was sufficiently atoned by the military glory we had gained in Schleswig-Holstein, and so there was no longer any occasion for military ambition to conjure up new campaigns. And I was also pacified with the following consideration. That war had come so short a time since, I took as a pledge that it would not be very soon repeated. Sunshine follows after rain and in the sunshine one forgets the rain. Even after earthquakes and eruptions of volcanoes men build up new dwellings again and do not think of the danger of a repetition of the past catastrophe. A chief element in our life’s energy appears to reside in forgetfulness.
We took up our winter quarters in Vienna. Frederick had now got employment in the Ministry of War, a business which he at any rate preferred to barrack life. This year my sisters and Aunt Mary had gone to spend the carnival at Prague. That Conrad’s regiment was then quartered in the Bohemian capital was perhaps only a coincidence. Or could this circumstance have had any influence on their choice of a winter resort? When I gave a hint of this to my sister Lilly she blushed deeply and answered with a shrug of her shoulders: “Why, you must know that I do not want him.”
My father repaired to his old dwelling in the Herrengasse. He proposed to us that we should settle down with him as he had room enough: but we preferred to live by ourselves, and hired an entresol on the Franz Joseph’s Quay. My husband’s pay and the monthly allowance made me by my father amply sufficed for our modest housekeeping. We had indeed to renounce subscriptions to opera-boxes, court balls—in fact, all going into “society.” But how easily did we renounce it! It was indeed a pleasure to us that my pecuniary losses made this quiet way of life necessary, for we loved a quiet way of life.
To a small circle of relatives and friends our house was always open. In particular, Lori Griesbach, the friend of my youth, often visited us—almost more often than I liked. Her talk, which had before appeared to me sorely superficial, I now found so insipid as to be quite wearisome; and her intellectual horizon, whose narrowness I had always perceived, seemed now still more restricted. But she was pretty and lively and coquettish. I understood that in society she turned many men’s heads, and it was said that she had no objection to be made love to. What was very unpleasant to me was to perceive that Frederick was very much to her taste, and that she shot many darts out of her eyes at him, which were evidently intended to fix themselves in his heart. Lori’s husband, the ornament of the Jockey Club, the racecourse, and the coulisses, was well known to be so little true to her that a slight imitation on her side would not have deserved too strong condemnation. But that Frederick should serve as the medium of her revenge—I had a good deal to say against that. I jealous! I turned red as I caught myself in this agitation. I was, in truth, so sure of his heart. No other woman, none in the world, could he love as he did me. Ah, yes, love, but a little blaze of flirtation? that might perhaps have flashed up by the side of the soft glow which was consecrated to me.
Lori did not in any way conceal from me how much Frederick attracted her.
“I say, Martha! you are really to be envied to have such a charming husband,” or “You should keep a good lookout on this Frederick of yours, for all the women I know are running after him.”
“I am quite certain of his fidelity,” I replied to this.
“Don’t flatter yourself; to think of ‘fidelity’ and ‘husband’ being coupled together! That is impossible. For example, you
