“Were you born with that?” she asked softly.
He grew pale. But with a cry, which rang like a cry of redemption, he sank down before her, and clasped her wondrous form in both his arms. There he lay, in his white trousers and his blue and red coat with the major’s shoulder-straps.
“Little sister,” he said, “little sister—–”
She answered with a pout: “Think of appearances, Prince, I consider that one should not let oneself go, but should keep up appearances on all occasions.”
But he was too far gone, and raising his face to her, his eyes in a mist, he only said, “Imma—little Imma—–”
Then she took his hand, the left, atrophied one, the deformity, the hindrance in his lofty calling, which he had been wont from boyhood to hide artfully and carefully—she took it and kissed it.
VIII
THE FULFILMENT
GRAVE reports were flying around concerning the state of health of the Finance Minister, Doctor Krippenreuther. People hinted at nervous break-down, at a progressive stomach-trouble, which indeed Herr Krippenreuther’s flabby yellow complexion was calculated to suggest.… What is Greatness? The daily-breader, the journeyman, might envy this tortured dignitary his title, his chain, his rank at Court, his important office, to which he had climbed so pertinaciously, only to wear himself out in it: but not when these all meant the concomitant of his illness. His retirement was repeatedly announced to be impending. It was said to be due simply and solely to the Grand Duke’s dislike of new faces, as well as to the consideration that matters could not be improved by a change of personnel, that his resignation had not already become a fact. Dr. Krippenreuther had spent his summer leave in a health-resort in the hills. Perhaps he might have improved somewhat up there. But anyhow after his return his recouped strength ebbed away quickly again. For at the very beginning of the Parliamentary session a rift had come between him and the Budget Commission—serious dissensions, which were certainly not from any want of industry on his part, but from the circumstances, from the incurable position of affairs.
In the middle of September Albrecht II opened the Landtag in the Old Schloss with the traditional ceremonies. They began with an invocation to God by the Court Chaplain, Dom Wislezenus, in the Schloss Chapel. Then the Grand Duke, accompanied by Prince Klaus Heinrich, went in solemn procession to the Throne-room. Here the members of both Chambers, the Ministers, Court officials, and many others in uniform and civil dress greeted the royal brothers with three cheers, led by the President of the First Chamber, a Count Prenzlau.
Albrecht had earnestly wished to transfer to his brother his duties in the formal ceremony. It was only owing to the urgent objections of Herr von Knobelsdorff that he walked in the procession behind the pages. He was so much ashamed of his braided hussar’s coat, his gaudy trousers, and the whole to-do, that he showed clearly in his face his anger and his embarrassment. His shoulder-blades were twisted in his nervousness as he mounted the steps to the throne. Then he took his stand in front of the theatrical chair under the faded baldachin, and sucked at his upper lip. His small, bearded, unmilitary head rested on the white collar, which stuck out far above the silver hussar-collar, and his blue, lonely-looking eyes gazed vacantly in front of him. The jangle of the spurs of the aide-de-camp who handed him the manuscript of his Speech from the Throne rang through the hall, in which silence now reigned. And quietly, with a slight lisp, and more than one sudden burst of coughing, the Grand Duke read what had been written for him.
The speech was the most palliatory that had ever been heard, each humiliating fact from outside being counterbalanced by some virtuous trait or other in the people. He began by praising the industrious spirit of the whole country; then admitted that there was no actual increase to show in any branch of manufacture, so that the sources of revenue failed to show under any head the fertility that could be desired. He remarked with satisfaction how the feeling for the public good and economical self-sacrifice were spreading more and more through the population; and then declared without mincing matters that “notwithstanding a general most acceptable increase in the taxation returns as the result of the influx of wealthy foreigners” (meaning Mr. Spoelmann) “any relaxation of the calls on the said noble self-sacrifice was not to be thought of.”
Even without this, he continued, it had been impossible to budget for all the objects of the financial policy, and should it prove that sufficient reduction in the public debt had not been successfully provided for, the Government considered that the continuation of policy of moderate loans would prove the best way out of the financial complications. In any event it—the Government—felt itself supported in these most unfavourable circumstances by the confidence of the nation, that faith in the future which was so fair a heritage of our stock.… And the Speech from the Throne left the sinister topic of public economy as soon as possible, to apply itself to less disputatious subjects, such as ecclesiastical, educational, and legal matters. Minister of State von Knobelsdorff declared in the monarch’s name the Landtag to be open. And the cheers which accompanied Albrecht when he left the hall sounded somewhat ironical and dubious.
As the weather was still summery, he went straight back to Hollerbrunn, from which necessity alone had driven him to the capital. He had done his part, and the rest was the concern of Herr Krippenreuther and the Landtag. Quarrels began, as has been said, immediately, and about several topics at once: the property tax, the meat tax, and the Civil Service estimates.
For, when the deputies proved adamant against attempts to persuade them to sanction fresh taxes, Doctor Krippenreuther’s meditative mind had hit on the idea of converting the income tax which had been usual hitherto into a property tax, which on the basis of 13½ per cent. would produce an increment of about a million. How direly needed, indeed how inadequate such an increment was, was clear from the main budget for the new financial year, which, leaving out of account the imposition of new burdens on the Treasury, oncluded with an adverse balance, which was calculated to damp the courage of any economical expert. But when it was realized that practically only the towns would be hit by the property tax, the combined indignation of the urban deputies turned against the assessment of 13½ per cent., and they demanded as compensation at least the abolition of the meat tax, which they called undemocratic and antediluvian. Add to this that the Commission adhered resolutely to the long promised and always postponed improvement of Civil servants’ pay—for it could not be denied that the salaries of the Government officials, clergy, and teachers of the Grand Duchy were miserable.
But Doctor Krippenreuther could not make gold—he said in so many words, “I’ve never learnt to make gold,” and he found himself equally unable to abolish the meat tax and to ameliorate the conditions in the Civil Service. His only resource was to anchor himself to his 13½ per cent., although no one knew better than he that its sanction would not really bring things any nearer their solution. For the position was serious, and despondent spirits painted it in gloomy colours.
The “Almanac of the Grand Ducal Statistical Bureau” contained alarming returns of the harvest for the last year. Agriculture had a succession of bad years to show; storms, hail, droughts, and inordinate rain had been the lot of the peasants; an exceptionally cold and snowless winter had resulted in the seed freezing; and the critics maintained, though with little proof to show for it, that the timber-cutting had already influenced the climate. At any rate figures proved that the total yield of corn had decreased in a most disquieting degree. The straw, besides being deficient in quantity, left much to be wished from the point of view of quality, in the opinion of the compilers of the report.
The figures of the potato harvest fell far below the average of the preceding decade, not to mention that no less than 10 per cent. of the potatoes were diseased. As to artificial feeding-stuffs, these showed for the last two years results both in quality and quantity which, for clover and manure, were as bad as the worst of the years under review, and things were
no better with the rapeseed harvest or with the first and second hay crops. The decline in agriculture was baldly shown in the increase of forced sales, whose figures in the year under review had advanced in a striking way. But the failure of crops entailed a falling off in the produce of taxation which would have been regrettable in any country, but in ours could not help having a fatal effect.
As to the forests, nothing had been made out of them. One disaster had followed another; blight and moths had attacked the woods more than once. And it will be remembered that owing to over-cutting the woods had lost seriously in capital value.
The silver-mines? They had for a long time proved barren. The work had been interrupted by convulsions of nature, and as the repairs would have cost large sums, and the results had never showed signs of coming up to expectations, it had been found necessary provisionally to suspend the workings, though this threw a number of labourers out of work and caused distress in whole districts.
Enough has been said to explain how matters stood with the ordinary State revenues in this time of trial. The slowly advancing crisis, the deficit carried forward from one year to another, had become burning owing to the straits of the people and the unfavourableness of the elements. It had begun to cry aloud for remedy, and, when one looked around despairingly for the remedy, or even for means of alleviation, the most purblind could not fail to see the whole hideousness of our financial condition. There could be no thought of voting for new expenditure, the country was naturally incapable of bearing much taxation. It was now exhausted, its tax-paying powers adversely affected, and the critics declared that the sight of insufficiently nourished human beings was becoming more and more common in the country. They attributed this firstly to the shocking taxes on provisions and secondly to the direct taxation which was known to oblige stock-owners to turn all their full-milk into cash. As to the other less respectable though enticingly easy remedy for dearth of money, of which the financial authorities were well aware, namely the raising of a loan, the time was come when an improper and inconsiderate use of this means must begin to bring its own bitter punishment.
The liquidation of the national debt had been taken in hand for a time in a clumsy and harmful way. Then under Albrecht II it had stopped altogether. The yawning rifts in the State had received an emergency stuffing of new loans and paper issues, and subsequent Finance Ministers had grown pale to find themselves faced with a floating consolidated debt redeemable at an early date, whose total was scandalously large for the total number of heads of the population.
Dr. Krippenreuther had not shrunk from the practical steps open to the State in such a predicament. He had steered clear of big capital obligations, had demanded compulsory redemption of bonds, and, while reducing the rate of interest, had converted short-dated debts over the heads of the creditors into perpetual rent-charges. But these rent-charges had to be paid; and while this incumbrance was an unbearable burden on the national economy, the lowness of the rate of exchange caused every fresh issue of bonds to bring in less capital proceeds to the Treasury. Still more: the economic crisis in the Grand Duchy had the effect of making foreign creditors demand payments at an exceptionally early date. This again lowered the rate of exchange and resulted in an increased flow of gold out of the country, and bank-smashes were daily occurrences in the business world.
In a word: our credit was shattered, our paper stood far below its nominal value; and though the Landtag might perhaps have preferred to vote a new loan to voting new taxes, the conditions which would have been imposed upon the country were such that the negotiation seemed difficult, if not impossible. For on the top of everything else came this unpleasant factor, that the people were at that moment suffering from the burden of that general economical disorder, that appreciation in the price of gold, which is still vivid in everybody’s memory.
What was to be done to get safe to land? Whither turn to appease the hunger for gold which was devouring us? The disposal of the then unproductive silver-mines and the application of the proceeds to the payment of the debts at high interest was discussed at length. Yet, as matters stood, the sale could not help turning out disadvantageously. Further, not only would the State lose altogether the capital sunk in the mines, but would relinquish its prospect of a return which might perhaps sooner or later materialize. Finally, buyers did not grow on every bush. For one moment—a moment of psychical despondency—the sale of the national forests even was mooted. But it must be said that there was still sense enough in the country to prevent our woods being surrendered to private industry.
To complete the picture: still further rumours of sales were current, rumours which suggested that the financial embarrassment penetrated even to quarters which the loyal people had always hoped were far removed from all the rubs of the time. The Courier, which was never used to sacrifice a piece of news to its sympathetic feelings, was the first to publish the news that two of the Grand Duke’s schlosses, “Pastime” and “Favourite,” in the open country, had been put up for sale. Considering that neither property was of any further use as a residence for the royal family, and that both demanded yearly increasing outlay, the administrators of the Crown trust property had given notice in the proper quarter for steps to be taken to sell them: what did that imply?
It was obviously quite a different case from that of the sale of Delphinenort, which had been the result of a quite exceptional and favourable offer, as well as a smart stroke of business on behalf of the State. People who were brutal enough to give a name to things which finer feeling shrinks from specifying, declared right out that the Treasury had been mercilessly set on by disquieted creditors, and that their consent to such sales showed that they were exposed to relentless pressure.
How far had matters gone? Into whose hands would the schlosses fall? The more benevolent who asked this question were inclined to find comfort in and to believe a further report, which was spread by the wiseacres; namely, that on this occasion too the buyer was no one else but Samuel Spoelmann—an entirely groundless and fantastic report, which, however, proves what a rôle in the world of popular imagination was played by the lonely, suffering little man who had settled down in such princely style in their midst.
Yonder he lived, with his physician, his electric organ, and his collection of glass, behind the pillars, the bow windows, and the chiselled festoons of the schloss which had risen from its ruins at a nod from him. He was hardly ever seen: he was always in bed with poultices. But people saw his daughter, that curious creature with the whimsical features who lived like a princess, had a countess for a companion, studied algebra, and had walked in a temper unimpeded right through the guard. People saw her, and they sometimes saw Prince Klaus Heinrich at her side.
Raoul Ueberbein had used a strong expression when he declared that the public “held their breath” at the sight. But he really was right, and it can be truly said that the population of our town as a whole never followed a social or public proceeding with such passionate, such surpassing eagerness as Klaus Heinrich’s visits to Delphinenort. The Prince himself acted up to a certain point—namely up to a certain conversation with his Excellency the Minister of State, Knobelsdorff—blindly, without regard to the outside world and in obedience only to an inner impulse. But his tutor was justified in deriding in his fatherly way his idea that his proceedings could be kept hid from the world. For whether it was that the servants on both sides did not hold their tongues, or that the public had the opportunity of direct observation, at any rate Klaus Heinrich had not met Miss Spoelmann once since that first meeting in the Dorothea Hospital, without its being remarked and discussed. Remarked? No, spied on, glared at, and greedily jumped at! Discussed? Rather smothered in floods of talk.
The intercourse of the two was the topic of conversation in Court circles, salons, sitting- and bedrooms, barbers’ shops, public-houses, workrooms, and servants’ halls, by cabmen on the ranks and girls at the gates. It occupied the minds of men no less than women, of course with the
variations which are inherent in the different ways the sexes have of looking at things. The always sympathetic interest in it had a uniting, levelling effect: it bridged over the social gaps, and one might hear the tram conductor turn to the smart passenger on the platform with the question whether he knew that yesterday afternoon the Prince had again spent an hour at Delphinenort.
But what was at once remarkable in itself and at the same time decisive for the future was that throughout there never seemed for one moment to be any feeling of scandal in the air, nor did all the tongue-wagging seem merely the vulgar pleasure in startling events in high quarters. From the very beginning, before any arrière pensée had had time to form, the thousand-voiced discussion of the subject, however animated, was always pitched in a key of approval and agreement. Indeed, the Prince, if it had occurred to him at an earlier stage to adapt his conduct to public opinion, would have realized at once to his delight how entirely popular that conduct was. For when he called Miss Spoelmann a “princess” to his tutor, he had, quite properly, accurately expressed his people’s mind—that people which always surrounds the uncommon and visionary with a cloud of poetry.
Yes, to the people the pale, dark, precious, and strangely lovely creature of mixed blood, who had come to us from the Antipodes to live her lonely and unprecedented life amongst us—to the people she was a princess—or Fairy-child from Fableland, a princess in the world’s most wonderful meaning. But everything, her own behaviour as much as the attitude of the world towards her, contributed to make her appear a princess in the ordinary sense of the word also. Did she not live with her companion countess in a schloss, as was meet and right? Did she not drive in her gorgeous motor or her four-in-hand to the benevolent institutions, the homes for the blind, for orphans, and for deaconesses, the public kitchens and the milk-kitchens, to teach herself and to stimulate them by her inspection, like a complete princess?