Royal Higness

by Thomas Mann

  Klaus Heinrich was thirteen years old when he stood at the solitary mother-of-pearl table in the middle of the cold silver hall, and tried to probe the reality of things around him. And as he scrutinized the various phenomena: the empty, torn pride of the room, aimless and uncomfortable, the symmetry of the white candles, which seemed to express awe and tension and discreet self-obliteration, the passing shadow on his father’s face when anybody addressed him unasked, the cool and calculated beauty of his mother, whose one object was admiration, the devoted and importunately curious gaze of the people outside—then a suspicion seized him, a vague and approximate conception of his situation. But simultaneously horror seized him, terror at such a destiny, a dread of his “exalted calling,” so strong that he turned round and covered his eyes with both his hands—both, the little wrinkled left one too—and sank down at the lonely table and cried, cried from sympathy with himself and his heart—till they came, and wrung their hands and turned their eyes up to heaven and questioned him, and led him away.… He gave out that he had been frightened, and that was quite true.

  He had known nothing, understood nothing, suspected nothing of the difficulty and sternness of the life prescribed for him; he had been merry and careless, and had given his guardians many a scare. But there was no resisting the impressions which soon came thronging upon him and forcing him to open his eyes to the real state of things. In the northern suburbs, not far from the spa-gardens, a new road had been opened: people told him that the City Council had decided to call it “Klaus Heinrich Strasse.” Once when driving out with his mother and he called at a picture-dealer’s, they wanted to buy something. The footman waited at the carriage door, the public gathered round, the picture-dealer bustled about—there was nothing new in all that. But Klaus Heinrich for the first time noticed his photograph in the shop window. It was hanging next those of artists and great men, men with lofty brows, with a look of the loneliness of fame in their eyes.

  People were satisfied with him on the whole. He gained dignity with years, and self-possession under the pressure of his exalted calling. But the strange thing was that his longing increased at the same time: that roving inquisitiveness which Schulrat Dröge was not the man to satisfy, and which had impelled him to chat with the lackeys. He had given up doing that; it did not lead to anything. They smiled at him, confirming him by that very laugh in the suspicion that his world of the symmetrically marshalled candles presented an unconscious antithesis to the world outside, but they were no manner of help to him. He looked round about him on the expeditions, in the walks he took through the town gardens with Ditlinde and the Swiss governess, followed by a lackey. He felt that if they were all of one mind to stare at him, while he was all alone and made conspicuous just to be stared at, he also had no share in their being and doing. He realized that they presumably were not always as he saw them, when they stood and greeted him with deferential looks; that it must be his birth and upbringing which made their looks deferential, and that it was with them as with the children when they heard about fairy princes, and were thereby refined and elevated above their work-a-day selves. But he did not know what they looked like and were when they were not refined and elevated above their work-a-day selves—his “exalted calling” concealed this from him, and it was a dangerous and improper wish to allow his heart to be moved by things which his exaltedness concealed from him. And yet he wished it, he wished it from a jealousy and that roving inquisitiveness which sometimes drove him to undertake voyages of exploration into unknown regions of the old Schloss, with Ditlinde his sister, when the opportunity offered.

  They called it “rummaging,” and great was the charm of “rummaging”; for it was difficult to acquire familiarity with the ground-plan and structure of the old Schloss, and every time they penetrated far enough into the remoter parts they found rooms, closets, and empty halls which they had not yet trodden, or strange round-about ways to already-known rooms. But once when thus wandering about they had a rencontre, an adventure befell them, which made a great impression on Klaus Heinrich, though he did not show it, and opened his eyes.

  The opportunity came. While the Swiss governness was absent on leave to attend the evening service, they had drunk their milk from tea-cups with the Grand Duchess, accompanied by the two ladies-in-waiting, had been dismissed and directed to go back hand-in-hand to their ordinary occupations in the nursery, which lay not far off. It was thought that they needed nobody to go with them; Klaus Heinrich was old enough to take care of Ditlinde, of course. He was; and in the corridor he said: “Yes, Ditlinde, we will certainly go back to the nursery, but we need not go, you know, the shortest, dullest way. We’ll rummage a bit first. If you go up one step and follow the corridor as far as where the arches begin, you’ll find a hall with pillars behind them, and if you go out of one of the doors of the hall with pillars—clamber up the corkscrew staircase, you come to a room with a wooden roof; and there are lots of funny things lying about there. But I don’t know what comes after the room, and that’s what we’ve got to find out So let’s go.”

  “Yes, let’s,” said Ditlinde, “but not too far, Klaus Heinrich, and not where it’s too dusty, for this dress shows everything.

  She was wearing a dress of dark-red velvet, trimmed with satin of the same colour. She had at that time dimples in her elbows, and light golden hair, that curled round her ears like ram’s horns. In after years she was pale and thin. She too had the broad, rather over-prominent cheek-bones of her father and nation, but they were not accentuated, so that they did not spoil the lines of her face. But with Klaus Heinrich they were strong and emphatic, so that they seemed somewhat to encroach upon, to narrow and to lengthen his steel-coloured eyes. His dark hair was smoothly parted, cut in a careful rectangle on the temples, and brushed straight back from the forehead. He wore an open jacket with a waistcoat buttoning at the throat and a white turn-down collar. In his right hand he held Ditlinde’s little hand, but his left arm hung down, with its brown, wrinkled, and undeveloped hand, thin and short from the shoulder. He was glad that he could let it hang without bothering to conceal it; for there was nobody there to stare and to require to be elevated and inspired, and he himself might stare and examine to his heart’s content.

  So they went and rummaged as they liked. Quiet reigned in the corridors, and they saw hardly a lackey in the distance. They climbed up a staircase and followed the passage till they came to the arches, showing that they were in the part of the Schloss which dated from the time of John the Headstrong and Heinrich the Confessor, as Klaus Heinrich knew and explained. They came to the hall of the pillars, and Klaus Heinrich there whistled several notes close after each other, for the first were still sounding when the last came, and so a clear chord rang under the vaulted ceiling. They scrambled groping and often on hands and knees up the stone winding staircase which opened behind one of the heavy doors, and reached the room with the wooden ceiling, in which there were several strange objects. There were some broken muskets of clumsy size with thickly rusted locks, which had been too bad for the museum, and a discarded throne with torn red velvet cushions, short wide-splayed lion-legs, and cupids hovering over the chair-back, bearing a crown. Then there was a wicked-looking, dusty, cage-like, and horribly interesting thing, which intrigued them much and long. If they were not quite mistaken, it was a rat-trap, for they could see the iron spike to put the bacon on, and it was dreadful to think how the trap-door must fall down behind the great beast.… Yes, this took time, and when they stood up after examining the rat-trap their faces were hot, and their clothes stiff with rust and dust. Klaus Heinrich brushed them both down, but that did not do much good, for his hands were as filthy as his clothes. And suddenly they saw that dusk had begun to fall. They must return quickly, Ditlinde insisted anxiously on that; it was too late to go any farther.

  “That’s an awful pity,” said Klaus Heinrich, “Who knows what else we mightn’t have found, and when we shall get another chance of rummaging, Ditlinde!” B
ut he followed his sister and they hurried back down the turret-stairs, crossed the hall of the pillars, and came out into the arcade, intending to hurry home hand-in-hand.

  Thus they wandered on for a time; but Klaus Heinrich shook his head, for it seemed to him that this was not the way he had come. They went still farther; but several signs told them that they had mistaken their direction. This stone seat with the griffin-heads was not standing here before, That pointed window looked to the west over the low-lying quarter of the town and not over the inner courtyard with the rose-bush. They were going wrong, it was no use denying it; perhaps they had left the hall of the pillars by a wrong exit—anyhow they had absolutely lost their way.

  They went back a little, but their disquietude would not allow them to go very far back, so they turned right about again, and decided to push on the way they had already come, and to trust to luck. Their way lay through a damp, stuffy atmosphere, and great undisturbed cobwebs stretched across the corners; they went with heavy hearts, and Ditlinde especially was full of repentance and on the brink of tears. People would notice her absence, would “look sadly” at her, perhaps even tell the Grand Duke; they would never find the way, would be forgotten and die of hunger. And where there was a rat-trap, Klaus Heinrich, there were also rats.… Klaus Heinrich comforted her. They only had to find the place where the armour and crossed standards hung; from that point he was quite sure of the direction. And suddenly—they had just passed a bend in the winding passage—suddenly something happened. It startled them dreadfully.

  What they had heard was more than the echo of their own steps, they were other, strange steps, heavier than theirs; they came towards them now quickly, now hesitatingly, and were accompanied by a snorting and grumbling which made their blood run cold. Ditlinde made as if to run away from fright: but Klaus Heinrich would not let go her hand, and they stood with starting eyes waiting for what was coming.

  It was a man who was just visible in the half-darkness, and, calmly considered, his appearance was not horrifying. He was squat in figure, and dressed like a veteran soldier. He wore a frock-coat of old-fashioned cut, a woollen comforter round his neck and a medal on his breast. He held in one hand a curly top-hat and in the other the bone handle of his clumsily rolled-up umbrella, which he tapped on the flags in time with his steps. His thin grey hair was plastered up from one ear in wisps over his skull. He had bow-shaped black eyebrows, and a yellow-white beard, which grew like the Grand Duke’s, heavy upper-lids, and watery blue eyes with pouches of withered skin under them; he had the usual high cheek-bones, and the furrows of his sun-burnt face were like crevasses. When he had come quite close he seemed to recognize the children, for he placed himself against the outer wall of the passage, at once fronted round and began to make a number of bows, consisting of several short forward jerks of his whole body from the feet upwards, while he imparted a look of honesty to his mouth and held his top-hat crown-downwards in front of him. Klaus Heinrich meant to pass him by with a nod, but was surprised into halting, for the veteran began to speak.

  “I beg pardon!” he suddenly grunted; then went on in a more natural voice: “I earnestly beg your young Highnesses’ pardon! But would your young Highnesses take it amiss if I addressed to them the request that they would very kindly acquaint me with the nearest way to the nearest exit? It need not actually be the Albrechtstor—not in the least necessary that it should be the Albrechtstor. But any exit from the Schloss, if I dare be so free as to address this inquiry to your young Highnesses.…”

  Klaus Heinrich had laid his left hand on his hip, right behind, so that it lay almost in his back, and looked at the ground. The man had simply spoken to him, had engaged him directly and unavoidably in conversation; he thought of his father and knitted his brows. He pondered feverishly over the question how he ought to behave in this topsy-turvy and incorrect situation. Albrecht would have pursed up his mouth, sucked with his short, rounded under-lip lightly against the upper, and passed on in silence—so much was certain. But what was the use of rummaging if at the first serious adventure one intended to pass on in dignity and dudgeon? And the man was honest, and had nothing wicked about him: that Klaus Heinrich could see when he forced himself to raise his eyes. He simply said: “You come with us, that’s the best way. I will willingly show you where you must turn off to get to an exit.” And they went on.

  “Thanks!” said the man. “Ever so many thanks for your kindness! Heaven knows I should never have thought that I should live to walk about the Old Schloss one day with your young Highnesses. But there it is, and after all my annoyance—for I have been annoyed, terribly annoyed, that’s true and certain—after ail my annoyance I have at any rate this honour and this satisfaction.”

  Klaus Heinrich longed to ask what might have been the reason for so much annoyance; but the veteran went straight on (and tapped his umbrella in regular time on the flags as he went). “… and I recognized your young Highnesses at once, although it is a bit dark here in the passage, for I have seen you many a time in the carriage, and was always delighted, for I myself have just such a couple of brats at home—I mean to say, mine are brats, mine are … and the boy is called Klaus Heinrich too.”

  “Just like me?” said Klaus Heinrich, overjoyed.… “What luck!”

  “There’s no luck about it,” said the man, “considering he was named expressly after you, for he is a couple of months younger than you, and there are lots of children in the town and country who are called that, and all of them after you. No, one can hardly call it luck.…”

  Klaus Heinrich concealed his hand and remained silent.

  “Yes, recognized you at once,” said the man. “And I thought, thank Heaven, thought I, that’s what I call fortune in misfortune, and they’ll help you out of the trap into which you have stuck your nose, you old blockhead, and you’ve good reason to laugh, thought I, for there’s many a one has trudged about here and been guyed by those popinjays, and hasn’t got out of it so well.…”

  Popinjays? thought Klaus Heinrich … and guyed? He looked straight in front of him, he did not dare to ask. A fear, a hope struck him.… He said quite simply: “They … they guyed you?”

  “Not half!” said the man. “I should think they did, the ogres, and no mistake! But I don’t mind telling your young Highnesses, young though you are, but it’ll do you good to hear it, that these people here are a set of wasters. A man comes and delivers his work as respectfully as possible.… Yes, bless my soul!” he cried suddenly, and tapped his forehead with his hat. “I haven’t yet introduced myself to your young Highnesses and told you who I am, have I?—Hinnerke!” he said, “Master-cobbler Hinnerke, Royal warrant-holder, pensioner and medallist.” And he pointed with the index-finger of his great, rough, yellow-spotted hand to the medal on his breast. “The fact is, that his Royal Highness, your father, has been graciously pleased to order a pair of boots from me, top-boots, riding-boots, with spurs, and made of the best quality patent-leather. They’re my speciality, and I made them myself and took a lot of trouble about them, and they were ready to-day and ever so smart. ‘You must go yourself,’ says I to myself.… I have a boy who delivers, but I says to myself: ‘You must go yourself, they are for the Grand Duke.’ So I rig myself out and take my boots and go to the Schloss. ‘All right,’ say the lackeys down below, and want to take them from me. ‘No!’ say I, for I don’t trust them. It’s my reputation gets me my orders and my warrant, let me tell your Highnesses, not because I tip the lackeys. But the fellows are spoilt by tips from the warrant-holders, and want to get something out of me for their trouble. ‘No,’ say I, for I’m not a one for bribing and underhand dealings, ‘I’ll deliver them myself, and if I can’t give them to the Grand Duke himself, I’ll give them to Valet Prahl.’ They looked daggers, but they say: ‘Then you must go up there!’ And I go up there. There are some more of them up there, and they say ‘All right!’ and want to take charge of the boots, but I ask for Prahl and stick to it. They say: ‘He’s having
his tea,’ but I’m determined and say, ‘Then I’ll wait till he’s finished.’ And just as I say it, who comes by in his buckled shoes but Valet Prahl. And he sees me, and I give him the boots with a few modest words, and he says ‘All right!’ and actually adds: ‘They’re fine!’ and nods and takes them off. Now I’m satisfied, for Prahl, he’s safe, so off I go. ‘Hi!’ cries somebody. ‘Mr. Hinnerke! You’re going wrong!’ ‘Damn!’ says I, and right about, and go off in the other direction. But that was the stupidest thing I could do, for they had sent me to Jericho, and that’s just where I don’t want to go. I walk on a bit and meet another one, and ask him the way to the Albrechtstor. But he spots at once what’s up, and says: ‘Go up the stairs, and then keep to the left and then down again, and you’ll cut off a large corner!’ And I believe he means it kindly and do what he says, and get more and more muddled and altogether lose my bearings. Then I see that it’s not my fault, but the rogues’, and it strikes me that I have heard that they often play that trick on Court tradesmen who don’t tip them, and let them wander about till they sweat. And my fury makes me blind and stupid, and I get to places where there’s not a living soul, and don’t know where I am and get properly put about. And at last I meet your young Highnesses. Yes, that’s how it is with me and my boots!” ended Shoemaker Hinnerke, and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.