ETTY, the little Austrian wife of the Burgrave of Wellenshausen—Chancellor to His Majesty King Jerome I. of Westphalia—had charming capacities for mischief; but they were sadly undeveloped. Shut up for the three years of her married life by her grossly jealous husband in an inaccessible Burg, amid the hills of Thuringia, small chance had she had indeed. The single opportunity which had presented itself—that of separating her husband's niece, Sidonia, from her hour-old bridegroom—she had conscientiously availed herself of. The young man had had the audacity to admire Betty herself first, or so Betty had chosen to think; he was, therefore, distinctly not to be trusted, and must, moreover, be punished. Morals demanded it. But the business had been a mere trifle, accomplished with disappointing ease. Betty, in her consciousness of power, yearned for wider scope; and now, at last, she had attained it.
The Burgrave's very jealousy had delivered him into his wife's hands. From tyrant he was become slave. Betty was mistress, not only of herself, but of the situation.
And therefore it was that she was actually in Cassel—Cassel, the gay, irresponsible capital of the gay, irresponsible Jerome—Cassel, the Mecca of her dreams! And not only was she in Cassel, but she had got rid of her Bluebeard. For what pleasure could a poor little woman expect, I ask you, with the shadow of a huge, jealous husband perpetually between her and the sunshine of the most innocent flirtation? Away with Bluebeard to his Chancellor apartments at the Palace! Lady Bluebeard preferred the hotel, if you please, and her liberty.
How the monster roared! Yet she had him at her mercy, and for fear of greater scandal he was fain to submit. As for Sidonia, the new Countess Waldorf-Kilmansegg (who should not long bear that title if the Burgravine could help it), Betty consented to keep her by her side. The girl made an excellent chaperon; and the sight of the minx's proud, silent sorrow was not altogether disagreeable to her aunt by marriage.
So Betty was in Cassel and Betty was free: a butterfly in a garden, the long summer's day before her, and all the flowers of spring to choose from! And what a charming man was King Jerome! Not a hint of the sort of savage they said those Corsicans all were, much less of the plebeian, about him. A real little king, after Betty's own heart. She had always had a conviction that they would understand each other. Burgravine Betty had occasion, very soon, to write to this affable sovereign a most delicate little note on pink paper.
It was posted by Mademoiselle Elisa, who might well stare at the superscription, and promise herself that if her lady had such correspondence, the Burgrave's Jaeger would certainly no longer suffice the maid.
There was also, be it said, a trifle of a note to the Burgrave posted at the same occasion. It had cost Countess Betty but a single dash of her pen.
The spirits of spring and autumn are akin, although the one wanders to the fulness of life, and the other to the cold sleep, death. Across the dividing months they seem to meet each other, in grace and pathos, in caprice and gentleness. They serve you smiles and tears, skies of a tenderness unknown to summer, huge gales of wind, soft as milk, mighty as love—winds that come chanting with the voices of the ocean, the mountain, and the forest; great songs of glory, that seize you by the way, in resistless arms, and tell you wondrous things, and set your blood leaping as they pass: set, if autumn it be, the yellow leaves awhirl in a death dance; or, if spring, every baby bud rocking on its sappy spray.
Two travellers, one riding, the other afoot, went side by side along the high imperial road from Goettingen towards Cassel. There was a mighty spring wind which blew into their faces. To the rider, who was young, it spoke mightily of the spring in his blood—spoke spring things of love and budding secrets. The breath of it in his nostrils was full of a scent of growth and yearning that maddened him: for he had fever in his veins and he was baulked in love.
But to the other traveller, whose hair was already grey, who tramped along at the swing of him who had learned to ignore fatigue, an autumn lament was hidden in the April joy. It told him how all that is born must die, and how the beautiful die first. In the whisper of each infant leaf he heard the coming sigh of inevitable fall; in the fragrance of the striving earth he could smell the bitter graves of yester-year.