The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 07

[She slips out of a side door.]

SCENE III

The PRINCE HEREDITARY OF BAIREUTH, dressed in the French taste of the period, as different as possible from the king's favorite garb, comes in cautiously.

WILHELMINE (aside).

The Prince of Baireuth!

THE PRINCE (aside).

Her very picture! It is the Princess! [Aloud.] I crave Your Highness' pardon that my impatience to deliver the greeting of Your Royal brother the Crown Prince in person—

WILHELMINE

The Prince of Baireuth places me in no slight embarrassment by this early visit.

PRINCE

The visit was not paid to you, Princess, but to this noble and venerable castle, these stairways, these galleries, these winding corridors—it was a visit of recognizance, Your Highness, such as must precede any important undertaking.

WILHELMINE

Then you are preparing to do battle here?

PRINCE

My intentions are not altogether peaceful, and yet, as Princess Wilhelmine doubtless knows, I am compelled to confine myself to a policy of defense solely.

WILHELMINE

And even in this you cannot exercise too much care. [Aside.] The letter is no longer necessary. [Aloud.] How did you leave my brother? In good health? And thoroughly occupied?

PRINCE

The Crown Prince leads a life of the gayest diversity in his exile. He has made of Rheinsberg a veritable little Court of the Muses, devoted now to serious study, now to poetic recreation. We have enjoyed unforgettably beautiful hours there; one would hardly believe that so much imagination could be developed and encouraged on the borders of Mecklenburg! We paint, we build, we model, we write. The regiment which is under the immediate command of our talented Prince serves merely to carry out, by military evolutions, the strategic descriptions of Polybius. In short, I should deeply regret leaving so delightful a spot had it not been for the flattering and important task intrusted to me. Princess, the Crown Prince desires full and true information, obtained at the source, as to the situation of his sister, his mother, here, that he may, if necessary, advise how this situation be improved, how any difficulties may be met.

WILHELMINE

If it became known that I am granting an audience, here in this public hall, to a Prince who has not yet been presented either to my father or to my mother—I could prepare myself for several weeks in Fortress Küstrin.

[She bows and turns as if to go.]

PRINCE

Princess! Then it is really true—that which is whispered, with horror, at every court in Europe? It is true that the King of Prussia tyrannizes not only his court, his entire environment, but his own family as well?

WILHELMINE

Prince, you employ too harsh an expression for what I would rather term merely our own peculiar ceremonial. In Versailles they glide as on butterfly wings over the polished floors. Here we tread the earth with ringing spurs. In Versailles the Royal Family consider themselves but as a merry company, recognizing no ties as sacred save those of congeniality, no bond but that of—unfettered inclination. Here the Court is merely one big middle-class family, where a prayer is said before meat, where the parents must always be the first to speak, where strictest obedience must, if necessary, tolerate even absurdities; where one quarrels, out of one's mutual affection, sometimes—where we even torture one another and make life harder for one another—all out of love—

PRINCE

Princess, I swear to you—this must be changed.

WILHELMINE

And how, pray?

PRINCE

The Crown Prince asked me to employ all conceivable means to free you from this barbarism. I am at your service entirely—command me. His first thought was for your mental needs. How is it with your knowledge of French?

WILHELMINE

The King detests all things foreign, and most of all does he detest

France, her literature, her language.

PRINCE

The Crown Prince is aware of that. He sends you therefore, as a beginning, a member of his Rheinsberg circle, a talkative but very learned little man, a Frenchman, Laharpe by name—

WILHELMINE

All instructors of the French language have been banished from Berlin by strictest order.

PRINCE

Laharpe will come to you without his identity becoming known.

WILHELMINE

That is impossible. No one dare approach me who cannot first satisfy the questioning of the Castle Guard.

PRINCE

Cannot Laharpe instruct you in the apartments of your, Lady-in-waiting,

Fraülein von Sonnsfeld? WILHELMINE. Impossible.

PRINCE

In the Queen's rooms, then.

WILHELMINE

Impossible.