Chapter I

Girlish fancies—Enthusiasm for heroism—Education—Entering society—At
Marienbad—Love at first sight.

At seventeen I was a very highly-strung girl. I should hardly realise this to-day, if it were not for the diaries so carefully laid away. In them I find again my long-lost enthusiasms, thoughts, and feelings now utterly forgotten, convictions of which now not a vestige remains, and sympathies which have long been dead and buried. I catch a glimpse of the emptiness and silliness which filled my pretty little head. But, as I painfully learn from my mirror, of the prettiness little trace is left, although the old portraits assure me that it once existed.

I can imagine what an envied little creature the Countess Martha Althaus must have been, pretty, popular, and petted. These quaint little red diaries, however, recorded more of sadness than of joy in her life. I think now, “How could I have been so silly not to realise how singularly blessed I was with privileges?” Perhaps I was only expressing an unbalanced sentimentality, and I tried to express it in somewhat poetic prose. Imagine my discontent when I wrote:—

O Joan of Arc! heroic, heavenly virgin! If only I too might have waved
the oriflamme of France, crowned my king, and died for my fatherland!

Alas! this modest ambition was never gratified.

Again, I longed to be torn in the arena by lions like the Christian martyrs. But the heroics were not for me. I must frankly admit that my life was a commonplace failure, and the glories for which my soul thirsted were for ever closed to me.

Often the little red book exclaimed, “Oh that I had been born a boy!” Then I should have been able to win fame. But feminine heroes are few. How seldom we have Gracchi for sons, and not often may we hope to carry our husbands on our backs through the Weinsberg Gates, or to be a queen and hear the sabre-swinging Magyars shout, “Long live Maria Theresa, our King!” A man need only gird on the sword and dash to fame and laurels, to capture a throne like Cromwell, or a world-empire like Napoleon.

My highest type of manhood was always a military hero. I had slight respect for mere poets, scholars, and discoverers. The heroes of many battles were the object of my adoration and devotion. Were they not the chief pillars of the state, the makers of history, the builders of empires? Did they not tower in God-like grandeur over all other heroes, as did the Alps and Himalayas over mere grass and valley flowers?

From all this it need not be concluded that I possessed an heroic nature. My enthusiasms and passions naturally took their bent from my education and environment. My father was an Austrian General, who had fought under “Father Radetzky” at Custozza, and therefore adored him. I listened untiringly to the unending stories of this campaign. My dear father actually pitied other men who had not had these proud and glorious experiences, and I always regretted that I, being a girl, would never have these magnificent opportunities; and, having heard some mention of the question of the equal rights of women, I felt sure that the only additional right I should ever keenly desire would be the right to go to war. How charmed I was with the story of Semiramis or Catherine II. when I read: “She made war upon this or that neighbouring kingdom, or she conquered this or that people.”

The history books are responsible for this warlike ideal of the young. That the God of Battles has constantly decreed wars stamps itself upon the mind from the first, and one early accepts the belief that war is necessary to regulate nations, and is almost a law of nature, like tornadoes and earthquakes, which from time to time cannot be avoided. History does not cover up the wickedness, the sorrow, the anguish of it all, but presents it as a part of the inevitable, bringing advantage to the nation, through the sacrifice of the happiness and life of the few. That there is no nobler death than that of the soldier martyr is the clear and unanimous verdict of all our school histories and texts. Long lists of battles are given, and entrancing tales and poems of glory and heroism are told, for must not patriotism be taught, must not every boy grow to be a defender of his country? So he must be made a war-enthusiast early. His spirit must be hardened long before he questions through his natural sympathies why we inflict these horrors and sufferings upon others. Such doubts must be carefully repressed.

History as it is taught aims to warp the inborn, divine impulse to hate barbarism and inhumanity. The tale is so told as to belittle that part of the story which appeals to the sympathies.

And the same books, the same subjects, the same system, encouraging a like admiration for war and military heroics, are given to the girls—delightful pictures for the tender souls, who otherwise are taught that they must be gentle and mild. The frightful stories of carnage and rapine from Bible days, from Macedonian and Punic times down to the Thirty Years’ War and Napoleon, repeat the horrors of the thing until the senses become callous. To read of cities burnt and the people put to the sword with the victims trodden under foot was a keen enjoyment, and to heap one horror upon the other blunted the perceptions till war no longer could be regarded from the point of view of humanity, but was received as something quite special, mysterious, majestic, and sanctified.

The girls could readily see that war alone could give the highest honour and dignity, so they learn all the military and glorifying odes, and they become, like the Spartan mothers of old, the women who present battle-flags and regimental colours, and are the admired and happy belles during the ball season, when they receive the attentions of the brass-buttoned officer’s corps.

As a child I had tutors and a governess at home, and was not reared in a convent, as was often the case with children of my position. My mother had died early, and the four children were watched over by an elderly aunt. We spent our winters in Vienna, and our summers on the estate in Lower Austria. Having a good memory and being ambitious, I was the delight of my teachers. Since I was denied the career of an heroic female warrior, I made it my enthusiasm to extol all who had helped to make the world’s history through war. I mastered the French and English languages perfectly. I learned all that was considered necessary for girls in natural history, physics, and astronomy, but in the reading of history I knew no limit. The ponderous records of wars and nations I fetched from my father’s library and spent with them my leisure hours.

On March 10, 1857, I celebrated my seventeenth birthday. “Already seventeen” I set down under this date. This “already” was a bit of symbolism, and undoubtedly was meant to signify “and as yet I have done nothing immortal.”

The Season was approaching, and it was arranged that I should be introduced into society, but the prospect did not fill me with the keenest pleasure. I felt that my aims were higher than ballroom conquests. I could not have explained to myself what were the triumphs for which I longed. I was hardly aware of the romantic attitude which possessed me. I was full of glowing dreams and aspirations, such as swell the hearts of youths and maidens, and fill them with a longing to work out their ideals in all sorts of ways. It is at this age that the love of knowledge, action, travel, adventure, show themselves, and are perhaps only an unrecognised activity of the soul filled with desire to express itself.

Aunt Marie was ordered to try the waters at Marienbad during the summer, and found it convenient to take me. My coming-out in society was not to take place till the following winter, and this trip to the fashionable springs gave me a little preliminary practice in dancing and conversation, so that I could wear off some of the shyness before my first season.

Naturally at my first ball I had no eyes for anything but the brilliant military uniforms which were present in such array. But of all the splendid Hussars, Count Arno Dotzky was the most dazzling, and with him I danced the cotillion and several waltzes.

The acquaintance quickly ripened into an attachment, and we were betrothed on my eighteenth birthday, after which I was presented at court.