WANDA
BY
OUIDA
'Doch!—alles was dazu mich trieb;
Gott!—war so gut, ach, war so lieb!'
Goethe
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. II.
London
CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1883
WANDA.
CHAPTER XI.
On her return she spoke of her royal friends, of her cousins, ofsociety, of her fears for the peace of Europe, and her doubts as tothe strength of the empire; but she did not speak of the one person ofwhom, beyond all others, Mdme. Ottilie was desirous to hear. When somehours had passed, and still she had never alluded to the existence of,the Princess could bear silence no longer, and casting prudence to thewinds, said boldly and with impatience:
'And your late guest? Have you nothing to tell me? Surely you have seenhim?'
'He called once,' she answered, 'and I heard him speak at the Chamber.'
'And was that all?' cried the Princess, disappointed.
'He speaks very well in public,' added Wanda, 'and he said many tenderand grateful things of you, and sent you many messages—such gratefulones that my memory is too clumsy a tray to hold such eggshell china.'
She was angered with herself as she spoke, but the fragrance of thewhite lilac and the remembrance of its donor pursued her—angeredwith herself, too, because Hohenszalras seemed for the moment sombre,solitary, still, almost melancholy, wrapped in that winter whitenessand stillness which she had always loved so well.
The next morning she saw all her people, visited her schools and herstables, and tried to persuade herself that she was as contented asever.
The aurist came from Paris shortly after her, and consoled the Princessby assuring her that the slight deafness she suffered from occasionallywas due to cold.
'Of course!' she said, with some triumph. 'These mountains, all thiswater, rain whenever there is not snow, snow whenever there is notrain; it is a miracle, and the mercy of Heaven, if one saves any ofone's five senses uninjured in a residence here.'
She had her satin hood trebly wadded, and pronounced the aurist acharming person. Herr Greswold in an incautious moment had said to herthat deafness was one of the penalties of age and did not depend uponclimate. A Paris doctor would not have earned his fee of two hundrednapoleons if he had only produced so ungallant a truism. She heard alittle worse after his visit, perhaps, but if so, she said that wascaused by the additional wadding in her hood. He had told her to use arose-water syringe, and Herr Greswold was forbidden her presence for aweek because he averred that you might as well try to melt the glacierwith a lighted pastille.
The aurist gone, life at Hohenszalras resumed its even tenor; andexcept for, the post, the tea-cups, and the kind of dishes served atdinner, hardly differed from what life had been there in the sixteenthcentury, save that there were no saucy pages playing in the court, andno destriers stamping in the stalls, and no culverins loaded on thebastions.
'It is like living between the illuminated leaves of one of the Hours,'thought the Princess, and though her conscience told her that to dwellso in a holy book like a pressed flower was the most desirable lifethat could be granted by Heaven to erring mortality, still she felt itwas dull. A little gossip, a little movement, a little rolling of othercarriage-wheels than her own, had always seemed desirable to her.
Life here was laid d