Then suddenly the value of my industrials fell so far below par that one fine day the bonds were so much waste paper. That meant: “Go to work again.” For a time I was a journalist, but that also was an unendurable yoke. I was obliged to bend my judgment to suit the opinions of the paper on which I was engaged as an editorial writer, and these opinions were, to tell the truth, no opinions at all, but consisted in following the instructions given out by the ministry. Here again was a form of slavery, of gagging, which I could not put up with, and I left the editorial sanctum just as I had left the government office. Then I was happy when I was offered a position as secretary to the old Count Sielen which I have been filling for two years now. Here I can at least poetize and think as I please.
Yes, poetize. Perhaps you did not know that I have discovered in myself the impulse to write verses, and a collection of my poems has already appeared in print and has been enthusiastically received by the critics. I will not name the title and publisher, lest you may think that I am hinting to you to buy it—moreover, I have issued it under a pseudonym which I will not divulge until my reputation is established. At the present time I am putting the last touches to a four-act drama. You have no notion what a delight, what an exalting consciousness of accomplishment, lies in writing out from one’s very soul what moves it. And to create! To enrich the world with something new! The joy of creation is the highest of all joys. If I were not a poet I would crave to be an inventor.... I do not know, for example, whether the name “Edison” should not be spoken with as much respect as the name “Shakespeare.” I am now following enviously the work of the aviators—I look up to the Zeppelins and the Wrights as to heroes and especially as to heralds. They are sounding the call to a new era. They are summoning their fellow-men to vanquish an unheard-of future—perhaps without knowing it, for their minds are fixed on the mechanical part of their work. The aerial age! Do you surmise what that signifies? Certainly, those have no notion of it who would accomplish nothing else with their sky-commanding apparatus than to elevate into the air the ancient scourges of the depths.
In your story of the last ten years which you have so kindly made me acquainted with, you write a vast amount about your experiences in life and love.
Pardon me, if I do not tell you anything about my experiences in love. I do not want to profane, in dry epistolary prose, whatever has sanctified my life with tender charm, and I would not soil my pen with vulgar adventures. Every man has in this domain a bit of magic dreamland and a—register of his peccadilloes. The one I leave undisclosed, the other unconfessed.
On the Sielenburg at the present time—not taking into account the kitchen department—there is no one of the gentle sex dangerous to any man’s heart or peace of mind. The housekeeping is under the charge of the count’s widowed sister, the Countess Schollendorf, who is at least sixty-two years old. She exercises control over the household and the servants and she invites guests according to her own idiosyncrasies—for the most part ancient female cousins. There are three of that sort here now, accompanied by their maids and their lapdogs. One of these females—her name is Albertine—has two terrible peculiarities: the first is sincerity, and the second is that she is deeply concerned with the well-being of all her fellow-men. It results from the first that she is always telling people to their faces the most disagreeable truths, and from the second that she expects of them every sort of sacrifice and renunciation and other torments—of course, “only for their own good.”
There are still other habitués of the establishment: the castle chaplain and an aged ruined cousin four times removed, to whom Count Sielen furnishes bread and butter. As you see, it is not a very gay society, nor is the conversation at table very enlivening. Yet, just now, the count, because of his miserable health, is accustomed to take his meals in his own room, and I keep him company, which is preferable to sitting at the lower end of the table in the big dining-room and listening to uninteresting small-talk, mostly confined to the idle gossip of court and society, unless, by chance, thanks to the old cousin, who is an arch-reactionary, it skirts the domain of politics—which makes it particularly distasteful to me. This gentleman would especially like to see restored the conditions that prevailed before the year 1848, and from this standpoint he illuminates the present-day events and questions of which his newspaper—the “Reichspost”—brings him an echo.
That his opposite neighbor at table has Jewish blood in his veins—you know my mother’s grandfather was a Jew—does not prevent him from letting his opinion concerning regrettable disturbances culminate in the sentence: “The Jews are responsible for that”:—for example, the Russian revolution and the horrors connected with it, all initiated by the Jews: the decay of morals, the increase of poverty, the downfall of the old aristocratic families, earthquakes and floods (these latter as God’s punishments)—all these things are attributable to the Jews. He does not say in so many words that the destruction of this pernicious race would be a praiseworthy remedy, but he leaves it to be plainly understood.
The chaplain—I must give him due credit for this—does not agree with such truculences: he is a good man, a gentle Christian, and as such avoids everything coarse and spiteful. During these discussions I remain obstinately dumb, for I cannot contend with Cousin Coriolan. The eyes of his yearning are turned back to the past, while mine look to the future, and it is impossible, while standing back-to-back, to fence with him.
And do I hear you ask: “Your count, your employer, what is he like?” He?—A dear old fellow: I cannot say anything else. Genial, jovial, simple, friendly, gay. He must have been a man of captivating personality. Now, indeed, he is old and ill, and yet his sense of humor has not deserted him.
The count is a widower and childless. He had two children, but lost them both under tragic circumstances. The daughter—a marvelously beautiful girl—ran off with her brother’s tutor. At that time the countess was still living—a terribly haughty and hard-hearted woman, and nothing would induce her to pardon her daughter for this step. The count would have gladly given in, but the inexorable woman would not relent.