Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
Magdalena von Dobeneck's Letters from Ireland to Paul Johann Anselm von Feuerbach (Author: Magdalena von Dobeneck née Feuerbach)
Chapter 10
XVI
Dungannon, 3 September.
Emily grows lovelier by the day; how keen to learn she is! Usually I tell her stories from biblical and world history, and since she has an exceptional gift for learning languages, she now reads the stories of the author of The Easter Eggs quite fluently for recreation.29 That Heinrich von Eichenfels considers the sun to be a lamp delights her. — Sometimes I visit this or that nursery in the castle, and I convince myself that the English nannies excel at child care. How calmly they censure any naughtiness! How carefully the little ones are bathed, their hair brushed! After the bigger ones have washed for bedtime, I see them kneeling before their cots and quietly saying their evening prayers. Then it's Baby's turn, who is a girl of two years; her little hands are folded, a short verse
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is recited to her, which she tries to repeat as closely as possible in her babbling way. Soon everybody is sleeping sweetly and their cheeks shine like peach blossoms. If I cannot see the angels assigned to guard them, I still like to believe in these heavenly guardians. — If only I could have escaped into such a nursery the other day! — There was a ball in the castle, and it was in vain to swim against the current. Several Ladies and officers from the neighbourhood had been invited and the orchestra was reinforced by two pipers and two scratching violins. The ladies had exchanged their usual costume, a white woollen dress and a black jet necklace with a Gothic cross, for a dress of fresher colours. I did the same, and for today I put my rosary reluctantly aside. It is made of black oak beads. In the bogs of the north of Ireland a-thousand-year-old oaks have lain buried since the deluge. The wood is black and has become as hard as stone. So now the poor fishermen on the coast earn their livelihood by carving out necklaces and rosaries, and selling them dear. — As usual I had decided not to dance and sat down in a corner. Nevertheless, Lady N... sees me and introduces me to a warrior in red uniform. ‘Colonel W... wishes to dance the next quadrille with you.’ First I said 'no', then 'yes', and when he was gone, Miss C ... said ‘Why are you so coy? You'll get a fine dancer, he was at the Battle of Waterloo.’ Waterloo no less! An old
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invalid from Napoleon's Guards would be of more interest to me. Suddenly the common Irish folk melody for the contradance is heard. Some knights rush into the adjacent parlours like winged Mercuries to capture their dancers. My colonel appears and we are lining up. Oh dear! how dull and mind-numbing! Maybe he can tell me about the Battle of Waterloo; for I would like to have a summary of that important day — I steer the conversation there. Soon we are surrounded by platoon firing, batteries on the right and left — ‘En avant!’ I'm floating towards my partner as a solo dancer, and back again. ‘But how did it come about, Sir?’ I asked, ‘On 16 June at Ligny, the battle was decided for Napoleon and on 17 June the Prussian army was in full retreat?’ ‘If you please, Madam!’ ‘Chaine anglaise!’ a voice boomed. The colonel said ‘Grouchy, as Madame may know, pursued the Prussian rearguard under Thielemann, and lost sight of the bulk of the Prussian army under Blücher.’ Yes, now I remember reading it. On the eighteenth, wasn't it? Grouchy believed he had the whole Prussian army before him, while this same army appeared on the battlefield of Waterloo, clinching the battle for Wellington. The last chord of the finale is just being fiddled. — Exhausted by battles and victories, I took my old corner seat again. My bold warrior disappears and, as I can see, has conquered a glass of Madeira. I want to take refuge in the library, when that young Irishman,
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the same one that imitates Kemble so well, asks me for the next waltz. There is no excuse. You see, the English and Irish think that the Germans are born with a waltz, already waltzing in the cradle. There is no way out. To enhance the orchestra even more, a national bagpipe has to add its squeals. The waltz is dissolving into a galop. My dancer flies like an English racehorse, and only with effort I can assert my German dignity. In this manner I have had to dance myself almost to death more than once for Germany's sake. Had I been in this situation ten years earlier, when young men wanted to liberally splatter their blood for their homeland, this sacrificial dance could have been completely equal to their energy, because dancing yourself to death for Germany or being beaten to death is basically the same thing. —
Yesterday for a change I had to live through some horrors: Suddenly, there is an alarm. ‘There's a fire!’ ‘There's a fire!’ ‘Where?’ ‘In the castle.’ I hurry to the corridor. Here, Lord Northland is standing at the window and says with a calm smile: ‘There is a fire — only in one room of the lower wing.’ Soon afterwards I am standing on the terrace in the flower garden, when suddenly something black flies out of the window on the first floor, landing at my feet. It is only a young master who gets up quickly and disappears into the shrubbery like a roe deer. He was practising a new mode of playing hide-and-seek with some friends. In the afternoon
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they were playing their games in a boat on the lake. In the middle, where it is deepest, they plunged the boy into the water. Every time he tried to cling to the boat, they triumphantly pushed him back with the oar. Only after he got into trouble did they offer help. It was a show in Turkish taste. We were just passing by, and I had to watch the scene — it made me shudder. On the way I observed a woman who was just entering a park; she was dressed very cleanly. A black dress, grey shawl, and grey hat — that was her adornment. Miss C... told me that this unpretentious woman was one of the richest ladies in the district, but as a Quaker she never wore other clothes than these. The interior of her house also showed the utmost cleanliness and simplicity. I was told there were several other dwellings belonging to the Quakers, and I admired how neat and shiny everything looked. It is well known that in their meetings only those will speak who believe themselves at that moment to be inspired by the Spirit. They conscientiously practise the duty of charity. That these god-fearing people are living in the midst of a people withered in soul and body, as it were bright spots in the Irish darkness, seems to me to be a special guidance of God. — As the carriage steered around a hill, I saw a number of men in brown clothes, and some women and children hurrying along the country road. The men carried an uncovered, recently made coffin — no flower, no cross! Their heads were solemnly bowed to the earth,
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and the funeral procession was moving silently and in great haste. At that point I retreated into the corner of the carriage and could not hold back my tears. Ireland seemed to me to be a poor uneducated orphan who is left to herself and her misery.
The Irish people are superstitious — and how! It is well known that a piano player has for professional reasons to see to it that her hands are kept as thin and white as possible. Therefore the chambermaid suggested I put on Danish gloves at night. The last ball had lasted until two o'clock, and drowsy as I was, I found no Danish gloves, and quickly put on a pair of black ones, which were just handy. At five o'clock usually a maid comes to my four-poster bed (which is large enough to go on voyages of discovery in it) with a glass of freshly milked milk, and the morning greeting is: ‘Good morning madam, how are you?’ With my eyes half-closed, I pull a little on the Chinese-style floral curtain and seize the glass. ‘But why is Betsy so quick today?’ I thought, because I heard her hurrying to get to the door. The next morning Mary comes in with the milk, and soon after that she also takes flight with a gasp. This is how it goes on the third morning, and a third maid brings me the glass tremblingly. In the evening I see Lady Northland approaching, laughing out loud. ‘Now! There are strange rumours spread about you
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in the castle, madam.’ ‘How so?’ ‘Well, well! Mary, Betsy and Fanny are saying that you turn into a pretty lady by day, but into a monster by night. With their own eyes they have seen your black hands with glowing claws, so they say.’ ‘Oh dear,’ I exclaimed, ‘my gloves, my gloves!’ and so the terrible mystery was solved. Since then, I've tried hard to make up with the poor girls, but in vain! I enter their room: they are turning pale, their loud conversation is turning into deadly silence. — ‘She's a witch,’ they say now. During Emily's playtime I often sing my solfeggios on the grand piano, from Gomis's singing school. On those occasions, women, men and children often gather at the right hand lattice of the park. ‘The witch is howling and whistling again,’ they say. —
Because I am now in the swing of providing the Romantic period with marginal sketches, the mystical figure of our porter must not be omitted. — A few days ago, I took a late walk over the meadows next to the tunnel and beyond, where the gatehouse stands. It is gloomy and yet homely. The door stood open. In front of it lay a black spitz that was growling as he faced silver-grey cat Mismi, who advanced with a handsomely raised back, yet cautiously — her claw quickly flies to his eye and her paw is grabbing his neck — there is growling, snarling and hissing! But the voice from the house is drowning out both of them. The porter, a woman of about thirty years of age, is swinging her broom, her dishevelled black hair is hanging down over her shoulders, and
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her dark eyes sparkle at me mysteriously. And yet she did not let herself be distracted from her singing, as far as I could tell it was an old war song.
At the end of October we will start our return journey, and the autumnal storms in winter also remind us earnestly to follow the birds' example. Therefore I hope to find your next letter in Paris, dear father, a prospect that is both magnetic and does me good. Just a few elegiac verses
To Ireland
- O poor people! Undone, you are sinking down.
and now the light has left you, o Erin!
Earlier, sacred island, you were seen aglow,
for love and faith, and holding on to them.
But pulling forth a heavy tiresome yoke,
Is now your heart's constant lament;
As flowers wither, so must a kingdom fade,
And at its own coffin it must weep.