Lay Down Your Arms: The Autobiography of Martha von Tilling

by Bertha von Suttner

I wanted to call after him, but the servant shut the carriage door.

I threw myself back in the corner, and should have liked to cry—tears of spite like a naughty child. I was in a rage with myself; how could I ever have been so cold, so impolite, so rough almost to a man with whom I feel such warm sympathy? It was the fault of the princess. How I hated her! What was this? Jealousy? Then the explanation of what was moving me burst on me—I was in love with Tilling. “In love, love, love!” rattled out the wheels on the pavement. “You are in love with him!” was what the street lamps as they flew past darted on to me. “You love him!” was breathed to me out of my glove, which I pressed to my lips on the place that he had kissed.

Next day I wrote the following lines in the red book: “What the carriage wheels and the street lamps were saying to me yesterday is not true—or at least much exaggerated. A sympathetic attraction to a noble and clever man. True; but passion? Ha! I am not going to throw my heart away on any man who belongs to another woman. He also feels sympathy for me. We understand each other in many things. Perhaps he is the only man who shares my views about war; but he is not on that account anywhere near falling in love with me, and I ought to be just as far from falling in love with him. That I did not ask him to visit me on another day than the regular reception day, which he hates so, might indeed have looked a little unkind, after the intimate conversation we had been having. But perhaps it is better so. After the interval or a week or two, after yesterday’s impressions, which have shaken me so, I shall be able to meet Tilling again quite calmly, relying on the idea that he is in love with another lady, and shall be able to refresh myself with his friendly and suggestive conversation. For it is indeed a pleasure to converse with him; it is so different, so totally different, from all others. I am truly glad that I am able to-day to sum up this so calmly. Yesterday I might for an instant have even apprehended that my peace was gone, that I might become the prey of torturing jealousy. This fear has to-day disappeared.”

The same day I paid a visit to my friend Lori Griesbach—the same at whose house I heard of the death of my poor Arno. She was the one among the young ladies of my acquaintance with whom I associated most, and most intimately. Not that we agreed in many of our views, or that we understood each other completely—though this is no doubt the foundation of a real friendship—but we had been playmates as children, we had shared the same position as young married women, had then seen each other almost daily; and so a certain habitual familiarity had sprung up between us, which, in spite of so much difference in the principles of our nature, made our conversation together quite pleasant and comfortable. The province on which we met each other was limited and narrow, but in it we were perfectly happy together. Whole pages of my spiritual life were quite closed to her. Of the views and judgments which I had reached in my quiet hours of study I had never told her a word, nor did I feel any desire to do so. How rarely can one give oneself entirely to any one! I have often experienced this in life, that I could lay open to one person only one side, to another only another, of my spiritual personality; that, as often as I conversed with one or the other, a certain part, so to say, of the register was opened, while all the rest of the notes remained mute.

Between Lori and me there were plenty of circumstances which gave us material for hours of chat—our childish recollections, our children, the events and incidents in the circle of our acquaintance, dress, English novels, and the like.

Lori’s boy Xavier was of the same age as my son Rudolf and his favourite playmate, and Lori’s little daughter Beatrix, who was then ten months old, was playfully destined by us to become one day Countess Rudolf Dotzky.

“So here you are again at last,” was Lori’s greeting to me. “Lately you have become quite a hermit! Even my future son-in-law I have not had the honour of seeing for ever so long! Beatrix will be quite offended. Now tell us, dear, what are you about? and how are Rosa and Lilly? Besides, I have some interesting news for Lilly, which my husband brought me yesterday from the café. There is some one deeply in love with her, one that I thought was making up to you; but I will tell you all about it later. What a lovely gown that is that you have on! It is from Francine’s I know. I could tell that at once. She has such a peculiar style of her own. And your bonnet is from Gindreau? It suits you completely. He makes dresses too, now, not bonnets only, and with immense taste too. Yesterday evening at the Dietrichsteins (why were you not there?) Nini Chotek was there with an Gindreau dress, and looked almost pretty.”

So she went on for some time, and I answered in the same style. After I had dexterously led the talk to the gossip which was current in society, I put this question in the most unconcerned tone possible:—

“Have you heard that Princess —— has a liaison with a certain Baron Tilling?”

“I have heard something of it, but, anyhow, that is de l’histoire ancienne. To-day it is a perfectly well-known thing that the princess is mad after a low comedian. What, have you any interest in this Baron Tilling? Why, you are blushing! Ah! it is no good shaking your head! Better confess! But for this, it would be an unheard-of thing that you should remain so long cold and unfeeling. It would be a true satisfaction for me to know you were in love at last. It is true that Tilling would be no match for you; for you have more brilliant suitors—and he must have absolutely nothing. To be sure, you are rich enough yourself, but then, besides, he is too old for you. How old would poor Arno have been now? Oh! that moment, it was too sad, when you read my brother’s letter out to me. I shall never forget it. Ah! war is certainly a sad business, for some. For others it is an excellent business. My husband wishes for nothing more ardently than that something should occur, he so longs to distinguish himself. I can understand it. If I were a soldier I should also wish, myself, to do some great exploit; or, at least, to get on in my profession.”