CHAPTER XII

THE DISTURBANCE. WHAT HAPPENED IN A VILLAGE CHURCH

Finally the Hunter finished cutting the pen. He pushed a sheet of paper

toward her and asked her to try it and see if it would write. She did

so, but could not make it work very well; it had teeth, she said. He

looked at what she had written; it was her own name, in the clearest and

most regular lines. The fine letters delighted him.

Then the door opened and the bridesmaid entered with a dress and a

request that Lisbeth be the third bridesmaid.

Outside the music, varied by the ringing of bells, was coming nearer and

nearer, and now the bridal carriage, drawn by two strong horses, hove

into sight at the farther end of the road leading through the oak grove.

The first bridesmaid stood demurely beside the bride, with her large and

rather malodorous bouquet; the men stood by the chests and bundles in

the entrance-hall, all ready to seize them for the last time; the

Justice was looking about anxiously for the second and third

bridesmaids, for if the latter were not on hand before the appearance of

the bridegroom to take the place which the day assigned to them, the

entire ceremony, according to his notion, was done for. But finally,

exactly at the right time, the two awaited girls came down the steps and

took their stands on either side of the first, just as the carriage

turned in toward the open space in front of the house.

With an expression of unconcern on his face, like that of all the

principal persons of this ceremony, the bridegroom alighted from the

carriage. Some young people, his most intimate friends, followed him,

adorned with ribbons and bouquets. He slowly approached the bride, who

even now did not look up, but went on spinning and spinning. The first

bridesmaid then fastened the large bouquet of sage to the breast of his

wedding-jacket. The bridegroom accepted the bouquet without thanks, for

thanks were not included in the traditional routine. He silently

offered his hand to his father-in-law, then, just as silently, to his

bride, who thereupon arose and placed herself with the bridesmaids,

between the first and second and in front of the third.

In the meanwhile, the servants had carried the dowry to the wagon. The

scene assumed a rather wild aspect, for the people with the baggage, in

hurrying back and forth among the cooking-fires, kicked from its place

many a burning fagot which crackled and showered sparks in the very path

down which the bridal pair were to walk. After the loading of linen, the

flax, and the various pieces of wearing apparel, the bride, with the

three bridesmaids and the spinning wheel, which she carried herself,

took a seat in the carriage. The bridegroom sat down apart from her in

the back part of the vehicle, and the young fellows were obliged to

follow on foot, as the dowry occupied so much room that there was none

left for them. One of them made this the subject of traditional

facetious remarks, which he addressed to the Justice, who replied to

them with a smirk. He walked along behind the young men, and the Hunter

placed himself at his side. Thus two men walked together, who on this

day were cherishing the most radically opposed feelings. For the Justice

was thinking of nothing but the wedding, and the Hunter of anything but

the wedding, although his thoughts were hovering about the bridal

carriage.

Now let us allow the latter to drive slowly to the home of the

bridegroom, where already the entire wedding-company is waiting for

it--men, women, girls and youths from all the surrounding estates, in

addition to friends from the city, the Captain and the Collector. There

the carriage is unloaded. Meanwhile let us go on ahead to the church,

which, shaded by walnut-trees and wild chestnuts, stands on a green hill

in the centre of the entire community.

Inasmuch as it was the proper time, and as the people had already

gathered in the church, the Sexton began to play the customary "Battle

of Prague" on the organ. He knew but one prelude, and this was that

forgotten battle-hymn which perhaps a few elderly people will recollect

if I recall to their memories that the musical picture begins with the

advance of Ziethen's Hussars. From this march the Sexton managed to

swing over, with transitions which, to be sure, were not infrequently

rather bold, into the ordinary church melodies.

While the hymn was being sung the Pastor entered the pulpit, and when he

chanced to cast his eyes over the congregation, they met an unexpected

sight. A gentleman from court, namely, was standing among the peasants,

whose attention he was diverting because they were all constantly

looking up from their hymnals and glancing at his star. The aristocratic

gentleman wanted to share a hymn book with some one of the peasants, in

order to join in the singing, but since each one of them, as soon as the

gentleman drew near to him, respectfully stepped aside, he was unable to

accomplish his purpose, and succeeded only in causing an almost general

unrest. For when he sat down in one of the pews, every one of the

peasants seated in it moved along to the extreme farther end, and when

he moved along toward them they finally deserted the pew altogether.

This moving along and getting up was repeated in three or four pews, so

that the aristocratic gentleman, who was attending this little country

service with the best of intentions, was finally obliged to give up the

idea of taking an active part in it. He had business in the region, and

did not want to miss an opportunity of winning, by means of

condescension, the hearts of these country people for the throne to

which he felt himself so near. For that reason, as soon as he heard of

the peasant wedding, the idea of attending it affably from beginning to

end immediately occurred to him.

The sight of the gentleman did not make a pleasant impression on the

Pastor, who knew him to be a member of one of the brilliant social

circles in the capital. He knew what a peculiar custom would follow the

sermon and feared the gentleman's ridicule. For that reason his thoughts

lost some of their usual clearness, his feelings were somewhat

concealed, and the more he talked the further he digressed from the

subject. His distraction increased when he noticed that the gentleman

was casting appreciative glances at him and occasionally nodding his

head in approval; this last happened usually when the speaker was most

dissatisfied with what he was saying. He consequently cut short certain

parts of the nuptial address and hurried along to the formal ceremony.

The bridal pair were kneeling, and the fateful questions were being put

to them. Then something happened which gave the aristocratic stranger a

violent shock. For, looking to the right and left and before and behind

him, he saw men and women, girls and youths drawing out thick clubs of

twisted sack-cloth. Everybody was standing up and whispering and looking

around, as it seemed to him, with wild and malicious glances. As it was

impossible for him to guess the true meaning of these preparations, he

completely lost his composure; and since the clubs seemed to indicate

incontestably that somebody was to be the recipient of blows, he got the

notion into his head that he himself was going to be the object of a

general maltreatment. He remembered how fearsomely the people had moved

away from him, and he thought to himself how rough the character of

country people was, and how perhaps the peasants, not understanding his

condescending motive, had resolved to get rid of the disagreeable

intruder. All this went through his soul like a streak of lightning, and

he was at a loss to know how he was going to protect his person and

dignity from the horrible attack.

While he was helplessly wrestling for a decision, the Pastor concluded

the ceremonies, and there immediately arose the wildest tumult. All the

bearers of clubs, men and women, rushed forward yelling and screaming

and flourishing their weapons; the aristocratic gentleman, however, in

three sidewise bounds over several pews, reached the pulpit. In a trice

he had ascended it, and from this elevated position called out in a loud

voice to the raging crowd below:

"I advise you not to attack me! I cherish the kindest and most

condescending feelings toward you all, and any injury done to me will be

resented by the King, as one done to himself."

The peasants, however, inspired by the object they had in view, did not

listen to this speech, but ran on up to the altar. On the way this and

that person received some unpremeditated blows before the intended

object of them was reached. This was the bridegroom. Clapping his hands

over his head, the latter with great exertion forced a passage for

himself through the crowd, who rained blows on his back, shoulders and

wherever there was room. He ran, violently pushing people aside, to the

church door; but before he got there he had received certainly more than

a hundred blows, and thus, well covered with black-and-blue marks, he

left the church on his wedding-day. Everybody ran after him; the bride's

father and bride followed, the Sexton closed the door immediately after

the last one had passed through it and betook himself to the vestry,

which had a private exit. In a few seconds the entire church was empty.

All this time the aristocratic gentleman had remained in the pulpit,

while the Pastor stood before the altar, bowing to him with a friendly

smile. The gentleman, when he saw from his Ararat that the blows were

not meant for him, grew calm and dropped his arms. When it was quiet, he

asked the clergyman:

"For heaven's sake, Pastor, tell me what this furious scene meant; what

had the poor man done to his assailants?"

"Nothing, your Excellency," replied the Pastor who, notwithstanding the

dignity of the place, could hardly help laughing at the nobleman in the

pulpit. "This act of beating the bridegroom after the marriage ceremony

is an old, old custom which the people refuse to give up. They say that

it is intended to let the bridegroom feel how much blows hurt, so that

in the future he will not abuse his rights as a husband toward his

wife."

"Well, but that is certainly a most remarkable custom," mumbled his

Excellency, descending from the pulpit.

The Pastor received him very courteously below and conducted his

aristocratic acquaintance into the vestry, in order to let him outdoors

from there. The latter, who was still somewhat frightened, said that he

would have to think it over, whether or not he could take part in the

further proceedings of the ceremony. The clergyman, on the way to the

vestry, expressed profound regret that he had not been previously

advised of his Excellency's design, because he then would have been in a

position to inform him of the beating custom, and thus to avert so great

a fright and shock.

After both had departed, peace and silence reigned once more in the

church. It was a pretty little church, dainty and not too gay--a rich

benefactor had done a great deal for it. The ceiling was painted blue

with gold stars. The pulpit displayed some artistic carving and among

the tablets on the floor, which covered the tombs of former pastors,

there were even two or three of bronze. The pews were kept very tidy and

clean, and to that end the Justice had exerted his strong influence. A

beautiful cloth adorned the altar, above which rose a twisted column

painted to resemble marble.

The light fell brightly into the little church, the trees outside were

rustling, and now and then a gentle breeze coming in by a broken

window-pane stirred the white scarf with which the angel above the

baptismal font was decked, or the tinsel of the wreaths which, having

been taken from the coffins of the maidens who had died, were used to

decorate the surrounding pillars.

Bride and bridegroom were gone, the bridal procession was gone, but

still the peaceful little church was not yet entirely deserted. Two

young people had remained inside of it, without knowing of each other's

presence; and this is how it happened. The Hunter, when the

wedding-party entered the church, had separated from them and quietly

gone up a flight of stairs to a gallery. There, unseen by the rest, he

sat down on a stool all alone by himself, his back to the people and to

the altar. He buried his face in his hands, but that he could not long

endure to do; his cheek and brow were too hot. The hymn with its solemn

tones cooled the heat like falling dew; he thanked God that finally,

finally the supreme happiness had been granted to him:

In thy sadness, in thy laughter,

Thou art thine own by law of love! * * *

A little child had crept up to him out of curiosity; he gently grasped

his hand and caressed it. Then he started to give him money, did not do

it, but pressed him against his breast and kissed his forehead. And when

the boy, a bit frightened by his hot caress, moved toward the stairs, he

slowly led him down lest he should fall. Then he returned to his seat

and heard nothing of the sermon, nothing of the noise which followed it.

He was sunk in deep and blissful dreams which revealed to him his

beautiful mother and his white castle on the green hillside and himself

and somebody else in the castle.

Lisbeth, embarrassed in her strange attire, had bashfully walked along

behind the bride. Oh, she thought, just when the good man thinks I am

always natural I must wear borrowed clothes. She longed to have back her

own. She heard the peasants behind her talking about her in a whisper.

The aristocratic gentleman, who met the procession in front of the

church, looked at her critically for a long time through his lorgnette.

All that she was obliged to endure, when she had just been so

beautifully extolled in verse, when her heart was overflowing with

joyful delight. Half dazed she entered the church, where she made up her

mind to desert the procession on the way back, in order to avoid

becoming again the object of conversation or facetious remarks, which

now for a quarter of an hour had been far from her thoughts. She too

heard but little of the sermon, earnestly as she strove to follow the

discourse of her respected clerical friend. And when the rings were

exchanged, the matter-of-course expression on the faces of the bridal

pair aroused a peculiar emotion in her--a mixture of sadness, envy, and

quiet resentment that so heavenly a moment should pass by two such

stolid souls.

Then came the tumult, and she fled involuntarily behind the altar. When

it grew quiet again, she drew a deep breath, adjusted her apron, gently

stroked back a lock of hair that had fallen over on her brow, and took

courage. She was anxious to see how she could make her way back to the

Oberhof unnoticed and get rid of the disagreeable clothes. With short

steps and eyes cast down she walked along a side passage toward the

door.

Having finally awakened from his dreams, the Hunter was descending the

stairs. He too was anxious to quit the church, but where to go he did

not know. His heart throbbed when he saw Lisbeth; she lifted her eyes

and stood still, shy and artless. Then, without looking at each other,

they went in silence to the door, and the Hunter laid his hand on the

latch to open it.

"It is locked!" he cried in a tone of delight, as if the best luck in

the world had befallen him. "We are locked in the church!"

"Locked in?" she said, filled with sweet horror.

"Why does that cause you dismay? Where can one possibly have better

quarters than in a church?" he said soulfully. He gently put his arm

around her waist, and with his other hand grasped her hand. Then he led

her to a seat, gently forced her to sit down and himself sat down beside

her. She dropped her eyes and toyed with the ribbons on the gay-colored

bodice she was wearing.

"This is a horrible dress, isn't it?" she said scarce audibly after a

long silence.

"Oh!" he cried, "I hadn't been looking at the dress!" He seized both of

her hands, pressed them violently to his breast, and then lifted her

from the pew. "I cannot bear to sit so still.--Let's take a look at the

church!" he cried.

"Probably there is not much here worth seeing," she replied trembling.

But his strong arms had already surrounded, lifted, and borne her to the

altar. There he let her down; she lay half-fainting against his breast.

"Lisbeth!" he stammered his voice choking with love. "My only love!

Forgive me! Will you be my wife?--my eternal, sweet wife?"

She did not answer. Her heart was throbbing against his. Her tears were

flowing on his breast. Now he raised her head, and their lips met. For a

long, long time they held them together.

Then he gently drew her down to her knees beside him, and both raised

their hands in prayer before the altar. They could give voice to nothing

save, "Father! Dear Father in Heaven!" And that they did not tire of

repeating in voices trembling with bliss. They said it as confidingly as

if the Father whom they meant were offering them His hand.

Finally the prayer died out and they both silently laid their faces on

the altar-cloth.

Thus united they continued for some time to kneel in the church, and

neither made a sound. Suddenly they felt their hands lightly touched and

looked up. The Pastor was standing between them with a shining face, and

holding his hands on their heads in blessing. By chance he had entered

the church once more from the vestry and, touched and amazed, had

witnessed the betrothal which had been consummated here apart from the

wedding in the presence of God. He, too, said no word, but his eyes

spoke. He drew the youth and the girl to his breast, and pressed his

favorites affectionately to him.

Then, leading the way, he went with the couple into the vestry in order

to let them out. And thus the three left the little, quiet, bright

village church. Lisbeth and the Hunter had found each other--for their

lives!

* * * * *

GUTZKOW AND YOUNG GERMANY

By Starr Willard Cutting, Ph.D. Professor of German Literature,

University of Chicago

A group of men, including, among others, Ludwig Börne, Heinrich Heine,

Heinrich Laube, Theodor Mundt, Ludolf Wienbarg, and Karl Gutzkow,

dominate the literary activity of Germany from the beginning of the

fourth decade to about the middle of the nineteenth century. The common

bond of coherence among the widely divergent types of mind here

represented, is the spirit of protest against the official program of

the reaction which had succeeded the rise of the people against Napoleon

Bonaparte. This German phase of an essentially European political

restoration had turned fiercely upon all intelligent, patriotic leaders,

who called for a redemption of the unfulfilled pledges of constitutional

government, given by the princes of Germany, in dire need of popular

support against foreign invasion, and had construed such reminders as

disloyalty and as proof of dark designs against the government. It had

branded indiscriminately, as infamous demagogues, traitors, and

revolutionists, all those who, like Jahn, the _Turners,_ and most of the

members of the earliest _Burschenschaften_ (open student societies),

longed for the creation of a new empire under the leadership of Prussia,

or, like Karl Follen (Charles Follen, first professor of German at

Harvard), preferred the establishment of a German republic on lines

similar to those of the United States of America. Under a policy of

suppression, manipulated by Metternich with consummate skill in the

interest of Austria against Prussia and against German confidence in the

sincerity and trustworthiness of the Prussian government, the reaction

had by arrests, prosecutions, circumlocution-office delays, banishments,

and an elaborate system of espionage, for the most part silenced

opposition and saved, not the state, but, at any rate, the _status quo_.

This "success" had incidentally cost Germany the presence and service of

some of the ablest and best of her own youth, who spent the rest of

their lives in France, England, Switzerland, or the United States. We

Americans owe to this "success" some of the most admirable types of our

citizenship--expatriated Germans like Karl Follen, Karl Beck, Franz

Lieber, the brothers Wesselhoeft, and many others.

Wienbarg dedicated in 1834 his _Esthetic Campaigns_ to Young Germany.

This term has since then served friend and foe to designate the group of

writers of whom we speak. Their slogan was freedom. Freedom from

cramping police surveillance; freedom from the arbitrary control of

government, unchecked by responsibility to the people; freedom from the

narrowing prescriptions of ecclesiastical authority, backed by the power

of the state; freedom from the literary restraint of medievalism in

modern letters--these and various other brands of freedom were demanded

by different members of the school. Just because the birth-throes of

modern Germany, which extend over the first seventy years of the

nineteenth century, were especially violent during the period under

consideration, the program of the school had from the outset a strong

political bias. The broad masses of the people were unacquainted with

political forms and principles. They were by time-hallowed tradition

virtually the wards of their patriarchal princes, sharing with these

protectors a high degree of jealous regard for state sovereignty and of

instinctive opposition towards any and all attempts to secure popular

restraint of the sovereign's will and national unification, that should

demand subordination of the single state to the central government. All

early attempts to awaken popular interest in social and political reform

had fallen flat, because of this helpless ignorance and indifference of

public opinion. But the drastic official measures against early

agitators proved to be a challenge to further activity in the direction

of progress.

[Illustration: KARL FERDINAND GUTZKOW]

The July revolution of 1830 in Paris added fuel to the flame of this

agitation in Germany and intensified the interest of still wider masses

in the question of large nationality and popular control. Then came, on

the twenty-seventh of May, 1832, the German revolutionary speeches of

the Hambach celebration, and, on April third, 1833, the Frankfurt riot,

with its attempt to take the Confederate Council by surprise and to

proclaim the unification of Germany. The resulting persecution of Fritz

Reuter, the tragedy of Friedrich Ludwig Weidig, the simultaneous

withdrawal or curtailment of the freedom of the press and the right of

holding public meetings were most eloquent advocates with the public

mind for a sturdy opposition to the conservatism of princes and

officials.

No wonder, then, that thinking men, like Heine and Gutzkow, were fairly

forced by circumstances into playing the game. No wonder that their

tales, novels, and dramas became in many cases editorials to stimulate

and guide public thought and feeling in one direction or another. This

swirl of agitation put a premium upon a sort of rapid-fire work and

journalistic tone, quite incompatible with the highest type of artistic

performance. While the Young Germans were all politically liberal and

opposed to the Confederate Council and to the Metternich program, they

were in many ways more cosmopolitan than national in temper.

The foregoing may serve to show the only substantial ground for the

charge of didacticism, frequently lodged by their critics against the

writers of the school. For it is beside the mark to speak of their

opposition to romanticism as a ground for the charge in question. They

were all, to be sure, anti-Romanticists. They declined to view life

through roseate-hued spectacles or to escape the world of everyday

reality by fairy-tale flights into the world of the imagination. They

called upon men to discover by clear-eyed vision not only the beauties

but also the defects of contemporary social existence. They would employ

literature, not as an opiate to make us forget such defects, but as a

stimulant to make us remedy them. Hence their repeated exhortations to

use the senses and to trust them as furnishing the best kind of raw

material for legitimate art. Hence also their protests against the

bloodless abstractions of the Nazarene school of painting and to

transcendental idealism in art and literature. They cultivated art, not

for its own sake, but for the sake of a fuller, saner, and freer human

life. In this sense they were didactic; but they were no more didactic

than the Romanticists and the Pseudo-Classicists who had preceded them.

In their earnest contention for an organic connection between German

life and German art and literature they were hewing more closely to the

line of nature and truth than any other Germans since the time of

Herder.

They are usually spoken of as free-thinkers and frequently as

anti-religious in temper and conviction. The charge of irreligion seems

based upon the misconception or the misrepresentation of their orthodox

critics. It is, at any rate, undeserved, as far as Gutzkow, the leader

of the school, is concerned. It is true that they were liberal in the

matter of religious and philosophical thought. They were also skeptical

as to the sincerity and usefulness of many current practises and

institutions of the Catholic and Protestant branches of the church;

their wit, irony, and satire were directed, however, not against

religion, but against the obnoxious externals of ecclesiasticism. This

attack was provoked by the obvious fact that the reaction employed the

institutional state church as a weapon with which to combat the rising

tide of popular discontent with existing social and political forms and

functions. This was especially true after the accession to the throne of

Prussia of that romantic and reactionary prince, Frederick William IV.,

in 1840.

Critics have ascribed the negative, disintegrating, and cosmopolitan

spirit of the group as a whole to the fact that Börne and Heine were

Jews. In addition, however, to the abundant non-racial grounds for this

spirit, already urged as inherent in the historic crisis under

discussion, we should recall the fact that Heine, as a literary

producer, is more closely allied with the Romanticists than with Young

Germany, and that Börne, who in his celebrated _Letters from Paris_

(1830-34) and elsewhere went farther than all other members of the

school in transforming art criticism into political criticism, was no

cosmopolitan but an ardent, sincere, and consistent German patriot.

Moreover, while Börne and Heine belong through sympathy and deliberate

choice to Young Germany, the real spokesmen of the group, Wienbarg,

Laube, Mundt, and Gutzkow, were non-Jewish Germans.

Among the external facts of Gutzkow's life, worth remembering in this

connection, are the following: His birth on the seventeenth of March,

1811, as the son of humble parents; his precocious development in school

and at the University of Berlin; his deep interest in the revolution of

1830 in Paris; his student experiments in journalism and the resulting

association with the narrow-minded patriot, Wolfgang Menzel; his

doctorate in Jena and subsequent study of books and men in Heidelberg,

Munich, Leipzig, Berlin, and Hamburg; his association with Heine, Laube,

Mundt, and Wienbarg and his journey with Laube through Austria and Italy

in 1533; his breach with Menzel at the instance of Laube in the same

year; his publication in 1835 of the crude sketch of an emancipation

novel, _Wally the Skeptic_, compounded of suggestions from Lessing's Dr.

Reimarus, from Saint Simonism, and from the sentimental tragedy of

Charlotte Stieglitz in real life; Menzel's revengeful denunciation of

this colorless and tedious novel, as an "outrageous attack upon ethics

and the Christian religion"; the resulting verdict of the Mannheim

municipal court, punishing Gutzkow by one month's imprisonment, with no

allowance for a still longer detention during his trial; the official

proscription of all "present and future writings" by Gutzkow, Wienbarg,

Laube, Mundt, and Heine; Gutzkow's continued energetic championship of

the new literary movement and editorial direction of the Frankfurt

_Telegraph_, from 1835 to 1837, under the very eyes of the Confederate

Council; his removal in 1837 to Hamburg and his gradual transformation

there from a short story writer and journalist into a successful

dramatist; his series of eleven plays, produced within the space of

fifteen years, from 1839 to 1854; the success of his tragedy, _Uriel

Acosta_, in 1846, and the resulting appointment of the author in the

same year as playwright and critic at the Royal Theatre in Dresden; his

temperate participation in the popular movement of 1848 and consequent

loss of the Dresden position; the death of his wife, Amalia, in the

same-year after an estrangement of seven years, due to his own

infatuation for Therese von Bacharacht; his happy marriage in 1849 with

Bertha Meidinger, a cousin of his first wife; the publication in 1850-51

of his first great novel of contemporary German life, entitled,

_Spiritual Knighthood_; his continuous editorial work upon the journal,

_Fireside Conversations_, from 1849 until the appearance of his other

great contemporary novel, _The Magician of Rome_, 1858-61; his attack of

insanity under the strain of ill health in 1865 and unsuccessful attempt

at suicide; and, finally, his rapidly declining health and frequent

change of residence from Berlin to Italy, thence to Heidelberg, and from

there to Sachsenhausen, near Frankfurt-on-the-Main, and his tragic death

there, either intentional or accidental, in the night of December

fifteenth, 1878, when under the influence of chloral he upset the

candle, by the light of which he had been reading, and perished in the

stifling fumes of the burning room.

This bare outline recalls the personality and career of the best single

embodiment of the spirit of Young Germany. His humble birth, unusual

grasp of intellect, and ambition to secure an adequate education brought

him into early touch with alert representatives of the educated middle

classes, who were the keenest and most consistent critics of the

political, social, and ecclesiastical reaction which gripped German life

at that time. Menzel's student connection with the Jena

_Burschenschaft_, his early published protest against the emptiness of

recent German literature, and his polemic, entitled _German Literature_,

and aimed at the imitators of Goethe and at Goethe's own lack of

interest in German unification, attracted young Gutzkow, who had also

been a member of the _Burschenschaft_, and prompted him to write and

publish in his student paper a defense of Menzel against his critics.

This led Menzel to invite Gutzkow to Stuttgart and to propose a

coöperation which could be but short-lived; for Menzel was timid and

vacillating, whereas Gutzkow was sincere, courageous, and consistent.

This steadfastness and singleness of purpose, combined with a remarkable

power to appreciate, adopt, and express the leading thoughts and

aspirations of his own time, make Gutzkow the most efficient leader of

the whole group. Heine was, as already noted, too much of a Romanticist

to be a thorough-going Young German. Besides, he lacked the sincerity

and the enthusiastic conviction which dedicated practically every work

of Karl Gutzkow to the task of restoring the proper balance between

German literature and German life. Gutzkow felt that literature had, in

the hands of the Romanticists, abandoned life to gain a fool's paradise.

After a brief apprenticeship to Jean Paul and to the romantic ideal,

never whole-hearted, because of the disintegrating influence of his

simultaneous acquaintance with Börne and Heine, Gutzkow utterly

renounced the earlier movement and became the champion of a definite

reform. He aimed henceforth to enrich German literature by abundant

contact with the large, new thoughts of modern life in its relation to

the individual and to the community. He was no less sincere in his

determination to make literature introduce the German people to a

larger, richer, freer, and truer human life for the individual and for

the state. In his eyes statecraft, religion, philosophy, science, and

industry teemed with raw material of surpassing interest and importance

for the literary artist. He accordingly set himself the task in one way

and another to make his own generation share this conviction. It is

quite true that he was not the man to transform with his own hands this

raw material into works of art of consummate beauty and perfection. He was

conscious of his own artistic limitations and would have confessed them in

the best years of his life with the frankness of a Lessing in similar

circumstances. We may agree that he lacked the skill of many greater

poets than he, to compress into artistic shape, with due regard for line,

color, movement, and atmosphere of the original, the material of his

observation. Yet we still have to explain the fact that he wrote novels

and dramas pulsating with the life of his own contemporaries--works that

claimed the attention and touched the heart of thousands of readers and

theatre-goers and inspired many better artists than he to treat themes

drawn from the public and private life of the day.

It would take us too far afield to trace in detail the nature and

sources of Gutzkow's writings, by which he accomplished this important

result. A few suggestions, together with a reminder of his great

indebtedness to the simultaneous efforts of other Young Germans, notably

those of Laube and Wienbarg, must suffice. Practically all of his

earlier writings, like the short story, _The Sadducee of Amsterdam_

(1833), as well as the essays entitled _Public Characters_ (1835), _On

the Philosophy of History_ (1836), and _Contemporaries_ (1837), are

evidence of the intense interest of the author in the social,

philosophical, and political leaders of the time. They are preliminary

studies, to be used by him presently in his work as a dramatist.

In his two powerful novels, _Spiritual Knighthood_ (1850-51) and _The

Magician of Rome_ (1858-61), he states and discusses with great boldness

and skill those problems of the relation between Church and

State--between religion and citizenship--that confronted the thoughtful

men of the day.

The backbone of each of his numerous serious plays is some conflict,

reflecting directly or indirectly the prejudices, antagonisms,

shortcomings, and struggles of modern German social, religious, and

civic life. _King Saul_ (1839) embodies, for instance, the conflict

between ecclesiastical and temporal authority--between the authority of

the church and the claims of the thinker and the poet; _Richard Savage_

(1839) that between the pride of noble birth and the promptings of the

mother's heart; _Werner_ (1840), _A White Leaf_ (1842), and _Ottfried_

(1848), variations of the conflict between a man's duty and his

vacillating, simultaneous love of two women; _Patkul_ (1840), the

conflict between the hero's championship of truth and justice and the

triumphant inertia of authority in the hands of a weak prince; _Uriel

Acosta_ (1846), the best of the author's serious plays, embodies the

tragic conflict between the hero's conviction of truth and his love for

his mother and for his intended wife.

Gutzkow wrote three comedies which in point of continued popularity have

outlived all his other numerous contributions to the German stage:

_Sword and Queue_ (1843), _The Prototype of Tartuffe_ (1844), and _The

Royal Lieutenant_ (1849). The second of the three has the best motivated

plot; the first and third have, by virtue of their national substance,

their witty dialogue, and their droll humor, proved dearer to the heart

of the German people. In _The Prototype of Tartuffe_ we are shown

President La Roquette at the court of Louis XIV., obliged at last, in

spite of his long continued successful efforts to suppress the play, to

witness his own public unmasking in the person of Molière's _Tartuffe_,

of whom he is the sneaking, hypocritical original. We hear him in anger

declare his readiness to join the Jesuits and we join in the laugh at

his discomfiture. The scene of _The Royal Lieutenant_, written to

celebrate the hundredth recurrence of Goethe's birthday, is laid in the

Seven Years' War in the house of Goethe's father in Frankfurt. The

Riccaut-like figure of the Royal Lieutenant himself, Count Thorane, and

his outlandish attempts to speak German, the clever portraits of the

dignified father and the cheerful mother, and the unhistorical sketch of

little Wolfgang, with his pleased and precocious anticipation of his

future laurels, are woven by means of witty dialogue into an amusing,

though not very coherent or logical whole. In Gutzkow's _Sword and

Queue_ an entertaining situation at the court of Frederick William I. of

Prussia is developed by a very free use of the facts of history, after

the manner of the comedy of Scribe. With rare skill the different

characters of the play are sketched and shown upon a background, which

corresponds closely enough to historic fact to produce the illusion of

reality. The comedy pilots the Crown Prince's friend, the Prince of

Baireuth, through a maze of intrigue, including Prussian ambition to

secure an alliance with England by the marriage of the Princess

Wilhelmine to the Prince of Wales; a diplomatic blocking of this plan,

with the help of the English Ambassador Hotham; the changed front of the

old King, who prefers a union of his daughter with an Austrian Archduke

to the hard terms of the proposed English treaty; Hotham's proposal to

the King to bring him a promising recruit for the corps of Royal

Grenadiers; the evening of the Tobacco Parliament, in which the Prince

of Baireuth feigns tipsiness and in a mocking funeral oration, in honor

of the old King, tells the pseudo-deceased some bitter truths,--to a

final scene, in which, as Hotham's proposed grenadier recruit with Queue

and Sword, he wins not only the cordial approval of the King but also

the heart and hand of Wilhelmine.

Karl Gutzkow's life-work was a struggle for freedom and truth. We

recognize in the web of his serious argument familiarity with the best

thought of the poets, theologians, and philosophers of his own day and

of the eighteenth century. In religion a pantheist, he believed in the

immortality of the soul, had unshaken confidence in the tendency of the

world that "makes for righteousness," and recommends the ideal of "truth

and justice" as the best central thought to guide each man's whole life.

He shares in an eminent degree, with other members of the group known as

Young Germany, a significance for the subsequent development of German

literature, far transcending the artistic value of his works. People are

just beginning to perceive his genetic importance for the student of

Ibsen, Nietzsche, and the recent naturalistic movement in European

letters.

* * * * *

KARL FERDINAND GUTZKOW

SWORD AND QUEUE (1843)

TRANSLATED BY GRACE ISABEL COLBRON

PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR

The essence of the comic is self-contradiction, contrast. Even

professional estheticians must acknowledge that by the very nature of

its origin the following comedy answers this definition.

A king lacking the customary attributes of his station; a royal court

governed by the rules that regulate any simple middle-class

household--surely here is a contradiction sufficient in itself to

attract the Comic Muse. And it was indeed only when the author was well

along in his work that he felt any inclination to introduce a few

political allusions with what is called a "definite purpose," into a

work inspired by the principles of pure comedy.

Ever since the example set by those great Greeks, Æschylus and

Aristophanes, the stage has claimed the right to deal with extremes. He

who, sinning and laden with the burden of human guilt, has once fallen a

victim to the Eumenides, cannot, as a figure in a drama, go off on

pleasure trips, nor can he go about the usual business of daily life.

Fate seizes him red-handed, causes him to see blood in every glass of

champagne and to read his warrant of arrest on every chance scrap of

paper. And the Comic Muse is even less indulgent. When Aristophanes

would mock the creations of Euripides, which are meant to move the

public by their declining fortunes, he at once turns the tragedian into

a rag-picker.

Comedy may, tragedy must, exaggerate. The exaggerations in _Sword and

Queue_ brought forth many a contemptuous grimace from the higher-priced

seats in the Court Theatres. But it needs only a perusal of the _Memoirs

of the Markgravine of Baireuth, Princess of Prussia_, to give the

grotesque picture a certificate of historical veracity. Not only the

character-drawing, but the very plot, is founded on those Memoirs,

written in a less sophisticated age than our own, and the authenticity

of which is undisputed.

In the case of Seckendorf, the technical, or, I might say, the symphonic

composition of the play, which allots the parts as arbitrarily as in the

_Midsummer Night's Dream_ does Peter Quince, who says to highly

respectable people: "You play the Lion, and you play the Ass,"

necessitates making a victim of a man who was a mediocre diplomat, but

for a time, at least, a fairly good soldier. The author feels no

compunction on this score. Stupidity, as Comus artlessly thinks, is not

wickedness; the Lion or the Ass--each is necessary to different moments

in the play. A Brandenburg-Prussian comedy of 1733 can, _a priori_,

hardly fail to be "unjust" to an Imperial Ambassador of that epoch. Such

injustice belongs to the native wantonness of the Comic Muse. In plays

of a specifically Austrian character, Prussia, and especially the people

of Berlin, have suffered the same necessary injustice of comedy.

Fortunately, according to Chevalier Lang and other more reliable

authorities, this particular Seckendorf was both vain and tyrannous. His

hatred for Frederick II. and his eternal "combinations" went to such

lengths that, during the first Silesian war, he offered the Austrian

Court a detailed plan by which the "Land-hungry conqueror" might be

personally rendered innocuous. (See Arneth, _Maria Theresa_, Vol. I).

However, Puck's manner of writing history may be softened a little. It

is not necessary for the actor to present Seckendorf as an imbecile.

Actors have the unfortunate habit of taking the whole hand when a finger

is offered. In truth I have seen but a very few performances of my play

in which Frederick William I. still retained, beneath his attitude of

stern father, some share of royal dignity; in which Eversmann, despite

his confident impudence, still held his tongue like a trembling lackey;

in which the Hereditary Prince, despite his desire to find everything in

the Castle ridiculous, still maintained a reserve sufficient to save him

from being expelled from Berlin for his impertinent criticisms--or where

the Princess was still proud and witty beneath her girlish simplicity.

And still rarer is it to see a Seckendorf who, in spite of his clumsy

"combinations," did not quite sink to the level of the Marshal von Kalb.

At this point a dramaturgic hint might not come amiss. In cases where

there is danger of degrading the part, the stage manager should take

care to intrust such rôles to the very actors who at first thought might

seem least suited for them--those whose personalities will compel them

to raise the part to a higher level. The buffoon and sometimes even the

finer comedian cannot free Shakespeare from the reproach of having given

two kings of Denmark a clown as Prime Minister. It is very much less

necessary that the audience should laugh at Polonius' quips than that

the quips should in no wise impair his position as courtier, as royal

adviser, as father of two excellent children, and, at the last, as a man

who met death with tragic dignity. In such a case a wise manager

intrusts the comic part to an actor who--is not comic.

The following play was written in the spring of 1843. Some of our

readers may chance to know the little garden of the Hôtel Reichmann in

Milan. In a room which opens out into the oleander bushes, the trickling

fountains, and the sandstone cupids of that garden, the first four acts

ripened during four weeks of work. The fifth act followed on the shores

of Lake Como.

Amid surroundings which, by their beauty, bring to mind only the laws

of the ideal, to hold fast to those burlesque memories from the

history of the sandy Mark Brandenburg was, one may feel sure, possible

only to a mind which turned in love to its Prussian home, however

"treasonable" its other opinions. And yet the romanticism of San

Souci, as well as the estheticism of the Berlin Board of Censors, has

at all times persecuted the play, now forbidding it, again permitting

an occasional performance, and again prohibiting it even after 1848.

When the aged and revered Genast from Weimar had played the king a

dozen times in the Friedrich-Wilhelmstädtisches Theater, Hinckeldey's

messengers brought the announcement that the presentation of the piece

met with disfavor in high places. Frederick William IV. did everything

possible to hamper and curtail the author's ambitions. But to give

truth its due, I will not neglect to mention that this last prohibition

was softened by assigning as its motion the allusion made in the play to

that legend of the Berlin Castle, "The White Lady," who is supposed to

bring a presage of death to the Prussian royal family.

The Dresden Court Theatre was formerly a model of impartiality. And

above all, Emil Devrient's energetic partisanship for the newer dramatic

literature was a great assistance to authors in cases of this kind. This

play, like many another, owes to his artistic zeal its introduction to

those high-class theatres where alone a German dramatist finds his best

encouragement and advance. Unfortunately, the war of 1866 again banished

_Sword and Queue_ from the Vienna Burgtheater, where it had won a place

for itself.

* * * * *

SWORD AND QUEUE

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

FREDERICK WILLIAM I., _King Of

Prussia, father of Frederick the

Great._

THE QUEEN, _his wife._

PRINCESS WILHELMINE, _their daughter_.

THE PRINCE HEREDITARY OF BAIREUTH

GENERAL VON GRUMBKOW }

COUNT SCHWERIN } _Councilors and Confidants of the King._

COUNT WARTENSLEBEN }

COUNT SECKENDORF, _Imperial Ambassador_

BARONET HOTHAM, _Envoy of Great Britain_

FRAU VON VIERECK

FRAU VON HOLZENDORF

_The Queen's Ladies_.

FRAÜLEIN VON SONNSFELD, _Lady-in-waiting to the Princess._

EVERSMANN, _the King's valet_.

KAMKE, _in the Queen's service_.

ECKHOF, _a grenadier_.

_A Lackey in the King's service. Generals, Officers, Court Ladies.

Members of the Smoking-Circle. Grenadiers, Lackeys_.

_Scene of action: The Royal Castle of Berlin_.

_First performance, January 1st, 1844, in the Court Theatre in Dresden_.

[Illustration: THE POTSDAM GUARD ADOLPH VON MENZEL]

SWORD AND QUEUE

ACT I

SCENE I

_A room in the Palace. One window and four doors. A table and two

armchairs on the left of the room._

EVERSMANN, _taking snuff comfortably. Two Drummers of the Guard._

_Later_ FRAÜLEIN VON SONNSFELD.

_The drummers take up a position near the door to the left, leading to

the apartments of the_ PRINCESS, _and execute a roll of the drums_.

FRAÜLEIN VON SONNSFELD (_opens the door and looks in_).

That will do.

[_The drummers play a second roll_.]

SONNSFELD (_looks in again_).

Yes, yes. We heard it.

[EVERSMANN _gives the sign again and the drummers play a third long

roll_.]

SONNSFELD (_comes out angrily, speaks when the noise has subsided_).

This is unendurable! It is enough to ruin one's nerves--left

wheel--march--out with you to the parade ground where you be long! [_The

drummers march out still playing. When the noise can no longer be heard

she continues_.] Eversmann, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You

should remind the King of the respect due to ladies.

EVERSMANN.

I obey my royal master's orders, ma'am. And inasmuch as late rising is a

favorite vice of the youth of today, it has been ordered that the

reveille be played at six o'clock every morning before the doors of the

royal Princes and Princesses.

SONNSFELD.

Princess Wilhelmine is no longer a child.

EVERSMANN.

Her morning dreams are all the sweeter for that reason.

SONNSFELD.

Dreams of our final release--of despair--of death--

EVERSMANN.

Or possibly dreams of marriage--and the like--

SONNSFELD.

Have a care, Eversmann! The Crown Prince has won his freedom at last; he

is keeping a most exact record of all that happens in Berlin and in the

immediate environment of his severe father. It is well known that you

influence the King more than do his ministers.

EVERSMANN.

If the poetic fancy of our Crown Prince, who, by the way, is my devoted

young friend Fritz, cannot see the truth more clearly than that, then I

have little respect for the imaginative power of poets. I--and

influence? I twist His Majesty's stately pigtail every morning, clip his

fine manly beard, fill his cozy little Dutch pipe for him each

evening--and if in the course of these innocent employments His Most

Sacred Majesty lets fall a hint, a remark--a little command

possibly--why--naturally--

SONNSFELD.

You pick them up and weave them into a "nice innocent little influence"

for yourself. Eh? An influence that has already earned you three city

houses, five estates, and a carriage-and-four. Have a care that the

Crown Prince does not auction off all these objects under the

gallows-tree some fine day.

EVERSMANN.

Oh, but your Ladyship must have slept badly. Pray spare me

these--predictions and prophesyings, which are made up of whole cloth.

His Royal Highness the Crown Prince is far too much, of a philosopher to

take such revenge on a man who has no more dealings with His Majesty

than to fill his pipe each evening, to braid his pigtail each morning,

and to shave him in the good old German fashion every second day. Have I

made my meaning clear?

[_He goes out._]

SONNSFELD.

Go your way, you old sinner! You may pretend to be ever so honest and

simple--we know you and your like. Oh, what a life we lead here in this

Court! Cannons thunder in the garden under our windows every morning or

else they send up a company of soldiers to accustom us to early rising.

After the morning prayer the Princess knits, sews, presses her linen,

studies her catechism, and, alas! is forced to listen to a stupid sermon

every day. At dinner, we get very little to eat; then the King takes his

afternoon nap. He's forever quarreling with the Queen, they have

scarcely a good word to say to each other, and yet the entire family are

expected to look on at His Majesty's melodious snore-concert, and even

to brush away the flies from the face of the sleeping Father of his

country. If my Princess did not possess so much natural wit and spirit,

the sweet creature would be quite crushed by such a life. If the King

only knew that she is learning French secretly, and can almost write a

polite little note already--! I hear her coming.

SCENE II

PRINCESS WILHELMINE _comes in, carrying a letter_.

WILHELMINE (_timidly_).

Can any one hear us?

SONNSFELD.

Not unless the walls have ears. Is the letter written?

WILHELMINE.

I hardly dare send it, dear Sonnsfeld. I know there are a hundred

mistakes in it.

SONNSFELD.

A hundred? Then the letter must be much longer than Your Highness first

planned it.

WILHELMINE.

I wrote that I fully appreciate the value of the services offered me,

but that my position forces me to refuse any aid to my education which

cannot be attained at least by the help of my mother, the Queen.

SONNSFELD.

Is that what you have written? And made a hundred mistakes? In that case

we are just where we were before. I appreciate that an eighteen-year-old

Princess has to consider history, posterity and so forth--but this

conscientiousness will be your ruin. The King will continue to make a

slave of you, the Queen to treat you as a child. You are the victim of

the conflict between two characters who both perhaps desire what is best

for you, but who are so totally different that you will never know whom

or which one to please. The Crown Prince has made himself free--and how

did he do it? Only by courage and independence. He tore himself loose

from the oppressive bondage imposed on him by the caprice of others, and

won the means to complete his education. And now he sends to you from

Rheinsberg his friend, the Prince Hereditary of Baireuth, to be a

support and protection to you and to the Queen--so that here in this

Court where they drum, trumpet, and parade all day long, you may not

finally, in your despair, seize a musket yourself and join the Potsdam

Guards!

WILHELMINE.

You have a sense of humor, my dear Sonnsfeld. It is all well enough for

my brother to make plans and send out emissaries, when he is safe in

Rheinsberg. He knows that the path to the freedom he has won led past

the very foot of the scaffold. I am of the sex whose duty it is to be

patient. My father is so good at heart, gentler possibly, in his true

self, than is my mother. She indeed, absorbed in her political

ambitions, often turns from me with a harshness that accords ill with

mother-love. It is my fate to endure this life. Ask yourself, dear

friend, how could I trust to a chance adventurous stranger whom my

brother sends to me from out of his wild, artistic circle in

Rheinsberg--sends to me to be my knight and paladin? Such a thought

could have been conceived only in the brains of that group of poets.

I'll confess to you in secret that I should greatly enjoy being in the

midst of the Rheinsberg merriment, disguised of course. But I'm in

Berlin--not in Rheinsberg, and so I have gathered up my meagre scraps of

French and thanked the Prince of Baireuth for his offer in a manner

which is far more a refusal than an acceptance.

[_Hands_ SONNSFELD _the letter_.]

SONNSFELD.

And I am to dispatch this letter? [_With droll pathos_.] No, Your

Highness, I cannot have anything to do with this forbidden

correspondence.

WILHELMINE.

No joking please, Sonnsfeld. It was the only answer I could possibly

send to the Prince's tender epistle.

SONNSFELD.

Impossible!--To become an accomplice to a forbidden correspondence in

this Court might cost one's life.

WILHELMINE.

You will make me angry!--here, dispatch this letter, and quickly.

SONNSFELD.

No, Princess. But I know a better means, an absolutely sure means of

dispatching the letter to its destination, and that is--[_She glances

toward a door in the background_] deliver it yourself.

[_She slips out of a side door_.]

SCENE III

_The_ PRINCE HEREDITARY OF BAIREUTH, _dressed in the French taste of the

period, as different as possible from the king's favorite garb, comes in

cautiously._

WILHELMINE (_aside_).

The Prince of Baireuth!

THE PRINCE (_aside_).

Her very picture! It is the Princess! [_Aloud_.] I crave Your Highness'

pardon that my impatience to deliver the greeting of Your Royal brother

the Crown Prince in person--

WILHELMINE.

The Prince of Baireuth places me in no slight embarrassment by this

early visit.

PRINCE.

The visit was not paid to you, Princess, but to this noble and venerable

castle, these stairways, these galleries, these winding corridors--it

was a visit of recognizance, Your Highness, such as must precede any

important undertaking.

WILHELMINE.

Then you are preparing to do battle here?

PRINCE.

My intentions are not altogether peaceful, and yet, as Princess

Wilhelmine doubtless knows, I am compelled to confine myself to a policy

of defense solely.

WILHELMINE.

And even in this you cannot exercise too much care. [_Aside_.] The

letter is no longer necessary. [_Aloud_.] How did you leave my brother?

In good health? And thoroughly occupied?

PRINCE.

The Crown Prince leads a life of the gayest diversity in his exile. He

has made of Rheinsberg a veritable little Court of the Muses, devoted

now to serious study, now to poetic recreation. We have enjoyed

unforgettably beautiful hours there; one would hardly believe that so

much imagination could be developed and encouraged on the borders of

Mecklenburg! We paint, we build, we model, we write. The regiment which

is under the immediate command of our talented Prince serves merely to

carry out, by military evolutions, the strategic descriptions of

Polybius. In short, I should deeply regret leaving so delightful a spot

had it not been for the flattering and important task intrusted to me.

Princess, the Crown Prince desires full and true information, obtained

at the source, as to the situation of his sister, his mother, here, that

he may, if necessary, advise how this situation be improved, how any

difficulties may be met.

WILHELMINE.

If it became known that I am granting an audience, here in this public

hall, to a Prince who has not yet been presented either to my father or

to my mother--I could prepare myself for several weeks in Fortress

Küstrin.

[_She bows and turns as if to go_.]

PRINCE.

Princess! Then it is really true--that which is whispered, with horror,

at every court in Europe? It is true that the King of Prussia tyrannizes

not only his court, his entire environment, but his own family as well?

WILHELMINE.

Prince, you employ too harsh an expression for what I would rather term

merely our own peculiar ceremonial. In Versailles they glide as on

butterfly wings over the polished floors. Here we tread the earth with

ringing spurs. In Versailles the Royal Family consider themselves but as

a merry company, recognizing no ties as sacred save those of

congeniality, no bond but that of--unfettered inclination. Here the

Court is merely one big middle-class family, where a prayer is said

before meat, where the parents must always be the first to speak, where

strictest obedience must, if necessary, tolerate even absurdities; where

one quarrels, out of one's mutual affection, sometimes--where we even

torture one another and make life harder for one another--all out of

love--

PRINCE.

Princess, I swear to you--this must be changed.

WILHELMINE.

And how, pray?

PRINCE.

The Crown Prince asked me to employ all conceivable means to free you

from this barbarism. I am at your service entirely--command me. His

first thought was for your mental needs. How is it with your knowledge

of French?

WILHELMINE.

The King detests all things foreign, and most of all does he detest

France, her literature, her language.

PRINCE.

The Crown Prince is aware of that. He sends you therefore, as a

beginning, a member of his Rheinsberg circle, a talkative but very

learned little man, a Frenchman, Laharpe by name--

WILHELMINE.

All instructors of the French language have been banished from Berlin by

strictest order.

PRINCE.

Laharpe will come to you without his identity becoming known.

WILHELMINE.

That is impossible. No one dare approach me who cannot first satisfy the

questioning of the Castle Guard.

PRINCE.

Cannot Laharpe instruct you in the apartments of your, Lady-in-waiting,

Fraülein von Sonnsfeld? WILHELMINE. Impossible.

PRINCE.

In the Queen's rooms, then.

WILHELMINE.

Impossible.

THE PRINCE.

By Heaven! Do they never leave you alone for one hour?

WILHELMINE.

Oh yes, two hours every Sunday--in church.

PRINCE.

But this is appalling! Why, in Versailles every Princess has her own

establishment when she is but ten years old--and even her very dolls

have their ladies-in-waiting!

WILHELMINE.

The only place which I may visit occasionally, and remain in

unaccompanied, are those rooms over there, in the lower story of the

palace.

PRINCE.

The King's private library, no doubt?

WILHELMINE.

No.

PRINCE.

A gallery of family portraits?

WILHELMINE.

Do you see the smoke issuing from the open window?

PRINCE.

That is--oh, it cannot be--the kitchen?

WILHELMINE.

Not exactly--but hardly much better. It is, I have the honor to inform

you, the Royal Prussian Laundry. Yes, Prince, the sister of the Prussian

Crown Prince is permitted to remain in that room for an hour or two if

she will, to look on at the washing, the starching, the ironing, the

sorting-out of body and house linen--

PRINCE.

This--for a Princess?

WILHELMINE.

Do you see the little window with the flower pots and the bird in a tiny

cage? The wife of our silver-cleaner lives there, and occasionally, when

the poor daughter of a King is supposed to be busied, like any

serving-maid, among the steaming pots and boilers, this same poor

Princess slips in secretly to the good woman's little room. Ah! there,

behind those flower-pots, I can laugh freely and merrily--there I can

let the little linnet feed from my hand, and I can say to myself that

with all my troubles, with all my sorrows, I am still happier than the

poor little singer in his cage. For he will never regain his freedom no

matter how sweetly he may sing ... in all the tongues of earth.

PRINCE (_aside_).

She is charming. [_Aloud_.] And Laharpe?

WILHELMINE.

If I must dare it--send the learned gentleman to me down there, Prince.

In that little room I will obey my brother's command to perfect my

French style. Among many other things I should really like to learn to

say, in most elegant and modern French, these words: "Yes I _will_ dare

to begin a new life. Remain my brother's friend--and my protector!" But

for the moment--goodby.

[_She hurries out_.]

SCENE IV

PRINCE (_alone_).

Where am I? Was that a scene from the Arabian Nights? Or am I really on

the banks of that homely river Spree which flows into the Havel? Of a

truth this Prussian Court with its queer pigtails and gaiters is more

romantic than I had thought. Laharpe down there behind the flower-pots!

Laharpe tête-à-tête with a Princess who visits the kitchen and with a

linnet which--happy bird--is privileged to bite her fingers. How

beautiful she is--much fairer than the miniature Frederick wears next

his heart! And yet I had fallen in love with this miniature. [_Looks

about him_.] There is a spell that seems to hold me in these rooms,

through which she glides like the Genius of the bower. [_Goes to the

window_.] Down there in the square, the bayonets of the parading troops

flash in the sunlight--and that door over yonder leads to the apartments

of a Princess whose possession would mean the highest bliss earth can

afford. And there--whither leads that door through which the kind

guardian of this paradise disappeared?

[_He turns toward the second door at the back, to his right._]

SONNSFELD (_comes in quickly, excitedly_).

Away Prince--away, the Queen is approaching.

PRINCE.

The Queen? Where shall I go?

SONNSFELD.

Into that room over there--you may find some way out--no one must see

you here.

[_She pushes him to an opposite side-door_.]

PRINCE.

My knowledge of the territory is growing rapidly. [_He goes out_.]

SCENE V

_The_ QUEEN _comes in, followed by two ladies-in-waiting. She motions

them to leave her. They go out. The_ QUEEN _sinks into a chair_.

QUEEN.

Has my daughter risen? I worked so late into the night that I am still

quite fatigued. These wretched politics! Have you seen Kamke?

SONNSFELD.

Your Majesty's lackey? No, Your Majesty.

QUEEN.

He's been gone so long. I sent him to the Prince of Baireuth.

PRINCE (_peeping out from the door, aside_).

To me?

QUEEN.

If I may judge by the letters the Prince brings me from my son, he

himself will one day be one of the best sovereigns of our century.

PRINCE (_aside_).

The field is all in my favor.

QUEEN.

My son, who judges men so keenly, assures me that I may trust this

Prince completely. And I need some one of force and character to aid

me; I need such a one now more than ever.

SONNSFELD (_alarmed_).

Is there--is there anything new in the air, Your Majesty?

QUEEN.

I shall need to display all my strength, all my will-power. I shall have

need of it to uphold the dignity of a monarchy whose natural head

appears to forget more and more that Prussia has recently joined the

ranks of the Great Powers of Europe.

SONNSFELD.

Your Majesty--is laying plots?

QUEEN.

I am consumed with curiosity to make the acquaintance of this Prince

whom my son considers worthy of his friendship. [SONNSFELD _motions to

the Prince_.] As soon as he arrives, dear Sonnsfeld--

SONNSFELD (_pointing to the PRINCE, who comes in_).

Kamke has just shown him in. Here he is, Your Majesty.

QUEEN (_rising_).

This is a surprise, Prince. I did not hear you enter.

PRINCE.

Your Majesty was so deeply absorbed in thought--

QUEEN (_aside_).

He has a pleasing exterior and intelligent eyes. [_Aloud_.] Did my

messenger--

PRINCE.

The good fellow met me just as I was about to leave my hotel. He gave me

Your Majesty's gracious command.

QUEEN. Prince--[_She sits down, motioning him to do the same_.]

My heartiest thanks for the letters from my worthy son. One sentence,

which I reread many times, permits me to assume that he has informed you

of a certain matter, a certain plan of mine--

PRINCE.

Certainly, Your Majesty. [_Aside_.] I haven't heard a word about it.

QUEEN.

It makes me very happy to know that in this matter, as indeed in most

things, my son and I are so completely in accord. Then you, also, think

as we do on this subject?

PRINCE.

Undoubtedly--undoubtedly, Your Majesty. [_Aside_.] If I only knew _what_

subject!

QUEEN.

My son writes me that I may rely entirely on your sympathy in this

affair.

PRINCE.

He did not exaggerate, Your Majesty. When I parted from him, his last

words, called after my moving carriage, were these: "Dear friend, my

gracious mother, the Queen, will inform you as to all further details

concerning the affair in question."

QUEEN.

That sounds very like him. I am quite ready to do as he says.

PRINCE (_aside_).

The plot thickens.

QUEEN.

You know that the Electors of Brandenburg have but recently become Kings

of Prussia. Although a Hanoverian Princess myself, I find my happiness

in Prussia's greatness, my pride in Prussia's fame. No state has such

need to be careful in the choice of its alliances, political or

matrimonial, as our own. And hence there is no subject so interesting

and so important to our country at the moment as a certain question

which is already exciting the Cabinets of Europe, a question--the answer

to which you have doubtless already guessed.

PRINCE.

I think--I may say--that I understand Your Majesty entirely. [_Aside_.]

What can she mean?

QUEEN.

No one can call me unduly proud. But if one belongs to a family which

has recently had the honor of being chosen to fill the throne of

England--if one is the daughter of a King, the wife of a King, the

mother of a future King--you will understand that in this matter of my

daughter's future--there are weighty considerations which force me to

avoid any possible political mésalliance.

PRINCE.

Mésalliance? The Princess? Your daughter [_Bewildered_.] I must

confess--I was but superficially informed of all these matters.

QUEEN.

What I am about to tell you, Prince, under the seal of your utmost

discretion, is a secret and the result of the gravest negotiations and

plans. You know what kind of a Court this is at which I live. I am

denied the influence which should be my right as mother of my country.

The King has surrounded himself with persons who have separated him from

me. I dare not think how this company of corporals and sergeants will

receive my deeply thought-out plans. How will the King be inclined in

regard to a matter that is of such decisive importance for the happiness

of his children and the fair fame of his house? In this, Prince, you see

my need of a man of your intelligence, your insight, that I may know

what to hope--or [_firmly_] if need be--what to dare!

PRINCE.

I shall be most eagerly anxious to justify Your Majesty's confidence.

[_Aside_.] Good Heavens!

QUEEN.

Let me then inform you of a secret but completed negotiation in which

all the nearest relatives of our house have already taken part, and into

the nature of which I now initiate you, too, as my son's friend. My

daughter is to become the wife of my nephew, the Prince of Wales; she

will therefore be the future Queen of England.

PRINCE (_aside_).

Zounds! A nice rival this!

QUEEN.

So you see, Prince, the importance of the issue involved! Will you

consent to mediate this question--a question of such importance to all

Europe--with my husband?

PRINCE.

I? With the King? Mediate? Oh, of course, Your Majesty, with the

greatest pleasure! [_Aside_.] What a detestable errand!

QUEEN.

Very well, then you can begin at once. The King will be here shortly.

Introduce yourself to him. Use this favorable moment to draw from him an

expression of his opinion concerning the throne of England, and let me

know the result at once.

PRINCE.

I am still quite bewildered by this--this flattering commission. And

when may I pay my respects to Your Majesty again?

QUEEN.

At almost any time. But I should prefer the evening hours, when those on

whom I can rely gather around me, while the King is with those persons

whom I mentioned a short time ago. Farewell now, my dear Prince of--oh,

dear me, now my son has forgotten to write me whether it is Ansbach or

Baireuth that you inherit. It is so easy to confuse these little

principalities. Ansbach--Baireuth--Ansbach--yes, that was it. Very well,

my dear Prince of Ansbach, remember, Prussia, Hanover and England!

[_She bows to him with proud condescension and goes out_.]

SCENE VI

PRINCE (_alone_).

The future Queen of England! And I--the Hereditary Prince of Ansbach!

That was a cruel blow of fate. And I am to mediate these matters of

international importance! This angelic being, whom I love more madly

with every breath I draw--this exquisite sister of my dear

Frederick--is destined to become a victim of political intrigue? Oh no,

she cannot possibly love the Prince of Wales; she has never seen him.

But will they consult her inclination? Will cold considerations of

politics heed the cry of her heart?--The parade is over, the suite is

entering the castle; I dare not meet the king now in this excited mood.

[_He looks about as if seeking some means of escape_. EVERSMANN _comes

in carrying a large book. He has a pen stuck in behind one ear. He

crosses to the door through which the_ QUEEN _has gone out_.]

PRINCE (_aside_).

Who's this?

[EVERSMANN _looks the_ PRINCE _over from head to foot, moves forward a

few paces, then halts again_.]

PRINCE (_aside_).

Can any one have seen me?

EVERSMANN (_goes to the door, halts again, looks at the_ PRINCE

_impudently_).

PRINCE.

Why are you looking at me, sirrah? I am the Prince Hereditary of

Baireuth.

EVERSMANN (_is quite indifferent, comes down a few steps, bows very

slightly_).

His Majesty is coming in from the parade, but does not grant audiences

in this room.

PRINCE.

I thank you for the information, my good man.

EVERSMANN.

Don't mention it, pray.

PRINCE.

And who are you?

EVERSMANN. I? [_There is along pause_.]

I am Eversmann. [_He goes out into the_ QUEEN's _room_.]

PRINCE.

Eversmann? The Minister of Finance or the Head Steward, I wonder? He

betrays parsimony in every shred of his garments. [_Drums and the sound

of presented arms is heard back_ _of the rear entrance_.] The King is

coming. The King? Why should I feel so timid, so oppressed, all of a

sudden? Does my courage fail me because I am about to confront this

curiosity of his century? I'd rather observe him from the side at first.

[_He draws back and stands close by the door to the left_.]

SCENE VII

_A loud knocking, as with a cane, is heard at the centre door_.

PRINCE.

Come in.

KING (_outside_).

Eversmann!

PRINCE.

Now, what's that?

KING (_still without, beats the door loudly with his cane_).

Eversmann!

PRINCE.

Surely this castle is haunted!

[_He slips into the door at the right_.]

KING (_knocking again, still outside_).

Eversmann! Doesn't the fellow hear?

EVERSMANN (_coming in hurriedly_).

The door is open, Your Majesty. [_Goes to centre door, opens it_.]

PRINCE (_looking in at his door_).

Your Majesty? Is that the King?

KING (_in corridor but not yet visible_).

Eversmann, have you forgotten that this is the day for revising the

books?

EVERSMANN.

No, indeed, Your Majesty. I was occupied in balancing the books of Her

Majesty the Queen.

QUEEN (_comes out from her door, listens timidly_).

Was that the King's voice?

KING (_outside_).

Eversmann, tell the castellan that eleven o'clock is closing hour for my

wife's apartment, and that, if I see a light again in her rooms until

after midnight, I will come over myself at the stroke of twelve to

search into every corner and to discover what political plot is brewing

there. You'd better tell my wife yourself, sirrah--so that she may obey

orders.

EVERSMANN.

So that she may obey orders.

QUEEN.

Miserable lackey! [_Goes out_.]

PRINCE (_aside_).

Will he go now?

KING (_outside_).

Eversmann!

EVERSMANN.

Your Majesty!

KING.

Now go to my daughter too, the Princess Wilhelmine--

[WILHELMINE _opens her door softly_.]

EVERSMANN.

To Her Royal Highness--

KING.

And tell her to have a care--this Laharpe--is a rascal.

WILHELMINE (_aside_).

Laharpe?

PRINCE (_aside_).

What's that?

KING.

Laharpe is a rascal, I say.

EVERSMANN.

A rascal.

KING.

And tell my daughter that I will teach a lesson to the Crown Prince for

sending these French vagabonds here, who pretend to be teachers of the

language and are merely ordinary, good-for-nothing wigmakers.

WILHELMINE.

How disgusting!

[_She goes out_.]

PRINCE (_aside_).

Wigmakers?

KING (_still outside_).

And now get back to the books!

EVERSMANN.

At once, Your Majesty.

KING.

Eversmann--one thing more, Eversmann!

EVERSMANN.

Your Majesty?

KING.

If you should see the Prince Hereditary of Baireuth--

PRINCE (_aside_).

It's my turn now.

KING.

That French windbag who's been hanging about Berlin since yesterday--

PRINCE (_aside_).

Pleasing description!

EVERSMANN.

I'll tell him Your Majesty will not receive him.

PRINCE (_aside_).

Rascal!

KING.

No, Eversmann, tell him I have something very important to say to

him--something very confidential.

PRINCE (_aside_).

Confidential? To me?

KING.

Concerning an important and pressing matter.

EVERSMANN.

Oh, yes, I know.

KING.

You know, sirrah? What do you know? You know nothing at all.

EVERSMANN.

I thought--one might guess--

KING.

Guess? What right have you to guess? You're not to guess at all.

Understand? Idiot! Shoulder arms, march! [_As he goes off a short roll

of drums is heard_.]

PRINCE (_crosses quickly to_ EVERSMANN).

What do you know? What do you think it is that the King has to say to

me?

EVERSMANN.

Oh, Your Highness is still here?

PRINCE.

The King wishes to speak to me. Do you know why? Tell me what you think.

EVERSMANN.

If Your Highness promises not to betray me--I think it concerns a

certain affair--between Prussia and Austria.

PRINCE.

Austria?

EVERSMANN.

Arch-Duke Leopold is willing, they say--that is if [_with a sly gesture

toward the_ PRINCESS' _room_] if Princess Wilhelmine--

PRINCE (_excited_).

The Princess?

EVERSMANN.

Sh! You will probably be chosen to conduct the negotiations between

Prussia and--

PRINCE (_beside himself_).

The Princess is--destined--

EVERSMANN.

To be the future Empress of Austria.

[_He goes out into the_ QUEEN'S _room_.]

PRINCE (_alone_).

Empress! Queen! And I--I who love her to desperation, I am to help

bring about either of these alliances? That will mean a tragedy or

[_after a pause he continues more cheerfully_]--Courage--courage--it may

turn out a comedy after all, as merry a comedy as ever was played at any

Royal Court. [_He goes out_.]

ACT II

GRUMBKOW _and_ SECKENDORF _come in with_ EVERSMANN. _The latter carries

a wide orange-colored ribbon with many stars and Orders on it, and a

gleaming sword_.

SCENE I

_The_ KING'S _room. A side door on the left; a centre door. A writing

table and chairs_.

GRUMBKOW.

It was a dispatch, you say, Eversmann?

SECKENDORF.

A dispatch from Hanover.

GRUMBKOW.

And all this elegance? The ribbon? The sword of state? What does it

mean?

EVERSMANN.

His Majesty ordered these immediately after the arrival of the dispatch.

SECKENDORF.

A dispatch from Hanover--arrived about an hour ago--_grand cordon_

commanded--sword of state--we must put these facts together,

Grumbkow--find their meaning.

EVERSMANN.

There are to be twelve plates more at table today. [_Meaningfully_.]

Thirty-six thalers are set aside for the dinner--everybody to appear in

full court dress.

SECKENDORF.

A dispatch from Hanover-_grand cordon_--sword of state--twelve plates

extra--thirty-six thalers--the combination, Grumbkow--we must find the

combination!

EVERSMANN.

When he had torn the seal from the dispatch, he wept two big tears and

said: "I'll make them all happy if I have to beat them to a jelly to do

it." And now he's all eagerness and would like to invite the whole city

to dinner.

GRUMBKOW.

On thirty-six thalers?

EVERSMANN.

The orphans in the asylum are to have new clothes.

GRUMBKOW (_startled_).

The orphans? That looks like a wedding.

SECKENDORF.

Dispatch--Hanover--thirty-six thalers--two tears--beat them all--the

meaning of that, Grumbkow?--we must put two and two together and find

it.

EVERSMANN (_startled_).

He's coming! The King!

SCENE II

_The_ KING _looks in from the side door_.

KING.

Good morning! Good morning! Hope you slept well, gentlemen. Well, you

rascal, where's that frippery? What's this--the English orders are

missing? Fasten it on well. I don't want the fol-dols knocking about my

knees.

EVERSMANN (_as if joking_).

Is there something so important on hand? Doesn't Your Majesty want the

crown also?

KING.

The crown! Idiot! [_He comes out_.] You can be glad that you don't have

to wear it, sirrah! Off with you now. Eversmann, and see that everything

is in order. [EVERSMANN _goes out_.] Good morning, Grumbkow and

Seckendorf. No time for you now--my compliments to the State of Prussia

and I beg to be left to myself today. Good morning--good morning.

[_The two ministers prepare reluctantly to depart_.]

GRUMBKOW (_in the door_).

Your Majesty is in such a merry mood--

SECKENDORF.

Could it be the arrival of the courier--? KING (_indifferently_). Oh,

yes. A courier came--

GRUMBKOW.

From Hanover?

KING.

From Hanover.

SECKENDORF.

With news of importance, Your Majesty?

KING.

News of importance!

GRUMBKOW.

Concerning English affairs, doubtless?

KING.

English affairs!

SECKENDORF.

Doubtless the East Indian commercial treaties.

KING.

No--no.

GRUMBKOW.

The Dutch shipping agreement?

KING (_enjoying their curiosity_).

Something of that nature. Good morning, gentlemen.

GRUMBKOW (_aside_).

He is in a desperate mood again.

SECKENDORF (_aside, going out_).

Thirty-six thalers--twelve places--the orphans--we must find the

combination! [_They go out_.]

SCENE III

KING.

They've gone. At last I have a moment to myself. [EVERSMANN _comes in_.]

I am supremely happy.

EVERSMANN.

My respectful congratulations.

KING.

Thankee-now just imagine--oh, yes--no. [_Aside_.] No one must know of

it.

EVERSMANN.

Did Your Majesty intend to--

KING.

Change my clothes? Yes--take this coat off; we'll spare no expense. They

shall see that I possess wealth; they shall see that though I may be

parsimonious ordinarily, still I can spend as well as any of them when

an occasion offers. An occasion like this--[_with an out-burst_.]

Eversmann, just imagine! [_Remembering_.] Oh, yes.

EVERSMANN (_takes off the_ KING'S _coat_).

Will Your Majesty put on the embroidered uniform?

KING.

The embroidered uniform, Eversmann. I am expecting guests to whom all

honor must be shown. Great honor--for when it concerns the arrival of

persons who--[_He sits down_.] Take off my boots. [EVERSMANN _pulls off

the boots with difficulty_.] Has the Prince of Baireuth been here yet?

EVERSMANN.

Is Your Majesty going to all this trouble on his account?

KING.

On his account? Possibly. [_Aside_.] I'll lead them all a dance.

[_Aloud_.] Zounds! Villain! Rascal! My corns! I believe the rogue is

hurting me on purpose--because I won't tell him anything.

EVERSMANN.

But, Your Majesty, I haven't asked any questions yet.

KING.

I'll have you asking questions! Now what are you laughing at, sirrah?

Heh? Fetch me my dressing gown until you have found the uniform.

[EVERSMANN _turns to go_.] Hey, there! Why did you laugh just now?

EVERSMANN.

Because I know--that before I have brought Your Majesty your hat Your

Majesty will have told me all about it.

KING (_threatening him with his cane_).

You rascal--how dare you?

EVERSMANN (_retiring toward the door_).

Your Majesty can't keep a secret. There is only one thing Your Majesty

can hold fast to, and that is--_your money_! Ha! ha! I'll fetch the

dressing-gown. [_He goes out_.]

SCENE IV

KING (_sitting in his shirt-sleeves_).

He's right. It burns my heart out. But they shan't know. Not any of

them--they shan't. They've spoiled my pet plans before now. I'll play a

different game, this time, and I'll send _all_ the camels through the

needle's eye at once. They think I'm on the side of Austria. But no--ha!

ha! England's own offer, brought by the Hanoverian courier, was a great

surprise to me--he! he! England is my wife's idea--therefore I am for

England, too--and soon we'll have the wedding and the christening, ha!

ha!

[_A lackey comes in, announces_.]

LACKEY.

His Highness the Prince Hereditary of Baireuth.

KING.

Pleased to receive him.

[_The lackey goes out and the_ PRINCE _comes in_.]

PRINCE (_aside_).

Are these old crosspatch's apartments? [_To the_ KING.] That's the

King's study in there, isn't it?

KING.

Yes--at your service.

PRINCE.

Go in and announce me. I'm the Prince of Baireuth.

KING (_surprised, aside_).

What does he take me for?

PRINCE.

What fashion is this? Are you in the King's service? Is this the style

in which to receive guests to whom His Majesty has promised an audience?

KING.

Then Your Highness--wishes to speak to--to the King of Prussia?

PRINCE.

You heard me say so, did you not? Announce me.

KING.

At once, Your Highness. [_Turns to go_.]

PRINCE.

Is this the way to go into your master's presence? In your

shirt-sleeves?

KING.

I'm--I'm on a very confidential footing with the King. [_He goes out_.]

PRINCE (_alone_).

This is a strange Royal Household indeed! The servants stand about the

anterooms in their shirt-sleeves--doubtless from motives of economy to

save their liveries. Well, the great hour has arrived--the die will

fall. Wilhelmine--she--she alone I love--and she is to consent to unite

herself to the painted picture of a Prince of Wales--the colored

silhouette of an Austrian Arch-Duke whom she has never seen! Ah, no, my

fate rests on the Genius of Love--on chance, which may be even kinder to

me than I expect. Her parents are of divided minds--thereby do I gain

time to win Wilhelmine's heart--for myself. The King is coming. Now I

can listen to his favorable opinions regarding--Austria.

SCENE V

_The_ KING _comes in, in dress uniform, with the grand cordon_.

PRINCE (_looking at him_).

Is that not--

KING.

You are surprised? It was a slight mistake in identity.

PRINCE (_embarrassed_).

Your Majesty--I am a stranger--

KING.

It's of no consequence. You were deucedly insolent--but my people are

thick-skinned. Well--I want to speak to you, my dear Prince of Baireuth.

Are you just come from Baireuth?

PRINCE.

Yes, Your Majesty--that is, I left Baireuth three years ago.

KING.

And where were you all this time?

PRINCE.

In--in England.

KING.

Ah--you spent much time in England?

PRINCE (_aside_).

I suppose he wants me to help him with Austria, and to disparage

England. [_Aloud_.] In England? Yes, quite time enough to learn all

about that unmannerly and extremely ridiculous country and its ways.

KING:

What's that? England ridiculous? Here, here, young friend--_we_ have

some distance to go yet before we reach the point where England stands

today. H'm--have you been in Italy? Or in Austria--or thereabouts?

PRINCE (_aside_).

Does he favor England? I thought it was Austria--yes, he favors Austria.

[_Aloud_.] Austria? Surely; a wonderful country--such development of

industry--and commerce--such life and activity in all directions!

KING.

Activity? H'm! The activity in Austria isn't dangerous yet!

PRINCE (_aside_).

Then he does not favor Austria. I fancy I'm not ingratiating myself at

all.

KING (_aside_).

Has Seckendorf, or any of the others, been talking to him? Is he trying

to please me? [_Aloud_.] A nice little country, that Baireuth of yours.

Soil somewhat stony, though!--doesn't yield your father much revenue, I

dare say!

PRINCE.

We're learning to improve the soil. [_Aside_.] These geographical

prejudices!

KING.

Trying to improve it by the pleasure palaces your father is building?

What's got into the man? Puts up one gimcrack after another, as if he

were Louis Quatorze--and runs his country into debt meanwhile. About how

much debt does your country carry?

PRINCE (_aside_).

I don't know that myself. [_Aloud, saucily_.] Ten millions.

KING.

Ten millions?

PRINCE.

More or less.

KING.

Good heavens! Who is to pay that debt eventually? And with such a state

of things in the exchequer you're traveling about Europe, taking money

out of the country?

PRINCE.

I'm completing my education, sire.

KING.

In Versailles? In Rheinsburg? Well, never mind, we've had enough of

that. [_He whistles the_ _first bars of the Dessauer March_.] Tell me,

you've taken part in those heathenish performances--at my son's Court, I

mean?

PRINCE.

The part of a confidant, Your Majesty.

KING.

Good! It was about these heathenish performances that I wanted to speak

to you. Prince, they tell me you are a man of taste, a man who is well

acquainted with those godless Greek and Roman doings. As it is in my

mind to celebrate my daughter's wedding with all pomp worthy of my

crown--I want to ask you--to consult with my son--as to how most

gracefully and amusingly to entertain the Courts of Poland, Saxony,

Brunswick and Mecklenburg, who will all be here for an entire week--in a

word, how we can win much honor and glory by this wedding.

PRINCE.

Wedding? The Princess--your daughter's wedding?

KING.

Yes, Prince. My artillery will furnish the salutes, and I will see to the

reviews and parades my self. But it is in the evening that our guests grow

weary in Berlin--they go to sleep in their chairs. Beer drinking and pipe

smoking is not yet to every one's taste. We'll have to swim with the

stream, therefore, and provide suitable amusements--illumination, operas,

allegorical presentations, and such fol-da-rol--all about Prussia and

England.

PRINCE.

England?

KING (_rises_).

Zounds! that ran over my tongue like a hare hurrying across

the highway. H'm--I mean a sort of spectacle--oh, say

unicorn--eagle--eagle--unicorn--leopard--intermingled--Prussia and

England--and it must be in rhyme--in verse, as it were.

PRINCE.

England? This news comes with such a surprise! The whole country,

Europe--the world--will wonder how England came to deserve such honor.

KING.

Oh, ho! don't flatter the old--lackey! It's an old affair, this one with

England; my wife has been working at it for years.

PRINCE.

The Queen? Why, I fancied--that Her Majesty the Queen was much more in

favor of Austria--

KING. Austria? [_Aside_.]

I might have known she would want to put her own will through. [_Aloud

with decision_.] No. I received today a dispatch from our Ambassador,

who assures me that England is thinking seriously of this plan, of this

marriage arranged in all secrecy. The Prince of Wales has taken ship

from England; it is supposed that he is already landed on the Hanoverian

coast. Meanwhile, a plenipotentiary has left London, in strictest

_incognito_, on his way to treat with me concerning all the details of

the marriage. The envoy is likely to arrive at any moment. You would

place me under obligations to you, therefore--

PRINCE (_in despair_).

Shall it be a pastoral masque?

KING.

Yes. And the Crown Prince can play the flute for it, since he has

learned that art behind my back.

PRINCE (_turns to go, but comes back_).

And the ladies and gentlemen of the Court are to act in it?

KING.

Surely. Give every one of them something to say, only not me. But

Grumbkow must act in it. Yes, Grumbkow must be in it--and the ladies

Viereck and Sonnsfeld--and Seckendorf--and--

PRINCE (_as above_).

Must it be in English or in French?

KING.

Neither. In German, good, pure, fiery German--High German, you

understand, not the Berlin flavor. [_Confidentially_.] And if you could

bring in a little Dutch somewhere--certain considerations of commerce

would render that very pleasing to me; it will be spoken of in the

papers and the Ambassador of Holland will be there--you see, it's about

the importation of tobacco. [_Makes gestures as of smoking and whispers

into the_ PRINCE'S _ear_.] But I suppose a fine young gentleman like

yourself doesn't smoke.

PRINCE (_in despair_).

No, Your Majesty--but my imagination is smoking like any volcano

already.

A LACKEY (_coming in_).

The Privy Councilors urgently pray Your Majesty to receive them.

KING.

Gad, but they must be eaten up by curiosity! Bring them in. [_The lackey

goes out_.] Well, as I was saying--an allegorical marriage

masque--that's what. Not quite in the style of Versailles. And yet I

want the pre-marital feast to be fine enough to compare favorably with

the one they rigged up in Dresden. Now--as for Holland. Put in some

verses about the colonies, Prince, about the land where tobacco grows.

You know--it's the land where the--

PRINCE (_beside himself_).

Where the Bong-tree grows! [_He goes out_.]

SCENE VI

GRUMBKOW _and_ SECKENDORF _come in. Each carries under his arm a small

bundle of red-bound books_.

GRUMBKOW.

Forgive us, Your Majesty--but it is incredible that such unprecedented

crimes should occur in the very bosom of the Royal Family!

KING.

What's the matter now?

GRUMBKOW.

Your Majesty has already been informed about the Frenchman who was found

wandering through the streets of Berlin without any proper passport or

identification, the man who had the temerity to say he had come to teach

Princess Wilhelmine his language.

KING.

It was only a wigmaker from Orleans.

SECKENDORF.

Oh, but we have discovered further complications, Your Majesty! Books

were found in this man's possession, books which point to a dangerous

connection with Rheinsberg.

GRUMBKOW.

Convince yourself, Your Majesty. These immoral French writings are all

marked with the initials of His Highness the Crown Prince.

SECKENDORF.

F.P.R.

GRUMBKOW.

Frédéric, Prince Royal.

[_The_ KING _starts in anger, takes up one of the books and then touches

the bell_. EVERSMANN _comes in_.]

KING.

Eversman [_with conscious impressiveness_], my spectacles! [EVERSMANN

_goes out and returns again with a big pair of glasses_.] The

Attorney-General must make a thorough examination of this vagrant's

papers.... I will not have these French clowns in my country. [_He looks

through one of the books_.] The Crown Prince's seal--But no--no ... the

vagabond must have stolen it from him.

GRUMBKOW.

Or else the books were intended for the Princess' instruction.

KING.

This sort of book? These French--hold! hold! what have we here--is this

not the disgusting novel written by the hunchback Scarron, the husband

of the fine Madame Maintenon--his notorious satire upon our Court?

GRUMBKOW AND EVERSMANN (_together_).

Our Court?

KING (_turning the leaves_).

A satire on us all--on me--on Seckendorf, Grumbkow, Eversmann.

EVERSMANN.

On me, too? KING (_serious_).

The Crown Prince has underscored most of it, that it may be better

understood. Here is a Marshal with the nickname _le chicaneur_. You know

that's meant for you, Grumbkow.

GRUMBKOW.

Outrageous!

KING.

The Ambassador, Vicomte de la Rancune, otherwise _le petit combinateur_.

That's you, Seckendorf.

SECKENDORF.

It's--it's an international insult.

KING.

And he called Eversmann _la rapinière_, or, as we would say, Old

Rapacity!

EVERSMANN.

The rogue! And such books find their way into the country--marked

properly by the Crown Prince at that!

KING.

Can Wilhelmine be a party to this? That would indeed be scandalous. The

Attorney-General must make a thorough investigation. [_In extreme

anger_.] Isn't it possible for me to have a single quiet moment?

EVERSMANN.

Your Majesty, shall I take these ungodly books to the executioner, to

have them burned?

KING.

No. I wouldn't use them even to light my pipe--not even as bonfires for

our festivities. Gentlemen, shake this matter off, as I have done. This

evening, over our glowing pipes, and in the enjoyment of a glass of good

German beer, we also can be just as witty at the expense of Versailles

and the entire French cabinet.

GRUMBKOW AND SECKENDORF (_together, aside_).

Bonfires for the festivities?

EVERSMANN.

But the books are to be burned, Your Majesty?

KING.

Yes, in another manner. Send them out to the powder mills by the

Oranienburger gate. They can make cartridges for my grenadiers out of

them. [_He goes out_.]

GRUMBKOW, SECKENDORF, EVERSMANN (_aside_). Festivities?

[_They go out_.]

SCENE VII

_The scene changes to the room of Act I_.

BARONET HOTHAM _comes in cautiously through the centre door, followed

by_ KAMKE.

HOTHAM.

A hall with four doors? Quite right. The Princess' room there? And the

Queen's here? Thanks, good friend. [KAMKE _goes out_.] Baronet Hotham is

preserving his _incognito_ to the extent of becoming entirely invisible.

I've smuggled myself into the country from London--by way of Hanover--as

if I were a bale of prohibited merchandise. [_Wipes his forehead_.] The

deuce take this equestrian official business, where a man needs have the

manners of a dandy with the unfeeling bones of a postilion. For four

days I've scarcely been out of the saddle. [_He throws himself into a

chair_.] Gad! if the nations knew how a man has to win his way through

to the Foreign Office by years of courier-riding, they'd not think it

strange that their statesmen, grown mature, seem disinclined to trip the

light fantastic. Faith, it weighs one's pocket heavily, this carrying a

kingdom about with one. [_He slaps his right coat-pocket_.] Here lies

the crown of England. [_Now the left coat-pocket_.] Here the crown of

Scotland--and here, in my waistcoat pocket, is Ireland. What shall I

take from herein exchange? [_He looks about_.] Is the gilding real? It

looks deuced niggardly and close-fisted. There's space enough in these

great halls, but I'll wager there are many mice here. It's as quiet as

an English Sunday. [_Rises_.] There's some one coming.

[_Rises_ PRINCE _opens the centre door, then halts on the threshold as

if in despair_.]

HOTHAM (_in surprise_).

Well?

[_The_ PRINCE _comes down a step and claps his hand to his forehead_.]

HOTHAM.

I believe he's writing verses.

[_The_ PRINCE _moves as before, toward the_ PRINCESS' _door, then sees_

HOTHAM.]

PRINCE.

What? Who--who is this I see?

HOTHAM (_surprised_).

Do my eyes deceive me?

PRINCE.

Hotham! Is it possible? You here in Berlin, friend?

HOTHAM.

Why, what is the matter, Prince?

PRINCE.

Think of meeting you--you dear, excellent fellow--and just at the very

moment when my despair threatened to overcome me! Is it really true?

Where do you come from? From Paris?

HOTHAM.

I've just come from England, Prince, with the very best greetings from

our mutual friends and a special commission to capture you and bring you

back to the race-track, to the hunting field, and the boxing ring, which

you so enjoyed.

PRINCE.

Alas, Hotham--all those pleasures are over for me!

HOTHAM.

Has your father cut you off from the succession?

PRINCE.

Ah, do not touch that sensitive wound! Fetch me, instead, the Empire of

Morocco.

HOTHAM.

You are ill of a fever, Prince, or else you need a friend to aid you

with his sane mind.

PRINCE.

Hotham, you are a genius--many an intrigue of your country's foes will

be shattered against that brain of yours. But you cannot help me.

HOTHAM.

I wish that I could, Prince. I am so deeply in your debt for a hundred

good services rendered me during your sojourn in England. It was your

influence that put me in touch with our leading statesmen; you opened

the diplomatic career to me. To you I owe all that I am and have--my

brain is at your service, let it think for you; my arm is at your

service, let it act for you.

PRINCE.

Hotham, I'm in a most peculiar situation--

HOTHAM.

I will devote my very life to your service. What would I be without you?

To you I owe this flattering mission, to you I owe my very presence

here.

PRINCE.

Yes--why _are_ you here?

HOTHAM (_looks about_).

It is an affair of the greatest secrecy. But if you desire I shall not

hesitate to tell you what it is.

PRINCE. (_absently_).

I am not curious. Will it keep you here long?

HOTHAM.

That depends upon circumstances--circumstances of a most delicate

nature.

PRINCE.

An affair of honor?

HOTHAM (_low_).

It concerns a possible marriage contract--between Princess Wilhelmine

and the Prince of Wales.

PRINCE (_as if beside himself_).

You? You are the ambassador of whom the King spoke to me just now?

HOTHAM.

Has the King been informed already?

PRINCE.

Then you--you are that irresistibly clever diplomat whom they are

awaiting with open arms?

HOTHAM.

Does the King really look with favor upon this marriage with the Prince

of Wales?

PRINCE.

Horrible! I picked this man for a genius from among a thousand others. I

took him from Paris, and put him into English diplomacy and now I must

suffer because he does honor to my judgment. Let me tell you, then, my

friend, that the King and the Queen, quite ignorant of their mutual

agreement, are both heartily desirous of this marriage and all of its

implications. But you are to know also that Princess Wilhelmine, the

unhappy sacrifice of your political ambitions, is loved by a prince who

cannot compete in power or position with your Prince of Wales, but who

in devotion, love, passion so far outdistances all and any crowned

suitors for the hand of this angel as heaven, nay, as paradise,

outdistances earth--and that this prince is--myself.

HOTHAM.

This is indeed a discovery I did not dream of, and I must, unhappily,

add not a pleasant one. But if you ask in due form, why should they not

grant you the hand of the Princess?

PRINCE.

Grant it to me? A petty German sovereign When they have the choice of

future Kings and Emperors? Speak of me to the Queen and you will

discover that she invariably confuses Baireuth with Ansbach.

HOTHAM.

The discovery is all the less pleasing in that I, as envoy of my

government, must do all I can to bring about the marriage.

PRINCE.

Of course, you must justify my recommendation.

HOTHAM.

And yet I take the liberty of suggesting that possibly--under certain

conditions--this marriage with England might not come about. Of a truth,

Prince, take courage! Circumstances might arise which would not only

give me the right, but would even make it my duty to give up all

thoughts of the match.

PRINCE.

You revive my very soul.

HOTHAM.

Your Highness, it is not the Prince of Wales whom I represent here. The

English nation, the cabinet, the Houses of Parliament send me. You are

aware, Prince, your sojourn in England must have made it plain to you

that the house of Hanover was called to the throne of England under

conditions which make it the duty of that house to subordinate its own

personal desires to the general welfare of the nation. Whether or not

the Prince of Wales feels any personal interest in his cousin is of

little moment. Parliament takes no cognizance of whether they love each

other or not. The Prince of Wales, as future King of England, will

contract any matrimonial alliance that is suggested to him as necessary

to the national welfare. An alliance with the dynasty of the rising

young kingdom of Prussia seems, under the present political

constellation, to be the most favorable.

PRINCE.

And this holds out some hope for me?

HOTHAM.

There lies no hope in this unfortunate mission of mine, but in one of

its clauses which states that the marriage, if all else be favorable,

may be concluded only on this condition [_looking about cautiously_]:

that certain English manufacturers shut out by Prussia be readmitted

into the country [_softly_] on acceptable terms.

PRINCE.

And into this--this mercantile scheming you would mingle a question of

love--an affair of the heart?

HOTHAM.

I am here to speak for the hearts of our merchants, hearts that beat

warmly for the throne, but still more warmly for their balance-sheets.

If our factories have nothing to hope for, then, Prince [_takes his

hands_], my protector, my patron, then I am all yours. And you shall see

that I have other talents besides those of diplomacy.

PRINCE.

Talents to awaken a hope on which the bitterest disappointment must

follow.

HOTHAM.

Wait, Prince, wait and trust--

PRINCE.

To the counting-room?

HOTHAM.

Why not? And when, in case the King will not agree to the new treaties,

I have devoted myself entirely to your cause, when you under stand that

my heart beats high in gratitude to a Prince whom I met by mere chance

and who has been my benefactor--when you have finally won the heart and

hand of the Princess, then all I shall ask of Your Highness, as a German

sovereign at the Diet of Regensburg, in Germany's very heart, is merely

your assistance in obtaining from the German Empire some little

concession for our harmless, innocent--manufactures.

KAMKE (_opens the door to the right_).

HOTHAM.

Everything else later. For the present--trust me. Over there are the

Queen's apartments. Farewell. [_He goes out_.]

SCENE VIII

PRINCE (_alone_).

Land! Land in sight! Something, surely, can be done now! With Hotham at

my right hand, I need only some female reinforcement at my left. The

moment seems favorable. I will try to draw little Sonnsfeld, the

Princess' lady-in-waiting, into the plot. She is waiting in the

anteroom. I'll knock. [_He goes softly to the_ PRINCESS' _door and

knocks_]. I hear a sound. [_He knocks again_.] The rustle of a gown--it

is she. [_He draws back a step and turns_.] First one must take these

little outposts and then--to the main battle.

[WILHELMINE _comes in_.]

PRINCE (_startled_).

Ah, it is you--yourself!

WILHELMINE.

Oh, then it was you, Prince? I have reason to be very angry with you.

PRINCE.

With me, Your Highness? Why with me?

WILHELMINE.

As if you did not know the insult you have offered me.

PRINCE.

Princess, would you drive me mad? I offer _you_ an insult?

WILHELMINE.

Have you not heard what sort of a person this learned Laharpe of yours

really is?

PRINCE.

Princess, Laharpe is one of the most intelligent of men and possessed of

a pretty wit. One might search long among your scholars here in Berlin

before finding his equal in cultivation.

WILHELMINE.

He is a wigmaker from Orleans!

PRINCE.

But I assure you, Princess, he is not a wigmaker. It is true Laharpe

does understand the splitting of hairs, but only in scientific

controversy; it is true he does use paint and powder, in that he paints

his thoughts in words of elegance, and lays on them the powder of

ingenious sophistry--an art that is better understood in France than

here. It is unfortunate enough, Your Highness, that your royal father's

kingdom should be in such bad repute that foreigners of wit, poetry, and

cultivation can be admitted only when they come bearing the passport of

wigmakers.

WILHELMINE.

But our plan has come to naught; Laharpe has been banished.

PRINCE.

A weak reflection of his brilliancy has remained, Princess. Do not think

me quite unworthy of taking his place. Grant me the blessed

consciousness of having aided you to escape a situation which passes all

bounds of filial obedience.

WILHELMINE.

Prince--this language--

PRINCE.

It is the language of a feeling I can no longer control, of an

indignation I can no longer suppress. Princess, do you know that you

are destined as a sacrifice to political and commercial intrigue? That

you are to be sent to England in exchange for the produce of English

factories?

WILHELMINE (_in indignation_).

Who says that?

PRINCE.

Far be it from me to pass judgment on your desires--far be it from me to

inquire if it may not surprise, perhaps even please your ambitions when

you hear that you might win even an Imperial crown--but, if you love the

Prince of Wales--

WILHELMINE.

The Prince of Wales? Who says that I love him?

PRINCE.

Your mother, who presupposes it--your father, who commands it.

WILHELMINE.

The Prince of Wales? My cousin, whom I have never seen? Who has never

betrayed the slightest interest in me? A Prince whose loose living has

made me despise him!

PRINCE.

Then you do not love the Prince?

WILHELMINE.

My heart is free. And no power on earth can force me to give it to any

man but to him whom I shall choose myself.

PRINCE.

Do I hear aright?

WILHELMINE.

I have been obedient and dutiful from the very first stirring of my

personal consciousness. I have never had a will of my own, or dared, if

I had that will, to give it expression. But when they would take the one

thing from me, the one thing that is still mine after all these years of

humiliation, my own inalienable possession, my heart's free choice--then

indeed the bottomless depths of my obedience will be found exhausted. I

feel that my brother was justified in throwing off such a yoke--and I

will show the world that I am indeed his sister.

PRINCE.

Princess! [_Aside._] What can I do--it is too much joy--too much bliss!

[_Aloud._] Princess! the green garlands on the little window down there,

the potted flowers offer a secret retreat--the little linnet in his cage

is impatient for the return of his beautiful and benign mistress.

WILHELMINE (_drawing her hand from his_).

You would--

PRINCE.

I would take the place of that misjudged and slandered scholar. And down

there, alone with you, not worried by threatening footfalls in the

corridors, undisturbed by [_noise of drums outside_] those cruel

guardians of your freedom, I would tell the most charming Princess of

Europe that--

WILHELMINE.

You have nothing to tell me--nothing at all.

PRINCE (_throws himself at her feet_).

I would tell her that there is one Prince who, although he will one day

reign over no more than a tiny plot of German earth, still can gather

from the spell of her beauty, the kindness of her heart, the courage to

say to her--I love you--I worship you.

WILHELMINE.

Prince, what are you doing--please arise--some one is coming!

PRINCE.

Not until you promise me you will meet me there.

WILHELMINE.

Oh--if we should be surprised like this! Please get up!

PRINCE.

You will promise? You will meet me?

WILHELMINE.

Where? [_He points to the window._] There? But I am not alone even

there.

PRINCE.

Those simple people are overjoyed when their Princess consents to linger

an hour with them in their poverty. I have much to say to you, Princess,

very much. I will tell you of the plans concerning England or Austria of

which you are the central figure. And you must tell me again--in the

very best style of Versailles, which I know thoroughly--that you hate

me--that you detest me--

WILHELMINE.

Prince, you torture me--I hear voices. Some one is approaching--Please

get up.

PRINCE.

Will you promise?

WILHELMINE.

Cruel one! You won't get up--

PRINCE.

Not until you promise--

WILHELMINE.

If you promise to talk only about the plans that concern me--and about

French grammar--

PRINCE (_springing up_).

You promise? You will come? By every star in the firmament I swear I

will begin with the verb _J'aime_--I love--and you shall see how, in

comparison with the language of a devoted heart, in comparison with the

art which unadorned nature can practise, even Voltaire is only--a

wigmaker. [_He goes out._]

SCENE IX

_The noise of drums in the distance is no longer heard._ WILHELMINE

_left alone, starts as if to follow the_ PRINCE. _Then she turns back

hesitating, and walks with uncertain steps to the table. She rings the

bell._ SONNSFELD _comes in, looks at the Princess as if surprised,

speaks after a pause._

SONNSFELD.

Your Highness commands?

WILHELMINE (_as if awakening from a dream_).

I? Nothing.

SONNSFELD.

Your Highness rang?

WILHELMINE.

Yes, I did. My mantilla--my fan--the veil.

SONNSFELD.

Your Highness is going out?

WILHELMINE.

I am going out.

SONNSFELD.

Has Your Highness permission?

WILHELMINE.

Permission? Are you beginning to take that tone, too? Fetch the things I

want.

[SONNSFELD _looks at her, astounded, then goes out._]

WILHELMINE (_alone_).

I am tired of all this. I am beginning to be conscious of myself, now

that I know there is some one who recognizes my meagre worth. The

situation here is unbearable. I am weary of this unworthy subordination,

this barrack-room service.

[SONNSFELD _comes back with mantilla, fan and veil._]

WILHELMINE.

You might have chosen the mantilla with the Brussels lace.

SONNSFELD.

Your Highness--what is your purpose?

WILHELMINE.

Throw the veil about my head. Don't question everything I do. Must I

give you an accounting for every trifle?

SONNSFELD.

Good Heavens--have you joined your mother in her revolutionary ideas?

WILHELMINE.

I have joined no one. I want to show the world that a Princess of

Prussia has at least the right to pass from one court of the palace to

another of her own free will. I am tired of being tyrannized in this

way. The Grand Elector lived for me as well as for the others--the

Hohenzollerns are what they are for my sake also. Adieu. [_Holds out her

hand._] You may kiss my hand. And do not forget that I am the daughter

of a king who is forming great and important plans for his child's

future, and that this child, even though she should be stubborn enough

to refuse to acquiesce in his plans, will still be none the less a

Princess of Prussia.

[_She turns to go. The centre door opens and_ ECKHOF _comes in, followed

by three grenadiers. The door remains open._]

ECKHOF.

Halt!

SONNSFELD.

Are you to have a Guard of Honor, Princess?

ECKHOF.

Grenadiers--front!

[_Three more men come in without their muskets. The first carries a

Bible, the second a_ _soup tureen, the third a half-knitted stocking._]

ECKHOF (_comes forward and salutes the_ PRINCESS).

May it please your Royal Highness graciously to forgive me, if by reason

of a special investigation commanded by His Majesty the King, in

consequence of forbidden communication with Castle Rheinsberg, I ask

Your Highness to graciously submit to a strict room-arrest, as ordered

by His Majesty the King.

SONNSFELD.

What's that? Princess!

ECKHOF.

Likewise, His Majesty the King has graciously pleased to make the

following dispositions First grenadier, front! [_The first grenadier

marches forward with the Bible._] Your Royal Highness is to learn

chapters three to five of the Song of Solomon so thoroughly that the

Court Chaplain can examine Your Highness in the same tomorrow morning at

five o'clock. Second grenadier, front! [_The second grenadier comes

forward with the soup tureen._] The food ordered for Your Highness will

be brought up from the garrison kitchen punctually every day.

SONNSFELD (_opens the tureen_).

Dreadful stuff! Boiled beans!

ECKHOF.