FRAU MARTHA to FRAU KRUPP,
_nee_ BARONESS VON ENDE.
BERLIN, SCHLOSS, _Christmas_.
GRACIOUS LADY,--May it please the Gracious Lady, we arrived safely and
sound, and Fraulein just started off on a sleigh ride with the little
Princess, who is as foolish as the poor Mueller orphan in our hospital,
but, mind, she had something warm before I let her go.
Fraulein don't want me to say nothing, but duty compels me. Gracious
Lady, I must tell you that Fraulein got up still hungry from table and
ate four ham sandwiches, three doughnuts and a cream tart, which I
bought for her with my own money (no matter about that) ere I let her
go. After I made her warm inside, I made her warm underneath, and put
on her the beautiful sables the late Gracious Gentleman, God rest his
soul, got given to him in Russia. With all respects to Majesty, the
little Princess, in her cheap _iltiz_ (_patois_) garment, looked like a
mere rag doll compared with our Bertha, please excuse me, Gracious Lady.
Gracious Lady will forgive an ignorant girl, but the three of us, Fritz
and Lenchen and me, call the Schloss Starvation Hall.
Except Fraulein and Fritz and Lenchen, I haven't heard a decent word
since we left home. They just snarl and hiss. Because Fraulein is
called the richest girl in the world, they fetch and carry for her, like
the mealy-mouthed menials they are; but if it wasn't for the tips, I
don't think they'd do a thing for her.
Fraulein won't tell you, so I do, that the three of us rode to the
Schloss in a hired coach, because Uncle Majesty was too mean to send a
carriage for us--and to think of what at home we always provide for his
twenty and more attendants and the fine time we give them!
I see now why they are always so greedy in Essen. They never get such
meat and _vittel_ as we give them, in Berlin or Potsdam; they hardly
have enough peas in the husks and potatoes in the jackets.
Gracious Lady can't imagine their meanness in the Schloss. I am told
there isn't enough linen to give Majesties a daily change. And how the
hundreds of menservants keep clean, with only two bathrooms, and hot
water which must be carried up four flights of stairs, I can't make out.
As to the maids, they don't.
But the poor things can't help it; all they get is two marks fifty (half
a crown) a day for from twelve to sixteen hours' work, and not a cup of
coffee or a spoonful of soup in this fierce, cold weather. And think of
it, they don't get their wages weekly, as the law allows, but on the
third day of the month. The poor wretches haven't even got a place to
eat.