FEARS FOR MY LOVE
Some reflections on queens of old who punished recreant lovers—Henry was in debt and I gave him money—Indignities by which some of that money was earned—Husband accompanies me to Loschwitz—Reflections on Frederick Augustus's character.
January 15, 1901.
My love played the melancholy Dane for the last few days. His tenderness seemed labored, his spirits under a cloud. Every smile I got had to be coaxed from him.
"The end of my happiness," I thought; "some chit of a girl dethroned me." And I cursed my birthday. "A kingdom for ten years off my age."
And my thoughts of thoughts travelled back to the times when royal ladies had their rivals immured, as practiced by a Brandenburg princess at the Kaiser's hunting box at Grünewald, or made a head shorter, like Lady Jane Grey, who was far too pretty to please Elizabeth; or shot, as elected by Queen Christina, tribade and nymphomaniac both.
And the things Queen Bess did to her unfaithfuls and the crimes Mary Stuart perpetrated to cheat Jeannie Bothwell out of her doughty Hepburn!
"If I were Queen," I thought, and I must have spoken aloud, for Henry said: "You would make me a great lord, love, wouldn't you, give me the best paying office at court, but that's small comfort to my creditors today."
"It's creditors, mere creditors bothering you?" I almost shouted with joy. This man was still mine. No one had succeeded in luring him away from me. I threw myself upon him and nearly smothered him.
Filthy lucre, or the want of it, oppressing my boy. Money, miserable money, caused me to doubt his very loyalty.
"How much?"
He stuttered and denied and swore it was all a mistake and that I had misunderstood him. "As an army officer——"
"Don't talk like Frederick Augustus. It will give me the greatest pleasure in the world to arrange your affairs, dearest."
I got him to name the sum after a while. What a pity I am not rich. As Catharine sent her Orloffs and Potemkins and Zoritchs to the State Treasury to help themselves as they saw fit, so I would gladly turn fortunes over to Henry, never asking for an accounting.
But this Imperial Highness is wretchedly poor, like most royal women not actually seated on the throne. I can't offer my paramour financial independence, not even luxury, but, thank heaven, I saved up enough to provide for his present needs, even if my treasury be drained to the last twenty-mark piece, and I will have to cut short my charities for the next quarter of a year. But he must not know these sordid details.
Some day I will be Queen. I will reimburse the poor and I will be a true Catharine to Henry.
Dresden, January 16, 1901.
I brought my mite to our rendezvous. Mostly in small bills and twenty-mark pieces. If Henry knew that many of these were earned in the right royal fashion of having them slipped down one's stocking by a husband, too drunk to distinguish a royal palace from a dance-hall!
He told me honestly enough how he got into debt. "How can one lay by for a rainy day when one hasn't got anything?"
I appreciate the play of words, for I am in the same predicament.
Only once has Henry touched a card, but he lost considerably in horse deals, as most young army officers do.
His sister made a rich marriage, but he wouldn't discover himself to her. If she asked money of her husband, there might be trouble, for Vitzthum is not a liberal man.
Loschwitz, April 1, 1901.
The children's health called for country air and I was quasi-forced to retire to Loschwitz, though I have a thousand and one reasons for remaining in Dresden. Frederick Augustus accompanies us. After the strenuous city life (in Dresden!), he needs a change and a long rest from drinking and carousing, he says boastingly.
Of course, while he is here, I dare not invite the Vitzthums. But as soon as he is gone, they shall come for a couple of weeks, and their presence will make Henry's possible.
It's dreadful the way I miss the sweet boy. I suffer like a dog, when the longing seizes me, suffer both in heart and body. When I contemplate his miniature, tears come into my eyes. I often cry for hours thinking of him.
And to have to endure this great booby of a husband of mine day and night, especially nights. It's almost more than I can bear.
The grossness of his egotism reminds me of the story told of King James, whom the English got rid of in 1689.
The Dutch William, instead of waiting peacefully for the heritage of his father-in-law, went to claim it before his death, and James, pressed on all sides by enemies, decided upon flight.
One Sunday, in the month of December, his devotions over, he dismissed all his servants and advised his last partisans to turn towards the rising sun.
After which, he lay for an hour with his wife, the better to take leave of her."
The very thing Frederick Augustus would do if war or revolution made us fugitives.
I never realized the diversity in our natures as much as I do now, when all my thoughts go out to another, when even connubial tendernesses seem like whip-strokes.
The further our souls draw apart, the more disgusting this forced intimacy, the prostitution under the marriage vow, which I detest and abhor.
But what will I do? Shut my door to him? He would kick it in, or climb through the window. It's easier to submit to the violation of my person than to breaking of locks and furniture.