it. As usual, you had a rousing success to show for it. You stood there
in your fancy dress, and let a whole meadowful of people love you."
"Halt, Imma, I beg you, don't gallop.... One can't get a word out....
Love, you say. But what sort of love is it? A meadow-love, a casual,
superficial love, a love at a distance, which means nothing--a love in
full dress with no familiarity about it. No, you've absolutely no reason
to be angry because I express myself pleased with it, for I get no good
from it; only the people do, who are elevated by it, and that's their
desire. But I too have my desire, Imma, and it's to you that I turn."
"How can I help you, Prince?"
"Oh, you know well! It's confidence, Imma; couldn't you have a little
confidence in me?"
She looked at him, and the scrutiny of her big eyes had never before
been so dark and piercing. But for all the urgency of his dumb pleading,
she turned away, and said with a look which betrayed no secrets: "No,
Prince Klaus Heinrich, I cannot."
He uttered a cry of grief, and his voice shook, as he asked: "And why
can't you?"
She replied: "Because you prevent me."
"How do I prevent you? Please tell me, I beg."
And, with the reserved expression still on her face, her eyes dropped on
her white reins, and rocking lightly to her horse's walk, she replied:
"Through everything, through your conduct, through the way and manner of
your being, through your highly distinguished personality. You know well
enough how you prevented the poor Countess from letting herself go, and
forced her to be clear-brained and reasonable, although it is expressly
on the ground of her excessive experiences that the blessing of
craziness and oddness has been vouchsafed to her, and that I told you
that I was well aware how you had set out to sober her. Yes, I know it
well, for you prevent me too from letting myself go, you sober me too,
continually, in every way, through your words, through your look,
through your way of sitting and standing, and it is quite impossible to
have confidence in you. I've had the opportunity of watching you in your
intercourse with other people; but whether it was Doctor Sammet in the
Dorothea Hospital or Herr Stavenüter in the 'Pheasantry' Tea-garden, it
was always the same, and it always made me shiver. You hold yourself
erect, and ask questions, but you don't do so out of sympathy, you don't
care what the questions are about--no, you don't care about anything,
and you lay nothing to heart. I've often seen it--you speak, you express
an opinion, but you might just as well express a quite different one,
for in reality you have no opinion and no belief, and the only thing you
care about is your princely self-possession. You say sometimes that your
calling is not an easy one, but as you have challenged me, I'll ask you
to notice that it would be easier to you if you had an opinion and a
belief, Prince, that's my opinion and belief. How could anyone have
confidence in you! No, it's not confidence that you inspire, but
coldness and embarrassment; and if I put myself out to get closer to
you, that kind of embarrassment and awkwardness would prevent me from
doing so,--there's my answer for you."
He had listened to her with painful tension, had looked more than once
at her pale face while she was speaking, and then again, like her,
dropped his eyes on the reins.
"I must indeed thank you, Imma," he answered, "for speaking so
earnestly, for you know that you don't always do so, but generally speak
only derisively, and in your way take things as little seriously as I in
mine."
"How else but derisively can I speak to you, Prince?"
"And sometimes you are so hard and cruel, as for instance towards the
head sister in the Dorothea Hospital, whom you threw into such
confusion."
"Oh, I'm well aware that I too have my faults, and need somebody to help
me to give them up."
"I'll be that somebody, Imma; we'll help each other."
"I don't think we can help each other, Prince."
"Yes, we can. Didn't you speak just now quite seriously and
unsatirically? But as for me, you are not right when you say that I care
about nothing at all and lay nothing to heart, for I care about you,
Imma--about you, I have laid you to heart; and as this matter is one of
such inexpressible seriousness to me, I cannot fail finally to win your
confidence. Were you aware of my joy when I heard you talk of putting
yourself out and coming nearer to me? Yes, put yourself out a little,
and do not let yourself ever again be confused with that sort of
awkwardness, or whatever it is, which you are so liable to feel in my
presence. Ah, I know it, I know only too well, how much to blame I am
for that! But laugh at yourself and at me when I make you feel like
that, and attach yourself to me. Will you promise me to put yourself out
a little?"
But Imma Spoelmann promised nothing, but insisted now on her gallop; and
many a subsequent conversation remained, like this, without result.
Sometimes, when Klaus Heinrich had come to tea, the Prince, Miss
Spoelmann, the Countess, and Percival went into the park. The splendid
collie kept decorously at Imma's side, and Countess Löwenjoul walked two
or three yards behind the young people; for soon after they had started
she had stopped for a second, to twine her bent and bony fingers round a
blossom, and she had never made good the distance she had then lost. So
Klaus Heinrich and Imma walked in front of her, and talked. But when
they had covered a certain distance, they turned round, thus getting the
Countess two or three yards in front of them. Then Klaus Heinrich
followed up his conversational efforts, and, carefully and without
looking up, took Imma Spoelmann's small, ringless hand from her side and
clasped it in both his, the while he imploringly asked whether she was
taking pains, and had made any progress in her confidence in him.
It displeased him to hear that she had been working, poring over algebra
and playing in the lofty spheres since they had last met. He would beg
her to lay her books aside now, as they might distract her and divert
her from the matter to which all her thinking powers must now be
devoted. He talked also about himself, about that sobering effect and
awkwardness which, according to her, his existence inspired; he tried to
explain it, and in doing so to weaken it. He spoke about the cold,
stern, and barren existence which had been his hitherto, he described to
her how everybody had always flocked to gaze at him, while it had been
his lofty calling to show himself and to be gazed at, a much more
difficult task. He did his best to make her recognize that the remedy
for that which caused him to prevent the poor Countess from drivelling
and to estrange her to his own sorrow, that this remedy could be found
in her, only in her, and was given over absolutely into her hands.
She looked at him, her big eyes sparkled in dark scrutiny, and it was
clear that she, she too, was struggling. But then she would shake her
head or break off the conversation, introducing with a pout some topic
over which she made merry, incapable of bringing herself to take the
responsibility of the "Yes" for which he begged her, that undefined and,
as matters stood, absolutely non-committal surrender.
She did not prevent him from coming once or twice a week; she did not
prevent him from speaking, from assailing her with prayers and
asseverations and from taking her hand now and then between his own. But
she was only patient, she remained unmoved, her dread of taking the
decisive step, that aversion from leaving her cool and derisive kingdom
and confessing herself his, seemed unconquerable; and she could not
help, in her anguish and exhaustion, breaking out with the words: "Oh,
Prince, we ought never to have met--it would have been best if we
hadn't. Then you would have pursued your lofty calling as calmly as
ever, and I should have preserved my peace of mind, and neither would
have harassed the other!"
The Prince had much difficulty in inducing her to recant, and in
extorting from her the confession that she did not entirely regret
having made his acquaintance. But all this took time. The summer came to
an end, early night-frosts loosened the still-green leaves from the
trees, Fatma's, Florian's, and Isabeau's hoofs rustled in the
red-and-gold leafage when they went for a ride. Autumn came with its
mists and sharp smells--and nobody could have prophesied an end, or
indeed any decisive turn in the course of the strangely fluctuating
affair.
The credit of having placed things on the foundation of actuality, of
having given events the lead in the direction of a happy issue, must for
ever be ascribed to the distinguished gentleman who had up till now
wisely kept in the background, but at the right moment intervened
carefully but firmly. I refer to Excellency von Knobelsdorff, Minister
of the Interior, Foreign Affairs, and the Grand Ducal Household.
Dr. Ueberbein had been correct in his assertion that the President of
the Council had kept himself posted in the stages of Klaus Heinrich's
love affair. What is more, well served by intelligent and sagacious
assistants, he had kept himself well in touch with the state of public
opinion, with the rôle which Samuel Spoelmann and his daughter played in
the imaginative powers of the people, with the royal rank with which the
popular idea invested them, with the great and superstitious tension
with which the population followed the intercourse between the Schlosses
"Hermitage" and Delphinenort, with the popularity of that intercourse:
in a word, he was well aware how the Spoelmanns, for everyone who did
not deliberately shut his eyes, were the general topic of conversation
and rumour, not only in the capital, but in the whole country. A
characteristic incident was enough to make Herr Knobelsdorff sure of his
ground.
At the beginning of October--the Landtag had been opened a fortnight
before, and the disputes with the Budget Commission were in full
swing--Imma Spoelmann fell ill, very seriously ill, so it was said at
first. It seemed that the imprudent girl, for some whim or mood, while
out with her countess, had ventured on a gallop of nearly half an hour's
duration on her white Fatma in the teeth of a strong north-east wind,
and had come home with an attack of congestion of the lungs, which
threatened to end her altogether.
The news soon got about. People said the girl was hovering between life
and death, which, as luckily soon emerged, was a great exaggeration. But
the consternation, the general sympathy, could not have been greater if
a serious accident had happened to a member of the House of Grimmburg,
even to the Grand Duke himself. It was the sole topic of conversation.
In the humbler parts of the city, near the Dorothea Hospital for
instance, the women stood in the evening outside their front doors,
pressed the palms of their hands against their breasts, and coughed, as
if to show each other what it meant to be short of breath. The evening
papers published searching and expert news of the condition of Miss
Spoelmann, which passed from hand to hand, were read at family
gatherings and cafés, and were discussed in the tram-cars. The
_Courier's_ reporter had been seen to drive in a cab to Delphinenort,
where, in the hall with the mosaic floor, he had been snubbed by the
Spoelmanns' butler, and had talked English to him--though he found that
no easy task.
The press, moreover, could not escape the reproach of having magnified
the whole business, and made a quite unnecessary fuss about it. There
was absolutely no question of any danger. Six days in bed under the care
of the Spoelmanns' private physician sufficed to relieve the congestion,
and to make Miss Spoelmann's lungs quite well again. But these six days
sufficed also to make clear the importance which the Spoelmanns, and
Miss Imma's personality in particular, had achieved in our public
opinion. Every morning found the envoys of the newspapers, commissioners
of the general curiosity, gathered in the mosaic hall at Delphinenort to
hear the butler's curt bulletins, which they then reproduced in their
papers at the inordinate length which the public desired.
One read of greetings and wishes for recovery sent to Delphinenort by
various benevolent institutions which Imma Spoelmann had visited and
richly subscribed to (and the wits remarked that the Grand Ducal
Treasury might have taken the opportunity of offering their homage in a
similar way). The public read also--and dropped the paper to exchange a
significant look--of a "beautiful floral tribute," which Prince Klaus
Heinrich had sent with his card (the truth being that the Prince, so
long as Miss Spoelmann kept to her bed, sent flowers not once, but
daily, to Delphinenort, a fact which was not mentioned by those in the
know, so as not to make too great a sensation).
The public read further that the popular young patient had left her bed
for the first time, and finally the news came that she was soon to go
out for the first time. But this going out, which took place on a sunny
autumn morning, eight days after the patient had been taken ill, was
calculated to give rise to such an expression of feeling on the part of
the population as people of stern self-possession labelled immoderate.
For round the Spoelmanns' huge olive-varnished, red-cushioned motor,
which, with a pale young chauffeur of an Anglo-Saxon type on the box,
waited in front of the main door at Delphinenort, a big crowd had
gathered; and when Miss Spoelmann and Countess Löwenjoul, followed by a
lackey with a rug, came out, cheers broke out, hats and handkerchiefs
were waved, until the motor had forced a way through the crowd and had
left the demonstrators behind in a cloud of vapour. It must be confessed
that these consisted of those rather doubtful elements who usually
collect on such occasions: half-grown youths, a few women with
market-baskets, one or two schoolboys, gapers, loafers, and out-of-works
of various descriptions.
But what is the public and what should its composition be to make it an
average public? One further assertion must not be passed over entirely
in silence which was later disseminated by the cynics. It was to the
effect that among the crowd round the motor there was an agent in Herr
von Knobelsdorff's pay, a member of the secret police, who had started
the cheers and vigorously kept them going. We can leave that in doubt,
and not grudge the belittlers of important events their satisfaction.
At least, in the case of this particular crowd, it only amounts to
saying that the agent's task was the mechanical release of feelings
which must have been there and must have been vivid. At any rate this
scene, which of course was described at length in the daily press, did
not fail to impress everybody, and persons with any acumen for the
connexion of things felt no doubt that a further piece of news, which
busied men's minds a few days later, stood in hidden relation to all
these phenomena and symptoms.
The news ran that his Royal Highness Prince Klaus Heinrich had received
his Excellency the Minister of State von Knobelsdorff in audience at the
Schloss "Hermitage," and had been closeted with him from three o'clock
in the afternoon till seven o'clock in the evening. A whole four hours!
What had they discussed? Surely not the next Court Ball? As a matter of
fact, the Court Ball had been one among several topics of conversation.
Herr von Knobelsdorff had preferred his request for a confidential talk
with the Prince in connexion with the Court Hunt, which had taken place
on October 10th in the woods to the west near Schloss "Jägerpreis," and
in which Klaus Heinrich and his red-haired cousins, dressed in green
uniforms, soft felt hats, and top-boots, and hung with field-glasses,
hangers, hunting-knives, bandoliers, and pistol cases, had taken part.
Herr von Braunbart-Schellendorf had been consulted, and three o'clock on
October 12th decided on. Klaus Heinrich himself had offered to visit the
old gentleman at his official residence, but Herr von Knobelsdorff had
preferred coming to the "Hermitage." He came punctually, and was
received with all the affection and warmth which Klaus Heinrich thought
that propriety demanded in the case of the aged counsellor of his father
and his brother. The sober little room, in which stood the three fine
mahogany Empire arm-chairs, with the blue lyre-embroidery on the yellow
ground, was the scene of the interview.
Though close on seventy, Excellency von Knobelsdorff was vigorous both
in body and mind. His frock-coat showed not one senile wrinkle, but was
tightly and well filled with the compact and comfortable form of a man
of happy disposition. His well-preserved hair was pure white, like his
short moustache, and parted smoothly in the middle; his chin had a
sympathetic pit in it, which might pass for a dimple. The fan-shaped
wrinkles at the corners of his eyes played as livelily as ever--indeed,
they had gained with the years some little branches and additional
lines, so that the whole complication of ever-shifting wrinkles imparted
to his blue eyes an expression of humorous subtlety.
Klaus Heinrich was attached to Herr von Knobelsdorff, though no closer
relations had been established between them. The Minister of State had
actually superintended and organized the Prince's life. He had begun by
fixing on Dröge to be his first tutor; had then called the "Pheasantry"
into life for him; had sent him later to the University with Dr.
Ueberbein; had also arranged his military service for show, and had put
Schloss "Hermitage" at his disposal to live in. But all this he had done
at second-hand, and had rarely interviewed him in person. Indeed, when
Herr von Knobelsdorff had met Klaus Heinrich during those years of
education, he had inquired most respectfully as to the Prince's resolves
and plans for the future, as if he were in complete ignorance of them;
and perhaps it was just this fiction, which was firmly bolstered up on
both sides, which had kept their intercourse throughout within the
bounds of formality.
Herr von Knobelsdorff began the conversation in an easy though
respectful tone, while Klaus Heinrich tried to discover the objects of
his visit. The former then chatted about the hunt of the day before
yesterday, made some pleasant reference to the amount of ground they had
covered, and then mentioned casually his admirable colleague at the
Treasury, Dr. Krippenreuther, who had also taken part in the hunt, and
whose invalid appearance he regretted. Herr Krippenreuther had really
not hit a thing.
"Yes, worry makes the hand unsteady," remarked Herr von Knobelsdorff,
and so gave the Prince the cue for a direct reference to this worry. He
spoke about the "by no means trifling" shortage in the estimates, about
the Minister's discussions with the Budget Commission, the new
property-tax, the rate of 13½ per cent., and the bitter opposition of
the urban deputies, of the antediluvian meat tax, and the Civil
Service's cries of hunger; and Klaus Heinrich, who had been surprised at
first by so many dry facts, listened to him intently and nodded his head
repeatedly.
The two men, the old and young, sat side by side on a slender, hardish
sofa with yellow upholstery and wreath-like brass mountings, which stood
behind the round table opposite the narrow glass door. The latter opened
on to the terrace, and through it one could see the half-bare park and
the duck pond floating in the autumn mist. The low, white, smooth stove,
in which a fire was crackling, diffused a gentle warmth through the
severely and scantily furnished room. Klaus Heinrich, though not quite
able to follow the political proceedings, yet proud and happy at being
so seriously talked to by the experienced dignitary, felt his mood
growing more and more grateful and confidential. Herr von Knobelsdorff
spoke pleasantly about the most unpleasant subjects. His voice was
comforting, his remarks ably strung together and insinuating--and
suddenly Klaus Heinrich became aware that he had dropped the subject of
the State finances, and had passed on from Doctor Krippenreuther's
worries to his, Klaus Heinrich's, own condition. Was Herr von
Knobelsdorff mistaken? His eyes were beginning occasionally to play him
tricks. But he wished he could think that his Royal Highness looked a
little better, fresher, brighter--a look of tiredness, of worry, was
unmistakable.... Herr von Knobelsdorff feared to seem importunate; but
he must hope that these symptoms did not arise from any malady, bodily
or mental?
Klaus Heinrich looked out at the mist. His look was still sealed: but
though he sat on the hard sofa in his usual stiff, upright attitude, his
feet crossed, his right hand over his left, and the upper part of his
body turned towards Herr von Knobelsdorff, yet inwardly his stiffness
relaxed at this juncture, and, worn out as he was by his strangely
ineffectual struggle, it did not want much more to make his eyes fill
with tears. He was so lonely, so destitute of counsellors. Dr. Ueberbein
had recently kept far away from the "Hermitage." ... Klaus Heinrich
merely said: "Ah, Excellency, that would take us too far."
But Herr von Knobelsdorff answered: "Too far? No, your Royal Highness
need not be afraid of being too prolix. I confess that my knowledge of
your Royal Highness's experiences is greater than I allowed to appear
just now. Your Royal Highness can scarcely have anything new to tell me,
apart from those refinements and details which rumour can never collect.
But if it might comfort your Royal Highness to open his heart to an old
servant, who carried you in his arms ... perhaps I might not be quite
incapable of standing by your Royal Highness in word and deed."
And then it happened that something gave way in Klaus Heinrich's bosom,
and poured out in a stream of confession: he told Herr von Knobelsdorff
the whole story. He told it as one tells when the heart is full and
everything comes tumbling out all at once through the lips; according to
no plan, no chronological order, and with undue emphasis on
unessentials, but with a burst of passion, and with that concreteness
which is the product of passionate observation. He began in the middle,
jumped unexpectedly to the beginning, hurried on to the conclusion
(which did not exist), tumbled over himself, and more than once
hesitated and stuck fast.
But Herr von Knobelsdorff's fore-knowledge made the review easier for
him, enabled him by slipping in suggestive questions to float the ship
again. And at last the picture of Klaus Heinrich's experiences with all
their characters and leading actors, with the figures of Samuel
Spoelmann, of the crazy Countess Löwenjoul, even of the collie,
Percival, and especially that of Imma Spoelmann, with all its
contrariness, lay there complete and full, ready to be discussed. The
piece of oil-silk was referred to in full detail, for Herr von
Knobelsdorff seemed to attach importance to it. Nothing was omitted,
from the impressive incident at the changing of the guard to the last
intimate and distressing struggles on horseback and on foot.
Klaus Heinrich was much wrought up when he finished, and his steel-blue
eyes in the national cheek-bones were full of tears. He had left the
sofa, thereby forcing Herr von Knobelsdorff also to get up, and wished
on account of the heat to open the glass door into the little veranda,
but Herr von Knobelsdorff stopped this by calling attention to the risk
of a chill. He begged the Prince humbly to sit down again, as his Royal
Highness could not conceal from himself the need for a calm discussion
of the state of affairs. And both sat down again on the thinly cushioned
sofa.
Herr von Knobelsdorff meditated awhile, and his face was as serious as
it ever could be with his dimpled chin and the play of his eye-wrinkles.
Then, breaking silence, he thanked the Prince with emotion for the great
honour he had shown him by confiding in him. And in direct connexion
with this Herr von Knobelsdorff, emphasizing each word, announced that
whatever attitude the Prince had expected him, Herr von Knobelsdorff, to
assume at this juncture, he, Herr von Knobelsdorff, was certainly not
the man to oppose the wishes and hopes of the Prince, but much rather to
show his Royal Highness the way to the longed-for goal to the best of
his power.
Long silence ensued. Klaus Heinrich looked rapturously at Herr von
Knobelsdorff's eyes with the fan-like wrinkles. Had he these wishes and
hopes? Was there a goal? He was not sure of his ears. He said: "Your
Excellency is kind enough ..."
Then Herr von Knobelsdorff added to his declaration a condition, and
said: Frankly, on one condition only did he, as first official of the
State, dare to exercise his modest influence on behalf of his Royal
Highness.
"On one condition?"
"On condition that your Royal Highness does not take account only of
your own happiness in a selfish and frivolous way, but, as your lofty
calling demands, regards your personal destiny from the point of view of
the Mass, the Whole."
Klaus Heinrich was silent, and his eyes were heavy in thought.
"Perhaps your Royal Highness," continued Herr von Knobelsdorff after a
pause, "will allow me to leave this delicate and yet quite unavoidable
topic for a while, and to turn to more general matters! This is the hour
of confidence and mutual understanding ... I respectfully beg to be
allowed to take advantage of it. Your Royal Highness is through your
exalted position cut off from rude actuality, severed from it by
delicate precautions. I shall not forget that this actuality is not--or
only at second-hand--a matter for your Royal Highness. And yet the
moment seems to me to have come for bringing at least a certain portion
of this rude world to the immediate notice of your Royal Highness,
entirely for your own sake. I plead beforehand for forgiveness, if I
chance to stir up your Royal Highness's emotions too harshly by what I
tell you."
"Please speak on, Excellency," said Klaus Heinrich hastily.
Involuntarily he sat upright, just as one sits up straight in a
dentist's chair and collects one's natural powers to withstand an attack
of pain.
"I must ask for your undivided attention," said Herr von Knobelsdorff
almost sternly. And then, as a corollary to the discussions with the
Budget Commission, followed the statement, the clear, exhaustive,
unembroidered lesson, well primed with figures and explanations of the
fundamental facts and technical expressions, which showed the economical
position of the country, the State, and brought our whole miserable
plight with relentless clearness before the Prince's eyes.
Naturally these things were not entirely new and strange to him. Indeed,
ever since he had assumed his representative rôle, they had served as a
motive and subject for those formal questions which he used to address
to burgomasters, agriculturists, and high officials, and to which he
received answers which were merely answers and nothing more, and which
were often accompanied by the smile which he had known all his life and
which reminded him that he was born to be king. But all this had not yet
forced itself upon him in its naked actuality, nor made serious claims
on his thinking powers.
Herr von Knobelsdorff was by no means satisfied to get a few of Klaus
Heinrich's usual encouraging words; he pressed the matter home, he
cross-examined the young man, made him repeat whole sentences; he kept
him relentlessly to the point, and reminded the Prince of a dry and
skinny index-finger which stopped at each separate place and would not
go on until convinced that the pupil really understood the lesson.
Herr von Knobelsdorff began at the rudiments, and talked about the
country and its lack of development from a commercial and industrial
point of view: he talked about the people, Klaus Heinrich's people, that
shrewd and honest, sound and reliable stock. He spoke about the
deficiency in the State reserves, the poor dividends paid by the
railways, the insufficient coal supply. He touched on the administration
of the forests, game preserves and stock-raising; he talked about the
woods, the excessive felling, the immoderate stripping of litter, the
crippling of the industry, the falling revenues from the forests. Then
he went more closely into our stock of gold, discussed the natural
inability of the people to pay heavy taxes, described the reckless
finance of earlier periods. Thereupon he added up the figures of the
State debt, which Herr von Knobelsdorff forced the Prince to repeat
several times. They reached six hundred millions.
The lesson extended further to the debentures, conditions for interest
and repayment. It came back to Doctor Krippenreuther's present anxiety,
and described the seriousness of the situation. Suddenly pulling the
"Annual of the Statistical Bureau" out of his pocket, Herr von
Knobelsdorff instructed his pupil in the harvest returns for the
previous years, summed up the untoward events which had caused their
decline, pointed to the deficiencies in the taxes, the figures of which
he had brought with him, and referred to the underfed adults and
children whom one might see throughout the country-side. Then he turned
to the general condition of the gold market, discoursed on the rise in
the value of gold and the general economic unsoundness. Klaus Heinrich
learned also about the lowness of the Exchange, the restlessness of the
creditors, the leakage of gold, and the bank smashes; he saw our credit
shaken, our paper valueless, and grasped to the full that the raising of
a new loan was almost impossible.
The night was closing in, it was long past five, when Herr von
Knobelsdorff ended his statement of the national economics. At this time
Klaus Heinrich usually had his tea, but this time he only gave a passing
thought to it, and nobody outside dared to disturb a conversation whose
importance was shown by its duration. Klaus Heinrich listened and
listened. He scarcely realized how much affected he was. But how could
the other bring himself to say all that to him? He had not called him
"Royal Highness" one single time during the interview, he had to some
extent forced him, and grossly ignored the fact that he was "born to be
king." And yet it was good and stimulating to hear all that and to have
to bury oneself in it for reality's sake. He forgot to have the lights
brought, his attention was so much occupied.
"It was these circumstances," concluded Herr von Knobelsdorff, "which I
had in mind when I begged your Royal Highness to regard your personal
wishes and plans continually in the light of the general good. I have no
doubt that your Royal Highness will profit by this talk and by the facts
I have been bold enough to put before you. And in this connexion I beg
your Royal Highness to allow me to revert to your more personal case."
Herr von Knobelsdorff waited till Klaus Heinrich had made a sign of
consent with his hand, and then went on: "If this affair is to have any
future, it is desirable that it should now advance a step in its
development. It is stagnating, it remains as formless and prospectless
as the mist outside. That's intolerable. We must give it form, must
thicken it out, must mark its outlines more clearly before the eyes of
the world."
"Quite so! quite so! Give it form ... thicken it out.... That's it.
That's absolutely necessary," agreed Klaus Heinrich, so much excited
that he left the sofa and began to walk up and down the room. "But how?
For heaven's sake, Excellency, tell me how?"
"The next external step," said Herr von Knobelsdorff, and remained
sitting--so unusual was the occasion--"must be this, that the Spoelmanns
be seen at Court."
Klaus Heinrich stopped still.
"No," he said, "never, if I know Mr. Spoelmann, will he let himself be
persuaded to go to Court."
"Which," answered Herr von Knobelsdorff, "doesn't prevent his daughter
from doing us this pleasure. The Court Ball's not so very far off; it
rests with you, Royal Highness, to induce Miss Spoelmann to take part in
it. Her companion is a countess ... a peculiar one, perhaps, but a
countess, and that helps things. When I assure your Royal Highness that
the Court will not fail to make things easy, I am speaking with the
approbation of the Chief Master of the Ceremonies, Herr von Bühl zu
Bühl."
The conversation now turned for three-quarters of an hour on questions
of precedence, and the ceremonial conditions under which the
presentation must be carried out. The distribution of cards was always
left to Princess Catherine's Mistress of the Robes, a widowed Countess
Trümmerhauff, who led the ladies' world at the festivities in the Old
Castle.
But as to the act of presentation itself, Herr von Knobelsdorff had
managed to secure some concessions of a deliberate, in fact definite
character. There was no American Consul in the place--no reason on that
account, explained Herr von Knobelsdorff, for letting the ladies be
presented by any casual chamberlain; no, the Master of the Ceremonies
himself requested the honour of presenting them to the Grand Duke. When?
At what point of the prescribed procession? Why, undoubtedly, unusual
circumstances demand exceptions. In the first place, then, in front of
all the débutantes of the various ranks--Klaus Heinrich might assure
Miss Spoelmann that this would be arranged. It would give rise to talk
and sensation at Court and in the city. But never mind, so much the
better. Sensation was by no means undesirable, sensation was useful,
even necessary....
Herr von Knobelsdorff went. It had become so dark when he took his leave
that the Prince and he could scarcely see each other. Klaus Heinrich,
who now first became aware of it, excused himself in some confusion, but
Herr von Knobelsdorff declared it to be a matter of no importance in
what sort of light a conversation like that was carried on. He took the
hand which Klaus Heinrich offered him, and grasped it in both his.
"Never," he said warmly, and these were his last words before he went,
"never was the happiness of a prince more inseparable from that of his
people. No, whatever your Royal Highness ponders and does, you will bear
in mind that the happiness of your Royal Highness by the disposition of
destiny has become a condition of the public weal, but that your Royal
Highness on your side must recognize in the weal of your country the
indispensable condition and justification of your own happiness."
Much moved, and not yet in a condition to arrange the thoughts which
poured in on him in thousands, Klaus Heinrich remained behind in his
homely Empire room.
He passed a restless night and went next morning, despite misty and damp
weather, for a long and lonely ride. Herr von Knobelsdorff had talked
clearly and voluminously, had given and accepted facts; but, for the
fusion, modelling, and working up of these multifarious raw products he
had given only curt, aphoristic instructions, and Klaus Heinrich found
himself doomed to some heavy thinking while he lay awake at night, and
later when he went for a ride on Florian.
When he got back to the "Hermitage" he did a remarkable thing. He wrote
with a pencil on a piece of paper an order, a certain commission, and
sent Neumann, the valet, with it to the Academy Bookshop in the
University Strasse: Neumann came back with a package of books, which
Klaus Heinrich had set out in his room, and which he began at once to
read.
They were works of a sober and school-bookish appearance, with glazed
paper backs, ugly leather sides, and coarse paper, and the contents were
divided up minutely into sections, main divisions, sub-divisions, and
paragraphs. Their titles were not stimulating. They were manuals and
hand-hooks of economy, abstracts and outlines of State finance,
systematic treatises on political economy. The Prince shut himself up in
his study with these books, and gave instructions that he wished on no
account to be disturbed.
The autumn was damp, and Klaus Heinrich felt little tempted to leave the
"Hermitage." On Saturday he drove to the Old Schloss to give free
audiences: otherwise his time was his own all this week, and he knew how
to make use of it. Wrapped in his dressing-gown, he sat in the warmth of
the low stove at his small, old-fashioned, little-used desk, and pored
over his books on finance, with his temples resting in his hands. He
read about the State expenditure and what it always consisted of, about
the receipts and whence they flowed in when things were going well; he
ploughed through the whole subject of taxation in all its branches; he
buried himself in the doctrine of the budget, of the balance, of the
surplus, and particularly of the deficit; he lingered longest over, and
went deepest into, the public debt and its varieties, into loans, and
relation between interest and capital and liquidation, and from time to
time he raised his head from the book and dreamed with a smile about
what he had read, as if it had been the gayest poetry.
For the rest, he found that it was not hard to grasp it all, when one
set one's mind to it. No, this really serious actuality, in which he now
played a part, this simple and rude texture of interests, this system of
down-right logical needs and necessities, which countless young men of
ordinary birth had to stuff into their heads, to be able to pass
examinations in it, it was by no means so difficult to get hold of as he
in his Highness had thought. The rôle of representation, in his opinion,
was harder. And much, much more ticklish and difficult were his gentle
struggles with Imma Spoelmann on horseback and on foot. His studies made
him warm and happy, he felt that his zeal was making his cheeks hot,
like those of his brother-in-law zu Ried-Hohenried over his peat.
After thus giving the facts which he had learnt from Herr von
Knobelsdorff a general academic basis, and also accomplishing a feat of
hard thinking in bringing together inward connexions and weighing
possibilities, he again presented himself at Delphinenort at tea-time.
The lights in the candelabra with the lions' feet and the big crystal
lustres were burning in the garden room. The ladies were alone.
Klaus Heinrich first asked after Mr. Spoelmann's health and Imma's
indisposition. He upbraided her freely for her strange impetuosity, to
which she answered with a pout that as far as she knew she was her own
mistress, and could do as she liked with her health. The conversation
then turned to the autumn, to the damp weather which forbade rides, to
the advanced time of year, and the proximity of winter, and Klaus
Heinrich suddenly mentioned the Court Ball in connexion with which it
occurred to him to ask whether the ladies--if unfortunately Mr.
Spoelmann were prevented by the state of his health--would not care to
take part in one this time. But when Imma answered, "No, really, she had
no wish to be rude, but she had absolutely not the faintest desire to go
to a Court Ball," he did not press the point, but postponed the question
for the time.
What had he done these last few days?--Oh, he'd been very busy, he might
say that he'd been chock-a-block with work.--Work? Doubtless he meant
the Court Hunt at "Jägerpreis."--The Court Hunt? No. He had gone in for
real study which he had by no means got to the bottom of yet; on the
contrary he was sticking deep in the literature on the subject.... And
Klaus Heinrich began to talk about his ugly books, his peeps into
financial science, and he spoke with such pleasure and respect of this
discipline that Imma Spoelmann looked at him with her big eyes. But
when--almost timidly--she questioned him as to the motive and impulse
for this activity, he answered that it was living, only too burning,
questions of the day which had brought him to it: circumstances and
conditions which were certainly not well suited for a cheerful talk at
tea. This remark obviously offended Imma Spoelmann.
"On what observations," she asked sharply, wagging her head from side to
side, "did he base his conviction that she was approachable only or
preferably by way of cheerful conversation?" And she commanded him
rather than asked him to be kind enough to explain about the burning
questions of the day.
Then Klaus Heinrich explained what he had learnt from Herr von
Knobelsdorff, and talked about the land and its state. He was well
posted on every point at which the skinny index-finger had paused: he
talked about the natural and the indebted, the general and the
particular, the inherited and the intensifying misfortunes; he
emphasized particularly the figures of the State debt, and the burden
they laid on our national economy--they were six hundred millions--and
he did not forget to mention the underfed peasants in the country-side.
He did not speak connectedly; Imma Spoelmann interrupted him with
questions and helped him on with questions. She listened carefully, and
asked for explanations of what she did not at once understand. Dressed
in her loose-sleeved, red-silk dress with the broad embroidery on the
yoke, an old-Spanish chain round her child-like neck, she sat leaning on
one elbow over the table, her chin buried in her ringless hand, and
listened with her whole soul, while her big, dark eyes scrutinized the
Prince's face.
But while he spoke, in answer to Imma's verbal and ocular questions,
worked at his subject, grew excited and entirely absorbed in it,
Countess Löwenjoul no longer felt herself restricted to sober clarity by
his presence, but let herself go and indulged in the luxury of
drivelling. All the misery, she explained with dignified gestures, even
the bad harvest, the burden of debt and the rise in the price of gold,
were due to the shameless women who swarmed everywhere, and
unfortunately had discovered the way through the floor, as last night
the wife of a sergeant from the Grenadiers' Barracks had scratched her
breasts and pommelled her in a horrible way. Then she alluded to her
Schlosses in Burgundy, through the roofs of which the rain came, and
went so far as to relate that she had gone as lieutenant in an
expedition against the Turks, on which she had been the only one who
"had not lost her head." Imma Spoelmann and Klaus Heinrich threw her a
kind word now and then, readily promised to call her Frau Meier in
future, and for the rest took no notice of her.
The cheeks of both were burning when Klaus Heinrich had said all he
knew--even on Miss Spoelmann's usually pearl-white cheeks there was a
shade of red to be seen. They then stopped, the Countess too kept quiet,
with her little head inclined on her shoulder, and staring into vacancy.
Klaus Heinrich played on the white and sharply folded table-cloth with
the stem of an orchid, which had stood in a glass by his plate; but as
soon as he raised his head he met Imma Spoelmann's large, flaming eyes,
which spoke a message of secret entreaty across the table, a darkly
eloquent language.
"It has been nice to-day," she said in her broken voice, when she said
good-bye this time, and he felt her small, soft hands clasp his with a
firm squeeze. "Next time your Highness honours our unworthy house, do
bring me one or two of those excellent books you have bought." She could
not entirely resist mocking him, but she asked him for his finance
books, and he brought them to her.
He brought her two of them, which he considered the most informative and
comprehensive; he brought them some days later in his carriage through
the damp Town Garden, and she thanked him for doing so. As soon as tea
was over, they retired to a corner of the room, and there, while the
Countess absently continued sitting at the tea-table, they began their
common studies in throne-like chairs at a gilt table, bending over the
first page of a manual called "The Science of Finance." They even read
the headings to the sections, each reading a sentence softly in turn;
for Imma Spoelmann insisted on going methodically to work and beginning
at the beginning.
Klaus Heinrich, well prepared as he was, acted as guide through the
paragraphs, and nobody could have followed more smartly or
clear-headedly than Imma.
"It's quite easy!" she said and looked up with a laugh. "I'm surprised
that it is at bottom so simple. Algebra is much harder, Prince."
But as they went so deeply into things, they did not get far in one
afternoon, so made a mark in the book at which to start next time.
And so they went on, and the Prince's visits to Delphinenort were
devoted to dull realities. Whenever Mr. Spoelmann did not come to tea,
or, with Dr. Watercloose, left them, after eating his rusk, Imma and
Klaus Heinrich sat down at the gilt table with their books, and plunged
heads together into the Science of Economics. But as they progressed,
they compared what they learned with the reality, applied what they read
to the circumstances of the country, as Klaus Heinrich conceived them to
be, and made their studies profitable, though it happened not seldom
that their investigations were interrupted by considerations of a
personal kind.
"It seems, then," said Imma, "that the issue may be effected either
directly or indirectly--yes, that's obvious. Either the State turns
directly to the capitalists and opens a subscription list ... Your hand
is twice as broad as mine," she said; "look, Prince."
And they looked laughingly at their hands, his right and her left, as
they lay next each other on the gilt table.
"Or," went on Imma, "the loan is procured by negotiation, and it is some
big bank, or group of banks, to which the State ..."
"Wait!" he said softly. "Wait, Imma, and answer me one question. Aren't
you missing the main point? Are you making progress? What about the
disenchantment and embarrassment, dear little Imma? Have you now just
one spark of confidence in me?" His lips asked the question close to her
hair, from which a delicate fragrance arose, and she held her dark head
still and bent over the book, though she did not answer his question
frankly.
"But must it be a bank or group of banks?" she pondered. "There's
nothing about it there; I can't think it would be necessary in
practice."
She spoke gravely and deliberately on these occasions, for she too for
her part had to grapple with the mental exercises which Klaus Heinrich
had successfully managed after the conversation with Herr von
Knobelsdorff. And when some weeks later he repeated his question,
whether she would not like to go to the Court Ball, and told her of the
ceremonial conditions which had been sanctioned for this occasion,
behold, she replied that she would like to, and would go next day with
Countess Löwenjoul and leave cards on the widowed Countess Trümmerhauff.
This year the Court Ball took place earlier than usual; at the end of
November--an arrangement which was said to be due to the wishes of the
Grand Ducal Party. Herr von Bühl zu Bühl bitterly bewailed this
precipitation, which obliged him and his subordinates to cancel the
arrangements for the most important Court function, especially the
improvements which the Gala Rooms in the Old Schloss so much needed. But
the wish of the particular member of the Grand Ducal family had had the
support of Herr von Knobelsdorff, and the Court Marshal had to give way.
But it happened thus that people's minds scarcely had time to prepare
themselves sufficiently for what really was the event of the evening, in
comparison with which the unusual date seemed as nothing. Indeed, when
the _Courier_ published in leaded type the news of the leaving of cards
and the invitation--not without expressing in rather smaller type and in
glowing words its satisfaction thereat, and welcoming Spoelmann's
daughter to the Court--the important evening was already close at hand,
and before tongues could get fairly wagging the whole thing was a
completed reality.
Never had more envy attached to the five hundred favoured ones whose
names stood on the Court Ball list, never had the bourgeois more eagerly
devoured the account in the _Courier_--those dazzling columns which were
written every year by a nobleman who had degenerated through drink, and
which were such glorious reading that one felt they gave one a peep into
Fairyland, while as a matter of fact the ball in the Old Schloss went
off quite modestly and soberly. But the report only extended to the
supper, including the French menu, and everything that came later,
especially all the delicate significance of the great occasion, were
necessarily left to be reported by word of mouth.
The ladies, in a huge olive-coloured motor, had pulled up in front of
the Albrechtstor at the Old Schloss fairly punctually, though not so
punctually that Herr von Bühl zu Bühl had not had time to get anxious.
From a quarter-past seven onwards he had waited in full uniform, covered
with orders down to his waist, with a bright brown toupée and his gold
pince-nez on his nose, in the middle of the armour-hung Knights' Hall
where the Grand Ducal family and the chief officials were collected;
standing now on one foot, then on the other, and every now and then
dispatching a footman to the ballroom to find out whether Miss Spoelmann
had not yet come. He thought of all sorts of unheard-of possibilities.
If this Queen of Sheba came too late--and what might one not expect of a
girl who had walked right through the guard?--the entry of the Grand
Ducal cortège would have to be delayed, and the Court would have to wait
for her, for she simply must be introduced first, and it was out of the
question that she should enter the ballroom after the Grand Duke.
But thank heaven! a bare minute before half-past seven she arrived with
her Countess; and it made a great sensation when the Chamberlains who
received them arranged them next the diplomats, and so in front of the
nobility, the Court ladies, the Ministers, the Generals, the Presidents
of Chambers, and all the Court world. Aide-de-camp von Platow had
fetched the Grand Duke from his rooms. Albrecht, in hussar uniform, had
greeted the members of his House with down-cast eyes in the Knights'
Hall, had offered his arm to Aunt Catherine, and then, after Herr von
Bühl had tapped three times with his staff on the parquet in the open
doors, the procession of the Court into the ballroom had begun.
Eye-witnesses asserted later that the general inattention had verged on
the scandalous during the perambulation of the Grand Duke. As Albrecht
reached successive spots with his dignified aunt, a hasty bowing and
billowing without the fitting composure ensued, but otherwise all faces
were turned to one point only in the ball, all eyes directed with
burning curiosity on this point alone.... She who stood yonder had had
enemies in the hall, at least among the women, the female Trümmerhauffs,
Prenzlaus, Wehrzahns, and Platows, who were plying their fans here, and
sharp and cold female glances had scrutinized her. But whether her
position was now too well established for criticism to venture to assail
her, or her personality itself had conquered the secret opposition--all
had declared with one voice that Imma Spoelmann was as fine as the
daughter of the King of the Mountains.
The whole town, the clerk in the Government office, the messenger at the
street corner, knew her toilette by heart next morning. It had been a
gown of pale-green crêpe de chine, with silver embroidery and priceless
old silver lace on the bodice. A tiara of diamonds had glittered in her
dark hair, which showed a tendency to fall in smooth wisps across her
forehead, and a long hanging chain of the same stones was wound two or
three times round her brown throat. Small and child-like, yet strangely
earnest and sensible-looking, with her pale face and big, strangely
speaking eyes, she had stood in her place of honour by the side of
Countess Löwenjoul, who had been dressed in brown as usual, though this
time in satin. When the cortège reached her, she had, with a kind of coy
pertness, made a suggestion of a curtsey, without completing it; but
when Prince Klaus Heinrich, with the yellow ribbon and the flat chain of
the Family Order "For Constancy" over his tunic, the silver star of the
Grimmburg Griffin on his chest, and his anæmic cousin on his arm whose
conversation was limited to "Yes," passed by her directly after the
Grand Duke, she had smiled with closed lips and nodded to him like a
comrade--which sent something like a quiver through the company.
Then, after the diplomats had been received by the Grand Ducal party,
the presentations had begun--begun with Imma Spoelmann, although there
had been two Countess Hundskeels and one Baroness von Schulenburg-Tressen
among the débutantes. With an ingratiating smile, which
showed his false teeth, Herr von Bühl had presented Spoelmann's
daughter to his master. And Albrecht, sucking his lower lip against his
upper, had looked down on her coy semi-curtsey, from which she had
raised herself to scrutinize with her speaking eyes the suffering Hussar
Colonel in his silent pride. The Grand Duke had addressed several
questions to her, an exception to an otherwise strict rule; he had asked
her how her father was, what effect the Ditlinde Spa had, and how she
liked on the whole being with us--questions which she had answered in
her broken voice with a pout and a wag of her dark head. Then, after a
pause, a pause perhaps of internal struggle, Albrecht had expressed his
pleasure at seeing her at Court; whereupon Countess Löwenjoul had
executed her curtsey, with an evasive glance from her eyes.
This scene, Imma Spoelmann in the presence of Albrecht, long remained
the favourite topic of conversation, and although it had passed, as it
was bound to pass, without anything unusual happening, yet its charm and
importance must not be overlooked. It was not indeed the climax of the
evening. That, in the eyes of many, was the Quadrille d'honneur; in the
eyes of others, the supper,--in reality, however, it was a secret
duologue between the two chief actors in the piece, a short, unnoticed
exchange of words, whose contents and actual result the public could
only guess--the settlement of certain tender struggles on horseback and
on foot.
As to the Quadrille d'honneur, there were people who declared next day
that Miss Spoelmann had danced in it, with Prince Klaus Heinrich as her
partner. Only the first part of this story was correct. Miss Spoelmann
had taken part in the solemn dance, but as the British Consul's partner
and Prince Klaus Heinrich's _vis-à-vis_. This was fairly strong, but
what was still stronger was that the majority of the guests did not
consider it an unheard-of thing, but on the contrary almost a matter of
course.
Yes, Imma Spoelmann's position was established; the popular conception
of her personality--as the public learned next day--had prevailed in the
Court ballroom, and, what is more, Herr von Knobelsdorff had taken care
that this conception should be expressed with all the publicity he
thought desirable. Not with distinctive or aggressive respect; no, Imma
Spoelmann had been treated ceremoniously, and at the same time with
systematic, intentional emphasis. The two Masters of the Ceremonies on
duty--Chamberlains in rank--had introduced selected dancers to her; and
when she had left her place, close by the low red platform where the
Grand Ducal family sat on damask chairs, to dance with her partners,
they had busied themselves, just as when the princesses danced, in
clearing her a space under the chandelier in the middle and protecting
her from collisions--an easy task in any case, for a protective circle
of curiosity had formed round her when she danced.
It was reported that when Prince Klaus Heinrich asked Miss Spoelmann for
the first time, a deep drawing of breath, a formal "Sh" of excitement
had been heard in the ballroom, and the Masters of the Ceremonies had
found it difficult to keep the ball going and to prevent the whole
company standing round the dancers in gaping curiosity. The women
especially had watched the pair with an excited delight, which, had Miss
Spoelmann's position been only a little weaker, would undoubtedly have
taken on the form of rage and malice. But the pressure and influence of
public feeling, that powerful inspiration from below, had worked too
powerfully on every one of the five hundred guests for them to be able
to regard this spectacle through any eyes other than those of the
people. It did not seem to have occurred to the Prince to impose any
restraint upon himself. His name--shortened to "K. H."--appeared twice
on Miss Spoelmann's programme, and besides he had sat out several other
dances with her. They had danced yonder. Her brown arm had rested on the
yellow-silk ribbon that crossed his shoulder, and his right arm had
encircled her light and child-like figure, while, as usual when he
danced, he had placed the left on his hip and guided his partner with
one hand only. With one hand!...
When supper-time came, a further article in the ceremonial conditions
which Herr von Knobelsdorff had contrived for Imma Spoelmann's visit to
Court came into staggering force. It was the article which dealt with
the order of seating at the table. For while the majority of the guests
supped at long tables in the picture gallery and in the Hall of the
Twelve Months, supper was laid in the Silver Hall for the Grand Ducal
family, diplomats, and leading Court officials. In solemn procession, as
when they entered the ballroom, Albrecht and his party entered the
supper-room punctually at eleven o'clock. And Imma Spoelmann passed by
the lackeys, who kept the doors and repelled the uninvited, on the arm
of the British Consul, and entered the Silver Hall to take her place at
the Grand Ducal table.
That was unheard of--and at the same time, after all that had gone
before, so logically consequential, that any surprise or disgust would
have been idiotic. The motto for the day was to be prepared for anything
in the way of omens and phenomena. But after supper, when the Grand Duke
had withdrawn and Princess Griseldis had opened the cotillon with a
Chamberlain, expectation was again raised to fever point, for the
general question was, had the Prince been allowed to present Miss
Spoelmann with a bouquet? His instructions had obviously been not to
give her the first. He had first given one each to his Aunt Catherine
and a red-haired cousin; but he had then advanced towards Imma Spoelmann
with a bouquet of lilac from the Court gardens. As she was about to
raise the lovely bunch to her nose, she had hesitated for some unknown
reason with a look of apprehension, and it was not till he had
encouraged her with a laugh and a nod that she decided to test the
fragrance of the bouquet. Then they had danced and chatted quietly
together for a long time.
And yet it was during this dance that that unnoticed duologue, that
conversation of a palpably bourgeois tenor and practical result, had
taken place--and this is what it was.
"Are you satisfied this time, Imma, with the flowers I bring you?"
"Of course, Prince, your lilac is lovely and smells quite as it should.
I love it."
"Really, Imma? But I'm sorry for the poor rose-bush down in the court,
because its roses disgust you with their mouldy smell."
"I won't say that they disgust me, Prince."
"But they disenchant and chill you, don't they?"
"Yes, perhaps."
"But have I ever told you of the popular belief that the rose-bush will
one day be redeemed, on a day of general happiness, and will bear roses
which will add to their great beauty the gift of a lovely natural
scent?"
"Well, Prince, we'll have to wait for that."
"No, Imma, we must help and act! We must decide, and have done with all
hesitation, little Imma! Tell me--tell me to-day--have you confidence in
me?"
"Yes, Prince. I have gained confidence in you latterly."
"There you are! Thank heaven! Didn't I say that I must succeed in the
long run? And so you think now that I am in earnest, real, serious
earnest about you and about us?"
"Yes, Prince; latterly I have thought that I can think so."
"At last, at last, irresolute little Imma! Oh, how I thank you, I thank
you! But in that case you're not afraid, and will let the whole world
know that you belong to me?"
"Let them know that you belong to me, Royal Highness, if it's all the
same to you."
"That I will, Imma, loudly and surely. But only on one condition,
namely, that we don't only think of our own happiness in a selfish and
frivolous way, but regard it all from the point of view of the Mass, the
Whole. For the public weal and our happiness, you see, are
interdependent."
"Well said, Prince. For without our studies of the public weal I should
have found it difficult to decide to have confidence in you."
"And without you, Imma, to warm my heart, I should have found it
difficult to tackle such practical problems."
"Right; then we'll see what we can do, each in our own place. You with
your folk and I--with my father."
"Little sister," he answered quietly, and pressed her more closely to
him in the dance. "Little bride."
Undoubtedly a peculiar plighting of troth.
To be frank, everything was not yet settled, or nearly settled. Looking
back, one must say that, if one factor in the whole had been altered or
removed, the whole would have been in imminent danger of coming to
nothing. What a blessing, the chronicler feels tempted to cry, what a
blessing that there was a man at the head of affairs who faced the music
firmly and undaunted, indeed not without a dash of rashness, and did not
judge a thing to be impossible just because it had never happened
before.
The conversation which Excellency von Knobelsdorff had about eight days
after the memorable Court Ball with Grand Duke Albrecht II in the Old
Schloss belongs to the history of the times. The day before, the
President of Council had presided over a session of the Cabinet, about
which the _Courier_ had been in the position to report that questions of
finance and the private affairs of the Grand Ducal family had been
discussed, and further--added the newspaper in spaced type--that
complete unanimity of opinion had been reached among the Ministers. So
Herr von Knobelsdorff found himself in a strong position towards his
young Monarch at the audience; for he had not only the swarming mass of
the people, but also the unanimous will of the Government at his back.
The conversation in Albrecht's draughty study took scarcely less time
than that in the little yellow room at Schloss "Hermitage." A pause was
made while the Grand Duke had a lemonade and Herr von Knobelsdorff a
glass of port and biscuits. The long duration of the conversation was
due only to the importance of the material to be discussed, not to the
Monarch's opposition; for Albrecht raised none. In his close frock-coat,
with his thin, sensitive hands crossed on his lap, his proud, refined
head with its pointed beard and narrow temples raised and his eyelids
sunk, he sucked gently with his lower lip against his upper, and
accompanied Herr von Knobelsdorff's remarks with an occasional slight
nod, which expressed agreement and disagreement at the same time, an
uninterested formal agreement without prejudice to his unassailable
personal dignity.
Herr von Knobelsdorff plunged straight into the middle of things, and
spoke about Prince Klaus Heinrich's visits to Schloss Delphinenort.
Albrecht knew of them. A subdued echo of the events which kept the city
and the country on tip-toe had penetrated even into his loneliness; he
knew, too, his brother Klaus Heinrich, who had "rummaged" and gossiped
with the lackeys, and, then he knocked his forehead against the big
table, had wept for sympathy with his forehead--and in effect he needed
no coaching. Lisping and reddening slightly, he gave Herr von
Knobelsdorff to understand this, and added that, seeing that the other
had not intervened, but had caused the millionaire's daughter to be
introduced to him, he concluded that Herr von Knobelsdorff approved of
the Prince's behaviour, although he, the Grand Duke, could not clearly
see what it would lead to.
"The Government," answered Herr von Knobelsdorff, "would set itself in
prejudicial and estranging opposition to the will of the people if it
thwarted the Prince's projects."
"Has my brother, then, definite projects?"
"For a long time," corrected Herr von Knobelsdorff, "he acted without
any plan and merely as his heart dictated; but since he has found
himself with the people on terms of reality, his wishes have taken a
practical form."
"All of which means that the public approves the steps taken by the
Prince?"
"That it acclaims them, Royal Highness--that its dearest hopes are fixed
on them."
And now Herr von Knobelsdorff unrolled once more the dark picture of the
state of the country, of its distress, of the serious embarrassment.
Where was a remedy to be found? Yonder, only yonder, in the Town Park,
in the second centre of the city, in the house of the invalid
Money-Prince, our guest and resident, round whose person the people wove
their dreams, and for whom it would be a small matter to put an end to
all our difficulties. It he could be induced to take upon himself our
national finances, their recovery would be assured. Would he be induced?
But fate had ordained an exchange of sympathy between the mighty man's
only daughter and Prince Klaus Heinrich. And was this wise and gracious
ordinance to be flouted? Ought one for the sake of mulish, out-of-date
traditions to prevent a union which embraced so immeasurable a blessing
for the country and its people? For that it did was a necessary
hypothesis, from which the union must draw its justification and
validity. But if this condition were fulfilled, if Samuel Spoelmann were
ready, not to mince words, to finance the State, then this union was not
only admissible, it was necessary, it was salvation, the welfare of the
State demanded it, and prayers rose to heaven for it, far beyond the
frontiers, wherever any interest was felt in the restoration of our
finances and the avoidance of an economic panic.
At this point the Grand Duke asked a question quietly, with a mocking
smile and without looking up.
"And the succession to the throne?" he asked.
"The law," answered Herr von Knobelsdorff, unshaken, "places it in your
Royal Highness's hand to put aside dynastic scruples. With us the grant
of an advance in rank and even of equal birth belongs to the
prerogatives of the monarch, and when could history show a more potent
motive for the exercise of these privileges? This union bears the mark
of its own genuineness, preparations have been long in making for its
reception in the heart of the people, and your entire princely and State
approval would signify to the people nothing more than an outward
satisfaction of their inmost convictions."
And Herr von Knobelsdorff went on to speak of Imma Spoelmann's
popularity, of the significant demonstration in connexion with her
recovery from a slight indisposition, of the position of equal birth
which this exceptional person assumed in popular fancy--and the wrinkles
played round his eyes as he reminded Albrecht of the old prophecy
current among the people, which told of a prince who would give the
country more with one hand than others had given it with two, and
eloquently demonstrated how the union between Klaus Heinrich and
Spoelmann's daughter must seem to the people the fulfilment of the
oracle, and thus God's will and right and proper.
Herr von Knobelsdorff said a great deal more which was clever, honest,
and good. He alluded to the fourfold mixture of blood in Imma
Spoelmann--for besides the Anglo-Saxon, Portuguese and German, some
drops of ancient Indian blood were said to flow in her veins--and
emphasized the fact that he expected the dynasty to benefit greatly by
the quickening effect of the mixture of races on ancient stocks. But the
artless old gentleman made his greatest effect when he talked about the
huge and beneficial alterations which would be caused in the economical
state of the Court itself, our debt-laden and sore-pressed Court,
through the heir to the throne's bold marriage.
It was at this point that Albrecht sucked most proudly at his upper lip.
The value of gold was falling, the out-goings were increasing--increasing
in pursuance of an economic law which held for the Court
finances just as much as for every private household; and
there was no possibility of increasing the revenues. But it was not
right that the monarch's means should be inferior to those of many of
his subjects; it was from the monarch's point of view intolerable that
soap-boiler Unschlitt's house should have had central heating a long
time ago, but that the Old Schloss should not have got it yet. A remedy
was necessary, in more than one way, and lucky was the princely house to
which so grand a remedy as this offered itself.
It was noteworthy in our times that all the old-time modesty as to
busying oneself in the financial concerns of the Court had vanished.
That self-renunciation with which princely families used formerly to
make the heaviest sacrifices, so as to keep the public from
disenchanting glimpses into their financial affairs, was no longer to be
found, and law-suits and questionable sales were the order of the day.
But was not an alliance with sovereign riches preferable to this petty
and bourgeois kind of device--a union which would exalt the monarch for
ever high above all economic worries and place him in a position to
reveal himself to the people with all those outward signs for which they
longed?
So ran Herr von Knobelsdorff's questions, which he himself answered with
an unqualified Yes! In short, his speech was so clever and so
irresistible that he did not leave the Old Schloss without taking with
him consents and authorizations, delivered to him with a proud lisp,
which were quite comprehensive enough to warrant unprecedented
conclusions, if only Miss Spoelmann had done her share.
And so things ran their memorable course to a happy conclusion. Even
before the end of December names were mentioned of people who had seen
(not only heard tell of) Lord Marshal von Bühl zu Bühl in a fur coat, a
top-hat on his brown head, and his gold pince-nez on his nose, get out
of a Court carriage at Delphinenort, at 11 o'clock on a snow-dark
morning, and disappear waddling into the Schloss. At the beginning of
January there were individuals going about the town who swore that the
man who, this time also in the morning and in fur coat and top-hat, had
passed by the grinning negro in plush, through the door of Delphinenort,
and, with feverish haste, had flung himself into a cab which was waiting
for him, was undoubtedly our Finance Minister, Dr. Krippenreuther. And
at the same time there appeared in the semi-official _Courier_ the first
preparatory notices of rumours touching an impending betrothal in the
Grand Ducal House--tentative notifications which, becoming carefully
clearer and clearer, at last exhibited the two names, Klaus Heinrich and
Imma Spoelmann, in clear print next each other.... It was no new
collocation, but to see it in black on white had the same effect as
strong wine.
It was most absorbing to notice what attitude, in the journalistic
discussions which ensued, our enlightened and open-minded press took up
towards the popular aspect of the affair, namely, the prophecy, which
had won too great political significance not to demand education and
intelligence to deal satisfactorily with it. Sooth-saying, chiromancy,
and similar magic, explained the _Courier_, were, so far as the destiny
of individuals was concerned, to be relegated to the murky regions of
superstition. They belonged to the grey middle ages, and no ridicule was
too severe for the idiots who (very rarely in the cities nowadays) let
experienced pick-pockets empty their purses in return for reading, from
their hands, the cards, or coffee-grounds, their insignificant fortunes,
or for invoking sound health, for a homoeopathic cure, or for freeing
their sick cattle from invading demons--as if the Apostle had not
already asked: "Doth God take care for oxen?"
But, surveyed as a whole and restricted to decisive turns in the destiny
of whole nations or dynasties, the proposition did not necessarily repel
a well-trained and scientific mind, that, as time is only an illusion
and, truly viewed, all happenings are stationary in eternity, such
revolutions while still in the lap of the future might give the human
brain a premonitory shock and reveal themselves palpably to it. And in
proof of this the zealous newspaper published an exhaustive composition,
kindly put at its disposal by one of our high-school professors, which
gave a conspectus of all the cases in the history of mankind in which
oracle and horoscope, somnambulism, clairvoyance, dreams, sleep-walking,
second-sight, and inspiration had played a rôle, a most meritorious
production, which produced the due effect in cultured circles.
So press, Government, Court, and public closed their ranks in complete
understanding, and assuredly the _Courier_ would have held its tongue
had its philosophical contributions been premature and politically
dangerous at that time--in a word, had not the negotiations at
Delphinenort already advanced far in a favourable direction. It is
pretty accurately known by now how these negotiations developed, and
what a difficult, indeed painful, task our Counsel had in them: the
Counsel, to whom as proxy of the Court the delicate mission had fallen
of preparing the way for Prince Klaus Heinrich's courtship, as well as
the Chief Financial Assessor, who, notwithstanding his infirm state of
health, insisted on nursing his country's interests by a personal
interview with Samuel Spoelmann.
In this connexion account must be taken firstly of Mr. Spoelmann's fiery
and excitable disposition, and secondly of the fact that to the
prodigious little man a favourable termination to the business from our
point of view seemed far less important than it did to us. Apart from
Mr. Spoelmann's love for his daughter, who had opened her heart to him
and told him of her pretty wish to make herself useful in her love, our
proxies had not one trump to play against him, and he was the last man
to whom Dr. Krippenreuther could dictate conditions in virtue of what
Herr von Bühl had to offer. Mr. Spoelmann always spoke of Prince Klaus
Heinrich as "the young man," and expressed so little pleasure at the
prospect of giving his daughter to a Royal Highness to wife, that Dr.
Krippenreuther, as well as Herr von Bühl, were more than once plunged
into deadly embarrassment.
"If he'd only learnt something, had some respectable business," he
snarled peevishly. "But a young man who only knows how to get
cheered ..." He was really furious, the first time a remark was dropped
about morganatic marriage. His daughter, he declared once for all, was
no concubine, and would be no left-handed wife. Who marries her, marries
her.... But the interests of the dynasty and the country coincided at
this point with his own. The obtaining of issue entitled to succeed was
a necessity, and Herr von Bühl was equipped with all the powers which
Herr von Knobelsdorff had succeeded in extracting from the Grand Duke.
As for Dr. Krippenreuther's mission, however, it owed its success not to
the envoy's eloquence, but simply to Mr. Spoelmann's paternal affection,
the complaisance of a suffering, weary father, whose abnormal existence
had long ago made him a paradox, towards his only daughter and heiress,
whom he allowed to choose for herself the public funds in which she
wished to invest her fortune.
And so came into existence the agreements, which were at first shrouded
in deep secrecy and only came to light bit by bit, as events developed
themselves, though here they can be summarized in a few plain words.
The betrothal of Klaus Heinrich with Imma Spoelmann was approved and
recognized by Samuel Spoelmann and by the House of Grimmburg.
Simultaneously with the publication of the betrothal in the _Gazette_
appeared the announcement of the elevation of the bride to the rank of
countess--under a fancy name of romantic sound, like that which Klaus
Heinrich had borne during his educational tour in the fair southern
lands; and on the day of their wedding the wife of the heir-presumptive
was to be given the dignity of a princess. The two rises in rank, which
might have cost four thousand eight hundred marks, were to be free of
duty.
The wedding was to be only preliminarily a left-handed one, till the
world had got used to it: for on the day on which it appeared that the
bride was to be blessed with offspring, Albrecht II, in view of the
unparalleled circumstances, would declare his brother's morganatic wife
to be of equal birth, and would give her the rank of a princess of the
Grand Ducal House with the title of Royal Highness. The new member of
the ruling House would waive all claim to an appanage. As for the Court
ceremony, only a semi-Court was appointed for the celebration of the
left-handed marriage, but a Processional Court, that highest and
completest form of showing allegiance, was fixed for the celebration of
the declaration of equal birth. Samuel Spoelmann, for his part, granted
the State a loan of three hundred and fifty million marks, and on such
fatherly conditions that the loan showed all the symptoms of being a
gift.
It was the Grand Duke Albrecht who acquainted the Heir Presumptive with
these conclusions. Once more Klaus Heinrich stood in the great, draughty
study under the battered ceiling-paintings, in front of his brother, as
once before when Albrecht had delegated to him his representative
duties, and standing in an official attitude received the great news. He
had put on the tunic of a major in the Fusiliers of the Guard for this
audience, while the Grand Duke had lately added to his black frock-coat
a pair of dark-red wool mittens, which his aunt had made him to protect
him from the draught through the high windows of the Old Schloss.
When Albrecht had finished, Klaus Heinrich stepped one pace sideways,
closed his heels with a fresh salute, and said: "I beg, dear Albrecht,
to offer my heart-felt and respectful thanks, in my own name and that of
the whole country. For it is you in the long run who make all these
blessings possible, and the redoubled love of the people will be your
reward for your magnanimous resolutions."
He pressed his brother's thin, sensitive hand, which he kept close to
his chest, and extended to him only to the extent of moving his forearm.
The Grand Duke had thrust forward his short, round underlip, and his
eyelids were half-closed. He answered softly with a lisp:
"I am the less inclined to entertain illusions about the people's love,
as I can, as you know, dispense with such questionable love without a
pang. So question whether I deserve it is scarcely worth notice. When
it's time to start, I go to the station and give the signal to the
engine-driver, which is silly rather than dutiful, but it's my duty. But
you're in a different position. You're a Sunday child. Everything turns
out trumps for you.... I wish you luck," he said, raising the lids from
his lonely-looking, blue eyes. And it was clear at this moment that he
loved Klaus Heinrich. "I wish you happiness, Klaus Heinrich--but not too
much, and that you may not repose too comfortably in the love of the
people. I have already said that everything turns out trumps for you.
The girl of your choice is very strange, very undomesticated, and, most
important of all, very original. She has a mixture of blood, I've been
told that Indian blood flows in her veins. That's perhaps a good thing.
With a wife like that, there's less danger, perhaps, of your having too
easy a time."
"Neither happiness," said Klaus Heinrich, "nor the people's love will
have the effect of making me cease to be your brother."
He left to face a difficult interview, a _tête-à-tête_ with Mr.
Spoelmann, his personal proposal for Imma's hand. He found he had to
swallow what his negotiators had swallowed, for Samuel Spoelmann showed
not the smallest pleasure and snarled several refreshing truths at him.
But it was over at last, and the morning came when the betrothal
appeared in the _Gazette_. The long tensions resolved into endless
jubilation. Dignified men waved pocket-handkerchiefs at one another, and
embraced in the open square: bunting flew from every flag-staff.
But the same day the news reached Schloss "Hermitage," that Raoul
Ueberbein had committed suicide.
The story was a vile as well as stupid one, and would not be worth
relating had not its end been so horrible. No attempt will be made here
to apportion the blame. The Doctor's death gave rise to two opposing
factions. One affirmed that he had been driven to take his life owing to
the misgivings which his desperate act had evoked: the others declared
with a shrug that his conduct was impossible and crazy, and that he had
shown all his life a total lack of self-control. The point need not be
decided. At any rate nothing justified so tragic an end; indeed, a man
with the gifts of Raoul Ueberbein deserved something better than
ruin.... Here is the story.
At Easter the year before the professor in charge of the top class but
one at our Grammar School, who suffered from heart-weakness, had been
temporarily retired on the ground of his illness, and Doctor Ueberbein,
notwithstanding his comparative youth, had been given the first vacant
chair simply in view of his professional zeal and his undeniably
remarkable success in a lower class. It was a happy experiment, as
events proved; the class had never done so well as this year. The
professor on leave, a popular man with his colleagues, had become a
peevish as well as careless and indolent man as the result of his
infirmity, with which was combined a sociable but immoderate inclination
for beer. He had shut his eyes to details and had sent up every year an
extremely badly prepared batch of pupils into the Select. A new spirit
had come into the class with the temporary professor, and nobody was
surprised at it. People knew his uncomfortable professional zeal, his
single-minded and never-resting energy. They foresaw that he would not
miss such an opportunity for self-advancement, round which he had
doubtless built ambitious hopes.
So an end had soon been put to laziness and boredom in the second class.
Dr. Ueberbein had pitched his expectations high, and his skill in
inspiring even the most recalcitrant had proved irresistible. The boys
worshipped him. His superior, fatherly, and jolly, swaggering way kept
them on the alert, shook them up, and made them feel it a point of
honour to follow their teacher through thick and thin. He won their
hearts by going for Sunday excursions with them, when they were allowed
to smoke, while he bewitched their imaginations by boyishly conceived
rodomontades about the greatness and severity of public life. And on
Monday the members of yesterday's expedition would meet for work in a
cheerful and eager frame of mind.
Three-quarters of the school year had thus passed, when the news went
round, before Christmas, that the professor on leave, now fairly strong
again, would resume his duties after the holidays, and would again act
as professor of the second class. And now it came out what sort of man
Doctor Ueberbein was, with his green complexion and superior manner. He
objected and remonstrated; he lodged a vigorous and, in form, not
incontestable protest against the class with which he had spent
three-quarters of the year, and whose work and recreation he had shared
up to the very mouth of the goal, being taken from its professor for the
last quarter and restored to the official who had spent three-quarters
of the year on leave. His action was intelligible and comprehensible,
and one must sympathize with it. He had undoubtedly hoped to send up a
model class to the head master, who taught the Select, a class whose
forwardness would put his skill in the best light and would hasten his
promotion; and it must grieve him to look forward to another's reaping
the fruits of his devotion. But though his disgust might be excusable,
his frenzy was not: and it is an unfortunate fact that, when the head
master proved deaf to his representations, he became simply frenzied. He
lost his head, he lost all balance, he set heaven and hell to work to
prevent this loafer, this alcohol-heart, this blankety-blank, as he did
not hesitate to describe the professor on leave, from taking his class
from him. And when he found no support among his colleagues, as was
natural in the case of so unsociable a man, the poor wretch had so far
forgotten himself as to incite the pupils entrusted to him to rebel.
He had put the question to them from his desk--Whom do you want for your
master for the last quarter, me or that other fellow? And, wound up by
his stirring appeal, they had shouted that they wanted him. Then, he
said, they must take matters into their own hands, show their colours,
and act as one boy--though goodness knows what in his excitement he
meant by that. But when after the holidays the returned professor
entered the class-room, they screamed Doctor Ueberbein's name at him for
minutes on end--and there was a fine scandal.
It was kept as quiet as possible. The revolutionaries got off almost
unpunished, as Doctor Ueberbein himself put on record, at the inquiry
which was at once initiated, his appeal to them. As to the Doctor
himself, too, the authorities seemed generally inclined to close their
eyes to what had happened. His zeal and skill were highly valued,
certain learned works, the fruits of his mighty industry, had made his
name known, he was popular in high quarters--quarters, be it noticed,
with which he personally did not come into contact, and which therefore
he could not incense by his patronizing bearing. Further, his record as
tutor of Prince Klaus Heinrich weighed in the scales. In short, he was
not simply dismissed, as one might have expected him to be. The
President of the Grand Ducal Council of Education, before whom the
matter came, administered a grave reprimand to him, and Doctor
Ueberbein, who had stopped teaching directly after the scandal, was
provisionally retired. But people who knew declared later that nothing
was intended beyond the professor's transfer to another grammar school;
that in high quarters the only wish was to hush up the whole business,
and that the promise of a brilliant future had been actually extended to
the Doctor. Everything would have turned out all right.
But the milder the authorities showed themselves towards the Doctor, the
more hostile was the attitude of his colleagues towards him. The
"Teachers' Union" at once established a court of honour, whose object
was to secure satisfaction for their beloved member, the alcohol-hearted
professor rejected of his pupils. The written statement laid before
Ueberbein in his retirement in his lodgings ran as follows: Whereas
Ueberbein had resisted the return of the colleague for whom he acted to
the professorship of the second class; whereas further he had agitated
against him and in the end had actually incited the pupils to
insubordination against him, he had been guilty of disloyal conduct to
his colleague of such a kind as must be considered dishonourable not
only in a professional, but also in a general sense. That was the
verdict. The expected result was that Doctor Ueberbein, who had only
been a nominal member of the "Teachers' Union," withdrew his
membership--and there, so many thought, he might well have let the
matter rest.
But whether it was that in his seclusion he did not know the goodwill he
inspired in higher quarters; that he thought his prospects more hopeless
than they were; that he could not stand idleness, unreconciled as he was
to the premature loss of his beloved class; that the expression
"dishonourable" poisoned his blood, or that his mind was not strong
enough to stand all the shocks it received at this time: five weeks
after the New Year his landlady found him on the thread-bare carpet of
his room, no greener than usual, but with a bullet through his heart.
Such was the end of Raoul Ueberbein, such his false step, such the cause
of his fall. "I told you so," was the burden of all the discussions of
his pitiful break-down. The quarrelsome and uncongenial man, who had
never been a man amongst men at his club, who had haughtily resisted
familiarity, and had ordered his life cold-bloodedly with a view to
results alone, and had supposed that that gave him the right to
patronize the whole world--there he lay now: the first hitch, the first
obstacle in the field of accomplishment, had brought him to a miserable
end. Few of the bourgeois regretted, none of them mourned him--with one
single exception, the chief surgeon at the Dorothea Hospital,
Ueberbein's congenial friend, and perhaps a fair lady with whom he used
once to play Casino. But Klaus Heinrich always cherished an honourable
and cordial memory of his ill-fated tutor.
IX
THE ROSE-BUSH
And Spoelmann financed the state. The outlines of the transaction were
bold and clear; a child could have understood them--and as a fact
beaming fathers explained it to their children, as they dangled them on
their knees.
Samuel Spoelmann nodded, Messrs. Phlebs and Slippers got to work, and
his mighty orders flashed under the waves of the Atlantic to the
Continent of the Western Hemisphere. He withdrew a third of his share
from the Sugar trust, a quarter from the Petroleum trust, and half from
the Steel trust; he had his floating capital paid in to accounts in his
name in several banks over here; and he bought from Herr Krippenreuther
at par 350,000,000 new 3½ per cent. consols at one stroke. That is what
Spoelmann did.
He who knows by experience the influence of the state of mind on the
human organs will believe that Dr. Krippenreuther cheered up and in a
short time was unrecognizable. He carried himself upright and free, his
walk was springy, the yellow look faded from his face, which became red
and white, his eyes flashed, and his stomach regained its powers in a
few months to such an extent that his friends were delighted to observe
that the Minister could give himself up to the enjoyment of blue cabbage
and gherkin salad with impunity. That was one pleasant though purely
personal result of Spoelmann's interference in our finances, which was
of but slight account in comparison with the effects which that
interference had on our public and economic life.
A part of the loan was devoted to the sinking fund, and troublesome
public debts were paid off. But this was scarcely needed to secure us
breathing space and credit on every side; for no sooner was it known,
for all the secrecy with which the matter was treated officially, that
Samuel Spoelmann had become the State banker, in fact if not in name,
than the skies cleared up above us and all our need was changed into joy
and rapture. There was an end to the scare-selling of active debts, the
customary rate of interest dropped, our written promises were eagerly
sought after as investments, and each twenty-four hours saw a rise in
the quotation of our high-interest loan from a deplorably low figure up
to above par. The pressure, the nightmare which for decades had weighed
down our national finances, was removed; Doctor Krippenreuther puffed
out his chest and spoke in the Landtag in favour of all-round reduction
in taxation. This was adopted unanimously, and the antediluvian meat tax
was finally buried amid the rejoicings of all those who cared for their
fellow-men.
A distinct improvement in the pay of the Civil Service, and in the
salaries of teachers, clergymen, and all State functionaries was readily
voted. Means were now available for restarting the closed-down
silver-mines; several hundred workmen were given work, and productive
veins were unexpectedly struck. Money, money was forthcoming, the
standard of economic morality rose; the forests were replanted, the
litter was left in the woods, the stock-owners no longer were compelled
to sell their milk, they drank it themselves, and the critics would have
sought in vain for ill-nourished peasants in the fields. The nation
showed gratitude towards their rulers, who had brought so boundless a
blessing to land and people.
Herr von Knobelsdorff needed but few words to induce Parliament to
increase the Crown subsidy. The orders for the putting up for sale of
the Schlosses "Pastime" and "Favourite" were cancelled. Skilled workmen
invaded the Old Schloss, to instal central heating from top to bottom.
Our agents in the negotiations with Spoelmann, von Bühl and Dr.
Krippenreuther, received the Grand Cross of the Albrechts Order in
brilliants; the Finance Minister was also ennobled, and Herr von
Knobelsdorff was made happy with a life-size portrait of the exalted
couple--painted by the skilful hand of old Professor von Lindemann and
exquisitely framed.
After the betrothal the people gave rein to their fancy in calculating
the dowry which Imma Spoelmann was to receive from her father. It made
them giddy; they were possessed by a mad desire to scatter figures of
truly astronomical dimensions about. But the dowry did not exceed an
earthly figure, comfortably big though it was. It amounted to a hundred
million.
"Gracious!" said Ditlinde zu Ried-Hohenried, when she first heard it.
"And my dear Philipp with his peat." Many another had the same thought;
but Spoelmann's daughter allayed the nervous anger which might arise in
simple hearts in face of such monstrous wealth, for she did not forget
to do good and share her good fortune, and on the very day of the public
betrothal she gave a sum of 500,000 marks, the yearly interest on which
was to be divided among the four county councils for charitable and
generally useful purposes.
Klaus Heinrich and Imma drove in one of Spoelmann's olive-coloured,
red-cushioned motors on a round of visits to the members of the House of
Grimmburg. A young chauffeur drove the sumptuous car--the one in which
Imma had found a likeness to Klaus Heinrich. But his nervous tension was
but small on this trip, for he had to restrain the motor's giant
strength so far as possible and go slowly--so closely were they
surrounded by admiring crowds; for as the more remote authors of our
happiness, Grand Duke Albrecht and Samuel Spoelmann, each in his own
fashion, concealed themselves from the crowd, the latter heaped all its
love and gratitude on the heads of the exalted couple. Boys could be
seen through the plate glass of the motor throwing their caps in the
air, the shouts of men and women came surging in, clear and shrill, and
Klaus Heinrich, his hand to his helmet, said admonishingly: "You must
respond too, Imma, to your side, otherwise they'll think you cold."
They drove to Princess Katharine's, and were received with dignity. In
the time of Grand Duke Johann Albrecht, her brother, said the aunt to
her nephew, it would never have been allowed. But the times moved fast,
and she prayed Heaven that his betrothed would accustom herself to the
Court. They proceeded to Princess zu Ried-Hohenried's, and there it was
love she met with. Ditlinde's Grimmburg pride found comfort in the
assurance that Leviathan's daughter might become Princess of the Grand
Ducal House and Royal Highness, but could never be Grand Ducal Princess
like herself; for the rest, she was overjoyed that Klaus Heinrich had
rummaged out for himself anything so sweet and precious. As the wife of
Philipp with his peat, she had the best reasons for knowing how to value
the advantages of the match, and cordially welcomed her sister-in-law to
her arms.
They drove too to Prince Lambert's villa, and while the Countess-bride
struggled to keep up a conversation with the dazzling but very
uneducated Baroness von Rohrdorf, the old petticoat-hunter congratulated
his nephew in his sepulchral voice on the unprejudiced choice he had
made, and on so boldly snapping his fingers at Court and Highness. "I am
not snapping my fingers at my Highness, uncle; not only have I had an
eye to my own happiness in no inconsiderable measure, but I have acted
throughout with the Mass, the Whole, in view," said Klaus Heinrich
rather rudely; whereupon they broke off, and drove to Schloss
"Segenhaus," where Dorothea, the poor Dowager, held her dreary Court.
She cried as she kissed the young bride on the forehead, without knowing
why she did so.
Meanwhile Samuel Spoelmann sat at Delphinenort surrounded with plans and
sketches of furniture and silk carpet-patterns, and drawings of gold
plate. He left his organ untouched, and forgot the stone in his kidney,
and got quite red cheeks from merely having so much to do; for however
small the opinion he had formed of "the young man," or the hope he held
out of his ever being seen at Court, yet his daughter was going to be
married, and he wanted the arrangements to be worthy of his means. The
plans had to do with the new Schloss "Hermitage," for Klaus Heinrich's
bachelor quarters were to be razed to the ground, and a new Schloss
built on its site, roomy and bright and decorated, by Klaus Heinrich's
wish, in a mixture of Empire and modern styles, combining cool severity
with homely comfort. Mr. Spoelmann appeared one morning in person, after
drinking the waters in the spa-garden, in his faded great-coat at the
"Hermitage," in order to find out whether this or that piece of
furniture could be used for the new Schloss. "Let's see, young Prince,
what you've got," he snarled, and Klaus Heinrich showed him everything
in his sober room--the thin sofas, the stiff-legged tables, the
white-enamelled tables in the corners.
"Gimcrack," said Mr. Spoelmann, "no use for anything." Three arm-chairs
only in the little yellow room, of heavy mahogany, with snail-shaped
convolute arms and the yellow covers embroidered with blue lyres, found
favour in his eyes.
"We can put those in an ante-room," he said, and Klaus Heinrich was
relieved that these arm-chairs should be contributed to the furnishing
by the Grimmburg side; for of course it would have been rather painful
to him if Mr. Spoelmann had had to find every single thing.
But the ragged park and flower-garden at the "Hermitage" had to be
cleared and restocked; the flower-garden in particular was honoured with
a special ornament which Klaus Heinrich had asked his brother to give
him as a wedding-present. For it was arranged that the rose-bush from
the Old Schloss should be transplanted to the big middle bed in front of
the approach; and then, no longer surrounded by mouldy walls, but in the
air and sunshine and the stiffest clay obtainable, it should be seen
what sort of roses it could bear in future--and give the lie to the
popular report, if it were obstinate and arrogant enough.
And when March and April had passed, May came, bringing the great event
of Klaus Heinrich's and Imma's marriage. It was a glorious day, with
golden clouds in the sky, and its dawn was greeted by a choir from the
town-hall tower. The people streamed in on foot and in carts, that fair,
thick-set, healthy, reliable stock with blue, meditative eyes and broad,
high cheek-bones, dressed in the handsome national dress--the men in red
jackets, top-boots, and broad-brimmed black-velvet hats, the women in
brightly embroidered bodices, thick, wide skirts, and big black veils as
a head-dress. They joined the throng of town-folk in the streets between
the Spa-Garden and the Old Schloss, which had been transformed into a
processional route with garlands and wreathed stands and white-enamelled
poles covered with flowers.
Banners of the Trades Unions, rifle-corps, and gymnastic associations
began early in the morning to be carried through the streets. The fire
brigade turned out in gleaming helmets. The officers of the Corps of
Students drove round in open landaus in full state with banners flying.
Maids of Honour in white, with rose-twined staves, stood about in
groups. The offices and factories were deserted, the schools closed,
festival services were held in the churches. And the morning editions of
the _Courier_ and _Gazette_ contained, in addition to cordial leading
articles, the announcement of a comprehensive amnesty, in pursuance of
which cancellation or remission of sentence was granted to several
prisoners by the grace of the Grand Duke. Even the murderer Gudebus, who
had been condemned to death, and then to penal servitude for life, was
released on ticket of leave. But he soon had to be put back into prison
again.
Two o'clock was the hour fixed for the City Council's luncheon in the
hall of the Museum, with an orchestra and telegrams of respectful
congratulations. But the public made merry outside the gates, with fried
chips and currant-loaf, a fair, lucky-booths and shooting galleries,
sack-races, and men's climbing competitions for treacle cakes. And then
came the moment when Imma Spoelmann drove from Delphinenort to the Old
Schloss. She did so in processional pomp.
The banners fluttered in the spring breeze, the thick garlands,
interwoven with red roses, stretched from one pole to another, the crowd
was packed in a black mass on the balconies, roofs, and steps; and
between the fences of rifle-corps and firemen, guilds, unions, students,
and school-children, the bridal procession advanced slowly amid
tumultuous uproar along the sand-strewn road. Two out-riders in laced
hats and shoulder-knots, preceded by a moustachioed equerry in a
three-cornered hat, came first. Then came a four-horsed carriage, in
which the Grand Ducal Commissary, an official of the Board of Green
Cloth, who had been deputed to fetch the bride, rode with a chamberlain.
Next a second four-horsed carriage, in which sat the Countess Löwenjoul,
looking askance at the two maids of honour in the carriage with her,
whose morals she mistrusted. Then came ten postilions on horseback, in
yellow breeches and blue coats, who played: "We wind for thee the
maiden's wreath." Then twelve girls in white, who strewed roses and
sprigs of arbor vitæ on the road.
And lastly, followed by fifty master-mechanics on powerful horses, the
six-horsed transparent bridal coach. The red-faced coachman in the laced
hat proudly extended his gaitered legs on the high white-velvet box,
holding the reins with arms similarly extended; grooms in top-boots
walked at the head of each pair of horses, and two lackeys stood behind
the creaking carriage in great state, showing in their impenetrable
faces no signs that plotting and underhand dealing were part of their
daily life. Behind the glass and gilded window-frames sat Imma Spoelmann
in veil and wreath, with an old Court lady as lady of honour at her
side. Her dress of shimmering silk glittered like snow in the sunshine,
and on her lap she held the white bouquet which Prince Klaus Heinrich
had sent her an hour before. Her strangely childlike face was as pale as
an ocean-pearl, and a smooth wisp of dark hair fell across her forehead
under the veil, while her big black eyes threw glances of pleading
eloquence over the close-packed throng. And what was that din, that
barking close by the coach-door? It was Percival, the collie, more
beside himself than anyone had ever seen him. The confusion and the slow
pace at which the procession went excited him beyond measure, robbed him
of all self-restraint, and convulsed him almost beyond bearance. He
raged, he danced, he leaped, he circled blindly round and round in the
intoxication of his nerves, and the shouts redoubled in the balconies
and street and on the roofs on both sides as the people recognized him.
That is how Imma Spoelmann drove to the Old Schloss, and the boom and
buzz of the bells mingled with the cheers of the people and Percival's
mad bark. The procession crossed the Albrechtsplatz at a walk and went
through the Albrechtstor. In the Courtyard of the Schloss the mounted
corps of the guilds rode to one side, and took up their position as a
guard of honour, and in the corridor, in front of the weather-beaten
front door, Grand Duke Albrecht, dressed as a Colonel of Hussars,
received the bride with his brother and the rest of his House, offered
her his arm and conducted her up the grey stone steps into the
state-rooms, at whose doors guards of honour were posted and in which
the Court was assembled. The princesses of the House stayed in the Hall
of the Knights, and it was there that Herr von Knobelsdorff, surrounded
by the Grand Ducal family, executed the civil marriage. Never, it was
said later, had the wrinkles played round his eyes more lively than
whilst he joined Klaus Heinrich and Imma Spoelmann in civil wedlock.
When this was over, Albrecht II commanded that the church festivities
should begin.
Herr von Bühl zu Bühl had done his best to get together an imposing
procession--the bridal procession, which passed up Heinrich the
Luxurious's staircase and along a covered way into the Court Chapel.
Stooping under the weight of years, yet in a brown toupée and with a
youthful waddle, he marched, covered with orders down to his waist and
planting his long staff in front of him, in front of the chamberlains,
who walked along in silk stockings with their feather hats under their
arms and a key embroidered on their coat-tails. The young pair drew
near; the foreign-looking bride in a shimmer of white and Klaus
Heinrich, the Heir Presumptive, in a Grenadier uniform with the yellow
ribbon across his chest and back. Four maidens belonging to the nobility
of the land, with demure looks, carried Imma Spoelmann's train,
accompanied by Countess Löwenjoul, who looked suspiciously out of the
corners of her eyes. Behind the bridegroom walked Herr von
Schulenburg-Tressen and Herr von Braunbart-Schellendorf. The Master of
the Royal Hunt, von Stieglitz, and the ballet-loving Grand Duke walked
in front of the young monarch, who sucked quietly at his upper lip. At
his side came Aunt Catherine, followed by the Minister of the Household,
von Knobelsdorff, the Adjutant, the princely zu Ried-Hohenried couple,
and the remaining members of the House. The rear of the procession was
brought up by more chamberlains.
Inside the Court Chapel, which was decorated with plants and draperies,
the invited guests had awaited the procession. There were diplomats with
their wives, the Court and county nobility, the corps of officers in the
capital, the Ministers, amongst them the beaming face of Herr von
Krippenreuther, the Knights of the Grand Order of the Grimmburg Griffin,
the Presidents of the Landtag, and all sorts of dignitaries. And as the
Lord Marshal had ordered invitations to be sent to every class of
society, the seats were filled with tradesmen, countrymen, and simple
artisans with hearts attuned to the event. In front of the altar the
relations of the bridegroom took their places in a semicircle in
red-velvet arm-chairs. The voices of the choir rang pure and sweet under
the vaulted ceiling, and then the whole congregation sang a hymn of
thanksgiving with full organ accompaniment. When it died away, the
musical voice of the President of the High Consistory, Dom Wislezenus,
was heard, as with his silver hair, and a convex star on his silk gown,
he stood before the exalted pair and preached an eloquent sermon. He
built it on a theme, to borrow a musical expression. And the theme was
the passage from the Psalms which runs: "He shall live, and unto him
shall be given of the gold of Arabia." There was not a dry eye left in
the chapel.
Then Dom Wislezenus completed the marriage, and at the moment when the
bridal pair exchanged rings, fanfares of trumpets blared forth, and a
salvo of three times twelve guns began to roll over city and
country-side, fired by the soldiers on the wall of the "Citadel."
Directly afterwards the fire brigade let off the town guns by way of
salute; but long pauses occurred between each detonation, giving rise to
inexhaustible laughter among the people.
After the blessing had been pronounced, the procession re-formed and
returned to the Hall of the Knights, where the House of Grimmburg
congratulated the newly married pair. Then came the Court, and Klaus
Heinrich and Imma Spoelmann walked arm-in-arm through the Gala Rooms,
where the Court was drawn up, and spoke to various members of the
company, smiling across an interval of shining parquet; and Imma pouted
and wagged her head as she spoke to anyone who curtsied low and answered
deferentially. After the Court there was a State supper in the Marble
Hall, and a Marshal's supper in that of the Twelve Months, and
everything was of the best that money could buy, out of regard to what
Klaus Heinrich's wife had been accustomed to. Even Percival, now
restored to his senses, was among the guests, and was given some roast
meat. After supper the students and the populace had arranged in honour
of the young couple a demonstration with serenades and a torchlight
procession on the Albrechtsplatz. The square outside was a blaze of
light, and resounded with shouts.
Lackeys drew aside the curtains from one of the windows in the Silver
Hall, and Klaus Heinrich and Imma advanced to the open window. They
threw it open, and stood in the opening just as they were, for outside
it was a warm spring night. Next them, in a dignified attitude and
looking most imposing, sat Percival, the collie, and looked down like
his mistress.
Several of the town bands played in the illuminated square, which was
packed tight with human beings, and the upturned faces of the people
were lighted to a smoky dark red by the students' torches as they
marched past the Schloss. Cheers broke forth when the newly married
couple appeared at the window. They bowed their thanks, and then stayed
there awhile, looking and letting themselves be looked at. The people,
looking up, could see their lips moving in conversation. This is what
they said:
"Listen, Imma, how thankful they are that we have not forgotten their
need and affliction. What crowds there are, standing there and shouting
up to us! Of course many of them are scoundrels, and take each other in,
and sadly need to be elevated above the work-day and its reality. But
they are really grateful when one shows oneself conscious of their need
and affliction."
"But we are so stupid and so lonely, Prince--on the peaks of humanity,
as Doctor Ueberbein used always to say--and we know absolutely nothing
of life."
"Nothing, little Imma? What was it, then, which at last gave you
confidence in me, and brought us to study so practically the public
weal? Knows he nothing of life who knows of love? That shall be our
business in future: Highness and Love--an austere happiness."
[ Transcriber's Note:
The following is a list of corrections made to the original.
The first line is the original line, the second the corrected one.
The Swiss governess was the widow of a Calvanistic minister and was in
The Swiss governess was the widow of a Calvinistic minister and was in
The opportunity came. While the Swiss governness was absent on leave to
The opportunity came. While the Swiss governess was absent on leave to
where it's too dusty, for this dress shows everything.
where it's too dusty, for this dress shows everything."
compared with Trümmerhauff. Trümmerhauf had the nobility of a wild
compared with Trümmerhauff. Trümmerhauff had the nobility of a wild
rather broad, he had cheek bones like the men in the street, and he
rather broad, he had cheek-bones like the men in the street, and he
annouce that their Royal Highnesses were now going. He had been charged
announce that their Royal Highnesses were now going. He had been charged
exploratory operation, whch was conducted by the Director of the
exploratory operation, which was conducted by the Director of the
Lastly, Princess Ditlande had married at the age of twenty, one year
Lastly, Princess Ditlinde had married at the age of twenty, one year
Albrecht bowed his thanks with eyes downcast and underlip protuded.
Albrecht bowed his thanks with eyes downcast and underlip protruded.
Jettchen, as provisional lodgings."
Jettchen, "as provisional lodgings."
architect from the captital had been entrusted with the building. But
architect from the capital had been entrusted with the building. But
suite" in the "Spa Court" Hotel was by no means dazzingly magnificent.
suite" in the "Spa Court" Hotel was by no means dazzlingly magnificent.
temperature-and weight-charts--tended by nurses in white caps, and
temperature- and weight-charts--tended by nurses in white caps, and
his tail, At the same moment the butler began to run, as fast as his
his tail. At the same moment the butler began to run, as fast as his
upon me, Prince." And she suddenly sat Fatma off at a gallop and flew at
upon me, Prince." And she suddenly set Fatma off at a gallop and flew at
Spoelman took stock of the prosaic country-house which rejoiced in the
Spoelmann took stock of the prosaic country-house which rejoiced in the
"Yes, though unfortunately not from you. But Jettchen Isenschnibble has
"Yes, though unfortunately not from you. But Jettchen Isenschnibbe has
had withdrawn and Princes Griseldis had opened the cotillon with a
had withdrawn and Princess Griseldis had opened the cotillon with a
]