BANISHMENT
I am ordered to repair to a country house with the hated spy as my
Grand Mistress--My first impulse to go home, but afraid parents
won't have me.
DRESDEN, _August 10, 1894_.
Order from the King that myself and children spend the rest of the
summer at Villa Loschwitz, to remain until I get royal permission to
return to Dresden,--the Tisch to act as chief of my household.
Banished! I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Smile, because I
escaped the _ennui_ of attending court at the summer residence of
Pillnitz; weep, because my absence from court would be interpreted as a
disciplinary measure.
I know Pillnitz is about as gay as a Trappist feast of carrion and ant's
milk, but this princess doesn't want to be disciplined.
I shall tell them that I want to go home, but will they have me in
Salzburg? Papa, of course, but if mother hears of my acquaintance with
Heine, "who doesn't love Jesus,"--her own words,--she will undoubtedly
side with Prince George against her daughter. It was Heine who wrote of
one of her ancestors, King Louis of Bavaria: "As soon as the monkeys and
kangaroos are converted to Christianity, they'll make King Louis their
guardian saint, in proof of their perfect sanity." And you don't suppose
for a moment that mamma forgets a thing like that. As to Nietzsche, he
will give her no conscientious qualms, for I'm sure she never heard of
the gentleman, but my going to the Gipsy Baron "where two princely
mistresses are gyrating"--horrible!
I hear her say: "I think Prince George is most considerate sending our
daughter to Loschwitz. She deserved to be put in a nunnery and made to
kneel on unboiled peas three times a day." And when it comes to an
_eclat_, even papa may have to abandon me. Emperor Francis Joseph holds
the purse-strings; and papa always lives beyond his means and Francis
Joseph, King Albert and Prince George are fast friends. If papa
quarrelled with the two latter gentlemen, they would immediately
denounce him to the Emperor. The rest can easily be guessed.
Sorry, but papa is no hero in his daughter's eyes.