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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Royal Highness, by Thomas Mann
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Royal Highness
+
+Author: Thomas Mann
+
+Translator: A. Cecil Curtis
+
+Release Date: May 3, 2011 [EBook #36028]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROYAL HIGHNESS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Jana Srna and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  [ Transcriber's Notes:
+
+    Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully
+    as possible, including inconsistencies in spelling, hyphenation,
+    and ellipsis usage. Some corrections of spelling and punctuation
+    have been made. They are listed at the end of the text.
+
+    Italic text has been marked with _underscores_.
+  ]
+
+
+
+
+  ROYAL HIGHNESS
+
+  Translated from the German of
+  THOMAS MANN
+  by A. Cecil Curtis
+
+  GROSSET & DUNLAP
+  Publishers
+  by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf
+
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1909, S. FISCHER, VERLAG
+
+  MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  Prelude                           vii
+
+  CHAPTER I
+  The Constriction                    1
+
+  CHAPTER II
+  The Country                        25
+
+  CHAPTER III
+  Hinnerke the Shoemaker             37
+
+  CHAPTER IV
+  Doctor Ueberbein                   64
+
+  CHAPTER V
+  Albrecht II                       110
+
+  CHAPTER VI
+  The Lofty Calling                 146
+
+  CHAPTER VII
+  Imma                              168
+
+  CHAPTER VIII
+  The Fulfilment                    265
+
+  CHAPTER IX
+  The Rose-Bush                     328
+
+
+
+
+PRELUDE
+
+
+The scene is the Albrechtstrasse, the main artery of the capital, which
+runs from Albrechtsplatz and the Old Schloss to the barracks of the
+Fusiliers of the Guard. The time is noon on an ordinary week-day; the
+season of the year does not matter. The weather is fair to moderate. It
+is not raining, but the sky is not clear; it is a uniform light grey,
+uninteresting and sombre, and the street lies in a dull and sober light
+which robs it of all mystery, all individuality. There is a moderate
+amount of traffic, without much noise and crowd, corresponding to the
+not over-busy character of the town. Tram-cars glide past, a cab or two
+rolls by, along the pavement stroll a few residents, colourless folk,
+passers-by, the public--"people."
+
+Two officers, their hands in the slanting pockets of their grey
+great-coats, approach each other; a general and a lieutenant. The
+general is coming from the Schloss, the lieutenant from the direction of
+the barracks. The lieutenant is quite young, a mere stripling, little
+more than a child. He has narrow shoulders, dark hair, and the wide
+cheek-bones so common in this part of the world, blue rather
+tired-looking eyes, and a boyish face with a kind but reserved
+expression. The general has snow-white hair, is tall and
+broad-shouldered, altogether a commanding figure. His eyebrows look like
+cotton-wool, and his moustache hangs right down over his mouth and chin.
+He walks with slow deliberation, his sword rattles on the asphalt, his
+plume flutters in the wind, and at every step he takes the big red lapel
+of his coat flaps slowly up and down.
+
+And so these two draw near each other. Can this rencontre lead to any
+complication? Impossible. Every observer can foresee the course this
+meeting will naturally take. We have on one side and the other age and
+youth, authority and obedience, years of services and docile
+apprenticeship--a mighty hierarchical gulf, rules and prescriptions,
+separate the two. Natural organization, take thy course! And, instead,
+what happens? Instead, the following surprising, painful, delightful,
+and topsy-turvy scene occurs.
+
+The general, noticing the young lieutenant's approach, alters his
+bearing in a surprising manner. He draws himself up, yet at the same
+time seems to get smaller. He tones down with a jerk, so to speak, the
+splendour of his appearance, stops the clatter of his sword, and, while
+his face assumes a cross and embarrassed expression, he obviously cannot
+make up his mind where to turn his eyes, and tries to conceal the fact
+by staring from under his cotton-wool eyebrows at the asphalt straight
+in front of him.
+
+The young lieutenant too betrays to the careful observer some slight
+embarrassment, which however, strange to say, he seems to succeed,
+better than the grey-haired general, in cloaking with a certain grace
+and self-command. The tension of his mouth is relaxed into a smile at
+once modest and genial, and his eyes are directed with a quiet and
+self-possessed calm, seemingly without an effort, over the general's
+shoulder and beyond.
+
+By now they have come within three paces of each other. And, instead of
+the prescribed salute, the young lieutenant throws his head slightly
+back, at the same time draws his right hand--only his right, mark
+you--out of his coat-pocket and makes with this same white-gloved right
+hand a little encouraging and condescending movement, just opening the
+fingers with palm upwards, nothing more. But the general, who has
+awaited this sign with his arms to his sides, raises his hand to his
+helmet, steps aside, bows, making a half-circle as if to leave the
+pavement free, and deferentially greets the lieutenant with reddening
+cheeks and honest modest eyes. Thereupon the lieutenant, his hand to his
+cap, answers the respectful greeting of his superior officer--answers it
+with a look of child-like friendliness; answers it--and goes on his way.
+
+A miracle! A freak of fancy! He goes on his way. People look at him, but
+he looks at nobody, looks straight ahead through the crowd, with
+something of the air of a woman who knows that she is being looked at.
+People greet him; he returns the greeting, heartily and yet distantly.
+He seems not to walk very easily; it looks as if he were not much
+accustomed to the use of his legs, or as if the general attention he
+excites bothers him, so irregular and hesitating is his gait; indeed, at
+times he seems to limp. A policeman springs to attention, a smart woman,
+coming out of a shop, smiles and curtseys. People turn round to look at
+him, nudge each other, stare at him, and softly whisper his name....
+
+It is Klaus Heinrich, the younger brother of Albrecht II, and heir
+presumptive to the throne. There he goes, he is still in view. Known and
+yet a stranger, he moves among the crowd--people all around him, and yet
+as if alone. He goes on his lonely way and carries on his narrow
+shoulders the burden of his Highness!
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE CONSTRICTION
+
+
+Artillery salvos were fired when the various new-fangled means of
+communication in the capital spread the news that the Grand Duchess
+Dorothea had given birth to a prince for the second time at Grimmburg.
+Seventy-two rounds resounded through the town and surrounding country,
+fired by the military in the walls of the "Citadel." Directly afterwards
+the fire brigade also, not to be outdone, fired with the town
+salute-guns; but in their firing there were long pauses between each
+round, which caused much merriment among the populace.
+
+The Grimmburg looked down from the top of a woody hill on the
+picturesque little town of the same name, which mirrored its grey
+sloping roofs in the river which flowed past it. It could be reached
+from the capital in half an hour by a local railway which paid no
+dividends. There the castle stood, the proud creation of the Margrave
+Klaus Grimmbart, the founder of the reigning house in the dim mists of
+history, since then several times rejuvenated and repaired, fitted with
+the comforts of the changing times, always kept in a habitable state and
+held in peculiar honour as the ancestral seat of the ruling house, the
+cradle of the dynasty. For it was a rule and tradition of the house that
+all direct descendants of the Margrave, every child of the reigning
+couple, must be born there.
+
+This tradition could not be ignored. The country had had sophisticated
+and unbelieving sovereigns, who had laughed at it, and yet had complied
+with it with a shrug of the shoulders. It was now much too late to break
+away from it whether it was reasonable and enlightened or not: why,
+without any particular necessity, break with an honoured custom, which
+had managed somehow to perpetuate itself? The people were convinced that
+there was something in it. Twice in the course of fifteen generations
+had children of reigning sovereigns, owing to some chance or other,
+first seen the light in other schlosses: each had come to an unnatural
+and disgraceful end. But all the sovereigns of the land and their
+brothers and sisters, from Henry the Confessor and John the Headstrong,
+with their lovely and proud sisters, down to Albrecht, the father of the
+Grand Duke, and the Grand Duke himself, Johann Albrecht III, had been
+brought into the world in the castle; and there, six years before,
+Dorothea had given birth to her firstborn, the Heir Apparent.
+
+The castle was also a retreat as dignified as it was peaceful. The
+coolness of its rooms, the shady charms of its surroundings, made it
+preferable as a summer residence to the stiff Hollerbrunn. The ascent
+from the town, up a rather badly paved street between shabby cottages
+and a scrubby wall, through massive gates to the ancient ruin at the
+entrance to the castle-yard, in the middle of which stood the statue of
+Klaus Grimmbart, the founder, was picturesque but tiring. But a noble
+park spread at the back of the castle hill, through which easy paths led
+up into the wooded and gently-swelling uplands, offering ideal
+opportunities for carriage drives and quiet strolls.
+
+As for the inside of the castle, it had been last subjected at the
+beginning of the reign of Johann Albrecht III to a thorough clean-up and
+redecoration--at a cost which had evoked much comment. The furniture of
+the living-rooms had been completed and renewed in a style at once
+baronial and comfortable; the escutcheons in the "Hall of Justice" had
+been carefully restored to their original pattern. The gilding of the
+intricate patterns on the vaulted ceilings looked fresh and cheerful,
+all the rooms had been fitted with parquet, and both the larger and the
+smaller banqueting-halls had been adorned with huge wall-paintings from
+the brush of Professor von Lindemann, a distinguished Academician,
+representing scenes from the history of the reigning House executed in a
+clear and smooth style which was far removed from and quite unaffected
+by the restless tendencies of modern schools. Nothing was wanting. As
+the old chimneys of the castle and its many-coloured stoves, reaching
+tier upon tier right up to the ceiling, were no longer fit to use,
+anthracite stoves had been installed in view of the possibility of the
+place being used as a residence during the winter.
+
+But the day of the seventy-two salvos fell in the best time of the year,
+late spring, early summer, the beginning of June, soon after
+Whitsuntide. Johann Albrecht, who had been early informed by telegram
+that the labour had begun just before dawn, reached Grimmburg Station by
+the bankrupt local railway at eight o'clock, where he was greeted with
+congratulations by three or four dignitaries, the mayor, the judge, the
+rector, and the town physician. He at once drove to the castle. The
+Grand Duke was accompanied by Minister of State, Dr. Baron Knobelsdorff,
+and Adjutant-General of Infantry, Count Schmettern. Shortly afterwards
+two or three more ministers arrived at the royal residence, the Court
+Chaplin Dom Wislezenus, President of the High Consistory, one or two
+Court officials, and a still younger Adjutant, Captain von Lichterloh.
+Although the Grand Duke's Physician-in-Ordinary, Surgeon-General Dr.
+Eschrich, was attending the mother, Johann Albrecht had been seized with
+the whim of requiring the young local doctor, a Doctor Sammet, who was
+of Jewish extraction into the bargain, to accompany him to the castle.
+The unassuming, hard-working, and earnest man, who had as much as he
+could do and was not in the least expecting any such distinction,
+stammered "Quite delighted ... quite delighted" several times over, thus
+provoking some amusement.
+
+The Grand Duchess's bedroom was the "Bride-chamber," a five-cornered,
+brightly painted room on the first floor, through whose window a fine
+view could be obtained of woods, hills, and the windings of the river.
+It was decorated with a frieze of medallion-shaped portraits, likenesses
+of royal brides who had slept there in the olden days of the family
+history.
+
+There lay Dorothea; a broad piece of webbing was tied round the foot of
+her bed, to which she clung like a child playing at horses, while
+convulsions shook her lovely frame. Doctor Gnadebusch, the midwife, a
+gentle and learned woman with small fine hands and brown eyes, which
+wore a look of mystery behind her round, thick spectacles, was
+supporting the Duchess, while she said:
+
+"Steady, steady, your Royal Highness.... It will soon be over. It's
+quite easy.... Just once more ... that's nothing.... Rest a bit: knees
+apart.... Keep your chin down...."
+
+A nurse, dressed like her in white linen, helped too, and moved
+lightly about with phials and bandages during the pauses. The
+Physician-in-Ordinary, a gloomy man with a greyish beard, whose left
+eyelid seemed to droop, superintended the birth. He wore his
+operating-coat over his surgeon-general's uniform. From time to time
+there peeped into the room, to ascertain the progress of the confinement,
+Dorothea's trusty Mistress of the Robes, Baroness von Schulenburg-Tressen,
+a corpulent and asthmatic woman of distinctly dragoon-like
+appearance, who nevertheless liked to display a generous
+expanse of neck and shoulders at the court balls. She kissed her
+mistress's hand and went back to an adjoining room, in which a couple of
+thin ladies-in-waiting were chatting with the Grand Duchess's
+Chamberlain-in-Waiting, a Count Windisch. Dr. Sammet, who had thrown his
+linen coat like a domino over his dress-coat, was waiting modestly and
+attentively by the washstand.
+
+Johann Albrecht sat in a neighbouring room used as a study, which was
+separated from the "Bride-chamber" only by a so-called powder closet and
+a passage-room. It was called the library, in view of several manuscript
+folios, which lay slanting in the massive book-shelves and contained the
+history of the castle. The room was furnished as a writing-room. Globes
+adorned the walls. The strong wind from the hills blew through the open
+bow-window. The Grand Duke had ordered tea, and the groom of the
+chamber, Prahl, had himself brought the tray; but it was standing
+forgotten on the leaf of the desk, and Johann Albrecht was pacing the
+room from one corner to the other in a restless, uncomfortable frame of
+mind. His top-boots kept creaking as he walked. His aide-de-camp, von
+Lichterloh, listened to the noise, as he waited patiently in the almost
+bare passage-room.
+
+The Minister, the Adjutant-General, the Court Chaplain, and the Court
+officials, nine or ten in all, were waiting in the state-room on the
+ground floor. They wandered through the larger and the smaller
+banqueting-halls, where trophies of banners and weapons hung between
+Lindemann's pictures. They leaned against the slender pillars, which
+spread into brightly coloured vaulting above their heads. They stood
+before the narrow, ceiling-high windows, and looked out through the
+leaded panes over river and town; they sat on the stone benches which
+ran round the walls, or on seats before the stoves, whose Gothic tops
+were supported by ridiculous little stooping imps of stone. The bright
+sunlight made the gold lace on the uniforms, the orders on the padded
+chests, the broad gold stripes on the trousers of the dignitaries
+glisten.
+
+The conversation flagged. Three-cornered hats and white-gloved hands
+were constantly being raised to mouths which opened convulsively. Nearly
+everybody had tears in his eyes. Several had not had time to get any
+breakfast. Some sought entertainment in a timid examination of the
+operating-instruments and the round leather-cased chloroform jar, which
+Surgeon-General Eschrich had left there in case of emergency. After von
+Bühl zu Bühl, the Lord Marshal, a powerful man with mincing manners,
+brown toupée, gold-rimmed pince-nez, and long, yellow fingernails, had
+told several anecdotes in his quick, jerky way, he dropped into an
+armchair, in which he made use of his gift of being able to sleep with
+his eyes open--of losing consciousness of time and place while retaining
+a steady gaze and alert attitude, and in no way imperilling the dignity
+of the situation.
+
+Dr. von Schröder, Minister of Finance and Agriculture, had had a
+conversation earlier in the day with the Minister of State, Dr. Baron
+Knobelsdorff, Minister of Home Affairs, Foreign Affairs, and the Grand
+Ducal Household. It was a spasmodic chat, which began with a discussion
+on art, went on to financial and economic questions, alluded, somewhat
+disapprovingly, to a High Court official, and did not leave even the
+most exalted personages out of account. It began with the two men
+standing, with their hats in their hands behind their backs, in front of
+one of the pictures in the larger banqueting-hall, each of them thinking
+more than he said. The Finance Minister said: "And this? What's this?
+What's happening? Your Excellency is so well informed."
+
+"Merely superficially. It is the investiture of two Grand princes of the
+blood by their uncle, the Emperor. As your Excellency can see, the two
+young men are kneeling and taking the oath with great solemnity on the
+Emperor's sword."
+
+"Fine, extraordinarily fine! What colouring! Dazzling. What lovely
+golden hair the princes have! And the Emperor ... exactly as he is
+described in the books! Yes, that Lindemann well deserves all the
+distinctions which have been given him."
+
+"Absolutely. Those which have been given him; those he quite deserves."
+
+Dr. von Schröder, a tall man with a white beard, a pair of thin gold
+spectacles on his white nose, a belly protruding slightly underneath his
+stomach, and a bull-neck, which lapped over the stiff collar of his
+coat, looked, without taking his eyes off the picture, somewhat
+doubtfully at it, under the influence of a diffidence which seized him
+from time to time during conversations with the baron. This
+Knobelsdorff, this favourite and exalted functionary, was so
+enigmatical. At times his remarks, his retorts, had an indefinable tinge
+of irony about them. He was a widely travelled man, he had been all over
+the world, he had so much general knowledge, and interests of such a
+strange and exotic kind. And yet he was a model of correctness. Herr von
+Schröder could not quite understand him. However much one agreed with
+him, it was impossible to feel that one really understood him. His
+opinions were full of a mysterious reserve, his judgments of a tolerance
+which left one wondering whether they implied approval or contempt.
+
+But the most suspicious thing about him was his laugh, a laugh of the
+eyes in which the mouth took no part, a laugh which seemed to be
+produced by the wrinkles radiating from the corners of his eyes, or vice
+versa to have produced those same wrinkles in the course of years. Baron
+Knobelsdorff was younger than the Finance Minister; he was then in the
+prime of life, although his close-trimmed moustache and hair smoothly
+parted in the middle were already beginning to turn grey--for the rest a
+squat, short-necked man, obviously pinched by the collar of his
+heavily-laced court dress. He left Herr von Schröder to his perplexity
+for a minute, and then went on: "Only perhaps it might be to the
+interests of a prudent administration of the Privy Purse if the
+distinguished professor had rested content with stars and titles ... to
+speak bluntly, what may all these delightful works of art have cost?"
+
+Herr von Schröder recovered his animation. The desire, the hope of
+understanding the Baron, of getting on to intimate and confidential
+terms with him, excited him. "Just what I was thinking!" said he,
+turning round to resume his walk through the galleries. "Your Excellency
+has taken the question out of my mouth. I wonder what this 'Investiture'
+cost, and all the rest of these wall-pictures. For the restoration of
+the castle six years ago cost a million altogether."
+
+"At least that."
+
+"A solid million! And that amount was audited and approved by Lord
+Marshal von Bühl zu Bühl, who is sitting yonder in a state of
+comfortable catalepsy--audited, approved, and disbursed by the Keeper of
+the Privy Purse, Count Trümmerhauff."
+
+"Disbursed, or owing!"
+
+"One of the two!... This total, I say, debited to a fund, a fund ..."
+
+"In a word, the fund of the Grand Ducal settled estates."
+
+"Your Excellency knows as well as I what that means. No, it makes me run
+cold.... I swear I am neither a skin-flint nor a hypochondriac, but it
+makes me run cold when I think of a man, with present conditions staring
+him in the face, coolly throwing a million away--on what? On a nothing,
+a pretty whim, on the beautification of the family schloss in which his
+babies have to be born...."
+
+Herr von Knobelsdorff laughed. "Yes, Heaven knows romance is a luxury,
+and a mighty expensive one too! Excellency, I agree with you--of course.
+But consider, after all the whole trouble in the Grand Ducal finances is
+due to this same romantic luxury. The root of the evil lies in the fact
+that the ruling dynasty are farmers; their capital consists in land and
+soil, their income in agricultural profits. At the present day.... They
+have not been able up to the present to make up their minds to turn into
+industrialists and financiers. They allow themselves with regrettable
+obstinacy to be swayed by certain obsolete and idealistic conceptions,
+such as, for instance, the conceptions of trust and dignity. The royal
+property is hampered by a trust entailed in fact. Advantageous
+alienations are barred. Mortgages, the raising of capital on credit for
+commercial improvements, seem to them improper. The administration is
+seriously hindered in the free exploitation of business
+opportunities--by ideas of dignity. You'll forgive me, won't you? I'm
+telling you the absolute truth. People who pay so much attention to
+propriety as these of course cannot and will not keep pace with the
+freer and less hampered initiative of less obstinate and unpractical
+business people. Now then, what, in comparison with this negative
+luxury, does the positive million signify, which has been sacrificed to
+a pretty whim, to borrow your Excellency's expression? If it only
+stopped there! But we have the regular expenses of a fairly dignified
+Court to meet. There are the schlosses and their parks to keep up,
+Hollerbrunn, Monbrillant, Jägerpreis, aren't there? The Hermitage,
+Delphinenort, the Pheasantry, and the others.... I had forgotten Schloss
+Zegenhaus and the Haderstein ruins ... not to mention the Old
+Schloss.... They are not well kept up, but they all cost money.... There
+are the Court Theatre, the Picture Gallery, the Library, to maintain.
+There are a hundred pensions to pay,--no legal compulsion to pay them,
+but motives of trust and dignity. And look at the princely way in which
+the Grand Duke behaved at the time of the last floods.... But I'm
+preaching you a regular sermon!"
+
+"A sermon," said the Minister of Finance, "which your Excellency thought
+would shock me, while you really only confirmed my own view. Dear
+Baron"--here Herr von Schröder laid his hand on his heart,--"I am
+convinced that there is no longer room for any misunderstanding as to my
+opinion, my loyal opinion, between you and me. The King can do no
+wrong.... The sovereign is beyond the reach of reproaches. But here we
+have to do with a default ... in both senses of the word!... a default
+which I have no hesitation in laying at the door of Count Trümmerhauff.
+His predecessors may be pardoned for having concealed from their
+sovereigns the true state of the Court finances; in those days nothing
+else was expected of them. But Count Trümmerhauff's attitude now is not
+pardonable. In his position as Keeper of the Privy Purse he ought to
+have felt it incumbent on him to put a brake on his Highness's
+thoughtlessness, to feel it incumbent on him now to open his Royal
+Highness's eyes relentlessly to the facts ..."
+
+Herr Knobelsdorff knitted his brows and laughed.
+
+"Really?" said he. "So your Excellency is of the opinion that that is
+what the Count was appointed for! I can picture to myself the
+justifiable astonishment of his lordship, if you lay before him your
+view of the position. No, no ... your Excellency need be under no
+delusion; that appointment was a quite deliberate expression of his
+wishes on the part of his Royal Highness, which the Count must be the
+first to respect. It expressed not only an 'I don't know,' but also an
+'I won't know.' A man may be an exclusively decorative personality and
+yet be acute enough to grasp this.... Besides ... honestly ... we've all
+of us grasped it. And the only grain of comfort for all of us is this:
+that there isn't a prince alive to whom it would be more fatal to
+mention his debts than to his Royal Highness. Our Prince has a something
+about him which would stop any tactless remarks of that sort before they
+were spoken ..."
+
+"Quite true, quite true," said Herr von Schröder. He sighed and stroked
+thoughtfully the swansdown trimming of his hat. The two men were
+sitting, half turned towards each other, on a raised window seat in a
+roomy niche, past which a narrow stone corridor ran outside, a kind of
+gallery, through the pointed arches of which peeps of the town could be
+seen. Herr von Schröder went on:
+
+"You answer me, Baron; one would think you were contradicting me, and
+yet your words show more incredulity and bitterness than my own."
+
+Herr von Knobelsdorff said nothing, but made a vague gesture of assent.
+
+"It may be so," said the Finance Minister, and nodded gloomily at his
+hat. "Your Excellency may be quite right. Perhaps we are all
+blameworthy, we and our forefathers too. But it ought to have been
+stopped. For consider, Baron; ten years ago an opportunity offered
+itself of putting the finances of the Court on a sound footing, on a
+better footing anyhow, if you like. It was lost. We understand each
+other. The Grand Duke, attractive man that he is, had it then in his
+power to clear things up by a marriage which from a sound point of view
+might have been called dazzling. Instead of that ... speaking not for
+myself, of course, but I shall never forget the disgust on everybody's
+faces when they mentioned the amount of the dowry..."
+
+"The Grand Duchess," said Herr von Knobelsdorff, and the wrinkles at the
+corners of his eyes disappeared almost entirely, "is one of the
+handsomest women I have ever seen."
+
+"That is an answer one would expect of your Excellency. It's an æsthetic
+answer, an answer which would have held quite as good if his Royal
+Highness's choice, like his brother Lambert's, had fallen on a member of
+the royal ballet."
+
+"Oh, there was no danger of that. The Prince's taste is a fastidious
+one, as he has shown. He has always shown in his wants the antithesis to
+that want of taste which Prince Lambert has shown all his life. It was a
+long time before he made up his mind to marry. Everybody had given up
+all hope of a direct heir to the throne. They were resigned for better
+or worse to Prince Lambert, whose ... unsuitability to be heir to the
+throne we need not discuss. Then, a few weeks after he had succeeded,
+Johann Albrecht met Princess Dorothea, cried, "This one or none!" and
+the Grand Duchy had its sovereign lady. Your Excellency mentioned the
+thoughtful looks which were exchanged when the figures of the dowry were
+published,--you did not mention the jubilation which at the same time
+prevailed. A poor princess, to be sure. But is beauty, such beauty, a
+power of happiness or not? Never shall I forget her entry! Her first
+smile, as it lighted on the gazing crowds, won their love. Your
+Excellency must allow me to profess once more my belief in the idealism
+of the people. The people want to see their best, their highest, their
+dream, what stands for their soul, represented in their princes--not
+their money bags. There are others to represent those...."
+
+"That's just what there are not; just what we have not got."
+
+"The more's the pity, then. The main point is, Dorothea has presented us
+with an Heir Apparent."
+
+"To whom may Heaven grant some idea of figures!"
+
+"I agree."
+
+At this point the conversation between the two Ministers ceased. It was
+broken off by the announcement by aide-de-camp von Lichterloh, of the
+happy issue of the confinement. The smaller banqueting-hall was soon
+filled with officials. One of the great carved doors was quickly thrown
+open, and the aide-de-camp appeared in the hall. He had a red face, blue
+soldier's eyes, a bristling flaxen moustache, and silver lace on his
+collar. He looked somewhat excited, like a man who had been released
+from deadly boredom and was primed with good news. Conscious of the
+unusualness of the occasion, he boldly ignored the rules of decorum and
+etiquette. He saluted the company gaily, and, spreading his elbows,
+raised the hilt of his sword almost to his breast crying: "Beg leave to
+announce: a prince!"
+
+"Good!" said Adjutant-General Count Schmettern.
+
+"Delightful, quite delightful, I call that perfectly delightful!" said
+Lord Marshal von Bühl zu Bühl in his jerky way; he had recovered
+consciousness at once.
+
+The President of the High Consistory, Dom Wislezenus--a clean-shaven,
+well-built man, who, as a son of a general, and thanks to his personal
+distinction, had attained to his high dignity at a comparatively early
+age, and on whose black silk gown hung the star of an Order--folded his
+white hands on his breast, and said in a melodious voice, "God bless his
+Grand Ducal Highness!"
+
+"You forget, Captain," said Herr von Knobelsdorff, laughing, "that in
+making your announcement you are encroaching on my privileges and
+province. Until I have made the most searching investigations into the
+state of affairs, the question whether it is a prince or a princess
+remains undecided."
+
+The others laughed, and Herr von Lichterloh replied: "As you wish, your
+Excellency! Then I have the honour to beg your Excellency to assume this
+most important charge...."
+
+This dialogue referred to the attributes of the Minister of State, as
+registrar of the Grand Ducal house, in which capacity he was required to
+satisfy himself with his own eyes of the sex of the princely offspring
+and to make an official declaration on the subject. Herr von
+Knobelsdorff complied with this formality in the so-called powder-closet
+in which the new-born babe was bathed. He stayed longer there, however,
+than he had intended to, as he was puzzled and arrested by a painful
+sight, which at first he mentioned to nobody except the midwife.
+
+Doctor Gnadebusch showed him the child, and her eyes, gleaming
+mysteriously behind her thick spectacles, travelled between the Minister
+of State and the little copper-coloured creature, as it groped about
+with one--only one--little hand, as if she was saying: "Is it all
+right?"
+
+It was all right. Herr von Knobelsdorff was satisfied, and the wise
+woman wrapped the child up again. But even then she continued to look
+down at the Prince and then up at the Baron, until she had drawn his
+eyes to the point to which she wished to attract them. The wrinkles at
+the corners of his eyes disappeared, he knit his brows, tried, compared,
+felt, examined for two or three minutes, and at last asked: "Has the
+Grand Duke yet seen it?"
+
+"No, Excellency."
+
+"When the Grand Duke sees it," said Herr von Knobelsdorff, "tell him
+that he will grow out of it."
+
+And to the others on the ground-floor he reported--"A splendid prince!"
+
+But ten or fifteen minutes after him the Grand Duke also made the
+disagreeable discovery,--that was unavoidable, and resulted for
+Surgeon-General Eschrich in a short, extremely unpleasant scene, but for
+the Grimmburg Doctor Sammet in an interview with the Grand Duke which
+raised him considerably in the latter's estimation and was useful to him
+in his subsequent career. What happened was briefly as follows:
+
+After the birth Johann Albrecht had again retired to the library, and
+then returned to sit for some time at the bedside with his wife's hand
+in his. Thereupon he went into the "powder-closet," where the infant now
+lay in his high, richly gilded cradle, half covered with a blue silk
+curtain, and sat down in an armchair by the side of his little son. But
+while he sat and watched the sleeping infant it happened that he noticed
+what it was hoped that he would not notice yet. He drew the counterpane
+back, his face clouded over, and then he did exactly what Herr von
+Knobelsdorff had done before him, looked from Doctor Gnadebusch to the
+nurse and back again, both of whom said nothing, cast one glance at the
+half-open door into the bride-chamber, and stalked excitedly back into
+the library.
+
+Here he at once rang the silver eagle-topped bell which stood on the
+writing-table, and said to Herr von Lichterloh, who came in, very curtly
+and coldly: "I require Herr Eschrich."
+
+When the Grand Duke was angry with any member of his suite, he was wont
+to strip the culprit for the moment of all his titles and dignities, and
+to leave him nothing but his bare name.
+
+The aide-de-camp again clapped his spurs and heels together and
+withdrew. Johann Albrecht strode once or twice in a rage up and down the
+room, and then, hearing Herr von Lichterloh bring the person he had
+summoned into the ante-room, adopted an audience attitude at his
+writing-table.
+
+As he stood there, his head turned imperiously in half-profile, his left
+hand planted on his hip, drawing back his satin-fronted frock coat from
+his white waistcoat, he exactly resembled his portrait by Professor von
+Lindemann, which hung beside the big looking-glass over the mantelpiece
+in the "Hall of the Twelve Months" in the Town Schloss, opposite the
+portrait of Dorothea, and of which countless engravings, photographs,
+and picture postcards had been published. The only difference was that
+Johann Albrecht in the portrait seemed to be of heroic stature, while he
+really was scarcely of medium height. His forehead was high where his
+hair had receded, and from under his grey eyebrows, his blue eyes looked
+out, with dark rings round them, giving them an expression of tired
+haughtiness. He had the broad, rather too high cheek-bones which were a
+characteristic of his people. His whiskers and the soft tuft on his chin
+were grey, his moustache almost white. From the distended nostrils of
+his small but well-arched nose, two unusually deep furrows ran down to
+his chin. The lemon-coloured ribbon of the Family Order always showed in
+the opening of his waistcoat. In his buttonhole the Grand Duke wore a
+carnation.
+
+Surgeon-General Eschrich entered with a low bow. He had taken off his
+operating-coat. His eyelid drooped more heavily than usual over his eye.
+He looked apprehensive and uncomfortable.
+
+The Grand Duke, his left hand on his hip, threw his head back, stretched
+out his right hand and waved it, palm upwards, several times up and down
+impatiently.
+
+"I am awaiting an explanation, a justification, Surgeon-General," said
+he, with a voice trembling with irritation. "You will have the goodness
+to answer my questions. What is the matter with the child's arm?"
+
+The Physician-in-Ordinary raised his hand a little--a feeble gesture of
+impotence and blamelessness. He said:
+
+"An it please Your Royal Highness.... An unfortunate occurrence.
+Unfavourable circumstances during the pregnancy of her Royal
+Highness...."
+
+"That's all nonsense!" The Grand Duke was so much excited that he did
+not wish for any justification, in fact he would not allow one. "I would
+remind you, sir, that I am beside myself. Unfortunate occurrence! It was
+your business to take precautions against unfortunate occurrences...."
+
+The Surgeon-General stood with half-bowed head and, sinking his voice to
+a submissive tone, addressed the ground at his feet.
+
+"I humbly beg to be allowed to remind you that I, at least, am not alone
+responsible. Privy Councillor Grasanger--an authority on
+gynæcology--examined her Royal Highness. But nobody can be held
+responsible in this case...."
+
+"Nobody ... Really! I permit myself to make you responsible.... You are
+answerable to me.... You were in charge during the pregnancy, you
+superintended the confinement. I have relied on the knowledge to be
+expected from your rank, Surgeon-General, I have trusted to your
+experience. I am bitterly disappointed, bitterly disappointed. All that
+your skill can boast of is ... that a crippled child has been born...."
+
+"Would your Royal Highness graciously weigh ..."
+
+"I have weighed. I have weighed and found wanting. Thank you!"
+
+Surgeon-General Eschrich retired backwards, bowing. In the ante-room he
+shrugged his shoulders, while his cheeks glowed.
+
+The Grand Duke again fell to pacing the library in his princely wrath,
+unreasonable, misinformed, and foolish in his loneliness. However,
+whether it was that he wished to humiliate the Physician-in-Ordinary
+still further, or that he regretted having robbed himself of any
+explanations--ten minutes later the unexpected happened, and the Grand
+Duke sent Herr von Lichterloh to summon young Doctor Sammet to the
+library.
+
+The doctor, when he received the message, again said: "Quite delighted
+... quite delighted, ..." and at first changed colour a little, then
+composed himself admirably. It is true that he was not a complete master
+of the prescribed etiquette, and bowed too soon, while he was still in
+the door, so that the aide-de-camp could not close it behind him, and
+had to ask him in a whisper to move forward; but afterwards he stood in
+an easy and unconstrained attitude, and gave reassuring answers,
+although he showed that he was naturally rather slow of speech,
+beginning his sentences with hesitating noises and frequently
+interspersing them with a "Yes," as if to confirm what he was saying. He
+wore his dark yellow hair cut _en brosse_ and his moustache untrimmed.
+His chin and cheeks were clean-shaved, and rather sore from it. He
+carried his head a little on one side, and the gaze of his grey eyes
+told of shrewdness and practical goodness. His nose, which was too broad
+at the bottom, pointed to his origin. He wore a black tie, and his shiny
+boots were of a country cut. He kept his elbows close to his side, with
+one hand on his silver watch-chain. His whole appearance suggested
+candour and professional skill; it inspired confidence.
+
+The Grand Duke addressed him unusually graciously, rather in the manner
+of a teacher who has been scolding a naughty boy, and turns to another
+with a sudden assumption of mildness.
+
+"I have sent for you, doctor.... I want information from you about this
+peculiarity in the body of the new-born prince.... I assume that it has
+not escaped your notice.... I am confronted with a riddle ... an
+extremely painful riddle.... In a word, I desire your opinion." And the
+Grand Duke, changing his position, ended with a gracious motion of the
+hand, which encouraged the doctor to speak.
+
+Dr. Sammet looked at him silently and attentively, as if waiting till
+the Grand Duke had completely regained his princely composure. Then he
+said: "Yes; we have here to do with a case which is not of very common
+occurrence, but which is well known and familiar to us. Yes. It is
+actually a case of atrophy ..."
+
+"Excuse me ... atrophy ...?"
+
+"Forgive me, Royal Highness. I mean stunted growth. Yes."
+
+"I see, stunted growth. Stunting. That's it. The left hand is stunted.
+But it's unheard of! I cannot understand it! Such a thing has never
+happened in my family! People talk nowadays about heredity."
+
+Again the doctor looked silently and attentively at the lonely and
+domineering man, to whom the news had only just penetrated that people
+were talking lately about heredity. He answered simply: "Pardon me,
+Royal Highness, but in this case there can be no question of heredity."
+
+"Really! You're quite sure!" said the Grand Duke rather mockingly. "That
+is one satisfaction. But will you be so kind as to tell me what there
+can be a question of, then."
+
+"With pleasure, Royal Highness. The cause of the malformation is
+entirely a mechanical one. It has been caused through a mechanical
+constriction during the development of the embryo. We call such
+malformations constriction-formations, yes."
+
+The Grand Duke listened with anxious disgust; he obviously feared the
+effect of each succeeding word on his sensitiveness. He kept his brows
+knit and his mouth open: the two furrows running down to his beard
+seemed deeper than ever. He said: "Constriction-formations, ... but how
+in the world ... I am quite sure every precaution must have been
+taken ..."
+
+"Constriction-formations," answered Dr. Sammet, "can occur in various
+ways. But we can say with comparative certainty that in our case ... in
+this case it is the amnion which is to blame."
+
+"I beg your pardon.... The amnion?"
+
+"That is one of the foetal membranes, Royal Highness. Yes. And in
+certain circumstances the removal of this membrane from the embryo may
+be retarded and proceed so slowly that threads and cords are left
+stretching from one to the other ... amniotic threads as we call them,
+yes. These threads may be dangerous, for they can bind and knot
+themselves round the whole of a child's limb; they can entirely
+intercept, for instance, the life-ducts of a hand and even amputate it.
+Yes."
+
+"Great heavens ... amputate it. So we must be thankful that it has not
+come to an amputation of the hand?"
+
+"That might have happened. Yes. But all that has happened is an
+unfastening, resulting in an atrophy."
+
+"And that could not be discovered, foreseen, prevented?"
+
+"No, Royal Highness. Absolutely not. It is quite certain that no blame
+whatever attaches to anybody. Such constrictions do their work in
+secret. We are powerless against them. Yes."
+
+"And the malformation is incurable? The hand will remain stunted?"
+
+Dr. Sammet hesitated; he looked kindly at the Grand Duke.
+
+"It will never be quite normal, certainly not," he said cautiously. "But
+the stunted hand will grow a little larger than it is at present, oh
+yes, it assuredly will ..."
+
+"Will he be able to use it? For instance ... to hold his reins or to
+make gestures, like any one else?..."
+
+"Use it ... a little.... Perhaps not much. And he's got his right hand,
+that's all right."
+
+"Will it be very obvious?" asked the Grand Duke, and scanned Dr.
+Sammet's face earnestly. "Very noticeable? Will it detract much from his
+general appearance, think you?"
+
+"Many people," answered Dr. Sammet evasively, "live and work under
+greater disadvantages. Yes."
+
+The Grand Duke turned away, and walked once up and down the room. Dr.
+Sammet deferentially made way for him, and withdrew towards the door. At
+last the Grand Duke resumed his position at the writing-table and said:
+"I have now heard what I wanted to know, doctor; I thank you for your
+report. You understand your business, no doubt about that. Why do you
+live in Grimmburg? Why do you not practise in the capital?"
+
+"I am still young, Royal Highness, and before I devote myself to
+practising as a specialist in the capital I should like a few years of
+really varied practice, of general experience and research. A country
+town like Grimmburg affords the best opportunity of that. Yes."
+
+"Very sound, very admirable of you. In what do you propose to specialise
+later on?"
+
+"In the diseases of children, Royal Highness. I intend to be a
+children's doctor, yes."
+
+"You are a Jew?" asked the Grand Duke, throwing back his head and
+screwing up his eyes.
+
+"Yes, Royal Highness."
+
+"Ah--will you answer me one more question? Have you ever found your
+origin to stand in your way, a drawback in your professional career? I
+ask as a ruler, who is especially concerned that the principle of 'equal
+chances for all' shall hold good unconditionally and privately, not only
+officially."
+
+"Everybody in the Grand Duchy," answered Dr. Sammet, "has the right to
+work." But he did not stop there: moving his elbows like a pair of short
+wings, in an awkward, impassioned way, he made a few hesitating noises,
+and then added in a restrained but eager voice: "No principle of
+equalization, if I may be allowed to remark, will ever prevent the
+incidence in the life of the community of exceptional and abnormal men
+who are distinguished from the bourgeois by their nobleness or infamy.
+It is the duty of the individual not to concern himself as to the
+precise nature of the distinction between him and the common herd, but
+to see what is the essential in that distinction and to recognize that
+it imposes on him an exceptional obligation towards society. A man is at
+an advantage, not at a disadvantage, compared with the regular and
+therefore complacent majority, if he has one motive more than they to
+extraordinary exertions. Yes, yes," repeated Dr. Sammet. The double
+affirmative was meant to confirm his answer.
+
+"Good ... not bad; very remarkable, anyhow," said the Grand Duke
+judicially. He found Dr. Sammet's words suggestive, though somewhat off
+the point. He dismissed the young man with the words: "Well, doctor, my
+time is limited. I thank you. This interview--apart from its painful
+occasion--has much reassured me. I have the pleasure of bestowing on you
+the Albrecht Cross of the Third Class with Crown. I shall remember you.
+Thank you."
+
+This was what passed between the Grimmburg doctor and the Grand Duke.
+Shortly after Johann Albrecht left the castle and returned by special
+train to the capital, chiefly to show himself to the rejoicing populace,
+but also in order to give several audiences in the palace. It was
+arranged that he should return in the evening to the castle, and take up
+his residence there for the next few weeks.
+
+All those present at the confinement at Grimmburg who did not belong to
+the Grand Duchess's suite were also accommodated in the special train of
+the bankrupt local railway, some of them travelling in the Sovereign's
+own saloon. But the Grand Duke drove from the castle to the station
+alone with von Knobelsdorff, the Minister of State, in an open landau,
+one of the brown Court carriages with the little golden crown on the
+door. The white feathers in the hats of the chasseurs in front fluttered
+in the summer breeze. Johann Albrecht was grave and silent on the
+journey; he seemed to be worried and morose. And although Herr von
+Knobelsdorff knew that the Grand Duke, even in private, disliked anybody
+addressing him unasked and uninvited, yet at last he made up his mind to
+break the silence.
+
+"Your Royal Highness," he said deprecatingly, "seems to take so much to
+heart the little anomaly which has been discovered in the Prince's body,
+... and yet one would think that on a day like this the reasons for joy
+and proud thankfulness so far outweigh ..."
+
+"My dear Knobelsdorff," replied Johann Albrecht, with some irritation
+and almost in tears, "you must forgive my ill-humour; you surely do not
+wish me to be in good spirits. I can see no reason for being so. The
+Grand Duchess is going on well--true enough, and the child is a
+boy--that's a blessing too. But he has come into the world with an
+atrophy, a constriction, caused by amniotic threads. Nobody is to blame,
+it is a misfortune; but misfortunes for which nobody is to blame are the
+most terrible of all misfortunes, and the sight of their Sovereign ought
+to awaken in his people other feelings than those of sympathy. The Heir
+Apparent is delicate, needs constant care. It was a miracle that he
+survived that attack of pleurisy two years ago, and it will be nothing
+less than a miracle if he lives to attain his majority. Now Heaven
+grants me a second son--he seems strong, but he comes into the world
+with only one hand. The other is stunted, useless, a deformity, he will
+have to hide it. What a drawback! What an impediment! He will have to
+brave it out before the world all his life. We must let it gradually
+leak out, so that it may not cause too much of a shock on his first
+appearance in public. No, I cannot yet get over it. A prince with one
+hand ..."
+
+"'With one hand,'" said Herr von Knobelsdorff. "Did your Royal Highness
+use that expression twice deliberately?"
+
+"Deliberately?"
+
+"You did not, then?... For the Prince has two hands, yet as one is
+stunted, one might if one liked also describe him as a prince with one
+hand."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"And one must almost wish, not that your Royal Highness's second son,
+but that the heir to the throne were the victim of this small
+malformation."
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"Why, your Royal Highness will laugh at me; but I am thinking of the
+gipsy woman."
+
+"The gipsy woman? Please go on, my dear Baron!"
+
+"Of the gipsy woman--forgive me!--who a hundred years ago prophesied the
+birth of a Prince to your Royal Highness's house--a prince 'with one
+hand'--that is how tradition puts it--and attached to the birth of that
+prince a certain promise, couched in peculiar terms."
+
+The Grand Duke turned on his seat and stared, without saying a word, at
+Herr von Knobelsdorff, at the outer corner of whose eyes the radiating
+wrinkles were playing. Then, "Mighty entertaining!" he said, and resumed
+his former attitude.
+
+"Prophecies," continued Herr von Knobelsdorff, "generally come true to
+this extent, that circumstances arise which one can interpret, if one
+has a mind to, in their sense. And the broadness of the terms in which
+every proper prophecy is couched makes this all the more easy. 'With one
+hand'--that is regular oracle-style. What has actually happened is a
+moderate case of atrophy. But that much counts for a good deal, for what
+is there to prevent me, what is there to prevent the people, from
+assuming the whole by this partial fulfilment, and declaring that the
+conditional part of the prophecy has been fulfilled? The people will do
+so; if not at once, at any rate if the rest of the prophecy, the actual
+promise, is in any way realised, it will put two and two together, as it
+always has done, in its wish to see what is written turn out true. I
+don't see how it is going to come about--the Prince is a younger son, he
+will not come to the throne, the intentions of fate are obscure. But the
+one-handed prince is there--and so may he bestow on us as much as he
+can."
+
+The Grand Duke did not answer, secretly thrilled by dreams of the future
+of his dynasty.
+
+"Well, Knobelsdorff, I will not be angry with you. You want to comfort
+me, and you have not done it badly. But I must do what is expected of
+me...."
+
+The air resounded with the distant cheers of many voices. The people of
+Grimmburg were crowded in black masses behind the cordon at the station.
+Officials were standing apart in front, waiting for the carriages. There
+was the mayor, raising his top-hat, wiping his forehead with a crumpled
+handkerchief, and poring over a paper whose contents he was committing
+to memory. Johann Albrecht assumed the expression appropriate to
+listening to the smoothly worded address and to answering concisely and
+graciously:
+
+"Most excellent Mr. Mayor...." The town was dressed with flags, and the
+bells were ringing.
+
+In the capital all the bells were ringing. And in the evening there were
+illuminations; not by formal request of the authorities, but
+spontaneous--the whole city was a blaze of light.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE COUNTRY
+
+
+The country measured eight thousand square kilometres, and numbered one
+million inhabitants.
+
+A pretty, quiet, leisurely country. The tops of the trees in its forests
+rustled dreamily; its broad acres showed signs of honest care; its
+industries were undeveloped to the point of indigence.
+
+It possessed some brick-kilns, a few salt and silver-mines--that was
+almost all. A certain amount of tourist-traffic must also be mentioned,
+but he would be a bold man who described it as a flourishing industry.
+The alkali springs, which rose from the ground in the immediate
+neighbourhood of the capital and formed the centre of an attractive
+bathing-establishment, constituted the claims of the city to be
+considered a health resort. But while the baths at the end of the Middle
+Ages had been frequented by visitors from afar, they had later lost
+their repute, and been put in the shade by other baths and forgotten.
+The most valuable of the springs, that called the Ditlinde spring, which
+was exceptionally rich in lithium salts, had been opened up quite
+recently, in the reign of Johann Albrecht III, and as energetic business
+and advertising methods were not employed, its water had not yet
+succeeded in winning world-recognition. A hundred thousand bottles of it
+were sent away in the year--rather less than more. And but few strangers
+came to drink it on the spot....
+
+The Diet was the scene all the year round of speeches about the "barely"
+satisfactory results of the trade returns, by which was really meant the
+entirely unsatisfactory results, which nobody could dispute, that the
+local railways did not cover their expenses and the main lines did not
+pay any dividends--distressing but unalterable and inveterate facts,
+which the Minister for Trade in luminous but monotonous declarations
+explained by the peaceful commercial and industrial circumstances of the
+country, as well as by the inaccessibility of the home coal-deposits.
+Critics added something about defective organization of the State
+industrial administration. But the spirit of contradiction and negation
+was not strong in the Diet; the prevailing frame of mind among the
+representatives of the people was one of dull and true-hearted loyalty.
+
+So the railway revenues did not by any means rank first among the public
+revenues of a private-investment nature; the forest revenues had ranked
+first for years in this land of woods and plough. The fall in them,
+their startling depreciation, however sufficient reasons there were for
+it, was a much more difficult matter to mend.
+
+The people loved their woods. They were a fair and compact type, with
+searching blue eyes and broad, rather high cheek-bones, a sensible and
+honest, solid and backward stamp of men. They clung to their country's
+forest with all the strength of their nature; it lived in their bones,
+it was to the artists which it bred the source and home of their
+inspirations, and it was quite properly the object of popular gratitude,
+not only in regard to the gifts of soul and intellect of which it was
+the donor. The poor gathered their firewood in the forest; it gave to
+them freely, they had it for nothing. They went stooping and gathering
+all kinds of berries and mushrooms among its trunks, and earned a little
+something by doing so. That was not all. The people recognized that
+their forest had a very distinctly favourable influence on the weather
+and the healthy condition of the country; they were well aware that
+without the lovely woods in the neighbourhood of the capital the
+spa-garden outside would not attract foreigners with money to spend; in
+short, this not over-industrious and up-to-date people could not help
+knowing that the forest stood for the most important asset, the most
+profitable heritage of the country.
+
+And yet the forest had been sinned against, outraged for ages and ages.
+The Grand Ducal Department of Woods and Forests deserved all the
+reproaches that were laid against it. That Department had not political
+insight enough to see that the wood must be maintained and kept as
+inalienable common property, if it was to be useful not only to the
+present generation, but also to those to come; and that it would surely
+avenge itself if it were exploited recklessly and short-sightedly,
+without regard to the future, for the benefit of the present.
+
+That was what happened, and was still happening. In the first place
+great stretches of the floor of the forest had been impoverished by
+reckless and excessive spoliation of its litter. Matters had repeatedly
+gone so far that not only the most recent carpet of needles and leaves,
+but the greatest part of the fall of years past had been removed and
+used in the fields partly as litter, partly as mould. There were many
+forests which had been completely stripped of mould; some had been
+crippled by the raking away of the litter: instances of this were to be
+found in the public woodlands as well as in the State woodlands.
+
+If the woods had been put to these uses in order to tide over a sudden
+agricultural crisis, there would have been no reason to complain. But
+although there were not wanting those who declared that an agricultural
+system founded on the appropriation of wood-litter was inexpedient,
+indeed dangerous, the trade in litter went on without any particular
+reason, on purely fiscal grounds, so it was put--that is to say, on
+grounds which, examined closely, proved to be only one ground and
+object, namely, the making of money. For it was money which was wanted.
+But to get this money, ceaseless inroads were made on the capital, until
+one fine day it was realised with dismay that an unsuspected
+depreciation in that capital had ensued.
+
+The people were a peasant race, and thought that the way to be
+up-to-date was to display a perverted, artificial, and improper zeal and
+to employ reckless business methods. A characteristic instance was the
+dairy-farming ... one word about that. Loud complaints were heard,
+principally in the official medical annual, that a deterioration was
+noticeable in the nourishment, and consequently in the development, of
+the country people. What was the reason? The owners of cows were bent on
+turning all the full-milk at their disposal into money. The spread of
+the dairy industry, the development and productiveness of the milk
+trade, tempted them to disregard the claims of their own establishments.
+A strength-giving milk diet became a rarity in the country, and in its
+stead recourse was had to unsubstantial skimmed milk, inferior
+substitutes, vegetable oils, and, unfortunately, alcoholic drinks as
+well. The critics talked about under-feeding, they even called it
+physical and moral debilitation of the population; they brought the
+facts to the notice of the Diet, and the Government promised to give the
+matter their earnest attention.
+
+But it was only too clear that the Government was at bottom infected
+with the same perversity as the mistaken dairy-farmers. Timber continued
+to be cut to excess in the State forests; once cut it was gone, and
+meant a continual shrinkage of public property. The clearings might have
+been necessary occasionally, when the forests had been damaged in one
+way or another, but often enough they had been due simply to the fiscal
+reasons referred to: and instead of the proceeds of the clearings being
+used for the purchase of new tracts, instead of the cleared tracts being
+replanted as quickly as possible--instead, in a word, of the damage to
+the capital value of the State forests being balanced by an addition to
+their capital value, the quickly earned profits had been devoted to the
+payment of current expenses and the redemption of bonds. Of course there
+could be no doubt that a reduction of the National Debt was only too
+desirable; but the critics expressed the opinion that that was not the
+time to devote extraordinary revenues to the building up of the
+sinking-fund.
+
+Anybody who had no interest in mincing matters must have described the
+State finances as in a hopeless muddle. The country carried a debt of
+thirty million pounds--it struggled along under it with patience and
+devotion, but with secret groans. For the burden, much too heavy in
+itself, was made trebly heavy through a rise in the rate of interest and
+through conditions of repayment such as are usually imposed on a country
+whose credit is shaken, whose exchange is low, and which has already
+almost come to be reckoned as "interesting" in the world of financiers.
+
+The succession of financial crises appeared to be never-ending. The list
+of failures seemed without beginning or end. And a maladministration,
+which was made no better by frequent changes in its personnel, regarded
+borrowing as the only cure for the creeping sickness in the State
+finances. Even the Chancellor of the Exchequer, von Schröder, whose
+probity and singleness of purpose were beyond all doubt, had been given
+a peerage by the Grand Duke, because he had succeeded in placing a loan
+at a high rate of interest in the most difficult circumstances. His
+heart was set on an improvement in the credit of the State: but as his
+resource was to contract new debts while he paid off the old, his policy
+proved to be no better than a well-meant but costly blind. For a
+simultaneous sale and purchase of bonds meant a higher purchase than
+selling price, involving the loss of thousands of pounds.
+
+It seemed as if the country were incapable of producing a man of any
+adequate financial gifts. Improper practices and a policy of
+"hushing-up" were the fashion. The budget was so drawn up that it was
+impossible to distinguish between ordinary and extraordinary State
+requirements. Ordinary and extraordinary items were jumbled up together,
+and those responsible for the budgets deceived themselves, and everybody
+else, as to the real state of affairs, by appropriating loans, which
+were supposed to be raised for extraordinary purposes, to cover a
+deficit in the ordinary exchequer.... The holder of the finance
+portfolio at one time was actually an ex-court marshal.
+
+Dr. Krippenreuther, who took the helm towards the end of Johann
+Albrecht III's reign, was the Minister who, convinced like Herr von
+Schröder of the necessity for a strenuous reduction in the debt, induced
+the Diet to consent to a final and extreme addition to the burden of
+taxation. But the country, naturally poor as it was, was on the verge of
+insolvency, and all Krippenreuther got was unpopularity. His policy
+really meant merely a transfer from one hand to the other, a transfer
+which itself involved a loss; for the increase in taxation laid a burden
+on the national economy which pressed more heavily and more directly
+than that which was removed by the sinking of the National Debt.
+
+Where, then, were help and a remedy to be found? A miracle, so it
+seemed, was needed--and meanwhile the sternest economy. The people were
+pious and loyal, they loved their princes as themselves, they were
+permeated with the sublimity of the monarchical idea, they saw in it a
+reflexion of the Deity. But the economical pressure was too painful, too
+generally felt. The most ignorant could read in the thinned and crippled
+forests a tale of woe. The consequence was that repeated appeals had
+been made in the Diet for a curtailment of the Civil List, a cutting
+down of the appanages and Crown endowments.
+
+The Civil List amounted to twenty-five thousand pounds, the revenues of
+the Crown demesnes to thirty-seven thousand pounds. That was all. And
+the Crown was in debt--to what extent was perhaps known to Count
+Trümmerhauff, the Keeper of the Grand Ducal Purse, a regular stickler,
+but a man of absolutely no business instincts. It was not known to
+Johann Albrecht; at any rate he seemed not to know it, and therein
+followed the example of his forefathers, who had rarely deigned to give
+more than a passing thought to their debts.
+
+The people's attitude of veneration was reflected in their princes'
+extraordinary sense of their own dignity, which had sometimes assumed
+fanciful and even extravagant forms, and had found its most obvious and
+most serious expression in every period in a tendency to extravagance
+and to a reckless ostentation as exaggerated as the dignity it
+represented. One Grimmburger had been christened "the luxurious" in so
+many words,--they had almost all deserved the nickname. So that the
+state of indebtedness of the House was an historical and hereditary
+state, reaching back to the times when all loans were a private concern
+of the Sovereign, and when John the Headstrong, wishing to raise a loan,
+pledged the liberty of the most prominent of his subjects to do so.
+
+Those times were past; and Johann Albrecht III, a true-born Grimmburger
+in his instincts, was unfortunately no longer in a position to give free
+rein to his instincts. His fathers had played ducks and drakes with the
+family funds, which were reduced to nothing or little better than
+nothing. They had been spent on the building of country-seats with
+French names and marble colonnades, on parks with fountains, on splendid
+operas and all kinds of glittering shows. Figures were figures, and,
+much against the inclination of the Grand Duke, in fact without his
+consent, the Court was gradually cut down.
+
+The Princess Catherine, the sister of the Grand Duke, was never spoken
+of in the capital without a touch of sympathy. She had been married to a
+member of a neighbouring ruling House, had been left a widow, and had
+come back to her brother's capital, where she lived with her red-headed
+children in what used to be the Heir Apparent's palace on the
+Albrechtstrasse, before whose gates a gigantic doorkeeper stood all day
+long in a pompous attitude with staff and shoulder-belt complete, while
+life went on with peculiar moderation inside.
+
+Prince Lambert, the Grand Duke's brother, did not come in for much
+attention. There was a coolness between him and his relations, who could
+not forgive him his _mésalliance_, and he hardly ever came to Court. He
+lived in his villa overlooking the public gardens with his wife, an
+ex-dancer from the Court Theatre who bore the title of Baroness von
+Rohrdorf, after one of the Prince's properties; and there he divided his
+time between sport and theatre-going, and struggling with his debts. He
+had dropped his dignities and lived just like a private citizen; and if
+he was generally supposed to have a struggle to make two ends meet,
+nobody gave him much sympathy for it.
+
+But alterations had been made in the old castle itself--reductions of
+expenses, which were discussed in the city and the country, and
+discussed usually in an apprehensive and regretful sense, because the
+people at bottom wished to see themselves represented with due pride and
+magnificence. Several high posts at the Court had been amalgamated for
+economy's sake, and for years past Herr von Bühl zu Bühl had been Lord
+Marshal, Chief Master of the Ceremonies, and Marshal of the Household at
+once. There had been many discharges in the Board of Green Cloth and the
+servants' hall, among the pike-staffs, yeomen of the guard, and grooms,
+the master cooks and chief confectioners, the court and chamber lackeys.
+The establishment of the royal stable had been reduced to the barest
+minimum.... And what was the good of it all? The Grand Duke's contempt
+for money showed itself in sudden outbursts against the squeeze; and
+while the catering at the Court functions reached the extreme limits of
+permissible simplicity, while at the supper at the close of the Thursday
+concerts in the Marble Hall nothing but continual roast beef with sauce
+remoulade and ice-pudding were served on the red velvet coverings of the
+gilt-legged tables, while the daily fare at the Grand Duke's own
+candle-decked table was no better than that of an ordinary middle-class
+family, he defiantly threw away a whole year's income on the repair of
+the Grimmburg.
+
+But meanwhile the rest of his seats were falling to pieces. Herr von
+Bühl simply had not the means at his disposal for their upkeep. And yet
+it was a pity in the case of many of them. Those which lay at some
+little distance from the capital, or right out in the country, those
+luxurious asylums cradled in natural beauties whose dainty names spoke
+of rest, solitude, content, pastime, and freedom from care, or recalled
+a flower or a jewel, served as holiday resorts for the citizens and
+strangers, and brought in a certain amount in entrance-money which
+sometimes--not always--was devoted to their upkeep. This was not the
+case, however, with those in the immediate neighbourhood of the capital.
+There was the little schloss in the Empire style, the Hermitage,
+standing silent and graceful on the edge of the northern suburbs, but
+long uninhabited and deserted in the middle of its over-grown park,
+which joined on to the public gardens, and looked out on its little,
+mud-stiff pond. There was Schloss Delphinenort which, only a quarter of
+an hour's walk from the other, in the northern part of the public
+gardens themselves, all of which had once belonged to the Crown,
+mirrored its untidiness in a huge square fountain-basin; both were in a
+sad state. That Delphinenort in particular--that noble structure in the
+early baroque style, with its stately entrance-colonnade, its high
+windows divided into little white-framed panes, its carved festoons, its
+Roman busts in the niches, its splendid approach-stairs, its general
+magnificence--should be abandoned to decay for ever, as it seemed, was
+the sorrow of all lovers of architectural beauty; and when one day, as
+the result of unforeseen, really strange circumstances, it was restored
+to honour and youth, among them at any rate the satisfaction was
+general.... For the rest, Delphinenort could be reached in fifteen or
+twenty minutes from the spa-garden, which lay a little to the north-west
+of the city, and was connected with its centre by a direct line of
+trams.
+
+The only residences used by the Grand Ducal family were Schloss
+Hollerbrunn, the summer residence, an expanse of white buildings with
+Chinese roofs, on the farther side of the chain of hills which
+surrounded the capital, coolly and pleasantly situated on the river and
+famed for the elder-hedges in its park; farther, Schloss Jägerpreis, the
+ivy-covered hunting-box in the middle of the woods to westward; and
+lastly, the Town Castle itself, called the "Old" Castle, although no new
+one existed.
+
+It was called thus, with no idea of comparison, simply because of its
+age, and the critics declared that its redecoration was more a matter of
+urgency than that of the Grimmburg. Even the inner rooms, which were in
+daily use by the family, were faded and cracked, not to mention the many
+uninhabited and unused rooms in the oldest parts of the many-styled
+building, which were all choked and flyblown. For some time past the
+public had been refused admission to them,--a measure which was
+obviously due to the shocking state of the castle. But people who could
+get a peep, the tradesmen and the staff, declared that there was
+stuffing peeping out of more than one stiff, imposing piece of
+furniture.
+
+The castle and the Court Church together made up a grey, irregular, and
+commanding mass of turrets, galleries, and gateways, half fortress, half
+palace. Various epochs had contributed to its erection, and large parts
+of it were decaying, weather-beaten, spoilt, and ready to fall into
+pieces. To the west it dropped steeply down to the lower-lying city, and
+was connected with it by battered steps clamped together with rusty iron
+bars. But the huge main gate, guarded by lions couchant, and surmounted
+by the pious, haughty motto: "Turris fortissima nomen Domini," in almost
+illegible carving, faced the Albrechtsplatz. It had its sentries and
+sentry boxes; it was the scene of the changing of the guard, with drums
+and martial display; it was the playground of all the urchins of the
+town.
+
+The Old Castle had three courtyards, in the corners of which rose
+graceful stair-turrets and between whose paving stones an unnecessary
+amount of weeds was generally growing. But in the middle of one of the
+courtyards stood the rose-bush,--it had stood there for ages in a bed,
+although there was no other attempt at a garden to be seen. It was just
+like any other rose-bush; it had a porter to tend it, it stood there in
+snow, rain, and sunshine, and in due season it bore roses. These were
+exceptionally fine roses, nobly formed, with dark-red velvet petals, a
+pleasure to look at, and real masterpieces of nature. But those roses
+had one strange and dreadful peculiarity: they had no scent! Or rather,
+they had a scent, but for some unknown reason it was not the scent of
+roses, but of decay--a slight, but plainly perceptible scent of decay.
+Everybody knew it; it was in the guide-books, and strangers visited the
+courtyard to convince themselves of it with their own noses. There was
+also a popular idea that it was written somewhere that at some time or
+other, on a day of rejoicings and public felicity, the blossoms of the
+rose-bush would begin to give forth a natural and lovely odour.
+
+After all, it was only to be expected that the popular imagination would
+be exercised by the wonderful rose-bush. It was exercised in precisely
+the same way by the "owl-chamber" in the Old Castle, which was used as a
+lumber room. Its position was such that it could not be ignored, not far
+from the "Gala Rooms," and the "Hall of the Knights," where the Court
+officers used to assemble on Court days, and thus in a comparatively
+modern part of the building. But there was certainly something uncanny
+about it, especially as from time to time noises and cries occurred
+there, which could not be heard outside the room and whose origin was
+unascertainable. People swore that it came from ghosts, and many
+asserted that it was especially noticeable when important and decisive
+events in the Grand Ducal family were impending,--a more or less
+gratuitous rumour, which deserved no more serious attention than other
+national products of an historical and dynastic frame of mind, as for
+instance a certain dark prophecy which had been handed down for hundreds
+of years and may be mentioned in this connexion. It came from an old
+gipsy-woman, and was to the effect that a prince "with one hand" would
+bring the greatest good fortune to the country. The old hag had said:
+"He will give to the country with one hand more than all the rest could
+give it with two." That is how the prophecy was recorded, and how it was
+quoted from time to time.
+
+Round the Old Castle lay the capital, consisting of the Old Town and the
+New Town, with their public buildings, monuments, fountains, and parks,
+their streets and squares, named after princes, artists, deserving
+statesmen, and distinguished citizens, divided into two very unequal
+halves by the many-bridged river, which flowed in a great loop round the
+southern end of the public garden, and was lost in the surrounding
+hills. The city was a university town, it possessed an academy which was
+not in much request and whose curricula were unpractical and rather
+old-fashioned; the Professor of Mathematics, Privy Councillor
+Klinghammer, was the only one of any particular repute in the scientific
+world. The Court Theatre, though poorly endowed, maintained a decent
+level of performances. There was a little musical, literary, and
+artistic life; a certain number of foreigners came to the capital,
+wishing to share in its well-regulated life and such intellectual
+attractions as it offered, among them wealthy invalids who settled down
+in the villas round the spa-gardens and were held in honour by the State
+and the community as doughty payers of taxes.
+
+And now you know what the town was like, what the country was like, and
+how matters stood.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+HINNERKE THE SHOEMAKER
+
+
+The Grand Duke's second son made his first public appearance on the
+occasion of his christening. This festivity aroused the same interest in
+the country as always attached to happenings within the Royal Family
+circle. It took place after weeks of discussion and research as to the
+manner of its arrangement, was held in the Court Church by the President
+of the High Consistory, Dom Wislezenus, with all the due ceremonial, and
+in public, to the extent that the Lord Marshal's office, by the Prince's
+orders, had issued invitations to it to every class of society.
+
+Herr von Bühl zu Bühl, a courtly ritualist of the greatest
+circumspection and accuracy, in his full-dress uniform superintended,
+with the help of two masters of the ceremonies, the whole of the
+intricate proceedings: the gathering of the princely guests in the Gala
+Rooms, the solemn procession in which they, attended by pages and
+squires, walked up the staircase of Heinrich the Luxurious and through a
+covered passage into the church, the entry of the spectators from the
+highest to the lowest, the distribution of the seats, the observance of
+due decorum during the religious service itself, the order of precedence
+at the congratulations which took place directly after the service was
+ended.... He panted and puffed, smiled ingratiatingly, brandished his
+staff, laughed in nervous bursts, and kept executing retreating bows.
+
+The Court Church was decorated with plants and draperies. In addition to
+the representatives of the nobility, of the Court and country, and of
+the higher and lower Civil Service, tradesmen, country folk, and common
+artisans, in high good humour, filled the seats. But in a half-circle of
+red-velvet arm-chairs in front of the altar sat the relations of the
+infant, foreign princes as sponsors and the trusty representatives of
+such as had not come in person. The assemblage at the christening of the
+Heir Apparent six years before had not been more distinguished. For in
+view of Albrecht's delicacy, the advanced age of the Grand Duke, and the
+dearth of Grimmburg relations, the person of the second-born prince was
+at once recognized as an important guarantee for the future of the
+dynasty. Little Albrecht took no part in the ceremony; he was kept to
+his bed with an indisposition which Surgeon-General Eschrich declared to
+be of a nervous character.
+
+Dom Wislezenus preached from a text of the Grand Duke's own choosing.
+The _Courier_, a gossiping city newspaper, had given a full account of
+how the Grand Duke had one day fetched with his very own hands the large
+metal-clasped family Bible out of the rarely visited library, had shut
+himself up with it in his study, searched in it for a whole hour, at
+last copied the text he had chosen on to a piece of paper with his
+pocket-pencil, signed it "Johann Albrecht," and sent it to the Court
+preacher. Dom Wislezenus treated it in a musical style, so as to speak,
+like a _leit motif_. He turned it inside and out, dressed it in
+different shapes and squeezed it dry; he announced it in a whisper, then
+with the whole power of his lungs; and whereas, delivered lightly and
+reflectively at the beginning of his discourse, it seemed a thin, almost
+unsubstantial subject; at the close, when he for the last time thundered
+it at the congregation, it appeared richly orchestrated, heavily scored,
+and pregnant with emotion. Then he passed on to the actual baptism, and
+carried it out at full length so that all could see it, with due stress
+on every detail.
+
+This, then, was the day of the prince's first public appearance, and
+that he was the chief actor in the drama was clearly shown by the fact
+that he was the last to come on the stage, and that his entry was
+distinct from that of the rest of the company. Preceded by Herr von
+Bühl, he entered slowly, in the arms of the Mistress of the Robes,
+Baroness von Schulenburg-Tressen, and all eyes were fixed on him. He was
+asleep in his laces, his veils, and his white silk robe. One of his
+little hands happened to be hidden. His appearance evoked unusual
+delight and emotion. The cynosure and centre of attraction, he lay
+quietly there, bearing it all, as may be supposed, patiently and
+unassumingly. It was to his credit that he did not make any disturbance,
+did not clutch or struggle; but, doubtless from innate trustfulness,
+quietly resigned himself to the state which surrounded him, bore it
+patiently, and even at that early date sank his own emotions in it....
+
+The arms in which he reposed were frequently changed at fixed points in
+the ceremony. Baroness Schulenburg handed him with a curtsey to his
+aunt, Catherine, who, with a stern look on her face, was dressed in a
+newly remade lilac silk dress, and wore Crown jewels in her hair. She
+laid him, when the moment came, solemnly in his mother Dorothea's arms,
+who, in all her stately beauty, with a smile on her proud and lovely
+mouth, held him out a while to be blessed, and then passed him on. A
+cousin held him for a minute or two, a child of eleven or twelve years
+with fair hair, thin sticks of legs, cold bare arms, and a broad red
+silk sash which stuck out in a huge knot behind her white dress. Her
+peaked face was anxiously fixed on the Master of the Ceremonies....
+
+Once the Prince woke up, but the flickering flames of the altar-candles
+and a many-coloured shaft of sunlight dust blinded him, and made him
+close his eyes again. And as there were no thoughts, but only soft
+unsubstantial dreams in his head, as moreover he was feeling no pain at
+the moment, he at once fell asleep again.
+
+He received a number of names while he slept; but the chief names were
+Klaus Heinrich.
+
+And he slept on in his cot with its gilded cornice and blue silk
+curtains, while the royal family feasted in the Marble Hall, and the
+rest of the guests in the Hall of the Knights, in his honour.
+
+The newspapers reported his first appearance; they described his looks
+and his dress, and emphasized his truly princely behaviour, couching the
+moving and inspiring account in words which had often done duty on
+similar occasions. After that, the public for a long time heard little
+of him, and he nothing of them.
+
+He knew nothing as yet, understood nothing as yet, guessed nothing as to
+the difficulty, danger, and sternness of the life prescribed for him;
+nothing in his conduct suggested that he felt any contrast between
+himself and the great public. His little existence was an irresponsible,
+carefully supervised dream, played on a stage remote from the public
+stage; and this stage was peopled with countless tinted phantoms, both
+stationary and active, some emerging but transiently, some permanently
+at hand.
+
+Of the permanent ones, the parents were far in the back-ground, and not
+altogether distinguishable. They were his parents, that was certain, and
+they were exalted, and friendly too. When they approached there was a
+feeling as if everything else slipped away to each side, and left a
+respectable passage along which they advanced towards him to show him a
+moment's tenderness. The nearest and clearest things to him were two
+women with white caps and aprons, two beings who were obviously all
+goodness, purity, and loving-kindness, who tended his little body in
+every way, and were much distressed when he cried.... A close partner in
+his life, too, was Albrecht, his brother; but he was grave, distant, and
+much more advanced.
+
+When Klaus Heinrich was two years old, another birth took place in the
+Grimmburg, and a princess came into the world. Thirty-six guns were
+allotted to her, because she was of the female sex, and she was given
+the name of Ditlinde at the font. She was Klaus Heinrich's sister, and
+it was a good thing for him that she appeared. She was at first
+surprisingly small and weak, but she soon grew like him, caught him up,
+and the two became inseparable. They shared each other's lives, each
+other's views, feelings, and ideas: they communicated to each other
+their impressions of the world outside them.
+
+It was a world, they were impressions, calculated to produce a
+reflective frame of mind. In winter they lived in the old castle. In
+summer they lived in Hollerbrunn, the summer schloss, on the river, in
+the cool, in the scent of the violet hedges with white statues between
+them. On the way thither, or if at any other time father or mother took
+them with them in one of the brown carriages with the little golden
+crown on the door, all the passers-by stopped, cheered, and took their
+hats off; for father was Prince and Ruler of the country, consequently
+they themselves were Prince and Princess--undoubtedly in precisely the
+same sense as were the princes and princesses in the French stories
+which their Swiss governess told them. That was worth consideration, it
+was at any rate a peculiar occurrence. When other children heard the
+stories, they necessarily regarded the princes which figured in them
+from a great distance, and as solemn beings whose rank was a
+glorification of reality and with whom to concern themselves was
+undoubtedly a chastening of their thoughts, and an escape from the
+ordinary existence. But Klaus Heinrich and Ditlinde regarded the heroes
+of the stories as their own equals and fellows, they breathed the same
+air as them, they lived in a schloss like them, they stood on a
+fraternal footing with them, and were justified in identifying
+themselves with them. Was it their lot, then, to live always and
+continually on the height to which others only climbed when stories were
+being told to them? The Swiss governess, true to her general principles,
+would have found it impossible to deny it, if the children had asked the
+question in so many words.
+
+The Swiss governess was the widow of a Calvinistic minister and was in
+charge of both children, each of whom had two lady's maids as well. She
+was black and white throughout: her cap was white and her dress black,
+her face was white, with white warts on one cheek, and her smooth hair
+had a mixed black-and-white metallic sheen. She was very precise and
+easily put out. When things happened which, though quite without danger,
+could not be allowed, she clasped her white hands and turned her eyes up
+to heaven. But her quietest and severest mode of punishment for serious
+occasions was to "look sadly" at the children--implying that they had
+lost their self-respect. On a fixed day she began, on a hint from higher
+quarters, to address Klaus Heinrich and Ditlinde as "Grand Ducal
+Highness," and from that day she was more easily put out than before....
+
+But Albrecht was called "Royal Highness." Aunt Catherine's children were
+members of the family only on the distaff side, and so were of less
+importance. But Albrecht was Crown Prince and Heir Apparent, so that it
+was not at all unfitting that he should look so pale and distant and
+keep so much to his bed. He wore Austrian coats with flap pockets and
+cut long behind. His head had a big bump at the back and narrow temples,
+and he had a long face. While still quite young he had come through a
+serious illness, which, in the opinion of Surgeon-General Eschrich, was
+the reason for his heart having "shifted over to the right." However
+that might be, he had seen Death face to face, a fact which had probably
+intensified the shy dignity which was natural to him. He seemed to be
+extremely standoffish, cold from embarrassment, and proud from lack of
+graciousness. He lisped a little and then blushed at doing so, because
+he was always criticizing himself. His shoulder-blades were a little
+uneven. One of his eyes had some weakness or other, so that he used
+glasses for writing his exercises, which helped to make him look old and
+wise.... Albrecht's tutor, Doctor Veit, a man with hanging mud-coloured
+moustaches, hollow cheeks, and wan eyes unnaturally far apart, was
+always at his left hand. Doctor Veit was always dressed in black, and
+carried a book dangling down his thigh, with his index-finger thrust
+between its leaves.
+
+Klaus Heinrich felt that Albrecht did not care much for him, and he saw
+that it was not only because of his inferiority in years. He himself was
+tender-hearted and prone to tears, that was his nature. He cried, when
+anybody "looked sadly" at him, and when he knocked his forehead against
+a corner of the nursery table, so that it bled, he howled from sympathy
+with his forehead. But Albrecht had faced Death, yet never cried on any
+condition. He stuck his short, rounded underlip a little forward, and
+sucked it lightly against the upper one--that was all. He was most
+superior. The Swiss governess referred in so many words to him in
+matters of _comme il faut_ as a model. He had never allowed himself to
+converse with the gorgeous creatures who belonged to the court, not
+exactly men and human beings, but lackeys--as Klaus Heinrich had
+sometimes done in unguarded moments. For Albrecht was not curious. The
+look in his eyes was that of a lonely boy, who had no wish to let the
+world intrude upon him. Klaus Heinrich, on the contrary, chatted with
+the lackeys from that same wish, and from an urgent though perhaps
+dangerous and improper desire to feel some contact with what lay outside
+the charmed circle. But the lackeys, young and old, at the doors, in the
+corridors and the passage-rooms, with their sand-coloured gaiters and
+brown coats, on the red-gold lace of which the same little crown as on
+the carriage doors was repeated again and again--they straightened their
+knees when Klaus Heinrich chatted to them, laid their great hands on the
+seams of the thick velvet breeches, bent a little forward towards him,
+so that the aiguillettes dangled from their shoulders, and returned
+various, highly proper answers, the most important part of which was the
+address "Grand Ducal Highness," and smiled as they did so with an
+expression of cautious sympathy, which recalled the words of the old
+song, "The lad that is born to be king." Sometimes when he got the
+chance, Klaus Heinrich went on voyages of discovery in uninhabited parts
+of the schloss, with Ditlinde, his sister, when she was old enough.
+
+At that time he was having lessons from Schulrat Dröge, Rector of the
+city schools, who was chosen to be his first tutor. Schulrat Dröge was a
+born pedagogue. His index-finger, with its folds of dry skin and gold
+stoneless signet-ring, followed the line of print when Klaus Heinrich
+read, waiting before going on to the next word until the preceding one
+had been read. He came in a frock-coat and white waistcoat, with the
+ribbon of some inferior order in his button-hole, and in broad shiny
+boots with brown upper-leathers. He wore a pointed grey beard, and bushy
+grey hair grew out of his big, broad ears. His brown hair was brushed up
+into points on his temples, and so precisely parted as to show clearly
+his yellow dry scalp, which was full of holes like canvas. But thin grey
+hair was visible under the strong brown hair behind and at the sides. He
+bowed slightly to the lackeys who opened the door for him to the big
+schoolroom at whose table Klaus Heinrich sat waiting for him. But to
+Klaus Heinrich he did not confine himself to a superficial bow as he
+entered the room, but made a pronounced and deliberate bow before he
+came up to him, and waited for his exalted pupil to offer him his hand.
+This Klaus Heinrich did; and the fact that he did so twice, not only
+when he greeted him, but also when he took his departure, just in the
+graceful and winning way in which he had seen his father give his hand
+to those who expected it, seemed to him far more important and essential
+than all the instruction which came between the two ceremonies.
+
+After Schulrat Dröge had come and gone any number of times, Klaus
+Heinrich had imperceptibly gained a knowledge of all sorts of practical
+things: to everybody's surprise he was quite at home in every kind of
+reading, writing, and arithmetic, and could reel off to order the names
+of the towns in the Grand Duchy pretty well without an omission. But, as
+has been said, this was not what was in his opinion really necessary and
+essential for him. From time to time, when he was inattentive at his
+lessons, the Schulrat rebuked him with a reference to his exalted
+calling. "Your exalted calling requires you ..." he would say or: "You
+owe it to your exalted calling...." What was his calling, and how was it
+exalted? Why did the lackeys smile as if to say, "The lad that is born
+to be king," and why was his governess so much put out when he let
+himself go a little in speech or action? He looked round him, and at
+times, when he looked steadily and long and forced himself to probe the
+essence of the phenomena around him, a dim apprehension arose in him of
+the "aloofness" of his position.
+
+He was standing in one of the "gala rooms," the Silver Hall, in which,
+as he knew, his father the Grand Duke received solemn deputations--he
+happened to have wandered into it by himself and he took stock of his
+surroundings.
+
+It was winter-time and cold, his little shoes were reflected in the
+glass-clear yellow squares of the parquet which spread like a sheet of
+ice before him. The ceiling, covered with silvered arabesque-work, was
+so high that a long metal shaft was necessary to allow the many-armed
+silver chandelier with its forest of tall white candles to swing in the
+middle of the great space. Below the ceiling came silver-framed
+coats-of-arms in faded colours. The walls were edged with silver, and
+hung with white silk with yellow spots, not to mention a split here and
+there. A sort of monumental baldachin, resting on two strong silver
+columns and decorated in front with a silver garland, broken in two
+places, from the top of which looked down a portrait of a deceased,
+powdered ancestress draped in imitation ermine, formed the
+chimney-piece. On each side of the fireplace were broad silvered
+arm-chairs upholstered in torn white silk. On the side walls opposite
+each other towered enormous silver-framed mirrors, whose glass was
+covered with blind spots, and on each side of whose broad white marble
+ledges stood two candelabra which carried big white candles like the
+sconces on the walls all round, and like the four silver candlesticks
+which stood in the corners. Before the high windows to the right,
+looking over the Albrechtsplatz, whose outer ledges were covered with
+snow, white silk curtains, yellow spotted, with silver cords and trimmed
+with lace, fell in rich, and heavy folds to the floor. In the middle of
+the room, under the chandelier, a moderate-sized table, with a pedestal
+made like a knobby silver tree-stump and a top made of eight triangles
+of opaque mother-of-pearl, stood useless, as there were no chairs round
+it, and it could only serve, and be meant to serve, at the very best, as
+a support for your Highness, when the lackeys opened the doors and
+ushered in the solemn figures in Court dress who came to present their
+respects to you....
+
+Klaus Heinrich looked round the hall, and clearly saw that there was
+nothing here which reminded him of the realities which Schulrat Dröge,
+for all his bows, was always impressing upon him. Here all was Sunday
+and solemnity, just as in church, where also he would have felt the
+calls made on him by his tutor out of place. Everything here was severe
+and empty show and a formal symmetry, self-sufficient, pointless, and
+uncomfortable--whose functions were obviously to create an atmosphere of
+awe and tension, not of freedom and ease, to inculcate an attitude of
+decorum and discreet self-obliteration towards an unnamed object. And it
+was cold in the silver hall--cold as in the halls of the snow-king,
+where the children's hearts froze stiff.
+
+Klaus Heinrich walked over the glassy floor and stood at the table in
+the middle. He laid his right hand lightly on the mother-of-pearl table,
+and placed the left hand on his hip, so far behind that it rested almost
+in the small of his back, and was not visible from in front, for it was
+an ugly sight, brown and wrinkled, and had not kept pace with the right
+in its growth. He stood resting on one leg, with the other a little
+advanced, and kept his eyes fixed on the silver ornaments of the door.
+It was not the place nor the attitude for dreaming, and yet he dreamed.
+
+He saw his father, and looked at him as he looked at the hall, to try to
+grasp his meaning. He saw the dull haughtiness of his blue eyes, the
+furrows which, proudly and morosely, ran from nostril down to his beard,
+and were often deepened or accentuated by weariness and boredom....
+Nobody dared to address him or to go freely up to him and speak to him
+unasked--not even the children: it was forbidden, it was dangerous. He
+answered, it is true: but he answered distantly and coldly, a look of
+helplessness, of _gêne_, passed over his face, which Klaus Heinrich was
+quite able to understand.
+
+Papa made a speech and sent his petitioners away; that is what always
+happened. He gave an audience at the beginning of the Court ball, and at
+the end of the dinner with which the winter began. He went with mamma
+through the rooms and halls, in which the members of the Court were
+gathered, went through the Marble Hall and the Gala Rooms, through the
+Picture Gallery, the Hall of the Knights, the Hall of the Twelve Months,
+the Audience Chamber, and the Ball-room--went not only in a fixed
+direction, but along a fixed path which bustling Herr von Bühl kept free
+for him, and addressed a few words to the assembled throng. Whoever was
+addressed by him bowed low, left a space of parquet between himself and
+papa, and answered soberly and with signs of gratification. Thereupon
+papa greeted them over the intervening space, from the stronghold of
+precise regulations which prescribed the others' movements and warranted
+his own attitude, greeted them smilingly and lightly and passed on.
+Smilingly and lightly.... Of course, of course, Klaus Heinrich quite
+understood it, the look of helplessness which passed for one moment over
+papa's face when anybody was impetuous enough to address him
+unasked--understood it, and shared his feeling of _gêne_! It wounded
+something, some soft, virgin envelope of our existence which was so
+essential to it that we stood helpless when anybody roughly broke
+through it. And yet it was this same something which made our eyes so
+dull, and gave us those deep furrows of boredom....
+
+Klaus Heinrich stood and saw--he saw his mother and her beauty, which
+was famed and extolled far and wide. He saw her standing _en robe de
+ceremonie_, in front of her great candle-lighted glass, for sometimes,
+on solemn occasions, he was allowed to be present when the Court
+hairdresser and the bed-chamber women put the last touches to her
+toilette. Herr von Knobelsdorff also was present when mamma put on
+jewels from the Crown regalia, watched and noted down the stones which
+she decided to use. With all the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes
+showing, he would make mamma laugh with his droll remarks, so that her
+soft cheeks filled with lovely little dimples. But her laugh was full of
+art and grace, and she looked in the glass as she laughed, as if she
+were practising it.
+
+People said that Slav blood flowed in her veins, and that it was that
+which gave the sweet radiance to her deep-blue eyes and the night of her
+raven hair. Klaus Heinrich was like her, so he heard people say, in that
+he too had steel-blue eyes with dark hair, while Albrecht and Ditlinde
+were fair, just as papa had been before his hair turned grey. But he was
+far from handsome, owing to the breadth of his cheek-bones, and
+especially to his left hand, which mamma was always reminding him to
+hide adroitly, in the side-pocket of his coat, behind his back, or under
+the breast of his jacket--especially when his affectionate impulses
+prompted him to throw both his arms round her. Her look was cold when
+she bade him mind his hand.
+
+He saw her as she was in the picture in the Marble Hall: in a short silk
+dress with lace flounces and long gloves, which showed only a glimpse of
+her ivory arm under her puffed sleeves, a diadem in the night of her
+hair, her stately form erect, a smile of cool perfection on her
+strangely hard lips--and behind her the metallic-blue wheel of a
+peacock's tail. Her face was soft, but its beauty made it stern, and it
+was easy to see that her heart too was stern and absorbed in her beauty.
+She slept far into the day when a ball or party was in prospect, and ate
+only yolks of eggs, so as not to overload herself. Then in the evening
+she was radiant as she walked on papa's arm along the prescribed path
+through the halls--grey-haired dignitaries blushed when they were
+addressed by her, and the _Courier_ reported that it was not only
+because of her exalted rank that her Royal Highness had been the queen
+of the ball. Yes, people felt happier for the sight of her, whether it
+was at the Court or outside in the streets, or in the afternoon driving
+or riding in the park--and their cheeks kindled. Flowers and cheers met
+her, all hearts went out to her, and it was clear that the people in
+cheering her were cheering themselves, and that their glad cries meant
+that they were cheered and elevated by the sight of her. But Klaus
+Heinrich knew well that mamma had spent long, anxious hours on her
+beauty, that there was practice and method in her smiles and greetings,
+and that her own pulse beat never the quicker for anything or anyone.
+
+Did she love anyone--himself, Klaus Heinrich, for instance, for all his
+likeness to her? Why, of course she did, when she had time to, even when
+she coldly reminded him of his hand. But it seemed as if she reserved
+any expression or sign of her tender feelings for occasions when
+lookers-on were present who were likely to be edified by them. Klaus
+Heinrich and Ditlinde did not often come into contact with their mother,
+chiefly because they, unlike Albrecht, the Heir Apparent, for some time
+past, did not have their meals at their parents' table, but apart with
+the Swiss governess; and when they were summoned to mamma's boudoir,
+which happened once a week, the interview consisted in a few casual
+questions and polite answers--giving no scope for displays of feeling,
+while its whole drift seemed to be the proper way to sit in an arm-chair
+with a teacup full of milk.
+
+But at the concerts which took place in the Marble Hall every other
+Thursday under the name of "The Grand Duchess's Thursdays," and were so
+arranged that the Court sat at little gilt-legged velvet-covered tables,
+while the leading tenor Schramm from the Court Theatre, accompanied by
+an orchestra, sang so lustily that the veins swelled on his bald
+temples--at the concerts Klaus Heinrich and Ditlinde, in their best
+clothes, were sometimes allowed in the Hall for one song and the
+succeeding pause, when mamma showed how fond she was of them, showed it
+to them and to everybody else in so heartfelt and expressive a way that
+nobody could have any doubt about it. She summoned them to the table at
+which she sat, and told them with a happy smile to sit beside her, laid
+their cheeks on her shoulders or bosom, looked at them with a soft,
+soulful look in her eyes and kissed them both on forehead and mouth.
+Then the ladies bent their heads and their eyelids quivered, while the
+men slowly nodded and bit their lips in order, in manly wise, to
+restrain their emotions.... Yes, it was beautiful, and the children felt
+they had their share in the effect, which was greater than anything
+Schramm the singer could procure with his most inspired notes, and
+nestled close to mamma. For Klaus Heinrich at last realized that it was
+in the nature of things, no business of ours, to have a simple feeling
+and to be made happy by it, but that it was our duty to make our
+tenderness visible to the Hall and to exhibit it, that the hearts of our
+guests might swell.
+
+Occasionally the people outside in the town and park also were allowed
+to see that mamma loved us. For while Albrecht drove or rode--bad rider
+though he was--with the Grand Duke early in the morning, Klaus Heinrich
+and Ditlinde had from time to time to take turns at accompanying mamma
+on her drives, which took place in the spring and autumn at the time of
+the afternoon promenade, with Baroness von Schulenburg-Tressen in
+attendance. Klaus Heinrich was a little excited and feverish before
+these drives, to which unfortunately no enjoyment, but on the contrary a
+great deal of trouble and effort attached. For, directly the open
+carriage came out through the Lions Gate on to the Albrechtsplatz, past
+the grenadiers at the "present," there were a lot of people collected,
+waiting for it--men, women, and children, who shouted and stared full of
+curiosity; and that meant pulling oneself together, sitting up erect,
+smiling, hiding the left hand, and saluting in such a way as to make the
+people happy. And so it went on right through the city and the fields.
+Other vehicles were obliged to keep away from ours; the police looked to
+that. But the foot-passengers stood on the kerb, the women curtseyed,
+the men took off their hats and looked with eyes full of devotion and
+importunate curiosity,--and this was the impression Klaus Heinrich got:
+that they all were there just to be there and to stare, while he was
+there to show himself and to be stared at; and his was far the harder
+part. He kept his left hand in his coat-pocket and smiled as mamma
+wished him to, while he felt that his cheeks were aglow. But the
+_Courier_ reported that the rosy redness of our little duke's cheeks
+showed what a healthy boy he was.
+
+Klaus Heinrich was thirteen years old when he stood at the solitary
+mother-of-pearl table in the middle of the cold silver hall, and tried
+to probe the reality of things around him. And as he scrutinized the
+various phenomena: the empty, torn pride of the room, aimless and
+uncomfortable, the symmetry of the white candles, which seemed to
+express awe and tension and discreet self-obliteration, the passing
+shadow on his father's face when anybody addressed him unasked, the cool
+and calculated beauty of his mother, whose one object was admiration,
+the devoted and importunately curious gaze of the people outside--then a
+suspicion seized him, a vague and approximate conception of his
+situation. But simultaneously horror seized him, terror at such a
+destiny, a dread of his "exalted calling," so strong that he turned
+round and covered his eyes with both his hands--both, the little
+wrinkled left one too--and sank down at the lonely table and cried,
+cried from sympathy with himself and his heart--till they came, and
+wrung their hands and turned their eyes up to heaven and questioned him,
+and led him away.... He gave out that he had been frightened, and that
+was quite true.
+
+He had known nothing, understood nothing, suspected nothing of the
+difficulty and sternness of the life prescribed for him; he had been
+merry and careless, and had given his guardians many a scare. But there
+was no resisting the impressions which soon came thronging upon him and
+forcing him to open his eyes to the real state of things. In the
+northern suburbs, not far from the spa-gardens, a new road had been
+opened: people told him that the City Council had decided to call it
+"Klaus Heinrich Strasse." Once when driving out with his mother and he
+called at a picture-dealer's, they wanted to buy something. The footman
+waited at the carriage door, the public gathered round, the
+picture-dealer bustled about--there was nothing new in all that. But
+Klaus Heinrich for the first time noticed his photograph in the shop
+window. It was hanging next those of artists and great men, men with
+lofty brows, with a look of the loneliness of fame in their eyes.
+
+People were satisfied with him on the whole. He gained dignity with
+years, and self-possession under the pressure of his exalted calling.
+But the strange thing was that his longing increased at the same time:
+that roving inquisitiveness which Schulrat Dröge was not the man to
+satisfy, and which had impelled him to chat with the lackeys. He had
+given up doing that; it did not lead to anything. They smiled at him,
+confirming him by that very laugh in the suspicion that his world of the
+symmetrically marshalled candles presented an unconscious antithesis to
+the world outside, but they were no manner of help to him. He looked
+round about him on the expeditions, in the walks he took through the
+town gardens with Ditlinde and the Swiss governess, followed by a
+lackey. He felt that if they were all of one mind to stare at him, while
+he was all alone and made conspicuous just to be stared at, he also had
+no share in their being and doing. He realized that they presumably were
+not always as he saw them, when they stood and greeted him with
+deferential looks; that it must be his birth and upbringing which made
+their looks deferential, and that it was with them as with the children
+when they heard about fairy princes, and were thereby refined and
+elevated above their work-a-day selves. But he did not know what they
+looked like and were when they were not refined and elevated above their
+work-a-day selves--his "exalted calling" concealed this from him, and it
+was a dangerous and improper wish to allow his heart to be moved by
+things which his exaltedness concealed from him. And yet he wished it,
+he wished it from a jealousy and that roving inquisitiveness which
+sometimes drove him to undertake voyages of exploration into unknown
+regions of the old Schloss, with Ditlinde his sister, when the
+opportunity offered.
+
+They called it "rummaging," and great was the charm of "rummaging"; for
+it was difficult to acquire familiarity with the ground-plan and
+structure of the old Schloss, and every time they penetrated far enough
+into the remoter parts they found rooms, closets, and empty halls which
+they had not yet trodden, or strange round-about ways to already-known
+rooms. But once when thus wandering about they had a rencontre, an
+adventure befell them, which made a great impression on Klaus Heinrich,
+though he did not show it, and opened his eyes.
+
+The opportunity came. While the Swiss governess was absent on leave to
+attend the evening service, they had drunk their milk from tea-cups with
+the Grand Duchess, accompanied by the two ladies-in-waiting, had been
+dismissed and directed to go back hand-in-hand to their ordinary
+occupations in the nursery, which lay not far off. It was thought that
+they needed nobody to go with them; Klaus Heinrich was old enough to
+take care of Ditlinde, of course. He was; and in the corridor he said:
+"Yes, Ditlinde, we will certainly go back to the nursery, but we need
+not go, you know, the shortest, dullest way. We'll rummage a bit first.
+If you go up one step and follow the corridor as far as where the arches
+begin, you'll find a hall with pillars behind them, and if you go out of
+one of the doors of the hall with pillars--clamber up the corkscrew
+staircase, you come to a room with a wooden roof; and there are lots of
+funny things lying about there. But I don't know what comes after the
+room, and that's what we've got to find out. So let's go."
+
+"Yes, let's," said Ditlinde, "but not too far, Klaus Heinrich, and not
+where it's too dusty, for this dress shows everything."
+
+She was wearing a dress of dark-red velvet, trimmed with satin of the
+same colour. She had at that time dimples in her elbows, and light
+golden hair, that curled round her ears like ram's horns. In after years
+she was pale and thin. She too had the broad, rather over-prominent
+cheek-bones of her father and nation, but they were not accentuated, so
+that they did not spoil the lines of her face. But with Klaus Heinrich
+they were strong and emphatic, so that they seemed somewhat to encroach
+upon, to narrow and to lengthen his steel-coloured eyes. His dark hair
+was smoothly parted, cut in a careful rectangle on the temples, and
+brushed straight back from the forehead. He wore an open jacket with a
+waistcoat buttoning at the throat and a white turn-down collar. In his
+right hand he held Ditlinde's little hand, but his left arm hung down,
+with its brown, wrinkled, and undeveloped hand, thin and short from the
+shoulder. He was glad that he could let it hang without bothering to
+conceal it; for there was nobody there to stare and to require to be
+elevated and inspired, and he himself might stare and examine to his
+heart's content.
+
+So they went and rummaged as they liked. Quiet reigned in the corridors,
+and they saw hardly a lackey in the distance. They climbed up a
+staircase and followed the passage till they came to the arches, showing
+that they were in the part of the Schloss which dated from the time of
+John the Headstrong and Heinrich the Confessor, as Klaus Heinrich knew
+and explained. They came to the hall of the pillars, and Klaus Heinrich
+there whistled several notes close after each other, for the first were
+still sounding when the last came, and so a clear chord rang under the
+vaulted ceiling. They scrambled groping and often on hands and knees up
+the stone winding staircase which opened behind one of the heavy doors,
+and reached the room with the wooden ceiling, in which there were
+several strange objects. There were some broken muskets of clumsy size
+with thickly rusted locks, which had been too bad for the museum, and a
+discarded throne with torn red velvet cushions, short wide-splayed
+lion-legs, and cupids hovering over the chair-back, bearing a crown.
+Then there was a wicked-looking, dusty, cage-like, and horribly
+interesting thing, which intrigued them much and long. If they were not
+quite mistaken, it was a rat-trap, for they could see the iron spike to
+put the bacon on, and it was dreadful to think how the trap-door must
+fall down behind the great beast.... Yes, this took time, and when they
+stood up after examining the rat-trap their faces were hot, and their
+clothes stiff with rust and dust. Klaus Heinrich brushed them both down,
+but that did not do much good, for his hands were as filthy as his
+clothes. And suddenly they saw that dusk had begun to fall. They must
+return quickly, Ditlinde insisted anxiously on that; it was too late to
+go any farther.
+
+"That's an awful pity," said Klaus Heinrich. "Who knows what else we
+mightn't have found, and when we shall get another chance of rummaging,
+Ditlinde!" But he followed his sister and they hurried back down the
+turret-stairs, crossed the hall of the pillars, and came out into the
+arcade, intending to hurry home hand-in-hand.
+
+Thus they wandered on for a time; but Klaus Heinrich shook his head, for
+it seemed to him that this was not the way he had come. They went still
+farther; but several signs told them that they had mistaken their
+direction. This stone seat with the griffin-heads was not standing here
+before. That pointed window looked to the west over the low-lying
+quarter of the town and not over the inner courtyard with the rose-bush.
+They were going wrong, it was no use denying it; perhaps they had left
+the hall of the pillars by a wrong exit--anyhow they had absolutely lost
+their way.
+
+They went back a little, but their disquietude would not allow them to
+go very far back, so they turned right about again, and decided to push
+on the way they had already come, and to trust to luck. Their way lay
+through a damp, stuffy atmosphere, and great undisturbed cobwebs
+stretched across the corners; they went with heavy hearts, and Ditlinde
+especially was full of repentance and on the brink of tears. People
+would notice her absence, would "look sadly" at her, perhaps even tell
+the Grand Duke; they would never find the way, would be forgotten and
+die of hunger. And where there was a rat-trap, Klaus Heinrich, there
+were also rats.... Klaus Heinrich comforted her. They only had to find
+the place where the armour and crossed standards hung; from that point
+he was quite sure of the direction. And suddenly--they had just passed a
+bend in the winding passage--suddenly something happened. It startled
+them dreadfully.
+
+What they had heard was more than the echo of their own steps, they were
+other, strange steps, heavier than theirs; they came towards them now
+quickly, now hesitatingly, and were accompanied by a snorting and
+grumbling which made their blood run cold. Ditlinde made as if to run
+away from fright: but Klaus Heinrich would not let go her hand, and they
+stood with starting eyes waiting for what was coming.
+
+It was a man who was just visible in the half-darkness, and, calmly
+considered, his appearance was not horrifying. He was squat in figure,
+and dressed like a veteran soldier. He wore a frock-coat of
+old-fashioned cut, a woollen comforter round his neck and a medal on his
+breast. He held in one hand a curly top-hat and in the other the bone
+handle of his clumsily rolled-up umbrella, which he tapped on the flags
+in time with his steps. His thin grey hair was plastered up from one ear
+in wisps over his skull. He had bow-shaped black eyebrows, and a
+yellow-white beard, which grew like the Grand Duke's, heavy upper-lids,
+and watery blue eyes with pouches of withered skin under them; he had
+the usual high cheek-bones, and the furrows of his sun-burnt face were
+like crevasses. When he had come quite close he seemed to recognize the
+children, for he placed himself against the outer wall of the passage,
+at once fronted round and began to make a number of bows, consisting of
+several short forward jerks of his whole body from the feet upwards,
+while he imparted a look of honesty to his mouth and held his top-hat
+crown-downwards in front of him. Klaus Heinrich meant to pass him by
+with a nod, but was surprised into halting, for the veteran began to
+speak.
+
+"I beg pardon!" he suddenly grunted; then went on in a more natural
+voice: "I earnestly beg your young Highnesses' pardon! But would your
+young Highnesses take it amiss if I addressed to them the request that
+they would very kindly acquaint me with the nearest way to the nearest
+exit? It need not actually be the Albrechtstor--not in the least
+necessary that it should be the Albrechtstor. But any exit from the
+Schloss, if I dare be so free as to address this inquiry to your young
+Highnesses...."
+
+Klaus Heinrich had laid his left hand on his hip, right behind, so that
+it lay almost in his back, and looked at the ground. The man had simply
+spoken to him, had engaged him directly and unavoidably in conversation;
+he thought of his father and knitted his brows. He pondered feverishly
+over the question how he ought to behave in this topsy-turvy and
+incorrect situation. Albrecht would have pursed up his mouth, sucked
+with his short, rounded under-lip lightly against the upper, and passed
+on in silence--so much was certain. But what was the use of rummaging if
+at the first serious adventure one intended to pass on in dignity and
+dudgeon? And the man was honest, and had nothing wicked about him: that
+Klaus Heinrich could see when he forced himself to raise his eyes. He
+simply said: "You come with us, that's the best way. I will willingly
+show you where you must turn off to get to an exit." And they went on.
+
+"Thanks!" said the man. "Ever so many thanks for your kindness! Heaven
+knows I should never have thought that I should live to walk about the
+Old Schloss one day with your young Highnesses. But there it is, and
+after all my annoyance--for I have been annoyed, terribly annoyed,
+that's true and certain--after all my annoyance I have at any rate this
+honour and this satisfaction."
+
+Klaus Heinrich longed to ask what might have been the reason for so much
+annoyance; but the veteran went straight on (and tapped his umbrella in
+regular time on the flags as he went). "... and I recognized your young
+Highnesses at once, although it is a bit dark here in the passage, for I
+have seen you many a time in the carriage, and was always delighted, for
+I myself have just such a couple of brats at home--I mean to say, mine
+are brats, mine are ... and the boy is called Klaus Heinrich too."
+
+"Just like me?" said Klaus Heinrich, overjoyed.... "What luck!"
+
+"There's no luck about it," said the man, "considering he was named
+expressly after you, for he is a couple of months younger than you, and
+there are lots of children in the town and country who are called that,
+and all of them after you. No, one can hardly call it luck...."
+
+Klaus Heinrich concealed his hand and remained silent.
+
+"Yes, recognized you at once," said the man. "And I thought, thank
+Heaven, thought I, that's what I call fortune in misfortune, and they'll
+help you out of the trap into which you have stuck your nose, you old
+blockhead, and you've good reason to laugh, thought I, for there's many
+a one has trudged about here and been guyed by those popinjays, and
+hasn't got out of it so well...."
+
+Popinjays? thought Klaus Heinrich ... and guyed? He looked straight in
+front of him, he did not dare to ask. A fear, a hope struck him.... He
+said quite simply: "They ... they guyed you?"
+
+"Not half!" said the man. "I should think they did, the ogres, and no
+mistake! But I don't mind telling your young Highnesses, young though
+you are, but it'll do you good to hear it, that these people here are a
+set of wasters. A man comes and delivers his work as respectfully as
+possible.... Yes, bless my soul!" he cried suddenly, and tapped his
+forehead with his hat. "I haven't yet introduced myself to your young
+Highnesses and told you who I am, have I?--Hinnerke!" he said,
+"Master-cobbler Hinnerke, Royal warrant-holder, pensioner and
+medallist." And he pointed with the index-finger of his great, rough,
+yellow-spotted hand to the medal on his breast. "The fact is, that his
+Royal Highness, your father, has been graciously pleased to order a pair
+of boots from me, top-boots, riding-boots, with spurs, and made of the
+best quality patent-leather. They're my speciality, and I made them
+myself and took a lot of trouble about them, and they were ready to-day
+and ever so smart. 'You must go yourself,' says I to myself.... I have a
+boy who delivers, but I says to myself: 'You must go yourself, they are
+for the Grand Duke.' So I rig myself out and take my boots and go to the
+Schloss. 'All right,' say the lackeys down below, and want to take them
+from me, 'No!' say I, for I don't trust them. It's my reputation gets me
+my orders and my warrant, let me tell your Highnesses, not because I tip
+the lackeys. But the fellows are spoilt by tips from the
+warrant-holders, and want to get something out of me for their trouble.
+'No,' say I, for I'm not a one for bribing and underhand dealings, 'I'll
+deliver them myself, and if I can't give them to the Grand Duke himself,
+I'll give them to Valet Prahl.' They looked daggers, but they say: 'Then
+you must go up there!' And I go up there. There are some more of them up
+there, and they say 'All right!' and want to take charge of the boots,
+but I ask for Prahl and stick to it. They say: 'He's having his tea,'
+but I'm determined and say, 'Then I'll wait till he's finished.' And
+just as I say it, who comes by in his buckled shoes but Valet Prahl. And
+he sees me, and I give him the boots with a few modest words, and he
+says 'All right!' and actually adds: 'They're fine!' and nods and takes
+them off. Now I'm satisfied, for Prahl, he's safe, so off I go. 'Hi!'
+cries somebody. 'Mr. Hinnerke! You're going wrong!' 'Damn!' says I, and
+right about, and go off in the other direction. But that was the
+stupidest thing I could do, for they had sent me to Jericho, and that's
+just where I don't want to go. I walk on a bit and meet another one, and
+ask him the way to the Albrechtstor. But he spots at once what's up, and
+says: 'Go up the stairs, and then keep to the left and then down again,
+and you'll cut off a large corner!' And I believe he means it kindly and
+do what he says, and get more and more muddled and altogether lose my
+bearings. Then I see that it's not my fault, but the rogues', and it
+strikes me that I have heard that they often play that trick on Court
+tradesmen who don't tip them, and let them wander about till they sweat.
+And my fury makes me blind and stupid, and I get to places where there's
+not a living soul, and don't know where I am and get properly put about.
+And at last I meet your young Highnesses. Yes, that's how it is with me
+and my boots!" ended Shoemaker Hinnerke, and wiped his forehead with the
+back of his hand.
+
+Klaus Heinrich squeezed Ditlinde's hand. His heart beat so loud that he
+absolutely forgot to hide his left hand. That was it. That was a touch
+of it, an outline! No doubt about it, that was the sort of thing his
+"exalted calling" shielded him from, the sort of thing people did when
+they were in the ordinary, work-a-day frame of mind. The lackeys.... He
+said nothing, words failed him.
+
+"I see that your young Highnesses don't answer," said the shoemaker. And
+his honest voice was filled with emotion. "I oughtn't to have told you,
+because it isn't your business to get to know all the wickedness that
+goes on. But yet I don't know," he said, laid his head on one side and
+snapped his fingers, "that it can do any harm, that it can do you any
+harm for the future and later on...."
+
+"The lackeys ..." said Klaus Heinrich, and took a plunge ... "are they
+wicked? I can quite well fancy ..."
+
+"Wicked?" said the cobbler. "Good-for-nothings they are. That's the name
+for them. Do you know what they're good for? They keep the goods back
+when no tip's forthcoming, keep them back when the tradesman delivers
+them punctually at the time ordered, and only hand them over days late,
+so that the tradesman gets blamed, and is considered by the Grand Duke
+to have failed in his duty and he loses his orders. That's what they do
+without scruple, and the whole town knows it...."
+
+"That's most annoying!" said Klaus Heinrich. He listened, listened. He
+hardly realized how much shocked he was. "Do they do anything else?" he
+said. "I'm quite sure they must do other things of the same kind."
+
+"You bet!" said the man, and laughed. "No, they don't miss a chance, let
+me tell your Highnesses, they have all sorts of dodges. There's the
+door-opening joke, for instance.... That's like this. Your father, our
+gracious Grand Duke, grants an audience to somebody, let's suppose he's
+a new hand and it's his first time at Court. And he comes in a frock
+coat all sweat and shivers, for it is of course no trifle to stand
+before his Royal Highness for the first time. And the lackeys laugh at
+him, because they're quite at home here, and tow him into the ante-room,
+and he doesn't know where he is, and absolutely forgets to tip the
+lackeys. But then comes his moment, and the adjutant says his name, and
+the lackeys throw open the double-doors and let him into the room in
+which the Grand Duke is waiting. Then the new hand stands there and bows
+and says what he has to say, and the Grand Duke graciously gives him his
+hand, and so he is dismissed and walks backwards, and thinks the
+folding-doors are going to open behind him, as he has been definitely
+promised. But they don't open, I tell your Highnesses, for the lackeys
+have got their knife into him, because they haven't been tipped, and
+don't stir a finger for him outside there. But he daren't turn round,
+absolutely daren't, because he daren't show the Grand Duke his back,
+that would be grossly bad manners and an insult to his Highness. And
+then he feels behind him for the door-handle and can't find it, and gets
+the jumps and scrabbles around on the door, and when at last by the
+mercy of Providence he finds the knob it's an old-fashioned lock, and he
+doesn't understand it and fiddles and dislocates his arm and tires
+himself out and keeps bowing all the time in his agitation, until at
+last his Highness graciously lets him out with his own hand. Yes, that's
+the door-opening joke! But that's nothing to what I'm going to tell your
+Highness...."
+
+They had been so deep in conversation that they had scarcely noticed
+where they were going, had gone down the stairs and reached the
+ground-floor, close to the Albrechtstor. Eiermann, one of the Grand
+Duchess's grooms-of-the-chamber, came towards them. He wore a violet
+coat and side-whiskers. He had been sent out to look for their Grand
+Ducal Highnesses. He shook his head while still at a distance, in lively
+concern, and pursed his mouth up like a funnel. But when he noticed
+Shoemaker Hinnerke walking with the children and tapping with his
+umbrella, all the muscles of his face relaxed and his jaw dropped.
+
+There was scarcely time for thanks and farewells, Eiermann was in such a
+hurry to part the children from the shoemaker. And with many a gloomy
+prophecy he led their Grand Ducal Highnesses up to their room to the
+Swiss governess.
+
+Eyes were turned to heaven, hands were wrung about their absence and the
+state of their clothes. The worst of all happened, they were "looked at
+sadly." But Klaus Heinrich confined his contrition to the bare minimum.
+He thought: "So the lackeys took money and let the tradesmen wander
+about the corridors if they did not get any, kept the goods back, that
+the tradesmen might get blamed, and did not open the folding-doors, so
+that the suitor had to scrabble. That's what happened in the Schloss,
+and what must it be outside? Outside among the people who stared at him
+so respectfully and so strangely, when he drove by with his hand to his
+hat ...? But how had the man dared to tell it him? Not one single time
+had he called him Grand Ducal Highness; he had forced himself on him and
+offended his birth and upbringing. And yet, why was it so
+extraordinarily pleasant to hear all that about the lackeys? Why did his
+heart beat with such rapt pleasure, when moved by some of the wild and
+bold things in which his Highness bore no part?"
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+DOCTOR UEBERBEIN
+
+
+Klaus Heinrich spent three of his boyhood's years in the company of boys
+of his own age of the Court and country nobility of the monarchy in an
+institution, a kind of aristocratic seminary, which von Knobelsdorff,
+the House Minister, had founded and set in order on his behalf in the
+"Pheasantry" hunting-schloss.
+
+A Crown property for centuries past, Schloss "Pheasantry" gave its name
+to the first stopping-place of a State railway running north-west from
+the capital, and itself took it from a "tame" pheasant preserve,
+situated not far off among the meadows and woods, which had been the
+hobby of a former ruler. The Schloss, a one-storied box-like country
+house with a shingle roof topped by lightning conductors, stood with
+stables and coach-house on the skirts of extensive fir plantations. With
+a row of aged lime trees in front, it looked out over a broad expanse of
+meadowland fringed by a distant bluish circle of woods and intersected
+by paths, with many a bare patch of play-ground and hurdles for obstacle
+riding. Opposite the corner of the Schloss was a refreshment pavilion, a
+beer and coffee garden planted with high trees, which a prudent man
+called Stavenüter had rented and which was thronged on Sundays in summer
+by excursionists, especially bicyclists, from the capital. The pupils of
+the "Pheasantry" were only allowed to visit the pavilion in charge of a
+tutor.
+
+There were five of them, not counting Klaus Heinrich: Trümmerhauff,
+Gumplach, Platow, Prenzlau, and Wehrzahn. They were called "the
+Pheasants" in the country round. They had a landau from the Court
+stables which had seen its best days, a dog-cart, a sledge, and a few
+hacks, and when in winter some of the meadows were flooded and frozen
+over, they had an opportunity of skating. There was one cook, two
+chamber-maids, one coachman, and two lackeys at the "Pheasantry," one of
+whom could drive at a pinch.
+
+Professor Kürtchen, a little suspicious and irritable bachelor with the
+airs of a comic actor and the manners of an old French chevalier, was
+head of the seminary. He wore a stubby grey moustache, a pair of gold
+spectacles in front of his restless brown eyes, and always out-of-doors
+a top hat on the back of his head. He stuck his belly out as he walked
+and held his little fists on each side of his stomach like a
+long-distance runner. He treated Klaus Heinrich with self-satisfied
+tact, but was full of suspicion of the noble arrogance of his other
+pupils and fired up like a tom-cat when he scented any signs of contempt
+for him as a commoner. He loved when out for a walk, if there were
+people close by, to stop and gather his pupils in a knot around him and
+explain something to them, drawing diagrams in the sand with his stick.
+He addressed Frau Amelung, the housekeeper, a captain's widow who smelt
+strongly of drugs, as "my lady" and showed thus that he knew what was
+what in the best circles.
+
+Professor Kürtchen was helped by a yet younger assistant teacher with a
+doctor's degree--a good-humoured, energetic man, bumptious but
+enthusiastic, who influenced Klaus Heinrich's views and conscience
+perhaps more than was good for him. A gymnastic instructor called Zotte
+had also been appointed. The assistant teacher, it may be remarked in
+passing, was called Ueberbein, Raoul Ueberbein. The rest of the staff
+came every day by railway from the capital.
+
+Klaus Heinrich remarked with appreciation that the demands made on him
+from the point of view of learning quickly abated. Schulrat Dröge's
+wrinkled fore-finger no longer paused on the lines, he had done his
+work; and during the lessons as well as while correcting his written
+work Professor Kürtchen seized every opportunity of showing his tact.
+
+One day, quite soon after the institution had started--it was after
+luncheon in the high-windowed dining-room--he summoned Klaus Heinrich
+into his study, and said in so many words: "It is contrary to the public
+interest that your Grand Ducal Highness, during our scientific studies
+together, should be compelled to answer questions which are at the
+moment unwelcome to you. On the other hand, it is desirable that your
+Grand Ducal Highness should continually announce your readiness to
+answer by holding up your hand. I beg your Grand Ducal Highness
+accordingly, for my own information, in the case of unwelcome questions,
+to stretch out your arm to its full length, but in the case of those an
+invitation to answer which would be agreeable to you, to raise it only
+half way and in a right angle."
+
+As for Doctor Ueberbein, he filled the schoolroom with a noisy flow of
+words, whose cheerfulness disguised the teacher's object without losing
+sight of it altogether. He had come to no sort of understanding with
+Klaus Heinrich, but questioned him when it occurred to him to do so, in
+a free and friendly way without causing him any embarrassment. And Klaus
+Heinrich's by no means apropos answers seemed to enchant Doctor
+Ueberbein, to inspire him with warm enthusiasm. "Ha, ha," he would cry
+and throw his head back laughing. "Oh, Klaus Heinrich! Oh, scion of
+princes! Oh, your innocency! The crude problems of life have caught you
+unprepared! Now then, it is for me with my experience to put you
+straight." And he gave the answer himself, asked nobody else, when Klaus
+Heinrich had answered wrong. The mode of instruction of the other
+teachers bore the character of an unassuming lecture. And
+gymnastic-instructor Zotte had received orders from high quarters to
+conduct the physical exercises with every regard to Klaus Heinrich's
+left hand--so strictly that the attention of the Prince himself or of
+his companions should never be drawn unnecessarily to his little
+failing. So the exercises were limited to running games, and during the
+riding lessons, which Herr Zotte also gave, all feats of daring were
+rigorously excluded.
+
+Klaus Heinrich's relations with his comrades were not what one might
+call intimate, they did not extend to actual familiarity. He stood for
+himself, was never one of them, by no means counted amongst their
+number. They were five and he was one; the Prince, the five, and the
+teachers, that was the establishment. Several things stood in the way of
+a free friendship. The five were there on Klaus Heinrich's account, they
+were ordered to associate with him; when during the lessons he answered
+wrong they were not asked to correct him, they had to adjust themselves
+to his capacity when riding or playing. They were too often reminded of
+the advantages they gained by being allowed to share his life. Some of
+them, the young von Gumplach, von Platow, and von Wehrzahn, sons of
+country squires of moderate means, were oppressed the whole time by the
+gratified pride their parents had shown when the invitation from the
+House Minister reached them, by the congratulations which had poured in
+from every side.
+
+Count Prenzlau on the other hand, that thick-set, red-haired, freckled
+youth with the breathless way of speaking and the Christian name
+Bogumil, was a sprig of the richest and noblest family of landowners in
+the land, spoilt and self-conscious. He was well aware that his parents
+had not been able to refuse Baron von Knobelsdorff's invitation, but
+that it had not seemed to them by any means a blessing from the clouds,
+and that he, Count Bogumil, could have lived much better and more in
+accordance with his position on his father's property than at the
+"Pheasantry." He found the hacks bad, the landau shabby, and the
+dog-cart old-fashioned; he grumbled privately over the food.
+
+Dagobert Count Trümmerhauff, a spare, greyhound-looking youth, who spoke
+in a whisper, was inseparable from him. They had a word among themselves
+which fully expressed their critical and aristocratic bent, and which
+they constantly uttered in a biting tone of voice: "hog-wash." It was
+hog-wash to have loose collars buttoning on to one's shirt. It was
+hog-wash to play lawn-tennis in one's ordinary clothes.
+
+But Klaus Heinrich felt himself unequal to using the word. He had not
+hitherto been aware that there were such things as shirts with collars
+sewed on to them and that people could possess so many changes of
+clothes at one time as Bogumil Prenzlau. He would have liked to say
+"hog-wash," but it occurred to him that he was wearing at that very time
+darned socks. He felt inelegant by the side of Prenzlau and coarse
+compared with Trümmerhauff. Trümmerhauff had the nobility of a wild
+beast. He had a long pointed nose with a sharp bridge and broad,
+quivering, thin-walled nostrils, blue veins on his delicate temples and
+small ears without lobes. He wore broad coloured cuffs fastened with
+gold links, and his hands were like those of a dainty woman, with
+filbert nails; a gold bracelet adorned one of his wrists. He half closed
+his eyes as he whispered.... No, it was obvious that Klaus Heinrich
+could not compete with Trümmerhauff in elegance. His right hand was
+rather broad, he had cheek-bones like the men in the street, and he
+looked quite stumpy by Dagobert's side. It was quite possible that
+Albrecht might have been better qualified to join the "Pheasants" in
+their use of "hog-wash." Klaus Heinrich for his part was no aristocrat,
+absolutely none, unmistakable facts showed that. For consider his name,
+Klaus Heinrich, that's what the shoemaker's sons were called all over
+the place. Herr Stavenüter's children over the road too, who blew their
+noses with their fingers, bore the same names as himself, his parents,
+and his brother. But the lordlings were called Bogumil and
+Dagobert--Klaus Heinrich stood solitary and alone among the five.
+
+However, he formed one friendship at the "Pheasantry," and it was with
+Doctor Ueberbein. The Usher Raoul Ueberbein was not a handsome man. He
+had a red beard and a greenish-white complexion with watery blue eyes,
+thin red hair, and unusually ugly, protruding, sharp-pointed ears. But
+his hands were small and delicate. He wore white ties exclusively, which
+gave him rather a distinguished appearance, although his wardrobe was
+scanty. He wore a long great-coat out-of-doors, and when riding--for Dr.
+Ueberbein rode, and excellently well too--a worn-out frock-coat whose
+skirts he fastened up with safety-pins, tight buttoned breeches, and a
+high hat.
+
+Where lay the attraction he exercised on Klaus Heinrich? That attraction
+was very composite. The "Pheasants" had not been long together before a
+report went about that the usher had dragged a child a long time ago, in
+circumstances of extreme peril, out of a swamp or bog, and was the
+possessor of a medal for saving life. That was one impression. Later
+other details of Doctor Ueberbein's life came to be known, and Klaus
+Heinrich too heard of them. It was said that his origin was obscure,
+that he had no father, his mother had been an actress who had paid some
+poor people to adopt him, and that he had once been starved, which
+accounted for the greenish tint of his complexion. These were things
+which did not bear being brought into the light or even being thought
+of, wild, remote things, to which, however, Doctor Ueberbein himself
+sometimes alluded--when, for instance, the lordlings, who could not
+forget his obscure origin, behaved impudently or unbecomingly towards
+him.
+
+"Suck-a-thumbs and mammy's darlings!" he would say then in loud dudgeon.
+"I've knocked about long enough to deserve some respect from you young
+gentlemen!" This fact too, that Doctor Ueberbein had "knocked about,"
+did not fail of effect on Klaus Heinrich. But the especial charm of the
+doctor's person lay in the directness of his attitude towards Klaus
+Heinrich, the tone in which he addressed him from the very beginning,
+and which distinguished him clearly from everybody else. There was
+nothing about him which reminded one of the stiff reticence of the
+lackeys, of the governess's pale horror, of Schulrat Dröge's
+professional bows, or of Professor Kürtchen's self-satisfied deference.
+There was nothing about him to recall the strange, loyal, and yet
+impertinent way in which people outside stared at Klaus Heinrich.
+
+During the first few days after the seminary assembled, he kept silence
+and confined himself to observation, but then he approached the Prince
+with a jovial and cheery frankness, a fresh fatherly camaraderie such as
+Klaus Heinrich had never before experienced. It disturbed him at first,
+he looked in terror at the doctor's green face; but his confusion found
+no echo in the doctor, and in no way discouraged him, it confirmed him
+in his hearty bumptious ingenuousness, and it was not long before Klaus
+Heinrich was warmed and won, for there was nothing vulgar, nothing
+degrading, not even anything designed and school-masterish in Doctor
+Ueberbein's methods--all they showed was the superiority of a man who
+had knocked about the world, and, at the same time, his tender and open
+respect for Klaus Heinrich's different birth and position; they showed
+affection and recognition, at the same time as the cheerful offer of a
+league between their two different kinds of existence. He called him
+"Highness" once or twice, then simply "Prince," then quite simply "Klaus
+Heinrich." And he stuck to the last.
+
+When the "Pheasants" went out for a ride, these two rode at the head,
+the doctor on his stout piebald to the left of Klaus Heinrich on his
+docile chestnut--trotted when snow or leaves were falling, through
+springtime thaws or summer heat, along the edge of the woodlands across
+country, or through the villages, while Doctor Ueberbein related
+anecdotes of his life. Raoul Ueberbein sounds funny, doesn't it? The
+very reverse of _chic_. Yes, Ueberbein had been the name of his adoptive
+parents, a poor, oldish couple of the inferior bank-clerk class, and he
+had a quite legal right to it. But that he should be called Raoul had
+been the decision and mandate of his mother, when she handed over the
+sum agreed on, together with his fateful little person, to the others--a
+sentimental decision obviously, a decision prompted by piety. At least
+it was quite possible that his legal and real father had been called
+Raoul, and it was to be hoped that his surname had been something which
+harmonized with it.
+
+For the rest, it had been rather a wild undertaking on the part of his
+adoptive parents to adopt a child, for "Barmecide had been cook" in the
+Ueberbein establishment, and it was obvious that it had been only the
+most urgent necessity which had made them jump at the money. The boy had
+been given only the scantiest of school educations, but he had taken the
+liberty of showing what he was made of, had distinguished himself to
+some extent, and as he was keen to become a teacher, he had been granted
+out of a public fund the means of obtaining a college education. Well,
+he had finished his college course not without distinction, as indeed it
+was expected of him that he should, and he had then been appointed a
+teacher in a public elementary school, with a good salary, out of which
+he had managed to give occasional doles by way of gratitude to his
+honest adoptive parents, until they died almost simultaneously. And a
+happy release it was for them!
+
+And so he had been left alone in the world, his very birth a misfortune,
+as poor as a sparrow and endowed by Providence with a green face and
+dog's ears by way of personal recommendations. Attractive
+qualifications, were they not? But such qualifications were really
+favourable ones--once for all, so they proved. A miserable boyhood,
+loneliness and exclusion from good fortune and all that good fortune
+brings, a never-ceasing, imperious call to be up and doing, no fear of
+getting fat and lazy, one's moral fibre was braced, one could never rest
+on one's oars, but must be always overhauling and passing others. Could
+anything be more stimulating, when the hard facts were brought home to
+one? What a handicap over others who "were not obliged to" to the same
+extent! People who could smoke cigars in the morning....
+
+At that time, by the bedside of one of his unwashed little pupils, in a
+room which did not smell exactly of spring blossoms, Raoul Ueberbein had
+made friends with a young man--some years older than he, but in a
+similar position and like him ill-fated by birth in so far as he was a
+Jew. Klaus Heinrich knew him--indeed, he might be said to have got to
+know him on a very intimate occasion. Sammet was his name, a doctor of
+medicine; he happened by chance to have been in the Grimmburg when Klaus
+Heinrich was born, and had set up a couple of years later in the capital
+as a children's doctor. Well, he had been a friend of Ueberbein's, still
+was one, and they had had many a good talk about fate and duty. What is
+more, they had both knocked about the world.
+
+Ueberbein, for his part, looked back with sincere pleasure to the time
+when he had been an elementary teacher. His activities had not been
+entirely confined to the class-room, he had amused himself by showing
+also some personal and human concern for his charges' welfare, by
+visiting them at home, by sharing at times their not too idyllic family
+life, and in doing so he did not fail to bring away impressions of a
+most varied kind. In truth, if he had not already tasted the bitterness
+of the cup of life, he would have had plenty of opportunity then to do
+so. For the rest, he had not ceased to work by himself, had given
+private lessons to plump tradesmen's sons, and tightened his waist belt
+so as to save enough to buy books with--had spent the long, still, and
+free nights in study. And one day he had passed the State examination
+with exceptional distinction, had soon received his promotion, had been
+transferred to a grammar school. As a matter of fact, it had been a sore
+grief to him to leave his little charges, but so the fates willed. And
+then it had so happened that he had been chosen to be usher at the
+"Pheasantry," for all that his very birth had been a misfortune.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+That was Doctor Ueberbein's story, and Klaus Heinrich, as he listened to
+it, was filled with friendly feelings. He shared his contempt for those
+who "weren't obliged to" and smoked cigars in the morning, he felt a
+fearful joy when Ueberbein talked in his jolly blustering way about
+"knocking about," "impressions," and the bitterness of the cup of life,
+and he felt as if he had been personally an actor in the scenes as he
+followed his luckless and gallant career from his adoption up to his
+appointment as grammar-schoolmaster. He felt as if he were in some
+general sort of way qualified to take part in a conversation about fate
+and duty. His attitude of reserve relaxed, the experiences of his own
+fifteen years of life came crowding in upon him, he felt a longing
+himself to retail confidences, and he tried to tell Doctor Ueberbein all
+about himself.
+
+But the funny thing was that Doctor Ueberbein himself checked him,
+opposed any such intention most decidedly. "No, no, Klaus Heinrich," he
+said; "full stop there! No confidences, if you please! Not but that I
+know that you have all sorts of things to tell me.... I need only watch
+you for half a day to see that, but you quite misunderstand me if you
+think I'm likely to encourage you to weep round my neck. In the first
+place, sooner or later you'd repent it. But in the second, the pleasures
+of a confidential intimacy are not for the likes of you. You see,
+there's no harm in my chattering. What am I? An usher. Not a common or
+garden one, in my own opinion, but still no better than such. Just a
+categorical unit. But you? What are you? That's harder to say.... Let's
+say a conception, a kind of ideal. A frame. An emblematical existence,
+Klaus Heinrich, and at the same time a formal existence. But formality
+and intimacy--haven't you yet learnt that the two are mutually
+exclusive? Absolutely exclusive. You have no right to intimate
+confidences, and if you attempted them you yourself would discover that
+they did not suit you, would find them inadequate and insipid. I must
+remind you of your duty, Klaus Heinrich."
+
+Klaus Heinrich laughed and saluted with his crop, and on they rode.
+
+On another occasion Doctor Ueberbein said casually: "Popularity is a not
+very profound, but a grand and comprehensive kind of familiarity." And
+that was all he said on the subject.
+
+Sometimes in summer, during the long intervals between the morning
+lessons, they would sit together in the empty pavilion, or stroll about
+the "Pheasants" playground, discussing various topics, and breaking off
+to drink lemonade provided by Herr Stavenüter. Herr Stavenüter beamed as
+he wiped the rough table and brought the lemonade with his own hands.
+The glass ball in the bottle-neck had to be pushed in. "Sound stuff!"
+said Herr Stavenüter. "The best that can be got. No muck, Grand Ducal
+Highness, and you, doctor, but just sweetened fruit-juice. I can
+honestly recommend it!"
+
+Then he made his children sing in honour of the visit. There were three
+of them, two girls and a boy, and they could sing trios. They stood some
+way off with the green leaves of the chestnut trees for roof, and sang
+folk-songs while they blew their noses with their fingers. Once they
+sang a song beginning: "We are all but mortal men," and Doctor Ueberbein
+took advantage of the pauses to express his disapproval of this number
+on the programme. "A paltry song," he said, and leaned over towards
+Klaus Heinrich. "A really commonplace song, a lazy song, Klaus Heinrich;
+you must not let it appeal to you."
+
+Later, when the children had stopped singing, he returned to the song
+and described it as "sloppy." "We are all but mortal men," he repeated.
+"God bless us, yes, no doubt we are. But on the other hand we ought
+perhaps to remember that it is those of us who count for most who may be
+the occasion for especially emphasizing this truth.... Look you," he
+said, leaning back and crossing one leg over the other, while he stroked
+his beard up from underneath his chin, "look you, Klaus Heinrich, a man
+who has my intellectual aspirations will not be able to help searching
+for and clinging to whatever is out of the ordinary in this drab world
+of ours, wherever and however it appears--he cannot help being put out
+by such a slovenly song, by such a sheepish abjuration of the
+exceptional, of the lofty and of the miserable, and of that which is
+both at once. You may well say: 'That's talking for effect.' I'm only an
+usher, but there's something in my blood, Heaven knows what--I can't
+find any pleasure in emphasizing the fact that we are all ushers at
+bottom. I love the extraordinary in every form and in every sense. I
+love those who are conscious of the dignity of their exceptional
+station, the marked men, those one can see are not as other men, all
+those whom the people stare at open-mouthed--I hope they'll appreciate
+their destiny, and I do not wish them to make themselves comfortable
+with the slip-shod and luke-warm truth which we have just heard set to
+music for three voices. Why have I become your tutor, Klaus Heinrich? I
+am a gipsy, a hard-working one, maybe, but still a born gipsy. My
+predestination to the rôle of squire of princes is not particularly
+obvious. Why did I gladly obey the call when it came to me, in view of
+my energy, and although my very birth was a misfortune? Because, Klaus
+Heinrich, I see in your existence the clearest, most express, and
+best-preserved form of the extraordinary in the world. I have become
+your tutor that I might keep your destiny alive in you. Reserve,
+etiquette, obligation, duty, demeanour, formality--has the man whose
+life is surrounded by these no right to despise others? Ought he to
+allow himself to be reminded of humanity and good nature? No, come
+along, let's go, Klaus Heinrich, if you don't mind. They're tactless
+brats, these little Stavenüters." Klaus Heinrich laughed, he gave the
+children some of his pocket-money, and they went.
+
+"Yes, yes," said Doctor Ueberbein in the course of an ordinary walk in
+the woods to Klaus Heinrich--they had drifted a little distance away
+from the five "Pheasants"--"nowadays the soul's thirst for veneration
+has to be satisfied with what it can get. Where will you find greatness?
+I only hope you may! But quite apart from all actual greatness and
+high-calling, there is always what I call Highness, select and sadly
+isolated forms of life, towards which an attitude of the tenderest
+sympathy should be adopted. For the rest, greatness is strong, it wears
+jack-boots, it has no need of the knight-services of the mind. But
+Highness is affecting--damme if it isn't the most affecting thing on
+earth."
+
+Once or twice a year the "Pheasantry" journeyed to the capital to attend
+performances of classical operas and dramas in the Grand Ducal Court
+Theatre; Klaus Heinrich's birthday in particular was the signal for a
+visit to the theatre. He would then sit quietly in his carved arm-chair,
+leaning against the red plush ledge of the Court box, whose roof rested
+on the heads of two female figures with crossed hands and empty stern
+faces, and watched his colleagues, the princes, whose destinies were
+played out on the stage, while he stood the fire of the opera-glasses
+which from time to time, even during the play, were directed at him from
+the audience. Professor Kürtchen sat on his left hand and Doctor
+Ueberbein with the "Pheasants" in an adjoining box.
+
+Once they heard the "Magic Flute," and on the way home to "Pheasantry"
+station, in the first-class carriage, Doctor Ueberbein made the whole
+collection of them laugh by imitating the way in which singers talk when
+their rôles oblige them to talk in prose. "He is a prince!" he said with
+pathos, and answered himself in a drawly, sing-song parsonical voice.
+"He is more than that, he is a man!" Even Professor Kürtchen was so much
+amused that he bleated.
+
+But next day, in the course of a private lesson in Klaus Heinrich's
+study, with the round mahogany table, whitened ceiling, and Greek bust
+on the stove, Doctor Ueberbein repeated his parody, and said then:
+"Great heavens, that was something new in its time, it was a piece of
+news, a startling truth! There are paradoxes which have stood so long on
+their heads that one has to put them on their feet to make anything even
+moderately daring out of them, 'He is a man. He is more than that'--that
+is getting gradually bolder, prettier, even truer. The converse is mere
+humanity, but I have no hearty love for humanity, I'm quite content to
+leave it out of account. One must, in a certain sense, be one of those
+of whom the people say: 'They are, after all, mortal men too'--or one is
+as deadly dull as an usher. I cannot honestly wish for the general
+comfortable obliteration of conflicts and gulfs, that's the way I am
+made, for better or worse, and the idea of the _principe uomo_ is to me,
+to speak plainly, an abomination. I am not anxious that it should
+particularly appeal to you.... Look you, there have always been princes
+and exceptional persons who live their life of exception with a light
+heart, simply unconscious of their dignity or denying it outright, and
+capable of playing skittles with the townsfolk in their shirt-sleeves,
+without the slightest attempt at an inward qualm. But they are not very
+important, just as nothing is important which lacks mind. For mind,
+Klaus Heinrich, mind is the tutor which insists inexorably on dignity,
+indeed actually creates dignity, it is the arch-enemy and chief
+antagonist of all human good nature. 'More than that?' No! to be a
+representative, to stand for a number when one appears to be the exalted
+and refined expression of a multitude. Representing is naturally
+something more and higher than simply Being, Klaus Heinrich--and that's
+why people call you Highness."
+
+So argued Doctor Ueberbein, in loud, hearty, and fluent terms, and what
+he said influenced Klaus Heinrich's mind and susceptibilities more,
+perhaps, than was desirable. The prince was then about fifteen years
+old, and therefore quite competent, if not properly to understand, yet
+to imbibe the essence of ideas of that sort. The main point was that
+Doctor Ueberbein's doctrines and apophthegms were so exceptionally
+supported by his personality.
+
+When Schulrat Dröge, the man who used to bow to the lackeys, reminded
+Klaus Heinrich of his "exalted calling," that was nothing more than an
+exaggerated form of speech, devoid of inner meaning and calculated
+mainly to add emphasis to his professional claims. But when Doctor
+Ueberbein, whose very birth had been a misfortune, as he said, and who
+had a green complexion because he had been half starved; when this man
+who had dragged a child out of a bog, who had received "impressions" and
+"knocked about" in all sorts of ways; when he who not only did not bow
+to the lackeys, but who bawled at them in strident tones when the fancy
+took him, and who had called Klaus Heinrich himself straight out by his
+Christian names when he had known him only three days, without asking
+leave to do so,--when he with a paternal laugh declared that Klaus
+Heinrich's "path lay among the heights of mankind" (a favourite
+expression of his), the effect was a feeling of freedom and originality
+which awoke an echo deep down in the prince's soul.
+
+When Klaus Heinrich listened to the doctor's loud and jolly anecdotes of
+his life, of the "bitterness of the cup of life," he felt as he used to
+when he went rummaging with Ditlinde his sister, and that the man who
+could tell such anecdotes, that this "rolling stone," as he called
+himself, did not, like the others, adopt a reserved and deferential
+attitude towards him, but, without prejudice to a free and cheerful
+homage, treated him as a comrade in fate and destiny, warmed Klaus
+Heinrich's heart to inexpressible gratitude and completed the charm
+which bound him to the usher for ever....
+
+Shortly after his sixteenth birthday (Albrecht, the Heir Apparent, was
+at the time in the South for his health) the Prince was confirmed,
+together with the five "Pheasants," in the Court Church. The _Courier_
+reported the fact without making any sensation of it. Dom Wislezenus,
+the President of the High Consistory, treated a Bible text in
+counterpoint, this time to the choice of the Grand Duke, and Klaus
+Heinrich was on this occasion gazetted a Lieutenant, although he had not
+the foggiest notion of things military.... His existence was becoming
+more and more barren of _expertise_. The ceremonial of the confirmation
+also lacked incisive significance, and the Prince returned immediately
+afterwards quietly back to the "Pheasantry" to continue his life amongst
+his tutors and schoolfellows without any alteration.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was not till one year later that he left his old-fashioned homely
+schoolroom with the torso on the stove; the seminary was broken up, and
+while his five noble comrades were transferred to the Corps of Cadets,
+Klaus Heinrich again took up his abode in the Old Schloss, intending, in
+accordance with an agreement which Herr von Knobelsdorff had come to
+with the Grand Duke, to spend a year at the upper gymnasium classes in
+the capital. This was a well-calculated and popular step, which however
+did not make much difference from the point of view of _expertise_.
+Professor Kürtchen had gone back to his post at the public academy, he
+instructed Klaus Heinrich as before in several branches of knowledge,
+and showed even greater zeal than he had at the seminary, being
+determined to let everybody see how tactful he was. It also appeared
+that he had told the rest of the staff of the agreement reached with
+regard to the two ways in which the Prince should announce his feelings
+with regard to answering a question.
+
+As to Doctor Ueberbein, who had also returned to the academy, he had not
+yet advanced so far in his unusual career as to teach the highest class.
+But at Klaus Heinrich's lively, even insistent request, preferred by him
+to the Grand Duke, not by word of mouth but by official channels, so to
+speak, through the benevolent Herr von Knobelsdorff, the usher was
+appointed tutor and superintendent of home studies, came daily to the
+Schloss, bawled at the lackeys, and had every opportunity of working on
+the Prince with his intellectual and enthusiastic talk. Perhaps it was
+partly the fault of this influence that Klaus Heinrich's relations with
+the young people with whom he shared the much-hacked school-benches
+continued even looser and more distant than his connexion with the five
+at the "Pheasantry"; and if thus the popularity which this year was
+intended to secure was not attained, the intervals, which both in summer
+and in winter were spent by all the scholars in the roomy paved
+courtyard, offered opportunities for camaraderie.
+
+But these intervals, intended to refresh the ordinary scholars, brought
+with them for Klaus Heinrich the first actual effort of the kind of
+which his life was to be full. He was naturally, at least during the
+first term, the cynosure of every eye in the play-ground--no easy matter
+for him, in view of the fact that here the surroundings deprived him of
+every external support and attribute of dignity, and he was obliged to
+play on the same pavement as those whose common idea was to stare at
+him. The little boys, full of childlike irresponsibility, hung about
+close to him and gaped, while the bigger ones hovered around with
+wide-open eyes and looked at him out of the corners of them or from
+under their eyelids.... The excitement dwindled in course of time, but
+even then--whether the fault was Klaus Heinrich's or the others'--even
+later the camaraderie somehow did not make much progress. One might see
+the prince, on the right of the head master or the usher-in-charge,
+followed and surrounded by the curious, strolling up and down the
+courtyard. One could see him, too, chatting with his schoolfellows.
+
+What a charming sight it was! There he leaned, half-sitting on the slope
+of the glazed-brick wall, with his feet crossed, and his left hand
+thrust far behind on his hips, with the fifteen members of the first
+class in a half-circle round him. There were only fifteen this year, for
+the last promotions had been made with the object in view that the
+select should contain no elements which were unfitted by origin or
+personality to be for a year on Christian-name terms with Klaus
+Heinrich. For the use of Christian names was ordered. Klaus Heinrich
+conversed with one of them, who had advanced a little towards him out of
+the semicircle, and answered him with little short bows. Both laughed,
+everybody laughed directly they began to talk to Klaus Heinrich. He
+asked him for instance: "Have you yet done your German essay for next
+Tuesday?"
+
+"No, Prince Klaus Heinrich, not quite yet; I haven't yet done the last
+part."
+
+"It's a difficult subject. I haven't any idea yet what to write."
+
+"Oh, your Highness will.... You'll soon think of something!"
+
+"No, it's difficult.... You got an alpha in arithmetic, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes, Prince Klaus Heinrich, I was lucky."
+
+"No, you deserved it. I shall never be able to make anything of it!"
+
+Murmurs of amusement and gratification in the semicircle. Klaus Heinrich
+turned to another schoolfellow, and the first stepped quickly back.
+Everybody felt that the really important point was not the essay nor the
+arithmetic, but the conversation as an event and an undertaking, one's
+attitude and tone, the way one advanced or retired, the success with
+which one assumed a sympathetic, self-collected, and refined demeanour.
+Perhaps it was the consciousness of this which brought the smile to
+everybody's lips.
+
+Sometimes, when he had the semicircle in front of him, Klaus Heinrich
+would say some such words as "Professor Nicolovius looks an owl."
+
+Great then was the merriment among the others. Such a remark was the
+signal for general unbending, they kicked over the traces, "Ho, ho,
+ho!" 'd in chorus in their newly cracked voices, and one would declare
+Klaus Heinrich to be a "ripping chap." But Klaus Heinrich did not often
+say such things, he only said them when he saw the smile on the others'
+faces grow faint and wan, and signs of boredom or even of impatience
+showing themselves; he said them by way of cheering them up, and at the
+extravagant laughter by which they were followed he wore a look half of
+curiosity, half of dismay.
+
+It was not Anselm Schickedanz who called him a "ripping chap," and yet
+it was directly on his account that Klaus Heinrich had compared
+Professor Nicolovius to an owl. Anselm Schickedanz had laughed like the
+others at the joke, but not in quite the same approving way, but with an
+intonation which implied, "Gracious heavens!" He was a dark boy, with
+narrow hips, who enjoyed the reputation throughout the school of being a
+devil of a chap. The tone of the top class this year was admirable. The
+obligations which membership of Klaus Heinrich's class entailed had been
+impressed on every boy from various quarters, and Klaus Heinrich was not
+the boy to tempt them to forget these obligations. But that Anselm
+Schickedanz was a devil of a chap had often come to his ears, and Klaus
+Heinrich, when he looked at him, felt a kind of satisfaction in
+believing what he heard, although it was an obscure problem to him how
+he could have come by his reputation.
+
+He made several inquiries privately, broached the subject apparently by
+chance, and tried to find out from one or other of his comrades
+something about Schickedanz's devilry. He discovered nothing definite.
+But the answers, whether disparaging or complimentary, filled him with
+the suspicion of a mad amiability, an unlawful glorious humanity, which
+was there for the eyes of all, save his own, to see--and this suspicion
+was almost a sorrow. Everybody said at once, with reference to Anselm
+Schickedanz, and in saying it dropped into the forbidden form of
+address: "Yes, Highness, you ought to see him when you are not there!"
+
+Klaus Heinrich would never see him when he was not there, would never
+get near him, never get to know him. He stole peeps at him when he stood
+with the others in a semicircle before him, laughing and braced up like
+all the rest. Everybody braced himself up in Klaus Heinrich's presence,
+his very existence was accountable for that, as he well knew, and he
+would never see what Schickedanz was like, how he behaved when he let
+himself go. At the thought he felt a twinge of envy, a tiny spark of
+regret.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+At this juncture something painful, in fact revolting, occurred, of
+which nothing came to the ears of the Grand Ducal couple, because Doctor
+Ueberbein kept his mouth closed and about which scarcely any rumour
+spread in the capital because everybody who had had a share or any
+responsibility in the matter, obviously from a kind of feeling of shame,
+preserved strict silence about it. I refer to the improprieties which
+occurred in connexion with Prince Klaus Heinrich's presence at that
+year's citizens' ball, and in which a Fräulein Unschlitt, daughter of
+the wealthy soap-boiler, was especially concerned.
+
+The citizens' ball was a chronic fixture in the social life of the
+capital, an official and at the same time informal festivity, which was
+given by the city every winter in the "Townpark Hotel," a big, recently
+enlarged and renovated establishment in the southern suburbs, and
+provided the bourgeois circles with an opportunity of establishing
+friendly relations with the Court. It was known that Johann Albrecht III
+had never cultivated a taste for this civil and rather free-and-easy
+entertainment, at which he appeared in a black frock-coat in order to
+lead off the polonaise with the Lady Mayoress, and that he was wont to
+withdraw from it at the earliest possible moment. This only heightened
+the general satisfaction when his second son, although not yet bound to
+do so, already made his appearance at the ball that year--indeed, it
+became known that he did so at his own express request. It was said that
+the Prince had employed Excellency von Knobelsdorff to transmit his
+earnest wish to the Grand Duchess, who in her turn had contrived to
+obtain her husband's consent.
+
+Outwardly the festivity pursued its wonted course. The most
+distinguished guests, Princess Catherine, in a coloured silk dress and
+cap, accompanied by her red-haired children, Prince Lambert with his
+pretty wife, and last of all Johann Albrecht and Dorothea with Prince
+Klaus Heinrich, made their appearance in the "Townpark Hotel," greeted
+by city officials, with long-ribboned rosettes pinned on their coats.
+Several Ministers, aides-de-camp in mufti, numbers of men and women of
+the Court, the leaders of society, as well as landowners from the
+surrounding country, were present. In the big white hall the Grand Ducal
+pairs first received a string of presentations, and then, to the strains
+of the band which sat in the curved gallery up above, Johann Albrecht
+with the Lady Mayoress, Dorothea with the Lord Mayor, opened the ball by
+a procession round the room.
+
+Then, while the polonaise gave place to a round dance, contentment
+spread, cheeks glowed, the heat of the throng kindled feelings of
+fondness, faintness, and foreboding among the dancers, the distinguished
+guests stood as distinguished guests are wont to stand on such
+occasions--apart and smiling graciously on the platform, at the top of
+the hall under the gallery. From time to time Johann Albrecht engaged a
+distinguished man, and Dorothea engaged his wife, in conversation. Those
+addressed stepped quickly and smartly forward and back, kept their
+distance half-bowing with their heads bent, nodded, shook their heads,
+laughed in this attitude at the questions and remarks addressed to
+them--answered eagerly on the spur of the moment, with sudden and
+anticipatory changes from hearty amusement to the deepest earnestness,
+with a passionateness which was doubtless unusual to them, and obviously
+in a state of tension. Curious guests, still panting from the dance,
+stood in a semicircle round and stared at these purposely trivial
+conversations with a peculiarly tense expression on their faces.
+
+Klaus Heinrich was the object of much attention. Together with two
+red-headed cousins who were already in the army, but were wearing mufti
+that evening, he kept a little behind his parents, resting on one leg,
+his left hand placed far back on his hip, his face turned with his right
+half-profile to the public. A reporter of the _Courier_ who had been
+bidden to the ball made notes upon him in a corner. The Prince could be
+seen to greet with his white-gloved right hand his tutor, Doctor
+Ueberbein, who with his red beard and greenish tint came along the fence
+of spectators; he was seen even to advance some way into the hall to
+meet him.
+
+The doctor, with big enamel studs in his shirt front, began by bowing
+when Klaus Heinrich stretched out his hand to him, but then at once
+spoke to him in his free and fatherly way. The Prince seemed to be
+rejecting a proposal, and laughed uneasily as he did so, but then a
+number of people distinctly heard Doctor Ueberbein say: "No--nonsense,
+Klaus Heinrich, what was the good of learning? Why did the Swiss
+governess teach you your steps in your tenderest years? I can't
+understand why you go to balls if you won't dance? One, two, three,
+we'll soon find you a partner!" And with a continual shower of
+witticisms he presented to the Prince four or five young maidens, whom
+he dropped on without ceremony and dragged forward. They ducked and shot
+up again, one after the other, in the trailing fluctuations of the Court
+curtsey, set their teeth and did their best. Klaus Heinrich stood with
+his heels together and murmured, "Delighted, quite delighted."
+
+To one he went so far as to say: "It's a jolly ball, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, Grand Ducal Highness, we are having great fun," answered she in a
+high chirping voice. She was a tall, rather bony bourgeoise maiden,
+dressed in white muslin, with fair wavy hair dressed over a pad, and a
+pretty face, a gold chain round her bare neck, the collar-bones of which
+showed prominently, and big white hands in mittens. She added: "The
+quadrille is coming next. Will your Grand Ducal Highness dance it with
+me?"
+
+"I don't know ..." he said. "I really don't know ..."
+
+He looked round. The machinery of the ball was already falling into
+geometrical order. Lines were being drawn, squares were forming, couples
+came forward and called to _vis-à-vis_. The music had not yet started.
+
+Klaus Heinrich asked his cousins. Yes, they were taking part in the
+lancers, they already had their lucky partners on their arms.
+
+Klaus Heinrich was seen to go up behind his mother's red damask chair
+and whisper something excitedly to her, whereupon she turned her lovely
+neck and passed on the question to her husband, and the Grand Duke
+nodded. And then some laughter was caused by the youthful impetuosity
+with which the Prince ran down, so as not to miss the beginning of the
+square dance.
+
+The reporter of the _Courier_, notebook in one hand and pencil in the
+other, peered with neck thrust forward over the hall out of his corner,
+so as to make sure whom the Prince was going to engage. It was the fair,
+tall girl, with the collar-bones and the big white hands, Fräulein
+Unschlitt, the soap-boiler's daughter. She was still standing where
+Klaus Heinrich had left her.
+
+"Are you still there?" he said breathlessly.... "May I have the
+pleasure? Come along!"
+
+The sets were complete. They wandered about for a while without finding
+a place. A man with a ribbon rosette hurried up, seized a pair of young
+people by the shoulders and induced them to leave their stand under the
+chandelier, that his Grand Ducal Highness might occupy it with Fräulein
+Unschlitt. The band had been hesitating, it now struck up, the
+prescribed compliments were exchanged, and Klaus Heinrich danced like
+the rest of the world.
+
+The doors into the next room stood open. In one of them was a buffet
+with flower vases, punch bowls, and dishes of many-coloured cakes. The
+dance extended right into this room, two sets were dancing in it. In the
+other room some white-covered tables were arrayed, which were still
+standing empty.
+
+Klaus Heinrich stepped forwards and backwards, laughed to the others,
+stretched out his hand and grasped theirs, and then again seized his
+partner's big white hand, put his right arm round the maiden's
+muslin-clad waist and revolved with her on their particular patch, while
+he kept his left hand, which also wore a little white glove, on his hip.
+They laughed and talked as they danced. The Prince made mistakes, forgot
+himself, upset figures, and lost his place. "You must keep me straight!"
+he said in the confusion. "I'm upsetting everything! Nudge me in the
+ribs!" and the others gradually plucked up courage and set him right,
+ordered him laughingly hither and thither, even laid their hands on him
+and pushed him a little when necessary. The fair damsel with the
+collar-bones was particularly zealous in pushing him about.
+
+The spirits of the dancers rose with every figure. Their movements
+became freer, their calls bolder, they began to stamp their feet and to
+prance as they advanced and retired, while they held each other's hands
+and balanced themselves with their arms. Klaus Heinrich too stamped, at
+first only by way of signal, but soon more loudly; and as far as the
+balancing with the arms was concerned, the fair maiden looked after that
+when they advanced together. Also every time she danced facing him she
+made an exaggerated scrape before him which much increased the
+merriment.
+
+The refreshment room was full of chatter and babble, which attracted
+everybody's envious glances. Some one had left his set in the middle of
+the dance, purloined a sandwich from the buffet, and was now chewing
+away proudly as he swerved and stamped, to the amusement of the rest.
+
+"What cheek!" said the fair maiden. "They don't stand on ceremony!" and
+the idea gave her no peace. Before you could look round, she was off,
+had dashed lightly and nimbly between the lines of dancers, had seized a
+sandwich from the buffet and was back in her place.
+
+Klaus Heinrich was the one who applauded her most heartily. His left
+hand was a difficulty, and so he managed without it, while with his
+right he beat on the top of his head and doubled up with laughter. Then
+he became quieter and rather pale. He was struggling with himself....
+The quadrille was nearing its end. What he meant to do he must do
+quickly. They had already got to the grand chain.
+
+And as he was already almost too late, he did what he had been
+struggling with himself about. He broke away, ran swiftly through the
+dancers, with muttered apologies when he collided with anybody, reached
+the buffet, seized a sandwich, rushed back, and came sliding into his
+set; that was not all, he put the sandwich--it was an egg and sardine
+one--to the lips of his partner, the damsel with the big white hands;
+she curtseyed a little, bit into it, bit almost half off without using
+her hands, and throwing back his head he stuffed the rest into his
+mouth!
+
+The high spirits of the set found a vent in the grand chain, which was
+just beginning. Right round the hall went the dancers, winding zig-zag
+in and out and stretching out their hands. Then it stopped, the tide
+turned, and once more the stream went round, laughing and chattering,
+with mistakes and entanglements and hurriedly rectified complications.
+
+Klaus Heinrich pressed the hands he grasped without knowing to whom they
+belonged. He laughed and his chest heaved. His smoothly parted hair was
+ruffled, and a bit fell over his forehead, his shirt-front bulged a
+little out of his waistcoat, and in his face and sparkling eyes was that
+look of tender emotion which is sometimes the expression of happiness.
+He said several times during the chain, "What awful fun! What glorious
+fun!" He met his cousins, and to them too he said, "We have had such
+fun--in our set over there!"
+
+Then came the clapping and au revoirs; the dance was over. Klaus
+Heinrich again stood facing the fair maiden with the collar-bones, and
+when the music changed time he once more put his arm round her tender
+waist, and away they danced.
+
+Klaus Heinrich did not steer well and often knocked into other couples,
+because he kept his left hand planted on his hip, but he brought his
+partner somehow or other to the entrance to the refreshment room, where
+they called a halt and refreshed themselves with pineappleade which was
+handed to them by the waiters. They sat just at the entrance on two
+velvet stools, drank and chatted about the quadrille, the Citizens'
+Ball, and other social functions in which the fair maiden had already
+taken part that winter....
+
+It was then that one of the suite, Major von Platow, the Grand Duke's
+aide-de-camp, came up to Klaus Heinrich, bowed and begged leave to
+announce that their Royal Highnesses were now going. He had been charged
+... But Klaus Heinrich gave him to understand that he wished to remain,
+in so emphatic a fashion that the aide-de-camp did not like to insist
+upon his errand.
+
+The Prince uttered exclamations of an almost rebellious regret and was
+obviously bitterly grieved at the idea of going home at once. "We are
+having such fun!" he said, stood up and gripped the Major's arm gently.
+"Dear Major von Platow, please do intercede for me! Talk to Excellency
+von Knobelsdorff, do anything you like--but to go now, when we are all
+having such fun together! I'm sure my cousins are going to stay...." The
+Major looked at the fair maiden with the big white hands, who smiled at
+him; he too smiled and promised to do his best. This little scene was
+enacted while the Grand Duke and the Grand Duchess were already taking
+leave of the city dignitaries at the entrance into the town park.
+Immediately afterwards the dancing on the first floor began again.
+
+The ball was at its height. Everything official had gone, and the king
+of revelry came into his own. The white-covered tables in the adjoining
+rooms were occupied by families drinking punch and eating supper. Youth
+streamed to and fro, sitting excitedly and impatiently on the edges of
+the chairs to eat a mouthful, drink a glass, and again plunge into the
+merry throng. On the ground-floor there was an old-German beer-cellar,
+which was crowded with the more sedate men. The big dancing-hall and the
+buffet-room were by now monopolized by the dancers. The buffet-room was
+filled with fifteen or sixteen young people, sons and daughters of the
+city, among them Klaus Heinrich. It was a kind of private ball in there.
+They danced to the music which floated in from the main hall.
+
+Doctor Ueberbein, the Prince's tutor, was seen there for a minute or
+two, having a short talk with his pupil. He was heard to mention, watch
+in hand, Herr von Knobelsdorff's name, and to say that he was down in
+the beer-cellar and was coming back to take the Prince away. Then he
+went. The time was half-past ten. And while he sat below and conversed
+with his friends over a tankard of beer, only for an hour or perhaps an
+hour and a half, not more, those dreadful things, that simply incredible
+scandal, happened in the buffet-room, to which it fell to him to put a
+stop, though unfortunately too late.
+
+The punch provided was weak, it contained more soda-water than
+champagne, and if the young people lost their equilibrium it was more
+the intoxication of the dance than of the wine. But in view of the
+Prince's character and the solid bourgeois origin of the rest of the
+company, that was not enough to explain what happened. Another, a
+peculiar intoxication, was a factor here on both sides. The peculiar
+thing was that Klaus Heinrich was fully conscious of each separate stage
+in this intoxication, and yet had not the power or the will to shake it
+off.
+
+He was happy. He felt on his cheeks the same glow burning as he saw in
+the faces of the others, and as his eyes, dazed by a soft mist,
+travelled about the room, and rested admiringly on one fair form after
+another, his look seemed to say: "We!" His mouth too said it--said, for
+the pure joy of saying them, sentences in which a "We" occurred. "Shall
+_we_ sit down? shall _we_ have another turn? shall _we_ have a drink?
+shall _we_ make up two sets?" It was especially to the maiden with the
+collar-bones that Klaus Heinrich made remarks with a "We" in them. He
+had quite forgotten his left hand, it hung down, he felt so happy that
+it did not worry him and he never thought of hiding it. Many saw now for
+the first time what really was the matter with it, and looked curiously
+on with an unconscious grimace at the thin, short arm in the sleeve, the
+little, by now rather dirty white kid glove which covered the hand. But
+as Klaus Heinrich was so careless about it, the others plucked up
+courage, the result being that everybody took hold of the malformed hand
+quite unconcernedly in the round or square dances.
+
+He did not keep it back. He felt himself borne along, nay rather whirled
+around by a feeling, a strong, wild feeling of contentment, that grew,
+gathered heat from itself, possessed itself of him more and more
+recklessly, overpowered him even more vehemently and breathlessly,
+seemed to lift him triumphantly from the floor. What was happening? It
+was difficult to say, difficult to be quite sure. The air was full of
+words, detached cries, not spoken but expressed on the dancers' faces,
+in their attitudes, in all they were doing and saying. "He must just
+once! Bring him along, bring him along ...! Caught, caught!" A young
+damsel with a turned-up nose, who asked him for a gallop when the
+"leap-year" dance came, said quite clearly without any obvious
+connexion, "Chucker up!" as she got ready to start off with him.
+
+He saw pleasure in every eye, and saw that their pleasure lay in drawing
+him out, in having him amongst them. In his happiness, his dream, to be
+with them, amongst them, one of them, there obtruded itself from time to
+time a cold, uncomfortable feeling that he was deluding himself, that
+the warm, glorious "We" was deceiving him, that he did not really blend
+in with them, that he was all the time the centre and object of the
+show, but in a different and more unsatisfactory way than before. They
+were his enemies to a certain extent, he saw it in the malice of their
+eyes. He heard as if at a distance, with a peculiar dismay, how the fair
+damsel with the big white hands called him simply by his names--and he
+felt that she did so in quite a different spirit to that of Doctor
+Ueberbein when he did the same. She had the right and the permission to
+do so, in a certain manner, but was nobody here then jealous for his
+dignity, if he himself was not? It seemed to him that they plucked at
+his coat, and sometimes in their excitement made wild, sneering remarks
+about him. A tall, fair young man with pince-nez, with whom he collided
+while dancing, said quite loud so that everybody could hear it: "Now
+then, clumsy!" And there was malice in the way in which the fair young
+maiden, her arm in his and a grin on her lips, whirled round with him
+till he was ready to drop with giddiness. While they whirled he gazed
+with swimming eyes at the collar-bones showing under the white, rather
+rough skin on her neck.
+
+They fell; they had gone too hard at it and tumbled when they tried to
+stop revolving, and over them stumbled a second pair, not entirely by
+themselves, but rather at a push from the tall young man with pince-nez.
+There was a scrimmage on the floor, and Klaus Heinrich heard above him
+in the room the chorus which came back to him from the school-playground
+when he had ventured on a rather daring joke by way of amusing his
+fellows--a "Ho, ho, ho!" only it sounded more wicked and bolder here....
+
+When shortly after midnight, unfortunately a little behind time, Doctor
+Ueberbein appeared on the threshold of the buffet-room, this is what he
+saw: His young pupil was sitting alone on the green plush sofa by the
+left-hand wall, his clothes all disarranged and himself decorated in an
+extraordinary way. A quantity of flowers, which had previously adorned
+the buffet in two Chinese vases, were stuck in the opening of his
+waistcoat, between the studs of his shirtfront, even in his collar;
+round his neck lay the gold chain which belonged to the maiden with the
+collar-bones, and on his head the flat metal cover of a punch-bowl was
+balanced like a hat. He kept saying, "What are you doing? What are you
+doing ...?" while the dancers, hand-in-hand in a semicircle, danced a
+round dance backwards and forwards in front of him with half-suppressed
+giggles, whispers, smirks, and ho, ho, ho's.
+
+An unusual and unnatural flush mantled in Doctor Ueberbein's face. "Stop
+it! Stop it!" he cried in his resonant voice, and, in the silence,
+consternation, and dismay which at once ensued, he walked with long
+strides up to the Prince, tore away the flowers in two or three grasps,
+threw the chain and the cover away, then bowed and said with a stern
+look, "May I beg your Grand Ducal Highness ...
+
+"I've been an ass, an ass!" he repeated when he got outside.
+
+Klaus Heinrich left the Citizens' Ball in his company.
+
+That was the painful event which happened during Klaus Heinrich's year
+at school. As I have said, none of the participators talked about it;
+even to the Prince, Doctor Ueberbein did not mention the subject for
+years afterwards, and, as nobody crystallized the event in words, it
+remained incorporeal and promptly faded away, at least apparently, into
+oblivion.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Citizens' Ball had taken place in January. Shrove Tuesday, with the
+Court Ball and the big Court in the Old Schloss, which wound up the
+social year--regulation festivities, to which Klaus Heinrich was not yet
+admitted--were past and over. Then came Easter, and with it the close of
+the school year. Klaus Heinrich's diploma examination, that edifying
+formality, in the course of which the question, "You agree, do you not,
+Grand Ducal Highness?" was constantly recurring on the lips of the
+Professor, and at which the Prince acquitted himself admirably in his
+very conspicuous position. This was not a very important phase in his
+life. Klaus Heinrich continued to live in the capital, but after
+Whitsuntide his eighteenth birthday drew near, and with it a complex of
+festivities which marked a serious turning-point in his life, and which
+taxed him severely for days together.
+
+He had attained his majority, had been pronounced to be of age. For the
+first time again since his baptism, he was the centre of attention and
+chief actor in a great ceremony, but while he had then quietly,
+irresponsibly, and patiently resigned himself to the formalities which
+surrounded and protected him, it was incumbent on him on this day, in
+the midst of binding prescriptions and stern regulations, hemmed in by
+the drapery of weighty precedent, to inspire the spectators and to
+please them by maintaining an attitude of dignity and good-breeding, and
+at the same time to appear light-hearted.
+
+It may be added that I use the word "drapery" not only as a figure of
+speech. The Prince wore a crimson mantle on this occasion, a sumptuous
+and theatrical article of raiment, which his father and grandfather
+before him had worn at their coming-of-age, and which notwithstanding
+days of airing, still smelt of camphor. The crimson mantle had
+originally belonged to the robes of the Knights of the Grimmburg
+Griffin, but was now nothing more than a ceremonial garb for the use of
+princes attaining their majority. Albrecht, the Heir Apparent, had never
+worn the family one. As his birthday fell in the winter, he always spent
+it in the South, in a place with a warm and dry climate, whither he was
+thinking of returning this autumn too, and as at the time of his
+eighteenth birthday his health had not permitted him to travel home, it
+had been decided to declare him officially of age in his absence, and to
+dispense with the Court ceremony.
+
+As to Klaus Heinrich, there was only one opinion, especially among the
+representatives of the public, that the mantle suited him admirably, and
+he himself, notwithstanding the way in which it hampered his movements,
+found it a blessing, as it made it easy for him to hide his left hand.
+Between the canopied bed and the bellying chest of drawers in his
+bedroom, that was situated on the second floor looking out on the yard
+with the rose-bush, he made himself ready for the show, carefully and
+precisely, with the help of his valet, Neumann, a quiet and precise man
+who had been recently attached to him as keeper of his wardrobe and
+personal servant.
+
+Neumann was an ex-barber, and was filled, especially in the direction of
+his original calling, with that passionate conscientiousness, that
+insatiable knowledge of the ideal, which gives rise to the highest
+skill. He did not shave like any ordinary shaver, he was not content to
+leave no stubble behind, he shaved in such a way that every shadow of a
+beard, every recollection of one, was removed, and without hurting the
+skin he managed to restore to it all its softness and smoothness. He cut
+Klaus Heinrich's hair exactly square above the ears, and arranged it
+with all the assiduity required, in his opinion, by this preparation for
+the Prince's ceremonial appearance. He managed that the parting should
+come over the left eye and run slanting back over the crown of the head,
+so that no tufts or wisps should stick up on it; he brushed the hair on
+the right side up from the forehead into a prim crest on which no hat or
+helmet could make an impression. Then Klaus Heinrich, with his help,
+squeezed himself carefully into his uniform of lieutenant in the
+Grenadier Guards, whose high-braided collar and tight fit favoured a
+dignified bearing, put on the lemon-coloured silk band and the flat gold
+chain of the House Order, and went down to the picture gallery where the
+members of the family and the foreign relations of the Grand Ducal pair
+were waiting. The Court was waiting in the adjoining Hall of the
+Knights, and it was there that Johann Albrecht himself invested his son
+with the crimson mantle.
+
+Herr von Bühl zu Bühl had marshalled a procession, the ceremonial
+procession from the Hall of the Knights to the Throne-room. It had cost
+him no little worry. The composition of the Court made it difficult to
+contrive an impressive arrangement, and Herr von Bühl especially
+lamented the lack of upper Court officials, which on such occasions made
+itself most severely felt. The Royal Mews had recently been put under
+Herr von Bühl, and he felt himself quite up to his various functions,
+but he asked everybody how he could be expected to make a good
+impression, when the most important posts were filled simply by the
+master of the Buck-hounds, von Stieglitz, and the director of the Grand
+Ducal Theatre, a gouty general.
+
+While he, in his capacity as Lord Marshal, Chief Master of the
+Ceremonies, and House Marshal, in his embroidered clothes and brown
+toupée, covered with orders and with his golden pince-nez on his nose,
+came waddling and planting his long staff in front of him behind the
+cadets, who, dressed as pages, and their hair parted over the left eye,
+opened the procession, he pondered deeply over what came behind him. A
+few chamberlains--not many, for some were wanted for the end of the
+procession--their plumed hats under their arms and the Key on their
+coat-tails, followed close at his heels, in silk stockings. Next came
+Herr von Stieglitz, and the limping theatre-director in front of Klaus
+Heinrich, who, in his mantle between the exalted couple, and followed by
+his brother and sister, Albrecht and Ditlinde, formed the actual nucleus
+of the procession.
+
+Behind their Highnesses came von Knobelsdorff, the House Minister and
+President of Council, his eye-wrinkles all at work; a little knot of
+aides-de-camp and palace ladies came next: General Count Schmettern and
+Major von Platow, a Count Trümmerhauff, cousin of the Keeper of the
+Privy Purse, as military aide-de-camp of the Heir Apparent, and the
+Grand Duchess's women led by the short-winded Baroness von
+Schulenburg-Tressen. Then followed, attended and followed by
+aides-de-camp, chamberlains, and Court ladies, Princess Catherine, with
+her red-haired progeny, Prince Lambert with his lovely wife, and the
+foreign relations or their representatives. Pages brought up the rear.
+
+Thus they went at a measured pace from the Hall of the Knights through
+the Gala Halls, the Hall of the Twelve Months, and the Marble Hall into
+the Throne-room. Lackeys, with red-gold aiguillettes on their brown
+coats, stood theatrically in couples at the open double doors. Through
+the broad windows the June morning sun streamed gaily and recklessly in.
+
+Klaus Heinrich looked round him as he processed between his parents
+through the dreary arabesques, the dilapidated decorations of the
+show-rooms, now not favoured by kindly artificial light. The bright
+daylight cheerfully and soberly showed up their decay. From the big
+lustres with their stiff-bound stems, stripped of their coverings in
+honour of the day, rose thick forests of flameless candles, but
+everywhere there were prisms missing, crystal festoons torn, so that
+they gave a canker-bit and toothless impression. The silk damask
+upholstery of the State furniture, which was arranged stiffly and
+monotonously round the walls, was thread-bare, the gilt of the frames
+chipped off, big blind patches marred the surfaces of the tall
+candle-decked mirrors, and daylight shone through the moth-holes in the
+faded and discoloured curtains. The gold and silver borders of the
+tapestry hangings had torn away in several places, and were hanging
+disconsolately from the walls. Even in the Silver Hall of the Gala
+Rooms, where the Grand Duke was wont to receive solemn deputations, and
+in the centre of which stood a mother-of-pearl table with stumpy silver
+feet, a piece of the silver work had fallen from the ceiling leaving a
+gaping patch of white plaster.
+
+But why was it that it somehow seemed as if these rooms defied the
+sober, mocking daylight, and proudly answered its challenge? Klaus
+Heinrich looked sideways at his father.... The condition of the rooms
+did not seem to worry him. Never of more than medium height, the Grand
+Duke had become almost small in the course of years, but he strode
+majestically on with head thrown back, the lemon-coloured ribbon of the
+Order over his general's uniform, which he had donned to-day, though he
+had no military leanings. From under his high and bald forehead and grey
+eyebrows, his blue eyes, with dull rings round them, were fixed with
+weary dignity on the distance, and from his pointed white moustaches the
+two deep furrows ran down his yellowish skin to his beard, imparting to
+his face a look of contempt. No, the bright daylight could not do any
+harm to the rooms; the dilapidations did not in the least impair their
+dignity, they rather increased it. They stood in their discomfort, their
+theatrical symmetry, their strange musty play-house or church
+atmosphere, cold and indifferent to the merry and sun-bathed world
+outside--stern background of a pompous cult, at which Klaus Heinrich
+this day for the first time officiated.
+
+The procession passed through the pairs of lackeys, who, with an
+expression of relentlessness, pressed their lips together and closed
+their eyes, into the white and gold expanse of the Throne-room. A wave
+of acts of homage, scrapings, bows, curtseys and salutes, swept through
+the hall as the procession passed in front of the assembled guests.
+There were diplomats with their wives, nobility of the Court and the
+country, the corps of officers of the capital, the Ministers, amongst
+whom could be descried the affected, confident face of the new Finance
+Minister, Dr. Krippenreuther, the Knights of the Great Order of the
+Grimmburg Griffin, the Presidents of the Diet, dignitaries of all kinds.
+High up in the little box above the big looking-glass by the entrance
+door could be descried the press representatives peering over each
+other's shoulders and busily writing in their notebooks.... In front of
+the throne-baldachin, itself a torn velvet arrangement, crowned with
+ostrich feathers and framed with gold fillets which would have been all
+the better for a touch-up, the procession divided as in a polonaise, and
+went through carefully prescribed evolutions.
+
+The pages and chamberlains fell aside to right and left. Herr von Bühl,
+his face turned to the throne and his staff uplifted, stepped backwards
+and stood still in the middle of the hall. The Grand Ducal pair and
+their children walked up the rounded, red-carpeted steps to the
+capacious gilded chairs which stood at the top. The remaining members of
+the House, with the foreign princes, ranged themselves on both sides of
+the throne; behind them stood the suite, the maids of honour and the
+grooms of the chambers, and the pages stood on the steps. At a gesture
+from Johann Albrecht, Herr von Knobelsdorff, who had previously taken up
+his stand over against the throne, advanced straight to the
+velvet-covered table, which stood by the side of the steps, and began at
+once to read from various documents the official formalities.
+
+Klaus Heinrich was declared to be of age and fit and entitled to wear
+the crown, should necessity require it--every eye was turned on him at
+this place, and at his Royal Highness Albrecht, his elder brother, who
+stood close to him. The Heir Apparent was wearing the uniform of a
+captain in the Hussar regiment which was called by his name. From his
+silver-laced collar stretched an unmilitary width of civil stand-up
+collar, and on it rested his fine, shrewd, and delicate head, with its
+long skull and narrow temples, the straw-coloured moustache on the upper
+lip, and the blue, lonely-looking eyes which had seen death. He looked
+not in the least like a cavalry officer, yet so slender and
+unapproachably aristocratic that Klaus Heinrich, with his national
+cheek-bones, looked almost coarse beside him. The Heir Apparent pursed
+up his lips when everybody looked at him, protruded his short rounded
+underlip, and sucked it lightly against the upper one.
+
+Several of the country's orders were bestowed on the Prince who had just
+come of age, including the Albrecht Cross and the Great Order of the
+Grimmburg Griffin, not to mention that he was confirmed in the House
+Order whose insignia he had possessed since his tenth birthday.
+Afterwards came the congratulations in the form of a processional Court,
+led by the fawning Herr von Bühl, after which the gala-breakfast began
+in the Marble Hall and in the hall of the Twelve Months.
+
+The foreign princes were entertained for the next few days. A
+garden-party was given in Hollerbrunn, with fireworks and dancing for
+the young people of the Court in the park. Festive excursions with pages
+in attendance were made through the sunny country-side to Monbrillant,
+Jägerpreis, and Haderstein Ruins, and the people, that inferior order of
+creation with the searching eyes and the high cheek-bones, stood on the
+kerb and cheered themselves and their representatives. In the capital
+Klaus Heinrich's photograph hung in the windows of the art-dealers, and
+the _Courier_ actually published a printed likeness of him, a popular
+and strangely idealized representation, showing the Prince in the
+crimson mantle. But then came yet another great day--Klaus Heinrich's
+formal entry into the Army, into the regiment of Grenadier Guards.
+
+This is what happened. The regiment to which fell the honour of having
+Klaus Heinrich as one of its officers was drawn up on the Albrechtsplatz
+in open square. Many a plume waved in the middle. The princes of the
+House and the generals were all present. The public, a black mass
+against the gay background, crowded behind the barriers. Cameras were
+levelled in several places at the scene of action. The Grand Duchess,
+with the princesses and their ladies, watched the show from the windows
+of the Old Schloss.
+
+First of all, Klaus Heinrich, dressed as a lieutenant, reported himself
+formally to the Grand Duke. He advanced sternly, without the shadow of a
+smile, towards his father, clapped his heels together and humbly
+acquainted him with his presence. The Grand Duke thanked him briefly,
+also without a smile, and then in his turn, followed by his
+aides-de-camp, advanced in his dress uniform and plumed hat into the
+square. Klaus Heinrich stood before the lowered colours, an embroidered,
+golden, and half-tattered piece of silk cloth, and took the oath. The
+Grand Duke made a speech in detached sentences and the sharp voice of
+command which he reserved for such occasions, in which he called his son
+"Your Grand Ducal Highness" and publicly clasped the Prince's hand. The
+Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, with crimson cheeks, led a cheer for
+the Grand Duke in which the guests, the regiment, and the public joined.
+A march past followed, and the whole ended with a military luncheon in
+the castle.
+
+This picturesque ceremony in the Albrechtsplatz was without practical
+significance; its effect began and ended there. Klaus Heinrich never
+dreamed of going into garrison, but went the very same day with his
+parents and brother and sister to Hollerbrunn, to pass the summer there
+in the cool old French rooms on the river, between the wall-like hedges
+of the park, and then, in the autumn, to go up to the university. For so
+it was ordained in the programme of his life; in the autumn he went up
+to the university for a year, not that of the capital, but the second
+one of the country, accompanied by Doctor Ueberbein, his tutor.
+
+The appointment of this young savant as mentor was once more
+attributable to an express, ardent wish of the Prince, and indeed, as
+far as the choice of tutor and older companions was concerned, whom
+Klaus Heinrich was to have at his side during this year of student
+freedom, it was considered necessary to give a reasonable amount of
+consideration to his expressed wishes. Yet there was much to be said
+against this choice; it was unpopular, or at least criticized aloud or
+in whispers in many quarters.
+
+Raoul Ueberbein was not loved in the capital. Due respect was paid to
+his medal for life-saving and to all his feverish energy, but the man
+was no genial fellow-citizen, no jolly comrade, no blameless official.
+The most charitable saw in him an oddity with a determined and
+uncomfortably reckless disposition, who recognized no Sunday, no
+holiday, no relaxation, and did not understand being a man amongst men
+after work was done. This natural son of an adventuress had worked his
+way up from the depths of society, from an obscure and prospectless
+youth without means, by dint of sheer strength of will, to being, first
+school teacher, then academic professor, then university lecturer, had
+lived to see his appointment--had "engineered" it, as many said--to the
+"Pheasantry" as teacher of a Grand Ducal Prince, and yet he knew no
+rest, no contentment, no comfortable enjoyment of life.... But life, as
+every decent man, thinking of Doctor Ueberbein, truly observed, life
+does not consist only of profession and performance, it has its purely
+human claims and duties, the neglect of which is a greater sin than the
+display of some measure of joviality towards oneself and one's fellows
+in the sphere of one's work, and only that personality can be considered
+a harmonious one which succeeds in giving its due to each part,
+profession and human feelings, life and performance.
+
+Ueberbein's lack of any sense of camaraderie was bound to tell against
+him. He avoided all social intercourse with his colleagues, and his
+circle of friends was confined to the person of one man of another
+scientific sphere, a surgeon and children's specialist with the
+unsympathetic name of Sammet, a very popular surgeon to boot, who shared
+certain characteristics with Ueberbein. But it was only very rarely--and
+then only as a sort of favour--that he turned up at the club where the
+teachers gathered after the day's work and worry, for a glass of beer, a
+rubber, or a free exchange of views on public and personal
+questions--but he passed his evenings, and, as his landlady reported,
+also a great part of the night, working at science in his study, while
+his complexion grew greener and greener, and his eyes showed more and
+more clearly signs of overstrain.
+
+The authorities had been moved, shortly after his return from the
+"Pheasantry," to promote him to head master. Where was he going to stop?
+At Director? High-school Professor? Minister for Education? Everybody
+agreed that his immoderate and restless energy concealed imprudence and
+defiance of public opinion--or rather did not conceal them. His
+demeanour, his loud, blustering mode of speaking annoyed, irritated, and
+exasperated people. His tone towards members of the teaching profession
+who were older and in higher positions than himself was not what it
+should be. He treated everybody, from the Director down to the humblest
+usher, in a fatherly way, and his habit of talking of himself as of a
+man who had "knocked about," of gassing about "Fate and Duty," and
+thereby displaying his benevolent contempt for all those who "weren't
+obliged to" and "smoked cigars in the morning," showed conceit pure and
+simple. His pupils adored him; he achieved remarkable results with them,
+that was agreed. But on the whole the Doctor had many enemies in the
+town, more than he ever guessed, and the misgiving that his influence on
+the Prince might be an undesirable one was put into words in at least
+one portion of the daily press....
+
+Anyhow Ueberbein obtained leave from the Latin school, and went first of
+all alone, in the capacity of billeter, on a visit to the famous student
+town, within whose walls Klaus Heinrich was destined to pass the year of
+his apprenticeship, and on his return he was received in audience by
+Excellency von Knobelsdorff, the Minister of the Grand Ducal House, to
+receive the usual instructions. Their tenour was that almost the most
+important object of this year was to establish traditions of comradeship
+on the common ground of academic freedom between the Prince and the
+student corps, especially in the interests of the dynasty--the
+regulation phrases, which Herr von Knobelsdorff rattled off almost
+casually, and which Doctor Ueberbein listened to with a silent bow,
+while he drew his mouth, and with it his red beard, a little to one
+side. Then followed Klaus Heinrich's departure with his mentor, a
+dogcart and a servant or two, for the university.
+
+A glorious year, full of the charm of artistic freedom, in the public
+eye and in the mirror of public report--yet without technical importance
+of any kind. Misgivings which had been felt in some quarters that Doctor
+Ueberbein, through mistaking and misunderstanding the position, might
+worry the Prince with excessive demands in the direction of objective
+science, proved unfounded. On the contrary, it was obvious that the
+doctor quite realized the difference between his own earnest, and his
+pupil's exalted, sphere of existence. On the other hand (whether it was
+the mentor's or the Prince's own fault does not matter) the freedom and
+the unconstrained camaraderie, like the instruction, were interpreted in
+a very relative and symbolical sense so that neither the one nor the
+other, neither the knowledge nor the freedom, could be said to be the
+essence and peculiarity of the year. Its essence and peculiarity were
+rather, as it appeared, the year in itself, as the embodiment of custom
+and impressive ceremoniousness, to which Klaus Heinrich deferred, just
+as he had deferred to the theatrical rites on his last birthday--only
+now not with a purple cloak, but occasionally wearing a coloured
+student's cap, the so-called "Stürmer," in which he was portrayed in a
+photograph issued at once by the _Courier_ to its readers.
+
+As to his studies, his matriculation was not marked by any particular
+festivities, though some reference was made to the honour which Klaus
+Heinrich's admission bestowed on the university, and the lectures he
+attended began with the address: "Grand Ducal Highness!" He drove in his
+dogcart with a groom from the pretty green-clad villa, which the Marshal
+of his father's household had leased for him in a select and not too
+expensive square, amid the remarks and greetings of the passers-by, to
+the lectures, and there he sat with the consciousness that the whole
+thing was unessential and unnecessary for his exalted calling, yet with
+a show of courteous attention.
+
+Charming anecdotes of the signs the Prince gave of interest in the
+lectures went about and had their due effect. Towards the end of one
+course on Nature Study (for Klaus Heinrich attended these courses also
+"for general information") the Professor, by way of illustration, had
+filled a metal shell with water and announced that the water, when
+frozen, would burst the shell by expansion; he promised to show the
+class the pieces next lecture. Now he had not kept his word on this
+point at the next lecture, probably out of forgetfulness: the broken
+shell had not been forthcoming--Klaus Heinrich had therefore inquired as
+to the result of the experiment. He had joined in asking questions of
+the professor at the end of the lecture, just like any ordinary student,
+and had modestly asked him: "Has the bomb burst?"--whereupon the
+Professor, full of embarrassment at first, had then expressed his thanks
+with glad surprise, and indeed emotion, for the kind interest the Prince
+had expressed in his lectures.
+
+Klaus Heinrich was honorary member of a student's club--only honorary,
+because he was not allowed to fight duels--and once or twice attended
+their wines, his Stürmer on his head. But since his guardians were well
+aware that the results the influence of strong drink had on his highly
+strung and delicate temperament were absolutely irreconcilable with his
+exalted calling, he did not dare to drink seriously, and his comrades
+were obliged on this point too to bear his Highness in mind. Their rude
+customs were judiciously limited to a casual one or two, the general
+tone was as exemplary as it used to be in the upper form at school, the
+songs they sang were old ones of real poetry, and the meetings were, as
+a whole, gala and parade nights, refined editions of the ordinary ones.
+The use of Christian names was the bond of union between Klaus Heinrich
+and his corps brothers, as the expression and basis of spontaneous
+comradeship. But it was generally observed that this use sounded false
+and artificial, however great the efforts to make it otherwise, and that
+the students were always falling back unintentionally into the form of
+address which took due notice of the Prince's Highness.
+
+Such was the effect of his presence, of his friendly, alert, and always
+uncompromising attitude which sometimes produced strange, even comical
+phenomena in the demeanour of the persons with whom the Prince came into
+contact. One evening, at a soirée which one of his professors gave, he
+engaged a guest in conversation--a fat man of some age, a King's Counsel
+by his title, who, despite his social importance, enjoyed the reputation
+of a great roué and a regular old sinner. The conversation, whose
+subject is a matter of no consequence and indeed would be difficult to
+specify, lasted for a considerable time because no opportunity of
+breaking it off presented itself. And suddenly, in the middle of his
+talk with the Prince, the barrister whistled--whistled with his thick
+lips one of those pointless sequences of notes which one utters when one
+is embarrassed and wants to appear at one's ease, and then tried to
+cover his comic breach of manners by clearing his throat and coughing.
+Klaus Heinrich was accustomed to experiences of that kind, and tactfully
+passed on.
+
+If at any time he wanted to make a purchase himself and went into a
+shop, his entrance caused a kind of panic. He would ask for what he
+wanted, a button perhaps, but the girl would not understand him, would
+look dazed, and unable to fix her attention on the button, but obviously
+absorbed by something else--something outside and above her duties as a
+shop-assistant--she would drop a few things, turn the boxes upside down
+in obvious helplessness, and it was all Klaus Heinrich could do to
+restore her composure by his friendly manner.
+
+Such, as I have said, was the effect of his attitude, and in the city it
+was often described as arrogance and blameworthy contempt for
+fellow-creatures--others roundly denied the arrogance, and Doctor
+Ueberbein, when the subject was broached to him at a social gathering,
+would put the question, whether "every inducement to contempt for his
+fellow-creatures being readily conceded," any such contempt really was
+possible in a case like the present of complete detachment from all the
+activities of ordinary men. Indeed, any remark of that kind he met in
+his unanswerable blustering way by the assertion that the Prince not
+only did not despise his fellow-creatures, but respected even the most
+worthless of them, only considered them all the more sound, serious, and
+good for the way in which the poor over-taxed and over-strained man in
+the street earned his living by the sweat of his brow....
+
+The society of the university town had no time to reach a definite
+verdict on the question. The year of student life was over before one
+could turn round, and Klaus Heinrich returned, as prescribed by the
+programme of his life, to his father's palace, there, despite his left
+arm, to pass a full year in serious military service. He was attached to
+the Dragoons of the Guard for six months, and directed the taking up of
+intervals of eight paces for lance-exercises as well as the forming of
+squares, as if he were a serious soldier; then changed his weapon and
+transferred to the Grenadier Guards, so as to get an insight into
+infantry work also. It fell to him to march to the Schloss and change
+the Guard--an evolution which attracted large crowds. He came swiftly
+out of the Guard-room, his star on his breast, placed himself with drawn
+sword on the flank of the company and gave not quite correct orders,
+which, however, did not matter, as his stout soldiers executed the right
+movements all the same.
+
+On guest-nights, too, at head-quarters, he sat on the colonel's right
+hand, and by his presence prevented the officers from unhooking their
+uniform collars and playing cards after dinner. After this, being now
+twenty years old, he started on an "educational tour"--no longer in the
+company of Doctor Ueberbein, but in that of a military attendant and
+courier, Captain von Braunbart-Schellendorf of the Guards, a fair-haired
+officer who was destined to be Klaus Heinrich's aide-de-camp, and to
+whom the tour gave an opportunity of establishing himself on a footing
+of intimacy and influence with him.
+
+Klaus Heinrich did not see much in his educational tour, which took him
+far afield, and was keenly followed by the _Courier_. He visited the
+courts, introduced himself to the sovereigns, attended gala dinners with
+Captain von Braunbart, and on his departure received one of the
+country's superior Orders. He took a look at such sights as Captain von
+Braunbart (who also received several Orders) chose for him, and the
+_Courier_ reported from time to time that the Prince had expressed his
+admiration of a picture, a museum, or a building to the director or
+curator who happened to be his cicerone. He travelled apart, protected
+and supported by the chivalrous precautions of Captain von Braunbart,
+who kept the purse, and to whose devoted zeal was due the fact that not
+one of Klaus Heinrich's trunks was missing at the end of the journey.
+
+A couple of words, no more, may be devoted to an interlude, which had
+for scene a big city in a neighbouring kingdom, and was brought about by
+Captain von Braunbart with all due circumspection. The Captain had a
+friend in this city, a bachelor nobleman and a cavalry captain, who was
+on terms of intimacy with a young lady member of the theatrical world,
+an accommodating and at the same time trustworthy young person. In
+pursuance of an agreement by letter between Captain von Braunbart and
+his friend, Klaus Heinrich was thrown in contact with the damsel at her
+home--suitably arranged for the purpose--and the acquaintance allowed to
+develop _à deux_. Thus an expressly foreseen item in the educational
+tour was conscientiously realized, without Klaus Heinrich being involved
+in more than a casual acquaintance. The damsel received a memento for
+her services, and Captain von Braunbart's friend a decoration. So the
+incident closed.
+
+Klaus Heinrich also visited the fair Southern lands, incognito, under a
+romantic-sounding title. There he would sit, alone, perhaps for a
+quarter of an hour, dressed in a suit of irreproachable cut, among other
+foreigners on a white restaurant terrace looking over a dark-blue sea,
+and it might happen that somebody at another table would notice him, and
+try, in the manner of tourists, to engage him in conversation. What
+could he be, that quiet and self-possessed-looking young man? People ran
+over the various spheres of life, tried to fit him into the merchant,
+the military, the student class. But they never felt that they had got
+it quite right--they felt his Highness, but nobody guessed it.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+ALBRECHT II
+
+
+Grand Duke Johann Albrecht died of a terrible illness, which had
+something naked and abstract about it, and to which no other name but
+just that of death could be given. It seemed as if death, sure of its
+prey, in this case disdained any mask or gloss, and came on the scene as
+its very self, as dissolution by and for itself. What actually happened
+was a decomposition of the blood, caused by internal hæmorrhages; and an
+exploratory operation, which was conducted by the Director of the
+University Hospital, a famous surgeon, could not arrest the corroding
+progress of the gangrene. The end soon came, all the sooner that Johann
+Albrecht made little resistance to the approach of death. He showed
+signs of an unutterable weariness, and often remarked to his attendants,
+as well as to the surgeons attending him, that he was "dead sick of the
+whole thing"--meaning, of course, his princely existence, his exalted
+life in the glare of publicity. His cheek-furrows, those two lines of
+arrogance and boredom, resolved in his last days into an exaggerated,
+grotesque grimace, and continued thus until death smoothed them out.
+
+The Grand Duke's illness fell in the winter. Albrecht, the Heir
+Apparent, called away from his warm dry resort, arrived in snowy wet
+weather, which was as bad for his health as it could be. His brother,
+Klaus Heinrich, interrupted his educational tour, which was anyhow
+nearing its close, and returned with Captain von Braunbart-Schellendorf
+in all haste from the fair land of the South to the capital. Besides the
+two prince-sons, the Grand Duchess Dorothea, the Princesses Catherine
+and Ditlinde, Prince Lambert without his lovely wife--the surgeons in
+attendance and Prahl the valet-de-chambre waited at the bedside, while
+the Court officials and Ministers on duty were collected in the
+adjoining room. If credence might be given to the assertions of the
+servants, the ghostly noise in the "Owl Chamber" had been exceptionally
+loud in the last weeks and days. According to them it was a rattling and
+a shaking noise, which recurred periodically, and whose meaning could
+not be distinguished outside the room.
+
+Johann Albrecht's last act of Highness consisted in giving with his own
+hand to the professor, who had performed the useless operation with the
+greatest skill, his patent of nomination to the Privy Council. He was
+terribly exhausted, "sick of the whole thing," and his consciousness
+even in his more lucid moments was not at all clear; but he carried out
+the act with scrupulous care and made a ceremony of it. He had himself
+propped up, made a few alterations, shading his eyes with his
+wax-coloured hands, in the chance disposition of those present, ordered
+his sons to place themselves on both sides of his canopied bed--and
+while his soul was already tugging at her moorings, and floating here
+and there on unknown currents, he composed his features with mechanical
+skill into his smile of graciousness for the handing of the diploma to
+the Professor, who had left the room for a short time.
+
+Quite towards the end, when the dissolution had already attacked the
+brain, the Grand Duke made one wish clear, which, though scarcely
+understood, was hastily complied with, although its fulfilment could not
+do the slightest good to the Grand Duke. Certain words, apparently
+disconnected, kept recurring in the murmurings of the sick man. He named
+several stuffs, silk, satin, and brocade, mentioned Prince Klaus
+Heinrich, used a technical expression in medicine, and said something
+about an Order, the Albrecht Cross of the Third Class with Crown.
+Between whiles one caught quite ordinary remarks, which apparently
+referred to the dying man's princely calling, and sounded like
+"extraordinary obligation" and "comfortable majority"; then the
+descriptions of the stuffs began again, to which was appended in a
+louder voice the word "Sammet."(1) At last it was realized that the
+Grand Duke wanted Doctor Sammet to be called in, the doctor who had
+happened to be present at the Grimmburg at the time of Klaus Heinrich's
+birth, twenty years before, and had, for a long time now, been
+practising in the capital.
+
+  (1) _I.e._, velvet.
+
+The doctor was really a children's doctor, but he was summoned and came:
+already nearly grey on the temples, with a drooping moustache,
+surmounted by a nose which was rather too flat at the bottom,
+clean-shaven otherwise and with cheeks rather sore from shaving. With
+head on one side, his hand on his watch-chain, and elbows close to his
+sides, he examined the situation, and began at once to busy himself in a
+practical, gentle way about his exalted patient, whereat the latter
+expressed his satisfaction in no uncertain fashion. Thus it was that it
+fell to Doctor Sammet to administer the last injections to the Grand
+Duke, with his supporting hand to ease the final spasms, and to be, more
+than any of the other doctors, his helper in death--a distinction which
+indeed provoked some secret irritation amongst the others, but on the
+other hand resulted in the doctor's appointment shortly afterwards to
+the vacancy in the important post of Director and Chief Physician of the
+"Dorothea," a Children's Hospital, in which capacity he was destined
+later to play some part in certain developments.
+
+So died Johann Albrecht the Third, uttering his last sigh on a winter's
+night. The old castle was brightly illuminated while he was passing
+away. The stern furrows of boredom were smoothed out in his face, and,
+relieved of any exertion on his own part, he was subjected to
+formalities which surrounded him for the last time, carried him along,
+and made his wax-like shell just once more the focus and object of
+theatrical rites.... Herr von Bühl zu Bühl showed his usual energy in
+organizing the funeral, which was attended by many princely guests. The
+gloomy ceremonies, the different exposures and identifications,
+corpse-parades, blessings, and memorial services at the catafalque took
+days to complete, and Johann Albrecht's corpse was for eight hours
+exposed to public view, surrounded by a guard of honour consisting of
+two colonels, two first lieutenants, two cavalry sergeants, two infantry
+sergeants, two corporals, and two chamberlains.
+
+Then at last came the moment when the zinc shell was brought by eight
+lackeys from the altar recess of the Court Church, where it had been on
+show between crape-covered candelabra and six-foot candles, to the
+entry-hall, placed by eight foresters in the mahogany coffin, carried by
+eight Grenadier Guardsmen to the six-horsed and black-draped hearse,
+which set off for the mausoleum amidst cannon salvos and the tolling of
+bells. The flags hung heavy with rain from the middle of their poles.
+Although it was early morning, the gas-lamps were burning in the streets
+along which the funeral was to pass. Johann Albrecht's bust was
+displayed amongst mourning decorations in the shop-windows, and
+postcards with the portrait of the deceased ruler, which were everywhere
+for sale, were in great demand. Behind the rows of troops, the gymnastic
+clubs, and veteran associations which kept the road, stood the people on
+tiptoe in the snow-brash and gazed with bowed heads at the slowly
+passing coffin, preceded by the wreath-bearing lackeys, the Court
+officials, the bearers of the insignia and Dom Wislezenus, the Court
+preacher, and covered with a silver-worked pall, whose corners were held
+by Lord Marshal von Bühl, Master of the Royal Hunt von Stieglitz,
+Adjutant-General Count Schmettern, and Minister of the Household von
+Knobelsdorff.
+
+By the side of his brother Klaus Heinrich, immediately behind the
+charger which was led in rear of the hearse, and at the head of the
+other mourners, walked Grand Duke Albrecht II. His clothes, the tall
+stiff plume in the front of his busby, the long boots under his gaudy,
+ample Hussar's pelisse, with the crape band, did not become him. He
+walked as if embarrassed by the eyes of the crowd, and his
+shoulder-blades, naturally rather crooked, were twisted in an awkward
+nervous way as he walked. Repugnance at having to be chief actor in this
+funeral pomp was clearly written on his pale face. He did not raise his
+eyes as he walked, and he sucked his short rounded lower lip against the
+upper....
+
+His demeanour remained the same during the Curialia accompanying his
+accession, which were so arranged as to spare him as much as possible.
+The Grand Duke signed the oath in the Silver Hall of the Gala Rooms
+before the assembled Ministers, and read aloud in the Throne-room,
+standing in front of the rounded chair under the baldachin, the Speech
+from the Throne, which Herr von Knobelsdorff had drawn up. The economic
+condition of the country was touched upon in it with earnestness and
+delicacy, while appreciative mention was made of the unanimity which
+despite all troubles existed between the princes and the country--at
+which place a prominent functionary, who was apparently discontented
+about promotion, was said to have whispered to his neighbour that the
+unanimity consisted in the Prince being as deeply in debt as the
+country--a caustic remark which was much repeated, and ended by getting
+into hostile newspapers.... To end up, the President of the Landtag
+called for a cheer for the Grand Duke, a service was held in the Court
+Chapel, and that was all.
+
+Further, Albrecht signed an edict, by virtue of which a number of
+sentences of fines and imprisonment, which had been imposed for the less
+serious misdemeanours, chiefly infringement of the forest laws, were
+remitted. The solemn procession through the city and the acclamation in
+the Town Hall were omitted altogether, as the Grand Duke felt too tired
+for them. Having been a captain hitherto, he was promoted on the
+occasion of his accession at once to the colonelcy _à la suite_ of his
+Hussar regiment, but scarcely ever put the uniform on, and kept as far
+away as possible from his sphere as a soldier. He made no change
+whatever in his staff, perhaps out of respect to his father's memory,
+either among the Court appointments or in the Ministry.
+
+The public saw him but rarely. His proud and bashful disinclination to
+show himself, to put himself forward, to allow others to acclaim him,
+was so clearly shown from the very beginning as to shock public opinion.
+He never appeared in the large box at the Court Theatre. He never took
+part in the park parade. When in residence at the Old Schloss, he had
+himself driven in a closed carriage to a remote and empty part of the
+suburbs, where he got out to take a little exercise; and in the summer
+at Hollerbrunn he only left the hedged walks of the parks on exceptional
+occasions.
+
+Did the people catch a glimpse of him--at the Albrechtstor it might be,
+when wrapped in his heavy fur coat, which his father had worn before
+him, and on whose thick collar his delicate head now rested, he stepped
+into his carriage--timid glances were levelled at him, and the cheering
+was faint and hesitating. For the lower classes felt that with a prince
+like this there could be no question of cheering him and thereby
+cheering themselves at the same time. They looked at him, and did not
+recognize themselves in him; his refined superiority made it clear that
+they were of different clay from his. And they were not accustomed to
+that. Was there not a commissionaire posted in the Albrechtsplatz that
+very day, who with his high cheek-bones and grey whiskers looked a
+coarse and homely replica of the late Grand Duke? And did one not
+similarly meet with Prince Klaus Heinrich's features in the lower
+classes?
+
+It was not so with his brother. The people could not see in him an
+idealized version of themselves, whom it could make them happy to
+cheer--as it meant cheering themselves too! the Grand Duke's
+Highness--his undoubted Highness!--was a nobility of the usual kind,
+undomestic, and without the stamp of the graciousness which inspires
+confidence. He too knew that; and the consciousness of his Highness,
+together with that of his want of popular graciousness, were quite
+enough to account for his shyness and haughtiness. He began already to
+delegate as far as possible his duties to Prince Klaus Heinrich. He sent
+him to open the new spring at Immenstadt and to the historical
+town-pageant at Butterburg. Indeed, his contempt for any exhibition of
+his princely person went so far that Herr von Knobelsdorff had the
+greatest difficulty in persuading him to receive the Presidents of the
+two Chambers in the Throne-room himself, and not, "for reasons of
+health," as he was minded, to give place to his brother on this solemn
+occasion.
+
+Albrecht II lived a lonely life in the Old Schloss; that was unavoidable
+in the nature of things. In the first place, Prince Klaus Heinrich,
+since Johann Albrecht's death, kept a Court of his own. That was
+demanded by etiquette, and he had been given the "Hermitage" as a
+residence, that Empire Schloss on the fringe of the northern suburbs,
+which, reposeful and charming, but long uninhabited and neglected, in
+the middle of its overgrown park next the Town Gardens, looked down on
+its little mud-thick pond. Some time ago, when Albrecht came of age, the
+"Hermitage" had been freshened up and for form's sake destined to be the
+Heir Apparent's palace; but as Albrecht had always come in summer
+straight from his warm, dry foreign resort to Hollerbrunn, he had never
+used his palace....
+
+Klaus Heinrich lived there without unnecessary expense, with one
+major-domo, who superintended the household, a Baron von
+Schulenburg-Tressen, nephew of the Mistress of the Robes. Besides his
+valet, Neumann, he had two other lackeys for his daily needs; he
+borrowed the game-keeper when necessary for ceremonial shoots, from the
+Grand Duke's Court. One coachman and a couple of grooms in red
+waistcoats looked after the carriages and horses, which consisted of one
+pony-cart, one brougham, one dog-cart, two riding and two carriage
+horses. One gardener, helped by two boys, looked after the park and the
+garden; and one cook with her kitchen-maid, as well as two chambermaids,
+made up the female staff of the "Hermitage."
+
+It was Court Marshal von Schulenburg's business to keep his young
+master's establishment going on the apanage which the Landtag, after
+Albrecht's accession, had voted the Grand Duke's brother after a serious
+debate. It amounted to two thousand five hundred pounds. For the sum of
+four thousand pounds, which had been the original demand, had never had
+any prospect of recommending itself to the Landtag, and so a wise and
+magnanimous act of self-denial had been credited to Klaus Heinrich,
+which had made an excellent impression in the country. Every winter Herr
+von Schulenburg sold the ice from the pond. He had the hay in the park
+mowed twice every summer and sold. After the harvests the surface of the
+fields looked almost like English turf.
+
+Further, Dorothea, the Dowager Grand Duchess, no longer lived in the Old
+Schloss, and the causes of her retirement were both sad and
+uncomfortable. For she too, the Princess whom the much-travelled Herr
+von Knobelsdorff had described more than once as one of the most
+beautiful women he had ever seen, the Princess whose radiant smiles had
+evoked joy, enthusiasm, and cheers whenever she had shown herself to the
+longing gaze of the toil-worn masses, she too had had to pay her tribute
+to time. Dorothea had aged, her calm perfection, the admiration and joy
+of everybody, had during recent years withered so fast and steadily that
+the woman in her had been unable to keep pace with the transformation.
+Nothing, no art, no measures, even the painful and repulsive ones, with
+which she tried to stave off decay, had availed to prevent the sweet
+brightness of her deep blue eyes from fading, rings of loose yellow skin
+from forming under them, the wonderful little dimples in her cheeks from
+turning into furrows, and her proud and hard mouth from looking drawn
+and bitter.
+
+But since her heart had been hard as her beauty, and had been absorbed
+in that beauty, since her beauty had been her very soul and she had had
+no wish, no love, beyond the effect of that beauty on the hearts of
+others, while her own heart never beat the faster for anything or
+anyone, she was now disconsolate and lost, could not accommodate herself
+to the change and rebelled against it. Surgeon-General Eschrich said
+something about mental disturbance resulting from an unusually quick
+climacteric, and his opinion was undoubtedly correct in a sense. The sad
+truth at any rate was that Dorothea during the last years of her
+husband's life had already shown signs of profound mental disturbance
+and trouble.
+
+She became light-shy, gave orders that at the Thursday concerts in the
+Marble Hall all the lights should be shaded red, and flew into a passion
+because she could not have the same thing done at all other festivities,
+the Court Ball, the Private Ball, the Dinner Party, and the Great Court,
+as the kind of twilight feeling in the Marble Hall had been enough by
+itself to call forth many cutting remarks. She spent whole days before
+her looking-glasses, and it was noticed that she fondled with her hands
+those which for some reason or other reflected her image in a more
+favourable light. Then again she had all the looking-glasses removed
+from her rooms, and those fixed in the wall draped, went to bed and
+prayed for death.
+
+One day Baroness von Schulenburg found her quite distracted and feverish
+with weeping in the Hall of the Twelve Months before the big portrait
+which represented her at the height of her beauty.... At the same time a
+diseased misanthropy began to take possession of her, and both Court and
+people were distressed to notice how the bearing of this erstwhile
+goddess began to lose its assurance, her deportment became strangely
+awkward, and a pitiful look came into her eyes.
+
+At last she shut herself up altogether, and, at the last Court Ball he
+attended, Johann Albrecht had escorted his sister Catherine instead of
+his "indisposed Consort." His death was from one point of view a release
+for Dorothea, as it relieved her from all her duties as a sovereign. She
+chose as dower-house Schloss Segenhaus, a monastic-looking old
+hunting-seat, which lay in a solemn park about one and a half hour's
+drive from the capital, and had been decorated by some pious old
+sportsman with religious and sporting emblems curiously intermixed.
+There she lived, eclipsed and odd, and excursionists could often watch
+her from afar, walking in the park with Baroness von Schulenburg-Tressen,
+and bowing graciously to the trees on each side of the path.
+
+Lastly, Princess Ditlinde had married at the age of twenty, one year
+after her father's death. She bestowed her hand on a prince of a
+mediatised house, Prince Philipp zu Ried-Hohenried, a no longer young,
+but well-preserved, cultured little man of advanced views, who paid her
+flattering attentions for some considerable time, did all his courting
+at first-hand, and offered the Princess his heart and hand in an honest
+bourgeois way at a charity function.
+
+It would be wrong to say that this alliance evoked wild enthusiasm in
+the country. It was received with indifference; it disappointed. It is
+true, more ambitious hopes had been secretly entertained for Johann
+Albrecht's daughter, and all the critics could say was that the marriage
+could not be called a _mésalliance_ in so many words. It was a fact that
+Ditlinde, in giving her hand to the Prince--which she did of her own
+free will, and quite uninfluenced by others--had undoubtedly descended
+out of her sphere of Highness into a more free and human atmosphere. Her
+noble spouse was not only a lover and collector of oil paintings, but
+also a business man and tradesman on a large scale.
+
+The dynasty had ceased to exercise any sovereign right hundreds of years
+ago, but Philipp was the first of his house to make up his mind to
+exploit his private means in a natural way. After spending his youth in
+travelling, he had looked around for a sphere of activity which would
+keep him busy and contented, and at the same time (a matter of
+necessity) would increase his income. So he launched out into various
+enterprises, started farms, a brewery, a sugar factory, several
+saw-mills on his property, and began to exploit his extensive peat
+deposits in a methodical way. As he brought expert knowledge and sound
+business instincts to all his enterprises, they soon began to pay, and
+returned profits which, if their origin was not very princely, at any
+rate provided him with the means of leading a princely existence which
+he would otherwise not have had.
+
+On the other hand the critics might have been asked what sort of a match
+they could expect for their Princess, if they viewed the matter soberly.
+Ditlinde, who brought her husband scarcely anything except an
+inexhaustible store of linen, including dozens of out-of-date and
+useless articles such as night-caps and neckerchiefs, which however by
+hallowed tradition formed part of her trousseau--she by this marriage
+acquired a measure of riches and comfort such as she had never been
+accustomed to at home: and no sacrifice of her affections was necessary
+to pay for them. She took the step into private life with obvious
+contentment and determination, and retained, of the trappings of
+Highness, nothing but her title. She remained on friendly terms with her
+ladies-in-waiting, but divested her relations with them of everything
+which suggested service, and avoided giving her household the character
+of a Court.
+
+That might evoke surprise, especially in a Grimmburg and in Ditlinde in
+particular, but there was no doubt that it was her own choice. The
+couple spent the summer on the princely estates, the winter in the
+capital in the stately palace in the Albrechtstrasse, which Philipp zu
+Ried had inherited; and it was here, not in the Old Schloss, that the
+Grand Ducal family--Klaus Heinrich and Ditlinde, occasionally Albrecht
+as well--met now and again for a confidential talk.
+
+So it happened that one day at the beginning of autumn, not quite two
+years after the death of Johann Albrecht, the _Courier_, well-informed
+as usual, published in its evening edition the news that this afternoon
+his Royal Highness the Grand Duke and his Grand Ducal Highness Prince
+Klaus Heinrich had been to tea with her Grand Ducal Highness the
+Princess zu Ried-Hohenried. That was all. But on that afternoon several
+topics of importance for the future were discussed between the brothers
+and sister.
+
+Klaus Heinrich left the Hermitage shortly before five o'clock. As the
+weather was sunny, he had ordered the dogcart, and the open
+brown-varnished vehicle, clean and shining, if not over-new or smart to
+look at, came slowly up the broad drive of the Schloss, at a quarter to
+five, from the stables, which with their asphalt yard lay in the right
+wing of the home farm. The home farm, yellow-painted, old-fashioned
+buildings of one story, made one long line with, though at some distance
+from, the plain white mansion, the front of which, adorned with laurels
+at regular intervals, faced the muddy pond and the public part of the
+park.
+
+For the front portion of the estate, that which marched with the town
+gardens, was open to pedestrians and light traffic, and all that was
+enclosed was the gently rising flower-garden, at the top of which lay
+the Schloss and the very unkempt park behind, which was divided by
+hedges and fences from the rubbish-encumbered waste ground at the edge
+of the town suburbs. So the cart came up the drive between the pond and
+the home farm, turned through the high garden gates, adorned with lamps
+which had once been gilt, passed on up the drive and waited in front of
+the stiff little laurel-planted terrace which led to the garden-room.
+
+Klaus Heinrich came out a few minutes before five. He wore as usual the
+tight-fitting uniform of a lieutenant of the Grenadier Guards, and his
+sword-hilt hung on his arm. Neumann, in a violet coat whose arms were
+too short, ran in front of him down the steps and with his red barber's
+hands packed his master's folded grey over-coat into the cart. Then,
+while the coachman, his hand to his cockaded hat, inclined a little
+sideways on the box, the valet arranged the light carriage rug over
+Klaus Heinrich's knees and stepped back with a silent bow. The horses
+started off.
+
+Outside the garden gates a few promenaders had collected. They greeted
+Klaus Heinrich, smiling with knitted brows and hats lifted, and Klaus
+Heinrich thanked them by raising his white-gloved right hand to the peak
+of his cap and making a succession of lively nods.
+
+They skirted a piece of waste ground along a birch avenue, whose leaves
+were already turning, and then drove through the suburb, between
+poverty-stricken houses, over unpaved streets, where the ragged children
+left their hoops and tops for a moment to gaze at the carriage with
+curious eyes. Some cried, Hurrah! and ran for a while by the side of the
+carriage, with heads turned towards Klaus Heinrich. The carriage might
+have taken the road by the Spa-gardens; but that through the suburb was
+shorter, and time pressed. Ditlinde was particular on points of
+regularity, and easily put out if anybody disturbed her household
+arrangements by unpunctuality.
+
+Yonder was the Dorothea Children's Hospital of which Doctor Sammet,
+Ueberbein's friend, was the Director; Klaus Heinrich drove by it. And
+then the carriage left the squalid neighbourhood and reached the
+Gartenstrasse, a stately tree-planted avenue, in which lay the houses
+and villas of wealthy citizens, and along which ran the tram-line from
+the Spa Gardens to the centre of the city. The traffic here was fairly
+heavy, and Klaus Heinrich was kept busy answering the greetings which
+met him. Civilians took off their hats and looked from under their
+eyebrows at him, officers on horse and on foot saluted, policemen
+front-turned, and Klaus Heinrich in his corner raised his hand to the
+peak of his cap and thanked on both sides with the well-trained bow and
+smile which were calculated to confirm the people in their feeling of
+participation in his splendid personality.... His way of sitting in his
+carriage was quite peculiar--he did not lean back indolently and
+comfortably in the cushions, but he took just as active a part in the
+motions of the carriage when driving as in those of his horse when
+riding; with hands crossed on his sword hilt and one foot a little
+advanced, he as it were "took" the unevennesses of the ground, and
+accommodated himself to the motion of the badly hung carriage.
+
+The carriage crossed the Albrechtsplatz, left the Old Schloss, with the
+two sentries presenting arms, to the right, followed the Albrechtstrasse
+in the direction of the barracks of the Grenadier Guards and rolled to
+the left into the courtyard of the palace of the Princess of Ried. It
+was a building of regular proportions in the pedantic style, with a
+soaring gable over the main door, festooned _oeils-de-boeuf_ in the
+mezzanine story, high French windows in the first story, and an elegant
+_cour d'honneur_, which was formed by the two one-storied wings and was
+separated from the street by a circular railing, on whose pillars stone
+babies played. But the internal arrangements of the Schloss were, in
+contradistinction to the historical style of its exterior, conceived
+throughout in an up-to-date and comfortable bourgeois taste.
+
+Ditlinde received her brother in a large drawing-room on the first floor
+with several curved sofas in pale green silk; the back part of the room
+was separated from the front by slender pillars, and filled with palms,
+plants in metal bowls, and tables covered with brilliant flowers.
+
+"Good afternoon, Klaus Heinrich," said the Princess. She was delicate
+and thin, and the only luxuriant thing about her was her fair hair,
+which used to lie like ram's horns round her ears and now was dressed in
+thick plaits above her face with its high Grimmburg cheek-bones. She
+wore an indoor dress of soft blue-grey stuff with a white lace collar,
+cut in a point like a breast-plate and fastened at the waist with an
+old-fashioned oval brooch. Blue veins and shadows showed here and there
+through the delicate skin of her face, in the temples, the forehead, at
+the corners of her soft and calm blue eyes. Signs of approaching
+maternity were beginning to show themselves.
+
+"Good afternoon, Ditlinde, you and your flowers!" answered Klaus
+Heinrich, as, clapping his heels together, he bent over her little,
+white, rather over-broad hand. "How they do smell! And the garden's full
+of them, I see."
+
+"Yes," she said, "I love flowers. I have always longed to be able to
+live among quantities of flowers, living, smelling flowers, which I
+could watch growing--it was a kind of secret wish of mine, Klaus
+Heinrich, and I might almost say that I married for flowers, for in the
+Old Schloss, as you know, there were no flowers.... The Old Schloss and
+flowers! We should have had to rummage a lot to find them, I'm sure.
+Rat-traps and such things, plenty of them. And really, when one comes to
+think, the whole thing was like a disused rat-trap, so dusty and horrid
+... ugh!..."
+
+"But the rose-bush, Ditlinde."
+
+"Yes, my goodness--one rose-bush. And that's in the guide-books, because
+its roses smell of decay. And the books say that it will one day smell
+quite natural and nice, just like any other rose. But I can't believe
+it."
+
+"You will soon," he said, and looked at her laughingly, "have something
+better than your flowers to tend, little Ditlinde."
+
+"Yes," she said and blushed lightly and quickly, "yes, Klaus Heinrich, I
+can hardly believe it. And yet it will be so, if God pleases. But come
+over here. We'll have a chat together once more...."
+
+The room, on whose threshold they had been talking, was small in
+comparison with its height, with a grey-blue carpet, and furnished with
+cheery-looking silver-grey furniture, the chairs of which were
+upholstered in blue silk. A milk-white china chandelier hung from the
+white-festooned centre of the ceiling, and the walls were adorned with
+oil paintings of various sizes, acquisitions of Prince Philipp's, light
+studies in the new style, representing white goats in the sun, poultry
+in the sun, sun-bathed meadows and peasants with blinking, sun-sprinkled
+faces.
+
+The spindle-legged secretaire in the white-curtained window was covered
+with a hundred carefully arranged articles, knick-knacks, writing
+materials, and several dainty note-blocks--for the Princess was
+accustomed to make careful and comprehensive notes about all her duties
+and plans. In front of the inkstand a housekeeper's book, in which
+Ditlinde had apparently just been working, lay open, and by the table
+there hung on the wall a little silk-trimmed block-calendar, under the
+printed date of which could be seen the pencil note: "5 o'clock: my
+brothers." Between the sofa and a semicircle of chairs over against the
+white swing doors into the reception room stood an oval table with a
+damask cloth and blue-silk border; the flowered tea-service, a jam-pot,
+long dishes of sweet cakes, and tiny pieces of bread and butter were
+arranged in ordered disorder on it, and to one side steamed the silver
+tea-kettle over its spirit-flame on a glass table. But there were
+flowers everywhere--flowers in the vases on the writing-table, on the
+tea-table, on the glass table, on the china-cabinet, on the table next
+the white sofa, and a flower-table full of flower-pots stood in the
+window.
+
+This room, situated at the side and in a corner of the suite of
+reception rooms, was Ditlinde's cabinet, her boudoir, the room in which
+she used to entertain quite intimate friends and to make tea with her
+own hands. Klaus Heinrich watched her as she washed out the tea-pot with
+hot water and put the tea in with a silver spoon.
+
+"And Albrecht ... is he coming?" he asked with an involuntarily
+restrained voice.
+
+"I hope so," she said, bending attentively over the crystal tea-caddy,
+as if to avoid spilling any tea (and he too avoided looking at her). "I
+have of course asked him, Klaus Heinrich, but you know he cannot bind
+himself. It depends on his health whether he comes. I'm making our tea
+at once, for Albrecht will drink his milk.... Possibly too Jettchen may
+look in for a bit to-day. You will enjoy seeing her again. She's so
+lively, and has always got such a lot to tell us."
+
+"Jettchen" meant Fräulein von Isenschnibbe, the Princess's friend and
+confidant. They had been on Christian-name terms since they were
+children.
+
+"In armour, too, as usual?" said Ditlinde, placing the filled tea-pot on
+its stand and examining her brother. "In uniform as usual, Klaus
+Heinrich?"
+
+He stood with heels together and rubbed his left hand, which was cold,
+on his chest with his right.
+
+"Yes, Ditlinde, I like it, I'd rather. It fits so tight, you see, and it
+braces me up. Besides, it is cheaper, for a proper civil wardrobe runs
+into a terrible lot of money, I believe, and Schulenburg is always going
+on about how dear things are, without that. So I manage with two or
+three coats, and yet can show myself in my rich relations' houses."
+
+"Rich relations!" laughed Ditlinde. "Still some way off that, Klaus
+Heinrich!"
+
+They sat down at the tea-table, Ditlinde on a sofa, Klaus Heinrich on a
+chair opposite the window.
+
+"Rich relations!" she repeated, and the subject obviously excited her.
+"No, far from it; how can we expect to be rich, where cash is so short
+and everything is sunk in various enterprises, Klaus Heinrich? And they
+are young and in the making, they're all in the development stage, as
+dear Philipp says, and won't bear full fruit till others have succeeded
+us. But things are improving, that much is true, and I keep the
+household straight...."
+
+"Yes, Ditlinde, you do keep it straight and no mistake!"
+
+"Keep it straight, and write everything down and look after the
+servants, and after all the payments which one's duty to the world
+demands have been made, there is a nice little sum to put by every year
+for the children. And dear Philipp.... He sends his greetings, Klaus
+Heinrich--I forgot, he's very sorry not to be able to be here to-day....
+We've only just got back from Hohenried, and there he is already under
+way, at his office, on his properties--he's small and delicate
+naturally, but when his peat or his saw-mills are in question he gets
+red cheeks, and he says himself that he has been much better since he
+has had so much to do."
+
+"Does he say so?" asked Klaus Heinrich, and a sad look came into his
+eyes, as he looked straight beyond the flower-table at the bright
+window.... "Yes, I can quite believe that it must be very stimulating to
+be so really splendidly busy. In my park too the meadows have been mowed
+a second time this year already, and I love seeing the hay built up in
+steep heaps with a stick through the middle of each, looking for all the
+world like a camp of little Indians' huts, and then Schulenburg intends
+to sell it. But of course that cannot be compared ..."
+
+"Oh, you!" said Ditlinde, and drew her chin in. "With you it's quite
+different, Klaus Heinrich! The next to the throne! You are called to
+other things, I imagine. My goodness, yes! You enjoy your popularity
+with the people...."
+
+They were silent for a while. Then he said:
+
+"And you, Ditlinde, if I'm not mistaken you're as happy as, even happier
+than, before. I don't say that you have got red cheeks, like Philipp
+from his peat; you always were a bit transparent, and you are still. But
+you look flourishing. I haven't yet asked, since you married, but I
+think there's nothing to worry about in connexion with you."
+
+She sat in an easy position, with her arm lightly folded across her lap.
+
+"Yes," she said, "I'm all right, Klaus Heinrich, your eyes don't deceive
+you, and it would be ungrateful of me not to acknowledge my good
+fortune. You see, I know quite well that many people in the country are
+disappointed by my marriage and say that I have ruined myself, and
+demeaned myself, and so on. And such people are not far to seek, for
+brother Albrecht, as you know as well as I do, in his heart despises my
+dear Philipp and me into the bargain, and can't abide him, and calls him
+privately a tradesman and shopkeeper. But that doesn't bother me, for I
+meant it when I accepted Philipp's hand--seized it, I would say, if it
+didn't sound so wild--accepted it because it was warm and honest, and
+offered to take me away from the Old Schloss. For when I look back and
+think of the Old Schloss and life in it as I should have gone on living
+if it had not been for dear Philipp, I shudder, Klaus Heinrich, and I
+feel that I could not have borne it and should have become strange and
+queer like poor mamma. I am a bit delicate naturally, as you know, I
+should have simply gone under in so much desolation and sadness, and
+when dear Philipp came, I thought: now's your chance. And when people
+say that I am a bad Princess, because I have in a way abdicated, and
+fled here where it is rather warmer and more friendly, and when they say
+that I lack dignity or consciousness of Highness, or whatever they call
+it, they are stupid and ignorant, Klaus Heinrich, because I have too
+much, I have on the contrary too much of it, that's a fact, otherwise
+the Old Schloss would not have had such an effect upon me, and Albrecht
+ought to see that, for he too, in his way, has too much of it--all we
+Grimmburgers have too much of it, and that's why it sometimes looks as
+if we had too little of it. And sometimes, when Philipp is under way, as
+he is now, and I sit here among my flowers and Philipp's pictures with
+all their sun--it's lucky that it's painted sun, for bless me! otherwise
+we should have to get sun-blinds--and everything is tidy and clean, and
+I think of the blessing, as you call it, in store for me, then I seem to
+myself like the little mermaid in the fairy-tale which the Swiss
+governess read to us, if you remember--who married a mortal and got legs
+instead of her fish's tail.... I don't know if you understand me...."
+
+"Oh yes, Ditlinde, of course, I understand you perfectly. And I am
+really glad that everything has turned out so well and happily for you.
+For it is dangerous, I may tell you, in my experience it is difficult
+for us to be suitably happy. It's so easy to go wrong and be
+misunderstood, for the nuisance is that nobody protects our dignity for
+us if we don't do it ourselves, and then blame and scandal so readily
+follow.... But which is the right way? You have found it. They have
+quite recently announced my engagement with Cousin Griseldis in the
+newspapers. That was a _ballon d'essai_, as they call it, and they think
+it was a very happy one. But Griseldis is a silly girl, and half-dead
+with anæmia, and never says anything but 'yes,' so far as I know. I've
+never given her a thought, nor has Knobelsdorff, thank goodness. The
+news was at once announced to be unfounded.... Here comes Albrecht!" he
+said, and stood up.
+
+A cough was heard outside. A footman in olive-green livery threw open
+the swing doors with a quick, firm, and noiseless movement of both arms,
+and announced in a subdued voice: "His Royal Highness the Grand Duke."
+
+Then he stepped aside with a bow. Albrecht advanced through the room.
+
+He had traversed the hundred yards from the Old Schloss hither in a
+closed carriage, with his huntsman on the box. He was in mufti, as
+almost always, wore a buttoned-up frock-coat with little satin lapels,
+and patent-leather boots on his small feet. Since his accession he had
+grown an imperial. His short fair hair was brushed back on each of his
+narrow, sunk temples. His gait was an awkward and yet indescribably
+distinguished strut, which gave his shoulder-blades a peculiar twist. He
+carried his head well back and stuck his short round underlip out,
+sucking gently with it against the upper one.
+
+The Princess went to the threshold to meet him. He disliked
+hand-kissing, so he simply held out his hand with a soft almost
+whispered greeting--his thin, cold hand which looked so sensitive and
+which he stretched out from his chest while keeping his forearm close to
+his body. Then he greeted his brother Klaus Heinrich in the same way,
+who had waited for him standing with heels close together in front of
+his chair--and said nothing further.
+
+Ditlinde talked. "It's very nice of you to come, Albrecht. So you're
+feeling well? You look splendid. Philipp wishes me to tell you how sorry
+he is to have to be out this afternoon. Sit down, won't you, anywhere
+you like--here, for instance, opposite me. That chair's a pretty
+comfortable one, you sat in it last time. I've made tea for us in the
+meantime. You'll have your milk directly...."
+
+"Thanks," he said quietly. "I must beg pardon ... I'm late. You know,
+the shorter the road ... And then I have to lie down in the
+afternoon.... There's no one else coming?"
+
+"No one else, Albrecht. At the most, Jettchen Isenschnibbe may look in
+for a bit, if you don't object...."
+
+"Oh?"
+
+"But I can just as well say 'Not at home.'"
+
+"Oh no, pray don't."
+
+Hot milk was brought. Albrecht clasped the tall, thick, studded glass in
+both hands.
+
+"Ah, something warm," he said. "How cold it is already in these parts!
+And I've been frozen the whole summer in Hollerbrunn. Haven't you
+started fires yet? I have. But then again the smell of the stoves upsets
+me. All stoves smell. Von Bühl promises me central heating for the Old
+Schloss every autumn. But it seems not to be feasible."
+
+"Poor Albrecht," said Ditlinde, "at this time of year you used to be
+already in the South, so long as father was alive. You must long for
+it."
+
+"Your sympathy does you credit, dear Ditlinde," answered he, still in a
+low and slightly lisping voice. "But we must show that I am on the spot.
+I must rule the country, as you know, that's what I'm here for. To-day I
+have been graciously pleased to allow some worthy citizen--I'm sorry I
+can't remember his name--to accept and wear a foreign order. Further, I
+have had a telegram sent to the annual meeting of the Horticultural
+Society, in which I assumed the honorary Presidency of the Society and
+pledged my word to further its efforts in every way--without really
+knowing what furthering I could do beyond sending the telegram, for the
+members are quite well able to take care of themselves. Further, I have
+deigned to confirm the choice of a certain worthy fellow to be mayor of
+my fair city of Siebenberge--in connection with which I should like to
+know whether this my subject will be a better mayor for my confirmation
+than he would have been without it...."
+
+"Well, well, Albrecht, those are trifles!" said Ditlinde. "I'm convinced
+that you've had more serious business to do...."
+
+"Oh, of course. I've had a talk with my Minister of Finance and
+Agriculture. It was time I did. Doctor Krippenreuther would have been
+bitterly disappointed with me if I had not summoned him once more. He
+went ahead in summary fashion and laid before me a conspectus of several
+mutually related topics at once--the harvest, the new principles for the
+drawing up of the budget, the reform of taxation, on which he is busy.
+The harvest has been a bad one, it seems. The peasants have been hit by
+blight and bad weather; not only they, but Krippenreuther too, are much
+concerned about it, because the tax-paying resources of the land, he
+says, have once more suffered contraction. Besides, there have
+unfortunately been disasters in more than one of the silver-mines. The
+gear is at a standstill, says Krippenreuther, it is damaged and will
+cost a lot of money to repair. I listened to the whole recital with an
+appropriate expression on my face, and did what I could to express my
+grief for such a series of misfortunes. Next, I was consulted as to
+whether the cost of the necessary new buildings for the Treasury and for
+the Woods and Customs and Inland Revenue Offices ought to be debited to
+the ordinary or the extraordinary estimates; I learnt a lot about
+sliding scales, and income tax, and tax on tourist traffic, and the
+removal of burdens from oppressed agriculture and the imposition of
+burdens on the towns; and on the whole I got the impression that
+Krippenreuther was well up in his subject. I, of course, know
+practically nothing about it--which Krippenreuther knows and approves;
+so I just said 'yes, yes,' and 'of course,' and 'many thanks,' and let
+him run on."
+
+"You speak so bitterly, Albrecht."
+
+"No; I'll just tell you what struck me while Krippenreuther was holding
+forth to me to-day. There's a man living in this town, a man with small
+private means and a warty nose. Every child knows him and shouts 'Hi!'
+when he sees him; he is called 'the Hatter,' for he is not quite all
+there; his surname he has lost long ago. He is always on the spot when
+there is anything going on, although his half-wittedness keeps him from
+playing any serious part in anything; he wears a rose in his buttonhole,
+and carries his hat about on the end of his walking-stick. Twice a day,
+about the time when a train starts, he goes to the station, taps the
+wheels, examines the luggage, and fusses about. Then when the guard
+blows his whistle, 'the Hatter' waves to the engine-driver, and the
+train starts. But 'the Hatter' deludes himself into thinking that his
+waving sends the train off. That's like me. I wave, and the train
+starts. But it would start without me, and my waving makes no
+difference, it's mere silly show. I'm sick of it...."
+
+The brother and sister were silent. Ditlinde looked at her lap in an
+embarrassed way, and Klaus Heinrich gazed, as he tugged at his little
+bow-shaped moustache, between her and the Grand Duke at the bright
+window.
+
+"I can quite follow you, Albrecht," said he after a while, "though it is
+rather cruel of you to compare yourself and us with 'the Hatter.' You
+see, I too understand nothing about sliding scales and taxation of
+tourist traffic and peat-cutting, and there is such a lot about which I
+know nothing--everything which is covered by the expression 'the misery
+in the world'--hunger and want, and the struggle for existence, as it is
+called, and war and hospital horrors, and all that. I have seen and
+studied not one of these, except death itself, when father died, and
+that too was not death as it can be, but rather it was edifying, and the
+whole Schloss was illuminated. And at times I feel ashamed of myself
+because I have not knocked about the world. But then I tell myself that
+mine is not a comfortable life, not at all comfortable, although I
+'wander on the heights of mankind,' as people express it, or perhaps
+just because I do, and that I perhaps in my own way know more about the
+strenuousness of life, its 'tight-lipped countenance,' if you will allow
+me the expression, than many a one who knows all about the sliding
+scales or any other single department of life. And the upshot of that
+is, Albrecht, that my life is not a comfortable one--that's the upshot
+of everything--if you will allow me this retort, and that is how we
+justify ourselves. And if people cry 'Hi!' when they see me, they must
+know why they do so, and my life must have some _raison d'être_,
+although I am prevented from playing any serious part in anything, as
+you so admirably express it. And you're quite justified too. You wave to
+order, because the people wish you to wave, and if you do not really
+control their wishes and aspirations, yet you express them and give them
+substance, and may be that's no slight matter."
+
+Albrecht sat upright at the table. He held his thin, strangely
+sensitive-looking hands crossed on the table-edge in front of the tall,
+half-empty glass of milk, and his eyelids dropped, and he sucked his
+underlip against his upper. He answered quietly: "I'm not surprised that
+so popular a prince as you should be contented with his lot. I for my
+part decline to express somebody else in my own person--I decline to,
+say, and you may think it's a case of sour grapes as much as you like.
+The truth is that I care for the 'Hi!' of the people just as little as
+any living soul possibly could care. I say soul, not body. The flesh is
+weak--there's something in one which expands at applause and contracts
+at cold silence. But my reason rises superior to all considerations of
+popularity or unpopularity. If I _did_ succeed in being a true national
+representative, I know what that would amount to. A misconception of my
+personality. Besides, a few hand-claps from people one does not know are
+not worth a shrug of the shoulders. Others--you--may be inspired by the
+feeling of the people behind you. You must forgive me for being too
+matter-of-fact to feel any such mysterious feeling of happiness--and too
+keen on cleanliness also, if you will allow me to put it thus. That kind
+of happiness stinks, to my thinking. Anyhow, I'm a stranger to the
+people. I give them nothing--what can they give me? With you ... oh,
+that's quite different. Hundreds of thousands, who are like you, are
+grateful to you because they can recognize themselves in you. You may
+laugh if you like. The chief danger you run is that you submerge
+yourself in your popularity too readily; and yet after all you feel no
+apprehensions, although you are aware at this very moment ..."
+
+"No, Albrecht, I don't think so. I don't think I run any such danger."
+
+"Then we shall understand each other all the better. I have no penchant
+for strong expressions as a rule. But popularity is hog-wash."
+
+"It's funny, Albrecht. Funny that you should use that word. The
+'Pheasants' were always using it--my schoolmates, the young sprigs, you
+know, at the 'Pheasantry.' I know what you are. You're an aristocrat,
+that's what's the matter."
+
+"Do you think so? You're wrong. I'm no aristocrat, I'm the opposite, by
+taste and reason. You must allow that I do not despise the 'Hi's' of the
+crowd from arrogance, but from a propensity to humanity and goodness.
+Human Highness is a pitiable thing, and I'm convinced that mankind ought
+to see that everyone behaves like a man, and a good man, to his
+neighbour and does not humiliate him or cause him shame. A man must have
+a thick skin to be able to carry off all the flummery of Highness
+without any feeling of shame. I am naturally rather sensitive, I cannot
+cope with the absurdity of my situation. Every lackey who plants himself
+at the door, and expects me to pass him without noticing, without
+heeding him more than the door posts, fills me with embarrassment,
+that's the way I feel towards the people...."
+
+"Yes, Albrecht, quite true. It's often by no means easy to keep one's
+countenance when one passes by a fellow like that. The lackeys! If one
+only did not know what frauds they are! One hears fine stories about
+them...."
+
+"What stories?"
+
+"Oh, one keeps one's ears open...."
+
+"Come, come!" said Ditlinde. "Don't let's worry about that. Here you are
+talking about ordinary things, and I had two topics noted down which I
+thought we might discuss this afternoon.... Would you be so kind, Klaus
+Heinrich, as to reach me that notebook there in blue leather on the
+writing-table? Many thanks. I note down in this everything I have to
+remember, both household matters and other things. What a blessing it is
+to be able to see everything down in black and white! My head is
+terribly weak, it can't remember things, and if I weren't tidy and
+didn't jot everything down, I should be done for. First of all,
+Albrecht, before I forget it, I wanted to remind you that you must
+escort Aunt Catherine at the first Court on November 1st--you can't get
+out of it. I withdraw; the honour fell to me at the last Court Ball, and
+Aunt Catherine was terribly put out.... Do you consent? Good, then I
+cross out item 1. Secondly, Klaus Heinrich, I wanted to ask you to make
+a short appearance at the Orphan Children's Bazaar on the 15th in the
+Town Hall. I am patroness, and I take my duties seriously, as you see.
+You needn't buy anything--a pocket comb.... In short, all you need do is
+to show yourself for ten minutes. It's for the orphans.... Will you
+come? You see, now I can cross another off. Thirdly ..."
+
+But the Princess was interrupted. Fräulein von Isenschnibbe, the Court
+lady, was announced and tripped in at once through the big drawing-room,
+her feather boa waving in the draught, and the brim of her huge feather
+hat flapping up and down. The smell of the fresh air from outside seemed
+to cling to her clothes. She was small, very fair, with a pointed nose,
+and so short-sighted that she could not see the stars. On clear evenings
+she would stand on her balcony and gaze at the starry heavens through
+opera-glasses, and rave about them. She wore two strong pairs of
+glasses, one behind the other, and screwed up her eyes and stuck her
+head forward as she curtseyed.
+
+"Heavens, Grand Ducal Highness," she said, "I didn't know; I'm
+disturbing you, I'm intruding. I most humbly beg pardon!"
+
+The brothers had risen, and the visitor, as she curtseyed to them, was
+filled with confusion. As Albrecht extended his hand from his chest,
+keeping his forearm close to his body, her arm was stretched out almost
+perpendicularly, when the curtsey which she made him had reached its
+lowest point.
+
+"Dear Jettchen," said Ditlinde, "what nonsense! You are expected and
+welcome, and my brothers know that we call each other by our Christian
+names, so none of that Grand Ducal Highness, if you please. We are not
+in the Old Schloss. Sit down and make yourself comfortable. Will you
+have some tea? It's still hot, and here are some candied fruits, I know
+you like them."
+
+"Yes, a thousand thanks, Ditlinde, I adore them!" And Fräulein von
+Isenschnibbe took a chair on the narrow side of the tea-table opposite
+Klaus Heinrich, with her back to the window, drew a glove off and began
+peering forward, to lay sweetmeats on her plate with the silver tongs.
+Her little bosom heaved quickly and nervously with pleasurable
+excitement.
+
+"I've got some news," she said, unable any longer to contain herself.
+"News.... More than any reticule will hold! That is to say it is really
+only one piece of news, only one--but it's so weighty that it counts for
+dozens, and it is quite certain, I have it on the best authority--you
+know that I am reliable, Ditlinde; this very evening it will be in the
+_Courier_ and to-morrow the whole town will be talking about it."
+
+"Yes, Jettchen," said the Princess, "it must be confessed you never come
+with empty hands; but now we're excited, do tell us your news."
+
+"Very well. Let me get my breath. Do you know, Ditlinde, does your Royal
+Highness know, does your Grand Ducal Highness know who's coming, who is
+coming to the spa, who is coming for six or eight weeks to the Spa Hotel
+to drink the waters?"
+
+"No," said Ditlinde, "but do you know, dear Jettchen?"
+
+"Spoelmann," said Fräulein von Isenschnibbe. "Spoelmann," she said,
+leaned back and made as if to draw with her fingers on the table-edge,
+but checked the movement of her hand just over the blue silk border.
+
+The brothers and sister looked doubtfully at each other.
+
+"Spoelmann?" asked Ditlinde.... "Think a moment, Jettchen, the real
+Spoelmann?"
+
+"The real one!" Her voice cracked with suppressed jubilation. "The real
+one, Ditlinde! For there's only one, or rather only one whom everybody
+knows, and he it is whom they are expecting at the Spa Hotel--the great
+Spoelmann, the giant Spoelmann, the colossus Samuel N. Spoelmann from
+America!"
+
+"But, child, what's bringing him here?"
+
+"Really, forgive me for saying so, Ditlinde, but what a question! His
+yacht or some big steamer is bringing him over the sea of course, he's
+on his holidays making a tour of Europe and has expressed his intention
+of drinking the Spa waters."
+
+"But is he ill, then?"
+
+"Of course, Ditlinde; all people of his kind are ill, that's part of the
+business."
+
+"Strange," said Klaus Heinrich.
+
+"Yes, Grand Ducal Highness, it is remarkable. His kind of existence must
+bring that with it. For there's no doubt it's a trying existence, and
+not at all a comfortable one, and must wear the body out quicker than an
+ordinary man's life would. Most suffer in the stomach, but Spoelmann
+suffers from stone as everybody knows."
+
+"Stone, does he?"
+
+"Of course, Ditlinde, you must have heard it and forgotten it. He has
+stone in the kidneys, if you will forgive me the horrid expression--a
+serious, trying illness, and I'm sure he can't get the slightest
+pleasure from his frantic wealth."
+
+"But how in the world has he pitched upon our waters?"
+
+"Why, Ditlinde, that's simple. The waters are good, they're excellent;
+especially the Ditlinde spring, with its lithium or whatever they call
+it, is admirable against gout and stone, and only waiting to be properly
+known and valued throughout the world. But a man like Spoelmann, you can
+imagine, a man like that is above names and trade-puffs, and follows his
+own kind. And so he has discovered our waters--or his physician has
+recommended them to him, it may be that, and bought it in the bottle,
+and it has done him good, and now he may think that it must do him still
+more good if he drinks it on the spot."
+
+They all kept silence.
+
+"Great heavens, Albrecht," said Ditlinde at last, "whatever one thinks
+of Spoelmann and his kind--and I'm not going to commit myself to an
+opinion, of that you may be sure--but don't you think that the man's
+visit to the Spa may be very useful?"
+
+The Grand Duke turned his head with his stiff and refined smile.
+
+"Ask Fräulein von Isenschnibbe," he answered. "She has doubtless already
+considered the question from that point of view."
+
+"If your Royal Highness asks me ... enormously useful! Immeasurably,
+incalculably useful--that's obvious! The directors are in the seventh
+heaven, they're getting ready to decorate and illuminate the Spa Hotel!
+What a recommendation, what an attraction for strangers! Will your Royal
+Highness just consider--the man is a curiosity! Your Grand Ducal
+Highness spoke just now of 'his kind'--but there are none of 'his
+kind'--at most, only a couple. He's a Leviathan, a Croesus! People will
+come from miles away to see a being who has about half a million a day
+to spend!"
+
+"Gracious!" said Ditlinde, taken aback. "And there's dear Philipp
+worrying about his peat beds."
+
+"The first scene," the Fräulein went on, "begins with two Americans
+hanging about the Exchange for the last couple of days. Who are they?
+They are said to be journalists, reporters, for two big New York papers.
+They have preceded the Leviathan, and are telegraphing to their papers
+preliminary descriptions of the scenery. When he has got here they will
+telegraph every step he takes--just as the _Courier_ and the
+_Advertiser_ report about your Royal Highness...."
+
+Albrecht bowed his thanks with eyes downcast and underlip protruded.
+
+"He has appropriated the Prince's suite in the Spa Hotel," said
+Jettchen, "as provisional lodgings."
+
+"For himself alone?" asked Ditlinde.
+
+"Oh no, Ditlinde, do you suppose he'd be coming alone? There isn't any
+precise information about his suite and staff, but it's quite certain
+that his daughter and his physician-in-ordinary are coming with him."
+
+"It annoys me, Jettchen, to hear you talking about a
+'physician-in-ordinary' and the journalists, too, and the Prince's suite
+to boot. He's not a king, after all."
+
+"A railway king, so far as I know," remarked Albrecht quietly with eyes
+downcast.
+
+"Not only, nor even particularly, a railway king, Royal Highness,
+according to what I hear. Over in America they have those great business
+concerns called Trusts, as your Royal Highness knows--the Steel Trust
+for instance, the Sugar Trust, the Petroleum Trust, the Coal, Meat, and
+Tobacco Trusts, and goodness knows how many more, and Samuel N.
+Spoelmann has a finger in nearly all these trusts, and is chief
+shareholder in them, and managing director--that's what I believe they
+call them--so his business must be what is called over here a 'Mixed
+Goods Business.'"
+
+"A nice sort of business," said Ditlinde, "it must be a nice sort of
+business! For you can't persuade me, dear Jettchen, that honest work can
+make a man into a Leviathan and a Croesus. I am convinced that his
+riches are steeped in the blood of widows and orphans. What do you
+think, Albrecht?"
+
+"I hope so, Ditlinde, I hope so, for your own and your husband's
+comfort."
+
+"May be so," explained Jettchen, "yet Spoelmann--our Samuel N.
+Spoelmann--is hardly responsible for it, for he is really nothing but an
+heir, and may quite well not have had any particular taste for his
+business. It was his father who really made the pile, I've read all
+about it, and may say that I really know the general facts. His father
+was a German--simply an adventurer who crossed the seas and became
+gold-digger. And he was lucky and made a little money through
+gold-finds--or rather quite a decent amount of money--and began to
+speculate in petroleum and steel and railways, and then in every sort of
+thing, and kept growing richer and richer, and when he died everything
+was already in full swing, and his son Samuel, who inherited the
+Croesus' firm, really had nothing to do but to collect the princely
+dividends and keep growing richer and richer till he beat all records.
+That's the way things have gone."
+
+"And he has a daughter, has he, Jettchen? What's she like?"
+
+"Yes, Ditlinde, his wife is dead, but he has a daughter, Miss Spoelmann,
+and he's bringing her with him. She's a wonderful girl from all I've
+read about her. He himself is a bit of a mixture, for his father married
+a wife from the South--Creole blood, the daughter of a German father and
+native mother. But Samuel in his turn married a German-American of
+half-English blood, and their daughter is now Miss Spoelmann."
+
+"Gracious, Jettchen, she's a creature of many colours!"
+
+"You may well say so, Ditlinde, and she's clever, so I've heard; she
+studies like a man--algebra, and puzzling things of that sort."
+
+"Hm, that too doesn't attract me much."
+
+"But now comes the cream of the business, Ditlinde, for Miss Spoelmann
+has a lady-companion, and that lady-companion is a countess, a real
+genuine countess, who dances attendance on her."
+
+"Gracious!" said Ditlinde, "she ought to be ashamed of herself. No,
+Jettchen, my mind is made up. I'm not going to bother myself about
+Spoelmann. I'm going to let him drink his waters and go, with his
+countess and his algebraical daughter, and am not going so much as to
+turn my head to look at him. He and his riches make no impression on me.
+What do you think, Klaus Heinrich?"
+
+Klaus Heinrich looked past Jettchen's head at the bright window.
+
+"Impression?" he said.... "No, riches make no impression on me, I
+think--I mean, riches in the ordinary way. But it seems to me that it
+depends ... it depends, I think, on the standard. We too have one or two
+rich people in the town here--Soap-boiler Unschlitt must be a
+millionaire.... I often see him in his carriage. He's dreadfully fat and
+common. But when a man is quite ill and lonely from mere riches ...
+Maybe ..."
+
+"An uncomfortable sort of man anyhow," said Ditlinde, and the subject of
+the Spoelmanns gradually dropped. The conversation turned on family
+matters, the "Hohenried" property, and the approaching season. Shortly
+before seven o'clock the Grand Duke sent for his carriage. Prince Klaus
+Heinrich was going too, so they all got up and said good-bye. But while
+the brothers were being helped into their coats in the hall, Albrecht
+said: "I should be obliged, Klaus Heinrich, if you would send your
+coachman home and would give me the pleasure of your company for a
+quarter of an hour longer. I've got a matter of some importance to
+discuss with you--I might come with you to the Hermitage, but I can't
+bear the evening air."
+
+Klaus Heinrich clapped his heels together as he answered: "No, Albrecht,
+you mustn't think of it! I'll drive to the Schloss with you if you like.
+I am of course at your disposal."
+
+This was the prelude to a remarkable conversation between the young
+princes, the upshot of which was published a few days later in the
+_Advertiser_ and received with general approval.
+
+The Prince accompanied the Grand Duke to the Schloss, through the
+Albrechtstor, up broad stone steps, through corridors where naked gas
+lamps were burning, and silent ante-rooms, between lackeys into
+Albrecht's "closet," where old Prahl had lighted the two bronze
+oil-lamps on the mantelpiece. Albrecht had taken over his father's
+work-room--it had always been the work-room of the reigning sovereigns,
+and lay on the first floor between an aide-de-camp's room and the
+dining-room in daily use facing the Albrechtsplatz, which the princes
+had always overlooked and watched from their writing-table. It was an
+exceptionally unhomely and repellent room, small, with cracked
+ceiling-paintings, red silk and gold-bordered carpet, and three windows
+reaching to the ground, through which the draught blew keenly and before
+which the claret-coloured curtains with their elaborate fringes were
+drawn. It had a false chimney-piece in French Empire taste, in front of
+which a semicircle of little modern quilted plush chairs without arms
+were arranged, and a hideously decorated white stove, which gave out a
+great heat. Two big quilted sofas stood opposite each other by the
+walls, and in front of one stood a square book-table with a red plush
+cover. Between the windows two narrow gold-framed mirrors with marble
+ledges reached up to the ceiling, the right hand one of which bore a
+fairly cheerful alabaster group, the other a water bottle and medicine
+glasses. The writing-desk, an old piece made of rose-wood with a
+roll-top and metal clasps, stood clear in the middle of the room on the
+red carpet. An antique stared down with its dead eyes from a pedestal in
+one corner of the room.
+
+"What I have to suggest to you," said Albrecht--he was standing at the
+writing-table, unconsciously toying with a paper-knife, a silly thing
+like a cavalry-sabre with a grotesque handle, "is directly connected
+with our conversation this afternoon. I may begin by saying that I
+discussed the matter thoroughly with Knobelsdorff this summer at
+Hollerbrunn. He agrees, and if you do too, as I don't doubt you will, I
+can carry out my intention at once."
+
+"Please let's hear it, Albrecht," said Klaus Heinrich, who was standing
+at attention in a military attitude by the sofa table.
+
+"My health," continued the Grand Duke, "has been getting worse and worse
+lately."
+
+"I'm very sorry, Albrecht--Hollerbrunn didn't agree with you, then?"
+
+"Thanks, no, I'm in a bad way, and my health is showing itself
+increasingly unequal to the demands made upon it. When I say 'demands,'
+I mean chiefly the duties of a ceremonial and representative nature
+which are inseparable from my position--and that's the bond of connexion
+with the conversation we had just now at Ditlinde's. The performance of
+these duties may be a happiness when a contact with the people, a
+relationship, a beating of hearts in unison exists. To me it is a
+torture, and the falseness of my rôle wearies me to such a degree that I
+must consider what measures I can take to counteract it. In this--so far
+as the bodily part of me is concerned--I am at one with my doctors, who
+entirely agree with my proposal--so listen to me. I'm unmarried. I have
+no idea, I can assure you, of ever marrying; I shall have no children.
+You are heir to the throne by right of birth, you are still more so in
+the consciousness of the people, who love you...."
+
+"There you are, Albrecht, always talking about my being beloved. I
+simply don't believe it. At a distance, perhaps--that's the way with us.
+It's always at a distance that we are beloved."
+
+"You're too modest. Wait a bit. You've already been kind enough to
+relieve me of some of my representative duties now and then. I should
+like you to relieve me of all of them absolutely, for always."
+
+"You're not thinking of abdicating, Albrecht?" asked Klaus Heinrich,
+aghast.
+
+"I daren't think of it. Believe me, I gladly would, but I shouldn't be
+allowed to. What I'm thinking of is not a regency, but only a
+substitution--perhaps you have some recollection of the distinction in
+public law from your student's days--a permanent and officially
+established substitution in all representative functions, warranted by
+the need of indulgence required by my state of health. What is your
+opinion?"
+
+"I'm at your orders, Albrecht. But I'm not quite clear yet. How far does
+the substitution extend?"
+
+"Oh, as far as possible. I should like it to extend to all occasions on
+which a personal appearance in public is expected of me. Knobelsdorff
+stipulates that I should only devolve the opening and closure of
+Parliament on you when I'm bedridden, only now and again. Let's grant
+that. But otherwise you would be my substitute on all ceremonial
+occasions, on journeys, visits to cities, opening of public festivities,
+opening of the Citizens' Ball...."
+
+"That too?"
+
+"Why not? We have also the weekly free audiences here--a sensible custom
+without a doubt, but it tires me out. You would hold the audiences in my
+place. I needn't go on. Do you accept my proposal?"
+
+"I am at your orders."
+
+"Then listen to me while I finish. For every occasion on which you act
+as my representative, I lend you my aides-de-camp. It is further
+necessary that your military promotion should be hastened--are you first
+lieutenant? You'll be made a captain or a major straight away _à la
+suite_ of your regiment--I'll see to that; but in the third place, I
+wish duly to emphasize our arrangement, to make your position at my side
+properly clear, by lending you the title of 'Royal Highness.' There were
+some formalities to attend to. Knobelsdorff has already seen to them.
+I'm going to express my intentions in the form of two missives to you
+and to my Minister of State. Knobelsdorff has already drafted them. Do
+you accept?"
+
+"What am I to say, Albrecht? You are father's eldest son, and I've
+always looked up to you because I've always felt and known that you are
+the superior and higher of us two and that I am only a plebeian compared
+with you. But if you think me worthy to stand at your side and to bear
+your title and to represent you before the people, although I don't
+think myself anything like so presentable, and have this deformity here,
+with my left hand, which I've always got to keep covered--then I thank
+you and put myself at your orders."
+
+"Then I'll ask you to leave me now, please; I want to rest."
+
+They advanced towards each other, the one from the writing-table, the
+other from the book-table, over the carpet into the middle of the room.
+The Grand Duke extended his hand to his brother--his thin, cold hand
+which he stretched out from his chest without moving his forearm away
+from his body. Klaus Heinrich clapped his heels together and bowed as he
+took the hand, and Albrecht nodded his narrow head with its fair beard
+as a token of dismissal, while he sucked his short, rounded lower lip
+against the upper. Klaus Heinrich went back to the Schloss "Hermitage."
+
+Both the _Advertiser_ and the _Courier_ published eight days later the
+two missives, which contained decisions of the highest importance, the
+one addressed to "My dear Minister of State, Baron von Knobelsdorff,"
+and the other beginning with "Most Serene Highness and well-beloved
+brother," and signed "Your Royal Highness's most devoted brother
+Albrecht."
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE LOFTY CALLING
+
+
+Here follows a description of Klaus Heinrich's mode of life and
+profession and their peculiarities.
+
+On a typical occasion he stepped out of his carriage, walked with cloak
+thrown back down a short passage through cheering crowds over a pavement
+which was covered with red carpet, through a laurel-decked house-door,
+over which an awning had been erected, up a staircase flanked by pairs
+of candle-bearing footmen.... He was on his way to a festival dinner,
+covered to his hips with orders, the fringed epaulettes of a major on
+his narrow shoulders, and was followed by his suite along the Gothic
+corridor of the town hall. Two servants hurried in front of him and
+quickly opened an old window which rattled in its lead fastenings; for
+down below in the market-place stood the people, wedged together head to
+head, an oblique tract of upturned faces, dimly illuminated by smoky
+torchlight. They cheered and sang, and he stood at the open window and
+bowed, displayed himself to the general enthusiasm for a while and
+nodded his thanks.
+
+There was nothing really everyday, nor was there anything really actual,
+about his life; it consisted of a succession of moments of enthusiasm.
+Wherever he went there was holiday, there the people were transfigured
+and glorified, there the grey work-a-day world cleared up and became
+poetry. The starveling became a sleek man, the hovel a homely cottage,
+dirty gutter-children changed into chaste little maidens and boys in
+Sunday clothes, their hair plastered with water, a poem on their lips,
+and the perspiring citizen in frock-coat and top-hat was moved to
+emotion by the consciousness of his own worth.
+
+But not only he, Klaus Heinrich, saw the world in this light, but it saw
+itself too, as long as his presence lasted. A strange unreality and
+speciousness prevailed in places where he exercised his calling; a
+symmetrical, transitory window-dressing, an artificial and inspiring
+disguising of the reality by pasteboard and gilded wood, by garlands,
+lamps, draperies, and bunting, was conjured up for one fair hour, and he
+himself stood in the centre of the show on a carpet, which covered the
+bare ground, between masts painted in two colours, round which garlands
+twined--stood with heels together in the odour of varnish and
+fir-branches, and smiled with his left hand planted on his hip.
+
+He laid the foundation stone of a new town hall. The citizens had, after
+juggling with the figures, got together the necessary sum, and a learned
+architect from the capital had been entrusted with the building. But
+Klaus Heinrich undertook the laying of the foundation stone. Amid the
+cheers of the population he drove up to the noble pavilion which had
+been built on the site, stepped lightly and collectedly out of the open
+carriage on to the ground, which had been rolled and sprinkled with
+yellow sand, and walked all alone towards the official personages in
+frock-coats and white ties who were waiting for him at the entrance. He
+asked for the architect to be presented to him, and, in full view of the
+public and with the officials standing with fixed smiles round him, he
+conducted a conversation with him for five full minutes, a conversation
+of weighty commonplaces about the advantages of the different styles of
+architecture, after which he made a decided movement, which he had
+meditated to himself beforehand during the conversation, and allowed
+himself to be conducted over the carpet and plank steps to his seat on
+the edge of the middle platform.
+
+There, in his chain and stars, one foot advanced, his white-gloved hands
+crossed on his sword hilt, his helmet on the ground beside him, visible
+to the holiday crowd on every side, he sat and listened with calm
+demeanour to the Lord Mayor's speech. Thereupon, when they came to the
+request, he rose, walked, without noticeable precaution and without
+looking at his feet, down the steps to where the foundation stone lay,
+and with a little hammer gave three slow taps to the block of sandstone,
+at the same time repeating in the deep hush, with his rather sharp
+voice, a sentence which Herr von Knobelsdorff had previously impressed
+upon him. School children sang in shrill chorus, and Klaus Heinrich
+drove away.
+
+On the anniversary of the War of Independence he marched in front of the
+veterans. A grey-haired officer shouted in a voice which seemed hoarse
+with the smoke of gunpowder: "Halt! Off hats! Eyes right!" And they
+stood, with medals and crosses on their coats, the rough beavers in
+their hands, and looked up at him with blood-shot eyes like those of a
+hound as he walked by with a friendly look, and paused by one or two to
+ask where they had served, where they had been under fire.... He
+attended the gymnastic display, graced the sports with his presence, and
+had the victors presented to him for a short conversation. The lithe
+athletic youths stood awkwardly before him, just after they had done the
+most astonishing feats, and Klaus Heinrich quickly strung together a few
+technical remarks, which he remembered from Herr Zotte, and which he
+uttered with great fluency, the while he hid his left hand.
+
+He attended the Five Houses' Fishing festival, he was present in his
+red-covered seat of honour at the Grimmburg horse-races and distributed
+the prizes. He accepted, too, the honorary Presidency and Patronage of
+the Associated Rifle Competition; he attended the prize-meeting of the
+privileged Grand Ducal Rifle Club. He "responded cordially to the toast
+of welcome," in the words of the _Courier_, by holding the silver cup
+for one moment to his lips, and then with heels clapped together,
+raising it towards the marksmen. Thereupon he fired several shots at the
+target of honour, concerning which there was nothing said in the reports
+as to where they hit; next ploughed through one and the same dialogue
+with three successive men, about the advantages of rifle-firing, which
+in the _Courier_ was described as a "general conversation," and at last
+took leave with a hearty "Good luck!" which evoked indescribable
+enthusiasm. This formula had been whispered to him at the last moment by
+Adjutant-General von Hühnemann, who had made inquiries on the subject;
+for of course it would have had a bad effect, would have shattered the
+fair illusion of technical knowledge and serious enthusiasm, if Klaus
+Heinrich had wished the marksmen "Excelsior" and the Alpine Club
+"Bull's-eyes every time!"
+
+As a general rule he needed in the exercise of his calling a certain
+amount of technical knowledge, which he acquired for each succeeding
+occasion, with a view to applying it at the right moment and in suitable
+form. It consisted preponderatingly of the technical terms current in
+the different departments of human activity as well as of historical
+dates, and before setting out on an official expedition Klaus Heinrich
+used to work up the necessary information at home in the Hermitage with
+the help of pamphlets and oral instructions. When he in the name of the
+Grand Duke, "my most gracious brother," unveiled the statue of Johann
+Albrecht at Knüppelsdorf, he delivered on the scene of festivities,
+directly after a performance by the massed choirs of the "Wreath of
+Harmony," a speech in which everything he had noted down about
+Knüppelsdorf was dragged in, and which produced the delightful
+impression everywhere that he had busied himself all his life with
+nothing so much as the historical vicissitudes of that hub of
+civilization.
+
+In the first place, Knüppelsdorf was a city, and Klaus Heinrich alluded
+to that three times, to the pride of the inhabitants. He went on to say
+that the city of Knüppelsdorf, as her historical past witnessed, had
+been connected by bonds of loyalty to the House of Grimmburg for several
+centuries. As long ago as the fourteenth century, he said, Langrave
+Heinrich XV, the Rutensteiner, had signalled out Knüppelsdorf for
+special favour. He, the Rutensteiner, had lived in the Schloss built on
+the neighbouring Rutensteine, whose girdle of proud towers and strong
+walls had sent its greeting to the country for miles round.
+
+Then he reminded his hearers how through inheritance and marriage
+Knüppelsdorf had at last come into the branch of the family to which his
+brother and he himself belonged. Heavy storms had in the course of years
+burst over Knüppelsdorf. Years of war, conflagration, and pestilence had
+visited it, yet it had always risen again and had always remained loyal
+to the house of its hereditary princes. And this characteristic the
+Knüppelsdorf of to-day proved that it possessed by raising a memorial to
+his, Klaus Heinrich's, beloved father, and it would be with unusual
+pleasure that he would report to his gracious brother the dazzling and
+hearty reception which he, as his representative, had here
+experienced.... The veil fell, the massed choirs of the "Wreath of
+Harmony" again did their best. And Klaus Heinrich stood smiling, under
+his theatrical tent, with a feeling of having exhausted his store of
+knowledge, happy in the certainty that nobody dare question him further.
+For he couldn't have said one blessed word more about Knüppelsdorf!
+
+How tiring his life was, how strenuous! Sometimes he felt as if he had
+constantly to keep upright, at a great strain to his elasticity,
+something which it was quite impossible, or possible only in favourable
+conditions, to keep upright. Sometimes his calling seemed to him a
+wretched and paltry one, although he liked it and gladly undertook every
+expedition required of him in his representative capacity.
+
+He travelled miles to an agricultural exhibition, travelled in a badly
+hung cart from Schloss "Hermitage" to the station, where the Premier,
+the Chief of Police, and the directors of the railway company awaited
+him at the saloon carriage. He travelled for an hour and a half, the
+while carrying on, not without difficulty, a conversation with the Grand
+Ducal adjutants, who had been attached to him, and the Agricultural
+Commissioner, Assistant Secretary Heckepfeng, a severe and respectful
+man who also accompanied him. Then he reached the station of the city
+which had organized the agricultural exhibition. The Mayor, with a chain
+over his shoulders, was awaiting him at the head of six or seven other
+official persons. The station was decorated with a quantity of
+fir-branches and festoons. In the back-ground stood the plaster busts of
+Albrecht and Klaus Heinrich in a frame of greenery. The public behind
+the barriers gave three cheers, and the bells pealed.
+
+The Mayor read an address of welcome to Klaus Heinrich. He thanked him,
+he said, brandishing his top-hat in his hand, he thanked him on behalf
+of the city for all the favour which Klaus Heinrich's brother and he
+himself showed them, and heartily wished him a long and blessed reign.
+He also begged the Prince twice over graciously to crown the work which
+had prospered so famously under his patronage, and to open the
+agricultural exhibition.
+
+This Mayor bore the title of Agricultural Councillor, a fact of which
+Klaus Heinrich had been apprised, and on account of which he addressed
+him thus three times in his answer. He said that he was delighted that
+the work of the agricultural exhibition had prospered so famously under
+his patronage. (As a matter of fact he had forgotten that he was patron
+of this exhibition.) He had come to put the finishing touch that day to
+the great work, by opening the exhibition. Then he inquired as to four
+things: as to the economical circumstances of the city, the increase in
+the population in recent years, as to the labour-market (although he had
+no very clear idea what the labour-market was), and as to the price of
+victuals. When he heard that the price of victuals was high, he "viewed
+the matter in a serious light," and that of course was all he could do.
+Nobody expected anything more of him, and it came as a comfort to
+everybody that he had viewed the high prices in a serious light.
+
+Then the Mayor presented the city dignitaries to him: the higher
+District Judge, a noble landed proprietor from the neighbourhood, the
+rector, the two doctors, and a forwarding agent, and Klaus Heinrich
+addressed a question to each, thinking over, while the answer came, what
+he should say to the next. The local veterinary surgeon and the local
+inspector of stock-breeding were also present. Finally they climbed into
+carriages, and drove, amid the cheers of the inhabitants, between fences
+of school-children, firemen, the patriotic societies, through the gaily
+decked city to the exhibition ground--not without being stopped once
+more at the gate by white-robed maidens with wreaths on their heads, one
+of whom, the Mayor's daughter, handed to the prince in his carriage a
+bouquet with white satin streamers, and in lasting memory of the moment
+received one of those pretty and valuable gew-gaws which Klaus Heinrich
+took with him on his journeys, a breast-pin embedded, for a reason she
+could not guess, in _velvet_ (sammet), which figured in the _Courier_ as
+a jewel mounted in gold.
+
+Tents, pavilions, and stands had been erected on the ground. Gaudy
+pennons fluttered on long rows of poles strung together with festoons.
+On a wooden platform hung with bunting, between drapings, festoons, and
+parti-coloured flagstaffs, Klaus Heinrich read the short opening speech.
+And then began the tour of inspection.
+
+There were cattle tethered to low crossbars, prize beasts of the best
+blood with smooth round particoloured bodies and numbered shields on
+their broad foreheads. There were horses stamping and snuffing, heavy
+farm-horses with Roman noses and bushes of hair round their pasterns, as
+well as slender, restless saddle horses. There were naked short-legged
+pigs, and a large selection of both ordinary and prize pigs. With
+dangling bellies they grubbed up the ground with their snouts, while
+great blocks of woolly sheep filled the air with a confused chorus of
+bass and treble. There were ear-splitting exhibits of poultry, cocks and
+hens of every kind, from the big Brahmaputra to the copper-coloured
+bantam; ducks and pigeons of all sorts, eggs and fodder, both fresh and
+artificially preserved. There were exhibits of agricultural produce,
+grain of all sorts, beets and clover, potatoes, peas, and flax;
+vegetables, too, both fresh and dried; raw and preserved fruit; berries,
+marmalade, and syrups.
+
+Lastly there were exhibits of agricultural implements and machines,
+displayed by several technical firms, provided with everything of
+service to agriculture, from the hand-plough to the great
+black-funnelled motors, looking like elephants in their stall, from the
+simplest and most intelligible objects to those which consisted of a
+maze of wheels, chains, rods, cylinders, arms, and teeth--a world, an
+entire overpowering world of ingenious utility.
+
+Klaus Heinrich looked at everything; he walked, with his sword-hilt on
+his forearm, down the rows of animals, cages, sacks, tubs, glasses, and
+implements. The dignitary at his side pointed with his white-gloved hand
+to this and that, venturing on a remark from time to time, and Klaus
+Heinrich acted up to his calling. He expressed in words his appreciation
+of all he saw, stopped from time to time and engaged the exhibitors of
+the animals in conversation, inquired in an affable way into their
+circumstances, and put questions to the country people whose answers
+entailed a scratching behind their ears. And as he walked he bowed his
+thanks on both sides for the homage of the population which lined his
+path.
+
+The people had collected most thickly at the exit, where the carriages
+were waiting, in order to watch him drive off. A way was kept free for
+him, a straight passage to the step of his landau, and he walked quickly
+down it, bowing continuously with his hand to his helmet--alone and
+formally separated from all those men who, in honouring him, were
+cheering their own archetype, their standard, and of whose lives, work,
+and ability he was the splendid representative, though not participator.
+
+With a light and free step he mounted the carriage, settled himself
+artistically so that he at once assumed a perfectly graceful and
+self-possessed pose, and drove, saluting as he went, to the clubhouse,
+where luncheon was prepared. During luncheon--indeed, directly after the
+second course--the District Judge proposed the health of the Grand Duke
+and the Prince, whereupon Klaus Heinrich at once rose to drink to the
+welfare of the county, and city. After the luncheon, however, he retired
+to the room which the Mayor had put at his disposal in his official
+residence and lay down on the bed for an hour, for the exercise of his
+calling exhausted him in a strange degree, and that afternoon he was due
+not only to visit in that city the church, the school, and various
+factories, especially Behnke Brothers' cheese factory, and to express
+high satisfaction with everything, but also to extend his journey and
+visit a scene of disaster, a burnt-out village, in order to express to
+the villagers his brother's and his own sympathy, and to cheer the
+afflicted by his exalted presence.
+
+When he got back to the "Hermitage," to his soberly furnished Empire
+room, he read the newspaper accounts of his expeditions. Then Privy
+Councillor Schustermann of the Press Bureau, which was under the Home
+Secretary, appeared in the "Hermitage," and brought the extracts from
+the papers, cleanly pasted on white sheets, dated and labelled with the
+name of the paper. And Klaus Heinrich read about the impression he had
+produced, read about his personal graciousness and Highness, read that
+he had acquitted himself nobly and taken the hearts of young and old by
+storm--that he had raised the minds of the people out of the ruck of
+everyday and filled them with gladness and affection.
+
+And then he gave free audiences in the Old Schloss, as it had been
+arranged.
+
+The custom of free audiences had been introduced by a well-meaning
+ancestor of Albrecht II, and the people clung to it. Once every week
+Albrecht, or Klaus in his place, was accessible to everybody. Whether
+the petitioner was a man of rank or not, whether the subject of his
+petitions were of a public or personal nature--he had only to give in
+his name to Herr von Bühl, or even the aide-de-camp on duty, and he was
+given an opportunity of bringing his matter to notice in the highest
+quarters.
+
+Indeed an admirable custom! For it meant that the petitioner did not
+have to go round by way of a written application, with the dismal
+prospect of his petition disappearing for ever into a pigeon-hole, but
+had the happy assurance that his application would go straight to the
+most exalted quarters. It must be admitted that the most exalted
+quarters--Klaus Heinrich at this time--naturally were not in a position
+to go into the matter, to scrutinize it seriously and to come to a
+decision upon it, but that they handed the matter on to the
+pigeon-holes, in which it "disappeared." But the custom was none the
+less helpful, though not in the sense of matter-of-fact utility. The
+citizen, the petitioner, came to Herr von Bühl with the request to be
+received, and a day and hour were fixed for him. With glad embarrassment
+he saw the day draw near, worked up in his own mind the sentences in
+which he intended to explain his business, had his frock-coat and his
+hat ironed, put on his best shirt, and generally made himself ready.
+
+But in reality these solemn interviews were well calculated to turn the
+petitioner's thoughts away from the gross material end in view, and to
+make the reception itself seem to him the main point, the essential
+object of his excited anticipation. The hour came, and the citizen took,
+what he never otherwise took, a cab, in order not to dirty his clean
+boots. He drove between the lions at the Albrechtstor, and the sentries
+as well as the stalwart doorkeeper gave him free passage. He landed in
+the courtyard at the colonnade in front of the weather-beaten entrance,
+and was at once admitted by a lackey in a brown coat and sand-coloured
+gaiters to an ante-room on the ground floor to the left, in one corner
+of which was a stand of colours, and where a number of other
+supplicants, talking in low whispers, waited in a state of thoughtful
+tension for their reception. The aide-de-camp, holding a list of those
+with appointments, went backwards and forwards and took the next on the
+list to one side, to instruct him in a low voice how to behave.
+
+In a neighbouring room, called the "Free Audience Room," Klaus Heinrich,
+in his tunic with silver collar and several stars, stood at a round
+table with three golden legs, and received. Major von Platow gave him
+some superficial information about the identity of each petitioner,
+called the man in, and came back in the pauses, to prompt the Prince in
+a few words about the next comer. And the citizen walked in; with the
+blood in his head and perspiring slightly he stood before Klaus
+Heinrich. It had been impressed on him that he was not to go too near
+his Royal Highness, but must keep at a certain distance, that he must
+not speak without being spoken to, and even then must not gabble off all
+he had to say, but answer concisely, so as to leave the Prince material
+for his questions; that he must at the conclusion withdraw backwards and
+without showing the Prince his backside. The result was that the
+citizen's whole attention was centred on not breaking any of the rules
+given him, but for his part contributing to the smooth and harmonious
+progress of the interview.
+
+Klaus Heinrich questioned him in the same way as he was wont to question
+the veterans, the marksmen, the gymnasts, the countrymen, and the
+victims of the fire, smiling, and with his left hand planted well back
+on his hip; and the citizen too smiled involuntarily--and was imbued
+with a feeling as if that smile lifted him far above the troubles which
+had held him prisoner. That common man, whose spirit otherwise cleaved
+to the dust, who gave a thought to nothing, not even to everyday
+politeness, beyond what was purely utilitarian, and had come here too
+with a definite object in view--he felt in his heart that there was
+something higher than business and his business in particular, and he
+left the Schloss elevated, purified, with eyes dim with emotion and the
+smile still on his flushed face.
+
+That was the way in which Klaus Heinrich gave free audiences, that the
+way in which he exercised his exalted calling. He lived at the
+"Hermitage" in his little refuge, the Empire room, which was furnished
+so stiffly and meagrely, with cool indifference to comfort and intimacy.
+Faded silk covered the walls above the white wainscot, glass chandeliers
+hung from the ugly ceiling, straight-lined sofas, mostly without tables,
+and thin-legged stands supporting marble clocks, stood along the walls,
+pairs of white-lacquered chairs, with oval backs and thin silk
+upholstery, flanked the white-lacquered folding-doors, and in the corner
+stood white-lacquered loo-tables, bearing vase-like candelabra. That was
+how Klaus Heinrich's room looked, and its master harmonized well with
+it.
+
+He lived a detached and quiet life, feeling no enthusiasm or zeal for
+questions on which the public differed. As representative of his
+brother, he opened Parliament, but he took no personal part in its
+proceedings and avoided the yeas and nays of party divisions--with the
+disinterestedness and want of convictions proper to one whose position
+was above all parties. Everybody recognized that his station imposed
+reserve upon him, but many were of opinion that want of interest was
+rather repellently and insultingly visible in his whole bearing. Many
+who came in contact with him described him as "cold"; and when Doctor
+Ueberbein loudly refuted this "coldness," people wondered whether the
+one-sided and morose man was qualified to form an opinion on the point.
+Of course there were occasions when Klaus Heinrich's glance met looks
+which refused to recognize him--bold, scornful, invidious looks, which
+showed contempt for and ignorance of all his actions and exertions. But
+even in the well-disposed, loyal people, who showed themselves ready to
+esteem and honour his life, he remarked at times after a short while a
+certain exhaustion, indeed irritation, as if they could no longer
+breathe in the atmosphere of his existence; and that worried Klaus
+Heinrich, though he did not know how he could prevent it.
+
+He had no place in the everyday world; a greeting from him, a gracious
+word, a winning and yet dignified wave of the hand, were all weighty and
+decisive incidents. Once he was returning in cap and greatcoat from a
+ride, was riding slowly on his brown horse Florian, down the birch
+avenue which skirted the waste-land and led to the park and the
+"Hermitage," and in front of him there walked a shabbily dressed young
+man with a fur cap and a ridiculous tuft of hair on his neck, sleeves
+and trousers that were too short for him, and unusually large feet which
+he turned inwards as he walked. He looked like the student of a
+technical institute or something of that sort, for he carried a
+drawing-board under his arm, on which was pinned a big drawing, a
+symmetrical maze of lines in red and black ink, a projection or
+something of the sort. Klaus Heinrich held his horse back behind the
+young man for a good while, and examined the red and black projection on
+the drawing-board. Sometimes he thought how nice it must be to have a
+proper surname, to be called Doctor Smith, and to have a serious
+calling.
+
+He played his part at Court functions, the big and small balls, the
+dinner, the concerts, and the Great Court. He joined in autumn in the
+Court's shoots with his red-haired cousins and his suite, for custom's
+sake and although his left arm made shooting difficult for him. He was
+often seen in the evening in the Court Theatre, in his red-ledged
+proscenium-box between the two female sculptures with the crossed hands
+and the stern, empty faces. For the theatre attracted him, he loved it,
+loved to look at the players, to watch how they behaved, walked off and
+on, and went through with their parts. As a rule he thought them bad,
+rough in the means they employed to please, and unpractised in the more
+subtle dissembling of the natural and artless. For the rest, he was
+disposed to prefer humble and popular scenes to the exalted and
+ceremonious.
+
+A soubrette called Mizzi Meyer was engaged at the "Vaudeville" theatre
+in the capital, who in the newspapers and on the lips of the public was
+never called anything but "our" Meyer, because of her boundless
+popularity with high and low. She was not beautiful, hardly pretty, her
+voice was a screech, and, strictly speaking, she could lay claim to no
+special gifts. And yet she had only to come on to the stage to evoke
+storms of approbation, applause, and encouragement. For this fair and
+compact person with her blue eyes, her broad, high cheek-bones, her
+healthy, jolly, even a little uproarious manner, was flesh of the
+people's flesh, and blood of their blood. So long as she, dressed up,
+painted, and lighted up from every side, faced the crowd from the
+boards, she was in very deed the glorification of the people
+itself--indeed, the people clapped itself when it clapped her, and in
+that alone lay Mizzi Meyer's power over men's souls. Klaus Heinrich was
+very fond of going with Herr von Braunbart-Schellendorf to the
+"Vaudeville" when Mizzi Meyer was playing, and joined heartily in the
+applause.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+One day he had a rencontre which on the one hand gave him food for
+thought, on the other disillusioned him. It was with Martini, Axel
+Martini, the compiler of the two books of poetry which had been so much
+praised by the experts, "Evoë!" and "The Holy Life." The meeting came
+about in the following way.
+
+In the capital lived a wealthy old man, a Privy Councillor, who, since
+his retirement from the State Service, had devoted his life to the
+advancement of the fine arts, especially poetry. He was founder of what
+was known as the "May-combat"--a poetical tournament which recurred
+every year in springtime, to which the Privy Councillor invited poets
+and poetesses by circulars and posters. Prizes were offered for the
+tenderest love-song, the most fervent religious poem, the most ardent
+patriotic song, for the happiest lyrical effusions in praise of music,
+the forest, the spring, the joy of life--and these prizes consisted of
+sums of money, supplemented by judicious and valuable souvenirs, such as
+golden pens, golden breast-pins in the form of lyres or flowers, and
+more of the same kind. The city authorities also had founded a prize,
+and the Grand Duke gave a silver cup as a reward for the most absolutely
+admirable of all poems sent in. The founder of the "May-combat" himself,
+who was responsible for the first look-through the always numerous
+entries, shared with two University Professors and the editors of the
+literary supplements of the _Courier_ and the _People_ the duties of
+prize-judges. The prize-winners and the highly commended entries were
+printed and published regularly in the form of an annual at the expense
+of the Privy Councillor.
+
+Now Axel Martini had taken part in the "May-combat" this year, and had
+come off victorious. The poem which he had sent in, an inspired hymn of
+praise to the joy of life, or rather a highly tempestuous outbreak of
+the joy of life itself, a ravishing hymn to the beauty and awfulness of
+life, was conceived in the style of both his books and had given rise to
+discord in the Board of Judges. The Privy Councillor himself and the
+Professor of Philology had been for dismissing it with a notice of
+commendation; for they considered it exaggerated in expression, coarse
+in its passion, and in places frankly repulsive. But the Professor of
+Literary History together with the editors had out-voted them, not only
+in view of the fact that Martini's contribution represented the best
+poem to the joy of life, but also in consideration of its undeniable
+pre-eminence, and in the end their two opponents too had not been able
+to resist the appeal of its foaming and stunning flow of words.
+
+So Axel Martini had been awarded fifteen pounds, a gold breast-pin in
+the form of a lyre, and the Grand Duke's silver cup as well, and his
+poem had been printed first in the annual, surrounded with an artistic
+frame from the hand of Professor von Lindemann. What was more, the
+custom was for the victor (or victrix) in the "May-combat" to be
+received in audience by the Grand Duke; and as Albrecht was unwell, this
+task fell to his brother.
+
+Klaus Heinrich was a little afraid of Herr Martini.
+
+"Oh dear, Doctor Ueberbein," he said when he met his tutor one day,
+"what subject am I to tackle him on? He's sure to be a wild,
+brazen-faced fellow."
+
+But Doctor Ueberbein answered: "Anything; but, Klaus Heinrich, you need
+not worry! He's a very decent fellow. I know him, I'm rather in with his
+set. You'll get on splendidly with him."
+
+So Klaus Heinrich received the poet of the "Joy of Life," received him
+at the "Hermitage," so as to give the business as private a character as
+possible. "In the yellow room, Braunbart if you please," he said,
+"that's the most presentable one for occasions like this." There were
+three handsome chairs in this room, which indeed were the only valuable
+pieces of furniture in the Schloss, heavy Empire arm-chairs of mahogany,
+with spiral arms and yellow upholstery on which blue-green lyres were
+embroidered. Klaus Heinrich on this occasion did not dispose himself
+ready for an audience, but waited in some anxiety near by, until Axel
+Martini on his side had waited for seven or eight minutes in the yellow
+room. Then he walked in hastily, almost hurriedly, and advanced towards
+the poet, who made a low bow.
+
+"I am very much pleased to make your acquaintance," he said, "dear sir
+... dear Doctor, I believe?"
+
+"No, Royal Highness," answered Axel Martini in an asthmatic voice, "not
+doctor, I've no title."
+
+"Oh, forgive me ... I assumed ... Let's sit down, dear Herr Martini. I
+am, as I have said, delighted to be able to congratulate you on your
+great success...."
+
+Herr Martini drew down the corners of his mouth. He sat down on the edge
+of one of the mahogany arm-chairs, at the uncovered table, round whose
+edge ran a gold border, and crossed his feet, which were cased in
+cracked patent-leather boots. He was in frock-coat and wore yellow
+gloves. His collar was frayed at the edges. He had rather staring eyes,
+thin cheeks and a dark yellow moustache, which was clipped like a hedge.
+His hair was already quite grey on the temples, although according to
+the "May-combat" Annual he was not more than thirty years old, and under
+his eyes glowed patches of red which did not suggest robust health. He
+answered to Klaus Heinrich's congratulations: "Your Royal Highness is
+very kind. It was not a difficult victory. Perhaps it was hardly tactful
+of me to compete."
+
+Klaus Heinrich did not understand this; but he said: "I have read your
+poem repeatedly with great pleasure. It seems to me a complete success,
+as regards both metre and rhyme. And it entirely expresses the 'Joy of
+Life.'"
+
+Herr Martini bowed in his chair.
+
+"Your skill," continued Klaus Heinrich, "must be a source of great
+pleasure to you--an ideal recreation. What is your calling, Herr
+Martini?"
+
+Herr Martini showed that he did not understand, by describing a note of
+interrogation with the upper half of his body.
+
+"I mean your main calling. Are you in the Civil Service?"
+
+"No, Royal Highness, I have no calling; I occupy myself exclusively with
+poetry...."
+
+"None at all.... Oh, I understand. So unusual a gift deserves that a
+man's whole powers be devoted to it."
+
+"I don't know about that, Royal Highness. Whether it deserves it or not,
+I don't know. I must own that I had no choice. I have always felt myself
+entirely unsuited to every other branch of human activity. It seems to
+me that this undoubted and unconditional unsuitability for everything
+else is the sole proof and touchstone of the poetical calling--indeed,
+that a man must not see in poetry any calling, but only the expression
+and refuge of that unsuitability."
+
+It was a peculiarity with Herr Martini that when he talked tears came
+into his eyes just like a man who comes out of the cold into a warm room
+and lets the heat stream through and melt his limbs.
+
+"That's a singular idea," said Klaus Heinrich.
+
+"Not at all, Royal Highness. I beg your pardon, no, not singular at all.
+It's an idea which is very generally accepted. What I say is nothing
+new."
+
+"And for how long have you been living only for poetry? I suppose you
+were once a student?"
+
+"Not exactly, Royal Highness; no, the unsuitability to which I alluded
+before began to show itself in me at an early age. I couldn't get on at
+school. I left it without passing my 'final.' I went up to the
+university with the full intention of taking it later, but I never did.
+And when my first volume of poems attracted a good deal of attention, it
+no longer suited my dignity to do so, if I may say so."
+
+"Of course not.... But did your parents then agree to your choice of a
+career?"
+
+"Oh no, Royal Highness! I must say to my parents' credit that they by no
+means agreed to it. I come of a good stock: my father was Solicitor to
+the Treasury. He's dead now, but he was Solicitor to the Treasury. He
+naturally disliked my choice of a career so much that till his death he
+would never give me a farthing. I lived at daggers drawn with him,
+although I had the greatest respect for him because of his strictness."
+
+"Oh, so you've had a hard time of it, Herr Martini, you've had to
+struggle through. I can well believe that you must have knocked about a
+good deal!"
+
+"Not so, Royal Highness! No, that would have been horrid, I couldn't
+have stood it. My health is delicate--I dare not say 'unfortunately,'
+for I am convinced that my talent is inseparably connected with my
+bodily infirmity. Neither my body nor my talent could have survived
+hunger and harsh winds, and they have not had to survive them. My mother
+was weak enough to provide me behind my father's back with the means of
+life, modest but adequate means. I owe it to her that my talent has been
+able to develop under fairly favourable conditions."
+
+"The result has shown, Herr Martini, that they were the right
+conditions.... Although it is difficult to say now what actually are
+good conditions. Permit me to suppose that if your mother had shown
+herself as strict as your father, and you had been alone in the world,
+and left entirely to your own resources ... don't you think that it
+might have been to a certain extent a good thing for you? That you might
+have got a peep at things, so to speak, which have escaped you as it
+is?"
+
+"People like me, Royal Highness, get peeps enough without having
+actually to know what hunger is; and the idea is fairly generally
+accepted that it is not actual hunger, but rather hunger for the actual
+... ha, ha!... which talent requires."
+
+Herr Martini had been obliged to laugh a little at his play upon words.
+He now quickly raised one yellow-gloved hand to his mouth with the
+hedge-like moustache, and improved his laugh into a cough. Klaus
+Heinrich watched him with a look of princely expectancy.
+
+"If your Royal Highness will allow me.... It is a well-known fact that
+the want of actuality for such as me is the seed-ground of all talent,
+the fountain of inspiration, indeed our suggestive genius. Enjoyment of
+life is forbidden to us, strictly forbidden, we have no illusions as to
+that--and by enjoyment of life I mean not only happiness, but also
+sorrow, passion, in short every serious tie with life. The
+representation of life claims all our forces, especially when those
+forces are not allotted to us in overabundant measure"--and Herr Martini
+coughed, drawing his shoulders repeatedly forward as he did so.
+"Renunciation," he added, "is our compact with the Muse, in it reposes
+our strength, our value; and life is our forbidden garden, our great
+temptation, to which we yield sometimes, but never to our profit."
+
+The flow of words had again brought tears to Herr Martini's eyes. He
+tried to blink them away.
+
+"Every one of us," he went on, "knows what it is to make mistakes, to
+run off the rails in that way, to make greedy excursions of that kind
+into the festival halls of life. But we return thence into our isolation
+humbled and sick at heart."
+
+Herr Martini stopped. His look, from under his knotted brows, became
+fixed for a moment and lost in vacancy, while his mouth assumed a sour
+expression and his cheeks, on which the unhealthy redness glowed, seemed
+even thinner than before. It was only for a second; then he changed his
+position, and his eyes recovered their vivacity.
+
+"But your poem," said Klaus Heinrich, with some _empressement_. "Your
+prize poem to the 'Joy of Life,' Herr Martini.... I am really grateful
+to you for your achievement. But will you please tell me ... your
+poem--I've read it attentively. It deals on the one hand with misery and
+horrors, with the wickedness and cruelty of life, if I remember rightly,
+and on the other hand with the enjoyment of wine and fair women, does it
+not?..."
+
+Herr Martini laughed; then rubbed the corners of his mouth with his
+thumb and forefinger, so as to wipe the laugh out.
+
+"And it's all," said Klaus Heinrich, "conceived in the form of 'I,' in
+the first person, isn't it? And yet it is not founded on personal
+knowledge? You have not really experienced any of it yourself?"
+
+"Very little, Royal Highness. Only quite trifling suggestions of it. No,
+the fact is the other way round--that, if I were the man to experience
+all that, I should not only not write such poems, but should also feel
+entire contempt for my present existence. I have a friend, his name is
+Weber; he's a rich young man; he lives, he enjoys his life. His
+favourite amusement consists in scorching in his motor car at a mad pace
+over the country and picking up village girls from the roads and fields
+on the way, with whom he----but that's another story. In short, that
+young man laughs when he catches sight of me, he finds something so
+comic in me and my activities. But as for me, I can quite understand his
+amusement, and envy him it. I dare say that I too despise him a little,
+but not so much as I envy and admire him...."
+
+"You admire him?"
+
+"Certainly, Royal Highness. I cannot help doing so. He spends, he
+squanders, he lets himself go in a most unconcerned and light-hearted
+way--while it is my lot to save, anxiously and greedily, to keep
+together, and indeed to do so on hygienic grounds. For hygiene is what I
+and such as I most need--it is our whole ethics. But nothing is more
+unhygienic than life...."
+
+"That means that you will never empty the Grand Duke's cup, then, Herr
+Martini?"
+
+"Drink wine out of it? No, Royal Highness. Although it would be fine to
+do so. But I never touch wine. And I go to bed at ten, and generally
+take care of myself. If I didn't, I should never have won the cup."
+
+"I can well believe it, Herr Martini. People who are not behind the
+scenes get strange ideas of what a poet's life must be like."
+
+"Quite conceivably, Royal Highness. But it is, taken all round, by no
+means a very glorious life, I can assure you, especially as we aren't
+poets every hour of the twenty-four. In order that a poem of that sort
+may come into existence from time to time--who would believe how much
+idleness and boredom and peevish laziness is necessary? The motto on a
+picture postcard is often a whole day's work. We sleep a lot, we idle
+about with heads feeling like lead. Yes, it's too often a dog's life."
+
+Some one knocked lightly on the white-lacquered door. It was Neumann's
+signal that it was high time for Klaus Heinrich to change his clothes
+and have himself freshened up. For there was to be a club concert that
+evening in the Old Schloss.
+
+Klaus Heinrich rose. "I've been gossiping," he said; for that was the
+expression he used at such moments. And then he dismissed Herr Martini,
+wished him success in his poetical career, and accompanied the poet's
+respectful withdrawal with a laugh and that rather theatrical up and
+down movement of the hand which was not always equally effective, but
+which he had brought to a high pitch of perfection.
+
+Such was the Prince's conversation with Axel Martini, the author of
+"Evoë!" and "The Holy Life." It gave him food for thought, it continued
+to occupy his mind after it had ended. He continued to think over it
+while Neumann was reparting his hair and helping him on with the
+dazzling full-dress coat with the stars, during the club concert at
+Court, and for several days afterwards, and he tried to reconcile the
+poet's statements with the rest of the experiences which life had
+vouchsafed to him.
+
+This Herr Martini, who, while the unhealthy flush glowed under his eyes,
+kept crying: "How beautiful, how strong is life!" yet was careful to go
+to bed at ten, shut himself off from life on hygienic grounds, as he
+said, and avoided every serious tie with it--this poet with his frayed
+collar, his watery eyes, and his envy of the young Weber who scorched
+over the country with village girls: he left a mixed impression, it was
+difficult to come to any certain conclusion about him. Klaus Heinrich
+expressed it, when he told his sister of the meeting, by saying: "Things
+are none too comfortable and easy for him, that's quite obvious, and
+that certainly entitles him to our sympathy. But somehow, I'm not sure
+if I'm glad to have met him, for he has something deterrent about him,
+Ditlinde--yes, after all, he's certainly a little repulsive."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+IMMA
+
+
+Fräulein von Isenschnibbe had been well informed. On the very evening of
+the day on which she had brought the Princess zu Reid the great news,
+the _Courier_ published the announcement of Samuel Spoelmann's, the
+world-renowned Spoelmann's, impending arrival, and ten days later, at
+the beginning of October (it was the October of the year in which Grand
+Duke Albrecht had entered his thirty-second and Prince Klaus Heinrich
+his twenty-sixth year), thus barely giving time for public curiosity to
+reach a really high point, his arrival became a fact, a plain actuality
+on an autumn-tinged, entirely ordinary week-day, which was destined to
+impress itself on the future as a date to be remembered for ever.
+
+The Spoelmanns arrived by special train--that was the only distinction
+about their debut to start with, for everybody knew that the "Prince's
+suite" in the "Spa Court" Hotel was by no means dazzlingly magnificent.
+A few idlers, guarded by a small detachment of policemen, had gathered
+behind the platform barriers; some representatives of the press were
+present. But whoever expected anything out of the ordinary was
+disappointed. Spoelmann would almost have passed unrecognized, he was so
+unimposing. For a long time people took his family physician for him
+(Doctor Watercloose, people said he was called), a tall American, who
+wore his hat on the back of his head and kept his mouth distended in a
+perpetual smile between his close-trimmed white whiskers, the while he
+half-closed his eyes. It was not till the last moment that people
+learned that it was the little clean-shaven man in the faded overcoat,
+he who wore his hat pulled down over his eyes, who was the actual
+Spoelmann, and the spectators were agreed that there was nothing
+striking about him. All sorts of stories had been in circulation about
+him; some witty fellow had spread the report that Spoelmann had front
+teeth of solid gold and a diamond set in the middle of each. But
+although the truth or untruth of this report could not be tested at
+once--for Spoelmann did not show his teeth, he did not laugh, but rather
+seemed angry and irritated by his infirmity--yet when they saw him
+nobody was any longer inclined to believe it.
+
+As for Miss Spoelmann, his daughter, she had turned up the collar of her
+fur coat, and stuffed her hands in the pockets, so that there was hardly
+anything to be seen of her except a pair of disproportionately big
+brown-black eyes, which swept the crowd with a serious look whose
+meaning it was hard to interpret. By her side stood the person whom the
+onlookers identified as her companion, the Countess Löwenjoul, a woman
+of thirty-five, plainly dressed and taller than either of the
+Spoelmanns, who carried her little head with its thin smooth hair
+pensively on one side, and kept her eyes fixed in front of her with a
+kind of rigid meekness. What without question attracted most attention
+was a Scottish sheep-dog which was led on a cord by a stolid-looking
+servant--an exceptionally handsome, but, as it appeared, terribly
+excitable beast, that leaped and danced and filled the station with its
+frenzied barking.
+
+People said that a few of Spoelmann's servants, male and female, had
+already arrived at the "Spa Court" some hours before. At any rate it was
+left to the servant with the dog to look after the luggage by himself;
+and while he was doing so his masters drove in two ordinary flies--Mr.
+Spoelmann with Doctor Watercloose, Miss Spoelmann with the Countess--to
+the Spa-Garden. There they got out, and there for six weeks they led a
+life the cost of which it did not need all their money to meet.
+
+They were lucky; the weather was fine, it was a blue autumn, a long
+succession of sunny days from October into November, and Miss Spoelmann
+rode daily--that was her only luxury--with her companion, on horses
+which she hired by the week from the livery stables. Mr. Spoelmann did
+not ride, although the _Courier_, with obvious reference to him,
+published a note by its medical colleague according to which riding had
+a soothing effect in cases of stone, owing to its jolting, and helped to
+disperse the stone. But the hotel staff knew that the famous man
+practised artificial riding within the four walls of his room, with the
+help of a machine, a stationary velocipede to whose saddle a jolting
+motion was imparted by the working of the pedals.
+
+He was a zealous drinker of the healing waters, the Ditlinde Spring, by
+which he seemed to set great store. He appeared first thing every
+morning in the Füllhaus, accompanied by his daughter, who for her part
+was quite healthy, and only drank with him for company's sake, and then,
+in his faded coat and with his hat pulled over his eyes, took his
+exercise in the Spa-Garden and Wandelhalle, drinking the water the while
+through a glass tube out of a blue tumbler--watched at a distance by the
+two American newspaper correspondents, whose duty it was to telegraph to
+their papers a thousand words daily about Spoelmann's holiday resort,
+and who were therefore bound to try to get something to telegraph about.
+
+Otherwise he was rarely visible. His illness--kidney colic, so people
+said, extremely painful attacks--seemed to confine him often to his
+room, if not to his bed, and while Miss Spoelmann with Countess
+Löwenjoul appeared two or three times at the Court Theatre (when, in a
+black velvet dress with an Indian silk scarf of a wonderful gold-yellow
+colour round her fresh young shoulders, she looked quite bewitching with
+her pearl-white complexion and great black pleading eyes), her father
+was never seen in the box with her. He took, it is true, in her company
+one or two drives through the capital, to do some shopping, get some
+idea of the town, and see a few select sights; he went for a walk with
+her too, through the park and twice inspected there the Schloss
+Delphinenort--the second time alone, when he was so much interested as
+to take measurements of the walls with an ordinary yellow rule, which he
+took out of his faded coat.... But he was never seen in the dining-room
+of the "Spa Court," for whether because he was on an almost meatless
+diet, or for some other reason, he took his meals exclusively with his
+own party in his own rooms, and the curiosity of the public had on the
+whole remarkably little to feed on.
+
+The result was that Spoelmann's arrival at the Spa at first did not
+prove so beneficial as Fräulein von Isenschnibbe and many others beside
+her had expected. The export of bottles increased, that was certain; it
+quickly rose to half as many again as its previous figure, and remained
+at that. But the influx of foreigners did not increase noticeably; the
+guests who came to feast their eyes on so abnormal an existence soon
+went away again, satisfied or disappointed, besides it was for the most
+part not the most desirable elements of society that were attracted by
+the millionaire's presence. Strange creatures appeared in the streets,
+unkempt and wild-eyed creatures--inventors, projectors, would-be
+benefactors of mankind, who hoped to enlist Spoelmann's sympathies for
+their hobbies. But the millionaire made himself absolutely inaccessible
+to these people; indeed, purple with rage, he howled at one of them who
+made advances towards him in the park, in such a way that the busybody
+quickly skedaddled, and it was often said that the torrent of begging
+letters which daily flowed in to him--letters which often bore stamps
+which the officials of the Grand Ducal post-office had never seen
+before--was at once discharged into a paper-basket of quite unusual
+capacity.
+
+Spoelmann seemed to have forbidden all business letters to be sent him,
+seemed determined to enjoy his holiday to the utmost, and during his
+travels in Europe to live exclusively for his health--or ill-health. The
+_Courier_, whose reporter had lost no time in making friends with his
+American colleagues, was in a position to announce that a reliable man,
+a so-called chief manager, was Mr. Spoelmann's representative in
+America. He went on to say that his yacht, a gorgeously decorated
+vessel, was awaiting the great man at Venice, and that as soon as he had
+finished his cure he intended to travel south with his party.
+
+It told also, in answer to importunate requests from its readers--of the
+romantic origin of the Spoelmann millions, from their beginning in
+Victoria, whither his father had drifted from some German office stool
+or other, young, poor, and armed only with a pick, a shovel, and a tin
+plate. There he had begun by working as help to a gold-digger, as a day
+labourer, in the sweat of his brow. And then luck had come to him. A
+man, a claim-owner on a small scale, had fared so badly that he could no
+longer buy himself his tomatoes and dry bread for dinner, and in his
+extremity had been obliged to dispose of his claim. Spoelmann senior had
+bought it, had staked his one card, and, with his whole savings,
+amounting to £5 sterling, had bought this piece of alluvial land called
+"Paradise Field," not more than forty feet square. And the next day he
+had turned up, a foot under the surface, a nugget of pure gold, the
+tenth biggest nugget in the world, the "Paradise nugget," weighing 980
+ounces and worth £5,000.
+
+That, related the _Courier_, had been the beginning. Spoelmann's father
+had emigrated to South America with the proceeds of his find, to
+Bolivia, and as gold-washer, amalgam-mill-owner, and mine-owner had
+continued to extract the yellow metal direct from the rivers and the
+womb of the mountains. Then and there Spoelmann senior had married--and
+the _Courier_ went so far as to hint in this connexion that he had done
+so defiantly and without regard to the prejudices generally felt in
+those parts. However, he had doubled his capital and succeeded in
+investing his money most profitably.
+
+He had moved on northwards to Philadelphia, Pa. That was in the fifties,
+the time of a great boom in railway construction, and Spoelmann had
+begun with one investment in the Baltimore and Ohio Railway. He had also
+leased a coal-mine in the west of the State, the profits from which had
+been enormous. Finally he had joined that group of fortunate young men
+which bought the famous Blockhead Farm for a few thousand pounds--the
+property which, with its petroleum wells, in a short time increased in
+value to a hundred times its purchase price.... This enterprise had made
+a rich man of Spoelmann senior, but he had by no means rested on his
+oars, but unceasingly practised the art of making money into more money,
+and finally into superabundant money.
+
+He had started steel works, had floated companies for the turning of
+iron into steel on a large scale, and for building railway bridges. He
+had bought up the major part of the shares of four or five big railway
+companies, and had been elected in the later years of his life
+president, vice-president, manager, or director of the companies. When
+the Steel Trust was formed, so the _Courier_ said, he had joined it,
+with a holding of shares which guaranteed him an income of $12,000,000.
+But at the same time he had been chief shareholder and expert adviser of
+the Petroleum Combine, and in virtue of his holding had dominated three
+or four of the other Trust Companies. And at his death his fortune,
+reckoned in German currency, had amounted to a round thousand million
+marks.
+
+Samuel, his only son, the offspring of that early marriage, contracted
+in defiance of public opinion, had been his sole heir--and the
+_Courier_, with its usual delicacy, interpolated a remark to the effect
+that there was something almost sad in the idea of any one, without
+himself contributing, and through no fault of his own, being born to
+such a situation. Samuel had inherited the palace on Fifth Avenue at New
+York, the country mansions, and all the shares, Trust bonds, and profits
+of his father; he inherited also the strange position to which his
+father had risen, his world-fame and the hatred directed by his
+out-distanced competitors against the power of his gold--all the hatred
+to allay which he yearly distributed his huge donations to colleges,
+conservatories, libraries, benevolent institutions, and that University
+which his father had founded and which bore his name.
+
+Samuel Spoelmann did not deserve the hatred of the out-distanced
+competitors; that the _Courier_ was sure of. He had gone early into the
+business, and had controlled the bewildering possessions of his house
+all by himself during his father's last years. But everybody knew that
+his heart had never been really in the business. His real inclinations
+had been, strange to say, all along much more towards music and
+especially organ music--and the truth of this information on the part of
+the _Courier_ was certain, for Mr. Spoelmann actually kept a small organ
+in the "Spa Court," whose bellows he got a hotel servant to blow, and he
+could be heard from the Spa-Garden playing it for an hour every day.
+
+He had married for love and not at all from social considerations,
+according to the _Courier_--a poor and pretty girl, half German, half
+Anglo-Saxon by descent. She had died, but she had left him a daughter,
+that wonderful blood-mixture of a girl, whom we now had as guest within
+our walls and who was at the time nineteen years old. Her name was
+Imma--a real German name, as the _Courier_ added, nothing more than an
+old form of "Emma," and it might be remarked that the daily conversation
+in the Spoelmann household, though interlarded with scraps of English,
+had remained German. And how devoted father and daughter seemed to be to
+each other! Every morning, by going to the Spa-Garden at the right time,
+one could watch Fräulein Spoelmann, who usually entered the Füllhause a
+little later than her father, take his head between her hands and give
+him his morning kiss on mouth and cheeks, while he patted her tenderly
+on the back. Then they went arm-in-arm through the Wandelhalle and
+sucked their glass tubes as they went....
+
+That is how the well-informed journal gossiped and fed the public
+curiosity. It also reported carefully the visits which Miss Imma kindly
+paid with her companion to several of the charitable institutions of the
+town. Yesterday she had made a detailed inspection of the public
+kitchens. To-day she had made a prolonged tour of the Trinity Almhouses
+for old women, and she had recently twice attended Privy Councillor
+Klinghammer's lectures on the theory of numbers at the university--had
+sat on the bench, a student among students, and scribbled away with her
+fountain-pen, for everybody knew that she was a learned girl and devoted
+to the study of algebra. Yes, all that was absorbing reading, and
+furnished ample food for conversation. But the topics which made
+themselves talked about without any help from the _Courier_ were,
+firstly, the dog, that noble black-and-white collie which the Spoelmanns
+had brought with them, and secondly, in a different way, the companion,
+Countess Löwenjoul.
+
+As for the dog, whose name was Percival, generally shortened to Percy,
+he was an animal of so excitable and emotional a disposition as beggared
+description. Inside the hotel he afforded no grounds for complaint, but
+lay in a dignified attitude on a small carpet outside the Spoelmanns'
+suite. But every time he went out he had an attack of light-headedness,
+which caused general interest and surprise, indeed more than once actual
+obstruction of traffic.
+
+Followed at a distance by a swarm of native dogs, common curs which,
+incited by his demeanour, assailed him with censorious yaps, and which
+caused him no concern whatever, he flew through the streets, his nose
+spattered with foam and barking wildly, pirouetted madly in front of the
+tramcars, made the cab-horses stumble, and twice knocked Widow
+Klaaszen's cake stall at the Town Hall down so violently that the sugar
+cakes rolled half over the Market-place. But as Mr. Spoelmann or his
+daughter at once met such catastrophes with more than adequate
+compensation, as too it was discovered that Percival's attacks were
+really quite free from danger, that he was anything but inclined to bite
+and steal, but on the contrary kept to himself and would let nobody come
+near him, public opinion quickly turned in his favour, and to the
+children in particular his excursions were a constant source of
+pleasure.
+
+Countess Löwenjoul on her side supplied food for conversation in a
+quieter but no less strange way. At first, when her personality and
+position were not yet known in the city, she had attracted the gibes of
+the street urchins, because, while out walking alone, she talked to
+herself softly and deliberately, and accompanied her words with lively
+and at the same time graceful and elegant gestures. But she had shown
+such mildness and goodness to the children who shouted after her and
+tugged at her dress, she had spoken to them with such affection and
+dignity, that her persecutors had slunk away abashed and confused, and
+later, when she became known, respect for her relations with the famous
+guests secured her from molestation. However, some unintelligible
+anecdotes were secretly circulated about her. One man told how the
+Countess had given him a gold piece with instructions that he should box
+the ears of a certain old woman who was understood to have made some
+unseemly proposal or other to her. The man had pocketed the gold piece,
+without, however, discharging his commission.
+
+Further, it was declared as a fact that the Countess had accosted the
+sentry in front of the Fusiliers' Barracks and had told him at once to
+arrest the wife of the sergeant of one of the companies because of her
+moral shortcomings. She had written too a letter to the Colonel of the
+regiment to the effect that all sorts of secret and unspeakable
+abominations went on inside the barracks. Whether she was right in her
+facts, heaven only knew. But many people at once concluded that she was
+wrong in her head. At any rate, there was no time to investigate the
+matter, for six weeks were soon past, and Samuel N. Spoelmann, the
+millionaire, went away.
+
+He went away after having had his portrait painted by Professor von
+Lindemann--an expensive portrait too, which he gave to the proprietor of
+the "Spa Court" as a memento; he went away with his daughter, the
+Countess, and Doctor Watercloose, with Percival, the chamber-velocipede,
+and his servants; went by special train to the South, with the view of
+spending the winter on the Riviera, whither the two New York journalists
+had hastened ahead of him, and of then crossing back home again. It was
+all over. The _Courier_ wished Mr. Spoelmann a hearty farewell and
+expressed the hope that the cure would be found to have done him good.
+
+And with that the notable interlude seemed to be closed and done with.
+Everyday life claimed its due, and Mr. Spoelmann began to fade into
+oblivion. The winter passed. It was the winter in which her Grand Ducal
+Highness the Princess zu Ried-Hohenried was confined of a daughter.
+Spring came, and his Royal Highness Grand Duke Albrecht repaired as
+usual to Hollerbrunn. But then a rumour cropped up amongst the people
+and in the press, which was received at first with a shrug by the
+sober-minded, but became more concrete, crystallized, took to itself
+quite precise details, and finally won itself a dominant place in the
+solid and pithy news of the day.
+
+What was toward? A Grand Ducal Schloss was about to be sold? Nonsense!
+Which Schloss?--Delphinenort. Schloss Delphinenort in the North Park?
+Twaddle! Sold? To whom?--To Spoelmann. Ridiculous! What could he do with
+it?--Restore it, and live in it. That's all very well. But perhaps our
+Parliament might have something to say to that.--They don't care
+twopence. Had the State any responsibility for keeping up Schloss
+Delphinenort?--If they had, it's a pity they hadn't recognized it, dear
+old place. No, Parliament had no say in the matter. Have the
+negotiations advanced at all far?--Rather, they're completed. Goodness
+gracious, then of course the exact price is known?--Naturally. Sold for
+two millions, not a farthing less. Impossible! A Royal Palace! Royal
+palace be blowed! We're not talking of the Grimmburg or of the Old
+Schloss. We're talking of a country house, an unused country house which
+is falling in pieces for lack of funds to keep it up.
+
+So Spoelmann intended to come back every year and spend several weeks in
+Delphinenort?--No. For he intended rather to come and settle among us
+altogether. He was sick of America, wanted to turn his back on it, and
+his first stay amongst us was merely to spy out the land. He was ill, he
+wanted to retire from business. He had always remained a German at
+heart. The father had emigrated, and the son wanted to come back home.
+He wished to take his part in the modest life and intellectual resources
+of our country, and to spend the rest of his days in the immediate
+neighbourhood of the Ditlinde Spa.
+
+All was confusion and bustle, and discussions without end. But public
+opinion, with the exception of the voices of a few grumblers, trended
+after a short hesitation in favour of the idea of sale; indeed without
+this general approval the matter could never have gone very far. It was
+House Minister von Knobelsdorff who first ventured on a cautious
+announcement of Spoelmann's offer in the daily press. He had waited and
+allowed the popular feeling to come to a decision. And after the first
+confusion, solid reasons in favour of the project had made themselves
+felt.
+
+The business world was enchanted at the idea of having so doughty a
+consumer at its doors. The æsthetes showed themselves delighted at the
+prospect of seeing Schloss Delphinenort restored and kept up--at seeing
+the noble old building restored to honour and youth in so unforeseen,
+indeed so romantic a way. But the economically-minded brought forward
+figures which were calculated to cause grave misgivings as to the
+financial position of the country. If Samuel N. Spoelmann settled among
+us, he would become a tax-payer--he would have to pay us his income-tax.
+
+Perhaps it was worth while showing what that meant. Mr. Spoelmann would
+be left to declare his own income, but, from what one knew--and knew
+fairly accurately--his residence would mean a yearly revenue of two and
+a half millions, in taxes alone, not to mention what he paid in rates.
+Worth thinking about, wasn't it? The question was put straight to the
+Finance Minister, Dr. Krippenreuther. He would be wanting in his duty if
+he did not do all he could to recommend the sale in the highest
+quarters. For patriotism demanded that Spoelmann's offer should be
+accepted, and patriotism was paramount above all other considerations.
+
+So Excellency von Knobelsdorff had had an interview with the Grand Duke.
+He had informed his master of the public opinion, had added that the
+price offered, two millions, considerably exceeded the real value of the
+Schloss in its present condition, had remarked that such a sum meant a
+real windfall for the Treasury, and had ended by slipping in a hint
+about the central heating of the Old Schloss, which, if the sale was
+carried through, would no longer be an impossibility. In short, the
+single-minded old gentleman had brought his whole influence to bear in
+favour of the sale, and had recommended the Grand Duke to bring the
+matter before a family moot. Albrecht had sucked his lower lip softly
+against the upper, and summoned the family moot. It had met in the Hall
+of the Knights over tea and biscuits. Only two feminine members, the
+Princess Catherine and Ditlinde, had opposed the sale, on the ground of
+loss of dignity.
+
+"You will be misunderstood, Albrecht!" said Ditlinde.
+
+"They will charge you with want of respect to your high station, and
+that is not right, for you have on the contrary too much; you are so
+proud, Albrecht, that everything is all the same to you. But I say No. I
+do not wish to see a Croesus living in one of your Schlosses, it is not
+right, and it was bad enough that he should have a family physician and
+take the Prince's suite in the Spa Court. The _Courier_ harps on the
+fact that he is a tax-paying subject, but in my eyes he is simply a
+subject and nothing else. What do you think, Klaus Heinrich?"
+
+But Klaus Heinrich voted for the sale. In the first place, Albrecht got
+his central heating; secondly, Spoelmann was not one of the common herd,
+he was not soap-boiler Unschlitt--he was an exception, and there was no
+disgrace in letting him have Delphinenort. Finally Albrecht had, with
+downcast eyes, pronounced the whole family moot to be a farce. The
+people had long ago made up their minds, his Ministers urged the sale,
+and there was nothing left for him to do but to "wave to the
+engine-driver and start the train."
+
+The family moot had taken place in spring. From that time onwards the
+negotiations for sale, which were carried on between Spoelmann on the
+one hand and the Lord Marshal von Bühl zu Bühl on the other, had
+proceeded apace, and the summer was not far advanced before Schloss
+Delphinenort with its park and out-buildings had become the lawful
+property of Mr. Spoelmann.
+
+Then began a scene of bustle and confusion round and in the Schloss,
+which daily attracted crowds to the northern side of the park.
+Delphinenort was improved and partly reconstructed inside by a swarm of
+workmen. For quick, quick, was the order of the day, that was
+Spoelmann's wish, and he had only allowed five months' respite for
+everything to be ready for him to enter into possession. So a wooden
+scaffold with ladders and platforms shot up at lightning speed round the
+dilapidated old building, foreign workmen swarmed all over it, and an
+architect came with carte blanche over the seas to superintend the work.
+But the greater part of the work fell to our native manual workers to
+perform, and the stone-masons and tilers, the joiners, gilders,
+upholsterers, glaziers, and parquet-layers of the city, the landscape
+gardeners and heating and lighting experts, had plenty of remunerative
+work all through the summer and autumn.
+
+When his Royal Highness Klaus Heinrich left his window in the
+"Hermitage" open, the noise of the work at Delphinenort penetrated right
+through to the Empire room, and he often drove past the Schloss amid the
+respectful greetings of the public, in order to satisfy himself of the
+progress of the restoration. The gardener's cottage was painted up, the
+sheds and stables, which were destined to accommodate Spoelmann's fleet
+of motors and carriages, were enlarged; and by October, furniture and
+carpets, chests and cases full of stuffs and household utensils had been
+delivered at Schloss Delphinenort, while it was whispered among the
+bystanders that inside the walls skilled hands were at work fitting
+Spoelmann's costly organ, which had been sent from over the sea, with
+electric action.
+
+There was much excitement to know whether the park belonging to the
+Schloss, which had been so splendidly cleaned up and trimmed, was to be
+fenced off from the public by a wall or hedge. But nothing of the sort
+was done. It was Spoelmann's wish that the property should continue to
+be accessible, that no restraint should be placed on the citizens'
+enjoyment of the park. The Sunday promenaders should have access right
+up to the Schloss, up to the clipped hedge which surrounded the big
+square pond--and this did not fail to make an excellent impression on
+the population; indeed, the _Courier_ published a special article on the
+subject, in which it praised Mr. Spoelmann for his philanthropy.
+
+And behold! when the leaves again began to fall, exactly one year after
+his first appearance, Samuel Spoelmann landed a second time at our
+railway station. This time the general interest in the event was much
+greater than in the preceding year, and it is on record that, when Mr.
+Spoelmann, in his well-known faded coat and with his hat over his eyes,
+left his saloon, loud cheers were raised by the crowd of spectators--an
+expression of feelings which Mr. Spoelmann seemed rather inclined to
+resent, and which not he but Doctor Watercloose acknowledged with
+blinking eyes and a broad smile. When Miss Spoelmann too alighted, a
+cheer was raised, and one or two urchins even shouted when Percy, the
+collie, appeared springing, leaping, and altogether beside himself, on
+the platform. In addition to the doctor and Countess Löwenjoul there
+were two unknown persons in attendance, two clean-shaven and
+decided-looking men in strangely roomy coats. They were Mr. Spoelmann's
+secretaries, Messrs. Phlebs and Slippers, as the _Courier_ announced in
+its report.
+
+At that time Delphinenort was far from ready, and the Spoelmanns at once
+took possession of the first floor of the chief hotel, where a big,
+haughty, paunch-bellied man in black, the steward or butler of the
+Spoelmann establishment, who had preceded them, had made preparations
+for them, and put the chamber-velocipede together with his own hands.
+Every day, while Miss Imma with her Countess and Percy went for a ride
+or a visit to some charitable institution, Mr. Spoelmann hung about his
+house, superintending the work and giving orders, and when the end of
+the year approached, just after the first snow had fallen, prospect
+became fact, and the Spoelmanns took up their abode in Schloss
+Delphinenort. Two motor cars (their arrival had been watched with
+interest--splendid cars they were) bore the six members of the
+party--Messrs. Phlebs and Slippers sat in the hinder one--driven by the
+leather-clad chauffeurs, with servants in snow-white fur coats and
+crossed arms beside them, in a few minutes from the hotel through the
+City Gardens; and as the cars dashed along the noble chestnut avenue
+which led to the drive, the urchins climbed up the high lamp-posts which
+stood at all four corners of the big spa-basin, and waved their caps and
+cheered....
+
+So Spoelmann and his belongings settled down among us, and we basked in
+the light of his presence. His white-and-gold livery was seen and known
+in the city, just as the brown-and-gold Grand Ducal livery was seen and
+known; the negro in scarlet plush who was doorkeeper at Delphinenort
+soon became a popular figure, and when passers-by heard the subdued
+rumble of Mr. Spoelmann's organ from the interior of the Schloss they
+lifted a finger and said: "Hark, he's playing. That means that he's not
+got colic for the moment."
+
+Miss Imma was to be seen daily by the side of Countess Löwenjoul,
+followed by a groom and with Percy capering round, riding, or driving a
+smart four-in-hand through the City Gardens--while the servant who sat
+on the back seat stood up from time to time, drew a long silver horn
+from a leather sheath and wound a shrill warning of their approach; and
+by getting up early one could see father and daughter every morning go
+in a dark-red brougham, or, in fine weather, on foot through the park of
+Schloss "Hermitage" to the Spa-Garden, in order to drink the waters.
+Imma for her part, as already mentioned, again began a course of visits
+to the benevolent institutions of the city, though she appeared not to
+give up her studies for all that; for from the beginning of the
+half-term she regularly attended the lectures of the Councillor
+Klinghammer at the University--sat daily in a black dress with white
+collar and cuffs among the young students in the lecture-theatre, and
+drove her fountain-pen--with her fore-finger raised in the air, a trick
+of hers when writing--over the pages of her notebook.
+
+The Spoelmanns lived in retirement, they did not mix in the life of the
+town, as was natural in view both of Mr. Spoelmann's ill-health and of
+his social loneliness. What social group could he have attached himself
+to? Nobody even suggested to him that he should consort with soap-boiler
+Unschlitt or bank-director Wolfsmilch on confidential terms. Yet he was
+soon approached with appeals to his generosity, and the appeals were not
+in vain. For Mr. Spoelmann, who, it was well known, before his departure
+from America had given a large sum in dollars to the Board of Education
+in the United States, and had also stated in so many words that he had
+no intention of withdrawing his yearly contributions to the Spoelmann
+University and his other educational foundations--he, shortly after his
+arrival at "Delphinenort," put his name down for a subscription of ten
+thousand marks to the Dorothea Children's Hospital, for which a
+collection was just being made; an action the nobleness of which was
+immediately recognized in fitting terms by the _Courier_ and the rest of
+the press.
+
+In fact, although the Spoelmanns lived in seclusion in a social sense, a
+certain amount of publicity attached to their life among us from the
+earliest moments, and in the local section of the daily newspapers at
+least their movements were followed with as much particularity as those
+of the members of the Grand Ducal House. The public were informed when
+Miss Imma had played a game of lawn tennis with the Countess and Messrs.
+Phlebs and Slippers in the "Delphinenort" park; it was noted when she
+had been at the Court Theatre, and whether her father had gone with her
+for an act or two of the Opera; and if Mr. Spoelmann shrank from
+curiosity, never leaving his box during the intervals and scarcely ever
+showing himself on foot in the streets, yet he was obviously not
+insensible to the duties of a spectacular kind which were inherent in an
+extraordinary existence like his own, and he gave the love of gazing its
+due.
+
+It has been said that the "Delphinenort" park was not divided from the
+Town Gardens. No walls separated the Schloss from the outer world. From
+the back one could walk over the turf right up to the foot of the broad
+covered terrace which had been built on that side, and, if bold enough,
+look through the big glass door straight into the high white-and-gold
+garden-room in which Mr. Spoelmann and his family had five-o'clock tea.
+Indeed, when summer came, tea was laid on the terrace outside, and Mr.
+and Miss Spoelmann, the Countess and Doctor Watercloose sat in basket
+chairs of a new-fangled shape, and took their tea as if on a public
+platform.
+
+For on Sunday, at any rate, there was never wanting a public to enjoy
+the spectacle at a respectful distance. They called each other's
+attention to the silver tea-kettle, which was heated by electricity--a
+quite novel idea--and to the wonderful liveries of the two footmen who
+handed the tea and cakes, white, high-buttoned, gold-laced coats with
+swan's-down on the collars, cuffs, and seams. They listened to the
+English-German conversation and followed with open mouths every movement
+of the notable family on the terrace. They then went round past the
+front door, in order to shout a few witticisms in the local dialect to
+the red-plush negro, which he answered with a dental grin.
+
+Klaus Heinrich saw Imma Spoelmann for the first time on a bright
+winter's day at noon. That does not mean that he had not already caught
+sight of her often at the theatre, in the street, and in the town park.
+But that's quite a different thing. He saw her for the first time at
+this midday hour in exciting circumstances.
+
+He had been giving "free audiences" in the Old Schloss till half-past
+eleven, and after they were finished had not returned at once to Schloss
+"Hermitage," but had ordered his coachman to keep the carriage waiting
+in one of the courts, as he wished to smoke a cigarette with the Guards
+officers on duty. As he wore the uniform of that regiment, to which his
+personal aide-de-camp also belonged, he made an effort to maintain the
+semblance of some sort of camaraderie with the officers; he dined from
+time to time in their mess and occasionally gave them half an hour of
+his company on guard, although he had a dim suspicion that he was rather
+a nuisance as he kept them from their cards and smoking-room stories.
+
+So there he stood, the convex silver star of the Noble Order of the
+Grimmburg Griffin on his breast, his left hand planted well back on his
+hip, with Herr von Braunbart-Schellendorf, who had given due notice of
+the visit in the officers' mess, which was situated on the ground floor
+of the Schloss near the Albrechts Gate--engaged in a trivial
+conversation with two or three officers in the middle of the room, while
+a further group of officers chatted at the deep-set window. Owing to the
+warmth of sun outside the window stood open, and from the barracks along
+the Albrechtstrasse came the strains of the drum and fife band of the
+approaching relief guard.
+
+Twelve o'clock struck from the Court Chapel tower. The loud "Fall in!"
+of the non-commissioned officer was heard outside, and the rattle of
+grenadiers standing to arms. The public collected on the square. The
+lieutenant on duty hastily buckled on his sword belt, clapped his heels
+together in a salute to Klaus Heinrich and went out. Then suddenly
+Lieutenant von Sturmhahn, who had been looking out of the window, cried
+with that rather poor imitation of familiarity which was proper to the
+relations between Klaus Heinrich and the officers: "Great heavens,
+here's something for you to look at, Royal Highness! There goes Miss
+Spoelmann, with her algebra under her arm...."
+
+Klaus Heinrich walked to the window. Miss Imma was walking by herself
+along the pavement. With both hands thrust into her big flat muff, which
+was trimmed with pendent tails, she carried her notebook pressed to her
+side with her elbow. She was wearing a long coat of shiny black fox, and
+a toque of the same fur on her dark foreign-looking hair. She was
+obviously coming from "Delphinenort" and hurrying towards the
+University. She reached the main guard-house at the moment at which the
+relief guard marched up the gutter, over against the guard on duty,
+which standing at attention in two ranks occupied the pavement. She was
+absolutely compelled to go round, outside the band and the crowd of
+spectators--indeed, if she wished to avoid the open square with its
+tram-lines, to make a fairly wide detour on the footpath running round
+it--or to wait for the end of the military ceremony.
+
+She showed no intention of doing either. She made as if to walk along
+the pavement in front of the Schloss right down between the two ranks of
+soldiers. The sergeant with the harsh voice stepped forward quickly.
+"Not this way!" he cried and held the butt of his rifle in front of her.
+"Not this way! Right about! Wait!"
+
+But Miss Spoelmann fired up. "What d'you mean?" she cried. "I'm in a
+hurry!"
+
+But her words were not so impressive as the expression of honest,
+passionate, irresistible anger with which they were uttered. How slight
+and lonely she was! The fair-haired soldiers round her towered head and
+shoulders above her. Her face was as pale as wax at this moment, her
+black eyebrows were knitted in a hard and expressive wrinkle, her
+nostrils distended, and her eyes, black with excitement and wide-opened,
+spoke so expressive and bewitching a language that no protest seemed
+possible.
+
+"What d'you mean?" she cried. "I'm in a hurry!" And as she said it she
+pushed the rifle-butt, and the stupefied sergeant with it, aside, and
+walked down between the lines, went straight on her way, turned to the
+left into Universitätsstrasse and vanished.
+
+"I'm dammed!" cried Lieutenant von Sturmhahn. "That's one for us!" The
+officers at the window laughed. The spectators outside, too, were much
+amused, and not unsympathetic. Klaus Heinrich joined in the general
+hilarity. The changing of the guard proceeded with loud words of command
+and snatches of march tunes. Klaus Heinrich returned to the "Hermitage."
+
+He lunched all alone, went for a ride in the afternoon on his brown
+horse Florian, and spent the evening at a big party at Dr.
+Krippenreuther, the Finance Minister's house. He related to several
+people with great animation the episode of the guard, although the story
+had already gone the round and become common property. Next day he had
+to go away, for he had been told by his brother to represent him at the
+inauguration of the new Town Hall in a neighbouring town. For some
+reason or other, he went reluctantly, he disliked leaving the capital.
+He had a feeling that he was missing an important, pleasant, though
+rather disquieting opportunity, which imperatively demanded his
+presence. And yet his exalted calling must be more important. But while
+he sat serene and gorgeously dressed on his seat of honour in the Town
+Hall, and read his speech to the Mayor, Klaus Heinrich's thoughts were
+not concentrated on the figure he presented to the eyes of the crowd,
+but rather were busied with this new and important topic. He also gave a
+passing thought to a person whose casual acquaintance he had made long
+years before, to Fräulein Unschlitt, the soap-boiler's daughter--a
+memory which had a certain connexion with the importunate topic....
+
+Imma Spoelmann pushed the harsh-voiced sergeant aside in her
+anger--walked all alone, her algebra under her arm, down the ranks of
+the big fair-haired grenadiers. How pearly-white her face was against
+her black hair under her fur toque, and how her eyes spoke! There was
+nobody like her. Her father was rich, surfeited with riches, and had
+bought one of the Grand Ducal Schlosses. What was it that the _Courier_
+had said about his undeserved reputation and the "romantic isolation of
+his life"? He was the object of the hatred of aggrieved rivals--that was
+the effect of the article. And her nostrils had distended with anger.
+There was nobody like her, nobody near or far. She was an exception. And
+suppose she had been at the Citizens' Ball on that occasion? He would
+then have had a companion, would not have made a fool of himself, and
+would not have ended the evening in despair. "Down, down, down with
+him!" Phew! Just think of how she looked as she walked, dark and pale
+and wonderful, down the ranks of fair-haired soldiers.
+
+These were the thoughts which occupied Klaus Heinrich during the next
+few days--just these three or four mental pictures. And the strange
+thing is that they were amply sufficient for him, and that he did not
+want any more. But all things considered, it seemed to him more than
+desirable that he should get another glimpse of the pearly-white face
+soon, to-day if possible.
+
+In the evening he went to the Court Theatre, where _The Magic Flute_ was
+being played. And when from his box he descried Miss Spoelmann next to
+Countess Löwenjoul in the front of the circle, a tremor went right
+through him. During the opera he could watch her out of the darkness
+through his opera-glasses, for the light from the stage fell on her. She
+laid her head on her small, ringless hand, while she rested her bare arm
+on the velvet braid, and she did not look angry now. She wore a dress of
+glistening sea-green silk with a light scarf on which bright flowers
+were embroidered, and round her neck a long chain of sparkling diamonds.
+She really was not so small as she looked, Klaus Heinrich decided, when
+she stood up at the end of the act. No, the childish shape of her head
+and the narrowness of her shoulders accounted for her looking such a
+little thing. Her arms were well developed, and one could see that she
+played games and rode. But at the wrist her arm looked like a child's.
+
+When the passage came: "He is a prince. He is more than that," Klaus
+Heinrich conceived the wish to have a talk with Doctor Ueberbein. Doctor
+Ueberbein called by chance next day at the "Hermitage" in a black
+frock-coat and white tie, as usual when he paid Klaus Heinrich a visit.
+Klaus Heinrich asked him whether he had already heard the story of the
+changing of the guard. Yes, answered Doctor Ueberbein, several times.
+But would Klaus Heinrich like to relate it to him again?... "No, not if
+you know it," said Klaus Heinrich, disappointed. Then Doctor Ueberbein
+jumped to quite another topic. He began to talk about opera-glasses, and
+remarked that opera-glasses were a wonderful invention. They brought
+close what was unfortunately a long way off, did they not? They formed a
+bridge to a longed-for goal. What did Klaus Heinrich think? Klaus
+Heinrich was inclined to agree to a certain extent. And it seemed that
+yesterday evening, so people said, he had made a free use of this grand
+invention, said the doctor. Klaus Heinrich could not see the point of
+this remark.
+
+Then Doctor Ueberbein said: "No, look here, Klaus Heinrich, that won't
+do. You are stared at, and little Imma is stared at, and that's enough.
+If you add to it by staring at little Imma, that's too much. You must
+see that, surely?"
+
+"Oh dear, Doctor Ueberbein, I never thought of that."
+
+"But in other cases you generally do think of that sort of thing."
+
+"I've felt so funny for the last few days," said Klaus Heinrich.
+
+Doctor Ueberbein leaned back, pulled at his red beard near his throat,
+and nodded slowly with his head and neck.
+
+"Really? Have you?" he asked. And then went on nodding.
+
+Klaus Heinrich said: "You can't think how reluctant I was to go the
+other day to the inauguration of the Town Hall. And to-morrow I have to
+superintend the swearing-in of the Grenadier recruits. And then comes
+the Chapter of the Family Order. I don't feel a bit in the mood for
+that. I find no pleasure in doing my duty as the representative of my
+people. I've no inclination for my so-called lofty calling."
+
+"I'm sorry to hear it!" said Doctor Ueberbein sharply.
+
+"Yes, I might have known that you would be angry, Doctor Ueberbein. Of
+course you'll call it sloppiness, and will read me a sermon about
+'destiny and discipline,' if I know you. But at the opera yesterday I
+thought of you at one point, and asked myself whether you really were so
+right in several particulars...."
+
+"Look here, Klaus Heinrich, once already, if I'm not mistaken, I've
+dragged your Royal Highness out of the mud, so to speak...."
+
+"That was quite different, Doctor Ueberbein! How I wish you could see
+that was absolutely different! That was at the Citizens' Ball, but it
+was years ago, and I don't feel a twinge in that direction. For she is
+... Look you, you have often explained to me what you understand by
+'Highness,' and that it is something affecting, and something to be
+approached with tender sympathy. Don't you think that she of whom we are
+speaking, that she is affecting and that one must feel sympathy with
+her?"
+
+"Perhaps," said Doctor Ueberbein. "Perhaps."
+
+"You often said that one must not disavow exceptions, that to do so was
+sloppiness and slovenly and good-nature. Don't you think that she too of
+whom we are speaking is an exception?"
+
+Doctor Ueberbein was silent. Then he said suddenly and decidedly, "And
+now I, if possible, am to help to make two exceptions into a rule?"
+
+Thereupon he went out. He said that he must get back to his work,
+emphasizing the word "work," and begged leave to withdraw. He took his
+departure in a strangely ceremonious and unfatherly way.
+
+Klaus Heinrich did not see him for ten or twelve days. He asked him to
+lunch once, but Doctor Ueberbein begged to be excused, his work at the
+moment was too pressing. At last he came spontaneously. He was in high
+spirits and looked greener than ever. He blustered about this and that,
+and at last came to the subject of the Spoelmanns, looking at the
+ceiling and pulling at his throat when he did so. To be quite fair, he
+said, there was a striking amount of sympathy felt with Samuel
+Spoelmann, one could see all over the town how much beloved he was.
+Chiefly of course as an object of taxation, but in other respects too.
+There was simply a penchant for him, in every class, for his
+organ-playing and his faded coat and his kidney-colic. Every errand boy
+was proud of him, and if he were not so unapproachable and morose he
+would already have been made to feel it.
+
+The ten-thousand marks donation for the Dorothea Hospital had naturally
+made an excellent impression. His friend Sammet had told him (Ueberbein)
+that with the help of this donation far-reaching improvements had been
+undertaken in the Hospital. And for the rest, it had just occurred to
+him! Little Imma was going to inspect the improvements to-morrow
+morning, Sammet had told him. She had sent one of her swan's-down
+flunkeys and asked whether she would be welcome to-morrow. She and sick
+children were a devilish funny mixture, opined Ueberbein, but perhaps
+she might learn something. To-morrow morning at eleven, if his memory
+did not mislead him.
+
+Then he talked about other things. On leaving he added: "The Grand Duke
+ought to take some interest in the Dorothea Hospital, Klaus Heinrich,
+it's expected of him. It's a blessed institution. In short, somebody
+ought to show the way, give signs of an interest in high quarters. No
+wish to intrude.... And so good-bye."
+
+But he came back once more, and in his green face a flush had appeared
+under the eyes which looked entirely out of place there. "If," he said
+deliberately, "I ever caught you again with a soup tureen on your head,
+Klaus Heinrich, I should leave it there." Then he pressed his lips
+together and went out.
+
+Next morning shortly before eleven Klaus Heinrich walked with Herr von
+Braunbart-Schellendorf, his aide-de-camp, from Schloss "Hermitage"
+through the snow-covered birch avenue over rough suburban streets
+between humble cottages, and stopped before the neat white house over
+whose entrance "Dorothea Children's Hospital" was painted in broad black
+letters. His visit had been announced. The senior surgeon of the
+institution, in a frock-coat with the Albrechts Cross of the Third
+Class, was awaiting him with two younger surgeons and the nursing staff
+in the hall. The Prince and his companion were wearing helmets and fur
+coats. Klaus Heinrich said: "This is the renewal of an old acquaintance,
+my dear doctor. You were present when I came into the world. You are
+also a friend of my tutor Ueberbein's. I am delighted to meet you."
+
+Doctor Sammet, who had grown grey in his life of active philanthropy,
+bowed to one side, with one hand on his watch-chain and his elbows close
+to his ribs. He presented the two junior surgeons and the sister to the
+Prince, and then said: "I must explain to your Royal Highness that your
+Royal Highness's gracious visit coincides with another visit. Yes. We
+are expecting Miss Spoelmann. Her father has done such a lot for our
+institution.... We could not very well upset the arrangements. The
+sister will take Miss Spoelmann round."
+
+Klaus Heinrich received the news of this rencontre without displeasure.
+He first expressed his opinion of the nurses' uniform, which he called
+becoming, and then his curiosity to inspect the philanthropic
+institution. The tour began. The sister and three nurses waited behind
+in the hall.
+
+All the walls in the building were whitewashed and washable. Yes. The
+water taps were huge, they were meant to be worked with the elbows for
+reasons of cleanliness. And rinsing apparatus had been installed for
+washing the milk-bottles. One passed first through the reception room,
+which was empty save for a couple of disused beds and the surgeons'
+bicycles. In the adjoining preparation room there were, besides the
+writing-table and the stand with the students' white coats, a kind of
+folding table with oil-cloth cushions, an operating-table, a cupboard of
+provisions, and a trough-shaped perambulator. Klaus Heinrich paused at
+the provisions and asked for the recipes for the preparations to be
+explained to him. Doctor Sammet thought to himself that if the whole
+tour was going to be made with such attention to details, a terrible lot
+of time would be wasted.
+
+Suddenly a noise was heard in the street. An automobile drove up tooting
+and stopped in front of the building. Cheers were heard distinctly in
+the preparation room, for all that it was only children that were
+shouting. Klaus Heinrich did not pay any particular attention to the
+incident. He was looking at a box of sugar of milk, which, by the way,
+had nothing striking about it. "A visitor apparently," he said. "Oh, of
+course, you said somebody was coming. Let's go on."
+
+The party proceeded to the kitchen, the milk-kitchen, the big
+boiler-fitted room for the preparing of milk, the place where full milk,
+boiled milk, and buttermilk were kept. The daily rations were set on
+clean white tables in little bottles side by side. The place smelt
+sourish and sickly.
+
+Klaus Heinrich gave his undivided attention to this room also. He went
+so far as to taste the buttermilk, and pronounced it excellent. How the
+children must thrive, he considered, on buttermilk like that. During
+this inspection the door opened and Miss Spoelmann entered between the
+sister and Countess Löwenjoul, followed by the three nurses.
+
+The coat, toque, and muff which she was wearing to-day were made of the
+costliest sable, and her muff was suspended on a golden chain set with
+coloured stones. Her black hair showed a tendency to fall in smooth
+locks over her forehead. She took in the room at a glance; her eyes were
+really almost unbecomingly big for her little face, they dominated it
+like a cat's, save that they were black as anthracite and spoke a
+pleading language of their own.... Countess Löwenjoul, with a feather
+hat and dressed neatly and not without distinction, as usual, smiled in
+a detached sort of way.
+
+"The milk-kitchen," said the sister; "this is where the milk is cooked
+for the children."
+
+"So one would have supposed," answered Miss Spoelmann. She said it
+quickly and lightly, with a pout of her lips and a little haughty wag of
+her head. Her voice was a double one; it consisted of a lower and a
+higher register, with a break in the middle.
+
+The sister was quite disconcerted. "Yes," she said, "it's obvious." And
+a little pained look of bewilderment was visible in her face.
+
+The position was a complicated one. Doctor Sammet looked in Klaus
+Heinrich's face for orders, but as Klaus Heinrich was accustomed to do
+what was put before him according to prescribed forms, but not to
+grapple with novel and complex situations, no solution of the difficulty
+was forthcoming. Herr von Braunbart was on the point of intervening, and
+Miss Spoelmann on the other side was making ready to leave the
+milk-kitchen, when the Prince made a gesture with his right hand which
+established a connexion between himself and the young girl. This was the
+signal for Doctor Sammet to advance towards Imma Spoelmann.
+
+"Doctor Sammet. Yes." He desired the honour of presenting Miss Spoelmann
+to his Royal Highness.... "Miss Spoelmann, Royal Highness, the daughter
+of Mr. Spoelmann to whom this hospital is so much indebted."
+
+Klaus Heinrich clapped his heels together and held out his hand in its
+white gauntlet, and, laying her small brown-gloved hand in it, she gave
+him a horizontal hand-shake, English fashion, at the same time making a
+sort of shy curtsey, without taking her big eyes off Klaus Heinrich's
+face. He could think of nothing more original to say than: "So you too
+are paying a visit to the hospital, Miss Spoelmann?"
+
+And she answered as quickly as before, with a pout and the little
+haughty wag of her head. "Nobody can deny that everything points in that
+direction."
+
+Herr Braunbart involuntarily raised his hand, Doctor Sammet looked down
+at his watch-chain in silence, and a short snigger escaped through the
+nose of one of the young surgeons, which was hardly opportune. The
+little pained look of bewilderment now showed on Klaus Heinrich's face.
+He said: "Of course.... As you are here.... So I shall be able to visit
+the institution in your company, Miss Spoelmann.... Captain von
+Braunbart, my aide-de-camp ..." he added quickly, recognizing that his
+remark laid him open to a similar answer to the last. She responded by:
+"Countess Löwenjoul."
+
+The Countess made a dignified bow--with an enigmatic smile, a side
+glance into the unknown, which had something seductive about it. When,
+however, she let her strangely evasive gaze again dwell on Klaus
+Heinrich, who stood before her in a composed and military attitude, the
+laugh vanished from her face, an expression of sadness settled on her
+features, and for a second a look of something like hatred for Klaus
+Heinrich shone in her slightly swollen grey eyes. It was only a passing
+look. Klaus Heinrich had no time to notice it, and forgot it
+immediately. The two young surgeons were presented to Imma Spoelmann,
+and then Klaus Heinrich suggested that they should continue the tour all
+together.
+
+They went upstairs to the first story; Klaus Heinrich and Imma Spoelmann
+in front, conducted by Doctor Sammet, then Countess Löwenjoul with Herr
+von Braunbart, and the young surgeons in the rear. Yes, the older
+children were here, up to fourteen years of age. An ante-room with
+wash-basins divided the girls' and the boys' rooms. In white bedsteads,
+with a name-plate at the head and a frame at the foot enclosing the
+temperature- and weight-charts--tended by nurses in white caps, and
+surrounded by cleanliness and tidiness--lay the sick children, and
+coughs filled the room while Klaus Heinrich and Imma Spoelmann walked
+down between the rows.
+
+He walked at her left hand, out of courtesy, with the same smile as when
+he visited exhibitions or inspected veterans, gymnastic associations, or
+guards of honour. But every time he turned his head to the right he
+found that Imma Spoelmann was watching him--he met her great black eyes,
+which were directed at him in a searching, questioning way. It was so
+peculiar, he never remembered experiencing anything so peculiar before,
+her way of looking at him with her great eyes, without any respect for
+him or anyone else, absolutely unembarrassed and free, quite unconcerned
+whether anybody noticed it or not.
+
+When Doctor Sammet stopped at a bed to describe the case--the little
+girl's, for instance, whose broken white-bandaged leg stuck straight out
+along the bed--Miss Spoelmann listened attentively to him, that was
+quite clear; but while she listened she did not look at the speaker, but
+her eyes rested in turn on Klaus Heinrich and the pinched, quiet child
+who, her hands folded on her breast, gazed up at them from her
+back-rest--rested in turn on the Prince and the little victim, the
+history of whose case she shared with the Prince, as if she were
+watching Klaus Heinrich's sympathy, or were trying to read in his face
+the effect of Dr. Sammet's words; or maybe for some other reason.
+
+Yes, this was especially noticeable in the case of the boy with the
+bullet through his arm and the boy who had been picked out of the
+water--two sad cases, as Dr. Sammet remarked. "A severed artery,
+sister," he said, and showed them the double wound in the boy's upper
+arm, the entry and exit of the revolver bullet. "The wound," said Doctor
+Sammet in an undertone to his guests, turning his back to the bed, "the
+wound was caused by his own father. This one was the lucky one. The man
+shot his wife, three of his children, and himself with a revolver. He
+made a bad shot at this boy."
+
+Klaus Heinrich looked at the double wound. "What did the man do it for?"
+he asked hesitatingly, and Doctor Sammet answered: "In desperation,
+Royal Highness. It was shame and want which brought him to it. Yes." He
+said no more, just this commonplace--just as in the case of the boy, a
+ten-year-old, who had been picked out of the water. "He's wheezing,"
+said Doctor Sammet, "he's still got some water in his lung. He was
+picked out of the river early this morning--yes. I may say that it is
+improbable that he _fell_ into the water. There are many indications to
+the contrary. He had run away from home. Yes." He stopped.
+
+And Klaus Heinrich again felt Miss Spoelmann looking at him with her
+big, black, serious eyes--with her glance which sought his own and
+seemed to challenge him insistently to ponder with her the "sad cases,"
+to grasp the essential meaning of Doctor Sammet's remarks, to penetrate
+to the hideous truths which were incorporated and crystallized in these
+two little invalid frames.... A little girl wept bitterly when the
+steaming and hissing inhaler, together with a scrapbook full of brightly
+coloured pictures, was planted at her bedside.
+
+Miss Spoelmann bent over the little one. "It doesn't hurt," she said,
+"not a tiny bit. Don't cry." And as she straightened herself again she
+added quickly, pursing up her lips, "I guess it's not so much the
+apparatus as the pictures she's crying at." Everybody laughed. One of
+the young assistants picked up the scrapbook and laughed still louder
+when he looked at the pictures. The party passed on into the laboratory.
+Klaus Heinrich thought, as he went, how dry Miss Spoelmann's humour was.
+"I guess," she had said, and "not so much." She had seemed to find
+amusement not only in the pictures, but also in the neat and incisive
+mode of expression she had used. And that was indeed the very refinement
+of humour....
+
+The laboratory was the biggest room in the building. Glasses, retorts,
+funnels, and chemicals stood on the tables, as well as specimens in
+spirits which Doctor Sammet explained to his guests in few quiet words.
+A child had choked in a mysterious way: here was his larynx with
+mushroom-like growths instead of the vocal chords. Yes. This, here in
+the glass, was a case of pernicious enlargement of the kidney in a
+child, and there were dislocated joints. Klaus Heinrich and Miss
+Spoelmann looked at everything, they looked together into the bottles
+which Doctor Sammet held up to the window, and their eyes looked
+thoughtful while the same look of repulsion hovered round their mouths.
+
+They took turns too at the microscope, examined, with one eye placed to
+the lens, a malignant secretion, a piece of blue-stained tissue stuck on
+a slide, with tiny spots showing near the big patch. The spots were
+bacilli. Klaus Heinrich wanted Miss Spoelmann to take the first turn at
+the microscope, but she declined, knitting her brows and pouting, as
+much as to say: "On no account whatever." So he took the precedence, for
+it seemed to him that it really did not matter who got the first look at
+such serious and fearful things as bacilli. And after this they were
+conducted up to the second story, to the infants.
+
+They both laughed at the chorus of squalls which reached their ears
+while they were still on the stairs. And then they went with their party
+through the ward between the beds, bent, side by side over the
+bald-headed little creatures, sleeping with closed fists or screaming
+with all their might and showing their naked gums--they stopped their
+ears and laughed again. In a kind of oven, warmed to a moderate heat lay
+a new-born baby.
+
+And Doctor Sammet showed his distinguished guests a pauper baby with the
+grey look of a corpse and hideous big hands, the sign of a
+miscarriage.... He lifted a squealing baby out of its cot, and it at
+once stopped screaming. With the touch of an expert he rested the limp
+head in the hollow of his hand and showed the little red creature
+blinking and twitching spasmodically to the two--Klaus Heinrich and Miss
+Spoelmann, who stood side by side and looked down at the infant. Klaus
+Heinrich stood watching with his heels together as Doctor Sammet laid
+the baby back in its cot, and when he turned round he met Miss
+Spoelmann's searching gaze, as he had expected.
+
+Finally they walked to one of the three windows of the ward and looked
+out over the squalid suburb, down into the street where, surrounded by
+children, the brown Court carriage and Imma's smart dark-red motor car
+stood one behind the other. The Spoelmanns' chauffeur, shapeless in his
+fur coat, was leaning back in his seat with one hand on the
+steering-wheel of the powerful car, and watched his companion, the
+footman in white, trying to start a conversation, by the carriage in
+front, with Klaus Heinrich's coachman.
+
+"Our neighbours," said Doctor Sammet, holding back the white net curtain
+with one hand, "are the parents of our patients. Late in the evening the
+tipsy fathers roll shouting by. Yes."
+
+They stood and listened, but Doctor Sammet said nothing further about
+the fathers and so they broke off, as they had now seen everything.
+
+The procession, with Klaus Heinrich and Imma at the head, proceeded down
+the staircase and found the nurses again assembled in the front hall.
+Leave was taken with compliments and clapping together of heels,
+curtseys, and bows. Klaus Heinrich, standing stiffly in front of Doctor
+Sammet, who listened to him with his head on one side and his hand on
+his watch-chain, expressed himself, in his wonted form of words, highly
+satisfied with what he had seen, while he felt that Imma Spoelmann's
+great eyes were resting upon him. He, with Herr von Braunbart,
+accompanied Miss Spoelmann to her car when the leave-taking from the
+surgeons and nurses was over. Klaus Heinrich and Miss Spoelmann, while
+they crossed the pavement between children and women with children in
+their arms, and for a short time by the broad step of the motor car,
+exchanged the following remarks:
+
+"It has been a great pleasure to meet you," he said.
+
+She answered nothing to this, but pouted and wagged her head a little
+from side to side.
+
+"It was an absorbing inspection," he went on. "A regular eye-opener."
+
+She looked at him with her big black eyes, then said quickly and lightly
+in her broken voice: "Yes, to a certain extent...."
+
+He ventured on the question: "I hope you are pleased with Schloss
+Delphinenort?"
+
+To which she answered with a pout: "Oh, why not? It's quite a convenient
+house...."
+
+"Do you like being there better than at New York?" he asked. And she
+answered:
+
+"Just as much. It's much the same. Much the same everywhere."
+
+That was all. Klaus Heinrich, and one pace behind him Herr von
+Braunbart, stood with their hands to their helmets as the chauffeur
+slipped his gear in and the motor car shivered and started.
+
+It may be imagined that this meeting did not long remain the private
+property of the Dorothea Hospital; on the contrary, it was the general
+topic of conversation before the day was out. The _Courier_ published,
+under a sentimental poetical heading, a detailed description of the
+rencontre, which, without too violent a departure from the exact truth,
+yet succeeded in making such a powerful impression on the public mind,
+and evoked symptoms of such lively interest, that the vigilant newspaper
+was induced to keep a watchful eye for the future on any further
+rapprochements between the Spoelmann and Grimmburg houses. It could not
+report much.
+
+It remarked a couple of times that his Royal Highness Prince Klaus
+Heinrich, when walking through the promenade after a performance at the
+Court Theatre, had stopped for a moment at the Spoelmanns' box to greet
+the ladies. And in its report of the fancy-dress charity bazaar, which
+took place in the middle of January in the Town Hall--a smart function,
+in which Miss Spoelmann, at the urgent request of the Committee, acted
+as seller--no small space was devoted to describing how Prince Klaus
+Heinrich, when the Court was making a round of the bazaar, had stopped
+before Miss Spoelmann's stall, how he had bought a piece or two of fancy
+glass (for Miss Spoelmann was selling porcelain and glass), and had
+lingered a good eight or ten minutes at her stall. It said nothing about
+the topic of the conversation. And yet it had not been without
+importance.
+
+The Court (with the exception of Albrecht) had appeared in the Town Hall
+about noon. When Klaus Heinrich, with his newly bought pieces of glass
+in tissue paper on his knee, drove back to the "Hermitage," he had
+announced his intention of visiting Delphinenort and inspecting the
+Schloss in its renovated state, on the same occasion viewing Mr.
+Spoelmann's collection of glass. For three or four old pieces of glass
+had been included in Miss Spoelmann's stock which her father himself had
+given to the bazaar out of his collection, and one of them Klaus
+Heinrich had bought.
+
+He saw himself again in a semicircle of people, stared at, alone, in
+front of Miss Spoelmann, and separated from her by the stall-counter,
+with its vases, jugs, its white and coloured groups of porcelain. He saw
+her in her red fancy dress, which, made in one piece, clung close to her
+neat though childish figure, while it exposed dark shoulders and arms,
+which were round and firm and yet like those of a child just by the
+wrist. He saw the gold ornament, half garland and half diadem, in the
+jet of her billowy hair, that showed a tendency to fall in smooth wisps
+on her forehead, her big, black, inquiring eyes in the pearly-white
+face, her full and tender mouth, pouting with habitual scorn when she
+spoke--and round about her in the great vaulted hall had been the scent
+of firs and a babel of noise, music, the clash of gongs, laughter, and
+the cries of sellers.
+
+He had admired the piece of glass, the fine old beaker with its ornament
+of silver foliage, which she proffered to him, and she had said that it
+came from her father's collection. "Has your father, then, got many fine
+pieces like this?"--Of course. And presumably her father had not given
+the best items to the bazaar. She could guarantee that he had much finer
+pieces of glass. Klaus Heinrich would very much like to see them! Well,
+that might easily be managed, Miss Spoelmann had answered in her broken
+voice, while she pouted and wagged her head slightly from side to side.
+Her father, she meant, would certainly have no objection to showing the
+fruits of his zeal as a collector to one more of a long succession of
+intelligent visitors. The Spoelmanns were always at home at tea-time.
+
+She had gone straight to the point, taking the hint for a definite
+offer, and speaking in an entirely off-hand way. In conclusion, to Klaus
+Heinrich's question, what day would suit best, she had answered:
+"Whichever you like, Prince, we shall be inexpressibly delighted."
+
+"We shall be inexpressibly delighted"--those were her words, so mocking
+and pointed in the exaggeration that they almost hurt, and were
+difficult to listen to without wincing. How she had rattled and hurt the
+poor sister in the Hospital the other day! But all through there was
+something childish in her manner of speech; indeed, some sounds she made
+were just like those children make--not only on the occasion when she
+was comforting the little girl about the inhaler. And how large her eyes
+had seemed when they told her about the children's fathers and the rest
+of the sad story!
+
+Next day Klaus Heinrich went to tea at Schloss Delphinenort, the very
+next. Miss Spoelmann had said he might come when it suited him. But it
+suited him the very next day, and as the matter seemed to him urgent, he
+saw no point in putting it off.
+
+Shortly before five o'clock--it was already dark--he drove over the
+smooth roads of the Town Garden--bare and empty, for this part of it
+belonged to Mr. Spoelmann. Arc-lamps lit up the park, the big square
+spa-basin shimmered between the trees; behind it rose the white Schloss
+with its pillared porch, its spacious double staircase which led by
+gentle degrees between the wings up to the first floor, its high leaded
+windows, its Roman busts in the niches--and Klaus Heinrich, as he drove
+along the approach avenue of mighty chestnuts, saw the red-plush negro
+with his staff standing on guard at the foot of the staircase.
+
+Klaus Heinrich crossed a brightly lighted stone hall, with a floor of
+gilt mosaic and with white statues of gods round it, passed straight
+over to the broad red-carpeted marble staircase, down which the
+Spoelmanns' major-domo, clean shaven, with shoulders squared and arms
+stiff, pot-bellied and haughty, advanced to receive the guest. He
+escorted him up into the tapestried and marble-chimneyed ante-room,
+where a couple of white-and-gold swan's-down footmen took the Prince's
+cap and cloak, while the steward went in person to announce him to his
+master.... The footman held aside one of the tapestries for Klaus
+Heinrich, who descended two or three steps.
+
+The scent of flowers met him, and he heard the soft splash of falling
+water; but just as the tapestry closed behind him, so wild and harsh a
+barking was heard that Klaus Heinrich, half deafened for a moment,
+stopped at the foot of the steps. Percival, the collie, had dashed at
+him in a fury. He pranced, he capered in uncontrollable passion, he
+pirouetted, beat his sides with his tail, planted his forefeet on the
+floor, and turned wildly round and round, and seemed like to burst with
+noise. A voice--not Imma's--called him off, and Klaus Heinrich found
+himself in a winter garden, a glass conservatory with white marble
+columns and a floor of big square marble flags. Palms of all kinds
+filled it, whose trunks and tops often reached close up to the glass
+ceiling. A flower-bed, consisting of countless pots arranged like the
+stones of a mosaic, lay in the strong moonlight of the arc-lamp and
+filled the air with its scent. Out of a beautifully carved fountain,
+silver streams flowed into a marble pool, and ducks with strange and
+fantastic plumage swam about on the illuminated water. The background
+was filled by a stone walk with columns and niches.
+
+It was Countess Löwenjoul who advanced towards the guest, and curtseyed
+with a smile.
+
+"Your Royal Highness will not mind," she said, "our Percy is so
+uproarious. Besides, he's so unaccustomed to visitors. But he never
+touches anybody. Your Royal Highness must excuse Miss Spoelmann....
+She'll be back soon. She was here just now. She was called away, her
+father sent for her. Mr. Spoelmann will be delighted...."
+
+And she conducted Klaus Heinrich to an arrangement of basket chairs with
+embroidered linen cushions which stood in front of a group of palms. She
+spoke in a brisk and emphatic tone, with her little head with its thin
+iron-grey hair bent on one side and her white teeth showing as she
+laughed. Her figure was distinctly graceful in the close-fitting brown
+dress she was wearing, and she moved as freshly and elegantly as an
+officer's wife. Only in her eyes, whose lids she kept blinking, there
+was something of mistrust or spite, something unintelligible. They sat
+down facing each other at the round garden-table, on which lay a few
+books. Percival, exhausted by his outburst, curled himself up on the
+narrow pearl-grey carpet on which the furniture stood. His black coat
+was like silk, with white paws, chest, and muzzle. He had a white
+collar, yellow eyes, and a parting along his back. Klaus Heinrich began
+a conversation for conversation's sake, a formal dialogue about nothing
+in particular, which was all he could do.
+
+"I hope, Countess, that I have not come at an inconvenient time. Luckily
+I need not feel myself an unauthorized intruder. I do not know whether
+Miss Spoelmann has told you.... She was so kind as to suggest my
+calling. It was about those lovely pieces of glass which Mr. Spoelmann
+so generously gave to yesterday's bazaar. Miss Spoelmann thought that
+her father would have no objection to letting me see the rest of his
+collection. That's why I'm here ..."
+
+The Countess ignored the question whether Imma had told her of the
+arrangement. She said: "This is tea-time, Royal Highness. Of course your
+visit is not inconvenient. Even if, as I hope will not be the case, Mr.
+Spoelmann were too unwell to appear...."
+
+"Oh, is he ill?" In reality Klaus Heinrich wished just a little that Mr.
+Spoelmann might be too unwell. He anticipated his meeting with him with
+vague anxiety.
+
+"He was feeling ill to-day, Royal Highness. He had a touch of fever,
+shivering, and a little faintness. Dr. Watercloose was with him for a
+long time this morning. He was given an injection of morphia. There's
+some question of an operation being necessary."
+
+"I am very sorry," said Klaus Heinrich quite honestly. "An operation?
+How dreadful!"
+
+To which the Countess answered, letting her eyes wander: "Oh yes. But
+there are worse things in life--many much worse things than that."
+
+"Undoubtedly," said Klaus Heinrich. "I can quite believe it." He felt
+his imagination stirred in a vague and general way by the Countess's
+allusion.
+
+She looked at him with her head inclined to one side, and an expression
+of contempt on her face. Then her slightly distended grey eyes shifted,
+while she smiled the mysterious smile which Klaus Heinrich already knew
+and which had something seductive about it.
+
+He felt it was necessary to resume the conversation.
+
+"Have you lived long with the Spoelmanns, Countess?" he asked.
+
+"A fairly long time," she answered, and appeared to calculate. "Fairly
+long. I have lived through so much, have had so many experiences, that I
+naturally cannot reckon to a day. But it was shortly after the
+blessing--soon after the blessing was vouchsafed to me."
+
+"The blessing?" asked Klaus Heinrich.
+
+"Of course," she said decidedly with some agitation. "For the blessing
+happened to me when the number of my experiences had become too great,
+and the bow had reached breaking point, to use a metaphor. You are so
+young," she continued, forgetting to address him by his title, "so
+ignorant of all that makes the world so miserable and so depraved, that
+you can form no conception of what I have had to suffer. I brought an
+action in America which involved the appearance of several generals.
+Things came to light which were more than my temper could stand. I had
+to clear out several barracks without succeeding in bringing to light
+every loose woman. They hid themselves in the cupboards, some even under
+the floors, and that's why they continue torturing me beyond measure at
+nights. I should at once go back to my Schloss in Burgundy if the rain
+did not come through the roofs. The Spoelmanns knew that, and that is
+why it was so obliging of them to let me live with them indefinitely, my
+only duty being to put the innocent Imma on her guard against the world.
+Only of course my health suffers from my having the women sitting at
+nights on my chest and forcing me to look at their disgusting faces. And
+that is why I ask you to call me simply Frau Meier," she said in a
+whisper, leaning forward and touching Klaus Heinrich's arm with her
+hand. "The walls have ears, and it is absolutely necessary for me to
+keep up the incognito I was forced to assume in order to protect myself
+against the persecution of the odious creatures. You will do what I ask,
+will you not? Look on it as a joke ... a fad which hurts nobody.... Why
+not?"
+
+She stopped.
+
+Klaus Heinrich sat upright and braced up in his wicker chair opposite
+her and looked at her. Before leaving his rectilineal room, he had
+dressed himself with his valet Neumann's help with all possible care, as
+his life in the public eye required. His parting ran from over his left
+eye, straight up to the crown of his head, without a hair sticking up,
+and his hair was brushed up into a crest off the right side of his
+forehead. There he sat in his undress uniform, whose high collar and
+close fit helped him to maintain a composed attitude, the silver
+epaulettes of a major on his narrow shoulders, leaning slightly but not
+comfortably forward, collected, calm, with one foot slightly advanced,
+and with his right hand above his left on his sword-hilt. His young face
+looked slightly weary from the unreality, the loneliness, strictness,
+and difficulty of his life; he sat looking at the Countess with a
+friendly, clear, but composed expression in his eyes.
+
+She stopped. Disenchantment and disgust showed themselves in her
+features, and, while something like hate towards Klaus Heinrich flamed
+up in her tired grey eyes, she blushed in the strangest of ways, for one
+half of her face turned red, the other white. Dropping her eyelids she
+answered: "I have been living with the Spoelmanns for three years, Royal
+Highness."
+
+Percival darted forward. Dancing, springing, and wagging his tail he
+trotted towards his mistress--for Imma Spoelmann had come in--raised
+himself in a dignified way on his hind legs and laid his fore paws in
+greeting on her breast. His jaws were wide open, and his red tongue hung
+out between his ivory-white teeth. He looked like a heraldic supporter
+as he stood there before her.
+
+She wore a wonderful dress of brick-red silk with loose hanging sleeves,
+and the breast covered with heavy gold embroidery. A big egg-shaped
+jewel on a pearl necklace lay on her bare neck, the skin of which was
+the colour of smoked meerschaum. Her blue-black hair was parted on one
+side and coiled, though a few smooth wisps tended to fall on her
+forehead. Holding Percival's head in her two narrow, ringless little
+hands, she looked into his face, saying, "Well, well, my friend. What a
+welcome! We are glad to see each other--we hated being parted, didn't
+we? Now go back and lie down." And she put his paws off the gold
+embroidery on her breast, and set him on his four paws again.
+
+"Oh, Prince," she said. "Welcome to Delphinenort. You hate breaking your
+promise, I can see. I'm coming to sit next you. They'll tell us when tea
+is ready.... It's against all the rules, I know, for me to have kept you
+waiting. But my father sent for me--and besides you had somebody to
+entertain you." Her bright eyes passed from Klaus Heinrich to the
+Countess and back in a rather hesitating way.
+
+"That's quite true," he said. And then he asked how Mr. Spoelmann was,
+and received a fairly reassuring answer. Mr. Spoelmann would have the
+pleasure of making Klaus Heinrich's acquaintance at tea-time, he begged
+to be excused till then.... What a lovely pair of horses Klaus Heinrich
+had in his brougham! And then they talked about their horses, about
+Klaus Heinrich's good-tempered brown Florian from the Hollerbrunn stud,
+about Miss Spoelmann's Arabian cream, the mare Fatma which had been
+given to Mr. Spoelmann by an oriental prince, about her fast Hungarian
+chestnuts, which she drove four-in-hand.
+
+"Do you know the country round?" asked Klaus Heinrich. "Have you hunted
+with the Royal pack? Have you been to the 'Pheasantry'? There are lots
+of lovely excursions."
+
+No, Miss Spoelmann was not at all clever in finding out new roads, and
+the Countess--well, her whole nature was unenterprising, so they always
+chose the same road, in the Town Gardens, for their ride. It was boring,
+perhaps, but Miss Spoelmann was not on the whole so blasé as to need
+constant change and adventures. Then he said that they must go together
+some time to a meet of the hounds or to the "Pheasantry," whereupon she
+pursed her lips and said that that was an idea which might be discussed
+some time in the future. Then the major-domo came in and gravely
+announced that tea was ready.
+
+They went through the tapestry hall with the marble fireplace, conducted
+by the strutting butler, accompanied by the dancing Percy, and followed
+by Countess Löwenjoul.
+
+"Has the Countess been letting her tongue run away with her?" asked Imma
+_en route_, without any particular lowering of her voice.
+
+Klaus Heinrich started and looked at the floor. "But she can hear us!"
+he said softly.
+
+"No, she doesn't hear us," answered Imma. "I can read her face. When she
+holds her head crooked like that and blinks her eyes it means that she
+is wandering and deep in her thoughts. Did she let her tongue run away
+with her?"
+
+"For a minute or two," said Klaus Heinrich. "I got the impression that
+the Countess 'let herself go' every now and then."
+
+"She has had a lot of trouble." And Imma looked at him with the same big
+searching dark eyes with which she had scanned him in the Dorothea
+Hospital. "I'll tell you all about it another time. It's a long story."
+
+"Yes," he said. "Some other time. Next time. On our ride perhaps."
+
+"On our ride?"
+
+"Yes, on our ride to the meet, or to the 'Pheasantry.'"
+
+"Oh, I forgot your preciseness, Prince, in the matter of appointments.
+Very well, on our ride. We go down here."
+
+They found themselves at the back of the Schloss. Carpeted steps led
+from a gallery hung with big pictures, down into the white-and-gold
+garden room, behind the glass door of which lay the terrace.
+Everything--the big crystal lustres, which hung from the centre of the
+high, white-festooned ceiling, the regularly arranged arm-chairs with
+gilt frames and fancy upholstering, the heavy white silk curtains, the
+elaborate clock and the vases and gilt lamps on the white marble
+chimneypiece in front of the tall looking-glass, the massive,
+lion-footed gilt candelabra which towered on either side of the
+entrance--everything reminded Klaus Heinrich of the Old Schloss, of the
+Representation Chamber, in which he had played his part from his youth
+up; only that the candles here were shams, with yellow electric bulbs
+instead of wicks, and that everything of the Spoelmanns' was new and
+smart in Schloss Delphinenort. A swan's-down footman was putting the
+last touch to the tea-table in a corner of the room; Klaus Heinrich
+noticed the electric kettle about which he had read in the _Courier_.
+
+"Has Mr. Spoelmann been told?" asked the daughter of the house.... The
+butler bowed. "Then there's nothing," she said quickly and half
+mockingly, "to prevent us from taking our places and beginning without
+him. Come, Countess! I advise you, Prince, to unbuckle your sword,
+unless there are reasons unknown to me for your not doing so...."
+
+"Thanks," said Klaus Heinrich, "no, there is no reason why I shouldn't."
+And he was angry with himself for not being smart enough to think of a
+more adroit answer.
+
+The footman took his sword, and carried it off. They took their seats at
+the tea-table with the help of the butler, who held the backs and pushed
+the chairs under them. Then he retired to the top of the steps, where he
+remained in an elegant attitude.
+
+"I must tell you, Prince," said Miss Spoelmann, pouring the water into
+the pot, "that my father won't drink any tea which I have not made with
+my own hands. He distrusts all tea which is handed round ready-made in
+cups. That is barred with us. You'll have to put up with it."
+
+"Oh, I like it much better like this," said Klaus Heinrich, "it's much
+more comfortable and free-and-easy at a family tea like this...." He
+broke off, and wondered why as he spoke these words a side-glance of
+hatred lighted on him from the eyes of Countess Löwenjoul. "And your
+course of study?" he asked. "May I ask about it? It's mathematics, I
+know. Don't you find it too much? Isn't it terribly brain-racking?"
+
+"Absolutely not," she said. "It's just splendid; it's like playing in
+the breezes, so to speak, or rather out of the breezes, in a dust-free
+atmosphere. It's as cool there as in the Adirondacks."
+
+"The what?"
+
+"The Adirondacks. That's geography, Prince. Mountains over in the
+States, with lovely snowfields. We have a country cottage there, where
+we go in May. In summer we used to go to the sea-side."
+
+"At any rate," he said, "I can testify to your zeal in your studies. You
+do not like being prevented from arriving punctually at your lectures. I
+haven't yet asked you whether you reached that one the other day up to
+time."
+
+"The other day?"
+
+"Yes, a week or two ago. After the contretemps with the change of
+guard."
+
+"Dear, dear, Prince, now you are beginning that too. That story seems to
+have reached from hut to palace. Had I known what a bother was going to
+come of it, I would rather have gone three times round the whole
+Schlossplatz. It even got into the newspapers, I'm told. And now of
+course the whole town thinks I am a regular fiend for temper and
+rudeness. But I am the most peaceful creature in the world, and only
+don't like being ordered about. Am I a fiend, Countess? I demand a
+truthful answer."
+
+"No, you're an angel," said Countess Löwenjoul.
+
+"H'm--angel, that's too much, that's too far the other way,
+Countess...."
+
+"No," said Klaus Heinrich, "no, not too far. I entirely believe the
+Countess...."
+
+"I'm much honoured. But how did your Highness hear about the adventure?
+Through the newspapers?"
+
+"I was an eye-witness of it," said Klaus Heinrich.
+
+"An eye-witness?"
+
+"Yes. I happened to be standing at the window of the officers' mess, and
+saw the whole thing from beginning to end."
+
+Miss Spoelmann blushed. There was no doubt about it, the pale skin of
+her face deepened in colour.
+
+"Well, Prince," she said, "I assume that you had nothing better to do at
+the moment."
+
+"Better?" he cried. "But it was a splendid sight. I give you my word
+that never in my life ..."
+
+Percival, who was lying with his forepaws crossed, by Miss Spoelmann,
+raised his head with a look of tense expectancy and beat the carpet with
+his tail. At the same moment the butler began to run, as fast as his
+ponderous frame would let him, down the steps to the lofty side-door
+over against the tea-table, and swiftly pulled aside the whole silk
+portière, sticking his double chin the while into the air with a
+majestic expression. Samuel Spoelmann, the millionaire, walked in.
+
+He was a man of neat build with a strange face. He was clean shaven,
+with red cheeks and a prominent nose, his little eyes were of a metallic
+blue-black, like those of little children and animals, and had an absent
+and peevish look. The upper part of his head was bald, but behind and on
+his temples Mr. Spoelmann had a quantity of grey hair, dressed in a
+fashion not often seen among us. He wore it neither short nor long, but
+brushed up, sticking out, though cropped on the nape and round his ears.
+His mouth was small and finely chiselled. Dressed in a black frock-coat
+with a velvet waistcoat on which lay a long, thin, old-fashioned
+watch-chain, and soft slippers on his feet, he advanced quickly to the
+tea-table with a cross and pre-occupied expression on his face; but his
+face cleared up, it regained composure and tenderness when he caught
+sight of his daughter. Imma had gone to meet him.
+
+"Greeting, most excellent father," she said, and throwing her brown
+little arms, in their loose brick-coloured hanging sleeves, round his
+neck, she kissed him on the bald spot which he offered her as he
+inclined his head.
+
+"Of course you knew," she continued, "that Prince Klaus Heinrich was
+coming to tea with us to-day?"
+
+"No; I'm delighted, delighted," said Mr. Spoelmann no less readily and
+in a grating voice. "Please don't move!" he said at once. And while he
+shook hands (Mr. Spoelmann's hand was thin and half-covered by his
+unstarched white cuff) with the Prince, who was standing modestly by the
+table, he nodded repeatedly to one side or the other. That was his way
+of greeting Klaus Heinrich. He was an alien, an invalid, and a man apart
+as regards wealth. He was forgiven and nothing further was expected of
+him--Klaus Heinrich recognized the fact, and took pains to recover his
+self-control.
+
+"You are at home here in a sense," added Mr. Spoelmann, cutting the
+conversation short, and a passing gleam of malice played round his
+clean-shaven mouth. Then he gave the others an example by sitting down.
+It was the chair between Imma and Klaus Heinrich, opposite the Countess
+and the veranda door, which the butler pushed under him.
+
+As Mr. Spoelmann showed no intention of apologizing for his
+unpunctuality, Klaus Heinrich said: "I am sorry to hear that you are
+unwell this morning, Mr. Spoelmann. I hope you are better."
+
+"Thanks, better, not but all right," answered Mr. Spoelmann crossly.
+"How many spoonfuls did you put in?" he asked his daughter. He was
+alluding to the tea.
+
+She had filled his cup, and she handed it to him.
+
+"Four," said she. "One for each person. Nobody shall say that I stint my
+grey-haired father."
+
+"What's that?" answered Mr. Spoelmann. "I'm not grey-haired. You ought
+to have your tongue clipped." And he took from a silver box a kind of
+rusk which seemed to be his own special dainty, broke it and dipped it
+peevishly in the golden tea, which he, like his daughter, drank without
+milk or sugar.
+
+Klaus Heinrich began over again: "I am much excited at the prospect of
+seeing your collection, Mr. Spoelmann."
+
+"All right," answered Mr. Spoelmann. "So you want to see my glass? Are
+you an amateur? A collector perhaps?"
+
+"No," said Klaus Heinrich, "my love for glass has not extended to my
+becoming a collector."
+
+"No time?" asked Mr. Spoelmann. "Do your military duties take so much
+time?"
+
+Klaus Heinrich answered: "I'm no longer on the active list, Mr.
+Spoelmann. I am _à la suite_ of my regiment. I wear the uniform, that's
+all."
+
+"I see, make believe," said Mr. Spoelmann harshly. "What do you do all
+day, then?"
+
+Klaus Heinrich had stopped drinking tea, had pushed his things away in
+the course of the conversation which demanded his undivided attention.
+He sat upright and defended himself, feeling the while that Imma
+Spoelmann's big, black, searching eyes were resting on him.
+
+"I have duties at Court, with the ceremonies and big occasions. I have
+also to represent the State in a military capacity, at the swearing-in
+of recruits and the presentation of colours. Then I have to hold levées
+as deputy for my brother, the Grand Duke. And then there are little
+journeys on duty to the provincial centres for unveilings and
+dedications and other public solemnities."
+
+"I see," said Mr. Spoelmann. "Ceremonies, solemnities, food for
+spectators. No, that sort of thing's beyond me. I tell you once for all,
+that I wouldn't give a farthing for your calling. That's my standpoint,
+sir."
+
+"I entirely understand," said Klaus Heinrich. He sat up stiffly in his
+uniform and smiled uneasily.
+
+"Of course it needs practice like everything else," Mr. Spoelmann went
+on in a little less bitter tone of voice--"practice and training, I can
+see. For myself I shall never as long as I live cease feeling angry when
+I am obliged to play the prodigy."
+
+"I only hope," said Klaus Heinrich, "that our people are not wanting in
+respect...."
+
+"Thanks, not so bad," answered Mr. Spoelmann. "The people are at least
+friendly here; one doesn't see murder written in their eyes."
+
+"I hope, Mr. Spoelmann," and Klaus Heinrich felt more at his ease, now
+that the conversation had turned, and the questioning lay with him,
+"that, notwithstanding the unusual circumstances, you continue to enjoy
+your stay amongst us."
+
+"Thanks," said Mr. Spoelmann, "I'm quite comfortable, and the water is
+the only thing which really does do me some good."
+
+"You did not find it a wrench to leave America?"
+
+Klaus Heinrich felt a look, a quick, suspicious, shy look, which he
+could not interpret.
+
+"No," said Mr. Spoelmann, sharply and crossly. That was all his answer
+to the question whether he felt it a wrench to leave America.
+
+A pause ensued. Countess Löwenjoul held her smooth little head inclined
+to one side, and smiled a distant Madonna-like smile. Miss Spoelmann
+watched Klaus Heinrich fixedly with her big black eyes, as if testing
+the effect of her father's extraordinary boorishness on the
+guest,--indeed, Klaus Heinrich felt that she was waiting with
+resignation and sympathy for him to get up and take his departure for
+good and all. He met her eyes, and remained. Mr. Spoelmann, for his
+part, drew out a gold case and took out a fat cigarette, which, when
+lighted, diffused a delicious fragrance.
+
+"Smoke?" he asked.... And as Klaus Heinrich found that there was no
+objection, he helped himself, after Mr. Spoelmann, out of the proffered
+case.
+
+They then discussed various topics before proceeding to an inspection of
+the glass--chiefly Klaus Heinrich and Miss Spoelmann, for the Countess's
+thoughts were wandering, and Mr. Spoelmann only interpolated a cross
+remark now and then: the local theatre, the huge ship in which the
+Spoelmanns had crossed to Europe. No, they had not used their yacht for
+the purpose. Its primary object was to take Mr. Spoelmann to sea in the
+evening in the heat of summer, when he was tied to his business and Imma
+and the Countess were in Newport; he used to pass the night on deck. She
+was now lying at Venice. But they had crossed in a huge steamer, a
+floating hotel with concert rooms and gymnasia. "She had five storeys,"
+said Miss Spoelmann.
+
+"Counting from below?" asked Klaus Heinrich. And she answered at once:
+
+"Of course. Six, counting from above."
+
+He got muddled and lost his bearings and it was a long time before he
+realized that she was making fun of him. Then he tried to explain
+himself and to make his simple question clear, explaining that he meant
+to ask whether she included the under-water holds, the cellars so to
+speak, in the five--in short, to prove that he was not lacking in common
+sense, and at last he joined heartily in the merriment which was the
+result of his efforts. As for the Court Theatre, Miss Spoelmann gave it
+as her opinion, with a pout and a wag of the head, that the actress who
+played the _ingénue_ should be strongly recommended to go through the
+cure at Marienbad, coupled with a course of lessons in dancing and
+deportment, while the hero should be warned that a voice as resonant as
+his should be used most sparingly, even in private life.... All the
+same, Miss Spoelmann expressed her warm admiration for the theatre in
+question.
+
+Klaus Heinrich laughed and wondered, a little oppressed by so much
+smartness. How well she spoke, how pointed and incisive were her words!
+They discussed the operas also and the plays which had been produced
+during the winter, and Imma Spoelmann contradicted Klaus Heinrich's
+judgments, contradicted him in every case, just as if she thought that
+not to contradict would show a mean spirit; the superior wit of her
+tongue left him dazed, and the great black eyes in her pearl-white face
+glittered from sheer joy in her dialectic skill, while Mr. Spoelmann
+leaned back in his chair, holding the fat cigarette between his lips and
+blinking through its smoke, and gazed at his daughter with fond
+satisfaction.
+
+More than once Klaus Heinrich showed in his face the look of pained
+bewilderment which he had noticed on a previous occasion on the face of
+the good sister, and yet he felt convinced that it was not Imma
+Spoelmann's intention to wound his feelings, that she did not consider
+him humbled because he was not successful in standing up to her, that
+she rather let his poor answers pass, as if she considered that he had
+no need of a sharp wit to defend him--it was only she who had. But how
+was that, and why? He thought involuntarily of Ueberbein at many of her
+sallies, of the nimble-tongued blusterer Ueberbein, who was a natural
+misfortune, and had grown up in conditions which he described as
+favourable. A youth of misery, loneliness, and misfortune, shut out from
+the blessings of fortune--such a man knew no luxury, no comfort, he saw
+himself clearly and cruelly thrown on his own resources, which assuredly
+gave him an advantage over those who "knew not necessity."
+
+But Imma Spoelmann sat there in her red-gold dress at the table,
+reclining indolently, with the mocking look of a spoiled child; there
+she sat in confident ease, while her tongue ran on sharply and freely,
+as befitted an atmosphere of refinement and lively wit. But why did she
+give it play? Klaus Heinrich pondered the question, the while they
+discussed Atlantic steamers and plays. He sat bolt upright at the table,
+in a dignified and uncomfortable attitude, while he concealed his left
+hand, and more than once he felt a sidelong glance of hatred from the
+eyes of Countess Löwenjoul.
+
+A servant came in and handed Mr. Spoelmann a telegram on a silver
+salver. Mr. Spoelmann tore it open crossly, glanced through it, blinking
+and with the remains of his cigarette in the corner of his mouth, and
+threw it back on the salver, with the curt order: "Mr. Phlebs."
+Thereupon he lighted a new cigarette.
+
+Miss Spoelmann said: "In spite of distinct medical orders, that's the
+fifth cigarette you've had to-day. Let me tell you that the unbridled
+passion with which you abandon yourself to the vice little beseems your
+grey hairs."
+
+Mr. Spoelmann obviously tried to laugh, and as obviously failed; the
+acid tone of his daughter's words was not to his liking, and he flushed
+up.
+
+"Silence!" he snarled. "You think you can say anything in fun, but
+please spare me your saucy jokes, chatterbox!"
+
+Klaus Heinrich, appalled, looked at Imma, who turned her big eyes on her
+father's angry face, and then sadly dropped her head. Of course she had
+not meant any offence, she had simply amused herself with the strange,
+swelling words which she used to poke her fun; she had expected to raise
+a laugh, and had failed dismally.
+
+"Father, darling father!" she said beseechingly, and crossed over to
+stroke Mr. Spoelmann's flushed cheeks.
+
+"Surely," he grumbled on, "you've grown out of that sort of thing by
+now." But then he yielded to her blandishments, let her kiss the top of
+his head, and swallowed his anger. Klaus Heinrich, when peace was
+restored, alluded to the collection of glass, whereupon the party left
+the tea-table and went into the adjoining museum, with the exception of
+Countess Löwenjoul, who withdrew with a deep curtsey. Mr. Spoelmann
+himself switched on the electric light in the chandeliers.
+
+Handsome cabinets in the style of the whole Schloss, with swelling
+curves and rounded glass doors, alternated with rich silk chairs all
+round the room. In these cabinets Mr. Spoelmann's collection of glass
+was displayed. Yes, there could be no doubt that it was the most
+complete collection in either hemisphere, and the glass which Klaus
+Heinrich had acquired was merely a most modest sample of it. It began in
+one corner of the room with the earliest artistic productions of the
+industry, with finds of heathenish designs from the culture of the
+earliest times; then came the products of the East and West of every
+epoch; next, wreathed, flourished, and imposing vases and beakers from
+Venetian blow-pipes and costly pieces from Bohemian huts, German
+tankards, picturesque Guild and Electorate bowls, mixed with grotesque
+animals and comic figures, huge crystal cups, which reminded one of the
+Luck of Edenhall in the song, and in whose facets the light broke and
+sparkled; ruby-coloured glasses like the Holy Grail; and finally the
+best samples of the latest development of the art, fragile blossoms on
+impossibly brittle stems, and fancy glasses in the latest fashionable
+shape, made iridescent with the vapours of precious metals. The three,
+followed by Percival, who also examined the collection, walked slowly
+round the hall; and Mr. Spoelmann related in his harsh voice the origin
+of particular pieces, taking them carefully off their velvet stands with
+his thin, soft-cuffed hand, and holding them up to the electric light.
+
+Klaus Heinrich had had plenty of practice in visits of inspection, in
+putting questions and making adroit remarks, so that he was well able at
+the same time to ponder over Imma Spoelmann's mode of expressing
+herself, that peculiar mode which worried him not a little. What amazing
+freedom she allowed herself! What extraordinary remarks she allowed
+herself to make! "Passion," "vice," where did she get the words from?
+where did she learn to use them so glibly? Had not Countess Löwenjoul,
+who herself dealt with the same topics in a confused sort of way, and
+had obviously seen the seamy side of life, described her as quite
+innocent!
+
+And the description was undoubtedly correct, for was she not an
+exception by birth like himself, brought up like a girl "born to be
+queen," kept apart from the busy strife of men and from all the turmoil
+to which those sinister words corresponded in the life of reality? But
+she had uttered the words glibly, and had treated them as a joke. Yes,
+that was it, this dainty creature in her red-gold gown was merely a
+wielder of words; she knew no more of life than those words, she played
+with the most serious and most awful of them as with coloured stones,
+and was puzzled when she made people angry by their use. Klaus
+Heinrich's heart, as he thought of this, filled with sympathy.
+
+It was nearly seven o'clock when he asked for his carriage to be
+called--slightly uneasy about his long stay, in view of the Court and
+the public. His departure evoked a fresh and terrifying demonstration on
+the part of Percival, the collie. Every alteration or interruption in a
+situation seemed to throw the noble animal off his moral balance.
+Quivering, yelping, and deaf to all blandishments, he stormed through
+the rooms and the hall and up and down the steps, drowning the words of
+leave-taking in his hubbub. The butler did the Prince the honours as far
+as the floor with the statues of gods. Mr. Spoelmann did not accompany
+him any distance. Miss Spoelmann made the position clear: "I am
+convinced that your sojourn in the bosom of our family has charmed you,
+Prince." And he was left wondering whether the joke lay in the
+expression "the bosom of our family" or in the actual fact. Anyhow,
+Klaus Heinrich was at a loss for a reply.
+
+Leaning back in the corner of his brougham, rather sore and battered,
+and yet stimulated by the unusual treatment he had experienced, he drove
+home, through the dark Town Gardens to the Hermitage, returned to his
+sober Empire room, where he dined with von Schulenburg-Tressen and
+Braunbart-Schellendorf. Next day he read the comments of the _Courier_.
+They amounted only to a statement that yesterday his Royal Highness
+Prince Klaus Heinrich went to Schloss Delphinenort for tea, and
+inspected Mr. Spoelmann's renowned collection of fancy glass.
+
+And Klaus Heinrich continued to live his unreal life, and to carry out
+his exalted calling. He uttered his gracious speeches, made his
+gestures, represented his people at the Court and at the President of
+the Council's great ball, gave free audiences, lunched in the officers'
+mess of the Grenadier Guards, showed himself at the Court Theatre, and
+bestowed on this and that district of the country the privilege of his
+presence. With a smile, and with heels together, he carried out all due
+formalities and did his irksome duty with complete self-possession,
+albeit he had at this time so much to think of--about the peppery Mr.
+Spoelmann, the muddle-headed Countess Löwenjoul, the harum-scarum Percy,
+and especially about Imma, the daughter of the house. Many a question to
+which his first visit to Delphinenort had given rise he was not yet in a
+position to answer, but only succeeded in solving as the result of
+further intercourse with the Spoelmanns, which he maintained to the
+eager and at last feverish interest of the public, and which advanced a
+step further when the Prince in the early morning one day, to the
+astonishment of his suite, his servants, and himself--indeed, partly
+involuntarily, and as if carried along by destiny--appeared alone and on
+horseback at Delphinenort, for the purpose of taking Miss Spoelmann,
+whom he disturbed in her mathematical studies at the top of the Schloss,
+for a ride.
+
+The grip of winter had relaxed early in this ever-to-be-remembered year.
+After a mild January, the middle of February had seen the coming of a
+preliminary spring with birds and sunshine and balmy breezes, and as
+Klaus Heinrich lay on the first of these mornings at the Hermitage in
+his roomy old mahogany bed, from one of whose posts the spherical crown
+was missing, he felt himself, as it were, impelled by a strange hand and
+irresistibly inspired to deeds of boldness.
+
+He rang the bell-pull for Neumann (they only had draw-bells at the
+Hermitage), and ordered Florian to be ready saddled in an hour's time.
+Should a horse be got ready for the groom too? No, it was not necessary.
+Klaus Heinrich said that he wanted to ride alone. Then he gave himself
+into Neumann's skilful hands for his morning toilette, breakfasted
+impatiently below in the garden room, and mounted his horse at the foot
+of the terrace. With his spurred top-boots in the stirrups, the yellow
+reins in his brown-gloved right hand, and the left planted on his hip
+under his open cloak, he rode at a walking pace through the soft
+morning, scanning the still bare branches for the birds whose twittering
+he heard. He rode through the public part of his park, through the Town
+Gardens and the grounds of Delphinenort. He reached it at half-past
+nine. Great was the general surprise.
+
+At the main gate he gave Florian over to an English groom. The butler,
+who was crossing the mosaic hall busy on his household duties, stood
+still, taken aback at the sight of Klaus Heinrich. To the inquiry which
+the Prince addressed to him, in a clear and almost haughty voice, about
+the ladies, he did not even reply, but turned helplessly towards the
+marble staircase, gazing dumbly at the top step, for there stood Mr.
+Spoelmann.
+
+It seemed that he had just finished breakfast, and was in the best of
+tempers. His hands were plunged deep in his pockets, his lounge coat
+drawn back from his velvet waistcoat, and the blue smoke of his
+cigarette was making him blink.
+
+"Well, young Prince?" he said, and stared down at him....
+
+Klaus Heinrich saluted and hurried up the red stair-carpet. He felt that
+the situation could only be saved by swiftness and, so to speak, by an
+attack by storm.
+
+"You will be astounded, Mr. Spoelmann," he said, "at this early
+hour ..." He was out of breath, and the fact disturbed him greatly, he
+was so little used to it.
+
+Mr. Spoelmann answered him by a look and a shrug of the shoulders, as
+much as to say that he could control himself, but desired an
+explanation.
+
+"The fact is, we have an appointment ..." said Klaus Heinrich. He was
+standing two steps below the millionaire and was speaking up at him. "An
+appointment for a ride between Miss Imma and myself.... I have promised
+to show the ladies the 'Pheasantry' and the Court Kennels.... Miss Imma
+told me that she knew nothing about the surrounding country. It was
+agreed that on the first fine day ... It's such a lovely day to-day....
+It is of course subject to your approval...."
+
+Mr. Spoelmann shrugged his shoulders, and made a face as if to say:
+"Approval--why so?"
+
+"My daughter is grown up," he said. "I don't interfere. If she rides,
+she rides. But I don't think she has time. You must find that out for
+yourself. She's in there." And Mr. Spoelmann pointed his chin towards
+the tapestry door, through which Klaus Heinrich had already once passed.
+
+"Thanks," said Klaus Heinrich. "I'll go and see for myself." And he ran
+up the remaining steps, pushed the tapestry hanging aside with a
+determined gesture, and went down the steps into the sunlit,
+flower-scented winter garden.
+
+In front of the splashing fountain and the basin with fancy-feathered
+ducks sat Imma Spoelmann leaning over a table, her back turned to the
+incomer. Her hair was down. It hung black and glossy on each side of her
+head, covered her shoulders, and allowed nothing to be seen but a shadow
+of the childlike quarter profile of her face, which showed white as
+ivory against the darkness of her hair. There she sat absorbed in her
+studies, working at the figures in the notebook before her, her lips
+pressed on the back of her left hand, and her right grasping the pen.
+
+The Countess too was there, also busy writing. She sat some way off
+under the palms, where Klaus Heinrich had first conversed with her, and
+wrote sitting upright with her head on one side, a pile of closely
+scribbled note-paper lying at her side. The clank of Klaus Heinrich's
+spurs made her look up. She looked at him with half-closed eyes for two
+seconds, the long pen poised in her hand, then rose and curtseyed.
+"Imma," she said, "his Royal Highness Prince Klaus Heinrich is here."
+
+Miss Spoelmann turned quickly round in her basket chair, shook her hair
+back and gazed without speaking at the intruder with big, startled eyes,
+until Klaus Heinrich had bid the ladies good-morning with a military
+salute. Then she said in her broken voice: "Good-morning to you too,
+Prince. But you are too late for breakfast. We've finished long ago."
+
+Klaus Heinrich laughed.
+
+"Well, it's lucky," he said, "that both parties have had breakfast, for
+now we can start at once for a ride."
+
+"A ride?"
+
+"Yes, as we agreed."
+
+"We agreed?"
+
+"No, don't say that you've forgotten!" he said pleadingly. "Didn't I
+promise to show you the country round? Weren't we going for a ride
+together when it was fine? Well, to-day it's glorious. Just look
+out ..."
+
+"It's not a bad day," she said, "but you go too fast, Prince. I remember
+that there was some suggestion of a ride at some future time--but surely
+not so soon as this? Might I not at least have expected some sort of
+notification, if your Highness will allow the word? You must allow that
+I can't ride like this about here."
+
+And she stood up to show her morning dress, which consisted of a loose
+gown of many-coloured silk and an open green-velvet jacket.
+
+"No," he said, "unfortunately you cannot. But I'll wait here while you
+both change. It's quite early...."
+
+"Uncommonly early. But in the second place I am rather busy with my
+innocent studies, as you saw. I've got a lecture at eleven o'clock."
+
+"No," he cried, "to-day you must not grind at algebra, Miss Imma; you
+must not play in the vacuum, as you put it! Look at the sun!... May
+I?..." And he went to the table and took up the notebook.
+
+What he saw made his head swim. A fantastic hocus-pocus, a witches'
+sabbath of abbreviated symbols, written in a childish round hand which
+was the obvious result of Miss Spoelmann's peculiar way of holding her
+pen, covered the pages. There were Greek and Latin letters of various
+heights, crossed and cancelled, arranged above and below cross lines,
+covered by other lines, enclosed in round brackets, formulated in square
+brackets. Single letters, pushed forward like sentries, kept guard above
+the main bodies. Cabalistic signs, quite unintelligible to the lay mind,
+cast their arms round letters and ciphers, while fractions stood in
+front of them and ciphers and letters hovered round their tops and
+bottoms. Strange syllables, abbreviations of mysterious words, were
+scattered everywhere, and between the columns were written sentences and
+remarks in ordinary language, whose sense was equally beyond the normal
+intelligence, and conveyed no more to the reader than an incantation.
+
+Klaus Heinrich looked at the slight form, which stood by him in the
+shimmering frock, becurtained by her dark hair, and in whose little head
+all this lived and meant something. He said, "Can you really waste a
+lovely morning over all this God-forsaken stuff?"
+
+A glance of anger met him from her big eyes. Then she answered with a
+pout:
+
+"Your Highness seems to wish to excuse yourself for the want of
+intelligence you recently displayed with regard to your own exalted
+calling."
+
+"No," he said, "not so! I give you my word that I respect your studies
+most highly. I grant that they bother me, I could never understand
+anything of that sort. I also grant that to-day I feel some resentment
+against them, as they seem likely to prevent us from going for a ride."
+
+"Oh, I'm not the only one to interfere with your wish for exercise,
+Prince. There's the Countess too. She was writing--chronicling the
+experiences of her life, not for the world, but for private circulation,
+and I guarantee that the result will be a work which will teach you as
+well as me a good deal."
+
+"I am quite sure of it. But I am equally sure that the Countess is
+incapable of refusing a request from you."
+
+"And my father? There's the next stumbling-block. You know his temper.
+Will he consent?"
+
+"He has consented. If you ride, you ride. Those were his words...."
+
+"You have made sure of him beforehand, then? I'm really beginning to
+admire your circumspection. You have assumed the rôle of a Field
+Marshal, although you are not really a soldier, only a make-believe one,
+as you told us long ago. But there's yet one more obstacle, and that is
+decisive. It's going to rain."
+
+"No, that's a very weak one. The sun is shining...."
+
+"It's going to rain. The air is much too soft. I made sure of it when we
+were in the Spa-Gardens before breakfast. Come and look at the barometer
+if you don't believe me. It's hanging in the hall...."
+
+They went out into the tapestry hall, where a big weather-glass hung
+near the marble fireplace. The Countess went with them. Klaus Heinrich
+said: "It's gone up."
+
+"Your Highness is pleased to deceive yourself," answered Miss Spoelmann.
+"The refraction misleads you."
+
+"That's beyond me."
+
+"The refraction misleads you."
+
+"I don't know what that is, Miss Spoelmann. It's the same as with the
+Adirondacks. I've not had much schooling, that's a necessary result of
+my kind of existence. You must make allowances for me."
+
+"Oh, I humbly beg pardon. I ought to have remembered that one must use
+ordinary words when talking to your Highness. You are standing crooked
+to the hand and that makes it look to you as if it had risen. If you
+would bring yourself to stand straight in front of the glass, you would
+see that the black has not risen above the gold hand, but has actually
+dropped a little below it."
+
+"I really believe you are right," said Klaus Heinrich sadly.
+
+"The atmospheric pressure there is higher than I thought!"
+
+"It is lower than you thought."
+
+"But how about the falling quicksilver?"
+
+"The quicksilver falls at low pressure, not at high, Royal Highness."
+
+"Now I'm absolutely lost."
+
+"I think, Prince, that you're exaggerating your ignorance by way of a
+joke, so as to hide what its extent really is. But as the atmospheric
+pressure is so high that the quicksilver drops, thus showing an absolute
+disregard for the laws of nature, let's go for a ride, Countess--shall
+we? I cannot assume the responsibility of sending the Prince back home
+again now that he has once come. He can wait in there till we're
+ready...."
+
+When Imma Spoelmann and the Countess came back to the winter garden they
+were dressed for riding, Imma in a close-fitting black habit with
+breast-pockets and a three-cornered felt hat, the Countess in black
+cloth with a man's starched shirt and high hat. They went together down
+the steps, through the mosaic hall, and out into the open air, where
+between the colonnade and the big basin two grooms were waiting with the
+horses. But they had not yet mounted when with a loud barking, which was
+the expression of his wild excitement, Percival, the collie, prancing
+and leaping about, tore out of the Schloss and began a frenzied dance
+round the horses, who tossed their heads uneasily....
+
+"I thought so," said Imma, patting her favourite Fatma's head, "there
+was no hiding it from him. He found it all out at the last moment. Now
+he intends to come with us and make a fine to-do about it too. Shall we
+drop the whole thing, Prince?"
+
+But although Klaus Heinrich understood that he might just as well have
+allowed the groom to ride in front with the silver trumpet, so far as
+calling public attention to their expedition was concerned, yet he said
+cheerfully that Percival must come too; he was a member of the family
+and must learn the neighbourhood like the rest.
+
+"Well, where shall we go?" asked Imma as they rode at a walk down the
+chestnut avenue. She rode between Klaus Heinrich and the Countess.
+Percival barked in the van. The English groom, in cockaded hat and
+yellow boot-tops, rode at a respectful distance behind.
+
+"The Court Kennels are fine," answered Klaus Heinrich, "but it is a bit
+farther to the 'Pheasantry,' and we have time before lunch. I should
+like to show you the Schloss. I spent three years there as a boy. It was
+a seminary, you know, with tutors and other boys of my age. That's where
+I got to know my friend Ueberbein, Doctor Ueberbein, my favourite
+tutor."
+
+"You have a friend?" asked Miss Spoelmann, with some surprise, and gazed
+at him. "You must tell me about him some time. And you were educated at
+the 'Pheasantry,' were you? Then we must see it, because you're
+obviously set on it. Trot!" she said as they turned into a loose
+riding-path. "There lies your hermitage, Prince. There's plenty for the
+ducks to eat in your pond. Let's give a wide berth to the Spa-Gardens,
+if that does not take us far out of our way."
+
+Klaus Heinrich agreed, so they left the park and trotted across country
+to reach the high-road which led to their goal to the north-west. In the
+town gardens they were greeted with surprise by a few promenaders, whose
+greetings Klaus Heinrich acknowledged by raising his hand to his cap,
+Imma Spoelmann with a grave and rather embarrassed inclination of her
+dark head in the three-cornered hat. By now they had reached the open
+country, and were no longer likely to meet people. Now and then a
+peasant's cart rolled along the road, or a crouching bicyclist ploughed
+his way along it. But they turned aside from the road when they reached
+the meadow-land, which provided better going for their horses. Percival
+danced backwards in front of them, feverish and restless as ever,
+turning, springing, and wagging his tail--his breath came fast, his
+tongue hung far out of his foaming jaws, and he vented his nervous
+exaltation in a succession of short, sobbing yelps. Farther on he dashed
+off, following some scent with pricked ears and short springs, while his
+wild barking echoed through the air.
+
+They discussed Fatma, which Klaus Heinrich had not yet seen close, and
+which he admired immensely. Fatma had a long, muscular neck and small,
+nodding head with fiery eyes; she had the slender legs of the Arab type,
+and a bushy tail. She was white as the moonlight, and saddled, girt, and
+bridled with white leather. Florian, a rather sleepy brown, with a short
+back, hogged mane, and yellow stockings, looked as homely as a donkey by
+the side of the distinguished foreigner, although he was carefully
+groomed. Countess Löwenjoul rode a big cream called Isabeau. She had an
+excellent seat, with her tall, straight figure, but she held her small
+head in its huge hat on one side, and her lids were half closed and
+twitched. Klaus Heinrich addressed some remarks to her behind Miss
+Spoelmann's back, but she did not answer, and went riding on with
+half-shut eyes, gazing in front of her with a Madonna-like expression,
+and Imma said:
+
+"Don't let's bother the Countess, Prince, her thoughts are wandering."
+
+"I hope," he said, "that the Countess was not annoyed at having to come
+with us."
+
+And he was distinctly taken aback when Imma Spoelmann answered casually:
+"To tell the truth, she very likely was."
+
+"Because of your sums?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, the sums? They're not so urgent, only a way of passing the
+time--although I hope to get a good lot of useful information out of
+them. But I don't mind telling you, Prince, that the Countess is not
+enthusiastic on the subject of yourself. She has expressed herself to
+that effect to me. She said you were hard and stern and affected her
+like a cold douche."
+
+Klaus Heinrich reddened.
+
+"I know well," he said quietly, looking down at his reins, "that I don't
+act as a cordial, Miss Spoelmann, or, at any rate, only at a
+distance.... That, too, is inseparable from my kind of existence, as I
+said. But I am not conscious of having shown myself hard and stern to
+the Countess."
+
+"Probably not in words," she replied, "but you did not allow her to let
+herself go, you did not do her the kindness of letting her tongue run a
+little, that's why she's vexed with you--and I know quite well what you
+did, how you embarrassed the poor thing and gave her a cold
+douche--quite well," she repeated, and turned her head away.
+
+Klaus Heinrich did not answer. He kept his left hand planted on his hip,
+and his eyes were tired. Then he said:
+
+"You know quite well? So I act like a cold douche on you too, Miss
+Spoelmann, do I?"
+
+"I warn you," she answered at once in her broken voice, and wagging her
+head from side to side, "on no account to overrate the effect you have
+upon me, Prince." And she suddenly set Fatma off at a gallop and flew at
+such a pace over the fields towards the dark mass of the distant
+pine-woods that neither the Countess nor Klaus Heinrich could keep up
+with her. Not till she reached the edge of the wood through which the
+high-road ran did she halt and turn her horse to look mockingly at her
+followers.
+
+Countess Löwenjoul on her cream was the first to come up with the
+runaway. Then came Florian, foaming and much exhausted by his unusual
+exertion. They all laughed and their breath came fast as they entered
+the echoing wood. The Countess had awakened and chatted merrily, making
+lively, graceful gestures and showing her white teeth. She poked fun at
+Percival, whose temper had again been excited by the gallop, and who was
+careering wildly among the trunks in front of the horses.
+
+"Royal Highness," she said, "you ought to see him jump and turn
+somersaults. He can take a ditch six yards broad, and does it so lightly
+and gracefully, you'd be delighted. But only of his own accord, mind
+you, of his free will, for I believe he'd rather let himself be whipped
+to death than submit to any training or teaching of tricks. He is, one
+might say, his own trainer by nature, and though sometimes unruly he is
+never rough. He is a gentleman, an aristocrat, and full of character.
+He's as proud as you like, and though he seems mad he's quite able to
+control himself. Nobody has ever heard him cry for pain when punished
+and hurt. He only eats, too, when he is hungry, and at other times won't
+look at the most tempting dainties. In the morning he has cream ... he
+must be fed. He wears himself out, he's quite thin under his glossy
+coat, you can feel all his ribs. For I'm afraid he'll never grow to be
+old, but will fall an early victim to consumption. The street curs
+persecute him, they go for him in every street, but he jumps clear of
+them, and if they succeed in joining issue with him, he distributes a
+few bites with his splendid teeth which the rabble don't forget in a
+hurry. One must love such a compound of chivalry and virtue."
+
+Imma agreed, in words which were the most serious and grave which Klaus
+Heinrich had ever heard from her mouth.
+
+"Yes," she said, "you're a good friend to me, Percy, I shall always love
+you. A veterinary surgeon said you were half mad and advised us to have
+you put away, as you were impossible and a constant danger to us. But
+they shan't take my Percy from me. He is impossible, I know, and often
+an incumbrance, but he's always appealing and noble, and I love him
+dearly."
+
+The Countess continued to talk about the collie's nature, but her
+remarks soon became disconnected and confused, and lapsed into a
+monologue accompanied by lively and elegant gestures. At last, after an
+acid look at Klaus Heinrich, her thoughts again began to wander.
+
+Klaus Heinrich felt happy and cheered, whether as the result of the
+canter--for which he had had to brace himself up, for, though a decent
+figure on a horse, his left hand prevented him from being a strong
+rider--or for some other reason. After leaving the pine-wood they rode
+along the quiet high-road between meadows and furrowed fields, with a
+peasant's hut or a country inn here and there. As they drew near the
+next wood, he asked in a low voice:
+
+"Won't you fulfil your promise and tell me about the Countess? What is
+your companion's history?"
+
+"She is my friend," she answered, "and in a sense my governess too,
+although she did not come to us till I was grown up. That was three
+years ago, in New York, and the Countess was then in a terrible state.
+She was on the brink of starvation," said Miss Spoelmann, and as she
+said it she fastened her big black eyes with a searching, startled look
+on Klaus Heinrich.
+
+"Really starvation?" he asked, and returned her look.... "Do please go
+on."
+
+"Yes, I said that too when she came to us, and although I, of course,
+saw quite well that her mind was slightly affected, she made such an
+impression upon me that I persuaded my father to let her be my
+companion."
+
+"What took her to America? Is she a countess by birth?" asked Klaus
+Heinrich.
+
+"Not a countess, but of noble birth, brought up in refined and luxurious
+surroundings, sheltered and protected, as she expressed it to me, from
+every wind, because from childhood she had been impressionable and
+sensitive. But then she married a Count Löwenjoul, a cavalry captain--a
+strange specimen of the aristocracy, according to her account--not quite
+up to the mark, to put it mildly."
+
+"What was wrong with him?" asked Klaus Heinrich.
+
+"I can't exactly tell you, Prince. You must take into consideration the
+rather obscure way in which the Countess puts what she has to say. But,
+to judge from what she has told me, he must have been just about as
+arrant a scamp as one could well imagine--a regular blackguard."
+
+"I see," said Klaus Heinrich, "what's called a hard case, or a tough
+proposition."
+
+"Exactly; we'll say man of the world--but in the most comprehensive and
+unlimited sense, for, to judge by the Countess's remarks, there were no
+limits in his case."
+
+"No, that's what I too gathered," said Klaus Heinrich. "I've met several
+people of that sort--regular devils, so to speak. I heard of one such,
+who used to make love in his motor car, even when it was going at full
+speed."
+
+"Did your friend Ueberbein tell you of him?"
+
+"No, somebody else. Ueberbein would not think it proper to mention
+anything of that sort to me."
+
+"Then he must be a useless sort of friend, Prince."
+
+"You'll think better of him when I tell you more about him, Miss
+Spoelmann. But please go on!"
+
+"Well, I don't know whether Löwenjoul behaved like your roué. Anyhow he
+behaved disgracefully."
+
+"I expect he gambled and drank."
+
+"I guess so. And besides that of course he made love, neglected the
+Countess and carried on with the loose women that are always to be found
+everywhere--at first behind her back, and later no longer behind her
+back but impudently and openly without any regard for her feelings."
+
+"But tell me, why did she ever marry him?"
+
+"She married him against her parents' will, because, as she has told me,
+she was in love with him. For in the first place, he was a handsome man
+when she first met him--he fell off in his looks later. In the second
+place, his reputation as a man of the world had gone before him, and
+that, according to her, constituted a sort of irresistible attraction
+for her, for, though she had been so well sheltered and protected,
+nothing would shake her in her resolve to share her life with him. If
+one thinks it over, one can quite understand it."
+
+"Yes," he said, "I can quite understand it. She wanted to have her
+fling, as it were, to get her eyes opened. And she saw the world with a
+vengeance."
+
+"You may put it like that if you like: though the expression seems to me
+rather too flippant to describe her experiences. Her husband ill-treated
+her."
+
+"Do you mean that he beat her?"
+
+"Yes, he ill-treated her physically. But now comes something, Prince,
+which you too will not have heard about before. She gave me to
+understand that he ill-treated her not only in a temper, not only in
+anger and rage, but also without being exasperated, simply for his own
+satisfaction. I mean, that his caresses were so revolting as to amount
+to ill-treatment."
+
+Klaus Heinrich was silent. Both looked very grave. At last he asked:
+"Did the Countess have any children?"
+
+"Yes, two. They died quite young, both only a few weeks old, and that's
+the greatest sorrow the Countess has had to bear. It would seem from her
+hints that it was the fault of the loose women for whom her husband
+betrayed her that the children died directly after birth."
+
+Both remained silent, and their eyes clouded over.
+
+"Add to that," continued Imma Spoelmann, "that he dissipated his wife's
+dowry, at cards and with women--a respectable dowry it was too--and
+after her parents' death her whole fortune also. Relations of hers too
+helped him once, when he was near having to leave the service on account
+of his debts. But then came a scandal, an altogether revolting one, in
+which he was involved and which did for him once and for all."
+
+"What was it?" asked Klaus Heinrich.
+
+"I can't exactly tell you, Prince. But, according to what the Countess
+has let slip about it, it was a scandal of the very grossest
+description--we agreed just now that there are generally no limits in
+that direction."
+
+"And then he went to America?"
+
+"You're right there, Prince. I can't help admiring your 'cuteness."
+
+"Please go on, Miss Spoelmann. I've never heard anything like the
+Countess's story."
+
+"No more had I; so you can imagine what an impression it made on me when
+she came to us. Well, then, Count Löwenjoul bolted to America with the
+police at his heels, leaving pretty considerable debts behind of course.
+And the Countess went with him."
+
+"She went with him? Why?"
+
+"Because she still loved him, in spite of everything--she loves him
+still--and because she was determined to share his life whatever
+happened. He took her with him, though, because he had a better chance
+of getting help from her relations as long as she was with him. The
+relations sent him one further instalment of money from home, and then
+stopped--they finally buttoned up their pockets; and when Count
+Löwenjoul saw that his wife was no more use to him, he just left
+her--left her in absolute destitution and cleared out."
+
+"I knew it," said Klaus Heinrich, "I expected as much. Just what does
+happen."
+
+But Imma Spoelmann went on: "So there she was, destitute and helpless,
+and, since she had never learned to earn her own living, she was left
+alone to face want and hunger. And you must remember that life in the
+States is much harder and meaner than here in your country; also that
+the Countess has always been a gentle, sensitive creature, and has been
+cruelly treated for years. In a word, she was no fit subject for the
+impressions of life to which she was unceasingly exposed. And then the
+blessing fell to her."
+
+"What blessing? She told me about that too. What was the blessing, Miss
+Spoelmann?"
+
+"The blessing consisted in a mental disturbance. At the crisis of her
+troubles something in her cracked--that's the expression she used to
+me--so that she no longer needed to face life and to bring a clear,
+sober mind to bear upon it, but was permitted, so to speak, to let
+herself go, to relax the tension of her nerves and to drivel when she
+liked. In a word, the blessing was that she went wrong in her head."
+
+"Certainly I was under the impression," said Klaus Heinrich, "that the
+Countess was letting herself go when she drivelled."
+
+"That's how it is, Prince. She is quite conscious of drivelling, and
+often laughs as she does so, or lets her hearers understand that she
+doesn't mean any harm by it. Her strangeness is a beneficent disorder,
+which she can control to a certain extent, and which she allows herself
+to indulge in. It is, if you prefer it, a want of----"
+
+"Of self-restraint," said Klaus Heinrich, and looked down at his reins.
+
+"Right, of self-restraint," she repeated, and looked at him. "You don't
+seem to approve of that want, Prince."
+
+"I consider as a general rule," he answered quietly, "that it is not
+right to let oneself go and to make oneself at home, but that
+self-restraint should always be exercised, whatever the circumstances."
+
+"Your Highness's doctrine," she answered, "is a praiseworthy austerity."
+Then she pouted, and, wagging her dark head in its three-cornered hat,
+she added in her broken voice: "I'll tell you something, Highness, and
+please note it well. If your Eminence is not inclined to show a little
+sympathy and indulgence and mildness, I shall have to decline the
+pleasure of your distinguished company once and for all."
+
+He dropped his head, and they rode a while in silence.
+
+"Won't you go on to tell me how the Countess came to you?" he asked at
+last.
+
+"No, I won't," she said, and looked straight in front of her. But he
+pressed her so pleadingly that she finished her story and said: "And
+although fifty other companions applied, my choice--for the choice
+rested with me--fell at once on her, I was so much taken with her at my
+first interview. She was odd, I could see that: but she was odd only
+from too rich an experience of misery and wickedness, that was clear in
+every word she said; and as for me, I had always been a little lonely
+and cut off, and absolutely without experience, except what I got at my
+University lectures."
+
+"Of course, you had always been a little lonely and cut off!" repeated
+Klaus Heinrich, with a ring of joy in his voice.
+
+"That's what I said. It was a dull, simple life in some ways that I led,
+and still lead, because it has not altered much, and is all much the
+same. There were parties with 'lions' and balls, and often a dash in a
+closed motor to the Opera House, where I sat in one of the little boxes
+above the stalls, so as to be well observed by everybody, for show, as
+we say. That was a necessary part of my position."
+
+"For show?"
+
+"Yes, for show; I mean the duty of showing oneself off, of not raising
+walls against the public, but letting them come into the garden and walk
+on the lawn and gaze at the terrace, watching us at tea. My father, Mr.
+Spoelmann, disliked it intensely. But it was a necessary consequence of
+our position."
+
+"What did you usually do besides, Miss Spoelmann?"
+
+"In the spring we went to our house in the Adirondacks and in the summer
+to our house at Newport-on-Sea. There were garden-parties of course, and
+battles of flowers and lawn-tennis tournaments, and we went for rides
+and drove four-in-hand or motored, and the people stood and gaped,
+because I was Samuel Spoelmann's daughter. And many shouted rude remarks
+after me."
+
+"Rude remarks?"
+
+"Yes, and they probably had reason to. At any rate it was something of a
+life in the limelight that we led, and one that invited discussion."
+
+"And between whiles," he said, "you played in the breezes, didn't you,
+or rather in a vacuum, where no dust came----"
+
+"That's right. Your Highness is pleased to mock my excess of candour.
+But in view of all this you can guess how extraordinarily welcome the
+Countess was to me, when she came to see me in Fifth Avenue. She does
+not express herself very clearly, but rather in a mysterious sort of
+way, and the boundary line at which she begins to drivel is not always
+quite clearly apparent. But that only strikes me as right and
+instructive, as it gives a good idea of the boundlessness of misery and
+wickedness in the world. You envy me the Countess, don't you?"
+
+"Envy? H'm. You seem to assume, Miss Spoelmann, that I have never had my
+eyes opened."
+
+"Have you?"
+
+"Once or twice, maybe. For instance, things have come to my ears about
+our lackeys, which you would scarcely dream of."
+
+"Are your lackeys so bad?"
+
+"Bad? Good-for-nothing, that's what they are. For one thing they play
+into each other's hands, and scheme, and take bribes from the
+tradesmen----"
+
+"But, Prince, that's comparatively harmless."
+
+"Yes, true, it's nothing to compare with the way the Countess has had
+her eyes opened."
+
+They broke into a trot, and, leaving at the sign-post the gently rising
+and falling high-road, which they had followed through the pine-woods,
+turned into the sandy short cut, between high blackberry-covered banks,
+which led into the tufted meadow-land round the "Pheasantry." Klaus
+Heinrich was at home in these parts: he stretched out his arm (the right
+one) to point out everything to his companions, though there was not
+much worth seeing. Yonder lay the Schloss, closed and silent, with its
+shingle-roof and its lightning-conductors on the edge of the wood. On
+one side was the pheasants' enclosure, which gave the place its name,
+and on the other Stavenüter's tea-garden, where he had sometimes sat
+with Raoul Ueberbein. The spring sun shone mildly over the damp
+meadow-land and shed a soft haze over the distant woods.
+
+They reined in their horses in front of the tea-garden, and Imma
+Spoelmann took stock of the prosaic country-house which rejoiced in the
+name of the "Pheasantry."
+
+"Your childhood," she said with a pout, "does not seem to have been
+surrounded by much giddy splendour."
+
+"No," he laughed, "there's nothing to see in the Schloss. It's the same
+inside as out. No comparison with Delphinenort, even before you restored
+it----"
+
+"Let's put our horses up," she said. "One must put one's horses up on an
+expedition, mustn't one, Countess? Dismount, Prince. I'm thirsty, and
+want to see what your friend Stavenüter has got to drink."
+
+There stood Herr Stavenüter in green apron and stockings, bowing and
+pressing his knitted cap to his chest with both hands, while he laughed
+till his gums showed.
+
+"Royal Highness!" he said, with joy in his voice, "does your Royal
+Highness mean to honour me once again? And the young lady!" he added,
+with a tinge of deference in his voice; for he knew Samuel Spoelmann's
+daughter quite well, and there had been in the whole Grand Duchy no more
+eager reader of the newspaper articles which coupled Prince Klaus
+Heinrich's and Imma's names together. He helped the Countess to
+dismount, while Klaus Heinrich, who was the first to the ground, devoted
+himself to Miss Spoelmann, and he called to a lad, who, with the
+Spoelmanns' groom, took charge of the horses. Then followed the
+reception and welcome to which Klaus Heinrich was accustomed. He
+addressed a few formal questions in a reserved tone of voice to Herr
+Stavenüter, graciously asked how he was and how his business prospered,
+and received the answers with nods and a show of real interest. Imma
+Spoelmann watched his artificial, cold demeanour with serious, searching
+eyes, while she swung her riding-whip backwards and forwards.
+
+"May I be so bold as to remind you that I am thirsty?" she said at last
+sharply and decisively, whereupon they walked into the garden and
+discussed whether they need go in to the coffee-room. Klaus Heinrich
+urged that it was still so damp under the trees; but Imma insisted on
+sitting outside, and herself chose one of the long narrow tables with
+benches on each side, which Herr Stavenüter hastened to cover with a
+white cloth.
+
+"Lemonade!" he said. "That's best for a thirst, and it's sound stuff! no
+trash, Royal Highness, and you, ladies, but natural juice
+sweetened--there's no better!"
+
+Followed the driving-in of the glass balls in the necks of the bottles;
+and, while his distinguished guests tasted the drink, Herr Stavenüter
+dawdled a little longer at the table, meaning to serve them up a little
+gossip. He had long been a widower, and his three children, who in days
+gone by had sung here under the trees the song about common humanity,
+the while blowing their noses with their fingers, had now left him. The
+son was a soldier in the capital, one of the daughters had married a
+neighbouring farmer, the other, with a soul for higher things, had gone
+into service in the capital.
+
+So Herr Stavenüter was in solitary control in this remote spot, in the
+three-fold capacity of farmer of the Schloss lands, caretaker of the
+Schloss, and head keeper of the "Pheasantry," and was well content with
+his lot. Soon, if the weather permitted, the season for bicyclists and
+walkers would come round, when the garden was filled on Sundays. Then
+business hummed. Would not his Highness and the ladies like to take a
+peep at the "Pheasantry"?
+
+Yes, they would, later; so Herr Stavenüter withdrew for the present,
+after placing a saucer of milk for Percival by the table.
+
+The collie had been in some muddy water on the way, and looked horrible.
+His legs were thin with wet, and the white parts of his ragged coat
+covered with dirt. His gaping mouth was black to the throat from
+nuzzling for field-mice, and his dark red tongue hung dripping out of
+his mouth. He quickly lapped up his milk, and then lay with panting
+sides by his mistress's feet, flat on his side, his head thrown back in
+an attitude of repose.
+
+Klaus Heinrich declared it to be inexcusable for Imma to expose herself
+after her ride to the invidious springtime air without any wrap. "Take
+my cloak," he said. "I really do not want it, I'm quite warm, and my
+coat is padded on the chest!" She would not hear of it; but he went on
+asking her so insistently that she consented, and let him lay his grey
+military coat with a major's shoulder-straps round her shoulders. Then,
+resting her dark head in its three-cornered hat in the hollow of her
+hand, she watched him as, with arm outstretched towards the Schloss, he
+described to her the life he had once led there.
+
+There, where the tall window opened on to the ground, had been the
+mess-room, then the school-room, and up above Klaus Heinrich's room with
+the plaster torso on the stove. He told her too about Professor Kürtchen
+and his tactful way of instructing his pupils, about Captain Amelung's
+widow, and the aristocratic "Pheasants," who called everything
+"hog-wash," and especially about Raoul Ueberbein, his friend, of whom
+Imma Spoelmann more than once asked him to tell her some more.
+
+He told her about the doctor's obscure origin, and about the money his
+parents paid to be quit of him; about the child in the marsh or bog, and
+the medal for saving life; about Ueberbein's plucky and ambitious
+career, pursued in circumstances calling for resolution and action,
+which he used to call favourable circumstances, and about his friendship
+with Doctor Sammet, whom Imma knew. He described his by no means
+attractive appearance and readily owned to the attraction which he had
+exercised on him from the very beginning. He described his behaviour
+towards himself, Klaus Heinrich--that fatherly and jolly, blustering
+camaraderie which had distinguished him so sharply from everybody
+else--and gave Imma to the best of his ability an insight into his
+tutor's views of life. Finally he expressed his concern that the doctor
+seemed not to enjoy any sort of popularity among his fellow-citizens.
+
+"I can quite believe that," said Imma.
+
+He was surprised, and asked why.
+
+"Because I'm convinced," she said, wagging her head, "that your
+Ueberbein, for all his sparkling conversation, is an unhappy sort of
+creature. He may swagger about the place; but he lacks reserve, Prince,
+and that means that he will come to a bad end."
+
+Her words startled Klaus Heinrich, and made him thoughtful. Then turning
+to the Countess, who awoke with a smile out of a brown study, he said
+something complimentary about her riding, for which she thanked him
+gracefully. He said that anybody could see that she had learnt to ride
+as a child, and she confessed that riding lessons had formed a
+considerable part of her education. She spoke clearly and cheerfully;
+but gradually, almost imperceptibly, she began to wander into a strange
+story about a gallant ride which she had made as a lieutenant in the
+last manoeuvres, and suddenly started talking about the dreadful wife of
+a sergeant in the Grenadiers, who had come into her room the previous
+night and scratched her breasts all over, meanwhile using language which
+she could not bring herself to repeat. Klaus Heinrich asked quietly
+whether she had not shut her door and windows.
+
+"Of course, but anyone could break the glass!" she answered hastily, and
+turned pale in one cheek and red in the other. Klaus Heinrich nodded
+acquiescence, and, dropping his eyes, asked her quietly to let him call
+her "Frau Meier" now and then, a proposal which she gladly accepted,
+with a confidential smile and a far-away look which had something
+strangely attractive about it.
+
+They got up to visit the "Pheasantry," after Klaus Heinrich had taken
+back his cloak; and as they left the garden, Imma Spoelmann said: "Well
+done, Prince. You're getting on," a commendation which made him blush,
+indeed gave him far more pleasure than the most fulsome newspaper report
+of the valuable effect of his appearance at a ceremony which Councillor
+Schustermann could ever show him.
+
+Herr Stavenüter escorted his guests into the palisaded enclosure in
+which six or seven families of pheasants led a comfortable, petted life.
+They watched the greedy, red-eyed, and stiff-tailed birds, inspected the
+hatching house, and looked on while Herr Stavenüter fed the pheasants
+under a big solitary fig-tree for their benefit. Klaus Heinrich thanked
+him warmly for all that he had shown them, Imma Spoelmann regarding him
+the while with her big, searching eyes. Then they mounted at the gate of
+the tea-garden and rode off homewards with Percival barking and
+pirouetting under the horses' noses.
+
+But their ride home was destined to give Klaus Heinrich, in the course
+of his conversation with Imma Spoelmann, yet another significant
+indication of her real nature and character, a direct revelation of
+certain sides of her personality which gave him food for much thought.
+
+For soon after they had left the bramble-hedged by-way and joined the
+high-road, Klaus Heinrich reverted to a subject which had been just
+touched on at his first visit to Delphinenort during the conversation at
+tea, and had not ceased to exercise him ever since.
+
+"May I," he said, "ask you one question, Miss Spoelmann? You need not
+answer it if you don't want to."
+
+"I'll see about that," she answered.
+
+"Four weeks ago," he began, "when I first had the pleasure of a talk
+with your father, Mr. Spoelmann, I asked him a question which he
+answered so curtly and abruptly that I could not help feeling that my
+question had been indiscreet or a false step."
+
+"What was it?"
+
+"I asked him whether he had not found it hard to leave America."
+
+"There you are, Prince, there's another question which is worthy of you,
+a typical Prince-question. If you had had a little more training in the
+use of your reasoning powers you would have known without asking that if
+my father had not been ready and glad to leave America, he most
+assuredly would not have left it."
+
+"Very probably you are right; forgive me, I don't think enough. But if
+my question was nothing worse than a want of thought, I shall be quite
+content. Can you assure me that that is the case?"
+
+"No, Prince, I'm afraid I cannot," she said, and looked at him suddenly
+with her big black eyes.
+
+"Then what has want of thought to do with it? Do please explain. I ask
+you in the name of our friendship."
+
+"Are we friends?"
+
+"I hoped so," he said pleadingly.
+
+"Well, well, patience! I didn't know it, but I'm quite ready to learn
+it. But to return to my father, he really did lose his temper at your
+question--he has a quick temper, and has plenty of occasion to practise
+losing it. The fact is that public opinion and sentiment were not
+over-friendly to us in America. There's such a lot of scheming over
+there--I may mention that I am not posted in the details, but there was
+a strong political movement towards setting the crowd, the common
+people, you know, against us. The result was legislation and
+restrictions which made my father's life over there a burden to him. You
+know of course, Prince, that it was not he who made us what we are, but
+my redoubtable grandfather with his Paradise nugget and Blockhead Farm.
+My father could not help it, he was born to his destiny, and it was no
+gratification to him, because he is naturally shy and sensitive, and
+would much have preferred to have lived for playing the organ and
+collecting glass. I really believe that the hatred which was the result
+of the scheming against us, so that sometimes the people hurled abuse
+after me when I motored past them--that the hatred quite probably
+brought on his stone in the kidneys; it's more than possible."
+
+"I am cordially attached to your father," said Klaus Heinrich with
+emphasis.
+
+"I should have made that, Prince, a condition of our becoming friends.
+But there was another point which made things worse, and made our
+position over there still more difficult, and that was our origin."
+
+"Your origin?"
+
+"Yes, Prince; we are no aristocratic pheasants, unfortunately we are not
+descended from Washington or from the Pilgrim Fathers."
+
+"No, for you are German."
+
+"Oh yes, but there's something besides to get over. Please look at me
+closely. Does it strike you that there is anything to be proud of in
+having blue-black wispy hair like mine, that's always falling where it's
+not wanted?"
+
+"Goodness knows, Miss Spoelmann, you've got glorious hair!" said Klaus
+Heinrich. "I know that you are partly of Southern extraction, for I've
+read somewhere that your grandfather married in Bolivia or thereabouts."
+
+"He did. But that's where the trouble lies, Prince. I'm a quintroon."
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A quintroon."
+
+"That goes with the Adirondacks and the refraction, Miss Spoelmann. I
+don't know what it is. I've already told you that I don't know much."
+
+"Well, it's a fact. My grandfather, thoughtless as he always was,
+married a woman of Indian blood down South."
+
+"Indian blood!"
+
+"Yes. She was of Indian stock at the third remove, daughter of a white
+and a half-Indian, and so a terceroon as it is called. She must have
+been wonderfully beautiful. And she was my grandmother. The
+grandchildren of a terceroon are called quintroons. That's how things
+are."
+
+"Most interesting. But didn't you say that it had affected people's
+attitude towards you?"
+
+"You don't understand, Prince. I must tell you that Indian blood over
+there means a heavy blot--such a blot, that friendships and affections
+are transformed into hatred and abuse if proof of half-blood descent
+comes to light. Of course things are not so serious with us, for with
+quadroons--why, of course, the taint is nothing like so great, and a
+quintroon is to all intents and purposes untainted. But in our case,
+exposed to gossip as we were, it was naturally different, and several
+times when the people shouted abuse after us I heard them say that I was
+a coloured girl. In short, my descent was made an excuse for insults and
+annoyances, and raised a barrier between us and the few who were in the
+same position of life as ourselves--there was always something which we
+had to hide or to brazen out. My grandfather had brazened it out, he was
+that sort of man, and knew what he was doing; besides, his blood was
+pure, it was only his beautiful wife who had the taint. But my father
+was her son, and, sensitive and quick-tempered as he is, he has always,
+ever since he was a boy, resented being stared at, and hated and
+despised at the same time; half a world's wonder and half a monument of
+iniquity, as he used to say. He was fed up with America. That's the
+whole history, Prince," said Imma Spoelmann, "and now you know why my
+father lost his temper over your pointed question."
+
+Klaus Heinrich thanked her for the explanation; indeed, as he saluted
+and took leave (it was lunch time) of the ladies in front of the
+Delphinenort Gate, he repeated his thanks for what he had been told, and
+then rode at foot's pace home, pondering over the events of the morning.
+
+He saw Imma Spoelmann sitting in a languid pose in her red-gold dress at
+the table, with a look as of a spoilt child on her face; sitting in
+comfortable assurance, and uttering remarks with a sting in them, such
+as were good coin in the United States, where clearness, hardness, and a
+ready wit were essentials of life. And why? Klaus Heinrich could
+understand now, and never a day passed that he did not try to realize it
+better. Stared at, hated and despised at the same time, half a world's
+wonder and half a monument of iniquity, that's what her life had been,
+and that had instilled the poison into her remarks, that acidity and
+mocking directness, which looked like offence but really were defence,
+and which evoked a look of bewilderment on the faces of those who had
+never had any occasion for the weapons of wit.
+
+She had demanded of him sympathy and tenderness towards the poor
+Countess, when she let herself go; but she herself had a claim to
+sympathy and tenderness, for she was lonely and her life, like his, was
+a hard one. At the same time a memory haunted him, a long-ago, painful
+memory, whose scene was the refreshment room of the "Citizen Garden,"
+and which ended in a tureen lid----"Little sister!" he said to himself,
+as he quickly dismissed the scene from his thoughts. "Little sister!"
+But most of all his thoughts were busy with planning how soonest to
+enjoy Miss Spoelmann's society again.
+
+He enjoyed it soon and often, in all sorts of circumstances. February
+gave place to threatening March, fickle April and soft May. And all
+these months Klaus Heinrich visited Schloss Delphinenort at least once a
+week, in the morning or in the afternoon, and always in the
+irresponsible mood in which he had presented himself at the Spoelmanns'
+that February morning, as if led by fate without any action of his own
+will. The proximity of the Schlosses made the visits easy, the short
+distance through the park from the "Hermitage" to Delphinenort was
+easily crossed on horseback or in a dogcart, without exciting much
+attention; and when the advancing season brought more people to the
+neighbourhood and made it harder and harder for them to go for rides
+without attracting public attention, the Prince had by this time reached
+a state of mind which can only be described as complete indifference and
+blind recklessness towards the world, the Court, the capital, and the
+countryside. It was not till later that the public interest began to
+play a really important--and encouraging--part in his thoughts and
+actions.
+
+He had not taken leave of the ladies after the first ride without
+suggesting another expedition, a suggestion to which Imma Spoelmann,
+pouting and wagging her head from side to side, had failed to bring any
+serious objection. So he came again; and they rode to the Royal Kennels,
+on the north side of the Town Gardens; on the third occasion they chose
+a third place to ride to, which also they could reach without going near
+the town. Then, when spring enticed the townspeople into the open air
+and the tea-gardens filled up, they preferred an out-of-the-way path,
+which really was no path, but a richly wooded dyke, which stretched far
+away to the north along a swift-running stream.
+
+The quietest way of reaching it was by riding out at the back of the
+"Hermitage" park, and past the river meadows on the edge of the northern
+Town Garden up to the Royal Kennels; then not crossing the river by the
+wooden bridge at the weir, but keeping along this side. The Kennels Farm
+was left behind on the right, and the ride went on through the
+fir-plantations. On the left lay spreading meadows, white and gaily
+coloured with hemlock and anemones, buttercups and bluebells, clover,
+daisies, and forget-me-nots; a village church tower rose in front of
+them beyond the plough-lands, and the busy high-road lay far away at a
+safe distance from the riders. Farther on, the meadows with their
+nut-hedges came close up to the plantations on the left, shutting out
+the view, and enabling them to ride in complete seclusion, generally
+side by side with the Countess behind, as the path was narrow. They
+talked or rode in silence, while Percival jumped over the stream and
+back again, or plunged into it for a bath or a hurried drink. They came
+back the same way as they went.
+
+When, however, the quicksilver fell owing to the lowness of the
+atmospheric pressure, when rain followed, and Klaus Heinrich
+nevertheless felt another peep at Imma Spoelmann to be a necessity, he
+presented himself in his dogcart at Delphinenort at tea time, and they
+stayed indoors. Mr. Spoelmann joined them at tea not more than two or
+three times. His malady got worse about this time, and on several days
+he was obliged to stay in bed with hot poultices. When he did come, he
+used to say: "Hullo, young Prince," with his thin, white-cuffed hand dip
+a rusk in his tea, throw in a cross word here and there into the
+conversation, and end by offering his guest his gold cigarette-case,
+whereupon he left the garden room with Dr. Watercloose, who had sat
+silent and smiling at the table. In fine weather too they sometimes
+preferred not to go outside the park, but to play lawn tennis on the
+trim lawn below the terrace. On one occasion they went for a rapid drive
+in Mr. Spoelmann's motor far out beyond the "Pheasantry."
+
+One day Klaus Heinrich asked: "Is what I have read true, Miss Spoelmann,
+that your father gets such a tremendous lot of letters and appeals every
+day?"
+
+Then she described to him subscription lists which kept pouring in to
+Delphinenort, and which were dealt with as thoroughly as was
+practicable; of the piles of begging letters by every post from Europe
+and America which Messrs. Phlebs and Slippers ran through and weeded out
+for submission to Mr. Spoelmann. Sometimes, she said, she amused herself
+by glancing through the heaps, and reading the addresses; for these were
+often quite fantastic. For the needy or speculative senders tried to
+outdo each other in the deference and servility of their address on the
+envelopes, and every conceivable title and distinction could be found
+mixed up in the strangest way on the letters. But one begging-letter
+writer had quite recently carried off the prize by addressing his
+envelope to: "His Royal Highness Mr. Samuel Spoelmann." But it did not
+get him any more than the others.
+
+On other occasions the Prince fell to talking mysteriously about the
+"Owl Chamber" in the Old Schloss, and confided to her that recently
+noises had again been heard in it, pointing to events of moment in his,
+Klaus Heinrich's, family. Then Imma Spoelmann laughed, and, pouting and
+wagging her head from side to side, gave him a scientific explanation of
+the noises, just as she had done in connexion with the secrets of the
+barometer. Nonsense, she said; it must be that that part of the
+lumber-room was ellipsoidal, and a second ellipsoidal surface with the
+same curvature and with a sound-source at the focus existed somewhere
+outside, the result being that inside the haunted room noises were
+audible which could not be distinguished in the immediate neighbourhood.
+Klaus Heinrich was rather crestfallen over this explanation, and loath
+to give up the common belief in the connexion between the lumber-room
+and the fortunes of his house.
+
+Thus they conversed, and the Countess too took part, now sensible, now
+confused; Klaus Heinrich took considerable pains not to rebuff or chill
+her by his manner, and addressed her as "Frau Meier" whenever she
+appeared to think it necessary for her protection against the plots of
+the wicked women. He recounted to the ladies his unreal life, the gala
+suppers at the students' clubs, the military banquets, and his
+educational tour; he told them about his relations, about his
+once-beautiful mother, whom he visited now and then in the "Segenhaus,"
+where she kept dismal court, and about Albrecht and Ditlinde. Imma
+Spoelmann in her turn related some incidents in her luxurious and
+singular youth, and the Countess often slipped in a few dark sayings
+about the horrors and secrets of life, to which the others listened with
+serious and thoughtful faces.
+
+They took special delight in one kind of game--guessing existences,
+making estimates to the best of their knowledge of the people they
+happened to see in the citizen world--a strange and curious study of the
+passers-by from a distant standpoint, from the terrace or from
+horseback. What kind of young people might these be? What did they do?
+Where did they come from? They were certainly not apprentices, perhaps
+technical students or budding foresters, to judge by certain signs;
+maybe they belonged to the agricultural college; at any rate stout
+fellows enough, though rather rough, with sound careers before them. But
+that little untidy thing who strolled past looked like a factory hand or
+dressmaker's assistant. Girls like her always had a young man in their
+own class, who took them out to tea in the parks on Sundays. And they
+exchanged what they knew about people in general, discussed them like
+connoisseurs, and felt that this pastime brought them closer together
+than any amount of riding or lawn tennis.
+
+As for the motor drive, Imma Spoelmann in the course of it explained
+that she had only invited Klaus Heinrich to it so as to let him see the
+chauffeur, a young American in brown leather, who, she declared,
+resembled the Prince. Klaus Heinrich objected with a smile that the back
+of the driver's neck did not enable him to express an opinion on the
+matter, and asked the Countess to say what she thought. She, after long
+denying the likeness in polite embarrassment, at last, on Imma's
+insistence, with a side glance at Klaus Heinrich, agreed to it.
+
+Then Miss Spoelmann said that the grave, sober, and skilful youth had
+originally been in her father's personal service, driving him daily from
+Fifth Avenue to Broadway and back. Mr. Spoelmann, however, had insisted
+on extraordinary speed, like that of an express train, and the intense
+strain put upon a driver by such speed in the crowded streets of New
+York had proved at last too much for the youth. As a matter of fact no
+accident had happened; the young man had stuck to it and done his deadly
+duty with amazing care. But in the end it had often happened that he had
+to be lifted down in a faint from his seat at the end of a run--a proof
+of the inordinate strain to which he had been daily subjected. To avoid
+having to dismiss him, Mr. Spoelmann had made him his daughter's special
+chauffeur, and he had continued to act in that capacity in their new
+abode.
+
+Imma had noticed the likeness between Klaus Heinrich and him the first
+time she saw the Prince. It was of course a similarity not of features,
+but of expression. The Countess had agreed with her. Klaus Heinrich said
+that he did not in the least object to the likeness, as the heroic young
+man had all his sympathy. They then discussed further the difficult and
+anxious life of a chauffeur, without Countess Löwenjoul taking any
+further part in the conversation. She did not prattle during this drive,
+though later she made a few sensible and pointed remarks.
+
+For the rest, Mr. Spoelmann's craze for speed seemed to have descended
+in some measure to his daughter, for she never lost an opportunity of
+repeating the wild gallop she had started on their first ride; and as
+Klaus Heinrich, stimulated by her gibes, urged the amazed and
+disapproving Florian to the top of his speed, so as not to be left
+behind, the gallop always degenerated into a race, which Imma Spoelmann
+always started at unexpected and arbitrary moments. Several of these
+struggles took place on the lonely river-edged causeway, and one in
+particular was long and bitter. It happened after a short talk about
+Klaus Heinrich's popularity, which was begun brusquely, and broken off
+as brusquely, by Imma Spoelmann. She asked suddenly: "Is it true what I
+hear, Prince, that you are so tremendously popular with the people? That
+you have won all their hearts?"
+
+He answered: "So they say. It must be some characteristics, not
+necessarily good ones. What's more, I'm not sure whether I believe it,
+or even ought to be glad of it. I doubt whether it speaks for me. My
+brother, the Grand Duke, declares in so many words that popularity is
+hog-wash."
+
+"H'm, the Grand Duke must be a fine man: I've got a great respect for
+him. So we see you in an atmosphere of adulation, and everybody loves
+you ... go on!" she cried suddenly, and gave Fatma a cut with her white
+switch. The mare started, and the race began.
+
+It lasted a long time. Never before had they followed the stream so far.
+The view on the left had long become shut in. Lumps of earth and grass
+flew from under the horses' hoofs. The Countess had soon dropped behind.
+When at last they reined in their horses, Florian was trembling with
+exhaustion, and the riders themselves were pale and panting. They rode
+back in silence.
+
+Klaus Heinrich received a visit at the "Hermitage" from Raoul Ueberbein
+the afternoon before his birthday this year. The Doctor came to wish him
+many happy returns, as he expected to be prevented by his work from
+doing so on the morrow. They strolled round the gravel path at the back
+of the park, the tutor in his frock-coat and white tie, Klaus Heinrich
+in his summer coat. The grass stood ready for cutting under the
+perpendicular rays of the midday sun, and the limes were in flower. In
+one corner, close by the hedge which divided the park from the unlovely
+suburbs, stood a little rustic temple.
+
+Klaus Heinrich was telling of his visits to "Delphinenort," as this
+topic lay nearest his heart. He spoke quite clearly about them, but did
+not tell the doctor any actual news, for the latter showed that he knew
+all about them. How was that? Oh, from various sources. Ueberbein had
+never started the subject. So people in the town concern themselves
+about it?
+
+"Heaven forbid, Klaus Heinrich, that anybody should give a thought to
+it, either to the rides, or to the teas, or to the motor drive. You
+don't suppose that that sort of thing is expected to set tongues
+wagging!"
+
+"But we're so careful!"
+
+"'We' is rich, Klaus Heinrich, and so is the carefulness. All the same,
+his Excellency von Knobelsdorff keeps himself accurately posted in all
+your goings-on."
+
+"Knobelsdorff?"
+
+"Knobelsdorff."
+
+Klaus Heinrich was silent; then asked: "And what is Baron Knobelsdorff's
+attitude towards what he learns?"
+
+"Well, the old gentleman hasn't yet had a chance of interfering in the
+developments."
+
+"But the public opinion?--the people?"
+
+"The people of course hold their breath."
+
+"And you, you yourself, my dear Doctor Ueberbein?"
+
+"I'm waiting for the tureen-lid," answered the doctor.
+
+"No!" cried Klaus Heinrich joyfully. "No, there'll be no tureen-lid this
+time, Doctor Ueberbein, for I am happy, oh so happy, whatever
+happens--can you understand? You taught me that happiness was no concern
+of mine, and you pulled me up short when I tried to come by it; and
+right thankful I was to you for doing so, for it was horrible, and I
+shall never forget it. But this is no case of high jinks at a citizens'
+dance, which leave one humiliated and heavy at heart; this is no
+breaking out and running off the rails and humiliation! For can't you
+see that she of whom we are speaking belongs neither to the citizens'
+dance, nor to the aristocratic 'Pheasants,' nor to anything in the world
+but to me--that she is a Princess, Doctor Ueberbein, and as good as me,
+and there can be no question here of a tureen-lid? You have taught me
+that it is silly to maintain that we're all only ordinary men, and
+hopeless for me to act as if we were, and that the happiness I would
+gain by doing so is forbidden to me and must bring me to shame in the
+end. But this is not that silly and forbidden happiness. It is my first
+taste of the happiness which is allowed me, and which I may hope for,
+Doctor Ueberbein, and yield myself to without misgiving, whatever comes
+of it...."
+
+"Good-bye, Prince Klaus Heinrich," said Doctor Ueberbein, though he did
+not at once leave him, but continued walking at his side with his hands
+clasped behind him and his red beard sunk on his breast.
+
+"No," said Klaus Heinrich. "No, not good-bye, Doctor Ueberbein. That's
+just it. I mean to remain your friend, you who have had such a hard
+time, and have shown such pride in your duty and destiny, and have made
+me proud too in treating me as a companion. I have no intention of
+resting on my oars, now that I have found happiness, but will remain
+true to you and to myself and to my exalted calling...."
+
+"It cannot be," said Doctor Ueberbein in Latin, and shook his ugly head
+with its protruding, pointed ears.
+
+"It can be, Doctor. I'm sure it can, they're not incompatible. And you,
+you ought not to show yourself so cold and distant at my side, when I am
+so happy, and, what's more, it's the eve of my birthday. Tell me--you've
+had so many experiences and seen so much of the world in all its
+aspects--have you never had any experiences in this direction? You know
+what I mean--have you never had an attack like this of mine?"
+
+"H'm," said Doctor Ueberbein, and pressed his lips together, till his
+red beard rose, and the muscles knotted in his cheeks. "No doubt I may
+have had one once, _sub rosa_."
+
+"I thought so! Tell me about it, Doctor Ueberbein. You must tell me
+about it!"
+
+The hour was one of quiet sunshine, and the air full of the scent of
+limes. So Doctor Ueberbein related an incident in his career on which he
+had never touched in previous accounts, though it had perhaps a decisive
+influence on his whole life. It had occurred in those early days when
+the Doctor was teacher of the young idea and at the same time working on
+his own account, when he used to draw in his waist-belt and give private
+lessons to sleek tradesmen's children, so as to get money to buy books
+with. With his hands still behind him and his beard sunk on his breast,
+the doctor related the incident in a sharp and incisive tone of voice,
+pressing his lips close together between each sentence.
+
+At that date fate had forged the closest ties between him and a woman, a
+lovely, fair lady who was the wife of an honourable and respected man
+and the mother of three children. He had entered the family as tutor to
+the children, but had subsequently been a constant guest and visitor,
+and with the husband too had reached a footing of mutual confidences.
+The feelings of the young tutor and the fair wife for each other had
+been long unsuspected, and longer still unexpressed in words; but they
+grew stronger in the silence, and more overpowering, till one evening
+hour when the husband had stayed late at his office, a warm, sweet,
+dangerous hour, they burst into flames and were near to overwhelm them.
+
+In that hour their longing had cried aloud for the happiness, the
+tremendous happiness, of their union; but, said Doctor Ueberbein, the
+world could sometimes show a noble action. They felt ashamed, he said,
+to tread the mean and ridiculous path of treachery, and to "clap horns,"
+as the phrase goes, on the honest husband; while to spoil his life by
+demanding release from him as the right of passion was equally not to
+their taste. In short, for the children's sake and for that of the good,
+honest husband, whom they both respected, they denied themselves. Yes,
+that's what happened, but of course it needed a good deal of stern
+resolution. Ueberbein continued to visit the fair lady's house
+occasionally. He would sup there, when he had time, play a game of cards
+with his two friends, kiss his hostess's hand, and say good night.
+
+But when he had told the Prince this much, he concluded in a still
+shorter and sharper tone than he had begun, and the balls of muscle at
+the corners of his mouth showed more prominently than before. For the
+hour which saw their act of renunciation, in that hour Ueberbein had
+said a final farewell to all happiness--"dalliance with happiness," as
+he had since called it. As he failed, or refused, to win the fair lady,
+he swore to himself that he would honour her, and the bonds which bound
+him to her, by achieving something and making himself felt in the field
+of hard work. To this he had dedicated his life, to this alone, and it
+had brought him to what he was. That was the secret, or at least a
+contribution of the riddle of Ueberbein's unsociability,
+unapproachableness, and earnest endeavour. Klaus Heinrich was quite
+frightened to see how unusually green his face was when he took his
+leave with a deep bow, saying: "My greetings to little Imma, Klaus
+Heinrich."
+
+Next day the Prince received the congratulations of the staff at the
+Schloss, and later those of Herr von Braunbart-Schellendorf and von
+Schulenburg-Tressen in the Yellow Room. In the course of the morning the
+members of the Grand Ducal House came to the "Hermitage" to pay their
+respects, and at one o'clock Klaus Heinrich drove to luncheon with
+Prince and Princess zu Ried-Hohenried, meeting with an unusually warm
+reception from the public on the way. The Grimmburgers were mustered in
+full force in the pretty palace in the Albrechtstrasse. The Grand Duke
+too came, in a frock-coat, nodded his small head to each member of the
+party, sucking his lower lip against his upper the while, and drank
+milk-and-soda during lunch. Almost immediately after lunch was finished
+he withdrew. Prince Lambert had come without his wife. The old habitué
+of the ballet was painted, hollow-cheeked, and slovenly, and his voice
+sounded sepulchral. He was to some extent ignored by his relations.
+
+During luncheon the conversation turned for a while on Court matters,
+then on little Princess Philippine's progress, and later almost
+exclusively on Prince Philipp's commercial schemes. The quiet little man
+talked about his breweries, factories, and mills, and in particular
+about his peat-cuttings. He described various improvements in the
+machinery, quoted figures of capital invested and returns, and his
+cheeks glowed, while his wife's relations listened to him with looks of
+curiosity, approval, or mockery.
+
+When coffee had been served in the big flower-room, the Princess,
+holding her gilded cup, went up to her brother and said: "You have quite
+deserted us lately, Klaus Heinrich."
+
+Ditlinde's face with the Grimmburg cheek-bones was not so transparent as
+it had once been. It had gained more colour since the birth of her
+daughter, and her head seemed to be less oppressed by the weight of her
+fair hair.
+
+"Have I deserted you?" he said. "Forgive me, Ditlinde, perhaps I have.
+But there were so many calls on my time, and I knew that there were on
+yours too; for you are no longer confined to flowers."
+
+"True, the flowers have had to take a less prominent place, they don't
+get much thought from me now. A fairer life and flowering now occupies
+all my time. I believe that's where I have got my red cheeks from, like
+dear Philipp from his peat (he ought not to have talked about it the
+whole of luncheon, as he did; but it's his hobby), and it is because I
+was so busy and rushed that I was not cross with you for never showing
+yourself and for going your own way, even though that way seemed to me
+rather a surprising one."
+
+"Do you know what it is, Ditlinde?"
+
+"Yes, though unfortunately not from you. But Jettchen Isenschnibbe has
+kept me well posted--you know she is always a fund of news--and at first
+I was horribly shocked, I don't deny it. But after all they live in
+Delphinenort, he has a private physician, and Philipp thinks they are in
+their way of equal birth with ourselves. I believe I once spoke
+disparagingly about them, Klaus Heinrich; I said something about a
+Croesus, if I remember rightly, and made a pun on the word 'taxpayer.'
+But if you consider them worthy of your friendship, I've been wrong and
+of course withdraw my remarks, and will try to think differently about
+them in future. I promise you. You always loved rummaging," she went on,
+after he had laughed and kissed her hand, "and I had to do it with you,
+and my dress (do you remember it--the red velvet?) suffered for it. Now
+you have to rummage alone, and God grant, Klaus Heinrich, that it won't
+bring you any horrible experience."
+
+"I really believe, Ditlinde, that every experience is fine, whether it
+be good or bad. But my present experience is splendid."
+
+At half-past five the Prince left the "Hermitage" again, in his dogcart,
+which he drove himself, with a groom at his back. It was warm, and Klaus
+Heinrich was wearing white trousers with a double-breasted coat. Bowing,
+he again drove to the town, or more precisely to the Old Schloss. He did
+not enter the Albrechtstor, however, but drove in through a side door,
+and across two courtyards till he reached that in which the rose-bush
+grew.
+
+Here all was still and stony; the stair-turrets with their oblique
+windows, forged-iron balustrades, and fine carvings towered in the
+corners; the many-styled building stood there in light and shadow,
+partly grey and weather-worn, partly more modern-looking, with gables
+and box-like projections, with open porticoes and peeps through broad
+bow-windows into vaulted halls and narrow galleries. But in the middle,
+in its unfenced bed, stood the rose-bush, blooming gloriously after a
+favourable season.
+
+Klaus Heinrich threw the reins to a servant, and went up and looked at
+the dark-red roses. They were exceptionally fine--full and velvety,
+grandly formed, and a real masterwork of nature. Several were already
+full-blown.
+
+"Call Ezekiel, please," said Klaus Heinrich to a moustachioed
+door-keeper, who came forward with his hand to his hat.
+
+Ezekiel, the custodian of the rose-bush, came. He was a greybeard of
+seventy years of age, in a gardener's apron, with watery eyes and a bent
+back.
+
+"Have you any shears by you, Ezekiel?" said Klaus Heinrich, "I should
+like a rose." And Ezekiel drew some shears out of the pocket of his
+apron.
+
+"That one there," said Klaus Heinrich, "that's the finest." And the old
+man cut the thorny branch with trembling hands.
+
+"I'll water it, Royal Highness," he said, and shuffled off to the
+water-tap in a corner of the court. When he came back, glittering drops
+were clinging to the petals of the rose, as if to the feathers of
+waterfowl.
+
+"Thanks, Ezekiel," said Klaus Heinrich, and took the rose. "Still going
+strong? Here!" He gave the old man a gold piece, and climbing into the
+dogcart drove with the rose on the seat beside him through the
+courtyards. Everybody who saw him thought that he was driving back to
+the "Hermitage" from the Old Schloss, where presumably he had an
+interview with the Grand Duke.
+
+But he drove through the Town Gardens to Delphinenort. The sky had
+clouded over, big drops were already falling on the leaves, and thunder
+rolled in the distance.
+
+The ladies were at tea when Klaus Heinrich, conducted by the corpulent
+butler, appeared in the gallery and walked down the steps into the
+garden room. Mr. Spoelmann, as usual recently, was not present. He was
+in bed with poultices on. Percival, who lay curled up like a snail close
+by Imma's chair, beat the carpet with his tail by way of greeting. The
+gilding of the furniture looked dull, as the park beyond the glass door
+lay in a damp mist.
+
+Klaus Heinrich exchanged a handshake with the daughter of the house, and
+kissed the Countess's hand, while he gently raised her from the courtly
+curtsey she had begun, as usual, to make.
+
+"You see, summer has come," he said to Imma Spoelmann, offering her the
+rose. It was the first time he had brought her flowers.
+
+"How courtly of you!" she said. "Thanks, Prince. And what a beauty!" she
+went on in honest admiration (a thing she hardly ever showed), and held
+out her small, ringless hands for the glorious flower, whose dewy petals
+curled exquisitely at the edges. "Are there such fine roses here? Where
+did you get it?" And she bent her dark head eagerly over it.
+
+Her eyes were full of horror when she looked up again.
+
+"It doesn't smell!" she said, and a look of disgust showed round her
+mouth. "Wait, though--it smells of decay!" she said. "What's this you
+have brought me, Prince?" And her big black eyes in her pale face seemed
+to glow with questioning horror.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I'm sorry; that's a way our roses have. It's from the
+bush in one of the courts of the Old Schloss. Have you never heard of
+it? There's something hangs by that. People say that one day it will
+begin to smell exquisite."
+
+She seemed not to be listening to him. "It seems as if it had no soul,"
+she said, and looked at the rose. "But it's perfectly beautiful, that
+one must allow. Well, that's a doubtful joke on nature's part, Prince.
+All the same, Prince, thanks for your attention. And as it comes from
+your ancestral Schloss, one must regard it with due reverence."
+
+She put the rose in a glass by her plate. A swan's-down flunkey brought
+the Prince a cup and plate. They discussed at tea the bewitched
+rose-bush, and then commonplace subjects, such as the Court Theatre,
+their horses, and all sorts of trivial topics. Imma Spoelmann time after
+time contradicted him, interposing polished quotations--to her own
+enjoyment, and his despair at the range of her reading--quotations which
+she uttered in her broken voice, with whimsical motions of her head.
+After a time a heavy, white-paper parcel was brought in, sent by the
+book-binders to Miss Spoelmann, containing a number of works which she
+had had bound in smart and durable bindings. She opened the parcel, and
+they all three examined the books to see if the binder had done his work
+well.
+
+They were nearly all learned works whose contents were either as
+mysterious-looking as Imma Spoelmann's notebook, or dealt with
+scientific psychology, acute analyses of internal impulses. They were
+got up in the most sumptuous way, with parchment and crushed leather,
+gold letters, fine paper, and silk markers. Imma Spoelmann did not
+display much enthusiasm over the consignment, but Klaus Heinrich, who
+had never seen such handsome volumes, was full of admiration.
+
+"Shall you put them all into the bookcase?" he asked. "With the others
+upstairs? I suppose you have quantities of books? Are they all as fine
+as these? Do let me see how you arrange them. I can't go yet, the
+weather's still bad and would ruin my white trousers. Besides, I've no
+idea how you live in Delphinenort, I've never seen your study. Will you
+show me your books?"
+
+"That depends on the Countess," she said, busying herself with piling
+the volumes one on the other. "Countess, the Prince wants to see my
+books. Would you be so kind as to say what you think?"
+
+Countess Löwenjoul was in a brown study. With her small head bent, she
+was watching Klaus Heinrich with a sharp, almost hostile look, and then
+let her eyes wander to Imma Spoelmann, when her expression altered and
+became gentle, sympathetic, and anxious. She came to herself with a
+smile, and drew a little watch out of her brown, close-fitting dress.
+
+"At seven o'clock," she said brightly, "Mr. Spoelmann expects you to
+read to him, Imma. You have half an hour in which to do what his Royal
+Highness wants."
+
+"Good; come along, Prince, and inspect my study," said Imma. "And so far
+as your Highness permits it, please lend a hand in carrying up these
+books; I'll take half."
+
+But Klaus Heinrich took them all. He clasped them in both arms, though
+the left was not much use to him, and the pile reached to his chin.
+Then, bending backwards and going carefully, so as to drop nothing, he
+followed Imma over into the wing towards the drive, on the main floor of
+which lay Countess Löwenjoul's and Miss Spoelmann's quarters.
+
+In the big, comfortable room which they entered through a heavy door he
+laid his burden down on the top of a hexagonal ebony table, which stood
+in front of a big gold-chintzed sofa. Imma Spoelmann's study was not
+furnished in the style proper to the Schloss, but in more modern taste,
+without any show, but with massive, masculine, serviceable luxury. It
+was panelled with rare woods right up to the top, and adorned with old
+porcelain, which glittered on the brackets all round under the ceiling.
+The carpets were Persian, the mantelpiece black marble, on which stood
+shapely vases and a gilt clock. The chairs were broad and
+velvet-covered, and the curtains of the same golden stuff as the
+sofa-cover. A capacious desk stood in front of the bow-window, which
+allowed a view of the big basin in front of the Schloss. One wall was
+covered with books, but the main library was in the adjacent room, which
+was smaller, and carpeted like the big one. A glass door opened into it,
+and its walls were completely covered with bookshelves right up to the
+ceiling.
+
+"Well, Prince, there's my hermitage," said Imma Spoelmann. "I hope you
+like it."
+
+"Why, it's glorious," he said. But he did not look round him, but gazed
+unintermittently at her, as she reclined against the sofa cushions by
+the hexagonal table. She was wearing one of her beautiful indoor
+dresses, a summer one this time, made of white accordion-pleated stuff,
+with open sleeves and gold embroidery on the yoke. The skin of her arms
+and neck seemed brown as meerschaum against the white of the dress; her
+big, bright, earnest eyes in the strangely childlike face seemed to
+speak a language of their own unceasingly, and a smooth wisp of black
+hair hung across her forehead. She had Klaus Heinrich's rose in her
+hand.
+
+"How lovely!" he said, standing before her, and not conscious of what he
+meant. His blue eyes, above the national cheek-bones, were heavy as with
+grief. "You have as many books," he added, "as my sister Ditlinde has
+flowers."
+
+"Has the Princess so many flowers?"
+
+"Yes, but of late she has not set so much store by them."
+
+"Let's clear these away," she said and took up some books.
+
+"No, wait," he said anxiously. "I've such a lot to say to you, and our
+time is so short. You must know that to-day is my birthday--that's why I
+came and brought you the rose."
+
+"Oh," she said, "that is an event. Your birthday to-day? Well, I'm sure
+that you received all your congratulations with the dignity you always
+show. You may have mine as well! It was sweet of you to bring me the
+rose, although it has its doubtful side." And she tried the mouldy smell
+once more with an expression of fear on her face. "How old are you
+to-day, Prince?"
+
+"Twenty-seven," he answered. "I was born twenty-seven years ago in the
+Grimmburg. Ever since then I've had a strenuous and lonely time of it."
+
+She did not answer. And suddenly he saw her eyes, under her slightly
+frowning eye-brows, move to his side. Yes, although he was standing
+sideways to her with his right shoulder towards her, as he had trained
+himself to do, he could not prevent her eyes fastening on his left arm,
+on the hand which he had planted right back on his hip.
+
+"Were you born with that?" she asked softly.
+
+He grew pale. But with a cry, which rang like a cry of redemption, he
+sank down before her, and clasped her wondrous form in both his arms.
+There he lay, in his white trousers and his blue and red coat with the
+major's shoulder-straps.
+
+"Little sister," he said, "little sister----"
+
+She answered with a pout: "Think of appearances, Prince. I consider that
+one should not let oneself go, but should keep up appearances on all
+occasions."
+
+But he was too far gone, and raising his face to her, his eyes in a
+mist, he only said, "Imma--little Imma----"
+
+Then she took his hand, the left, atrophied one, the deformity, the
+hindrance in his lofty calling, which he had been wont from boyhood to
+hide artfully and carefully--she took it and kissed it.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+THE FULFILMENT
+
+
+Grave reports were flying around concerning the state of health of the
+Finance Minister, Doctor Krippenreuther. People hinted at nervous
+break-down, at a progressive stomach-trouble, which indeed Herr
+Krippenreuther's flabby yellow complexion was calculated to suggest....
+What is Greatness? The daily-breader, the journeyman, might envy this
+tortured dignitary his title, his chain, his rank at Court, his
+important office, to which he had climbed so pertinaciously, only to
+wear himself out in it: but not when these all meant the concomitant of
+his illness. His retirement was repeatedly announced to be impending. It
+was said to be due simply and solely to the Grand Duke's dislike of new
+faces, as well as to the consideration that matters could not be
+improved by a change of personnel, that his resignation had not already
+become a fact. Dr. Krippenreuther had spent his summer leave in a
+health-resort in the hills. Perhaps he might have improved somewhat up
+there. But anyhow after his return his recouped strength ebbed away
+quickly again. For at the very beginning of the Parliamentary session a
+rift had come between him and the Budget Commission--serious
+dissensions, which were certainly not from any want of industry on his
+part, but from the circumstances, from the incurable position of
+affairs.
+
+In the middle of September Albrecht II opened the Landtag in the Old
+Schloss with the traditional ceremonies. They began with an invocation
+to God by the Court Chaplain, Dom Wislezenus, in the Schloss Chapel.
+Then the Grand Duke, accompanied by Prince Klaus Heinrich, went in
+solemn procession to the Throne-room. Here the members of both Chambers,
+the Ministers, Court officials, and many others in uniform and civil
+dress greeted the royal brothers with three cheers, led by the President
+of the First Chamber, a Count Prenzlau.
+
+Albrecht had earnestly wished to transfer to his brother his duties in
+the formal ceremony. It was only owing to the urgent objections of Herr
+von Knobelsdorff that he walked in the procession behind the pages. He
+was so much ashamed of his braided hussar's coat, his gaudy trousers,
+and the whole to-do, that he showed clearly in his face his anger and
+his embarrassment. His shoulder-blades were twisted in his nervousness
+as he mounted the steps to the throne. Then he took his stand in front
+of the theatrical chair under the faded baldachin, and sucked at his
+upper lip. His small, bearded, unmilitary head rested on the white
+collar, which stuck out far above the silver hussar-collar, and his
+blue, lonely-looking eyes gazed vacantly in front of him. The jangle of
+the spurs of the aide-de-camp who handed him the manuscript of his
+Speech from the Throne rang through the hall, in which silence now
+reigned. And quietly, with a slight lisp, and more than one sudden burst
+of coughing, the Grand Duke read what had been written for him.
+
+The speech was the most palliatory that had ever been heard, each
+humiliating fact from outside being counter-balanced by some virtuous
+trait or other in the people. He began by praising the industrious
+spirit of the whole country; then admitted that there was no actual
+increase to show in any branch of manufacture, so that the sources of
+revenue failed to show under any head the fertility that could be
+desired. He remarked with satisfaction how the feeling for the public
+good and economical self-sacrifice were spreading more and more through
+the population; and then declared without mincing matters that
+"notwithstanding a general most acceptable increase in the taxation
+returns as the result of the influx of wealthy foreigners" (meaning Mr.
+Spoelmann) "any relaxation of the calls on the said noble self-sacrifice
+was not to be thought of."
+
+Even without this, he continued, it had been impossible to budget for
+all the objects of the financial policy, and should it prove that
+sufficient reduction in the public debt had not been successfully
+provided for, the Government considered that the continuation of policy
+of moderate loans would prove the best way out of the financial
+complications. In any event it--the Government--felt itself supported in
+these most unfavourable circumstances by the confidence of the nation,
+that faith in the future which was so fair a heritage of our stock....
+And the Speech from the Throne left the sinister topic of public economy
+as soon as possible, to apply itself to less disputatious subjects, such
+as ecclesiastical, educational, and legal matters. Minister of State von
+Knobelsdorff declared in the monarch's name the Landtag to be open. And
+the cheers which accompanied Albrecht when he left the hall sounded
+somewhat ironical and dubious.
+
+As the weather was still summery, he went straight back to Hollerbrunn,
+from which necessity alone had driven him to the capital. He had done
+his part, and the rest was the concern of Herr Krippenreuther and the
+Landtag. Quarrels began, as has been said, immediately, and about
+several topics at once: the property tax, the meat tax, and the Civil
+Service estimates.
+
+For, when the deputies proved adamant against attempts to persuade them
+to sanction fresh taxes, Doctor Krippenreuther's meditative mind had hit
+on the idea of converting the income tax which had been usual hitherto
+into a property tax, which on the basis of 13½ per cent. would produce
+an increment of about a million. How direly needed, indeed how
+inadequate such an increment was, was clear from the main budget for the
+new financial year, which, leaving out of account the imposition of new
+burdens on the Treasury, concluded with an adverse balance, which was
+calculated to damp the courage of any economical expert. But when it was
+realized that practically only the towns would be hit by the property
+tax, the combined indignation of the urban deputies turned against the
+assessment of 13½ per cent., and they demanded as compensation at least
+the abolition of the meat tax, which they called undemocratic and
+antediluvian. Add to this that the Commission adhered resolutely to the
+long promised and always postponed improvement of Civil servants'
+pay--for it could not be denied that the salaries of the Government
+officials, clergy, and teachers of the Grand Duchy were miserable.
+
+But Doctor Krippenreuther could not make gold--he said in so many words,
+"I've never learnt to make gold," and he found himself equally unable to
+abolish the meat tax and to ameliorate the conditions in the Civil
+Service. His only resource was to anchor himself to his 13½ per cent.,
+although no one knew better than he that its sanction would not really
+bring things any nearer their solution. For the position was serious,
+and despondent spirits painted it in gloomy colours.
+
+The "Almanac of the Grand Ducal Statistical Bureau" contained alarming
+returns of the harvest for the last year. Agriculture had a succession
+of bad years to show; storms, hail, droughts, and inordinate rain had
+been the lot of the peasants; an exceptionally cold and snowless winter
+had resulted in the seed freezing; and the critics maintained, though
+with little proof to show for it, that the timber-cutting had already
+influenced the climate. At any rate figures proved that the total yield
+of corn had decreased in a most disquieting degree. The straw, besides
+being deficient in quantity, left much to be wished from the point of
+view of quality, in the opinion of the compilers of the report.
+
+The figures of the potato harvest fell far below the average of the
+preceding decade, not to mention that no less than 10 per cent. of the
+potatoes were diseased. As to artificial feeding-stuffs, these showed
+for the last two years results both in quality and quantity which, for
+clover and manure, were as bad as the worst of the years under review,
+and things were no better with the rapeseed harvest or with the first
+and second hay crops. The decline in agriculture was baldly shown in the
+increase of forced sales, whose figures in the year under review had
+advanced in a striking way. But the failure of crops entailed a falling
+off in the produce of taxation which would have been regrettable in any
+country, but in ours could not help having a fatal effect.
+
+As to the forests, nothing had been made out of them. One disaster had
+followed another; blight and moths had attacked the woods more than
+once. And it will be remembered that owing to over-cutting the woods had
+lost seriously in capital value.
+
+The silver-mines? They had for a long time proved barren. The work had
+been interrupted by convulsions of nature, and as the repairs would have
+cost large sums, and the results had never showed signs of coming up to
+expectations, it had been found necessary provisionally to suspend the
+workings, though this threw a number of labourers out of work and caused
+distress in whole districts.
+
+Enough has been said to explain how matters stood with the ordinary
+State revenues in this time of trial. The slowly advancing crisis, the
+deficit carried forward from one year to another, had become burning
+owing to the straits of the people and the unfavourableness of the
+elements. It had begun to cry aloud for remedy, and, when one looked
+around despairingly for the remedy, or even for means of alleviation,
+the most purblind could not fail to see the whole hideousness of our
+financial condition. There could be no thought of voting for new
+expenditure, the country was naturally incapable of bearing much
+taxation. It was now exhausted, its tax-paying powers adversely
+affected, and the critics declared that the sight of insufficiently
+nourished human beings was becoming more and more common in the country.
+They attributed this firstly to the shocking taxes on provisions and
+secondly to the direct taxation which was known to oblige stock-owners
+to turn all their full-milk into cash. As to the other less respectable
+though enticingly easy remedy for dearth of money, of which the
+financial authorities were well aware, namely the raising of a loan, the
+time was come when an improper and inconsiderate use of this means must
+begin to bring its own bitter punishment.
+
+The liquidation of the national debt had been taken in hand for a time
+in a clumsy and harmful way. Then under Albrecht II it had stopped
+altogether. The yawning rifts in the State had received an emergency
+stuffing of new loans and paper issues, and subsequent Finance Ministers
+had grown pale to find themselves faced with a floating consolidated
+debt redeemable at an early date, whose total was scandalously large for
+the total number of heads of the population.
+
+Dr. Krippenreuther had not shrunk from the practical steps open to the
+State in such a predicament. He had steered clear of big capital
+obligations, had demanded compulsory redemption of bonds, and, while
+reducing the rate of interest, had converted short-dated debts over the
+heads of the creditors into perpetual rent-charges. But these
+rent-charges had to be paid; and while this incumbrance was an
+unbearable burden on the national economy, the lowness of the rate of
+exchange caused every fresh issue of bonds to bring in less capital
+proceeds to the Treasury. Still more: the economic crisis in the Grand
+Duchy had the effect of making foreign creditors demand payments at an
+exceptionally early date. This again lowered the rate of exchange and
+resulted in an increased flow of gold out of the country, and
+bank-smashes were daily occurrences in the business world.
+
+In a word: our credit was shattered, our paper stood far below its
+nominal value; and though the Landtag might perhaps have preferred to
+vote a new loan to voting new taxes, the conditions which would have
+been imposed upon the country were such that the negotiation seemed
+difficult, if not impossible. For on the top of everything else came
+this unpleasant factor, that the people were at that moment suffering
+from the burden of that general economical disorder, that appreciation
+in the price of gold, which is still vivid in everybody's memory.
+
+What was to be done to get safe to land? Whither turn to appease the
+hunger for gold which was devouring us? The disposal of the then
+unproductive silver-mines and the application of the proceeds to the
+payment of the debts at high interest was discussed at length. Yet, as
+matters stood, the sale could not help turning out disadvantageously.
+Further, not only would the State lose altogether the capital sunk in
+the mines, but would relinquish its prospect of a return which might
+perhaps sooner or later materialize. Finally, buyers did not grow on
+every bush. For one moment--a moment of psychical despondency--the sale
+of the national forests even was mooted. But it must be said that there
+was still sense enough in the country to prevent our woods being
+surrendered to private industry.
+
+To complete the picture: still further rumours of sales were current,
+rumours which suggested that the financial embarrassment penetrated even
+to quarters which the loyal people had always hoped were far removed
+from all the rubs of the time. The _Courier_, which was never used to
+sacrifice a piece of news to its sympathetic feelings, was the first to
+publish the news that two of the Grand Duke's schlosses, "Pastime" and
+"Favourite," in the open country, had been put up for sale. Considering
+that neither property was of any further use as a residence for the
+royal family, and that both demanded yearly increasing outlay, the
+administrators of the Crown trust property had given notice in the
+proper quarter for steps to be taken to sell them: what did that imply?
+
+It was obviously quite a different case from that of the sale of
+Delphinenort, which had been the result of a quite exceptional and
+favourable offer, as well as a smart stroke of business on behalf of the
+State. People who were brutal enough to give a name to things which
+finer feeling shrinks from specifying, declared right out that the
+Treasury had been mercilessly set on by disquieted creditors, and that
+their consent to such sales showed that they were exposed to relentless
+pressure.
+
+How far had matters gone? Into whose hands would the schlosses fall? The
+more benevolent who asked this question were inclined to find comfort in
+and to believe a further report, which was spread by the wiseacres;
+namely, that on this occasion too the buyer was no one else but Samuel
+Spoelmann--an entirely groundless and fantastic report, which, however,
+proves what a rôle in the world of popular imagination was played by the
+lonely, suffering little man who had settled down in such princely style
+in their midst.
+
+Yonder he lived, with his physician, his electric organ, and his
+collection of glass, behind the pillars, the bow windows, and the
+chiselled festoons of the schloss which had risen from its ruins at a
+nod from him. He was hardly ever seen: he was always in bed with
+poultices. But people saw his daughter, that curious creature with the
+whimsical features who lived like a princess, had a countess for a
+companion, studied algebra, and had walked in a temper unimpeded right
+through the guard. People saw her, and they sometimes saw Prince Klaus
+Heinrich at her side.
+
+Raoul Ueberbein had used a strong expression when he declared that the
+public "held their breath" at the sight. But he really was right, and it
+can be truly said that the population of our town as a whole never
+followed a social or public proceeding with such passionate, such
+surpassing eagerness as Klaus Heinrich's visits to Delphinenort. The
+Prince himself acted up to a certain point--namely up to a certain
+conversation with his Excellency the Minister of State,
+Knobelsdorff--blindly, without regard to the outside world and in
+obedience only to an inner impulse. But his tutor was justified in
+deriding in his fatherly way his idea that his proceedings could be kept
+hid from the world. For whether it was that the servants on both sides
+did not hold their tongues, or that the public had the opportunity of
+direct observation, at any rate Klaus Heinrich had not met Miss
+Spoelmann once since that first meeting in the Dorothea Hospital,
+without its being remarked and discussed. Remarked? No, spied on, glared
+at, and greedily jumped at! Discussed? Rather smothered in floods of
+talk.
+
+The intercourse of the two was the topic of conversation in Court
+circles, salons, sitting- and bedrooms, barbers' shops, public-houses,
+workrooms, and servants' halls, by cabmen on the ranks and girls at the
+gates. It occupied the minds of men no less than women, of course with
+the variations which are inherent in the different ways the sexes have
+of looking at things. The always sympathetic interest in it had a
+uniting, levelling effect: it bridged over the social gaps, and one
+might hear the tram conductor turn to the smart passenger on the
+platform with the question whether he knew that yesterday afternoon the
+Prince had again spent an hour at Delphinenort.
+
+But what was at once remarkable in itself and at the same time decisive
+for the future was that throughout there never seemed for one moment to
+be any feeling of scandal in the air, nor did all the tongue-wagging
+seem merely the vulgar pleasure in startling events in high quarters.
+From the very beginning, before any _arrière pensée_ had had time to
+form, the thousand-voiced discussion of the subject, however animated,
+was always pitched in a key of approval and agreement. Indeed, the
+Prince, if it had occurred to him at an earlier stage to adapt his
+conduct to public opinion, would have realized at once to his delight
+how entirely popular that conduct was. For when he called Miss Spoelmann
+a "princess" to his tutor, he had, quite properly, accurately expressed
+his people's mind--that people which always surrounds the uncommon and
+visionary with a cloud of poetry.
+
+Yes, to the people the pale, dark, precious, and strangely lovely
+creature of mixed blood, who had come to us from the Antipodes to live
+her lonely and unprecedented life amongst us--to the people she was a
+princess--or Fairy-child from Fableland, a princess in the world's most
+wonderful meaning. But everything, her own behaviour as much as the
+attitude of the world towards her, contributed to make her appear a
+princess in the ordinary sense of the word also. Did she not live with
+her companion countess in a schloss, as was meet and right? Did she not
+drive in her gorgeous motor or her four-in-hand to the benevolent
+institutions, the homes for the blind, for orphans, and for deaconesses,
+the public kitchens and the milk-kitchens, to teach herself and to
+stimulate them by her inspection, like a complete princess?
+
+Had she not subscribed to support the victims of flood and fire out of
+her "privy purse," as the _Courier_ was precise enough to declare,
+subscriptions which nearly equalled those of the Grand Duke (did not
+exceed them, as was noticed with general satisfaction)? Did not the
+newspapers publish almost daily, immediately under the Court news,
+reports of Mr. Spoelmann's varying health--whether the colic kept him in
+bed or whether he had resumed his morning visits to the Spa-gardens?
+Were not the white liveries of his servants as much a part of the
+picture in the streets of the capital as the brown of the Grand Ducal
+lackeys? Did not foreigners with guide-books ask to be taken out to
+Delphinenort, there to gloat over the sight of Spoelmann's house--many
+of them before they had seen the Old Schloss?
+
+Were not both Schlosses, the Old and Delphinenort, about equally centres
+and foci of the city? To what circle of society belonged that human
+being who had been born Samuel Spoelmann's daughter, that creature
+without counterpart, without analogy? To whom should she attach herself,
+with whom have intercourse? Nothing could be less surprising, nothing
+more obvious and natural than to see Klaus Heinrich at her side. And
+even those who had never enjoyed that sight enjoyed it in the spirit and
+gloated over it: the slim, solemnly familiar figure of the Prince by the
+side of the daughter and heiress of the prodigious little foreigner,
+who, ill and peevish as he was, disposed of a fortune which amounted to
+nearly twice as much as our national debt!
+
+Then one day a memory, a wonderful disposition of words, took hold of
+the public conscience; nobody can say who first pointed to it, recalled
+it--that is quite uncertain. Perhaps it was a woman, perhaps a child
+with credulous eyes, whom somebody was sending to sleep with
+stories--heaven only knows. But a ghostly form began to show liveliness
+in the popular imagination: the shadow of an old gipsy-woman, grey and
+bent, with an inward squint, who drew her stick through the sand, and
+whose mumbling had been written down and handed down from generation to
+generation.... "The greatest happiness?" It should come to the land
+through a Prince "with one hand." He would give the country, the
+prophecy ran, more with his one hand than others could with two.... With
+one? But was everything all right with Klaus Heinrich's slim figure?
+
+When one thought of it, was there not a weakness, a defect in his
+person, which one always avoided seeing when addressing him, partly from
+shyness, and partly because with charming skill he made it so easy not
+to notice it? When one saw him in his carriage, he kept his left hand on
+his sword-hilt covered with his right. One could see him under a
+baldachin, on a flag-bedecked platform, take up a position slightly
+turned to the left, with his left hand planted somehow on his hip. His
+left arm was too short, the hand was stunted, everybody knew that, and
+knew various explanations of the origin of the defect, although respect
+and distance had not allowed a clear view of it or even its recognition
+in so many words. But now everybody saw it. It could never be
+ascertained who first whispered and quoted the prophecy in this
+connexion--whether it was a child, or a girl, or a greybeard on the
+threshold of the beyond.
+
+But what is certain is, that it was the people who started it, the
+people who imposed certain thoughts and hopes--and quite soon their
+conception of Miss Spoelmann's personality--on the cultured classes
+right up to the highest quarters, and exercised a powerful influence on
+them from below: that the impartial, unprejudiced belief of the people
+afforded the broad and firm foundation for all that came later. "With
+one hand?" people asked, and "the greatest happiness?" They saw Klaus
+Heinrich in the spirit by Imma Spoelmann's side with his left hand on
+his hip, and, still incompetent to think their thought out to its
+conclusion, they quivered at their half-thought.
+
+At that time everything was still in the clouds, and nobody thought
+anything out to its conclusion--not even the persons most immediately
+concerned. For the relations between Klaus Heinrich and Imma Spoelmann
+were wondrous strange, and their minds--his as well--could not be
+brought to centre on any immediate, palpable goal. As a matter of fact,
+that laconic conversation on the afternoon of the Prince's birthday
+(when Miss Spoelmann had showed him her books) had made but the
+slightest, if any, alteration in their relations. Klaus Heinrich may
+have gone back to the "Hermitage" in that condition of heated enthusiasm
+proper to young people on such occasions, convinced that something
+decisive had happened: but he soon learned that his wooing of what he
+had recognized to be his only happiness was only now really beginning.
+
+But, as has been said, this wooing could not aim at any objective
+result, a bourgeois promise or such-like--such an idea was almost
+inconceivable, and besides the Prince lived in too great seclusion from
+the practical world for such an end to present itself to him. In fact
+the object of Klaus Heinrich's pleadings with looks and words from that
+time onward was not that Miss Spoelmann should reciprocate the feelings
+he entertained towards her, but that she might feel impelled to believe
+in the reality and liveliness of those feelings. For that was what she
+did not do.
+
+He let two weeks pass before he sent in his name at Delphinenort again,
+and during these he feasted spiritually on what had already occurred. He
+was in no hurry to supersede that happening with a new one. Besides, his
+time just now was occupied by several representative functions,
+including the annual festival of the Miniature Range Rifle Club, whose
+well-informed patron he was and in whose anniversary festival he
+annually took part. Here he was received in his green uniform, as if his
+sole interest in life was rifle-shooting, by the united members of the
+association with an enthusiastic welcome, was conducted to the butts,
+and, after an unappetizing luncheon with the distinguished members of
+the committee, fired several shots in a gracefully expert attitude in
+the direction of various targets.
+
+When he proceeded--it was the middle of June--to pay another afternoon
+visit to the Spoelmanns, he found Imma in a very mocking mood, and her
+mode of expression was unusually Scriptural and solemn. Mr. Spoelmann
+also was present this time, and although his presence robbed Klaus
+Heinrich of the _tête-à-tête_ he so much desired with the daughter, yet
+it helped him in a quite unexpected way to bear up against the wounds
+which Imma's sharpness gave him; for Samuel Spoelmann was friendly, and
+almost affectionate towards him.
+
+They had tea on the terrace, sitting in basket-chairs of an ultra-modern
+shape, with the breezes from the flower-garden softly fanning them. The
+master of the house lay under a green-silk, fur-lined, and
+parrot-embroidered coverlet, stretched by the table on a cane couch
+fitted with silk cushions. He had left his bed for the sake of the mild
+air, but his cheeks to-day were not inflamed, but of a sallow paleness,
+and his eyes were muddy; his chin protruded sharply, his prominent nose
+looked longer than ever, and his tone was not cross, as usual, but
+sad--a bad sign. By his head sat Doctor Watercloose with his continual
+soft smile.
+
+"Hullo, young Prince ..." said Mr. Spoelmann in a tired tone, and
+answered the other's inquiry as to his health merely with half a grunt.
+Imma, in a shimmering dress with a high waist and green-velvet bolero,
+poured water into the pot out of the electric kettle. She congratulated
+the Prince with a pout on his personal prowess at the rifle festival.
+She had, she said, as she wagged her head backwards and forwards, "read
+an account of it in the daily press with deep satisfaction," and had
+read aloud the description of his exploits as marksman to the Countess.
+The latter was sitting bolt upright in her tight brown dress at the
+table, and handling her spoon gracefully, without in any way letting
+herself go. It was Mr. Spoelmann who did the talking this time. He did
+it, as has been said, in a soft, sad way, the result of all his
+suffering.
+
+He recounted an occurrence, an experience of years gone by, which was
+obviously still fresh to him, and which always brought him new suffering
+on the days when his health was bad. He recounted the short and simple
+story twice, with even greater self-torture the second time than the
+first. He had wished to make one of his endowments--not one of the first
+rank, but a pretty considerable one--he had given a big philanthropic
+institute in the United States to understand in writing that he wished
+to devote a million in railway bonds to the furtherance of their noble
+work--safe paper of the South Pacific Railway, said Mr. Spoelmann, and
+slapped the palm of his hand, as if to show the paper. But what had the
+philanthropic institute done? It had refused the gift, rejected
+it--adding in so many words that it preferred to go without the support
+of questionable and ill-gotten plunder. They had actually done that. Mr.
+Spoelmann's lips quivered as he recounted it, the first time no less
+than the second, and, longing for comfort and expressions of
+disapproval, he looked round the table with his little, close-set,
+metallic eyes.
+
+"That was not philanthropic of the philanthropic institute," said Klaus
+Heinrich. "No, it certainly was not." And the shake of his head was so
+decided, his disgust and sympathy so obvious, that Mr. Spoelmann cheered
+up a little and declared that it was lovely outside to-day and the trees
+down yonder smelt nice. Indeed, he took the first opportunity of showing
+his young guest his appreciation and satisfaction in the clearest
+manner. For Klaus Heinrich had caught a chill with this summer's
+constant alternations between warm weather and cooling showers and
+hailstorms. His neck was swollen, his throat felt sore when he
+swallowed; and as his lofty calling and a certain amount of
+molly-coddling of his person, in request as it was for exhibition, had
+necessarily made him rather delicate, he could not help alluding to it
+and complaining of the pain in his neck.
+
+"You must have wet compresses," said Mr. Spoelmann. "Have you any
+oil-silk?" Klaus Heinrich had none. Then Mr. Spoelmann threw off the
+parrot coverlet, stood up, and went inside the Schloss. He would not
+answer any questions, insisted on going, and went. When he had gone, the
+others asked each other what he intended to do, and Doctor Watercloose,
+fearing lest an attack of pain had seized his patient, hurried after
+him. But when Mr. Spoelmann returned he had in his hand a piece of
+oil-silk, whose existence in some drawer he had remembered: a rather
+creased piece, which he handed to the Prince with precise directions how
+to use it, so as to get the most good out of it. Klaus Heinrich thanked
+him delightedly, and Mr. Spoelmann got contentedly back on to his couch.
+This time he stayed there till the end of tea, when he proposed a
+general walk round the park, in the following order: Mr. Spoelmann in
+his soft slippers between Imma and Klaus Heinrich, while Countess
+Löwenjoul followed at a short distance with Dr. Watercloose.
+
+When the Prince took leave for the day, Imma Spoelmann made some sharp
+remark about his neck and the wet compresses, adjured him half-mockingly
+to nurse himself and to take the utmost care of his sacred person. But
+although Klaus Heinrich had no adequate repartee ready for her--she did
+not expect or want one--yet it was in a fairly cheerful frame of mind
+that he mounted his dog-cart; for the piece of creased oil-silk in the
+back pocket of his uniform coat seemed to him, though unconsciously, a
+pledge of a happy future.
+
+However that might be, for the present his struggle was only beginning.
+It was the struggle for Imma Spoelmann's faith, the struggle to make her
+so far trust him as to be capable of deciding to leave the clear and
+frosty sphere wherein she had been wont to play, to descend from the
+realms of algebra and conversational ridicule, and to venture with him
+into the untrodden zone, that warmer, more fragrant, more fruitful zone
+to which he showed her the way. For she was overpoweringly shy of making
+any such decision.
+
+Next time he was alone with her, or as good as alone, because Countess
+Löwenjoul was the third, it was a cool, over-cast morning, after a break
+in the weather the night before. They rode along the meadow-woods, Klaus
+Heinrich in high boots, with the crook of his crop suspended between the
+buttons of his grey cloak. The sluices at the wooden bridge up stream
+were shut, the bed of the stream lay empty and stony. Percival, whose
+first outburst had died down, jumped here and there or trotted sideways,
+dog-fashion, in front of the horses. The Countess, on Isabeau, kept her
+head on one side and smiled. Klaus Heinrich was saying: "I'm always
+thinking, night and day, about something which must have been a dream. I
+lie at night and can hear Florian over in the stall snuffling, it's so
+quiet. And then I think, for certain it was no dream. But when I see you
+as I do to-day, and did the other day at tea, I cannot possibly think it
+anything more substantial."
+
+She replied: "I must ask you to explain yourself, Sire."
+
+"Did you show me your books nineteen days ago, Miss Spoelmann--or not?"
+
+"Nineteen days ago! I must count up. No; let's see, it's eighteen and a
+half days, unless I'm quite out."
+
+"You did show me your books, then?"
+
+"That is undoubtedly correct, Prince. And I delude myself with the hope
+that you liked them."
+
+"Oh, Imma, you mustn't talk like that, not now and not to me! My heart
+is so heavy, and I have such lots still to say to you, which I couldn't
+get out nineteen days ago, when you showed me your books ... your masses
+of books. How I should love to carry on where we broke off then, and to
+forget all that lies in between...."
+
+"For heaven's sake, Prince, rather forget the other. Why go back to it?
+Why remind yourself and me? I thought you had good reason to observe the
+strictest silence on such subjects. Fancy letting yourself go like that!
+Losing your self-possession to such a degree!"
+
+"If you only knew, Imma, how unutterably pleasant it is for me to lose
+my self-possession!"
+
+"No, thanks. That's insulting, do you know that? I insist on your
+showing the same self-possession towards me as towards the rest of the
+world. I'm not here to provide you with relaxation from your princely
+existence."
+
+"How entirely you misunderstand me, Imma! But I am well aware that you
+do so deliberately and only in fun, and that shows me that you don't
+believe me and don't take what I say seriously...."
+
+"No, Prince, you really ask too much. Haven't you told me about your
+life? You went to school for show, to the University for show, you
+served as a soldier for show, and still wear the uniform for show, you
+hold audiences for show, and play at rifle-shooting and heaven knows
+what else for show; you came into the world for show, and am I suddenly
+to believe that there is anything serious about you?"
+
+Tears came to his eyes while she said this: her words hurt him so much.
+He answered gently: "You are right, Imma, there is a lot of fiction in
+my life. But I didn't make it or choose it, you must remember, but have
+done my duty precisely and sternly as it was prescribed to me for the
+edification of the people. And it is not enough that it has been a hard
+one, and full of prohibitions and privations; it must now take revenge
+on me, by causing you not to believe me."
+
+"You are proud," she said, "of your calling and your life, Prince, I
+know well, and I cannot wish you to break faith with yourself."
+
+"Oh," he cried, "leave that to me, that about being true to myself, and
+don't give it a thought! I have had experiences, I have been untrue to
+myself and have tried to get round the prohibitions, and it ended in my
+disgrace. But since I have known you, I know, I know for the first time,
+that I may for the first time, without remorse or harm to what is
+described as my lofty calling, let myself go like anybody else, although
+Doctor Ueberbein says, and says in Latin, that that must never be."
+
+"There, you see what your friend said."
+
+"Didn't you yourself call him a poor wretch, who would come to a sad
+end? He's a fine character; I esteem him greatly, and owe him many hints
+about myself and things in general. But I've often thought about him
+recently, and as you expressed so unfavourable a verdict upon him then,
+I have spent hours considering your verdict, and was forced to own you
+right. For I'll tell you, Imma, how things stand with Doctor Ueberbein.
+His whole life is hostile to happiness, that's what it is."
+
+"That seems to me a very proper hostility," said Imma Spoelmann.
+
+"Proper," he answered, "but wretched, as you yourself said, and what's
+more, sinful, for it is a sin against something nobler than his severe
+propriety, as I now see, and it's this sin in which he wished to educate
+me in his fatherly fashion. But I've now grown out of his education, at
+this point I have, I'm now independent and know better; and though I may
+not have convinced Ueberbein, I'll convince you, Imma, sooner or later."
+
+"Yes, Prince, I must grant you that! You have the powers of conviction,
+your zeal carries one along irresistibly with it! Nineteen days, didn't
+you say? I maintain that eighteen and a half is right, but it comes to
+much the same thing. In that time you have condescended to appear at
+Delphinenort once--four days ago."
+
+He threw a startled look at her.
+
+"But, Imma, you must have patience with me, and some indulgence.
+Consider, I'm still awkward ... this is strange ground. I don't know how
+it was.... I believe I wanted to let us have time. And then there came
+several calls upon me."
+
+"Of course, you had to fire at the targets for show. I read all about
+it. As usual, you had a rousing success to show for it. You stood there
+in your fancy dress, and let a whole meadowful of people love you."
+
+"Halt, Imma, I beg you, don't gallop.... One can't get a word out....
+Love, you say. But what sort of love is it? A meadow-love, a casual,
+superficial love, a love at a distance, which means nothing--a love in
+full dress with no familiarity about it. No, you've absolutely no reason
+to be angry because I express myself pleased with it, for I get no good
+from it; only the people do, who are elevated by it, and that's their
+desire. But I too have my desire, Imma, and it's to you that I turn."
+
+"How can I help you, Prince?"
+
+"Oh, you know well! It's confidence, Imma; couldn't you have a little
+confidence in me?"
+
+She looked at him, and the scrutiny of her big eyes had never before
+been so dark and piercing. But for all the urgency of his dumb pleading,
+she turned away, and said with a look which betrayed no secrets: "No,
+Prince Klaus Heinrich, I cannot."
+
+He uttered a cry of grief, and his voice shook, as he asked: "And why
+can't you?"
+
+She replied: "Because you prevent me."
+
+"How do I prevent you? Please tell me, I beg."
+
+And, with the reserved expression still on her face, her eyes dropped on
+her white reins, and rocking lightly to her horse's walk, she replied:
+"Through everything, through your conduct, through the way and manner of
+your being, through your highly distinguished personality. You know well
+enough how you prevented the poor Countess from letting herself go, and
+forced her to be clear-brained and reasonable, although it is expressly
+on the ground of her excessive experiences that the blessing of
+craziness and oddness has been vouchsafed to her, and that I told you
+that I was well aware how you had set out to sober her. Yes, I know it
+well, for you prevent me too from letting myself go, you sober me too,
+continually, in every way, through your words, through your look,
+through your way of sitting and standing, and it is quite impossible to
+have confidence in you. I've had the opportunity of watching you in your
+intercourse with other people; but whether it was Doctor Sammet in the
+Dorothea Hospital or Herr Stavenüter in the 'Pheasantry' Tea-garden, it
+was always the same, and it always made me shiver. You hold yourself
+erect, and ask questions, but you don't do so out of sympathy, you don't
+care what the questions are about--no, you don't care about anything,
+and you lay nothing to heart. I've often seen it--you speak, you express
+an opinion, but you might just as well express a quite different one,
+for in reality you have no opinion and no belief, and the only thing you
+care about is your princely self-possession. You say sometimes that your
+calling is not an easy one, but as you have challenged me, I'll ask you
+to notice that it would be easier to you if you had an opinion and a
+belief, Prince, that's my opinion and belief. How could anyone have
+confidence in you! No, it's not confidence that you inspire, but
+coldness and embarrassment; and if I put myself out to get closer to
+you, that kind of embarrassment and awkwardness would prevent me from
+doing so,--there's my answer for you."
+
+He had listened to her with painful tension, had looked more than once
+at her pale face while she was speaking, and then again, like her,
+dropped his eyes on the reins.
+
+"I must indeed thank you, Imma," he answered, "for speaking so
+earnestly, for you know that you don't always do so, but generally speak
+only derisively, and in your way take things as little seriously as I in
+mine."
+
+"How else but derisively can I speak to you, Prince?"
+
+"And sometimes you are so hard and cruel, as for instance towards the
+head sister in the Dorothea Hospital, whom you threw into such
+confusion."
+
+"Oh, I'm well aware that I too have my faults, and need somebody to help
+me to give them up."
+
+"I'll be that somebody, Imma; we'll help each other."
+
+"I don't think we can help each other, Prince."
+
+"Yes, we can. Didn't you speak just now quite seriously and
+unsatirically? But as for me, you are not right when you say that I care
+about nothing at all and lay nothing to heart, for I care about you,
+Imma--about you, I have laid you to heart; and as this matter is one of
+such inexpressible seriousness to me, I cannot fail finally to win your
+confidence. Were you aware of my joy when I heard you talk of putting
+yourself out and coming nearer to me? Yes, put yourself out a little,
+and do not let yourself ever again be confused with that sort of
+awkwardness, or whatever it is, which you are so liable to feel in my
+presence. Ah, I know it, I know only too well, how much to blame I am
+for that! But laugh at yourself and at me when I make you feel like
+that, and attach yourself to me. Will you promise me to put yourself out
+a little?"
+
+But Imma Spoelmann promised nothing, but insisted now on her gallop; and
+many a subsequent conversation remained, like this, without result.
+
+Sometimes, when Klaus Heinrich had come to tea, the Prince, Miss
+Spoelmann, the Countess, and Percival went into the park. The splendid
+collie kept decorously at Imma's side, and Countess Löwenjoul walked two
+or three yards behind the young people; for soon after they had started
+she had stopped for a second, to twine her bent and bony fingers round a
+blossom, and she had never made good the distance she had then lost. So
+Klaus Heinrich and Imma walked in front of her, and talked. But when
+they had covered a certain distance, they turned round, thus getting the
+Countess two or three yards in front of them. Then Klaus Heinrich
+followed up his conversational efforts, and, carefully and without
+looking up, took Imma Spoelmann's small, ringless hand from her side and
+clasped it in both his, the while he imploringly asked whether she was
+taking pains, and had made any progress in her confidence in him.
+
+It displeased him to hear that she had been working, poring over algebra
+and playing in the lofty spheres since they had last met. He would beg
+her to lay her books aside now, as they might distract her and divert
+her from the matter to which all her thinking powers must now be
+devoted. He talked also about himself, about that sobering effect and
+awkwardness which, according to her, his existence inspired; he tried to
+explain it, and in doing so to weaken it. He spoke about the cold,
+stern, and barren existence which had been his hitherto, he described to
+her how everybody had always flocked to gaze at him, while it had been
+his lofty calling to show himself and to be gazed at, a much more
+difficult task. He did his best to make her recognize that the remedy
+for that which caused him to prevent the poor Countess from drivelling
+and to estrange her to his own sorrow, that this remedy could be found
+in her, only in her, and was given over absolutely into her hands.
+
+She looked at him, her big eyes sparkled in dark scrutiny, and it was
+clear that she, she too, was struggling. But then she would shake her
+head or break off the conversation, introducing with a pout some topic
+over which she made merry, incapable of bringing herself to take the
+responsibility of the "Yes" for which he begged her, that undefined and,
+as matters stood, absolutely non-committal surrender.
+
+She did not prevent him from coming once or twice a week; she did not
+prevent him from speaking, from assailing her with prayers and
+asseverations and from taking her hand now and then between his own. But
+she was only patient, she remained unmoved, her dread of taking the
+decisive step, that aversion from leaving her cool and derisive kingdom
+and confessing herself his, seemed unconquerable; and she could not
+help, in her anguish and exhaustion, breaking out with the words: "Oh,
+Prince, we ought never to have met--it would have been best if we
+hadn't. Then you would have pursued your lofty calling as calmly as
+ever, and I should have preserved my peace of mind, and neither would
+have harassed the other!"
+
+The Prince had much difficulty in inducing her to recant, and in
+extorting from her the confession that she did not entirely regret
+having made his acquaintance. But all this took time. The summer came to
+an end, early night-frosts loosened the still-green leaves from the
+trees, Fatma's, Florian's, and Isabeau's hoofs rustled in the
+red-and-gold leafage when they went for a ride. Autumn came with its
+mists and sharp smells--and nobody could have prophesied an end, or
+indeed any decisive turn in the course of the strangely fluctuating
+affair.
+
+The credit of having placed things on the foundation of actuality, of
+having given events the lead in the direction of a happy issue, must for
+ever be ascribed to the distinguished gentleman who had up till now
+wisely kept in the background, but at the right moment intervened
+carefully but firmly. I refer to Excellency von Knobelsdorff, Minister
+of the Interior, Foreign Affairs, and the Grand Ducal Household.
+
+Dr. Ueberbein had been correct in his assertion that the President of
+the Council had kept himself posted in the stages of Klaus Heinrich's
+love affair. What is more, well served by intelligent and sagacious
+assistants, he had kept himself well in touch with the state of public
+opinion, with the rôle which Samuel Spoelmann and his daughter played in
+the imaginative powers of the people, with the royal rank with which the
+popular idea invested them, with the great and superstitious tension
+with which the population followed the intercourse between the Schlosses
+"Hermitage" and Delphinenort, with the popularity of that intercourse:
+in a word, he was well aware how the Spoelmanns, for everyone who did
+not deliberately shut his eyes, were the general topic of conversation
+and rumour, not only in the capital, but in the whole country. A
+characteristic incident was enough to make Herr Knobelsdorff sure of his
+ground.
+
+At the beginning of October--the Landtag had been opened a fortnight
+before, and the disputes with the Budget Commission were in full
+swing--Imma Spoelmann fell ill, very seriously ill, so it was said at
+first. It seemed that the imprudent girl, for some whim or mood, while
+out with her countess, had ventured on a gallop of nearly half an hour's
+duration on her white Fatma in the teeth of a strong north-east wind,
+and had come home with an attack of congestion of the lungs, which
+threatened to end her altogether.
+
+The news soon got about. People said the girl was hovering between life
+and death, which, as luckily soon emerged, was a great exaggeration. But
+the consternation, the general sympathy, could not have been greater if
+a serious accident had happened to a member of the House of Grimmburg,
+even to the Grand Duke himself. It was the sole topic of conversation.
+In the humbler parts of the city, near the Dorothea Hospital for
+instance, the women stood in the evening outside their front doors,
+pressed the palms of their hands against their breasts, and coughed, as
+if to show each other what it meant to be short of breath. The evening
+papers published searching and expert news of the condition of Miss
+Spoelmann, which passed from hand to hand, were read at family
+gatherings and cafés, and were discussed in the tram-cars. The
+_Courier's_ reporter had been seen to drive in a cab to Delphinenort,
+where, in the hall with the mosaic floor, he had been snubbed by the
+Spoelmanns' butler, and had talked English to him--though he found that
+no easy task.
+
+The press, moreover, could not escape the reproach of having magnified
+the whole business, and made a quite unnecessary fuss about it. There
+was absolutely no question of any danger. Six days in bed under the care
+of the Spoelmanns' private physician sufficed to relieve the congestion,
+and to make Miss Spoelmann's lungs quite well again. But these six days
+sufficed also to make clear the importance which the Spoelmanns, and
+Miss Imma's personality in particular, had achieved in our public
+opinion. Every morning found the envoys of the newspapers, commissioners
+of the general curiosity, gathered in the mosaic hall at Delphinenort to
+hear the butler's curt bulletins, which they then reproduced in their
+papers at the inordinate length which the public desired.
+
+One read of greetings and wishes for recovery sent to Delphinenort by
+various benevolent institutions which Imma Spoelmann had visited and
+richly subscribed to (and the wits remarked that the Grand Ducal
+Treasury might have taken the opportunity of offering their homage in a
+similar way). The public read also--and dropped the paper to exchange a
+significant look--of a "beautiful floral tribute," which Prince Klaus
+Heinrich had sent with his card (the truth being that the Prince, so
+long as Miss Spoelmann kept to her bed, sent flowers not once, but
+daily, to Delphinenort, a fact which was not mentioned by those in the
+know, so as not to make too great a sensation).
+
+The public read further that the popular young patient had left her bed
+for the first time, and finally the news came that she was soon to go
+out for the first time. But this going out, which took place on a sunny
+autumn morning, eight days after the patient had been taken ill, was
+calculated to give rise to such an expression of feeling on the part of
+the population as people of stern self-possession labelled immoderate.
+For round the Spoelmanns' huge olive-varnished, red-cushioned motor,
+which, with a pale young chauffeur of an Anglo-Saxon type on the box,
+waited in front of the main door at Delphinenort, a big crowd had
+gathered; and when Miss Spoelmann and Countess Löwenjoul, followed by a
+lackey with a rug, came out, cheers broke out, hats and handkerchiefs
+were waved, until the motor had forced a way through the crowd and had
+left the demonstrators behind in a cloud of vapour. It must be confessed
+that these consisted of those rather doubtful elements who usually
+collect on such occasions: half-grown youths, a few women with
+market-baskets, one or two schoolboys, gapers, loafers, and out-of-works
+of various descriptions.
+
+But what is the public and what should its composition be to make it an
+average public? One further assertion must not be passed over entirely
+in silence which was later disseminated by the cynics. It was to the
+effect that among the crowd round the motor there was an agent in Herr
+von Knobelsdorff's pay, a member of the secret police, who had started
+the cheers and vigorously kept them going. We can leave that in doubt,
+and not grudge the belittlers of important events their satisfaction.
+
+At least, in the case of this particular crowd, it only amounts to
+saying that the agent's task was the mechanical release of feelings
+which must have been there and must have been vivid. At any rate this
+scene, which of course was described at length in the daily press, did
+not fail to impress everybody, and persons with any acumen for the
+connexion of things felt no doubt that a further piece of news, which
+busied men's minds a few days later, stood in hidden relation to all
+these phenomena and symptoms.
+
+The news ran that his Royal Highness Prince Klaus Heinrich had received
+his Excellency the Minister of State von Knobelsdorff in audience at the
+Schloss "Hermitage," and had been closeted with him from three o'clock
+in the afternoon till seven o'clock in the evening. A whole four hours!
+What had they discussed? Surely not the next Court Ball? As a matter of
+fact, the Court Ball had been one among several topics of conversation.
+
+Herr von Knobelsdorff had preferred his request for a confidential talk
+with the Prince in connexion with the Court Hunt, which had taken place
+on October 10th in the woods to the west near Schloss "Jägerpreis," and
+in which Klaus Heinrich and his red-haired cousins, dressed in green
+uniforms, soft felt hats, and top-boots, and hung with field-glasses,
+hangers, hunting-knives, bandoliers, and pistol cases, had taken part.
+Herr von Braunbart-Schellendorf had been consulted, and three o'clock on
+October 12th decided on. Klaus Heinrich himself had offered to visit the
+old gentleman at his official residence, but Herr von Knobelsdorff had
+preferred coming to the "Hermitage." He came punctually, and was
+received with all the affection and warmth which Klaus Heinrich thought
+that propriety demanded in the case of the aged counsellor of his father
+and his brother. The sober little room, in which stood the three fine
+mahogany Empire arm-chairs, with the blue lyre-embroidery on the yellow
+ground, was the scene of the interview.
+
+Though close on seventy, Excellency von Knobelsdorff was vigorous both
+in body and mind. His frock-coat showed not one senile wrinkle, but was
+tightly and well filled with the compact and comfortable form of a man
+of happy disposition. His well-preserved hair was pure white, like his
+short moustache, and parted smoothly in the middle; his chin had a
+sympathetic pit in it, which might pass for a dimple. The fan-shaped
+wrinkles at the corners of his eyes played as livelily as ever--indeed,
+they had gained with the years some little branches and additional
+lines, so that the whole complication of ever-shifting wrinkles imparted
+to his blue eyes an expression of humorous subtlety.
+
+Klaus Heinrich was attached to Herr von Knobelsdorff, though no closer
+relations had been established between them. The Minister of State had
+actually superintended and organized the Prince's life. He had begun by
+fixing on Dröge to be his first tutor; had then called the "Pheasantry"
+into life for him; had sent him later to the University with Dr.
+Ueberbein; had also arranged his military service for show, and had put
+Schloss "Hermitage" at his disposal to live in. But all this he had done
+at second-hand, and had rarely interviewed him in person. Indeed, when
+Herr von Knobelsdorff had met Klaus Heinrich during those years of
+education, he had inquired most respectfully as to the Prince's resolves
+and plans for the future, as if he were in complete ignorance of them;
+and perhaps it was just this fiction, which was firmly bolstered up on
+both sides, which had kept their intercourse throughout within the
+bounds of formality.
+
+Herr von Knobelsdorff began the conversation in an easy though
+respectful tone, while Klaus Heinrich tried to discover the objects of
+his visit. The former then chatted about the hunt of the day before
+yesterday, made some pleasant reference to the amount of ground they had
+covered, and then mentioned casually his admirable colleague at the
+Treasury, Dr. Krippenreuther, who had also taken part in the hunt, and
+whose invalid appearance he regretted. Herr Krippenreuther had really
+not hit a thing.
+
+"Yes, worry makes the hand unsteady," remarked Herr von Knobelsdorff,
+and so gave the Prince the cue for a direct reference to this worry. He
+spoke about the "by no means trifling" shortage in the estimates, about
+the Minister's discussions with the Budget Commission, the new
+property-tax, the rate of 13½ per cent., and the bitter opposition of
+the urban deputies, of the antediluvian meat tax, and the Civil
+Service's cries of hunger; and Klaus Heinrich, who had been surprised at
+first by so many dry facts, listened to him intently and nodded his head
+repeatedly.
+
+The two men, the old and young, sat side by side on a slender, hardish
+sofa with yellow upholstery and wreath-like brass mountings, which stood
+behind the round table opposite the narrow glass door. The latter opened
+on to the terrace, and through it one could see the half-bare park and
+the duck pond floating in the autumn mist. The low, white, smooth stove,
+in which a fire was crackling, diffused a gentle warmth through the
+severely and scantily furnished room. Klaus Heinrich, though not quite
+able to follow the political proceedings, yet proud and happy at being
+so seriously talked to by the experienced dignitary, felt his mood
+growing more and more grateful and confidential. Herr von Knobelsdorff
+spoke pleasantly about the most unpleasant subjects. His voice was
+comforting, his remarks ably strung together and insinuating--and
+suddenly Klaus Heinrich became aware that he had dropped the subject of
+the State finances, and had passed on from Doctor Krippenreuther's
+worries to his, Klaus Heinrich's, own condition. Was Herr von
+Knobelsdorff mistaken? His eyes were beginning occasionally to play him
+tricks. But he wished he could think that his Royal Highness looked a
+little better, fresher, brighter--a look of tiredness, of worry, was
+unmistakable.... Herr von Knobelsdorff feared to seem importunate; but
+he must hope that these symptoms did not arise from any malady, bodily
+or mental?
+
+Klaus Heinrich looked out at the mist. His look was still sealed: but
+though he sat on the hard sofa in his usual stiff, upright attitude, his
+feet crossed, his right hand over his left, and the upper part of his
+body turned towards Herr von Knobelsdorff, yet inwardly his stiffness
+relaxed at this juncture, and, worn out as he was by his strangely
+ineffectual struggle, it did not want much more to make his eyes fill
+with tears. He was so lonely, so destitute of counsellors. Dr. Ueberbein
+had recently kept far away from the "Hermitage." ... Klaus Heinrich
+merely said: "Ah, Excellency, that would take us too far."
+
+But Herr von Knobelsdorff answered: "Too far? No, your Royal Highness
+need not be afraid of being too prolix. I confess that my knowledge of
+your Royal Highness's experiences is greater than I allowed to appear
+just now. Your Royal Highness can scarcely have anything new to tell me,
+apart from those refinements and details which rumour can never collect.
+But if it might comfort your Royal Highness to open his heart to an old
+servant, who carried you in his arms ... perhaps I might not be quite
+incapable of standing by your Royal Highness in word and deed."
+
+And then it happened that something gave way in Klaus Heinrich's bosom,
+and poured out in a stream of confession: he told Herr von Knobelsdorff
+the whole story. He told it as one tells when the heart is full and
+everything comes tumbling out all at once through the lips; according to
+no plan, no chronological order, and with undue emphasis on
+unessentials, but with a burst of passion, and with that concreteness
+which is the product of passionate observation. He began in the middle,
+jumped unexpectedly to the beginning, hurried on to the conclusion
+(which did not exist), tumbled over himself, and more than once
+hesitated and stuck fast.
+
+But Herr von Knobelsdorff's fore-knowledge made the review easier for
+him, enabled him by slipping in suggestive questions to float the ship
+again. And at last the picture of Klaus Heinrich's experiences with all
+their characters and leading actors, with the figures of Samuel
+Spoelmann, of the crazy Countess Löwenjoul, even of the collie,
+Percival, and especially that of Imma Spoelmann, with all its
+contrariness, lay there complete and full, ready to be discussed. The
+piece of oil-silk was referred to in full detail, for Herr von
+Knobelsdorff seemed to attach importance to it. Nothing was omitted,
+from the impressive incident at the changing of the guard to the last
+intimate and distressing struggles on horseback and on foot.
+
+Klaus Heinrich was much wrought up when he finished, and his steel-blue
+eyes in the national cheek-bones were full of tears. He had left the
+sofa, thereby forcing Herr von Knobelsdorff also to get up, and wished
+on account of the heat to open the glass door into the little veranda,
+but Herr von Knobelsdorff stopped this by calling attention to the risk
+of a chill. He begged the Prince humbly to sit down again, as his Royal
+Highness could not conceal from himself the need for a calm discussion
+of the state of affairs. And both sat down again on the thinly cushioned
+sofa.
+
+Herr von Knobelsdorff meditated awhile, and his face was as serious as
+it ever could be with his dimpled chin and the play of his eye-wrinkles.
+Then, breaking silence, he thanked the Prince with emotion for the great
+honour he had shown him by confiding in him. And in direct connexion
+with this Herr von Knobelsdorff, emphasizing each word, announced that
+whatever attitude the Prince had expected him, Herr von Knobelsdorff, to
+assume at this juncture, he, Herr von Knobelsdorff, was certainly not
+the man to oppose the wishes and hopes of the Prince, but much rather to
+show his Royal Highness the way to the longed-for goal to the best of
+his power.
+
+Long silence ensued. Klaus Heinrich looked rapturously at Herr von
+Knobelsdorff's eyes with the fan-like wrinkles. Had he these wishes and
+hopes? Was there a goal? He was not sure of his ears. He said: "Your
+Excellency is kind enough ..."
+
+Then Herr von Knobelsdorff added to his declaration a condition, and
+said: Frankly, on one condition only did he, as first official of the
+State, dare to exercise his modest influence on behalf of his Royal
+Highness.
+
+"On one condition?"
+
+"On condition that your Royal Highness does not take account only of
+your own happiness in a selfish and frivolous way, but, as your lofty
+calling demands, regards your personal destiny from the point of view of
+the Mass, the Whole."
+
+Klaus Heinrich was silent, and his eyes were heavy in thought.
+
+"Perhaps your Royal Highness," continued Herr von Knobelsdorff after a
+pause, "will allow me to leave this delicate and yet quite unavoidable
+topic for a while, and to turn to more general matters! This is the hour
+of confidence and mutual understanding ... I respectfully beg to be
+allowed to take advantage of it. Your Royal Highness is through your
+exalted position cut off from rude actuality, severed from it by
+delicate precautions. I shall not forget that this actuality is not--or
+only at second-hand--a matter for your Royal Highness. And yet the
+moment seems to me to have come for bringing at least a certain portion
+of this rude world to the immediate notice of your Royal Highness,
+entirely for your own sake. I plead beforehand for forgiveness, if I
+chance to stir up your Royal Highness's emotions too harshly by what I
+tell you."
+
+"Please speak on, Excellency," said Klaus Heinrich hastily.
+Involuntarily he sat upright, just as one sits up straight in a
+dentist's chair and collects one's natural powers to withstand an attack
+of pain.
+
+"I must ask for your undivided attention," said Herr von Knobelsdorff
+almost sternly. And then, as a corollary to the discussions with the
+Budget Commission, followed the statement, the clear, exhaustive,
+unembroidered lesson, well primed with figures and explanations of the
+fundamental facts and technical expressions, which showed the economical
+position of the country, the State, and brought our whole miserable
+plight with relentless clearness before the Prince's eyes.
+
+Naturally these things were not entirely new and strange to him. Indeed,
+ever since he had assumed his representative rôle, they had served as a
+motive and subject for those formal questions which he used to address
+to burgomasters, agriculturists, and high officials, and to which he
+received answers which were merely answers and nothing more, and which
+were often accompanied by the smile which he had known all his life and
+which reminded him that he was born to be king. But all this had not yet
+forced itself upon him in its naked actuality, nor made serious claims
+on his thinking powers.
+
+Herr von Knobelsdorff was by no means satisfied to get a few of Klaus
+Heinrich's usual encouraging words; he pressed the matter home, he
+cross-examined the young man, made him repeat whole sentences; he kept
+him relentlessly to the point, and reminded the Prince of a dry and
+skinny index-finger which stopped at each separate place and would not
+go on until convinced that the pupil really understood the lesson.
+
+Herr von Knobelsdorff began at the rudiments, and talked about the
+country and its lack of development from a commercial and industrial
+point of view: he talked about the people, Klaus Heinrich's people, that
+shrewd and honest, sound and reliable stock. He spoke about the
+deficiency in the State reserves, the poor dividends paid by the
+railways, the insufficient coal supply. He touched on the administration
+of the forests, game preserves and stock-raising; he talked about the
+woods, the excessive felling, the immoderate stripping of litter, the
+crippling of the industry, the falling revenues from the forests. Then
+he went more closely into our stock of gold, discussed the natural
+inability of the people to pay heavy taxes, described the reckless
+finance of earlier periods. Thereupon he added up the figures of the
+State debt, which Herr von Knobelsdorff forced the Prince to repeat
+several times. They reached six hundred millions.
+
+The lesson extended further to the debentures, conditions for interest
+and repayment. It came back to Doctor Krippenreuther's present anxiety,
+and described the seriousness of the situation. Suddenly pulling the
+"Annual of the Statistical Bureau" out of his pocket, Herr von
+Knobelsdorff instructed his pupil in the harvest returns for the
+previous years, summed up the untoward events which had caused their
+decline, pointed to the deficiencies in the taxes, the figures of which
+he had brought with him, and referred to the underfed adults and
+children whom one might see throughout the country-side. Then he turned
+to the general condition of the gold market, discoursed on the rise in
+the value of gold and the general economic unsoundness. Klaus Heinrich
+learned also about the lowness of the Exchange, the restlessness of the
+creditors, the leakage of gold, and the bank smashes; he saw our credit
+shaken, our paper valueless, and grasped to the full that the raising of
+a new loan was almost impossible.
+
+The night was closing in, it was long past five, when Herr von
+Knobelsdorff ended his statement of the national economics. At this time
+Klaus Heinrich usually had his tea, but this time he only gave a passing
+thought to it, and nobody outside dared to disturb a conversation whose
+importance was shown by its duration. Klaus Heinrich listened and
+listened. He scarcely realized how much affected he was. But how could
+the other bring himself to say all that to him? He had not called him
+"Royal Highness" one single time during the interview, he had to some
+extent forced him, and grossly ignored the fact that he was "born to be
+king." And yet it was good and stimulating to hear all that and to have
+to bury oneself in it for reality's sake. He forgot to have the lights
+brought, his attention was so much occupied.
+
+"It was these circumstances," concluded Herr von Knobelsdorff, "which I
+had in mind when I begged your Royal Highness to regard your personal
+wishes and plans continually in the light of the general good. I have no
+doubt that your Royal Highness will profit by this talk and by the facts
+I have been bold enough to put before you. And in this connexion I beg
+your Royal Highness to allow me to revert to your more personal case."
+
+Herr von Knobelsdorff waited till Klaus Heinrich had made a sign of
+consent with his hand, and then went on: "If this affair is to have any
+future, it is desirable that it should now advance a step in its
+development. It is stagnating, it remains as formless and prospectless
+as the mist outside. That's intolerable. We must give it form, must
+thicken it out, must mark its outlines more clearly before the eyes of
+the world."
+
+"Quite so! quite so! Give it form ... thicken it out.... That's it.
+That's absolutely necessary," agreed Klaus Heinrich, so much excited
+that he left the sofa and began to walk up and down the room. "But how?
+For heaven's sake, Excellency, tell me how?"
+
+"The next external step," said Herr von Knobelsdorff, and remained
+sitting--so unusual was the occasion--"must be this, that the Spoelmanns
+be seen at Court."
+
+Klaus Heinrich stopped still.
+
+"No," he said, "never, if I know Mr. Spoelmann, will he let himself be
+persuaded to go to Court."
+
+"Which," answered Herr von Knobelsdorff, "doesn't prevent his daughter
+from doing us this pleasure. The Court Ball's not so very far off; it
+rests with you, Royal Highness, to induce Miss Spoelmann to take part in
+it. Her companion is a countess ... a peculiar one, perhaps, but a
+countess, and that helps things. When I assure your Royal Highness that
+the Court will not fail to make things easy, I am speaking with the
+approbation of the Chief Master of the Ceremonies, Herr von Bühl zu
+Bühl."
+
+The conversation now turned for three-quarters of an hour on questions
+of precedence, and the ceremonial conditions under which the
+presentation must be carried out. The distribution of cards was always
+left to Princess Catherine's Mistress of the Robes, a widowed Countess
+Trümmerhauff, who led the ladies' world at the festivities in the Old
+Castle.
+
+But as to the act of presentation itself, Herr von Knobelsdorff had
+managed to secure some concessions of a deliberate, in fact definite
+character. There was no American Consul in the place--no reason on that
+account, explained Herr von Knobelsdorff, for letting the ladies be
+presented by any casual chamberlain; no, the Master of the Ceremonies
+himself requested the honour of presenting them to the Grand Duke. When?
+At what point of the prescribed procession? Why, undoubtedly, unusual
+circumstances demand exceptions. In the first place, then, in front of
+all the débutantes of the various ranks--Klaus Heinrich might assure
+Miss Spoelmann that this would be arranged. It would give rise to talk
+and sensation at Court and in the city. But never mind, so much the
+better. Sensation was by no means undesirable, sensation was useful,
+even necessary....
+
+Herr von Knobelsdorff went. It had become so dark when he took his leave
+that the Prince and he could scarcely see each other. Klaus Heinrich,
+who now first became aware of it, excused himself in some confusion, but
+Herr von Knobelsdorff declared it to be a matter of no importance in
+what sort of light a conversation like that was carried on. He took the
+hand which Klaus Heinrich offered him, and grasped it in both his.
+
+"Never," he said warmly, and these were his last words before he went,
+"never was the happiness of a prince more inseparable from that of his
+people. No, whatever your Royal Highness ponders and does, you will bear
+in mind that the happiness of your Royal Highness by the disposition of
+destiny has become a condition of the public weal, but that your Royal
+Highness on your side must recognize in the weal of your country the
+indispensable condition and justification of your own happiness."
+
+Much moved, and not yet in a condition to arrange the thoughts which
+poured in on him in thousands, Klaus Heinrich remained behind in his
+homely Empire room.
+
+He passed a restless night and went next morning, despite misty and damp
+weather, for a long and lonely ride. Herr von Knobelsdorff had talked
+clearly and voluminously, had given and accepted facts; but, for the
+fusion, modelling, and working up of these multifarious raw products he
+had given only curt, aphoristic instructions, and Klaus Heinrich found
+himself doomed to some heavy thinking while he lay awake at night, and
+later when he went for a ride on Florian.
+
+When he got back to the "Hermitage" he did a remarkable thing. He wrote
+with a pencil on a piece of paper an order, a certain commission, and
+sent Neumann, the valet, with it to the Academy Bookshop in the
+University Strasse: Neumann came back with a package of books, which
+Klaus Heinrich had set out in his room, and which he began at once to
+read.
+
+They were works of a sober and school-bookish appearance, with glazed
+paper backs, ugly leather sides, and coarse paper, and the contents were
+divided up minutely into sections, main divisions, sub-divisions, and
+paragraphs. Their titles were not stimulating. They were manuals and
+hand-hooks of economy, abstracts and outlines of State finance,
+systematic treatises on political economy. The Prince shut himself up in
+his study with these books, and gave instructions that he wished on no
+account to be disturbed.
+
+The autumn was damp, and Klaus Heinrich felt little tempted to leave the
+"Hermitage." On Saturday he drove to the Old Schloss to give free
+audiences: otherwise his time was his own all this week, and he knew how
+to make use of it. Wrapped in his dressing-gown, he sat in the warmth of
+the low stove at his small, old-fashioned, little-used desk, and pored
+over his books on finance, with his temples resting in his hands. He
+read about the State expenditure and what it always consisted of, about
+the receipts and whence they flowed in when things were going well; he
+ploughed through the whole subject of taxation in all its branches; he
+buried himself in the doctrine of the budget, of the balance, of the
+surplus, and particularly of the deficit; he lingered longest over, and
+went deepest into, the public debt and its varieties, into loans, and
+relation between interest and capital and liquidation, and from time to
+time he raised his head from the book and dreamed with a smile about
+what he had read, as if it had been the gayest poetry.
+
+For the rest, he found that it was not hard to grasp it all, when one
+set one's mind to it. No, this really serious actuality, in which he now
+played a part, this simple and rude texture of interests, this system of
+down-right logical needs and necessities, which countless young men of
+ordinary birth had to stuff into their heads, to be able to pass
+examinations in it, it was by no means so difficult to get hold of as he
+in his Highness had thought. The rôle of representation, in his opinion,
+was harder. And much, much more ticklish and difficult were his gentle
+struggles with Imma Spoelmann on horseback and on foot. His studies made
+him warm and happy, he felt that his zeal was making his cheeks hot,
+like those of his brother-in-law zu Ried-Hohenried over his peat.
+
+After thus giving the facts which he had learnt from Herr von
+Knobelsdorff a general academic basis, and also accomplishing a feat of
+hard thinking in bringing together inward connexions and weighing
+possibilities, he again presented himself at Delphinenort at tea-time.
+The lights in the candelabra with the lions' feet and the big crystal
+lustres were burning in the garden room. The ladies were alone.
+
+Klaus Heinrich first asked after Mr. Spoelmann's health and Imma's
+indisposition. He upbraided her freely for her strange impetuosity, to
+which she answered with a pout that as far as she knew she was her own
+mistress, and could do as she liked with her health. The conversation
+then turned to the autumn, to the damp weather which forbade rides, to
+the advanced time of year, and the proximity of winter, and Klaus
+Heinrich suddenly mentioned the Court Ball in connexion with which it
+occurred to him to ask whether the ladies--if unfortunately Mr.
+Spoelmann were prevented by the state of his health--would not care to
+take part in one this time. But when Imma answered, "No, really, she had
+no wish to be rude, but she had absolutely not the faintest desire to go
+to a Court Ball," he did not press the point, but postponed the question
+for the time.
+
+What had he done these last few days?--Oh, he'd been very busy, he might
+say that he'd been chock-a-block with work.--Work? Doubtless he meant
+the Court Hunt at "Jägerpreis."--The Court Hunt? No. He had gone in for
+real study which he had by no means got to the bottom of yet; on the
+contrary he was sticking deep in the literature on the subject.... And
+Klaus Heinrich began to talk about his ugly books, his peeps into
+financial science, and he spoke with such pleasure and respect of this
+discipline that Imma Spoelmann looked at him with her big eyes. But
+when--almost timidly--she questioned him as to the motive and impulse
+for this activity, he answered that it was living, only too burning,
+questions of the day which had brought him to it: circumstances and
+conditions which were certainly not well suited for a cheerful talk at
+tea. This remark obviously offended Imma Spoelmann.
+
+"On what observations," she asked sharply, wagging her head from side to
+side, "did he base his conviction that she was approachable only or
+preferably by way of cheerful conversation?" And she commanded him
+rather than asked him to be kind enough to explain about the burning
+questions of the day.
+
+Then Klaus Heinrich explained what he had learnt from Herr von
+Knobelsdorff, and talked about the land and its state. He was well
+posted on every point at which the skinny index-finger had paused: he
+talked about the natural and the indebted, the general and the
+particular, the inherited and the intensifying misfortunes; he
+emphasized particularly the figures of the State debt, and the burden
+they laid on our national economy--they were six hundred millions--and
+he did not forget to mention the underfed peasants in the country-side.
+
+He did not speak connectedly; Imma Spoelmann interrupted him with
+questions and helped him on with questions. She listened carefully, and
+asked for explanations of what she did not at once understand. Dressed
+in her loose-sleeved, red-silk dress with the broad embroidery on the
+yoke, an old-Spanish chain round her child-like neck, she sat leaning on
+one elbow over the table, her chin buried in her ringless hand, and
+listened with her whole soul, while her big, dark eyes scrutinized the
+Prince's face.
+
+But while he spoke, in answer to Imma's verbal and ocular questions,
+worked at his subject, grew excited and entirely absorbed in it,
+Countess Löwenjoul no longer felt herself restricted to sober clarity by
+his presence, but let herself go and indulged in the luxury of
+drivelling. All the misery, she explained with dignified gestures, even
+the bad harvest, the burden of debt and the rise in the price of gold,
+were due to the shameless women who swarmed everywhere, and
+unfortunately had discovered the way through the floor, as last night
+the wife of a sergeant from the Grenadiers' Barracks had scratched her
+breasts and pommelled her in a horrible way. Then she alluded to her
+Schlosses in Burgundy, through the roofs of which the rain came, and
+went so far as to relate that she had gone as lieutenant in an
+expedition against the Turks, on which she had been the only one who
+"had not lost her head." Imma Spoelmann and Klaus Heinrich threw her a
+kind word now and then, readily promised to call her Frau Meier in
+future, and for the rest took no notice of her.
+
+The cheeks of both were burning when Klaus Heinrich had said all he
+knew--even on Miss Spoelmann's usually pearl-white cheeks there was a
+shade of red to be seen. They then stopped, the Countess too kept quiet,
+with her little head inclined on her shoulder, and staring into vacancy.
+Klaus Heinrich played on the white and sharply folded table-cloth with
+the stem of an orchid, which had stood in a glass by his plate; but as
+soon as he raised his head he met Imma Spoelmann's large, flaming eyes,
+which spoke a message of secret entreaty across the table, a darkly
+eloquent language.
+
+"It has been nice to-day," she said in her broken voice, when she said
+good-bye this time, and he felt her small, soft hands clasp his with a
+firm squeeze. "Next time your Highness honours our unworthy house, do
+bring me one or two of those excellent books you have bought." She could
+not entirely resist mocking him, but she asked him for his finance
+books, and he brought them to her.
+
+He brought her two of them, which he considered the most informative and
+comprehensive; he brought them some days later in his carriage through
+the damp Town Garden, and she thanked him for doing so. As soon as tea
+was over, they retired to a corner of the room, and there, while the
+Countess absently continued sitting at the tea-table, they began their
+common studies in throne-like chairs at a gilt table, bending over the
+first page of a manual called "The Science of Finance." They even read
+the headings to the sections, each reading a sentence softly in turn;
+for Imma Spoelmann insisted on going methodically to work and beginning
+at the beginning.
+
+Klaus Heinrich, well prepared as he was, acted as guide through the
+paragraphs, and nobody could have followed more smartly or
+clear-headedly than Imma.
+
+"It's quite easy!" she said and looked up with a laugh. "I'm surprised
+that it is at bottom so simple. Algebra is much harder, Prince."
+
+But as they went so deeply into things, they did not get far in one
+afternoon, so made a mark in the book at which to start next time.
+
+And so they went on, and the Prince's visits to Delphinenort were
+devoted to dull realities. Whenever Mr. Spoelmann did not come to tea,
+or, with Dr. Watercloose, left them, after eating his rusk, Imma and
+Klaus Heinrich sat down at the gilt table with their books, and plunged
+heads together into the Science of Economics. But as they progressed,
+they compared what they learned with the reality, applied what they read
+to the circumstances of the country, as Klaus Heinrich conceived them to
+be, and made their studies profitable, though it happened not seldom
+that their investigations were interrupted by considerations of a
+personal kind.
+
+"It seems, then," said Imma, "that the issue may be effected either
+directly or indirectly--yes, that's obvious. Either the State turns
+directly to the capitalists and opens a subscription list ... Your hand
+is twice as broad as mine," she said; "look, Prince."
+
+And they looked laughingly at their hands, his right and her left, as
+they lay next each other on the gilt table.
+
+"Or," went on Imma, "the loan is procured by negotiation, and it is some
+big bank, or group of banks, to which the State ..."
+
+"Wait!" he said softly. "Wait, Imma, and answer me one question. Aren't
+you missing the main point? Are you making progress? What about the
+disenchantment and embarrassment, dear little Imma? Have you now just
+one spark of confidence in me?" His lips asked the question close to her
+hair, from which a delicate fragrance arose, and she held her dark head
+still and bent over the book, though she did not answer his question
+frankly.
+
+"But must it be a bank or group of banks?" she pondered. "There's
+nothing about it there; I can't think it would be necessary in
+practice."
+
+She spoke gravely and deliberately on these occasions, for she too for
+her part had to grapple with the mental exercises which Klaus Heinrich
+had successfully managed after the conversation with Herr von
+Knobelsdorff. And when some weeks later he repeated his question,
+whether she would not like to go to the Court Ball, and told her of the
+ceremonial conditions which had been sanctioned for this occasion,
+behold, she replied that she would like to, and would go next day with
+Countess Löwenjoul and leave cards on the widowed Countess Trümmerhauff.
+
+This year the Court Ball took place earlier than usual; at the end of
+November--an arrangement which was said to be due to the wishes of the
+Grand Ducal Party. Herr von Bühl zu Bühl bitterly bewailed this
+precipitation, which obliged him and his subordinates to cancel the
+arrangements for the most important Court function, especially the
+improvements which the Gala Rooms in the Old Schloss so much needed. But
+the wish of the particular member of the Grand Ducal family had had the
+support of Herr von Knobelsdorff, and the Court Marshal had to give way.
+But it happened thus that people's minds scarcely had time to prepare
+themselves sufficiently for what really was the event of the evening, in
+comparison with which the unusual date seemed as nothing. Indeed, when
+the _Courier_ published in leaded type the news of the leaving of cards
+and the invitation--not without expressing in rather smaller type and in
+glowing words its satisfaction thereat, and welcoming Spoelmann's
+daughter to the Court--the important evening was already close at hand,
+and before tongues could get fairly wagging the whole thing was a
+completed reality.
+
+Never had more envy attached to the five hundred favoured ones whose
+names stood on the Court Ball list, never had the bourgeois more eagerly
+devoured the account in the _Courier_--those dazzling columns which were
+written every year by a nobleman who had degenerated through drink, and
+which were such glorious reading that one felt they gave one a peep into
+Fairyland, while as a matter of fact the ball in the Old Schloss went
+off quite modestly and soberly. But the report only extended to the
+supper, including the French menu, and everything that came later,
+especially all the delicate significance of the great occasion, were
+necessarily left to be reported by word of mouth.
+
+The ladies, in a huge olive-coloured motor, had pulled up in front of
+the Albrechtstor at the Old Schloss fairly punctually, though not so
+punctually that Herr von Bühl zu Bühl had not had time to get anxious.
+From a quarter-past seven onwards he had waited in full uniform, covered
+with orders down to his waist, with a bright brown toupée and his gold
+pince-nez on his nose, in the middle of the armour-hung Knights' Hall
+where the Grand Ducal family and the chief officials were collected;
+standing now on one foot, then on the other, and every now and then
+dispatching a footman to the ballroom to find out whether Miss Spoelmann
+had not yet come. He thought of all sorts of unheard-of possibilities.
+If this Queen of Sheba came too late--and what might one not expect of a
+girl who had walked right through the guard?--the entry of the Grand
+Ducal cortège would have to be delayed, and the Court would have to wait
+for her, for she simply must be introduced first, and it was out of the
+question that she should enter the ballroom after the Grand Duke.
+
+But thank heaven! a bare minute before half-past seven she arrived with
+her Countess; and it made a great sensation when the Chamberlains who
+received them arranged them next the diplomats, and so in front of the
+nobility, the Court ladies, the Ministers, the Generals, the Presidents
+of Chambers, and all the Court world. Aide-de-camp von Platow had
+fetched the Grand Duke from his rooms. Albrecht, in hussar uniform, had
+greeted the members of his House with down-cast eyes in the Knights'
+Hall, had offered his arm to Aunt Catherine, and then, after Herr von
+Bühl had tapped three times with his staff on the parquet in the open
+doors, the procession of the Court into the ballroom had begun.
+
+Eye-witnesses asserted later that the general inattention had verged on
+the scandalous during the perambulation of the Grand Duke. As Albrecht
+reached successive spots with his dignified aunt, a hasty bowing and
+billowing without the fitting composure ensued, but otherwise all faces
+were turned to one point only in the ball, all eyes directed with
+burning curiosity on this point alone.... She who stood yonder had had
+enemies in the hall, at least among the women, the female Trümmerhauffs,
+Prenzlaus, Wehrzahns, and Platows, who were plying their fans here, and
+sharp and cold female glances had scrutinized her. But whether her
+position was now too well established for criticism to venture to assail
+her, or her personality itself had conquered the secret opposition--all
+had declared with one voice that Imma Spoelmann was as fine as the
+daughter of the King of the Mountains.
+
+The whole town, the clerk in the Government office, the messenger at the
+street corner, knew her toilette by heart next morning. It had been a
+gown of pale-green crêpe de chine, with silver embroidery and priceless
+old silver lace on the bodice. A tiara of diamonds had glittered in her
+dark hair, which showed a tendency to fall in smooth wisps across her
+forehead, and a long hanging chain of the same stones was wound two or
+three times round her brown throat. Small and child-like, yet strangely
+earnest and sensible-looking, with her pale face and big, strangely
+speaking eyes, she had stood in her place of honour by the side of
+Countess Löwenjoul, who had been dressed in brown as usual, though this
+time in satin. When the cortège reached her, she had, with a kind of coy
+pertness, made a suggestion of a curtsey, without completing it; but
+when Prince Klaus Heinrich, with the yellow ribbon and the flat chain of
+the Family Order "For Constancy" over his tunic, the silver star of the
+Grimmburg Griffin on his chest, and his anæmic cousin on his arm whose
+conversation was limited to "Yes," passed by her directly after the
+Grand Duke, she had smiled with closed lips and nodded to him like a
+comrade--which sent something like a quiver through the company.
+
+Then, after the diplomats had been received by the Grand Ducal party,
+the presentations had begun--begun with Imma Spoelmann, although there
+had been two Countess Hundskeels and one Baroness von Schulenburg-Tressen
+among the débutantes. With an ingratiating smile, which
+showed his false teeth, Herr von Bühl had presented Spoelmann's
+daughter to his master. And Albrecht, sucking his lower lip against his
+upper, had looked down on her coy semi-curtsey, from which she had
+raised herself to scrutinize with her speaking eyes the suffering Hussar
+Colonel in his silent pride. The Grand Duke had addressed several
+questions to her, an exception to an otherwise strict rule; he had asked
+her how her father was, what effect the Ditlinde Spa had, and how she
+liked on the whole being with us--questions which she had answered in
+her broken voice with a pout and a wag of her dark head. Then, after a
+pause, a pause perhaps of internal struggle, Albrecht had expressed his
+pleasure at seeing her at Court; whereupon Countess Löwenjoul had
+executed her curtsey, with an evasive glance from her eyes.
+
+This scene, Imma Spoelmann in the presence of Albrecht, long remained
+the favourite topic of conversation, and although it had passed, as it
+was bound to pass, without anything unusual happening, yet its charm and
+importance must not be overlooked. It was not indeed the climax of the
+evening. That, in the eyes of many, was the Quadrille d'honneur; in the
+eyes of others, the supper,--in reality, however, it was a secret
+duologue between the two chief actors in the piece, a short, unnoticed
+exchange of words, whose contents and actual result the public could
+only guess--the settlement of certain tender struggles on horseback and
+on foot.
+
+As to the Quadrille d'honneur, there were people who declared next day
+that Miss Spoelmann had danced in it, with Prince Klaus Heinrich as her
+partner. Only the first part of this story was correct. Miss Spoelmann
+had taken part in the solemn dance, but as the British Consul's partner
+and Prince Klaus Heinrich's _vis-à-vis_. This was fairly strong, but
+what was still stronger was that the majority of the guests did not
+consider it an unheard-of thing, but on the contrary almost a matter of
+course.
+
+Yes, Imma Spoelmann's position was established; the popular conception
+of her personality--as the public learned next day--had prevailed in the
+Court ballroom, and, what is more, Herr von Knobelsdorff had taken care
+that this conception should be expressed with all the publicity he
+thought desirable. Not with distinctive or aggressive respect; no, Imma
+Spoelmann had been treated ceremoniously, and at the same time with
+systematic, intentional emphasis. The two Masters of the Ceremonies on
+duty--Chamberlains in rank--had introduced selected dancers to her; and
+when she had left her place, close by the low red platform where the
+Grand Ducal family sat on damask chairs, to dance with her partners,
+they had busied themselves, just as when the princesses danced, in
+clearing her a space under the chandelier in the middle and protecting
+her from collisions--an easy task in any case, for a protective circle
+of curiosity had formed round her when she danced.
+
+It was reported that when Prince Klaus Heinrich asked Miss Spoelmann for
+the first time, a deep drawing of breath, a formal "Sh" of excitement
+had been heard in the ballroom, and the Masters of the Ceremonies had
+found it difficult to keep the ball going and to prevent the whole
+company standing round the dancers in gaping curiosity. The women
+especially had watched the pair with an excited delight, which, had Miss
+Spoelmann's position been only a little weaker, would undoubtedly have
+taken on the form of rage and malice. But the pressure and influence of
+public feeling, that powerful inspiration from below, had worked too
+powerfully on every one of the five hundred guests for them to be able
+to regard this spectacle through any eyes other than those of the
+people. It did not seem to have occurred to the Prince to impose any
+restraint upon himself. His name--shortened to "K. H."--appeared twice
+on Miss Spoelmann's programme, and besides he had sat out several other
+dances with her. They had danced yonder. Her brown arm had rested on the
+yellow-silk ribbon that crossed his shoulder, and his right arm had
+encircled her light and child-like figure, while, as usual when he
+danced, he had placed the left on his hip and guided his partner with
+one hand only. With one hand!...
+
+When supper-time came, a further article in the ceremonial conditions
+which Herr von Knobelsdorff had contrived for Imma Spoelmann's visit to
+Court came into staggering force. It was the article which dealt with
+the order of seating at the table. For while the majority of the guests
+supped at long tables in the picture gallery and in the Hall of the
+Twelve Months, supper was laid in the Silver Hall for the Grand Ducal
+family, diplomats, and leading Court officials. In solemn procession, as
+when they entered the ballroom, Albrecht and his party entered the
+supper-room punctually at eleven o'clock. And Imma Spoelmann passed by
+the lackeys, who kept the doors and repelled the uninvited, on the arm
+of the British Consul, and entered the Silver Hall to take her place at
+the Grand Ducal table.
+
+That was unheard of--and at the same time, after all that had gone
+before, so logically consequential, that any surprise or disgust would
+have been idiotic. The motto for the day was to be prepared for anything
+in the way of omens and phenomena. But after supper, when the Grand Duke
+had withdrawn and Princess Griseldis had opened the cotillon with a
+Chamberlain, expectation was again raised to fever point, for the
+general question was, had the Prince been allowed to present Miss
+Spoelmann with a bouquet? His instructions had obviously been not to
+give her the first. He had first given one each to his Aunt Catherine
+and a red-haired cousin; but he had then advanced towards Imma Spoelmann
+with a bouquet of lilac from the Court gardens. As she was about to
+raise the lovely bunch to her nose, she had hesitated for some unknown
+reason with a look of apprehension, and it was not till he had
+encouraged her with a laugh and a nod that she decided to test the
+fragrance of the bouquet. Then they had danced and chatted quietly
+together for a long time.
+
+And yet it was during this dance that that unnoticed duologue, that
+conversation of a palpably bourgeois tenor and practical result, had
+taken place--and this is what it was.
+
+"Are you satisfied this time, Imma, with the flowers I bring you?"
+
+"Of course, Prince, your lilac is lovely and smells quite as it should.
+I love it."
+
+"Really, Imma? But I'm sorry for the poor rose-bush down in the court,
+because its roses disgust you with their mouldy smell."
+
+"I won't say that they disgust me, Prince."
+
+"But they disenchant and chill you, don't they?"
+
+"Yes, perhaps."
+
+"But have I ever told you of the popular belief that the rose-bush will
+one day be redeemed, on a day of general happiness, and will bear roses
+which will add to their great beauty the gift of a lovely natural
+scent?"
+
+"Well, Prince, we'll have to wait for that."
+
+"No, Imma, we must help and act! We must decide, and have done with all
+hesitation, little Imma! Tell me--tell me to-day--have you confidence in
+me?"
+
+"Yes, Prince. I have gained confidence in you latterly."
+
+"There you are! Thank heaven! Didn't I say that I must succeed in the
+long run? And so you think now that I am in earnest, real, serious
+earnest about you and about us?"
+
+"Yes, Prince; latterly I have thought that I can think so."
+
+"At last, at last, irresolute little Imma! Oh, how I thank you, I thank
+you! But in that case you're not afraid, and will let the whole world
+know that you belong to me?"
+
+"Let them know that you belong to me, Royal Highness, if it's all the
+same to you."
+
+"That I will, Imma, loudly and surely. But only on one condition,
+namely, that we don't only think of our own happiness in a selfish and
+frivolous way, but regard it all from the point of view of the Mass, the
+Whole. For the public weal and our happiness, you see, are
+interdependent."
+
+"Well said, Prince. For without our studies of the public weal I should
+have found it difficult to decide to have confidence in you."
+
+"And without you, Imma, to warm my heart, I should have found it
+difficult to tackle such practical problems."
+
+"Right; then we'll see what we can do, each in our own place. You with
+your folk and I--with my father."
+
+"Little sister," he answered quietly, and pressed her more closely to
+him in the dance. "Little bride."
+
+Undoubtedly a peculiar plighting of troth.
+
+To be frank, everything was not yet settled, or nearly settled. Looking
+back, one must say that, if one factor in the whole had been altered or
+removed, the whole would have been in imminent danger of coming to
+nothing. What a blessing, the chronicler feels tempted to cry, what a
+blessing that there was a man at the head of affairs who faced the music
+firmly and undaunted, indeed not without a dash of rashness, and did not
+judge a thing to be impossible just because it had never happened
+before.
+
+The conversation which Excellency von Knobelsdorff had about eight days
+after the memorable Court Ball with Grand Duke Albrecht II in the Old
+Schloss belongs to the history of the times. The day before, the
+President of Council had presided over a session of the Cabinet, about
+which the _Courier_ had been in the position to report that questions of
+finance and the private affairs of the Grand Ducal family had been
+discussed, and further--added the newspaper in spaced type--that
+complete unanimity of opinion had been reached among the Ministers. So
+Herr von Knobelsdorff found himself in a strong position towards his
+young Monarch at the audience; for he had not only the swarming mass of
+the people, but also the unanimous will of the Government at his back.
+
+The conversation in Albrecht's draughty study took scarcely less time
+than that in the little yellow room at Schloss "Hermitage." A pause was
+made while the Grand Duke had a lemonade and Herr von Knobelsdorff a
+glass of port and biscuits. The long duration of the conversation was
+due only to the importance of the material to be discussed, not to the
+Monarch's opposition; for Albrecht raised none. In his close frock-coat,
+with his thin, sensitive hands crossed on his lap, his proud, refined
+head with its pointed beard and narrow temples raised and his eyelids
+sunk, he sucked gently with his lower lip against his upper, and
+accompanied Herr von Knobelsdorff's remarks with an occasional slight
+nod, which expressed agreement and disagreement at the same time, an
+uninterested formal agreement without prejudice to his unassailable
+personal dignity.
+
+Herr von Knobelsdorff plunged straight into the middle of things, and
+spoke about Prince Klaus Heinrich's visits to Schloss Delphinenort.
+Albrecht knew of them. A subdued echo of the events which kept the city
+and the country on tip-toe had penetrated even into his loneliness; he
+knew, too, his brother Klaus Heinrich, who had "rummaged" and gossiped
+with the lackeys, and, then he knocked his forehead against the big
+table, had wept for sympathy with his forehead--and in effect he needed
+no coaching. Lisping and reddening slightly, he gave Herr von
+Knobelsdorff to understand this, and added that, seeing that the other
+had not intervened, but had caused the millionaire's daughter to be
+introduced to him, he concluded that Herr von Knobelsdorff approved of
+the Prince's behaviour, although he, the Grand Duke, could not clearly
+see what it would lead to.
+
+"The Government," answered Herr von Knobelsdorff, "would set itself in
+prejudicial and estranging opposition to the will of the people if it
+thwarted the Prince's projects."
+
+"Has my brother, then, definite projects?"
+
+"For a long time," corrected Herr von Knobelsdorff, "he acted without
+any plan and merely as his heart dictated; but since he has found
+himself with the people on terms of reality, his wishes have taken a
+practical form."
+
+"All of which means that the public approves the steps taken by the
+Prince?"
+
+"That it acclaims them, Royal Highness--that its dearest hopes are fixed
+on them."
+
+And now Herr von Knobelsdorff unrolled once more the dark picture of the
+state of the country, of its distress, of the serious embarrassment.
+Where was a remedy to be found? Yonder, only yonder, in the Town Park,
+in the second centre of the city, in the house of the invalid
+Money-Prince, our guest and resident, round whose person the people wove
+their dreams, and for whom it would be a small matter to put an end to
+all our difficulties. It he could be induced to take upon himself our
+national finances, their recovery would be assured. Would he be induced?
+But fate had ordained an exchange of sympathy between the mighty man's
+only daughter and Prince Klaus Heinrich. And was this wise and gracious
+ordinance to be flouted? Ought one for the sake of mulish, out-of-date
+traditions to prevent a union which embraced so immeasurable a blessing
+for the country and its people? For that it did was a necessary
+hypothesis, from which the union must draw its justification and
+validity. But if this condition were fulfilled, if Samuel Spoelmann were
+ready, not to mince words, to finance the State, then this union was not
+only admissible, it was necessary, it was salvation, the welfare of the
+State demanded it, and prayers rose to heaven for it, far beyond the
+frontiers, wherever any interest was felt in the restoration of our
+finances and the avoidance of an economic panic.
+
+At this point the Grand Duke asked a question quietly, with a mocking
+smile and without looking up.
+
+"And the succession to the throne?" he asked.
+
+"The law," answered Herr von Knobelsdorff, unshaken, "places it in your
+Royal Highness's hand to put aside dynastic scruples. With us the grant
+of an advance in rank and even of equal birth belongs to the
+prerogatives of the monarch, and when could history show a more potent
+motive for the exercise of these privileges? This union bears the mark
+of its own genuineness, preparations have been long in making for its
+reception in the heart of the people, and your entire princely and State
+approval would signify to the people nothing more than an outward
+satisfaction of their inmost convictions."
+
+And Herr von Knobelsdorff went on to speak of Imma Spoelmann's
+popularity, of the significant demonstration in connexion with her
+recovery from a slight indisposition, of the position of equal birth
+which this exceptional person assumed in popular fancy--and the wrinkles
+played round his eyes as he reminded Albrecht of the old prophecy
+current among the people, which told of a prince who would give the
+country more with one hand than others had given it with two, and
+eloquently demonstrated how the union between Klaus Heinrich and
+Spoelmann's daughter must seem to the people the fulfilment of the
+oracle, and thus God's will and right and proper.
+
+Herr von Knobelsdorff said a great deal more which was clever, honest,
+and good. He alluded to the fourfold mixture of blood in Imma
+Spoelmann--for besides the Anglo-Saxon, Portuguese and German, some
+drops of ancient Indian blood were said to flow in her veins--and
+emphasized the fact that he expected the dynasty to benefit greatly by
+the quickening effect of the mixture of races on ancient stocks. But the
+artless old gentleman made his greatest effect when he talked about the
+huge and beneficial alterations which would be caused in the economical
+state of the Court itself, our debt-laden and sore-pressed Court,
+through the heir to the throne's bold marriage.
+
+It was at this point that Albrecht sucked most proudly at his upper lip.
+The value of gold was falling, the out-goings were increasing--increasing
+in pursuance of an economic law which held for the Court
+finances just as much as for every private household; and
+there was no possibility of increasing the revenues. But it was not
+right that the monarch's means should be inferior to those of many of
+his subjects; it was from the monarch's point of view intolerable that
+soap-boiler Unschlitt's house should have had central heating a long
+time ago, but that the Old Schloss should not have got it yet. A remedy
+was necessary, in more than one way, and lucky was the princely house to
+which so grand a remedy as this offered itself.
+
+It was noteworthy in our times that all the old-time modesty as to
+busying oneself in the financial concerns of the Court had vanished.
+That self-renunciation with which princely families used formerly to
+make the heaviest sacrifices, so as to keep the public from
+disenchanting glimpses into their financial affairs, was no longer to be
+found, and law-suits and questionable sales were the order of the day.
+But was not an alliance with sovereign riches preferable to this petty
+and bourgeois kind of device--a union which would exalt the monarch for
+ever high above all economic worries and place him in a position to
+reveal himself to the people with all those outward signs for which they
+longed?
+
+So ran Herr von Knobelsdorff's questions, which he himself answered with
+an unqualified Yes! In short, his speech was so clever and so
+irresistible that he did not leave the Old Schloss without taking with
+him consents and authorizations, delivered to him with a proud lisp,
+which were quite comprehensive enough to warrant unprecedented
+conclusions, if only Miss Spoelmann had done her share.
+
+And so things ran their memorable course to a happy conclusion. Even
+before the end of December names were mentioned of people who had seen
+(not only heard tell of) Lord Marshal von Bühl zu Bühl in a fur coat, a
+top-hat on his brown head, and his gold pince-nez on his nose, get out
+of a Court carriage at Delphinenort, at 11 o'clock on a snow-dark
+morning, and disappear waddling into the Schloss. At the beginning of
+January there were individuals going about the town who swore that the
+man who, this time also in the morning and in fur coat and top-hat, had
+passed by the grinning negro in plush, through the door of Delphinenort,
+and, with feverish haste, had flung himself into a cab which was waiting
+for him, was undoubtedly our Finance Minister, Dr. Krippenreuther. And
+at the same time there appeared in the semi-official _Courier_ the first
+preparatory notices of rumours touching an impending betrothal in the
+Grand Ducal House--tentative notifications which, becoming carefully
+clearer and clearer, at last exhibited the two names, Klaus Heinrich and
+Imma Spoelmann, in clear print next each other.... It was no new
+collocation, but to see it in black on white had the same effect as
+strong wine.
+
+It was most absorbing to notice what attitude, in the journalistic
+discussions which ensued, our enlightened and open-minded press took up
+towards the popular aspect of the affair, namely, the prophecy, which
+had won too great political significance not to demand education and
+intelligence to deal satisfactorily with it. Sooth-saying, chiromancy,
+and similar magic, explained the _Courier_, were, so far as the destiny
+of individuals was concerned, to be relegated to the murky regions of
+superstition. They belonged to the grey middle ages, and no ridicule was
+too severe for the idiots who (very rarely in the cities nowadays) let
+experienced pick-pockets empty their purses in return for reading, from
+their hands, the cards, or coffee-grounds, their insignificant fortunes,
+or for invoking sound health, for a homoeopathic cure, or for freeing
+their sick cattle from invading demons--as if the Apostle had not
+already asked: "Doth God take care for oxen?"
+
+But, surveyed as a whole and restricted to decisive turns in the destiny
+of whole nations or dynasties, the proposition did not necessarily repel
+a well-trained and scientific mind, that, as time is only an illusion
+and, truly viewed, all happenings are stationary in eternity, such
+revolutions while still in the lap of the future might give the human
+brain a premonitory shock and reveal themselves palpably to it. And in
+proof of this the zealous newspaper published an exhaustive composition,
+kindly put at its disposal by one of our high-school professors, which
+gave a conspectus of all the cases in the history of mankind in which
+oracle and horoscope, somnambulism, clairvoyance, dreams, sleep-walking,
+second-sight, and inspiration had played a rôle, a most meritorious
+production, which produced the due effect in cultured circles.
+
+So press, Government, Court, and public closed their ranks in complete
+understanding, and assuredly the _Courier_ would have held its tongue
+had its philosophical contributions been premature and politically
+dangerous at that time--in a word, had not the negotiations at
+Delphinenort already advanced far in a favourable direction. It is
+pretty accurately known by now how these negotiations developed, and
+what a difficult, indeed painful, task our Counsel had in them: the
+Counsel, to whom as proxy of the Court the delicate mission had fallen
+of preparing the way for Prince Klaus Heinrich's courtship, as well as
+the Chief Financial Assessor, who, notwithstanding his infirm state of
+health, insisted on nursing his country's interests by a personal
+interview with Samuel Spoelmann.
+
+In this connexion account must be taken firstly of Mr. Spoelmann's fiery
+and excitable disposition, and secondly of the fact that to the
+prodigious little man a favourable termination to the business from our
+point of view seemed far less important than it did to us. Apart from
+Mr. Spoelmann's love for his daughter, who had opened her heart to him
+and told him of her pretty wish to make herself useful in her love, our
+proxies had not one trump to play against him, and he was the last man
+to whom Dr. Krippenreuther could dictate conditions in virtue of what
+Herr von Bühl had to offer. Mr. Spoelmann always spoke of Prince Klaus
+Heinrich as "the young man," and expressed so little pleasure at the
+prospect of giving his daughter to a Royal Highness to wife, that Dr.
+Krippenreuther, as well as Herr von Bühl, were more than once plunged
+into deadly embarrassment.
+
+"If he'd only learnt something, had some respectable business," he
+snarled peevishly. "But a young man who only knows how to get
+cheered ..." He was really furious, the first time a remark was dropped
+about morganatic marriage. His daughter, he declared once for all, was
+no concubine, and would be no left-handed wife. Who marries her, marries
+her.... But the interests of the dynasty and the country coincided at
+this point with his own. The obtaining of issue entitled to succeed was
+a necessity, and Herr von Bühl was equipped with all the powers which
+Herr von Knobelsdorff had succeeded in extracting from the Grand Duke.
+As for Dr. Krippenreuther's mission, however, it owed its success not to
+the envoy's eloquence, but simply to Mr. Spoelmann's paternal affection,
+the complaisance of a suffering, weary father, whose abnormal existence
+had long ago made him a paradox, towards his only daughter and heiress,
+whom he allowed to choose for herself the public funds in which she
+wished to invest her fortune.
+
+And so came into existence the agreements, which were at first shrouded
+in deep secrecy and only came to light bit by bit, as events developed
+themselves, though here they can be summarized in a few plain words.
+
+The betrothal of Klaus Heinrich with Imma Spoelmann was approved and
+recognized by Samuel Spoelmann and by the House of Grimmburg.
+Simultaneously with the publication of the betrothal in the _Gazette_
+appeared the announcement of the elevation of the bride to the rank of
+countess--under a fancy name of romantic sound, like that which Klaus
+Heinrich had borne during his educational tour in the fair southern
+lands; and on the day of their wedding the wife of the heir-presumptive
+was to be given the dignity of a princess. The two rises in rank, which
+might have cost four thousand eight hundred marks, were to be free of
+duty.
+
+The wedding was to be only preliminarily a left-handed one, till the
+world had got used to it: for on the day on which it appeared that the
+bride was to be blessed with offspring, Albrecht II, in view of the
+unparalleled circumstances, would declare his brother's morganatic wife
+to be of equal birth, and would give her the rank of a princess of the
+Grand Ducal House with the title of Royal Highness. The new member of
+the ruling House would waive all claim to an appanage. As for the Court
+ceremony, only a semi-Court was appointed for the celebration of the
+left-handed marriage, but a Processional Court, that highest and
+completest form of showing allegiance, was fixed for the celebration of
+the declaration of equal birth. Samuel Spoelmann, for his part, granted
+the State a loan of three hundred and fifty million marks, and on such
+fatherly conditions that the loan showed all the symptoms of being a
+gift.
+
+It was the Grand Duke Albrecht who acquainted the Heir Presumptive with
+these conclusions. Once more Klaus Heinrich stood in the great, draughty
+study under the battered ceiling-paintings, in front of his brother, as
+once before when Albrecht had delegated to him his representative
+duties, and standing in an official attitude received the great news. He
+had put on the tunic of a major in the Fusiliers of the Guard for this
+audience, while the Grand Duke had lately added to his black frock-coat
+a pair of dark-red wool mittens, which his aunt had made him to protect
+him from the draught through the high windows of the Old Schloss.
+
+When Albrecht had finished, Klaus Heinrich stepped one pace sideways,
+closed his heels with a fresh salute, and said: "I beg, dear Albrecht,
+to offer my heart-felt and respectful thanks, in my own name and that of
+the whole country. For it is you in the long run who make all these
+blessings possible, and the redoubled love of the people will be your
+reward for your magnanimous resolutions."
+
+He pressed his brother's thin, sensitive hand, which he kept close to
+his chest, and extended to him only to the extent of moving his forearm.
+The Grand Duke had thrust forward his short, round underlip, and his
+eyelids were half-closed. He answered softly with a lisp:
+
+"I am the less inclined to entertain illusions about the people's love,
+as I can, as you know, dispense with such questionable love without a
+pang. So question whether I deserve it is scarcely worth notice. When
+it's time to start, I go to the station and give the signal to the
+engine-driver, which is silly rather than dutiful, but it's my duty. But
+you're in a different position. You're a Sunday child. Everything turns
+out trumps for you.... I wish you luck," he said, raising the lids from
+his lonely-looking, blue eyes. And it was clear at this moment that he
+loved Klaus Heinrich. "I wish you happiness, Klaus Heinrich--but not too
+much, and that you may not repose too comfortably in the love of the
+people. I have already said that everything turns out trumps for you.
+The girl of your choice is very strange, very undomesticated, and, most
+important of all, very original. She has a mixture of blood, I've been
+told that Indian blood flows in her veins. That's perhaps a good thing.
+With a wife like that, there's less danger, perhaps, of your having too
+easy a time."
+
+"Neither happiness," said Klaus Heinrich, "nor the people's love will
+have the effect of making me cease to be your brother."
+
+He left to face a difficult interview, a _tête-à-tête_ with Mr.
+Spoelmann, his personal proposal for Imma's hand. He found he had to
+swallow what his negotiators had swallowed, for Samuel Spoelmann showed
+not the smallest pleasure and snarled several refreshing truths at him.
+But it was over at last, and the morning came when the betrothal
+appeared in the _Gazette_. The long tensions resolved into endless
+jubilation. Dignified men waved pocket-handkerchiefs at one another, and
+embraced in the open square: bunting flew from every flag-staff.
+
+But the same day the news reached Schloss "Hermitage," that Raoul
+Ueberbein had committed suicide.
+
+The story was a vile as well as stupid one, and would not be worth
+relating had not its end been so horrible. No attempt will be made here
+to apportion the blame. The Doctor's death gave rise to two opposing
+factions. One affirmed that he had been driven to take his life owing to
+the misgivings which his desperate act had evoked: the others declared
+with a shrug that his conduct was impossible and crazy, and that he had
+shown all his life a total lack of self-control. The point need not be
+decided. At any rate nothing justified so tragic an end; indeed, a man
+with the gifts of Raoul Ueberbein deserved something better than
+ruin.... Here is the story.
+
+At Easter the year before the professor in charge of the top class but
+one at our Grammar School, who suffered from heart-weakness, had been
+temporarily retired on the ground of his illness, and Doctor Ueberbein,
+notwithstanding his comparative youth, had been given the first vacant
+chair simply in view of his professional zeal and his undeniably
+remarkable success in a lower class. It was a happy experiment, as
+events proved; the class had never done so well as this year. The
+professor on leave, a popular man with his colleagues, had become a
+peevish as well as careless and indolent man as the result of his
+infirmity, with which was combined a sociable but immoderate inclination
+for beer. He had shut his eyes to details and had sent up every year an
+extremely badly prepared batch of pupils into the Select. A new spirit
+had come into the class with the temporary professor, and nobody was
+surprised at it. People knew his uncomfortable professional zeal, his
+single-minded and never-resting energy. They foresaw that he would not
+miss such an opportunity for self-advancement, round which he had
+doubtless built ambitious hopes.
+
+So an end had soon been put to laziness and boredom in the second class.
+Dr. Ueberbein had pitched his expectations high, and his skill in
+inspiring even the most recalcitrant had proved irresistible. The boys
+worshipped him. His superior, fatherly, and jolly, swaggering way kept
+them on the alert, shook them up, and made them feel it a point of
+honour to follow their teacher through thick and thin. He won their
+hearts by going for Sunday excursions with them, when they were allowed
+to smoke, while he bewitched their imaginations by boyishly conceived
+rodomontades about the greatness and severity of public life. And on
+Monday the members of yesterday's expedition would meet for work in a
+cheerful and eager frame of mind.
+
+Three-quarters of the school year had thus passed, when the news went
+round, before Christmas, that the professor on leave, now fairly strong
+again, would resume his duties after the holidays, and would again act
+as professor of the second class. And now it came out what sort of man
+Doctor Ueberbein was, with his green complexion and superior manner. He
+objected and remonstrated; he lodged a vigorous and, in form, not
+incontestable protest against the class with which he had spent
+three-quarters of the year, and whose work and recreation he had shared
+up to the very mouth of the goal, being taken from its professor for the
+last quarter and restored to the official who had spent three-quarters
+of the year on leave. His action was intelligible and comprehensible,
+and one must sympathize with it. He had undoubtedly hoped to send up a
+model class to the head master, who taught the Select, a class whose
+forwardness would put his skill in the best light and would hasten his
+promotion; and it must grieve him to look forward to another's reaping
+the fruits of his devotion. But though his disgust might be excusable,
+his frenzy was not: and it is an unfortunate fact that, when the head
+master proved deaf to his representations, he became simply frenzied. He
+lost his head, he lost all balance, he set heaven and hell to work to
+prevent this loafer, this alcohol-heart, this blankety-blank, as he did
+not hesitate to describe the professor on leave, from taking his class
+from him. And when he found no support among his colleagues, as was
+natural in the case of so unsociable a man, the poor wretch had so far
+forgotten himself as to incite the pupils entrusted to him to rebel.
+
+He had put the question to them from his desk--Whom do you want for your
+master for the last quarter, me or that other fellow? And, wound up by
+his stirring appeal, they had shouted that they wanted him. Then, he
+said, they must take matters into their own hands, show their colours,
+and act as one boy--though goodness knows what in his excitement he
+meant by that. But when after the holidays the returned professor
+entered the class-room, they screamed Doctor Ueberbein's name at him for
+minutes on end--and there was a fine scandal.
+
+It was kept as quiet as possible. The revolutionaries got off almost
+unpunished, as Doctor Ueberbein himself put on record, at the inquiry
+which was at once initiated, his appeal to them. As to the Doctor
+himself, too, the authorities seemed generally inclined to close their
+eyes to what had happened. His zeal and skill were highly valued,
+certain learned works, the fruits of his mighty industry, had made his
+name known, he was popular in high quarters--quarters, be it noticed,
+with which he personally did not come into contact, and which therefore
+he could not incense by his patronizing bearing. Further, his record as
+tutor of Prince Klaus Heinrich weighed in the scales. In short, he was
+not simply dismissed, as one might have expected him to be. The
+President of the Grand Ducal Council of Education, before whom the
+matter came, administered a grave reprimand to him, and Doctor
+Ueberbein, who had stopped teaching directly after the scandal, was
+provisionally retired. But people who knew declared later that nothing
+was intended beyond the professor's transfer to another grammar school;
+that in high quarters the only wish was to hush up the whole business,
+and that the promise of a brilliant future had been actually extended to
+the Doctor. Everything would have turned out all right.
+
+But the milder the authorities showed themselves towards the Doctor, the
+more hostile was the attitude of his colleagues towards him. The
+"Teachers' Union" at once established a court of honour, whose object
+was to secure satisfaction for their beloved member, the alcohol-hearted
+professor rejected of his pupils. The written statement laid before
+Ueberbein in his retirement in his lodgings ran as follows: Whereas
+Ueberbein had resisted the return of the colleague for whom he acted to
+the professorship of the second class; whereas further he had agitated
+against him and in the end had actually incited the pupils to
+insubordination against him, he had been guilty of disloyal conduct to
+his colleague of such a kind as must be considered dishonourable not
+only in a professional, but also in a general sense. That was the
+verdict. The expected result was that Doctor Ueberbein, who had only
+been a nominal member of the "Teachers' Union," withdrew his
+membership--and there, so many thought, he might well have let the
+matter rest.
+
+But whether it was that in his seclusion he did not know the goodwill he
+inspired in higher quarters; that he thought his prospects more hopeless
+than they were; that he could not stand idleness, unreconciled as he was
+to the premature loss of his beloved class; that the expression
+"dishonourable" poisoned his blood, or that his mind was not strong
+enough to stand all the shocks it received at this time: five weeks
+after the New Year his landlady found him on the thread-bare carpet of
+his room, no greener than usual, but with a bullet through his heart.
+
+Such was the end of Raoul Ueberbein, such his false step, such the cause
+of his fall. "I told you so," was the burden of all the discussions of
+his pitiful break-down. The quarrelsome and uncongenial man, who had
+never been a man amongst men at his club, who had haughtily resisted
+familiarity, and had ordered his life cold-bloodedly with a view to
+results alone, and had supposed that that gave him the right to
+patronize the whole world--there he lay now: the first hitch, the first
+obstacle in the field of accomplishment, had brought him to a miserable
+end. Few of the bourgeois regretted, none of them mourned him--with one
+single exception, the chief surgeon at the Dorothea Hospital,
+Ueberbein's congenial friend, and perhaps a fair lady with whom he used
+once to play Casino. But Klaus Heinrich always cherished an honourable
+and cordial memory of his ill-fated tutor.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+THE ROSE-BUSH
+
+
+And Spoelmann financed the state. The outlines of the transaction were
+bold and clear; a child could have understood them--and as a fact
+beaming fathers explained it to their children, as they dangled them on
+their knees.
+
+Samuel Spoelmann nodded, Messrs. Phlebs and Slippers got to work, and
+his mighty orders flashed under the waves of the Atlantic to the
+Continent of the Western Hemisphere. He withdrew a third of his share
+from the Sugar trust, a quarter from the Petroleum trust, and half from
+the Steel trust; he had his floating capital paid in to accounts in his
+name in several banks over here; and he bought from Herr Krippenreuther
+at par 350,000,000 new 3½ per cent. consols at one stroke. That is what
+Spoelmann did.
+
+He who knows by experience the influence of the state of mind on the
+human organs will believe that Dr. Krippenreuther cheered up and in a
+short time was unrecognizable. He carried himself upright and free, his
+walk was springy, the yellow look faded from his face, which became red
+and white, his eyes flashed, and his stomach regained its powers in a
+few months to such an extent that his friends were delighted to observe
+that the Minister could give himself up to the enjoyment of blue cabbage
+and gherkin salad with impunity. That was one pleasant though purely
+personal result of Spoelmann's interference in our finances, which was
+of but slight account in comparison with the effects which that
+interference had on our public and economic life.
+
+A part of the loan was devoted to the sinking fund, and troublesome
+public debts were paid off. But this was scarcely needed to secure us
+breathing space and credit on every side; for no sooner was it known,
+for all the secrecy with which the matter was treated officially, that
+Samuel Spoelmann had become the State banker, in fact if not in name,
+than the skies cleared up above us and all our need was changed into joy
+and rapture. There was an end to the scare-selling of active debts, the
+customary rate of interest dropped, our written promises were eagerly
+sought after as investments, and each twenty-four hours saw a rise in
+the quotation of our high-interest loan from a deplorably low figure up
+to above par. The pressure, the nightmare which for decades had weighed
+down our national finances, was removed; Doctor Krippenreuther puffed
+out his chest and spoke in the Landtag in favour of all-round reduction
+in taxation. This was adopted unanimously, and the antediluvian meat tax
+was finally buried amid the rejoicings of all those who cared for their
+fellow-men.
+
+A distinct improvement in the pay of the Civil Service, and in the
+salaries of teachers, clergymen, and all State functionaries was readily
+voted. Means were now available for restarting the closed-down
+silver-mines; several hundred workmen were given work, and productive
+veins were unexpectedly struck. Money, money was forthcoming, the
+standard of economic morality rose; the forests were replanted, the
+litter was left in the woods, the stock-owners no longer were compelled
+to sell their milk, they drank it themselves, and the critics would have
+sought in vain for ill-nourished peasants in the fields. The nation
+showed gratitude towards their rulers, who had brought so boundless a
+blessing to land and people.
+
+Herr von Knobelsdorff needed but few words to induce Parliament to
+increase the Crown subsidy. The orders for the putting up for sale of
+the Schlosses "Pastime" and "Favourite" were cancelled. Skilled workmen
+invaded the Old Schloss, to instal central heating from top to bottom.
+Our agents in the negotiations with Spoelmann, von Bühl and Dr.
+Krippenreuther, received the Grand Cross of the Albrechts Order in
+brilliants; the Finance Minister was also ennobled, and Herr von
+Knobelsdorff was made happy with a life-size portrait of the exalted
+couple--painted by the skilful hand of old Professor von Lindemann and
+exquisitely framed.
+
+After the betrothal the people gave rein to their fancy in calculating
+the dowry which Imma Spoelmann was to receive from her father. It made
+them giddy; they were possessed by a mad desire to scatter figures of
+truly astronomical dimensions about. But the dowry did not exceed an
+earthly figure, comfortably big though it was. It amounted to a hundred
+million.
+
+"Gracious!" said Ditlinde zu Ried-Hohenried, when she first heard it.
+"And my dear Philipp with his peat." Many another had the same thought;
+but Spoelmann's daughter allayed the nervous anger which might arise in
+simple hearts in face of such monstrous wealth, for she did not forget
+to do good and share her good fortune, and on the very day of the public
+betrothal she gave a sum of 500,000 marks, the yearly interest on which
+was to be divided among the four county councils for charitable and
+generally useful purposes.
+
+Klaus Heinrich and Imma drove in one of Spoelmann's olive-coloured,
+red-cushioned motors on a round of visits to the members of the House of
+Grimmburg. A young chauffeur drove the sumptuous car--the one in which
+Imma had found a likeness to Klaus Heinrich. But his nervous tension was
+but small on this trip, for he had to restrain the motor's giant
+strength so far as possible and go slowly--so closely were they
+surrounded by admiring crowds; for as the more remote authors of our
+happiness, Grand Duke Albrecht and Samuel Spoelmann, each in his own
+fashion, concealed themselves from the crowd, the latter heaped all its
+love and gratitude on the heads of the exalted couple. Boys could be
+seen through the plate glass of the motor throwing their caps in the
+air, the shouts of men and women came surging in, clear and shrill, and
+Klaus Heinrich, his hand to his helmet, said admonishingly: "You must
+respond too, Imma, to your side, otherwise they'll think you cold."
+
+They drove to Princess Katharine's, and were received with dignity. In
+the time of Grand Duke Johann Albrecht, her brother, said the aunt to
+her nephew, it would never have been allowed. But the times moved fast,
+and she prayed Heaven that his betrothed would accustom herself to the
+Court. They proceeded to Princess zu Ried-Hohenried's, and there it was
+love she met with. Ditlinde's Grimmburg pride found comfort in the
+assurance that Leviathan's daughter might become Princess of the Grand
+Ducal House and Royal Highness, but could never be Grand Ducal Princess
+like herself; for the rest, she was overjoyed that Klaus Heinrich had
+rummaged out for himself anything so sweet and precious. As the wife of
+Philipp with his peat, she had the best reasons for knowing how to value
+the advantages of the match, and cordially welcomed her sister-in-law to
+her arms.
+
+They drove too to Prince Lambert's villa, and while the Countess-bride
+struggled to keep up a conversation with the dazzling but very
+uneducated Baroness von Rohrdorf, the old petticoat-hunter congratulated
+his nephew in his sepulchral voice on the unprejudiced choice he had
+made, and on so boldly snapping his fingers at Court and Highness. "I am
+not snapping my fingers at my Highness, uncle; not only have I had an
+eye to my own happiness in no inconsiderable measure, but I have acted
+throughout with the Mass, the Whole, in view," said Klaus Heinrich
+rather rudely; whereupon they broke off, and drove to Schloss
+"Segenhaus," where Dorothea, the poor Dowager, held her dreary Court.
+She cried as she kissed the young bride on the forehead, without knowing
+why she did so.
+
+Meanwhile Samuel Spoelmann sat at Delphinenort surrounded with plans and
+sketches of furniture and silk carpet-patterns, and drawings of gold
+plate. He left his organ untouched, and forgot the stone in his kidney,
+and got quite red cheeks from merely having so much to do; for however
+small the opinion he had formed of "the young man," or the hope he held
+out of his ever being seen at Court, yet his daughter was going to be
+married, and he wanted the arrangements to be worthy of his means. The
+plans had to do with the new Schloss "Hermitage," for Klaus Heinrich's
+bachelor quarters were to be razed to the ground, and a new Schloss
+built on its site, roomy and bright and decorated, by Klaus Heinrich's
+wish, in a mixture of Empire and modern styles, combining cool severity
+with homely comfort. Mr. Spoelmann appeared one morning in person, after
+drinking the waters in the spa-garden, in his faded great-coat at the
+"Hermitage," in order to find out whether this or that piece of
+furniture could be used for the new Schloss. "Let's see, young Prince,
+what you've got," he snarled, and Klaus Heinrich showed him everything
+in his sober room--the thin sofas, the stiff-legged tables, the
+white-enamelled tables in the corners.
+
+"Gimcrack," said Mr. Spoelmann, "no use for anything." Three arm-chairs
+only in the little yellow room, of heavy mahogany, with snail-shaped
+convolute arms and the yellow covers embroidered with blue lyres, found
+favour in his eyes.
+
+"We can put those in an ante-room," he said, and Klaus Heinrich was
+relieved that these arm-chairs should be contributed to the furnishing
+by the Grimmburg side; for of course it would have been rather painful
+to him if Mr. Spoelmann had had to find every single thing.
+
+But the ragged park and flower-garden at the "Hermitage" had to be
+cleared and restocked; the flower-garden in particular was honoured with
+a special ornament which Klaus Heinrich had asked his brother to give
+him as a wedding-present. For it was arranged that the rose-bush from
+the Old Schloss should be transplanted to the big middle bed in front of
+the approach; and then, no longer surrounded by mouldy walls, but in the
+air and sunshine and the stiffest clay obtainable, it should be seen
+what sort of roses it could bear in future--and give the lie to the
+popular report, if it were obstinate and arrogant enough.
+
+And when March and April had passed, May came, bringing the great event
+of Klaus Heinrich's and Imma's marriage. It was a glorious day, with
+golden clouds in the sky, and its dawn was greeted by a choir from the
+town-hall tower. The people streamed in on foot and in carts, that fair,
+thick-set, healthy, reliable stock with blue, meditative eyes and broad,
+high cheek-bones, dressed in the handsome national dress--the men in red
+jackets, top-boots, and broad-brimmed black-velvet hats, the women in
+brightly embroidered bodices, thick, wide skirts, and big black veils as
+a head-dress. They joined the throng of town-folk in the streets between
+the Spa-Garden and the Old Schloss, which had been transformed into a
+processional route with garlands and wreathed stands and white-enamelled
+poles covered with flowers.
+
+Banners of the Trades Unions, rifle-corps, and gymnastic associations
+began early in the morning to be carried through the streets. The fire
+brigade turned out in gleaming helmets. The officers of the Corps of
+Students drove round in open landaus in full state with banners flying.
+Maids of Honour in white, with rose-twined staves, stood about in
+groups. The offices and factories were deserted, the schools closed,
+festival services were held in the churches. And the morning editions of
+the _Courier_ and _Gazette_ contained, in addition to cordial leading
+articles, the announcement of a comprehensive amnesty, in pursuance of
+which cancellation or remission of sentence was granted to several
+prisoners by the grace of the Grand Duke. Even the murderer Gudebus, who
+had been condemned to death, and then to penal servitude for life, was
+released on ticket of leave. But he soon had to be put back into prison
+again.
+
+Two o'clock was the hour fixed for the City Council's luncheon in the
+hall of the Museum, with an orchestra and telegrams of respectful
+congratulations. But the public made merry outside the gates, with fried
+chips and currant-loaf, a fair, lucky-booths and shooting galleries,
+sack-races, and men's climbing competitions for treacle cakes. And then
+came the moment when Imma Spoelmann drove from Delphinenort to the Old
+Schloss. She did so in processional pomp.
+
+The banners fluttered in the spring breeze, the thick garlands,
+interwoven with red roses, stretched from one pole to another, the crowd
+was packed in a black mass on the balconies, roofs, and steps; and
+between the fences of rifle-corps and firemen, guilds, unions, students,
+and school-children, the bridal procession advanced slowly amid
+tumultuous uproar along the sand-strewn road. Two out-riders in laced
+hats and shoulder-knots, preceded by a moustachioed equerry in a
+three-cornered hat, came first. Then came a four-horsed carriage, in
+which the Grand Ducal Commissary, an official of the Board of Green
+Cloth, who had been deputed to fetch the bride, rode with a chamberlain.
+Next a second four-horsed carriage, in which sat the Countess Löwenjoul,
+looking askance at the two maids of honour in the carriage with her,
+whose morals she mistrusted. Then came ten postilions on horseback, in
+yellow breeches and blue coats, who played: "We wind for thee the
+maiden's wreath." Then twelve girls in white, who strewed roses and
+sprigs of arbor vitæ on the road.
+
+And lastly, followed by fifty master-mechanics on powerful horses, the
+six-horsed transparent bridal coach. The red-faced coachman in the laced
+hat proudly extended his gaitered legs on the high white-velvet box,
+holding the reins with arms similarly extended; grooms in top-boots
+walked at the head of each pair of horses, and two lackeys stood behind
+the creaking carriage in great state, showing in their impenetrable
+faces no signs that plotting and underhand dealing were part of their
+daily life. Behind the glass and gilded window-frames sat Imma Spoelmann
+in veil and wreath, with an old Court lady as lady of honour at her
+side. Her dress of shimmering silk glittered like snow in the sunshine,
+and on her lap she held the white bouquet which Prince Klaus Heinrich
+had sent her an hour before. Her strangely childlike face was as pale as
+an ocean-pearl, and a smooth wisp of dark hair fell across her forehead
+under the veil, while her big black eyes threw glances of pleading
+eloquence over the close-packed throng. And what was that din, that
+barking close by the coach-door? It was Percival, the collie, more
+beside himself than anyone had ever seen him. The confusion and the slow
+pace at which the procession went excited him beyond measure, robbed him
+of all self-restraint, and convulsed him almost beyond bearance. He
+raged, he danced, he leaped, he circled blindly round and round in the
+intoxication of his nerves, and the shouts redoubled in the balconies
+and street and on the roofs on both sides as the people recognized him.
+
+That is how Imma Spoelmann drove to the Old Schloss, and the boom and
+buzz of the bells mingled with the cheers of the people and Percival's
+mad bark. The procession crossed the Albrechtsplatz at a walk and went
+through the Albrechtstor. In the Courtyard of the Schloss the mounted
+corps of the guilds rode to one side, and took up their position as a
+guard of honour, and in the corridor, in front of the weather-beaten
+front door, Grand Duke Albrecht, dressed as a Colonel of Hussars,
+received the bride with his brother and the rest of his House, offered
+her his arm and conducted her up the grey stone steps into the
+state-rooms, at whose doors guards of honour were posted and in which
+the Court was assembled. The princesses of the House stayed in the Hall
+of the Knights, and it was there that Herr von Knobelsdorff, surrounded
+by the Grand Ducal family, executed the civil marriage. Never, it was
+said later, had the wrinkles played round his eyes more lively than
+whilst he joined Klaus Heinrich and Imma Spoelmann in civil wedlock.
+When this was over, Albrecht II commanded that the church festivities
+should begin.
+
+Herr von Bühl zu Bühl had done his best to get together an imposing
+procession--the bridal procession, which passed up Heinrich the
+Luxurious's staircase and along a covered way into the Court Chapel.
+Stooping under the weight of years, yet in a brown toupée and with a
+youthful waddle, he marched, covered with orders down to his waist and
+planting his long staff in front of him, in front of the chamberlains,
+who walked along in silk stockings with their feather hats under their
+arms and a key embroidered on their coat-tails. The young pair drew
+near; the foreign-looking bride in a shimmer of white and Klaus
+Heinrich, the Heir Presumptive, in a Grenadier uniform with the yellow
+ribbon across his chest and back. Four maidens belonging to the nobility
+of the land, with demure looks, carried Imma Spoelmann's train,
+accompanied by Countess Löwenjoul, who looked suspiciously out of the
+corners of her eyes. Behind the bridegroom walked Herr von
+Schulenburg-Tressen and Herr von Braunbart-Schellendorf. The Master of
+the Royal Hunt, von Stieglitz, and the ballet-loving Grand Duke walked
+in front of the young monarch, who sucked quietly at his upper lip. At
+his side came Aunt Catherine, followed by the Minister of the Household,
+von Knobelsdorff, the Adjutant, the princely zu Ried-Hohenried couple,
+and the remaining members of the House. The rear of the procession was
+brought up by more chamberlains.
+
+Inside the Court Chapel, which was decorated with plants and draperies,
+the invited guests had awaited the procession. There were diplomats with
+their wives, the Court and county nobility, the corps of officers in the
+capital, the Ministers, amongst them the beaming face of Herr von
+Krippenreuther, the Knights of the Grand Order of the Grimmburg Griffin,
+the Presidents of the Landtag, and all sorts of dignitaries. And as the
+Lord Marshal had ordered invitations to be sent to every class of
+society, the seats were filled with tradesmen, countrymen, and simple
+artisans with hearts attuned to the event. In front of the altar the
+relations of the bridegroom took their places in a semicircle in
+red-velvet arm-chairs. The voices of the choir rang pure and sweet under
+the vaulted ceiling, and then the whole congregation sang a hymn of
+thanksgiving with full organ accompaniment. When it died away, the
+musical voice of the President of the High Consistory, Dom Wislezenus,
+was heard, as with his silver hair, and a convex star on his silk gown,
+he stood before the exalted pair and preached an eloquent sermon. He
+built it on a theme, to borrow a musical expression. And the theme was
+the passage from the Psalms which runs: "He shall live, and unto him
+shall be given of the gold of Arabia." There was not a dry eye left in
+the chapel.
+
+Then Dom Wislezenus completed the marriage, and at the moment when the
+bridal pair exchanged rings, fanfares of trumpets blared forth, and a
+salvo of three times twelve guns began to roll over city and
+country-side, fired by the soldiers on the wall of the "Citadel."
+Directly afterwards the fire brigade let off the town guns by way of
+salute; but long pauses occurred between each detonation, giving rise to
+inexhaustible laughter among the people.
+
+After the blessing had been pronounced, the procession re-formed and
+returned to the Hall of the Knights, where the House of Grimmburg
+congratulated the newly married pair. Then came the Court, and Klaus
+Heinrich and Imma Spoelmann walked arm-in-arm through the Gala Rooms,
+where the Court was drawn up, and spoke to various members of the
+company, smiling across an interval of shining parquet; and Imma pouted
+and wagged her head as she spoke to anyone who curtsied low and answered
+deferentially. After the Court there was a State supper in the Marble
+Hall, and a Marshal's supper in that of the Twelve Months, and
+everything was of the best that money could buy, out of regard to what
+Klaus Heinrich's wife had been accustomed to. Even Percival, now
+restored to his senses, was among the guests, and was given some roast
+meat. After supper the students and the populace had arranged in honour
+of the young couple a demonstration with serenades and a torchlight
+procession on the Albrechtsplatz. The square outside was a blaze of
+light, and resounded with shouts.
+
+Lackeys drew aside the curtains from one of the windows in the Silver
+Hall, and Klaus Heinrich and Imma advanced to the open window. They
+threw it open, and stood in the opening just as they were, for outside
+it was a warm spring night. Next them, in a dignified attitude and
+looking most imposing, sat Percival, the collie, and looked down like
+his mistress.
+
+Several of the town bands played in the illuminated square, which was
+packed tight with human beings, and the upturned faces of the people
+were lighted to a smoky dark red by the students' torches as they
+marched past the Schloss. Cheers broke forth when the newly married
+couple appeared at the window. They bowed their thanks, and then stayed
+there awhile, looking and letting themselves be looked at. The people,
+looking up, could see their lips moving in conversation. This is what
+they said:
+
+"Listen, Imma, how thankful they are that we have not forgotten their
+need and affliction. What crowds there are, standing there and shouting
+up to us! Of course many of them are scoundrels, and take each other in,
+and sadly need to be elevated above the work-day and its reality. But
+they are really grateful when one shows oneself conscious of their need
+and affliction."
+
+"But we are so stupid and so lonely, Prince--on the peaks of humanity,
+as Doctor Ueberbein used always to say--and we know absolutely nothing
+of life."
+
+"Nothing, little Imma? What was it, then, which at last gave you
+confidence in me, and brought us to study so practically the public
+weal? Knows he nothing of life who knows of love? That shall be our
+business in future: Highness and Love--an austere happiness."
+
+
+
+
+  [ Transcriber's Note:
+
+    The following is a list of corrections made to the original.
+    The first line is the original line, the second the corrected one.
+
+  The Swiss governess was the widow of a Calvanistic minister and was in
+  The Swiss governess was the widow of a Calvinistic minister and was in
+
+  The opportunity came. While the Swiss governness was absent on leave to
+  The opportunity came. While the Swiss governess was absent on leave to
+
+  where it's too dusty, for this dress shows everything.
+  where it's too dusty, for this dress shows everything."
+
+  compared with Trümmerhauff. Trümmerhauf had the nobility of a wild
+  compared with Trümmerhauff. Trümmerhauff had the nobility of a wild
+
+  rather broad, he had cheek bones like the men in the street, and he
+  rather broad, he had cheek-bones like the men in the street, and he
+
+  annouce that their Royal Highnesses were now going. He had been charged
+  announce that their Royal Highnesses were now going. He had been charged
+
+  exploratory operation, whch was conducted by the Director of the
+  exploratory operation, which was conducted by the Director of the
+
+  Lastly, Princess Ditlande had married at the age of twenty, one year
+  Lastly, Princess Ditlinde had married at the age of twenty, one year
+
+  Albrecht bowed his thanks with eyes downcast and underlip protuded.
+  Albrecht bowed his thanks with eyes downcast and underlip protruded.
+
+  Jettchen, as provisional lodgings."
+  Jettchen, "as provisional lodgings."
+
+  architect from the captital had been entrusted with the building. But
+  architect from the capital had been entrusted with the building. But
+
+  suite" in the "Spa Court" Hotel was by no means dazzingly magnificent.
+  suite" in the "Spa Court" Hotel was by no means dazzlingly magnificent.
+
+  temperature-and weight-charts--tended by nurses in white caps, and
+  temperature- and weight-charts--tended by nurses in white caps, and
+
+  his tail, At the same moment the butler began to run, as fast as his
+  his tail. At the same moment the butler began to run, as fast as his
+
+  upon me, Prince." And she suddenly sat Fatma off at a gallop and flew at
+  upon me, Prince." And she suddenly set Fatma off at a gallop and flew at
+
+  Spoelman took stock of the prosaic country-house which rejoiced in the
+  Spoelmann took stock of the prosaic country-house which rejoiced in the
+
+  "Yes, though unfortunately not from you. But Jettchen Isenschnibble has
+  "Yes, though unfortunately not from you. But Jettchen Isenschnibbe has
+
+  had withdrawn and Princes Griseldis had opened the cotillon with a
+  had withdrawn and Princess Griseldis had opened the cotillon with a
+
+  ]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Royal Highness, by Thomas Mann
+
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Royal Highness, by Thomas Mann
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Royal Highness
+
+Author: Thomas Mann
+
+Translator: A. Cecil Curtis
+
+Release Date: May 3, 2011 [EBook #36028]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROYAL HIGHNESS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Jana Srna and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<div id="tnote">
+<p class="center"><b>Transcriber's Notes:</b></p>
+
+<p class="no-indent">Every effort has been made to replicate this text
+as faithfully as possible, including inconsistencies in spelling,
+hyphenation, and ellipsis usage.</p>
+
+<p>Some corrections of spelling and punctuation have been made.
+<span class="screen">They are marked <ins title="transcriber's note">like
+this</ins> in the text. The original text appears when hovering the cursor
+over the marked text.</span> A <a href="#tn-bottom">list of amendments</a> is
+at the end of the text.</p>
+</div>
+
+<h1>ROYAL HIGHNESS</h1>
+
+<p class="center" style="margin: 2em auto 4em auto;"><i>Translated from the German of</i><br/>
+<big>THOMAS MANN</big><br/>
+<i>by</i> <span class="small-caps">A. Cecil Curtis</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP<br/>
+<i>Publishers<br/>
+by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf</i></p>
+<p class="center page-break">COPYRIGHT, 1909, S. FISCHER, VERLAG</p>
+
+<p class="center" style="margin-top: 6em;">MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</p>
+
+<h2><a class="pagenum" name="Page_v" title="v"> </a>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<table id="contents" summary="Contents">
+<tr>
+	<td class="small-caps">Prelude</td>
+	<td class="right"><a href="#Page_vii">vii</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+	<td class="chapter" colspan="2">CHAPTER I</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+	<td class="small-caps">The Constriction</td>
+	<td class="right"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+	<td class="chapter" colspan="2">CHAPTER II</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+	<td class="small-caps">The Country</td>
+	<td class="right"><a href="#Page_25">25</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+	<td class="chapter" colspan="2">CHAPTER III</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+	<td class="small-caps">Hinnerke the Shoemaker</td>
+	<td class="right"><a href="#Page_37">37</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+	<td class="chapter" colspan="2">CHAPTER IV</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+	<td class="small-caps">Doctor Ueberbein</td>
+	<td class="right"><a href="#Page_64">64</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+	<td class="chapter" colspan="2">CHAPTER V</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+	<td class="small-caps">Albrecht&nbsp;II</td>
+	<td class="right"><a href="#Page_110">110</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+	<td class="chapter" colspan="2">CHAPTER VI</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+	<td class="small-caps">The Lofty Calling</td>
+	<td class="right"><a href="#Page_146">146</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+	<td class="chapter" colspan="2">CHAPTER VII</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+	<td class="small-caps">Imma</td>
+	<td class="right"><a href="#Page_168">168</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+	<td class="chapter" colspan="2">CHAPTER VIII</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+	<td class="small-caps">The Fulfilment</td>
+	<td class="right"><a href="#Page_265">265</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+	<td class="chapter" colspan="2">CHAPTER IX</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+	<td class="small-caps">The Rose-Bush</td>
+	<td class="right"><a href="#Page_328">328</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<h2><a class="pagenum" name="Page_vii" title="vii"> </a>PRELUDE</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">The</span> scene is the Albrechtstrasse, the main artery of the
+capital, which runs from Albrechtsplatz and the Old Schloss
+to the barracks of the Fusiliers of the Guard. The time is
+noon on an ordinary week-day; the season of the year does
+not matter. The weather is fair to moderate. It is not
+raining, but the sky is not clear; it is a uniform light grey,
+uninteresting and sombre, and the street lies in a dull and
+sober light which robs it of all mystery, all individuality.
+There is a moderate amount of traffic, without much noise
+and crowd, corresponding to the not over-busy character
+of the town. Tram-cars glide past, a cab or two rolls by,
+along the pavement stroll a few residents, colourless folk,
+passers-by, the public&mdash;&ldquo;people.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Two officers, their hands in the slanting pockets of their
+grey great-coats, approach each other; a general and a
+lieutenant. The general is coming from the Schloss, the
+lieutenant from the direction of the barracks. The lieutenant
+is quite young, a mere stripling, little more than a
+child. He has narrow shoulders, dark hair, and the wide
+cheek-bones so common in this part of the world, blue
+rather tired-looking eyes, and a boyish face with a kind but
+reserved expression. The general has snow-white hair, is
+tall and broad-shouldered, altogether a commanding figure.
+His eyebrows look like cotton-wool, and his moustache hangs
+right down over his mouth and chin. He walks with slow
+deliberation, his sword rattles on the asphalt, his plume flutters
+in the wind, and at every step he takes the big red
+lapel of his coat flaps slowly up and down.</p>
+
+<p>And so these two draw near each other. Can this rencontre
+lead to any complication? Impossible. Every
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_viii" title="viii"> </a>
+observer can foresee the course this meeting will naturally
+take. We have on one side and the other age and youth,
+authority and obedience, years of services and docile apprenticeship&mdash;a
+mighty hierarchical gulf, rules and prescriptions,
+separate the two. Natural organization, take thy
+course! And, instead, what happens? Instead, the following
+surprising, painful, delightful, and topsy-turvy scene occurs.</p>
+
+<p>The general, noticing the young lieutenant's approach, alters
+his bearing in a surprising manner. He draws himself up,
+yet at the same time seems to get smaller. He tones down
+with a jerk, so to speak, the splendour of his appearance,
+stops the clatter of his sword, and, while his face assumes
+a cross and embarrassed expression, he obviously cannot
+make up his mind where to turn his eyes, and tries to conceal
+the fact by staring from under his cotton-wool eyebrows
+at the asphalt straight in front of him.</p>
+
+<p>The young lieutenant too betrays to the careful observer
+some slight embarrassment, which however, strange to say,
+he seems to succeed, better than the grey-haired general,
+in cloaking with a certain grace and self-command. The
+tension of his mouth is relaxed into a smile at once modest
+and genial, and his eyes are directed with a quiet and self-possessed
+calm, seemingly without an effort, over the general's
+shoulder and beyond.</p>
+
+<p>By now they have come within three paces of each other.
+And, instead of the prescribed salute, the young lieutenant
+throws his head slightly back, at the same time draws his
+right hand&mdash;only his right, mark you&mdash;out of his coat-pocket
+and makes with this same white-gloved right hand
+a little encouraging and condescending movement, just opening
+the fingers with palm upwards, nothing more. But the
+general, who has awaited this sign with his arms to his
+sides, raises his hand to his helmet, steps aside, bows, making
+a half-circle as if to leave the pavement free, and
+deferentially greets the lieutenant with reddening cheeks and
+honest modest eyes. Thereupon the lieutenant, his hand to
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_ix" title="ix"> </a>
+his cap, answers the respectful greeting of his superior officer&mdash;answers
+it with a look of child-like friendliness;
+answers it&mdash;and goes on his way.</p>
+
+<p>A miracle! A freak of fancy! He goes on his way.
+People look at him, but he looks at nobody, looks straight
+ahead through the crowd, with something of the air of a
+woman who knows that she is being looked at. People greet
+him; he returns the greeting, heartily and yet distantly.
+He seems not to walk very easily; it looks as if he were not
+much accustomed to the use of his legs, or as if the general
+attention he excites bothers him, so irregular and hesitating
+is his gait; indeed, at times he seems to limp. A policeman
+springs to attention, a smart woman, coming out of a shop,
+smiles and curtseys. People turn round to look at him,
+nudge each other, stare at him, and softly whisper his
+name&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>It is Klaus Heinrich, the younger brother of Albrecht&nbsp;II,
+and heir presumptive to the throne. There he goes, he is
+still in view. Known and yet a stranger, he moves among
+the crowd&mdash;people all around him, and yet as if alone. He
+goes on his lonely way and carries on his narrow shoulders
+the burden of his Highness!</p>
+
+<h2><a class="pagenum" name="Page_1" title="1"> </a>I<br/>
+<small>THE CONSTRICTION</small></h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">Artillery</span> salvos were fired when the various new-fangled
+means of communication in the capital spread the news that
+the Grand Duchess Dorothea had given birth to a prince for
+the second time at Grimmburg. Seventy-two rounds resounded
+through the town and surrounding country, fired by the military
+in the walls of the &ldquo;Citadel.&rdquo; Directly afterwards the
+fire brigade also, not to be outdone, fired with the town salute-guns;
+but in their firing there were long pauses between each
+round, which caused much merriment among the populace.</p>
+
+<p>The Grimmburg looked down from the top of a woody hill
+on the picturesque little town of the same name, which mirrored
+its grey sloping roofs in the river which flowed past
+it. It could be reached from the capital in half an hour by
+a local railway which paid no dividends. There the castle
+stood, the proud creation of the Margrave Klaus Grimmbart,
+the founder of the reigning house in the dim mists of history,
+since then several times rejuvenated and repaired, fitted with
+the comforts of the changing times, always kept in a habitable
+state and held in peculiar honour as the ancestral seat of the
+ruling house, the cradle of the dynasty. For it was a rule
+and tradition of the house that all direct descendants of the
+Margrave, every child of the reigning couple, must be born
+there.</p>
+
+<p>This tradition could not be ignored. The country had had
+sophisticated and unbelieving sovereigns, who had laughed
+at it, and yet had complied with it with a shrug of the shoulders.
+It was now much too late to break away from it
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_2" title="2"> </a>
+whether it was reasonable and enlightened or not: why, without
+any particular necessity, break with an honoured custom,
+which had managed somehow to perpetuate itself? The people
+were convinced that there was something in it. Twice in
+the course of fifteen generations had children of reigning
+sovereigns, owing to some chance or other, first seen the light
+in other schlosses: each had come to an unnatural and disgraceful
+end. But all the sovereigns of the land and their
+brothers and sisters, from Henry the Confessor and John the
+Headstrong, with their lovely and proud sisters, down to
+Albrecht, the father of the Grand Duke, and the Grand Duke
+himself, Johann Albrecht&nbsp;III, had been brought into the world
+in the castle; and there, six years before, Dorothea had given
+birth to her firstborn, the Heir Apparent.</p>
+
+<p>The castle was also a retreat as dignified as it was peaceful.
+The coolness of its rooms, the shady charms of its surroundings,
+made it preferable as a summer residence to the stiff
+Hollerbrunn. The ascent from the town, up a rather badly
+paved street between shabby cottages and a scrubby wall,
+through massive gates to the ancient ruin at the entrance to
+the castle-yard, in the middle of which stood the statue of
+Klaus Grimmbart, the founder, was picturesque but tiring.
+But a noble park spread at the back of the castle hill, through
+which easy paths led up into the wooded and gently-swelling
+uplands, offering ideal opportunities for carriage drives and
+quiet strolls.</p>
+
+<p>As for the inside of the castle, it had been last subjected
+at the beginning of the reign of Johann Albrecht&nbsp;III to a
+thorough clean-up and redecoration&mdash;at a cost which had
+evoked much comment. The furniture of the living-rooms
+had been completed and renewed in a style at once baronial
+and comfortable; the escutcheons in the &ldquo;Hall of Justice&rdquo; had
+been carefully restored to their original pattern. The gilding
+of the intricate patterns on the vaulted ceilings looked fresh
+and cheerful, all the rooms had been fitted with parquet, and
+both the larger and the smaller banqueting-halls had been
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_3" title="3"> </a>
+adorned with huge wall-paintings from the brush of Professor
+von Lindemann, a distinguished Academician, representing
+scenes from the history of the reigning House executed in a
+clear and smooth style which was far removed from and quite
+unaffected by the restless tendencies of modern schools.
+Nothing was wanting. As the old chimneys of the castle and
+its many-coloured stoves, reaching tier upon tier right up to
+the ceiling, were no longer fit to use, anthracite stoves had
+been installed in view of the possibility of the place being
+used as a residence during the winter.</p>
+
+<p>But the day of the seventy-two salvos fell in the best
+time of the year, late spring, early summer, the beginning
+of June, soon after Whitsuntide. Johann Albrecht, who
+had been early informed by telegram that the labour had
+begun just before dawn, reached Grimmburg Station by
+the bankrupt local railway at eight o'clock, where he was
+greeted with congratulations by three or four dignitaries,
+the mayor, the judge, the rector, and the town physician.
+He at once drove to the castle. The Grand Duke was
+accompanied by Minister of State, Dr. Baron Knobelsdorff,
+and Adjutant-General of Infantry, Count Schmettern.
+Shortly afterwards two or three more ministers arrived at
+the royal residence, the Court Chaplin Dom Wislezenus,
+President of the High Consistory, one or two Court officials,
+and a still younger Adjutant, Captain von Lichterloh. Although
+the Grand Duke's Physician-in-Ordinary, Surgeon-General
+Dr. Eschrich, was attending the mother, Johann
+Albrecht had been seized with the whim of requiring the
+young local doctor, a Doctor Sammet, who was of Jewish
+extraction into the bargain, to accompany him to the castle.
+The unassuming, hard-working, and earnest man, who had
+as much as he could do and was not in the least expecting
+any such distinction, stammered &ldquo;Quite delighted &hellip; quite
+delighted&rdquo; several times over, thus provoking some amusement.</p>
+
+<p>The Grand Duchess's bedroom was the &ldquo;Bride-chamber,&rdquo;
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_4" title="4"> </a>
+a five-cornered, brightly painted room on the first floor,
+through whose window a fine view could be obtained of
+woods, hills, and the windings of the river. It was decorated
+with a frieze of medallion-shaped portraits, likenesses
+of royal brides who had slept there in the olden days of the
+family history.</p>
+
+<p>There lay Dorothea; a broad piece of webbing was tied
+round the foot of her bed, to which she clung like a child
+playing at horses, while convulsions shook her lovely frame.
+Doctor Gnadebusch, the midwife, a gentle and learned woman
+with small fine hands and brown eyes, which wore a look
+of mystery behind her round, thick spectacles, was supporting
+the Duchess, while she said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Steady, steady, your Royal Highness&hellip;. It will soon
+be over. It's quite easy&hellip;. Just once more &hellip; that's
+nothing&hellip;. Rest a bit: knees apart&hellip;. Keep your chin
+down&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>A nurse, dressed like her in white linen, helped too, and
+moved lightly about with phials and bandages during the
+pauses. The Physician-in-Ordinary, a gloomy man with a
+greyish beard, whose left eyelid seemed to droop, superintended
+the birth. He wore his operating-coat over his
+surgeon-general's uniform. From time to time there peeped
+into the room, to ascertain the progress of the confinement,
+Dorothea's trusty Mistress of the Robes, Baroness von
+Schulenburg-Tressen, a corpulent and asthmatic woman of
+distinctly dragoon-like appearance, who nevertheless liked
+to display a generous expanse of neck and shoulders at
+the court balls. She kissed her mistress's hand and went
+back to an adjoining room, in which a couple of thin ladies-in-waiting
+were chatting with the Grand Duchess's Chamberlain-in-Waiting,
+a Count Windisch. Dr. Sammet, who had
+thrown his linen coat like a domino over his dress-coat, was
+waiting modestly and attentively by the washstand.</p>
+
+<p>Johann Albrecht sat in a neighbouring room used as a
+study, which was separated from the &ldquo;Bride-chamber&rdquo; only
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_5" title="5"> </a>
+by a so-called powder closet and a passage-room. It was
+called the library, in view of several manuscript folios, which
+lay slanting in the massive book-shelves and contained
+the history of the castle. The room was furnished as
+a writing-room. Globes adorned the walls. The strong
+wind from the hills blew through the open bow-window.
+The Grand Duke had ordered tea, and the groom of the
+chamber, Prahl, had himself brought the tray; but it was
+standing forgotten on the leaf of the desk, and Johann
+Albrecht was pacing the room from one corner to the other
+in a restless, uncomfortable frame of mind. His top-boots
+kept creaking as he walked. His aide-de-camp, von Lichterloh,
+listened to the noise, as he waited patiently in the
+almost bare passage-room.</p>
+
+<p>The Minister, the Adjutant-General, the Court Chaplain,
+and the Court officials, nine or ten in all, were waiting in
+the state-room on the ground floor. They wandered through
+the larger and the smaller banqueting-halls, where trophies
+of banners and weapons hung between Lindemann's pictures.
+They leaned against the slender pillars, which spread
+into brightly coloured vaulting above their heads. They
+stood before the narrow, ceiling-high windows, and looked
+out through the leaded panes over river and town; they sat
+on the stone benches which ran round the walls, or on seats
+before the stoves, whose Gothic tops were supported by
+ridiculous little stooping imps of stone. The bright sunlight
+made the gold lace on the uniforms, the orders on
+the padded chests, the broad gold stripes on the trousers
+of the dignitaries glisten.</p>
+
+<p>The conversation flagged. Three-cornered hats and white-gloved
+hands were constantly being raised to mouths which
+opened convulsively. Nearly everybody had tears in his
+eyes. Several had not had time to get any breakfast. Some
+sought entertainment in a timid examination of the operating-instruments
+and the round leather-cased chloroform jar,
+which Surgeon-General Eschrich had left there in case of
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_6" title="6"> </a>
+emergency. After von Bühl zu Bühl, the Lord Marshal,
+a powerful man with mincing manners, brown toupée, gold-rimmed
+pince-nez, and long, yellow fingernails, had told
+several anecdotes in his quick, jerky way, he dropped into
+an armchair, in which he made use of his gift of being
+able to sleep with his eyes open&mdash;of losing consciousness
+of time and place while retaining a steady gaze and alert
+attitude, and in no way imperilling the dignity of the situation.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. von Schröder, Minister of Finance and Agriculture,
+had had a conversation earlier in the day with the Minister
+of State, Dr. Baron Knobelsdorff, Minister of Home Affairs,
+Foreign Affairs, and the Grand Ducal Household. It was
+a spasmodic chat, which began with a discussion on art,
+went on to financial and economic questions, alluded, somewhat
+disapprovingly, to a High Court official, and did not
+leave even the most exalted personages out of account. It
+began with the two men standing, with their hats in their
+hands behind their backs, in front of one of the pictures
+in the larger banqueting-hall, each of them thinking more
+than he said. The Finance Minister said: &ldquo;And this?
+What's this? What's happening? Your Excellency is so
+well informed.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Merely superficially. It is the investiture of two Grand
+princes of the blood by their uncle, the Emperor. As your
+Excellency can see, the two young men are kneeling and
+taking the oath with great solemnity on the Emperor's sword.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Fine, extraordinarily fine! What colouring! Dazzling.
+What lovely golden hair the princes have! And the Emperor
+&hellip; exactly as he is described in the books! Yes,
+that Lindemann well deserves all the distinctions which have
+been given him.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Absolutely. Those which have been given him; those
+he quite deserves.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Dr. von Schröder, a tall man with a white beard, a pair
+of thin gold spectacles on his white nose, a belly protruding
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_7" title="7"> </a>
+slightly underneath his stomach, and a bull-neck, which
+lapped over the stiff collar of his coat, looked, without taking
+his eyes off the picture, somewhat doubtfully at it, under
+the influence of a diffidence which seized him from time
+to time during conversations with the baron. This Knobelsdorff,
+this favourite and exalted functionary, was so enigmatical.
+At times his remarks, his retorts, had an indefinable
+tinge of irony about them. He was a widely travelled man,
+he had been all over the world, he had so much general
+knowledge, and interests of such a strange and exotic kind.
+And yet he was a model of correctness. Herr von Schröder
+could not quite understand him. However much one agreed
+with him, it was impossible to feel that one really understood
+him. His opinions were full of a mysterious reserve,
+his judgments of a tolerance which left one wondering
+whether they implied approval or contempt.</p>
+
+<p>But the most suspicious thing about him was his laugh,
+a laugh of the eyes in which the mouth took no part, a laugh
+which seemed to be produced by the wrinkles radiating from
+the corners of his eyes, or vice versa to have produced those
+same wrinkles in the course of years. Baron Knobelsdorff
+was younger than the Finance Minister; he was then in the
+prime of life, although his close-trimmed moustache and
+hair smoothly parted in the middle were already beginning
+to turn grey&mdash;for the rest a squat, short-necked man, obviously
+pinched by the collar of his heavily-laced court dress. He
+left Herr von Schröder to his perplexity for a minute, and
+then went on: &ldquo;Only perhaps it might be to the interests
+of a prudent administration of the Privy Purse if the distinguished
+professor had rested content with stars and
+titles &hellip; to speak bluntly, what may all these delightful
+works of art have cost?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Herr von Schröder recovered his animation. The desire,
+the hope of understanding the Baron, of getting on to intimate
+and confidential terms with him, excited him. &ldquo;Just
+what I was thinking!&rdquo; said he, turning round to resume his
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_8" title="8"> </a>
+walk through the galleries. &ldquo;Your Excellency has taken the
+question out of my mouth. I wonder what this &lsquo;Investiture&rsquo;
+cost, and all the rest of these wall-pictures. For the restoration
+of the castle six years ago cost a million altogether.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;At least that.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A solid million! And that amount was audited and approved
+by Lord Marshal von Bühl zu Bühl, who is sitting
+yonder in a state of comfortable catalepsy&mdash;audited, approved,
+and disbursed by the Keeper of the Privy Purse, Count
+Trümmerhauff.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Disbursed, or owing!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;One of the two!&hellip; This total, I say, debited to a fund,
+a fund&nbsp;&hellip;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;In a word, the fund of the Grand Ducal settled estates.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Your Excellency knows as well as I what that means.
+No, it makes me run cold&hellip;. I swear I am neither a skin-flint
+nor a hypochondriac, but it makes me run cold when
+I think of a man, with present conditions staring him in
+the face, coolly throwing a million away&mdash;on what? On a
+nothing, a pretty whim, on the beautification of the family
+schloss in which his babies have to be born&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Herr von Knobelsdorff laughed. &ldquo;Yes, Heaven knows romance
+is a luxury, and a mighty expensive one too! Excellency,
+I agree with you&mdash;of course. But consider, after
+all the whole trouble in the Grand Ducal finances is due
+to this same romantic luxury. The root of the evil lies in
+the fact that the ruling dynasty are farmers; their capital
+consists in land and soil, their income in agricultural profits.
+At the present day&hellip;. They have not been able up to
+the present to make up their minds to turn into industrialists
+and financiers. They allow themselves with regrettable
+obstinacy to be swayed by certain obsolete and idealistic conceptions,
+such as, for instance, the conceptions of trust and
+dignity. The royal property is hampered by a trust entailed
+in fact. Advantageous alienations are barred.
+Mortgages, the raising of capital on credit for commercial
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_9" title="9"> </a>
+improvements, seem to them improper. The administration
+is seriously hindered in the free exploitation of business
+opportunities&mdash;by ideas of dignity. You'll forgive me, won't
+you? I'm telling you the absolute truth. People who pay
+so much attention to propriety as these of course cannot and
+will not keep pace with the freer and less hampered initiative
+of less obstinate and unpractical business people. Now then,
+what, in comparison with this negative luxury, does the positive
+million signify, which has been sacrificed to a pretty
+whim, to borrow your Excellency's expression? If it only
+stopped there! But we have the regular expenses of a fairly
+dignified Court to meet. There are the schlosses and their
+parks to keep up, Hollerbrunn, Monbrillant, Jägerpreis,
+aren't there? The Hermitage, Delphinenort, the Pheasantry,
+and the others&hellip;. I had forgotten Schloss Zegenhaus
+and the Haderstein ruins &hellip; not to mention the Old
+Schloss&hellip;. They are not well kept up, but they all cost
+money&hellip;. There are the Court Theatre, the Picture Gallery,
+the Library, to maintain. There are a hundred pensions
+to pay,&mdash;no legal compulsion to pay them, but motives of
+trust and dignity. And look at the princely way in which
+the Grand Duke behaved at the time of the last floods&hellip;.
+But I'm preaching you a regular sermon!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A sermon,&rdquo; said the Minister of Finance, &ldquo;which your
+Excellency thought would shock me, while you really only
+confirmed my own view. Dear Baron&rdquo;&mdash;here Herr von
+Schröder laid his hand on his heart,&mdash;&ldquo;I am convinced that
+there is no longer room for any misunderstanding as to my
+opinion, my loyal opinion, between you and me. The King
+can do no wrong&hellip;. The sovereign is beyond the reach
+of reproaches. But here we have to do with a default &hellip; in
+both senses of the word!&hellip; a default which I have no
+hesitation in laying at the door of Count Trümmerhauff. His
+predecessors may be pardoned for having concealed from
+their sovereigns the true state of the Court finances; in those
+days nothing else was expected of them. But Count Trümmerhauff's
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_10" title="10"> </a>
+attitude now is not pardonable. In his position
+as Keeper of the Privy Purse he ought to have felt it incumbent
+on him to put a brake on his Highness's thoughtlessness,
+to feel it incumbent on him now to open his Royal
+Highness's eyes relentlessly to the facts&nbsp;&hellip;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Herr Knobelsdorff knitted his brows and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Really?&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;So your Excellency is of the opinion
+that that is what the Count was appointed for! I can picture
+to myself the justifiable astonishment of his lordship,
+if you lay before him your view of the position. No, no &hellip;
+your Excellency need be under no delusion; that appointment
+was a quite deliberate expression of his wishes on the part
+of his Royal Highness, which the Count must be the first
+to respect. It expressed not only an &lsquo;I don't know,&rsquo; but
+also an &lsquo;I won't know.&rsquo; A man may be an exclusively decorative
+personality and yet be acute enough to grasp this&hellip;.
+Besides &hellip; honestly &hellip; we've all of us grasped it. And
+the only grain of comfort for all of us is this: that there
+isn't a prince alive to whom it would be more fatal to mention
+his debts than to his Royal Highness. Our Prince has
+a something about him which would stop any tactless remarks
+of that sort before they were spoken&nbsp;&hellip;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Quite true, quite true,&rdquo; said Herr von Schröder. He
+sighed and stroked thoughtfully the swansdown trimming of
+his hat. The two men were sitting, half turned towards
+each other, on a raised window seat in a roomy niche, past
+which a narrow stone corridor ran outside, a kind of gallery,
+through the pointed arches of which peeps of the town could
+be seen. Herr von Schröder went on:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You answer me, Baron; one would think you were contradicting
+me, and yet your words show more incredulity
+and bitterness than my own.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Herr von Knobelsdorff said nothing, but made a vague gesture
+of assent.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It may be so,&rdquo; said the Finance Minister, and nodded
+gloomily at his hat. &ldquo;Your Excellency may be quite right.
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_11" title="11"> </a>
+Perhaps we are all blameworthy, we and our forefathers
+too. But it ought to have been stopped. For consider, Baron;
+ten years ago an opportunity offered itself of putting the
+finances of the Court on a sound footing, on a better footing
+anyhow, if you like. It was lost. We understand each
+other. The Grand Duke, attractive man that he is, had it
+then in his power to clear things up by a marriage which
+from a sound point of view might have been called dazzling.
+Instead of that &hellip; speaking not for myself, of course, but
+I shall never forget the disgust on everybody's faces when
+they mentioned the amount of the dowry&hellip;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The Grand Duchess,&rdquo; said Herr von Knobelsdorff, and
+the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes disappeared almost
+entirely, &ldquo;is one of the handsomest women I have ever seen.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That is an answer one would expect of your Excellency.
+It's an æsthetic answer, an answer which would have held
+quite as good if his Royal Highness's choice, like his brother
+Lambert's, had fallen on a member of the royal ballet.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, there was no danger of that. The Prince's taste is
+a fastidious one, as he has shown. He has always shown
+in his wants the antithesis to that want of taste which Prince
+Lambert has shown all his life. It was a long time before
+he made up his mind to marry. Everybody had given
+up all hope of a direct heir to the throne. They were resigned
+for better or worse to Prince Lambert, whose &hellip;
+unsuitability to be heir to the throne we need not discuss.
+Then, a few weeks after he had succeeded, Johann Albrecht
+met Princess Dorothea, cried, &ldquo;This one or none!&rdquo; and the
+Grand Duchy had its sovereign lady. Your Excellency mentioned
+the thoughtful looks which were exchanged when the
+figures of the dowry were published,&mdash;you did not mention
+the jubilation which at the same time prevailed. A poor
+princess, to be sure. But is beauty, such beauty, a power
+of happiness or not? Never shall I forget her entry! Her
+first smile, as it lighted on the gazing crowds, won their love.
+Your Excellency must allow me to profess once more my
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_12" title="12"> </a>
+belief in the idealism of the people. The people want to
+see their best, their highest, their dream, what stands for
+their soul, represented in their princes&mdash;not their money
+bags. There are others to represent those&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's just what there are not; just what we have not
+got.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The more's the pity, then. The main point is, Dorothea
+has presented us with an Heir Apparent.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;To whom may Heaven grant some idea of figures!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I agree.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>At this point the conversation between the two Ministers
+ceased. It was broken off by the announcement by aide-de-camp
+von Lichterloh, of the happy issue of the confinement.
+The smaller banqueting-hall was soon filled with officials.
+One of the great carved doors was quickly thrown
+open, and the aide-de-camp appeared in the hall. He had
+a red face, blue soldier's eyes, a bristling flaxen moustache,
+and silver lace on his collar. He looked somewhat excited,
+like a man who had been released from deadly boredom
+and was primed with good news. Conscious of the unusualness
+of the occasion, he boldly ignored the rules of
+decorum and etiquette. He saluted the company gaily,
+and, spreading his elbows, raised the hilt of his sword
+almost to his breast crying: &ldquo;Beg leave to announce: a
+prince!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Good!&rdquo; said Adjutant-General Count Schmettern.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Delightful, quite delightful, I call that perfectly delightful!&rdquo;
+said Lord Marshal von Bühl zu Bühl in his jerky
+way; he had recovered consciousness at once.</p>
+
+<p>The President of the High Consistory, Dom Wislezenus&mdash;a
+clean-shaven, well-built man, who, as a son of a general, and
+thanks to his personal distinction, had attained to his high
+dignity at a comparatively early age, and on whose black
+silk gown hung the star of an Order&mdash;folded his white hands
+on his breast, and said in a melodious voice, &ldquo;God bless his
+Grand Ducal Highness!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_13" title="13"> </a>&ldquo;You forget, Captain,&rdquo; said Herr von Knobelsdorff, laughing,
+&ldquo;that in making your announcement you are encroaching
+on my privileges and province. Until I have made the
+most searching investigations into the state of affairs, the
+question whether it is a prince or a princess remains undecided.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The others laughed, and Herr von Lichterloh replied:
+&ldquo;As you wish, your Excellency! Then I have the honour
+to beg your Excellency to assume this most important
+charge&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This dialogue referred to the attributes of the Minister
+of State, as registrar of the Grand Ducal house, in which
+capacity he was required to satisfy himself with his own
+eyes of the sex of the princely offspring and to make an
+official declaration on the subject. Herr von Knobelsdorff
+complied with this formality in the so-called powder-closet
+in which the new-born babe was bathed. He stayed longer
+there, however, than he had intended to, as he was puzzled
+and arrested by a painful sight, which at first he mentioned
+to nobody except the midwife.</p>
+
+<p>Doctor Gnadebusch showed him the child, and her eyes,
+gleaming mysteriously behind her thick spectacles, travelled
+between the Minister of State and the little copper-coloured
+creature, as it groped about with one&mdash;only one&mdash;little hand,
+as if she was saying: &ldquo;Is it all right?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was all right. Herr von Knobelsdorff was satisfied,
+and the wise woman wrapped the child up again. But even
+then she continued to look down at the Prince and then up
+at the Baron, until she had drawn his eyes to the point to
+which she wished to attract them. The wrinkles at the
+corners of his eyes disappeared, he knit his brows, tried,
+compared, felt, examined for two or three minutes, and at
+last asked: &ldquo;Has the Grand Duke yet seen it?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, Excellency.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;When the Grand Duke sees it,&rdquo; said Herr von Knobelsdorff,
+&ldquo;tell him that he will grow out of it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_14" title="14"> </a>And to the others on the ground-floor he reported&mdash;&ldquo;A
+splendid prince!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But ten or fifteen minutes after him the Grand Duke also
+made the disagreeable discovery,&mdash;that was unavoidable,
+and resulted for Surgeon-General Eschrich in a short, extremely
+unpleasant scene, but for the Grimmburg Doctor
+Sammet in an interview with the Grand Duke which raised
+him considerably in the latter's estimation and was useful
+to him in his subsequent career. What happened was briefly
+as follows:</p>
+
+<p>After the birth Johann Albrecht had again retired to the
+library, and then returned to sit for some time at the bedside
+with his wife's hand in his. Thereupon he went into
+the &ldquo;powder-closet,&rdquo; where the infant now lay in his high,
+richly gilded cradle, half covered with a blue silk curtain,
+and sat down in an armchair by the side of his little son.
+But while he sat and watched the sleeping infant it happened
+that he noticed what it was hoped that he would not
+notice yet. He drew the counterpane back, his face clouded
+over, and then he did exactly what Herr von Knobelsdorff
+had done before him, looked from Doctor Gnadebusch to
+the nurse and back again, both of whom said nothing, cast
+one glance at the half-open door into the bride-chamber,
+and stalked excitedly back into the library.</p>
+
+<p>Here he at once rang the silver eagle-topped bell which
+stood on the writing-table, and said to Herr von Lichterloh,
+who came in, very curtly and coldly: &ldquo;I require Herr
+Eschrich.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>When the Grand Duke was angry with any member of
+his suite, he was wont to strip the culprit for the moment
+of all his titles and dignities, and to leave him nothing but
+his bare name.</p>
+
+<p>The aide-de-camp again clapped his spurs and heels together
+and withdrew. Johann Albrecht strode once or twice
+in a rage up and down the room, and then, hearing Herr
+von Lichterloh bring the person he had summoned into the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_15" title="15"> </a>
+ante-room, adopted an audience attitude at his writing-table.</p>
+
+<p>As he stood there, his head turned imperiously in half-profile,
+his left hand planted on his hip, drawing back his
+satin-fronted frock coat from his white waistcoat, he exactly
+resembled his portrait by Professor von Lindemann, which
+hung beside the big looking-glass over the mantelpiece in
+the &ldquo;Hall of the Twelve Months&rdquo; in the Town Schloss, opposite
+the portrait of Dorothea, and of which countless engravings,
+photographs, and picture postcards had been
+published. The only difference was that Johann Albrecht in
+the portrait seemed to be of heroic stature, while he really
+was scarcely of medium height. His forehead was high
+where his hair had receded, and from under his grey eyebrows,
+his blue eyes looked out, with dark rings round them,
+giving them an expression of tired haughtiness. He had the
+broad, rather too high cheek-bones which were a characteristic
+of his people. His whiskers and the soft tuft on his
+chin were grey, his moustache almost white. From the distended
+nostrils of his small but well-arched nose, two
+unusually deep furrows ran down to his chin. The lemon-coloured
+ribbon of the Family Order always showed in the
+opening of his waistcoat. In his buttonhole the Grand Duke
+wore a carnation.</p>
+
+<p>Surgeon-General Eschrich entered with a low bow. He
+had taken off his operating-coat. His eyelid drooped more
+heavily than usual over his eye. He looked apprehensive and
+uncomfortable.</p>
+
+<p>The Grand Duke, his left hand on his hip, threw his head
+back, stretched out his right hand and waved it, palm upwards,
+several times up and down impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am awaiting an explanation, a justification, Surgeon-General,&rdquo;
+said he, with a voice trembling with irritation.
+&ldquo;You will have the goodness to answer my questions. What
+is the matter with the child's arm?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Physician-in-Ordinary raised his hand a little&mdash;a feeble
+gesture of impotence and blamelessness. He said:</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_16" title="16"> </a>&ldquo;An it please Your Royal Highness&hellip;. An unfortunate
+occurrence. Unfavourable circumstances during the pregnancy
+of her Royal Highness&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's all nonsense!&rdquo; The Grand Duke was so much excited
+that he did not wish for any justification, in fact he
+would not allow one. &ldquo;I would remind you, sir, that I
+am beside myself. Unfortunate occurrence! It was your
+business to take precautions against unfortunate occurrences&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Surgeon-General stood with half-bowed head and,
+sinking his voice to a submissive tone, addressed the ground
+at his feet.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I humbly beg to be allowed to remind you that I, at
+least, am not alone responsible. Privy Councillor Grasanger&mdash;an
+authority on gynæcology&mdash;examined her Royal Highness.
+But nobody can be held responsible in this case&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Nobody &hellip; Really! I permit myself to make you
+responsible&hellip;. You are answerable to me&hellip;. You were
+in charge during the pregnancy, you superintended the confinement.
+I have relied on the knowledge to be expected
+from your rank, Surgeon-General, I have trusted to your
+experience. I am bitterly disappointed, bitterly disappointed.
+All that your skill can boast of is &hellip; that a crippled child
+has been born&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Would your Royal Highness graciously weigh&nbsp;&hellip;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have weighed. I have weighed and found wanting.
+Thank you!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Surgeon-General Eschrich retired backwards, bowing. In
+the ante-room he shrugged his shoulders, while his cheeks
+glowed.</p>
+
+<p>The Grand Duke again fell to pacing the library in his
+princely wrath, unreasonable, misinformed, and foolish in
+his loneliness. However, whether it was that he wished to
+humiliate the Physician-in-Ordinary still further, or that he
+regretted having robbed himself of any explanations&mdash;ten
+minutes later the unexpected happened, and the Grand Duke
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_17" title="17"> </a>
+sent Herr von Lichterloh to summon young Doctor Sammet
+to the library.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor, when he received the message, again said:
+&ldquo;Quite delighted &hellip; quite delighted,&nbsp;&hellip;&rdquo; and at first
+changed colour a little, then composed himself admirably.
+It is true that he was not a complete master of the prescribed
+etiquette, and bowed too soon, while he was still in the door,
+so that the aide-de-camp could not close it behind him, and
+had to ask him in a whisper to move forward; but afterwards
+he stood in an easy and unconstrained attitude, and gave
+reassuring answers, although he showed that he was naturally
+rather slow of speech, beginning his sentences with hesitating
+noises and frequently interspersing them with a &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; as if
+to confirm what he was saying. He wore his dark yellow
+hair cut <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">en brosse</i> and his moustache untrimmed. His chin
+and cheeks were clean-shaved, and rather sore from it. He
+carried his head a little on one side, and the gaze of his grey
+eyes told of shrewdness and practical goodness. His nose,
+which was too broad at the bottom, pointed to his origin. He
+wore a black tie, and his shiny boots were of a country cut.
+He kept his elbows close to his side, with one hand on his silver
+watch-chain. His whole appearance suggested candour
+and professional skill; it inspired confidence.</p>
+
+<p>The Grand Duke addressed him unusually graciously,
+rather in the manner of a teacher who has been scolding
+a naughty boy, and turns to another with a sudden assumption
+of mildness.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have sent for you, doctor&hellip;. I want information from
+you about this peculiarity in the body of the new-born prince&hellip;.
+I assume that it has not escaped your notice&hellip;.
+I am confronted with a riddle &hellip; an extremely painful
+riddle&hellip;. In a word, I desire your opinion.&rdquo; And the
+Grand Duke, changing his position, ended with a gracious
+motion of the hand, which encouraged the doctor to speak.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Sammet looked at him silently and attentively, as if
+waiting till the Grand Duke had completely regained his
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_18" title="18"> </a>
+princely composure. Then he said: &ldquo;Yes; we have here
+to do with a case which is not of very common occurrence,
+but which is well known and familiar to us. Yes. It is
+actually a case of atrophy&nbsp;&hellip;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Excuse me &hellip; atrophy&nbsp;&hellip;?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Forgive me, Royal Highness. I mean stunted growth.
+Yes.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I see, stunted growth. Stunting. That's it. The left
+hand is stunted. But it's unheard of! I cannot understand
+it! Such a thing has never happened in my family! People
+talk nowadays about heredity.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Again the doctor looked silently and attentively at the
+lonely and domineering man, to whom the news had only
+just penetrated that people were talking lately about heredity.
+He answered simply: &ldquo;Pardon me, Royal Highness, but in
+this case there can be no question of heredity.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Really! You're quite sure!&rdquo; said the Grand Duke rather
+mockingly. &ldquo;That is one satisfaction. But will you be so
+kind as to tell me what there can be a question of, then.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;With pleasure, Royal Highness. The cause of the malformation
+is entirely a mechanical one. It has been caused
+through a mechanical constriction during the development
+of the embryo. We call such malformations constriction-formations,
+yes.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Grand Duke listened with anxious disgust; he
+obviously feared the effect of each succeeding word on his
+sensitiveness. He kept his brows knit and his mouth open:
+the two furrows running down to his beard seemed deeper
+than ever. He said: &ldquo;Constriction-formations, &hellip; but
+how in the world &hellip; I am quite sure every precaution
+must have been taken&nbsp;&hellip;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Constriction-formations,&rdquo; answered Dr. Sammet, &ldquo;can
+occur in various ways. But we can say with comparative
+certainty that in our case &hellip; in this case it is the amnion
+which is to blame.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I beg your pardon&hellip;. The amnion?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_19" title="19"> </a>&ldquo;That is one of the f&oelig;tal membranes, Royal Highness.
+Yes. And in certain circumstances the removal of this membrane
+from the embryo may be retarded and proceed so
+slowly that threads and cords are left stretching from one
+to the other &hellip; amniotic threads as we call them, yes.
+These threads may be dangerous, for they can bind and
+knot themselves round the whole of a child's limb; they can
+entirely intercept, for instance, the life-ducts of a hand and
+even amputate it. Yes.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Great heavens &hellip; amputate it. So we must be thankful
+that it has not come to an amputation of the hand?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That might have happened. Yes. But all that has happened
+is an unfastening, resulting in an atrophy.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And that could not be discovered, foreseen, prevented?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, Royal Highness. Absolutely not. It is quite certain
+that no blame whatever attaches to anybody. Such constrictions
+do their work in secret. We are powerless against them.
+Yes.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And the malformation is incurable? The hand will remain
+stunted?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Sammet hesitated; he looked kindly at the Grand
+Duke.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It will never be quite normal, certainly not,&rdquo; he said
+cautiously. &ldquo;But the stunted hand will grow a little larger
+than it is at present, oh yes, it assuredly will&nbsp;&hellip;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Will he be able to use it? For instance &hellip; to hold
+his reins or to make gestures, like any one else?&hellip;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Use it &hellip; a little&hellip;. Perhaps not much. And he's
+got his right hand, that's all right.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Will it be very obvious?&rdquo; asked the Grand Duke, and
+scanned Dr. Sammet's face earnestly. &ldquo;Very noticeable?
+Will it detract much from his general appearance, think
+you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Many people,&rdquo; answered Dr. Sammet evasively, &ldquo;live and
+work under greater disadvantages. Yes.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Grand Duke turned away, and walked once up and
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_20" title="20"> </a>
+down the room. Dr. Sammet deferentially made way for
+him, and withdrew towards the door. At last the Grand
+Duke resumed his position at the writing-table and said: &ldquo;I
+have now heard what I wanted to know, doctor; I thank you
+for your report. You understand your business, no doubt
+about that. Why do you live in Grimmburg? Why do you
+not practise in the capital?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am still young, Royal Highness, and before I devote myself
+to practising as a specialist in the capital I should like
+a few years of really varied practice, of general experience
+and research. A country town like Grimmburg affords the
+best opportunity of that. Yes.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Very sound, very admirable of you. In what do you
+propose to specialise later on?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;In the diseases of children, Royal Highness. I intend to
+be a children's doctor, yes.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You are a Jew?&rdquo; asked the Grand Duke, throwing back
+his head and screwing up his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, Royal Highness.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah&mdash;will you answer me one more question? Have you
+ever found your origin to stand in your way, a drawback in
+your professional career? I ask as a ruler, who is especially
+concerned that the principle of &lsquo;equal chances for all&rsquo; shall
+hold good unconditionally and privately, not only officially.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Everybody in the Grand Duchy,&rdquo; answered Dr. Sammet,
+&ldquo;has the right to work.&rdquo; But he did not stop there: moving
+his elbows like a pair of short wings, in an awkward, impassioned
+way, he made a few hesitating noises, and then added
+in a restrained but eager voice: &ldquo;No principle of equalization,
+if I may be allowed to remark, will ever prevent the
+incidence in the life of the community of exceptional and
+abnormal men who are distinguished from the bourgeois by
+their nobleness or infamy. It is the duty of the individual
+not to concern himself as to the precise nature of the distinction
+between him and the common herd, but to see what is the
+essential in that distinction and to recognize that it imposes
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_21" title="21"> </a>
+on him an exceptional obligation towards society. A man
+is at an advantage, not at a disadvantage, compared with the
+regular and therefore complacent majority, if he has one
+motive more than they to extraordinary exertions. Yes, yes,&rdquo;
+repeated Dr. Sammet. The double affirmative was meant to
+confirm his answer.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Good &hellip; not bad; very remarkable, anyhow,&rdquo; said the
+Grand Duke judicially. He found Dr. Sammet's words
+suggestive, though somewhat off the point. He dismissed the
+young man with the words: &ldquo;Well, doctor, my time is
+limited. I thank you. This interview&mdash;apart from its painful
+occasion&mdash;has much reassured me. I have the pleasure
+of bestowing on you the Albrecht Cross of the Third Class
+with Crown. I shall remember you. Thank you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This was what passed between the Grimmburg doctor and
+the Grand Duke. Shortly after Johann Albrecht left the
+castle and returned by special train to the capital, chiefly to
+show himself to the rejoicing populace, but also in order
+to give several audiences in the palace. It was arranged
+that he should return in the evening to the castle, and take
+up his residence there for the next few weeks.</p>
+
+<p>All those present at the confinement at Grimmburg who
+did not belong to the Grand Duchess's suite were also accommodated
+in the special train of the bankrupt local railway,
+some of them travelling in the Sovereign's own saloon.
+But the Grand Duke drove from the castle to the station alone
+with von Knobelsdorff, the Minister of State, in an open
+landau, one of the brown Court carriages with the little golden
+crown on the door. The white feathers in the hats of the
+chasseurs in front fluttered in the summer breeze. Johann
+Albrecht was grave and silent on the journey; he seemed to
+be worried and morose. And although Herr von Knobelsdorff
+knew that the Grand Duke, even in private, disliked
+anybody addressing him unasked and uninvited, yet at last
+he made up his mind to break the silence.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Your Royal Highness,&rdquo; he said deprecatingly, &ldquo;seems to
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_22" title="22"> </a>
+take so much to heart the little anomaly which has been discovered
+in the Prince's body, &hellip; and yet one would think
+that on a day like this the reasons for joy and proud thankfulness
+so far outweigh&nbsp;&hellip;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My dear Knobelsdorff,&rdquo; replied Johann Albrecht, with
+some irritation and almost in tears, &ldquo;you must forgive my
+ill-humour; you surely do not wish me to be in good spirits.
+I can see no reason for being so. The Grand Duchess is
+going on well&mdash;true enough, and the child is a boy&mdash;that's
+a blessing too. But he has come into the world with an
+atrophy, a constriction, caused by amniotic threads. Nobody
+is to blame, it is a misfortune; but misfortunes for which
+nobody is to blame are the most terrible of all misfortunes,
+and the sight of their Sovereign ought to awaken in his people
+other feelings than those of sympathy. The Heir Apparent
+is delicate, needs constant care. It was a miracle that he
+survived that attack of pleurisy two years ago, and it will
+be nothing less than a miracle if he lives to attain his majority.
+Now Heaven grants me a second son&mdash;he seems strong, but
+he comes into the world with only one hand. The other is
+stunted, useless, a deformity, he will have to hide it. What
+a drawback! What an impediment! He will have to brave
+it out before the world all his life. We must let it gradually
+leak out, so that it may not cause too much of a shock on
+his first appearance in public. No, I cannot yet get over it.
+A prince with one hand&nbsp;&hellip;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;With one hand,&rsquo;&rdquo; said Herr von Knobelsdorff. &ldquo;Did
+your Royal Highness use that expression twice deliberately?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Deliberately?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You did not, then?&hellip; For the Prince has two hands,
+yet as one is stunted, one might if one liked also describe
+him as a prince with one hand.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What then?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And one must almost wish, not that your Royal Highness's
+second son, but that the heir to the throne were the
+victim of this small malformation.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_23" title="23"> </a>&ldquo;What do you mean by that?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, your Royal Highness will laugh at me; but I am
+thinking of the gipsy woman.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The gipsy woman? Please go on, my dear Baron!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of the gipsy woman&mdash;forgive me!&mdash;who a hundred years
+ago prophesied the birth of a Prince to your Royal Highness's
+house&mdash;a prince &lsquo;with one hand&rsquo;&mdash;that is how tradition
+puts it&mdash;and attached to the birth of that prince a certain
+promise, couched in peculiar terms.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Grand Duke turned on his seat and stared, without saying
+a word, at Herr von Knobelsdorff, at the outer corner of
+whose eyes the radiating wrinkles were playing. Then, &ldquo;Mighty
+entertaining!&rdquo; he said, and resumed his former attitude.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Prophecies,&rdquo; continued Herr von Knobelsdorff, &ldquo;generally
+come true to this extent, that circumstances arise which
+one can interpret, if one has a mind to, in their sense. And
+the broadness of the terms in which every proper prophecy
+is couched makes this all the more easy. &lsquo;With one hand&rsquo;&mdash;that
+is regular oracle-style. What has actually happened is
+a moderate case of atrophy. But that much counts for a
+good deal, for what is there to prevent me, what is there to
+prevent the people, from assuming the whole by this partial
+fulfilment, and declaring that the conditional part of the
+prophecy has been fulfilled? The people will do so; if not
+at once, at any rate if the rest of the prophecy, the actual
+promise, is in any way realised, it will put two and two together,
+as it always has done, in its wish to see what is written
+turn out true. I don't see how it is going to come about&mdash;the
+Prince is a younger son, he will not come to the throne,
+the intentions of fate are obscure. But the one-handed prince
+is there&mdash;and so may he bestow on us as much as he can.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Grand Duke did not answer, secretly thrilled by dreams
+of the future of his dynasty.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, Knobelsdorff, I will not be angry with you. You
+want to comfort me, and you have not done it badly. But
+I must do what is expected of me&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_24" title="24"> </a>The air resounded with the distant cheers of many voices.
+The people of Grimmburg were crowded in black masses
+behind the cordon at the station. Officials were standing
+apart in front, waiting for the carriages. There was the
+mayor, raising his top-hat, wiping his forehead with a
+crumpled handkerchief, and poring over a paper whose contents
+he was committing to memory. Johann Albrecht assumed
+the expression appropriate to listening to the smoothly
+worded address and to answering concisely and graciously:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Most excellent Mr. Mayor&hellip;.&rdquo; The town was dressed
+with flags, and the bells were ringing.</p>
+
+<p>In the capital all the bells were ringing. And in the
+evening there were illuminations; not by formal request of
+the authorities, but spontaneous&mdash;the whole city was a blaze
+of light.</p>
+
+<h2><a class="pagenum" name="Page_25" title="25"> </a>II<br/>
+<small>THE COUNTRY</small></h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">The</span> country measured eight thousand square kilometres, and
+numbered one million inhabitants.</p>
+
+<p>A pretty, quiet, leisurely country. The tops of the trees
+in its forests rustled dreamily; its broad acres showed signs
+of honest care; its industries were undeveloped to the point
+of indigence.</p>
+
+<p>It possessed some brick-kilns, a few salt and silver-mines&mdash;that
+was almost all. A certain amount of tourist-traffic must
+also be mentioned, but he would be a bold man who described
+it as a flourishing industry. The alkali springs, which rose
+from the ground in the immediate neighbourhood of the
+capital and formed the centre of an attractive bathing-establishment,
+constituted the claims of the city to be considered
+a health resort. But while the baths at the end of
+the Middle Ages had been frequented by visitors from afar,
+they had later lost their repute, and been put in the shade
+by other baths and forgotten. The most valuable of the
+springs, that called the Ditlinde spring, which was exceptionally
+rich in lithium salts, had been opened up quite recently,
+in the reign of Johann Albrecht&nbsp;III, and as energetic business
+and advertising methods were not employed, its water had not
+yet succeeded in winning world-recognition. A hundred
+thousand bottles of it were sent away in the year&mdash;rather
+less than more. And but few strangers came to drink it on
+the spot&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>The Diet was the scene all the year round of speeches about
+the &ldquo;barely&rdquo; satisfactory results of the trade returns, by
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_26" title="26"> </a>
+which was really meant the entirely unsatisfactory results,
+which nobody could dispute, that the local railways did not
+cover their expenses and the main lines did not pay any
+dividends&mdash;distressing but unalterable and inveterate facts,
+which the Minister for Trade in luminous but monotonous
+declarations explained by the peaceful commercial and
+industrial circumstances of the country, as well as by the
+inaccessibility of the home coal-deposits. Critics added something
+about defective organization of the State industrial
+administration. But the spirit of contradiction and negation
+was not strong in the Diet; the prevailing frame of
+mind among the representatives of the people was one of
+dull and true-hearted loyalty.</p>
+
+<p>So the railway revenues did not by any means rank first
+among the public revenues of a private-investment nature;
+the forest revenues had ranked first for years in this land
+of woods and plough. The fall in them, their startling depreciation,
+however sufficient reasons there were for it, was
+a much more difficult matter to mend.</p>
+
+<p>The people loved their woods. They were a fair and compact
+type, with searching blue eyes and broad, rather high
+cheek-bones, a sensible and honest, solid and backward stamp
+of men. They clung to their country's forest with all the
+strength of their nature; it lived in their bones, it was to
+the artists which it bred the source and home of their inspirations,
+and it was quite properly the object of popular
+gratitude, not only in regard to the gifts of soul and intellect
+of which it was the donor. The poor gathered their firewood
+in the forest; it gave to them freely, they had it for nothing.
+They went stooping and gathering all kinds of berries
+and mushrooms among its trunks, and earned a little something
+by doing so. That was not all. The people recognized
+that their forest had a very distinctly favourable influence
+on the weather and the healthy condition of the country;
+they were well aware that without the lovely woods in the
+neighbourhood of the capital the spa-garden outside would
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_27" title="27"> </a>
+not attract foreigners with money to spend; in short, this
+not over-industrious and up-to-date people could not help
+knowing that the forest stood for the most important asset,
+the most profitable heritage of the country.</p>
+
+<p>And yet the forest had been sinned against, outraged for
+ages and ages. The Grand Ducal Department of Woods
+and Forests deserved all the reproaches that were laid against
+it. That Department had not political insight enough to
+see that the wood must be maintained and kept as inalienable
+common property, if it was to be useful not only to
+the present generation, but also to those to come; and that
+it would surely avenge itself if it were exploited recklessly
+and short-sightedly, without regard to the future, for the benefit
+of the present.</p>
+
+<p>That was what happened, and was still happening. In
+the first place great stretches of the floor of the forest had
+been impoverished by reckless and excessive spoliation of
+its litter. Matters had repeatedly gone so far that not only
+the most recent carpet of needles and leaves, but the greatest
+part of the fall of years past had been removed and used in
+the fields partly as litter, partly as mould. There were many
+forests which had been completely stripped of mould; some
+had been crippled by the raking away of the litter: instances
+of this were to be found in the public woodlands as well as
+in the State woodlands.</p>
+
+<p>If the woods had been put to these uses in order to tide
+over a sudden agricultural crisis, there would have been no
+reason to complain. But although there were not wanting
+those who declared that an agricultural system founded on
+the appropriation of wood-litter was inexpedient, indeed
+dangerous, the trade in litter went on without any particular
+reason, on purely fiscal grounds, so it was put&mdash;that
+is to say, on grounds which, examined closely, proved to
+be only one ground and object, namely, the making of
+money. For it was money which was wanted. But to get
+this money, ceaseless inroads were made on the capital, until
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_28" title="28"> </a>
+one fine day it was realised with dismay that an unsuspected
+depreciation in that capital had ensued.</p>
+
+<p>The people were a peasant race, and thought that the way
+to be up-to-date was to display a perverted, artificial, and
+improper zeal and to employ reckless business methods.
+A characteristic instance was the dairy-farming &hellip; one
+word about that. Loud complaints were heard, principally
+in the official medical annual, that a deterioration was noticeable
+in the nourishment, and consequently in the development,
+of the country people. What was the reason? The
+owners of cows were bent on turning all the full-milk at
+their disposal into money. The spread of the dairy industry,
+the development and productiveness of the milk trade, tempted
+them to disregard the claims of their own establishments.
+A strength-giving milk diet became a rarity in the country,
+and in its stead recourse was had to unsubstantial skimmed
+milk, inferior substitutes, vegetable oils, and, unfortunately,
+alcoholic drinks as well. The critics talked about under-feeding,
+they even called it physical and moral debilitation
+of the population; they brought the facts to the notice of
+the Diet, and the Government promised to give the matter
+their earnest attention.</p>
+
+<p>But it was only too clear that the Government was at
+bottom infected with the same perversity as the mistaken
+dairy-farmers. Timber continued to be cut to excess in the
+State forests; once cut it was gone, and meant a continual
+shrinkage of public property. The clearings might have been
+necessary occasionally, when the forests had been damaged
+in one way or another, but often enough they had been due
+simply to the fiscal reasons referred to: and instead of the
+proceeds of the clearings being used for the purchase of
+new tracts, instead of the cleared tracts being replanted as
+quickly as possible&mdash;instead, in a word, of the damage to
+the capital value of the State forests being balanced by an
+addition to their capital value, the quickly earned profits
+had been devoted to the payment of current expenses and
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_29" title="29"> </a>
+the redemption of bonds. Of course there could be no doubt
+that a reduction of the National Debt was only too desirable;
+but the critics expressed the opinion that that was not the time
+to devote extraordinary revenues to the building up of the
+sinking-fund.</p>
+
+<p>Anybody who had no interest in mincing matters must
+have described the State finances as in a hopeless muddle.
+The country carried a debt of thirty million pounds&mdash;it
+struggled along under it with patience and devotion, but with
+secret groans. For the burden, much too heavy in itself,
+was made trebly heavy through a rise in the rate of interest
+and through conditions of repayment such as are usually
+imposed on a country whose credit is shaken, whose exchange
+is low, and which has already almost come to be
+reckoned as &ldquo;interesting&rdquo; in the world of financiers.</p>
+
+<p>The succession of financial crises appeared to be never-ending.
+The list of failures seemed without beginning or
+end. And a maladministration, which was made no better
+by frequent changes in its personnel, regarded borrowing
+as the only cure for the creeping sickness in the State finances.
+Even the Chancellor of the Exchequer, von Schröder, whose
+probity and singleness of purpose were beyond all doubt,
+had been given a peerage by the Grand Duke, because he
+had succeeded in placing a loan at a high rate of interest
+in the most difficult circumstances. His heart was set on
+an improvement in the credit of the State: but as his resource
+was to contract new debts while he paid off the old, his
+policy proved to be no better than a well-meant but costly
+blind. For a simultaneous sale and purchase of bonds meant
+a higher purchase than selling price, involving the loss of
+thousands of pounds.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed as if the country were incapable of producing a
+man of any adequate financial gifts. Improper practices
+and a policy of &ldquo;hushing-up&rdquo; were the fashion. The
+budget was so drawn up that it was impossible to distinguish
+between ordinary and extraordinary State requirements.
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_30" title="30"> </a>
+Ordinary and extraordinary items were jumbled up
+together, and those responsible for the budgets deceived themselves,
+and everybody else, as to the real state of affairs,
+by appropriating loans, which were supposed to be raised
+for extraordinary purposes, to cover a deficit in the ordinary
+exchequer&hellip;. The holder of the finance portfolio at one
+time was actually an ex-court marshal.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Krippenreuther, who took the helm towards the end
+of Johann Albrecht&nbsp;III's reign, was the Minister who, convinced
+like Herr von Schröder of the necessity for a strenuous
+reduction in the debt, induced the Diet to consent to a
+final and extreme addition to the burden of taxation. But
+the country, naturally poor as it was, was on the verge of
+insolvency, and all Krippenreuther got was unpopularity.
+His policy really meant merely a transfer from one hand
+to the other, a transfer which itself involved a loss; for
+the increase in taxation laid a burden on the national economy
+which pressed more heavily and more directly than that
+which was removed by the sinking of the National Debt.</p>
+
+<p>Where, then, were help and a remedy to be found? A
+miracle, so it seemed, was needed&mdash;and meanwhile the sternest
+economy. The people were pious and loyal, they loved
+their princes as themselves, they were permeated with the
+sublimity of the monarchical idea, they saw in it a reflexion
+of the Deity. But the economical pressure was too
+painful, too generally felt. The most ignorant could read
+in the thinned and crippled forests a tale of woe. The consequence
+was that repeated appeals had been made in the
+Diet for a curtailment of the Civil List, a cutting down of
+the appanages and Crown endowments.</p>
+
+<p>The Civil List amounted to twenty-five thousand pounds,
+the revenues of the Crown demesnes to thirty-seven thousand
+pounds. That was all. And the Crown was in debt&mdash;to
+what extent was perhaps known to Count Trümmerhauff,
+the Keeper of the Grand Ducal Purse, a regular
+stickler, but a man of absolutely no business instincts. It
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_31" title="31"> </a>
+was not known to Johann Albrecht; at any rate he seemed not
+to know it, and therein followed the example of his forefathers,
+who had rarely deigned to give more than a passing
+thought to their debts.</p>
+
+<p>The people's attitude of veneration was reflected in their
+princes' extraordinary sense of their own dignity, which had
+sometimes assumed fanciful and even extravagant forms, and
+had found its most obvious and most serious expression in
+every period in a tendency to extravagance and to a reckless
+ostentation as exaggerated as the dignity it represented. One
+Grimmburger had been christened &ldquo;the luxurious&rdquo; in so
+many words,&mdash;they had almost all deserved the nickname. So
+that the state of indebtedness of the House was an historical
+and hereditary state, reaching back to the times when all
+loans were a private concern of the Sovereign, and when
+John the Headstrong, wishing to raise a loan, pledged the
+liberty of the most prominent of his subjects to do so.</p>
+
+<p>Those times were past; and Johann Albrecht&nbsp;III, a true-born
+Grimmburger in his instincts, was unfortunately no
+longer in a position to give free rein to his instincts. His
+fathers had played ducks and drakes with the family funds,
+which were reduced to nothing or little better than nothing.
+They had been spent on the building of country-seats with
+French names and marble colonnades, on parks with fountains,
+on splendid operas and all kinds of glittering shows.
+Figures were figures, and, much against the inclination of the
+Grand Duke, in fact without his consent, the Court was gradually
+cut down.</p>
+
+<p>The Princess Catherine, the sister of the Grand Duke, was
+never spoken of in the capital without a touch of sympathy.
+She had been married to a member of a neighbouring ruling
+House, had been left a widow, and had come back to her
+brother's capital, where she lived with her red-headed children
+in what used to be the Heir Apparent's palace on the Albrechtstrasse,
+before whose gates a gigantic doorkeeper stood all
+day long in a pompous attitude with staff and shoulder-belt
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_32" title="32"> </a>
+complete, while life went on with peculiar moderation inside.</p>
+
+<p>Prince Lambert, the Grand Duke's brother, did not come in
+for much attention. There was a coolness between him and
+his relations, who could not forgive him his <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">mésalliance</i>, and
+he hardly ever came to Court. He lived in his villa overlooking
+the public gardens with his wife, an ex-dancer from
+the Court Theatre who bore the title of Baroness von Rohrdorf,
+after one of the Prince's properties; and there he divided his
+time between sport and theatre-going, and struggling with his
+debts. He had dropped his dignities and lived just like a
+private citizen; and if he was generally supposed to have a
+struggle to make two ends meet, nobody gave him much
+sympathy for it.</p>
+
+<p>But alterations had been made in the old castle itself&mdash;reductions
+of expenses, which were discussed in the city and
+the country, and discussed usually in an apprehensive and
+regretful sense, because the people at bottom wished to see
+themselves represented with due pride and magnificence.
+Several high posts at the Court had been amalgamated for economy's
+sake, and for years past Herr von Bühl zu Bühl had
+been Lord Marshal, Chief Master of the Ceremonies, and
+Marshal of the Household at once. There had been many
+discharges in the Board of Green Cloth and the servants' hall,
+among the pike-staffs, yeomen of the guard, and grooms, the
+master cooks and chief confectioners, the court and chamber
+lackeys. The establishment of the royal stable had been reduced
+to the barest minimum&hellip;. And what was the good
+of it all? The Grand Duke's contempt for money showed
+itself in sudden outbursts against the squeeze; and while the
+catering at the Court functions reached the extreme limits of
+permissible simplicity, while at the supper at the close of
+the Thursday concerts in the Marble Hall nothing but continual
+roast beef with sauce remoulade and ice-pudding were served
+on the red velvet coverings of the gilt-legged tables, while the
+daily fare at the Grand Duke's own candle-decked table was
+no better than that of an ordinary middle-class family, he defiantly
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_33" title="33"> </a>
+threw away a whole year's income on the repair of the
+Grimmburg.</p>
+
+<p>But meanwhile the rest of his seats were falling to pieces.
+Herr von Bühl simply had not the means at his disposal for
+their upkeep. And yet it was a pity in the case of many of
+them. Those which lay at some little distance from the capital,
+or right out in the country, those luxurious asylums
+cradled in natural beauties whose dainty names spoke of rest,
+solitude, content, pastime, and freedom from care, or recalled
+a flower or a jewel, served as holiday resorts for the citizens
+and strangers, and brought in a certain amount in entrance-money
+which sometimes&mdash;not always&mdash;was devoted to their
+upkeep. This was not the case, however, with those in the
+immediate neighbourhood of the capital. There was the little
+schloss in the Empire style, the Hermitage, standing silent
+and graceful on the edge of the northern suburbs, but long
+uninhabited and deserted in the middle of its over-grown park,
+which joined on to the public gardens, and looked out on its
+little, mud-stiff pond. There was Schloss Delphinenort which,
+only a quarter of an hour's walk from the other, in the
+northern part of the public gardens themselves, all of which
+had once belonged to the Crown, mirrored its untidiness in a
+huge square fountain-basin; both were in a sad state. That
+Delphinenort in particular&mdash;that noble structure in the early
+baroque style, with its stately entrance-colonnade, its high
+windows divided into little white-framed panes, its carved festoons,
+its Roman busts in the niches, its splendid approach-stairs,
+its general magnificence&mdash;should be abandoned to decay
+for ever, as it seemed, was the sorrow of all lovers of architectural
+beauty; and when one day, as the result of unforeseen,
+really strange circumstances, it was restored to honour and
+youth, among them at any rate the satisfaction was general&hellip;.
+For the rest, Delphinenort could be reached in fifteen or
+twenty minutes from the spa-garden, which lay a little to the
+north-west of the city, and was connected with its centre by a
+direct line of trams.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_34" title="34"> </a>The only residences used by the Grand Ducal family were
+Schloss Hollerbrunn, the summer residence, an expanse of
+white buildings with Chinese roofs, on the farther side of the
+chain of hills which surrounded the capital, coolly and
+pleasantly situated on the river and famed for the elder-hedges
+in its park; farther, Schloss Jägerpreis, the ivy-covered
+hunting-box in the middle of the woods to westward; and
+lastly, the Town Castle itself, called the &ldquo;Old&rdquo; Castle, although
+no new one existed.</p>
+
+<p>It was called thus, with no idea of comparison, simply because
+of its age, and the critics declared that its redecoration
+was more a matter of urgency than that of the Grimmburg.
+Even the inner rooms, which were in daily use by the family,
+were faded and cracked, not to mention the many uninhabited
+and unused rooms in the oldest parts of the many-styled building,
+which were all choked and flyblown. For some time past
+the public had been refused admission to them,&mdash;a measure
+which was obviously due to the shocking state of the castle.
+But people who could get a peep, the tradesmen and the staff,
+declared that there was stuffing peeping out of more than one
+stiff, imposing piece of furniture.</p>
+
+<p>The castle and the Court Church together made up a grey,
+irregular, and commanding mass of turrets, galleries, and
+gateways, half fortress, half palace. Various epochs had contributed
+to its erection, and large parts of it were decaying,
+weather-beaten, spoilt, and ready to fall into pieces. To the
+west it dropped steeply down to the lower-lying city, and was
+connected with it by battered steps clamped together with
+rusty iron bars. But the huge main gate, guarded by lions
+couchant, and surmounted by the pious, haughty motto:
+&ldquo;Turris fortissima nomen Domini,&rdquo; in almost illegible carving,
+faced the Albrechtsplatz. It had its sentries and sentry
+boxes; it was the scene of the changing of the guard, with
+drums and martial display; it was the playground of all the
+urchins of the town.</p>
+
+<p>The Old Castle had three courtyards, in the corners of
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_35" title="35"> </a>
+which rose graceful stair-turrets and between whose paving
+stones an unnecessary amount of weeds was generally growing.
+But in the middle of one of the courtyards stood the
+rose-bush,&mdash;it had stood there for ages in a bed, although
+there was no other attempt at a garden to be seen. It was
+just like any other rose-bush; it had a porter to tend it, it
+stood there in snow, rain, and sunshine, and in due season
+it bore roses. These were exceptionally fine roses, nobly
+formed, with dark-red velvet petals, a pleasure to look at,
+and real masterpieces of nature. But those roses had one
+strange and dreadful peculiarity: they had no scent! Or
+rather, they had a scent, but for some unknown reason it
+was not the scent of roses, but of decay&mdash;a slight, but plainly
+perceptible scent of decay. Everybody knew it; it was in the
+guide-books, and strangers visited the courtyard to convince
+themselves of it with their own noses. There was also a
+popular idea that it was written somewhere that at some time
+or other, on a day of rejoicings and public felicity, the blossoms
+of the rose-bush would begin to give forth a natural
+and lovely odour.</p>
+
+<p>After all, it was only to be expected that the popular
+imagination would be exercised by the wonderful rose-bush.
+It was exercised in precisely the same way by the &ldquo;owl-chamber&rdquo;
+in the Old Castle, which was used as a lumber
+room. Its position was such that it could not be ignored,
+not far from the &ldquo;Gala Rooms,&rdquo; and the &ldquo;Hall of the
+Knights,&rdquo; where the Court officers used to assemble on Court
+days, and thus in a comparatively modern part of the building.
+But there was certainly something uncanny about it,
+especially as from time to time noises and cries occurred
+there, which could not be heard outside the room and whose
+origin was unascertainable. People swore that it came from
+ghosts, and many asserted that it was especially noticeable
+when important and decisive events in the Grand Ducal family
+were impending,&mdash;a more or less gratuitous rumour, which
+deserved no more serious attention than other national products
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_36" title="36"> </a>
+of an historical and dynastic frame of mind, as for
+instance a certain dark prophecy which had been handed
+down for hundreds of years and may be mentioned in this
+connexion. It came from an old gipsy-woman, and was to
+the effect that a prince &ldquo;with one hand&rdquo; would bring the
+greatest good fortune to the country. The old hag had said:
+&ldquo;He will give to the country with one hand more than all
+the rest could give it with two.&rdquo; That is how the prophecy
+was recorded, and how it was quoted from time to time.</p>
+
+<p>Round the Old Castle lay the capital, consisting of the
+Old Town and the New Town, with their public buildings,
+monuments, fountains, and parks, their streets and squares,
+named after princes, artists, deserving statesmen, and distinguished
+citizens, divided into two very unequal halves
+by the many-bridged river, which flowed in a great loop round
+the southern end of the public garden, and was lost in the
+surrounding hills. The city was a university town, it possessed
+an academy which was not in much request and whose
+curricula were unpractical and rather old-fashioned; the Professor
+of Mathematics, Privy Councillor Klinghammer, was
+the only one of any particular repute in the scientific world.
+The Court Theatre, though poorly endowed, maintained a
+decent level of performances. There was a little musical,
+literary, and artistic life; a certain number of foreigners came
+to the capital, wishing to share in its well-regulated life and
+such intellectual attractions as it offered, among them wealthy
+invalids who settled down in the villas round the spa-gardens
+and were held in honour by the State and the community
+as doughty payers of taxes.</p>
+
+<p>And now you know what the town was like, what the country
+was like, and how matters stood.</p>
+
+<h2><a class="pagenum" name="Page_37" title="37"> </a>III<br/>
+<small>HINNERKE THE SHOEMAKER</small></h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">The</span> Grand Duke's second son made his first public appearance
+on the occasion of his christening. This festivity aroused
+the same interest in the country as always attached to happenings
+within the Royal Family circle. It took place after
+weeks of discussion and research as to the manner of its
+arrangement, was held in the Court Church by the President
+of the High Consistory, Dom Wislezenus, with all the due
+ceremonial, and in public, to the extent that the Lord Marshal's
+office, by the Prince's orders, had issued invitations to it
+to every class of society.</p>
+
+<p>Herr von Bühl zu Bühl, a courtly ritualist of the greatest
+circumspection and accuracy, in his full-dress uniform
+superintended, with the help of two masters of the ceremonies,
+the whole of the intricate proceedings: the gathering
+of the princely guests in the Gala Rooms, the solemn
+procession in which they, attended by pages and squires,
+walked up the staircase of Heinrich the Luxurious and through
+a covered passage into the church, the entry of the spectators
+from the highest to the lowest, the distribution of the seats,
+the observance of due decorum during the religious service
+itself, the order of precedence at the congratulations which
+took place directly after the service was ended&hellip;. He
+panted and puffed, smiled ingratiatingly, brandished his staff,
+laughed in nervous bursts, and kept executing retreating
+bows.</p>
+
+<p>The Court Church was decorated with plants and draperies.
+In addition to the representatives of the nobility,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_38" title="38"> </a>
+of the Court and country, and of the higher and lower Civil
+Service, tradesmen, country folk, and common artisans, in
+high good humour, filled the seats. But in a half-circle
+of red-velvet arm-chairs in front of the altar sat the relations
+of the infant, foreign princes as sponsors and the
+trusty representatives of such as had not come in person.
+The assemblage at the christening of the Heir Apparent six
+years before had not been more distinguished. For in view
+of Albrecht's delicacy, the advanced age of the Grand Duke,
+and the dearth of Grimmburg relations, the person of the
+second-born prince was at once recognized as an important
+guarantee for the future of the dynasty. Little Albrecht took
+no part in the ceremony; he was kept to his bed with an
+indisposition which Surgeon-General Eschrich declared to be
+of a nervous character.</p>
+
+<p>Dom Wislezenus preached from a text of the Grand Duke's
+own choosing. The <i>Courier</i>, a gossiping city newspaper, had
+given a full account of how the Grand Duke had one day
+fetched with his very own hands the large metal-clasped
+family Bible out of the rarely visited library, had shut himself
+up with it in his study, searched in it for a whole hour,
+at last copied the text he had chosen on to a piece of paper
+with his pocket-pencil, signed it &ldquo;Johann Albrecht,&rdquo; and sent
+it to the Court preacher. Dom Wislezenus treated it in a
+musical style, so as to speak, like a <i>leit motif</i>. He turned it inside
+and out, dressed it in different shapes and squeezed it dry;
+he announced it in a whisper, then with the whole power of
+his lungs; and whereas, delivered lightly and reflectively at
+the beginning of his discourse, it seemed a thin, almost unsubstantial
+subject; at the close, when he for the last time
+thundered it at the congregation, it appeared richly orchestrated,
+heavily scored, and pregnant with emotion. Then he
+passed on to the actual baptism, and carried it out at full
+length so that all could see it, with due stress on every detail.</p>
+
+<p>This, then, was the day of the prince's first public appearance,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_39" title="39"> </a>
+and that he was the chief actor in the drama was
+clearly shown by the fact that he was the last to come on
+the stage, and that his entry was distinct from that of the
+rest of the company. Preceded by Herr von Bühl, he entered
+slowly, in the arms of the Mistress of the Robes, Baroness
+von Schulenburg-Tressen, and all eyes were fixed on him.
+He was asleep in his laces, his veils, and his white silk robe.
+One of his little hands happened to be hidden. His appearance
+evoked unusual delight and emotion. The cynosure
+and centre of attraction, he lay quietly there, bearing it all,
+as may be supposed, patiently and unassumingly. It was
+to his credit that he did not make any disturbance, did not
+clutch or struggle; but, doubtless from innate trustfulness,
+quietly resigned himself to the state which surrounded him,
+bore it patiently, and even at that early date sank his own
+emotions in it&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>The arms in which he reposed were frequently changed
+at fixed points in the ceremony. Baroness Schulenburg
+handed him with a curtsey to his aunt, Catherine, who, with
+a stern look on her face, was dressed in a newly remade
+lilac silk dress, and wore Crown jewels in her hair. She
+laid him, when the moment came, solemnly in his mother
+Dorothea's arms, who, in all her stately beauty, with a smile
+on her proud and lovely mouth, held him out a while to
+be blessed, and then passed him on. A cousin held him for
+a minute or two, a child of eleven or twelve years with fair
+hair, thin sticks of legs, cold bare arms, and a broad red
+silk sash which stuck out in a huge knot behind her white
+dress. Her peaked face was anxiously fixed on the Master
+of the Ceremonies&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>Once the Prince woke up, but the flickering flames of the
+altar-candles and a many-coloured shaft of sunlight dust
+blinded him, and made him close his eyes again. And as
+there were no thoughts, but only soft unsubstantial dreams
+in his head, as moreover he was feeling no pain at the moment,
+he at once fell asleep again.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_40" title="40"> </a>He received a number of names while he slept; but the
+chief names were Klaus Heinrich.</p>
+
+<p>And he slept on in his cot with its gilded cornice and
+blue silk curtains, while the royal family feasted in the
+Marble Hall, and the rest of the guests in the Hall of the
+Knights, in his honour.</p>
+
+<p>The newspapers reported his first appearance; they described
+his looks and his dress, and emphasized his truly
+princely behaviour, couching the moving and inspiring account
+in words which had often done duty on similar
+occasions. After that, the public for a long time heard little
+of him, and he nothing of them.</p>
+
+<p>He knew nothing as yet, understood nothing as yet,
+guessed nothing as to the difficulty, danger, and sternness of
+the life prescribed for him; nothing in his conduct suggested
+that he felt any contrast between himself and the
+great public. His little existence was an irresponsible, carefully
+supervised dream, played on a stage remote from the
+public stage; and this stage was peopled with countless
+tinted phantoms, both stationary and active, some emerging
+but transiently, some permanently at hand.</p>
+
+<p>Of the permanent ones, the parents were far in the back-ground,
+and not altogether distinguishable. They were his
+parents, that was certain, and they were exalted, and friendly
+too. When they approached there was a feeling as if everything
+else slipped away to each side, and left a respectable
+passage along which they advanced towards him to show
+him a moment's tenderness. The nearest and clearest things
+to him were two women with white caps and aprons, two
+beings who were obviously all goodness, purity, and loving-kindness,
+who tended his little body in every way, and were
+much distressed when he cried&hellip;. A close partner in his
+life, too, was Albrecht, his brother; but he was grave, distant,
+and much more advanced.</p>
+
+<p>When Klaus Heinrich was two years old, another birth
+took place in the Grimmburg, and a princess came into the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_41" title="41"> </a>
+world. Thirty-six guns were allotted to her, because she
+was of the female sex, and she was given the name of Ditlinde
+at the font. She was Klaus Heinrich's sister, and it
+was a good thing for him that she appeared. She was at
+first surprisingly small and weak, but she soon grew like
+him, caught him up, and the two became inseparable. They
+shared each other's lives, each other's views, feelings, and
+ideas: they communicated to each other their impressions of
+the world outside them.</p>
+
+<p>It was a world, they were impressions, calculated to produce
+a reflective frame of mind. In winter they lived in the
+old castle. In summer they lived in Hollerbrunn, the summer
+schloss, on the river, in the cool, in the scent of the
+violet hedges with white statues between them. On the way
+thither, or if at any other time father or mother took them with
+them in one of the brown carriages with the little golden
+crown on the door, all the passers-by stopped, cheered,
+and took their hats off; for father was Prince and Ruler
+of the country, consequently they themselves were Prince
+and Princess&mdash;undoubtedly in precisely the same sense as
+were the princes and princesses in the French stories which
+their Swiss governess told them. That was worth consideration,
+it was at any rate a peculiar occurrence. When
+other children heard the stories, they necessarily regarded
+the princes which figured in them from a great distance, and
+as solemn beings whose rank was a glorification of reality
+and with whom to concern themselves was undoubtedly a
+chastening of their thoughts, and an escape from the ordinary
+existence. But Klaus Heinrich and Ditlinde regarded the
+heroes of the stories as their own equals and fellows, they
+breathed the same air as them, they lived in a schloss like them,
+they stood on a fraternal footing with them, and were justified
+in identifying themselves with them. Was it their lot, then,
+to live always and continually on the height to which others
+only climbed when stories were being told to them? The
+Swiss governess, true to her general principles, would have
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_42" title="42"> </a>
+found it impossible to deny it, if the children had asked the
+question in so many words.</p>
+
+<p>The Swiss governess was the widow of a <ins title="Calvanistic">Calvinistic</ins> minister
+and was in charge of both children, each of whom had
+two lady's maids as well. She was black and white throughout:
+her cap was white and her dress black, her face was
+white, with white warts on one cheek, and her smooth hair
+had a mixed black-and-white metallic sheen. She was very
+precise and easily put out. When things happened which,
+though quite without danger, could not be allowed, she
+clasped her white hands and turned her eyes up to heaven.
+But her quietest and severest mode of punishment for serious
+occasions was to &ldquo;look sadly&rdquo; at the children&mdash;implying that
+they had lost their self-respect. On a fixed day she began,
+on a hint from higher quarters, to address Klaus Heinrich
+and Ditlinde as &ldquo;Grand Ducal Highness,&rdquo; and from that day
+she was more easily put out than before&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>But Albrecht was called &ldquo;Royal Highness.&rdquo; Aunt Catherine's
+children were members of the family only on the
+distaff side, and so were of less importance. But Albrecht
+was Crown Prince and Heir Apparent, so that it was not
+at all unfitting that he should look so pale and distant and
+keep so much to his bed. He wore Austrian coats with
+flap pockets and cut long behind. His head had a big
+bump at the back and narrow temples, and he had a long
+face. While still quite young he had come through a serious
+illness, which, in the opinion of Surgeon-General Eschrich,
+was the reason for his heart having &ldquo;shifted over to the
+right.&rdquo; However that might be, he had seen Death face to
+face, a fact which had probably intensified the shy dignity
+which was natural to him. He seemed to be extremely standoffish,
+cold from embarrassment, and proud from lack of
+graciousness. He lisped a little and then blushed at doing
+so, because he was always criticizing himself. His shoulder-blades
+were a little uneven. One of his eyes had some weakness
+or other, so that he used glasses for writing his exercises,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_43" title="43"> </a>
+which helped to make him look old and wise&hellip;. Albrecht's
+tutor, Doctor Veit, a man with hanging mud-coloured moustaches,
+hollow cheeks, and wan eyes unnaturally far apart,
+was always at his left hand. Doctor Veit was always dressed
+in black, and carried a book dangling down his thigh, with
+his index-finger thrust between its leaves.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich felt that Albrecht did not care much for
+him, and he saw that it was not only because of his inferiority
+in years. He himself was tender-hearted and prone to tears,
+that was his nature. He cried, when anybody &ldquo;looked
+sadly&rdquo; at him, and when he knocked his forehead against
+a corner of the nursery table, so that it bled, he howled from
+sympathy with his forehead. But Albrecht had faced Death,
+yet never cried on any condition. He stuck his short,
+rounded underlip a little forward, and sucked it lightly against
+the upper one&mdash;that was all. He was most superior. The
+Swiss governess referred in so many words to him in matters
+of <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">comme il faut</i> as a model. He had never allowed himself
+to converse with the gorgeous creatures who belonged
+to the court, not exactly men and human beings, but
+lackeys&mdash;as Klaus Heinrich had sometimes done in unguarded
+moments. For Albrecht was not curious. The look in his
+eyes was that of a lonely boy, who had no wish to let the
+world intrude upon him. Klaus Heinrich, on the contrary,
+chatted with the lackeys from that same wish, and from
+an urgent though perhaps dangerous and improper desire
+to feel some contact with what lay outside the charmed
+circle. But the lackeys, young and old, at the doors, in
+the corridors and the passage-rooms, with their sand-coloured
+gaiters and brown coats, on the red-gold lace of
+which the same little crown as on the carriage doors was
+repeated again and again&mdash;they straightened their knees when
+Klaus Heinrich chatted to them, laid their great hands on
+the seams of the thick velvet breeches, bent a little forward
+towards him, so that the aiguillettes dangled from their
+shoulders, and returned various, highly proper answers, the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_44" title="44"> </a>
+most important part of which was the address &ldquo;Grand Ducal
+Highness,&rdquo; and smiled as they did so with an expression
+of cautious sympathy, which recalled the words of the old
+song, &ldquo;The lad that is born to be king.&rdquo; Sometimes when
+he got the chance, Klaus Heinrich went on voyages of discovery
+in uninhabited parts of the schloss, with Ditlinde, his
+sister, when she was old enough.</p>
+
+<p>At that time he was having lessons from Schulrat Dröge,
+Rector of the city schools, who was chosen to be his first
+tutor. Schulrat Dröge was a born pedagogue. His index-finger,
+with its folds of dry skin and gold stoneless signet-ring,
+followed the line of print when Klaus Heinrich read,
+waiting before going on to the next word until the preceding
+one had been read. He came in a frock-coat and white
+waistcoat, with the ribbon of some inferior order in his
+button-hole, and in broad shiny boots with brown upper-leathers.
+He wore a pointed grey beard, and bushy grey
+hair grew out of his big, broad ears. His brown hair was
+brushed up into points on his temples, and so precisely parted
+as to show clearly his yellow dry scalp, which was full of
+holes like canvas. But thin grey hair was visible under the
+strong brown hair behind and at the sides. He bowed slightly
+to the lackeys who opened the door for him to the big
+schoolroom at whose table Klaus Heinrich sat waiting for
+him. But to Klaus Heinrich he did not confine himself
+to a superficial bow as he entered the room, but made a pronounced
+and deliberate bow before he came up to him,
+and waited for his exalted pupil to offer him his hand. This
+Klaus Heinrich did; and the fact that he did so twice, not
+only when he greeted him, but also when he took his departure,
+just in the graceful and winning way in which he
+had seen his father give his hand to those who expected it,
+seemed to him far more important and essential than all
+the instruction which came between the two ceremonies.</p>
+
+<p>After Schulrat Dröge had come and gone any number
+of times, Klaus Heinrich had imperceptibly gained a knowledge
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_45" title="45"> </a>
+of all sorts of practical things: to everybody's surprise
+he was quite at home in every kind of reading, writing, and
+arithmetic, and could reel off to order the names of the
+towns in the Grand Duchy pretty well without an omission.
+But, as has been said, this was not what was in his opinion
+really necessary and essential for him. From time to time,
+when he was inattentive at his lessons, the Schulrat rebuked
+him with a reference to his exalted calling. &ldquo;Your exalted
+calling requires you&nbsp;&hellip;&rdquo; he would say or: &ldquo;You owe it
+to your exalted calling&hellip;.&rdquo; What was his calling, and how
+was it exalted? Why did the lackeys smile as if to say,
+&ldquo;The lad that is born to be king,&rdquo; and why was his governess
+so much put out when he let himself go a little in speech
+or action? He looked round him, and at times, when he
+looked steadily and long and forced himself to probe the
+essence of the phenomena around him, a dim apprehension
+arose in him of the &ldquo;aloofness&rdquo; of his position.</p>
+
+<p>He was standing in one of the &ldquo;gala rooms,&rdquo; the Silver
+Hall, in which, as he knew, his father the Grand Duke received
+solemn deputations&mdash;he happened to have wandered
+into it by himself and he took stock of his surroundings.</p>
+
+<p>It was winter-time and cold, his little shoes were reflected
+in the glass-clear yellow squares of the parquet which spread
+like a sheet of ice before him. The ceiling, covered with
+silvered arabesque-work, was so high that a long metal shaft
+was necessary to allow the many-armed silver chandelier
+with its forest of tall white candles to swing in the middle
+of the great space. Below the ceiling came silver-framed
+coats-of-arms in faded colours. The walls were edged with
+silver, and hung with white silk with yellow spots, not to
+mention a split here and there. A sort of monumental
+baldachin, resting on two strong silver columns and decorated
+in front with a silver garland, broken in two places, from
+the top of which looked down a portrait of a deceased, powdered
+ancestress draped in imitation ermine, formed the
+chimney-piece. On each side of the fireplace were broad
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_46" title="46"> </a>
+silvered arm-chairs upholstered in torn white silk. On the
+side walls opposite each other towered enormous silver-framed
+mirrors, whose glass was covered with blind spots, and on
+each side of whose broad white marble ledges stood two
+candelabra which carried big white candles like the sconces
+on the walls all round, and like the four silver candlesticks
+which stood in the corners. Before the high windows to
+the right, looking over the Albrechtsplatz, whose outer ledges
+were covered with snow, white silk curtains, yellow spotted,
+with silver cords and trimmed with lace, fell in rich, and
+heavy folds to the floor. In the middle of the room, under
+the chandelier, a moderate-sized table, with a pedestal made
+like a knobby silver tree-stump and a top made of eight
+triangles of opaque mother-of-pearl, stood useless, as there
+were no chairs round it, and it could only serve, and be meant
+to serve, at the very best, as a support for your Highness,
+when the lackeys opened the doors and ushered in the solemn
+figures in Court dress who came to present their respects to
+you&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich looked round the hall, and clearly saw
+that there was nothing here which reminded him of the realities
+which Schulrat Dröge, for all his bows, was always impressing
+upon him. Here all was Sunday and solemnity,
+just as in church, where also he would have felt the calls
+made on him by his tutor out of place. Everything here
+was severe and empty show and a formal symmetry, self-sufficient,
+pointless, and uncomfortable&mdash;whose functions
+were obviously to create an atmosphere of awe and tension,
+not of freedom and ease, to inculcate an attitude of decorum
+and discreet self-obliteration towards an unnamed object.
+And it was cold in the silver hall&mdash;cold as in the halls of the
+snow-king, where the children's hearts froze stiff.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich walked over the glassy floor and stood
+at the table in the middle. He laid his right hand lightly
+on the mother-of-pearl table, and placed the left hand on his
+hip, so far behind that it rested almost in the small of his
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_47" title="47"> </a>
+back, and was not visible from in front, for it was an ugly
+sight, brown and wrinkled, and had not kept pace with the
+right in its growth. He stood resting on one leg, with the
+other a little advanced, and kept his eyes fixed on the silver
+ornaments of the door. It was not the place nor the attitude
+for dreaming, and yet he dreamed.</p>
+
+<p>He saw his father, and looked at him as he looked at
+the hall, to try to grasp his meaning. He saw the dull
+haughtiness of his blue eyes, the furrows which, proudly
+and morosely, ran from nostril down to his beard, and
+were often deepened or accentuated by weariness and boredom&hellip;.
+Nobody dared to address him or to go freely up
+to him and speak to him unasked&mdash;not even the children:
+it was forbidden, it was dangerous. He answered, it is true:
+but he answered distantly and coldly, a look of helplessness,
+of <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">gêne</i>, passed over his face, which Klaus Heinrich was quite
+able to understand.</p>
+
+<p>Papa made a speech and sent his petitioners away; that
+is what always happened. He gave an audience at the beginning
+of the Court ball, and at the end of the dinner
+with which the winter began. He went with mamma through
+the rooms and halls, in which the members of the Court
+were gathered, went through the Marble Hall and the Gala
+Rooms, through the Picture Gallery, the Hall of the Knights,
+the Hall of the Twelve Months, the Audience Chamber, and
+the Ball-room&mdash;went not only in a fixed direction, but along
+a fixed path which bustling Herr von Bühl kept free for him,
+and addressed a few words to the assembled throng. Whoever
+was addressed by him bowed low, left a space of parquet
+between himself and papa, and answered soberly and
+with signs of gratification. Thereupon papa greeted them over
+the intervening space, from the stronghold of precise regulations
+which prescribed the others' movements and warranted
+his own attitude, greeted them smilingly and lightly and
+passed on. Smilingly and lightly&hellip;. Of course, of course,
+Klaus Heinrich quite understood it, the look of helplessness
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_48" title="48"> </a>
+which passed for one moment over papa's face when anybody
+was impetuous enough to address him unasked&mdash;understood
+it, and shared his feeling of <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">gêne</i>! It wounded something,
+some soft, virgin envelope of our existence which was so
+essential to it that we stood helpless when anybody roughly
+broke through it. And yet it was this same something which
+made our eyes so dull, and gave us those deep furrows of
+boredom&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich stood and saw&mdash;he saw his mother and her
+beauty, which was famed and extolled far and wide. He
+saw her standing <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">en robe de ceremonie</i>, in front of her great
+candle-lighted glass, for sometimes, on solemn occasions,
+he was allowed to be present when the Court hairdresser
+and the bed-chamber women put the last touches to her
+toilette. Herr von Knobelsdorff also was present when
+mamma put on jewels from the Crown regalia, watched and
+noted down the stones which she decided to use. With all
+the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes showing, he would
+make mamma laugh with his droll remarks, so that her
+soft cheeks filled with lovely little dimples. But her laugh
+was full of art and grace, and she looked in the glass as she
+laughed, as if she were practising it.</p>
+
+<p>People said that Slav blood flowed in her veins, and
+that it was that which gave the sweet radiance to her deep-blue
+eyes and the night of her raven hair. Klaus Heinrich
+was like her, so he heard people say, in that he too had
+steel-blue eyes with dark hair, while Albrecht and Ditlinde
+were fair, just as papa had been before his hair turned
+grey. But he was far from handsome, owing to the breadth
+of his cheek-bones, and especially to his left hand, which
+mamma was always reminding him to hide adroitly, in the
+side-pocket of his coat, behind his back, or under the breast
+of his jacket&mdash;especially when his affectionate impulses
+prompted him to throw both his arms round her. Her look
+was cold when she bade him mind his hand.</p>
+
+<p>He saw her as she was in the picture in the Marble Hall:
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_49" title="49"> </a>
+in a short silk dress with lace flounces and long gloves,
+which showed only a glimpse of her ivory arm under her
+puffed sleeves, a diadem in the night of her hair, her stately
+form erect, a smile of cool perfection on her strangely hard
+lips&mdash;and behind her the metallic-blue wheel of a peacock's
+tail. Her face was soft, but its beauty made it stern, and
+it was easy to see that her heart too was stern and absorbed
+in her beauty. She slept far into the day when a ball or
+party was in prospect, and ate only yolks of eggs, so as
+not to overload herself. Then in the evening she was radiant
+as she walked on papa's arm along the prescribed path through
+the halls&mdash;grey-haired dignitaries blushed when they were
+addressed by her, and the <i>Courier</i> reported that it was not
+only because of her exalted rank that her Royal Highness
+had been the queen of the ball. Yes, people felt happier
+for the sight of her, whether it was at the Court or outside
+in the streets, or in the afternoon driving or riding in the
+park&mdash;and their cheeks kindled. Flowers and cheers met
+her, all hearts went out to her, and it was clear that the people
+in cheering her were cheering themselves, and that their
+glad cries meant that they were cheered and elevated by the
+sight of her. But Klaus Heinrich knew well that mamma
+had spent long, anxious hours on her beauty, that there was
+practice and method in her smiles and greetings, and that
+her own pulse beat never the quicker for anything or anyone.</p>
+
+<p>Did she love anyone&mdash;himself, Klaus Heinrich, for instance,
+for all his likeness to her? Why, of course she did, when
+she had time to, even when she coldly reminded him of
+his hand. But it seemed as if she reserved any expression
+or sign of her tender feelings for occasions when lookers-on
+were present who were likely to be edified by them.
+Klaus Heinrich and Ditlinde did not often come into contact
+with their mother, chiefly because they, unlike Albrecht,
+the Heir Apparent, for some time past, did not have their
+meals at their parents' table, but apart with the Swiss
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_50" title="50"> </a>
+governess; and when they were summoned to mamma's
+boudoir, which happened once a week, the interview consisted
+in a few casual questions and polite answers&mdash;giving
+no scope for displays of feeling, while its whole drift seemed
+to be the proper way to sit in an arm-chair with a teacup full
+of milk.</p>
+
+<p>But at the concerts which took place in the Marble Hall
+every other Thursday under the name of &ldquo;The Grand
+Duchess's Thursdays,&rdquo; and were so arranged that the Court
+sat at little gilt-legged velvet-covered tables, while the leading
+tenor Schramm from the Court Theatre, accompanied by
+an orchestra, sang so lustily that the veins swelled on his
+bald temples&mdash;at the concerts Klaus Heinrich and Ditlinde,
+in their best clothes, were sometimes allowed in the Hall
+for one song and the succeeding pause, when mamma showed
+how fond she was of them, showed it to them and to everybody
+else in so heartfelt and expressive a way that nobody
+could have any doubt about it. She summoned them to the
+table at which she sat, and told them with a happy smile
+to sit beside her, laid their cheeks on her shoulders or bosom,
+looked at them with a soft, soulful look in her eyes and
+kissed them both on forehead and mouth. Then the ladies
+bent their heads and their eyelids quivered, while the men
+slowly nodded and bit their lips in order, in manly wise,
+to restrain their emotions&hellip;. Yes, it was beautiful, and
+the children felt they had their share in the effect, which was
+greater than anything Schramm the singer could procure
+with his most inspired notes, and nestled close to mamma.
+For Klaus Heinrich at last realized that it was in the nature
+of things, no business of ours, to have a simple feeling and
+to be made happy by it, but that it was our duty to make
+our tenderness visible to the Hall and to exhibit it, that the
+hearts of our guests might swell.</p>
+
+<p>Occasionally the people outside in the town and park also
+were allowed to see that mamma loved us. For while Albrecht
+drove or rode&mdash;bad rider though he was&mdash;with the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_51" title="51"> </a>
+Grand Duke early in the morning, Klaus Heinrich and
+Ditlinde had from time to time to take turns at accompanying
+mamma on her drives, which took place in the spring
+and autumn at the time of the afternoon promenade, with
+Baroness von Schulenburg-Tressen in attendance. Klaus
+Heinrich was a little excited and feverish before these drives,
+to which unfortunately no enjoyment, but on the contrary
+a great deal of trouble and effort attached. For, directly
+the open carriage came out through the Lions Gate on to
+the Albrechtsplatz, past the grenadiers at the &ldquo;present,&rdquo; there
+were a lot of people collected, waiting for it&mdash;men, women,
+and children, who shouted and stared full of curiosity; and
+that meant pulling oneself together, sitting up erect, smiling,
+hiding the left hand, and saluting in such a way as to make
+the people happy. And so it went on right through the
+city and the fields. Other vehicles were obliged to keep
+away from ours; the police looked to that. But the foot-passengers
+stood on the kerb, the women curtseyed, the men
+took off their hats and looked with eyes full of devotion
+and importunate curiosity,&mdash;and this was the impression
+Klaus Heinrich got: that they all were there just to be there
+and to stare, while he was there to show himself and to
+be stared at; and his was far the harder part. He kept his
+left hand in his coat-pocket and smiled as mamma wished
+him to, while he felt that his cheeks were aglow. But the
+<i>Courier</i> reported that the rosy redness of our little duke's
+cheeks showed what a healthy boy he was.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich was thirteen years old when he stood at
+the solitary mother-of-pearl table in the middle of the cold
+silver hall, and tried to probe the reality of things around
+him. And as he scrutinized the various phenomena: the
+empty, torn pride of the room, aimless and uncomfortable,
+the symmetry of the white candles, which seemed to express
+awe and tension and discreet self-obliteration, the passing
+shadow on his father's face when anybody addressed him
+unasked, the cool and calculated beauty of his mother, whose
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_52" title="52"> </a>
+one object was admiration, the devoted and importunately
+curious gaze of the people outside&mdash;then a suspicion seized
+him, a vague and approximate conception of his situation.
+But simultaneously horror seized him, terror at such a destiny,
+a dread of his &ldquo;exalted calling,&rdquo; so strong that he turned
+round and covered his eyes with both his hands&mdash;both, the little
+wrinkled left one too&mdash;and sank down at the lonely table and
+cried, cried from sympathy with himself and his heart&mdash;till
+they came, and wrung their hands and turned their eyes
+up to heaven and questioned him, and led him away&hellip;.
+He gave out that he had been frightened, and that was quite
+true.</p>
+
+<p>He had known nothing, understood nothing, suspected
+nothing of the difficulty and sternness of the life prescribed
+for him; he had been merry and careless, and had given
+his guardians many a scare. But there was no resisting the
+impressions which soon came thronging upon him and forcing
+him to open his eyes to the real state of things. In
+the northern suburbs, not far from the spa-gardens, a new
+road had been opened: people told him that the City Council
+had decided to call it &ldquo;Klaus Heinrich Strasse.&rdquo; Once when
+driving out with his mother and he called at a picture-dealer's,
+they wanted to buy something. The footman waited at the
+carriage door, the public gathered round, the picture-dealer
+bustled about&mdash;there was nothing new in all that. But Klaus
+Heinrich for the first time noticed his photograph in the shop
+window. It was hanging next those of artists and great men,
+men with lofty brows, with a look of the loneliness of
+fame in their eyes.</p>
+
+<p>People were satisfied with him on the whole. He gained
+dignity with years, and self-possession under the pressure
+of his exalted calling. But the strange thing was that his
+longing increased at the same time: that roving inquisitiveness
+which Schulrat Dröge was not the man to satisfy, and
+which had impelled him to chat with the lackeys. He had
+given up doing that; it did not lead to anything. They
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_53" title="53"> </a>
+smiled at him, confirming him by that very laugh in the
+suspicion that his world of the symmetrically marshalled
+candles presented an unconscious antithesis to the world
+outside, but they were no manner of help to him. He looked
+round about him on the expeditions, in the walks he took
+through the town gardens with Ditlinde and the Swiss governess,
+followed by a lackey. He felt that if they were all
+of one mind to stare at him, while he was all alone and
+made conspicuous just to be stared at, he also had no share
+in their being and doing. He realized that they presumably
+were not always as he saw them, when they stood and
+greeted him with deferential looks; that it must be his birth
+and upbringing which made their looks deferential, and that
+it was with them as with the children when they heard about
+fairy princes, and were thereby refined and elevated above
+their work-a-day selves. But he did not know what they
+looked like and were when they were not refined and elevated
+above their work-a-day selves&mdash;his &ldquo;exalted calling&rdquo; concealed
+this from him, and it was a dangerous and improper
+wish to allow his heart to be moved by things which his
+exaltedness concealed from him. And yet he wished it, he
+wished it from a jealousy and that roving inquisitiveness
+which sometimes drove him to undertake voyages of exploration
+into unknown regions of the old Schloss, with Ditlinde
+his sister, when the opportunity offered.</p>
+
+<p>They called it &ldquo;rummaging,&rdquo; and great was the charm of
+&ldquo;rummaging&rdquo;; for it was difficult to acquire familiarity with
+the ground-plan and structure of the old Schloss, and every
+time they penetrated far enough into the remoter parts they
+found rooms, closets, and empty halls which they had not
+yet trodden, or strange round-about ways to already-known
+rooms. But once when thus wandering about they had a
+rencontre, an adventure befell them, which made a great impression
+on Klaus Heinrich, though he did not show it, and
+opened his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The opportunity came. While the Swiss <ins title="governness">governess</ins> was
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_54" title="54"> </a>
+absent on leave to attend the evening service, they had drunk
+their milk from tea-cups with the Grand Duchess, accompanied
+by the two ladies-in-waiting, had been dismissed and directed
+to go back hand-in-hand to their ordinary occupations
+in the nursery, which lay not far off. It was thought
+that they needed nobody to go with them; Klaus Heinrich
+was old enough to take care of Ditlinde, of course. He was;
+and in the corridor he said: &ldquo;Yes, Ditlinde, we will certainly
+go back to the nursery, but we need not go, you
+know, the shortest, dullest way. We'll rummage a bit first.
+If you go up one step and follow the corridor as far as
+where the arches begin, you'll find a hall with pillars behind
+them, and if you go out of one of the doors of the
+hall with pillars&mdash;clamber up the corkscrew staircase, you
+come to a room with a wooden roof; and there are lots of
+funny things lying about there. But I don't know what
+comes after the room, and that's what we've got to find out.
+So let's go.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, let's,&rdquo; said Ditlinde, &ldquo;but not too far, Klaus Heinrich,
+and not where it's too dusty, for this dress shows <ins title="everything.">everything.&rdquo;</ins></p>
+
+<p>She was wearing a dress of dark-red velvet, trimmed with
+satin of the same colour. She had at that time dimples in
+her elbows, and light golden hair, that curled round her
+ears like ram's horns. In after years she was pale and
+thin. She too had the broad, rather over-prominent cheek-bones
+of her father and nation, but they were not accentuated,
+so that they did not spoil the lines of her face. But
+with Klaus Heinrich they were strong and emphatic, so
+that they seemed somewhat to encroach upon, to narrow and
+to lengthen his steel-coloured eyes. His dark hair was
+smoothly parted, cut in a careful rectangle on the temples,
+and brushed straight back from the forehead. He wore
+an open jacket with a waistcoat buttoning at the throat and
+a white turn-down collar. In his right hand he held Ditlinde's
+little hand, but his left arm hung down, with its
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_55" title="55"> </a>
+brown, wrinkled, and undeveloped hand, thin and short from
+the shoulder. He was glad that he could let it hang without
+bothering to conceal it; for there was nobody there to
+stare and to require to be elevated and inspired, and he
+himself might stare and examine to his heart's content.</p>
+
+<p>So they went and rummaged as they liked. Quiet reigned
+in the corridors, and they saw hardly a lackey in the distance.
+They climbed up a staircase and followed the passage
+till they came to the arches, showing that they were
+in the part of the Schloss which dated from the time of
+John the Headstrong and Heinrich the Confessor, as Klaus
+Heinrich knew and explained. They came to the hall of
+the pillars, and Klaus Heinrich there whistled several notes
+close after each other, for the first were still sounding when
+the last came, and so a clear chord rang under the vaulted
+ceiling. They scrambled groping and often on hands and
+knees up the stone winding staircase which opened behind
+one of the heavy doors, and reached the room with the
+wooden ceiling, in which there were several strange objects.
+There were some broken muskets of clumsy size with thickly
+rusted locks, which had been too bad for the museum, and
+a discarded throne with torn red velvet cushions, short wide-splayed
+lion-legs, and cupids hovering over the chair-back,
+bearing a crown. Then there was a wicked-looking, dusty,
+cage-like, and horribly interesting thing, which intrigued
+them much and long. If they were not quite mistaken, it
+was a rat-trap, for they could see the iron spike to put the
+bacon on, and it was dreadful to think how the trap-door
+must fall down behind the great beast&hellip;. Yes, this took
+time, and when they stood up after examining the rat-trap
+their faces were hot, and their clothes stiff with rust and
+dust. Klaus Heinrich brushed them both down, but that did
+not do much good, for his hands were as filthy as his clothes.
+And suddenly they saw that dusk had begun to fall. They
+must return quickly, Ditlinde insisted anxiously on that; it
+was too late to go any farther.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_56" title="56"> </a>&ldquo;That's an awful pity,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich. &ldquo;Who knows
+what else we mightn't have found, and when we shall get another
+chance of rummaging, Ditlinde!&rdquo; But he followed his
+sister and they hurried back down the turret-stairs, crossed
+the hall of the pillars, and came out into the arcade, intending
+to hurry home hand-in-hand.</p>
+
+<p>Thus they wandered on for a time; but Klaus Heinrich
+shook his head, for it seemed to him that this was not the
+way he had come. They went still farther; but several signs
+told them that they had mistaken their direction. This stone
+seat with the griffin-heads was not standing here before.
+That pointed window looked to the west over the low-lying
+quarter of the town and not over the inner courtyard with
+the rose-bush. They were going wrong, it was no use denying
+it; perhaps they had left the hall of the pillars by a wrong
+exit&mdash;anyhow they had absolutely lost their way.</p>
+
+<p>They went back a little, but their disquietude would not
+allow them to go very far back, so they turned right about
+again, and decided to push on the way they had already come,
+and to trust to luck. Their way lay through a damp, stuffy
+atmosphere, and great undisturbed cobwebs stretched across
+the corners; they went with heavy hearts, and Ditlinde especially
+was full of repentance and on the brink of tears.
+People would notice her absence, would &ldquo;look sadly&rdquo; at her,
+perhaps even tell the Grand Duke; they would never find the
+way, would be forgotten and die of hunger. And where there
+was a rat-trap, Klaus Heinrich, there were also rats&hellip;. Klaus
+Heinrich comforted her. They only had to find the
+place where the armour and crossed standards hung; from
+that point he was quite sure of the direction. And suddenly&mdash;they
+had just passed a bend in the winding passage&mdash;suddenly
+something happened. It startled them dreadfully.</p>
+
+<p>What they had heard was more than the echo of their own
+steps, they were other, strange steps, heavier than theirs; they
+came towards them now quickly, now hesitatingly, and were
+accompanied by a snorting and grumbling which made their
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_57" title="57"> </a>
+blood run cold. Ditlinde made as if to run away from fright:
+but Klaus Heinrich would not let go her hand, and they stood
+with starting eyes waiting for what was coming.</p>
+
+<p>It was a man who was just visible in the half-darkness,
+and, calmly considered, his appearance was not horrifying.
+He was squat in figure, and dressed like a veteran soldier.
+He wore a frock-coat of old-fashioned cut, a woollen comforter
+round his neck and a medal on his breast. He held in one
+hand a curly top-hat and in the other the bone handle of his
+clumsily rolled-up umbrella, which he tapped on the flags in
+time with his steps. His thin grey hair was plastered up from
+one ear in wisps over his skull. He had bow-shaped black
+eyebrows, and a yellow-white beard, which grew like the
+Grand Duke's, heavy upper-lids, and watery blue eyes with
+pouches of withered skin under them; he had the usual high
+cheek-bones, and the furrows of his sun-burnt face were like
+crevasses. When he had come quite close he seemed to recognize
+the children, for he placed himself against the outer wall
+of the passage, at once fronted round and began to make a
+number of bows, consisting of several short forward jerks of
+his whole body from the feet upwards, while he imparted a
+look of honesty to his mouth and held his top-hat crown-downwards
+in front of him. Klaus Heinrich meant to pass
+him by with a nod, but was surprised into halting, for the
+veteran began to speak.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I beg pardon!&rdquo; he suddenly grunted; then went on in a
+more natural voice: &ldquo;I earnestly beg your young Highnesses'
+pardon! But would your young Highnesses take it amiss if
+I addressed to them the request that they would very kindly
+acquaint me with the nearest way to the nearest exit? It
+need not actually be the Albrechtstor&mdash;not in the least necessary
+that it should be the Albrechtstor. But any exit from the
+Schloss, if I dare be so free as to address this inquiry to
+your young Highnesses&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich had laid his left hand on his hip, right behind,
+so that it lay almost in his back, and looked at the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_58" title="58"> </a>
+ground. The man had simply spoken to him, had engaged
+him directly and unavoidably in conversation; he thought of
+his father and knitted his brows. He pondered feverishly over
+the question how he ought to behave in this topsy-turvy and
+incorrect situation. Albrecht would have pursed up his
+mouth, sucked with his short, rounded under-lip lightly against
+the upper, and passed on in silence&mdash;so much was certain.
+But what was the use of rummaging if at the first serious
+adventure one intended to pass on in dignity and dudgeon?
+And the man was honest, and had nothing wicked about him:
+that Klaus Heinrich could see when he forced himself to raise
+his eyes. He simply said: &ldquo;You come with us, that's the
+best way. I will willingly show you where you must turn off
+to get to an exit.&rdquo; And they went on.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Thanks!&rdquo; said the man. &ldquo;Ever so many thanks for your
+kindness! Heaven knows I should never have thought that I
+should live to walk about the Old Schloss one day with your
+young Highnesses. But there it is, and after all my annoyance&mdash;for
+I have been annoyed, terribly annoyed, that's true
+and certain&mdash;after all my annoyance I have at any rate this
+honour and this satisfaction.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich longed to ask what might have been the
+reason for so much annoyance; but the veteran went straight
+on (and tapped his umbrella in regular time on the flags as
+he went). &ldquo;&hellip;&nbsp;and I recognized your young Highnesses at
+once, although it is a bit dark here in the passage, for I have
+seen you many a time in the carriage, and was always delighted,
+for I myself have just such a couple of brats at home&mdash;I
+mean to say, mine are brats, mine are &hellip; and the boy
+is called Klaus Heinrich too.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Just like me?&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich, overjoyed&hellip;.
+&ldquo;What luck!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There's no luck about it,&rdquo; said the man, &ldquo;considering he
+was named expressly after you, for he is a couple of months
+younger than you, and there are lots of children in the town
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_59" title="59"> </a>
+and country who are called that, and all of them after you.
+No, one can hardly call it luck&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich concealed his hand and remained silent.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, recognized you at once,&rdquo; said the man. &ldquo;And I
+thought, thank Heaven, thought I, that's what I call fortune
+in misfortune, and they'll help you out of the trap into which
+you have stuck your nose, you old blockhead, and you've
+good reason to laugh, thought I, for there's many a one has
+trudged about here and been guyed by those popinjays, and
+hasn't got out of it so well&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Popinjays? thought Klaus Heinrich &hellip; and guyed? He
+looked straight in front of him, he did not dare to ask. A
+fear, a hope struck him&hellip;. He said quite simply: &ldquo;They
+&hellip; they guyed you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not half!&rdquo; said the man. &ldquo;I should think they did, the
+ogres, and no mistake! But I don't mind telling your young
+Highnesses, young though you are, but it'll do you good to
+hear it, that these people here are a set of wasters. A man
+comes and delivers his work as respectfully as possible&hellip;.
+Yes, bless my soul!&rdquo; he cried suddenly, and tapped his forehead
+with his hat. &ldquo;I haven't yet introduced myself to your
+young Highnesses and told you who I am, have I?&mdash;Hinnerke!&rdquo;
+he said, &ldquo;Master-cobbler Hinnerke, Royal warrant-holder,
+pensioner and medallist.&rdquo; And he pointed with the index-finger
+of his great, rough, yellow-spotted hand to the medal
+on his breast. &ldquo;The fact is, that his Royal Highness, your
+father, has been graciously pleased to order a pair of boots
+from me, top-boots, riding-boots, with spurs, and made of
+the best quality patent-leather. They're my speciality, and
+I made them myself and took a lot of trouble about them, and
+they were ready to-day and ever so smart. &lsquo;You must go
+yourself,&rsquo; says I to myself&hellip;. I have a boy who delivers,
+but I says to myself: &lsquo;You must go yourself, they are for
+the Grand Duke.&rsquo; So I rig myself out and take my boots and
+go to the Schloss. &lsquo;All right,&rsquo; say the lackeys down below,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_60" title="60"> </a>
+and want to take them from me, &lsquo;No!&rsquo; say I, for I don't
+trust them. It's my reputation gets me my orders and my
+warrant, let me tell your Highnesses, not because I tip the
+lackeys. But the fellows are spoilt by tips from the warrant-holders,
+and want to get something out of me for their trouble.
+&lsquo;No,&rsquo; say I, for I'm not a one for bribing and underhand
+dealings, &lsquo;I'll deliver them myself, and if I can't give them to
+the Grand Duke himself, I'll give them to Valet Prahl.&rsquo; They
+looked daggers, but they say: &lsquo;Then you must go up there!&rsquo;
+And I go up there. There are some more of them up there,
+and they say &lsquo;All right!&rsquo; and want to take charge of the boots,
+but I ask for Prahl and stick to it. They say: &lsquo;He's having
+his tea,&rsquo; but I'm determined and say, &lsquo;Then I'll wait till he's
+finished.&rsquo; And just as I say it, who comes by in his buckled
+shoes but Valet Prahl. And he sees me, and I give him the
+boots with a few modest words, and he says &lsquo;All right!&rsquo; and
+actually adds: &lsquo;They're fine!&rsquo; and nods and takes them off.
+Now I'm satisfied, for Prahl, he's safe, so off I go. &lsquo;Hi!&rsquo;
+cries somebody. &lsquo;Mr. Hinnerke! You're going wrong!&rsquo;
+&lsquo;Damn!&rsquo; says I, and right about, and go off in the other direction.
+But that was the stupidest thing I could do, for they
+had sent me to Jericho, and that's just where I don't want to
+go. I walk on a bit and meet another one, and ask him the
+way to the Albrechtstor. But he spots at once what's up,
+and says: &lsquo;Go up the stairs, and then keep to the left and
+then down again, and you'll cut off a large corner!&rsquo; And I
+believe he means it kindly and do what he says, and get more
+and more muddled and altogether lose my bearings. Then
+I see that it's not my fault, but the rogues', and it strikes me
+that I have heard that they often play that trick on Court
+tradesmen who don't tip them, and let them wander about
+till they sweat. And my fury makes me blind and stupid,
+and I get to places where there's not a living soul, and don't
+know where I am and get properly put about. And at last
+I meet your young Highnesses. Yes, that's how it is with
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_61" title="61"> </a>
+me and my boots!&rdquo; ended Shoemaker Hinnerke, and wiped
+his forehead with the back of his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich squeezed Ditlinde's hand. His heart beat
+so loud that he absolutely forgot to hide his left hand. That
+was it. That was a touch of it, an outline! No doubt about
+it, that was the sort of thing his &ldquo;exalted calling&rdquo; shielded
+him from, the sort of thing people did when they were in
+the ordinary, work-a-day frame of mind. The lackeys&hellip;.
+He said nothing, words failed him.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I see that your young Highnesses don't answer,&rdquo; said the
+shoemaker. And his honest voice was filled with emotion.
+&ldquo;I oughtn't to have told you, because it isn't your business
+to get to know all the wickedness that goes on. But yet I
+don't know,&rdquo; he said, laid his head on one side and snapped
+his fingers, &ldquo;that it can do any harm, that it can do you any
+harm for the future and later on&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The lackeys&nbsp;&hellip;&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich, and took a plunge
+&hellip; &ldquo;are they wicked? I can quite well fancy&nbsp;&hellip;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Wicked?&rdquo; said the cobbler. &ldquo;Good-for-nothings they are.
+That's the name for them. Do you know what they're good
+for? They keep the goods back when no tip's forthcoming,
+keep them back when the tradesman delivers them punctually
+at the time ordered, and only hand them over days late, so
+that the tradesman gets blamed, and is considered by the
+Grand Duke to have failed in his duty and he loses his orders.
+That's what they do without scruple, and the whole town
+knows it&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's most annoying!&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich. He listened,
+listened. He hardly realized how much shocked he was.
+&ldquo;Do they do anything else?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I'm quite sure they
+must do other things of the same kind.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You bet!&rdquo; said the man, and laughed. &ldquo;No, they don't
+miss a chance, let me tell your Highnesses, they have all sorts
+of dodges. There's the door-opening joke, for instance&hellip;.
+That's like this. Your father, our gracious Grand Duke,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_62" title="62"> </a>
+grants an audience to somebody, let's suppose he's a new hand
+and it's his first time at Court. And he comes in a frock
+coat all sweat and shivers, for it is of course no trifle to stand
+before his Royal Highness for the first time. And the lackeys
+laugh at him, because they're quite at home here, and tow
+him into the ante-room, and he doesn't know where he is,
+and absolutely forgets to tip the lackeys. But then comes
+his moment, and the adjutant says his name, and the lackeys
+throw open the double-doors and let him into the room in
+which the Grand Duke is waiting. Then the new hand stands
+there and bows and says what he has to say, and the Grand
+Duke graciously gives him his hand, and so he is dismissed
+and walks backwards, and thinks the folding-doors are going
+to open behind him, as he has been definitely promised. But
+they don't open, I tell your Highnesses, for the lackeys have
+got their knife into him, because they haven't been tipped,
+and don't stir a finger for him outside there. But he daren't
+turn round, absolutely daren't, because he daren't show the
+Grand Duke his back, that would be grossly bad manners and
+an insult to his Highness. And then he feels behind him for
+the door-handle and can't find it, and gets the jumps and
+scrabbles around on the door, and when at last by the mercy
+of Providence he finds the knob it's an old-fashioned lock,
+and he doesn't understand it and fiddles and dislocates his
+arm and tires himself out and keeps bowing all the time in
+his agitation, until at last his Highness graciously lets him
+out with his own hand. Yes, that's the door-opening joke!
+But that's nothing to what I'm going to tell your Highness&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They had been so deep in conversation that they had
+scarcely noticed where they were going, had gone down the
+stairs and reached the ground-floor, close to the Albrechtstor.
+Eiermann, one of the Grand Duchess's grooms-of-the-chamber,
+came towards them. He wore a violet coat and side-whiskers.
+He had been sent out to look for their Grand Ducal Highnesses.
+He shook his head while still at a distance, in lively
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_63" title="63"> </a>
+concern, and pursed his mouth up like a funnel. But when
+he noticed Shoemaker Hinnerke walking with the children and
+tapping with his umbrella, all the muscles of his face relaxed
+and his jaw dropped.</p>
+
+<p>There was scarcely time for thanks and farewells, Eiermann
+was in such a hurry to part the children from the shoemaker.
+And with many a gloomy prophecy he led their
+Grand Ducal Highnesses up to their room to the Swiss
+governess.</p>
+
+<p>Eyes were turned to heaven, hands were wrung about their
+absence and the state of their clothes. The worst of all happened,
+they were &ldquo;looked at sadly.&rdquo; But Klaus Heinrich
+confined his contrition to the bare minimum. He thought:
+&ldquo;So the lackeys took money and let the tradesmen wander
+about the corridors if they did not get any, kept the goods
+back, that the tradesmen might get blamed, and did not open
+the folding-doors, so that the suitor had to scrabble. That's
+what happened in the Schloss, and what must it be outside?
+Outside among the people who stared at him so respectfully
+and so strangely, when he drove by with his hand to his
+hat&nbsp;&hellip;? But how had the man dared to tell it him? Not
+one single time had he called him Grand Ducal Highness;
+he had forced himself on him and offended his birth and upbringing.
+And yet, why was it so extraordinarily pleasant
+to hear all that about the lackeys? Why did his heart beat
+with such rapt pleasure, when moved by some of the wild
+and bold things in which his Highness bore no part?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<h2><a class="pagenum" name="Page_64" title="64"> </a>IV<br/>
+<small>DOCTOR UEBERBEIN</small></h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">Klaus Heinrich</span> spent three of his boyhood's years in the
+company of boys of his own age of the Court and country
+nobility of the monarchy in an institution, a kind of aristocratic
+seminary, which von Knobelsdorff, the House Minister,
+had founded and set in order on his behalf in the &ldquo;Pheasantry&rdquo;
+hunting-schloss.</p>
+
+<p>A Crown property for centuries past, Schloss &ldquo;Pheasantry&rdquo;
+gave its name to the first stopping-place of a State railway
+running north-west from the capital, and itself took it from
+a &ldquo;tame&rdquo; pheasant preserve, situated not far off among the
+meadows and woods, which had been the hobby of a former
+ruler. The Schloss, a one-storied box-like country house
+with a shingle roof topped by lightning conductors, stood
+with stables and coach-house on the skirts of extensive fir
+plantations. With a row of aged lime trees in front, it looked
+out over a broad expanse of meadowland fringed by a distant
+bluish circle of woods and intersected by paths, with many
+a bare patch of play-ground and hurdles for obstacle riding.
+Opposite the corner of the Schloss was a refreshment pavilion,
+a beer and coffee garden planted with high trees, which a
+prudent man called Stavenüter had rented and which was
+thronged on Sundays in summer by excursionists, especially
+bicyclists, from the capital. The pupils of the &ldquo;Pheasantry&rdquo;
+were only allowed to visit the pavilion in charge of a tutor.</p>
+
+<p>There were five of them, not counting Klaus Heinrich:
+Trümmerhauff, Gumplach, Platow, Prenzlau, and Wehrzahn.
+They were called &ldquo;the Pheasants&rdquo; in the country round. They
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_65" title="65"> </a>
+had a landau from the Court stables which had seen its best
+days, a dog-cart, a sledge, and a few hacks, and when in
+winter some of the meadows were flooded and frozen over,
+they had an opportunity of skating. There was one cook,
+two chamber-maids, one coachman, and two lackeys at the
+&ldquo;Pheasantry,&rdquo; one of whom could drive at a pinch.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Kürtchen, a little suspicious and irritable bachelor
+with the airs of a comic actor and the manners of an old
+French chevalier, was head of the seminary. He wore a
+stubby grey moustache, a pair of gold spectacles in front of
+his restless brown eyes, and always out-of-doors a top hat on
+the back of his head. He stuck his belly out as he walked
+and held his little fists on each side of his stomach like a
+long-distance runner. He treated Klaus Heinrich with self-satisfied
+tact, but was full of suspicion of the noble arrogance
+of his other pupils and fired up like a tom-cat when he
+scented any signs of contempt for him as a commoner. He
+loved when out for a walk, if there were people close by,
+to stop and gather his pupils in a knot around him and explain
+something to them, drawing diagrams in the sand with
+his stick. He addressed Frau Amelung, the housekeeper, a
+captain's widow who smelt strongly of drugs, as &ldquo;my lady&rdquo;
+and showed thus that he knew what was what in the best
+circles.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Kürtchen was helped by a yet younger assistant
+teacher with a doctor's degree&mdash;a good-humoured, energetic
+man, bumptious but enthusiastic, who influenced Klaus Heinrich's
+views and conscience perhaps more than was good
+for him. A gymnastic instructor called Zotte had also been
+appointed. The assistant teacher, it may be remarked in
+passing, was called Ueberbein, Raoul Ueberbein. The rest
+of the staff came every day by railway from the capital.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich remarked with appreciation that the demands
+made on him from the point of view of learning
+quickly abated. Schulrat Dröge's wrinkled fore-finger no
+longer paused on the lines, he had done his work; and during
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_66" title="66"> </a>
+the lessons as well as while correcting his written work Professor
+Kürtchen seized every opportunity of showing his tact.</p>
+
+<p>One day, quite soon after the institution had started&mdash;it was
+after luncheon in the high-windowed dining-room&mdash;he summoned
+Klaus Heinrich into his study, and said in so many
+words: &ldquo;It is contrary to the public interest that your Grand
+Ducal Highness, during our scientific studies together, should
+be compelled to answer questions which are at the moment
+unwelcome to you. On the other hand, it is desirable that
+your Grand Ducal Highness should continually announce your
+readiness to answer by holding up your hand. I beg your
+Grand Ducal Highness accordingly, for my own information,
+in the case of unwelcome questions, to stretch out your arm to
+its full length, but in the case of those an invitation to answer
+which would be agreeable to you, to raise it only half way
+and in a right angle.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>As for Doctor Ueberbein, he filled the schoolroom with a
+noisy flow of words, whose cheerfulness disguised the teacher's
+object without losing sight of it altogether. He had come to
+no sort of understanding with Klaus Heinrich, but questioned
+him when it occurred to him to do so, in a free and friendly
+way without causing him any embarrassment. And Klaus
+Heinrich's by no means apropos answers seemed to enchant
+Doctor Ueberbein, to inspire him with warm enthusiasm.
+&ldquo;Ha, ha,&rdquo; he would cry and throw his head back laughing.
+&ldquo;Oh, Klaus Heinrich! Oh, scion of princes! Oh, your innocency!
+The crude problems of life have caught you unprepared!
+Now then, it is for me with my experience to put
+you straight.&rdquo; And he gave the answer himself, asked nobody
+else, when Klaus Heinrich had answered wrong. The
+mode of instruction of the other teachers bore the character
+of an unassuming lecture. And gymnastic-instructor Zotte
+had received orders from high quarters to conduct the physical
+exercises with every regard to Klaus Heinrich's left hand&mdash;so
+strictly that the attention of the Prince himself or of
+his companions should never be drawn unnecessarily to his
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_67" title="67"> </a>
+little failing. So the exercises were limited to running games,
+and during the riding lessons, which Herr Zotte also gave,
+all feats of daring were rigorously excluded.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich's relations with his comrades were not what
+one might call intimate, they did not extend to actual familiarity.
+He stood for himself, was never one of them, by no
+means counted amongst their number. They were five and
+he was one; the Prince, the five, and the teachers, that was
+the establishment. Several things stood in the way of a free
+friendship. The five were there on Klaus Heinrich's account,
+they were ordered to associate with him; when during the
+lessons he answered wrong they were not asked to correct him,
+they had to adjust themselves to his capacity when riding or
+playing. They were too often reminded of the advantages
+they gained by being allowed to share his life. Some of
+them, the young von Gumplach, von Platow, and von Wehrzahn,
+sons of country squires of moderate means, were oppressed
+the whole time by the gratified pride their parents had shown
+when the invitation from the House Minister reached them,
+by the congratulations which had poured in from every side.</p>
+
+<p>Count Prenzlau on the other hand, that thick-set, red-haired,
+freckled youth with the breathless way of speaking and the
+Christian name Bogumil, was a sprig of the richest and
+noblest family of landowners in the land, spoilt and self-conscious.
+He was well aware that his parents had not been
+able to refuse Baron von Knobelsdorff's invitation, but that
+it had not seemed to them by any means a blessing from the
+clouds, and that he, Count Bogumil, could have lived much
+better and more in accordance with his position on his father's
+property than at the &ldquo;Pheasantry.&rdquo; He found the hacks bad,
+the landau shabby, and the dog-cart old-fashioned; he grumbled
+privately over the food.</p>
+
+<p>Dagobert Count Trümmerhauff, a spare, greyhound-looking
+youth, who spoke in a whisper, was inseparable from him.
+They had a word among themselves which fully expressed
+their critical and aristocratic bent, and which they constantly
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_68" title="68"> </a>
+uttered in a biting tone of voice: &ldquo;hog-wash.&rdquo; It was hog-wash
+to have loose collars buttoning on to one's shirt. It
+was hog-wash to play lawn-tennis in one's ordinary clothes.</p>
+
+<p>But Klaus Heinrich felt himself unequal to using the word.
+He had not hitherto been aware that there were such things
+as shirts with collars sewed on to them and that people could
+possess so many changes of clothes at one time as Bogumil
+Prenzlau. He would have liked to say &ldquo;hog-wash,&rdquo; but it
+occurred to him that he was wearing at that very time darned
+socks. He felt inelegant by the side of Prenzlau and coarse
+compared with Trümmerhauff. <ins title="Trümmerhauf">Trümmerhauff</ins> had the nobility
+of a wild beast. He had a long pointed nose with a sharp
+bridge and broad, quivering, thin-walled nostrils, blue veins
+on his delicate temples and small ears without lobes. He
+wore broad coloured cuffs fastened with gold links, and his
+hands were like those of a dainty woman, with filbert nails;
+a gold bracelet adorned one of his wrists. He half closed
+his eyes as he whispered&hellip;. No, it was obvious that Klaus
+Heinrich could not compete with Trümmerhauff in elegance.
+His right hand was rather broad, he had <ins title="cheek bones">cheek-bones</ins> like the
+men in the street, and he looked quite stumpy by Dagobert's
+side. It was quite possible that Albrecht might have been
+better qualified to join the &ldquo;Pheasants&rdquo; in their use of &ldquo;hog-wash.&rdquo;
+Klaus Heinrich for his part was no aristocrat, absolutely
+none, unmistakable facts showed that. For consider
+his name, Klaus Heinrich, that's what the shoemaker's sons
+were called all over the place. Herr Stavenüter's children
+over the road too, who blew their noses with their fingers,
+bore the same names as himself, his parents, and his brother.
+But the lordlings were called Bogumil and Dagobert&mdash;Klaus
+Heinrich stood solitary and alone among the five.</p>
+
+<p>However, he formed one friendship at the &ldquo;Pheasantry,&rdquo;
+and it was with Doctor Ueberbein. The Usher Raoul Ueberbein
+was not a handsome man. He had a red beard and a
+greenish-white complexion with watery blue eyes, thin red
+hair, and unusually ugly, protruding, sharp-pointed ears.
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_69" title="69"> </a>
+But his hands were small and delicate. He wore white ties
+exclusively, which gave him rather a distinguished appearance,
+although his wardrobe was scanty. He wore a long
+great-coat out-of-doors, and when riding&mdash;for Dr. Ueberbein
+rode, and excellently well too&mdash;a worn-out frock-coat whose
+skirts he fastened up with safety-pins, tight buttoned breeches,
+and a high hat.</p>
+
+<p>Where lay the attraction he exercised on Klaus Heinrich?
+That attraction was very composite. The &ldquo;Pheasants&rdquo; had
+not been long together before a report went about that the
+usher had dragged a child a long time ago, in circumstances
+of extreme peril, out of a swamp or bog, and was the possessor
+of a medal for saving life. That was one impression.
+Later other details of Doctor Ueberbein's life came to be
+known, and Klaus Heinrich too heard of them. It was said
+that his origin was obscure, that he had no father, his mother
+had been an actress who had paid some poor people to adopt
+him, and that he had once been starved, which accounted for
+the greenish tint of his complexion. These were things which
+did not bear being brought into the light or even being thought
+of, wild, remote things, to which, however, Doctor Ueberbein
+himself sometimes alluded&mdash;when, for instance, the lordlings,
+who could not forget his obscure origin, behaved impudently
+or unbecomingly towards him.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Suck-a-thumbs and mammy's darlings!&rdquo; he would say
+then in loud dudgeon. &ldquo;I've knocked about long enough to
+deserve some respect from you young gentlemen!&rdquo; This fact
+too, that Doctor Ueberbein had &ldquo;knocked about,&rdquo; did not fail
+of effect on Klaus Heinrich. But the especial charm of the
+doctor's person lay in the directness of his attitude towards
+Klaus Heinrich, the tone in which he addressed him from the
+very beginning, and which distinguished him clearly from
+everybody else. There was nothing about him which reminded
+one of the stiff reticence of the lackeys, of the governess's
+pale horror, of Schulrat Dröge's professional bows,
+or of Professor Kürtchen's self-satisfied deference. There
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_70" title="70"> </a>
+was nothing about him to recall the strange, loyal, and yet
+impertinent way in which people outside stared at Klaus
+Heinrich.</p>
+
+<p>During the first few days after the seminary assembled, he
+kept silence and confined himself to observation, but then he
+approached the Prince with a jovial and cheery frankness,
+a fresh fatherly camaraderie such as Klaus Heinrich had
+never before experienced. It disturbed him at first, he looked
+in terror at the doctor's green face; but his confusion found
+no echo in the doctor, and in no way discouraged him, it
+confirmed him in his hearty bumptious ingenuousness, and it
+was not long before Klaus Heinrich was warmed and won,
+for there was nothing vulgar, nothing degrading, not even
+anything designed and school-masterish in Doctor Ueberbein's
+methods&mdash;all they showed was the superiority of a man who
+had knocked about the world, and, at the same time, his
+tender and open respect for Klaus Heinrich's different birth
+and position; they showed affection and recognition, at the
+same time as the cheerful offer of a league between their two
+different kinds of existence. He called him &ldquo;Highness&rdquo; once
+or twice, then simply &ldquo;Prince,&rdquo; then quite simply &ldquo;Klaus
+Heinrich.&rdquo; And he stuck to the last.</p>
+
+<p>When the &ldquo;Pheasants&rdquo; went out for a ride, these two rode
+at the head, the doctor on his stout piebald to the left of
+Klaus Heinrich on his docile chestnut&mdash;trotted when snow or
+leaves were falling, through springtime thaws or summer heat,
+along the edge of the woodlands across country, or through
+the villages, while Doctor Ueberbein related anecdotes of his
+life. Raoul Ueberbein sounds funny, doesn't it? The very
+reverse of <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chic</i>. Yes, Ueberbein had been the name of his
+adoptive parents, a poor, oldish couple of the inferior bank-clerk
+class, and he had a quite legal right to it. But that
+he should be called Raoul had been the decision and mandate
+of his mother, when she handed over the sum agreed on,
+together with his fateful little person, to the others&mdash;a sentimental
+decision obviously, a decision prompted by piety.
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_71" title="71"> </a>
+At least it was quite possible that his legal and real father
+had been called Raoul, and it was to be hoped that his surname
+had been something which harmonized with it.</p>
+
+<p>For the rest, it had been rather a wild undertaking on the
+part of his adoptive parents to adopt a child, for &ldquo;Barmecide
+had been cook&rdquo; in the Ueberbein establishment, and it was
+obvious that it had been only the most urgent necessity which
+had made them jump at the money. The boy had been given
+only the scantiest of school educations, but he had taken the
+liberty of showing what he was made of, had distinguished
+himself to some extent, and as he was keen to become a
+teacher, he had been granted out of a public fund the means
+of obtaining a college education. Well, he had finished his
+college course not without distinction, as indeed it was expected
+of him that he should, and he had then been appointed
+a teacher in a public elementary school, with a good salary,
+out of which he had managed to give occasional doles by
+way of gratitude to his honest adoptive parents, until they
+died almost simultaneously. And a happy release it was for
+them!</p>
+
+<p>And so he had been left alone in the world, his very birth
+a misfortune, as poor as a sparrow and endowed by Providence
+with a green face and dog's ears by way of personal
+recommendations. Attractive qualifications, were they not?
+But such qualifications were really favourable ones&mdash;once for
+all, so they proved. A miserable boyhood, loneliness and
+exclusion from good fortune and all that good fortune brings,
+a never-ceasing, imperious call to be up and doing, no fear
+of getting fat and lazy, one's moral fibre was braced, one
+could never rest on one's oars, but must be always overhauling
+and passing others. Could anything be more stimulating,
+when the hard facts were brought home to one? What a
+handicap over others who &ldquo;were not obliged to&rdquo; to the same
+extent! People who could smoke cigars in the morning&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>At that time, by the bedside of one of his unwashed little
+pupils, in a room which did not smell exactly of spring blossoms,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_72" title="72"> </a>
+Raoul Ueberbein had made friends with a young man&mdash;some
+years older than he, but in a similar position and
+like him ill-fated by birth in so far as he was a Jew. Klaus
+Heinrich knew him&mdash;indeed, he might be said to have got to
+know him on a very intimate occasion. Sammet was his
+name, a doctor of medicine; he happened by chance to have
+been in the Grimmburg when Klaus Heinrich was born, and
+had set up a couple of years later in the capital as a children's
+doctor. Well, he had been a friend of Ueberbein's, still was
+one, and they had had many a good talk about fate and duty.
+What is more, they had both knocked about the world.</p>
+
+<p>Ueberbein, for his part, looked back with sincere pleasure
+to the time when he had been an elementary teacher. His
+activities had not been entirely confined to the class-room, he
+had amused himself by showing also some personal and human
+concern for his charges' welfare, by visiting them at home,
+by sharing at times their not too idyllic family life, and in
+doing so he did not fail to bring away impressions of a most
+varied kind. In truth, if he had not already tasted the bitterness
+of the cup of life, he would have had plenty of opportunity
+then to do so. For the rest, he had not ceased to
+work by himself, had given private lessons to plump tradesmen's
+sons, and tightened his waist belt so as to save enough
+to buy books with&mdash;had spent the long, still, and free nights
+in study. And one day he had passed the State examination
+with exceptional distinction, had soon received his promotion,
+had been transferred to a grammar school. As a matter of
+fact, it had been a sore grief to him to leave his little charges,
+but so the fates willed. And then it had so happened that he
+had been chosen to be usher at the &ldquo;Pheasantry,&rdquo; for all that
+his very birth had been a misfortune.</p>
+
+<hr class="thought-break"/>
+
+<p>That was Doctor Ueberbein's story, and Klaus Heinrich, as
+he listened to it, was filled with friendly feelings. He shared
+his contempt for those who &ldquo;weren't obliged to&rdquo; and smoked
+cigars in the morning, he felt a fearful joy when Ueberbein
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_73" title="73"> </a>
+talked in his jolly blustering way about &ldquo;knocking about,&rdquo;
+&ldquo;impressions,&rdquo; and the bitterness of the cup of life, and he
+felt as if he had been personally an actor in the scenes as he
+followed his luckless and gallant career from his adoption
+up to his appointment as grammar-schoolmaster. He felt as
+if he were in some general sort of way qualified to take part
+in a conversation about fate and duty. His attitude of reserve
+relaxed, the experiences of his own fifteen years of life came
+crowding in upon him, he felt a longing himself to retail
+confidences, and he tried to tell Doctor Ueberbein all about
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>But the funny thing was that Doctor Ueberbein himself
+checked him, opposed any such intention most decidedly.
+&ldquo;No, no, Klaus Heinrich,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;full stop there! No
+confidences, if you please! Not but that I know that you
+have all sorts of things to tell me&hellip;. I need only watch
+you for half a day to see that, but you quite misunderstand
+me if you think I'm likely to encourage you to weep round
+my neck. In the first place, sooner or later you'd repent it.
+But in the second, the pleasures of a confidential intimacy are
+not for the likes of you. You see, there's no harm in my
+chattering. What am I? An usher. Not a common or
+garden one, in my own opinion, but still no better than such.
+Just a categorical unit. But you? What are you? That's
+harder to say&hellip;. Let's say a conception, a kind of ideal.
+A frame. An emblematical existence, Klaus Heinrich, and at
+the same time a formal existence. But formality and intimacy&mdash;haven't
+you yet learnt that the two are mutually exclusive?
+Absolutely exclusive. You have no right to intimate
+confidences, and if you attempted them you yourself would
+discover that they did not suit you, would find them inadequate
+and insipid. I must remind you of your duty, Klaus
+Heinrich.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich laughed and saluted with his crop, and on
+they rode.</p>
+
+<p>On another occasion Doctor Ueberbein said casually:
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_74" title="74"> </a>
+&ldquo;Popularity is a not very profound, but a grand and comprehensive
+kind of familiarity.&rdquo; And that was all he said on
+the subject.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes in summer, during the long intervals between
+the morning lessons, they would sit together in the empty
+pavilion, or stroll about the &ldquo;Pheasants&rdquo; playground, discussing
+various topics, and breaking off to drink lemonade provided
+by Herr Stavenüter. Herr Stavenüter beamed as he
+wiped the rough table and brought the lemonade with his own
+hands. The glass ball in the bottle-neck had to be pushed in.
+&ldquo;Sound stuff!&rdquo; said Herr Stavenüter. &ldquo;The best that can be
+got. No muck, Grand Ducal Highness, and you, doctor, but
+just sweetened fruit-juice. I can honestly recommend it!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then he made his children sing in honour of the visit.
+There were three of them, two girls and a boy, and they
+could sing trios. They stood some way off with the green
+leaves of the chestnut trees for roof, and sang folk-songs
+while they blew their noses with their fingers. Once they sang
+a song beginning: &ldquo;We are all but mortal men,&rdquo; and Doctor
+Ueberbein took advantage of the pauses to express his disapproval
+of this number on the programme. &ldquo;A paltry song,&rdquo;
+he said, and leaned over towards Klaus Heinrich. &ldquo;A really
+commonplace song, a lazy song, Klaus Heinrich; you must
+not let it appeal to you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Later, when the children had stopped singing, he returned
+to the song and described it as &ldquo;sloppy.&rdquo; &ldquo;We are all but
+mortal men,&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;God bless us, yes, no doubt we
+are. But on the other hand we ought perhaps to remember
+that it is those of us who count for most who may be the
+occasion for especially emphasizing this truth&hellip;. Look
+you,&rdquo; he said, leaning back and crossing one leg over the
+other, while he stroked his beard up from underneath his
+chin, &ldquo;look you, Klaus Heinrich, a man who has my intellectual
+aspirations will not be able to help searching for and
+clinging to whatever is out of the ordinary in this drab world
+of ours, wherever and however it appears&mdash;he cannot help
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_75" title="75"> </a>
+being put out by such a slovenly song, by such a sheepish
+abjuration of the exceptional, of the lofty and of the miserable,
+and of that which is both at once. You may well say:
+&lsquo;That's talking for effect.&rsquo; I'm only an usher, but there's
+something in my blood, Heaven knows what&mdash;I can't find
+any pleasure in emphasizing the fact that we are all ushers
+at bottom. I love the extraordinary in every form and in
+every sense. I love those who are conscious of the dignity
+of their exceptional station, the marked men, those one can
+see are not as other men, all those whom the people stare
+at open-mouthed&mdash;I hope they'll appreciate their destiny,
+and I do not wish them to make themselves comfortable with
+the slip-shod and luke-warm truth which we have just heard
+set to music for three voices. Why have I become your tutor,
+Klaus Heinrich? I am a gipsy, a hard-working one, maybe,
+but still a born gipsy. My predestination to the rôle of
+squire of princes is not particularly obvious. Why did I
+gladly obey the call when it came to me, in view of my
+energy, and although my very birth was a misfortune? Because,
+Klaus Heinrich, I see in your existence the clearest,
+most express, and best-preserved form of the extraordinary
+in the world. I have become your tutor that I might keep
+your destiny alive in you. Reserve, etiquette, obligation,
+duty, demeanour, formality&mdash;has the man whose life is surrounded
+by these no right to despise others? Ought he to
+allow himself to be reminded of humanity and good nature?
+No, come along, let's go, Klaus Heinrich, if you don't mind.
+They're tactless brats, these little Stavenüters.&rdquo; Klaus Heinrich
+laughed, he gave the children some of his pocket-money,
+and they went.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; said Doctor Ueberbein in the course of an
+ordinary walk in the woods to Klaus Heinrich&mdash;they had
+drifted a little distance away from the five &ldquo;Pheasants&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;nowadays
+the soul's thirst for veneration has to be satisfied
+with what it can get. Where will you find greatness? I
+only hope you may! But quite apart from all actual greatness
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_76" title="76"> </a>
+and high-calling, there is always what I call Highness,
+select and sadly isolated forms of life, towards which an attitude
+of the tenderest sympathy should be adopted. For the
+rest, greatness is strong, it wears jack-boots, it has no need
+of the knight-services of the mind. But Highness is affecting&mdash;damme
+if it isn't the most affecting thing on earth.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Once or twice a year the &ldquo;Pheasantry&rdquo; journeyed to the
+capital to attend performances of classical operas and dramas
+in the Grand Ducal Court Theatre; Klaus Heinrich's birthday
+in particular was the signal for a visit to the theatre. He
+would then sit quietly in his carved arm-chair, leaning against
+the red plush ledge of the Court box, whose roof rested on
+the heads of two female figures with crossed hands and empty
+stern faces, and watched his colleagues, the princes, whose
+destinies were played out on the stage, while he stood the fire
+of the opera-glasses which from time to time, even during
+the play, were directed at him from the audience. Professor
+Kürtchen sat on his left hand and Doctor Ueberbein with
+the &ldquo;Pheasants&rdquo; in an adjoining box.</p>
+
+<p>Once they heard the &ldquo;Magic Flute,&rdquo; and on the way home
+to &ldquo;Pheasantry&rdquo; station, in the first-class carriage, Doctor
+Ueberbein made the whole collection of them laugh by imitating
+the way in which singers talk when their rôles oblige
+them to talk in prose. &ldquo;He is a prince!&rdquo; he said with pathos,
+and answered himself in a drawly, sing-song parsonical
+voice. &ldquo;He is more than that, he is a man!&rdquo; Even Professor
+Kürtchen was so much amused that he bleated.</p>
+
+<p>But next day, in the course of a private lesson in Klaus
+Heinrich's study, with the round mahogany table, whitened
+ceiling, and Greek bust on the stove, Doctor Ueberbein repeated
+his parody, and said then: &ldquo;Great heavens, that was
+something new in its time, it was a piece of news, a startling
+truth! There are paradoxes which have stood so long on
+their heads that one has to put them on their feet to make
+anything even moderately daring out of them, &lsquo;He is a man.
+He is more than that&rsquo;&mdash;that is getting gradually bolder, prettier,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_77" title="77"> </a>
+even truer. The converse is mere humanity, but I have
+no hearty love for humanity, I'm quite content to leave it
+out of account. One must, in a certain sense, be one of
+those of whom the people say: &lsquo;They are, after all, mortal
+men too&rsquo;&mdash;or one is as deadly dull as an usher. I cannot
+honestly wish for the general comfortable obliteration of conflicts
+and gulfs, that's the way I am made, for better or worse,
+and the idea of the <i lang="it" xml:lang="it">principe uomo</i> is to me, to speak plainly,
+an abomination. I am not anxious that it should particularly
+appeal to you&hellip;. Look you, there have always been princes
+and exceptional persons who live their life of exception
+with a light heart, simply unconscious of their dignity or
+denying it outright, and capable of playing skittles with the
+townsfolk in their shirt-sleeves, without the slightest attempt
+at an inward qualm. But they are not very important, just
+as nothing is important which lacks mind. For mind, Klaus
+Heinrich, mind is the tutor which insists inexorably on dignity,
+indeed actually creates dignity, it is the arch-enemy and chief
+antagonist of all human good nature. &lsquo;More than that?&rsquo;
+No! to be a representative, to stand for a number when one
+appears to be the exalted and refined expression of a multitude.
+Representing is naturally something more and higher
+than simply Being, Klaus Heinrich&mdash;and that's why people
+call you Highness.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>So argued Doctor Ueberbein, in loud, hearty, and fluent
+terms, and what he said influenced Klaus Heinrich's mind and
+susceptibilities more, perhaps, than was desirable. The prince
+was then about fifteen years old, and therefore quite competent,
+if not properly to understand, yet to imbibe the essence
+of ideas of that sort. The main point was that Doctor
+Ueberbein's doctrines and apophthegms were so exceptionally
+supported by his personality.</p>
+
+<p>When Schulrat Dröge, the man who used to bow to the
+lackeys, reminded Klaus Heinrich of his &ldquo;exalted calling,&rdquo;
+that was nothing more than an exaggerated form of speech,
+devoid of inner meaning and calculated mainly to add emphasis
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_78" title="78"> </a>
+to his professional claims. But when Doctor Ueberbein,
+whose very birth had been a misfortune, as he said,
+and who had a green complexion because he had been half
+starved; when this man who had dragged a child out of a
+bog, who had received &ldquo;impressions&rdquo; and &ldquo;knocked about&rdquo;
+in all sorts of ways; when he who not only did not bow to
+the lackeys, but who bawled at them in strident tones when
+the fancy took him, and who had called Klaus Heinrich himself
+straight out by his Christian names when he had known
+him only three days, without asking leave to do so,&mdash;when he
+with a paternal laugh declared that Klaus Heinrich's &ldquo;path
+lay among the heights of mankind&rdquo; (a favourite expression
+of his), the effect was a feeling of freedom and originality
+which awoke an echo deep down in the prince's soul.</p>
+
+<p>When Klaus Heinrich listened to the doctor's loud and jolly
+anecdotes of his life, of the &ldquo;bitterness of the cup of life,&rdquo;
+he felt as he used to when he went rummaging with Ditlinde
+his sister, and that the man who could tell such anecdotes,
+that this &ldquo;rolling stone,&rdquo; as he called himself, did not, like
+the others, adopt a reserved and deferential attitude towards
+him, but, without prejudice to a free and cheerful homage,
+treated him as a comrade in fate and destiny, warmed Klaus
+Heinrich's heart to inexpressible gratitude and completed the
+charm which bound him to the usher for ever&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after his sixteenth birthday (Albrecht, the Heir
+Apparent, was at the time in the South for his health) the
+Prince was confirmed, together with the five &ldquo;Pheasants,&rdquo; in
+the Court Church. The <i>Courier</i> reported the fact without
+making any sensation of it. Dom Wislezenus, the President
+of the High Consistory, treated a Bible text in counterpoint,
+this time to the choice of the Grand Duke, and Klaus Heinrich
+was on this occasion gazetted a Lieutenant, although he
+had not the foggiest notion of things military&hellip;. His existence
+was becoming more and more barren of <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">expertise</i>.
+The ceremonial of the confirmation also lacked incisive significance,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_79" title="79"> </a>
+and the Prince returned immediately afterwards
+quietly back to the &ldquo;Pheasantry&rdquo; to continue his life amongst
+his tutors and schoolfellows without any alteration.</p>
+
+<hr class="thought-break"/>
+
+<p>It was not till one year later that he left his old-fashioned
+homely schoolroom with the torso on the stove; the seminary
+was broken up, and while his five noble comrades were transferred
+to the Corps of Cadets, Klaus Heinrich again took up
+his abode in the Old Schloss, intending, in accordance with
+an agreement which Herr von Knobelsdorff had come to with
+the Grand Duke, to spend a year at the upper gymnasium
+classes in the capital. This was a well-calculated and popular
+step, which however did not make much difference from the
+point of view of <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">expertise</i>. Professor Kürtchen had gone
+back to his post at the public academy, he instructed Klaus
+Heinrich as before in several branches of knowledge, and
+showed even greater zeal than he had at the seminary, being
+determined to let everybody see how tactful he was. It also
+appeared that he had told the rest of the staff of the agreement
+reached with regard to the two ways in which the Prince
+should announce his feelings with regard to answering a
+question.</p>
+
+<p>As to Doctor Ueberbein, who had also returned to the
+academy, he had not yet advanced so far in his unusual career
+as to teach the highest class. But at Klaus Heinrich's lively,
+even insistent request, preferred by him to the Grand Duke,
+not by word of mouth but by official channels, so to speak,
+through the benevolent Herr von Knobelsdorff, the usher
+was appointed tutor and superintendent of home studies,
+came daily to the Schloss, bawled at the lackeys, and had every
+opportunity of working on the Prince with his intellectual and
+enthusiastic talk. Perhaps it was partly the fault of this
+influence that Klaus Heinrich's relations with the young
+people with whom he shared the much-hacked school-benches
+continued even looser and more distant than his connexion
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_80" title="80"> </a>
+with the five at the &ldquo;Pheasantry&rdquo;; and if thus the popularity
+which this year was intended to secure was not attained, the
+intervals, which both in summer and in winter were spent by
+all the scholars in the roomy paved courtyard, offered opportunities
+for camaraderie.</p>
+
+<p>But these intervals, intended to refresh the ordinary scholars,
+brought with them for Klaus Heinrich the first actual effort
+of the kind of which his life was to be full. He was naturally,
+at least during the first term, the cynosure of every eye in
+the play-ground&mdash;no easy matter for him, in view of the fact
+that here the surroundings deprived him of every external
+support and attribute of dignity, and he was obliged to play
+on the same pavement as those whose common idea was to
+stare at him. The little boys, full of childlike irresponsibility,
+hung about close to him and gaped, while the bigger
+ones hovered around with wide-open eyes and looked at him
+out of the corners of them or from under their eyelids&hellip;.
+The excitement dwindled in course of time, but even then&mdash;whether
+the fault was Klaus Heinrich's or the others'&mdash;even
+later the camaraderie somehow did not make much progress.
+One might see the prince, on the right of the head master or
+the usher-in-charge, followed and surrounded by the curious,
+strolling up and down the courtyard. One could see him,
+too, chatting with his schoolfellows.</p>
+
+<p>What a charming sight it was! There he leaned, half-sitting
+on the slope of the glazed-brick wall, with his feet
+crossed, and his left hand thrust far behind on his hips, with
+the fifteen members of the first class in a half-circle round
+him. There were only fifteen this year, for the last promotions
+had been made with the object in view that the select
+should contain no elements which were unfitted by origin or
+personality to be for a year on Christian-name terms with
+Klaus Heinrich. For the use of Christian names was ordered.
+Klaus Heinrich conversed with one of them, who had advanced
+a little towards him out of the semicircle, and answered him
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_81" title="81"> </a>
+with little short bows. Both laughed, everybody laughed
+directly they began to talk to Klaus Heinrich. He asked
+him for instance: &ldquo;Have you yet done your German essay for
+next Tuesday?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, Prince Klaus Heinrich, not quite yet; I haven't yet
+done the last part.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It's a difficult subject. I haven't any idea yet what to
+write.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, your Highness will&hellip;. You'll soon think of something!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, it's difficult&hellip;. You got an alpha in arithmetic,
+didn't you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, Prince Klaus Heinrich, I was lucky.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, you deserved it. I shall never be able to make anything
+of it!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Murmurs of amusement and gratification in the semicircle.
+Klaus Heinrich turned to another schoolfellow, and the first
+stepped quickly back. Everybody felt that the really important
+point was not the essay nor the arithmetic, but the
+conversation as an event and an undertaking, one's attitude
+and tone, the way one advanced or retired, the success with
+which one assumed a sympathetic, self-collected, and refined
+demeanour. Perhaps it was the consciousness of this which
+brought the smile to everybody's lips.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes, when he had the semicircle in front of him,
+Klaus Heinrich would say some such words as &ldquo;Professor
+Nicolovius looks an owl.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Great then was the merriment among the others. Such a
+remark was the signal for general unbending, they kicked
+over the traces, &ldquo;Ho, ho, ho!&rdquo;&nbsp;'d in chorus in their newly
+cracked voices, and one would declare Klaus Heinrich to be
+a &ldquo;ripping chap.&rdquo; But Klaus Heinrich did not often say
+such things, he only said them when he saw the smile on the
+others' faces grow faint and wan, and signs of boredom or
+even of impatience showing themselves; he said them by way
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_82" title="82"> </a>
+of cheering them up, and at the extravagant laughter by which
+they were followed he wore a look half of curiosity, half of
+dismay.</p>
+
+<p>It was not Anselm Schickedanz who called him a &ldquo;ripping
+chap,&rdquo; and yet it was directly on his account that Klaus Heinrich
+had compared Professor Nicolovius to an owl. Anselm
+Schickedanz had laughed like the others at the joke, but
+not in quite the same approving way, but with an intonation
+which implied, &ldquo;Gracious heavens!&rdquo; He was a dark boy,
+with narrow hips, who enjoyed the reputation throughout the
+school of being a devil of a chap. The tone of the top class
+this year was admirable. The obligations which membership
+of Klaus Heinrich's class entailed had been impressed on
+every boy from various quarters, and Klaus Heinrich was
+not the boy to tempt them to forget these obligations. But
+that Anselm Schickedanz was a devil of a chap had often come
+to his ears, and Klaus Heinrich, when he looked at him,
+felt a kind of satisfaction in believing what he heard, although
+it was an obscure problem to him how he could have come
+by his reputation.</p>
+
+<p>He made several inquiries privately, broached the subject
+apparently by chance, and tried to find out from one or other
+of his comrades something about Schickedanz's devilry. He
+discovered nothing definite. But the answers, whether disparaging
+or complimentary, filled him with the suspicion of
+a mad amiability, an unlawful glorious humanity, which was
+there for the eyes of all, save his own, to see&mdash;and this suspicion
+was almost a sorrow. Everybody said at once, with
+reference to Anselm Schickedanz, and in saying it dropped
+into the forbidden form of address: &ldquo;Yes, Highness, you
+ought to see him when you are not there!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich would never see him when he was not there,
+would never get near him, never get to know him. He stole
+peeps at him when he stood with the others in a semicircle
+before him, laughing and braced up like all the rest. Everybody
+braced himself up in Klaus Heinrich's presence, his
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_83" title="83"> </a>
+very existence was accountable for that, as he well knew, and
+he would never see what Schickedanz was like, how he behaved
+when he let himself go. At the thought he felt a twinge of
+envy, a tiny spark of regret.</p>
+
+<hr class="thought-break"/>
+
+<p>At this juncture something painful, in fact revolting, occurred,
+of which nothing came to the ears of the Grand
+Ducal couple, because Doctor Ueberbein kept his mouth
+closed and about which scarcely any rumour spread in the
+capital because everybody who had had a share or any responsibility
+in the matter, obviously from a kind of feeling of
+shame, preserved strict silence about it. I refer to the improprieties
+which occurred in connexion with Prince Klaus
+Heinrich's presence at that year's citizens' ball, and in which
+a Fräulein Unschlitt, daughter of the wealthy soap-boiler,
+was especially concerned.</p>
+
+<p>The citizens' ball was a chronic fixture in the social life
+of the capital, an official and at the same time informal
+festivity, which was given by the city every winter in the
+&ldquo;Townpark Hotel,&rdquo; a big, recently enlarged and renovated
+establishment in the southern suburbs, and provided the
+bourgeois circles with an opportunity of establishing friendly
+relations with the Court. It was known that Johann Albrecht&nbsp;III
+had never cultivated a taste for this civil and rather free-and-easy
+entertainment, at which he appeared in a black frock-coat
+in order to lead off the polonaise with the Lady
+Mayoress, and that he was wont to withdraw from it at the
+earliest possible moment. This only heightened the general
+satisfaction when his second son, although not yet bound to
+do so, already made his appearance at the ball that year&mdash;indeed,
+it became known that he did so at his own express
+request. It was said that the Prince had employed Excellency
+von Knobelsdorff to transmit his earnest wish to the Grand
+Duchess, who in her turn had contrived to obtain her husband's
+consent.</p>
+
+<p>Outwardly the festivity pursued its wonted course. The
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_84" title="84"> </a>
+most distinguished guests, Princess Catherine, in a coloured
+silk dress and cap, accompanied by her red-haired children,
+Prince Lambert with his pretty wife, and last of all Johann
+Albrecht and Dorothea with Prince Klaus Heinrich, made their
+appearance in the &ldquo;Townpark Hotel,&rdquo; greeted by city officials,
+with long-ribboned rosettes pinned on their coats. Several
+Ministers, aides-de-camp in mufti, numbers of men and women
+of the Court, the leaders of society, as well as landowners
+from the surrounding country, were present. In the big
+white hall the Grand Ducal pairs first received a string of
+presentations, and then, to the strains of the band which
+sat in the curved gallery up above, Johann Albrecht with the
+Lady Mayoress, Dorothea with the Lord Mayor, opened the
+ball by a procession round the room.</p>
+
+<p>Then, while the polonaise gave place to a round dance,
+contentment spread, cheeks glowed, the heat of the throng
+kindled feelings of fondness, faintness, and foreboding among
+the dancers, the distinguished guests stood as distinguished
+guests are wont to stand on such occasions&mdash;apart and smiling
+graciously on the platform, at the top of the hall under
+the gallery. From time to time Johann Albrecht engaged
+a distinguished man, and Dorothea engaged his wife, in conversation.
+Those addressed stepped quickly and smartly forward
+and back, kept their distance half-bowing with their
+heads bent, nodded, shook their heads, laughed in this attitude
+at the questions and remarks addressed to them&mdash;answered
+eagerly on the spur of the moment, with sudden and
+anticipatory changes from hearty amusement to the deepest
+earnestness, with a passionateness which was doubtless unusual
+to them, and obviously in a state of tension. Curious
+guests, still panting from the dance, stood in a semicircle
+round and stared at these purposely trivial conversations with
+a peculiarly tense expression on their faces.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich was the object of much attention. Together
+with two red-headed cousins who were already in the army,
+but were wearing mufti that evening, he kept a little behind
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_85" title="85"> </a>
+his parents, resting on one leg, his left hand placed far back
+on his hip, his face turned with his right half-profile to the
+public. A reporter of the <i>Courier</i> who had been bidden to
+the ball made notes upon him in a corner. The Prince could
+be seen to greet with his white-gloved right hand his tutor,
+Doctor Ueberbein, who with his red beard and greenish tint
+came along the fence of spectators; he was seen even to advance
+some way into the hall to meet him.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor, with big enamel studs in his shirt front, began
+by bowing when Klaus Heinrich stretched out his hand to
+him, but then at once spoke to him in his free and fatherly
+way. The Prince seemed to be rejecting a proposal, and
+laughed uneasily as he did so, but then a number of people
+distinctly heard Doctor Ueberbein say: &ldquo;No&mdash;nonsense,
+Klaus Heinrich, what was the good of learning? Why did the
+Swiss governess teach you your steps in your tenderest years?
+I can't understand why you go to balls if you won't dance?
+One, two, three, we'll soon find you a partner!&rdquo; And with a
+continual shower of witticisms he presented to the Prince four
+or five young maidens, whom he dropped on without ceremony
+and dragged forward. They ducked and shot up again,
+one after the other, in the trailing fluctuations of the Court
+curtsey, set their teeth and did their best. Klaus Heinrich
+stood with his heels together and murmured, &ldquo;Delighted, quite
+delighted.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>To one he went so far as to say: &ldquo;It's a jolly ball, isn't
+it?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, Grand Ducal Highness, we are having great fun,&rdquo; answered
+she in a high chirping voice. She was a tall, rather
+bony bourgeoise maiden, dressed in white muslin, with fair
+wavy hair dressed over a pad, and a pretty face, a gold chain
+round her bare neck, the collar-bones of which showed prominently,
+and big white hands in mittens. She added: &ldquo;The
+quadrille is coming next. Will your Grand Ducal Highness
+dance it with me?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't know&nbsp;&hellip;&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I really don't know&nbsp;&hellip;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_86" title="86"> </a>He looked round. The machinery of the ball was already
+falling into geometrical order. Lines were being drawn,
+squares were forming, couples came forward and called to
+<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">vis-à-vis</i>. The music had not yet started.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich asked his cousins. Yes, they were taking
+part in the lancers, they already had their lucky partners on
+their arms.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich was seen to go up behind his mother's red
+damask chair and whisper something excitedly to her, whereupon
+she turned her lovely neck and passed on the question to
+her husband, and the Grand Duke nodded. And then some
+laughter was caused by the youthful impetuosity with which
+the Prince ran down, so as not to miss the beginning of the
+square dance.</p>
+
+<p>The reporter of the <i>Courier</i>, notebook in one hand and pencil
+in the other, peered with neck thrust forward over the hall
+out of his corner, so as to make sure whom the Prince was
+going to engage. It was the fair, tall girl, with the collar-bones
+and the big white hands, Fräulein Unschlitt, the soap-boiler's
+daughter. She was still standing where Klaus Heinrich
+had left her.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Are you still there?&rdquo; he said breathlessly&hellip;. &ldquo;May I
+have the pleasure? Come along!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The sets were complete. They wandered about for a while
+without finding a place. A man with a ribbon rosette hurried
+up, seized a pair of young people by the shoulders and induced
+them to leave their stand under the chandelier, that his
+Grand Ducal Highness might occupy it with Fräulein Unschlitt.
+The band had been hesitating, it now struck up, the
+prescribed compliments were exchanged, and Klaus Heinrich
+danced like the rest of the world.</p>
+
+<p>The doors into the next room stood open. In one of them
+was a buffet with flower vases, punch bowls, and dishes of
+many-coloured cakes. The dance extended right into this
+room, two sets were dancing in it. In the other room some
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_87" title="87"> </a>
+white-covered tables were arrayed, which were still standing
+empty.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich stepped forwards and backwards, laughed
+to the others, stretched out his hand and grasped theirs, and
+then again seized his partner's big white hand, put his right
+arm round the maiden's muslin-clad waist and revolved with
+her on their particular patch, while he kept his left hand,
+which also wore a little white glove, on his hip. They laughed
+and talked as they danced. The Prince made mistakes, forgot
+himself, upset figures, and lost his place. &ldquo;You must keep
+me straight!&rdquo; he said in the confusion. &ldquo;I'm upsetting everything!
+Nudge me in the ribs!&rdquo; and the others gradually
+plucked up courage and set him right, ordered him laughingly
+hither and thither, even laid their hands on him and
+pushed him a little when necessary. The fair damsel with
+the collar-bones was particularly zealous in pushing him
+about.</p>
+
+<p>The spirits of the dancers rose with every figure. Their
+movements became freer, their calls bolder, they began to
+stamp their feet and to prance as they advanced and retired,
+while they held each other's hands and balanced themselves
+with their arms. Klaus Heinrich too stamped, at first only
+by way of signal, but soon more loudly; and as far as the
+balancing with the arms was concerned, the fair maiden looked
+after that when they advanced together. Also every time
+she danced facing him she made an exaggerated scrape before
+him which much increased the merriment.</p>
+
+<p>The refreshment room was full of chatter and babble, which
+attracted everybody's envious glances. Some one had left
+his set in the middle of the dance, purloined a sandwich from
+the buffet, and was now chewing away proudly as he swerved
+and stamped, to the amusement of the rest.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What cheek!&rdquo; said the fair maiden. &ldquo;They don't stand
+on ceremony!&rdquo; and the idea gave her no peace. Before you
+could look round, she was off, had dashed lightly and nimbly
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_88" title="88"> </a>
+between the lines of dancers, had seized a sandwich from the
+buffet and was back in her place.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich was the one who applauded her most heartily.
+His left hand was a difficulty, and so he managed without
+it, while with his right he beat on the top of his head and
+doubled up with laughter. Then he became quieter and rather
+pale. He was struggling with himself&hellip;. The quadrille
+was nearing its end. What he meant to do he must do quickly.
+They had already got to the grand chain.</p>
+
+<p>And as he was already almost too late, he did what he
+had been struggling with himself about. He broke away, ran
+swiftly through the dancers, with muttered apologies when he
+collided with anybody, reached the buffet, seized a sandwich,
+rushed back, and came sliding into his set; that was not all,
+he put the sandwich&mdash;it was an egg and sardine one&mdash;to the
+lips of his partner, the damsel with the big white hands; she
+curtseyed a little, bit into it, bit almost half off without using
+her hands, and throwing back his head he stuffed the rest
+into his mouth!</p>
+
+<p>The high spirits of the set found a vent in the grand
+chain, which was just beginning. Right round the hall went
+the dancers, winding zig-zag in and out and stretching out
+their hands. Then it stopped, the tide turned, and once more
+the stream went round, laughing and chattering, with mistakes
+and entanglements and hurriedly rectified complications.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich pressed the hands he grasped without knowing
+to whom they belonged. He laughed and his chest heaved.
+His smoothly parted hair was ruffled, and a bit fell over his
+forehead, his shirt-front bulged a little out of his waistcoat,
+and in his face and sparkling eyes was that look of tender
+emotion which is sometimes the expression of happiness. He
+said several times during the chain, &ldquo;What awful fun! What
+glorious fun!&rdquo; He met his cousins, and to them too he said,
+&ldquo;We have had such fun&mdash;in our set over there!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then came the clapping and au revoirs; the dance was
+over. Klaus Heinrich again stood facing the fair maiden
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_89" title="89"> </a>
+with the collar-bones, and when the music changed time he
+once more put his arm round her tender waist, and away they
+danced.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich did not steer well and often knocked into
+other couples, because he kept his left hand planted on his
+hip, but he brought his partner somehow or other to the entrance
+to the refreshment room, where they called a halt and
+refreshed themselves with pineappleade which was handed to
+them by the waiters. They sat just at the entrance on two
+velvet stools, drank and chatted about the quadrille, the Citizens'
+Ball, and other social functions in which the fair
+maiden had already taken part that winter&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>It was then that one of the suite, Major von Platow, the
+Grand Duke's aide-de-camp, came up to Klaus Heinrich,
+bowed and begged leave to <ins title="annouce">announce</ins> that their Royal Highnesses
+were now going. He had been charged &hellip; But
+Klaus Heinrich gave him to understand that he wished to remain,
+in so emphatic a fashion that the aide-de-camp did not
+like to insist upon his errand.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince uttered exclamations of an almost rebellious
+regret and was obviously bitterly grieved at the idea of going
+home at once. &ldquo;We are having such fun!&rdquo; he said, stood
+up and gripped the Major's arm gently. &ldquo;Dear Major von
+Platow, please do intercede for me! Talk to Excellency von
+Knobelsdorff, do anything you like&mdash;but to go now, when
+we are all having such fun together! I'm sure my cousins
+are going to stay&hellip;.&rdquo; The Major looked at the fair
+maiden with the big white hands, who smiled at him; he too
+smiled and promised to do his best. This little scene was
+enacted while the Grand Duke and the Grand Duchess were
+already taking leave of the city dignitaries at the entrance
+into the town park. Immediately afterwards the dancing on
+the first floor began again.</p>
+
+<p>The ball was at its height. Everything official had gone,
+and the king of revelry came into his own. The white-covered
+tables in the adjoining rooms were occupied by families
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_90" title="90"> </a>
+drinking punch and eating supper. Youth streamed to
+and fro, sitting excitedly and impatiently on the edges of the
+chairs to eat a mouthful, drink a glass, and again plunge
+into the merry throng. On the ground-floor there was an
+old-German beer-cellar, which was crowded with the more
+sedate men. The big dancing-hall and the buffet-room were
+by now monopolized by the dancers. The buffet-room was
+filled with fifteen or sixteen young people, sons and daughters
+of the city, among them Klaus Heinrich. It was a kind of
+private ball in there. They danced to the music which floated
+in from the main hall.</p>
+
+<p>Doctor Ueberbein, the Prince's tutor, was seen there for a
+minute or two, having a short talk with his pupil. He was
+heard to mention, watch in hand, Herr von Knobelsdorff's
+name, and to say that he was down in the beer-cellar and was
+coming back to take the Prince away. Then he went. The
+time was half-past ten. And while he sat below and conversed
+with his friends over a tankard of beer, only for an hour or
+perhaps an hour and a half, not more, those dreadful things,
+that simply incredible scandal, happened in the buffet-room,
+to which it fell to him to put a stop, though unfortunately
+too late.</p>
+
+<p>The punch provided was weak, it contained more soda-water
+than champagne, and if the young people lost their
+equilibrium it was more the intoxication of the dance than of
+the wine. But in view of the Prince's character and the solid
+bourgeois origin of the rest of the company, that was not
+enough to explain what happened. Another, a peculiar intoxication,
+was a factor here on both sides. The peculiar thing
+was that Klaus Heinrich was fully conscious of each separate
+stage in this intoxication, and yet had not the power or the
+will to shake it off.</p>
+
+<p>He was happy. He felt on his cheeks the same glow burning
+as he saw in the faces of the others, and as his eyes, dazed
+by a soft mist, travelled about the room, and rested admiringly
+on one fair form after another, his look seemed to say:
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_91" title="91"> </a>
+&ldquo;We!&rdquo; His mouth too said it&mdash;said, for the pure joy of saying
+them, sentences in which a &ldquo;We&rdquo; occurred. &ldquo;Shall <em>we</em>
+sit down? shall <em>we</em> have another turn? shall <em>we</em> have a drink?
+shall <em>we</em> make up two sets?&rdquo; It was especially to the maiden
+with the collar-bones that Klaus Heinrich made remarks with
+a &ldquo;We&rdquo; in them. He had quite forgotten his left hand, it
+hung down, he felt so happy that it did not worry him and
+he never thought of hiding it. Many saw now for the first
+time what really was the matter with it, and looked curiously
+on with an unconscious grimace at the thin, short arm in the
+sleeve, the little, by now rather dirty white kid glove which
+covered the hand. But as Klaus Heinrich was so careless
+about it, the others plucked up courage, the result being
+that everybody took hold of the malformed hand quite unconcernedly
+in the round or square dances.</p>
+
+<p>He did not keep it back. He felt himself borne along, nay
+rather whirled around by a feeling, a strong, wild feeling of
+contentment, that grew, gathered heat from itself, possessed
+itself of him more and more recklessly, overpowered him even
+more vehemently and breathlessly, seemed to lift him triumphantly
+from the floor. What was happening? It was difficult
+to say, difficult to be quite sure. The air was full of words,
+detached cries, not spoken but expressed on the dancers'
+faces, in their attitudes, in all they were doing and saying.
+&ldquo;He must just once! Bring him along, bring him
+along&nbsp;&hellip;! Caught, caught!&rdquo; A young damsel with a
+turned-up nose, who asked him for a gallop when the &ldquo;leap-year&rdquo;
+dance came, said quite clearly without any obvious
+connexion, &ldquo;Chucker up!&rdquo; as she got ready to start off with
+him.</p>
+
+<p>He saw pleasure in every eye, and saw that their pleasure
+lay in drawing him out, in having him amongst them. In his
+happiness, his dream, to be with them, amongst them, one of
+them, there obtruded itself from time to time a cold, uncomfortable
+feeling that he was deluding himself, that the warm,
+glorious &ldquo;We&rdquo; was deceiving him, that he did not really
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_92" title="92"> </a>
+blend in with them, that he was all the time the centre and
+object of the show, but in a different and more unsatisfactory
+way than before. They were his enemies to a certain extent,
+he saw it in the malice of their eyes. He heard as if at a
+distance, with a peculiar dismay, how the fair damsel with
+the big white hands called him simply by his names&mdash;and he
+felt that she did so in quite a different spirit to that of Doctor
+Ueberbein when he did the same. She had the right and the
+permission to do so, in a certain manner, but was nobody here
+then jealous for his dignity, if he himself was not? It
+seemed to him that they plucked at his coat, and sometimes in
+their excitement made wild, sneering remarks about him. A
+tall, fair young man with pince-nez, with whom he collided
+while dancing, said quite loud so that everybody could hear
+it: &ldquo;Now then, clumsy!&rdquo; And there was malice in the way
+in which the fair young maiden, her arm in his and a grin
+on her lips, whirled round with him till he was ready to drop
+with giddiness. While they whirled he gazed with swimming
+eyes at the collar-bones showing under the white, rather rough
+skin on her neck.</p>
+
+<p>They fell; they had gone too hard at it and tumbled when
+they tried to stop revolving, and over them stumbled a second
+pair, not entirely by themselves, but rather at a push from
+the tall young man with pince-nez. There was a scrimmage
+on the floor, and Klaus Heinrich heard above him in the
+room the chorus which came back to him from the school-playground
+when he had ventured on a rather daring joke
+by way of amusing his fellows&mdash;a &ldquo;Ho, ho, ho!&rdquo; only it
+sounded more wicked and bolder here&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>When shortly after midnight, unfortunately a little behind
+time, Doctor Ueberbein appeared on the threshold of the
+buffet-room, this is what he saw: His young pupil was sitting
+alone on the green plush sofa by the left-hand wall, his
+clothes all disarranged and himself decorated in an extraordinary
+way. A quantity of flowers, which had previously
+adorned the buffet in two Chinese vases, were stuck in the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_93" title="93"> </a>
+opening of his waistcoat, between the studs of his shirtfront,
+even in his collar; round his neck lay the gold chain which
+belonged to the maiden with the collar-bones, and on his head
+the flat metal cover of a punch-bowl was balanced like a
+hat. He kept saying, &ldquo;What are you doing? What are you
+doing&nbsp;&hellip;?&rdquo; while the dancers, hand-in-hand in a semicircle,
+danced a round dance backwards and forwards in
+front of him with half-suppressed giggles, whispers, smirks,
+and ho, ho, ho's.</p>
+
+<p>An unusual and unnatural flush mantled in Doctor Ueberbein's
+face. &ldquo;Stop it! Stop it!&rdquo; he cried in his resonant
+voice, and, in the silence, consternation, and dismay which
+at once ensued, he walked with long strides up to the Prince,
+tore away the flowers in two or three grasps, threw the chain
+and the cover away, then bowed and said with a stern look,
+&ldquo;May I beg your Grand Ducal Highness&nbsp;&hellip;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I've been an ass, an ass!&rdquo; he repeated when he got outside.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich left the Citizens' Ball in his company.</p>
+
+<p>That was the painful event which happened during Klaus
+Heinrich's year at school. As I have said, none of the participators
+talked about it; even to the Prince, Doctor Ueberbein
+did not mention the subject for years afterwards, and,
+as nobody crystallized the event in words, it remained incorporeal
+and promptly faded away, at least apparently,
+into oblivion.</p>
+
+<hr class="thought-break"/>
+
+<p>The Citizens' Ball had taken place in January. Shrove
+Tuesday, with the Court Ball and the big Court in the Old
+Schloss, which wound up the social year&mdash;regulation festivities,
+to which Klaus Heinrich was not yet admitted&mdash;were
+past and over. Then came Easter, and with it the close of the
+school year. Klaus Heinrich's diploma examination, that
+edifying formality, in the course of which the question, &ldquo;You
+agree, do you not, Grand Ducal Highness?&rdquo; was constantly
+recurring on the lips of the Professor, and at which the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_94" title="94"> </a>
+Prince acquitted himself admirably in his very conspicuous
+position. This was not a very important phase in his life.
+Klaus Heinrich continued to live in the capital, but after
+Whitsuntide his eighteenth birthday drew near, and with it
+a complex of festivities which marked a serious turning-point
+in his life, and which taxed him severely for days
+together.</p>
+
+<p>He had attained his majority, had been pronounced to be
+of age. For the first time again since his baptism, he was
+the centre of attention and chief actor in a great ceremony,
+but while he had then quietly, irresponsibly, and patiently
+resigned himself to the formalities which surrounded and
+protected him, it was incumbent on him on this day, in the
+midst of binding prescriptions and stern regulations, hemmed
+in by the drapery of weighty precedent, to inspire the spectators
+and to please them by maintaining an attitude of dignity
+and good-breeding, and at the same time to appear light-hearted.</p>
+
+<p>It may be added that I use the word &ldquo;drapery&rdquo; not only
+as a figure of speech. The Prince wore a crimson mantle on
+this occasion, a sumptuous and theatrical article of raiment,
+which his father and grandfather before him had worn at
+their coming-of-age, and which notwithstanding days of airing,
+still smelt of camphor. The crimson mantle had originally
+belonged to the robes of the Knights of the Grimmburg
+Griffin, but was now nothing more than a ceremonial garb
+for the use of princes attaining their majority. Albrecht,
+the Heir Apparent, had never worn the family one. As his
+birthday fell in the winter, he always spent it in the South,
+in a place with a warm and dry climate, whither he was
+thinking of returning this autumn too, and as at the time of
+his eighteenth birthday his health had not permitted him to
+travel home, it had been decided to declare him officially of
+age in his absence, and to dispense with the Court ceremony.</p>
+
+<p>As to Klaus Heinrich, there was only one opinion, especially
+among the representatives of the public, that the mantle
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_95" title="95"> </a>
+suited him admirably, and he himself, notwithstanding the
+way in which it hampered his movements, found it a blessing,
+as it made it easy for him to hide his left hand. Between
+the canopied bed and the bellying chest of drawers in his
+bedroom, that was situated on the second floor looking out
+on the yard with the rose-bush, he made himself ready for
+the show, carefully and precisely, with the help of his valet,
+Neumann, a quiet and precise man who had been recently
+attached to him as keeper of his wardrobe and personal
+servant.</p>
+
+<p>Neumann was an ex-barber, and was filled, especially in
+the direction of his original calling, with that passionate conscientiousness,
+that insatiable knowledge of the ideal, which
+gives rise to the highest skill. He did not shave like any
+ordinary shaver, he was not content to leave no stubble behind,
+he shaved in such a way that every shadow of a beard,
+every recollection of one, was removed, and without hurting
+the skin he managed to restore to it all its softness and
+smoothness. He cut Klaus Heinrich's hair exactly square
+above the ears, and arranged it with all the assiduity required,
+in his opinion, by this preparation for the Prince's
+ceremonial appearance. He managed that the parting should
+come over the left eye and run slanting back over the crown
+of the head, so that no tufts or wisps should stick up on it;
+he brushed the hair on the right side up from the forehead
+into a prim crest on which no hat or helmet could make an impression.
+Then Klaus Heinrich, with his help, squeezed
+himself carefully into his uniform of lieutenant in the Grenadier
+Guards, whose high-braided collar and tight fit favoured
+a dignified bearing, put on the lemon-coloured silk band and
+the flat gold chain of the House Order, and went down to the
+picture gallery where the members of the family and the
+foreign relations of the Grand Ducal pair were waiting.
+The Court was waiting in the adjoining Hall of the Knights,
+and it was there that Johann Albrecht himself invested his
+son with the crimson mantle.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_96" title="96"> </a>Herr von Bühl zu Bühl had marshalled a procession, the
+ceremonial procession from the Hall of the Knights to the
+Throne-room. It had cost him no little worry. The composition
+of the Court made it difficult to contrive an impressive
+arrangement, and Herr von Bühl especially lamented
+the lack of upper Court officials, which on such occasions
+made itself most severely felt. The Royal Mews had recently
+been put under Herr von Bühl, and he felt himself quite up
+to his various functions, but he asked everybody how he
+could be expected to make a good impression, when the most
+important posts were filled simply by the master of the Buck-hounds,
+von Stieglitz, and the director of the Grand Ducal
+Theatre, a gouty general.</p>
+
+<p>While he, in his capacity as Lord Marshal, Chief Master of
+the Ceremonies, and House Marshal, in his embroidered
+clothes and brown toupée, covered with orders and with his
+golden pince-nez on his nose, came waddling and planting
+his long staff in front of him behind the cadets, who, dressed
+as pages, and their hair parted over the left eye, opened the
+procession, he pondered deeply over what came behind him.
+A few chamberlains&mdash;not many, for some were wanted for
+the end of the procession&mdash;their plumed hats under their
+arms and the Key on their coat-tails, followed close at his
+heels, in silk stockings. Next came Herr von Stieglitz, and
+the limping theatre-director in front of Klaus Heinrich, who,
+in his mantle between the exalted couple, and followed by
+his brother and sister, Albrecht and Ditlinde, formed the
+actual nucleus of the procession.</p>
+
+<p>Behind their Highnesses came von Knobelsdorff, the House
+Minister and President of Council, his eye-wrinkles all at
+work; a little knot of aides-de-camp and palace ladies came
+next: General Count Schmettern and Major von Platow, a
+Count Trümmerhauff, cousin of the Keeper of the Privy Purse,
+as military aide-de-camp of the Heir Apparent, and the
+Grand Duchess's women led by the short-winded Baroness
+von Schulenburg-Tressen. Then followed, attended and followed
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_97" title="97"> </a>
+by aides-de-camp, chamberlains, and Court ladies, Princess
+Catherine, with her red-haired progeny, Prince Lambert
+with his lovely wife, and the foreign relations or their representatives.
+Pages brought up the rear.</p>
+
+<p>Thus they went at a measured pace from the Hall of the
+Knights through the Gala Halls, the Hall of the Twelve Months,
+and the Marble Hall into the Throne-room. Lackeys, with
+red-gold aiguillettes on their brown coats, stood theatrically
+in couples at the open double doors. Through the broad
+windows the June morning sun streamed gaily and recklessly
+in.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich looked round him as he processed between
+his parents through the dreary arabesques, the dilapidated
+decorations of the show-rooms, now not favoured by
+kindly artificial light. The bright daylight cheerfully and
+soberly showed up their decay. From the big lustres with
+their stiff-bound stems, stripped of their coverings in honour
+of the day, rose thick forests of flameless candles, but everywhere
+there were prisms missing, crystal festoons torn, so
+that they gave a canker-bit and toothless impression. The
+silk damask upholstery of the State furniture, which was arranged
+stiffly and monotonously round the walls, was thread-bare,
+the gilt of the frames chipped off, big blind patches
+marred the surfaces of the tall candle-decked mirrors, and
+daylight shone through the moth-holes in the faded and discoloured
+curtains. The gold and silver borders of the tapestry
+hangings had torn away in several places, and were
+hanging disconsolately from the walls. Even in the Silver
+Hall of the Gala Rooms, where the Grand Duke was wont to
+receive solemn deputations, and in the centre of which stood
+a mother-of-pearl table with stumpy silver feet, a piece of
+the silver work had fallen from the ceiling leaving a gaping
+patch of white plaster.</p>
+
+<p>But why was it that it somehow seemed as if these rooms
+defied the sober, mocking daylight, and proudly answered
+its challenge? Klaus Heinrich looked sideways at his father&hellip;.
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_98" title="98"> </a>
+The condition of the rooms did not seem to worry
+him. Never of more than medium height, the Grand Duke
+had become almost small in the course of years, but he
+strode majestically on with head thrown back, the lemon-coloured
+ribbon of the Order over his general's uniform,
+which he had donned to-day, though he had no military
+leanings. From under his high and bald forehead and grey
+eyebrows, his blue eyes, with dull rings round them, were
+fixed with weary dignity on the distance, and from his pointed
+white moustaches the two deep furrows ran down his yellowish
+skin to his beard, imparting to his face a look of contempt.
+No, the bright daylight could not do any harm to the rooms;
+the dilapidations did not in the least impair their dignity,
+they rather increased it. They stood in their discomfort,
+their theatrical symmetry, their strange musty play-house
+or church atmosphere, cold and indifferent to the merry and
+sun-bathed world outside&mdash;stern background of a pompous
+cult, at which Klaus Heinrich this day for the first time
+officiated.</p>
+
+<p>The procession passed through the pairs of lackeys, who,
+with an expression of relentlessness, pressed their lips together
+and closed their eyes, into the white and gold expanse of
+the Throne-room. A wave of acts of homage, scrapings,
+bows, curtseys and salutes, swept through the hall as the
+procession passed in front of the assembled guests. There
+were diplomats with their wives, nobility of the Court and
+the country, the corps of officers of the capital, the Ministers,
+amongst whom could be descried the affected, confident face
+of the new Finance Minister, Dr. Krippenreuther, the Knights
+of the Great Order of the Grimmburg Griffin, the Presidents
+of the Diet, dignitaries of all kinds. High up in the little
+box above the big looking-glass by the entrance door could
+be descried the press representatives peering over each other's
+shoulders and busily writing in their notebooks&hellip;. In front
+of the throne-baldachin, itself a torn velvet arrangement,
+crowned with ostrich feathers and framed with gold fillets
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_99" title="99"> </a>
+which would have been all the better for a touch-up, the
+procession divided as in a polonaise, and went through carefully
+prescribed evolutions.</p>
+
+<p>The pages and chamberlains fell aside to right and left.
+Herr von Bühl, his face turned to the throne and his staff
+uplifted, stepped backwards and stood still in the middle of
+the hall. The Grand Ducal pair and their children walked
+up the rounded, red-carpeted steps to the capacious gilded
+chairs which stood at the top. The remaining members of
+the House, with the foreign princes, ranged themselves on
+both sides of the throne; behind them stood the suite, the
+maids of honour and the grooms of the chambers, and the
+pages stood on the steps. At a gesture from Johann Albrecht,
+Herr von Knobelsdorff, who had previously taken up his
+stand over against the throne, advanced straight to the velvet-covered
+table, which stood by the side of the steps, and began
+at once to read from various documents the official formalities.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich was declared to be of age and fit and
+entitled to wear the crown, should necessity require it&mdash;every
+eye was turned on him at this place, and at his Royal Highness
+Albrecht, his elder brother, who stood close to him.
+The Heir Apparent was wearing the uniform of a captain in
+the Hussar regiment which was called by his name. From
+his silver-laced collar stretched an unmilitary width of civil
+stand-up collar, and on it rested his fine, shrewd, and delicate
+head, with its long skull and narrow temples, the straw-coloured
+moustache on the upper lip, and the blue, lonely-looking
+eyes which had seen death. He looked not in the
+least like a cavalry officer, yet so slender and unapproachably
+aristocratic that Klaus Heinrich, with his national cheek-bones,
+looked almost coarse beside him. The Heir Apparent pursed
+up his lips when everybody looked at him, protruded his
+short rounded underlip, and sucked it lightly against the
+upper one.</p>
+
+<p>Several of the country's orders were bestowed on the Prince
+who had just come of age, including the Albrecht Cross and
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_100" title="100"> </a>
+the Great Order of the Grimmburg Griffin, not to mention that
+he was confirmed in the House Order whose insignia he had
+possessed since his tenth birthday. Afterwards came the
+congratulations in the form of a processional Court, led by
+the fawning Herr von Bühl, after which the gala-breakfast
+began in the Marble Hall and in the hall of the Twelve
+Months.</p>
+
+<p>The foreign princes were entertained for the next few days.
+A garden-party was given in Hollerbrunn, with fireworks and
+dancing for the young people of the Court in the park. Festive
+excursions with pages in attendance were made through
+the sunny country-side to Monbrillant, Jägerpreis, and Haderstein
+Ruins, and the people, that inferior order of creation
+with the searching eyes and the high cheek-bones, stood on the
+kerb and cheered themselves and their representatives. In the
+capital Klaus Heinrich's photograph hung in the windows of
+the art-dealers, and the <i>Courier</i> actually published a printed
+likeness of him, a popular and strangely idealized representation,
+showing the Prince in the crimson mantle. But then
+came yet another great day&mdash;Klaus Heinrich's formal entry
+into the Army, into the regiment of Grenadier Guards.</p>
+
+<p>This is what happened. The regiment to which fell the
+honour of having Klaus Heinrich as one of its officers was
+drawn up on the Albrechtsplatz in open square. Many a
+plume waved in the middle. The princes of the House and
+the generals were all present. The public, a black mass
+against the gay background, crowded behind the barriers.
+Cameras were levelled in several places at the scene of action.
+The Grand Duchess, with the princesses and their ladies,
+watched the show from the windows of the Old Schloss.</p>
+
+<p>First of all, Klaus Heinrich, dressed as a lieutenant, reported
+himself formally to the Grand Duke. He advanced
+sternly, without the shadow of a smile, towards his father,
+clapped his heels together and humbly acquainted him with
+his presence. The Grand Duke thanked him briefly, also
+without a smile, and then in his turn, followed by his aides-de-camp,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_101" title="101"> </a>
+advanced in his dress uniform and plumed hat into the
+square. Klaus Heinrich stood before the lowered colours, an
+embroidered, golden, and half-tattered piece of silk cloth, and
+took the oath. The Grand Duke made a speech in detached
+sentences and the sharp voice of command which he reserved
+for such occasions, in which he called his son &ldquo;Your Grand
+Ducal Highness&rdquo; and publicly clasped the Prince's hand.
+The Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, with crimson cheeks,
+led a cheer for the Grand Duke in which the guests, the regiment,
+and the public joined. A march past followed, and
+the whole ended with a military luncheon in the castle.</p>
+
+<p>This picturesque ceremony in the Albrechtsplatz was without
+practical significance; its effect began and ended there. Klaus
+Heinrich never dreamed of going into garrison, but went the
+very same day with his parents and brother and sister to Hollerbrunn,
+to pass the summer there in the cool old French
+rooms on the river, between the wall-like hedges of the park,
+and then, in the autumn, to go up to the university. For so
+it was ordained in the programme of his life; in the autumn
+he went up to the university for a year, not that of the capital,
+but the second one of the country, accompanied by Doctor
+Ueberbein, his tutor.</p>
+
+<p>The appointment of this young savant as mentor was once
+more attributable to an express, ardent wish of the Prince,
+and indeed, as far as the choice of tutor and older companions
+was concerned, whom Klaus Heinrich was to have at his side
+during this year of student freedom, it was considered necessary
+to give a reasonable amount of consideration to his expressed
+wishes. Yet there was much to be said against this
+choice; it was unpopular, or at least criticized aloud or in
+whispers in many quarters.</p>
+
+<p>Raoul Ueberbein was not loved in the capital. Due respect
+was paid to his medal for life-saving and to all his feverish
+energy, but the man was no genial fellow-citizen, no jolly comrade,
+no blameless official. The most charitable saw in him
+an oddity with a determined and uncomfortably reckless disposition,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_102" title="102"> </a>
+who recognized no Sunday, no holiday, no relaxation,
+and did not understand being a man amongst men after work
+was done. This natural son of an adventuress had worked his
+way up from the depths of society, from an obscure and prospectless
+youth without means, by dint of sheer strength of will,
+to being, first school teacher, then academic professor, then
+university lecturer, had lived to see his appointment&mdash;had
+&ldquo;engineered&rdquo; it, as many said&mdash;to the &ldquo;Pheasantry&rdquo; as teacher
+of a Grand Ducal Prince, and yet he knew no rest, no contentment,
+no comfortable enjoyment of life&hellip;. But life, as
+every decent man, thinking of Doctor Ueberbein, truly observed,
+life does not consist only of profession and performance,
+it has its purely human claims and duties, the neglect of
+which is a greater sin than the display of some measure of
+joviality towards oneself and one's fellows in the sphere of
+one's work, and only that personality can be considered a
+harmonious one which succeeds in giving its due to each part,
+profession and human feelings, life and performance.</p>
+
+<p>Ueberbein's lack of any sense of camaraderie was bound
+to tell against him. He avoided all social intercourse with
+his colleagues, and his circle of friends was confined to the
+person of one man of another scientific sphere, a surgeon and
+children's specialist with the unsympathetic name of Sammet,
+a very popular surgeon to boot, who shared certain characteristics
+with Ueberbein. But it was only very rarely&mdash;and
+then only as a sort of favour&mdash;that he turned up at the club
+where the teachers gathered after the day's work and worry,
+for a glass of beer, a rubber, or a free exchange of views on
+public and personal questions&mdash;but he passed his evenings,
+and, as his landlady reported, also a great part of the night,
+working at science in his study, while his complexion grew
+greener and greener, and his eyes showed more and more
+clearly signs of overstrain.</p>
+
+<p>The authorities had been moved, shortly after his return
+from the &ldquo;Pheasantry,&rdquo; to promote him to head master.
+Where was he going to stop? At Director? High-school
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_103" title="103"> </a>
+Professor? Minister for Education? Everybody agreed
+that his immoderate and restless energy concealed imprudence
+and defiance of public opinion&mdash;or rather did not conceal
+them. His demeanour, his loud, blustering mode of speaking
+annoyed, irritated, and exasperated people. His tone towards
+members of the teaching profession who were older and in
+higher positions than himself was not what it should be. He
+treated everybody, from the Director down to the humblest
+usher, in a fatherly way, and his habit of talking of himself
+as of a man who had &ldquo;knocked about,&rdquo; of gassing about &ldquo;Fate
+and Duty,&rdquo; and thereby displaying his benevolent contempt
+for all those who &ldquo;weren't obliged to&rdquo; and &ldquo;smoked cigars in
+the morning,&rdquo; showed conceit pure and simple. His pupils
+adored him; he achieved remarkable results with them, that
+was agreed. But on the whole the Doctor had many enemies
+in the town, more than he ever guessed, and the misgiving that
+his influence on the Prince might be an undesirable one was
+put into words in at least one portion of the daily press&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>Anyhow Ueberbein obtained leave from the Latin school,
+and went first of all alone, in the capacity of billeter, on a
+visit to the famous student town, within whose walls Klaus
+Heinrich was destined to pass the year of his apprenticeship,
+and on his return he was received in audience by Excellency
+von Knobelsdorff, the Minister of the Grand Ducal House, to
+receive the usual instructions. Their tenour was that almost
+the most important object of this year was to establish traditions
+of comradeship on the common ground of academic
+freedom between the Prince and the student corps, especially
+in the interests of the dynasty&mdash;the regulation phrases, which
+Herr von Knobelsdorff rattled off almost casually, and which
+Doctor Ueberbein listened to with a silent bow, while he drew
+his mouth, and with it his red beard, a little to one side. Then
+followed Klaus Heinrich's departure with his mentor, a dogcart
+and a servant or two, for the university.</p>
+
+<p>A glorious year, full of the charm of artistic freedom, in
+the public eye and in the mirror of public report&mdash;yet without
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_104" title="104"> </a>
+technical importance of any kind. Misgivings which had
+been felt in some quarters that Doctor Ueberbein, through
+mistaking and misunderstanding the position, might worry the
+Prince with excessive demands in the direction of objective
+science, proved unfounded. On the contrary, it was obvious
+that the doctor quite realized the difference between his own
+earnest, and his pupil's exalted, sphere of existence. On the
+other hand (whether it was the mentor's or the Prince's own
+fault does not matter) the freedom and the unconstrained
+camaraderie, like the instruction, were interpreted in a very
+relative and symbolical sense so that neither the one nor the
+other, neither the knowledge nor the freedom, could be said to
+be the essence and peculiarity of the year. Its essence and
+peculiarity were rather, as it appeared, the year in itself, as
+the embodiment of custom and impressive ceremoniousness,
+to which Klaus Heinrich deferred, just as he had deferred
+to the theatrical rites on his last birthday&mdash;only now not
+with a purple cloak, but occasionally wearing a coloured
+student's cap, the so-called &ldquo;Stürmer,&rdquo; in which he was
+portrayed in a photograph issued at once by the <i>Courier</i> to
+its readers.</p>
+
+<p>As to his studies, his matriculation was not marked by any
+particular festivities, though some reference was made to the
+honour which Klaus Heinrich's admission bestowed on the
+university, and the lectures he attended began with the address:
+&ldquo;Grand Ducal Highness!&rdquo; He drove in his dogcart with a
+groom from the pretty green-clad villa, which the Marshal
+of his father's household had leased for him in a select and
+not too expensive square, amid the remarks and greetings of
+the passers-by, to the lectures, and there he sat with the consciousness
+that the whole thing was unessential and unnecessary
+for his exalted calling, yet with a show of courteous
+attention.</p>
+
+<p>Charming anecdotes of the signs the Prince gave of interest
+in the lectures went about and had their due effect. Towards
+the end of one course on Nature Study (for Klaus Heinrich attended
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_105" title="105"> </a>
+these courses also &ldquo;for general information&rdquo;) the
+Professor, by way of illustration, had filled a metal shell
+with water and announced that the water, when frozen, would
+burst the shell by expansion; he promised to show the class
+the pieces next lecture. Now he had not kept his word on
+this point at the next lecture, probably out of forgetfulness:
+the broken shell had not been forthcoming&mdash;Klaus Heinrich
+had therefore inquired as to the result of the experiment.
+He had joined in asking questions of the professor at the
+end of the lecture, just like any ordinary student, and had
+modestly asked him: &ldquo;Has the bomb burst?&rdquo;&mdash;whereupon
+the Professor, full of embarrassment at first, had then expressed
+his thanks with glad surprise, and indeed emotion,
+for the kind interest the Prince had expressed in his lectures.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich was honorary member of a student's club&mdash;only
+honorary, because he was not allowed to fight duels&mdash;and
+once or twice attended their wines, his Stürmer on
+his head. But since his guardians were well aware that the
+results the influence of strong drink had on his highly strung
+and delicate temperament were absolutely irreconcilable with
+his exalted calling, he did not dare to drink seriously, and
+his comrades were obliged on this point too to bear his Highness
+in mind. Their rude customs were judiciously limited
+to a casual one or two, the general tone was as exemplary
+as it used to be in the upper form at school, the songs they
+sang were old ones of real poetry, and the meetings were,
+as a whole, gala and parade nights, refined editions of the
+ordinary ones. The use of Christian names was the bond of
+union between Klaus Heinrich and his corps brothers, as the
+expression and basis of spontaneous comradeship. But it
+was generally observed that this use sounded false and artificial,
+however great the efforts to make it otherwise, and that
+the students were always falling back unintentionally into
+the form of address which took due notice of the Prince's
+Highness.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the effect of his presence, of his friendly, alert,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_106" title="106"> </a>
+and always uncompromising attitude which sometimes produced
+strange, even comical phenomena in the demeanour
+of the persons with whom the Prince came into contact.
+One evening, at a soirée which one of his professors gave,
+he engaged a guest in conversation&mdash;a fat man of some age,
+a King's Counsel by his title, who, despite his social importance,
+enjoyed the reputation of a great roué and a regular
+old sinner. The conversation, whose subject is a matter of
+no consequence and indeed would be difficult to specify,
+lasted for a considerable time because no opportunity of
+breaking it off presented itself. And suddenly, in the middle
+of his talk with the Prince, the barrister whistled&mdash;whistled
+with his thick lips one of those pointless sequences of notes
+which one utters when one is embarrassed and wants to appear
+at one's ease, and then tried to cover his comic breach
+of manners by clearing his throat and coughing. Klaus
+Heinrich was accustomed to experiences of that kind, and
+tactfully passed on.</p>
+
+<p>If at any time he wanted to make a purchase himself and
+went into a shop, his entrance caused a kind of panic. He
+would ask for what he wanted, a button perhaps, but the girl
+would not understand him, would look dazed, and unable to
+fix her attention on the button, but obviously absorbed by
+something else&mdash;something outside and above her duties as a
+shop-assistant&mdash;she would drop a few things, turn the boxes
+upside down in obvious helplessness, and it was all Klaus
+Heinrich could do to restore her composure by his friendly
+manner.</p>
+
+<p>Such, as I have said, was the effect of his attitude, and
+in the city it was often described as arrogance and blameworthy
+contempt for fellow-creatures&mdash;others roundly denied
+the arrogance, and Doctor Ueberbein, when the subject was
+broached to him at a social gathering, would put the question,
+whether &ldquo;every inducement to contempt for his fellow-creatures
+being readily conceded,&rdquo; any such contempt really was
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_107" title="107"> </a>
+possible in a case like the present of complete detachment
+from all the activities of ordinary men. Indeed, any remark
+of that kind he met in his unanswerable blustering way by
+the assertion that the Prince not only did not despise his
+fellow-creatures, but respected even the most worthless of
+them, only considered them all the more sound, serious, and
+good for the way in which the poor over-taxed and over-strained
+man in the street earned his living by the sweat of
+his brow&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>The society of the university town had no time to reach
+a definite verdict on the question. The year of student life
+was over before one could turn round, and Klaus Heinrich
+returned, as prescribed by the programme of his life, to his
+father's palace, there, despite his left arm, to pass a full
+year in serious military service. He was attached to the
+Dragoons of the Guard for six months, and directed the
+taking up of intervals of eight paces for lance-exercises as
+well as the forming of squares, as if he were a serious soldier;
+then changed his weapon and transferred to the Grenadier
+Guards, so as to get an insight into infantry work also.
+It fell to him to march to the Schloss and change the Guard&mdash;an
+evolution which attracted large crowds. He came
+swiftly out of the Guard-room, his star on his breast, placed
+himself with drawn sword on the flank of the company and
+gave not quite correct orders, which, however, did not matter,
+as his stout soldiers executed the right movements all the
+same.</p>
+
+<p>On guest-nights, too, at head-quarters, he sat on the colonel's
+right hand, and by his presence prevented the officers from
+unhooking their uniform collars and playing cards after
+dinner. After this, being now twenty years old, he started
+on an &ldquo;educational tour&rdquo;&mdash;no longer in the company of
+Doctor Ueberbein, but in that of a military attendant and
+courier, Captain von Braunbart-Schellendorf of the Guards,
+a fair-haired officer who was destined to be Klaus Heinrich's
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_108" title="108"> </a>
+aide-de-camp, and to whom the tour gave an opportunity of
+establishing himself on a footing of intimacy and influence
+with him.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich did not see much in his educational tour,
+which took him far afield, and was keenly followed by the
+<i>Courier</i>. He visited the courts, introduced himself to the
+sovereigns, attended gala dinners with Captain von Braunbart,
+and on his departure received one of the country's superior
+Orders. He took a look at such sights as Captain von
+Braunbart (who also received several Orders) chose for him,
+and the <i>Courier</i> reported from time to time that the Prince
+had expressed his admiration of a picture, a museum, or a
+building to the director or curator who happened to be his
+cicerone. He travelled apart, protected and supported by
+the chivalrous precautions of Captain von Braunbart, who
+kept the purse, and to whose devoted zeal was due the fact
+that not one of Klaus Heinrich's trunks was missing at the
+end of the journey.</p>
+
+<p>A couple of words, no more, may be devoted to an interlude,
+which had for scene a big city in a neighbouring kingdom,
+and was brought about by Captain von Braunbart with all
+due circumspection. The Captain had a friend in this city,
+a bachelor nobleman and a cavalry captain, who was on
+terms of intimacy with a young lady member of the theatrical
+world, an accommodating and at the same time trustworthy
+young person. In pursuance of an agreement by letter between
+Captain von Braunbart and his friend, Klaus Heinrich
+was thrown in contact with the damsel at her home&mdash;suitably
+arranged for the purpose&mdash;and the acquaintance allowed to
+develop <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">à deux</i>. Thus an expressly foreseen item in the
+educational tour was conscientiously realized, without Klaus
+Heinrich being involved in more than a casual acquaintance.
+The damsel received a memento for her services, and Captain
+von Braunbart's friend a decoration. So the incident closed.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich also visited the fair Southern lands, incognito,
+under a romantic-sounding title. There he would
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_109" title="109"> </a>
+sit, alone, perhaps for a quarter of an hour, dressed in a
+suit of irreproachable cut, among other foreigners on a white
+restaurant terrace looking over a dark-blue sea, and it might
+happen that somebody at another table would notice him,
+and try, in the manner of tourists, to engage him in conversation.
+What could he be, that quiet and self-possessed-looking
+young man? People ran over the various spheres
+of life, tried to fit him into the merchant, the military, the
+student class. But they never felt that they had got it quite
+right&mdash;they felt his Highness, but nobody guessed it.</p>
+
+<h2><a class="pagenum" name="Page_110" title="110"> </a>V<br/>
+<small>ALBRECHT&nbsp;II</small></h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">Grand Duke Johann Albrecht</span> died of a terrible illness,
+which had something naked and abstract about it, and to
+which no other name but just that of death could be given.
+It seemed as if death, sure of its prey, in this case disdained
+any mask or gloss, and came on the scene as its very self,
+as dissolution by and for itself. What actually happened
+was a decomposition of the blood, caused by internal hæmorrhages;
+and an exploratory operation, <ins title="whch">which</ins> was conducted
+by the Director of the University Hospital, a famous surgeon,
+could not arrest the corroding progress of the gangrene. The
+end soon came, all the sooner that Johann Albrecht made little
+resistance to the approach of death. He showed signs of an
+unutterable weariness, and often remarked to his attendants,
+as well as to the surgeons attending him, that he was &ldquo;dead
+sick of the whole thing&rdquo;&mdash;meaning, of course, his princely
+existence, his exalted life in the glare of publicity. His
+cheek-furrows, those two lines of arrogance and boredom,
+resolved in his last days into an exaggerated, grotesque grimace,
+and continued thus until death smoothed them out.</p>
+
+<p>The Grand Duke's illness fell in the winter. Albrecht, the
+Heir Apparent, called away from his warm dry resort, arrived
+in snowy wet weather, which was as bad for his health as it
+could be. His brother, Klaus Heinrich, interrupted his educational
+tour, which was anyhow nearing its close, and returned
+with Captain von Braunbart-Schellendorf in all haste
+from the fair land of the South to the capital. Besides the
+two prince-sons, the Grand Duchess Dorothea, the Princesses
+Catherine and Ditlinde, Prince Lambert without his lovely
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_111" title="111"> </a>
+wife&mdash;the surgeons in attendance and Prahl the valet-de-chambre
+waited at the bedside, while the Court officials and
+Ministers on duty were collected in the adjoining room. If
+credence might be given to the assertions of the servants, the
+ghostly noise in the &ldquo;Owl Chamber&rdquo; had been exceptionally
+loud in the last weeks and days. According to them it was
+a rattling and a shaking noise, which recurred periodically,
+and whose meaning could not be distinguished outside the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>Johann Albrecht's last act of Highness consisted in giving
+with his own hand to the professor, who had performed the
+useless operation with the greatest skill, his patent of nomination
+to the Privy Council. He was terribly exhausted, &ldquo;sick
+of the whole thing,&rdquo; and his consciousness even in his more
+lucid moments was not at all clear; but he carried out the
+act with scrupulous care and made a ceremony of it. He had
+himself propped up, made a few alterations, shading his eyes
+with his wax-coloured hands, in the chance disposition of those
+present, ordered his sons to place themselves on both sides
+of his canopied bed&mdash;and while his soul was already tugging
+at her moorings, and floating here and there on unknown
+currents, he composed his features with mechanical skill into
+his smile of graciousness for the handing of the diploma to
+the Professor, who had left the room for a short time.</p>
+
+<p>Quite towards the end, when the dissolution had already
+attacked the brain, the Grand Duke made one wish clear,
+which, though scarcely understood, was hastily complied with,
+although its fulfilment could not do the slightest good to the
+Grand Duke. Certain words, apparently disconnected, kept
+recurring in the murmurings of the sick man. He named
+several stuffs, silk, satin, and brocade, mentioned Prince Klaus
+Heinrich, used a technical expression in medicine, and said
+something about an Order, the Albrecht Cross of the Third
+Class with Crown. Between whiles one caught quite ordinary
+remarks, which apparently referred to the dying man's princely
+calling, and sounded like &ldquo;extraordinary obligation&rdquo; and
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_112" title="112"> </a>
+&ldquo;comfortable majority&rdquo;; then the descriptions of the stuffs
+began again, to which was appended in a louder voice the
+word &ldquo;Sammet.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">(1)</a> At last it was realized that the Grand
+Duke wanted Doctor Sammet to be called in, the doctor who
+had happened to be present at the Grimmburg at the time of
+Klaus Heinrich's birth, twenty years before, and had, for a
+long time now, been practising in the capital.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">(1)</a>
+<i>I.e.</i>, velvet.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The doctor was really a children's doctor, but he was summoned
+and came: already nearly grey on the temples, with a
+drooping moustache, surmounted by a nose which was rather
+too flat at the bottom, clean-shaven otherwise and with cheeks
+rather sore from shaving. With head on one side, his hand
+on his watch-chain, and elbows close to his sides, he examined
+the situation, and began at once to busy himself in a practical,
+gentle way about his exalted patient, whereat the latter expressed
+his satisfaction in no uncertain fashion. Thus it was
+that it fell to Doctor Sammet to administer the last injections
+to the Grand Duke, with his supporting hand to ease the final
+spasms, and to be, more than any of the other doctors, his
+helper in death&mdash;a distinction which indeed provoked some
+secret irritation amongst the others, but on the other hand
+resulted in the doctor's appointment shortly afterwards to the
+vacancy in the important post of Director and Chief Physician
+of the &ldquo;Dorothea,&rdquo; a Children's Hospital, in which capacity
+he was destined later to play some part in certain developments.</p>
+
+<p>So died Johann Albrecht the Third, uttering his last sigh
+on a winter's night. The old castle was brightly illuminated
+while he was passing away. The stern furrows of boredom
+were smoothed out in his face, and, relieved of any exertion
+on his own part, he was subjected to formalities which surrounded
+him for the last time, carried him along, and made
+his wax-like shell just once more the focus and object of
+theatrical rites&hellip;. Herr von Bühl zu Bühl showed his usual
+energy in organizing the funeral, which was attended by many
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_113" title="113"> </a>
+princely guests. The gloomy ceremonies, the different exposures
+and identifications, corpse-parades, blessings, and
+memorial services at the catafalque took days to complete, and
+Johann Albrecht's corpse was for eight hours exposed to public
+view, surrounded by a guard of honour consisting of two
+colonels, two first lieutenants, two cavalry sergeants, two infantry
+sergeants, two corporals, and two chamberlains.</p>
+
+<p>Then at last came the moment when the zinc shell was
+brought by eight lackeys from the altar recess of the Court
+Church, where it had been on show between crape-covered
+candelabra and six-foot candles, to the entry-hall, placed by
+eight foresters in the mahogany coffin, carried by eight
+Grenadier Guardsmen to the six-horsed and black-draped
+hearse, which set off for the mausoleum amidst cannon salvos
+and the tolling of bells. The flags hung heavy with rain
+from the middle of their poles. Although it was early morning,
+the gas-lamps were burning in the streets along which the
+funeral was to pass. Johann Albrecht's bust was displayed
+amongst mourning decorations in the shop-windows, and postcards
+with the portrait of the deceased ruler, which were everywhere
+for sale, were in great demand. Behind the rows of
+troops, the gymnastic clubs, and veteran associations which
+kept the road, stood the people on tiptoe in the snow-brash
+and gazed with bowed heads at the slowly passing coffin, preceded
+by the wreath-bearing lackeys, the Court officials, the
+bearers of the insignia and Dom Wislezenus, the Court preacher,
+and covered with a silver-worked pall, whose corners were
+held by Lord Marshal von Bühl, Master of the Royal Hunt
+von Stieglitz, Adjutant-General Count Schmettern, and Minister
+of the Household von Knobelsdorff.</p>
+
+<p>By the side of his brother Klaus Heinrich, immediately
+behind the charger which was led in rear of the hearse, and
+at the head of the other mourners, walked Grand Duke
+Albrecht&nbsp;II. His clothes, the tall stiff plume in the front of
+his busby, the long boots under his gaudy, ample Hussar's
+pelisse, with the crape band, did not become him. He walked
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_114" title="114"> </a>
+as if embarrassed by the eyes of the crowd, and his shoulder-blades,
+naturally rather crooked, were twisted in an awkward
+nervous way as he walked. Repugnance at having to be chief
+actor in this funeral pomp was clearly written on his pale face.
+He did not raise his eyes as he walked, and he sucked his
+short rounded lower lip against the upper&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>His demeanour remained the same during the Curialia accompanying
+his accession, which were so arranged as to spare
+him as much as possible. The Grand Duke signed the oath
+in the Silver Hall of the Gala Rooms before the assembled
+Ministers, and read aloud in the Throne-room, standing in
+front of the rounded chair under the baldachin, the Speech from
+the Throne, which Herr von Knobelsdorff had drawn up.
+The economic condition of the country was touched upon in it
+with earnestness and delicacy, while appreciative mention was
+made of the unanimity which despite all troubles existed between
+the princes and the country&mdash;at which place a prominent
+functionary, who was apparently discontented about promotion,
+was said to have whispered to his neighbour that the unanimity
+consisted in the Prince being as deeply in debt as the country&mdash;a
+caustic remark which was much repeated, and ended by
+getting into hostile newspapers&hellip;. To end up, the President
+of the Landtag called for a cheer for the Grand Duke, a service
+was held in the Court Chapel, and that was all.</p>
+
+<p>Further, Albrecht signed an edict, by virtue of which a
+number of sentences of fines and imprisonment, which had
+been imposed for the less serious misdemeanours, chiefly infringement
+of the forest laws, were remitted. The solemn procession
+through the city and the acclamation in the Town Hall
+were omitted altogether, as the Grand Duke felt too tired for
+them. Having been a captain hitherto, he was promoted on
+the occasion of his accession at once to the colonelcy <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">à la
+suite</i> of his Hussar regiment, but scarcely ever put the uniform
+on, and kept as far away as possible from his sphere as
+a soldier. He made no change whatever in his staff, perhaps
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_115" title="115"> </a>
+out of respect to his father's memory, either among the Court
+appointments or in the Ministry.</p>
+
+<p>The public saw him but rarely. His proud and bashful
+disinclination to show himself, to put himself forward, to
+allow others to acclaim him, was so clearly shown from the
+very beginning as to shock public opinion. He never appeared
+in the large box at the Court Theatre. He never took
+part in the park parade. When in residence at the Old Schloss,
+he had himself driven in a closed carriage to a remote and
+empty part of the suburbs, where he got out to take a little
+exercise; and in the summer at Hollerbrunn he only left the
+hedged walks of the parks on exceptional occasions.</p>
+
+<p>Did the people catch a glimpse of him&mdash;at the Albrechtstor
+it might be, when wrapped in his heavy fur coat, which his
+father had worn before him, and on whose thick collar his
+delicate head now rested, he stepped into his carriage&mdash;timid
+glances were levelled at him, and the cheering was faint and
+hesitating. For the lower classes felt that with a prince like
+this there could be no question of cheering him and thereby
+cheering themselves at the same time. They looked at him,
+and did not recognize themselves in him; his refined superiority
+made it clear that they were of different clay from his. And
+they were not accustomed to that. Was there not a commissionaire
+posted in the Albrechtsplatz that very day, who
+with his high cheek-bones and grey whiskers looked a coarse
+and homely replica of the late Grand Duke? And did one
+not similarly meet with Prince Klaus Heinrich's features in
+the lower classes?</p>
+
+<p>It was not so with his brother. The people could not see
+in him an idealized version of themselves, whom it could make
+them happy to cheer&mdash;as it meant cheering themselves too!
+the Grand Duke's Highness&mdash;his undoubted Highness!&mdash;was
+a nobility of the usual kind, undomestic, and without the
+stamp of the graciousness which inspires confidence. He
+too knew that; and the consciousness of his Highness, together
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_116" title="116"> </a>
+with that of his want of popular graciousness, were quite
+enough to account for his shyness and haughtiness. He began
+already to delegate as far as possible his duties to Prince
+Klaus Heinrich. He sent him to open the new spring at Immenstadt
+and to the historical town-pageant at Butterburg.
+Indeed, his contempt for any exhibition of his princely person
+went so far that Herr von Knobelsdorff had the greatest difficulty
+in persuading him to receive the Presidents of the two
+Chambers in the Throne-room himself, and not, &ldquo;for reasons
+of health,&rdquo; as he was minded, to give place to his brother
+on this solemn occasion.</p>
+
+<p>Albrecht&nbsp;II lived a lonely life in the Old Schloss; that
+was unavoidable in the nature of things. In the first place,
+Prince Klaus Heinrich, since Johann Albrecht's death, kept a
+Court of his own. That was demanded by etiquette, and he
+had been given the &ldquo;Hermitage&rdquo; as a residence, that Empire
+Schloss on the fringe of the northern suburbs, which, reposeful
+and charming, but long uninhabited and neglected, in the
+middle of its overgrown park next the Town Gardens, looked
+down on its little mud-thick pond. Some time ago, when
+Albrecht came of age, the &ldquo;Hermitage&rdquo; had been freshened
+up and for form's sake destined to be the Heir Apparent's
+palace; but as Albrecht had always come in summer straight
+from his warm, dry foreign resort to Hollerbrunn, he had
+never used his palace&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich lived there without unnecessary expense,
+with one major-domo, who superintended the household, a
+Baron von Schulenburg-Tressen, nephew of the Mistress of the
+Robes. Besides his valet, Neumann, he had two other lackeys
+for his daily needs; he borrowed the game-keeper when necessary
+for ceremonial shoots, from the Grand Duke's Court.
+One coachman and a couple of grooms in red waistcoats looked
+after the carriages and horses, which consisted of one pony-cart,
+one brougham, one dog-cart, two riding and two carriage
+horses. One gardener, helped by two boys, looked after
+the park and the garden; and one cook with her kitchen-maid,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_117" title="117"> </a>
+as well as two chambermaids, made up the female staff of the
+&ldquo;Hermitage.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was Court Marshal von Schulenburg's business to keep
+his young master's establishment going on the apanage which
+the Landtag, after Albrecht's accession, had voted the Grand
+Duke's brother after a serious debate. It amounted to two
+thousand five hundred pounds. For the sum of four thousand
+pounds, which had been the original demand, had never
+had any prospect of recommending itself to the Landtag, and
+so a wise and magnanimous act of self-denial had been credited
+to Klaus Heinrich, which had made an excellent impression
+in the country. Every winter Herr von Schulenburg sold the
+ice from the pond. He had the hay in the park mowed twice
+every summer and sold. After the harvests the surface of the
+fields looked almost like English turf.</p>
+
+<p>Further, Dorothea, the Dowager Grand Duchess, no longer
+lived in the Old Schloss, and the causes of her retirement were
+both sad and uncomfortable. For she too, the Princess whom
+the much-travelled Herr von Knobelsdorff had described more
+than once as one of the most beautiful women he had ever
+seen, the Princess whose radiant smiles had evoked joy, enthusiasm,
+and cheers whenever she had shown herself to the
+longing gaze of the toil-worn masses, she too had had to pay
+her tribute to time. Dorothea had aged, her calm perfection,
+the admiration and joy of everybody, had during recent years
+withered so fast and steadily that the woman in her had been
+unable to keep pace with the transformation. Nothing, no art,
+no measures, even the painful and repulsive ones, with which
+she tried to stave off decay, had availed to prevent the sweet
+brightness of her deep blue eyes from fading, rings of loose
+yellow skin from forming under them, the wonderful little
+dimples in her cheeks from turning into furrows, and her
+proud and hard mouth from looking drawn and bitter.</p>
+
+<p>But since her heart had been hard as her beauty, and had
+been absorbed in that beauty, since her beauty had been her
+very soul and she had had no wish, no love, beyond the effect
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_118" title="118"> </a>
+of that beauty on the hearts of others, while her own heart
+never beat the faster for anything or anyone, she was now disconsolate
+and lost, could not accommodate herself to the change
+and rebelled against it. Surgeon-General Eschrich said something
+about mental disturbance resulting from an unusually
+quick climacteric, and his opinion was undoubtedly correct in
+a sense. The sad truth at any rate was that Dorothea during
+the last years of her husband's life had already shown signs of
+profound mental disturbance and trouble.</p>
+
+<p>She became light-shy, gave orders that at the Thursday concerts
+in the Marble Hall all the lights should be shaded red,
+and flew into a passion because she could not have the same
+thing done at all other festivities, the Court Ball, the Private
+Ball, the Dinner Party, and the Great Court, as the kind of
+twilight feeling in the Marble Hall had been enough by itself
+to call forth many cutting remarks. She spent whole days
+before her looking-glasses, and it was noticed that she fondled
+with her hands those which for some reason or other reflected
+her image in a more favourable light. Then again she had
+all the looking-glasses removed from her rooms, and those
+fixed in the wall draped, went to bed and prayed for death.</p>
+
+<p>One day Baroness von Schulenburg found her quite distracted
+and feverish with weeping in the Hall of the Twelve
+Months before the big portrait which represented her at the
+height of her beauty&hellip;. At the same time a diseased misanthropy
+began to take possession of her, and both Court and
+people were distressed to notice how the bearing of this erstwhile
+goddess began to lose its assurance, her deportment became
+strangely awkward, and a pitiful look came into her
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>At last she shut herself up altogether, and, at the last Court
+Ball he attended, Johann Albrecht had escorted his sister
+Catherine instead of his &ldquo;indisposed Consort.&rdquo; His death was
+from one point of view a release for Dorothea, as it relieved
+her from all her duties as a sovereign. She chose as dower-house
+Schloss Segenhaus, a monastic-looking old hunting-seat,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_119" title="119"> </a>
+which lay in a solemn park about one and a half hour's drive
+from the capital, and had been decorated by some pious old
+sportsman with religious and sporting emblems curiously intermixed.
+There she lived, eclipsed and odd, and excursionists
+could often watch her from afar, walking in the park with
+Baroness von Schulenburg-Tressen, and bowing graciously to
+the trees on each side of the path.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, Princess <ins title="Ditlande">Ditlinde</ins> had married at the age of twenty,
+one year after her father's death. She bestowed her hand
+on a prince of a mediatised house, Prince Philipp zu Ried-Hohenried,
+a no longer young, but well-preserved, cultured
+little man of advanced views, who paid her flattering attentions
+for some considerable time, did all his courting at first-hand,
+and offered the Princess his heart and hand in an honest
+bourgeois way at a charity function.</p>
+
+<p>It would be wrong to say that this alliance evoked wild
+enthusiasm in the country. It was received with indifference;
+it disappointed. It is true, more ambitious hopes had been
+secretly entertained for Johann Albrecht's daughter, and all
+the critics could say was that the marriage could not be called
+a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">mésalliance</i> in so many words. It was a fact that Ditlinde,
+in giving her hand to the Prince&mdash;which she did of her own
+free will, and quite uninfluenced by others&mdash;had undoubtedly
+descended out of her sphere of Highness into a more free and
+human atmosphere. Her noble spouse was not only a lover and
+collector of oil paintings, but also a business man and tradesman
+on a large scale.</p>
+
+<p>The dynasty had ceased to exercise any sovereign right hundreds
+of years ago, but Philipp was the first of his house to
+make up his mind to exploit his private means in a natural
+way. After spending his youth in travelling, he had looked
+around for a sphere of activity which would keep him busy
+and contented, and at the same time (a matter of necessity)
+would increase his income. So he launched out into various
+enterprises, started farms, a brewery, a sugar factory, several
+saw-mills on his property, and began to exploit his extensive
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_120" title="120"> </a>
+peat deposits in a methodical way. As he brought expert
+knowledge and sound business instincts to all his enterprises,
+they soon began to pay, and returned profits which, if their
+origin was not very princely, at any rate provided him with
+the means of leading a princely existence which he would
+otherwise not have had.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand the critics might have been asked what
+sort of a match they could expect for their Princess, if they
+viewed the matter soberly. Ditlinde, who brought her husband
+scarcely anything except an inexhaustible store of linen,
+including dozens of out-of-date and useless articles such as
+night-caps and neckerchiefs, which however by hallowed
+tradition formed part of her trousseau&mdash;she by this marriage
+acquired a measure of riches and comfort such as she had
+never been accustomed to at home: and no sacrifice of her
+affections was necessary to pay for them. She took the step
+into private life with obvious contentment and determination,
+and retained, of the trappings of Highness, nothing but her
+title. She remained on friendly terms with her ladies-in-waiting,
+but divested her relations with them of everything
+which suggested service, and avoided giving her household the
+character of a Court.</p>
+
+<p>That might evoke surprise, especially in a Grimmburg and
+in Ditlinde in particular, but there was no doubt that it was
+her own choice. The couple spent the summer on the princely
+estates, the winter in the capital in the stately palace in the
+Albrechtstrasse, which Philipp zu Ried had inherited; and it
+was here, not in the Old Schloss, that the Grand Ducal family&mdash;Klaus
+Heinrich and Ditlinde, occasionally Albrecht as well&mdash;met
+now and again for a confidential talk.</p>
+
+<p>So it happened that one day at the beginning of autumn,
+not quite two years after the death of Johann Albrecht, the
+<i>Courier</i>, well-informed as usual, published in its evening edition
+the news that this afternoon his Royal Highness the
+Grand Duke and his Grand Ducal Highness Prince Klaus
+Heinrich had been to tea with her Grand Ducal Highness the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_121" title="121"> </a>
+Princess zu Ried-Hohenried. That was all. But on that afternoon
+several topics of importance for the future were discussed
+between the brothers and sister.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich left the Hermitage shortly before five
+o'clock. As the weather was sunny, he had ordered the dogcart,
+and the open brown-varnished vehicle, clean and shining,
+if not over-new or smart to look at, came slowly up the broad
+drive of the Schloss, at a quarter to five, from the stables,
+which with their asphalt yard lay in the right wing of the
+home farm. The home farm, yellow-painted, old-fashioned
+buildings of one story, made one long line with, though at
+some distance from, the plain white mansion, the front of
+which, adorned with laurels at regular intervals, faced the
+muddy pond and the public part of the park.</p>
+
+<p>For the front portion of the estate, that which marched
+with the town gardens, was open to pedestrians and light
+traffic, and all that was enclosed was the gently rising flower-garden,
+at the top of which lay the Schloss and the very unkempt
+park behind, which was divided by hedges and fences
+from the rubbish-encumbered waste ground at the edge of the
+town suburbs. So the cart came up the drive between the
+pond and the home farm, turned through the high garden
+gates, adorned with lamps which had once been gilt, passed
+on up the drive and waited in front of the stiff little laurel-planted
+terrace which led to the garden-room.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich came out a few minutes before five. He
+wore as usual the tight-fitting uniform of a lieutenant of the
+Grenadier Guards, and his sword-hilt hung on his arm. Neumann,
+in a violet coat whose arms were too short, ran in front
+of him down the steps and with his red barber's hands packed
+his master's folded grey over-coat into the cart. Then, while
+the coachman, his hand to his cockaded hat, inclined a little
+sideways on the box, the valet arranged the light carriage rug
+over Klaus Heinrich's knees and stepped back with a silent
+bow. The horses started off.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the garden gates a few promenaders had collected.
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_122" title="122"> </a>
+They greeted Klaus Heinrich, smiling with knitted brows and
+hats lifted, and Klaus Heinrich thanked them by raising his
+white-gloved right hand to the peak of his cap and making a
+succession of lively nods.</p>
+
+<p>They skirted a piece of waste ground along a birch avenue,
+whose leaves were already turning, and then drove through
+the suburb, between poverty-stricken houses, over unpaved
+streets, where the ragged children left their hoops and tops for
+a moment to gaze at the carriage with curious eyes. Some
+cried, Hurrah! and ran for a while by the side of the carriage,
+with heads turned towards Klaus Heinrich. The carriage
+might have taken the road by the Spa-gardens; but that
+through the suburb was shorter, and time pressed. Ditlinde
+was particular on points of regularity, and easily put out if
+anybody disturbed her household arrangements by unpunctuality.</p>
+
+<p>Yonder was the Dorothea Children's Hospital of which Doctor
+Sammet, Ueberbein's friend, was the Director; Klaus Heinrich
+drove by it. And then the carriage left the squalid
+neighbourhood and reached the Gartenstrasse, a stately tree-planted
+avenue, in which lay the houses and villas of wealthy
+citizens, and along which ran the tram-line from the Spa Gardens
+to the centre of the city. The traffic here was fairly
+heavy, and Klaus Heinrich was kept busy answering the greetings
+which met him. Civilians took off their hats and looked
+from under their eyebrows at him, officers on horse and on
+foot saluted, policemen front-turned, and Klaus Heinrich in
+his corner raised his hand to the peak of his cap and thanked
+on both sides with the well-trained bow and smile which were
+calculated to confirm the people in their feeling of participation
+in his splendid personality&hellip;. His way of sitting in
+his carriage was quite peculiar&mdash;he did not lean back indolently
+and comfortably in the cushions, but he took just as active a
+part in the motions of the carriage when driving as in those
+of his horse when riding; with hands crossed on his sword
+hilt and one foot a little advanced, he as it were &ldquo;took&rdquo; the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_123" title="123"> </a>
+unevennesses of the ground, and accommodated himself to the
+motion of the badly hung carriage.</p>
+
+<p>The carriage crossed the Albrechtsplatz, left the Old Schloss,
+with the two sentries presenting arms, to the right, followed
+the Albrechtstrasse in the direction of the barracks of the
+Grenadier Guards and rolled to the left into the courtyard of
+the palace of the Princess of Ried. It was a building of
+regular proportions in the pedantic style, with a soaring gable
+over the main door, festooned <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">&oelig;ils-de-b&oelig;uf</i> in the mezzanine
+story, high French windows in the first story, and an elegant
+<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">cour d'honneur</i>, which was formed by the two one-storied wings
+and was separated from the street by a circular railing, on
+whose pillars stone babies played. But the internal arrangements
+of the Schloss were, in contradistinction to the historical
+style of its exterior, conceived throughout in an up-to-date
+and comfortable bourgeois taste.</p>
+
+<p>Ditlinde received her brother in a large drawing-room on
+the first floor with several curved sofas in pale green silk; the
+back part of the room was separated from the front by slender
+pillars, and filled with palms, plants in metal bowls, and tables
+covered with brilliant flowers.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Good afternoon, Klaus Heinrich,&rdquo; said the Princess. She
+was delicate and thin, and the only luxuriant thing about her
+was her fair hair, which used to lie like ram's horns round her
+ears and now was dressed in thick plaits above her face with its
+high Grimmburg cheek-bones. She wore an indoor dress of
+soft blue-grey stuff with a white lace collar, cut in a point like
+a breast-plate and fastened at the waist with an old-fashioned
+oval brooch. Blue veins and shadows showed here and there
+through the delicate skin of her face, in the temples, the forehead,
+at the corners of her soft and calm blue eyes. Signs of
+approaching maternity were beginning to show themselves.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Good afternoon, Ditlinde, you and your flowers!&rdquo; answered
+Klaus Heinrich, as, clapping his heels together, he bent over
+her little, white, rather over-broad hand. &ldquo;How they do smell!
+And the garden's full of them, I see.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_124" title="124"> </a>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I love flowers. I have always longed to
+be able to live among quantities of flowers, living, smelling
+flowers, which I could watch growing&mdash;it was a kind of secret
+wish of mine, Klaus Heinrich, and I might almost say that
+I married for flowers, for in the Old Schloss, as you know,
+there were no flowers&hellip;. The Old Schloss and flowers! We
+should have had to rummage a lot to find them, I'm sure.
+Rat-traps and such things, plenty of them. And really, when
+one comes to think, the whole thing was like a disused rat-trap,
+so dusty and horrid &hellip; ugh!&hellip;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But the rose-bush, Ditlinde.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, my goodness&mdash;one rose-bush. And that's in the guide-books,
+because its roses smell of decay. And the books say
+that it will one day smell quite natural and nice, just like any
+other rose. But I can't believe it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You will soon,&rdquo; he said, and looked at her laughingly,
+&ldquo;have something better than your flowers to tend, little Ditlinde.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said and blushed lightly and quickly, &ldquo;yes, Klaus
+Heinrich, I can hardly believe it. And yet it will be so, if
+God pleases. But come over here. We'll have a chat together
+once more&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The room, on whose threshold they had been talking, was
+small in comparison with its height, with a grey-blue carpet,
+and furnished with cheery-looking silver-grey furniture, the
+chairs of which were upholstered in blue silk. A milk-white
+china chandelier hung from the white-festooned centre of the
+ceiling, and the walls were adorned with oil paintings of
+various sizes, acquisitions of Prince Philipp's, light studies in
+the new style, representing white goats in the sun, poultry in
+the sun, sun-bathed meadows and peasants with blinking, sun-sprinkled
+faces.</p>
+
+<p>The spindle-legged secretaire in the white-curtained window
+was covered with a hundred carefully arranged articles, knick-knacks,
+writing materials, and several dainty note-blocks&mdash;for
+the Princess was accustomed to make careful and comprehensive
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_125" title="125"> </a>
+notes about all her duties and plans. In front
+of the inkstand a housekeeper's book, in which Ditlinde had
+apparently just been working, lay open, and by the table there
+hung on the wall a little silk-trimmed block-calendar, under
+the printed date of which could be seen the pencil note: &ldquo;5
+o'clock: my brothers.&rdquo; Between the sofa and a semicircle of
+chairs over against the white swing doors into the reception
+room stood an oval table with a damask cloth and blue-silk
+border; the flowered tea-service, a jam-pot, long dishes of sweet
+cakes, and tiny pieces of bread and butter were arranged in
+ordered disorder on it, and to one side steamed the silver
+tea-kettle over its spirit-flame on a glass table. But there were
+flowers everywhere&mdash;flowers in the vases on the writing-table,
+on the tea-table, on the glass table, on the china-cabinet, on
+the table next the white sofa, and a flower-table full of flower-pots
+stood in the window.</p>
+
+<p>This room, situated at the side and in a corner of the suite
+of reception rooms, was Ditlinde's cabinet, her boudoir, the
+room in which she used to entertain quite intimate friends and
+to make tea with her own hands. Klaus Heinrich watched her
+as she washed out the tea-pot with hot water and put the tea
+in with a silver spoon.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And Albrecht &hellip; is he coming?&rdquo; he asked with an involuntarily
+restrained voice.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I hope so,&rdquo; she said, bending attentively over the crystal
+tea-caddy, as if to avoid spilling any tea (and he too avoided
+looking at her). &ldquo;I have of course asked him, Klaus Heinrich,
+but you know he cannot bind himself. It depends on
+his health whether he comes. I'm making our tea at once,
+for Albrecht will drink his milk&hellip;. Possibly too Jettchen
+may look in for a bit to-day. You will enjoy seeing her again.
+She's so lively, and has always got such a lot to tell us.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Jettchen&rdquo; meant Fräulein von Isenschnibbe, the Princess's
+friend and confidant. They had been on Christian-name terms
+since they were children.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;In armour, too, as usual?&rdquo; said Ditlinde, placing the filled
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_126" title="126"> </a>
+tea-pot on its stand and examining her brother. &ldquo;In uniform
+as usual, Klaus Heinrich?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He stood with heels together and rubbed his left hand,
+which was cold, on his chest with his right.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, Ditlinde, I like it, I'd rather. It fits so tight, you see,
+and it braces me up. Besides, it is cheaper, for a proper
+civil wardrobe runs into a terrible lot of money, I believe,
+and Schulenburg is always going on about how dear things
+are, without that. So I manage with two or three coats, and yet
+can show myself in my rich relations' houses.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Rich relations!&rdquo; laughed Ditlinde. &ldquo;Still some way off
+that, Klaus Heinrich!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They sat down at the tea-table, Ditlinde on a sofa, Klaus
+Heinrich on a chair opposite the window.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Rich relations!&rdquo; she repeated, and the subject obviously
+excited her. &ldquo;No, far from it; how can we expect to be rich,
+where cash is so short and everything is sunk in various
+enterprises, Klaus Heinrich? And they are young and in the
+making, they're all in the development stage, as dear Philipp
+says, and won't bear full fruit till others have succeeded us.
+But things are improving, that much is true, and I keep the
+household straight&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, Ditlinde, you do keep it straight and no mistake!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Keep it straight, and write everything down and look after
+the servants, and after all the payments which one's duty to
+the world demands have been made, there is a nice little sum
+to put by every year for the children. And dear Philipp&hellip;.
+He sends his greetings, Klaus Heinrich&mdash;I forgot, he's very
+sorry not to be able to be here to-day&hellip;. We've only just got
+back from Hohenried, and there he is already under way, at
+his office, on his properties&mdash;he's small and delicate naturally,
+but when his peat or his saw-mills are in question he gets red
+cheeks, and he says himself that he has been much better
+since he has had so much to do.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Does he say so?&rdquo; asked Klaus Heinrich, and a sad look
+came into his eyes, as he looked straight beyond the flower-table
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_127" title="127"> </a>
+at the bright window&hellip;. &ldquo;Yes, I can quite believe
+that it must be very stimulating to be so really splendidly
+busy. In my park too the meadows have been mowed a second
+time this year already, and I love seeing the hay built up in
+steep heaps with a stick through the middle of each, looking
+for all the world like a camp of little Indians' huts, and then
+Schulenburg intends to sell it. But of course that cannot be
+compared&nbsp;&hellip;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, you!&rdquo; said Ditlinde, and drew her chin in. &ldquo;With
+you it's quite different, Klaus Heinrich! The next to the
+throne! You are called to other things, I imagine. My goodness,
+yes! You enjoy your popularity with the people&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They were silent for a while. Then he said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And you, Ditlinde, if I'm not mistaken you're as happy
+as, even happier than, before. I don't say that you have
+got red cheeks, like Philipp from his peat; you always were
+a bit transparent, and you are still. But you look flourishing.
+I haven't yet asked, since you married, but I think there's nothing
+to worry about in connexion with you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She sat in an easy position, with her arm lightly folded
+across her lap.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I'm all right, Klaus Heinrich, your eyes
+don't deceive you, and it would be ungrateful of me not to
+acknowledge my good fortune. You see, I know quite well
+that many people in the country are disappointed by my
+marriage and say that I have ruined myself, and demeaned
+myself, and so on. And such people are not far to seek, for
+brother Albrecht, as you know as well as I do, in his heart
+despises my dear Philipp and me into the bargain, and can't
+abide him, and calls him privately a tradesman and shopkeeper.
+But that doesn't bother me, for I meant it when I
+accepted Philipp's hand&mdash;seized it, I would say, if it didn't
+sound so wild&mdash;accepted it because it was warm and honest,
+and offered to take me away from the Old Schloss. For when
+I look back and think of the Old Schloss and life in it as I
+should have gone on living if it had not been for dear Philipp,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_128" title="128"> </a>
+I shudder, Klaus Heinrich, and I feel that I could not have
+borne it and should have become strange and queer like poor
+mamma. I am a bit delicate naturally, as you know, I should
+have simply gone under in so much desolation and sadness,
+and when dear Philipp came, I thought: now's your chance.
+And when people say that I am a bad Princess, because I have
+in a way abdicated, and fled here where it is rather warmer
+and more friendly, and when they say that I lack dignity or
+consciousness of Highness, or whatever they call it, they are
+stupid and ignorant, Klaus Heinrich, because I have too much,
+I have on the contrary too much of it, that's a fact, otherwise
+the Old Schloss would not have had such an effect upon me,
+and Albrecht ought to see that, for he too, in his way, has too
+much of it&mdash;all we Grimmburgers have too much of it, and
+that's why it sometimes looks as if we had too little of it.
+And sometimes, when Philipp is under way, as he is now, and
+I sit here among my flowers and Philipp's pictures with all
+their sun&mdash;it's lucky that it's painted sun, for bless me! otherwise
+we should have to get sun-blinds&mdash;and everything is tidy
+and clean, and I think of the blessing, as you call it, in store
+for me, then I seem to myself like the little mermaid in the
+fairy-tale which the Swiss governess read to us, if you remember&mdash;who
+married a mortal and got legs instead of her fish's
+tail&hellip;. I don't know if you understand me&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh yes, Ditlinde, of course, I understand you perfectly.
+And I am really glad that everything has turned out so well
+and happily for you. For it is dangerous, I may tell you,
+in my experience it is difficult for us to be suitably happy.
+It's so easy to go wrong and be misunderstood, for the nuisance
+is that nobody protects our dignity for us if we don't
+do it ourselves, and then blame and scandal so readily follow&hellip;.
+But which is the right way? You have found it.
+They have quite recently announced my engagement with
+Cousin Griseldis in the newspapers. That was a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ballon
+d'essai</i>, as they call it, and they think it was a very happy
+one. But Griseldis is a silly girl, and half-dead with anæmia,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_129" title="129"> </a>
+and never says anything but &lsquo;yes,&rsquo; so far as I know. I've
+never given her a thought, nor has Knobelsdorff, thank goodness.
+The news was at once announced to be unfounded&hellip;.
+Here comes Albrecht!&rdquo; he said, and stood up.</p>
+
+<p>A cough was heard outside. A footman in olive-green
+livery threw open the swing doors with a quick, firm, and
+noiseless movement of both arms, and announced in a subdued
+voice: &ldquo;His Royal Highness the Grand Duke.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then he stepped aside with a bow. Albrecht advanced
+through the room.</p>
+
+<p>He had traversed the hundred yards from the Old Schloss
+hither in a closed carriage, with his huntsman on the box.
+He was in mufti, as almost always, wore a buttoned-up frock-coat
+with little satin lapels, and patent-leather boots on his
+small feet. Since his accession he had grown an imperial.
+His short fair hair was brushed back on each of his narrow,
+sunk temples. His gait was an awkward and yet indescribably
+distinguished strut, which gave his shoulder-blades a
+peculiar twist. He carried his head well back and stuck his
+short round underlip out, sucking gently with it against the
+upper one.</p>
+
+<p>The Princess went to the threshold to meet him. He disliked
+hand-kissing, so he simply held out his hand with a soft
+almost whispered greeting&mdash;his thin, cold hand which looked
+so sensitive and which he stretched out from his chest while
+keeping his forearm close to his body. Then he greeted his
+brother Klaus Heinrich in the same way, who had waited for
+him standing with heels close together in front of his chair&mdash;and
+said nothing further.</p>
+
+<p>Ditlinde talked. &ldquo;It's very nice of you to come, Albrecht.
+So you're feeling well? You look splendid. Philipp wishes
+me to tell you how sorry he is to have to be out this afternoon.
+Sit down, won't you, anywhere you like&mdash;here, for instance,
+opposite me. That chair's a pretty comfortable one, you sat
+in it last time. I've made tea for us in the meantime. You'll
+have your milk directly&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_130" title="130"> </a>&ldquo;Thanks,&rdquo; he said quietly. &ldquo;I must beg pardon &hellip; I'm
+late. You know, the shorter the road &hellip; And then I have
+to lie down in the afternoon&hellip;. There's no one else coming?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No one else, Albrecht. At the most, Jettchen Isenschnibbe
+may look in for a bit, if you don't object&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But I can just as well say &lsquo;Not at home.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh no, pray don't.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Hot milk was brought. Albrecht clasped the tall, thick,
+studded glass in both hands.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah, something warm,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;How cold it is already
+in these parts! And I've been frozen the whole summer in
+Hollerbrunn. Haven't you started fires yet? I have. But
+then again the smell of the stoves upsets me. All stoves
+smell. Von Bühl promises me central heating for the Old
+Schloss every autumn. But it seems not to be feasible.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Poor Albrecht,&rdquo; said Ditlinde, &ldquo;at this time of year you
+used to be already in the South, so long as father was alive.
+You must long for it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Your sympathy does you credit, dear Ditlinde,&rdquo; answered
+he, still in a low and slightly lisping voice. &ldquo;But we must
+show that I am on the spot. I must rule the country, as you
+know, that's what I'm here for. To-day I have been graciously
+pleased to allow some worthy citizen&mdash;I'm sorry I can't remember
+his name&mdash;to accept and wear a foreign order.
+Further, I have had a telegram sent to the annual meeting
+of the Horticultural Society, in which I assumed the honorary
+Presidency of the Society and pledged my word to further its
+efforts in every way&mdash;without really knowing what furthering
+I could do beyond sending the telegram, for the members are
+quite well able to take care of themselves. Further, I have
+deigned to confirm the choice of a certain worthy fellow to
+be mayor of my fair city of Siebenberge&mdash;in connection with
+which I should like to know whether this my subject will be a
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_131" title="131"> </a>
+better mayor for my confirmation than he would have been
+without it&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, well, Albrecht, those are trifles!&rdquo; said Ditlinde.
+&ldquo;I'm convinced that you've had more serious business to
+do&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, of course. I've had a talk with my Minister of
+Finance and Agriculture. It was time I did. Doctor Krippenreuther
+would have been bitterly disappointed with me if I
+had not summoned him once more. He went ahead in summary
+fashion and laid before me a conspectus of several
+mutually related topics at once&mdash;the harvest, the new principles
+for the drawing up of the budget, the reform of taxation, on
+which he is busy. The harvest has been a bad one, it seems.
+The peasants have been hit by blight and bad weather; not
+only they, but Krippenreuther too, are much concerned about
+it, because the tax-paying resources of the land, he says, have
+once more suffered contraction. Besides, there have unfortunately
+been disasters in more than one of the silver-mines.
+The gear is at a standstill, says Krippenreuther, it is damaged
+and will cost a lot of money to repair. I listened to the whole
+recital with an appropriate expression on my face, and did
+what I could to express my grief for such a series of misfortunes.
+Next, I was consulted as to whether the cost of
+the necessary new buildings for the Treasury and for the
+Woods and Customs and Inland Revenue Offices ought to be
+debited to the ordinary or the extraordinary estimates; I
+learnt a lot about sliding scales, and income tax, and tax
+on tourist traffic, and the removal of burdens from oppressed
+agriculture and the imposition of burdens on the towns; and
+on the whole I got the impression that Krippenreuther was
+well up in his subject. I, of course, know practically nothing
+about it&mdash;which Krippenreuther knows and approves; so I
+just said &lsquo;yes, yes,&rsquo; and &lsquo;of course,&rsquo; and &lsquo;many thanks,&rsquo; and let
+him run on.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You speak so bitterly, Albrecht.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_132" title="132"> </a>&ldquo;No; I'll just tell you what struck me while Krippenreuther
+was holding forth to me to-day. There's a man living in this
+town, a man with small private means and a warty nose.
+Every child knows him and shouts &lsquo;Hi!&rsquo; when he sees him; he
+is called &lsquo;the Hatter,&rsquo; for he is not quite all there; his surname
+he has lost long ago. He is always on the spot when there
+is anything going on, although his half-wittedness keeps him
+from playing any serious part in anything; he wears a rose
+in his buttonhole, and carries his hat about on the end of his
+walking-stick. Twice a day, about the time when a train
+starts, he goes to the station, taps the wheels, examines the
+luggage, and fusses about. Then when the guard blows his
+whistle, &lsquo;the Hatter&rsquo; waves to the engine-driver, and the train
+starts. But &lsquo;the Hatter&rsquo; deludes himself into thinking that
+his waving sends the train off. That's like me. I wave, and
+the train starts. But it would start without me, and my waving
+makes no difference, it's mere silly show. I'm sick of
+it&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The brother and sister were silent. Ditlinde looked at her
+lap in an embarrassed way, and Klaus Heinrich gazed, as
+he tugged at his little bow-shaped moustache, between her
+and the Grand Duke at the bright window.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I can quite follow you, Albrecht,&rdquo; said he after a while,
+&ldquo;though it is rather cruel of you to compare yourself and us
+with &lsquo;the Hatter.&rsquo; You see, I too understand nothing about
+sliding scales and taxation of tourist traffic and peat-cutting,
+and there is such a lot about which I know nothing&mdash;everything
+which is covered by the expression &lsquo;the misery in the
+world&rsquo;&mdash;hunger and want, and the struggle for existence, as
+it is called, and war and hospital horrors, and all that. I
+have seen and studied not one of these, except death itself,
+when father died, and that too was not death as it can be, but
+rather it was edifying, and the whole Schloss was illuminated.
+And at times I feel ashamed of myself because I have not
+knocked about the world. But then I tell myself that mine
+is not a comfortable life, not at all comfortable, although I
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_133" title="133"> </a>
+&lsquo;wander on the heights of mankind,&rsquo; as people express it, or
+perhaps just because I do, and that I perhaps in my own way
+know more about the strenuousness of life, its &lsquo;tight-lipped
+countenance,&rsquo; if you will allow me the expression, than many
+a one who knows all about the sliding scales or any other
+single department of life. And the upshot of that is, Albrecht,
+that my life is not a comfortable one&mdash;that's the upshot of
+everything&mdash;if you will allow me this retort, and that is how
+we justify ourselves. And if people cry &lsquo;Hi!&rsquo; when they see
+me, they must know why they do so, and my life must have
+some <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">raison d'être</i>, although I am prevented from playing any
+serious part in anything, as you so admirably express it.
+And you're quite justified too. You wave to order, because
+the people wish you to wave, and if you do not really control
+their wishes and aspirations, yet you express them and
+give them substance, and may be that's no slight matter.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Albrecht sat upright at the table. He held his thin,
+strangely sensitive-looking hands crossed on the table-edge
+in front of the tall, half-empty glass of milk, and his eyelids
+dropped, and he sucked his underlip against his upper. He
+answered quietly: &ldquo;I'm not surprised that so popular a
+prince as you should be contented with his lot. I for my
+part decline to express somebody else in my own person&mdash;I
+decline to, say, and you may think it's a case of sour grapes as
+much as you like. The truth is that I care for the &lsquo;Hi!&rsquo; of
+the people just as little as any living soul possibly could care.
+I say soul, not body. The flesh is weak&mdash;there's something
+in one which expands at applause and contracts at cold
+silence. But my reason rises superior to all considerations of
+popularity or unpopularity. If I <em>did</em> succeed in being a true
+national representative, I know what that would amount to.
+A misconception of my personality. Besides, a few hand-claps
+from people one does not know are not worth a shrug
+of the shoulders. Others&mdash;you&mdash;may be inspired by the feeling
+of the people behind you. You must forgive me for
+being too matter-of-fact to feel any such mysterious feeling
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_134" title="134"> </a>
+of happiness&mdash;and too keen on cleanliness also, if you will
+allow me to put it thus. That kind of happiness stinks, to
+my thinking. Anyhow, I'm a stranger to the people. I give
+them nothing&mdash;what can they give me? With you &hellip; oh,
+that's quite different. Hundreds of thousands, who are like
+you, are grateful to you because they can recognize themselves
+in you. You may laugh if you like. The chief danger you
+run is that you submerge yourself in your popularity too
+readily; and yet after all you feel no apprehensions, although
+you are aware at this very moment&nbsp;&hellip;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, Albrecht, I don't think so. I don't think I run any
+such danger.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then we shall understand each other all the better. I have
+no penchant for strong expressions as a rule. But popularity
+is hog-wash.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It's funny, Albrecht. Funny that you should use that word.
+The &lsquo;Pheasants&rsquo; were always using it&mdash;my schoolmates, the
+young sprigs, you know, at the &lsquo;Pheasantry.&rsquo; I know what you
+are. You're an aristocrat, that's what's the matter.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you think so? You're wrong. I'm no aristocrat, I'm
+the opposite, by taste and reason. You must allow that I
+do not despise the &lsquo;Hi's&rsquo; of the crowd from arrogance, but
+from a propensity to humanity and goodness. Human Highness
+is a pitiable thing, and I'm convinced that mankind ought
+to see that everyone behaves like a man, and a good man, to
+his neighbour and does not humiliate him or cause him shame.
+A man must have a thick skin to be able to carry off all the
+flummery of Highness without any feeling of shame. I am
+naturally rather sensitive, I cannot cope with the absurdity of
+my situation. Every lackey who plants himself at the door,
+and expects me to pass him without noticing, without heeding
+him more than the door posts, fills me with embarrassment,
+that's the way I feel towards the people&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, Albrecht, quite true. It's often by no means easy to
+keep one's countenance when one passes by a fellow like that.
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_135" title="135"> </a>
+The lackeys! If one only did not know what frauds they
+are! One hears fine stories about them&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What stories?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, one keeps one's ears open&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Come, come!&rdquo; said Ditlinde. &ldquo;Don't let's worry about
+that. Here you are talking about ordinary things, and I had
+two topics noted down which I thought we might discuss this
+afternoon&hellip;. Would you be so kind, Klaus Heinrich, as
+to reach me that notebook there in blue leather on the writing-table?
+Many thanks. I note down in this everything I have
+to remember, both household matters and other things.
+What a blessing it is to be able to see everything down in
+black and white! My head is terribly weak, it can't remember
+things, and if I weren't tidy and didn't jot everything down,
+I should be done for. First of all, Albrecht, before I forget
+it, I wanted to remind you that you must escort Aunt Catherine
+at the first Court on November 1st&mdash;you can't get out of it.
+I withdraw; the honour fell to me at the last Court Ball,
+and Aunt Catherine was terribly put out&hellip;. Do you consent?
+Good, then I cross out item 1. Secondly, Klaus Heinrich,
+I wanted to ask you to make a short appearance at the
+Orphan Children's Bazaar on the 15th in the Town Hall. I
+am patroness, and I take my duties seriously, as you see.
+You needn't buy anything&mdash;a pocket comb&hellip;. In short,
+all you need do is to show yourself for ten minutes. It's for
+the orphans&hellip;. Will you come? You see, now I can
+cross another off. Thirdly&nbsp;&hellip;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But the Princess was interrupted. Fräulein von Isenschnibbe,
+the Court lady, was announced and tripped in at
+once through the big drawing-room, her feather boa waving
+in the draught, and the brim of her huge feather hat flapping
+up and down. The smell of the fresh air from outside seemed
+to cling to her clothes. She was small, very fair, with a
+pointed nose, and so short-sighted that she could not see the
+stars. On clear evenings she would stand on her balcony
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_136" title="136"> </a>
+and gaze at the starry heavens through opera-glasses, and
+rave about them. She wore two strong pairs of glasses, one
+behind the other, and screwed up her eyes and stuck her head
+forward as she curtseyed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Heavens, Grand Ducal Highness,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I didn't
+know; I'm disturbing you, I'm intruding. I most humbly beg
+pardon!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The brothers had risen, and the visitor, as she curtseyed
+to them, was filled with confusion. As Albrecht extended
+his hand from his chest, keeping his forearm close to his
+body, her arm was stretched out almost perpendicularly, when
+the curtsey which she made him had reached its lowest point.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dear Jettchen,&rdquo; said Ditlinde, &ldquo;what nonsense! You are
+expected and welcome, and my brothers know that we call
+each other by our Christian names, so none of that Grand
+Ducal Highness, if you please. We are not in the Old Schloss.
+Sit down and make yourself comfortable. Will you have
+some tea? It's still hot, and here are some candied fruits, I
+know you like them.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, a thousand thanks, Ditlinde, I adore them!&rdquo; And
+Fräulein von Isenschnibbe took a chair on the narrow side
+of the tea-table opposite Klaus Heinrich, with her back to
+the window, drew a glove off and began peering forward, to
+lay sweetmeats on her plate with the silver tongs. Her little
+bosom heaved quickly and nervously with pleasurable excitement.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I've got some news,&rdquo; she said, unable any longer to contain
+herself. &ldquo;News&hellip;. More than any reticule will hold!
+That is to say it is really only one piece of news, only one&mdash;but
+it's so weighty that it counts for dozens, and it is quite
+certain, I have it on the best authority&mdash;you know that I am
+reliable, Ditlinde; this very evening it will be in the <i>Courier</i>
+and to-morrow the whole town will be talking about it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, Jettchen,&rdquo; said the Princess, &ldquo;it must be confessed
+you never come with empty hands; but now we're excited,
+do tell us your news.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_137" title="137"> </a>&ldquo;Very well. Let me get my breath. Do you know, Ditlinde,
+does your Royal Highness know, does your Grand
+Ducal Highness know who's coming, who is coming to the
+spa, who is coming for six or eight weeks to the Spa Hotel
+to drink the waters?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Ditlinde, &ldquo;but do you know, dear Jettchen?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Spoelmann,&rdquo; said Fräulein von Isenschnibbe. &ldquo;Spoelmann,&rdquo;
+she said, leaned back and made as if to draw with
+her fingers on the table-edge, but checked the movement of
+her hand just over the blue silk border.</p>
+
+<p>The brothers and sister looked doubtfully at each other.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Spoelmann?&rdquo; asked Ditlinde&hellip;. &ldquo;Think a moment,
+Jettchen, the real Spoelmann?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The real one!&rdquo; Her voice cracked with suppressed jubilation.
+&ldquo;The real one, Ditlinde! For there's only one, or
+rather only one whom everybody knows, and he it is whom
+they are expecting at the Spa Hotel&mdash;the great Spoelmann,
+the giant Spoelmann, the colossus Samuel N. Spoelmann from
+America!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But, child, what's bringing him here?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Really, forgive me for saying so, Ditlinde, but what a
+question! His yacht or some big steamer is bringing him
+over the sea of course, he's on his holidays making a tour of
+Europe and has expressed his intention of drinking the Spa
+waters.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But is he ill, then?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of course, Ditlinde; all people of his kind are ill, that's
+part of the business.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Strange,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, Grand Ducal Highness, it is remarkable. His kind
+of existence must bring that with it. For there's no doubt
+it's a trying existence, and not at all a comfortable one, and
+must wear the body out quicker than an ordinary man's life
+would. Most suffer in the stomach, but Spoelmann suffers
+from stone as everybody knows.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Stone, does he?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_138" title="138"> </a>&ldquo;Of course, Ditlinde, you must have heard it and forgotten
+it. He has stone in the kidneys, if you will forgive me the
+horrid expression&mdash;a serious, trying illness, and I'm sure he
+can't get the slightest pleasure from his frantic wealth.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But how in the world has he pitched upon our waters?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, Ditlinde, that's simple. The waters are good, they're
+excellent; especially the Ditlinde spring, with its lithium or
+whatever they call it, is admirable against gout and stone, and
+only waiting to be properly known and valued throughout
+the world. But a man like Spoelmann, you can imagine, a
+man like that is above names and trade-puffs, and follows his
+own kind. And so he has discovered our waters&mdash;or his
+physician has recommended them to him, it may be that, and
+bought it in the bottle, and it has done him good, and now
+he may think that it must do him still more good if he drinks
+it on the spot.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They all kept silence.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Great heavens, Albrecht,&rdquo; said Ditlinde at last, &ldquo;whatever
+one thinks of Spoelmann and his kind&mdash;and I'm not going to
+commit myself to an opinion, of that you may be sure&mdash;but
+don't you think that the man's visit to the Spa may be
+very useful?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Grand Duke turned his head with his stiff and refined
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ask Fräulein von Isenschnibbe,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;She has
+doubtless already considered the question from that point of
+view.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If your Royal Highness asks me &hellip; enormously useful!
+Immeasurably, incalculably useful&mdash;that's obvious! The
+directors are in the seventh heaven, they're getting ready to
+decorate and illuminate the Spa Hotel! What a recommendation,
+what an attraction for strangers! Will your
+Royal Highness just consider&mdash;the man is a curiosity! Your
+Grand Ducal Highness spoke just now of &lsquo;his kind&rsquo;&mdash;but there
+are none of &lsquo;his kind&rsquo;&mdash;at most, only a couple. He's a Leviathan,
+a Cr&oelig;sus! People will come from miles away to
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_139" title="139"> </a>
+see a being who has about half a million a day to spend!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Gracious!&rdquo; said Ditlinde, taken aback. &ldquo;And there's dear
+Philipp worrying about his peat beds.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The first scene,&rdquo; the Fräulein went on, &ldquo;begins with two
+Americans hanging about the Exchange for the last couple
+of days. Who are they? They are said to be journalists,
+reporters, for two big New York papers. They have preceded
+the Leviathan, and are telegraphing to their papers
+preliminary descriptions of the scenery. When he has got
+here they will telegraph every step he takes&mdash;just as the
+<i>Courier</i> and the <i>Advertiser</i> report about your Royal Highness&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Albrecht bowed his thanks with eyes downcast and underlip
+<ins title="protuded">protruded</ins>.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He has appropriated the Prince's suite in the Spa Hotel,&rdquo;
+said Jettchen, <ins title="as">&ldquo;as</ins> provisional lodgings.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For himself alone?&rdquo; asked Ditlinde.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh no, Ditlinde, do you suppose he'd be coming alone?
+There isn't any precise information about his suite and staff,
+but it's quite certain that his daughter and his physician-in-ordinary
+are coming with him.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It annoys me, Jettchen, to hear you talking about a
+&lsquo;physician-in-ordinary&rsquo; and the journalists, too, and the Prince's
+suite to boot. He's not a king, after all.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A railway king, so far as I know,&rdquo; remarked Albrecht
+quietly with eyes downcast.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not only, nor even particularly, a railway king, Royal
+Highness, according to what I hear. Over in America they
+have those great business concerns called Trusts, as your
+Royal Highness knows&mdash;the Steel Trust for instance, the Sugar
+Trust, the Petroleum Trust, the Coal, Meat, and Tobacco
+Trusts, and goodness knows how many more, and Samuel N.
+Spoelmann has a finger in nearly all these trusts, and is chief
+shareholder in them, and managing director&mdash;that's what I
+believe they call them&mdash;so his business must be what is called
+over here a &lsquo;Mixed Goods Business.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_140" title="140"> </a>&ldquo;A nice sort of business,&rdquo; said Ditlinde, &ldquo;it must be a
+nice sort of business! For you can't persuade me, dear Jettchen,
+that honest work can make a man into a Leviathan and
+a Cr&oelig;sus. I am convinced that his riches are steeped in the
+blood of widows and orphans. What do you think, Albrecht?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I hope so, Ditlinde, I hope so, for your own and your
+husband's comfort.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;May be so,&rdquo; explained Jettchen, &ldquo;yet Spoelmann&mdash;our
+Samuel N. Spoelmann&mdash;is hardly responsible for it, for he
+is really nothing but an heir, and may quite well not have
+had any particular taste for his business. It was his father
+who really made the pile, I've read all about it, and may say
+that I really know the general facts. His father was a German&mdash;simply
+an adventurer who crossed the seas and became
+gold-digger. And he was lucky and made a little money
+through gold-finds&mdash;or rather quite a decent amount of money&mdash;and
+began to speculate in petroleum and steel and railways,
+and then in every sort of thing, and kept growing richer and
+richer, and when he died everything was already in full swing,
+and his son Samuel, who inherited the Cr&oelig;sus' firm, really had
+nothing to do but to collect the princely dividends and keep
+growing richer and richer till he beat all records. That's the
+way things have gone.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And he has a daughter, has he, Jettchen? What's she
+like?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, Ditlinde, his wife is dead, but he has a daughter,
+Miss Spoelmann, and he's bringing her with him. She's a
+wonderful girl from all I've read about her. He himself is
+a bit of a mixture, for his father married a wife from the
+South&mdash;Creole blood, the daughter of a German father and
+native mother. But Samuel in his turn married a German-American
+of half-English blood, and their daughter is now
+Miss Spoelmann.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Gracious, Jettchen, she's a creature of many colours!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You may well say so, Ditlinde, and she's clever, so I've
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_141" title="141"> </a>
+heard; she studies like a man&mdash;algebra, and puzzling things
+of that sort.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hm, that too doesn't attract me much.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But now comes the cream of the business, Ditlinde, for
+Miss Spoelmann has a lady-companion, and that lady-companion
+is a countess, a real genuine countess, who dances
+attendance on her.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Gracious!&rdquo; said Ditlinde, &ldquo;she ought to be ashamed of
+herself. No, Jettchen, my mind is made up. I'm not going
+to bother myself about Spoelmann. I'm going to let him
+drink his waters and go, with his countess and his algebraical
+daughter, and am not going so much as to turn my head to
+look at him. He and his riches make no impression on me.
+What do you think, Klaus Heinrich?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich looked past Jettchen's head at the bright
+window.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Impression?&rdquo; he said&hellip;. &ldquo;No, riches make no impression
+on me, I think&mdash;I mean, riches in the ordinary way.
+But it seems to me that it depends &hellip; it depends, I think,
+on the standard. We too have one or two rich people in the
+town here&mdash;Soap-boiler Unschlitt must be a millionaire&hellip;. I
+often see him in his carriage. He's dreadfully fat and common.
+But when a man is quite ill and lonely from mere
+riches &hellip; Maybe&nbsp;&hellip;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;An uncomfortable sort of man anyhow,&rdquo; said Ditlinde,
+and the subject of the Spoelmanns gradually dropped.
+The conversation turned on family matters, the &ldquo;Hohenried&rdquo;
+property, and the approaching season. Shortly before
+seven o'clock the Grand Duke sent for his carriage.
+Prince Klaus Heinrich was going too, so they all got up
+and said good-bye. But while the brothers were being
+helped into their coats in the hall, Albrecht said: &ldquo;I should
+be obliged, Klaus Heinrich, if you would send your coachman
+home and would give me the pleasure of your company
+for a quarter of an hour longer. I've got a matter of some
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_142" title="142"> </a>
+importance to discuss with you&mdash;I might come with you to
+the Hermitage, but I can't bear the evening air.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich clapped his heels together as he answered:
+&ldquo;No, Albrecht, you mustn't think of it! I'll drive to the
+Schloss with you if you like. I am of course at your disposal.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This was the prelude to a remarkable conversation between
+the young princes, the upshot of which was published a few
+days later in the <i>Advertiser</i> and received with general approval.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince accompanied the Grand Duke to the Schloss,
+through the Albrechtstor, up broad stone steps, through corridors
+where naked gas lamps were burning, and silent ante-rooms,
+between lackeys into Albrecht's &ldquo;closet,&rdquo; where old
+Prahl had lighted the two bronze oil-lamps on the mantelpiece.
+Albrecht had taken over his father's work-room&mdash;it
+had always been the work-room of the reigning sovereigns,
+and lay on the first floor between an aide-de-camp's room
+and the dining-room in daily use facing the Albrechtsplatz,
+which the princes had always overlooked and watched from
+their writing-table. It was an exceptionally unhomely and
+repellent room, small, with cracked ceiling-paintings, red silk
+and gold-bordered carpet, and three windows reaching to the
+ground, through which the draught blew keenly and before
+which the claret-coloured curtains with their elaborate fringes
+were drawn. It had a false chimney-piece in French Empire
+taste, in front of which a semicircle of little modern quilted
+plush chairs without arms were arranged, and a hideously
+decorated white stove, which gave out a great heat. Two big
+quilted sofas stood opposite each other by the walls, and in
+front of one stood a square book-table with a red plush cover.
+Between the windows two narrow gold-framed mirrors with
+marble ledges reached up to the ceiling, the right hand one
+of which bore a fairly cheerful alabaster group, the other a
+water bottle and medicine glasses. The writing-desk, an old
+piece made of rose-wood with a roll-top and metal clasps, stood
+clear in the middle of the room on the red carpet. An
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_143" title="143"> </a>
+antique stared down with its dead eyes from a pedestal in one
+corner of the room.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What I have to suggest to you,&rdquo; said Albrecht&mdash;he was
+standing at the writing-table, unconsciously toying with a
+paper-knife, a silly thing like a cavalry-sabre with a grotesque
+handle, &ldquo;is directly connected with our conversation this afternoon.
+I may begin by saying that I discussed the matter
+thoroughly with Knobelsdorff this summer at Hollerbrunn.
+He agrees, and if you do too, as I don't doubt you will, I
+can carry out my intention at once.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Please let's hear it, Albrecht,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich, who
+was standing at attention in a military attitude by the sofa
+table.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My health,&rdquo; continued the Grand Duke, &ldquo;has been getting
+worse and worse lately.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'm very sorry, Albrecht&mdash;Hollerbrunn didn't agree with
+you, then?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Thanks, no, I'm in a bad way, and my health is showing
+itself increasingly unequal to the demands made upon it.
+When I say &lsquo;demands,&rsquo; I mean chiefly the duties of a ceremonial
+and representative nature which are inseparable from my
+position&mdash;and that's the bond of connexion with the conversation
+we had just now at Ditlinde's. The performance
+of these duties may be a happiness when a contact with the
+people, a relationship, a beating of hearts in unison exists.
+To me it is a torture, and the falseness of my rôle wearies me
+to such a degree that I must consider what measures I can
+take to counteract it. In this&mdash;so far as the bodily part of me
+is concerned&mdash;I am at one with my doctors, who entirely agree
+with my proposal&mdash;so listen to me. I'm unmarried. I have
+no idea, I can assure you, of ever marrying; I shall have no
+children. You are heir to the throne by right of birth, you
+are still more so in the consciousness of the people, who love
+you&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There you are, Albrecht, always talking about my being
+beloved. I simply don't believe it. At a distance, perhaps&mdash;that's
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_144" title="144"> </a>
+the way with us. It's always at a distance that we are
+beloved.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You're too modest. Wait a bit. You've already been
+kind enough to relieve me of some of my representative duties
+now and then. I should like you to relieve me of all of them
+absolutely, for always.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You're not thinking of abdicating, Albrecht?&rdquo; asked
+Klaus Heinrich, aghast.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I daren't think of it. Believe me, I gladly would, but I
+shouldn't be allowed to. What I'm thinking of is not a
+regency, but only a substitution&mdash;perhaps you have some
+recollection of the distinction in public law from your student's
+days&mdash;a permanent and officially established substitution in
+all representative functions, warranted by the need of indulgence
+required by my state of health. What is your opinion?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'm at your orders, Albrecht. But I'm not quite clear yet.
+How far does the substitution extend?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, as far as possible. I should like it to extend to all
+occasions on which a personal appearance in public is expected
+of me. Knobelsdorff stipulates that I should only devolve
+the opening and closure of Parliament on you when I'm
+bedridden, only now and again. Let's grant that. But otherwise
+you would be my substitute on all ceremonial occasions,
+on journeys, visits to cities, opening of public festivities,
+opening of the Citizens' Ball&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That too?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why not? We have also the weekly free audiences here&mdash;a
+sensible custom without a doubt, but it tires me out.
+You would hold the audiences in my place. I needn't go
+on. Do you accept my proposal?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am at your orders.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then listen to me while I finish. For every occasion on
+which you act as my representative, I lend you my aides-de-camp.
+It is further necessary that your military promotion
+should be hastened&mdash;are you first lieutenant? You'll be made
+a captain or a major straight away <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">à la suite</i> of your regiment&mdash;I'll
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_145" title="145"> </a>
+see to that; but in the third place, I wish duly to emphasize
+our arrangement, to make your position at my side
+properly clear, by lending you the title of &lsquo;Royal Highness.&rsquo;
+There were some formalities to attend to. Knobelsdorff has
+already seen to them. I'm going to express my intentions in
+the form of two missives to you and to my Minister of State.
+Knobelsdorff has already drafted them. Do you accept?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What am I to say, Albrecht? You are father's eldest son,
+and I've always looked up to you because I've always felt
+and known that you are the superior and higher of us two and
+that I am only a plebeian compared with you. But if you
+think me worthy to stand at your side and to bear your title
+and to represent you before the people, although I don't
+think myself anything like so presentable, and have this deformity
+here, with my left hand, which I've always got to keep
+covered&mdash;then I thank you and put myself at your orders.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then I'll ask you to leave me now, please; I want to
+rest.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They advanced towards each other, the one from the writing-table,
+the other from the book-table, over the carpet into the
+middle of the room. The Grand Duke extended his hand to
+his brother&mdash;his thin, cold hand which he stretched out from
+his chest without moving his forearm away from his body.
+Klaus Heinrich clapped his heels together and bowed as he
+took the hand, and Albrecht nodded his narrow head with
+its fair beard as a token of dismissal, while he sucked his
+short, rounded lower lip against the upper. Klaus Heinrich
+went back to the Schloss &ldquo;Hermitage.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Both the <i>Advertiser</i> and the <i>Courier</i> published eight days
+later the two missives, which contained decisions of the highest
+importance, the one addressed to &ldquo;My dear Minister of State,
+Baron von Knobelsdorff,&rdquo; and the other beginning with &ldquo;Most
+Serene Highness and well-beloved brother,&rdquo; and signed &ldquo;Your
+Royal Highness's most devoted brother Albrecht.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<h2><a class="pagenum" name="Page_146" title="146"> </a>VI<br/>
+<small>THE LOFTY CALLING</small></h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">Here</span> follows a description of Klaus Heinrich's mode of life
+and profession and their peculiarities.</p>
+
+<p>On a typical occasion he stepped out of his carriage, walked
+with cloak thrown back down a short passage through cheering
+crowds over a pavement which was covered with red carpet,
+through a laurel-decked house-door, over which an awning
+had been erected, up a staircase flanked by pairs of candle-bearing
+footmen&hellip;. He was on his way to a festival dinner,
+covered to his hips with orders, the fringed epaulettes of a
+major on his narrow shoulders, and was followed by his
+suite along the Gothic corridor of the town hall. Two servants
+hurried in front of him and quickly opened an old
+window which rattled in its lead fastenings; for down below
+in the market-place stood the people, wedged together head
+to head, an oblique tract of upturned faces, dimly illuminated
+by smoky torchlight. They cheered and sang, and he stood
+at the open window and bowed, displayed himself to the general
+enthusiasm for a while and nodded his thanks.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing really everyday, nor was there anything
+really actual, about his life; it consisted of a succession of
+moments of enthusiasm. Wherever he went there was holiday,
+there the people were transfigured and glorified, there
+the grey work-a-day world cleared up and became poetry.
+The starveling became a sleek man, the hovel a homely cottage,
+dirty gutter-children changed into chaste little maidens and
+boys in Sunday clothes, their hair plastered with water, a
+poem on their lips, and the perspiring citizen in frock-coat
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_147" title="147"> </a>
+and top-hat was moved to emotion by the consciousness of
+his own worth.</p>
+
+<p>But not only he, Klaus Heinrich, saw the world in this
+light, but it saw itself too, as long as his presence lasted.
+A strange unreality and speciousness prevailed in places where
+he exercised his calling; a symmetrical, transitory window-dressing,
+an artificial and inspiring disguising of the reality
+by pasteboard and gilded wood, by garlands, lamps, draperies,
+and bunting, was conjured up for one fair hour, and he himself
+stood in the centre of the show on a carpet, which covered
+the bare ground, between masts painted in two colours, round
+which garlands twined&mdash;stood with heels together in the odour
+of varnish and fir-branches, and smiled with his left hand
+planted on his hip.</p>
+
+<p>He laid the foundation stone of a new town hall. The
+citizens had, after juggling with the figures, got together the
+necessary sum, and a learned architect from the <ins title="captital">capital</ins> had
+been entrusted with the building. But Klaus Heinrich undertook
+the laying of the foundation stone. Amid the cheers of
+the population he drove up to the noble pavilion which had
+been built on the site, stepped lightly and collectedly out of
+the open carriage on to the ground, which had been rolled
+and sprinkled with yellow sand, and walked all alone towards
+the official personages in frock-coats and white ties who were
+waiting for him at the entrance. He asked for the architect
+to be presented to him, and, in full view of the public and with
+the officials standing with fixed smiles round him, he conducted
+a conversation with him for five full minutes, a conversation
+of weighty commonplaces about the advantages of the different
+styles of architecture, after which he made a decided movement,
+which he had meditated to himself beforehand during
+the conversation, and allowed himself to be conducted over
+the carpet and plank steps to his seat on the edge of the
+middle platform.</p>
+
+<p>There, in his chain and stars, one foot advanced, his white-gloved
+hands crossed on his sword hilt, his helmet on the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_148" title="148"> </a>
+ground beside him, visible to the holiday crowd on every side,
+he sat and listened with calm demeanour to the Lord Mayor's
+speech. Thereupon, when they came to the request, he rose,
+walked, without noticeable precaution and without looking at
+his feet, down the steps to where the foundation stone lay, and
+with a little hammer gave three slow taps to the block of sandstone,
+at the same time repeating in the deep hush, with his
+rather sharp voice, a sentence which Herr von Knobelsdorff
+had previously impressed upon him. School children sang in
+shrill chorus, and Klaus Heinrich drove away.</p>
+
+<p>On the anniversary of the War of Independence he marched
+in front of the veterans. A grey-haired officer shouted in a
+voice which seemed hoarse with the smoke of gunpowder:
+&ldquo;Halt! Off hats! Eyes right!&rdquo; And they stood, with
+medals and crosses on their coats, the rough beavers in their
+hands, and looked up at him with blood-shot eyes like those
+of a hound as he walked by with a friendly look, and paused
+by one or two to ask where they had served, where they had
+been under fire&hellip;. He attended the gymnastic display,
+graced the sports with his presence, and had the victors presented
+to him for a short conversation. The lithe athletic
+youths stood awkwardly before him, just after they had done
+the most astonishing feats, and Klaus Heinrich quickly strung
+together a few technical remarks, which he remembered from
+Herr Zotte, and which he uttered with great fluency, the while
+he hid his left hand.</p>
+
+<p>He attended the Five Houses' Fishing festival, he was
+present in his red-covered seat of honour at the Grimmburg
+horse-races and distributed the prizes. He accepted, too, the
+honorary Presidency and Patronage of the Associated Rifle
+Competition; he attended the prize-meeting of the privileged
+Grand Ducal Rifle Club. He &ldquo;responded cordially to the
+toast of welcome,&rdquo; in the words of the <i>Courier</i>, by holding
+the silver cup for one moment to his lips, and then with heels
+clapped together, raising it towards the marksmen. Thereupon
+he fired several shots at the target of honour, concerning
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_149" title="149"> </a>
+which there was nothing said in the reports as to where
+they hit; next ploughed through one and the same dialogue
+with three successive men, about the advantages of rifle-firing,
+which in the <i>Courier</i> was described as a &ldquo;general conversation,&rdquo;
+and at last took leave with a hearty &ldquo;Good luck!&rdquo; which
+evoked indescribable enthusiasm. This formula had been
+whispered to him at the last moment by Adjutant-General von
+Hühnemann, who had made inquiries on the subject; for of
+course it would have had a bad effect, would have shattered
+the fair illusion of technical knowledge and serious enthusiasm,
+if Klaus Heinrich had wished the marksmen &ldquo;Excelsior&rdquo; and the
+Alpine Club &ldquo;Bull's-eyes every time!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>As a general rule he needed in the exercise of his calling
+a certain amount of technical knowledge, which he acquired
+for each succeeding occasion, with a view to applying it at
+the right moment and in suitable form. It consisted preponderatingly
+of the technical terms current in the different
+departments of human activity as well as of historical dates,
+and before setting out on an official expedition Klaus Heinrich
+used to work up the necessary information at home in
+the Hermitage with the help of pamphlets and oral instructions.
+When he in the name of the Grand Duke, &ldquo;my most
+gracious brother,&rdquo; unveiled the statue of Johann Albrecht at
+Knüppelsdorf, he delivered on the scene of festivities, directly
+after a performance by the massed choirs of the &ldquo;Wreath of
+Harmony,&rdquo; a speech in which everything he had noted down
+about Knüppelsdorf was dragged in, and which produced
+the delightful impression everywhere that he had busied himself
+all his life with nothing so much as the historical vicissitudes
+of that hub of civilization.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, Knüppelsdorf was a city, and Klaus Heinrich
+alluded to that three times, to the pride of the inhabitants.
+He went on to say that the city of Knüppelsdorf, as her historical
+past witnessed, had been connected by bonds of loyalty
+to the House of Grimmburg for several centuries. As long
+ago as the fourteenth century, he said, Langrave Heinrich&nbsp;XV,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_150" title="150"> </a>
+the Rutensteiner, had signalled out Knüppelsdorf for special
+favour. He, the Rutensteiner, had lived in the Schloss built
+on the neighbouring Rutensteine, whose girdle of proud towers
+and strong walls had sent its greeting to the country for miles
+round.</p>
+
+<p>Then he reminded his hearers how through inheritance
+and marriage Knüppelsdorf had at last come into the branch
+of the family to which his brother and he himself belonged.
+Heavy storms had in the course of years burst over Knüppelsdorf.
+Years of war, conflagration, and pestilence had visited
+it, yet it had always risen again and had always remained
+loyal to the house of its hereditary princes. And this characteristic
+the Knüppelsdorf of to-day proved that it possessed
+by raising a memorial to his, Klaus Heinrich's, beloved father,
+and it would be with unusual pleasure that he would report to
+his gracious brother the dazzling and hearty reception which
+he, as his representative, had here experienced&hellip;. The veil
+fell, the massed choirs of the &ldquo;Wreath of Harmony&rdquo; again did
+their best. And Klaus Heinrich stood smiling, under his
+theatrical tent, with a feeling of having exhausted his store
+of knowledge, happy in the certainty that nobody dare question
+him further. For he couldn't have said one blessed word
+more about Knüppelsdorf!</p>
+
+<p>How tiring his life was, how strenuous! Sometimes he felt
+as if he had constantly to keep upright, at a great strain to
+his elasticity, something which it was quite impossible, or
+possible only in favourable conditions, to keep upright.
+Sometimes his calling seemed to him a wretched and paltry
+one, although he liked it and gladly undertook every expedition
+required of him in his representative capacity.</p>
+
+<p>He travelled miles to an agricultural exhibition, travelled
+in a badly hung cart from Schloss &ldquo;Hermitage&rdquo; to the station,
+where the Premier, the Chief of Police, and the directors of
+the railway company awaited him at the saloon carriage. He
+travelled for an hour and a half, the while carrying on, not
+without difficulty, a conversation with the Grand Ducal adjutants,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_151" title="151"> </a>
+who had been attached to him, and the Agricultural
+Commissioner, Assistant Secretary Heckepfeng, a severe and
+respectful man who also accompanied him. Then he reached
+the station of the city which had organized the agricultural
+exhibition. The Mayor, with a chain over his shoulders, was
+awaiting him at the head of six or seven other official persons.
+The station was decorated with a quantity of fir-branches and
+festoons. In the back-ground stood the plaster busts of
+Albrecht and Klaus Heinrich in a frame of greenery. The
+public behind the barriers gave three cheers, and the bells
+pealed.</p>
+
+<p>The Mayor read an address of welcome to Klaus Heinrich.
+He thanked him, he said, brandishing his top-hat in his hand,
+he thanked him on behalf of the city for all the favour which
+Klaus Heinrich's brother and he himself showed them, and
+heartily wished him a long and blessed reign. He also begged
+the Prince twice over graciously to crown the work which had
+prospered so famously under his patronage, and to open the
+agricultural exhibition.</p>
+
+<p>This Mayor bore the title of Agricultural Councillor, a
+fact of which Klaus Heinrich had been apprised, and on account
+of which he addressed him thus three times in his
+answer. He said that he was delighted that the work of the
+agricultural exhibition had prospered so famously under his
+patronage. (As a matter of fact he had forgotten that he was
+patron of this exhibition.) He had come to put the finishing
+touch that day to the great work, by opening the exhibition.
+Then he inquired as to four things: as to the economical circumstances
+of the city, the increase in the population in recent
+years, as to the labour-market (although he had no very clear
+idea what the labour-market was), and as to the price of
+victuals. When he heard that the price of victuals was high,
+he &ldquo;viewed the matter in a serious light,&rdquo; and that of course
+was all he could do. Nobody expected anything more of
+him, and it came as a comfort to everybody that he had viewed
+the high prices in a serious light.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_152" title="152"> </a>Then the Mayor presented the city dignitaries to him: the
+higher District Judge, a noble landed proprietor from the
+neighbourhood, the rector, the two doctors, and a forwarding
+agent, and Klaus Heinrich addressed a question to each, thinking
+over, while the answer came, what he should say to the
+next. The local veterinary surgeon and the local inspector
+of stock-breeding were also present. Finally they climbed
+into carriages, and drove, amid the cheers of the inhabitants,
+between fences of school-children, firemen, the patriotic
+societies, through the gaily decked city to the exhibition
+ground&mdash;not without being stopped once more at the gate by
+white-robed maidens with wreaths on their heads, one of
+whom, the Mayor's daughter, handed to the prince in his
+carriage a bouquet with white satin streamers, and in lasting
+memory of the moment received one of those pretty and
+valuable gew-gaws which Klaus Heinrich took with him on
+his journeys, a breast-pin embedded, for a reason she could
+not guess, in <em>velvet</em> (sammet), which figured in the <i>Courier</i>
+as a jewel mounted in gold.</p>
+
+<p>Tents, pavilions, and stands had been erected on the ground.
+Gaudy pennons fluttered on long rows of poles strung together
+with festoons. On a wooden platform hung with bunting,
+between drapings, festoons, and parti-coloured flagstaffs,
+Klaus Heinrich read the short opening speech. And then
+began the tour of inspection.</p>
+
+<p>There were cattle tethered to low crossbars, prize beasts of
+the best blood with smooth round particoloured bodies and
+numbered shields on their broad foreheads. There were
+horses stamping and snuffing, heavy farm-horses with Roman
+noses and bushes of hair round their pasterns, as well as
+slender, restless saddle horses. There were naked short-legged
+pigs, and a large selection of both ordinary and prize pigs.
+With dangling bellies they grubbed up the ground with their
+snouts, while great blocks of woolly sheep filled the air with
+a confused chorus of bass and treble. There were ear-splitting
+exhibits of poultry, cocks and hens of every kind,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_153" title="153"> </a>
+from the big Brahmaputra to the copper-coloured bantam;
+ducks and pigeons of all sorts, eggs and fodder, both fresh and
+artificially preserved. There were exhibits of agricultural
+produce, grain of all sorts, beets and clover, potatoes, peas,
+and flax; vegetables, too, both fresh and dried; raw and preserved
+fruit; berries, marmalade, and syrups.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly there were exhibits of agricultural implements and
+machines, displayed by several technical firms, provided with
+everything of service to agriculture, from the hand-plough
+to the great black-funnelled motors, looking like elephants in
+their stall, from the simplest and most intelligible objects to
+those which consisted of a maze of wheels, chains, rods, cylinders,
+arms, and teeth&mdash;a world, an entire overpowering world
+of ingenious utility.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich looked at everything; he walked, with his
+sword-hilt on his forearm, down the rows of animals, cages,
+sacks, tubs, glasses, and implements. The dignitary at his
+side pointed with his white-gloved hand to this and that, venturing
+on a remark from time to time, and Klaus Heinrich
+acted up to his calling. He expressed in words his appreciation
+of all he saw, stopped from time to time and engaged the
+exhibitors of the animals in conversation, inquired in an
+affable way into their circumstances, and put questions to the
+country people whose answers entailed a scratching behind
+their ears. And as he walked he bowed his thanks on both
+sides for the homage of the population which lined his path.</p>
+
+<p>The people had collected most thickly at the exit, where
+the carriages were waiting, in order to watch him drive off.
+A way was kept free for him, a straight passage to the step
+of his landau, and he walked quickly down it, bowing continuously
+with his hand to his helmet&mdash;alone and formally
+separated from all those men who, in honouring him, were
+cheering their own archetype, their standard, and of whose
+lives, work, and ability he was the splendid representative,
+though not participator.</p>
+
+<p>With a light and free step he mounted the carriage, settled
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_154" title="154"> </a>
+himself artistically so that he at once assumed a perfectly graceful
+and self-possessed pose, and drove, saluting as he went, to
+the clubhouse, where luncheon was prepared. During luncheon&mdash;indeed,
+directly after the second course&mdash;the District
+Judge proposed the health of the Grand Duke and the Prince,
+whereupon Klaus Heinrich at once rose to drink to the welfare
+of the county, and city. After the luncheon, however, he
+retired to the room which the Mayor had put at his disposal
+in his official residence and lay down on the bed for an hour,
+for the exercise of his calling exhausted him in a strange
+degree, and that afternoon he was due not only to visit in that
+city the church, the school, and various factories, especially
+Behnke Brothers' cheese factory, and to express high satisfaction
+with everything, but also to extend his journey and visit
+a scene of disaster, a burnt-out village, in order to express
+to the villagers his brother's and his own sympathy, and to
+cheer the afflicted by his exalted presence.</p>
+
+<p>When he got back to the &ldquo;Hermitage,&rdquo; to his soberly furnished
+Empire room, he read the newspaper accounts of his
+expeditions. Then Privy Councillor Schustermann of the
+Press Bureau, which was under the Home Secretary, appeared
+in the &ldquo;Hermitage,&rdquo; and brought the extracts from the papers,
+cleanly pasted on white sheets, dated and labelled with the
+name of the paper. And Klaus Heinrich read about the impression
+he had produced, read about his personal graciousness
+and Highness, read that he had acquitted himself nobly
+and taken the hearts of young and old by storm&mdash;that he had
+raised the minds of the people out of the ruck of everyday
+and filled them with gladness and affection.</p>
+
+<p>And then he gave free audiences in the Old Schloss, as it
+had been arranged.</p>
+
+<p>The custom of free audiences had been introduced by a
+well-meaning ancestor of Albrecht&nbsp;II, and the people clung to
+it. Once every week Albrecht, or Klaus in his place, was
+accessible to everybody. Whether the petitioner was a man
+of rank or not, whether the subject of his petitions were of
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_155" title="155"> </a>
+a public or personal nature&mdash;he had only to give in his name
+to Herr von Bühl, or even the aide-de-camp on duty, and he
+was given an opportunity of bringing his matter to notice in
+the highest quarters.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed an admirable custom! For it meant that the
+petitioner did not have to go round by way of a written
+application, with the dismal prospect of his petition disappearing
+for ever into a pigeon-hole, but had the happy
+assurance that his application would go straight to the most
+exalted quarters. It must be admitted that the most exalted
+quarters&mdash;Klaus Heinrich at this time&mdash;naturally were not in
+a position to go into the matter, to scrutinize it seriously and
+to come to a decision upon it, but that they handed the matter
+on to the pigeon-holes, in which it &ldquo;disappeared.&rdquo; But the
+custom was none the less helpful, though not in the sense of
+matter-of-fact utility. The citizen, the petitioner, came to
+Herr von Bühl with the request to be received, and a day and
+hour were fixed for him. With glad embarrassment he saw
+the day draw near, worked up in his own mind the sentences
+in which he intended to explain his business, had his frock-coat
+and his hat ironed, put on his best shirt, and generally
+made himself ready.</p>
+
+<p>But in reality these solemn interviews were well calculated to
+turn the petitioner's thoughts away from the gross material end
+in view, and to make the reception itself seem to him the
+main point, the essential object of his excited anticipation.
+The hour came, and the citizen took, what he never otherwise
+took, a cab, in order not to dirty his clean boots. He drove
+between the lions at the Albrechtstor, and the sentries as well
+as the stalwart doorkeeper gave him free passage. He landed
+in the courtyard at the colonnade in front of the weather-beaten
+entrance, and was at once admitted by a lackey in a
+brown coat and sand-coloured gaiters to an ante-room on the
+ground floor to the left, in one corner of which was a stand
+of colours, and where a number of other supplicants, talking
+in low whispers, waited in a state of thoughtful tension for
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_156" title="156"> </a>
+their reception. The aide-de-camp, holding a list of those
+with appointments, went backwards and forwards and took the
+next on the list to one side, to instruct him in a low voice how
+to behave.</p>
+
+<p>In a neighbouring room, called the &ldquo;Free Audience Room,&rdquo;
+Klaus Heinrich, in his tunic with silver collar and several
+stars, stood at a round table with three golden legs, and
+received. Major von Platow gave him some superficial information
+about the identity of each petitioner, called the man
+in, and came back in the pauses, to prompt the Prince in a
+few words about the next comer. And the citizen walked in;
+with the blood in his head and perspiring slightly he stood
+before Klaus Heinrich. It had been impressed on him that
+he was not to go too near his Royal Highness, but must keep
+at a certain distance, that he must not speak without being
+spoken to, and even then must not gabble off all he had to
+say, but answer concisely, so as to leave the Prince material
+for his questions; that he must at the conclusion withdraw
+backwards and without showing the Prince his backside. The
+result was that the citizen's whole attention was centred on
+not breaking any of the rules given him, but for his part
+contributing to the smooth and harmonious progress of the
+interview.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich questioned him in the same way as he was
+wont to question the veterans, the marksmen, the gymnasts, the
+countrymen, and the victims of the fire, smiling, and with
+his left hand planted well back on his hip; and the citizen
+too smiled involuntarily&mdash;and was imbued with a feeling as
+if that smile lifted him far above the troubles which had held
+him prisoner. That common man, whose spirit otherwise
+cleaved to the dust, who gave a thought to nothing, not even
+to everyday politeness, beyond what was purely utilitarian, and
+had come here too with a definite object in view&mdash;he felt in
+his heart that there was something higher than business and his
+business in particular, and he left the Schloss elevated, purified,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_157" title="157"> </a>
+with eyes dim with emotion and the smile still on his flushed
+face.</p>
+
+<p>That was the way in which Klaus Heinrich gave free
+audiences, that the way in which he exercised his exalted calling.
+He lived at the &ldquo;Hermitage&rdquo; in his little refuge, the
+Empire room, which was furnished so stiffly and meagrely,
+with cool indifference to comfort and intimacy. Faded silk
+covered the walls above the white wainscot, glass chandeliers
+hung from the ugly ceiling, straight-lined sofas, mostly without
+tables, and thin-legged stands supporting marble clocks,
+stood along the walls, pairs of white-lacquered chairs, with
+oval backs and thin silk upholstery, flanked the white-lacquered
+folding-doors, and in the corner stood white-lacquered
+loo-tables, bearing vase-like candelabra. That was
+how Klaus Heinrich's room looked, and its master harmonized
+well with it.</p>
+
+<p>He lived a detached and quiet life, feeling no enthusiasm
+or zeal for questions on which the public differed. As
+representative of his brother, he opened Parliament, but he
+took no personal part in its proceedings and avoided the
+yeas and nays of party divisions&mdash;with the disinterestedness
+and want of convictions proper to one whose position was
+above all parties. Everybody recognized that his station imposed
+reserve upon him, but many were of opinion that want
+of interest was rather repellently and insultingly visible in his
+whole bearing. Many who came in contact with him described
+him as &ldquo;cold&rdquo;; and when Doctor Ueberbein loudly
+refuted this &ldquo;coldness,&rdquo; people wondered whether the one-sided
+and morose man was qualified to form an opinion on the
+point. Of course there were occasions when Klaus Heinrich's
+glance met looks which refused to recognize him&mdash;bold, scornful,
+invidious looks, which showed contempt for and ignorance
+of all his actions and exertions. But even in the well-disposed,
+loyal people, who showed themselves ready to esteem and
+honour his life, he remarked at times after a short while a
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_158" title="158"> </a>
+certain exhaustion, indeed irritation, as if they could no longer
+breathe in the atmosphere of his existence; and that worried
+Klaus Heinrich, though he did not know how he could prevent
+it.</p>
+
+<p>He had no place in the everyday world; a greeting from
+him, a gracious word, a winning and yet dignified wave of
+the hand, were all weighty and decisive incidents. Once he
+was returning in cap and greatcoat from a ride, was riding
+slowly on his brown horse Florian, down the birch avenue
+which skirted the waste-land and led to the park and the
+&ldquo;Hermitage,&rdquo; and in front of him there walked a shabbily
+dressed young man with a fur cap and a ridiculous tuft of hair
+on his neck, sleeves and trousers that were too short for him,
+and unusually large feet which he turned inwards as he walked.
+He looked like the student of a technical institute or something
+of that sort, for he carried a drawing-board under his arm,
+on which was pinned a big drawing, a symmetrical maze of
+lines in red and black ink, a projection or something of
+the sort. Klaus Heinrich held his horse back behind the
+young man for a good while, and examined the red and black
+projection on the drawing-board. Sometimes he thought how
+nice it must be to have a proper surname, to be called Doctor
+Smith, and to have a serious calling.</p>
+
+<p>He played his part at Court functions, the big and small
+balls, the dinner, the concerts, and the Great Court. He joined
+in autumn in the Court's shoots with his red-haired cousins
+and his suite, for custom's sake and although his left arm made
+shooting difficult for him. He was often seen in the evening
+in the Court Theatre, in his red-ledged proscenium-box
+between the two female sculptures with the crossed hands and
+the stern, empty faces. For the theatre attracted him, he
+loved it, loved to look at the players, to watch how they behaved,
+walked off and on, and went through with their parts.
+As a rule he thought them bad, rough in the means they
+employed to please, and unpractised in the more subtle dissembling
+of the natural and artless. For the rest, he was
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_159" title="159"> </a>
+disposed to prefer humble and popular scenes to the exalted
+and ceremonious.</p>
+
+<p>A soubrette called Mizzi Meyer was engaged at the
+&ldquo;Vaudeville&rdquo; theatre in the capital, who in the newspapers
+and on the lips of the public was never called anything but
+&ldquo;our&rdquo; Meyer, because of her boundless popularity with high
+and low. She was not beautiful, hardly pretty, her voice
+was a screech, and, strictly speaking, she could lay claim to no
+special gifts. And yet she had only to come on to the stage
+to evoke storms of approbation, applause, and encouragement.
+For this fair and compact person with her blue eyes,
+her broad, high cheek-bones, her healthy, jolly, even a little uproarious
+manner, was flesh of the people's flesh, and blood of
+their blood. So long as she, dressed up, painted, and lighted
+up from every side, faced the crowd from the boards, she was
+in very deed the glorification of the people itself&mdash;indeed, the
+people clapped itself when it clapped her, and in that alone
+lay Mizzi Meyer's power over men's souls. Klaus Heinrich
+was very fond of going with Herr von Braunbart-Schellendorf
+to the &ldquo;Vaudeville&rdquo; when Mizzi Meyer was playing, and
+joined heartily in the applause.</p>
+
+<hr class="thought-break"/>
+
+<p>One day he had a rencontre which on the one hand gave
+him food for thought, on the other disillusioned him. It was
+with Martini, Axel Martini, the compiler of the two books of
+poetry which had been so much praised by the experts,
+&ldquo;Evoë!&rdquo; and &ldquo;The Holy Life.&rdquo; The meeting came about in
+the following way.</p>
+
+<p>In the capital lived a wealthy old man, a Privy Councillor,
+who, since his retirement from the State Service, had devoted
+his life to the advancement of the fine arts, especially poetry.
+He was founder of what was known as the &ldquo;May-combat&rdquo;&mdash;a
+poetical tournament which recurred every year in springtime,
+to which the Privy Councillor invited poets and poetesses by
+circulars and posters. Prizes were offered for the tenderest
+love-song, the most fervent religious poem, the most ardent
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_160" title="160"> </a>
+patriotic song, for the happiest lyrical effusions in praise of
+music, the forest, the spring, the joy of life&mdash;and these prizes
+consisted of sums of money, supplemented by judicious and
+valuable souvenirs, such as golden pens, golden breast-pins
+in the form of lyres or flowers, and more of the same kind.
+The city authorities also had founded a prize, and the Grand
+Duke gave a silver cup as a reward for the most absolutely
+admirable of all poems sent in. The founder of the &ldquo;May-combat&rdquo;
+himself, who was responsible for the first look-through
+the always numerous entries, shared with two University
+Professors and the editors of the literary supplements of
+the <i>Courier</i> and the <i>People</i> the duties of prize-judges. The
+prize-winners and the highly commended entries were printed
+and published regularly in the form of an annual at the expense
+of the Privy Councillor.</p>
+
+<p>Now Axel Martini had taken part in the &ldquo;May-combat&rdquo; this
+year, and had come off victorious. The poem which he had
+sent in, an inspired hymn of praise to the joy of life, or
+rather a highly tempestuous outbreak of the joy of life itself,
+a ravishing hymn to the beauty and awfulness of life, was
+conceived in the style of both his books and had given rise
+to discord in the Board of Judges. The Privy Councillor himself
+and the Professor of Philology had been for dismissing
+it with a notice of commendation; for they considered it exaggerated
+in expression, coarse in its passion, and in places
+frankly repulsive. But the Professor of Literary History together
+with the editors had out-voted them, not only in view
+of the fact that Martini's contribution represented the best
+poem to the joy of life, but also in consideration of its undeniable
+pre-eminence, and in the end their two opponents
+too had not been able to resist the appeal of its foaming and
+stunning flow of words.</p>
+
+<p>So Axel Martini had been awarded fifteen pounds, a gold
+breast-pin in the form of a lyre, and the Grand Duke's silver
+cup as well, and his poem had been printed first in the annual,
+surrounded with an artistic frame from the hand of Professor
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_161" title="161"> </a>
+von Lindemann. What was more, the custom was for the
+victor (or victrix) in the &ldquo;May-combat&rdquo; to be received in
+audience by the Grand Duke; and as Albrecht was unwell,
+this task fell to his brother.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich was a little afraid of Herr Martini.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh dear, Doctor Ueberbein,&rdquo; he said when he met his tutor
+one day, &ldquo;what subject am I to tackle him on? He's sure
+to be a wild, brazen-faced fellow.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But Doctor Ueberbein answered: &ldquo;Anything; but, Klaus
+Heinrich, you need not worry! He's a very decent fellow. I
+know him, I'm rather in with his set. You'll get on splendidly
+with him.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>So Klaus Heinrich received the poet of the &ldquo;Joy of Life,&rdquo;
+received him at the &ldquo;Hermitage,&rdquo; so as to give the business as
+private a character as possible. &ldquo;In the yellow room, Braunbart
+if you please,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that's the most presentable one
+for occasions like this.&rdquo; There were three handsome chairs
+in this room, which indeed were the only valuable pieces of
+furniture in the Schloss, heavy Empire arm-chairs of
+mahogany, with spiral arms and yellow upholstery on which
+blue-green lyres were embroidered. Klaus Heinrich on this
+occasion did not dispose himself ready for an audience, but
+waited in some anxiety near by, until Axel Martini on his side
+had waited for seven or eight minutes in the yellow room.
+Then he walked in hastily, almost hurriedly, and advanced towards
+the poet, who made a low bow.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am very much pleased to make your acquaintance,&rdquo; he
+said, &ldquo;dear sir &hellip; dear Doctor, I believe?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, Royal Highness,&rdquo; answered Axel Martini in an
+asthmatic voice, &ldquo;not doctor, I've no title.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, forgive me &hellip; I assumed &hellip; Let's sit down, dear
+Herr Martini. I am, as I have said, delighted to be able to
+congratulate you on your great success&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Herr Martini drew down the corners of his mouth. He
+sat down on the edge of one of the mahogany arm-chairs,
+at the uncovered table, round whose edge ran a gold border,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_162" title="162"> </a>
+and crossed his feet, which were cased in cracked patent-leather
+boots. He was in frock-coat and wore yellow gloves. His
+collar was frayed at the edges. He had rather staring eyes,
+thin cheeks and a dark yellow moustache, which was clipped
+like a hedge. His hair was already quite grey on the temples,
+although according to the &ldquo;May-combat&rdquo; Annual he was not
+more than thirty years old, and under his eyes glowed patches
+of red which did not suggest robust health. He answered to
+Klaus Heinrich's congratulations: &ldquo;Your Royal Highness is
+very kind. It was not a difficult victory. Perhaps it was
+hardly tactful of me to compete.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich did not understand this; but he said: &ldquo;I
+have read your poem repeatedly with great pleasure. It seems
+to me a complete success, as regards both metre and rhyme.
+And it entirely expresses the &lsquo;Joy of Life.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Herr Martini bowed in his chair.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Your skill,&rdquo; continued Klaus Heinrich, &ldquo;must be a source
+of great pleasure to you&mdash;an ideal recreation. What is your
+calling, Herr Martini?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Herr Martini showed that he did not understand, by describing
+a note of interrogation with the upper half of his
+body.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I mean your main calling. Are you in the Civil Service?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, Royal Highness, I have no calling; I occupy myself
+exclusively with poetry&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;None at all&hellip;. Oh, I understand. So unusual a gift
+deserves that a man's whole powers be devoted to it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't know about that, Royal Highness. Whether it
+deserves it or not, I don't know. I must own that I had no
+choice. I have always felt myself entirely unsuited to every
+other branch of human activity. It seems to me that this
+undoubted and unconditional unsuitability for everything
+else is the sole proof and touchstone of the poetical calling&mdash;indeed,
+that a man must not see in poetry any calling, but
+only the expression and refuge of that unsuitability.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was a peculiarity with Herr Martini that when he talked
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_163" title="163"> </a>
+tears came into his eyes just like a man who comes out of the
+cold into a warm room and lets the heat stream through and
+melt his limbs.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's a singular idea,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not at all, Royal Highness. I beg your pardon, no, not
+singular at all. It's an idea which is very generally accepted.
+What I say is nothing new.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And for how long have you been living only for poetry?
+I suppose you were once a student?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not exactly, Royal Highness; no, the unsuitability to which
+I alluded before began to show itself in me at an early age.
+I couldn't get on at school. I left it without passing my
+&lsquo;final.&rsquo; I went up to the university with the full intention of
+taking it later, but I never did. And when my first volume of
+poems attracted a good deal of attention, it no longer suited
+my dignity to do so, if I may say so.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of course not&hellip;. But did your parents then agree to
+your choice of a career?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh no, Royal Highness! I must say to my parents' credit
+that they by no means agreed to it. I come of a good stock:
+my father was Solicitor to the Treasury. He's dead now, but
+he was Solicitor to the Treasury. He naturally disliked my
+choice of a career so much that till his death he would never
+give me a farthing. I lived at daggers drawn with him, although
+I had the greatest respect for him because of his
+strictness.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, so you've had a hard time of it, Herr Martini, you've
+had to struggle through. I can well believe that you must
+have knocked about a good deal!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not so, Royal Highness! No, that would have been horrid,
+I couldn't have stood it. My health is delicate&mdash;I dare not
+say &lsquo;unfortunately,&rsquo; for I am convinced that my talent is inseparably
+connected with my bodily infirmity. Neither my
+body nor my talent could have survived hunger and harsh
+winds, and they have not had to survive them. My mother
+was weak enough to provide me behind my father's back with
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_164" title="164"> </a>
+the means of life, modest but adequate means. I owe it to
+her that my talent has been able to develop under fairly
+favourable conditions.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The result has shown, Herr Martini, that they were the
+right conditions&hellip;. Although it is difficult to say now what
+actually are good conditions. Permit me to suppose that if
+your mother had shown herself as strict as your father, and
+you had been alone in the world, and left entirely to your own
+resources &hellip; don't you think that it might have been to a
+certain extent a good thing for you? That you might have
+got a peep at things, so to speak, which have escaped you as
+it is?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;People like me, Royal Highness, get peeps enough without
+having actually to know what hunger is; and the idea is
+fairly generally accepted that it is not actual hunger, but rather
+hunger for the actual &hellip; ha, ha!&hellip; which talent requires.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Herr Martini had been obliged to laugh a little at his play
+upon words. He now quickly raised one yellow-gloved hand
+to his mouth with the hedge-like moustache, and improved his
+laugh into a cough. Klaus Heinrich watched him with a look
+of princely expectancy.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If your Royal Highness will allow me&hellip;. It is a well-known
+fact that the want of actuality for such as me is the
+seed-ground of all talent, the fountain of inspiration, indeed
+our suggestive genius. Enjoyment of life is forbidden to us,
+strictly forbidden, we have no illusions as to that&mdash;and by
+enjoyment of life I mean not only happiness, but also sorrow,
+passion, in short every serious tie with life. The representation
+of life claims all our forces, especially when those forces
+are not allotted to us in overabundant measure&rdquo;&mdash;and Herr
+Martini coughed, drawing his shoulders repeatedly forward as
+he did so. &ldquo;Renunciation,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;is our compact with
+the Muse, in it reposes our strength, our value; and life is our
+forbidden garden, our great temptation, to which we yield
+sometimes, but never to our profit.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_165" title="165"> </a>The flow of words had again brought tears to Herr Martini's
+eyes. He tried to blink them away.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Every one of us,&rdquo; he went on, &ldquo;knows what it is to make
+mistakes, to run off the rails in that way, to make greedy
+excursions of that kind into the festival halls of life. But
+we return thence into our isolation humbled and sick at
+heart.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Herr Martini stopped. His look, from under his knotted
+brows, became fixed for a moment and lost in vacancy, while
+his mouth assumed a sour expression and his cheeks, on which
+the unhealthy redness glowed, seemed even thinner than before.
+It was only for a second; then he changed his position,
+and his eyes recovered their vivacity.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But your poem,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich, with some <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">empressement</i>.
+&ldquo;Your prize poem to the &lsquo;Joy of Life,&rsquo; Herr
+Martini&hellip;. I am really grateful to you for your achievement.
+But will you please tell me &hellip; your poem&mdash;I've
+read it attentively. It deals on the one hand with misery and
+horrors, with the wickedness and cruelty of life, if I remember
+rightly, and on the other hand with the enjoyment of
+wine and fair women, does it not?&hellip;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Herr Martini laughed; then rubbed the corners of his
+mouth with his thumb and forefinger, so as to wipe the laugh
+out.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And it's all,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich, &ldquo;conceived in the
+form of &lsquo;I,&rsquo; in the first person, isn't it? And yet it is not
+founded on personal knowledge? You have not really experienced
+any of it yourself?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Very little, Royal Highness. Only quite trifling suggestions
+of it. No, the fact is the other way round&mdash;that, if I
+were the man to experience all that, I should not only not
+write such poems, but should also feel entire contempt for
+my present existence. I have a friend, his name is Weber;
+he's a rich young man; he lives, he enjoys his life. His
+favourite amusement consists in scorching in his motor car
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_166" title="166"> </a>
+at a mad pace over the country and picking up village girls
+from the roads and fields on the way, with whom he<span style="white-space: nowrap;">&mdash;&mdash;</span>but
+that's another story. In short, that young man laughs
+when he catches sight of me, he finds something so comic in
+me and my activities. But as for me, I can quite understand
+his amusement, and envy him it. I dare say that I too despise
+him a little, but not so much as I envy and admire
+him&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You admire him?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Certainly, Royal Highness. I cannot help doing so. He
+spends, he squanders, he lets himself go in a most unconcerned
+and light-hearted way&mdash;while it is my lot to save, anxiously
+and greedily, to keep together, and indeed to do so on hygienic
+grounds. For hygiene is what I and such as I most need&mdash;it
+is our whole ethics. But nothing is more unhygienic than
+life&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That means that you will never empty the Grand Duke's
+cup, then, Herr Martini?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Drink wine out of it? No, Royal Highness. Although
+it would be fine to do so. But I never touch wine. And I
+go to bed at ten, and generally take care of myself. If I
+didn't, I should never have won the cup.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I can well believe it, Herr Martini. People who are not
+behind the scenes get strange ideas of what a poet's life must
+be like.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Quite conceivably, Royal Highness. But it is, taken all
+round, by no means a very glorious life, I can assure you,
+especially as we aren't poets every hour of the twenty-four.
+In order that a poem of that sort may come into existence
+from time to time&mdash;who would believe how much idleness
+and boredom and peevish laziness is necessary? The motto
+on a picture postcard is often a whole day's work. We sleep
+a lot, we idle about with heads feeling like lead. Yes, it's
+too often a dog's life.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Some one knocked lightly on the white-lacquered door. It
+was Neumann's signal that it was high time for Klaus Heinrich
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_167" title="167"> </a>
+to change his clothes and have himself freshened up. For
+there was to be a club concert that evening in the Old Schloss.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich rose. &ldquo;I've been gossiping,&rdquo; he said; for
+that was the expression he used at such moments. And then
+he dismissed Herr Martini, wished him success in his poetical
+career, and accompanied the poet's respectful withdrawal with
+a laugh and that rather theatrical up and down movement of the
+hand which was not always equally effective, but which he
+had brought to a high pitch of perfection.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the Prince's conversation with Axel Martini, the
+author of &ldquo;Evoë!&rdquo; and &ldquo;The Holy Life.&rdquo; It gave him food
+for thought, it continued to occupy his mind after it had ended.
+He continued to think over it while Neumann was reparting his
+hair and helping him on with the dazzling full-dress coat
+with the stars, during the club concert at Court, and for several
+days afterwards, and he tried to reconcile the poet's statements
+with the rest of the experiences which life had vouchsafed
+to him.</p>
+
+<p>This Herr Martini, who, while the unhealthy flush glowed
+under his eyes, kept crying: &ldquo;How beautiful, how strong is
+life!&rdquo; yet was careful to go to bed at ten, shut himself off
+from life on hygienic grounds, as he said, and avoided every
+serious tie with it&mdash;this poet with his frayed collar, his
+watery eyes, and his envy of the young Weber who scorched
+over the country with village girls: he left a mixed impression,
+it was difficult to come to any certain conclusion about
+him. Klaus Heinrich expressed it, when he told his sister of
+the meeting, by saying: &ldquo;Things are none too comfortable
+and easy for him, that's quite obvious, and that certainly
+entitles him to our sympathy. But somehow, I'm not sure if
+I'm glad to have met him, for he has something deterrent about
+him, Ditlinde&mdash;yes, after all, he's certainly a little repulsive.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<h2><a class="pagenum" name="Page_168" title="168"> </a>VII<br/>
+<small>IMMA</small></h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">Fräulein von Isenschnibbe</span> had been well informed. On the
+very evening of the day on which she had brought the Princess
+zu Reid the great news, the <i>Courier</i> published the announcement
+of Samuel Spoelmann's, the world-renowned Spoelmann's,
+impending arrival, and ten days later, at the beginning of
+October (it was the October of the year in which Grand Duke
+Albrecht had entered his thirty-second and Prince Klaus Heinrich
+his twenty-sixth year), thus barely giving time for public
+curiosity to reach a really high point, his arrival became a
+fact, a plain actuality on an autumn-tinged, entirely ordinary
+week-day, which was destined to impress itself on the future as
+a date to be remembered for ever.</p>
+
+<p>The Spoelmanns arrived by special train&mdash;that was the only
+distinction about their debut to start with, for everybody knew
+that the &ldquo;Prince's suite&rdquo; in the &ldquo;Spa Court&rdquo; Hotel was by no
+means <ins title="dazzingly">dazzlingly</ins> magnificent. A few idlers, guarded by a
+small detachment of policemen, had gathered behind the platform
+barriers; some representatives of the press were present.
+But whoever expected anything out of the ordinary was disappointed.
+Spoelmann would almost have passed unrecognized,
+he was so unimposing. For a long time people took
+his family physician for him (Doctor Watercloose, people said
+he was called), a tall American, who wore his hat on the back
+of his head and kept his mouth distended in a perpetual smile
+between his close-trimmed white whiskers, the while he half-closed
+his eyes. It was not till the last moment that people
+learned that it was the little clean-shaven man in the faded
+overcoat, he who wore his hat pulled down over his eyes, who
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_169" title="169"> </a>
+was the actual Spoelmann, and the spectators were agreed that
+there was nothing striking about him. All sorts of stories
+had been in circulation about him; some witty fellow had
+spread the report that Spoelmann had front teeth of solid
+gold and a diamond set in the middle of each. But although
+the truth or untruth of this report could not be tested at once&mdash;for
+Spoelmann did not show his teeth, he did not laugh, but
+rather seemed angry and irritated by his infirmity&mdash;yet when
+they saw him nobody was any longer inclined to believe it.</p>
+
+<p>As for Miss Spoelmann, his daughter, she had turned up
+the collar of her fur coat, and stuffed her hands in the pockets,
+so that there was hardly anything to be seen of her except a
+pair of disproportionately big brown-black eyes, which swept
+the crowd with a serious look whose meaning it was hard to
+interpret. By her side stood the person whom the onlookers
+identified as her companion, the Countess Löwenjoul, a woman
+of thirty-five, plainly dressed and taller than either of the
+Spoelmanns, who carried her little head with its thin smooth
+hair pensively on one side, and kept her eyes fixed in front of
+her with a kind of rigid meekness. What without question
+attracted most attention was a Scottish sheep-dog which was
+led on a cord by a stolid-looking servant&mdash;an exceptionally
+handsome, but, as it appeared, terribly excitable beast, that
+leaped and danced and filled the station with its frenzied barking.</p>
+
+<p>People said that a few of Spoelmann's servants, male and
+female, had already arrived at the &ldquo;Spa Court&rdquo; some hours
+before. At any rate it was left to the servant with the dog
+to look after the luggage by himself; and while he was doing
+so his masters drove in two ordinary flies&mdash;Mr. Spoelmann
+with Doctor Watercloose, Miss Spoelmann with the Countess&mdash;to
+the Spa-Garden. There they got out, and there for six
+weeks they led a life the cost of which it did not need all their
+money to meet.</p>
+
+<p>They were lucky; the weather was fine, it was a blue autumn,
+a long succession of sunny days from October into November,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_170" title="170"> </a>
+and Miss Spoelmann rode daily&mdash;that was her only luxury&mdash;with
+her companion, on horses which she hired by the week
+from the livery stables. Mr. Spoelmann did not ride, although
+the <i>Courier</i>, with obvious reference to him, published a
+note by its medical colleague according to which riding had
+a soothing effect in cases of stone, owing to its jolting, and
+helped to disperse the stone. But the hotel staff knew that the
+famous man practised artificial riding within the four walls
+of his room, with the help of a machine, a stationary velocipede
+to whose saddle a jolting motion was imparted by the
+working of the pedals.</p>
+
+<p>He was a zealous drinker of the healing waters, the Ditlinde
+Spring, by which he seemed to set great store. He
+appeared first thing every morning in the Füllhaus, accompanied
+by his daughter, who for her part was quite healthy,
+and only drank with him for company's sake, and then, in
+his faded coat and with his hat pulled over his eyes, took his
+exercise in the Spa-Garden and Wandelhalle, drinking the
+water the while through a glass tube out of a blue tumbler&mdash;watched
+at a distance by the two American newspaper correspondents,
+whose duty it was to telegraph to their papers a
+thousand words daily about Spoelmann's holiday resort, and
+who were therefore bound to try to get something to telegraph
+about.</p>
+
+<p>Otherwise he was rarely visible. His illness&mdash;kidney colic,
+so people said, extremely painful attacks&mdash;seemed to confine
+him often to his room, if not to his bed, and while Miss
+Spoelmann with Countess Löwenjoul appeared two or three
+times at the Court Theatre (when, in a black velvet dress with
+an Indian silk scarf of a wonderful gold-yellow colour round
+her fresh young shoulders, she looked quite bewitching with
+her pearl-white complexion and great black pleading eyes),
+her father was never seen in the box with her. He took, it
+is true, in her company one or two drives through the capital,
+to do some shopping, get some idea of the town, and see a
+few select sights; he went for a walk with her too, through
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_171" title="171"> </a>
+the park and twice inspected there the Schloss Delphinenort&mdash;the
+second time alone, when he was so much interested as to
+take measurements of the walls with an ordinary yellow rule,
+which he took out of his faded coat&hellip;. But he was never
+seen in the dining-room of the &ldquo;Spa Court,&rdquo; for whether because
+he was on an almost meatless diet, or for some other
+reason, he took his meals exclusively with his own party in
+his own rooms, and the curiosity of the public had on the
+whole remarkably little to feed on.</p>
+
+<p>The result was that Spoelmann's arrival at the Spa at first
+did not prove so beneficial as Fräulein von Isenschnibbe and
+many others beside her had expected. The export of bottles
+increased, that was certain; it quickly rose to half as many
+again as its previous figure, and remained at that. But the
+influx of foreigners did not increase noticeably; the guests
+who came to feast their eyes on so abnormal an existence soon
+went away again, satisfied or disappointed, besides it was for
+the most part not the most desirable elements of society that
+were attracted by the millionaire's presence. Strange creatures
+appeared in the streets, unkempt and wild-eyed creatures&mdash;inventors,
+projectors, would-be benefactors of mankind, who
+hoped to enlist Spoelmann's sympathies for their hobbies.
+But the millionaire made himself absolutely inaccessible to
+these people; indeed, purple with rage, he howled at one of
+them who made advances towards him in the park, in such a
+way that the busybody quickly skedaddled, and it was often
+said that the torrent of begging letters which daily flowed in
+to him&mdash;letters which often bore stamps which the officials of
+the Grand Ducal post-office had never seen before&mdash;was at once
+discharged into a paper-basket of quite unusual capacity.</p>
+
+<p>Spoelmann seemed to have forbidden all business letters
+to be sent him, seemed determined to enjoy his holiday to
+the utmost, and during his travels in Europe to live exclusively
+for his health&mdash;or ill-health. The <i>Courier</i>, whose reporter had
+lost no time in making friends with his American colleagues,
+was in a position to announce that a reliable man, a so-called
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_172" title="172"> </a>
+chief manager, was Mr. Spoelmann's representative in America.
+He went on to say that his yacht, a gorgeously decorated vessel,
+was awaiting the great man at Venice, and that as soon as he
+had finished his cure he intended to travel south with his
+party.</p>
+
+<p>It told also, in answer to importunate requests from its
+readers&mdash;of the romantic origin of the Spoelmann millions,
+from their beginning in Victoria, whither his father had drifted
+from some German office stool or other, young, poor, and
+armed only with a pick, a shovel, and a tin plate. There he
+had begun by working as help to a gold-digger, as a day
+labourer, in the sweat of his brow. And then luck had come
+to him. A man, a claim-owner on a small scale, had fared
+so badly that he could no longer buy himself his tomatoes
+and dry bread for dinner, and in his extremity had been
+obliged to dispose of his claim. Spoelmann senior had bought
+it, had staked his one card, and, with his whole savings,
+amounting to £5 sterling, had bought this piece of alluvial
+land called &ldquo;Paradise Field,&rdquo; not more than forty feet square.
+And the next day he had turned up, a foot under the surface, a
+nugget of pure gold, the tenth biggest nugget in the world,
+the &ldquo;Paradise nugget,&rdquo; weighing 980 ounces and worth £5,000.</p>
+
+<p>That, related the <i>Courier</i>, had been the beginning. Spoelmann's
+father had emigrated to South America with the proceeds
+of his find, to Bolivia, and as gold-washer, amalgam-mill-owner,
+and mine-owner had continued to extract the yellow
+metal direct from the rivers and the womb of the mountains.
+Then and there Spoelmann senior had married&mdash;and
+the <i>Courier</i> went so far as to hint in this connexion that he had
+done so defiantly and without regard to the prejudices generally
+felt in those parts. However, he had doubled his capital and
+succeeded in investing his money most profitably.</p>
+
+<p>He had moved on northwards to Philadelphia, Pa. That
+was in the fifties, the time of a great boom in railway construction,
+and Spoelmann had begun with one investment in
+the Baltimore and Ohio Railway. He had also leased a coal-mine
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_173" title="173"> </a>
+in the west of the State, the profits from which had
+been enormous. Finally he had joined that group of fortunate
+young men which bought the famous Blockhead Farm
+for a few thousand pounds&mdash;the property which, with its
+petroleum wells, in a short time increased in value to a hundred
+times its purchase price&hellip;. This enterprise had made
+a rich man of Spoelmann senior, but he had by no means rested
+on his oars, but unceasingly practised the art of making money
+into more money, and finally into superabundant money.</p>
+
+<p>He had started steel works, had floated companies for
+the turning of iron into steel on a large scale, and for
+building railway bridges. He had bought up the major
+part of the shares of four or five big railway companies, and
+had been elected in the later years of his life president, vice-president,
+manager, or director of the companies. When the
+Steel Trust was formed, so the <i>Courier</i> said, he had joined it,
+with a holding of shares which guaranteed him an income of
+$12,000,000. But at the same time he had been chief shareholder
+and expert adviser of the Petroleum Combine, and in
+virtue of his holding had dominated three or four of the other
+Trust Companies. And at his death his fortune, reckoned in
+German currency, had amounted to a round thousand million
+marks.</p>
+
+<p>Samuel, his only son, the offspring of that early marriage,
+contracted in defiance of public opinion, had been his sole
+heir&mdash;and the <i>Courier</i>, with its usual delicacy, interpolated a
+remark to the effect that there was something almost sad in
+the idea of any one, without himself contributing, and through
+no fault of his own, being born to such a situation. Samuel
+had inherited the palace on Fifth Avenue at New York, the
+country mansions, and all the shares, Trust bonds, and
+profits of his father; he inherited also the strange position to
+which his father had risen, his world-fame and the hatred
+directed by his out-distanced competitors against the power of
+his gold&mdash;all the hatred to allay which he yearly distributed his
+huge donations to colleges, conservatories, libraries, benevolent
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_174" title="174"> </a>
+institutions, and that University which his father had
+founded and which bore his name.</p>
+
+<p>Samuel Spoelmann did not deserve the hatred of the out-distanced
+competitors; that the <i>Courier</i> was sure of. He had
+gone early into the business, and had controlled the bewildering
+possessions of his house all by himself during his father's
+last years. But everybody knew that his heart had never been
+really in the business. His real inclinations had been, strange
+to say, all along much more towards music and especially
+organ music&mdash;and the truth of this information on the part
+of the <i>Courier</i> was certain, for Mr. Spoelmann actually kept
+a small organ in the &ldquo;Spa Court,&rdquo; whose bellows he got a hotel
+servant to blow, and he could be heard from the Spa-Garden
+playing it for an hour every day.</p>
+
+<p>He had married for love and not at all from social considerations,
+according to the <i>Courier</i>&mdash;a poor and pretty girl,
+half German, half Anglo-Saxon by descent. She had died,
+but she had left him a daughter, that wonderful blood-mixture
+of a girl, whom we now had as guest within our walls and who
+was at the time nineteen years old. Her name was Imma&mdash;a
+real German name, as the <i>Courier</i> added, nothing more than
+an old form of &ldquo;Emma,&rdquo; and it might be remarked that the
+daily conversation in the Spoelmann household, though interlarded
+with scraps of English, had remained German. And
+how devoted father and daughter seemed to be to each other!
+Every morning, by going to the Spa-Garden at the right time,
+one could watch Fräulein Spoelmann, who usually entered the
+Füllhause a little later than her father, take his head between
+her hands and give him his morning kiss on mouth and cheeks,
+while he patted her tenderly on the back. Then they went
+arm-in-arm through the Wandelhalle and sucked their glass
+tubes as they went&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>That is how the well-informed journal gossiped and fed the
+public curiosity. It also reported carefully the visits which
+Miss Imma kindly paid with her companion to several of the
+charitable institutions of the town. Yesterday she had made a
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_175" title="175"> </a>
+detailed inspection of the public kitchens. To-day she had
+made a prolonged tour of the Trinity Almhouses for old
+women, and she had recently twice attended Privy Councillor
+Klinghammer's lectures on the theory of numbers at the university&mdash;had
+sat on the bench, a student among students, and
+scribbled away with her fountain-pen, for everybody knew
+that she was a learned girl and devoted to the study of algebra.
+Yes, all that was absorbing reading, and furnished ample food
+for conversation. But the topics which made themselves talked
+about without any help from the <i>Courier</i> were, firstly, the
+dog, that noble black-and-white collie which the Spoelmanns
+had brought with them, and secondly, in a different way, the
+companion, Countess Löwenjoul.</p>
+
+<p>As for the dog, whose name was Percival, generally
+shortened to Percy, he was an animal of so excitable and
+emotional a disposition as beggared description. Inside the
+hotel he afforded no grounds for complaint, but lay in a
+dignified attitude on a small carpet outside the Spoelmanns'
+suite. But every time he went out he had an attack of light-headedness,
+which caused general interest and surprise, indeed
+more than once actual obstruction of traffic.</p>
+
+<p>Followed at a distance by a swarm of native dogs, common
+curs which, incited by his demeanour, assailed him with censorious
+yaps, and which caused him no concern whatever, he
+flew through the streets, his nose spattered with foam and barking
+wildly, pirouetted madly in front of the tramcars, made
+the cab-horses stumble, and twice knocked Widow Klaaszen's
+cake stall at the Town Hall down so violently that the sugar
+cakes rolled half over the Market-place. But as Mr. Spoelmann
+or his daughter at once met such catastrophes with more
+than adequate compensation, as too it was discovered that
+Percival's attacks were really quite free from danger, that he
+was anything but inclined to bite and steal, but on the contrary
+kept to himself and would let nobody come near him,
+public opinion quickly turned in his favour, and to the children
+in particular his excursions were a constant source of pleasure.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_176" title="176"> </a>Countess Löwenjoul on her side supplied food for conversation
+in a quieter but no less strange way. At first,
+when her personality and position were not yet known in the
+city, she had attracted the gibes of the street urchins, because,
+while out walking alone, she talked to herself softly and
+deliberately, and accompanied her words with lively and at
+the same time graceful and elegant gestures. But she had
+shown such mildness and goodness to the children who shouted
+after her and tugged at her dress, she had spoken to them with
+such affection and dignity, that her persecutors had slunk
+away abashed and confused, and later, when she became known,
+respect for her relations with the famous guests secured her
+from molestation. However, some unintelligible anecdotes
+were secretly circulated about her. One man told how the
+Countess had given him a gold piece with instructions that he
+should box the ears of a certain old woman who was understood
+to have made some unseemly proposal or other to her.
+The man had pocketed the gold piece, without, however, discharging
+his commission.</p>
+
+<p>Further, it was declared as a fact that the Countess had
+accosted the sentry in front of the Fusiliers' Barracks and had
+told him at once to arrest the wife of the sergeant of one of
+the companies because of her moral shortcomings. She had
+written too a letter to the Colonel of the regiment to the
+effect that all sorts of secret and unspeakable abominations
+went on inside the barracks. Whether she was right in her
+facts, heaven only knew. But many people at once concluded
+that she was wrong in her head. At any rate, there was no
+time to investigate the matter, for six weeks were soon past,
+and Samuel N. Spoelmann, the millionaire, went away.</p>
+
+<p>He went away after having had his portrait painted by
+Professor von Lindemann&mdash;an expensive portrait too, which he
+gave to the proprietor of the &ldquo;Spa Court&rdquo; as a memento; he
+went away with his daughter, the Countess, and Doctor Watercloose,
+with Percival, the chamber-velocipede, and his servants;
+went by special train to the South, with the view of spending
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_177" title="177"> </a>
+the winter on the Riviera, whither the two New York journalists
+had hastened ahead of him, and of then crossing back home
+again. It was all over. The <i>Courier</i> wished Mr. Spoelmann
+a hearty farewell and expressed the hope that the cure would be
+found to have done him good.</p>
+
+<p>And with that the notable interlude seemed to be closed and
+done with. Everyday life claimed its due, and Mr. Spoelmann
+began to fade into oblivion. The winter passed. It was the
+winter in which her Grand Ducal Highness the Princess zu
+Ried-Hohenried was confined of a daughter. Spring came,
+and his Royal Highness Grand Duke Albrecht repaired as
+usual to Hollerbrunn. But then a rumour cropped up amongst
+the people and in the press, which was received at first with
+a shrug by the sober-minded, but became more concrete,
+crystallized, took to itself quite precise details, and finally won
+itself a dominant place in the solid and pithy news of the
+day.</p>
+
+<p>What was toward? A Grand Ducal Schloss was about
+to be sold? Nonsense! Which Schloss?&mdash;Delphinenort.
+Schloss Delphinenort in the North Park? Twaddle! Sold?
+To whom?&mdash;To Spoelmann. Ridiculous! What could he do
+with it?&mdash;Restore it, and live in it. That's all very well.
+But perhaps our Parliament might have something to say to
+that.&mdash;They don't care twopence. Had the State any responsibility
+for keeping up Schloss Delphinenort?&mdash;If they had, it's
+a pity they hadn't recognized it, dear old place. No, Parliament
+had no say in the matter. Have the negotiations advanced
+at all far?&mdash;Rather, they're completed. Goodness gracious,
+then of course the exact price is known?&mdash;Naturally. Sold
+for two millions, not a farthing less. Impossible! A Royal
+Palace! Royal palace be blowed! We're not talking of the
+Grimmburg or of the Old Schloss. We're talking of a
+country house, an unused country house which is falling in
+pieces for lack of funds to keep it up.</p>
+
+<p>So Spoelmann intended to come back every year and spend
+several weeks in Delphinenort?&mdash;No. For he intended rather
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_178" title="178"> </a>
+to come and settle among us altogether. He was sick of America,
+wanted to turn his back on it, and his first stay amongst us
+was merely to spy out the land. He was ill, he wanted to
+retire from business. He had always remained a German at
+heart. The father had emigrated, and the son wanted to come
+back home. He wished to take his part in the modest life and
+intellectual resources of our country, and to spend the rest
+of his days in the immediate neighbourhood of the Ditlinde
+Spa.</p>
+
+<p>All was confusion and bustle, and discussions without end.
+But public opinion, with the exception of the voices of a few
+grumblers, trended after a short hesitation in favour of the
+idea of sale; indeed without this general approval the matter
+could never have gone very far. It was House Minister von
+Knobelsdorff who first ventured on a cautious announcement
+of Spoelmann's offer in the daily press. He had waited and
+allowed the popular feeling to come to a decision. And after
+the first confusion, solid reasons in favour of the project had
+made themselves felt.</p>
+
+<p>The business world was enchanted at the idea of having so
+doughty a consumer at its doors. The æsthetes showed
+themselves delighted at the prospect of seeing Schloss Delphinenort
+restored and kept up&mdash;at seeing the noble old building
+restored to honour and youth in so unforeseen, indeed so
+romantic a way. But the economically-minded brought forward
+figures which were calculated to cause grave misgivings
+as to the financial position of the country. If Samuel N.
+Spoelmann settled among us, he would become a tax-payer&mdash;he
+would have to pay us his income-tax.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps it was worth while showing what that meant. Mr.
+Spoelmann would be left to declare his own income, but, from
+what one knew&mdash;and knew fairly accurately&mdash;his residence
+would mean a yearly revenue of two and a half millions, in
+taxes alone, not to mention what he paid in rates. Worth
+thinking about, wasn't it? The question was put straight to
+the Finance Minister, Dr. Krippenreuther. He would be
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_179" title="179"> </a>
+wanting in his duty if he did not do all he could to recommend
+the sale in the highest quarters. For patriotism demanded
+that Spoelmann's offer should be accepted, and
+patriotism was paramount above all other considerations.</p>
+
+<p>So Excellency von Knobelsdorff had had an interview with
+the Grand Duke. He had informed his master of the public
+opinion, had added that the price offered, two millions, considerably
+exceeded the real value of the Schloss in its present
+condition, had remarked that such a sum meant a real windfall
+for the Treasury, and had ended by slipping in a hint
+about the central heating of the Old Schloss, which, if the sale
+was carried through, would no longer be an impossibility.
+In short, the single-minded old gentleman had brought his
+whole influence to bear in favour of the sale, and had recommended
+the Grand Duke to bring the matter before a family
+moot. Albrecht had sucked his lower lip softly against the
+upper, and summoned the family moot. It had met in the
+Hall of the Knights over tea and biscuits. Only two feminine
+members, the Princess Catherine and Ditlinde, had opposed
+the sale, on the ground of loss of dignity.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You will be misunderstood, Albrecht!&rdquo; said Ditlinde.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;They will charge you with want of respect to your high
+station, and that is not right, for you have on the contrary
+too much; you are so proud, Albrecht, that everything is all
+the same to you. But I say No. I do not wish to see a Cr&oelig;sus
+living in one of your Schlosses, it is not right, and it was bad
+enough that he should have a family physician and take the
+Prince's suite in the Spa Court. The <i>Courier</i> harps on the
+fact that he is a tax-paying subject, but in my eyes he is
+simply a subject and nothing else. What do you think, Klaus
+Heinrich?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But Klaus Heinrich voted for the sale. In the first place,
+Albrecht got his central heating; secondly, Spoelmann was
+not one of the common herd, he was not soap-boiler Unschlitt&mdash;he
+was an exception, and there was no disgrace in letting him
+have Delphinenort. Finally Albrecht had, with downcast
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_180" title="180"> </a>
+eyes, pronounced the whole family moot to be a farce. The
+people had long ago made up their minds, his Ministers urged
+the sale, and there was nothing left for him to do but to
+&ldquo;wave to the engine-driver and start the train.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The family moot had taken place in spring. From that
+time onwards the negotiations for sale, which were carried
+on between Spoelmann on the one hand and the Lord Marshal
+von Bühl zu Bühl on the other, had proceeded apace, and the
+summer was not far advanced before Schloss Delphinenort with
+its park and out-buildings had become the lawful property of
+Mr. Spoelmann.</p>
+
+<p>Then began a scene of bustle and confusion round and in
+the Schloss, which daily attracted crowds to the northern side
+of the park. Delphinenort was improved and partly reconstructed
+inside by a swarm of workmen. For quick, quick,
+was the order of the day, that was Spoelmann's wish, and he
+had only allowed five months' respite for everything to be ready
+for him to enter into possession. So a wooden scaffold with
+ladders and platforms shot up at lightning speed round the
+dilapidated old building, foreign workmen swarmed all over
+it, and an architect came with carte blanche over the seas to
+superintend the work. But the greater part of the work fell
+to our native manual workers to perform, and the stone-masons
+and tilers, the joiners, gilders, upholsterers, glaziers,
+and parquet-layers of the city, the landscape gardeners and
+heating and lighting experts, had plenty of remunerative work
+all through the summer and autumn.</p>
+
+<p>When his Royal Highness Klaus Heinrich left his window
+in the &ldquo;Hermitage&rdquo; open, the noise of the work at Delphinenort
+penetrated right through to the Empire room, and he
+often drove past the Schloss amid the respectful greetings of
+the public, in order to satisfy himself of the progress of the
+restoration. The gardener's cottage was painted up, the sheds
+and stables, which were destined to accommodate Spoelmann's
+fleet of motors and carriages, were enlarged; and by October,
+furniture and carpets, chests and cases full of stuffs and
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_181" title="181"> </a>
+household utensils had been delivered at Schloss Delphinenort,
+while it was whispered among the bystanders that inside
+the walls skilled hands were at work fitting Spoelmann's
+costly organ, which had been sent from over the sea, with
+electric action.</p>
+
+<p>There was much excitement to know whether the park belonging
+to the Schloss, which had been so splendidly cleaned
+up and trimmed, was to be fenced off from the public by a
+wall or hedge. But nothing of the sort was done. It was
+Spoelmann's wish that the property should continue to be
+accessible, that no restraint should be placed on the citizens'
+enjoyment of the park. The Sunday promenaders should have
+access right up to the Schloss, up to the clipped hedge which
+surrounded the big square pond&mdash;and this did not fail to make
+an excellent impression on the population; indeed, the <i>Courier</i>
+published a special article on the subject, in which it praised
+Mr. Spoelmann for his philanthropy.</p>
+
+<p>And behold! when the leaves again began to fall, exactly
+one year after his first appearance, Samuel Spoelmann landed
+a second time at our railway station. This time the general
+interest in the event was much greater than in the preceding
+year, and it is on record that, when Mr. Spoelmann, in his
+well-known faded coat and with his hat over his eyes, left his
+saloon, loud cheers were raised by the crowd of spectators&mdash;an
+expression of feelings which Mr. Spoelmann seemed rather
+inclined to resent, and which not he but Doctor Watercloose
+acknowledged with blinking eyes and a broad smile. When
+Miss Spoelmann too alighted, a cheer was raised, and one or
+two urchins even shouted when Percy, the collie, appeared
+springing, leaping, and altogether beside himself, on the platform.
+In addition to the doctor and Countess Löwenjoul there
+were two unknown persons in attendance, two clean-shaven
+and decided-looking men in strangely roomy coats. They
+were Mr. Spoelmann's secretaries, Messrs. Phlebs and Slippers,
+as the <i>Courier</i> announced in its report.</p>
+
+<p>At that time Delphinenort was far from ready, and the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_182" title="182"> </a>
+Spoelmanns at once took possession of the first floor of the
+chief hotel, where a big, haughty, paunch-bellied man in black,
+the steward or butler of the Spoelmann establishment, who
+had preceded them, had made preparations for them, and put
+the chamber-velocipede together with his own hands. Every
+day, while Miss Imma with her Countess and Percy went for
+a ride or a visit to some charitable institution, Mr. Spoelmann
+hung about his house, superintending the work and giving
+orders, and when the end of the year approached, just after
+the first snow had fallen, prospect became fact, and the
+Spoelmanns took up their abode in Schloss Delphinenort.
+Two motor cars (their arrival had been watched with interest&mdash;splendid
+cars they were) bore the six members of the party&mdash;Messrs.
+Phlebs and Slippers sat in the hinder one&mdash;driven
+by the leather-clad chauffeurs, with servants in snow-white fur
+coats and crossed arms beside them, in a few minutes from
+the hotel through the City Gardens; and as the cars dashed
+along the noble chestnut avenue which led to the drive, the
+urchins climbed up the high lamp-posts which stood at all
+four corners of the big spa-basin, and waved their caps and
+cheered&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>So Spoelmann and his belongings settled down among us,
+and we basked in the light of his presence. His white-and-gold
+livery was seen and known in the city, just as the brown-and-gold
+Grand Ducal livery was seen and known; the negro
+in scarlet plush who was doorkeeper at Delphinenort soon
+became a popular figure, and when passers-by heard the subdued
+rumble of Mr. Spoelmann's organ from the interior of
+the Schloss they lifted a finger and said: &ldquo;Hark, he's playing.
+That means that he's not got colic for the moment.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Imma was to be seen daily by the side of Countess
+Löwenjoul, followed by a groom and with Percy capering
+round, riding, or driving a smart four-in-hand through the
+City Gardens&mdash;while the servant who sat on the back seat
+stood up from time to time, drew a long silver horn from a
+leather sheath and wound a shrill warning of their approach;
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_183" title="183"> </a>
+and by getting up early one could see father and daughter
+every morning go in a dark-red brougham, or, in fine weather,
+on foot through the park of Schloss &ldquo;Hermitage&rdquo; to the Spa-Garden,
+in order to drink the waters. Imma for her part, as
+already mentioned, again began a course of visits to the
+benevolent institutions of the city, though she appeared not to
+give up her studies for all that; for from the beginning of the
+half-term she regularly attended the lectures of the Councillor
+Klinghammer at the University&mdash;sat daily in a black dress
+with white collar and cuffs among the young students in the
+lecture-theatre, and drove her fountain-pen&mdash;with her fore-finger
+raised in the air, a trick of hers when writing&mdash;over the
+pages of her notebook.</p>
+
+<p>The Spoelmanns lived in retirement, they did not mix in the
+life of the town, as was natural in view both of Mr. Spoelmann's
+ill-health and of his social loneliness. What social
+group could he have attached himself to? Nobody even
+suggested to him that he should consort with soap-boiler Unschlitt
+or bank-director Wolfsmilch on confidential terms.
+Yet he was soon approached with appeals to his generosity,
+and the appeals were not in vain. For Mr. Spoelmann, who,
+it was well known, before his departure from America had
+given a large sum in dollars to the Board of Education in the
+United States, and had also stated in so many words that he
+had no intention of withdrawing his yearly contributions to
+the Spoelmann University and his other educational foundations&mdash;he,
+shortly after his arrival at &ldquo;Delphinenort,&rdquo; put his
+name down for a subscription of ten thousand marks to the
+Dorothea Children's Hospital, for which a collection was
+just being made; an action the nobleness of which was immediately
+recognized in fitting terms by the <i>Courier</i> and the
+rest of the press.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, although the Spoelmanns lived in seclusion in a
+social sense, a certain amount of publicity attached to their
+life among us from the earliest moments, and in the local
+section of the daily newspapers at least their movements were
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_184" title="184"> </a>
+followed with as much particularity as those of the members
+of the Grand Ducal House. The public were informed when
+Miss Imma had played a game of lawn tennis with the Countess
+and Messrs. Phlebs and Slippers in the &ldquo;Delphinenort&rdquo; park;
+it was noted when she had been at the Court Theatre, and
+whether her father had gone with her for an act or two of
+the Opera; and if Mr. Spoelmann shrank from curiosity, never
+leaving his box during the intervals and scarcely ever showing
+himself on foot in the streets, yet he was obviously not
+insensible to the duties of a spectacular kind which were
+inherent in an extraordinary existence like his own, and he
+gave the love of gazing its due.</p>
+
+<p>It has been said that the &ldquo;Delphinenort&rdquo; park was not
+divided from the Town Gardens. No walls separated the
+Schloss from the outer world. From the back one could
+walk over the turf right up to the foot of the broad covered
+terrace which had been built on that side, and, if bold enough,
+look through the big glass door straight into the high white-and-gold
+garden-room in which Mr. Spoelmann and his family
+had five-o'clock tea. Indeed, when summer came, tea was laid
+on the terrace outside, and Mr. and Miss Spoelmann, the
+Countess and Doctor Watercloose sat in basket chairs of a
+new-fangled shape, and took their tea as if on a public platform.</p>
+
+<p>For on Sunday, at any rate, there was never wanting a
+public to enjoy the spectacle at a respectful distance. They
+called each other's attention to the silver tea-kettle, which was
+heated by electricity&mdash;a quite novel idea&mdash;and to the wonderful
+liveries of the two footmen who handed the tea and cakes,
+white, high-buttoned, gold-laced coats with swan's-down on
+the collars, cuffs, and seams. They listened to the English-German
+conversation and followed with open mouths every
+movement of the notable family on the terrace. They then
+went round past the front door, in order to shout a few
+witticisms in the local dialect to the red-plush negro, which
+he answered with a dental grin.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_185" title="185"> </a>Klaus Heinrich saw Imma Spoelmann for the first time
+on a bright winter's day at noon. That does not mean that
+he had not already caught sight of her often at the theatre,
+in the street, and in the town park. But that's quite a different
+thing. He saw her for the first time at this midday
+hour in exciting circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>He had been giving &ldquo;free audiences&rdquo; in the Old Schloss
+till half-past eleven, and after they were finished had not
+returned at once to Schloss &ldquo;Hermitage,&rdquo; but had ordered his
+coachman to keep the carriage waiting in one of the courts,
+as he wished to smoke a cigarette with the Guards officers
+on duty. As he wore the uniform of that regiment, to which
+his personal aide-de-camp also belonged, he made an effort
+to maintain the semblance of some sort of camaraderie with
+the officers; he dined from time to time in their mess and
+occasionally gave them half an hour of his company on guard,
+although he had a dim suspicion that he was rather a nuisance
+as he kept them from their cards and smoking-room stories.</p>
+
+<p>So there he stood, the convex silver star of the Noble Order
+of the Grimmburg Griffin on his breast, his left hand planted
+well back on his hip, with Herr von Braunbart-Schellendorf,
+who had given due notice of the visit in the officers' mess,
+which was situated on the ground floor of the Schloss near the
+Albrechts Gate&mdash;engaged in a trivial conversation with two
+or three officers in the middle of the room, while a further
+group of officers chatted at the deep-set window. Owing to
+the warmth of sun outside the window stood open, and from
+the barracks along the Albrechtstrasse came the strains of the
+drum and fife band of the approaching relief guard.</p>
+
+<p>Twelve o'clock struck from the Court Chapel tower. The
+loud &ldquo;Fall in!&rdquo; of the non-commissioned officer was heard
+outside, and the rattle of grenadiers standing to arms. The
+public collected on the square. The lieutenant on duty hastily
+buckled on his sword belt, clapped his heels together in a
+salute to Klaus Heinrich and went out. Then suddenly
+Lieutenant von Sturmhahn, who had been looking out of the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_186" title="186"> </a>
+window, cried with that rather poor imitation of familiarity
+which was proper to the relations between Klaus Heinrich and
+the officers: &ldquo;Great heavens, here's something for you to look
+at, Royal Highness! There goes Miss Spoelmann, with her
+algebra under her arm&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich walked to the window. Miss Imma was
+walking by herself along the pavement. With both hands
+thrust into her big flat muff, which was trimmed with pendent
+tails, she carried her notebook pressed to her side with
+her elbow. She was wearing a long coat of shiny black fox,
+and a toque of the same fur on her dark foreign-looking hair.
+She was obviously coming from &ldquo;Delphinenort&rdquo; and hurrying
+towards the University. She reached the main guard-house
+at the moment at which the relief guard marched up
+the gutter, over against the guard on duty, which standing at
+attention in two ranks occupied the pavement. She was
+absolutely compelled to go round, outside the band and the
+crowd of spectators&mdash;indeed, if she wished to avoid the open
+square with its tram-lines, to make a fairly wide detour on the
+footpath running round it&mdash;or to wait for the end of the military
+ceremony.</p>
+
+<p>She showed no intention of doing either. She made as if
+to walk along the pavement in front of the Schloss right
+down between the two ranks of soldiers. The sergeant with
+the harsh voice stepped forward quickly. &ldquo;Not this way!&rdquo; he
+cried and held the butt of his rifle in front of her. &ldquo;Not
+this way! Right about! Wait!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But Miss Spoelmann fired up. &ldquo;What d'you mean?&rdquo; she
+cried. &ldquo;I'm in a hurry!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But her words were not so impressive as the expression of
+honest, passionate, irresistible anger with which they were
+uttered. How slight and lonely she was! The fair-haired
+soldiers round her towered head and shoulders above her. Her
+face was as pale as wax at this moment, her black eyebrows
+were knitted in a hard and expressive wrinkle, her nostrils
+distended, and her eyes, black with excitement and wide-opened,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_187" title="187"> </a>
+spoke so expressive and bewitching a language that no protest
+seemed possible.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What d'you mean?&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;I'm in a hurry!&rdquo; And
+as she said it she pushed the rifle-butt, and the stupefied
+sergeant with it, aside, and walked down between the lines,
+went straight on her way, turned to the left into Universitätsstrasse
+and vanished.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'm dammed!&rdquo; cried Lieutenant von Sturmhahn. &ldquo;That's
+one for us!&rdquo; The officers at the window laughed. The spectators
+outside, too, were much amused, and not unsympathetic.
+Klaus Heinrich joined in the general hilarity. The changing
+of the guard proceeded with loud words of command and
+snatches of march tunes. Klaus Heinrich returned to the
+&ldquo;Hermitage.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He lunched all alone, went for a ride in the afternoon on
+his brown horse Florian, and spent the evening at a big party
+at Dr. Krippenreuther, the Finance Minister's house. He
+related to several people with great animation the episode of
+the guard, although the story had already gone the round and
+become common property. Next day he had to go away, for
+he had been told by his brother to represent him at the
+inauguration of the new Town Hall in a neighbouring town.
+For some reason or other, he went reluctantly, he disliked
+leaving the capital. He had a feeling that he was missing an
+important, pleasant, though rather disquieting opportunity,
+which imperatively demanded his presence. And yet his
+exalted calling must be more important. But while he sat
+serene and gorgeously dressed on his seat of honour in the
+Town Hall, and read his speech to the Mayor, Klaus Heinrich's
+thoughts were not concentrated on the figure he
+presented to the eyes of the crowd, but rather were busied with
+this new and important topic. He also gave a passing thought
+to a person whose casual acquaintance he had made long
+years before, to Fräulein Unschlitt, the soap-boiler's daughter&mdash;a
+memory which had a certain connexion with the importunate
+topic&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_188" title="188"> </a>Imma Spoelmann pushed the harsh-voiced sergeant aside in
+her anger&mdash;walked all alone, her algebra under her arm, down
+the ranks of the big fair-haired grenadiers. How pearly-white
+her face was against her black hair under her fur toque,
+and how her eyes spoke! There was nobody like her. Her
+father was rich, surfeited with riches, and had bought one of
+the Grand Ducal Schlosses. What was it that the <i>Courier</i> had
+said about his undeserved reputation and the &ldquo;romantic isolation
+of his life&rdquo;? He was the object of the hatred of aggrieved
+rivals&mdash;that was the effect of the article. And her nostrils had
+distended with anger. There was nobody like her, nobody
+near or far. She was an exception. And suppose she had
+been at the Citizens' Ball on that occasion? He would then
+have had a companion, would not have made a fool of himself,
+and would not have ended the evening in despair. &ldquo;Down,
+down, down with him!&rdquo; Phew! Just think of how she looked
+as she walked, dark and pale and wonderful, down the ranks
+of fair-haired soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>These were the thoughts which occupied Klaus Heinrich
+during the next few days&mdash;just these three or four mental
+pictures. And the strange thing is that they were amply sufficient
+for him, and that he did not want any more. But all
+things considered, it seemed to him more than desirable that he
+should get another glimpse of the pearly-white face soon,
+to-day if possible.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening he went to the Court Theatre, where <i>The
+Magic Flute</i> was being played. And when from his box he
+descried Miss Spoelmann next to Countess Löwenjoul in the
+front of the circle, a tremor went right through him. During
+the opera he could watch her out of the darkness through his
+opera-glasses, for the light from the stage fell on her. She
+laid her head on her small, ringless hand, while she rested
+her bare arm on the velvet braid, and she did not look angry
+now. She wore a dress of glistening sea-green silk with a
+light scarf on which bright flowers were embroidered, and
+round her neck a long chain of sparkling diamonds. She
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_189" title="189"> </a>
+really was not so small as she looked, Klaus Heinrich decided,
+when she stood up at the end of the act. No, the childish
+shape of her head and the narrowness of her shoulders accounted
+for her looking such a little thing. Her arms were
+well developed, and one could see that she played games and
+rode. But at the wrist her arm looked like a child's.</p>
+
+<p>When the passage came: &ldquo;He is a prince. He is more than
+that,&rdquo; Klaus Heinrich conceived the wish to have a talk with
+Doctor Ueberbein. Doctor Ueberbein called by chance next
+day at the &ldquo;Hermitage&rdquo; in a black frock-coat and white tie,
+as usual when he paid Klaus Heinrich a visit. Klaus Heinrich
+asked him whether he had already heard the story of the
+changing of the guard. Yes, answered Doctor Ueberbein,
+several times. But would Klaus Heinrich like to relate it to
+him again?&hellip; &ldquo;No, not if you know it,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich,
+disappointed. Then Doctor Ueberbein jumped to quite
+another topic. He began to talk about opera-glasses, and remarked
+that opera-glasses were a wonderful invention. They
+brought close what was unfortunately a long way off, did they
+not? They formed a bridge to a longed-for goal. What did
+Klaus Heinrich think? Klaus Heinrich was inclined to agree
+to a certain extent. And it seemed that yesterday evening, so
+people said, he had made a free use of this grand invention,
+said the doctor. Klaus Heinrich could not see the point of
+this remark.</p>
+
+<p>Then Doctor Ueberbein said: &ldquo;No, look here, Klaus Heinrich,
+that won't do. You are stared at, and little Imma is
+stared at, and that's enough. If you add to it by staring at
+little Imma, that's too much. You must see that, surely?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh dear, Doctor Ueberbein, I never thought of that.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But in other cases you generally do think of that sort
+of thing.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I've felt so funny for the last few days,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich.</p>
+
+<p>Doctor Ueberbein leaned back, pulled at his red beard near
+his throat, and nodded slowly with his head and neck.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_190" title="190"> </a>&ldquo;Really? Have you?&rdquo; he asked. And then went on nodding.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich said: &ldquo;You can't think how reluctant I
+was to go the other day to the inauguration of the Town
+Hall. And to-morrow I have to superintend the swearing-in
+of the Grenadier recruits. And then comes the Chapter of
+the Family Order. I don't feel a bit in the mood for that. I
+find no pleasure in doing my duty as the representative of
+my people. I've no inclination for my so-called lofty calling.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'm sorry to hear it!&rdquo; said Doctor Ueberbein sharply.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I might have known that you would be angry, Doctor
+Ueberbein. Of course you'll call it sloppiness, and will read
+me a sermon about &lsquo;destiny and discipline,&rsquo; if I know you.
+But at the opera yesterday I thought of you at one point, and
+asked myself whether you really were so right in several
+particulars&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Look here, Klaus Heinrich, once already, if I'm not mistaken,
+I've dragged your Royal Highness out of the mud, so
+to speak&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That was quite different, Doctor Ueberbein! How I wish
+you could see that was absolutely different! That was at
+the Citizens' Ball, but it was years ago, and I don't feel a
+twinge in that direction. For she is &hellip; Look you, you have
+often explained to me what you understand by &lsquo;Highness,&rsquo; and
+that it is something affecting, and something to be approached
+with tender sympathy. Don't you think that she of whom we
+are speaking, that she is affecting and that one must feel
+sympathy with her?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; said Doctor Ueberbein. &ldquo;Perhaps.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You often said that one must not disavow exceptions, that
+to do so was sloppiness and slovenly and good-nature. Don't
+you think that she too of whom we are speaking is an exception?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Doctor Ueberbein was silent. Then he said suddenly and
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_191" title="191"> </a>
+decidedly, &ldquo;And now I, if possible, am to help to make two
+exceptions into a rule?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon he went out. He said that he must get back
+to his work, emphasizing the word &ldquo;work,&rdquo; and begged leave
+to withdraw. He took his departure in a strangely ceremonious
+and unfatherly way.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich did not see him for ten or twelve days.
+He asked him to lunch once, but Doctor Ueberbein begged
+to be excused, his work at the moment was too pressing.
+At last he came spontaneously. He was in high spirits and
+looked greener than ever. He blustered about this and that,
+and at last came to the subject of the Spoelmanns, looking at
+the ceiling and pulling at his throat when he did so. To be
+quite fair, he said, there was a striking amount of sympathy
+felt with Samuel Spoelmann, one could see all over the town
+how much beloved he was. Chiefly of course as an object
+of taxation, but in other respects too. There was simply a
+penchant for him, in every class, for his organ-playing and his
+faded coat and his kidney-colic. Every errand boy was proud
+of him, and if he were not so unapproachable and morose he
+would already have been made to feel it.</p>
+
+<p>The ten-thousand marks donation for the Dorothea Hospital
+had naturally made an excellent impression. His friend
+Sammet had told him (Ueberbein) that with the help of this
+donation far-reaching improvements had been undertaken in
+the Hospital. And for the rest, it had just occurred to him!
+Little Imma was going to inspect the improvements to-morrow
+morning, Sammet had told him. She had sent one of her
+swan's-down flunkeys and asked whether she would be welcome
+to-morrow. She and sick children were a devilish funny mixture,
+opined Ueberbein, but perhaps she might learn something.
+To-morrow morning at eleven, if his memory did not
+mislead him.</p>
+
+<p>Then he talked about other things. On leaving he added:
+&ldquo;The Grand Duke ought to take some interest in the Dorothea
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_192" title="192"> </a>
+Hospital, Klaus Heinrich, it's expected of him. It's a blessed
+institution. In short, somebody ought to show the way, give
+signs of an interest in high quarters. No wish to intrude&hellip;.
+And so good-bye.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But he came back once more, and in his green face a flush
+had appeared under the eyes which looked entirely out of
+place there. &ldquo;If,&rdquo; he said deliberately, &ldquo;I ever caught you
+again with a soup tureen on your head, Klaus Heinrich, I
+should leave it there.&rdquo; Then he pressed his lips together and
+went out.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning shortly before eleven Klaus Heinrich walked
+with Herr von Braunbart-Schellendorf, his aide-de-camp, from
+Schloss &ldquo;Hermitage&rdquo; through the snow-covered birch avenue
+over rough suburban streets between humble cottages, and
+stopped before the neat white house over whose entrance
+&ldquo;Dorothea Children's Hospital&rdquo; was painted in broad black
+letters. His visit had been announced. The senior surgeon
+of the institution, in a frock-coat with the Albrechts Cross of
+the Third Class, was awaiting him with two younger surgeons
+and the nursing staff in the hall. The Prince and his companion
+were wearing helmets and fur coats. Klaus Heinrich
+said: &ldquo;This is the renewal of an old acquaintance, my dear
+doctor. You were present when I came into the world. You
+are also a friend of my tutor Ueberbein's. I am delighted to
+meet you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Doctor Sammet, who had grown grey in his life of active
+philanthropy, bowed to one side, with one hand on his watch-chain
+and his elbows close to his ribs. He presented the two
+junior surgeons and the sister to the Prince, and then said:
+&ldquo;I must explain to your Royal Highness that your Royal
+Highness's gracious visit coincides with another visit. Yes.
+We are expecting Miss Spoelmann. Her father has done such
+a lot for our institution&hellip;. We could not very well upset
+the arrangements. The sister will take Miss Spoelmann
+round.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich received the news of this rencontre without
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_193" title="193"> </a>
+displeasure. He first expressed his opinion of the nurses' uniform,
+which he called becoming, and then his curiosity to inspect
+the philanthropic institution. The tour began. The
+sister and three nurses waited behind in the hall.</p>
+
+<p>All the walls in the building were whitewashed and washable.
+Yes. The water taps were huge, they were meant to
+be worked with the elbows for reasons of cleanliness. And
+rinsing apparatus had been installed for washing the milk-bottles.
+One passed first through the reception room, which
+was empty save for a couple of disused beds and the surgeons'
+bicycles. In the adjoining preparation room there were, besides
+the writing-table and the stand with the students' white
+coats, a kind of folding table with oil-cloth cushions, an
+operating-table, a cupboard of provisions, and a trough-shaped
+perambulator. Klaus Heinrich paused at the provisions and
+asked for the recipes for the preparations to be explained to
+him. Doctor Sammet thought to himself that if the whole
+tour was going to be made with such attention to details,
+a terrible lot of time would be wasted.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a noise was heard in the street. An automobile
+drove up tooting and stopped in front of the building.
+Cheers were heard distinctly in the preparation room, for all
+that it was only children that were shouting. Klaus Heinrich
+did not pay any particular attention to the incident. He was
+looking at a box of sugar of milk, which, by the way, had
+nothing striking about it. &ldquo;A visitor apparently,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;Oh, of course, you said somebody was coming. Let's go on.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The party proceeded to the kitchen, the milk-kitchen, the
+big boiler-fitted room for the preparing of milk, the place
+where full milk, boiled milk, and buttermilk were kept. The
+daily rations were set on clean white tables in little bottles
+side by side. The place smelt sourish and sickly.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich gave his undivided attention to this room
+also. He went so far as to taste the buttermilk, and pronounced
+it excellent. How the children must thrive, he considered,
+on buttermilk like that. During this inspection the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_194" title="194"> </a>
+door opened and Miss Spoelmann entered between the sister
+and Countess Löwenjoul, followed by the three nurses.</p>
+
+<p>The coat, toque, and muff which she was wearing to-day
+were made of the costliest sable, and her muff was suspended
+on a golden chain set with coloured stones. Her black hair
+showed a tendency to fall in smooth locks over her forehead.
+She took in the room at a glance; her eyes were really almost
+unbecomingly big for her little face, they dominated it like
+a cat's, save that they were black as anthracite and spoke a
+pleading language of their own&hellip;. Countess Löwenjoul,
+with a feather hat and dressed neatly and not without distinction,
+as usual, smiled in a detached sort of way.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The milk-kitchen,&rdquo; said the sister; &ldquo;this is where the milk
+is cooked for the children.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;So one would have supposed,&rdquo; answered Miss Spoelmann.
+She said it quickly and lightly, with a pout of her lips and a
+little haughty wag of her head. Her voice was a double one;
+it consisted of a lower and a higher register, with a break in
+the middle.</p>
+
+<p>The sister was quite disconcerted. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;it's
+obvious.&rdquo; And a little pained look of bewilderment was
+visible in her face.</p>
+
+<p>The position was a complicated one. Doctor Sammet looked
+in Klaus Heinrich's face for orders, but as Klaus Heinrich
+was accustomed to do what was put before him according to
+prescribed forms, but not to grapple with novel and complex
+situations, no solution of the difficulty was forthcoming.
+Herr von Braunbart was on the point of intervening, and Miss
+Spoelmann on the other side was making ready to leave the
+milk-kitchen, when the Prince made a gesture with his right
+hand which established a connexion between himself and the
+young girl. This was the signal for Doctor Sammet to advance
+towards Imma Spoelmann.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Doctor Sammet. Yes.&rdquo; He desired the honour of presenting
+Miss Spoelmann to his Royal Highness&hellip;. &ldquo;Miss
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_195" title="195"> </a>
+Spoelmann, Royal Highness, the daughter of Mr. Spoelmann
+to whom this hospital is so much indebted.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich clapped his heels together and held out his
+hand in its white gauntlet, and, laying her small brown-gloved
+hand in it, she gave him a horizontal hand-shake, English
+fashion, at the same time making a sort of shy curtsey, without
+taking her big eyes off Klaus Heinrich's face. He could
+think of nothing more original to say than: &ldquo;So you too
+are paying a visit to the hospital, Miss Spoelmann?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And she answered as quickly as before, with a pout and
+the little haughty wag of her head. &ldquo;Nobody can deny that
+everything points in that direction.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Herr Braunbart involuntarily raised his hand, Doctor Sammet
+looked down at his watch-chain in silence, and a short
+snigger escaped through the nose of one of the young surgeons,
+which was hardly opportune. The little pained look
+of bewilderment now showed on Klaus Heinrich's face. He
+said: &ldquo;Of course&hellip;. As you are here&hellip;. So I shall be
+able to visit the institution in your company, Miss Spoelmann&hellip;.
+Captain von Braunbart, my aide-de-camp&nbsp;&hellip;&rdquo; he added
+quickly, recognizing that his remark laid him open to a
+similar answer to the last. She responded by: &ldquo;Countess
+Löwenjoul.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Countess made a dignified bow&mdash;with an enigmatic
+smile, a side glance into the unknown, which had something
+seductive about it. When, however, she let her strangely
+evasive gaze again dwell on Klaus Heinrich, who stood before
+her in a composed and military attitude, the laugh vanished
+from her face, an expression of sadness settled on her features,
+and for a second a look of something like hatred for Klaus
+Heinrich shone in her slightly swollen grey eyes. It was only
+a passing look. Klaus Heinrich had no time to notice it,
+and forgot it immediately. The two young surgeons were
+presented to Imma Spoelmann, and then Klaus Heinrich suggested
+that they should continue the tour all together.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_196" title="196"> </a>They went upstairs to the first story; Klaus Heinrich and
+Imma Spoelmann in front, conducted by Doctor Sammet, then
+Countess Löwenjoul with Herr von Braunbart, and the young
+surgeons in the rear. Yes, the older children were here, up
+to fourteen years of age. An ante-room with wash-basins
+divided the girls' and the boys' rooms. In white bedsteads,
+with a name-plate at the head and a frame at the foot enclosing
+the <ins title="temperature-and">temperature- and</ins> weight-charts&mdash;tended by nurses in
+white caps, and surrounded by cleanliness and tidiness&mdash;lay
+the sick children, and coughs filled the room while Klaus
+Heinrich and Imma Spoelmann walked down between the rows.</p>
+
+<p>He walked at her left hand, out of courtesy, with the same
+smile as when he visited exhibitions or inspected veterans,
+gymnastic associations, or guards of honour. But every time
+he turned his head to the right he found that Imma Spoelmann
+was watching him&mdash;he met her great black eyes, which
+were directed at him in a searching, questioning way. It was
+so peculiar, he never remembered experiencing anything so
+peculiar before, her way of looking at him with her great eyes,
+without any respect for him or anyone else, absolutely unembarrassed
+and free, quite unconcerned whether anybody noticed
+it or not.</p>
+
+<p>When Doctor Sammet stopped at a bed to describe the
+case&mdash;the little girl's, for instance, whose broken white-bandaged
+leg stuck straight out along the bed&mdash;Miss Spoelmann
+listened attentively to him, that was quite clear; but
+while she listened she did not look at the speaker, but her
+eyes rested in turn on Klaus Heinrich and the pinched, quiet
+child who, her hands folded on her breast, gazed up at them
+from her back-rest&mdash;rested in turn on the Prince and the little
+victim, the history of whose case she shared with the Prince, as
+if she were watching Klaus Heinrich's sympathy, or were
+trying to read in his face the effect of Dr. Sammet's words;
+or maybe for some other reason.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, this was especially noticeable in the case of the boy
+with the bullet through his arm and the boy who had been
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_197" title="197"> </a>
+picked out of the water&mdash;two sad cases, as Dr. Sammet remarked.
+&ldquo;A severed artery, sister,&rdquo; he said, and showed them
+the double wound in the boy's upper arm, the entry and exit
+of the revolver bullet. &ldquo;The wound,&rdquo; said Doctor Sammet
+in an undertone to his guests, turning his back to the bed,
+&ldquo;the wound was caused by his own father. This one was the
+lucky one. The man shot his wife, three of his children, and
+himself with a revolver. He made a bad shot at this boy.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich looked at the double wound. &ldquo;What did
+the man do it for?&rdquo; he asked hesitatingly, and Doctor Sammet
+answered: &ldquo;In desperation, Royal Highness. It was shame
+and want which brought him to it. Yes.&rdquo; He said no more,
+just this commonplace&mdash;just as in the case of the boy, a
+ten-year-old, who had been picked out of the water. &ldquo;He's
+wheezing,&rdquo; said Doctor Sammet, &ldquo;he's still got some water in
+his lung. He was picked out of the river early this morning&mdash;yes.
+I may say that it is improbable that he <em>fell</em> into the
+water. There are many indications to the contrary. He had
+run away from home. Yes.&rdquo; He stopped.</p>
+
+<p>And Klaus Heinrich again felt Miss Spoelmann looking
+at him with her big, black, serious eyes&mdash;with her glance
+which sought his own and seemed to challenge him insistently
+to ponder with her the &ldquo;sad cases,&rdquo; to grasp the essential
+meaning of Doctor Sammet's remarks, to penetrate to the
+hideous truths which were incorporated and crystallized in
+these two little invalid frames&hellip;. A little girl wept bitterly
+when the steaming and hissing inhaler, together with a scrapbook
+full of brightly coloured pictures, was planted at her
+bedside.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Spoelmann bent over the little one. &ldquo;It doesn't hurt,&rdquo;
+she said, &ldquo;not a tiny bit. Don't cry.&rdquo; And as she straightened
+herself again she added quickly, pursing up her lips, &ldquo;I guess
+it's not so much the apparatus as the pictures she's crying
+at.&rdquo; Everybody laughed. One of the young assistants picked
+up the scrapbook and laughed still louder when he looked at
+the pictures. The party passed on into the laboratory. Klaus
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_198" title="198"> </a>
+Heinrich thought, as he went, how dry Miss Spoelmann's
+humour was. &ldquo;I guess,&rdquo; she had said, and &ldquo;not so much.&rdquo;
+She had seemed to find amusement not only in the pictures,
+but also in the neat and incisive mode of expression she had
+used. And that was indeed the very refinement of humour&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>The laboratory was the biggest room in the building.
+Glasses, retorts, funnels, and chemicals stood on the tables,
+as well as specimens in spirits which Doctor Sammet explained
+to his guests in few quiet words. A child had choked in a
+mysterious way: here was his larynx with mushroom-like
+growths instead of the vocal chords. Yes. This, here in the
+glass, was a case of pernicious enlargement of the kidney in a
+child, and there were dislocated joints. Klaus Heinrich and
+Miss Spoelmann looked at everything, they looked together
+into the bottles which Doctor Sammet held up to the window,
+and their eyes looked thoughtful while the same look of repulsion
+hovered round their mouths.</p>
+
+<p>They took turns too at the microscope, examined, with one
+eye placed to the lens, a malignant secretion, a piece of blue-stained
+tissue stuck on a slide, with tiny spots showing near
+the big patch. The spots were bacilli. Klaus Heinrich
+wanted Miss Spoelmann to take the first turn at the microscope,
+but she declined, knitting her brows and pouting, as
+much as to say: &ldquo;On no account whatever.&rdquo; So he took the
+precedence, for it seemed to him that it really did not matter
+who got the first look at such serious and fearful things as
+bacilli. And after this they were conducted up to the second
+story, to the infants.</p>
+
+<p>They both laughed at the chorus of squalls which reached
+their ears while they were still on the stairs. And then they
+went with their party through the ward between the beds, bent,
+side by side over the bald-headed little creatures, sleeping with
+closed fists or screaming with all their might and showing their
+naked gums&mdash;they stopped their ears and laughed again. In
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_199" title="199"> </a>
+a kind of oven, warmed to a moderate heat lay a new-born baby.</p>
+
+<p>And Doctor Sammet showed his distinguished guests a
+pauper baby with the grey look of a corpse and hideous big
+hands, the sign of a miscarriage&hellip;. He lifted a squealing
+baby out of its cot, and it at once stopped screaming. With
+the touch of an expert he rested the limp head in the hollow
+of his hand and showed the little red creature blinking and
+twitching spasmodically to the two&mdash;Klaus Heinrich and Miss
+Spoelmann, who stood side by side and looked down at the
+infant. Klaus Heinrich stood watching with his heels together
+as Doctor Sammet laid the baby back in its cot, and when he
+turned round he met Miss Spoelmann's searching gaze, as
+he had expected.</p>
+
+<p>Finally they walked to one of the three windows of the
+ward and looked out over the squalid suburb, down into the
+street where, surrounded by children, the brown Court carriage
+and Imma's smart dark-red motor car stood one behind
+the other. The Spoelmanns' chauffeur, shapeless in his fur
+coat, was leaning back in his seat with one hand on the
+steering-wheel of the powerful car, and watched his companion,
+the footman in white, trying to start a conversation, by the
+carriage in front, with Klaus Heinrich's coachman.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Our neighbours,&rdquo; said Doctor Sammet, holding back the
+white net curtain with one hand, &ldquo;are the parents of our
+patients. Late in the evening the tipsy fathers roll shouting
+by. Yes.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They stood and listened, but Doctor Sammet said nothing
+further about the fathers and so they broke off, as they had
+now seen everything.</p>
+
+<p>The procession, with Klaus Heinrich and Imma at the head,
+proceeded down the staircase and found the nurses again
+assembled in the front hall. Leave was taken with compliments
+and clapping together of heels, curtseys, and bows.
+Klaus Heinrich, standing stiffly in front of Doctor Sammet,
+who listened to him with his head on one side and his hand
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_200" title="200"> </a>
+on his watch-chain, expressed himself, in his wonted form of
+words, highly satisfied with what he had seen, while he felt
+that Imma Spoelmann's great eyes were resting upon him.
+He, with Herr von Braunbart, accompanied Miss Spoelmann to
+her car when the leave-taking from the surgeons and nurses
+was over. Klaus Heinrich and Miss Spoelmann, while they
+crossed the pavement between children and women with
+children in their arms, and for a short time by the broad step
+of the motor car, exchanged the following remarks:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It has been a great pleasure to meet you,&rdquo; he said.</p>
+
+<p>She answered nothing to this, but pouted and wagged her
+head a little from side to side.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It was an absorbing inspection,&rdquo; he went on. &ldquo;A regular
+eye-opener.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him with her big black eyes, then said quickly
+and lightly in her broken voice: &ldquo;Yes, to a certain
+extent&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He ventured on the question: &ldquo;I hope you are pleased
+with Schloss Delphinenort?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>To which she answered with a pout: &ldquo;Oh, why not? It's
+quite a convenient house&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you like being there better than at New York?&rdquo; he
+asked. And she answered:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Just as much. It's much the same. Much the same everywhere.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>That was all. Klaus Heinrich, and one pace behind him
+Herr von Braunbart, stood with their hands to their helmets
+as the chauffeur slipped his gear in and the motor car shivered
+and started.</p>
+
+<p>It may be imagined that this meeting did not long remain
+the private property of the Dorothea Hospital; on the contrary,
+it was the general topic of conversation before the
+day was out. The <i>Courier</i> published, under a sentimental
+poetical heading, a detailed description of the rencontre, which,
+without too violent a departure from the exact truth, yet
+succeeded in making such a powerful impression on the public
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_201" title="201"> </a>
+mind, and evoked symptoms of such lively interest, that the
+vigilant newspaper was induced to keep a watchful eye for
+the future on any further rapprochements between the Spoelmann
+and Grimmburg houses. It could not report much.</p>
+
+<p>It remarked a couple of times that his Royal Highness
+Prince Klaus Heinrich, when walking through the promenade
+after a performance at the Court Theatre, had stopped for a
+moment at the Spoelmanns' box to greet the ladies. And in
+its report of the fancy-dress charity bazaar, which took place
+in the middle of January in the Town Hall&mdash;a smart function,
+in which Miss Spoelmann, at the urgent request of the Committee,
+acted as seller&mdash;no small space was devoted to describing
+how Prince Klaus Heinrich, when the Court was making
+a round of the bazaar, had stopped before Miss Spoelmann's
+stall, how he had bought a piece or two of fancy
+glass (for Miss Spoelmann was selling porcelain and glass),
+and had lingered a good eight or ten minutes at her stall.
+It said nothing about the topic of the conversation. And yet
+it had not been without importance.</p>
+
+<p>The Court (with the exception of Albrecht) had appeared
+in the Town Hall about noon. When Klaus Heinrich, with
+his newly bought pieces of glass in tissue paper on his knee,
+drove back to the &ldquo;Hermitage,&rdquo; he had announced his intention
+of visiting Delphinenort and inspecting the Schloss in
+its renovated state, on the same occasion viewing Mr. Spoelmann's
+collection of glass. For three or four old pieces of
+glass had been included in Miss Spoelmann's stock which her
+father himself had given to the bazaar out of his collection,
+and one of them Klaus Heinrich had bought.</p>
+
+<p>He saw himself again in a semicircle of people, stared at,
+alone, in front of Miss Spoelmann, and separated from her
+by the stall-counter, with its vases, jugs, its white and coloured
+groups of porcelain. He saw her in her red fancy dress,
+which, made in one piece, clung close to her neat though
+childish figure, while it exposed dark shoulders and arms,
+which were round and firm and yet like those of a child
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_202" title="202"> </a>
+just by the wrist. He saw the gold ornament, half garland
+and half diadem, in the jet of her billowy hair, that showed
+a tendency to fall in smooth wisps on her forehead, her big,
+black, inquiring eyes in the pearly-white face, her full and
+tender mouth, pouting with habitual scorn when she spoke&mdash;and
+round about her in the great vaulted hall had been the
+scent of firs and a babel of noise, music, the clash of gongs,
+laughter, and the cries of sellers.</p>
+
+<p>He had admired the piece of glass, the fine old beaker
+with its ornament of silver foliage, which she proffered to
+him, and she had said that it came from her father's collection.
+&ldquo;Has your father, then, got many fine pieces like this?&rdquo;&mdash;Of
+course. And presumably her father had not given the
+best items to the bazaar. She could guarantee that he had
+much finer pieces of glass. Klaus Heinrich would very
+much like to see them! Well, that might easily be managed,
+Miss Spoelmann had answered in her broken voice, while she
+pouted and wagged her head slightly from side to side. Her
+father, she meant, would certainly have no objection to showing
+the fruits of his zeal as a collector to one more of a long
+succession of intelligent visitors. The Spoelmanns were
+always at home at tea-time.</p>
+
+<p>She had gone straight to the point, taking the hint for
+a definite offer, and speaking in an entirely off-hand way.
+In conclusion, to Klaus Heinrich's question, what day would
+suit best, she had answered: &ldquo;Whichever you like, Prince, we
+shall be inexpressibly delighted.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We shall be inexpressibly delighted&rdquo;&mdash;those were her
+words, so mocking and pointed in the exaggeration that they
+almost hurt, and were difficult to listen to without wincing.
+How she had rattled and hurt the poor sister in the Hospital
+the other day! But all through there was something childish
+in her manner of speech; indeed, some sounds she made were
+just like those children make&mdash;not only on the occasion when
+she was comforting the little girl about the inhaler. And
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_203" title="203"> </a>
+how large her eyes had seemed when they told her about the
+children's fathers and the rest of the sad story!</p>
+
+<p>Next day Klaus Heinrich went to tea at Schloss Delphinenort,
+the very next. Miss Spoelmann had said he might come
+when it suited him. But it suited him the very next day, and
+as the matter seemed to him urgent, he saw no point in putting
+it off.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly before five o'clock&mdash;it was already dark&mdash;he drove
+over the smooth roads of the Town Garden&mdash;bare and empty,
+for this part of it belonged to Mr. Spoelmann. Arc-lamps lit
+up the park, the big square spa-basin shimmered between the
+trees; behind it rose the white Schloss with its pillared porch,
+its spacious double staircase which led by gentle degrees
+between the wings up to the first floor, its high leaded windows,
+its Roman busts in the niches&mdash;and Klaus Heinrich, as
+he drove along the approach avenue of mighty chestnuts, saw
+the red-plush negro with his staff standing on guard at the
+foot of the staircase.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich crossed a brightly lighted stone hall, with
+a floor of gilt mosaic and with white statues of gods round it,
+passed straight over to the broad red-carpeted marble staircase,
+down which the Spoelmanns' major-domo, clean shaven,
+with shoulders squared and arms stiff, pot-bellied and haughty,
+advanced to receive the guest. He escorted him up into the
+tapestried and marble-chimneyed ante-room, where a couple
+of white-and-gold swan's-down footmen took the Prince's cap
+and cloak, while the steward went in person to announce him
+to his master&hellip;. The footman held aside one of the tapestries
+for Klaus Heinrich, who descended two or three steps.</p>
+
+<p>The scent of flowers met him, and he heard the soft splash
+of falling water; but just as the tapestry closed behind him,
+so wild and harsh a barking was heard that Klaus Heinrich,
+half deafened for a moment, stopped at the foot of the steps.
+Percival, the collie, had dashed at him in a fury. He pranced,
+he capered in uncontrollable passion, he pirouetted, beat his
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_204" title="204"> </a>
+sides with his tail, planted his forefeet on the floor, and
+turned wildly round and round, and seemed like to burst with
+noise. A voice&mdash;not Imma's&mdash;called him off, and Klaus Heinrich
+found himself in a winter garden, a glass conservatory
+with white marble columns and a floor of big square marble
+flags. Palms of all kinds filled it, whose trunks and tops
+often reached close up to the glass ceiling. A flower-bed,
+consisting of countless pots arranged like the stones of a
+mosaic, lay in the strong moonlight of the arc-lamp and
+filled the air with its scent. Out of a beautifully carved
+fountain, silver streams flowed into a marble pool, and ducks
+with strange and fantastic plumage swam about on the illuminated
+water. The background was filled by a stone walk
+with columns and niches.</p>
+
+<p>It was Countess Löwenjoul who advanced towards the guest,
+and curtseyed with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Your Royal Highness will not mind,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;our Percy
+is so uproarious. Besides, he's so unaccustomed to visitors.
+But he never touches anybody. Your Royal Highness must
+excuse Miss Spoelmann&hellip;. She'll be back soon. She was
+here just now. She was called away, her father sent for her.
+Mr. Spoelmann will be delighted&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And she conducted Klaus Heinrich to an arrangement of
+basket chairs with embroidered linen cushions which stood
+in front of a group of palms. She spoke in a brisk and
+emphatic tone, with her little head with its thin iron-grey
+hair bent on one side and her white teeth showing as she
+laughed. Her figure was distinctly graceful in the close-fitting
+brown dress she was wearing, and she moved as
+freshly and elegantly as an officer's wife. Only in her eyes,
+whose lids she kept blinking, there was something of mistrust
+or spite, something unintelligible. They sat down facing
+each other at the round garden-table, on which lay a
+few books. Percival, exhausted by his outburst, curled himself
+up on the narrow pearl-grey carpet on which the furniture
+stood. His black coat was like silk, with white paws,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_205" title="205"> </a>
+chest, and muzzle. He had a white collar, yellow eyes, and a
+parting along his back. Klaus Heinrich began a conversation
+for conversation's sake, a formal dialogue about nothing in
+particular, which was all he could do.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I hope, Countess, that I have not come at an inconvenient
+time. Luckily I need not feel myself an unauthorized intruder.
+I do not know whether Miss Spoelmann has told
+you&hellip;. She was so kind as to suggest my calling. It was
+about those lovely pieces of glass which Mr. Spoelmann so
+generously gave to yesterday's bazaar. Miss Spoelmann
+thought that her father would have no objection to letting
+me see the rest of his collection. That's why I'm here&nbsp;&hellip;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Countess ignored the question whether Imma had told
+her of the arrangement. She said: &ldquo;This is tea-time, Royal
+Highness. Of course your visit is not inconvenient. Even
+if, as I hope will not be the case, Mr. Spoelmann were too
+unwell to appear&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, is he ill?&rdquo; In reality Klaus Heinrich wished just a
+little that Mr. Spoelmann might be too unwell. He anticipated
+his meeting with him with vague anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He was feeling ill to-day, Royal Highness. He had a
+touch of fever, shivering, and a little faintness. Dr. Watercloose
+was with him for a long time this morning. He was
+given an injection of morphia. There's some question of an
+operation being necessary.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am very sorry,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich quite honestly. &ldquo;An
+operation? How dreadful!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>To which the Countess answered, letting her eyes wander:
+&ldquo;Oh yes. But there are worse things in life&mdash;many much
+worse things than that.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Undoubtedly,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich. &ldquo;I can quite believe
+it.&rdquo; He felt his imagination stirred in a vague and general way
+by the Countess's allusion.</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him with her head inclined to one side, and
+an expression of contempt on her face. Then her slightly
+distended grey eyes shifted, while she smiled the mysterious
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_206" title="206"> </a>
+smile which Klaus Heinrich already knew and which had
+something seductive about it.</p>
+
+<p>He felt it was necessary to resume the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Have you lived long with the Spoelmanns, Countess?&rdquo; he
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A fairly long time,&rdquo; she answered, and appeared to calculate.
+&ldquo;Fairly long. I have lived through so much, have
+had so many experiences, that I naturally cannot reckon to
+a day. But it was shortly after the blessing&mdash;soon after the
+blessing was vouchsafed to me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The blessing?&rdquo; asked Klaus Heinrich.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; she said decidedly with some agitation. &ldquo;For
+the blessing happened to me when the number of my experiences
+had become too great, and the bow had reached
+breaking point, to use a metaphor. You are so young,&rdquo; she
+continued, forgetting to address him by his title, &ldquo;so ignorant
+of all that makes the world so miserable and so depraved,
+that you can form no conception of what I have had to suffer.
+I brought an action in America which involved the appearance
+of several generals. Things came to light which were more
+than my temper could stand. I had to clear out several barracks
+without succeeding in bringing to light every loose
+woman. They hid themselves in the cupboards, some even
+under the floors, and that's why they continue torturing me
+beyond measure at nights. I should at once go back to my
+Schloss in Burgundy if the rain did not come through the
+roofs. The Spoelmanns knew that, and that is why it was so
+obliging of them to let me live with them indefinitely, my
+only duty being to put the innocent Imma on her guard against
+the world. Only of course my health suffers from my having
+the women sitting at nights on my chest and forcing me to
+look at their disgusting faces. And that is why I ask you
+to call me simply Frau Meier,&rdquo; she said in a whisper, leaning
+forward and touching Klaus Heinrich's arm with her hand.
+&ldquo;The walls have ears, and it is absolutely necessary for me
+to keep up the incognito I was forced to assume in order to
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_207" title="207"> </a>
+protect myself against the persecution of the odious creatures.
+You will do what I ask, will you not? Look on it as a joke
+&hellip; a fad which hurts nobody&hellip;. Why not?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She stopped.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich sat upright and braced up in his wicker
+chair opposite her and looked at her. Before leaving his
+rectilineal room, he had dressed himself with his valet Neumann's
+help with all possible care, as his life in the public
+eye required. His parting ran from over his left eye, straight
+up to the crown of his head, without a hair sticking up, and
+his hair was brushed up into a crest off the right side of his
+forehead. There he sat in his undress uniform, whose high
+collar and close fit helped him to maintain a composed attitude,
+the silver epaulettes of a major on his narrow shoulders, leaning
+slightly but not comfortably forward, collected, calm, with
+one foot slightly advanced, and with his right hand above his
+left on his sword-hilt. His young face looked slightly weary
+from the unreality, the loneliness, strictness, and difficulty of
+his life; he sat looking at the Countess with a friendly, clear,
+but composed expression in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>She stopped. Disenchantment and disgust showed themselves
+in her features, and, while something like hate towards
+Klaus Heinrich flamed up in her tired grey eyes, she blushed
+in the strangest of ways, for one half of her face turned red,
+the other white. Dropping her eyelids she answered: &ldquo;I
+have been living with the Spoelmanns for three years, Royal
+Highness.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Percival darted forward. Dancing, springing, and wagging
+his tail he trotted towards his mistress&mdash;for Imma Spoelmann
+had come in&mdash;raised himself in a dignified way on his hind
+legs and laid his fore paws in greeting on her breast. His
+jaws were wide open, and his red tongue hung out between his
+ivory-white teeth. He looked like a heraldic supporter as he
+stood there before her.</p>
+
+<p>She wore a wonderful dress of brick-red silk with loose
+hanging sleeves, and the breast covered with heavy gold embroidery.
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_208" title="208"> </a>
+A big egg-shaped jewel on a pearl necklace lay
+on her bare neck, the skin of which was the colour of smoked
+meerschaum. Her blue-black hair was parted on one side
+and coiled, though a few smooth wisps tended to fall on her
+forehead. Holding Percival's head in her two narrow, ringless
+little hands, she looked into his face, saying, &ldquo;Well, well,
+my friend. What a welcome! We are glad to see each other&mdash;we
+hated being parted, didn't we? Now go back and lie
+down.&rdquo; And she put his paws off the gold embroidery on
+her breast, and set him on his four paws again.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Prince,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Welcome to Delphinenort. You
+hate breaking your promise, I can see. I'm coming to sit
+next you. They'll tell us when tea is ready&hellip;. It's against
+all the rules, I know, for me to have kept you waiting.
+But my father sent for me&mdash;and besides you had somebody
+to entertain you.&rdquo; Her bright eyes passed from Klaus Heinrich
+to the Countess and back in a rather hesitating way.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's quite true,&rdquo; he said. And then he asked how Mr.
+Spoelmann was, and received a fairly reassuring answer. Mr.
+Spoelmann would have the pleasure of making Klaus Heinrich's
+acquaintance at tea-time, he begged to be excused till
+then&hellip;. What a lovely pair of horses Klaus Heinrich had
+in his brougham! And then they talked about their horses,
+about Klaus Heinrich's good-tempered brown Florian from
+the Hollerbrunn stud, about Miss Spoelmann's Arabian cream,
+the mare Fatma which had been given to Mr. Spoelmann by
+an oriental prince, about her fast Hungarian chestnuts, which
+she drove four-in-hand.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you know the country round?&rdquo; asked Klaus Heinrich.
+&ldquo;Have you hunted with the Royal pack? Have you been to
+the &lsquo;Pheasantry&rsquo;? There are lots of lovely excursions.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>No, Miss Spoelmann was not at all clever in finding out
+new roads, and the Countess&mdash;well, her whole nature was
+unenterprising, so they always chose the same road, in the
+Town Gardens, for their ride. It was boring, perhaps, but
+Miss Spoelmann was not on the whole so blasé as to need
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_209" title="209"> </a>
+constant change and adventures. Then he said that they must
+go together some time to a meet of the hounds or to the
+&ldquo;Pheasantry,&rdquo; whereupon she pursed her lips and said that
+that was an idea which might be discussed some time in the
+future. Then the major-domo came in and gravely announced
+that tea was ready.</p>
+
+<p>They went through the tapestry hall with the marble fireplace,
+conducted by the strutting butler, accompanied by the
+dancing Percy, and followed by Countess Löwenjoul.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Has the Countess been letting her tongue run away with
+her?&rdquo; asked Imma <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">en route</i>, without any particular lowering
+of her voice.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich started and looked at the floor. &ldquo;But she
+can hear us!&rdquo; he said softly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, she doesn't hear us,&rdquo; answered Imma. &ldquo;I can read
+her face. When she holds her head crooked like that and
+blinks her eyes it means that she is wandering and deep in
+her thoughts. Did she let her tongue run away with her?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For a minute or two,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich. &ldquo;I got the
+impression that the Countess &lsquo;let herself go&rsquo; every now and
+then.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She has had a lot of trouble.&rdquo; And Imma looked at
+him with the same big searching dark eyes with which she
+had scanned him in the Dorothea Hospital. &ldquo;I'll tell you
+all about it another time. It's a long story.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Some other time. Next time. On our
+ride perhaps.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;On our ride?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, on our ride to the meet, or to the &lsquo;Pheasantry.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I forgot your preciseness, Prince, in the matter of
+appointments. Very well, on our ride. We go down here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They found themselves at the back of the Schloss. Carpeted
+steps led from a gallery hung with big pictures, down
+into the white-and-gold garden room, behind the glass door
+of which lay the terrace. Everything&mdash;the big crystal lustres,
+which hung from the centre of the high, white-festooned
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_210" title="210"> </a>
+ceiling, the regularly arranged arm-chairs with gilt frames
+and fancy upholstering, the heavy white silk curtains, the
+elaborate clock and the vases and gilt lamps on the white
+marble chimneypiece in front of the tall looking-glass, the
+massive, lion-footed gilt candelabra which towered on either
+side of the entrance&mdash;everything reminded Klaus Heinrich of
+the Old Schloss, of the Representation Chamber, in which he
+had played his part from his youth up; only that the candles
+here were shams, with yellow electric bulbs instead of wicks,
+and that everything of the Spoelmanns' was new and smart
+in Schloss Delphinenort. A swan's-down footman was putting
+the last touch to the tea-table in a corner of the room; Klaus
+Heinrich noticed the electric kettle about which he had read in
+the <i>Courier</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Has Mr. Spoelmann been told?&rdquo; asked the daughter of
+the house&hellip;. The butler bowed. &ldquo;Then there's nothing,&rdquo;
+she said quickly and half mockingly, &ldquo;to prevent us from
+taking our places and beginning without him. Come, Countess!
+I advise you, Prince, to unbuckle your sword, unless
+there are reasons unknown to me for your not doing so&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Thanks,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich, &ldquo;no, there is no reason why
+I shouldn't.&rdquo; And he was angry with himself for not being
+smart enough to think of a more adroit answer.</p>
+
+<p>The footman took his sword, and carried it off. They took
+their seats at the tea-table with the help of the butler, who
+held the backs and pushed the chairs under them. Then he
+retired to the top of the steps, where he remained in an elegant
+attitude.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I must tell you, Prince,&rdquo; said Miss Spoelmann, pouring the
+water into the pot, &ldquo;that my father won't drink any tea which
+I have not made with my own hands. He distrusts all tea
+which is handed round ready-made in cups. That is barred
+with us. You'll have to put up with it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I like it much better like this,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich,
+&ldquo;it's much more comfortable and free-and-easy at a family
+tea like this&hellip;.&rdquo; He broke off, and wondered why as he
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_211" title="211"> </a>
+spoke these words a side-glance of hatred lighted on him from
+the eyes of Countess Löwenjoul. &ldquo;And your course of study?&rdquo;
+he asked. &ldquo;May I ask about it? It's mathematics, I know.
+Don't you find it too much? Isn't it terribly brain-racking?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Absolutely not,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It's just splendid; it's like
+playing in the breezes, so to speak, or rather out of the
+breezes, in a dust-free atmosphere. It's as cool there as in
+the Adirondacks.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The what?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The Adirondacks. That's geography, Prince. Mountains
+over in the States, with lovely snowfields. We have a country
+cottage there, where we go in May. In summer we used to go
+to the sea-side.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;At any rate,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I can testify to your zeal in your
+studies. You do not like being prevented from arriving punctually
+at your lectures. I haven't yet asked you whether
+you reached that one the other day up to time.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The other day?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, a week or two ago. After the contretemps with the
+change of guard.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dear, dear, Prince, now you are beginning that too.
+That story seems to have reached from hut to palace. Had
+I known what a bother was going to come of it, I would
+rather have gone three times round the whole Schlossplatz.
+It even got into the newspapers, I'm told. And now of course
+the whole town thinks I am a regular fiend for temper and
+rudeness. But I am the most peaceful creature in the world,
+and only don't like being ordered about. Am I a fiend,
+Countess? I demand a truthful answer.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, you're an angel,&rdquo; said Countess Löwenjoul.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;H'm&mdash;angel, that's too much, that's too far the other way,
+Countess&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich, &ldquo;no, not too far. I entirely
+believe the Countess&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'm much honoured. But how did your Highness hear
+about the adventure? Through the newspapers?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_212" title="212"> </a>&ldquo;I was an eye-witness of it,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;An eye-witness?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes. I happened to be standing at the window of the
+officers' mess, and saw the whole thing from beginning to
+end.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Spoelmann blushed. There was no doubt about it,
+the pale skin of her face deepened in colour.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, Prince,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I assume that you had nothing
+better to do at the moment.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Better?&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;But it was a splendid sight. I give
+you my word that never in my life&nbsp;&hellip;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Percival, who was lying with his forepaws crossed, by
+Miss Spoelmann, raised his head with a look of tense expectancy
+and beat the carpet with his <ins title="tail,">tail.</ins> At the same moment
+the butler began to run, as fast as his ponderous frame would
+let him, down the steps to the lofty side-door over against the
+tea-table, and swiftly pulled aside the whole silk portière,
+sticking his double chin the while into the air with a majestic
+expression. Samuel Spoelmann, the millionaire, walked in.</p>
+
+<p>He was a man of neat build with a strange face. He was
+clean shaven, with red cheeks and a prominent nose, his little
+eyes were of a metallic blue-black, like those of little children
+and animals, and had an absent and peevish look. The upper
+part of his head was bald, but behind and on his temples
+Mr. Spoelmann had a quantity of grey hair, dressed in a fashion
+not often seen among us. He wore it neither short nor
+long, but brushed up, sticking out, though cropped on the
+nape and round his ears. His mouth was small and finely
+chiselled. Dressed in a black frock-coat with a velvet waistcoat
+on which lay a long, thin, old-fashioned watch-chain, and
+soft slippers on his feet, he advanced quickly to the tea-table
+with a cross and pre-occupied expression on his face; but his
+face cleared up, it regained composure and tenderness when he
+caught sight of his daughter. Imma had gone to meet him.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Greeting, most excellent father,&rdquo; she said, and throwing
+her brown little arms, in their loose brick-coloured hanging
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_213" title="213"> </a>
+sleeves, round his neck, she kissed him on the bald spot which
+he offered her as he inclined his head.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of course you knew,&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;that Prince Klaus
+Heinrich was coming to tea with us to-day?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No; I'm delighted, delighted,&rdquo; said Mr. Spoelmann no
+less readily and in a grating voice. &ldquo;Please don't move!&rdquo;
+he said at once. And while he shook hands (Mr. Spoelmann's
+hand was thin and half-covered by his unstarched white cuff)
+with the Prince, who was standing modestly by the table, he
+nodded repeatedly to one side or the other. That was his
+way of greeting Klaus Heinrich. He was an alien, an invalid,
+and a man apart as regards wealth. He was forgiven and
+nothing further was expected of him&mdash;Klaus Heinrich recognized
+the fact, and took pains to recover his self-control.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You are at home here in a sense,&rdquo; added Mr. Spoelmann,
+cutting the conversation short, and a passing gleam of malice
+played round his clean-shaven mouth. Then he gave the
+others an example by sitting down. It was the chair between
+Imma and Klaus Heinrich, opposite the Countess and the
+veranda door, which the butler pushed under him.</p>
+
+<p>As Mr. Spoelmann showed no intention of apologizing
+for his unpunctuality, Klaus Heinrich said: &ldquo;I am sorry
+to hear that you are unwell this morning, Mr. Spoelmann. I
+hope you are better.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Thanks, better, not but all right,&rdquo; answered Mr. Spoelmann
+crossly. &ldquo;How many spoonfuls did you put in?&rdquo; he asked
+his daughter. He was alluding to the tea.</p>
+
+<p>She had filled his cup, and she handed it to him.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Four,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;One for each person. Nobody shall
+say that I stint my grey-haired father.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What's that?&rdquo; answered Mr. Spoelmann. &ldquo;I'm not grey-haired.
+You ought to have your tongue clipped.&rdquo; And he
+took from a silver box a kind of rusk which seemed to be his
+own special dainty, broke it and dipped it peevishly in the
+golden tea, which he, like his daughter, drank without milk
+or sugar.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_214" title="214"> </a>Klaus Heinrich began over again: &ldquo;I am much excited
+at the prospect of seeing your collection, Mr. Spoelmann.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; answered Mr. Spoelmann. &ldquo;So you want to
+see my glass? Are you an amateur? A collector perhaps?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich, &ldquo;my love for glass has not extended
+to my becoming a collector.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No time?&rdquo; asked Mr. Spoelmann. &ldquo;Do your military
+duties take so much time?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich answered: &ldquo;I'm no longer on the active
+list, Mr. Spoelmann. I am <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">à la suite</i> of my regiment. I wear
+the uniform, that's all.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I see, make believe,&rdquo; said Mr. Spoelmann harshly. &ldquo;What
+do you do all day, then?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich had stopped drinking tea, had pushed his
+things away in the course of the conversation which demanded
+his undivided attention. He sat upright and defended himself,
+feeling the while that Imma Spoelmann's big, black, searching
+eyes were resting on him.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have duties at Court, with the ceremonies and big occasions.
+I have also to represent the State in a military capacity,
+at the swearing-in of recruits and the presentation of
+colours. Then I have to hold levées as deputy for my brother,
+the Grand Duke. And then there are little journeys on duty
+to the provincial centres for unveilings and dedications and
+other public solemnities.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I see,&rdquo; said Mr. Spoelmann. &ldquo;Ceremonies, solemnities,
+food for spectators. No, that sort of thing's beyond me. I
+tell you once for all, that I wouldn't give a farthing for your
+calling. That's my standpoint, sir.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I entirely understand,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich. He sat up
+stiffly in his uniform and smiled uneasily.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of course it needs practice like everything else,&rdquo; Mr. Spoelmann
+went on in a little less bitter tone of voice&mdash;&ldquo;practice
+and training, I can see. For myself I shall never as long as
+I live cease feeling angry when I am obliged to play the prodigy.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_215" title="215"> </a>&ldquo;I only hope,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich, &ldquo;that our people are
+not wanting in respect&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Thanks, not so bad,&rdquo; answered Mr. Spoelmann. &ldquo;The people
+are at least friendly here; one doesn't see murder written
+in their eyes.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I hope, Mr. Spoelmann,&rdquo; and Klaus Heinrich felt more
+at his ease, now that the conversation had turned, and the
+questioning lay with him, &ldquo;that, notwithstanding the unusual
+circumstances, you continue to enjoy your stay amongst us.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Thanks,&rdquo; said Mr. Spoelmann, &ldquo;I'm quite comfortable,
+and the water is the only thing which really does do me
+some good.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You did not find it a wrench to leave America?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich felt a look, a quick, suspicious, shy look,
+which he could not interpret.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Mr. Spoelmann, sharply and crossly. That was
+all his answer to the question whether he felt it a wrench
+to leave America.</p>
+
+<p>A pause ensued. Countess Löwenjoul held her smooth
+little head inclined to one side, and smiled a distant Madonna-like
+smile. Miss Spoelmann watched Klaus Heinrich fixedly
+with her big black eyes, as if testing the effect of her
+father's extraordinary boorishness on the guest,&mdash;indeed,
+Klaus Heinrich felt that she was waiting with resignation and
+sympathy for him to get up and take his departure for good
+and all. He met her eyes, and remained. Mr. Spoelmann,
+for his part, drew out a gold case and took out a fat
+cigarette, which, when lighted, diffused a delicious fragrance.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Smoke?&rdquo; he asked&hellip;. And as Klaus Heinrich found
+that there was no objection, he helped himself, after Mr.
+Spoelmann, out of the proffered case.</p>
+
+<p>They then discussed various topics before proceeding to
+an inspection of the glass&mdash;chiefly Klaus Heinrich and Miss
+Spoelmann, for the Countess's thoughts were wandering, and
+Mr. Spoelmann only interpolated a cross remark now and
+then: the local theatre, the huge ship in which the Spoelmanns
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_216" title="216"> </a>
+had crossed to Europe. No, they had not used their
+yacht for the purpose. Its primary object was to take Mr.
+Spoelmann to sea in the evening in the heat of summer,
+when he was tied to his business and Imma and the Countess
+were in Newport; he used to pass the night on deck. She was
+now lying at Venice. But they had crossed in a huge steamer,
+a floating hotel with concert rooms and gymnasia. &ldquo;She had
+five storeys,&rdquo; said Miss Spoelmann.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Counting from below?&rdquo; asked Klaus Heinrich. And she
+answered at once:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of course. Six, counting from above.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He got muddled and lost his bearings and it was a long
+time before he realized that she was making fun of him.
+Then he tried to explain himself and to make his simple
+question clear, explaining that he meant to ask whether she
+included the under-water holds, the cellars so to speak, in
+the five&mdash;in short, to prove that he was not lacking in common
+sense, and at last he joined heartily in the merriment
+which was the result of his efforts. As for the Court Theatre,
+Miss Spoelmann gave it as her opinion, with a pout and a wag
+of the head, that the actress who played the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ingénue</i> should
+be strongly recommended to go through the cure at Marienbad,
+coupled with a course of lessons in dancing and deportment,
+while the hero should be warned that a voice as resonant as
+his should be used most sparingly, even in private life&hellip;.
+All the same, Miss Spoelmann expressed her warm admiration
+for the theatre in question.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich laughed and wondered, a little oppressed
+by so much smartness. How well she spoke, how pointed
+and incisive were her words! They discussed the operas also
+and the plays which had been produced during the winter,
+and Imma Spoelmann contradicted Klaus Heinrich's judgments,
+contradicted him in every case, just as if she thought
+that not to contradict would show a mean spirit; the superior
+wit of her tongue left him dazed, and the great black eyes
+in her pearl-white face glittered from sheer joy in her dialectic
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_217" title="217"> </a>
+skill, while Mr. Spoelmann leaned back in his chair,
+holding the fat cigarette between his lips and blinking through
+its smoke, and gazed at his daughter with fond satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>More than once Klaus Heinrich showed in his face the look
+of pained bewilderment which he had noticed on a previous
+occasion on the face of the good sister, and yet he felt convinced
+that it was not Imma Spoelmann's intention to wound
+his feelings, that she did not consider him humbled because
+he was not successful in standing up to her, that she rather
+let his poor answers pass, as if she considered that he had
+no need of a sharp wit to defend him&mdash;it was only she who
+had. But how was that, and why? He thought involuntarily
+of Ueberbein at many of her sallies, of the nimble-tongued
+blusterer Ueberbein, who was a natural misfortune, and had
+grown up in conditions which he described as favourable. A
+youth of misery, loneliness, and misfortune, shut out from
+the blessings of fortune&mdash;such a man knew no luxury, no
+comfort, he saw himself clearly and cruelly thrown on his
+own resources, which assuredly gave him an advantage over
+those who &ldquo;knew not necessity.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But Imma Spoelmann sat there in her red-gold dress at
+the table, reclining indolently, with the mocking look of
+a spoiled child; there she sat in confident ease, while her
+tongue ran on sharply and freely, as befitted an atmosphere
+of refinement and lively wit. But why did she give it play?
+Klaus Heinrich pondered the question, the while they discussed
+Atlantic steamers and plays. He sat bolt upright at the table,
+in a dignified and uncomfortable attitude, while he concealed
+his left hand, and more than once he felt a sidelong glance of
+hatred from the eyes of Countess Löwenjoul.</p>
+
+<p>A servant came in and handed Mr. Spoelmann a telegram
+on a silver salver. Mr. Spoelmann tore it open crossly,
+glanced through it, blinking and with the remains of his
+cigarette in the corner of his mouth, and threw it back on
+the salver, with the curt order: &ldquo;Mr. Phlebs.&rdquo; Thereupon
+he lighted a new cigarette.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_218" title="218"> </a>Miss Spoelmann said: &ldquo;In spite of distinct medical orders,
+that's the fifth cigarette you've had to-day. Let me tell you
+that the unbridled passion with which you abandon yourself
+to the vice little beseems your grey hairs.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Spoelmann obviously tried to laugh, and as obviously
+failed; the acid tone of his daughter's words was not to his
+liking, and he flushed up.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Silence!&rdquo; he snarled. &ldquo;You think you can say anything
+in fun, but please spare me your saucy jokes, chatterbox!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich, appalled, looked at Imma, who turned her
+big eyes on her father's angry face, and then sadly dropped
+her head. Of course she had not meant any offence, she had
+simply amused herself with the strange, swelling words which
+she used to poke her fun; she had expected to raise a laugh,
+and had failed dismally.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Father, darling father!&rdquo; she said beseechingly, and crossed
+over to stroke Mr. Spoelmann's flushed cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Surely,&rdquo; he grumbled on, &ldquo;you've grown out of that sort
+of thing by now.&rdquo; But then he yielded to her blandishments,
+let her kiss the top of his head, and swallowed his
+anger. Klaus Heinrich, when peace was restored, alluded to
+the collection of glass, whereupon the party left the tea-table
+and went into the adjoining museum, with the exception of
+Countess Löwenjoul, who withdrew with a deep curtsey. Mr.
+Spoelmann himself switched on the electric light in the
+chandeliers.</p>
+
+<p>Handsome cabinets in the style of the whole Schloss, with
+swelling curves and rounded glass doors, alternated with rich
+silk chairs all round the room. In these cabinets Mr. Spoelmann's
+collection of glass was displayed. Yes, there could
+be no doubt that it was the most complete collection in either
+hemisphere, and the glass which Klaus Heinrich had acquired
+was merely a most modest sample of it. It began in
+one corner of the room with the earliest artistic productions
+of the industry, with finds of heathenish designs from the
+culture of the earliest times; then came the products of the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_219" title="219"> </a>
+East and West of every epoch; next, wreathed, flourished, and
+imposing vases and beakers from Venetian blow-pipes and
+costly pieces from Bohemian huts, German tankards, picturesque
+Guild and Electorate bowls, mixed with grotesque
+animals and comic figures, huge crystal cups, which reminded
+one of the Luck of Edenhall in the song, and in whose facets
+the light broke and sparkled; ruby-coloured glasses like the
+Holy Grail; and finally the best samples of the latest development
+of the art, fragile blossoms on impossibly brittle stems,
+and fancy glasses in the latest fashionable shape, made iridescent
+with the vapours of precious metals. The three, followed
+by Percival, who also examined the collection, walked slowly
+round the hall; and Mr. Spoelmann related in his harsh voice
+the origin of particular pieces, taking them carefully off their
+velvet stands with his thin, soft-cuffed hand, and holding
+them up to the electric light.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich had had plenty of practice in visits of inspection,
+in putting questions and making adroit remarks,
+so that he was well able at the same time to ponder over
+Imma Spoelmann's mode of expressing herself, that peculiar
+mode which worried him not a little. What amazing freedom
+she allowed herself! What extraordinary remarks she
+allowed herself to make! &ldquo;Passion,&rdquo; &ldquo;vice,&rdquo; where did she
+get the words from? where did she learn to use them so
+glibly? Had not Countess Löwenjoul, who herself dealt with
+the same topics in a confused sort of way, and had obviously
+seen the seamy side of life, described her as quite innocent!</p>
+
+<p>And the description was undoubtedly correct, for was she
+not an exception by birth like himself, brought up like a
+girl &ldquo;born to be queen,&rdquo; kept apart from the busy strife of
+men and from all the turmoil to which those sinister words
+corresponded in the life of reality? But she had uttered the
+words glibly, and had treated them as a joke. Yes, that was
+it, this dainty creature in her red-gold gown was merely a
+wielder of words; she knew no more of life than those words,
+she played with the most serious and most awful of them as
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_220" title="220"> </a>
+with coloured stones, and was puzzled when she made people
+angry by their use. Klaus Heinrich's heart, as he thought
+of this, filled with sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>It was nearly seven o'clock when he asked for his carriage
+to be called&mdash;slightly uneasy about his long stay, in
+view of the Court and the public. His departure evoked a
+fresh and terrifying demonstration on the part of Percival,
+the collie. Every alteration or interruption in a situation
+seemed to throw the noble animal off his moral balance.
+Quivering, yelping, and deaf to all blandishments, he stormed
+through the rooms and the hall and up and down the steps,
+drowning the words of leave-taking in his hubbub. The butler
+did the Prince the honours as far as the floor with the
+statues of gods. Mr. Spoelmann did not accompany him
+any distance. Miss Spoelmann made the position clear: &ldquo;I
+am convinced that your sojourn in the bosom of our family
+has charmed you, Prince.&rdquo; And he was left wondering
+whether the joke lay in the expression &ldquo;the bosom of our
+family&rdquo; or in the actual fact. Anyhow, Klaus Heinrich was
+at a loss for a reply.</p>
+
+<p>Leaning back in the corner of his brougham, rather sore
+and battered, and yet stimulated by the unusual treatment he
+had experienced, he drove home, through the dark Town
+Gardens to the Hermitage, returned to his sober Empire room,
+where he dined with von Schulenburg-Tressen and Braunbart-Schellendorf.
+Next day he read the comments of the <i>Courier</i>.
+They amounted only to a statement that yesterday his Royal
+Highness Prince Klaus Heinrich went to Schloss Delphinenort
+for tea, and inspected Mr. Spoelmann's renowned collection
+of fancy glass.</p>
+
+<p>And Klaus Heinrich continued to live his unreal life, and
+to carry out his exalted calling. He uttered his gracious
+speeches, made his gestures, represented his people at the
+Court and at the President of the Council's great ball, gave
+free audiences, lunched in the officers' mess of the Grenadier
+Guards, showed himself at the Court Theatre, and bestowed
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_221" title="221"> </a>
+on this and that district of the country the privilege of his
+presence. With a smile, and with heels together, he carried
+out all due formalities and did his irksome duty with complete
+self-possession, albeit he had at this time so much to
+think of&mdash;about the peppery Mr. Spoelmann, the muddle-headed
+Countess Löwenjoul, the harum-scarum Percy, and
+especially about Imma, the daughter of the house. Many a
+question to which his first visit to Delphinenort had given rise
+he was not yet in a position to answer, but only succeeded in
+solving as the result of further intercourse with the Spoelmanns,
+which he maintained to the eager and at last feverish
+interest of the public, and which advanced a step further
+when the Prince in the early morning one day, to the astonishment
+of his suite, his servants, and himself&mdash;indeed, partly
+involuntarily, and as if carried along by destiny&mdash;appeared
+alone and on horseback at Delphinenort, for the purpose of
+taking Miss Spoelmann, whom he disturbed in her mathematical
+studies at the top of the Schloss, for a ride.</p>
+
+<p>The grip of winter had relaxed early in this ever-to-be-remembered
+year. After a mild January, the middle of
+February had seen the coming of a preliminary spring with
+birds and sunshine and balmy breezes, and as Klaus Heinrich
+lay on the first of these mornings at the Hermitage in his
+roomy old mahogany bed, from one of whose posts the
+spherical crown was missing, he felt himself, as it were, impelled
+by a strange hand and irresistibly inspired to deeds of
+boldness.</p>
+
+<p>He rang the bell-pull for Neumann (they only had draw-bells
+at the Hermitage), and ordered Florian to be ready
+saddled in an hour's time. Should a horse be got ready for
+the groom too? No, it was not necessary. Klaus Heinrich
+said that he wanted to ride alone. Then he gave himself
+into Neumann's skilful hands for his morning toilette, breakfasted
+impatiently below in the garden room, and mounted
+his horse at the foot of the terrace. With his spurred top-boots
+in the stirrups, the yellow reins in his brown-gloved
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_222" title="222"> </a>
+right hand, and the left planted on his hip under his open
+cloak, he rode at a walking pace through the soft morning,
+scanning the still bare branches for the birds whose twittering
+he heard. He rode through the public part of his park,
+through the Town Gardens and the grounds of Delphinenort.
+He reached it at half-past nine. Great was the general surprise.</p>
+
+<p>At the main gate he gave Florian over to an English groom.
+The butler, who was crossing the mosaic hall busy on his
+household duties, stood still, taken aback at the sight of Klaus
+Heinrich. To the inquiry which the Prince addressed to him,
+in a clear and almost haughty voice, about the ladies, he
+did not even reply, but turned helplessly towards the marble
+staircase, gazing dumbly at the top step, for there stood Mr.
+Spoelmann.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed that he had just finished breakfast, and was in
+the best of tempers. His hands were plunged deep in his
+pockets, his lounge coat drawn back from his velvet waistcoat,
+and the blue smoke of his cigarette was making him
+blink.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, young Prince?&rdquo; he said, and stared down at
+him&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich saluted and hurried up the red stair-carpet.
+He felt that the situation could only be saved by swiftness
+and, so to speak, by an attack by storm.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You will be astounded, Mr. Spoelmann,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;at
+this early hour&nbsp;&hellip;&rdquo; He was out of breath, and the fact
+disturbed him greatly, he was so little used to it.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Spoelmann answered him by a look and a shrug of
+the shoulders, as much as to say that he could control himself,
+but desired an explanation.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The fact is, we have an appointment&nbsp;&hellip;&rdquo; said Klaus
+Heinrich. He was standing two steps below the millionaire
+and was speaking up at him. &ldquo;An appointment for a ride
+between Miss Imma and myself&hellip;. I have promised to
+show the ladies the &lsquo;Pheasantry&rsquo; and the Court Kennels&hellip;.
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_223" title="223"> </a>
+Miss Imma told me that she knew nothing about the surrounding
+country. It was agreed that on the first fine
+day&nbsp;&hellip; It's such a lovely day to-day&hellip;. It is of course
+subject to your approval&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Spoelmann shrugged his shoulders, and made a face
+as if to say: &ldquo;Approval&mdash;why so?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My daughter is grown up,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I don't interfere.
+If she rides, she rides. But I don't think she has time. You
+must find that out for yourself. She's in there.&rdquo; And Mr.
+Spoelmann pointed his chin towards the tapestry door,
+through which Klaus Heinrich had already once passed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Thanks,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich. &ldquo;I'll go and see for myself.&rdquo;
+And he ran up the remaining steps, pushed the tapestry
+hanging aside with a determined gesture, and went down the
+steps into the sunlit, flower-scented winter garden.</p>
+
+<p>In front of the splashing fountain and the basin with
+fancy-feathered ducks sat Imma Spoelmann leaning over a
+table, her back turned to the incomer. Her hair was down.
+It hung black and glossy on each side of her head, covered
+her shoulders, and allowed nothing to be seen but a shadow
+of the childlike quarter profile of her face, which showed
+white as ivory against the darkness of her hair. There she
+sat absorbed in her studies, working at the figures in the notebook
+before her, her lips pressed on the back of her left
+hand, and her right grasping the pen.</p>
+
+<p>The Countess too was there, also busy writing. She sat
+some way off under the palms, where Klaus Heinrich had
+first conversed with her, and wrote sitting upright with her
+head on one side, a pile of closely scribbled note-paper lying
+at her side. The clank of Klaus Heinrich's spurs made her
+look up. She looked at him with half-closed eyes for two
+seconds, the long pen poised in her hand, then rose and
+curtseyed. &ldquo;Imma,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;his Royal Highness Prince
+Klaus Heinrich is here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Spoelmann turned quickly round in her basket chair,
+shook her hair back and gazed without speaking at the intruder
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_224" title="224"> </a>
+with big, startled eyes, until Klaus Heinrich had bid the
+ladies good-morning with a military salute. Then she said in
+her broken voice: &ldquo;Good-morning to you too, Prince. But
+you are too late for breakfast. We've finished long ago.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich laughed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, it's lucky,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that both parties have had breakfast,
+for now we can start at once for a ride.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A ride?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, as we agreed.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We agreed?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, don't say that you've forgotten!&rdquo; he said pleadingly.
+&ldquo;Didn't I promise to show you the country round? Weren't
+we going for a ride together when it was fine? Well, to-day
+it's glorious. Just look out&nbsp;&hellip;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It's not a bad day,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;but you go too fast,
+Prince. I remember that there was some suggestion of a
+ride at some future time&mdash;but surely not so soon as this?
+Might I not at least have expected some sort of notification,
+if your Highness will allow the word? You must allow that
+I can't ride like this about here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And she stood up to show her morning dress, which consisted
+of a loose gown of many-coloured silk and an open
+green-velvet jacket.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;unfortunately you cannot. But I'll wait
+here while you both change. It's quite early&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Uncommonly early. But in the second place I am rather
+busy with my innocent studies, as you saw. I've got a lecture
+at eleven o'clock.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;to-day you must not grind at algebra,
+Miss Imma; you must not play in the vacuum, as you put it!
+Look at the sun!&hellip; May I?&hellip;&rdquo; And he went to the
+table and took up the notebook.</p>
+
+<p>What he saw made his head swim. A fantastic hocus-pocus,
+a witches' sabbath of abbreviated symbols, written in
+a childish round hand which was the obvious result of Miss
+Spoelmann's peculiar way of holding her pen, covered the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_225" title="225"> </a>
+pages. There were Greek and Latin letters of various heights,
+crossed and cancelled, arranged above and below cross lines,
+covered by other lines, enclosed in round brackets, formulated
+in square brackets. Single letters, pushed forward like
+sentries, kept guard above the main bodies. Cabalistic signs,
+quite unintelligible to the lay mind, cast their arms round
+letters and ciphers, while fractions stood in front of them and
+ciphers and letters hovered round their tops and bottoms.
+Strange syllables, abbreviations of mysterious words, were
+scattered everywhere, and between the columns were written
+sentences and remarks in ordinary language, whose sense was
+equally beyond the normal intelligence, and conveyed no
+more to the reader than an incantation.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich looked at the slight form, which stood
+by him in the shimmering frock, becurtained by her dark
+hair, and in whose little head all this lived and meant something.
+He said, &ldquo;Can you really waste a lovely morning
+over all this God-forsaken stuff?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>A glance of anger met him from her big eyes. Then she
+answered with a pout:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Your Highness seems to wish to excuse yourself for the
+want of intelligence you recently displayed with regard to
+your own exalted calling.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;not so! I give you my word that I respect
+your studies most highly. I grant that they bother me, I could
+never understand anything of that sort. I also grant that to-day
+I feel some resentment against them, as they seem likely
+to prevent us from going for a ride.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I'm not the only one to interfere with your wish
+for exercise, Prince. There's the Countess too. She was
+writing&mdash;chronicling the experiences of her life, not for the
+world, but for private circulation, and I guarantee that the
+result will be a work which will teach you as well as me a
+good deal.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am quite sure of it. But I am equally sure that the
+Countess is incapable of refusing a request from you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_226" title="226"> </a>&ldquo;And my father? There's the next stumbling-block. You
+know his temper. Will he consent?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He has consented. If you ride, you ride. Those were
+his words&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You have made sure of him beforehand, then? I'm really
+beginning to admire your circumspection. You have assumed
+the rôle of a Field Marshal, although you are not really
+a soldier, only a make-believe one, as you told us long ago.
+But there's yet one more obstacle, and that is decisive. It's
+going to rain.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, that's a very weak one. The sun is shining&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It's going to rain. The air is much too soft. I made
+sure of it when we were in the Spa-Gardens before breakfast.
+Come and look at the barometer if you don't believe me.
+It's hanging in the hall&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They went out into the tapestry hall, where a big weather-glass
+hung near the marble fireplace. The Countess went with
+them. Klaus Heinrich said: &ldquo;It's gone up.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Your Highness is pleased to deceive yourself,&rdquo; answered
+Miss Spoelmann. &ldquo;The refraction misleads you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's beyond me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The refraction misleads you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't know what that is, Miss Spoelmann. It's the same
+as with the Adirondacks. I've not had much schooling, that's
+a necessary result of my kind of existence. You must make
+allowances for me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I humbly beg pardon. I ought to have remembered
+that one must use ordinary words when talking to your Highness.
+You are standing crooked to the hand and that makes
+it look to you as if it had risen. If you would bring yourself
+to stand straight in front of the glass, you would see
+that the black has not risen above the gold hand, but has
+actually dropped a little below it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I really believe you are right,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich sadly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The atmospheric pressure there is higher than I thought!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is lower than you thought.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_227" title="227"> </a>&ldquo;But how about the falling quicksilver?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The quicksilver falls at low pressure, not at high, Royal
+Highness.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now I'm absolutely lost.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I think, Prince, that you're exaggerating your ignorance
+by way of a joke, so as to hide what its extent really is. But
+as the atmospheric pressure is so high that the quicksilver
+drops, thus showing an absolute disregard for the laws of
+nature, let's go for a ride, Countess&mdash;shall we? I cannot
+assume the responsibility of sending the Prince back home
+again now that he has once come. He can wait in there till
+we're ready&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>When Imma Spoelmann and the Countess came back to the
+winter garden they were dressed for riding, Imma in a close-fitting
+black habit with breast-pockets and a three-cornered
+felt hat, the Countess in black cloth with a man's starched
+shirt and high hat. They went together down the steps,
+through the mosaic hall, and out into the open air, where
+between the colonnade and the big basin two grooms were
+waiting with the horses. But they had not yet mounted when
+with a loud barking, which was the expression of his wild
+excitement, Percival, the collie, prancing and leaping about,
+tore out of the Schloss and began a frenzied dance round the
+horses, who tossed their heads uneasily&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I thought so,&rdquo; said Imma, patting her favourite Fatma's
+head, &ldquo;there was no hiding it from him. He found it all
+out at the last moment. Now he intends to come with us and
+make a fine to-do about it too. Shall we drop the whole
+thing, Prince?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But although Klaus Heinrich understood that he might just
+as well have allowed the groom to ride in front with the
+silver trumpet, so far as calling public attention to their
+expedition was concerned, yet he said cheerfully that Percival
+must come too; he was a member of the family and must
+learn the neighbourhood like the rest.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, where shall we go?&rdquo; asked Imma as they rode at a
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_228" title="228"> </a>
+walk down the chestnut avenue. She rode between Klaus
+Heinrich and the Countess. Percival barked in the van.
+The English groom, in cockaded hat and yellow boot-tops,
+rode at a respectful distance behind.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The Court Kennels are fine,&rdquo; answered Klaus Heinrich,
+&ldquo;but it is a bit farther to the &lsquo;Pheasantry,&rsquo; and we have time
+before lunch. I should like to show you the Schloss. I
+spent three years there as a boy. It was a seminary, you
+know, with tutors and other boys of my age. That's where
+I got to know my friend Ueberbein, Doctor Ueberbein, my
+favourite tutor.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You have a friend?&rdquo; asked Miss Spoelmann, with some
+surprise, and gazed at him. &ldquo;You must tell me about him
+some time. And you were educated at the &lsquo;Pheasantry,&rsquo; were
+you? Then we must see it, because you're obviously set on
+it. Trot!&rdquo; she said as they turned into a loose riding-path.
+&ldquo;There lies your hermitage, Prince. There's plenty for the
+ducks to eat in your pond. Let's give a wide berth to the
+Spa-Gardens, if that does not take us far out of our way.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich agreed, so they left the park and trotted
+across country to reach the high-road which led to their goal
+to the north-west. In the town gardens they were greeted
+with surprise by a few promenaders, whose greetings Klaus
+Heinrich acknowledged by raising his hand to his cap, Imma
+Spoelmann with a grave and rather embarrassed inclination
+of her dark head in the three-cornered hat. By now they had
+reached the open country, and were no longer likely to meet
+people. Now and then a peasant's cart rolled along the road,
+or a crouching bicyclist ploughed his way along it. But they
+turned aside from the road when they reached the meadow-land,
+which provided better going for their horses. Percival danced
+backwards in front of them, feverish and restless as ever,
+turning, springing, and wagging his tail&mdash;his breath came
+fast, his tongue hung far out of his foaming jaws, and he
+vented his nervous exaltation in a succession of short, sobbing
+yelps. Farther on he dashed off, following some scent with
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_229" title="229"> </a>
+pricked ears and short springs, while his wild barking echoed
+through the air.</p>
+
+<p>They discussed Fatma, which Klaus Heinrich had not yet
+seen close, and which he admired immensely. Fatma had
+a long, muscular neck and small, nodding head with fiery
+eyes; she had the slender legs of the Arab type, and a bushy
+tail. She was white as the moonlight, and saddled, girt, and
+bridled with white leather. Florian, a rather sleepy brown,
+with a short back, hogged mane, and yellow stockings, looked
+as homely as a donkey by the side of the distinguished foreigner,
+although he was carefully groomed. Countess Löwenjoul
+rode a big cream called Isabeau. She had an excellent seat,
+with her tall, straight figure, but she held her small head in its
+huge hat on one side, and her lids were half closed and
+twitched. Klaus Heinrich addressed some remarks to her
+behind Miss Spoelmann's back, but she did not answer, and
+went riding on with half-shut eyes, gazing in front of her
+with a Madonna-like expression, and Imma said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't let's bother the Countess, Prince, her thoughts are
+wandering.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I hope,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that the Countess was not annoyed at
+having to come with us.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And he was distinctly taken aback when Imma Spoelmann
+answered casually: &ldquo;To tell the truth, she very likely was.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Because of your sums?&rdquo; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, the sums? They're not so urgent, only a way of passing
+the time&mdash;although I hope to get a good lot of useful information
+out of them. But I don't mind telling you, Prince,
+that the Countess is not enthusiastic on the subject of yourself.
+She has expressed herself to that effect to me. She said you
+were hard and stern and affected her like a cold douche.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich reddened.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I know well,&rdquo; he said quietly, looking down at his reins,
+&ldquo;that I don't act as a cordial, Miss Spoelmann, or, at any
+rate, only at a distance&hellip;. That, too, is inseparable from
+my kind of existence, as I said. But I am not conscious
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_230" title="230"> </a>
+of having shown myself hard and stern to the Countess.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Probably not in words,&rdquo; she replied, &ldquo;but you did not
+allow her to let herself go, you did not do her the kindness
+of letting her tongue run a little, that's why she's vexed with
+you&mdash;and I know quite well what you did, how you embarrassed
+the poor thing and gave her a cold douche&mdash;quite
+well,&rdquo; she repeated, and turned her head away.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich did not answer. He kept his left hand
+planted on his hip, and his eyes were tired. Then he said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You know quite well? So I act like a cold douche on
+you too, Miss Spoelmann, do I?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I warn you,&rdquo; she answered at once in her broken voice,
+and wagging her head from side to side, &ldquo;on no account to
+overrate the effect you have upon me, Prince.&rdquo; And she
+suddenly <ins title="sat">set</ins> Fatma off at a gallop and flew at such a pace
+over the fields towards the dark mass of the distant pine-woods
+that neither the Countess nor Klaus Heinrich could keep
+up with her. Not till she reached the edge of the wood
+through which the high-road ran did she halt and turn her
+horse to look mockingly at her followers.</p>
+
+<p>Countess Löwenjoul on her cream was the first to come
+up with the runaway. Then came Florian, foaming and much
+exhausted by his unusual exertion. They all laughed and
+their breath came fast as they entered the echoing wood. The
+Countess had awakened and chatted merrily, making lively,
+graceful gestures and showing her white teeth. She poked fun
+at Percival, whose temper had again been excited by the
+gallop, and who was careering wildly among the trunks in
+front of the horses.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Royal Highness,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you ought to see him jump
+and turn somersaults. He can take a ditch six yards broad,
+and does it so lightly and gracefully, you'd be delighted.
+But only of his own accord, mind you, of his free will, for
+I believe he'd rather let himself be whipped to death than
+submit to any training or teaching of tricks. He is, one might
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_231" title="231"> </a>
+say, his own trainer by nature, and though sometimes unruly
+he is never rough. He is a gentleman, an aristocrat, and
+full of character. He's as proud as you like, and though he
+seems mad he's quite able to control himself. Nobody has
+ever heard him cry for pain when punished and hurt. He
+only eats, too, when he is hungry, and at other times won't
+look at the most tempting dainties. In the morning he has
+cream &hellip; he must be fed. He wears himself out, he's quite
+thin under his glossy coat, you can feel all his ribs. For
+I'm afraid he'll never grow to be old, but will fall an early
+victim to consumption. The street curs persecute him, they
+go for him in every street, but he jumps clear of them, and
+if they succeed in joining issue with him, he distributes a few
+bites with his splendid teeth which the rabble don't forget in
+a hurry. One must love such a compound of chivalry and
+virtue.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Imma agreed, in words which were the most serious and
+grave which Klaus Heinrich had ever heard from her mouth.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you're a good friend to me, Percy, I
+shall always love you. A veterinary surgeon said you were
+half mad and advised us to have you put away, as you were
+impossible and a constant danger to us. But they shan't take
+my Percy from me. He is impossible, I know, and often
+an incumbrance, but he's always appealing and noble, and
+I love him dearly.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Countess continued to talk about the collie's nature,
+but her remarks soon became disconnected and confused, and
+lapsed into a monologue accompanied by lively and elegant
+gestures. At last, after an acid look at Klaus Heinrich, her
+thoughts again began to wander.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich felt happy and cheered, whether as the result
+of the canter&mdash;for which he had had to brace himself up, for,
+though a decent figure on a horse, his left hand prevented him
+from being a strong rider&mdash;or for some other reason. After
+leaving the pine-wood they rode along the quiet high-road
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_232" title="232"> </a>
+between meadows and furrowed fields, with a peasant's hut
+or a country inn here and there. As they drew near the next
+wood, he asked in a low voice:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Won't you fulfil your promise and tell me about the
+Countess? What is your companion's history?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She is my friend,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;and in a sense my
+governess too, although she did not come to us till I was
+grown up. That was three years ago, in New York, and
+the Countess was then in a terrible state. She was on the
+brink of starvation,&rdquo; said Miss Spoelmann, and as she said
+it she fastened her big black eyes with a searching, startled
+look on Klaus Heinrich.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Really starvation?&rdquo; he asked, and returned her look&hellip;.
+&ldquo;Do please go on.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I said that too when she came to us, and although I,
+of course, saw quite well that her mind was slightly affected,
+she made such an impression upon me that I persuaded my father
+to let her be my companion.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What took her to America? Is she a countess by birth?&rdquo;
+asked Klaus Heinrich.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not a countess, but of noble birth, brought up in refined
+and luxurious surroundings, sheltered and protected, as she expressed
+it to me, from every wind, because from childhood she
+had been impressionable and sensitive. But then she married
+a Count Löwenjoul, a cavalry captain&mdash;a strange specimen of
+the aristocracy, according to her account&mdash;not quite up to the
+mark, to put it mildly.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What was wrong with him?&rdquo; asked Klaus Heinrich.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I can't exactly tell you, Prince. You must take into consideration
+the rather obscure way in which the Countess puts
+what she has to say. But, to judge from what she has told me,
+he must have been just about as arrant a scamp as one could
+well imagine&mdash;a regular blackguard.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I see,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich, &ldquo;what's called a hard case, or
+a tough proposition.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Exactly; we'll say man of the world&mdash;but in the most comprehensive
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_233" title="233"> </a>
+and unlimited sense, for, to judge by the Countess's
+remarks, there were no limits in his case.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, that's what I too gathered,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich. &ldquo;I've
+met several people of that sort&mdash;regular devils, so to speak. I
+heard of one such, who used to make love in his motor car, even
+when it was going at full speed.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Did your friend Ueberbein tell you of him?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, somebody else. Ueberbein would not think it proper
+to mention anything of that sort to me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then he must be a useless sort of friend, Prince.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You'll think better of him when I tell you more about him,
+Miss Spoelmann. But please go on!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I don't know whether Löwenjoul behaved like your
+roué. Anyhow he behaved disgracefully.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I expect he gambled and drank.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I guess so. And besides that of course he made love, neglected
+the Countess and carried on with the loose women that
+are always to be found everywhere&mdash;at first behind her back,
+and later no longer behind her back but impudently and openly
+without any regard for her feelings.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But tell me, why did she ever marry him?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She married him against her parents' will, because, as she
+has told me, she was in love with him. For in the first place,
+he was a handsome man when she first met him&mdash;he fell off in
+his looks later. In the second place, his reputation as a man
+of the world had gone before him, and that, according to her,
+constituted a sort of irresistible attraction for her, for, though
+she had been so well sheltered and protected, nothing would
+shake her in her resolve to share her life with him. If one
+thinks it over, one can quite understand it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I can quite understand it. She wanted to
+have her fling, as it were, to get her eyes opened. And she saw
+the world with a vengeance.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You may put it like that if you like: though the expression
+seems to me rather too flippant to describe her experiences.
+Her husband ill-treated her.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_234" title="234"> </a>&ldquo;Do you mean that he beat her?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, he ill-treated her physically. But now comes something,
+Prince, which you too will not have heard about before.
+She gave me to understand that he ill-treated her not only in
+a temper, not only in anger and rage, but also without being
+exasperated, simply for his own satisfaction. I mean, that his
+caresses were so revolting as to amount to ill-treatment.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich was silent. Both looked very grave. At
+last he asked: &ldquo;Did the Countess have any children?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, two. They died quite young, both only a few weeks
+old, and that's the greatest sorrow the Countess has had to bear.
+It would seem from her hints that it was the fault of the loose
+women for whom her husband betrayed her that the children
+died directly after birth.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Both remained silent, and their eyes clouded over.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Add to that,&rdquo; continued Imma Spoelmann, &ldquo;that he dissipated
+his wife's dowry, at cards and with women&mdash;a respectable
+dowry it was too&mdash;and after her parents' death her whole
+fortune also. Relations of hers too helped him once, when he
+was near having to leave the service on account of his debts.
+But then came a scandal, an altogether revolting one, in
+which he was involved and which did for him once and for
+all.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What was it?&rdquo; asked Klaus Heinrich.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I can't exactly tell you, Prince. But, according to what
+the Countess has let slip about it, it was a scandal of the very
+grossest description&mdash;we agreed just now that there are generally
+no limits in that direction.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And then he went to America?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You're right there, Prince. I can't help admiring your
+'cuteness.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Please go on, Miss Spoelmann. I've never heard anything
+like the Countess's story.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No more had I; so you can imagine what an impression it
+made on me when she came to us. Well, then, Count Löwenjoul
+bolted to America with the police at his heels, leaving
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_235" title="235"> </a>
+pretty considerable debts behind of course. And the Countess
+went with him.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She went with him? Why?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Because she still loved him, in spite of everything&mdash;she
+loves him still&mdash;and because she was determined to share his
+life whatever happened. He took her with him, though, because
+he had a better chance of getting help from her relations
+as long as she was with him. The relations sent him one further
+instalment of money from home, and then stopped&mdash;they
+finally buttoned up their pockets; and when Count Löwenjoul
+saw that his wife was no more use to him, he just left her&mdash;left
+her in absolute destitution and cleared out.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I knew it,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich, &ldquo;I expected as much.
+Just what does happen.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But Imma Spoelmann went on: &ldquo;So there she was, destitute
+and helpless, and, since she had never learned to earn her own
+living, she was left alone to face want and hunger. And you
+must remember that life in the States is much harder and
+meaner than here in your country; also that the Countess has
+always been a gentle, sensitive creature, and has been cruelly
+treated for years. In a word, she was no fit subject for the
+impressions of life to which she was unceasingly exposed.
+And then the blessing fell to her.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What blessing? She told me about that too. What was
+the blessing, Miss Spoelmann?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The blessing consisted in a mental disturbance. At the
+crisis of her troubles something in her cracked&mdash;that's the
+expression she used to me&mdash;so that she no longer needed to
+face life and to bring a clear, sober mind to bear upon it, but
+was permitted, so to speak, to let herself go, to relax the tension
+of her nerves and to drivel when she liked. In a word,
+the blessing was that she went wrong in her head.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Certainly I was under the impression,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich,
+&ldquo;that the Countess was letting herself go when she drivelled.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's how it is, Prince. She is quite conscious of drivelling,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_236" title="236"> </a>
+and often laughs as she does so, or lets her hearers
+understand that she doesn't mean any harm by it. Her
+strangeness is a beneficent disorder, which she can control to
+a certain extent, and which she allows herself to indulge in.
+It is, if you prefer it, a want of<span style="white-space: nowrap;">&mdash;&mdash;</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of self-restraint,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich, and looked down
+at his reins.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Right, of self-restraint,&rdquo; she repeated, and looked at him.
+&ldquo;You don't seem to approve of that want, Prince.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I consider as a general rule,&rdquo; he answered quietly, &ldquo;that
+it is not right to let oneself go and to make oneself at home,
+but that self-restraint should always be exercised, whatever
+the circumstances.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Your Highness's doctrine,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;is a praiseworthy
+austerity.&rdquo; Then she pouted, and, wagging her dark
+head in its three-cornered hat, she added in her broken voice:
+&ldquo;I'll tell you something, Highness, and please note it well.
+If your Eminence is not inclined to show a little sympathy
+and indulgence and mildness, I shall have to decline the pleasure
+of your distinguished company once and for all.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He dropped his head, and they rode a while in silence.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Won't you go on to tell me how the Countess came to you?&rdquo;
+he asked at last.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, I won't,&rdquo; she said, and looked straight in front of her.
+But he pressed her so pleadingly that she finished her story
+and said: &ldquo;And although fifty other companions applied,
+my choice&mdash;for the choice rested with me&mdash;fell at once on
+her, I was so much taken with her at my first interview. She
+was odd, I could see that: but she was odd only from too
+rich an experience of misery and wickedness, that was clear
+in every word she said; and as for me, I had always been a
+little lonely and cut off, and absolutely without experience,
+except what I got at my University lectures.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of course, you had always been a little lonely and cut off!&rdquo;
+repeated Klaus Heinrich, with a ring of joy in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's what I said. It was a dull, simple life in some
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_237" title="237"> </a>
+ways that I led, and still lead, because it has not altered much,
+and is all much the same. There were parties with &lsquo;lions&rsquo; and
+balls, and often a dash in a closed motor to the Opera House,
+where I sat in one of the little boxes above the stalls, so as to
+be well observed by everybody, for show, as we say. That
+was a necessary part of my position.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For show?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, for show; I mean the duty of showing oneself off,
+of not raising walls against the public, but letting them come
+into the garden and walk on the lawn and gaze at the terrace,
+watching us at tea. My father, Mr. Spoelmann, disliked it intensely.
+But it was a necessary consequence of our position.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What did you usually do besides, Miss Spoelmann?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;In the spring we went to our house in the Adirondacks and
+in the summer to our house at Newport-on-Sea. There were
+garden-parties of course, and battles of flowers and lawn-tennis
+tournaments, and we went for rides and drove four-in-hand
+or motored, and the people stood and gaped, because I was
+Samuel Spoelmann's daughter. And many shouted rude remarks
+after me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Rude remarks?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, and they probably had reason to. At any rate it
+was something of a life in the limelight that we led, and one
+that invited discussion.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And between whiles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you played in the breezes,
+didn't you, or rather in a vacuum, where no dust came<span style="white-space: nowrap;">&mdash;&mdash;</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's right. Your Highness is pleased to mock my excess
+of candour. But in view of all this you can guess how
+extraordinarily welcome the Countess was to me, when she
+came to see me in Fifth Avenue. She does not express herself
+very clearly, but rather in a mysterious sort of way, and
+the boundary line at which she begins to drivel is not always
+quite clearly apparent. But that only strikes me as right and
+instructive, as it gives a good idea of the boundlessness of
+misery and wickedness in the world. You envy me the
+Countess, don't you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_238" title="238"> </a>&ldquo;Envy? H'm. You seem to assume, Miss Spoelmann, that
+I have never had my eyes opened.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Have you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Once or twice, maybe. For instance, things have come
+to my ears about our lackeys, which you would scarcely
+dream of.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Are your lackeys so bad?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bad? Good-for-nothing, that's what they are. For one
+thing they play into each other's hands, and scheme, and take
+bribes from the tradesmen<span style="white-space: nowrap;">&mdash;&mdash;</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But, Prince, that's comparatively harmless.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, true, it's nothing to compare with the way the Countess
+has had her eyes opened.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They broke into a trot, and, leaving at the sign-post the
+gently rising and falling high-road, which they had followed
+through the pine-woods, turned into the sandy short cut, between
+high blackberry-covered banks, which led into the tufted
+meadow-land round the &ldquo;Pheasantry.&rdquo; Klaus Heinrich was
+at home in these parts: he stretched out his arm (the right
+one) to point out everything to his companions, though there
+was not much worth seeing. Yonder lay the Schloss, closed
+and silent, with its shingle-roof and its lightning-conductors
+on the edge of the wood. On one side was the pheasants' enclosure,
+which gave the place its name, and on the other
+Stavenüter's tea-garden, where he had sometimes sat with
+Raoul Ueberbein. The spring sun shone mildly over the damp
+meadow-land and shed a soft haze over the distant woods.</p>
+
+<p>They reined in their horses in front of the tea-garden, and
+Imma <ins title="Spoelman">Spoelmann</ins> took stock of the prosaic country-house which
+rejoiced in the name of the &ldquo;Pheasantry.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Your childhood,&rdquo; she said with a pout, &ldquo;does not seem
+to have been surrounded by much giddy splendour.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; he laughed, &ldquo;there's nothing to see in the Schloss.
+It's the same inside as out. No comparison with Delphinenort,
+even before you restored it<span style="white-space: nowrap;">&mdash;&mdash;</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Let's put our horses up,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;One must put one's
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_239" title="239"> </a>
+horses up on an expedition, mustn't one, Countess? Dismount,
+Prince. I'm thirsty, and want to see what your friend
+Stavenüter has got to drink.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>There stood Herr Stavenüter in green apron and stockings,
+bowing and pressing his knitted cap to his chest with both
+hands, while he laughed till his gums showed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Royal Highness!&rdquo; he said, with joy in his voice, &ldquo;does
+your Royal Highness mean to honour me once again? And
+the young lady!&rdquo; he added, with a tinge of deference in his
+voice; for he knew Samuel Spoelmann's daughter quite well,
+and there had been in the whole Grand Duchy no more eager
+reader of the newspaper articles which coupled Prince Klaus
+Heinrich's and Imma's names together. He helped the Countess
+to dismount, while Klaus Heinrich, who was the first to
+the ground, devoted himself to Miss Spoelmann, and he called
+to a lad, who, with the Spoelmanns' groom, took charge of
+the horses. Then followed the reception and welcome to
+which Klaus Heinrich was accustomed. He addressed a few
+formal questions in a reserved tone of voice to Herr Stavenüter,
+graciously asked how he was and how his business prospered,
+and received the answers with nods and a show of real interest.
+Imma Spoelmann watched his artificial, cold demeanour
+with serious, searching eyes, while she swung her riding-whip
+backwards and forwards.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;May I be so bold as to remind you that I am thirsty?&rdquo;
+she said at last sharply and decisively, whereupon they walked
+into the garden and discussed whether they need go in to the
+coffee-room. Klaus Heinrich urged that it was still so damp
+under the trees; but Imma insisted on sitting outside, and
+herself chose one of the long narrow tables with benches on
+each side, which Herr Stavenüter hastened to cover with a
+white cloth.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lemonade!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That's best for a thirst, and it's
+sound stuff! no trash, Royal Highness, and you, ladies, but
+natural juice sweetened&mdash;there's no better!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Followed the driving-in of the glass balls in the necks of
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_240" title="240"> </a>
+the bottles; and, while his distinguished guests tasted the
+drink, Herr Stavenüter dawdled a little longer at the table,
+meaning to serve them up a little gossip. He had long been
+a widower, and his three children, who in days gone by had
+sung here under the trees the song about common humanity,
+the while blowing their noses with their fingers, had now left
+him. The son was a soldier in the capital, one of the daughters
+had married a neighbouring farmer, the other, with a soul
+for higher things, had gone into service in the capital.</p>
+
+<p>So Herr Stavenüter was in solitary control in this remote
+spot, in the three-fold capacity of farmer of the Schloss lands,
+caretaker of the Schloss, and head keeper of the &ldquo;Pheasantry,&rdquo;
+and was well content with his lot. Soon, if the weather permitted,
+the season for bicyclists and walkers would come
+round, when the garden was filled on Sundays. Then business
+hummed. Would not his Highness and the ladies like to take
+a peep at the &ldquo;Pheasantry&rdquo;?</p>
+
+<p>Yes, they would, later; so Herr Stavenüter withdrew for
+the present, after placing a saucer of milk for Percival by the
+table.</p>
+
+<p>The collie had been in some muddy water on the way, and
+looked horrible. His legs were thin with wet, and the white
+parts of his ragged coat covered with dirt. His gaping mouth
+was black to the throat from nuzzling for field-mice, and his
+dark red tongue hung dripping out of his mouth. He quickly
+lapped up his milk, and then lay with panting sides by his
+mistress's feet, flat on his side, his head thrown back in an
+attitude of repose.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich declared it to be inexcusable for Imma to
+expose herself after her ride to the invidious springtime air
+without any wrap. &ldquo;Take my cloak,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I really
+do not want it, I'm quite warm, and my coat is padded on the
+chest!&rdquo; She would not hear of it; but he went on asking her
+so insistently that she consented, and let him lay his grey
+military coat with a major's shoulder-straps round her shoulders.
+Then, resting her dark head in its three-cornered hat in
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_241" title="241"> </a>
+the hollow of her hand, she watched him as, with arm outstretched
+towards the Schloss, he described to her the life
+he had once led there.</p>
+
+<p>There, where the tall window opened on to the ground, had
+been the mess-room, then the school-room, and up above
+Klaus Heinrich's room with the plaster torso on the stove.
+He told her too about Professor Kürtchen and his tactful way
+of instructing his pupils, about Captain Amelung's widow,
+and the aristocratic &ldquo;Pheasants,&rdquo; who called everything &ldquo;hog-wash,&rdquo;
+and especially about Raoul Ueberbein, his friend, of
+whom Imma Spoelmann more than once asked him to tell her
+some more.</p>
+
+<p>He told her about the doctor's obscure origin, and about
+the money his parents paid to be quit of him; about the child
+in the marsh or bog, and the medal for saving life; about
+Ueberbein's plucky and ambitious career, pursued in circumstances
+calling for resolution and action, which he used to
+call favourable circumstances, and about his friendship with
+Doctor Sammet, whom Imma knew. He described his by no
+means attractive appearance and readily owned to the attraction
+which he had exercised on him from the very beginning.
+He described his behaviour towards himself, Klaus Heinrich&mdash;that
+fatherly and jolly, blustering camaraderie which had
+distinguished him so sharply from everybody else&mdash;and gave
+Imma to the best of his ability an insight into his tutor's views
+of life. Finally he expressed his concern that the doctor
+seemed not to enjoy any sort of popularity among his fellow-citizens.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I can quite believe that,&rdquo; said Imma.</p>
+
+<p>He was surprised, and asked why.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Because I'm convinced,&rdquo; she said, wagging her head, &ldquo;that
+your Ueberbein, for all his sparkling conversation, is an unhappy
+sort of creature. He may swagger about the place;
+but he lacks reserve, Prince, and that means that he will come
+to a bad end.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Her words startled Klaus Heinrich, and made him thoughtful.
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_242" title="242"> </a>
+Then turning to the Countess, who awoke with a smile
+out of a brown study, he said something complimentary about
+her riding, for which she thanked him gracefully. He said
+that anybody could see that she had learnt to ride as a child,
+and she confessed that riding lessons had formed a considerable
+part of her education. She spoke clearly and cheerfully;
+but gradually, almost imperceptibly, she began to wander into
+a strange story about a gallant ride which she had made as a
+lieutenant in the last man&oelig;uvres, and suddenly started talking
+about the dreadful wife of a sergeant in the Grenadiers,
+who had come into her room the previous night and scratched
+her breasts all over, meanwhile using language which she
+could not bring herself to repeat. Klaus Heinrich asked
+quietly whether she had not shut her door and windows.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of course, but anyone could break the glass!&rdquo; she answered
+hastily, and turned pale in one cheek and red in the
+other. Klaus Heinrich nodded acquiescence, and, dropping
+his eyes, asked her quietly to let him call her &ldquo;Frau Meier&rdquo;
+now and then, a proposal which she gladly accepted, with a
+confidential smile and a far-away look which had something
+strangely attractive about it.</p>
+
+<p>They got up to visit the &ldquo;Pheasantry,&rdquo; after Klaus Heinrich
+had taken back his cloak; and as they left the garden, Imma
+Spoelmann said: &ldquo;Well done, Prince. You're getting on,&rdquo;
+a commendation which made him blush, indeed gave him far
+more pleasure than the most fulsome newspaper report of the
+valuable effect of his appearance at a ceremony which Councillor
+Schustermann could ever show him.</p>
+
+<p>Herr Stavenüter escorted his guests into the palisaded enclosure
+in which six or seven families of pheasants led a comfortable,
+petted life. They watched the greedy, red-eyed, and
+stiff-tailed birds, inspected the hatching house, and looked on
+while Herr Stavenüter fed the pheasants under a big solitary
+fig-tree for their benefit. Klaus Heinrich thanked him warmly
+for all that he had shown them, Imma Spoelmann regarding
+him the while with her big, searching eyes. Then they
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_243" title="243"> </a>
+mounted at the gate of the tea-garden and rode off homewards
+with Percival barking and pirouetting under the horses'
+noses.</p>
+
+<p>But their ride home was destined to give Klaus Heinrich,
+in the course of his conversation with Imma Spoelmann, yet
+another significant indication of her real nature and character,
+a direct revelation of certain sides of her personality which
+gave him food for much thought.</p>
+
+<p>For soon after they had left the bramble-hedged by-way
+and joined the high-road, Klaus Heinrich reverted to a subject
+which had been just touched on at his first visit to Delphinenort
+during the conversation at tea, and had not ceased to exercise
+him ever since.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;May I,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;ask you one question, Miss Spoelmann?
+You need not answer it if you don't want to.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'll see about that,&rdquo; she answered.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Four weeks ago,&rdquo; he began, &ldquo;when I first had the pleasure
+of a talk with your father, Mr. Spoelmann, I asked him a
+question which he answered so curtly and abruptly that I
+could not help feeling that my question had been indiscreet
+or a false step.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What was it?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I asked him whether he had not found it hard to leave
+America.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There you are, Prince, there's another question which is
+worthy of you, a typical Prince-question. If you had had a
+little more training in the use of your reasoning powers you
+would have known without asking that if my father had not
+been ready and glad to leave America, he most assuredly would
+not have left it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Very probably you are right; forgive me, I don't think
+enough. But if my question was nothing worse than a want
+of thought, I shall be quite content. Can you assure me that
+that is the case?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, Prince, I'm afraid I cannot,&rdquo; she said, and looked at
+him suddenly with her big black eyes.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_244" title="244"> </a>&ldquo;Then what has want of thought to do with it? Do please
+explain. I ask you in the name of our friendship.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Are we friends?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I hoped so,&rdquo; he said pleadingly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, well, patience! I didn't know it, but I'm quite ready
+to learn it. But to return to my father, he really did lose
+his temper at your question&mdash;he has a quick temper, and has
+plenty of occasion to practise losing it. The fact is that public
+opinion and sentiment were not over-friendly to us in
+America. There's such a lot of scheming over there&mdash;I may
+mention that I am not posted in the details, but there was a
+strong political movement towards setting the crowd, the common
+people, you know, against us. The result was legislation
+and restrictions which made my father's life over there a
+burden to him. You know of course, Prince, that it was not
+he who made us what we are, but my redoubtable grandfather
+with his Paradise nugget and Blockhead Farm. My father
+could not help it, he was born to his destiny, and it was no
+gratification to him, because he is naturally shy and sensitive,
+and would much have preferred to have lived for playing the
+organ and collecting glass. I really believe that the hatred
+which was the result of the scheming against us, so that sometimes
+the people hurled abuse after me when I motored past
+them&mdash;that the hatred quite probably brought on his stone in
+the kidneys; it's more than possible.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am cordially attached to your father,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich
+with emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I should have made that, Prince, a condition of our becoming
+friends. But there was another point which made things
+worse, and made our position over there still more difficult,
+and that was our origin.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Your origin?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, Prince; we are no aristocratic pheasants, unfortunately
+we are not descended from Washington or from the Pilgrim
+Fathers.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, for you are German.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_245" title="245"> </a>&ldquo;Oh yes, but there's something besides to get over. Please
+look at me closely. Does it strike you that there is anything
+to be proud of in having blue-black wispy hair like mine, that's
+always falling where it's not wanted?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Goodness knows, Miss Spoelmann, you've got glorious
+hair!&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich. &ldquo;I know that you are partly of
+Southern extraction, for I've read somewhere that your grandfather
+married in Bolivia or thereabouts.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He did. But that's where the trouble lies, Prince. I'm a
+quintroon.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A what?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A quintroon.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That goes with the Adirondacks and the refraction, Miss
+Spoelmann. I don't know what it is. I've already told you
+that I don't know much.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, it's a fact. My grandfather, thoughtless as he always
+was, married a woman of Indian blood down South.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Indian blood!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes. She was of Indian stock at the third remove, daughter
+of a white and a half-Indian, and so a terceroon as it is called.
+She must have been wonderfully beautiful. And she was my
+grandmother. The grandchildren of a terceroon are called
+quintroons. That's how things are.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Most interesting. But didn't you say that it had affected
+people's attitude towards you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You don't understand, Prince. I must tell you that Indian
+blood over there means a heavy blot&mdash;such a blot, that friendships
+and affections are transformed into hatred and abuse if
+proof of half-blood descent comes to light. Of course things
+are not so serious with us, for with quadroons&mdash;why, of
+course, the taint is nothing like so great, and a quintroon is to
+all intents and purposes untainted. But in our case, exposed
+to gossip as we were, it was naturally different, and several
+times when the people shouted abuse after us I heard them say
+that I was a coloured girl. In short, my descent was made an
+excuse for insults and annoyances, and raised a barrier between
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_246" title="246"> </a>
+us and the few who were in the same position of life
+as ourselves&mdash;there was always something which we had to
+hide or to brazen out. My grandfather had brazened it out,
+he was that sort of man, and knew what he was doing;
+besides, his blood was pure, it was only his beautiful wife
+who had the taint. But my father was her son, and, sensitive
+and quick-tempered as he is, he has always, ever since he was
+a boy, resented being stared at, and hated and despised at
+the same time; half a world's wonder and half a monument of
+iniquity, as he used to say. He was fed up with America.
+That's the whole history, Prince,&rdquo; said Imma Spoelmann,
+&ldquo;and now you know why my father lost his temper over your
+pointed question.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich thanked her for the explanation; indeed,
+as he saluted and took leave (it was lunch time) of the
+ladies in front of the Delphinenort Gate, he repeated his
+thanks for what he had been told, and then rode at foot's
+pace home, pondering over the events of the morning.</p>
+
+<p>He saw Imma Spoelmann sitting in a languid pose in her
+red-gold dress at the table, with a look as of a spoilt child
+on her face; sitting in comfortable assurance, and uttering
+remarks with a sting in them, such as were good coin in the
+United States, where clearness, hardness, and a ready wit
+were essentials of life. And why? Klaus Heinrich could
+understand now, and never a day passed that he did not try
+to realize it better. Stared at, hated and despised at the
+same time, half a world's wonder and half a monument of
+iniquity, that's what her life had been, and that had instilled
+the poison into her remarks, that acidity and mocking directness,
+which looked like offence but really were defence, and
+which evoked a look of bewilderment on the faces of those
+who had never had any occasion for the weapons of wit.</p>
+
+<p>She had demanded of him sympathy and tenderness towards
+the poor Countess, when she let herself go; but she herself
+had a claim to sympathy and tenderness, for she was lonely
+and her life, like his, was a hard one. At the same time a
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_247" title="247"> </a>
+memory haunted him, a long-ago, painful memory, whose
+scene was the refreshment room of the &ldquo;Citizen Garden,&rdquo;
+and which ended in a tureen lid<span style="white-space: nowrap;">&mdash;&mdash;</span>&ldquo;Little sister!&rdquo; he said
+to himself, as he quickly dismissed the scene from his thoughts.
+&ldquo;Little sister!&rdquo; But most of all his thoughts were busy with
+planning how soonest to enjoy Miss Spoelmann's society
+again.</p>
+
+<p>He enjoyed it soon and often, in all sorts of circumstances.
+February gave place to threatening March, fickle April and
+soft May. And all these months Klaus Heinrich visited
+Schloss Delphinenort at least once a week, in the morning or
+in the afternoon, and always in the irresponsible mood in
+which he had presented himself at the Spoelmanns' that
+February morning, as if led by fate without any action of
+his own will. The proximity of the Schlosses made the visits
+easy, the short distance through the park from the &ldquo;Hermitage&rdquo;
+to Delphinenort was easily crossed on horseback or in a dogcart,
+without exciting much attention; and when the advancing
+season brought more people to the neighbourhood and made
+it harder and harder for them to go for rides without attracting
+public attention, the Prince had by this time reached a
+state of mind which can only be described as complete indifference
+and blind recklessness towards the world, the Court,
+the capital, and the countryside. It was not till later that
+the public interest began to play a really important&mdash;and
+encouraging&mdash;part in his thoughts and actions.</p>
+
+<p>He had not taken leave of the ladies after the first ride
+without suggesting another expedition, a suggestion to which
+Imma Spoelmann, pouting and wagging her head from side
+to side, had failed to bring any serious objection. So he
+came again; and they rode to the Royal Kennels, on the
+north side of the Town Gardens; on the third occasion they
+chose a third place to ride to, which also they could reach
+without going near the town. Then, when spring enticed the
+townspeople into the open air and the tea-gardens filled up,
+they preferred an out-of-the-way path, which really was no
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_248" title="248"> </a>
+path, but a richly wooded dyke, which stretched far away to
+the north along a swift-running stream.</p>
+
+<p>The quietest way of reaching it was by riding out at the
+back of the &ldquo;Hermitage&rdquo; park, and past the river meadows
+on the edge of the northern Town Garden up to the Royal
+Kennels; then not crossing the river by the wooden bridge
+at the weir, but keeping along this side. The Kennels Farm
+was left behind on the right, and the ride went on through
+the fir-plantations. On the left lay spreading meadows, white
+and gaily coloured with hemlock and anemones, buttercups
+and bluebells, clover, daisies, and forget-me-nots; a village
+church tower rose in front of them beyond the plough-lands,
+and the busy high-road lay far away at a safe distance from
+the riders. Farther on, the meadows with their nut-hedges
+came close up to the plantations on the left, shutting out the
+view, and enabling them to ride in complete seclusion,
+generally side by side with the Countess behind, as the path
+was narrow. They talked or rode in silence, while Percival
+jumped over the stream and back again, or plunged into
+it for a bath or a hurried drink. They came back the same
+way as they went.</p>
+
+<p>When, however, the quicksilver fell owing to the lowness of
+the atmospheric pressure, when rain followed, and Klaus Heinrich
+nevertheless felt another peep at Imma Spoelmann to
+be a necessity, he presented himself in his dogcart at Delphinenort
+at tea time, and they stayed indoors. Mr. Spoelmann
+joined them at tea not more than two or three times.
+His malady got worse about this time, and on several days
+he was obliged to stay in bed with hot poultices. When he
+did come, he used to say: &ldquo;Hullo, young Prince,&rdquo; with his
+thin, white-cuffed hand dip a rusk in his tea, throw in a
+cross word here and there into the conversation, and end by
+offering his guest his gold cigarette-case, whereupon he left
+the garden room with Dr. Watercloose, who had sat silent and
+smiling at the table. In fine weather too they sometimes
+preferred not to go outside the park, but to play lawn tennis
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_249" title="249"> </a>
+on the trim lawn below the terrace. On one occasion they
+went for a rapid drive in Mr. Spoelmann's motor far out
+beyond the &ldquo;Pheasantry.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>One day Klaus Heinrich asked: &ldquo;Is what I have read
+true, Miss Spoelmann, that your father gets such a tremendous
+lot of letters and appeals every day?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then she described to him subscription lists which kept
+pouring in to Delphinenort, and which were dealt with as
+thoroughly as was practicable; of the piles of begging letters
+by every post from Europe and America which Messrs. Phlebs
+and Slippers ran through and weeded out for submission to
+Mr. Spoelmann. Sometimes, she said, she amused herself
+by glancing through the heaps, and reading the addresses;
+for these were often quite fantastic. For the needy or
+speculative senders tried to outdo each other in the deference
+and servility of their address on the envelopes, and every
+conceivable title and distinction could be found mixed up
+in the strangest way on the letters. But one begging-letter
+writer had quite recently carried off the prize by addressing
+his envelope to: &ldquo;His Royal Highness Mr. Samuel Spoelmann.&rdquo;
+But it did not get him any more than the others.</p>
+
+<p>On other occasions the Prince fell to talking mysteriously
+about the &ldquo;Owl Chamber&rdquo; in the Old Schloss, and confided
+to her that recently noises had again been heard in it, pointing
+to events of moment in his, Klaus Heinrich's, family.
+Then Imma Spoelmann laughed, and, pouting and wagging
+her head from side to side, gave him a scientific explanation
+of the noises, just as she had done in connexion with the
+secrets of the barometer. Nonsense, she said; it must be
+that that part of the lumber-room was ellipsoidal, and a
+second ellipsoidal surface with the same curvature and with
+a sound-source at the focus existed somewhere outside, the
+result being that inside the haunted room noises were audible
+which could not be distinguished in the immediate neighbourhood.
+Klaus Heinrich was rather crestfallen over this explanation,
+and loath to give up the common belief in the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_250" title="250"> </a>
+connexion between the lumber-room and the fortunes of his
+house.</p>
+
+<p>Thus they conversed, and the Countess too took part, now
+sensible, now confused; Klaus Heinrich took considerable
+pains not to rebuff or chill her by his manner, and addressed
+her as &ldquo;Frau Meier&rdquo; whenever she appeared to think it
+necessary for her protection against the plots of the wicked
+women. He recounted to the ladies his unreal life, the gala
+suppers at the students' clubs, the military banquets, and his
+educational tour; he told them about his relations, about his
+once-beautiful mother, whom he visited now and then in the
+&ldquo;Segenhaus,&rdquo; where she kept dismal court, and about Albrecht
+and Ditlinde. Imma Spoelmann in her turn related some
+incidents in her luxurious and singular youth, and the Countess
+often slipped in a few dark sayings about the horrors and
+secrets of life, to which the others listened with serious and
+thoughtful faces.</p>
+
+<p>They took special delight in one kind of game&mdash;guessing
+existences, making estimates to the best of their knowledge
+of the people they happened to see in the citizen world&mdash;a
+strange and curious study of the passers-by from a distant
+standpoint, from the terrace or from horseback. What kind
+of young people might these be? What did they do? Where
+did they come from? They were certainly not apprentices,
+perhaps technical students or budding foresters, to judge by
+certain signs; maybe they belonged to the agricultural college;
+at any rate stout fellows enough, though rather rough, with
+sound careers before them. But that little untidy thing who
+strolled past looked like a factory hand or dressmaker's
+assistant. Girls like her always had a young man in their
+own class, who took them out to tea in the parks on Sundays.
+And they exchanged what they knew about people in general,
+discussed them like connoisseurs, and felt that this pastime
+brought them closer together than any amount of riding or
+lawn tennis.</p>
+
+<p>As for the motor drive, Imma Spoelmann in the course of
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_251" title="251"> </a>
+it explained that she had only invited Klaus Heinrich to it
+so as to let him see the chauffeur, a young American in
+brown leather, who, she declared, resembled the Prince.
+Klaus Heinrich objected with a smile that the back of the
+driver's neck did not enable him to express an opinion on
+the matter, and asked the Countess to say what she thought.
+She, after long denying the likeness in polite embarrassment,
+at last, on Imma's insistence, with a side glance at Klaus
+Heinrich, agreed to it.</p>
+
+<p>Then Miss Spoelmann said that the grave, sober, and skilful
+youth had originally been in her father's personal service,
+driving him daily from Fifth Avenue to Broadway and back.
+Mr. Spoelmann, however, had insisted on extraordinary speed,
+like that of an express train, and the intense strain put upon
+a driver by such speed in the crowded streets of New York
+had proved at last too much for the youth. As a matter of
+fact no accident had happened; the young man had stuck to it
+and done his deadly duty with amazing care. But in the end
+it had often happened that he had to be lifted down in a faint
+from his seat at the end of a run&mdash;a proof of the inordinate
+strain to which he had been daily subjected. To avoid having
+to dismiss him, Mr. Spoelmann had made him his daughter's
+special chauffeur, and he had continued to act in that capacity
+in their new abode.</p>
+
+<p>Imma had noticed the likeness between Klaus Heinrich
+and him the first time she saw the Prince. It was of course
+a similarity not of features, but of expression. The Countess
+had agreed with her. Klaus Heinrich said that he did not
+in the least object to the likeness, as the heroic young man
+had all his sympathy. They then discussed further the difficult
+and anxious life of a chauffeur, without Countess Löwenjoul
+taking any further part in the conversation. She did not
+prattle during this drive, though later she made a few sensible
+and pointed remarks.</p>
+
+<p>For the rest, Mr. Spoelmann's craze for speed seemed to
+have descended in some measure to his daughter, for she never
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_252" title="252"> </a>
+lost an opportunity of repeating the wild gallop she had
+started on their first ride; and as Klaus Heinrich, stimulated
+by her gibes, urged the amazed and disapproving Florian to
+the top of his speed, so as not to be left behind, the gallop
+always degenerated into a race, which Imma Spoelmann
+always started at unexpected and arbitrary moments. Several
+of these struggles took place on the lonely river-edged causeway,
+and one in particular was long and bitter. It happened
+after a short talk about Klaus Heinrich's popularity, which
+was begun brusquely, and broken off as brusquely, by Imma
+Spoelmann. She asked suddenly: &ldquo;Is it true what I hear,
+Prince, that you are so tremendously popular with the people?
+That you have won all their hearts?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He answered: &ldquo;So they say. It must be some characteristics,
+not necessarily good ones. What's more, I'm not
+sure whether I believe it, or even ought to be glad of it. I
+doubt whether it speaks for me. My brother, the Grand
+Duke, declares in so many words that popularity is hog-wash.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;H'm, the Grand Duke must be a fine man: I've got a great
+respect for him. So we see you in an atmosphere of adulation,
+and everybody loves you &hellip; go on!&rdquo; she cried suddenly,
+and gave Fatma a cut with her white switch. The mare started,
+and the race began.</p>
+
+<p>It lasted a long time. Never before had they followed
+the stream so far. The view on the left had long become
+shut in. Lumps of earth and grass flew from under the
+horses' hoofs. The Countess had soon dropped behind. When
+at last they reined in their horses, Florian was trembling with
+exhaustion, and the riders themselves were pale and panting.
+They rode back in silence.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich received a visit at the &ldquo;Hermitage&rdquo; from
+Raoul Ueberbein the afternoon before his birthday this year.
+The Doctor came to wish him many happy returns, as he
+expected to be prevented by his work from doing so on the
+morrow. They strolled round the gravel path at the back
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_253" title="253"> </a>
+of the park, the tutor in his frock-coat and white tie, Klaus
+Heinrich in his summer coat. The grass stood ready for
+cutting under the perpendicular rays of the midday sun, and
+the limes were in flower. In one corner, close by the hedge
+which divided the park from the unlovely suburbs, stood a
+little rustic temple.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich was telling of his visits to &ldquo;Delphinenort,&rdquo;
+as this topic lay nearest his heart. He spoke quite clearly
+about them, but did not tell the doctor any actual news,
+for the latter showed that he knew all about them. How
+was that? Oh, from various sources. Ueberbein had never
+started the subject. So people in the town concern themselves
+about it?</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Heaven forbid, Klaus Heinrich, that anybody should give
+a thought to it, either to the rides, or to the teas, or to the
+motor drive. You don't suppose that that sort of thing
+is expected to set tongues wagging!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But we're so careful!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;We&rsquo; is rich, Klaus Heinrich, and so is the carefulness.
+All the same, his Excellency von Knobelsdorff keeps himself
+accurately posted in all your goings-on.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Knobelsdorff?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Knobelsdorff.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich was silent; then asked: &ldquo;And what is
+Baron Knobelsdorff's attitude towards what he learns?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, the old gentleman hasn't yet had a chance of interfering
+in the developments.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But the public opinion?&mdash;the people?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The people of course hold their breath.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And you, you yourself, my dear Doctor Ueberbein?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'm waiting for the tureen-lid,&rdquo; answered the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No!&rdquo; cried Klaus Heinrich joyfully. &ldquo;No, there'll be no
+tureen-lid this time, Doctor Ueberbein, for I am happy, oh
+so happy, whatever happens&mdash;can you understand? You
+taught me that happiness was no concern of mine, and you
+pulled me up short when I tried to come by it; and right
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_254" title="254"> </a>
+thankful I was to you for doing so, for it was horrible, and
+I shall never forget it. But this is no case of high jinks at
+a citizens' dance, which leave one humiliated and heavy at
+heart; this is no breaking out and running off the rails and
+humiliation! For can't you see that she of whom we are
+speaking belongs neither to the citizens' dance, nor to the
+aristocratic &lsquo;Pheasants,&rsquo; nor to anything in the world but to
+me&mdash;that she is a Princess, Doctor Ueberbein, and as good
+as me, and there can be no question here of a tureen-lid?
+You have taught me that it is silly to maintain that we're
+all only ordinary men, and hopeless for me to act as if we
+were, and that the happiness I would gain by doing so is
+forbidden to me and must bring me to shame in the end.
+But this is not that silly and forbidden happiness. It is my
+first taste of the happiness which is allowed me, and which I
+may hope for, Doctor Ueberbein, and yield myself to without
+misgiving, whatever comes of it&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Good-bye, Prince Klaus Heinrich,&rdquo; said Doctor Ueberbein,
+though he did not at once leave him, but continued walking at
+his side with his hands clasped behind him and his red
+beard sunk on his breast.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich. &ldquo;No, not good-bye, Doctor
+Ueberbein. That's just it. I mean to remain your friend,
+you who have had such a hard time, and have shown such
+pride in your duty and destiny, and have made me proud too
+in treating me as a companion. I have no intention of resting
+on my oars, now that I have found happiness, but will
+remain true to you and to myself and to my exalted calling&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It cannot be,&rdquo; said Doctor Ueberbein in Latin, and shook
+his ugly head with its protruding, pointed ears.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It can be, Doctor. I'm sure it can, they're not incompatible.
+And you, you ought not to show yourself so cold
+and distant at my side, when I am so happy, and, what's
+more, it's the eve of my birthday. Tell me&mdash;you've had so
+many experiences and seen so much of the world in all its
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_255" title="255"> </a>
+aspects&mdash;have you never had any experiences in this direction?
+You know what I mean&mdash;have you never had an attack like
+this of mine?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;H'm,&rdquo; said Doctor Ueberbein, and pressed his lips together,
+till his red beard rose, and the muscles knotted in
+his cheeks. &ldquo;No doubt I may have had one once, <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">sub rosa</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I thought so! Tell me about it, Doctor Ueberbein. You
+must tell me about it!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The hour was one of quiet sunshine, and the air full of
+the scent of limes. So Doctor Ueberbein related an incident
+in his career on which he had never touched in previous
+accounts, though it had perhaps a decisive influence on his
+whole life. It had occurred in those early days when the
+Doctor was teacher of the young idea and at the same time
+working on his own account, when he used to draw in his
+waist-belt and give private lessons to sleek tradesmen's
+children, so as to get money to buy books with. With his
+hands still behind him and his beard sunk on his breast, the
+doctor related the incident in a sharp and incisive tone of
+voice, pressing his lips close together between each sentence.</p>
+
+<p>At that date fate had forged the closest ties between him
+and a woman, a lovely, fair lady who was the wife of an
+honourable and respected man and the mother of three
+children. He had entered the family as tutor to the children,
+but had subsequently been a constant guest and visitor, and
+with the husband too had reached a footing of mutual confidences.
+The feelings of the young tutor and the fair wife
+for each other had been long unsuspected, and longer still
+unexpressed in words; but they grew stronger in the silence,
+and more overpowering, till one evening hour when the husband
+had stayed late at his office, a warm, sweet, dangerous
+hour, they burst into flames and were near to overwhelm them.</p>
+
+<p>In that hour their longing had cried aloud for the happiness,
+the tremendous happiness, of their union; but, said
+Doctor Ueberbein, the world could sometimes show a noble
+action. They felt ashamed, he said, to tread the mean and
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_256" title="256"> </a>
+ridiculous path of treachery, and to &ldquo;clap horns,&rdquo; as the
+phrase goes, on the honest husband; while to spoil his life
+by demanding release from him as the right of passion was
+equally not to their taste. In short, for the children's sake
+and for that of the good, honest husband, whom they both
+respected, they denied themselves. Yes, that's what happened,
+but of course it needed a good deal of stern resolution.
+Ueberbein continued to visit the fair lady's house occasionally.
+He would sup there, when he had time, play a game of cards
+with his two friends, kiss his hostess's hand, and say good
+night.</p>
+
+<p>But when he had told the Prince this much, he concluded
+in a still shorter and sharper tone than he had begun, and
+the balls of muscle at the corners of his mouth showed more
+prominently than before. For the hour which saw their act
+of renunciation, in that hour Ueberbein had said a final
+farewell to all happiness&mdash;&ldquo;dalliance with happiness,&rdquo; as he
+had since called it. As he failed, or refused, to win the fair
+lady, he swore to himself that he would honour her, and the
+bonds which bound him to her, by achieving something and
+making himself felt in the field of hard work. To this he
+had dedicated his life, to this alone, and it had brought him
+to what he was. That was the secret, or at least a contribution
+of the riddle of Ueberbein's unsociability, unapproachableness,
+and earnest endeavour. Klaus Heinrich was quite
+frightened to see how unusually green his face was when he
+took his leave with a deep bow, saying: &ldquo;My greetings to
+little Imma, Klaus Heinrich.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Next day the Prince received the congratulations of the
+staff at the Schloss, and later those of Herr von Braunbart-Schellendorf
+and von Schulenburg-Tressen in the Yellow
+Room. In the course of the morning the members of the
+Grand Ducal House came to the &ldquo;Hermitage&rdquo; to pay their
+respects, and at one o'clock Klaus Heinrich drove to luncheon
+with Prince and Princess zu Ried-Hohenried, meeting with an
+unusually warm reception from the public on the way. The
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_257" title="257"> </a>
+Grimmburgers were mustered in full force in the pretty
+palace in the Albrechtstrasse. The Grand Duke too came, in
+a frock-coat, nodded his small head to each member of the
+party, sucking his lower lip against his upper the while, and
+drank milk-and-soda during lunch. Almost immediately after
+lunch was finished he withdrew. Prince Lambert had come
+without his wife. The old habitué of the ballet was painted,
+hollow-cheeked, and slovenly, and his voice sounded sepulchral.
+He was to some extent ignored by his relations.</p>
+
+<p>During luncheon the conversation turned for a while on
+Court matters, then on little Princess Philippine's progress,
+and later almost exclusively on Prince Philipp's commercial
+schemes. The quiet little man talked about his breweries,
+factories, and mills, and in particular about his peat-cuttings.
+He described various improvements in the machinery, quoted
+figures of capital invested and returns, and his cheeks glowed,
+while his wife's relations listened to him with looks of
+curiosity, approval, or mockery.</p>
+
+<p>When coffee had been served in the big flower-room, the
+Princess, holding her gilded cup, went up to her brother
+and said: &ldquo;You have quite deserted us lately, Klaus Heinrich.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ditlinde's face with the Grimmburg cheek-bones was not
+so transparent as it had once been. It had gained more
+colour since the birth of her daughter, and her head seemed
+to be less oppressed by the weight of her fair hair.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Have I deserted you?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Forgive me, Ditlinde,
+perhaps I have. But there were so many calls on my time,
+and I knew that there were on yours too; for you are no
+longer confined to flowers.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;True, the flowers have had to take a less prominent place,
+they don't get much thought from me now. A fairer life
+and flowering now occupies all my time. I believe that's
+where I have got my red cheeks from, like dear Philipp from
+his peat (he ought not to have talked about it the whole of
+luncheon, as he did; but it's his hobby), and it is because
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_258" title="258"> </a>
+I was so busy and rushed that I was not cross with you for
+never showing yourself and for going your own way, even
+though that way seemed to me rather a surprising one.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you know what it is, Ditlinde?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, though unfortunately not from you. But Jettchen
+<ins title="Isenschnibble">Isenschnibbe</ins> has kept me well posted&mdash;you know she is
+always a fund of news&mdash;and at first I was horribly shocked,
+I don't deny it. But after all they live in Delphinenort,
+he has a private physician, and Philipp thinks they are in
+their way of equal birth with ourselves. I believe I once
+spoke disparagingly about them, Klaus Heinrich; I said something
+about a Cr&oelig;sus, if I remember rightly, and made a pun
+on the word &lsquo;taxpayer.&rsquo; But if you consider them worthy of
+your friendship, I've been wrong and of course withdraw my
+remarks, and will try to think differently about them in
+future. I promise you. You always loved rummaging,&rdquo; she
+went on, after he had laughed and kissed her hand, &ldquo;and
+I had to do it with you, and my dress (do you remember it&mdash;the
+red velvet?) suffered for it. Now you have to rummage
+alone, and God grant, Klaus Heinrich, that it won't bring
+you any horrible experience.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I really believe, Ditlinde, that every experience is fine,
+whether it be good or bad. But my present experience is
+splendid.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>At half-past five the Prince left the &ldquo;Hermitage&rdquo; again,
+in his dogcart, which he drove himself, with a groom at his
+back. It was warm, and Klaus Heinrich was wearing white
+trousers with a double-breasted coat. Bowing, he again drove
+to the town, or more precisely to the Old Schloss. He did
+not enter the Albrechtstor, however, but drove in through a
+side door, and across two courtyards till he reached that in
+which the rose-bush grew.</p>
+
+<p>Here all was still and stony; the stair-turrets with their
+oblique windows, forged-iron balustrades, and fine carvings
+towered in the corners; the many-styled building stood there
+in light and shadow, partly grey and weather-worn, partly
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_259" title="259"> </a>
+more modern-looking, with gables and box-like projections,
+with open porticoes and peeps through broad bow-windows
+into vaulted halls and narrow galleries. But in the middle,
+in its unfenced bed, stood the rose-bush, blooming gloriously
+after a favourable season.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich threw the reins to a servant, and went up
+and looked at the dark-red roses. They were exceptionally
+fine&mdash;full and velvety, grandly formed, and a real masterwork
+of nature. Several were already full-blown.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Call Ezekiel, please,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich to a moustachioed
+door-keeper, who came forward with his hand to his
+hat.</p>
+
+<p>Ezekiel, the custodian of the rose-bush, came. He was a
+greybeard of seventy years of age, in a gardener's apron,
+with watery eyes and a bent back.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Have you any shears by you, Ezekiel?&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich,
+&ldquo;I should like a rose.&rdquo; And Ezekiel drew some shears
+out of the pocket of his apron.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That one there,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich, &ldquo;that's the finest.&rdquo;
+And the old man cut the thorny branch with trembling hands.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'll water it, Royal Highness,&rdquo; he said, and shuffled off
+to the water-tap in a corner of the court. When he came
+back, glittering drops were clinging to the petals of the rose,
+as if to the feathers of waterfowl.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Thanks, Ezekiel,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich, and took the rose.
+&ldquo;Still going strong? Here!&rdquo; He gave the old man a gold
+piece, and climbing into the dogcart drove with the rose on
+the seat beside him through the courtyards. Everybody who
+saw him thought that he was driving back to the &ldquo;Hermitage&rdquo;
+from the Old Schloss, where presumably he had an interview
+with the Grand Duke.</p>
+
+<p>But he drove through the Town Gardens to Delphinenort.
+The sky had clouded over, big drops were already falling on
+the leaves, and thunder rolled in the distance.</p>
+
+<p>The ladies were at tea when Klaus Heinrich, conducted
+by the corpulent butler, appeared in the gallery and walked
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_260" title="260"> </a>
+down the steps into the garden room. Mr. Spoelmann, as
+usual recently, was not present. He was in bed with poultices
+on. Percival, who lay curled up like a snail close by Imma's
+chair, beat the carpet with his tail by way of greeting. The
+gilding of the furniture looked dull, as the park beyond the
+glass door lay in a damp mist.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich exchanged a handshake with the daughter
+of the house, and kissed the Countess's hand, while he gently
+raised her from the courtly curtsey she had begun, as usual,
+to make.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You see, summer has come,&rdquo; he said to Imma Spoelmann,
+offering her the rose. It was the first time he had brought
+her flowers.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How courtly of you!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Thanks, Prince. And
+what a beauty!&rdquo; she went on in honest admiration (a thing
+she hardly ever showed), and held out her small, ringless
+hands for the glorious flower, whose dewy petals curled exquisitely
+at the edges. &ldquo;Are there such fine roses here?
+Where did you get it?&rdquo; And she bent her dark head eagerly
+over it.</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes were full of horror when she looked up again.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It doesn't smell!&rdquo; she said, and a look of disgust showed
+round her mouth. &ldquo;Wait, though&mdash;it smells of decay!&rdquo; she
+said. &ldquo;What's this you have brought me, Prince?&rdquo; And
+her big black eyes in her pale face seemed to glow with
+questioning horror.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I'm sorry; that's a way our roses have.
+It's from the bush in one of the courts of the Old Schloss.
+Have you never heard of it? There's something hangs by
+that. People say that one day it will begin to smell exquisite.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She seemed not to be listening to him. &ldquo;It seems as if
+it had no soul,&rdquo; she said, and looked at the rose. &ldquo;But it's
+perfectly beautiful, that one must allow. Well, that's a
+doubtful joke on nature's part, Prince. All the same, Prince,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_261" title="261"> </a>
+thanks for your attention. And as it comes from your
+ancestral Schloss, one must regard it with due reverence.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She put the rose in a glass by her plate. A swan's-down
+flunkey brought the Prince a cup and plate. They discussed
+at tea the bewitched rose-bush, and then commonplace subjects,
+such as the Court Theatre, their horses, and all sorts of
+trivial topics. Imma Spoelmann time after time contradicted
+him, interposing polished quotations&mdash;to her own enjoyment,
+and his despair at the range of her reading&mdash;quotations which
+she uttered in her broken voice, with whimsical motions of
+her head. After a time a heavy, white-paper parcel was
+brought in, sent by the book-binders to Miss Spoelmann, containing
+a number of works which she had had bound in smart
+and durable bindings. She opened the parcel, and they all
+three examined the books to see if the binder had done his
+work well.</p>
+
+<p>They were nearly all learned works whose contents were
+either as mysterious-looking as Imma Spoelmann's notebook,
+or dealt with scientific psychology, acute analyses of internal
+impulses. They were got up in the most sumptuous way, with
+parchment and crushed leather, gold letters, fine paper, and
+silk markers. Imma Spoelmann did not display much enthusiasm
+over the consignment, but Klaus Heinrich, who had
+never seen such handsome volumes, was full of admiration.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Shall you put them all into the bookcase?&rdquo; he asked.
+&ldquo;With the others upstairs? I suppose you have quantities of
+books? Are they all as fine as these? Do let me see how
+you arrange them. I can't go yet, the weather's still bad and
+would ruin my white trousers. Besides, I've no idea how you
+live in Delphinenort, I've never seen your study. Will you
+show me your books?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That depends on the Countess,&rdquo; she said, busying herself
+with piling the volumes one on the other. &ldquo;Countess, the
+Prince wants to see my books. Would you be so kind as to
+say what you think?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_262" title="262"> </a>Countess Löwenjoul was in a brown study. With her small
+head bent, she was watching Klaus Heinrich with a sharp,
+almost hostile look, and then let her eyes wander to Imma
+Spoelmann, when her expression altered and became gentle,
+sympathetic, and anxious. She came to herself with a smile,
+and drew a little watch out of her brown, close-fitting dress.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;At seven o'clock,&rdquo; she said brightly, &ldquo;Mr. Spoelmann
+expects you to read to him, Imma. You have half an hour
+in which to do what his Royal Highness wants.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Good; come along, Prince, and inspect my study,&rdquo; said
+Imma. &ldquo;And so far as your Highness permits it, please lend
+a hand in carrying up these books; I'll take half.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But Klaus Heinrich took them all. He clasped them in
+both arms, though the left was not much use to him, and
+the pile reached to his chin. Then, bending backwards and
+going carefully, so as to drop nothing, he followed Imma
+over into the wing towards the drive, on the main floor of
+which lay Countess Löwenjoul's and Miss Spoelmann's quarters.</p>
+
+<p>In the big, comfortable room which they entered through
+a heavy door he laid his burden down on the top of a
+hexagonal ebony table, which stood in front of a big gold-chintzed
+sofa. Imma Spoelmann's study was not furnished
+in the style proper to the Schloss, but in more modern taste,
+without any show, but with massive, masculine, serviceable
+luxury. It was panelled with rare woods right up to the
+top, and adorned with old porcelain, which glittered on the
+brackets all round under the ceiling. The carpets were
+Persian, the mantelpiece black marble, on which stood shapely
+vases and a gilt clock. The chairs were broad and velvet-covered,
+and the curtains of the same golden stuff as the
+sofa-cover. A capacious desk stood in front of the bow-window,
+which allowed a view of the big basin in front of
+the Schloss. One wall was covered with books, but the main
+library was in the adjacent room, which was smaller, and
+carpeted like the big one. A glass door opened into it, and
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_263" title="263"> </a>
+its walls were completely covered with bookshelves right up
+to the ceiling.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, Prince, there's my hermitage,&rdquo; said Imma Spoelmann.
+&ldquo;I hope you like it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, it's glorious,&rdquo; he said. But he did not look round
+him, but gazed unintermittently at her, as she reclined against
+the sofa cushions by the hexagonal table. She was wearing
+one of her beautiful indoor dresses, a summer one this time,
+made of white accordion-pleated stuff, with open sleeves and
+gold embroidery on the yoke. The skin of her arms and neck
+seemed brown as meerschaum against the white of the dress;
+her big, bright, earnest eyes in the strangely childlike face
+seemed to speak a language of their own unceasingly, and a
+smooth wisp of black hair hung across her forehead. She had
+Klaus Heinrich's rose in her hand.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How lovely!&rdquo; he said, standing before her, and not conscious
+of what he meant. His blue eyes, above the national
+cheek-bones, were heavy as with grief. &ldquo;You have as many
+books,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;as my sister Ditlinde has flowers.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Has the Princess so many flowers?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, but of late she has not set so much store by them.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Let's clear these away,&rdquo; she said and took up some books.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, wait,&rdquo; he said anxiously. &ldquo;I've such a lot to say to
+you, and our time is so short. You must know that to-day
+is my birthday&mdash;that's why I came and brought you the rose.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that is an event. Your birthday to-day?
+Well, I'm sure that you received all your congratulations
+with the dignity you always show. You may have mine as
+well! It was sweet of you to bring me the rose, although
+it has its doubtful side.&rdquo; And she tried the mouldy smell
+once more with an expression of fear on her face. &ldquo;How old
+are you to-day, Prince?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Twenty-seven,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;I was born twenty-seven
+years ago in the Grimmburg. Ever since then I've had a
+strenuous and lonely time of it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She did not answer. And suddenly he saw her eyes, under
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_264" title="264"> </a>
+her slightly frowning eye-brows, move to his side. Yes,
+although he was standing sideways to her with his right
+shoulder towards her, as he had trained himself to do, he
+could not prevent her eyes fastening on his left arm, on the
+hand which he had planted right back on his hip.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Were you born with that?&rdquo; she asked softly.</p>
+
+<p>He grew pale. But with a cry, which rang like a cry
+of redemption, he sank down before her, and clasped her
+wondrous form in both his arms. There he lay, in his
+white trousers and his blue and red coat with the major's
+shoulder-straps.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Little sister,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;little sister<span style="white-space: nowrap;">&mdash;&mdash;</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She answered with a pout: &ldquo;Think of appearances, Prince.
+I consider that one should not let oneself go, but should keep
+up appearances on all occasions.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But he was too far gone, and raising his face to her, his eyes
+in a mist, he only said, &ldquo;Imma&mdash;little Imma<span style="white-space: nowrap;">&mdash;&mdash;</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then she took his hand, the left, atrophied one, the deformity,
+the hindrance in his lofty calling, which he had
+been wont from boyhood to hide artfully and carefully&mdash;she
+took it and kissed it.</p>
+
+<h2><a class="pagenum" name="Page_265" title="265"> </a>VIII<br/>
+<small>THE FULFILMENT</small></h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">Grave</span> reports were flying around concerning the state of
+health of the Finance Minister, Doctor Krippenreuther.
+People hinted at nervous break-down, at a progressive stomach-trouble,
+which indeed Herr Krippenreuther's flabby yellow
+complexion was calculated to suggest&hellip;. What is Greatness?
+The daily-breader, the journeyman, might envy this
+tortured dignitary his title, his chain, his rank at Court, his
+important office, to which he had climbed so pertinaciously,
+only to wear himself out in it: but not when these all meant
+the concomitant of his illness. His retirement was repeatedly
+announced to be impending. It was said to be due simply
+and solely to the Grand Duke's dislike of new faces, as well
+as to the consideration that matters could not be improved by
+a change of personnel, that his resignation had not already
+become a fact. Dr. Krippenreuther had spent his summer
+leave in a health-resort in the hills. Perhaps he might have
+improved somewhat up there. But anyhow after his return
+his recouped strength ebbed away quickly again. For at the
+very beginning of the Parliamentary session a rift had come
+between him and the Budget Commission&mdash;serious dissensions,
+which were certainly not from any want of industry on his
+part, but from the circumstances, from the incurable position
+of affairs.</p>
+
+<p>In the middle of September Albrecht&nbsp;II opened the Landtag
+in the Old Schloss with the traditional ceremonies. They
+began with an invocation to God by the Court Chaplain, Dom
+Wislezenus, in the Schloss Chapel. Then the Grand Duke,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_266" title="266"> </a>
+accompanied by Prince Klaus Heinrich, went in solemn procession
+to the Throne-room. Here the members of both
+Chambers, the Ministers, Court officials, and many others in
+uniform and civil dress greeted the royal brothers with three
+cheers, led by the President of the First Chamber, a Count
+Prenzlau.</p>
+
+<p>Albrecht had earnestly wished to transfer to his brother
+his duties in the formal ceremony. It was only owing to the
+urgent objections of Herr von Knobelsdorff that he walked
+in the procession behind the pages. He was so much ashamed
+of his braided hussar's coat, his gaudy trousers, and the
+whole to-do, that he showed clearly in his face his anger and
+his embarrassment. His shoulder-blades were twisted in his
+nervousness as he mounted the steps to the throne. Then he
+took his stand in front of the theatrical chair under the
+faded baldachin, and sucked at his upper lip. His small,
+bearded, unmilitary head rested on the white collar, which
+stuck out far above the silver hussar-collar, and his blue,
+lonely-looking eyes gazed vacantly in front of him. The
+jangle of the spurs of the aide-de-camp who handed him the
+manuscript of his Speech from the Throne rang through the
+hall, in which silence now reigned. And quietly, with a slight
+lisp, and more than one sudden burst of coughing, the Grand
+Duke read what had been written for him.</p>
+
+<p>The speech was the most palliatory that had ever been
+heard, each humiliating fact from outside being counter-balanced
+by some virtuous trait or other in the people. He
+began by praising the industrious spirit of the whole country;
+then admitted that there was no actual increase to show in
+any branch of manufacture, so that the sources of revenue
+failed to show under any head the fertility that could be
+desired. He remarked with satisfaction how the feeling for
+the public good and economical self-sacrifice were spreading
+more and more through the population; and then declared
+without mincing matters that &ldquo;notwithstanding a general most
+acceptable increase in the taxation returns as the result of the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_267" title="267"> </a>
+influx of wealthy foreigners&rdquo; (meaning Mr. Spoelmann) &ldquo;any
+relaxation of the calls on the said noble self-sacrifice was not
+to be thought of.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Even without this, he continued, it had been impossible to
+budget for all the objects of the financial policy, and should
+it prove that sufficient reduction in the public debt had not
+been successfully provided for, the Government considered
+that the continuation of policy of moderate loans would prove
+the best way out of the financial complications. In any
+event it&mdash;the Government&mdash;felt itself supported in these most
+unfavourable circumstances by the confidence of the nation,
+that faith in the future which was so fair a heritage of our
+stock&hellip;. And the Speech from the Throne left the sinister
+topic of public economy as soon as possible, to apply itself to
+less disputatious subjects, such as ecclesiastical, educational,
+and legal matters. Minister of State von Knobelsdorff
+declared in the monarch's name the Landtag to be open. And
+the cheers which accompanied Albrecht when he left the hall
+sounded somewhat ironical and dubious.</p>
+
+<p>As the weather was still summery, he went straight back
+to Hollerbrunn, from which necessity alone had driven him
+to the capital. He had done his part, and the rest was the
+concern of Herr Krippenreuther and the Landtag. Quarrels
+began, as has been said, immediately, and about several topics
+at once: the property tax, the meat tax, and the Civil Service
+estimates.</p>
+
+<p>For, when the deputies proved adamant against attempts
+to persuade them to sanction fresh taxes, Doctor Krippenreuther's
+meditative mind had hit on the idea of converting
+the income tax which had been usual hitherto into a property
+tax, which on the basis of 13½ per cent. would produce an
+increment of about a million. How direly needed, indeed
+how inadequate such an increment was, was clear from the
+main budget for the new financial year, which, leaving out
+of account the imposition of new burdens on the Treasury,
+concluded with an adverse balance, which was calculated to
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_268" title="268"> </a>
+damp the courage of any economical expert. But when it
+was realized that practically only the towns would be hit by
+the property tax, the combined indignation of the urban
+deputies turned against the assessment of 13½ per cent., and
+they demanded as compensation at least the abolition of the
+meat tax, which they called undemocratic and antediluvian.
+Add to this that the Commission adhered resolutely to the long
+promised and always postponed improvement of Civil servants'
+pay&mdash;for it could not be denied that the salaries of the
+Government officials, clergy, and teachers of the Grand Duchy
+were miserable.</p>
+
+<p>But Doctor Krippenreuther could not make gold&mdash;he said
+in so many words, &ldquo;I've never learnt to make gold,&rdquo; and
+he found himself equally unable to abolish the meat tax and
+to ameliorate the conditions in the Civil Service. His only
+resource was to anchor himself to his 13½ per cent., although
+no one knew better than he that its sanction would not really
+bring things any nearer their solution. For the position was
+serious, and despondent spirits painted it in gloomy colours.</p>
+
+<p>The &ldquo;Almanac of the Grand Ducal Statistical Bureau&rdquo; contained
+alarming returns of the harvest for the last year.
+Agriculture had a succession of bad years to show; storms,
+hail, droughts, and inordinate rain had been the lot of the
+peasants; an exceptionally cold and snowless winter had resulted
+in the seed freezing; and the critics maintained, though
+with little proof to show for it, that the timber-cutting had
+already influenced the climate. At any rate figures proved
+that the total yield of corn had decreased in a most disquieting
+degree. The straw, besides being deficient in quantity,
+left much to be wished from the point of view of quality, in
+the opinion of the compilers of the report.</p>
+
+<p>The figures of the potato harvest fell far below the average
+of the preceding decade, not to mention that no less than
+10 per cent. of the potatoes were diseased. As to artificial
+feeding-stuffs, these showed for the last two years results both
+in quality and quantity which, for clover and manure, were
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_269" title="269"> </a>
+as bad as the worst of the years under review, and things were
+no better with the rapeseed harvest or with the first and second
+hay crops. The decline in agriculture was baldly shown in
+the increase of forced sales, whose figures in the year under
+review had advanced in a striking way. But the failure of
+crops entailed a falling off in the produce of taxation which
+would have been regrettable in any country, but in ours could
+not help having a fatal effect.</p>
+
+<p>As to the forests, nothing had been made out of them.
+One disaster had followed another; blight and moths had
+attacked the woods more than once. And it will be remembered
+that owing to over-cutting the woods had lost seriously
+in capital value.</p>
+
+<p>The silver-mines? They had for a long time proved barren.
+The work had been interrupted by convulsions of nature,
+and as the repairs would have cost large sums, and the results
+had never showed signs of coming up to expectations, it had
+been found necessary provisionally to suspend the workings,
+though this threw a number of labourers out of work and
+caused distress in whole districts.</p>
+
+<p>Enough has been said to explain how matters stood with
+the ordinary State revenues in this time of trial. The slowly
+advancing crisis, the deficit carried forward from one year to
+another, had become burning owing to the straits of the people
+and the unfavourableness of the elements. It had begun to
+cry aloud for remedy, and, when one looked around despairingly
+for the remedy, or even for means of alleviation, the
+most purblind could not fail to see the whole hideousness of
+our financial condition. There could be no thought of voting
+for new expenditure, the country was naturally incapable
+of bearing much taxation. It was now exhausted, its tax-paying
+powers adversely affected, and the critics declared that
+the sight of insufficiently nourished human beings was becoming
+more and more common in the country. They attributed
+this firstly to the shocking taxes on provisions and secondly
+to the direct taxation which was known to oblige stock-owners
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_270" title="270"> </a>
+to turn all their full-milk into cash. As to the other less
+respectable though enticingly easy remedy for dearth of money,
+of which the financial authorities were well aware, namely
+the raising of a loan, the time was come when an improper
+and inconsiderate use of this means must begin to bring its
+own bitter punishment.</p>
+
+<p>The liquidation of the national debt had been taken in
+hand for a time in a clumsy and harmful way. Then under
+Albrecht&nbsp;II it had stopped altogether. The yawning rifts in
+the State had received an emergency stuffing of new loans
+and paper issues, and subsequent Finance Ministers had grown
+pale to find themselves faced with a floating consolidated
+debt redeemable at an early date, whose total was scandalously
+large for the total number of heads of the population.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Krippenreuther had not shrunk from the practical steps
+open to the State in such a predicament. He had steered clear
+of big capital obligations, had demanded compulsory redemption
+of bonds, and, while reducing the rate of interest,
+had converted short-dated debts over the heads of the creditors
+into perpetual rent-charges. But these rent-charges had
+to be paid; and while this incumbrance was an unbearable
+burden on the national economy, the lowness of the rate of
+exchange caused every fresh issue of bonds to bring in less
+capital proceeds to the Treasury. Still more: the economic
+crisis in the Grand Duchy had the effect of making foreign
+creditors demand payments at an exceptionally early date.
+This again lowered the rate of exchange and resulted in an
+increased flow of gold out of the country, and bank-smashes
+were daily occurrences in the business world.</p>
+
+<p>In a word: our credit was shattered, our paper stood far
+below its nominal value; and though the Landtag might
+perhaps have preferred to vote a new loan to voting new
+taxes, the conditions which would have been imposed upon
+the country were such that the negotiation seemed difficult,
+if not impossible. For on the top of everything else came
+this unpleasant factor, that the people were at that moment
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_271" title="271"> </a>
+suffering from the burden of that general economical disorder,
+that appreciation in the price of gold, which is still
+vivid in everybody's memory.</p>
+
+<p>What was to be done to get safe to land? Whither turn
+to appease the hunger for gold which was devouring us?
+The disposal of the then unproductive silver-mines and the
+application of the proceeds to the payment of the debts at
+high interest was discussed at length. Yet, as matters stood,
+the sale could not help turning out disadvantageously. Further,
+not only would the State lose altogether the capital sunk
+in the mines, but would relinquish its prospect of a return
+which might perhaps sooner or later materialize. Finally,
+buyers did not grow on every bush. For one moment&mdash;a
+moment of psychical despondency&mdash;the sale of the national
+forests even was mooted. But it must be said that there was
+still sense enough in the country to prevent our woods being
+surrendered to private industry.</p>
+
+<p>To complete the picture: still further rumours of sales were
+current, rumours which suggested that the financial embarrassment
+penetrated even to quarters which the loyal people
+had always hoped were far removed from all the rubs of the
+time. The <i>Courier</i>, which was never used to sacrifice a piece
+of news to its sympathetic feelings, was the first to publish
+the news that two of the Grand Duke's schlosses, &ldquo;Pastime&rdquo;
+and &ldquo;Favourite,&rdquo; in the open country, had been put up for
+sale. Considering that neither property was of any further
+use as a residence for the royal family, and that both demanded
+yearly increasing outlay, the administrators of the
+Crown trust property had given notice in the proper quarter
+for steps to be taken to sell them: what did that imply?</p>
+
+<p>It was obviously quite a different case from that of the
+sale of Delphinenort, which had been the result of a quite
+exceptional and favourable offer, as well as a smart stroke
+of business on behalf of the State. People who were brutal
+enough to give a name to things which finer feeling shrinks
+from specifying, declared right out that the Treasury had
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_272" title="272"> </a>
+been mercilessly set on by disquieted creditors, and that their
+consent to such sales showed that they were exposed to relentless
+pressure.</p>
+
+<p>How far had matters gone? Into whose hands would the
+schlosses fall? The more benevolent who asked this question
+were inclined to find comfort in and to believe a further
+report, which was spread by the wiseacres; namely, that on
+this occasion too the buyer was no one else but Samuel
+Spoelmann&mdash;an entirely groundless and fantastic report, which,
+however, proves what a rôle in the world of popular imagination
+was played by the lonely, suffering little man who had
+settled down in such princely style in their midst.</p>
+
+<p>Yonder he lived, with his physician, his electric organ, and
+his collection of glass, behind the pillars, the bow windows,
+and the chiselled festoons of the schloss which had risen from
+its ruins at a nod from him. He was hardly ever seen: he
+was always in bed with poultices. But people saw his daughter,
+that curious creature with the whimsical features who
+lived like a princess, had a countess for a companion, studied
+algebra, and had walked in a temper unimpeded right through
+the guard. People saw her, and they sometimes saw Prince
+Klaus Heinrich at her side.</p>
+
+<p>Raoul Ueberbein had used a strong expression when he declared
+that the public &ldquo;held their breath&rdquo; at the sight. But
+he really was right, and it can be truly said that the population
+of our town as a whole never followed a social or
+public proceeding with such passionate, such surpassing eagerness
+as Klaus Heinrich's visits to Delphinenort. The Prince
+himself acted up to a certain point&mdash;namely up to a certain
+conversation with his Excellency the Minister of State, Knobelsdorff&mdash;blindly,
+without regard to the outside world and in
+obedience only to an inner impulse. But his tutor was justified
+in deriding in his fatherly way his idea that his proceedings
+could be kept hid from the world. For whether it
+was that the servants on both sides did not hold their tongues,
+or that the public had the opportunity of direct observation, at
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_273" title="273"> </a>
+any rate Klaus Heinrich had not met Miss Spoelmann once
+since that first meeting in the Dorothea Hospital, without its
+being remarked and discussed. Remarked? No, spied on,
+glared at, and greedily jumped at! Discussed? Rather
+smothered in floods of talk.</p>
+
+<p>The intercourse of the two was the topic of conversation in
+Court circles, salons, sitting- and bedrooms, barbers' shops,
+public-houses, workrooms, and servants' halls, by cabmen on
+the ranks and girls at the gates. It occupied the minds of men
+no less than women, of course with the variations which are
+inherent in the different ways the sexes have of looking at
+things. The always sympathetic interest in it had a uniting,
+levelling effect: it bridged over the social gaps, and one might
+hear the tram conductor turn to the smart passenger on the
+platform with the question whether he knew that yesterday
+afternoon the Prince had again spent an hour at Delphinenort.</p>
+
+<p>But what was at once remarkable in itself and at the same
+time decisive for the future was that throughout there never
+seemed for one moment to be any feeling of scandal in the air,
+nor did all the tongue-wagging seem merely the vulgar pleasure
+in startling events in high quarters. From the very beginning,
+before any <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">arrière pensée</i> had had time to form, the
+thousand-voiced discussion of the subject, however animated,
+was always pitched in a key of approval and agreement. Indeed,
+the Prince, if it had occurred to him at an earlier stage
+to adapt his conduct to public opinion, would have realized
+at once to his delight how entirely popular that conduct was.
+For when he called Miss Spoelmann a &ldquo;princess&rdquo; to his tutor,
+he had, quite properly, accurately expressed his people's
+mind&mdash;that people which always surrounds the uncommon and
+visionary with a cloud of poetry.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, to the people the pale, dark, precious, and strangely
+lovely creature of mixed blood, who had come to us from the
+Antipodes to live her lonely and unprecedented life amongst
+us&mdash;to the people she was a princess&mdash;or Fairy-child from
+Fableland, a princess in the world's most wonderful meaning.
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_274" title="274"> </a>
+But everything, her own behaviour as much as the attitude
+of the world towards her, contributed to make her appear a
+princess in the ordinary sense of the word also. Did she
+not live with her companion countess in a schloss, as was
+meet and right? Did she not drive in her gorgeous motor
+or her four-in-hand to the benevolent institutions, the homes
+for the blind, for orphans, and for deaconesses, the public
+kitchens and the milk-kitchens, to teach herself and to stimulate
+them by her inspection, like a complete princess?</p>
+
+<p>Had she not subscribed to support the victims of flood and
+fire out of her &ldquo;privy purse,&rdquo; as the <i>Courier</i> was precise
+enough to declare, subscriptions which nearly equalled those
+of the Grand Duke (did not exceed them, as was noticed with
+general satisfaction)? Did not the newspapers publish
+almost daily, immediately under the Court news, reports of
+Mr. Spoelmann's varying health&mdash;whether the colic kept him
+in bed or whether he had resumed his morning visits to the
+Spa-gardens? Were not the white liveries of his servants as
+much a part of the picture in the streets of the capital as the
+brown of the Grand Ducal lackeys? Did not foreigners with
+guide-books ask to be taken out to Delphinenort, there to
+gloat over the sight of Spoelmann's house&mdash;many of them before
+they had seen the Old Schloss?</p>
+
+<p>Were not both Schlosses, the Old and Delphinenort, about
+equally centres and foci of the city? To what circle of
+society belonged that human being who had been born
+Samuel Spoelmann's daughter, that creature without counterpart,
+without analogy? To whom should she attach herself,
+with whom have intercourse? Nothing could be less surprising,
+nothing more obvious and natural than to see Klaus
+Heinrich at her side. And even those who had never enjoyed
+that sight enjoyed it in the spirit and gloated over it: the slim,
+solemnly familiar figure of the Prince by the side of the
+daughter and heiress of the prodigious little foreigner, who,
+ill and peevish as he was, disposed of a fortune which
+amounted to nearly twice as much as our national debt!</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_275" title="275"> </a>Then one day a memory, a wonderful disposition of words,
+took hold of the public conscience; nobody can say who
+first pointed to it, recalled it&mdash;that is quite uncertain. Perhaps
+it was a woman, perhaps a child with credulous eyes, whom
+somebody was sending to sleep with stories&mdash;heaven only
+knows. But a ghostly form began to show liveliness in the
+popular imagination: the shadow of an old gipsy-woman,
+grey and bent, with an inward squint, who drew her stick
+through the sand, and whose mumbling had been written
+down and handed down from generation to generation&hellip;.
+&ldquo;The greatest happiness?&rdquo; It should come to the land
+through a Prince &ldquo;with one hand.&rdquo; He would give the country,
+the prophecy ran, more with his one hand than others
+could with two&hellip;. With one? But was everything all
+right with Klaus Heinrich's slim figure?</p>
+
+<p>When one thought of it, was there not a weakness, a defect
+in his person, which one always avoided seeing when addressing
+him, partly from shyness, and partly because with
+charming skill he made it so easy not to notice it? When
+one saw him in his carriage, he kept his left hand on his
+sword-hilt covered with his right. One could see him under a
+baldachin, on a flag-bedecked platform, take up a position
+slightly turned to the left, with his left hand planted somehow
+on his hip. His left arm was too short, the hand was stunted,
+everybody knew that, and knew various explanations of the
+origin of the defect, although respect and distance had not
+allowed a clear view of it or even its recognition in so many
+words. But now everybody saw it. It could never be ascertained
+who first whispered and quoted the prophecy in this
+connexion&mdash;whether it was a child, or a girl, or a greybeard
+on the threshold of the beyond.</p>
+
+<p>But what is certain is, that it was the people who started it,
+the people who imposed certain thoughts and hopes&mdash;and
+quite soon their conception of Miss Spoelmann's personality&mdash;on
+the cultured classes right up to the highest quarters,
+and exercised a powerful influence on them from below: that
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_276" title="276"> </a>
+the impartial, unprejudiced belief of the people afforded the
+broad and firm foundation for all that came later. &ldquo;With
+one hand?&rdquo; people asked, and &ldquo;the greatest happiness?&rdquo;
+They saw Klaus Heinrich in the spirit by Imma Spoelmann's
+side with his left hand on his hip, and, still incompetent to
+think their thought out to its conclusion, they quivered at
+their half-thought.</p>
+
+<p>At that time everything was still in the clouds, and nobody
+thought anything out to its conclusion&mdash;not even the persons
+most immediately concerned. For the relations between
+Klaus Heinrich and Imma Spoelmann were wondrous strange,
+and their minds&mdash;his as well&mdash;could not be brought to centre
+on any immediate, palpable goal. As a matter of fact, that
+laconic conversation on the afternoon of the Prince's birthday
+(when Miss Spoelmann had showed him her books) had
+made but the slightest, if any, alteration in their relations.
+Klaus Heinrich may have gone back to the &ldquo;Hermitage&rdquo; in
+that condition of heated enthusiasm proper to young people
+on such occasions, convinced that something decisive had
+happened: but he soon learned that his wooing of what he
+had recognized to be his only happiness was only now really
+beginning.</p>
+
+<p>But, as has been said, this wooing could not aim at any
+objective result, a bourgeois promise or such-like&mdash;such an
+idea was almost inconceivable, and besides the Prince lived
+in too great seclusion from the practical world for such an
+end to present itself to him. In fact the object of Klaus
+Heinrich's pleadings with looks and words from that time
+onward was not that Miss Spoelmann should reciprocate the
+feelings he entertained towards her, but that she might feel
+impelled to believe in the reality and liveliness of those feelings.
+For that was what she did not do.</p>
+
+<p>He let two weeks pass before he sent in his name at Delphinenort
+again, and during these he feasted spiritually on
+what had already occurred. He was in no hurry to supersede
+that happening with a new one. Besides, his time just now
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_277" title="277"> </a>
+was occupied by several representative functions, including
+the annual festival of the Miniature Range Rifle Club, whose
+well-informed patron he was and in whose anniversary festival
+he annually took part. Here he was received in his green
+uniform, as if his sole interest in life was rifle-shooting, by
+the united members of the association with an enthusiastic
+welcome, was conducted to the butts, and, after an unappetizing
+luncheon with the distinguished members of the committee,
+fired several shots in a gracefully expert attitude in
+the direction of various targets.</p>
+
+<p>When he proceeded&mdash;it was the middle of June&mdash;to pay
+another afternoon visit to the Spoelmanns, he found Imma
+in a very mocking mood, and her mode of expression was
+unusually Scriptural and solemn. Mr. Spoelmann also was
+present this time, and although his presence robbed Klaus
+Heinrich of the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tête-à-tête</i> he so much desired with the daughter,
+yet it helped him in a quite unexpected way to bear up
+against the wounds which Imma's sharpness gave him; for
+Samuel Spoelmann was friendly, and almost affectionate towards
+him.</p>
+
+<p>They had tea on the terrace, sitting in basket-chairs of an
+ultra-modern shape, with the breezes from the flower-garden
+softly fanning them. The master of the house lay under a
+green-silk, fur-lined, and parrot-embroidered coverlet, stretched
+by the table on a cane couch fitted with silk cushions. He
+had left his bed for the sake of the mild air, but his cheeks
+to-day were not inflamed, but of a sallow paleness, and his
+eyes were muddy; his chin protruded sharply, his prominent
+nose looked longer than ever, and his tone was not cross, as
+usual, but sad&mdash;a bad sign. By his head sat Doctor Watercloose
+with his continual soft smile.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hullo, young Prince&nbsp;&hellip;&rdquo; said Mr. Spoelmann in a
+tired tone, and answered the other's inquiry as to his health
+merely with half a grunt. Imma, in a shimmering dress
+with a high waist and green-velvet bolero, poured water into
+the pot out of the electric kettle. She congratulated the Prince
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_278" title="278"> </a>
+with a pout on his personal prowess at the rifle festival. She
+had, she said, as she wagged her head backwards and forwards,
+&ldquo;read an account of it in the daily press with deep
+satisfaction,&rdquo; and had read aloud the description of his exploits
+as marksman to the Countess. The latter was sitting
+bolt upright in her tight brown dress at the table, and
+handling her spoon gracefully, without in any way letting
+herself go. It was Mr. Spoelmann who did the talking this
+time. He did it, as has been said, in a soft, sad way, the
+result of all his suffering.</p>
+
+<p>He recounted an occurrence, an experience of years gone
+by, which was obviously still fresh to him, and which always
+brought him new suffering on the days when his health was
+bad. He recounted the short and simple story twice, with
+even greater self-torture the second time than the first. He
+had wished to make one of his endowments&mdash;not one of the
+first rank, but a pretty considerable one&mdash;he had given a big
+philanthropic institute in the United States to understand in
+writing that he wished to devote a million in railway bonds
+to the furtherance of their noble work&mdash;safe paper of the
+South Pacific Railway, said Mr. Spoelmann, and slapped the
+palm of his hand, as if to show the paper. But what had
+the philanthropic institute done? It had refused the gift,
+rejected it&mdash;adding in so many words that it preferred to go
+without the support of questionable and ill-gotten plunder.
+They had actually done that. Mr. Spoelmann's lips quivered
+as he recounted it, the first time no less than the second, and,
+longing for comfort and expressions of disapproval, he
+looked round the table with his little, close-set, metallic eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That was not philanthropic of the philanthropic institute,&rdquo;
+said Klaus Heinrich. &ldquo;No, it certainly was not.&rdquo; And the
+shake of his head was so decided, his disgust and sympathy so
+obvious, that Mr. Spoelmann cheered up a little and declared
+that it was lovely outside to-day and the trees down yonder
+smelt nice. Indeed, he took the first opportunity of showing
+his young guest his appreciation and satisfaction in the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_279" title="279"> </a>
+clearest manner. For Klaus Heinrich had caught a chill
+with this summer's constant alternations between warm
+weather and cooling showers and hailstorms. His neck was
+swollen, his throat felt sore when he swallowed; and as his
+lofty calling and a certain amount of molly-coddling of his
+person, in request as it was for exhibition, had necessarily
+made him rather delicate, he could not help alluding to it
+and complaining of the pain in his neck.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You must have wet compresses,&rdquo; said Mr. Spoelmann.
+&ldquo;Have you any oil-silk?&rdquo; Klaus Heinrich had none. Then
+Mr. Spoelmann threw off the parrot coverlet, stood up, and
+went inside the Schloss. He would not answer any questions,
+insisted on going, and went. When he had gone, the others
+asked each other what he intended to do, and Doctor Watercloose,
+fearing lest an attack of pain had seized his patient,
+hurried after him. But when Mr. Spoelmann returned he
+had in his hand a piece of oil-silk, whose existence in some
+drawer he had remembered: a rather creased piece, which
+he handed to the Prince with precise directions how to use
+it, so as to get the most good out of it. Klaus Heinrich
+thanked him delightedly, and Mr. Spoelmann got contentedly
+back on to his couch. This time he stayed there till the end
+of tea, when he proposed a general walk round the park, in
+the following order: Mr. Spoelmann in his soft slippers
+between Imma and Klaus Heinrich, while Countess Löwenjoul
+followed at a short distance with Dr. Watercloose.</p>
+
+<p>When the Prince took leave for the day, Imma Spoelmann
+made some sharp remark about his neck and the wet compresses,
+adjured him half-mockingly to nurse himself and to
+take the utmost care of his sacred person. But although
+Klaus Heinrich had no adequate repartee ready for her&mdash;she
+did not expect or want one&mdash;yet it was in a fairly cheerful
+frame of mind that he mounted his dog-cart; for the
+piece of creased oil-silk in the back pocket of his uniform
+coat seemed to him, though unconsciously, a pledge of a
+happy future.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_280" title="280"> </a>However that might be, for the present his struggle was
+only beginning. It was the struggle for Imma Spoelmann's
+faith, the struggle to make her so far trust him as to be
+capable of deciding to leave the clear and frosty sphere
+wherein she had been wont to play, to descend from the
+realms of algebra and conversational ridicule, and to venture
+with him into the untrodden zone, that warmer, more fragrant,
+more fruitful zone to which he showed her the way. For she
+was overpoweringly shy of making any such decision.</p>
+
+<p>Next time he was alone with her, or as good as alone,
+because Countess Löwenjoul was the third, it was a cool,
+over-cast morning, after a break in the weather the night
+before. They rode along the meadow-woods, Klaus Heinrich
+in high boots, with the crook of his crop suspended between
+the buttons of his grey cloak. The sluices at the wooden
+bridge up stream were shut, the bed of the stream lay empty
+and stony. Percival, whose first outburst had died down,
+jumped here and there or trotted sideways, dog-fashion, in
+front of the horses. The Countess, on Isabeau, kept her head
+on one side and smiled. Klaus Heinrich was saying: &ldquo;I'm
+always thinking, night and day, about something which must
+have been a dream. I lie at night and can hear Florian over
+in the stall snuffling, it's so quiet. And then I think, for
+certain it was no dream. But when I see you as I do to-day,
+and did the other day at tea, I cannot possibly think it
+anything more substantial.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She replied: &ldquo;I must ask you to explain yourself, Sire.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Did you show me your books nineteen days ago, Miss
+Spoelmann&mdash;or not?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Nineteen days ago! I must count up. No; let's see, it's
+eighteen and a half days, unless I'm quite out.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You did show me your books, then?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That is undoubtedly correct, Prince. And I delude myself
+with the hope that you liked them.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Imma, you mustn't talk like that, not now and not
+to me! My heart is so heavy, and I have such lots still to
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_281" title="281"> </a>
+say to you, which I couldn't get out nineteen days ago, when
+you showed me your books &hellip; your masses of books. How
+I should love to carry on where we broke off then, and to
+forget all that lies in between&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For heaven's sake, Prince, rather forget the other. Why
+go back to it? Why remind yourself and me? I thought
+you had good reason to observe the strictest silence on such
+subjects. Fancy letting yourself go like that! Losing your
+self-possession to such a degree!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If you only knew, Imma, how unutterably pleasant it is
+for me to lose my self-possession!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, thanks. That's insulting, do you know that? I insist
+on your showing the same self-possession towards me as
+towards the rest of the world. I'm not here to provide you
+with relaxation from your princely existence.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How entirely you misunderstand me, Imma! But I am
+well aware that you do so deliberately and only in fun, and
+that shows me that you don't believe me and don't take what
+I say seriously&hellip;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, Prince, you really ask too much. Haven't you told
+me about your life? You went to school for show, to the
+University for show, you served as a soldier for show, and
+still wear the uniform for show, you hold audiences for
+show, and play at rifle-shooting and heaven knows what else
+for show; you came into the world for show, and am I suddenly
+to believe that there is anything serious about you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Tears came to his eyes while she said this: her words hurt
+him so much. He answered gently: &ldquo;You are right, Imma,
+there is a lot of fiction in my life. But I didn't make it
+or choose it, you must remember, but have done my duty
+precisely and sternly as it was prescribed to me for the
+edification of the people. And it is not enough that it has
+been a hard one, and full of prohibitions and privations; it
+must now take revenge on me, by causing you not to believe
+me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You are proud,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;of your calling and your life,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_282" title="282"> </a>
+Prince, I know well, and I cannot wish you to break faith
+with yourself.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;leave that to me, that about being true
+to myself, and don't give it a thought! I have had experiences,
+I have been untrue to myself and have tried to get
+round the prohibitions, and it ended in my disgrace. But
+since I have known you, I know, I know for the first time,
+that I may for the first time, without remorse or harm to
+what is described as my lofty calling, let myself go like anybody
+else, although Doctor Ueberbein says, and says in
+Latin, that that must never be.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There, you see what your friend said.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Didn't you yourself call him a poor wretch, who would
+come to a sad end? He's a fine character; I esteem him
+greatly, and owe him many hints about myself and things in
+general. But I've often thought about him recently, and as
+you expressed so unfavourable a verdict upon him then, I
+have spent hours considering your verdict, and was forced to
+own you right. For I'll tell you, Imma, how things stand
+with Doctor Ueberbein. His whole life is hostile to happiness,
+that's what it is.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That seems to me a very proper hostility,&rdquo; said Imma
+Spoelmann.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Proper,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;but wretched, as you yourself
+said, and what's more, sinful, for it is a sin against something
+nobler than his severe propriety, as I now see, and it's
+this sin in which he wished to educate me in his fatherly
+fashion. But I've now grown out of his education, at this
+point I have, I'm now independent and know better; and
+though I may not have convinced Ueberbein, I'll convince
+you, Imma, sooner or later.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, Prince, I must grant you that! You have the powers
+of conviction, your zeal carries one along irresistibly with
+it! Nineteen days, didn't you say? I maintain that eighteen
+and a half is right, but it comes to much the same thing.
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_283" title="283"> </a>
+In that time you have condescended to appear at Delphinenort
+once&mdash;four days ago.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He threw a startled look at her.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But, Imma, you must have patience with me, and some
+indulgence. Consider, I'm still awkward &hellip; this is strange
+ground. I don't know how it was&hellip;. I believe I wanted
+to let us have time. And then there came several calls upon
+me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of course, you had to fire at the targets for show. I
+read all about it. As usual, you had a rousing success to
+show for it. You stood there in your fancy dress, and let a
+whole meadowful of people love you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Halt, Imma, I beg you, don't gallop&hellip;. One can't get
+a word out&hellip;. Love, you say. But what sort of love is
+it? A meadow-love, a casual, superficial love, a love at a
+distance, which means nothing&mdash;a love in full dress with no
+familiarity about it. No, you've absolutely no reason to be
+angry because I express myself pleased with it, for I get no
+good from it; only the people do, who are elevated by it, and
+that's their desire. But I too have my desire, Imma, and it's
+to you that I turn.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How can I help you, Prince?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, you know well! It's confidence, Imma; couldn't you
+have a little confidence in me?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him, and the scrutiny of her big eyes had
+never before been so dark and piercing. But for all the
+urgency of his dumb pleading, she turned away, and said
+with a look which betrayed no secrets: &ldquo;No, Prince Klaus
+Heinrich, I cannot.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He uttered a cry of grief, and his voice shook, as he asked:
+&ldquo;And why can't you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She replied: &ldquo;Because you prevent me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How do I prevent you? Please tell me, I beg.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And, with the reserved expression still on her face, her eyes
+dropped on her white reins, and rocking lightly to her horse's
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_284" title="284"> </a>
+walk, she replied: &ldquo;Through everything, through your conduct,
+through the way and manner of your being, through
+your highly distinguished personality. You know well enough
+how you prevented the poor Countess from letting herself
+go, and forced her to be clear-brained and reasonable, although
+it is expressly on the ground of her excessive experiences
+that the blessing of craziness and oddness has been
+vouchsafed to her, and that I told you that I was well aware
+how you had set out to sober her. Yes, I know it well, for
+you prevent me too from letting myself go, you sober me too,
+continually, in every way, through your words, through your
+look, through your way of sitting and standing, and it is
+quite impossible to have confidence in you. I've had the opportunity
+of watching you in your intercourse with other
+people; but whether it was Doctor Sammet in the Dorothea
+Hospital or Herr Stavenüter in the &lsquo;Pheasantry&rsquo; Tea-garden,
+it was always the same, and it always made me shiver. You
+hold yourself erect, and ask questions, but you don't do so
+out of sympathy, you don't care what the questions are about&mdash;no,
+you don't care about anything, and you lay nothing
+to heart. I've often seen it&mdash;you speak, you express an
+opinion, but you might just as well express a quite different
+one, for in reality you have no opinion and no belief, and the
+only thing you care about is your princely self-possession.
+You say sometimes that your calling is not an easy one, but
+as you have challenged me, I'll ask you to notice that it
+would be easier to you if you had an opinion and a belief,
+Prince, that's my opinion and belief. How could anyone
+have confidence in you! No, it's not confidence that you
+inspire, but coldness and embarrassment; and if I put myself
+out to get closer to you, that kind of embarrassment
+and awkwardness would prevent me from doing so,&mdash;there's
+my answer for you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He had listened to her with painful tension, had looked
+more than once at her pale face while she was speaking, and
+then again, like her, dropped his eyes on the reins.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_285" title="285"> </a>&ldquo;I must indeed thank you, Imma,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;for
+speaking so earnestly, for you know that you don't always
+do so, but generally speak only derisively, and in your way
+take things as little seriously as I in mine.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How else but derisively can I speak to you, Prince?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And sometimes you are so hard and cruel, as for instance
+towards the head sister in the Dorothea Hospital, whom you
+threw into such confusion.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I'm well aware that I too have my faults, and need
+somebody to help me to give them up.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'll be that somebody, Imma; we'll help each other.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't think we can help each other, Prince.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, we can. Didn't you speak just now quite seriously
+and unsatirically? But as for me, you are not right when
+you say that I care about nothing at all and lay nothing to
+heart, for I care about you, Imma&mdash;about you, I have laid you
+to heart; and as this matter is one of such inexpressible
+seriousness to me, I cannot fail finally to win your confidence.
+Were you aware of my joy when I heard you talk of putting
+yourself out and coming nearer to me? Yes, put yourself
+out a little, and do not let yourself ever again be confused
+with that sort of awkwardness, or whatever it is, which you
+are so liable to feel in my presence. Ah, I know it, I know
+only too well, how much to blame I am for that! But
+laugh at yourself and at me when I make you feel like
+that, and attach yourself to me. Will you promise me to
+put yourself out a little?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But Imma Spoelmann promised nothing, but insisted now
+on her gallop; and many a subsequent conversation remained,
+like this, without result.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes, when Klaus Heinrich had come to tea, the
+Prince, Miss Spoelmann, the Countess, and Percival went into
+the park. The splendid collie kept decorously at Imma's
+side, and Countess Löwenjoul walked two or three yards behind
+the young people; for soon after they had started she
+had stopped for a second, to twine her bent and bony fingers
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_286" title="286"> </a>
+round a blossom, and she had never made good the distance
+she had then lost. So Klaus Heinrich and Imma walked in
+front of her, and talked. But when they had covered a certain
+distance, they turned round, thus getting the Countess
+two or three yards in front of them. Then Klaus Heinrich
+followed up his conversational efforts, and, carefully and
+without looking up, took Imma Spoelmann's small, ringless
+hand from her side and clasped it in both his, the while he
+imploringly asked whether she was taking pains, and had
+made any progress in her confidence in him.</p>
+
+<p>It displeased him to hear that she had been working, poring
+over algebra and playing in the lofty spheres since they had
+last met. He would beg her to lay her books aside now, as
+they might distract her and divert her from the matter to
+which all her thinking powers must now be devoted. He
+talked also about himself, about that sobering effect and awkwardness
+which, according to her, his existence inspired; he
+tried to explain it, and in doing so to weaken it. He spoke
+about the cold, stern, and barren existence which had been
+his hitherto, he described to her how everybody had always
+flocked to gaze at him, while it had been his lofty calling
+to show himself and to be gazed at, a much more difficult
+task. He did his best to make her recognize that the remedy
+for that which caused him to prevent the poor Countess from
+drivelling and to estrange her to his own sorrow, that this
+remedy could be found in her, only in her, and was given
+over absolutely into her hands.</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him, her big eyes sparkled in dark scrutiny,
+and it was clear that she, she too, was struggling. But then
+she would shake her head or break off the conversation, introducing
+with a pout some topic over which she made merry,
+incapable of bringing herself to take the responsibility of
+the &ldquo;Yes&rdquo; for which he begged her, that undefined and, as
+matters stood, absolutely non-committal surrender.</p>
+
+<p>She did not prevent him from coming once or twice a week;
+she did not prevent him from speaking, from assailing her
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_287" title="287"> </a>
+with prayers and asseverations and from taking her hand
+now and then between his own. But she was only patient,
+she remained unmoved, her dread of taking the decisive step,
+that aversion from leaving her cool and derisive kingdom and
+confessing herself his, seemed unconquerable; and she could
+not help, in her anguish and exhaustion, breaking out with
+the words: &ldquo;Oh, Prince, we ought never to have met&mdash;it
+would have been best if we hadn't. Then you would have
+pursued your lofty calling as calmly as ever, and I should
+have preserved my peace of mind, and neither would have
+harassed the other!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Prince had much difficulty in inducing her to recant,
+and in extorting from her the confession that she did not
+entirely regret having made his acquaintance. But all this
+took time. The summer came to an end, early night-frosts
+loosened the still-green leaves from the trees, Fatma's, Florian's,
+and Isabeau's hoofs rustled in the red-and-gold leafage when
+they went for a ride. Autumn came with its mists and sharp
+smells&mdash;and nobody could have prophesied an end, or indeed
+any decisive turn in the course of the strangely fluctuating
+affair.</p>
+
+<p>The credit of having placed things on the foundation of
+actuality, of having given events the lead in the direction of
+a happy issue, must for ever be ascribed to the distinguished
+gentleman who had up till now wisely kept in the background,
+but at the right moment intervened carefully but
+firmly. I refer to Excellency von Knobelsdorff, Minister of
+the Interior, Foreign Affairs, and the Grand Ducal Household.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Ueberbein had been correct in his assertion that the
+President of the Council had kept himself posted in the
+stages of Klaus Heinrich's love affair. What is more, well
+served by intelligent and sagacious assistants, he had kept himself
+well in touch with the state of public opinion, with the
+rôle which Samuel Spoelmann and his daughter played in the
+imaginative powers of the people, with the royal rank with
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_288" title="288"> </a>
+which the popular idea invested them, with the great and
+superstitious tension with which the population followed the
+intercourse between the Schlosses &ldquo;Hermitage&rdquo; and Delphinenort,
+with the popularity of that intercourse: in a word, he
+was well aware how the Spoelmanns, for everyone who did
+not deliberately shut his eyes, were the general topic of conversation
+and rumour, not only in the capital, but in the
+whole country. A characteristic incident was enough to
+make Herr Knobelsdorff sure of his ground.</p>
+
+<p>At the beginning of October&mdash;the Landtag had been opened
+a fortnight before, and the disputes with the Budget Commission
+were in full swing&mdash;Imma Spoelmann fell ill, very
+seriously ill, so it was said at first. It seemed that the imprudent
+girl, for some whim or mood, while out with her
+countess, had ventured on a gallop of nearly half an hour's
+duration on her white Fatma in the teeth of a strong north-east
+wind, and had come home with an attack of congestion
+of the lungs, which threatened to end her altogether.</p>
+
+<p>The news soon got about. People said the girl was hovering
+between life and death, which, as luckily soon emerged,
+was a great exaggeration. But the consternation, the general
+sympathy, could not have been greater if a serious accident
+had happened to a member of the House of Grimmburg, even
+to the Grand Duke himself. It was the sole topic of conversation.
+In the humbler parts of the city, near the Dorothea
+Hospital for instance, the women stood in the evening outside
+their front doors, pressed the palms of their hands against
+their breasts, and coughed, as if to show each other what it
+meant to be short of breath. The evening papers published
+searching and expert news of the condition of Miss Spoelmann,
+which passed from hand to hand, were read at family
+gatherings and cafés, and were discussed in the tram-cars.
+The <i>Courier's</i> reporter had been seen to drive in a cab to
+Delphinenort, where, in the hall with the mosaic floor, he
+had been snubbed by the Spoelmanns' butler, and had talked
+English to him&mdash;though he found that no easy task.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_289" title="289"> </a>The press, moreover, could not escape the reproach of
+having magnified the whole business, and made a quite unnecessary
+fuss about it. There was absolutely no question
+of any danger. Six days in bed under the care of the Spoelmanns'
+private physician sufficed to relieve the congestion, and
+to make Miss Spoelmann's lungs quite well again. But these
+six days sufficed also to make clear the importance which the
+Spoelmanns, and Miss Imma's personality in particular, had
+achieved in our public opinion. Every morning found the
+envoys of the newspapers, commissioners of the general
+curiosity, gathered in the mosaic hall at Delphinenort to hear
+the butler's curt bulletins, which they then reproduced in
+their papers at the inordinate length which the public desired.</p>
+
+<p>One read of greetings and wishes for recovery sent to
+Delphinenort by various benevolent institutions which Imma
+Spoelmann had visited and richly subscribed to (and the
+wits remarked that the Grand Ducal Treasury might have
+taken the opportunity of offering their homage in a similar
+way). The public read also&mdash;and dropped the paper to exchange
+a significant look&mdash;of a &ldquo;beautiful floral tribute,&rdquo;
+which Prince Klaus Heinrich had sent with his card (the
+truth being that the Prince, so long as Miss Spoelmann kept
+to her bed, sent flowers not once, but daily, to Delphinenort,
+a fact which was not mentioned by those in the know, so as
+not to make too great a sensation).</p>
+
+<p>The public read further that the popular young patient had
+left her bed for the first time, and finally the news came
+that she was soon to go out for the first time. But this going
+out, which took place on a sunny autumn morning, eight
+days after the patient had been taken ill, was calculated to
+give rise to such an expression of feeling on the part of the
+population as people of stern self-possession labelled immoderate.
+For round the Spoelmanns' huge olive-varnished,
+red-cushioned motor, which, with a pale young chauffeur of
+an Anglo-Saxon type on the box, waited in front of the main
+door at Delphinenort, a big crowd had gathered; and when
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_290" title="290"> </a>
+Miss Spoelmann and Countess Löwenjoul, followed by a
+lackey with a rug, came out, cheers broke out, hats and
+handkerchiefs were waved, until the motor had forced a way
+through the crowd and had left the demonstrators behind in
+a cloud of vapour. It must be confessed that these consisted
+of those rather doubtful elements who usually collect on
+such occasions: half-grown youths, a few women with market-baskets,
+one or two schoolboys, gapers, loafers, and out-of-works
+of various descriptions.</p>
+
+<p>But what is the public and what should its composition be
+to make it an average public? One further assertion must
+not be passed over entirely in silence which was later disseminated
+by the cynics. It was to the effect that among the
+crowd round the motor there was an agent in Herr von
+Knobelsdorff's pay, a member of the secret police, who had
+started the cheers and vigorously kept them going. We can
+leave that in doubt, and not grudge the belittlers of important
+events their satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>At least, in the case of this particular crowd, it only
+amounts to saying that the agent's task was the mechanical release
+of feelings which must have been there and must have
+been vivid. At any rate this scene, which of course was described
+at length in the daily press, did not fail to impress
+everybody, and persons with any acumen for the connexion
+of things felt no doubt that a further piece of news, which
+busied men's minds a few days later, stood in hidden relation
+to all these phenomena and symptoms.</p>
+
+<p>The news ran that his Royal Highness Prince Klaus Heinrich
+had received his Excellency the Minister of State von
+Knobelsdorff in audience at the Schloss &ldquo;Hermitage,&rdquo; and had
+been closeted with him from three o'clock in the afternoon till
+seven o'clock in the evening. A whole four hours! What
+had they discussed? Surely not the next Court Ball? As a
+matter of fact, the Court Ball had been one among several
+topics of conversation.</p>
+
+<p>Herr von Knobelsdorff had preferred his request for a confidential
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_291" title="291"> </a>
+talk with the Prince in connexion with the Court
+Hunt, which had taken place on October 10th in the woods to
+the west near Schloss &ldquo;Jägerpreis,&rdquo; and in which Klaus Heinrich
+and his red-haired cousins, dressed in green uniforms,
+soft felt hats, and top-boots, and hung with field-glasses, hangers,
+hunting-knives, bandoliers, and pistol cases, had taken
+part. Herr von Braunbart-Schellendorf had been consulted,
+and three o'clock on October 12th decided on. Klaus Heinrich
+himself had offered to visit the old gentleman at his official
+residence, but Herr von Knobelsdorff had preferred coming
+to the &ldquo;Hermitage.&rdquo; He came punctually, and was received
+with all the affection and warmth which Klaus Heinrich
+thought that propriety demanded in the case of the aged
+counsellor of his father and his brother. The sober little
+room, in which stood the three fine mahogany Empire arm-chairs,
+with the blue lyre-embroidery on the yellow ground,
+was the scene of the interview.</p>
+
+<p>Though close on seventy, Excellency von Knobelsdorff was
+vigorous both in body and mind. His frock-coat showed not
+one senile wrinkle, but was tightly and well filled with the
+compact and comfortable form of a man of happy disposition.
+His well-preserved hair was pure white, like his short moustache,
+and parted smoothly in the middle; his chin had a sympathetic
+pit in it, which might pass for a dimple. The fan-shaped
+wrinkles at the corners of his eyes played as livelily as
+ever&mdash;indeed, they had gained with the years some little
+branches and additional lines, so that the whole complication
+of ever-shifting wrinkles imparted to his blue eyes an expression
+of humorous subtlety.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich was attached to Herr von Knobelsdorff,
+though no closer relations had been established between them.
+The Minister of State had actually superintended and organized
+the Prince's life. He had begun by fixing on Dröge to
+be his first tutor; had then called the &ldquo;Pheasantry&rdquo; into life
+for him; had sent him later to the University with Dr. Ueberbein;
+had also arranged his military service for show, and
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_292" title="292"> </a>
+had put Schloss &ldquo;Hermitage&rdquo; at his disposal to live in. But
+all this he had done at second-hand, and had rarely interviewed
+him in person. Indeed, when Herr von Knobelsdorff
+had met Klaus Heinrich during those years of education, he
+had inquired most respectfully as to the Prince's resolves
+and plans for the future, as if he were in complete ignorance
+of them; and perhaps it was just this fiction, which was
+firmly bolstered up on both sides, which had kept their intercourse
+throughout within the bounds of formality.</p>
+
+<p>Herr von Knobelsdorff began the conversation in an easy
+though respectful tone, while Klaus Heinrich tried to discover
+the objects of his visit. The former then chatted about
+the hunt of the day before yesterday, made some pleasant
+reference to the amount of ground they had covered, and then
+mentioned casually his admirable colleague at the Treasury,
+Dr. Krippenreuther, who had also taken part in the hunt,
+and whose invalid appearance he regretted. Herr Krippenreuther
+had really not hit a thing.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, worry makes the hand unsteady,&rdquo; remarked Herr von
+Knobelsdorff, and so gave the Prince the cue for a direct
+reference to this worry. He spoke about the &ldquo;by no means
+trifling&rdquo; shortage in the estimates, about the Minister's discussions
+with the Budget Commission, the new property-tax,
+the rate of 13½ per cent., and the bitter opposition of the
+urban deputies, of the antediluvian meat tax, and the Civil
+Service's cries of hunger; and Klaus Heinrich, who had been
+surprised at first by so many dry facts, listened to him intently
+and nodded his head repeatedly.</p>
+
+<p>The two men, the old and young, sat side by side on a
+slender, hardish sofa with yellow upholstery and wreath-like
+brass mountings, which stood behind the round table opposite
+the narrow glass door. The latter opened on to the terrace,
+and through it one could see the half-bare park and the duck
+pond floating in the autumn mist. The low, white, smooth
+stove, in which a fire was crackling, diffused a gentle warmth
+through the severely and scantily furnished room. Klaus
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_293" title="293"> </a>
+Heinrich, though not quite able to follow the political proceedings,
+yet proud and happy at being so seriously talked
+to by the experienced dignitary, felt his mood growing more
+and more grateful and confidential. Herr von Knobelsdorff
+spoke pleasantly about the most unpleasant subjects. His
+voice was comforting, his remarks ably strung together and
+insinuating&mdash;and suddenly Klaus Heinrich became aware that
+he had dropped the subject of the State finances, and had
+passed on from Doctor Krippenreuther's worries to his, Klaus
+Heinrich's, own condition. Was Herr von Knobelsdorff
+mistaken? His eyes were beginning occasionally to play
+him tricks. But he wished he could think that his Royal
+Highness looked a little better, fresher, brighter&mdash;a look of
+tiredness, of worry, was unmistakable&hellip;. Herr von Knobelsdorff
+feared to seem importunate; but he must hope that
+these symptoms did not arise from any malady, bodily or
+mental?</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich looked out at the mist. His look was still
+sealed: but though he sat on the hard sofa in his usual stiff,
+upright attitude, his feet crossed, his right hand over his
+left, and the upper part of his body turned towards Herr
+von Knobelsdorff, yet inwardly his stiffness relaxed at this
+juncture, and, worn out as he was by his strangely ineffectual
+struggle, it did not want much more to make his eyes fill
+with tears. He was so lonely, so destitute of counsellors.
+Dr. Ueberbein had recently kept far away from the &ldquo;Hermitage.&rdquo;
+&hellip; Klaus Heinrich merely said: &ldquo;Ah, Excellency,
+that would take us too far.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But Herr von Knobelsdorff answered: &ldquo;Too far? No,
+your Royal Highness need not be afraid of being too prolix.
+I confess that my knowledge of your Royal Highness's experiences
+is greater than I allowed to appear just now. Your
+Royal Highness can scarcely have anything new to tell me,
+apart from those refinements and details which rumour can
+never collect. But if it might comfort your Royal Highness
+to open his heart to an old servant, who carried you in his
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_294" title="294"> </a>
+arms &hellip; perhaps I might not be quite incapable of standing
+by your Royal Highness in word and deed.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And then it happened that something gave way in Klaus
+Heinrich's bosom, and poured out in a stream of confession:
+he told Herr von Knobelsdorff the whole story. He told it
+as one tells when the heart is full and everything comes
+tumbling out all at once through the lips; according to no
+plan, no chronological order, and with undue emphasis on
+unessentials, but with a burst of passion, and with that concreteness
+which is the product of passionate observation. He
+began in the middle, jumped unexpectedly to the beginning,
+hurried on to the conclusion (which did not exist), tumbled
+over himself, and more than once hesitated and stuck fast.</p>
+
+<p>But Herr von Knobelsdorff's fore-knowledge made the review
+easier for him, enabled him by slipping in suggestive
+questions to float the ship again. And at last the picture
+of Klaus Heinrich's experiences with all their characters and
+leading actors, with the figures of Samuel Spoelmann, of the
+crazy Countess Löwenjoul, even of the collie, Percival, and
+especially that of Imma Spoelmann, with all its contrariness,
+lay there complete and full, ready to be discussed. The piece
+of oil-silk was referred to in full detail, for Herr von Knobelsdorff
+seemed to attach importance to it. Nothing was omitted,
+from the impressive incident at the changing of the guard to
+the last intimate and distressing struggles on horseback and
+on foot.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich was much wrought up when he finished,
+and his steel-blue eyes in the national cheek-bones were full
+of tears. He had left the sofa, thereby forcing Herr von
+Knobelsdorff also to get up, and wished on account of the
+heat to open the glass door into the little veranda, but Herr
+von Knobelsdorff stopped this by calling attention to the risk
+of a chill. He begged the Prince humbly to sit down again,
+as his Royal Highness could not conceal from himself the
+need for a calm discussion of the state of affairs. And both
+sat down again on the thinly cushioned sofa.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_295" title="295"> </a>Herr von Knobelsdorff meditated awhile, and his face was
+as serious as it ever could be with his dimpled chin and the
+play of his eye-wrinkles. Then, breaking silence, he thanked
+the Prince with emotion for the great honour he had shown
+him by confiding in him. And in direct connexion with this
+Herr von Knobelsdorff, emphasizing each word, announced
+that whatever attitude the Prince had expected him, Herr von
+Knobelsdorff, to assume at this juncture, he, Herr von Knobelsdorff,
+was certainly not the man to oppose the wishes and
+hopes of the Prince, but much rather to show his Royal
+Highness the way to the longed-for goal to the best of his
+power.</p>
+
+<p>Long silence ensued. Klaus Heinrich looked rapturously
+at Herr von Knobelsdorff's eyes with the fan-like wrinkles.
+Had he these wishes and hopes? Was there a goal? He
+was not sure of his ears. He said: &ldquo;Your Excellency is
+kind enough&nbsp;&hellip;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then Herr von Knobelsdorff added to his declaration a
+condition, and said: Frankly, on one condition only did he,
+as first official of the State, dare to exercise his modest influence
+on behalf of his Royal Highness.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;On one condition?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;On condition that your Royal Highness does not take
+account only of your own happiness in a selfish and frivolous
+way, but, as your lofty calling demands, regards your personal
+destiny from the point of view of the Mass, the Whole.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich was silent, and his eyes were heavy in
+thought.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Perhaps your Royal Highness,&rdquo; continued Herr von
+Knobelsdorff after a pause, &ldquo;will allow me to leave this delicate
+and yet quite unavoidable topic for a while, and to turn
+to more general matters! This is the hour of confidence
+and mutual understanding &hellip; I respectfully beg to be allowed
+to take advantage of it. Your Royal Highness is
+through your exalted position cut off from rude actuality,
+severed from it by delicate precautions. I shall not forget
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_296" title="296"> </a>
+that this actuality is not&mdash;or only at second-hand&mdash;a matter
+for your Royal Highness. And yet the moment seems to me
+to have come for bringing at least a certain portion of this
+rude world to the immediate notice of your Royal Highness,
+entirely for your own sake. I plead beforehand for forgiveness,
+if I chance to stir up your Royal Highness's emotions too
+harshly by what I tell you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Please speak on, Excellency,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich hastily.
+Involuntarily he sat upright, just as one sits up straight in
+a dentist's chair and collects one's natural powers to withstand
+an attack of pain.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I must ask for your undivided attention,&rdquo; said Herr von
+Knobelsdorff almost sternly. And then, as a corollary to the
+discussions with the Budget Commission, followed the statement,
+the clear, exhaustive, unembroidered lesson, well primed
+with figures and explanations of the fundamental facts and
+technical expressions, which showed the economical position
+of the country, the State, and brought our whole miserable
+plight with relentless clearness before the Prince's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Naturally these things were not entirely new and strange to
+him. Indeed, ever since he had assumed his representative
+rôle, they had served as a motive and subject for those formal
+questions which he used to address to burgomasters, agriculturists,
+and high officials, and to which he received answers
+which were merely answers and nothing more, and which were
+often accompanied by the smile which he had known all his
+life and which reminded him that he was born to be king.
+But all this had not yet forced itself upon him in its naked
+actuality, nor made serious claims on his thinking powers.</p>
+
+<p>Herr von Knobelsdorff was by no means satisfied to get a
+few of Klaus Heinrich's usual encouraging words; he pressed
+the matter home, he cross-examined the young man, made
+him repeat whole sentences; he kept him relentlessly to the
+point, and reminded the Prince of a dry and skinny index-finger
+which stopped at each separate place and would not
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_297" title="297"> </a>
+go on until convinced that the pupil really understood the
+lesson.</p>
+
+<p>Herr von Knobelsdorff began at the rudiments, and talked
+about the country and its lack of development from a commercial
+and industrial point of view: he talked about the
+people, Klaus Heinrich's people, that shrewd and honest,
+sound and reliable stock. He spoke about the deficiency in
+the State reserves, the poor dividends paid by the railways,
+the insufficient coal supply. He touched on the administration
+of the forests, game preserves and stock-raising; he
+talked about the woods, the excessive felling, the immoderate
+stripping of litter, the crippling of the industry, the falling
+revenues from the forests. Then he went more closely into
+our stock of gold, discussed the natural inability of the people
+to pay heavy taxes, described the reckless finance of earlier
+periods. Thereupon he added up the figures of the State debt,
+which Herr von Knobelsdorff forced the Prince to repeat
+several times. They reached six hundred millions.</p>
+
+<p>The lesson extended further to the debentures, conditions
+for interest and repayment. It came back to Doctor Krippenreuther's
+present anxiety, and described the seriousness of
+the situation. Suddenly pulling the &ldquo;Annual of the Statistical
+Bureau&rdquo; out of his pocket, Herr von Knobelsdorff instructed
+his pupil in the harvest returns for the previous
+years, summed up the untoward events which had caused
+their decline, pointed to the deficiencies in the taxes, the figures
+of which he had brought with him, and referred to the underfed
+adults and children whom one might see throughout the
+country-side. Then he turned to the general condition of the
+gold market, discoursed on the rise in the value of gold and
+the general economic unsoundness. Klaus Heinrich learned
+also about the lowness of the Exchange, the restlessness of
+the creditors, the leakage of gold, and the bank smashes; he
+saw our credit shaken, our paper valueless, and grasped to
+the full that the raising of a new loan was almost impossible.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_298" title="298"> </a>The night was closing in, it was long past five, when Herr
+von Knobelsdorff ended his statement of the national economics.
+At this time Klaus Heinrich usually had his tea,
+but this time he only gave a passing thought to it, and nobody
+outside dared to disturb a conversation whose importance was
+shown by its duration. Klaus Heinrich listened and listened.
+He scarcely realized how much affected he was. But how
+could the other bring himself to say all that to him? He
+had not called him &ldquo;Royal Highness&rdquo; one single time during
+the interview, he had to some extent forced him, and grossly
+ignored the fact that he was &ldquo;born to be king.&rdquo; And yet it
+was good and stimulating to hear all that and to have to bury
+oneself in it for reality's sake. He forgot to have the lights
+brought, his attention was so much occupied.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It was these circumstances,&rdquo; concluded Herr von Knobelsdorff,
+&ldquo;which I had in mind when I begged your Royal Highness
+to regard your personal wishes and plans continually in
+the light of the general good. I have no doubt that your
+Royal Highness will profit by this talk and by the facts I
+have been bold enough to put before you. And in this connexion
+I beg your Royal Highness to allow me to revert to
+your more personal case.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Herr von Knobelsdorff waited till Klaus Heinrich had made
+a sign of consent with his hand, and then went on: &ldquo;If this
+affair is to have any future, it is desirable that it should now
+advance a step in its development. It is stagnating, it remains
+as formless and prospectless as the mist outside. That's
+intolerable. We must give it form, must thicken it out,
+must mark its outlines more clearly before the eyes of the
+world.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Quite so! quite so! Give it form &hellip; thicken it out&hellip;.
+That's it. That's absolutely necessary,&rdquo; agreed Klaus
+Heinrich, so much excited that he left the sofa and began to
+walk up and down the room. &ldquo;But how? For heaven's sake,
+Excellency, tell me how?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The next external step,&rdquo; said Herr von Knobelsdorff, and
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_299" title="299"> </a>
+remained sitting&mdash;so unusual was the occasion&mdash;&ldquo;must be
+this, that the Spoelmanns be seen at Court.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich stopped still.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;never, if I know Mr. Spoelmann, will he
+let himself be persuaded to go to Court.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Which,&rdquo; answered Herr von Knobelsdorff, &ldquo;doesn't prevent
+his daughter from doing us this pleasure. The Court Ball's
+not so very far off; it rests with you, Royal Highness, to
+induce Miss Spoelmann to take part in it. Her companion
+is a countess &hellip; a peculiar one, perhaps, but a countess,
+and that helps things. When I assure your Royal Highness
+that the Court will not fail to make things easy, I am speaking
+with the approbation of the Chief Master of the Ceremonies,
+Herr von Bühl zu Bühl.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The conversation now turned for three-quarters of an hour
+on questions of precedence, and the ceremonial conditions
+under which the presentation must be carried out. The distribution
+of cards was always left to Princess Catherine's
+Mistress of the Robes, a widowed Countess Trümmerhauff,
+who led the ladies' world at the festivities in the Old Castle.</p>
+
+<p>But as to the act of presentation itself, Herr von Knobelsdorff
+had managed to secure some concessions of a deliberate,
+in fact definite character. There was no American Consul
+in the place&mdash;no reason on that account, explained Herr von
+Knobelsdorff, for letting the ladies be presented by any casual
+chamberlain; no, the Master of the Ceremonies himself requested
+the honour of presenting them to the Grand Duke.
+When? At what point of the prescribed procession? Why,
+undoubtedly, unusual circumstances demand exceptions. In
+the first place, then, in front of all the débutantes of the
+various ranks&mdash;Klaus Heinrich might assure Miss Spoelmann
+that this would be arranged. It would give rise to
+talk and sensation at Court and in the city. But never mind,
+so much the better. Sensation was by no means undesirable,
+sensation was useful, even necessary&hellip;.</p>
+
+<p>Herr von Knobelsdorff went. It had become so dark when
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_300" title="300"> </a>
+he took his leave that the Prince and he could scarcely see
+each other. Klaus Heinrich, who now first became aware of
+it, excused himself in some confusion, but Herr von Knobelsdorff
+declared it to be a matter of no importance in what
+sort of light a conversation like that was carried on. He took
+the hand which Klaus Heinrich offered him, and grasped it
+in both his.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Never,&rdquo; he said warmly, and these were his last words before
+he went, &ldquo;never was the happiness of a prince more inseparable
+from that of his people. No, whatever your Royal
+Highness ponders and does, you will bear in mind that the
+happiness of your Royal Highness by the disposition of
+destiny has become a condition of the public weal, but that
+your Royal Highness on your side must recognize in the weal
+of your country the indispensable condition and justification
+of your own happiness.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Much moved, and not yet in a condition to arrange the
+thoughts which poured in on him in thousands, Klaus Heinrich
+remained behind in his homely Empire room.</p>
+
+<p>He passed a restless night and went next morning, despite
+misty and damp weather, for a long and lonely ride. Herr
+von Knobelsdorff had talked clearly and voluminously, had
+given and accepted facts; but, for the fusion, modelling, and
+working up of these multifarious raw products he had given
+only curt, aphoristic instructions, and Klaus Heinrich found
+himself doomed to some heavy thinking while he lay awake at
+night, and later when he went for a ride on Florian.</p>
+
+<p>When he got back to the &ldquo;Hermitage&rdquo; he did a remarkable
+thing. He wrote with a pencil on a piece of paper an order,
+a certain commission, and sent Neumann, the valet, with it
+to the Academy Bookshop in the University Strasse: Neumann
+came back with a package of books, which Klaus
+Heinrich had set out in his room, and which he began at
+once to read.</p>
+
+<p>They were works of a sober and school-bookish appearance,
+with glazed paper backs, ugly leather sides, and coarse paper,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_301" title="301"> </a>
+and the contents were divided up minutely into sections,
+main divisions, sub-divisions, and paragraphs. Their titles
+were not stimulating. They were manuals and hand-hooks
+of economy, abstracts and outlines of State finance, systematic
+treatises on political economy. The Prince shut himself up
+in his study with these books, and gave instructions that he
+wished on no account to be disturbed.</p>
+
+<p>The autumn was damp, and Klaus Heinrich felt little
+tempted to leave the &ldquo;Hermitage.&rdquo; On Saturday he drove
+to the Old Schloss to give free audiences: otherwise his time
+was his own all this week, and he knew how to make use of
+it. Wrapped in his dressing-gown, he sat in the warmth of
+the low stove at his small, old-fashioned, little-used desk,
+and pored over his books on finance, with his temples resting
+in his hands. He read about the State expenditure and what
+it always consisted of, about the receipts and whence they
+flowed in when things were going well; he ploughed through
+the whole subject of taxation in all its branches; he buried
+himself in the doctrine of the budget, of the balance, of the
+surplus, and particularly of the deficit; he lingered longest
+over, and went deepest into, the public debt and its varieties,
+into loans, and relation between interest and capital and
+liquidation, and from time to time he raised his head from
+the book and dreamed with a smile about what he had read,
+as if it had been the gayest poetry.</p>
+
+<p>For the rest, he found that it was not hard to grasp it all,
+when one set one's mind to it. No, this really serious actuality,
+in which he now played a part, this simple and rude
+texture of interests, this system of down-right logical needs
+and necessities, which countless young men of ordinary birth
+had to stuff into their heads, to be able to pass examinations
+in it, it was by no means so difficult to get hold of as he in
+his Highness had thought. The rôle of representation, in his
+opinion, was harder. And much, much more ticklish and
+difficult were his gentle struggles with Imma Spoelmann on
+horseback and on foot. His studies made him warm and
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_302" title="302"> </a>
+happy, he felt that his zeal was making his cheeks hot, like
+those of his brother-in-law zu Ried-Hohenried over his peat.</p>
+
+<p>After thus giving the facts which he had learnt from Herr
+von Knobelsdorff a general academic basis, and also accomplishing
+a feat of hard thinking in bringing together inward
+connexions and weighing possibilities, he again presented
+himself at Delphinenort at tea-time. The lights in the candelabra
+with the lions' feet and the big crystal lustres were
+burning in the garden room. The ladies were alone.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich first asked after Mr. Spoelmann's health
+and Imma's indisposition. He upbraided her freely for her
+strange impetuosity, to which she answered with a pout that
+as far as she knew she was her own mistress, and could do as
+she liked with her health. The conversation then turned to
+the autumn, to the damp weather which forbade rides, to the
+advanced time of year, and the proximity of winter, and
+Klaus Heinrich suddenly mentioned the Court Ball in connexion
+with which it occurred to him to ask whether the ladies&mdash;if
+unfortunately Mr. Spoelmann were prevented by the
+state of his health&mdash;would not care to take part in one this
+time. But when Imma answered, &ldquo;No, really, she had no
+wish to be rude, but she had absolutely not the faintest desire
+to go to a Court Ball,&rdquo; he did not press the point, but postponed
+the question for the time.</p>
+
+<p>What had he done these last few days?&mdash;Oh, he'd been
+very busy, he might say that he'd been chock-a-block with
+work.&mdash;Work? Doubtless he meant the Court Hunt at
+&ldquo;Jägerpreis.&rdquo;&mdash;The Court Hunt? No. He had gone in for
+real study which he had by no means got to the bottom of
+yet; on the contrary he was sticking deep in the literature on
+the subject&hellip;. And Klaus Heinrich began to talk about
+his ugly books, his peeps into financial science, and he spoke
+with such pleasure and respect of this discipline that Imma
+Spoelmann looked at him with her big eyes. But when&mdash;almost
+timidly&mdash;she questioned him as to the motive and impulse
+for this activity, he answered that it was living, only
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_303" title="303"> </a>
+too burning, questions of the day which had brought him to
+it: circumstances and conditions which were certainly not
+well suited for a cheerful talk at tea. This remark obviously
+offended Imma Spoelmann.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;On what observations,&rdquo; she asked sharply, wagging her
+head from side to side, &ldquo;did he base his conviction that she
+was approachable only or preferably by way of cheerful
+conversation?&rdquo; And she commanded him rather than asked
+him to be kind enough to explain about the burning questions
+of the day.</p>
+
+<p>Then Klaus Heinrich explained what he had learnt from
+Herr von Knobelsdorff, and talked about the land and its
+state. He was well posted on every point at which the skinny
+index-finger had paused: he talked about the natural and the
+indebted, the general and the particular, the inherited and
+the intensifying misfortunes; he emphasized particularly the
+figures of the State debt, and the burden they laid on our
+national economy&mdash;they were six hundred millions&mdash;and he
+did not forget to mention the underfed peasants in the
+country-side.</p>
+
+<p>He did not speak connectedly; Imma Spoelmann interrupted
+him with questions and helped him on with questions.
+She listened carefully, and asked for explanations of what
+she did not at once understand. Dressed in her loose-sleeved,
+red-silk dress with the broad embroidery on the yoke, an
+old-Spanish chain round her child-like neck, she sat leaning
+on one elbow over the table, her chin buried in her ringless
+hand, and listened with her whole soul, while her big, dark
+eyes scrutinized the Prince's face.</p>
+
+<p>But while he spoke, in answer to Imma's verbal and ocular
+questions, worked at his subject, grew excited and entirely
+absorbed in it, Countess Löwenjoul no longer felt herself restricted
+to sober clarity by his presence, but let herself go
+and indulged in the luxury of drivelling. All the misery,
+she explained with dignified gestures, even the bad harvest,
+the burden of debt and the rise in the price of gold, were
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_304" title="304"> </a>
+due to the shameless women who swarmed everywhere, and
+unfortunately had discovered the way through the floor, as last
+night the wife of a sergeant from the Grenadiers' Barracks
+had scratched her breasts and pommelled her in a horrible
+way. Then she alluded to her Schlosses in Burgundy,
+through the roofs of which the rain came, and went so far
+as to relate that she had gone as lieutenant in an expedition
+against the Turks, on which she had been the only one who
+&ldquo;had not lost her head.&rdquo; Imma Spoelmann and Klaus Heinrich
+threw her a kind word now and then, readily promised
+to call her Frau Meier in future, and for the rest took no
+notice of her.</p>
+
+<p>The cheeks of both were burning when Klaus Heinrich had
+said all he knew&mdash;even on Miss Spoelmann's usually pearl-white
+cheeks there was a shade of red to be seen. They then
+stopped, the Countess too kept quiet, with her little head inclined
+on her shoulder, and staring into vacancy. Klaus
+Heinrich played on the white and sharply folded table-cloth
+with the stem of an orchid, which had stood in a glass by
+his plate; but as soon as he raised his head he met Imma
+Spoelmann's large, flaming eyes, which spoke a message of
+secret entreaty across the table, a darkly eloquent language.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It has been nice to-day,&rdquo; she said in her broken voice,
+when she said good-bye this time, and he felt her small, soft
+hands clasp his with a firm squeeze. &ldquo;Next time your Highness
+honours our unworthy house, do bring me one or two
+of those excellent books you have bought.&rdquo; She could not
+entirely resist mocking him, but she asked him for his finance
+books, and he brought them to her.</p>
+
+<p>He brought her two of them, which he considered the most
+informative and comprehensive; he brought them some days
+later in his carriage through the damp Town Garden, and she
+thanked him for doing so. As soon as tea was over, they
+retired to a corner of the room, and there, while the Countess
+absently continued sitting at the tea-table, they began their
+common studies in throne-like chairs at a gilt table, bending
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_305" title="305"> </a>
+over the first page of a manual called &ldquo;The Science of Finance.&rdquo;
+They even read the headings to the sections, each
+reading a sentence softly in turn; for Imma Spoelmann insisted
+on going methodically to work and beginning at the
+beginning.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich, well prepared as he was, acted as guide
+through the paragraphs, and nobody could have followed
+more smartly or clear-headedly than Imma.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It's quite easy!&rdquo; she said and looked up with a laugh.
+&ldquo;I'm surprised that it is at bottom so simple. Algebra is
+much harder, Prince.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But as they went so deeply into things, they did not get
+far in one afternoon, so made a mark in the book at which
+to start next time.</p>
+
+<p>And so they went on, and the Prince's visits to Delphinenort
+were devoted to dull realities. Whenever Mr. Spoelmann
+did not come to tea, or, with Dr. Watercloose, left them, after
+eating his rusk, Imma and Klaus Heinrich sat down at the
+gilt table with their books, and plunged heads together into
+the Science of Economics. But as they progressed, they compared
+what they learned with the reality, applied what they
+read to the circumstances of the country, as Klaus Heinrich
+conceived them to be, and made their studies profitable,
+though it happened not seldom that their investigations were
+interrupted by considerations of a personal kind.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It seems, then,&rdquo; said Imma, &ldquo;that the issue may be effected
+either directly or indirectly&mdash;yes, that's obvious.
+Either the State turns directly to the capitalists and opens
+a subscription list &hellip; Your hand is twice as broad as
+mine,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;look, Prince.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And they looked laughingly at their hands, his right and
+her left, as they lay next each other on the gilt table.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Or,&rdquo; went on Imma, &ldquo;the loan is procured by negotiation,
+and it is some big bank, or group of banks, to which the
+State&nbsp;&hellip;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Wait!&rdquo; he said softly. &ldquo;Wait, Imma, and answer me one
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_306" title="306"> </a>
+question. Aren't you missing the main point? Are you
+making progress? What about the disenchantment and embarrassment,
+dear little Imma? Have you now just one
+spark of confidence in me?&rdquo; His lips asked the question
+close to her hair, from which a delicate fragrance arose, and
+she held her dark head still and bent over the book, though
+she did not answer his question frankly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But must it be a bank or group of banks?&rdquo; she pondered.
+&ldquo;There's nothing about it there; I can't think it would be
+necessary in practice.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She spoke gravely and deliberately on these occasions, for
+she too for her part had to grapple with the mental exercises
+which Klaus Heinrich had successfully managed after the
+conversation with Herr von Knobelsdorff. And when some
+weeks later he repeated his question, whether she would not
+like to go to the Court Ball, and told her of the ceremonial
+conditions which had been sanctioned for this occasion, behold,
+she replied that she would like to, and would go next
+day with Countess Löwenjoul and leave cards on the widowed
+Countess Trümmerhauff.</p>
+
+<p>This year the Court Ball took place earlier than usual;
+at the end of November&mdash;an arrangement which was said to
+be due to the wishes of the Grand Ducal Party. Herr von
+Bühl zu Bühl bitterly bewailed this precipitation, which
+obliged him and his subordinates to cancel the arrangements
+for the most important Court function, especially the improvements
+which the Gala Rooms in the Old Schloss so much
+needed. But the wish of the particular member of the Grand
+Ducal family had had the support of Herr von Knobelsdorff,
+and the Court Marshal had to give way. But it happened
+thus that people's minds scarcely had time to prepare themselves
+sufficiently for what really was the event of the evening,
+in comparison with which the unusual date seemed as nothing.
+Indeed, when the <i>Courier</i> published in leaded type the news
+of the leaving of cards and the invitation&mdash;not without expressing
+in rather smaller type and in glowing words its
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_307" title="307"> </a>
+satisfaction thereat, and welcoming Spoelmann's daughter to
+the Court&mdash;the important evening was already close at hand,
+and before tongues could get fairly wagging the whole thing
+was a completed reality.</p>
+
+<p>Never had more envy attached to the five hundred favoured
+ones whose names stood on the Court Ball list, never had the
+bourgeois more eagerly devoured the account in the <i>Courier</i>&mdash;those
+dazzling columns which were written every year by a
+nobleman who had degenerated through drink, and which were
+such glorious reading that one felt they gave one a peep into
+Fairyland, while as a matter of fact the ball in the Old Schloss
+went off quite modestly and soberly. But the report only extended
+to the supper, including the French menu, and everything
+that came later, especially all the delicate significance
+of the great occasion, were necessarily left to be reported by
+word of mouth.</p>
+
+<p>The ladies, in a huge olive-coloured motor, had pulled up in
+front of the Albrechtstor at the Old Schloss fairly punctually,
+though not so punctually that Herr von Bühl zu Bühl had not
+had time to get anxious. From a quarter-past seven onwards
+he had waited in full uniform, covered with orders down to
+his waist, with a bright brown toupée and his gold pince-nez
+on his nose, in the middle of the armour-hung Knights' Hall
+where the Grand Ducal family and the chief officials were collected;
+standing now on one foot, then on the other, and every
+now and then dispatching a footman to the ballroom to find
+out whether Miss Spoelmann had not yet come. He thought
+of all sorts of unheard-of possibilities. If this Queen of
+Sheba came too late&mdash;and what might one not expect of a girl
+who had walked right through the guard?&mdash;the entry of the
+Grand Ducal cortège would have to be delayed, and the Court
+would have to wait for her, for she simply must be introduced
+first, and it was out of the question that she should enter the
+ballroom after the Grand Duke.</p>
+
+<p>But thank heaven! a bare minute before half-past seven she
+arrived with her Countess; and it made a great sensation when
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_308" title="308"> </a>
+the Chamberlains who received them arranged them next the
+diplomats, and so in front of the nobility, the Court ladies,
+the Ministers, the Generals, the Presidents of Chambers, and
+all the Court world. Aide-de-camp von Platow had fetched
+the Grand Duke from his rooms. Albrecht, in hussar uniform,
+had greeted the members of his House with down-cast
+eyes in the Knights' Hall, had offered his arm to Aunt Catherine,
+and then, after Herr von Bühl had tapped three times
+with his staff on the parquet in the open doors, the procession
+of the Court into the ballroom had begun.</p>
+
+<p>Eye-witnesses asserted later that the general inattention had
+verged on the scandalous during the perambulation of the
+Grand Duke. As Albrecht reached successive spots with his
+dignified aunt, a hasty bowing and billowing without the fitting
+composure ensued, but otherwise all faces were turned to
+one point only in the ball, all eyes directed with burning
+curiosity on this point alone&hellip;. She who stood yonder had
+had enemies in the hall, at least among the women, the female
+Trümmerhauffs, Prenzlaus, Wehrzahns, and Platows, who
+were plying their fans here, and sharp and cold female glances
+had scrutinized her. But whether her position was now too
+well established for criticism to venture to assail her, or her
+personality itself had conquered the secret opposition&mdash;all had
+declared with one voice that Imma Spoelmann was as fine as
+the daughter of the King of the Mountains.</p>
+
+<p>The whole town, the clerk in the Government office, the
+messenger at the street corner, knew her toilette by heart next
+morning. It had been a gown of pale-green crêpe de chine,
+with silver embroidery and priceless old silver lace on the
+bodice. A tiara of diamonds had glittered in her dark hair,
+which showed a tendency to fall in smooth wisps across her
+forehead, and a long hanging chain of the same stones was
+wound two or three times round her brown throat. Small and
+child-like, yet strangely earnest and sensible-looking, with her
+pale face and big, strangely speaking eyes, she had stood in
+her place of honour by the side of Countess Löwenjoul, who
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_309" title="309"> </a>
+had been dressed in brown as usual, though this time in satin.
+When the cortège reached her, she had, with a kind of coy
+pertness, made a suggestion of a curtsey, without completing
+it; but when Prince Klaus Heinrich, with the yellow ribbon
+and the flat chain of the Family Order &ldquo;For Constancy&rdquo; over
+his tunic, the silver star of the Grimmburg Griffin on his chest,
+and his anæmic cousin on his arm whose conversation was
+limited to &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; passed by her directly after the Grand Duke,
+she had smiled with closed lips and nodded to him like a
+comrade&mdash;which sent something like a quiver through the
+company.</p>
+
+<p>Then, after the diplomats had been received by the Grand
+Ducal party, the presentations had begun&mdash;begun with Imma
+Spoelmann, although there had been two Countess Hundskeels
+and one Baroness von Schulenburg-Tressen among the débutantes.
+With an ingratiating smile, which showed his false
+teeth, Herr von Bühl had presented Spoelmann's daughter to
+his master. And Albrecht, sucking his lower lip against his
+upper, had looked down on her coy semi-curtsey, from which
+she had raised herself to scrutinize with her speaking eyes the
+suffering Hussar Colonel in his silent pride. The Grand Duke
+had addressed several questions to her, an exception to an
+otherwise strict rule; he had asked her how her father was,
+what effect the Ditlinde Spa had, and how she liked on the
+whole being with us&mdash;questions which she had answered in her
+broken voice with a pout and a wag of her dark head. Then,
+after a pause, a pause perhaps of internal struggle, Albrecht
+had expressed his pleasure at seeing her at Court; whereupon
+Countess Löwenjoul had executed her curtsey, with an evasive
+glance from her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>This scene, Imma Spoelmann in the presence of Albrecht,
+long remained the favourite topic of conversation, and although
+it had passed, as it was bound to pass, without anything
+unusual happening, yet its charm and importance must
+not be overlooked. It was not indeed the climax of the evening.
+That, in the eyes of many, was the Quadrille d'honneur;
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_310" title="310"> </a>
+in the eyes of others, the supper,&mdash;in reality, however, it was
+a secret duologue between the two chief actors in the piece, a
+short, unnoticed exchange of words, whose contents and actual
+result the public could only guess&mdash;the settlement of certain
+tender struggles on horseback and on foot.</p>
+
+<p>As to the Quadrille d'honneur, there were people who declared
+next day that Miss Spoelmann had danced in it, with
+Prince Klaus Heinrich as her partner. Only the first part of
+this story was correct. Miss Spoelmann had taken part in the
+solemn dance, but as the British Consul's partner and Prince
+Klaus Heinrich's <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">vis-à-vis</i>. This was fairly strong, but what
+was still stronger was that the majority of the guests did not
+consider it an unheard-of thing, but on the contrary almost a
+matter of course.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, Imma Spoelmann's position was established; the popular
+conception of her personality&mdash;as the public learned next
+day&mdash;had prevailed in the Court ballroom, and, what is more,
+Herr von Knobelsdorff had taken care that this conception
+should be expressed with all the publicity he thought desirable.
+Not with distinctive or aggressive respect; no, Imma Spoelmann
+had been treated ceremoniously, and at the same time
+with systematic, intentional emphasis. The two Masters of
+the Ceremonies on duty&mdash;Chamberlains in rank&mdash;had introduced
+selected dancers to her; and when she had left her place,
+close by the low red platform where the Grand Ducal family
+sat on damask chairs, to dance with her partners, they had
+busied themselves, just as when the princesses danced, in clearing
+her a space under the chandelier in the middle and protecting
+her from collisions&mdash;an easy task in any case, for a protective
+circle of curiosity had formed round her when she
+danced.</p>
+
+<p>It was reported that when Prince Klaus Heinrich asked
+Miss Spoelmann for the first time, a deep drawing of breath,
+a formal &ldquo;Sh&rdquo; of excitement had been heard in the ballroom,
+and the Masters of the Ceremonies had found it difficult to
+keep the ball going and to prevent the whole company standing
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_311" title="311"> </a>
+round the dancers in gaping curiosity. The women
+especially had watched the pair with an excited delight, which,
+had Miss Spoelmann's position been only a little weaker,
+would undoubtedly have taken on the form of rage and malice.
+But the pressure and influence of public feeling, that powerful
+inspiration from below, had worked too powerfully on
+every one of the five hundred guests for them to be able
+to regard this spectacle through any eyes other than those of
+the people. It did not seem to have occurred to the Prince
+to impose any restraint upon himself. His name&mdash;shortened
+to &ldquo;K.&nbsp;H.&rdquo;&mdash;appeared twice on Miss Spoelmann's programme,
+and besides he had sat out several other dances with her. They
+had danced yonder. Her brown arm had rested on the yellow-silk
+ribbon that crossed his shoulder, and his right arm had
+encircled her light and child-like figure, while, as usual when
+he danced, he had placed the left on his hip and guided his
+partner with one hand only. With one hand!&hellip;</p>
+
+<p>When supper-time came, a further article in the ceremonial
+conditions which Herr von Knobelsdorff had contrived for
+Imma Spoelmann's visit to Court came into staggering force.
+It was the article which dealt with the order of seating at
+the table. For while the majority of the guests supped at
+long tables in the picture gallery and in the Hall of the
+Twelve Months, supper was laid in the Silver Hall for the
+Grand Ducal family, diplomats, and leading Court officials.
+In solemn procession, as when they entered the ballroom,
+Albrecht and his party entered the supper-room punctually
+at eleven o'clock. And Imma Spoelmann passed by the
+lackeys, who kept the doors and repelled the uninvited, on
+the arm of the British Consul, and entered the Silver Hall
+to take her place at the Grand Ducal table.</p>
+
+<p>That was unheard of&mdash;and at the same time, after all
+that had gone before, so logically consequential, that any
+surprise or disgust would have been idiotic. The motto for
+the day was to be prepared for anything in the way of omens
+and phenomena. But after supper, when the Grand Duke
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_312" title="312"> </a>
+had withdrawn and <ins title="Princes">Princess</ins> Griseldis had opened the cotillon
+with a Chamberlain, expectation was again raised to fever
+point, for the general question was, had the Prince been
+allowed to present Miss Spoelmann with a bouquet? His instructions
+had obviously been not to give her the first. He
+had first given one each to his Aunt Catherine and a red-haired
+cousin; but he had then advanced towards Imma Spoelmann
+with a bouquet of lilac from the Court gardens. As
+she was about to raise the lovely bunch to her nose, she had
+hesitated for some unknown reason with a look of apprehension,
+and it was not till he had encouraged her with a laugh
+and a nod that she decided to test the fragrance of the
+bouquet. Then they had danced and chatted quietly together
+for a long time.</p>
+
+<p>And yet it was during this dance that that unnoticed
+duologue, that conversation of a palpably bourgeois tenor and
+practical result, had taken place&mdash;and this is what it was.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Are you satisfied this time, Imma, with the flowers I bring
+you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of course, Prince, your lilac is lovely and smells quite
+as it should. I love it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Really, Imma? But I'm sorry for the poor rose-bush down
+in the court, because its roses disgust you with their mouldy
+smell.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I won't say that they disgust me, Prince.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But they disenchant and chill you, don't they?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, perhaps.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But have I ever told you of the popular belief that the
+rose-bush will one day be redeemed, on a day of general happiness,
+and will bear roses which will add to their great
+beauty the gift of a lovely natural scent?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, Prince, we'll have to wait for that.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, Imma, we must help and act! We must decide, and
+have done with all hesitation, little Imma! Tell me&mdash;tell
+me to-day&mdash;have you confidence in me?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, Prince. I have gained confidence in you latterly.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_313" title="313"> </a>&ldquo;There you are! Thank heaven! Didn't I say that I must
+succeed in the long run? And so you think now that I am
+in earnest, real, serious earnest about you and about us?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, Prince; latterly I have thought that I can think so.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;At last, at last, irresolute little Imma! Oh, how I thank
+you, I thank you! But in that case you're not afraid, and
+will let the whole world know that you belong to me?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Let them know that you belong to me, Royal Highness,
+if it's all the same to you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That I will, Imma, loudly and surely. But only on one
+condition, namely, that we don't only think of our own happiness
+in a selfish and frivolous way, but regard it all from
+the point of view of the Mass, the Whole. For the public
+weal and our happiness, you see, are interdependent.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well said, Prince. For without our studies of the public
+weal I should have found it difficult to decide to have confidence
+in you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And without you, Imma, to warm my heart, I should have
+found it difficult to tackle such practical problems.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Right; then we'll see what we can do, each in our own
+place. You with your folk and I&mdash;with my father.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Little sister,&rdquo; he answered quietly, and pressed her more
+closely to him in the dance. &ldquo;Little bride.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Undoubtedly a peculiar plighting of troth.</p>
+
+<p>To be frank, everything was not yet settled, or nearly
+settled. Looking back, one must say that, if one factor in
+the whole had been altered or removed, the whole would
+have been in imminent danger of coming to nothing. What
+a blessing, the chronicler feels tempted to cry, what a blessing
+that there was a man at the head of affairs who faced
+the music firmly and undaunted, indeed not without a dash
+of rashness, and did not judge a thing to be impossible just
+because it had never happened before.</p>
+
+<p>The conversation which Excellency von Knobelsdorff had
+about eight days after the memorable Court Ball with Grand
+Duke Albrecht&nbsp;II in the Old Schloss belongs to the history
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_314" title="314"> </a>
+of the times. The day before, the President of Council had
+presided over a session of the Cabinet, about which the <i>Courier</i>
+had been in the position to report that questions of finance
+and the private affairs of the Grand Ducal family had been
+discussed, and further&mdash;added the newspaper in spaced type&mdash;that
+complete unanimity of opinion had been reached among
+the Ministers. So Herr von Knobelsdorff found himself in a
+strong position towards his young Monarch at the audience;
+for he had not only the swarming mass of the people, but
+also the unanimous will of the Government at his back.</p>
+
+<p>The conversation in Albrecht's draughty study took scarcely
+less time than that in the little yellow room at Schloss &ldquo;Hermitage.&rdquo;
+A pause was made while the Grand Duke had a
+lemonade and Herr von Knobelsdorff a glass of port and
+biscuits. The long duration of the conversation was due
+only to the importance of the material to be discussed, not
+to the Monarch's opposition; for Albrecht raised none. In
+his close frock-coat, with his thin, sensitive hands crossed
+on his lap, his proud, refined head with its pointed beard and
+narrow temples raised and his eyelids sunk, he sucked gently
+with his lower lip against his upper, and accompanied Herr
+von Knobelsdorff's remarks with an occasional slight nod,
+which expressed agreement and disagreement at the same time,
+an uninterested formal agreement without prejudice to his
+unassailable personal dignity.</p>
+
+<p>Herr von Knobelsdorff plunged straight into the middle
+of things, and spoke about Prince Klaus Heinrich's visits to
+Schloss Delphinenort. Albrecht knew of them. A subdued
+echo of the events which kept the city and the country on
+tip-toe had penetrated even into his loneliness; he knew, too,
+his brother Klaus Heinrich, who had &ldquo;rummaged&rdquo; and gossiped
+with the lackeys, and, then he knocked his forehead against the
+big table, had wept for sympathy with his forehead&mdash;and in
+effect he needed no coaching. Lisping and reddening slightly,
+he gave Herr von Knobelsdorff to understand this, and added
+that, seeing that the other had not intervened, but had caused
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_315" title="315"> </a>
+the millionaire's daughter to be introduced to him, he concluded
+that Herr von Knobelsdorff approved of the Prince's
+behaviour, although he, the Grand Duke, could not clearly see
+what it would lead to.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The Government,&rdquo; answered Herr von Knobelsdorff, &ldquo;would
+set itself in prejudicial and estranging opposition to the will
+of the people if it thwarted the Prince's projects.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Has my brother, then, definite projects?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For a long time,&rdquo; corrected Herr von Knobelsdorff, &ldquo;he
+acted without any plan and merely as his heart dictated; but
+since he has found himself with the people on terms of
+reality, his wishes have taken a practical form.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;All of which means that the public approves the steps
+taken by the Prince?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That it acclaims them, Royal Highness&mdash;that its dearest
+hopes are fixed on them.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And now Herr von Knobelsdorff unrolled once more the
+dark picture of the state of the country, of its distress, of
+the serious embarrassment. Where was a remedy to be
+found? Yonder, only yonder, in the Town Park, in the
+second centre of the city, in the house of the invalid Money-Prince,
+our guest and resident, round whose person the people
+wove their dreams, and for whom it would be a small matter
+to put an end to all our difficulties. It he could be induced
+to take upon himself our national finances, their recovery
+would be assured. Would he be induced? But fate had
+ordained an exchange of sympathy between the mighty man's
+only daughter and Prince Klaus Heinrich. And was this
+wise and gracious ordinance to be flouted? Ought one for
+the sake of mulish, out-of-date traditions to prevent a union
+which embraced so immeasurable a blessing for the country
+and its people? For that it did was a necessary hypothesis,
+from which the union must draw its justification and validity.
+But if this condition were fulfilled, if Samuel Spoelmann were
+ready, not to mince words, to finance the State, then this union
+was not only admissible, it was necessary, it was salvation,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_316" title="316"> </a>
+the welfare of the State demanded it, and prayers rose to
+heaven for it, far beyond the frontiers, wherever any interest
+was felt in the restoration of our finances and the avoidance
+of an economic panic.</p>
+
+<p>At this point the Grand Duke asked a question quietly,
+with a mocking smile and without looking up.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And the succession to the throne?&rdquo; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The law,&rdquo; answered Herr von Knobelsdorff, unshaken,
+&ldquo;places it in your Royal Highness's hand to put aside dynastic
+scruples. With us the grant of an advance in rank and even
+of equal birth belongs to the prerogatives of the monarch,
+and when could history show a more potent motive for the
+exercise of these privileges? This union bears the mark of
+its own genuineness, preparations have been long in making
+for its reception in the heart of the people, and your entire
+princely and State approval would signify to the people nothing
+more than an outward satisfaction of their inmost convictions.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And Herr von Knobelsdorff went on to speak of Imma
+Spoelmann's popularity, of the significant demonstration in
+connexion with her recovery from a slight indisposition, of
+the position of equal birth which this exceptional person
+assumed in popular fancy&mdash;and the wrinkles played round
+his eyes as he reminded Albrecht of the old prophecy current
+among the people, which told of a prince who would
+give the country more with one hand than others had given
+it with two, and eloquently demonstrated how the union between
+Klaus Heinrich and Spoelmann's daughter must seem
+to the people the fulfilment of the oracle, and thus God's will
+and right and proper.</p>
+
+<p>Herr von Knobelsdorff said a great deal more which was
+clever, honest, and good. He alluded to the fourfold mixture
+of blood in Imma Spoelmann&mdash;for besides the Anglo-Saxon,
+Portuguese and German, some drops of ancient Indian
+blood were said to flow in her veins&mdash;and emphasized the fact
+that he expected the dynasty to benefit greatly by the quickening
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_317" title="317"> </a>
+effect of the mixture of races on ancient stocks. But the
+artless old gentleman made his greatest effect when he talked
+about the huge and beneficial alterations which would be
+caused in the economical state of the Court itself, our debt-laden
+and sore-pressed Court, through the heir to the throne's
+bold marriage.</p>
+
+<p>It was at this point that Albrecht sucked most proudly at
+his upper lip. The value of gold was falling, the out-goings
+were increasing&mdash;increasing in pursuance of an economic law
+which held for the Court finances just as much as for every
+private household; and there was no possibility of increasing
+the revenues. But it was not right that the monarch's means
+should be inferior to those of many of his subjects; it was
+from the monarch's point of view intolerable that soap-boiler
+Unschlitt's house should have had central heating a long time
+ago, but that the Old Schloss should not have got it yet. A
+remedy was necessary, in more than one way, and lucky was
+the princely house to which so grand a remedy as this offered
+itself.</p>
+
+<p>It was noteworthy in our times that all the old-time modesty
+as to busying oneself in the financial concerns of the Court
+had vanished. That self-renunciation with which princely
+families used formerly to make the heaviest sacrifices, so as to
+keep the public from disenchanting glimpses into their
+financial affairs, was no longer to be found, and law-suits and
+questionable sales were the order of the day. But was not
+an alliance with sovereign riches preferable to this petty and
+bourgeois kind of device&mdash;a union which would exalt the
+monarch for ever high above all economic worries and place
+him in a position to reveal himself to the people with all those
+outward signs for which they longed?</p>
+
+<p>So ran Herr von Knobelsdorff's questions, which he himself
+answered with an unqualified Yes! In short, his speech
+was so clever and so irresistible that he did not leave the
+Old Schloss without taking with him consents and authorizations,
+delivered to him with a proud lisp, which were quite
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_318" title="318"> </a>
+comprehensive enough to warrant unprecedented conclusions,
+if only Miss Spoelmann had done her share.</p>
+
+<p>And so things ran their memorable course to a happy
+conclusion. Even before the end of December names were
+mentioned of people who had seen (not only heard tell of)
+Lord Marshal von Bühl zu Bühl in a fur coat, a top-hat on
+his brown head, and his gold pince-nez on his nose, get out
+of a Court carriage at Delphinenort, at 11 o'clock on a snow-dark
+morning, and disappear waddling into the Schloss. At
+the beginning of January there were individuals going about
+the town who swore that the man who, this time also in the
+morning and in fur coat and top-hat, had passed by the
+grinning negro in plush, through the door of Delphinenort,
+and, with feverish haste, had flung himself into a cab which
+was waiting for him, was undoubtedly our Finance Minister,
+Dr. Krippenreuther. And at the same time there appeared in
+the semi-official <i>Courier</i> the first preparatory notices of rumours
+touching an impending betrothal in the Grand Ducal House&mdash;tentative
+notifications which, becoming carefully clearer and
+clearer, at last exhibited the two names, Klaus Heinrich and
+Imma Spoelmann, in clear print next each other&hellip;. It
+was no new collocation, but to see it in black on white had
+the same effect as strong wine.</p>
+
+<p>It was most absorbing to notice what attitude, in the
+journalistic discussions which ensued, our enlightened and
+open-minded press took up towards the popular aspect of the
+affair, namely, the prophecy, which had won too great political
+significance not to demand education and intelligence to deal
+satisfactorily with it. Sooth-saying, chiromancy, and similar
+magic, explained the <i>Courier</i>, were, so far as the destiny of
+individuals was concerned, to be relegated to the murky regions
+of superstition. They belonged to the grey middle ages, and
+no ridicule was too severe for the idiots who (very rarely in
+the cities nowadays) let experienced pick-pockets empty their
+purses in return for reading, from their hands, the cards, or
+coffee-grounds, their insignificant fortunes, or for invoking
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_319" title="319"> </a>
+sound health, for a hom&oelig;opathic cure, or for freeing their
+sick cattle from invading demons&mdash;as if the Apostle had not
+already asked: &ldquo;Doth God take care for oxen?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But, surveyed as a whole and restricted to decisive turns
+in the destiny of whole nations or dynasties, the proposition
+did not necessarily repel a well-trained and scientific mind,
+that, as time is only an illusion and, truly viewed, all happenings
+are stationary in eternity, such revolutions while still
+in the lap of the future might give the human brain a premonitory
+shock and reveal themselves palpably to it. And
+in proof of this the zealous newspaper published an exhaustive
+composition, kindly put at its disposal by one of our high-school
+professors, which gave a conspectus of all the cases
+in the history of mankind in which oracle and horoscope,
+somnambulism, clairvoyance, dreams, sleep-walking, second-sight,
+and inspiration had played a rôle, a most meritorious
+production, which produced the due effect in cultured circles.</p>
+
+<p>So press, Government, Court, and public closed their ranks
+in complete understanding, and assuredly the <i>Courier</i> would
+have held its tongue had its philosophical contributions been
+premature and politically dangerous at that time&mdash;in a word,
+had not the negotiations at Delphinenort already advanced far
+in a favourable direction. It is pretty accurately known by
+now how these negotiations developed, and what a difficult,
+indeed painful, task our Counsel had in them: the Counsel,
+to whom as proxy of the Court the delicate mission had fallen
+of preparing the way for Prince Klaus Heinrich's courtship,
+as well as the Chief Financial Assessor, who, notwithstanding
+his infirm state of health, insisted on nursing his country's
+interests by a personal interview with Samuel Spoelmann.</p>
+
+<p>In this connexion account must be taken firstly of Mr.
+Spoelmann's fiery and excitable disposition, and secondly of
+the fact that to the prodigious little man a favourable termination
+to the business from our point of view seemed far less
+important than it did to us. Apart from Mr. Spoelmann's
+love for his daughter, who had opened her heart to him and
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_320" title="320"> </a>
+told him of her pretty wish to make herself useful in her love,
+our proxies had not one trump to play against him, and he
+was the last man to whom Dr. Krippenreuther could dictate
+conditions in virtue of what Herr von Bühl had to offer. Mr.
+Spoelmann always spoke of Prince Klaus Heinrich as &ldquo;the
+young man,&rdquo; and expressed so little pleasure at the prospect
+of giving his daughter to a Royal Highness to wife, that Dr.
+Krippenreuther, as well as Herr von Bühl, were more than
+once plunged into deadly embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If he'd only learnt something, had some respectable business,&rdquo;
+he snarled peevishly. &ldquo;But a young man who only
+knows how to get cheered&nbsp;&hellip;&rdquo; He was really furious, the
+first time a remark was dropped about morganatic marriage.
+His daughter, he declared once for all, was no concubine,
+and would be no left-handed wife. Who marries her, marries
+her&hellip;. But the interests of the dynasty and the country
+coincided at this point with his own. The obtaining of issue
+entitled to succeed was a necessity, and Herr von Bühl was
+equipped with all the powers which Herr von Knobelsdorff
+had succeeded in extracting from the Grand Duke. As for
+Dr. Krippenreuther's mission, however, it owed its success not
+to the envoy's eloquence, but simply to Mr. Spoelmann's
+paternal affection, the complaisance of a suffering, weary
+father, whose abnormal existence had long ago made him a
+paradox, towards his only daughter and heiress, whom he
+allowed to choose for herself the public funds in which she
+wished to invest her fortune.</p>
+
+<p>And so came into existence the agreements, which were at
+first shrouded in deep secrecy and only came to light bit
+by bit, as events developed themselves, though here they can
+be summarized in a few plain words.</p>
+
+<p>The betrothal of Klaus Heinrich with Imma Spoelmann
+was approved and recognized by Samuel Spoelmann and by
+the House of Grimmburg. Simultaneously with the publication
+of the betrothal in the <i>Gazette</i> appeared the announcement
+of the elevation of the bride to the rank of countess&mdash;under
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_321" title="321"> </a>
+a fancy name of romantic sound, like that which Klaus
+Heinrich had borne during his educational tour in the fair
+southern lands; and on the day of their wedding the wife of
+the heir-presumptive was to be given the dignity of a princess.
+The two rises in rank, which might have cost four thousand
+eight hundred marks, were to be free of duty.</p>
+
+<p>The wedding was to be only preliminarily a left-handed
+one, till the world had got used to it: for on the day on
+which it appeared that the bride was to be blessed with offspring,
+Albrecht&nbsp;II, in view of the unparalleled circumstances,
+would declare his brother's morganatic wife to be of equal
+birth, and would give her the rank of a princess of the Grand
+Ducal House with the title of Royal Highness. The new
+member of the ruling House would waive all claim to an
+appanage. As for the Court ceremony, only a semi-Court was
+appointed for the celebration of the left-handed marriage,
+but a Processional Court, that highest and completest form
+of showing allegiance, was fixed for the celebration of the
+declaration of equal birth. Samuel Spoelmann, for his part,
+granted the State a loan of three hundred and fifty million
+marks, and on such fatherly conditions that the loan showed
+all the symptoms of being a gift.</p>
+
+<p>It was the Grand Duke Albrecht who acquainted the Heir
+Presumptive with these conclusions. Once more Klaus Heinrich
+stood in the great, draughty study under the battered
+ceiling-paintings, in front of his brother, as once before when
+Albrecht had delegated to him his representative duties, and
+standing in an official attitude received the great news. He
+had put on the tunic of a major in the Fusiliers of the Guard
+for this audience, while the Grand Duke had lately added to
+his black frock-coat a pair of dark-red wool mittens, which
+his aunt had made him to protect him from the draught
+through the high windows of the Old Schloss.</p>
+
+<p>When Albrecht had finished, Klaus Heinrich stepped one
+pace sideways, closed his heels with a fresh salute, and said:
+&ldquo;I beg, dear Albrecht, to offer my heart-felt and respectful
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_322" title="322"> </a>
+thanks, in my own name and that of the whole country. For
+it is you in the long run who make all these blessings possible,
+and the redoubled love of the people will be your
+reward for your magnanimous resolutions.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He pressed his brother's thin, sensitive hand, which he kept
+close to his chest, and extended to him only to the extent
+of moving his forearm. The Grand Duke had thrust forward
+his short, round underlip, and his eyelids were half-closed.
+He answered softly with a lisp:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am the less inclined to entertain illusions about the
+people's love, as I can, as you know, dispense with such
+questionable love without a pang. So question whether I
+deserve it is scarcely worth notice. When it's time to start,
+I go to the station and give the signal to the engine-driver,
+which is silly rather than dutiful, but it's my duty. But you're
+in a different position. You're a Sunday child. Everything
+turns out trumps for you&hellip;. I wish you luck,&rdquo; he said,
+raising the lids from his lonely-looking, blue eyes. And it
+was clear at this moment that he loved Klaus Heinrich. &ldquo;I
+wish you happiness, Klaus Heinrich&mdash;but not too much, and
+that you may not repose too comfortably in the love of the
+people. I have already said that everything turns out trumps
+for you. The girl of your choice is very strange, very undomesticated,
+and, most important of all, very original. She
+has a mixture of blood, I've been told that Indian blood flows
+in her veins. That's perhaps a good thing. With a wife like
+that, there's less danger, perhaps, of your having too easy a
+time.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Neither happiness,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich, &ldquo;nor the people's
+love will have the effect of making me cease to be your
+brother.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He left to face a difficult interview, a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tête-à-tête</i> with Mr.
+Spoelmann, his personal proposal for Imma's hand. He
+found he had to swallow what his negotiators had swallowed,
+for Samuel Spoelmann showed not the smallest pleasure and
+snarled several refreshing truths at him. But it was over at
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_323" title="323"> </a>
+last, and the morning came when the betrothal appeared in
+the <i>Gazette</i>. The long tensions resolved into endless jubilation.
+Dignified men waved pocket-handkerchiefs at one another,
+and embraced in the open square: bunting flew from
+every flag-staff.</p>
+
+<p>But the same day the news reached Schloss &ldquo;Hermitage,&rdquo;
+that Raoul Ueberbein had committed suicide.</p>
+
+<p>The story was a vile as well as stupid one, and would
+not be worth relating had not its end been so horrible. No
+attempt will be made here to apportion the blame. The Doctor's
+death gave rise to two opposing factions. One affirmed
+that he had been driven to take his life owing to the misgivings
+which his desperate act had evoked: the others declared
+with a shrug that his conduct was impossible and crazy, and
+that he had shown all his life a total lack of self-control.
+The point need not be decided. At any rate nothing justified
+so tragic an end; indeed, a man with the gifts of Raoul
+Ueberbein deserved something better than ruin&hellip;. Here is
+the story.</p>
+
+<p>At Easter the year before the professor in charge of the
+top class but one at our Grammar School, who suffered from
+heart-weakness, had been temporarily retired on the ground of
+his illness, and Doctor Ueberbein, notwithstanding his comparative
+youth, had been given the first vacant chair simply
+in view of his professional zeal and his undeniably remarkable
+success in a lower class. It was a happy experiment, as
+events proved; the class had never done so well as this year.
+The professor on leave, a popular man with his colleagues, had
+become a peevish as well as careless and indolent man as the
+result of his infirmity, with which was combined a sociable
+but immoderate inclination for beer. He had shut his eyes
+to details and had sent up every year an extremely badly
+prepared batch of pupils into the Select. A new spirit had
+come into the class with the temporary professor, and nobody
+was surprised at it. People knew his uncomfortable professional
+zeal, his single-minded and never-resting energy.
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_324" title="324"> </a>
+They foresaw that he would not miss such an opportunity
+for self-advancement, round which he had doubtless built
+ambitious hopes.</p>
+
+<p>So an end had soon been put to laziness and boredom in
+the second class. Dr. Ueberbein had pitched his expectations
+high, and his skill in inspiring even the most recalcitrant had
+proved irresistible. The boys worshipped him. His superior,
+fatherly, and jolly, swaggering way kept them on the alert,
+shook them up, and made them feel it a point of honour to
+follow their teacher through thick and thin. He won their
+hearts by going for Sunday excursions with them, when they
+were allowed to smoke, while he bewitched their imaginations
+by boyishly conceived rodomontades about the greatness and
+severity of public life. And on Monday the members of
+yesterday's expedition would meet for work in a cheerful and
+eager frame of mind.</p>
+
+<p>Three-quarters of the school year had thus passed, when
+the news went round, before Christmas, that the professor
+on leave, now fairly strong again, would resume his duties
+after the holidays, and would again act as professor of the
+second class. And now it came out what sort of man Doctor
+Ueberbein was, with his green complexion and superior manner.
+He objected and remonstrated; he lodged a vigorous
+and, in form, not incontestable protest against the class with
+which he had spent three-quarters of the year, and whose
+work and recreation he had shared up to the very mouth of
+the goal, being taken from its professor for the last quarter
+and restored to the official who had spent three-quarters of
+the year on leave. His action was intelligible and comprehensible,
+and one must sympathize with it. He had undoubtedly
+hoped to send up a model class to the head master,
+who taught the Select, a class whose forwardness would put
+his skill in the best light and would hasten his promotion;
+and it must grieve him to look forward to another's reaping
+the fruits of his devotion. But though his disgust might be
+excusable, his frenzy was not: and it is an unfortunate fact
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_325" title="325"> </a>
+that, when the head master proved deaf to his representations,
+he became simply frenzied. He lost his head, he lost all
+balance, he set heaven and hell to work to prevent this loafer,
+this alcohol-heart, this blankety-blank, as he did not hesitate
+to describe the professor on leave, from taking his class from
+him. And when he found no support among his colleagues,
+as was natural in the case of so unsociable a man, the poor
+wretch had so far forgotten himself as to incite the pupils
+entrusted to him to rebel.</p>
+
+<p>He had put the question to them from his desk&mdash;Whom do
+you want for your master for the last quarter, me or that
+other fellow? And, wound up by his stirring appeal, they
+had shouted that they wanted him. Then, he said, they must
+take matters into their own hands, show their colours, and act
+as one boy&mdash;though goodness knows what in his excitement he
+meant by that. But when after the holidays the returned
+professor entered the class-room, they screamed Doctor Ueberbein's
+name at him for minutes on end&mdash;and there was a fine
+scandal.</p>
+
+<p>It was kept as quiet as possible. The revolutionaries got
+off almost unpunished, as Doctor Ueberbein himself put on
+record, at the inquiry which was at once initiated, his appeal to
+them. As to the Doctor himself, too, the authorities seemed
+generally inclined to close their eyes to what had happened.
+His zeal and skill were highly valued, certain learned works,
+the fruits of his mighty industry, had made his name known,
+he was popular in high quarters&mdash;quarters, be it noticed, with
+which he personally did not come into contact, and which
+therefore he could not incense by his patronizing bearing.
+Further, his record as tutor of Prince Klaus Heinrich weighed
+in the scales. In short, he was not simply dismissed, as one
+might have expected him to be. The President of the Grand
+Ducal Council of Education, before whom the matter came,
+administered a grave reprimand to him, and Doctor Ueberbein,
+who had stopped teaching directly after the scandal, was provisionally
+retired. But people who knew declared later that
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_326" title="326"> </a>
+nothing was intended beyond the professor's transfer to another
+grammar school; that in high quarters the only wish was
+to hush up the whole business, and that the promise of a
+brilliant future had been actually extended to the Doctor.
+Everything would have turned out all right.</p>
+
+<p>But the milder the authorities showed themselves towards
+the Doctor, the more hostile was the attitude of his colleagues
+towards him. The &ldquo;Teachers' Union&rdquo; at once established a
+court of honour, whose object was to secure satisfaction for
+their beloved member, the alcohol-hearted professor rejected
+of his pupils. The written statement laid before Ueberbein
+in his retirement in his lodgings ran as follows: Whereas
+Ueberbein had resisted the return of the colleague for whom
+he acted to the professorship of the second class; whereas
+further he had agitated against him and in the end had
+actually incited the pupils to insubordination against him, he
+had been guilty of disloyal conduct to his colleague of such
+a kind as must be considered dishonourable not only in a
+professional, but also in a general sense. That was the
+verdict. The expected result was that Doctor Ueberbein, who
+had only been a nominal member of the &ldquo;Teachers' Union,&rdquo;
+withdrew his membership&mdash;and there, so many thought, he
+might well have let the matter rest.</p>
+
+<p>But whether it was that in his seclusion he did not know
+the goodwill he inspired in higher quarters; that he thought
+his prospects more hopeless than they were; that he could
+not stand idleness, unreconciled as he was to the premature
+loss of his beloved class; that the expression &ldquo;dishonourable&rdquo;
+poisoned his blood, or that his mind was not strong enough
+to stand all the shocks it received at this time: five weeks
+after the New Year his landlady found him on the thread-bare
+carpet of his room, no greener than usual, but with a
+bullet through his heart.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the end of Raoul Ueberbein, such his false step,
+such the cause of his fall. &ldquo;I told you so,&rdquo; was the burden
+of all the discussions of his pitiful break-down. The quarrelsome
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_327" title="327"> </a>
+and uncongenial man, who had never been a man
+amongst men at his club, who had haughtily resisted
+familiarity, and had ordered his life cold-bloodedly with a
+view to results alone, and had supposed that that gave him
+the right to patronize the whole world&mdash;there he lay now:
+the first hitch, the first obstacle in the field of accomplishment,
+had brought him to a miserable end. Few of the
+bourgeois regretted, none of them mourned him&mdash;with one
+single exception, the chief surgeon at the Dorothea Hospital,
+Ueberbein's congenial friend, and perhaps a fair lady with
+whom he used once to play Casino. But Klaus Heinrich
+always cherished an honourable and cordial memory of his
+ill-fated tutor.</p>
+
+<h2><a class="pagenum" name="Page_328" title="328"> </a>IX<br/>
+<small>THE ROSE-BUSH</small></h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">And</span> Spoelmann financed the state. The outlines of the
+transaction were bold and clear; a child could have understood
+them&mdash;and as a fact beaming fathers explained it to
+their children, as they dangled them on their knees.</p>
+
+<p>Samuel Spoelmann nodded, Messrs. Phlebs and Slippers
+got to work, and his mighty orders flashed under the waves
+of the Atlantic to the Continent of the Western Hemisphere.
+He withdrew a third of his share from the Sugar trust, a
+quarter from the Petroleum trust, and half from the Steel
+trust; he had his floating capital paid in to accounts in his
+name in several banks over here; and he bought from Herr
+Krippenreuther at par 350,000,000 new 3½ per cent. consols
+at one stroke. That is what Spoelmann did.</p>
+
+<p>He who knows by experience the influence of the state of
+mind on the human organs will believe that Dr. Krippenreuther
+cheered up and in a short time was unrecognizable.
+He carried himself upright and free, his walk was springy,
+the yellow look faded from his face, which became red and
+white, his eyes flashed, and his stomach regained its powers
+in a few months to such an extent that his friends were delighted
+to observe that the Minister could give himself up to
+the enjoyment of blue cabbage and gherkin salad with impunity.
+That was one pleasant though purely personal result
+of Spoelmann's interference in our finances, which was of but
+slight account in comparison with the effects which that interference
+had on our public and economic life.</p>
+
+<p>A part of the loan was devoted to the sinking fund, and
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_329" title="329"> </a>
+troublesome public debts were paid off. But this was scarcely
+needed to secure us breathing space and credit on every side;
+for no sooner was it known, for all the secrecy with which
+the matter was treated officially, that Samuel Spoelmann had
+become the State banker, in fact if not in name, than the skies
+cleared up above us and all our need was changed into joy
+and rapture. There was an end to the scare-selling of active
+debts, the customary rate of interest dropped, our written
+promises were eagerly sought after as investments, and each
+twenty-four hours saw a rise in the quotation of our high-interest
+loan from a deplorably low figure up to above par.
+The pressure, the nightmare which for decades had weighed
+down our national finances, was removed; Doctor Krippenreuther
+puffed out his chest and spoke in the Landtag in favour
+of all-round reduction in taxation. This was adopted
+unanimously, and the antediluvian meat tax was finally buried
+amid the rejoicings of all those who cared for their fellow-men.</p>
+
+<p>A distinct improvement in the pay of the Civil Service, and
+in the salaries of teachers, clergymen, and all State functionaries
+was readily voted. Means were now available for
+restarting the closed-down silver-mines; several hundred workmen
+were given work, and productive veins were unexpectedly
+struck. Money, money was forthcoming, the standard of
+economic morality rose; the forests were replanted, the litter
+was left in the woods, the stock-owners no longer were compelled
+to sell their milk, they drank it themselves, and the
+critics would have sought in vain for ill-nourished peasants
+in the fields. The nation showed gratitude towards their
+rulers, who had brought so boundless a blessing to land and
+people.</p>
+
+<p>Herr von Knobelsdorff needed but few words to induce
+Parliament to increase the Crown subsidy. The orders for
+the putting up for sale of the Schlosses &ldquo;Pastime&rdquo; and
+&ldquo;Favourite&rdquo; were cancelled. Skilled workmen invaded the
+Old Schloss, to instal central heating from top to bottom.
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_330" title="330"> </a>
+Our agents in the negotiations with Spoelmann, von Bühl and
+Dr. Krippenreuther, received the Grand Cross of the Albrechts
+Order in brilliants; the Finance Minister was also ennobled,
+and Herr von Knobelsdorff was made happy with a life-size
+portrait of the exalted couple&mdash;painted by the skilful hand of
+old Professor von Lindemann and exquisitely framed.</p>
+
+<p>After the betrothal the people gave rein to their fancy in
+calculating the dowry which Imma Spoelmann was to receive
+from her father. It made them giddy; they were possessed
+by a mad desire to scatter figures of truly astronomical dimensions
+about. But the dowry did not exceed an earthly figure,
+comfortably big though it was. It amounted to a hundred
+million.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Gracious!&rdquo; said Ditlinde zu Ried-Hohenried, when she first
+heard it. &ldquo;And my dear Philipp with his peat.&rdquo; Many another
+had the same thought; but Spoelmann's daughter
+allayed the nervous anger which might arise in simple hearts
+in face of such monstrous wealth, for she did not forget to do
+good and share her good fortune, and on the very day of the
+public betrothal she gave a sum of 500,000 marks, the yearly
+interest on which was to be divided among the four county
+councils for charitable and generally useful purposes.</p>
+
+<p>Klaus Heinrich and Imma drove in one of Spoelmann's
+olive-coloured, red-cushioned motors on a round of visits to
+the members of the House of Grimmburg. A young chauffeur
+drove the sumptuous car&mdash;the one in which Imma had found
+a likeness to Klaus Heinrich. But his nervous tension was
+but small on this trip, for he had to restrain the motor's giant
+strength so far as possible and go slowly&mdash;so closely were
+they surrounded by admiring crowds; for as the more remote
+authors of our happiness, Grand Duke Albrecht and Samuel
+Spoelmann, each in his own fashion, concealed themselves
+from the crowd, the latter heaped all its love and gratitude
+on the heads of the exalted couple. Boys could be seen
+through the plate glass of the motor throwing their caps in
+the air, the shouts of men and women came surging in, clear
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_331" title="331"> </a>
+and shrill, and Klaus Heinrich, his hand to his helmet, said
+admonishingly: &ldquo;You must respond too, Imma, to your side,
+otherwise they'll think you cold.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They drove to Princess Katharine's, and were received with
+dignity. In the time of Grand Duke Johann Albrecht, her
+brother, said the aunt to her nephew, it would never have
+been allowed. But the times moved fast, and she prayed
+Heaven that his betrothed would accustom herself to the
+Court. They proceeded to Princess zu Ried-Hohenried's, and
+there it was love she met with. Ditlinde's Grimmburg pride
+found comfort in the assurance that Leviathan's daughter
+might become Princess of the Grand Ducal House and Royal
+Highness, but could never be Grand Ducal Princess like herself;
+for the rest, she was overjoyed that Klaus Heinrich had
+rummaged out for himself anything so sweet and precious.
+As the wife of Philipp with his peat, she had the best reasons
+for knowing how to value the advantages of the match, and
+cordially welcomed her sister-in-law to her arms.</p>
+
+<p>They drove too to Prince Lambert's villa, and while the
+Countess-bride struggled to keep up a conversation with the
+dazzling but very uneducated Baroness von Rohrdorf, the old
+petticoat-hunter congratulated his nephew in his sepulchral
+voice on the unprejudiced choice he had made, and on so
+boldly snapping his fingers at Court and Highness. &ldquo;I am
+not snapping my fingers at my Highness, uncle; not only have
+I had an eye to my own happiness in no inconsiderable
+measure, but I have acted throughout with the Mass, the
+Whole, in view,&rdquo; said Klaus Heinrich rather rudely; whereupon
+they broke off, and drove to Schloss &ldquo;Segenhaus,&rdquo; where
+Dorothea, the poor Dowager, held her dreary Court. She
+cried as she kissed the young bride on the forehead, without
+knowing why she did so.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Samuel Spoelmann sat at Delphinenort surrounded
+with plans and sketches of furniture and silk carpet-patterns,
+and drawings of gold plate. He left his organ untouched,
+and forgot the stone in his kidney, and got quite red
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_332" title="332"> </a>
+cheeks from merely having so much to do; for however small
+the opinion he had formed of &ldquo;the young man,&rdquo; or the hope
+he held out of his ever being seen at Court, yet his daughter
+was going to be married, and he wanted the arrangements to
+be worthy of his means. The plans had to do with the new
+Schloss &ldquo;Hermitage,&rdquo; for Klaus Heinrich's bachelor quarters
+were to be razed to the ground, and a new Schloss built on
+its site, roomy and bright and decorated, by Klaus Heinrich's
+wish, in a mixture of Empire and modern styles, combining
+cool severity with homely comfort. Mr. Spoelmann appeared
+one morning in person, after drinking the waters in the spa-garden,
+in his faded great-coat at the &ldquo;Hermitage,&rdquo; in order
+to find out whether this or that piece of furniture could be
+used for the new Schloss. &ldquo;Let's see, young Prince, what
+you've got,&rdquo; he snarled, and Klaus Heinrich showed him everything
+in his sober room&mdash;the thin sofas, the stiff-legged tables,
+the white-enamelled tables in the corners.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Gimcrack,&rdquo; said Mr. Spoelmann, &ldquo;no use for anything.&rdquo;
+Three arm-chairs only in the little yellow room, of heavy
+mahogany, with snail-shaped convolute arms and the yellow
+covers embroidered with blue lyres, found favour in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We can put those in an ante-room,&rdquo; he said, and Klaus
+Heinrich was relieved that these arm-chairs should be contributed
+to the furnishing by the Grimmburg side; for of
+course it would have been rather painful to him if Mr.
+Spoelmann had had to find every single thing.</p>
+
+<p>But the ragged park and flower-garden at the &ldquo;Hermitage&rdquo;
+had to be cleared and restocked; the flower-garden in particular
+was honoured with a special ornament which Klaus
+Heinrich had asked his brother to give him as a wedding-present.
+For it was arranged that the rose-bush from the Old
+Schloss should be transplanted to the big middle bed in front
+of the approach; and then, no longer surrounded by mouldy
+walls, but in the air and sunshine and the stiffest clay obtainable,
+it should be seen what sort of roses it could bear in
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_333" title="333"> </a>
+future&mdash;and give the lie to the popular report, if it were
+obstinate and arrogant enough.</p>
+
+<p>And when March and April had passed, May came, bringing
+the great event of Klaus Heinrich's and Imma's marriage.
+It was a glorious day, with golden clouds in the sky, and its
+dawn was greeted by a choir from the town-hall tower. The
+people streamed in on foot and in carts, that fair, thick-set,
+healthy, reliable stock with blue, meditative eyes and broad,
+high cheek-bones, dressed in the handsome national dress&mdash;the
+men in red jackets, top-boots, and broad-brimmed black-velvet
+hats, the women in brightly embroidered bodices, thick,
+wide skirts, and big black veils as a head-dress. They joined
+the throng of town-folk in the streets between the Spa-Garden
+and the Old Schloss, which had been transformed into a processional
+route with garlands and wreathed stands and white-enamelled
+poles covered with flowers.</p>
+
+<p>Banners of the Trades Unions, rifle-corps, and gymnastic
+associations began early in the morning to be carried through
+the streets. The fire brigade turned out in gleaming helmets.
+The officers of the Corps of Students drove round in open
+landaus in full state with banners flying. Maids of Honour
+in white, with rose-twined staves, stood about in groups. The
+offices and factories were deserted, the schools closed, festival
+services were held in the churches. And the morning editions
+of the <i>Courier</i> and <i>Gazette</i> contained, in addition to cordial
+leading articles, the announcement of a comprehensive amnesty,
+in pursuance of which cancellation or remission of
+sentence was granted to several prisoners by the grace of the
+Grand Duke. Even the murderer Gudebus, who had been condemned
+to death, and then to penal servitude for life, was
+released on ticket of leave. But he soon had to be put back
+into prison again.</p>
+
+<p>Two o'clock was the hour fixed for the City Council's
+luncheon in the hall of the Museum, with an orchestra and
+telegrams of respectful congratulations. But the public made
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_334" title="334"> </a>
+merry outside the gates, with fried chips and currant-loaf, a
+fair, lucky-booths and shooting galleries, sack-races, and
+men's climbing competitions for treacle cakes. And then
+came the moment when Imma Spoelmann drove from Delphinenort
+to the Old Schloss. She did so in processional
+pomp.</p>
+
+<p>The banners fluttered in the spring breeze, the thick garlands,
+interwoven with red roses, stretched from one pole to
+another, the crowd was packed in a black mass on the
+balconies, roofs, and steps; and between the fences of rifle-corps
+and firemen, guilds, unions, students, and school-children,
+the bridal procession advanced slowly amid tumultuous
+uproar along the sand-strewn road. Two out-riders in
+laced hats and shoulder-knots, preceded by a moustachioed
+equerry in a three-cornered hat, came first. Then came a
+four-horsed carriage, in which the Grand Ducal Commissary,
+an official of the Board of Green Cloth, who had been deputed
+to fetch the bride, rode with a chamberlain. Next a second
+four-horsed carriage, in which sat the Countess Löwenjoul,
+looking askance at the two maids of honour in the carriage
+with her, whose morals she mistrusted. Then came ten postilions
+on horseback, in yellow breeches and blue coats, who
+played: &ldquo;We wind for thee the maiden's wreath.&rdquo; Then
+twelve girls in white, who strewed roses and sprigs of arbor
+vitæ on the road.</p>
+
+<p>And lastly, followed by fifty master-mechanics on powerful
+horses, the six-horsed transparent bridal coach. The red-faced
+coachman in the laced hat proudly extended his gaitered legs
+on the high white-velvet box, holding the reins with arms
+similarly extended; grooms in top-boots walked at the head
+of each pair of horses, and two lackeys stood behind the
+creaking carriage in great state, showing in their impenetrable
+faces no signs that plotting and underhand dealing were part
+of their daily life. Behind the glass and gilded window-frames
+sat Imma Spoelmann in veil and wreath, with an old
+Court lady as lady of honour at her side. Her dress of
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_335" title="335"> </a>
+shimmering silk glittered like snow in the sunshine, and on
+her lap she held the white bouquet which Prince Klaus Heinrich
+had sent her an hour before. Her strangely childlike
+face was as pale as an ocean-pearl, and a smooth wisp of
+dark hair fell across her forehead under the veil, while her
+big black eyes threw glances of pleading eloquence over the
+close-packed throng. And what was that din, that barking
+close by the coach-door? It was Percival, the collie, more
+beside himself than anyone had ever seen him. The confusion
+and the slow pace at which the procession went excited him
+beyond measure, robbed him of all self-restraint, and convulsed
+him almost beyond bearance. He raged, he danced,
+he leaped, he circled blindly round and round in the intoxication
+of his nerves, and the shouts redoubled in the balconies
+and street and on the roofs on both sides as the people recognized
+him.</p>
+
+<p>That is how Imma Spoelmann drove to the Old Schloss,
+and the boom and buzz of the bells mingled with the cheers
+of the people and Percival's mad bark. The procession
+crossed the Albrechtsplatz at a walk and went through the
+Albrechtstor. In the Courtyard of the Schloss the mounted
+corps of the guilds rode to one side, and took up their position
+as a guard of honour, and in the corridor, in front of
+the weather-beaten front door, Grand Duke Albrecht, dressed
+as a Colonel of Hussars, received the bride with his brother
+and the rest of his House, offered her his arm and conducted
+her up the grey stone steps into the state-rooms, at whose
+doors guards of honour were posted and in which the Court
+was assembled. The princesses of the House stayed in the
+Hall of the Knights, and it was there that Herr von Knobelsdorff,
+surrounded by the Grand Ducal family, executed the
+civil marriage. Never, it was said later, had the wrinkles
+played round his eyes more lively than whilst he joined
+Klaus Heinrich and Imma Spoelmann in civil wedlock.
+When this was over, Albrecht&nbsp;II commanded that the church
+festivities should begin.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_336" title="336"> </a>Herr von Bühl zu Bühl had done his best to get together
+an imposing procession&mdash;the bridal procession, which passed
+up Heinrich the Luxurious's staircase and along a covered
+way into the Court Chapel. Stooping under the weight of
+years, yet in a brown toupée and with a youthful waddle, he
+marched, covered with orders down to his waist and planting
+his long staff in front of him, in front of the chamberlains,
+who walked along in silk stockings with their feather hats
+under their arms and a key embroidered on their coat-tails.
+The young pair drew near; the foreign-looking bride in a
+shimmer of white and Klaus Heinrich, the Heir Presumptive,
+in a Grenadier uniform with the yellow ribbon across his
+chest and back. Four maidens belonging to the nobility of
+the land, with demure looks, carried Imma Spoelmann's train,
+accompanied by Countess Löwenjoul, who looked suspiciously
+out of the corners of her eyes. Behind the bridegroom walked
+Herr von Schulenburg-Tressen and Herr von Braunbart-Schellendorf.
+The Master of the Royal Hunt, von Stieglitz,
+and the ballet-loving Grand Duke walked in front of the
+young monarch, who sucked quietly at his upper lip. At
+his side came Aunt Catherine, followed by the Minister of
+the Household, von Knobelsdorff, the Adjutant, the princely
+zu Ried-Hohenried couple, and the remaining members of the
+House. The rear of the procession was brought up by more
+chamberlains.</p>
+
+<p>Inside the Court Chapel, which was decorated with plants
+and draperies, the invited guests had awaited the procession.
+There were diplomats with their wives, the Court and county
+nobility, the corps of officers in the capital, the Ministers,
+amongst them the beaming face of Herr von Krippenreuther,
+the Knights of the Grand Order of the Grimmburg Griffin,
+the Presidents of the Landtag, and all sorts of dignitaries.
+And as the Lord Marshal had ordered invitations to be sent
+to every class of society, the seats were filled with tradesmen,
+countrymen, and simple artisans with hearts attuned to the
+event. In front of the altar the relations of the bridegroom
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_337" title="337"> </a>
+took their places in a semicircle in red-velvet arm-chairs.
+The voices of the choir rang pure and sweet under the vaulted
+ceiling, and then the whole congregation sang a hymn of
+thanksgiving with full organ accompaniment. When it died
+away, the musical voice of the President of the High Consistory,
+Dom Wislezenus, was heard, as with his silver hair,
+and a convex star on his silk gown, he stood before the exalted
+pair and preached an eloquent sermon. He built it on a
+theme, to borrow a musical expression. And the theme was
+the passage from the Psalms which runs: &ldquo;He shall live,
+and unto him shall be given of the gold of Arabia.&rdquo; There
+was not a dry eye left in the chapel.</p>
+
+<p>Then Dom Wislezenus completed the marriage, and at the
+moment when the bridal pair exchanged rings, fanfares of
+trumpets blared forth, and a salvo of three times twelve guns
+began to roll over city and country-side, fired by the soldiers
+on the wall of the &ldquo;Citadel.&rdquo; Directly afterwards the fire
+brigade let off the town guns by way of salute; but long
+pauses occurred between each detonation, giving rise to inexhaustible
+laughter among the people.</p>
+
+<p>After the blessing had been pronounced, the procession
+re-formed and returned to the Hall of the Knights, where
+the House of Grimmburg congratulated the newly married
+pair. Then came the Court, and Klaus Heinrich and Imma
+Spoelmann walked arm-in-arm through the Gala Rooms,
+where the Court was drawn up, and spoke to various members
+of the company, smiling across an interval of shining
+parquet; and Imma pouted and wagged her head as she
+spoke to anyone who curtsied low and answered deferentially.
+After the Court there was a State supper in the Marble Hall,
+and a Marshal's supper in that of the Twelve Months, and
+everything was of the best that money could buy, out of regard
+to what Klaus Heinrich's wife had been accustomed to.
+Even Percival, now restored to his senses, was among the
+guests, and was given some roast meat. After supper the students
+and the populace had arranged in honour of the young
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_338" title="338"> </a>
+couple a demonstration with serenades and a torchlight procession
+on the Albrechtsplatz. The square outside was a
+blaze of light, and resounded with shouts.</p>
+
+<p>Lackeys drew aside the curtains from one of the windows
+in the Silver Hall, and Klaus Heinrich and Imma advanced
+to the open window. They threw it open, and stood in the
+opening just as they were, for outside it was a warm spring
+night. Next them, in a dignified attitude and looking most
+imposing, sat Percival, the collie, and looked down like his
+mistress.</p>
+
+<p>Several of the town bands played in the illuminated square,
+which was packed tight with human beings, and the upturned
+faces of the people were lighted to a smoky dark red by the
+students' torches as they marched past the Schloss. Cheers
+broke forth when the newly married couple appeared at the
+window. They bowed their thanks, and then stayed there
+awhile, looking and letting themselves be looked at. The
+people, looking up, could see their lips moving in conversation.
+This is what they said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Listen, Imma, how thankful they are that we have not
+forgotten their need and affliction. What crowds there are,
+standing there and shouting up to us! Of course many of
+them are scoundrels, and take each other in, and sadly need
+to be elevated above the work-day and its reality. But they
+are really grateful when one shows oneself conscious of their
+need and affliction.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But we are so stupid and so lonely, Prince&mdash;on the peaks
+of humanity, as Doctor Ueberbein used always to say&mdash;and
+we know absolutely nothing of life.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Nothing, little Imma? What was it, then, which at last
+gave you confidence in me, and brought us to study so
+practically the public weal? Knows he nothing of life who
+knows of love? That shall be our business in future: Highness
+and Love&mdash;an austere happiness.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<div id="tnote-bottom">
+<p class="center"><a name="tn-bottom"><b>Transcriber's Note:</b></a></p>
+<p>The following is a list of corrections made to the original. The
+first passage is the original passage, the second the corrected one.</p>
+
+<ul id="corrections">
+<li><a href="#Page_42">Page 42</a>:<br/>The Swiss governess was the widow of a <span class="correction">Calvanistic</span> minister<br/>The Swiss governess was the widow of a <span class="correction">Calvinistic</span> minister</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_53">Page 53</a>:<br/>The opportunity came. While the Swiss <span class="correction">governness</span> was<br/>The opportunity came. While the Swiss <span class="correction">governess</span> was</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_54">Page 54</a>:<br/>and not where it's too dusty, for this dress shows <span class="correction">everything.</span><br/>and not where it's too dusty, for this dress shows <span class="correction">everything.&rdquo;</span></li>
+<li><a href="#Page_68">Page 68</a>:<br/>compared with Trümmerhauff. <span class="correction">Trümmerhauf</span> had the nobility<br/>compared with Trümmerhauff. <span class="correction">Trümmerhauff</span> had the nobility</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_68">Page 68</a>:<br/>His right hand was rather broad, he had <span class="correction">cheek bones</span> like the<br/>His right hand was rather broad, he had <span class="correction">cheek-bones</span> like the</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_89">Page 89</a>:<br/>bowed and begged leave to <span class="correction">annouce</span> that their Royal Highnesses<br/>bowed and begged leave to <span class="correction">announce</span> that their Royal Highnesses</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_110">Page 110</a>:<br/>and an exploratory operation, <span class="correction">whch</span> was conducted<br/>and an exploratory operation, <span class="correction">which</span> was conducted</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_119">Page 119</a>:<br/>Lastly, Princess <span class="correction">Ditlande</span> had married at the age of twenty,<br/>Lastly, Princess <span class="correction">Ditlinde</span> had married at the age of twenty,</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_139">Page 139</a>:<br/><span class="correction">protuded</span>.<br/><span class="correction">protruded</span>.</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_139">Page 139</a>:<br/>said Jettchen, <span class="correction">as</span> provisional lodgings.&rdquo;<br/>said Jettchen, <span class="correction">&ldquo;as</span> provisional lodgings.&rdquo;</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_147">Page 147</a>:<br/>necessary sum, and a learned architect from the <span class="correction">captital</span> had<br/>necessary sum, and a learned architect from the <span class="correction">capital</span> had</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_168">Page 168</a>:<br/>means <span class="correction">dazzingly</span> magnificent. A few idlers, guarded by a<br/>means <span class="correction">dazzlingly</span> magnificent. A few idlers, guarded by a</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_196">Page 196</a>:<br/>the <span class="correction">temperature-and</span> weight-charts&mdash;tended by nurses in<br/>the <span class="correction">temperature- and</span> weight-charts&mdash;tended by nurses in</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_212">Page 212</a>:<br/>and beat the carpet with his <span class="correction">tail,</span> At the same moment<br/>and beat the carpet with his <span class="correction">tail.</span> At the same moment</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_230">Page 230</a>:<br/>suddenly <span class="correction">sat</span> Fatma off at a gallop and flew at such a pace<br/>suddenly <span class="correction">set</span> Fatma off at a gallop and flew at such a pace</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_238">Page 238</a>:<br/>Imma <span class="correction">Spoelman</span> took stock of the prosaic country-house which<br/>Imma <span class="correction">Spoelmann</span> took stock of the prosaic country-house which</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_258">Page 258</a>:<br/><span class="correction">Isenschnibble</span> has kept me well posted&mdash;you know she is<br/><span class="correction">Isenschnibbe</span> has kept me well posted&mdash;you know she is</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_312">Page 312</a>:<br/>had withdrawn and <span class="correction">Princes</span> Griseldis had opened the cotillon<br/>had withdrawn and <span class="correction">Princess</span> Griseldis had opened the cotillon</li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Royal Highness, by Thomas Mann
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diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
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@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
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@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #36028
+(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36028)