“And mine, too,” I added under my breath.
XXIII
A WINTER IN PARIS
Schriftstellerroman and Das Maschinenzeitalter · Journey to Paris · Renewed acquaintance with Alfred Nobel · The Schnäbele affair · Madame Adam’s salon · Princess Tamara of Georgia in Paris · Max Nordau · A ball in the Palais of the Revue des deux mondes · Victor Cherbuliez · Ludovic Halévy · Alphonse Daudet
Now once more followed a long and industrious period of work in our dear Harmannsdorf. We all stayed in the country, even in winter; the palace in Vienna had been sold, for the quarry and other business transactions had turned out badly. But none of us had any yearnings for the city; the social companionship of the numerous members of the family, the sleighing parties on the snow-covered fields, mailtime with its manifold messages from the wide world, the sessions of joyous labor at our common writing-table, the reading aloud to each other of some interesting scientific book, the many little jokes and silly tricks which we still kept playing on each other,—for we remained like children,—all this filled our days so satisfactorily that we assuredly did not hanker for the pleasures of city life.
And then when spring awoke, about Easter-time, how we did enjoy finding the first violet in the sward of the park! and there followed the series of ever-increasing pleasures in the first umbels of the elder, the first call of the cuckoo, the first note of the blackbird.
“After all,” My Own remarked, “that is pleasanter to hear than the howling of the jackal. Now spring was thoroughly beautiful in the home of Medea too; but really the charm of the things which one has been accustomed to since childhood, the beauty of one’s own garden, the thousand greetings which come to one from the tones, the scents, and the colors of one’s own home, are sweeter than the most splendid impressions of travel.”
In this time I wrote my Schriftstellerroman (“Romance of an Author”) and Das Maschinenzeitalter (“The Age of Machinery”). The latter afforded me great enjoyment, for in it I threw off from my mind all that had accumulated within me of grief and exasperation at the conditions of the present, and of glowing hopes for the future so full of promise. The book was not to appear under my own name; it was signed Jemand—“Some One.” The motive for this anonymity was not cowardice, but, as it was altogether scientific and philosophical themes that were very freely treated in the Maschinenzeitalter, I was afraid that if the book were signed with a woman’s name it would not reach the readers whom I desired; for in scientific circles there is so much prejudice against the capacity of women as thinkers that a book signed with a woman’s name would simply remain unread by those for whom it was expressly designed.
When the second winter after our return from the Caucasus was coming on, we decided to see a bit of the European world. The Maschinenzeitalter was finished, and I had (not without difficulty) found a publisher for it,—Schabelitz in Switzerland. It was not to appear till spring.
We decided to spend a few weeks in Paris, which My Own had never seen. The payment for a novel sufficed to cover the expenses of the trip, and we set forth with that full sensation of enjoyment which is involved in the notion of a pleasure trip. I can still remember: deep snow was lying on the fields around Harmannsdorf, a fierce snowstorm was blowing into our faces as the sleigh took us to the station, and we rejoiced in it and laughed immoderately. If the road was drifted so as to be impassable, well, then we would start some other day; our trips in the Caucasus had accustomed us to far more serious difficulties. There we had often ridden on the edge of abysses and crossed narrow, swaying bridges; had reached ferries which the ferryman refused to take us over on account of the dangerously swollen state of the water, so that we had to seek shelter in a wooden hut, content ourselves with a meal of bread, sardines, and Kachetin wine, sleep on a bare bench,—and yet we used often to recall even these experiences as blithesome recollections.
The sleigh took us to the station without mishap; only the luggage-sled arrived too late, so we had to wait for a later train, and could not continue our journey to Paris on the same day, as we had meant to, but were obliged to spend a day in Vienna.
Our sojourn in Paris proved to be very pleasurable. We sauntered on the boulevards and in the Champs-Élysées; we drove in the Bois; we were assiduous attendants at the theaters great and little; we visited the museums; we made excursions to Versailles, Saint-Cloud, and Sèvres; and we took in all the other similar diversions that every visitor to Paris feels he must enjoy.