Part 62

Dear L.,--On the 14th we had just returned from a long motor trip, arriving late in the evening. How fortunate that we did not arrive a day later! The next morning Johan was called on the telephone. The message was from Hamburg, to say that our King (Frederick VIII) had died there, suddenly in the night. Johan, of course, took the first train for Hamburg.

This was dreadful news.

The King was traveling with the Queen, Princess Thyra, Prince Gustave, and the usual suite. His Majesty had bade them good-night and retired--alas! not to his room, for he wished to take a stroll through the streets of the town. It was only at two o'clock that the valet noticed that the King had not been in his room. Then he alarmed the Hof-Marshale, who, with the other gentlemen, commenced a search. At five o'clock they found his Majesty in the Krankenhaus. He had fainted in the street and had been put into a cab, in which he died. Johan stayed all the next day in Hamburg, accompanying the Queen on board the Daneborg (the royal yacht), which had been sent to take the King's body back to Denmark.

The Queen was overwhelmed with grief, but showed the greatest self-control.

It has been a distressing time indeed for the Duchess of Cumberland. She has lost her eldest son (killed in an automobile accident on the way to Schwerin to see his sister, the Grand Duchess) and now it is her brother who is taken so tragically. The young duke was very unwise to take that particular road. We had passed over the same route, or tried to, on our way to pay a visit to the grand-ducal pair not more than two weeks before. Our chauffeur was appalled at the dreadful condition of the road and advised turning back. We made a great détour and avoided an accident. The Duke was driving himself, and the ruts in the road made the car jump so that the wheel struck him under the chin, he lost control, and the machine struck a tree, killing the Duke instantly. The chauffeur was saved.

BERLIN.

Mr. Roosevelt and family arrived in Berlin three days ago. Society was on tiptoe with expectation. They talked of giving Arthur Nevin's Indian opera, "Poia," in order that the ex-President should have the thrill of seeing his compatriots in a German setting. This idea was abandoned, though Count Hülsen had accepted the opera and at an enormous expense had had it mounted at the Grand Opera.

The Kaiser received Mr. Roosevelt and was charmed with him, just as Mr. Roosevelt was charmed with the Kaiser. Of course, who could resist the magnetic forces of these two dii ex machinâ.

Ambassador and Mrs. Hill gave a large and all-comprising reception at the Embassy in honor of their distinguished guest, which is much too small to contain the entire society of Berlin and embrace (I like that word) all the American colony.

To gain a little more space they very practically turned the porte-cochère into a vestiaire, where we took off our mantles before crossing the carpet-covered carriage-drive.

Mr. Roosevelt was most amiable. He greeted people with a cordiality which bordered on épanchement--giving their hands a shaking the like of which they had never had before. Mr. Roosevelt remained by Mrs. Hill's side and smiled kindly at the guests as they poured in and out of the salon. That was about all the guests did--pour in and pour out. One could not expect even the most favored to exchange more than a few words with the great man.

Our conversations were in the style of the reception, short and quickly done with.

MRS. HILL: "This is Madame de Hegermann. She is American, from Cambridge, Massachusetts."

MR. ROOSEVELT: "Ah!... I am a Harvard man."

ME: "So am I! I mean I am a Harvard woman! I was born and brought up in Radcliffe College."

MR. R.: "Ah!" (Puzzled, trying to match the possible date of my birth with the birth of Radcliffe College.)

ME: "Radcliffe College was my grandparents' home."

MR. R.: "Oh, I see! Well, madame, I am delighted to shake hands with any one from Cambridge."

Johan's was like this:

MRS. HILL: "Monsieur de Hegermann was Danish Minister in Washington some years ago."

MR. R.: "I am sorry I was not President then. Ha! ha! Pleased to have met you, sir!"

We were told that there would be speeches under the flag, but we poured out without anything of the kind occurring.

BERLIN, 1912.

Dear L.,--It is not only the unexpected that arrives: the expected arrives also.

The news we have been expecting these last years arrived yesterday.

Diplomacy has decided to divorce us.

We are to leave Berlin.

Johan ought to have left the service four years ago. According to the protocole in Denmark, a Minister must retire when he reaches the d'age limite--the Ambassador retiring at the age of seventy.