Leopold is eccentric enough to jeopardize his career for this poor thing. He rented a small house for her and spends much of his time there when not on the drill-grounds.
Hence intense indignation among the "respectable ladies." An Imperial Highness within reach and he "doesn't come to our dances, he doesn't visit and sends his regrets when invited!"
Poor Marja suffers especially from the venom of the officers' wives,—cattle I detest. No royal or imperial prince is safe from them except in his mother's womb.
"From morn till night and half the night they do nothing but gossip about me and my girl," said Leopold,—"If the cats were only satisfied with that! But every little while I get an anonymous letter from one of them, denouncing her; Marja is favored in a similar way; so is my general and our uncle, the Emperor."
And needless to say Leopold can't get along on his salary and appanage. Father can't give him much. The Emperor won't, because the clergy intrigues against him as a free-thinker and non-church-goer.
We thought long and deep whether it wouldn't be possible to improve our position and we decided on this:
We will keep up each other's spirits by clandestine correspondence, carried on with the aid of a mutual friend. At the same time we will, apparently, fall in with the ideas of "our masters" and endure a few pin-pricks rather than waste our strength in useless opposition.
Let no one chide us for hypocrites, because our gentleness will be a mask, our submission a snare, our obedience a lie. It's all on the outside. Inwardly Leopold and Louise will remain true to themselves.