CHAPTER XLVII
LOVE'S INTERMEZZO
Bernhardt takes advantage of my day-dreams – My husband's indolent gaucherie– Violent love-making – Ninon who loved families, not men – Does Bernhardt really love me?
Loschwitz, April 10, 1901.
Fortunately Bernhardt came for a few days to relieve the monotony of my alcove life par le droit du plus fort.
Tall stories of dissipation, indiscipline, scandal, had preceded the poor fellow. No doubt, his military superiors got orders to make his life as unhappy as they possibly can, and he retaliates.
The Prince told me that, at last, he had succeeded arranging for an audience with the King. His Majesty had denied himself to Bernhardt for months past. He managed the coveted boon only by the intervention of various high generals and the threat to appeal to the Kaiser.
The Royal House of Saxony, while compelled to recognize William as War-Lord, doesn't court his interference, or attempted interference, in matters military.
Flushed with this initial success and expecting lots of good things in the future, Bernhardt was bent upon having a good time. He drank with Frederick Augustus, made love to Lucretia and squeezed the chambermaids on his floor to his heart's content.
To me he was the most gallant of cousins and, glad to contribute to the happiness of the poor fellow, I gave him plenty of rope, perhaps too much.
On the second day of his stay we had a very merry dinner, having dispensed for the time with titled servants.
After dinner the three of us retired to the veranda. I was in a rocker, showing perhaps more of my ankles than was absolutely necessary. Frederick Augustus was smoking dreamily. Like an animal he likes to sleep after he has gorged himself.
Bernhardt, with my permission, had thrown himself on a wicker lounge and was absorbing cigarettes at a killing rate. I bantered him on his laziness. But he only sighed.
"You wish that audience was past and forgotten," I asked.
"Pshaw, I'm thinking of something prettier than the King."
Remembering Bernhardt's chief weakness, I indulged in the old joke, "Cherchez la femme."
Bernhardt replied, with another succession of groans, "You are right, Louise; parfaitement, cherchez la femme."
"Egads," grunted Frederick Augustus, glad for an excuse to go to his room, or play a game of pinochle with his aides, "egads, if you indulge in intellectualities, I had better go. A full stomach and French conversation – whew!"
The Tisch was in Dresden; Fräulein von Schoenberg with the children, Lucretia flirting somewhere at a neighboring country chalet. We were alone on the remote terrace and it was getting dark. Bernhardt sat up and looked at me with eyes of life-giving fire, but continued silent.
"You want me to think that you command the rays of the sun stolen by Prometheus?"
He answered not, but sought to burn the skin of my neck and bosom by those Prometheus rays.
Now, in the morning I got a note from Henry, and I had been thinking of the dear boy every minute. I was longing for him; my heart, my senses were crying for him.
I forgot Bernhardt; I forgot all around me. With my fancies focussed on my lover, I leaned back in my armchair, gazing at the rising moon. My word, at that moment I was lost to everything.
I half-awoke from my dream when I heard Bernhardt rise. A moment later I felt his eyes prowling over my body. Then a shadow darkened my face and Bernhardt said with a strange quaver in his voice:
"Cherchez la femme. You are the woman, Louise, you and none else."
And wild, forbidden kisses burned on my face, on my neck, on my breasts. Both hands claimed a lover's liberties.
I was taken completely unawares; in my mind of minds I was in the Countess's pavilion, receiving Henry's caresses. All sense of location had vanished. And, thinking of my lover, I clasped both arms about Bernhardt's neck and drew him to me. We kissed like mad. The love feast for Henry became Bernhardt's in the twinkling of an eye.
Whether he felt like a thief, I don't know; for my part my senses responded to Henry, not to his substitute.
How long this embrace lasted, I don't know. Somebody, or some noise, caused us to separate.
I fled and locked myself in my room.
"Tell His Royal Highness he must excuse me. I can't see him before he goes away. Say I have a headache, or the gout, I don't care which," I commanded Lucretia next morning.
The previous night I had denied myself to Frederick Augustus, though he entreated and raved.
While I appreciate the arch-Lais's bon mot that "one can't judge of a family by a single specimen," which made Ninon talk of her lovers not as Coligny, Villarceau, Sévigné, Condé, d'Albret, etc., but as les Rochefoucaults, les d'Effiats, les Condés, les Sévignés, etc., I was determined not to betray Henry by the whole House of Saxony in a single twelve-hours.
I wonder whether this Bernhardt loves me? Perhaps, on his part, it was the longing for the girl he adores, as, on mine, it was longing for Henry that drew us together with electric force. And, of course, environment had something to do with it: moon, opportunity, Frederick Augustus's indolent gaucherie. Yes, why deny it, the good dinner we had, the champagne.
CHAPTER XLVIII
GRAND MISTRESS TELLS HUSBAND I KEEP A DIARY
He wants to see it, but seems unsuspecting – Grand Mistress denies that she meant mischief, but I upbraid her unmercifully – Threaten to dismiss her like a thieving lackey.
Loschwitz, May 1, 1901.
Frederick Augustus leaves tomorrow. Forever, I thought, when he put this question to me:
"You are keeping a Diary, Louise?"
I was frightened dumb. I stared at him.
"What's the matter," he laughed. "I'm not going to eat you." He didn't seem to be at all perturbed.
"How do you know I keep a Diary?" I stuttered.
Nonchalantly enough he made answer: "Your bag-of-bones Baroness told me. Full of forbidden things, I suppose, since you regard it a state secret. You often say that my education was sadly neglected. Maybe I can learn a thing or two from your scribblings. Let's look 'm over."
By this time I had regained my composure. "Naturally," I said, "a Diary records thoughts and things intended for the writer only, but if you choose to be ungentlemanly enough to wish to peruse those pages more sacred than private letters, I suppose I will have to submit."
Frederick Augustus changed the subject, but I felt instinctively that he was disappointed. Someone had played on his curiosity, and to go unsatisfied is not at all in this prince's line.
Of course, the someone was the Tisch, but how did she know? I will ask her as soon as Frederick Augustus is gone.
Loschwitz, May 2, 1901.
"Have you ever seen my Diary?" I asked the Tisch this morning.
"Never, Your Imperial Highness."
"Then how do you know I keep a Diary?"
"I surmised it because I saw Your Imperial Highness write repeatedly in one and the same book." The hussy affected a humble tone, but the note of triumph and hatred underlying the creature's meekness did not escape me.
"And the mere surmise prompted you to blab to my husband, arouse his suspicions?"
"For Heaven's sake," cried my Grand Mistress, "I had no idea that His Royal Highness didn't know about the Diary. Secrets between the Prince-Royal and Your Imperial Highness – how dare I pre-suppose such a state of things? His Royal Highness casually asked how the Crown Princess killed time in Loschwitz. I mentioned riding, driving, bicycling, writing letters, writing in the Diary – "
My fingers itched to slap her lying face, Grand-Duchess of Tuscany fashion, but I kept my temper.
"Listen to me," I said. "While you have secret instructions to play the serpent in my household and to betray, for dirty money, your mistress of the Blood Imperial, your duties as a spy are confined to my going and coming, to my exterior conduct, to my visits outside the palace, to my friendships, perhaps.
"They cannot possibly encompass my thoughts. And my Diary is the repository of my thoughts – thoughts that must not be defiled by your favor-seeking curiosity. Be warned. The next time you dare act the burglar – I say burglar– I will kick you out of doors like a thieving lackey."
She got as white as a sheet and hissed back: "Your Imperial Highness can't dismiss me. Only His Majesty has power – "
I interrupted her with an imperious gesture.
"I said I will kick you out of doors like a thieving lackey," I repeated, "and I will do so this moment if you say another word. Whether or not His Majesty will punish me for the act, that's my business. You will be on the street and will stay on the street."
I pointed to the door: "I dismiss you now. You will keep to your room for the rest of the day."
I saw the Tisch was near collapse.
"Your Imperial Highness deigns to insult a defenseless woman," she breathed as she went out.
Defenseless! So is the viper that attacks one's heel! First these "defenseless" creatures goad one to madness, then they appeal to our noblesse oblige. The enmity between the Tisch and I is more intense than ever.
CHAPTER XLIX
ARISTOCRATIC VISITORS
I hear disquieting news about my lover's character – The aristocracy a dirty lot – Love-making made easy by titled friends – Anecdotes of Richelieu and the Duke of Orleans – The German nobleman who married Miss Wheeler and had to resign his birthright – The disreputable business the Pappenheims and other nobles used to be in – I am afraid to question my lover as to charges.
Loschwitz, May 15, 1901.
The Vitzthums have been visiting for a week. Henry lodges in the village, but spends nearly all his time in the castle and grounds. We play tennis, polo, ball; we drive, ride, go bicycling, we dine and sup together.
I ought to be the happiest woman in the world, but a shadow dims the ideal picture my mind's eye drew of the lover.
I have it recorded somewhere – I wish I hadn't, so I might doubt my memory – that Henry told me he never borrowed from his sister. Countess Vitzthum's confidences to me show that he did repeatedly, that, in fact, he is forever trying to borrow.
"He is a spendthrift; he cannot be trusted," said his sister, who loves him dearly. "He will wreck his career if he continues at the pace he is going. Some day we may hear of him as a waiter or cab-driver in New York."
These disclosures frightened me. I might forgive him the lie, but what is he doing with the money?
Spending it on lewd women like Bernhardt, I suppose.
I said: "Oh," and Madame von Vitzthum seemed to catch its significance. It occurred to her at once that she had said too much and she tried to minimize her brother's delinquencies. But I know.
Maybe some of my money went to pay hotel expenses for —
At Midnight.
My cousin Richelieu caused his mistresses to be painted in all sorts of monastic garments and licentious devices, saying: "I have my saints and martyrs; they are all that; but, as for virgins, there are none outside of Paradise." Substitute paillards for the holy ones and you have the situation in a nutshell.
The Vitzthums are panderers. They always manage to leave me alone with Henry. When we are a-wheel, they ride a mile ahead; while playing tennis one or the other aims the ball, every little while, to enter the open window of a summer-house, where my lover and I can exchange a few rapid kisses. When we are driving, without coachman or groom, of course, they always "feel like walking a bit," while Henry and I remain in the carriage.
The same at the house, on the veranda. They are always de trop. Vitzthum even sacrifices himself to the extent of paying court to the Tisch and engaging her entire attention, if it must be. He reminds me of a certain colonel of the French army during the Regency.
"Monseigneur," said this gentleman to my cousin d'Orleans, "permit me to employ my regiment as a guard for my wife, and I swear to you that nobody shall go near her but Your Highness."
Of course, it's very lovely of them, but rather emphasizes the poor opinion I have of the nobility.
Your nobleman and noblewoman adopt all tones, all airs, all masks, all allures, frank and false, flattering and brutal, choleric or mild, virtuous or bawdy – anything as long as it makes for their profit. Some months ago I met at the Dresden court the Dowager Countess Julie Feodorowna of Pappenheim, who told everybody she could persuade to listen that her eldest son, Max Albrecht, had to resign the succession, because he married beneath him, an American heiress, Miss Wheeler of Philadelphia.
"Then you despise money?" I queried with a malicious thought just entering my head.
"Not exactly, Your Imperial Highness," she said, "but our house laws – "
"Those funny house laws," I smiled, "you don't say they forbid a Pappenheim to accept half a dozen millions from his wife, when, in days gone by, the Counts of Pappenheim's chief income was the tax on harlotry in Franconia and Swabia."
The Countess nearly dropped. "Don't be alarmed," I said. "See the pompous looking man in the corner yonder? It's Count Henneberg. His forbears held the fiefship of the Würzburg city brothel for many hundred years. That's where the family fortune came from."
Loschwitz, May 17, 1901.
I am an ingrate. I bit the hand that fed me. Noble iniquity that yields such delicious crumbs of love as Henry and I stole in moments of ecstasy in park and parlor, in pavilion and veranda, on our drives and rides, be blessed a hundred times. Ah, the harvest of little tendernesses, the sweet words I caught on the wing – recompense for the weeks of abstinence I suffered!
Occasionally only, very occasionally, I feel like questioning Henry as to the lie he was guilty of. I quizzed his sister time and again about his relations with women. She always gives me a knowing laugh; I wonder whether she means to be impertinent, or is simply a silly goose.
I won't ask him. If he is innocent, as I sincerely hope, he will be offended. If he is not, he will be ashamed of himself and will avoid me in future. It's "innocent," you lose, and "guilty," you don't win.
And I love him. I want him, whether he lies to me or not.
CHAPTER L
TO LIVE UNDER KING'S AND PRINCE GEORGE'S EYE
Abruptly ordered to the royal summer residence – The Vitzthums and Henry take flight – Enmeshed by Prince George's intrigues – Those waiting for a crown have no friends – What I will do when Queen – No wonder Kings of old married only relatives – Interesting facts about relative marriages furnished by scientist.
Loschwitz, May 18, 1901.
All-highest order to proceed to Pillnitz, the royal summer residence, without delay – a command I cannot possibly evade. Conveyed in curt, almost insulting terms – the Tisch's work, no doubt.
It came like lightning out of a blue sky, just when Henry and I had planned some real love-making à la Dresden.
The Vitzthums lost no time taking their leave when the scent of royal disgrace was in the air, and, as if to emphasize the obscene office they had assumed, they spirited Henry away ere we had time even to say goodbye.
What a life I am leading with the ogre of the King's wrath forever hanging over me; Prince George's intrigues, octopus-like, enmeshing me!
Ten years I have been Crown Princess of these realms. Three Princes and a Princess I gave to Saxony. A fifth child is trembling in my womb, yet every atom of happiness that falls to my lot is moulded into a strand of the rope fastening 'round my neck.
I haven't a friend in the world. A most dangerous thing to be on good terms with the heirs to the crown. Makes the temporary incumbent of the bauble nervous, makes him jealous.
When I am Queen, I will have friends in plenty. But then I won't need any. Immense wealth will be at my disposal. I will have offices to distribute, titles, crosses and stars.
Instead of tolerating the serpents now coiling at my fireside ready to spring at a word from their master, I will appoint to court offices persons I love or esteem, at least.
Henry shall be my Chief Equerry; the Tisch will be dismissed in disgrace – no pension.
But I am day-dreaming again. I started out to say that I had no friends. Yet there's Bernhardt? Precisely – as long as I am his mistress.
Marie is dead, Melita expects to be divorced before the end of the year. She will be a Russian Grand-Duchess, and the tedium of petty German court life will know her no longer.
Aside from Lucretia, there isn't a man or woman at the Saxon court whom I can trust, for our high functionaries are only lackeys having a bathroom to themselves. In no other way do they differ from the servants who are allowed one bathroom per twenty-four heads.
But the high aristocracy! Its men and women flatter us to get us into leading strings, try to make us pawns on the political or social chess-board. As a whole, they are a despicable lot.
No wonder kings of old married members of their own family exclusively, even their sisters, in re of which the learned Baron von Reitzenstein told me many interesting details.
He copied especially from Egyptian records, but also from Armenian, Babylonian and Persian, to wit:
Daranavausch married his niece, Phratunga.
His son and successor married his niece Artayanta.
Artaxerxes was also married to a niece of his.
Darius II and Parysatis married their sisters.
Kambyses married two of his sisters.
Artachschasa II married his two daughters; Kobad his daughter Sambyke.
Artaviraf, the founder of a great ancient religion, married no less than seven of his sisters – because "there were no other women worthy of the honor."
According to that, the aristocracy of old must have been as rotten as that of our day.
Lucretia is the only person I trust, and they would have robbed me of her services long ago if my marriage contract did not vest the power of dismissal in me.
Unlike me, she can afford to defy the King's wrath.
CHAPTER LI
COLD RECEPTION – ENEMIES ALL AROUND
Frederick Augustus gives his views on adultery – Doesn't care personally, but "the King knows" – "Thank God, the King is ill" – I am deprived of my children – Have I got the moral strength to defy my enemies?
Pillnitz, May 20, 1901.
I am undone. That malicious Tisch woman holds me in the hollow of her hand.
I dropped into a sea of ice when I set foot in the castle. Long faces, suspicious looks, frigidity everywhere. The King treats me like a criminal. I wonder the guards don't refuse their spiel at my coming and going.
Pillnitz, May 21, 1901.
Frederick Augustus arrived. He doesn't say for how long, and acts the icicle in the presence of others. At night he seeks his "rights," seeks them brutally.
This afternoon he said to me:
"That you made me a cuckold isn't exactly killing me; this sort of thing happened to better men than I, and – I was almost prepared for it. But to hear it announced from the King's lips – "
Because His Majesty knows – Frederick Augustus raved and swore I had dishonored him.
"If I wasn't a royal prince, I would be kicked out of the army," he whined.
In short, adultery isn't so very reprehensible if the King doesn't know.
Late tonight profound disquietude at court. The King is ill.
Thank God, the audience I feared must be postponed.
Pillnitz, May 22, 1901.
It wasn't. His Majesty appointed Prince George his representative, and I received a command to call on him at ten sharp.
I wrote on the Court Marshal's brutal invitation: "I refuse to see His Royal Highness."
Ten minutes later the Tisch entered my apartment with a look of triumph on her hateful face. She handed me a letter on a golden plate and waited.
"Your Ladyship is dismissed," I snapped.
She didn't move: "I expect your Imperial Highness's commands with respect to the royal children," she said. "May it please Your Imperial Highness to read Prince George's letter."
I tore open the envelope. His Majesty's representative "graciously permits me to see my children at nine in the morning and between five and six in the afternoon. At no other time, and never unless Baroness Tisch is in attendance."
I threw the letter on the floor and trampled on it. "Get out," I commanded the Baroness. If she hadn't gone instantly, I believe I would have choked her.
So I am deemed unworthy to mother the children I bore; and a spy is officially appointed to watch my intercourse with the little ones lest I corrupt them. No other inference was to be drawn from the measure.
"I will show them." But no sooner was the threat launched, than a great fear clutched at my heart.
Was I in a position to defy them? To guard the purity of the royal children "is the King's first duty towards his family." If he had proof positive that I was an impure woman, there was no use quarrelling with his decision. Besides, moral delinquencies engender more than physical weakness. I felt my boasted energy ebbing away fast.
"I am without strength, unnerved, because Henry left me," I lied to myself. The abandoned woman is either a tigress or a kitten. I happen to be no tigress.