The Emperor never permitted any dancing at Court which was not up to a high standard of excellence, and all who sought to dance were compelled to pass before the critical eye of the sharp-tongued old lady in her stiff silken gown. Once, I remember, certain young people of the smart set of Berlin sought to introduce irregularities in the Lancers, but they soon discovered that their cards were cancelled. Whence she had come or who had been responsible for her appointment nobody knew. One thing was quite certain, that though at an age when usually rheumatism prevents agility, yet she was an expert dancer. Another thing was also certain, that, if a débutante or a young military elegant were awkward or flat-footed, she would train them privately in the Terpsichorean art, especially in the old-world dances which are so popular at Court, and, accepting a little palm-oil, would then pass them--after squeezing them sufficiently--as fit to receive the Imperial command to the Court balls. The old woman, sharp-featured and angular as became her age, with her complexion powdered and rouged, lived in considerable style in a fine house close to the Glienicke Bridge at Potsdam, beneath the Babelsberg, a power to be reckoned with by all who desired to enter the Court circle. Regarding her, many strange stories were afloat. One was that she was an ex-dancer, the mother of the famous Mademoiselle "Clo-Clo" Durand, _première danseuse_ of the Paris Opera, and another was that she had been mistress of the ballet at the Imperial Opera in Petrograd in the days of the Emperor Alexander. But so great a mystery were her antecedents that nobody knew anything for certain, save that, at the age of nearly seventy, she had access at any hour to the Kaiser's private cabinet. I have often seen her whisper to His Majesty strange secrets which she had picked up here and there--secrets that were often transferred to certain confidential quarters which control the great Teuton octopus. Those at Court who secured the benignant smiles of Frau Kleist knew that their future path in life would be full of sunshine, but woe betide those upon whom she knit her brows in disapproval. It was all a question of bribery. Frau Kleist kept her pretty house and her big Mercédès car upon the secret money payments she received from those who "for value" begged her favours. With many young officers the payment to Frau Kleist was to open the back door to the Emperor's favour. We in the Neues Palais (New Palace) knew it. But surely it did not concern us, for all of us looked askance at those who strove so strenuously and eagerly for "commands" to Court functions, and really we were secretly glad if the parvenus of both sexes were well bled before they were permitted by Frau Erna to make their obeisance before Royalty.