"That is perfectly natural. It was to be expected, when a lady so unaccustomed to put any constraint upon herself as Countess Wildenau was appointed to such a position."
"She is said to make constant blunders. If she chooses, she keeps the queen and the whole court waiting. She is reported to have arrived at court fifteen minutes too late a short time ago."
"And to have forgotten to present a number of ladies."
"People are indignant with her."
"Poor woman, she takes infinite trouble, but the place is not a suitable one for her--she is absent-minded and makes mistakes, which are unpardonable in a mistress of ceremonies."
"Yes, if the queen's cousin, the Hereditary Prince of Metten-Barnheim did not uphold her, the queen would have dropped her long ago. She is seen at court only when she is acting as representative. She has not succeeded in establishing personal relations with Her Majesty."
Such, at the end of a few months, were the opinions of society, and they were just.
It seemed as though the curse of those whom she had deserted, rested upon her--do what she would, she had no success in this position.
As on the mountain peak towering into the upper air, every warm current condenses into a cloud, so in the cool, transparent atmosphere of very lofty and conspicuous positions the faintest breath of secret struggles and passions seems to condense into masses of clouds which often gather darkly around the most brilliant personalities, veiling their traits. The passionate, romantic impulse, which was constantly at war with the aristocratic birth and education of the countess, was one of those currents which unconsciously and involuntarily must enter as an alien element in the crystalline clearness of these peaks of society.
This was the explanation of the mystery that the countess, greatly admired in private life and always a welcome guest at court, could not fill an official position successfully. The slight cloud which, in her private life, only served to surround her with a halo of romance which rendered the free independent woman of rank doubly interesting, was absolutely unendurable in a lady of the court representing her sovereign! There everything must be clear, calm, official. The impersonal element of royalty, as it exists in our day, specially in the women of reigning houses, will not permit any individuality to make itself prominent near the throne. All passionate emotions and peculiarities are abhorrent, because, even in individuals, they are emanations of the seething popular elements which sovereigns must at once rule and fear.