Hon. Marie Hay

“ If she could only gain the higher gallery she might hide in some dark corner. Ah! here were the steps. She clambered up; the yelling crowd must be close behind now, for she could hear their words: 'Rat out the witch!' 'Death to the sinner!' 'Die Hexe! die verdammte Hexe!'—then some coarse witticisms shouted in Swabian dialect, rude laughter, whoops and curses, groans and whistles, all a mob's animal-like ejaculations.
The Grävenitz shuddered. Would they pass her? They were beneath the grotto now; she could hear their words distinctly: 'To the grotto! the grotto! the witch is there! ”

“ You are my wife by all laws of fairest nature and love! This is a more holy thing than marriage—nay, this is true marriage!' It was the eternal lie of lovers: the old futile, pathetic, impossible pleading of those whose love cannot be sanctioned by law. Wilhelmine's face darkened.
'Monseigneur, if you could make Forstner and his sort believe that, I should not be taunted and insulted. But come, now, we cannot discuss this here. Will you tell me where you propose to lodge me this night, or shall I vanish again?' Her gaiety had returned. ”

“ She recollected how Eberhard Ludwig had shown her the grotto's marvellous springs and tricks; she recalled how, after much heaving and turning at an iron lever, the whole grotto had suddenly been converted into a place of living waters. She wondered if the works were still more rusty now; how sad a waste that this curious old-world pleasantry should be allowed to rust to destruction. Wilhelmine fell into a dream: if she were Duchess, she would have the grotto repaired, not Time's handiwork disturbed; the ferns, the lichen, the twining ivy should remain; the wilderness should not be formalised ”

“ The Duke of Wirtemberg alone cannot protect the woman he loves.'
Eberhard Ludwig drew back from her.
'How cruel you are, dear heart,' he said, and a great sadness lay in his voice. She told him that the truth was often cruel to hear; that she but spoke these things because he let himself drift into weak conniving at the intrigues of Johanna Elizabetha. Then she recounted the petty spite and the thousand taunts to which she was subjected. She painted Stuttgart in sombre colours, the dullness, the stiffness. Why should Wirtemberg be the least brilliant, least gay, of all the German courts? ”

“ This is the inexorable Death in Life, and in this Death we cannot dream of a fair consoling Hereafter. The thing we loved has not only perished—alas! we realise that it has never existed! What we worshipped was the shadow of our own making, a mirage conjured up by our heart's desire. To those who love most, love best, this tragedy comes.
Wilhelmine, who arrived in Wirtemberg a strong, passionate creature, generous, vital, was too responsive to remain unaltered by the alchemising touch of the world. ”

“ Are we really only children crying for the moon? and if the moon were given to us, should we but throw it away into the nearest ditch—merely another broken toy? he thought. These moods of Eberhard Ludwig's were frequent. Like all poets, he had a vein of melancholy, a tendency to indulge himself in a half-sensuous sadness, and these dreamings of his, which had never been received with ought save uncomprehending impatience by the Duchess, Wilhelmine had known so well how to assuage—not entirely to dissipate, for she would have robbed him of a certain joy had she done so ”

“ Johanna Elizabetha sighed.
'No, she has not come yet. It is hard she should spoil our Christmas Eve; but it is better than meeting her for the first time as Landhofmeisterin with all her friends to stare at me.'
'She will not enjoy her evening, my dear,' returned the Duchess-mother, with a grim smile.
At this moment Eberhard Ludwig entered, leading the Erbprinz by the hand. He sometimes endeavoured to be a kind father, but it was no easy matter for him. The Duchess-mother's face softened as she greeted her son, and bent to kiss the little boy, who scarcely responded to the old lady's embrace. ”

“ The man frowned evilly at her, and she recollected that the maid Maria, once when she had accompanied her mistress on a stroll in the Lustgarten, and they had passed the same sentry, had told her that he was the lover of Johanna Elizabetha's waiting-maid, the woman who had always been so insolent to Wilhelmine at the castle. 'He would do me harm, that lout, if he could,' Wilhelmine reflected as she walked on, and the man's frowning face haunted her for a time, but soon the freshness of the evening breeze and the garden's beauty drove all unquiet thoughts from her mind. ”

“ So Madame de Stafforth presented Fräulein Wilhelmine von Grävenitz to her Highness Johanna Elizabetha, Duchess of Wirtemberg. The dull, amiable woman gave Wilhelmine her hand to kiss and turned away, indifferent, unconcerned. So little do we know when we first approach the enemies of our lives! With those we are to love it is often the same. We touch the hand which is fated to give life's gift of joy to us, and we pass on unconscious that Destiny has spoken. ”

“ Maria had not returned from Madame de Ruth's apartment. She kindled a light from her steel tinder-casket and set a waxen taper aglow. Then she began to read Forstner's letter.
'Monseigneur, my Prince, and once my friend! Though it has been your pleasure to discredit me, I cannot rest until I have let you know the truth. You are being grossly abused, your noble trust and love made mock of by a creature too vile for human words to describe. A woman, who to her other lovers holds you up to scorn and ridicule! yes, ridicule of your passion, making mock, betraying the secrets of your bed. ”

“ The crowd's humour seemed changed; the men were no longer fierce, they were amused, laughing. All crowds are curiously fickle, easily aroused, easily appeased, and the Swabian especially loves to be overreached by a joke. She saw that the mob's attention was diverted from her, and she knew that the danger was passed for the moment.
Would Zollern have been to the Jägerhaus, have heard the shouting, realised, and called out the guard to rescue her? Would the waterworks fail and the rabble catch her, after all? Or would the people grow bolder, face the water, and hunt her out of her hiding-place? ”

“ At eight of the clock on the evening of 15th May 1706, the main street of Stuttgart was crowded with a stream of coaches and foot-passengers. The cries of the running footmen: 'Make way there for his Highness the Duke of Zollern!' 'Room for the high and nobly born Freifrau von Geyling!' 'Let pass the coach of the gracious Countess Gemmingen!' 'Ho, there! for the Witgenstein's coach!' mixed with the comments of the rabble of sightseers, and the retorts of the substantial burghers who were piloting their wives and daughters through the mob. ”

“ Wilhelmine had passed a solitary two months at Schaffhausen. Zollern's castle stood on the left bank of the Rhine, overlooking the great waterfall, whose delicious thunder had soothed her to calmer thoughts. She passed the long hours in reading and making music, and the peaceful days had added brilliancy to her splendid healthfulness. Thus, when Eberhard Ludwig came to Schaffhausen, he found her an even more forceful, vital, fresh-skinned woman than had been the beautiful girl he left at Stuttgart. ”

“ A really clever woman of the world would never show the grimace of sorrow: she may weep, but she hides her face, well knowing that a weeping woman is a hideous sight; but all this Eberhard Ludwig did not know.
Meanwhile Wilhelmine sat in her yellow salon listening to the sounds from the market-place which floated to her across the gardens behind the Jägerhaus. She heard the flare of trumpets which greeted the Duke, the roar of the enthusiastic people acclaiming their warlike sovereign; then followed silence, Osiander must be pronouncing his benediction, she thought. ”

“ A fresh north breeze sprang up and sent the white dust whirling in clouds behind the Duchess's coach. And the north wind brought Johanna Elizabetha another pang, for it wafted to her a sound of music from Ludwigsburg. The musicians of the Silver Guards were playing a merry strain in the palace gardens.
To the forsaken, humiliated woman this moment was symbolic of her whole life: she journeying alone down the dusty road towards the gathering gloom over Stuttgart; Eberhard Ludwig and the Landhofmeisterin at their beautiful palace living in music and revelry. ”

“ Meanwhile the life at Urach went its usual course: hunts, feasts, music, cards, love and laughter. Naturally those few members of the former Wirtemberg court who had suffered themselves to be drawn into the vortex of gaiety, now withdrew, and the Grävenitz circle grew to be more and more the refuge of the brilliant disreputable. Adventurers flocked in from all sides and, were they but entertaining, immediately became bright satellites revolving round the sun of Wilhelmine's magnificence. ”

“ It is always so; there is no sadder thing than the melancholy of a place, once sacred and beloved, which has fallen into the chill hands of the indifference of another generation.
The Neuhaus was turned farm: the upper rooms were used as hay-lofts, and in that long, panelled living-room, which had seen Wilhelmine von Grävenitz's strange marriage, a peasant woman cooked, scolding her brood of children. ”

“ Never was there such a stir in Wirtemberg. All the quarries rendered stone. Each village sent its most skilled workmen, and Frisoni despatched messengers to Italy to summon all the disengaged talent to the tremendous enterprise. In swarms they arrived—black-browed, olive-skinned, chattering like apes. And the little monkey in the flowing white peruke took direction. But first, the spiritual needs of the workmen must be considered; and the Grävenitz, raging with impatience in Stuttgart, was forced to look on while a Catholic chapel was built near the Erlachhof, ere ever the palace was begun. ”

“ Even the colour of her eyes was varying, and yet there was a curious persistency of gaze, a power of fixing. The Güstrow citizens called Wilhelmine von Grävenitz witch and sorceress because of these strange eyes; they said she could freeze men with a look, that she had a serpent's gaze that grew cold and petrifying, when she chose, and yet those who loved her (they were not many) knew that her eyes could dance with laughter like a child's, that they could soften to tenderness, could glow with enthusiasm over a song or poem. ”

“ Wilhelmine looked at his Highness for a moment in silence, and her face softened. After all, she loved Eberhard Ludwig, and in spite of her overweening prosperity, coupled with the world-hardness which marred her, there lingered something of tenderness in her love. Then, too, she was a consummate actress, and a being gifted with the womanly genius for charming, and therein lies sympathy. It is when this sympathetic spark is killed by the terrible blight of over-prosperity, that the deterioration of a woman takes place. ”

“ The Imperial decree was uncompromising: 'She leaves your court, this adventuress, or ill betide her. If you take a mistress, well and good—that is not in the power of Emperor to forbid; but you have infringed the Empire's laws by bigamy, Serenissimus, and this we will not tolerate. The lady must depart; if she goes not, the rigours of the law will crush her. No more of your mock marriage, no more of your sorry, sham court.'
Thus the gist of the document which shattered Wilhelmine's hopes and interrupted her triumph at Urach. ”

“ Monsieur Gabriel, in the far-off days at Güstrow, had feared this development, had trembled before the world-hardness which would mar the being he loved. How many have trembled at the same thought, and in sadness and loneliness have realised that their dread has become a cruel reality! We can face Death for those we love, mourning them in agony and tears, but we [131] can find no beauty in that bitter and hideous grief which comes to us when those we loved, we trusted, we admired, change to us—worst of all, change in themselves. ”

“ Once more the door was flung open, and Wilhelmine von Grävenitz stood on the threshold. She looked like some lavish flower of a tropic clime, a gorgeous white blossom, surrounded by rich golden outer petals. Her gown was of the delicate yellow colour which she loved, and her bare breast was creamy white, and showing the blue tracery of the veins through the fine skin. From her shoulders fell a heavy white brocade cloak, trimmed with ermine like the coronation robe of a queen. Her hair was powdered and piled high on her head, the towering masses adding height to her great stature. ”

“ The sudden change from the chill spring to glowing summer was unbearable to Wilhelmine, immured in the Jägerhaus, and she longed for the cool freshness of the Rothwald where she had been accustomed to drive, but Zollern so strongly advised her not to show herself in the town, that she consented to forego this pleasure while Müller was in Stuttgart. He had preached before the Duchess, upon whom his passionate eloquence, the Biblical turn of his phrases, and his denunciations of all things joyful, had made a deep and pleasing impression. ”

“ Stafforth offered his arm to Wilhelmine and proposed a short stroll through the garden to the orchard; and the girl, glad to escape the spectacle of her brother's swaggering tactlessness, accepted, and they walked away together beneath the tender green of the beech-trees.
The orchard was an enchanted spot, such a marvel of blossom overhead, like rose-tinted foam, while under foot the grass was full of spring flowers, the cow-parsley sending up a delicious faint fragrance, mingled with the smell of the earth wet from the night's rain. ”

“ Wilhelmine paused, then, turning silently to one of the oaken pews, sat down. A wondrous melody crept through the air, strong, noble, uncomplicated; then followed chords growing each moment more the expression of a soul on fire. They rose stronger, they swelled and strove and implored, they wailed with the passion of finite hearts that yearn infinitely; then suddenly sank back into the solemn major key whence they started. And it was as the renunciation of some terrible striving, as though the organ chanted the litany of some perfect calm reached through an agony of endeavour and suffering. ”

“ She hurried on towards La Favorite, her Château Joyeux. Here again was ruin, and here also her own face met her sculptured everywhere—smiling, young, and indifferent to the ruin. The flowering parterre was untended, but the lilacs and the redthorn-trees made the garden fair. The long Spring twilight faded, night drew near—and the Grävenitz turned away. 'Farewell,' she said aloud, 'the night comes! Farewell, Spring!'
That night Maria could not induce her beloved mistress to taste food. ”

“ Believe me, madame, I esteem it an honour to be of service to one whose wonderful gift of music has made my poor life so much happier than it could have been otherwise.'
'Wilhelmine, what is the meaning of this?' cried Frau von Grävenitz in her sharpest tones. 'You have received a letter from my son, of which you have not informed me! You plan things with a stranger, and I am told nothing! You receive money from a man—what for, I should like to know? ”

“ The name Jew was a stigma in itself, and this word the people howled round the tumbril which bore the erstwhile gorgeous favourite to a death of ignominy. A few women in the crowd sighed and shed a tear when they saw the godlike beauty of the man, broken to pathetic ruin by adversity, white-haired, vilified, aged by his degradation; but chiefly the crowd howled and reviled, and the men spat in the Jew's face and covered him with a load of horse-dung and foul ordure. They hung him finally after unspeakable tortures. Then his body was left to rot in Stuttgart's market-place in the sight of all. ”

“ A rough, uneven floor; for furniture a narrow, oaken bedstead, a heavy chair lamed by four legs of various heights, a rickety table steadied by a pad of rags beneath one foot, a long chest of painted wood: such was the sleeping-room of Wilhelmine von Grävenitz, in her mother's house at Güstrow in Mecklemburg. And here on a December morning of the year 1705 Wilhelmine sat disconsolately on the edge of the narrow bed. A feeble ray of winter sunshine crept through the small lattice window and made the dust twirl in a straight shaft of haze. ”

“ I adore flattery, but a stupid compliment is worse than an insult. You know the Duke of Zollern and myself have long ceased incommoding ourselves for each other's sakes, with the consequence that we are really friends. He sees me when he wishes, and I see him when I feel inclined. After twenty years nous avons fini nos simagrées; but after all, listen, I think I hear wheels.' Her ugly old face flushed through the overlying paint and powder. In spite of her protest, Madame de Ruth had a remnant of her youth—a poor, faded flower of sentiment for this old man. ”