¶ Those big Ulmar dogs are always around him. At meal times, no matter how fashionable the company, Bismarck pauses at the end of the dinner to throw “Sultana” or “Cyrus” a biscuit!
Sometimes he wears his Cuirassier’s uniform, this broad-shouldered giant with the thick neck and the grizzled mustache; his eyes glower under his thick white brows, and in the depths of his faded blue eyes is the old look of determination.
The old man’s face is ashen grey, but he still has the stamp of immense dignity, a colossal personality, unquestionably representing the first public man of his time.
Folks bow to him, and he is master to the end; men are his servants, not his companions.
¶ He is always very deliberate; he has a peculiar way of stopping in the middle of a sentence to seek out in a moment of silence the exact word he needs.
¶ In the morning, he usually takes a stroll with his big dogs. It was a shock when “Old William” died, and the Emperor then gave Bismarck “Cyrus”; the Prince also had “Rebecca” and “Sultana.”
The Ulmar dogs, following the old giant, resemble tigers in their powerful slouching gait.
At night they sleep in his bedroom.
69
Bismarck refuses to pass under the yoke—the octogenarian’s last struggle of ambition.