Page:ONCE A WEEK JUL TO DEC 1860.pdf/701

. 15, 1860.]THE STEADY STUDENTS. great opportunity for the doctor, he had a supply of court plaster—in short, from that hour, we and the Hessings became friendly—spent our evenings in each other’s rooms—exchanged books and sometimes arguments. They were agreeable companions, silent on no subject but their own history, of which we never heard a syllable, thoroughly good-natured and perfectly well-bred. There was a remarkable similarity of tastes and opinions between them; though more than liberal on all points, they seemed to regard life only with the scholar’s eyes in which to gather knowledge and live quietly is the sum of good. Their attachment appeared to us both strong and strange. It did not proclaim itself in overt words and actions, but the whole tenor of their lives proved that they loved, and could not live without each other.

Knowing that the court notary had ways and means of making out my doings, and also that my new acquaintances neither sang songs nor made speeches about Fatherland, I thought proper to mention them at the most convenient of the monthly dinners. It was seldom that any guest but myself partook of those entertainments; but, on this occasion, there was a Russian gentleman who spoke German well, and took such an agreeable interest in the account of my fellow-lodgers, that he drew me out considerably, and I think contributed to my cousin’s approval of the intimacy, his remarks having uncommon weight, for he was private secretary to the Princess Woriskow.

Her excellency was related to the Imperial family of Russia, and in great friendship with the reigning Madame Krudener. She was also connected with most of the German courts, and now on a tour of visits among them, some said doing a little diplomatic business on the hints which Kotzebue and Co. had forwarded to the Winter Palace. The exertions of those gentlemen, seconded by our native princes, were then bringing Germany, as near as possible, to the state of a Russian province, and all Brunswick felt sure that the Princess Woriskow was doing her share of the work at the Ducal court.

The private secretary had been twenty years in her service. His name was Karlowitz—a regular Russian—with the Tartar face, small cunning eyes and powerful frame, a great amount of external polish, and an ability to become anything which the time, the company, or the business required. The experience I have since gathered convinces me that he had picked up acquaintance with the notary to get some knowledge of his courtly transactions, and my respected cousin was so flattered by the attentions, and so proud of having a princess’s private secretary at his table, that Karlowitz was always there when not in better society, and to my own glorification, I began to be more frequently invited, too. It was first every second, and then every Sunday. I knew my promotion was owing to the Russian,—he had evidently raised me many degrees in my cousin’s esteem, and he now took me into his friendship, professed a great regard for me, and generally walked with me part of the way home. I could not help noticing in these solitary walks, that his conversation invariably turned on the princess the moment we got into the street. He told me what large estates she had in Courland—what magnificent diamonds she possessed—what royal and imperial connections she could reckon, and what immense patronage was at her command.

“She saw you last night at the theatre,” he said, with a very knowing look, as we reached our usual parting-place one Sunday evening.

“Well, some young men are lucky if they can only be wise. Be at the opera to-morrow evening—wear this in your button-hole, on the left remember, and keep your own counsel.”

Before I had recovered from my astonishment far enough to speak, Karlowitz was gone, leaving in my fingers a small bouquet of artificial snowdrops, so perfectly finished that any one would have taken them for natural, though the flowers had not yet come, for it was December, and Brunswick was busy with its Christmas balls and plays.

The Princess Woriskow concerning whose doings and diamonds all Brunswick was talking, in whose honour fêtes and dinners abounding in etiquette had been given at the palace, and the stiffest of court-operas was about to be performed at the theatre, taking such an extraordinary interest in me. It was enough to turn the head of a more experienced student. I went to bed that night without writing to Caroline. All through my dreams and through the next day’s classes, “be at the opera to-morrow evening” sounded in my ears, and the artificial snowdrops danced before my eyes. Well, I went to the opera in my best attire and airs, not forgetting the said snowdrops. There was a blaze of fashion, if not of beauty—courts seldom turn out much of that article—but I looked only at the ducal-box. There sat the princess superbly clothed in velvet, lace, and diamonds; placed between their serene highnesses the grand duke and duchess, but remarkably like her secretary, with the variation of blacker hair—by-the-by, they said it was a wig—and paint both red and white laid on with no sparing hand. Yet my heart beat quickly when—their serene highnesses being occupied with the piece—her glass was directed right upon me, and the princess smiled most graciously. At safe intervals, throughout the performance, I never could recollect what opera it was, the glance and smile were bestowed. Karlowitz gave me a look of mingled congratulation and warning as the cortège withdrew. The castle in Courland and the town-house in Petersburg, which he had so fully described, appeared to be places within the probable bounds of my travels, and I went home with the feelings of the shepherd who had slept on the hill-side and awoke in fairy-land.

Caroline wrote rather pettishly in the course of that week to know why she had not a letter, but my reply was a note of hurried grandeur. Christmas Eve was kept as a sort of Carnival by the young and gay portion of the Brunswickers—it fell on the Saturday after my opera night, and when leaving college on the preceding evening a link-boy handed me a billet which I read at the nearest street lamp, and it ran thus: