The Secret Memoirs of Bertha Krupp. Fischer Henry William

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СКАЧАТЬ wasn't he the chap who made some Swiss town erect him a monument, omitting the proviso that it must not tumble down?" asked Albert, who sets up as a scholar.

      "Precisely so, and the monument is dust."

      Prince William shook with laughter. "But that's not the question before the house." Willy assumed the oratorical pose favoured by Herr Liebknecht, the Socialist. "Boys," he continued, actually using the German equivalent for the familiar term, "what do you think? Father presumed to find me a wife – me!"

      He repeated the personal pronoun three or four times with increasing emphasis, while beating the board with his clenched fist – a very good imitation of the War Lord himself.

      "I am not beholden to him financially like you, not at all," cried the Crown Prince. "He can keep his miserable fifteen thousand thalers per annum.

      "No," he added quickly, after reflection; "it will be the greater punishment to take his money."

      The Crown Prince continued: "And if father dares propose wife-finding for me, what will he do to you, boys? If he has his way, you won't marry the girl of your choice, but some political or military possibility. There is only one way to prevent it," insisted the Crown Prince. "We must all stand together, declaring our firm determination to do our own wooing without interference from father. He will plead politics, interests of the Fatherland. But for my part, I won't have father impose a wife on me, even if the alliance gained us half of Africa or Persia."

      "And I won't marry a Schleswig," said Eitel.

      "Nor I a Lippe, no matter how much Aunt Vicky cracks up Adolph's family."

      "Now then, all together," declaimed the Crown Prince. "We, Princes Wilhelm, Eitel, Albert, Augustus and Oscar of Prussia, solemnly swear not to have wives imposed upon us for reasons of State or politics, father's threats, entreaties and personal interests notwithstanding."

      The boys repeated the impromptu troth word for word. "Shake on that," said Wilhelm, holding out his hand. And the agreement was so ratified. Then another round of beer on the Duke of Oels.

      As the Princes were draining their Seidels– conspicuous for the emblem of the Borussia Students' Club of Bonn University on the cover – a low whistle was heard outside.

      "The mater," whispered Oscar.

      "Push the Seidels into the centre," commanded the Crown Prince, helping vigorously. He pushed a concealed button and the centre of the table with its contents disappeared through an opening in the floor, while another set with glasses of lemonade and cakes shot into its place, the floor likewise filling up again.

      The Princes were petrified with amazement. "Duplicate of the Barbarina table de confiance," explained the big brother; "had it secretly copied and installed without my Grand Master being the wiser."

      This sort of table was invented by Frederick the Great for tête-à-tête confidences with Barbarina, the famous Italian beauty.

      The sight of the lemonade made the Empress radiant. "And I had been told that you were up to all sorts of tricks," she said apologetically. And to the Crown Prince: "I am so glad you are setting your younger brothers a good example."

      "Always, mother, always," vowed Wilhelm. "Believe me, if these boys were as abstemious as I, they would save fortunes out of their lieutenant's allowance."

      "I came to prepare you for our visitor, Fraulein Bertha Krupp," began the Empress.

      "A mere kid, isn't she?" cried Eitel in his most blasé air.

      "Don't let your father hear that," said the Empress severely; and again addressing the Crown Prince, she continued: "She is quite a young lady, well educated and excellently well brought up. Father wants us all to be particularly nice to his ward – treat her as one of the family."

      "I say, mother," interrupted Eitel, "is there to be anything in the way of a matrimonial alliance between a Hohenzollern and the granddaughter of the Essen blacksmith? If so, mark me for the sacrifice. Judged by her photos, Bertha is a bonnie girl, with plenty of life; wouldn't I have a thousand and one uses for her money. To begin with, I would buy myself a hundred saddle horses and a gold wrist-watch, such as English officers wear, also a yacht."

      "Not a word about mésalliance!" The Empress had grown red in the face, and Eitel made haste to apologise. Putting his arm around his mother's shoulders, he kissed her on the cheek and pleaded: "Mother, fancy his Royal Highness, Prince Eitel Frederick of Prussia, marrying anyone not of the blood royal! Of course I was joking. Just tell us, Willy and me, what ought to be done about that little commoner due to-morrow, and big brother and I will see to it that your commands are obeyed to the letter." This with a threatening look upon the younger boys.

      "I thought father's injunction to treat her like one of the family would suffice. It means that you must not let her see the gulf between such as she is and Royalty. Show her the sights, but don't boast of anything we've got. Father says she can duplicate the Schloss and Neues Palais, all our palaces with all they contain, without considerable damage to her purse."

      "But if none of us is going to marry the little-big gold mine, and as papa is her guardian and can do as he likes with Bertha, what's the use of truckling to her?" asked Augustus, who has a logical mind.

      The Empress who, as a rule, is not good at repartee, immediately replied as if she had foreseen the question. As a matter of fact, the War Lord had thoroughly coached her in what to say.

      "Augustus," she replied, "of course your father's will is law with Bertha as with everybody else; but in this case he would rather coax than otherwise, for in a few years, you see, she will attain her majority, and might insist upon taking the bit between her teeth, if in the interval she had been driven too hard."

      "Eminently correct," said the Crown Prince. "I endorse every word you say, Mother, and if these youngsters don't want to understand they needn't. They will be made to do as you suggest."

      CHAPTER VIII

      STORIES OF COURT LIFE

      Musical Honours for Bertha – Bertha in a Temper – Luncheon at Court – A Tantalizing Procedure – A British Experience

      "Call out the guards when Fraulein Krupp drives up," 'phoned the War Lord to the officer du jourfrom the Council Room between writing a treatise on a scrap-of-paper policy and making an outline of his speech, "An Appeal to Royalism," later delivered at Königsberg.

      To have fifty men under a lieutenant exercise their feet on a given spot to the tune of fife and drum for the benefit of a person not born to the purple seems to William the highest honour conferable, a delusion bred by militarism. In the same spirit, the War Lord of Bismarck's time sent his Chancellor the patent of lieutenant-general. "That won't buy me a postage stamp," remarked Bismarck.

      The Iron One would have preferred a pipe of tobacco, while his War Lord went about for three days patting himself on the back for his act of generosity and telling everybody within reach of the good fortune which, thanks to his grace, had befallen Bismarck, "really a mere civilian."

      Bertha was too young to see the absurdity of the gratuitous manoeuvre, "the sausage intended to knock the side of bacon off the hook," as they say in Hamburg. It cost the War Lord nothing, made healthy exercise for the soldiers, and Bertha, still a child in experience and mode of thought, was impressed when Count Keller, pricking up his ears at the sound of the drum like an old army horse in a tinker's cart, shot out of his seat, raised his hat and bowed low.

      "Signal СКАЧАТЬ