PART FOUR

1876–1885

XVII WEDDING JOURNEY On the Black Sea · Jason mood · Arrival in Asia · The hotel in Poti · Kutais· Count Rosmorduc · Reception at Prince Zeretelli’s · National dances · Journey to Gordi · Prince Niko with escort comes to meet us · Arrival at Gordi · Ceremonious reception

I see us next on board the steamship that was to take us from Odessa across the Black Sea to the port of Poti. It was My Own’s first sea voyage in all his life; he passionately loved the sea, had always longed to take a voyage, and now he reveled in the fulfillment of his wishes.

Our goal was the land whither Jason went in his quest for the Golden Fleece. I think there was much of the Jason mood in us both at that time: a mingling of delight in adventure, confidence of conquest, the intoxication of hope. Before us lay a world of things new and surprising; we were going to set foot on a land consecrated by the most classical legends, and experiences which we could not even well imagine beckoned us onward.

We knew that we were expected and should be received with open arms. I had written from Vienna to the Dedopali, and to Prince Niko, who also was at that time sojourning in the Caucasus, telling our whole romance and announcing our visit. A joyous “Welcome” was wired back to us. We both thought it likely that my old friend Niko would secure for My Own a position as aide to the emperor or something of the sort. And altogether we were so inordinately enraptured at being together, our bold stroke had aroused in us such an intense feeling of happiness, everything thus far had gone so _sur des roulettes_, that we looked forward to a constant increase in our good fortune. One day we should return home in triumph; but it would be a long time before we should want to return home; for the present, out into the wide, beautiful, rich, wonderful world! we were after the Golden Fleece. Nor did we need it—that was the best part. Whatever treasures the world might grant or deny us, we had in each other measureless riches. And My Own felt all this even more keenly than I. He was only twenty-six years old, and this was his first journey into the Unknown. I had already experienced so much disillusionment, and had already, with my thirty-three years, emerged in a measure from that state of intoxication which is called youth; but I caught the contagion of his youthful enthusiasm, and was as childish as he.

After a calm passage our steamboat landed us on the Asiatic shore. A different continent—it fills the comparatively inexperienced traveler with a peculiar pride, a pride upon which old globe-trotters look down with a smile. My Own set his foot on the un-European soil with the haughtiness of a conqueror.

“So,” said he exultingly, “here we are in Asia!”

Whether Asia or Australia, whether earth or Mars, cried the exultation within me, we are together, and that is the main thing.

A messenger from the princess was on the landing-place to meet us. He handed me a letter from his mistress with a renewed welcome and the request that we should delay our arrival at Gordi—the summer residence—for a week, till our hosts, who as yet were still at Zugdidi, had had time to establish themselves in their mountain abode. We were to trust ourselves to the direction of her messenger, who would conduct us to the town of Kutais, where we might put up at the hotel for the time being. So we turned the arrangements over to this factotum, a Georgian steward, who spoke a little broken French. He wore the national costume: long caftan, cartridge shells across the chest, bashlyk on head, dagger in belt.

There would not be another train for Kutais that day, hence we had to spend the night at Poti. The place had only a very simple inn, to be sure, but _que faire?_—This phrase, adopted from the Russian _chto dyelat_, often came to our ears in that country; it imports that resignation, coupled with a shrug of the shoulders, which does not so much enunciate the question what one is to do in order to contend against something as intimate rather that nothing can be done.

The inn was in truth very simple: we spent the night in chairs because the beds proved to be too thickly inhabited, and when we wanted to make our toilets and looked for a washstand there was none to be found. I rang for the chambermaid. One appeared in the form of a barefooted peasant with a scrubby beard and a forest of curly black hair. We could not make him understand what we wanted, and called to our aid our factotum, who had also put up at this palace hotel of Poti. Then it was made known to us that the house possessed only one tin washdish, which was carried from one room to another as it was needed, and with it the towel—in what a condition!

Not especially refreshed by this resting-place, but in unruffled good spirits, we continued our journey the following morning in order to reach our next stop, Kutais, the capital of the province of the same name. There another messenger from the Mingrelian family was also awaiting us—the young prince’s intendant, a portly, tumultuous Armenian, who likewise could speak broken French, and wore the European dress. He conducted us to the best inn of Kutais; this was certainly not a palace hotel either, but might be so regarded in comparison with the hole where we had been the day before, for here each guest had his own washbasin and even his own towel, and the rooms and beds were clean. But everything we saw and heard—and smelt—seemed to us so terribly exotic: the strange types of people, the strange costumes, the strange architecture of the buildings, and—as to the sense of smell—a quite peculiar and not disagreeable odor of sundried buffalo dung. The buffaloes themselves, which are used here to draw loads and as milch cattle, and which we had already seen idling in sundry mudholes on our way to Kutais, were an exotic phenomenon to us.

The heat was frightful. One could hardly endure it in the rooms, and we spent our days and took our meals (consisting of mutton, mutton, mutton) on a wooden balcony which ran around the house over the court.

After two days our Armenian took his departure, and a third messenger came to be our guardian and protector. This time it was a family friend of the Dadianis, an old French nobleman _de vieille roche_, with the fine manners _de l’ancien régime_. His name was Comte de Rosmorduc. Born in Bretagne, he had come to the Caucasus some twenty-five years before (for what reason I do not know) and had settled down there for good. He had married a Mingrelian woman, and owned a house which he had himself built at Zugdidi. He was a welcome associate of the princess and her children, and later became a dear friend of ours also.

He now did us the honors of Kutais. He introduced us at the home of General Zeretelli, the foremost house in the city. The Zeretellis were Caucasians and relatives of the Dadianis. They showed themselves very obliging, even arranging for a great reception in our honor on the following evening, to which all the notabilities and aristocratic families of the place were invited. The daughter, Nina, was a famous beauty, but as she was twenty-five she was regarded already as an old maid. Girls in the Caucasus usually marry at fifteen or sixteen. The Countess Rosmorduc, who was then thirty-five, had been married for twenty years. She also was a great beauty; but we did not make her acquaintance until the next year.

The soirée at the house of the Zeretellis left an ineffaceable impression on our minds, because it was the first time that we got a glimpse of the social life of the country. Here we saw ladies in their national costume and witnessed for the first time the performance of the national dance—the _Lesginka_. We also participated for the first time at a banquet where the fiery Kachetin wine was poured from slender silver flagons into great drinking-horns, and where a toastmaster, chosen to this honorable office, proposed the healths—on this occasion, as first of all, the health of the guests from Austria. The host and hostess did not sit down at table but helped serve. Among those present we found many who spoke French, and where that was not the case Count Rosmorduc, who had learned the language of the country, served as dragoman.

In the salon stood a piano. My husband sat down at it and played some of the waltzes which he had himself composed, and the Caucasian society was full of admiration and danced to this music with perfect grace. But they were most pleasing in the _Lesginka_. This dance is usually executed by only one couple, while the rest sit in a circle and clap their hands in time to the music. The accompaniment is provided by a small native instrument which endlessly repeats a certain melody three bars long, and by tambourines adorned with little bells, on which skillful hands thump with an increasingly lively rhythm. The dance itself is a pantomime of the immemorial play of love: pursuit, flight, enticement. The men perform artistic _pas_; the women fairly float along the floor, the long, heavy silken garment concealing the feet so that they look as if they were rolling on invisible casters; the veil which is attached to their headdress flows behind them, and from the arms, stretched out in circling gestures, float the long double sleeves. As a conclusion to the festivity I treated the company to an Italian bravura aria and then to Auber’s Laughing-Song—Carlotta Patti’s show piece; the laughter in the song infected everybody, and the whole ended with a chorus of laughter.

And now the next morning we started for the goal of our journey, for Gordi, situated on a high plateau among the mountains. Count Rosmorduc chartered a troika and escorted us. It was jolly riding behind that spike team; the more the springless vehicle shook us up, the more fun we had out of it. The way was splendid; all the hedges were abloom with cascades of wild roses. At the same time the heat was frightful. All the more delightful the prospect that we were going among the mountains, where, as Count Rosmorduc assured us, cool and almost raw winds blow all the time.

After a journey of several hours across the plain we came to Pompey’s Bridge; this is that place where one must leave the carriage and ride horseback the rest of the way. We were now at the entrance of the defile, and the peaks of the mountains which we were to climb stood out steeply against the azure sky. The stream which roared and foamed under Pompey’s Bridge roared perhaps twice as loud in our ears because it had been described to us as the “Hippus” of the ancients; what classic craft—doubtless even Jason’s _Argo_ when he went to capture the Golden Fleece—must it not have rocked on its billows! This was the place, I remembered from the Dedopali’s letters, where the young princely couple on their home journey had dismounted from the carriage, where the bridge had been spread with a carpet, and a triumphal arch of flowers had marked the boundary line of Mingrelia.

There was no triumphal arch awaiting us at Pompey’s Bridge, but there was a pleasing surprise: Prince Niko, accompanied by a great retinue, had ridden down to the threshold of his dominion to welcome the “Contessina” and her husband. Under a tent a table was spread with refreshments. There we had breakfast first and a toast of welcome was drunk, and then we addressed ourselves to the ascent. Horses were in readiness also for us and Count Rosmorduc; for me a gentle pacer. Prince Niko lifted me to the saddle, and now we had to ride up the seven kilometers of serpentine road, while the cavalcade of the princely escort, in their picturesque costume, were around us performing all sorts of feats of horsemanship in their high saddles, springing up and down the steep sides of the pass, and offering a perfectly wonderful spectacle.

And as we rode upward the temperature grew cooler and cooler, and the prospect over abysses and valleys more and more magnificent. The sun had already disappeared behind the mountains when we arrived at our destination. Gordi is situated on a great plateau, in the background of which, buttressed by a mountain wall, stands the prince’s castle, a wide edifice flanked with towers and adorned with numerous balconies and terraces. On the right and left at intervals were small, neat wooden villas. One of them was occupied by the dowager princess; one by Niko himself, because his castle was another that was not yet completed; one was for us; and the rest served as quarters for the other guests and neighbors.

The Dedopali was standing on the terrace of her villa to welcome us. Around her stood her women, her almoner, her private secretary, and her bodyguard. She took me into her arms and bade me welcome.

“Présentez-moi votre cher mari, ma petite contessina, ou faut-il dire ‘baronessina’ maintenant?”

She kissed my husband on the forehead, in Russian fashion, when he bent over her hand after the introduction.

We were soon conducted over to our little house, where we were to rest and dress for dinner. The small guest villa, built on a level with the ground, consisted of a sitting-room hung with gay cretonne and provided with furniture of the same, a bedchamber, and rooms for the man and maid who had been put wholly at our disposition. The dinner was served at the Dedopali’s villa, on a broad open veranda. After dinner the company—there had been about thirty at the table—went out on the plateau, which lay in full moonlight; and now dances were performed, rockets were set off, choral songs were sung, and not till midnight did we retire.

That was our reception at Gordi.

XVIII IN KUTAIS (1877) Lessons · Rumors of war and outbreak of war · Red Cross fever · The plague on the horizon · Bad times · Conclusion of peace · Mathilde · Beginning of literary career

Our wedding excursion to the Caucasus lasted nine years. A long honeymoon!

The first summer we spent uninterruptedly in Gordi, where we were kept until the family themselves went away—Niko to St. Petersburg, the Dedopali to Zugdidi. But the illusion regarding a position at the Russian court had shown itself to be an illusion. At first Niko took kindly to the idea, but soon it became apparent that if an attempt should be made to turn it into a reality, impossibilities would be encountered. So what was to be done? That life of nothing but pleasure and festivity which we had led there in the mountains could not be kept up without end, and to be forever “an always welcome guest” is really not a vocation. We had broken with Harmannsdorf—or rather the parents had broken with us: they could not pardon us for our reckless step. Neither did we seek pardon. We had defiantly announced that we would make our way, and now we had to do it. We had kept up a most affectionate correspondence with the brothers and sisters, but the parents sent us a wrathy letter of reproach and repudiation, and never another word. My mother, to whom My Own had made a visit before our journey, had not indeed approved of the whole match and of the erratic elopement; but in a few days she had taken My Own into her heart, and her blessing accompanied us.

We now decided to settle in Kutais, and, for the time being, until Prince Niko had found a suitable situation for us (which he still treated as a possibility), to earn our living there by giving lessons in music and the languages. A cousin of the princess, who had been visiting at Gordi with us and whose home was in Kutais, promised to get pupils for us in her circles. These were certainly not exhilarating prospects, but our inner exhilaration was invulnerable. The whole life, the whole country seemed to us so interesting that the intensified sense of travel and adventure with which we had started out remained ever vivid; and, moreover, we were so unspeakably happy in each other that really (just as there are conditions in which one envies all people) we pitied all people who were not ourselves. The most delightful thing was that we felt our love not only not diminishing, but all the time increasing.

So, after the general breaking up of the party at Gordi, we went to Kutais, where another friend of the Dedopali—General Hagemeister—took us into his house as guests to remain until we should find a house and pupils. In a few weeks we were established in a little home of our own, and a number of the daughters of noble families in Kutais had presented themselves to me for piano and singing lessons. My Own gave a few lessons in German.

Now rumors of war began to buzz through the air. The year before an insurrection had broken out in Bulgaria. (It was asserted in other than Russian countries that this was fomented by Russian agents.) Russia demanded of Turkey reforms and guaranties for the safety of the Christians. Now the great powers met in conference—from November, 1876, until January, 1877, in Constantinople; in March, 1877, in London; but their decrees were refused by Turkey. Would Russia now declare war? This portentous question was on every tongue. The troops were waiting in expectation on the border.

And, sure enough, on the 24th of April came the Russian declaration of war, and, simultaneously, the crossing of the Pruth and of the Armenian border. The news was the more exciting for the reason that the Caucasus itself served as one of the two theaters of the war, and an invasion of Kutais by the Turks was one of the possible dangers.

I do not remember that we felt anxious. Nor did I have any feeling of protest against war in general, any more than in the years ’66 and ’70. My Own likewise looked upon the war that had broken out as merely an elemental event, yet one of especial historical importance. To be in the midst of it gives one personally an irradiation of this importance.

We received from my mother, from my sisters-in-law, letter after letter, telegram after telegram: we must make our escape! We did not think of such a thing; on the contrary we wanted to make ourselves useful, and we offered our services to the governor, Prince Mirsky, as voluntary nurses of the wounded. Only one condition we made,—that we should work in the same place, if possible in the same hospital. That was not possible; they wanted to use him here and me there, and so we withdrew our offer. For to separate, especially in such perilous circumstances, no price would tempt us! So we remained in Kutais. Our sympathies (at that time we still had “sympathies” in war) were with the Russians. The word was, “to free our Slav brethren”; that was the common talk all around us, and we accepted it in perfect faith. Moreover, a second watchword was in the air, raised by the Mohammedans living in the Caucasus, by the wild mountain tribes, Shamyl’s comrades: revolt—shaking off the Russian yoke. All this sounded very heroic. But no insurrection broke out; the Caucasus proved to be satisfactorily Russianized and loyal. The sons of the land, looking very handsome in their Cossack uniforms, went to the front as one man to beat the Turks. “Sotnias,” as bodies of a hundred mounted noblemen were called, joined the army as volunteers, and we saw them riding away under our windows.

The first death announced in the war bulletins was that of a young fellow whom we knew in Kutais, the only son of a Russian general’s widow.

Of course, in all the neighborhood everybody who remained behind was seized with the Red Cross fever: making bandages, sending off supplies of tea and tobacco, treating the regiments that went through with food and drink, collecting money, planning and executing enterprises of beneficence,—all for the good of the poor soldiers. To-day it seems to me there might be something still better than this good,—not to send them out! To-day, too, we know from Tolstoi, the man who has the courage of truth, what the case was with the “dear Slav brethren” at that time. He writes thus in his book “Patriotism and Christianity,” which came out since the war:

Just as is now the case with the love between the Russians and the French, on the eve of the Turco-Russian war we had a sudden view of the love of the Russians for I know not what Slavonic brethren. These Slavonic brethren had been ignored for centuries; the Germans, the French, the English, were and still are infinitely nearer to us than these Montenegrins and Servians and Bulgarians. And at that time we began to celebrate solemn festivities and organize receptions under the puffing of men like Katkof and Aksákof, who are very properly regarded in Paris as models of patriotism. Then, as now, the talk was of nothing else than the sudden love with which the Russians were burning for the Slavs of the Balkans.

First—exactly as was just now done in Paris—people gathered in Moscow to eat and to drink and to talk nonsense to one another, to melt with emotion over the noble feelings which they had, and to say things about peace and harmony, passing over in silence the main point—the project against Turkey. The press magnified the enthusiasm, and little by little the government took a hand in the game. Servia revolted; diplomatic notes and semi-official articles began to appear. The newspapers produced more and more lies, inventions, and grew so heated that at length Alexander II, who really did not want the war, could not help giving his consent. And then what we know took place: hundreds of thousands of innocent men were lost, and hundreds of thousands were reduced to savagery and robbed of every Christian feeling.

Well, at that time we two believed in this Slavonic brother love. My husband sent to the _Neue Freie Presse_ at Vienna a series of letters about those events of the war of which the echo reached us. These were gratefully accepted for a time, but at length were found to be too pro-Russian—the _Neue Freie Presse_ took the side of the Turks—and were declined.

As far as I was concerned, since I could not take care of the wounded, at least I helped diligently in the enterprises got up by the ladies of Kutais in their behalf. I remember an evening garden-party which assembled the inhabitants of the city on the “Boulevard,” as a promenade in the middle of the town, shaded by trees, is called. There were Chinese lanterns, orchestral music (“God save the Tsar,” a potpourri from Glinka’s opera _Zhizn dlya Tsarya_, the Balkan March, Slavonic songs, and the like), sale booths, and a tombola. Between two trees, brilliantly lighted up, had been placed a great painting of a touching scene on the battlefield: in the foreground a wonderfully beautiful Russian sister of charity, with tears on her cheeks, bending tenderly over a wounded Turkish soldier, whose head she was raising in order to give him nourishment; in the background a tent, powder smoke, dead horses, and bursting shells. I myself shed a tear or two as I stood in front of that picture; and at the tombola, where I bought chances till my pocketbook was drained, I won a small earthen vase, which I had them raffle off again. And thus I believed that I had paid my tribute of sympathy for the tragedy of the Balkans.

The war took its course. We received very sad letters from the Dedopali; she was worried about her two sons, who had gone with the army.

Suddenly there arose the rumor that the plague had broken out in a place not far away. That filled us with real dismay. When the news came I burst out in self-reproaches.

“Oh, where have I brought you? It is my fault that you came here, My Own.”

He comforted me: “Not for a moment have I regretted it. If only nothing happens to you! But even if we must perish now, still we have had our share of happiness.”

The pestilence, however did not spread. The fate of being carried off by the terrible angel of destruction, to which we had resigned ourselves, was spared us.

In other respects things were going very badly with us. In the disorder caused by the events of the war no one any longer thought of taking lessons, and we were fearfully pinched. There were days when we actually made the acquaintance of the specter Hunger. But everything that befell us, whether joy or sorrow, brought us closer and closer together, and later we were grateful to Fate for having enriched us with such experiences. Without doubt they were essential to the strengthening of our characters, and to educating us into that sympathy with the sorrows of humanity, with the wretchedness of the people, which in days to come formed the basis of our united work in the service of mankind, and which awakened in each of us feelings that gave delight to the other.

The war moved toward its end. On March 3, 1878, the Peace of San Stefano was signed. The Dedopali’s two sons had come out unscathed; the older—with the rank of colonel—had fought at Plevna in the emperor’s suite; the younger, then a captain, had taken part in the storming of Kars. In Kutais many families were in mourning. The returning sotnias (“hundreds”) did not return as hundreds.

Our family at home were greatly rejoiced that the war had spared us. My mother-in-law had gone with her two daughters Luise and Mathilde to spend the winter in Florence, because the latter was ill with a severe cough and the physician had prescribed a mild climate. In the spring, on their way home, they stopped at Meran, and from there came the news that Mathilde’s condition had grown worse; that she was suffering from severe attacks of fever, and her life was in danger. A few days later came the tidings of her death. Not yet twenty years old, and so beautiful and so worshiped by her mother ... how could that mother bear such a blow!

They say she looked like an angel on her bier with a wreath of roses on her golden hair unbound and streaming down on both sides. The remains were brought back to Harmannsdorf—it must have been a sad journey for the poor mother—and from there were transferred to the family vault in Höflein.

The news brought us deep grief, and we wept bitterly for the sister so prematurely snatched away from us, with whom we had spent many happy hours, and who had always stood lovingly by us.

As I say, it was ebb tide in the lessons. So my husband tried his hand at writing. The war correspondence published in the _Presse_ had been much praised, and in producing it he had discovered in himself a talent for writing a light and picturesque style. He now composed some descriptive articles on the Caucasus and its people, and sent them to various German weeklies. These contributions were gladly accepted and paid for.

Was it envy or was it imitativeness? I wanted to see if I could not write something too. I had never felt the call within me. When I was sixteen—at that time it was envy and imitativeness, awakened by Elvira’s successes—I had indeed written a short story entitled _Erdenträume im Monde_, and a periodical which long since had suspended publication, _Die deutsche Frau_, had brought it out and through the editor’s correspondence department had asked for further contributions: “I should not bury my talent.” Since that time, however, with the exception of letters (which I was tremendously fond of writing), I had written nothing.

So now, in the year 1878, I made my first (the _Erdenträume_ did not count) attempt as an author. I composed in all secrecy a feuilleton entitled _Fächer und Schürze_—“Fans and Aprons”—and sent it to the old _Presse_ at Vienna, and lo and behold! almost by return mail I received a copy of the paper containing it, and twenty florins. Oh, that first honorarium of an author! What a proud satisfaction its receipt gives—indescribable! The little work was signed with the pseudonym B. Oulot, a word formed from the nickname “Boulotte,” which had been given to me at the Suttners’; and when I saw these six letters in print under the feuilleton, which really seemed to me a very good one, I had the impression that about that time Central Europe must be stirred by the question, Now who can this B. Oulot be?

And from that moment I have gone on writing without interruption up to this day.

XIX TIFLIS Another summer in Gordi · Business projects · Removal to Tiflis · Princess Tamara of Georgia · Our manner of life · Double position · Continued authorship · Illness

In the summer of 1878 we were again guests at the Mingrelian summer residence.

The two sons for whom the Dedopali had trembled had now come to Gordi also, decorated with various orders; likewise Prince Niko’s wife Mary. And, in addition to these, Achille Murat with his wife and their two boys. It afforded me great pleasure to see my friend Salomé once more, and we had again a delightful time in this dear and merry circle. Count Rosmorduc contributed not a little to the entertainment. This old Frenchman had the gift of relating endless anecdotes from his life, exciting, witty, and touching, and of never repeating himself.

We still found that nothing came of the position for My Own. There was all the more of making plans and building castles in Spain. Businesses were to be taken over, colonists to be imported, a trade in wood to be started. Niko and Rosmorduc were especially inventive of such projects, in which my husband was always to have lucrative functions. Various things were actually entered upon: negotiations were begun, extended correspondence was carried on, but in the end nothing came of it.

So winter approached again, the colony at Gordi separated, and this time we decided to try our fortune at Tiflis; it was there that we could avail ourselves of the best recommendations. Here was the home of Princess Tamara, the widow of Heraclius of Georgia. He had died after a long illness, during which he is said to have been unendurably capricious, and his beautiful young widow had the most important house in Tiflis next to the grand-duke-governor’s. There we were received with the greatest kindness.

Tiflis is a city half Oriental, half West-European. In the European quarter the same sort of life prevails as in our great cities: European toilets, European manners, French cooks, English governesses, _jours_, _soirées_, conversation in Russian and French. Princess Tamara had her own _palais_, furnished with exquisite taste, and in her salons met the cream of the local society, consisting of dignitaries of the grand-ducal court,—the grand duke himself often used to come there,—of various governors and generals, and the great people of the city. Tamara’s younger sister, as beautiful as she herself, had married a general and also lived in Tiflis.

Our social position there was something quite peculiar. We had to be earning something, so that we might live,—hence in the forenoons I went to several houses giving music lessons, for which I was well paid; my husband had a place under a French wall-paper manufacturer and builder, as bookkeeper and especially as designer of new patterns. For this service he received a salary of one hundred and fifty rubles a month, and moreover we had board and lodging in the pretty private house of the manufacturer, Monsieur Bernex of Marseilles. The bell for work rang at five o’clock in the morning. Then My Own, My Own who at home had been so spoiled and in truth shamefully lazy, had to get up. He did it right gayly; then he went to the press-room to oversee the workmen. At eight o’clock he sat down with the owner and the bosses to the early breakfast, consisting of a pail of weak coffee with milk, and black bread—it tasted good to him!—then he had to go to the office and figure and design till one. Meantime I had given a few lessons, and we all ate dinner together at the Bernex table. In the afternoon My Own had to go on business errands, to customers, to the customhouse, to the railway station, all long distances; he did it with pleasure. But after six o’clock in the evening we were free, put on full dress, and almost every evening dined _en ville_, now with the Princess of Georgia, now with her sister, and with all the great families of the city. Our romance was generally known, also our close relations with the Dadiani family; and in society we were not treated as the factory employee and the music teacher, but as a sort of aristocratic emigrants, not only on a footing of equality but with that peculiar courtesy which is usually shown to illustrious foreigners. We could not help laughing about it.

I kept up my literary labors as far as my time permitted. I wrote novels,—_Doras Bekenntnisse_, _Ketten und Verkettungen_,—and carried about with me the scheme of a larger work, _Inventarium einer Seele_. My husband got very little opportunity for writing, for now his employer had set him to work also at designing architectural plans. And he did it. How he made a success of it I do not understand to this day; but it is a fact that several houses and castles in the vicinity of Tiflis were built from his plans. As he played the piano without having taken music lessons, so he made architectural designs without having studied architecture. He had already picked up enough of the Georgian language to be able to get along with the native workmen and contractors. In the meantime I was perfecting myself in Russian, which I had already begun to study in Vienna with a view to the prospect of residing in Zugdidi as the Dedopali had planned for me. That castle, by the way, was not even then finished; nor was it finished during the lifetime of its mistress.

During our sojourn in Tiflis I underwent an illness, the only one in my whole life. The period of this illness is among my sweetest, dearest recollections. I could not eat: my stomach refused everything that I took. I could not walk: if I tried to take a few steps, I fell down. Certainly that does not sound as if one were bringing up sweet, dear recollections; and yet God knows it was a happy time. I was in a state of half-stupefied faintness, lying down gave me a comfortable sense of rest, and My Own’s care and assiduity and tenderness cradled me into a deep quiet consciousness of bliss. This lasted about six weeks; then I was well again, and we two were a good bit more in love with each other than ever.

XX ZUGDIDI The capital of Mingrelia · Our little house · Labors on the Murat estate · Social life at the Murats’ and the Dedopali’s · Lonely summer at Zugdidi · New literary labors · Prototype of _Es Löwos_ · New horizons · Study together

We changed our residence from Tiflis to Kutais again, then to Gordi and to Zugdidi, and to many other places; I cannot here recount in chronological order and in detail all the migrations that filled up our nine years of the Caucasus. Nor was it external events that were the “important thing” for us; it was inner experiences, there in our exile, that made of us two wholly new persons,—two happy persons, two good persons.

We spent a few lovely years in the little town of Zugdidi, the Mingrelian capital; only a village, although a capital. A long row of Oriental houses with open shops, stall on stall; for that reason the row was called “The Bazaar”; but it was also called “The Boulevard,” because the street was planted with a double row of tall trees. And what trees! Nothing less than mimosas, if you please. When they were in bloom the whole place was filled with drowsy fragrance. Besides this Oriental row there was a bunch of little peasant huts occupied by—Württemberg peasants: this was “the German colony.” Then, scattered about in larger and smaller fenced grassplots or fields of Indian corn, one-storied houses in the style of the Caucasus,—that is, built of wood and surrounded with verandas; also, in a garden, Count Rosmorduc’s villa; then the Princess’s provisional dwelling on the border of the great park, in the midst of which rose the unfinished magnificence of the castle,—this was Zugdidi.

There was to be something else added. Achille and Salomé Murat had decided to take up their residence in the Caucasus. A large uncultivated domain was assigned to them, and upon it a country house, farm buildings, stables, flower and kitchen gardens, greenhouses, and cultivated fields were to be created. And all this we actually saw created in the course of four years.

For ourselves we had rented the cottage of a German colonist. Paradisal, according to our ideas; in itself it was not so very pretentious. Level with the ground, three low-studded rooms and a kitchen. A wooden veranda in front of the entrance. The first room was our drawing-room. We had got at the bazaar a sufficient quantity of a very inexpensive red material, and we used it to tapestry the walls of the drawing-room and to provide the windows with hangings. We were our own upholsterers. The material was cut and sewed together, then tacked up, and it was done. For furniture our red drawing-room had a very large table which served both of us as a writing-table, a few chairs, another table, and a _takhta_. This is a piece of furniture which is never lacking in a Caucasian room,—a long, wide divan, uncovered and without a back. A rug is thrown over it and forms the covering; four long bolsters covered with carpeting serve as the back and arms. One can add a few fancy pillows, and it makes the most comfortable contrivance for sitting, lying down, or lounging. With the aid of a few bookcases, a few vases kept always full of fresh flowers, a mirror over the fireplace, and a carpet on the floor, the red drawing-room assumed an almost elegant appearance. We were to the last degree proud of it.

The two other rooms were arranged with corresponding luxury as a bedchamber and dressing-room. Our corps of servants consisted of the daughter of our Swabian landlord, who lived in another little house situated behind the grass-grown court; we also had a _fundus instructus_ consisting of five geese. These marched forth independently to pasture every morning and came dignifiedly home toward evening. Of course they had been acquired for culinary purposes; but having watched them every day from our balcony returning home so unsuspiciously, we felt it so hard to betray their confidence that during our whole residence there we left them in possession of their lives. One may enjoy roast fowl, but it should not be personal acquaintances.

The reason for our settling in Zugdidi was that Prince Achille Murat had engaged my husband as overseer and assistant in the construction of his buildings and other improvements. Designing plans and directing workmen had become his specialty. Prince Murat himself was a sort of amateur architect, amateur farmer, and amateur gardener; so the two shared in making and executing plans. Gardens were plotted, wooden ceilings painted, ditches dug, wall-paper put on, horse-thief-proof stalls constructed, all with combined forces; I frequently saw the two, owner and manager, together enthroned on the top of a ladder or wading in the depths of a drainage-ditch. And now and then, in a short dress of rough cloth, the princess herself, armed with paint-brush, spade, or shovel, also gave her aid. I had another field of labor: for two hours every day I taught German and the piano to the two little boys, Lucien and Napo.

The princely couple’s servants did not take existence so easily as their masters; there was constant changing and friction; the correct English coachmen and grooms, the exquisite French chefs, could not put up with these primitive, inchoate conveniences. They would not remain in the wilderness and disorder. Except for a faithful valet of long years’ standing and a chambermaid of the same kind (and even these felt that they were martyrs), all rebelled. Then, each time, new regents of the kitchen and stable would be imported, for Prince Achille could not live without the finest French cookery and without sportsmanlike English appointments for his horses, his carriages, and his hunting.

Twice a week we used to eat in the villa on which they were working, and after dinner, at which, in contrast to the forenoon’s workaday garb, all appeared in evening dress, the evenings were spent in chatting, music, and chess-playing. Great amusement was afforded also by the caricatures which my husband made and brought with him; they presented a complete chronicle of the calamities which had attended the building operations and a whole portrait gallery of exaggerated but speaking likenesses of the various persons involved. Among the many talents with which My Own was endowed was that of wielding an extraordinarily witty pencil. Once he sent to the _Fliegende Blätter_ a series of illustrations to the examples given in the Ollendorf grammars, such as “The candelabra of thy uncle is larger than the cat of my aunt,” “The industrious apprentice of the baker has seen the melancholy captain,” “The French gentleman has a long walking-stick and the poor Russian is cold,” and the like, which were accepted and made a great hit.

In the winter, when we stayed at Zugdidi with the Dedopali, Sunday was the day on which her children and we were regularly invited to dinner. In the summer, however, we were left at Zugdidi quite alone, and we enjoyed this life the most. My husband devoted a few hours in the morning to superintending the work on the Murat estate, and the rest of the time belonged wholly to me; and then both of us could write diligently. At this time were produced the novels _Ein schlechter Mensch_, _Hanna_, and the book entitled _Inventarium einer Seele_, by B. Oulot; and _Daredjan_, _Ein Aznaour_, and _Kinder des Kaukasus_, by A. G. von Suttner. Time also was ours for reading together, for studying together, for long conversations about everything between heaven and earth, and we evolved a philosophy of life, a view of the universe, which we should never have reached under other circumstances, nor either of us without the other; we had won for ourselves a genuine Eden of harmony, with new, wide, bright horizons.

But one cannot revel forever on the heights of thought; one must have one’s little corner of the earth, one’s humble everyday home; and the reason why we felt so utterly contented in ours was that we had quite unintentionally fulfilled that command of the Saviour which says, “Be ye therefore as little children.”

We talked nonsense, we did absurdities, we had invented a language of our own, we flung the most shocking insults at each other, we had the wildest romps and the most extraordinary songs, we played, not indeed with dolls, but with creatures of our fancy; in short, we were silly, silly, happy children. I embodied this phase of our life in a monograph entitled _Es Löwos_, which appeared first in the Munich monthly _Die Gesellschaft_, and then in book form. Many reproached me for it, saying, “One does not expose such privacies to the multitude.” As if one wrote for the multitude! One always imagines as one’s readers those in whom a string tuned to the same note is vibrating. There are never more than a few such in the multitude. In _Es Löwos_ I went so far as to imagine only one, and always apostrophized as “One” this sympathetic, comprehending person, who perchance had experienced the like in his own life. And lo and behold! in the course of time I received something like a hundred letters from the reading public, in which the writers assured me that they had had all my experiences, and signed themselves “The One.”

Our studies had opened to us a new horizon, I said just now. That must be enlarged upon a little. It was especially through the natural sciences that undreamed-of lights broke upon our minds. But not as they were usually taught in the schools, mere classifications of plants and animals into species and orders, mere enumerations of mineralogical and geological formations, mere dry elements of physics and chemistry with their proper figures and symbols; no, we gained our knowledge from the works of the latest students of nature, those who are also philosophers of nature, and from whose investigations bursts the radiance of a new discovery, namely, that our whole glorious world is subject to the law of evolution. By evolution from the simplest origins it has developed into its present complexity and is assured of incalculable transformations yet to come. Then these other truths perceived by modern science, the transmutability of all forces one into another, the unbroken concatenation of all causality, the indestructibility of atoms, the uninterrupted continuity between the inorganic and the organic world, between physical and psychical life,—in short, the unity of the world, and the consequent inference that the development of human society also goes on in accordance with the same laws and that it also is assured of incalculable future transformations.

The authors in whose works we immersed ourselves were Darwin, Haeckel, Herbert Spencer, Whewell (“History of the Inductive Sciences”), Carus, Sterne, etc.; and, above all, the book which was a revelation to me, Buckle’s “History of Civilization.” I had already read this book, and several of those just mentioned, before my marriage; and I had brought them in my trunk. Now My Own had also to make their acquaintance. I had the advantage over him that I had read more works on the natural sciences than he had; he had the advantage over me of loving nature more passionately than I did. The magnificence of a beautiful landscape, the sublimity of the sea, and the glory of the glittering firmament inspired in him more than enjoyment and admiration; they inspired him with religious awe. And he had such ability to see what nature has of sweet and mighty fascination, that from it grew that force of description which he put into his books on the Caucasus. The landscapes which formed the background of his novels _Daredjan_ and _Aznaour_ were painted with glowing, brilliant colors, and won the unanimous praise of the critics. In analysis of character, construction of plot, inventiveness, his novels were less successful—it was for this reason that he achieved no abiding place in literature; but in the reproduction of nature he was a past master. The secret of this faculty was that he loved nature. Any love multiplies any power tenfold. As I have already said, we were mutually complementary,—we helped each other upward. He taught me to enjoy nature, I helped him to understand her. At my desire he had to read—read with me—all those works which I had already looked into, and in which I now for the first time thoroughly steeped myself. This grasping of a new truth by two together makes the possession twice as certain, the comprehension twice as clear.

A rich life we led there in that far-off peasant cottage, around which at night we often heard the jackals howling. Rich, although our income was the scantest; although our housekeeping was so insignificant that it happened when our only housemaid was ill that we ourselves got the midday meal ready, and once—full of gayety over it—scrubbed the floors ourselves with sand and scrubbing-brush. Rich in happenings and in experiences, although for weeks at a time we saw not a human being and nothing actually happened to us; the source of our happenings was in our books and our hearts. The rarest of all earthly fates was ours: complete, firmly-anchored happiness.

XXI OUR LAST DAYS IN THE CAUCASUS The Dedopali’s death · Death of my mother · Prospect of coming home · Translation of “The Tiger’s Skin” · Sojourn in a Mingrelian village · A bit of Georgian history · Queen Tamara

In the summer of 1882 the Dedopali was taken ill. We were just at that time her guests again at Gordi. The physicians whom her son summoned from Tiflis prescribed a “cure” at Karlsbad. But she refused to leave her fatherland.

“I hope to get well again,” she said to me, “but if this should really be my last illness I desire to die here near the Convent of Marthvilli, where I shall be buried. I should not like to make the long journey back from Europe in a box.”

Her condition gradually grew worse, and when we left Gordi in the autumn we had no hope of ever seeing her again; and, in fact, we soon received from Prince Niko by telegraph the news that his mother had passed away painlessly and with Christian resignation. Although I was prepared for the news, it was a sore grief to me, and I deeply mourned for this friend of many years. She was laid away in the crypt of the Convent of Marthvilli, in the midst of a gigantic mourning assembly, in which the population of all the neighboring provinces participated; thousands and thousands had made the pilgrimage to the ancient cloister which contained the ancestral tomb of the princes, to pay the last honors to the “Queen of Mothers.”

At the beginning of the year 1884 I suffered a far heavier bereavement—my mother. I had confidently hoped to see her again very soon, for our home-coming was now in immediate prospect, and she herself was looking forward to this reunion with yearning joy. In that moment death snatched her away with only a brief illness. Full of sympathy and love, My Own did his best to console and comfort me.

The period of our exile was coming to an end. The parents, who now recognized how faithfully and happily we clung to each other, how bravely we had made our way without ever claiming their help, had given over their obstinate rancor and were bidding us to come to Harmannsdorf. We had in the meantime reached a position of independence, and could therefore return home without any sense of humiliation. To be sure, nothing had come of the hoped-for situations at the Russian court, and the various plans for business undertakings that were to bring us a competency; but we had both won a place in literature which gave us the prospect of a sufficient and increasing income and assured us an honorable position. The critics lauded us, editors asked for articles, publishers wanted manuscripts. My husband’s Caucasian stories and novels were meeting with great success, and my _Inventarium einer Seele_, in which I had set forth all my views about nature and life, about science and politics, had made somewhat of a sensation; my belles-lettres were equally in demand. And we both felt that we still had a good deal to say, that the fountain of inspiration would yet pour abundant streams; the new calling had become for us “the one important thing.”

Our return was set for the month of May; it was still three months to that time. We proposed to use these on a work which one of my husband’s friends, a Tiflis journalist, had urged us to undertake. This was a French and German translation of the national epic of Georgia, “The Tiger’s Skin,” by Shosta Rustaveli. As we did not know the Georgian language thoroughly, the work was to be done in this way: Mr. M—— (his name, all except the initial, has slipped from my memory) was to give us the poetry literally in such imperfect French as he knew; we would then translate this into correct French, and from that into German. There was at that time a plan of bringing out a great holiday edition of “The Tiger’s Skin,” for which the painter Zychy had drawn splendid illustrations. In order to be able to carry out this work undisturbed, we accepted Mr. M——’s invitation to move with him to a remote Mingrelian village where his father was the _pope_ and owned a little house, in which he would take us as boarders for a nominal sum. There we could regularly devote two morning hours and two afternoon hours to “The Tiger’s Skin,” and the rest of the time we spent in walking, reading, and “looking forward” (a business in itself) to the coming journey home.

We enjoyed twice as much as ever the wildness, the primitive conditions, of that Caucasian solitude, in anticipation of once more plunging into the bustle of European civilization. The little house that we inhabited was, so to speak, not furnished at all; we had brought with us for our room our own _takhta_ and a few other conveniences, among them a zither. This is, to be sure, not one of the indispensable comforts of life; but, as we had no piano, we satisfied our craving for music with the little Styrian instrument, on which I played accompaniments for my sentimental songs and My Own twanged most lively heel-tapping Ländler.

The room in which the _pope_, his son, the son’s old nurse, and we took our meals contained nothing but a table and the necessary number of chairs. The menu alternated between two dishes, one day chicken, the next day mutton; and the napkins were changed only once a fortnight. The _pope_ supped his broth with a noise that reminded one of sporting whales. Below our room was a cellar in which sauerkraut was being made, and the odor from it came up to us through the cracks in the flooring; but nothing, nothing disturbed our good humor, and the actively progressing translation of the Georgian poem gave us lively satisfaction. A whole vanished world opened before us—the world of the thirteenth century in this remote corner of the earth. An epoch to which the Georgians look back with pride, because it was the climax of their country’s glory—the epoch when the great Queen Tamara was on the throne. Shosta Rustaveli sang at her court and celebrated her fame, her power, her charms. We learned from the mouth of our patriotic journalist even more of the past of his country, and of the departed splendor of Queen Tamara, than we did from the poetry of the Georgian bard. Her name stirs the Georgians to real religious devotion; the memory of those ancient days celebrated by Rustaveli lives as something sublime and immortal.

The Georgians look back on a history extending over twenty-three centuries; their first king, Phamawaz by name, was elected three hundred and two years before Christ, and the Christian religion was introduced four hundred years after Christ by Saint Nino. Like every ancient history, that of Georgia is a history of wars. The land was surrounded by hostile nations and tribes; in particular, it was constantly assailed by the Ottomans and Persians. Of course the chronicles tell of the victorious battles which the Georgians fought against their enemies, and their pride in this finds expression in their greeting. “Good-morning” in Georgia is _gamardjoba_, which means victory; the reply is _gamardjosse_, “May he (God) make you victorious.”

The reign of Queen Tamara is regarded as the golden age of the land. The chronicles aver that under this queen prosperity prevailed, the fine arts flourished, splendid buildings were erected,—the same as you find it in all the ancient documents of flattery under the name of history, where all possible achievements are always ascribed to the then reigning monarch. If the rulers were cruel, the strictness of their rule is praised; if they were not, then this negative virtue is extolled to the skies. So it is to be read in the chronicle concerning Tamara, “No one at her command was deprived of his limbs or of his eyesight”; and that is the more noteworthy as at her time and afterwards the principle laid down by one of her ancestors, the heroic Wakhtang Gorgaslan, was in full force: “Whoever in war escapes death and fails to bring back the head or the hand of an enemy shall die by our hand.”

How little it does take to kindle admiration in the biographer of a king; among us too there are very many people who have no predilection for tearing off limbs and putting out eyes, and no one heaps glory and praise upon us on that account.

At the beginning of her reign Tamara’s kingdom was threatened by the Persian caliph Nasir-ed-Din, who marched against the borders with a “numberless” host. Then Tamara summoned her troops; in ten days she collected battle-joyous legions from all quarters, had them march before her in review, and addressed them with the following words: “Brothers, let not your hearts sink when you compare the throng of your foes with your own small numbers. Surely you have heard of Gideon’s three hundred men and the innumerable multitude of Midianites that they overcame. Remain fearless, and put your confidence in the bravery of each.” Then she delivered to them the banner of her ancestor, the banner of Gorgaslan (author of the above-mentioned edict, “Whoever in war escapes death,” etc.). Of course the troops went and won a brilliant victory over the foe. When they returned home the queen hastened to meet them, and the soldiers, enraptured to see her in their midst, compelled all the chieftains of the Persian army to bend their knees before the queen. Probably the incident is related differently in the Persian chronicles.

A few years later Rokn-ed-Din, sultan of Asia Minor, collected eight hundred thousand (!) men and marched against Georgia. He sent the queen, by his ambassador, the following polite message: “I would have thee to know, O Tamara, sultana of the Georgians, that all women are of weak understanding. Now I come to teach thee, thee and thy people, no longer to draw the sword, which God has given into our hands alone.” This note was signed with the writer’s name and titles; among others, “Highest of all Sultans on Earth, Equal to the Angels, God’s Privy Councilor,” and the like.

Tamara read the message “without haste.” She gave her commands for the troops to assemble, and she herself rode out at the head of her army against the enemy. Of course the victory was complete; the streets of Tiflis were decorated and the queen made her triumphal entry glittering like the sun....

That the chronicles have as much to say of her piety as of her bravery is a matter of course. The alliance of “saber and aspergillum” is as old as these two symbols, whatever forms they have been, and are, exchanged into. There is a national poem of Georgia, which every peasant knows by heart, in which the following story is told of that famous queen: It was again on a great day of victorious rejoicing. Tamara had put on all her precious ornaments—her crown of precious stones, her gold brooches and strings of pearls. Anew she glitters like the sun. She desires that all her people be happy. She has given orders to her treasurer to distribute gifts and alms to all the great and all the small. “Hast thou fulfilled my command?” she asks. “Are all satisfied?” He answers, “Lady, I have distributed gifts in accordance with thy will; only one beggar woman received nothing, for she insisted on coming to thee to receive her alms from thine own hands. We refused to admit her—she would take nothing from us, and with angry face she went away.” The queen is in consternation, and gives orders to make search for the beggar woman and bring her into her presence. But she waits in vain; the couriers cannot find the woman again. Then suddenly an inspiration comes to the queen; she sinks on her knees before the sacred icons, crosses herself, and cries in an ecstasy: “I know, I know now who that beggar woman was; thou, O holy mother of God, hast sent her to me.” And she tears all the precious ornaments from her body and carries everything, the pearls and the diamonds, to the nunnery of Gaenathi, dedicated to the Madonna.

And in this nunnery, which is situated not far from Kutais, it is said that Tamara was buried.

Our translation of “The Tiger’s Skin” was never published; but we did not regret the time which we spent in this work. Through that, and through the tales and observations which our enthusiastic Georgian patriot connected with it, we were thoroughly initiated into the nature, the history, and the spirit of the people and of that magical land in which we had spent so many years; and we learned the chronicles of all the families with which we had been associated, whose names—the Orbelianis, the Zeretellis, the Gruzinskys, the Dadianis, the Mukhranskys, the Tchavtchavadzes—have as proud a ring in that land as the Montmorencys, Manchesters, Borgheses, Liechtensteins, etc. have with us. And we were able to penetrate deeply not only into the history but also and especially into the nature of the country, to observe the customs of the people in this rural solitude, in the nearer or remoter inns where our landlord took us to weddings, funerals, and baptisms.

But, interesting as all this was, we counted the days that separated us from our return home, and the nearer this came the more we rejoiced in the anticipation of it.