THE Bauern-Haus or peasant cottage which the Emperor gave to his daughter at Christmas was built and ready for occupation by the time she returned to the New Palace in the spring. It was solemnly inaugurated, being unlocked by the Emperor and presented by him to the Princess, who was overjoyed at having a place where she could cook and wash clothes to her heart’s content; for, like most people of royal birth, she was attracted chiefly towards those occupations in which she was least likely ever to be engaged.

Before the advent of the Bauern-Haus we had made toffee on a doll’s stove in a doll’s saucepan, but the brocaded chairs and sofas of the rooms of the Prinzen-Wohnung were an unsuitable background for tentative culinary efforts, and the Princess sensibly remarked that grown-up people had not dolls’ appetites and she wanted to cook something for “Papa.”

It is true that, having a cold, he had partaken of the toffee (which turned out rather soft) with much appreciation, but we were eager to prove ourselves capable of higher achievements.

All the dolls’ crockery-ware, saucepans and frying-pans were taken over to the Haus, which was built in one of the side gardens a little distance from the Palace.

The first time we indulged there in an orgie of cooking, the Princess, wishing to play the part properly, donned an embroidered peasant’s dress which had been presented to her by the good Bauern-Volk who came to Donau-Eschingen. We met the guard on our way to the garden. They were dreadfully nonplussed when they first caught sight of her in this costume, not being sure if it really was the Princess or not, but finally decided to render the customary honours. The wearer of the dress had thrown herself so entirely into the part of Bauern-frau that this obvious anachronism annoyed her extremely. She found the costume, moreover, rather tight and hot, and not very practical for beating eggs in, and therefore decided not to wear it again when she really wanted to work.

As I was the only lady in the Palace having the faintest theoretical or practical idea of the art of cooking, I was chosen to guide the children in their first attempts. Two footmen preceded us, carrying firewood, matches and coal, with which they were to start the little tiled stove, while half a dozen children followed with flour, eggs, butter, milk, and other materials, all of which had been commandeered from the royal kitchens.

The stoutest heart might have quailed, the best cook in the world might have trembled, at the enterprise I had undertaken. To cook, or rather to teach a lot of riotous, screaming children to cook—on a stove whose capacities were not yet known, in a kitchen supplied chiefly with inadequate and doll-like utensils—a sort of combined tea and supper to which an Emperor and Empress and goodness knew how many more people had been hospitably, but I could not but feel recklessly, invited!

It was very hot. Mosquitoes swarmed everywhere. The chimney smoked relentlessly till one of the footmen discovered a damper. The wood was wet. There was no water, no knives and forks, and we had forgotten the salt; but the affair had to be a success, and we set out perseveringly to carry it through.

The Princess had decided that we would have pancakes for tea—the usual English kind made with eggs and milk—and the six children were accordingly sent outside on to the veranda to beat eggs, while I tried to review my forces and collect a few ideas—a dreadful business with a swarm of children, asking questions in the rather loud-voiced German way, running up to show their eggs, or spilling them on the floor, while not a single cup or saucer was as yet in its place.

By some miraculous means we managed to ice a cake with chocolate—a sheer tour-de-force of inventive genius, for I had never done such a thing before in my life. We cut quantities of very thin bread and butter, at which one of the footmen displayed unsuspected dexterity. The much-beaten eggs duly mixed with flour and milk made excellent pancakes. Each child had “tasted” of them liberally, pronouncing them “Grossartig! Prachtvoll!”

All too soon the Emperor and Empress were seen wending their way in our direction, accompanied, to the Princess’s great indignation, by two adjutants.

“I never invited the gentlemen,” she said in tones of annoyance; “there won’t be half enough pancakes to go round.”

I remained discreetly in the background in the kitchen, concentrating my mind on frying. The tea was good because it was just freshly made, and the pancakes for the same reason, hot from the fire and spared the usual long journey down the tunnel from the Palace kitchens, were, in spite of the inadequate doll’s plates on which they had perforce to be served, crisp and toothsome.

The Emperor ate with the greatest appetite and appreciation, praising his daughter’s cooking, and obviously believing, in the usual facile masculine way, that she had suddenly acquired this difficult art. I heard her holding forth on the necessity of beating the eggs severely for ten minutes at least (she did not mention those which had escaped from the basin to the ground) and talking at large with the air of a person who had plumbed all the depths of culinary difficulties.

“Yes, of course they stick to the pan if you don’t put lots of butter—lots and lots.” We had indeed used several pounds.

I think His Majesty accounted for four pancakes and then concentrated on chocolate cake and bread-and-butter, after which the Empress noticed my absence, and I was compelled reluctantly to appear—very red-faced and greasy—and modestly accept the Imperial congratulations on my successful efforts. Room was made for me to sit down with the rest, and the chocolate cake was warmly recommended to my attention.

“Fancy an Englishwoman knowing how to cook!” said the Emperor, laughing.

I respectfully but firmly pointed out that not a single German lady inhabiting the palace confessed to any culinary knowledge whatever. They had all been approached on the subject, and their ideas were found hazy and vague in the extreme. Not one had been in a position to help in that strenuous afternoon’s work. (His Majesty is subject to the illusion that all German women are extremely domesticated.) The Emperor’s blue eyes twinkled.

“Ah, ah!” he laughed, “the British ‘Dreadnought’ again to the fore.”

That was his favourite name for me. It had been bestowed on the birthday of the Princess—the only one of those anniversaries on which the Emperor was present, for he was usually away at the autumn manoeuvres on that date (September 13), but this one year he happened to be at home. Although as a rule only one of the three ladies of the Princess, German, French, or English, accompanied her to the FrÜhstÜcks-tafel, on this occasion in honour of the day all were invited, and as we followed her into the dining-room an adjutant remarked in the Emperor’s hearing upon Prinzessin’s Geschwader (Princess’s Squadron), referring to ourselves.

This epithet as applied to the trio amused His Majesty greatly, and he tried during the meal to fit us all three with appropriate nautical names, one—the German Ober-Gouvernante—being called the “tug,” Mademoiselle the “torpedo-boat,” while amid the hilarity of the assembled company he decided that “Dreadnought” was the term which best applied to me; and although the two other ladies escaped any further reference to their supposed prototypes, I was not so fortunate, for the name “Dreadnought” stuck to me thenceforth. When I appeared in a new hat or dress His Majesty would whimsically remark, “Here comes the Dreadnought in a new coat of paint,” or some equally embarrassing observation. Perhaps I was considered to be uncompromisingly British, or representative of my nation, but when the Princess curled her arm round my neck and murmured, “Good old Dreadnought!” I did not mind the epithet so much, and grew in time to like it.

It was at the same FrÜhstÜcks-tafel that we three ladies for the first and only time in our lives had the privilege of “taking wine” with His Majesty. Usually on birthdays and anniversaries of various kinds it is a custom at court to stand up and clink glasses together before drinking, but this is not often done when the Emperor is present. He sometimes “drinks wine” with any particular gentleman whom he wishes to honour, who stands up, takes his full glass in his hand, bows to the Emperor, and empties it at a draught before sitting down again. I had never seen a lady invited to “take wine” with His Majesty, and believed it to be a privilege reserved for the sterner sex; but while I was chatting to an officer at table, the one on the other side, he who had called us a Geschwader, touched my arm and whispered “His Majesty wishes to drink wine with you. Aufgestanden und Ausgetrunken! (standing, and no heel-taps!)”

The Emperor was smiling in my direction, glass in hand; so I stood up at once with my champagne glass filled to the brim (fortunately I habitually replenished it with water every time I drank) and was able to toss it off very creditably, thanks to the adjutant’s kindly hint and the comparative innocuousness of the beverage. His Majesty also “took wine,” of course, with the other ladies of the Geschwader.

The Bauern-Haus remained for several years a centre of joyous-hearted hospitality and reckless and extravagant cookery. Once the two cousins of the Princess came over from Glienicke to help to prepare supper, accompanied by a French governess and an elegantly-attired tutor in a top-hat and frock-coat. There was no place in our cookery scheme into which the tutor fitted. So we sent him and the French lady to walk about the gardens together, while the children, in a glow of enthusiasm, sat down to peel potatoes for an Irish stew. Prince Leopold (the cousin) insisted—in spite of advice to the contrary—in also trying to peel the onions; but after weeping copious tears over the first one, allowed somebody else to finish. Besides the stew, we had chops, poached eggs, pancakes, and lemonade.

The Empress, in a very light, elegant toilette, arrived at an acute stage of activity, when every child was running, shrieking, clattering glasses, or spilling water, while the sputter of chops and pancakes and the reek of their frying filled the small kitchen to repletion.

Fortunately we had long since been supplied with full-sized cooking utensils and the doll-things had been scrapped.

A heavy thunderstorm once threatened at the very moment when the supper had reached the culminating point of perfection. We had fried our pancakes (they were a favourite dish and always appeared on the menu) to the accompaniment of rumbles of thunder and blue flashes of lightning, but the Princess ignored the gathering storm, absorbed in the mixing of her batter and the smoothness of her potato purÉe. As I emerged in a decidedly heated state from the kitchen, I caught a mental picture, which still remains in my memory, of a protesting footman standing on the veranda pointing to the darkened heavens, and of the Princess with a fork in her hand, which she flourished in one hand towards the sky (like another Ajax defying the lightning), while she emphatically refused to return to the house before supper was eaten.

“Our beautiful supper,” she said: “no, I won’t go in. The storm’s nothing. It’s going over.” Crashes of thunder punctuated the sentence.

A harassed Ober-Gouvernante appeared round the bushes and commanded our instant return to the palace; but after several minutes of heated discussion the storm actually did pass over, and our supper was eaten to the sound of its faint rumbling retreat towards the river.

Another time we ventured to make vanilla-ice, and sent to the kitchen for the ice-machine. As we were mixing the milk and eggs and vanilla flavouring, four white-capped cooks in their spotless kitchen livery were seen dragging along some sort of wheeled vehicle on which reposed the heavy ice-machine, which we found to our astonishment to be an apparatus almost as large as a piano.

It was lifted down—as a matter of fact I think two cooks might have managed it—and the guests took turns at the handle with such goodwill that unfortunately we rather overdid it, and the iced custard became of such a hard rock-like consistency that we had to thaw it a little before it was fit to eat. But it was pronounced “quite delicious,” and we were sorry we had not made a larger quantity.

Pfingsten, as Whitsuntide is called in Germany, is celebrated by many pleasant customs. It is the season when all the village people place big boughs of young larch on each side of the doorway to welcome the returning spring. Every street breaks out into a sudden growth of unaccustomed greenery, and in the churches young larch trees cut from the hill-side are placed on each side of the altar.

In the New Palace the garrison celebrated Whit Monday by the Schrippen-Fest, a dinner instituted by Frederick the Great for their benefit. All the previous week the soldiers might have been seen busily at work in their spare time making the long green garlands of pine and fir twigs with which every good German loves to give outward expression of his inward joy. They erected round the arcade of the “Communs” plank tables and benches covered with a wooden roof upheld by posts round which the garlands were entwined. Early on the morning of Whit Monday big copper cauldrons containing beef, prunes and rice, were set boiling out of doors.

Originally the feast had begun in a small way by the distribution to the soldiers of Schrippen, or small loaves of white bread, but in the course of years it had developed into a substantial meal.

To the Schrippen-Fest the whole Diplomatic Corps and many officers and ladies are invited, and there is a gay assemblage of people at the military service for the garrison, which takes place out of doors, under the trees at one end of the palace. After it is finished the Emperor and Empress, with their family and guests, go to partake of the feast with the soldiers. They do not as a rule sit down, but eat their meat and prunes standing. All the ladies in their trained silk dresses, the ambassadors, generals, and adjutants in their uniforms, are served with a plateful of boiled beef, and eat it wherever they can find elbow-room. When Their Majesties have finished, they walk, followed by the assembled company, down between the tables, inspecting the soldiers and asking them questions. “Where do you come from? How long have you served? Have you had a good dinner?” seem to be the stock questions, varied by inquiries as to name, father’s business, and any other queries that seem to fit the occasion.

Here it may be remarked that the Emperor and his family possess in an unusual degree what Kipling calls the “common touch.” They know how to talk to poor men, working men, without any shadow of that patronizing affability often mistakenly employed by one class when trying to be nice to another which is not on the same social plane.

An absolutely frank and unreserved interest in other people’s affairs is implied in their conversation, an obvious desire really to know something of the conditions of other people’s lives. It is not perfunctory, though it easily, perhaps, might become so, especially in view of the thousands of soldiers and other people to whom the Emperor talks in the course of a year. The Princess herself from childhood always had the happy knack of choosing the right thing to say to the poorest children she met. She always wanted to know their names, how many brothers and sisters they had, what class they were in at school, and what they were going to be when they grew up. One small boy confessed once to a desire to be a “chimney sweep.” Never was she at a loss for something appropriate to say to the most cross-grained and morose of her fellow-mortals; she never appeared to be shy, but, apparently quite at her ease herself, made every one else feel the same. She was not a devoted student of books, but possessed initiative and, as far as her experience went, correct judgment—two invaluable qualities where princes are concerned.

About a mile from the New Palace lived the only unmarried sister of the Empress, the Princess FÉodora of Schleswig-Holstein, a woman of many intellectual gifts and a very striking and interesting personality, possessing great influence over the children of her sister, who spent much time in “Tante FÉo’s” beloved society. Her ideas were very democratic. She detested the atmosphere of courts and all the restrictions and ceremonies incident to court existence. She was a very clever artist, and author of several books dealing with the life of the peasantry and showing a marvellous insight into their methods of thought.

Her home was for some years in a large farmhouse belonging to the Crown known as “Bornstedter Gut,” lived in for some time by the Emperor and Empress Frederick. The ground-floor was inhabited by the bailiff and his family. The rest of the house belonged to the Princess, to whom it had been lent by her brother-in-law the German Emperor, with whom she was a great favourite, in spite of the fact that on nearly every possible subject their views clashed uncompromisingly. She furnished it all according to her own taste, doing her shopping in Berlin like any ordinary BÜrger-frau among the crowd of other buyers. She loved the realities of life, and refused to have things made easier for her because she was the sister of the Empress. Only seven years older than her eldest nephew, the Crown Prince, she was from childhood the delightful play-fellow of the children of the Empress and of her other sisters, Princess Frederick Leopold of Prussia and the Duchess of Schleswig-Holstein.

I first saw her at Bornstedt, where I had come to fetch my little Princess, who had been spending the afternoon with her aunt. The carriage I was in drove past a big farmyard, where waggon-horses were being harnessed, up to the door of a big stone house pleasantly shaded by chestnut trees. As I got out of the carriage a sudden irruption of screaming children, boys and girls of all ages in a state of extreme heat and untidiness, among whom I recognized my Princess, burst from the dark doorway of a cow-house, and trampling and stumbling over heaps of farmyard litter, fled with shrieks up a perpendicular ladder into a hay-loft. They were followed at a short interval by a lady clad in a tweed skirt, a striped blouse and a Panama hat, who likewise flew up the ladder with remarkable agility and disappeared. Uproarious screams were presently heard issuing from the loft. They were evidently playing Versteckens, and my coachman confided to me that the lady of the ladder was Princess FÉodora herself.

The Princess disliked the ordinary court circle, with its cramped, narrow views, and loved to surround herself with clever, unconventional people, whatever their rank in life. With her it was a positive obsession that all her royal nephews and nieces should know life as it really was, not as seen blurred and transformed through a court atmosphere, with the hideous, ugly realities of existence hidden away and covered up. She taught them many perhaps disagreeable truths about themselves, which they would have heard from no one else. The trend of modern thought and contemporary politics both found in her an earnest and intelligent student. With poverty, with humble folk, she had an intense sympathy, a passionate tenderness for all simple struggling existences.

Although possessing a conspicuous sense of humour, in her books she wrote only of the sombre side of life, the bare starving sand-dunes of her native Holstein, the resinous breath of its pine-woods, the chill sad beat on the shore of its grey sea-waves. She depicted the strenuous toil, the unrelieved labour, the sordid existence and struggles of the peasantry.

“The only truths in life,” she makes one of her characters say, “are founded upon Work. Everything else is false.”

In “Tante FÉo’s” company the little Princess had the privilege of seeing the first aeroplane flight of her life made by Orville Wright, who had installed himself and his machine on the Bornstedter Feld, where he was instructing the German officers in the art of flying.

One day at the end of September 1909 came a telephone message from one of the Princes in Potsdam, saying that Orville Wright was flying on the “Feld.” Without delay two “autos” were ordered by Her Majesty, one for herself and her sister and the Princess, the other for the suite; and the palace buzzed like a hive while footmen flew about summoning the ladies to get ready at once. The two professors who ought to have been instructing the Princess in literature and history were sent off to the scene of action in a carriage (a propitiatory proceeding suggested, I believe, by the Princess herself, who never failed to display a certain diplomatic tact), while Mademoiselle and I huddled on our outdoor things and tied motor-veils with tremblingly excited fingers. It was de rigueur to get excited over flying, and nothing annoyed the Princess more than an attitude of philosophic calm.

We picked up Prince August Wilhelm and Prince George of Greece on the way, and sped onwards to the big cavalry-exercise ground, over which the cars bumped at a furious pace. When we arrived, however, there was no sign of Mr. Wright. A gentleman appeared, who announced with a pronounced American accent that all flying was finished for that day, as the police had gone home again and there was no one to keep the crowd from straying on to the ground. But Her Majesty particularly wished Princess FÉo to see a flight, as she was going away the same evening, and there was a discussion as to whether soldiers should be summoned from the adjacent barracks to keep the course. The American gentleman seemed to think that would make no difference to Mr. Wright, but at last a man was sent to his tent to announce Her Majesty’s arrival, and presently he came along buttoning up his leather jacket as he walked—a quiet, taciturn individual who spoke in rather a soft, gentle voice when he spoke at all, which was not often.

Some policemen on bicycles had materialized out of the surrounding landscape, and began to drive the crowd back to the road, where they were kept penned up by the arm of the law while we stood in the middle of the field to watch the flight.

A few days later the Emperor himself went with the Empress and Princess to see Wright fly. It was the middle of October, when the days are getting short, and there had been some delay in starting, so that as the cars tore on to the Feld the sun was setting in great clouds of scarlet and purple, and night fast approaching. Wright was waiting beside his machine, and after a word with the Emperor put on his jacket and goggles, and in a few seconds the motor began to hum steadily, the propellers whizzed round, and the huge machine moved along smoothly and swiftly up into the darkening heavens. Its wide-spread planes showed blackly for a moment against the intense sunset background, then it went droning round the immense space, rising higher and higher towards the stars, which were now shining brightly in the deep blue of the sky. For nearly half an hour, away above our heads, the machine circled and dived and rose again, humming smoothly and sleepily in the distance, then coming nearer with a threatening murmur, to rise and disappear again into the darkness, reappearing presently like a gigantic moth. At last it descended, dropping lightly within a few feet of us. The crowd on the edge of the field cheered heartily.

The Emperor and Empress congratulated Wright, and there was a great explanation of “how it was done,” though most of the officers found a difficulty in understanding the American accent. Presently a signed photograph of the Emperor, which one of the adjutants had been carrying, was produced and given to Wright by His Majesty; and then a lady who had been modestly hovering in the background—Miss Katherine Wright, the aeronaut’s sister—was called up and presented, and she took charge of the photograph and made delightful American remarks about it. By this time it was absolutely dark, but the powerful acetylene lights of the three cars illuminated the scene. The Emperor could not tear himself away from the aeroplane, the first he had yet seen; and while he was still asking questions I talked with Miss Wright, an extremely charming woman, who said that this was probably her brother’s last flight on German soil. They had already stayed a day longer than intended, so that he might fly before the Emperor, before departing for Paris and London en route for America.

For a long time in Germany the airships—the “Zeppelins” as they are popularly called—occupied the popular imagination much more than the flying-machines with which the Germans have recently won such distinction. Once in the earlier years of Zeppelin’s monster air-craft a message came to the court that he was flying from Frankfort to Berlin, which he would reach somewhere about five o’clock that afternoon. There was the usual hurrying to and fro. The Emperor, Empress, Princess and suite hurled themselves into motor-cars and hurried towards Berlin, but after waiting several hours on the Tempelhofer Feld, with nothing to eat and not much to do, they returned without a glimpse of any airship, as the rumours of its coming had been entirely unfounded.

However, later on in the year Zeppelin announced his intention to bring his airship to Berlin.

On the day fixed all the shops were closed at noon, and the whole population turned out and walked up and down the street with their eyes fixed heavenwards towards the lovely blue sky, for the weather was superb.

Every lady or gentleman having any connection with the court was invited by ticket either to the Tempelhofer Feld, at which the airship was to descend, or to the roof of the Schloss itself, as the Zeppelin was to manoeuvre round the building. But towards noon, just as all the excursion trains from the country had brought in the surrounding inhabitants to swell the already dense crowd of sky-gazers, a special edition of the newspapers was issued announcing an injury to the airship which prevented further flight. So every one went sadly home again.

The next day, Sunday, news came that the defect had been repaired and that the airship with Count Zeppelin on board would appear about noon. This change of plan was rather inconvenient for several reasons, for there was a newly restored church to be dedicated in the presence of the Emperor and Empress and the chief military authorities. A gentleman in attendance said that never before had he seen such an obviously distracted congregation at any church function. The long-drawn-out service, the long-winded address (German sermons are of the old-fashioned type and usually last at least an hour) were listened to with hardly concealed impatience and lack of interest; and the clergy themselves seemed to keep one ear turned towards that heaven to which they were directing their audience, in apprehension of hearing before they had finished their discourse that mighty droning which would proclaim Zeppelin’s arrival.

From the windows of the Schloss, overlooking the courtyard, it was usual to see the adjutants who had accompanied His Majesty descend from their cars with dignity—that dignity appropriate to a not-too-pronounced embonpoint—salute the guard with grave courtesy and deliberation, and then retire without undue haste from the public view. But on this occasion they tumbled out of the cars and rushed up the steps like schoolboys, colliding as they ran with the footmen and Burschen who came running with their flat undress caps to exchange for the spiked head-gear they had worn in church.

It is a popular myth that the German is phlegmatic. He is nothing of the kind. He is extraordinarily excitable on occasion. He gets out of temper, shouts and wrings his hands in moments of stress, and sheds tears easily. His feelings are on the surface. His military calm is acquired. He abandons it and becomes almost hysterical when something touches his heart and imagination.

The advent of Zeppelin in his airship was the culminating act of a great national triumph. The indomitable old man, who had worked so long and so pluckily at his herculean task, was at last to receive some of the homage due to his tenacity and self-sacrifice. So no wonder the people thronged the streets and crowded the housetops.

The fashionable crowd ascended to the roof of the Schloss by devious ways, through little dark sculleries, up queer steep steps and ladders, past funny little apartments smelling strongly of cheese and garlic, where the families of some of the servants live tucked away in a corner of the big building, out on to the copper-covered roof along narrow plank paths, made primarily for the use of the sentries who must nightly patrol these upper regions. Some of them have inscribed verses on the walls, conveying discontent at the atmospheric conditions prevailing there on winter nights.

The sky above was gloriously blue, and as far as the eye could reach, on every one of the many flat roofs in the vicinity were masses of people assembled—not, as is usually the case, a mere fringe of daring spirits leaning over the parapet to view something below, but crowds spread over the whole surface. Each man, woman and child held a fluttering flag, which they waved tempestuously as an outlet for overflowing emotions. One could almost see the palpitating heart-beat of the nation.

At last, after an hour or two of waiting, an electric thrill ran through the elevated crowd. Some one had caught sight of the airship. By degrees every one found it—a tiny cigar-shaped speck, hardly visible against the deep blue distance. A wave of cheering swelled and ebbed and died away. The speck grew gradually larger. Cheers in the distant part of the city reached us in ever-increasing volume. The droning of the engines was plainly audible. Presently the “dirigible” could be seen over the Brandenburger Tor. Still more frantic cheers arose from the crowded streets, the packed windows and roofs. The great machine swung steadily up Unter den Linden and sailed magnificently round and round the Schloss, while the waves of cheering were crested with a white fluttering of handkerchiefs like a storm-tossed sea. Again and again the “Zeppelin” made its stately circuit of the royal castle, then slowly turned and headed for the Tempelhofer Feld, where the Emperor and Empress with their family and all the greatest men in Germany were waiting to congratulate the splendid old veteran.