Royal Highness Part 8

Afterwards came the congratulations in the form of a processional Court, led by the fawning Herr von Buhl, after which the gala-breakfast began in the Marble Hall and in the hall of the Twelve Months.

The foreign princes were entertained for the next few days. A garden-party was given in Hollerbrunn, with fireworks and dancing for the young people of the Court in the park. Festive excursions with pages in attendance were made through the sunny country-side to Monbrillant, Jagerpreis, and Haderstein Ruins, and the people, that inferior order of creation with the searching eyes and the high cheek-bones, stood on the kerb and cheered themselves and their representatives. In the capital Klaus Heinrich's photograph hung in the windows of the art-dealers, and the _Courier_ actually published a printed likeness of him, a popular and strangely idealized representation, showing the Prince in the crimson mantle. But then came yet another great day--Klaus Heinrich's formal entry into the Army, into the regiment of Grenadier Guards.

This is what happened. The regiment to which fell the honour of having Klaus Heinrich as one of its officers was drawn up on the Albrechtsplatz in open square. Many a plume waved in the middle. The princes of the House and the generals were all present. The public, a black ma.s.s against the gay background, crowded behind the barriers. Cameras were levelled in several places at the scene of action. The Grand d.u.c.h.ess, with the princesses and their ladies, watched the show from the windows of the Old Schloss.

First of all, Klaus Heinrich, dressed as a lieutenant, reported himself formally to the Grand Duke. He advanced sternly, without the shadow of a smile, towards his father, clapped his heels together and humbly acquainted him with his presence. The Grand Duke thanked him briefly, also without a smile, and then in his turn, followed by his aides-de-camp, advanced in his dress uniform and plumed hat into the square. Klaus Heinrich stood before the lowered colours, an embroidered, golden, and half-tattered piece of silk cloth, and took the oath. The Grand Duke made a speech in detached sentences and the sharp voice of command which he reserved for such occasions, in which he called his son "Your Grand Ducal Highness" and publicly clasped the Prince's hand. The Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, with crimson cheeks, led a cheer for the Grand Duke in which the guests, the regiment, and the public joined.

A march past followed, and the whole ended with a military luncheon in the castle.

This picturesque ceremony in the Albrechtsplatz was without practical significance; its effect began and ended there. Klaus Heinrich never dreamed of going into garrison, but went the very same day with his parents and brother and sister to Hollerbrunn, to pa.s.s the summer there in the cool old French rooms on the river, between the wall-like hedges of the park, and then, in the autumn, to go up to the university. For so it was ordained in the programme of his life; in the autumn he went up to the university for a year, not that of the capital, but the second one of the country, accompanied by Doctor Ueberbein, his tutor.

The appointment of this young savant as mentor was once more attributable to an express, ardent wish of the Prince, and indeed, as far as the choice of tutor and older companions was concerned, whom Klaus Heinrich was to have at his side during this year of student freedom, it was considered necessary to give a reasonable amount of consideration to his expressed wishes. Yet there was much to be said against this choice; it was unpopular, or at least criticized aloud or in whispers in many quarters.

Raoul Ueberbein was not loved in the capital. Due respect was paid to his medal for life-saving and to all his feverish energy, but the man was no genial fellow-citizen, no jolly comrade, no blameless official.

The most charitable saw in him an oddity with a determined and uncomfortably reckless disposition, who recognized no Sunday, no holiday, no relaxation, and did not understand being a man amongst men after work was done. This natural son of an adventuress had worked his way up from the depths of society, from an obscure and prospectless youth without means, by dint of sheer strength of will, to being, first school teacher, then academic professor, then university lecturer, had lived to see his appointment--had "engineered" it, as many said--to the "Pheasantry" as teacher of a Grand Ducal Prince, and yet he knew no rest, no contentment, no comfortable enjoyment of life.... But life, as every decent man, thinking of Doctor Ueberbein, truly observed, life does not consist only of profession and performance, it has its purely human claims and duties, the neglect of which is a greater sin than the display of some measure of joviality towards oneself and one's fellows in the sphere of one's work, and only that personality can be considered a harmonious one which succeeds in giving its due to each part, profession and human feelings, life and performance.

Ueberbein's lack of any sense of camaraderie was bound to tell against him. He avoided all social intercourse with his colleagues, and his circle of friends was confined to the person of one man of another scientific sphere, a surgeon and children's specialist with the unsympathetic name of Sammet, a very popular surgeon to boot, who shared certain characteristics with Ueberbein. But it was only very rarely--and then only as a sort of favour--that he turned up at the club where the teachers gathered after the day's work and worry, for a gla.s.s of beer, a rubber, or a free exchange of views on public and personal questions--but he pa.s.sed his evenings, and, as his landlady reported, also a great part of the night, working at science in his study, while his complexion grew greener and greener, and his eyes showed more and more clearly signs of overstrain.

The authorities had been moved, shortly after his return from the "Pheasantry," to promote him to head master. Where was he going to stop?

At Director? High-school Professor? Minister for Education? Everybody agreed that his immoderate and restless energy concealed imprudence and defiance of public opinion--or rather did not conceal them. His demeanour, his loud, bl.u.s.tering mode of speaking annoyed, irritated, and exasperated people. His tone towards members of the teaching profession who were older and in higher positions than himself was not what it should be. He treated everybody, from the Director down to the humblest usher, in a fatherly way, and his habit of talking of himself as of a man who had "knocked about," of ga.s.sing about "Fate and Duty," and thereby displaying his benevolent contempt for all those who "weren't obliged to" and "smoked cigars in the morning," showed conceit pure and simple. His pupils adored him; he achieved remarkable results with them, that was agreed. But on the whole the Doctor had many enemies in the town, more than he ever guessed, and the misgiving that his influence on the Prince might be an undesirable one was put into words in at least one portion of the daily press....

Anyhow Ueberbein obtained leave from the Latin school, and went first of all alone, in the capacity of billeter, on a visit to the famous student town, within whose walls Klaus Heinrich was destined to pa.s.s the year of his apprenticeship, and on his return he was received in audience by Excellency von k.n.o.belsdorff, the Minister of the Grand Ducal House, to receive the usual instructions. Their tenour was that almost the most important object of this year was to establish traditions of comradeship on the common ground of academic freedom between the Prince and the student corps, especially in the interests of the dynasty--the regulation phrases, which Herr von k.n.o.belsdorff rattled off almost casually, and which Doctor Ueberbein listened to with a silent bow, while he drew his mouth, and with it his red beard, a little to one side. Then followed Klaus Heinrich's departure with his mentor, a dogcart and a servant or two, for the university.

A glorious year, full of the charm of artistic freedom, in the public eye and in the mirror of public report--yet without technical importance of any kind. Misgivings which had been felt in some quarters that Doctor Ueberbein, through mistaking and misunderstanding the position, might worry the Prince with excessive demands in the direction of objective science, proved unfounded. On the contrary, it was obvious that the doctor quite realized the difference between his own earnest, and his pupil's exalted, sphere of existence. On the other hand (whether it was the mentor's or the Prince's own fault does not matter) the freedom and the unconstrained camaraderie, like the instruction, were interpreted in a very relative and symbolical sense so that neither the one nor the other, neither the knowledge nor the freedom, could be said to be the essence and peculiarity of the year. Its essence and peculiarity were rather, as it appeared, the year in itself, as the embodiment of custom and impressive ceremoniousness, to which Klaus Heinrich deferred, just as he had deferred to the theatrical rites on his last birthday--only now not with a purple cloak, but occasionally wearing a coloured student's cap, the so-called "Sturmer," in which he was portrayed in a photograph issued at once by the _Courier_ to its readers.

As to his studies, his matriculation was not marked by any particular festivities, though some reference was made to the honour which Klaus Heinrich's admission bestowed on the university, and the lectures he attended began with the address: "Grand Ducal Highness!" He drove in his dogcart with a groom from the pretty green-clad villa, which the Marshal of his father's household had leased for him in a select and not too expensive square, amid the remarks and greetings of the pa.s.sers-by, to the lectures, and there he sat with the consciousness that the whole thing was unessential and unnecessary for his exalted calling, yet with a show of courteous attention.

Charming anecdotes of the signs the Prince gave of interest in the lectures went about and had their due effect. Towards the end of one course on Nature Study (for Klaus Heinrich attended these courses also "for general information") the Professor, by way of ill.u.s.tration, had filled a metal sh.e.l.l with water and announced that the water, when frozen, would burst the sh.e.l.l by expansion; he promised to show the cla.s.s the pieces next lecture. Now he had not kept his word on this point at the next lecture, probably out of forgetfulness: the broken sh.e.l.l had not been forthcoming--Klaus Heinrich had therefore inquired as to the result of the experiment. He had joined in asking questions of the professor at the end of the lecture, just like any ordinary student, and had modestly asked him: "Has the bomb burst?"--whereupon the Professor, full of embarra.s.sment at first, had then expressed his thanks with glad surprise, and indeed emotion, for the kind interest the Prince had expressed in his lectures.

Klaus Heinrich was honorary member of a student's club--only honorary, because he was not allowed to fight duels--and once or twice attended their wines, his Sturmer on his head. But since his guardians were well aware that the results the influence of strong drink had on his highly strung and delicate temperament were absolutely irreconcilable with his exalted calling, he did not dare to drink seriously, and his comrades were obliged on this point too to bear his Highness in mind. Their rude customs were judiciously limited to a casual one or two, the general tone was as exemplary as it used to be in the upper form at school, the songs they sang were old ones of real poetry, and the meetings were, as a whole, gala and parade nights, refined editions of the ordinary ones.

The use of Christian names was the bond of union between Klaus Heinrich and his corps brothers, as the expression and basis of spontaneous comradeship. But it was generally observed that this use sounded false and artificial, however great the efforts to make it otherwise, and that the students were always falling back unintentionally into the form of address which took due notice of the Prince's Highness.

Such was the effect of his presence, of his friendly, alert, and always uncompromising att.i.tude which sometimes produced strange, even comical phenomena in the demeanour of the persons with whom the Prince came into contact. One evening, at a soiree which one of his professors gave, he engaged a guest in conversation--a fat man of some age, a King's Counsel by his t.i.tle, who, despite his social importance, enjoyed the reputation of a great roue and a regular old sinner. The conversation, whose subject is a matter of no consequence and indeed would be difficult to specify, lasted for a considerable time because no opportunity of breaking it off presented itself. And suddenly, in the middle of his talk with the Prince, the barrister whistled--whistled with his thick lips one of those pointless sequences of notes which one utters when one is embarra.s.sed and wants to appear at one's ease, and then tried to cover his comic breach of manners by clearing his throat and coughing.

Klaus Heinrich was accustomed to experiences of that kind, and tactfully pa.s.sed on.

If at any time he wanted to make a purchase himself and went into a shop, his entrance caused a kind of panic. He would ask for what he wanted, a b.u.t.ton perhaps, but the girl would not understand him, would look dazed, and unable to fix her attention on the b.u.t.ton, but obviously absorbed by something else--something outside and above her duties as a shop-a.s.sistant--she would drop a few things, turn the boxes upside down in obvious helplessness, and it was all Klaus Heinrich could do to restore her composure by his friendly manner.

Such, as I have said, was the effect of his att.i.tude, and in the city it was often described as arrogance and blameworthy contempt for fellow-creatures--others roundly denied the arrogance, and Doctor Ueberbein, when the subject was broached to him at a social gathering, would put the question, whether "every inducement to contempt for his fellow-creatures being readily conceded," any such contempt really was possible in a case like the present of complete detachment from all the activities of ordinary men. Indeed, any remark of that kind he met in his unanswerable bl.u.s.tering way by the a.s.sertion that the Prince not only did not despise his fellow-creatures, but respected even the most worthless of them, only considered them all the more sound, serious, and good for the way in which the poor over-taxed and over-strained man in the street earned his living by the sweat of his brow....

The society of the university town had no time to reach a definite verdict on the question. The year of student life was over before one could turn round, and Klaus Heinrich returned, as prescribed by the programme of his life, to his father's palace, there, despite his left arm, to pa.s.s a full year in serious military service. He was attached to the Dragoons of the Guard for six months, and directed the taking up of intervals of eight paces for lance-exercises as well as the forming of squares, as if he were a serious soldier; then changed his weapon and transferred to the Grenadier Guards, so as to get an insight into infantry work also. It fell to him to march to the Schloss and change the Guard--an evolution which attracted large crowds. He came swiftly out of the Guard-room, his star on his breast, placed himself with drawn sword on the flank of the company and gave not quite correct orders, which, however, did not matter, as his stout soldiers executed the right movements all the same.

On guest-nights, too, at head-quarters, he sat on the colonel's right hand, and by his presence prevented the officers from unhooking their uniform collars and playing cards after dinner. After this, being now twenty years old, he started on an "educational tour"--no longer in the company of Doctor Ueberbein, but in that of a military attendant and courier, Captain von Braunbart-Sch.e.l.lendorf of the Guards, a fair-haired officer who was destined to be Klaus Heinrich's aide-de-camp, and to whom the tour gave an opportunity of establishing himself on a footing of intimacy and influence with him.

Klaus Heinrich did not see much in his educational tour, which took him far afield, and was keenly followed by the _Courier_. He visited the courts, introduced himself to the sovereigns, attended gala dinners with Captain von Braunbart, and on his departure received one of the country's superior Orders. He took a look at such sights as Captain von Braunbart (who also received several Orders) chose for him, and the _Courier_ reported from time to time that the Prince had expressed his admiration of a picture, a museum, or a building to the director or curator who happened to be his cicerone. He travelled apart, protected and supported by the chivalrous precautions of Captain von Braunbart, who kept the purse, and to whose devoted zeal was due the fact that not one of Klaus Heinrich's trunks was missing at the end of the journey.

A couple of words, no more, may be devoted to an interlude, which had for scene a big city in a neighbouring kingdom, and was brought about by Captain von Braunbart with all due circ.u.mspection. The Captain had a friend in this city, a bachelor n.o.bleman and a cavalry captain, who was on terms of intimacy with a young lady member of the theatrical world, an accommodating and at the same time trustworthy young person. In pursuance of an agreement by letter between Captain von Braunbart and his friend, Klaus Heinrich was thrown in contact with the damsel at her home--suitably arranged for the purpose--and the acquaintance allowed to develop _a deux_. Thus an expressly foreseen item in the educational tour was conscientiously realized, without Klaus Heinrich being involved in more than a casual acquaintance. The damsel received a memento for her services, and Captain von Braunbart's friend a decoration. So the incident closed.

Klaus Heinrich also visited the fair Southern lands, incognito, under a romantic-sounding t.i.tle. There he would sit, alone, perhaps for a quarter of an hour, dressed in a suit of irreproachable cut, among other foreigners on a white restaurant terrace looking over a dark-blue sea, and it might happen that somebody at another table would notice him, and try, in the manner of tourists, to engage him in conversation. What could he be, that quiet and self-possessed-looking young man? People ran over the various spheres of life, tried to fit him into the merchant, the military, the student cla.s.s. But they never felt that they had got it quite right--they felt his Highness, but n.o.body guessed it.

V

ALBRECHT II

Grand Duke Johann Albrecht died of a terrible illness, which had something naked and abstract about it, and to which no other name but just that of death could be given. It seemed as if death, sure of its prey, in this case disdained any mask or gloss, and came on the scene as its very self, as dissolution by and for itself. What actually happened was a decomposition of the blood, caused by internal haemorrhages; and an exploratory operation, which was conducted by the Director of the University Hospital, a famous surgeon, could not arrest the corroding progress of the gangrene. The end soon came, all the sooner that Johann Albrecht made little resistance to the approach of death. He showed signs of an unutterable weariness, and often remarked to his attendants, as well as to the surgeons attending him, that he was "dead sick of the whole thing"--meaning, of course, his princely existence, his exalted life in the glare of publicity. His cheek-furrows, those two lines of arrogance and boredom, resolved in his last days into an exaggerated, grotesque grimace, and continued thus until death smoothed them out.

The Grand Duke's illness fell in the winter. Albrecht, the Heir Apparent, called away from his warm dry resort, arrived in snowy wet weather, which was as bad for his health as it could be. His brother, Klaus Heinrich, interrupted his educational tour, which was anyhow nearing its close, and returned with Captain von Braunbart-Sch.e.l.lendorf in all haste from the fair land of the South to the capital. Besides the two prince-sons, the Grand d.u.c.h.ess Dorothea, the Princesses Catherine and Ditlinde, Prince Lambert without his lovely wife--the surgeons in attendance and Prahl the valet-de-chambre waited at the bedside, while the Court officials and Ministers on duty were collected in the adjoining room. If credence might be given to the a.s.sertions of the servants, the ghostly noise in the "Owl Chamber" had been exceptionally loud in the last weeks and days. According to them it was a rattling and a shaking noise, which recurred periodically, and whose meaning could not be distinguished outside the room.

Johann Albrecht's last act of Highness consisted in giving with his own hand to the professor, who had performed the useless operation with the greatest skill, his patent of nomination to the Privy Council. He was terribly exhausted, "sick of the whole thing," and his consciousness even in his more lucid moments was not at all clear; but he carried out the act with scrupulous care and made a ceremony of it. He had himself propped up, made a few alterations, shading his eyes with his wax-coloured hands, in the chance disposition of those present, ordered his sons to place themselves on both sides of his canopied bed--and while his soul was already tugging at her moorings, and floating here and there on unknown currents, he composed his features with mechanical skill into his smile of graciousness for the handing of the diploma to the Professor, who had left the room for a short time.

Quite towards the end, when the dissolution had already attacked the brain, the Grand Duke made one wish clear, which, though scarcely understood, was hastily complied with, although its fulfilment could not do the slightest good to the Grand Duke. Certain words, apparently disconnected, kept recurring in the murmurings of the sick man. He named several stuffs, silk, satin, and brocade, mentioned Prince Klaus Heinrich, used a technical expression in medicine, and said something about an Order, the Albrecht Cross of the Third Cla.s.s with Crown.

Between whiles one caught quite ordinary remarks, which apparently referred to the dying man's princely calling, and sounded like "extraordinary obligation" and "comfortable majority"; then the descriptions of the stuffs began again, to which was appended in a louder voice the word "Sammet."(1) At last it was realized that the Grand Duke wanted Doctor Sammet to be called in, the doctor who had happened to be present at the Grimmburg at the time of Klaus Heinrich's birth, twenty years before, and had, for a long time now, been practising in the capital.

(1) _I.e._, velvet.

The doctor was really a children's doctor, but he was summoned and came: already nearly grey on the temples, with a drooping moustache, surmounted by a nose which was rather too flat at the bottom, clean-shaven otherwise and with cheeks rather sore from shaving. With head on one side, his hand on his watch-chain, and elbows close to his sides, he examined the situation, and began at once to busy himself in a practical, gentle way about his exalted patient, whereat the latter expressed his satisfaction in no uncertain fashion. Thus it was that it fell to Doctor Sammet to administer the last injections to the Grand Duke, with his supporting hand to ease the final spasms, and to be, more than any of the other doctors, his helper in death--a distinction which indeed provoked some secret irritation amongst the others, but on the other hand resulted in the doctor's appointment shortly afterwards to the vacancy in the important post of Director and Chief Physician of the "Dorothea," a Children's Hospital, in which capacity he was destined later to play some part in certain developments.

So died Johann Albrecht the Third, uttering his last sigh on a winter's night. The old castle was brightly illuminated while he was pa.s.sing away. The stern furrows of boredom were smoothed out in his face, and, relieved of any exertion on his own part, he was subjected to formalities which surrounded him for the last time, carried him along, and made his wax-like sh.e.l.l just once more the focus and object of theatrical rites.... Herr von Buhl zu Buhl showed his usual energy in organizing the funeral, which was attended by many princely guests. The gloomy ceremonies, the different exposures and identifications, corpse-parades, blessings, and memorial services at the catafalque took days to complete, and Johann Albrecht's corpse was for eight hours exposed to public view, surrounded by a guard of honour consisting of two colonels, two first lieutenants, two cavalry sergeants, two infantry sergeants, two corporals, and two chamberlains.

Then at last came the moment when the zinc sh.e.l.l was brought by eight lackeys from the altar recess of the Court Church, where it had been on show between c.r.a.pe-covered candelabra and six-foot candles, to the entry-hall, placed by eight foresters in the mahogany coffin, carried by eight Grenadier Guardsmen to the six-horsed and black-draped hea.r.s.e, which set off for the mausoleum amidst cannon salvos and the tolling of bells. The flags hung heavy with rain from the middle of their poles.

Although it was early morning, the gas-lamps were burning in the streets along which the funeral was to pa.s.s. Johann Albrecht's bust was displayed amongst mourning decorations in the shop-windows, and postcards with the portrait of the deceased ruler, which were everywhere for sale, were in great demand. Behind the rows of troops, the gymnastic clubs, and veteran a.s.sociations which kept the road, stood the people on tiptoe in the snow-brash and gazed with bowed heads at the slowly pa.s.sing coffin, preceded by the wreath-bearing lackeys, the Court officials, the bearers of the insignia and Dom Wislezenus, the Court preacher, and covered with a silver-worked pall, whose corners were held by Lord Marshal von Buhl, Master of the Royal Hunt von Stieglitz, Adjutant-General Count Schmettern, and Minister of the Household von k.n.o.belsdorff.

By the side of his brother Klaus Heinrich, immediately behind the charger which was led in rear of the hea.r.s.e, and at the head of the other mourners, walked Grand Duke Albrecht II. His clothes, the tall stiff plume in the front of his busby, the long boots under his gaudy, ample Hussar's pelisse, with the c.r.a.pe band, did not become him. He walked as if embarra.s.sed by the eyes of the crowd, and his shoulder-blades, naturally rather crooked, were twisted in an awkward nervous way as he walked. Repugnance at having to be chief actor in this funeral pomp was clearly written on his pale face. He did not raise his eyes as he walked, and he sucked his short rounded lower lip against the upper....

His demeanour remained the same during the Curialia accompanying his accession, which were so arranged as to spare him as much as possible.

The Grand Duke signed the oath in the Silver Hall of the Gala Rooms before the a.s.sembled Ministers, and read aloud in the Throne-room, standing in front of the rounded chair under the baldachin, the Speech from the Throne, which Herr von k.n.o.belsdorff had drawn up. The economic condition of the country was touched upon in it with earnestness and delicacy, while appreciative mention was made of the unanimity which despite all troubles existed between the princes and the country--at which place a prominent functionary, who was apparently discontented about promotion, was said to have whispered to his neighbour that the unanimity consisted in the Prince being as deeply in debt as the country--a caustic remark which was much repeated, and ended by getting into hostile newspapers.... To end up, the President of the Landtag called for a cheer for the Grand Duke, a service was held in the Court Chapel, and that was all.

Further, Albrecht signed an edict, by virtue of which a number of sentences of fines and imprisonment, which had been imposed for the less serious misdemeanours, chiefly infringement of the forest laws, were remitted. The solemn procession through the city and the acclamation in the Town Hall were omitted altogether, as the Grand Duke felt too tired for them. Having been a captain hitherto, he was promoted on the occasion of his accession at once to the colonelcy _a la suite_ of his Hussar regiment, but scarcely ever put the uniform on, and kept as far away as possible from his sphere as a soldier. He made no change whatever in his staff, perhaps out of respect to his father's memory, either among the Court appointments or in the Ministry.

The public saw him but rarely. His proud and bashful disinclination to show himself, to put himself forward, to allow others to acclaim him, was so clearly shown from the very beginning as to shock public opinion.

He never appeared in the large box at the Court Theatre. He never took part in the park parade. When in residence at the Old Schloss, he had himself driven in a closed carriage to a remote and empty part of the suburbs, where he got out to take a little exercise; and in the summer at Hollerbrunn he only left the hedged walks of the parks on exceptional occasions.

Did the people catch a glimpse of him--at the Albrechtstor it might be, when wrapped in his heavy fur coat, which his father had worn before him, and on whose thick collar his delicate head now rested, he stepped into his carriage--timid glances were levelled at him, and the cheering was faint and hesitating. For the lower cla.s.ses felt that with a prince like this there could be no question of cheering him and thereby cheering themselves at the same time. They looked at him, and did not recognize themselves in him; his refined superiority made it clear that they were of different clay from his. And they were not accustomed to that. Was there not a commissionaire posted in the Albrechtsplatz that very day, who with his high cheek-bones and grey whiskers looked a coa.r.s.e and homely replica of the late Grand Duke? And did one not similarly meet with Prince Klaus Heinrich's features in the lower cla.s.ses?

It was not so with his brother. The people could not see in him an idealized version of themselves, whom it could make them happy to cheer--as it meant cheering themselves too! the Grand Duke's Highness--his undoubted Highness!--was a n.o.bility of the usual kind, undomestic, and without the stamp of the graciousness which inspires confidence. He too knew that; and the consciousness of his Highness, together with that of his want of popular graciousness, were quite enough to account for his shyness and haughtiness. He began already to delegate as far as possible his duties to Prince Klaus Heinrich. He sent him to open the new spring at Immenstadt and to the historical town-pageant at b.u.t.terburg. Indeed, his contempt for any exhibition of his princely person went so far that Herr von k.n.o.belsdorff had the greatest difficulty in persuading him to receive the Presidents of the two Chambers in the Throne-room himself, and not, "for reasons of health," as he was minded, to give place to his brother on this solemn occasion.

Albrecht II lived a lonely life in the Old Schloss; that was unavoidable in the nature of things. In the first place, Prince Klaus Heinrich, since Johann Albrecht's death, kept a Court of his own. That was demanded by etiquette, and he had been given the "Hermitage" as a residence, that Empire Schloss on the fringe of the northern suburbs, which, reposeful and charming, but long uninhabited and neglected, in the middle of its overgrown park next the Town Gardens, looked down on its little mud-thick pond. Some time ago, when Albrecht came of age, the "Hermitage" had been freshened up and for form's sake destined to be the Heir Apparent's palace; but as Albrecht had always come in summer straight from his warm, dry foreign resort to Hollerbrunn, he had never used his palace....

Klaus Heinrich lived there without unnecessary expense, with one major-domo, who superintended the household, a Baron von Schulenburg-Tressen, nephew of the Mistress of the Robes. Besides his valet, Neumann, he had two other lackeys for his daily needs; he borrowed the game-keeper when necessary for ceremonial shoots, from the Grand Duke's Court. One coachman and a couple of grooms in red waistcoats looked after the carriages and horses, which consisted of one pony-cart, one brougham, one dog-cart, two riding and two carriage horses. One gardener, helped by two boys, looked after the park and the garden; and one cook with her kitchen-maid, as well as two chambermaids, made up the female staff of the "Hermitage."

It was Court Marshal von Schulenburg's business to keep his young master's establishment going on the apanage which the Landtag, after Albrecht's accession, had voted the Grand Duke's brother after a serious debate. It amounted to two thousand five hundred pounds. For the sum of four thousand pounds, which had been the original demand, had never had any prospect of recommending itself to the Landtag, and so a wise and magnanimous act of self-denial had been credited to Klaus Heinrich, which had made an excellent impression in the country. Every winter Herr von Schulenburg sold the ice from the pond. He had the hay in the park mowed twice every summer and sold. After the harvests the surface of the fields looked almost like English turf.

Further, Dorothea, the Dowager Grand d.u.c.h.ess, no longer lived in the Old Schloss, and the causes of her retirement were both sad and uncomfortable. For she too, the Princess whom the much-travelled Herr von k.n.o.belsdorff had described more than once as one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen, the Princess whose radiant smiles had evoked joy, enthusiasm, and cheers whenever she had shown herself to the longing gaze of the toil-worn ma.s.ses, she too had had to pay her tribute to time. Dorothea had aged, her calm perfection, the admiration and joy of everybody, had during recent years withered so fast and steadily that the woman in her had been unable to keep pace with the transformation.

Nothing, no art, no measures, even the painful and repulsive ones, with which she tried to stave off decay, had availed to prevent the sweet brightness of her deep blue eyes from fading, rings of loose yellow skin from forming under them, the wonderful little dimples in her cheeks from turning into furrows, and her proud and hard mouth from looking drawn and bitter.

But since her heart had been hard as her beauty, and had been absorbed in that beauty, since her beauty had been her very soul and she had had no wish, no love, beyond the effect of that beauty on the hearts of others, while her own heart never beat the faster for anything or anyone, she was now disconsolate and lost, could not accommodate herself to the change and rebelled against it. Surgeon-General Eschrich said something about mental disturbance resulting from an unusually quick climacteric, and his opinion was undoubtedly correct in a sense. The sad truth at any rate was that Dorothea during the last years of her husband's life had already shown signs of profound mental disturbance and trouble.