PART FIVE

1885–1890

XXII AT HOME Departure from the Caucasus · First destination, Görz · Return to Harmannsdorf · Family life and neighborly visits · Literary correspondence · Writers’ convention in Berlin

In May, 1885, nine years after our elopement, we returned home. Not without a pang did we say farewell to the Caucasus; we had grown very fond of the beautiful country, and our friends there also found it hard to let us go. But the delight, after such a long separation, of coming back “to our house” as a happy couple, who had proved their right to such happiness and had fought their way to a self-supporting profession,—this delight outweighed all the grief of leave-taking, and just as jubilantly as we had originally set sail from Odessa to carry our love and our passion for adventure to the legendary land of Colchis, so jubilantly did we set sail from Batum to cross the Black Sea once more: homeward—homeward!

Our first destination in Europe was Görz, the place where lay my mother’s grave. There we desired to kneel before we returned to the Suttners’ paternal house. Therefore we went directly through Vienna without pausing, and it was only when that visit of pious sorrow had been paid that we turned our faces back to the north again. Then we spent one day in Vienna with Brother Karl, whose reception of us gave a foretaste of the welcome that was awaiting us. We appointed the next day for our arrival at Harmannsdorf. Artur begged that no one should come to meet us at the station, so that he might find all his dear ones at once in the Harmannsdorf that he so loved.

So, then, at the station of Eggenburg only the family carriage was waiting for us. From Eggenburg to our destination is another three miles. Ah, that splendid drive! It was a sunny, fragrant May day; the song of larks in the air, red clover in the meadows, radiant joy in our hearts. The landscape in the distant mountain land, where, according to the myth, the earthly paradise was situated, was unquestionably grander and finer than this flat Lower-Austrian region—but this was home. A hundred sweet recollections arose in my mind, and doubtless a thousand in his; it was the abode of his youth and childhood. When we reached the place on the road where the tower of the castle becomes visible, he stretched out his left arm toward the horizon with a cry of joy, and with his right pressed me to him.

“Willkommen zu Hause, mein Weib!” he said in a tone of deep emotion. It was the only time in his life that he called me “wife”; perhaps this is why that moment, with all its blessed solemnity, has remained so clearly impressed upon my mind.

And now the arrival,—the entrance through the gate, the pause before the castle drawbridge, where the whole family was assembled,—well, we know from the Bible how it is usual to celebrate the return of the prodigal son.

The best rooms in the castle had been made ready for us, and thus I was “at home” under the roof of Harmannsdorf—a roof that was to protect our happiness for seventeen years longer.

Now began for us a new life, a family life. Harmannsdorf was occupied by the parents and the three daughters; the eldest also, married to a Count Sizzo at Trent, was with us making a visit. The oldest son, Karl, secretary in the Department of Commerce, came every Saturday, and always spent his vacation at Harmannsdorf with his beautiful wife and his twelve-year-old daughter Mizzi, who was a pupil at the Sacré Cœur Convent. As such she was very piously inclined, and made the most strenuous endeavors to convert her Uncle Artur, for whom she had conceived an ardent affection and whose ecclesiastical lukewarmness caused her great anxiety as to the salvation of his soul. The second oldest brother, Richard, lived with his family at the castle of Stockern, a mile and a half distant, and of course the intercourse between Stockern and Harmannsdorf was very lively. Of other neighbors, whom we constantly saw, those we liked best were the owners of Mühlbach, Baron and Baroness Josef Gudenus, and the castellan of Maissau, the grand master of the huntsmen, Count Traun. From Vienna often came Artur’s former schoolmates; in short, the domestic and social life left nothing to be desired in agreeableness and liveliness of intercourse. And yet we managed to save out many hours for laborious solitude. For we kept up our scientific studies, were always reading the same books together, and also writing together; not that we collaborated in authorship,—each worked independently, and we each read the other’s writings only after they had been printed,—but we wrote at the same worktable.

Even while we were in the Caucasus we had entered into correspondence with many of our contemporary authors. This correspondence was now carried on even more assiduously. My _Inventarium_ had brought me many unknown friends in literary circles.

Thus one day we were surprised by an enthusiastic letter from Friedrich Bodenstedt. As the poet of _Mirza Schaffy_ had himself spent many years in the Caucasus, he took a keen interest in Artur Gundaccar’s Caucasian stories. M. G. Conrad of Munich, in whose newly founded monthly magazine, _Die Gesellschaft_, had appeared _Es Löwos_ and other things, had also engaged us in correspondence. Hermann Heiberg, Robert Hamerling, Count von Schack, Ludwig Büchner, Konrad Ferdinand Meyer, Karl Emil Franzos,—those are some of the names of our correspondents; also Balduin Groller, who had long exchanged letters with B. Oulot in the Zugdidi days without suspecting that this _nom de plume_ concealed a woman, as he himself tells the story in one of his delicious feuilletons.

I was fulfilling my duty as editor of a great literary periodical. That flood of generally mediocre manuscripts, all of which demanded to be read! Occasionally, as in a big, stupid cake, a raisin here and there—the rare products of genius. Once there was a special editorial feast-day; I had found a big raisin, a work of remarkable depth and delicacy and quite incomparable grace of construction. That was a delight, a genuine intoxication; a new talent—that is certainly nothing trifling, is it? Above all things, what is the man’s name? B. Oulot—a singular name, but the world will soon get used to it. But this was not the only singularity. I take into my hand again the letter which accompanied it. Where does the man live and what else does he do? A Russian postage-stamp; the letter is dated from Zugdidi, Government of Kutais.... And there is also a request for leniency, as the work is the writer’s first. That too! I see to it at once that the honorarium shall be sent immediately, so as to keep the new contributor in good humor, and I write a letter of unreserved appreciation of this first work, with an urgent request for further articles.

These also came, and my delight and astonishment kept on increasing. They betrayed a scientific and philosophical competence equal to that of any university professor, but at the same time a grace, and a humor that triumphed over everything—no, assuredly it was not a university professor.

We got to talking together, of course through letters. We could not get to the end of all that we had to say to each other. In this exchange of ideas we discovered that we had in common so many opinions about art and life that it would have been sheer nonsense to keep bothering with society flourishes, and we began to use the “thou” like two good comrades. It was brother heart on this side, brother heart on that; but on one occasion I must have expressed myself so vigorously and so unequivocally—between comrades one is not so particular about little things—regarding some question which would have come within the purview of the as yet unpromulgated _Lex Heinze_, that a protest might seem proper. It followed in a very delicate, perfectly unobtrusive manner. The next letter ended with _Deine ergebene_—the feminine form.

I was dumfounded. So B. Oulot is a woman—who would have thought that of the man! I demanded an explanation and received one. B. Oulot was—Baroness Bertha von Suttner, born Countess Kinsky.—Well, all right then. I did not feel offended at it after that, and anyhow there was no changing it now.

This was just at the time of “the revolution in literature,” and we followed with the liveliest sympathy the phases of that revolution. Conrad, Bleibtreu, Alberti—we read all that they wrote and were amazed at their audacities. A _Moderne_ was beginning to show its head—which, to be sure, has since been thrown on the rubbish heap by the very most modern _Modernen_. And in the plastic arts too the first symptoms of the Secession began to be distinguishable. Everywhere there was fermentation.—After all, there is at every period a newest thing which surprises and puzzles, is antagonized, wins, and soon becomes _vieux jeu_. That the present phase seems to one to be so unprecedentedly subversive of all that has been supreme, is mere illusion.

In October of this year, the first year of our return, the Congress of the Authors’ Union held its session in Berlin. In our capacity as members of the Union we were invited to be present, and we needed no second invitation.

I preserved in my diary a few pictures of this congress—the first which I had ever attended in my life—and later turned them to account in my _Schriftstellerroman_.

On the evening before the first business meeting, a “gathering and informal greeting of the members of the Union” took place in the Kaiserhalle.

At the entrance of the assembly hall, from which comes the loud buzz of hundreds of voices speaking at once, stands the host, that is to say, the President of the Congress, to receive the guests. That is Hermann Heiberg,—tall, fair, elegant, with nobly formed features.

The hall is packed; only with difficulty can one make one’s way from place to place. A large number of those present have already taken their seats at two or three long tables which run from one end of the hall to the other. With difficulty are places secured for us.

Hermann Heiberg introduces various colleagues to us, and these fetch still others. As often as a name celebrated in literature is mentioned, I am stirred by the same kind of joy that one feels when at a raffle a winning number is called. There is only one thing that is often bitterly disappointing,—sometimes the actuality so utterly fails to correspond to the mental picture that one has formed of the author in question. To be sure this picture was quite misty, indefinite, lineless as it were, and yet one regrets its annihilation. What, were these fragrant love-songs, these rapturous fancies, written by the brutal-looking stout man? And can it be that this awkward little bourgeois manikin is the author of those exquisitely elegant pictures of high life? What! Did that downy-bearded youth yonder who looks like a grocery clerk write those essays dripping with wisdom and experience?

Various figures and faces attract my attention, and I ask who they are. An imposing female apparition in black toilet with transparent sleeves—an interesting face: Frau Ida Boy-Ed, the author of _Männer der Zeit_. A small man with long white hair and benevolently beaming eyes in a beardless face; that is Paulus Cassel, an apostle of self-sacrificing philanthropy. There, leaning against a column,—a sharp contrast to the Apostle Paulus,—a dark Mephistophelian phenomenon: it is Fritz Mauthner the satirist. Near him is a pretty, animated young woman—it is the American Sara Hutzler, whose specialty is original child-scenes; the one who afterward married the dramatist Kainz, but died within a short time.

There at last—we recognize him by his picture—is Mirza Schaffy, our dear correspondent-friend Bodenstedt. He hastens to us and sits down with us. Then follow new reminiscences of the Caucasus; it was there that the poet spent the most joyous years of his youthful activity. And he tells of Tiflis, of the forests of Mingrelia, of the roofs of the Oriental houses on which in the moonlight beautiful women play the lute and dance, and to which in the silence of the night a young German poet is summoned for a tryst; of the Platonic passion which the beautiful wife of a Russian general inspired in the same youth, and which even to-day gleams as the most magical recollection in the poems of the gray-haired man.

Not only on that evening but during the whole session of the Authors’ Congress, Friedrich Bodenstedt was our constant companion; we could not weary of telling one another of the Caucasus.

On the next day the business meetings began. It was the first session of a Union that I had ever attended. The whole affair—the green table standing on the lofty podium, the members of the directorate sitting around it, each with a pile of paper in front of him, the president in the midst—made a solemn impression on me. It aroused in my mind the comprehension of a thing which is destined to assume ever deeper and more widely inclusive dimensions in the humanity of the future; that is to say, the consciousness of solidarity. This is a consciousness which works even more efficaciously than the command “Love your neighbor as yourself”; for in the right kind of solidarity your neighbor is identical with yourself to begin with. That the interests of all are at the same time the interests of each, and vice versa, gives to each individual such a heightened feeling of existence as if he were the whole: he can no longer separate his ego from the collectivity, since this is—as the word Union signifies—_one_, and therefore inseparable. Of course that is only the ideal conception of a Union; in practice the thing often lacks its own life principle, unity.

This is not the place to tell of the matters dealt with and the course that the business took, although I find these stated in my notebook. Let me only sketch two or three more features of the convention.

At the Rathaus, greetings by the Bürgermeister, and addresses following. An address by Max Nordau was on the programme, but unfortunately this fell through. The Lord Mayor of Berlin, in gala attire, welcomed the guests and said all the flattering things that can be said to “the laborers of the mind,” “the bearers of civilization,” those who embody “the progress of the idea of our time” and constitute “the pride of the nation.” After the perfunctory speech of thanks for the “honor of such a reception” in “the Metropolis of the Intellect,” and the like, begin the promised addresses,—addresses in connection with which the New York _Staats-Zeitung_ later made the remark that “the association of literary Freelunchers, instead of discussing arrangements for furthering the interests of their profession, talked about the relation of Old Fritz to German literature and about the Goethe House.”

On the sixth and last day, banquet and ball in the hall of the “Harmonie.” Again Hermann Heiberg stands at the entrance and welcomes his colleagues and numerous guests from Berlin society. The great hall, made as light as day, is speedily filled; the guests take their places at table, and when the roast comes in the toasts and speeches begin. The first speaker is Karl Emil Franzos, who in the name of the Danube states says all sorts of friendly things to the capital of the German Empire. Then Julius Wolff. The speakers mount a tribune so that they may be better heard. Among them there are women. It is incomprehensible to me ... how can one have the courage to talk so in public? A young Russian woman with a foreign accent praises _ger’manische_ poetry. An elderly authoress also ascends the tribune. Her voice is so weak that only those quite close to her can hear what she says; although conversation is resumed throughout the hall, she goes on haranguing indefatigably in a plea—as we afterwards come to learn—for putting up a memorial tablet on the house of Gutzkow. With all zeal—especially with sweeping movements of her arms, the only part of the address that the audience can make out—she explains the imperative necessity for this memorial tablet, until some one at the foot of the tribune cries out, “It was put up long ago.”

Now Oskar Justinus recites a poetical toast to the women that write, and points out that even in the most ancient times there were bluestockings, for it is well known that Leda was not averse to taking a quill in her hand.

The last address is delivered by Hermann Heiberg, in bringing the banquet to an end. Raising his glass, he says: “May that be fulfilled which each one wishes in the bottom of his heart, be it right or be it—according to the world’s ideas—wrong.... The world’s ideas are often false, and what is warmly wished has a right to be granted.—So I drink to the fulfillment of our warmest wishes!”

“A strange toast,” remarked some one at the end of our table; “Heiberg seems to be talking in a fever.”

“That would be nothing to wonder at,” said my husband; “the ungrateful task of taking charge of a festival brings with it so much annoyance and worry that—as he himself told me a little while ago—it is only with quinine that he keeps himself up.... And then he is one who understands everything, forgives everything, and would be willing that everybody should have a bit of happiness, whether what they wish is right or—in the opinion of the world—wrong. I am one who have had fulfilled a warm wish which other people condemned—and it was my happiness.”

“And mine, too,” I added under my breath.

XXIII A WINTER IN PARIS _Schriftstellerroman_ and _Das Maschinenzeitalter_ · Journey to Paris · Renewed acquaintance with Alfred Nobel · The Schnäbele affair · Madame Adam’s salon · Princess Tamara of Georgia in Paris · Max Nordau · A ball in the Palais of the _Revue des deux mondes_ · Victor Cherbuliez · Ludovic Halévy · Alphonse Daudet

Now once more followed a long and industrious period of work in our dear Harmannsdorf. We all stayed in the country, even in winter; the palace in Vienna had been sold, for the quarry and other business transactions had turned out badly. But none of us had any yearnings for the city; the social companionship of the numerous members of the family, the sleighing parties on the snow-covered fields, mailtime with its manifold messages from the wide world, the sessions of joyous labor at our common writing-table, the reading aloud to each other of some interesting scientific book, the many little jokes and silly tricks which we still kept playing on each other,—for we remained like children,—all this filled our days so satisfactorily that we assuredly did not hanker for the pleasures of city life.

And then when spring awoke, about Easter-time, how we did enjoy finding the first violet in the sward of the park! and there followed the series of ever-increasing pleasures in the first umbels of the elder, the first call of the cuckoo, the first note of the blackbird.

“After all,” My Own remarked, “that is pleasanter to hear than the howling of the jackal. Now spring was thoroughly beautiful in the home of Medea too; but really the charm of the things which one has been accustomed to since childhood, the beauty of one’s own garden, the thousand greetings which come to one from the tones, the scents, and the colors of one’s own home, are sweeter than the most splendid impressions of travel.”

In this time I wrote my _Schriftstellerroman_ (“Romance of an Author”) and _Das Maschinenzeitalter_ (“The Age of Machinery”). The latter afforded me great enjoyment, for in it I threw off from my mind all that had accumulated within me of grief and exasperation at the conditions of the present, and of glowing hopes for the future so full of promise. The book was not to appear under my own name; it was signed _Jemand_—“Some One.” The motive for this anonymity was not cowardice, but, as it was altogether scientific and philosophical themes that were very freely treated in the _Maschinenzeitalter_, I was afraid that if the book were signed with a woman’s name it would not reach the readers whom I desired; for in scientific circles there is so much prejudice against the capacity of women as thinkers that a book signed with a woman’s name would simply remain unread by those for whom it was expressly designed.

When the second winter after our return from the Caucasus was coming on, we decided to see a bit of the European world. The _Maschinenzeitalter_ was finished, and I had (not without difficulty) found a publisher for it,—Schabelitz in Switzerland. It was not to appear till spring.

We decided to spend a few weeks in Paris, which My Own had never seen. The payment for a novel sufficed to cover the expenses of the trip, and we set forth with that full sensation of enjoyment which is involved in the notion of a pleasure trip. I can still remember: deep snow was lying on the fields around Harmannsdorf, a fierce snowstorm was blowing into our faces as the sleigh took us to the station, and we rejoiced in it and laughed immoderately. If the road was drifted so as to be impassable, well, then we would start some other day; our trips in the Caucasus had accustomed us to far more serious difficulties. There we had often ridden on the edge of abysses and crossed narrow, swaying bridges; had reached ferries which the ferryman refused to take us over on account of the dangerously swollen state of the water, so that we had to seek shelter in a wooden hut, content ourselves with a meal of bread, sardines, and Kachetin wine, sleep on a bare bench,—and yet we used often to recall even these experiences as blithesome recollections.

The sleigh took us to the station without mishap; only the luggage-sled arrived too late, so we had to wait for a later train, and could not continue our journey to Paris on the same day, as we had meant to, but were obliged to spend a day in Vienna.

Our sojourn in Paris proved to be very pleasurable. We sauntered on the boulevards and in the Champs-Élysées; we drove in the Bois; we were assiduous attendants at the theaters great and little; we visited the museums; we made excursions to Versailles, Saint-Cloud, and Sèvres; and we took in all the other similar diversions that every visitor to Paris feels he must enjoy.

I wrote a note to Alfred Nobel, with whom I had all along kept in touch by correspondence,—perhaps in the eleven years eleven letters had passed between us,—to acquaint him with our presence in Paris. He came without delay to look us up. I found him unchanged, except that he had grown somewhat gray, but he was more deeply than ever immersed in his labors and inventions. My Own took a keen interest in his chemical investigations, which he explained in detail with the help of his crucibles and other apparatus when, a few days later, having invited us to dinner, he did the honors of his house and his laboratory. He still lived very much aloof from the world; the only house which he frequently visited was Madame Juliette Adam’s, and he took us there.

The author of _Païenne_ and editor of the _Nouvelle Revue_ lived in her own house in the street named after her the Rue Juliette Lambert. As every one knows, Madame Adam was a great _patriote_, which at that epoch signified a representative of the idea of _revanche_. And I can remember that in our very first call she steered the conversation into a political channel. But just then was one of the moments when it was generally believed that the war of revenge, predicted for sixteen years, was coming. Herr von Bismarck was in want of a military law valid for seven years, and in the German parliament the method of “War in Sight” was employed as is usual on such occasions. The recipe is a sure one: with a view to this all military demands are readily granted. Furthermore, the Schnäbele incident on the frontier happened, and on the horizon, slowly mounting, appeared General Boulanger’s black horse. What an outpouring of amateur political opinion there was! Wherever one went this question was asked, Will it break out? In the newspapers, and still more in the air, there was the anticipation of some great event. In the _Chat noir_, that famous artists’ Gschnas-Café (the ancestor of all the _cabarets_ that now flood the world), Caran d’Ache was conducting his magic lantern “L’Épopée,” Napoleonic war scenes, and _cela fait vibrer la fibre patriotique_. Madame Adam also vibrated.

And she invited us in a most friendly way to a great evening reception which was to take place at her house within a few days. Of that soirée I have preserved a rather lively recollection.

The little house in the Rue Juliette Lambert was filled with guests from the first landing of the staircase to the farthest corner of the salon. On the threshold of the salon door stood Madame Adam, an imposing and captivating figure. She wore a dark-red velvet gown with long train, diamonds on the bosom, and diamonds in her white hair massed high. Her face under this white hair looked still youthful,—somewhat in the style of Marie Geistinger as _la belle Hélène_. Of course, as the duty of a hostess required, she gave each person a gracious word with a gracious smile.

“Ah, dear baron,” she said to my husband, “I am so much attracted toward you because the country which you describe so excellently in your books, the semibarbarous Caucasus, is so fascinating to me.”

Certainly, it was well known how much everything Russian fascinated Madame Adam, the glorifier of Aksákof and of General Skóbelef. “How can a woman ever busy herself so much with politics?” was my thought at that time. “How much that is disagreeable, and sometimes ridiculous, she brings upon herself by that! And how can one bother herself with editing a review into the bargain?”

Many distinguished men—artists, authors, politicians—were gathered in Madame Adam’s salons, and many pretty women. Madame Napoleon Ney was pointed out to us as one of the most famous beauties of Parisian society. Unfortunately, one could not make the acquaintance of all the interesting persons present; the throng was so dense that one had to stay in his corner and be contented with talking to a few in his own vicinity. And for the most part one had to be still and listen, for—as was the custom in Paris—the guests were served with all sorts of artistic delectations: a pianist played Hungarian melodies; an author of great promise, but as yet unknown, read a few short stories; and Mademoiselle Brandés, at that time not yet engaged at the Théâtre Français, declaimed a poem. But even here, amid this artistic and social gayety, the dark word “War” was buzzing through the room; here and there the names of Bismarck and Moltke and Schnäbele were heard, and prophecies that next spring it surely would come to something were boldly uttered, but without detracting from the spirit of cheerfulness that prevailed; these vaticinations probably aroused fine hopes in the hostess, enthusiastic for her country’s glory as she was. I was no longer so indifferent in the presence of these things as I had been during my youth. I already hated war fervently, and this frivolous trifling with the possibility of it seemed to me as lacking in conscience as in common sense.

It was a great joy to us to meet in Paris a friend from the Caucasus, Princess Tamara of Georgia. The beautiful young widow had been established in the French capital for a year with her two half-grown girls; she lived in a fascinatingly furnished mansion in the Elysée quarter. We were very frequently invited to her functions, and always found a large company there, Russians for the most part. General Baron Frederiks, who afterward became, and is still, chief master of ceremonies to the Tsar, was a friend of the house.

We cultivated literary society extensively. A Dr. Löwenthal, who had written to me on account of my _Inventarium einer Seele_ when we were still in the Caucasus, and with whom, after an ardent exchange of ideas, we two had become close friends, made us acquainted with Max Nordau. The greatly celebrated author of “Conventional Lies,” although then only thirty-eight, had very thick snow-white hair, which was very effective with his black beard, black eyes, and interesting face. There were some unforgettable hours which we four spent in conversation about God’s magnificent world and the conventional, lie-ridden world of humanity.

In the Buloz house, where we attended a ball a few days after the Adam soirée, there was not so strong a flavor of politics as in the home of the _Nouvelle revue_; here homage was paid to only two things, the _Revue_ _des deux mondes_ and the Académie Française. The Buloz house had the reputation of being a center of the literary and intellectual life of Paris. On Madame Buloz’s Tuesdays half of the Forty Immortals were to be found there, and of course all the collaborators of the _Revue_, from which the Academy so often draws its recruits. The solid old _palais_ in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, with its ground floor devoted to the offices of the monthly, and its big reception rooms on the floor above, had a grave and dignified air. The furnishings of the salon were of rich and substantial plainness. The tone all through the house was rather stiff, puristic, erudite—in short, academic. The same tone, you know, that permeates the so often uncut pages of the articles in the old _Revue_. The married life of the husband and wife seemed to be exemplary. M. Buloz, a man of serious and steady look, and at the same time amiable, of about forty, with full red beard trimmed to a point—liking best of all to talk about his _Revue_, the conduct of which cost him much labor, for he read every line of the manuscripts that were sent in, and sternly repelled any encroachment of frivolous realism—who could have suspected at that time that a few years later he would be compelled to part from his _Revue_, and that under such frivolous circumstances as he would never have permitted one of his colleagues to incorporate in a novel? Most surprising and startling for the whole serious _milieu_ came the sudden discovery that M. Buloz had wasted nearly all his property, besides incurring a million in debts,—all for a woman. A separation resulted—whether Madame Buloz got one or whether she pardoned him I do not know—but a separation from his _Revue_, the proud paternal inheritance. He was forced to leave the management; and the monthly, which ever since its foundation, for more than a half century, had borne the name of Charles Buloz, both father and son, came out with the name of Brunetière.

Since then the undertaking has fallen off in circulation; various new monthlies have come into existence to enter into active rivalry with this great-grandmother of reviews. At that time it was in full flower; it had a circulation of 25,000 copies and brought its stockholders large and ever-increasing dividends. At that ball M. Buloz told me that his father had for thirty years published the magazine under a deficit; then suddenly came the change—the _Revue_ was read all over the world and its owners became millionaires.

“You see, gracious lady,” added M. Buloz jestingly, “if a periodical has been kept up for a time, it can expect further duration and some profit; only the first thirty years are rather hard sailing.”

The connections which we formed at the Buloz house brought us into relations with various members of the Academy. I remember one evening which we spent with Victor Cherbuliez and when we met Ernest Renan. It was but a small circle of people that was grouped around the fireplace there, and the result was a genuine _causerie_, such as cannot be had in reception rooms filled with hundreds of people. There were present M. and Mme. Cherbuliez and their daughter; M. and Mme. Renan; M. de Rothan, a former diplomat and author of highly valued political articles and contemporaneous reminiscences, especially regarding Alsace-Lorraine; his wife; and lastly, Ludovic Halévy, the latest of the Academicians. The merry blasphemer of the Grecian Olympus,—for with the aid of the equally merry Meilhac he had exposed Jupiter, Juno, Venus, and Mars to Offenbach’s musical mockery,—the creator of Madame Cardinal, mistress of the household, and her daughters who “went on the boards,” was sparkling with wit in his conversation too. As a novelist, however, he was also successful in striking the serious strings; remember his novel _L’Abbé Constantin_, with its tinge of sentimentality and its harmlessness for boarding-school misses. And by no means did he fail to make the famous patriot fiber vibrate; he became the historian of the invasion of 1871, and celebrated the military glory and the heroic misfortunes of the conquered.

So it came about that when the conversation that evening touched upon the predominant question of the day—the threatening war-cloud—Halévy welcomed, with some pathos, the possibly approaching day of requital.

Renan excitedly took the other side. He did not conceal his horror for national massacres in general, but as a thinker he was especially pained by the hostility between his nation and “the nation of thinkers.” He acknowledged that he had learned much from German philosophy, and spoke with the greatest respect of its representatives in both older and later times.

I had expected that Renan should be ugly in his outward appearance, for that was notorious; but this expectation fell below the reality: short, stout, sallow, with a broad, beardless face, reminding one of Grützner’s monks, a monstrous bald cranium,—with these qualities, the author of the _Vie de Jésus_ gave me at first glance the impression that he was the ugliest man I had seen in my life. Ten minutes after he had begun to speak, this impression was effaced. Not only tolerable did he seem to me, but possessed of a genuine charm.

Another charmer whose acquaintance we made in Paris was Alphonse Daudet. In his case the power of the intellect, the fiery, easy discourse, were accompanied by an externally beautiful appearance. With his flashing black eyes, his thick curling hair, his mobile, aristocratic features, Alphonse Daudet could not have helped pleasing every one even if he had not been Alphonse Daudet. His wife—who was more of a collaborator to him than the world suspects, though his grateful testimony to the fact was public and plain-spoken—was likewise a very attractive personality. I often called there on her day at home. The man of the house was not present on these occasions, but stayed shut up in his workroom. It was in this that he used to receive us and fascinate us with his gift of fiery conversation.

XXIV THERE IS A PEACE MOVEMENT Return from Paris · International Peace Association · _Das Maschinenzeitalter_ by “Jemand” · Anonymity attains its end · Bartholomäus von Carneri · At the Carneri table · In the Hotel Meissl

In the spring of 1887 we returned home from Paris enriched with many experiences and impressions. One thing especially I had learned there, which had a decisive influence on my after life and work. In a conversation about war and peace—a theme which was already mightily filling my soul—our friend Dr. Wilhelm Löwenthal informed us that there existed in London an “International Peace and Arbitration Association,” the aim of which was to bring about, by creating and organizing public opinion, the establishment of an international court of appeal which should take the place of armed force in settling disputes between nations.

“What! Madrid had such a girl, and I learn it for the first time to-day!” cries Don Carlos, when, in the scene with the Princess Eboli, she discloses her soul to him. Just so I felt. What? such a league existed,—the idea of justice between nations, the struggle to do away with war, had assumed form and life? The news electrified me. Dr. Löwenthal had to give me on the spot all the details about the formation of the Association, its aim, its methods, and the persons who were associated with it. What I learned was as follows:

The name of the founder and president of the Association was Hodgson Pratt. The Duke of Westminster, the Earl of Ripon, the Bishop of Durham, and others were among its directors. Its headquarters were in London.

Hodgson Pratt, a man of lofty ethical and philanthropical principles, had, within a few years, journeyed over the Continent for the purpose of calling into existence branches of his society. Since then there were in Stuttgart a “Württembergischer Verein,” Fr. von Hellwald, president; in Berlin a provisional committee, Professor Virchow, president; in Milan a “Unione lombarda per la pace,” Professor Vigano, president (after him, Teodoro Moneta); in Rome an “Associazione per l’arbitrio e la pace,” Ruggero Bonghi, Minister of Instruction, president. Others in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.

The appeal which the London society had adopted as the basis of its propaganda, a copy of which Dr. Löwenthal handed me, contained the following introduction:

Lately a member of the English ministry declared that England’s greatest interest is peace. Could not the same thing be said of every civilized country?

The international political conditions in the civilized world when contemplated arouse no less astonishment than reflection.

On the one hand men of every rank and of all shades of opinion desire progress, the common advantage and happiness of mankind; and the object of all the endeavors of the men of science, the enlightened writers and thinkers, culminates in the accomplishment of this progress and well-being.

On the other hand, in opposition to these endeavors, the fruits of industry and diligence are constantly sacrificed in behalf of military objects, and this sacrifice serves to delay and hinder all progress.

Has the time not arrived, at the close of the Nineteenth Century, for all men to consult together and get into agreement to put an end to this folly, this terrible plague which can be avoided only through a common understanding and endeavor?

But how arrive at this result? Through the irresistible power of widely directed and energetically organized public opinion.

The means for attaining this propaganda and this organization is to be found in the formation of a great league, with branches in all European cities.

The appeal goes on to explain what the league was to aim at and what were to be its methods.

On my return I found awaiting me the proof sheets of my book _Das Maschinenzeitalter_ (“The Age of Machinery”). I added in the chapter entitled “Zukunftsausblicke” (“Glimpses into the Future”) an account of the London League. Just as I had previously known nothing about it, I took it for granted that my readers also were unacquainted with this phenomenon of the times. For in that thing called “Publicity,” the endeavors of a few hundred men—even of a few thousand—disappear like so many drops of carmine in an arm of the sea.

When the book came out, shortly afterward, I had the satisfaction that not a single one of the very numerous critics who devoted whole columns to their reviews of it ever suspected that “Jemand”—Some One—could possibly belong to “the weak-minded sex.” Doctor Moritz Necker, the well-known literary editor of the Vienna _Tagblatt_, in writing to me about another matter, mentioned that he had recently been reading an anonymous book called _Das Maschinenzeitalter_; in his mind there was no doubt that the author was Max Nordau. Cherbuliez was of the same opinion, and in a sixteen-page article in the _Revue des deux mondes_ designated Max Nordau as the author of the work he was reviewing. Max Nordau met this with a published declaration that he did not know the book, and that he was in the habit of signing what he wrote.

For some time I had been in correspondence with the philosopher Bartholomäus von Carneri, to whom, after reading his _Sittlichkeit und Darwinismus_ (“Morality and Darwinism”), I had written a letter expressing my admiration; he had replied that he knew and prized my _Inventarium_, and a regular correspondence had ensued. I had not revealed to him anything about my anonymous book; I was all the more pleasingly surprised when in the newspaper report of the parliamentary proceedings I found a speech of Carneri’s, delivered in the Austrian Reichsrat the day before, in which he mentioned _Das Maschinenzeitalter_. Thereupon I asked him what kind of a book it was, and who was the author. To this he replied that the author was not named, but he had guessed who it was—Karl Vogt; he had instantly recognized him by his style. Many, however, believed that he himself, Carneri, had written the book. Then I confessed to him that I was the guilty one, but begged him to keep the secret, and this he agreed to do.

At the beginning of the next autumn we had gone to Vienna for a fortnight, as we often did. At the hotel at which we put up we learned that the member of the Reichsrat from Styria, B. von Carneri, was in the same house. The prospect of becoming personally acquainted with my famous correspondent was extremely tempting to me, and we sent in our names to him. The savant received us with alacrity. An old man, a sick man,—almost a cripple,—and yet what gayety and freshness! Carneri had never been well in his life. His head was all the time bent over to his right shoulder, he could walk only with difficulty, and since his early youth he had not spent a day without agonizing pain. And he called himself a happy man; he not only called himself so, he was. His intellectual labors, his political activities, the possession of a beloved daughter and a beloved son-in-law, the high regard which he had won in the learned world and among his parliamentary associates, may well have been the basis of his enjoyment of life; but the real secret was doubtless that he not only dealt in philosophy but actually was a philosopher, that is to say, a man who can pass beyond the miseries of life and thankfully enjoy its beauty.

We spent some exhilarating hours in Carneri’s company; all the themes which we had broached in our correspondence were discussed, and the friendship which had begun through our letters was only confirmed by this personal association. That same evening we met again. When the member from Marburg-an-der-Drau stayed in Vienna during the sessions of the parliament, he was accustomed to take his supper at a certain long table in the hotel dining-room, and at that table a number of his colleagues and other prominent personages from the political, literary, and learned circles of Vienna used to gather. The “Carneri table” at the Hotel Meissl was a sort of salon of wit and talent. That evening we also took our places at this table, and listened with interest to the lively conversation, the center of which was our friend Carneri, at whose right hand I sat. I can remember one episode. My neighbor on the right suddenly spoke past me to my neighbor on the left, and said to him:

“Say, I have bought the book you quoted in your speech lately. Do you still not know who ‘Jemand’ is?”

“No, I have not a suspicion,” replied Carneri, and exchanged a smiling glance with me. “And what do you say to it?”

My right-hand neighbor began a long dissertation on _Das Maschinenzeitalter_, and another man who had also read it joined in the conversation. What was said I no longer recall; I only know that it was not disagreeable to me, but amused me immensely, especially when I threw in the remark, “I shall have to get that myself,” and some one cried, “Oh, that is not a book for ladies!”

XXV _DIE WAFFEN NIEDER_ How the plan for the book originated · Study of sources · The model of my hero · Satisfaction in writing the word “End” · Unanimously rejected by the editors · The publisher’s scruples · Publication · How the book was received · Favorable and hostile criticisms · Personal contact with the peace movement resulting from the novel · The peace congress of 1889 in Paris · Founding of Interparliamentary Union

But I no longer had “The Age of Machinery” and its fate so much at heart. I had on the stocks another work, which had taken possession of me; to this all my thoughts and purposes were turned. I wanted to be of service to the Peace League, and how could I better do so than by trying to write a book which should propagate its ideas? And I could do it most effectively, I thought, in the form of a story. I should certainly find a larger public for that than for a treatise. In treatises one can only lay down abstract appeals to the reason, can philosophize, argue, and dissertate; but I wanted something else: I wanted to be able to put into my book not only what I thought but what I felt, felt passionately; I wanted to give expression to the pain which the image of war burned into my soul; I wanted to present life, palpitating life, reality, historical reality; and all this could be done only in a novel, and best in a novel written in the form of an autobiography. And so I went ahead and wrote _Die Waffen nieder_, “Away with Weapons.”[20]

It was to be the history of a young woman whose fate was closely involved with the wars fought in our own day. But in order that the historical events introduced should correspond to the reality, that the descriptions of the battle scenes should be truthful, it was requisite for me to make preliminary studies and collect material and documents.

This I did conscientiously, as well as I could. I read up in big-volumed histories, I rummaged in old newspapers and archives, to find reports of war correspondents and military surgeons; I got such acquaintances of mine as had been in the field to relate episodes of battles; and during this period of study my horror of war waxed to the most agonizing intensity. I can certify that the sufferings through which I led my heroine were actually experienced by me while I was working on it. What a woman must suffer when she knows that a beloved husband is engaged in war I could now more easily imagine, for the depth of my own conjugal love sufficed to put me mentally in such a situation. And the portrayal of a noble personality, as I attempted it in drawing the figure of my hero, was rendered the easier by the fact that my own husband sat as model for this character.

What a feeling of relief and satisfaction when I wrote the word “End” at the bottom of the second volume!

Now for placing it. I had no fears about this; many periodicals had begged me to send them a manuscript, and that great weekly which had printed my earlier works, and which had never refused anything I sent, would doubtless publish this manuscript too. I sent it in without misgivings. My astonishment was not little when the reply came:

Gracious Lady:

It is with regret that we find ourselves compelled to return to you the ... [some compliments] manuscript. Large classes of our readers would take offense at what it contains.

So I tried it on another editor: the same result. And then on others—unanimously rejected. In one of the answers (which were all more or less sugar-coated with courteous phrases) it said: “In spite of all these merits, however, it is quite out of the question to publish the novel in a military country.”

So perhaps it was better to forego the thought of serial publication and let _Die Waffen nieder_ make its first appearance in book form; and so I sent the much-traveled package to my publisher Pierson. He hesitated a long time. The book seemed to him dangerous. At that time there had just been decided in Germany a case under the press laws, of which the consequence was to be an increase in the strictness of the censorship and a rigorous suppression of all writings that contained any sort of mutinousness against existing institutions. Pierson advised that I should give the manuscript to some experienced statesman to look over, and ask him to strike out everything that could give offense. I cried out in indignation at such a demand. A work in which I had written off from my soul all the rage and all the pain that the hallowed “existing institution” of war had begotten in me (and assuredly in thousands of others beside me, only that they dared not express it)—to get somebody to lop and trim in diplomatic-opportunist fashion such a work, which, whatever its worth or worthlessness, had at least the one merit of being hotly felt and _unreservedly sincere_,—to remodel it by the rules of that most contemptible of all arts, the art of suiting everybody,—no, sooner into the stove with it. Then I should alter the title at least, was the publisher’s next suggestion. No! The title embraces in three words the whole aim of the book. Of the title, too, not a syllable is to be changed. After this ultimatum Pierson gave way, and _Die Waffen nieder_ made its appearance.

The publisher had no cause to regret his audacity: to-day the novel is circulated by hundreds of thousands and has been translated into a dozen languages. From this quite unexpected success I draw only one conclusion: the idea which permeates the book was to the taste of the public. In spite of the editors’ fears that the warlike German public would take no interest in the idea of peace, it was shown that this idea is cherished in wide circles—even in military circles; for from these too there came to me many tokens of appreciation. When a musical note sounds strongly in a room, this does not demonstrate so much the fullness of the tone as the favorable acoustic properties of the room. The spirit that usually obtains in newspaper offices, in theatrical directorates (as a generality, in managements of all sorts), is usually behind the times with regard to the wants of those masses who are in each case concerned: judgments are formed there according to the state of public opinion as it made itself felt ten or twenty years ago; but meanwhile public opinion itself, in its uninterrupted transformation, has progressed to another stage.

So I am ready to believe that a book against war, appearing at the beginning of the seventies, when the intoxication of victory still effervesced in Germany and the wrathful clamor for revenge still raged in France, would have had no success whatever. The cult of arms, too, had to attain those huge dimensions whereby it has since then harnessed the peoples under its heavy yoke, it had to have brought the world to the brink of ruin, in order that the watchword “Away with Weapons” might find so powerful an echo.

Every day brought me reviews from far and near,—feuilletons and editorials. Bartholomäus Carneri published a ten-column article in the _Neue Freie Presse_, J. V. Widmann a series of five feuilletons in the _Bund_. I received criticisms from Russia, where the book appeared in five different translations,—one of them authorized by me,—criticisms from America, from England, from the Scandinavian countries, where even in its first year translations were made.

I was now brought into living touch with all those who were connected with the peace movement, or who, having had their attention drawn to the existence of such a movement by my book, were now joining it.

The following letter afforded me especial pleasure, The inventor of dynamite wrote me:

Dear Baroness and Friend:

I have just finished reading your admirable masterpiece. We are told that there are two thousand languages—1999 too many—but certainly there is not one in which your delightful work should not be translated, read, and studied.

How long did it take you to write this marvel? You shall tell me when next I have the honor and happiness of pressing your hand—that amazonian hand which so valiantly makes war on war.

Nevertheless you make a mistake to cry “Away with Weapons,” because you yourself make use of them, and because yours—the charm of your style and the grandeur of your ideas—carry and will carry much farther than the Lébels, the Nordenfelts, the De Banges, and all the other implements of hell.[21]

A. Nobel

In a Reichsrat debate on the military budget (April 18, 1891) Minister Dunajewski, of the Department of Finance, spoke the following words:

“There has recently appeared a book called _Die Waffen nieder_. I can only advise the gentlemen to devote a few hours to the reading of this novel; any one who then still has a predilection for war I can only pity.”

Of course opponents were not lacking. Anonymous letters of ridicule and of abuse; withering criticisms—“What the good old lady tells about her misfortunes is indeed very sad; but the conclusions drawn from them can elicit from the serious politician only a smile”; “emotional silliness”; “obtrusive, inartistic didacticism”; “Brummagem that totally fails of its purpose”; “the authoress ought to return to her short stories, in which she has shown a quite clever talent”; etc. Even one of the great in the realm of literature, Felix Dahn, sent out an epigram which went the rounds of the press, but which—the poet himself will concede this—cannot boast of much poetic beauty:

_An die weiblichen und männlichen Waffenscheuen_

Die Waffen hoch! Das Schwert ist Mannes eigen, Wo Männer fechten, hat das Weib zu schweigen, Doch freilich, Männer gibt’s in diesen Tagen, Die sollten lieber Unterröcke tragen.[22]

Everything in this world is in reciprocity. What comes as a result is in turn the cause of new results. So here. I had written the book with the design of rendering, in my own way, a service to the peace movement, of whose incipient organization I had learned; and the relationships and experiences that grew out of the book have swept me more and more into the movement, so that at last I was compelled to go into it not only, as I had at first intended, with my pen, but with my whole being.

Meanwhile, during the time of the World’s Exposition of 1889 in Paris, a Peace Congress had been held there, presided over by Jules Simon. This was taken as an opportunity for creating also the institution of Interparliamentary Conferences. The year before, two men—Randal Cremer, member of the English Parliament, and the French deputy Frédéric Passy—had set to work to form an Interparliamentary Union. They enlisted the support of a number of their colleagues, and in the year of the Exposition these assembled in a first conference (of the English Parliament three hundred members were present), and it was agreed that adherents should be secured from the popular assemblies of all the European countries, and that every year an Interparliamentary Conference should be held. For the next conference, the second, London was named as the place of meeting.

To all this the contemporary world paid but little attention, one might say paid none at all. But I followed these events with the eagerest and most hopeful interest. Through the monthly periodical Concord, the organ of the London Peace Association, I was kept informed of what was going on, and I read attentively the reports of all the speeches delivered in the assemblies, and of the resolutions passed. But as yet the idea of taking part in the movement myself, otherwise than with my pen, never entered my mind.

XXVI INTERCOURSE WITH FRIENDS In port · Trip to Vienna · Literary circles · Balduin Groller · Theodor Herzl · Letter from Count Hoyos · Letter from Friedrich Bodenstedt

After our return from Paris we remained quiet and secluded at Harmannsdorf. An uneventful life, but no empty life. There is no way in which a life can be better filled than with labor and love. Of course there is not much to tell about it. The reminiscences of my youth, with all its betrothals and art-plans and varying adventures, have certainly made more amusing reading.

The period of storms was past; we were now in port. The midday sun of youth no longer blazed, and now there lay on our horizon something like the tints of evening. But not yet time to lay aside work; there was yet much to be done. And we had to bear a great grief, to fight a hard battle. It was not sorrow of our own that weighed upon us, but the sorrow of the world; we took the field not against personal enemies, but against the enemies of mankind—cruelty and falsehood!

It is a common belief that only people who are themselves unfortunate can understand the misfortunes of others, and they call that the hard school of suffering. With us it was different: whatever we experienced of deep pity, of warm wishes to help and to better, had its root in the _joy_ which we had in life and life’s beauties. It was in the college of happiness that we had learned that here on earth life may be—in other words, ought to be—glorious and joyous and rich in love. The unfortunate are likelier to get embittered: “other folks may as well have their troubles too,” they think, and they comfort themselves by saying “there is no such thing as happiness anyhow.” We knew better: there is. It is only that not all find it, that very few indeed can find it because so much stupidity blocks the way to it,—these things will not let the happy be at peace.

For a little change from our workaday existence in the country we had brief trips to Vienna. There we attended the theater and associated with a few friends, mostly in literary circles. When Carneri was in town we joined the “deputy table” at the Hotel Meissl. We had a very pleasant intercourse with Balduin Groller, then editor of the _Oesterreichische Illustrierte Zeitung_. While still in the Caucasus we had formed an epistolary friendship with him, a friendship which has remained steadfast to this day. Humor and heart are the two qualities which characterize Balduin Groller as a feuilletonist and as a man. This is why in his company one is excellently amused and at the same time is in such a comfortable frame of mind; you laugh at his dry wit and bask in his warm geniality. That he was a handsome, dark-eyed, elegant man, an adept in sports, did not detract from the effect. Moreover, he liked us as well as we liked him, and those evenings when we four—Groller has the dearest little wife—chatted together over our food and wine were most delightful. Often Theodor Herzl joined us. He also sparkled with wit. And that head of his—like an Assyrian king’s! He ought to have been really king of the new Zion, whose awakener he was, and which might perhaps already exist if he had not died so prematurely.

We had in Vienna a dear and interesting friend, Count Rudolf Hoyos, a handsome old gentleman, every inch an aristocrat, but a democrat in his views. I perceive that this is the third time I have laid stress on external beauty in describing the persons of notable men. I cannot help it—in the first place they really were handsome, these three, and in the second place, I like handsome people better than homely people. One must forgive homeliness; but one ought not to neglect beauty.—Count Hoyos was a free and brilliant intellect. He had published a volume of poems in which a few pearls were to be found. His residence—a whole floor in the palace of the “Adliges Kasino” on the Ringstrasse—was a museum: paintings, art furniture, bric-a-brac, antiquities, vases, fabrics, carved cabinets, armorial trophies, bronzes, costly books,—it took hours and hours to admire all the rare objects. The host, however, preferred to spend his time in a little oriel where there was room only for one table with various mementos on it, besides his easy chair with a reading-desk, a little divan and a rocking-chair for at most three callers, and an easel with the portrait of a woman—a woman whom Rudolf Hoyos had loved; a great lady who had once been the center of a distinguished and witty circle, but who was no longer living. Count Hoyos remained unmarried. I have a large number of letters from him, and one of them I will introduce here; his character will thus most clearly be shown:

Toblach, August 13, ’90

Many years ago, at a _Thé d’esprit_, I was introduced to a daughter of Bettina Arnim. Her first words after the introduction, as she handed me my cup, were, “What do you think about the immortality of the soul?” “I believe in immortality, but not in the soul,” was my reply.

This story is suggested by the article “Carus,” excellently translated by you in the last magazine. It interested me very much, but did not at all satisfy me.

Do you know a children’s game _Frau Gevatterin, leih mir d’ Scher’_,[23] in which those who take part keep changing their seats, while there is always one who finds all the chairs taken, because there are more players than there are seats? Carus lets his ideas play this game, or rather the designations for the ideas. Ego, personality, soul, its activity, spirit, idea, consciousness, and so on, keep changing their places with great agility—but there is always one of them that gets nothing.

It does no good to give all ideas new names or to foist new meanings upon old words—there is always one left in the air; that is, he no more finds the ultimate cause than do the rest of us, only he does not acknowledge it as we do.

What answer does C. give to the question with which the article starts? Is that which used to be called Soul a cause or an effect (that is, a phenomenon)? Does he believe that every cause begets effects, the children of which again become causes? Does he close the circle and regard the last effect as the first cause and vice versa?

He constantly provokes me to contradiction even in details. For instance, he brings Luther forward as a “progressive spirit,” because he substituted the Bible for the Church—belief in authority for belief in authority—! Whither this progress has led, we can see by the sanctimonious frauds with the halo! these Bismarcks with the tiara—!

Pardon, if C. is a favorite with you, but frankness is the first condition of a wholesome correspondence. Even with Villers I used to have frequent controversies.

Your many-sided activity and creative enthusiasm fill me with admiration, like a great drama of nature. Now pray allow yourself the enjoyment of the latter, as I did yesterday in my world’s-end thunderstorm.

Gratefully yours R. H.

Best regards to your worthy husband.

Here also I introduce a letter which I received from Mirza Schaffy, after I had sent him a review of my novel by Carneri in the feuilleton of the _Neue Freie Presse_. The Peace Congress which Bodenstedt tells of is the one that took place in Paris in the year 1849, under the presidency of Victor Hugo, when Cobden was present.

Wiesbaden, April 8, ’90

Best thanks for the article you kindly sent me regarding your admirable work; I am returning it herewith, as soon as I have read it. Carneri has wielded his pen like a master and written just after my heart. The other printed sheets which I also inclose are the last pages of the second volume, which is soon to be out, of my Recollections. On the last page of all you will find how it was I came to be sent from Berlin to Paris as a peace man and a free-trader. The thing was so suddenly arranged that I had no time left to prepare a speech. And besides, I could not have said anything that was not already included in the Berlin letter of adhesion which I was to deliver. Moreover, I had never yet spoken in public, and had no desire to make my first experiment in a foreign language. So everything would have been sure to go off without a ripple had not Richard Cobden insisted on making me make a speech, and that in the very first session. I had taken my place in one of the front rows of the hall, which held between five and six thousand people, and I had been calmly listening to a half-dozen addresses—among them a very good one by Bastiat—when Cobden perceived me and immediately came down from the platform, seized me by the hand, and made me go with him and take a place in a chair next him on the platform. As vice president he sat at Victor Hugo’s left, and, when Victor Hugo opened the congress with solemn grandiloquence, had immediately followed with an address in fearful French but immensely effective.

I obstinately refused his insistence that I also should be heard, and I believed that I had safely got out of it, when suddenly my ear caught a whispered conversation between him and Victor Hugo:

“Il faut le faire parler de quelque façon que ce soit.”

“Mais il m’a prévenu, déjà hier, qu’il n’a pas préparé un discours.”

“Donnez-lui toujours la parole; il faut donc bien qu’il dise quelque chose!”[24]

The next moment the bell tinkled and the voice of the president was heard,

“Je donne la parole à Mr. Fr. Bodenstedt de Berlin.”[25]

I got to my feet in some trepidation, and said, in as good French and in as loud a voice as I could just then command, that the president had been aware ever since my arrival that I had not come to make a speech; “mais même si j’avais préparé un discours, je ne le prononcerais pas aujourd’hui ici....”

“Pourquoi pas? Pourquoi pas?”

“Je vous en dirai la raison tout franchement. Je viens de promener mes regards à travers cette vaste salle, où l’on voit représentées par leurs drapeaux toutes les nations civilisées du globe, mais le drapeau de la nation la plus civilisée, le drapeau allemand y manque!”—[26]

After all eyes had looked in vain for the German flag, which was nowhere to be found, M. E. de Girardin arose to his full height and cried in a solemn nasal tone, “Monsieur, vous êtes le drapeau vivant de l’Allemagne ici!”[27]

During the storm of applause that followed these words, I remembered that at breakfast I had seen in the _Charivari_ a cartoon of Girardin, with these words for a legend: “Mr. de Girardin commence à flotter avec le vent.”[28] So I got up, as soon as the hall was quiet again, and said, “Merci du compliment, bien que je ne puisse pas l’accepter dans toute la force du terme, attendu que je ne flotte pas avec le vent, moi!”[29]

Indescribable effect. Hundreds of Americans and Englishmen cried, “The translation! The translation!”

M. de Coquerel, curé de Ste. Madelaine, _translateur officiel_, gets up and begins:

“The learned gentleman has said—”

I interrupt him, politely begging permission to translate my words into English myself; in doing so I make an allusion to our Anglo-Saxon relationship, and arouse great enthusiasm.

Now arose M. de Cormenin (Timon) to protest against Germany’s being _la nation la plus civilisée du globe_: only France, said he, could be so designated.

“Let us put it to the test,” I cried.... “How is the greatness of a nation known? By its great men. Name me six of your great living men and I will wager that every German schoolboy knows their names; then I will mention six Germans who are their peers, and I will acknowledge myself beaten if you yourself can give me any tolerably satisfactory account of their importance.”

So the matter was thrashed back and forth without its being possible to speak of it as a speech; I myself was farthest of all from having the idea that I had made one. But Fate often plays strange tricks with us. Szarvady, Wilhelmine Claus’s husband, was my guide through Paris, and we had agreed to dine at the Hotel Rougemont at six o’clock with some of his acquaintances. He had not been at the meeting, but had taken me to Victor Hugo’s the day before and had there learned that I was not going to make a speech. Great was his astonishment at reading in all the evening papers the most contradictory reports of the speech I did not make. John Lemoine in the _Journal des Débats_ was praising my fine English, and _Galignani’s Messenger_ remarked as follows about my French:

“The learned gentleman delivered himself in a most exquisite French.”

That is the only sentence which my memory retains as an attestation of my oratorical triumph. In Paris I was called _le drapeau vivant de l’Allemagne_ for a few days, and from there the phrase went over into all the German papers, where it kept its vogue for a few years. Now it is to be read only on a “triumph cup” which a fascinating young lady presented me; on it she had painted me as I then was, in my thirtieth year, with a full head of curly hair, slender, and vivacious. This young enthusiast afterwards married the famous Orientalist, Professor Matzstein, and is still living in Berlin.

But, to turn from this swift success of a witticism to a soberer tone, I must tell you briefly of a soirée which I attended at Alexis de Tocqueville’s. He was at that time Minister of Foreign Affairs and was the most intelligent Frenchman whom I ever knew. With him, Cobden, and Bastiat I had a long conversation in which the peace question was treated more exhaustively than was possible in the Congress. We agreed that the fruit of peace could be ripened only on Germanic soil, while France and Russia would remain disturbing elements as long as they should have the power to be such.

As far as I personally am concerned, I have always found myself in a difficult position as an apostle of peace. My father-in-law was a colonel. One of my sons-in-law is likewise a colonel. Two of my wife’s brothers went to fight against France as young captains in 1870. One of them did not come back at all; the other lost a leg at the storming of the heights of Spichern, and now hobbles round as a major. All my wife’s tears could not keep my only son from going as a volunteer against France, where he won the Iron Cross and the Order for Valor, with swords. He is now living in St. Paul on the Mississippi....

Yesterday I was interrupted while writing the first sheet of this, and now the second is drawing to an end. I will only call your attention to a poem entitled Die kriegerische Nazarener (“The Warlike Nazarenes”), which went through all the papers in 1854, before the breaking out of the Crimean War, and which you will find on page 120 of the ninth volume of my collected works (Berlin, Decker, 1867). It might be very appropriate for reprinting in the new edition, as is shown by the utterances of three ecclesiastical potentates, which it illustrates:

The issue is the battle of the Cross against the heathen.

The Metropolitan of Moscow

It is for the glory of God that you are fighting.

The Archbishop of Paris

Jesus Christ, our Saviour, for whose sake you fight, will bless your arms.[30]

With best greetings to the husband also,

Friedrich Bodenstedt

XXVII MENTONE AND VENICE The news of the Crown Prince’s death · Sojourn in Mentone · Octave Mirbeau · A winter in Venice · Old acquaintances · Princess Tamara and Marietta Saibante · Visit of Felix Moscheles to the widow “Tillings” · Moscheles as a peace propagandist · Formation of a section in Venice through Marquis Pandolfi · Grelix · The Princess of Montenegro · Princess Hatzfeld, born Von Buch · A memory of Cosima Wagner

In the beginning of the year 1889 (my novel was then still a manuscript in Pierson’s hesitating hands) we once more gave ourselves the treat of a little pleasure trip. And this time our course took us to the Riviera—our destination Mentone. We were caught on the way by the news of Crown Prince Rudolf’s death. The first report spoke of it as a hunting accident; only a little at a time did we learn the terrible contradictory details. The tragedy affected us deeply.

From Mentone, our headquarters, we made excursions to Monte Carlo, Nice, Cannes. Naturally My Own was fascinated with the beauties of the Riviera. To one who loves nature so passionately as he did the sight of this blooming, paradisal corner of the world must afford an intense enjoyment; and the combination there of the charm of artificial luxury with the charm of nature was a double attraction to him, with his receptivity for every kind of elegance. But we did not participate in this social life; our vacation budget would not have permitted it, nor had we any inclination to do so.

We made a very interesting acquaintance a few days after our arrival at Mentone,—that of Octave Mirbeau. The young writer had even then become famous through his novel _Le Calvaire_. I knew the novel, and a chapter in it that describes a marvelous scene from the Franco-German War—describes it in a way that expresses a hearty condemnation of war. The chapter had captivated me, and it was a pleasure to me to be able to shake hands with the author.

Octave Mirbeau with his pretty young wife lived in a tiny villa which he had bought in Garavent, and there they invited us to dinner. The young writer looked more like an Englishman than like a Frenchman. He reminded me a little of Achille Murat. Very tall, broad-shouldered, with a fine blond mustache. But, if his exterior had an English air, his manner and conversation were genuinely French, that is to say, full of piquant wit. Yet he talked also of very serious things. Social problems seemed to be what he had most at heart. There need be no misery in the world, was his fixed belief; that there nevertheless was, was the occasion of his wrath.

On our way home from the Riviera we spent a week in Venice. The beautiful dead city of the doges was like a revelation to My Own. He fell in love with it. It filled him with jubilant admiration. And so we made up our minds that sometime we would spend a whole winter in Venice.

This plan we carried out in the year 1890–1891. We took rooms in a small palazzo on the Grand Canal. A delectable little palace, on the outside gilded and gayly colored—the Palazzo Dario; we rejoiced in the view of it every time we saw it from the gondola. The interior also pleased us immensely, for the rooms were wholly in old Venetian style. We had taken a gondola by the month. One of the two gondoliers was likewise our valet. The landlady furnished us with good Italian cooking, and I had engaged a pretty girl as my waiting maid. You are not to suppose that we had discontinued our work. The forenoon hours were regularly appropriated to writing. We were happy as happy could be. _Die Waffen nieder_ had been out now for a year, and I was still receiving critical articles from the periodicals and letters from the public regarding it.

How round the world really is, and how small! Wherever one goes one always meets friends and acquaintances from the remotest regions. So it was here. We were introduced into society by our consul general, Baron Kraus, and quite unexpectedly we met dear old friends.

Princess Tamara of Georgia, in whose house in Tiflis, and again four years before in Paris, we had spent so much time, was now settled in Venice and was there introducing her two daughters into society. I even found a friend of my girlhood days—Marietta Saibante—in the Marchesa Pandolfi, whose salons in the Palazzo Bianca Capello were a meeting-place for Venetian society. We had not seen each other in nearly twenty-five years, and had quite lost track of each other; so it was a delightful surprise to both of us to meet again so unexpectedly. Her husband, a member of the Italian parliament for Sicily, had just come from Rome. He is the same Marchese Benjamino Pandolfi who afterwards took a prominent part in the peace movement.

One forenoon my husband and I were sitting and chatting together after breakfast, when a card was brought in. On it was written the inquiry whether Mr. Felix Moscheles of London, who had chanced the day before to learn through Sir Austen Henry Layard that the author of _Die Waffen nieder_ was in Venice, might be permitted to present his respects.

I sent down word that it would be a pleasure to me.

My husband went to meet the visitor in the anteroom.

“My wife will be much pleased ...” he began politely.

“What! How is this?” cried the other. “Can you be Baron Suttner? So you are not dead? Why, you were shot in Paris!”

“Excuse me, no....”

Thereupon the two gentlemen came in where I was, and the stranger explained why he had been so surprised to find me in the possession of a living spouse, when he knew from the story of my life, which he had lately read, that I had lost my two husbands, and he had not supposed (somewhat reproachfully) that I was married for the third time.

We laughingly explained to him that the two deceased military men were mere creations of fancy, and all that was taken from reality was the loving and happy wedded intercourse which the book depicts—and this, thank God, had not been sundered by any cruel fate.

Mr. Felix Moscheles, a son of the famous musician, and editor of the correspondence between his father and Mendelssohn, now explained to us that he, together with Hodgson Pratt, Cardinal Manning, Lord Ripon, the Bishop of London, the Duke of Westminster, and others, belonged to the directorate of the London Peace Association. Being a permanent resident of London and a naturalized Englishman, he had set himself the task of carrying on propaganda for his peace association whenever he was traveling. His chief specialty was table-d’hôte conversion; but this, he laughingly acknowledged, was generally a wretched failure, or else brought upon him the counter attempts of old women tract distributers to convert him.

The preceding winter he had spent with his wife in Cairo, where he had made quite a number of Egyptian studies,—Mr. Moscheles is a painter by profession,—and there he had succeeded in winning over sundry beys to his peace theories. A friend from Berlin had sent him my book, and that had awakened in him an eager desire to make the acquaintance of the unfortunate woman who had suffered so much by war and who had expressed in this book so much that he himself had at heart. Now the day before he had learned quite by accident, in a soirée at the house of Sir Austen Henry Layard, the well-known ex-diplomat, that the author was in Venice, and he could not but pay his respects to her: first as a friend of peace, to thank her for the book, and secondly as a man, to express his sympathy for the poor broken-hearted widow ... and—what disillusions life brings—he is received by the husband of a jocund woman!

In the course of the conversation Mr. Moscheles told us that it would have been very agreeable to him if in Venice he could have met with people who would be disposed to form a local section of the Peace Association; but that there was no prospect of it—no one took any interest in the question. He was therefore planning to return to England in two days.

“Who knows?” said I. “Perhaps it might be possible to do something in the matter after all. This evening there is a reception in Casa Pandolfi; I will speak about your wish to the marquis, who, to the best of my knowledge and belief, belongs to the Parliament at Rome and to the Peace Association there.”

So that same evening, in what had been the Palazzo Bianca Capello, while the young people were dancing in the next room, I asked the host for a word with him. With but little hope of any results I told him about the visit of the English friend of peace, and about his desire. The Marquis Pandolfi seemed very much surprised to hear me speak of such things; and even more joyfully surprised was I when I now learned that he was one of the most enthusiastic and active adherents of the cause, that the group of sympathizers in the Italian Chamber already comprised a large proportion of the popular representatives, and that he, Pandolfi, was at work on the organization of this group and the preparations for the next conference. He most willingly took up the idea of having a section formed in Venice, and commissioned me to request Mr. Moscheles to be good enough to call on him for further conference the next forenoon.

A few days later a provisional committee had been formed, a notice sent out, and a meeting called. About a hundred persons attended at the hall, among them many journalists and lawyers. Only two women were present,—Mr. Felix Moscheles’s wife Grete and I.

The two given names Grete and Felix had among their friends grown into the collective name Grelix. For Grelix is altogether of one mind; Grelix is enthusiastic for every kind of social progress and works for it; Grelix paints in partnership, visits every picturesque corner of the earth with sketchbook and pencil; Grelix’s self is a pretty sight too, he with his thick snow-white hair crowning still fresh features and an elastic figure, she looking as if she might be his daughter, nice and delicate as a little doll, with goldblond hair tumbling about a rococo face; and the house in London, containing the two studios and all the art treasures collected in traveling, is called “The Grelix,” after its owner.

Pandolfi gave those who were present a kindling address—it is well known how fierily Italians speak if they are orators—in which he urged the formation of a Venetian section of the universal European league of peace and explained the aims of the interparliamentary group to which he belonged. Then several others took part and expressed their views.

It was the first time in my life that I had been present on such an occasion, for I had never belonged to any kind of a Union, or looked on at a meeting of one or at its formation. The result was that a committee was at once appointed, with Pandolfi as chairman; dispatches were sent to the Peace Association in London and to the peace and arbitration group in Rome; and so the group so ardently desired by our English guest was founded.

The next day all the Italian papers had notices of this event, and for a while it was the talk of the day in our circles. In such fashion, to be sure, as parlor talk in the presence of a new movement, striving to accomplish a great revolution in any field, ordinarily is,—expression of sapient doubts and probable objections, hinted mockery, condescending recognition of the noble aim,—and all against a background of stolid, obstinate indifference.

And especially—is it credible?—especially women are the ones that manage to find beautiful aspects of war, that neither can nor will conceive of a condition when their sons will not any longer have to die for their country, but simply to live for it.

Among the ladies of Venetian society with whom I associated at that time, and who showed some interest in the newly founded Pandolfi Union, these two were foremost: first the widowed Princess Darinka of Montenegro—who died a year later. “We shall yet live to see the world shaking off war,” she said to me. “The Emperor of Russia, you may believe me, cherishes a deep horror of it.” Well, she did not live to see that day; but what difference does the presence of us ephemera make when it is a question of the history of humanity, which goes on living—and we in it—?

The second of the women who took an interest in the question was the Princess Hatzfeld, born Von Buch. A splendid old lady—she had just celebrated her seventieth birthday. She had a receptive mind and warm enthusiasm for everything that took place in the world in politics and art. When Richard Wagner was living in Venice she was on terms of intimate friendship with him and Frau Cosima. She was the first who learned of his fatal illness and hastened to his deathbed. A note from the stricken wife, “Come!” had summoned her. When she entered the room where Wagner lay, he had just drawn his last breath, and Frau Cosima with a wild cry threw herself on his dead body. After a while she rose to her feet, and, pale, tearless, stepped to a little table on which lay a pair of scissors; these she seized, and, cutting off her long thick tresses, placed this blond silken cushion under the dead man’s head.