Part 10

Meanwhile much illness and constant fever had by degrees so weakened the Princess that a change of air became necessary. In the middle of March she had to start alone for Italy without her husband or child, and attended only by her suite. In Rome she was to meet some relations. Thousands had called after her “Intorceti sanatose” (Return in good health) when she left her country. In May the Princess returned, blooming in recovered health. The Prince had travelled to meet her, and welcomed her on the Danube. “That was a romantic meeting,” she writes. “I was on the _Stephen_, Charles on the _Romania_, gay with flags and pennons. We flew towards one another in brilliant sunshine. Both of us were standing on deck watching to see when the other eagerly expected ship should appear. I saw the child two days later in Comana; she is indeed charming. You cannot imagine what a sweet and affectionate little being she is. If she embraces any one she says at once, ‘Make all happy,’ and kisses all present. She is easy to educate, for she is so unhappy when she has done something silly that one has to comfort her. As soon as her heart is appealed to, all obstinacy and contrariness disappear. She is also such a sensible and patient child, and her blue eyes have such a deep gaze. What thoughts dwell behind that high forehead, I wonder, which looks so promising? I think that the love and joy of a mother will remain the same as long as the world stands, and make up to one for all the trials and troubles of life. But earthly happiness must be very delicately handled: it is very easily shattered.”

The Princess of Wied no longer lived at Monrepos with Fräulein Lavater. The Prince of Wied and his bride had made their home there. Only ten minutes’ distance from there, and nearly on the same height, the Princess had had a house built for herself. It is surrounded by woods, and has a beautiful view on the Rhine, the mountains, towns, and villages. After the village of Segendorf, which lies at the foot of the hill, the house of the Princess was called Segen House. By means of the silent, all-pervading spirit of love that reigns there, and the loving and active sympathy of the Princess for all suffering and those who were in need of help, the house soon became a real “Segenhaus” (House of blessing) to all who cross its hospitable threshold. The current of intellectual life has also accompanied the Princess of Wied to her new home.

In the summer of 1873 Princess Elizabeth travelled thither with her little daughter. It was the first time since her marriage that she had seen her German home. The happiness of those weeks which she spent with her mother, her brother and sister-in-law, and the dear old friends in town and country, was unclouded. “Monrepos! Monrepos! the laughing, rustling, and sweet-scenting forest welcomes me, and happy faces peer at me through it. Yes, Monrepos was my Paradise!” She seemed to live through her childhood and youth again with their deep joys and sorrows, inward struggles and ultimate peace. Yes, happiness is not to be found in an eternally blue sky, but in infinitesimally small things out of which we shape our life ourselves.

THE HOME OF MY FATHERS.

“The nightingale’s song of yearning Is blent with the streamlet’s sigh; Above and around the gables The swallows circling fly.

And they sing of the passing races That have lived and loved there of yore, How they vanished away in their season, Yet the line is renewed as before.

The seed of their spirit’s sowing Still blooms, though the years decay; The earth cannot hide or consume it, Nor the storm cannot sweep it away.

The strength of the house is quickened With the glow of ancestral fires; The child from the father inherits, And the ancient spirit inspires.

* * * * *

The Rhine oft rises in greeting Around my city’s wall, And twineth his arms about her, For he loves her best of all.”

With justified maternal pride the mother could gaze on her fair-haired and only little daughter, who became again here the centre of all love and care. On the journey between Mayence and Neuwied the child had repeatedly asked, “Is that mamma’s Rhine?” But the little Princess Marie had, notwithstanding her tender age, an irresistible longing for the country in which she had first seen the light. She was constantly craving to be back again in her distant home, and became nearly ill from home sickness. During the whole journey she kept repeating--“Home, home, let us go home!” When the Roumanian students came to meet them at the station at Vienna, she called out to them in Roumanian, “I am going home to Bucharest with eight horses.”

On the return of the Princess to Roumania, they once more took up their abode in the romantic old monastery of Sinaia. Typhus and scarlet fever were raging in Bucharest. The Princess writes full of anxiety--“Bucharest is in such an unhealthy state that I shall return to it with fear and trembling. Typhus fever and angina reign there supreme. Diphtheria has carried off many of the children. They die in a few hours. I often become as unsettled and melancholy as a dark day in the autumn. Then an interesting person or piece of news comes in, and one brightens up like the dew in the sunshine.”

“_22nd November._--It is four years to-day since I arrived in Turnu Severin. Now I see the world here in a different light. The tranquillity which habit brings has come over me, instead of all my fear and trembling. And I feel safer here, and more in my right place, than anywhere else in the world.”

_To her Brother._

“BUCHAREST, 1873.

“People now often come to me to discuss their own affairs and seek for advice, comfort, and help. This makes me very happy, and as I wrote to some one lately: I am beginning to grow to my ideal, which is to become the confidential adviser of the Roumanian State, house, and family. This is a very grateful office, and only in this manner can I become really happy in my intercourse with so many people.

“Yes, my life here is very rich and full. I could not have imagined or wished it otherwise! It had to be attained by great sacrifices, and my endeavour is to make it worthy of them.”

* * * * *

“_24th November 1873._--Itty now begins to say such pretty little things. Seeing the bust of her father lately, she exclaimed--‘Oh, look how Jack Frost has fallen on papa.’ She has made great progress in Roumanian this autumn, and sings three Roumanian songs, also a German ditty. All the games of the Kindergarten go very well already.”

“_24th March 1874._--Itty has not forgotten any part of her stay in ‘Segenhaus’--no place and no name; and likes to talk of it all. She is a little Will-o’-the-Wisp, in all corners at once, which is a great trial for Mentor, the favourite dog. She makes him nervous, and he struggles to free himself from her embraces. He is not demonstrative, and likes to be left in peace. It is too funny to see them!”

“_February 1874._--Diphtheria and scarlet fever are raging in Bucharest. A great many children die. When we mothers meet we ask each other, ‘Are your children still well?’”

The little Princess also had a slight attack of diphtheria, which was soon overcome by speedy remedies. In the course of the winter she asked her mother--“Will the frost come down from the little stars where God lives and make Itty cold?” On Palm Sunday, the 5th of April, she was seized with scarlet fever of very serious symptoms. Diphtheria was soon added to it, and the danger increased every hour. It was impossible to persuade the child to allow herself to be put into her crib. “Oh! no, no!” she sobbed; “if I lie down, I shall go to sleep and never wake again.” During the night of Maunday Thursday, whilst burning with fever, the sweet child repeatedly called out--“I will drive to Sinaia and drink of the water of the Pelesch.” When a cooling drink was offered to her she shook her little head and said--“All is finished!” It was on Maunday Thursday, the 9th of April; the child lay on the lap of its English nurse. Her mother knelt before her, holding her little hands. After violent attacks of suffocation, she breathed once more--then a great silence followed--no breath stirred again.

Till the last moment the Princess had not realised that the bright life of her child was nearing its close. But when all was still, and she grasped the dreadful certainty, she bent with humble resignation before the holy will of God. She herself closed the loved blue eyes of her precious child, then rose quite calm and collected, and thanked the doctors for their faithful care. No words of complaint passed her lips! Her strength remained firm till they placed the body of the child in its little bed.

The tender care of the Prince for his beloved wife was very touching. He was utterly prostrated by the unexpected blow, and earnestly sought for comfort and composure. “God loved my child more than ever I did, and so He has taken it to Himself!” exclaimed the poor mother with wonderful calmness. When the little body was placed in the coffin, and it had been closed over her, the Princess put her hand on it and spoke as in prayer--“God bless my child.” The Prince himself helped to bear the coffin to the staircase of the palace. A troop of young girls from the Asyle Hélène opened the procession, singing the funeral hymn with hushed voices. In their white dresses, long white veils, and wreaths of white flowers, they seemed spirits of light preceding the sunny child to its last resting-place. Not four years had passed since the little Princess had been baptized in the Church of Cotroceni, and now the little coffin stood on the same place covered with flowers. Multitudes of people from the town and the country joined the procession.

Upon the slope of a hill between the Asyle Hélène and the park of Cotroceni lies the little grave, hidden in a wood, near the Church of Elisabeta Dòamna. A low mound with a simple stone marks the place where the princely pair had laid to rest their little daughter who was so passionately loved! On the stone is engraved the consoling words of St. Luke viii. 53: “WEEP NOT, FOR SHE IS NOT DEAD, BUT SLEEPETH.” Trees, firs and pines, as well as all sorts of roses and flowers, surround this little sanctum, which is entrusted to the care and protection of the orphan child of the Asyle Hélène. Beside it stands the simple seat as a resting-place.

The sorrow of the parents for the loss of their only child can never be lightened, and will only end with their last breath. But the hope of a heavenly life beyond the grave is the comfort of these bereaved ones!

For many months hundreds of people made pilgrimages to this spot, for the whole country mourned with the afflicted parents. During her short life the little Princess Marie had become the idol of the people, and the Roumanians had looked up to her with pride as being their own possession! All who were allowed to approach the bereaved parents during this time of bitter sorrow were much impressed by their unselfish resignation to the mysterious will of God. When the Princess was given to understand this, she answered--“Dites à leur tous, que je tâche de suivre l’example de ma mère. Je l’ai vue souffrir! Elle était plus forte que moi!”

On the 12th of April 1874, after the death of her child, Princess Elizabeth wrote to her mother:--“God has drawn my child to Himself in His love! May He eternally be praised for the great happiness which was mine! I would rather become a weeping rock like Niobe than never have been a mother! Yes, it is too much joy for one little human heart! My child is so happy, my love is stronger than the grave, and I can rejoice in its joy! There is so much to say about the little one, because she already had such marked characteristics, and was so independent, original, and charming. Still she is mine for all eternity! I have not lost the high dignity of a mother because my child is separated from me. The great happiness which I enjoy is not too dearly bought with this great sorrow! The pain is a thousand times outweighed by the joy, for it was joy without a pang, and now it is joyful pain!

“The chill frost came in the night, the night, And my flower all withered lies. His icy touch was so light, so light, But it closed her fair blue eyes.

Ah me! is it thus that my joys depart, While stricken and mute I stand. O frost, let the fire that burns at my heart Be quenched by thy cold, wet hand.

_May 1, 1874._

“Yes, God has given me much, very much. Such a father, such a mother, such a brother, such a husband, and such a child. Too much indeed! and though He removes them from my sight He does not take away His heavenly gifts, for they dwell for ever in my memory. I feel that after such great blessings I have no right to complain, and even to-day the joy is so great in retrospection that the sorrow cannot crush me. I often say that a mother’s love is deeper than the grave, and I rejoice in the bliss of my child. But that the world cannot be otherwise than dark and gloomy to me is not to be altered, and must be borne.

“Wherefore give to poor weak women-- To Earth-Mothers--babes from Heaven, God, O God? Fairy boons, seen but to vanish Like a light-ray, like an air-waft! Must then that which was one’s Soul’s soul, Be so reft away, and leave us, Leave us, struck in Life’s mid fulness Deathly-sorrowful, and faltering?

Wherefore mad’st Thou us so humble, So in lowliest clay entangled, God, O God? That we, with our own dear children No more to consort are worthy? So that, from our arms unskilful Thou dost them withdraw, O Father? When our sad frail hearts were breaking?

Formerly ’twas sunshine round us, Days of peace, and long rejoicing, God, O God! Now is mortal silence o’er us, Now is icy hush of heart! As when storms have wrought their direst, Mastless, anchorless the barque drifts, So on Death’s grey waves we welter, And we still must live, O Father!

--_Translated by Sir Edwin Arnold._

“The people here regard it as a great happiness to die on Thursday in holy week, for on that day, they say, Heaven is open, and one flies in. Consequently they regard me as a happy mother, to whom God has granted that for which they ever pray, which is that if He sees fit to take a child, it may die on this Thursday. What a curious coincidence! Even this brings us nearer to the people, for they regard us as so richly blessed. The whole country shows us the greatest sympathy. Our little grave is always covered with wreaths and flowers which are placed there by unknown hands. The girls from the Asyle come singly to the grave in the early morning, say their prayer, bring a little flower, and see that the lamp is still burning. It is a great help to me that I came into a country where so much is done in memory of the dead. Consequently that which lies nearest my heart is all arranged for me. ‘Dimbovitza apa dulce! Cine o bea nu se mai due!’

“Dimbovitza! Magic river, Silver shining, memory haunted, He who drinks thy crystal waters Ne’er can quit thy shores enchanted.

Dimbovitza! all too deeply Drank I of thy flowing river; For my love, my inmost being There, meseems, have sunk for ever.

Dimbovitza! Dimbovitza! All my soul hast thou in keeping, Since beneath thy banks of verdure Lies my dearest treasure sleeping.”

Shortly before the child had been taken ill, the Princess had suffered much from her eyes, and could now hardly occupy herself at all. It was a great affliction to her to whom work was life! During these sad, dark days she framed the sweet expressions of her child in verses which one cannot read without emotion. The following poem is on the poetical desire of the little Princess to kiss the sunbeams:--

“On the earth, in the shimmer Of shining sunbeams Which in golden light gleams Paint the colours that glimmer, How often, my child, In those halcyon days Hast thou lain, and smiled, Kissing the rays.

Didst draw them to thee With thy fingers in sport, Or came they unsought Thy playmates to be? I ne’er could divine, But methinks at thy birth Thou wast sent on a sunbeam To me and the earth.”

And now the sunbeams have kissed the lovely child and taken her away with them. It seems as if all earthly hopes and all earthly joy had been buried with her. A deep sorrow and an unutterable longing stole into the heart of the Princess, which only a mother can really understand, and which can only end with life. On the 25th of April the following poem was found in the Journal--

LONGING.

“I long to feel thy little arm’s embrace, Thy little silver-sounding voice to hear, I long for thy warm kisses on my face, And for thy bird-like carol, blithe and clear.

I long for every childish, loving word, And for thy little footsteps, fairy light, That hither, thither moved and ever stirred My heart with them to gladness infinite.

And for thy hair I long--that halo blest Hanging in golden glory round thy brow. My child, can aught such longing lull to rest? Nay, heaven’s bliss alone can end it now!”

IX.

Quiet Life.

“In work, in constant and unwearied labour, we must look for comfort in sorrow,” says Carmen Sylva, in her tale, “The Pilgrimage of Sorrow.” This has been truly carried out in her life. Whilst composing those sorrowful poems in which her unutterable longing for her lost child is expressed in such touching words, the Princess could become quite cheerful for a few moments in the recollection of her lost happiness as a mother. But her health had suffered much from all she had gone through. The doctors urged a water cure in Franzensbad. Prince Charles escorted his consort thither in the summer of 1874. In Franzensbad her pen became more than ever her best friend, and her intellectual labours brought her comfort and strength.

At first no one in Roumania guessed that Princess Elizabeth was a poetess. When the Roumanian poet Alexandri once waited upon her at Bucharest, the Princess said, whilst blushing deeply--“I should like to make a confession to you, but I have not the courage.” After much hesitation the Princess whispered shyly--“I also write poetry.” At Alexandri’s request she let him see some of her poems. He recognised her poetic talent at once, and encouraged her to go on with what was but a reflection of her thoughts and feelings. When a time of deep sorrow came to the Princess, Alexandri wrote many poems for her. He then sent her a thick volume of his poems to Franzensbad, and she began to translate the legends of the people of Roumania into German. “In Franzensbad,” writes the Princess, “the greatest change took place in my powers of writing poetry. Till then I had not known that poetry was an art, or that it could be learnt, if one were not a poet by nature. To learn to make verses seemed to me as if one would teach a bird to sing. Verses and rhymes flowed more easily from my pen than prose. I was afraid that if I were to bind myself to rules and regulations I should forfeit the power of writing verse as a punishment for my arrogance and conceit. But in the unutterable woe of the spring of 1874 writing poetry brought me no relief. Only consecutive hard work could soothe me. And so I took to translating. Alexandri’s ‘Rows of Pearls’ attracted me the most, because Kotzebue in his translation had completely changed the metre and altered much. Then I suddenly realised that I did not understand the very elements of the art of poetry. I was hampered for words and rhymes. This had never happened to me, and my work was very unsatisfactory. I wanted to ask a hundred questions at every word, and did not know of whom.”

Thereupon Wilhelm von Kotzebue also came to Franzensbad. He had long held a diplomatic post in Moldavia, and was well known to the literary world as a writer. He had also translated the national songs which Alexandri had collected into German. The Princess now discussed her translations with him. Kotzebue, an earnest and noble man, showed and explained to the Princess her faults in the construction of her verses. Now she had to work by rule and submit to certain laws--“But in that hour in which a man like Kotzebue thought it worth his while to criticise my work, I began to believe in my talent.” “I did not venture,” said the Princess, “to show him an original poem, but only my first translations of Roumanian poetry. They were very full of faults and clumsy, because I knew nothing of the science of poetry then, though I was thirty years old. I altered the ‘Rows of Pearls’ four times, and once more before it was printed. I never learnt so much as whilst I was translating. Even for many years after this I regarded my talent as a misfortune, for I thought it was not suited for my vocation. Like a child stealing sweetmeats, I always threw away my pen when some one came into my room.”

“Is it not wonderful?” the Princess writes to her mother. “If heaven takes my loved ones from me with one hand, it sheds the noblest and highest treasures upon me with the other, and in what more loving and attractive manner could I serve my country than in now translating the literary treasures of my German Fatherland into Roumanian! When I am not asleep my hands and my head do not rest for a moment, for I break down utterly otherwise. But constant activity keeps my mind fresh, and it is only at times that some sweet recollection overpowers me.

“O think not, since my heart is stricken, All vanished are the joys that quicken! There yet remains a boundless store-- Though, bereavèd, I may never Hear a mother’s name for ever, Thou’rt still ‘my mother’ as before.”

A great longing to see her beloved mother again took possession of the Princess. The Princess of Wied had been prevented by illness from being with her daughter during her time of deepest sorrow. When they had last met, the happy childish voice of the little Princess Marie had been heard above the others. Now they could only meet in sobs and tears! The princely pair were to join the Princess of Wied at Cologne, and then to remain some weeks with her at St. Leonard’s on the English coast.

The Princess writes to the Princess of Wied from Franzensbad on the 19th of July:--“It is good to fill one’s mind with great impressions. One returns full of thought. I am looking forward to England like a child. I know what it will be to sit on the shore with you and listen to the sound of the waves. To see London is also a great attraction.”

“Looking back on this time,” the Princess writes, “it was a great refreshment to disappear in that vast London. We had never seen Max Müller till then, but had been often in communication with him, and we telegraphed to him that we were coming to Oxford. He received us at the station, and invited us to stay at his house. The two days spent in the peaceful atmosphere of his home, in that charming family circle which had not then been broken, soothed and cheered me. This happiness could not weigh upon the unhappy; it could but do one good and allay the storm. It was the happiness of a wise man. We also made the acquaintance of Jane Stanley. I had then finished a little book in the form of a missal for my mother, which I called ‘My Journey through the World’--all sorts of verses and rhymes, dedicated to my mother. Charles Kingsley was present when I surprised my mother with this present. I showed him the poem--

MY ONLY ONE.

“O let no evil betide her, No sin her pure heart enthrall; My God, with Thine own hand guide her-- Thou knowest she is my all.