+===============================================+
| Etext transcriper's note: |
| German has not been corrected. |
| Some typographical errors have been corrected;|
| a list follows the text. |
+===============================================+
MEMORIES OF THE
KAISER’S COURT
[Illustration: THE GERMAN EMPEROR IN ENGLISH ADMIRAL’S UNIFORM]
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 Book was First Published_ _August 25th 1914_
_Second Edition_ _September 14th 1914_
_Third Edition_ _September 29th 1914_
_Fourth Edition_ _October 23rd 1914_
_Fifth Edition_ _December 15th 1914_
_Sixth Edition_ _February 1st 1915_
_This Edition, at 2s. 6d. net, First Published in 1915_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. ARRIVAL AT THE PRUSSIAN COURT 1
II. HOMBURG-VOR-DER-HÖHE 17
III. THE NEW PALACE 36
IV. DIVERSIONS OF THE KAISER’S DAUGHTER 51
V. CHRISTMAS AT COURT 69
VI. BERLIN SCHLOSS 86
VII. DONAU-ESCHINGEN AND METZ 101
VIII. EDUCATION 117
IX. THE BAUERN-HAUS AND SCHRIPPEN-FEST 128
X. ROYAL WEDDINGS 144
XI. WILHELMSHÖHE 159
XII. CADINEN 174
XIII. ROMINTEN 190
XIV. THE KAISER AND KAISERIN 205
XV. CONCLUSION 221
INDEX 241
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
THE GERMAN EMPEROR IN ENGLISH ADMIRAL’S UNIFORM
(Photo, E. Bieber, Berlin.) FRONTISPIECE
FACING PAGE
THE KAISER’S DAUGHTER, PRINCESS VICTORIA LOUISE
(NOW DUCHESS OF BRUNSWICK) AT THE AGE OF NINE 12
(Photo, T. H. Voigt, Homburg.)
THE EMPEROR AND EMPRESS WITH MEMBERS OF THEIR
FAMILY, TAKEN AT THE NEW PALACE, WILDPARK 44
(Photo, Selle and Kuntze, Potsdam.)
THE KAISER AND HIS TWO ELDEST GRANDSONS, PRINCES
WILHELM AND LOUIS FERDINAND OF PRUSSIA 76
(Photo, Selle and Kuntze, Potsdam.)
THE CROWN PRINCE AND HIS HEIR, PRINCE WILHELM 122
(Photo, Selle and Kuntze, Potsdam.)
THE KAISER AND HIS ELDEST GRANDSON 136
(Photo, Selle and Kuntze, Potsdam.)
THE EMPEROR’S DAUGHTER, TAKEN ON THE DAY WHEN
SHE WAS MADE COLONEL OF THE “DEATH’S HEAD”
HUSSARS 232
(Photo, A. Topham.)
THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF BRUNSWICK 238
(Photo, T. H. Voigt, Frankfort.)
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.
[Illustration: THE KAISER’S DAUGHTER, PRINCESS VICTORIA LOUISE (NOW
DUCHESS OF BRUNSWICK) AT THE AGE OF NINE]
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.