“You are a bad, undutiful child!” exclaimed Frau Weidemann, “go away, go away at once!”
But Hermann, who meant to go on being obstinate, jerking his shoulders, retorted rudely, “Mamma told me that I am not bound to obey Frau Weidemann, and I’ll do as I please, do you understand, as I please, as I please!” shouted that delightful boy stamping viciously his little foot.
Frau Weidemann losing patience, said she would have him punished for daring to be so rude, and wouldn’t take him with his sister for their habitual walk next morning.
Danys, with tears coursing down her cheeks, implored Hermann to ask forgiveness, but tears and prayers were of no avail; he stuck firmly to his chair, his nose in his picture book, dangling his feet backwards and forwards, and would not apologise.
“I don’t propose to ask Frau Weidemann’s pardon anyhow, that’s flat. When I am in a rage, I remain in a rage one week, two months, a whole year!” declared Hermann, doggedly, and remained sternly unapproachable.
When I came down to dinner that day I saw poor Danys, her eyes all swollen, her nose red, huddled up in a chair—a picture of misery. “We don’t go for our walk to-morrow!” she said sobbing loudly.
The next day I was writing in my room upstairs, with the windows wide open, when suddenly I heard in the garden below my name called in a ringing voice, “Hullo! Madame Vava, look out of the window.” It was Hermann, success written in his sunny little countenance, accompanied by Danys and Frau Weidemann, who having fallen into a melting mood, was taking out the children for their usual walk, and Hermann, radiant with triumph, wanted to prove to me that he had it all his own way. It was Hermann who had forced Danys to ask his forgiveness, and she had coaxed Frau Weidemann, with kisses and pleading words, to go out for a walk with them. She is a weak person, Frau Weidemann; I should have kept my word in her place.
Danys also was not quite easy to manage, and was liable sometimes to storms of temper. One afternoon all the company, except myself, went out for a sail on the lake. Frau Weidemann, who had forgotten to prepare a sauce for the trout we were to have at dinner, returned home before the others with Danys, in a small row-boat. Danys was in a fury to come back so early, and made an awful scene with Frau Weidemann, rocking herself to and fro in a paroxysm of grief; she fretted, foamed and turned nasty, shouting out all her bad words, for when she loses her temper she does not measure her language. She called down curses on Frau Weidemann and sent her to Mephistopheles, and wished her at the bottom of the lake, and eaten up by the mermaids. As soon as they reached home the door of my room was dashed open and Danys flew in looking like a fury. “That’s Frau Weidemann who insisted on coming back so early for that horrid old sauce. I hate it and shall never eat it as long as I live! I wish there were no sauces at all in the world, that I do!” cried out Danys. That same day at dinner Danys was tiresome with awkward questions: “why this,” and “why that,” and Frau Weidemann found it necessary to stop her. “Eat your soup,” she said, “and remember that polite little girls never interrupt people’s speeches.” “But I say,” exclaimed Danys, turning to her with blazing eyes and face aflame, “polite little girls can want to know what they do not know, can’t they?” At which her mother administered a good scolding to her and told her that if she said one word more, she would give her a damned slap. “It isn’t me that mamma curses, it is the slap!” said the bold little girl unabashed.
I hadn’t got any news from Sergy for several days, and wrote to him six pages full of reproaches. I was expecting the postman’s knock every moment, but nothing came. One morning I was sitting at my solitary breakfast, when at last a long letter from Sergy was brought to me. I devoured its contents. He wrote in high spirits and gave me all the details of his life at Piacenza, and glowing accounts of the manœuvres and all he was seeing. Two big rooms were reserved to him at the Hotel San Marco. After lunch, on the day of his arrival, he put on his uniform and went to present himself to the Commandant of Piacenza, in whose drawing-room a group of foreign officers, in the most varied uniforms, were gathered. Such a lot of strangers was quite an event for the little town of Piacenza, which was dressed all over with flags; a band played in the Square. When Sergy returned to the hotel he found on his table an envelope containing different instructions concerning the manœuvres, with maps and programmes for every day. The military representatives received a compliment in verse with the following inscription: Dedica agli eccellentissimi signori, rappresentarano le nazioni, in occasione della lora venuta a Piacenza. The representatives were entertained with much festivity; rich banquets were given in their honour. Twenty officers of different armies sat down to table every day: four Austrians, one Bavarian, three Germans, two Belgians, two Swedes, two Englishmen and three Russians. Sergy’s neighbour was a Swedish general, an old trooper belonging to the school of “Gustav Vasa,” who probably would never have stirred the world with any striking discovery, being rather narrow-minded. He said to Sergy that whilst travelling in Italy he was very much astonished that all the railway stations were named “Uscita” (which means exit), and was quite bewildered that in this country even children were able to surmount the difficulties of the language, and chatted Italian quite as a matter of course to each other! The manœuvres of one division against the other began on the 18th August. My husband with his brother-officers got up at daybreak and started by a special train to “Castello Giovanni,” where a hillock, surrounded by vineyards, was chosen as point of observation. The Marchese Cambroso gave them a lunch in his splendid mansion that day, with champagne in abundance; a military band played during the repast. On the following morning the valiant sons of Mars went to Voghera, where they put up in private houses, as there was no hotel in that small place. Their proprietors hoisted up the flags of the different nationalities who sheltered under their roofs. Over the house where Sergy stopped, with two members of the Russian mission, a flag with a double eagle floated, and in their sitting-room stood a samovar (a Russian tea-kettle) deprived of its tap. It was Count Bellisione who regaled the missions that day in his superb feudal castle.
My husband seemed to be quite happy while I am pining away at Cernobbio, and I positively could not admit that he was enjoying himself apparently while I was gloomily brooding here alone and miserable. How I long to go away from that hateful Cernobbio! I am quite out of place with my surroundings and feel like a fish out of water, thoroughly out of my element and out of tune with the whole atmosphere, which is a very different one from that to which I was accustomed. The relations between Frau Weidemann’s lady boarders were not so warm as they had promised to be at first. I wanted to be very good friends here with everybody, but our way of life is so different and our natures are diametrically opposite; we seemed to be as far apart as the poles. The only topic of conversation of our lady-boarders was vocal matters, solfeggias and exercises. I tried to keep out of their way and remained in my room as long as I could. Frau Weidemann was far more sympathetic than her boarders; I liked her kind, motherly ways. She tried to cheer me up and took the greatest pains to amuse me, but I refused all propositions of amusement and didn’t care to join their out-of-door parties. For two weeks I had been controlling myself, but it gets worse every day. Our lady-boarders turn up their noses at me and cut me dead. We scarcely notice each other and only meet at table. What dismal meals we had! It is Mrs. G— who has especially taken a dislike to me. If wishes could have killed, I should have been dead long ago. She detested me, I could read it in her eyes. We were at daggers drawn. I, too, was in entire readiness to show fight, for I like people who like me and hate those who don’t like me; it is unchristian, but I can’t help it! I am not a quiet, woolly lamb, and if Mrs. G— wanted to bite, I knew how to show my teeth too, and could take revenge on her, for to be silent and let others have all their say is not my nature.