children—little girls who are chosen by the Hof-Prediger with the help of a deaconess who visits the poorer quarters of the town. These two children with their mother or an elder sister are invited to come to the Palace in the afternoon, where they are given coffee and cake in the little kitchen of the Prinzen-Wohnung. Their ages are usually between seven and nine, and they are often painfully shy, though there are brilliant exceptions whose naturalness breaks through the artificial barrier of onerous and excessive Manieren imposed on them by anxious relations imperfectly instructed in such things.
While they consume their coffee and cake, the Princess directs her footman to draw down all the blinds of the big salon, so as to shut out the two-o’clock winter daylight and create a proper background for the twinkling lights on the tree, which are all reflected from the mirrors of the room. On a table are spread out a complete suit of clothing for each child, not excepting boots and stockings, a large basket of provisions, containing among other things some of those famous German sausages, Leber-Wurst and Blut-Wurst, besides coffee, sugar, Pfeffer-Kuchen and other Christmas delicacies. There is always a large doll on each side of the table supported by the heap of clothing and staring into the middle distance with the usual doll-like look of vacuity.
The Ober-Gouvernante and one or two of the ladies of the Empress are always present, and the Princess professes to feel very nervous, though there is little sign of it in her greeting of the shy little mites, when the big doors are opened by the footmen and they creep in with their mother, almost overcome with the beauty and the wonder of it all. Hand in hand they stand in front of the tree, the light shining on their little pinched faces, and together repeat the Weihnachts-Geschichte, the Bible story of the first Christmas, which every well-brought-up German child, rich or poor, learns as soon as it can lisp. Sometimes, with much nervous twisting of clean pinafores, they even sing a carol in a breathless, desperate kind of way. Everybody feels relieved when this ordeal is safely over and the childish voices with their nasal twang have ceased. Then the Princess tells them it was very nice, and taking them by the hand leads them up to the tree and shows them the shoes and stockings and dresses and dolls, while the rest of us draw aside and leave them together a little. Almost invariably the children are taken into the bedroom of the Princess to try on the new dresses to see if they fit, and presently emerge to gratify our eyes with their beauty.
After a while they depart, usually carrying the dolls and some of the clothes and provisions, but leaving the bulk of them, including the tree, to be brought next morning to the place where they live by the Commissions-Wagen of the Palace, which is always on the road to or from Potsdam in those terribly busy weeks. Different children were, of course, invited every year, and this pleasant custom continued until the Princess was seventeen years of age, when she began to share her mother’s charities. In her earlier days, the names of the children were of the greatest interest, and she was delighted with two who bore the unusual patronymic of Ballschuh.
At about eleven o’clock on the morning of Christmas Eve takes place the Bescherung for the servants of the Princess, including the grooms and stablemen. The latter come across the Mopke in their neat livery and follow the housemaids and footmen, who enter with smiling bows and range themselves round the table on which stands the tree. The blinds have again been drawn, for no Christmas Tree can do itself justice in the daylight. The little plates, eggcups and Bier-gläser, bought with the pocket money of the Princess, each bear the recipient’s name written by herself. These things have all been personally selected from the shops which, until the time she was grown up, she was allowed to visit only once a year, and the proper allocation of gifts has caused her much heart-searching. She utters a sigh of relief as the last servant files out, each carrying his present with the invariably accompanying packet of Pfeffer-Kuchen.
On Christmas Eve the Emperor, as is well known, has a habit of walking abroad, his pockets, or rather those of his accompanying adjutants, full of gold and silver coin. These coins he distributes in a promiscuous manner to whomsoever he may chance to meet; it may be to a gardener, or a sentry on duty at the gates, or a little schoolboy or girl, or even an officer may be the recipient of this Christmas dole, which is always highly prized by those who chance to receive it. The sentry is prevented by the regulations from taking the coin (usually a twenty-mark piece) when on duty, so it is generally placed in the sentry-box till guard is relieved. One Christmas the Princess was walking with four of her brothers down the wide drive of the Neuer Garten, when in the distance they saw the Emperor approaching accompanied by his adjutants. Knowing the errand which had taken His Majesty abroad, Prince Fritz laughingly suggested that there might be a chance of receiving some Christmas money, so under his orders they ranged themselves in military formation beside the road, standing at the salute (at least the Princes did—the ladies merely kept “eyes front”) as the Emperor drew near. He returned the salute, but said in a gruff voice as he passed, speaking in English, “No, you won’t get anything—all labour in vain,” and gave an emphatic nod, while the would-be recipients giggled at each other and felt rather foolish.