MELITA'S LOVE AFFAIRS AND MINE
The Grand Duchess tells me how she cudgeled George—Living dictaphone employed—Shows him who is mistress of the house—Snaps fingers in Prince George's face—Debate about titles—"A sexless thing of a husband"—Conference between lover and husband—Grand Duke doesn't object to his wife's lover, but lover objects to "his paramour being married."
Dresden, April 15, 1896.
Melita conducted herself at the funeral and in our palace as unconcernedly as if she and George were fast friends. She smiled every time she saw him, and he cut her dead to his heart's content. During the three days' stay of the Hesses, I had many a good talk and many a good laugh with Melita, and now I got a true and unabridged record of what happened at Darmstadt during George's meddling visit there.
The Grand-duchess, who can be as catty as they make 'em, had her secretary sit behind a screen to take stenographic notes.
Saxon kings and princes always roar and bellow when, in conversation or otherwise, things go against their "all-highest" grain. As soon as George felt that he was losing ground, he began to bark and yell, whereupon Melita interrupted him by saying, "I beg you to take notice that you are in my house."
George grew so red in the face, Melita hoped for an apoplectic fit. But after a few seconds he managed to blurt out: "It's your husband's house."
"While I am Grand-duchess of Hesse it's my house, too. Moreover, this is my room and I forbid you to play the ruffian here."
Prince George looked at the Grand-duke, but Ernest Ludwig said nothing.
"I am here as the King's representative. I represent the chief of the Royal House of Saxony."
"A fig for your Royal House of Saxony," said Melita, snapping her fingers in George's face. "Queen Victoria is my chief of family, and, that aside, Ludwig and I are sovereigns in Hesse and have no intention whatever to allow anyone——"
"Anyone?" repeated George aghast. "You refer to me as anyone?"
"In things matrimonial," said Melita, "only husband and wife count; all others are 'anyone.' You, too."
"She calls me 'you,'" cried George, white with rage, looking helplessly at Ernest Ludwig. When the latter kept his tongue and temper, George addressed himself to Melita once more.
"I want you to understand that my title is Royal Highness."
"And I want you to understand that I am Her Royal Highness the Grand-duchess of Hesse, Royal Princess of Great Britain and Ireland, Duchess of Saxony," cried Melita, stamping her foot.
With that she went to the door, opened it and said, "I request Your Royal Highness to leave my house this very second."
And George went.
Dresden, June 1, 1896.
Poor virtuous me, to chide myself, and call myself names for flirting with Count Bielsk—at a distance of twenty feet or more! "I could kick my back," as the Duc de Richelieu—not the Cardinal, but the lover of the Regent's daughters and "every wife's husband"—used to say (only a bit more grossly) when I think what I miss in this dead-alive Dresden.
Darmstadt isn't half as big a town, and the Hesse establishment doesn't compare with ours in magnitude, but what fun Melita is having!
Of course, it isn't all fun, for her husband is a "sexless" thing, and, like the Grand-duchess Serge of Russia, she would be a virgin, though married for years, if it wasn't for the other.
"The other" is none other but Kyril, the lover of our Dolores,—Kyril isn't exactly pining away when separated from Melita.
Well, Melita wants him all to herself. She wants a divorce. The complacent husband, who is no husband at all, doesn't suit her. Exit Ernest Ludwig—officially. Enter Kyril—legitimately.
She made me reams of confidences, indulged in whole brochures of dissertations on the question of sex. What an ignoramus I am! I didn't understand half she said and was ashamed to ask.
Ernest Ludwig is the most accommodating of husbands. Knows all about Kyril and would gladly shut both eyes if they let him. Melita might, if pressed very hard, for adultery has no terrors for her, but Kyril affects the idealist. Sure sign that he really loves her. If he was mine, I would be afraid of this Kyril. No doubt he is jealous as a Turk.
Last week the three of them had a conference. Lovely to see husband, wife and paramour "in peaceful meeting assembled" and talk over the situation as if it concerned the Royal stud or something of the sort.
No recriminations, no threats, no heroics; only when Ernest Ludwig submitted that divorce be avoided to save his face as a sovereign, Kyril got a bit excited.
"This is not a question of politics," he said, "or what the dear public thinks. Your wife don't want you; as a matter of fact, she isn't your wife, and since we are in love with each other, we ought to marry."
"Marry, marry, why always marry?" demanded the Grand-duke. "I acknowledge that I haven't the right to interfere in my wife's pleasure—I am not built that way. Well, I don't interfere. What more do you want? You don't deny that I am the chief person to be considered."
"You?" mocked Kyril. "You with your sovereignty are not in it at all. If it wasn't for you, Melita and I could marry and say no more about it."
"But I don't prevent your enjoyment of each other," pleaded the ruler of the Hessians.
Now the idealistic Kyril got on his high horse. "Grand-duke," he said, "if you don't object to your wife having a lover, that's your business. For my part, I object to my paramour having a husband."
And so on ad infinitum, and a goose like me abuses herself for a bit of goo-goo-eyeing.