The next morning the valet de chambre came down to the princess and said: “Thank goodness! we have slept in peace for one night, and reigned right along without let or hindrance, and to-day we are going to travel westward, toward Neu-Brandenburg, and that finishes up the whole business.”
And Princess Christel said, “The Lord be praised! Then he will have peace; he is too ambitious a prince.” And three hours later they passed the inn near Neu-Brandenburg, and Sachtleben’s old bay horse, having got to the end of his rope, one of the innkeeper’s horses was hitched up, and his Serene Highness walked up and down before the door, and looked across the sunny lake over to the woods of Broda, and said to his sister Christel in High German—for the innkeeper’s wife stood near, and he must needs show her his Serenity at its finest—
“What say you, Princess? Shall we build our Belvedere on the other side of this pleasant lake?”
Princess Christel was about to reply, but Rand intercepted her and said—
“Your Highness is always right; of course we’ll have a Bellmandur! All people of degree have a Bellmandur except us!”
And his Serene Highness said: “Rand is right.” And so they drove into Neu-Brandenburg.
Having reached this pearl of his possessions, and coming up in fine style on the market-place, he called out of the gilt carriage: “Rand, tell Jochen Boenhas to stop!” And with that he and his sister Christel descended from the coach, and Rand from the box, and the three lackeys from their seat, and the two runners stood panting.
And then said his Serene Highness Adolf Friedrich IV.: “This suits us right well, and here we will build our palace!”
Her Highness Sister Christel opened her mouth to say something, but his Highness the liege lord took the words out of her mouth and said: “Princess Christel, what more would your Grace have? Are you still critical? Look yonder.” For the time being he was surrounded by a circle of his most devoted subjects, and though these were mostly small street urchins, he felt constrained thereby to speak High German to his sister. “Look, yonder, by the side of the mansion-house, we’ll put it up.”
And Princess Christel said: “Cela me convient! And I hope your Highness will have a couple of wings put on, and I will go and live in one of them.”