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Title: Royal Highness

Author: Thomas Mann

Translator: A. Cecil Curtis

Release date: May 3, 2011 [eBook #36028]

Language: English

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ROYAL HIGHNESS
Translated from the German of
THOMAS MANN
by A. Cecil Curtis

GROSSET & DUNLAP
Publishers
by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf

COPYRIGHT, 1909, S. FISCHER, VERLAG

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CONTENTS

Prelude vii

CHAPTER I

The Constriction 1

CHAPTER II

The Country 25

CHAPTER III

Hinnerke the Shoemaker 37

CHAPTER IV

Doctor Ueberbein 64

CHAPTER V

Albrecht II 110

CHAPTER VI

The Lofty Calling 146

CHAPTER VII

Imma 168

CHAPTER VIII

The Fulfilment 265

CHAPTER IX

The Rose-Bush 328

PRELUDE

The scene is the Albrechtstrasse, the main artery of the capital, which runs
from Albrechtsplatz and the Old Schloss to the barracks of the Fusiliers of
the Guard. The time is noon on an ordinary week-day; the season of the
year does not matter. The weather is fair to moderate. It is not raining, but
the sky is not clear; it is a uniform light grey, uninteresting and sombre, and
the street lies in a dull and sober light which robs it of all mystery, all
individuality. There is a moderate amount of traffic, without much noise and
crowd, corresponding to the not over-busy character of the town. Tram-cars
glide past, a cab or two rolls by, along the pavement stroll a few residents,
colourless folk, passers-by, the public—“people.”
Two officers, their hands in the slanting pockets of their grey great-
coats, approach each other; a general and a lieutenant. The general is
coming from the Schloss, the lieutenant from the direction of the barracks.
The lieutenant is quite young, a mere stripling, little more than a child. He
has narrow shoulders, dark hair, and the wide cheek-bones so common in
this part of the world, blue rather tired-looking eyes, and a boyish face with
a kind but reserved expression. The general has snow-white hair, is tall and
broad-shouldered, altogether a commanding figure. His eyebrows look like
cotton-wool, and his moustache hangs right down over his mouth and chin.
He walks with slow deliberation, his sword rattles on the asphalt, his plume
flutters in the wind, and at every step he takes the big red lapel of his coat
flaps slowly up and down.
And so these two draw near each other. Can this rencontre lead to any
complication? Impossible. Every observer can foresee the course this
meeting will naturally take. We have on one side and the other age and
youth, authority and obedience, years of services and docile apprenticeship

—a mighty hierarchical gulf, rules and prescriptions, separate the two.
Natural organization, take thy course! And, instead, what happens? Instead,
the following surprising, painful, delightful, and topsy-turvy scene occurs.
The general, noticing the young lieutenant's approach, alters his bearing
in a surprising manner. He draws himself up, yet at the same time seems to
get smaller. He tones down with a jerk, so to speak, the splendour of his
appearance, stops the clatter of his sword, and, while his face assumes a
cross and embarrassed expression, he obviously cannot make up his mind
where to turn his eyes, and tries to conceal the fact by staring from under
his cotton-wool eyebrows at the asphalt straight in front of him.
The young lieutenant too betrays to the careful observer some slight
embarrassment, which however, strange to say, he seems to succeed, better
than the grey-haired general, in cloaking with a certain grace and self-
command. The tension of his mouth is relaxed into a smile at once modest
and genial, and his eyes are directed with a quiet and self-possessed calm,
seemingly without an effort, over the general's shoulder and beyond.
By now they have come within three paces of each other. And, instead
of the prescribed salute, the young lieutenant throws his head slightly back,
at the same time draws his right hand—only his right, mark you—out of his
coat-pocket and makes with this same white-gloved right hand a little
encouraging and condescending movement, just opening the fingers with
palm upwards, nothing more. But the general, who has awaited this sign
with his arms to his sides, raises his hand to his helmet, steps aside, bows,
making a half-circle as if to leave the pavement free, and deferentially
greets the lieutenant with reddening cheeks and honest modest eyes.
Thereupon the lieutenant, his hand to his cap, answers the respectful
greeting of his superior officer—answers it with a look of child-like
friendliness; answers it—and goes on his way.
A miracle! A freak of fancy! He goes on his way. People look at him,
but he looks at nobody, looks straight ahead through the crowd, with
something of the air of a woman who knows that she is being looked at.
People greet him; he returns the greeting, heartily and yet distantly. He
seems not to walk very easily; it looks as if he were not much accustomed
to the use of his legs, or as if the general attention he excites bothers him, so

irregular and hesitating is his gait; indeed, at times he seems to limp. A
policeman springs to attention, a smart woman, coming out of a shop,
smiles and curtseys. People turn round to look at him, nudge each other,
stare at him, and softly whisper his name….
It is Klaus Heinrich, the younger brother of Albrecht II, and heir
presumptive to the throne. There he goes, he is still in view. Known and yet
a stranger, he moves among the crowd—people all around him, and yet as if
alone. He goes on his lonely way and carries on his narrow shoulders the
burden of his Highness!

I
THE CONSTRICTION

Artillery salvos were fired when the various new-fangled means of
communication in the capital spread the news that the Grand Duchess
Dorothea had given birth to a prince for the second time at Grimmburg.
Seventy-two rounds resounded through the town and surrounding country,
fired by the military in the walls of the “Citadel.” Directly afterwards the
fire brigade also, not to be outdone, fired with the town salute-guns; but in
their firing there were long pauses between each round, which caused much
merriment among the populace.
The Grimmburg looked down from the top of a woody hill on the
picturesque little town of the same name, which mirrored its grey sloping
roofs in the river which flowed past it. It could be reached from the capital
in half an hour by a local railway which paid no dividends. There the castle
stood, the proud creation of the Margrave Klaus Grimmbart, the founder of
the reigning house in the dim mists of history, since then several times
rejuvenated and repaired, fitted with the comforts of the changing times,
always kept in a habitable state and held in peculiar honour as the ancestral
seat of the ruling house, the cradle of the dynasty. For it was a rule and
tradition of the house that all direct descendants of the Margrave, every
child of the reigning couple, must be born there.
This tradition could not be ignored. The country had had sophisticated
and unbelieving sovereigns, who had laughed at it, and yet had complied
with it with a shrug of the shoulders. It was now much too late to break
away from it whether it was reasonable and enlightened or not: why,
without any particular necessity, break with an honoured custom, which had

managed somehow to perpetuate itself? The people were convinced that
there was something in it. Twice in the course of fifteen generations had
children of reigning sovereigns, owing to some chance or other, first seen
the light in other schlosses: each had come to an unnatural and disgraceful
end. But all the sovereigns of the land and their brothers and sisters, from
Henry the Confessor and John the Headstrong, with their lovely and proud
sisters, down to Albrecht, the father of the Grand Duke, and the Grand
Duke himself, Johann Albrecht III, had been brought into the world in the
castle; and there, six years before, Dorothea had given birth to her firstborn,
the Heir Apparent.
The castle was also a retreat as dignified as it was peaceful. The
coolness of its rooms, the shady charms of its surroundings, made it
preferable as a summer residence to the stiff Hollerbrunn. The ascent from
the town, up a rather badly paved street between shabby cottages and a
scrubby wall, through massive gates to the ancient ruin at the entrance to
the castle-yard, in the middle of which stood the statue of Klaus Grimmbart,
the founder, was picturesque but tiring. But a noble park spread at the back
of the castle hill, through which easy paths led up into the wooded and
gently-swelling uplands, offering ideal opportunities for carriage drives and
quiet strolls.
As for the inside of the castle, it had been last subjected at the beginning
of the reign of Johann Albrecht III to a thorough clean-up and redecoration
—at a cost which had evoked much comment. The furniture of the living-
rooms had been completed and renewed in a style at once baronial and
comfortable; the escutcheons in the “Hall of Justice” had been carefully
restored to their original pattern. The gilding of the intricate patterns on the
vaulted ceilings looked fresh and cheerful, all the rooms had been fitted
with parquet, and both the larger and the smaller banqueting-halls had been
adorned with huge wall-paintings from the brush of Professor von
Lindemann, a distinguished Academician, representing scenes from the
history of the reigning House executed in a clear and smooth style which
was far removed from and quite unaffected by the restless tendencies of
modern schools. Nothing was wanting. As the old chimneys of the castle
and its many-coloured stoves, reaching tier upon tier right up to the ceiling,
were no longer fit to use, anthracite stoves had been installed in view of the
possibility of the place being used as a residence during the winter.

But the day of the seventy-two salvos fell in the best time of the year,
late spring, early summer, the beginning of June, soon after Whitsuntide.
Johann Albrecht, who had been early informed by telegram that the labour
had begun just before dawn, reached Grimmburg Station by the bankrupt
local railway at eight o'clock, where he was greeted with congratulations by
three or four dignitaries, the mayor, the judge, the rector, and the town
physician. He at once drove to the castle. The Grand Duke was
accompanied by Minister of State, Dr. Baron Knobelsdorff, and Adjutant-
General of Infantry, Count Schmettern. Shortly afterwards two or three
more ministers arrived at the royal residence, the Court Chaplin Dom
Wislezenus, President of the High Consistory, one or two Court officials,
and a still younger Adjutant, Captain von Lichterloh. Although the Grand
Duke's Physician-in-Ordinary, Surgeon-General Dr. Eschrich, was attending
the mother, Johann Albrecht had been seized with the whim of requiring the
young local doctor, a Doctor Sammet, who was of Jewish extraction into
the bargain, to accompany him to the castle. The unassuming, hard-
working, and earnest man, who had as much as he could do and was not in
the least expecting any such distinction, stammered “Quite delighted …
quite delighted” several times over, thus provoking some amusement.
The Grand Duchess's bedroom was the “Bride-chamber,” a five-
cornered, brightly painted room on the first floor, through whose window a
fine view could be obtained of woods, hills, and the windings of the river. It
was decorated with a frieze of medallion-shaped portraits, likenesses of
royal brides who had slept there in the olden days of the family history.
There lay Dorothea; a broad piece of webbing was tied round the foot of
her bed, to which she clung like a child playing at horses, while convulsions
shook her lovely frame. Doctor Gnadebusch, the midwife, a gentle and
learned woman with small fine hands and brown eyes, which wore a look of
mystery behind her round, thick spectacles, was supporting the Duchess,
while she said:
“Steady, steady, your Royal Highness…. It will soon be over. It's quite
easy…. Just once more … that's nothing…. Rest a bit: knees apart…. Keep
your chin down….”

A nurse, dressed like her in white linen, helped too, and moved lightly
about with phials and bandages during the pauses. The Physician-in-
Ordinary, a gloomy man with a greyish beard, whose left eyelid seemed to
droop, superintended the birth. He wore his operating-coat over his
surgeon-general's uniform. From time to time there peeped into the room, to
ascertain the progress of the confinement, Dorothea's trusty Mistress of the
Robes, Baroness von Schulenburg-Tressen, a corpulent and asthmatic
woman of distinctly dragoon-like appearance, who nevertheless liked to
display a generous expanse of neck and shoulders at the court balls. She
kissed her mistress's hand and went back to an adjoining room, in which a
couple of thin ladies-in-waiting were chatting with the Grand Duchess's
Chamberlain-in-Waiting, a Count Windisch. Dr. Sammet, who had thrown
his linen coat like a domino over his dress-coat, was waiting modestly and
attentively by the washstand.
Johann Albrecht sat in a neighbouring room used as a study, which was
separated from the “Bride-chamber” only by a so-called powder closet and
a passage-room. It was called the library, in view of several manuscript
folios, which lay slanting in the massive book-shelves and contained the
history of the castle. The room was furnished as a writing-room. Globes
adorned the walls. The strong wind from the hills blew through the open
bow-window. The Grand Duke had ordered tea, and the groom of the
chamber, Prahl, had himself brought the tray; but it was standing forgotten
on the leaf of the desk, and Johann Albrecht was pacing the room from one
corner to the other in a restless, uncomfortable frame of mind. His top-boots
kept creaking as he walked. His aide-de-camp, von Lichterloh, listened to
the noise, as he waited patiently in the almost bare passage-room.
The Minister, the Adjutant-General, the Court Chaplain, and the Court
officials, nine or ten in all, were waiting in the state-room on the ground
floor. They wandered through the larger and the smaller banqueting-halls,
where trophies of banners and weapons hung between Lindemann's
pictures. They leaned against the slender pillars, which spread into brightly
coloured vaulting above their heads. They stood before the narrow, ceiling-
high windows, and looked out through the leaded panes over river and
town; they sat on the stone benches which ran round the walls, or on seats
before the stoves, whose Gothic tops were supported by ridiculous little
stooping imps of stone. The bright sunlight made the gold lace on the

uniforms, the orders on the padded chests, the broad gold stripes on the
trousers of the dignitaries glisten.
The conversation flagged. Three-cornered hats and white-gloved hands
were constantly being raised to mouths which opened convulsively. Nearly
everybody had tears in his eyes. Several had not had time to get any
breakfast. Some sought entertainment in a timid examination of the
operating-instruments and the round leather-cased chloroform jar, which
Surgeon-General Eschrich had left there in case of emergency. After von
Bühl zu Bühl, the Lord Marshal, a powerful man with mincing manners,
brown toupée, gold-rimmed pince-nez, and long, yellow fingernails, had
told several anecdotes in his quick, jerky way, he dropped into an armchair,
in which he made use of his gift of being able to sleep with his eyes open—
of losing consciousness of time and place while retaining a steady gaze and
alert attitude, and in no way imperilling the dignity of the situation.
Dr. von Schröder, Minister of Finance and Agriculture, had had a
conversation earlier in the day with the Minister of State, Dr. Baron
Knobelsdorff, Minister of Home Affairs, Foreign Affairs, and the Grand
Ducal Household. It was a spasmodic chat, which began with a discussion
on art, went on to financial and economic questions, alluded, somewhat
disapprovingly, to a High Court official, and did not leave even the most
exalted personages out of account. It began with the two men standing, with
their hats in their hands behind their backs, in front of one of the pictures in
the larger banqueting-hall, each of them thinking more than he said. The
Finance Minister said: “And this? What's this? What's happening? Your
Excellency is so well informed.”
“Merely superficially. It is the investiture of two Grand princes of the
blood by their uncle, the Emperor. As your Excellency can see, the two
young men are kneeling and taking the oath with great solemnity on the
Emperor's sword.”
“Fine, extraordinarily fine! What colouring! Dazzling. What lovely
golden hair the princes have! And the Emperor … exactly as he is described
in the books! Yes, that Lindemann well deserves all the distinctions which
have been given him.”

“Absolutely. Those which have been given him; those he quite
deserves.”
Dr. von Schröder, a tall man with a white beard, a pair of thin gold
spectacles on his white nose, a belly protruding slightly underneath his
stomach, and a bull-neck, which lapped over the stiff collar of his coat,
looked, without taking his eyes off the picture, somewhat doubtfully at it,
under the influence of a diffidence which seized him from time to time
during conversations with the baron. This Knobelsdorff, this favourite and
exalted functionary, was so enigmatical. At times his remarks, his retorts,
had an indefinable tinge of irony about them. He was a widely travelled
man, he had been all over the world, he had so much general knowledge,
and interests of such a strange and exotic kind. And yet he was a model of
correctness. Herr von Schröder could not quite understand him. However
much one agreed with him, it was impossible to feel that one really
understood him. His opinions were full of a mysterious reserve, his
judgments of a tolerance which left one wondering whether they implied
approval or contempt.
But the most suspicious thing about him was his laugh, a laugh of the
eyes in which the mouth took no part, a laugh which seemed to be produced
by the wrinkles radiating from the corners of his eyes, or vice versa to have
produced those same wrinkles in the course of years. Baron Knobelsdorff
was younger than the Finance Minister; he was then in the prime of life,
although his close-trimmed moustache and hair smoothly parted in the
middle were already beginning to turn grey—for the rest a squat, short-
necked man, obviously pinched by the collar of his heavily-laced court
dress. He left Herr von Schröder to his perplexity for a minute, and then
went on: “Only perhaps it might be to the interests of a prudent
administration of the Privy Purse if the distinguished professor had rested
content with stars and titles … to speak bluntly, what may all these
delightful works of art have cost?”
Herr von Schröder recovered his animation. The desire, the hope of
understanding the Baron, of getting on to intimate and confidential terms
with him, excited him. “Just what I was thinking!” said he, turning round to
resume his walk through the galleries. “Your Excellency has taken the
question out of my mouth. I wonder what this ‘Investiture’ cost, and all the

rest of these wall-pictures. For the restoration of the castle six years ago
cost a million altogether.”
“At least that.”
“A solid million! And that amount was audited and approved by Lord
Marshal von Bühl zu Bühl, who is sitting yonder in a state of comfortable
catalepsy—audited, approved, and disbursed by the Keeper of the Privy
Purse, Count Trümmerhauff.”
“Disbursed, or owing!”
“One of the two!… This total, I say, debited to a fund, a fund …”
“In a word, the fund of the Grand Ducal settled estates.”
“Your Excellency knows as well as I what that means. No, it makes me
run cold…. I swear I am neither a skin-flint nor a hypochondriac, but it
makes me run cold when I think of a man, with present conditions staring
him in the face, coolly throwing a million away—on what? On a nothing, a
pretty whim, on the beautification of the family schloss in which his babies
have to be born….”
Herr von Knobelsdorff laughed. “Yes, Heaven knows romance is a
luxury, and a mighty expensive one too! Excellency, I agree with you—of
course. But consider, after all the whole trouble in the Grand Ducal finances
is due to this same romantic luxury. The root of the evil lies in the fact that
the ruling dynasty are farmers; their capital consists in land and soil, their
income in agricultural profits. At the present day…. They have not been
able up to the present to make up their minds to turn into industrialists and
financiers. They allow themselves with regrettable obstinacy to be swayed
by certain obsolete and idealistic conceptions, such as, for instance, the
conceptions of trust and dignity. The royal property is hampered by a trust
entailed in fact. Advantageous alienations are barred. Mortgages, the raising
of capital on credit for commercial improvements, seem to them improper.
The administration is seriously hindered in the free exploitation of business
opportunities—by ideas of dignity. You'll forgive me, won't you? I'm telling
you the absolute truth. People who pay so much attention to propriety as
these of course cannot and will not keep pace with the freer and less
hampered initiative of less obstinate and unpractical business people. Now

then, what, in comparison with this negative luxury, does the positive
million signify, which has been sacrificed to a pretty whim, to borrow your
Excellency's expression? If it only stopped there! But we have the regular
expenses of a fairly dignified Court to meet. There are the schlosses and
their parks to keep up, Hollerbrunn, Monbrillant, Jägerpreis, aren't there?
The Hermitage, Delphinenort, the Pheasantry, and the others…. I had
forgotten Schloss Zegenhaus and the Haderstein ruins … not to mention the
Old Schloss…. They are not well kept up, but they all cost money…. There
are the Court Theatre, the Picture Gallery, the Library, to maintain. There
are a hundred pensions to pay,—no legal compulsion to pay them, but
motives of trust and dignity. And look at the princely way in which the
Grand Duke behaved at the time of the last floods…. But I'm preaching you
a regular sermon!”
“A sermon,” said the Minister of Finance, “which your Excellency
thought would shock me, while you really only confirmed my own view.
Dear Baron”—here Herr von Schröder laid his hand on his heart,—“I am
convinced that there is no longer room for any misunderstanding as to my
opinion, my loyal opinion, between you and me. The King can do no
wrong…. The sovereign is beyond the reach of reproaches. But here we
have to do with a default … in both senses of the word!… a default which I
have no hesitation in laying at the door of Count Trümmerhauff. His
predecessors may be pardoned for having concealed from their sovereigns
the true state of the Court finances; in those days nothing else was expected
of them. But Count Trümmerhauff's attitude now is not pardonable. In his
position as Keeper of the Privy Purse he ought to have felt it incumbent on
him to put a brake on his Highness's thoughtlessness, to feel it incumbent
on him now to open his Royal Highness's eyes relentlessly to the facts …”
Herr Knobelsdorff knitted his brows and laughed.
“Really?” said he. “So your Excellency is of the opinion that that is
what the Count was appointed for! I can picture to myself the justifiable
astonishment of his lordship, if you lay before him your view of the
position. No, no … your Excellency need be under no delusion; that
appointment was a quite deliberate expression of his wishes on the part of
his Royal Highness, which the Count must be the first to respect. It
expressed not only an ‘I don't know,’ but also an ‘I won't know.’ A man may

be an exclusively decorative personality and yet be acute enough to grasp
this…. Besides … honestly … we've all of us grasped it. And the only grain
of comfort for all of us is this: that there isn't a prince alive to whom it
would be more fatal to mention his debts than to his Royal Highness. Our
Prince has a something about him which would stop any tactless remarks of
that sort before they were spoken …”
“Quite true, quite true,” said Herr von Schröder. He sighed and stroked
thoughtfully the swansdown trimming of his hat. The two men were sitting,
half turned towards each other, on a raised window seat in a roomy niche,
past which a narrow stone corridor ran outside, a kind of gallery, through
the pointed arches of which peeps of the town could be seen. Herr von
Schröder went on:
“You answer me, Baron; one would think you were contradicting me,
and yet your words show more incredulity and bitterness than my own.”
Herr von Knobelsdorff said nothing, but made a vague gesture of assent.
“It may be so,” said the Finance Minister, and nodded gloomily at his
hat. “Your Excellency may be quite right. Perhaps we are all blameworthy,
we and our forefathers too. But it ought to have been stopped. For consider,
Baron; ten years ago an opportunity offered itself of putting the finances of
the Court on a sound footing, on a better footing anyhow, if you like. It was
lost. We understand each other. The Grand Duke, attractive man that he is,
had it then in his power to clear things up by a marriage which from a
sound point of view might have been called dazzling. Instead of that …
speaking not for myself, of course, but I shall never forget the disgust on
everybody's faces when they mentioned the amount of the dowry…”
“The Grand Duchess,” said Herr von Knobelsdorff, and the wrinkles at
the corners of his eyes disappeared almost entirely, “is one of the
handsomest women I have ever seen.”
“That is an answer one would expect of your Excellency. It's an æsthetic
answer, an answer which would have held quite as good if his Royal
Highness's choice, like his brother Lambert's, had fallen on a member of the
royal ballet.”

“Oh, there was no danger of that. The Prince's taste is a fastidious one,
as he has shown. He has always shown in his wants the antithesis to that
want of taste which Prince Lambert has shown all his life. It was a long
time before he made up his mind to marry. Everybody had given up all hope
of a direct heir to the throne. They were resigned for better or worse to
Prince Lambert, whose … unsuitability to be heir to the throne we need not
discuss. Then, a few weeks after he had succeeded, Johann Albrecht met
Princess Dorothea, cried, “This one or none!” and the Grand Duchy had its
sovereign lady. Your Excellency mentioned the thoughtful looks which
were exchanged when the figures of the dowry were published,—you did
not mention the jubilation which at the same time prevailed. A poor
princess, to be sure. But is beauty, such beauty, a power of happiness or
not? Never shall I forget her entry! Her first smile, as it lighted on the
gazing crowds, won their love. Your Excellency must allow me to profess
once more my belief in the idealism of the people. The people want to see
their best, their highest, their dream, what stands for their soul, represented
in their princes—not their money bags. There are others to represent
those….”
“That's just what there are not; just what we have not got.”
“The more's the pity, then. The main point is, Dorothea has presented us
with an Heir Apparent.”
“To whom may Heaven grant some idea of figures!”
“I agree.”
At this point the conversation between the two Ministers ceased. It was
broken off by the announcement by aide-de-camp von Lichterloh, of the
happy issue of the confinement. The smaller banqueting-hall was soon
filled with officials. One of the great carved doors was quickly thrown
open, and the aide-de-camp appeared in the hall. He had a red face, blue
soldier's eyes, a bristling flaxen moustache, and silver lace on his collar. He
looked somewhat excited, like a man who had been released from deadly
boredom and was primed with good news. Conscious of the unusualness of
the occasion, he boldly ignored the rules of decorum and etiquette. He
saluted the company gaily, and, spreading his elbows, raised the hilt of his
sword almost to his breast crying: “Beg leave to announce: a prince!”

“Good!” said Adjutant-General Count Schmettern.
“Delightful, quite delightful, I call that perfectly delightful!” said Lord
Marshal von Bühl zu Bühl in his jerky way; he had recovered
consciousness at once.
The President of the High Consistory, Dom Wislezenus—a clean-
shaven, well-built man, who, as a son of a general, and thanks to his
personal distinction, had attained to his high dignity at a comparatively
early age, and on whose black silk gown hung the star of an Order—folded
his white hands on his breast, and said in a melodious voice, “God bless his
Grand Ducal Highness!”
“You forget, Captain,” said Herr von Knobelsdorff, laughing, “that in
making your announcement you are encroaching on my privileges and
province. Until I have made the most searching investigations into the state
of affairs, the question whether it is a prince or a princess remains
undecided.”
The others laughed, and Herr von Lichterloh replied: “As you wish,
your Excellency! Then I have the honour to beg your Excellency to assume
this most important charge….”
This dialogue referred to the attributes of the Minister of State, as
registrar of the Grand Ducal house, in which capacity he was required to
satisfy himself with his own eyes of the sex of the princely offspring and to
make an official declaration on the subject. Herr von Knobelsdorff
complied with this formality in the so-called powder-closet in which the
new-born babe was bathed. He stayed longer there, however, than he had
intended to, as he was puzzled and arrested by a painful sight, which at first
he mentioned to nobody except the midwife.
Doctor Gnadebusch showed him the child, and her eyes, gleaming
mysteriously behind her thick spectacles, travelled between the Minister of
State and the little copper-coloured creature, as it groped about with one—
only one—little hand, as if she was saying: “Is it all right?”
It was all right. Herr von Knobelsdorff was satisfied, and the wise
woman wrapped the child up again. But even then she continued to look
down at the Prince and then up at the Baron, until she had drawn his eyes to

the point to which she wished to attract them. The wrinkles at the corners of
his eyes disappeared, he knit his brows, tried, compared, felt, examined for
two or three minutes, and at last asked: “Has the Grand Duke yet seen it?”
“No, Excellency.”
“When the Grand Duke sees it,” said Herr von Knobelsdorff, “tell him
that he will grow out of it.”
And to the others on the ground-floor he reported—“A splendid
prince!”
But ten or fifteen minutes after him the Grand Duke also made the
disagreeable discovery,—that was unavoidable, and resulted for Surgeon-
General Eschrich in a short, extremely unpleasant scene, but for the
Grimmburg Doctor Sammet in an interview with the Grand Duke which
raised him considerably in the latter's estimation and was useful to him in
his subsequent career. What happened was briefly as follows:
After the birth Johann Albrecht had again retired to the library, and then
returned to sit for some time at the bedside with his wife's hand in his.
Thereupon he went into the “powder-closet,” where the infant now lay in
his high, richly gilded cradle, half covered with a blue silk curtain, and sat
down in an armchair by the side of his little son. But while he sat and
watched the sleeping infant it happened that he noticed what it was hoped
that he would not notice yet. He drew the counterpane back, his face
clouded over, and then he did exactly what Herr von Knobelsdorff had done
before him, looked from Doctor Gnadebusch to the nurse and back again,
both of whom said nothing, cast one glance at the half-open door into the
bride-chamber, and stalked excitedly back into the library.
Here he at once rang the silver eagle-topped bell which stood on the
writing-table, and said to Herr von Lichterloh, who came in, very curtly and
coldly: “I require Herr Eschrich.”
When the Grand Duke was angry with any member of his suite, he was
wont to strip the culprit for the moment of all his titles and dignities, and to
leave him nothing but his bare name.

The aide-de-camp again clapped his spurs and heels together and
withdrew. Johann Albrecht strode once or twice in a rage up and down the
room, and then, hearing Herr von Lichterloh bring the person he had
summoned into the ante-room, adopted an audience attitude at his writing-
table.
As he stood there, his head turned imperiously in half-profile, his left
hand planted on his hip, drawing back his satin-fronted frock coat from his
white waistcoat, he exactly resembled his portrait by Professor von
Lindemann, which hung beside the big looking-glass over the mantelpiece
in the “Hall of the Twelve Months” in the Town Schloss, opposite the
portrait of Dorothea, and of which countless engravings, photographs, and
picture postcards had been published. The only difference was that Johann
Albrecht in the portrait seemed to be of heroic stature, while he really was
scarcely of medium height. His forehead was high where his hair had
receded, and from under his grey eyebrows, his blue eyes looked out, with
dark rings round them, giving them an expression of tired haughtiness. He
had the broad, rather too high cheek-bones which were a characteristic of
his people. His whiskers and the soft tuft on his chin were grey, his
moustache almost white. From the distended nostrils of his small but well-
arched nose, two unusually deep furrows ran down to his chin. The lemon-
coloured ribbon of the Family Order always showed in the opening of his
waistcoat. In his buttonhole the Grand Duke wore a carnation.
Surgeon-General Eschrich entered with a low bow. He had taken off his
operating-coat. His eyelid drooped more heavily than usual over his eye. He
looked apprehensive and uncomfortable.
The Grand Duke, his left hand on his hip, threw his head back, stretched
out his right hand and waved it, palm upwards, several times up and down
impatiently.
“I am awaiting an explanation, a justification, Surgeon-General,” said
he, with a voice trembling with irritation. “You will have the goodness to
answer my questions. What is the matter with the child's arm?”
The Physician-in-Ordinary raised his hand a little—a feeble gesture of
impotence and blamelessness. He said:

“An it please Your Royal Highness…. An unfortunate occurrence.
Unfavourable circumstances during the pregnancy of her Royal
Highness….”
“That's all nonsense!” The Grand Duke was so much excited that he did
not wish for any justification, in fact he would not allow one. “I would
remind you, sir, that I am beside myself. Unfortunate occurrence! It was
your business to take precautions against unfortunate occurrences….”
The Surgeon-General stood with half-bowed head and, sinking his voice
to a submissive tone, addressed the ground at his feet.
“I humbly beg to be allowed to remind you that I, at least, am not alone
responsible. Privy Councillor Grasanger—an authority on gynæcology—
examined her Royal Highness. But nobody can be held responsible in this
case….”
“Nobody … Really! I permit myself to make you responsible…. You
are answerable to me…. You were in charge during the pregnancy, you
superintended the confinement. I have relied on the knowledge to be
expected from your rank, Surgeon-General, I have trusted to your
experience. I am bitterly disappointed, bitterly disappointed. All that your
skill can boast of is … that a crippled child has been born….”
“Would your Royal Highness graciously weigh …”
“I have weighed. I have weighed and found wanting. Thank you!”
Surgeon-General Eschrich retired backwards, bowing. In the ante-room
he shrugged his shoulders, while his cheeks glowed.
The Grand Duke again fell to pacing the library in his princely wrath,
unreasonable, misinformed, and foolish in his loneliness. However, whether
it was that he wished to humiliate the Physician-in-Ordinary still further, or
that he regretted having robbed himself of any explanations—ten minutes
later the unexpected happened, and the Grand Duke sent Herr von
Lichterloh to summon young Doctor Sammet to the library.
The doctor, when he received the message, again said: “Quite delighted
… quite delighted, …” and at first changed colour a little, then composed

himself admirably. It is true that he was not a complete master of the
prescribed etiquette, and bowed too soon, while he was still in the door, so
that the aide-de-camp could not close it behind him, and had to ask him in a
whisper to move forward; but afterwards he stood in an easy and
unconstrained attitude, and gave reassuring answers, although he showed
that he was naturally rather slow of speech, beginning his sentences with
hesitating noises and frequently interspersing them with a “Yes,” as if to
confirm what he was saying. He wore his dark yellow hair cut en brosse
and his moustache untrimmed. His chin and cheeks were clean-shaved, and
rather sore from it. He carried his head a little on one side, and the gaze of
his grey eyes told of shrewdness and practical goodness. His nose, which
was too broad at the bottom, pointed to his origin. He wore a black tie, and
his shiny boots were of a country cut. He kept his elbows close to his side,
with one hand on his silver watch-chain. His whole appearance suggested
candour and professional skill; it inspired confidence.
The Grand Duke addressed him unusually graciously, rather in the
manner of a teacher who has been scolding a naughty boy, and turns to
another with a sudden assumption of mildness.
“I have sent for you, doctor…. I want information from you about this
peculiarity in the body of the new-born prince…. I assume that it has not
escaped your notice…. I am confronted with a riddle … an extremely
painful riddle…. In a word, I desire your opinion.” And the Grand Duke,
changing his position, ended with a gracious motion of the hand, which
encouraged the doctor to speak.
Dr. Sammet looked at him silently and attentively, as if waiting till the
Grand Duke had completely regained his princely composure. Then he said:
“Yes; we have here to do with a case which is not of very common
occurrence, but which is well known and familiar to us. Yes. It is actually a
case of atrophy …”
“Excuse me … atrophy …?”
“Forgive me, Royal Highness. I mean stunted growth. Yes.”
“I see, stunted growth. Stunting. That's it. The left hand is stunted. But
it's unheard of! I cannot understand it! Such a thing has never happened in

my family! People talk nowadays about heredity.”
Again the doctor looked silently and attentively at the lonely and
domineering man, to whom the news had only just penetrated that people
were talking lately about heredity. He answered simply: “Pardon me, Royal
Highness, but in this case there can be no question of heredity.”
“Really! You're quite sure!” said the Grand Duke rather mockingly.
“That is one satisfaction. But will you be so kind as to tell me what there
can be a question of, then.”
“With pleasure, Royal Highness. The cause of the malformation is
entirely a mechanical one. It has been caused through a mechanical
constriction during the development of the embryo. We call such
malformations constriction-formations, yes.”
The Grand Duke listened with anxious disgust; he obviously feared the
effect of each succeeding word on his sensitiveness. He kept his brows knit
and his mouth open: the two furrows running down to his beard seemed
deeper than ever. He said: “Constriction-formations, … but how in the
world … I am quite sure every precaution must have been taken …”
“Constriction-formations,” answered Dr. Sammet, “can occur in various
ways. But we can say with comparative certainty that in our case … in this
case it is the amnion which is to blame.”
“I beg your pardon…. The amnion?”
“That is one of the fœtal membranes, Royal Highness. Yes. And in
certain circumstances the removal of this membrane from the embryo may
be retarded and proceed so slowly that threads and cords are left stretching
from one to the other … amniotic threads as we call them, yes. These
threads may be dangerous, for they can bind and knot themselves round the
whole of a child's limb; they can entirely intercept, for instance, the life-
ducts of a hand and even amputate it. Yes.”
“Great heavens … amputate it. So we must be thankful that it has not
come to an amputation of the hand?”

“That might have happened. Yes. But all that has happened is an
unfastening, resulting in an atrophy.”
“And that could not be discovered, foreseen, prevented?”
“No, Royal Highness. Absolutely not. It is quite certain that no blame
whatever attaches to anybody. Such constrictions do their work in secret.
We are powerless against them. Yes.”
“And the malformation is incurable? The hand will remain stunted?”
Dr. Sammet hesitated; he looked kindly at the Grand Duke.
“It will never be quite normal, certainly not,” he said cautiously. “But
the stunted hand will grow a little larger than it is at present, oh yes, it
assuredly will …”
“Will he be able to use it? For instance … to hold his reins or to make
gestures, like any one else?…”
“Use it … a little…. Perhaps not much. And he's got his right hand,
that's all right.”
“Will it be very obvious?” asked the Grand Duke, and scanned Dr.
Sammet's face earnestly. “Very noticeable? Will it detract much from his
general appearance, think you?”
“Many people,” answered Dr. Sammet evasively, “live and work under
greater disadvantages. Yes.”
The Grand Duke turned away, and walked once up and down the room.
Dr. Sammet deferentially made way for him, and withdrew towards the
door. At last the Grand Duke resumed his position at the writing-table and
said: “I have now heard what I wanted to know, doctor; I thank you for your
report. You understand your business, no doubt about that. Why do you live
in Grimmburg? Why do you not practise in the capital?”
“I am still young, Royal Highness, and before I devote myself to
practising as a specialist in the capital I should like a few years of really
varied practice, of general experience and research. A country town like
Grimmburg affords the best opportunity of that. Yes.”

“Very sound, very admirable of you. In what do you propose to
specialise later on?”
“In the diseases of children, Royal Highness. I intend to be a children's
doctor, yes.”
“You are a Jew?” asked the Grand Duke, throwing back his head and
screwing up his eyes.
“Yes, Royal Highness.”
“Ah—will you answer me one more question? Have you ever found
your origin to stand in your way, a drawback in your professional career? I
ask as a ruler, who is especially concerned that the principle of ‘equal
chances for all’ shall hold good unconditionally and privately, not only
officially.”
“Everybody in the Grand Duchy,” answered Dr. Sammet, “has the right
to work.” But he did not stop there: moving his elbows like a pair of short
wings, in an awkward, impassioned way, he made a few hesitating noises,
and then added in a restrained but eager voice: “No principle of
equalization, if I may be allowed to remark, will ever prevent the incidence
in the life of the community of exceptional and abnormal men who are
distinguished from the bourgeois by their nobleness or infamy. It is the duty
of the individual not to concern himself as to the precise nature of the
distinction between him and the common herd, but to see what is the
essential in that distinction and to recognize that it imposes on him an
exceptional obligation towards society. A man is at an advantage, not at a
disadvantage, compared with the regular and therefore complacent majority,
if he has one motive more than they to extraordinary exertions. Yes, yes,”
repeated Dr. Sammet. The double affirmative was meant to confirm his
answer.
“Good … not bad; very remarkable, anyhow,” said the Grand Duke
judicially. He found Dr. Sammet's words suggestive, though somewhat off
the point. He dismissed the young man with the words: “Well, doctor, my
time is limited. I thank you. This interview—apart from its painful occasion
—has much reassured me. I have the pleasure of bestowing on you the

Albrecht Cross of the Third Class with Crown. I shall remember you. Thank
you.”
This was what passed between the Grimmburg doctor and the Grand
Duke. Shortly after Johann Albrecht left the castle and returned by special
train to the capital, chiefly to show himself to the rejoicing populace, but
also in order to give several audiences in the palace. It was arranged that he
should return in the evening to the castle, and take up his residence there for
the next few weeks.
All those present at the confinement at Grimmburg who did not belong
to the Grand Duchess's suite were also accommodated in the special train of
the bankrupt local railway, some of them travelling in the Sovereign's own
saloon. But the Grand Duke drove from the castle to the station alone with
von Knobelsdorff, the Minister of State, in an open landau, one of the
brown Court carriages with the little golden crown on the door. The white
feathers in the hats of the chasseurs in front fluttered in the summer breeze.
Johann Albrecht was grave and silent on the journey; he seemed to be
worried and morose. And although Herr von Knobelsdorff knew that the
Grand Duke, even in private, disliked anybody addressing him unasked and
uninvited, yet at last he made up his mind to break the silence.
“Your Royal Highness,” he said deprecatingly, “seems to take so much
to heart the little anomaly which has been discovered in the Prince's body,
… and yet one would think that on a day like this the reasons for joy and
proud thankfulness so far outweigh …”
“My dear Knobelsdorff,” replied Johann Albrecht, with some irritation
and almost in tears, “you must forgive my ill-humour; you surely do not
wish me to be in good spirits. I can see no reason for being so. The Grand
Duchess is going on well—true enough, and the child is a boy—that's a
blessing too. But he has come into the world with an atrophy, a constriction,
caused by amniotic threads. Nobody is to blame, it is a misfortune; but
misfortunes for which nobody is to blame are the most terrible of all
misfortunes, and the sight of their Sovereign ought to awaken in his people
other feelings than those of sympathy. The Heir Apparent is delicate, needs
constant care. It was a miracle that he survived that attack of pleurisy two
years ago, and it will be nothing less than a miracle if he lives to attain his

majority. Now Heaven grants me a second son—he seems strong, but he
comes into the world with only one hand. The other is stunted, useless, a
deformity, he will have to hide it. What a drawback! What an impediment!
He will have to brave it out before the world all his life. We must let it
gradually leak out, so that it may not cause too much of a shock on his first
appearance in public. No, I cannot yet get over it. A prince with one
hand …”
“‘With one hand,’” said Herr von Knobelsdorff. “Did your Royal
Highness use that expression twice deliberately?”
“Deliberately?”
“You did not, then?… For the Prince has two hands, yet as one is
stunted, one might if one liked also describe him as a prince with one
hand.”
“What then?”
“And one must almost wish, not that your Royal Highness's second son,
but that the heir to the throne were the victim of this small malformation.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Why, your Royal Highness will laugh at me; but I am thinking of the
gipsy woman.”
“The gipsy woman? Please go on, my dear Baron!”
“Of the gipsy woman—forgive me!—who a hundred years ago
prophesied the birth of a Prince to your Royal Highness's house—a prince
‘with one hand’—that is how tradition puts it—and attached to the birth of
that prince a certain promise, couched in peculiar terms.”
The Grand Duke turned on his seat and stared, without saying a word, at
Herr von Knobelsdorff, at the outer corner of whose eyes the radiating
wrinkles were playing. Then, “Mighty entertaining!” he said, and resumed
his former attitude.
“Prophecies,” continued Herr von Knobelsdorff, “generally come true to
this extent, that circumstances arise which one can interpret, if one has a

mind to, in their sense. And the broadness of the terms in which every
proper prophecy is couched makes this all the more easy. ‘With one
hand’—that is regular oracle-style. What has actually happened is a
moderate case of atrophy. But that much counts for a good deal, for what is
there to prevent me, what is there to prevent the people, from assuming the
whole by this partial fulfilment, and declaring that the conditional part of
the prophecy has been fulfilled? The people will do so; if not at once, at any
rate if the rest of the prophecy, the actual promise, is in any way realised, it
will put two and two together, as it always has done, in its wish to see what
is written turn out true. I don't see how it is going to come about—the
Prince is a younger son, he will not come to the throne, the intentions of
fate are obscure. But the one-handed prince is there—and so may he bestow
on us as much as he can.”
The Grand Duke did not answer, secretly thrilled by dreams of the
future of his dynasty.
“Well, Knobelsdorff, I will not be angry with you. You want to comfort
me, and you have not done it badly. But I must do what is expected of
me….”
The air resounded with the distant cheers of many voices. The people of
Grimmburg were crowded in black masses behind the cordon at the station.
Officials were standing apart in front, waiting for the carriages. There was
the mayor, raising his top-hat, wiping his forehead with a crumpled
handkerchief, and poring over a paper whose contents he was committing to
memory. Johann Albrecht assumed the expression appropriate to listening
to the smoothly worded address and to answering concisely and graciously:
“Most excellent Mr. Mayor….” The town was dressed with flags, and
the bells were ringing.
In the capital all the bells were ringing. And in the evening there were
illuminations; not by formal request of the authorities, but spontaneous—
the whole city was a blaze of light.

II
THE COUNTRY

The country measured eight thousand square kilometres, and numbered one
million inhabitants.
A pretty, quiet, leisurely country. The tops of the trees in its forests
rustled dreamily; its broad acres showed signs of honest care; its industries
were undeveloped to the point of indigence.
It possessed some brick-kilns, a few salt and silver-mines—that was
almost all. A certain amount of tourist-traffic must also be mentioned, but
he would be a bold man who described it as a flourishing industry. The
alkali springs, which rose from the ground in the immediate neighbourhood
of the capital and formed the centre of an attractive bathing-establishment,
constituted the claims of the city to be considered a health resort. But while
the baths at the end of the Middle Ages had been frequented by visitors
from afar, they had later lost their repute, and been put in the shade by other
baths and forgotten. The most valuable of the springs, that called the
Ditlinde spring, which was exceptionally rich in lithium salts, had been
opened up quite recently, in the reign of Johann Albrecht III, and as
energetic business and advertising methods were not employed, its water
had not yet succeeded in winning world-recognition. A hundred thousand
bottles of it were sent away in the year—rather less than more. And but few
strangers came to drink it on the spot….
The Diet was the scene all the year round of speeches about the “barely”
satisfactory results of the trade returns, by which was really meant the
entirely unsatisfactory results, which nobody could dispute, that the local
railways did not cover their expenses and the main lines did not pay any

dividends—distressing but unalterable and inveterate facts, which the
Minister for Trade in luminous but monotonous declarations explained by
the peaceful commercial and industrial circumstances of the country, as
well as by the inaccessibility of the home coal-deposits. Critics added
something about defective organization of the State industrial
administration. But the spirit of contradiction and negation was not strong
in the Diet; the prevailing frame of mind among the representatives of the
people was one of dull and true-hearted loyalty.
So the railway revenues did not by any means rank first among the
public revenues of a private-investment nature; the forest revenues had
ranked first for years in this land of woods and plough. The fall in them,
their startling depreciation, however sufficient reasons there were for it, was
a much more difficult matter to mend.
The people loved their woods. They were a fair and compact type, with
searching blue eyes and broad, rather high cheek-bones, a sensible and
honest, solid and backward stamp of men. They clung to their country's
forest with all the strength of their nature; it lived in their bones, it was to
the artists which it bred the source and home of their inspirations, and it was
quite properly the object of popular gratitude, not only in regard to the gifts
of soul and intellect of which it was the donor. The poor gathered their
firewood in the forest; it gave to them freely, they had it for nothing. They
went stooping and gathering all kinds of berries and mushrooms among its
trunks, and earned a little something by doing so. That was not all. The
people recognized that their forest had a very distinctly favourable
influence on the weather and the healthy condition of the country; they
were well aware that without the lovely woods in the neighbourhood of the
capital the spa-garden outside would not attract foreigners with money to
spend; in short, this not over-industrious and up-to-date people could not
help knowing that the forest stood for the most important asset, the most
profitable heritage of the country.
And yet the forest had been sinned against, outraged for ages and ages.
The Grand Ducal Department of Woods and Forests deserved all the
reproaches that were laid against it. That Department had not political
insight enough to see that the wood must be maintained and kept as
inalienable common property, if it was to be useful not only to the present

generation, but also to those to come; and that it would surely avenge itself
if it were exploited recklessly and short-sightedly, without regard to the
future, for the benefit of the present.
That was what happened, and was still happening. In the first place
great stretches of the floor of the forest had been impoverished by reckless
and excessive spoliation of its litter. Matters had repeatedly gone so far that
not only the most recent carpet of needles and leaves, but the greatest part
of the fall of years past had been removed and used in the fields partly as
litter, partly as mould. There were many forests which had been completely
stripped of mould; some had been crippled by the raking away of the litter:
instances of this were to be found in the public woodlands as well as in the
State woodlands.
If the woods had been put to these uses in order to tide over a sudden
agricultural crisis, there would have been no reason to complain. But
although there were not wanting those who declared that an agricultural
system founded on the appropriation of wood-litter was inexpedient, indeed
dangerous, the trade in litter went on without any particular reason, on
purely fiscal grounds, so it was put—that is to say, on grounds which,
examined closely, proved to be only one ground and object, namely, the
making of money. For it was money which was wanted. But to get this
money, ceaseless inroads were made on the capital, until one fine day it was
realised with dismay that an unsuspected depreciation in that capital had
ensued.
The people were a peasant race, and thought that the way to be up-to-
date was to display a perverted, artificial, and improper zeal and to employ
reckless business methods. A characteristic instance was the dairy-farming
… one word about that. Loud complaints were heard, principally in the
official medical annual, that a deterioration was noticeable in the
nourishment, and consequently in the development, of the country people.
What was the reason? The owners of cows were bent on turning all the full-
milk at their disposal into money. The spread of the dairy industry, the
development and productiveness of the milk trade, tempted them to
disregard the claims of their own establishments. A strength-giving milk
diet became a rarity in the country, and in its stead recourse was had to
unsubstantial skimmed milk, inferior substitutes, vegetable oils, and,

unfortunately, alcoholic drinks as well. The critics talked about under-
feeding, they even called it physical and moral debilitation of the
population; they brought the facts to the notice of the Diet, and the
Government promised to give the matter their earnest attention.
But it was only too clear that the Government was at bottom infected
with the same perversity as the mistaken dairy-farmers. Timber continued to
be cut to excess in the State forests; once cut it was gone, and meant a
continual shrinkage of public property. The clearings might have been
necessary occasionally, when the forests had been damaged in one way or
another, but often enough they had been due simply to the fiscal reasons
referred to: and instead of the proceeds of the clearings being used for the
purchase of new tracts, instead of the cleared tracts being replanted as
quickly as possible—instead, in a word, of the damage to the capital value
of the State forests being balanced by an addition to their capital value, the
quickly earned profits had been devoted to the payment of current expenses
and the redemption of bonds. Of course there could be no doubt that a
reduction of the National Debt was only too desirable; but the critics
expressed the opinion that that was not the time to devote extraordinary
revenues to the building up of the sinking-fund.
Anybody who had no interest in mincing matters must have described
the State finances as in a hopeless muddle. The country carried a debt of
thirty million pounds—it struggled along under it with patience and
devotion, but with secret groans. For the burden, much too heavy in itself,
was made trebly heavy through a rise in the rate of interest and through
conditions of repayment such as are usually imposed on a country whose
credit is shaken, whose exchange is low, and which has already almost
come to be reckoned as “interesting” in the world of financiers.
The succession of financial crises appeared to be never-ending. The list
of failures seemed without beginning or end. And a maladministration,
which was made no better by frequent changes in its personnel, regarded
borrowing as the only cure for the creeping sickness in the State finances.
Even the Chancellor of the Exchequer, von Schröder, whose probity and
singleness of purpose were beyond all doubt, had been given a peerage by
the Grand Duke, because he had succeeded in placing a loan at a high rate
of interest in the most difficult circumstances. His heart was set on an

improvement in the credit of the State: but as his resource was to contract
new debts while he paid off the old, his policy proved to be no better than a
well-meant but costly blind. For a simultaneous sale and purchase of bonds
meant a higher purchase than selling price, involving the loss of thousands
of pounds.
It seemed as if the country were incapable of producing a man of any
adequate financial gifts. Improper practices and a policy of “hushing-up”
were the fashion. The budget was so drawn up that it was impossible to
distinguish between ordinary and extraordinary State requirements.
Ordinary and extraordinary items were jumbled up together, and those
responsible for the budgets deceived themselves, and everybody else, as to
the real state of affairs, by appropriating loans, which were supposed to be
raised for extraordinary purposes, to cover a deficit in the ordinary
exchequer…. The holder of the finance portfolio at one time was actually
an ex-court marshal.
Dr. Krippenreuther, who took the helm towards the end of Johann
Albrecht III's reign, was the Minister who, convinced like Herr von
Schröder of the necessity for a strenuous reduction in the debt, induced the
Diet to consent to a final and extreme addition to the burden of taxation.
But the country, naturally poor as it was, was on the verge of insolvency,
and all Krippenreuther got was unpopularity. His policy really meant
merely a transfer from one hand to the other, a transfer which itself
involved a loss; for the increase in taxation laid a burden on the national
economy which pressed more heavily and more directly than that which
was removed by the sinking of the National Debt.
Where, then, were help and a remedy to be found? A miracle, so it
seemed, was needed—and meanwhile the sternest economy. The people
were pious and loyal, they loved their princes as themselves, they were
permeated with the sublimity of the monarchical idea, they saw in it a
reflexion of the Deity. But the economical pressure was too painful, too
generally felt. The most ignorant could read in the thinned and crippled
forests a tale of woe. The consequence was that repeated appeals had been
made in the Diet for a curtailment of the Civil List, a cutting down of the
appanages and Crown endowments.

The Civil List amounted to twenty-five thousand pounds, the revenues
of the Crown demesnes to thirty-seven thousand pounds. That was all. And
the Crown was in debt—to what extent was perhaps known to Count
Trümmerhauff, the Keeper of the Grand Ducal Purse, a regular stickler, but
a man of absolutely no business instincts. It was not known to Johann
Albrecht; at any rate he seemed not to know it, and therein followed the
example of his forefathers, who had rarely deigned to give more than a
passing thought to their debts.
The people's attitude of veneration was reflected in their princes'
extraordinary sense of their own dignity, which had sometimes assumed
fanciful and even extravagant forms, and had found its most obvious and
most serious expression in every period in a tendency to extravagance and
to a reckless ostentation as exaggerated as the dignity it represented. One
Grimmburger had been christened “the luxurious” in so many words,—they
had almost all deserved the nickname. So that the state of indebtedness of
the House was an historical and hereditary state, reaching back to the times
when all loans were a private concern of the Sovereign, and when John the
Headstrong, wishing to raise a loan, pledged the liberty of the most
prominent of his subjects to do so.
Those times were past; and Johann Albrecht III, a true-born
Grimmburger in his instincts, was unfortunately no longer in a position to
give free rein to his instincts. His fathers had played ducks and drakes with
the family funds, which were reduced to nothing or little better than
nothing. They had been spent on the building of country-seats with French
names and marble colonnades, on parks with fountains, on splendid operas
and all kinds of glittering shows. Figures were figures, and, much against
the inclination of the Grand Duke, in fact without his consent, the Court
was gradually cut down.
The Princess Catherine, the sister of the Grand Duke, was never spoken
of in the capital without a touch of sympathy. She had been married to a
member of a neighbouring ruling House, had been left a widow, and had
come back to her brother's capital, where she lived with her red-headed
children in what used to be the Heir Apparent's palace on the
Albrechtstrasse, before whose gates a gigantic doorkeeper stood all day

long in a pompous attitude with staff and shoulder-belt complete, while life
went on with peculiar moderation inside.
Prince Lambert, the Grand Duke's brother, did not come in for much
attention. There was a coolness between him and his relations, who could
not forgive him his mésalliance, and he hardly ever came to Court. He lived
in his villa overlooking the public gardens with his wife, an ex-dancer from
the Court Theatre who bore the title of Baroness von Rohrdorf, after one of
the Prince's properties; and there he divided his time between sport and
theatre-going, and struggling with his debts. He had dropped his dignities
and lived just like a private citizen; and if he was generally supposed to
have a struggle to make two ends meet, nobody gave him much sympathy
for it.
But alterations had been made in the old castle itself—reductions of
expenses, which were discussed in the city and the country, and discussed
usually in an apprehensive and regretful sense, because the people at
bottom wished to see themselves represented with due pride and
magnificence. Several high posts at the Court had been amalgamated for
economy's sake, and for years past Herr von Bühl zu Bühl had been Lord
Marshal, Chief Master of the Ceremonies, and Marshal of the Household at
once. There had been many discharges in the Board of Green Cloth and the
servants' hall, among the pike-staffs, yeomen of the guard, and grooms, the
master cooks and chief confectioners, the court and chamber lackeys. The
establishment of the royal stable had been reduced to the barest
minimum…. And what was the good of it all? The Grand Duke's contempt
for money showed itself in sudden outbursts against the squeeze; and while
the catering at the Court functions reached the extreme limits of permissible
simplicity, while at the supper at the close of the Thursday concerts in the
Marble Hall nothing but continual roast beef with sauce remoulade and ice-
pudding were served on the red velvet coverings of the gilt-legged tables,
while the daily fare at the Grand Duke's own candle-decked table was no
better than that of an ordinary middle-class family, he defiantly threw away
a whole year's income on the repair of the Grimmburg.
But meanwhile the rest of his seats were falling to pieces. Herr von
Bühl simply had not the means at his disposal for their upkeep. And yet it
was a pity in the case of many of them. Those which lay at some little

distance from the capital, or right out in the country, those luxurious
asylums cradled in natural beauties whose dainty names spoke of rest,
solitude, content, pastime, and freedom from care, or recalled a flower or a
jewel, served as holiday resorts for the citizens and strangers, and brought
in a certain amount in entrance-money which sometimes—not always—was
devoted to their upkeep. This was not the case, however, with those in the
immediate neighbourhood of the capital. There was the little schloss in the
Empire style, the Hermitage, standing silent and graceful on the edge of the
northern suburbs, but long uninhabited and deserted in the middle of its
over-grown park, which joined on to the public gardens, and looked out on
its little, mud-stiff pond. There was Schloss Delphinenort which, only a
quarter of an hour's walk from the other, in the northern part of the public
gardens themselves, all of which had once belonged to the Crown, mirrored
its untidiness in a huge square fountain-basin; both were in a sad state. That
Delphinenort in particular—that noble structure in the early baroque style,
with its stately entrance-colonnade, its high windows divided into little
white-framed panes, its carved festoons, its Roman busts in the niches, its
splendid approach-stairs, its general magnificence—should be abandoned to
decay for ever, as it seemed, was the sorrow of all lovers of architectural
beauty; and when one day, as the result of unforeseen, really strange
circumstances, it was restored to honour and youth, among them at any rate
the satisfaction was general…. For the rest, Delphinenort could be reached
in fifteen or twenty minutes from the spa-garden, which lay a little to the
north-west of the city, and was connected with its centre by a direct line of
trams.
The only residences used by the Grand Ducal family were Schloss
Hollerbrunn, the summer residence, an expanse of white buildings with
Chinese roofs, on the farther side of the chain of hills which surrounded the
capital, coolly and pleasantly situated on the river and famed for the elder-
hedges in its park; farther, Schloss Jägerpreis, the ivy-covered hunting-box
in the middle of the woods to westward; and lastly, the Town Castle itself,
called the “Old” Castle, although no new one existed.
It was called thus, with no idea of comparison, simply because of its
age, and the critics declared that its redecoration was more a matter of
urgency than that of the Grimmburg. Even the inner rooms, which were in
daily use by the family, were faded and cracked, not to mention the many

uninhabited and unused rooms in the oldest parts of the many-styled
building, which were all choked and flyblown. For some time past the
public had been refused admission to them,—a measure which was
obviously due to the shocking state of the castle. But people who could get
a peep, the tradesmen and the staff, declared that there was stuffing peeping
out of more than one stiff, imposing piece of furniture.
The castle and the Court Church together made up a grey, irregular, and
commanding mass of turrets, galleries, and gateways, half fortress, half
palace. Various epochs had contributed to its erection, and large parts of it
were decaying, weather-beaten, spoilt, and ready to fall into pieces. To the
west it dropped steeply down to the lower-lying city, and was connected
with it by battered steps clamped together with rusty iron bars. But the huge
main gate, guarded by lions couchant, and surmounted by the pious,
haughty motto: “Turris fortissima nomen Domini,” in almost illegible
carving, faced the Albrechtsplatz. It had its sentries and sentry boxes; it was
the scene of the changing of the guard, with drums and martial display; it
was the playground of all the urchins of the town.
The Old Castle had three courtyards, in the corners of which rose
graceful stair-turrets and between whose paving stones an unnecessary
amount of weeds was generally growing. But in the middle of one of the
courtyards stood the rose-bush,—it had stood there for ages in a bed,
although there was no other attempt at a garden to be seen. It was just like
any other rose-bush; it had a porter to tend it, it stood there in snow, rain,
and sunshine, and in due season it bore roses. These were exceptionally fine
roses, nobly formed, with dark-red velvet petals, a pleasure to look at, and
real masterpieces of nature. But those roses had one strange and dreadful
peculiarity: they had no scent! Or rather, they had a scent, but for some
unknown reason it was not the scent of roses, but of decay—a slight, but
plainly perceptible scent of decay. Everybody knew it; it was in the guide-
books, and strangers visited the courtyard to convince themselves of it with
their own noses. There was also a popular idea that it was written
somewhere that at some time or other, on a day of rejoicings and public
felicity, the blossoms of the rose-bush would begin to give forth a natural
and lovely odour.

After all, it was only to be expected that the popular imagination would
be exercised by the wonderful rose-bush. It was exercised in precisely the
same way by the “owl-chamber” in the Old Castle, which was used as a
lumber room. Its position was such that it could not be ignored, not far from
the “Gala Rooms,” and the “Hall of the Knights,” where the Court officers
used to assemble on Court days, and thus in a comparatively modern part of
the building. But there was certainly something uncanny about it, especially
as from time to time noises and cries occurred there, which could not be
heard outside the room and whose origin was unascertainable. People swore
that it came from ghosts, and many asserted that it was especially noticeable
when important and decisive events in the Grand Ducal family were
impending,—a more or less gratuitous rumour, which deserved no more
serious attention than other national products of an historical and dynastic
frame of mind, as for instance a certain dark prophecy which had been
handed down for hundreds of years and may be mentioned in this
connexion. It came from an old gipsy-woman, and was to the effect that a
prince “with one hand” would bring the greatest good fortune to the
country. The old hag had said: “He will give to the country with one hand
more than all the rest could give it with two.” That is how the prophecy was
recorded, and how it was quoted from time to time.
Round the Old Castle lay the capital, consisting of the Old Town and the
New Town, with their public buildings, monuments, fountains, and parks,
their streets and squares, named after princes, artists, deserving statesmen,
and distinguished citizens, divided into two very unequal halves by the
many-bridged river, which flowed in a great loop round the southern end of
the public garden, and was lost in the surrounding hills. The city was a
university town, it possessed an academy which was not in much request
and whose curricula were unpractical and rather old-fashioned; the
Professor of Mathematics, Privy Councillor Klinghammer, was the only one
of any particular repute in the scientific world. The Court Theatre, though
poorly endowed, maintained a decent level of performances. There was a
little musical, literary, and artistic life; a certain number of foreigners came
to the capital, wishing to share in its well-regulated life and such intellectual
attractions as it offered, among them wealthy invalids who settled down in
the villas round the spa-gardens and were held in honour by the State and
the community as doughty payers of taxes.

And now you know what the town was like, what the country was like,
and how matters stood.

III
HINNERKE THE SHOEMAKER

The Grand Duke's second son made his first public appearance on the
occasion of his christening. This festivity aroused the same interest in the
country as always attached to happenings within the Royal Family circle. It
took place after weeks of discussion and research as to the manner of its
arrangement, was held in the Court Church by the President of the High
Consistory, Dom Wislezenus, with all the due ceremonial, and in public, to
the extent that the Lord Marshal's office, by the Prince's orders, had issued
invitations to it to every class of society.
Herr von Bühl zu Bühl, a courtly ritualist of the greatest circumspection
and accuracy, in his full-dress uniform superintended, with the help of two
masters of the ceremonies, the whole of the intricate proceedings: the
gathering of the princely guests in the Gala Rooms, the solemn procession
in which they, attended by pages and squires, walked up the staircase of
Heinrich the Luxurious and through a covered passage into the church, the
entry of the spectators from the highest to the lowest, the distribution of the
seats, the observance of due decorum during the religious service itself, the
order of precedence at the congratulations which took place directly after
the service was ended…. He panted and puffed, smiled ingratiatingly,
brandished his staff, laughed in nervous bursts, and kept executing
retreating bows.
The Court Church was decorated with plants and draperies. In addition
to the representatives of the nobility, of the Court and country, and of the
higher and lower Civil Service, tradesmen, country folk, and common
artisans, in high good humour, filled the seats. But in a half-circle of red-

velvet arm-chairs in front of the altar sat the relations of the infant, foreign
princes as sponsors and the trusty representatives of such as had not come
in person. The assemblage at the christening of the Heir Apparent six years
before had not been more distinguished. For in view of Albrecht's delicacy,
the advanced age of the Grand Duke, and the dearth of Grimmburg
relations, the person of the second-born prince was at once recognized as an
important guarantee for the future of the dynasty. Little Albrecht took no
part in the ceremony; he was kept to his bed with an indisposition which
Surgeon-General Eschrich declared to be of a nervous character.
Dom Wislezenus preached from a text of the Grand Duke's own
choosing. The Courier, a gossiping city newspaper, had given a full account
of how the Grand Duke had one day fetched with his very own hands the
large metal-clasped family Bible out of the rarely visited library, had shut
himself up with it in his study, searched in it for a whole hour, at last copied
the text he had chosen on to a piece of paper with his pocket-pencil, signed
it “Johann Albrecht,” and sent it to the Court preacher. Dom Wislezenus
treated it in a musical style, so as to speak, like a leit motif. He turned it
inside and out, dressed it in different shapes and squeezed it dry; he
announced it in a whisper, then with the whole power of his lungs; and
whereas, delivered lightly and reflectively at the beginning of his discourse,
it seemed a thin, almost unsubstantial subject; at the close, when he for the
last time thundered it at the congregation, it appeared richly orchestrated,
heavily scored, and pregnant with emotion. Then he passed on to the actual
baptism, and carried it out at full length so that all could see it, with due
stress on every detail.
This, then, was the day of the prince's first public appearance, and that
he was the chief actor in the drama was clearly shown by the fact that he
was the last to come on the stage, and that his entry was distinct from that
of the rest of the company. Preceded by Herr von Bühl, he entered slowly,
in the arms of the Mistress of the Robes, Baroness von Schulenburg-
Tressen, and all eyes were fixed on him. He was asleep in his laces, his
veils, and his white silk robe. One of his little hands happened to be hidden.
His appearance evoked unusual delight and emotion. The cynosure and
centre of attraction, he lay quietly there, bearing it all, as may be supposed,
patiently and unassumingly. It was to his credit that he did not make any
disturbance, did not clutch or struggle; but, doubtless from innate

trustfulness, quietly resigned himself to the state which surrounded him,
bore it patiently, and even at that early date sank his own emotions in it….
The arms in which he reposed were frequently changed at fixed points
in the ceremony. Baroness Schulenburg handed him with a curtsey to his
aunt, Catherine, who, with a stern look on her face, was dressed in a newly
remade lilac silk dress, and wore Crown jewels in her hair. She laid him,
when the moment came, solemnly in his mother Dorothea's arms, who, in
all her stately beauty, with a smile on her proud and lovely mouth, held him
out a while to be blessed, and then passed him on. A cousin held him for a
minute or two, a child of eleven or twelve years with fair hair, thin sticks of
legs, cold bare arms, and a broad red silk sash which stuck out in a huge
knot behind her white dress. Her peaked face was anxiously fixed on the
Master of the Ceremonies….
Once the Prince woke up, but the flickering flames of the altar-candles
and a many-coloured shaft of sunlight dust blinded him, and made him
close his eyes again. And as there were no thoughts, but only soft
unsubstantial dreams in his head, as moreover he was feeling no pain at the
moment, he at once fell asleep again.
He received a number of names while he slept; but the chief names were
Klaus Heinrich.
And he slept on in his cot with its gilded cornice and blue silk curtains,
while the royal family feasted in the Marble Hall, and the rest of the guests
in the Hall of the Knights, in his honour.
The newspapers reported his first appearance; they described his looks
and his dress, and emphasized his truly princely behaviour, couching the
moving and inspiring account in words which had often done duty on
similar occasions. After that, the public for a long time heard little of him,
and he nothing of them.
He knew nothing as yet, understood nothing as yet, guessed nothing as
to the difficulty, danger, and sternness of the life prescribed for him; nothing
in his conduct suggested that he felt any contrast between himself and the
great public. His little existence was an irresponsible, carefully supervised
dream, played on a stage remote from the public stage; and this stage was

peopled with countless tinted phantoms, both stationary and active, some
emerging but transiently, some permanently at hand.
Of the permanent ones, the parents were far in the back-ground, and not
altogether distinguishable. They were his parents, that was certain, and they
were exalted, and friendly too. When they approached there was a feeling as
if everything else slipped away to each side, and left a respectable passage
along which they advanced towards him to show him a moment's
tenderness. The nearest and clearest things to him were two women with
white caps and aprons, two beings who were obviously all goodness, purity,
and loving-kindness, who tended his little body in every way, and were
much distressed when he cried…. A close partner in his life, too, was
Albrecht, his brother; but he was grave, distant, and much more advanced.
When Klaus Heinrich was two years old, another birth took place in the
Grimmburg, and a princess came into the world. Thirty-six guns were
allotted to her, because she was of the female sex, and she was given the
name of Ditlinde at the font. She was Klaus Heinrich's sister, and it was a
good thing for him that she appeared. She was at first surprisingly small and
weak, but she soon grew like him, caught him up, and the two became
inseparable. They shared each other's lives, each other's views, feelings, and
ideas: they communicated to each other their impressions of the world
outside them.
It was a world, they were impressions, calculated to produce a reflective
frame of mind. In winter they lived in the old castle. In summer they lived
in Hollerbrunn, the summer schloss, on the river, in the cool, in the scent of
the violet hedges with white statues between them. On the way thither, or if
at any other time father or mother took them with them in one of the brown
carriages with the little golden crown on the door, all the passers-by
stopped, cheered, and took their hats off; for father was Prince and Ruler of
the country, consequently they themselves were Prince and Princess—
undoubtedly in precisely the same sense as were the princes and princesses
in the French stories which their Swiss governess told them. That was worth
consideration, it was at any rate a peculiar occurrence. When other children
heard the stories, they necessarily regarded the princes which figured in
them from a great distance, and as solemn beings whose rank was a
glorification of reality and with whom to concern themselves was

undoubtedly a chastening of their thoughts, and an escape from the ordinary
existence. But Klaus Heinrich and Ditlinde regarded the heroes of the
stories as their own equals and fellows, they breathed the same air as them,
they lived in a schloss like them, they stood on a fraternal footing with
them, and were justified in identifying themselves with them. Was it their
lot, then, to live always and continually on the height to which others only
climbed when stories were being told to them? The Swiss governess, true to
her general principles, would have found it impossible to deny it, if the
children had asked the question in so many words.
The Swiss governess was the widow of a Calvinistic minister and was
in charge of both children, each of whom had two lady's maids as well. She
was black and white throughout: her cap was white and her dress black, her
face was white, with white warts on one cheek, and her smooth hair had a
mixed black-and-white metallic sheen. She was very precise and easily put
out. When things happened which, though quite without danger, could not
be allowed, she clasped her white hands and turned her eyes up to heaven.
But her quietest and severest mode of punishment for serious occasions was
to “look sadly” at the children—implying that they had lost their self-
respect. On a fixed day she began, on a hint from higher quarters, to address
Klaus Heinrich and Ditlinde as “Grand Ducal Highness,” and from that day
she was more easily put out than before….
But Albrecht was called “Royal Highness.” Aunt Catherine's children
were members of the family only on the distaff side, and so were of less
importance. But Albrecht was Crown Prince and Heir Apparent, so that it
was not at all unfitting that he should look so pale and distant and keep so
much to his bed. He wore Austrian coats with flap pockets and cut long
behind. His head had a big bump at the back and narrow temples, and he
had a long face. While still quite young he had come through a serious
illness, which, in the opinion of Surgeon-General Eschrich, was the reason
for his heart having “shifted over to the right.” However that might be, he
had seen Death face to face, a fact which had probably intensified the shy
dignity which was natural to him. He seemed to be extremely standoffish,
cold from embarrassment, and proud from lack of graciousness. He lisped a
little and then blushed at doing so, because he was always criticizing
himself. His shoulder-blades were a little uneven. One of his eyes had some
weakness or other, so that he used glasses for writing his exercises, which

helped to make him look old and wise…. Albrecht's tutor, Doctor Veit, a
man with hanging mud-coloured moustaches, hollow cheeks, and wan eyes
unnaturally far apart, was always at his left hand. Doctor Veit was always
dressed in black, and carried a book dangling down his thigh, with his
index-finger thrust between its leaves.
Klaus Heinrich felt that Albrecht did not care much for him, and he saw
that it was not only because of his inferiority in years. He himself was
tender-hearted and prone to tears, that was his nature. He cried, when
anybody “looked sadly” at him, and when he knocked his forehead against
a corner of the nursery table, so that it bled, he howled from sympathy with
his forehead. But Albrecht had faced Death, yet never cried on any
condition. He stuck his short, rounded underlip a little forward, and sucked
it lightly against the upper one—that was all. He was most superior. The
Swiss governess referred in so many words to him in matters of comme il
faut as a model. He had never allowed himself to converse with the
gorgeous creatures who belonged to the court, not exactly men and human
beings, but lackeys—as Klaus Heinrich had sometimes done in unguarded
moments. For Albrecht was not curious. The look in his eyes was that of a
lonely boy, who had no wish to let the world intrude upon him. Klaus
Heinrich, on the contrary, chatted with the lackeys from that same wish, and
from an urgent though perhaps dangerous and improper desire to feel some
contact with what lay outside the charmed circle. But the lackeys, young
and old, at the doors, in the corridors and the passage-rooms, with their
sand-coloured gaiters and brown coats, on the red-gold lace of which the
same little crown as on the carriage doors was repeated again and again—
they straightened their knees when Klaus Heinrich chatted to them, laid
their great hands on the seams of the thick velvet breeches, bent a little
forward towards him, so that the aiguillettes dangled from their shoulders,
and returned various, highly proper answers, the most important part of
which was the address “Grand Ducal Highness,” and smiled as they did so
with an expression of cautious sympathy, which recalled the words of the
old song, “The lad that is born to be king.” Sometimes when he got the
chance, Klaus Heinrich went on voyages of discovery in uninhabited parts
of the schloss, with Ditlinde, his sister, when she was old enough.
At that time he was having lessons from Schulrat Dröge, Rector of the
city schools, who was chosen to be his first tutor. Schulrat Dröge was a

born pedagogue. His index-finger, with its folds of dry skin and gold
stoneless signet-ring, followed the line of print when Klaus Heinrich read,
waiting before going on to the next word until the preceding one had been
read. He came in a frock-coat and white waistcoat, with the ribbon of some
inferior order in his button-hole, and in broad shiny boots with brown
upper-leathers. He wore a pointed grey beard, and bushy grey hair grew out
of his big, broad ears. His brown hair was brushed up into points on his
temples, and so precisely parted as to show clearly his yellow dry scalp,
which was full of holes like canvas. But thin grey hair was visible under the
strong brown hair behind and at the sides. He bowed slightly to the lackeys
who opened the door for him to the big schoolroom at whose table Klaus
Heinrich sat waiting for him. But to Klaus Heinrich he did not confine
himself to a superficial bow as he entered the room, but made a pronounced
and deliberate bow before he came up to him, and waited for his exalted
pupil to offer him his hand. This Klaus Heinrich did; and the fact that he did
so twice, not only when he greeted him, but also when he took his
departure, just in the graceful and winning way in which he had seen his
father give his hand to those who expected it, seemed to him far more
important and essential than all the instruction which came between the two
ceremonies.
After Schulrat Dröge had come and gone any number of times, Klaus
Heinrich had imperceptibly gained a knowledge of all sorts of practical
things: to everybody's surprise he was quite at home in every kind of
reading, writing, and arithmetic, and could reel off to order the names of the
towns in the Grand Duchy pretty well without an omission. But, as has been
said, this was not what was in his opinion really necessary and essential for
him. From time to time, when he was inattentive at his lessons, the Schulrat
rebuked him with a reference to his exalted calling. “Your exalted calling
requires you …” he would say or: “You owe it to your exalted calling….”
What was his calling, and how was it exalted? Why did the lackeys smile as
if to say, “The lad that is born to be king,” and why was his governess so
much put out when he let himself go a little in speech or action? He looked
round him, and at times, when he looked steadily and long and forced
himself to probe the essence of the phenomena around him, a dim
apprehension arose in him of the “aloofness” of his position.

He was standing in one of the “gala rooms,” the Silver Hall, in which,
as he knew, his father the Grand Duke received solemn deputations—he
happened to have wandered into it by himself and he took stock of his
surroundings.
It was winter-time and cold, his little shoes were reflected in the glass-
clear yellow squares of the parquet which spread like a sheet of ice before
him. The ceiling, covered with silvered arabesque-work, was so high that a
long metal shaft was necessary to allow the many-armed silver chandelier
with its forest of tall white candles to swing in the middle of the great
space. Below the ceiling came silver-framed coats-of-arms in faded colours.
The walls were edged with silver, and hung with white silk with yellow
spots, not to mention a split here and there. A sort of monumental
baldachin, resting on two strong silver columns and decorated in front with
a silver garland, broken in two places, from the top of which looked down a
portrait of a deceased, powdered ancestress draped in imitation ermine,
formed the chimney-piece. On each side of the fireplace were broad
silvered arm-chairs upholstered in torn white silk. On the side walls
opposite each other towered enormous silver-framed mirrors, whose glass
was covered with blind spots, and on each side of whose broad white
marble ledges stood two candelabra which carried big white candles like the
sconces on the walls all round, and like the four silver candlesticks which
stood in the corners. Before the high windows to the right, looking over the
Albrechtsplatz, whose outer ledges were covered with snow, white silk
curtains, yellow spotted, with silver cords and trimmed with lace, fell in
rich, and heavy folds to the floor. In the middle of the room, under the
chandelier, a moderate-sized table, with a pedestal made like a knobby
silver tree-stump and a top made of eight triangles of opaque mother-of-
pearl, stood useless, as there were no chairs round it, and it could only
serve, and be meant to serve, at the very best, as a support for your
Highness, when the lackeys opened the doors and ushered in the solemn
figures in Court dress who came to present their respects to you….
Klaus Heinrich looked round the hall, and clearly saw that there was
nothing here which reminded him of the realities which Schulrat Dröge, for
all his bows, was always impressing upon him. Here all was Sunday and
solemnity, just as in church, where also he would have felt the calls made
on him by his tutor out of place. Everything here was severe and empty

show and a formal symmetry, self-sufficient, pointless, and uncomfortable
—whose functions were obviously to create an atmosphere of awe and
tension, not of freedom and ease, to inculcate an attitude of decorum and
discreet self-obliteration towards an unnamed object. And it was cold in the
silver hall—cold as in the halls of the snow-king, where the children's
hearts froze stiff.
Klaus Heinrich walked over the glassy floor and stood at the table in the
middle. He laid his right hand lightly on the mother-of-pearl table, and
placed the left hand on his hip, so far behind that it rested almost in the
small of his back, and was not visible from in front, for it was an ugly sight,
brown and wrinkled, and had not kept pace with the right in its growth. He
stood resting on one leg, with the other a little advanced, and kept his eyes
fixed on the silver ornaments of the door. It was not the place nor the
attitude for dreaming, and yet he dreamed.
He saw his father, and looked at him as he looked at the hall, to try to
grasp his meaning. He saw the dull haughtiness of his blue eyes, the
furrows which, proudly and morosely, ran from nostril down to his beard,
and were often deepened or accentuated by weariness and boredom….
Nobody dared to address him or to go freely up to him and speak to him
unasked—not even the children: it was forbidden, it was dangerous. He
answered, it is true: but he answered distantly and coldly, a look of
helplessness, of gêne, passed over his face, which Klaus Heinrich was quite
able to understand.
Papa made a speech and sent his petitioners away; that is what always
happened. He gave an audience at the beginning of the Court ball, and at
the end of the dinner with which the winter began. He went with mamma
through the rooms and halls, in which the members of the Court were
gathered, went through the Marble Hall and the Gala Rooms, through the
Picture Gallery, the Hall of the Knights, the Hall of the Twelve Months, the
Audience Chamber, and the Ball-room—went not only in a fixed direction,
but along a fixed path which bustling Herr von Bühl kept free for him, and
addressed a few words to the assembled throng. Whoever was addressed by
him bowed low, left a space of parquet between himself and papa, and
answered soberly and with signs of gratification. Thereupon papa greeted
them over the intervening space, from the stronghold of precise regulations

which prescribed the others' movements and warranted his own attitude,
greeted them smilingly and lightly and passed on. Smilingly and lightly….
Of course, of course, Klaus Heinrich quite understood it, the look of
helplessness which passed for one moment over papa's face when anybody
was impetuous enough to address him unasked—understood it, and shared
his feeling of gêne! It wounded something, some soft, virgin envelope of
our existence which was so essential to it that we stood helpless when
anybody roughly broke through it. And yet it was this same something
which made our eyes so dull, and gave us those deep furrows of
boredom….
Klaus Heinrich stood and saw—he saw his mother and her beauty,
which was famed and extolled far and wide. He saw her standing en robe de
ceremonie, in front of her great candle-lighted glass, for sometimes, on
solemn occasions, he was allowed to be present when the Court hairdresser
and the bed-chamber women put the last touches to her toilette. Herr von
Knobelsdorff also was present when mamma put on jewels from the Crown
regalia, watched and noted down the stones which she decided to use. With
all the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes showing, he would make mamma
laugh with his droll remarks, so that her soft cheeks filled with lovely little
dimples. But her laugh was full of art and grace, and she looked in the glass
as she laughed, as if she were practising it.
People said that Slav blood flowed in her veins, and that it was that
which gave the sweet radiance to her deep-blue eyes and the night of her
raven hair. Klaus Heinrich was like her, so he heard people say, in that he
too had steel-blue eyes with dark hair, while Albrecht and Ditlinde were
fair, just as papa had been before his hair turned grey. But he was far from
handsome, owing to the breadth of his cheek-bones, and especially to his
left hand, which mamma was always reminding him to hide adroitly, in the
side-pocket of his coat, behind his back, or under the breast of his jacket—
especially when his affectionate impulses prompted him to throw both his
arms round her. Her look was cold when she bade him mind his hand.
He saw her as she was in the picture in the Marble Hall: in a short silk
dress with lace flounces and long gloves, which showed only a glimpse of
her ivory arm under her puffed sleeves, a diadem in the night of her hair,
her stately form erect, a smile of cool perfection on her strangely hard lips

—and behind her the metallic-blue wheel of a peacock's tail. Her face was
soft, but its beauty made it stern, and it was easy to see that her heart too
was stern and absorbed in her beauty. She slept far into the day when a ball
or party was in prospect, and ate only yolks of eggs, so as not to overload
herself. Then in the evening she was radiant as she walked on papa's arm
along the prescribed path through the halls—grey-haired dignitaries blushed
when they were addressed by her, and the Courier reported that it was not
only because of her exalted rank that her Royal Highness had been the
queen of the ball. Yes, people felt happier for the sight of her, whether it
was at the Court or outside in the streets, or in the afternoon driving or
riding in the park—and their cheeks kindled. Flowers and cheers met her,
all hearts went out to her, and it was clear that the people in cheering her
were cheering themselves, and that their glad cries meant that they were
cheered and elevated by the sight of her. But Klaus Heinrich knew well that
mamma had spent long, anxious hours on her beauty, that there was practice
and method in her smiles and greetings, and that her own pulse beat never
the quicker for anything or anyone.
Did she love anyone—himself, Klaus Heinrich, for instance, for all his
likeness to her? Why, of course she did, when she had time to, even when
she coldly reminded him of his hand. But it seemed as if she reserved any
expression or sign of her tender feelings for occasions when lookers-on
were present who were likely to be edified by them. Klaus Heinrich and
Ditlinde did not often come into contact with their mother, chiefly because
they, unlike Albrecht, the Heir Apparent, for some time past, did not have
their meals at their parents' table, but apart with the Swiss governess; and
when they were summoned to mamma's boudoir, which happened once a
week, the interview consisted in a few casual questions and polite answers
—giving no scope for displays of feeling, while its whole drift seemed to be
the proper way to sit in an arm-chair with a teacup full of milk.
But at the concerts which took place in the Marble Hall every other
Thursday under the name of “The Grand Duchess's Thursdays,” and were
so arranged that the Court sat at little gilt-legged velvet-covered tables,
while the leading tenor Schramm from the Court Theatre, accompanied by
an orchestra, sang so lustily that the veins swelled on his bald temples—at
the concerts Klaus Heinrich and Ditlinde, in their best clothes, were
sometimes allowed in the Hall for one song and the succeeding pause, when

mamma showed how fond she was of them, showed it to them and to
everybody else in so heartfelt and expressive a way that nobody could have
any doubt about it. She summoned them to the table at which she sat, and
told them with a happy smile to sit beside her, laid their cheeks on her
shoulders or bosom, looked at them with a soft, soulful look in her eyes and
kissed them both on forehead and mouth. Then the ladies bent their heads
and their eyelids quivered, while the men slowly nodded and bit their lips in
order, in manly wise, to restrain their emotions…. Yes, it was beautiful, and
the children felt they had their share in the effect, which was greater than
anything Schramm the singer could procure with his most inspired notes,
and nestled close to mamma. For Klaus Heinrich at last realized that it was
in the nature of things, no business of ours, to have a simple feeling and to
be made happy by it, but that it was our duty to make our tenderness visible
to the Hall and to exhibit it, that the hearts of our guests might swell.
Occasionally the people outside in the town and park also were allowed
to see that mamma loved us. For while Albrecht drove or rode—bad rider
though he was—with the Grand Duke early in the morning, Klaus Heinrich
and Ditlinde had from time to time to take turns at accompanying mamma
on her drives, which took place in the spring and autumn at the time of the
afternoon promenade, with Baroness von Schulenburg-Tressen in
attendance. Klaus Heinrich was a little excited and feverish before these
drives, to which unfortunately no enjoyment, but on the contrary a great
deal of trouble and effort attached. For, directly the open carriage came out
through the Lions Gate on to the Albrechtsplatz, past the grenadiers at the
“present,” there were a lot of people collected, waiting for it—men, women,
and children, who shouted and stared full of curiosity; and that meant
pulling oneself together, sitting up erect, smiling, hiding the left hand, and
saluting in such a way as to make the people happy. And so it went on right
through the city and the fields. Other vehicles were obliged to keep away
from ours; the police looked to that. But the foot-passengers stood on the
kerb, the women curtseyed, the men took off their hats and looked with
eyes full of devotion and importunate curiosity,—and this was the
impression Klaus Heinrich got: that they all were there just to be there and
to stare, while he was there to show himself and to be stared at; and his was
far the harder part. He kept his left hand in his coat-pocket and smiled as
mamma wished him to, while he felt that his cheeks were aglow. But the

Courier reported that the rosy redness of our little duke's cheeks showed
what a healthy boy he was.
Klaus Heinrich was thirteen years old when he stood at the solitary
mother-of-pearl table in the middle of the cold silver hall, and tried to probe
the reality of things around him. And as he scrutinized the various
phenomena: the empty, torn pride of the room, aimless and uncomfortable,
the symmetry of the white candles, which seemed to express awe and
tension and discreet self-obliteration, the passing shadow on his father's
face when anybody addressed him unasked, the cool and calculated beauty
of his mother, whose one object was admiration, the devoted and
importunately curious gaze of the people outside—then a suspicion seized
him, a vague and approximate conception of his situation. But
simultaneously horror seized him, terror at such a destiny, a dread of his
“exalted calling,” so strong that he turned round and covered his eyes with
both his hands—both, the little wrinkled left one too—and sank down at the
lonely table and cried, cried from sympathy with himself and his heart—till
they came, and wrung their hands and turned their eyes up to heaven and
questioned him, and led him away…. He gave out that he had been
frightened, and that was quite true.
He had known nothing, understood nothing, suspected nothing of the
difficulty and sternness of the life prescribed for him; he had been merry
and careless, and had given his guardians many a scare. But there was no
resisting the impressions which soon came thronging upon him and forcing
him to open his eyes to the real state of things. In the northern suburbs, not
far from the spa-gardens, a new road had been opened: people told him that
the City Council had decided to call it “Klaus Heinrich Strasse.” Once when
driving out with his mother and he called at a picture-dealer's, they wanted
to buy something. The footman waited at the carriage door, the public
gathered round, the picture-dealer bustled about—there was nothing new in
all that. But Klaus Heinrich for the first time noticed his photograph in the
shop window. It was hanging next those of artists and great men, men with
lofty brows, with a look of the loneliness of fame in their eyes.
People were satisfied with him on the whole. He gained dignity with
years, and self-possession under the pressure of his exalted calling. But the
strange thing was that his longing increased at the same time: that roving

inquisitiveness which Schulrat Dröge was not the man to satisfy, and which
had impelled him to chat with the lackeys. He had given up doing that; it
did not lead to anything. They smiled at him, confirming him by that very
laugh in the suspicion that his world of the symmetrically marshalled
candles presented an unconscious antithesis to the world outside, but they
were no manner of help to him. He looked round about him on the
expeditions, in the walks he took through the town gardens with Ditlinde
and the Swiss governess, followed by a lackey. He felt that if they were all
of one mind to stare at him, while he was all alone and made conspicuous
just to be stared at, he also had no share in their being and doing. He
realized that they presumably were not always as he saw them, when they
stood and greeted him with deferential looks; that it must be his birth and
upbringing which made their looks deferential, and that it was with them as
with the children when they heard about fairy princes, and were thereby
refined and elevated above their work-a-day selves. But he did not know
what they looked like and were when they were not refined and elevated
above their work-a-day selves—his “exalted calling” concealed this from
him, and it was a dangerous and improper wish to allow his heart to be
moved by things which his exaltedness concealed from him. And yet he
wished it, he wished it from a jealousy and that roving inquisitiveness
which sometimes drove him to undertake voyages of exploration into
unknown regions of the old Schloss, with Ditlinde his sister, when the
opportunity offered.
They called it “rummaging,” and great was the charm of “rummaging”;
for it was difficult to acquire familiarity with the ground-plan and structure
of the old Schloss, and every time they penetrated far enough into the
remoter parts they found rooms, closets, and empty halls which they had
not yet trodden, or strange round-about ways to already-known rooms. But
once when thus wandering about they had a rencontre, an adventure befell
them, which made a great impression on Klaus Heinrich, though he did not
show it, and opened his eyes.
The opportunity came. While the Swiss governess was absent on leave
to attend the evening service, they had drunk their milk from tea-cups with
the Grand Duchess, accompanied by the two ladies-in-waiting, had been
dismissed and directed to go back hand-in-hand to their ordinary
occupations in the nursery, which lay not far off. It was thought that they

needed nobody to go with them; Klaus Heinrich was old enough to take
care of Ditlinde, of course. He was; and in the corridor he said: “Yes,
Ditlinde, we will certainly go back to the nursery, but we need not go, you
know, the shortest, dullest way. We'll rummage a bit first. If you go up one
step and follow the corridor as far as where the arches begin, you'll find a
hall with pillars behind them, and if you go out of one of the doors of the
hall with pillars—clamber up the corkscrew staircase, you come to a room
with a wooden roof; and there are lots of funny things lying about there. But
I don't know what comes after the room, and that's what we've got to find
out. So let's go.”
“Yes, let's,” said Ditlinde, “but not too far, Klaus Heinrich, and not
where it's too dusty, for this dress shows everything.”
She was wearing a dress of dark-red velvet, trimmed with satin of the
same colour. She had at that time dimples in her elbows, and light golden
hair, that curled round her ears like ram's horns. In after years she was pale
and thin. She too had the broad, rather over-prominent cheek-bones of her
father and nation, but they were not accentuated, so that they did not spoil
the lines of her face. But with Klaus Heinrich they were strong and
emphatic, so that they seemed somewhat to encroach upon, to narrow and
to lengthen his steel-coloured eyes. His dark hair was smoothly parted, cut
in a careful rectangle on the temples, and brushed straight back from the
forehead. He wore an open jacket with a waistcoat buttoning at the throat
and a white turn-down collar. In his right hand he held Ditlinde's little hand,
but his left arm hung down, with its brown, wrinkled, and undeveloped
hand, thin and short from the shoulder. He was glad that he could let it hang
without bothering to conceal it; for there was nobody there to stare and to
require to be elevated and inspired, and he himself might stare and examine
to his heart's content.
So they went and rummaged as they liked. Quiet reigned in the
corridors, and they saw hardly a lackey in the distance. They climbed up a
staircase and followed the passage till they came to the arches, showing that
they were in the part of the Schloss which dated from the time of John the
Headstrong and Heinrich the Confessor, as Klaus Heinrich knew and
explained. They came to the hall of the pillars, and Klaus Heinrich there
whistled several notes close after each other, for the first were still sounding

when the last came, and so a clear chord rang under the vaulted ceiling.
They scrambled groping and often on hands and knees up the stone winding
staircase which opened behind one of the heavy doors, and reached the
room with the wooden ceiling, in which there were several strange objects.
There were some broken muskets of clumsy size with thickly rusted locks,
which had been too bad for the museum, and a discarded throne with torn
red velvet cushions, short wide-splayed lion-legs, and cupids hovering over
the chair-back, bearing a crown. Then there was a wicked-looking, dusty,
cage-like, and horribly interesting thing, which intrigued them much and
long. If they were not quite mistaken, it was a rat-trap, for they could see
the iron spike to put the bacon on, and it was dreadful to think how the trap-
door must fall down behind the great beast…. Yes, this took time, and when
they stood up after examining the rat-trap their faces were hot, and their
clothes stiff with rust and dust. Klaus Heinrich brushed them both down,
but that did not do much good, for his hands were as filthy as his clothes.
And suddenly they saw that dusk had begun to fall. They must return
quickly, Ditlinde insisted anxiously on that; it was too late to go any farther.
“That's an awful pity,” said Klaus Heinrich. “Who knows what else we
mightn't have found, and when we shall get another chance of rummaging,
Ditlinde!” But he followed his sister and they hurried back down the turret-
stairs, crossed the hall of the pillars, and came out into the arcade, intending
to hurry home hand-in-hand.
Thus they wandered on for a time; but Klaus Heinrich shook his head,
for it seemed to him that this was not the way he had come. They went still
farther; but several signs told them that they had mistaken their direction.
This stone seat with the griffin-heads was not standing here before. That
pointed window looked to the west over the low-lying quarter of the town
and not over the inner courtyard with the rose-bush. They were going
wrong, it was no use denying it; perhaps they had left the hall of the pillars
by a wrong exit—anyhow they had absolutely lost their way.
They went back a little, but their disquietude would not allow them to
go very far back, so they turned right about again, and decided to push on
the way they had already come, and to trust to luck. Their way lay through a
damp, stuffy atmosphere, and great undisturbed cobwebs stretched across
the corners; they went with heavy hearts, and Ditlinde especially was full of

repentance and on the brink of tears. People would notice her absence,
would “look sadly” at her, perhaps even tell the Grand Duke; they would
never find the way, would be forgotten and die of hunger. And where there
was a rat-trap, Klaus Heinrich, there were also rats…. Klaus Heinrich
comforted her. They only had to find the place where the armour and
crossed standards hung; from that point he was quite sure of the direction.
And suddenly—they had just passed a bend in the winding passage—
suddenly something happened. It startled them dreadfully.
What they had heard was more than the echo of their own steps, they
were other, strange steps, heavier than theirs; they came towards them now
quickly, now hesitatingly, and were accompanied by a snorting and
grumbling which made their blood run cold. Ditlinde made as if to run
away from fright: but Klaus Heinrich would not let go her hand, and they
stood with starting eyes waiting for what was coming.
It was a man who was just visible in the half-darkness, and, calmly
considered, his appearance was not horrifying. He was squat in figure, and
dressed like a veteran soldier. He wore a frock-coat of old-fashioned cut, a
woollen comforter round his neck and a medal on his breast. He held in one
hand a curly top-hat and in the other the bone handle of his clumsily rolled-
up umbrella, which he tapped on the flags in time with his steps. His thin
grey hair was plastered up from one ear in wisps over his skull. He had
bow-shaped black eyebrows, and a yellow-white beard, which grew like the
Grand Duke's, heavy upper-lids, and watery blue eyes with pouches of
withered skin under them; he had the usual high cheek-bones, and the
furrows of his sun-burnt face were like crevasses. When he had come quite
close he seemed to recognize the children, for he placed himself against the
outer wall of the passage, at once fronted round and began to make a
number of bows, consisting of several short forward jerks of his whole body
from the feet upwards, while he imparted a look of honesty to his mouth
and held his top-hat crown-downwards in front of him. Klaus Heinrich
meant to pass him by with a nod, but was surprised into halting, for the
veteran began to speak.
“I beg pardon!” he suddenly grunted; then went on in a more natural
voice: “I earnestly beg your young Highnesses' pardon! But would your
young Highnesses take it amiss if I addressed to them the request that they

would very kindly acquaint me with the nearest way to the nearest exit? It
need not actually be the Albrechtstor—not in the least necessary that it
should be the Albrechtstor. But any exit from the Schloss, if I dare be so
free as to address this inquiry to your young Highnesses….”
Klaus Heinrich had laid his left hand on his hip, right behind, so that it
lay almost in his back, and looked at the ground. The man had simply
spoken to him, had engaged him directly and unavoidably in conversation;
he thought of his father and knitted his brows. He pondered feverishly over
the question how he ought to behave in this topsy-turvy and incorrect
situation. Albrecht would have pursed up his mouth, sucked with his short,
rounded under-lip lightly against the upper, and passed on in silence—so
much was certain. But what was the use of rummaging if at the first serious
adventure one intended to pass on in dignity and dudgeon? And the man
was honest, and had nothing wicked about him: that Klaus Heinrich could
see when he forced himself to raise his eyes. He simply said: “You come
with us, that's the best way. I will willingly show you where you must turn
off to get to an exit.” And they went on.
“Thanks!” said the man. “Ever so many thanks for your kindness!
Heaven knows I should never have thought that I should live to walk about
the Old Schloss one day with your young Highnesses. But there it is, and
after all my annoyance—for I have been annoyed, terribly annoyed, that's
true and certain—after all my annoyance I have at any rate this honour and
this satisfaction.”
Klaus Heinrich longed to ask what might have been the reason for so
much annoyance; but the veteran went straight on (and tapped his umbrella
in regular time on the flags as he went). “… and I recognized your young
Highnesses at once, although it is a bit dark here in the passage, for I have
seen you many a time in the carriage, and was always delighted, for I
myself have just such a couple of brats at home—I mean to say, mine are
brats, mine are … and the boy is called Klaus Heinrich too.”
“Just like me?” said Klaus Heinrich, overjoyed…. “What luck!”
“There's no luck about it,” said the man, “considering he was named
expressly after you, for he is a couple of months younger than you, and

there are lots of children in the town and country who are called that, and
all of them after you. No, one can hardly call it luck….”
Klaus Heinrich concealed his hand and remained silent.
“Yes, recognized you at once,” said the man. “And I thought, thank
Heaven, thought I, that's what I call fortune in misfortune, and they'll help
you out of the trap into which you have stuck your nose, you old blockhead,
and you've good reason to laugh, thought I, for there's many a one has
trudged about here and been guyed by those popinjays, and hasn't got out of
it so well….”
Popinjays? thought Klaus Heinrich … and guyed? He looked straight in
front of him, he did not dare to ask. A fear, a hope struck him…. He said
quite simply: “They … they guyed you?”
“Not half!” said the man. “I should think they did, the ogres, and no
mistake! But I don't mind telling your young Highnesses, young though you
are, but it'll do you good to hear it, that these people here are a set of
wasters. A man comes and delivers his work as respectfully as possible….
Yes, bless my soul!” he cried suddenly, and tapped his forehead with his
hat. “I haven't yet introduced myself to your young Highnesses and told you
who I am, have I?—Hinnerke!” he said, “Master-cobbler Hinnerke, Royal
warrant-holder, pensioner and medallist.” And he pointed with the index-
finger of his great, rough, yellow-spotted hand to the medal on his breast.
“The fact is, that his Royal Highness, your father, has been graciously
pleased to order a pair of boots from me, top-boots, riding-boots, with
spurs, and made of the best quality patent-leather. They're my speciality,
and I made them myself and took a lot of trouble about them, and they were
ready to-day and ever so smart. ‘You must go yourself,’ says I to myself….
I have a boy who delivers, but I says to myself: ‘You must go yourself, they
are for the Grand Duke.’ So I rig myself out and take my boots and go to the
Schloss. ‘All right,’ say the lackeys down below, and want to take them
from me, ‘No!’ say I, for I don't trust them. It's my reputation gets me my
orders and my warrant, let me tell your Highnesses, not because I tip the
lackeys. But the fellows are spoilt by tips from the warrant-holders, and
want to get something out of me for their trouble. ‘No,’ say I, for I'm not a
one for bribing and underhand dealings, ‘I'll deliver them myself, and if I

can't give them to the Grand Duke himself, I'll give them to Valet Prahl.’
They looked daggers, but they say: ‘Then you must go up there!’ And I go
up there. There are some more of them up there, and they say ‘All right!’
and want to take charge of the boots, but I ask for Prahl and stick to it. They
say: ‘He's having his tea,’ but I'm determined and say, ‘Then I'll wait till
he's finished.’ And just as I say it, who comes by in his buckled shoes but
Valet Prahl. And he sees me, and I give him the boots with a few modest
words, and he says ‘All right!’ and actually adds: ‘They're fine!’ and nods
and takes them off. Now I'm satisfied, for Prahl, he's safe, so off I go. ‘Hi!’
cries somebody. ‘Mr. Hinnerke! You're going wrong!’ ‘Damn!’ says I, and
right about, and go off in the other direction. But that was the stupidest
thing I could do, for they had sent me to Jericho, and that's just where I
don't want to go. I walk on a bit and meet another one, and ask him the way
to the Albrechtstor. But he spots at once what's up, and says: ‘Go up the
stairs, and then keep to the left and then down again, and you'll cut off a
large corner!’ And I believe he means it kindly and do what he says, and get
more and more muddled and altogether lose my bearings. Then I see that
it's not my fault, but the rogues', and it strikes me that I have heard that they
often play that trick on Court tradesmen who don't tip them, and let them
wander about till they sweat. And my fury makes me blind and stupid, and I
get to places where there's not a living soul, and don't know where I am and
get properly put about. And at last I meet your young Highnesses. Yes,
that's how it is with me and my boots!” ended Shoemaker Hinnerke, and
wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.
Klaus Heinrich squeezed Ditlinde's hand. His heart beat so loud that he
absolutely forgot to hide his left hand. That was it. That was a touch of it, an
outline! No doubt about it, that was the sort of thing his “exalted calling”
shielded him from, the sort of thing people did when they were in the
ordinary, work-a-day frame of mind. The lackeys…. He said nothing, words
failed him.
“I see that your young Highnesses don't answer,” said the shoemaker.
And his honest voice was filled with emotion. “I oughtn't to have told you,
because it isn't your business to get to know all the wickedness that goes on.
But yet I don't know,” he said, laid his head on one side and snapped his
fingers, “that it can do any harm, that it can do you any harm for the future
and later on….”

“The lackeys …” said Klaus Heinrich, and took a plunge … “are they
wicked? I can quite well fancy …”
“Wicked?” said the cobbler. “Good-for-nothings they are. That's the
name for them. Do you know what they're good for? They keep the goods
back when no tip's forthcoming, keep them back when the tradesman
delivers them punctually at the time ordered, and only hand them over days
late, so that the tradesman gets blamed, and is considered by the Grand
Duke to have failed in his duty and he loses his orders. That's what they do
without scruple, and the whole town knows it….”
“That's most annoying!” said Klaus Heinrich. He listened, listened. He
hardly realized how much shocked he was. “Do they do anything else?” he
said. “I'm quite sure they must do other things of the same kind.”
“You bet!” said the man, and laughed. “No, they don't miss a chance, let
me tell your Highnesses, they have all sorts of dodges. There's the door-
opening joke, for instance…. That's like this. Your father, our gracious
Grand Duke, grants an audience to somebody, let's suppose he's a new hand
and it's his first time at Court. And he comes in a frock coat all sweat and
shivers, for it is of course no trifle to stand before his Royal Highness for
the first time. And the lackeys laugh at him, because they're quite at home
here, and tow him into the ante-room, and he doesn't know where he is, and
absolutely forgets to tip the lackeys. But then comes his moment, and the
adjutant says his name, and the lackeys throw open the double-doors and let
him into the room in which the Grand Duke is waiting. Then the new hand
stands there and bows and says what he has to say, and the Grand Duke
graciously gives him his hand, and so he is dismissed and walks backwards,
and thinks the folding-doors are going to open behind him, as he has been
definitely promised. But they don't open, I tell your Highnesses, for the
lackeys have got their knife into him, because they haven't been tipped, and
don't stir a finger for him outside there. But he daren't turn round,
absolutely daren't, because he daren't show the Grand Duke his back, that
would be grossly bad manners and an insult to his Highness. And then he
feels behind him for the door-handle and can't find it, and gets the jumps
and scrabbles around on the door, and when at last by the mercy of
Providence he finds the knob it's an old-fashioned lock, and he doesn't
understand it and fiddles and dislocates his arm and tires himself out and

keeps bowing all the time in his agitation, until at last his Highness
graciously lets him out with his own hand. Yes, that's the door-opening
joke! But that's nothing to what I'm going to tell your Highness….”
They had been so deep in conversation that they had scarcely noticed
where they were going, had gone down the stairs and reached the ground-
floor, close to the Albrechtstor. Eiermann, one of the Grand Duchess's
grooms-of-the-chamber, came towards them. He wore a violet coat and
side-whiskers. He had been sent out to look for their Grand Ducal
Highnesses. He shook his head while still at a distance, in lively concern,
and pursed his mouth up like a funnel. But when he noticed Shoemaker
Hinnerke walking with the children and tapping with his umbrella, all the
muscles of his face relaxed and his jaw dropped.
There was scarcely time for thanks and farewells, Eiermann was in such
a hurry to part the children from the shoemaker. And with many a gloomy
prophecy he led their Grand Ducal Highnesses up to their room to the Swiss
governess.
Eyes were turned to heaven, hands were wrung about their absence and
the state of their clothes. The worst of all happened, they were “looked at
sadly.” But Klaus Heinrich confined his contrition to the bare minimum. He
thought: “So the lackeys took money and let the tradesmen wander about
the corridors if they did not get any, kept the goods back, that the tradesmen
might get blamed, and did not open the folding-doors, so that the suitor had
to scrabble. That's what happened in the Schloss, and what must it be
outside? Outside among the people who stared at him so respectfully and so
strangely, when he drove by with his hand to his hat …? But how had the
man dared to tell it him? Not one single time had he called him Grand
Ducal Highness; he had forced himself on him and offended his birth and
upbringing. And yet, why was it so extraordinarily pleasant to hear all that
about the lackeys? Why did his heart beat with such rapt pleasure, when
moved by some of the wild and bold things in which his Highness bore no
part?”

IV
DOCTOR UEBERBEIN

Klaus Heinrich spent three of his boyhood's years in the company of boys
of his own age of the Court and country nobility of the monarchy in an
institution, a kind of aristocratic seminary, which von Knobelsdorff, the
House Minister, had founded and set in order on his behalf in the
“Pheasantry” hunting-schloss.
A Crown property for centuries past, Schloss “Pheasantry” gave its
name to the first stopping-place of a State railway running north-west from
the capital, and itself took it from a “tame” pheasant preserve, situated not
far off among the meadows and woods, which had been the hobby of a
former ruler. The Schloss, a one-storied box-like country house with a
shingle roof topped by lightning conductors, stood with stables and coach-
house on the skirts of extensive fir plantations. With a row of aged lime
trees in front, it looked out over a broad expanse of meadowland fringed by
a distant bluish circle of woods and intersected by paths, with many a bare
patch of play-ground and hurdles for obstacle riding. Opposite the corner of
the Schloss was a refreshment pavilion, a beer and coffee garden planted
with high trees, which a prudent man called Stavenüter had rented and
which was thronged on Sundays in summer by excursionists, especially
bicyclists, from the capital. The pupils of the “Pheasantry” were only
allowed to visit the pavilion in charge of a tutor.
There were five of them, not counting Klaus Heinrich: Trümmerhauff,
Gumplach, Platow, Prenzlau, and Wehrzahn. They were called “the
Pheasants” in the country round. They had a landau from the Court stables
which had seen its best days, a dog-cart, a sledge, and a few hacks, and

when in winter some of the meadows were flooded and frozen over, they
had an opportunity of skating. There was one cook, two chamber-maids,
one coachman, and two lackeys at the “Pheasantry,” one of whom could
drive at a pinch.
Professor Kürtchen, a little suspicious and irritable bachelor with the
airs of a comic actor and the manners of an old French chevalier, was head
of the seminary. He wore a stubby grey moustache, a pair of gold spectacles
in front of his restless brown eyes, and always out-of-doors a top hat on the
back of his head. He stuck his belly out as he walked and held his little fists
on each side of his stomach like a long-distance runner. He treated Klaus
Heinrich with self-satisfied tact, but was full of suspicion of the noble
arrogance of his other pupils and fired up like a tom-cat when he scented
any signs of contempt for him as a commoner. He loved when out for a
walk, if there were people close by, to stop and gather his pupils in a knot
around him and explain something to them, drawing diagrams in the sand
with his stick. He addressed Frau Amelung, the housekeeper, a captain's
widow who smelt strongly of drugs, as “my lady” and showed thus that he
knew what was what in the best circles.
Professor Kürtchen was helped by a yet younger assistant teacher with a
doctor's degree—a good-humoured, energetic man, bumptious but
enthusiastic, who influenced Klaus Heinrich's views and conscience
perhaps more than was good for him. A gymnastic instructor called Zotte
had also been appointed. The assistant teacher, it may be remarked in
passing, was called Ueberbein, Raoul Ueberbein. The rest of the staff came
every day by railway from the capital.
Klaus Heinrich remarked with appreciation that the demands made on
him from the point of view of learning quickly abated. Schulrat Dröge's
wrinkled fore-finger no longer paused on the lines, he had done his work;
and during the lessons as well as while correcting his written work
Professor Kürtchen seized every opportunity of showing his tact.
One day, quite soon after the institution had started—it was after
luncheon in the high-windowed dining-room—he summoned Klaus
Heinrich into his study, and said in so many words: “It is contrary to the
public interest that your Grand Ducal Highness, during our scientific studies

together, should be compelled to answer questions which are at the moment
unwelcome to you. On the other hand, it is desirable that your Grand Ducal
Highness should continually announce your readiness to answer by holding
up your hand. I beg your Grand Ducal Highness accordingly, for my own
information, in the case of unwelcome questions, to stretch out your arm to
its full length, but in the case of those an invitation to answer which would
be agreeable to you, to raise it only half way and in a right angle.”
As for Doctor Ueberbein, he filled the schoolroom with a noisy flow of
words, whose cheerfulness disguised the teacher's object without losing
sight of it altogether. He had come to no sort of understanding with Klaus
Heinrich, but questioned him when it occurred to him to do so, in a free and
friendly way without causing him any embarrassment. And Klaus
Heinrich's by no means apropos answers seemed to enchant Doctor
Ueberbein, to inspire him with warm enthusiasm. “Ha, ha,” he would cry
and throw his head back laughing. “Oh, Klaus Heinrich! Oh, scion of
princes! Oh, your innocency! The crude problems of life have caught you
unprepared! Now then, it is for me with my experience to put you straight.”
And he gave the answer himself, asked nobody else, when Klaus Heinrich
had answered wrong. The mode of instruction of the other teachers bore the
character of an unassuming lecture. And gymnastic-instructor Zotte had
received orders from high quarters to conduct the physical exercises with
every regard to Klaus Heinrich's left hand—so strictly that the attention of
the Prince himself or of his companions should never be drawn
unnecessarily to his little failing. So the exercises were limited to running
games, and during the riding lessons, which Herr Zotte also gave, all feats
of daring were rigorously excluded.
Klaus Heinrich's relations with his comrades were not what one might
call intimate, they did not extend to actual familiarity. He stood for himself,
was never one of them, by no means counted amongst their number. They
were five and he was one; the Prince, the five, and the teachers, that was the
establishment. Several things stood in the way of a free friendship. The five
were there on Klaus Heinrich's account, they were ordered to associate with
him; when during the lessons he answered wrong they were not asked to
correct him, they had to adjust themselves to his capacity when riding or
playing. They were too often reminded of the advantages they gained by
being allowed to share his life. Some of them, the young von Gumplach,

von Platow, and von Wehrzahn, sons of country squires of moderate means,
were oppressed the whole time by the gratified pride their parents had
shown when the invitation from the House Minister reached them, by the
congratulations which had poured in from every side.
Count Prenzlau on the other hand, that thick-set, red-haired, freckled
youth with the breathless way of speaking and the Christian name Bogumil,
was a sprig of the richest and noblest family of landowners in the land,
spoilt and self-conscious. He was well aware that his parents had not been
able to refuse Baron von Knobelsdorff's invitation, but that it had not
seemed to them by any means a blessing from the clouds, and that he,
Count Bogumil, could have lived much better and more in accordance with
his position on his father's property than at the “Pheasantry.” He found the
hacks bad, the landau shabby, and the dog-cart old-fashioned; he grumbled
privately over the food.
Dagobert Count Trümmerhauff, a spare, greyhound-looking youth, who
spoke in a whisper, was inseparable from him. They had a word among
themselves which fully expressed their critical and aristocratic bent, and
which they constantly uttered in a biting tone of voice: “hog-wash.” It was
hog-wash to have loose collars buttoning on to one's shirt. It was hog-wash
to play lawn-tennis in one's ordinary clothes.
But Klaus Heinrich felt himself unequal to using the word. He had not
hitherto been aware that there were such things as shirts with collars sewed
on to them and that people could possess so many changes of clothes at one
time as Bogumil Prenzlau. He would have liked to say “hog-wash,” but it
occurred to him that he was wearing at that very time darned socks. He felt
inelegant by the side of Prenzlau and coarse compared with Trümmerhauff.
Trümmerhauff had the nobility of a wild beast. He had a long pointed nose
with a sharp bridge and broad, quivering, thin-walled nostrils, blue veins on
his delicate temples and small ears without lobes. He wore broad coloured
cuffs fastened with gold links, and his hands were like those of a dainty
woman, with filbert nails; a gold bracelet adorned one of his wrists. He half
closed his eyes as he whispered…. No, it was obvious that Klaus Heinrich
could not compete with Trümmerhauff in elegance. His right hand was
rather broad, he had cheek-bones like the men in the street, and he looked
quite stumpy by Dagobert's side. It was quite possible that Albrecht might

have been better qualified to join the “Pheasants” in their use of “hog-
wash.” Klaus Heinrich for his part was no aristocrat, absolutely none,
unmistakable facts showed that. For consider his name, Klaus Heinrich,
that's what the shoemaker's sons were called all over the place. Herr
Stavenüter's children over the road too, who blew their noses with their
fingers, bore the same names as himself, his parents, and his brother. But
the lordlings were called Bogumil and Dagobert—Klaus Heinrich stood
solitary and alone among the five.
However, he formed one friendship at the “Pheasantry,” and it was with
Doctor Ueberbein. The Usher Raoul Ueberbein was not a handsome man.
He had a red beard and a greenish-white complexion with watery blue eyes,
thin red hair, and unusually ugly, protruding, sharp-pointed ears. But his
hands were small and delicate. He wore white ties exclusively, which gave
him rather a distinguished appearance, although his wardrobe was scanty.
He wore a long great-coat out-of-doors, and when riding—for Dr.
Ueberbein rode, and excellently well too—a worn-out frock-coat whose
skirts he fastened up with safety-pins, tight buttoned breeches, and a high
hat.
Where lay the attraction he exercised on Klaus Heinrich? That attraction
was very composite. The “Pheasants” had not been long together before a
report went about that the usher had dragged a child a long time ago, in
circumstances of extreme peril, out of a swamp or bog, and was the
possessor of a medal for saving life. That was one impression. Later other
details of Doctor Ueberbein's life came to be known, and Klaus Heinrich
too heard of them. It was said that his origin was obscure, that he had no
father, his mother had been an actress who had paid some poor people to
adopt him, and that he had once been starved, which accounted for the
greenish tint of his complexion. These were things which did not bear being
brought into the light or even being thought of, wild, remote things, to
which, however, Doctor Ueberbein himself sometimes alluded—when, for
instance, the lordlings, who could not forget his obscure origin, behaved
impudently or unbecomingly towards him.
“Suck-a-thumbs and mammy's darlings!” he would say then in loud
dudgeon. “I've knocked about long enough to deserve some respect from
you young gentlemen!” This fact too, that Doctor Ueberbein had “knocked

about,” did not fail of effect on Klaus Heinrich. But the especial charm of
the doctor's person lay in the directness of his attitude towards Klaus
Heinrich, the tone in which he addressed him from the very beginning, and
which distinguished him clearly from everybody else. There was nothing
about him which reminded one of the stiff reticence of the lackeys, of the
governess's pale horror, of Schulrat Dröge's professional bows, or of
Professor Kürtchen's self-satisfied deference. There was nothing about him
to recall the strange, loyal, and yet impertinent way in which people outside
stared at Klaus Heinrich.
During the first few days after the seminary assembled, he kept silence
and confined himself to observation, but then he approached the Prince with
a jovial and cheery frankness, a fresh fatherly camaraderie such as Klaus
Heinrich had never before experienced. It disturbed him at first, he looked
in terror at the doctor's green face; but his confusion found no echo in the
doctor, and in no way discouraged him, it confirmed him in his hearty
bumptious ingenuousness, and it was not long before Klaus Heinrich was
warmed and won, for there was nothing vulgar, nothing degrading, not even
anything designed and school-masterish in Doctor Ueberbein's methods—
all they showed was the superiority of a man who had knocked about the
world, and, at the same time, his tender and open respect for Klaus
Heinrich's different birth and position; they showed affection and
recognition, at the same time as the cheerful offer of a league between their
two different kinds of existence. He called him “Highness” once or twice,
then simply “Prince,” then quite simply “Klaus Heinrich.” And he stuck to
the last.
When the “Pheasants” went out for a ride, these two rode at the head,
the doctor on his stout piebald to the left of Klaus Heinrich on his docile
chestnut—trotted when snow or leaves were falling, through springtime
thaws or summer heat, along the edge of the woodlands across country, or
through the villages, while Doctor Ueberbein related anecdotes of his life.
Raoul Ueberbein sounds funny, doesn't it? The very reverse of chic. Yes,
Ueberbein had been the name of his adoptive parents, a poor, oldish couple
of the inferior bank-clerk class, and he had a quite legal right to it. But that
he should be called Raoul had been the decision and mandate of his mother,
when she handed over the sum agreed on, together with his fateful little
person, to the others—a sentimental decision obviously, a decision

prompted by piety. At least it was quite possible that his legal and real
father had been called Raoul, and it was to be hoped that his surname had
been something which harmonized with it.
For the rest, it had been rather a wild undertaking on the part of his
adoptive parents to adopt a child, for “Barmecide had been cook” in the
Ueberbein establishment, and it was obvious that it had been only the most
urgent necessity which had made them jump at the money. The boy had
been given only the scantiest of school educations, but he had taken the
liberty of showing what he was made of, had distinguished himself to some
extent, and as he was keen to become a teacher, he had been granted out of
a public fund the means of obtaining a college education. Well, he had
finished his college course not without distinction, as indeed it was
expected of him that he should, and he had then been appointed a teacher in
a public elementary school, with a good salary, out of which he had
managed to give occasional doles by way of gratitude to his honest adoptive
parents, until they died almost simultaneously. And a happy release it was
for them!
And so he had been left alone in the world, his very birth a misfortune,
as poor as a sparrow and endowed by Providence with a green face and
dog's ears by way of personal recommendations. Attractive qualifications,
were they not? But such qualifications were really favourable ones—once
for all, so they proved. A miserable boyhood, loneliness and exclusion from
good fortune and all that good fortune brings, a never-ceasing, imperious
call to be up and doing, no fear of getting fat and lazy, one's moral fibre was
braced, one could never rest on one's oars, but must be always overhauling
and passing others. Could anything be more stimulating, when the hard
facts were brought home to one? What a handicap over others who “were
not obliged to” to the same extent! People who could smoke cigars in the
morning….
At that time, by the bedside of one of his unwashed little pupils, in a
room which did not smell exactly of spring blossoms, Raoul Ueberbein had
made friends with a young man—some years older than he, but in a similar
position and like him ill-fated by birth in so far as he was a Jew. Klaus
Heinrich knew him—indeed, he might be said to have got to know him on a
very intimate occasion. Sammet was his name, a doctor of medicine; he

happened by chance to have been in the Grimmburg when Klaus Heinrich
was born, and had set up a couple of years later in the capital as a children's
doctor. Well, he had been a friend of Ueberbein's, still was one, and they
had had many a good talk about fate and duty. What is more, they had both
knocked about the world.
Ueberbein, for his part, looked back with sincere pleasure to the time
when he had been an elementary teacher. His activities had not been
entirely confined to the class-room, he had amused himself by showing also
some personal and human concern for his charges' welfare, by visiting them
at home, by sharing at times their not too idyllic family life, and in doing so
he did not fail to bring away impressions of a most varied kind. In truth, if
he had not already tasted the bitterness of the cup of life, he would have had
plenty of opportunity then to do so. For the rest, he had not ceased to work
by himself, had given private lessons to plump tradesmen's sons, and
tightened his waist belt so as to save enough to buy books with—had spent
the long, still, and free nights in study. And one day he had passed the State
examination with exceptional distinction, had soon received his promotion,
had been transferred to a grammar school. As a matter of fact, it had been a
sore grief to him to leave his little charges, but so the fates willed. And then
it had so happened that he had been chosen to be usher at the “Pheasantry,”
for all that his very birth had been a misfortune.

That was Doctor Ueberbein's story, and Klaus Heinrich, as he listened to
it, was filled with friendly feelings. He shared his contempt for those who
“weren't obliged to” and smoked cigars in the morning, he felt a fearful joy
when Ueberbein talked in his jolly blustering way about “knocking about,”
“impressions,” and the bitterness of the cup of life, and he felt as if he had
been personally an actor in the scenes as he followed his luckless and
gallant career from his adoption up to his appointment as grammar-
schoolmaster. He felt as if he were in some general sort of way qualified to
take part in a conversation about fate and duty. His attitude of reserve
relaxed, the experiences of his own fifteen years of life came crowding in
upon him, he felt a longing himself to retail confidences, and he tried to tell
Doctor Ueberbein all about himself.

But the funny thing was that Doctor Ueberbein himself checked him,
opposed any such intention most decidedly. “No, no, Klaus Heinrich,” he
said; “full stop there! No confidences, if you please! Not but that I know
that you have all sorts of things to tell me…. I need only watch you for half
a day to see that, but you quite misunderstand me if you think I'm likely to
encourage you to weep round my neck. In the first place, sooner or later
you'd repent it. But in the second, the pleasures of a confidential intimacy
are not for the likes of you. You see, there's no harm in my chattering. What
am I? An usher. Not a common or garden one, in my own opinion, but still
no better than such. Just a categorical unit. But you? What are you? That's
harder to say…. Let's say a conception, a kind of ideal. A frame. An
emblematical existence, Klaus Heinrich, and at the same time a formal
existence. But formality and intimacy—haven't you yet learnt that the two
are mutually exclusive? Absolutely exclusive. You have no right to intimate
confidences, and if you attempted them you yourself would discover that
they did not suit you, would find them inadequate and insipid. I must
remind you of your duty, Klaus Heinrich.”
Klaus Heinrich laughed and saluted with his crop, and on they rode.
On another occasion Doctor Ueberbein said casually: “Popularity is a
not very profound, but a grand and comprehensive kind of familiarity.” And
that was all he said on the subject.
Sometimes in summer, during the long intervals between the morning
lessons, they would sit together in the empty pavilion, or stroll about the
“Pheasants” playground, discussing various topics, and breaking off to
drink lemonade provided by Herr Stavenüter. Herr Stavenüter beamed as he
wiped the rough table and brought the lemonade with his own hands. The
glass ball in the bottle-neck had to be pushed in. “Sound stuff!” said Herr
Stavenüter. “The best that can be got. No muck, Grand Ducal Highness, and
you, doctor, but just sweetened fruit-juice. I can honestly recommend it!”
Then he made his children sing in honour of the visit. There were three
of them, two girls and a boy, and they could sing trios. They stood some
way off with the green leaves of the chestnut trees for roof, and sang folk-
songs while they blew their noses with their fingers. Once they sang a song
beginning: “We are all but mortal men,” and Doctor Ueberbein took

advantage of the pauses to express his disapproval of this number on the
programme. “A paltry song,” he said, and leaned over towards Klaus
Heinrich. “A really commonplace song, a lazy song, Klaus Heinrich; you
must not let it appeal to you.”
Later, when the children had stopped singing, he returned to the song
and described it as “sloppy.” “We are all but mortal men,” he repeated.
“God bless us, yes, no doubt we are. But on the other hand we ought
perhaps to remember that it is those of us who count for most who may be
the occasion for especially emphasizing this truth…. Look you,” he said,
leaning back and crossing one leg over the other, while he stroked his beard
up from underneath his chin, “look you, Klaus Heinrich, a man who has my
intellectual aspirations will not be able to help searching for and clinging to
whatever is out of the ordinary in this drab world of ours, wherever and
however it appears—he cannot help being put out by such a slovenly song,
by such a sheepish abjuration of the exceptional, of the lofty and of the
miserable, and of that which is both at once. You may well say: ‘That's
talking for effect.’ I'm only an usher, but there's something in my blood,
Heaven knows what—I can't find any pleasure in emphasizing the fact that
we are all ushers at bottom. I love the extraordinary in every form and in
every sense. I love those who are conscious of the dignity of their
exceptional station, the marked men, those one can see are not as other
men, all those whom the people stare at open-mouthed—I hope they'll
appreciate their destiny, and I do not wish them to make themselves
comfortable with the slip-shod and luke-warm truth which we have just
heard set to music for three voices. Why have I become your tutor, Klaus
Heinrich? I am a gipsy, a hard-working one, maybe, but still a born gipsy.
My predestination to the rôle of squire of princes is not particularly
obvious. Why did I gladly obey the call when it came to me, in view of my
energy, and although my very birth was a misfortune? Because, Klaus
Heinrich, I see in your existence the clearest, most express, and best-
preserved form of the extraordinary in the world. I have become your tutor
that I might keep your destiny alive in you. Reserve, etiquette, obligation,
duty, demeanour, formality—has the man whose life is surrounded by these
no right to despise others? Ought he to allow himself to be reminded of
humanity and good nature? No, come along, let's go, Klaus Heinrich, if you

don't mind. They're tactless brats, these little Stavenüters.” Klaus Heinrich
laughed, he gave the children some of his pocket-money, and they went.
“Yes, yes,” said Doctor Ueberbein in the course of an ordinary walk in
the woods to Klaus Heinrich—they had drifted a little distance away from
the five “Pheasants”—“nowadays the soul's thirst for veneration has to be
satisfied with what it can get. Where will you find greatness? I only hope
you may! But quite apart from all actual greatness and high-calling, there is
always what I call Highness, select and sadly isolated forms of life, towards
which an attitude of the tenderest sympathy should be adopted. For the rest,
greatness is strong, it wears jack-boots, it has no need of the knight-services
of the mind. But Highness is affecting—damme if it isn't the most affecting
thing on earth.”
Once or twice a year the “Pheasantry” journeyed to the capital to attend
performances of classical operas and dramas in the Grand Ducal Court
Theatre; Klaus Heinrich's birthday in particular was the signal for a visit to
the theatre. He would then sit quietly in his carved arm-chair, leaning
against the red plush ledge of the Court box, whose roof rested on the heads
of two female figures with crossed hands and empty stern faces, and
watched his colleagues, the princes, whose destinies were played out on the
stage, while he stood the fire of the opera-glasses which from time to time,
even during the play, were directed at him from the audience. Professor
Kürtchen sat on his left hand and Doctor Ueberbein with the “Pheasants” in
an adjoining box.
Once they heard the “Magic Flute,” and on the way home to
“Pheasantry” station, in the first-class carriage, Doctor Ueberbein made the
whole collection of them laugh by imitating the way in which singers talk
when their rôles oblige them to talk in prose. “He is a prince!” he said with
pathos, and answered himself in a drawly, sing-song parsonical voice. “He
is more than that, he is a man!” Even Professor Kürtchen was so much
amused that he bleated.
But next day, in the course of a private lesson in Klaus Heinrich's study,
with the round mahogany table, whitened ceiling, and Greek bust on the
stove, Doctor Ueberbein repeated his parody, and said then: “Great heavens,
that was something new in its time, it was a piece of news, a startling truth!

There are paradoxes which have stood so long on their heads that one has to
put them on their feet to make anything even moderately daring out of
them, ‘He is a man. He is more than that’—that is getting gradually bolder,
prettier, even truer. The converse is mere humanity, but I have no hearty
love for humanity, I'm quite content to leave it out of account. One must, in
a certain sense, be one of those of whom the people say: ‘They are, after all,
mortal men too’—or one is as deadly dull as an usher. I cannot honestly
wish for the general comfortable obliteration of conflicts and gulfs, that's
the way I am made, for better or worse, and the idea of the principe uomo is
to me, to speak plainly, an abomination. I am not anxious that it should
particularly appeal to you…. Look you, there have always been princes and
exceptional persons who live their life of exception with a light heart,
simply unconscious of their dignity or denying it outright, and capable of
playing skittles with the townsfolk in their shirt-sleeves, without the
slightest attempt at an inward qualm. But they are not very important, just
as nothing is important which lacks mind. For mind, Klaus Heinrich, mind
is the tutor which insists inexorably on dignity, indeed actually creates
dignity, it is the arch-enemy and chief antagonist of all human good nature.
‘More than that?’ No! to be a representative, to stand for a number when
one appears to be the exalted and refined expression of a multitude.
Representing is naturally something more and higher than simply Being,
Klaus Heinrich—and that's why people call you Highness.”
So argued Doctor Ueberbein, in loud, hearty, and fluent terms, and what
he said influenced Klaus Heinrich's mind and susceptibilities more, perhaps,
than was desirable. The prince was then about fifteen years old, and
therefore quite competent, if not properly to understand, yet to imbibe the
essence of ideas of that sort. The main point was that Doctor Ueberbein's
doctrines and apophthegms were so exceptionally supported by his
personality.
When Schulrat Dröge, the man who used to bow to the lackeys,
reminded Klaus Heinrich of his “exalted calling,” that was nothing more
than an exaggerated form of speech, devoid of inner meaning and
calculated mainly to add emphasis to his professional claims. But when
Doctor Ueberbein, whose very birth had been a misfortune, as he said, and
who had a green complexion because he had been half starved; when this
man who had dragged a child out of a bog, who had received “impressions”

and “knocked about” in all sorts of ways; when he who not only did not
bow to the lackeys, but who bawled at them in strident tones when the
fancy took him, and who had called Klaus Heinrich himself straight out by
his Christian names when he had known him only three days, without
asking leave to do so,—when he with a paternal laugh declared that Klaus
Heinrich's “path lay among the heights of mankind” (a favourite expression
of his), the effect was a feeling of freedom and originality which awoke an
echo deep down in the prince's soul.
When Klaus Heinrich listened to the doctor's loud and jolly anecdotes of
his life, of the “bitterness of the cup of life,” he felt as he used to when he
went rummaging with Ditlinde his sister, and that the man who could tell
such anecdotes, that this “rolling stone,” as he called himself, did not, like
the others, adopt a reserved and deferential attitude towards him, but,
without prejudice to a free and cheerful homage, treated him as a comrade
in fate and destiny, warmed Klaus Heinrich's heart to inexpressible gratitude
and completed the charm which bound him to the usher for ever….
Shortly after his sixteenth birthday (Albrecht, the Heir Apparent, was at
the time in the South for his health) the Prince was confirmed, together with
the five “Pheasants,” in the Court Church. The Courier reported the fact
without making any sensation of it. Dom Wislezenus, the President of the
High Consistory, treated a Bible text in counterpoint, this time to the choice
of the Grand Duke, and Klaus Heinrich was on this occasion gazetted a
Lieutenant, although he had not the foggiest notion of things military…. His
existence was becoming more and more barren of expertise. The ceremonial
of the confirmation also lacked incisive significance, and the Prince
returned immediately afterwards quietly back to the “Pheasantry” to
continue his life amongst his tutors and schoolfellows without any
alteration.

It was not till one year later that he left his old-fashioned homely
schoolroom with the torso on the stove; the seminary was broken up, and
while his five noble comrades were transferred to the Corps of Cadets,
Klaus Heinrich again took up his abode in the Old Schloss, intending, in
accordance with an agreement which Herr von Knobelsdorff had come to

with the Grand Duke, to spend a year at the upper gymnasium classes in the
capital. This was a well-calculated and popular step, which however did not
make much difference from the point of view of expertise. Professor
Kürtchen had gone back to his post at the public academy, he instructed
Klaus Heinrich as before in several branches of knowledge, and showed
even greater zeal than he had at the seminary, being determined to let
everybody see how tactful he was. It also appeared that he had told the rest
of the staff of the agreement reached with regard to the two ways in which
the Prince should announce his feelings with regard to answering a
question.
As to Doctor Ueberbein, who had also returned to the academy, he had
not yet advanced so far in his unusual career as to teach the highest class.
But at Klaus Heinrich's lively, even insistent request, preferred by him to
the Grand Duke, not by word of mouth but by official channels, so to speak,
through the benevolent Herr von Knobelsdorff, the usher was appointed
tutor and superintendent of home studies, came daily to the Schloss, bawled
at the lackeys, and had every opportunity of working on the Prince with his
intellectual and enthusiastic talk. Perhaps it was partly the fault of this
influence that Klaus Heinrich's relations with the young people with whom
he shared the much-hacked school-benches continued even looser and more
distant than his connexion with the five at the “Pheasantry”; and if thus the
popularity which this year was intended to secure was not attained, the
intervals, which both in summer and in winter were spent by all the scholars
in the roomy paved courtyard, offered opportunities for camaraderie.
But these intervals, intended to refresh the ordinary scholars, brought
with them for Klaus Heinrich the first actual effort of the kind of which his
life was to be full. He was naturally, at least during the first term, the
cynosure of every eye in the play-ground—no easy matter for him, in view
of the fact that here the surroundings deprived him of every external
support and attribute of dignity, and he was obliged to play on the same
pavement as those whose common idea was to stare at him. The little boys,
full of childlike irresponsibility, hung about close to him and gaped, while
the bigger ones hovered around with wide-open eyes and looked at him out
of the corners of them or from under their eyelids…. The excitement
dwindled in course of time, but even then—whether the fault was Klaus
Heinrich's or the others'—even later the camaraderie somehow did not

make much progress. One might see the prince, on the right of the head
master or the usher-in-charge, followed and surrounded by the curious,
strolling up and down the courtyard. One could see him, too, chatting with
his schoolfellows.
What a charming sight it was! There he leaned, half-sitting on the slope
of the glazed-brick wall, with his feet crossed, and his left hand thrust far
behind on his hips, with the fifteen members of the first class in a half-circle
round him. There were only fifteen this year, for the last promotions had
been made with the object in view that the select should contain no
elements which were unfitted by origin or personality to be for a year on
Christian-name terms with Klaus Heinrich. For the use of Christian names
was ordered. Klaus Heinrich conversed with one of them, who had
advanced a little towards him out of the semicircle, and answered him with
little short bows. Both laughed, everybody laughed directly they began to
talk to Klaus Heinrich. He asked him for instance: “Have you yet done your
German essay for next Tuesday?”
“No, Prince Klaus Heinrich, not quite yet; I haven't yet done the last
part.”
“It's a difficult subject. I haven't any idea yet what to write.”
“Oh, your Highness will…. You'll soon think of something!”
“No, it's difficult…. You got an alpha in arithmetic, didn't you?”
“Yes, Prince Klaus Heinrich, I was lucky.”
“No, you deserved it. I shall never be able to make anything of it!”
Murmurs of amusement and gratification in the semicircle. Klaus
Heinrich turned to another schoolfellow, and the first stepped quickly back.
Everybody felt that the really important point was not the essay nor the
arithmetic, but the conversation as an event and an undertaking, one's
attitude and tone, the way one advanced or retired, the success with which
one assumed a sympathetic, self-collected, and refined demeanour. Perhaps
it was the consciousness of this which brought the smile to everybody's lips.

Sometimes, when he had the semicircle in front of him, Klaus Heinrich
would say some such words as “Professor Nicolovius looks an owl.”
Great then was the merriment among the others. Such a remark was the
signal for general unbending, they kicked over the traces, “Ho, ho, ho!” 'd
in chorus in their newly cracked voices, and one would declare Klaus
Heinrich to be a “ripping chap.” But Klaus Heinrich did not often say such
things, he only said them when he saw the smile on the others' faces grow
faint and wan, and signs of boredom or even of impatience showing
themselves; he said them by way of cheering them up, and at the
extravagant laughter by which they were followed he wore a look half of
curiosity, half of dismay.
It was not Anselm Schickedanz who called him a “ripping chap,” and
yet it was directly on his account that Klaus Heinrich had compared
Professor Nicolovius to an owl. Anselm Schickedanz had laughed like the
others at the joke, but not in quite the same approving way, but with an
intonation which implied, “Gracious heavens!” He was a dark boy, with
narrow hips, who enjoyed the reputation throughout the school of being a
devil of a chap. The tone of the top class this year was admirable. The
obligations which membership of Klaus Heinrich's class entailed had been
impressed on every boy from various quarters, and Klaus Heinrich was not
the boy to tempt them to forget these obligations. But that Anselm
Schickedanz was a devil of a chap had often come to his ears, and Klaus
Heinrich, when he looked at him, felt a kind of satisfaction in believing
what he heard, although it was an obscure problem to him how he could
have come by his reputation.
He made several inquiries privately, broached the subject apparently by
chance, and tried to find out from one or other of his comrades something
about Schickedanz's devilry. He discovered nothing definite. But the
answers, whether disparaging or complimentary, filled him with the
suspicion of a mad amiability, an unlawful glorious humanity, which was
there for the eyes of all, save his own, to see—and this suspicion was
almost a sorrow. Everybody said at once, with reference to Anselm
Schickedanz, and in saying it dropped into the forbidden form of address:
“Yes, Highness, you ought to see him when you are not there!”

Klaus Heinrich would never see him when he was not there, would
never get near him, never get to know him. He stole peeps at him when he
stood with the others in a semicircle before him, laughing and braced up
like all the rest. Everybody braced himself up in Klaus Heinrich's presence,
his very existence was accountable for that, as he well knew, and he would
never see what Schickedanz was like, how he behaved when he let himself
go. At the thought he felt a twinge of envy, a tiny spark of regret.

At this juncture something painful, in fact revolting, occurred, of which
nothing came to the ears of the Grand Ducal couple, because Doctor
Ueberbein kept his mouth closed and about which scarcely any rumour
spread in the capital because everybody who had had a share or any
responsibility in the matter, obviously from a kind of feeling of shame,
preserved strict silence about it. I refer to the improprieties which occurred
in connexion with Prince Klaus Heinrich's presence at that year's citizens'
ball, and in which a Fräulein Unschlitt, daughter of the wealthy soap-boiler,
was especially concerned.
The citizens' ball was a chronic fixture in the social life of the capital, an
official and at the same time informal festivity, which was given by the city
every winter in the “Townpark Hotel,” a big, recently enlarged and
renovated establishment in the southern suburbs, and provided the
bourgeois circles with an opportunity of establishing friendly relations with
the Court. It was known that Johann Albrecht III had never cultivated a
taste for this civil and rather free-and-easy entertainment, at which he
appeared in a black frock-coat in order to lead off the polonaise with the
Lady Mayoress, and that he was wont to withdraw from it at the earliest
possible moment. This only heightened the general satisfaction when his
second son, although not yet bound to do so, already made his appearance
at the ball that year—indeed, it became known that he did so at his own
express request. It was said that the Prince had employed Excellency von
Knobelsdorff to transmit his earnest wish to the Grand Duchess, who in her
turn had contrived to obtain her husband's consent.
Outwardly the festivity pursued its wonted course. The most
distinguished guests, Princess Catherine, in a coloured silk dress and cap,

accompanied by her red-haired children, Prince Lambert with his pretty
wife, and last of all Johann Albrecht and Dorothea with Prince Klaus
Heinrich, made their appearance in the “Townpark Hotel,” greeted by city
officials, with long-ribboned rosettes pinned on their coats. Several
Ministers, aides-de-camp in mufti, numbers of men and women of the
Court, the leaders of society, as well as landowners from the surrounding
country, were present. In the big white hall the Grand Ducal pairs first
received a string of presentations, and then, to the strains of the band which
sat in the curved gallery up above, Johann Albrecht with the Lady
Mayoress, Dorothea with the Lord Mayor, opened the ball by a procession
round the room.
Then, while the polonaise gave place to a round dance, contentment
spread, cheeks glowed, the heat of the throng kindled feelings of fondness,
faintness, and foreboding among the dancers, the distinguished guests stood
as distinguished guests are wont to stand on such occasions—apart and
smiling graciously on the platform, at the top of the hall under the gallery.
From time to time Johann Albrecht engaged a distinguished man, and
Dorothea engaged his wife, in conversation. Those addressed stepped
quickly and smartly forward and back, kept their distance half-bowing with
their heads bent, nodded, shook their heads, laughed in this attitude at the
questions and remarks addressed to them—answered eagerly on the spur of
the moment, with sudden and anticipatory changes from hearty amusement
to the deepest earnestness, with a passionateness which was doubtless
unusual to them, and obviously in a state of tension. Curious guests, still
panting from the dance, stood in a semicircle round and stared at these
purposely trivial conversations with a peculiarly tense expression on their
faces.
Klaus Heinrich was the object of much attention. Together with two red-
headed cousins who were already in the army, but were wearing mufti that
evening, he kept a little behind his parents, resting on one leg, his left hand
placed far back on his hip, his face turned with his right half-profile to the
public. A reporter of the Courier who had been bidden to the ball made
notes upon him in a corner. The Prince could be seen to greet with his
white-gloved right hand his tutor, Doctor Ueberbein, who with his red beard
and greenish tint came along the fence of spectators; he was seen even to
advance some way into the hall to meet him.

The doctor, with big enamel studs in his shirt front, began by bowing
when Klaus Heinrich stretched out his hand to him, but then at once spoke
to him in his free and fatherly way. The Prince seemed to be rejecting a
proposal, and laughed uneasily as he did so, but then a number of people
distinctly heard Doctor Ueberbein say: “No—nonsense, Klaus Heinrich,
what was the good of learning? Why did the Swiss governess teach you
your steps in your tenderest years? I can't understand why you go to balls if
you won't dance? One, two, three, we'll soon find you a partner!” And with
a continual shower of witticisms he presented to the Prince four or five
young maidens, whom he dropped on without ceremony and dragged
forward. They ducked and shot up again, one after the other, in the trailing
fluctuations of the Court curtsey, set their teeth and did their best. Klaus
Heinrich stood with his heels together and murmured, “Delighted, quite
delighted.”
To one he went so far as to say: “It's a jolly ball, isn't it?”
“Yes, Grand Ducal Highness, we are having great fun,” answered she in
a high chirping voice. She was a tall, rather bony bourgeoise maiden,
dressed in white muslin, with fair wavy hair dressed over a pad, and a pretty
face, a gold chain round her bare neck, the collar-bones of which showed
prominently, and big white hands in mittens. She added: “The quadrille is
coming next. Will your Grand Ducal Highness dance it with me?”
“I don't know …” he said. “I really don't know …”
He looked round. The machinery of the ball was already falling into
geometrical order. Lines were being drawn, squares were forming, couples
came forward and called to vis-à-vis. The music had not yet started.
Klaus Heinrich asked his cousins. Yes, they were taking part in the
lancers, they already had their lucky partners on their arms.
Klaus Heinrich was seen to go up behind his mother's red damask chair
and whisper something excitedly to her, whereupon she turned her lovely
neck and passed on the question to her husband, and the Grand Duke
nodded. And then some laughter was caused by the youthful impetuosity
with which the Prince ran down, so as not to miss the beginning of the
square dance.

The reporter of the Courier, notebook in one hand and pencil in the
other, peered with neck thrust forward over the hall out of his corner, so as
to make sure whom the Prince was going to engage. It was the fair, tall girl,
with the collar-bones and the big white hands, Fräulein Unschlitt, the soap-
boiler's daughter. She was still standing where Klaus Heinrich had left her.
“Are you still there?” he said breathlessly…. “May I have the pleasure?
Come along!”
The sets were complete. They wandered about for a while without
finding a place. A man with a ribbon rosette hurried up, seized a pair of
young people by the shoulders and induced them to leave their stand under
the chandelier, that his Grand Ducal Highness might occupy it with Fräulein
Unschlitt. The band had been hesitating, it now struck up, the prescribed
compliments were exchanged, and Klaus Heinrich danced like the rest of
the world.
The doors into the next room stood open. In one of them was a buffet
with flower vases, punch bowls, and dishes of many-coloured cakes. The
dance extended right into this room, two sets were dancing in it. In the other
room some white-covered tables were arrayed, which were still standing
empty.
Klaus Heinrich stepped forwards and backwards, laughed to the others,
stretched out his hand and grasped theirs, and then again seized his partner's
big white hand, put his right arm round the maiden's muslin-clad waist and
revolved with her on their particular patch, while he kept his left hand,
which also wore a little white glove, on his hip. They laughed and talked as
they danced. The Prince made mistakes, forgot himself, upset figures, and
lost his place. “You must keep me straight!” he said in the confusion. “I'm
upsetting everything! Nudge me in the ribs!” and the others gradually
plucked up courage and set him right, ordered him laughingly hither and
thither, even laid their hands on him and pushed him a little when necessary.
The fair damsel with the collar-bones was particularly zealous in pushing
him about.
The spirits of the dancers rose with every figure. Their movements
became freer, their calls bolder, they began to stamp their feet and to prance
as they advanced and retired, while they held each other's hands and

balanced themselves with their arms. Klaus Heinrich too stamped, at first
only by way of signal, but soon more loudly; and as far as the balancing
with the arms was concerned, the fair maiden looked after that when they
advanced together. Also every time she danced facing him she made an
exaggerated scrape before him which much increased the merriment.
The refreshment room was full of chatter and babble, which attracted
everybody's envious glances. Some one had left his set in the middle of the
dance, purloined a sandwich from the buffet, and was now chewing away
proudly as he swerved and stamped, to the amusement of the rest.
“What cheek!” said the fair maiden. “They don't stand on ceremony!”
and the idea gave her no peace. Before you could look round, she was off,
had dashed lightly and nimbly between the lines of dancers, had seized a
sandwich from the buffet and was back in her place.
Klaus Heinrich was the one who applauded her most heartily. His left
hand was a difficulty, and so he managed without it, while with his right he
beat on the top of his head and doubled up with laughter. Then he became
quieter and rather pale. He was struggling with himself…. The quadrille
was nearing its end. What he meant to do he must do quickly. They had
already got to the grand chain.
And as he was already almost too late, he did what he had been
struggling with himself about. He broke away, ran swiftly through the
dancers, with muttered apologies when he collided with anybody, reached
the buffet, seized a sandwich, rushed back, and came sliding into his set;
that was not all, he put the sandwich—it was an egg and sardine one—to
the lips of his partner, the damsel with the big white hands; she curtseyed a
little, bit into it, bit almost half off without using her hands, and throwing
back his head he stuffed the rest into his mouth!
The high spirits of the set found a vent in the grand chain, which was
just beginning. Right round the hall went the dancers, winding zig-zag in
and out and stretching out their hands. Then it stopped, the tide turned, and
once more the stream went round, laughing and chattering, with mistakes
and entanglements and hurriedly rectified complications.

Klaus Heinrich pressed the hands he grasped without knowing to whom
they belonged. He laughed and his chest heaved. His smoothly parted hair
was ruffled, and a bit fell over his forehead, his shirt-front bulged a little out
of his waistcoat, and in his face and sparkling eyes was that look of tender
emotion which is sometimes the expression of happiness. He said several
times during the chain, “What awful fun! What glorious fun!” He met his
cousins, and to them too he said, “We have had such fun—in our set over
there!”
Then came the clapping and au revoirs; the dance was over. Klaus
Heinrich again stood facing the fair maiden with the collar-bones, and when
the music changed time he once more put his arm round her tender waist,
and away they danced.
Klaus Heinrich did not steer well and often knocked into other couples,
because he kept his left hand planted on his hip, but he brought his partner
somehow or other to the entrance to the refreshment room, where they
called a halt and refreshed themselves with pineappleade which was handed
to them by the waiters. They sat just at the entrance on two velvet stools,
drank and chatted about the quadrille, the Citizens' Ball, and other social
functions in which the fair maiden had already taken part that winter….
It was then that one of the suite, Major von Platow, the Grand Duke's
aide-de-camp, came up to Klaus Heinrich, bowed and begged leave to
announce that their Royal Highnesses were now going. He had been
charged … But Klaus Heinrich gave him to understand that he wished to
remain, in so emphatic a fashion that the aide-de-camp did not like to insist
upon his errand.
The Prince uttered exclamations of an almost rebellious regret and was
obviously bitterly grieved at the idea of going home at once. “We are
having such fun!” he said, stood up and gripped the Major's arm gently.
“Dear Major von Platow, please do intercede for me! Talk to Excellency
von Knobelsdorff, do anything you like—but to go now, when we are all
having such fun together! I'm sure my cousins are going to stay….” The
Major looked at the fair maiden with the big white hands, who smiled at
him; he too smiled and promised to do his best. This little scene was
enacted while the Grand Duke and the Grand Duchess were already taking

leave of the city dignitaries at the entrance into the town park. Immediately
afterwards the dancing on the first floor began again.
The ball was at its height. Everything official had gone, and the king of
revelry came into his own. The white-covered tables in the adjoining rooms
were occupied by families drinking punch and eating supper. Youth
streamed to and fro, sitting excitedly and impatiently on the edges of the
chairs to eat a mouthful, drink a glass, and again plunge into the merry
throng. On the ground-floor there was an old-German beer-cellar, which
was crowded with the more sedate men. The big dancing-hall and the
buffet-room were by now monopolized by the dancers. The buffet-room
was filled with fifteen or sixteen young people, sons and daughters of the
city, among them Klaus Heinrich. It was a kind of private ball in there.
They danced to the music which floated in from the main hall.
Doctor Ueberbein, the Prince's tutor, was seen there for a minute or two,
having a short talk with his pupil. He was heard to mention, watch in hand,
Herr von Knobelsdorff's name, and to say that he was down in the beer-
cellar and was coming back to take the Prince away. Then he went. The
time was half-past ten. And while he sat below and conversed with his
friends over a tankard of beer, only for an hour or perhaps an hour and a
half, not more, those dreadful things, that simply incredible scandal,
happened in the buffet-room, to which it fell to him to put a stop, though
unfortunately too late.
The punch provided was weak, it contained more soda-water than
champagne, and if the young people lost their equilibrium it was more the
intoxication of the dance than of the wine. But in view of the Prince's
character and the solid bourgeois origin of the rest of the company, that was
not enough to explain what happened. Another, a peculiar intoxication, was
a factor here on both sides. The peculiar thing was that Klaus Heinrich was
fully conscious of each separate stage in this intoxication, and yet had not
the power or the will to shake it off.
He was happy. He felt on his cheeks the same glow burning as he saw in
the faces of the others, and as his eyes, dazed by a soft mist, travelled about
the room, and rested admiringly on one fair form after another, his look
seemed to say: “We!” His mouth too said it—said, for the pure joy of

saying them, sentences in which a “We” occurred. “Shall we sit down? shall
we have another turn? shall we have a drink? shall we make up two sets?” It
was especially to the maiden with the collar-bones that Klaus Heinrich
made remarks with a “We” in them. He had quite forgotten his left hand, it
hung down, he felt so happy that it did not worry him and he never thought
of hiding it. Many saw now for the first time what really was the matter
with it, and looked curiously on with an unconscious grimace at the thin,
short arm in the sleeve, the little, by now rather dirty white kid glove which
covered the hand. But as Klaus Heinrich was so careless about it, the others
plucked up courage, the result being that everybody took hold of the
malformed hand quite unconcernedly in the round or square dances.
He did not keep it back. He felt himself borne along, nay rather whirled
around by a feeling, a strong, wild feeling of contentment, that grew,
gathered heat from itself, possessed itself of him more and more recklessly,
overpowered him even more vehemently and breathlessly, seemed to lift
him triumphantly from the floor. What was happening? It was difficult to
say, difficult to be quite sure. The air was full of words, detached cries, not
spoken but expressed on the dancers' faces, in their attitudes, in all they
were doing and saying. “He must just once! Bring him along, bring him
along …! Caught, caught!” A young damsel with a turned-up nose, who
asked him for a gallop when the “leap-year” dance came, said quite clearly
without any obvious connexion, “Chucker up!” as she got ready to start off
with him.
He saw pleasure in every eye, and saw that their pleasure lay in drawing
him out, in having him amongst them. In his happiness, his dream, to be
with them, amongst them, one of them, there obtruded itself from time to
time a cold, uncomfortable feeling that he was deluding himself, that the
warm, glorious “We” was deceiving him, that he did not really blend in
with them, that he was all the time the centre and object of the show, but in
a different and more unsatisfactory way than before. They were his enemies
to a certain extent, he saw it in the malice of their eyes. He heard as if at a
distance, with a peculiar dismay, how the fair damsel with the big white
hands called him simply by his names—and he felt that she did so in quite a
different spirit to that of Doctor Ueberbein when he did the same. She had
the right and the permission to do so, in a certain manner, but was nobody
here then jealous for his dignity, if he himself was not? It seemed to him

that they plucked at his coat, and sometimes in their excitement made wild,
sneering remarks about him. A tall, fair young man with pince-nez, with
whom he collided while dancing, said quite loud so that everybody could
hear it: “Now then, clumsy!” And there was malice in the way in which the
fair young maiden, her arm in his and a grin on her lips, whirled round with
him till he was ready to drop with giddiness. While they whirled he gazed
with swimming eyes at the collar-bones showing under the white, rather
rough skin on her neck.
They fell; they had gone too hard at it and tumbled when they tried to
stop revolving, and over them stumbled a second pair, not entirely by
themselves, but rather at a push from the tall young man with pince-nez.
There was a scrimmage on the floor, and Klaus Heinrich heard above him
in the room the chorus which came back to him from the school-playground
when he had ventured on a rather daring joke by way of amusing his
fellows—a “Ho, ho, ho!” only it sounded more wicked and bolder here….
When shortly after midnight, unfortunately a little behind time, Doctor
Ueberbein appeared on the threshold of the buffet-room, this is what he
saw: His young pupil was sitting alone on the green plush sofa by the left-
hand wall, his clothes all disarranged and himself decorated in an
extraordinary way. A quantity of flowers, which had previously adorned the
buffet in two Chinese vases, were stuck in the opening of his waistcoat,
between the studs of his shirtfront, even in his collar; round his neck lay the
gold chain which belonged to the maiden with the collar-bones, and on his
head the flat metal cover of a punch-bowl was balanced like a hat. He kept
saying, “What are you doing? What are you doing …?” while the dancers,
hand-in-hand in a semicircle, danced a round dance backwards and
forwards in front of him with half-suppressed giggles, whispers, smirks, and
ho, ho, ho's.
An unusual and unnatural flush mantled in Doctor Ueberbein's face.
“Stop it! Stop it!” he cried in his resonant voice, and, in the silence,
consternation, and dismay which at once ensued, he walked with long
strides up to the Prince, tore away the flowers in two or three grasps, threw
the chain and the cover away, then bowed and said with a stern look, “May
I beg your Grand Ducal Highness …

“I've been an ass, an ass!” he repeated when he got outside.
Klaus Heinrich left the Citizens' Ball in his company.
That was the painful event which happened during Klaus Heinrich's
year at school. As I have said, none of the participators talked about it; even
to the Prince, Doctor Ueberbein did not mention the subject for years
afterwards, and, as nobody crystallized the event in words, it remained
incorporeal and promptly faded away, at least apparently, into oblivion.

The Citizens' Ball had taken place in January. Shrove Tuesday, with the
Court Ball and the big Court in the Old Schloss, which wound up the social
year—regulation festivities, to which Klaus Heinrich was not yet admitted
—were past and over. Then came Easter, and with it the close of the school
year. Klaus Heinrich's diploma examination, that edifying formality, in the
course of which the question, “You agree, do you not, Grand Ducal
Highness?” was constantly recurring on the lips of the Professor, and at
which the Prince acquitted himself admirably in his very conspicuous
position. This was not a very important phase in his life. Klaus Heinrich
continued to live in the capital, but after Whitsuntide his eighteenth birthday
drew near, and with it a complex of festivities which marked a serious
turning-point in his life, and which taxed him severely for days together.
He had attained his majority, had been pronounced to be of age. For the
first time again since his baptism, he was the centre of attention and chief
actor in a great ceremony, but while he had then quietly, irresponsibly, and
patiently resigned himself to the formalities which surrounded and
protected him, it was incumbent on him on this day, in the midst of binding
prescriptions and stern regulations, hemmed in by the drapery of weighty
precedent, to inspire the spectators and to please them by maintaining an
attitude of dignity and good-breeding, and at the same time to appear light-
hearted.
It may be added that I use the word “drapery” not only as a figure of
speech. The Prince wore a crimson mantle on this occasion, a sumptuous
and theatrical article of raiment, which his father and grandfather before
him had worn at their coming-of-age, and which notwithstanding days of

airing, still smelt of camphor. The crimson mantle had originally belonged
to the robes of the Knights of the Grimmburg Griffin, but was now nothing
more than a ceremonial garb for the use of princes attaining their majority.
Albrecht, the Heir Apparent, had never worn the family one. As his birthday
fell in the winter, he always spent it in the South, in a place with a warm
and dry climate, whither he was thinking of returning this autumn too, and
as at the time of his eighteenth birthday his health had not permitted him to
travel home, it had been decided to declare him officially of age in his
absence, and to dispense with the Court ceremony.
As to Klaus Heinrich, there was only one opinion, especially among the
representatives of the public, that the mantle suited him admirably, and he
himself, notwithstanding the way in which it hampered his movements,
found it a blessing, as it made it easy for him to hide his left hand. Between
the canopied bed and the bellying chest of drawers in his bedroom, that was
situated on the second floor looking out on the yard with the rose-bush, he
made himself ready for the show, carefully and precisely, with the help of
his valet, Neumann, a quiet and precise man who had been recently
attached to him as keeper of his wardrobe and personal servant.
Neumann was an ex-barber, and was filled, especially in the direction of
his original calling, with that passionate conscientiousness, that insatiable
knowledge of the ideal, which gives rise to the highest skill. He did not
shave like any ordinary shaver, he was not content to leave no stubble
behind, he shaved in such a way that every shadow of a beard, every
recollection of one, was removed, and without hurting the skin he managed
to restore to it all its softness and smoothness. He cut Klaus Heinrich's hair
exactly square above the ears, and arranged it with all the assiduity
required, in his opinion, by this preparation for the Prince's ceremonial
appearance. He managed that the parting should come over the left eye and
run slanting back over the crown of the head, so that no tufts or wisps
should stick up on it; he brushed the hair on the right side up from the
forehead into a prim crest on which no hat or helmet could make an
impression. Then Klaus Heinrich, with his help, squeezed himself carefully
into his uniform of lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards, whose high-braided
collar and tight fit favoured a dignified bearing, put on the lemon-coloured
silk band and the flat gold chain of the House Order, and went down to the
picture gallery where the members of the family and the foreign relations of

the Grand Ducal pair were waiting. The Court was waiting in the adjoining
Hall of the Knights, and it was there that Johann Albrecht himself invested
his son with the crimson mantle.
Herr von Bühl zu Bühl had marshalled a procession, the ceremonial
procession from the Hall of the Knights to the Throne-room. It had cost him
no little worry. The composition of the Court made it difficult to contrive an
impressive arrangement, and Herr von Bühl especially lamented the lack of
upper Court officials, which on such occasions made itself most severely
felt. The Royal Mews had recently been put under Herr von Bühl, and he
felt himself quite up to his various functions, but he asked everybody how
he could be expected to make a good impression, when the most important
posts were filled simply by the master of the Buck-hounds, von Stieglitz,
and the director of the Grand Ducal Theatre, a gouty general.
While he, in his capacity as Lord Marshal, Chief Master of the
Ceremonies, and House Marshal, in his embroidered clothes and brown
toupée, covered with orders and with his golden pince-nez on his nose,
came waddling and planting his long staff in front of him behind the cadets,
who, dressed as pages, and their hair parted over the left eye, opened the
procession, he pondered deeply over what came behind him. A few
chamberlains—not many, for some were wanted for the end of the
procession—their plumed hats under their arms and the Key on their coat-
tails, followed close at his heels, in silk stockings. Next came Herr von
Stieglitz, and the limping theatre-director in front of Klaus Heinrich, who,
in his mantle between the exalted couple, and followed by his brother and
sister, Albrecht and Ditlinde, formed the actual nucleus of the procession.
Behind their Highnesses came von Knobelsdorff, the House Minister
and President of Council, his eye-wrinkles all at work; a little knot of aides-
de-camp and palace ladies came next: General Count Schmettern and Major
von Platow, a Count Trümmerhauff, cousin of the Keeper of the Privy
Purse, as military aide-de-camp of the Heir Apparent, and the Grand
Duchess's women led by the short-winded Baroness von Schulenburg-
Tressen. Then followed, attended and followed by aides-de-camp,
chamberlains, and Court ladies, Princess Catherine, with her red-haired
progeny, Prince Lambert with his lovely wife, and the foreign relations or
their representatives. Pages brought up the rear.

Thus they went at a measured pace from the Hall of the Knights through
the Gala Halls, the Hall of the Twelve Months, and the Marble Hall into the
Throne-room. Lackeys, with red-gold aiguillettes on their brown coats,
stood theatrically in couples at the open double doors. Through the broad
windows the June morning sun streamed gaily and recklessly in.
Klaus Heinrich looked round him as he processed between his parents
through the dreary arabesques, the dilapidated decorations of the show-
rooms, now not favoured by kindly artificial light. The bright daylight
cheerfully and soberly showed up their decay. From the big lustres with
their stiff-bound stems, stripped of their coverings in honour of the day, rose
thick forests of flameless candles, but everywhere there were prisms
missing, crystal festoons torn, so that they gave a canker-bit and toothless
impression. The silk damask upholstery of the State furniture, which was
arranged stiffly and monotonously round the walls, was thread-bare, the gilt
of the frames chipped off, big blind patches marred the surfaces of the tall
candle-decked mirrors, and daylight shone through the moth-holes in the
faded and discoloured curtains. The gold and silver borders of the tapestry
hangings had torn away in several places, and were hanging disconsolately
from the walls. Even in the Silver Hall of the Gala Rooms, where the Grand
Duke was wont to receive solemn deputations, and in the centre of which
stood a mother-of-pearl table with stumpy silver feet, a piece of the silver
work had fallen from the ceiling leaving a gaping patch of white plaster.
But why was it that it somehow seemed as if these rooms defied the
sober, mocking daylight, and proudly answered its challenge? Klaus
Heinrich looked sideways at his father…. The condition of the rooms did
not seem to worry him. Never of more than medium height, the Grand Duke
had become almost small in the course of years, but he strode majestically
on with head thrown back, the lemon-coloured ribbon of the Order over his
general's uniform, which he had donned to-day, though he had no military
leanings. From under his high and bald forehead and grey eyebrows, his
blue eyes, with dull rings round them, were fixed with weary dignity on the
distance, and from his pointed white moustaches the two deep furrows ran
down his yellowish skin to his beard, imparting to his face a look of
contempt. No, the bright daylight could not do any harm to the rooms; the
dilapidations did not in the least impair their dignity, they rather increased
it. They stood in their discomfort, their theatrical symmetry, their strange

musty play-house or church atmosphere, cold and indifferent to the merry
and sun-bathed world outside—stern background of a pompous cult, at
which Klaus Heinrich this day for the first time officiated.
The procession passed through the pairs of lackeys, who, with an
expression of relentlessness, pressed their lips together and closed their
eyes, into the white and gold expanse of the Throne-room. A wave of acts of
homage, scrapings, bows, curtseys and salutes, swept through the hall as the
procession passed in front of the assembled guests. There were diplomats
with their wives, nobility of the Court and the country, the corps of officers
of the capital, the Ministers, amongst whom could be descried the affected,
confident face of the new Finance Minister, Dr. Krippenreuther, the Knights
of the Great Order of the Grimmburg Griffin, the Presidents of the Diet,
dignitaries of all kinds. High up in the little box above the big looking-glass
by the entrance door could be descried the press representatives peering
over each other's shoulders and busily writing in their notebooks…. In front
of the throne-baldachin, itself a torn velvet arrangement, crowned with
ostrich feathers and framed with gold fillets which would have been all the
better for a touch-up, the procession divided as in a polonaise, and went
through carefully prescribed evolutions.
The pages and chamberlains fell aside to right and left. Herr von Bühl,
his face turned to the throne and his staff uplifted, stepped backwards and
stood still in the middle of the hall. The Grand Ducal pair and their children
walked up the rounded, red-carpeted steps to the capacious gilded chairs
which stood at the top. The remaining members of the House, with the
foreign princes, ranged themselves on both sides of the throne; behind them
stood the suite, the maids of honour and the grooms of the chambers, and
the pages stood on the steps. At a gesture from Johann Albrecht, Herr von
Knobelsdorff, who had previously taken up his stand over against the
throne, advanced straight to the velvet-covered table, which stood by the
side of the steps, and began at once to read from various documents the
official formalities.
Klaus Heinrich was declared to be of age and fit and entitled to wear the
crown, should necessity require it—every eye was turned on him at this
place, and at his Royal Highness Albrecht, his elder brother, who stood
close to him. The Heir Apparent was wearing the uniform of a captain in the

Hussar regiment which was called by his name. From his silver-laced collar
stretched an unmilitary width of civil stand-up collar, and on it rested his
fine, shrewd, and delicate head, with its long skull and narrow temples, the
straw-coloured moustache on the upper lip, and the blue, lonely-looking
eyes which had seen death. He looked not in the least like a cavalry officer,
yet so slender and unapproachably aristocratic that Klaus Heinrich, with his
national cheek-bones, looked almost coarse beside him. The Heir Apparent
pursed up his lips when everybody looked at him, protruded his short
rounded underlip, and sucked it lightly against the upper one.
Several of the country's orders were bestowed on the Prince who had
just come of age, including the Albrecht Cross and the Great Order of the
Grimmburg Griffin, not to mention that he was confirmed in the House
Order whose insignia he had possessed since his tenth birthday. Afterwards
came the congratulations in the form of a processional Court, led by the
fawning Herr von Bühl, after which the gala-breakfast began in the Marble
Hall and in the hall of the Twelve Months.
The foreign princes were entertained for the next few days. A garden-
party was given in Hollerbrunn, with fireworks and dancing for the young
people of the Court in the park. Festive excursions with pages in attendance
were made through the sunny country-side to Monbrillant, Jägerpreis, and
Haderstein Ruins, and the people, that inferior order of creation with the
searching eyes and the high cheek-bones, stood on the kerb and cheered
themselves and their representatives. In the capital Klaus Heinrich's
photograph hung in the windows of the art-dealers, and the Courier actually
published a printed likeness of him, a popular and strangely idealized
representation, showing the Prince in the crimson mantle. But then came yet
another great day—Klaus Heinrich's formal entry into the Army, into the
regiment of Grenadier Guards.
This is what happened. The regiment to which fell the honour of having
Klaus Heinrich as one of its officers was drawn up on the Albrechtsplatz in
open square. Many a plume waved in the middle. The princes of the House
and the generals were all present. The public, a black mass against the gay
background, crowded behind the barriers. Cameras were levelled in several
places at the scene of action. The Grand Duchess, with the princesses and
their ladies, watched the show from the windows of the Old Schloss.

First of all, Klaus Heinrich, dressed as a lieutenant, reported himself
formally to the Grand Duke. He advanced sternly, without the shadow of a
smile, towards his father, clapped his heels together and humbly acquainted
him with his presence. The Grand Duke thanked him briefly, also without a
smile, and then in his turn, followed by his aides-de-camp, advanced in his
dress uniform and plumed hat into the square. Klaus Heinrich stood before
the lowered colours, an embroidered, golden, and half-tattered piece of silk
cloth, and took the oath. The Grand Duke made a speech in detached
sentences and the sharp voice of command which he reserved for such
occasions, in which he called his son “Your Grand Ducal Highness” and
publicly clasped the Prince's hand. The Colonel of the Grenadier Guards,
with crimson cheeks, led a cheer for the Grand Duke in which the guests,
the regiment, and the public joined. A march past followed, and the whole
ended with a military luncheon in the castle.

This picturesque ceremony in the Albrechtsplatz was without practical
significance; its effect began and ended there. Klaus Heinrich never
dreamed of going into garrison, but went the very same day with his parents
and brother and sister to Hollerbrunn, to pass the summer there in the cool
old French rooms on the river, between the wall-like hedges of the park, and
then, in the autumn, to go up to the university. For so it was ordained in the
programme of his life; in the autumn he went up to the university for a year,
not that of the capital, but the second one of the country, accompanied by
Doctor Ueberbein, his tutor.
The appointment of this young savant as mentor was once more
attributable to an express, ardent wish of the Prince, and indeed, as far as
the choice of tutor and older companions was concerned, whom Klaus
Heinrich was to have at his side during this year of student freedom, it was
considered necessary to give a reasonable amount of consideration to his
expressed wishes. Yet there was much to be said against this choice; it was
unpopular, or at least criticized aloud or in whispers in many quarters.
Raoul Ueberbein was not loved in the capital. Due respect was paid to
his medal for life-saving and to all his feverish energy, but the man was no
genial fellow-citizen, no jolly comrade, no blameless official. The most
charitable saw in him an oddity with a determined and uncomfortably
reckless disposition, who recognized no Sunday, no holiday, no relaxation,
and did not understand being a man amongst men after work was done. This
natural son of an adventuress had worked his way up from the depths of
society, from an obscure and prospectless youth without means, by dint of
sheer strength of will, to being, first school teacher, then academic
professor, then university lecturer, had lived to see his appointment—had
“engineered” it, as many said—to the “Pheasantry” as teacher of a Grand
Ducal Prince, and yet he knew no rest, no contentment, no comfortable
enjoyment of life…. But life, as every decent man, thinking of Doctor
Ueberbein, truly observed, life does not consist only of profession and
performance, it has its purely human claims and duties, the neglect of which
is a greater sin than the display of some measure of joviality towards
oneself and one's fellows in the sphere of one's work, and only that
personality can be considered a harmonious one which succeeds in giving
its due to each part, profession and human feelings, life and performance.

Ueberbein's lack of any sense of camaraderie was bound to tell against
him. He avoided all social intercourse with his colleagues, and his circle of
friends was confined to the person of one man of another scientific sphere,
a surgeon and children's specialist with the unsympathetic name of Sammet,
a very popular surgeon to boot, who shared certain characteristics with
Ueberbein. But it was only very rarely—and then only as a sort of favour—
that he turned up at the club where the teachers gathered after the day's
work and worry, for a glass of beer, a rubber, or a free exchange of views on
public and personal questions—but he passed his evenings, and, as his
landlady reported, also a great part of the night, working at science in his
study, while his complexion grew greener and greener, and his eyes showed
more and more clearly signs of overstrain.
The authorities had been moved, shortly after his return from the
“Pheasantry,” to promote him to head master. Where was he going to stop?
At Director? High-school Professor? Minister for Education? Everybody
agreed that his immoderate and restless energy concealed imprudence and
defiance of public opinion—or rather did not conceal them. His demeanour,
his loud, blustering mode of speaking annoyed, irritated, and exasperated
people. His tone towards members of the teaching profession who were
older and in higher positions than himself was not what it should be. He
treated everybody, from the Director down to the humblest usher, in a
fatherly way, and his habit of talking of himself as of a man who had
“knocked about,” of gassing about “Fate and Duty,” and thereby displaying
his benevolent contempt for all those who “weren't obliged to” and
“smoked cigars in the morning,” showed conceit pure and simple. His
pupils adored him; he achieved remarkable results with them, that was
agreed. But on the whole the Doctor had many enemies in the town, more
than he ever guessed, and the misgiving that his influence on the Prince
might be an undesirable one was put into words in at least one portion of
the daily press….
Anyhow Ueberbein obtained leave from the Latin school, and went first
of all alone, in the capacity of billeter, on a visit to the famous student town,
within whose walls Klaus Heinrich was destined to pass the year of his
apprenticeship, and on his return he was received in audience by Excellency
von Knobelsdorff, the Minister of the Grand Ducal House, to receive the
usual instructions. Their tenour was that almost the most important object of

this year was to establish traditions of comradeship on the common ground
of academic freedom between the Prince and the student corps, especially
in the interests of the dynasty—the regulation phrases, which Herr von
Knobelsdorff rattled off almost casually, and which Doctor Ueberbein
listened to with a silent bow, while he drew his mouth, and with it his red
beard, a little to one side. Then followed Klaus Heinrich's departure with
his mentor, a dogcart and a servant or two, for the university.
A glorious year, full of the charm of artistic freedom, in the public eye
and in the mirror of public report—yet without technical importance of any
kind. Misgivings which had been felt in some quarters that Doctor
Ueberbein, through mistaking and misunderstanding the position, might
worry the Prince with excessive demands in the direction of objective
science, proved unfounded. On the contrary, it was obvious that the doctor
quite realized the difference between his own earnest, and his pupil's
exalted, sphere of existence. On the other hand (whether it was the mentor's
or the Prince's own fault does not matter) the freedom and the
unconstrained camaraderie, like the instruction, were interpreted in a very
relative and symbolical sense so that neither the one nor the other, neither
the knowledge nor the freedom, could be said to be the essence and
peculiarity of the year. Its essence and peculiarity were rather, as it
appeared, the year in itself, as the embodiment of custom and impressive
ceremoniousness, to which Klaus Heinrich deferred, just as he had deferred
to the theatrical rites on his last birthday—only now not with a purple
cloak, but occasionally wearing a coloured student's cap, the so-called
“Stürmer,” in which he was portrayed in a photograph issued at once by the
Courier to its readers.
As to his studies, his matriculation was not marked by any particular
festivities, though some reference was made to the honour which Klaus
Heinrich's admission bestowed on the university, and the lectures he
attended began with the address: “Grand Ducal Highness!” He drove in his
dogcart with a groom from the pretty green-clad villa, which the Marshal of
his father's household had leased for him in a select and not too expensive
square, amid the remarks and greetings of the passers-by, to the lectures,
and there he sat with the consciousness that the whole thing was unessential
and unnecessary for his exalted calling, yet with a show of courteous
attention.

Charming anecdotes of the signs the Prince gave of interest in the
lectures went about and had their due effect. Towards the end of one course
on Nature Study (for Klaus Heinrich attended these courses also “for
general information”) the Professor, by way of illustration, had filled a
metal shell with water and announced that the water, when frozen, would
burst the shell by expansion; he promised to show the class the pieces next
lecture. Now he had not kept his word on this point at the next lecture,
probably out of forgetfulness: the broken shell had not been forthcoming—
Klaus Heinrich had therefore inquired as to the result of the experiment. He
had joined in asking questions of the professor at the end of the lecture, just
like any ordinary student, and had modestly asked him: “Has the bomb
burst?”—whereupon the Professor, full of embarrassment at first, had then
expressed his thanks with glad surprise, and indeed emotion, for the kind
interest the Prince had expressed in his lectures.
Klaus Heinrich was honorary member of a student's club—only
honorary, because he was not allowed to fight duels—and once or twice
attended their wines, his Stürmer on his head. But since his guardians were
well aware that the results the influence of strong drink had on his highly
strung and delicate temperament were absolutely irreconcilable with his
exalted calling, he did not dare to drink seriously, and his comrades were
obliged on this point too to bear his Highness in mind. Their rude customs
were judiciously limited to a casual one or two, the general tone was as
exemplary as it used to be in the upper form at school, the songs they sang
were old ones of real poetry, and the meetings were, as a whole, gala and
parade nights, refined editions of the ordinary ones. The use of Christian
names was the bond of union between Klaus Heinrich and his corps
brothers, as the expression and basis of spontaneous comradeship. But it
was generally observed that this use sounded false and artificial, however
great the efforts to make it otherwise, and that the students were always
falling back unintentionally into the form of address which took due notice
of the Prince's Highness.
Such was the effect of his presence, of his friendly, alert, and always
uncompromising attitude which sometimes produced strange, even comical
phenomena in the demeanour of the persons with whom the Prince came
into contact. One evening, at a soirée which one of his professors gave, he
engaged a guest in conversation—a fat man of some age, a King's Counsel

by his title, who, despite his social importance, enjoyed the reputation of a
great roué and a regular old sinner. The conversation, whose subject is a
matter of no consequence and indeed would be difficult to specify, lasted
for a considerable time because no opportunity of breaking it off presented
itself. And suddenly, in the middle of his talk with the Prince, the barrister
whistled—whistled with his thick lips one of those pointless sequences of
notes which one utters when one is embarrassed and wants to appear at
one's ease, and then tried to cover his comic breach of manners by clearing
his throat and coughing. Klaus Heinrich was accustomed to experiences of
that kind, and tactfully passed on.
If at any time he wanted to make a purchase himself and went into a
shop, his entrance caused a kind of panic. He would ask for what he
wanted, a button perhaps, but the girl would not understand him, would
look dazed, and unable to fix her attention on the button, but obviously
absorbed by something else—something outside and above her duties as a
shop-assistant—she would drop a few things, turn the boxes upside down in
obvious helplessness, and it was all Klaus Heinrich could do to restore her
composure by his friendly manner.
Such, as I have said, was the effect of his attitude, and in the city it was
often described as arrogance and blameworthy contempt for fellow-
creatures—others roundly denied the arrogance, and Doctor Ueberbein,
when the subject was broached to him at a social gathering, would put the
question, whether “every inducement to contempt for his fellow-creatures
being readily conceded,” any such contempt really was possible in a case
like the present of complete detachment from all the activities of ordinary
men. Indeed, any remark of that kind he met in his unanswerable blustering
way by the assertion that the Prince not only did not despise his fellow-
creatures, but respected even the most worthless of them, only considered
them all the more sound, serious, and good for the way in which the poor
over-taxed and over-strained man in the street earned his living by the sweat
of his brow….
The society of the university town had no time to reach a definite
verdict on the question. The year of student life was over before one could
turn round, and Klaus Heinrich returned, as prescribed by the programme of
his life, to his father's palace, there, despite his left arm, to pass a full year

in serious military service. He was attached to the Dragoons of the Guard
for six months, and directed the taking up of intervals of eight paces for
lance-exercises as well as the forming of squares, as if he were a serious
soldier; then changed his weapon and transferred to the Grenadier Guards,
so as to get an insight into infantry work also. It fell to him to march to the
Schloss and change the Guard—an evolution which attracted large crowds.
He came swiftly out of the Guard-room, his star on his breast, placed
himself with drawn sword on the flank of the company and gave not quite
correct orders, which, however, did not matter, as his stout soldiers
executed the right movements all the same.
On guest-nights, too, at head-quarters, he sat on the colonel's right hand,
and by his presence prevented the officers from unhooking their uniform
collars and playing cards after dinner. After this, being now twenty years
old, he started on an “educational tour”—no longer in the company of
Doctor Ueberbein, but in that of a military attendant and courier, Captain
von Braunbart-Schellendorf of the Guards, a fair-haired officer who was
destined to be Klaus Heinrich's aide-de-camp, and to whom the tour gave an
opportunity of establishing himself on a footing of intimacy and influence
with him.
Klaus Heinrich did not see much in his educational tour, which took
him far afield, and was keenly followed by the Courier. He visited the
courts, introduced himself to the sovereigns, attended gala dinners with
Captain von Braunbart, and on his departure received one of the country's
superior Orders. He took a look at such sights as Captain von Braunbart
(who also received several Orders) chose for him, and the Courier reported
from time to time that the Prince had expressed his admiration of a picture,
a museum, or a building to the director or curator who happened to be his
cicerone. He travelled apart, protected and supported by the chivalrous
precautions of Captain von Braunbart, who kept the purse, and to whose
devoted zeal was due the fact that not one of Klaus Heinrich's trunks was
missing at the end of the journey.
A couple of words, no more, may be devoted to an interlude, which had
for scene a big city in a neighbouring kingdom, and was brought about by
Captain von Braunbart with all due circumspection. The Captain had a
friend in this city, a bachelor nobleman and a cavalry captain, who was on

terms of intimacy with a young lady member of the theatrical world, an
accommodating and at the same time trustworthy young person. In
pursuance of an agreement by letter between Captain von Braunbart and his
friend, Klaus Heinrich was thrown in contact with the damsel at her home
—suitably arranged for the purpose—and the acquaintance allowed to
develop à deux. Thus an expressly foreseen item in the educational tour was
conscientiously realized, without Klaus Heinrich being involved in more
than a casual acquaintance. The damsel received a memento for her
services, and Captain von Braunbart's friend a decoration. So the incident
closed.
Klaus Heinrich also visited the fair Southern lands, incognito, under a
romantic-sounding title. There he would sit, alone, perhaps for a quarter of
an hour, dressed in a suit of irreproachable cut, among other foreigners on a
white restaurant terrace looking over a dark-blue sea, and it might happen
that somebody at another table would notice him, and try, in the manner of
tourists, to engage him in conversation. What could he be, that quiet and
self-possessed-looking young man? People ran over the various spheres of
life, tried to fit him into the merchant, the military, the student class. But
they never felt that they had got it quite right—they felt his Highness, but
nobody guessed it.

V
ALBRECHT II

Grand Duke Johann Albrecht died of a terrible illness, which had
something naked and abstract about it, and to which no other name but just
that of death could be given. It seemed as if death, sure of its prey, in this
case disdained any mask or gloss, and came on the scene as its very self, as
dissolution by and for itself. What actually happened was a decomposition
of the blood, caused by internal hæmorrhages; and an exploratory
operation, which was conducted by the Director of the University Hospital,
a famous surgeon, could not arrest the corroding progress of the gangrene.
The end soon came, all the sooner that Johann Albrecht made little
resistance to the approach of death. He showed signs of an unutterable
weariness, and often remarked to his attendants, as well as to the surgeons
attending him, that he was “dead sick of the whole thing”—meaning, of
course, his princely existence, his exalted life in the glare of publicity. His
cheek-furrows, those two lines of arrogance and boredom, resolved in his
last days into an exaggerated, grotesque grimace, and continued thus until
death smoothed them out.
The Grand Duke's illness fell in the winter. Albrecht, the Heir Apparent,
called away from his warm dry resort, arrived in snowy wet weather, which
was as bad for his health as it could be. His brother, Klaus Heinrich,
interrupted his educational tour, which was anyhow nearing its close, and
returned with Captain von Braunbart-Schellendorf in all haste from the fair
land of the South to the capital. Besides the two prince-sons, the Grand
Duchess Dorothea, the Princesses Catherine and Ditlinde, Prince Lambert
without his lovely wife—the surgeons in attendance and Prahl the valet-de-
chambre waited at the bedside, while the Court officials and Ministers on

duty were collected in the adjoining room. If credence might be given to the
assertions of the servants, the ghostly noise in the “Owl Chamber” had been
exceptionally loud in the last weeks and days. According to them it was a
rattling and a shaking noise, which recurred periodically, and whose
meaning could not be distinguished outside the room.
Johann Albrecht's last act of Highness consisted in giving with his own
hand to the professor, who had performed the useless operation with the
greatest skill, his patent of nomination to the Privy Council. He was terribly
exhausted, “sick of the whole thing,” and his consciousness even in his
more lucid moments was not at all clear; but he carried out the act with
scrupulous care and made a ceremony of it. He had himself propped up,
made a few alterations, shading his eyes with his wax-coloured hands, in
the chance disposition of those present, ordered his sons to place
themselves on both sides of his canopied bed—and while his soul was
already tugging at her moorings, and floating here and there on unknown
currents, he composed his features with mechanical skill into his smile of
graciousness for the handing of the diploma to the Professor, who had left
the room for a short time.
Quite towards the end, when the dissolution had already attacked the
brain, the Grand Duke made one wish clear, which, though scarcely
understood, was hastily complied with, although its fulfilment could not do
the slightest good to the Grand Duke. Certain words, apparently
disconnected, kept recurring in the murmurings of the sick man. He named
several stuffs, silk, satin, and brocade, mentioned Prince Klaus Heinrich,
used a technical expression in medicine, and said something about an Order,
the Albrecht Cross of the Third Class with Crown. Between whiles one
caught quite ordinary remarks, which apparently referred to the dying man's
princely calling, and sounded like “extraordinary obligation” and
“comfortable majority”; then the descriptions of the stuffs began again, to
which was appended in a louder voice the word “Sammet.”(1) At last it was
realized that the Grand Duke wanted Doctor Sammet to be called in, the
doctor who had happened to be present at the Grimmburg at the time of
Klaus Heinrich's birth, twenty years before, and had, for a long time now,
been practising in the capital.

(1) I.e., velvet.

The doctor was really a children's doctor, but he was summoned and
came: already nearly grey on the temples, with a drooping moustache,
surmounted by a nose which was rather too flat at the bottom, clean-shaven
otherwise and with cheeks rather sore from shaving. With head on one side,
his hand on his watch-chain, and elbows close to his sides, he examined the
situation, and began at once to busy himself in a practical, gentle way about
his exalted patient, whereat the latter expressed his satisfaction in no
uncertain fashion. Thus it was that it fell to Doctor Sammet to administer
the last injections to the Grand Duke, with his supporting hand to ease the
final spasms, and to be, more than any of the other doctors, his helper in
death—a distinction which indeed provoked some secret irritation amongst
the others, but on the other hand resulted in the doctor's appointment shortly
afterwards to the vacancy in the important post of Director and Chief
Physician of the “Dorothea,” a Children's Hospital, in which capacity he
was destined later to play some part in certain developments.
So died Johann Albrecht the Third, uttering his last sigh on a winter's
night. The old castle was brightly illuminated while he was passing away.
The stern furrows of boredom were smoothed out in his face, and, relieved
of any exertion on his own part, he was subjected to formalities which
surrounded him for the last time, carried him along, and made his wax-like
shell just once more the focus and object of theatrical rites…. Herr von
Bühl zu Bühl showed his usual energy in organizing the funeral, which was
attended by many princely guests. The gloomy ceremonies, the different
exposures and identifications, corpse-parades, blessings, and memorial
services at the catafalque took days to complete, and Johann Albrecht's
corpse was for eight hours exposed to public view, surrounded by a guard
of honour consisting of two colonels, two first lieutenants, two cavalry
sergeants, two infantry sergeants, two corporals, and two chamberlains.
Then at last came the moment when the zinc shell was brought by eight
lackeys from the altar recess of the Court Church, where it had been on
show between crape-covered candelabra and six-foot candles, to the entry-
hall, placed by eight foresters in the mahogany coffin, carried by eight
Grenadier Guardsmen to the six-horsed and black-draped hearse, which set

off for the mausoleum amidst cannon salvos and the tolling of bells. The
flags hung heavy with rain from the middle of their poles. Although it was
early morning, the gas-lamps were burning in the streets along which the
funeral was to pass. Johann Albrecht's bust was displayed amongst
mourning decorations in the shop-windows, and postcards with the portrait
of the deceased ruler, which were everywhere for sale, were in great
demand. Behind the rows of troops, the gymnastic clubs, and veteran
associations which kept the road, stood the people on tiptoe in the snow-
brash and gazed with bowed heads at the slowly passing coffin, preceded by
the wreath-bearing lackeys, the Court officials, the bearers of the insignia
and Dom Wislezenus, the Court preacher, and covered with a silver-worked
pall, whose corners were held by Lord Marshal von Bühl, Master of the
Royal Hunt von Stieglitz, Adjutant-General Count Schmettern, and Minister
of the Household von Knobelsdorff.
By the side of his brother Klaus Heinrich, immediately behind the
charger which was led in rear of the hearse, and at the head of the other
mourners, walked Grand Duke Albrecht II. His clothes, the tall stiff plume
in the front of his busby, the long boots under his gaudy, ample Hussar's
pelisse, with the crape band, did not become him. He walked as if
embarrassed by the eyes of the crowd, and his shoulder-blades, naturally
rather crooked, were twisted in an awkward nervous way as he walked.
Repugnance at having to be chief actor in this funeral pomp was clearly
written on his pale face. He did not raise his eyes as he walked, and he
sucked his short rounded lower lip against the upper….
His demeanour remained the same during the Curialia accompanying
his accession, which were so arranged as to spare him as much as possible.
The Grand Duke signed the oath in the Silver Hall of the Gala Rooms
before the assembled Ministers, and read aloud in the Throne-room,
standing in front of the rounded chair under the baldachin, the Speech from
the Throne, which Herr von Knobelsdorff had drawn up. The economic
condition of the country was touched upon in it with earnestness and
delicacy, while appreciative mention was made of the unanimity which
despite all troubles existed between the princes and the country—at which
place a prominent functionary, who was apparently discontented about
promotion, was said to have whispered to his neighbour that the unanimity
consisted in the Prince being as deeply in debt as the country—a caustic

remark which was much repeated, and ended by getting into hostile
newspapers…. To end up, the President of the Landtag called for a cheer for
the Grand Duke, a service was held in the Court Chapel, and that was all.
Further, Albrecht signed an edict, by virtue of which a number of
sentences of fines and imprisonment, which had been imposed for the less
serious misdemeanours, chiefly infringement of the forest laws, were
remitted. The solemn procession through the city and the acclamation in the
Town Hall were omitted altogether, as the Grand Duke felt too tired for
them. Having been a captain hitherto, he was promoted on the occasion of
his accession at once to the colonelcy à la suite of his Hussar regiment, but
scarcely ever put the uniform on, and kept as far away as possible from his
sphere as a soldier. He made no change whatever in his staff, perhaps out of
respect to his father's memory, either among the Court appointments or in
the Ministry.
The public saw him but rarely. His proud and bashful disinclination to
show himself, to put himself forward, to allow others to acclaim him, was
so clearly shown from the very beginning as to shock public opinion. He
never appeared in the large box at the Court Theatre. He never took part in
the park parade. When in residence at the Old Schloss, he had himself
driven in a closed carriage to a remote and empty part of the suburbs, where
he got out to take a little exercise; and in the summer at Hollerbrunn he only
left the hedged walks of the parks on exceptional occasions.
Did the people catch a glimpse of him—at the Albrechtstor it might be,
when wrapped in his heavy fur coat, which his father had worn before him,
and on whose thick collar his delicate head now rested, he stepped into his
carriage—timid glances were levelled at him, and the cheering was faint
and hesitating. For the lower classes felt that with a prince like this there
could be no question of cheering him and thereby cheering themselves at
the same time. They looked at him, and did not recognize themselves in
him; his refined superiority made it clear that they were of different clay
from his. And they were not accustomed to that. Was there not a
commissionaire posted in the Albrechtsplatz that very day, who with his
high cheek-bones and grey whiskers looked a coarse and homely replica of
the late Grand Duke? And did one not similarly meet with Prince Klaus
Heinrich's features in the lower classes?

It was not so with his brother. The people could not see in him an
idealized version of themselves, whom it could make them happy to cheer
—as it meant cheering themselves too! the Grand Duke's Highness—his
undoubted Highness!—was a nobility of the usual kind, undomestic, and
without the stamp of the graciousness which inspires confidence. He too
knew that; and the consciousness of his Highness, together with that of his
want of popular graciousness, were quite enough to account for his shyness
and haughtiness. He began already to delegate as far as possible his duties
to Prince Klaus Heinrich. He sent him to open the new spring at
Immenstadt and to the historical town-pageant at Butterburg. Indeed, his
contempt for any exhibition of his princely person went so far that Herr von
Knobelsdorff had the greatest difficulty in persuading him to receive the
Presidents of the two Chambers in the Throne-room himself, and not, “for
reasons of health,” as he was minded, to give place to his brother on this
solemn occasion.
Albrecht II lived a lonely life in the Old Schloss; that was unavoidable
in the nature of things. In the first place, Prince Klaus Heinrich, since
Johann Albrecht's death, kept a Court of his own. That was demanded by
etiquette, and he had been given the “Hermitage” as a residence, that
Empire Schloss on the fringe of the northern suburbs, which, reposeful and
charming, but long uninhabited and neglected, in the middle of its
overgrown park next the Town Gardens, looked down on its little mud-thick
pond. Some time ago, when Albrecht came of age, the “Hermitage” had
been freshened up and for form's sake destined to be the Heir Apparent's
palace; but as Albrecht had always come in summer straight from his warm,
dry foreign resort to Hollerbrunn, he had never used his palace….
Klaus Heinrich lived there without unnecessary expense, with one
major-domo, who superintended the household, a Baron von Schulenburg-
Tressen, nephew of the Mistress of the Robes. Besides his valet, Neumann,
he had two other lackeys for his daily needs; he borrowed the game-keeper
when necessary for ceremonial shoots, from the Grand Duke's Court. One
coachman and a couple of grooms in red waistcoats looked after the
carriages and horses, which consisted of one pony-cart, one brougham, one
dog-cart, two riding and two carriage horses. One gardener, helped by two
boys, looked after the park and the garden; and one cook with her kitchen-

maid, as well as two chambermaids, made up the female staff of the
“Hermitage.”
It was Court Marshal von Schulenburg's business to keep his young
master's establishment going on the apanage which the Landtag, after
Albrecht's accession, had voted the Grand Duke's brother after a serious
debate. It amounted to two thousand five hundred pounds. For the sum of
four thousand pounds, which had been the original demand, had never had
any prospect of recommending itself to the Landtag, and so a wise and
magnanimous act of self-denial had been credited to Klaus Heinrich, which
had made an excellent impression in the country. Every winter Herr von
Schulenburg sold the ice from the pond. He had the hay in the park mowed
twice every summer and sold. After the harvests the surface of the fields
looked almost like English turf.
Further, Dorothea, the Dowager Grand Duchess, no longer lived in the
Old Schloss, and the causes of her retirement were both sad and
uncomfortable. For she too, the Princess whom the much-travelled Herr von
Knobelsdorff had described more than once as one of the most beautiful
women he had ever seen, the Princess whose radiant smiles had evoked joy,
enthusiasm, and cheers whenever she had shown herself to the longing gaze
of the toil-worn masses, she too had had to pay her tribute to time. Dorothea
had aged, her calm perfection, the admiration and joy of everybody, had
during recent years withered so fast and steadily that the woman in her had
been unable to keep pace with the transformation. Nothing, no art, no
measures, even the painful and repulsive ones, with which she tried to stave
off decay, had availed to prevent the sweet brightness of her deep blue eyes
from fading, rings of loose yellow skin from forming under them, the
wonderful little dimples in her cheeks from turning into furrows, and her
proud and hard mouth from looking drawn and bitter.
But since her heart had been hard as her beauty, and had been absorbed
in that beauty, since her beauty had been her very soul and she had had no
wish, no love, beyond the effect of that beauty on the hearts of others, while
her own heart never beat the faster for anything or anyone, she was now
disconsolate and lost, could not accommodate herself to the change and
rebelled against it. Surgeon-General Eschrich said something about mental
disturbance resulting from an unusually quick climacteric, and his opinion

was undoubtedly correct in a sense. The sad truth at any rate was that
Dorothea during the last years of her husband's life had already shown signs
of profound mental disturbance and trouble.
She became light-shy, gave orders that at the Thursday concerts in the
Marble Hall all the lights should be shaded red, and flew into a passion
because she could not have the same thing done at all other festivities, the
Court Ball, the Private Ball, the Dinner Party, and the Great Court, as the
kind of twilight feeling in the Marble Hall had been enough by itself to call
forth many cutting remarks. She spent whole days before her looking-
glasses, and it was noticed that she fondled with her hands those which for
some reason or other reflected her image in a more favourable light. Then
again she had all the looking-glasses removed from her rooms, and those
fixed in the wall draped, went to bed and prayed for death.
One day Baroness von Schulenburg found her quite distracted and
feverish with weeping in the Hall of the Twelve Months before the big
portrait which represented her at the height of her beauty…. At the same
time a diseased misanthropy began to take possession of her, and both
Court and people were distressed to notice how the bearing of this erstwhile
goddess began to lose its assurance, her deportment became strangely
awkward, and a pitiful look came into her eyes.
At last she shut herself up altogether, and, at the last Court Ball he
attended, Johann Albrecht had escorted his sister Catherine instead of his
“indisposed Consort.” His death was from one point of view a release for
Dorothea, as it relieved her from all her duties as a sovereign. She chose as
dower-house Schloss Segenhaus, a monastic-looking old hunting-seat,
which lay in a solemn park about one and a half hour's drive from the
capital, and had been decorated by some pious old sportsman with religious
and sporting emblems curiously intermixed. There she lived, eclipsed and
odd, and excursionists could often watch her from afar, walking in the park
with Baroness von Schulenburg-Tressen, and bowing graciously to the trees
on each side of the path.
Lastly, Princess Ditlinde had married at the age of twenty, one year after
her father's death. She bestowed her hand on a prince of a mediatised house,
Prince Philipp zu Ried-Hohenried, a no longer young, but well-preserved,

cultured little man of advanced views, who paid her flattering attentions for
some considerable time, did all his courting at first-hand, and offered the
Princess his heart and hand in an honest bourgeois way at a charity
function.
It would be wrong to say that this alliance evoked wild enthusiasm in
the country. It was received with indifference; it disappointed. It is true,
more ambitious hopes had been secretly entertained for Johann Albrecht's
daughter, and all the critics could say was that the marriage could not be
called a mésalliance in so many words. It was a fact that Ditlinde, in giving
her hand to the Prince—which she did of her own free will, and quite
uninfluenced by others—had undoubtedly descended out of her sphere of
Highness into a more free and human atmosphere. Her noble spouse was
not only a lover and collector of oil paintings, but also a business man and
tradesman on a large scale.
The dynasty had ceased to exercise any sovereign right hundreds of
years ago, but Philipp was the first of his house to make up his mind to
exploit his private means in a natural way. After spending his youth in
travelling, he had looked around for a sphere of activity which would keep
him busy and contented, and at the same time (a matter of necessity) would
increase his income. So he launched out into various enterprises, started
farms, a brewery, a sugar factory, several saw-mills on his property, and
began to exploit his extensive peat deposits in a methodical way. As he
brought expert knowledge and sound business instincts to all his
enterprises, they soon began to pay, and returned profits which, if their
origin was not very princely, at any rate provided him with the means of
leading a princely existence which he would otherwise not have had.
On the other hand the critics might have been asked what sort of a
match they could expect for their Princess, if they viewed the matter
soberly. Ditlinde, who brought her husband scarcely anything except an
inexhaustible store of linen, including dozens of out-of-date and useless
articles such as night-caps and neckerchiefs, which however by hallowed
tradition formed part of her trousseau—she by this marriage acquired a
measure of riches and comfort such as she had never been accustomed to at
home: and no sacrifice of her affections was necessary to pay for them. She
took the step into private life with obvious contentment and determination,

and retained, of the trappings of Highness, nothing but her title. She
remained on friendly terms with her ladies-in-waiting, but divested her
relations with them of everything which suggested service, and avoided
giving her household the character of a Court.
That might evoke surprise, especially in a Grimmburg and in Ditlinde in
particular, but there was no doubt that it was her own choice. The couple
spent the summer on the princely estates, the winter in the capital in the
stately palace in the Albrechtstrasse, which Philipp zu Ried had inherited;
and it was here, not in the Old Schloss, that the Grand Ducal family—Klaus
Heinrich and Ditlinde, occasionally Albrecht as well—met now and again
for a confidential talk.
So it happened that one day at the beginning of autumn, not quite two
years after the death of Johann Albrecht, the Courier, well-informed as
usual, published in its evening edition the news that this afternoon his Royal
Highness the Grand Duke and his Grand Ducal Highness Prince Klaus
Heinrich had been to tea with her Grand Ducal Highness the Princess zu
Ried-Hohenried. That was all. But on that afternoon several topics of
importance for the future were discussed between the brothers and sister.
Klaus Heinrich left the Hermitage shortly before five o'clock. As the
weather was sunny, he had ordered the dogcart, and the open brown-
varnished vehicle, clean and shining, if not over-new or smart to look at,
came slowly up the broad drive of the Schloss, at a quarter to five, from the
stables, which with their asphalt yard lay in the right wing of the home
farm. The home farm, yellow-painted, old-fashioned buildings of one story,
made one long line with, though at some distance from, the plain white
mansion, the front of which, adorned with laurels at regular intervals, faced
the muddy pond and the public part of the park.
For the front portion of the estate, that which marched with the town
gardens, was open to pedestrians and light traffic, and all that was enclosed
was the gently rising flower-garden, at the top of which lay the Schloss and
the very unkempt park behind, which was divided by hedges and fences
from the rubbish-encumbered waste ground at the edge of the town suburbs.
So the cart came up the drive between the pond and the home farm, turned
through the high garden gates, adorned with lamps which had once been

gilt, passed on up the drive and waited in front of the stiff little laurel-
planted terrace which led to the garden-room.
Klaus Heinrich came out a few minutes before five. He wore as usual
the tight-fitting uniform of a lieutenant of the Grenadier Guards, and his
sword-hilt hung on his arm. Neumann, in a violet coat whose arms were too
short, ran in front of him down the steps and with his red barber's hands
packed his master's folded grey over-coat into the cart. Then, while the
coachman, his hand to his cockaded hat, inclined a little sideways on the
box, the valet arranged the light carriage rug over Klaus Heinrich's knees
and stepped back with a silent bow. The horses started off.
Outside the garden gates a few promenaders had collected. They greeted
Klaus Heinrich, smiling with knitted brows and hats lifted, and Klaus
Heinrich thanked them by raising his white-gloved right hand to the peak of
his cap and making a succession of lively nods.
They skirted a piece of waste ground along a birch avenue, whose
leaves were already turning, and then drove through the suburb, between
poverty-stricken houses, over unpaved streets, where the ragged children
left their hoops and tops for a moment to gaze at the carriage with curious
eyes. Some cried, Hurrah! and ran for a while by the side of the carriage,
with heads turned towards Klaus Heinrich. The carriage might have taken
the road by the Spa-gardens; but that through the suburb was shorter, and
time pressed. Ditlinde was particular on points of regularity, and easily put
out if anybody disturbed her household arrangements by unpunctuality.
Yonder was the Dorothea Children's Hospital of which Doctor Sammet,
Ueberbein's friend, was the Director; Klaus Heinrich drove by it. And then
the carriage left the squalid neighbourhood and reached the Gartenstrasse, a
stately tree-planted avenue, in which lay the houses and villas of wealthy
citizens, and along which ran the tram-line from the Spa Gardens to the
centre of the city. The traffic here was fairly heavy, and Klaus Heinrich was
kept busy answering the greetings which met him. Civilians took off their
hats and looked from under their eyebrows at him, officers on horse and on
foot saluted, policemen front-turned, and Klaus Heinrich in his corner
raised his hand to the peak of his cap and thanked on both sides with the
well-trained bow and smile which were calculated to confirm the people in

their feeling of participation in his splendid personality…. His way of
sitting in his carriage was quite peculiar—he did not lean back indolently
and comfortably in the cushions, but he took just as active a part in the
motions of the carriage when driving as in those of his horse when riding;
with hands crossed on his sword hilt and one foot a little advanced, he as it
were “took” the unevennesses of the ground, and accommodated himself to
the motion of the badly hung carriage.
The carriage crossed the Albrechtsplatz, left the Old Schloss, with the
two sentries presenting arms, to the right, followed the Albrechtstrasse in
the direction of the barracks of the Grenadier Guards and rolled to the left
into the courtyard of the palace of the Princess of Ried. It was a building of
regular proportions in the pedantic style, with a soaring gable over the main
door, festooned œils-de-bœuf in the mezzanine story, high French windows
in the first story, and an elegant cour d'honneur, which was formed by the
two one-storied wings and was separated from the street by a circular
railing, on whose pillars stone babies played. But the internal arrangements
of the Schloss were, in contradistinction to the historical style of its exterior,
conceived throughout in an up-to-date and comfortable bourgeois taste.
Ditlinde received her brother in a large drawing-room on the first floor
with several curved sofas in pale green silk; the back part of the room was
separated from the front by slender pillars, and filled with palms, plants in
metal bowls, and tables covered with brilliant flowers.
“Good afternoon, Klaus Heinrich,” said the Princess. She was delicate
and thin, and the only luxuriant thing about her was her fair hair, which
used to lie like ram's horns round her ears and now was dressed in thick
plaits above her face with its high Grimmburg cheek-bones. She wore an
indoor dress of soft blue-grey stuff with a white lace collar, cut in a point
like a breast-plate and fastened at the waist with an old-fashioned oval
brooch. Blue veins and shadows showed here and there through the delicate
skin of her face, in the temples, the forehead, at the corners of her soft and
calm blue eyes. Signs of approaching maternity were beginning to show
themselves.
“Good afternoon, Ditlinde, you and your flowers!” answered Klaus
Heinrich, as, clapping his heels together, he bent over her little, white,

rather over-broad hand. “How they do smell! And the garden's full of them,
I see.”
“Yes,” she said, “I love flowers. I have always longed to be able to live
among quantities of flowers, living, smelling flowers, which I could watch
growing—it was a kind of secret wish of mine, Klaus Heinrich, and I might
almost say that I married for flowers, for in the Old Schloss, as you know,
there were no flowers…. The Old Schloss and flowers! We should have had
to rummage a lot to find them, I'm sure. Rat-traps and such things, plenty of
them. And really, when one comes to think, the whole thing was like a
disused rat-trap, so dusty and horrid … ugh!…”
“But the rose-bush, Ditlinde.”
“Yes, my goodness—one rose-bush. And that's in the guide-books,
because its roses smell of decay. And the books say that it will one day
smell quite natural and nice, just like any other rose. But I can't believe it.”
“You will soon,” he said, and looked at her laughingly, “have something
better than your flowers to tend, little Ditlinde.”
“Yes,” she said and blushed lightly and quickly, “yes, Klaus Heinrich, I
can hardly believe it. And yet it will be so, if God pleases. But come over
here. We'll have a chat together once more….”
The room, on whose threshold they had been talking, was small in
comparison with its height, with a grey-blue carpet, and furnished with
cheery-looking silver-grey furniture, the chairs of which were upholstered
in blue silk. A milk-white china chandelier hung from the white-festooned
centre of the ceiling, and the walls were adorned with oil paintings of
various sizes, acquisitions of Prince Philipp's, light studies in the new style,
representing white goats in the sun, poultry in the sun, sun-bathed meadows
and peasants with blinking, sun-sprinkled faces.
The spindle-legged secretaire in the white-curtained window was
covered with a hundred carefully arranged articles, knick-knacks, writing
materials, and several dainty note-blocks—for the Princess was accustomed
to make careful and comprehensive notes about all her duties and plans. In
front of the inkstand a housekeeper's book, in which Ditlinde had
apparently just been working, lay open, and by the table there hung on the

wall a little silk-trimmed block-calendar, under the printed date of which
could be seen the pencil note: “5 o'clock: my brothers.” Between the sofa
and a semicircle of chairs over against the white swing doors into the
reception room stood an oval table with a damask cloth and blue-silk
border; the flowered tea-service, a jam-pot, long dishes of sweet cakes, and
tiny pieces of bread and butter were arranged in ordered disorder on it, and
to one side steamed the silver tea-kettle over its spirit-flame on a glass
table. But there were flowers everywhere—flowers in the vases on the
writing-table, on the tea-table, on the glass table, on the china-cabinet, on
the table next the white sofa, and a flower-table full of flower-pots stood in
the window.
This room, situated at the side and in a corner of the suite of reception
rooms, was Ditlinde's cabinet, her boudoir, the room in which she used to
entertain quite intimate friends and to make tea with her own hands. Klaus
Heinrich watched her as she washed out the tea-pot with hot water and put
the tea in with a silver spoon.
“And Albrecht … is he coming?” he asked with an involuntarily
restrained voice.
“I hope so,” she said, bending attentively over the crystal tea-caddy, as
if to avoid spilling any tea (and he too avoided looking at her). “I have of
course asked him, Klaus Heinrich, but you know he cannot bind himself. It
depends on his health whether he comes. I'm making our tea at once, for
Albrecht will drink his milk…. Possibly too Jettchen may look in for a bit
to-day. You will enjoy seeing her again. She's so lively, and has always got
such a lot to tell us.”
“Jettchen” meant Fräulein von Isenschnibbe, the Princess's friend and
confidant. They had been on Christian-name terms since they were children.
“In armour, too, as usual?” said Ditlinde, placing the filled tea-pot on its
stand and examining her brother. “In uniform as usual, Klaus Heinrich?”
He stood with heels together and rubbed his left hand, which was cold,
on his chest with his right.
“Yes, Ditlinde, I like it, I'd rather. It fits so tight, you see, and it braces
me up. Besides, it is cheaper, for a proper civil wardrobe runs into a terrible

lot of money, I believe, and Schulenburg is always going on about how dear
things are, without that. So I manage with two or three coats, and yet can
show myself in my rich relations' houses.”
“Rich relations!” laughed Ditlinde. “Still some way off that, Klaus
Heinrich!”
They sat down at the tea-table, Ditlinde on a sofa, Klaus Heinrich on a
chair opposite the window.
“Rich relations!” she repeated, and the subject obviously excited her.
“No, far from it; how can we expect to be rich, where cash is so short and
everything is sunk in various enterprises, Klaus Heinrich? And they are
young and in the making, they're all in the development stage, as dear
Philipp says, and won't bear full fruit till others have succeeded us. But
things are improving, that much is true, and I keep the household
straight….”
“Yes, Ditlinde, you do keep it straight and no mistake!”
“Keep it straight, and write everything down and look after the servants,
and after all the payments which one's duty to the world demands have been
made, there is a nice little sum to put by every year for the children. And
dear Philipp…. He sends his greetings, Klaus Heinrich—I forgot, he's very
sorry not to be able to be here to-day…. We've only just got back from
Hohenried, and there he is already under way, at his office, on his properties
—he's small and delicate naturally, but when his peat or his saw-mills are in
question he gets red cheeks, and he says himself that he has been much
better since he has had so much to do.”
“Does he say so?” asked Klaus Heinrich, and a sad look came into his
eyes, as he looked straight beyond the flower-table at the bright window….
“Yes, I can quite believe that it must be very stimulating to be so really
splendidly busy. In my park too the meadows have been mowed a second
time this year already, and I love seeing the hay built up in steep heaps with
a stick through the middle of each, looking for all the world like a camp of
little Indians' huts, and then Schulenburg intends to sell it. But of course
that cannot be compared …”

“Oh, you!” said Ditlinde, and drew her chin in. “With you it's quite
different, Klaus Heinrich! The next to the throne! You are called to other
things, I imagine. My goodness, yes! You enjoy your popularity with the
people….”
They were silent for a while. Then he said:
“And you, Ditlinde, if I'm not mistaken you're as happy as, even happier
than, before. I don't say that you have got red cheeks, like Philipp from his
peat; you always were a bit transparent, and you are still. But you look
flourishing. I haven't yet asked, since you married, but I think there's
nothing to worry about in connexion with you.”
She sat in an easy position, with her arm lightly folded across her lap.
“Yes,” she said, “I'm all right, Klaus Heinrich, your eyes don't deceive
you, and it would be ungrateful of me not to acknowledge my good fortune.
You see, I know quite well that many people in the country are disappointed
by my marriage and say that I have ruined myself, and demeaned myself,
and so on. And such people are not far to seek, for brother Albrecht, as you
know as well as I do, in his heart despises my dear Philipp and me into the
bargain, and can't abide him, and calls him privately a tradesman and
shopkeeper. But that doesn't bother me, for I meant it when I accepted
Philipp's hand—seized it, I would say, if it didn't sound so wild—accepted
it because it was warm and honest, and offered to take me away from the
Old Schloss. For when I look back and think of the Old Schloss and life in
it as I should have gone on living if it had not been for dear Philipp, I
shudder, Klaus Heinrich, and I feel that I could not have borne it and should
have become strange and queer like poor mamma. I am a bit delicate
naturally, as you know, I should have simply gone under in so much
desolation and sadness, and when dear Philipp came, I thought: now's your
chance. And when people say that I am a bad Princess, because I have in a
way abdicated, and fled here where it is rather warmer and more friendly,
and when they say that I lack dignity or consciousness of Highness, or
whatever they call it, they are stupid and ignorant, Klaus Heinrich, because
I have too much, I have on the contrary too much of it, that's a fact,
otherwise the Old Schloss would not have had such an effect upon me, and
Albrecht ought to see that, for he too, in his way, has too much of it—all we

Grimmburgers have too much of it, and that's why it sometimes looks as if
we had too little of it. And sometimes, when Philipp is under way, as he is
now, and I sit here among my flowers and Philipp's pictures with all their
sun—it's lucky that it's painted sun, for bless me! otherwise we should have
to get sun-blinds—and everything is tidy and clean, and I think of the
blessing, as you call it, in store for me, then I seem to myself like the little
mermaid in the fairy-tale which the Swiss governess read to us, if you
remember—who married a mortal and got legs instead of her fish's tail…. I
don't know if you understand me….”
“Oh yes, Ditlinde, of course, I understand you perfectly. And I am really
glad that everything has turned out so well and happily for you. For it is
dangerous, I may tell you, in my experience it is difficult for us to be
suitably happy. It's so easy to go wrong and be misunderstood, for the
nuisance is that nobody protects our dignity for us if we don't do it
ourselves, and then blame and scandal so readily follow…. But which is the
right way? You have found it. They have quite recently announced my
engagement with Cousin Griseldis in the newspapers. That was a ballon
d'essai, as they call it, and they think it was a very happy one. But Griseldis
is a silly girl, and half-dead with anæmia, and never says anything but ‘yes,’
so far as I know. I've never given her a thought, nor has Knobelsdorff, thank
goodness. The news was at once announced to be unfounded…. Here
comes Albrecht!” he said, and stood up.
A cough was heard outside. A footman in olive-green livery threw open
the swing doors with a quick, firm, and noiseless movement of both arms,
and announced in a subdued voice: “His Royal Highness the Grand Duke.”
Then he stepped aside with a bow. Albrecht advanced through the room.
He had traversed the hundred yards from the Old Schloss hither in a
closed carriage, with his huntsman on the box. He was in mufti, as almost
always, wore a buttoned-up frock-coat with little satin lapels, and patent-
leather boots on his small feet. Since his accession he had grown an
imperial. His short fair hair was brushed back on each of his narrow, sunk
temples. His gait was an awkward and yet indescribably distinguished strut,
which gave his shoulder-blades a peculiar twist. He carried his head well

back and stuck his short round underlip out, sucking gently with it against
the upper one.
The Princess went to the threshold to meet him. He disliked hand-
kissing, so he simply held out his hand with a soft almost whispered
greeting—his thin, cold hand which looked so sensitive and which he
stretched out from his chest while keeping his forearm close to his body.
Then he greeted his brother Klaus Heinrich in the same way, who had
waited for him standing with heels close together in front of his chair—and
said nothing further.
Ditlinde talked. “It's very nice of you to come, Albrecht. So you're
feeling well? You look splendid. Philipp wishes me to tell you how sorry he
is to have to be out this afternoon. Sit down, won't you, anywhere you like
—here, for instance, opposite me. That chair's a pretty comfortable one, you
sat in it last time. I've made tea for us in the meantime. You'll have your
milk directly….”
“Thanks,” he said quietly. “I must beg pardon … I'm late. You know, the
shorter the road … And then I have to lie down in the afternoon…. There's
no one else coming?”
“No one else, Albrecht. At the most, Jettchen Isenschnibbe may look in
for a bit, if you don't object….”
“Oh?”
“But I can just as well say ‘Not at home.’”
“Oh no, pray don't.”
Hot milk was brought. Albrecht clasped the tall, thick, studded glass in
both hands.
“Ah, something warm,” he said. “How cold it is already in these parts!
And I've been frozen the whole summer in Hollerbrunn. Haven't you started
fires yet? I have. But then again the smell of the stoves upsets me. All
stoves smell. Von Bühl promises me central heating for the Old Schloss
every autumn. But it seems not to be feasible.”

“Poor Albrecht,” said Ditlinde, “at this time of year you used to be
already in the South, so long as father was alive. You must long for it.”
“Your sympathy does you credit, dear Ditlinde,” answered he, still in a
low and slightly lisping voice. “But we must show that I am on the spot. I
must rule the country, as you know, that's what I'm here for. To-day I have
been graciously pleased to allow some worthy citizen—I'm sorry I can't
remember his name—to accept and wear a foreign order. Further, I have
had a telegram sent to the annual meeting of the Horticultural Society, in
which I assumed the honorary Presidency of the Society and pledged my
word to further its efforts in every way—without really knowing what
furthering I could do beyond sending the telegram, for the members are
quite well able to take care of themselves. Further, I have deigned to
confirm the choice of a certain worthy fellow to be mayor of my fair city of
Siebenberge—in connection with which I should like to know whether this
my subject will be a better mayor for my confirmation than he would have
been without it….”
“Well, well, Albrecht, those are trifles!” said Ditlinde. “I'm convinced
that you've had more serious business to do….”
“Oh, of course. I've had a talk with my Minister of Finance and
Agriculture. It was time I did. Doctor Krippenreuther would have been
bitterly disappointed with me if I had not summoned him once more. He
went ahead in summary fashion and laid before me a conspectus of several
mutually related topics at once—the harvest, the new principles for the
drawing up of the budget, the reform of taxation, on which he is busy. The
harvest has been a bad one, it seems. The peasants have been hit by blight
and bad weather; not only they, but Krippenreuther too, are much concerned
about it, because the tax-paying resources of the land, he says, have once
more suffered contraction. Besides, there have unfortunately been disasters
in more than one of the silver-mines. The gear is at a standstill, says
Krippenreuther, it is damaged and will cost a lot of money to repair. I
listened to the whole recital with an appropriate expression on my face, and
did what I could to express my grief for such a series of misfortunes. Next, I
was consulted as to whether the cost of the necessary new buildings for the
Treasury and for the Woods and Customs and Inland Revenue Offices ought
to be debited to the ordinary or the extraordinary estimates; I learnt a lot

about sliding scales, and income tax, and tax on tourist traffic, and the
removal of burdens from oppressed agriculture and the imposition of
burdens on the towns; and on the whole I got the impression that
Krippenreuther was well up in his subject. I, of course, know practically
nothing about it—which Krippenreuther knows and approves; so I just said
‘yes, yes,’ and ‘of course,’ and ‘many thanks,’ and let him run on.”
“You speak so bitterly, Albrecht.”
“No; I'll just tell you what struck me while Krippenreuther was holding
forth to me to-day. There's a man living in this town, a man with small
private means and a warty nose. Every child knows him and shouts ‘Hi!’
when he sees him; he is called ‘the Hatter,’ for he is not quite all there; his
surname he has lost long ago. He is always on the spot when there is
anything going on, although his half-wittedness keeps him from playing any
serious part in anything; he wears a rose in his buttonhole, and carries his
hat about on the end of his walking-stick. Twice a day, about the time when
a train starts, he goes to the station, taps the wheels, examines the luggage,
and fusses about. Then when the guard blows his whistle, ‘the Hatter’
waves to the engine-driver, and the train starts. But ‘the Hatter’ deludes
himself into thinking that his waving sends the train off. That's like me. I
wave, and the train starts. But it would start without me, and my waving
makes no difference, it's mere silly show. I'm sick of it….”
The brother and sister were silent. Ditlinde looked at her lap in an
embarrassed way, and Klaus Heinrich gazed, as he tugged at his little bow-
shaped moustache, between her and the Grand Duke at the bright window.
“I can quite follow you, Albrecht,” said he after a while, “though it is
rather cruel of you to compare yourself and us with ‘the Hatter.’ You see, I
too understand nothing about sliding scales and taxation of tourist traffic
and peat-cutting, and there is such a lot about which I know nothing—
everything which is covered by the expression ‘the misery in the world’—
hunger and want, and the struggle for existence, as it is called, and war and
hospital horrors, and all that. I have seen and studied not one of these,
except death itself, when father died, and that too was not death as it can be,
but rather it was edifying, and the whole Schloss was illuminated. And at
times I feel ashamed of myself because I have not knocked about the world.

But then I tell myself that mine is not a comfortable life, not at all
comfortable, although I ‘wander on the heights of mankind,’ as people
express it, or perhaps just because I do, and that I perhaps in my own way
know more about the strenuousness of life, its ‘tight-lipped countenance,’ if
you will allow me the expression, than many a one who knows all about the
sliding scales or any other single department of life. And the upshot of that
is, Albrecht, that my life is not a comfortable one—that's the upshot of
everything—if you will allow me this retort, and that is how we justify
ourselves. And if people cry ‘Hi!’ when they see me, they must know why
they do so, and my life must have some raison d'être, although I am
prevented from playing any serious part in anything, as you so admirably
express it. And you're quite justified too. You wave to order, because the
people wish you to wave, and if you do not really control their wishes and
aspirations, yet you express them and give them substance, and may be
that's no slight matter.”
Albrecht sat upright at the table. He held his thin, strangely sensitive-
looking hands crossed on the table-edge in front of the tall, half-empty glass
of milk, and his eyelids dropped, and he sucked his underlip against his
upper. He answered quietly: “I'm not surprised that so popular a prince as
you should be contented with his lot. I for my part decline to express
somebody else in my own person—I decline to, say, and you may think it's
a case of sour grapes as much as you like. The truth is that I care for the
‘Hi!’ of the people just as little as any living soul possibly could care. I say
soul, not body. The flesh is weak—there's something in one which expands
at applause and contracts at cold silence. But my reason rises superior to all
considerations of popularity or unpopularity. If I did succeed in being a true
national representative, I know what that would amount to. A
misconception of my personality. Besides, a few hand-claps from people
one does not know are not worth a shrug of the shoulders. Others—you—
may be inspired by the feeling of the people behind you. You must forgive
me for being too matter-of-fact to feel any such mysterious feeling of
happiness—and too keen on cleanliness also, if you will allow me to put it
thus. That kind of happiness stinks, to my thinking. Anyhow, I'm a stranger
to the people. I give them nothing—what can they give me? With you …
oh, that's quite different. Hundreds of thousands, who are like you, are
grateful to you because they can recognize themselves in you. You may

laugh if you like. The chief danger you run is that you submerge yourself in
your popularity too readily; and yet after all you feel no apprehensions,
although you are aware at this very moment …”
“No, Albrecht, I don't think so. I don't think I run any such danger.”
“Then we shall understand each other all the better. I have no penchant
for strong expressions as a rule. But popularity is hog-wash.”
“It's funny, Albrecht. Funny that you should use that word. The
‘Pheasants’ were always using it—my schoolmates, the young sprigs, you
know, at the ‘Pheasantry.’ I know what you are. You're an aristocrat, that's
what's the matter.”
“Do you think so? You're wrong. I'm no aristocrat, I'm the opposite, by
taste and reason. You must allow that I do not despise the ‘Hi's’ of the
crowd from arrogance, but from a propensity to humanity and goodness.
Human Highness is a pitiable thing, and I'm convinced that mankind ought
to see that everyone behaves like a man, and a good man, to his neighbour
and does not humiliate him or cause him shame. A man must have a thick
skin to be able to carry off all the flummery of Highness without any feeling
of shame. I am naturally rather sensitive, I cannot cope with the absurdity of
my situation. Every lackey who plants himself at the door, and expects me
to pass him without noticing, without heeding him more than the door
posts, fills me with embarrassment, that's the way I feel towards the
people….”
“Yes, Albrecht, quite true. It's often by no means easy to keep one's
countenance when one passes by a fellow like that. The lackeys! If one only
did not know what frauds they are! One hears fine stories about them….”
“What stories?”
“Oh, one keeps one's ears open….”
“Come, come!” said Ditlinde. “Don't let's worry about that. Here you
are talking about ordinary things, and I had two topics noted down which I
thought we might discuss this afternoon…. Would you be so kind, Klaus
Heinrich, as to reach me that notebook there in blue leather on the writing-
table? Many thanks. I note down in this everything I have to remember,

both household matters and other things. What a blessing it is to be able to
see everything down in black and white! My head is terribly weak, it can't
remember things, and if I weren't tidy and didn't jot everything down, I
should be done for. First of all, Albrecht, before I forget it, I wanted to
remind you that you must escort Aunt Catherine at the first Court on
November 1st—you can't get out of it. I withdraw; the honour fell to me at
the last Court Ball, and Aunt Catherine was terribly put out…. Do you
consent? Good, then I cross out item 1. Secondly, Klaus Heinrich, I wanted
to ask you to make a short appearance at the Orphan Children's Bazaar on
the 15th in the Town Hall. I am patroness, and I take my duties seriously, as
you see. You needn't buy anything—a pocket comb…. In short, all you need
do is to show yourself for ten minutes. It's for the orphans…. Will you
come? You see, now I can cross another off. Thirdly …”
But the Princess was interrupted. Fräulein von Isenschnibbe, the Court
lady, was announced and tripped in at once through the big drawing-room,
her feather boa waving in the draught, and the brim of her huge feather hat
flapping up and down. The smell of the fresh air from outside seemed to
cling to her clothes. She was small, very fair, with a pointed nose, and so
short-sighted that she could not see the stars. On clear evenings she would
stand on her balcony and gaze at the starry heavens through opera-glasses,
and rave about them. She wore two strong pairs of glasses, one behind the
other, and screwed up her eyes and stuck her head forward as she curtseyed.
“Heavens, Grand Ducal Highness,” she said, “I didn't know; I'm
disturbing you, I'm intruding. I most humbly beg pardon!”
The brothers had risen, and the visitor, as she curtseyed to them, was
filled with confusion. As Albrecht extended his hand from his chest,
keeping his forearm close to his body, her arm was stretched out almost
perpendicularly, when the curtsey which she made him had reached its
lowest point.
“Dear Jettchen,” said Ditlinde, “what nonsense! You are expected and
welcome, and my brothers know that we call each other by our Christian
names, so none of that Grand Ducal Highness, if you please. We are not in
the Old Schloss. Sit down and make yourself comfortable. Will you have

some tea? It's still hot, and here are some candied fruits, I know you like
them.”
“Yes, a thousand thanks, Ditlinde, I adore them!” And Fräulein von
Isenschnibbe took a chair on the narrow side of the tea-table opposite Klaus
Heinrich, with her back to the window, drew a glove off and began peering
forward, to lay sweetmeats on her plate with the silver tongs. Her little
bosom heaved quickly and nervously with pleasurable excitement.
“I've got some news,” she said, unable any longer to contain herself.
“News…. More than any reticule will hold! That is to say it is really only
one piece of news, only one—but it's so weighty that it counts for dozens,
and it is quite certain, I have it on the best authority—you know that I am
reliable, Ditlinde; this very evening it will be in the Courier and to-morrow
the whole town will be talking about it.”
“Yes, Jettchen,” said the Princess, “it must be confessed you never come
with empty hands; but now we're excited, do tell us your news.”
“Very well. Let me get my breath. Do you know, Ditlinde, does your
Royal Highness know, does your Grand Ducal Highness know who's
coming, who is coming to the spa, who is coming for six or eight weeks to
the Spa Hotel to drink the waters?”
“No,” said Ditlinde, “but do you know, dear Jettchen?”
“Spoelmann,” said Fräulein von Isenschnibbe. “Spoelmann,” she said,
leaned back and made as if to draw with her fingers on the table-edge, but
checked the movement of her hand just over the blue silk border.
The brothers and sister looked doubtfully at each other.
“Spoelmann?” asked Ditlinde…. “Think a moment, Jettchen, the real
Spoelmann?”
“The real one!” Her voice cracked with suppressed jubilation. “The real
one, Ditlinde! For there's only one, or rather only one whom everybody
knows, and he it is whom they are expecting at the Spa Hotel—the great
Spoelmann, the giant Spoelmann, the colossus Samuel N. Spoelmann from
America!”

“But, child, what's bringing him here?”
“Really, forgive me for saying so, Ditlinde, but what a question! His
yacht or some big steamer is bringing him over the sea of course, he's on his
holidays making a tour of Europe and has expressed his intention of
drinking the Spa waters.”
“But is he ill, then?”
“Of course, Ditlinde; all people of his kind are ill, that's part of the
business.”
“Strange,” said Klaus Heinrich.
“Yes, Grand Ducal Highness, it is remarkable. His kind of existence
must bring that with it. For there's no doubt it's a trying existence, and not at
all a comfortable one, and must wear the body out quicker than an ordinary
man's life would. Most suffer in the stomach, but Spoelmann suffers from
stone as everybody knows.”
“Stone, does he?”
“Of course, Ditlinde, you must have heard it and forgotten it. He has
stone in the kidneys, if you will forgive me the horrid expression—a
serious, trying illness, and I'm sure he can't get the slightest pleasure from
his frantic wealth.”
“But how in the world has he pitched upon our waters?”
“Why, Ditlinde, that's simple. The waters are good, they're excellent;
especially the Ditlinde spring, with its lithium or whatever they call it, is
admirable against gout and stone, and only waiting to be properly known
and valued throughout the world. But a man like Spoelmann, you can
imagine, a man like that is above names and trade-puffs, and follows his
own kind. And so he has discovered our waters—or his physician has
recommended them to him, it may be that, and bought it in the bottle, and it
has done him good, and now he may think that it must do him still more
good if he drinks it on the spot.”
They all kept silence.

“Great heavens, Albrecht,” said Ditlinde at last, “whatever one thinks of
Spoelmann and his kind—and I'm not going to commit myself to an
opinion, of that you may be sure—but don't you think that the man's visit to
the Spa may be very useful?”
The Grand Duke turned his head with his stiff and refined smile.
“Ask Fräulein von Isenschnibbe,” he answered. “She has doubtless
already considered the question from that point of view.”
“If your Royal Highness asks me … enormously useful! Immeasurably,
incalculably useful—that's obvious! The directors are in the seventh
heaven, they're getting ready to decorate and illuminate the Spa Hotel!
What a recommendation, what an attraction for strangers! Will your Royal
Highness just consider—the man is a curiosity! Your Grand Ducal Highness
spoke just now of ‘his kind’—but there are none of ‘his kind’—at most,
only a couple. He's a Leviathan, a Crœsus! People will come from miles
away to see a being who has about half a million a day to spend!”
“Gracious!” said Ditlinde, taken aback. “And there's dear Philipp
worrying about his peat beds.”
“The first scene,” the Fräulein went on, “begins with two Americans
hanging about the Exchange for the last couple of days. Who are they?
They are said to be journalists, reporters, for two big New York papers.
They have preceded the Leviathan, and are telegraphing to their papers
preliminary descriptions of the scenery. When he has got here they will
telegraph every step he takes—just as the Courier and the Advertiser report
about your Royal Highness….”
Albrecht bowed his thanks with eyes downcast and underlip protruded.
“He has appropriated the Prince's suite in the Spa Hotel,” said Jettchen,
“as provisional lodgings.”
“For himself alone?” asked Ditlinde.
“Oh no, Ditlinde, do you suppose he'd be coming alone? There isn't any
precise information about his suite and staff, but it's quite certain that his
daughter and his physician-in-ordinary are coming with him.”

“It annoys me, Jettchen, to hear you talking about a ‘physician-in-
ordinary’ and the journalists, too, and the Prince's suite to boot. He's not a
king, after all.”
“A railway king, so far as I know,” remarked Albrecht quietly with eyes
downcast.
“Not only, nor even particularly, a railway king, Royal Highness,
according to what I hear. Over in America they have those great business
concerns called Trusts, as your Royal Highness knows—the Steel Trust for
instance, the Sugar Trust, the Petroleum Trust, the Coal, Meat, and Tobacco
Trusts, and goodness knows how many more, and Samuel N. Spoelmann
has a finger in nearly all these trusts, and is chief shareholder in them, and
managing director—that's what I believe they call them—so his business
must be what is called over here a ‘Mixed Goods Business.’”
“A nice sort of business,” said Ditlinde, “it must be a nice sort of
business! For you can't persuade me, dear Jettchen, that honest work can
make a man into a Leviathan and a Crœsus. I am convinced that his riches
are steeped in the blood of widows and orphans. What do you think,
Albrecht?”
“I hope so, Ditlinde, I hope so, for your own and your husband's
comfort.”
“May be so,” explained Jettchen, “yet Spoelmann—our Samuel N.
Spoelmann—is hardly responsible for it, for he is really nothing but an heir,
and may quite well not have had any particular taste for his business. It was
his father who really made the pile, I've read all about it, and may say that I
really know the general facts. His father was a German—simply an
adventurer who crossed the seas and became gold-digger. And he was lucky
and made a little money through gold-finds—or rather quite a decent
amount of money—and began to speculate in petroleum and steel and
railways, and then in every sort of thing, and kept growing richer and richer,
and when he died everything was already in full swing, and his son Samuel,
who inherited the Crœsus' firm, really had nothing to do but to collect the
princely dividends and keep growing richer and richer till he beat all
records. That's the way things have gone.”

“And he has a daughter, has he, Jettchen? What's she like?”
“Yes, Ditlinde, his wife is dead, but he has a daughter, Miss Spoelmann,
and he's bringing her with him. She's a wonderful girl from all I've read
about her. He himself is a bit of a mixture, for his father married a wife
from the South—Creole blood, the daughter of a German father and native
mother. But Samuel in his turn married a German-American of half-English
blood, and their daughter is now Miss Spoelmann.”
“Gracious, Jettchen, she's a creature of many colours!”
“You may well say so, Ditlinde, and she's clever, so I've heard; she
studies like a man—algebra, and puzzling things of that sort.”
“Hm, that too doesn't attract me much.”
“But now comes the cream of the business, Ditlinde, for Miss
Spoelmann has a lady-companion, and that lady-companion is a countess, a
real genuine countess, who dances attendance on her.”
“Gracious!” said Ditlinde, “she ought to be ashamed of herself. No,
Jettchen, my mind is made up. I'm not going to bother myself about
Spoelmann. I'm going to let him drink his waters and go, with his countess
and his algebraical daughter, and am not going so much as to turn my head
to look at him. He and his riches make no impression on me. What do you
think, Klaus Heinrich?”
Klaus Heinrich looked past Jettchen's head at the bright window.
“Impression?” he said…. “No, riches make no impression on me, I
think—I mean, riches in the ordinary way. But it seems to me that it
depends … it depends, I think, on the standard. We too have one or two rich
people in the town here—Soap-boiler Unschlitt must be a millionaire…. I
often see him in his carriage. He's dreadfully fat and common. But when a
man is quite ill and lonely from mere riches … Maybe …”
“An uncomfortable sort of man anyhow,” said Ditlinde, and the subject
of the Spoelmanns gradually dropped. The conversation turned on family
matters, the “Hohenried” property, and the approaching season. Shortly
before seven o'clock the Grand Duke sent for his carriage. Prince Klaus

Heinrich was going too, so they all got up and said good-bye. But while the
brothers were being helped into their coats in the hall, Albrecht said: “I
should be obliged, Klaus Heinrich, if you would send your coachman home
and would give me the pleasure of your company for a quarter of an hour
longer. I've got a matter of some importance to discuss with you—I might
come with you to the Hermitage, but I can't bear the evening air.”
Klaus Heinrich clapped his heels together as he answered: “No,
Albrecht, you mustn't think of it! I'll drive to the Schloss with you if you
like. I am of course at your disposal.”
This was the prelude to a remarkable conversation between the young
princes, the upshot of which was published a few days later in the
Advertiser and received with general approval.
The Prince accompanied the Grand Duke to the Schloss, through the
Albrechtstor, up broad stone steps, through corridors where naked gas
lamps were burning, and silent ante-rooms, between lackeys into Albrecht's
“closet,” where old Prahl had lighted the two bronze oil-lamps on the
mantelpiece. Albrecht had taken over his father's work-room—it had always
been the work-room of the reigning sovereigns, and lay on the first floor
between an aide-de-camp's room and the dining-room in daily use facing
the Albrechtsplatz, which the princes had always overlooked and watched
from their writing-table. It was an exceptionally unhomely and repellent
room, small, with cracked ceiling-paintings, red silk and gold-bordered
carpet, and three windows reaching to the ground, through which the
draught blew keenly and before which the claret-coloured curtains with
their elaborate fringes were drawn. It had a false chimney-piece in French
Empire taste, in front of which a semicircle of little modern quilted plush
chairs without arms were arranged, and a hideously decorated white stove,
which gave out a great heat. Two big quilted sofas stood opposite each other
by the walls, and in front of one stood a square book-table with a red plush
cover. Between the windows two narrow gold-framed mirrors with marble
ledges reached up to the ceiling, the right hand one of which bore a fairly
cheerful alabaster group, the other a water bottle and medicine glasses. The
writing-desk, an old piece made of rose-wood with a roll-top and metal
clasps, stood clear in the middle of the room on the red carpet. An antique
stared down with its dead eyes from a pedestal in one corner of the room.

“What I have to suggest to you,” said Albrecht—he was standing at the
writing-table, unconsciously toying with a paper-knife, a silly thing like a
cavalry-sabre with a grotesque handle, “is directly connected with our
conversation this afternoon. I may begin by saying that I discussed the
matter thoroughly with Knobelsdorff this summer at Hollerbrunn. He
agrees, and if you do too, as I don't doubt you will, I can carry out my
intention at once.”
“Please let's hear it, Albrecht,” said Klaus Heinrich, who was standing
at attention in a military attitude by the sofa table.
“My health,” continued the Grand Duke, “has been getting worse and
worse lately.”
“I'm very sorry, Albrecht—Hollerbrunn didn't agree with you, then?”
“Thanks, no, I'm in a bad way, and my health is showing itself
increasingly unequal to the demands made upon it. When I say ‘demands,’ I
mean chiefly the duties of a ceremonial and representative nature which are
inseparable from my position—and that's the bond of connexion with the
conversation we had just now at Ditlinde's. The performance of these duties
may be a happiness when a contact with the people, a relationship, a beating
of hearts in unison exists. To me it is a torture, and the falseness of my rôle
wearies me to such a degree that I must consider what measures I can take
to counteract it. In this—so far as the bodily part of me is concerned—I am
at one with my doctors, who entirely agree with my proposal—so listen to
me. I'm unmarried. I have no idea, I can assure you, of ever marrying; I
shall have no children. You are heir to the throne by right of birth, you are
still more so in the consciousness of the people, who love you….”
“There you are, Albrecht, always talking about my being beloved. I
simply don't believe it. At a distance, perhaps—that's the way with us. It's
always at a distance that we are beloved.”
“You're too modest. Wait a bit. You've already been kind enough to
relieve me of some of my representative duties now and then. I should like
you to relieve me of all of them absolutely, for always.”
“You're not thinking of abdicating, Albrecht?” asked Klaus Heinrich,
aghast.

“I daren't think of it. Believe me, I gladly would, but I shouldn't be
allowed to. What I'm thinking of is not a regency, but only a substitution—
perhaps you have some recollection of the distinction in public law from
your student's days—a permanent and officially established substitution in
all representative functions, warranted by the need of indulgence required
by my state of health. What is your opinion?”
“I'm at your orders, Albrecht. But I'm not quite clear yet. How far does
the substitution extend?”
“Oh, as far as possible. I should like it to extend to all occasions on
which a personal appearance in public is expected of me. Knobelsdorff
stipulates that I should only devolve the opening and closure of Parliament
on you when I'm bedridden, only now and again. Let's grant that. But
otherwise you would be my substitute on all ceremonial occasions, on
journeys, visits to cities, opening of public festivities, opening of the
Citizens' Ball….”
“That too?”
“Why not? We have also the weekly free audiences here—a sensible
custom without a doubt, but it tires me out. You would hold the audiences in
my place. I needn't go on. Do you accept my proposal?”
“I am at your orders.”
“Then listen to me while I finish. For every occasion on which you act
as my representative, I lend you my aides-de-camp. It is further necessary
that your military promotion should be hastened—are you first lieutenant?
You'll be made a captain or a major straight away à la suite of your
regiment—I'll see to that; but in the third place, I wish duly to emphasize
our arrangement, to make your position at my side properly clear, by
lending you the title of ‘Royal Highness.’ There were some formalities to
attend to. Knobelsdorff has already seen to them. I'm going to express my
intentions in the form of two missives to you and to my Minister of State.
Knobelsdorff has already drafted them. Do you accept?”
“What am I to say, Albrecht? You are father's eldest son, and I've always
looked up to you because I've always felt and known that you are the
superior and higher of us two and that I am only a plebeian compared with

you. But if you think me worthy to stand at your side and to bear your title
and to represent you before the people, although I don't think myself
anything like so presentable, and have this deformity here, with my left
hand, which I've always got to keep covered—then I thank you and put
myself at your orders.”
“Then I'll ask you to leave me now, please; I want to rest.”
They advanced towards each other, the one from the writing-table, the
other from the book-table, over the carpet into the middle of the room. The
Grand Duke extended his hand to his brother—his thin, cold hand which he
stretched out from his chest without moving his forearm away from his
body. Klaus Heinrich clapped his heels together and bowed as he took the
hand, and Albrecht nodded his narrow head with its fair beard as a token of
dismissal, while he sucked his short, rounded lower lip against the upper.
Klaus Heinrich went back to the Schloss “Hermitage.”
Both the Advertiser and the Courier published eight days later the two
missives, which contained decisions of the highest importance, the one
addressed to “My dear Minister of State, Baron von Knobelsdorff,” and the
other beginning with “Most Serene Highness and well-beloved brother,”
and signed “Your Royal Highness's most devoted brother Albrecht.”

VI
THE LOFTY CALLING

Here follows a description of Klaus Heinrich's mode of life and profession
and their peculiarities.
On a typical occasion he stepped out of his carriage, walked with cloak
thrown back down a short passage through cheering crowds over a
pavement which was covered with red carpet, through a laurel-decked
house-door, over which an awning had been erected, up a staircase flanked
by pairs of candle-bearing footmen…. He was on his way to a festival
dinner, covered to his hips with orders, the fringed epaulettes of a major on
his narrow shoulders, and was followed by his suite along the Gothic
corridor of the town hall. Two servants hurried in front of him and quickly
opened an old window which rattled in its lead fastenings; for down below
in the market-place stood the people, wedged together head to head, an
oblique tract of upturned faces, dimly illuminated by smoky torchlight.
They cheered and sang, and he stood at the open window and bowed,
displayed himself to the general enthusiasm for a while and nodded his
thanks.
There was nothing really everyday, nor was there anything really actual,
about his life; it consisted of a succession of moments of enthusiasm.
Wherever he went there was holiday, there the people were transfigured and
glorified, there the grey work-a-day world cleared up and became poetry.
The starveling became a sleek man, the hovel a homely cottage, dirty
gutter-children changed into chaste little maidens and boys in Sunday
clothes, their hair plastered with water, a poem on their lips, and the

perspiring citizen in frock-coat and top-hat was moved to emotion by the
consciousness of his own worth.
But not only he, Klaus Heinrich, saw the world in this light, but it saw
itself too, as long as his presence lasted. A strange unreality and
speciousness prevailed in places where he exercised his calling; a
symmetrical, transitory window-dressing, an artificial and inspiring
disguising of the reality by pasteboard and gilded wood, by garlands, lamps,
draperies, and bunting, was conjured up for one fair hour, and he himself
stood in the centre of the show on a carpet, which covered the bare ground,
between masts painted in two colours, round which garlands twined—stood
with heels together in the odour of varnish and fir-branches, and smiled
with his left hand planted on his hip.
He laid the foundation stone of a new town hall. The citizens had, after
juggling with the figures, got together the necessary sum, and a learned
architect from the capital had been entrusted with the building. But Klaus
Heinrich undertook the laying of the foundation stone. Amid the cheers of
the population he drove up to the noble pavilion which had been built on
the site, stepped lightly and collectedly out of the open carriage on to the
ground, which had been rolled and sprinkled with yellow sand, and walked
all alone towards the official personages in frock-coats and white ties who
were waiting for him at the entrance. He asked for the architect to be
presented to him, and, in full view of the public and with the officials
standing with fixed smiles round him, he conducted a conversation with
him for five full minutes, a conversation of weighty commonplaces about
the advantages of the different styles of architecture, after which he made a
decided movement, which he had meditated to himself beforehand during
the conversation, and allowed himself to be conducted over the carpet and
plank steps to his seat on the edge of the middle platform.
There, in his chain and stars, one foot advanced, his white-gloved hands
crossed on his sword hilt, his helmet on the ground beside him, visible to
the holiday crowd on every side, he sat and listened with calm demeanour
to the Lord Mayor's speech. Thereupon, when they came to the request, he
rose, walked, without noticeable precaution and without looking at his feet,
down the steps to where the foundation stone lay, and with a little hammer
gave three slow taps to the block of sandstone, at the same time repeating in

the deep hush, with his rather sharp voice, a sentence which Herr von
Knobelsdorff had previously impressed upon him. School children sang in
shrill chorus, and Klaus Heinrich drove away.
On the anniversary of the War of Independence he marched in front of
the veterans. A grey-haired officer shouted in a voice which seemed hoarse
with the smoke of gunpowder: “Halt! Off hats! Eyes right!” And they stood,
with medals and crosses on their coats, the rough beavers in their hands,
and looked up at him with blood-shot eyes like those of a hound as he
walked by with a friendly look, and paused by one or two to ask where they
had served, where they had been under fire…. He attended the gymnastic
display, graced the sports with his presence, and had the victors presented to
him for a short conversation. The lithe athletic youths stood awkwardly
before him, just after they had done the most astonishing feats, and Klaus
Heinrich quickly strung together a few technical remarks, which he
remembered from Herr Zotte, and which he uttered with great fluency, the
while he hid his left hand.
He attended the Five Houses' Fishing festival, he was present in his red-
covered seat of honour at the Grimmburg horse-races and distributed the
prizes. He accepted, too, the honorary Presidency and Patronage of the
Associated Rifle Competition; he attended the prize-meeting of the
privileged Grand Ducal Rifle Club. He “responded cordially to the toast of
welcome,” in the words of the Courier, by holding the silver cup for one
moment to his lips, and then with heels clapped together, raising it towards
the marksmen. Thereupon he fired several shots at the target of honour,
concerning which there was nothing said in the reports as to where they hit;
next ploughed through one and the same dialogue with three successive
men, about the advantages of rifle-firing, which in the Courier was
described as a “general conversation,” and at last took leave with a hearty
“Good luck!” which evoked indescribable enthusiasm. This formula had
been whispered to him at the last moment by Adjutant-General von
Hühnemann, who had made inquiries on the subject; for of course it would
have had a bad effect, would have shattered the fair illusion of technical
knowledge and serious enthusiasm, if Klaus Heinrich had wished the
marksmen “Excelsior” and the Alpine Club “Bull's-eyes every time!”

As a general rule he needed in the exercise of his calling a certain
amount of technical knowledge, which he acquired for each succeeding
occasion, with a view to applying it at the right moment and in suitable
form. It consisted preponderatingly of the technical terms current in the
different departments of human activity as well as of historical dates, and
before setting out on an official expedition Klaus Heinrich used to work up
the necessary information at home in the Hermitage with the help of
pamphlets and oral instructions. When he in the name of the Grand Duke,
“my most gracious brother,” unveiled the statue of Johann Albrecht at
Knüppelsdorf, he delivered on the scene of festivities, directly after a
performance by the massed choirs of the “Wreath of Harmony,” a speech in
which everything he had noted down about Knüppelsdorf was dragged in,
and which produced the delightful impression everywhere that he had
busied himself all his life with nothing so much as the historical vicissitudes
of that hub of civilization.
In the first place, Knüppelsdorf was a city, and Klaus Heinrich alluded
to that three times, to the pride of the inhabitants. He went on to say that the
city of Knüppelsdorf, as her historical past witnessed, had been connected
by bonds of loyalty to the House of Grimmburg for several centuries. As
long ago as the fourteenth century, he said, Langrave Heinrich XV, the
Rutensteiner, had signalled out Knüppelsdorf for special favour. He, the
Rutensteiner, had lived in the Schloss built on the neighbouring
Rutensteine, whose girdle of proud towers and strong walls had sent its
greeting to the country for miles round.
Then he reminded his hearers how through inheritance and marriage
Knüppelsdorf had at last come into the branch of the family to which his
brother and he himself belonged. Heavy storms had in the course of years
burst over Knüppelsdorf. Years of war, conflagration, and pestilence had
visited it, yet it had always risen again and had always remained loyal to the
house of its hereditary princes. And this characteristic the Knüppelsdorf of
to-day proved that it possessed by raising a memorial to his, Klaus
Heinrich's, beloved father, and it would be with unusual pleasure that he
would report to his gracious brother the dazzling and hearty reception
which he, as his representative, had here experienced…. The veil fell, the
massed choirs of the “Wreath of Harmony” again did their best. And Klaus
Heinrich stood smiling, under his theatrical tent, with a feeling of having

exhausted his store of knowledge, happy in the certainty that nobody dare
question him further. For he couldn't have said one blessed word more
about Knüppelsdorf!
How tiring his life was, how strenuous! Sometimes he felt as if he had
constantly to keep upright, at a great strain to his elasticity, something
which it was quite impossible, or possible only in favourable conditions, to
keep upright. Sometimes his calling seemed to him a wretched and paltry
one, although he liked it and gladly undertook every expedition required of
him in his representative capacity.
He travelled miles to an agricultural exhibition, travelled in a badly
hung cart from Schloss “Hermitage” to the station, where the Premier, the
Chief of Police, and the directors of the railway company awaited him at
the saloon carriage. He travelled for an hour and a half, the while carrying
on, not without difficulty, a conversation with the Grand Ducal adjutants,
who had been attached to him, and the Agricultural Commissioner,
Assistant Secretary Heckepfeng, a severe and respectful man who also
accompanied him. Then he reached the station of the city which had
organized the agricultural exhibition. The Mayor, with a chain over his
shoulders, was awaiting him at the head of six or seven other official
persons. The station was decorated with a quantity of fir-branches and
festoons. In the back-ground stood the plaster busts of Albrecht and Klaus
Heinrich in a frame of greenery. The public behind the barriers gave three
cheers, and the bells pealed.
The Mayor read an address of welcome to Klaus Heinrich. He thanked
him, he said, brandishing his top-hat in his hand, he thanked him on behalf
of the city for all the favour which Klaus Heinrich's brother and he himself
showed them, and heartily wished him a long and blessed reign. He also
begged the Prince twice over graciously to crown the work which had
prospered so famously under his patronage, and to open the agricultural
exhibition.
This Mayor bore the title of Agricultural Councillor, a fact of which
Klaus Heinrich had been apprised, and on account of which he addressed
him thus three times in his answer. He said that he was delighted that the
work of the agricultural exhibition had prospered so famously under his

patronage. (As a matter of fact he had forgotten that he was patron of this
exhibition.) He had come to put the finishing touch that day to the great
work, by opening the exhibition. Then he inquired as to four things: as to
the economical circumstances of the city, the increase in the population in
recent years, as to the labour-market (although he had no very clear idea
what the labour-market was), and as to the price of victuals. When he heard
that the price of victuals was high, he “viewed the matter in a serious light,”
and that of course was all he could do. Nobody expected anything more of
him, and it came as a comfort to everybody that he had viewed the high
prices in a serious light.
Then the Mayor presented the city dignitaries to him: the higher District
Judge, a noble landed proprietor from the neighbourhood, the rector, the
two doctors, and a forwarding agent, and Klaus Heinrich addressed a
question to each, thinking over, while the answer came, what he should say
to the next. The local veterinary surgeon and the local inspector of stock-
breeding were also present. Finally they climbed into carriages, and drove,
amid the cheers of the inhabitants, between fences of school-children,
firemen, the patriotic societies, through the gaily decked city to the
exhibition ground—not without being stopped once more at the gate by
white-robed maidens with wreaths on their heads, one of whom, the
Mayor's daughter, handed to the prince in his carriage a bouquet with white
satin streamers, and in lasting memory of the moment received one of those
pretty and valuable gew-gaws which Klaus Heinrich took with him on his
journeys, a breast-pin embedded, for a reason she could not guess, in velvet
(sammet), which figured in the Courier as a jewel mounted in gold.
Tents, pavilions, and stands had been erected on the ground. Gaudy
pennons fluttered on long rows of poles strung together with festoons. On a
wooden platform hung with bunting, between drapings, festoons, and parti-
coloured flagstaffs, Klaus Heinrich read the short opening speech. And then
began the tour of inspection.
There were cattle tethered to low crossbars, prize beasts of the best
blood with smooth round particoloured bodies and numbered shields on
their broad foreheads. There were horses stamping and snuffing, heavy
farm-horses with Roman noses and bushes of hair round their pasterns, as
well as slender, restless saddle horses. There were naked short-legged pigs,

and a large selection of both ordinary and prize pigs. With dangling bellies
they grubbed up the ground with their snouts, while great blocks of woolly
sheep filled the air with a confused chorus of bass and treble. There were
ear-splitting exhibits of poultry, cocks and hens of every kind, from the big
Brahmaputra to the copper-coloured bantam; ducks and pigeons of all sorts,
eggs and fodder, both fresh and artificially preserved. There were exhibits
of agricultural produce, grain of all sorts, beets and clover, potatoes, peas,
and flax; vegetables, too, both fresh and dried; raw and preserved fruit;
berries, marmalade, and syrups.
Lastly there were exhibits of agricultural implements and machines,
displayed by several technical firms, provided with everything of service to
agriculture, from the hand-plough to the great black-funnelled motors,
looking like elephants in their stall, from the simplest and most intelligible
objects to those which consisted of a maze of wheels, chains, rods,
cylinders, arms, and teeth—a world, an entire overpowering world of
ingenious utility.
Klaus Heinrich looked at everything; he walked, with his sword-hilt on
his forearm, down the rows of animals, cages, sacks, tubs, glasses, and
implements. The dignitary at his side pointed with his white-gloved hand to
this and that, venturing on a remark from time to time, and Klaus Heinrich
acted up to his calling. He expressed in words his appreciation of all he saw,
stopped from time to time and engaged the exhibitors of the animals in
conversation, inquired in an affable way into their circumstances, and put
questions to the country people whose answers entailed a scratching behind
their ears. And as he walked he bowed his thanks on both sides for the
homage of the population which lined his path.
The people had collected most thickly at the exit, where the carriages
were waiting, in order to watch him drive off. A way was kept free for him,
a straight passage to the step of his landau, and he walked quickly down it,
bowing continuously with his hand to his helmet—alone and formally
separated from all those men who, in honouring him, were cheering their
own archetype, their standard, and of whose lives, work, and ability he was
the splendid representative, though not participator.

With a light and free step he mounted the carriage, settled himself
artistically so that he at once assumed a perfectly graceful and self-
possessed pose, and drove, saluting as he went, to the clubhouse, where
luncheon was prepared. During luncheon—indeed, directly after the second
course—the District Judge proposed the health of the Grand Duke and the
Prince, whereupon Klaus Heinrich at once rose to drink to the welfare of
the county, and city. After the luncheon, however, he retired to the room
which the Mayor had put at his disposal in his official residence and lay
down on the bed for an hour, for the exercise of his calling exhausted him in
a strange degree, and that afternoon he was due not only to visit in that city
the church, the school, and various factories, especially Behnke Brothers'
cheese factory, and to express high satisfaction with everything, but also to
extend his journey and visit a scene of disaster, a burnt-out village, in order
to express to the villagers his brother's and his own sympathy, and to cheer
the afflicted by his exalted presence.
When he got back to the “Hermitage,” to his soberly furnished Empire
room, he read the newspaper accounts of his expeditions. Then Privy
Councillor Schustermann of the Press Bureau, which was under the Home
Secretary, appeared in the “Hermitage,” and brought the extracts from the
papers, cleanly pasted on white sheets, dated and labelled with the name of
the paper. And Klaus Heinrich read about the impression he had produced,
read about his personal graciousness and Highness, read that he had
acquitted himself nobly and taken the hearts of young and old by storm—
that he had raised the minds of the people out of the ruck of everyday and
filled them with gladness and affection.
And then he gave free audiences in the Old Schloss, as it had been
arranged.
The custom of free audiences had been introduced by a well-meaning
ancestor of Albrecht II, and the people clung to it. Once every week
Albrecht, or Klaus in his place, was accessible to everybody. Whether the
petitioner was a man of rank or not, whether the subject of his petitions
were of a public or personal nature—he had only to give in his name to
Herr von Bühl, or even the aide-de-camp on duty, and he was given an
opportunity of bringing his matter to notice in the highest quarters.

Indeed an admirable custom! For it meant that the petitioner did not
have to go round by way of a written application, with the dismal prospect
of his petition disappearing for ever into a pigeon-hole, but had the happy
assurance that his application would go straight to the most exalted
quarters. It must be admitted that the most exalted quarters—Klaus
Heinrich at this time—naturally were not in a position to go into the matter,
to scrutinize it seriously and to come to a decision upon it, but that they
handed the matter on to the pigeon-holes, in which it “disappeared.” But the
custom was none the less helpful, though not in the sense of matter-of-fact
utility. The citizen, the petitioner, came to Herr von Bühl with the request to
be received, and a day and hour were fixed for him. With glad
embarrassment he saw the day draw near, worked up in his own mind the
sentences in which he intended to explain his business, had his frock-coat
and his hat ironed, put on his best shirt, and generally made himself ready.
But in reality these solemn interviews were well calculated to turn the
petitioner's thoughts away from the gross material end in view, and to make
the reception itself seem to him the main point, the essential object of his
excited anticipation. The hour came, and the citizen took, what he never
otherwise took, a cab, in order not to dirty his clean boots. He drove
between the lions at the Albrechtstor, and the sentries as well as the stalwart
doorkeeper gave him free passage. He landed in the courtyard at the
colonnade in front of the weather-beaten entrance, and was at once admitted
by a lackey in a brown coat and sand-coloured gaiters to an ante-room on
the ground floor to the left, in one corner of which was a stand of colours,
and where a number of other supplicants, talking in low whispers, waited in
a state of thoughtful tension for their reception. The aide-de-camp, holding
a list of those with appointments, went backwards and forwards and took
the next on the list to one side, to instruct him in a low voice how to behave.
In a neighbouring room, called the “Free Audience Room,” Klaus
Heinrich, in his tunic with silver collar and several stars, stood at a round
table with three golden legs, and received. Major von Platow gave him
some superficial information about the identity of each petitioner, called the
man in, and came back in the pauses, to prompt the Prince in a few words
about the next comer. And the citizen walked in; with the blood in his head
and perspiring slightly he stood before Klaus Heinrich. It had been
impressed on him that he was not to go too near his Royal Highness, but

must keep at a certain distance, that he must not speak without being
spoken to, and even then must not gabble off all he had to say, but answer
concisely, so as to leave the Prince material for his questions; that he must
at the conclusion withdraw backwards and without showing the Prince his
backside. The result was that the citizen's whole attention was centred on
not breaking any of the rules given him, but for his part contributing to the
smooth and harmonious progress of the interview.
Klaus Heinrich questioned him in the same way as he was wont to
question the veterans, the marksmen, the gymnasts, the countrymen, and the
victims of the fire, smiling, and with his left hand planted well back on his
hip; and the citizen too smiled involuntarily—and was imbued with a
feeling as if that smile lifted him far above the troubles which had held him
prisoner. That common man, whose spirit otherwise cleaved to the dust,
who gave a thought to nothing, not even to everyday politeness, beyond
what was purely utilitarian, and had come here too with a definite object in
view—he felt in his heart that there was something higher than business and
his business in particular, and he left the Schloss elevated, purified, with
eyes dim with emotion and the smile still on his flushed face.
That was the way in which Klaus Heinrich gave free audiences, that the
way in which he exercised his exalted calling. He lived at the “Hermitage”
in his little refuge, the Empire room, which was furnished so stiffly and
meagrely, with cool indifference to comfort and intimacy. Faded silk
covered the walls above the white wainscot, glass chandeliers hung from
the ugly ceiling, straight-lined sofas, mostly without tables, and thin-legged
stands supporting marble clocks, stood along the walls, pairs of white-
lacquered chairs, with oval backs and thin silk upholstery, flanked the
white-lacquered folding-doors, and in the corner stood white-lacquered loo-
tables, bearing vase-like candelabra. That was how Klaus Heinrich's room
looked, and its master harmonized well with it.
He lived a detached and quiet life, feeling no enthusiasm or zeal for
questions on which the public differed. As representative of his brother, he
opened Parliament, but he took no personal part in its proceedings and
avoided the yeas and nays of party divisions—with the disinterestedness
and want of convictions proper to one whose position was above all parties.
Everybody recognized that his station imposed reserve upon him, but many

were of opinion that want of interest was rather repellently and insultingly
visible in his whole bearing. Many who came in contact with him described
him as “cold”; and when Doctor Ueberbein loudly refuted this “coldness,”
people wondered whether the one-sided and morose man was qualified to
form an opinion on the point. Of course there were occasions when Klaus
Heinrich's glance met looks which refused to recognize him—bold,
scornful, invidious looks, which showed contempt for and ignorance of all
his actions and exertions. But even in the well-disposed, loyal people, who
showed themselves ready to esteem and honour his life, he remarked at
times after a short while a certain exhaustion, indeed irritation, as if they
could no longer breathe in the atmosphere of his existence; and that worried
Klaus Heinrich, though he did not know how he could prevent it.
He had no place in the everyday world; a greeting from him, a gracious
word, a winning and yet dignified wave of the hand, were all weighty and
decisive incidents. Once he was returning in cap and greatcoat from a ride,
was riding slowly on his brown horse Florian, down the birch avenue which
skirted the waste-land and led to the park and the “Hermitage,” and in front
of him there walked a shabbily dressed young man with a fur cap and a
ridiculous tuft of hair on his neck, sleeves and trousers that were too short
for him, and unusually large feet which he turned inwards as he walked. He
looked like the student of a technical institute or something of that sort, for
he carried a drawing-board under his arm, on which was pinned a big
drawing, a symmetrical maze of lines in red and black ink, a projection or
something of the sort. Klaus Heinrich held his horse back behind the young
man for a good while, and examined the red and black projection on the
drawing-board. Sometimes he thought how nice it must be to have a proper
surname, to be called Doctor Smith, and to have a serious calling.
He played his part at Court functions, the big and small balls, the dinner,
the concerts, and the Great Court. He joined in autumn in the Court's shoots
with his red-haired cousins and his suite, for custom's sake and although his
left arm made shooting difficult for him. He was often seen in the evening
in the Court Theatre, in his red-ledged proscenium-box between the two
female sculptures with the crossed hands and the stern, empty faces. For the
theatre attracted him, he loved it, loved to look at the players, to watch how
they behaved, walked off and on, and went through with their parts. As a
rule he thought them bad, rough in the means they employed to please, and

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

One day he had a rencontre which on the one hand gave him food for
thought, on the other disillusioned him. It was with Martini, Axel Martini,
the compiler of the two books of poetry which had been so much praised by
the experts, “Evoë!” and “The Holy Life.” The meeting came about in the
following way.
In the capital lived a wealthy old man, a Privy Councillor, who, since
his retirement from the State Service, had devoted his life to the
advancement of the fine arts, especially poetry. He was founder of what was
known as the “May-combat”—a poetical tournament which recurred every
year in springtime, to which the Privy Councillor invited poets and
poetesses by circulars and posters. Prizes were offered for the tenderest
love-song, the most fervent religious poem, the most ardent patriotic song,
for the happiest lyrical effusions in praise of music, the forest, the spring,
the joy of life—and these prizes consisted of sums of money, supplemented
by judicious and valuable souvenirs, such as golden pens, golden breast-

pins in the form of lyres or flowers, and more of the same kind. The city
authorities also had founded a prize, and the Grand Duke gave a silver cup
as a reward for the most absolutely admirable of all poems sent in. The
founder of the “May-combat” himself, who was responsible for the first
look-through the always numerous entries, shared with two University
Professors and the editors of the literary supplements of the Courier and the
People the duties of prize-judges. The prize-winners and the highly
commended entries were printed and published regularly in the form of an
annual at the expense of the Privy Councillor.
Now Axel Martini had taken part in the “May-combat” this year, and
had come off victorious. The poem which he had sent in, an inspired hymn
of praise to the joy of life, or rather a highly tempestuous outbreak of the
joy of life itself, a ravishing hymn to the beauty and awfulness of life, was
conceived in the style of both his books and had given rise to discord in the
Board of Judges. The Privy Councillor himself and the Professor of
Philology had been for dismissing it with a notice of commendation; for
they considered it exaggerated in expression, coarse in its passion, and in
places frankly repulsive. But the Professor of Literary History together with
the editors had out-voted them, not only in view of the fact that Martini's
contribution represented the best poem to the joy of life, but also in
consideration of its undeniable pre-eminence, and in the end their two
opponents too had not been able to resist the appeal of its foaming and
stunning flow of words.
So Axel Martini had been awarded fifteen pounds, a gold breast-pin in
the form of a lyre, and the Grand Duke's silver cup as well, and his poem
had been printed first in the annual, surrounded with an artistic frame from
the hand of Professor von Lindemann. What was more, the custom was for
the victor (or victrix) in the “May-combat” to be received in audience by
the Grand Duke; and as Albrecht was unwell, this task fell to his brother.
Klaus Heinrich was a little afraid of Herr Martini.
“Oh dear, Doctor Ueberbein,” he said when he met his tutor one day,
“what subject am I to tackle him on? He's sure to be a wild, brazen-faced
fellow.”

But Doctor Ueberbein answered: “Anything; but, Klaus Heinrich, you
need not worry! He's a very decent fellow. I know him, I'm rather in with
his set. You'll get on splendidly with him.”
So Klaus Heinrich received the poet of the “Joy of Life,” received him
at the “Hermitage,” so as to give the business as private a character as
possible. “In the yellow room, Braunbart if you please,” he said, “that's the
most presentable one for occasions like this.” There were three handsome
chairs in this room, which indeed were the only valuable pieces of furniture
in the Schloss, heavy Empire arm-chairs of mahogany, with spiral arms and
yellow upholstery on which blue-green lyres were embroidered. Klaus
Heinrich on this occasion did not dispose himself ready for an audience, but
waited in some anxiety near by, until Axel Martini on his side had waited
for seven or eight minutes in the yellow room. Then he walked in hastily,
almost hurriedly, and advanced towards the poet, who made a low bow.
“I am very much pleased to make your acquaintance,” he said, “dear sir
… dear Doctor, I believe?”
“No, Royal Highness,” answered Axel Martini in an asthmatic voice,
“not doctor, I've no title.”
“Oh, forgive me … I assumed … Let's sit down, dear Herr Martini. I
am, as I have said, delighted to be able to congratulate you on your great
success….”
Herr Martini drew down the corners of his mouth. He sat down on the
edge of one of the mahogany arm-chairs, at the uncovered table, round
whose edge ran a gold border, and crossed his feet, which were cased in
cracked patent-leather boots. He was in frock-coat and wore yellow gloves.
His collar was frayed at the edges. He had rather staring eyes, thin cheeks
and a dark yellow moustache, which was clipped like a hedge. His hair was
already quite grey on the temples, although according to the “May-combat”
Annual he was not more than thirty years old, and under his eyes glowed
patches of red which did not suggest robust health. He answered to Klaus
Heinrich's congratulations: “Your Royal Highness is very kind. It was not a
difficult victory. Perhaps it was hardly tactful of me to compete.”

Klaus Heinrich did not understand this; but he said: “I have read your
poem repeatedly with great pleasure. It seems to me a complete success, as
regards both metre and rhyme. And it entirely expresses the ‘Joy of Life.’”
Herr Martini bowed in his chair.
“Your skill,” continued Klaus Heinrich, “must be a source of great
pleasure to you—an ideal recreation. What is your calling, Herr Martini?”
Herr Martini showed that he did not understand, by describing a note of
interrogation with the upper half of his body.
“I mean your main calling. Are you in the Civil Service?”
“No, Royal Highness, I have no calling; I occupy myself exclusively
with poetry….”
“None at all…. Oh, I understand. So unusual a gift deserves that a man's
whole powers be devoted to it.”
“I don't know about that, Royal Highness. Whether it deserves it or not,
I don't know. I must own that I had no choice. I have always felt myself
entirely unsuited to every other branch of human activity. It seems to me
that this undoubted and unconditional unsuitability for everything else is the
sole proof and touchstone of the poetical calling—indeed, that a man must
not see in poetry any calling, but only the expression and refuge of that
unsuitability.”
It was a peculiarity with Herr Martini that when he talked tears came
into his eyes just like a man who comes out of the cold into a warm room
and lets the heat stream through and melt his limbs.
“That's a singular idea,” said Klaus Heinrich.
“Not at all, Royal Highness. I beg your pardon, no, not singular at all.
It's an idea which is very generally accepted. What I say is nothing new.”
“And for how long have you been living only for poetry? I suppose you
were once a student?”

“Not exactly, Royal Highness; no, the unsuitability to which I alluded
before began to show itself in me at an early age. I couldn't get on at school.
I left it without passing my ‘final.’ I went up to the university with the full
intention of taking it later, but I never did. And when my first volume of
poems attracted a good deal of attention, it no longer suited my dignity to
do so, if I may say so.”
“Of course not…. But did your parents then agree to your choice of a
career?”
“Oh no, Royal Highness! I must say to my parents' credit that they by
no means agreed to it. I come of a good stock: my father was Solicitor to
the Treasury. He's dead now, but he was Solicitor to the Treasury. He
naturally disliked my choice of a career so much that till his death he would
never give me a farthing. I lived at daggers drawn with him, although I had
the greatest respect for him because of his strictness.”
“Oh, so you've had a hard time of it, Herr Martini, you've had to
struggle through. I can well believe that you must have knocked about a
good deal!”
“Not so, Royal Highness! No, that would have been horrid, I couldn't
have stood it. My health is delicate—I dare not say ‘unfortunately,’ for I am
convinced that my talent is inseparably connected with my bodily infirmity.
Neither my body nor my talent could have survived hunger and harsh
winds, and they have not had to survive them. My mother was weak enough
to provide me behind my father's back with the means of life, modest but
adequate means. I owe it to her that my talent has been able to develop
under fairly favourable conditions.”
“The result has shown, Herr Martini, that they were the right
conditions…. Although it is difficult to say now what actually are good
conditions. Permit me to suppose that if your mother had shown herself as
strict as your father, and you had been alone in the world, and left entirely
to your own resources … don't you think that it might have been to a certain
extent a good thing for you? That you might have got a peep at things, so to
speak, which have escaped you as it is?”

“People like me, Royal Highness, get peeps enough without having
actually to know what hunger is; and the idea is fairly generally accepted
that it is not actual hunger, but rather hunger for the actual … ha, ha!…
which talent requires.”
Herr Martini had been obliged to laugh a little at his play upon words.
He now quickly raised one yellow-gloved hand to his mouth with the
hedge-like moustache, and improved his laugh into a cough. Klaus Heinrich
watched him with a look of princely expectancy.
“If your Royal Highness will allow me…. It is a well-known fact that
the want of actuality for such as me is the seed-ground of all talent, the
fountain of inspiration, indeed our suggestive genius. Enjoyment of life is
forbidden to us, strictly forbidden, we have no illusions as to that—and by
enjoyment of life I mean not only happiness, but also sorrow, passion, in
short every serious tie with life. The representation of life claims all our
forces, especially when those forces are not allotted to us in overabundant
measure”—and Herr Martini coughed, drawing his shoulders repeatedly
forward as he did so. “Renunciation,” he added, “is our compact with the
Muse, in it reposes our strength, our value; and life is our forbidden garden,
our great temptation, to which we yield sometimes, but never to our profit.”
The flow of words had again brought tears to Herr Martini's eyes. He
tried to blink them away.
“Every one of us,” he went on, “knows what it is to make mistakes, to
run off the rails in that way, to make greedy excursions of that kind into the
festival halls of life. But we return thence into our isolation humbled and
sick at heart.”
Herr Martini stopped. His look, from under his knotted brows, became
fixed for a moment and lost in vacancy, while his mouth assumed a sour
expression and his cheeks, on which the unhealthy redness glowed, seemed
even thinner than before. It was only for a second; then he changed his
position, and his eyes recovered their vivacity.
“But your poem,” said Klaus Heinrich, with some empressement. “Your
prize poem to the ‘Joy of Life,’ Herr Martini…. I am really grateful to you
for your achievement. But will you please tell me … your poem—I've read

it attentively. It deals on the one hand with misery and horrors, with the
wickedness and cruelty of life, if I remember rightly, and on the other hand
with the enjoyment of wine and fair women, does it not?…”
Herr Martini laughed; then rubbed the corners of his mouth with his
thumb and forefinger, so as to wipe the laugh out.
“And it's all,” said Klaus Heinrich, “conceived in the form of ‘I,’ in the
first person, isn't it? And yet it is not founded on personal knowledge? You
have not really experienced any of it yourself?”
“Very little, Royal Highness. Only quite trifling suggestions of it. No,
the fact is the other way round—that, if I were the man to experience all
that, I should not only not write such poems, but should also feel entire
contempt for my present existence. I have a friend, his name is Weber; he's
a rich young man; he lives, he enjoys his life. His favourite amusement
consists in scorching in his motor car at a mad pace over the country and
picking up village girls from the roads and fields on the way, with whom he
——but that's another story. In short, that young man laughs when he
catches sight of me, he finds something so comic in me and my activities.
But as for me, I can quite understand his amusement, and envy him it. I
dare say that I too despise him a little, but not so much as I envy and admire
him….”
“You admire him?”
“Certainly, Royal Highness. I cannot help doing so. He spends, he
squanders, he lets himself go in a most unconcerned and light-hearted way
—while it is my lot to save, anxiously and greedily, to keep together, and
indeed to do so on hygienic grounds. For hygiene is what I and such as I
most need—it is our whole ethics. But nothing is more unhygienic than
life….”
“That means that you will never empty the Grand Duke's cup, then,
Herr Martini?”
“Drink wine out of it? No, Royal Highness. Although it would be fine to
do so. But I never touch wine. And I go to bed at ten, and generally take
care of myself. If I didn't, I should never have won the cup.”

“I can well believe it, Herr Martini. People who are not behind the
scenes get strange ideas of what a poet's life must be like.”
“Quite conceivably, Royal Highness. But it is, taken all round, by no
means a very glorious life, I can assure you, especially as we aren't poets
every hour of the twenty-four. In order that a poem of that sort may come
into existence from time to time—who would believe how much idleness
and boredom and peevish laziness is necessary? The motto on a picture
postcard is often a whole day's work. We sleep a lot, we idle about with
heads feeling like lead. Yes, it's too often a dog's life.”
Some one knocked lightly on the white-lacquered door. It was
Neumann's signal that it was high time for Klaus Heinrich to change his
clothes and have himself freshened up. For there was to be a club concert
that evening in the Old Schloss.
Klaus Heinrich rose. “I've been gossiping,” he said; for that was the
expression he used at such moments. And then he dismissed Herr Martini,
wished him success in his poetical career, and accompanied the poet's
respectful withdrawal with a laugh and that rather theatrical up and down
movement of the hand which was not always equally effective, but which
he had brought to a high pitch of perfection.
Such was the Prince's conversation with Axel Martini, the author of
“Evoë!” and “The Holy Life.” It gave him food for thought, it continued to
occupy his mind after it had ended. He continued to think over it while
Neumann was reparting his hair and helping him on with the dazzling full-
dress coat with the stars, during the club concert at Court, and for several
days afterwards, and he tried to reconcile the poet's statements with the rest
of the experiences which life had vouchsafed to him.
This Herr Martini, who, while the unhealthy flush glowed under his
eyes, kept crying: “How beautiful, how strong is life!” yet was careful to go
to bed at ten, shut himself off from life on hygienic grounds, as he said, and
avoided every serious tie with it—this poet with his frayed collar, his
watery eyes, and his envy of the young Weber who scorched over the
country with village girls: he left a mixed impression, it was difficult to
come to any certain conclusion about him. Klaus Heinrich expressed it,
when he told his sister of the meeting, by saying: “Things are none too

comfortable and easy for him, that's quite obvious, and that certainly
entitles him to our sympathy. But somehow, I'm not sure if I'm glad to have
met him, for he has something deterrent about him, Ditlinde—yes, after all,
he's certainly a little repulsive.”

VII
IMMA

Fräulein von Isenschnibbe had been well informed. On the very evening of
the day on which she had brought the Princess zu Reid the great news, the
Courier published the announcement of Samuel Spoelmann's, the world-
renowned Spoelmann's, impending arrival, and ten days later, at the
beginning of October (it was the October of the year in which Grand Duke
Albrecht had entered his thirty-second and Prince Klaus Heinrich his
twenty-sixth year), thus barely giving time for public curiosity to reach a
really high point, his arrival became a fact, a plain actuality on an autumn-
tinged, entirely ordinary week-day, which was destined to impress itself on
the future as a date to be remembered for ever.
The Spoelmanns arrived by special train—that was the only distinction
about their debut to start with, for everybody knew that the “Prince's suite”
in the “Spa Court” Hotel was by no means dazzlingly magnificent. A few
idlers, guarded by a small detachment of policemen, had gathered behind
the platform barriers; some representatives of the press were present. But
whoever expected anything out of the ordinary was disappointed.
Spoelmann would almost have passed unrecognized, he was so unimposing.
For a long time people took his family physician for him (Doctor
Watercloose, people said he was called), a tall American, who wore his hat
on the back of his head and kept his mouth distended in a perpetual smile
between his close-trimmed white whiskers, the while he half-closed his
eyes. It was not till the last moment that people learned that it was the little
clean-shaven man in the faded overcoat, he who wore his hat pulled down
over his eyes, who was the actual Spoelmann, and the spectators were
agreed that there was nothing striking about him. All sorts of stories had

been in circulation about him; some witty fellow had spread the report that
Spoelmann had front teeth of solid gold and a diamond set in the middle of
each. But although the truth or untruth of this report could not be tested at
once—for Spoelmann did not show his teeth, he did not laugh, but rather
seemed angry and irritated by his infirmity—yet when they saw him
nobody was any longer inclined to believe it.
As for Miss Spoelmann, his daughter, she had turned up the collar of
her fur coat, and stuffed her hands in the pockets, so that there was hardly
anything to be seen of her except a pair of disproportionately big brown-
black eyes, which swept the crowd with a serious look whose meaning it
was hard to interpret. By her side stood the person whom the onlookers
identified as her companion, the Countess Löwenjoul, a woman of thirty-
five, plainly dressed and taller than either of the Spoelmanns, who carried
her little head with its thin smooth hair pensively on one side, and kept her
eyes fixed in front of her with a kind of rigid meekness. What without
question attracted most attention was a Scottish sheep-dog which was led
on a cord by a stolid-looking servant—an exceptionally handsome, but, as it
appeared, terribly excitable beast, that leaped and danced and filled the
station with its frenzied barking.
People said that a few of Spoelmann's servants, male and female, had
already arrived at the “Spa Court” some hours before. At any rate it was left
to the servant with the dog to look after the luggage by himself; and while
he was doing so his masters drove in two ordinary flies—Mr. Spoelmann
with Doctor Watercloose, Miss Spoelmann with the Countess—to the Spa-
Garden. There they got out, and there for six weeks they led a life the cost
of which it did not need all their money to meet.
They were lucky; the weather was fine, it was a blue autumn, a long
succession of sunny days from October into November, and Miss
Spoelmann rode daily—that was her only luxury—with her companion, on
horses which she hired by the week from the livery stables. Mr. Spoelmann
did not ride, although the Courier, with obvious reference to him, published
a note by its medical colleague according to which riding had a soothing
effect in cases of stone, owing to its jolting, and helped to disperse the
stone. But the hotel staff knew that the famous man practised artificial
riding within the four walls of his room, with the help of a machine, a

stationary velocipede to whose saddle a jolting motion was imparted by the
working of the pedals.
He was a zealous drinker of the healing waters, the Ditlinde Spring, by
which he seemed to set great store. He appeared first thing every morning
in the Füllhaus, accompanied by his daughter, who for her part was quite
healthy, and only drank with him for company's sake, and then, in his faded
coat and with his hat pulled over his eyes, took his exercise in the Spa-
Garden and Wandelhalle, drinking the water the while through a glass tube
out of a blue tumbler—watched at a distance by the two American
newspaper correspondents, whose duty it was to telegraph to their papers a
thousand words daily about Spoelmann's holiday resort, and who were
therefore bound to try to get something to telegraph about.
Otherwise he was rarely visible. His illness—kidney colic, so people
said, extremely painful attacks—seemed to confine him often to his room, if
not to his bed, and while Miss Spoelmann with Countess Löwenjoul
appeared two or three times at the Court Theatre (when, in a black velvet
dress with an Indian silk scarf of a wonderful gold-yellow colour round her
fresh young shoulders, she looked quite bewitching with her pearl-white
complexion and great black pleading eyes), her father was never seen in the
box with her. He took, it is true, in her company one or two drives through
the capital, to do some shopping, get some idea of the town, and see a few
select sights; he went for a walk with her too, through the park and twice
inspected there the Schloss Delphinenort—the second time alone, when he
was so much interested as to take measurements of the walls with an
ordinary yellow rule, which he took out of his faded coat…. But he was
never seen in the dining-room of the “Spa Court,” for whether because he
was on an almost meatless diet, or for some other reason, he took his meals
exclusively with his own party in his own rooms, and the curiosity of the
public had on the whole remarkably little to feed on.
The result was that Spoelmann's arrival at the Spa at first did not prove
so beneficial as Fräulein von Isenschnibbe and many others beside her had
expected. The export of bottles increased, that was certain; it quickly rose to
half as many again as its previous figure, and remained at that. But the
influx of foreigners did not increase noticeably; the guests who came to
feast their eyes on so abnormal an existence soon went away again, satisfied

or disappointed, besides it was for the most part not the most desirable
elements of society that were attracted by the millionaire's presence.
Strange creatures appeared in the streets, unkempt and wild-eyed creatures
—inventors, projectors, would-be benefactors of mankind, who hoped to
enlist Spoelmann's sympathies for their hobbies. But the millionaire made
himself absolutely inaccessible to these people; indeed, purple with rage, he
howled at one of them who made advances towards him in the park, in such
a way that the busybody quickly skedaddled, and it was often said that the
torrent of begging letters which daily flowed in to him—letters which often
bore stamps which the officials of the Grand Ducal post-office had never
seen before—was at once discharged into a paper-basket of quite unusual
capacity.
Spoelmann seemed to have forbidden all business letters to be sent him,
seemed determined to enjoy his holiday to the utmost, and during his travels
in Europe to live exclusively for his health—or ill-health. The Courier,
whose reporter had lost no time in making friends with his American
colleagues, was in a position to announce that a reliable man, a so-called
chief manager, was Mr. Spoelmann's representative in America. He went on
to say that his yacht, a gorgeously decorated vessel, was awaiting the great
man at Venice, and that as soon as he had finished his cure he intended to
travel south with his party.
It told also, in answer to importunate requests from its readers—of the
romantic origin of the Spoelmann millions, from their beginning in Victoria,
whither his father had drifted from some German office stool or other,
young, poor, and armed only with a pick, a shovel, and a tin plate. There he
had begun by working as help to a gold-digger, as a day labourer, in the
sweat of his brow. And then luck had come to him. A man, a claim-owner
on a small scale, had fared so badly that he could no longer buy himself his
tomatoes and dry bread for dinner, and in his extremity had been obliged to
dispose of his claim. Spoelmann senior had bought it, had staked his one
card, and, with his whole savings, amounting to £5 sterling, had bought this
piece of alluvial land called “Paradise Field,” not more than forty feet
square. And the next day he had turned up, a foot under the surface, a
nugget of pure gold, the tenth biggest nugget in the world, the “Paradise
nugget,” weighing 980 ounces and worth £5,000.

That, related the Courier, had been the beginning. Spoelmann's father
had emigrated to South America with the proceeds of his find, to Bolivia,
and as gold-washer, amalgam-mill-owner, and mine-owner had continued to
extract the yellow metal direct from the rivers and the womb of the
mountains. Then and there Spoelmann senior had married—and the Courier
went so far as to hint in this connexion that he had done so defiantly and
without regard to the prejudices generally felt in those parts. However, he
had doubled his capital and succeeded in investing his money most
profitably.
He had moved on northwards to Philadelphia, Pa. That was in the
fifties, the time of a great boom in railway construction, and Spoelmann had
begun with one investment in the Baltimore and Ohio Railway. He had also
leased a coal-mine in the west of the State, the profits from which had been
enormous. Finally he had joined that group of fortunate young men which
bought the famous Blockhead Farm for a few thousand pounds—the
property which, with its petroleum wells, in a short time increased in value
to a hundred times its purchase price…. This enterprise had made a rich
man of Spoelmann senior, but he had by no means rested on his oars, but
unceasingly practised the art of making money into more money, and
finally into superabundant money.
He had started steel works, had floated companies for the turning of iron
into steel on a large scale, and for building railway bridges. He had bought
up the major part of the shares of four or five big railway companies, and
had been elected in the later years of his life president, vice-president,
manager, or director of the companies. When the Steel Trust was formed, so
the Courier said, he had joined it, with a holding of shares which
guaranteed him an income of $12,000,000. But at the same time he had
been chief shareholder and expert adviser of the Petroleum Combine, and in
virtue of his holding had dominated three or four of the other Trust
Companies. And at his death his fortune, reckoned in German currency, had
amounted to a round thousand million marks.
Samuel, his only son, the offspring of that early marriage, contracted in
defiance of public opinion, had been his sole heir—and the Courier, with its
usual delicacy, interpolated a remark to the effect that there was something
almost sad in the idea of any one, without himself contributing, and through

no fault of his own, being born to such a situation. Samuel had inherited the
palace on Fifth Avenue at New York, the country mansions, and all the
shares, Trust bonds, and profits of his father; he inherited also the strange
position to which his father had risen, his world-fame and the hatred
directed by his out-distanced competitors against the power of his gold—all
the hatred to allay which he yearly distributed his huge donations to
colleges, conservatories, libraries, benevolent institutions, and that
University which his father had founded and which bore his name.
Samuel Spoelmann did not deserve the hatred of the out-distanced
competitors; that the Courier was sure of. He had gone early into the
business, and had controlled the bewildering possessions of his house all by
himself during his father's last years. But everybody knew that his heart had
never been really in the business. His real inclinations had been, strange to
say, all along much more towards music and especially organ music—and
the truth of this information on the part of the Courier was certain, for Mr.
Spoelmann actually kept a small organ in the “Spa Court,” whose bellows
he got a hotel servant to blow, and he could be heard from the Spa-Garden
playing it for an hour every day.
He had married for love and not at all from social considerations,
according to the Courier—a poor and pretty girl, half German, half Anglo-
Saxon by descent. She had died, but she had left him a daughter, that
wonderful blood-mixture of a girl, whom we now had as guest within our
walls and who was at the time nineteen years old. Her name was Imma—a
real German name, as the Courier added, nothing more than an old form of
“Emma,” and it might be remarked that the daily conversation in the
Spoelmann household, though interlarded with scraps of English, had
remained German. And how devoted father and daughter seemed to be to
each other! Every morning, by going to the Spa-Garden at the right time,
one could watch Fräulein Spoelmann, who usually entered the Füllhause a
little later than her father, take his head between her hands and give him his
morning kiss on mouth and cheeks, while he patted her tenderly on the
back. Then they went arm-in-arm through the Wandelhalle and sucked their
glass tubes as they went….
That is how the well-informed journal gossiped and fed the public
curiosity. It also reported carefully the visits which Miss Imma kindly paid

with her companion to several of the charitable institutions of the town.
Yesterday she had made a detailed inspection of the public kitchens. To-day
she had made a prolonged tour of the Trinity Almhouses for old women,
and she had recently twice attended Privy Councillor Klinghammer's
lectures on the theory of numbers at the university—had sat on the bench, a
student among students, and scribbled away with her fountain-pen, for
everybody knew that she was a learned girl and devoted to the study of
algebra. Yes, all that was absorbing reading, and furnished ample food for
conversation. But the topics which made themselves talked about without
any help from the Courier were, firstly, the dog, that noble black-and-white
collie which the Spoelmanns had brought with them, and secondly, in a
different way, the companion, Countess Löwenjoul.
As for the dog, whose name was Percival, generally shortened to Percy,
he was an animal of so excitable and emotional a disposition as beggared
description. Inside the hotel he afforded no grounds for complaint, but lay
in a dignified attitude on a small carpet outside the Spoelmanns' suite. But
every time he went out he had an attack of light-headedness, which caused
general interest and surprise, indeed more than once actual obstruction of
traffic.
Followed at a distance by a swarm of native dogs, common curs which,
incited by his demeanour, assailed him with censorious yaps, and which
caused him no concern whatever, he flew through the streets, his nose
spattered with foam and barking wildly, pirouetted madly in front of the
tramcars, made the cab-horses stumble, and twice knocked Widow
Klaaszen's cake stall at the Town Hall down so violently that the sugar
cakes rolled half over the Market-place. But as Mr. Spoelmann or his
daughter at once met such catastrophes with more than adequate
compensation, as too it was discovered that Percival's attacks were really
quite free from danger, that he was anything but inclined to bite and steal,
but on the contrary kept to himself and would let nobody come near him,
public opinion quickly turned in his favour, and to the children in particular
his excursions were a constant source of pleasure.
Countess Löwenjoul on her side supplied food for conversation in a
quieter but no less strange way. At first, when her personality and position
were not yet known in the city, she had attracted the gibes of the street

urchins, because, while out walking alone, she talked to herself softly and
deliberately, and accompanied her words with lively and at the same time
graceful and elegant gestures. But she had shown such mildness and
goodness to the children who shouted after her and tugged at her dress, she
had spoken to them with such affection and dignity, that her persecutors had
slunk away abashed and confused, and later, when she became known,
respect for her relations with the famous guests secured her from
molestation. However, some unintelligible anecdotes were secretly
circulated about her. One man told how the Countess had given him a gold
piece with instructions that he should box the ears of a certain old woman
who was understood to have made some unseemly proposal or other to her.
The man had pocketed the gold piece, without, however, discharging his
commission.
Further, it was declared as a fact that the Countess had accosted the
sentry in front of the Fusiliers' Barracks and had told him at once to arrest
the wife of the sergeant of one of the companies because of her moral
shortcomings. She had written too a letter to the Colonel of the regiment to
the effect that all sorts of secret and unspeakable abominations went on
inside the barracks. Whether she was right in her facts, heaven only knew.
But many people at once concluded that she was wrong in her head. At any
rate, there was no time to investigate the matter, for six weeks were soon
past, and Samuel N. Spoelmann, the millionaire, went away.
He went away after having had his portrait painted by Professor von
Lindemann—an expensive portrait too, which he gave to the proprietor of
the “Spa Court” as a memento; he went away with his daughter, the
Countess, and Doctor Watercloose, with Percival, the chamber-velocipede,
and his servants; went by special train to the South, with the view of
spending the winter on the Riviera, whither the two New York journalists
had hastened ahead of him, and of then crossing back home again. It was all
over. The Courier wished Mr. Spoelmann a hearty farewell and expressed
the hope that the cure would be found to have done him good.
And with that the notable interlude seemed to be closed and done with.
Everyday life claimed its due, and Mr. Spoelmann began to fade into
oblivion. The winter passed. It was the winter in which her Grand Ducal
Highness the Princess zu Ried-Hohenried was confined of a daughter.

Spring came, and his Royal Highness Grand Duke Albrecht repaired as
usual to Hollerbrunn. But then a rumour cropped up amongst the people and
in the press, which was received at first with a shrug by the sober-minded,
but became more concrete, crystallized, took to itself quite precise details,
and finally won itself a dominant place in the solid and pithy news of the
day.
What was toward? A Grand Ducal Schloss was about to be sold?
Nonsense! Which Schloss?—Delphinenort. Schloss Delphinenort in the
North Park? Twaddle! Sold? To whom?—To Spoelmann. Ridiculous! What
could he do with it?—Restore it, and live in it. That's all very well. But
perhaps our Parliament might have something to say to that.—They don't
care twopence. Had the State any responsibility for keeping up Schloss
Delphinenort?—If they had, it's a pity they hadn't recognized it, dear old
place. No, Parliament had no say in the matter. Have the negotiations
advanced at all far?—Rather, they're completed. Goodness gracious, then of
course the exact price is known?—Naturally. Sold for two millions, not a
farthing less. Impossible! A Royal Palace! Royal palace be blowed! We're
not talking of the Grimmburg or of the Old Schloss. We're talking of a
country house, an unused country house which is falling in pieces for lack
of funds to keep it up.
So Spoelmann intended to come back every year and spend several
weeks in Delphinenort?—No. For he intended rather to come and settle
among us altogether. He was sick of America, wanted to turn his back on it,
and his first stay amongst us was merely to spy out the land. He was ill, he
wanted to retire from business. He had always remained a German at heart.
The father had emigrated, and the son wanted to come back home. He
wished to take his part in the modest life and intellectual resources of our
country, and to spend the rest of his days in the immediate neighbourhood
of the Ditlinde Spa.
All was confusion and bustle, and discussions without end. But public
opinion, with the exception of the voices of a few grumblers, trended after a
short hesitation in favour of the idea of sale; indeed without this general
approval the matter could never have gone very far. It was House Minister
von Knobelsdorff who first ventured on a cautious announcement of
Spoelmann's offer in the daily press. He had waited and allowed the popular

feeling to come to a decision. And after the first confusion, solid reasons in
favour of the project had made themselves felt.
The business world was enchanted at the idea of having so doughty a
consumer at its doors. The æsthetes showed themselves delighted at the
prospect of seeing Schloss Delphinenort restored and kept up—at seeing the
noble old building restored to honour and youth in so unforeseen, indeed so
romantic a way. But the economically-minded brought forward figures
which were calculated to cause grave misgivings as to the financial position
of the country. If Samuel N. Spoelmann settled among us, he would become
a tax-payer—he would have to pay us his income-tax.
Perhaps it was worth while showing what that meant. Mr. Spoelmann
would be left to declare his own income, but, from what one knew—and
knew fairly accurately—his residence would mean a yearly revenue of two
and a half millions, in taxes alone, not to mention what he paid in rates.
Worth thinking about, wasn't it? The question was put straight to the
Finance Minister, Dr. Krippenreuther. He would be wanting in his duty if he
did not do all he could to recommend the sale in the highest quarters. For
patriotism demanded that Spoelmann's offer should be accepted, and
patriotism was paramount above all other considerations.
So Excellency von Knobelsdorff had had an interview with the Grand
Duke. He had informed his master of the public opinion, had added that the
price offered, two millions, considerably exceeded the real value of the
Schloss in its present condition, had remarked that such a sum meant a real
windfall for the Treasury, and had ended by slipping in a hint about the
central heating of the Old Schloss, which, if the sale was carried through,
would no longer be an impossibility. In short, the single-minded old
gentleman had brought his whole influence to bear in favour of the sale, and
had recommended the Grand Duke to bring the matter before a family
moot. Albrecht had sucked his lower lip softly against the upper, and
summoned the family moot. It had met in the Hall of the Knights over tea
and biscuits. Only two feminine members, the Princess Catherine and
Ditlinde, had opposed the sale, on the ground of loss of dignity.
“You will be misunderstood, Albrecht!” said Ditlinde.

“They will charge you with want of respect to your high station, and
that is not right, for you have on the contrary too much; you are so proud,
Albrecht, that everything is all the same to you. But I say No. I do not wish
to see a Crœsus living in one of your Schlosses, it is not right, and it was
bad enough that he should have a family physician and take the Prince's
suite in the Spa Court. The Courier harps on the fact that he is a tax-paying
subject, but in my eyes he is simply a subject and nothing else. What do you
think, Klaus Heinrich?”
But Klaus Heinrich voted for the sale. In the first place, Albrecht got his
central heating; secondly, Spoelmann was not one of the common herd, he
was not soap-boiler Unschlitt—he was an exception, and there was no
disgrace in letting him have Delphinenort. Finally Albrecht had, with
downcast eyes, pronounced the whole family moot to be a farce. The people
had long ago made up their minds, his Ministers urged the sale, and there
was nothing left for him to do but to “wave to the engine-driver and start
the train.”
The family moot had taken place in spring. From that time onwards the
negotiations for sale, which were carried on between Spoelmann on the one
hand and the Lord Marshal von Bühl zu Bühl on the other, had proceeded
apace, and the summer was not far advanced before Schloss Delphinenort
with its park and out-buildings had become the lawful property of Mr.
Spoelmann.
Then began a scene of bustle and confusion round and in the Schloss,
which daily attracted crowds to the northern side of the park. Delphinenort
was improved and partly reconstructed inside by a swarm of workmen. For
quick, quick, was the order of the day, that was Spoelmann's wish, and he
had only allowed five months' respite for everything to be ready for him to
enter into possession. So a wooden scaffold with ladders and platforms shot
up at lightning speed round the dilapidated old building, foreign workmen
swarmed all over it, and an architect came with carte blanche over the seas
to superintend the work. But the greater part of the work fell to our native
manual workers to perform, and the stone-masons and tilers, the joiners,
gilders, upholsterers, glaziers, and parquet-layers of the city, the landscape
gardeners and heating and lighting experts, had plenty of remunerative
work all through the summer and autumn.

When his Royal Highness Klaus Heinrich left his window in the
“Hermitage” open, the noise of the work at Delphinenort penetrated right
through to the Empire room, and he often drove past the Schloss amid the
respectful greetings of the public, in order to satisfy himself of the progress
of the restoration. The gardener's cottage was painted up, the sheds and
stables, which were destined to accommodate Spoelmann's fleet of motors
and carriages, were enlarged; and by October, furniture and carpets, chests
and cases full of stuffs and household utensils had been delivered at Schloss
Delphinenort, while it was whispered among the bystanders that inside the
walls skilled hands were at work fitting Spoelmann's costly organ, which
had been sent from over the sea, with electric action.
There was much excitement to know whether the park belonging to the
Schloss, which had been so splendidly cleaned up and trimmed, was to be
fenced off from the public by a wall or hedge. But nothing of the sort was
done. It was Spoelmann's wish that the property should continue to be
accessible, that no restraint should be placed on the citizens' enjoyment of
the park. The Sunday promenaders should have access right up to the
Schloss, up to the clipped hedge which surrounded the big square pond—
and this did not fail to make an excellent impression on the population;
indeed, the Courier published a special article on the subject, in which it
praised Mr. Spoelmann for his philanthropy.
And behold! when the leaves again began to fall, exactly one year after
his first appearance, Samuel Spoelmann landed a second time at our railway
station. This time the general interest in the event was much greater than in
the preceding year, and it is on record that, when Mr. Spoelmann, in his
well-known faded coat and with his hat over his eyes, left his saloon, loud
cheers were raised by the crowd of spectators—an expression of feelings
which Mr. Spoelmann seemed rather inclined to resent, and which not he
but Doctor Watercloose acknowledged with blinking eyes and a broad
smile. When Miss Spoelmann too alighted, a cheer was raised, and one or
two urchins even shouted when Percy, the collie, appeared springing,
leaping, and altogether beside himself, on the platform. In addition to the
doctor and Countess Löwenjoul there were two unknown persons in
attendance, two clean-shaven and decided-looking men in strangely roomy
coats. They were Mr. Spoelmann's secretaries, Messrs. Phlebs and Slippers,
as the Courier announced in its report.

At that time Delphinenort was far from ready, and the Spoelmanns at
once took possession of the first floor of the chief hotel, where a big,
haughty, paunch-bellied man in black, the steward or butler of the
Spoelmann establishment, who had preceded them, had made preparations
for them, and put the chamber-velocipede together with his own hands.
Every day, while Miss Imma with her Countess and Percy went for a ride or
a visit to some charitable institution, Mr. Spoelmann hung about his house,
superintending the work and giving orders, and when the end of the year
approached, just after the first snow had fallen, prospect became fact, and
the Spoelmanns took up their abode in Schloss Delphinenort. Two motor
cars (their arrival had been watched with interest—splendid cars they were)
bore the six members of the party—Messrs. Phlebs and Slippers sat in the
hinder one—driven by the leather-clad chauffeurs, with servants in snow-
white fur coats and crossed arms beside them, in a few minutes from the
hotel through the City Gardens; and as the cars dashed along the noble
chestnut avenue which led to the drive, the urchins climbed up the high
lamp-posts which stood at all four corners of the big spa-basin, and waved
their caps and cheered….
So Spoelmann and his belongings settled down among us, and we
basked in the light of his presence. His white-and-gold livery was seen and
known in the city, just as the brown-and-gold Grand Ducal livery was seen
and known; the negro in scarlet plush who was doorkeeper at Delphinenort
soon became a popular figure, and when passers-by heard the subdued
rumble of Mr. Spoelmann's organ from the interior of the Schloss they lifted
a finger and said: “Hark, he's playing. That means that he's not got colic for
the moment.”
Miss Imma was to be seen daily by the side of Countess Löwenjoul,
followed by a groom and with Percy capering round, riding, or driving a
smart four-in-hand through the City Gardens—while the servant who sat on
the back seat stood up from time to time, drew a long silver horn from a
leather sheath and wound a shrill warning of their approach; and by getting
up early one could see father and daughter every morning go in a dark-red
brougham, or, in fine weather, on foot through the park of Schloss
“Hermitage” to the Spa-Garden, in order to drink the waters. Imma for her
part, as already mentioned, again began a course of visits to the benevolent
institutions of the city, though she appeared not to give up her studies for all

that; for from the beginning of the half-term she regularly attended the
lectures of the Councillor Klinghammer at the University—sat daily in a
black dress with white collar and cuffs among the young students in the
lecture-theatre, and drove her fountain-pen—with her fore-finger raised in
the air, a trick of hers when writing—over the pages of her notebook.
The Spoelmanns lived in retirement, they did not mix in the life of the
town, as was natural in view both of Mr. Spoelmann's ill-health and of his
social loneliness. What social group could he have attached himself to?
Nobody even suggested to him that he should consort with soap-boiler
Unschlitt or bank-director Wolfsmilch on confidential terms. Yet he was
soon approached with appeals to his generosity, and the appeals were not in
vain. For Mr. Spoelmann, who, it was well known, before his departure
from America had given a large sum in dollars to the Board of Education in
the United States, and had also stated in so many words that he had no
intention of withdrawing his yearly contributions to the Spoelmann
University and his other educational foundations—he, shortly after his
arrival at “Delphinenort,” put his name down for a subscription of ten
thousand marks to the Dorothea Children's Hospital, for which a collection
was just being made; an action the nobleness of which was immediately
recognized in fitting terms by the Courier and the rest of the press.
In fact, although the Spoelmanns lived in seclusion in a social sense, a
certain amount of publicity attached to their life among us from the earliest
moments, and in the local section of the daily newspapers at least their
movements were followed with as much particularity as those of the
members of the Grand Ducal House. The public were informed when Miss
Imma had played a game of lawn tennis with the Countess and Messrs.
Phlebs and Slippers in the “Delphinenort” park; it was noted when she had
been at the Court Theatre, and whether her father had gone with her for an
act or two of the Opera; and if Mr. Spoelmann shrank from curiosity, never
leaving his box during the intervals and scarcely ever showing himself on
foot in the streets, yet he was obviously not insensible to the duties of a
spectacular kind which were inherent in an extraordinary existence like his
own, and he gave the love of gazing its due.
It has been said that the “Delphinenort” park was not divided from the
Town Gardens. No walls separated the Schloss from the outer world. From

the back one could walk over the turf right up to the foot of the broad
covered terrace which had been built on that side, and, if bold enough, look
through the big glass door straight into the high white-and-gold garden-
room in which Mr. Spoelmann and his family had five-o'clock tea. Indeed,
when summer came, tea was laid on the terrace outside, and Mr. and Miss
Spoelmann, the Countess and Doctor Watercloose sat in basket chairs of a
new-fangled shape, and took their tea as if on a public platform.
For on Sunday, at any rate, there was never wanting a public to enjoy
the spectacle at a respectful distance. They called each other's attention to
the silver tea-kettle, which was heated by electricity—a quite novel idea—
and to the wonderful liveries of the two footmen who handed the tea and
cakes, white, high-buttoned, gold-laced coats with swan's-down on the
collars, cuffs, and seams. They listened to the English-German conversation
and followed with open mouths every movement of the notable family on
the terrace. They then went round past the front door, in order to shout a
few witticisms in the local dialect to the red-plush negro, which he
answered with a dental grin.
Klaus Heinrich saw Imma Spoelmann for the first time on a bright
winter's day at noon. That does not mean that he had not already caught
sight of her often at the theatre, in the street, and in the town park. But that's
quite a different thing. He saw her for the first time at this midday hour in
exciting circumstances.
He had been giving “free audiences” in the Old Schloss till half-past
eleven, and after they were finished had not returned at once to Schloss
“Hermitage,” but had ordered his coachman to keep the carriage waiting in
one of the courts, as he wished to smoke a cigarette with the Guards officers
on duty. As he wore the uniform of that regiment, to which his personal
aide-de-camp also belonged, he made an effort to maintain the semblance of
some sort of camaraderie with the officers; he dined from time to time in
their mess and occasionally gave them half an hour of his company on
guard, although he had a dim suspicion that he was rather a nuisance as he
kept them from their cards and smoking-room stories.
So there he stood, the convex silver star of the Noble Order of the
Grimmburg Griffin on his breast, his left hand planted well back on his hip,

with Herr von Braunbart-Schellendorf, who had given due notice of the
visit in the officers' mess, which was situated on the ground floor of the
Schloss near the Albrechts Gate—engaged in a trivial conversation with
two or three officers in the middle of the room, while a further group of
officers chatted at the deep-set window. Owing to the warmth of sun outside
the window stood open, and from the barracks along the Albrechtstrasse
came the strains of the drum and fife band of the approaching relief guard.
Twelve o'clock struck from the Court Chapel tower. The loud “Fall in!”
of the non-commissioned officer was heard outside, and the rattle of
grenadiers standing to arms. The public collected on the square. The
lieutenant on duty hastily buckled on his sword belt, clapped his heels
together in a salute to Klaus Heinrich and went out. Then suddenly
Lieutenant von Sturmhahn, who had been looking out of the window, cried
with that rather poor imitation of familiarity which was proper to the
relations between Klaus Heinrich and the officers: “Great heavens, here's
something for you to look at, Royal Highness! There goes Miss Spoelmann,
with her algebra under her arm….”
Klaus Heinrich walked to the window. Miss Imma was walking by
herself along the pavement. With both hands thrust into her big flat muff,
which was trimmed with pendent tails, she carried her notebook pressed to
her side with her elbow. She was wearing a long coat of shiny black fox,
and a toque of the same fur on her dark foreign-looking hair. She was
obviously coming from “Delphinenort” and hurrying towards the
University. She reached the main guard-house at the moment at which the
relief guard marched up the gutter, over against the guard on duty, which
standing at attention in two ranks occupied the pavement. She was
absolutely compelled to go round, outside the band and the crowd of
spectators—indeed, if she wished to avoid the open square with its tram-
lines, to make a fairly wide detour on the footpath running round it—or to
wait for the end of the military ceremony.
She showed no intention of doing either. She made as if to walk along
the pavement in front of the Schloss right down between the two ranks of
soldiers. The sergeant with the harsh voice stepped forward quickly. “Not
this way!” he cried and held the butt of his rifle in front of her. “Not this
way! Right about! Wait!”

But Miss Spoelmann fired up. “What d'you mean?” she cried. “I'm in a
hurry!”
But her words were not so impressive as the expression of honest,
passionate, irresistible anger with which they were uttered. How slight and
lonely she was! The fair-haired soldiers round her towered head and
shoulders above her. Her face was as pale as wax at this moment, her black
eyebrows were knitted in a hard and expressive wrinkle, her nostrils
distended, and her eyes, black with excitement and wide-opened, spoke so
expressive and bewitching a language that no protest seemed possible.
“What d'you mean?” she cried. “I'm in a hurry!” And as she said it she
pushed the rifle-butt, and the stupefied sergeant with it, aside, and walked
down between the lines, went straight on her way, turned to the left into
Universitätsstrasse and vanished.
“I'm dammed!” cried Lieutenant von Sturmhahn. “That's one for us!”
The officers at the window laughed. The spectators outside, too, were much
amused, and not unsympathetic. Klaus Heinrich joined in the general
hilarity. The changing of the guard proceeded with loud words of command
and snatches of march tunes. Klaus Heinrich returned to the “Hermitage.”
He lunched all alone, went for a ride in the afternoon on his brown
horse Florian, and spent the evening at a big party at Dr. Krippenreuther, the
Finance Minister's house. He related to several people with great animation
the episode of the guard, although the story had already gone the round and
become common property. Next day he had to go away, for he had been told
by his brother to represent him at the inauguration of the new Town Hall in
a neighbouring town. For some reason or other, he went reluctantly, he
disliked leaving the capital. He had a feeling that he was missing an
important, pleasant, though rather disquieting opportunity, which
imperatively demanded his presence. And yet his exalted calling must be
more important. But while he sat serene and gorgeously dressed on his seat
of honour in the Town Hall, and read his speech to the Mayor, Klaus
Heinrich's thoughts were not concentrated on the figure he presented to the
eyes of the crowd, but rather were busied with this new and important topic.
He also gave a passing thought to a person whose casual acquaintance he
had made long years before, to Fräulein Unschlitt, the soap-boiler's

daughter—a memory which had a certain connexion with the importunate
topic….
Imma Spoelmann pushed the harsh-voiced sergeant aside in her anger—
walked all alone, her algebra under her arm, down the ranks of the big fair-
haired grenadiers. How pearly-white her face was against her black hair
under her fur toque, and how her eyes spoke! There was nobody like her.
Her father was rich, surfeited with riches, and had bought one of the Grand
Ducal Schlosses. What was it that the Courier had said about his
undeserved reputation and the “romantic isolation of his life”? He was the
object of the hatred of aggrieved rivals—that was the effect of the article.
And her nostrils had distended with anger. There was nobody like her,
nobody near or far. She was an exception. And suppose she had been at the
Citizens' Ball on that occasion? He would then have had a companion,
would not have made a fool of himself, and would not have ended the
evening in despair. “Down, down, down with him!” Phew! Just think of
how she looked as she walked, dark and pale and wonderful, down the
ranks of fair-haired soldiers.
These were the thoughts which occupied Klaus Heinrich during the next
few days—just these three or four mental pictures. And the strange thing is
that they were amply sufficient for him, and that he did not want any more.
But all things considered, it seemed to him more than desirable that he
should get another glimpse of the pearly-white face soon, to-day if possible.
In the evening he went to the Court Theatre, where The Magic Flute
was being played. And when from his box he descried Miss Spoelmann
next to Countess Löwenjoul in the front of the circle, a tremor went right
through him. During the opera he could watch her out of the darkness
through his opera-glasses, for the light from the stage fell on her. She laid
her head on her small, ringless hand, while she rested her bare arm on the
velvet braid, and she did not look angry now. She wore a dress of glistening
sea-green silk with a light scarf on which bright flowers were embroidered,
and round her neck a long chain of sparkling diamonds. She really was not
so small as she looked, Klaus Heinrich decided, when she stood up at the
end of the act. No, the childish shape of her head and the narrowness of her
shoulders accounted for her looking such a little thing. Her arms were well

developed, and one could see that she played games and rode. But at the
wrist her arm looked like a child's.
When the passage came: “He is a prince. He is more than that,” Klaus
Heinrich conceived the wish to have a talk with Doctor Ueberbein. Doctor
Ueberbein called by chance next day at the “Hermitage” in a black frock-
coat and white tie, as usual when he paid Klaus Heinrich a visit. Klaus
Heinrich asked him whether he had already heard the story of the changing
of the guard. Yes, answered Doctor Ueberbein, several times. But would
Klaus Heinrich like to relate it to him again?… “No, not if you know it,”
said Klaus Heinrich, disappointed. Then Doctor Ueberbein jumped to quite
another topic. He began to talk about opera-glasses, and remarked that
opera-glasses were a wonderful invention. They brought close what was
unfortunately a long way off, did they not? They formed a bridge to a
longed-for goal. What did Klaus Heinrich think? Klaus Heinrich was
inclined to agree to a certain extent. And it seemed that yesterday evening,
so people said, he had made a free use of this grand invention, said the
doctor. Klaus Heinrich could not see the point of this remark.
Then Doctor Ueberbein said: “No, look here, Klaus Heinrich, that won't
do. You are stared at, and little Imma is stared at, and that's enough. If you
add to it by staring at little Imma, that's too much. You must see that,
surely?”
“Oh dear, Doctor Ueberbein, I never thought of that.”
“But in other cases you generally do think of that sort of thing.”
“I've felt so funny for the last few days,” said Klaus Heinrich.
Doctor Ueberbein leaned back, pulled at his red beard near his throat,
and nodded slowly with his head and neck.
“Really? Have you?” he asked. And then went on nodding.
Klaus Heinrich said: “You can't think how reluctant I was to go the
other day to the inauguration of the Town Hall. And to-morrow I have to
superintend the swearing-in of the Grenadier recruits. And then comes the
Chapter of the Family Order. I don't feel a bit in the mood for that. I find no

pleasure in doing my duty as the representative of my people. I've no
inclination for my so-called lofty calling.”
“I'm sorry to hear it!” said Doctor Ueberbein sharply.
“Yes, I might have known that you would be angry, Doctor Ueberbein.
Of course you'll call it sloppiness, and will read me a sermon about ‘destiny
and discipline,’ if I know you. But at the opera yesterday I thought of you at
one point, and asked myself whether you really were so right in several
particulars….”
“Look here, Klaus Heinrich, once already, if I'm not mistaken, I've
dragged your Royal Highness out of the mud, so to speak….”
“That was quite different, Doctor Ueberbein! How I wish you could see
that was absolutely different! That was at the Citizens' Ball, but it was years
ago, and I don't feel a twinge in that direction. For she is … Look you, you
have often explained to me what you understand by ‘Highness,’ and that it
is something affecting, and something to be approached with tender
sympathy. Don't you think that she of whom we are speaking, that she is
affecting and that one must feel sympathy with her?”
“Perhaps,” said Doctor Ueberbein. “Perhaps.”
“You often said that one must not disavow exceptions, that to do so was
sloppiness and slovenly and good-nature. Don't you think that she too of
whom we are speaking is an exception?”
Doctor Ueberbein was silent. Then he said suddenly and decidedly,
“And now I, if possible, am to help to make two exceptions into a rule?”
Thereupon he went out. He said that he must get back to his work,
emphasizing the word “work,” and begged leave to withdraw. He took his
departure in a strangely ceremonious and unfatherly way.
Klaus Heinrich did not see him for ten or twelve days. He asked him to
lunch once, but Doctor Ueberbein begged to be excused, his work at the
moment was too pressing. At last he came spontaneously. He was in high
spirits and looked greener than ever. He blustered about this and that, and at
last came to the subject of the Spoelmanns, looking at the ceiling and

pulling at his throat when he did so. To be quite fair, he said, there was a
striking amount of sympathy felt with Samuel Spoelmann, one could see all
over the town how much beloved he was. Chiefly of course as an object of
taxation, but in other respects too. There was simply a penchant for him, in
every class, for his organ-playing and his faded coat and his kidney-colic.
Every errand boy was proud of him, and if he were not so unapproachable
and morose he would already have been made to feel it.
The ten-thousand marks donation for the Dorothea Hospital had
naturally made an excellent impression. His friend Sammet had told him
(Ueberbein) that with the help of this donation far-reaching improvements
had been undertaken in the Hospital. And for the rest, it had just occurred to
him! Little Imma was going to inspect the improvements to-morrow
morning, Sammet had told him. She had sent one of her swan's-down
flunkeys and asked whether she would be welcome to-morrow. She and
sick children were a devilish funny mixture, opined Ueberbein, but perhaps
she might learn something. To-morrow morning at eleven, if his memory
did not mislead him.
Then he talked about other things. On leaving he added: “The Grand
Duke ought to take some interest in the Dorothea Hospital, Klaus Heinrich,
it's expected of him. It's a blessed institution. In short, somebody ought to
show the way, give signs of an interest in high quarters. No wish to
intrude…. And so good-bye.”
But he came back once more, and in his green face a flush had appeared
under the eyes which looked entirely out of place there. “If,” he said
deliberately, “I ever caught you again with a soup tureen on your head,
Klaus Heinrich, I should leave it there.” Then he pressed his lips together
and went out.
Next morning shortly before eleven Klaus Heinrich walked with Herr
von Braunbart-Schellendorf, his aide-de-camp, from Schloss “Hermitage”
through the snow-covered birch avenue over rough suburban streets
between humble cottages, and stopped before the neat white house over
whose entrance “Dorothea Children's Hospital” was painted in broad black
letters. His visit had been announced. The senior surgeon of the institution,
in a frock-coat with the Albrechts Cross of the Third Class, was awaiting

him with two younger surgeons and the nursing staff in the hall. The Prince
and his companion were wearing helmets and fur coats. Klaus Heinrich
said: “This is the renewal of an old acquaintance, my dear doctor. You were
present when I came into the world. You are also a friend of my tutor
Ueberbein's. I am delighted to meet you.”
Doctor Sammet, who had grown grey in his life of active philanthropy,
bowed to one side, with one hand on his watch-chain and his elbows close
to his ribs. He presented the two junior surgeons and the sister to the Prince,
and then said: “I must explain to your Royal Highness that your Royal
Highness's gracious visit coincides with another visit. Yes. We are expecting
Miss Spoelmann. Her father has done such a lot for our institution…. We
could not very well upset the arrangements. The sister will take Miss
Spoelmann round.”
Klaus Heinrich received the news of this rencontre without displeasure.
He first expressed his opinion of the nurses' uniform, which he called
becoming, and then his curiosity to inspect the philanthropic institution. The
tour began. The sister and three nurses waited behind in the hall.
All the walls in the building were whitewashed and washable. Yes. The
water taps were huge, they were meant to be worked with the elbows for
reasons of cleanliness. And rinsing apparatus had been installed for washing
the milk-bottles. One passed first through the reception room, which was
empty save for a couple of disused beds and the surgeons' bicycles. In the
adjoining preparation room there were, besides the writing-table and the
stand with the students' white coats, a kind of folding table with oil-cloth
cushions, an operating-table, a cupboard of provisions, and a trough-shaped
perambulator. Klaus Heinrich paused at the provisions and asked for the
recipes for the preparations to be explained to him. Doctor Sammet thought
to himself that if the whole tour was going to be made with such attention to
details, a terrible lot of time would be wasted.
Suddenly a noise was heard in the street. An automobile drove up
tooting and stopped in front of the building. Cheers were heard distinctly in
the preparation room, for all that it was only children that were shouting.
Klaus Heinrich did not pay any particular attention to the incident. He was
looking at a box of sugar of milk, which, by the way, had nothing striking

about it. “A visitor apparently,” he said. “Oh, of course, you said somebody
was coming. Let's go on.”
The party proceeded to the kitchen, the milk-kitchen, the big boiler-
fitted room for the preparing of milk, the place where full milk, boiled milk,
and buttermilk were kept. The daily rations were set on clean white tables in
little bottles side by side. The place smelt sourish and sickly.
Klaus Heinrich gave his undivided attention to this room also. He went
so far as to taste the buttermilk, and pronounced it excellent. How the
children must thrive, he considered, on buttermilk like that. During this
inspection the door opened and Miss Spoelmann entered between the sister
and Countess Löwenjoul, followed by the three nurses.
The coat, toque, and muff which she was wearing to-day were made of
the costliest sable, and her muff was suspended on a golden chain set with
coloured stones. Her black hair showed a tendency to fall in smooth locks
over her forehead. She took in the room at a glance; her eyes were really
almost unbecomingly big for her little face, they dominated it like a cat's,
save that they were black as anthracite and spoke a pleading language of
their own…. Countess Löwenjoul, with a feather hat and dressed neatly and
not without distinction, as usual, smiled in a detached sort of way.
“The milk-kitchen,” said the sister; “this is where the milk is cooked for
the children.”
“So one would have supposed,” answered Miss Spoelmann. She said it
quickly and lightly, with a pout of her lips and a little haughty wag of her
head. Her voice was a double one; it consisted of a lower and a higher
register, with a break in the middle.
The sister was quite disconcerted. “Yes,” she said, “it's obvious.” And a
little pained look of bewilderment was visible in her face.
The position was a complicated one. Doctor Sammet looked in Klaus
Heinrich's face for orders, but as Klaus Heinrich was accustomed to do
what was put before him according to prescribed forms, but not to grapple
with novel and complex situations, no solution of the difficulty was
forthcoming. Herr von Braunbart was on the point of intervening, and Miss
Spoelmann on the other side was making ready to leave the milk-kitchen,

when the Prince made a gesture with his right hand which established a
connexion between himself and the young girl. This was the signal for
Doctor Sammet to advance towards Imma Spoelmann.
“Doctor Sammet. Yes.” He desired the honour of presenting Miss
Spoelmann to his Royal Highness…. “Miss Spoelmann, Royal Highness,
the daughter of Mr. Spoelmann to whom this hospital is so much indebted.”
Klaus Heinrich clapped his heels together and held out his hand in its
white gauntlet, and, laying her small brown-gloved hand in it, she gave him
a horizontal hand-shake, English fashion, at the same time making a sort of
shy curtsey, without taking her big eyes off Klaus Heinrich's face. He could
think of nothing more original to say than: “So you too are paying a visit to
the hospital, Miss Spoelmann?”
And she answered as quickly as before, with a pout and the little
haughty wag of her head. “Nobody can deny that everything points in that
direction.”
Herr Braunbart involuntarily raised his hand, Doctor Sammet looked
down at his watch-chain in silence, and a short snigger escaped through the
nose of one of the young surgeons, which was hardly opportune. The little
pained look of bewilderment now showed on Klaus Heinrich's face. He
said: “Of course…. As you are here…. So I shall be able to visit the
institution in your company, Miss Spoelmann…. Captain von Braunbart,
my aide-de-camp …” he added quickly, recognizing that his remark laid
him open to a similar answer to the last. She responded by: “Countess
Löwenjoul.”
The Countess made a dignified bow—with an enigmatic smile, a side
glance into the unknown, which had something seductive about it. When,
however, she let her strangely evasive gaze again dwell on Klaus Heinrich,
who stood before her in a composed and military attitude, the laugh
vanished from her face, an expression of sadness settled on her features,
and for a second a look of something like hatred for Klaus Heinrich shone
in her slightly swollen grey eyes. It was only a passing look. Klaus Heinrich
had no time to notice it, and forgot it immediately. The two young surgeons
were presented to Imma Spoelmann, and then Klaus Heinrich suggested
that they should continue the tour all together.

They went upstairs to the first story; Klaus Heinrich and Imma
Spoelmann in front, conducted by Doctor Sammet, then Countess
Löwenjoul with Herr von Braunbart, and the young surgeons in the rear.
Yes, the older children were here, up to fourteen years of age. An ante-room
with wash-basins divided the girls' and the boys' rooms. In white bedsteads,
with a name-plate at the head and a frame at the foot enclosing the
temperature- and weight-charts—tended by nurses in white caps, and
surrounded by cleanliness and tidiness—lay the sick children, and coughs
filled the room while Klaus Heinrich and Imma Spoelmann walked down
between the rows.
He walked at her left hand, out of courtesy, with the same smile as when
he visited exhibitions or inspected veterans, gymnastic associations, or
guards of honour. But every time he turned his head to the right he found
that Imma Spoelmann was watching him—he met her great black eyes,
which were directed at him in a searching, questioning way. It was so
peculiar, he never remembered experiencing anything so peculiar before,
her way of looking at him with her great eyes, without any respect for him
or anyone else, absolutely unembarrassed and free, quite unconcerned
whether anybody noticed it or not.
When Doctor Sammet stopped at a bed to describe the case—the little
girl's, for instance, whose broken white-bandaged leg stuck straight out
along the bed—Miss Spoelmann listened attentively to him, that was quite
clear; but while she listened she did not look at the speaker, but her eyes
rested in turn on Klaus Heinrich and the pinched, quiet child who, her hands
folded on her breast, gazed up at them from her back-rest—rested in turn on
the Prince and the little victim, the history of whose case she shared with
the Prince, as if she were watching Klaus Heinrich's sympathy, or were
trying to read in his face the effect of Dr. Sammet's words; or maybe for
some other reason.
Yes, this was especially noticeable in the case of the boy with the bullet
through his arm and the boy who had been picked out of the water—two
sad cases, as Dr. Sammet remarked. “A severed artery, sister,” he said, and
showed them the double wound in the boy's upper arm, the entry and exit of
the revolver bullet. “The wound,” said Doctor Sammet in an undertone to
his guests, turning his back to the bed, “the wound was caused by his own

father. This one was the lucky one. The man shot his wife, three of his
children, and himself with a revolver. He made a bad shot at this boy.”
Klaus Heinrich looked at the double wound. “What did the man do it
for?” he asked hesitatingly, and Doctor Sammet answered: “In desperation,
Royal Highness. It was shame and want which brought him to it. Yes.” He
said no more, just this commonplace—just as in the case of the boy, a ten-
year-old, who had been picked out of the water. “He's wheezing,” said
Doctor Sammet, “he's still got some water in his lung. He was picked out of
the river early this morning—yes. I may say that it is improbable that he fell
into the water. There are many indications to the contrary. He had run away
from home. Yes.” He stopped.
And Klaus Heinrich again felt Miss Spoelmann looking at him with her
big, black, serious eyes—with her glance which sought his own and seemed
to challenge him insistently to ponder with her the “sad cases,” to grasp the
essential meaning of Doctor Sammet's remarks, to penetrate to the hideous
truths which were incorporated and crystallized in these two little invalid
frames…. A little girl wept bitterly when the steaming and hissing inhaler,
together with a scrapbook full of brightly coloured pictures, was planted at
her bedside.
Miss Spoelmann bent over the little one. “It doesn't hurt,” she said, “not
a tiny bit. Don't cry.” And as she straightened herself again she added
quickly, pursing up her lips, “I guess it's not so much the apparatus as the
pictures she's crying at.” Everybody laughed. One of the young assistants
picked up the scrapbook and laughed still louder when he looked at the
pictures. The party passed on into the laboratory. Klaus Heinrich thought, as
he went, how dry Miss Spoelmann's humour was. “I guess,” she had said,
and “not so much.” She had seemed to find amusement not only in the
pictures, but also in the neat and incisive mode of expression she had used.
And that was indeed the very refinement of humour….
The laboratory was the biggest room in the building. Glasses, retorts,
funnels, and chemicals stood on the tables, as well as specimens in spirits
which Doctor Sammet explained to his guests in few quiet words. A child
had choked in a mysterious way: here was his larynx with mushroom-like
growths instead of the vocal chords. Yes. This, here in the glass, was a case

of pernicious enlargement of the kidney in a child, and there were
dislocated joints. Klaus Heinrich and Miss Spoelmann looked at everything,
they looked together into the bottles which Doctor Sammet held up to the
window, and their eyes looked thoughtful while the same look of repulsion
hovered round their mouths.
They took turns too at the microscope, examined, with one eye placed
to the lens, a malignant secretion, a piece of blue-stained tissue stuck on a
slide, with tiny spots showing near the big patch. The spots were bacilli.
Klaus Heinrich wanted Miss Spoelmann to take the first turn at the
microscope, but she declined, knitting her brows and pouting, as much as to
say: “On no account whatever.” So he took the precedence, for it seemed to
him that it really did not matter who got the first look at such serious and
fearful things as bacilli. And after this they were conducted up to the second
story, to the infants.
They both laughed at the chorus of squalls which reached their ears
while they were still on the stairs. And then they went with their party
through the ward between the beds, bent, side by side over the bald-headed
little creatures, sleeping with closed fists or screaming with all their might
and showing their naked gums—they stopped their ears and laughed again.
In a kind of oven, warmed to a moderate heat lay a new-born baby.
And Doctor Sammet showed his distinguished guests a pauper baby
with the grey look of a corpse and hideous big hands, the sign of a
miscarriage…. He lifted a squealing baby out of its cot, and it at once
stopped screaming. With the touch of an expert he rested the limp head in
the hollow of his hand and showed the little red creature blinking and
twitching spasmodically to the two—Klaus Heinrich and Miss Spoelmann,
who stood side by side and looked down at the infant. Klaus Heinrich stood
watching with his heels together as Doctor Sammet laid the baby back in its
cot, and when he turned round he met Miss Spoelmann's searching gaze, as
he had expected.
Finally they walked to one of the three windows of the ward and looked
out over the squalid suburb, down into the street where, surrounded by
children, the brown Court carriage and Imma's smart dark-red motor car
stood one behind the other. The Spoelmanns' chauffeur, shapeless in his fur

coat, was leaning back in his seat with one hand on the steering-wheel of
the powerful car, and watched his companion, the footman in white, trying
to start a conversation, by the carriage in front, with Klaus Heinrich's
coachman.
“Our neighbours,” said Doctor Sammet, holding back the white net
curtain with one hand, “are the parents of our patients. Late in the evening
the tipsy fathers roll shouting by. Yes.”
They stood and listened, but Doctor Sammet said nothing further about
the fathers and so they broke off, as they had now seen everything.
The procession, with Klaus Heinrich and Imma at the head, proceeded
down the staircase and found the nurses again assembled in the front hall.
Leave was taken with compliments and clapping together of heels, curtseys,
and bows. Klaus Heinrich, standing stiffly in front of Doctor Sammet, who
listened to him with his head on one side and his hand on his watch-chain,
expressed himself, in his wonted form of words, highly satisfied with what
he had seen, while he felt that Imma Spoelmann's great eyes were resting
upon him. He, with Herr von Braunbart, accompanied Miss Spoelmann to
her car when the leave-taking from the surgeons and nurses was over. Klaus
Heinrich and Miss Spoelmann, while they crossed the pavement between
children and women with children in their arms, and for a short time by the
broad step of the motor car, exchanged the following remarks:
“It has been a great pleasure to meet you,” he said.
She answered nothing to this, but pouted and wagged her head a little
from side to side.
“It was an absorbing inspection,” he went on. “A regular eye-opener.”
She looked at him with her big black eyes, then said quickly and lightly
in her broken voice: “Yes, to a certain extent….”
He ventured on the question: “I hope you are pleased with Schloss
Delphinenort?”
To which she answered with a pout: “Oh, why not? It's quite a
convenient house….”

“Do you like being there better than at New York?” he asked. And she
answered:
“Just as much. It's much the same. Much the same everywhere.”
That was all. Klaus Heinrich, and one pace behind him Herr von
Braunbart, stood with their hands to their helmets as the chauffeur slipped
his gear in and the motor car shivered and started.
It may be imagined that this meeting did not long remain the private
property of the Dorothea Hospital; on the contrary, it was the general topic
of conversation before the day was out. The Courier published, under a
sentimental poetical heading, a detailed description of the rencontre, which,
without too violent a departure from the exact truth, yet succeeded in
making such a powerful impression on the public mind, and evoked
symptoms of such lively interest, that the vigilant newspaper was induced
to keep a watchful eye for the future on any further rapprochements
between the Spoelmann and Grimmburg houses. It could not report much.
It remarked a couple of times that his Royal Highness Prince Klaus
Heinrich, when walking through the promenade after a performance at the
Court Theatre, had stopped for a moment at the Spoelmanns' box to greet
the ladies. And in its report of the fancy-dress charity bazaar, which took
place in the middle of January in the Town Hall—a smart function, in which
Miss Spoelmann, at the urgent request of the Committee, acted as seller—
no small space was devoted to describing how Prince Klaus Heinrich, when
the Court was making a round of the bazaar, had stopped before Miss
Spoelmann's stall, how he had bought a piece or two of fancy glass (for
Miss Spoelmann was selling porcelain and glass), and had lingered a good
eight or ten minutes at her stall. It said nothing about the topic of the
conversation. And yet it had not been without importance.
The Court (with the exception of Albrecht) had appeared in the Town
Hall about noon. When Klaus Heinrich, with his newly bought pieces of
glass in tissue paper on his knee, drove back to the “Hermitage,” he had
announced his intention of visiting Delphinenort and inspecting the Schloss
in its renovated state, on the same occasion viewing Mr. Spoelmann's
collection of glass. For three or four old pieces of glass had been included

in Miss Spoelmann's stock which her father himself had given to the bazaar
out of his collection, and one of them Klaus Heinrich had bought.
He saw himself again in a semicircle of people, stared at, alone, in front
of Miss Spoelmann, and separated from her by the stall-counter, with its
vases, jugs, its white and coloured groups of porcelain. He saw her in her
red fancy dress, which, made in one piece, clung close to her neat though
childish figure, while it exposed dark shoulders and arms, which were
round and firm and yet like those of a child just by the wrist. He saw the
gold ornament, half garland and half diadem, in the jet of her billowy hair,
that showed a tendency to fall in smooth wisps on her forehead, her big,
black, inquiring eyes in the pearly-white face, her full and tender mouth,
pouting with habitual scorn when she spoke—and round about her in the
great vaulted hall had been the scent of firs and a babel of noise, music, the
clash of gongs, laughter, and the cries of sellers.
He had admired the piece of glass, the fine old beaker with its ornament
of silver foliage, which she proffered to him, and she had said that it came
from her father's collection. “Has your father, then, got many fine pieces
like this?”—Of course. And presumably her father had not given the best
items to the bazaar. She could guarantee that he had much finer pieces of
glass. Klaus Heinrich would very much like to see them! Well, that might
easily be managed, Miss Spoelmann had answered in her broken voice,
while she pouted and wagged her head slightly from side to side. Her father,
she meant, would certainly have no objection to showing the fruits of his
zeal as a collector to one more of a long succession of intelligent visitors.
The Spoelmanns were always at home at tea-time.
She had gone straight to the point, taking the hint for a definite offer,
and speaking in an entirely off-hand way. In conclusion, to Klaus Heinrich's
question, what day would suit best, she had answered: “Whichever you like,
Prince, we shall be inexpressibly delighted.”
“We shall be inexpressibly delighted”—those were her words, so
mocking and pointed in the exaggeration that they almost hurt, and were
difficult to listen to without wincing. How she had rattled and hurt the poor
sister in the Hospital the other day! But all through there was something
childish in her manner of speech; indeed, some sounds she made were just

like those children make—not only on the occasion when she was
comforting the little girl about the inhaler. And how large her eyes had
seemed when they told her about the children's fathers and the rest of the
sad story!
Next day Klaus Heinrich went to tea at Schloss Delphinenort, the very
next. Miss Spoelmann had said he might come when it suited him. But it
suited him the very next day, and as the matter seemed to him urgent, he
saw no point in putting it off.
Shortly before five o'clock—it was already dark—he drove over the
smooth roads of the Town Garden—bare and empty, for this part of it
belonged to Mr. Spoelmann. Arc-lamps lit up the park, the big square spa-
basin shimmered between the trees; behind it rose the white Schloss with its
pillared porch, its spacious double staircase which led by gentle degrees
between the wings up to the first floor, its high leaded windows, its Roman
busts in the niches—and Klaus Heinrich, as he drove along the approach
avenue of mighty chestnuts, saw the red-plush negro with his staff standing
on guard at the foot of the staircase.

Klaus Heinrich crossed a brightly lighted stone hall, with a floor of gilt
mosaic and with white statues of gods round it, passed straight over to the
broad red-carpeted marble staircase, down which the Spoelmanns' major-
domo, clean shaven, with shoulders squared and arms stiff, pot-bellied and
haughty, advanced to receive the guest. He escorted him up into the
tapestried and marble-chimneyed ante-room, where a couple of white-and-
gold swan's-down footmen took the Prince's cap and cloak, while the
steward went in person to announce him to his master…. The footman held
aside one of the tapestries for Klaus Heinrich, who descended two or three
steps.
The scent of flowers met him, and he heard the soft splash of falling
water; but just as the tapestry closed behind him, so wild and harsh a
barking was heard that Klaus Heinrich, half deafened for a moment,
stopped at the foot of the steps. Percival, the collie, had dashed at him in a
fury. He pranced, he capered in uncontrollable passion, he pirouetted, beat
his sides with his tail, planted his forefeet on the floor, and turned wildly
round and round, and seemed like to burst with noise. A voice—not Imma's
—called him off, and Klaus Heinrich found himself in a winter garden, a
glass conservatory with white marble columns and a floor of big square
marble flags. Palms of all kinds filled it, whose trunks and tops often
reached close up to the glass ceiling. A flower-bed, consisting of countless
pots arranged like the stones of a mosaic, lay in the strong moonlight of the
arc-lamp and filled the air with its scent. Out of a beautifully carved
fountain, silver streams flowed into a marble pool, and ducks with strange
and fantastic plumage swam about on the illuminated water. The
background was filled by a stone walk with columns and niches.
It was Countess Löwenjoul who advanced towards the guest, and
curtseyed with a smile.
“Your Royal Highness will not mind,” she said, “our Percy is so
uproarious. Besides, he's so unaccustomed to visitors. But he never touches
anybody. Your Royal Highness must excuse Miss Spoelmann…. She'll be
back soon. She was here just now. She was called away, her father sent for
her. Mr. Spoelmann will be delighted….”

And she conducted Klaus Heinrich to an arrangement of basket chairs
with embroidered linen cushions which stood in front of a group of palms.
She spoke in a brisk and emphatic tone, with her little head with its thin
iron-grey hair bent on one side and her white teeth showing as she laughed.
Her figure was distinctly graceful in the close-fitting brown dress she was
wearing, and she moved as freshly and elegantly as an officer's wife. Only
in her eyes, whose lids she kept blinking, there was something of mistrust
or spite, something unintelligible. They sat down facing each other at the
round garden-table, on which lay a few books. Percival, exhausted by his
outburst, curled himself up on the narrow pearl-grey carpet on which the
furniture stood. His black coat was like silk, with white paws, chest, and
muzzle. He had a white collar, yellow eyes, and a parting along his back.
Klaus Heinrich began a conversation for conversation's sake, a formal
dialogue about nothing in particular, which was all he could do.
“I hope, Countess, that I have not come at an inconvenient time. Luckily
I need not feel myself an unauthorized intruder. I do not know whether Miss
Spoelmann has told you…. She was so kind as to suggest my calling. It was
about those lovely pieces of glass which Mr. Spoelmann so generously gave
to yesterday's bazaar. Miss Spoelmann thought that her father would have
no objection to letting me see the rest of his collection. That's why I'm
here …”
The Countess ignored the question whether Imma had told her of the
arrangement. She said: “This is tea-time, Royal Highness. Of course your
visit is not inconvenient. Even if, as I hope will not be the case, Mr.
Spoelmann were too unwell to appear….”
“Oh, is he ill?” In reality Klaus Heinrich wished just a little that Mr.
Spoelmann might be too unwell. He anticipated his meeting with him with
vague anxiety.
“He was feeling ill to-day, Royal Highness. He had a touch of fever,
shivering, and a little faintness. Dr. Watercloose was with him for a long
time this morning. He was given an injection of morphia. There's some
question of an operation being necessary.”
“I am very sorry,” said Klaus Heinrich quite honestly. “An operation?
How dreadful!”

To which the Countess answered, letting her eyes wander: “Oh yes. But
there are worse things in life—many much worse things than that.”
“Undoubtedly,” said Klaus Heinrich. “I can quite believe it.” He felt his
imagination stirred in a vague and general way by the Countess's allusion.
She looked at him with her head inclined to one side, and an expression
of contempt on her face. Then her slightly distended grey eyes shifted,
while she smiled the mysterious smile which Klaus Heinrich already knew
and which had something seductive about it.
He felt it was necessary to resume the conversation.
“Have you lived long with the Spoelmanns, Countess?” he asked.
“A fairly long time,” she answered, and appeared to calculate. “Fairly
long. I have lived through so much, have had so many experiences, that I
naturally cannot reckon to a day. But it was shortly after the blessing—soon
after the blessing was vouchsafed to me.”
“The blessing?” asked Klaus Heinrich.
“Of course,” she said decidedly with some agitation. “For the blessing
happened to me when the number of my experiences had become too great,
and the bow had reached breaking point, to use a metaphor. You are so
young,” she continued, forgetting to address him by his title, “so ignorant of
all that makes the world so miserable and so depraved, that you can form no
conception of what I have had to suffer. I brought an action in America
which involved the appearance of several generals. Things came to light
which were more than my temper could stand. I had to clear out several
barracks without succeeding in bringing to light every loose woman. They
hid themselves in the cupboards, some even under the floors, and that's why
they continue torturing me beyond measure at nights. I should at once go
back to my Schloss in Burgundy if the rain did not come through the roofs.
The Spoelmanns knew that, and that is why it was so obliging of them to let
me live with them indefinitely, my only duty being to put the innocent
Imma on her guard against the world. Only of course my health suffers
from my having the women sitting at nights on my chest and forcing me to
look at their disgusting faces. And that is why I ask you to call me simply
Frau Meier,” she said in a whisper, leaning forward and touching Klaus

Heinrich's arm with her hand. “The walls have ears, and it is absolutely
necessary for me to keep up the incognito I was forced to assume in order to
protect myself against the persecution of the odious creatures. You will do
what I ask, will you not? Look on it as a joke … a fad which hurts
nobody…. Why not?”
She stopped.
Klaus Heinrich sat upright and braced up in his wicker chair opposite
her and looked at her. Before leaving his rectilineal room, he had dressed
himself with his valet Neumann's help with all possible care, as his life in
the public eye required. His parting ran from over his left eye, straight up to
the crown of his head, without a hair sticking up, and his hair was brushed
up into a crest off the right side of his forehead. There he sat in his undress
uniform, whose high collar and close fit helped him to maintain a composed
attitude, the silver epaulettes of a major on his narrow shoulders, leaning
slightly but not comfortably forward, collected, calm, with one foot slightly
advanced, and with his right hand above his left on his sword-hilt. His
young face looked slightly weary from the unreality, the loneliness,
strictness, and difficulty of his life; he sat looking at the Countess with a
friendly, clear, but composed expression in his eyes.
She stopped. Disenchantment and disgust showed themselves in her
features, and, while something like hate towards Klaus Heinrich flamed up
in her tired grey eyes, she blushed in the strangest of ways, for one half of
her face turned red, the other white. Dropping her eyelids she answered: “I
have been living with the Spoelmanns for three years, Royal Highness.”
Percival darted forward. Dancing, springing, and wagging his tail he
trotted towards his mistress—for Imma Spoelmann had come in—raised
himself in a dignified way on his hind legs and laid his fore paws in
greeting on her breast. His jaws were wide open, and his red tongue hung
out between his ivory-white teeth. He looked like a heraldic supporter as he
stood there before her.
She wore a wonderful dress of brick-red silk with loose hanging
sleeves, and the breast covered with heavy gold embroidery. A big egg-
shaped jewel on a pearl necklace lay on her bare neck, the skin of which
was the colour of smoked meerschaum. Her blue-black hair was parted on

one side and coiled, though a few smooth wisps tended to fall on her
forehead. Holding Percival's head in her two narrow, ringless little hands,
she looked into his face, saying, “Well, well, my friend. What a welcome!
We are glad to see each other—we hated being parted, didn't we? Now go
back and lie down.” And she put his paws off the gold embroidery on her
breast, and set him on his four paws again.
“Oh, Prince,” she said. “Welcome to Delphinenort. You hate breaking
your promise, I can see. I'm coming to sit next you. They'll tell us when tea
is ready…. It's against all the rules, I know, for me to have kept you
waiting. But my father sent for me—and besides you had somebody to
entertain you.” Her bright eyes passed from Klaus Heinrich to the Countess
and back in a rather hesitating way.
“That's quite true,” he said. And then he asked how Mr. Spoelmann was,
and received a fairly reassuring answer. Mr. Spoelmann would have the
pleasure of making Klaus Heinrich's acquaintance at tea-time, he begged to
be excused till then…. What a lovely pair of horses Klaus Heinrich had in
his brougham! And then they talked about their horses, about Klaus
Heinrich's good-tempered brown Florian from the Hollerbrunn stud, about
Miss Spoelmann's Arabian cream, the mare Fatma which had been given to
Mr. Spoelmann by an oriental prince, about her fast Hungarian chestnuts,
which she drove four-in-hand.
“Do you know the country round?” asked Klaus Heinrich. “Have you
hunted with the Royal pack? Have you been to the ‘Pheasantry’? There are
lots of lovely excursions.”
No, Miss Spoelmann was not at all clever in finding out new roads, and
the Countess—well, her whole nature was unenterprising, so they always
chose the same road, in the Town Gardens, for their ride. It was boring,
perhaps, but Miss Spoelmann was not on the whole so blasé as to need
constant change and adventures. Then he said that they must go together
some time to a meet of the hounds or to the “Pheasantry,” whereupon she
pursed her lips and said that that was an idea which might be discussed
some time in the future. Then the major-domo came in and gravely
announced that tea was ready.

They went through the tapestry hall with the marble fireplace,
conducted by the strutting butler, accompanied by the dancing Percy, and
followed by Countess Löwenjoul.
“Has the Countess been letting her tongue run away with her?” asked
Imma en route, without any particular lowering of her voice.
Klaus Heinrich started and looked at the floor. “But she can hear us!” he
said softly.
“No, she doesn't hear us,” answered Imma. “I can read her face. When
she holds her head crooked like that and blinks her eyes it means that she is
wandering and deep in her thoughts. Did she let her tongue run away with
her?”
“For a minute or two,” said Klaus Heinrich. “I got the impression that
the Countess ‘let herself go’ every now and then.”
“She has had a lot of trouble.” And Imma looked at him with the same
big searching dark eyes with which she had scanned him in the Dorothea
Hospital. “I'll tell you all about it another time. It's a long story.”
“Yes,” he said. “Some other time. Next time. On our ride perhaps.”
“On our ride?”
“Yes, on our ride to the meet, or to the ‘Pheasantry.’”
“Oh, I forgot your preciseness, Prince, in the matter of appointments.
Very well, on our ride. We go down here.”
They found themselves at the back of the Schloss. Carpeted steps led
from a gallery hung with big pictures, down into the white-and-gold garden
room, behind the glass door of which lay the terrace. Everything—the big
crystal lustres, which hung from the centre of the high, white-festooned
ceiling, the regularly arranged arm-chairs with gilt frames and fancy
upholstering, the heavy white silk curtains, the elaborate clock and the
vases and gilt lamps on the white marble chimneypiece in front of the tall
looking-glass, the massive, lion-footed gilt candelabra which towered on
either side of the entrance—everything reminded Klaus Heinrich of the Old
Schloss, of the Representation Chamber, in which he had played his part

from his youth up; only that the candles here were shams, with yellow
electric bulbs instead of wicks, and that everything of the Spoelmanns' was
new and smart in Schloss Delphinenort. A swan's-down footman was
putting the last touch to the tea-table in a corner of the room; Klaus
Heinrich noticed the electric kettle about which he had read in the Courier.
“Has Mr. Spoelmann been told?” asked the daughter of the house….
The butler bowed. “Then there's nothing,” she said quickly and half
mockingly, “to prevent us from taking our places and beginning without
him. Come, Countess! I advise you, Prince, to unbuckle your sword, unless
there are reasons unknown to me for your not doing so….”
“Thanks,” said Klaus Heinrich, “no, there is no reason why I shouldn't.”
And he was angry with himself for not being smart enough to think of a
more adroit answer.
The footman took his sword, and carried it off. They took their seats at
the tea-table with the help of the butler, who held the backs and pushed the
chairs under them. Then he retired to the top of the steps, where he
remained in an elegant attitude.
“I must tell you, Prince,” said Miss Spoelmann, pouring the water into
the pot, “that my father won't drink any tea which I have not made with my
own hands. He distrusts all tea which is handed round ready-made in cups.
That is barred with us. You'll have to put up with it.”
“Oh, I like it much better like this,” said Klaus Heinrich, “it's much
more comfortable and free-and-easy at a family tea like this….” He broke
off, and wondered why as he spoke these words a side-glance of hatred
lighted on him from the eyes of Countess Löwenjoul. “And your course of
study?” he asked. “May I ask about it? It's mathematics, I know. Don't you
find it too much? Isn't it terribly brain-racking?”
“Absolutely not,” she said. “It's just splendid; it's like playing in the
breezes, so to speak, or rather out of the breezes, in a dust-free atmosphere.
It's as cool there as in the Adirondacks.”
“The what?”

“The Adirondacks. That's geography, Prince. Mountains over in the
States, with lovely snowfields. We have a country cottage there, where we
go in May. In summer we used to go to the sea-side.”
“At any rate,” he said, “I can testify to your zeal in your studies. You do
not like being prevented from arriving punctually at your lectures. I haven't
yet asked you whether you reached that one the other day up to time.”
“The other day?”
“Yes, a week or two ago. After the contretemps with the change of
guard.”
“Dear, dear, Prince, now you are beginning that too. That story seems to
have reached from hut to palace. Had I known what a bother was going to
come of it, I would rather have gone three times round the whole
Schlossplatz. It even got into the newspapers, I'm told. And now of course
the whole town thinks I am a regular fiend for temper and rudeness. But I
am the most peaceful creature in the world, and only don't like being
ordered about. Am I a fiend, Countess? I demand a truthful answer.”
“No, you're an angel,” said Countess Löwenjoul.
“H'm—angel, that's too much, that's too far the other way, Countess….”
“No,” said Klaus Heinrich, “no, not too far. I entirely believe the
Countess….”
“I'm much honoured. But how did your Highness hear about the
adventure? Through the newspapers?”
“I was an eye-witness of it,” said Klaus Heinrich.
“An eye-witness?”
“Yes. I happened to be standing at the window of the officers' mess, and
saw the whole thing from beginning to end.”
Miss Spoelmann blushed. There was no doubt about it, the pale skin of
her face deepened in colour.

“Well, Prince,” she said, “I assume that you had nothing better to do at
the moment.”
“Better?” he cried. “But it was a splendid sight. I give you my word that
never in my life …”
Percival, who was lying with his forepaws crossed, by Miss Spoelmann,
raised his head with a look of tense expectancy and beat the carpet with his
tail. At the same moment the butler began to run, as fast as his ponderous
frame would let him, down the steps to the lofty side-door over against the
tea-table, and swiftly pulled aside the whole silk portière, sticking his
double chin the while into the air with a majestic expression. Samuel
Spoelmann, the millionaire, walked in.
He was a man of neat build with a strange face. He was clean shaven,
with red cheeks and a prominent nose, his little eyes were of a metallic
blue-black, like those of little children and animals, and had an absent and
peevish look. The upper part of his head was bald, but behind and on his
temples Mr. Spoelmann had a quantity of grey hair, dressed in a fashion not
often seen among us. He wore it neither short nor long, but brushed up,
sticking out, though cropped on the nape and round his ears. His mouth was
small and finely chiselled. Dressed in a black frock-coat with a velvet
waistcoat on which lay a long, thin, old-fashioned watch-chain, and soft
slippers on his feet, he advanced quickly to the tea-table with a cross and
pre-occupied expression on his face; but his face cleared up, it regained
composure and tenderness when he caught sight of his daughter. Imma had
gone to meet him.
“Greeting, most excellent father,” she said, and throwing her brown
little arms, in their loose brick-coloured hanging sleeves, round his neck,
she kissed him on the bald spot which he offered her as he inclined his
head.
“Of course you knew,” she continued, “that Prince Klaus Heinrich was
coming to tea with us to-day?”
“No; I'm delighted, delighted,” said Mr. Spoelmann no less readily and
in a grating voice. “Please don't move!” he said at once. And while he
shook hands (Mr. Spoelmann's hand was thin and half-covered by his

unstarched white cuff) with the Prince, who was standing modestly by the
table, he nodded repeatedly to one side or the other. That was his way of
greeting Klaus Heinrich. He was an alien, an invalid, and a man apart as
regards wealth. He was forgiven and nothing further was expected of him—
Klaus Heinrich recognized the fact, and took pains to recover his self-
control.
“You are at home here in a sense,” added Mr. Spoelmann, cutting the
conversation short, and a passing gleam of malice played round his clean-
shaven mouth. Then he gave the others an example by sitting down. It was
the chair between Imma and Klaus Heinrich, opposite the Countess and the
veranda door, which the butler pushed under him.
As Mr. Spoelmann showed no intention of apologizing for his
unpunctuality, Klaus Heinrich said: “I am sorry to hear that you are unwell
this morning, Mr. Spoelmann. I hope you are better.”
“Thanks, better, not but all right,” answered Mr. Spoelmann crossly.
“How many spoonfuls did you put in?” he asked his daughter. He was
alluding to the tea.
She had filled his cup, and she handed it to him.
“Four,” said she. “One for each person. Nobody shall say that I stint my
grey-haired father.”
“What's that?” answered Mr. Spoelmann. “I'm not grey-haired. You
ought to have your tongue clipped.” And he took from a silver box a kind of
rusk which seemed to be his own special dainty, broke it and dipped it
peevishly in the golden tea, which he, like his daughter, drank without milk
or sugar.
Klaus Heinrich began over again: “I am much excited at the prospect of
seeing your collection, Mr. Spoelmann.”
“All right,” answered Mr. Spoelmann. “So you want to see my glass?
Are you an amateur? A collector perhaps?”
“No,” said Klaus Heinrich, “my love for glass has not extended to my
becoming a collector.”

“No time?” asked Mr. Spoelmann. “Do your military duties take so
much time?”
Klaus Heinrich answered: “I'm no longer on the active list, Mr.
Spoelmann. I am à la suite of my regiment. I wear the uniform, that's all.”
“I see, make believe,” said Mr. Spoelmann harshly. “What do you do all
day, then?”
Klaus Heinrich had stopped drinking tea, had pushed his things away in
the course of the conversation which demanded his undivided attention. He
sat upright and defended himself, feeling the while that Imma Spoelmann's
big, black, searching eyes were resting on him.
“I have duties at Court, with the ceremonies and big occasions. I have
also to represent the State in a military capacity, at the swearing-in of
recruits and the presentation of colours. Then I have to hold levées as
deputy for my brother, the Grand Duke. And then there are little journeys on
duty to the provincial centres for unveilings and dedications and other
public solemnities.”
“I see,” said Mr. Spoelmann. “Ceremonies, solemnities, food for
spectators. No, that sort of thing's beyond me. I tell you once for all, that I
wouldn't give a farthing for your calling. That's my standpoint, sir.”
“I entirely understand,” said Klaus Heinrich. He sat up stiffly in his
uniform and smiled uneasily.
“Of course it needs practice like everything else,” Mr. Spoelmann went
on in a little less bitter tone of voice—“practice and training, I can see. For
myself I shall never as long as I live cease feeling angry when I am obliged
to play the prodigy.”
“I only hope,” said Klaus Heinrich, “that our people are not wanting in
respect….”
“Thanks, not so bad,” answered Mr. Spoelmann. “The people are at
least friendly here; one doesn't see murder written in their eyes.”
“I hope, Mr. Spoelmann,” and Klaus Heinrich felt more at his ease, now
that the conversation had turned, and the questioning lay with him, “that,

notwithstanding the unusual circumstances, you continue to enjoy your stay
amongst us.”
“Thanks,” said Mr. Spoelmann, “I'm quite comfortable, and the water is
the only thing which really does do me some good.”
“You did not find it a wrench to leave America?”
Klaus Heinrich felt a look, a quick, suspicious, shy look, which he could
not interpret.
“No,” said Mr. Spoelmann, sharply and crossly. That was all his answer
to the question whether he felt it a wrench to leave America.
A pause ensued. Countess Löwenjoul held her smooth little head
inclined to one side, and smiled a distant Madonna-like smile. Miss
Spoelmann watched Klaus Heinrich fixedly with her big black eyes, as if
testing the effect of her father's extraordinary boorishness on the guest,—
indeed, Klaus Heinrich felt that she was waiting with resignation and
sympathy for him to get up and take his departure for good and all. He met
her eyes, and remained. Mr. Spoelmann, for his part, drew out a gold case
and took out a fat cigarette, which, when lighted, diffused a delicious
fragrance.
“Smoke?” he asked…. And as Klaus Heinrich found that there was no
objection, he helped himself, after Mr. Spoelmann, out of the proffered
case.
They then discussed various topics before proceeding to an inspection
of the glass—chiefly Klaus Heinrich and Miss Spoelmann, for the
Countess's thoughts were wandering, and Mr. Spoelmann only interpolated
a cross remark now and then: the local theatre, the huge ship in which the
Spoelmanns had crossed to Europe. No, they had not used their yacht for
the purpose. Its primary object was to take Mr. Spoelmann to sea in the
evening in the heat of summer, when he was tied to his business and Imma
and the Countess were in Newport; he used to pass the night on deck. She
was now lying at Venice. But they had crossed in a huge steamer, a floating
hotel with concert rooms and gymnasia. “She had five storeys,” said Miss
Spoelmann.

“Counting from below?” asked Klaus Heinrich. And she answered at
once:
“Of course. Six, counting from above.”
He got muddled and lost his bearings and it was a long time before he
realized that she was making fun of him. Then he tried to explain himself
and to make his simple question clear, explaining that he meant to ask
whether she included the under-water holds, the cellars so to speak, in the
five—in short, to prove that he was not lacking in common sense, and at
last he joined heartily in the merriment which was the result of his efforts.
As for the Court Theatre, Miss Spoelmann gave it as her opinion, with a
pout and a wag of the head, that the actress who played the ingénue should
be strongly recommended to go through the cure at Marienbad, coupled
with a course of lessons in dancing and deportment, while the hero should
be warned that a voice as resonant as his should be used most sparingly,
even in private life…. All the same, Miss Spoelmann expressed her warm
admiration for the theatre in question.
Klaus Heinrich laughed and wondered, a little oppressed by so much
smartness. How well she spoke, how pointed and incisive were her words!
They discussed the operas also and the plays which had been produced
during the winter, and Imma Spoelmann contradicted Klaus Heinrich's
judgments, contradicted him in every case, just as if she thought that not to
contradict would show a mean spirit; the superior wit of her tongue left him
dazed, and the great black eyes in her pearl-white face glittered from sheer
joy in her dialectic skill, while Mr. Spoelmann leaned back in his chair,
holding the fat cigarette between his lips and blinking through its smoke,
and gazed at his daughter with fond satisfaction.
More than once Klaus Heinrich showed in his face the look of pained
bewilderment which he had noticed on a previous occasion on the face of
the good sister, and yet he felt convinced that it was not Imma Spoelmann's
intention to wound his feelings, that she did not consider him humbled
because he was not successful in standing up to her, that she rather let his
poor answers pass, as if she considered that he had no need of a sharp wit to
defend him—it was only she who had. But how was that, and why? He
thought involuntarily of Ueberbein at many of her sallies, of the nimble-

tongued blusterer Ueberbein, who was a natural misfortune, and had grown
up in conditions which he described as favourable. A youth of misery,
loneliness, and misfortune, shut out from the blessings of fortune—such a
man knew no luxury, no comfort, he saw himself clearly and cruelly thrown
on his own resources, which assuredly gave him an advantage over those
who “knew not necessity.”
But Imma Spoelmann sat there in her red-gold dress at the table,
reclining indolently, with the mocking look of a spoiled child; there she sat
in confident ease, while her tongue ran on sharply and freely, as befitted an
atmosphere of refinement and lively wit. But why did she give it play?
Klaus Heinrich pondered the question, the while they discussed Atlantic
steamers and plays. He sat bolt upright at the table, in a dignified and
uncomfortable attitude, while he concealed his left hand, and more than
once he felt a sidelong glance of hatred from the eyes of Countess
Löwenjoul.
A servant came in and handed Mr. Spoelmann a telegram on a silver
salver. Mr. Spoelmann tore it open crossly, glanced through it, blinking and
with the remains of his cigarette in the corner of his mouth, and threw it
back on the salver, with the curt order: “Mr. Phlebs.” Thereupon he lighted
a new cigarette.
Miss Spoelmann said: “In spite of distinct medical orders, that's the fifth
cigarette you've had to-day. Let me tell you that the unbridled passion with
which you abandon yourself to the vice little beseems your grey hairs.”
Mr. Spoelmann obviously tried to laugh, and as obviously failed; the
acid tone of his daughter's words was not to his liking, and he flushed up.
“Silence!” he snarled. “You think you can say anything in fun, but
please spare me your saucy jokes, chatterbox!”
Klaus Heinrich, appalled, looked at Imma, who turned her big eyes on
her father's angry face, and then sadly dropped her head. Of course she had
not meant any offence, she had simply amused herself with the strange,
swelling words which she used to poke her fun; she had expected to raise a
laugh, and had failed dismally.

“Father, darling father!” she said beseechingly, and crossed over to
stroke Mr. Spoelmann's flushed cheeks.
“Surely,” he grumbled on, “you've grown out of that sort of thing by
now.” But then he yielded to her blandishments, let her kiss the top of his
head, and swallowed his anger. Klaus Heinrich, when peace was restored,
alluded to the collection of glass, whereupon the party left the tea-table and
went into the adjoining museum, with the exception of Countess
Löwenjoul, who withdrew with a deep curtsey. Mr. Spoelmann himself
switched on the electric light in the chandeliers.
Handsome cabinets in the style of the whole Schloss, with swelling
curves and rounded glass doors, alternated with rich silk chairs all round the
room. In these cabinets Mr. Spoelmann's collection of glass was displayed.
Yes, there could be no doubt that it was the most complete collection in
either hemisphere, and the glass which Klaus Heinrich had acquired was
merely a most modest sample of it. It began in one corner of the room with
the earliest artistic productions of the industry, with finds of heathenish
designs from the culture of the earliest times; then came the products of the
East and West of every epoch; next, wreathed, flourished, and imposing
vases and beakers from Venetian blow-pipes and costly pieces from
Bohemian huts, German tankards, picturesque Guild and Electorate bowls,
mixed with grotesque animals and comic figures, huge crystal cups, which
reminded one of the Luck of Edenhall in the song, and in whose facets the
light broke and sparkled; ruby-coloured glasses like the Holy Grail; and
finally the best samples of the latest development of the art, fragile
blossoms on impossibly brittle stems, and fancy glasses in the latest
fashionable shape, made iridescent with the vapours of precious metals. The
three, followed by Percival, who also examined the collection, walked
slowly round the hall; and Mr. Spoelmann related in his harsh voice the
origin of particular pieces, taking them carefully off their velvet stands with
his thin, soft-cuffed hand, and holding them up to the electric light.
Klaus Heinrich had had plenty of practice in visits of inspection, in
putting questions and making adroit remarks, so that he was well able at the
same time to ponder over Imma Spoelmann's mode of expressing herself,
that peculiar mode which worried him not a little. What amazing freedom
she allowed herself! What extraordinary remarks she allowed herself to

make! “Passion,” “vice,” where did she get the words from? where did she
learn to use them so glibly? Had not Countess Löwenjoul, who herself dealt
with the same topics in a confused sort of way, and had obviously seen the
seamy side of life, described her as quite innocent!
And the description was undoubtedly correct, for was she not an
exception by birth like himself, brought up like a girl “born to be queen,”
kept apart from the busy strife of men and from all the turmoil to which
those sinister words corresponded in the life of reality? But she had uttered
the words glibly, and had treated them as a joke. Yes, that was it, this dainty
creature in her red-gold gown was merely a wielder of words; she knew no
more of life than those words, she played with the most serious and most
awful of them as with coloured stones, and was puzzled when she made
people angry by their use. Klaus Heinrich's heart, as he thought of this,
filled with sympathy.
It was nearly seven o'clock when he asked for his carriage to be called
—slightly uneasy about his long stay, in view of the Court and the public.
His departure evoked a fresh and terrifying demonstration on the part of
Percival, the collie. Every alteration or interruption in a situation seemed to
throw the noble animal off his moral balance. Quivering, yelping, and deaf
to all blandishments, he stormed through the rooms and the hall and up and
down the steps, drowning the words of leave-taking in his hubbub. The
butler did the Prince the honours as far as the floor with the statues of gods.
Mr. Spoelmann did not accompany him any distance. Miss Spoelmann
made the position clear: “I am convinced that your sojourn in the bosom of
our family has charmed you, Prince.” And he was left wondering whether
the joke lay in the expression “the bosom of our family” or in the actual
fact. Anyhow, Klaus Heinrich was at a loss for a reply.
Leaning back in the corner of his brougham, rather sore and battered,
and yet stimulated by the unusual treatment he had experienced, he drove
home, through the dark Town Gardens to the Hermitage, returned to his
sober Empire room, where he dined with von Schulenburg-Tressen and
Braunbart-Schellendorf. Next day he read the comments of the Courier.
They amounted only to a statement that yesterday his Royal Highness
Prince Klaus Heinrich went to Schloss Delphinenort for tea, and inspected
Mr. Spoelmann's renowned collection of fancy glass.

And Klaus Heinrich continued to live his unreal life, and to carry out his
exalted calling. He uttered his gracious speeches, made his gestures,
represented his people at the Court and at the President of the Council's
great ball, gave free audiences, lunched in the officers' mess of the
Grenadier Guards, showed himself at the Court Theatre, and bestowed on
this and that district of the country the privilege of his presence. With a
smile, and with heels together, he carried out all due formalities and did his
irksome duty with complete self-possession, albeit he had at this time so
much to think of—about the peppery Mr. Spoelmann, the muddle-headed
Countess Löwenjoul, the harum-scarum Percy, and especially about Imma,
the daughter of the house. Many a question to which his first visit to
Delphinenort had given rise he was not yet in a position to answer, but only
succeeded in solving as the result of further intercourse with the
Spoelmanns, which he maintained to the eager and at last feverish interest
of the public, and which advanced a step further when the Prince in the
early morning one day, to the astonishment of his suite, his servants, and
himself—indeed, partly involuntarily, and as if carried along by destiny—
appeared alone and on horseback at Delphinenort, for the purpose of taking
Miss Spoelmann, whom he disturbed in her mathematical studies at the top
of the Schloss, for a ride.
The grip of winter had relaxed early in this ever-to-be-remembered year.
After a mild January, the middle of February had seen the coming of a
preliminary spring with birds and sunshine and balmy breezes, and as Klaus
Heinrich lay on the first of these mornings at the Hermitage in his roomy
old mahogany bed, from one of whose posts the spherical crown was
missing, he felt himself, as it were, impelled by a strange hand and
irresistibly inspired to deeds of boldness.
He rang the bell-pull for Neumann (they only had draw-bells at the
Hermitage), and ordered Florian to be ready saddled in an hour's time.
Should a horse be got ready for the groom too? No, it was not necessary.
Klaus Heinrich said that he wanted to ride alone. Then he gave himself into
Neumann's skilful hands for his morning toilette, breakfasted impatiently
below in the garden room, and mounted his horse at the foot of the terrace.
With his spurred top-boots in the stirrups, the yellow reins in his brown-
gloved right hand, and the left planted on his hip under his open cloak, he
rode at a walking pace through the soft morning, scanning the still bare

branches for the birds whose twittering he heard. He rode through the
public part of his park, through the Town Gardens and the grounds of
Delphinenort. He reached it at half-past nine. Great was the general
surprise.
At the main gate he gave Florian over to an English groom. The butler,
who was crossing the mosaic hall busy on his household duties, stood still,
taken aback at the sight of Klaus Heinrich. To the inquiry which the Prince
addressed to him, in a clear and almost haughty voice, about the ladies, he
did not even reply, but turned helplessly towards the marble staircase,
gazing dumbly at the top step, for there stood Mr. Spoelmann.
It seemed that he had just finished breakfast, and was in the best of
tempers. His hands were plunged deep in his pockets, his lounge coat drawn
back from his velvet waistcoat, and the blue smoke of his cigarette was
making him blink.
“Well, young Prince?” he said, and stared down at him….
Klaus Heinrich saluted and hurried up the red stair-carpet. He felt that
the situation could only be saved by swiftness and, so to speak, by an attack
by storm.
“You will be astounded, Mr. Spoelmann,” he said, “at this early
hour …” He was out of breath, and the fact disturbed him greatly, he was so
little used to it.
Mr. Spoelmann answered him by a look and a shrug of the shoulders, as
much as to say that he could control himself, but desired an explanation.
“The fact is, we have an appointment …” said Klaus Heinrich. He was
standing two steps below the millionaire and was speaking up at him. “An
appointment for a ride between Miss Imma and myself…. I have promised
to show the ladies the ‘Pheasantry’ and the Court Kennels…. Miss Imma
told me that she knew nothing about the surrounding country. It was agreed
that on the first fine day … It's such a lovely day to-day…. It is of course
subject to your approval….”
Mr. Spoelmann shrugged his shoulders, and made a face as if to say:
“Approval—why so?”

“My daughter is grown up,” he said. “I don't interfere. If she rides, she
rides. But I don't think she has time. You must find that out for yourself.
She's in there.” And Mr. Spoelmann pointed his chin towards the tapestry
door, through which Klaus Heinrich had already once passed.
“Thanks,” said Klaus Heinrich. “I'll go and see for myself.” And he ran
up the remaining steps, pushed the tapestry hanging aside with a determined
gesture, and went down the steps into the sunlit, flower-scented winter
garden.
In front of the splashing fountain and the basin with fancy-feathered
ducks sat Imma Spoelmann leaning over a table, her back turned to the
incomer. Her hair was down. It hung black and glossy on each side of her
head, covered her shoulders, and allowed nothing to be seen but a shadow
of the childlike quarter profile of her face, which showed white as ivory
against the darkness of her hair. There she sat absorbed in her studies,
working at the figures in the notebook before her, her lips pressed on the
back of her left hand, and her right grasping the pen.
The Countess too was there, also busy writing. She sat some way off
under the palms, where Klaus Heinrich had first conversed with her, and
wrote sitting upright with her head on one side, a pile of closely scribbled
note-paper lying at her side. The clank of Klaus Heinrich's spurs made her
look up. She looked at him with half-closed eyes for two seconds, the long
pen poised in her hand, then rose and curtseyed. “Imma,” she said, “his
Royal Highness Prince Klaus Heinrich is here.”
Miss Spoelmann turned quickly round in her basket chair, shook her
hair back and gazed without speaking at the intruder with big, startled eyes,
until Klaus Heinrich had bid the ladies good-morning with a military salute.
Then she said in her broken voice: “Good-morning to you too, Prince. But
you are too late for breakfast. We've finished long ago.”
Klaus Heinrich laughed.
“Well, it's lucky,” he said, “that both parties have had breakfast, for now
we can start at once for a ride.”
“A ride?”

“Yes, as we agreed.”
“We agreed?”
“No, don't say that you've forgotten!” he said pleadingly. “Didn't I
promise to show you the country round? Weren't we going for a ride
together when it was fine? Well, to-day it's glorious. Just look out …”
“It's not a bad day,” she said, “but you go too fast, Prince. I remember
that there was some suggestion of a ride at some future time—but surely not
so soon as this? Might I not at least have expected some sort of notification,
if your Highness will allow the word? You must allow that I can't ride like
this about here.”
And she stood up to show her morning dress, which consisted of a loose
gown of many-coloured silk and an open green-velvet jacket.
“No,” he said, “unfortunately you cannot. But I'll wait here while you
both change. It's quite early….”
“Uncommonly early. But in the second place I am rather busy with my
innocent studies, as you saw. I've got a lecture at eleven o'clock.”
“No,” he cried, “to-day you must not grind at algebra, Miss Imma; you
must not play in the vacuum, as you put it! Look at the sun!… May I?…”
And he went to the table and took up the notebook.
What he saw made his head swim. A fantastic hocus-pocus, a witches'
sabbath of abbreviated symbols, written in a childish round hand which was
the obvious result of Miss Spoelmann's peculiar way of holding her pen,
covered the pages. There were Greek and Latin letters of various heights,
crossed and cancelled, arranged above and below cross lines, covered by
other lines, enclosed in round brackets, formulated in square brackets.
Single letters, pushed forward like sentries, kept guard above the main
bodies. Cabalistic signs, quite unintelligible to the lay mind, cast their arms
round letters and ciphers, while fractions stood in front of them and ciphers
and letters hovered round their tops and bottoms. Strange syllables,
abbreviations of mysterious words, were scattered everywhere, and between
the columns were written sentences and remarks in ordinary language,

whose sense was equally beyond the normal intelligence, and conveyed no
more to the reader than an incantation.
Klaus Heinrich looked at the slight form, which stood by him in the
shimmering frock, becurtained by her dark hair, and in whose little head all
this lived and meant something. He said, “Can you really waste a lovely
morning over all this God-forsaken stuff?”
A glance of anger met him from her big eyes. Then she answered with a
pout:
“Your Highness seems to wish to excuse yourself for the want of
intelligence you recently displayed with regard to your own exalted
calling.”
“No,” he said, “not so! I give you my word that I respect your studies
most highly. I grant that they bother me, I could never understand anything
of that sort. I also grant that to-day I feel some resentment against them, as
they seem likely to prevent us from going for a ride.”
“Oh, I'm not the only one to interfere with your wish for exercise,
Prince. There's the Countess too. She was writing—chronicling the
experiences of her life, not for the world, but for private circulation, and I
guarantee that the result will be a work which will teach you as well as me a
good deal.”
“I am quite sure of it. But I am equally sure that the Countess is
incapable of refusing a request from you.”
“And my father? There's the next stumbling-block. You know his
temper. Will he consent?”
“He has consented. If you ride, you ride. Those were his words….”
“You have made sure of him beforehand, then? I'm really beginning to
admire your circumspection. You have assumed the rôle of a Field Marshal,
although you are not really a soldier, only a make-believe one, as you told
us long ago. But there's yet one more obstacle, and that is decisive. It's
going to rain.”
“No, that's a very weak one. The sun is shining….”

“It's going to rain. The air is much too soft. I made sure of it when we
were in the Spa-Gardens before breakfast. Come and look at the barometer
if you don't believe me. It's hanging in the hall….”
They went out into the tapestry hall, where a big weather-glass hung
near the marble fireplace. The Countess went with them. Klaus Heinrich
said: “It's gone up.”
“Your Highness is pleased to deceive yourself,” answered Miss
Spoelmann. “The refraction misleads you.”
“That's beyond me.”
“The refraction misleads you.”
“I don't know what that is, Miss Spoelmann. It's the same as with the
Adirondacks. I've not had much schooling, that's a necessary result of my
kind of existence. You must make allowances for me.”
“Oh, I humbly beg pardon. I ought to have remembered that one must
use ordinary words when talking to your Highness. You are standing
crooked to the hand and that makes it look to you as if it had risen. If you
would bring yourself to stand straight in front of the glass, you would see
that the black has not risen above the gold hand, but has actually dropped a
little below it.”
“I really believe you are right,” said Klaus Heinrich sadly.
“The atmospheric pressure there is higher than I thought!”
“It is lower than you thought.”
“But how about the falling quicksilver?”
“The quicksilver falls at low pressure, not at high, Royal Highness.”
“Now I'm absolutely lost.”
“I think, Prince, that you're exaggerating your ignorance by way of a
joke, so as to hide what its extent really is. But as the atmospheric pressure
is so high that the quicksilver drops, thus showing an absolute disregard for
the laws of nature, let's go for a ride, Countess—shall we? I cannot assume

the responsibility of sending the Prince back home again now that he has
once come. He can wait in there till we're ready….”
When Imma Spoelmann and the Countess came back to the winter
garden they were dressed for riding, Imma in a close-fitting black habit with
breast-pockets and a three-cornered felt hat, the Countess in black cloth
with a man's starched shirt and high hat. They went together down the steps,
through the mosaic hall, and out into the open air, where between the
colonnade and the big basin two grooms were waiting with the horses. But
they had not yet mounted when with a loud barking, which was the
expression of his wild excitement, Percival, the collie, prancing and leaping
about, tore out of the Schloss and began a frenzied dance round the horses,
who tossed their heads uneasily….
“I thought so,” said Imma, patting her favourite Fatma's head, “there
was no hiding it from him. He found it all out at the last moment. Now he
intends to come with us and make a fine to-do about it too. Shall we drop
the whole thing, Prince?”
But although Klaus Heinrich understood that he might just as well have
allowed the groom to ride in front with the silver trumpet, so far as calling
public attention to their expedition was concerned, yet he said cheerfully
that Percival must come too; he was a member of the family and must learn
the neighbourhood like the rest.
“Well, where shall we go?” asked Imma as they rode at a walk down the
chestnut avenue. She rode between Klaus Heinrich and the Countess.
Percival barked in the van. The English groom, in cockaded hat and yellow
boot-tops, rode at a respectful distance behind.
“The Court Kennels are fine,” answered Klaus Heinrich, “but it is a bit
farther to the ‘Pheasantry,’ and we have time before lunch. I should like to
show you the Schloss. I spent three years there as a boy. It was a seminary,
you know, with tutors and other boys of my age. That's where I got to know
my friend Ueberbein, Doctor Ueberbein, my favourite tutor.”
“You have a friend?” asked Miss Spoelmann, with some surprise, and
gazed at him. “You must tell me about him some time. And you were
educated at the ‘Pheasantry,’ were you? Then we must see it, because you're

obviously set on it. Trot!” she said as they turned into a loose riding-path.
“There lies your hermitage, Prince. There's plenty for the ducks to eat in
your pond. Let's give a wide berth to the Spa-Gardens, if that does not take
us far out of our way.”
Klaus Heinrich agreed, so they left the park and trotted across country
to reach the high-road which led to their goal to the north-west. In the town
gardens they were greeted with surprise by a few promenaders, whose
greetings Klaus Heinrich acknowledged by raising his hand to his cap,
Imma Spoelmann with a grave and rather embarrassed inclination of her
dark head in the three-cornered hat. By now they had reached the open
country, and were no longer likely to meet people. Now and then a peasant's
cart rolled along the road, or a crouching bicyclist ploughed his way along
it. But they turned aside from the road when they reached the meadow-land,
which provided better going for their horses. Percival danced backwards in
front of them, feverish and restless as ever, turning, springing, and wagging
his tail—his breath came fast, his tongue hung far out of his foaming jaws,
and he vented his nervous exaltation in a succession of short, sobbing yelps.
Farther on he dashed off, following some scent with pricked ears and short
springs, while his wild barking echoed through the air.
They discussed Fatma, which Klaus Heinrich had not yet seen close,
and which he admired immensely. Fatma had a long, muscular neck and
small, nodding head with fiery eyes; she had the slender legs of the Arab
type, and a bushy tail. She was white as the moonlight, and saddled, girt,
and bridled with white leather. Florian, a rather sleepy brown, with a short
back, hogged mane, and yellow stockings, looked as homely as a donkey by
the side of the distinguished foreigner, although he was carefully groomed.
Countess Löwenjoul rode a big cream called Isabeau. She had an excellent
seat, with her tall, straight figure, but she held her small head in its huge hat
on one side, and her lids were half closed and twitched. Klaus Heinrich
addressed some remarks to her behind Miss Spoelmann's back, but she did
not answer, and went riding on with half-shut eyes, gazing in front of her
with a Madonna-like expression, and Imma said:
“Don't let's bother the Countess, Prince, her thoughts are wandering.”

“I hope,” he said, “that the Countess was not annoyed at having to come
with us.”
And he was distinctly taken aback when Imma Spoelmann answered
casually: “To tell the truth, she very likely was.”
“Because of your sums?” he asked.
“Oh, the sums? They're not so urgent, only a way of passing the time—
although I hope to get a good lot of useful information out of them. But I
don't mind telling you, Prince, that the Countess is not enthusiastic on the
subject of yourself. She has expressed herself to that effect to me. She said
you were hard and stern and affected her like a cold douche.”
Klaus Heinrich reddened.
“I know well,” he said quietly, looking down at his reins, “that I don't
act as a cordial, Miss Spoelmann, or, at any rate, only at a distance…. That,
too, is inseparable from my kind of existence, as I said. But I am not
conscious of having shown myself hard and stern to the Countess.”
“Probably not in words,” she replied, “but you did not allow her to let
herself go, you did not do her the kindness of letting her tongue run a little,
that's why she's vexed with you—and I know quite well what you did, how
you embarrassed the poor thing and gave her a cold douche—quite well,”
she repeated, and turned her head away.
Klaus Heinrich did not answer. He kept his left hand planted on his hip,
and his eyes were tired. Then he said:
“You know quite well? So I act like a cold douche on you too, Miss
Spoelmann, do I?”
“I warn you,” she answered at once in her broken voice, and wagging
her head from side to side, “on no account to overrate the effect you have
upon me, Prince.” And she suddenly set Fatma off at a gallop and flew at
such a pace over the fields towards the dark mass of the distant pine-woods
that neither the Countess nor Klaus Heinrich could keep up with her. Not
till she reached the edge of the wood through which the high-road ran did
she halt and turn her horse to look mockingly at her followers.

Countess Löwenjoul on her cream was the first to come up with the
runaway. Then came Florian, foaming and much exhausted by his unusual
exertion. They all laughed and their breath came fast as they entered the
echoing wood. The Countess had awakened and chatted merrily, making
lively, graceful gestures and showing her white teeth. She poked fun at
Percival, whose temper had again been excited by the gallop, and who was
careering wildly among the trunks in front of the horses.
“Royal Highness,” she said, “you ought to see him jump and turn
somersaults. He can take a ditch six yards broad, and does it so lightly and
gracefully, you'd be delighted. But only of his own accord, mind you, of his
free will, for I believe he'd rather let himself be whipped to death than
submit to any training or teaching of tricks. He is, one might say, his own
trainer by nature, and though sometimes unruly he is never rough. He is a
gentleman, an aristocrat, and full of character. He's as proud as you like, and
though he seems mad he's quite able to control himself. Nobody has ever
heard him cry for pain when punished and hurt. He only eats, too, when he
is hungry, and at other times won't look at the most tempting dainties. In the
morning he has cream … he must be fed. He wears himself out, he's quite
thin under his glossy coat, you can feel all his ribs. For I'm afraid he'll never
grow to be old, but will fall an early victim to consumption. The street curs
persecute him, they go for him in every street, but he jumps clear of them,
and if they succeed in joining issue with him, he distributes a few bites with
his splendid teeth which the rabble don't forget in a hurry. One must love
such a compound of chivalry and virtue.”
Imma agreed, in words which were the most serious and grave which
Klaus Heinrich had ever heard from her mouth.
“Yes,” she said, “you're a good friend to me, Percy, I shall always love
you. A veterinary surgeon said you were half mad and advised us to have
you put away, as you were impossible and a constant danger to us. But they
shan't take my Percy from me. He is impossible, I know, and often an
incumbrance, but he's always appealing and noble, and I love him dearly.”
The Countess continued to talk about the collie's nature, but her remarks
soon became disconnected and confused, and lapsed into a monologue

accompanied by lively and elegant gestures. At last, after an acid look at
Klaus Heinrich, her thoughts again began to wander.
Klaus Heinrich felt happy and cheered, whether as the result of the
canter—for which he had had to brace himself up, for, though a decent
figure on a horse, his left hand prevented him from being a strong rider—or
for some other reason. After leaving the pine-wood they rode along the
quiet high-road between meadows and furrowed fields, with a peasant's hut
or a country inn here and there. As they drew near the next wood, he asked
in a low voice:
“Won't you fulfil your promise and tell me about the Countess? What is
your companion's history?”
“She is my friend,” she answered, “and in a sense my governess too,
although she did not come to us till I was grown up. That was three years
ago, in New York, and the Countess was then in a terrible state. She was on
the brink of starvation,” said Miss Spoelmann, and as she said it she
fastened her big black eyes with a searching, startled look on Klaus
Heinrich.
“Really starvation?” he asked, and returned her look…. “Do please go
on.”
“Yes, I said that too when she came to us, and although I, of course, saw
quite well that her mind was slightly affected, she made such an impression
upon me that I persuaded my father to let her be my companion.”
“What took her to America? Is she a countess by birth?” asked Klaus
Heinrich.
“Not a countess, but of noble birth, brought up in refined and luxurious
surroundings, sheltered and protected, as she expressed it to me, from every
wind, because from childhood she had been impressionable and sensitive.
But then she married a Count Löwenjoul, a cavalry captain—a strange
specimen of the aristocracy, according to her account—not quite up to the
mark, to put it mildly.”
“What was wrong with him?” asked Klaus Heinrich.

“I can't exactly tell you, Prince. You must take into consideration the
rather obscure way in which the Countess puts what she has to say. But, to
judge from what she has told me, he must have been just about as arrant a
scamp as one could well imagine—a regular blackguard.”
“I see,” said Klaus Heinrich, “what's called a hard case, or a tough
proposition.”
“Exactly; we'll say man of the world—but in the most comprehensive
and unlimited sense, for, to judge by the Countess's remarks, there were no
limits in his case.”
“No, that's what I too gathered,” said Klaus Heinrich. “I've met several
people of that sort—regular devils, so to speak. I heard of one such, who
used to make love in his motor car, even when it was going at full speed.”
“Did your friend Ueberbein tell you of him?”
“No, somebody else. Ueberbein would not think it proper to mention
anything of that sort to me.”
“Then he must be a useless sort of friend, Prince.”
“You'll think better of him when I tell you more about him, Miss
Spoelmann. But please go on!”
“Well, I don't know whether Löwenjoul behaved like your roué.
Anyhow he behaved disgracefully.”
“I expect he gambled and drank.”
“I guess so. And besides that of course he made love, neglected the
Countess and carried on with the loose women that are always to be found
everywhere—at first behind her back, and later no longer behind her back
but impudently and openly without any regard for her feelings.”
“But tell me, why did she ever marry him?”
“She married him against her parents' will, because, as she has told me,
she was in love with him. For in the first place, he was a handsome man
when she first met him—he fell off in his looks later. In the second place,

his reputation as a man of the world had gone before him, and that,
according to her, constituted a sort of irresistible attraction for her, for,
though she had been so well sheltered and protected, nothing would shake
her in her resolve to share her life with him. If one thinks it over, one can
quite understand it.”
“Yes,” he said, “I can quite understand it. She wanted to have her fling,
as it were, to get her eyes opened. And she saw the world with a
vengeance.”
“You may put it like that if you like: though the expression seems to me
rather too flippant to describe her experiences. Her husband ill-treated her.”
“Do you mean that he beat her?”
“Yes, he ill-treated her physically. But now comes something, Prince,
which you too will not have heard about before. She gave me to understand
that he ill-treated her not only in a temper, not only in anger and rage, but
also without being exasperated, simply for his own satisfaction. I mean, that
his caresses were so revolting as to amount to ill-treatment.”
Klaus Heinrich was silent. Both looked very grave. At last he asked:
“Did the Countess have any children?”
“Yes, two. They died quite young, both only a few weeks old, and that's
the greatest sorrow the Countess has had to bear. It would seem from her
hints that it was the fault of the loose women for whom her husband
betrayed her that the children died directly after birth.”
Both remained silent, and their eyes clouded over.
“Add to that,” continued Imma Spoelmann, “that he dissipated his
wife's dowry, at cards and with women—a respectable dowry it was too—
and after her parents' death her whole fortune also. Relations of hers too
helped him once, when he was near having to leave the service on account
of his debts. But then came a scandal, an altogether revolting one, in which
he was involved and which did for him once and for all.”
“What was it?” asked Klaus Heinrich.

“I can't exactly tell you, Prince. But, according to what the Countess has
let slip about it, it was a scandal of the very grossest description—we
agreed just now that there are generally no limits in that direction.”
“And then he went to America?”
“You're right there, Prince. I can't help admiring your 'cuteness.”
“Please go on, Miss Spoelmann. I've never heard anything like the
Countess's story.”
“No more had I; so you can imagine what an impression it made on me
when she came to us. Well, then, Count Löwenjoul bolted to America with
the police at his heels, leaving pretty considerable debts behind of course.
And the Countess went with him.”
“She went with him? Why?”
“Because she still loved him, in spite of everything—she loves him still
—and because she was determined to share his life whatever happened. He
took her with him, though, because he had a better chance of getting help
from her relations as long as she was with him. The relations sent him one
further instalment of money from home, and then stopped—they finally
buttoned up their pockets; and when Count Löwenjoul saw that his wife
was no more use to him, he just left her—left her in absolute destitution and
cleared out.”
“I knew it,” said Klaus Heinrich, “I expected as much. Just what does
happen.”
But Imma Spoelmann went on: “So there she was, destitute and
helpless, and, since she had never learned to earn her own living, she was
left alone to face want and hunger. And you must remember that life in the
States is much harder and meaner than here in your country; also that the
Countess has always been a gentle, sensitive creature, and has been cruelly
treated for years. In a word, she was no fit subject for the impressions of life
to which she was unceasingly exposed. And then the blessing fell to her.”
“What blessing? She told me about that too. What was the blessing,
Miss Spoelmann?”

“The blessing consisted in a mental disturbance. At the crisis of her
troubles something in her cracked—that's the expression she used to me—
so that she no longer needed to face life and to bring a clear, sober mind to
bear upon it, but was permitted, so to speak, to let herself go, to relax the
tension of her nerves and to drivel when she liked. In a word, the blessing
was that she went wrong in her head.”
“Certainly I was under the impression,” said Klaus Heinrich, “that the
Countess was letting herself go when she drivelled.”
“That's how it is, Prince. She is quite conscious of drivelling, and often
laughs as she does so, or lets her hearers understand that she doesn't mean
any harm by it. Her strangeness is a beneficent disorder, which she can
control to a certain extent, and which she allows herself to indulge in. It is,
if you prefer it, a want of——”
“Of self-restraint,” said Klaus Heinrich, and looked down at his reins.
“Right, of self-restraint,” she repeated, and looked at him. “You don't
seem to approve of that want, Prince.”
“I consider as a general rule,” he answered quietly, “that it is not right to
let oneself go and to make oneself at home, but that self-restraint should
always be exercised, whatever the circumstances.”
“Your Highness's doctrine,” she answered, “is a praiseworthy austerity.”
Then she pouted, and, wagging her dark head in its three-cornered hat, she
added in her broken voice: “I'll tell you something, Highness, and please
note it well. If your Eminence is not inclined to show a little sympathy and
indulgence and mildness, I shall have to decline the pleasure of your
distinguished company once and for all.”
He dropped his head, and they rode a while in silence.
“Won't you go on to tell me how the Countess came to you?” he asked
at last.
“No, I won't,” she said, and looked straight in front of her. But he
pressed her so pleadingly that she finished her story and said: “And
although fifty other companions applied, my choice—for the choice rested

with me—fell at once on her, I was so much taken with her at my first
interview. She was odd, I could see that: but she was odd only from too rich
an experience of misery and wickedness, that was clear in every word she
said; and as for me, I had always been a little lonely and cut off, and
absolutely without experience, except what I got at my University lectures.”
“Of course, you had always been a little lonely and cut off!” repeated
Klaus Heinrich, with a ring of joy in his voice.
“That's what I said. It was a dull, simple life in some ways that I led,
and still lead, because it has not altered much, and is all much the same.
There were parties with ‘lions’ and balls, and often a dash in a closed motor
to the Opera House, where I sat in one of the little boxes above the stalls, so
as to be well observed by everybody, for show, as we say. That was a
necessary part of my position.”
“For show?”
“Yes, for show; I mean the duty of showing oneself off, of not raising
walls against the public, but letting them come into the garden and walk on
the lawn and gaze at the terrace, watching us at tea. My father, Mr.
Spoelmann, disliked it intensely. But it was a necessary consequence of our
position.”
“What did you usually do besides, Miss Spoelmann?”
“In the spring we went to our house in the Adirondacks and in the
summer to our house at Newport-on-Sea. There were garden-parties of
course, and battles of flowers and lawn-tennis tournaments, and we went for
rides and drove four-in-hand or motored, and the people stood and gaped,
because I was Samuel Spoelmann's daughter. And many shouted rude
remarks after me.”
“Rude remarks?”
“Yes, and they probably had reason to. At any rate it was something of a
life in the limelight that we led, and one that invited discussion.”
“And between whiles,” he said, “you played in the breezes, didn't you,
or rather in a vacuum, where no dust came——”

“That's right. Your Highness is pleased to mock my excess of candour.
But in view of all this you can guess how extraordinarily welcome the
Countess was to me, when she came to see me in Fifth Avenue. She does
not express herself very clearly, but rather in a mysterious sort of way, and
the boundary line at which she begins to drivel is not always quite clearly
apparent. But that only strikes me as right and instructive, as it gives a good
idea of the boundlessness of misery and wickedness in the world. You envy
me the Countess, don't you?”
“Envy? H'm. You seem to assume, Miss Spoelmann, that I have never
had my eyes opened.”
“Have you?”
“Once or twice, maybe. For instance, things have come to my ears about
our lackeys, which you would scarcely dream of.”
“Are your lackeys so bad?”
“Bad? Good-for-nothing, that's what they are. For one thing they play
into each other's hands, and scheme, and take bribes from the tradesmen
——”
“But, Prince, that's comparatively harmless.”
“Yes, true, it's nothing to compare with the way the Countess has had
her eyes opened.”
They broke into a trot, and, leaving at the sign-post the gently rising and
falling high-road, which they had followed through the pine-woods, turned
into the sandy short cut, between high blackberry-covered banks, which led
into the tufted meadow-land round the “Pheasantry.” Klaus Heinrich was at
home in these parts: he stretched out his arm (the right one) to point out
everything to his companions, though there was not much worth seeing.
Yonder lay the Schloss, closed and silent, with its shingle-roof and its
lightning-conductors on the edge of the wood. On one side was the
pheasants' enclosure, which gave the place its name, and on the other
Stavenüter's tea-garden, where he had sometimes sat with Raoul Ueberbein.
The spring sun shone mildly over the damp meadow-land and shed a soft
haze over the distant woods.

They reined in their horses in front of the tea-garden, and Imma
Spoelmann took stock of the prosaic country-house which rejoiced in the
name of the “Pheasantry.”
“Your childhood,” she said with a pout, “does not seem to have been
surrounded by much giddy splendour.”
“No,” he laughed, “there's nothing to see in the Schloss. It's the same
inside as out. No comparison with Delphinenort, even before you restored it
——”
“Let's put our horses up,” she said. “One must put one's horses up on an
expedition, mustn't one, Countess? Dismount, Prince. I'm thirsty, and want
to see what your friend Stavenüter has got to drink.”
There stood Herr Stavenüter in green apron and stockings, bowing and
pressing his knitted cap to his chest with both hands, while he laughed till
his gums showed.
“Royal Highness!” he said, with joy in his voice, “does your Royal
Highness mean to honour me once again? And the young lady!” he added,
with a tinge of deference in his voice; for he knew Samuel Spoelmann's
daughter quite well, and there had been in the whole Grand Duchy no more
eager reader of the newspaper articles which coupled Prince Klaus
Heinrich's and Imma's names together. He helped the Countess to dismount,
while Klaus Heinrich, who was the first to the ground, devoted himself to
Miss Spoelmann, and he called to a lad, who, with the Spoelmanns' groom,
took charge of the horses. Then followed the reception and welcome to
which Klaus Heinrich was accustomed. He addressed a few formal
questions in a reserved tone of voice to Herr Stavenüter, graciously asked
how he was and how his business prospered, and received the answers with
nods and a show of real interest. Imma Spoelmann watched his artificial,
cold demeanour with serious, searching eyes, while she swung her riding-
whip backwards and forwards.
“May I be so bold as to remind you that I am thirsty?” she said at last
sharply and decisively, whereupon they walked into the garden and
discussed whether they need go in to the coffee-room. Klaus Heinrich urged
that it was still so damp under the trees; but Imma insisted on sitting

outside, and herself chose one of the long narrow tables with benches on
each side, which Herr Stavenüter hastened to cover with a white cloth.
“Lemonade!” he said. “That's best for a thirst, and it's sound stuff! no
trash, Royal Highness, and you, ladies, but natural juice sweetened—there's
no better!”
Followed the driving-in of the glass balls in the necks of the bottles;
and, while his distinguished guests tasted the drink, Herr Stavenüter
dawdled a little longer at the table, meaning to serve them up a little gossip.
He had long been a widower, and his three children, who in days gone by
had sung here under the trees the song about common humanity, the while
blowing their noses with their fingers, had now left him. The son was a
soldier in the capital, one of the daughters had married a neighbouring
farmer, the other, with a soul for higher things, had gone into service in the
capital.
So Herr Stavenüter was in solitary control in this remote spot, in the
three-fold capacity of farmer of the Schloss lands, caretaker of the Schloss,
and head keeper of the “Pheasantry,” and was well content with his lot.
Soon, if the weather permitted, the season for bicyclists and walkers would
come round, when the garden was filled on Sundays. Then business
hummed. Would not his Highness and the ladies like to take a peep at the
“Pheasantry”?
Yes, they would, later; so Herr Stavenüter withdrew for the present,
after placing a saucer of milk for Percival by the table.
The collie had been in some muddy water on the way, and looked
horrible. His legs were thin with wet, and the white parts of his ragged coat
covered with dirt. His gaping mouth was black to the throat from nuzzling
for field-mice, and his dark red tongue hung dripping out of his mouth. He
quickly lapped up his milk, and then lay with panting sides by his mistress's
feet, flat on his side, his head thrown back in an attitude of repose.
Klaus Heinrich declared it to be inexcusable for Imma to expose herself
after her ride to the invidious springtime air without any wrap. “Take my
cloak,” he said. “I really do not want it, I'm quite warm, and my coat is
padded on the chest!” She would not hear of it; but he went on asking her

so insistently that she consented, and let him lay his grey military coat with
a major's shoulder-straps round her shoulders. Then, resting her dark head
in its three-cornered hat in the hollow of her hand, she watched him as, with
arm outstretched towards the Schloss, he described to her the life he had
once led there.
There, where the tall window opened on to the ground, had been the
mess-room, then the school-room, and up above Klaus Heinrich's room
with the plaster torso on the stove. He told her too about Professor Kürtchen
and his tactful way of instructing his pupils, about Captain Amelung's
widow, and the aristocratic “Pheasants,” who called everything “hog-wash,”
and especially about Raoul Ueberbein, his friend, of whom Imma
Spoelmann more than once asked him to tell her some more.
He told her about the doctor's obscure origin, and about the money his
parents paid to be quit of him; about the child in the marsh or bog, and the
medal for saving life; about Ueberbein's plucky and ambitious career,
pursued in circumstances calling for resolution and action, which he used to
call favourable circumstances, and about his friendship with Doctor
Sammet, whom Imma knew. He described his by no means attractive
appearance and readily owned to the attraction which he had exercised on
him from the very beginning. He described his behaviour towards himself,
Klaus Heinrich—that fatherly and jolly, blustering camaraderie which had
distinguished him so sharply from everybody else—and gave Imma to the
best of his ability an insight into his tutor's views of life. Finally he
expressed his concern that the doctor seemed not to enjoy any sort of
popularity among his fellow-citizens.
“I can quite believe that,” said Imma.
He was surprised, and asked why.
“Because I'm convinced,” she said, wagging her head, “that your
Ueberbein, for all his sparkling conversation, is an unhappy sort of creature.
He may swagger about the place; but he lacks reserve, Prince, and that
means that he will come to a bad end.”
Her words startled Klaus Heinrich, and made him thoughtful. Then
turning to the Countess, who awoke with a smile out of a brown study, he

said something complimentary about her riding, for which she thanked him
gracefully. He said that anybody could see that she had learnt to ride as a
child, and she confessed that riding lessons had formed a considerable part
of her education. She spoke clearly and cheerfully; but gradually, almost
imperceptibly, she began to wander into a strange story about a gallant ride
which she had made as a lieutenant in the last manœuvres, and suddenly
started talking about the dreadful wife of a sergeant in the Grenadiers, who
had come into her room the previous night and scratched her breasts all
over, meanwhile using language which she could not bring herself to repeat.
Klaus Heinrich asked quietly whether she had not shut her door and
windows.
“Of course, but anyone could break the glass!” she answered hastily,
and turned pale in one cheek and red in the other. Klaus Heinrich nodded
acquiescence, and, dropping his eyes, asked her quietly to let him call her
“Frau Meier” now and then, a proposal which she gladly accepted, with a
confidential smile and a far-away look which had something strangely
attractive about it.
They got up to visit the “Pheasantry,” after Klaus Heinrich had taken
back his cloak; and as they left the garden, Imma Spoelmann said: “Well
done, Prince. You're getting on,” a commendation which made him blush,
indeed gave him far more pleasure than the most fulsome newspaper report
of the valuable effect of his appearance at a ceremony which Councillor
Schustermann could ever show him.
Herr Stavenüter escorted his guests into the palisaded enclosure in
which six or seven families of pheasants led a comfortable, petted life. They
watched the greedy, red-eyed, and stiff-tailed birds, inspected the hatching
house, and looked on while Herr Stavenüter fed the pheasants under a big
solitary fig-tree for their benefit. Klaus Heinrich thanked him warmly for all
that he had shown them, Imma Spoelmann regarding him the while with her
big, searching eyes. Then they mounted at the gate of the tea-garden and
rode off homewards with Percival barking and pirouetting under the horses'
noses.
But their ride home was destined to give Klaus Heinrich, in the course
of his conversation with Imma Spoelmann, yet another significant

indication of her real nature and character, a direct revelation of certain
sides of her personality which gave him food for much thought.
For soon after they had left the bramble-hedged by-way and joined the
high-road, Klaus Heinrich reverted to a subject which had been just touched
on at his first visit to Delphinenort during the conversation at tea, and had
not ceased to exercise him ever since.
“May I,” he said, “ask you one question, Miss Spoelmann? You need
not answer it if you don't want to.”
“I'll see about that,” she answered.
“Four weeks ago,” he began, “when I first had the pleasure of a talk
with your father, Mr. Spoelmann, I asked him a question which he answered
so curtly and abruptly that I could not help feeling that my question had
been indiscreet or a false step.”
“What was it?”
“I asked him whether he had not found it hard to leave America.”
“There you are, Prince, there's another question which is worthy of you,
a typical Prince-question. If you had had a little more training in the use of
your reasoning powers you would have known without asking that if my
father had not been ready and glad to leave America, he most assuredly
would not have left it.”
“Very probably you are right; forgive me, I don't think enough. But if
my question was nothing worse than a want of thought, I shall be quite
content. Can you assure me that that is the case?”
“No, Prince, I'm afraid I cannot,” she said, and looked at him suddenly
with her big black eyes.
“Then what has want of thought to do with it? Do please explain. I ask
you in the name of our friendship.”
“Are we friends?”
“I hoped so,” he said pleadingly.

“Well, well, patience! I didn't know it, but I'm quite ready to learn it.
But to return to my father, he really did lose his temper at your question—
he has a quick temper, and has plenty of occasion to practise losing it. The
fact is that public opinion and sentiment were not over-friendly to us in
America. There's such a lot of scheming over there—I may mention that I
am not posted in the details, but there was a strong political movement
towards setting the crowd, the common people, you know, against us. The
result was legislation and restrictions which made my father's life over there
a burden to him. You know of course, Prince, that it was not he who made
us what we are, but my redoubtable grandfather with his Paradise nugget
and Blockhead Farm. My father could not help it, he was born to his
destiny, and it was no gratification to him, because he is naturally shy and
sensitive, and would much have preferred to have lived for playing the
organ and collecting glass. I really believe that the hatred which was the
result of the scheming against us, so that sometimes the people hurled abuse
after me when I motored past them—that the hatred quite probably brought
on his stone in the kidneys; it's more than possible.”
“I am cordially attached to your father,” said Klaus Heinrich with
emphasis.
“I should have made that, Prince, a condition of our becoming friends.
But there was another point which made things worse, and made our
position over there still more difficult, and that was our origin.”
“Your origin?”
“Yes, Prince; we are no aristocratic pheasants, unfortunately we are not
descended from Washington or from the Pilgrim Fathers.”
“No, for you are German.”
“Oh yes, but there's something besides to get over. Please look at me
closely. Does it strike you that there is anything to be proud of in having
blue-black wispy hair like mine, that's always falling where it's not
wanted?”
“Goodness knows, Miss Spoelmann, you've got glorious hair!” said
Klaus Heinrich. “I know that you are partly of Southern extraction, for I've
read somewhere that your grandfather married in Bolivia or thereabouts.”

“He did. But that's where the trouble lies, Prince. I'm a quintroon.”
“A what?”
“A quintroon.”
“That goes with the Adirondacks and the refraction, Miss Spoelmann. I
don't know what it is. I've already told you that I don't know much.”
“Well, it's a fact. My grandfather, thoughtless as he always was, married
a woman of Indian blood down South.”
“Indian blood!”
“Yes. She was of Indian stock at the third remove, daughter of a white
and a half-Indian, and so a terceroon as it is called. She must have been
wonderfully beautiful. And she was my grandmother. The grandchildren of
a terceroon are called quintroons. That's how things are.”
“Most interesting. But didn't you say that it had affected people's
attitude towards you?”
“You don't understand, Prince. I must tell you that Indian blood over
there means a heavy blot—such a blot, that friendships and affections are
transformed into hatred and abuse if proof of half-blood descent comes to
light. Of course things are not so serious with us, for with quadroons—why,
of course, the taint is nothing like so great, and a quintroon is to all intents
and purposes untainted. But in our case, exposed to gossip as we were, it
was naturally different, and several times when the people shouted abuse
after us I heard them say that I was a coloured girl. In short, my descent was
made an excuse for insults and annoyances, and raised a barrier between us
and the few who were in the same position of life as ourselves—there was
always something which we had to hide or to brazen out. My grandfather
had brazened it out, he was that sort of man, and knew what he was doing;
besides, his blood was pure, it was only his beautiful wife who had the taint.
But my father was her son, and, sensitive and quick-tempered as he is, he
has always, ever since he was a boy, resented being stared at, and hated and
despised at the same time; half a world's wonder and half a monument of
iniquity, as he used to say. He was fed up with America. That's the whole

history, Prince,” said Imma Spoelmann, “and now you know why my father
lost his temper over your pointed question.”
Klaus Heinrich thanked her for the explanation; indeed, as he saluted
and took leave (it was lunch time) of the ladies in front of the Delphinenort
Gate, he repeated his thanks for what he had been told, and then rode at
foot's pace home, pondering over the events of the morning.
He saw Imma Spoelmann sitting in a languid pose in her red-gold dress
at the table, with a look as of a spoilt child on her face; sitting in
comfortable assurance, and uttering remarks with a sting in them, such as
were good coin in the United States, where clearness, hardness, and a ready
wit were essentials of life. And why? Klaus Heinrich could understand now,
and never a day passed that he did not try to realize it better. Stared at, hated
and despised at the same time, half a world's wonder and half a monument
of iniquity, that's what her life had been, and that had instilled the poison
into her remarks, that acidity and mocking directness, which looked like
offence but really were defence, and which evoked a look of bewilderment
on the faces of those who had never had any occasion for the weapons of
wit.
She had demanded of him sympathy and tenderness towards the poor
Countess, when she let herself go; but she herself had a claim to sympathy
and tenderness, for she was lonely and her life, like his, was a hard one. At
the same time a memory haunted him, a long-ago, painful memory, whose
scene was the refreshment room of the “Citizen Garden,” and which ended
in a tureen lid——“Little sister!” he said to himself, as he quickly
dismissed the scene from his thoughts. “Little sister!” But most of all his
thoughts were busy with planning how soonest to enjoy Miss Spoelmann's
society again.
He enjoyed it soon and often, in all sorts of circumstances. February
gave place to threatening March, fickle April and soft May. And all these
months Klaus Heinrich visited Schloss Delphinenort at least once a week,
in the morning or in the afternoon, and always in the irresponsible mood in
which he had presented himself at the Spoelmanns' that February morning,
as if led by fate without any action of his own will. The proximity of the
Schlosses made the visits easy, the short distance through the park from the

“Hermitage” to Delphinenort was easily crossed on horseback or in a
dogcart, without exciting much attention; and when the advancing season
brought more people to the neighbourhood and made it harder and harder
for them to go for rides without attracting public attention, the Prince had
by this time reached a state of mind which can only be described as
complete indifference and blind recklessness towards the world, the Court,
the capital, and the countryside. It was not till later that the public interest
began to play a really important—and encouraging—part in his thoughts
and actions.
He had not taken leave of the ladies after the first ride without
suggesting another expedition, a suggestion to which Imma Spoelmann,
pouting and wagging her head from side to side, had failed to bring any
serious objection. So he came again; and they rode to the Royal Kennels, on
the north side of the Town Gardens; on the third occasion they chose a third
place to ride to, which also they could reach without going near the town.
Then, when spring enticed the townspeople into the open air and the tea-
gardens filled up, they preferred an out-of-the-way path, which really was
no path, but a richly wooded dyke, which stretched far away to the north
along a swift-running stream.
The quietest way of reaching it was by riding out at the back of the
“Hermitage” park, and past the river meadows on the edge of the northern
Town Garden up to the Royal Kennels; then not crossing the river by the
wooden bridge at the weir, but keeping along this side. The Kennels Farm
was left behind on the right, and the ride went on through the fir-
plantations. On the left lay spreading meadows, white and gaily coloured
with hemlock and anemones, buttercups and bluebells, clover, daisies, and
forget-me-nots; a village church tower rose in front of them beyond the
plough-lands, and the busy high-road lay far away at a safe distance from
the riders. Farther on, the meadows with their nut-hedges came close up to
the plantations on the left, shutting out the view, and enabling them to ride
in complete seclusion, generally side by side with the Countess behind, as
the path was narrow. They talked or rode in silence, while Percival jumped
over the stream and back again, or plunged into it for a bath or a hurried
drink. They came back the same way as they went.

When, however, the quicksilver fell owing to the lowness of the
atmospheric pressure, when rain followed, and Klaus Heinrich nevertheless
felt another peep at Imma Spoelmann to be a necessity, he presented
himself in his dogcart at Delphinenort at tea time, and they stayed indoors.
Mr. Spoelmann joined them at tea not more than two or three times. His
malady got worse about this time, and on several days he was obliged to
stay in bed with hot poultices. When he did come, he used to say: “Hullo,
young Prince,” with his thin, white-cuffed hand dip a rusk in his tea, throw
in a cross word here and there into the conversation, and end by offering his
guest his gold cigarette-case, whereupon he left the garden room with Dr.
Watercloose, who had sat silent and smiling at the table. In fine weather too
they sometimes preferred not to go outside the park, but to play lawn tennis
on the trim lawn below the terrace. On one occasion they went for a rapid
drive in Mr. Spoelmann's motor far out beyond the “Pheasantry.”
One day Klaus Heinrich asked: “Is what I have read true, Miss
Spoelmann, that your father gets such a tremendous lot of letters and
appeals every day?”
Then she described to him subscription lists which kept pouring in to
Delphinenort, and which were dealt with as thoroughly as was practicable;
of the piles of begging letters by every post from Europe and America
which Messrs. Phlebs and Slippers ran through and weeded out for
submission to Mr. Spoelmann. Sometimes, she said, she amused herself by
glancing through the heaps, and reading the addresses; for these were often
quite fantastic. For the needy or speculative senders tried to outdo each
other in the deference and servility of their address on the envelopes, and
every conceivable title and distinction could be found mixed up in the
strangest way on the letters. But one begging-letter writer had quite recently
carried off the prize by addressing his envelope to: “His Royal Highness
Mr. Samuel Spoelmann.” But it did not get him any more than the others.
On other occasions the Prince fell to talking mysteriously about the
“Owl Chamber” in the Old Schloss, and confided to her that recently noises
had again been heard in it, pointing to events of moment in his, Klaus
Heinrich's, family. Then Imma Spoelmann laughed, and, pouting and
wagging her head from side to side, gave him a scientific explanation of the
noises, just as she had done in connexion with the secrets of the barometer.

Nonsense, she said; it must be that that part of the lumber-room was
ellipsoidal, and a second ellipsoidal surface with the same curvature and
with a sound-source at the focus existed somewhere outside, the result
being that inside the haunted room noises were audible which could not be
distinguished in the immediate neighbourhood. Klaus Heinrich was rather
crestfallen over this explanation, and loath to give up the common belief in
the connexion between the lumber-room and the fortunes of his house.
Thus they conversed, and the Countess too took part, now sensible, now
confused; Klaus Heinrich took considerable pains not to rebuff or chill her
by his manner, and addressed her as “Frau Meier” whenever she appeared
to think it necessary for her protection against the plots of the wicked
women. He recounted to the ladies his unreal life, the gala suppers at the
students' clubs, the military banquets, and his educational tour; he told them
about his relations, about his once-beautiful mother, whom he visited now
and then in the “Segenhaus,” where she kept dismal court, and about
Albrecht and Ditlinde. Imma Spoelmann in her turn related some incidents
in her luxurious and singular youth, and the Countess often slipped in a few
dark sayings about the horrors and secrets of life, to which the others
listened with serious and thoughtful faces.
They took special delight in one kind of game—guessing existences,
making estimates to the best of their knowledge of the people they
happened to see in the citizen world—a strange and curious study of the
passers-by from a distant standpoint, from the terrace or from horseback.
What kind of young people might these be? What did they do? Where did
they come from? They were certainly not apprentices, perhaps technical
students or budding foresters, to judge by certain signs; maybe they
belonged to the agricultural college; at any rate stout fellows enough,
though rather rough, with sound careers before them. But that little untidy
thing who strolled past looked like a factory hand or dressmaker's assistant.
Girls like her always had a young man in their own class, who took them
out to tea in the parks on Sundays. And they exchanged what they knew
about people in general, discussed them like connoisseurs, and felt that this
pastime brought them closer together than any amount of riding or lawn
tennis.

As for the motor drive, Imma Spoelmann in the course of it explained
that she had only invited Klaus Heinrich to it so as to let him see the
chauffeur, a young American in brown leather, who, she declared,
resembled the Prince. Klaus Heinrich objected with a smile that the back of
the driver's neck did not enable him to express an opinion on the matter, and
asked the Countess to say what she thought. She, after long denying the
likeness in polite embarrassment, at last, on Imma's insistence, with a side
glance at Klaus Heinrich, agreed to it.
Then Miss Spoelmann said that the grave, sober, and skilful youth had
originally been in her father's personal service, driving him daily from Fifth
Avenue to Broadway and back. Mr. Spoelmann, however, had insisted on
extraordinary speed, like that of an express train, and the intense strain put
upon a driver by such speed in the crowded streets of New York had proved
at last too much for the youth. As a matter of fact no accident had
happened; the young man had stuck to it and done his deadly duty with
amazing care. But in the end it had often happened that he had to be lifted
down in a faint from his seat at the end of a run—a proof of the inordinate
strain to which he had been daily subjected. To avoid having to dismiss
him, Mr. Spoelmann had made him his daughter's special chauffeur, and he
had continued to act in that capacity in their new abode.
Imma had noticed the likeness between Klaus Heinrich and him the first
time she saw the Prince. It was of course a similarity not of features, but of
expression. The Countess had agreed with her. Klaus Heinrich said that he
did not in the least object to the likeness, as the heroic young man had all
his sympathy. They then discussed further the difficult and anxious life of a
chauffeur, without Countess Löwenjoul taking any further part in the
conversation. She did not prattle during this drive, though later she made a
few sensible and pointed remarks.
For the rest, Mr. Spoelmann's craze for speed seemed to have descended
in some measure to his daughter, for she never lost an opportunity of
repeating the wild gallop she had started on their first ride; and as Klaus
Heinrich, stimulated by her gibes, urged the amazed and disapproving
Florian to the top of his speed, so as not to be left behind, the gallop always
degenerated into a race, which Imma Spoelmann always started at
unexpected and arbitrary moments. Several of these struggles took place on

the lonely river-edged causeway, and one in particular was long and bitter.
It happened after a short talk about Klaus Heinrich's popularity, which was
begun brusquely, and broken off as brusquely, by Imma Spoelmann. She
asked suddenly: “Is it true what I hear, Prince, that you are so tremendously
popular with the people? That you have won all their hearts?”
He answered: “So they say. It must be some characteristics, not
necessarily good ones. What's more, I'm not sure whether I believe it, or
even ought to be glad of it. I doubt whether it speaks for me. My brother,
the Grand Duke, declares in so many words that popularity is hog-wash.”
“H'm, the Grand Duke must be a fine man: I've got a great respect for
him. So we see you in an atmosphere of adulation, and everybody loves you
… go on!” she cried suddenly, and gave Fatma a cut with her white switch.
The mare started, and the race began.
It lasted a long time. Never before had they followed the stream so far.
The view on the left had long become shut in. Lumps of earth and grass
flew from under the horses' hoofs. The Countess had soon dropped behind.
When at last they reined in their horses, Florian was trembling with
exhaustion, and the riders themselves were pale and panting. They rode
back in silence.
Klaus Heinrich received a visit at the “Hermitage” from Raoul
Ueberbein the afternoon before his birthday this year. The Doctor came to
wish him many happy returns, as he expected to be prevented by his work
from doing so on the morrow. They strolled round the gravel path at the
back of the park, the tutor in his frock-coat and white tie, Klaus Heinrich in
his summer coat. The grass stood ready for cutting under the perpendicular
rays of the midday sun, and the limes were in flower. In one corner, close
by the hedge which divided the park from the unlovely suburbs, stood a
little rustic temple.
Klaus Heinrich was telling of his visits to “Delphinenort,” as this topic
lay nearest his heart. He spoke quite clearly about them, but did not tell the
doctor any actual news, for the latter showed that he knew all about them.
How was that? Oh, from various sources. Ueberbein had never started the
subject. So people in the town concern themselves about it?

“Heaven forbid, Klaus Heinrich, that anybody should give a thought to
it, either to the rides, or to the teas, or to the motor drive. You don't suppose
that that sort of thing is expected to set tongues wagging!”
“But we're so careful!”
“‘We’ is rich, Klaus Heinrich, and so is the carefulness. All the same, his
Excellency von Knobelsdorff keeps himself accurately posted in all your
goings-on.”
“Knobelsdorff?”
“Knobelsdorff.”
Klaus Heinrich was silent; then asked: “And what is Baron
Knobelsdorff's attitude towards what he learns?”
“Well, the old gentleman hasn't yet had a chance of interfering in the
developments.”
“But the public opinion?—the people?”
“The people of course hold their breath.”
“And you, you yourself, my dear Doctor Ueberbein?”
“I'm waiting for the tureen-lid,” answered the doctor.
“No!” cried Klaus Heinrich joyfully. “No, there'll be no tureen-lid this
time, Doctor Ueberbein, for I am happy, oh so happy, whatever happens—
can you understand? You taught me that happiness was no concern of mine,
and you pulled me up short when I tried to come by it; and right thankful I
was to you for doing so, for it was horrible, and I shall never forget it. But
this is no case of high jinks at a citizens' dance, which leave one humiliated
and heavy at heart; this is no breaking out and running off the rails and
humiliation! For can't you see that she of whom we are speaking belongs
neither to the citizens' dance, nor to the aristocratic ‘Pheasants,’ nor to
anything in the world but to me—that she is a Princess, Doctor Ueberbein,
and as good as me, and there can be no question here of a tureen-lid? You
have taught me that it is silly to maintain that we're all only ordinary men,
and hopeless for me to act as if we were, and that the happiness I would

gain by doing so is forbidden to me and must bring me to shame in the end.
But this is not that silly and forbidden happiness. It is my first taste of the
happiness which is allowed me, and which I may hope for, Doctor
Ueberbein, and yield myself to without misgiving, whatever comes of it….”
“Good-bye, Prince Klaus Heinrich,” said Doctor Ueberbein, though he
did not at once leave him, but continued walking at his side with his hands
clasped behind him and his red beard sunk on his breast.
“No,” said Klaus Heinrich. “No, not good-bye, Doctor Ueberbein.
That's just it. I mean to remain your friend, you who have had such a hard
time, and have shown such pride in your duty and destiny, and have made
me proud too in treating me as a companion. I have no intention of resting
on my oars, now that I have found happiness, but will remain true to you
and to myself and to my exalted calling….”
“It cannot be,” said Doctor Ueberbein in Latin, and shook his ugly head
with its protruding, pointed ears.
“It can be, Doctor. I'm sure it can, they're not incompatible. And you,
you ought not to show yourself so cold and distant at my side, when I am so
happy, and, what's more, it's the eve of my birthday. Tell me—you've had so
many experiences and seen so much of the world in all its aspects—have
you never had any experiences in this direction? You know what I mean—
have you never had an attack like this of mine?”
“H'm,” said Doctor Ueberbein, and pressed his lips together, till his red
beard rose, and the muscles knotted in his cheeks. “No doubt I may have
had one once, sub rosa.”
“I thought so! Tell me about it, Doctor Ueberbein. You must tell me
about it!”
The hour was one of quiet sunshine, and the air full of the scent of
limes. So Doctor Ueberbein related an incident in his career on which he
had never touched in previous accounts, though it had perhaps a decisive
influence on his whole life. It had occurred in those early days when the
Doctor was teacher of the young idea and at the same time working on his
own account, when he used to draw in his waist-belt and give private
lessons to sleek tradesmen's children, so as to get money to buy books with.