And so for a summer and a winter they were happy.
Gisela averted her mind tonight from the parting with something of the
almost forgotten panic. She had never dared to dwell upon it, nor on the
month that followed. Her powerful will had rebelled finally and she had
fought down and out of her consciously functioning mind the details of
her tragic passion, and even reveled arrogantly in the sensation of
deliverance from the slavery of love. Simultaneously she was swept off
to see the great natural wonders of the American continent and they had
intoned the requiem.
The following autumn she returned to Germany and paid her mother another
brief visit.
There all was well. Frau von Niebuhr, who had not developed a white hair
and whose Viennese maid was a magician in the matter of gowns and
complexion, was enjoying life and had a daring salon; that is to say
gatherings in which all the men did not wear uniforms nor prefix the
sacred von. She drew the line at bad manners, but otherwise all (and of
any nation) who had distinguished themselves, or possessed the priceless
gift of personality, were welcome there; and although she lived to be
amused and make up what she had lost during thirty unspeakable years,
she progressed inevitably in keenness of insight and breadth of vision.
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