"You forget yourself, Louise," warned Frederick Augustus in the voice of an undertaker, and I really think he meant it. But I wasn't in the mood to be silenced. "And as if I didn't know that, like Kaiser Wilhelm, he keeps a record of towns and villages that were never honored by one of his visits, intending to make his ceremonial entry there at the first plausible opportunity." "It isn't true," insisted Frederick Augustus. Then I got angry. "It may be thought polite in the bosom of your family to call one another a liar," I retorted, "but don't you get into the habit of introducing those tap-room manners in the _menage_ of an Imperial Highness of Austria. I forbid it." And then I gave rein to some of the bitterness that had accumulated in my heart against the old man. Didn't I know that George was mad enough to quarrel with his dinner when, on his drives about town, he observed a single person refusing to salute him? And wasn't it a fact that the Socialists had combined never more to raise their hats to him just because he insisted on it? And wasn't that one of the reasons why the government was more hard on them than happened to be politic? "You mustn't say these things," pleaded Frederick Augustus. I pretended to melt. "May I not quote your father's own words?" "What my father says is always correct," replied the dutiful son. "Well, then, this is what he told House Minister von Seydowitz a couple of weeks ago: 'When I see one of these intending destroyers of the state and social order staring at me, hat on head and cigar in face, I doubly regret the good old times when kings and princes were at liberty to yank a scoundrel of that ilk to jail and immure him for life, giving him twenty-five stripes daily to teach him the desirableness of rendering unto Caesar that which is Caesar's.'" Frederick Augustus was holding his hands to his ears when I finished. He ran out and slammed the door behind him. CHAPTER XIII UNSPEAKABLE LITTLENESSES OF PETTY COURTS Another quarrel with my husband--Personal attendant to a corpse--Killing by pin pricks--The mythical three "_How art thou's?_"--Unwanted sympathy from my inferiors--Pride of the decapitated Queen of France is in me--Lovers not impossible--Court to blame for them--My husband acts cowardly--Brutalizes my household--I lock myself in. DRESDEN, _December 1, 1893_. I saved myself the trouble to record events for two or three months. I expect my child by the end of the year and, believing in prenatal influence, it would be a shame, I think, to poison the unborn baby's mind by dwelling on the unspeakable littlenesses that make up and burden life at this petty court. But I may die in the attempt of presenting Saxony with another candidate for appanages and honors, and this threat, hanging over every expectant mother, makes me take up my pen again. If I perish, let there be a record of my sufferings and also of my defiance.