



Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provide by Google Books






Transcriber's Note:
   1. Page scan source:
      http://books.google.com/books?id=1hUtAAAAYAAJ

   2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].






                          MRS. A. L. WISTER'S

                 Popular Translations from the German.

                   12mo. Attractively Bound in Cloth.

                           *   *   *   *   *

   "O THOU, MY AUSTRIA!" By Ossip Schubin.                   $1.25
   ERLACH COURT. By Ossip Schubin.                            1.25
   THE ALPINE FAY. By E. Werner.                              1.25
   THE OWL'S NEST. By E. Marlitt.                             1.25
   PICKED UP IN THE STREETS. By H. Schobert.                  1.25
   SAINT MICHAEL. By E. Werner.                               1.25
   VIOLETTA. By Ursula Zoege von Manteuffel.                   1.25
   THE LADY WITH THE RUBIES. By E. Marlitt.                   1.25
   VAIN FOREBODINGS. By E. Oswald.                            1.25
   A PENNILESS GIRL. By W. Heimburg.                          1.25
   QUICKSANDS. By Adolph Streckfuss.                          1.50
   BANNED AND BLESSED. By E. Werner.                          1.50
   A NOBLE NAME. By Claire von Gluemer                         1.50
   FROM HAND TO HAND. By Golo Raimund                         1.50
   SEVERA. By E. Hartner                                      1.50
   THE EICHHOFS. By Moritz von Reichenbach.                   1.50
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   CASTLE HOHENWALD. By Adolph Streckfuss.                    1.50
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   A FAMILY FEUD. By Ludwig Harder.                           1.25
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   WHY DID HE NOT DIE? By Ad. von Volckhausen.                1.50
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   AT THE COUNCILLOR'S. By E. Marlitt.                        1.50
   THE SECOND WIFE. By E. Marlitt.                            1.50
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                      _J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY_,
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            _715 and 717 Market Street, Philadelphia, Pa_.






                            COUNTESS ERIKA'S

                             APPRENTICESHIP



                       TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN
                                   OF
                             OSSIP SCHUBIN
                  AUTHOR OF "O THOU, MY AUSTRIA!" ETC.



                                   BY
                           MRS. A. L. WISTER




                              PHILADELPHIA
                        J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
                                  1891






                           *   *   *   *   *
              Copyright, 1891, by J. B. Lippincott Company
                           *   *   *   *   *
                        _All rights reserved_.






           Printed By J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia.




                         PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR.


A friend returning from a stroll round the globe brought back an odd
volume of my work picked up in San Francisco, translated without my
leave, but proving by its very existence that the American reading
world take a certain interest in my show and its puppets.

Though in a certain sense these unauthorized editions are a picking of
the author's pocket, yet I must confess that I felt rather flattered.

Every one possessing any feeling for modernism must highly prize what
American art and American literature have done and are doing for the
directness, vividness, and intensity of presentation to our eyes or our
imagination either of outward objects or the silent workings of
character and inner sensations.

The rapidity and intensity of picturing frequently remind us of an
electric shock.

We Old World folk take life, to a certain degree, more at our leisure,
but nevertheless every real artist follows the great direction that has
seized all our contemporary being.

Directness of truth, vividness and intensity of presentation, exact
rendering of impression, are the means by which we seek to produce
life; life itself is the object, but I am afraid that to the end the
life-giving spark will defy analysis.

Let me hope that the figures whose woes and weal my reader will follow
through these pages may be half as alive to him as they have been to
me; and let me hope, likewise, that when he closes the volume we may
have become fast friends.

I cannot let this opportunity pass without thanking Mrs. Wister most
heartily for her faithful and picturesque rendering of my story.

What a rare delight it is to an author to find himself so admirably
rendered and so perfectly understood only those can feel that have
undergone the acute misery of seeing their every thought mangled, their
every sentence massacred, as common translations will mangle and
massacre word and thought.

Therefore let every writer thank Providence, if he find an artist like
Mrs. Wister willing to put herself to the trouble of following his
intentions, and of clothing his ideas in so brilliant a garb.

It is only natural, therefore, that, having been lucky enough to find
so rare a translator, I should authorize the translation to the
absolute exclusion of any other.

So, hoping it may find favour in the eyes of my transatlantic readers,
I should like to shake hands with them at parting and say good-bye with
the Old World saw, "_Auf Wiedersehen_."

                                              Ossip Schubin.





                            COUNTESS ERIKA'S
                            APPRENTICESHIP.




                               CHAPTER I.


Baron von Strachinsky reclined upon a lounge in his