Chapter VII: Part 7

In a neighbouring room, called the "Free Audience Room," Klaus Heinrich, in his tunic with silver collar and several stars, stood at a round table with three golden legs, and received. Major von Platow gave him some superficial information about the identity of each petitioner, called the man in, and came back in the pauses, to prompt the Prince in a few words about the next comer. And the citizen walked in; with the blood in his head and perspiring slightly he stood before Klaus Heinrich. It had been impressed on him that he was not to go too near his Royal Highness, but must keep at a certain distance, that he must not speak without being spoken to, and even then must not gabble off all he had to say, but answer concisely, so as to leave the Prince material for his questions; that he must at the conclusion withdraw backwards and without showing the Prince his backside. The result was that the citizen's whole attention was centred on not breaking any of the rules given him, but for his part contributing to the smooth and harmonious progress of the interview.

Klaus Heinrich questioned him in the same way as he was wont to question the veterans, the marksmen, the gymnasts, the countrymen, and the victims of the fire, smiling, and with his left hand planted well back on his hip; and the citizen too smiled involuntarily--and was imbued with a feeling as if that smile lifted him far above the troubles which had held him prisoner. That common man, whose spirit otherwise cleaved to the dust, who gave a thought to nothing, not even to everyday politeness, beyond what was purely utilitarian, and had come here too with a definite object in view--he felt in his heart that there was something higher than business and his business in particular, and he left the Schloss elevated, purified, with eyes dim with emotion and the smile still on his flushed face.

That was the way in which Klaus Heinrich gave free audiences, that the way in which he exercised his exalted calling. He lived at the "Hermitage" in his little refuge, the Empire room, which was furnished so stiffly and meagrely, with cool indifference to comfort and intimacy. Faded silk covered the walls above the white wainscot, glass chandeliers hung from the ugly ceiling, straight-lined sofas, mostly without tables, and thin-legged stands supporting marble clocks, stood along the walls, pairs of white-lacquered chairs, with oval backs and thin silk upholstery, flanked the white-lacquered folding-doors, and in the corner stood white-lacquered loo-tables, bearing vase-like candelabra. That was how Klaus Heinrich's room looked, and its master harmonized well with it.

He lived a detached and quiet life, feeling no enthusiasm or zeal for questions on which the public differed. As representative of his brother, he opened Parliament, but he took no personal part in its proceedings and avoided the yeas and nays of party divisions--with the disinterestedness and want of convictions proper to one whose position was above all parties. Everybody recognized that his station imposed reserve upon him, but many were of opinion that want of interest was rather repellently and insultingly visible in his whole bearing. Many who came in contact with him described him as "cold"; and when Doctor Ueberbein loudly refuted this "coldness," people wondered whether the one-sided and morose man was qualified to form an opinion on the point. Of course there were occasions when Klaus Heinrich's glance met looks which refused to recognize him--bold, scornful, invidious looks, which showed contempt for and ignorance of all his actions and exertions. But even in the well-disposed, loyal people, who showed themselves ready to esteem and honour his life, he remarked at times after a short while a certain exhaustion, indeed irritation, as if they could no longer breathe in the atmosphere of his existence; and that worried Klaus Heinrich, though he did not know how he could prevent it.

He had no place in the everyday world; a greeting from him, a gracious word, a winning and yet dignified wave of the hand, were all weighty and decisive incidents. Once he was returning in cap and greatcoat from a ride, was riding slowly on his brown horse Florian, down the birch avenue which skirted the waste-land and led to the park and the "Hermitage," and in front of him there walked a shabbily dressed young man with a fur cap and a ridiculous tuft of hair on his neck, sleeves and trousers that were too short for him, and unusually large feet which he turned inwards as he walked. He looked like the student of a technical institute or something of that sort, for he carried a drawing-board under his arm, on which was pinned a big drawing, a symmetrical maze of lines in red and black ink, a projection or something of the sort. Klaus Heinrich held his horse back behind the young man for a good while, and examined the red and black projection on the drawing-board. Sometimes he thought how nice it must be to have a proper surname, to be called Doctor Smith, and to have a serious calling.

He played his part at Court functions, the big and small balls, the dinner, the concerts, and the Great Court. He joined in autumn in the Court's shoots with his red-haired cousins and his suite, for custom's sake and although his left arm made shooting difficult for him. He was often seen in the evening in the Court Theatre, in his red-ledged proscenium-box between the two female sculptures with the crossed hands and the stern, empty faces. For the theatre attracted him, he loved it, loved to look at the players, to watch how they behaved, walked off and on, and went through with their parts. As a rule he thought them bad, rough in the means they employed to please, and unpractised in the more subtle dissembling of the natural and artless. For the rest, he was disposed to prefer humble and popular scenes to the exalted and ceremonious.

A soubrette called Mizzi Meyer was engaged at the "Vaudeville" theatre in the capital, who in the newspapers and on the lips of the public was never called anything but "our" Meyer, because of her boundless popularity with high and low. She was not beautiful, hardly pretty, her voice was a screech, and, strictly speaking, she could lay claim to no special gifts. And yet she had only to come on to the stage to evoke storms of approbation, applause, and encouragement. For this fair and compact person with her blue eyes, her broad, high cheek-bones, her healthy, jolly, even a little uproarious manner, was flesh of the people's flesh, and blood of their blood. So long as she, dressed up, painted, and lighted up from every side, faced the crowd from the boards, she was in very deed the glorification of the people itself--indeed, the people clapped itself when it clapped her, and in that alone lay Mizzi Meyer's power over men's souls. Klaus Heinrich was very fond of going with Herr von Braunbart-Schellendorf to the "Vaudeville" when Mizzi Meyer was playing, and joined heartily in the applause.

* * * * *

One day he had a rencontre which on the one hand gave him food for thought, on the other disillusioned him. It was with Martini, Axel Martini, the compiler of the two books of poetry which had been so much praised by the experts, "Evoë!" and "The Holy Life." The meeting came about in the following way.

In the capital lived a wealthy old man, a Privy Councillor, who, since his retirement from the State Service, had devoted his life to the advancement of the fine arts, especially poetry. He was founder of what was known as the "May-combat"--a poetical tournament which recurred every year in springtime, to which the Privy Councillor invited poets and poetesses by circulars and posters. Prizes were offered for the tenderest love-song, the most fervent religious poem, the most ardent patriotic song, for the happiest lyrical effusions in praise of music, the forest, the spring, the joy of life--and these prizes consisted of sums of money, supplemented by judicious and valuable souvenirs, such as golden pens, golden breast-pins in the form of lyres or flowers, and more of the same kind. The city authorities also had founded a prize, and the Grand Duke gave a silver cup as a reward for the most absolutely admirable of all poems sent in. The founder of the "May-combat" himself, who was responsible for the first look-through the always numerous entries, shared with two University Professors and the editors of the literary supplements of the _Courier_ and the _People_ the duties of prize-judges. The prize-winners and the highly commended entries were printed and published regularly in the form of an annual at the expense of the Privy Councillor.

Now Axel Martini had taken part in the "May-combat" this year, and had come off victorious. The poem which he had sent in, an inspired hymn of praise to the joy of life, or rather a highly tempestuous outbreak of the joy of life itself, a ravishing hymn to the beauty and awfulness of life, was conceived in the style of both his books and had given rise to discord in the Board of Judges. The Privy Councillor himself and the Professor of Philology had been for dismissing it with a notice of commendation; for they considered it exaggerated in expression, coarse in its passion, and in places frankly repulsive. But the Professor of Literary History together with the editors had out-voted them, not only in view of the fact that Martini's contribution represented the best poem to the joy of life, but also in consideration of its undeniable pre-eminence, and in the end their two opponents too had not been able to resist the appeal of its foaming and stunning flow of words.

So Axel Martini had been awarded fifteen pounds, a gold breast-pin in the form of a lyre, and the Grand Duke's silver cup as well, and his poem had been printed first in the annual, surrounded with an artistic frame from the hand of Professor von Lindemann. What was more, the custom was for the victor (or victrix) in the "May-combat" to be received in audience by the Grand Duke; and as Albrecht was unwell, this task fell to his brother.

Klaus Heinrich was a little afraid of Herr Martini.

"Oh dear, Doctor Ueberbein," he said when he met his tutor one day, "what subject am I to tackle him on? He's sure to be a wild, brazen-faced fellow."

But Doctor Ueberbein answered: "Anything; but, Klaus Heinrich, you need not worry! He's a very decent fellow. I know him, I'm rather in with his set. You'll get on splendidly with him."

So Klaus Heinrich received the poet of the "Joy of Life," received him at the "Hermitage," so as to give the business as private a character as possible. "In the yellow room, Braunbart if you please," he said, "that's the most presentable one for occasions like this." There were three handsome chairs in this room, which indeed were the only valuable pieces of furniture in the Schloss, heavy Empire arm-chairs of mahogany, with spiral arms and yellow upholstery on which blue-green lyres were embroidered. Klaus Heinrich on this occasion did not dispose himself ready for an audience, but waited in some anxiety near by, until Axel Martini on his side had waited for seven or eight minutes in the yellow room. Then he walked in hastily, almost hurriedly, and advanced towards the poet, who made a low bow.

"I am very much pleased to make your acquaintance," he said, "dear sir ... dear Doctor, I believe?"

"No, Royal Highness," answered Axel Martini in an asthmatic voice, "not doctor, I've no title."

"Oh, forgive me ... I assumed ... Let's sit down, dear Herr Martini. I am, as I have said, delighted to be able to congratulate you on your great success...."

Herr Martini drew down the corners of his mouth. He sat down on the edge of one of the mahogany arm-chairs, at the uncovered table, round whose edge ran a gold border, and crossed his feet, which were cased in cracked patent-leather boots. He was in frock-coat and wore yellow gloves. His collar was frayed at the edges. He had rather staring eyes, thin cheeks and a dark yellow moustache, which was clipped like a hedge. His hair was already quite grey on the temples, although according to the "May-combat" Annual he was not more than thirty years old, and under his eyes glowed patches of red which did not suggest robust health. He answered to Klaus Heinrich's congratulations: "Your Royal Highness is very kind. It was not a difficult victory. Perhaps it was hardly tactful of me to compete."

Klaus Heinrich did not understand this; but he said: "I have read your poem repeatedly with great pleasure. It seems to me a complete success, as regards both metre and rhyme. And it entirely expresses the 'Joy of Life.'"

Herr Martini bowed in his chair.

"Your skill," continued Klaus Heinrich, "must be a source of great pleasure to you--an ideal recreation. What is your calling, Herr Martini?"

Herr Martini showed that he did not understand, by describing a note of interrogation with the upper half of his body.

"I mean your main calling. Are you in the Civil Service?"

"No, Royal Highness, I have no calling; I occupy myself exclusively with poetry...."

"None at all.... Oh, I understand. So unusual a gift deserves that a man's whole powers be devoted to it."

"I don't know about that, Royal Highness. Whether it deserves it or not, I don't know. I must own that I had no choice. I have always felt myself entirely unsuited to every other branch of human activity. It seems to me that this undoubted and unconditional unsuitability for everything else is the sole proof and touchstone of the poetical calling--indeed, that a man must not see in poetry any calling, but only the expression and refuge of that unsuitability."

It was a peculiarity with Herr Martini that when he talked tears came into his eyes just like a man who comes out of the cold into a warm room and lets the heat stream through and melt his limbs.

"That's a singular idea," said Klaus Heinrich.

"Not at all, Royal Highness. I beg your pardon, no, not singular at all. It's an idea which is very generally accepted. What I say is nothing new."

"And for how long have you been living only for poetry? I suppose you were once a student?"

"Not exactly, Royal Highness; no, the unsuitability to which I alluded before began to show itself in me at an early age. I couldn't get on at school. I left it without passing my 'final.' I went up to the university with the full intention of taking it later, but I never did. And when my first volume of poems attracted a good deal of attention, it no longer suited my dignity to do so, if I may say so."

"Of course not.... But did your parents then agree to your choice of a career?"

"Oh no, Royal Highness! I must say to my parents' credit that they by no means agreed to it. I come of a good stock: my father was Solicitor to the Treasury. He's dead now, but he was Solicitor to the Treasury. He naturally disliked my choice of a career so much that till his death he would never give me a farthing. I lived at daggers drawn with him, although I had the greatest respect for him because of his strictness."

"Oh, so you've had a hard time of it, Herr Martini, you've had to struggle through. I can well believe that you must have knocked about a good deal!"

"Not so, Royal Highness! No, that would have been horrid, I couldn't have stood it. My health is delicate--I dare not say 'unfortunately,' for I am convinced that my talent is inseparably connected with my bodily infirmity. Neither my body nor my talent could have survived hunger and harsh winds, and they have not had to survive them. My mother was weak enough to provide me behind my father's back with the means of life, modest but adequate means. I owe it to her that my talent has been able to develop under fairly favourable conditions."

"The result has shown, Herr Martini, that they were the right conditions.... Although it is difficult to say now what actually are good conditions. Permit me to suppose that if your mother had shown herself as strict as your father, and you had been alone in the world, and left entirely to your own resources ... don't you think that it might have been to a certain extent a good thing for you? That you might have got a peep at things, so to speak, which have escaped you as it is?"

"People like me, Royal Highness, get peeps enough without having actually to know what hunger is; and the idea is fairly generally accepted that it is not actual hunger, but rather hunger for the actual ... ha, ha!... which talent requires."

Herr Martini had been obliged to laugh a little at his play upon words. He now quickly raised one yellow-gloved hand to his mouth with the hedge-like moustache, and improved his laugh into a cough. Klaus Heinrich watched him with a look of princely expectancy.

"If your Royal Highness will allow me.... It is a well-known fact that the want of actuality for such as me is the seed-ground of all talent, the fountain of inspiration, indeed our suggestive genius. Enjoyment of life is forbidden to us, strictly forbidden, we have no illusions as to that--and by enjoyment of life I mean not only happiness, but also sorrow, passion, in short every serious tie with life. The representation of life claims all our forces, especially when those forces are not allotted to us in overabundant measure"--and Herr Martini coughed, drawing his shoulders repeatedly forward as he did so. "Renunciation," he added, "is our compact with the Muse, in it reposes our strength, our value; and life is our forbidden garden, our great temptation, to which we yield sometimes, but never to our profit."

The flow of words had again brought tears to Herr Martini's eyes. He tried to blink them away.

"Every one of us," he went on, "knows what it is to make mistakes, to run off the rails in that way, to make greedy excursions of that kind into the festival halls of life. But we return thence into our isolation humbled and sick at heart."

Herr Martini stopped. His look, from under his knotted brows, became fixed for a moment and lost in vacancy, while his mouth assumed a sour expression and his cheeks, on which the unhealthy redness glowed, seemed even thinner than before. It was only for a second; then he changed his position, and his eyes recovered their vivacity.

"But your poem," said Klaus Heinrich, with some _empressement_. "Your prize poem to the 'Joy of Life,' Herr Martini.... I am really grateful to you for your achievement. But will you please tell me ... your poem--I've read it attentively. It deals on the one hand with misery and horrors, with the wickedness and cruelty of life, if I remember rightly, and on the other hand with the enjoyment of wine and fair women, does it not?..."

Herr Martini laughed; then rubbed the corners of his mouth with his thumb and forefinger, so as to wipe the laugh out.

"And it's all," said Klaus Heinrich, "conceived in the form of 'I,' in the first person, isn't it? And yet it is not founded on personal knowledge? You have not really experienced any of it yourself?"

"Very little, Royal Highness. Only quite trifling suggestions of it. No, the fact is the other way round--that, if I were the man to experience all that, I should not only not write such poems, but should also feel entire contempt for my present existence. I have a friend, his name is Weber; he's a rich young man; he lives, he enjoys his life. His favourite amusement consists in scorching in his motor car at a mad pace over the country and picking up village girls from the roads and fields on the way, with whom he----but that's another story. In short, that young man laughs when he catches sight of me, he finds something so comic in me and my activities. But as for me, I can quite understand his amusement, and envy him it. I dare say that I too despise him a little, but not so much as I envy and admire him...."

"You admire him?"

"Certainly, Royal Highness. I cannot help doing so. He spends, he squanders, he lets himself go in a most unconcerned and light-hearted way--while it is my lot to save, anxiously and greedily, to keep together, and indeed to do so on hygienic grounds. For hygiene is what I and such as I most need--it is our whole ethics. But nothing is more unhygienic than life...."

"That means that you will never empty the Grand Duke's cup, then, Herr Martini?"

"Drink wine out of it? No, Royal Highness. Although it would be fine to do so. But I never touch wine. And I go to bed at ten, and generally take care of myself. If I didn't, I should never have won the cup."

"I can well believe it, Herr Martini. People who are not behind the scenes get strange ideas of what a poet's life must be like."

"Quite conceivably, Royal Highness. But it is, taken all round, by no means a very glorious life, I can assure you, especially as we aren't poets every hour of the twenty-four. In order that a poem of that sort may come into existence from time to time--who would believe how much idleness and boredom and peevish laziness is necessary? The motto on a picture postcard is often a whole day's work. We sleep a lot, we idle about with heads feeling like lead. Yes, it's too often a dog's life."

Some one knocked lightly on the white-lacquered door. It was Neumann's signal that it was high time for Klaus Heinrich to change his clothes and have himself freshened up. For there was to be a club concert that evening in the Old Schloss.

Klaus Heinrich rose. "I've been gossiping," he said; for that was the expression he used at such moments. And then he dismissed Herr Martini, wished him success in his poetical career, and accompanied the poet's respectful withdrawal with a laugh and that rather theatrical up and down movement of the hand which was not always equally effective, but which he had brought to a high pitch of perfection.

Such was the Prince's conversation with Axel Martini, the author of "Evoë!" and "The Holy Life." It gave him food for thought, it continued to occupy his mind after it had ended. He continued to think over it while Neumann was reparting his hair and helping him on with the dazzling full-dress coat with the stars, during the club concert at Court, and for several days afterwards, and he tried to reconcile the poet's statements with the rest of the experiences which life had vouchsafed to him.

This Herr Martini, who, while the unhealthy flush glowed under his eyes, kept crying: "How beautiful, how strong is life!" yet was careful to go to bed at ten, shut himself off from life on hygienic grounds, as he said, and avoided every serious tie with it--this poet with his frayed collar, his watery eyes, and his envy of the young Weber who scorched over the country with village girls: he left a mixed impression, it was difficult to come to any certain conclusion about him. Klaus Heinrich expressed it, when he told his sister of the meeting, by saying: "Things are none too comfortable and easy for him, that's quite obvious, and that certainly entitles him to our sympathy. But somehow, I'm not sure if I'm glad to have met him, for he has something deterrent about him, Ditlinde--yes, after all, he's certainly a little repulsive."

VII

IMMA

Fräulein von Isenschnibbe had been well informed. On the very evening of the day on which she had brought the Princess zu Reid the great news, the _Courier_ published the announcement of Samuel Spoelmann's, the world-renowned Spoelmann's, impending arrival, and ten days later, at the beginning of October (it was the October of the year in which Grand Duke Albrecht had entered his thirty-second and Prince Klaus Heinrich his twenty-sixth year), thus barely giving time for public curiosity to reach a really high point, his arrival became a fact, a plain actuality on an autumn-tinged, entirely ordinary week-day, which was destined to impress itself on the future as a date to be remembered for ever.

The Spoelmanns arrived by special train--that was the only distinction about their debut to start with, for everybody knew that the "Prince's suite" in the "Spa Court" Hotel was by no means dazzlingly magnificent. A few idlers, guarded by a small detachment of policemen, had gathered behind the platform barriers; some representatives of the press were present. But whoever expected anything out of the ordinary was disappointed. Spoelmann would almost have passed unrecognized, he was so unimposing. For a long time people took his family physician for him (Doctor Watercloose, people said he was called), a tall American, who wore his hat on the back of his head and kept his mouth distended in a perpetual smile between his close-trimmed white whiskers, the while he half-closed his eyes. It was not till the last moment that people learned that it was the little clean-shaven man in the faded overcoat, he who wore his hat pulled down over his eyes, who was the actual Spoelmann, and the spectators were agreed that there was nothing striking about him. All sorts of stories had been in circulation about him; some witty fellow had spread the report that Spoelmann had front teeth of solid gold and a diamond set in the middle of each. But although the truth or untruth of this report could not be tested at once--for Spoelmann did not show his teeth, he did not laugh, but rather seemed angry and irritated by his infirmity--yet when they saw him nobody was any longer inclined to believe it.

As for Miss Spoelmann, his daughter, she had turned up the collar of her fur coat, and stuffed her hands in the pockets, so that there was hardly anything to be seen of her except a pair of disproportionately big brown-black eyes, which swept the crowd with a serious look whose meaning it was hard to interpret. By her side stood the person whom the onlookers identified as her companion, the Countess Löwenjoul, a woman of thirty-five, plainly dressed and taller than either of the Spoelmanns, who carried her little head with its thin smooth hair pensively on one side, and kept her eyes fixed in front of her with a kind of rigid meekness. What without question attracted most attention was a Scottish sheep-dog which was led on a cord by a stolid-looking servant--an exceptionally handsome, but, as it appeared, terribly excitable beast, that leaped and danced and filled the station with its frenzied barking.

People said that a few of Spoelmann's servants, male and female, had already arrived at the "Spa Court" some hours before. At any rate it was left to the servant with the dog to look after the luggage by himself; and while he was doing so his masters drove in two ordinary flies--Mr. Spoelmann with Doctor Watercloose, Miss Spoelmann with the Countess--to the Spa-Garden. There they got out, and there for six weeks they led a life the cost of which it did not need all their money to meet.

They were lucky; the weather was fine, it was a blue autumn, a long succession of sunny days from October into November, and Miss Spoelmann rode daily--that was her only luxury--with her companion, on horses which she hired by the week from the livery stables. Mr. Spoelmann did not ride, although the _Courier_, with obvious reference to him, published a note by its medical colleague according to which riding had a soothing effect in cases of stone, owing to its jolting, and helped to disperse the stone. But the hotel staff knew that the famous man practised artificial riding within the four walls of his room, with the help of a machine, a stationary velocipede to whose saddle a jolting motion was imparted by the working of the pedals.

He was a zealous drinker of the healing waters, the Ditlinde Spring, by which he seemed to set great store. He appeared first thing every morning in the Füllhaus, accompanied by his daughter, who for her part was quite healthy, and only drank with him for company's sake, and then, in his faded coat and with his hat pulled over his eyes, took his exercise in the Spa-Garden and Wandelhalle, drinking the water the while through a glass tube out of a blue tumbler--watched at a distance by the two American newspaper correspondents, whose duty it was to telegraph to their papers a thousand words daily about Spoelmann's holiday resort, and who were therefore bound to try to get something to telegraph about.

Otherwise he was rarely visible. His illness--kidney colic, so people said, extremely painful attacks--seemed to confine him often to his room, if not to his bed, and while Miss Spoelmann with Countess Löwenjoul appeared two or three times at the Court Theatre (when, in a black velvet dress with an Indian silk scarf of a wonderful gold-yellow colour round her fresh young shoulders, she looked quite bewitching with her pearl-white complexion and great black pleading eyes), her father was never seen in the box with her. He took, it is true, in her company one or two drives through the capital, to do some shopping, get some idea of the town, and see a few select sights; he went for a walk with her too, through the park and twice inspected there the Schloss Delphinenort--the second time alone, when he was so much interested as to take measurements of the walls with an ordinary yellow rule, which he took out of his faded coat.... But he was never seen in the dining-room of the "Spa Court," for whether because he was on an almost meatless diet, or for some other reason, he took his meals exclusively with his own party in his own rooms, and the curiosity of the public had on the whole remarkably little to feed on.

The result was that Spoelmann's arrival at the Spa at first did not prove so beneficial as Fräulein von Isenschnibbe and many others beside her had expected. The export of bottles increased, that was certain; it quickly rose to half as many again as its previous figure, and remained at that. But the influx of foreigners did not increase noticeably; the guests who came to feast their eyes on so abnormal an existence soon went away again, satisfied or disappointed, besides it was for the most part not the most desirable elements of society that were attracted by the millionaire's presence. Strange creatures appeared in the streets, unkempt and wild-eyed creatures--inventors, projectors, would-be benefactors of mankind, who hoped to enlist Spoelmann's sympathies for their hobbies. But the millionaire made himself absolutely inaccessible to these people; indeed, purple with rage, he howled at one of them who made advances towards him in the park, in such a way that the busybody quickly skedaddled, and it was often said that the torrent of begging letters which daily flowed in to him--letters which often bore stamps which the officials of the Grand Ducal post-office had never seen before--was at once discharged into a paper-basket of quite unusual capacity.

Spoelmann seemed to have forbidden all business letters to be sent him, seemed determined to enjoy his holiday to the utmost, and during his travels in Europe to live exclusively for his health--or ill-health. The _Courier_, whose reporter had lost no time in making friends with his American colleagues, was in a position to announce that a reliable man, a so-called chief manager, was Mr. Spoelmann's representative in America. He went on to say that his yacht, a gorgeously decorated vessel, was awaiting the great man at Venice, and that as soon as he had finished his cure he intended to travel south with his party.

It told also, in answer to importunate requests from its readers--of the romantic origin of the Spoelmann millions, from their beginning in Victoria, whither his father had drifted from some German office stool or other, young, poor, and armed only with a pick, a shovel, and a tin plate. There he had begun by working as help to a gold-digger, as a day labourer, in the sweat of his brow. And then luck had come to him. A man, a claim-owner on a small scale, had fared so badly that he could no longer buy himself his tomatoes and dry bread for dinner, and in his extremity had been obliged to dispose of his claim. Spoelmann senior had bought it, had staked his one card, and, with his whole savings, amounting to £5 sterling, had bought this piece of alluvial land called "Paradise Field," not more than forty feet square. And the next day he had turned up, a foot under the surface, a nugget of pure gold, the tenth biggest nugget in the world, the "Paradise nugget," weighing 980 ounces and worth £5,000.

That, related the _Courier_, had been the beginning. Spoelmann's father had emigrated to South America with the proceeds of his find, to Bolivia, and as gold-washer, amalgam-mill-owner, and mine-owner had continued to extract the yellow metal direct from the rivers and the womb of the mountains. Then and there Spoelmann senior had married--and the _Courier_ went so far as to hint in this connexion that he had done so defiantly and without regard to the prejudices generally felt in those parts. However, he had doubled his capital and succeeded in investing his money most profitably.

He had moved on northwards to Philadelphia, Pa. That was in the fifties, the time of a great boom in railway construction, and Spoelmann had begun with one investment in the Baltimore and Ohio Railway. He had also leased a coal-mine in the west of the State, the profits from which had been enormous. Finally he had joined that group of fortunate young men which bought the famous Blockhead Farm for a few thousand pounds--the property which, with its petroleum wells, in a short time increased in value to a hundred times its purchase price.... This enterprise had made a rich man of Spoelmann senior, but he had by no means rested on his oars, but unceasingly practised the art of making money into more money, and finally into superabundant money.

He had started steel works, had floated companies for the turning of iron into steel on a large scale, and for building railway bridges. He had bought up the major part of the shares of four or five big railway companies, and had been elected in the later years of his life president, vice-president, manager, or director of the companies. When the Steel Trust was formed, so the _Courier_ said, he had joined it, with a holding of shares which guaranteed him an income of $12,000,000. But at the same time he had been chief shareholder and expert adviser of the Petroleum Combine, and in virtue of his holding had dominated three or four of the other Trust Companies. And at his death his fortune, reckoned in German currency, had amounted to a round thousand million marks.

Samuel, his only son, the offspring of that early marriage, contracted in defiance of public opinion, had been his sole heir--and the _Courier_, with its usual delicacy, interpolated a remark to the effect that there was something almost sad in the idea of any one, without himself contributing, and through no fault of his own, being born to such a situation. Samuel had inherited the palace on Fifth Avenue at New York, the country mansions, and all the shares, Trust bonds, and profits of his father; he inherited also the strange position to which his father had risen, his world-fame and the hatred directed by his out-distanced competitors against the power of his gold--all the hatred to allay which he yearly distributed his huge donations to colleges, conservatories, libraries, benevolent institutions, and that University which his father had founded and which bore his name.

Samuel Spoelmann did not deserve the hatred of the out-distanced competitors; that the _Courier_ was sure of. He had gone early into the business, and had controlled the bewildering possessions of his house all by himself during his father's last years. But everybody knew that his heart had never been really in the business. His real inclinations had been, strange to say, all along much more towards music and especially organ music--and the truth of this information on the part of the _Courier_ was certain, for Mr. Spoelmann actually kept a small organ in the "Spa Court," whose bellows he got a hotel servant to blow, and he could be heard from the Spa-Garden playing it for an hour every day.

He had married for love and not at all from social considerations, according to the _Courier_--a poor and pretty girl, half German, half Anglo-Saxon by descent. She had died, but she had left him a daughter, that wonderful blood-mixture of a girl, whom we now had as guest within our walls and who was at the time nineteen years old. Her name was Imma--a real German name, as the _Courier_ added, nothing more than an old form of "Emma," and it might be remarked that the daily conversation in the Spoelmann household, though interlarded with scraps of English, had remained German. And how devoted father and daughter seemed to be to each other! Every morning, by going to the Spa-Garden at the right time, one could watch Fräulein Spoelmann, who usually entered the Füllhause a little later than her father, take his head between her hands and give him his morning kiss on mouth and cheeks, while he patted her tenderly on the back. Then they went arm-in-arm through the Wandelhalle and sucked their glass tubes as they went....

That is how the well-informed journal gossiped and fed the public curiosity. It also reported carefully the visits which Miss Imma kindly paid with her companion to several of the charitable institutions of the town. Yesterday she had made a detailed inspection of the public kitchens. To-day she had made a prolonged tour of the Trinity Almhouses for old women, and she had recently twice attended Privy Councillor Klinghammer's lectures on the theory of numbers at the university--had sat on the bench, a student among students, and scribbled away with her fountain-pen, for everybody knew that she was a learned girl and devoted to the study of algebra. Yes, all that was absorbing reading, and furnished ample food for conversation. But the topics which made themselves talked about without any help from the _Courier_ were, firstly, the dog, that noble black-and-white collie which the Spoelmanns had brought with them, and secondly, in a different way, the companion, Countess Löwenjoul.

As for the dog, whose name was Percival, generally shortened to Percy, he was an animal of so excitable and emotional a disposition as beggared description. Inside the hotel he afforded no grounds for complaint, but lay in a dignified attitude on a small carpet outside the Spoelmanns' suite. But every time he went out he had an attack of light-headedness, which caused general interest and surprise, indeed more than once actual obstruction of traffic.

Followed at a distance by a swarm of native dogs, common curs which, incited by his demeanour, assailed him with censorious yaps, and which caused him no concern whatever, he flew through the streets, his nose spattered with foam and barking wildly, pirouetted madly in front of the tramcars, made the cab-horses stumble, and twice knocked Widow Klaaszen's cake stall at the Town Hall down so violently that the sugar cakes rolled half over the Market-place. But as Mr. Spoelmann or his daughter at once met such catastrophes with more than adequate compensation, as too it was discovered that Percival's attacks were really quite free from danger, that he was anything but inclined to bite and steal, but on the contrary kept to himself and would let nobody come near him, public opinion quickly turned in his favour, and to the children in particular his excursions were a constant source of pleasure.

Countess Löwenjoul on her side supplied food for conversation in a quieter but no less strange way. At first, when her personality and position were not yet known in the city, she had attracted the gibes of the street urchins, because, while out walking alone, she talked to herself softly and deliberately, and accompanied her words with lively and at the same time graceful and elegant gestures. But she had shown such mildness and goodness to the children who shouted after her and tugged at her dress, she had spoken to them with such affection and dignity, that her persecutors had slunk away abashed and confused, and later, when she became known, respect for her relations with the famous guests secured her from molestation. However, some unintelligible anecdotes were secretly circulated about her. One man told how the Countess had given him a gold piece with instructions that he should box the ears of a certain old woman who was understood to have made some unseemly proposal or other to her. The man had pocketed the gold piece, without, however, discharging his commission.

Further, it was declared as a fact that the Countess had accosted the sentry in front of the Fusiliers' Barracks and had told him at once to arrest the wife of the sergeant of one of the companies because of her moral shortcomings. She had written too a letter to the Colonel of the regiment to the effect that all sorts of secret and unspeakable abominations went on inside the barracks. Whether she was right in her facts, heaven only knew. But many people at once concluded that she was wrong in her head. At any rate, there was no time to investigate the matter, for six weeks were soon past, and Samuel N. Spoelmann, the millionaire, went away.

He went away after having had his portrait painted by Professor von Lindemann--an expensive portrait too, which he gave to the proprietor of the "Spa Court" as a memento; he went away with his daughter, the Countess, and Doctor Watercloose, with Percival, the chamber-velocipede, and his servants; went by special train to the South, with the view of spending the winter on the Riviera, whither the two New York journalists had hastened ahead of him, and of then crossing back home again. It was all over. The _Courier_ wished Mr. Spoelmann a hearty farewell and expressed the hope that the cure would be found to have done him good.

And with that the notable interlude seemed to be closed and done with. Everyday life claimed its due, and Mr. Spoelmann began to fade into oblivion. The winter passed. It was the winter in which her Grand Ducal Highness the Princess zu Ried-Hohenried was confined of a daughter. Spring came, and his Royal Highness Grand Duke Albrecht repaired as usual to Hollerbrunn. But then a rumour cropped up amongst the people and in the press, which was received at first with a shrug by the sober-minded, but became more concrete, crystallized, took to itself quite precise details, and finally won itself a dominant place in the solid and pithy news of the day.

What was toward? A Grand Ducal Schloss was about to be sold? Nonsense! Which Schloss?--Delphinenort. Schloss Delphinenort in the North Park? Twaddle! Sold? To whom?--To Spoelmann. Ridiculous! What could he do with it?--Restore it, and live in it. That's all very well. But perhaps our Parliament might have something to say to that.--They don't care twopence. Had the State any responsibility for keeping up Schloss Delphinenort?--If they had, it's a pity they hadn't recognized it, dear old place. No, Parliament had no say in the matter. Have the negotiations advanced at all far?--Rather, they're completed. Goodness gracious, then of course the exact price is known?--Naturally. Sold for two millions, not a farthing less. Impossible! A Royal Palace! Royal palace be blowed! We're not talking of the Grimmburg or of the Old Schloss. We're talking of a country house, an unused country house which is falling in pieces for lack of funds to keep it up.

So Spoelmann intended to come back every year and spend several weeks in Delphinenort?--No. For he intended rather to come and settle among us altogether. He was sick of America, wanted to turn his back on it, and his first stay amongst us was merely to spy out the land. He was ill, he wanted to retire from business. He had always remained a German at heart. The father had emigrated, and the son wanted to come back home. He wished to take his part in the modest life and intellectual resources of our country, and to spend the rest of his days in the immediate neighbourhood of the Ditlinde Spa.

All was confusion and bustle, and discussions without end. But public opinion, with the exception of the voices of a few grumblers, trended after a short hesitation in favour of the idea of sale; indeed without this general approval the matter could never have gone very far. It was House Minister von Knobelsdorff who first ventured on a cautious announcement of Spoelmann's offer in the daily press. He had waited and allowed the popular feeling to come to a decision. And after the first confusion, solid reasons in favour of the project had made themselves felt.

The business world was enchanted at the idea of having so doughty a consumer at its doors. The æsthetes showed themselves delighted at the prospect of seeing Schloss Delphinenort restored and kept up--at seeing the noble old building restored to honour and youth in so unforeseen, indeed so romantic a way. But the economically-minded brought forward figures which were calculated to cause grave misgivings as to the financial position of the country. If Samuel N. Spoelmann settled among us, he would become a tax-payer--he would have to pay us his income-tax.

Perhaps it was worth while showing what that meant. Mr. Spoelmann would be left to declare his own income, but, from what one knew--and knew fairly accurately--his residence would mean a yearly revenue of two and a half millions, in taxes alone, not to mention what he paid in rates. Worth thinking about, wasn't it? The question was put straight to the Finance Minister, Dr. Krippenreuther. He would be wanting in his duty if he did not do all he could to recommend the sale in the highest quarters. For patriotism demanded that Spoelmann's offer should be accepted, and patriotism was paramount above all other considerations.

So Excellency von Knobelsdorff had had an interview with the Grand Duke. He had informed his master of the public opinion, had added that the price offered, two millions, considerably exceeded the real value of the Schloss in its present condition, had remarked that such a sum meant a real windfall for the Treasury, and had ended by slipping in a hint about the central heating of the Old Schloss, which, if the sale was carried through, would no longer be an impossibility. In short, the single-minded old gentleman had brought his whole influence to bear in favour of the sale, and had recommended the Grand Duke to bring the matter before a family moot. Albrecht had sucked his lower lip softly against the upper, and summoned the family moot. It had met in the Hall of the Knights over tea and biscuits. Only two feminine members, the Princess Catherine and Ditlinde, had opposed the sale, on the ground of loss of dignity.

"You will be misunderstood, Albrecht!" said Ditlinde.

"They will charge you with want of respect to your high station, and that is not right, for you have on the contrary too much; you are so proud, Albrecht, that everything is all the same to you. But I say No. I do not wish to see a Croesus living in one of your Schlosses, it is not right, and it was bad enough that he should have a family physician and take the Prince's suite in the Spa Court. The _Courier_ harps on the fact that he is a tax-paying subject, but in my eyes he is simply a subject and nothing else. What do you think, Klaus Heinrich?"

But Klaus Heinrich voted for the sale. In the first place, Albrecht got his central heating; secondly, Spoelmann was not one of the common herd, he was not soap-boiler Unschlitt--he was an exception, and there was no disgrace in letting him have Delphinenort. Finally Albrecht had, with downcast eyes, pronounced the whole family moot to be a farce. The people had long ago made up their minds, his Ministers urged the sale, and there was nothing left for him to do but to "wave to the engine-driver and start the train."

The family moot had taken place in spring. From that time onwards the negotiations for sale, which were carried on between Spoelmann on the one hand and the Lord Marshal von Bühl zu Bühl on the other, had proceeded apace, and the summer was not far advanced before Schloss Delphinenort with its park and out-buildings had become the lawful property of Mr. Spoelmann.

Then began a scene of bustle and confusion round and in the Schloss, which daily attracted crowds to the northern side of the park. Delphinenort was improved and partly reconstructed inside by a swarm of workmen. For quick, quick, was the order of the day, that was Spoelmann's wish, and he had only allowed five months' respite for everything to be ready for him to enter into possession. So a wooden scaffold with ladders and platforms shot up at lightning speed round the dilapidated old building, foreign workmen swarmed all over it, and an architect came with carte blanche over the seas to superintend the work. But the greater part of the work fell to our native manual workers to perform, and the stone-masons and tilers, the joiners, gilders, upholsterers, glaziers, and parquet-layers of the city, the landscape gardeners and heating and lighting experts, had plenty of remunerative work all through the summer and autumn.

When his Royal Highness Klaus Heinrich left his window in the "Hermitage" open, the noise of the work at Delphinenort penetrated right through to the Empire room, and he often drove past the Schloss amid the respectful greetings of the public, in order to satisfy himself of the progress of the restoration. The gardener's cottage was painted up, the sheds and stables, which were destined to accommodate Spoelmann's fleet of motors and carriages, were enlarged; and by October, furniture and carpets, chests and cases full of stuffs and household utensils had been delivered at Schloss Delphinenort, while it was whispered among the bystanders that inside the walls skilled hands were at work fitting Spoelmann's costly organ, which had been sent from over the sea, with electric action.

There was much excitement to know whether the park belonging to the Schloss, which had been so splendidly cleaned up and trimmed, was to be fenced off from the public by a wall or hedge. But nothing of the sort was done. It was Spoelmann's wish that the property should continue to be accessible, that no restraint should be placed on the citizens' enjoyment of the park. The Sunday promenaders should have access right up to the Schloss, up to the clipped hedge which surrounded the big square pond--and this did not fail to make an excellent impression on the population; indeed, the _Courier_ published a special article on the subject, in which it praised Mr. Spoelmann for his philanthropy.

And behold! when the leaves again began to fall, exactly one year after his first appearance, Samuel Spoelmann landed a second time at our railway station. This time the general interest in the event was much greater than in the preceding year, and it is on record that, when Mr. Spoelmann, in his well-known faded coat and with his hat over his eyes, left his saloon, loud cheers were raised by the crowd of spectators--an expression of feelings which Mr. Spoelmann seemed rather inclined to resent, and which not he but Doctor Watercloose acknowledged with blinking eyes and a broad smile. When Miss Spoelmann too alighted, a cheer was raised, and one or two urchins even shouted when Percy, the collie, appeared springing, leaping, and altogether beside himself, on the platform. In addition to the doctor and Countess Löwenjoul there were two unknown persons in attendance, two clean-shaven and decided-looking men in strangely roomy coats. They were Mr. Spoelmann's secretaries, Messrs. Phlebs and Slippers, as the _Courier_ announced in its report.