One afternoon, at the music, Herr von Königswarter said to us,
“The Princess of Mingrelia has a keen desire to make the acquaintance of the ladies.”
We had long known who the Princess of Mingrelia was, since we saw her daily in the Kurpark and at the theater, and since Herr von Königswarter, who was on friendly terms with her, had told us as much as he knew of the story of her life. Ekaterina Dadiani, formerly princess of the Caucasian country (now incorporated in the Russian empire) of Mingrelia, was a very elegant lady of about forty-six or forty-seven, still goodly to look upon, and must in her youth have been a dazzling beauty of the genuine Georgian type. She had for some years been living in Europe, alternately Paris and St. Petersburg, for the sake of her children’s education; in summer she came regularly to drink the health-giving waters of Homburg. Every morning at seven o’clock she went to the spring; she often made the round of the gambling-rooms, but never played; at the afternoon concert she used to sit in a particular place on the Kurhaus terrace, always surrounded by a whole little court. Her family consisted of two sons and a daughter. Her oldest son Nikolaus, called Niko, was at that time seventeen years old, her daughter Salomé sixteen, and her youngest son André fourteen. Her household (she occupied the whole ground floor of the Weckerlin house) comprised a secretary, the governess for her daughter, the tutor for the boys, a valet, and two maids.
After her husband’s death she had taken the reins of government as her son’s guardian. Once, hard pressed by the Turks, she herself went against the enemy at the head of her horsemen. But it had been impossible for her to hold her ground, and she had to accept the protection of Russia, a protection that was practically annexation. The heir was allowed to keep his title of Prince of Mingrelia, and his lands, but in the form of a majorat; the throne he must forego. A considerable appanage was set apart for the dowager princess, and at the Russian court she was allowed the rank of a foreign sovereign. She was content, for those Caucasian principalities and kingdoms—Georgia, Imeretia, Mingrelia, etc.—were always threatened by Mohammedan enemies, and under Russian safeguard they could develop peacefully, thrive, and remain true to their ancestral standards of life, their customs, their languages, and their dress.
In the princess’s company there were frequently to be seen a few Caucasian ladies wearing their picturesque home costume; she herself ordered her gowns from Worth and wore them with all the chic and elegance of a genuine grande dame. She spoke French fluently, even though it was with a strong Russian accent; with her children she conversed mostly in the Georgian language.
The desired acquaintance was made. I brought the interesting woman girlish admiration, and she took me to her heart. Soon I became almost a child of the house. At first I only sat in the great circle during the concert; then the princess invited me to accompany her to the spring in the morning, to come and see her at her apartments, to dine with her. My mother held aloof: a few formal calls made and returned, that was all. I, on the other hand, was taken into the intimacy of the princess, who had a great predilection for young people. Salomé, her daughter, far nearer to me in years, came in contact with me much less than did her mother; she, with her hardly completed sixteen summers, was still rated as a child, and had to stay with her governess most of the time.
By her fellow-countrymen the princess was addressed as “Dedopali”; this means queen, literally “mother of mothers,” and is in that country the correct title for every female sovereign. I was generally called by the family “la contessina.” A friend of the Dadiani household, the Italian Marchese Almorini, had thus addressed me, and the designation had stuck to me. He was a comical sight, this Almorini. An old beau, always paying compliments, always skipping about, always aux petits soins with the ladies. He did not show his age: he wore a coal-black wig and dyed his beard. He could relate so many stories and chronicles of times long gone by that there had grown up a standing joke that he had been centuries in the world, like Cagliostro.
The princess’s secretary, who was likewise her courier, major-domo, shawl-bearer,—in a word, factotum,—bore the name of Monsieur Ferry, and was a Frenchman. He was the picture of devotion. Since one cannot all the time be bending the upper part of the body forward as in reverential salutations, he stood with his hip sloping to one side when he spoke to his mistress, and always addressed her as “Altesse.” He was a man of about forty, with a reddish imperial and side whiskers. The old valet, called Monsieur David, a fat, smooth-shaven Swiss, had been one of the household for twenty years, had served the late prince in Mingrelia, and was the genuine type of the devoted old servant, possessing the absolute confidence of his mistress and the love of her children.
Innumerable and clear-cut are the recollections which the hours that I spent in the Dedopali’s house and in her company have left in my mind. The oriental, exotic quality, commingled with the Russian and Parisian tone of high society, spiced with romance and surrounded with the glitter of wealth, exercised a peculiar fascination upon me; I was truly downright happy in this relationship, it was to me like the coming true of indefinite, long-cherished dreams. When I entered her apartments in the Weckerlin house at any hour I had a glad and buoyant feeling. From the front room one entered a large dining-room with three windows and a balcony; at its right there was a corner drawing-room in which the princess spent most of her time, and back of that was her sleeping-room. At the left of the dining-room were the children’s rooms. It was only an ordinary appartement meublé, though a high-grade one; nothing of princely splendor about it; but yet by the many personal objects scattered about, by the flowers, by the fashion in which the furniture was placed, the whole had a private and characteristic stamp of its own; the very odor that filled these rooms—a mixture of orange-flower perfume, Russian cigarettes, and leather—had something personal about it. In the course of years I met the Dedopali in many places, and everywhere that she stayed this same odor hovered about her rooms and adhered to all her possessions.
I spent many hours in that corner drawing-room and listened to the words of the princess, who related to me much that was romantic in her career. She would stay in Europe a few years more, and then return to her own country with her sons. In the meantime her daughter would doubtless have married. “And you, too, Contessina, will sometime visit me in the Caucasus with your husband, will you not? You are already twenty-one, and so pretty—you must soon make a brilliant match and be right happy.—Come, I will show you what wedding present I intend for you.”