MEMORIES OF THE
KAISER’S COURT

MEMORIES OF THE
KAISER’S COURT

BY
ANNE TOPHAM
WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS
SEVENTH AND CHEAPER EDITION
METHUEN & CO. LTD.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON

This Edition, at 2s. 6d. net, First Published in 1915

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

MEMORIES OF THE KAISER’S COURT

CHAPTER I
ARRIVAL AT THE PRUSSIAN COURT

TOWARDS the middle of August 1902, on a very hot, dusty, suffocating day, I was travelling, the prey of various apprehensions, to the town of Homburg-vor-der-Höhe, where the Prussian Court was at that time in temporary residence.

Thither I had been summoned, to join it in the capacity of resident English teacher to the young nine-year-old Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia, only daughter of the German Emperor and Empress.

A stormy night-passage of eight hours on the North Sea, followed by a long train-journey through stifling heat lasting till five o’clock in the afternoon, naturally affects any one’s spiritual buoyancy, and it was with a distinct feeling of depression that I at last descended from the train on to the platform of Homburg station.

I confidently expected that a carriage would be waiting for me, but nothing in the least resembling a royal equipage is to be seen. There is only a row of those shabby, time-worn, open droschkies, harnessed to attenuated, weary-looking horses, which, even since the advent of the “taxi” into the social conditions of the Fatherland, still maintain a precarious, struggling existence in most German towns.

I am a helpless stranger, with a very limited knowledge of the German language as applied to porters and cabmen, and consequently very much at the mercy of these functionaries.

As my luggage is plainly addressed to the “Königliches Schloss,” the group of officials who surround me, all talking together in strident tones, are most anxious that I should get there as soon as possible. I manage to convey to them my idea that a carriage will probably be coming for me soon, and after a few minutes’ interval of waiting one porter obligingly goes outside the station to look up the long street for the missing vehicle; but he returns sadly shaking his head.

“Kein Wagen,” he murmurs with an air of finality; and in spite of my misgivings they all fall upon my various possessions and put them into the oldest and most decrepit of the droschkies—the only one left—with a horse to correspond, and a driver who strikes the last note in deplorable shabbiness and stupidity. No one who has not travelled in German trains fed with German coal can appreciate the sheer discomfort and misery caused by this wretched fuel, which vomits forth clouds of thick black smoke, laden with solid, sooty particles, having a fatal affinity for the features of the passengers. I have assimilated to myself a certain amount of this invariable accompaniment of Continental travel, and am uncomfortably conscious of the fact. Neither is it thus—in a wretched droschky, with my luggage piled drunkenly around me at various untidy, ill-fitting angles—that I had dreamed of entering the precincts of royalty.

Later on I grew callous in this respect and perceived that I had been unduly sensitive over a small matter; but my feelings on this important occasion were, it must be admitted, acutely miserable. One knows instinctively that a first impression counts for a good deal.

Up the long Louisen-strasse and past the Kurhaus we rattle over the cobble-stones of past ages with which so many German towns are paved, and down a side-street I catch a glimpse of a smart-looking brougham with a footman sitting beside the coachman on the box, driving quickly in the direction from which we have come. I am convinced that it is the carriage meant for me, and would like to go back again to the station; but all attempts to convey my meaning to the egregious person whose back obscures my view are unavailing. He shrugs his shoulders, whips up his horse, utters guttural incomprehensible ejaculations, and points to a large old building in front of us before whose open gates a sentry is pacing. The sentry looks surprised and hesitates, the animal in the shafts crawls through the gateway and comes to a sudden halt in the midst of a big paved courtyard, surrounded by open windows and containing in one angle a pleasant flower-garden of green turf and climbing geraniums. We are in the Royal Homburg Schloss.

A beautiful sun-bathed silence prevails everywhere. Through a gateway opposite, leading into a second courtyard, a fountain can be heard plashing gently with occasional intermittent hesitations and precipitations, while a pigeon croons slumberously at intervals on the roof. Otherwise it seems an absolutely deserted spot. There is nothing to indicate before which of the various doors, which stand half open to the light and air, I ought to be set down.

The driver assumes a round-shouldered, blinking, vacuous attitude of masterly inactivity, while his horse takes a nap after his exertions. I descend from the hateful vehicle and wonder what I ought to do next. Between heat, exasperation, and incertitude, added to the fatigues of travel, I am in a parlous condition, one fume and fret of weariness and desperation.

Presently from under the archway, interposing his bulk between me and the glancing sunlight, comes walking slowly a gentleman of stately mien, garbed in black frock-coat and tall silk hat. He wears the aspect of an Ambassador, and may be one for all I know or care. I fling myself into the orbit of his path, assembling together with beating heart the few fragmentary bits of German that remain with me after the varied emotions of the day. I murmur something inarticulate and wave my hand explanatorily in the direction of the supine droschky-driver, who, surrounded by my luggage, still continues to crouch in obvious somnolence on his box.

The black-coated functionary may not be a diplomat—I subsequently find that he is a Hoffourrier, one of those pleasant minor court-officials who regulate royal journeys and the small financial housekeeping arrangements of royal households—but he has the art of seizing a situation at a glance. His eye wanders whimsically over the luggage, the slumberous droschky-driver and his horse. It strikes him, no doubt, as a humorous situation. So it would appear to me under different circumstances. He answers in polite but unintelligible German, wakens the driver, directs him to a door in a corner, and rings a bell; a rush of gaitered footmen follows; something kaleidoscopic and swift takes place; I find myself following a servant down a long, cool, bare passage decorated with old German prints—up a tiny winding staircase into a pleasant, shady room looking out over the red roofs of Homburg away towards great purple hills against a background of pale lemon-coloured sky.

The quiet, calm beauty of the outlook as seen from this high-pitched gabled corner of the quaint old Schloss falls soothingly on my tired, travel-worn soul. I sink into a funny old-fashioned chair covered with a blue spotted chintz which has been out of fashion for at least a hundred and twenty years, and contemplate the fat, plethoric, square sofa and the rest of the furniture, which is delightfully old—so old that its ugliness has mellowed into something charming and alluring. There is a big mirror fixed over a marble-topped mahogany chest of drawers in which I catch a glimpse of my haggard face; there are various mahogany chairs covered with the before-mentioned blue-spotted print; there is a carpet of vivid moss-green. All is very plain and comfortable and old-world, and spotlessly clean and fresh. Flowers are on the writing-table which stands in the embrasure of the window.

Soon a pleasant chinking of china is heard outside, and a man in a flowing Russian beard parted in the middle brings in a tray with tea. He bows politely as he enters the room, the bow without which no well-trained German servant comes into the presence of those whom he serves, and deftly arranges the tea-table. He is clad in plain dark livery, such as is worn by all the Diener-schaft in the royal employment who are below the rank of footmen.

The sight of the teapot and the taste of the tea set at rest the doubts I have had whether this cheerful beverage would be one of the luxuries I should have to renounce permanently on leaving England.

“German people all drink coffee, and if they do make tea it’s like coloured water,” I had been assured many times over. That this is true still of the great mass of the people my experience in many parts of Germany has proved; but the Court buys its very excellent tea direct from a big London warehouse and brews it with due respect to its peculiar needs.

A small bedroom, in which my luggage has been deposited, leads out of the little sitting-room. It contains also the same quaint old-world furniture, together with a short, squat, solid-looking mahogany bedstead with deep wooden sides, covered with one of those big bags filled with down which take the place of an eiderdown quilt and are so typically German. One sees them hanging out of the windows for an airing every morning—at hours, it is needless to say, permitted by the police.

I wash away the dust of the journey, change and begin to unpack, wondering if my clothes are right, if I ought to have had longer or shorter trains on my dresses, and wishing somebody would come along and explain to me any points that might guide my inexperienced steps.

The departing English teacher whose place I am taking has written to me a letter purporting to give advice as to wardrobe and etiquette, but she has recently become “engaged,” and except an impression that white kid gloves are a chief necessity of life at court, there is little of practical use to be gathered from the vague kindliness of her short note. She writes that there is practically no etiquette except such as can be “seen at a glance,” and leaves it at that.

A knock comes at the door; a voice, a pleasant, cheerful woman’s voice, calls my name; and with both hands outstretched in welcome enters a tall, middle-aged, smiling person, who introduces herself as the lady-in-waiting with whom I have been corresponding. She radiates kindness and sympathy, is gaiety and charm personified, knows exactly how I am feeling—how excited, dubious, tired, and worried—and she laughs it all away while she stands clasping my hand and shaking it at intervals. She is much amused at the description of my entry into the Schloss, and explains that a carriage and luggage-cart had been sent to meet me with one of the Empress’s own English-speaking footmen, so that everything might be as easy as possible; but there had been a mistake as to the time—probably on my part—and as the train was very punctual I had been there too soon.

“And now,” she concludes, “you will dine to-night with Her Majesty at half-past seven.”

I start back in horror.

“Yes,” she laughs; “it is the best opportunity, because the Emperor is away and it will be very quiet—just a few of the ladies and gentlemen of the court; and it will be quite easy, you know. Her Majesty is so kind, so sympathetic—she knows how tired you must be—she will not expect you to be brilliant; but when there is a plunge to be made,” she pointed downwards as to an unfathomable abyss, “it is better to make it and get it over, isn’t it?”

“Will the Princess be there?” I ask with the calmness of despair.

“No, not to-night. She is very much excited and wanted to come and see you, but is to wait until to-morrow. She has been talking all day about your coming.”

I wonder dubiously in what aspect I present myself to the thoughts of my unknown pupil—whether pleasantly or otherwise.

On looking back, that first dinner at a royal table has in it many of the unstable elements of a dream, I might almost say of a nightmare. It passed confusedly through my mind as a series of impressions following each the other with such rapidity and lack of cohesion that only the Cubist or Futurist mind could hope to depict it adequately. An impression that my frock is not quite the right thing, that it is too English and not German enough—it was to be a “high” dress, said the Countess, as we parted, and mine was neckless while the other ladies were clothed right up to the ears and chin; further impressions that I am preternaturally dull and stupid, that the smile I attempt is obviously artificial, that I am an isolated speck of mind surrounded by an incomprehensible ocean of German babbling.

Before dinner I have been solemnly conducted by the Countess to the apartments of the Empress, wearing one long white kid glove, while the other is feverishly crumpled in my hand together with a fan, without which even in the coldest weather no properly equipped lady can, I learned, be considered fit to appear before royalty. An elderly footman shows us into a little ante-room furnished in brilliant yellow satin, and here we sit and wait, chatting in the desultory, half-hearted manner of people who expect every moment to be interrupted.

It is some ten minutes or so before a door leading into an inner apartment is opened and we are ushered in.

“You will kiss Her Majesty’s hand,” whispers the Countess with a reassuring smile as she passes on in front of me.

The Empress is sitting on a sofa, with a stick beside her, for she has had the misfortune to sprain her ankle rather severely some days before, and she receives us with a pleasant, gentle smile and a look which reveals at once the fact that she herself is feeling a slight embarrassment. I suppose the Countess presents me to Her Majesty—I have no definite recollection of it—but at any rate she disappears and leaves us alone together. I bend and kiss the outstretched hand, and feel already that this is going to be quite a pleasant interview, so eminently sympathetic and kindly reassuring is the face that smiles into mine with a certain shy diffidence.

I find myself sitting in a chair talking easily and without restraint to a mother about her little daughter. It is all quite simple and straightforward. There is no longer anything to trouble or be doubtful over. We exchange views on theories of education, on a child’s small idiosyncrasies, on the difficulties of giving her enough fresh air when so many hours are taken up with study. We get absorbed in our talk, and find that we have many views in common—always a delightful discovery, whether the other person be an Empress or a charwoman. At last Her Majesty realizes that a good many hungry ladies and gentlemen are waiting not far away for her appearance and their dinner, and so at length she rises and walks through several rooms, preceded by a footman who flings open both leaves of the folding doors, till we emerge in an apartment brightly lit with many wax candles, where a subdued buzz of conversation suddenly stops and the whole company bows and curtsies at once, like a field of corn when the wind passes over it.

At table I sit between a young officer in uniform and the English lady who is leaving to-morrow and to whose privileges and responsibilities I am to succeed. I learn with horror that with her departure I shall be left to grapple single-handed with whatever difficulties may arise—without any aid or advice excepting that which the “Countess,” who is continually occupied, may find time to fling to me at odd intervals of the day. The German Ober-Gouvernante, whom I had expected to find at my side with counsel and guidance, is in strict quarantine, having been in contact with some infectious illness, and will continue to be possibly contagious for the next ten days. She is being purified and disinfected somewhere with relations, and will resume her duties when the Court returns to the New Palace near Potsdam.

In the meantime I shall carry on as well as my ignorance allows the numerous duties of her position as well as my own! Perhaps it is the sympathetic pity of the kind German people in my immediate neighbourhood, their encouragement to be “firm” towards my pupil, the transparent hints that she is a remarkably difficult child to manage, and that only a person of unyielding discipline who will exact rigid and unquestioning obedience can have the least chance of coping with her extraordinary temperament, that make the true inwardness of the situation apparent.

“I rather like naughty children,” I murmur wearily, with an effort to throw off the forebodings caused by their remarks; “they have so much more character than good ones. Most people who turn out rather remarkable seem to have been distinguished in their youth for naughtiness.”

They all smile indulgently, with the air of humouring the whims of a child whose words are not to be taken seriously.

“Grown-up people can often be very annoying too,” I remark, as a further contribution to the discussion. They smile again at each other, and immediately change the subject to something else quite unconnected with education, and, lapsing into German, leave me, so to speak, stranded in a backwater, where I wonder vaguely if I can possibly keep my eyes open much longer and if it will be lèse-majesté if my head suddenly sinks into my dessert plate.

Mercifully, when we rise from the table I am dismissed to much-needed repose by the Empress, and bow my way through the door out of the confused blur into which the lights and the people’s faces are beginning to merge.

I had had no sleep the previous night, having spent it tossing on the stormy waves in a state of acute misery from sea-sickness; I had travelled all day through the scorching hours, with little to eat or drink, in a train which shook and rattled and bumped as only Continental trains can; I had been anxious and harried, owing to ignorance of the language and customs and train-regulations of the country through which I was passing; I had been fretted by the droschky-driver, presented to an Empress, and had supped at the royal table in private, which is much more alarming than on a ceremonious occasion; so that it was the mere wreck and shadow of myself which, guided by the pictures, crawled half-dazed along those interminable passages.

But the morning aspect of even the most difficult situation is invariably more courageous and hopeful than that of evening. I breakfasted in the little sitting-room with my compatriot, who is absorbed in packing, and vouchsafes not one single helpful hint as to my future conduct, for which to this day I bear her somewhat of a grudge. She dismisses the whole business with the airy lightness of one whom it no longer concerns. She shows me a beautiful silver dish, a wedding present from Her Majesty, and packs it away with a smile on her face. She hums a tune while she wanders in and out from room to room, where the sunlight flickers, brightening and disappearing under the light clouds that sail in the blue above.

At about half-past ten a footman comes with a summons to go downstairs, so I put on my outdoor things and follow him out into the sunny courtyard, through a big archway, and along winding sandy paths, till I reach a point where I can see the Empress sitting at a table under some big trees near what is called the “English garden"—a garden made, and still maintained much as she left it, by that daughter of George III who married a Landgraf of Hesse-Homburg.

Here it is that the Kaiser’s little daughter first comes dancing lightly into my life, to remain in it, a permanent and very delightful memory. A steep grassy bank in front descends so deeply to a tiny lake lying below that the intervening shore is hidden. Suddenly above this bank appears the sleek golden head of a small girl of nine or so, dressed in a stiff, starched, plain white sailor dress with a blue collar and a straw sailor hat.

Her mother calls to her in English, “Come here, Sissy”; and with a hop skip and jump over the intervening space she springs forward and holds out her hand to me with frank friendliness.

A few steps behind her comes another flying figure in white—her brother, Prince Joachim, the youngest of the six sons of the Kaiser; and then above the bank emerges the young officer I met at supper the night before, who is Governor to the Prince. Both children begin talking volubly in German to the Empress, the little girl, as far as my limited knowledge permits me to judge, emphatically contradicting every word her brother says. They are obviously—well, perhaps, it would be over-emphasis to call it quarrelling, but they are certainly not quite in accord. The young officer, lingering in the background—lingering in backgrounds becomes a fine art at court—gives me a meaning glance, raises his eyebrows, smiles and shakes his head with a slight shrug of his shoulders.

“They are always zanking,” he says to me in his fluent but imperfect English, when, after a few minutes, the Empress departs, leaving me to the full and undisturbed enjoyment of my duties. I subsequently consult a dictionary and discover that zanken is a German verb meaning “to wrangle,” “to dispute acrimoniously.” It is a conspicuous characteristic of the children’s intercourse in those early days. Although they cannot bear to be parted from each other, they are as frankly and reciprocally rude as politicians, discovering an amazing fertility in the application of opprobrious and insulting epithets, flowers of rhetoric of which I gather a few for personal use if necessary. These storms beat with bewildering and baffling violence on my head, lacking, as I do, the knowledge of the German language necessary to make my censure more discriminating; but I note that Prince Joachim’s Governor is just as helpless as myself, though his command of the vernacular might be supposed to give him some advantage.

The next few days are busied with initiation into that mysterious inner side of court life of which the general public necessarily knows little but imagines many vain things. Chief among those early impressions is that of the Kaiser himself, whom I have not yet seen, as he is absent on one of his numerous journeys. Distilled through the alembic of his little daughter’s mind I soon perceive that the Emperor, hitherto known to me only by the medium of newspapers, which, although perhaps accurately informed as to facts, often throw a misleading light on the character and temperament of this much-discussed monarch, is not always playing the part of the frowning Imperial Personage of fierce moustaches, corrugated brow and continually-clenched mailed fist—that he frequently recedes from this warlike attitude and becomes an ordinary humorous domestic “Papa,” who makes sportive jokes with his family at the breakfast table and is even occasionally guilty of the more atrocious form of pun.

This phase of “Papa’s” character is forcibly, almost painfully, brought home to me when one day his daughter, in a moment of relaxation, seeks to amuse herself by practising the schoolboy trick—she is very schoolboyish—of making with her mouth and cheek the “pop” of a champagne cork and the subsequent gurgle of the flowing wine.

“Whoever taught you these unladylike accomplishments?” I ask, in the reproving tones appropriate to an instructor of youth.

“S-s-sh! It was Papa,” she answers gleefully, repeating the offending sound with an even more perfect imitation than before; “he can do it splendidly,” and she “gurgled” with persevering industry.

It is obvious that in the intervals of inspecting regiments and making warlike speeches “Papa” unbends to a considerable extent when in the bosom of his family. But I learn with some regret that “poor Mamma” seldom has time to get a really proper breakfast, because after she has poured out “Papa’s” coffee, buttered his toast and ministered to his other wants she has only time to snatch the merest mouthful for herself before he is hurrying away to call the dogs and put on his cloak for a brisk early morning walk.

“Come on, come on,” he says, with cheerful impatience; “how you do dawdle over your food, to be sure! I’ve finished long ago,” and the whole family has to leave its meal half eaten and start on an hour’s tramp through the streets of the town or to the beautiful hills outside. It is clear that “Papa” is the dominating force of his daughter’s life. His ideas, his opinions on men and things are persistently quoted by her; trenchant, fluent criticisms on persons of world-wide fame, astonishing verdicts on men of the hour, issue from her lips in bewildering confidences.

“Papa says that Herr Muller” (the name of course is not Muller) “is a Schafs-Kopf and doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” she would say glibly of some well-known politician on whose utterances the world was hanging with bated breath.

These communications are sometimes almost disconcerting. They add a burden to life, a fear lest one may betray some great political secret from sheer inadvertence. It is a relief when the Princess turns her confidences into less embarrassing channels.

The chief pets of her existence at this time are two ponies, which, together with a small victoria upholstered in pale blue satin, have been presented to her by the then reigning Sultan of Turkey, who was afterwards deposed. These two little creatures, named Ali and Aladdin, are of a pale fawn-colour, with long white silky manes and tails, and when drawing the small blue-lined victoria, which has a diminutive groom perched on a small seat behind, make an extremely exotic circus-like effect on the country roads round Homburg. The Princess always drives herself, and delights in flourishing a rather large whip, which it is necessary frequently to apply to the ponies’ fat sides, for they are of a somewhat sluggish disposition; but their appearance outside the Schloss gates is hailed with delight by the crowds who stand waiting there waving their hats and handkerchiefs on all sides.

Cronberg, the residence of the late Empress Frederick, now in the possession of her daughter the Princess Frederick Charles of Hesse, is within driving distance of Homburg. At this time the children of another sister of the Emperor are staying there—the Greek princes and princesses, whose father was then Crown Prince and is now King of Greece. As the Princess of Hesse is herself the mother of six sons, two pairs of twins among them, there is no lack of playfellows for the Princess and Prince Joachim, who frequently exchange visits with their young cousins. Cronberg is a beautiful house built in old German style, quite different from the peculiar Greco-French character of most palaces in Germany.

It is pleasant to watch the cataract of white-clad children rushing in and out of the doorways, displaying that universal characteristic of their age—a desire to penetrate to unusual places, such as kitchens, cellars and attics. They have glorious games on rainy afternoons in the upper regions of the old Homburg Schloss, in whose cobwebby, dusty rooms, among old forgotten lumber, are to be found many curiously interesting things—old portraits of dead and gone Landgrafs and Landgravines, pictures of the children of the old house, attired in the cumbersome finery which in past days hampered unfortunate infancy, pieces of queer armour, ancient blunderbusses and rapiers, old moth-eaten furniture with the silk worn into rags.

I had developed an unsuspected talent in the direction of Versteckens—the ever-popular hide-and-seek—more especially in the rôle of seeker, and distributed the thrills of which the game is capable with even-handed impartiality, not forgetting that even the child of least originality, who hides in the most perfectly obvious place with large portions of his anatomy plainly visible, likes to have, so to speak, a run for his money, and enjoys the hovering discovery best when it retires baffled on the verge, and the wrong cupboard is frequently and persistently searched.

The form of the game which we played exacted that the seeker should count slowly up to a hundred with tightly shut eyes and then begin the search; but I compromised this rather wearisome method by allowing five minutes’ “law” and beginning to count at ninety. These odd five minutes were utilized to examine at ease many objects which I should otherwise never have seen; and to an accompaniment of muffled shrieks, thundering footsteps, and a passing vision of fleeting white legs, short frilly skirts, and rather smudgy princely features (for these out-of-the-way corners were a trifle dirty) I was enabled to study many quaint old steel engravings of hunting scenes which hung on the walls, engravings which would make a collector’s mouth water.

I still remember the indignation with which Prince Max of Hesse made the discovery that I did not pass these intervals in a state of temporary blindness.

“You don’t keep your eyes shut all the time: you must keep them shut,” he objected. (They all spoke English and German equally well, but preferred German when talking among themselves, with the exception of the Greek children, who always spoke English.)

I have some difficulty in persuading him that I may honourably keep my eyes fixed on a picture without transgressing the rules of the game.

“But you can see us go by out of the corner of your eye,” he persisted.

“But I should hear you in any case.”

“Well, then you must shut your ears as well; hold your hands over them.” He is a very conscientious little boy and a past master in the matter of argument. If he had not been dragged along by my Princess there is no saying what I might have been forced to do, but she knows when she is having a good time and is no stickler for the strict observance of rules.

“Come along, Max,” she cries; “I’ve got a splendid place. Don’t begin to count yet, Topsy.” She has already found a nickname for me, and “Topsy” I remain, for the rest of my career.

On the evening of one of the days when we have been playing hide-and-seek my pupil tells me an interesting piece of news.

“Papa is coming back to-morrow morning,” she says gleefully, “and then you’ll see him. I expect you’re looking forward to it very much. I shall tell Papa all about you. You are just like all English people—very thin. Why don’t you eat more and try and get fatter?”

“I don’t want to get fat,” I reply indignantly; “and if I did, what would be the use when I have to run about all day after you children? I expect I ran at least ten miles this afternoon when we were playing hide-and-seek.”

“I expect you did,” answered the Princess regretfully. “It was a splendid game, wasn’t it? Georgie hid in a bath once and Alexander turned the tap on him; but,” returning to an earlier subject, “Papa will want to know all about you, and I shall tell him you are very thin. Won’t you be very pleased to see Papa?”

I murmur something politely appropriate and noncommittal, but the fearful joy reserved for the morrow somewhat troubles my thoughts that night. Life seems already to be almost sufficiently strenuous.

CHAPTER II
HOMBURG-VOR-DER-HÖHE

IT does not take long to discover that my small charge has inherited the temperament of her race. What Carlyle calls “Hohenzollern choler,” and a certain foot-stamping manner of expressing opinion, exhibit themselves at an early stage of our acquaintance. She is a highly-strung, nervous, excitable child of generous wayward impulses, who needs an existence of calm routine for the healthy development and cultivation of her mind, but by the circumstances of her life is kept in a restless vortex of activity which places considerable difficulties in the way of her education.

She is in her tenth year when I first know her, a well-grown child of her age, with rather pale features and a lively, alert expression. She wears her fair hair cut in a straight fringe across her forehead and hanging in long “nursery ringlets” over her shoulders. These ringlets are produced, in what is naturally perfectly straight hair, by the art of her English nurse, whom I often watch with a certain fascination as she brushes the shining strands round her finger, forming without any extraneous aid the most beautiful and regular curls possible.

There are but two people of whom the Princess really stands in awe. Her “Papa” of course is one, and I am not sure if her English nurse does not occupy an almost equal position with His Majesty in this respect. “Nanna” is a disciplinarian of the first water, and like other disciplinarians, brooks no interference with her own laws, which, in a court where many overlapping interests exist, is apt to breed many difficulties. She has been thirteen years in the service of the Empress, has brought up the younger children from birth, watched by them together with their mother many nights when they were ill, and practically saved the life of Prince Joachim, the youngest of the Kaiser’s six sons, by her constant and faithful care of his delicate infancy. But one by one her nurslings have been taken from her, not without a certain fierce opposition on her part. Prussian princes are given early into military hands. It is a tradition of their training, and the shrewd old nurse has a very strong opinion, shared by the Kaiserin, that an inexperienced young officer is no person to be entrusted with the superintendence of a young child’s physical and mental needs. She has battled indomitably, and often successfully, for her charges, invading even the professorial departments; and, aided and abetted by the Court doctor, who naturally considers physical before intellectual development, has often entirely routed the educational authorities, who have had to retire baffled and disconcerted.

But her triumphs were short-lived. An elaborate educational machine equipped with expert professors for every subject, with a carefully thought-out programme, in which every hour of the day is rigidly mapped out, cannot be stayed for the whims of one obstructive woman obviously prejudiced against German institutions. The frequent skirmishes had developed into something of the nature of a campaign. It is not good for children to be, as they frequently are even in less illustrious circles, the centre of warring elements; so at last the inevitable happened, and with much reluctance “Nanna’s” dismissal to England, of course with an ample pension, was finally decided upon. When I first made her acquaintance in Homburg her influence was a waning one; her autocratic rule was loosening—her departure delayed only by the beneficent hand of Majesty, which shrank from the final severance from a faithful if somewhat injudicious servant.

“Nanna” subsequently asserted that I had been specially deputed as an instrument of Providence to console her during those last few weeks; and though I myself am not personally conscious of any qualifications for the office of consoler, I may at any rate lay claim to the credit of having been a very efficient safety-valve for her emotions, which poured over me in a constant flood of retrospect and admonition. She was uncompromisingly British, in spite of her thirteen years’ residence abroad. It was at once her strength and her undoing. She refused to strike her flag to any mere lady-in-waiting or German Ober-Gouvernante, and maintained an inflexible principle of behaviour in situations where the tact and pliability indispensable to diplomatic relations were most needed.

“Do you think I was going to stand her putting the thermometer in the bath-water to see how hot it was?” she asked me indignantly, referring to the absent Ober-Gouvernante; and I agreed that it was the kind of thing that no one could be expected to bear.

She was a good faithful soul, rather crabbed and cross sometimes, and she inspired in the German footmen and housemaids under her orders a good deal of respect and fear, and also, as I subsequently discovered, a certain amount of affection, such as sterling qualities will always earn for themselves somehow; and if the German associations modified nothing in her character, the same cannot be said of her speech, which, while still remaining British in outward form, became in the course of years somewhat warped from its original purity.

“At Christmas,” she told me once, when showing the gifts that the Empress had made to her, “last year I became a set of teaspoons, and the year before I became a lovely silver teapot.” She had obviously confused the German word bekommen, “to get,” with the similar-sounding but different-meaning English word.

It was at a picnic that I was first presented to His Majesty the Emperor. We had all driven one afternoon in a series of carriages to a beautiful spot in the surrounding hills, where, a little way into the forest which bordered the roadside, a table on trestles was laid for tea. I had already been warned by the Princess of the impending joy.

“You’ll see Papa now, and be introduced,” she said before we started, her face glowing in sympathy with what she supposed I must be feeling. “Won’t it be lovely?”

His Majesty and the gentlemen with whom he is talking volubly when I first catch sight of him are all in uniform, which gleams brightly under the deep green of the pine trees. The German officer, it is well known, wears uniform continually, and adds greatly thereby to the colour and gaiety of the social functions in which he takes part. The Emperor sets an example also in this respect, and on the very few occasions when he appears in mufti loses a great deal of his imposing appearance. Civil dress has with him something of the baffling nature of a disguise, and the ordinary easy lounge tweed suit, which many Englishmen wear with advantage, is distinctly unflattering to him, although he looks well in a frock-coat and silk hat. But he never appears quite himself, never really fits into any but military or naval garments.

“When His Majesty has finished talking you will be introduced,” said one of the ladies-in-waiting. “The Empress will present you, so do not go far away.”

So I stand waiting under the trees, watching the footmen while they place camp-stools and arrange cakes and teacups, and hearing gusts of the Emperor’s conversation, which, being carried on in German, is quite unintelligible to me, though there is one word “Kolossal” which keeps emerging frequently from the rumble of talk.

Presently the group of uniforms breaks up. His Majesty turns towards the Empress, somebody signs to me, and I step out of the shadows and come forward. “Papa’s” keen blue eyes look at me with that characteristically penetrating, alert, rather quizzical brightness which I afterwards learn to know so well. They seem almost too violent a contrast with the deep sunburn of his face. My hand is enveloped in a hearty, almost painful handshake, and I am confronted with a few short, sharp questions.

“From what part of England do I come? Have I ever been in Germany before? What do I think of Homburg? Do I speak German?”

I subsequently have the pleasure of many stimulating discussions with His Majesty, when we debate a variety of questions, from armaments to suffragettes, and are not invariably accordant in our views; but on this occasion our talk is necessarily short and perfunctory.

Presently we are all sitting at the tea-table, but the Emperor remains a little apart, continuing the conversation with his adjutants, dipping from time to time his Zwieback into his tea, as is permitted by German custom.

Ausflüge und Land-Partien—excursions and picnics—are an integral part of German existence in summer-time, and the Hof lags no whit behind in this respect. Though the Emperor detests cold, damp weather, he leads an open-air existence, and loses no opportunity of being im Freien. He breakfasts, drinks tea and eats supper out in the garden whenever the weather permits; and it is probably for this reason more than any other that the principal German meal, Mittagessen, whose elaborateness does not allow it to be served al fresco, still keeps its place in the middle of the day, allowing the simpler supper to be served out of doors in the cool of the evening. It is a charming and healthy custom, this eating under the blue sky, but naturally only possible in the soft, warm Continental climate, where one misses the sharp tang in the air of our sea-girt isle.

Near Homburg lies an ancient Roman fortress, which has been excavated and restored by the Emperor. Excursions either on horseback or by carriage to the Saalburg are a great feature of the stay in Homburg, and often the whole party is permitted to excavate in likely spots for “remains.” The Empress once disinterred a very beautiful bowl, and it is no unusual thing to come across fine specimens of pottery or iron-work. Everybody is supplied with a short wooden implement for digging in the soft loam, and the royalties, including Prince Joachim and the Princess, together with the ladies and gentlemen of the party, labour industriously through a summer afternoon under the direction of Professor Jacobi, who directs the work of excavation and checks any undue exuberance in digging which might lead to disastrous results.

These digging parties, which are only indulged in on rare occasions, sometimes give scope for the exercise of a peculiarly characteristic form of German humour. Often a broken cup or vase or an ancient Roman dagger made in an excellent imitation pâté of chocolate is previously embedded in the soil, and the ardent excavator, glowing with the success of a great discovery, finds to his chagrin, on reaching home, that at the solemn washing of his find, which always takes place with great ceremony in the presence of the assembled company after supper, not only the encumbering soil but also the whole fabric of the precious antique dissolves away into a hopeless ruin, at once revealing the unkind imposture. This playful joke is easily carried out, since no one is allowed to excavate excepting in carefully indicated spots.

The Emperor at his own expense has rebuilt portions of the old Roman settlement; and the newness of these buildings, the freshly-painted barrack-rooms of the old Roman militia with their Latin inscriptions over the doorways, the brightness of the small glazed bricks of which the walls are constructed, give a somewhat jarring sense of unreality to the whole Burg, and raise the question whether it is advisable or not to attempt to reconstruct the past in quite such a conscientious manner—whether the actual ruins, scanty though they may be, do not tell their tale better than these new up-to-date buildings so curiously well-equipped with modern appliances.

But the buildings have their uses quite apart from intrinsic interest, as is proved one afternoon when the children, including the “Hessians” and “Greeks,” are invited to the Saalburg by the Empress, who is herself present, and a heavy rain coming on, a sort of spurious hockey game, played with croquet mallets, is organized and pursued with the greatest vigour in the “Hall of the Centurions.” The Emperor, who is out driving somewhere in the neighbourhood, arrives with his suite during a crisis in the game, and is much amused to watch the small horde of princelings, among whom his own daughter is very conspicuous, as they chase the ball backwards and forwards, sometimes only missing his own Imperial legs by decimal fractions of inches.

Even in those first early days at Homburg it is at once noticeable what a great difference the presence of the Emperor makes in the atmosphere of the court. A certain vitality and still more a certain amount of strain become visible. Everybody is to be ready to go anywhere and do anything at a moment’s notice—to be always in the appropriate costume necessary for walking, riding, or driving. His Majesty walks a great deal. Often we drive out some distance beyond Homburg among the lovely mountains and forests, and descending from our carriages tramp along at a brisk pace for several miles, when the carriages meet us, and we return. It is altogether a strenuous existence for the entourage, who must always, so to speak, be mobilized for active service, which is probably just what the Emperor wishes. From early morning till night there is hardly a moment of respite from duty, and my own day is a very crowded one, with hardly time left for the necessary frequent changes of costume, which are one of the chief burdens of existence at court.

An elaborate toilette is customary at the midday dinner—something in silk or satin, with a long train—and it must be completed by the inevitable fan and white glacé gloves, of which one is worn on the hand, the other carried.

We all assemble before dinner in a large drawing-room, where the ladies and gentlemen of the suite and any visitors who are invited stand about talking till the appearance of the Emperor and Empress. Often the Princess comes in before them with Prince Joachim. The folding-doors are thrown wide open for the entrance of Their Majesties, who always appear at different doors, the Emperor usually being last, and are announced by a footman. Everybody at once stops talking, wheels about and bows simultaneously.

One day the guests at dinner include an elderly lady and gentleman of an old-fashioned German type, who shrink into a corner and look rather clever and scientific. The Princess and Prince Joachim run up and kiss the old lady and shake hands with the old gentleman.

He is Professor von Esmarck, who, when he was a struggling young doctor, fell in love with a Princess—the aunt of the present Empress of Germany—and married her. The elderly lady with the tightly-brushed hair is his wife. They live in a pleasant little house in Homburg, and always dine at the Schloss when the court is staying there.

My own experience would lead me to testify to the truth of what I have read somewhere, that the chief function of a lady-or gentleman-in-waiting is to stand in a draught and smile.

“Standing and waiting,” said my kind Countess, “that is the chief part of our lives; it makes one mentally and bodily weary till one gets used to it.”

Hand-shaking too is practised to a considerable extent. It does not seem to matter how many times people have met before in the day and shaken hands, they generally seem to like to do it again while waiting for dinner. Presumably it helps to pass the time away, and gives an excuse for walking about from group to group. My place at the oval dinner-table is at one end, between Prince Joachim’s governor and his tutor. The Emperor and Empress are seated at the sides, opposite to each other, while the guests, intermingled with court ladies and gentlemen, radiate right and left. Footmen wearing the court livery, which includes rather ill-fitting gaiters, wait behind every chair and the Emperor’s “Jäger” in green uniform attends exclusively to his master’s wants. Red and white wine and champagne are served to all the guests, but neither the Emperor nor the Empress drinks anything but fruit-juice as a beverage. William II has a horror of excessive indulgence in alcohol, and sets his face against it by both precept and example.

“You English people,” he says to me on one occasion, “you drink those awful fiery spirits—horrible stuff—whisky, brandy, what not? How can you imbibe such quantities of poisonous liquid—ruining your constitutions? Simply ruining them—whisky-and-soda everywhere—no, it’s awful: I tasted it once—like liquid fire—ugh! Your drinking habits are fearful.”

He admonishes me for our national failings with uplifted finger and serious face, and I try feebly to maintain that, though in the past we have been undeniably guilty and still drink far more than is good for us, yet according to published statistics we are year by year growing more sober—that the percentage of drunkenness in the army is slowly but surely decreasing, that there are fewer crimes owing to drunkenness, and so on—but His Majesty evidently has more faith in his own observations than in any amount of statistics, and continues dubiously to shake his head and his finger at me as though I were personally responsible.

Dinner is finished in about three-quarters of an hour, and at a sign from the Empress every one rises and, the ladies preceding the gentlemen, all file slowly into the salon, where coffee is served and every one stands and drinks it. This standing about after dinner is one of the most tedious of all court duties, lasting sometimes for an hour. As the Emperor and Empress never sit down, but move from one group to another, talking to this or that guest, the rest of us prop ourselves surreptitiously against projecting pieces of furniture and try to look as happy as circumstances permit. The little Princess and Prince Joachim flit from one person to another, wrangling according to custom in subdued undertones so that “Papa” may not hear, trying to tease their mother into some concession, or whispering their experiences into the ears of one of the ladies. There is always a good deal of surreptitious stifled giggling, and it is easy to see that the waiting is an irksome restraint to their active minds.

If there are a great many important guests, the children dine alone with their governor and myself, when they are expected to speak English all the time; but they lapse into German with the greatest facility, especially when the usual zanking begins. They also every evening eat supper together, continuing cheerfully and acrimoniously their criticisms of each other’s conduct. Prince Joachim indulges in the usual cheap sneers at femininity with which many schoolboys goad their sisters into revolt.

“Mädchen,” he remarks with superb disdain, “die Mädchen——”

“Speak English,” commands his governor, who is anxious to improve his knowledge of that language.

“Girls,” replies the Prince, speaking with distinct and aggravating deliberation, “Girls cannot be soldiers—zey are no use at all. It is good zat we have but one girl in our family. She cannot be an officer. She cannot fight. She cannot ride——”

“Much better than you—she rides,” returns the incensed Princess. “You who fall off your horse if it gives a little jump. Pfui!” She bangs a spoon on the table to emphasize her indignation.

The Prince is delighted at the success of his efforts, and continues to jeer unmercifully.

“Girls can’t ride,” he reiterates; “zey can’t fight—zey are always crying—zey are always cross——”

“Try to say ‘they,’ not ‘zey,’ ” I interpose, hoping to divert his thoughts to other subjects.

“Joachim can’t speak English one bit,” says his sister; “he says ‘zey’ and ‘zese’ and ‘zose,’ and ‘I drink your healse.’ He is a silly boy; he can’t jump, he can’t play tennis, he can’t ride——;” and so on ad infinitum.

Twice a week after we have finished supper I take Prince Joachim away and read English with him in his room, while the Governor sits listening in a chair, his long red-striped military grey legs stretched out before him, his hands clasped on his knee, an absorbed, concentrated look in his eyes. The book chosen is Stevenson’s immortal “Treasure Island,” for the Prince has stipulated that whatever we read shall not be about Muster-Kinder, which I interpret as meaning “pattern-children,” the kind abounding in certain books, but happily seldom met with in real life. I consider it a hopeful and healthy sign in the Prince, his objection to Muster-Kinder, and promise that my reading shall be blameless in this particular respect. He seems a little suspicious as we settle down and I open at the first chapter, but before many pages have been turned he is holding his breath to listen, and his verdict on my choice of a book is that it is magnificent—prachtvoll.

It may here be remarked that there are few if any original books in the German language written especially for boys, who have to content themselves with translations of Fenimore Cooper’s works, “Robinson Crusoe” and “The Swiss Family Robinson,” and of late years with the “Adventures” of the famous Sherlock Holmes, who has a great vogue upon the Continent, and whose history may be bought at almost every railway bookstall abroad.

Not only the Prince, but also the Governor, in spite of his thirty years and his military experience, immediately fall under the spell of the story, notwithstanding the many words in it of which they do not know the meaning. When the hour comes to an end and the Prince begs for an extension of his lesson, the Governor pulls out his watch and after a slight hesitation, smilingly grants another ten minutes before bed-time.

“Schnell, schnell,"—“quick, quick,” implores the Prince, and I hurry on towards the fatal Black Spot and the fate of the blind man, and am pressed to come again as soon as possible and not wait till the lesson becomes due, because they both—Prince and Governor—are so anxious to know what happens next.

At the end of the following week the court is to leave Homburg for its permanent residence—if anything so unpermanent can be so termed—in the New Palace near Potsdam, where the Ober-Gouvernante will be waiting to share my multifarious labours, and where I am assured that the regular routine—“only we never have any regular routine, it is always being broken,” sighs the Countess—at any rate an approximate routine may be confidently anticipated.

I pack feverishly in the small intervals of time snatched from my other occupations, and at half-past seven one evening go down to the courtyard, where files of carriages are waiting. I am supposed to accompany the Princess to the station, but at the last moment something is changed and I am sent off with a young adjutant whose English vocabulary is very limited. We drive down the long street, packed with people waiting to see Their Majesties go by. They cheer and wave enthusiastic handkerchiefs at each carriage as it passes, and though we may not usurp the royal prerogative and bow our acknowledgments, we assume affable expressions indicative of vicarious enjoyment of their exuberant loyalty, and so arrive presently at the royal waiting-room, which is gaily decorated with flags and evergreens. A crowd of officers and adjutants are on the steps awaiting the arrival of Their Majesties, and here my Princess comes presently, having driven in with her brother.

In the waiting-room sits the venerable old Duke of Cambridge, who is staying in Homburg and has come to say “farewell” to the Emperor and Empress, whose approach is heralded by a louder burst of cheering, which swells and increases outside the station.

The royal train, painted in blue and cream-colour with gold decorations, is alongside the platform, the regulation red carpet is laid down, maids and valets peep furtively from the windows of distant compartments, footmen are hurrying to and fro, while the ladies and gentlemen of the suite continue their normal occupation of waiting, chatting to each other in the usual desultory manner. Presently Their Majesties emerge from the waiting-room and walk over the red carpet into the train, we all get in after them, and our journey begins among the frantic “hochs!” and “hurrahs!” of the crowd outside.

We in England may believe in our own loyalty, but I doubt if we can compete with a German crowd in giving it expression. We are never able quite to abandon ourselves to the same unrestrained, wild enthusiasm, are always just a little too self-conscious—too afraid of being absurd. The German is untrammelled by considerations of that kind; he revels in his own emotions, encourages his wife and family to revel in theirs, waves patriotic flags on the least provocation, puts his small son of six into a complete miniature Hussar uniform, lets him swagger about in the streets wearing it, to the undiluted envy of other small boys, sings “Heil dir im Sieger-Kranz” (which goes to the same tune as “God Save the King,” and has therefore a pleasantly familiar air to British ears), and is rather proud than ashamed at being moved to tears of national pride as his Kaiser passes by. No nation is more emotionally patriotic than the German, and that patriotism finds its chief centre in the personality of their Emperor.

So that, as long as the daylight lasted, outside every little wayside station and crossing was a palpitating crowd of little girls wearing wreaths of wilted flowers on their heads, of little bare-legged boys waving Prussian flags, of perspiring officials of Vereine—any kind of Association for doing anything—in hot-looking dress-suits and tall chimney-pot hats: there they stood as they had obviously been standing for some hours, wedged together in one solid, impenetrable mass, leaning heavily upon each other in rows against the station railings, while on the platform, where no one else was allowed to intrude, the station-master, in his military-looking blue uniform, remained saluting with his hand at his red cap as the train steamed slowly by. Always the same station and the same crowd it seemed, with just a different name over the booking-office door—the same Eingang and Ausgang, the same brown, alert peasant faces gazing through the railings.

The Princess and Prince Joachim had their supper in the long dining-car of the train, together with the Governor, tutor and myself; and as they imbibed their soup and ate their Kalte Schnitzel were in full view of the shouting crowd.

By means of frequent promptings they were induced to suspend the customary zanking and distribute a few bows among the people, Prince Joachim in particular distinguishing himself by an air of fine courtesy as he raised his round white sailor cap, which he flourished gracefully over his head in answer to the enthusiastic roars that swelled and died outside.

We had to hurry over our meal so as to allow of the table being re-laid for the supper of Their Majesties and the suite, so we swallowed one course after another with headlong speed, curtailing conversation to its utmost limits, and when the last mouthful was despatched the children went to say good-night to their parents while the rest of us retired to the sleeping-coupés provided for the night, although it was as yet much too early to think of going to bed.

The royal train, in which I made many journeys, is, as may be imagined, “replete with every modern convenience” of travel, but this did not prevent it oscillating, banging and shaking to an appalling extent. One was hurled backwards and forwards and jolted and jerked with every form of movement known to science. Sometimes we seemed to be moving over rippled granite, and then a horizontal spasm mixed up with weird scrunchings seized the whole train, which appeared to be having some kind of hysterical fit. Occasionally we pulled up with a jolt and jar and remained stationary for a few minutes, before resuming our shuddering, jerking journey, which stretched out every mile into a nightmare length.

Time seems interminably long in such circumstances, and the weary hours dragged on very slowly. An attempt at undressing forced into the foreground the question of how—in view of the difficulty of taking off clothes—one was ever likely to be in a favourable position to put them on again. Brush and comb, hairpins, all went sliding gently away on to the floor; and after washing in a basin in which a miniature tempest of soap-tipped wave-crests was raging, I renounced the adventure of undressing as one needing more intrepidity than I possessed, and lay down uncomfortably in most of my clothes to wait for morning. Through the ventilator came a choking, smoke-laden odour. The pillow, covered with beautifully fine linen, on which I laid my head was hard as the nether millstone and productive of a dislocating feeling in the neck; the sheets and blankets were of the finest and best, but no one wants to go to bed in one’s garments of the day. We were due to arrive in Wildpark, the station of the New Palace, somewhere about eight o’clock—nine hours more of the terrible shaking. I lay down and turned out the electric light, and became for the rest of the night a mere oscillating body, whirled continually back and forth through space. Fortunately the dawn comes early in August, and at the first faint greyness of the atmosphere I sat up giddily and watched the flat Prussian dew-bathed landscape glide by, so different from the hilly region we had come from the night before. Somewhere about five o’clock a low tap comes to my door, and “Nanna,” with her finger on her lip, hands in a cup of tea which she has managed to produce from somewhere.

“I knew you’d not sleep much,” she whispers. “Did you ever know trains shake like this one? You’d think they’d manage to take His Majesty along at a more comfortable pace, wouldn’t you? A royal train indeed! Enough to shake you to pieces.” “Nanna” loses no opportunity of drawing comparisons to the disadvantage of the German nation, which she considers hardly worthy to be governed by the illustrious family she serves.

I drink her tea with much appreciation, and she comes and sits beside me and converses, or I might say talks—for it is more outpouring than conversation—in a hoarse whisper, so that she may not disturb the gentleman who is supposed to be sleeping in the next coupé, but is probably lying awake yearning for the end of the journey.

The greyness of the fields departs, they are threaded with gleams of colour as the sun slowly penetrates the clouds; great wreaths and ragged eddies of mist begin to rise, cattle stand about half plunged in an ocean of vapour, the peasants are at work, women with red handkerchiefs tied over their heads kneel among the bright green of the potato crops; the dreary night has departed, a new day is born.

The train rattles and jerks its way along. “Nanna’s” voice continues to croon in my ear words of warning, admonishment, advice. I listen without hearing or comprehension. Her voice is as some soothing accompaniment to my thoughts, giving a pleasant sense of companionship without exacting much attention.

Somewhere about seven o’clock another soft tap is heard and the door slides back, revealing a footman with another tray of tea and Zwieback—those nice brown crunchy toast-like biscuits which pervade the Fatherland.

“You’ll have your proper breakfast when you arrive at the New Palace,” whispers “Nanna,” “but you’ll not get it much before nine. You’d better have some more.”

I accept the fresh tea with pleasure, and listen as I drink it to the movement in the corridor. There is a sliding of doors, a sound of subdued voices—everybody is getting up. Nanna disappears to dress her Princess, who has slept soundly all night—happy capacity of childhood!—and when I peep out into the corridor I see some of the ladies-in-waiting already dressed, looking rather wearily out of the window. A man comes in and makes my bed-clothes disappear in some miraculous manner, leaving behind him, instead of the two sleeping berths, in one of which I had lain awake so long, just the ordinary seat of a first-class carriage, of which the upper berth now forms the padded back.

Some of the ladies kindly come and sit beside me and point out interesting objects of the landscape. The Countess is one of them, and grows quite excited when at length a round green dome is visible over some trees.

“There, there!” she cries, “that is the roof of the New Palace; we shall be there very soon—I hope you will be very happy there,” and she squeezes my hand in the kindly sympathetic, sentimental, but very delightful manner of old-fashioned Germans. She feels that it is an important day of my life, the moment when I enter what she calls the “real home” of the Emperor and Empress.

“Like Windsor to your King and Queen,” she explains, fearing that the forty castles which the Emperor possesses may create some confusion in my ideas. “Here is their real ‘home,’ you know.”

The train, which has been proceeding much more evenly since we entered the Prussian district, glides smoothly into a station, coming gently and imperceptibly to a stop. A few officers in uniform are waiting at the door of the simple, picturesque wooden Warte-Saal—which a few years later is to be replaced by a substantial stone building provided with lifts and luxurious and artistically-furnished waiting-rooms.

There is a sudden opening of carriage-doors and activity of footmen and “Jägers.” The Emperor, enveloped in a long grey cavalry cloak, strides across the platform with the Empress and his children, salutes the waiting officers, pauses for a word with each, and then drives away. A long row of carriages is in waiting. Everything seems admirably organized; no confusion, no waiting. My turn comes, and I am whirled away out of the station yard across a road where people are standing kept in order by a green-clad Gendarm, along a pleasant tree-shaded avenue, past some sentries who guard a small iron gate, over the Mopke, a big open gravelled space bordered by fine buildings on each side, and past the front of the huge Palace, which reminds one a little of Versailles and is built in French Rococo style. I descend at a broad flight of stone steps, and am ushered by a pleasant-faced footman through what looks like a window, but is really a door, into a corridor, up a wooden staircase, painted white, to the apartment which is to be my future home for the next few years. It is a lofty, pleasant room, and in spite of its bare, uninhabited look, has an air of brightness and repose. The sunshine floods it with gleams of welcome; outside are trees in which the birds are singing; a little dog in the courtyard below, a quaint little beast of the dachshund breed, looks up at me as I stand at the open French windows and gives his tail a deprecatory wag. He is obviously determined to be friendly.

The New Palace has an alluring aspect. It is very palatial of course, looked at as a whole; but there is something very home-like, gracious, and friendly in this particular corner of it, in the smiling flowers which grow on each balcony, in the canary whose notes can be heard trilling from the dining-room of the Princess close at hand, in the pleasant face of a white-capped elderly housemaid, who enters with a bow and a Guten-Tag, and an expression of delight at my arrival. She comes and shakes hands, and says something congratulatory and welcoming. It is very German, and strikes one as intensely pleasant and human, this obvious kindness and goodwill. From this hour Frau Pusch—the housemaid—is the cushion and buffer of my existence, intervening between me and a harsh world. She teaches me German, mends and irons my clothes, packs and unpacks, fetches and carries, is always cheerful and smiling.

CHAPTER III
THE NEW PALACE

ALTHOUGH making personal acquaintance with thirty of the numerous palaces and country-houses belonging to the Emperor, I only resided in nine, and of these the Neues Palais, or New Palace, near Potsdam easily held the first place in my affections. For one thing it bore the aspect of a permanent home, while other perhaps more beautiful royal residences partook of the nature of an hotel, in which one never quite settled down, but remained with boxes only partially unpacked, waiting for the notice of departure.

This fine Palace, situated about twenty miles from Berlin, was built in the style of Louis XV known as Rococo, on a very marshy piece of ground by Frederick the Great, that most notable Hohenzollern whose spirit still dominates the Prussian nation. Why he did not choose a better site, where good sites are so many, must always remain one of those mysteries which deepen with time.

“It was probably in a spirit of pure obstinacy,” said one German officer with whom I discussed the subject. “People said it was impossible to build a palace on such a spot, and so he set out to prove that it was not. He also wished to show that there was still money left in his coffers after the Silesian wars. But he did not really want the palace, and never lived in it for any length of time.”

It is a cheerful-looking red building, with queer dimpled monstrous cherub heads and wreaths of flowers in yellow sandstone engirdling the upper windows. On the edge of the roof and along the terrace below stand rows of pseudo-Greek sandstone statues in flowing draperies, with whose features the frost often takes liberties, making necessary a yearly renovation and replacement of noses and fingers. Along the raised terraces and against the railings stand large orange-trees in tubs, which are every autumn taken up to the “Orangerie” and brought back to their places in the spring.

On one side lies the big Sand-Hof or gravelled courtyard, divided by high iron railings edged with grass and flowers from the Mopke, the fine wide space where in former days Frederick drilled his soldiers. On the other side of the Mopke stand the royal stables, the kitchens, the chapel of the Palace, and, divided by a beautiful stone arcade, the two “Communs,” in one of which is housed the Palace guard, which occupies the ground floor, while the Commandant and his family inhabit the first floor.

The Sand-Hof faces the apartments of the Emperor and Empress, which on the other side have an outlook onto the spacious garden, laid out in trim beds, with fountains on each side—a garden to look at rather than to walk in; but hidden away in corners behind big beech hedges, are other shady gardens of trees—rose-gardens, with grassy lawns, the children’s garden, one with a tea-house, where the Emperor and Empress breakfast in the summer-time with their family.

Most old palaces that I have seen are conspicuous for their splendour and still more for their inconvenience—they are structurally almost incapable of being adapted to modern requirements; and the Neues Palais is no exception to this rule, though wonders have been done in the matter of the installation of adequate heating apparatus and bathrooms. Most of this work was accomplished under the superintendence and on the initiative of the late Empress Frederick, whose practical, energetic mind seems to have grappled successfully with the great problems of plumbing and domestic efficiency which present themselves with perhaps more insistence in palaces than elsewhere.

But there was no way of overcoming the difficulty caused by the lack of any passage in the wing where the apartment of the Princess was situated on the first floor—the Prinzen-Wohnung or Dwelling of the Princes as it is called. Here two magnificent salons had been transformed into bedrooms, one for the Princess, one for the Ober-Gouvernante. These were obviously originally intended for reception-rooms, having doors at each end and in the middle, and were the only means of communication between the sitting-room and dining-room, so that whoever passed from one to the other was perforce obliged to traverse the whole length of one of these rooms, unless they went downstairs and passed through the courtyard to another staircase, which was what the servants had to do in all weathers.

In a smaller but very beautiful salon forming the entrance to the Prinzen-Wohnung a cooking-stove had been placed in the massive marble fireplace for the purpose of keeping dishes warm, for all the food of the Palace is prepared in a kitchen situated in the “Communs,” a building on the far side of the Mopke communicating with the Palace by a long underground passage along which the dishes are brought.

Here it may be pointed out that all the stables, carriages, kitchens, etc., as well as the palaces themselves, are always officially styled “royal,” not “imperial,” as they belong to the Kingdom of Prussia and are not part of the appanage of the Empire.

The sitting-room I occupied first on coming to the Neues Palais remained just as it had been at the time it was built, somewhere about 1770. Its walls were covered with small irregular pieces of dark blue glass set in cement and carried up into the centre of the ceiling, in which was inserted a circle of small mirrors where at night, if one chanced to look up, one saw the lamplight reflected. Over the big marble chimneypiece, bearing the cipher of Frederick the Great, was another high mirror of the same period (Louis XV) with a golden-rayed sun fixed in its upper part. I never was able to learn the meaning of this sun, which was repeated in other palaces built by the famous King of Prussia.

Above the blue salon was an equally spacious bedroom situated at an angle of the palace wing with bull’s-eye windows looking north and east. It was furnished, like most German bedrooms, to serve also as a sitting-room, and contained a sofa, a large centre table, and a big escritoire, besides the necessary cupboards and wardrobes. It was heated in winter by one of those tall chocolate-coloured tiled stoves called Kachel-Ofen which are so much used in Germany. In cold weather the Ofen was lit with wood at an early hour of the morning, and was supposed, after consuming a few logs, to have absorbed enough heat for the rest of the day. Though offensive to a sense of beauty, the Kachel-Ofen may generally be trusted to keep the temperature warm at a minimum of expenditure in fuel.

“I don’t know why English people always want to look at a fire,” said one German lady, defending the superior economy and effectiveness of the national heating system. “It isn’t the look of a fire that warms you. I never felt the cold so much anywhere as in England. All that beautiful coal warming the chimney, while I sat shivering two yards away from it!”

Our life at the Neues Palais is less strenuous than at Homburg. For one thing the Ober-Gouvernante is there, a pale, dark-eyed German in whose hands, although she herself has no teaching to do, lies the chief responsibility of the education of the Princess. Then there is the tutor who gives all the German lessons. He has not been in Homburg, where there was only room to lodge the tutor of Prince Joachim.

The day of the Princess begins with breakfast at half-past seven, excepting on Sundays and at holiday times, when she takes it at nine with her parents and brother. Never was there any child who galloped through the first meal of the day with such reckless rapidity. In vain did I inveigh against this habit of bolting food, and dwell on the horrors, the least of which must be an incurable red nose, which invariably lie in wait for those thoughtless persons who ignore the duty of mastication; in vain did I quote Mr. Gladstone’s dictum on the subject, which, though it amused and interested her, in no way led to her betterment.

“At fifty, nay at forty—or even sooner, Princess,” I would say, “you will be a hopeless martyr to an outraged internal system. Look at Carlyle, the man who wrote about Frederick the Great. His whole life was made bitter, the happiness of his wife destroyed, his manners and temper spoiled, just because as a little boy——”

At this point she usually flung down her knife and fork with a clatter, and, the last mouthful still unconsumed, at her accustomed whirlwind pace, quite unperturbed at what might happen at forty, departed to her mother the Empress, who always liked to see her daughter before lessons began.

At two minutes to eight she returned breathlessly—she was always breathless in those early days—to the schoolroom, a rather dull, stately apartment, with oil-paintings of Prussian Queens and Electresses of Brandenburg decorating the walls. In their stiff brocade dresses they gazed out of their gold frames with simpering fixity at the two large blackboards, the schooldesk, the lesson-and exercise-books neatly piled on the two plain deal tables.

Her footman, an elderly, conscientious, invaluable servant of boundless tact and experience, and of the greatest assistance in those difficult early days, would give a glance round to see that everything was there—clean dusters, chalk, sponge and water. The lady on duty—myself or the Ober-Gouvernante—would be installed with book or needlework in the least obtrusive corner, trying to look absolutely absorbed in her own thoughts, for the tutor naturally desired and had a right to demand deep concentration on the part of his pupil and the elimination of all possibilities of distraction. So that when the location of the schoolroom had to be changed to the other side of the Hof, where the carriages arrived bringing gentlemen for audiences with the Emperor, studies were often pursued in semi-twilight, the blinds being kept permanently down to shut out as much as possible of the sights and sounds of the outside world. Sometimes a gentle knock came at the door, which opened, revealing the smilingly-apologetic face of the Empress. She would slip in and take the place of the lady and pursue her work, while listening to the lesson. These incursions of Her Majesty were not always regarded favourably by the tutor, who feared that they distracted the Princess and made her less attentive.

Some months before she reached her tenth year the little Princess had a young resident tutor, who was provided with rooms in the Palace and shared some of the duties of Prince Joachim’s governor, accompanying the two children and the lady “on duty” in their afternoon walks. Prince Joachim’s own tutor, the one who had been in Homburg, was a married Professor living in Berlin, a very clever man, who afterwards, on the Prince’s departure for Ploen, became tutor to the Princess, journeying daily backwards and forwards to Berlin.

German educational methods are astonishingly thorough, and make serious demands upon a growing child’s brain and capacity. It is difficult to know whether to condemn or admire them most. They are so thoroughly efficient—given a child who can stand the strain; but what of the thousands who cannot? I suppose every civilized nation, not excepting England, is or has been guilty in this respect; and the Germany of to-day is beginning to demand, in the interests of the health of her future citizens, some relaxation of the tremendous claims made on the growing child.

Education in Germany seems to be strictly standardized. At a certain age every child, be he prince or peasant, will be in a certain class, learning certain subjects; each year he will move a grade higher, or if he does not, the whole family will feel that some dreadful irretrievable disgrace has befallen it. The mother will creep about the house sighing and swallowing her tears, the father will wear a corrugated brow and perceive looming in the distance a son who is a zwei-jähriger, that is, who must give two years instead of one to military service, since he has not passed the necessary examination which reduces the term by twelve months. This is one of the most terrible things which can happen to a German household.

Girls, though not coming quite under the same conditions, have to work just as hard as boys, and are quite as keen to be “versetzt"—to get their remove.

So those first lessons of the Princess with that energetic cheerful young tutor who had such an excellent persistent method of teaching grammar and arithmetic, those studies abhorrent to the minds of many children, were followed by me with the greatest interest.

That a child of the age of the Princess should be expected to say with scarcely a moment’s hesitation how much nineteen times eighteen make, or to multiply mentally 342 by 439, appears to the unmathematical mind almost unreasonable, yet the solution of these problems is an everyday feat in every German school. But the answers did not always follow as quickly as the tutor desired, and often the results were wrong, in which case one paralysing hour of arithmetic was followed by another.

Sometimes—with great diffidence, for it was entirely outside the range of my duties—I would suggest to the tutor that the interposition of a history or geography lesson might make a salutary change and enable the perplexed child’s brain to recover its tone. The tutor always listened very politely to my expression of opinion, and, though obviously disagreeing, deferred to my desire, after carefully hinting to the Princess that it was a concession to feminine weakness of character—which made her very angry with me, and she would insist on having more arithmetic straight away.

To any one who has studied German grammar, especially those terrible prepositions which are always lying in ambush to trip up the unwary, it is not necessary to dilate on its subtle sinuosities.

One day at the end of a lesson the tutor, glowing from a vivid and rapid description and analysis of some of the more intricate German constructions, showing the malleability of the language and the tortuosity into which the pedantic mind of man, for his own base purposes, can twist it, turned to me from his pupil’s discontented, puzzled face, for corroboration of his own enthusiastic laudation.

“Nicht wahr, Meess?” he said, as he closed his book. “Is not grammar one of the most beautiful, most interesting studies to which one can devote one’s mind?”

“It is the most hateful, unnecessary thing possible,” I replied rather hastily; “we never consciously use it when we speak, we forget it as soon as we can. I detest it.”

If I had thrown one of the Dresden china vases on the mantelpiece at his head he could not have shown more surprise. First, I suppose, at my lax ideas of duty, for was I not there to uphold the pedagogic principle in season and out of season? Secondly at my attack on Grammar itself—Grammar! the chief corner-stone of the temple of Academic Knowledge—which had been born of the ages, and would persist long after we had perished from the earth.

All this was plainly to be read in the eye with which he regarded me. The silence that ensued was almost painful, the child too astonished, the tutor too nonplussed to speak.

As usual, the feminine mind made the quickest self-recovery. The triumphant mien, the flush of joy, the sheer delight expressed in the attitude of the Princess as she rose up from her chair showed that she had come to a crisis in the history of her childhood. She had reached the point where teachers cease to be oracles, where they fall into their right perspective, where differences of opinion may be conceded, and where absolute right and wrong begin to disappear. In her voice was a new tone.

“Hurrah!” she shouted, with a distinct accent of revolt. “There! You see, Herr Schmidt, there are other people who can’t bear grammar. Hurrah! I’ve heard the truth about grammar at last!”

And it being the end of the lesson, the bell of release ringing at the moment a hearty peal, as though in derision of grammar, she danced a sort of Indian war-dance in exultation at its discomfiture in front of her tutor, took me by the hand, and dragged me away, leaving Herr Schmidt, who, to do him justice, was a man before he was a pedagogue, convulsed with good-natured laughter.

The Princess was not at all a docile or an industrious child; her work was careless, owing chiefly to the usual breathless rapidity with which she did everything. Her spelling was phonetic, and she was indignant at English irregularities in this respect. Still she was ambitious and fond of approval, especially from her brother Prince Oscar.

The Crown Prince and Prince Fritz were, at the time of which I write, in Bonn studying at the University, Prince Adalbert at Kiel or roaming about the world on a warship, as he had chosen the navy for a profession; and the next two brothers, Princes August-Wilhelm and Oscar, together in Ploen, where they lived in a pleasant country house with their governor and various teachers, and enjoyed the companionship of the young cadets of the aristocratic school—the Eton of Germany—which is close at hand.

Morning lessons end at twelve o’clock, and then there is a short walk until it is time to dress for the one-o’clock Frühstücks-tafel, which is usually eaten in the company of the Emperor and Empress and the ladies and gentlemen of the suite.

We dine in the Apollo Saal, a wonderful room decorated with painted panels which rouse the indignation of the Ober-Gouvernante, who objects to the scanty draperies and fleshiness of the simpering nymphs and Cupids who eternally disport themselves among the never-fading garlands of flowers of the Rococo Period. She cannot reconcile them with the otherwise estimable tastes and qualities of Frederick the Great, nor realize that great minds are composed of a variety of opposing ingredients, and that even famous statesmen and warriors must occasionally relax the sternness of their mental outlook.

The menu or Speise-Karte of the royal table is invariably written in German, not French; and occasionally English dishes appear on it, their names slightly disguised—as for example “Apple-pei” or “Brot-pudding.”

Conversation at the Frühstücks-tafel or luncheon, which is really the principal meal of the day in Germany, to which business men in Berlin usually devote a couple of hours, is always very animated and amusing when the Emperor is present, as he is a noted raconteur and possesses a highly-developed sense of humour, which helps to mitigate the boredom of the ceremonies which dog his footsteps. One day he related with the greatest gusto how, on returning from a walk alone with the Empress, he was refused admission through one of the gates by the sentry stationed there—who must have been a very unobservant person, or brought up in a remote portion of the Empire where picture-postcards do not penetrate. The soldier was very apologetic, but firm, and addressed the Emperor as “Herr Lieutenant,” finally relenting when told that the “Herr Lieutenant” wished to visit Herr von Scholl, a Flügel-adjutant (aide-de-camp or equerry) who lived in the Palace.

German is the language usually spoken at the Royal table, except when English-speaking visitors are present: but few of the officers or adjutants have a very extensive knowledge of any language but their own. The Boer War had at this time only just come to an end, and there was a good deal of anti-English feeling exhibited everywhere, especially in the newspapers; but at the Court itself, although the criticism of our military methods does not take, as may be expected, a very laudatory tone, there is a frank recognition of the difficulties of the situation and a genuine deprecation of the spiteful venom of the newspaper articles, which accuse English officers and soldiers of every form of ignoble conduct that it is possible for the journalistic mind to imagine.

Soon after the Germans had a native war of their own on their hands against the tribe of the Hereros in South-West Africa; and if they were spared the succession of disasters suffered by the English, they added nothing to their own military glory, and learned a great deal of the difficulties of skirmishing in an uninhabited country where none of the rules of war in which they have been trained seem to apply. Their war lasted for four years, and long before it was finished the last lingering newspaper scandal against English soldiers died away.

In one disastrous slaughter of a German detachment ambushed by natives, the only son of the captain of the Emperor’s little river-steamer perished. The poor old grief-stricken father for a long time refused to believe the news. “My son was a doctor,” he would say obstinately; “he was not a soldier. How can he be killed? Doctors are not in the fighting-line. Their place is in the rear of the troops.”

Often young officers in khaki who have volunteered for service in Süd-West-Afrika are invited to luncheon before their departure for the seat of war. They are strong, handsome, cheery young men, full of courage and enthusiasm; and the Princess sighs and wishes that she too could go to the war and fight, which aspirations Prince Joachim crushes in the heavy masculine manner.

After Frühstück is finished, and we are able at last to escape from the long, tedious waiting that follows, the children go out together. Sometimes the Princess drives those wonderful Turkish ponies, which make quite a sensation in the quiet old Potsdam streets whenever they appear; while Prince Joachim has a dog-cart of his own drawn by a wise old cob called “Freier,” who continually gets the reins under his tail but stops immediately till disentangled. Twice a week the Princess rides on horseback, and after a preliminary trial with the Sattel-Meister I am pronounced competent to accompany her. She is delighted to have my society, for hitherto she has had no companion in her rides.

Close to the Neues Palais is the lovely Wildpark, a beautiful forest, traversed by sandy paths, under great avenues of spreading beech; and here, under the supervision of the Sattel-Meister, accompanied by a couple of small grooms, we indulge in many exhilarating gallops. The Princess soon develops into a practised and fearless horsewoman, with an excellent seat in the saddle and a light hand. Before long she is learning to jump logs and hedges, to the mingled horror and admiration of Her Majesty and the Court. Our gallops become lang-gestreckt. We ride a good long way in a very short time. The Sattel-Meister, who is a severe but judicious teacher, smiles amiably and proudly at us both as we pull up our sweating horses at the lodge gates of the Wildpark preparatory to the sober walk home.

Presently we are promoted to rides on the Bornstedter Feld, the big cavalry exercise ground about half a mile away, a sandy plain where we can let out our horses and settle down for a long, swinging gallop. Nothing makes the Princess so happy, so good-tempered, as these rides. They are just the outlets she needs for some of her exuberant vitality. She returns from them glowing with satisfaction, and is invariably unhappy and irritable if by any chance they are stopped.

There comes a red-letter day when she is allowed to ride at half-past seven to the Bornstedter Feld to see the Emperor review a detachment of artillery bound for the Herero War. The Princess cannot sleep for joy the night before. She is almost overcome with the mingled fear and delight of riding “with Papa.” She sends to my room early next morning in case I should oversleep myself, and is ready long before the appointed time in her little blue riding-habit and straw hat. Down below in the Sand-hof the horses are waiting for the Emperor and Empress and the large suite which invariably accompanies them when they ride. Our own steeds are in a little group apart in a corner. There has been a sprinkle of rain, but the sun is now shining. We drink a cup of tea and nibble at a roll, but are too excited to eat much. It is a dubious, an apprehensive joy to ride with “Papa.” We are fearful of not acquitting ourselves with distinction. Supposing our horses do anything unexpected, anything wrong?

We go down to the Sand-Hof and mount, and ride slowly up and down waiting. The lady in attendance on the Empress is already there, and a good many adjutants, naval and military, in full-dress uniform. They all come up and make polite observations to the Princess—flattering, complimentary remarks such as elderly gentlemen are in the habit of making to little girls. There is a great clattering of swords on the flagged terrace, and presently out comes the Emperor in his gay Hussar uniform. He bows and mounts, and those on horseback have to bring their horses to the “front” as he passes. The Empress comes from another door, is quickly in the saddle, and she and the Princess join the Emperor and ride through the big gates on to the Mopke in line together. The guard stands stiffly with presented arms as the cavalcade passes over the wide drive into the beautiful avenue of trees under which we pass. The attendant ladies and gentlemen have formed up into two rows behind Their Majesties, while a group of grooms and minor officials ride in the rear. It is a pretty sight, with the sunlight sending shafts of gold from the accoutrements, and lighting up the gay uniforms and trappings of the horses.

As we pass our schoolroom window I perceive the Ober-Gouvernante standing there, and it suddenly strikes me—I had quite forgotten for the time—that we are due to begin lessons at eight o’clock and it is now a quarter to. Appalling thought! Well, we shall obviously not be there. I dismiss any misgivings as I realize the rapture expressed in the Princess’s back; and when for an instant we have a chance of speech together, I carefully refrain from mentioning the tutor and the vacant schoolroom.

The line of waiting guns on the artillery field drawn by funny little rough Siberian ponies, who look very strong and unkempt and are driven by men in khaki, strike the Princess as something very unusual. From babyhood she has been familiar with troops on parade in their gayest, most expensive, least practical uniforms, or with troops at manœuvres on the march, dusty and sunburned and travel-stained; but never before has she seen men stripped of the superfluities of the barrack-room, prepared simply for the grim realities of war in a far-away country. All the beautiful reds and blues left at home, the shining guns painted khaki-colour, the men in loose almost ill-fitting garments sitting on these queer little horses. It is very unfamiliar—almost unnatural. The fine young commanding officer makes his report to the Emperor. The horses have only been a fortnight under training, but already acquit themselves well and trot and gallop past in an exemplary manner at the word of command. The little ceremony is soon over, the small group cheer their Majesties heartily, and as the Emperor departs he calls out “Adieu, Kameraden,” and as with one voice they answer “Adieu, Majestät.” We leave them standing on the sky-line, brave, plucky youths burning with zeal and patriotism. They fade into the blue background; and while the Emperor and Empress prolong their ride a little farther, the Princess and I trot the nearest way home to those deserted lessons.

The gardens of the Neues Palais are separated only by a slender railing from those of the small Palace of Sans Souci, notable as the residence of Frederick the Great. On the hill behind the Palace, almost over-shadowing it, stands the famous windmill, the centre of certain legendary and probably apocryphal tales. The Palace of Sans Souci and its beautiful grounds—called the Neuer Garten—remain always open to the public, and on Sundays they are crowded with tourists and visitors from the surrounding neighbourhood. It is the day when the big fountains play, one of them decorated with flowers, seen dimly through the falling water; the day when their Majesties are sure to drive or walk through the gardens to the Garrison Church, which they usually attend in Potsdam, where Frederick the Great lies buried. Still more it is the day when with good luck the Princess may be seen driving with her Turkish ponies. For it must be realized that Germany—not possessing an early closing day or a Saturday half-holiday—spends its Sunday afternoons for all its Protestantism in the pure pursuit of pleasure. Extra trains, extra steamboats, extra trams are run, the open-air restaurants do a roaring trade, every public garden, every road is overrun with perspiring families, and with soldiers walking out with stodgy-looking maid-servants in tartan blouses and tight green cotton gloves.

On Sunday the Princess and Prince Joachim entertain their small friends to tea and supper. First of all they take them for a drive somewhere in the neighbourhood, to the huge delight of the tourists, who shriek and cheer and wave pocket-handkerchiefs and rush apoplectically, with the greatest risk to their health, from remote corners of the Neuer Garten, scudding, these fat fathers and mothers, in their hot Sunday clothes along the sandy walks, yelling breathlessly to each other “Die Prinzessin! Die kleine Prinzessin. Ach! wie niedlich!” They are enraptured with the lovely ponies and the blue-lined victoria and the little fair-haired Princess, who usually has two friends stuffed tightly in besides her, while a carriage follows with some more, and Prince Joachim has his cartload of boys.

It was remarkable that, however much we attempted to let the boys play by themselves and keep the girls to purely feminine amusements, it invariably ended in the amalgamation of the two parties; that the running and jumping, the gymnastics over the parallel bars, the games of hide-and-seek were always keener and swifter when the Princess was taking part. There were few boys who could beat her at that age in running or jumping, and when the Prince’s Governor jeered at a boy for behaving like a Mädchen, it was easy to retort that one Mädchen could out-jump and out-run all his boys, and that he had better speak more respectfully in future of the sex.

CHAPTER IV
DIVERSIONS OF THE KAISER’S DAUGHTER

SHORTLY after our return to the Neues Palais a small niece of the Empress, the child of her sister the Duchess of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburg, came to spend a week or two with her cousin. Her visit marked the last expiring effort of the Princess to take an interest in her dolls, of which she possessed many very beautiful specimens.

But though she was an amused spectator of the unflinching realism with which Princess May—an inventive child whose doll-children suffered many and varied experiences—shaped the fragments of her dream of human life, the stormy cross-channel journeys, the illnesses and cheerful funerals of her large family, it was plain to see that she was not in any sense a real partaker in the small comedies and dramas.

Live animals had always from babyhood been her great passion. On dogs and horses she lavished all the superfluous affection of her heart. Dolls had never been to her more than a transitory amusement, thrust on her by other people rather than chosen by herself. She was exceedingly hurt at receiving one the following Christmas, sent by an affectionate but injudicious aunt. It nerved her to make a clean sweep of the whole lot, and they were divided among various children’s hospitals. The Empress sighed over this further emancipation of her small daughter, but saw its inevitability.

About this time the Emperor, who was staying a few days at Cadinen, his country house in East Prussia, where he carries out farming operations on a large scale, sent the Princess a present after her own heart—a tiny dimpled pigling of tender years. From my bedroom window I suddenly caught sight of this infant swine as, looking newly scrubbed and washed, with a bit of blue ribbon tied round the tender curve of his tail, he sprinted across the Hof pursued by several footmen and the two Princesses, who had decreed that exercise must be necessary for him after his cramping railway journey in a tiny crate. Viewing his innocent infantine chubbiness as he darted between the legs of the pursuing lackeys, even the sentries on duty were forced to relax their military sternness and smile at his baby antics as he rushed about, evading capture for a time.

The Princess was charmed with “Papa’s Scherkel,” and rather annoyed at not being allowed to have him in her own rooms; but he was comfortably installed in the stable at Lindstedt, a villa belonging to the Emperor standing close to the gate of the Neues Palais, where, being a pig of placid disposition, he put on flesh at a rapid rate, quickly losing the innocent gaiety of his early days, and developed weight and fatness day by day, so that towards Christmas the usual tragic fate of pigs befell him. His mistress suffered no sentimental regrets with regard to his death, eating without a qualm the savoury sausages he provided and retaining a grateful memory of the nice sum he brought her—for naturally, although she never paid for his keep, she demanded and received the sum for which the butcher purchased his remains.

“I wish Papa would give me another pig,” she has been heard to sigh when money was scarce. “He was so useful.”

But no other pig arrived. He remained the first and last of his tribe.

The Duchess of Albany and her daughter Princess Alice (now Princess Alexander of Teck) were for a short time living in Potsdam, while the young Duke of Coburg, the son of the Duchess, was undergoing his year of military training. He afterwards went as a student to Bonn at the same time as the Crown Prince and Prince Fritz—and eventually married the eldest sister of little Princess May of Glucksburg, while her second sister, Princess Alexandra, married her cousin Prince August Wilhelm, the fourth son of the Emperor.

Princess Alice of Albany and her mother were great favourites at the Neues Palais, and frequently visited the Empress. One day they were invited to meet her at the Marmor Palais, the palace formerly occupied by Their Majesties when they were first married, before their accession to the throne. It had remained empty since that time, though now occupied when they are in Potsdam by the Crown Prince and Princess and their family of little boys.

Beautifully situated about two miles away from the Neues Palais, on the border of a lake (the Heiligen-See), it was there that the Empress passed the happiest years of her married life, and that most of her children were born. She always revisited it with much pleasure mingled with many regrets.

A large party of children had been invited, as it was the Princess’s birthday; and after playing madly about in the garden, they all had tea in the big marble dining-room which overlooked the lake, where swans were sailing majestically up and down the clear blue water. After tea Princess Alice invented a delightful new game for the children. The idea was to put on the enormous felt slippers provided for the boots of the tourists who come to inspect the palace, so that they may not scratch the beautifully polished inlaid parquet floors; and when everybody had stuck their feet into these enormous over-shoes, they began skating madly after each other, headed by Princess Alice, rushing round and round the various salons which opened out of each other, so that they could keep up the race without interruption. The sight of so many rather small people with such disproportionately large feet tearing after each other at break-neck speed was irresistibly comic, and the Empress and the Duchess were convulsed with laughter. It was rather a violent game for a warm September day, but when they grew tired of it they still played, with the greatest energy, musical chairs, post, and blind man’s buff, the sun pouring gaily in at the windows all the time.

A month or so after this party took place, about the middle of November, the weather suddenly changed. It began to freeze hard, and for six weeks there was ice everywhere, and everybody was able to indulge in skating.

When the lessons were over we used to jump into a carriage with our skates and were driven to Charlotten-Hof, a small palace in the park of Sans Souci, where was a large sheet of water now converted into the most beautiful black ice. Nobody was particularly expert on skates, but all were keen to learn; and the Princess and Prince Joachim, after a great many tumbles, managed to get along at a good pace, though their style was hardly of the best. The weather kept beautifully clear, with very little snow, and there were some very merry skating parties, including the late Sir Robert Collins, gentleman-in-waiting to the Duchess of Albany, a very graceful expert performer on the ice, and Lady Collins, who like the rest of us did not skate very well, but perseveringly kept on trying. The Governor of the Prince made many attempts to learn, but never got much farther than an ungainly shuffle, for which he always apologized, saying that at any rate it kept him from freezing.

Sometimes the Crown Prince would bring a few of his friends to play hockey, but as no one knew much about rules it was rather a wild and dangerous game.

The most uncomfortable moments spent on the slippery surface, however, were those when the Emperor in his warm grey cavalry cloak, surrounded by a party of adjutants and officers, was seen wending his way in our direction. Inexpert performers realized the extreme risk of trying to bow to Majesty on skates, and invariably fled to the shelter of a small island covered with bushes which was in one corner of the lake.

Misfortunes in the way of tumbles caused an unholy joy in the Emperor’s heart. It pleased him to see people lose their dignity; and on one occasion, when Princess Alice and I, skating with great dash and confidence hand-in-hand, came after a convulsive flounder to a sudden fall, the Imperial laughter floated most whole-heartedly and derisively over our prostrate bodies.

Ladders and ropes were always laid ready on the bank in case of accident; and one afternoon when Prince Oscar was with us—having come over from Ploen for a few days—he and the Princess decided to practise a little life-saving. I on my skates represented to the best of my ability the victim of an ice catastrophe, lying down and clutching at the rope, which after many misdirected efforts they managed to throw in my direction; but when it came to pulling me out, although I was not in, but already on the surface of the ice, their well-meant endeavours only resulted in themselves being dragged backwards accompanied by shrieks of laughter, while I remained exactly where I had been before. Somebody must have mentioned this attempt to the Emperor, for the next day when he came to the ice he wanted to know how I liked being “rescued.”

“They didn’t rescue me one inch, Your Majesty,” I was obliged to reply; “I should have been drowned ten times over.”

He chuckled very much over this failure to pull me along, and would, I am sure, have liked to see the experiment repeated in his presence.

“And you so thin and light!” he laughed as he departed.

Another game of hockey was played one afternoon, but not this time on the ice. Five of the princes took part in it—the Crown Prince and Prince Fritz captaining their respective sides. It was a wild, weird game. The Princess after many entreaties had been allowed to play “for a short time” on Prince Fritz’s side, together with a few young officers, the French teacher of Prince Joachim, and a Kammer-Herr of Her Majesty, who thought he would like to take part in the game. He said later that it was the first and last time he ever played or desired to play hockey.

The game took place on the broad drive in front of the Palace, and the only rule which guided it was a feverish desire on everybody’s part to send the ball into the opposite goal. There was no referee, no off-side, nobody was more of a “forward” than a “back,” and anybody kept goal who happened to be near enough to it; but the play was permeated by a fine and splendid enthusiasm which atoned for many shortcomings. The German sporting instinct was there sure enough, undeveloped and somewhat dormant it may be, but none the less ready to germinate under favourable conditions. Some players emerged rather battered from the fray. The French tutor had fallen and scraped his chin on the gravel, the Kammer-Herr had, as the result of a blow, a swollen knuckle which kept him company some weeks, while Prince Oscar limped slightly for the rest of the day.

One of the tiresome ceremonies incident to royal existence is the incessant turning out of the guard whenever any one of royal or princely blood emerges into view of the sentry. This became especially worrying when the children happened to wander about backwards and forwards between the two “Hofs.” One heard a clatter of bootsoles as the soldiers, perhaps in the middle of eating their soup, rushed out, seized their weapons from the rack where they stood, and formed up in line in stiff military attitudes presenting arms at the word of command. It was usual for the Governor of Prince Joachim, who was himself a Captain in the army, to give a signal to the guard that these honours were for the nonce in abeyance, or the Princess or Prince—if they remembered—might do the same.

In the first week of her visit, Princess May of Glucksburg, who was running about between the Mopke and the Kleiner Hof, noticed the unusual restlessness of the guard, who were in and out of the guard-house every five minutes or less; but it was some time before she connected their movements with herself, being absorbed in giving “Jacky,” the Princess’s dog, a ride in a small hand-cart. She had hitherto led a quiet life in the ancestral Schloss away in the country, untrammelled by guards or sentries of any kind.

When she realized that these honours were being lavished on her own small person, and that she ought to have waved her finger backwards and forwards at the soldiers in sign of dismissal, she was much abashed, and as she was far too shy to shake her finger at any one, preferred to choose a more retired spot in which to play.

Besides the Turkish ponies before mentioned, the Prince and Princess possessed two very small mouse-coloured Sicilian donkeys given to them by the King of Italy, each of which drew a small Sicilian cart, painted in gay colours with scenes from the lives of the saints. These animals wore red brass-studded harness, and nodding plumes made of cock-feathers dyed crimson waved from their heads. They made a very pretty picture as they ambled one behind the other over the wide Mopke, and often when children were invited to spend the afternoon the donkey-carts were requisitioned. They were a continual source of joy to small visitors and of acute anxiety to those in charge; for in spite of their innocent looks and their small size, the donkeys were the least docile animals that could be imagined, and as the carts were rather small and top-heavy, there was constant danger of an upset. Sometimes the donkeys, after a spell of good behaviour, would start running away, or suddenly make preparations to lie down, the children falling out of the cart like a small avalanche. After the animals had taken a short rest—for nothing would make them get up before they felt inclined—they would start merrily off again, and the Governor and I, who were too heavy for the carts, had to keep on running after them, “faint yet pursuing,” be the weather as hot as it might.

The way those beasts whizzed the carts round corners on only one wheel was nothing short of phenomenal, and they possessed a diabolical strength which set at naught any efforts of the groom who was supposed to control them in case of need. One day the little terrier “Jacky” took it into his head to bite one of the donkeys, who immediately went helter-skelter over the flower-beds, dragging the empty cart behind him as well as the unlucky stable-man who happened to be holding the reins and fell down at an early stage of the proceedings. Fortunately it happened in a small enclosed garden surrounded by high hedges, but it might have been a serious business if one or two soldiers had not happened to be passing and helped us to restrain the donkey, who kicked and capered and waltzed over the rose-bushes, jerking the man after him, his face cut, his clothes torn, while the iniquitous “Jacky,” delighted at the performance, raged round in a frenzy of barking, doing all he could to urge the poor terrified donkey to fresh efforts.

Happily, when the long-expected accident arrived, it happened under Her Majesty’s immediate notice, so that she was at once convinced of the danger to the children of these ill-trained little creatures, and ordered that they should never appear again. They were sent to the country and employed on the land in regular work, which was what they needed. The Princess was the one who suffered, being tipped out of the cart and sustaining a rather severe cut on her knee, involving a three days’ suspension of lessons and complete repose of the injured limb—rather a severe trial for such an active child.

In wet or frosty weather, the rides in the forest had to be given up, and we were forced to take horse-exercise in the Reit-Bahn or big covered riding-school attached to the Royal Mews or Marstall. A layer of sawdust covered the floor of the Bahn, and our Sattel-Meister, Herr Casper, professed himself delighted to have the opportunity of furthering our equestrian education. We took lessons in making “voltes” and circles at the word of command, in “passaging”; we galloped and trotted and enjoyed ourselves immensely, while the rain beat outside or the snow fell in thick flurries. The Bahn was furnished with mirrors in which we could get glimpses of ourselves as we cantered past. Sometimes the Empress and one of her ladies also rode with us. Her Majesty is very fond of horse exercise, and though not enamoured of cross-country riding, still enjoys a good stretching canter.

Nowhere are there better opportunities for this than in the neighbourhood of Potsdam. Every road, with its beautiful row of trees on either hand, possesses a carefully kept sandy riding-track on one side. Then there are immense woods and the Government forest, all unenclosed, and unfenced fields where one can canter to heart’s desire along excellent riding-paths. The whole of Central Germany, more especially the Mark Brandenburg, in which Berlin and Potsdam are situated, is one vast plain of light sandy soil, made exceedingly fertile by “intensive” cultivation. Watered by the river Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, which expands into five great lakes surrounding the town, Potsdam is, as Carlyle calls it, an “intricate amphibious region,” more water than land, partaking, though a peninsula, of the nature of an island. Its inhabitants indulge largely in swimming and boating on the placid waters which run up into the streets in irregular creeks and bays. Great beds of rushes skirt the borders of the lakes, while the thick forest comes down to the water’s edge.

The town itself is picturesque and old-fashioned, with cobbled roads extremely painful to walk upon. Many of its houses were built in the time of Frederick the Great and inhabited by his marshals and generals. Its streets have a somnolent old-world air, and its society is very aristocratic and exclusive, containing as it does the cream of Prussian Junkerdom. Several younger sons of princely houses, officers in the crack regiments of the guards, live with their wives and children in Potsdam. Occasionally, on wet Sundays, some of these little princes and princesses came to spend the afternoon, and “Mimi Hohenzollern,” now married to King Manoel of Portugal, was a fairly frequent guest. One dull November Sunday evening we had an unusual number of children—about twenty—some of them quite small and rather an anxiety, for the nurses and governesses who accompanied them were sent to wait downstairs, while Herr Schmidt in charge of the boys and myself in charge of the little girls were left to cope with all these rather lively young people. They played after tea at circus in the big Turn-Saal at the top of the Palace, where there was plenty of room to romp about, and were just pondering what the next game should be, when Herr Schmidt, inspired by some imp of malice, made the suggestion that they should all go to the theatre in the dark.

The private theatre of the Neues Palais, built by Frederick the Great for the representation of French plays, was situated in the farthest wing of the castle, the way to it lying through chilly, unlit, unwarmed passages. The whole horde of children—hopeful scions of princely houses whose names, though unknown in England, permeate the “Almanac de Gotha,” and occasionally emerge into prominence in connection with some royal or imperial marriage—were rushing like the Gadarene swine towards certain destruction. Those slippery marble staircases! Those shallow balustrades! The darkness and the cold! Terrible “Schnupfen"—the devastating colds with which in a steam-heated country one is eternally warring—would be the least evil that could possibly happen to them.

Herr Schmidt, like an overgrown schoolboy, was laughing gleefully at the stampede.

Fortunately they were stopped at the next staircase, where the faint gleam of a lamp served to show the black shadows of the descent, and were brought back, much disappointed, to play a “humdrum game,” as the Princess called it, of hide-and-seek.

The Emperor to his sons was stern enough, and saw that Prince Joachim was shortly despatched to join his brothers at school in Ploen, but towards his little daughter he allowed himself, perhaps unconsciously, to be somewhat lenient.

Her bright alert intelligence evidently responded to something in himself; her constantly exhibited affection, her love for his society flattered him irresistibly, as they would any father in the world. He wrote long letters to her when away, sent her picture-postcards and small trifling presents from places where he was staying. Her first letter to him in English was something of an event, written with the greatest care and after much anxious consultation with me as to the intricacies of “that awful English spelling.” It received an immediate and flattering reply, also in English.

“Papa was delighted with my letter,” she said, her face glowing with happiness.

On every possible opportunity the Emperor liked to have his daughter with him; would seize and carry her off, sticking her bodkin-wise in the carriage between himself and the Empress. He never troubled much if she missed a few lessons. He was no believer in higher education for women.

One afternoon, on a birthday or some other anniversary, the band of the Potsdam Guards had been ordered to perform at the Palace, and as, owing to the heavy rain, they were not able to remain outside on the terrace, they were installed in the large Marmor Saal, where they played before the Emperor and Empress.

His Majesty stood alone in front of the band for some time, moving his body and limbs in time to the music, while the Princess and Prince Joachim, at a distance of a few yards, were doing the same thing, all three wriggling the left leg in time together and looking rather like marionettes jerked by a string.

The bandmaster continued gravely to beat time, when suddenly His Majesty made a sign to one of his adjutants, who immediately handed him a conductor’s baton, and the Emperor began to assist to conduct, while the two children, each raising a forefinger, did their little best also to help.

Some members of the band looked a little surprised at having no less than four conductors and four different time-beats to follow, but after a time they settled down again, and keeping their eyes firmly fixed on the music, played triumphantly to the end.

His Majesty has not a highly cultivated taste in music. He likes something military in style, with well-marked time and rhythm, and Wagner makes no appeal to his tastes.

His patronage of the art has been singularly unfortunate, and all the operatic pieces to which he has stood godfather are always played to very thin houses. He comforts himself by inveighing against the want of musical taste shown by Berlin audiences. The critics treat these pieces with contempt, ignoring their existence, and the newspapers publish a bare announcement that they have been performed, and make no further comment.

Within the last two years the Emperor has had an Opera constructed as a setting for various dances performed in Corfu by the peasants there. At great expense the Director of the Opera-House has had to send professionals to study the various dances on the spot, to copy the Corfiote costumes, and to paint the scenery of the island. But transplanted from Corfu and its picturesque surroundings to the Berlin Opera-stage, these dances appear excessively dull and meaningless, and are not in the least redeemed by the accompanying music founded on ancient Greek melodies.

This opera was played before King George and Queen Mary on the last evening of their stay in Berlin, two days after the wedding of the Emperor’s daughter.

None of the children of the Kaiser, with the exception of the Crown Prince, who learned to play the violin fairly well, have ever mastered any musical instrument. For some years the Princess made strenuous efforts to learn the piano, but in spite of her love of music she was never able to play even the simplest piece approximately correctly. Various professors of the art came and went—came with the joyous glow caused by the honour of teaching royalty, only to retire baffled after a few lessons.

At last, when the Princess was about fourteen, she gave up the unequal contest, and refused to waste more time in efforts to attain the unattainable.

Occasionally she has been heard to reproach any of her companions who had no yearnings after musical instruction.

“You don’t want to learn the piano? But supposing you happen to marry a musical husband, whatever should you do if you couldn’t play to him?”

“Well, he would probably be happier if I didn’t play to him,” replied one child of conspicuous good sense.

This observation helped the Princess to realize that piano playing of the baser sort was not a necessary ingredient of happy matrimony, and she shortly afterwards renounced further ambitions in that direction.

Nor in the domain of painting and drawing, though fond of both, did she accomplish anything noteworthy, as she did not possess the necessary perseverance and patience, and was always too eager to arrive at the effect; so that her pictures, like her music, always promised something that was never realized. For outdoor sketching she professed a great affection, but it was probably the “outdoorness” more than the sketching that she really loved.

As a child, animals, particularly horses, were her great passion, and she paid many Sunday afternoon visits to Busch’s Circus in Berlin, where a large party of little boys and girls were also invited to fill up the royal box.

The Berlin populace who crowd the Circus on Sundays were delighted to see the “Kleine Prinzessin,” as they loved to call her, enjoying herself in their midst.

Tea was always served after the performance in the flower-bedecked room behind the box, where the Herr Cirkus-Direktor appeared in his dress suit to receive the thanks and congratulations of the Princess, who asked interested questions about the performing horses and told him how beautifully her own little Arab mare could do the “Spanish trot.” She enjoyed these circus performances and the sawdust and smells, and the faces of the good Berliners turned as one man towards the royal box in the intervals. Then there was the return to the station through the big Sunday crowd along the Linden, where the people stood patiently waiting to see the carriages pass, waving pocket-handkerchiefs and bowing, and shouting “Hoch lebe die kleine Prinzessin,” and wearing those expansive smiles, all of the same width and pattern, to which one soon grew accustomed as part of the Sunday performance.

And if it was not the circus then it was the theatre—Wilhelm Tell or Wallenstein, or sometimes on special occasions even the Opera. It is not known at what age the Princess was first introduced to Opera, but it must have been at a very early one. She was quite an old habituée when I first knew her.

When Beerbohm Tree came with his company to Berlin for a week or ten days, to show the Germans something about stage-management, the Empress wished the Princess to see the English actor, but feared there was nothing very suitable in his répertoire. However, after carefully re-reading Richard II she decided that it was a very suitable play for stimulating historical interest, and the Princess, to her joy, accompanied Their Majesties. She was delighted with Miss Viola Tree, who, as the Queen, came riding on to the stage on a gallant white horse in gorgeous trappings—one that belonged to the royal stables and had often eaten sugar from the Princess’s hand. She saw Beerbohm Tree as Richard II dying in his dungeon, and was able next day to reproduce exactly his words, his gestures, even the peculiar characteristic tones of his voice, for she had great gifts of mimicry, and her talent ranged from the imitation of the antics of “Sally,” the pet chimpanzee of the Berlin “Zoo,” to the dignified gestures of a Julius Cæsar.

Beerbohm Tree’s stay in Berlin must have been fraught to him with peculiar anxiety, for on the Sunday (when he gave two performances) all his German scene-shifters deserted him to go to the funeral of a notable Socialist, and he was left to grapple as he could with the situation. There were terribly long waits between the scenes of Antony and Cleopatra, at which Their Majesties were present, and once the curtain went up prematurely, revealing British stage-carpenters among the splendours of ancient Egypt.

The visits of the Princess to the theatre often involved the “Intendant” or Director in some anxiety, as he was asked by the Empress to select some play which would be, if not suitable, at least inoffensive: for on this point the Empress was very particular. One Director, wishing to please in this respect, had struck out of the piece the only line he could find capable of offence, but was assured by one of His Majesty’s adjutants that there was another part which he was certain ought to be slightly altered, though he couldn’t quite recollect where it came in. The unfortunate Director spent every spare moment up to the performance trying to run to ground the objectionable lines, but never was able to find them, as they did not exist, and had only been suggested to him out of “pure cussedness” by the wicked adjutant in question, who chuckled with unholy pleasure at the success of his little joke—especially when he found two of the court ladies feverishly searching the pages of their Schiller with the hope of helping the Director in his quest.

The Berlin Opera House, which stands only a few yards from the Royal Schloss, was built by Frederick the Great, and though a fine building, is hardly up-to-date in its accommodation for either performers or audience. After the terrible theatre-fire in Chicago where, for want of adequate exits, many lives were lost, very hideous iron staircases were constructed outside it by order of the Emperor; and these, while giving perhaps some additional sense of security to the audience, altogether spoil the appearance of the building—which His Majesty is anxious to replace by a new one constructed on modern lines in a style of architecture suitable to its surroundings.

A Berlin Opera audience is not conspicuous for smartness, and a few years ago morning blouses and tweed skirts, with a pair of rather weary white kid gloves, were considered by the ladies as quite sufficient for the Parkett (stalls); but by dint of special orders from the Emperor and the example of a few well-known ladies a decided improvement in dress is now observable. Officers in their uniforms are plentifully besprinkled among the audience, as they can get tickets at reduced prices.

Whenever the Emperor’s presence is announced beforehand, no one is admitted who is not in evening dress. This order was for a time not strictly enforced, and a good proportion of the audience even after repeated warnings habitually ignored it; but on one occasion all whose dress did not come up to the required standard—ladies whose gown was not ausgeschnitten, men who had omitted to put on the regulation suit—were politely but firmly refused admission and advised to go home again and change! There was much anger and heart-burning, but no one now fails to obey the imperial mandate.

On the Emperor’s birthday, and when the visits of foreign potentates take place, no tickets are sold and the seats are occupied entirely by guests invited by His Majesty. A splendidly brilliant spectacle is presented on these occasions. The whole house is decorated with wreaths of flowers, the Parkett filled entirely with the gentlemen of the Diplomatic Corps, Ambassadors and envoys from the remotest parts of the world. Chinese mandarins in yellow silk robes, wearing peacocks’ feathers in their caps, Turks and Egyptians in red fezes, all mingle with the uniforms of every existing army into a wonderful mass of scintillating colour. The ladies on these occasions are seated in the dress circle, in a line with the Royal Box which is crowded with princely personages.

Before the entrance of the Emperor and Empress the Intendant of the Theatre in full uniform comes to the front of the box and taps loudly three times on the floor with his wand of office, and at once that queer gabbling jargon of incoherent sound which rises from a crowd of people talking together is suddenly hushed into a complete silence, in which Their Majesties with their guests slowly advance, bow to the audience and take their places.

I invariably received a ticket for a stage box on these occasions, the best possible place for an uninterrupted view of the house.

From this point of vantage at different times I saw many notable royal personalities, among others the late King Edward with Queen Alexandra, who visited Berlin the year before the King’s death. The performance on these occasions was always short and not too absorbing, and on King Edward’s visit the spectacular play of Sardanapalus was given, which strictly speaking is hardly to be classed with opera at all, consisting as it does of a series of splendid pictures interspersed with songs. The last scene of all is a very realistic and vivid representation of the funeral pyre of Sardanapalus, whither slaves bring all the treasures of the house to be consumed by the fire, which, beginning with little licking tongues of flame, soon spreads to a wide and vivid blaze, in which Sardanapalus and all his household perish.

At the moment before the curtain finally descends the whole stage has the appearance of a glowing furnace threaded with leaping flames and rolling billows of smoke.

King Edward, being very tired with his hard day’s work in Berlin, had indulged in a short nap during the scene, and woke to consciousness at the moment of most intense conflagration, when he was for a few moments much excited and alarmed, believing that the fire was real and wondering why the firemen stationed at the wings had not yet become active. With some difficulty the Empress managed to convince him that there was no danger.

CHAPTER V
CHRISTMAS AT COURT

CHRISTMAS at Court, as elsewhere, was a time of jubilant festivity preceded by long weeks of hard work and preparation. As the Princess herself remarked, “one never dare sit down and think for a minute without a piece of work in one’s hand.”

Somewhere about the middle of November, or even earlier, was the great time in Berlin for charity bazaars, which the Court ladies assiduously attended, making large purchases of clothing on behalf of Her Majesty. I often accompanied one of them to the various big shops of Berlin, and gasped at the prompt and wholesale manner of her orders—fifteen cushions and twenty-five photograph frames being selected in as many seconds, together with other objects in like proportion.

Enormous bales of goods began to arrive, and were placed in the Marmor Saal, a splendid apartment which was used on great occasions for the entertainment of royal guests, but in the weeks before Christmas took on a more homely human aspect, being piled up with warm garments of every description, heaps of toys, books, almanacks, cakes of soap, boots and shoes.

Every man, woman and child having any connection with the royal estates in Cadinen, Hubertus-stock, Rominten, Neues Palais or Berlin was remembered, and the work involved in choosing their various gifts was always personally superintended and shared by Her Majesty, the Princess and the ladies of the Court. I can still feel in my nose the disagreeable tingle, analogous to a mild form of hay fever, caused by the fluffiness of those multitudinous piles of flannelette garments, thick woolly stockings and socks which I helped to sort and count. The Inspektor (agent) or clergyman of every district had to furnish a list of every family in it, with the name and age of each member of it accurately inscribed. Everybody received one garment at least, together with a toy (if a child), a book, a text, and one or two packages of Pfeffer-Kuchen. Each bundle was tied up separately with pink or blue tape, and labelled with the name of the person for whom it was intended, together with the list of gifts.