Макс Нордау - How Women Love

"Then we reached my lodgings. I was as soft-hearted and imbecile as a student at his first love-tryst. I did not wish to degrade this meeting to the level of a commonplace bachelor adventure. I wanted to keep the bloom and the fragrance of the flower.

"I began to speak of the past."

Alas, dear Sigmund!

"She first said that our meeting occurred in the year 1878. When I clasped my hands and mournfully exclaimed: Then you have forgotten that it was in 1874, she was a little confused, but recovered with the swift remark: A date is of no importance, the main thing is that we were happy, oh, very happy! I asked if she remembered our little nest.

" Certainly! she cried, clapping her hands in delight. She remembered that it was in the Rue St. Dominique, but when I attempted to win from her a description of the furniture, the view from our two windows, she evaded it. I turned the conversation to you—I don’t mention it to offend you—but there was not the faintest recollection! Completely forgotten! I spoke of Tannemann—nothing, nothing! Not until I recalled the little dog could she remember him, but it was especially the animal, the giver very dimly. I alluded to our excursion—her eyes sparkled, all the details, even the most minute incidents came back to her, and she related with the utmost fluency, in a rapture of delight, a picnic with breakfast in a hut built of branches and an extravagant quantity of wine—which we had never had together.

"What a shower-bath! My teeth fairly chattered from it. She noticed my coldness, asked if I had any other love, became irritated when I pretended not to hear the question, finally said that she must go, and was thoroughly offended when I did not detain her. She went away without mentioning another meeting and I let her go, without even asking where she lived.

"I shall hardly see her again. I regret that I met her. To-day is the first time that I have wholly lost Helene, and the loss gives me pain. It was a beautiful self-delusion, and I would gladly have treasured it to my life’s end.

"You were right when you said that we ought not return to the scenes of former happiness unless we were sure of finding them unchanged.

"A thousand kind remembrances from your strangely agitated

"WOLF.

" Postscript . Shall I tell you all I think? I believe that Helene has mistaken me for some one else----"

Herr von Jagerfeld, a rich manufacturer who had recently been elevated to the rank of baron in the Bavarian nobility, was celebrating a double festival: his silver wedding and the completion of his castle, Franzensruhe, which he had built outside the gates of Marktbreit, on the slope of one of the hills, which, as the last western spur of the Steigerwald, roll in a gradual descent to the bank of the Main. The castle was a magnificent edifice, in the Renaissance style—of course. Red sandstone and white marble had been used, with a beautiful effect of colour, for the facade, which made a lavish display of pilasters with foliage and vine work, niches containing statues, and bay windows with beautiful wrought iron railings. The castle stood in the midst of a lovely park filled with trees a century old, which extended up to the summit of the hill and down to the river.

The master of the castle liked a lavish style. He had invited to his house-warming numerous guests, to whom, in the spacious apartments planned for this purpose, he could offer a really royal hospitality, at once magnificent and refined. They were chiefly land-owners from the province of the Main, rich merchants and manufacturers from Frankfort, and acquaintances from places still more remote, who had flocked here with their wives and grown children, so that from early morning the mansion had been filled with joyous life.

The entire company assembled for the first time at the banquet which took place in the evening. The large dining-hall, wainscoted with polished marble in the style of the Italian palaces, whose painted ceiling was supported by fluted columns, was lighted by a superb chandelier with hundreds of wax candles, and contained a long table very richly set. Silver ornaments, exquisitely wrought, adorned the centre and the ends. The china, the array of glasses of all shapes which stood beside each plate, bore the initial of the master of the house, without any heraldic addition which might recall the recent elevation of rank, a graceful bit of coquetry on the part of a man who had been successful in life, but who was no upstart. At every plate was also placed a bouquet, in a holder representing a crystal lily with a silver cup. The company harmonized with the luxurious environment. The married ladies attracted the eye by their elegant toilettes and rich jewels, the young girls—among whom were several of bewitching beauty and freshness—in simpler costumes, with flowers in their hair, by their natural charms. Even among the monotonous black dress coats of the men, an eye which took pleasure in colour found some degree of satisfaction in the gay uniforms of several Bavarian and Russian officers.

The hostess, still a pretty woman, with her wealth of fair hair and her clear complexion, over whose delicate transparency the years had passed with scarcely a trace, had at her right an elderly general with numerous orders, who, being a great eater and a very poor conversationalist, feasted his eyes alternately on his plate and on the pretty faces, whispering to his neighbour remarks about the viands and the feminine guests, whose artless simplicity—they consisted chiefly of a noun and a laudatory adjective—showed a profoundly satisfied and comfortable mood. At her left sat a highly esteemed friend of the family, Dr. Bergmann, a young physician, a tutor in the Wurzburg university, who, during the past three years had twice had the opportunity of saving Frau von Jagersfeld and her eldest daughter, in cases of severe illness, from threatening death, and to whom the whole family therefore felt unbounded gratitude. Bergmann was a handsome man, still under thirty, whose grave manner made him appear somewhat older. A thoughtful brow, an absolutely straight nose, large grey eyes, which on first meeting them looked cold and penetrating, lips somewhat large, yet well modelled, dark beard, and a luxuriant head of hair which was permitted to wave, stand up, or lie flat at will, were the individual features which collectively formed a remarkably interesting head. His manner showed a peculiar mingling of modesty, nay, timidity, and vigorous self-reliance. It was evident that he was unaccustomed to the drawing-room and large companies, and felt at ease only beside a sick-bed. He was rather awkward in aimless chatter, but, on the other hand, firm and clear in professional conversation. A mere boy in the presence of a talkative, pretty girl, but a hero and a conqueror when with a suffering, anxious human being, beseeching his aid. His left-hand neighbour, the wife of a Frankfort banker, who chatted rapidly about the architecture of the dining-hall and the Wagner performances at Bayreuth, received monosyllabic, hesitating replies, while he talked eloquently to the lady on his right, the hostess, upon the influence of modern nervousness upon social forms.

He paid little heed to the guests, and had only glanced at them carelessly two or three times, bowing to acquaintances, and hastily obtaining a general impression of the strangers. At each of these surveys his eyes had remained fixed upon a lady who sat directly opposite to him, and whose beauty was remarkable, peculiar, and fascinating. So far as her figure could be seen, while seated, it appeared slight and delicate, without fragility, girlishly immature, yet not lean in form. The small head, supported by a slender, snow-white neck, was a marvel of grace and elegance, instantly recalling the bust of Clytie in the British Museum. One involuntarily looked for the sunflower from whose calyx it really ought to bloom. The brow was narrow and dazzlingly fair, the nose uncommonly delicate, slightly arched at the root, with mobile nostrils, so delicate that one might believe them transparent; the mouth not very small, but exquisitely shaped, with thin lips, curving obstinately, which curled sometimes sternly, sometimes scornfully, sometimes bitterly, but could also smile with infinite sweetness and charm; the chin round and statuesque, the cheeks neither plump nor hollow, with a delightful play of tender lights and soft, almost imperceptible shadows over their bright surfaces. But the most remarkable characteristics of this head were the large blue eyes, deep as the sea, beneath long lashes and nobly-formed brows, and the luxuriant, almost golden-red hair, whose silken wealth of naturally waving locks rested above the brow in two bands, like the gleaming wings of some bright-hued tropical bird, while the light of the candles, shining on the braids, struck out strange, satiny, metallic reflections, and a powdery, glimmering sparkle, as though the hair was dusted with gold or ruby powder. Her sole ornaments were a diamond star in the hair and an antique gold circlet on one of her bare arms. The white dress, trimmed on one side of the bosom to the opposite side of the waist with a garland of artificial flowers, looked simple, yet very elegant. The eye of the most critical woman could find no fault in the harmony of the toilette, the coldest man could not avert his gaze from the head, which constantly called forth the two comparisons to a Greek cameo, or a nixie, comparisons which the beautiful woman was compelled to hear so often that they seemed unbearably commonplace.