DRESDEN, _June 1, 1896_.

Poor virtuous me, to chide myself, and call myself names for flirting with Count Bielsk--at a distance of twenty feet or more! "I could kick my back," as the Duc de Richelieu--not the Cardinal, but the lover of the Regent's daughters and "every wife's husband"--used to say (only a bit more grossly) when I think what I miss in this dead-alive Dresden.

Darmstadt isn't half as big a town, and the Hesse establishment doesn't compare with ours in magnitude, but what fun Melita is having!

Of course, it isn't _all_ fun, for her husband is a "s.e.xless" thing, and, like the Grand-d.u.c.h.ess Serge of Russia, she would be a virgin, though married for years, if it wasn't for the other.

"The other" is none other but Kyril, the lover of our Dolores,--Kyril isn't exactly pining away when separated from Melita.

Well, Melita wants him all to herself. She wants a divorce. The complacent husband, who is no husband at all, doesn't suit her. Exit Ernest Ludwig--officially. Enter Kyril--legitimately.

She made me reams of confidences, indulged in whole _brochures_ of dissertations on the question of s.e.x. What an ignoramus I am! I didn't understand half she said and was ashamed to ask.

Ernest Ludwig is the most accommodating of husbands. Knows all about Kyril and would gladly shut both eyes if they let him. Melita might, if pressed very hard, for adultery has no terrors for her, but Kyril affects the idealist. Sure sign that he really loves her. If he was mine, I would be afraid of this Kyril. No doubt he is jealous as a Turk.

Last week the three of them had a conference. Lovely to see husband, wife and paramour "in peaceful meeting a.s.sembled" and talk over the situation as if it concerned the Royal stud or something of the sort.

No recriminations, no threats, no heroics; only when Ernest Ludwig submitted that divorce be avoided to save his face as a sovereign, Kyril got a bit excited.

"This is not a question of politics," he said, "or what the dear public thinks. Your wife don't want you; as a matter of fact, she isn't your wife, and since we are in love with each other, we ought to marry."

"Marry, marry, why always marry?" demanded the Grand-duke. "I acknowledge that I haven't the right to interfere in my wife's pleasure--I am not built that way. Well, I _don't_ interfere. What more do you want? You don't deny that I am the chief person to be considered."

"You?" mocked Kyril. "You with your sovereignty are not in it at all. If it wasn't for you, Melita and I could marry and say no more about it."

"But I don't prevent your enjoyment of each other," pleaded the ruler of the Hessians.

Now the idealistic Kyril got on his high horse. "Grand-duke," he said, "if you don't object to your wife having a lover, that's your business.

For my part, I object to my paramour having a husband."

And so on _ad infinitum_, and a goose like me abuses herself for a bit of goo-goo-eyeing.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

MORE ABOUT THE SWEET ROYAL FAMILY LIFE

"Closed season" for petty meannesses--A prince who enjoys himself like a pig--Why princes learn trades--A family dinner to the accompaniment of threats and smashing of table--The Duke's widow and children robbed of their inheritance by royal family--King confiscates testament.

LOSCHWITZ, _September 13, 1896_.

They are treating me like a laying hen. Expect another golden egg in December. Hence, "closed season" for imperious commands, "all-highest"

orders and petty meannesses.

When I learned that Bernhardt was in Dresden, I phoned him to come out and see me--without asking either royal, princely, or the Tisch's permission.

A junior prince, without fortune or high protector, is really to be pitied. His t.i.tle, the vague possibility that some day he may be called to the throne, stand between him and enjoyment of life as a man. Nothing left, but to enjoy himself like a pig.

Bernhardt admits it. "They planted me in the G.o.d-forsakenest hole in the kingdom. If I saw a pretty woman in my garrison from one year's end to the other, I would die of joy. And the newspaper scribblers wonder why we are all Oscar Wildes.

"Just to kill time, I am learning the carpenter's trade--this Royal Highness, you must know, lives in a carpenter's house, as innocent of sanitary arrangements as a Bushman's hut. Of course, I run away every little while to Dresden, incog. to pay my respects to Venus.

"Louise," he cried with comic emphasis, "may the three hours you steal from my girl, by way of this visit, be deducted from your eternal beat.i.tude."

I lent the poor fellow five hundred marks and he rushed back to Dresden.

Tonight I told Frederick Augustus of my interview with Bernhardt, not mentioning the five hundred, of course.

He laughed. "He's no worse than the rest of us used to be," he said. "I did exactly like him, and father and uncle and brothers and cousins, ditto. Behold--your husband-locksmith! Max spent all his time reading the Lives of the Popes. That made him the dried-up mummy he is. But, believe me, I gave the girls many a treat. All the money I could beg, borrow or steal went for girls."

Which explains Frederick Augustus's bedroom manners--sometime transplanted to the parlor.

DRESDEN, _January 1, 1897_.

I gave Saxony a third prince on December 9, and really I wasn't quite in condition to be scolded at today's family dinner. But since, with three boys growing up, the succession is more than guaranteed, the season for insults is again open.

His Majesty, our most gracious, sublime, etc., sovereign, sulks.

Consequently the family looks glum, down in the mouth, utterly unhappy.

Max gets up to make a speech and one could fairly see the lies wriggle out of his mouth full of defective teeth: exemplary family life; traditional friendship of all members for each other; perfect unity; the King and all the princes brave as lions; the Queen and all the princesses paragons of virtue. And the fatherly love with which the King embraces us all; his more than royal generosity; his mildness, his Christian virtues!

The Queen is a goose. Max's lying commonplaces make her forget her many years of misery spent at this court, and she grows as sentimental as a kitten. Fat Mathilda, Isabelle and Johann George applaud Max despite their better understanding, and now the King rises to make his usual New Year's address.

The gist of his long-winded remarks is this: "I am the lord, your master, and I will see to it that you--wife, brother, nephews and nieces--will dance as I whistle.

"For obedience to the King is the highest law," he paraphrases Wilhelm,--"strictest, unconditional obedience" (and he gave me a poisoned look) "and let no one forget it, no one." With that he beat the table with his clenched fist, and the whole a.s.semblage turns an accusing eye on me.

DRESDEN, _April 6, 1897_.

They have driven the late Duke of Saxony's wife and children from house and home--put her on the high-road, piling her personal belongings, trunks, wardrobe and knick-knacks outside, too.

She arrived in Dresden and sought refuge with her widowed mother. Her father, a Court-Councillor, dismissed because of the relations between the Duke and his daughter, died of grief and mortification, almost penniless. And the Ducal widow is as poor as the mother--and three children to bring up! Children of the royal blood of Saxony, children sanctioned by the Church of which they prate so much, for there is no doubt that the pair married in secret.

The late Highness kept all his papers in a strong-box, and it's said the King's representative, who searched the safe by Royal orders, found neither acknowledgment of the marriage, nor a last will in favor of the widow and children. Hence, all the Duke's belongings revert to the royal family, and the estate he lived on goes to his next of kin, Johann George.

Johann George, who has more money than he knows what to do with, promptly sent the bailiff after his cousin's wife and children.

"_n.o.blesse oblige_,--the way you interpret the old saying, will advance the cause of monarchy immensely," I said to the official heir.

"Is it any business of mine to support my relatives' mistresses?" I saw he was mad clean through.