At last, however, his mother too began to have her suspicions. With icy coldness but with all delicacy she gave me to understand this. And I had always known that on that side sanction for marriage was not to be expected. I had not thought of it myself either. I saw the unreasonableness of such a match. Absolutely penniless, seven years older ... and he still without employment, also without means, but qualified and assured to make a brilliant marriage—all the girls were crazy about him—should I stand in the way of his future? That had never been my plan—there must one day be a parting, and now that the secret was half disclosed the moment had come for me to tear myself away. I mustered up all my courage and said to the baroness: “I am going to leave the house. I cannot go to Mingrelia yet, the castle will not be finished for another year. Could you not give me a recommendation to London? I should like to find a position there in the meantime—far from Vienna.”
“That is right, my dear child,” she exclaimed warmly, “I understand you.... See, in to-day’s paper I have found an advertisement for something which would perhaps suit you; would you like to answer it?”
The advertisement read: “A very wealthy, cultured, elderly gentleman, living in Paris, desires to find a lady also of mature years, familiar with languages, as secretary and manager of his household.”
So I wrote offering my services, and received a reply signed with the then to me unknown name Alfred Nobel.
I showed the letter to the baroness; she made inquiries and learned that the person in question was the famous and universally respected inventor of dynamite. Mr. Nobel and I exchanged several letters. He wrote cleverly and wittily, but in a melancholy tone. The man seemed to feel unhappy, to be a misanthrope, with the widest culture, with deeply philosophical views. He, a Swede, whose second mother tongue was Russian, wrote in German, French, and English with equal correctness and elegance. My letters too, for whatever reason, seemed to have a very stimulating effect on him. After a brief delay an agreement was reached: I was to take the position. The day of my departure for Paris was set. Now for saying farewell, separating from what is dearest ... Scheiden tut weh: the truth of that popular proverb I experienced.
I can still call up from the past those hours of parting. It was on the evening before I was to leave. I had been for several days at the house of an acquaintance in Vienna, to make my preparations. The last day Artur also came in from Harmannsdorf to be with me for the last time. My hostess left us alone—she knew that we still had much to say to each other. But it was hard to talk. We clung in a close embrace and wept. “To part!” Is it possible? Have we the strength for it? It must be—what could we do if I remained? Ah, it would have been too beautiful ... it could not be.... And again two salt-tasting kisses, again sobs and new laments, new grief-trembling words of endearment. Before he went he knelt before me and humbly kissed the hem of my gown:
“Matchless, royally generous-hearted woman—I thank thee, thank thee from the bottom of my heart! Through thy love thou hast taught me to know a happiness which shall consecrate all my life. Farewell!”
XVI
THE ZENITH OF HAPPINESS
Arrival in Paris · Alfred Nobel’s personality · Unendurable agony of separation · Two dispatches · A plan of action · Arrival at Vienna · Blissful meeting · At last and forever united
I reached Paris early in the morning. Mr. Nobel came to meet me at the station and took me to the Grand Hôtel on the Boulevard des Capucins, where rooms had been engaged for me. He left me at the door and said he would call a few hours later after I was rested. I could not as yet take up my quarters in his little palais in the Rue Malakoff, because the suite that I was to occupy was just being carpeted and furnished for me; so for the time I should have to stay on at the hotel.
Alfred Nobel made a very pleasing impression. He was not indeed an “elderly gentleman,” as the advertisement gave us to understand and as we all imagined him, gray-haired and feeble—not at all. Born in 1833, he was then forty-three years old, rather below the medium height, with dark, full beard, with features neither ugly nor handsome; his expression rather gloomy, softened only by kindly blue eyes; in his voice there was a melancholy alternating with a satirical tone. Sad and sarcastic, such was his nature. Was that the reason Byron was his favorite poet?