From Memory's Shrine: The Reminscences of Carmen Sylva

by Carmen Sylva

My mother’s first impression of her stepmother was, as I have said, one of pure enthusiasm. She was old enough to feel the charm of a pretty face, and to observe the pride her father took in his young wife’s beauty, and the intense satisfaction he felt in witnessing the admiration she excited. He was rather fond of teasing his little daughter with the prospect of very soon finding a husband for her, to which the little girl would reply quite gravely—“No, I do not mean ever to get married!” And her father would cast an enquiring glance at his wife, as if wondering whether she had the air of a victim of the marriage yoke, to be however promptly reassured by her smile of unaffected amusement at the child’s ingenuousness. Grandmamma’s first baby did not live, but she had in course of time four other children, who were to the little elder sister a source of unfailing delight. She would amuse them for hours, telling them the most wonderful stories, which she made up herself, and the little ones simply adored her. For her own elder brothers my mother had, as I shall have occasion to relate, an almost passionate attachment. I must speak of them in their own place, but in this sort of family history, the lives are all so mixed up together, and have so many points of contact, one must from time to time let a side-light fall on some, whose turn to be treated at length has not yet come.

The occasional visits which the terrible Prince Paul paid his daughter were rather like the explosion of a bomb in the household. As an instance of the alarm which his presence inspired, my mother used to relate with amusement the story of her step-mother’s consternation at finding her one day alone with him for a few minutes, imitating the tone of commiseration with which she said to her:—“What, all alone, poor child! Go upstairs and rest!” It was the only time that she ever heard grandmamma say a word that could imply the slightest dislike to her father. Her manner towards him was always perfect, and she never criticised his conduct.

My mother was just fourteen, grandmamma therefore only twenty-seven, when my grandfather suddenly died. Grandmamma was so inconsolable, that for the first week she shut herself up in her own room, refusing to see anyone, and shedding floods of tears. And yet her married life cannot have been a very cheerful one. What dreary evenings those must have been, on which her husband came home tired from his shooting, and fell asleep on the sofa directly after dinner, his wife and daughters not daring to speak a word, for fear of disturbing his slumbers! Nor was it perhaps much better, to have at other times to stand the whole evening beside the billiard-table, looking on at the interminable games he played with his chamberlains. As for the visits from other Courts, these were mostly terribly stiff and formal affairs, and if, as was sometimes the case, the Rhine-steamers bringing the expected guests were delayed, then it meant several hours of tedious waiting. Standing about waiting was part of the daily business of Court life, and children were not spared, they had to do just like the rest. As for asking them if they were tired or bored, that occurred to nobody; it was the proper thing and had to be done, and that was enough.

It was only much later that I could at all appreciate what infinite tact must have been requisite on grandmamma’s part, to enable her, the young widow with her little children, to take up exactly the right position towards her stepson, now Duke of Nassau, so little younger than herself. But her innate sense of the fitness of things pointed out to her exactly the right line of conduct, and it was with the most perfect womanly dignity and grace that she settled down at once into the part of the middle-aged, one might say the elderly woman, which she had decided should henceforth be hers. She had a stately way of receiving visitors, nearly always standing, and with the doors on all sides thrown wide open. Even her doctor was accustomed to stand and talk to her, or else would walk up and down with her, hat in hand, through the rooms with their big folding-doors opening one into the other. All this perpetual living on view as it were, this lack of privacy, seemed to us then perfectly natural—one is always inclined to take the difficulties in the lives of others as a matter of course, especially if they themselves accept them unmurmuringly. So that it never even occurred to me how frightfully dull and monotonous was the life grandmamma led—just the same little round of duties and occupations day by day, a drive to the same spot at the same hour, varied only by a little walk while the carriage waited for her, and just the same set of people received in audience over and over again. There could of course never be any pleasure to her in receiving visitors, on account of her deafness, but she never let this interfere with the enjoyment of others, and nothing pleased her so much as to sit, smiling and serene, in the midst of a crowd of gay and laughing young people, whose words she could not hear, but whose bright laughing faces enabled her to share in their mirth. It is in looking back on them now, that such details throw fresh light for me on the inner meaning of that beautiful and serene, yet in reality solitary existence, and I reflect on the amount of silent endurance, the long practice in self-restraint and self-sacrifice, all the disappointments and disenchantments, by which in the end that appearance of placid content, of sweet and smiling resignation, had been acquired.

My own happiest hours were those spent with grandmamma. Oh! how we loved everything about her!—her house,—that pretty house, standing on a hill covered with rose-trees, so that it was a perfect bower of roses during the summer months, and inside fragrant the whole year round with the perfume of the flowers that filled it everywhere! She had at first taken another house in Wiesbaden, for she insisted on moving from Biebrich directly after her husband’s death, in order to give up the Castle to his eldest son, who then had this house built on purpose for her, and in it she lived the whole of her widowed life. It was called after her the “Paulinenpalais,” and bore that name still for many years after her death. But now it has been sold, has passed into other hands, and retains nothing of the charm that belonged to it in grandmamma’s time. How well I remember every nook and corner of it, each one endeared to me by some special association, and with grandmamma’s presence pervading it all,—the drawing-room we thought so lovely, with its oriental decorations, in imitation of the Alhambra, and her dear little boudoir, with its soft blue hangings, and the delicately scented note-paper on her writing-table, of the special pale green tint she always used, for the sake of her somewhat weak eyes.

And what lovely fine crochet-work was done by those beautiful hands of hers, gloved or ungloved. One wore gloves much more in those days, it was considered a duty to take care of one’s hands, and would have been condemned as a mark of excessive ill-breeding, to hold out a hand that was not beautifully cared for, for others to kiss. Very rarely though did one give one’s hand at all. It is very different now-a-days, when young princes content themselves with a silent shake of the hand, and young princesses too find nothing to say, and put it on the ground of their shyness. My mother knew what it meant to suffer from shyness, she hardly ever entered the drawing-room in her youth without having shed tears beforehand, so terrible an ordeal was it to her, but she knew what would have awaited her had she not at once gone round the circle of guests speaking to each in turn. Nor did grandmamma’s deafness ever prevent her from entering into conversation with each person presented to her, finding the right thing to say to each one, whilst only her heightened colour betrayed to those who knew her well, the torture it was to her to go on talking thus, without hearing more than a chance word here and there of the other’s replies. It was in her drawing-room that I took unconsciously my first lessons in deportment, her way of holding a reception seeming to me so gracious and so natural, I felt that no better model could be found. To me she was invariably of the most exquisite kindness, but I should never have taken it into my head to be otherwise than extremely respectful towards her. I was never happier than when sitting at her feet, playing with the tips of her delicate tapering fingers, which she left in my clasp, whilst she went on conversing with the others. Sometimes she took me out for a drive, and I felt very proud at being alone with her in the carriage. “Sit very upright,” she used to say, “and then people will think you are grown-up!”

But the greatest delight of all was to be allowed to be present at grandmamma’s toilet, to watch her hair being dressed, and see her arrange her curls, as she always did herself, with her own hands. Her hair was coiled round at the back, and a piece of black lace hung over it, and then in the front the mass of soft little curls shaded her forehead most becomingly, after the fashion of her youth, to which she always clung. Nor did she ever change the style of her dress, during all the years of her widowhood. Her dressing-room seemed to me quite a little sanctuary, so dainty and sweet, with the delicious smell of the rose-water she used to bathe her eyes, and all the beautiful glass-stoppered bottles set out on the toilet-table, and yet there were no toilet arts or mysteries at all, nothing that need be concealed from a child’s gaze.

Grandmamma often stayed with us for months together, for my mother and she were intensely fond of one another, and there was even a great likeness between them, which was not surprising, as they were first cousins. She wrote a great deal, had a special facility with her pen, and many a document for the use of her stepson was drawn up by her. French she wrote with perhaps even greater ease, always employing that language for any notes she made for her own reference, for it was of course the language of her youth, being spoken exclusively at the German Courts in the old days. My mother also spoke it before she could speak German, hardly knowing a word of the latter language at the time of her father’s second marriage.

The year 1848, so full of unrest throughout Europe, did not pass unfelt in Nassau. My uncle, the Duke, was absent when the revolution broke out, and an angry mob collected round grandmamma’s palace in Wiesbaden, and even began piling faggots at every corner, with the evident intention of setting it on fire. Then when popular excitement was at the highest pitch, two or three delegates of the revolutionary party came up to demand of any members of the ducal family the signing of the new constitution. There was no time for reflection; grandmamma had to sign the paper herself, and let her son Nicholas, a boy of fourteen, do the same, and then she took up her stand on the balcony, with what outward calm she might, but in her heart longing for her stepson to return and restore order. At last, to her relief, she perceived the plumes of his helmet on the other side of the square, and soon could recognise him, in full uniform, making his way quietly on foot through the thickest of the crowd. He had heard the news of the revolution at Frankfort, and jumping on the first railway-engine that left, came back with all speed. In her joy grandmamma waved her handkerchief as a signal, and in a moment, from all the houses round, whose inmates had been watching the course of events behind closed windows, countless handkerchiefs were waving also, notwithstanding the danger of thus attracting to oneself a shot from the insurgents. There was an anxious pause whilst the Duke came forward to the edge of the balcony, and leaning over, called down into the crowd below, in a clear and decided if not very well-pleased tone of voice,—“The engagement my mother and brother have entered into for me, I will fulfil!” The last syllable echoing across the square with cutting emphasis, as I have often been told by those who were present at the scene.

Nassau was a gem among the states of Germany. There was an alliterative saying about the sources of the country’s wealth: from water, in the first place, for besides the Rhine flowing through it, there were all the magnificent mineral and medicinal springs; then its wine, the very best in Germany, and in the whole world! Next, the woods, of such splendid and luxuriant growth, and the home of innumerable wild creatures,—feathered and four-footed game of all sorts! As for wheat, there were corn-fields in abundance, enclosed by fruit trees, whose branches were drooping with their load; and last, though not least, the ways, those roads for which the land was famous,—the so-called vicinal ways,—were as good as the finest highways elsewhere. With all this, rates and taxes were things unknown, in that fortunate country, in those halcyon days. The state was prosperous, the reigning family wealthy, and any deficit in the revenue was supplied by the gaming-tables at Wiesbaden. As these were only open to foreigners, neither the townspeople nor the innocent countryfolk around were ever exposed to the temptations and dangers so eloquently set forth in certain pamphlets. There, the misery of the peasantry is depicted in moving terms,—honest families reduced to the direst poverty after losing their little all in the gambling-saloons! But it so happened that no peasant was ever admitted inside the doors, or had he succeeded in gaining entrance, he would very speedily have been turned out, before he had time even to watch the play, much less stake his own money! An officer in the army seen there would have been immediately cashiered, nor was access to the tables granted to any magistrate or functionary, or to anyone belonging to the territory. It is not that I wish to undertake the defence of gambling, but, apart from the question of its intrinsic immorality, so much that is erroneous has been written on the subject and has come to my own notice, that I cannot refrain from stating here the facts of the case, as they are known to me. For Nassau it may emphatically be said, that the institution only benefited the country, very materially adding to its prosperity, without doing it any harm at all.