Books: The Hohenzollerns in America
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Stephen Leacock >> The Hohenzollerns in America
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THE HOHENZOLLERNS IN AMERICA
WITH THE BOLSHEVIKS IN BERLIN AND OTHER IMPOSSIBILITIES
By Stephen Leacock
CONTENTS
I. THE HOHENZOLLERNS IN AMERICA
II. WITH THE BOLSHEVIKS IN BERLIN
III. AFTERNOON TEA WITH THE SULTAN
IV. ECHOES OF THE WAR
1. The Boy Who Came Back
2. The War Sacrifices of Mr. Spugg
3. If Germany Had Won
4. War and Peace at the Galaxy Club
5. The War News as I Remember It
6. Some Just Complaints About the War
7. Some Startling Side Effects of the War
V. OTHER IMPOSSIBILITIES
1. The Art of Conversation
2. Heroes and Heroines
3. The Discovery of America
4. Politics from Within
5. The Lost Illusions of Mr. Sims
6. Fetching the Doctor
I.--The Hohenzollerns in America
PREFACE
The proper punishment for the Hohenzollerns, and the
Hapsburgs, and the Mecklenburgs, and the Muckendorfs,
and all such puppets and princelings, is that they should
be made to work; and not made to work in the glittering
and glorious sense, as generals and chiefs of staff, and
legislators, and land-barons, but in the plain and humble
part of laborers looking for a job; that they should
carry a hod and wield a trowel and swing a pick and, at
the day's end, be glad of a humble supper and a night's
rest; that they should work, in short, as millions of
poor emigrants out of Germany have worked for generations
past; that there should be about them none of the prestige
of fallen grandeur; that, if it were possible, by some
trick of magic, or change of circumstance, the world
should know them only as laboring men, with the dignity
and divinity of kingship departed out of them; that, as
such, they should stand or fall, live or starve, as best
they might by the work of their own hands and brains.
Could this be done, the world would have a better idea
of the thin stuff out of which autocratic kingship is
fashioned.
It is a favourite fancy of mine to imagine this
transformation actually brought about; and to picture
the Hohenzollerns as an immigrant family departing for
America, their trunks and boxes on their backs, their
bundles in their hands.
The fragments of a diary that here follow present the
details of such a picture. It is written, or imagined to
be written, by the (former) Princess Frederica of
Hohenzollern. I do not find her name in the Almanach de
Gotha. Perhaps she does not exist. But from the text
below she is to be presumed to be one of the innumerable
nieces of the German Emperor.
CHAPTER I
On Board the S.S. America. Wednesday
At last our embarkation is over, and we are at sea. I am
so glad it is done. It was dreadful to see poor Uncle
William and Uncle Henry and Cousin Willie and Cousin
Ferdinand of Bulgaria, coming up the gang-plank into the
steerage, with their boxes on their backs. They looked
so different in their rough clothes. Uncle William is
wearing an old blue shirt and a red handkerchief round
his neck, and his hair looks thin and unkempt, and his
moustache draggled and his face unshaved. His eyes seem
watery and wandering, and his little withered arm so
pathetic. Is it possible he was always really like that?
At the top of the gang-plank he stood still a minute,
his box still on his back, and said, "This then is the
pathway to Saint Helena." I heard an officer down on the
dock call up, "Now then, my man, move on there smartly,
please." And I saw some young roughs pointing at Uncle
and laughing and saying, "Look at the old guy with the
red handkerchief. Is he batty, eh?"
The forward deck of the steamer, the steerage deck, which
is the only place that we are allowed to go, was crowded
with people, all poor and with their trunks and boxes
and paper bags all round them. When Uncle set down his
box, there was soon quite a little crowd around him, so
that I could hardly see him. But I could hear them
laughing, and I knew that they were "taking a rise out
of him," as they call it,--just as they did in the
emigration sheds on shore. I heard Uncle say, "Let wine
be brought: I am faint;" and some one else said, "Yes,
let it," and there arose a big shout of laughter.
Cousin Willie had sneaked away with his box down to the
lower deck. I thought it mean of him not to stay with
his father. I never noticed till now what a sneaking face
Cousin Willie has. In his uniform, as Crown Prince, it
was different. But in his shabby clothes, among these
rough people, he seems so changed. He walks with a mean
stoop, and his eyes look about in such a furtive way,
never still. I saw one of the ship's officers watching
him, very closely and sternly.
Cousin Karl of Austria, and Cousin Ruprecht of Bavaria,
are not here. We thought they were to come on this ship,
but they are not here. We could hardly believe that the
ship would sail without them.
I managed to get Uncle William out of the crowd and down
below. He was glad to get off the deck. He seemed afraid
to look at the sea, and when we got into the big cabin,
he clutched at the cover of the port and said, "Shut it,
help me shut it, shut out the sound of the sea;" and then
for a little time he sat on one of the bunks all hunched
up, and muttering, "Don't let me hear the sea, don't let
me hear it." His eyes looked so queer and fixed, that I
thought he must be in a sort of fit, or seizure. But
Uncle Henry and Cousin Willie and Cousin Ferdinand came
into the cabin and he got better again.
Cousin Ferdinand has got hold of a queer long overcoat
with the sleeves turned up, and a little round hat, and
looks exactly like a Jew. He says he traded one of our
empty boxes for the coat and hat. I never noticed before
how queer and thick Cousin Ferdinand's speech is, and
how much he gesticulates with his hands when he talks.
I am sure that when I visited at Sofia nobody ever
noticed it. And he called Uncle William and Uncle Henry
"Mister," and said that on the deck he had met two "fine
gentlemen," (that's what he called them), who are in the
clothing trade in New York. It was with them he traded
for the coat.
Cousin Ferdinand, who is very clever at figures, is going
to look after all our money, because the American money
is too difficult for Uncle William and Cousin Willie to
understand. We have only a little money, but Cousin
Ferdinand said that we would put it all together and make
it a pool. But when Uncle Henry laughed, and turned his
pockets out and had no money at all, Cousin Ferdinand
said that it would NOT be a pool. He said he would make
it "on shares" and explained it, but I couldn't understand
what it meant.
While he was talking I saw Cousin Willie slip one of the
pieces of money out of the pile into his pocket: at least
I think I saw it; but he did it so quickly that I was
not sure, and didn't like to say anything.
Then a bell rang and we went to eat in a big saloon, all
crowded with common people, and very stuffy. The food
was wretched, and I could not eat. I suppose Uncle was
famished from the long waiting and the bad food in the
emigrant shed. It was dreadful to see the hungry way that
he ate the greasy stew they gave us, with his head down
almost in his plate and his moustache all unkempt. "This
ragout is admirable," he said. "Let the chef be informed
that I said it."
Cousin Ferdinand didn't sit with us. He sat beside his
two new friends and they had their heads all close together
and talked with great excitement. I never knew before
that Cousin Ferdinand talked Yiddish. I remember him at
Sofia, on horseback addressing his army, and I don't
think he talked to his troops in Yiddish. He was telling
them, I remember, how sorry he was that he couldn't
accompany them to the front. But for "business in Sofia,"
he said, he would like to be in the very front trenches,
the foremost of all. It was thought very brave of him.
When we got up from supper, the ship was heaving and
rolling quite a bit. A young man, a steward, told us that
we were now out of the harbor and in the open sea. Uncle
William told him to convey his compliments to the captain
on his proper navigation of the channel. The young man
looked very closely at Uncle and said, "Sure, I'll tell
him right away," but he said it kindly. Then he said to
me, when Uncle couldn't hear, "Your pa ain't quite right,
is he, Miss Hohen?" I didn't know what he meant, but, of
course, I said that Uncle William was only my uncle.
Hohen is, I should explain, the name by which we are
known now. The young man said that he wasn't really a
steward, only just for the trip. He said that, because
I had a strange feeling that I had met him before, and
asked him if I hadn't seen him at one of the courts. But
he said he had never been "up before one" in his life.
He said he lives in New York, and drives an ice-wagon
and is an ice-man. He said he was glad to have the pleasure
of our acquaintance. He is, I think, the first ice-man
I have ever met. He reminds me very much of the Romanoffs,
the Grand Dukes of the younger branch, I mean. But he
says he is not connected with them, so far as he knows.
He said his name is Peters. We have no Almanach de Gotha
here on board the steamer, so I cannot look up his name.
S.S. America. Thursday
We had a dreadful experience last night. In the middle
of the night Uncle Henry came and called me and said that
Uncle William was ill. So I put on an old shawl and went
with him. The ship was pitching and heaving with a dreadful
straining and creaking noise. A dim light burned in the
cabin, and outside there was a great roaring of the wind
and the wild sound of the sea surging against the ship.
Uncle William was half sitting up in his rough bunk, with
the tattered gray blankets over him, one hand was clutched
on the side of the bed and there was a great horror in
his eyes. "The sea; the sea," he kept saying, "don't let
me hear it. It's THEIR voices. Listen! They're beating
at the sides of the ship. Keep them from me, keep them
out!"
He was quiet for a minute, until there came another great
rush of the sea against the sides of the ship, and a roar
of water against the port. Then he broke out, almost
screaming--"Henry, brother Henry, keep them back! Don't
let them drag me down. I never willed it. I never wanted
it. Their death is not at my door. It was necessity.
Henry! Brother Henry! Tell them not to drag me below the
sea!"
Like that he raved for perhaps an hour and we tried to
quiet him. Cousin Willie had slipped away, I don't know
where. Cousin Ferdinand was in his bunk with his back
turned.
"Do I slip to-night, at all," he kept growling "or do I
not? Say, mister, do I get any slip at all?"
But no one minded him.
Then daylight came and Uncle fell asleep. His face looked
drawn and gray and the cords stood out on his withered
hand, which was clutched against his shirt.
So he slept. It seemed so strange. There was no court
physician, no bulletins to reassure the world that he
was sleeping quietly.
Later in the morning I saw the ship's doctor and the
captain, all in uniform, with gold braid, walking on
their inspection round.
"You had some trouble here last night," I heard the
captain say.
"No, nothing," the doctor answered, "only one of the
steerage passengers delirious in the night."
Later in the morning the storm had gone down and the sea
was calm as glass, and Uncle Henry and I got Uncle William
up on deck. Mr. Peters, the steward that I think I spoke
about before, got us a steamer chair from the first class
that had been thrown away--quite good except for one
leg,--and Uncle William sat in it with his face away from
the sea. He seemed much shaken and looked gray and tired,
but he talked quite quietly and rationally about our
going to America, and how we must all work, because work
is man's lot. He himself, he says, will take up the
presidency of Harvard University in New York, and Uncle
Henry, who, of course, was our own Grand Admiral and is
a sailor, will enter as Admiral of the navy of one of
the states, probably, Uncle says, the navy of Missouri,
or else that of Colorado.
It was pleasant to hear Uncle William talk in this way,
just as quietly and rationally as at Berlin, and with
the same grasp of political things. He only got excited
once, and that was when he was telling Uncle Henry that
it was his particular wish that Uncle should go to the
captain and offer to take over the navigation of the
vessel. Uncle Henry is a splendid sailor, and in all our
cruises in the Baltic he used to work out all the navigation
of the vessel, except, of course, the arithmetic--which
was beneath him.
Uncle Henry laughed (he is always so good natured) and
said that he had had enough of being Admiral to last him
all his life. But when Uncle William insisted, he said
he would see what he could do.
S.S. America. Friday
All yesterday and to-day the sea was quite calm, and we
could sit on deck. I was glad because, in the cabin where
I am, there are three other women, and it is below the
water-line, and is very close and horrid. So when it is
rough, I can only sit in the alley-way with my knitting.
There the light is very dim and the air bad. But I do
not complain. It is woman's lot. Uncle William and Cousin
Willie have both told me this--that it is woman's lot to
bear and to suffer; and they said it with such complete
resignation that I feel I ought to imitate their attitude.
Cousin Ferdinand, too, is very brave about the dirt and
the discomfort of being on board the ship. He doesn't
seem to mind the dirt at all, and his new friends (Mr.
Sheehan and Mr. Mosenhammer) seem to bear it so well,
too. Uncle Henry goes and washes his hands and face at
one of the ship's pumps before every meal, with a great
noise and splashing, but Cousin Ferdinand says, "For me
the pump, no." He says that nothing like that matters
now, and that his only regret is that he did not fall at
the head of his troops, as he would have done if he had
not been detained by business.
I caught sight of Cousin Karl of Austria! So it seems he
is on the ship after all. He was up on the promenade deck
where the first class passengers are, and of which you
can just see one end from down here in the steerage.
Cousin Karl had on a waiter's suit and was bringing
something to drink to two men who were in steamer chairs
on the deck. I don't know whether he saw me or not, but
if he did he didn't give any sign of recognizing me. One
of the men gave Cousin Karl a piece of money and I was
sure it was he, from the peculiar, cringing way in which
he bowed. It was just the manner that he used to have at
Vienna with his cousin, Franz Ferdinand, and with dear
old Uncle Franz Joseph.
We always thought, we girls I mean, that it was Cousin
Karl who had Cousin Franz Ferdinand blown up at Serajevo.
I remember once we dared Cousin Zita, Karl's wife, to
ask Uncle William if it really was Karl. But Uncle William
spoke very gravely, and said that it was not a thing for
us to discuss, and that if Karl did it, it was an "act
of State," and no doubt very painful to Cousin Karl to
have to do. Zita asked Uncle if Karl poisoned dear old
Uncle Franz Joseph, because some of Karl's best and most
intimate friends said that he did. But Uncle said very
positively, "No," that dear old Uncle Franz Joseph had
not needed any poison, but had died, very naturally,
under the hands of Uncle William's own physician, who
was feeling his wind-pipe at the time.
Of course, all these things seem very far away now. But
seeing Cousin Karl on the upper deck, reminded me of all
the harmless gossip and tattle that used to go on among
us girls in the old days.
Friday afternoon
I saw Cousin Willie on the deck this afternoon. I had
not seen him all day yesterday as he seems to keep out
of sight. His eyes looked bloodshot and I was sure that
he had been drinking.
I asked him where he had been in the storm while Uncle
William was ill. He gave a queer sort of leering chuckle
and said, "Over there," and pointed backwards with his
thumb towards the first class part of the ship. Then he
said, "Come here a minute," and he led me round a corner
to where no one could see, and showed me a gold brooch
and two diamond rings. He told me not to tell the others,
and then he tried to squeeze my hand and to pull me
towards him, in such a horrid way, but I broke away and
went back. Since then I have been trying to think how he
could have got the brooch and the rings. But I cannot
think.
S.S. America. Saturday
To-day when I went up on deck, the first thing I saw was
Uncle Henry. I hardly recognized him. He had on an old
blue sailor's jersey, and was cleaning up a brass rail
with a rag. I asked him why he was dressed like that and
Uncle Henry laughed and said he had become an admiral.
I couldn't think what he meant, as I never guess things
with a double meaning, so he explained that he has got
work as a sailor for the voyage across. I thought he
looked very nice in his sailor's jersey, much nicer than
in the coat with gold facings, when he was our High
Admiral. He reminded me very much of those big fair-haired
Norwegian sailors that we used to see when we went on
the Meteor to Flekkefyord and Gildeskaale. I am sure that
he will be of great service to this English captain, in
helping to work the ship across.
When Cousin Ferdinand came up on deck with his two friends,
Mr. Mosenhammer and Mr. Sheehan, he was very much interested
in Uncle Henry's having got work. He made an arrangement
right away that he would borrow Uncle Henry's wages, and
that Mr. Sheehan would advance them, and he would then
add it to our capital, and then he would take it and keep
it. Uncle Henry is to get what is called, in the new
money, one seventy-five a day, and to get it for four
days, and Cousin Ferdinand says that comes to four dollars
and a quarter. Cousin Ferdinand is very quick with figures.
He says that he will have to take out a small commission
for managing the money for Uncle Henry, and that later
on he will tell Uncle Henry how much will be left after
taking it out. Uncle Henry said all right and went on
with his brass work. It is strange how his clothes seem
to change him. He looks now just like a rough, common
sailor.
S.S. America. Tuesday
To-day our voyage is to end. I am so glad. When we came
on deck Mr. Peters told me that we were in sight of land.
He told me the names of the places, but they were hard
and difficult to remember, like Long Island and Sandy
Hook; not a bit like our dear old simple German names.
So we were all told to put our things together and get
ready to land. I got, out of one of our boxes, an old
frock coat for Uncle William. It is frayed at the ends
of the sleeves and it shines a little, but I had stitched
it here and there and it looked quite nice. He put it on
with a pair of gray trousers that are quite good, and
not very much bagged, and I had knitted for him a red
necktie that he wears over his blue shirt with a collar,
called a celluloid collar, that American gentlemen wear.
The sea is so calm that Uncle doesn't mind being on deck
now, and he even came close to the bulwarks, which he
wouldn't do all the way across. He stood there in quite
an attitude with his imperfect hand folded into his coat.
He looked something, but not quite, as he used to look
on the deck of the Meteor in the Baltic.
Presently he said, "Henry, your arm!" and walked up and
down with Uncle Henry. I could see that the other passengers
were quite impressed with the way Uncle looked, and it
pleased him. I heard some rough young loafers saying,
"Catch on to the old Dutch, will you? Eh, what?"
Uncle Henry is going ashore just as he is, in his blue
jersey. But Cousin Ferdinand has put on a bright red tie
that Mr. Mosenhammer has loaned to him for three hours.
Cousin Willie only came on deck at the very last minute,
and he seemed anxious to slink behind the other passengers
and to keep out of sight. I think it must have something
to do with the brooch that he showed me, and the rings.
His eyes looked very red and bloodshot and his face more
crooked and furtive than ever. I am sure that he had been
drinking again.
I have written the last lines of this diary sitting on
the deck. We have just passed a huge statue that rises
out of the water, the name of which they mentioned but
I can't remember, as it was not anything I ever heard of
before.
Just think--in a little while we shall land in America!
CHAPTER II
City New York. 2nd Avenue
We came off the steamer late yesterday afternoon and came
across the city to a pension on Second Avenue where we
are now. Only here they don't call it a pension but a
boarding house. Cousin Ferdinand and Cousin Willie drove
across in the cart with our boxes, and Uncle William and
Uncle Henry and I came on a street car. It cost us fifteen
cents. A cent is four and one-sixth pfennigs. We tried
to reckon what it came to, but we couldn't; but Uncle
Henry thinks it could be done.
This house is a tall house in a mean street, crowded and
noisy with carts and street-sellers. I think it would be
better to have all the boarding houses stand far back
from the street with elm trees and fountains and lawns
where peacocks could walk up and down. I am sure it would
be MUCH better.
We have taken a room for Uncle William and Uncle Henry
on the third floor at the back and a small room in the
front for me of the kind called a hall bedroom, which I
don't ever remember seeing before. There were none at
Sans Souci and none, I think, at any of the palaces.
Cousin Willie has a room at the top of the house, and
Cousin Ferdinand in the basement.
The landlady of this house is very stout and reminds me
very much of the Grand Duchess of Sondersburg-Augustenburg:
her manner when she showed us the rooms was very like
that of the Grand Duchess; only perhaps a little firmer
and more authoritative. But it appears that they are
probably not related, as the landlady's name is Mrs.
O'Halloran, which is, I think, Scotch.
When we arrived it was already time for dinner so we went
downstairs to it at once. The dining-room was underground
in the basement. It was very crowded and stuffy, and
there was a great clatter of dishes and a heavy smell of
food. Most of the people were already seated, but there
was an empty place at the head of one of the tables and
Uncle William moved straight towards that. Uncle was
wearing, as I said, his frock coat and his celluloid
collar and he walked into the room with quite an air, in
something of the way that he used to come into the great
hall of the Neues Palais at Potsdam, only that in these
clothes it looked different. As Uncle entered the room
he waved his hand and said, "Let no one rise!" I remember
that when Uncle said this at the big naval dinner at Kiel
it made a great sensation as an example of his ready
tact. He realised that if they had once risen there would
have been great difficulty in their order of procedure
for sitting down again. He was afraid that the same
difficulty might have been felt here in the boarding
house. But I don't think it would, and I don't think that
they were going to stand up, anyway. They just went on
eating. I noticed one cheap-looking young man watching
Uncle with a sort of half smile as he moved towards his
seat. I heard him say to his neighbour, "Some scout, eh?"
The food was so plain and so greasy that I could hardly
eat it. But I have noticed that it is a strange thing
about Uncle that he doesn't seem to know what he eats at
all. He takes all this poor stuff that they put before
him to be the same delicacies that we had at the Neues
Palais and Sans Souci. "Is this a pheasant?" he asked
when the servant maid passed him his dish of meat. I
heard the mean young man whisper, "I guess not." Presently
some hash was brought in and Uncle said, "Ha! A Salmi!
Ha! excellent!" I could see that Mrs. O'Halloran, the
landlady, who sat at the other end of the table, was
greatly pleased.
I was surprised to find--because it is so hard to get
used to the change of things in our new life--that all
the people went on talking just the same after Uncle sat
down. At the palace at Potsdam nobody ever spoke at dinner
unless Uncle William first addressed him, and then he
was supposed to give a sort of bow and answer as briefly
as possible so as not to interrupt the flow of Uncle
William's conversation. Generally Uncle talked and all
the rest listened. His conversation was agreed by everybody
to be wonderful. Princes, admirals, bishops, artists,
scholars and everybody united in declaring that Uncle
William showed a range of knowledge and a brilliance of
language that was little short of marvellous. So naturally
it was a little disappointing at first to find that these
people just went on talking to one another and didn't
listen to Uncle William at all, or merely looked at him
in an inquisitive sort of way and whispered remarks to
one another. But presently, I don't just know how, Uncle
began to get the attention of the table and one after
the other the people stopped talking to listen to him.
I was very glad of this because Uncle was talking about
America and I was sure that it would interest them, as
what he said was very much the same as the wonderful
speech that he made to the American residents of Berlin
at the time when the first exchange professor was sent
over to the University. I remember that all the Americans
who heard it said that Uncle told them things about their
own country that they had never known, or even suspected,
before. So I was glad when I heard Uncle explaining to
these people the wonderful possibilities of their country.
He talked of the great plains of Connecticut and the huge
seaports of Pittsburg and Colorado Springs, and the
tobacco forests of Idaho till one could just see it all.
He said that the Mississippi, which is a great river here
as large as the Weser, should be dammed back and held
while a war of extermination was carried on against the
Indians on the other side of it with a view to
Christianizing them. The people listened, their faces
flushed with eating and with the close air. Here and
there some of them laughed or nudged one another and
said, "Get on to this, will you?" But I remember that
when Uncle William made this speech in Berlin the Turkish
ambassador said after it that he now knew so much about
America that he wanted to die, and that the Shah of Persia
wrote a letter to Uncle, all in his own writing, except
the longest words, and said that he had ordered Uncle's
speech on America to be printed and read aloud by all
the schoolmasters in Persia under penalty of decapitation.
Nearly all of them read it.
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