I shall never have the benefit of his criticism any more, his keenness, his almost boyish interest, his decided, argumentative disagreement leaping into a blaze over a trifling point, and never again enjoy that glow of satisfaction—worth a whole world of praise—which I used to feel when he said about something, whether a poem, a newspaper article, a story, or a letter, or the most foolish of rhymes: “C’est très joli.”
I moved from my rooms in the town to the Legation and had most of my meals with the Goschens. Sir Edward’s inimitable humour, his minute observation of detail, and his keen eye for the ludicrous, the quaint and all the absurd incidents of daily life—and especially of diplomatic life—made all the official side of things, the dinner-parties, the interviews with ministers, the ceremonies at the station, the pompousness of the diplomats, extraordinarily amusing. Besides this, he was childishly fond of every kind of game, such as battledore and shuttlecock, and cup and ball.
Sir Edward went on leave in the autumn of 1900, and for a fortnight, from 10th October to 22nd October, I had the glory of being in charge, of being acting Chargé d’Affaires of the Legation, so that when the Foreign Office wrote to me they signed dispatches, “Yours with great truth.” The first thing which had to be done was to leave cards on all the Corps Diplomatique. This duty was always carried out by Ole, the Chancery servant. I gave him a sheaf of my cards to leave; he left some of them, but I think he considered that I was altogether too young to be taken seriously as a Chargé d’Affaires, so he left no cards on the minor diplomats, who lived out of the immediate radius of the British Legation. About three days after I had been in charge, Count Benckendorff told me that the minor diplomats who had received no cards from me had held a meeting of indignation; I was to lose no time in smoothing down their ruffled sensibilities, so I left the cards myself. The only diplomatic interview I remember having was with the future King of Greece, who came to see me in my room and talked about something I didn’t understand. My brief era of sole responsibility was put an end to after a fortnight by the arrival of a new First Secretary in place of Alan Johnson. His name was Herbert. Shortly after his arrival Ethel Smyth paid a visit to Copenhagen on her way back to England from Berlin, where she had been negotiating for the performance of her opera, Der Wald. She wanted to make the acquaintance of the Benckendorffs, and she sang her opera to us, her Mass, and many songs of Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Grieg, besides many English and Scotch ballads. Count Benckendorff, who was musical, was enchanted with her singing, with her interpretation of the songs she sang, “la richesse de son exécution,” her vitality, her good humour, her keenness, her passionate interest in everything. She played golf in the daytime and made music in the evening.
At Christmas, Sir Edward’s sons arrived and we had a Christmas-tree in the house, and a treat for the church choir, and endless games of battledore and shuttlecock in the Legation ballroom. Then, suddenly, came the unbelievable news that Queen Victoria was dead. A telegram arrived on the 22nd January, worded thus:
“I am profoundly grieved to inform you that the Queen expired this evening at six-thirty. Notify melancholy intelligence to Government.”
I was just going home for a little leave, but now it seemed impossible: there would be too much to do. But Sir Edward insisted on my going, all the same. Herbert was arriving back from leave, and he said he could get on without me; so I went. I saw the funeral procession from a house near the Marble Arch. The only splash of colour in the greyness and gloom of the long procession was the regalia and the bright pall on the gun-carriage that bore the coffin, and everyone agreed that the most imposing figure in the procession was the German Emperor in a great grey cloak. But the most impressive feature of the whole ceremony was the attitude of the crowd: its size, its silence, the universal black. London was like a dead city, and as someone said at the time: “One went about feeling as if one had cheated at cards.” I felt that what “Onkel Adolph” used to say at Hildesheim was true: “Die Engländer lieben ihre alte Königin” (“The English love their old Queen”).
In February I went to Karlsruhe to hear Ethel Smyth’s first opera, Fantasio, performed at the Hofteater with Mottl conducting. Fantasio is an opera in two acts written on Musset’s play. Ethel Smyth wrote the libretto herself in German. The opera contains some lovely songs, especially one that begins: “Reite ohne Sattelpferd,” and some of the most delicate music Ethel Smyth ever composed, but the libretto is undramatic, and there are not enough bones in the framework to support the musical structure. Mottl conducted the orchestra beautifully; the opera was respectfully received, but without any great enthusiasm. When the performance was over, we had supper with the Grand Duchess of Baden, and there I met a cousin of mine, Charlie d’Otrante, whom I had not seen since I was a child. He was now, though a Swedish subject—his father was a Swede—an officer in the German Army.
I stayed at Copenhagen till the spring. The spring in Denmark comes with a rush. All is wintry, without any hint of the coming change, and then all of a sudden, and in one night, the beech trees are green, and of so startling, vivid, and fresh a green that it almost hurts the eye, and through them you see the sea, a milky haze, and the sky looks as if it had been washed clean.
In May, I went to London for my first spell of long leave since I had passed my examination. I stayed all June and July in London, and in the middle of July I went over to Brittany to stay a few days with Sarah Bernhardt at her house, the Fort des Poulains on the island of Belle-Isle, which is at the extreme north of the island. This visit entailed a terrific journey: first, a long train journey with many changes, then several hours on board a steamer, and then a two hours’ drive. The house was a little white, square, flat-roofed building among the rocks and a stone’s-throw from the sea—a great roaring grey sea, with huge breakers, leaping cataracts of foam, and beaches of grey pebbles. Sarah Bernhardt’s son was staying there, Clairin, the artist, and one or two other people. The house was built entirely of pitch-pine inside. Sarah used to appear at déjeuner.
She spent all the morning working. In the afternoon she played lawn-tennis on a hard court; after dinner we played every kind of game. She was carrying on at the time a heated discussion by telegraph with the poet Catulle Mendès about the forthcoming production of a poetical play of his, called La Vierge d’Avilon. The dispute was about the casting: the poet wished one of the female parts to be played by a certain actress; Sarah wished otherwise. Telegram after telegram was sent and received, each of them several pages in length. The poet’s telegrams were lyrical and beautifully expressed. One of them began: “Vous êtes puissante et câline,” and another addressed her as “La grande faucheuse des illusions.” How the matter was settled ultimately, I never knew. During the whole time I stayed there, Sarah never mentioned the theatre, acting, or actors, except as far as they concerned this particular business discussion. On the other hand, she talked a great deal of her travels all over the world. She talked of Greece, and I quoted to her the line of some French poet about “des temples roux dans des poussières d’or,” and asked her whether it was an accurate description. She said: “Yes, of the Greek temples in Italy”; but, in Greece, she said it was a case of “des temples roses dans des poussières d’argent.” She said the most remarkable sight she had ever seen in her life was in Australia, when, in a large prairie, she had seen the whole sky suddenly filled with a dense flock of brilliantly coloured birds, which had risen all at once from the ground and obscured the whole horizon with their dazzling coloured plumage.