IN TWO PARTS.—PART II.
Another week has elapsed. The month of May has arrived in all its glory and beauty. The magnificent trees in the park of the Diet House form a leafy arched avenue, and amid the branches of the venerable six hundred year old yew-tree, beneath which Mendelssohn composed the overture to his Midsummer Night’s Dream, feathered songsters of every kind hold their gay revels. The spring, that wonderful season of longing and restless desire, is, as usual, warring successfully against the stern duties of the members of parliament. Even the hardest workers among them, Prince Albrecht of Prussia, Moltke, and Steinmetz, ay, even those most persevering of deputies, Wachler and Count Rennard, can no longer remain indoors. The outcry about the bad ventilation of the House is only a pretext to cover their retreat with honour, and all gradually assemble beneath the giant yew, there to listen to the gay tales and rare bits of scandal with which Hennig and Unruh regale the assembly. Last year, when, during the intense heat, we sat out here in the cool pavillon, discussing the wine duties with the help of some bottles of rare old Rhenish, President Simson had a large telegraphic bell placed on the top of the kiosk, which by its sudden peal so startled our unconscious souls, like the voice of the last trumpet, that it completely scared away the god Bacchus from these precincts for ever.
It was therefore with intense relief that all looked forward to the legitimate parliamentary recreation of the week, Prince Bismarck’s Saturday evening. This time, no constables were visible. Immediately on entering the first reception room up-stairs, we saluted his lady, and were welcomed by Bismarck himself, who at once entered into conversation with us, only stopping occasionally to shake hands with some fresh arrival. The crush gradually began to lessen as the visitors dispersed into the various rooms. We were still standing in the anteroom, near the great sideboard; the moment seemed favourable for ascertaining the meaning of the stuffed hare; I therefore asked Bismarck why it was placed there.
‘Oh, have you not noticed that this hare is brunette?’
‘Brunette?’
‘Yes. Look here—he has a dark-brown head and back, whereas he ought by rights to be yellow. I ought to place an ordinary hare beside him to show off this natural curiosity. He was the only “brunette” hare among the fifteen hundred we killed that day.’
Most of the guests had gone to the billiard-room. There were not so many present on this Saturday evening; a festival in commemoration of the foundation of the Law Union had drawn nearly all the legal celebrities of the House to Charlottenburg.
But what interested me most was Bismarck’s own room, the door of which stood open.
‘May one enter?’ I ask of one of the house-servants.
‘Certainly, sir,’ is the reply.