Elizabeth von Arnim - The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight

She sat down in a corner with an odd feeling of surprise at being included in the category Frauen , and giving a swift timid glance through her veil at the public confronting her was relieved to find it consisted only of a comfortable mother and her child.

I know not why the adjective comfortable should so invariably be descriptive of mothers in Germany. In England and France though you may be a mother, you yet, I believe, may be so without being comfortable. In Germany, somehow, you can't. Perhaps it is the climate; perhaps it is the food; perhaps it is simply want of soul, or that your soul does not burn with a fire sufficiently consuming. Anyhow it is so. This mother had all the good-nature that goes with amplitude. Being engaged in feeding her child with belegte Brödchen —that immensely satisfying form of sandwich—she at once offered Priscilla one.

"No thank you," said Priscilla, shrinking into her corner.

"Do take one, Fräulein," said the mother, persuasively.

"No thank you," said Priscilla, shrinking.

"On a journey it passes the time. Even if one is not hungry, thank God one can always eat. Do take one."

"No thank you," said Priscilla.

"Why does she wear that black thing over her face?" inquired the child. "Is she a witch?"

"Silence, silence, little worthless one," cried the mother, delightedly stroking his face with half a Brödchen . "You see he is clever, Fräulein. He resembles his dear father as one egg does another."

"Does he?" said Priscilla, immediately conceiving a prejudice against the father.

"Why don't she take that black thing off?" said the child.

"Hush, hush, small impudence. The Fräulein will take it off in a minute. The Fräulein has only just got in."

"Mutti, is she a witch? Mutti, Mutti, is she a witch, Mutti?"

The child, his eyes fixed anxiously on Priscilla's swathed head, began to whimper.

"That child should be in bed," said Priscilla, with a severity born of her anxiety lest, to calm him, humanity should force her to put up her veil. "Persons who are as intelligent as that should never be in trains at night. Their brains cannot bear it. Would he not be happier if he lay down and went to sleep?"

"Yes, yes; that is what I have been telling him ever since we left Kunitz"—Priscilla shivered—"but he will not go. Dost thou hear what the Fräulein says, Hans-Joachim?"

"Why don't she take that black thing off?" whimpered the child.

But how could the poor Princess, however anxious to be kind, take off her veil and show her well-known face to this probable inhabitant of Kunitz?

"Do take it off, Fräulein," begged the mother, seeing she made no preparations to do so. "When he gets ideas into his head there is never peace till he has what he wants. He does remind me so much of his father."

"Did you ever," said Priscilla, temporizing, "try him with a little—just a little slap? Only a little one," she added hastily, for the mother looked at her oddly, "only as a sort of counter-irritant. And it needn't be really hard, you know—"

" Ach , she's a witch—Mutti, she's a witch!" shrieked the child, flinging his face, butter and all, at these portentous words, into his mother's lap.

"There, there, poor tiny one," soothed the mother, with an indignant side-glance at Priscilla. "Poor tiny man, no one shall slap thee. The Fräulein does not allude to thee, little son. The Fräulein is thinking of bad children such as the sons of Schultz and thy cousin Meyer. Fräulein, if you do not remove your veil I fear he will have convulsions."

"Oh," said the unhappy Priscilla, getting as far into her corner as she could, "I'm so sorry—but I—but I really can't."

"She's a witch, Mutti!" roared the child, "I tell it to thee again—therefore is she so black, and must not show her face!"

"Hush, hush, shut thy little eyes," soothed the mother, putting her hand over them. To Priscilla she said, with an obvious dawning of distrust, "But Fräulein, what reason can you have for hiding yourself?"

"Hiding myself?" echoed Priscilla, now very unhappy indeed, "I'm not hiding myself. I've got—I've got—I'm afraid I've got a—an affection of the skin. That's why I wear a veil."

" Ach , poor Fräulein," said the mother, brightening at once into lively interest. "Hans-Joachim, sleep," she added sharply to her son, who tried to raise his head to interrupt with fresh doubts a conversation grown thrilling. "That is indeed a misfortune. It is a rash?"

"Oh, it's dreadful," said Priscilla, faintly.

" Ach , poor Fräulein. When one is married, rashes no longer matter. One's husband has to love one in spite of rashes. But for a Fräulein every spot is of importance. There is a young lady of my acquaintance whose life-happiness was shipwrecked only by spots. She came out in them at the wrong moment."

"Did she?" murmured Priscilla.

"You are going to a doctor?"

"Yes—that is, no—I've been."

"Ah, you have been to Kunitz to Dr. Kraus?"

"Y—es. I've been there."

"What does he say?"

"That I must always wear a veil."

"Because it looks so bad?"

"I suppose so."

There was a silence. Priscilla lay back in her corner exhausted, and shut her eyes. The mother stared fixedly at her, one hand mechanically stroking Hans-Joachim, the other holding him down.

"When I was a girl," said the mother, so suddenly that Priscilla started, "I had a good deal of trouble with my skin. Therefore my experience on the subject is great. Show me your face, Fräulein—I might be able to tell you what to do to cure it."

"Oh, on no account—on no account whatever," cried Priscilla, sitting up very straight and speaking with extraordinary emphasis. "I couldn't think of it—I really positively couldn't."

"But my dear Fräulein, why mind a woman seeing it?"

"But what do you want to see it for?"

"I wish to help you."

"I don't want to be helped. I'll show it to nobody—to nobody at all. It's much too—too dreadful."

"Well, well, do not be agitated. Girls, I know, are vain. If any one can help you it will be Dr. Kraus. He is an excellent physician, is he not?"

"Yes," said Priscilla, dropping back into her corner.

"The Grand Duke is a great admirer of his. He is going to ennoble him."

"Really?"

"They say—no doubt it is gossip, but still, you know, he is a very handsome man—that the Countess von Disthal will marry him."

"Gracious!" cried Priscilla, startled, "what, whether he wants to or not?"

"No doubt he will want to. It would be a brilliant match for him."

"But she's at least a hundred. Why, she looks like his mother. And he is a person of no birth at all."

"Birth? He is of course not noble yet, but his family is excellent. And since it is not possible to have as many ailments as she has and still be alive, some at least must be feigned. Why, then, should she feign if it is not in order to see the doctor? They were saying in Kunitz that she sent for him this very day."

"Yes, she did. But she's really ill this time. I'm afraid the poor thing caught cold watching—dear me, only see how sweetly your little boy sleeps. You should make Levallier paint him in that position."

"Ah, he looks truly lovely, does he not. Exactly thus does his dear father look when asleep. Sometimes I cannot sleep myself for joy over the splendid picture. What is the matter with the Countess Disthal? Did Dr. Kraus tell you?"

"No, no. I—I heard something—a rumour."

"Ah, something feigned again, no doubt. Well, it will be a great match for him. You know she is lady-in-waiting to the Princess Priscilla, the one who is so popular and has such red hair? The Countess has an easy life. The other two Princesses have given their ladies a world of trouble, but Priscilla—oh, she is a model. Kunitz is indeed proud of her. They say in all things she is exactly what a Princess should be, and may be trusted never to say or do anything not entirely fitting her station. You have seen her? She often drives through the town, and then the people all run and look as pleased as if it were a holiday. We in Gerstein are quite jealous. Our duchy has no such princess to show. Do you think she is so beautiful? I have often seen her, and I do not think she is. People exaggerate everything so about a princess. My husband does not admire her at all. He says it is not what he calls classic. Her hair, for instance—but that one might get over. And people who are really beautiful always have dark eyelashes. Then her nose—my husband often laughs, and says her nose—"