SECRET NUMBER FOUR
THE MYSTERIOUS FRAU KLEIST
The clever intrigues of Frau Kleist were unknown to any outside the Court circle at Potsdam.
She was indeed a queer personage, "only less of a personality than His Majesty," as that shiftiest of German statesmen, Prince Bülow, declared to me one day as we sat together in my room in the Berlin Schloss.
Frau Kleist was the Court dancing-mistress, whose fastidious judgment had to be satisfied by any young débutante or officer before they presumed to dance before Royalty at the State balls. Before every ball Frau Kleist held several dance rehearsals in the Weisser-Saal (White Salon) at the Berlin Schloss, and she was more exacting than any pompous General on parade. Perhaps she was seventy. Her real age I never knew. But, friends that we were, she often chatted with me and deplored the flat-footedness of the coming generation of Teutons, and more than once I have seen her lift her skirts and, displaying neat silk-stockinged ankles on the polished floor of the Weisser-Saal, make, for the benefit of the would-be débutantes, graceful tiptoe turns with a marvellous grace of movement.
Truly Frau Kleist, with her neat waist and thin, refined face, was a very striking figure at the Berlin Court. The intricacies of the minuet and gavotte, as well as those of the old-world dances in which she delighted, were taught by the old lady to Prince Joachim and Princess Victoria Luise, both of whom always went in deadly fear of her caustic tongue and overbearing manner.
The Emperor never permitted any dancing at Court which was not up to a high standard of excellence, and all who sought to dance were compelled to pass before the critical eye of the sharp-tongued old lady in her stiff silken gown.
Once, I remember, certain young people of the smart set of Berlin sought to introduce irregularities in the Lancers, but they soon discovered that their cards were cancelled.
Whence she had come or who had been responsible for her appointment nobody knew. One thing was quite certain, that though at an age when usually rheumatism prevents agility, yet she was an expert dancer. Another thing was also certain, that, if a débutante or a young military elegant were awkward or flat-footed, she would train them privately in the Terpsichorean art, especially in the old-world dances which are so popular at Court, and, accepting a little palm-oil, would then pass them—after squeezing them sufficiently—as fit to receive the Imperial command to the Court balls.