A portrait-painter, worthy of the name, must generally be a good psychologist, for he must study his models well, and learn their character through the physiognomy.
I shall never forget a day Sohn spent with us at Altwied, the lovely old ruined castle, which was the cradle of our family. It stands shut in by high hills on a little peninsula formed by the meanderings of the Wiedbach, the mountain stream. Many a dream have I dreamt within those crumbling walls, of which much more was standing then, but on the day in question we came, I know not how, to speak of the opera, “la Dame Blanche,” and as we all lay stretched on the grass, Sohn related the story. So poetically, so touchingly did he tell of the young man’s return to the castle of his ancestors, and of the long-forgotten song that stirs in his memory as he crosses the threshold—I was carried away by it, and the actual performance of the opera, which I witnessed some years later, fell very flat in comparison. The glare of the foot-lights, the painted scenery, the stiffness of the acting, destroyed the beauty of the story as first revealed to me through the medium of an artist’s soul, and on the picturesque site to which it seemed naturally to belong.
CHAPTER XIII
[WEIZCHEN]
In former days nurses and waiting-women in the princely families were themselves gentlewomen. It was rightly deemed all-essential for children, only to come in contact with people of good breeding, that they might never incur the danger of acquiring bad manners. It was thus that the sister of General Weiz, a young and accomplished woman, became my mother’s nurse soon after my grandmother’s death, and stayed on in charge of the younger children for many years after my grandfather’s second marriage. Later on, when these also were growing up, Fräulein Weiz accompanied my mother to Neuwied, where she remained as housekeeper for many years, and where we all grew much attached to her.
Weizchen, as she was always affectionately called in both families, was young and very pretty when she entered the ducal household, blest moreover with a very fine voice, which my grandmother had had carefully cultivated, but which its possessor had never felt the slightest wish to display on the stage or in the concert-room, contenting herself with the pleasure her talent was able to bestow in a smaller circle. She soon made herself beloved in her post in Biebric, but just at first my mother was simply inconsolable at the parting with her dear old bonne, Mlle. Clausel, by whom she had been petted and made much of since her birth, and from whom she had just been separated. Weizchen’s beautiful voice had therefore for the moment no charm for the little girl, although it excited such general admiration, as would also at the present day the singer’s magnificent red hair, that set off the dazzling whiteness of her skin, but which was then looked upon with such disfavour, that she was quite glad to hide it under a light sprinkling of powder, according to prevailing etiquette, whenever she appeared in low dress, with the children, in the drawing-room.
As far back as my recollections go, Weizchen was always an inmate of my paternal home, having very soon followed my mother there after the latter’s marriage. From the very first my mother was accompanied by Louise von Preen, as lady-in-waiting, and very amusing tales were told afterwards of the home-sickness of the two young things—barely eighteen years of age either of them—in their new surroundings. When my mother in a moment of loneliness rushed to Louise’s room for comfort, she found the poor girl seated among her boxes, which she had not yet had the heart to have unpacked, crying her eyes out. They sobbed together, sighing as they gazed at the distant hills, beyond which lay their old home. And yet that home was not in reality so very far away, and at the present day could easily be reached in a couple of hours, though to their romantic feelings they seemed to be pining for it in distant exile! Very soon, however, the young bride was cheered by a visit from her brothers, and after that gay days began for Neuwied, the castle often resounding with the happy voices and ringing laughter of the merry young people assembled within its walls.
But it was from Weizchen that we loved to hear anecdotes of my mother’s childhood. When she was only three years old her life was saddened by the loss of the little brother, just a year older than herself, who had been her constant companion. During his illness it was the poor little boy’s one delight to make his sister dance to the accompaniment of a toy harmonica he played, propped up among the pillows in his bed, and Weizchen said it was the prettiest sight to see the little girl, whose movements had already all the lightness and natural grace which afterwards earned for her the sobriquet of the Rhineland Fairy at the court of Berlin, dancing away indefatigably for the pleasure of the poor sick child, whose eyes wore a most pathetic expression as they watched her. Sad and lonely the little girl was, when the brother had gone. The lives of little princes were indeed lonely enough at the best of times in those days, for once out of the nursery they saw but little of one another, not even having their meals in common, but each child brought up quite apart from the rest with a special tutor or governess, with whom the repasts were taken, tête-à-tête, and to whose tender mercies the pupil was somewhat ruthlessly abandoned. In my own early childhood we still experienced the inconveniences of this system of education, but the transition to more rational and humane treatment of the young was already taking place, and children even of the highest rank now-a-days lead happy natural lives, associating with others of their age and constantly seeing their parents, of whom they no longer stand in dread. Quite early we came to table with our parents, but that was very uncommon, and in an older generation still would have been thought impossible. Of course in very many cases the instruction children received suffered from the lack of supervision, and some of these young people grew up deplorably ignorant, notwithstanding very fair natural abilities. My highly gifted uncle Maurice, for instance—artist, musician, and adept at surgery—capable it seemed of learning anything to which he turned his attention, was yet never able to pen the shortest note without making some mistake in spelling. But he painted and composed, as a mere dilettante it is true, but with very decided talent, and with the same grace and brilliancy that he brought into everything else, whether losing his money to his male friends at cards, or creating havoc among female hearts at the Viennese Court, whither he had been sent at the age of seventeen, and where he soon showed himself proficient in the various accomplishments supposed to be befitting a young man of his rank, very handsome and well-endowed endowed with worldly goods. He was my mother’s idol, and made the little sister his confidant—even of his love affairs—at a very early age! Very early indeed he had begun practising his seductive arts on the other sex, if it be true that at the age of ten, seeing one of his mother’s young maids-of-honour in tears, he sidled up to her in his most caressing, most coaxing way, looking up in her face with all the melting tenderness of which his big blue eyes were capable, and murmuring persuasively:—“Do not cry, Louise; you know I shall always be your friend!”
But it was a little later, when the gay handsome youth had really begun to turn female heads, that his confidences to the younger sister must often have assumed a very amusing character. Fräulein Lavater once found her little pupil dissolved in tears, and it was only after reiterated promises of secrecy on the part of the governess, that the child at last sobbed out:—“Maurice is in love—in love! And she whom he loves can never be his, for she is a married woman!” That Fräulein Lavater had some difficulty in restraining her laughter, may be easily imagined; but she succeeded, and had moreover the good sense and good feeling to respect her promise and keep the story of this comic episode to herself, until a time when its being made known could no longer be prejudicial to anyone. She was rewarded for her discretion by being also made the recipient of some of the young man’s confidences—glimpses of the innumerable adventures of which he was the hero in the gay Austrian capital.
The idolising affection my mother bestowed on her elder brother, was felt for her in turn by her younger brothers and sisters. She was never tired of playing with them and of telling them the wonderful stories which she made up for their amusement. The announcement of their step-sister’s engagement and approaching marriage was received with characteristic comments by these little ones. The nine-year-old Helene wept bitterly, affirming that it was utterly impossible for her to live without Marie; Nicholas, a year younger, but always practical and reasonable, consoled himself with the thought of the beautiful gardens and fine collection of stuffed animals of which his sister would become possessor by her marriage to a Prince of Wied; and little Sophie, frankly indignant, exclaimed:—“It is too bad! I will tell mamma at once, and see if she will allow such a thing!”
Those were bright and happy days that dawned on Neuwied, soon after my parents’ marriage, when my mother, herself in the heyday of youth, led the revels, supported by her young brothers, the gayest of the gay. Dances, shooting-parties, amateur theatricals, followed one another in rapid succession, and the woods echoed with song and laughter of the happy light-footed young people who scampered through them from morn till night. All this has been told in a family chronicle, written and illustrated by my father himself, and carefully preserved in our archives. But the story does not go beyond the year 1847; there it suddenly breaks off. The festival was over; the lights had all burnt out; the fun and frolic had come to an end, and a great cloud of sadness seemed to descend on us and envelop everything. My mother’s lameness; Uncle Maurice’s death; the dangerous illness of my brother Wilhelm; all these misfortunes, occurring almost simultaneously, plunged our whole household in gloom, and the gaiety and merry-making of those early days was never to return.