Chapter IV: Part 4

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.