From Memory's Shrine: The Reminscences of Carmen Sylva

by Carmen Sylva

ever been one of the idols of my girlhood? Unluckily too, the photograph which he had given me made him look very stern, and that quite alarmed me. I thought, if he can ever look like that, I shall be frightened to death! But I took comfort in looking at the little opal cross he had also given me, finding in the soft pure flame of the beautiful milk-white stones, a sort of presage of everything that is good and noble, and my fears gradually quieted down. Not altogether, though. They came back often during the four weeks of my engagement, and only left me entirely when I stood with my affianced husband before the altar.

With all this, alas! I never saw my dear Mme. Schumann again. I had little thought when we left her that eventful day, looking forward to meeting again the same evening at the concert, that it was the very last time we should meet on earth! I wonder if she ever guessed the extent of my affection and veneration. Two days before the wedding a concert was given in honour of the bridegroom and myself, and for this my brother tried to arrange for Mme. Schumann to come, but she was unfortunately prevented. After that I was myself so far away, plunged heart and soul in the new duties that were now to be my lifework, and so much absorbed by these, that I only returned twice to my old home in the course of the next ten years. Besides, in the meantime I had become a mother—that unspeakable happiness was mine, and then—and then it was taken from me, and all was dark around me, nevermore to become light for me henceforth on earth!

CHAPTER II
[GRANDMAMMA]

I cannot rightly remember any of my grandparents, for grandmamma, as we all called her, whom I learnt to know and love in my childhood, was in reality only my mother’s stepmother, my grandfather, the Duke of Nassau’s second wife. She was a daughter of the terrible Prince Paul of Wurtemberg, so notorious for the violence of his temper, and her mother was one of the lovely Princesses of Altenburg, another of whom had been my grandfather’s first wife, and died in giving birth to my mother, her eighth child. As their mother was a Princess of Mecklenburg, sister to Queen Louisa of Prussia, my grandmother and the old Emperor William were first cousins.

Five years had passed since the death of his first wife, before my grandfather could be persuaded to think of marrying again, so deeply did he regret this good and amiable woman, and so happy had he been with her. But then, hearing so much said in praise of this young niece of hers, he suddenly determined to see and judge for himself, whether the good looks and other good qualities with which she was credited, should seem sufficient to compensate for the slight deafness from which she suffered. So he set off for Stuttgart incognito, even taking the precaution to disguise himself and muffle up his face, and watching his opportunity, he followed the young princess home from church, and taking up his stand under her window, listened to her conversation with her companions, in order to find out whether her infirmity prevented her taking part in it to advantage. Her beauty and grace so enchanted him, his mind was made up at once, and throwing off the muffler that concealed his features, he stepped forth in full view of the astonished little group. There was a cry of—“Uncle Wilhelm!” from some of the young people, and then the next moment the intruder had vanished, as quickly as he came, only to re-appear a little later with all due formality, in the character of suitor for the hand of the fair young girl, whom he carried off as his bride. It was no such easy matter for her, the scarce eighteen-year-old wife, to enter her new home and take up her position there, in the house in which, but a short time since, she the young cousin had played, a child herself, with the other children. Three of these were about her own age; the two elder sons, Adolphus and Maurice, now almost grown up, and Thérèse, the eldest daughter, although only fifteen, very much spoilt and very independent, and too much accustomed to play the part of mistress of the house and have her own way in everything, to feel disposed to part with these privileges in favour of anyone else. It was therefore the very greatest comfort to the youthful stepmother to find herself warmly welcomed by the youngest member of the family, a real child still, my mother, then a little girl of five with her long fair hair falling in curls below her waist. The very warmest affection sprang up at once between them, and lasted throughout their whole lives.

Grandmamma’s own life had been anything but smooth and untroubled from her earliest years, and it is no wonder that when she one day later on sat down to write her recollections, she should have done so under the title—Histoire de mes Peines. Her parents’ married life had been excessively unhappy; her father having even, in order to rid himself of a wife he detested, gone to the length on one occasion of actually hiding a man in her bedroom, and then bursting in upon her followed by the whole Court, in the hope that his unsuspecting victim’s confusion might lend her an appearance of guilt! But his diabolical plot fell through, for, all helpless and defenceless as she was, the poor lady’s innocence was perfectly evident, and her accuser’s character only too well known for anyone to put faith in anything he said. It was shortly after this charming exploit that Prince Paul determined to send his daughters to school in France. I am not sure when it was exactly, whether at an earlier or later date, that he gave them into the care of such an ill-natured governess, that they had to suffer for the rest of their lives from the effects of her petty tyranny, grandmamma’s deafness having been caused, she always believed, from her having been forced by her tormentor to stand sometimes for a couple of hours at a time, barefoot in her nightdress on the cold stone floor, whilst her sister Charlotte’s digestion was ruined by her never being allowed to satisfy the cravings of her healthy young appetite. They were no better off during their schooldays in France. In the establishment in which their father placed them, the spirit of the Revolution still prevailed to such an extent, that everyone of aristocratic birth was looked upon with suspicion, and as for the title of princess, to bear that was little less than a crime! So that the poor little Wurtemberg princesses had a hard time of it, mistrusted and shunned by their schoolfellows, who refused even to let them join in their games, and played all sorts of mischievous tricks on them, whilst the governesses for their part vented their dislike in imposing on them the most unsuitable tasks—even of a menial description. Not only from grandmamma herself, but also from her sister, afterwards the Grand Duchess Hélène of Russia, with whom much of my own girlhood was spent, did I hear all about this. It was she who told me how often in her sadness and loneliness she would seat herself on the stairs, to watch the movements of the hands of the big clock opposite, as if that were her only friend and companion, listening through the long dreary hours to its melancholy ticking, and counting the slow monotonous swinging of the pendulum backwards and forwards.

When the sisters returned to the Wurtemberg Court, they were as lonely as ever, for they had become strangers to everyone, including the King and Queen, during their exile. But soon, the Emperor Nicholas having seen the one, asked for her hand in marriage for his brother Michael; and thus it was that the Princess Charlotte was sent to Russia in charge of a governess—for she was only fourteen years old—to finish her education and be received under the name of Hélène into the Orthodox Church as a preliminary to the wedding.

And so grandmamma was left alone and but for the occasional society of her two brothers, more forsaken and disconsolate than ever. It was when she was eighteen, as I have said, that a change came into her life also, with her marriage. But the husband with whom she entered her new home was no young man, he was the widower of her aunt, and she had been accustomed to regard him in the light of an uncle,—one of the older generation, rather to be respected and looked up to than to be treated as an equal. So that my grandfather need have been at no pains to inspire her with awe for his person and frighten her into submissiveness. However, that there might be no mistake at all as to the position he intended to assume, the wedding-ceremony was no sooner over, and the newly-married couple alone in their travelling carriage, than he proceeded to light his pipe, and closing the windows, smoked hard in her face for a few hours, just to see if she would venture to remonstrate or complain! Needless to say, she was too well broken in by a long course of severity, to dare to utter a word of protest, and it seems to me that had her husband but known how joyless her youth had hitherto been, he must have tried rather to cheer her and raise her spirits, than to crush her still more by the assumption of so brutal an attitude. Unfortunately in Germany the custom still prevails, of trying to keep women in subjection. A foolish notion survives among us, that women ought to keep silence, and thus, while our wiser French neighbours demand of their women-folk to take the lead in all conversation, which they enliven and stimulate with their wit and brilliancy, the German on the other hand expects members of the other sex to be content to listen in silent admiration, needle in hand, while he holds forth ponderously on whatever subject he pleases. The natural reaction from this absurd tyranny is a sort of revolt of womankind, attended by exaggeration in the opposite direction—a tendency that certainly deprives its adherents of much of their former grace and charm, whilst it is to be questioned whether there be any compensating gain in strength. In all this we have undoubtedly fallen behind our ancestors, for in the old Germanic tribes not only was the entire rule and management of the household given up to women, but our rude forefathers also reverenced in them their best friends and counsellors, priestesses of the hearth and altar, superior beings in fact. It was only when Roman institutions had the supremacy, that the contrary opinion came into force, and was carried to the utmost extremes, it being found convenient to ascribe inferior brain-power to those who were to be reduced to subjection. I wonder if it never struck any of the wiseacres who propounded this ludicrous theory, that as the propagation of the human race can only be carried on by the co-operation of the female portion, it must, if the latter be in reality so wofully inferior, necessarily in course of time deteriorate altogether! Surely, if they were not blinded by their own vanity, each one of these superior beings must be aware that his first youthful health and physical vigour, together probably with much of the mental and moral force on which he prides himself, were in the first instance derived from one of the sex he so looks down upon, and imbibed with his mother’s milk! What is strangest of all is that women should so long have put up with being treated in this manner. Was it that they did not think it worth their while to protest, that for all these centuries they have smilingly seen through the unwarrantable pretensions of their husbands, brothers and sons, calm and confident in their own quiet strength, which must, if they but chose to put it forth, prevail against irrational blustering? To me, in any case, it would appear rather a confession of weakness on the part of some of my sisters, when I hear them clamouring for their so-called rights. Which of the old Roman legislators was it, who in helping to frame the laws which press so hardly on our sex, gave it as his reason, that unless women were firmly kept down, they would soon get the upper-hand altogether, being, as he had the courage and honesty to confess—“so much stronger and cleverer than men!”

My mother has very often told me of her joy at the arrival of the pretty new mamma, who looked so sweet, and took her in her arms so kindly, as if she felt it a real comfort to find this little one prepared to love her, and to whom she might try to be a real mother. Not quite as she would have wished though, as she soon found out, for that would not have fallen in with my grandfather’s views. He wanted his wife for himself, and expected her to be constantly in her own rooms awaiting his good will and pleasure, and not that he should perhaps be told if he went to look for her there, that she had gone upstairs to the schoolroom or nursery. It was for this reason that my mother in her turn had to continue leading a lonely life in her childhood, only seeing her parents at stated hours, and ever in the greatest dread of her father, who, if he were annoyed at anything, generally, I regret to say, laid about him with his riding-whip pretty freely. Such energetic modes of enforcing obedience or expressing disapproval were already somewhat going out of fashion in my childhood, and I am glad to think how many children there now are who have never received a blow, and are wholly free from the terrorising influences under which earlier generations grew up.