Fortunately it only lasted for four days, and then the Emperor and his suite departed to more comfortable and roomy quarters.
But on our first visit we had the house to ourselves and plenty of space in which to move about.
The journey from Berlin is long and slow, and appears interminable. The train passed through very flat, uninteresting country, especially during the last few miles, where the railway approaches the Frisches Haff, that curious bay formed by the waters of the sluggish Vistula, separated from the Gulf of Danzig by a thin strip of sand which stretches some hundred miles along the coast.
Cadinen is about ten miles from Elbing, which is reached from there by a train which puffs leisurely up and down the single branch line at long intervals of the day. The station platform at this little village, when I first knew it, was practically non-existent. One descended from the blue-and-gold royal train right on to the meadow. Great purple columbines, yellow and blue lupines, seemed to be almost growing over the line itself. No road was visible excepting a sandy cart-track, full of ruts, where three or four of the royal carriages, looking entirely out of place, were waiting to take us up to the Schloss. One felt that a farm-cart drawn by a yoke of oxen would have been more appropriate.
We bumped towards the Schloss, the coachman wisely eschewing the track and driving over the meadow itself, past a Zigelei (tile-factory) belonging to the Emperor, and up a shady lane of ancient and weathered oaks, till we came to one of those stucco, villa-like country-houses usual in the Fatherland, which makes it easy to understand why the Germans fall into raptures over ours in England.
It stood, with a small interval of untidy lawn, close to the road and opposite the village green and duck-pond, around which other houses were clustered. At the back was what is called a park in Germany, but the term has no relation to the English idea of a park, and means simply an extensive garden and orchard. A lovely avenue of chestnut trees was the chief beauty of the garden. They unfortunately grew close up to the house, and made some of the bedrooms so dark that on dull days one could not read or write without a lamp on the writing-table, which was very inconvenient, especially as our rooms had to serve as combined sitting-and bed-rooms.
The Empress and the Princess had with them all their servants, including housemaids, from the New Palace, but peasant-women of the neighbourhood waited upon the suite—clean, strong, healthy-looking people who usually worked barefoot in the fields for a wage of threepence or fourpence a day, but at the advent of the court were thrust into print gowns and boots, and, wearing little flat caps on their heads, pervaded the house, smiling broadly. They spoke with an engaging West-Prussian accent, and only came for an hour or two in the mornings, and again in the afternoons for another short spell of work. In the intervals they went back to their occupations in the fields, for the Inspektor did not approve of their absence just at the busy harvest time. They were all of them Catholics, for the Reformation never penetrated to that district, and among them is much Polish blood.
In the rather untidy but pleasant Schloss garden was an ornamental pond, from which arose at every moment of the day and night, never ceasing, never changing, a pitiful moaning cry, which speedily got on to everybody’s nerves, and was possibly the reason why all the grown-up people felt rather snappy and cross during the first few days. It had somewhat the effect on one’s mind of a squeaking slate-pencil, and speedily became intolerable, for it penetrated the house, and nowhere was there a refuge from the nerve-rending noise.
It was the cry of the Unken, a peculiarly loathsome kind of frog which inhabited the pond, where large green frogs whose note was a comparatively cheerful kind of cackle lived in harmony with these almost invisible but painfully audible pests.
The term Unken-ruf (Unken-cry) is used in Germany to express any persistently ominous prediction, and is a very expressive term, for there are few things more depressing to the spirits than the call of these tiny black creatures.