Two days later I went to Loschwitz with my children.
I had defied the King. Prince George was humbled. I carried my point, and the Dresden court will not see me again in a hurry.
LOSCHWITZ, _Christmas, 1901_.
I refused to spend Christmas at Court. Frederick Augustus planned a stay of a couple of weeks. "Not a single night," I wrote back.
They parleyed; they begged. "The Crown Prince desires to spend Christmas with the children. In the interests of public opinion, it"s absolutely necessary that he does."
"But not--that I submit to prost.i.tution. I will give him a dinner, but he will drive back to Dresden immediately afterwards."
Frederick Augustus brought numerous presents for me. "You may place them under the Christmas tree," I ordered the Tisch.
"Oh, Your Imperial Highness, look," cried the Tisch, holding up something or other.
I turned my back on her and looked out of the window. I never went near my end of the Christmas table. "You will send the things brought by His Royal Highness to the bazaar for crippled children," I told the House Marshal. "They shall be sold for the benefit of the poor."
LOSCHWITZ, _January 1, 1902_.
"Her Imperial Highness regrets."
I refused the invitations to today"s family dinner; the grand reception, _Te Deum_ and parade. "Unprecedented affront!" What do I care!
I have eighteen horses, half-a-dozen carriages, I drive, I ride, I hunt, I give the Tisch palpitation daily by the literature I affect: _Zola_, _Flaubert_, _M"lle Paul_, _Ma Femme_, _M"lle de Maupin_, _Casanova_, _M"me Bovary_. And the periodicals I subscribed for! _Simplicissimus_, Harden"s _Zukunft_, all the _double entendre_ weeklies and monthlies of Paris. May Prince George and Mathilde burst with rage and envy when they hear of my excursions in the realms of the literary Satans.
LOSCHWITZ, _January 15, 1902_.
The Tisch is beginning to treat me like a person irresponsible for her doings. Sonnenstein is looming up anew. But I am going to fool her. As I will hold no more speech with her, there will be no occasion for turning my own words against me.
If I have to give a command, or answer a question, I ask Lucretia or _Fraulein_ von Schoenberg to convey my orders.
LOSCHWITZ, _March 20, 1902_.
An uneventful winter is drawing to a close. By banishing myself to this quiet place I raised a barrier against quarrels, against harsh orders, against humiliations. And the barrier also shuts out: love, happiness.
Sometimes, when the Tisch"s hateful mouth spouts honeyed plat.i.tudes, I ask myself whether the affair with Henry wasn"t, after all, a flower-covered pit dug for me by my enemies.
It was the Tisch who had Henry appointed _Vortanzer_.
Maybe, knowing my inflammable heart, she offered the tempting bait solely to the end of getting me into her power?
Far from impossible.
I curse the day when I entered Dresden, joined this court and family.
LOSCHWITZ, _May 15, 1902_.
Royal command to join the court at Pillnitz June 1. The King, who has been ailing for some time, is anxious to be reunited with the children, and, as a necessary evil, I must go along.
I replied that I would prefer Nossen, or even Stolpen, if it pleases His Majesty.
Castle Stolpen is an old-time stronghold of the bishops of Meissen, and its very ruins are pregnant with reminiscences of a barbaric age. The apartments once occupied by the Countess Cosel, as a prison first, as a residence after the death of Augustus, might be made habitable even now.
Exceedingly interesting are the old-time torture chambers and the subterranean living rooms of the "sworn torturer" and the dogs, man-shaped, that served him.
Sanct. Donatus Tower, a wing of the great, black pile, was the ancient _habitat_ of these worthies, and the torture chamber, still extant, is a hall almost as big as the Dresden throne-room. In an inscription hewn in the basalt, the sovereign bishop, Johannes VI, poses as builder and seems proud of the d.a.m.nable fact. Other princes of the Church let us know in high-sounding Latin script that they created the "Monk hole" and the "stairless prison" respectively.
The latter is a vast subterranean vault, never reached by sunshine or light of any kind. Its victims were made to descend some twenty feet below the surface of the earth on a ladder. When near the bottom, the ladder was pulled up and--stayed up. The prisoners were fed once every twenty-four hours, when a leather water pouch and some pounds of black bread were sent down on a rope.
Of course only the strongest got a morsel, or a drink of water. The others died of starvation and the survivors lived only until there were new arrivals, stronger than themselves. The dead bodies were never removed, and horrible stories of necrophily smudge the records of this awful prison and cover its princely keepers with infamy.
The "Monk"s hole" was called officially "Obey Your Judge." It is a sort of chimney, just large enough to take the body of a man.
When a monk or other prisoner refused to confess, he was let down into the hole in the wall to starve, while tempting dishes, meat, wine and bread, were dangled over his head, almost within reach of his hands.
Of course, after enduring this torture for several days, the delinquent was glad enough to "Obey His Judge."
By offering to go to this abode of horror and to take the place of Cosel, I meant to show my utter contempt for the royal favor vouchsafed.
CHAPTER LVII
I CONFESS TO PAPA
King Albert dies and King George a very sick man--Papa"s good advice--"You will be Queen soon"--A lovely old man, very much troubled.
CASTLE SIBYLLENORT, _June 19, 1902_.
King Albert is dead. George is King, and may G.o.d have mercy upon my soul.
Of course the demise of His Majesty changed all my plans of defiance and otherwise. I am once more an official person, even an important one, for the new King can"t last long. He is a very sick man, in fact. Perhaps that is the reason why he wants to hear himself addressed "Your Majesty"
all the time. Petty souls like to be called "great."
DRESDEN, _June 21, 1902_.