CHAPTER VI
COUNTESS THEUDELINDE
The mistress of Bondavara was at this time fifty-eight years old. Ivan had not overstated her age when he gave Felix the information. Countess Theudelinde had long since given up the world. The renunciation cost her very little; she had never been in touch with it. Up to her fourteenth year she had grown up in the house of her father, the prince; at that period her mother, the princess, died. The governess of Theudelinde was beautiful, the prince was old. The countess—only the first-born can have the princely title; the younger children are all counts and countesses—could not, for various reasons, remain under the paternal roof; she was sent out of the way and to finish her education at a convent. Before she went, however, she was betrothed to the Marquis Don Antonio de Padua, only son of the Marquis de Colomorano, then eighteen years of age. It was settled between the two fathers that when Antonio was twenty-four and Theudelinde twenty, she should be fetched out of her convent, and both should be united in wedlock by Holy Church. This arrangement was carried out so far as Theudelinde spending six blameless years in a most highly respectable convent. She was then brought home, and the marriage bells were set ringing. But, horror of horrors, when the girl saw her betrothed husband, she shrieked and ran away! This was not the man she had promised to marry; this one had a mustache! (Naturally, for he was an officer in the hussars.)
Theudelinde had never seen a man with a mustache. Six years before, when she was at home, all the distinguished guests who came to her father's house, the magnates, the ambassadors, were all smooth-shaved, so were the man-servants, even the coachman. In the convent there was only one man, the father confessor; his face was like a glass. And now they proposed to marry her to a man all hair! Impossible! The saints and the prophets of old wore beards, that was true; some of them had a good deal of hair, but none had it only on the upper-lip. The only one she could remember with this adornment was the servant of the high-priest in the Stations of the Cross, which, to a pious mind like Theudelinde's, was conclusive. She would hear no more of the marriage; the betrothal rings were returned on both sides, and the alliance was at an end.
After this the countess avoided all worldly amusements. Nothing would induce her go to a ball, or to the theatre. Nevertheless, she did not seem inclined to take the veil; she had strong leanings towards this wicked world, only she wanted one of a different sort, without the wickedness. She desired out of the general chaos to create an ideal, and this ideal should be her husband. He should be tender, faithful, no wine-drinker, no smoker; a man with a smooth face, a pure soul, a sweet-sounding voice; a gifted, sympathetic, patient, amiable, soft, romantic, domestic, pious man; prudent, scientific, literary, distinguished, well-born, much respected, covered with orders, rich, loyal, brave, and titled. Such a rara avis was impossible to find. Countess Theudelinde spent the best days of her life seeking a portrait to fit the frame she had made, but she sought in vain; there was no husband for her.
When the countess had reached thirty there was a halt. The ideal was as far off as ever. She was anxious to come to terms with the world, but the world would have none of her. Her day was past; she had no right to any pretensions. She found herself in the position of having to choose between utter renunciation or acceptance of the world, with all its wickedness. At this critical juncture the old prince, her father, died, leaving the countess the property of Bondavara, together with the castle. Here Theudelinde retired to nurse her ideal, and mourn over her shattered idols. Here she was absolute mistress, her brother, to whom the property reverted, leaving her to her own devices.
The countess carried out, therefore, her theories unmolested, and her dislike to beards and mustaches had free play. The growers of these enormities were banished from her presence, and, as was only a natural consequence, as time went on her hatred of the male sex increased. No man was allowed in the neighborhood of the countess. She only suffered women about her—not alone in the house, but outside. The garden, the conservatories, were attended to by women—unmarried women, all. Matrimony was as a red rag to Theudelinde, and no one durst mention the word in her presence. Any girl who showed any inclination to wear the "matron's cap" was at once dismissed with contumely. Even the "coachman" was a woman; and for the reason that it would not have been fitting to sit upon a coach-box in woman's clothes, this female Jehu was allowed to wear a long coachman's cloak, a man's coat, as also a certain garment, at the bare mention of which an Englishwoman calls out, "Oh, how shocking!" and straightway faints. Truly, at the time this history was written, in our good land of Hungary, this very garment played a serious part, since it was the shibboleth and visible sign of fidelity to the governing powers, and of submission to the mediators; in truth, ever since those days the "leg of the boot" has been worn. So it came to pass that Mrs. Liese wore this thing, the only one of the kind to be seen in the castle. Liese, also, was allowed to drink wine, and to smoke tobacco, and, needless to say, she did both.
Fraulein Emerenzia, the countess's companion, was, so to speak, the exact counterpart of her noble mistress. The countess was tall and slender; she had a white skin, her features were sharp, her nose almost transparent, her lips, scarlet in color, were shaped like a bow; her cadaverous form bent forward; her eyelids fell over her lack-lustre eyes, her face appeared to have two sides which didn't belong to one another, each half having a totally different expression; even the wrinkles didn't correspond. She wore her hair as it was worn in the days of her youth, as it was worn when Caroline Pia was married, and as it is possible it will be worn again. Her hands were fine, transparent; they were not strong enough to cut the leaves of a book with a paper-knife. Her whole being was nerveless and sensitive. At the slightest noise she would shriek, be seized with a cramp, or go off in hysterics. She had certain antipathies to beasts, flowers, air, food, motion, and emotion. At the sight of a cat she was ready to faint; if she saw a flesh-colored flower her blood grew excited. Silver gave everything an unpleasant taste, so her spoons were all of gold. If any women crossed their legs she sent them out of the room. If the spoons, knives, or forks were by accident laid crosswise on the table, she would not sit down; and if she were to see velvet on any of her attendants she was thrown into a nervous attack, from the bare idea that perhaps her hand might come in contact with this electric and antipathetic substance.
Fortunately for her household her nervous fears kept her quiet at night. She locked and double-locked the door of her room, and never opened it until the morning came—no, not if the house were burning over her head.
Fraulein Emerenzia was, as we have before said, the counterpart of her mistress, in so far that she affected a close imitation of her ways, for in her appearance she was a direct contrast, Emerenzia being a round, short, fat woman, with a full face, the skin of which was so tightly stretched that it was almost as white as the countess's; she had a snub nose, which in secret was addicted to the vice of snuff-taking. Her dress and her manner of doing her hair were identical with the countess's fashion in each, only that the stiff-set clothes had on her small body a humorous expression. She affected to be as nerveless as the countess; her hands were as weak—they could not break a chicken bone. Her eyes were as sensitive to light, her antipathies were as numerous, and she was as prone to faints and hysterics as her patroness. In this direction, indeed, she went further. So soon as she observed that there was any cause for emotional display, she set up trembling and screaming, and so got the start of the countess, and generally managed to sob for a minute longer; and when Theudelinde fell fainting upon one sofa Emerenzia dropped lifeless upon another; likewise, she took longer coming to than did her mistress. At night Emerenzia slept profoundly. Her room was only separated from that of the countess by an ante-chamber, but Theudelinde might tear down all the bells in the castle without waking her companion, who maintained that her sleep was a species of nervous trance.