THE BAUERN-HAUS AND SCHRIPPEN-FEST
The _Bauern-Haus_ or peasant cottage which the Emperor gave to his
daughter at Christmas was built and ready for occupation by the time she
returned to the New Palace in the spring. It was solemnly inaugurated,
being unlocked by the Emperor and presented by him to the Princess, who
was overjoyed at having a place where she could cook and wash clothes to
her heart’s content; for, like most people of royal birth, she was
attracted chiefly towards those occupations in which she was least
likely ever to be engaged.
Before the advent of the _Bauern-Haus_ we had made toffee on a doll’s
stove in a doll’s saucepan, but the brocaded chairs and sofas of the
rooms of the _Prinzen-Wohnung_ were an unsuitable background for
tentative culinary efforts, and the Princess sensibly remarked that
grown-up people had not dolls’ appetites and she wanted to cook
something for “Papa.”
It is true that, having a cold, he had partaken of the toffee (which
turned out rather soft) with much appreciation, but we were eager to
prove ourselves capable of higher achievements.
All the dolls’ crockery-ware, saucepans and frying-pans were taken over
to the _Haus_, which was built in one of the side gardens a little
distance from the Palace.
The first time we indulged there in an orgie of cooking, the Princess,
wishing to play the part properly, donned an embroidered peasant’s dress
which had been presented to her by the good _Bauern-Volk_ who came to
Donau-Eschingen. We met the guard on our way to the garden. They were
dreadfully nonplussed when they first caught sight of her in this
costume, not being sure if it really was the Princess or not, but
finally decided to render the customary honours. The wearer of the dress
had thrown herself so entirely into the part of _Bauern-frau_ that this
obvious anachronism annoyed her extremely. She found the costume,
moreover, rather tight and hot, and not very practical for beating eggs
in, and therefore decided not to wear it again when she really wanted to
work.
As I was the only lady in the Palace having the faintest theoretical or
practical idea of the art of cooking, I was chosen to guide the children
in their first attempts. Two footmen preceded us, carrying firewood,
matches and coal, with which they were to start the little tiled stove,
while half a dozen children followed with flour, eggs, butter, milk, and
other materials, all of which had been commandeered from the royal
kitchens.
The stoutest heart might have quailed, the best cook in the world might
have trembled, at the enterprise I had undertaken. To cook, or rather to
teach a lot of riotous, screaming children to cook--on a stove whose
capacities were not yet known, in a kitchen supplied chiefly with
inadequate and doll-like utensils--a sort of combined tea and supper to
which an Emperor and Empress and goodness knew how many more people had
been hospitably, but I could not but feel recklessly, invited!
It was very hot. Mosquitoes swarmed everywhere. The chimney smoked
relentlessly till one of the footmen discovered a damper. The wood was
wet. There was no water, no knives and forks, and we had forgotten the
salt; but the affair had to be a success, and we set out perseveringly
to carry it through.
The Princess had decided that we would have pancakes for tea--the usual
English kind made with eggs and milk--and the six children were
accordingly sent outside on to the veranda to beat eggs, while I tried
to review my forces and collect a few ideas--a dreadful business with a
swarm of children, asking questions in the rather loud-voiced German
way, running up to show their eggs, or spilling them on the floor, while
not a single cup or saucer was as yet in its place.
By some miraculous means we managed to ice a cake with chocolate--a
sheer _tour-de-force_ of inventive genius, for I had never done such a
thing before in my life. We cut quantities of very thin bread and
butter, at which one of the footmen displayed unsuspected dexterity. The
much-beaten eggs duly mixed with flour and milk made excellent pancakes.
Each child had “tasted” of them liberally, pronouncing them
“_Grossartig! Prachtvoll!_”
All too soon the Emperor and Empress were seen wending their way in our
direction, accompanied, to the Princess’s great indignation, by two
adjutants.
“I never invited the gentlemen,” she said in tones of annoyance; “there
won’t be half enough pancakes to go round.”
I remained discreetly in the background in the kitchen, concentrating my
mind on frying. The tea was good because it was just freshly made, and
the pancakes for the same reason, hot from the fire and spared the usual
long journey down the tunnel from the Palace kitchens, were, in spite of
the inadequate doll’s plates on which they had perforce to be served,
crisp and toothsome.
The Emperor ate with the greatest appetite and appreciation, praising
his daughter’s cooking, and obviously believing, in the usual facile
masculine way, that she had suddenly acquired this difficult art. I
heard her holding forth on the necessity of beating the eggs severely
for ten minutes at least (she did not mention those which had escaped
from the basin to the ground) and talking at large with the air of a
person who had plumbed all the depths of culinary difficulties.
“Yes, of course they stick to the pan if you don’t put lots of
butter--lots and lots.” We had indeed used several pounds.
I think His Majesty accounted for four pancakes and then concentrated on
chocolate cake and bread-and-butter, after which the Empress noticed my
absence, and I was compelled reluctantly to appear--very red-faced and
greasy--and modestly accept the Imperial congratulations on my
successful efforts. Room was made for me to sit down with the rest, and
the chocolate cake was warmly recommended to my attention.
“Fancy an Englishwoman knowing how to cook!” said the Emperor, laughing.
I respectfully but firmly pointed out that not a single German lady
inhabiting the palace confessed to any culinary knowledge whatever. They
had all been approached on the subject, and their ideas were found hazy
and vague in the extreme. Not one had been in a position to help in that
strenuous afternoon’s work. (His Majesty is subject to the illusion that
all German women are extremely domesticated.) The Emperor’s blue eyes
twinkled.
“Ah, ah!” he laughed, “the British ‘Dreadnought’ again to the fore.”
That was his favourite name for me. It had been bestowed on the birthday
of the Princess--the only one of those anniversaries on which the
Emperor was present, for he was usually away at the autumn manœuvres
on that date (September 13), but this one year he happened to be at
home. Although as a rule only one of the three ladies of the Princess,
German, French, or English, accompanied her to the _Frühstücks-tafel_,
on this occasion in honour of the day all were invited, and as we
followed her into the dining-room an adjutant remarked in the Emperor’s
hearing upon _Prinzessin’s Geschwader_ (Princess’s Squadron), referring
to ourselves.
This epithet as applied to the trio amused His Majesty greatly, and he
tried during the meal to fit us all three with appropriate nautical
names, one--the German _Ober-Gouvernante_--being called the “tug,”
Mademoiselle the “torpedo-boat,” while amid the hilarity of the
assembled company he decided that “Dreadnought” was the term which best
applied to me; and although the two other ladies escaped any further
reference to their supposed prototypes, I was not so fortunate, for the
name “Dreadnought” stuck to me thenceforth. When I appeared in a new hat
or dress His Majesty would whimsically remark, “Here comes the
Dreadnought in a new coat of paint,” or some equally embarrassing
observation. Perhaps I was considered to be uncompromisingly British, or
representative of my nation, but when the Princess curled her arm round
my neck and murmured, “Good old Dreadnought!” I did not mind the epithet
so much, and grew in time to like it.
It was at the same _Frühstücks-tafel_ that we three ladies for the first
and only time in our lives had the privilege of “taking wine” with His
Majesty. Usually on birthdays and anniversaries of various kinds it is a
custom at court to stand up and clink glasses together before drinking,
but this is not often done when the Emperor is present. He sometimes
“drinks wine” with any particular gentleman whom he wishes to honour,
who stands up, takes his full glass in his hand, bows to the Emperor,
and empties it at a draught before sitting down again. I had never seen
a lady invited to “take wine” with His Majesty, and believed it to be a
privilege reserved for the sterner sex; but while I was chatting to an
officer at table, the one on the other side, he who had called us a
_Geschwader_, touched my arm and whispered “His Majesty wishes to drink
wine with you. _Aufgestanden und Ausgetrunken!_ (standing, and no
heel-taps!)”
The Emperor was smiling in my direction, glass in hand; so I stood up at
once with my champagne glass filled to the brim (fortunately I
habitually replenished it with water every time I drank) and was able
to toss it off very creditably, thanks to the adjutant’s kindly hint and
the comparative innocuousness of the beverage. His Majesty also “took
wine,” of course, with the other ladies of the _Geschwader_.
The _Bauern-Haus_ remained for several years a centre of joyous-hearted
hospitality and reckless and extravagant cookery. Once the two cousins
of the Princess came over from Glienicke to help to prepare supper,
accompanied by a French governess and an elegantly-attired tutor in a
top-hat and frock-coat. There was no place in our cookery scheme into
which the tutor fitted. So we sent him and the French lady to walk about
the gardens together, while the children, in a glow of enthusiasm, sat
down to peel potatoes for an Irish stew. Prince Leopold (the cousin)
insisted--in spite of advice to the contrary--in also trying to peel the
onions; but after weeping copious tears over the first one, allowed
somebody else to finish. Besides the stew, we had chops, poached eggs,
pancakes, and lemonade.
The Empress, in a very light, elegant toilette, arrived at an acute
stage of activity, when every child was running, shrieking, clattering
glasses, or spilling water, while the sputter of chops and pancakes and
the reek of their frying filled the small kitchen to repletion.
Fortunately we had long since been supplied with full-sized cooking
utensils and the doll-things had been scrapped.
A heavy thunderstorm once threatened at the very moment when the supper
had reached the culminating point of perfection. We had fried our
pancakes (they were a favourite dish and always appeared on the _menu_)
to the accompaniment of rumbles of thunder and blue flashes of
lightning, but the Princess ignored the gathering storm, absorbed in the
mixing of her batter and the smoothness of her potato _purée_. As I
emerged in a decidedly heated state from the kitchen, I caught a mental
picture, which still remains in my memory, of a protesting footman
standing on the veranda pointing to the darkened heavens, and of the
Princess with a fork in her hand, which she flourished in one hand
towards the sky (like another Ajax defying the lightning), while she
emphatically refused to return to the house before supper was eaten.
“Our _beautiful_ supper,” she said: “no, I _won’t_ go in. The storm’s
nothing. It’s going over.” Crashes of thunder punctuated the sentence.
A harassed _Ober-Gouvernante_ appeared round the bushes and commanded
our instant return to the palace; but after several minutes of heated
discussion the storm actually did pass over, and our supper was eaten to
the sound of its faint rumbling retreat towards the river.
Another time we ventured to make vanilla-ice, and sent to the kitchen
for the ice-machine. As we were mixing the milk and eggs and vanilla
flavouring, four white-capped cooks in their spotless kitchen livery
were seen dragging along some sort of wheeled vehicle on which reposed
the heavy ice-machine, which we found to our astonishment to be an
apparatus almost as large as a piano.
It was lifted down--as a matter of fact I think two cooks might have
managed it--and the guests took turns at the handle with such goodwill
that unfortunately we rather overdid it, and the iced custard became of
such a hard rock-like consistency that we had to thaw it a little before
it was fit to eat. But it was pronounced “quite delicious,” and we were
sorry we had not made a larger quantity.
_Pfingsten_, as Whitsuntide is called in Germany, is celebrated by many
pleasant customs. It is the season when all the village people place big
boughs of young larch on each side of the doorway to welcome the
returning spring. Every street breaks out into a sudden growth of
unaccustomed greenery, and in the churches young larch trees cut from
the hill-side are placed on each side of the altar.
In the New Palace the garrison celebrated Whit Monday by the
_Schrippen-Fest_, a dinner instituted by Frederick the Great for their
benefit. All the previous week the soldiers might have been seen busily
at work in their spare time making the long green garlands of pine and
fir twigs with which every good German loves to give outward expression
of his inward joy. They erected round the arcade of the “Communs” plank
tables and benches covered with a wooden roof upheld by posts round
which the garlands were entwined. Early on the morning of Whit Monday
big copper cauldrons containing beef, prunes and rice, were set boiling
out of doors.
Originally the feast had begun in a small way by the distribution to the
soldiers of _Schrippen_, or small loaves of white bread, but in the
course of years it had developed into a substantial meal.
To the _Schrippen-Fest_ the whole Diplomatic Corps and many officers and
ladies are invited, and there is a gay assemblage of people at the
military service for the garrison, which takes place out of doors, under
the trees at one end of the palace. After it is finished the Emperor and
Empress, with their family and guests, go to partake of the feast with
the soldiers. They do not as a rule sit down, but eat their meat and
prunes standing. All the ladies in their trained silk dresses, the
ambassadors, generals, and adjutants in their uniforms, are served with
a plateful of boiled beef, and eat it wherever they can find elbow-room.
When Their Majesties have finished, they walk, followed by the assembled
company, down between the tables, inspecting the soldiers and asking
them questions. “Where do you come from? How long have you served? Have
you had a good dinner?” seem to be the stock questions, varied by
inquiries as to name, father’s business, and any other queries that seem
to fit the occasion.
Here it may be remarked that the Emperor and his family possess in an
unusual degree what Kipling calls the “common touch.” They know how to
talk to poor men, working men, without any shadow of that patronizing
affability often mistakenly employed by one class when trying to be nice
to another which is not on the same social plane.
An absolutely frank and unreserved interest in other people’s affairs is
implied in their conversation, an obvious desire really to know
something of the conditions of other people’s lives. It is not
perfunctory, though it easily, perhaps, might become so, especially in
view of the thousands of soldiers and other people to whom the Emperor
talks in the course of a year. The Princess herself from childhood
always had the happy knack of choosing the right thing to say to the
poorest children she met. She always wanted to know their names, how
many brothers and sisters they had, what class they were in at school,
and what they were going to be when they grew up. One small boy
confessed once to a desire to be a “chimney sweep.” Never was she at a
loss for something appropriate to say to the most cross-grained and
morose of her fellow-mortals; she never appeared to be shy, but,
apparently quite at her ease herself, made every one else feel the same.
She was not a devoted student of books, but possessed initiative and, as
far as her experience went, correct judgment--two invaluable qualities
where princes are concerned.
About a mile from the New Palace lived the only unmarried sister of the
Empress, the Princess Féodora of Schleswig-Holstein, a woman of many
intellectual gifts and a very striking and interesting personality,
possessing great influence over the children of her sister, who spent
much time in “Tante Féo’s” beloved society. Her ideas were very
democratic. She detested the atmosphere of courts and all the
restrictions and ceremonies incident to court existence. She was a very
clever artist, and author of several books dealing with the life of the
peasantry and showing a marvellous insight into their methods of
thought.
[Illustration: THE KAISER AND HIS ELDEST GRANDSON]
Her home was for some years in a large farmhouse belonging to the Crown
known as “Bornstedter Gut,” lived in for some time by the Emperor and
Empress Frederick. The ground-floor was inhabited by the bailiff and his
family. The rest of the house belonged to the Princess, to whom it had
been lent by her brother-in-law the German Emperor, with whom she was a
great favourite, in spite of the fact that on nearly every possible
subject their views clashed uncompromisingly. She furnished it all
according to her own taste, doing her shopping in Berlin like any
ordinary _Bürger-frau_ among the crowd of other buyers. She loved the
realities of life, and refused to have things made easier for her
because she was the sister of the Empress. Only seven years older than
her eldest nephew, the Crown Prince, she was from childhood the
delightful play-fellow of the children of the Empress and of her other
sisters, Princess Frederick Leopold of Prussia and the Duchess of
Schleswig-Holstein.
I first saw her at Bornstedt, where I had come to fetch my little
Princess, who had been spending the afternoon with her aunt. The
carriage I was in drove past a big farmyard, where waggon-horses were
being harnessed, up to the door of a big stone house pleasantly shaded
by chestnut trees. As I got out of the carriage a sudden irruption of
screaming children, boys and girls of all ages in a state of extreme
heat and untidiness, among whom I recognized my Princess, burst from the
dark doorway of a cow-house, and trampling and stumbling over heaps of
farmyard litter, fled with shrieks up a perpendicular ladder into a
hay-loft. They were followed at a short interval by a lady clad in a
tweed skirt, a striped blouse and a Panama hat, who likewise flew up the
ladder with remarkable agility and disappeared. Uproarious screams were
presently heard issuing from the loft. They were evidently playing
_Versteckens_, and my coachman confided to me that the lady of the
ladder was Princess Féodora herself.
The Princess disliked the ordinary court circle, with its cramped,
narrow views, and loved to surround herself with clever, unconventional
people, whatever their rank in life. With her it was a positive
obsession that all her royal nephews and nieces should know life as it
really was, not as seen blurred and transformed through a court
atmosphere, with the hideous, ugly realities of existence hidden away
and covered up. She taught them many perhaps disagreeable truths about
themselves, which they would have heard from no one else. The trend of
modern thought and contemporary politics both found in her an earnest
and intelligent student. With poverty, with humble folk, she had an
intense sympathy, a passionate tenderness for all simple struggling
existences.
Although possessing a conspicuous sense of humour, in her books she
wrote only of the sombre side of life, the bare starving sand-dunes of
her native Holstein, the resinous breath of its pine-woods, the chill
sad beat on the shore of its grey sea-waves. She depicted the strenuous
toil, the unrelieved labour, the sordid existence and struggles of the
peasantry.
“The only truths in life,” she makes one of her characters say, “are
founded upon Work. Everything else is false.”
In “Tante Féo’s” company the little Princess had the privilege of seeing
the first aeroplane flight of her life made by Orville Wright, who had
installed himself and his machine on the Bornstedter Feld, where he was
instructing the German officers in the art of flying.
One day at the end of September 1909 came a telephone message from one
of the Princes in Potsdam, saying that Orville Wright was flying on the
“Feld.” Without delay two “autos” were ordered by Her Majesty, one for
herself and her sister and the Princess, the other for the suite; and
the palace buzzed like a hive while footmen flew about summoning the
ladies to get ready at once. The two professors who ought to have been
instructing the Princess in literature and history were sent off to the
scene of action in a carriage (a propitiatory proceeding suggested, I
believe, by the Princess herself, who never failed to display a certain
diplomatic tact), while Mademoiselle and I huddled on our outdoor things
and tied motor-veils with tremblingly excited fingers. It was _de
rigueur_ to get excited over flying, and nothing annoyed the Princess
more than an attitude of philosophic calm.
We picked up Prince August Wilhelm and Prince George of Greece on the
way, and sped onwards to the big cavalry-exercise ground, over which the
cars bumped at a furious pace. When we arrived, however, there was no
sign of Mr. Wright. A gentleman appeared, who announced with a
pronounced American accent that all flying was finished for that day, as
the police had gone home again and there was no one to keep the crowd
from straying on to the ground. But Her Majesty particularly wished
Princess Féo to see a flight, as she was going away the same evening,
and there was a discussion as to whether soldiers should be summoned
from the adjacent barracks to keep the course. The American gentleman
seemed to think that would make no difference to Mr. Wright, but at last
a man was sent to his tent to announce Her Majesty’s arrival, and
presently he came along buttoning up his leather jacket as he walked--a
quiet, taciturn individual who spoke in rather a soft, gentle voice when
he spoke at all, which was not often.
Some policemen on bicycles had materialized out of the surrounding
landscape, and began to drive the crowd back to the road, where they
were kept penned up by the arm of the law while we stood in the middle
of the field to watch the flight.
A few days later the Emperor himself went with the Empress and Princess
to see Wright fly. It was the middle of October, when the days are
getting short, and there had been some delay in starting, so that as
the cars tore on to the Feld the sun was setting in great clouds of
scarlet and purple, and night fast approaching. Wright was waiting
beside his machine, and after a word with the Emperor put on his jacket
and goggles, and in a few seconds the motor began to hum steadily, the
propellers whizzed round, and the huge machine moved along smoothly and
swiftly up into the darkening heavens. Its wide-spread planes showed
blackly for a moment against the intense sunset background, then it went
droning round the immense space, rising higher and higher towards the
stars, which were now shining brightly in the deep blue of the sky. For
nearly half an hour, away above our heads, the machine circled and dived
and rose again, humming smoothly and sleepily in the distance, then
coming nearer with a threatening murmur, to rise and disappear again
into the darkness, reappearing presently like a gigantic moth. At last
it descended, dropping lightly within a few feet of us. The crowd on the
edge of the field cheered heartily.
The Emperor and Empress congratulated Wright, and there was a great
explanation of “how it was done,” though most of the officers found a
difficulty in understanding the American accent. Presently a signed
photograph of the Emperor, which one of the adjutants had been carrying,
was produced and given to Wright by His Majesty; and then a lady who had
been modestly hovering in the background--Miss Katherine Wright, the
aeronaut’s sister--was called up and presented, and she took charge of
the photograph and made delightful American remarks about it. By this
time it was absolutely dark, but the powerful acetylene lights of the
three cars illuminated the scene. The Emperor could not tear himself
away from the aeroplane, the first he had yet seen; and while he was
still asking questions I talked with Miss Wright, an extremely charming
woman, who said that this was probably her brother’s last flight on
German soil. They had already stayed a day longer than intended, so
that he might fly before the Emperor, before departing for Paris and
London _en route_ for America.
For a long time in Germany the airships--the “Zeppelins” as they are
popularly called--occupied the popular imagination much more than the
flying-machines with which the Germans have recently won such
distinction. Once in the earlier years of Zeppelin’s monster air-craft a
message came to the court that he was flying from Frankfort to Berlin,
which he would reach somewhere about five o’clock that afternoon. There
was the usual hurrying to and fro. The Emperor, Empress, Princess and
suite hurled themselves into motor-cars and hurried towards Berlin, but
after waiting several hours on the Tempelhofer Feld, with nothing to eat
and not much to do, they returned without a glimpse of any airship, as
the rumours of its coming had been entirely unfounded.
However, later on in the year Zeppelin announced his intention to bring
his airship to Berlin.
On the day fixed all the shops were closed at noon, and the whole
population turned out and walked up and down the street with their eyes
fixed heavenwards towards the lovely blue sky, for the weather was
superb.
Every lady or gentleman having any connection with the court was invited
by ticket either to the Tempelhofer Feld, at which the airship was to
descend, or to the roof of the Schloss itself, as the Zeppelin was to
manœuvre round the building. But towards noon, just as all the
excursion trains from the country had brought in the surrounding
inhabitants to swell the already dense crowd of sky-gazers, a special
edition of the newspapers was issued announcing an injury to the airship
which prevented further flight. So every one went sadly home again.
The next day, Sunday, news came that the defect had been repaired and
that the airship with Count Zeppelin on board would appear about noon.
This change of plan was rather inconvenient for several reasons, for
there was a newly restored church to be dedicated in the presence of the
Emperor and Empress and the chief military authorities. A gentleman in
attendance said that never before had he seen such an obviously
distracted congregation at any church function. The long-drawn-out
service, the long-winded address (German sermons are of the
old-fashioned type and usually last at least an hour) were listened to
with hardly concealed impatience and lack of interest; and the clergy
themselves seemed to keep one ear turned towards that heaven to which
they were directing their audience, in apprehension of hearing before
they had finished their discourse that mighty droning which would
proclaim Zeppelin’s arrival.
From the windows of the Schloss, overlooking the courtyard, it was usual
to see the adjutants who had accompanied His Majesty descend from their
cars with dignity--that dignity appropriate to a not-too-pronounced
_embonpoint_--salute the guard with grave courtesy and deliberation, and
then retire without undue haste from the public view. But on this
occasion they tumbled out of the cars and rushed up the steps like
schoolboys, colliding as they ran with the footmen and _Burschen_ who
came running with their flat undress caps to exchange for the spiked
head-gear they had worn in church.
It is a popular myth that the German is phlegmatic. He is nothing of the
kind. He is extraordinarily excitable on occasion. He gets out of
temper, shouts and wrings his hands in moments of stress, and sheds
tears easily. His feelings are on the surface. His military calm is
acquired. He abandons it and becomes almost hysterical when something
touches his heart and imagination.
The advent of Zeppelin in his airship was the culminating act of a great
national triumph. The indomitable old man, who had worked so long and
so pluckily at his herculean task, was at last to receive some of the
homage due to his tenacity and self-sacrifice. So no wonder the people
thronged the streets and crowded the housetops.
The fashionable crowd ascended to the roof of the Schloss by devious
ways, through little dark sculleries, up queer steep steps and ladders,
past funny little apartments smelling strongly of cheese and garlic,
where the families of some of the servants live tucked away in a corner
of the big building, out on to the copper-covered roof along narrow
plank paths, made primarily for the use of the sentries who must nightly
patrol these upper regions. Some of them have inscribed verses on the
walls, conveying discontent at the atmospheric conditions prevailing
there on winter nights.
The sky above was gloriously blue, and as far as the eye could reach, on
every one of the many flat roofs in the vicinity were masses of people
assembled--not, as is usually the case, a mere fringe of daring spirits
leaning over the parapet to view something below, but crowds spread over
the whole surface. Each man, woman and child held a fluttering flag,
which they waved tempestuously as an outlet for overflowing emotions.
One could almost see the palpitating heart-beat of the nation.
At last, after an hour or two of waiting, an electric thrill ran through
the elevated crowd. Some one had caught sight of the airship. By degrees
every one found it--a tiny cigar-shaped speck, hardly visible against
the deep blue distance. A wave of cheering swelled and ebbed and died
away. The speck grew gradually larger. Cheers in the distant part of the
city reached us in ever-increasing volume. The droning of the engines
was plainly audible. Presently the “dirigible” could be seen over the
Brandenburger Tor. Still more frantic cheers arose from the crowded
streets, the packed windows and roofs. The great machine swung steadily
up _Unter den Linden_ and sailed magnificently round and round the
Schloss, while the waves of cheering were crested with a white
fluttering of handkerchiefs like a storm-tossed sea. Again and again the
“Zeppelin” made its stately circuit of the royal castle, then slowly
turned and headed for the Tempelhofer Feld, where the Emperor and
Empress with their family and all the greatest men in Germany were
waiting to congratulate the splendid old veteran.