MORE JEALOUSIES OF THE GREAT
Men and women caress me with their eyes—Some disrespectful sayings and doings of mine—First decided quarrel with Frederick Augustus—I go to the theatre in spite of him.
Dresden, April 1, 1894.
I am afraid I wrote down some wicked things—wicked from the standpoint of the Saxon court—and though Queen Carola and father-in-law George know naught of my scribblings, punishment was meted out to me in full measure.
Of course, it's my "damned popularity," as the King calls it, that got me into trouble again. My carriage happened to follow one occupied by the Queen at a distance of some hundred or more paces along the avenues of the Grosser Garten. I had no idea that Her Majesty was out at the time, and certainly was dressed to please the eye. I can't help it. It's a habit with me.
Well, the optics of a good many of my future subjects grew long and cozening, like gipsies', when they beheld their queen-to-be; there was many a "flatteringly protracted, but never a wiltingly disapproving gaze," and those who liked me—and they all seemed to—shouted "Our Louise," and Hurrah. They shouted so loud that poor Queen Carola got plenty of auricular evidence of how her successor-to-be was loved by the people, by her, Carola's, people. And the poor old girl got so "peeved," she ordered her coachman to turn back and proceed to the palace by the shortest route, through the least frequented streets.
Frederick Augustus knew all about it before I reached home and was in a terribly dejected state.
"This has to stop," he said with a fine effort at imitating authority. "On Sunday, when we drove home from High Mass, you got an ovation while the King's carriage passed almost unnoticed. And now this affront to the Queen."
"Bother the old girl," I replied, stamping my foot.
Frederick Augustus got as white as a sheet. "That's the language of a—a—" He knew enough not to finish.
"It's the title by which Queen Victoria is known to many of her subjects."
"Who told you that?"
"I often run across it in the English newspapers."
"Jew-sheets!" roared Frederick Augustus.
"Since you don't understand a word of English, you couldn't distinguish the London Times from the Hebrew At Work." After this sally, I added maliciously: "I'm going to the Opéra Comique tonight. Come along?"
"You are not going to the Opéra Comique," shouted Frederick Augustus.
"You don't want me to go, papa don't want me to go, uncle and aunt and cousins don't? So many reasons more why I shall go. I announced my coming and I will go, if I have to tear the ropes, by which you might bind me hand and foot, with my teeth."
I rang the bell and ordered dinner served half an hour earlier than usual. Then I went to my dressing room to inspect the new gown that I intended to wear at the theatre.
Girardi night! Girardi, the famous Vienna comedian! I never saw him. His humor will act as a tonic. Just what I need. I will die if I breathe none other but the air of this palace, that reeks with cheap pretensions, Jesuitical puritanism, envy and hatred, where every second person is a spy of either the King or George.
I must escape the polluted atmosphere for a few hours, at least, and laugh, laugh, LAUGH.
11:30 P.M.
I have seen Girardi. I have laughed. I saw the Dolores. And I don't blame Kyril a bit.