PIERRE BENOIT (continued 2)

This Professor Cyrus Beck, of Kiel University, was lent to the Grand Duke Rudolf ten years ago by the Rector Etlicher, for the special purpose of cataloguing his manuscripts.

The present Grand Duke retained him in the same post in exchange for an undertaking to give four hours a week to teach Duke Joachim the exact sciences.

The old man spent half his remaining time among the manuscripts in the sacristy, the rest in his laboratory, surrounded by furnaces and retorts. This laboratory is situated in the triangle formed by the armoury, the chapel and the walls of the castle. Like my room, it looks out on the ravine of the Melna, or rather on the trees which almost entirely shut out the view. The first time I ever entered the laboratory, accompanied by Kessel, who was to introduce me to our colleague, I was received much as Gulliver was among the spiders' webs of the magician of Laputa. A harsh voice screamed out an order to shut the door, declaring that the draught was putting out the burners. Then a furious little fellow emerged from amid pungent fumes. Dr. Cyrus Beck had a bald pate, as polished as if it had been subjected to the most powerful acids. A long yellowish overall, covered with chemical stains, enveloped him from head to foot. Among all his paraphernalia he looked exactly as if he had stepped out of Hoffmann's tales.

He calmed down at the sight of Kessel, proffered his apologies, and told us that he had just reached the psychological moment in his experiments on the insulation of ... (something the name of which I have forgotten). He had almost become pleasant when my companion told him that I myself intended to do some research work in the manuscript section. He bowed as Kessel told him that the Grand Duke hoped he would give me every facility for this purpose, but I could see that he would not do more than he could help.

"We'll see," I reflected philosophically. "This old chap is full of fads. Sooner or later I'll find out the one to play up to."

I was in no hurry, having given myself a fortnight before starting on what was then Professor Thierry's work, but eventually to be my own.

6. THE STATE OF LAUTENBUBG-DETMOLD

The Grand Duchy of Lautenburg-Detmold, one of the twenty-seven States of the German Confederation, is about sixty miles long from north to south. Its breadth varies between twelve and twenty-five miles. It has a population of two hundred and eighty thousand. The Schwarzhugel, a last buttress of the Harz, is the only orographical system which breaks the monotony of the Hanoverian plain.

As regards its river system, the Grand Duchy is bounded by the Weser, and crossed by the Aller. The Melna is the most important river, judging by the length of its course in Lautenburg territory.

The Herrenwald, a forest of beech and fir, which starts to the north of Lautenburg, covers a good third of its area. The rest consists of a sandy tract, very difficult for agriculture, but particularly suited to brick-making, the principal resource of the State.

There are two towns: Sandau, exclusively industrial, in the northern plain, with twenty thousand inhabitants; Lautenburg, the capital, forty thousand inhabitants, seat of a bishopric and the central assizes. A cavalry brigade formed of the 11th Dragoons and the 7th Hussars, a regiment of infantry, the 182nd, a half-regiment of artillery, and a detachment of the 3rd Engineers are stationed there.

The constitution is monarchical, the Grand Dukes succeeding each other in order of primogeniture, and women are not excluded. The Grand Duchess Charlotte-Augusta reigned alone at the end of the eighteenth century, and today the Grand Duke Frederick-Augustus owes his title to his marriage with the Grand Duchess Aurora.

The Grand Duke of Lautenburg is the immediate vassal of the King of Würtemberg, and mediate vassal of the German Emperor.

The State of Lautenburg sends three deputies to the Reichstag. Two of them are agrarians; the third, representing Sandau, is a Socialist. All three sit of right in the Ducal Diet, which meets twice a year at the Castle of Lautenburg. The President of the Municipal Council of Lautenburg and two councillors elected by their colleagues are also ex-officio members of the Diet. The other members are elected, on a narrow franchise, by the general population of the Grand Duchy. The Grand Duke is President. A permanent committee of six members, somewhat similar to our departmental commissions, dispatches current business when the Diet is not in session.

7. SUMMARY OF LIFE AT LAUTENBURG

Four times a week I gave Duke Joachim his lessons, two of history, one of philosophy and one of literature. For this purpose I went to his room in the right wing of the palace. You will remember that his father occupied the middle portion, while the left wing was reserved exclusively for the Grand Duchess Aurora. The walls of Duke Joachim's study are hung with the best German maps made by Kiepert himself. There are two portraits, one of the Grand Duke, and the other of his first wife, née Countess von Tepwitz, a worthy Bavarian with a Luther's cross, who died three years ago. Duke Joachim is her living image.

You couldn't have a more tractable pupil than this young German duke. He knows a good deal already, but unfortunately it's all in the same class. I shouldn't be at all surprised if the State of Lautenburg-Detmold lapses to the imperial crown on the death of the Grand Duke Frederick-Augustus.

Those who have always had all they want will probably bridle at the suggestion that a life with every material comfort is enough for happiness. Nevertheless, I was thoroughly happy. I had nothing but my professional duties to worry about. Two or three books, unknown over here, practically performed them for me.

I was very happy, I repeat. Lunch with the Grand Duke was still a treat in store, but I had already dined three times with Colonel von Wendel. His wife took a great fancy to me. I lent her several books I had really intended for the Grand Duchess. She was a kindly soul, and, besides, it was just as well to be on good terms with the Colonel.

I generally lunched with Cyrus Beck, Kessel, and the staff. Little Hagen came every now and then. When he did, the others chuckled maliciously, and said that the Grand Duchess must have let him out for the day. In the evening every one vanished. Most of them had friends in the town. I usually stayed behind with the professor, and sometimes, not always, the taciturn Kessel. Cyrus Beck then monopolized the conversation with a recital of his woes. His pupil made no progress. Besides, tutoring wasn't his job! The Grand Duke Rudolph, now, did know how to treat a professor. He was a scholar!

I was given to understand that as a geographer he had scarcely a rival.

Kessel, finishing his liqueur, broke in calmly:

"A geographer who didn't understand the handling of a field gun."

Cyrus retorted in scorn:

"Then you prefer the present Grand Duke?"

"I never knew His Highness the Grand Duke Rudolph," replied Kessel, unruffled. "I only know that the first duty of a Grand Duke is to be a Grand Duke, which means perfect familiarity with artillery, heavy and light, so that geographers can work in peace and safety."

The odd thing is that the professor poured out his complaints to Kessel, of whom he stood in visible awe, rather than to me, a Frenchman. I tell you the loyalty of these folk is beyond belief. We in France are never happy except when at loggerheads. But their habit of mind, backed by the Imperial Police, who are admirably organized, makes them sheep, compared to which Panurge's flock was imaginative and refractory.

In the daytime my principal amusement was strolling in Lautenburg. The splendid German uniforms delighted me, though I had moments of dismay over that prodigious display of discipline. Twice a week the band of the 182nd played in the Königsplatz, opposite the theatre. I liked the charming gaucherie of the group of girls I passed. They recalled and exemplified the truth of the old cavalry General von Dewitz's remarks to his aide-de-camp:

"These girls are thoroughbreds, my boy, a real treat to watch! None of your faked demi-women, but mothers, real mothers. I'd answer for whole generations of them. Just look at that buxom wench down there! There's red cheeks for you, and what a stride! A yard if it's an inch! What a treat for an old soldier like me. I like looking at 'em!"[1]

I, too, liked "looking at 'em." The spectacle never failed to please, and that utter docility, that abject acceptance of their destiny, recalled the words of the French officers who passed through here into captivity after the disaster at Sedan:

"Priez une Allemande à s'asseoir. Elle se couchera."

Night falls, a haze of purple and gold. Lights and noise herald the hour of café and tavern. A flower-seller passes. I am to dine tonight at the Colonel's. I must take Frau von Wendel a bunch of Vergiss-mein-nicht!...

III

ONE morning in December I was snugly ensconced by my big log fire, preparing a lesson for the afternoon. There was a dry, cold snap in the air, and the pale winter sun was dissolving, the night's mist in opal drops on my windows.

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in."

Outside stood Otto, an ex-non-commissioned officer and head-butler, in fact, the connecting link between the palace officials and the horde of valets, workmen and supers whom he had under his orders. His white shirt-front and round red face stood out sharply against the dark background of the corridor. Behind him loomed two men bearing some strange bundles.

"Excuse me, Herr Professor. I hope I am not disturbing you?"

"No, Otto. What is it?"

He came in, followed by the two men, who had their arms full of bunches of flags.

"Tomorrow is the fête-day of the 7th Lautenburg Hussars, Herr Professor. The town takes a holiday. We decorate the whole palace, and I have come to arrange your three windows."

I looked out. The Königsplatz was, indeed, dotted with tiny figures bustling about with the multifarious paraphernalia of public rejoicings, tall poles, bunches of flags and streamers.

"Go ahead, by all means."

Very deliberately they set to work. Three huge shields, with the German imperial standard between the white and red flag of Würtemberg and the Lautenburg-Detmold banner (a golden leopard on a black and white ground) were duly erected. The whole was then linked to the other windows by festoons of enormous green garlands like laurel wreaths at prize-givings.

Standing there supervising, Otto described to me the next day's ceremony.

"It is always a very big affair, Herr Professor. Tonight the palace will be lit up, and there will be a torchlight procession on the arrival of His Majesty the King of Würtemberg and His Excellency General von Eichhorn, who is representing His Majesty the Kaiser."

"Is the Kaiser represented at every regimental fête?"

"Not all, Herr Professor, but the 7th Hussars is not a regiment like others. Its flag is decorated. Prince Eitel is a captain in it, and most important of all, its colonel is Her Highness our Grand Duchess, the Emperor's cousin. So you will realize ..."

"I realize, Otto, that it is going to be a very fine affair, and you must have plenty to do."

"You are right, Herr Professor. We have finished now. Come on, you two. We are very grateful for your kindness, Herr Professor."

I appreciated the turn of events which was to enable me to witness one of these magnificent German ceremonies, even more when, about eleven o'clock, a note came up from Major von Kessel. The Prince's tutor informed me that his pupil was to accompany the Grand Duke at the preliminary review of the garrison in the afternoon. He therefore requested me to be good enough to postpone my lesson for a couple of days.

At lunch, Doctor Cyrus Beck, more hoffmannesque than ever, came down late in a state of great excitement. I wanted to get some further information out of him.

"Here's a disgraceful thing," he burst out, enraged. "Have you read this libelous stuff, sir?"

He held out La Peau de Chagrin.

"Libelous stuff?" I said in amazement.

"Yes, silly, libelous nonsense. It takes a frivolous Frenchman to treat certain subjects with such levity. It is science itself that is ridiculed here, sir. Just consider. You spend your life in the study of two or three questions, break retorts, bum your face over crucibles, run innumerable risks of being blown up and your laboratory with you—and all that for a tomfool novelist to come along, and, in a few contemptuous words, which he takes for eternal verities, tell you your business and make you a public laughing-stock."

"I don't know what particular passage of La Peau de Chagrin is responsible for your recriminations," I said, "and I'm afraid, in any case, I'm not competent to defend Balzac on this point. You should know, however, that, generally speaking, he was extremely accurate. The historical parts of his work are an important authority. I once heard a good commercial lawyer say that his descriptions of César Birotteau's bankruptcy and the sale of the Roguin property are masterpieces from the legal point of view. Besides ..."

"Sir," he broke in with rising anger, "neither Law nor History has ever claimed to be an exact science. A superficial intelligence like your Balzac's can easily excel in them. But science, sir ..."

"My dear Herr Beck," I said, a little nettled, "if La Peau de Chagrin can produce such an effect upon you, I wonder what you'll say when you've read La Recherche de l'Absolu? It refers to a certain Balthazar Claës, who, like you studies high matters and with the same wealth of experience as yourself. It is possible that you might discover many valuable suggestions there."

He was not quite certain whether to take me seriously or not; but prudently wrote the title of the book on his cuff. Then his lips went to his spoon, which, in the German fashion, never left the surface of his soup.

"Are you going to the review tomorrow?" I asked.

I expected a formal negative, and my surprise was great when he told me he would not fail to attend the ceremony.

"We have seats reserved in the Royal Stand," he said unctuously, "next to the Corps Diplomatique."

I was very much tickled at the child-like delight of this barrack-room savant at having an official place at a military ceremony. "What a world of difference from our anti-militarist intellectuals," I thought, without knowing for certain which of the two attitudes was the better.

The entire palace was in a state of extreme confusion. Officers in full-dress uniform swarmed like ants. I met Kessel up to the eyes in it.

"The King arrives at nine o'clock," he said. "You should go to the station. It will interest you. Meanwhile, if you like, you can watch the review which the Grand Duke is holding at three o'clock on the parade-ground."

I thanked him, but not wishing to take the gilt off the next day's spectacle, and, if the truth must be told, feeling rather small and absurd among all these folk in brilliant uniforms, I hid myself in the library. There I began to jot down a few notes bearing on the young Duke's next lesson on the history of Alexandrine Philosophy.

When I came out darkness had fallen, and I decided to go for a stroll in the town. It was already illuminated. When I reached the middle of the parade-ground I looked back, and the whole castle appeared before me in a blaze of light. My childish pleasure in the coloured lights and fairy lamps prevented me from noticing that the exhibition did not err on the side of good taste. But in Germany there is always too much of everything except that.

In the centre there was an enormous imperial eagle, ten yards high, carried out in yellow lights. On the left the Würtemberg lion in red, and on the right the Lautenburg lion in green. The difficulty of distinguishing these animals with electric lamps had been a very serious problem for the artist in charge, but in the end a fair measure of success had been achieved.

A confused murmur of admiration rose from the shadowy groups about me. At the far end of the parade-ground the Royal Stand was all ready for the next day's review. The Hanover Strasse, the finest street in Lautenburg, was thronged with people, who were walking up and down on the pavements, as if impelled by some mechanical device. At a given moment the barracks poured out a stream of uniforms. The red tunics of the Lautenburg Hussars blended with the blue of the Detmold Dragoons and the dark jackets of the infantrymen. Students who had come specially from Hanover, flaunted their various caps and duelling scars with an arrogance which vanished quickly whenever they passed an officer. Thanks to the approach of Christmas, the brilliantly-lighted shop-fronts were crammed with a mass of weird and fantastic wares, the childishness of which was enough to make you weep. The provision stores were crammed with geese absurdly decorated with the colours of the twenty-seven German States. A goose adorned with the Rudolstadt blue was cheek by jowl with a goose in Würtemberg red. The pork butchers exhibited pyramids of sausages made in the shape of the most famous public buildings in the Empire—the Reichstag, the Central Station at Berlin, Cologne Cathedral, etc. But the masterpiece was a triumphal arch of lard, with bas-reliefs in red jelly and an entablature of foie gras.

Girls strolled along in parties of three or four, arm in arm, modestly lowering their eyes under the insolent stares of the officers.

I dined at the Lohengrin tavern, the largest and most ornate in Lautenburg. You remember the roundabouts of our childhood. The part reserved for the band and the old blear-eyed, tinsel-covered nag bears a very striking resemblance to a fashionable German tavern. They are the only places, I think, where people can smoke without inconvenience. The clouds of tobacco smoke which rise to the ceiling suggest nothing so much as a rabelaisian Walhalla. It was striking eight when yells of "Hoch! hoch!" in the street brought the diners en masse to the door. Amid a forest of sabres a squadron of dragoons was on its way to the station to act as guard of honour to the King of Würtemberg and General von Eichhorn.

There was such a mob around the station that I gave up any idea of trying to get in. It was from a corner of the Roon Strasse that I managed to get a glimpse, through the hedge of dragoons, of the car in which the Grand Duke Frederick-Augustus and the King of Würtemberg were sitting opposite my pupil and General von Eichhorn.

I was absolutely deafened by the noise. From one café I had to flee in terror of immediate asphyxiation. Students standing on the table declaimed, sang and bawled out their slogans while tossing off the contents of colossal pewter mugs. Under blinding electric standards in the streets women, dressed in the fashion of 1900, with hats slanting skywards and hopelessly drunk, mingled the eternal pan-German "Hoch!" with suggestive invitations.

As I turned the corner of the Königsplatz, on my way back to the castle, I passed by the officers' mess. For one second the bright window revealed to me the pandemonium within. Through the thick curtain of smoke I caught a glimpse of some thirty men, and, stretched on the table among the flowers and pools of wine, two naked women.

* * * * * *

At eight o'clock Pastor Silbermann, at the Tempel in the Siegstrasse, and Monsignor Kreppel in the Cathedral, celebrated the offices of the respective cults, to which the soldiers of the Catholic and Reformed confessions were conducted in detachments. Then at ten o'clock came the review.

The weather favoured the 7th Lautenburg Hussars. The sun shone bright and cold. From the square you could see the black leaves, gripped by the gentle westerly breeze, fall slowly from the castle trees into the Melna. I have said before that from my room I could not see the parade-ground where the review was to be held. But rising at daybreak I was in time to watch the 182nd Prussian Infantry Regiment, of which two companies had been told off for general police duties, crossing the Königsplatz en route to its post. The immense throng filled my heart with the joy of those who know that their seats are reserved.

At seven o'clock I was ready, although I had quite decided not to turn out until much later, certainly not before the stands were half full. I picked up some book and tried to read it, not stopping to analyse the reasons for my growing excitement.

At nine o'clock the noise below became so marked and insistent that I thought I could go down without looking absurd. How small and insignificant I felt crossing the great square, the emptiness of which was emphasized by the enormous crowd gathered round it, only kept within bounds by a cordon of infantry with fixed bayonets. The stands were three-quarters full when I arrived, and I should have had considerable difficulty in finding my place if I hadn't seen a hat frantically waved to attract my attention. It was Count de Marçais.

"You're next to me," said the obliging diplomat. "All the better. We can chat while we're waiting."

Glad of an opportunity of impressing me, he told me the names of the distinguished individuals around us: Count Bela, the Austro-Hungarian Minister, almost swallowed up in furs and an astrakhan cap with a silver aigrette; M. Nekludoff, the Russian Minister, in a very unassuming frock-coat; Monsignor Kreppel, with his heavy gold cross on a purple sash, and Rector Etlicher, of Kiel Academy.

Suddenly I pressed his arm. A most attractive young woman had just taken her place in the first row of the stand immediately in front of us. She might have been twenty or twenty-five. Dark, extremely smooth-skinned and languid in her movements, she was wearing a long blue coat and skirt edged with skunk. One of her arms hanging loosely by her side, ended in one of those huge muffs so fashionable at that time. A toque of skunk framed the heavy black coils of her hair.

She noticed Marçais and greeted him with a languid bow.

"Who is she?" I murmured.

"What," he said ecstatically. "You mean to say you don't know the Maid of Honour, the Grand Duchess's inseparable confidante, Fräulein Melusine von Graffenfried? What on earth have you been doing with your time since you came?"

"What a beauty she is!" I said.

"She's a beauty all right! You're not the first to make that discovery. But you'd better realize, my boy," he added, with a curious sly glance, "that there's nothing doing. Besides, you'll forget her existence when the Grand Duchess arrives. Meanwhile she'll do, won't she ..."

Translating words into deeds he touched our beautiful neighbour gently on the shoulder.

"Fräulein von Graffenfried, there are some things in the castle we don't value as we should. Here is one of its residents, who has not yet been presented to you and now solicits that honour. My fellow-countryman, Monsieur Raoul Vignerte, tutor to His Highness Duke Joachim."

The charming young woman turned round and gave me an angelic glance, which, for some reason or other, reduced me to extreme confusion.

"Thank you, dear Count, for giving me an opportunity of knowing Monsieur Vignerte otherwise than by reputation. Monsieur, let me hope we shall meet again without having to wait for so special an occasion. But I'm told you work so hard."

It was not the first time I was to learn how much more tactful distinguished imbeciles are than people of reputed intelligence. Count de Marçais gave me further proof of this when he answered for me:

"No offence meant, dear friend, but perhaps it is easier to gain admittance to the castle library than to your affections!"

Melusine's eyelids quivered imperceptibly.

"No offence taken, I assure you," she rejoined, smiling. "Monsieur Vignerte is a true scholar, and will tell you that the very best libraries are those to which admission is most difficult. Isn't that so, Herr Beck?" She added, turning to the old savant, who had just arrived and was lost in astonishment at the troops concentrated at the two ends of the parade-ground.

I admired the surpassing skill with which she turned a conversation verging on delicate ground.

"You are unquestionably right, Fräulein," my old colleague hastened to reply, with the utter ingenuousness of the man of learning. "Monsieur Vignerte knows only too well that the whole library, manuscripts included, is at his disposal."

"Hush!" said Fräulein von Graffenfried, turning round. "Here's the King."

A group of horsemen had just appeared opposite us, on the other side of the square, in the courtyard of the castle. There was immediately a volley of sharp commands. Cavalry and infantry stiffened to attention. With a noise like sheets of metal tearing, bayonets were fixed to the muzzles of rifles. Three thousand swords flashed out, three thousand tongues of lightning.

Trumpets and fifes began a slow march, a kind of summons to arms, very sharp and strident, but quite in keeping with the keen December morning. When it stopped, there burst out one wild universal cheer, solid, raucous and prolonged, like the roll of a wave which never breaks.

The little group of horsemen advanced at the trot in the huge empty square. The King of Würtemberg, in field-marshal's uniform, was in front on a black horse. On his right was the Grand Duke Frederick-Augustus, in general's uniform, very plain. On his left General von Eichhorn displayed all the glories of the Great General Staff. Close by was young Duke Joachim, looking very well in the blue tunic of a lieutenant in the Detmold Dragoons.

Behind them came a display of the finest uniforms in the German Army: a colossal officer of the White Cuirassiers; an officer of the Guard Artillery in black and gold with crimson facings; grey Hussars, a green Uhlan.

"Where's the Grand Duchess?" I murmured to Marçais.

"What! You call yourself an officer of the Reserve! Where do you expect to find the colonel at a review? At the head of his regiment, of course. Look, there's Colonel von Mudra of the 182nd. The review begins with his regiment. He's the man just in front of the Staff. He will drop back into line when his unit has been inspected."

At a gallop the Royal group passed between the companies of the regiment, which smartly opened out for the manœuvre. The white and black standards were lowered at their passage. Then came a sharp order and the ranks closed up. It was the turn of the Detmold Dragoons.

Colonel von Becker, slim and straight, a fine figure in his blue tunic, white gauntlets and black-spiked helmet with its silver eagle, rode up to the King, whom he saluted with a broad sweep of his sabre, presenting to him his superb regiment, a host of giants on motionless giant steeds. This solid mass gave me such an impression of overwhelming force that I involuntarily pressed Marçais' hand.

"H'm!" he murmured. "Our Cuirassiers and Spahis will have their work cut out if it ever comes."

An order, passed down by the commanding officers, captains and lieutenants, and the earth trembled beneath the hoofs of the 11th Detmold Dragoons moving off by the right, behind the 182nd Infantry, to take its place for the march past.

It was Marçais' turn to press my arm.

"Look!" he said.

In front of us, in the first row, Fräulein Melusine von Graffenfried was leaning over the rail with a smile on her lips. Two riders were advancing towards the King. One was little Hagen, rather pale and plainly full of himself. He was riding eight or ten paces behind the Colonel of the Lautenburg Hussars.

To tell the truth, I could not clearly distinguish the features of the Grand Duchess Aurora. I could only see the outline of her slight form.

She was walking a little horse gorgeously caparisoned. Above her riding skirt was the tunic of the Lautenburg Hussars, red with orange facings. Her black kolbach reared its long gold cockade above her head.

She also presented arms to the King of Würtemberg, who, urging his horse forward, bowed over her hand and kissed it. A tremendous cheer went up from the crowd:

"Hoch for the Grand Duchess! Hoch for the King! Hoch for the Kaiser!"

Marçais touched Melusine gently on the arm.

"The Grand Duchess is a very placid Amazon today," he said.

"Do you think so?" replied the girl, shrugging her shoulders but not turning round. "She had two bottles of 'Extra Dry' put in Taras-Bulba's oats this morning. That explains everything."

"Taras-Bulba! Is that her horse?" I asked.

"Yes, a fearful little brute, hairy as a mat, you can see. She brought him from the marshes of the Volga. He's ugly, vicious and obstinate. She's absolutely the only person who can ride him. He tries to bite the groom's face off, but she can do what she likes with him."

"Sh!" said Melusine. "Look!"

The Hussars were advancing at full trot to take their places behind the Dragoons, who were drawn up behind the infantry.

With their backs to the stand and ourselves, the King of Würtemberg and General von Eichhorn faced the Grand Duke Frederick-Augustus and Duke Joachim, who, at the other end of the parade-ground, presented the troops marching past. I have no bias in favour of the Prussian goose-step, but I assure you that though we may mock at it in France, it is remarkably appropriate to German military atmosphere.

The 182nd marched past in line of columns of companies. You could have heard a pin drop. The six field artillery batteries followed at a gallop, the copper bobs on their black helmets sparkling in the sun. Then, by squads and keeping faultless alignment, the Detmold Dragoons advanced, followed at a distance of two hundred yards or so by the Lautenburg Hussars.

The Grand Duchess was between the two regiments. Little Hagen, stiller than ever, looked in the seventh heaven. A feeling of mute hatred of the man rose within me.

The march past was over. Whilst the Grand Duke Frederick-Augustus and Duke Joachim came over to join the King of Würtemberg and General von Eichhorn in front of the stand, the two calvary regiments massed for the final charge at the place the princes had just left.

"Look!" said Marçais to me. "You are going to see the Cossack style."

On the right was the blue mass, on the left the red, smaller. Twenty paces in front of them two riders, almost side by side. Colonel von Becker's great bay snorted. Taras-Bulba, quivering with suppressed excitement, did not move.

Leaning forward, Melusine looked on, her gaze at once roving and rapt.

Two sabres flashed and immediately, with a deafening roar, the great wave broke.

And now one horse was ahead—Taras-Bulba. How long would it last? Possibly ten seconds, and then the wave, three thousand horses and three thousand riders, stopped dead before the stands amid a rattle of oaths and the jingling of stirrups. The earth seemed to open.

I shall never forget the sight. On the right Becker, leaning back in his saddle, his horse rearing, saluted the sovereigns with his sword. On the left was Taras-Bulba pawing the air.

Five or six yards away from me the Grand Duchess sat her prancing horse. No pink glow on her pale face spoke of that breathless rush. Her huge black kolbach entirely hid her hair. Her green eyes shone gloriously. A Murat among Amazons, she held her sword raised above her head.

She smiled to us.

At that same moment a cry of admiring wonder broke from three throats. Melusine von Graffenfried, Marçais and I had the glory of leading a frantic burst of cheering.

Then Taras-Bulba fell back on his fore feet. With one hand Aurora von Lautenburg patted his shaggy mane, while she extended the other to King Albert, who kissed it again.

* * * * * *

An invitation card, handed to me by Ludwig when I returned to my rooms, intimated that my presence was requested at the dinner to take place at eight o'clock in the Great Gallery, in honour of His Majesty the King of Würtemberg and His Excellency General von Eichhorn. Third table; place 23.

I spent the afternoon in my room, playing with some manuscript or other, turning over pages, but not reading. At seven o'clock I went out into the park. Two hours earlier I had heard the last strains of the hunting horns, distant at first, die out in the ravine of the Melna. It was there that the hunt, led by the King and the Grand Duchess, had concluded.

The palace was a blaze of light, and through its lofty windows I could see the great tables groaning beneath their load of flowers and glass.

Most of the high officials and all the Lautenburg officers had been invited, and three hundred covers were laid at twelve tables.

I went in between a major of the Dragoons and the wife of a Court Councillor, and neither of them said a single word to me during the meal. The band of the 182nd played in the Council Chamber in the intervals between the courses.

I could not see the Grand Duchess, the King, or the Dukes, as the top table was completely hidden from me by a forest of flowers.

In the hubbub of toasts and champagne I slipped out, and went through the Council Chamber to the Great Hall, hoping to get a good view of the entrance of the royalties. A charming voice drew me from the well of my reflections:

"Well, Monsieur Vignerte, why so solitary?"

I was alone in the great room with Fräulein von Graffenfried.

"What about yourself, Fräulein?"

"I? Oh, that's a different matter. The Grand Duchess has asked me to have a look round before the others come in. The waiters are so stupid. She is most anxious that the flowers should be well arranged."

I looked around at the tasteful floral display about us. Purple iris alternated with yellow roses, larger and finer than anything I have ever seen, before or since.

"These flowers are from her own home," Melusine explained; "iris from the Volga and roses from Daghestan. She has a waggon-load sent every month, as she thinks the flowers here very poor. They are beautiful, aren't they?" she added, with her face buried in a large bunch.

"Not more so than she!" I murmured, not knowing what I said.

Melusine gave me a smiling glance. She was dressed in a gown of ivory satin under a tunic of tulle embroidered with iridescent pearls. No jewels, save for a necklace of pink pearls round her smooth throat.

Her whole personality, elegant, languid and perfumed, spoke in that smile.

"Yes, she is," was all she said.

Then with sudden irony:

"So it was her flowers that suggested herself? I shall tell her."

"I beg of you, Fräulein ..."

"No, no! I want you to know her. You must come and see us. We get bored, you know, seeing no one but little Hagen. He isn't always amusing."

"He is in love with her, I suppose," I said, drawing close up to her.

Melusine laughed.

"He's quite tiresome enough for that."

"And she?"

"Monsieur Vignerte," said Melusine, smiling again. "You go from one extreme to the other, the depths of modesty to the heights of indiscretion. Don't you realize that, to say the least, your questions are not very flattering to me?"

She leaned forward, almost touching me. Her black hair brushed my cheek.

"I think you found me much better-looking this morning before seeing her, didn't you?" she whispered.

She took my arm with an imperious gesture.

"Well, you can look at her now."

With a clatter of swords and spurs the procession entered the Great Hall just as a thousand lights were turned on at once.

* * * * * *

German Court functions have all the incomparable splendour that the magnificent imperial uniforms give them. I was almost blinded by the amazing display of blue, red and black tunics, bedecked with fur and sparkling with gold.

The hedge of Lautenburg Hussars presented swords.

The Grand Duchess Aurora came first on the arm of the King of Würtemberg.

A draped gown of dark green velvet, amazingly décolleté, left one shoulder absolutely bare. Behind her trailed her long train, with a wonderful design in silver embroidery.

On her right hand she had a single diamond set in platinum, on the left an emerald set in a circle of brilliants.

I had not seen her hair in the morning, but now I beheld that cloud of tawny gold, fashioned in great coils round her head, beneath a gold-lace cap surmounted by a strange barbaric tiara of emeralds.

For one second her eyes met mine. I had an intuition that what she read there did not displease her. I was probably the only human being in that etiquette-ridden concourse who dared gaze thus frankly at that woman.

Do you remember Gustave Moreau's Fée aux Griffons? You will recall the fantastic creature in a vivid blue landscape—that colour is less intense than the green of Aurora of Lautenburg's eyes. The picture will give you a dim idea of the Grand Duchess.

There was the same ethereal atmosphere, the same haunting mystery of outline. Melusine, exquisite, even unnerving as she was, seemed almost commonplace beside that Titania.

What Moreau's picture does not explain is the blending of ingenuousness and resolution which is the whole charm of this princess. She has something of the northern Creole, at once listless and impulsive, and again something of snow in sunshine, sparkling and hard on the surface, soft in substance.

Her waist, perhaps a little too slender, is rather high. You knew how delicately lovely her waist would have been if she had cared to lace it in, for the velvet gown moulded the form in a way that is only possible when there is direct contact with the flesh beneath. The thought that that form could emerge from its sheath like a cold, pure lily sent the blood surging to one's brain.

Among all those faces, on which wine had already begun to leave its purple traces, that pale statue, half unrobed, was miraculously white and pure. Her lips were rouged, her eyes darkened, and, to tell the truth, her nails were unnaturally pink. But you felt she made light of these adventitious aids on which others rely for beauty. You could imagine her smiling at resorting to them. She only uses them to show that she can just as well dispense with them.

The smile which hovered on her pale face was set, artificial. A slave to etiquette, she wore the appropriate official mien. Any one who watched her closely could the better observe an occasional emotion, dead at birth, which for a brief moment disturbed the grave, self-imposed mask. I knew that such an emotion must focus as many impulses as the colours in a prism. I felt that if I ever came to know Her Highness better, I should perhaps succeed in analysing them; but in the meantime that glimpse revealed two elements with unfailing certainty—irony and ennui.

Was this gentle, listless creature, indeed, the Amazon of the morning? I preferred her then. The bare, white shoulder hurt me, and I wanted a heavy ermine cloak to throw over it. There were a dozen around her. Oh! I knew that she was their sovereign, and that their glances, in her presence, were little more than mechanical. But if they had not thought themselves observed what reserve would they have shown?

And who, in Heaven's name, is that little red Hussar, lurking down there behind the flowers and casting covetous glances at that fair shoulder?... Hence, clown! Go back to your tame, fat German women, with their bulging arms and diabolo figures. She is not of your race. She is not for you, lout! I hate you, yet I envy you. I envy your scarlet tunic, your yellow facings, your gold tinsel, your lieutenant's rank in the 7th Hussars, which, when all else fails, is a bond between you and your soul-stirring Colonel. I could then approach her and proffer, as you do now, my compliments on the display of the morning.

With her face almost buried in the bouquet of irises she held to her nostrils, she thanked, in a low voice, the officers who congratulated her.

"Oh, no! You exaggerate. Taras-Bulba deserves all the praise. I'm always amazed at the way you keep up with him on your chargers. Compared with him the animals here are like brewers' horses."

Was I wrong, or could she really if she had wished have spoken German with less of a foreign accent?

Behind a screen of plants on the left the band of the 182nd struck up a waltz. The ball began.

"We are keeping out the dancers, gentlemen. Go and find your partners. They will be getting angry with me. Please take me to my place, Count," she said, taking General von Eichhorn's arm.

These Germans, male and female, waltzed with that grave, concentrated resolution that characterizes them. Spurs clinked merrily, and the beautiful imperial colours mingled under the lights into one fascinating kaleidoscope.

"Monsieur Vignerte, you are not dancing!"

"It is only because I'm such a poor performer, Fräulein. Besides, a black coat cuts a poor figure among all these uniforms."

"That's no reason," replied Melusine. "Why, there's good Frau von Wendel who will go very well with your clothes. You must ask her."

"If I must dance, I should prefer it to be with you."

"I'm afraid I haven't time. My business is to wander round and look after the wallflowers and more bashful dancers. Let me take your arm. You can accompany me."

A pretty woman on my arm gave me the confidence I lacked.

"Fräulein von Graffenfried! Monsieur Vignerte!" The voice of Marçais.

The last word in elegance, he was sitting near the Grand Duchess. Great Heavens! He beckoned to me to go up.

"Can't we ever get hold of you?" he said, laughing. "Here, monsieur."

He presented me to the Grand Duchess.

"It was partly for your sake, Madame, that I brought Monsieur Vignerte here. But you seem in no hurry to use the gifts we offer."

She replied casually:

"I? My wish is nothing better than to know Monsieur Vignerte. I am told he is charming. You must forgive me, monsieur, if I say 'I am told.' I have hitherto had no chance of judging for myself. You work very hard, I understand."

The same words as Melusine had used. Oh, the shame of it! Was I always to wear the pedant's gown? Was I always to be the man who "worked very hard," I, whose nights were passed in dreams of a voluptuousness that none suspected?

I was going to reply. I think I was going to tell that haughty creature the plain truth. But she rose.

"Excuse me! I must dance—at any rate, once! Herr von Hagen," she called.

The little red Hussar was there. He came forward, humble but radiant. I knew a day would come when I should box his ears!

A space had been cleared on the floor. The Grand Duchess Aurora's dance seemed to be a maëlstrom from which the dancers turned aside lest they be drawn in. They waltzed at first the slow German waltz in three time. Then the measure quickened, changing to two beats in the bar. It was no longer even the boston, but a wild, harmonious whirling.

A murmur of admiration went up. The Grand Duke Frederick-Augustus looked on with a smile which was almost a smile of triumph.

It was not Hagen, elegant and accomplished though he was, who set the pace, but the tall green and white form. Round and round she went, listless as ever. Hagen let himself be carried along. An ecstatic flush suffused his fair, boyish face. He was as clay in the hands of his Sovereign. Red, green, red, green, then a blur. The complementary colours appeared. They turned, turned, turned...

In France we should have clapped.

She went back to her place a drooping lily. As she adjusted her right shoulder-strap, she let fall the lovely bouquet of purple iris which she had been carrying. I rushed forward and picked it up.

"Thank you, monsieur," she said casually. Then, this time voluntarily, she dropped them again.

Good Lord! they were already faded.

* * * * * *

I went back to my room, opened the window, and, gazing out at the cold stars, drank the dregs of humiliation. I understood. She felt a hopeless antipathy to me. What was it? What had I done? I didn't know.

The outcast's motto came back to me: "To work!"

I could still hear the distant strains of the band. Limousines crossed the Königsplatz with their glaring headlights. Their occupants were happier than I, for they had seen her since I had.

To work!

IV

WELL, Raoul Vignerte! What are you after now? What's this new craze of yours? Why! only a few weeks ago you didn't know in the morning where your dinner was coming from. Your acme of happiness was to be certain of the next day's meals. Here you are certain not only of tomorrow's, but next month's, and even for years to come. You have only to devote yourself to your work—work, the only thing that brings no regret. And with all this you are unhappy, not merely unhappy, but actually miserable. You are more miserable than on the day when you arrived at the Gare d'Orsay, turning out your pockets to see if you could find a proper tip for the porter without changing your one gold piece, which, once broken into, would vanish all too quickly. What is the cause of your suffering? Your cursed imagination. Isn't it because you know that henceforth all the beauties of Paris, all the treasures of France, could not satiate the longings within you? She! a beauty, a Grand Duchess! Poor fool! You called yourself an anti-romanticist and used to make fun of the Romantic Drama. Yet here you are, when it suits your purpose, repeating all unconsciously the adventure of Ruy Blas, lackey to Monseigneur the Marquis de Finlas. Is this what your gods, Le Play and Auguste Comte, have brought you to? You are a funny creature! Why, the queen of your dreams is even further from you than from that little red Hussar with his elegant indolence, rank, and a coat-of-arms to back him....

I got to work and gradually found that the dust of the library chased away my envy, hatred and regret. I accustomed myself to the idea that I should never set foot in the left wing of the palace. I liked to think that she dawdled out life there with her Melusine, and that I was never made for such a place. I deliberately intended to take away from my visit to Lautenburg everything I thought could help or amuse me. In two years' time I should have saved five or six thousand francs and collected material for three or four books. I would return to Paris, and with my methodical industry and the memory of what I had missed, would make her mine. After all, Paris was better than this scornful, barbaric beauty!

Professor Thierry had drawn up an excellent plan of campaign, and the further I explored the library, the more I appreciated his wisdom. The history of the German dynasties contemporary with Louis XIV. sheds a wonderful light on his reign, throwing its natural attraction into greater relief. The single preoccupation of German princelings towards the close of the seventeenth century was to imitate the King of France, the usual method being to secure the services of artists, or pupils of artists, who had worked for him. But while every French seigneur made a point of having a particular artist to work exclusively for him, it is amusing to see how the Germans usually clubbed together to share the expense of commissioning some particular painter, sculptor, or gardener. It reminds one of the way in which poor Parisian families club together to buy a sack of vegetables or a whole lamb at the Halles.

I discovered among the archives most of the estimates of the French painters and sculptors who worked not merely for the Dukes of Lautenburg and Detmold, but also for the Dukes of Lüneburg-Celle and the Electors of Hanover. Ernout executed most of the statuary groups in the gardens. Gourvil, a pupil at La Quintinie, laid them out. Lesigne, a pupil of Lebrun, was commissioned to do the frescoes. A Catalan, Giroud, was in charge of the iron and locksmith's work. Zeyer, a painter in lacquer and instructor to Princess Sophie-Dorothea, has left some charming work on the doors of the Herrenhausen Palace at Hanover and of the Palace of Lautenburg.

Their accounts were hotly disputed by the stewards of these Sovereigns, and in many cases the princes themselves did not hesitate to suggest reductions in their own hands. I examined with great interest a long bill of Giroud's, exhibited by that artist before a Hanover tribunal in 1690, to justify his charges for the installation of a number of secret springs at the Herrenhausen. Duke Ernest-Augustus, the future Elector, failed to establish his case for reduction. At that date, at any rate, Hanover had judges who judged.

I had decided in principle to confine my researches to the influence of France on the Courts of Germany in the seventeenth century. I had at my disposal a mass of documents, more than enough for Professor Thierry's purpose and comprising material for a book of my own. It is to that Zeyer, lacquer artist and instructor to Princess Sophie-Dorothea, that I owe the extension of my original plan. I found among his accounts a transcript of his evidence before the Commission of Enquiry which tried the unhappy Hanoverian sovereign. He is thus responsible for the events which were to follow.

Vignerte stopped, thought a moment and then put an unexpected question.

"Do you know the dramatic story of Count Philip Christopher of Königsmark?"

For answer I repeated the following lines:

"The author of those lines," said Vignerte, "had read Blaze de Bury's book. It is the only useful work in French on the tragedy. Do you remember it?"

"I'm afraid I've forgotten most of it," I confessed.

"I shall have to give you the story in some detail. It will not explain my own adventure. It makes it even more extraordinary."

You will certainly remember what was the general situation in the State of Hanover in 1680. Its sovereign was Ernest-Augustus, a profligate versed in all the arts of statesmanship, who had been successively Bishop of Osnabrück, and Duke and Elector of Hanover. His brother, George-William, was Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg. Ernest-Augustus had a son, George: George-William a daughter, Sophie-Dorothea.

The ambitions of Ernest-Augustus had a double goal. His primary aim was to recover his brother's estates for his family. There was only one method—to marry George to Sophie-Dorothea. The marriage took place in 1682 when the Duchess of Brunswick-Lüneburg was only sixteen.

The other ambition of Ernest-Augustus soared higher. It was the crown of England. Fortune favoured him. One after another the twelve children of Queen Anne were gathered by death. Ernest-Augustus was not to see the fulfilment of his work—he died in 1698—but his son George reaped its fruits. On the death of Queen Anne in 1714 he mounted the throne of Great Britain as George I. He mounted it alone. Eighteen years before he had separated from his wife as the result of an infamous intrigue, and when her husband assumed the crown of England the wretched Sophie-Dorothea was dragging out her weary days in the Castle of Ahlden, more prison than palace.

You must forgive me for this dry summary of facts. It is essential I should be clear.

The story of Sophie-Dorothea's divorce is the story of the assassination of Count Philip-Christopher von Königsmark.

A member of one of the highest and most ancient Swedish families, friend of the Prince-Elector of Saxony, as dark and handsome as Sophie-Dorothea was fair and lovely, Count Philip and the Duchess of Brunswick-Lüneburg had known each other at Celle in their childhood when they were affianced in the ingenuous manner of the times. Their ways had parted, however, and Philip had led the adventurous life of a gallant Swedish free-lance at the Courts of James II. and Louis XIV., at Dresden and Venice.

Was Sophie-Dorothea's marriage a spur to his old love or a blow to his vanity? Whatever the reason, the fact remains that one fine morning Hanover witnessed the arrival of Count Philip von Königsmark.

The Court of the Elector was a den of debauch, a garbage-heap on which Sophie-Dorothea, fair lily, was slowly fading. Betrayed by a husband whom she had ever despised, compelled to tolerate, as gracefully as she could, the virago Countess von Platen, the abject favourite of Ernest-Augustus, she spent her weary life in solitude, preoccupied solely with the education of her two children—a son who was destined for the throne of England, and a daughter who was one day to be Queen of Prussia.

Then Königsmark arrived at Hanover and the drama opened.

Count Philip had come to take his revenge by winning back the heart of Sophie-Dorothea. But before he had even set eyes on her Countess von Platen had her eye on him. He deemed it wise not to flout the all-powerful favourite, but he was obliged to go to great lengths in order to soothe the susceptibilities of that woman—a Messalina and Lady Macbeth in one. He went, in fact, to the furthest limit. Once compromised, she would be in his power—but it was he who found himself in her clutches.

Then began the idyll of Philip von Königsmark and Sophie-Dorothea. The gloomy Herrenhausen Palace witnessed their ephemeral loves. Sophie-Dorothea's first notion was that the gallant Count had come to Hanover only to see for himself the misery and desertion of her who had been compelled by her father's wishes to marry another. His practically open liaison with Countess von Platen added fresh torture to her lot. But one morning, going with her lady-in-waiting to the little wood in the Herrenhausen park where she sat out every day, she spied the Count just moving off. A note was left on the seat, with these lines, in the style of Benserade:

Was Sophie-Dorothea Königsmark's mistress? I still doubt it, even after reading their correspondence in the archives of La Gardie. But I must freely confess that it must have been quite impossible to doubt it in so corrupt a Court as Hanover, where it was common knowledge that Duke George's wife received the handsome Swedish adventurer every evening in her apartments.

The vindictive Countess von Platen was the last to know that she was the laughing-stock of the whole palace, but that day the doom of both Count and Duchess was sealed.

On the evening of Saturday, July 1st, 1694, Königsmark, returning to his room, found on his table a note with a few words scribbled in pencil:

Princess Sophie-Dorothea will expect Count Königsmark this evening, after ten.

This note, a forgery imitating Sophie-Dorothea's handwriting, was the work of Countess von Platen. Königsmark, unsuspecting and brave as a lion, kept the appointment. He left the Princess at two in the morning.

Next morning Sophie-Dorothea saw from her balcony two men furtively wandering in the park as if they had lost something. They were Count Philip's servants searching for their master. He was never to be seen again, by them or any one else.

There you have the tragedy, my friend. There remains the dénouement, the divorce of Sophie-Dorothea. That unhappy young woman of twenty-eight lived in a world of enemies. She wished to leave her husband, who was a nightmare to her, but was prevented by the wishes of her father, who had forced a marriage on her for political reasons. A love-sick girl could not be allowed to upset the pretty scheme which had the throne of England as its possible goal. The unhappy creature refused to lend herself to it. She was dangerous for other reasons. The Swedish Count had relations. And so she was duly divorced after a trial in which she suffered every outrage and humiliation. Her children were taken out of her care, and ultimately the wife of the King of England, once more plain Duchess, died a prisoner in her Castle at Ahlden in 1726. Then only did the parental fury relent. The vaults of the castle in which she was born were opened to her corpse. There, in the obscurest corner of the crypt of the keep of Celle, is a humble coffin, bearing no inscription. It contains the mortal remains of Sophie-Dorothea, wife of the Elector George-Lonis of Hanover, King of England under the name of George I.

I have outlined, as briefly as I could, the story of Philip von Königsmark and Sophie-Dorothea. I need hardly say that many points in the tragedy have never yet been cleared up. The assassination of the Count is undoubtedly the most obscure incident in the whole affair. Witnesses agree that it was Countess von Platen who set the trap in which he perished. Ten hired assassins pierced him with their swords and the horrible Countess herself dealt him the final blow. But what was done with the corpse? This is where the mystery begins.

Opinions are divided. Was the Count, as some say, buried in a grave in the park? Or, according to another version which I have reasons to believe the true one, was his corpse covered with quick-lime and thrown under the stone floor of the room known as the "Knights' Hall"? Or was it simply cast into the latrines which communicated with the Lüne flowing at the foot of the castle, as the author of the "Secret History"[2] would have us believe? Was his the corpse, as Horace Walpole asserts, which was discovered twenty years later under the floor of a retiring-room in the Herrenhausen? I only put these problems to explain to you, though to me it still remains inexplicable, my feverish resolution to solve them. You may well imagine that the mystery was more vivid and intriguing to me than to any other man, partly because of the situation at the palace, with its many points of resemblance to that in which the tragedy took place, and partly because of the priceless material at my disposal in the ducal library.

The most valuable authority till then available was the correspondence of Königsmark and Sophie-Dorothea, to be found in the archives of the La Gardie Library at Loeberod in Sweden. This correspondence was discovered by Professor Palmblad, who published extracts from it at Upsala in 1851. When Professor Thierry in taking leave of me had referred me to Palmblad's work, he hoped that at Lautenburg I should be able to discover a portion of the correspondence, which wandered all over Germany before finding a definite home at Loeberod. I was, however, unable to find anything, though I had compensation for my disappointment in another and most fruitful discovery.

You remember I spoke of Sophie-Dorothea's daughter a short time ago. She married the Crown Prince of Prussia, the future "Drill-Sergeant King," Frederick I. "A harsh and tyrannical husband," as Blaze de Bury writes, "his first act, on mounting the throne, was to forbid his wife formally to hold any sort of communication with the prisoner of Ahlden. It was only when Sophie-Dorothea had inherited from her mother a revenue of twenty thousand crowns, a very considerable sum in those days, that the royal miser began to soften towards her, though his sudden concern was purely mercenary, being based solely on his wife's possible interest in the inheritance, an interest which the celebrated jurisconsult, Thomasius, had laboured to establish."[3]

The Queen of Prussia was the meekest of women, but, urged on secretly by her confessor, she had never ceased to reproach herself for not having boldly taken her captive mother's part, convinced as she was of her innocence. She began to take advantage of her forbidding husband's better moments to collect the material on which to base proceedings to clear her character. Unfortunately Sophie-Dorothea died in 1726. This did not deter her royal daughter from pursuing her labour of love. Thanks to her resolution and the learned assistance of the jurisconsult Thomasius already mentioned, an enormous dossier, comprising some twelve hundred documents, was prepared. It established beyond doubt Sophie-Dorothea's innocence and Countess von Platen's ignominy. This monument of filial devotion was never to serve any practical purpose. An anonymous note at the top of the file records that on the representations of George II., King of England, communicated to his brother-in-law, Frederick I. of Prussia through the British Minister, the rehabilitation suit was never begun. The English King observed to his sister, not without truth, that every piece of evidence disproving their mother's guilt only established their father's.

The submissive Prussian Queen yielded to the force of this political argument. The file, a monument of futile industry, after various wanderings recorded in the note I have mentioned, ended by falling in 1783 into the hands of the Grand Duchess Charlotte-Augusta of Lautenburg, niece of the reigning sovereign. It was this very file that I had the good fortune to discover among the uncatalogued manuscripts in the ducal library at the end of January, 1914. From the original notes of the cross-examination of Fräulein von Knesebeck, Sophie-Dorothea's confidante, to the record of Countess von Platen's confession,[4] had before me everything required to reconstruct the story of the mysterious Herrenhausen drama. In the casual manner of historians in dealing with uncatalogued manuscripts I carried off to the privacy of my room the six packets containing the whole melancholy story.

What a pageant of love and chivalry, crime and passion, grandeur, life and death, was unrolled for me in its musty pages and clerkly script in divers tongues! At night, when the castle was asleep, I pulled my table up to my glowing log fire and worked in a kind of burning frenzy. Here I touched history, live history, not the poor second or third hand imitation which was doled out to us, according to syllabus, from the Sorbonne Library. I will admit, I must admit, that the fumes of romance mingled with the soulless passion for knowledge that seized my very being. The Court of Hanover danced before my eyes, fantastic and brutal—Ernest-Augustus, the Silenus of politics; George-Louis, the narrow-minded profligate; Countess von Platen, the fearsome Messalina, beautiful and winning notwithstanding; Königsmark, the swarthy adventurer in his blood-stained doublet of pink and gold; pure-souled Sophie-Dorothea, fair and slender in her wedding gown of silver brocade.

Silver, did I say? There spoke the historian, the maker of books. But oh! how much fairer, how much nearer, I imagined her in another gown, a gown fresh in my mind! A gown of green velvet!

Winter was almost over, already yielding to the spring. I had opened my window to help my fire to draw, and through it the air wafted in with the magic touch of living breath. Through the darkness I felt the presence of the black trees, their bare branches quivering with the promise of life.

Several times, my friend, my dear friend—when death hovers overhead why should I not confess those follies which are the price and glory of life for men like ourselves?—under the spell of that old story of a gallant, murdered lover and a fair dead Queen, and impelled by an instinct the sureness of which Fate was in due course to reveal, I pushed open the door of my room with a beating heart. The corridor was dark. The old staircase creaked beneath my steps. Often in the great hall I had seen the lantern of the sleeping watchman. What on earth should I have said, had I been challenged?

The open postern exposed a great steel blue vault in the middle of which mysterious Cassiopeia seemed to shiver. I went out, crossing the moon-bathed lawns, hiding in the shadows of the yews. A light shone in the centre wing of the palace. The Grand Duke Frederick-Augustus must be a late worker! All was dark in the left wing, but when I reached the end of the building and pressed myself against the wall I knew that here, too, there were some who kept late hours.

Spring was not yet with us, but one felt that the song of the nightingale would soon be heard. Bright and spearlike, a ray of light spanned the gravel path, emanating from another window dark with heavy hangings and curtains.

The nightingale was not yet singing in the French park, embedded in the heart of that Germany whither Fate had led me. But behind that window a poignant long-drawn wail, interrupted at intervals by maddening silences that made my nerves quiver with apprehension, came slowly and softly from the silent palace straight to my heart. For Fräulein von Graffenfried was playing Schumann's most plaintive berceuses to her mistress on her violin.

V

PETERMANN'S MITTHEILUNGEN is the most exhaustive. And also it must be confessed the best, geographical work in the world. Our Annales de Géographie is only a feeble reflection of it. The Russians have an excellent geographer, Woïkow. We have Vidal de la Blache, whose preface to Lavisse's Histoire de France is a masterpiece. But these are only fragments and do not cover the whole ground. The astonishing feature of Petermann's Mittheilungen is its universality. My tutors at the Sorbonne—I won't mention names as it would hardly be kind to them at the present moment—have told me hundreds of times that no serious geographical work could be attempted without the assistance of this powerful machine.

I will not exaggerate either the scope or value of the lessons I gave my pupil by having you imagine that I never prepared one without consulting the Mittheilungen. But I can assure you that whenever it was necessary to emphasize some particular point I never failed to fortify myself by reference to the great work.

Accordingly I had recourse to it when occasion arose to instruct Duke Joachim on a question which was indeed a topic of the hour—the question of the Cameroons and the recent German acquisitions in the Congo. It was just two years since the Cambon-Kiderlen-Wächter conversations had resulted in an agreement which gave Germany the famous "Duck's bill" and Togoland. It, therefore, seemed to me a natural proceeding to dwell at some length on the region which had been the cause of the Kaiser's famous bang on the diplomatic table.

I shall never forget that day—Monday, March 2nd—nearly eight months ago now.

I first ran through the Table of Contents of the Mittheilungen in order to look up the references and authorship of the six articles on the Cameroons and the Congo. The second I came across was the work of Professor Heidschütz, of Berlin University, describing the means of access (natural and artificial) to this territory.

I carried the appropriate volume to the library table and began to make some notes. As I was opening the book at the page of the article I wanted, a piece of paper fell out. It was a sheet, folded in four and already yellow with age, and the writing on it was large, thick and free. It was German in Latin characters. No signature. Even without that writing to help me I had immediately guessed what was its subject and who had written it.

It contained the complete plan of a journey in one of the remotest parts of the Congo, along the famous, or, rather, notorious, river Sangha. The routes were carefully drawn up, with the assistance of the information given in Professor Heidschütz's article, which, as I expected, was the very last word on these regions. All practicable tracks, fords, and resources available to the explorer of the country—from the moment he left Libreville to the time of his return there—were noted. Each halt was marked: Ouesso, two days—French post, water, porters: Manna, one day—porters: Gléglé, on the N'Sagha, canoes, etc.

A fierce joy possessed me. Fate had delivered up to me the Grand Duke Rudolph's own plan, in his own hand, for his scientific journey in the very region where he was to meet with his death. Mine was not, I realized, the triumph of the historian at the discovery of a document throwing interesting light on German designs in the Congo, a document in itself proof positive, in view of the rank and personality of the explorer, that the Agadir coup was premeditated. What cared I for dryasdust History at that moment? In a flash I realized that pique had been the motive for all my labours since that famous occasion when the Grand Duchess had insulted me before the whole world!

If you would know the nature of the emotions that convulsed me as I scrutinized the precious document I must tell you how my imagination had been at work since that date. I had tried in vain to hate the Grand Duchess. I could not do so. The effort only had the effect of sharpening my desire to approach her, claim her notice, convince her that my end in life was to devote myself to her service.

Devote myself! Good God, what on earth could have led me to think that this dazzling, distant goddess might need my humble devotion?...

It was here, my friend, that my imagination led me on. To tell the truth it certainly had something to build upon. You don't suppose that during my long, lonely nights I had forgotten the confidences of a man of Professor Thierry's standing? Quite the reverse. What wealth of meaning had I not read into them? In a vague way I felt myself in an atmosphere of mystery. I felt, just as I feel you now at my side in the dark, that some tragedy was at the bottom of the presentiments of evil that flooded my mind from time to time. My work and the nights devoted to the tragic story of Königsmark had only aggravated my apprehension. All moonshine, you will say; the diseased imaginings of a brain excited by work in solitude, and, perhaps, a stronger emotion. You might have some reason for thinking so if events had not abundantly justified my excitement.

Whatever the cause, my friend, even before I discovered the Grand Duke's plan I had pieced together a story which satisfied my notions. I imagined the Grand Duke Frederick-Augustus, correct and kind as he always was towards me, as the executioner of his wife, that adorable Grand Duchess. You see beauty made me fundamentally unjust. It made me attribute imaginary wickedness to the man who, obviously, had many virtues and was, in any case, the author of my present prosperity, while I raised a monument in my mind to the woman who had once held me up to public scorn and subsequently seemed to ignore my existence whenever I had been thrown in her way. In my lucid moments I would reflect that there was little of the martyr about the cold, haughty creature who spent her nights listening to her Melusine's violin and her days on horseback, hunting with her miserable red Hussar! That Hagen.... Wasn't it plain as a pikestaff that it was the Grand Duke who deserved pity and affection!... I should never have had his patience!

Useless sedatives. Vain strivings to forget. A moment later, back among my fantastic imaginings I pictured Aurora of Lautenburg turning to her fiery mount, hunting, music—anything to assuage her grief at the loss of her first husband, that handsome, gallant husband who had loved her, whom she still loved, no doubt.... And the jealousy born of these reveries made me cherish them all the more.

Many conversations had failed to convince me of heir lack of substance. It was useless for Frau von Wendel, with her sullen hatred of the Grand Duchess, to sigh out tales of poor, dear Grand Duke Rudolph, who had been so unhappy. I ruthlessly cleared everything from my path that seemed to threaten the integrity of my fantastic fabrications.

You can call me a lunatic. But assuming I was one, you can imagine the frenzy with which I put back the volume of the Mittheilungen, thrust my precious sheet into my case and went up to my room.

Open, Sesame! I had now in my possession the mysterious key which would open the way to the Grand Duchess's presence, and enable me to compel her regard. "When she sees these lines," I thought, "in the handwriting of a beloved husband, she will know that he who brings them to light and gives them to her does not deserve the unworthy indifference she shows him. Perhaps she will ask my pardon. Then I shall have compelling words to stay the flow of regrets on those fair lips. She will only wonder the more at her own past behaviour."

Twice I attempted to write a letter to accompany the document, and twice I threw it into the fire. The first did not seem respectful enough. The second was too full of the importance of my discovery. Eventually I hit upon the simplest possible form of words:

MADAM,

By pure chance I have discovered a document which cannot fail to concern your Highness. Permit me to enclose it with this note, in witness of your humble servant's respectful devotion.

I had thought of entrusting my missive, with a couple of words of explanation, to Fräulein von Graffenfried, who had never ceased to show me a marked regard which was very flattering. But I was doomed to disappointment, as Melusine had just gone out into Lautenburg, so I had to be content with an old half-witted Russian waiting-woman. The ancient dame took it, not without suspicion, and went off mumbling something unintelligible.

I went back to my room at once and there my excitement oozed away. In fact, I was soon practically taking myself to task for my action. What purpose would it serve? Why was I mixing myself up in the affair? I think I almost wished the old Russian even sillier than she seemed so that she might lose my letter.

A step sounded in the corridor and there was a knock at the door. Ludwig entered.

"Excuse me, Herr Professor. The Herr Professor has been sent for."

Stepping aside he ushered in a lackey. I thought I should collapse when I saw the blue and gold livery of the Grand Duchess.

"Will the Herr Professor kindly come with me?" said the man.

Stunned by the almost immediate effect of my action, I followed him, even forgetting my hat. We cut across the park. Where was he taking me? We reached and descended the slopes of the English garden. Soon we were among the willows by the Melna, flushed with the ruddy glow of dying day.

A shot rang out from a clump of chestnut trees, and I thought I heard a rustle in the branches as if a bird were falling.

"Will the Herr Professor please step this way?"

I was now in a kind of arbour. The Grand Duchess was standing with her gun still smoking in her hand.

"Excuse me, monsieur. I am having a little thrush shooting," was all she said.

And she nodded to her lackey to leave us.

* * * * * *

I was alone with the queen of my dreams. I had known that this moment would come, but never imagined that it would find us in this leafy tunnel, which I had passed many a time in my walks, without suspecting its existence.

For a few seconds she gazed at me in silence. My embarrassment was absolutely indescribable. It was only later, much later, that I learned how well it had served my cause. So nervous a visitor could hardly be an enemy.

At length she spoke, and her voice was soft, so soft that I did not recognize it.

"I am grateful, Monsieur Vignerte, for your communication. You were right in thinking that any relic of the late Grand Duke Rudolph could not be a matter of indifference to me. Will you tell me," she added, "how this paper came into your possession?"

I told her the whole story of my discovery. There must have been a wealth of emotion and candour in my words, for I felt she was touched.

"Monsieur," she said, and her words were gentleness itself, "if, as I hope, we are to know each other better, you will, I feel sure, cease to bear me any ill-will for what may have seemed unmannerly in my behaviour towards you. No, don't protest. That behaviour was deliberate, monsieur. Indifference in a woman is always feigned. You must believe that, to understand me, certain factors are required which are far from being in your possession."

Where was the pretty speech I had promised myself in reply to these words, long foreseen?

"Are you always working, Monsieur Vignerte?" asked Aurora, with a smile tinged with delicate irony.

"Madam!" I murmured, overcome.

"Oh! I have no intention of taking you from your exalted pupil, but I cannot help remembering that when the Grand Duke brought you here, it was with a kindly idea of lending you to me occasionally. I have only myself to blame for not taking advantage of his forethought before."

My doubts as to whether she was serious or not nailed me, dumb, to the spot.

"Do you play bridge?" she asked.

"Yes—a little," I stammered, blessing Kessel and old Colonel von Wendel, to whom I owed this latest accomplishment.

"We—that is, Fräulein von Graffenfried, Lieutenant von Hagen and I—play bridge every evening. You shall make a fourth. You will do us a much greater service than you imagine," she added, smiling. "I need hardly add that you must come when you like."

"I understand, too," she continued, "that you have some most interesting French books. I do a certain amount of reading, and should be very glad to become acquainted with them, providing I'm not robbing that good Frau von Wendel."

I blushed atrociously.

"Very well, then," she said, noticing nothing. "You will come when you like, Monsieur Vignerte; but if you will let me give you further proof of my gratitude by making a request, may I say that I shall be happy to see you in my boudoir this evening, about half-past nine."

I bowed and was about to withdraw when she beckoned me back.

"Monsieur," she said in low, grave tones, "of course, it is understood that everything touching this is strictly between ourselves."

She indicated my letter, which she had just drawn from one pocket of her black, full-skirted jacket.

I bowed again.

"This evening, then, Monsieur Vignerte, and if you would do me a last kindness, please go out as quietly as you possibly can, so as not to scare away the thrushes."

I returned to the palace by a circuitous route, along the Melna. A kingfisher skimmed backwards and forwards over the darkening water. It was of the same colour as the emerald I had just noticed on the white finger of Aurora of Lautenburg-Detmold.

* * * * * *

The Grand Duchess's bridge-table was set in a curious little Louis Quinze salon on the first floor. Two Bouchers, a Largillière and an excellent Watteau were its best features. Flowers, masses of flowers, everywhere.

Remembering that Hagen would be there, I had made a special point of not arriving first. Indeed, it was a quarter to ten when I knocked at the door of Aurora of Lautenburg.

It was Melusine who opened it.

"I'm very pleased to see you!" the charming creature murmured as she took my hand. The Grand Duchess gave me a smile of welcome and beckoned me to the table, at which she was already sitting with Hagen. I had an impression that the red Hussar was in a thoroughly bad temper, and this pleased me so much, that I lavished the most delicate attentions upon him all the evening.

Aurora of Lautenburg was wearing a kind of black silk tunic, very décolleté, with masses of gold braid and edged with chinchilla at the neck and sleeves. A net of gold filigree confined her cloud of tawny hair.

She played with careless assurance, nearly always winning, and never missing a lead, and Melusine, too, played well. I made appalling mistakes, but as luck would have it, calmly trumped my partner's tricks and ended by winning. The thought that Hagen would several times have thrown his cards in my face if it had not been for the Grand Duchess's presence made me almost delirious with joy.

The first rubber came to an end as the clock struck eleven. The Grand Duchess rose.

"Cards will ruin you, little man!" she said familiarly to Hagen. "I haven't forgotten that you have General Hildenstein's inspection tomorrow, and must be down by six in the morning. You needn't hesitate to leave Melusine and myself alone," she added, "as Monsieur Vignerte has kindly consented to keep us company. So you'd better go to bed."

With maternal solicitude she offered him his sword. He took it with a fiendish glance at me, which I pretended not to see.

Melusine von Graffenfried smiled her eternal sphinx smile.

"Let us go to my room," said Aurora. "Monsieur Vignerte, don't forget the books you have brought me."

* * * * * *

In accordance with the principles set forth in Edgar Allan Poe's "Psychology of Furnishing," the Grand Duchess's room was elliptical. A large mauve globe, set in the ceiling, shed a misty, shadowless light.

On the walls were prints of Burne-Jones, Constable and Gustave Moreau.

The room was full of the three things I love most—flowers, rugs and precious stones. Flowers invaded every corner, and it was quite five minutes before I got used to their overpowering scent. Then the soothing fragrance possessed me, and I was almost able to distinguish between them. Roses and lilies, of course, predominated, though merely as a glorious framework in which the riches of the Tcherna and the Caucasus were exhibited in bewildering profusion. Against the walls were massed the mullein of Mongolia, with their great spikes of flowers nearly a yard long. The musky pink centaury swarmed on every table. Purple passion-flowers, the spring marvel of Aral's desolate shores, tuberoses from Erivan, crimson scabious, monster carnations of every hue, linaria and love-lies-bleeding, balsam and nigella, primroses of Kasbeck, huge red moonflowers from the defiles of Daried, the everlasting-flower of Colchis, once the refuge of the mythical green bird—all these flowers, known or unknown among us, turned that cool room into the haunt of eternal spring.

The sweet-smelling irises, of a deep violet hue approaching black, almost held me spellbound. The Grand Duchess noticed this and smiled.

"Those are what I love best. They are brothers to those I used to gather in my childhood by the banks of the Volga."

She sat down on the great, low bed, with its two polar-bear skins for a cover, and took off the net which confined her hair. Her tawny mane fell out over the white rugs. At her feet Melusine, stretched on a tiger-skin, with her arm on the great beast's head, toyed with a kind of guzla from which she drew wavering, plaintive sounds.

The Grand Duchess took off her jewels, one by one, and put them on little side-tables about the bed. On a chest, with a top of green onyx and painted like a Persian cabinet, I noticed the barbaric tiara she had worn at the fête of the 7th Hussars. By it was another, even heavier one, in sapphires.

The floor was strewn with rugs on which little red and green roses from Armenia swarmed like scarabs and ladybirds. A long necklace of amber and turquoise, strung chaplet-wise, hung from the head of the bed, and above it was a dark little niche where a burning lamp showed up a blue and gold ikon.

Two large silver bowls, gloriously chased, stood near the Grand Duchess. One was full of petals, the other of uncut jewels. In this she plunged her hand, and as fine sand slips through the fingers, she let fall a smooth bright rain of pearls and corundum, chalcedonies and beryls, sardonyx and peridots.

O Margravine of Lautenburg, as you reclined there before me, you were once more the Tartar princess, the fay of the East, the peri of the Volga's mystic waters.

* * * * * *

She asked me to tell her the circumstances which had brought me to Lautenburg, She had heard some of the details from Marçais, but from the smile with which she told me this I had no difficulty in guessing her opinion of that diplomatist's perspicacity.

It was plain that she wanted to know my story, and I met her wishes with straightforward simplicity. Towards the end, as I felt her interested and friendly, I could not help giving her a moving picture of the distress our first meeting had caused me, I who had no sooner set eyes on her than my sole idea in life had been to gain her regard.

Melusine von Graffenfried nodded approval, closing her eyes as she blew rings from her cigarette to the ceiling.

"Please let us forget all that, Monsieur Vignerte," said the Grand Duchess. "Give me your hand." Then, turning to Melusine, she spoke in Russian, not knowing that I had a smattering of her native tongue.

"It's no good relying on him for my admission to the Kirchhaus."

Fräulein von Graffenfried replied with a shake of the head, which might be interpreted as "Didn't I say so?"

"Melusine," said the Grand Duchess, "light the samovar."

While the girl arranged the teacups round the heavy, humming tower of burnished copper, Aurora rose from the bed and opened a small secretaire. She beckoned me to her.

"Do you know that writing?" she asked, holding out a letter.

I examined the paper. I had never seen the writing in question.

"It is the hand of the late Grand Duke Rudolph," she said simply.

My surprise grew to amazement. She could not restrain a smile.

"But, excuse me, madame. I don't understand. Then whose is the document I sent you, to which I owe ..."

"Don't get excited; keep calm, Monsieur Vignerte. The paper to which you owe my regard—nay, my friendship—was not written by my husband, the late Grand Duke. But it is not without its value for me. It may even have a greater value."

As she spoke she unfolded the document "I see there a name," she said. "Sangha. Do you know where it is?"

"Yes," I answered. "I found out this morning. It is a miserable village in the Cameroons—the last German post, ten leagues from Fort Flatters, the first French post."

"That's the place," she added, "and you don't seem to know that it was in that very village that the Grand Duke Rudolph died of sunstroke on the 10th of May, 1911. He is buried there. Now you will realize my feelings on seeing in the list of projected stages of his journey the name of the place where he was to stay for ever."

"But whose is this list, then? Who drew it up?"

"A friend," replied the Grand Duchess, "the Grand Duke's faithful companion. The same man who saved his life twice in the Congo. The same who stayed with him to the end, and rendered him the last services, though he was unable to save him from the fell malady."

"What was his name?" I asked.

"Baron Ulrich von Boose."

"Boose!" I cried. "So it was Boose!"

The Grand Duchess turned rather pale and drew herself up to her full height. Melusine, at her feet, had stopped playing the guitar, which was lying on the floor.

"What do you mean, monsieur?" said Aurora of Lautenburg. "Please explain yourself."

I had already recovered myself somewhat, and was vaguely conscious of my stupidity. I wanted to turn the conversation, but the Grand Duchess was not to be put off.

"Do you know Baron von Boose?"

"Excuse me, madame," I stammered. "I don't really know whether I ought, whether I can ..."

"What oughtn't you to say? What can't you say?"

I cursed my clumsy and premature exclamation, which looked like compromising in one second two months of patient approach. Thoroughly alarmed, and grasping at a straw, my eyes fastened on Melusine.

The Grand Duchess seemed to doubt the meaning of that look.

"Monsieur," she said, "Fräulein von Graffenfried is my friend, and you must know that I have no secrets from those I have once called by that name. You can speak freely before her. Indeed, I ask you to."

There was only one way out of the impasse. Stammering in the approved manner of those with nothing definite to say, I told her as well as I could about my conversation with Professor Thierry in the course of which I had first heard the name of Baron von Boose.

Aurora of Lautenburg's forehead showed a wrinkle.

"I understand," she murmured at length, "or, rather, I think I understand, in spite of the intentional reservations in your story."

She reflected a moment, then recovered her wonted calm and said:

"This proves, monsieur, how much one should distrust hasty conclusions. I do not know where your Professor Thierry went for the story with which he has stuffed your head. If, as you say, he is a conscientious historian, I think he would have acted less precipitately if he had been in possession of this—and this."

She handed me the letter I had just seen and with it another.

"These," she explained, "are two of the last letters written to me from the Congo by the Grand Duke Rudolph. In the first he tells me how he was saved by Ulrich von Boose from a buffalo which had killed his horse; in the second, how this same Boose rescued him from five or six natives who would have given him a bad time."

She looked at me with a smile while I read the passages she indicated.

I bowed, feeling somewhat sheepish.

Melusine had just filled the cups and we drank some very strong tea, in which pieces of citron-peel floated. Then I kissed the Grand Duchess's hand and clasped Melusine's.

"Au revoir till tomorrow, ami," said Aurora.

I went back through the park to my room, not without noticing, as I went out, a shadow which had more than a suggestion of Lieutenant von Hagen about it.

A shot, then another, rang out through the clear, empty night. We listened. Nothing followed.

Vignerte shrugged his shoulders.

"Some sentry with the creeps."

"Lend me your torch," he said.

He turned on the light and held out two pieces of paper.

"What are they?" I asked.

"The first," he replied, "is a letter addressed to Aurora of Lautenburg by the Grand Duke Rudolph. This other is the document drawn up by Boose, which, as I have told you, secured my restoration to the Grand Duchess's favour. It is as well," he added, "that you should not think you are dreaming as you listen to my story. Try a little contact with reality."

I scanned the two documents eagerly, one covered with Boose's strong, vigorous writing, the other adorned with those long feminine characters which indicate a temperament more prone to reflection than action. I was deeply moved by this letter of the German Grand Duke, who now rested beyond the seas in the hot clay of the Congo, between the glowing boundaries of the tropics. Mere contact with it conjured up a startlingly clear vision of her to whom it was written. Aurora of Lautenburg stood before us. I felt as if I had known her for ages.

Vignerte turned off the light and the rectangle of night sky reappeared. I handed back the papers. He continued.

Brunetière, speaking of the Lettres de Dupuis et de Colonet, says that they show less actual wit than a striving after wit. And that is more or less true of all Musset's work. Reverse that saying, and you have the best possible description of the Grand Duchess's conversation. That proud woman was always aptness itself. She was an exceptional being, and consequently what she said had always a quality of its own. Her judgments were severe, perhaps, but never pretentious or bookish.

She avoided the commonplace as the cat avoids water.

I had no idea how much she knew or what she liked, so the three books I took her that evening were Le Voyage du Condotière, Les Eblouissements, Les Evocations.

Next morning she gave me them back.

"I've read them all," she said, "but your selection was not a bad one. I see you like poetry."

Several books lay on a sofa. She picked one up and handed it to me.

"It is the Caucasian Review, which is published at Tiflis, and there is more beauty in these rude pages and simple tales of travel in unforgettable lands than in most of your modern poets. This is the rare spring to which the poets of tomorrow will come to drink."

She continued:

"Shakespeare has been dead three centuries, and the haunts of Macbeth are now treeless and a waste of factories. In Spain Don Quixote has been succeeded by a horde of commercial travellers from here. In Italy Carducci is a kind of half-witted Hugo. Like Switzerland, your romantic countries are now the hunting-grounds of tourists. There are turnstiles at the bottom of all your peaks.

"Suarès, whose book you lent me, felt all this, and surpasses himself when speaking of our Dostoevsky. He ought to come, if only for a short time, to our gorges of Dariel. I am quite sure he would prefer them to those of the Ebro and Douro, of which you see pictures in every station.