The Emperor, among other properties on the estate, became owner of a Zigelei or tile-factory, of which there are many hundreds along this coast, which possesses a peculiar variety of clay, very suitable for the manufacture of bricks and tiles. The old Cathedral of Frauenburg, of which Copernicus, though he was never a priest, was canon, is built entirely of brick, for there is no stone in the neighbourhood. The Emperor’s factory has in the last few years begun the experimental manufacture of the finer kinds of porcelain, and produces year by year many artistic objects which are sold in Berlin.
During the many wet days of our stay in Cadinen, the children found great occupation in modelling various articles out of the prepared clay, which were afterwards sent to the factory to be burned. Some little fern-pots and vases, the product of her amateur efforts, were regarded with great pride by the Princess.
The Emperor took the greatest interest in his factory, and never failed to visit it as often as he could do so, inspecting and criticizing every department. He has built delightful houses and cottages for the heads of departments and the workers. Some people scoff at it as a piece of costly, needless extravagance, and object to the Emperor’s competition with other factories. It is run chiefly, however, as a practical scientific experiment, and although a good deal of cheap pottery is made and sold to the general public at current market prices, it aims at artistic development as well as the invention and discovery of colours and new glazes. From his travels the Emperor is always bringing here some piece of antique porcelain, Italian, Greek or Roman, which may suggest something new in form or colouring. He is so keen himself that he is bound to inspire keenness in others.
Once or twice I have been round the factory with the Emperor and Empress, who would stay there for an hour or two sometimes on their way to or from Rominten. His Majesty always took the whole of his suite with him, and liked them to be as interested as himself. On one occasion, from the heaped shelves of the warehouses he hurled—there is no other word which quite expresses it—terra-cotta busts of himself and large vases and other pottery of the same material at the members of the suite. My share of the spoil was a bust of himself and two flower-vases. We all emerged carrying our property, and the officers in uniform looked rather comical with large terra-cotta plaques under each arm or cradling a bust carefully against the shoulder.
In fine weather the Princess sometimes rode in the forest, but during the second and third year of her visit to Cadinen she devoted herself entirely to bathing and did not ride as well. As, however, there were twenty riding-horses available, I always got up at half-past five, and rode alone with a Sattel-Meister through the beautiful forest, which was of quite a different nature to that of Potsdam. It had a wild delightful freshness, with dimpling brooks appearing out of the greenery; great rocks and boulders stood at the turn of every path, with ferns growing from their crevices. The roads were not so good as those to which we had been accustomed, as they were full of tenacious and slippery beds of clay, and quite dangerous after rain, as were the fourteen little wooden bridges which crossed the wimpling stream which meandered aimlessly but beautifully through the trees. But when it was impossible to ride in the forest, there were the cornfields, and the stubble-fields from which the oats had been cleared were magnificent for a good stretching gallop. Those early rides lengthened the day a good deal.
At five o’clock the Lampier, the old man who trimmed the lamps and cleaned the shoes, would knock softly at my door according to orders. I would rouse up hastily and dress, and then creep warily past the rooms where every one slept, and down the back staircase into the yard, where, in the morning sunshine, the wrinkled old Hühner-frau was feeding her flock of ducks and chickens; then, slipping like a conspirator through the wet bushes into the stable-yard round the corner, I would come upon the smiling Sattel-Meister in his neat uniform, standing beside two horses held by stable-boys. We would bow to each other in ceremonious German fashion, mount, and away into the glory of the dewy morning; for however wet and stormy the after part of the day might be, the mornings were always fair and smiling.
Curtains of filmy cobwebs, threaded with beadlets of dew, spanned every twig, while gorgeous beds of lupines ranging from white through pale and deep heliotrope to dark purple, great upstanding masses of campanulas, tall yellow foxgloves, and other flowers unknown to me bordered the field paths through which we rode. The shimmering yellow of the bearded rye, the darker reddish-brown of the wheat, rippled like a sea by the breath of morning, the vivid emerald of the potato fields, the glorious chrome and sulphur of the yellow lupines grown as cattle fodder, mingled with the subtle green of the forest trees, and the long-drawn-out blue thread of the distant Baltic, all dappled and gleaming in the dawn, blended together in a riot of luminous colour.
The peasant women working in bands of twenty or thirty among the potatoes would lift up their friendly brown faces, and wave a hand and smile as we galloped past. Occasionally we came unexpectedly on one of them kneeling before a tiny wooden shrine almost hidden in the standing corn.
The last Sunday of our stay in Cadinen was always devoted to the Kinder-Fest, or treat for the school-children, given by the Empress.
The youth of the village was scrubbed and washed and starched and ironed to a pitch of painful perfection, but none of the children wore anything in the shape of finery, and nobody thought of curling or waving their abundant locks for the occasion. The girls’ tight pigtails were tied, if anything, a trifle tighter, while the boys’ heads were cropped almost to the bone. The most conspicuous change in their attire was the presence of shoes and stockings, which obviously severely handicapped their activities. All the light-footed boys and girls, who usually skipped untrammelled down the grassy lanes, became slow-footed, slouching, awkward louts, moving with a stiff propriety which was as much the effect of footgear as of respect for royalty.