Dresden, June 16, 1894.
I had another tiff with Frederick Augustus, but the cause is too insignificant to deserve record. I will rather tell about our grand quarrel following Prince George's visit. We dined alone that day, as he was eager to hear the news. The preliminaries didn't excite him much, but when I mentioned the book episode, he bristled up.
"You won't allow the King, or Prince George, to dictate what I shall read or not read?" I demanded. "My house is my castle and I won't brook interference in my ménage."
"Do you really suppose," replied Frederick Augustus, "that I'll court royal displeasure for the sake of those Jew-scribblers? I never read a book since I left school and can't make out what interest books can have to you or anyone else. Where did you get them, anyhow?"
I told him that Leopold supplied my book wants. "My brother is a very intelligent man," I said, "and the books he gives me are all classics in their way."
"Go to with your book-talk!" he mocked in his most contemptuous voice. "I asked the director of the royal library and was told that each of the books, to which father objects, was written by a Jew. Let Jews read them. It isn't decent for a royal princess to do so."
"My brother isn't a Jew."
"But in utter disgrace in Vienna. No one at court speaks to him. He is head over heels in debt and the next we know he will be borrowing from us. As to those books, don't bring any more into the house. Royal princes and princesses have better things to do than waste time on Jew-scribblers."
With that he violently pushed back his chair and left me, a very much enraged woman. He didn't give me the chance to have the last word.