Dresden, November 15, 1894.
Prince Max called on me the day of my arrival and promised me an armchair in Paradise for "reforming" Leopold. "I understand that your family life is ideal now," he added. "What bliss!"
"Oh, Louise," he continued, with the face of a donkey withdrawing his nozzle from a syrup barrel, "whenever doubtful of the right way, of the Lord's way, come to me."
It would have been un-politic to repulse the grotesque ape, and I said: "I will. I will even give you the preference over the Kaiser, who asked me the same thing—as summus episcopus, of course."
Max looked about the room. We were alone, yet he lowered his voice to a faint whisper. "William is a heretic. Don't trust him in religious matters," he breathed stealthily. And this devilish Max began to stroke my hands and admire a bracelet I wore above the elbow.
The Kaiser wouldn't have gone much further under the circumstances. Maybe he would have kissed my arm, though, from wrist to pit.
Tonight family tea in the Queen's salon. The King an icicle, but polite as a French marquis. He gave me the three "How art thou's" in the space of five minutes, asked after the babies and promised to come and look them over.
Frederick Augustus, half insane with delight, pinched my arm and squeezed my leg under the table. I felt like boxing his ears.
My father-in-law had to behave in the presence of the King and said a few commonplaces to me.