Part 85

Then the Count appeared in very nice clothes. I fancy, while we had been admiring Stella and Bella, he had been changing his boots. Owing to these fresh boots we were spared the pigsties. On our return to the house Countess B---- said, "You know, we don't dress for dinner." I thought with dismay of my trunk laden with all its superfluous contents, and what a bore the bringing of it had been, and the opinion my maid would pass on our noble hosts, who "don't dress for dinner," when she unpacked the undisturbed finery which she had thought indispensable.

After dinner the conversation was chiefly pastoral, of the kind I do not join in because I hate it. How many chickens had died, how Bella and Stella had borne last winter's cold, how many sacks of potatoes had been spoiled, etc. My Countess enjoyed it immensely, and sat on a horny chair and sympathized. Our host took pity on me and taught me a patience. I had known it all my life as "the idiot's delight," but I pretended I had never heard of it before, and he had the satisfaction of thinking he was entertaining me--which he wasn't! On the contrary, Job's patience never could have equaled this one; the Count talked French fluently. The dinner was not good, nor was it frugal.

The Count said, "Nous n'avons que le stricte nécessaire, rien de plus."

The Countess said, in English, "One can't have in the country all that one wants."

I could not help feeling that one could not have even the half of what one wanted, and more than once I caught myself thinking, "None but the brave deserve this fare." They noticed if you took a second helping, and you felt that they made a mental note if your glass was filled more than once with wine. However, it was all very nice, and they were very kind, good people. It was not the Count's fault if the stags he killed had too many horns, neither was it the Countess's fault that time hung heavy on her hands and embroidery occupied them.

Fortunately we would go away next day, so what did it matter? But getting away was a very different thing from coming. When the Countess Westphal suggested it, and said that we intended to take a certain train, the faces of our hosts presented a blank look of apprehension! Their horses were plowing! What should we do? The doctor, they said, who lived in the village, had a carriage, but the horse was sick; there was, however, the schimmel of the baker, which, fortunately, was in good health, and perhaps, in conjunction with the wagon of the doctor, one could manage. It sounded like a gigantic exercise of Ollendorff:

"Avez-vous le cheval du boulanger?"

"Non, mais j'ai le soulier du boucher," etc.

After what seemed an eternity, the wagon of the doctor appeared, so did the schimmel. The wagon of the doctor, usually dragged by two animals, had a pole in the middle, to which the schimmel was attached, giving him a very sidelong gait. The question now was, who was to drive the schimmel attached to the pole?

The young man who milked the cows, killed the pigs, dressed the Count, picked the fruit, drove the Countess, waited at table, served everybody, did everything, and smelled awfully of the stables--could he be spared?

Well, he was spared, and off we started majestically, but sideways, waving a courtly adieu. We reached home in a drenching rain, wondering what on earth ever possessed us to want to go to visit the noble B----s. I don't think I ever want to see that establishment again, and I don't think I ever shall.

FÜRSTENBERG, December.

DEAR M.,--The Duke of Nassau had promised to come here to shoot wild boars, for which this forest is celebrated. Count Westphal sent invitations far and wide to call his hunting friends together. Before the arrival of the Duke, carriage after carriage entered the courtyard; oceans of fur-coats, gun-cases, valises, bags, and fur-lined rugs were thrown about in the hall, to be sorted out afterward. Then the Duke drove up in a sleigh with four horses, his aide-de-camp, two postilions, and a friend, both of them so wrapped up in pelisses and immense fur-caps that you could only see the tips of their red noses, like danger signals on railroads. No wonder! They had had three hours of this cold sleigh-ride!

The quiet old schloss was transformed. Each guest had his own servant and chasseur. The servants helped to wait at dinner. The chasseurs cleaned the guns, lounged about smoking their pipes, and looking most picturesque in their Tyrolean hats, with their leather gaiters, short green jackets, and leather belts, in which they carried their hunting- knives and cartridges.

His Highness (who is very short and what one calls thick-set) was accompanied by a secretary, a chasseur, a valet, two postilions, two grooms, and four horses. He had six guns, six trunks, and endless coats of different warmth. In the twinkling of an eye cigar-cases, pipes, photographs, writing-paper (of his own monogram), and masses of etceteras were spread about in his salon, as if he could not even look in his mirror without having these familiar objects before his eyes.

At twelve o'clock, high--very high--lunch was served. The servants brought in the eatables in monstrous quantities, and disappeared; the guests helped themselves and one another, and when without occupation fed the fire, where logs smoldered all day.

At a reasonable hour, after cigars and cigarettes had been smoked, the sleighs were ordered to be in readiness in the courtyard. Thirty or forty treibers (beaters) had been out since early morn. The Count has fourteen thousand acres to be beaten, therefore an early start was necessary.

The hunters swallowed a bitter pill when they asked us ladies to accompany them; but they knew their hostess would not let them go without her at least, so why not take the tame bores while shooting the wild ones?

They portioned off one lady and one gentleman to each sleigh. These sleighs are very small, and contrived for the confusion of mankind. You sit in a bag of sheep's skin, or perhaps the bag is simply two whole skinned sheep sewed together. You must stretch your legs, thus pinioned on the sides, out as far as they reach; then the driver puts a board over them, on which he perches himself, nearly over the horse's tail, and off you go. I cannot imagine what a man does with his legs if he has very long ones.

The poor horses are so dressed up that, if they could see themselves, they would not know if they were toy rabbits or Chinese pagodas. Over the horse is a huge net, which not only covers him from head to tail, but protects those in the sleigh from the snow flying in their faces. I should think that this net would be excellent in summer to keep the flies off; it does certainly suggest mosquito-netted beds and summer heat. Over the net is an arrangement which looks like a brass lyre, adorned with innumerable brass bells, which jingle and tinkle as we trot along, and make noise enough to awake all the echoes in the forest. On each side of the horse's head hang long, white, horse-hair tails.

What did we look like as we proceeded on our way? A procession of eight sleighs, combining a ranz des vaches, a summer bed, and an antiquary shop!

Arrived at the rendezvous, Count Westphal placed his guests by different trees. The best place, of course, fell to the Duke, and I had the honor to stand behind him and his gun. I hoped that neither would go off! The Duke is very near-sighted and wears double-barreled spectacles, which have windows on the sides, so that he can look around the corner without turning his head.

Every one was requested to be perfectly quiet, otherwise there would be disaster all along the line. I could keep quiet very well, for a time, but the back view of a man crowned with a Tyrolean hat, and terminating in a monstrous pair of overshoes lined with straw, lost its interest after a while, and I began to look at the scenery. It must be lovely here in the summer. The valley, where a little brook meandered gracefully through the meadow (now ice and snow), bordered on both sides by high pine woods, must then be covered with flowers and fresh green grass, and full of light and shadow.

His Highness and I were under a splendid oak, and there we stood waiting for something to happen. The Duke, the oak, and I were silence personified. A dead branch would crack, or the trunks of smaller and ignorant pines would knock together, and the Duke would look around the corner and say "Chut!" in a low voice, thinking I was playing a tattoo on the tree.

"Now the beaters are on the scent!" he said. After this I hardly dared to breathe.

"They have to drive the boar with the wind," he whispered.

"I thought they did it with sticks," I answered in a low tone.

To this remark he did not pay the slightest attention. Between a sneeze and a cough--we were rapidly catching our deaths--he said, under his breath, "If they smell us they go away."