Royal Highness

by Thomas Mann

In the first place, Knüppelsdorf was a city, and Klaus Heinrich alluded to that three times, to the pride of the inhabitants. He went on to say that the city of Knüppelsdorf, as her historical past witnessed, had been connected by bonds of loyalty to the House of Grimmburg for several centuries. As long ago as the fourteenth century, he said, Langrave Heinrich XV, the Rutensteiner, had signalled out Knüppelsdorf for special favour. He, the Rutensteiner, had lived in the Schloss built on the neighbouring Rutensteine, whose girdle of proud towers and strong walls had sent its greeting to the country for miles round.

Then he reminded his hearers how through inheritance and marriage Knüppelsdorf had at last come into the branch of the family to which his brother and he himself belonged. Heavy storms had in the course of years burst over Knüppelsdorf. Years of war, conflagration, and pestilence had visited it, yet it had always risen again and had always remained loyal to the house of its hereditary princes. And this characteristic the Knüppelsdorf of to-day proved that it possessed by raising a memorial to his, Klaus Heinrich's, beloved father, and it would be with unusual pleasure that he would report to his gracious brother the dazzling and hearty reception which he, as his representative, had here experienced…. The veil fell, the massed choirs of the “Wreath of Harmony” again did their best. And Klaus Heinrich stood smiling, under his theatrical tent, with a feeling of having exhausted his store of knowledge, happy in the certainty that nobody dare question him further. For he couldn't have said one blessed word more about Knüppelsdorf!

How tiring his life was, how strenuous! Sometimes he felt as if he had constantly to keep upright, at a great strain to his elasticity, something which it was quite impossible, or possible only in favourable conditions, to keep upright. Sometimes his calling seemed to him a wretched and paltry one, although he liked it and gladly undertook every expedition required of him in his representative capacity.

He travelled miles to an agricultural exhibition, travelled in a badly hung cart from Schloss “Hermitage” to the station, where the Premier, the Chief of Police, and the directors of the railway company awaited him at the saloon carriage. He travelled for an hour and a half, the while carrying on, not without difficulty, a conversation with the Grand Ducal adjutants, who had been attached to him, and the Agricultural Commissioner, Assistant Secretary Heckepfeng, a severe and respectful man who also accompanied him. Then he reached the station of the city which had organized the agricultural exhibition. The Mayor, with a chain over his shoulders, was awaiting him at the head of six or seven other official persons. The station was decorated with a quantity of fir-branches and festoons. In the back-ground stood the plaster busts of Albrecht and Klaus Heinrich in a frame of greenery. The public behind the barriers gave three cheers, and the bells pealed.

The Mayor read an address of welcome to Klaus Heinrich. He thanked him, he said, brandishing his top-hat in his hand, he thanked him on behalf of the city for all the favour which Klaus Heinrich's brother and he himself showed them, and heartily wished him a long and blessed reign. He also begged the Prince twice over graciously to crown the work which had prospered so famously under his patronage, and to open the agricultural exhibition.

This Mayor bore the title of Agricultural Councillor, a fact of which Klaus Heinrich had been apprised, and on account of which he addressed him thus three times in his answer. He said that he was delighted that the work of the agricultural exhibition had prospered so famously under his patronage. (As a matter of fact he had forgotten that he was patron of this exhibition.) He had come to put the finishing touch that day to the great work, by opening the exhibition. Then he inquired as to four things: as to the economical circumstances of the city, the increase in the population in recent years, as to the labour-market (although he had no very clear idea what the labour-market was), and as to the price of victuals. When he heard that the price of victuals was high, he “viewed the matter in a serious light,” and that of course was all he could do. Nobody expected anything more of him, and it came as a comfort to everybody that he had viewed the high prices in a serious light.

Then the Mayor presented the city dignitaries to him: the higher District Judge, a noble landed proprietor from the neighbourhood, the rector, the two doctors, and a forwarding agent, and Klaus Heinrich addressed a question to each, thinking over, while the answer came, what he should say to the next. The local veterinary surgeon and the local inspector of stock-breeding were also present. Finally they climbed into carriages, and drove, amid the cheers of the inhabitants, between fences of school-children, firemen, the patriotic societies, through the gaily decked city to the exhibition ground—not without being stopped once more at the gate by white-robed maidens with wreaths on their heads, one of whom, the Mayor's daughter, handed to the prince in his carriage a bouquet with white satin streamers, and in lasting memory of the moment received one of those pretty and valuable gew-gaws which Klaus Heinrich took with him on his journeys, a breast-pin embedded, for a reason she could not guess, in velvet (sammet), which figured in the Courier as a jewel mounted in gold.

Tents, pavilions, and stands had been erected on the ground. Gaudy pennons fluttered on long rows of poles strung together with festoons. On a wooden platform hung with bunting, between drapings, festoons, and parti-coloured flagstaffs, Klaus Heinrich read the short opening speech. And then began the tour of inspection.

There were cattle tethered to low crossbars, prize beasts of the best blood with smooth round particoloured bodies and numbered shields on their broad foreheads. There were horses stamping and snuffing, heavy farm-horses with Roman noses and bushes of hair round their pasterns, as well as slender, restless saddle horses. There were naked short-legged pigs, and a large selection of both ordinary and prize pigs. With dangling bellies they grubbed up the ground with their snouts, while great blocks of woolly sheep filled the air with a confused chorus of bass and treble. There were ear-splitting exhibits of poultry, cocks and hens of every kind, from the big Brahmaputra to the copper-coloured bantam; ducks and pigeons of all sorts, eggs and fodder, both fresh and artificially preserved. There were exhibits of agricultural produce, grain of all sorts, beets and clover, potatoes, peas, and flax; vegetables, too, both fresh and dried; raw and preserved fruit; berries, marmalade, and syrups.

Lastly there were exhibits of agricultural implements and machines, displayed by several technical firms, provided with everything of service to agriculture, from the hand-plough to the great black-funnelled motors, looking like elephants in their stall, from the simplest and most intelligible objects to those which consisted of a maze of wheels, chains, rods, cylinders, arms, and teeth—a world, an entire overpowering world of ingenious utility.