it had not been predictable that Valery Altmannsdorf and Peter Larsen would get married, but the very unlikelihood of their meeting confirmed Valery in her unshakeable conviction that she had been meant to marry Peter. This was a source of great strength to her and coloured her whole outlook on life, which was positive and unquestioning, but it also closed her mind to the doubts and difficulties of others. She had no time and no sympathy for other people’s misgivings and uncertainties, which she was inclined to regard as nonsense, and that estranged her especially – and unhappily – from her eldest daughter.
Valery Larsen was the youngest of three sisters – Francisca who was writing to her was the middle one – who were the daughters of the late Prince Altmannsdorf. He had once owned vast estates in Bohemia, but he had never lived in any of his different castles, except during the shooting season, as he much preferred town life in the Palais Altmannsdorf in Vienna. He had left the administration of his estates to a cousin, who might have expected to become his heir since he himself had no son; the only positive interest he had taken in what he owned was in his forests and his game. Among his employees, he only knew his gamekeepers, and his head forester, whom he valued and trusted, was the only one with whom he had a personal relationship. Between seasons this man often came to Vienna to talk things over, bringing with him a smell of wood smoke and pipe tobacco even in his town clothes, and a sense of wind and open spaces on his weather-beaten, bearded face. ‘Old Anreither’ the young princesses called him; he was almost one of the family and they loved him.
When, in 1918, the Austrian Empire fell apart, the cousin was left to take on citizenship of the new state of Czechoslovakia and to wrestle with its decrees concerning the large estates within its borders, and Prince Altmannsdorf in Vienna was, for a while at least, cut off from the source of his revenues. Valery, his youngest child, was four years old at the time. Born during the war, she had from the start been a sickly baby, and the lack of adequate food during the last disastrous year had reduced her to such a featherweight scrap that her parents decided to swallow their pride and apply for her to be included in the parties of children which generous people in Holland and the Scandinavian countries were offering to receive into their homes to save them from starvation. Valery had been taken to Denmark and had spent two years with the family of a farmer, living with his numerous children. They had loved her and she had loved them and, young as they were, a very tender friendship had developed between her and a little boy of her own age. When at last she went home, strong and healthy and speaking nothing but Danish, little Jens pined to have her back again in the summer holidays. She had been so happy and the Altmannsdorfs were so grateful that they could not refuse to send her. Gradually it came to be accepted by both families that Valery would spend a couple of months with the Larsens every other year during her childhood and adolescence, while Jens or one of his sisters occasionally came to Vienna.
Then suddenly, as such things happen, Peter, the eldest of the Larsen sons, fell in love with her and she with him. He was an exceptionally brilliant young man who had taken a first-class degree in chemistry in Berlin and had come on to do postgraduate work in Vienna under a well-known professor. The two of them became engaged, but as he refused to convert to Catholicism, being as firmly wedded to his agnostic views as any devoutly religious man to the tenets of his faith, they were, after a great deal of bitterness, eventually married from Peter’s home in Denmark, at the local town hall, and received their matrimonial blessing in the adjacent Lutheran church. Valery insisted on this ceremony, feeling, rather inconsistently, that a heretical ceremony was
Valery Larsen was the youngest of three sisters – Francisca who was writing to her was the middle one – who were the daughters of the late Prince Altmannsdorf. He had once owned vast estates in Bohemia, but he had never lived in any of his different castles, except during the shooting season, as he much preferred town life in the Palais Altmannsdorf in Vienna. He had left the administration of his estates to a cousin, who might have expected to become his heir since he himself had no son; the only positive interest he had taken in what he owned was in his forests and his game. Among his employees, he only knew his gamekeepers, and his head forester, whom he valued and trusted, was the only one with whom he had a personal relationship. Between seasons this man often came to Vienna to talk things over, bringing with him a smell of wood smoke and pipe tobacco even in his town clothes, and a sense of wind and open spaces on his weather-beaten, bearded face. ‘Old Anreither’ the young princesses called him; he was almost one of the family and they loved him.
When, in 1918, the Austrian Empire fell apart, the cousin was left to take on citizenship of the new state of Czechoslovakia and to wrestle with its decrees concerning the large estates within its borders, and Prince Altmannsdorf in Vienna was, for a while at least, cut off from the source of his revenues. Valery, his youngest child, was four years old at the time. Born during the war, she had from the start been a sickly baby, and the lack of adequate food during the last disastrous year had reduced her to such a featherweight scrap that her parents decided to swallow their pride and apply for her to be included in the parties of children which generous people in Holland and the Scandinavian countries were offering to receive into their homes to save them from starvation. Valery had been taken to Denmark and had spent two years with the family of a farmer, living with his numerous children. They had loved her and she had loved them and, young as they were, a very tender friendship had developed between her and a little boy of her own age. When at last she went home, strong and healthy and speaking nothing but Danish, little Jens pined to have her back again in the summer holidays. She had been so happy and the Altmannsdorfs were so grateful that they could not refuse to send her. Gradually it came to be accepted by both families that Valery would spend a couple of months with the Larsens every other year during her childhood and adolescence, while Jens or one of his sisters occasionally came to Vienna.
Then suddenly, as such things happen, Peter, the eldest of the Larsen sons, fell in love with her and she with him. He was an exceptionally brilliant young man who had taken a first-class degree in chemistry in Berlin and had come on to do postgraduate work in Vienna under a well-known professor. The two of them became engaged, but as he refused to convert to Catholicism, being as firmly wedded to his agnostic views as any devoutly religious man to the tenets of his faith, they were, after a great deal of bitterness, eventually married from Peter’s home in Denmark, at the local town hall, and received their matrimonial blessing in the adjacent Lutheran church. Valery insisted on this ceremony, feeling, rather inconsistently, that a heretical ceremony was
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