However that might
be, she was his wife, and I have the honor to represent in my humble
person the legitimate daughter of Hahn, the watchmaker, and the
Marquise de Barbasson."
"And I must confess that you are representing your mother and your
father in a highly becoming manner," said Hardenberg. "You have the
bearing and the savoir vivre of a French marquise, and from your
oracular sayings I have seen that you are as familiar with the time
as a watchmaker is. But I can imagine that the descent of your
parents produced many a discord in your life."
"Say rather that my whole life was a discord," she exclaimed,
vehemently, "and that I have lived in an unending conflict between
my head and my heart, my reality and my imagination. Oh, how often,
when lying in dreary loneliness, in the shade of an oak on the shore
of the charming lake near the small town in which we lived--how
often did I utter loud cries of anguish, and say to the billows that
washed the shore with a low, murmuring sound: 'I am a French
marquise; there is aristocratic blood in my veins; it is my vocation
to shine at the courts of kings, and to see counts and princes at my
feet!' Yet none but the waves of the lake believed my words; men
treated me never as a Marquise de Barbasson, but only as little
Frederica Hahn, daughter of a poor watchmaker. I felt this as a
personal insult, and at many a bitter hour it seemed to me as
though, like my mother, I hated my poor father because he had robbed
us of our brilliant name and our nobility.
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