I DEFY THEM
Laughter and pleasant faces for me--Frederick Augustus refuses to
back me, but I don't care--We quarrel about my reading--He professes
to gross ignorance.
DRESDEN, _May 1, 1894_.
What's the use keeping a diary that is nothing but a record of quarrels
and humiliations? After I finished the entry about my scene with Prince
George, I felt considerably relieved. I had held my own, anyhow. But
fighting is one thing and writing another. I am always ready for a
fight, but "war-reporting" comes less easy.
The unpleasantness with George brought in its wake, as a natural
consequence so to speak, a whole lot of other squabbles and
altercations, family jars and general rumpuses, which I cared not to
embalm in these pages at the time. However, as they are part and parcel
of my narrative, incomplete as it may be, I will insert them by and by
according to their sequence.
After George was gone I made up my mind that, his commands and threats
notwithstanding, I must continue to live as I always did: joyful, free
within certain limits and careless of puritan standards. If the rest of
the royal ladies, and the women of the service, want to mope and look
sour, that's their affair. Let them wear out their lives between
confessional, knitting socks for orphan children, _Kaffe-klatsches,_
spying and tale-bearing and prayer-meetings,--it isn't my style. I'm
young, I'm pretty, I'm full of red blood, life means something to me. I
want to live it my own way.
I want to laugh; I have opinions of my own; I want to read books that
open and improve the mind. I want to promote my education by attending
lectures, by going to the theatre--in short, I don't want to become a
dunce and a bell-jingling fool like the others.
If that spells royal disgrace--be it so. Louise won't purchase two "_How
art thou's?_" at the price their Majesties and Royal Highnesses ask.
Of course, it would come easier with Frederick Augustus's help and
support, but since he chooses to be bully-ragged and sat upon and,
moreover, finds pleasure in licking the hand that strikes at his and his
wife's dignity, I will go it alone.
I defy them.
* * * * *
DRESDEN, _June 16, 1894_.
I had another tiff with Frederick Augustus, but the cause is too
insignificant to deserve record. I will rather tell about our grand
quarrel following Prince George's visit. We dined alone that day, as he
was eager to hear the news. The preliminaries didn't excite him much,
but when I mentioned the book episode, he bristled up.
"You won't allow the King, or Prince George, to dictate what I shall
read or not read?" I demanded. "My house is my castle and I won't brook
interference in my _menage_."
"Do you really suppose," replied Frederick Augustus, "that I'll court
royal displeasure for the sake of those Jew-scribblers? I never read a
book since I left school and can't make out what interest books can have
to you or anyone else. Where did you get them, anyhow?"
I told him that Leopold supplied my book wants. "My brother is a very
intelligent man," I said, "and the books he gives me are all classics in
their way."
"Go to with your book-talk!" he mocked in his most contemptuous voice.
"I asked the director of the royal library and was told that each of the
books, to which father objects, was written by a Jew. Let Jews read
them. It isn't decent for a royal princess to do so."
"My brother isn't a Jew."
"But in utter disgrace in Vienna. No one at court speaks to him. He is
head over heels in debt and the next we know he will be borrowing from
us. As to those books, don't bring any more into the house. Royal
princes and princesses have better things to do than waste time on
Jew-scribblers."
With that he violently pushed back his chair and left me, a very much
enraged woman. He didn't give me the chance to have the last word.