The Hohenzollerns in America: Chapter 3

Chapter 3

CHAPTER III

For weeks and weeks I have written nothing in my diary
because it has been so discouraging. After Uncle William's
offer to take over the presidency of Columbia University
had been refused, he debated with Uncle Henry and with
Cousin Ferdinand of Bulgaria (who is not living in our
boarding house now but who comes over quite often in the
evenings) whether he would accept the presidency of
Harvard. Cousin Ferdinand looked up the salary in a book
and told him not to take it. Cousin Ferdinand has little
books with all the salaries of people in America and he
says that these books are fine and much better than the
Almanach de Gotha which we used to use in Europe to hunt
people up. He says that if he ever goes back to be King
of Bulgaria again he is going to introduce books like
these. Cousin Ferdinand is getting very full of American
ideas and he says that what you want to know about a man
is not his line of descent but his line of credit. And
he says that the whole King business in Europe has been
mismanaged. He says that there should have been millions
in it. I forgot to say in my diary sooner that Cousin
Ferdinand's two friends, Mr. Mosenhammer and Mr. Sheehan,
took him into their clothing business at once as a sort
of partner. The reason was that they found that he could
wear clothes; the effect on the customers when they see
Cousin Ferdinand walking up and down in front of the
store is wonderful. Of course all kings can wear clothes
and in the old days in the Potsdam palace we thought
nothing of it. But Cousin Ferdinand says that the kings
should have known enough to stop trying to be soldiers
and to put themselves at the head of the export clothing
trade. He wishes, he says, that he had some of his
Bulgarian generals here now in their blue coats trimmed
with black fur; he says that with a little alteration,
which he showed us how to do, he could have sent them
out "on the road," wherever that is, and have made the
biggest boom in gentlemen's winter fur trimmings that
the trade ever saw.

Cousin Ferdinand, when he comes over in the evenings now,
is always beautifully dressed and I can notice that Mrs.
O'Halloran, the landlady, is much impressed with him. I
am glad of this because we have not yet been able to pay
her any money and I was afraid she might say something
about it. But what is stranger is that now that Cousin
Ferdinand has good clothes, Uncle William and Uncle Henry
seem much impressed too. Uncle Henry looks so plain and
common in his sailor's jersey, and Uncle William in his
old frock coat looks faded and shabby and his face always
vacant and wondering. So now when Cousin Ferdinand comes
in they stand up and get a chair for him and listen to
his advice on everything.

So, as I said, Cousin Ferdinand looked up the salary of
the President of Harvard in a book and he was strongly
against Uncle William's taking the position. But Uncle
William says this kind of position is the nearest thing
in this country to what he had in Germany. He thinks that
he could do for Harvard what he did for Germany. He has
written out on a big sheet of paper all the things that
he calls the Chief Needs of America, because he is always
busy like this and never still. I forget the whole list,
especially as he changes it every day according to the
way that people treat Uncle William on the street, but
the things that he always puts first are Culture, Religion,
and Light. These he says he can supply, and he thought
that the presidency of Harvard would be the best place
to do it from. In the end he accepted the position against
Cousin Ferdinand's advice, or at least I mean he said
that he would be willing to take it and he told Uncle
Henry to pack up all his degrees and diplomas and to send
them to Harvard and say that he was coming.

So it was dreadfully disappointing when all the diplomas
came back again by the next post. There was a letter with
them but I didn't see it, as Uncle William tore it into
fragments and stamped on it. He said he was done with
American universities for ever: I have never seen him so
furious: he named over on his fingers all the American
professors that he had fed at Berlin, one meal each and
sometimes even two,--Uncle has a wonderful memory for
things like that,--and yet this was their gratitude. He
walked up and down his room and talked so wildly and
incoherently that if I had not known and been told so
often by our greatest authorities in Germany how beautifully
balanced Uncle William's brain is, I should have feared
that he was wandering.

But presently he quieted down and said with deep earnestness
that the American universities must now go to ruin in
their own way. He was done with them. He said he would
go into a cloister and spend his life in quiet adoration,
provided that he could find anything to adore, which, he
said, in his station was very doubtful. But half an hour
later he was quite cheerful again,--it is wonderful how
quickly Uncle William's brain recovers itself,--and said
that a cloister was too quiet and that he would take a
position as Governor of a State; there are a great many
of these in this country and Uncle spent days and days
writing letters to them and when the answers came in--
though some never answered at all--Uncle William got into
the same state of fury as about the Presidency of Harvard.
So, naturally, each day seemed more disappointing than
the last, especially with the trouble that we have been
having with Cousin Willie, of which I have not spoken
yet, and I was getting quite disheartened until last
evening, when everything seemed to change.

We all knew, of course, that Uncle William is the greatest
artist in the world, but no one liked to suggest that he
should sell his pictures for money, a thing that no prince
was ever capable of doing. Yet I could not but feel glad
when Uncle decided yesterday that he would stoop to make
his living by art. It cost him a great struggle to make
this decision, but he talked it over very fully last
night with Uncle Henry, after Uncle Henry came home from
work, and the resolution is taken.

Of course, Uncle always had a wonderful genius for
painting. I remember how much his pictures used to be
admired at the court at Berlin. I have seen some of the
best painters stand absolutely entranced,--they said so
themselves,--in front of Uncle's canvasses. I remember
one of the greatest of our artists saying one day to
Uncle in the Potsdam Gallery, "Now, which of these two
pictures is yours and which is Michel Angelo's: I never
can tell you two apart." Uncle gave him the order of the
Red Swan. Another painter once said that if Uncle's genius
had been developed he would have been the greatest painter
of modern times. Uncle William, I remember, was dreadfully
angry. He said it WAS developed.

So it seemed only natural that Uncle should turn to Art
to make our living. But he hesitated because there is
some doubt whether a person of noble birth can sell
anything for money. But Uncle says Tintoretto the great
Italian artist had two quarterings of nobility, and
Velasquez had two and a half.

Luckily we have with us among our things Uncle's easel
and his paints that he used in Berlin. He had always to
have special things because he doesn't use little brushes
and tubes of colour as ordinary artists do, but had a
big brush and his paint in a tin can, so that he can work
more quickly. Fortunately we have with us three of Uncle's
pictures rolled up in the bottom of our boxes. He is
going to sell these first and after that he says that he
will paint one or two every day. One of the three canvasses
that we have is an allegorical picture called "Progress"
in which Progress is seen coming out of a cloud in the
background with Uncle William standing in the foreground.
Another is called "Modern Science" and in this Science
is seen crouched in the dark in the background and Uncle
William standing in the light in the foreground. The
other is called "Midnight in the Black Forest." Uncle
William did it in five minutes with a pot of black paint.
They say it is impressionistic.

So all the evening Uncle William and Uncle Henry talked
about the new plan. It is wonderful how Uncle William
enters into a thing. He got me to fetch him his old blue
blouse, which was with the painting things, and he put
it on over his clothes and walked up and down the room
with a long paint-brush in his hand. "We painters, my
dear Henry," he said, "must not be proud. America needs
Art. Very good. She shall have it."

I could see, of course, that Uncle William did not like
the idea of selling pictures for money. But he is going
to make that side of it less objectionable by painting
a picture, a very large picture, for nothing and giving
it to the big Metropolitan Art Gallery which is here.
Uncle has already partly thought it out. It is to be
called the "Spirit of America" and in it the Spirit of
America will be seen doubled up in the background: Uncle
has not yet fully thought out the foreground, but he says
he has an idea.

In any case he is going to refuse to take anything more
than a modest price for his pictures. Beyond that, he
says, not one pfennig.

So this morning Uncle rolled up his three canvasses under
his arm and has gone away to sell them.

I am very glad, as we have but little money, indeed hardly
any except Uncle Henry's wages. And I have been so worried,
too, and surprised since we came here about Cousin Willie.
He hardly is with the rest of us at all. He is out all
night and sleeps in the day time, and often I am sure
that he has been drinking. One morning when he came back
to the house at about breakfast time he showed me quite
a handful of money, but wouldn't say where he got it. He
said there was lots more where it came from. I asked him
to give me some to pay Mrs. O'Halloran, but he only
laughed in his leering way and said that he needed it
all. At another time when I went up to Cousin Willie's
room one day when he was out, I saw quite a lot of silver
things hidden in a corner of the cupboard. They looked
like goblets and silver dinner things, and there was a
revolver and a sheath-knife hidden with them. I began to
think that he must have stolen all these things, though
it seemed impossible for a prince. I have spoken to Uncle
William several times about Cousin Willie, but he gets
impatient and does not seem to care. Uncle never desires
very much to talk of people other than himself. I think
it fatigues his mind. In any case, he says that he has
done for Willie already all that he could. He says he
had him confined to a fortress three times and that four
times he refused to have him in his sight for a month,
and that twice he banished him to a country estate for
six weeks. His duty, he says, is done. I said that I was
afraid that Cousin Willie had been stealing and told him
about the silver things hidden in the cupboard. But Uncle
got very serious and read me a very severe lecture. No
prince, he said, ever stole. His son, he explained, might
very well be collecting souvenirs as memorials of his
residence in America: all the Hohenzollerns collected
souvenirs: some of our most beautiful art things at
Potsdam and Sans Souci were souvenirs collected by our
ancestors in France fifty years ago. Uncle said that if
the Great War had turned out as it should and if his
soldiers had not betrayed him by getting killed, we should
have had more souvenirs than ever. After that he dismissed
the subject from his mind. Uncle William can dismiss
things from his mind more quickly than anybody I ever
knew.

The Same Day. Later

I was so surprised this afternoon, when I happened to go
down to the door, to see Mr. Peters, the ice gentleman
that was on the ship, with his ice cart delivering ice
into the basement. I knew that he delivered ice in this
part of the city because he said so, and I think he had
mentioned this street, and two or three times I thought
I had seen him from the window. But it did seem surprising
to happen to go down to the door (I forget what I went
for) at the moment that he was there. He looked very fine
in his big rough suit of overalls. It is not quite like
a military uniform, but I think it looks better. Mr.
Peters knew me at once. "Good afternoon, Miss Hohen," he
said (that is the name, as I think I said, that we have
here), "how are all the folks?"

So we talked for quite a little time, and I told him
about Uncle trying to get work and how hard it was and
how at last he had got work, or at least had gone out to
get it, as a painter. Mr. Peters said that that was fine.
He said that painters do well here: he has a lot of
friends who are painters and they get all the way from
sixty to seventy-five cents an hour. It seems so odd to
think of them being paid by the hour. I don't think the
court artists at home were paid like that. It will be
very nice if Uncle William can mingle with Mr. Peters's
artist friends. Mr. Peters asked if he might take me out
some Sunday, and I said that I would ask Uncle William
and Uncle Henry and Cousin Ferdinand and Cousin Willie
and if they all consented to come I would go. I hope it
was not a forward thing to do.

I forgot when I was talking of work to say that Uncle
Henry got work the very second day that we were here. He
works down at the docks where the ships are. I think he
supervises the incoming and outgoing of the American
navy. It is called being a stevedore, and no doubt his
being an Admiral helped him to get it. He hopes to get
a certificate presently to be a Barge Master, which will
put him in charge of the canals. But there is a very
difficult examination to go through and Uncle Henry is
working for it at night out of a book. He has to take up
Vulgar Fractions which, of course, none of our High Seas
Command were asked to learn. But Uncle Henry is stooping
to them.

So now, I think, everything will go well.

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