Friedrich von Hadeln—he may have been eighteen years old—had strikingly noble features, a sort of Roman head. He talked very vivaciously, addressing especially us two. Elvira could not overcome her bashfulness, and remained reticent. I reaped the benefit of the conversational practice in our games of puff, and engaged in a lively dialogue.
The main action of the plot began at once on the next day. Aunt Lotti betook herself to the roulette table and won. While she was in the gaming-room we two girls stayed out on the terrace under my mother’s protection. And when my mother then went about her serious task—likewise winning on the first days—Aunt Lotti took up the business of watching over us. My youth fell in a time when a girl of good family must not stay a quarter of an hour unwatched. Ten steps across the street alone—that must not happen; by that one would have been, if not lost, yet irremediably compromised. The chaperon system, from which the young womanhood of to-day has made its escape by the bicycle, by the tennis-racket, and by the total change of standpoint in general, was then in its fullest vogue.
The thriving business of the millions (each had already doubled her working capital) was carried on only in the forenoon; the afternoon was filled out at the Kur music, or in walks to the Dietenmühle or the Greek chapel, and very frequently young Hadeln joined us. In the villa next door to us there lived an English family, Sir and Lady Tancred, with a seventeen-year-old daughter named Lucy. My cousin became violently infatuated with Lucy, but the little Englishwoman preferred me. I remember a call that the Tancred family made upon us, when the mother (who, be it said, was expecting very soon to be again a mother) sat down to the piano and sang an English ballad. The lady, who may have been thirty-four to thirty-five, seemed to us inordinately old, and the recollection of her performance remained in our memory for years as a fearfully comical episode. To be sure, she also sang without any voice, and with that English exaggeration of accented syllables which in itself is so unmusical. To choke down our laughter cost us an unspeakable effort at the time, and for years it continued to be a favorite comic performance in our circle when I sat down to the piano and sang as Lady Tancred “Oh—remembrance will come and remembrance will go—oh!”
Every Wednesday there was a ball in the great ballroom of the Kurhaus, but it was a very mixed company that attended. Every Saturday, on the other hand, there was held in the small halls a “réunion dansante” to which one had to procure cards of invitation, and in which there came together only the élite of the outsiders and the leaders of local society. Lady Tancred meant to take her daughter to one of these. Our mothers were urged to come too, and to bring us. “Ridiculous!” said they; “such children at a grown people’s ball! It’s out of the question.” But the Tancreds kept soliciting them, and we plied them with the most urgent entreaties, till the scruples gave way. Why, were we being treated as children here at all? Were we not taken to the Kursaal, to the music in the park? did not all the people, especially the young gentlemen, behave toward us as if we were grown up? Oh well, then, so be it; these little réunions are not formal balls anyhow, and if it gives the children such very great pleasure....
Meanwhile the great undertaking had fallen off somewhat. The winnings were gone again. Some blunder had been made, against which they would be on their guard in the future—you see it is different here from what it is at home—one gets carried away and plays without regard to the system; such a thing must not happen again. The thing to do now was, first rest a few days, and then begin at the beginning again and adhere strictly to the rules.
The preparations for the réunion were made. We were to wear misty white dresses, and for ornaments—the idea originated with us children—a wreath of cornflowers in our hair, a garland of cornflowers outlining the top of the corsage, and the overskirt caught up with little bunches of cornflowers. In the villa next door lived a florist; the order was given to him. I can still remember how I felt in the greenhouse where the florist took our order: how damp and warm it smelt there, how the red and white and yellow blossoms flamed round about—but loveliest among all the gay flower-mosaic the blue of a mass of cornflowers. Would we not look like elves of the field, so fresh and unassuming and poetic?—And that in the brightly lighted ballroom! We should make a sensation, and we were blissful—blissful as ever silly girls can be before their first ball, which they really have not yet any proper right to attend. But were we not exceptional creatures altogether, born to exceptional fates? If the million-factory did go wrong, what of it? The cornflowers would be a more original adornment than diamonds, and happiness did not lie in the external world and its treasures; it lay in us, in our buoyant sense of youth, in our—let me say it—immeasurable conceit. The one the greatest female dramatist of the future; the other, if nothing else, at any rate a beauty thronged with adorers—Oh, the silly, silly girls!
The great day came on. The florist punctually delivered his garlands: they were fastened to our clothes and into our hair; it really did look pretty, even if not so celestial as in our eyes. There was still daylight—for the month was June and the hour for the assembly was eight—when we, each with her mamma, got into two carriages (in one our toilets would have been crumpled up too much) and arrived at the Kursaal with beating hearts. On entering the brilliantly lighted parlors we saw our image in the ceiling-high mirrors, and observed the fact that the cornflowers appeared no longer blue but lilac. However, this did not impair the originality of the floral ornaments.
We met many acquaintances, and new ones had themselves introduced. Friedrich von Hadeln asked me for the first quadrille. I thought I noticed that a shade of annoyance flew over Elvira’s face. My vis-à-vis in this first quadrille of my life was Hadeln’s older sister Franziska. When her brother told me Franziska was twenty-three years old, I was amazed that so elderly a young lady still cared to dance, and I felt pity for her.
Among the Nassau officers who had themselves introduced to my mother and me there was a Prince Philipp Wittgenstein, who, as far as I can remember, paid noticeable attentions to me. Was a living game of puff to begin on this very first evening? Nay, for the young lieutenant did not especially please me, and I did have sense enough to see that I was still rather too young to marry. But it is a fact that a week later, on occasion of the second réunion, Prince Philipp Wittgenstein formally asked my mother for my hand.
My mother laughed: “The child is thirteen years old—under these circumstances you will not take offense at my declining your offer.” Thereupon the suitor withdrew. The affair was to me a pleasant little triumph, but I did not take it to heart.