Thirty days sick abed—full of interest—read the debates and get
excited over them, though don't 'versteh'. By reading keep in a
state of excited ignorance, like a blind man in a house afire;
flounder around, immensely but unintelligently interested; don't
know how I got in and can't find the way out, but I'm having a
booming time all to myself.
Don't know what a 'Schelgesetzentwurf' is, but I keep as excited over it
and as worried about it as if it was my own child. I simply live on the
Sch.; it is my daily bread. I wouldn't have the question settled for
anything in the world. Especially now that I've lost the 'offentliche
Militargericht circus'. I read all the debates on that question with a
never-failing interest, but all at once they sprung a vote on me a couple
of days ago & did something by a vote of 100 to 143, but I couldn't
find out what it was.
CLXXIX. A DINNER WITH WILLIAM II.
The dinner with Emperor William II. at General von Versen's was set for the 20th of February. A few days before, Mark Twain entered in his note-book:
In that day the Imperial lion and the Democratic lamb shall sit down
together, and a little General shall feed them.
Mark Twain was the guest of honor on this occasion, and was seated at the Emperor's right hand. The Emperor's brother, Prince Heinrich, sat opposite; Prince Radolin farther along. Rudolf Lindau, of the Foreign Office, was also present. There were fourteen at the table, all told. In his memorandum made at the time, Clemens gave no account of the dinner beyond the above details, only adding:
After dinner 6 or 8 officers came in, & all hands adjourned to the
big room out of the smoking-room and held a “smoking parliament”
after the style of the ancient Potsdam one, till midnight, when the
Emperor shook hands and left.
It was not until fourteen years later that Mark Twain related some special matters pertaining to that evening. He may have expanded then somewhat to fill out spaces of his memory, and embroidered them, as was his wont; but that something happened, either in reality or in his imagination, which justified his version of it we may believe. He told it as here given, premising: “This may appear in print after I am dead, but not before.
“From 1891 until day before yesterday I had never mentioned the
matter, nor set it down with a pen, nor ever referred to it in any
way—not even to my wife, to whom I was accustomed to tell
everything that happened to me.
“At the dinner his Majesty chatted briskly and entertainingly along
in easy and flowing English, and now and then he interrupted himself
to address a remark to me or to some other individual of the guests.
When the reply had been delivered he resumed his talk. I noticed
that the table etiquette tallied with that which was the law of my
house at home when we had guests; that is to say, the guests
answered when the host favored them with a remark, and then quieted
down and behaved themselves until they got another chance. If I had
been in the Emperor's chair and he in mine I should have felt
infinitely comfortable and at home, but I was guest now, and
consequently felt less at home. From old experience I was familiar
with the rules of the game and familiar with their exercise from the
high place of host; but I was not familiar with the trammeled and
less satisfactory position of guest, therefore I felt a little
strange and out of place. But there was no animosity—no, the
Emperor was host, therefore, according to my own rule, he had a
right to do the talking, and it was my honorable duty to intrude no
interruptions or other improvements except upon invitation; and of
course it could be my turn some day—some day, on some friendly
visit of inspection to America, it might be my pleasure and
distinction to have him as guest at my table; then I would give him
a rest and a quiet time.
“In one way there was a difference between his table and mine-for
instance, atmosphere; the guests stood in awe of him, and naturally
they conferred that feeling upon me, for, after all, I am only
human, although I regret it. When a guest answered a question he
did it with a deferential voice and manner; he did not put any
emotion into it, and he did not spin it out, but got it out of his
system as quickly as he could, and then looked relieved. The
Emperor was used to this atmosphere, and it did not chill his blood;
maybe it was an inspiration to him, for he was alert, brilliant, and
full of animation; also he was most gracefully and felicitously
complimentary to my books—and I will remark here that the happy
phrasing of a compliment is one of the rarest of human gifts and the
happy delivery of it another. I once mentioned the high compliment
which he paid to the book 'Old Times on the Mississippi'; but there
were others, among them some high praise of my description in 'A
Tramp Abroad' of certain striking phases of German student life.
“Fifteen or twenty minutes before the dinner ended the Emperor made
a remark to me in praise of our generous soldier pensions; then,
without pausing, he continued the remark, not speaking to me, but
across the table to his brother, Prince Heinrich. The Prince
replied, endorsing the Emperor's view of the matter. Then I
followed with my own view of it. I said that in the beginning our
government's generosity to the soldier was clear in its intent and
praiseworthy, since the pensions were conferred upon soldiers who
had earned them, soldiers who had been disabled in the war and could
no longer earn a livelihood for themselves and their families, but
that the pensions decreed and added later lacked the virtue of a
clean motive, and had, little by little, degenerated into a wider
and wider and more and more offensive system of vote-purchasing, and
was now become a source of corruption, which was an unpleasant thing
to contemplate and was a danger besides. I think that that was
about the substance of my remark; but in any case the remark had a
quite definite result, and that is the memorable thing about it
—manifestly it made everybody uncomfortable. I seemed to perceive
this quite plainly. I had committed an indiscretion. Possibly it
was in violating etiquette by intruding a remark when I had not been
invited to make one; possibly it was in taking issue with an opinion
promulgated by his Majesty. I do not know which it was, but I quite
clearly remember the effect which my act produced—to wit, the
Emperor refrained from addressing any remarks to me afterward, and
not merely during the brief remainder of the dinner, but afterward
in the kneip-room, where beer and cigars and hilarious anecdoting
prevailed until about midnight. I am sure that the Emperor's good
night was the only thing he said to me in all that time.
“Was this rebuke studied and intentional? I don't know, but I
regarded it in that way. I can't be absolutely sure of it because
of modifying doubts created afterward by one or two circumstances.
For example: the Empress Dowager invited me to her palace, and the
reigning Empress invited me to breakfast, and also sent for General
von Versen to come to her palace and read to her and her ladies from
my books.”
It was a personal message from the Emperor that fourteen years later recalled to him this curious circumstance. A gentleman whom Clemens knew went on a diplomatic mission to Germany. Upon being presented to Emperor William, the latter had immediately begun to talk of Mark Twain and his work. He spoke of the description of German student life as the greatest thing of its kind ever written, and of the sketch on the German language as wonderful; then he said: