Chapter V: Part 5

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.