THE DAY OF JUDGMENT LOOMS UP
My Grand Mistress shows her colors—Richard advises flight—I hesitate on account of my children—My Grand Mistress steals a letter from Richard to me—I opine that an adulteress's word is as good as a thief's—I humble my Grand Mistress, but it won't do me much good—Pleasant hours at his studio.
Dresden, October 15, 1902.
That dreadful dream is becoming a heart-breaking reality.
The Tisch entered my boudoir last night in her mantilla, emblem of her office as Grand Mistress.
Some dirty business on hand, I surmised at once.
"Imperial Highness," she said, genuflexing ceremoniously, "I submit that your artist takes too long about the portrait. Your Imperial Highness's visits to the studio must cease."
"Since when do you give orders here, Baroness?"
"His Majesty empowered me," answered the Grand Dame.
"In that case, do as you like, but don't bother me," I cried bravely enough, but trembling in every limb. The Tisch, no doubt, is preparing to deal me another blow.
When I told Richard that henceforth we would have to exercise extra care, he was beside himself with rage.
"Why stand such tyranny?" he cried. "No self-respecting woman, other than royal, would submit for a single week to be bullied and intrigued against and threatened and browbeaten as you are, and they have ill-used you for eleven years. If you were a simple Cit's daughter, instead of the descendant of a decrepit, bloodless family, yclept royal, you would make an end now, leave them to their shabby kingship and be a free woman—free and happy."
My lover forgets the children, but the picture of the free life he draws is most attractive.
"And would you go with me to the end of the earth, as the story books put it?" I asked tremblingly.
"Louise," he answered, "if you are brave enough and strong enough to throw away a crown, I will be your slave for life."
Dresden, October 20, 1902.
"Your Imperial Highness was pleased to call me a thief once," said the Tisch early this morning as she entered my boudoir, triumph written all over her yellow countenance. "You repeated that calumny to the Prince Royal and doubtless to many other persons. Today came the opportunity to live up to my reputation. I stole a letter addressed to you by your present lover, and as Your Imperial Highness is pleased to doubt my authority, immediately sent it to His Majesty. It makes highly interesting reading."
The blow made my knees tremble, but pain and rage came to my assistance, effacing the momentary weakness.
"Don't think for a moment to frighten me," I cried. "I say to your face that I have a lover—a gentleman, not an unspeakable, like your nephew. And now listen: I will tell the King and the press of Europe, if it must be, that it was you, my Grand Mistress, who 'pandered' me to Henry—for—revenue. I will have him whipped out of the army——"
"You don't suppose for a moment that the word of an adulteress would prove acceptable either to His Majesty or anyone else?" hissed the insolent creature.
"My word will be accepted all around," I shouted back, "for I have the proofs, proofs that you smuggled this unspeakable into my household, proofs that you lied to the King in order not to disrupt your nephew's career.
"And I will cry from the house-tops that you discovered my relations with Henry only after I had paid his debts, after I had financed his excursions to gambling-houses and to usurers' dens. Ah, I paid his tailors and glove-makers, his board and lodging, his laundry bills. I paid the alimony due his strumpets, and after all was done, after his lieutenantship had again a clean bill of health, financially speaking, then, and not a moment before, did you step in and make an end of the farce, wherein I played the part of 'angel,' or pay-master."
The Tisch got visibly smaller under my lash. The air of triumph she bore when entering the room gave way to an expression of despair. If she hadn't sent the letter to the King, I believe she would have given it up after I was half through with her.
Once more I hold the whip hand, but what good will it do me since I am condemned to lose the man I love?
At Midnight.
Richard approved of all I said and did. We were unspeakably happy this afternoon, despite the storm threatening us.
I fear neither the King nor Frederick Augustus now, but the fear of Sonnenstein I can't shake off.
If the King takes it upon himself to say that I'm mad, there will be plenty of medical authorities to bear him out, none to oppose him.
Of course, they will separate me from my children and will do their utmost to drive me mad between now and the time when I should be proclaimed Queen.