CHAPTER IV

DIVERSIONS OF THE KAISER’S DAUGHTER

Shortly after our return to the Neues Palais a small niece of the Empress, the child of her sister the Duchess of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburg, came to spend a week or two with her cousin. Her visit marked the last expiring effort of the Princess to take an interest in her dolls, of which she possessed many very beautiful specimens.

But though she was an amused spectator of the unflinching realism with which Princess May--an inventive child whose doll-children suffered many and varied experiences--shaped the fragments of her dream of human life, the stormy cross-channel journeys, the illnesses and cheerful funerals of her large family, it was plain to see that she was not in any sense a real partaker in the small comedies and dramas.

Live animals had always from babyhood been her great passion. On dogs and horses she lavished all the superfluous affection of her heart. Dolls had never been to her more than a transitory amusement, thrust on her by other people rather than chosen by herself. She was exceedingly hurt at receiving one the following Christmas, sent by an affectionate but injudicious aunt. It nerved her to make a clean sweep of the whole lot, and they were divided among various children’s hospitals. The Empress sighed over this further emancipation of her small daughter, but saw its inevitability.

About this time the Emperor, who was staying a few days at Cadinen, his country house in East Prussia, where he carries out farming operations on a large scale, sent the Princess a present after her own heart--a tiny dimpled pigling of tender years. From my bedroom window I suddenly caught sight of this infant swine as, looking newly scrubbed and washed, with a bit of blue ribbon tied round the tender curve of his tail, he sprinted across the Hof pursued by several footmen and the two Princesses, who had decreed that exercise must be necessary for him after his cramping railway journey in a tiny crate. Viewing his innocent infantine chubbiness as he darted between the legs of the pursuing lackeys, even the sentries on duty were forced to relax their military sternness and smile at his baby antics as he rushed about, evading capture for a time.

The Princess was charmed with “Papa’s _Scherkel_,” and rather annoyed at not being allowed to have him in her own rooms; but he was comfortably installed in the stable at Lindstedt, a villa belonging to the Emperor standing close to the gate of the Neues Palais, where, being a pig of placid disposition, he put on flesh at a rapid rate, quickly losing the innocent gaiety of his early days, and developed weight and fatness day by day, so that towards Christmas the usual tragic fate of pigs befell him. His mistress suffered no sentimental regrets with regard to his death, eating without a qualm the savoury sausages he provided and retaining a grateful memory of the nice sum he brought her--for naturally, although she never paid for his keep, she demanded and received the sum for which the butcher purchased his remains.

“I wish Papa would give me another pig,” she has been heard to sigh when money was scarce. “He was so useful.”

But no other pig arrived. He remained the first and last of his tribe.

The Duchess of Albany and her daughter Princess Alice (now Princess Alexander of Teck) were for a short time living in Potsdam, while the young Duke of Coburg, the son of the Duchess, was undergoing his year of military training. He afterwards went as a student to Bonn at the same time as the Crown Prince and Prince Fritz--and eventually married the eldest sister of little Princess May of Glucksburg, while her second sister, Princess Alexandra, married her cousin Prince August Wilhelm, the fourth son of the Emperor.

Princess Alice of Albany and her mother were great favourites at the Neues Palais, and frequently visited the Empress. One day they were invited to meet her at the Marmor Palais, the palace formerly occupied by Their Majesties when they were first married, before their accession to the throne. It had remained empty since that time, though now occupied when they are in Potsdam by the Crown Prince and Princess and their family of little boys.

Beautifully situated about two miles away from the Neues Palais, on the border of a lake (the _Heiligen-See_), it was there that the Empress passed the happiest years of her married life, and that most of her children were born. She always revisited it with much pleasure mingled with many regrets.

A large party of children had been invited, as it was the Princess’s birthday; and after playing madly about in the garden, they all had tea in the big marble dining-room which overlooked the lake, where swans were sailing majestically up and down the clear blue water. After tea Princess Alice invented a delightful new game for the children. The idea was to put on the enormous felt slippers provided for the boots of the tourists who come to inspect the palace, so that they may not scratch the beautifully polished inlaid parquet floors; and when everybody had stuck their feet into these enormous over-shoes, they began skating madly after each other, headed by Princess Alice, rushing round and round the various salons which opened out of each other, so that they could keep up the race without interruption. The sight of so many rather small people with such disproportionately large feet tearing after each other at break-neck speed was irresistibly comic, and the Empress and the Duchess were convulsed with laughter. It was rather a violent game for a warm September day, but when they grew tired of it they still played, with the greatest energy, musical chairs, post, and blind man’s buff, the sun pouring gaily in at the windows all the time.

A month or so after this party took place, about the middle of November, the weather suddenly changed. It began to freeze hard, and for six weeks there was ice everywhere, and everybody was able to indulge in skating.

When the lessons were over we used to jump into a carriage with our skates and were driven to Charlotten-Hof, a small palace in the park of Sans Souci, where was a large sheet of water now converted into the most beautiful black ice. Nobody was particularly expert on skates, but all were keen to learn; and the Princess and Prince Joachim, after a great many tumbles, managed to get along at a good pace, though their style was hardly of the best. The weather kept beautifully clear, with very little snow, and there were some very merry skating parties, including the late Sir Robert Collins, gentleman-in-waiting to the Duchess of Albany, a very graceful expert performer on the ice, and Lady Collins, who like the rest of us did not skate very well, but perseveringly kept on trying. The Governor of the Prince made many attempts to learn, but never got much farther than an ungainly shuffle, for which he always apologized, saying that at any rate it kept him from freezing.

Sometimes the Crown Prince would bring a few of his friends to play hockey, but as no one knew much about rules it was rather a wild and dangerous game.

The most uncomfortable moments spent on the slippery surface, however, were those when the Emperor in his warm grey cavalry cloak, surrounded by a party of adjutants and officers, was seen wending his way in our direction. Inexpert performers realized the extreme risk of trying to bow to Majesty on skates, and invariably fled to the shelter of a small island covered with bushes which was in one corner of the lake.

Misfortunes in the way of tumbles caused an unholy joy in the Emperor’s heart. It pleased him to see people lose their dignity; and on one occasion, when Princess Alice and I, skating with great dash and confidence hand-in-hand, came after a convulsive flounder to a sudden fall, the Imperial laughter floated most whole-heartedly and derisively over our prostrate bodies.

Ladders and ropes were always laid ready on the bank in case of accident; and one afternoon when Prince Oscar was with us--having come over from Ploen for a few days--he and the Princess decided to practise a little life-saving. I on my skates represented to the best of my ability the victim of an ice catastrophe, lying down and clutching at the rope, which after many misdirected efforts they managed to throw in my direction; but when it came to pulling me out, although I was not _in_, but already _on_ the surface of the ice, their well-meant endeavours only resulted in themselves being dragged backwards accompanied by shrieks of laughter, while I remained exactly where I had been before. Somebody must have mentioned this attempt to the Emperor, for the next day when he came to the ice he wanted to know how I liked being “rescued.”

“They didn’t rescue me one inch, Your Majesty,” I was obliged to reply; “I should have been drowned ten times over.”

He chuckled very much over this failure to pull me along, and would, I am sure, have liked to see the experiment repeated in his presence.

“And you so thin and light!” he laughed as he departed.

Another game of hockey was played one afternoon, but not this time on the ice. Five of the princes took part in it--the Crown Prince and Prince Fritz captaining their respective sides. It was a wild, weird game. The Princess after many entreaties had been allowed to play “for a short time” on Prince Fritz’s side, together with a few young officers, the French teacher of Prince Joachim, and a Kammer-Herr of Her Majesty, who thought he would like to take part in the game. He said later that it was the first and last time he ever played or desired to play hockey.

The game took place on the broad drive in front of the Palace, and the only rule which guided it was a feverish desire on everybody’s part to send the ball into the opposite goal. There was no referee, no off-side, nobody was more of a “forward” than a “back,” and anybody kept goal who happened to be near enough to it; but the play was permeated by a fine and splendid enthusiasm which atoned for many shortcomings. The German sporting instinct was there sure enough, undeveloped and somewhat dormant it may be, but none the less ready to germinate under favourable conditions. Some players emerged rather battered from the fray. The French tutor had fallen and scraped his chin on the gravel, the Kammer-Herr had, as the result of a blow, a swollen knuckle which kept him company some weeks, while Prince Oscar limped slightly for the rest of the day.

One of the tiresome ceremonies incident to royal existence is the incessant turning out of the guard whenever any one of royal or princely blood emerges into view of the sentry. This became especially worrying when the children happened to wander about backwards and forwards between the two “Hofs.” One heard a clatter of bootsoles as the soldiers, perhaps in the middle of eating their soup, rushed out, seized their weapons from the rack where they stood, and formed up in line in stiff military attitudes presenting arms at the word of command. It was usual for the Governor of Prince Joachim, who was himself a Captain in the army, to give a signal to the guard that these honours were for the nonce in abeyance, or the Princess or Prince--if they remembered--might do the same.

In the first week of her visit, Princess May of Glucksburg, who was running about between the Mopke and the Kleiner Hof, noticed the unusual restlessness of the guard, who were in and out of the guard-house every five minutes or less; but it was some time before she connected their movements with herself, being absorbed in giving “Jacky,” the Princess’s dog, a ride in a small hand-cart. She had hitherto led a quiet life in the ancestral Schloss away in the country, untrammelled by guards or sentries of any kind.

When she realized that these honours were being lavished on her own small person, and that she ought to have waved her finger backwards and forwards at the soldiers in sign of dismissal, she was much abashed, and as she was far too shy to shake her finger at any one, preferred to choose a more retired spot in which to play.

Besides the Turkish ponies before mentioned, the Prince and Princess possessed two very small mouse-coloured Sicilian donkeys given to them by the King of Italy, each of which drew a small Sicilian cart, painted in gay colours with scenes from the lives of the saints. These animals wore red brass-studded harness, and nodding plumes made of cock-feathers dyed crimson waved from their heads. They made a very pretty picture as they ambled one behind the other over the wide Mopke, and often when children were invited to spend the afternoon the donkey-carts were requisitioned. They were a continual source of joy to small visitors and of acute anxiety to those in charge; for in spite of their innocent looks and their small size, the donkeys were the least docile animals that could be imagined, and as the carts were rather small and top-heavy, there was constant danger of an upset. Sometimes the donkeys, after a spell of good behaviour, would start running away, or suddenly make preparations to lie down, the children falling out of the cart like a small avalanche. After the animals had taken a short rest--for nothing would make them get up before they felt inclined--they would start merrily off again, and the Governor and I, who were too heavy for the carts, had to keep on running after them, “faint yet pursuing,” be the weather as hot as it might.

The way those beasts whizzed the carts round corners on only one wheel was nothing short of phenomenal, and they possessed a diabolical strength which set at naught any efforts of the groom who was supposed to control them in case of need. One day the little terrier “Jacky” took it into his head to bite one of the donkeys, who immediately went helter-skelter over the flower-beds, dragging the empty cart behind him as well as the unlucky stable-man who happened to be holding the reins and fell down at an early stage of the proceedings. Fortunately it happened in a small enclosed garden surrounded by high hedges, but it might have been a serious business if one or two soldiers had not happened to be passing and helped us to restrain the donkey, who kicked and capered and waltzed over the rose-bushes, jerking the man after him, his face cut, his clothes torn, while the iniquitous “Jacky,” delighted at the performance, raged round in a frenzy of barking, doing all he could to urge the poor terrified donkey to fresh efforts.

Happily, when the long-expected accident arrived, it happened under Her Majesty’s immediate notice, so that she was at once convinced of the danger to the children of these ill-trained little creatures, and ordered that they should never appear again. They were sent to the country and employed on the land in regular work, which was what they needed. The Princess was the one who suffered, being tipped out of the cart and sustaining a rather severe cut on her knee, involving a three days’ suspension of lessons and complete repose of the injured limb--rather a severe trial for such an active child.

In wet or frosty weather, the rides in the forest had to be given up, and we were forced to take horse-exercise in the _Reit-Bahn_ or big covered riding-school attached to the Royal Mews or _Marstall_. A layer of sawdust covered the floor of the _Bahn_, and our _Sattel-Meister_, Herr Casper, professed himself delighted to have the opportunity of furthering our equestrian education. We took lessons in making “voltes” and circles at the word of command, in “passaging”; we galloped and trotted and enjoyed ourselves immensely, while the rain beat outside or the snow fell in thick flurries. The _Bahn_ was furnished with mirrors in which we could get glimpses of ourselves as we cantered past. Sometimes the Empress and one of her ladies also rode with us. Her Majesty is very fond of horse exercise, and though not enamoured of cross-country riding, still enjoys a good stretching canter.

Nowhere are there better opportunities for this than in the neighbourhood of Potsdam. Every road, with its beautiful row of trees on either hand, possesses a carefully kept sandy riding-track on one side. Then there are immense woods and the Government forest, all unenclosed, and unfenced fields where one can canter to heart’s desire along excellent riding-paths. The whole of Central Germany, more especially the Mark Brandenburg, in which Berlin and Potsdam are situated, is one vast plain of light sandy soil, made exceedingly fertile by “intensive” cultivation. Watered by the river Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, which expands into five great lakes surrounding the town, Potsdam is, as Carlyle calls it, an “intricate amphibious region,” more water than land, partaking, though a peninsula, of the nature of an island. Its inhabitants indulge largely in swimming and boating on the placid waters which run up into the streets in irregular creeks and bays. Great beds of rushes skirt the borders of the lakes, while the thick forest comes down to the water’s edge.

The town itself is picturesque and old-fashioned, with cobbled roads extremely painful to walk upon. Many of its houses were built in the time of Frederick the Great and inhabited by his marshals and generals. Its streets have a somnolent old-world air, and its society is very aristocratic and exclusive, containing as it does the cream of Prussian Junkerdom. Several younger sons of princely houses, officers in the crack regiments of the guards, live with their wives and children in Potsdam. Occasionally, on wet Sundays, some of these little princes and princesses came to spend the afternoon, and “Mimi Hohenzollern,” now married to King Manoel of Portugal, was a fairly frequent guest. One dull November Sunday evening we had an unusual number of children--about twenty--some of them quite small and rather an anxiety, for the nurses and governesses who accompanied them were sent to wait downstairs, while Herr Schmidt in charge of the boys and myself in charge of the little girls were left to cope with all these rather lively young people. They played after tea at circus in the big Turn-Saal at the top of the Palace, where there was plenty of room to romp about, and were just pondering what the next game should be, when Herr Schmidt, inspired by some imp of malice, made the suggestion that they should all go to the theatre in the dark.

The private theatre of the Neues Palais, built by Frederick the Great for the representation of French plays, was situated in the farthest wing of the castle, the way to it lying through chilly, unlit, unwarmed passages. The whole horde of children--hopeful scions of princely houses whose names, though unknown in England, permeate the “Almanac de Gotha,” and occasionally emerge into prominence in connection with some royal or imperial marriage--were rushing like the Gadarene swine towards certain destruction. Those slippery marble staircases! Those shallow balustrades! The darkness and the cold! Terrible “_Schnupfen_"--the devastating colds with which in a steam-heated country one is eternally warring--would be the least evil that could possibly happen to them.

Herr Schmidt, like an overgrown schoolboy, was laughing gleefully at the stampede.

Fortunately they were stopped at the next staircase, where the faint gleam of a lamp served to show the black shadows of the descent, and were brought back, much disappointed, to play a “humdrum game,” as the Princess called it, of hide-and-seek.

The Emperor to his sons was stern enough, and saw that Prince Joachim was shortly despatched to join his brothers at school in Ploen, but towards his little daughter he allowed himself, perhaps unconsciously, to be somewhat lenient.

Her bright alert intelligence evidently responded to something in himself; her constantly exhibited affection, her love for his society flattered him irresistibly, as they would any father in the world. He wrote long letters to her when away, sent her picture-postcards and small trifling presents from places where he was staying. Her first letter to him in English was something of an event, written with the greatest care and after much anxious consultation with me as to the intricacies of “that awful English spelling.” It received an immediate and flattering reply, also in English.

“Papa was delighted with my letter,” she said, her face glowing with happiness.

On every possible opportunity the Emperor liked to have his daughter with him; would seize and carry her off, sticking her bodkin-wise in the carriage between himself and the Empress. He never troubled much if she missed a few lessons. He was no believer in higher education for women.

One afternoon, on a birthday or some other anniversary, the band of the Potsdam Guards had been ordered to perform at the Palace, and as, owing to the heavy rain, they were not able to remain outside on the terrace, they were installed in the large Marmor Saal, where they played before the Emperor and Empress.

His Majesty stood alone in front of the band for some time, moving his body and limbs in time to the music, while the Princess and Prince Joachim, at a distance of a few yards, were doing the same thing, all three wriggling the left leg in time together and looking rather like marionettes jerked by a string.

The bandmaster continued gravely to beat time, when suddenly His Majesty made a sign to one of his adjutants, who immediately handed him a conductor’s baton, and the Emperor began to assist to conduct, while the two children, each raising a forefinger, did their little best also to help.

Some members of the band looked a little surprised at having no less than four conductors and four different time-beats to follow, but after a time they settled down again, and keeping their eyes firmly fixed on the music, played triumphantly to the end.

His Majesty has not a highly cultivated taste in music. He likes something military in style, with well-marked time and rhythm, and Wagner makes no appeal to his tastes.

His patronage of the art has been singularly unfortunate, and all the operatic pieces to which he has stood godfather are always played to very thin houses. He comforts himself by inveighing against the want of musical taste shown by Berlin audiences. The critics treat these pieces with contempt, ignoring their existence, and the newspapers publish a bare announcement that they have been performed, and make no further comment.

Within the last two years the Emperor has had an Opera constructed as a setting for various dances performed in Corfu by the peasants there. At great expense the Director of the Opera-House has had to send professionals to study the various dances on the spot, to copy the Corfiote costumes, and to paint the scenery of the island. But transplanted from Corfu and its picturesque surroundings to the Berlin Opera-stage, these dances appear excessively dull and meaningless, and are not in the least redeemed by the accompanying music founded on ancient Greek melodies.

This opera was played before King George and Queen Mary on the last evening of their stay in Berlin, two days after the wedding of the Emperor’s daughter.

None of the children of the Kaiser, with the exception of the Crown Prince, who learned to play the violin fairly well, have ever mastered any musical instrument. For some years the Princess made strenuous efforts to learn the piano, but in spite of her love of music she was never able to play even the simplest piece approximately correctly. Various professors of the art came and went--came with the joyous glow caused by the honour of teaching royalty, only to retire baffled after a few lessons.

At last, when the Princess was about fourteen, she gave up the unequal contest, and refused to waste more time in efforts to attain the unattainable.

Occasionally she has been heard to reproach any of her companions who had no yearnings after musical instruction.

“You don’t want to learn the piano? But supposing you happen to marry a musical husband, whatever should you do if you couldn’t play to him?”

“Well, he would probably be happier if I didn’t play to him,” replied one child of conspicuous good sense.

This observation helped the Princess to realize that piano playing of the baser sort was not a necessary ingredient of happy matrimony, and she shortly afterwards renounced further ambitions in that direction.

Nor in the domain of painting and drawing, though fond of both, did she accomplish anything noteworthy, as she did not possess the necessary perseverance and patience, and was always too eager to arrive at the effect; so that her pictures, like her music, always promised something that was never realized. For outdoor sketching she professed a great affection, but it was probably the “outdoorness” more than the sketching that she really loved.

As a child, animals, particularly horses, were her great passion, and she paid many Sunday afternoon visits to Busch’s Circus in Berlin, where a large party of little boys and girls were also invited to fill up the royal box.

The Berlin populace who crowd the Circus on Sundays were delighted to see the “_Kleine Prinzessin_,” as they loved to call her, enjoying herself in their midst.

Tea was always served after the performance in the flower-bedecked room behind the box, where the _Herr Cirkus-Direktor_ appeared in his dress suit to receive the thanks and congratulations of the Princess, who asked interested questions about the performing horses and told him how beautifully her own little Arab mare could do the “Spanish trot.” She enjoyed these circus performances and the sawdust and smells, and the faces of the good Berliners turned as one man towards the royal box in the intervals. Then there was the return to the station through the big Sunday crowd along the Linden, where the people stood patiently waiting to see the carriages pass, waving pocket-handkerchiefs and bowing, and shouting “_Hoch lebe die kleine Prinzessin_,” and wearing those expansive smiles, all of the same width and pattern, to which one soon grew accustomed as part of the Sunday performance.

And if it was not the circus then it was the theatre--_Wilhelm Tell_ or _Wallenstein_, or sometimes on special occasions even the Opera. It is not known at what age the Princess was first introduced to Opera, but it must have been at a very early one. She was quite an old _habituée_ when I first knew her.

When Beerbohm Tree came with his company to Berlin for a week or ten days, to show the Germans something about stage-management, the Empress wished the Princess to see the English actor, but feared there was nothing very suitable in his _répertoire_. However, after carefully re-reading _Richard II_ she decided that it was a very suitable play for stimulating historical interest, and the Princess, to her joy, accompanied Their Majesties. She was delighted with Miss Viola Tree, who, as the Queen, came riding on to the stage on a gallant white horse in gorgeous trappings--one that belonged to the royal stables and had often eaten sugar from the Princess’s hand. She saw Beerbohm Tree as Richard II dying in his dungeon, and was able next day to reproduce exactly his words, his gestures, even the peculiar characteristic tones of his voice, for she had great gifts of mimicry, and her talent ranged from the imitation of the antics of “Sally,” the pet chimpanzee of the Berlin “Zoo,” to the dignified gestures of a Julius Cæsar.

Beerbohm Tree’s stay in Berlin must have been fraught to him with peculiar anxiety, for on the Sunday (when he gave two performances) all his German scene-shifters deserted him to go to the funeral of a notable Socialist, and he was left to grapple as he could with the situation. There were terribly long waits between the scenes of _Antony and Cleopatra_, at which Their Majesties were present, and once the curtain went up prematurely, revealing British stage-carpenters among the splendours of ancient Egypt.

The visits of the Princess to the theatre often involved the “Intendant” or Director in some anxiety, as he was asked by the Empress to select some play which would be, if not suitable, at least inoffensive: for on this point the Empress was very particular. One Director, wishing to please in this respect, had struck out of the piece the only line he could find capable of offence, but was assured by one of His Majesty’s adjutants that there was another part which he was certain ought to be slightly altered, though he couldn’t quite recollect where it came in. The unfortunate Director spent every spare moment up to the performance trying to run to ground the objectionable lines, but never was able to find them, as they did not exist, and had only been suggested to him out of “pure cussedness” by the wicked adjutant in question, who chuckled with unholy pleasure at the success of his little joke--especially when he found two of the court ladies feverishly searching the pages of their Schiller with the hope of helping the Director in his quest.

The Berlin Opera House, which stands only a few yards from the Royal Schloss, was built by Frederick the Great, and though a fine building, is hardly up-to-date in its accommodation for either performers or audience. After the terrible theatre-fire in Chicago where, for want of adequate exits, many lives were lost, very hideous iron staircases were constructed outside it by order of the Emperor; and these, while giving perhaps some additional sense of security to the audience, altogether spoil the appearance of the building--which His Majesty is anxious to replace by a new one constructed on modern lines in a style of architecture suitable to its surroundings.

A Berlin Opera audience is not conspicuous for smartness, and a few years ago morning blouses and tweed skirts, with a pair of rather weary white kid gloves, were considered by the ladies as quite sufficient for the _Parkett_ (stalls); but by dint of special orders from the Emperor and the example of a few well-known ladies a decided improvement in dress is now observable. Officers in their uniforms are plentifully besprinkled among the audience, as they can get tickets at reduced prices.

Whenever the Emperor’s presence is announced beforehand, no one is admitted who is not in evening dress. This order was for a time not strictly enforced, and a good proportion of the audience even after repeated warnings habitually ignored it; but on one occasion all whose dress did not come up to the required standard--ladies whose gown was not _ausgeschnitten_, men who had omitted to put on the regulation suit--were politely but firmly refused admission and advised to go home again and change! There was much anger and heart-burning, but no one now fails to obey the imperial mandate.

On the Emperor’s birthday, and when the visits of foreign potentates take place, no tickets are sold and the seats are occupied entirely by guests invited by His Majesty. A splendidly brilliant spectacle is presented on these occasions. The whole house is decorated with wreaths of flowers, the _Parkett_ filled entirely with the gentlemen of the Diplomatic Corps, Ambassadors and envoys from the remotest parts of the world. Chinese mandarins in yellow silk robes, wearing peacocks’ feathers in their caps, Turks and Egyptians in red fezes, all mingle with the uniforms of every existing army into a wonderful mass of scintillating colour. The ladies on these occasions are seated in the dress circle, in a line with the Royal Box which is crowded with princely personages.

Before the entrance of the Emperor and Empress the Intendant of the Theatre in full uniform comes to the front of the box and taps loudly three times on the floor with his wand of office, and at once that queer gabbling jargon of incoherent sound which rises from a crowd of people talking together is suddenly hushed into a complete silence, in which Their Majesties with their guests slowly advance, bow to the audience and take their places.

I invariably received a ticket for a stage box on these occasions, the best possible place for an uninterrupted view of the house.

From this point of vantage at different times I saw many notable royal personalities, among others the late King Edward with Queen Alexandra, who visited Berlin the year before the King’s death. The performance on these occasions was always short and not too absorbing, and on King Edward’s visit the spectacular play of _Sardanapalus_ was given, which strictly speaking is hardly to be classed with opera at all, consisting as it does of a series of splendid pictures interspersed with songs. The last scene of all is a very realistic and vivid representation of the funeral pyre of Sardanapalus, whither slaves bring all the treasures of the house to be consumed by the fire, which, beginning with little licking tongues of flame, soon spreads to a wide and vivid blaze, in which Sardanapalus and all his household perish.

At the moment before the curtain finally descends the whole stage has the appearance of a glowing furnace threaded with leaping flames and rolling billows of smoke.

King Edward, being very tired with his hard day’s work in Berlin, had indulged in a short nap during the scene, and woke to consciousness at the moment of most intense conflagration, when he was for a few moments much excited and alarmed, believing that the fire was real and wondering why the firemen stationed at the wings had not yet become active. With some difficulty the Empress managed to convince him that there was no danger.