Chapter XVI: Part FIVE (2)

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.