Her reading consists largely of historical memoirs, which interest her deeply; but she has not a mind quickly receptive of new ideas—would perhaps be a little narrowly intolerant if she were not prevented by her essential kindness of heart. Her chief talent has always been the creation of an atmosphere of home for her husband and children, no light task amid the rigid officialism of a court. She has been heard to relate how once, when not feeling very well, she sent to the kitchen for some tea at the unorthodox hour of ten o’clock at night, and was told that to carry out such an order was impossible; there was no provision for making tea at ten, only at five or in the morning from eight to nine. So the Empress went without her tea. The next morning the Haus-Marshall requested Her Majesty in future, whenever she might need tea at ten o’clock, to give orders for it before five, because all the cooks went home at that hour. The Empress at once took steps to enable herself or any one else in the palace to obtain tea at any hour they might need it.
She is an industrious needlewoman, and very much dislikes to sit and talk without having some work to do, declaring that constant occupation of the fingers is very restful to the nerves; and when the old Court doctor remonstrates that she never allows herself to rest, smiles and shakes her head at him and says quietly, “Oh, you men do not understand.”
The Emperor of late years always lies down and rests for an hour or two in the afternoon, but no efforts have ever been successful in making Her Majesty do the same. Up early in the mornings to ride with her husband, walking with him before breakfast, standing more or less all day, and often up to a very late hour of the evening especially in the season, it is surprising how the Empress has been able always to fulfil without fail her varied duties, often at the expense of much bodily weariness and effort.
Once at Königsberg, where the Imperial couple had come for some special festivities, after a day and a night’s travelling in the train, she found herself so utterly overcome with fatigue that at three o’clock in the afternoon she felt that unless she obtained some rest before night she must inevitably break down, for a large dinner was to take place in the evening with a reception to follow. But all round the old Königsberg Schloss was gathered an enthusiastic crowd cheering and calling for the Empress, who at last went out on to the balcony, and, holding up her hand for silence, addressed them to the following effect:
“Good people,—I thank you for your kind reception, but for the next two hours it is necessary for me to have some rest, so I ask you to go away and leave me in peace until five, when you may come again.” She then retired, and the people melted away, and for a space there was silence.
When Her Majesty cruises in her yacht, the Iduna, off the coast of Schleswig-Holstein, and lies up in port for the night, every patriotic soul within a radius of thirty miles is smitten with the selfsame idea—to come and serenade Her Majesty till the small hours with the selfsame song, “Schleswig-Holstein sea-engirdled.”
“Mamma and I are perfectly sick of that song,” said the Princess. “People came and rowed round the Iduna and yelled it into the port-holes while we were dressing and while we dined, and when we came on deck there it was again, and when one lot had finished another lot came and began all over again. It was truly awful.”
In Germany everybody yearns to sing before Royalty. In Wilhelmshöhe one enterprising lady who, as one of the princes remarked, “thought more of her voice than it deserved,” hid herself behind a bush in the public part of the park, and when Her Majesty came walking unsuspectingly in that direction to enjoy the cool evening hour in company with her children, the lady burst into impassioned song and shook out of herself torrents of trills and elaborate shakes into the darkness.
The evenings at Neues Palais in the winter-time were usually very quiet. After supper the Empress and her ladies with their needlework would sit round the big table of one of the salons, while the Emperor looked at the English papers spread about, or, as often happened, read extracts from them aloud. He usually wore glasses when reading, and was very fond of Punch, especially of the political cartoons, in which he so frequently figured under the guise of a sea-serpent, an organ-grinder, or his imperial self, with exaggerated moustaches and portentous frown. I always tried to hide Punch when it was my turn downstairs. His Majesty liked to thrust these embarrassing pictures under my nose.
“What d’you think of that?” he would say. “Nice, isn’t it? Good likeness, eh?” It was often difficult to find a suitable answer on the spur of the moment.