“That would not be like him; a better, more straightforward young man does not exist. One day he will make a wife very happy——”
“As Frederick makes his.”
“You cannot tell that quite yet, my dear. We must talk about that ten years hence. In the first few weeks almost every one is happy. Not that I would express any doubt of my nephew or of you; I believe quite that your happiness will be lasting.”
This prophecy of Aunt Cornelia I wrote down in my diary, and wrote underneath it: “Did it come true? The answer to be written ten years hence.” And then I left a line blank. How I filled up that line in the year 1873—well, that must not be set down in this place as yet.
After leaving Berlin we went to the German watering-places. If my short tour in Italy with Arno were left out of account—and of this I had besides only a dreamy recollection—I had never been away from home. To make acquaintance in this way with new places, new people, new ways of life, put me into a most elevated state of mind. The world appeared to me to have become all at once so beautiful, and thrice as interesting. If it had not been for my little Rudolf that I had left behind, I should have pressed Frederick: “Let us travel about like this for years. We will visit the whole of Europe and then the other quarters of the globe. Let us enjoy this wandering life, this unfettered roving to and fro, let us collect the treasures of new impressions and experiences. Anywhere that we come to, however strange may be the people or the country, we shall be sure, in virtue of our companionship, to bring a sufficient portion of home along with us.” What would Frederick have answered to such a proposition? Probably, that a man cannot make it his business to spend his life in a wedding-tour, that his leave only lasted for two months, and many more such reasonable matters.
We visited Baden-Baden, Homburg, and Wiesbaden. Everywhere the same cheerful, elegant way of living; everywhere so many interesting people from all the chief countries of the world. It was in intercourse with these foreigners that I first became aware that Frederick was a perfect master of the French and English languages—a thing which made him rise to a still higher place in my admiration. I was always discovering new qualities in him—gentleness, liveliness, the most quick feeling for everything beautiful. A voyage on the Rhine threw him into raptures, and in the theatre or concert-room, when the artists performed anything peculiarly excellent, his enjoyment shone out of his eyes. This made the Rhine and its castles seem to me doubly romantic; this redoubled my admiration of the performances of celebrated musicians.
These two months passed over only too swiftly. Frederick applied for an extension of his leave, but it was decided against him. It was my first unpleasant moment since my marriage when this official paper arrived, which, in curt style, ordered our return home.
“And men call that freedom!” I cried, throwing the offending document down on the table.
Tilling smiled. “Oh! I never looked on myself as free in the least, my mistress,” he replied.
“If I were your mistress I could find it in my heart to command you to bid adieu to military service, and live only to serve me in the future.”