ON THE ROAD TO MEMEL
On a certain day in the January following Jena the snow was falling
fast.
It clung to the tree limbs and turned the feathery firs to fairy trees.
On the low bushes and oaks the ice glittered and gleamed, and a piercing
blast, sweeping through the branches, crackled the crusted limbs and
filled the air with a mysterious sound of coldness. Now and then a
high-runnered sleigh dashed along the highway, its driver muffled to the
eyes in fur, the breath frozen on his beard or moustaches. From the
Baltic Sea the breath of the frozen North swept over the East Prussian
land and, obedient to its command, life seemed to still its slightest
sound and the whole world freeze into silence.
Suddenly the voice of a child broke the quiet.
"Grandfather,"--oh, how tired it sounded,--"truly, dear grandfather, I
can go no farther."
It was little Bettina, wrapped in a woollen shawl and trudging by the
side of old Hans, whose face was almost hidden in a huge cape of fur.
They were still on their journey, though Koenigsberg had been passed two
days before.
"Ja, ja, Liebchen," the old man paused in the road; "it is cold, indeed.
But have courage, little one; we shall soon reach a village, and then
sausages and bread."
"God be thanked," said little Bettina, and on she trudged, her poor
feet so cold she could not feel them moving.
On they went for a time in silence. Then the old man, with a short
laugh, said:
"God be praised we have left the French behind us."
Before Bettina could answer, or Hans himself say more, the Baltic sent a
breath sharp with icy edge. It cut the falling snow, it dashed the
flakes in their faces, it beat against their bodies; and, gathering
strength, it drove them apart, tossing and twisting Bettina.
There was no speaking.
The wind howled in icy salutation; the snow struck their eyes, drove
itself into their mouths, lodged in the necks of their garments,
whitened their hair and froze on their gloves and chilled them to almost
fainting.
Then suddenly the wind gave a shriek like a terrified spirit. The snow
began to whirl, and upward went leaves, sticks, and even lumps of the
earth itself.
Hans caught Bettina in his arms. He drew her to the edge of the road.
"Down! down!" he cried, and pulled her into a gully. Harmless, the
whirlwind passed above their heads, the ridge of earth protecting their
bodies.
"Lie close, lie close, my Bettina," cried Hans, and he drew her within
the folds of his great cape with fur lining.
Winds from the north, east, west, and south fought for mastery, the four
beating and screaming and whirling the innocent snow in their fury,
until, rising, the white confusion became like a veil concealing
everything.
But wheels were approaching. They reached the road above the travellers,
and then, their horses losing power any longer to struggle, suddenly
stopped short in the road. Even their stamping sounded faint and
exhausted, so great was the fury of the awful war of winds which nature
had excited on that narrow neck of land in East Prussia.
Then suddenly came a lull. The winds retreated from their battle ground.
Both Hans and Bettina raised their heads in wonder. In the sudden quiet
they heard a voice, a voice whose sweetness sounded a note quite
familiar and a voice whose owner seemed ill and suffering.
"I am in a great strait," it said; "let us fall now into the hand of the
Lord, for His mercies are great; and let me not fall into the hand of
man."
Even while the voice was speaking the whirling snow fell like a curtain
of white wool to the ground, and Hans and Bettina, rising, saw in the
snow of the road a travelling carriage, on whose cushions, covered with
a feather bed, lay a lady, white and pale, whose golden head, for want
of a pillow, rested on the arm of an attendant. With her were ladies and
a physician.
Hans' face flushed.
"Curtsey," he whispered to Bettina. "Curtsey, child, it is the Queen!"
Bettina forgot her own cold. She was no longer tired, no longer hungry,
in her pity for the poor, ill lady, who, when she saw a child, smiled
her a greeting, quite feebly, but as sweet as the one at Jena.
It was Queen Louisa of Prussia, flying still before her foe, Napoleon.
He had entered her palace; he had ransacked her private desks; he had
read all her letters to her husband; he had published dreadful things
against her in the French paper in Berlin; he had proclaimed her the
cause of the war; declared her to be vain, foolish, and unworthy of the
love of her people; and loudly had he declared that never would he rest
until he had brought the King and Queen of Prussia so low that they must
beg for their bread.
He had driven them from place to place, and now was advancing on
Koenigsberg.
When Hans and Bettina had arrived in that old city the King had gone,
the court was flying, and so, never heeding the snow, on they had gone,
too, fleeing like the rest, before that dreadful Emperor.
And here was the poor Queen, who had been ill to death in Koenigsberg,
journeying in the cold and snow to Memel, with not even a pillow to rest
her head upon!
When the carriage started again Hans and Bettina walked behind it.
"It will shelter us," said the old man, for the wind blew little Bettina
almost off her feet.
Ach, as the Germans say, but it was cold!
The blasts, sweeping from the Baltic to the Kurischehaff and from the
Kurischehaff to the Baltic, still fought for mastery, and the curtain of
the northern night began to fall about them early in the afternoon, and
on they struggled in the gathering darkness.
At last, through the snowy gloom, they saw the lights of a village, and,
nearly frozen, they sought lodgings.
Hans asked a woman whom he saw at a door to shelter them.
She stoutly refused him.
She was tall, dark, with sallow complexion and gleaming dark eyes, whose
lids she had a trick of narrowing. Hans pointed to Bettina shivering and
wet to her skin.
"You cannot refuse us a room," he said.
The woman shrugged her shoulders and hesitated.
Truly, Bettina would have moved any heart.
"Because of the child, poor darling," at last said the woman, "though my
man, if he comes, may not like it." She shrugged expressively.
She rubbed Bettina's hands and feet with snow and made her dip them in
water, and, undressing her, she wrapped her in a warm bed-gown of her
own and covered her with a feather bed.
"Drink this," and she held warm milk to her blue little lips, and when
the child was sinking into a doze, she started towards her kitchen. At
the door she paused.
"I must dry the child's clothes," she said, and coming back gathered up
the damp, draggled garments, Bettina never noticing.
As she was cleaning them in her kitchen she started violently. Bearing
the dress on her arm she went to her room.
"I thought so!" she said, and her eyelids narrowed.
As for Hans, when he had dried himself somewhat and partaken of bread,
cheese, and beer, he was off to the shoemaker's house, where they had
taken the Queen. In its kitchen, with its great stove and its pots of
blooming geraniums, he found some court servants, who, now they were
resting, were glad enough of a gossip.
Especially was the driver of the carriage fond of talk.
"Ja," he said, "our good Queen has been ill to death of a nervous
fever."
Then he told of how she had been with the King; her children, with the
Countess Voss; and first little Princess Alexandrina, and then Prince
Carl had been ill, and the Queen could not reach them.
At Koenigsberg little Carl had been near to death, and the Queen from
nursing him took the fever.
"Ach Himmel," said the driver, gazing from face to face in the hot,
steaming kitchen, "it was terrible, for we thought we should lose her!
Herr Doctor Hufeland arrived from Dantzic. His Excellency found her near
death. Ach, friends, but it was a dreadful night, and all hearts were
anxious, for at sea was a ship, and on board Baron Stein, bearing to
Koenigsberg the state treasure. He had saved the gold and jewels in
Berlin from that thief Napoleon."
Then he told how in the night, while the wind howled and blew, there had
come a crash which had startled old Koenigsberg.
It was a wing of the old castle which had fallen in the storm.
"And it brought bad luck," continued the driver, "for a courier arrived
soon after with despatches. 'Fly!' they said, 'fly! the French approach
Koenigsberg!'"
And then had come the flight, and he told how, the night before, the
Queen had slept in a room whose windows were so broken the snow had
drifted in all night over her bed and nearly frozen her.
There was much to talk about, and all were eager to listen. The warmth
from the stove was comfortable, and the shoemaker brought out some beer.
The driver, who certainly was fond of talking, told of the sufferings of
the Royal children; how the old Countess had not been able always to get
them bread, nor find clothes to keep them clean and in order.
"And they have grown most noisy," he said. "The Queen is an angel. Never
does she complain, but is always sweet and amiable, and the old Countess
is very noble. But our King is gloomy and wrapped in thought and no one
reproves the children."
The shoemaker asked questions about them.
"Prince William is the best," said the man; "he looks like his father,
but in disposition he is like our Queen. The old Countess calls him 'A
dear good child,' and that he is always."
Before he could continue a messenger arrived from Memel with bouillon
from the King for the Queen.
This arrival brought much excitement, and when again they were quiet
they all fell to talking of the French and how the Emperor coveted the
great fine city of Dantzic and of how its people vowed that he never
should enter its gates while they could prevent him.
"Where is he now?" asked Hans, hatred burning in his eyes and his cheeks
flushing.
"They say in Koenigsberg that he is at Helbsberg. Our army is in that
neighbourhood, also. They report that both are approaching Eylau.
Perhaps they may fight there."
The shoemaker's wife came into the roomful of men, interrupting a second
time.
At first she coughed loudly, for they were puffing smoke everywhere.
Then, with a beaming face, she told them how the Queen had just said she
was more comfortable than she had been anywhere on her flight.
"Our Queen is an angel!" Hans raised high his glass. "Hoch!" he cried,
as the Germans say when they drink to anything or anybody.
"Hoch!" answered the others, but low, that they might not disturb the
Queen.
"Long may she live," said the voices.
Then "Three times hoch!" and they clinked their glasses softly and
drained them.
Then, it being late, Hans returned to Bettina.
She was fast asleep, one little hand, thin and pale, lying outside the
feather bed. On a chair by the bedside were her clothes, clean and dry,
and everything quite in order.
Hans, in terror, felt for the letter.
It was safe between the lining and the waist material, and, tired
himself, he was soon fast asleep.
Next day they all started forth, Hans and Bettina walking behind the
carriage, and presently they came to the ferry at Memel.
In those days Memel was a flourishing little city of about six thousand
people, noted for its cleanliness and its English ways of living. It
lies on water, and into its harbour came Dutch ships and English ones,
giving it a look of activity.
As the Queen entered Memel a strange thing happened.
As if Nature, whom she loved with all her heart, wished to welcome her,
the clouds suddenly parted like a curtain and there was the sun, which
no one had seen for days, smiling forth gloriously.
"God be praised!" cried Hans. "It is a good omen."
As he and Bettina started into the city they came upon a lady and some
children. She was stout and comfortable looking and wrapped in fine
furs. The oldest of her children was a girl about fifteen, and the
prettiest girl Bettina had ever seen.
When this lady saw Hans she gave a shriek.
"My goodness!" she cried. "Why, Hans, how came you here?"
As for Hans, he was all excitement.
"Mademoiselle Clara!" he cried. "Ach Gott! that I see you again!"
When the lady, with many exclamations, heard of Hans' journey, she
raised her hands in horror.
"Heavens!" she cried, "but you must come home at once with me. I am
married now, Hans, and these are my children."
Then she turned to the pretty girl.
"Daughter," she said, "this is Hans, Johannes Lange. He was with your
grandfather when he was Colonel. Come, Hans; come, child," she smiled
kindly at Bettina. "My husband is home and will welcome you kindly.
Come, come!"
And off she led them into Memel.