Wanda, Vol. 2 (of 3)

'Doch!—alles was dazu mich trieb; Gott!—war so gut, ach, war so lieb!' Goethe
On her return she spoke of her royal friends, of her cousins, of society, of her fears for the peace of Europe, and her doubts as to the strength of the empire; but she did not speak of the one person of whom, beyond all others, Mdme. Ottilie was desirous to hear. When some hours had passed, and still she had never alluded to the existence of, the Princess could bear silence no longer, and casting prudence to the winds, said boldly and with impatience:
'And your late guest? Have you nothing to tell me? Surely you have seen him?'
'He called once,' she answered, 'and I heard him speak at the Chamber.'
'And was that all?' cried the Princess, disappointed.
'He speaks very well in public,' added Wanda, 'and he said many tender and grateful things of you, and sent you many messages—such grateful ones that my memory is too clumsy a tray to hold such eggshell china.'
She was angered with herself as she spoke, but the fragrance of the white lilac and the remembrance of its donor pursued her—angered with herself, too, because Hohenszalras seemed for the moment sombre, solitary, still, almost melancholy, wrapped in that winter whiteness and stillness which she had always loved so well.
The next morning she saw all her people, visited her schools and her stables, and tried to persuade herself that she was as contented as ever.
The aurist came from Paris shortly after her, and consoled the Princess by assuring her that the slight deafness she suffered from occasionally was due to cold.
'Of course!' she said, with some triumph. 'These mountains, all this water, rain whenever there is not snow, snow whenever there is not rain; it is a miracle, and the mercy of Heaven, if one saves any of one's five senses uninjured in a residence here.'
She had her satin hood trebly wadded, and pronounced the aurist a charming person. Herr Greswold in an incautious moment had said to her that deafness was one of the penalties of age and did not depend upon climate. A Paris doctor would not have earned his fee of two hundred napoleons if he had only produced so ungallant a truism. She heard a little worse after his visit, perhaps, but if so, she said that was caused by the additional wadding in her hood. He had told her to use a rose-water syringe, and Herr Greswold was forbidden her presence for a week because he averred that you might as well try to melt the glacier with a lighted pastille.