Part 81

He dropped into the first available bench and said, solemnly and with conviction: "To see this wine makes one want to taste it; to taste it makes one want to drink it; to drink it makes one want to dream."

I hope that you appreciate this profound saying; it ought not to be lost to posterity.

We left him, thinking he would prefer the society of his adjutant to ours. I knew that I preferred mine to any one else's, and went to my room, mounting its winding staircase, which I thought wound more than was necessary. Taking guests into wine-cellars is the great joke here, and it never fails.

Every one was in exuberant spirits at dinner. I wish I could remember half of the clever things that were said. The corn came on amid screams of delight. Our hostess ate thirteen ears, which, if reduced to kernels, would have made about one ordinary ear, there was so much cob and so little corn. The Princess enjoyed them hugely.

Coffee was served on the terrace. Later we had music in the hall, and before the departure of the Archduke there was a fine display of fireworks sent off from the terrace, which must have looked splendid from a distance.

SOMMERBERG, August, 1874.

DEAR M.,--Prince Emil Wittgenstein and his wife have a pretty villa at Walhuf, directly on the Rhine, and they invited Helen and me to dine and spend the night there. Prince Wittgenstein promised to show us some wonderful manifestations from spiritland. Helen is not a believer, neither am I, but the Prince thinks I am, and, as Helen could not leave her guests, I went alone.

The Prince wrote that he had induced, with great difficulty (and probably with a great deal of expense), the much-talked-of Miss Cook to come with her sister to pay them a visit at their villa. Miss Cook is the medium through whom the Empress Josephine and Katie King (a lady unknown to the world, except as being the daughter of a certain old sea-captain, called John King, who roamed the seas a hundred years ago and pirated) manifest themselves.

I was delighted to have this chance of seeing Miss Cook, because I had read in the English papers that she had lately been shown up as a gigantic fraud. At one of her séances in London, just as she was in the act of materializing in conjunction with the Empress Josephine, a gentleman, disregarding all rules of etiquette, sprang from the audience and seized her in his arms; but instead of melting, as a proper spirit would have done, the incensed Empress screamed and scratched and tore herself away, actually leaving bits of her raiment in his hands. This rude gentleman swears that the imperial nails seemed wholly of earthly texture, and that the scratches were as thorough and lasted as well as if made by any common mortal.

Since this incident Miss Cook had thought it wiser to retire into private life, and has secured a husband calling himself Corner. Prince Wittgenstein found her, and, wishing to convert his wife, could think of no better way than to let her see Miss Cook materialize. The wife and her friend, Princess Croy, are avowed disbelievers.

Our dinner was dull beyond words. There were the Prince Nicholas-Nassau and his wife; the Duke Esslingen, who is nearly blind, without a wife but with convictions; Count and Countess de Vay, and the two English ladies already mentioned. Miss Cook, alias Mrs. Corner, is a washed-out blond, rather barmaidish-looking English girl of medium (oh dear! I really did not mean to) height and apparently very anemic.

After dinner we were led into the room in which the séance was to take place, and were seated round a large table, and told to hold our tongues and one another's hands; the gas was turned down to the lowest point, the lamps screwed down, and there we sat and waited and waited.

The poor host was chagrined beyond utterance; something was the matter with the magnetic current. Sometimes he would tap on the table to attract the attention of the spirit underneath, but nothing helped; the spirits were obstinate and remained silent.

I ventured to ask the Duke, by the side of whom I sat and held on to, in what manner the spirits made known their answers. He said that one knock meant "yes," no knock meant "no," and two knocks meant "doubtful." At last we heard a timid knock in the direction of Mrs. Corner. Then every one was alert. Prince Wittgenstein addressed the spot and whispered in his most seductive tones, "Dear spirit, will you not manifest yourself?" Two knocks (doubtful).

"Is the company seated right?" (Silence, meaning "no.")

"Is the company congenial?" (Silence.)

To find out who the uncongenial person was, every one asked, in turn, "Is it I?" until Princess Wittgenstein put the question, upon which came a vigorous single knock.

"My dear," said the Prince, "I am sorry to say it, but you must go."

So she left, nothing loath. We all thought for sure something would happen now, but nothing did.

Prince Wittgenstein commenced the same inquiries, whether the company was now congenial; but it seemed that Princess de Croy was de trop, and she was also obliged to leave the room. (You see, the spirits did not like to single out the hostess alone.) Now we were reduced to nine believers with moist hands.

Would the Empress not now appear? We waited long enough for her to make up her mind; but it seemed that neither her mind nor anything else was ready to be made up. The spirits were perhaps willing, but the flesh was too weak. Then Mrs. Corner remembered that at the last sitting the Empress had declared that she would never appear on German soil (her feelings having been wounded during the Franco-German War).

There still remained Katie King. We had not heard from her yet. Prince Wittgenstein addressed the table under his fingers: "Oh, dear spirits, do do something! Anything would be acceptable!" How could he or she resist such humble pleadings?

Then some one felt a cold wind pass over his face. Surely something was happening now!

"It must be Katie King about to materialize," said the hopeful Prince.

Then we saw a dim light. We strained our eyes to the utmost to discover what it was. I should have said, if I had been truthful, that to me it looked like a carefully shaded candle; but I held my tongue. The hand of my neighbor was fast becoming jelly in mine, and I would have given worlds to have got my hand out of the current; but I did not dare to interfere with it, and I continued to hold on to the jelly. Whoever was being materialized was doing it so slowly, and without any kind of system, that we hardly had the patience to sit it out. Then a tambourine walked up some one's arm, Prince Nassau's spectacles were pulled off his august nose by invisible hands (of course, who else would have dared?), thus making him more near-sighted than ever. His wife's necklace of turquoises was unclasped from her neck and hooked on to the neck of the acolyte sister; but on anxious and repeated demands to have it returned, it was replaced, much to the owner's relief. Prince Wittgenstein thought it silly of her to have so little confidence. Suddenly, while necklaces were changing necks, we saw what looked like a cloud of gauze. We held our breaths, the raps under the table redoubled, and there were all sorts of by-play, such as hair-pulling and arm-pinching, but no Katie. The gauze which was going to be her gave up trying and disappeared altogether. "Never mind," said the Prince. "It does not matter [I thought so, too.] She will come to-morrow night."

This was very depressing; even Prince Wittgenstein was utterly discouraged and decided to break up the séance, and, groping his way to the nearest lamp, turned it up. We went into the other salon, where we found the two discarded ladies sitting peacefully before a samovar and playing a game of two-handed poker.

Miss Cook told Prince Wittgenstein that Katie King would probably materialize if she had the promise of getting a sapphire ring which he wore (a beautiful sapphire). Miss Cook suggested that if this ring could be hung up on a certain tree in the garden Katie King would come and get it, and would certainly materialize the next evening. Prince Wittgenstein was credulous enough to pander to this modest wish, and hung up the desired ring, hoping Katie King would return it when she was in the flesh. But Miss Cook had a succession of fainting fits which necessitated her sudden departure for England, so we never saw Katie King, neither did Prince Wittgenstein ever get his ring back, as far as I know.

September, 1874.