Part 84

"Never," said Mr. Brent. "I will hang it round my neck."

Thus departed our American hero, for who but a hero could have stormed such a fortress and broken down all the traditional barriers?

A day or two later we received a visit from royalty, in the person of Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia.

In the evening we played a wonderful game called taroc, which was very intricate and almost impossible to learn. Old Baron Kessler, who undertook to teach it to me, got so sleepy that he actually yawned in my face.

This Baron Kessler is quite a character--very clever, very artistic, very musical, and, strange to say, very superstitious. For instance, he wears an old waistcoat which has certain magical grease-spots on Fridays; on Mondays his purse must be in the left pocket of his coat, on Thursdays in his right pocket. He drinks nine times before twelve o'clock on special days, and has a cigar-case for each different day of the week. He hates losing at cards, and when he does it is quite an affair; and I am not sure that prayers are not offered up for him by his family in the chapel on his baronial estates.

The last thing I saw was a vision of Herr Lenning (the head butler), who is sometimes a little shaky himself, helping the Baron up the stairs. Possibly it was the evening of the nine-drink morning.

Next day we all left, except the old Baron, who for reasons of his own remained.

WEIMAR, September, 1874.

DEAR M.,--I thought it would be a good idea to go to Weimar, the place par excellence to study German, the Germans, and their literature; and, moreover, my boy might go to school there. Mrs. Kingsland had given me a letter to the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar, and recommended the place, not because she knew the town, but because she knew the Grand Duke. Besides, had I not a dear cousin who had written a most attractive book about Weimar, combined with Liszt and his enchantments?

I was all enthusiasm.

I decided to go to the hotel which Liszt honored. The proprietor put me into Liszt's very room, where a framed letter of his hung on the wall.... This did not in the least overcome me, as I had several of Liszt's letters at home. But what did overcome me was that I was charged four times the price of any other hotel, on Liszt's account!

Weimar may be very pleasant in the season when the little Court sheds its mild light about; but out of the season, especially at this time of the year, when there is nothing but dried and fluttering leaves, students, and dogs in the streets, I found it woeful. It was reeking of Schiller and Goethe. For two marks you can have a pretty good idea of how these great men lived and had their being. Everywhere we turned, and we turned everywhere, there were statues, busts, autographs, writing-desks, beds, and wash-stands which had belonged to them. I admired everything until my vocabulary of exclamations was exhausted and my head whirled.

I told Howard, as young as he was, I would not have him Goethed and Schillered, as he certainly would be if he stayed here; so I changed my plans and made up my mind to accept the invitation of my friend the Countess Westphal to make her a visit at her château in Westphalia. We took a train which dropped us at her station, where she met us and drove us to Fürstenberg.

Westphalia is renowned for its hams. Perhaps you don't know this, therefore I tell you. It is also renowned for the independent spirit of the Westphalians.

FÜRSTENBERG, 1874.

DEAR M.,--This château is a fine old castle, with rounded towers and mysterious passages, and has a village tucked on to it. The family consists of the Countess, the Count, and three children, a tutor, a governess, and everything which belongs to the old families and their traditions. The mysterious passages possessed no ghosts, for which I was sorry, though my maid (a timid and naïve old German maiden) thought that she heard "things" at night when she came up the dark, winding stone staircase which led to my room.

Life passed quietly at Fürstenberg. Countess Westphal and I amused ourselves with music and embroidery and listening to the Count's report of his hunting expeditions.

One day, in a spasm of energy, she proposed to take me to see a friend of hers, Countess B----, who, she said, lived quite near. We would spend the night, returning the next day. She thought it would be a very pleasant and entertaining little excursion for us.

She telegraphed to Countess B---- that we were coming without maids, and with only necessary baggage; and my maid immediately went to work to pack what she considered necessary for this visit. She put a dinner-dress, with high and low waists, as the occasion might require, an extra day-dress, and all kinds of accessories, filling a good-sized trunk.

We started early the next morning. Countess Westphal was full of happy expectations; so was I. We were four hours on the way before we reached our destination; but Countess Westphal cheerfully remarked that time was of no consequence.

On our arrival at the forlorn little station I looked in vain for the lordly chariot I thought would be waiting for us. Countess Westphal seemed astonished also, but with her usual good-nature accounted for the absence of the chariot by saying that her friend could not possibly have received the telegram. We lingered about, hoping that some vehicle would appear; but as none did so, Countess Westphal started off to find one, and she finally succeeded in tempting a man, for the vast sum of four marks, to drive us to the schloss.

After the coachman had gathered the reins off the back of the old, rickety horse, I leaned back in my seat and pictured to myself what this beautiful schloss we were going to would be like.

Of course, it would have a moat around it (all old castles do); it would have all the modern comforts combined with the traditions of past glories; it would have avenues of grand old trees and marble statues, and terraces leading into Italian gardens, and so forth. In fact, my imagination got so riotous that I forgot to look at the treeless, muddy roads, and I never noticed the wrenching of the ancient landau in which we were.

As we were jolted over the desolate landscape, Countess Westphal tried to tell me the family history of the B----s, but I only gathered bits of it here and there; such as that he was the fourth son of a very distinguished father and mother, and had no prospect worth speaking of, except the prospect of the dreary place we were careering over; that they never left their native heath and had no children, and that they lived on their estate (being the only thing they had to live on), and so forth and so forth, all of which went in at the ear next the Countess and went out at the ear next the road.

Finally we spied the schloss. It had been a convent in some former century, and still had iron bars on the windows. We drove through a muddy lane, passing a sort of barn with grated loopholes, and stopped before a courtyard filled with chickens and geese; on the left was a pigsty, smelling not at all like Westphalian hams, and on the other side a cow- stable. In front was the schloss and the lady of the manor, the honorable Countess herself, on the steps, quite by chance, so it seemed. She led us proudly into the salon. A large bunch of keys hung at her girdle. I wondered why she needed so many! After the coal-bin, wine-vault, and sugar-bowl, and linen-closet had been locked up, what more did she need to lock up? There was no mention that the telegram had been received. Strange!

Count B---- was not there, "but would be coming soon." I felt that I could wait. The salon was of the kind that one often sees in houses where the mistress, having no children and plenty of time, embroiders things. Every possible object had a coat of arms and huge crowns embroidered on it, so that you could never forget that you were in the house of ancient nobility, which had the right to impose its crowns on you. All the chairs, tables, sideboards, and things on the walls were made out of the horns of stags and other animals the Count had shot. Sometimes the chairs were covered with the skin of the same, minus the hair, which was missing and moth-eaten in spots.

I was taken up-stairs to my bedroom, and I was thankful to see that the horns and crowns had nearly given out before they finished furnishing the first story, and that I had an ordinary middle-class chair to sit on. There were many pictures of Madonnas and saints, from which I inferred that our hosts were Catholics, and a prie-dieu, which, strange to say, was made of horns; and the mat in front of my bed was a blaze of the united coats of arms and two crowns! So she was a Countess born, which accounted for the doubleness.

We were obliged to make le tour du propriétaire, and, of course, as there was no other place to take us to, we went to the stables. There we admired the two cows (Stella and Bella) with horns. They had their names painted in blue and white over their respective heads, but they had no crowns.