Royal Highness (Philosophy Classic). Thomas Mann

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СКАЧАТЬ It could be reached from the capital in half an hour by a local railway which paid no dividends. There the castle stood, the proud creation of the Margrave Klaus Grimmbart, the founder of the reigning house in the dim mists of history, since then several times rejuvenated and repaired, fitted with the comforts of the changing times, always kept in a habitable state and held in peculiar honour as the ancestral seat of the ruling house, the cradle of the dynasty. For it was a rule and tradition of the house that all direct descendants of the Margrave, every child of the reigning couple, must be born there.

      This tradition could not be ignored. The country had had sophisticated and unbelieving sovereigns, who had laughed at it, and yet had complied with it with a shrug of the shoulders. It was now much too late to break away from it whether it was reasonable and enlightened or not: why, without any particular necessity, break with an honoured custom, which had managed somehow to perpetuate itself? The people were convinced that there was something in it. Twice in the course of fifteen generations had children of reigning sovereigns, owing to some chance or other, first seen the light in other schlosses: each had come to an unnatural and disgraceful end. But all the sovereigns of the land and their brothers and sisters, from Henry the Confessor and John the Headstrong, with their lovely and proud sisters, down to Albrecht, the father of the Grand Duke, and the Grand Duke himself, Johann Albrecht III, had been brought into the world in the castle; and there, six years before, Dorothea had given birth to her firstborn, the Heir Apparent.

      The castle was also a retreat as dignified as it was peaceful. The coolness of its rooms, the shady charms of its surroundings, made it preferable as a summer residence to the stiff Hollerbrunn. The ascent from the town, up a rather badly paved street between shabby cottages and a scrubby wall, through massive gates to the ancient ruin at the entrance to the castle-yard, in the middle of which stood the statue of Klaus Grimmbart, the founder, was picturesque but tiring. But a noble park spread at the back of the castle hill, through which easy paths led up into the wooded and gently-swelling uplands, offering ideal opportunities for carriage drives and quiet strolls.

      As for the inside of the castle, it had been last subjected at the beginning of the reign of Johann Albrecht III to a thorough clean-up and redecoration—at a cost which had evoked much comment. The furniture of the living-rooms had been completed and renewed in a style at once baronial and comfortable; the escutcheons in the “Hall of Justice” had been carefully restored to their original pattern. The gilding of the intricate patterns on the vaulted ceilings looked fresh and cheerful, all the rooms had been fitted with parquet, and both the larger and the smaller banqueting-halls had been adorned with huge wall-paintings from the brush of Professor von Lindemann, a distinguished Academician, representing scenes from the history of the reigning House executed in a clear and smooth style which was far removed from and quite unaffected by the restless tendencies of modern schools. Nothing was wanting. As the old chimneys of the castle and its many-coloured stoves, reaching tier upon tier right up to the ceiling, were no longer fit to use, anthracite stoves had been installed in view of the possibility of the place being used as a residence during the winter.

      But the day of the seventy-two salvos fell in the best time of the year, late spring, early summer, the beginning of June, soon after Whitsuntide. Johann Albrecht, who had been early informed by telegram that the labour had begun just before dawn, reached Grimmburg Station by the bankrupt local railway at eight o'clock, where he was greeted with congratulations by three or four dignitaries, the mayor, the judge, the rector, and the town physician. He at once drove to the castle. The Grand Duke was accompanied by Minister of State, Dr. Baron Knobelsdorff, and Adjutant-General of Infantry, Count Schmettern. Shortly afterwards two or three more ministers arrived at the royal residence, the Court Chaplin Dom Wislezenus, President of the High Consistory, one or two Court officials, and a still younger Adjutant, Captain von Lichterloh. Although the Grand Duke's Physician-in-Ordinary, Surgeon-General Dr. Eschrich, was attending the mother, Johann Albrecht had been seized with the whim of requiring the young local doctor, a Doctor Sammet, who was of Jewish extraction into the bargain, to accompany him to the castle. The unassuming, hard-working, and earnest man, who had as much as he could do and was not in the least expecting any such distinction, stammered “Quite delighted … quite delighted” several times over, thus provoking some amusement.

      The Grand Duchess's bedroom was the “Bride-chamber,” a five-cornered, brightly painted room on the first floor, through whose window a fine view could be obtained of woods, hills, and the windings of the river. It was decorated with a frieze of medallion-shaped portraits, likenesses of royal brides who had slept there in the olden days of the family history.

      There lay Dorothea; a broad piece of webbing was tied round the foot of her bed, to which she clung like a child playing at horses, while convulsions shook her lovely frame. Doctor Gnadebusch, the midwife, a gentle and learned woman with small fine hands and brown eyes, which wore a look of mystery behind her round, thick spectacles, was supporting the Duchess, while she said:

      “Steady, steady, your Royal Highness…. It will soon be over. It's quite easy…. Just once more … that's nothing…. Rest a bit: knees apart…. Keep your chin down….”

      A nurse, dressed like her in white linen, helped too, and moved lightly about with phials and bandages during the pauses. The Physician-in-Ordinary, a gloomy man with a greyish beard, whose left eyelid seemed to droop, superintended the birth. He wore his operating-coat over his surgeon-general's uniform. From time to time there peeped into the room, to ascertain the progress of the confinement, Dorothea's trusty Mistress of the Robes, Baroness von Schulenburg-Tressen, a corpulent and asthmatic woman of distinctly dragoon-like appearance, who nevertheless liked to display a generous expanse of neck and shoulders at the court balls. She kissed her mistress's hand and went back to an adjoining room, in which a couple of thin ladies-in-waiting were chatting with the Grand Duchess's Chamberlain-in-Waiting, a Count Windisch. Dr. Sammet, who had thrown his linen coat like a domino over his dress-coat, was waiting modestly and attentively by the washstand.

      Johann Albrecht sat in a neighbouring room used as a study, which was separated from the “Bride-chamber” only by a so-called powder closet and a passage-room. It was called the library, in view of several manuscript folios, which lay slanting in the massive book-shelves and contained the history of the castle. The room was furnished as a writing-room. Globes adorned the walls. The strong wind from the hills blew through the open bow-window. The Grand Duke had ordered tea, and the groom of the chamber, Prahl, had himself brought the tray; but it was standing forgotten on the leaf of the desk, and Johann Albrecht was pacing the room from one corner to the other in a restless, uncomfortable frame of mind. His top-boots kept creaking as he walked. His aide-de-camp, von Lichterloh, listened to the noise, as he waited patiently in the almost bare passage-room.

      The Minister, the Adjutant-General, the Court Chaplain, and the Court officials, nine or ten in all, were waiting in the state-room on the ground floor. They wandered through the larger and the smaller banqueting-halls, where trophies of banners and weapons hung between Lindemann's pictures. They leaned against the slender pillars, which spread into brightly coloured vaulting above their heads. They stood before the narrow, ceiling-high windows, and looked out through the leaded panes over river and town; they sat on the stone benches which ran round the walls, or on seats before the stoves, whose Gothic tops were supported by ridiculous little stooping imps of stone. The bright sunlight made the gold lace on the uniforms, the orders on the padded chests, the broad gold stripes on the trousers of the dignitaries glisten.

      The conversation flagged. Three-cornered hats and white-gloved hands were constantly being raised to mouths which opened convulsively. Nearly everybody had tears in his eyes. Several had not had time to get any breakfast. Some sought entertainment in a timid examination of the operating-instruments and the round leather-cased chloroform jar, which Surgeon-General Eschrich had left there in case of emergency. After von Bühl zu Bühl, the Lord Marshal, a powerful man with mincing manners, brown toupée, gold-rimmed pince-nez, and long, yellow fingernails, had told several anecdotes in his quick, jerky way, he dropped into an armchair, in which he made use of his gift of being able to sleep with his eyes СКАЧАТЬ