Revelations—Sauerkraut and Turnips—What the Dachshunds Did
FRAU MARTHA to FRAU KRUPP,
née BARONESS VON ENDE.
BERLIN, SCHLOSS, Christmas.
GRACIOUS LADY,—May it please the Gracious Lady, we arrived safely and sound, and Fraulein just started off on a sleigh ride with the little Princess, who is as foolish as the poor Mueller orphan in our hospital, but, mind, she had something warm before I let her go.
Fraulein don't want me to say nothing, but duty compels me. Gracious Lady, I must tell you that Fraulein got up still hungry from table and ate four ham sandwiches, three doughnuts and a cream tart, which I bought for her with my own money (no matter about that) ere I let her go. After I made her warm inside, I made her warm underneath, and put on her the beautiful sables the late Gracious Gentleman, God rest his soul, got given to him in Russia. With all respects to Majesty, the little Princess, in her cheap iltiz (patois) garment, looked like a mere rag doll compared with our Bertha, please excuse me, Gracious Lady.
Gracious Lady will forgive an ignorant girl, but the three of us, Fritz and Lenchen and me, call the Schloss Starvation Hall.
Except Fraulein and Fritz and Lenchen, I haven't heard a decent word since we left home. They just snarl and hiss. Because Fraulein is called the richest girl in the world, they fetch and carry for her, like the mealy-mouthed menials they are; but if it wasn't for the tips, I don't think they'd do a thing for her.
Fraulein won't tell you, so I do, that the three of us rode to the Schloss in a hired coach, because Uncle Majesty was too mean to send a carriage for us—and to think of what at home we always provide for his twenty and more attendants and the fine time we give them!
I see now why they are always so greedy in Essen. They never get such meat and vittel as we give them, in Berlin or Potsdam; they hardly have enough peas in the husks and potatoes in the jackets.
Gracious Lady can't imagine their meanness in the Schloss. I am told there isn't enough linen to give Majesties a daily change. And how the hundreds of menservants keep clean, with only two bathrooms, and hot water which must be carried up four flights of stairs, I can't make out. As to the maids, they don't.