The Princess Priscillas Fortnight

The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight,
by

Elizabeth von Arnim
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Title: The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight
Author: Elizabeth von Arnim
Release Date: August 8, 2004 [eBook #13141]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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Editorial note: We now know that "Elizabeth and Her German Garden"
was written by Elizabeth von Arnim (1866-1941). Born Mary Annette
Beauchamp in Australia, she grew up in England and married a
German, Count Henning August von Arnim-Schlagenthin. After the
couple moved to his country estate she began writing children's books.
Many of her early books were published "By the Author of 'Elizabeth

and Her German Garden'," and later she published as simply
"Elizabeth."

THE PRINCESS PRISCILLA'S FORTNIGHT
BY THE AUTHOR OF "ELIZABETH AND HER GERMAN
GARDEN"
1905

"Oft habe ich die Welt durchwandert, und habe immer gesehen, wie das
Grosse am Kleinlichen scheitert, und das Edle von dem ätzenden Gift
des Alltäglichen zerfressen wird." FRITZING, "Erlebtes und
Erlittenes."

I
Her Grand Ducal Highness the Princess Priscilla of Lothen-Kunitz was
up to the age of twenty-one a most promising young lady. She was not
only poetic in appearance beyond the habit of princesses but she was
also of graceful and appropriate behaviour. She did what she was told;
or, more valuable, she did what was expected of her without being told.
Her father, in his youth and middle age a fiery man, now an irritable
old gentleman who liked good food and insisted on strictest etiquette,
was proud of her on those occasions when she happened to cross his
mind. Her mother, by birth an English princess of an originality
uncomfortable and unexpected in a royal lady that continued to the end
of her life to crop up at disconcerting moments, died when Priscilla was
sixteen. Her sisters, one older and one younger than herself, were both
far less pleasing to look upon than she was, and much more difficult to
manage; yet each married a suitable prince and each became a credit to
her House, while as for Priscilla,--well, as for Priscilla, I propose to
describe her dreadful conduct.

But first her appearance. She was well above the average height of
woman; a desirable thing in a princess, who, before everything, must
impress the public with her dignity. She had a long pointed chin, and a
sweet mouth with full lips that looked most kind. Her nose was not
quite straight, one side of it being the least bit different from the
other,--a slight crookedness that gave her face a charm absolutely
beyond the reach of those whose features are what is known as
chiselled. Her skin was of that fairness that freckles readily in hot
summers or on winter days when the sun shines brightly on the snow, a
delicate soft skin that is seen sometimes with golden eyelashes and
eyebrows, and hair that is more red than gold. Priscilla had these
eyelashes and eyebrows and this hair, and she had besides beautiful
grey-blue eyes--calm pools of thought, the court poet called them,
when her having a birthday compelled him to official raptures; and
because everybody felt sure they were not really anything of the kind
the poet's utterance was received with acclamations. Indeed, a princess
who should possess such pools would be most undesirable--in
Lothen-Kunitz nothing short of a calamity; for had they not had one
already? It was what had been the matter with the deceased Grand
Duchess; she would think, and no one could stop her, and her life in
consequence was a burden to herself and to everybody else at her court.
Priscilla, however, was very silent. She had never expressed an opinion,
and the inference was that she had no opinion to express. She had not
criticized, she had not argued, she had been tractable, obedient, meek.
Yet her sisters, who had often criticized and argued, and who had rarely
been obedient and never meek, became as I have said the wives of
appropriate princes, while Priscilla,--well, he who runs may read what
it was that Priscilla became.
But first as to where she lived. The Grand Duchy of Lothen-Kunitz lies
in the south of Europe; that smiling region of fruitful plains,
forest-clothed hills, and broad rivers. It is one of the first places Spring
stops at on her way up from Italy; and Autumn, coming down from the
north sunburnt, fruit-laden, and blest, goes slowly when she reaches it,