Ferdinand Lassalle and the Princess von Racowitza.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 20, 21 July 1911, Page 6

Ferdinand Lassalle and the Princess yon Racowitza.

The Story of a Great Love.

Autobiographical Annals, with a Meredithian Estimate.

By R. S. ROSS.

"EVERY LITTLE WHILE" BOOK STUDY.

Bread and love!—these twain are Life. They make the Word —and .began in the Beginning. "Man does not live by bread alone," said the esthetic Jesus, and silenced the Philistines. Yet without bread shall no man live—and this we of the workingclass know its others never know. Nevertheless, f is the Truth, its grotesque irony aotwithstanding, which whispers at us the rebuke of Jesus: but equally true is our passionate retort. In a coming day when bread is free as air that other truth shall make us fully free. Meanwhile, Bread to the loveless, Love to the breadless. These two are one. Completest living shall come only when mankind realises their indivisiblene-ss. L reject with scorn the smug bourgeoise sneer that literature and love —and t-o elemental and fundamental passion and tragedies of them—are as pearls to swine when dealt with in the circles of Toil. The emancipatory culture, the art and the science of our time, are proletarian, and symbolise the new economic order to which we are galloping. The tyrannous injustice which deprives the workingclass of the dearer books is merely accidental: it will pass as the night. I. For obvious reasons not many proletarians will have seen an eventful autobiography that appeared last year. Wo other adjective could quite so appropriately measure this autobiography. It was the intense©! human document of the year. "Princess Helene yon Jttacowitza: an Autobiography," is a book liiicjiy, for the riotous richness ot it, to last as long as love lasts. It presents one of the great loves of history, and the love it depicts is the love of the heights whither few durst soar, but which has immortalised Abelard and Heloise, Dante and Beatrice, Petrarch and Laura, Balzac and Madame Hanska {.of whom another just-out book is graphically full), Nelson and .Lady Hamilton,* John Stuart Mill and Harnett Taylor, Pamell and Kitty O'Shea, and some few more of their noble company. All are celebrities, not alone as sublime lovers, but for their beauty or intellect or courage. 11. And similarly with the love affair tinder treatment. Each of its makers stands among the Famous; both of them are Figures. Ferdinand. Lassalle the Volcanic and Helene the Flusive is sweeping characterisation, but sufficiently thereabouts. That Lassalle is the hero of the autobiography—he who organised the German workingclass for the first time and laid the foundations of the modern Socialist movement—for this also the book will live, probably growing in interest and importance as the world grows older from the fact ofa saner world's concern in its Titanic architects. Whether Lassalle be considered as economist, orator, actionist, or lover, he is equally remarkable. He had in him the Genius-Spirit. His extraordinarily powerful personality so rivets the student or devotee as to create a feverish interest in all he did and everything around and about him ; but this isn't to say that the other chief personage of the book does not merit attention, for she also fascinates. 111. "Who touches this book touches a man" penned mighty Whitman of his mightier poems. The paradox fits our autobiography. Who touches it touches a man. Touches THE man, many men. And many women, too, but never THE woman. It merely prances round her. As writing, the book has grit and grip, though it answers nothing. It is a recital. It does not delineate, analyse, d duct. It is ixmrtrayal, excuse, apologia. It is Woman's Way. Helene luiuuwitza recounts. Things happen : it is so. Why the author did this or that she does not stay to tells you she did it, and with this you pass on; and in the finish, as from its Genesis to its Revelations, it is an irritant Why ?—an annoying perplexity and complexity. As far as the pivotal theme \ji battling Autobiography is concerned, in a sense it seems a pity Helene yon Racowitza ever wrote her book: the big minds should never try to explain themselves. A better, truer, greater book than the true story itself is the Meredithian paraphrase of it called "The Tragic Comedians." Supremest surgeoning 1 Meredith knew Helene better than she knows herself.

infinitely correcter than she knew her lover. One feeis glad that her book is written if only to feel how gladder he had felt had it not been written. A great book, indeed, if to enter into cherished possessions and to dwell ecstatically in the tents of endless pilgrims be esteemed great —sLili a book better unwritten for the little it essen-

tially adds to the known, or to the disputations and puzzling proDlems grow out of the tempestuous love of a strong man for an alluring maid. IV. However, the book is here—and with t memoirs of zest and piquance. Aside from its Giant, it has a newsy relish in its disclosures and opinions. It is sort of furtive fugitive dippings into intimacies and privacies unexplorable of the multitude. Most modern autobio.aphies are attractive merely because they are autobiographies: they are in their way studies in the nude. Princess yon Racowitza tells her story prettn; and few novels hold closer. Beauty and charm, wit and distinction the princess had, and she met people big in the public eye. Adventures and experiences uncommon, with insight and interplay which give reflective pause, are in one forty-lour chapters of this volume, translated from the German by Cecil Mar, and in eight glowing parts. Pervading the whole is that piiysical and cultural beauty before which in thenhearts all men kneel. If, further, one tells that the work throbs and uiirilis Witn the subtle, indescribauie of Sex, then one has sureiv said the las~ word lor tne wanton enchantment of it. V. The Autobiography, explains its author, is not ' 'ior timid souls or conventional thinkers, nor for those who are prudishly inclined or narrow-rcund cd." The "reminiscences of a stormy life are offered for emancipated people." Which having read, the reader ia presumably seasoned for the sensuous intoxication of the early chapters. In Helene was a strange mixture of blood, she informs us. Her father's family were direct descendants of the Vikings. Her mother belonged to an old and iiighiy-cultured Jewish family. Her upbringing was artistic, but "the least lavouraoie for all one understands by the term morality." At the age of six she had "little love affairs." At 10 she Knew iSchilier, BLleest and Goethe, and .v r as "imtiat-.. d into the mysteries of sex." At 12 she went to private balls, was maati love to and forced into an engagement with a fiery Italian nobleman. At 14 (in Berlin) youths adored her and wrote poems to her. She travelled through Alexandra, Turin, Nice and the Riviera. Nicean society was "composed of the froth of all grades, and no one cared what became of the froth when the bubble burst." She has striven, she says, half her life to recover the rectitude she lost in those days. At Nice she met Paul yon Krusenstern: he was her first love. It was torrential love. Baron yon Kotzebue afterwards wrote:

"I have witnessed three elemental forces in my life. I have been in a typhoon; I have seen one of the greatest volcanic eruptions of this century; I was a spectator of Helene yon Donniges' first love." Frankly, Helene herself tells of a memorable night: "Love, youth, the glorious summer night, these did as they have done since time began and youthful love existed. O blessed be that night of flowers 1" Never for a moment has she repented it. She lived at Nice till eighteen, and then "the mad years of youth ended forever." VI. And now Lassalle—and the Other Man. First, the other man. Attending lectures in Berlin, Helene sighed "for a Southerner with hot blood in his veins." He camo—"My dark fairy prince, my Moorish pay;e, as I often called him, Yanko yon Racowitza." She says the Prince inspired her with loving friendship, not with love itself. He was a faithful and beloved friend, devoted,

charming and noble-souled. Helene promised to marry him if she could find no one she loved better: he became consecrated to her service. And next, in 1862, "Ferdinand Lassalle entered my life, and all else faded into shadow." Here, then, all the beginnings of that immortal tragedy imperishably luminous in literature and workingclass annals. Persons two, shall we say in the relentless clutch of Uircumstance: forces flung together to be separated only by payment of the blood-toll. * * * The Princess thus writes ot a conversation with Baron Korff: " — and Korff said suddenly, 'Ah, you know Lassalle!' 1 had never even heard his name, so replied indifferently, 'Nol Who is it?' To this question Korff made no reply, and we continued conversing about all sorts of things. Suddenly he exclaimed, 'You -must know him, for only a woman who knows Lassalle could talk as you do.' I answered almost irritably, 'Nol Who IS this man?' The iiaron became suddenly serious, and said, 'Oh! let ail the smaller souls around us deny him ; but let us two confess to each other that we both know and admire him.' My curiosity was now thoroughly aroused, '1 give you my word of honour I do not know him—have never even heard his name. Who is it?' Korff replied, 'Well, then I can only regret every hour that passes without your knowing each other; you are the only woman 1 can imagine as a fitting mate for him.' Is it to be wondered at that my ' curiosity was now aroused to the extreme, and that 1 exclaimed, 'Good heavens! Who is the man?' 'A great revolutionist, and the most interesting man 1 know, whose extraordinary mind makes him dangerous alike to men and women.' 'Ah, to women also I 5 He smiled, 'Are you jealous already ?' 'No! But tell mc more,' I said. VII. She learns all about him, and incidentally of his connection with the Countess Hatzfeld. A few weeks later Dr. Carl Oldenburg, a wit of fame, tells her that she is the only woman the doctor can imagine «is the wife of "Heraclitus the Dark," otherwise Lassalle. Helene mentions this man of '48 and co-worker with Marx to her mother, and is told that he is a terrible man, a pariah, and all that our own Labor leaders were fifteen years agone. But

she hears Lassalle without knowing him, and is undone : meets him, and as Lassalle said: "We both knew that -we had met our destiny in each other.'* Of the meeting the book chronicles* "He came into my life like the stormwind that rushes over forests and plains, and destroys all that is crumbling and effete." Meredith thus dissects Helene in his account of this first meeting: "Be sure she knew who he was. No, says she. But she knew. It terrified her soul to think he w&s Alvan (LassaJie). She feared scarcely less that it might not be he. Between these dreads of doubt and belief she played at cat and mouse with herseit, escaped from cat, persecuted mouse, teased herself and gloated. It is he! Not he! he! not he! most certainly! impossible!—and then it rant If he, ob mc! If another, woe mc!" VIII. Now, although the Autobiography is the second booK dealing with Helene yon Uonn.ges' relations with Lassalle. its chief value lies in its retelling ox cue ceieorated love story and its new Lassailian matter. Tne Princess speaks ol iierseii as on the brink of • old age, calm and clear, presenting a complete of the great man, and adds: "This version is inmost a necessity of to-day." Of the words spoken by Lassalle these to her are realistic in their character-revelation of thus master-mass of terrioie energy, daring fury, and wiii-power : " 'x>o 1 look as if I would be satisfied witii any secondary place in the kingdom r" jJo you believe that I wouid suorifice the sieep of my nights, the marrow of my bones, the power oi my lungs, m oiuer to pull tne chestnuts out of the fire for someone elseP JUo I iooK. liK.e a political martyr? No! 1 will act and hgnt, but I will enjoy tne fruits ot the combat, and wni place on your brow that wmch, lor tiie present, we will call your diadem.' " The Princess's final testimony and tribute thus reads: "My connection with Ferdinand Lassaue was tne first great event of my ine; it transiormed a. young girl wno, aithougn oi extraordinary individuality, was bound at the same time oy the closest tamily ties, into a free, seu-reiiant being, one who was aole to ngnt alone against the world." IX. With both Auto uiography and Meredith's novel .before mc I am tempted to take the fact and next the fiction (so-called) and present them as the warp and woof of this strange, eventful love history. For the fiction secretes the insight and subtlety by which a mental and emotional crisis is unravelled to its doom. Assuredly absorbed, as is the reader, he or she will be urgent to know how highly Meredith, estimated Lassaile. "Of a nature not unheroical, a man of the active, grappling modern brain which wrestled with, facts to keep the world alive, and can create them, to set it spinning." There a leader, indeed! On another page Meredith speaks of our couple so: "They dranii sunlight and drove their bark in a manner to eclipse historical couples upon our planet." Again, so; "They are real creatures, exquisitely fantastical, strangely exposed to the world by a lurid catastrophe, who teach us that fiction, if it can imagine events and persons more agreeable to the taste it has educated, can read us no such furrowing lesson in life." To pass on. However, let it be recorded that Helene's parents regarded .Lassalle as untniniiabie; he wno had conquered the daughter with a glance believing the parents would receive a scholar and poet witn open arms. Helene counsels delay, and of ail that happened in the interim and ot the aftermath we are told much. This our author: "When a truly demoniacal love clutches at the fibres of a human being, then there exists for him neither txod nor politics, neither fatherland nor family ties, nor law." So it proves. When Helene at last tells her mother of her engagement the tigerish rage of her mother drives ncr to Lassalle's arms. Lassalle in his confidence of power bids the girl return home—will win her parents' consent, he thunders. But for this basal folly how different might everything have been! Daughter surrendered to him, father tears into her hair and drags her across the street, crying "Let mc kill her." Imprisons her in a room—nailing the door. CThis man, yon Donniges, had himself married his wife despite the opposition of both families !) X. And so, agony for Helene, and for Lassalle and the one between. The last: spectator, would-.be helper, although superseded. Each electric lover is told lies of the other. Each doubts and trusts in turn. Lassalle mores heaven and earth to wring Helene from the parents^—and by this time an amazed world is interested •

She enforced separation creeps into policy of statecraft. Treacherous counsels to the pair, and more treacherous actions—yet Other Man Yanko true friend of Helene because of his overflowing love. As it had been with Louis XVI. of France so now with Lassallo—he takes always the step that leads to the catastrophe. In desperation he finally challenges yon Donniges to a duel: poor Yanko must accept the challenge on yon Donnipcos , behalf. Helene joyful, believes the Prince will be killed: cannot imagine any other result, for "her eagle, , as she loves to call him, is phenomenally skilful. Instead . . . Yanko victor, Helene stunned. "Go, I hate you," she cries —and then blackness and gloom. Meredith thus pictures the interview (Alvan of course is Lassalle and Clotilde is Helene): "-'But if I tell you that Alvan is wounded ?' he almost wept to say. Clotilde informs the world tiiat> she laughed on hearing this. She was unaware of her ground, for laughing. It was tho laugii of the comedian. Could one believe in a Providence capable of letting such a sapling and weakling strino down the mesi magnificent stature upon earth ? 'You—him?-' she sa.d, in the tre- '■ mendous compression of lier contempt." Follow months of horror, and finally no deliverance for .Heiene but inmarriage with the "murderer" of L: salle (.wiio iiad uici no, oravely like the valiant soul lie was). Marries Yanko yon liacowitza, nurses him : he dies. Meredith rather cruelly says: "While for his devotees he lay still warm in the earth, that other, the woman, poor Clotiide, astonished her compavriots by passxng comedy and tragic comedy, with tlie gift of her hand to the hand which had slain Alvan. ,, XL Another extraordinary chapter in the extraordinary life of Helene yon Raoowitza begins. Socialists are hostile to her—Jesuits and ambassadors would snare her for diplomatic purposes: she is so magnetically fascinating. Lives with. Siegwart iriedmann and latei goes to America with Serge yon Schewitsch, orator. Terms this the great love of her life. Glorifies San Francisco as superior to Naples, Corfu, Geneva. Helene writes, paints, acts, attracts. Meets Madame Blavatsky and comments deligiitiully upon her. Also meets Colonel Olcott, and herein a clue to the date of the writing of the Autobiography, for Olcott is alluded to as still living: he has been dead some years. In the end, Helene practically turns Theosophisfc, wnich explains the mystic note frequently sounded throughout the book. After gaining American experiences and recording entertaining American impressions, our author gets to London and Annie Besant, and later chats with Bjornsterne JBjomson (.Norwegian novelist, recently deceased) about Ibsen. Says Bjornson: "You dare to say what I always think and never have the courage to express! But you call my great friend and poet-colleague a 'describer of persons. . . Yes, he has certainly created types of all sorts of men in 'Nora , and 'liosmersholm, , and his most brilliant work is 'Peer Gynt.' Yet he told the world something untrue when he made believe that our Norwegian folk are such a dismal, brooding, melancholy crew as he pourtrays them. No ; we are jolly, lively tellows, going forth full of life and courage to meet destiny. No, we are no Ibsen people. , XII. The Princess in her varied life has met many celebrities, sat to eminent painters, written several books, and everywhere made a sensational impression by her wondrous beauty. She knows no fear of death, she says, and closes thus: ' 'It was not my lot to enjoy secluded happiness, rather to fight with the elements, weather the storm, but at last to reach the warmth, the light, the sun. ,, Francis Grierson, in a eulogistic article, asked: "What would German Socialism be to-day had LasBalle married Helene yon Donniges?" J wonder.