In
other words she was, like many another German woman, in her secret
heart, an individual. But she was not a rebel; her social code forbade
that. She manufactured interests for herself as rapidly, and as various,
as possible, preserved her good looks in spite of her eight children
(the two that followed Gisela died in infancy), dressed far better than
most German women, cultivated society, gave four notable musicales a
season, and was devoted to her sons and daughters, although she never
opposed her husband's stern military discipline of those seemingly
typical maedchens. It was her policy to keep the martinet in a good
humor, and after all--she had condemned herself not to think--what
better destiny than to be a German woman of the higher aristocracy? They
might have been born into the middle class, where there were quite as
many tyrants as in the patrician, and vastly fewer compensations. At the
age of forty-four she believed herself to be a philosopher.
Six months before Mariette's marriage and shortly after the birth and
death of her last child, Frau von Niebuhr suddenly returned to her bed,
prostrate, on the verge of collapse. The count raged that any wife of
his should dare to be ill or absent (when not fulfilling patriotic
obligations), consult her own selfish whims by having nerves and lying
speechless in bed.
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