FICTION.
ROYAL HIGHNESS.* IT is hard to preserve complete detachment during the war in dealing with a German novel, but the difficulty is greatly reduced as regards Royal Highness both by subject and treatment. For it is not merely a pre-war novel, but international relations are excluded, or whore they aro touched upon have no connexion with England. No mention is made of the Kaiser, militarism, the German Empire, or Imperial policy. The scone is laid in the Court of a small German Grand Duchy, and the point of view is Particularist to the verge of parochialism. This point of view has been obliterated by the present struggle, or at any rate has temporarily disappeared or been suppressed ; but its re-emergence is probably only a matter of time. Meanwhile it is not without interest to read a minute and circumstantial account of the domestic life of a reigning family, in which the loyalty of tho people and the mitigated grandeur of sovereignty on a small scale are offset by the artificial isolation of the ruler and his family, and the straits and embarrassments to which they are subjected by lack of means and extravagant tastes. The tone of the whole book is mildly satirical. The author does not minimize the discomforts of an exalted position, but the element of tragedy is lacking. The Grand Duke Johann Albrecht of Grimmburg, the reigning Sovereign during the period described in the early chapters, suffers from boredom, but is sustained by his arrogance, the obsequiousness of his Court, and the popularity inspired by his fine presence and superficial bonhomie. In his successor, who is painfully shy, and delicate to boot, the boredom is more acute ; ho is conscious of his limitations, keenly aware of the value of organized applause, and only too glad to delegate his ceremonial duties to his brother Klaus Heinrich, the heir-presumptive and central figure of the story.
Of the life-history of this Prince, up to his marriage in his twenty- seventh year, we are given a remarkably, even laboriously ample account in Royal Highness, beginning with a description of his birth so full of obstetric details as to suggest the criticism that he was a most uncon- scionable time in being born. Coming into the world with a withered hand, he was a source of humiliation to his father; but that feeling was partially allayed when the Grand Duke learned from his Foreign Minister of an old prophecy that a Prince of the House of Grimmburg should be born who would do more for the country with one hand than any of his predecessors had done with two. The sequel is ultimately concerned with the further fulfilment of the prophecy; but before that point is reached we are given a very minute account of Klaus Heinrich's upbringing and education. Schumann once said that the air of Courts always affected him like choke-damp, and one is reminded of the saying by the elaborate restrictions and ceremonies which hedge round the divinity of this deformed princeling. Of real family affection there was none in the Court of Grimmburg. He was afraid of his father, and his handsome, ornamental mother lavished attentions upon her children in public, but in private was too busy with her complexion to look after them. Maternal duties were delegated to nurses and governesses. Klaus Heinrich had some alleviations in the company of his little sister, and in the rare moments of escape from tutelage when they rummaged in the unused rooms of the Castle and stumbled across people whom they were supposed never to meet. At the extremely select aristocratic school where he passed his early boyhood, he learned something from an exuberant, unconventional professor, who was for a while his tutor. Still, in spite of a few mild escapades, his education, whether at school, the University, or in the Army, was a hothouse affair. There is an amusing episode recounting his encounter with a modern poet who had written a prize poem, partly heroic, partly animalistic. Klaus Heinrich expected to find in him a splendid fellow, but the fearful joys of anticipation were sadly eclipsed by the reality : the poet was the janfaron des vices qu'il n'avait pas, being a valetudinarian dyspeptic who lived according to the strictest rule. Meanwhile the finances of the Grand Duchy had been going from bad to worse : so too had the health of the young Grand Duke, who had not married and had no intention of ever doing so. At this juncture Grimmburg is suddenly convulsed with excitement by the arrival of the famous German- American millionaire, Spoelmann, who comes to drink the waters, accompanied by his only daughter, Imma, in whose veins flows German,
• Royal highness. By Thomas Mann. Translated by I. C. eurtis. London : Indnalck and Jackson. 16e.1
English, Portuguese, and Indian blood, who is as attractive as she is accomplished, and makes a speedy conquest of Klaus Heinrich. In fact, the difficulties in the way of their union lie rather in her distrust of the sincerity of Klaus Heinrich's affection and the independence of her father than in the constitutional and dynastic obstacles. In regard to the latter, the financial needs of the Grand Duchy and the belief in the prophecy incline the balance in Lama's favour, and when the ablest of the Grand Duke's Ministers supports the marriage on economic grounds, the result is a foregone conclusion. The terms of the agreement between the high contracting parties are worth quoting :- " The betrothal of Klaus Heinrich with Imma Spoelmann was approved and recognized by Samuel Spoelmann and by the House of Grimmburg. Simultaneously with the publication of the betrothal in the Gazette appeared the announcement of the elevation of the bride to the rank of countess—under a fancy name of romantic sound, like that which Klaus Heinrich had borne during his educational tour in the fair southern lands ; and on the day of their wedding the wife of the heir-presumptive was to be given the dignity of a princess. The two rises in rank, which might have cost four thousand eight hundred marks, were to be free of duty. The wedding was to be only preliminarily a left-handed one, till the world had got used to it : for on the day on which it appeared that the bride was to be blessed with offspring, Albrecht IL, in view of the unparalleled circumstances, would declare his brother's morganatic wife to bo of equal birth, and would give her the rank of a princess of the Grand Ducal House with the title of Royal Highness. The new member of the ruling House would waive all claim to an appanage. As for the Court ceremony, only a semi-Court was appointed for the celebration of the left-handed marriage, but a Pro- cessional Court., that highest and completest form of showing allegiance, was fixed for the celebration of the declaration of equal birth. Samuel Spoelmann, for his part, granted the State a loan of throe hundred and fifty million marks, and on such fatherly conditions that the loan showed all the symptoms of being a gift."
The story closes with a description of the wedding, in which the invalid millionaire, who has consented to set the finances of the country on a firm basis, keeps in the background. Mr. Curtis has given us a con- scientious translation, so far as we can judge without having the original to compare with it ; he never leaves us in doubt as to the author's meaning, but he has not lightened the heaviness of his style. It is, in fine, a solid and instructive but rather heavy-heeled book, inspiring at most a mild compassion for these victims of grandeur, but never approaching the poignancy of Louis Couperus's Majesty, in which a similar theme is handled with far greater boldness and intensity.
Previous page
