Furthermore, he was very far from resembling what in those early
days was regarded as the typical picture of a Socialist. There was
nothing frowzy about him; in his appearance he was elegance
itself; his manners were those of a prince, and his clothing was
of the best. Seeing him in a drawing-room, no one would mistake
him for anything but a gentleman and a man of parts. Hence it is
not surprising that his second love was one of the nobility,
although her own people hated Lassalle as a bearer of the red
flag.

This girl was Helene von Donniges, the daughter of a Bavarian
diplomat. As a child she had traveled much, especially in Italy
and in Switzerland. She was very precocious, and lived her own
life without asking the direction of any one. At twelve years of
age she had been betrothed to an Italian of forty; but this dark
and pedantic person always displeased her, and soon afterward,
when she met a young Wallachian nobleman, one Yanko Racowitza, she
was ready at once to dismiss her Italian lover. Racowitza--young,
a student, far from home, and lacking friends--appealed at once to
the girl's sympathy.

At that very time, in Berlin, where Helene was visiting her
grandmother, she was asked by a Prussian baron:

"Do you know Ferdinand Lassalle?"

The question came to her with a peculiar shock. She had never
heard the name, and yet the sound of it gave her a strange
emotion. Baron Korff, who perhaps took liberties because she was