From Memory's Shrine: The Reminscences of Carmen Sylva

by Carmen Sylva

CHAPTER XIV
[A GROUP OF HUMBLE FRIENDS]

Of these there are so many—kind honest hearts, whose worth I learnt to recognise in bygone days, and whom it would be impossible for me to leave unnoticed here. I cannot name them all, but all are in my thoughts, as I select just a few from their number to inscribe among my Penates.

The one I would mention first, the truly excellent women who when Weizchen retired undertook the management of our household, was with us through those especially trying years in which my parents’ ill-health and poor Otto’s constant sufferings made the interior of our house more resemble that of a hospital than of an ordinary home. Frau Baring was a gentle-voiced, mild-eyed woman past middleage, who had herself experienced much sorrow, and this very fact made her more fitted for the surroundings than a younger, livelier person would have proved. Not that there was anything morose or depressing about our new housekeeper, of whom I happened to see a good deal, it being my mother’s wish now that my more serious studies were finished, that I should gain some practical knowledge of the matters under her control. So I was duly initiated into some of the mysteries of her domain, watching her at her work of superintending, and giving orders, learning the art of book-keeping and even making an occasional inspection with her of larders, pantry and linen-closet. As for the results achieved, I cannot look back on these with very great satisfaction, as all such commonplace details of daily life seemed to me scarcely worth the time and trouble bestowed on them, and I by no means relished being called upon to waste any thought on such dry and prosaic matters. Entering the daily or weekly expenditure in an account-book appeared to me the most cruel trial of human patience that could possibly have been devised, but the very horror with which the sight of these dreary ledgers inspired me, did but increase my admiration and respect for all those whose duty compels them to pass their days in the contemplation of dull columns of meaningless figures! In my personal distaste for all the petty details pertaining to the direction of a household, I was therefore but the more disposed to feel sympathy for good Frau Baring, and indeed for all her myrmidons, having often had occasion to observe the conscientious zeal with which all of these, every maid-servant and laundress down to the meanest scullion, performed the duties laid on them. So many instances have I known of these humblest functions patiently and punctiliously discharged, that I for one can never join in the complaints too often raised against the servant-class. Every service rendered us seemed always to be a labour of love, and this experience can surely not have been confined to ourselves alone.

I have often thought that I perhaps owed my magnificent health in a certain measure to my nurse, the simple peasant-woman picked out for her own

fine physique and sound constitution to be my foster-mother. In any case it must have been from her that I derived my simple tastes in matters gastronomic, and this has doubtless much contributed to my well-being my whole life long. As a young girl I exulted frankly in my health and strength, nor was I in the least ashamed of my rosy cheeks and plumpness, the pallid and enervated type of woman not being then proposed as a model, and no one having the slightest desire to look like a ghost. But I thought little enough of such matters—I was better employed, with my books, my work, my music, and whenever our own dear invalids did not demand my special care, in paying visits to the sick people on our estates.

A dull sad existence, some might say, for a growing girl, but it had its joys, and deeper and holier ones than can ever spring from the mere quest of happiness. Moments of depression and discouragement at times were mine, for who is there has not known such, but the natural buoyancy of youth prevailed, and already in the exercise of my pen, I had a source of comfort ever at hand.

And certainly the example of the good faithful souls around me, of their untiring devotion, contributed not a little to nerve and strengthen me whenever my own courage seemed like to fail. How weak and faint-hearted must I account myself, when I looked in Frau Baring’s face, to read there the tale of bygone suffering—of struggles valiantly fought out, despair triumphantly lived down. Little by little I won her confidence, and she told me the story of her life—of the grim fight sustained with direst poverty, since the day when her husband, a government under-official, had lost his post through ill-health, and the task of providing for him as well as for their child had devolved on her alone. She could speak quite calmly of her bereavement, could take comfort in the thought that the husband and daughter she had loved so dearly and tended so well, were both at rest at last, and could suffer no more, but when she told of the privations they had endured, her lips quivered uncontrollably, and the tears trickled down her faded cheeks. No sermon preached me on the duty of resignation could have been half as effective as this living testimony to the severity of the hardships borne thus uncomplainingly. And this woman, herself so sorely tried, was full of sympathy for the troubles that pressed so heavily on my young life. Of these we never spoke, but I saw that she understood, and felt for me, and the knowledge made my burden lighter.

For several years we lived as if on an island, shut off from the rest of the world, and out of reach of even most intimate friends. It was better so. There seemed to be no leisure then for the pleasures of social intercourse. They only who themselves were suffering or in need of help, were encouraged to draw near. Besides the serious view of life which solitude thus engendered in us, it had another salutary effect, in preventing any comparison between our lot and that of others, in keeping far from us the faintest suspicion that there was aught unusual in our existence. From our parents’ example, as well as from their precepts, we learned a lesson of deep import, that of the absolute subordination of bodily to spiritual needs—we were taught to regard our bodies as mere servants and ministers to the nobler half of our nature, and to treat any mere physical suffering or inconvenience as a matter of but small moment. Any of the little ailments or accidents which weaker parents are inclined to bemoan as real misfortunes to their offspring, were put on one side by my mother as wholly unworthy of attention, with the remark that such things might happen to anyone, that few people had not something more to complain of! Her own fear was of being betrayed into any weakness, and I still remember the tone in which she murmured—“I must not give way!” when in watching by her side the protracted agony of poor Otto’s death-struggle, I had given vent to a cry of anguish and despair. So I learnt from her to smother my feelings, and I told myself how thankful I ought to be, in being blest with parents so exceptionally endowed, that I could but look up to them with reverence, and strive to follow in their steps.