BERLIN SCHLOSS
The Prussian Court is awakened on New Year’s Day by the sound of
trumpets blaring forth old German chorales as the band of the regiment
in garrison slowly marches round the whole palace playing solemn and
stately music.
The previous evening, or somewhere in the small hours, in the society of
a few intimate friends, everybody has partaken of _Pfanne-kuchen_--a
sort of round dough-nut--and Punch, a comparatively harmless German
variety of that insidious beverage, but still not to be drunk lightly
and unadvisedly if you would avoid a next morning’s headache.
It is customary also to send pictorial postcards inscribed with New Year
greetings to all acquaintances in the palace. Footmen are constantly
arriving from the princes with these small offerings, which usually
have some reference to the recipient’s peculiar idiosyncrasies. One New
Year’s Eve, having retired earlier than the occasion warranted, I was
awakened from my first pleasant dreams by an urgent rapping on the
outside of the double doors which shut off my bedroom from the outside
world, and a masculine voice responded to my startled inquiry, saying
that he had something to deliver to me from His Majesty; so quickly
rising and huddling on a dressing-gown I hastened to receive from a
Jäger an envelope bearing the imperial cipher, which contained a
picture-postcard of the “Hohenzollern” inscribed in his own handwriting
with the New Year wishes of the Emperor.
Breakfast is a hasty and early function on the first day of the year,
for at eight o’clock the royal special train containing the whole of the
Imperial Family and the suite, footmen and maids in attendance, is off
to Berlin for the _Gratulations-Cour_, when all the foreign ambassadors
in their State carriages surmounted by bewigged coachmen and footmen in
bright red, blue, or yellow uniforms drive from their respective
Embassies to wish His Majesty the usual compliments of the season.
Christmas is essentially a private family festival, but the New Year is
ushered in with much public ceremony.
Joyous crowds line _Unter den Linden_ to watch the pageant pass; all the
shops are closed and an air of hilarious festivity pervades the streets.
A constant stream of vehicles, many of them of the rather shabby
horse-droschky type--for few residents of the German capital keep their
own carriages--are converging towards the Schloss, all containing
officers in full uniform, or functionaries of various departments bent
on the same errand.
It is a big, square, rather ugly grey pile of buildings, the old Berlin
Schloss, standing straight on to the street on all sides but one, where
it is skirted by the narrow river Spree. Inside is a rather gloomy,
sunless courtyard, paved with cobble-stones, in the centre of which is a
statue of St. George and the Dragon, the latter curling uncomfortably
round the hoofs of St. George’s horse, an estimable quadruped which,
instead of shying, as our ordinary experience of horses would lead us to
think that it should do, gallantly aids its master’s spear-thrust by
dancing a kind of tango on the dragon’s vitals.
Along one side of this courtyard, situated in the basement of the
Schloss itself, close to and on a line with the _Hohenzollern Treppe_,
the recognized door of arrival for the Empress and her children as well
as for the ladies and gentlemen of the suite, are the barracks for the
Schloss Guard. While the Court is in residence the guard spends its time
in perpetual rushes and drummings, for no princely personage can arrive
or depart without that long line of soldiers presenting arms to the
throbbing drum-beat accompaniment. It sounds intermittently from early
morning till late at night: the constant rapid beat of feet on the
cobble-stones as the soldiers snatch their arms and fall into line, the
silence, the military command, and then the long continuous rumble,
while the royal or princely personage of whatever size or age, descends
from his or her carriage, salutes, and disappears into the Schloss up
the very plain and simple stairway leading to the apartments of the
Royal Family. All coachmen when driving royalty wear a broad
hatband embroidered with the Prussian Eagle--what is called a
_Breite-Tresse_--which can be easily removed if necessary, leaving
uncovered the plain silver band which denotes the presence of only
obscure individuals who are spared the more onerous honours.
A deep archway leads from the large courtyard into a smaller, more
secluded one, where is the entrance to the staircase which the Emperor
uses. On each side of the large “Hof” are big, heavy, iron gates kept
by soldiers, who all day long close and open them to the passing
carriages and other traffic.
On New Year’s morning the courtyard is pervaded by footmen in gay
uniforms with very chilly-looking pink silk legs, who pick their way
gingerly over the round cobble-stones, hastening here and there in a
very busy preoccupied manner.
Before the _Gratulations-Cour_ takes place, a service is held in the
chapel of the Schloss, at which all the ambassadors, consuls and other
diplomatic officials are present in uniform. They usually spend the time
before the entrance of the royalties in wandering about and chatting
with each other, till some one gives a warning tap on the marble floor,
and the hum sinks into silence, broken by the music of the band
stationed in the gallery above, for the chapel has no organ.
In the evening a special performance is given at the Opera, at which the
whole Royal Family appears; and sometimes the Court returns next day to
the New Palace, but more often remains in Berlin for the season, which
practically begins with the Emperor’s birthday on January 27.
One quaint ceremony connected with New Year’s Day is the presentation to
the Emperor, as he sits at table, of sausages and hard-boiled eggs by
the “_Halloren_,” a guild of salt-workers living in Saxony, possessing
peculiar customs, privileges and dress. It was the Princess who first
introduced the “Halloren sausage” to my notice, for on the second or
third day of the year, when the Court had returned to the New Palace,
she burst into my room one morning with a very small sandwich--German
sandwiches have bread on only one side of them--made of an extremely
thin and delicate piece of pink sausage, which she presented to me with
pride as a portion of her “Halloren sausage.” I was expected to eat it
with great solemnity and a due appreciation of its marvellous merits,
and I conscientiously tried to praise it, and declare that there was a
“nameless something” about the flavour which marked it out from all
other sausages. I subsequently discovered that it was a rare and special
and not-to-be-repeated favour to share even the smallest piece of this
wonderful delicacy. Every day this sausage appeared at breakfast and the
eleven-o’clock lunch, but no one was then allowed to partake of it, with
the exception of the Princess herself, and when a few days later we all
went to Berlin for the rest of the winter the “Halloren sausage,” now
sadly shrunk, was the one piece of luggage which the Princess insisted
on taking in her own charge, carrying it carefully in a small black
leather bag, and refusing to trust it to her footman, who she was
convinced would leave it in the train or perhaps get it crushed or lost.
Life in Berlin Schloss was very different to that in the New Palace.
Every morning when lessons began again--the Christmas holidays are only
ten days long in German schools--the Princess had to drive away with her
lady at twenty minutes to eight to Bellevue Schloss, at the other side
of the Tier-Garten, where her tutor attended from eight o’clock till
twelve.
Bellevue is one of those plain, unpretentious palaces which were built
in the middle of the eighteenth century, and has the advantage of a fine
large garden full of grass and trees. Dotted about in the grounds are
various small monuments and memorial stones inscribed with the names of
dead-and-gone Princes and Princesses of the Royal House. Sometimes these
stones break out into poetry of a sentimental kind, always in the French
language, often celebrating the marvellous virtues of “Hélène” or
“Ferdinand.” Whatever happened, the affections of this particular
family--belonging, I think, to a nephew of Frederick the Great--had to
find an outlet in stonework. Every possible anniversary was
commemorated, and even the death of a favourite Kammer-herr was left
recorded for the benefit of future generations. The ivy has crept over
these memorials of a bygone day, and in some cases has entirely
obliterated the lettering. In others the frost and rain are by slow
degrees accomplishing the same work. It is with difficulty that one can
trace the crumbling letters.
In the mornings the _Ober-Gouvernante_ took “_Dienst_” in Bellevue,
returning at one o’clock with the Princess to the Schloss for luncheon,
which was served in the tiny little dining-room of the Princess’s
apartments, whose walls were made entirely of mirrors bordered by
wreaths of painted flowers. At half-past two the carriage was ordered
again to drive to Bellevue, where a few children were invited to spend
the afternoon. That daily drive along the crowded streets was somewhat
of an ordeal, for all along the route people were saluting and
curtseying and rushing up in the enthusiastic German manner to wave
pocket-handkerchiefs. Sometimes, if the Princess happened to be in a
naughty mood and wished to converse undisturbed with her little friends,
she would nod slowly backwards and forwards like a Chinese porcelain
figure, regardless if any one was bowing to her or not; but as somebody
usually was, it did not appear so strange as it otherwise might have
done.
In Bellevue garden itself was a kind of earthwork called “_Die
Festung_,” made by the elder Princes with the aid of their uncle Prince
Henry, and this was the usual scene of the afternoon’s play.
In frosty weather part of the Park was flooded, and here the time was
spent in skating and playing on the ice, but when the frost broke up
again the dirt in the grounds was terrible and the walks ankle-deep in
sludge.
The Emperor and Empress invariably came to the Park in the afternoons,
and it was embarrassing to meet them with shoes and dress plastered with
dirt; but as the children liked best to play at something which was
rather dishevelling, such as dragging the gardener’s cart up on to a
hillock through thick bushes, or along the wettest and dirtiest paths,
it was difficult to preserve that immaculate appearance which one would
desire to have in the presence of royalty. An old carpenter, named
Fasel, had worked for many years in Bellevue Garden, and his shop was a
constant centre of interest to the Princess, who liked to have a chat
with him nearly every day. He used to make the children bows and arrows
and tell them long stories of his _Wander-Jahre_, when he was an
apprentice and walked from one end of Germany to the other, working his
way along into Austria.
In January two other festivals broke into lessons, before they were well
re-started. One was the anniversary of the Accession of the
Emperor--_Krönungs-Tag_ as it is called--when there is again a series of
tedious ceremonies at which the whole family is present. These begin
with a service in chapel at ten o’clock in the morning, at which, until
a few years ago, all the ladies were obliged to appear in Court dress
with long trains, those of royal birth having theirs carried by pages in
red. For these functions tickets were issued for the gallery high up in
the dome of the chapel, and given to anyone connected with the Court. It
was no light task first to climb up the interminable steps of the
winding-stair which leads to this coign of vantage, where no seats are
allowed, and when there to endure the suffocating crush and atmosphere.
The humours of the crowd happily relieve to a certain extent the tedium
of waiting--for the lady who has received a ticket through the agency of
an Ambassador thinks that, however late she appears, she has a right to
a place in the front row, while the footman’s wife, who is already
there, refuses to recognize social superiority except in her own case,
which allows her precedence over a mere waiting-maid. Occasionally
people faint, for the heat and standing combined are trying to weak
constitutions; but if one can get to the front of the gallery, and is
able to support the proximity of the band and the weight of the people
behind who hang heavily over one’s shoulders, there is a good view to be
had of the whole scene--which, however, since Court dresses were done
away with by the Emperor’s order, has been shorn of much of its
picturesque stateliness.
A few days afterwards comes the anniversary of His Majesty’s birthday,
which is kept with great zeal and earnestness from early morning until
night. It begins with congratulations at 9.30 for the household only. On
tables arranged round one of the smaller salons are spread out the
various gifts received from family and friends. In her childish days the
Princess’s present was always a source of anxiety. Sometimes it took the
form of a blotting-book, the cover worked or painted by herself, or a
photograph frame, or perhaps a sketch of her own, something costing
little excepting the expenditure of time and patience. The Emperor was
always very pleased with his daughter’s gift--he valued it more than the
silver statuettes, the oil-paintings, jewelled cigarette-cases and
costly things lavished on him by the other members of his family.
On the evening of the birthday there is the usual performance at the
Opera, where the audience is composed only of those officially invited,
and the house is garlanded and scented. On one birthday, however, for
some reason an evening concert in the Schloss itself took the place of
the Opera. It was held in the beautiful _Weisser Saal_, and I listened
to it from one of the little _Loge_, or boxes, of which there are two
set into the wall. This occasion was especially memorable on account of
two rather startling incidents which happened during the progress of the
concert. Several soloists sang, and there was a large band of string and
wind instruments. During the playing of an orchestral piece, a door
opened in the empty musicians’ gallery, which ran across the Saal at
right angles to the box where I was sitting, and I was startled to see
a man enter on hands and knees and creep slowly and stealthily along the
floor across to the opposite side. Following him a few paces behind, in
the same stealthy manner, came a fat, unwieldy woman. They were
distinctly visible through the white marble balustrades as they moved
slowly along, the woman getting into constant difficulties with her
skirt, which much impeded her progress. Could this perhaps be the
preliminary to an Anarchist bomb? was the first thought which crossed my
mind. The rotundity of the woman was reassuring. She did not look to be
of the stuff of which conspirators are made, but nevertheless her
movements were decidedly suspicious. I touched the hand of the lady with
me, who had long been attached to the Court. She had not yet seen the
two grovellers on the empty gallery floor. I nodded in their direction.
She started when she caught sight of them, and an angry flush of
indignation overspread her face. She whispered to me that they were the
wife and son of a _Kastellan_, one of the officials who have certain
portions of the Schloss under their charge. They had chosen this
extraordinary manner of seeing and hearing something of the
festivities--very foolishly, as it proved, for the Emperor himself
perceived them and sent to make inquiries, with the result that the
unfortunate husband and father of the guilty pair as nearly as possible
lost his comfortable position as Kastellan, while the son--a young man
old enough to know better--was severely punished, and the wife fell into
disgrace and was for a long time looked at askance by her colleagues in
the castle.
At the same concert, one of the chorus-singers went out of his mind. At
all State concerts there is a long interval in the middle, when the
Emperor and Empress move round among the invited guests, chatting to
each in turn. Not till His Majesty commands is the signal given by a
gentle roll on the drum for the concert to recommence. On this occasion,
after a very short interval indeed, the drum was heard and everybody
hurried back in some surprise to the red velvet chairs, from which they
had risen to wander about and talk.
The Emperor knew that “some one had blundered,” as he had given no order
to continue; but perhaps not unwilling to have the proceedings
curtailed, he let the mistake pass, and shortly afterwards returned to
his place beside the Empress. But the person who had given the signal
was a singer of the chorus, who for some time had been giving his
friends cause for uneasiness. After drumming energetically for several
minutes he fled from the Schloss, pursued by one of the pink-stockinged
footmen as far as the courtyard gates, where the unfortunate man escaped
in the darkness into the crowd of the street.
The birthday of the Empress, which occurs in November, was always
celebrated at the New Palace. The most striking among her presents were
the dozen hats given by His Majesty, invariably chosen by himself. They
were arranged on stands on the billiard-table of the room where the
“birthday-table” was erected--a table beautifully enwreathed and
garlanded by autumn leaves, intermixed with fruits, bunches of tiny red
crab-apples, clusters of green and black grapes, small melons and
gourds. It is a perilous business for any man to set out to buy a dozen
hats for his wife without consulting her tastes and wishes on the
subject, but the German Emperor is not a man to recoil from even such an
enterprise. Though the hats were always very beautiful, and obviously
the most expensive of their kind, they always raised, I found, certain
doubts and queries in the mind of the feminine observer.
Does any woman in the world, be she ever so much an Empress, really
desire to have hats thrust on her by the dozen without any “trying on”
or any of that delicious hovering between two decisions which makes
hat-buying so thrillingly charming--above all, without reference to the
costume with which the head-gear must be worn, whereof it should be the
fitting corollary and completion?
The ordinary masculine mind is not sufficiently subtle to number among
its greatest achievements the purchase of successful feminine millinery;
even an Emperor ought to realize the limits of his sphere of activity.
But William never did. Every year, year after year, there were the dozen
hats, all much of the same type, all be-feathered, be-ribboned,
be-decked with tulle or chiffon or embroidery, whichever happened to be
uppermost in the scheme of fashion. The Emperor enjoyed being
complimented on his taste. He liked to feel that great minds can stoop
successfully to occupy themselves with trifles. He was delighted to see
his wife looking well in one of his gifts. The hats always seemed to be
holding the birthday reception; they filled the foreground to the
exclusion of the other marvellous things, diamond and pearl ornaments,
jewels of every description, which His Majesty also showered on the
Empress with lavish hand.
On the evening of Her Majesty’s birthday a performance was usually given
in the pretty little Rococo Theatre of the Palace, built by Frederick
the Great. Though the piece was necessarily simple, owing to the absence
of up-to-date stage-machinery and accommodation for the actors, yet the
little theatre was the scene of many brilliant and pleasant gatherings.
On one occasion the King and Queen of Norway were present at a
performance there, soon after their accession. They stayed some days at
the New Palace, of course with their little son Olaf, a most amusing,
quaint, old-fashioned little child, who charmed everybody, especially
the Emperor, with whom he chatted in a confidential, fearless manner,
treating His Majesty as a friend and companion, and inviting him to help
in building his house of bricks. The small boy came once or twice with
the Princess into her sitting-room, where he overwhelmed her with an
avalanche of questions regarding her canary, pursuing his
investigations into the remotest details of its life and ancestry, and
asking questions which no one could reasonably be expected to answer.
After the Emperor’s birthday the Season is in full swing. There are four
State Balls and various “Cours” and “Levées”; but the Balls are the
chief events of the season. With that thoroughness which distinguishes
all he does, the Emperor does not permit any dancing at his Court which
fails to come up to a certain standard of excellence. Every young
_débutante_, every young officer anxious to dance before royalty, must
first satisfy the fastidious judgment of the Court Dancing-Mistress, who
holds several _Tanz-Proben_ or trial dances in the _Weisser Saal_. A few
years ago the Court Dancing-Mistress, Frau Wolden, now dead, was only
less of a personality than His Majesty. Once indeed, in an agitated and
forgetful moment, it is whispered that she sank on to the throne itself.
She upheld with a stern hand the dignity of the Court, and her scathing
remarks on the attitudes and steps of certain young provincials of both
sexes who thought to introduce fashionable irregularities into the
lancers, at once made them realize their error. What her real age was
cannot with certainty be told. She owned with pride to seventy, and
would lift her silk skirts and show her wonderfully fine ankles in a
graceful tip-toe turn as if in derision of awkward flat-footed youth. To
the day of her death she retained all her marvellous grace of movement.
Twice a week she came to the Castle to give dancing lessons to Prince
Joachim and the Princess. Other little boys and girls of the same age
were invited to complete the class, and were drilled by the old lady in
the intricacies of the minuet and gavotte, which quaint old-world dances
are invariably danced at the Berlin Court Balls, and are from a
spectacular point of view the most beautiful of any.
Excepting in severe winters it is rare that any sleighing is possible
in Berlin, but once there came a short frost accompanied by a good deal
of snow, and immediately the aspect of the streets changed. All the cabs
were replaced by wooden sleighs; the rather depressed-looking cabmen (it
was before automobiles had taken possession of Berlin) became cheerful
and picturesque in fur caps and sheepskin coats. Two light sleighs, each
drawn by a couple of horses, appeared every afternoon in the courtyard
of the Schloss with a musical clash and tingle of bells, and away the
Princess would drive over the hard-trampled snow of the streets till the
Grünewald, the beautiful forest skirting Berlin, was reached.
To keep the snow thrown up by the hoofs of the horses from falling into
the sleigh, white snow-cloths with red borders were stretched from their
collars and tied to each corner of the splashboard. These filled out to
the wind like sails, giving the impression that the sleigh was being
borne along by them. In the Grünewald were a good many other sleighs
gliding along with a merry jangle. Behind, on a tiny seat, his feet on
the runners, sat the Princess’s footman enveloped in a big coat with
triple cape and _Ohren-Klappen_ (ear-lappets) over his ears. Sometimes
sleighs are driven from the back, or more commonly by a person inside,
but these have a seat in front for the driver. It is not easy to steer a
horse-sleigh round a corner, as it has a tendency to skid off sideways.
At the New Palace, when a hard frost came, it was in later years no
unusual thing to see the Crown Prince and Princess driving in a sleigh,
followed by a string of young officers and their wives on ordinary
children’s toboggans, several drawn by one horse. Occasionally one of
the fair sleighers, responsive to an unexpected movement of the horse,
would drop off behind, and some of the rest of the party had to come
back and replace her. There could not have been much enjoyment in
travelling in that way, unprotected from the cold, though doubtless the
occasional bump on to the ground helped to restore the circulation.
But the occasions for sleighing in the neighbourhood of Berlin are very
rare indeed, as there is seldom quite enough depth of snow, so that
opportunities had to be snatched or they might be gone in another hour
or two. The Princess always grasped the earliest possible opportunity
when sleighing was practicable, and enjoyed some delightful drives
through the silent frozen solitudes beside the marshes of the Havel,
whose brown sedges broke the whiteness of the shore, down by Werder (the
cherry-island, where in spring the blossom of cherry-trees recalls the
past winter), all along the ice-bound blue-grey river streaked with
white where the blasts from the north blew the snow into long ripples,
back through the unbroken purity of the lovely Wild-park with its troops
of dun-brown deer moving silently under the snow-laden branches, waiting
for the forester to bring their daily ration of hay and chestnuts.
But for the most part the snow comes and goes quickly, as in England,
and in Berlin it is rapidly cleared from the streets and tipped into the
river. Even in Belle Vue it quickly becomes black and sullied, for the
railway runs through one corner of the park and the smoke of the trains
plentifully besprinkles all the shrubs and bushes with smuts.
Belle Vue was sometimes the scene of the great hunt for Easter eggs, in
which His Majesty himself used to take a very active part.
About twenty children were invited to partake in this festivity, and the
preparations for Easter in the way of gifts seemed only a very little
less than those at Christmas. The Empress usually gave every person in
her service a piece of Berlin porcelain--beautiful hand-painted
coffee-or tea-cups, dessert-plates, vases or candlesticks. In addition
to these things, flowers arranged to look like eggs were always sent to
the suite by Her Majesty, and the children invited to the _Eier-Suchen_,
as it was called, each received a huge cardboard egg filled with toys,
postcards, trinkets and bonbons, besides a variety of chocolate eggs
wrapped in bright-coloured papers.
All the eggs had to be looked for in various hiding-places, and each
child was provided with a basket to hold what he or she found. If the
weather promised to keep fine, the eggs were hidden in the garden among
the bushes; but if it appeared likely to be wet, then the hunt took
place in the Schloss itself. Sometimes the Emperor insisted on hiding
all the eggs, as he considered that he knew the best places for them;
but once he and his adjutants made an unfortunate choice of the
porcelain stoves as appropriate nesting-places, with the result that the
chocolate eggs melted away under the influence of the heat and betrayed
their presence by long brown stalactites dripping to the floor below.
At one of these “egg-parties"--which were apt to be a little stiff at
first, as the children were overawed, and probably over-admonished as to
their behaviour before coming--the Emperor was much amused by a small
boy of seven, the little Prince of Saxe-Altenburg, whose father has now
succeeded to the principality. The little fellow arrived at Belle Vue
clad in a most immaculate white sailor-suit and white linen cap, but in
his earnest pursuit of eggs he thrust himself into the heart of the
thickest and sootiest bushes, conscientiously penetrated the most
tangled thorny shrubs, explored the coke-cellar of the greenhouse, and
emerged at last with his face covered with black smears and the dazzling
whiteness of his garments seriously diminished. When all the children
were reassembled with their eggs, this small Prince, regardless of the
smuts on his hands and nose, and perhaps a little weary of the stiff
atmosphere, which prevailed in the presence of Their Majesties, with a
smile, produced from his pocket a pair of motor-goggles, which he
assumed with an aspect of the greatest joy, and after sweeping the
assembled girls and boys with a sunshiny glance which left a ripple of
laughter behind, turned his smiling face to the Emperor and grinned
confidingly. He effectually broke the ice, and the stiffness vanished at
once. The children lapsed into naturalness, forgot that they were
wearing their best frocks, and followed the still “motor-goggled” Prince
in a wild chase round the bushes and flower-beds. It was he who really
made the party a social success. All the children went home a little
smudgy, but feeling that they had had an unusually good time.