J. K. H.
Thus wrote the general about the Field Marshal. Aspergillum and saber!
Elvira was not edified; she had hoped for more appreciation of her martial hymn.
The summer of the same year we spent at the castle of Teikowitz, the Moravian estate of Landgrave Fürstenberg. He himself was not there, he had only put the castle hospitably at our disposal. Aunt Lotti and Elvira were invited too. There were no other guests, and calls were not exchanged with neighbors; so we four women spent this summer in real rural isolation and quiet. The beautiful park full of flowers, and the near forest, offered us blithe enjoyment of nature. Elvira wrote poetry more assiduously than ever, I kept up a great deal of reading and piano-playing. We two drew closer and closer in friendship—exchanged oaths to be constant in our friendship till our life’s end. Our mothers found it a little tedious, it would seem, for as a pastime they took up their experiments again to see if the faculty of presentiment still worked. Once more numbers were drawn and trente-et-quarante cards dealt, “but only for fun,” they said. For it was proved that the atmosphere of the gaming-room suspended the capacity for guessing, even when it had stood the tests ever so well at home; so we would not allow the great plans and projects to take another start. But it really would be interesting to ascertain whether that capacity had been altogether annihilated by the time spent at the real bank, or whether in the quiet of merely fictitious play it would reappear.
And lo, it did reappear. Not quite so brilliantly as before, but yet sufficiently to achieve great imaginary winnings. Should we perhaps risk it once more after all? Perhaps a second time they would be hardened against the “agitation” there? But no, that would be temerity. Besides, gaming is a detestable thing, it really afforded no pleasure at all—so no thoughts of going to the German watering-places again! But here in Teikowitz it was just as innocent as it was interesting to test that occult power.... Elvira, who officiated as drawer of the numbers, often urged that we should take another trip to Wiesbaden by all means; if not this year, next year anyhow. That was all the dream of her life, to see Wiesbaden again—it had been so divinely beautiful there.
Before me lies an old album which belonged to my cousin, and which I received after her death. On the first leaves there are entries in which is mirrored a chapter of romance that was enacted between us girls.
On the first page a small painted portrait shows my mother, the giver of the album: “Your loving Aunt Sophie, May 2, 1857.” Then come a few dried flowers and album-verses from various friends and acquaintances, witty inscriptions after the style of “S. N. D. our friendship never,”—
And now begins the romance:
For dear heaven’s sake!
Bertha Kinsky